CHAPTER I.

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BLACKWOOD’S

Edinburgh

MAGAZINE.

VOL. LXII.

JULY-DECEMBER, 1847.

[Illustration]

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;

AND

37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

1847.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCLXXXI. JULY, 1847. VOL. LXII.

CONTENTS.

PRESCOTT’S PERU, 1

CROSSING THE DESERT, 21

LIFE OF JEAN PAUL RICHTER, 33

A TALE OF THE MASORCHA CLUB--AT BUENOS AYRES, 47

LETTER FROM A RAILWAY WITNESS IN LONDON, 68

SIR H. NICOLAS’S HISTORY OF THE NAVY, 82

EVENINGS AT SEA, 96

THE DOG OF ALCIBIADES, 102

SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE CURRENCY, 113

* * * * *

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;

AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCLXXXI. JULY, 1847. VOL. LXII.

PRESCOTT’S PERU.[1]

The world’s history contains no chapter more striking and attractive

than that comprising the narrative of Spanish conquest in the Americas.

Teeming with interest to the historian and philosopher, to the lover of

daring enterprise and marvellous adventure it is full of fascination. On

the vast importance of the discovery of a western hemisphere, vying in

size, as it one day, perhaps, may compete in civilisation and power,

with its eastern rival, it were idle to expatiate. But the manner of its

conquest commands unceasing admiration. It needs the concurring

testimony of a host of chroniclers and eye-witnesses to convince

succeeding generations that the hardships endured, the perils

surmounted, the victories obtained, by the old Conquistadores of Mexico

and Peru, were as real as their record is astounding. The subjugation of

vast and populous empires by petty detachments of adventurers, often

scantily provided and ignorantly led--the extraordinary daring with

which they risked themselves, a few score strong, into the heart of

unknown countries, and in the midst of hostile millions, require strong

confirmation to obtain credence. Exploits so romantic go near to realise

the feats of those fabulous paladins who, cased in impervious steel and

wielding enchanted lance, overthrew armies as easily as a Quixote

scattered merinos. Hardly, when the tale is put before us in the quaint

and garrulous chronicle of an Oviedo or a Zarate, can we bring ourselves

to accept it as history, not as the wild invention of imaginative monks,

beguiling conventual leisure by the composition of fantastical romance.

And the man who undertakes, at the present day, to narrate in all their

details the exploits and triumphs of a Cortés or a Pizarro, allots

himself no slight task. A clear head and a sound judgment, great

industry and a skilful pen, are needed to do justice to the subject; to

extract and combine the scraps of truth buried under mountains of

fiction and misrepresentation, to sift facts from the partial accounts

of Spanish jurists and officials, and to correct the boastful

misrepresentations of insolent conquerors. The necessary qualities have

been found united in the person of an accomplished American author.

Already favourably known by his histories of the eventful and chivalrous

reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the exploits of the Great

Marquis and his iron followers, Mr Prescott has added to his

well-merited reputation by his narrative of the Conquest of Peru. In its

compilation he has spared no pains. Private collections and public

libraries, the archives of Madrid and the manuscripts of the Escurial,

he has ransacked and collated. And he has been so scrupulously

conscientious as to send to Lima for a copy of the portrait whose

engraving faces his title-page. But although his materials had to be

procured from many and distant countries, their collection appears to

have occasioned him less trouble than their abundance. The comrades and

contemporaries of Pizarro were afflicted with a scribbling mania. They

have left masses of correspondence, of memoranda and personal diaries,

contradictory of each other, often absurd in their exaggerations and

childish in their triviality. From this farrago has Mr Prescott had to

cull,--a labour of no trifling magnitude, whose result is most

creditable to him. And to our admiration of his talents are added

feelings of strong sympathy, when we read his manly and affecting

account of the painful circumstances under which the work was done.

Deprived by an accident of the sight of one eye, the other has for years

been so weak as at times to be useless to him for all purposes of

reading and writing. At intervals he was able to read print several

hours a-day, but manuscript was far more trying to his impaired vision,

and writing was only possible through those aids by which even the

stone-blind may accomplish it. But when he could read, although only by

daylight, he felt, he says, satisfied with being raised so nearly to a

level with the rest of his species. Unfortunately the evil increases.

“The sight of my eye has become gradually dimmed, whilst the sensibility

of the nerve has been so far increased, that for several weeks of the

last year I have not opened a volume, and through the whole time I have

not had the use of it, on an average, for more than an hour a-day.”

Sustained by love of letters, and assisted by readers and amanuenses,

the student and scholar has triumphed over these cruel disadvantages,

surmounted all obstacles, and produced three long and important

historical works, conspicuous by their impartiality, research, and

elegance; entitling him to an exceedingly honourable position amongst

writers in the English tongue, and to one of the very loftiest places in

the as yet scantily filled gallery of American men of letters. The last

of these works, of which Pizarro is the hero and Peru the scene, yields

nothing in merit or interest to its predecessors.

The discovery of America infected Europe with a fever of exploration.

Scarce a country was there, possessing a sea-frontier, whence

expeditions did not proceed with a view to appropriate a share of the

spoils and territory of the new-found _El-Dorado_. In these ventures

Spain, fresh from her long and bloody struggle with the Moor, and

abounding in fierce unsettled spirits, eager for action and adventure,

took a prominent part. The conquests of Cortes followed hard upon the

discoveries of Columbus: Dutch, English, and Portuguese pushed their

investigations in all directions; and, in less than thirty years from

its first discovery, the whole eastern coast of both Americas was

explored from north to south. The vast empire of Mexico was added to the

Spanish crown, and the mother country was glutted and intoxicated by the

Pactolus that flowed from this new possession. But enterprise was not

yet exhausted, or thirst of gold satiated, and Balboa’s discovery of the

Pacific gave fresh stimulus to both. Rumour had long spoken of lands, as

yet untrodden by European foot, where the precious metals were abundant

and worthless as the sand upon the sea-beach. Years elapsed before any

well-directed attempt was made to reach these golden shores. With a view

to discovery and traffic in the Pacific, a settlement was made on the

southern side of the Isthmus of Darien, and the town of Panama was

built. But the armaments that were fitted out took a westerly direction,

in hopes to realise a fixed idea of the Spanish government relative to

an imaginary strait intersecting the Isthmus. At last an expedition

sailed southwards, but soon returned, owing to the bad health of its

commander. This was in 1522. The moment and the man had not yet arrived.

They came, two years later; Pizarro appeared, and Peru was discovered.

But the discovery was comparatively a trifling matter. There lay the

long line of coast, stretching south-eastwards from Panama; the

navigator disposed to explore it, had but to spread his sails, keep the

land in sight, and take the risk of the hidden shoals and reefs that

might lie in his course. The seas to be crossed were often tempestuous;

the country intervening between St Michael’s Gulf and the southern

empire, whose rumoured wealth and civilisation wrought so potently upon

Spanish imagination, was peopled by fierce and warlike tribes.

Shipwreck was to be dreaded, and a landing might for weeks or months be

unsafe, if not impracticable. But what were such secondary dangers

contrasted with the perils, doubly terrible from their unknown and

mysterious nature, incurred by the sanguine Genoese and his bold

companions, when they turned their brigantine’s prow westward from

Europe, and sailed--they knew not whither? Here the path was

comparatively plain, and the goal ascertained; and although risks must

be dared, reward was tolerably certain: for further tidings of the

Peruvian empire had reached the ears of the Spaniards, less shadowy and

incomplete than the vague hints received by Balboa from an Indian chief.

Andagoya, the officer whom illness had compelled to abandon an

expedition when it was scarcely commenced, had brought back intelligence

far more explicit, obtained from Indian traders who had penetrated by

land into the empire of the Incas, as far (so he says in his own

manuscript, comprised in Navarrete’s collection) as its capital city of

Cuzco. They spoke of a pagan but civilised land, opulent and

flourishing; they described the divisions of its provinces, the wealth

of its cities, the manners and usages of its inhabitants. But had their

description been far more minute and glowing, the imagination of those

who received the accounts would still have outstripped reality and

possibility. Those were the days of golden visions and chimerical

day-dreams. In the fancy of the greedy and credulous Spaniards, each

corner of the New World contained treasures, compared to which the

golden trees and jewelled fruits of Aladdin’s garden were paste and

tinsel. The exaggerated reports of those adventurers who returned

wealth-laden to Spain, were swoln by repetition to dimensions which

enchantment only could have realised. No marvels were too monstrous and

unwieldy for the craving gullet of popular credulity. “They listened

with attentive ears to tales of Amazons, which seemed to revive the

classic legends of antiquity, to stories of Patagonian giants, to

flaming pictures of an _El-Dorado_, where the sands sparkled with gems,

and golden pebbles as large as birds’ eggs were dragged in nets out of

the rivers.” And expeditions were actually undertaken in search of a

magical Fountain of Health, of golden sepulchres and temples. The

Amazons and the water of life are still to be discovered; but as to

golden temples and jewelled sands, their equivalents, at least, were

forthcoming,--not for the many, but for a chosen and lucky few. Of the

fortunes of these the record is preserved; of the misfortunes of those

comparatively little is told us. We hear of the thousands of golden

_castellanos_ that fell to the lot of men, who a moment previously, were

without a maravedi in their tattered pouches; we find no catalogue of

the fever-stricken victims who left their bones in the noxious districts

of Panama and Castillo de Oro. And those who achieved riches, earned

them hardly by peril and privation, although, in the magnificence of the

plunder, past sufferings were quickly forgotten. Thrice did Pizarro and

his daring companions sail southward; countless were their hardships,

bitter their disappointments, before the sunshine of success rewarded

their toils, revealing to them treasures that must in some degree have

appeased even _their_ appetite for lucre. They came suddenly upon a town

whose inhabitants, taken by surprise, fled in consternation, abandoning

their property to the invaders. It was the emerald region, and great

store of the gems fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Pizarro had one

as large as a pigeon’s egg. A quantity of crowns and other ornaments,

clumsily fashioned, but of pure gold and silver, were more to the taste

of the ignorant conquerors, who were sceptical as to the value of the

jewels. “Many of them,” says Pedro Pizarro, whose rough, straightforward

account of the discovery and conquest of Peru is frequently quoted by Mr

Prescott, “had emeralds of great value; some tried them upon anvils,

striking them with hammers, saying that if they were genuine, they would

not break; others despised them, and affirmed that they were glass.” A

cunning monk, one of the missionaries whom Pizarro had been ordered by

the Spanish government to take out in his ships, encouraged this

opinion, in order to buy up the emeralds as their market value declined.

The specie, however, was of immense amount, if the authority just quoted

may be depended upon. He talks of two hundred thousand _castellanos_,

the commercial value of which was equivalent to more than half a million

sterling. This from one village, of no great size or importance. It was

a handsome earnest of future spoils, and of the mountain of gold which,

as an Inca’s ransom, awaited the Spaniards at Cuzco.

In these days, when the rumoured existence of a land previously unknown

provokes expeditions authorised and fitted out by half the maritime

powers of Europe, and when great nations risk the peace of the world for

the possession of a paltry Pacific islet, the small degree of vigour

shown by the Spanish crown in pushing its American discoveries fills us

with surprise. Take Peru as an instance. The isthmus of Darien was

colonised by Spaniards; Mexico was theirs, and the armaments sent by

Pedrarias from Panama to explore in a north-westerly direction, had met

at Honduras the conquerors of the Aztecs, the brave and fortunate

companions of Hernan Cortés. One empire had received the Spanish yoke;

at Panama the foot of the European was on the threshold of another; but

there it paused, desirous, yet fearing, to proceed. No aid or

encouragement to enterprise was afforded from Spain; it was left to

private capital and individual daring further to extend colonies already

so vast. A priest found the money; two veteran soldiers, of low

extraction, desperate fortunes, and brave spirit, undertook the risk.

The most remarkable of the three men who thus formed a partnership for

the conquest of kingdoms, could neither read nor write, was

illegitimate, and a foundling. “He was born in Truxillo,” says Gomara,

in his _Historia de las Indias_; “was left at the door of a church, and

for a certain number of days he sucked a sow, none being willing to give

him milk.” Young Pizarro subsequently requited this porcine nourishment

by taking care of his foster-mother’s relatives. The chief occupation of

his youth was that of a swineherd. Gomara’s account of his birth,

however, is only one of many, various and contradictory in their

details. The fact is that very little is known of the early years of

Francisco Pizarro. His valour and soldierly qualities he doubtless

inherited from his father, a Spanish colonel of infantry, who served

with distinction in Italy and Navarre. Neither from him nor from his

mother, a person of low condition, did he receive much parental

attention. Even the date of his birth is a matter of doubt, and has been

differently stated by different chroniclers. He cannot, however, have

been far from fifty when he started on his Peruvian expedition. During

the fourteen previous years he had followed the fortunes of Ojeda,

Balboa, and other Spanish-American adventurers, until at last the

opportunity offered for himself to assume a command to which he proved

in every way competent. His rank was that of captain, and the number of

men under his orders made but a slender company, when, in the month of

November 1524, he left the port of Panama, on board a small vessel,

indifferently provided, and of no great seaworthiness. About a hundred

adventurers, (some accounts say eighty, others a hundred and twenty,)

stalwart, stout-hearted fellows, for the most part of no very reputable

description, composed the powerful army destined to invade a populous

empire. They started under many disadvantages. Almagro, Pizarro’s

partner in the undertaking, who was to follow in another ship, as soon

as it could be got ready, had had the victualling of that on which his

colleague embarked, and he had performed the duty in a slovenly manner,

reckoning that, upon a coasting voyage, supplies might be obtained from

shore. Landing for this purpose, a few leagues south of the river Biru,

Pizarro could procure nothing besides wood and water. A tremendous storm

came on; for ten days the ship was in imminent danger, tossed by the

furious waves; rations ran short, and two ears of Indian corn were each

man’s daily allowance. Thus poorly nourished, and in a crazy ship, they

struggled with desperate energy against the fury of the tropical

tempest. Only a miracle, as it seemed, could save them, and yet they

escaped. The vessel bore Pizarro and his fortunes.

This first expedition, however, resulted in nothing, except much

suffering and discontent. On landing, after the storm, the voyagers

found themselves in a desolate and unproductive country, covered with

tangled forests, untenanted even by beasts or birds. No living creatures

were visible, except noxious insects--no food was obtainable, save herbs

and berries, unpalatable, and often poisonous. The men desponded, and

would fain have returned to Panama; but Pizarro, with much difficulty,

appeased their murmurs, and sending back the ship to the Isle of Pearls

for provisions, attempted to explore the country. On all sides stretched

a gloomy forest, matted with creepers, and penetrable only with axe in

hand; habitations there were none; the bitter buds of the palm, and an

occasional stranded shell-fish, were the best entertainment offered by

that inhospitable region to the weary and disheartened wanderers, some

of whom actually perished by famine. At last, after many weeks’ misery,

an Indian village was discovered. The Spaniards rushed upon it like

starving wolves upon a sheep-fold, and got a small supply of food,

chiefly maize and cocoa-nuts. Here, also, they received further tidings

of the golden southern realm that had lured them on this luckless

voyage. “Ten days’ journey across the mountains,” the Indians told

Pizarro, “there dwelt a mighty monarch, whose dominions had been invaded

by one still more powerful--the Child of the Sun.” They referred to the

kingdom of Quito, which the warlike Inca, Huayna Capac, had added, some

thirty years previously, to the empire of Peru.

Six long weeks of hunger and misery had elapsed, when the ship returned

with good store of provisions. Revived by the seasonable supply, the

adventurers were now as eager to prosecute their voyage as they shortly

before had been to abandon it; and leaving Famine Port, the name given

by Pizarro to the scene of their sufferings, they again sailed

southwards. When next they landed, it was to plunder an Indian village

of its provisions and gold. Here they found traces of cannibalism. “In

the pots for the dinner, which stood upon the fire,” says Herrera, in

his _Historia General de las Indias_, “amongst the flesh which they took

out, were feet and hands of men, whence they knew that those Indians

were Caribs,”--the Caribs being the only cannibals as yet known in that

part of the New World. This discovery drove the horrified Spaniards to

their ships, from which they again landed at Punto Quemado, the limit of

this first expedition. The sturdy resistance they there met from some

warlike savages, in a skirmish with whom they had two men killed and

many wounded, (Pizarro himself receiving seven wounds,) made them

reflect on the temerity of proceeding further with such a scanty force.

Their ship, too, was in a crippled state, and in a council of war it was

decided to return to Panama, and seek the countenance and assistance of

the governor for the further prosecution of the enterprise.

Without attempting to follow Mr Prescott through his detailed and

interesting account of Pizarro’s difficulties, struggles, and

adventures, during the six years that intervened between his first

departure from Panama, and his commencement of the conquest of Peru, we

will glance at the character and deeds of a few of his comrades. The

principal of these was Diego de Almagro, a brave and honourable soldier,

who placed a confidence in his leader which the sequel shows was

scarcely merited. A foundling like Pizarro, like him he was uneducated,

and unable to sign his name to the singular covenant by which the two,

in concert with Father Luque, (the Spanish ecclesiastic, who found the

funds for the expedition,) agreed, upon oath, and in the name of God and

the Holy Evangelists, to divide amongst them in equal shares, all the

lands, treasures, gold, silver, precious stones, and other property,

that might accrue as the result of their enterprise. For in such terms

“three obscure individuals coolly carved out, and partitioned amongst

themselves, an empire of whose extent, power, and resources, of whose

situation, of whose existence even, they had no sure and precise

knowledge.” Contented at first with the post of second in command, it

does not appear whether it was on his own solicitation that Almagro was

named by the governor of Panama Pizarro’s equal in the second

expedition. This domination greatly mortified Pizarro, who suspected

Almagro of having sought it, and did not neglect, when the opportunity

offered, on his visit to the court of Charles the Fifth, to repay him in

kind. As far as can be gathered from the mass of conflicting evidence,

Almagro was frank in disposition and straightforward in his dealings,

but hasty in temper, and of ungovernable passions. When he had

despatched Pizarro on the first voyage, he lost the least possible time

in following him, tracing his progress by the concerted signal of

notches on the trees. In this manner he descended the coast to Punto

Quemado, and in his turn had a fight with the natives, whose village he

burned, and drove them into the woods. In this affair he lost an eye by

a javelin wound. Passing Pizarro’s vessel without observing it, he

pushed on to the mouth of the river San Juan, whence he returned to

Panama, having gone farther, suffered less, and collected more gold than

his friend. At this time, however, great amity and mutual reliance

existed between them; although not long afterwards we find them

quarrelling fiercely, and only prevented by the interposition of their

subordinates from settling their differences sabre in hand.

Bartholomew Ruiz, an Andalusian pilot, a native of that village of

Moguer which supplied Columbus with many seamen for his first voyages,

also played an important part in the earlier researches of the

discoverers of Peru. Upon the second voyage, when the two ships had

reached the river of San Juan, he was detached in one of them to explore

the coast, and soon made the little island of Gallo, in two degrees of

north latitude. The hostile demonstrations of the natives prevented his

landing, and he continued his course southwards, along a coast crowded

with spectators. “They stood gazing on the vessel of the white man, as

it glided smoothly into the crystal waters of the bay, fancying it, says

an old writer, some mysterious being descended from the skies.” The

account of Ruiz’s voyage, although it occupied but a few weeks, and was

comparatively devoid of adventure, has a romantic and peculiar charm.

The first European who, sailing in that direction on the Pacific,

crossed the equinoctial line, he was also the first who obtained ocular

proof of Peruvian civilisation. He fell in with a _balsa_ or native

raft, consisting of beams lashed together, floored with reeds, guided by

a rude rudder and rigged with a cotton square-sail. On board this

primitive craft--still in use on the rivers and coasts of South

America--were several Indians, whose dresses and ornaments, showing

great ingenuity and progress in manufacturing art, excited his surprise

and admiration. “Mirrors mounted in silver,” says a Spanish narrator of

Ruiz’s cruise, “and cups, and other drinking vessels, blankets of cotton

and wool, and shirts, and vests, and many other garments, embroidered

for the most part with very rich embroideries of scarlet, and crimson,

and blue, and yellow, and all other colours, in various designs and

figures of birds and animals, and fishes and trees; and they had small

scales, in the fashion of a steelyard, for weighing gold; and many other

things.” Right musical to the ears of the Spaniards were the tales these

Indians told of the abundance of the precious metals in the palaces of

their king. Wood, according to their report, was scarcely more plentiful

than silver and gold. And they enlarged upon the subject, until their

auditors hardly dared credit the flattering accounts which, as they were

soon to find, little exceeded the truth. Detaining a few of the Indians,

that they might repeat their tale to Pizarro and serve as interpreters

after they should have acquired the Spanish tongue, Ruiz prosecuted his

voyage to about half a degree south of the line, and then returned to

the place where his commander and comrades anxiously awaited him.

