are a part and parcel of every Irish rebellion. Martin Kearney did
not die; and Larry pleaded guilty, declaring that he was forced to
attempt his brother's life both by solemn oath of obedience and by lot;
at the same time confessing all he knew of the strength and doings of
the Mollies, assuring his judges that he joined them in ignorance,
and now thought of them only with horror and regret. Therefore, in
consideration of his youth, repentance, and valuable information he
gave with regard to the rebels, his life was spared, and he was instead
sentenced to twenty-one years' penal servitude; while his companion,
Luke Murphy, was hanged. It would have been almost a kindness to Larry
to have been permitted to share the same fate. Before two years he died
of a broken heart.
Owen Kearney's house was not burned; but after his son's
transportation, nothing could induce him to live in it. He therefore
sold his furniture and such of his stock as the cruelty and violence
of the Mollies spared, and went to end his days amongst his wife's
relations in the County Galway. Dora and Martin were married, and after
some time emigrated, and spent the remainder of their days in comfort
and happiness, clouded only by the memory of how much pleasanter it
would have been if they could have settled down in the old farm-house
dear to them both, to be a comfort to their father and mother in their
old age, and at last to sleep beside them in Glenmadda churchyard.
The stock of one of the wealthiest gentlemen in the County Roscommon
now graze where Owen Kearney's house once stood. Not a trace of his
family remains in the Green Isle. Their tragical history is almost
forgotten; but amongst the gossips and old women the softie's dream is
still remembered.
GLIMPSE OF THE INDIAN FAMINE.
On this dismal subject so much has lately appeared in the newspapers
that we almost shrink from troubling our readers with it. Everybody
knows the cause of the famine--a long and unhappy drought in Southern
India which parched up the land; nothing would grow; the people,
millions in number, had saved nothing; their means of livelihood were
gone; and with a weakness which we can scarcely understand, they sat
down to die--of starvation. In times when India was subject to Mongol
rulers, the population, on the occurrence of such a catastrophe,
would simply have been left to die outright. Famine, like war, was
deemed a legitimate means for reducing a redundancy in the number of
inhabitants, and was accepted as a thing quite natural and reasonable.
Matters are now considerably changed. India is part of the great
British empire, and British rule is no doubt a fine thing to be boasted
of. It gives the English an immense lift in the way of national
prestige. Along with prestige, however, come responsibilities that
are occasionally found to be rather serious. The bulk of the people
of India are living from hand to mouth. If their crops fail, it is
all over with them. Then is heard the distant wail of famine from
fellow-subjects, which it is impossible to neglect. Noble subscriptions
follow, although subscriptions of one sort or other come upon us
annually in regular succession from January to December. But when
was the Englishman's purse shut while the cry of distress was loudly
pealing around him?
There is much satisfaction in knowing that more than half a million
sterling has been gathered for