As pilot and navigator, old Ruiz rendered eminent services, and his

courage and fidelity were equal to his nautical skill. In the former

qualities another of Pizarro’s little band, Pedro de Candia, a Greek

cavalier, was no way his inferior, although his talents were rather of

a military than a maritime cast. Soon after the return of Ruiz to the

river San Juan, Almagro, who had been to Panama for a reinforcement,

made his appearance with recruits and stores. The pilot’s report

inspired all with enthusiasm, and “Southward, ho!” was again the cry.

They reached the shores of Quito, and anchored off the port of Tacamez.

Before them lay a large and rich town, whose population glittered with

gold and jewels. Instead of the dark swamps and impervious forests where

they had left the bones of so many of their companions, the adventurers

beheld groves of sandal and ebony extending to the very margin of the

ocean; maize and potato fields, and cocoa plantations, gave promise of

plenty; the streams washed down gold-dust, and on the banks of one were

quarries of emeralds. This charming scene brought water into the mouths

of the Spaniards; but their wishes were not yet to be fulfilled; with

the cup at their lips, they were forbidden to taste. A numerous array of

armed and resolute natives set them at defiance. And that they did so,

speaks highly for their courage, when we consider the notion they

entertained of the party of horsemen who, with Pizarro at their head,

effected a landing. Like the Mexicans and other races to whom the horse

was unknown until introduced from Europe, they imagined man and beast to

form one strange and unaccountable monster, and had, therefore, the same

excuse for a panic that a European army would have if suddenly assailed

by a regiment of flying dragons. Nevertheless they boldly charged the

intruders. These, feeling their own inability to cope with the army of

warriors that lined the shore, and which numbered, according to some

accounts, fully ten thousand men, had landed with the sole purpose of

seeking an amicable conference. Instead of a peaceful parley, they found

themselves forced into a very unequal fight. “It might have gone hard

with the Spaniards, hotly pressed by their resolute enemy, but for a

ludicrous incident reported by the historians as happening to one of the

cavaliers. This was a fall from his horse, which so astonished the

barbarians, who were not prepared for the division of what seemed one

and the same being into two, that, filled with consternation, they fell

back, and left a way open for the Christians to regain their vessels.”

Doubting not that the account they could now give of the riches of Peru,

would bring crowds of volunteers to their standard, Almagro and some of

his companions again sailed for Panama, to seek the succours so greatly

needed; Pizarro consenting, after some angry discussion, to await their

return upon the island of Gallo. The men who were to remain with him

were highly discontented at their commander’s decision, and one of them

secreted a letter in a ball of cotton, sent, as a sample of Peruvian

produce, to the wife of the governor of Panama. In this letter were

complaints of privations and misery, and bitter attacks upon Pizarro and

Almagro, whom the disaffected soldiers represented as sacrificing their

comrades’ lives to their own ambition. The paper reached its

destination; the governor was indignant and sent ships to fetch away the

whole party. But Pizarro, encouraged by letters from his two partners,

who promised him the means of continuing his voyage, steadily refused to

budge. With his sword he drew a line upon the sand from east to west,

exposed, with a soldier’s frugality of words, the glory and prosperity

that awaited them in Peru, and the disgrace of abandoning the

enterprise, and then, stepping across the line, bade brave men stay by

him and recreants retreat. Thirteen were stanch to their courageous

leader. The first to range himself by his side was the pilot Ruiz; the

second was Pedro de Candia. The names of the eleven others have also

been preserved by the chroniclers.

“A handful of men, without food, without clothing, almost without arms,

without knowledge of the land to which they were bound, without vessels

to transport them, were here left upon a lonely rock in the ocean, with

the avowed purpose of carrying on a crusade against a powerful empire,

staking their lives on its success. What is there in the legends of

chivalry that surpasses it? This was the crisis of Pizarro’s fate....

Had Pizarro faltered from his strong purpose, and yielded to the

occasion now so temptingly presented for extricating himself and his

broken band from their desperate position, his name would have been

buried with his fortunes, and the conquest of Peru would have been left

for other and more successful adventurers.”

Courage and constancy had their reward. True to their word, Luque and

Almagro sent a small vessel to take off Pizarro and his little band.

They embarked, set sail, and after twenty days were in the gulf of

Guayaquil, abreast of Chimborazo, and in full view of the fertile vale

of Tumbez. There an Inca noble came on board, and was received by

Pizarro with all honour and distinction. In reply to his inquiries

concerning the whence and wherefore of the white men’s coming, the

Spanish leader replied, “that he was the vassal of a great prince, the

greatest and most powerful in the world, and that he had come to this

country to assert his master’s _lawful supremacy over it_.” He further

announced his intention of rescuing them from the darkness of unbelief,

and converting them to Christianity. In reply to these communications

the Inca chief said nothing--all, perhaps, that he understood. He was

much more favourably impressed by a good dinner, Spanish wine, and the

present of an iron hatchet. The next day one of Pizarro’s followers,

Alonzo de Molina by name, was sent on shore with a propitiatory offering

of pigs and poultry for the _curaca_ or governor of the district. He

brought back such marvellous accounts that he was set down as a liar;

and Pedro de Candia was selected to bring a true report of things on

shore, whither he was sent, “dressed in complete mail as became a good

knight, with his sword by his side, and his arquebuse on his shoulder.”

His brilliant equipment greatly dazzled the Indians, and at the report

of his arquebuse they fell to the ground in dismay. A wondrous story is

gravely told by several chroniclers, how the Indians, taking him for a

supernatural being, and desirous to ascertain the fact beyond a doubt,

let loose a tiger upon him. Candia took a cross from his neck and laid

it upon the back of the animal, which instantly fawned upon and

gambolled round him. On returning to his ship the report of the Greek

cavalier confirmed that of Molina. Both, as it subsequently appeared,

were guilty of some exaggeration. But their flaming accounts of temples

tapestried with plates of gold, and of convent gardens where fruits and

vegetables were all in pure gold and silver, gave heart to the

adventurers, and sent them on their way rejoicing. To the port of Santa,

nine degrees farther south than any previous expedition had reached,

they continued their voyage; and then, having fully convinced themselves

of the richness of the country, and the importance of their discoveries,

but, being too few and feeble to profit by them, they retraced their

course to, Panama, and arrived there, after an, absence of eighteen

months, early in the year 1528.

It was now that Pizarro, finding the governor of Panama unwilling to

assist him either with men or money, set out for Europe, to lay the

report of his discoveries before the Emperor, and implore his support

and patronage. He had little taste for the mission. The unlettered

soldier, the war-worn and weather-beaten adventurer, was at home on the

deck of a tempest-tost caravel, or, in the depths of a howling

wilderness, where courage, coolness, and fortitude were the qualities

needed; and there he would rather risk himself than in the perfumed

atmosphere of a court. His associates, however, urged him to depart.

Father Luque’s clerical duties prevented him from undertaking the

journey; neither by manners nor appearance was Almagro eligible as an

envoy; Pizarro, although wholly uneducated, was of commanding presence,

and ready, even eloquent, in speech. With honourable frankness and

confidence in his friend’s integrity, Almagro urged him to set out. It

was agreed that Pizarro should solicit for himself the offices of

governor and captain-general of the newly discovered country, for

Almagro that of _adelantado_; that the pilot Ruiz, should be Alguaçil

Mayor, and Father Luque Bishop of Tumbez. Promising to act in conformity

with this agreement, and in all respects to consult his friends’

interests equally with his own, Pizarro, accompanied by Pedro de Candia,

and taking with him some Peruvians and llamas, specimens of cloth and

ornaments of gold and silver, traversed the Isthmus, and embarked for

Spain.

The discoverer and future conqueror of Peru had scarcely set foot upon

his native soil, when he was thrown into prison for a debt of twenty

years’ standing, incurred by him as one of the early colonists of

Darien. Released from durance, so soon as intelligence of his detention

reached the court, he hurried to Toledo, where Charles the Fifth then

was. The records of courts afford no scene more pregnant with interest

than the arrival of Pizarro in the presence of his sovereign. It is the

very romance of history,--a noble subject for either poet or painter.

The great monarch was then in the zenith of his glory and full flush of

his fame. Pavia had been won; the chivalrous king of France made

prisoner. Charles, the hero of his day, was about to enter Italy and

receive an imperial crown from a pontiff’s hand. Engrossed by his own

triumphs and by the spread of his European power and dominions, the

fortunate monarch had scarcely given a thought to the rich conquests

made in his name by obscure adventurers in the golden regions of the

West. The arrival of Hernan Cortés, come to lay an empire at his feet,

had scarcely roused him from his indifference, when, in that brilliant

and martial court, crowded with nobles and grandees, there appeared an

unknown soldier, penniless, almost friendless, the child of shame, but

whose daring deeds and great achievements were soon to give his name a

lustre far above any that gentle birth and lengthy pedigree can bestow.

Wholly unknown, however, Pizarro was not. The tale of researches,

prosecuted, during a period of four years and in the teeth of

innumerable difficulties and dangers, with a perseverance which rumour

said had been rewarded by great discoveries, had reached the ears of

Charles. Pizarro met a gracious reception and patient hearing. Unabashed

before royalty, he spoke with the gravity of a Castilian, and the

dignity of a man conscious of his own worth. And he spoke well--“so

well,” says Montesinos in his annals, “that he secured attention and

applause at Toledo, where the Emperor was, who gave him audience with

much pleasure, treated him lovingly, and heard him tenderly, especially

when he related his constancy and that of his thirteen companions upon

the island, in the midst of so many troubles and hardships.” It is said

that Charles shed tears at the recital of such great sufferings so nobly

supported. Compelled to leave Spain, he recommended Pizarro to the

Council of the Indies; and after some delay, the famous _Capitulacion_

or agreement was drawn up and signed by the queen. By this document

Pizarro received right of conquest and discovery in Peru as far as two

hundred leagues south of Santiago, was made governor, captain-general,

Adelantado and Alguaçil Mayor for life, with a salary of seven hundred

and twenty-five thousand maravedis, and various immunities and

privileges. Almagro was appointed commander of the fortress of Tumbez;

Father Luque got his bishopric; Ruiz was named grand pilot of the

Southern Ocean; Candia received command of the artillery; and on the

eleven others who had remained on the island with Pizarro, the rank of

hidalgo was bestowed, besides the promise of municipal dignities in

Peru, when it should be under the Spanish rule. From this statement, it

is apparent that Pizarro either did not attempt, or failed in his

endeavours, to procure for Almagro and Ruiz the offices he had promised

to solicit for them, and which, on the contrary, were all heaped upon

himself. This treachery, or want of success, was the cause of bad blood

between him and Almagro. Pizarro’s conduct in the affair has been

variously represented by different writers. His kinsman, Pedro Pizarro,

vindicates him from the charge of unfair dealing. “And Don Francisco

Pizarro petitioned in accordance with what had been agreed with his

companions; and in the council he was answered that the government could

not possibly be divided between two persons, for that had been done in

Santa Marta, and one of the two had killed the other.” And Pedro, who

is a bit of partisan, and has a natural leaning to his cousin and

commander, further states, that Pizarro, in honourable fulfilment of his

promise, pleaded urgently for Almagro, till he received a rebuff, and

was told, that if he did not ask the _adelantamiento_ for himself, it

should be given to a stranger. Whereupon he applied for it, and it was

granted him in addition to his other dignities. He was also made a

knight of St Jago; and in the armorial bearings which he inherited by

the father’s side, were introduced the black eagle and the two pillars

emblazoned on the royal arms. A ship, a llama, and an Indian city were

further added; “while the legend announced that under the auspices of

Charles, and by the industry, the genius, and the resources of Pizarro,

Peru had been discovered and reduced to tranquillity.” A premature

announcement, which many subsequent scenes of bloodshed and violence

sadly belied. As regards the good faith kept by Pizarro with Almagro and

his other companions, and the degree of sincerity and perseverance with

which he pressed their claims at the court of Spain, Mr Prescott is

justly sceptical; and much of the conqueror’s after-conduct compels us

to believe that in such solicitations it was one word for his friend and

two for himself. It is less interesting, however, to trace his

dissimulation and double-dealing, and the dissensions resulting from

them, than to accompany him upon his final expedition to the empire of

the Incas.

Although, by the articles of the _capitulacion_, Pizarro was bound to

raise, within six months of its date, a well-equipped force of two

hundred and fifty men, it was with less than three-fourths of that

number that he sailed from Panama in January 1531. Careful to secure an

ample share of the profits of the enterprise, the Spanish government did

nothing to assist it, beyond providing some artillery and a few military

stores. Pizarro must find the funds and the men, and this was no easy

matter. To obtain the latter, he repaired to his native town of Truxillo

in Estremadura, where he recruited a few followers. Amongst them were

four of his brothers--three illegitimate like himself, and one

legitimate, Hernando Pizarro, a man of talent and energy, but of

turbulent and overbearing disposition, who cut an important figure in

the Peruvian campaigns. “They were all poor, and proud as they were

poor,” says Oviedo, who had seen them, “and their eagerness for gain was

in proportion to their poverty.” Consequently the New World was the very

place for them. Many, however, who listened eagerly to Pizarro’s account

of the wealth to be obtained there, hesitated to seek it through the

avenue of perils by which it was to be reached. As to money, those who

had it were loath to invest on such frail security as Peruvian mines;

thus proving themselves wiser in their generation than many in more

recent times. Cortés, it is said, assisted Pizarro to the necessary

funds, which he would hardly have raised without the aid of the Mexican

conqueror; and the stipulated six months having expired, the newly-made

governor of Peru cut his cables, and in all haste left the shores of

Spain, fearing that if the incompleteness of his preparations got wind,

the Spanish crown might recede from its share of the contract. At

Panama, recruits were as reluctant and scarce as in Spain; and at last,

impatient of delay, he started on his expedition with only one hundred

and eighty men and twenty-seven horses. Their equipment, however, was

good; they were well supplied with arms and ammunition, and, above all,

sanguine of success. Before their departure, their banners and the royal

standard were blessed by a Dominican monk, and the soldiers took the

sacrament.

Anchoring after thirteen days’ sail in the Bay of St Matthew, Pizarro

landed his men and marched along the coast. He at first intended not to

disembark till he reached Tumbez, of whose riches and fertility he

entertained a pleasant recollection; but, baffled by winds, he altered

his determination. He had, perhaps, better have adhered to it. True,

that the emeralds and gold found at Coaque encouraged his followers, and

enabled the politic adventurer to make a large remittance to Panama, to

dazzle the colonists and induce volunteers. But the sufferings of the

Spaniards on their march through those sultry and unhealthy regions,

were very great. Encumbered with heavy armour and thick cotton doublets,

they toiled wearily along beneath a burning sun and over sands scarce

less scorching. Fortunately, they were unmolested by the natives, who

fled on their approach. They had enough to do to combat disease and the

climate. “A strange epidemic broke out in the little army; it took the

form of ulcers, or rather of hideous warts of great size, which covered

the body, and when lanced, as was the case with some, discharged such a

quantity of blood as proved fatal to the sufferer.” Mr Prescott

recognises in this horrible malady--which he says made its appearance

during the invasion, and did not long survive it--“one of those plagues

from the vial of wrath, which the destroying angel who follows in the

path of the conqueror pours out on the devoted nations.” Conquerors and

conquered, however, suffered from it alike; and as to its having

speedily become extinct, we suspect that it is still well known in Peru.

The _verrugas_, described by Dr Tschudi in his valuable and delightful

narrative of Peruvian travel, and which the natives attribute to the

noxious qualities of certain streams, is coincident in its symptoms with

the disease that afflicted Pizarro’s followers, diminishing their

numbers and impeding their progress. The arrival of one or two small

reinforcements filled up the vacancies thus made in their ranks, and the

march was continued until the adventurers found themselves opposite the

island of Puná, upon which Pizarro resolved to pitch his camp, and there

plan his attack upon the neighbouring city of Tumbez. Between the

Tumbese and the men of Puná there was a long-standing feud, and the

former lost no opportunity of exciting Pizarro’s suspicions of the

islanders. Having been informed that ten or twelve chiefs were plotting

against him, he seized and delivered them to their rivals, who forthwith

cut off their heads. A battle was the immediate consequence; and the

handful of Spaniards defeated several thousand Puná warriors, mowing

them down with musketry and sabre. As was by no means unusual in those

days, the Christians received encouragement from heaven. “In the

battle,” says Montesinos with laudable gravity, “many, both of our

people and of the Indians, saw that in the air there were two other

camps--one led on by the archangel St Michael with sword and buckler,

the other by Lucifer and his myrmidons; but no sooner did the Castilians

cry victory, than the demons fled, and from out of a mighty whirlwind

terrible voices were heard to exclaim--‘Thou hast conquered! Michael,

thou hast conquered!’ Hence Don Francisco Pizarro was inspired with so

great a devotion to the holy archangel that he vowed to call by his name

the first city he should found, fulfilling the same, as we shall

presently see.” These angelic interventions were common enough both in

the Moorish and American wars of Spain, and have been commemorated by

many artists, whose paintings, for the most part more curious in design

than skilful in execution, are still to be occasionally met with in the

Peninsula. Pizarro was twice favoured with such celestial succours; the

second time at the fight, or rather massacre, of Caxamalca, when

certainly he required little aid against the panic-stricken hordes, who

fell, like grass before the mower’s scythe, under the fierce sabre-cuts

of the martial Spaniards. Nevertheless, “a terrible apparition appeared

in the air during the onslaught. It consisted of a woman and a child,

and at their side a horseman, all clothed in white, on a milk-white

charger,--doubtless the valiant St James,--who, with his sword glancing

lightning, smote down the infidel host, and rendered them incapable of

resistance.” Thus gravely and reverently deposeth the worthy Fray

Naharro, who had his information from three monks of his order present

in the fight.

The arrival of Pizarro and his band upon the coast of Peru, occurred at

a moment most favourable to their projects of appropriation. The country

had just emerged from a sanguinary civil war, in which many of its best

warriors had perished; the throne of the Incas was occupied by a

usurper, who, to cement his power, had shed the blood of hundreds of

the royal family, his own brethren and relatives. These events had been

thus brought about:--The warlike Inca and conqueror of Quito, Huayna

Capac, forgot, on his death-bed, the sagacity that had marked his reign;

and, in direct contravention of the fundamental laws of the empire,

divided his dominions between Huascar, his legitimate heir, and

Atahuallpa, a pet son whom he had had by one of his numerous concubines.

The old Inca died, and, for five years, his two successors reigned,

without quarrel, over their respective territories. Then dissensions

arose between them; war broke out; and in two great fights, one at the

foot of Chimborazo, the other on the plains of Cuzco, Atahuallpa’s

troops, veterans grown gray under his father’s banner, were completely

victorious. Huascar was taken prisoner and shut up in the fortress of

Xauxa; his rival assumed the _borla_ or scarlet diadem of the Incas,

and, using his victory with little moderation, if Garcilasso de la Vega

and subsequent Spanish writers are to be believed, butchered, with

circumstances of great cruelty, all of the Inca blood upon whom he could

lay hands. Mr Prescott, however, doubts the veracity of Garcilasso, the

son of a niece of Huayna Capac and of a Spanish cavalier, who arrived in

Peru, soon after its conquest, in the suite of Pedro de Alvarado. His

origin, and familiarity with the Peruvian tongue, should ensure the

correctness of his statements; whilst his relationship, by the father’s

side, with a family illustrious in letters as in arms, seems to

guarantee his literary capacity. But Garcilasso was sadly given to

romancing; and his pages exhibit, amidst much that is really valuable,

great exaggeration and credulity. If we could implicitly credit his

statements of Atahuallpa’s atrocities, our sympathy with the Inca,

betrayed, dethroned, and finally murdered, by the Spaniards, would be

materially lessened. The triumph of the usurper occurred only a few

months previous to the invasion of Peru by Pizarro, in the spring of

1532.

After the battle of Puná the Spaniards were greatly annoyed by the

enemy, who kept up a desultory and harassing warfare, and they welcomed

with joy the arrival of a strong reinforcement under Hernando de Soto,

the future discoverer of the Mississippi. With a hundred fresh men and a

supply of horses for the cavalry, Pizarro did not hesitate to cross to

the mainland. The inhabitants, although previously on the most friendly

terms with the Spaniards, opposed their landing, but with no great

energy; and a charge of horse drove them to the woods. At Tumbez,

however, a grievous disappointment awaited the invaders. With the

exception of half-a-dozen of the principal buildings, the city was razed

to the ground; and of the rich spoils the Spaniards had reckoned upon,

not a trace was left. The adventurers were greatly discouraged by this

discovery. “The gold of Peru seemed only like a deceitful phantom,

which, after beckoning them on through toil and danger, vanished the

moment they attempted to grasp it.” They lost heart in this search after

an intangible treasure; and Pizarro, fearing disaffection as a

consequence of inaction, hurried them into the interior of the country.

At thirty leagues from Tumbez, he founded, in conformity with his vow,

the city of San Miguel; and, after waiting several weeks for further

reinforcements and receiving none, he left fifty men for the protection

of the new settlement, and marched with the remainder in search of the

Inca, proclaiming every where, as he proceeded, the religion of Christ,

the supremacy of the Pope, and the sovereignty of Charles the Fifth.

And here, as much, perhaps, as at any period of his career, we are

struck by the genius and activity of Pizarro, and by his wonderful

ascendency over a band of restless desperadoes. Within five months after

landing at Tumbez, he had made an extensive tour of observation,

established a friendly understanding with the Indians, parcelled out

lands, cut timber, and quarried stone; founded a city, and organised a

municipal government. A church and a fortress--always the two first

edifices in a Spanish-American town,--a storehouse and a court of

justice, strongly, if not elegantly built, had already arisen. Strict

discipline was maintained amongst the Spaniards, who were forbidden,

under heavy penalties, to molest or ill-treat the natives; and, most

astonishing of all, Pizarro succeeded in persuading his rapacious

followers to relinquish their shares in the gold and silver already

collected, which was sent, after a fifth had been deducted for the

crown, to pay off the ship-owners and those who had supplied stores for

the expedition. After the settlement of these preliminaries, he struck

boldly into the heart of the land. His army (the name is a mockery,

applied to such a force) consisted of sixty-seven cavalry and one

hundred and ten infantry, amongst whom were only three arquebusiers and

twenty crossbowmen. With this paltry troop he dared to advance against

the powerful army which he had ascertained was encamped under command of

Atahuallpa, within twelve days’ journey of San Miguel. We read of

subsequent events and scarcely wonder at a mob of timid Peruvians being

dispersed by a handful of resolute men, mail-clad, well disciplined, and

inured to war, but in numbers as one to a hundred of those opposed to

them. Pizarro, however, had no assurance of the slight resistance he

should meet; he could know but imperfectly the resources of the Inca; he

was wholly ignorant of the natural obstacles the country might oppose to

his progress, and of the ambuscades that might beset his path. His

dauntless spirit paused not for such considerations. And, scanty as his

numbers were, he did not fear to risk their diminution, by a proposal

resembling that of Harry the Fifth to his troops. Those who had no heart

for the expedition, he announced to his little band, on the fifth day

after their departure from San Miguel, were at full liberty to return to

the city. The garrison was weak, he would gladly see it reinforced, and

any who chose to rejoin it should have allotted to them the same share

of land and number of Indian vassals as those Spaniards who had remained

in the settlement.

--“He which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart: his passport shall be made,

And crowns, for convoy, put into his purse.”

Precisely similar to the proclamation of the hero of Agincourt was that

of the conqueror of Peru. He preferred weakening his force, already far

too feeble, to retaining the discontented and pusillanimous. The

contagion of bad example had more terrors for him than the hosts of

Atahuallpa. And he “would not die in that man’s company who _feared_ his

fellowship to die with _him_.” Only nine of his one hundred and

seventy-seven followers availed themselves of the permission, thus

boldly accorded them, to retrace their steps. With the residue Pizarro

resumed his march.

As the Spaniards advanced, their difficulties and uncertainties

increased. Rivers impeded their progress, and they had to construct

bridges and rafts. They passed through well-built towns, where they saw

large magazines of military stores and rations, and along handsome paved

roads, shaded by avenues of trees, and watered by artificial streamlets.

The farther they penetrated into the country, the more convinced they

were of its resources and civilisation, far beyond any thing they had

anticipated, and the more sensible they became of the great temerity of

their enterprise. When they strove to learn the Inca’s intentions and

whereabouts, the contradictory information they obtained added to their

perplexity. The Inca, it was said, was at the head of fifty thousand

men, tranquilly awaiting the appearance of the eight-score intruders who

thus madly ran into the lion’s jaws. This was discouraging enough. And

when the Spaniards reached the foot of the stupendous Andes, which

intervened between them and Caxamalca, and were to be crossed by means

of paths and passes of the most dangerous description, easily defensible

by tens against thousands, their hearts failed them, and many were of

opinion to abandon the original plan and take the road to Cuzco, which

wound along the foot of the mountains, broad, shady, and pleasant.

Pizarro was deaf to this proposal. His eloquence and firmness prevailed,

and the Andes were crossed, with much toil, but without molestation from

the Peruvians.

It is difficult to understand the Inca’s motives in thus neglecting the

many opportunities afforded him of annihilating the Spaniards. His

whole conduct at this time is mysterious and unaccountable, greatly at

variance with the energy and sagacity of which he had given proof in his

administration of the empire, and wars against Huascar. Nothing was

easier than to crush the encroaching foreigners in the defiles of the

Cordilleras, instead of allowing them to descend safely into the plain,

where their cavalry and discipline gave them great advantages. Perhaps

it never occurred to Atahuallpa that so trifling a force could contend

under any circumstances, with a chance of success, against his numerous

army. In their intestine wars, the Peruvians fought with much

resolution. In the battle of Quipayan, which placed the crown of Peru on

Atahuallpa’s head, the fight raged from dawn till sunset, and the

slaughter was prodigious, both parties exhibiting great courage and

obstinacy. And subsequently, in engagements with the Spaniards, proofs

of Peruvian valour were not wanting. After the death of Atahuallpa, on

the march to Cuzco, more than one fierce fight occurred between Spanish

cavalry and Peruvian warriors, in which the former had not always the

advantage. When Cuzco was burned, and siege laid to its fortresses, one

of these was valiantly defended by an Inca noble, whose single arm

struck the assailants from the ramparts as fast as they attained their

summit. And when, several ladders having been planted at once, the

Spaniards swarmed up on all points, and overpowered the last of his

followers, the heroic savage still would not yield. “Finding further

resistance ineffectual, he sprang to the edge of the battlements, and,

casting away his war-club, wrapped his mantle around him and threw

himself headlong from the summit.” Relying on the bravery of his troops,

and considering that the Spaniards, although compact in array, and

formidable by their horses and weapons, were in numbers most

insignificant, it is probable the Inca felt sure of catching and caging

them whenever he chose, and was therefore in no hurry to do it, but,

like a cat with a mouse, chose to play with before devouring them. This

agrees, too, with the account given in an imperfect manuscript, the work

of one of the old conquerors, quoted by Mr Prescott. “Holding us for

very little, and not reckoning that a hundred and ninety men could

offend him, he allowed us to pass through that defile, and through many

others equally bad, because really, as we afterwards knew and

ascertained, his intention was to see us, and question us as to whence

we came, and who had sent us, and what we wanted ... and afterwards to

take our horses and the things that most pleased him, and to sacrifice

the remainder.” These calculations were more than neutralised by the

decision and craft of the white man. Established in Caxamalca, whose ten

thousand inhabitants had deserted the town on his approach, Pizarro

beheld before him “a white cloud of pavilions, covering the ground as

thick as snow-flakes, for the space apparently of several miles.” In

front of the tents were fixed the warriors’ lances; and at night

innumerable watch-fires, making the mountain-slope resemble, says an

eyewitness, “a very starry heaven,” struck doubt and dismay into the

hearts of that little Christian band. “All,” says one of the

Conquistadores, “remaining with much fear, because we were so few, and

had entered so far into the land, where we could not receive succours.”

All, save one, the presiding genius of the venture, who showed himself

equal to the emergency, and nobly justified his followers’ confidence.

Pizarro saw that retreat was impossible, inaction ruinous, and he

resolved to set all upon a cast by executing a project of unparalleled

boldness. The Inca, who, very soon assumed a dictatorial tone, had

ordered the Spaniards to occupy the buildings on the chief square at

Caxamalca, and no others, and had also signified his intention of

visiting the strangers so soon as a fast he was keeping should be at an

end. The, square, or rather triangle, was of great extent, and consisted

of a stone fortress, and of large, low, wide-doored halls, that seemed

intended for barracks. Upon this square Pizarro prepared to receive his

royal visitor.

On the appointed day, Atahuallpa made his appearance, at the head of his

numerous army, variously estimated by Pizarro’s secretary and others

there present, at from thirty to fifty thousand men. These halted at a

short distance from the town; the Inca began to pitch his tents, and

sent word to Pizarro that he had postponed his visit to the following

morning. The Spanish leader deprecated this change of plan, and said

that he fully expected Atahuallpa to sup with him; whereupon the Inca,

either from good nature, or lured by the prospect of a feast, entered

the town with a comparatively small retinue. “He brought with him,” says

Hernando Pizarro, in a manuscript letter, “five or six thousand Indians,

unarmed, save with small clubs, and slings, and bags of stones.” In

fact, it appears from all accounts that very few of them had any arms at

all. Upon a throne of gold, borne on an open litter, by Peruvian nobles

in a rich azure livery, the Inca came, and paused in the square. Not a

Spaniard was to be seen, save Fray Vicente de Valverde, Pizarro’s

chaplain, who, by means of an interpreter, addressed the royal visitor

in a homily which, to judge from the multiplicity of subjects it

embraced, can have been of no trifling length. Beginning with the

creation of the world, he expounded the doctrines of Christianity,

talked of St Peter and the Pope, and finally, with singular coolness,

requested his astonished hearer to change his religion, and become a

tributary of the Emperor. Naturally offended at such presumptuous

propositions, Atahuallpa answered with some heat, and threw down a Bible

or breviary which he had taken from the friar’s hand. The friar hurried

to Pizarro. “Do you not see,” he said, “that whilst we waste our breath

talking to this dog, the fields are filling with Indians? Set on at

once! I absolve you.” Slay! Slay! mass or massacre. The old cry of the

Romish priest, covetous of converts. The sword in one hand, the crucifix

in the other; abjuration of heresy, or the blood of heretics. In

Smithfield and the Cevennes, on the dread eve of St Bartholomew, and

amidst the gentle sun-worshippers of Peru,--such has ever been the maxim

of the ministers of a religion of mercy. In this instance the appeal to

violence was not unheard. Pizarro waved a scarf, a signal gun was fired

from the fort, the barrack doors flew open, and, armed to the teeth, the

Spaniards sprang into the plaza, shouting the fierce slogan before

which, in Granada’s sunny _vega_, the Moslem had so often quailed.

“_Santiago y à ellos!_” St James and at them! was the cry, as the

steel-clad cavalry spurred into the crowd, carving, with trenchant

blade, paths through the confused and terrified Indians; whilst musketry

flashed, and two falconets, placed in the fort, vomited death upon the

mob. The exit from the plaza was soon choked with corpses, and the

living, debarred escape by the bodies of the dead, could but stand and

be slaughtered. The square was soon converted into a shambles.

“Even as they fell, in files they lay,”

slain in cold blood, and innocent of offence. At last “such was the

agony of the survivors under the terrible pressure of their assailants,

that a large body of Indians, by their convulsive struggles, burst

through the wall of stone and dried clay which formed part of the

boundary of the plaza!” And the country was covered with fugitives,

flying before the terrible sweep of the Spanish sabre.

“The Marquis,” says Pedro Pizarro, “called out, saying, ‘Let none wound

the Inca, under pain of his life!’” Atahuallpa was to be made prisoner,

not killed. Around him a faithful few, his nobles and court, fought

desperately to protect their sovereign. Unarmed, they grappled with the

Spaniards, clung to their horses, and tried to drag them from their

saddles. The struggle was of some duration, and night approached when,

several of the palanquin-bearers having been slain, the litter was

overturned, and the Inca fell into the arms of Pizarro and his comrades.

He was carefully secured in an adjacent building, the news of his

capture quickly spread, and the whole Indian army disbanded and fled,

panic-struck at the loss of their sovereign. The number that fell that

day is very variously stated. “They killed them all,” says one

authority, a nephew of Atahuallpa, on whose testimony Mr Prescott

inclines to place reliance, “with horses, with swords, with arquebuses,

as though they were sheep. None made resistance, and out of ten

thousand not two hundred escaped.” This is probably an exaggeration.

Other accounts state the number of dead as far smaller, but there

appears ground to believe that four or five thousand fell. The example

was terrible, and well suited to strike the Peruvians with terror. But

the extermination of the whole Indian army would have been of less

importance than the single captive Pizarro had made, and whom, agreeably

to his promise, he had to sup with him when the fight was done. Deprived

of their sovereign, and viewing with a superstitious awe the audacious

stranger who had dared to lay hands upon his sacred person, the Indians

lost heart, and were no longer to be feared.

The capture of the Inca, although so important and beneficial in its

results, occasioned Pizarro some embarrassment. He was anxious to march

upon the capital, but feared to risk himself on the roads and mountains

with the Inca in his keeping; and as he could not spare a sufficient

guard to leave behind with him, he was compelled to wait patiently for

reinforcements. Atahuallpa, who did not want for penetration, but in the

words of an old manuscript, “was very wise and discreet, a friend of

knowledge, and subtle of understanding,” soon found out that the

Spaniards were at least as eager to accumulate gold as to disseminate

their religion. He offered to buy his liberty, and a room full of gold

was the prodigious ransom he proposed. The length of the apartment he

engaged to fill is variously stated. The most moderate account makes it

twenty-two feet. Hernando Pizarro says it was thirty-five. The width was

seventeen feet, and the gold was to be piled up as high as the Inca

could reach, which was about nine feet from the ground. A smaller room

was to be filled twice with silver. Pizarro having accepted, or allowed

his prisoner to infer that he accepted, this very handsome price for his

liberty, the captive sovereign took measures to collect the stipulated

treasure. Palaces and temples were stripped of their ornaments, and from

distant parts of Peru gold was sent to complete the Inca’s ransom. The

agreement was that it should not be melted, but piled up in the room in

whatever form it arrived, which gave Atahuallpa some advantage. Goblets,

salvers, vases, and curious imitations of plants and animals, were

amongst the heterogeneous contributions that soon began to rise high

upon the floor of the Inca’s prison. “Among the plants, the most

beautiful was the Indian corn, in which the golden ear was sheathed in

its broad leaves of silver, from which hung a rich tassel of threads of

the same precious metal. A fountain was also much admired, which sent up

a sparkling jet of gold, while birds and animals of the same metal

played in the waters at the base.” But the greedy conquerors grew

impatient, and thought the gold came too slowly, although on some days a

value of fifty or sixty thousand _castellanos_ was added to the store.

Rumours of a rising of the Peruvians were spread abroad, and Atahuallpa

was accused of conspiring against the Spaniards. These, and especially a

strong reinforcement that had arrived under Almagro’s orders, became

clamorous for the Inca’s death. They had already divided all that had

arrived of his ransom, equivalent to the enormous sum of three millions

and a half sterling, besides fifty thousand marks of silver. At last the

Inca was brought to trial on the most absurd charges, “having reference

to national usages, or to his personal relations, over which the Spanish

conquerors had no jurisdiction.” Thus, he was accused of idolatry and

adultery, and of _squandering the public revenues, since the conquest of

the country by the Spaniards_! His death, in short, was decreed, and his

butchers were not very nice about the pretext. It was found expedient to

get rid of him; and under such circumstances a reason to condemn is as

easily found as a rope to hang. Some few honest and humane men there

were in the court, who rejected the false evidence brought before them,

and denied the authority of the tribunal. But their objections were

overruled, and they had to content themselves with entering a protest

against proceedings which they justly held to be arbitrary and illegal.

Father Valverde was not one of those who leaned to mercy’s side. A copy

of the sentence, condemning Atahuallpa to be burned alive, was

submitted to him for his signature, which he gave with alacrity,

convinced, he said, that the Inca deserved death. Why, it is hard to

say, at least at the hands of the Spaniards. But the whole of the

circumstances connected with his mock trial and subsequent execution are

a disgrace to the conquerors of Peru, an eternal blot upon the memory of

Francisco Pizarro. To avoid the flames, Atahuallpa embraced

Christianity, and was executed by strangulation, after being duly

baptised and shriven by the clerical scoundrel Valverde. Previously he

had begged hard for his life, offering twice the ransom he had already

paid, and guarantees for the safety of the Spaniards. “What have I done,

or my children,” said the unfortunate monarch, “that I should meet such

a fate? And from your hands, too,” added he to Pizarro--“you, who have

met friendship and kindness from my people, with whom I have shared my

treasures, who have received nothing but benefits from my hands.” Adding

hypocrisy to cruelty, Pizarro affected emotion. In its sincerity we

cannot believe, or that he could not, had he chosen, have saved

Atahuallpa. “I myself,” says Pedro Pizarro, ever his cousin’s eulogist

and advocate, “saw the Marquis weep.” We believe Pedro lies, or was

mistaken, or that the tears were of the sort called crocodile’s. We have

no faith in the tenderness of the stern and iron-hearted conqueror of

Peru.

Although the Inca’s ransom had not been made up to the full amount

promised, Pizarro had acquitted his prisoner, some time previously to

his death, of any further obligation on that score. With respect to this

ransom, Dr Tschudi gives some interesting particulars, doubtless true in

the main, although exaggerated in the details. “The gold which the Inca

got together in Caxamarca and the neighbourhood, was hardly sufficient

to fill half the room. He therefore sent messengers to Cuzco, to

complete the amount out of the royal treasury; and it is said that

eleven thousand llamas, each bearing a hundredweight of gold, really

started thence for Caxamarca. But before they arrived, Atahuallpa was

hung. The terrible news ran like a lighted train through the whole

country, and reached the Indians who were driving the heavily laden

llamas over the uplands of Central Peru. Panic-stricken, they buried

their treasures upon the very spot where the mournful message was

delivered to them, and dispersed in all directions.” Eleven thousand

hundredweight of gold! If this were true, the cruelty of the Spaniards

to their prisoner brought its own punishment. The buried treasure,

whatever its amount, has never been recovered, although numerous

researches have been made. Either the secret has perished with its

possessors, or those Peruvians to whom it has been handed down, persist,

with the sullen and impenetrable reserve that forms a distinguishing

trait in their character, in preventing their white oppressors from

reaping the benefit of it.

With the death of Atahuallpa, the principal danger incurred by the

Spaniards in Peru--that, namely, of a combined and simultaneous uprising

of the nation--may be said to have terminated. Subsequently, it is true,

under the Inca Manco, a terrible insurrection occurred: an Indian army,

the boldest, best equipped, and in all respects the most formidable that

the Spaniards had seen, boldly assailed them, burned Cuzco, and

beleaguered them in the citadel. At one time Pizarro felt the greatest

uneasiness as to the possible result of this last effort for Peruvian

independence. Seven hundred Christians fell in the course of the

struggle. But there were still sufficient left to reduce the insurgents,

and inflict a terrible chastisement. Lima had been built, and fortified

posts established. And serious as this uprising was, there hardly seems

to have been a probability of the extermination of the Spaniards in

Peru, or of their expulsion from the country, at any period subsequent

to Atahuallpa’s execution. The throne vacant, the rights of succession

uncertain, the ancient institutions of the country fell to pieces, and

anarchy ensued. Peruvian generals gathered their armies around them,

seized upon provinces, declared themselves independent, and were beaten

in detail. Difficulties and hardships were still in store for the

conquerors; privations, and painful marches, and sharp encounters; but

they were strengthened by reinforcements, cheered by success, and urged

on by their thirst of gold, which was irritated rather than assuaged by

the rich booty they had made. After crowning with his own hands a

brother of Atahuallpa, selected in preference to Manco, the legitimate

heir to the throne, as more likely to be a docile instrument in his

hands, Pizarro marched upon Cuzco, the much-talked-of metropolis of

Peru, with a force that now amounted to nearly five hundred men,

one-third of them cavalry. After a sharp skirmish or two, in which the

Peruvians displayed much spirit and bravery, the conquerors entered the

capital. They were disappointed in the amount of booty found there.

Their expectations must have been outrageous, for the spoil was very

large. The great temple was studded with gold plates; its gardens

glittered with ornaments of the same precious metal. In a cavern near

the city they found a number of pure gold vases, and ten or twelve

statues of women, as large as life, some of gold, others of silver. The

stores of food, and of manufactures for clothing and ornament, were very

numerous and considerable. And there were women’s dresses composed

entirely of gold beads; and “in one place they met with ten planks or

bars of solid silver, each piece being twenty feet in length, one foot

in breadth, and two or three inches thick.” But the rapacious Europeans

were not content, and some of the inhabitants were barbarously tortured

to compel them to reveal their hidden stores of wealth. Gold lost its

value, and the commonest necessaries of life rose to exorbitant prices.

A quire of paper was worth ten golden dollars, a bottle of wine fetched

sixty. And the inherent Spanish vice of gambling was carried to a

prodigious extent. Many of the conquerors thus lost the whole of their

booty. One man had received in his share of spoil a golden image of the

sun. “This rich prize the spendthrift lost in a single night; whence it

came to be a proverb in Spain, _Juega el Sol antes que amanezca_, ‘Play

away the sun before sunrise.’”

With the capture of Cuzco, or very soon afterwards, the unity of Spanish

conquest in Peru may be said to have ceased. Previously to that event,

all were subordinate to Pizarro; none claimed independence of him; he

kept his men together, and with his whole force--excepting the small

garrison at St Miguel--pushed forward into the heart of the land. It was

by far the most romantic and adventurous period of Spanish operations in

the empire of the Incas. But now other cavaliers of fortune, good

soldiers, and men of experience in American warfare, turned their

attention to Peru, eager to share its treasures and territory. Amongst

these, the governor of Guatimala, Pedro de Alvarado, one of Cortés’

officers, was conspicuous. Early in 1534, he landed in the Bay of

Caraques, at the head of five hundred men, “the best equipped and most

formidable array that had yet appeared in the southern seas.” They

marched towards the rich province of Quito, which they believed to be

still unexplored; but suffered frightfully on the road; and on emerging,

with greatly diminished numbers, from the Puertos Nevados, a terrible

mountain passage where many of the troopers were frozen in their

saddles, they had the mortification to discover the hoof prints of

Spanish chargers, proving that they had been forestalled. Benalcazar,

governor of San Miguel, had entered the province with one hundred and

forty men and some native auxiliaries. He had been met by the Indian

general Ruminavi; but the son of the Moor was more than a match for the

Peruvian, and after some well-contested fights, the standard of Castile

waved over Quito’s capital. Almagro, who had heard of Alvarado’s

landing, soon joined Benalcazar, and together they marched to oppose

their intruding countrymen. At one time a battle seemed imminent, but

matters were finally compromised, Alvarado receiving one hundred

thousand _pesos de oro_, and re-embarking his men.

Amongst the conquerors themselves, dissensions soon broke out. Charles

the Fifth, to whom Hernando Pizarro had been sent to give an account of

events in Peru, and to submit specimens of its riches and manufactures,

had received the envoy most favourably. He confirmed his previous

grants of land to Francisco Pizarro, extending them seventy leagues

further south, and empowered Almagro to discover and occupy the country

for two hundred leagues south of that. Disputes about boundaries,

imbittered by the rankling recollection of former feuds, soon occurred

between Pizarro and Almagro; and though a temporary reconciliation was

effected, a civil war at last broke out, where both parties fought

nominally for the honour and profit of the Spanish king, and in reality

for their own peculiar behoof and ambition. “_El Rey y Almagro!_” “_El

Rey y Pizarro!_” were the battle-cries on the bloody field of Las

Salinas, in the neighbourhood of Cuzco, where, on the 26th April 1538,

Almagro fell into the hands of Hernando Pizarro, who, from their very

first meeting, had bitterly disliked him. “Before the battle of Salinas,

it had been told to Hernando Pizarro that Almagro was like to die.

‘Heaven forbid,’ he exclaimed, ‘that this should come to pass before he

falls into my hands!’” After such a speech, Almagro’s fate scarce

admitted of a doubt. He was brought to trial, on charges that covered

two thousand folio pages. Found guilty, he was condemned to death, and

perished by the _garrote_. He was to have been executed on the public

square of Cuzco; but public sympathy was so strongly enlisted on his

side, that it was thought more prudent to make an end of him in his

dungeon. The chief apparent movers of his death, Hernando and Gonzalo

Pizarro, were amongst the principal mourners at his funeral--thus aping

the hypocrisy of their brother Francisco, who had paid similar honours

to his victim Atahuallpa. The Marquis himself was on his way to Cuzco

during Almagro’s trial, of which he was cognizant. He lingered on the

road, and upon reaching the river Abancay he learned his rival’s death.

The old farce was played over again. He shed tears, for whose sincerity

none gave him credit. Speedily forgetting this mockery of wo, he entered

Cuzco in triumph, richly dressed, and with clang of martial music. There

can be little doubt of his having secretly instigated and entirely

approved the execution of Almagro. The testimony of all the impartial

historians of the time concurs in fixing its odium upon him.

But the crimes of this great conqueror and bad man were destined to meet

punishment. By the sword he had risen--by the sword he was to perish;

not on some well-fought battle field, with shouts of victory ringing in

his ear, but in his palace hall, by the assassin’s blade. In his own

fair capital of Lima, the City of the Kings, the gem of the Pacific,

which had sprung up under his auspices with incredible rapidity--for

Pizarro seemed to impart his vast energy to all about him--a score of

conspirators, assembled at the house of Almagro’s son, plotted his

death. It was on a Sunday in June 1541, at the hour of dinner, that they

burst into his apartments, with cries of “Death to the tyrant!” A number

of visitors were with him, but they were imperfectly armed, and deserted

him, escaping by the windows. His half-brother, Martinez de Alcantara,

two pages and as many cavaliers, were all who stood forward in defence

of their chief. They soon fell, overpowered by numbers, and covered with

wounds. But Pizarro was not the man meekly to meet his death. Alone,

without armour, his cloak around one arm, his good sword in his right

hand, the old hero kept his cowardly assailants at bay, with a vigour

and intrepidity surprising at his advanced age. “What ho!” he cried,

“traitors! have you come to kill me in my own house?” And as he spoke,

two of his enemies fell beneath his blows. “Rada, (the chief of the

conspirators) impatient of the delay, called out ‘Why are we so long

about it? Down with the tyrant!’ and taking one of his companions,

Narvaez, in his arms, he thrust him against the Marquis. Pizarro,

instantly grappling with his opponent, ran him through with his sword.

But at that moment he received a wound in the throat, and reeling, he

sank on the floor, while the swords of Rada and several of the

conspirators were plunged into his body. ‘Jesu!’ exclaimed the dying

man; and, tracing a cross with his finger on the bloody floor, he bent

down his head to kiss it, when a stroke, more friendly than the rest,

put an end to his existence.”

Great indeed have been the changes wrought by three centuries in the

world beyond the Atlantic. The difference in the manner of foundation of

the English and Spanish empires in America is not more striking than the

contrast offered by their progress and present condition. The English,

Dutch, and other northern nations, were content to obtain a footing in

the new-found lands, without attempting their conquest. Settled upon the

coast, defending themselves, often with extreme difficulty, against the

assaults of warlike and crafty tribes, they aimed not at the subjugation

of empires, or, if visions of future dominion occasionally crossed the

imagination of the more far-sighted, the means proposed were not those

of armed aggression and sanguinary spoliation, but the comparatively

slow and bloodless victories of civilisation. Far otherwise was it with

the warlike and ambitious Spaniard of the sixteenth century, when, with

a mixture of crusading zeal and freebooting greed, he shaped his

caravel’s course for distant _El-Dorado_. Not with a log-house, in the

wilderness was _he_ content; it suited not his lofty and chivalrous

notions to clear land and plough it, and water the stubborn furrow with

his forehead’s sweat. For him the bright cuirass, the charging steed,

the wild encounter with tawny hosts, reminding him of the day when,

after eight hundred years’ struggle, he chased the last Saracen from

Iberia’s shores. For him the glittering gold mine, the rich plantation,

the cringing throng of Indian serfs. One day a cavalier of fortune, with

horse and arms for sole possessions, the next he sat upon the throne

whence he had hurled some far-descended prince, some Inca demi-god, or

feather-crowned cacique. And at the period that a few scanty bands of

expatriated malefactors, and of refugees for opinion’s sake, flying from

persecution to the wilderness, toiled out a scanty and laborious

existence in the forests and prairies of North America, and alone

represented the Anglo-Saxon race in the New World, Spain was in secure

and undisturbed enjoyment of two vast and productive empires. To-day,

how great the contrast! The unwieldy Spanish colonies have crumbled and

fallen to pieces, the petty English settlements have grown into a

flourishing and powerful nation. And we behold the descendants of the

handful of exiles who first colonised “the wild New England shore,”

penetrating, almost unopposed, to the heart of the country that

Montezuma ruled, and Cortés was the first to conquer.

CROSSING THE DESERT.

Several years ago, just before the Palmerstonian policy had involved all

Asia, from Scinde to Syria, in war and anarchy, a young Englishman of

family and fortune, named Sidney, remained at Cairo in spring after all

his countrymen had departed for Alexandria in order to avoid the

Khamseen winds. The month of April was well advanced in all its heat;

and it disputes with May the opprobrium of being the most detestable

month of the year from Rosetta to Dongola. The society of Misr the

Kaherah (victorious) offered no resources beyond the shabby

coffee-houses and the apparitions of Indian travellers. But at that time

only a few Griffins and Nabobs were occasionally seen. There was nothing

to resemble the hordes which now pass through Cairo in their bi-monthly

emigrations, like flights of locusts devouring every thing that comes in

their way, from the bread on the _table-d’hôte_ at the _Hotel d’Orient_

to the oranges and melons piled up like ammunition at the sides of the

streets. Now, indeed, it may truly be said of these locusts, as it was

of the plague of old. “Very grievous are they. Before them there were no

such locusts as they; neither after them shall be such.”

Mr Sidney, in order to escape from the habitual desolation of the

Esbekieh, and avoid witnessing the fearful voracity of his countrymen,

passed a good deal of his time in a coffee-house in the Mouski. His

apology to himself for this idle and unprofitable life was his wish to

improve his knowledge of colloquial Arabic. His studies in Arabic

literature had been pursued with some industry and profit during the

winter, under the guidance of Sheikh Ismael el Feel or the Elephant, so

called from his rotundity of carcass and protuberance of proboscis. The

love of French brandy displayed by this learned Theban had induced the

European consuls to regard him as an oracle of Mohammedan law, and a

striking proof of the progress of civilisation in the East. The Elephant

repaid their esteem by unbounded affection for their purses and an

immeasurable contempt for their persons. Sidney, however, had lost the

friendship of the literary Elephant; for the learned Sheik, supposing

that he was about to quit Cairo with the rest of his countrymen, had

thought fit to absent himself, taking away as a keepsake a splendid new

oriental dress just sent home from the tailor.

One day as Sidney was musing on the feasibility of crossing the desert

at this unfavourable season, in order to spend his Easter at Jerusalem,

two strangers entered the coffee-house in which he was seated. As no

Indian mail was expected, he could not help examining them with some

attention. One was a little man, not of a very prepossessing appearance,

with a pale face and a squeaking voice; the other was a stout Scotsman,

at least six feet two inches in height of body, and who, before he had

swallowed a cup of coffee and smoked a single sheesheh, indicated that

he was of a corresponding height of mind, by reminding his companion

that he was a literary man. The strangers, after throwing a scrutinising

glance at the inmates of the room, continued their conversation in

English. The pale-faced man spoke as a foreigner, though almost as

correctly as a native, and with a fluency perfectly marvellous. The tall

Scotsman seemed not quite satisfied with the degree of familiarity he

assumed even in a Caireen coffee-house.

“Well, Mr Lascelles Hamilton, it is very true I am going to Jerusalem,

and so is Mr Ringlady; but I thought you said you intended to go to

Mecca, when you joined us at Alexandria in hiring a boat to Cairo.”

“My dear Campbell,” (here Mr Campbell gave a wince, which showed that he

was very ungrateful for the endearment,) “I can’t go to Mecca for three

months yet; my Arabic won’t have the pure accent of the Hedjas in a

shorter space of time. I mean, therefore, to go round by Jerusalem, join

the tribes beyond the Dead Sea, and work my way by land.”

This was enough for Sidney. He determined to join the party; and was

moving out of the coffee-house to take his measures for that purpose,

when Aali Bey--a young Osmanlee dandy, who had passed a few months at

Leghorn to study European diplomacy--made him a sign that he wished to

speak in private. Aali’s story had so long a preface, and was so crammed

with flattery and oriental compliments, that Sidney became soon

satisfied it would terminate in an attempt to borrow money, if not in

robbery and murder. He was nevertheless mistaken; for Aali, after many

vain endeavours to shorten his preface, at last stated his real

business. It proved deserving of a long-winded introduction, and

amounted to a proposition to Sidney to assist in affording Aali an

opportunity of carrying off his bride, the daughter of the celebrated

Sheikh Salem Abou Rasheed, from Cairo to Syria. Sheikh Salem was a man

of great influence at Nablous; and he had been detained by Mohammed Ali

as a kind of hostage with all his family, as he was returning from the

pilgrimage to Mecca by the easy route of Cosseir and the Nile.

The affair seemed too serious even for the thoughtless Sidney to engage

in without some consideration; and he attempted to persuade Aali that

his escape was impossible, and that he had better live contentedly with

his bride at Cairo, more particularly as it was a very bad season for a

lady to think of crossing the desert. Aali, however, informed him, that

he was not married, nor indeed likely to be, unless the marriage took

place at Gaza; for Sheikh Salem had offered him his daughter Fatmeh, on

the condition of escorting her and her mother to Gaza, where the

marriage would take place in presence of the Sheikh of Hebron, and other

relations of the family. Aali conjured Sidney by every saint, Mussulman

and Christian, to aid him in his enterprise, which would raise him to

the rank of a chief in Syria. As it appeared that Sheikh Salem had

really put some supply of cash at the disposal of the young spendthrift,

and Sidney knew well with what difficulty an Oriental parts with the

smallest conceivable fraction of coin even to men more prudent than

Aali, he now deemed it necessary to let the young Osmanlee know what he

had just heard concerning the movements of an English party. It was

arranged that Sidney should learn all he could about the new travellers,

and inform Aali in an evening walk in the Esbekieh.

Sidney, on finding the travellers resided at the _Hotel d’Orient_,

joined the _table-d’hôte_ that day. The party consisted of four persons:

Sidney; the pale-faced, squeaking-voiced Mr Lascelles Hamilton; the tall

Caledonian, Mr Campbell; and a gentleman with a mellifluous voice, and

an air which said, Look at me and listen. This gentleman was Mr

Ringlady--the celebrated Mr Ringlady, a middle-aged lawyer, innocent of

briefs, who had written some works on jurisprudence.

For a short time the Britons of the party looked at Sidney’s Egyptian

dress with the supercilious disdain which enables Americans to recognise

the inhabitants of the old country, while they are engaged in

advertising their own nationality in earnest endeavours to keep their

bodies in equilibrium on a single leg of their chairs. The voluble Mr

Lascelles Hamilton, however, soon placed every body on a familiar

footing. He lost no time in ascertaining Sidney’s name and country from

the waiter, and then launched forth.

“I hear, Mr Sidney, you have been five months at Cairo; I am sure you

have found it a delightful place. For my part, I have not been five

hours; but I could-stay five years, for I have seen five wonders.”

“As I have not been so fortunate in my five months’ residence,” said

Sidney, “you must tell me the wonders you have seen, before I give you

my opinion of its delights.”

“First, then, the donkey on which I made my entry into the city of

Saladin, ran away with me. No horse could ever do that, so think I

entered Cairo riding on Old Nick! Second, I did knock down two ladies,

each one as large as three donkeys and myself, and they did not scream.

Third, my donkey did pitch me into the middle of the street, and nobody

did laugh. Fourth, I did see Ibrahim Pasha pay his whole household in

loaves of sugar--a year’s wages, all in loaves of sugar. And fifth, I do

see four Englishmen sit down to a good dinner in Cairo in the month of

April, without one of them being on his way to India.”

Mr Ringlady, who had been watching impatiently during this long speech

for an opportunity of displaying the mellifluous voice of which he was

so proud, in contrast to the harsh squeak and discordant accent of Mr

Lascelles Hamilton, now gave a specimen of his professional turn of mind

by remarking in his silvery tone, that he believed the fifth wonder was

not quite a perfect miracle, for one of the party was a native of

Scotland; and then added, glancing his eye obliquely from Mr Lascelles

Hamilton to Sidney, “and perhaps all of us may not have been born in

Great Britain.”

The little man saw the innuendo was directed against him and his accent;

so, with the ease of a man of the world, he turned the tables on his

assailant by replying in a very innocent tone--

“Yes, indeed, I did suppose you were an American. But it is no matter:

we all count as Englishmen at Cairo. I was myself born in India, at

Lahore, where my father was a general of cavalry.”

The lawyer had also hurt the feelings of the literary Scotsman, who

fancied his accent was a pure stream of English undefiled. So that he

had a wish for revenge, which Mr Ringlady afforded him an opportunity of

gratifying by saying with great dignity,--

“My name is Ringlady; it is an old English name well known in our

country. Mr Campbell, who is so profoundly acquainted with the history

of Britain during the Norman period, must be well acquainted with it.”

To this appeal Campbell replied very drily: “I assure you I never heard

it before I had the honour of meeting you on board the Oriental.” Thus

dispersing the county reputation in Norman times and the fame of the

works on jurisprudence at one blow.

It was evident that it would be a rich treat to cross the desert with

this party; so Sidney led the conversation to that subject. In a short

time it was arranged that they should come to a final decision on their

plans next morning at breakfast.

Sidney communicated this resolution to Aali in their evening walk, and

ventured to predict that the decision would be for immediate departure.

At breakfast next morning, it was accordingly determined to quit Cairo

in three days. The literary man considered that it was his duty to

employ that time in writing a description of Cairo and the Pyramids on

the spot. The party, however, did not succeed in completing their

arrangements in less than a week. Mr Ringlady procured the most

celebrated Dragoman remaining at Cairo, by paying him enormous wages,

and giving him full power to lay in what provisions and take what

measures he considered necessary for crossing the desert with comfort.

The Dragoman hired was named Mohammed; and he commenced by purchasing

double the quantity of stores required and sending half to his own

house, as he said his new master looked like a man who would change his

mind, and it would be satisfactory, should he return suddenly to Cairo,

to find every thing ready for proceeding up the Nile. Mr Campbell and Mr

Lascelles Hamilton arranged to hire a servant together, as far as

Jerusalem. Sidney was attended by an Arab from Guzzerat, who had been

with him for some time, and who, from being a subject of the East India

Company, or an Englishman, was in less danger of suffering any

inconvenience than a native from the part he was going to take in Aali’s

enterprise. He was as black as a coal, but he spoke of Abyssinians,

Nubians, and others, a shade lighter than himself, as “them d--n black

fellows.”

It was necessary to make a written contract with the sheikh of the

camels for a journey from Cairo to Gaza, and this document required to

be prepared at the English consulate. The scene at signing the document

was a singular one. After much wrangling, during which the officials of

the consulate stoutly defended the cause of the camel-drivers, who

brought forward, one after another, nearly a dozen new pretensions, as

pretexts for additional extortion, though the terms had been already

arranged, the patience of Sidney and the exertions of Achmet el Khindee

brought the negotiation to an end, and the treaty was signed. Then the

chancellor of the English consulate stepped forward, and, rubbing his

hands with great glee, exclaimed, “Now, gentlemen, you have concluded

your bargain; let us hear what backshish you are going to give the

sheikh?” As this question appeared to imply too close a sympathy between

the feelings of the chancellory and the amount of the backshish, Mr

Sidney quietly observed, that as he supposed the amount did not require

to be registered in the archives of the British consulate, it could be

settled at Gaza. Scenes of this kind are constantly repeated at all the

trading consulates of the Levant; yet it is prudent for travellers not

to enter into the desert, nor even to ascend the Nile, without a written

contract at the consular office. Even should they pay something more

than they might otherwise do, the surplus serves as an insurance against

native fraud and open robbery, as the people recommended by the

consulate are at least well known and of Arab respectability.

At the latter end of April, long before daybreak, the party quitted the

_Hotel d’Orient_, mounted on donkeys, to join the camels at El Khanka.

At the hour of departure, Mr Lascelles Hamilton was no where to be

found; but a waiter, roused from sleep, at last informed the travellers

that he had left word that he would join them on the road. This event

rather discomposed Sidney, who feared that the son of the Indian general

of cavalry, in spite of his agreeable manners, universal knowledge, and

incessant volubility, might have opened communications with Mohammed Ali

to cut off the retreat of Aali. It was certain that all Mr Lascelles

Hamilton said could not be received according to the letter, or it would

be difficult to understand why he was not governor-general of India, or

at least ambassador at St Petersburg.

The camels were found at El Khanka, kneeling on the verge of the desert,

near the mosque, at the entrance of the place. The donkeys and the

donkey-boys were here dismissed, and the party soon moved onward with

the slow monotonous and silent motion of a fleet of desert ships. The

baggage, the dragomans, and the singular Mr Lascelles Hamilton, had

proceeded to Belbeis to prepare the tents and refreshments; but Aali was

found at Khanka, waiting to join Sidney, as the report had been left at

Cairo that he was going to Jerusalem as his travelling companion.

The difficulties and dangers of the flight of the fair Fatmeh were now

to commence, and Sidney felt that he might be embarked in a perilous

enterprise. The plan concerted with Aali was this. Sheikh Salem had sent

forward his wife and daughter in a takterwan, or camel-sedan, to

Belbeis. Fresh dromedaries were to be found there for the whole party,

with which it was proposed to reach Saba Biar in a single day, where

horses were to be in waiting. In the mean time it had been announced at

Cairo that the whole party was to take the route by Salahieh, and the

camels had been hired for that road.

The shades of evening were falling over the renowned city of Belbeis as

our travellers approached. High mounds, crowned by dusky walls, set in a

frame of waving palm-trees, gave the landscape a splendid colouring; but

even the obscurity could not veil the fact that the once renowned city

had shrunk into a collection of filthy huts, huddled together on

mountains of rubbish.

The tents were found pitched to the north-east of the city, and the camp

presented a most orderly appearance. The three tents of the travellers

were ranged in a line--the magnificent tent of Mr Ringlady in the

centre; behind, stood the cooking tents, and in a semicircle in the

rear, the kneeling camels were disposed in groups, side by side. The

whole arrangement testified the spirit of order Achmet had imbibed with

his Indian education at Bombay. At a short distance to the north, the

_takterwan_ of the ladies was seen with a large caravan of dromedaries.

“Weel, Mr Lascelles Hamilton,” exclaimed Campbell, on scrambling off the

back of his kneeling conveyance--the fatigue of a ten hours’ ride, in a

dreadfully hot sun, having brought all the beauties of his accent to the

tip of his tongue--“Weel, Mr Lascelles Hamilton, I say, ye have played

us a pretty trick, mon.”

“My dear friend, I forgot to tell you yesterday, that I was forced to

ride round by Tel el Yahoudi, the last great city of the Jews--a race I

honour for their obstinacy and their wealth. They are destined to return

to Palestine, when it shall be their lot to recover it, from this place.

I promised my friend Benjamin the Banker to bring him a relic from the

place, and report if it be a suitable purchase to prepare for the

conquest of Syria. I have bought him a bronze goose and a serpent of

clay, undoubted antiques; and I shall send him an original report.”

There was not much society among the travellers that evening. Mr

Ringlady had his dinner served in his magnificent tent in solitary

dignity. Lascelles Hamilton and Campbell were soon heard snoring from

fatigue. Sidney and Aali, however, were too anxious about the success of

their project to think of sleep until they had held a long consultation

with Sheikh Hassan, the Kehaya of Sheikh Salem Abou Rasheed, and the

guide of the takterwan and its escort. Poor Aali had absolutely so

little control over the movements of his bride that he hardly dared to

turn his eyes in the direction of the cumbrous sedan, which concealed

the sacred treasures of the harem.

Sidney, Aali, and Hassan walked to a solitary palm-tree of unusual bulk,

standing far from the grove which now marks the utmost limit of

cultivation: a proof, among many others around Belbeis, that in the days

of its renown, the waters of the Nile were conducted far into the

desert, and fertilised whole districts now baked into solid clay. When

they were seated under the tree, safe from intruders, who could not

approach unseen, Aali commenced the conversation.

“Hassan, we are now safe out of Misr, with one day’s start of any

pursuers, for your departure cannot be known. Are you sure all is right

at Saba Biar, and that we can reach it to-morrow? The takterwan is not

fatigued?” This seemed to be the nearest approach Aali could make,

according to Moslem etiquette, to an inquiry after his bride’s health;

so Sidney listened to the answer of Hassan with considerable curiosity.

But, alas! for romance even in the deserts of Arabia. Hassan replied in

the most matter-of-fact tone:--

“We have fresh dromedaries here, and they are excellent. We shall

proceed like Beddauwee to-morrow. But can the Ferenks keep up us?”

“Never mind the Ferenks,” said Sidney: “persuade the Tergiman Mohammed

to get the dromedaries along, and their masters must follow.”

“Is the Ferenk who came on before, thy friend?” said Hassan to Sidney.

“He is a wondrous man, and doubtless a learned.”

“He is a wise man,” quoth Sidney, “though he seemeth somewhat mad; but

he will not be the first to lag behind.”

“But,” interrupted Aali, “how have you arranged, Hassan, with the

camel-drivers to change their loads and let us proceed with the

dromedaries without exciting suspicion?”

“It was hard work,” said Hassan, “and it has occupied all day. I began

by increasing their loads with the assistance of the Tergiman Mohammed,

who stands our friend in this business. I had bundles of straw and sand

ready, which I pretend are smuggled goods.”

“Thou art very prudent, O Hassan!” exclaimed Aali.

“We had a long dispute,” continued Hassan, lighting a fresh pipe. “The

sheikh of my dromedaries made a private offer to take the baggage of the

Ferenks for half the price they pay to Abdallah, and to share in an

adventure of beans--and then the matter only required time.”

“Thou art very active,” again exclaimed Aali.

“I should have found that no prudence and no activity could have brought

matters to a conclusion this evening,” said the straightforward Hassan,

“had the Ferenk Sheitan, with a voice like a Kisslar Agassi, and a

tongue like a wind-mill, not helped me through. He quarrelled first with

one sheikh then with another; drew a pocket-pistol with seven barrels,

and killed seven crows, swore he would go back to Alexandria and bring

El Kebir[2] himself to hang the sheikhs and ride with him to El Arish;

and in short, frightened them into an agreement;--for Mohammed Tergiman

says he is a Ferenk Elchi in disguise, and as we all know that Ferenk

Elchees are always mad, I believe he is right.”

This last axiom of the prudent Hassan, concerning the unequivocal

symptoms of madness displayed by all Ministers Plenipotentiary and

Ambassadors Extraordinary, rather astonished Sidney, who was aware that

Hassan could not have read the printed certificates of the fact

presented to the Houses of Parliament from time to time in the form of

blue books. It was announced as a fact generally known in Africa and

Asia, from the sands of Sahara to the deserts of Kobi. As there was no

time for investigating the organs of public opinion by which European

statesmanship had been so unhappily condemned, Sidney deferred the

inquiry until he should reach Gaza, where he proposed, if not

forestalled by his literary companion, to extract from Hassan valuable

materials for a work on public opinion in the deserts of Arabia, with a

view of its influence on the ultimate settlement of the Eastern

question. He only asked Hassan, for the present, if the Ferenk Kisslar

Agassi, as he called him, spoke Arabic. Hassan replied without

hesitation--

“Better than I do; he speaks like a learned Moolah.”

This statement shook Sidney’s faith both in the judgment and the

veracity of Hassan. At the same time it decided him on keeping a closer

watch over the proceedings of Mr Lascelles Hamilton. He had seen enough

of diplomatic society to know that he might have been, or be, a minister

plenipotentiary; but still he could hardly give him credit for speaking

Arabic as well as Hassan, having heard him pronounce a few common words.

Whether he was the son of the general of cavalry of the king of Lahore,

as he himself asserted, or a German Jew, as Mr Campbell declared with

equal confidence, Sidney pretended not to decide.

The party at the palm-tree at length retired to rest. Sidney, wearing

the Egyptian dress, had adopted the native habits in travelling, and

attempted to sleep on a single carpet spread on the sand. The attempt

was vain. The excitement caused equally by fatigue of body and mind, and

the unusual restraint of his clothes, drove sleep from his eyelids;

while one train of thought followed another with all the vividness and

incoherence of a morning dream. He fancied he saw Mr Lascelles Hamilton

rush into the tent of Mr Ringlady and cut off his head, and then,

suddenly transformed into a minister of the Prince of Darkness, in full

uniform, with a proboscis like an elephant, and a green tail like a

boa-constrictor, deliver up the whole party, Fatmeh included, to

Mohammed Ali in person.

Jumping up in alarm at this strange vision, he saw to his amazement his

companion, Aali, sitting very composedly; while Achmet was engaged in

staining his face of a bronze colour, so dark as almost to emulate the

ebon hue of El Khindi’s own skin.

“What the d--l are you about, Achmet?” shouted Sidney in emphatic

phrase. “Why are you going to make Aali’s face as black as your own?”

Achmet grinned and replied,--“Very good against the sun, Mr Sidney; me

make Aali look a true Beddauwee,--neither white like a boiled golgas,

(he meant a yellow turnip) nor sooty like them d----n black fellow. You

like, me paint you too.” Sidney, who was quite content to look in the

desert like a boiled turnip, turned his back on the painter; and the

incident having dispersed his dreams, he fell into a profound sleep.

Long before daylight, the whole party was roused by the indefatigable

Hassan. After the usual squabbling, yelling, singing, and bellowing of

camels, the caravan was put in motion. They left Belbeïs without the

literary Mr Campbell putting his foot within the circuit of the renowned

city. Daylight found the party moving forward at what is a very rapid

rate of travelling in the desert, whenever half-a-dozen dromedaries are

together. They were actually proceeding at the rate of four miles an

hour; now the average log of a fleet of camels rarely exceeds two and a

half under the most favourable circumstances.

The ground over which they advanced was a flat surface of hard clay,

covered with round rough brown pebbles, apparently polished by torrents,

and flattened into the soil by some superhuman roller. Far to the right,

a range of mountains bounded the horizon; in front, the view was

terminated by a gradual elevation of the plain marked by drifts of sand;

while some miles to the left, the green valley of the Nile, far as the

eye could reach, was skirted by a forest of palm-trees, whose feathered

leaves were waving in the breeze. The scene offered no great variety,

but it was singularly impressive. Few persons find that the deserts,

even of Arabia Deserta, are precisely what they figure to be the

quintessence of desert scenery. Where there is sand, a few scraggy

shrubs are very often to be found; or else a constant succession of high

mounds or hills, disposed in various directions and forms, take away

from the monotony of the view. Where the plain is flat and extensive, it

is generally covered with strange and beautiful pebbles; and when it

rises into mountains, they are grand and rugged in form, and coloured

with tints which render the memory of Mount Albano, and of Hymettus,

like the timid painting of a northern artist, trembling at the critics,

who have rarely seen a sunbeam.

The caravan proceeded for a long time in silence. Now and then a

camel-driver essayed to commence one of the interminable Arab songs; but

after some flourishes of “Ya Beddouwee! Ya Beddouwee!” which seemed to

indicate the fear of some passing elfish spirit, they all abandoned the

vain attempt.

Mr Lascelles Hamilton at last took the field, shouting in a voice that

brought an expression of comic amaze into the features of the attending

camel-drivers.

“Campbell! what do you say? You saw old father Nile was a humbug as we

were coming up to Cairo. You must now acknowledge that the desert is a

humbug as we are going down to Syria. Multiply some acres of gravel walk

by two hundred yards of sea beach in Argyleshire, and you have one half

of Arabia Deserta; take a rabbit warren and you have the rest. And as to

the Nile, it is only the Thames lengthened and the ships extracted.”

Campbell was too much distressed by the motion of his dromedary, the

form of his saddle, and the difficulty of keeping his position, to feel

inclined to contest any opinion maintained by his voluble companion. So

he contented himself with growling to Sidney, who was nearest him--

“That fellow is only a speaking machine; he can’t think.”

Mr Ringlady, however, could not let such opinions pass without notice;

so he opened his reply--

“I am not prepared, Mr Lascelles Hamilton, to admit either of your

propositions without restrictions.”

“I knew you would be forced to admit them generally, you are so candid,”

was the rejoinder of the voluble gentleman; “you can make as many

restrictions as you like at leisure--it will be both amusing and

instructive.”

“But, sir,” interrupted the lawyer--for Mr Lascelles Hamilton having

commenced, might have spoken for half an hour without a pause--“you are

aware the Arabs call the Nile El Bahr, or the sea.”

“Perfectly aware of the fact--though they don’t pronounce the word

exactly as you do,” exclaimed the speaking machine, “and consider it

another proof what a humbug that said Nile is. Why, you may see him at

the Vatican with thirty children about him; while after all he has only

seven here in Egypt, where you can count their mouths as they kiss the

sea.”

“But, sir, you must take into consideration the fertilising effects of

the waters of the river, which made Homer say that they descended from

heaven.”

“Why, so they do: old Homer laid aside _his_ humbug for once; he knew

the effects of a monsoon, and meant to say heavy rain makes rivers

swell--so the Nile’s a river and nothing like the sea. Let me ask you

now, Mr Ringlady--can you tell me why the Arabs call the Nile the sea,

before we proceed?”

The learned Mr Ringlady was not quite prepared to answer this sudden

query; so he replied at random--

“The Arabs think it looks like the sea.”

“Not a bit of it. They call it the sea because it is not the least like

the sea. Just as you call Britain Great because it is not enormously

big, and France _la belle_, because it’s ugly _par excellence_.”

The travellers at last reached the valley called the Wadi Tomlat, which

is an oasis running into the desert to the eastward at right angles to

the course of the Nile. In ancient times, the waters of the river,

overflowing into this valley, and filtering through the sand into the

low lands which extend over a considerable part of the Isthmus of Suez,

formed the rich pastures called in Scripture the land of Goshen. In this

district, the Jewish people multiplied from a family to a nation. Our

travellers skirted this singular valley on its southern side, in order

to avoid passing through the town in its centre, called Tel el Wadi. And

after leaving behind them the utmost boundary of the cultivated fields,

they crossed a stream of fresh water even at that season of the year,

which, however, soon disappears in a small stagnant lake.

Here the travellers rested to breakfast. But after a short halt, they

pursued their way until they reached the ruins of an ancient city. The

spot was called Abou Kesheed: here the intolerable heat compelled them

again to stop for a couple of hours. Sidney and Campbell, sheltered from

the sun by an old carpet hung on three lances, reclined beside an

immense block of granite, which had been transported from its native

quarry at Syene, a distance of five hundred miles, to be sculptured into

three strange figures, and covered with signs and symbols of strange

import. Sidney, who had paid some attention to the researches of

Champollion and Sir Gardner Wilkinson, considered their authority

decisive that the figures were those of Rameses the Great, the Sesostris

of the Greeks, placed between the two deities Re and Atmoo. He pointed

out the hieroglyphic signet of the mighty monarch, and maintained that

the ruins around were the relics of one of the treasure cities, built by

Pharaoh to secure the tribute paid by the children of Israel when they

dwelt in the land of Goshen.

The banks of the great canal which once joined the Nile and the Red Sea,

were visible near the ruins in two long ranges of sandy mounds. This

mighty work was said by the Greeks to have been constructed by

Sesostris, or Rameses--the very monarch who now sat before them turned

into granite with his immortal name wrought into an enigma beside him.

Sidney argued that this spot was the Raamses of Exodus; and Campbell

declared that as it was only two days’ march from Suez, it was a

military point which he thought himself bound to occupy, in a

dissertation on the invasion of Egypt by an Indian army from the Red

Sea. Mr Lascelles Hamilton, who was very impatient during these

discussions, could not lay claim to the poetic lines that may now be

seen issuing from the mouth of a magnificent ram-headed god, in

Belzoni’s tomb at Thebes--for neither the lines, nor the guide-book

which suggested them, were then in existence--

“I am, and always have been, Ammon,

In spite of all Sir Gardner’s gammon;”

but the speaking machine expressed a similar sentiment a dozen times,

clothed in language partaking less of what he himself called humbug.

All these learned cogitations were interrupted by Aali, who came to

inform them that Hassan had found that the horses were waiting for them

at a neighbouring well. This well, though said to be in the

neighbourhood, it took them more than two long hours to reach. The party

grew excessively impatient. Mr Ringlady entered into a violent

altercation with his accomplished dragoman Mohammed, accusing him of

ignorance of the route, and of deception concerning the distance.

Campbell declared he could go no farther, saying, “that he did not see

why they should mak a tile o’ a pleesure.” His pronunciation certified

his fatigue; nature got the better of art at this crisis, as happened

with Dante’s cat, which, though taught to sit on the table with a candle

in its paw, dropped the light on Dante’s fingers when it saw a mouse.

The loquacious Mr Lascelles Hamilton was silent, and apparently asleep.

Sidney endeavoured to keep up the courage of Campbell, and keep down the

wrath of Ringlady, by complaining of his own sufferings.

The well of Saba Biar was not reached until it was dark. Indeed Sidney

had all along suspected that Hassan would not approach it by daylight,

in order to conceal their movements as much as possible. He had kept the

party for two long hours moving in the hollow of the ancient canal,

without a breath of air, and suffering the intolerable heat of a bright

sun reflected from two parallel lines of sand-hills.

At Saba Biar, it became necessary to hold a council of war; in order to

admit all the party into the secret of the flight of Aali and his bride,

and propose that they should join in taking horses, and flying all

together into Syria. It was therefore announced to Mr Ringlady, that his

advice was required concerning the movements of the caravan next day.

Pleased with the deference thus shown to his mellifluous voice and large

tent, he invited the whole party to discuss the matter over tchibooks

and Mocha. The party assembled. Ringlady, Campbell, and Lascelles

Hamilton seated on stools, Sidney, Aali, and Hassan squatting on the

ground, formed a circle.

Hassan began by a very long speech, which it was needless for Sidney to

translate, as it gave them no idea of what he intended to communicate.

Aali followed in one quite as long, in what appeared, from the words of

which it was composed, to be Italian; but the interminable length of the

sentences, and the flowery nature of the diction, rendered it as

unintelligible to every one present, as if it had really been in the

Farsee of the Ottoman chancery, of which it was a copy. Sidney then

stated shortly in English, that the consent of the travellers was wanted

to aid in the escape of Aali and his bride from the power of Mohammed

Ali, and that it was proposed that they should have horses ready waiting

for them and ride all together to Gaza. He treated it as the simplest

thing in the world, just as if their pursuit, capture, and murder, in

the midst of the desert, by some party of wild Bedoweens despatched from

Cairo was not an event to excite a moment’s hesitation.

Mr Ringlady began now to perceive that he was not on the route he had

bargained to take, and of which he had, with the assistance of his

faithful dragoman Mohammed, compiled a very minute itinerary and

description before leaving Cairo. Instead of being at El Gran, he was in

the centre of the Isthmus of Suez. He called the faithful Mohammed into

the tent, and inquired with desperate calmness the name of the place

where they were.

Mohammed replied with the same calm--“El Gran.”

“Is it El Gran?” repeated Mr Ringlady.

Aali, who thought the inquiry was dictated by the eagerness Mr Ringlady

usually displayed in the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties,

innocently said the place was called Saba Biar.

Ringlady sprang from his chair in a paroxysm of rage, and shouted to

Mohammed--“How dare you tell a lie, sir? How dare you tell a lie, sir?

to me who can dismiss you without a certificate. You have been in my

service, sir, and without my certificate no Englishman of rank or

fortune would ever employ you.” To all this, the faithful Mohammed

listened with perfect nonchalance: his expression seemed to say--My dear

sir, when a demand for certificates manifests itself, there are numerous

manufactories from which I can obtain an ample supply of the quality

required. Mr Ringlady’s rage was very much augmented by the seeming

indifference of his dragoman, who evidently considered a master only as

a convenience for filling the pockets of his servant.

Mr Campbell, however, gave the discussion another turn, by informing

them that he was too much fatigued to attempt mounting on horseback.

Besides, he had an invincible aversion to that mode of conveyance, not

being more expert at it than King Louis of Bavaria. The fact of

Campbell’s incapacity to keep his saddle having been established, and Mr

Ringlady’s rage having been mitigated, it was determined that Hassan,

Aali, Sidney, and Lascelles Hamilton, should ride forward and escort the

harem; while Ringlady and Campbell proceeded with the empty takterwan

and the baggage on dromedaries to Gaza, where Sidney and Lascelles

Hamilton were to wait for them.

Before daybreak the horsemen were in motion. As it grew light, three

figures in the group excited the attention of Sidney. Two of these

figures were composed, to all appearance, of huge bundles of clothing

without any definite form. One of the bundles was of prodigious breadth,

and was mounted on a beautiful and powerful bay horse. The third figure

was close to Sidney’s elbow, clad in a black bornoos, with a head

enveloped in an enormous yellow silk shawl. As the figure looked like

any thing rather than an Arab of the desert, Sidney recognised his

companion. It was evident that the other two bundles concealed the bride

of Aali and her mother; and Sidney fancied that Aali was conjecturing in

fear and trembling which was the bride and which the mother. If the

enormous breadth of cloth on the bay horse concealed the bride, there

could be no doubt she was a young lady of great and powerful charms.

Mr Lascelles Hamilton soon addressed Sidney. “You took me for an Arab, I

see; this is the way we move in Moultan.”

“I thought it was some Indian fashion--for it is neither the Arab of the

Desert, nor of Algiers, nor of Paris,” replied Sidney. “The turban came

from Khan Khaleel of Misr, but the bornoos is from the Boulevard des

Italiens. However, it may be a good enough disguise for some Europeans.”

For once the voluble Mr Lascelles Hamilton became dumb; and Sidney

wondered what charm there could have been in his criticism to arrest the

movements of a speaking machine.

The rate at which the travellers moved was rapid, generally consisting

of a quick amble. A short halt was called at the well of Aboulronkh; and

another at a second well, under a mountain of sand, at Haras. Here, as

the well had been freshly cleared out, the water, though brackish, was

potable. After a halt of a few hours, during the heat of the day, the

party again mounted, and some hours after dark reached the palm grove at

Ghatieh. The distance they had accomplished was not fifty miles.

Next day they proceeded at the same rate, leaving Bir el Abt and

Djanadoul to the left: they watered their horses at a miserable well,

and stopped for the night considerably to the south-east of El Massar.

Here it was necessary to refresh the horses in order to be prepared for

pursuit from El Arish, where Mohammed Ali had a body of Bedoween

cavalry.

The journey was resumed two hours after midnight, and El Arish was left

behind before the morning dawned. In the forenoon a Khamseen wind set in

with a degree of fury that rendered it impossible for the horses to

proceed. After repeated attempts to renew the march, both men and horses

at last gave it up in despair, and sought shelter from the clouds of

dust and parching heat under a low ridge of sand-hills. The hope of the

fugitives was, that no pursuers could brave the hurricane they were

unable to face. Still there was no saying what a Beddouwee, mounted on a

dromedary, could accomplish under the excitement of the promise of a

large bakshish from Mohammed Ali. Aali was evidently alarmed, Hassan

showed symptoms of anxiety, and even the two bundles appeared to be

restless. The larger one took great interest in the feelings of the

powerful bay horse, which remained close beside its mistress, and gave

the lady evident signs of recognition and of gratitude for her

attention. The mouths of the horses were washed with vinegar and water,

and they then champed a few shrubs growing in the sand, which, though in

appearance very like dry sticks, afforded a considerable supply of

moisture.

In this painful position the party remained all day; and it was not till

sunset that a lull in the storm enabled them to proceed to the well at

Sheikh Zuaideh to water their horses. Here they did not venture to

sleep, and at dawn next morning the Khamseen again blew with redoubled

violence. The horses staggered along; and the ladies diminished the mass

of the envelopes about their bodies to augment the volume about their

heads. It was fortunate the whole party was well mounted; for had any

one been compelled to lag behind he might have perished in the desert,

for it is impossible to see one hundred yards in advance: the sand

pervaded the air with the orange-coloured mist of a London fog in an

illumination.

With the greatest exertions they reached Hannunis; but before they could

seek shelter in the village, both Sidney and Aali fell from their horses

utterly exhausted. Next day, however, the violence of the Khamseen

rendering it utterly impossible to proceed, Sidney and Aali had time to

recruit their strength.

On the sixth day after quitting Saba Biar, not long after midnight, the

fugitives rode out of Hannunis towards Gaza. The air was still like a

furnace, but it was gradually cooling; and as the dawn approached it

became delightfully refreshing. A light breath of air from the

north-west brought with it the freshness of a sea-breeze. When the sun

arose, every one was in high spirits. Hassan displayed his activity by

getting constantly at some distance before the party as if in search of

the road. Aali, expecting soon to be welcomed by the relations of his

bride as a hero, began to exhibit his skill in horsemanship, in order to

attract the admiration of the bundles of cotton cloth. His horsemanship

was not of a quality to make the display a very choice exhibition in the

desert, and both he and his horse were hardly recovered from the

exhaustion of the Khamseen.

Either for the purpose of rebuking the vanity of Aali, or for that of

indulging his own, Sidney commenced a game of djereed with the Osmanlee

dandy. It was rather an awkward exhibition. While it was proceeding with

very little effect, the larger bundle of raiment, rendered nervous by

the djereeds flying about in its neighbourhood, had allowed the bay

horse to approach the tumult. Sidney and Aali had just launched their

weapons, and were turning their horses to escape the blows mutually

aimed, when the bay horse, making a sudden bound between the rival

cavaliers, the lady caught the two djereeds, one in each hand, and rode

quietly back to her female companion. Hassan and the attendants set up a

most unbecoming laugh, and the smaller bundle joined in a suppressed but

very unfeminine giggle. Lascelles Hamilton, to escape the powerful bay

horse, had ran up against Aali, and increased his misfortune by laming

his steed.

Poor Aali was utterly confounded; Sidney looked mortally foolish; and

Lascelles Hamilton muttered apologies for his awkwardness and random,

reflections on the lady’s movements, in a half audible tone. This

embarrassment of the party was suddenly relieved by the appearance of a

considerable body of Arabs of the desert at some distance to the right.

If they had any hostile intent, their position enabled them to bar the

road to Gaza. There seemed to be some prospect of a fight.

Hassan drew the party together, and recommended them to look to their

arms. Aali, forgetting his lame horse, whispered to Sidney that he would

let the harem see the difference between an old woman and an Osmanlee in

a real fight; for in this irreverent strain did he now begin to speak of

his future mamma.

After some cautious manœuvring on both sides, each party contrived to

occupy the crest of an eminence with a hollow before it; and from these

positions they sent forward single horsemen to reconnoitre the adverse

bands. After a considerable interval, a shout was heard from the

horsemen in advance, and immediately both parties rushed forward to meet

at full gallop. Aali, Sidney, Lascelles Hamilton, and Achmet were soon

left far behind, both by the suddenness of the start, and the

inferiority of their steeds. The two bundles of raiment were seen in

advance, followed pretty closely by Hassan, and at some distance by the

attendants.

Aali’s horse soon stumbled from lameness, and Achmet, who placed very

little trust in the Arabs of the desert, seeing they had given their

friends the worst horses, called out to Sidney and Lascelles Hamilton to

stay by Aali and keep their horses as fresh as possible. They pulled up

accordingly, at a spot from which they could see the meeting of their

companions with the Arabs. The larger bundle arrived first, and jumping

from the powerful bay horse with the greatest agility, commenced a

kissing scene with the principal figure of the new group: this operation

was repeated with every one present. The lesser bundle, on arriving,

went through the same formality. Sidney and Achmet turned their eyes on

Aali, who raised his up to heaven and exclaimed with great agitation,

“Mashallah! Mashallah!”

After Hassan had gone through the kissing operation, a short

confabulation was held by a few of the principal figures, who smoked a

pipe with the ladies, seated on the ground. The whole party then

mounted, and came forward to join Aali and his friends. As they

approached, it became evident that the two bundles had undergone a

marvellous transformation. They were now converted into two Syrian

Sheikhs. The larger made a gallant appearance on his bay horse, and the

smaller bundle was now a young man bearing still a certain degree of

resemblance to the other. A sigh proceeded from the bottom of Aali’s

heart, and his exclamation revealed the whole mystery. “Mashallah! it is

Sheikh Salem himself. By the head of the Prophet! and his son Sheikh

Abdallah.”

The affair was very simple. Coming events in the East were beginning to

cast their shadows before, and Sheikh Salem, anxious to escape into

Syria with his son, in order to be in the midst of his tribe at the

crisis, had thrown out the bait of the marriage to the vanity of Aali;

and thus, with his assistance, and that of his friend Hassan, had

contrived to deceive all the spies placed to watch his movements at

Cairo, and now found himself safe with his ally, the Sheikh of Hebron.

His harem he left under the protection of the old Pasha; for he knew

Mohammed Ali was a generous enemy.

The meeting of Salem and Aali was extremely amusing; but Aali was soon

consoled for the loss of his bride, by the thanks and promises of both

father and son, and the praises of the Sheikh of Hebron. Sidney was

pressed to accompany the party immediately to Hebron, for it was not

deemed prudent for Salem to trust himself in the power of the Osmanlee

governor of Gaza. This invitation he declined, as his own arrangements,

and his promise to meet Ringlady and Campbell, compelled him to remain

at Gaza. Besides, he could not help recollecting, that in spite of all

these warm professions of friendship now uttered by Salem, he had been

mounted at Saba Biar in a manner that proved the intention of the Arabs

to take care of themselves by abandoning their companions in case of

pursuit.

It was arranged, before separating, that the party should ride to a

grove of olive-trees, at no great distance from Gaza, where roast lambs

stuffed with rice, raisins, and pistachio nuts, large bowls of leban and

thin cakes of bread, were prepared for their refreshment. Salem and

Sidney had some interesting conversation concerning the state of Syria,

and the position of Mohammed Ali; and they parted with mutual

expressions of esteem--Salem warning Sidney rather mysteriously against

making any stay at Gaza. After Oriental greetings, and long salutations,

Salem, Aali, Abdallah, Hassan and the Sheikh of Hebron rode off with

their train of followers to the east; while Sidney, Lascelles Hamilton,

and Achmet slowly proceeded towards Gaza, to repose after their fatigues

in crossing the desert.

LIFE OF JEAN PAUL FREDERICK RICHTER.[3]

If there be a regular German of the Germans beyond the Rhine and

be-north the Alps, whom, notwithstanding (perhaps partly by reason of)

his faults and eccentricities, we love, and honour, and reverence, and

clasp to our true British breast with a genuine feeling of

brotherhood,--this man is Jean Paul Frederick Richter. True, his name to

the uninitiated is a sort of offence, and a stumbling-block, almost as

much as if you were to introduce the gray, leafless image of

transcendental logic in the shape of philosopher Hegel, or the

super-potentiated energy of transcendental volition in the shape of

philosopher Fichte;--but, my dear friends and readers, consider this

only,--what thing pre-eminently great and good is there in the world

that has not been in its day an offence and a stumbling-block to the

uninitiated? “Wo unto you, when all men speak well of you:” this is a

text no less applicable to literature than to religion; and howsoever a

certain school of critics--unfortunately not yet altogether extinct--may

turn up their snub noses, and apply with orthodox deliberation their

cool thermometer which never boils, there are occasions when this text

may be quoted most appropriately against them. Even Göethe, “many-sided”

Göethe, is not free from blame here--he never understood Richter; he

judged according to the appearance--not a righteous judgment; his

thermometer was too cold. But the great Olympian of Weimar, when with

his dark brows he nodded, and from his immortal head the ambrosian locks

rolled down in anger against the uprising muse of Frederick Richter,

failed of his Homeric parallel in one point--“μεγαν δ' ελελιξεν

Ολυμπον”--he did _not_ shake Olympus. He did not cause the eccentric

comet-genius of Richter to tame the brilliant lashings of its

world-wandering tail--he did not cause Germany, he cannot cause Europe

to cease admiring these brilliant coruscations, and that pure lambent

play of heaven-licking light. To institute a comparison between Richter

and Göethe were merely to repeat again for the millionth time that old

folly of critics, by which they will allow nothing to be understood

according to its own nature, but must always drag it into a forced and

unnatural contrast with things most unlike itself; were merely to

reverse the poles of injustice, and apply to Göethe as unequal a measure

as he and men of his compact and complete external neatness, apply to

Richter. We make no foolish and unprofitable comparisons; a wild wood is

a wild wood, and a flower-bed is a flower-bed; which of them is best we

know not, but we know that they are both good. We know that Göethe is

great, and that Richter is great; which of them is the greater some god,

as the Greeks said, may know; but for us mortals it is sufficient to

endeavour to sympathise perfectly with the peculiar greatness of each,

and appropriate what part of it we may.

We should wish to make this a very long article, and to run a little

wild, like Richter himself, if the inspiration would only sustain us;

but it may not be. Biographies, even the best, of literary men possess a

complete and satisfactory interest only to those who are acquainted in

some degree with the works of the author; and Madame de Stael has told

us with an authoritative voice that, however great the powers of Richter

were, “nothing that he has published can ever extend beyond the limits

of Germany.”[4] Now, though this has more the air of a narrow

last-century judgment than one of the present day, and is, perhaps, more

French than English; yet the fact is, that Richter has not hitherto

extended his literary influence, except in the case of a few stray

individuals, beyond his native country; and his biography can, of

course, not expect to meet with the same extensive welcome from a

British public that was given to that of Schiller, and Mrs Austin’s

Characteristics of Göethe. Nevertheless, the work from which we shall

presently make a few extracts is a most valuable addition to those links

that are daily uniting us with more endearing bonds to the Saxon

brotherhood beyond the Rhine; it is a step, and a bold one, in advance.

We have now almost to satiety made a survey of the neat classical

Weimar, and we are plunging at once, with bold fearless swoop, into the

very centre of the Fatherland, into the midst of the untrodden fir

forests of the _Fichtelgebirge_, where many great hearts billow out

sublime thoughts--hearts that never saw that which is most kindred to

them in nature--the sea. So it was with Richter literally. Born at the

little mountain town of Wunsiedel, between Bayreuth and Bohemia, and

shifting about with a migratory elasticity from Bayreuth to Berlin, from

Berlin to Coburg, from Coburg to Heidelberg, he died without having ever

feasted his eyes (what a feast to a man like him!) on the glowing blue

of the Mediterranean, or drunk in with his ears the “ανηριθμον γελασμα”

the multitudinous laughter of the Baltic wave. A genuine German!--in

this respect certainly, and in how many others! A German in

imagination--Oh, Heaven! he literally strikes you blind with skyrockets

and sunbeams (almost as madly at times as our own Shelley), and

circumnavigates your brain with a dance of nebulous Brocken phantoms,

till you seriously doubt whether you are not a phantom yourself: a

German for kindliness and simplicity and true-heartedness--a man having

his heart always in his hand, and his arms ready to be thrown round

every body’s neck; greeting every man with a blessing, and cursing only

the devil, and--like Robert Burns--scarcely him heartily: a German for

devoutness of heart, and purity of unadulterated evangelic feeling,

without the least notion, at the same time, of what in Scotland we call

orthodoxy, much less of what in England they call church; a rare

Christian; a man whom you cannot read and relish thoroughly unless you

are a Christian yourself, any more than you can the gospel of John. For

Richter also is a preacher in his own way--a smiling, sporting, nay a

jesting preacher at time, but with a deep background of earnestness: his

jests being the jests not of rude men, but of innocent children; his

earnestness the earnestness not of a sour Presbyterian theologian, but

of a strong-sighted seraph that looks the sun in the face, and becomes

intensely bright. A German further is Richter, and better than a German,

in the profoundness of his philosophy and the subtlety of his

speculation: a speculation profound, but not dark; a subtlety nice

without being finical, and delicate without being meagre. A German

further, and specially, is this man, in his vast and various erudition,

and in that quality without which learning was never achieved, hard

laboriousness and indefatigable perseverance. It is incredible what

books he read: not merely literary books, but also and principally

scientific books; natural history especially in all its branches from

the star to the star-fish; quarto upon quarto of piously gathered

extracts were the well-quarried materials, out of which his most light

and fantastic, as well as his most solid and architectural fabrics were

raised: a merit of the highest order in our estimation; an offence and a

scandal to many; for nothing offends conceited and shallow readers so

much as to find in an imaginative work allusions to grave scientific

facts, of which their butterfly-spirits are incapable. Then, over and

above all this, Richter possesses a virtue which only a few Germans

possess: he is a man of infinite humour: humour, too, of the best kind;

sportive, sunny, and genial, rather than cutting and sarcastic; broad

without being gross, refined without being affected. Then his faults,

also--and their name is legion--how German are they! His want of taste,

his mingled homeliness and sublimity, his unpruned luxuriance, his

sentimental wantonness! But let these pass; he who notices them

seriously is not fit to read Richter. It requires a certain delicate

tact of finger to pluck the rose on this rich bush without being pricked

by the thorn; John Bull especially, with his stone and lime church, his

statutable religion, and his direct railroad understanding, is very apt

to be exasperated by the capricious jerking electric points of such a

genuine German genius as Richter. On the pediment of this strange temple

we would place in large letters the cry of the Cumæan Sibyl in Virgil--

“Procul, O procul este, profani!”

Let no mere mathematician, no mere Benthamite, no mere mechanist, no

mere “botanist,” no mere man of taste, and trim man of measured

syllables, enter here. _Procul, O procul este, profani!_ It is enchanted

ground. We have no quarrel with you; we quarrel with nobody: only keep

your own ground, in God’s name, and don’t quarrel with us and our German

friend Paul.

Richter was born, as we have mentioned, in the little county town of

Wunsiedel, in Franconia, and that in the year 1763--about the same time,

to use his own words, as the peace of Hubertsburg, which put an end to

the famous Seven Years’ War. He was thus four years the junior of

Schiller, (born 1759,) and fourteen of Göethe, (born 1749.) He was, like

many other famous literary characters, the son of a clergyman, and

blesses God frequently both for this, and that he was not born a

cockney, (in Berlin or Vienna,) or in a coach-box, like the children of

aristocratic parents, driven about over Europe in their early years, and

never knowing the pleasure of having a home. A country vicarage amid

mountains, forests, village schools and brawling brooks, gave to

Richter’s infancy, and through that to his genius, a calm and peaceful

background, over which a multiplicity of whimsical figures might,

without painful dissipation, be made to play. In early youth the future

prose-poet (for he never wrote a line of _metre_) displayed great

eagerness to learn, and great aptitude for speculation; he was

accordingly, by the fond ambition of a pious mother, dedicated, like so

many a bookish youth, to the church. But theology, with its prickly

fence of stiff dogmas, had no charms for a youth of his extreme

sensibility, mercurial versatility, and sparkling freakishness; besides,

speculation and questioning were already abroad in the German church,

and amid the loud voices of contending doctors, it was a difficult thing

for an active and honest thinker to cut the matter short by help of the

devil’s recipe in Faust;

“If you will have a certain clue

To thread the theologic maze,

Hear only one, and swear to every word he says.”

Richter, therefore, finding himself without rudder or compass on the

wide sea of German theology, much to the grief of his honest mother, was

obliged to forswear theology and become author, his genius being

stimulated quite as much by poverty as by Apollo, like old Horace.

“Philippi then dismiss’d me with my wings

Sorrily clipt, without or house or home;

And Need, that ventures all, forced me to try

The pen, and become poet.”

The Philippi which dismissed Richter was the University of Leipsic. He

came back to Hof penniless, but not hopeless, to his good

mother,--striving with a mind in some respects as narrow as her fortune;

and here he studied, and brooded, and dreamed, and began to shoot

strange coruscations: let us see how:--

“The darkest period of our hero’s life was when he fled from

Leipsic and went down in disguise to Hof. The lawsuit had

stripped his mother of the little property she inherited from

the cloth-weaver, [her father,] and she had been obliged to part

with the respectable homestead where the honest man had carried

on his labours. She was now living with one or more of Paul’s

brothers, in a small tenement, containing but one apartment,

where cooking, washing, cleaning, spinning, and all the bee-hive

labours of domestic life must go on together.

“To this small and over-crowded apartment, which henceforth must

be Paul’s only study, he brought his twelve volumes of extracts,

a head that in itself contained a library, a tender and

sympathising heart--a true, high-minded, self-sustaining spirit.

His exact situation was this: The success of the first and

second volumes of his ‘Greenland Lawsuits’ had encouraged him to

write a third--a volume of satires, under the singular name of

‘Selections from the Papers of the Devil;’ but for this we have

seen he had strained every nerve in vain to find a publisher.

This manuscript, therefore, formed part of the little luggage

which his friend Oerthel had smuggled out of Leipsic. It was

winter, and from his window he looked out upon the cold, empty,

frozen street of the little city of Hof, or he was obliged to

be a prisoner, without, as he says, ‘the prisoner’s fare of

bread and water, for he had only the latter; and if a gulden

found its way into the house, the jubilee was such, that the

windows were nearly broken with joy.’ At the same time he was

under the ban of his costume martyrdom: this he could have

laughed at and reformed; but hunger and thirst were actual

evils, and when of prisoner’s food he had only the thinner part,

he could well exclaim, as Carlyle has said--

‘Night it must be e’er Friedland’s star will beam’

“Without was no help, no counsel, but there lay a giant force

within; and so, from the depths of that sorrow and abasement,

his better soul rose purified and invincible, like Hercules from

his long labours.

“‘What is poverty,’ he said, at this time, ‘that a man should

whine under it? It is but like the pain of piercing the ears of

a maiden, and you hang precious jewels in the wound.’”

The “costume martyrdom” here mentioned, is a most characteristic affair;

and as a great man’s character is often revealed most strikingly in

small matters, we shall give it at length.

Partly from fancy, partly from necessity, Paul had adopted a peculiar

style of dress, entirely at variance with the fashion of the day. He

writes to his mother:--

“As I can make my vests (from extreme poverty) last no longer, I have

determined to do without them; and if you send me some over-shirts, I

can dispense with these vests. They must be made with open collars _à la

Hamlet_; but this nobody will understand; in short, the breast must be

open, so that the bare throat may be seen. My hair, also, I have had

cut. [It was the day of queues and powder.] It is pronounced by my

friends more becoming, and it spares one the expense of the

hair-dresser. I have, still some locks a little curled.”

The young poet was right in suspecting, that “nobody would understand”

the right of private judgment in important matters of this kind; but he

did not at that time understand himself the extent of torture and

martyrdom to which this Hamlet garb was to expose him. Among the good

Burgers in Hof the scandal of an unpowdered pate and a bare throat was

intolerable; the young author’s firmest friends remonstrated with him,

most earnestly and seriously on the subject; but to no purpose: Paul was

determined to vindicate his poetical liberty in this matter; however

small in itself, there was a principle involved in it of the utmost

consequence in social life. See how philosophically the parties argue

the point. Pastor Vogel, the earliest prophet of Richter’s future fame,

wrote and reasoned as follows:--

“‘You value only the inward, not the outward--the kernel, not

the husk. But, with your permission, is not the _whole_ composed

of the _form_ and the _matter_? Is one disfigured? so is the

other. You condemn probably the philosophy of Diogenes, that

separated its hero so much from other men, that it placed him in

a tub. How can you justify yourself, if your philosophy serves

you in the same way? No, my friend, you must open your eyes and

see that you are not the only son of earth, but, like the ants

in their ant-hills, you live in the tumult of life.

“‘Would you not hold that painter unwise, who should offend in

costume--paint his Romans in sleeves and curled hair; the person

of a man with petticoat and open bosom? Oh! that is not to be

endured! Yet, a couple of proverbs--‘Swim not against the tide.’

‘Among wolves, learn to howl.’ ‘Vulgar proverbs!’ you will say.

Yes, but elevated wisdom. The true philosophy is, not for others

to adapt themselves to us, but for us to adapt ourselves to

others. Whoever forgets this great axiom, advances few steps

without stumbling. But what do you seek? In the midst of Germany

to become a Briton? Do you not in this way say, ‘Put on your

spectacles, ye little people, and behold! see that you cannot be

what I am.’ Ah, to speak thus, your _modesty_ forbids! Avoid

every thing that in the smallest degree lessens your value among

your contemporaries.’

“To this gentle remonstrance, Paul replied:--‘I answer your

letter willingly, for the sake of its argument, which your good

heart rather than your good head has dictated. Your proverbs are

not reasons, or if they are, they prove too much: for if I would

swim with the stream, this stream would often make shipwreck of

my virtue--the kingdom of vice is as great and extensive as the

kingdom of fashion; and if I must howl with the wolves, why

should I not rob with them? If the shell is injured the kernel

suffers also,’ you say. But wherefore? Let us decide what does

injure the shell. You consider that an evil to Diogenes which

others hold an advantage. Did the so-called injury rob this

great man of his philosophy, his good heart, his wit, his

virtue? It robbed him not--but it gave him peace, independence

of outward judgments, freedom from tormenting wants, and the

incapacity of being wounded; and with this consciousness he

could venture upon the punishment of every vice. Great man!

Thank God that thou wert born in a country where they wondered

at thy wisdom, instead of, as at present, punishing it. Fools

would commit the only wise man to a madhouse; but, like

Socrates, he would ennoble his prison.

“‘The painter would be ridiculous in offending against costume.’

This is true, but more witty than applicable to me. I need only

say, that the painter of costume is not the greatest in his art;

he is great whose pencil creates, not after the tailor, but

after God; paints bodies, not dresses. The painter’s creations

can only please through form, which is the shell; and am I

designed for that? Is it my destination, with my organised

ugliness, to please? Scarcely--if I would.

“‘But enough. I hold the constant regard that we pay in all our

actions to the judgments of others as the poison of our peace,

our reason, and our virtue. Upon this slave’s chain have I long

filed, but I scarcely hope ever to break it.’

“This humorous controversy was kept up for some months on paper,

as games of chess are played in Holland, without either party

saying check to the king. At last Paul consented, as he called

it, to _inhull_ his person, and put an end to this tragicomical

affair, by the following circular addressed to his friends:--

‘ADVERTISEMENT.

“‘The undersigned begs to give notice, that whereas cropped hair

has as many enemies as red hair, and said enemies of the hair

are likewise enemies of the person it grows upon; whereas,

further, such a fashion is in no respect Christian, since,

otherwise, Christian persons would adopt it; and whereas

especially, the undersigned has suffered no less from his hair

than Absalom did from his, though on contrary grounds; and

whereas it has been notified to him, that the public proposed to

send him into his grave, since the hair grows there without

scissors: he hereby gives notice, that he will not willingly

consent to such extremities. He would, therefore, inform the

noble, learned, and discerning public in general, that the

undersigned proposes on Sunday next to appear in the various

important streets of Hof, with a false, short queue; and with

this queue, as with a magnet, and cord of love, and magic rod,

to possess himself forcibly of the affection of all and sundry,

be they who they may.

“J. P. F. R.’”

Points of this kind have been often argued seriously enough between

loving aunts solicitous of propriety, and brisk nephews solicitous of

independence, perhaps also affecting singularity; but let it stand here

discussed more profoundly and systematically by a sensible German pastor

and a profound German poet-philosopher, _in perpetuam rei memoriam_.

Right or wrong, nothing could mark the man more decidedly; always

independent and original in his principles of action, and ever willing

to yield to innocent prejudice when he had once openly vindicated his

principle.

To pass from trifles to the serious business of authorship, the

following extract is most instructive and full of character:--

“As these years, spent with his mother in Hof, were the most

uninterruptedly studious of Richter’s life, it seems the place

to give some account of the manner in which he pursued his

studies. That plan must be a good one, and of use to others, of

which he could say, ‘Of one thing I am certain; I have made as

much out of myself, as could be made of the _stuff_, and no man

should require more.’

“First in importance, he aimed, in the rules he formed for

himself, at a just division of time and power, and he never

permitted himself, from the first, to spend his strength upon

any thing useless. He so managed his capital, that the future

should pay him all ever-increasing interest on the present. The

nourishment of his mind was drawn from three great

sources--living Nature, in connexion with human life; the world

of books, and the inner world of thought; these he considered

the raw material given him to work up.

“We have already mentioned his manuscript library. In his

fifteenth year, before he entered the Hof gymnasium, he had made

many quarto volumes, containing hundreds of pages of

closely-written extracts from all the celebrated works he could

borrow, and from the periodicals of the day. In this way he had

formed a repertory of all the sciences. For if, in the

beginning, when he thought himself destined to the study of

theology, his extracts were from philosophical theology, the

second volume contained natural history, poetry, and, in

succession, medicine, jurisprudence, and universal science. He

had also anticipated one of the results of modern book-making.

He wrote a collection of what are now called _hand-books_, of

geography, natural history, follies, good and bad names,

interesting facts, comical occurrences, touching incidents, &c.

“He observed Nature as a great book, from which he was to make

extracts, and carefully collected all the facts that bore the

stamp of a contriving mind, whose adaptation he could see, or

only anticipate, and formed a book which bore the simple title

‘_Nature_.’

“When he meditated a new work, the first thing was to stitch

together a blank book, in which he sketched the outlines of his

characters, the principal scenes, thoughts to be worked in, &c.,

and called it ‘_Quarry for Hesperus_,’ ‘_Quarry for Titan_,’ &c.

One of his biographers has given us such a book, containing his

studies for Titan, which occupies seventy closely-printed

duodecimo pages.

“Richter began also in his earliest youth to form a dictionary,

and continued it through the whole of his literary life. In this

he wrote down synonymes, and all the shades of meaning of which

a word was susceptible. For one word he had found more than two

hundred. Add to this mass of writing, that he copied all his

letters, and it is surprising how any time remained. He made it

a rule to give but one half of the day to writing, the other

remained for the invention of his various works, which he

accomplished while walking in the open air.

“These long walks, through valley and over mountain, steeled his

body to bear all vicissitudes of weather, and added to his

science in atmospheric changes, so that he was called by his

townsmen the _weather prophet_. He is described by one who met

him on the hills, with open breast and flying hair, singing as

he went, while he held a book in his hand. Richter at this time

was slender, with a thin pale face, a high nobly-formed brow,

around which curled fine blonde hair. His eyes were a clear soft

blue, but capable of an intense fire, like sudden lightning. He

had a well-formed nose, and, as his biographer expresses it, ‘a

lovely lip-kissing mouth.’ He wore a loose green coat and straw

hat, and was always accompanied by his dog.

“As Richter from every walk returned to the little household

apartment where his mother carried on her never-ceasing female

labours, where half of every day he sat at his desk, he became

acquainted with all the thoughts, all the conversation, the

whole circle of the relations of the humble society in Hof. He

saw the value and significance of the smallest things. The joys,

the sorrows, the loves and aversions, the whole of life, in this

Teniers’ picture passed before him. He himself was a principal

figure in this limited circle. He sat with Plato in his hand,

while his mother scattered fresh sand on the floor for Sunday,

or added some small luxury to the table on days of festival. His

hardly-earned groschen went to purchase the goose for Martinmas,

while he dreamed of his future glory among distinguished men.

Long years he was one of this humble society. He did not

approach it as other poets have done, from time to time, to

study for purposes of art the humbler classes; he felt himself

one of them, and in this school he learned that sympathy with

humanity which has made him emphatically in Germany the ‘poet of

the poor.’”

One of the most instructive traits of Richter’s character is, his great

attention to personal purity of heart and self-control. It was a main

point with him, as with Quintilian, the sound old rhetorician, that to

write or speak well, one must first of all be a good man. In imitation

of many excellent and pious persons, Paul kept a diary of the sins that

most easily beset him, and a register of moral victories by God’s grace

to be won. From this “_Andachts buchlein_,” or “little book of

devotion,” the following admirable extracts are given:--

“OF PAIN.

“Every evil is an occasion and a teacher of resolution. Every

disagreeable emotion is a proof that I have been faithless to my

resolutions.

“An evil vanishes, if I do not ask after it. Think of a worse

situation than that in which thou art.

“Not to the evil, but to myself, do I owe my pain. Epictetus was

not unhappy!

“Vanity, insensibility, and custom, make one steadfast.

Wherefore not virtue still more?

“Never say, if you had not _these_ sorrows, that you would bear

others better.

“What is sixty years’ pain to eternity?

“Necessity, if it cannot be altered, becomes resignation.

“OF GLORY.

“Most men judge so miserably; why would you be praised by a

child?

“No one would praise you in a beggar’s frock; be not proud of

the esteem that is given to your coat.

“Do not expect more esteem from others because you deserve more,

but reflect that they will expect still more merit in yourself.

“Do not seek to justify all thy actions. Value nothing merely

because it is thy own, and look not always upon thyself.

“Do not wait for extraordinary opportunities for good actions,

but make use of common situations. A long continued walk is

better than a short flight.

“Never act in the heat of emotion: let reason answer first.

“Look upon every day as the whole of life, not merely as a

section; and enjoy the present without wishing to spring on to

another section that lies before thee.

“Seek to acquire that virtue in a month, to which thou feelest

the least inclined.

“It betrays a greater soul to answer a satire with patience,

than with wit.

“If thou wouldst be free, joyful, and calm, take the only means

that cannot be affected by accident--virtue.”

A man who could act on these principles was morally a great man, and

worthy of admiration even without genius. To know and feel habitually,

as Richter seems to have done, that “EVIL is like the nightmare; the

instant you bestir yourself it has already ended,” is to be a moral

hero, and a triumphant Christian. See how every thing turns into gold at

the touch of such a man!--the way of pædagogy (for he practised the

“dominie” too for four years to eke out his scanty earnings,) to him is

spread not with thorns, but with violets and primroses. The following

account of his pædagogic practice cannot fail to interest many:--

“The deep and marked peculiarities of a poetic nature were never

brought into fuller exercise than by Richter, in the formation

and government of his little school. That which is usually to

men of rich endowments a vexing and wearisome employment, the

daily routine of instruction for little children in the elements

of knowledge, became to him a source of elevated and ennobling

thought. His _mode_ of instruction was the opposite of that from

which he thought he had himself suffered. In this little school

there was no learning by heart, no committing to memory the

thoughts of others, but every child was expected to use its own

powers. His exertions seemed mainly directed to awaken in the

children a reproducing and self-creating power; all knowledge

was therefore the material, out of which they were to form new

combinations. In a word, the whole of his instruction was

directed to create a desire for self-study, and thus lead his

pupils to _self-knowledge_. He aimed to bring out, as much as

possible, the talents that God had given his pupils; and, after

exciting a love of knowledge, he left them to a free choice as

to what they would study; but their zeal and emulation were kept

alive by a (so-called) ‘_red book_,’ in which an exact account

of the work of each individual was recorded; this was shown to

parents and friends at the end of the quarter, and so great was

their zeal, that they needed a rein rather than a spur. While he

accustomed the children to the spontaneous activity of all their

faculties, he gave them five hours a-day of direct instruction,

in which he led them through the various departments of human

knowledge, and taught them to connect ideas and facts by

comparison and association. From the kingdom of plants and

animals he ascended to the starred firmament, made them

acquainted with the course of the planets, and led their

imaginations to these worlds and their inhabitants. Then he

conducted them through the picture-gallery of the past history

of nations, and placed the heroes, and saints, and martyrs of

antiquity before them, or he turned their attention to the

mystery of their own souls and the destiny of man. Above all,

and with all, he directed their tender, childish hearts, _to a

Father in heaven_. He said, ‘There can be no such companion to

the heart of children, for the whole life, as the ever-present

thought of God and immortality.’”

But these humble avocations were soon to cease. Richter was destined to

emerge from the obscurity of a village schoolmaster, and appear on the

public stage of Germany as the compeer of Herder and Schiller, of

Wieland and Göethe--second to none of these now European names in

originality, brilliancy, and vigour of literary talent; superior to all

of them in the purity and intensity with which there glowed in him many

of those highest moral qualities which distinguish the man and the

Christian. The following extract, relating to the publication of his

first very successful work, and the commencement of his German

celebrity, in the year 1790, is steeped in the purest essence of poetry,

and most characteristic of that flow of pure, cheerful, and exalted

emotion which freshens one’s moral nature like milk and honey, in all

the mature writings of this extraordinary man.

“The weeks that followed the successful reception of the

_Invisible Lodge_ were the ‘Sabbath weeks’ of Paul’s life. He

had had the courage to speak out in the fulness of his nature,

and had found a response in many hearts. In the paradise that

opened before him, he determined to give full course to the

flood of his genius; but he well knew, that the richest fulness

of poetic thought could only exist in connexion with peace of

soul, cheerfulness of disposition, and firmness of purpose, and

that the truth of his representations must arise from

corresponding inward truth and integrity; in short, if he would

be a poet in his works, he must be a poet in his life.

“He carefully continued his book of devotion, his rules and

purposes of life. He never awoke without reviewing the past day;

and where he had been assaulted by the force of any passion,

_there_ he placed a double bulwark, and with quiet satisfaction

celebrated the victory gained. His quick and warm fancy led him

often to outbreaking anger, and his ready wit to satire that was

sometimes wounding, especially when his good-nature was misused;

but the gentlest call led him back to tenderness--the accidental

sight of a boy’s face with tears in his eyes was sufficient to

disarm him; he thought of his future life, of the sorrows that

would draw from him still bitterer tears, and he said, ‘_I_ will

not pour into the cup of humanity a single drop of gall;’ and he

kept his word. Where he was obliged to assert his rights, he did

it so calmly and gently, that the holy treasures of his

life--love and truth--remained for ever undisturbed.

“Every thing living touched his heart--from the humblest flower

that opened its leaves in the grass, up to the shining worlds on

high; children and old men, the beggar and the rich, he would

have embraced them all in the sacred glow of his emotions, or

given all he possessed to make them happy. No one went from him

unconsoled; and when he could give nothing but good counsel, he

gave that. Were it only a poor mountaineer or a travelling

apprentice to whom he could impart the smallest present, he

would dwell the whole day with delight on the circumstance.

Often he would say to himself, ‘Now he will draw the dollar from

his pocket, and reckon which of his long-cherished wishes he can

first satisfy. How often will he think of this day, and of the

unexpected gift, and perhaps _once_ more than usual upon the

Giver of _all_ good.’ Love was the ever-living principle of his

character and of his writings, and before the thought of the

Infinite, all differences in rank vanished away; all were

equally great, or equally little.

“He gained nourishment for this principle from every

circumstance in life. Where others would have been untouched and

cold, there he heard whispered to his spirit the voice of

humanity. Let him speak for himself. He says in his journal:-

“‘I picked up in the choir a faded rose-leaf, that lay under the

feet of the boys. Great God! what had I in my hand but a small

leaf, with a little dust upon it; and upon this small fugitive

thing my fancy built a whole paradise of joy--a whole summer

dwelt upon this leaf. I thought of the beautiful day when the

boy held this flower in his hand, and when through the church

window he saw the blue heaven and the clouds wandering over it;

when every place in the cool vault was full of sunlight, and

reminded him of the shadows on the grass from the over-flying

clouds. Good God! thou scatterest satisfaction every where, and

givest to every one joys to impart again. Not merely dost thou

invite us to great and exciting pleasures, but thou givest to

the smallest a lingering perfume.’

“Above all things, his eye hung upon Nature. He lived and wrote

whole days in the open air, on the mountain, or in the woods;

and in the midst of winter he sought from the window the evening

rose-colour, his beloved stars, and that magic enchanter, the

moon. Every walk in the open air was to him the entrance into a

church. He said in his journal--‘Dost thou enter pure into this

vast, guiltless temple? Dost thou bring no poisonous passion

into this place, where flowers bloom and birds sing? Dost thou

bear no hatred where Nature loves! Art thou calm as the stream

where Nature reflects herself as in a mirror? Ah, would that my

heart were as true and as unruffled as Nature when she came from

the hands of her great Creator!’ Every new excursion in this

great temple gave him new strength, and he returned laden with

spiritual treasures. He loved to make short journeys on foot;

where the motion of the body kept the mind in a state of

activity, and the insignificant gained value by its

unexpectedness. A sunny day made him happy, and the perfumes of

a spring morning, or dewy evening, seemed almost to intoxicate

him with their incense; but the hours of night were those of

his highest elevation, when he would lie long hours on the dewy

grass, looking into the opening clouds. He says in his

journal--‘I take my ink-flask in the morning, and write as I

walk in the fragrant air. Then comes my joy, that I have

conquered two of my faults--my disposition to be angry in

conversation, and to lose my cheerfulness through a long day of

dust and musquitoes. Nothing makes one so indifferent to the pin

and musquito thrusts of life, as the consciousness of growing

better.’”

Richter belonged now to Germany, and should have been transferred

immediately, you will think, like Göethe, Schiller, Wieland, Herder, and

the other _Dii majorum gentium_, to WEIMAR, the one literary capital of

Deutschland; for _political_ capital it neither had then nor has now,

nor in the common course of things, notwithstanding the songs of 1813

and the _Zoll-Verein_, is ever like to have. And in Weimar, no doubt,

there were some men who looked upon the apparition of the Richter comet

with a more favourable eye than senatorian Göethe. Old Father Wieland,

in particular, “who had read Tristram Shandy eighty times over,” called

him “our Yorick, our Rabelais, the purest spirit!”--and the earnest

Herder, with his capacious sympathy, was able to appreciate the

religious and Christian element in Paul’s character, which naturally was

a mystery to the author of Agathon. Taken as a whole, however, Weimar,

with Göethe as its real king and god, was by no means the proper element

for Richter. There was too much mere literature in it for one with whom

goodness was the one thing needful, and greatness only an accident,

agreeable or disagreeable, as the case might be. There was too much head

in Weimar, and too little heart. Freedom, indeed, there was, in grand

style, from all those civic formalities, and minute observation of small

points, which had vexed him so much in Hof. But what one might complain

of there, to use his own words, was “PAINTED EGOTISM AND UNPAINTED

SCEPTICISM;”--the French Voltaire in a German Avatar! For the true Teut,

Richter, that would never do. We are not, therefore, to be surprised if

the visit which Paul made to Weimar in 1796, though full of joy and

exhilaration, was not followed up by any permanent change in his quiet

and retired mode of life. His native secluded region of the

Fichtelgebirge was still to be his home. Hof and Bayreuth, in the centre

of central Germany, and therefore out of every body’s way, were to boast

the possession of this the most German of great German men. How little

attraction there was between the calm, cold, artistical

contemplativeness of Göethe, and the bickering sportiveness of sunny joy

in the essentially moral nature of Richter, the following extract will

declare:--

“‘On the second day I threw away my foolish prejudices in favour

of great authors. They are like other people. Here, every one

knows that they are like the earth, that looks from a distance,

from heaven, like a shining moon, but when the foot is upon it,

it is found to be made of _boue de Paris_ (Paris mud.) An

opinion concerning Herder, Wieland, or Göethe, is as much

contested as any other. Who would believe that the three

watch-towers of our literature avoid and dislike each other! I

will never again bend myself anxiously before any _great_ man,

only before the _virtuous_. Under this impression, I went

timidly to meet Göethe. Every one had described him as cold to

every thing upon the earth. Madam von Kalb said, he no longer

admires any thing, not even himself. Every word is ice!

Curiosities, merely, warm the fibres of his heart. Therefore I

asked Knebel to petrify or incrust me by some mineral spring,

that I might present myself to him like a statue or a fossil.

Madam von Kalb advised me, above all things, to be cold and

self-possessed, and I went without warmth, merely from

curiosity. His house, palace rather, pleased me; it is the only

one in Weimar in the Italian style--with such steps! A Pantheon

full of pictures and statues. Fresh anxiety oppressed my breast!

At last the god entered, cold, one-syllabled, without accent.

‘The French are drawing towards Paris,’ said Knebel. ‘Hm!’ said

the god. His face is massive and animated, his eye a ball of

light. But at last, the conversation led from the campaign to

art, publications, &c., and Göethe was himself. His conversation

is not so rich and flowing as Herder’s, but sharp-toned,

penetrating, and calm. At last, he read, that is, he played for

us, an unpublished poem, in which his heart impelled the flame

through the outer crust of ice, so that he pressed the hand of

the enthusiastic Jean Paul. (It was my face, not my voice, for I

said not a word.) He did it again when we took leave, and

pressed me to call again. By Heaven! we will love each other! He

considers his poetic course as closed. His reading is like

deep-toned thunder, blended with soft whispering rain-drops.

There is nothing like it.’”

To which add the following passage, where we are sorry to find rather an

unfavourable mention of our great favourite Schiller. Authors, however,

especially poets, are a strange race: he who expects to find them always

like their books, knows little. How unlike is Vesuvius, being calm and

mantled with green grass, to the same Vesuvius when it spouts molten

rock and spits lightning!

“‘I went yesterday to see the stony Schiller, from whom, as from

a precipice, all strangers spring back. His form is worn,

severely powerful, but angular. He is full of sharp-cutting

power, but without love. His conversation is nearly as excellent

as his writings. As I brought a letter from Göethe, he was

unusually pleasant; he would make me a fellow-contributor to the

_Horen_ (a periodical,) and would give me a naturalization act

in Jena.’

“Notwithstanding this courtesy, Richter did not repeat his visit

to Schiller, and his intimate union with Herder excluded all

hope of his being drawn to the party of Göethe. The latter wrote

to Schiller, ‘I am glad you have seen Richter. His love of truth

and his wish for self-improvement have prepossessed me in his

favour; but the social man is a sort of theoretical man, and I

doubt if Richter will ever approach us in a practical way,

although in theory he seems to have some pretensions to belong

to us.’ They were never friends. Richter could not conceal his

disappointment at the character of Göethe’s latter poetical

works; and soon after his return to Hof he wrote to Knebel in

relation to one of them, ‘that in such stormy times we needed a

Tyrtæus rather than a Propertius.’ The remark reached Göethe’s

ears; and Göethe, usually so indifferent to censure or

criticism, showed himself deeply susceptible and offended at

this so-called ‘manifestation of arrogance in Herr Richter.’”

But if the “many-sided Göethe”--wanting, as he certainly did, one

important side of humanity, namely, the moral side--could not appreciate

the genius of Richter fully, there was one who did--that, as we have

already intimated, was Herder. This great man, as his intelligent wife

has left on record, “valued Richter’s genius--his rich, overflowing,

poetic Spirit--far above the soulless productions of the times, that

contended for the poetic form only. He named them brooks without water;

and often said that Richter stood, as opposed to them, on a high

elevation; and that he would exchange all artistical forms for his

living virtue, his feeling heart, his perennial creative genius. He

brings new fresh life, truth, virtue, reality, into the declining and

misunderstood vocation of the poet.” Such was Herder’s estimate of Paul;

and herein precisely lies his true grandeur. A perfect Titan as an

author, in the common relations of social and domestic life he is a god.

Aiming at the highest things, he lives happy among the smallest. Soaring

habitually among the loftiest ideas, he is “sympathising and attentive

to the smallest little things, and to all the _actual_ of life.” This is

the testimony of his wife--not every wife of a literary man, great or

small, in these times, can give such a testimony. It has been a fashion

with men of a certain fashion of genius to fall in love furiously, and

to be ecstatically moved in the licentious roving of the eyes; but to

shrink from the joining of hands, to hate marriage, and to damn the

fireside. But Richter was of a different--of a more healthy, and a more

happy humour. Did St Paul ever bear a nobler testimony to the

“honourable” condition of marriage than the following?--

“That the brightest and purest fountain of love to mankind takes

nothing from love to the individual, I learn from my Caroline.

Every day it becomes more expansive. Rare as beautiful is her

adoration of the spiritual of poetry and nature; wonderful her

disinterestedness and complete abnegation of self. There is

nothing that she would not do for me, or others. World-long

cares are to her nothing, as her industry and love of duty are

infinite. As she loves me, she loves all my clothes, and would

make them all herself.

“As yet we have had nothing, or only very little, to irritate. I

cannot say that I am satisfied, but I am certainly _blest_. Ah,

see her! What are words! Marriage has made me love her more

romantically, deeper, _infinitely more_ than before!”

Richter, therefore, was a domestic man in the highest sense of the word.

Would you know what domestic happiness means? Take the following--’tis

from a daughter:--

“I love to represent the dear friendly man, with brown

study-coat and socks hanging down, as he entered our mother’s

chamber the first thing in the morning to greet her. The hound

springs on before him, and the children hang about him, and

seek, when he leaves the room, to thrust their little feet into

the slippers behind, when he raises his feet a little, so as to

hang on him more securely. One springs before, (at that time my

blessed brother lived,) the other two hang on his coat-skirts

until he reaches his own chamber-door; where all leave him, for

only the dog must enter there.

“When we were very small, we lived in a two-story house; my

father worked above, in the attic. We crept on our hands and

feet over the stairs, and hammered on the door till the father

himself arose and opened it, and after our noisy ingress, closed

it again--then he took from an old chest a trumpet and a fife,

with which we made noisy music while he continued writing. We

ventured in again many times in the day to play with a squirrel

that he had at that time, and that in the evening he took out

with him in his pocket, and always made one of the family

circle.

“He had, usually, animals that he tamed, about him. Sometimes a

mouse; then a great, white, cross spider, that he kept in a

paper box, with a glass top. There was a little door beneath, by

which he could feed his prisoner with dead flies. In the autumn

he collected the winter food for his little tree frog and his

tame spider.

“The father was good to every thing: he could not bear to

witness the least pain, not even in the lowest animals. Thus, he

never went out without opening the cage of his canary birds, to

indemnify the poor animals, who would be melancholy in his

absence. He took at one time the most sedulous care of a dog,

who came in one evening after the loss of the poor dead _Alert_,

as he knew in the morning he should exchange him for another,

and he would have no opportunity to feed him again. You will

smile at the connexion, but he did the same for a departing

servant maid: providing every thing for her convenience the day

before, and delighting the poor girl in the most unusual degree.

“The children were permitted all sorts of practical jokes

towards him. ‘Father, dance once;’ then he would make some

leaps; or he must speak French, in which he placed wonderful

value on the nasal sound, which no one made as well as he. It

sounded, indeed, curiously and made my mother laugh.

“In the twilight he told us stories; or spake of God and other

worlds; or he would tell us of our grandfather, and other

splendid things. We ran to gain the wager, which of us should

get nearest to him on the sofa. The old money-box, hooped with

iron, with a hole in the cover, that two mice might conveniently

pass through, was the stepping-stone by which we jumped over the

back of the sofa, for in front it was difficult to press between

the table and the repertory for papers. We all three crowded

between the back of the sofa and the father’s out-stretched

legs; above, at his head, lay the sleeping dog. At last, when we

had pressed our limbs into the most inconvenient postures, the

story began.

“The father knew how to create for himself many little

pleasures. Thus, he made all the boxes for his tame animals,

after his half-hour’s nap in the afternoon. It was a special

satisfaction to him to prepare ink, which he did much oftener

than was necessary, for Otto wrote long years after with the

rejected part. He could never wait to perfect it, but tried it

an hour after it was made. If it was already black, he would

come joyfully to us, and say,--‘Now, if it be black already,

what will it be to-morrow, or after fourteen days?’

“The mere thought of destruction was painful to him, especially

the loss of the work of man’s mind. He never burned a letter;

yes, he treasured even the most insignificant. ‘All loss of

life,’ he said, ‘may be restored again, but the creations of

these heads, these hearts, never! The name should be erased, but

the soul that speaks its most intimate sentiments in letters,

should live.’ He had also thick books written full of the

remarks and the habits and peculiarities of his children.

“At meals he was very cheerful, and listened to every thing we

told him with the greatest sympathy, and always made something

out of the smallest relation; so that the narrator was always

wiser for what he had said.

“In eating and drinking he was extremely moderate. He never gave

us direct instruction, and yet he taught us always. Our evening

table he called a French _table-d’hote_, that he furnished with

twelve dishes taken from the arts and sciences. We tasted of all

without being satiated with any, and we all ventured to utter

any joke to the father about himself or his entertainment.

“His punishments for us girls were rather passive than active;

they consisted in refusing some request, or in a severe word;

but my brother sometimes received corporal punishment. My father

would say--‘Max, this afternoon, at three o’clock, come to me to

receive your whipping.’ He went punctually, and suffered it

without a sound.”

But we become diffuse. There are many scenes in the quiet life of

Richter, that, like the above, are perfect domestic idyls--but we must

hasten to the last; ’tis like those which preceded it, surpassing

lovely. Never have we encountered, in the wide world of biographic

books, a death-bed scene, so full of love, and joy, and peace, as the

death-bed of Jean Paul Frederick Richter. Nothing more, however, than

one might have expected; for men generally--so experienced clergymen

observe--die as they live. One thing only we must remark, before giving

our last extracts; towards the close of his career, the bright,

sun-gazing genius of Richter was struck, like Milton’s, not with

celestial, but with terrestrial blindness. For some space before he

died, his favourite world of flowers and green fields was already a

blank to him. In the month of October 1823, his nephew, Otto Spazier, to

whom we are indebted for the principal part of these biographical

details, shortly before his death, being called to visit the blind old

poet, writes as follows:--

“‘Such a call from the immortal old man, as it entered my

solitary apartment,’ says his nephew, ‘filled me with delight.

The reverend image of his beautiful old age, a just reward for a

holy life, rose before me, and with joyful haste I travelled

through the wet days of October, and entered his study on the

evening of the twenty-fourth of that month. The same joyful

tremor affected me as formerly, when, at the twilight hour, I

had listened here with his family to the voice of wisdom. The

windows of his room looked towards the rising sun, and far over

the garden and over scattered trees and houses, towards the

Flichtelgebirge, that bounded the horizon. A mingled perfume of

flowers and grapes led the fancy to southern climes, to

beautiful blue June days, or to the vintage on the Rhine. His

sofa, where he usually read in a reclining posture, was opposite

this window, and before it his writing table, upon which

appeared a regular confusion of pens, paper of all colours,

glasses, flowers, books, among which last were the small English

editions of Swift and Sterne. At the other window stood a small

piano, and near this a smaller table. Depending from the cage of

his birds was a little ladder, that led to his own work-table,

where the birds were permitted to roam among the confusion,

sprinkling with water from the flower glass the sheet upon which

the poet was writing. Often was Paul seen to stop in his most

excited passages, to let his little canary, with her young,

travel, undisturbed, over the page, where the water she

scattered from her feathers mingled with the ink from his pen.

In the corner of the room was a door by which, unobserved,

Richter could descend the steps into the garden, and on a

cushion near it rested his white, silky-haired poodle. A hunting

pocket and rosewood staff hung near. All three had often been

the companions of his wandering, when, on beautiful days, he

went through the chestnut avenue to the little Rolwenzell

cottage.

“‘All in the room retained its usual position, but the ruling

hand appeared to have been absent. The light was shaded, and the

windows hung with green curtains; the robust form that in former

years, even before the snowdrop had loosened the icy crust of

winter, had worked long hours with uncovered breast in the open

air, lay supported with cushions, and shrouded in furs upon the

sofa; his body drawn together, and eyes for ever closed.

‘Heaven,’ said he, ‘chastens me with a double rod, and one is a

heavy cudgel! (meaning his blindness); but I shall be well again

now. Ah! we have so much to say and to do. But we shall have a

thousand hours--at least, minutes.’ His voice was weaker, his

words slower, and it cut me to the heart to hear him speak of

himself. It was late--and soon his wife, ever watchful, called

me away, to return to him again in the morning.’

“Early next morning he began a complete revision of his works.

The nephew read aloud, and Paul inserted his alterations. When

Spazier thought one necessary, he indicated it by pausing, to

draw his attention. With great mildness and patience Paul

listened to every objection; and himself related, explained,

praised, and blamed. He reconsidered and over-lived thus his

whole spiritual life in his works. In the comparisons scattered

through his sixty-four volumes, of which indeed every page is

filled, he found only two or three were repeated.”

On the 14th November of the same year the curtain was drawn. How

calmly--how beautifully!--Read:--

“Noon had by this time arrived. Richter, thinking it was night,

said--‘It was time _to go to rest_!’ and wished to retire. He

was wheeled into his sleeping apartment, and all was arranged as

if for repose; a small table near his bed, with glass of water,

and his two watches; common one and a repeater. His wife now

brought him a wreath of flowers that a lady had sent him, for

every one wished to add some charm to his last days. As he

touched them carefully, for he could neither see nor smell them,

he seemed to rejoice in the images of the flowers in his mind,

for he said repeatedly to Caroline--‘My beautiful flowers, my

lovely flowers!’

“Although his friends sat around the bed, as he imagined it was

night, they conversed no longer; he arranged his arms as if

preparing for repose, which was to be to him the repose of

death, and soon sank into a tranquil sleep.

“Deep silence pervaded the apartment. Caroline sat at the head

of the bed, with her eyes immovably fixed on the face of her

beloved husband. Otto had retired, and the nephew sat with

Plato’s _Phaedon_ in his hand, open at the death of Socrates. At

that moment a tall and beautiful form entered the chamber; and,

at the foot of the bed, with his hands raised to heaven, and

deeply moved, he repeated aloud the prayer of his Mosaic faith.

It was Emanuel, and next to Otto, the most beloved of Richter’s

friends.

“About six o’clock the physician entered. Richter yet appeared

to sleep; his features became every moment holier, his brow more

heavenly, but it was cold as marble to the touch; and as the

tears of his wife fell upon it, he remained immovable. At length

his respiration became less regular, but his features always

calmer, more heavenly. A slight convulsion passed over the face;

the physician cried out--‘That is death!’ and all was quiet. The

spirit had departed!

“All sank, praying, upon their knees. This moment, that raised

them above the earth with the departing spirit, admitted of no

tears!

“‘Thus Richter went from earth, great and holy as a poet,

greater and holier as a man!’

“Involuntarily we recall the deathbed of another great poet, on

that delicious summer’s day when the windows were all open, and

the only sound the ripple of the Tweed upon its stony bed.

_Here_, in the midst of winter, a deeper repose must have

consecrated the deathbed of Richter, as if Nature herself stood

reverently still, when her worshipper and interpreter laid down

the garment in which he had ministered in her temple.

“Richter was buried by torch light: the unfinished manuscript of

_Selina_[5] borne upon his coffin, and the noble ode of

Klopstock--

‘Thou shalt arise, my soul!’

was sung by the students of the Gymnasium at the burial vault.”

Thus have we, by favour of your attention, kind reader, endeavoured to

open up to the British eye, a few sunny glimpses of one of the choicest

spirits whom “the Fatherland” delighteth to honour. JEAN PAUL, _der

einzige_--the _unique_, is the received designation of Richter in

Germany; a title in his case as deservedly earned by literary labour, as

military and political services have earned it likewise, in his proper

sphere, for the great Frederick. Pity only that it is by no means such

an easy matter to render the works of the author’s genius as appreciable

to general admiration, as the actions of the soldier and the policy of

the king. Guns and trumpets make a noise over the wide world, from the

Arctic circle to the Antarctic, pretty much the same; and, provided the

stages of their explosion be large and open enough, the actors will not

fail to be noted of all men, and admired. But the voices of wise and

good men in books, are of a more curious and delicate melody; and

sometimes even the rarest of them cannot be made to vibrate in their

full harmonious chords, otherwise than to the nicely-fitted structure of

the national ear. This is the case with the French Beranger, and in an

eminent degree with our own Burns. The translators, we know, have tried

their hands with these men--as what will they not try?--but let them

carve and polish as they will, the Frenchman will still limp awkwardly

in his Wellington boots, and the Scotsman, though he may retain his

warmth, will lose the finest tints of his colour in Deutschland. So even

more strikingly is the stamp of indelible nationality imprinted on all

the writings of Jean Paul; and it will require peculiarly skilful

handling indeed, to take away the point from the French lady’s

criticism above quoted, and make all or any one of Richter’s works, like

Schiller’s “Wallenstein,” or Göethe’s “Faust,” a familiar occupant of a

cultivated Englishman’s shelves. These works consist almost exclusively

of novels or fictitious tales, and these of two kinds: the philosophical

or ideal novel--for which, even in its most perfect character, John Bull

has no peculiar faculty; and the novel of common life, in which

department the same most unphilosophical Bull has attained such an

admirable mastership, that to his practical eye the most manful feats of

a purely German genius like Richter, are apt to appear puerile and even

apish. Nevertheless, we do by no means despair of a selection being made

from this great man’s works, such as will not, indeed, popularise him on

British ground--for popular in the widest sense he is not even in

Germany--but such as may command the ear of all educated men for whom

the higher departments of imaginative literature have a charm. Such a

collection to our knowledge has not yet been made in this country. When

it shall be made, _every thing depends on the workman_. Richter cannot

be translated at random: nor can he be simply transposed, as many a

decent sentence-monger may, line after line, and paragraph after

paragraph; he is freakish, and will confound a methodical wit

lamentably. One decided advantage, however, by way of an introduction to

the English Richter, has been gained by the appearance of the present

biography. We have learnt to know the man; and the man in this case is

as good, perhaps better, than his works. No well-conditioned person, we

are convinced, will lay down the biography of Richter without an earnest

desire to know something more of such a man. He will be convinced also

that the novels of such a writer will not be made up of mere playful

arabesques to amuse, of mere pepper and spices to stimulate; he will

have felt the breath of a moral regeneration in these pages, and that a

novel of Jean Paul is in fact a sermon; an evangelic address, where the

gospel is preached, as wit is vented in the old drama, oftentimes by a

clown. Next to a mind of extensive culture, and a heart of wide

sympathies, a moral preparation of this kind is the grand key to the

writings of FREDERICK RICHTER.

A TALE OF THE MASORCHA CLUB.

AT BUENOS AYRES.

CHAPTER I.

Tom Thorne was a bachelor, who lived in one of the best houses, had the

best horses, and gave the best dinners and suppers, of any merchant in

Buenos Ayres. The head of the “_house_,” or firm, he was his own master;

and this privilege he used to the utmost. Wherever a ball was to be held

in that dancing city, there be sure you find Tom; and few dinner

parties, pic-nics, or country excursions, were complete without him.

Little mattered it to him, whether he were invited or not--he knew every

body, and everybody knew him; and his jovial good humour, his hearty

laugh and frank address, won him the good graces of any party upon which

the whim of the moment induced him to intrude. Tom was a restless,

rattling blade, and delighted in excitement of every kind. He could no

more have sat still on a chair for half an hour than he could have

passed over an entire day without drinking champagne, where it was to be

had, or brandy and water where it was not.

Courteous and gallant to the ladies, he was noisy and jovial with the

men; and although he was well known to boast of his liberty as a

bachelor, yet this probably only made him more of a favourite with the

fair. There could be no harm in flirting and coquetting with one who

openly defied their attractions. The shy and timid could be pert and

playful with Tom Thorne the bachelor, without any feelings of

indelicacy; while those who were less reserved, considered it fair play

to entangle him in the nets of their raillery--probably not without a

distant hope that the gay flutterer might yet singe his wings in making

his circuit round the flame of their attractions.

It will be thought surprising how our hero, with such roving and

unsteady habits, could transact business as the head of a mercantile

house. But in South America, business is not conducted in the same

systematic way that it is in London or Liverpool; and probably more

hides or bullocks, gin or ginghams, are bought and sold at the dinner or

billiard table than at the desk or exchange.

For such irregular kind of trade, Tom was peculiarly adapted. His was

not the character to plod at a desk over intricate speculations, nor was

it necessary in a trade confined within narrow compass and certain

seasons. Trade would sometimes be brisk, vessels would require to be

loaded and discharged; then Tom would write night and day, with

desperate energy, and then, as if he had earned a holiday, he would idle

away for weeks. What was the use of clerks if not to write? or,

according to an old proverb, what is the use of keeping a dog, and

barking yourself?

Tom Thorne, when sent out to South America, in the first instance, came

under great advantages. He was the son of the head of one of the richest

firms in Europe, and with an ill-judged liberality was allowed lots of

pocket-money; and more consideration was paid to him than to other

clerks by the managers of the house in Buenos Ayres. Thus he had both

more time and money to spend than other “young men” with more limited

prospects. Tom was not one to throw away these advantages; and so his

horse was the swiftest, his coat the tippiest, his cigar the longest,

his gloves were ever the whitest, and his bouquet the richest of all the

riding, smoking, flower-giving youths of Buenos Ayres; and it may be

conceived, that with all “these appliances, and means to boot,” he was

more an adept in the ways of gallantry than scriveny. In the course of

time Mr Thorne, in spite of all his failings, arrived at the dignity of

representative in Buenos Ayres of the rich firm of Thorne, Flower, & Co.

Once established as his own master, Tom’s natural levity of character

was not long of displaying itself, pleasure was his business, and

business his pastime. The lute or the piano (he was a splendid

musician) occupied him more than the pen; he was more in the camp or in

the streets, than in his house--and more in other people’s houses than

his own. And yet with all this, his business went on most swimmingly--he

was an indulgent master, paid his clerks well, and fed them like

princes: this they requited by paying more attention to his business

than he did himself, and thus Tom, almost in spite of himself, was, as

we have formerly said, one of the richest merchants in the city.

Some of our fair readers may say--This is all very well, but why does he

not marry? and then he might rest happy at home, instead of being so

dependent on others for enjoyment. But it was this very dependence on

others for excitement and the means of enjoyment, that made Tom shirk

marriage. It would have been a thraldom to him. Was it, could it be

possible for him to stop all night at home, reading a book, and looking

at his wife? Oh no! Could you drink brandy and water, and smoke cigars

in a parlour? Oh no! Tea and toast at seven, was tame work in comparison

with toddy and devilled kidneys at eleven. It was very agreeable,

certainly, to see ladies dressed out in smiles and silks; but he had

heard or read that husbands might sometimes see them in sulks and

slippers. It was more pleasant for Tom to be knight-errant to the fair

in general. There could be little romance about a husband, little poetry

about a wife, and very little Jollity about a nursery. So thought Tom;

but as we shall see,

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Gang aft a-gley.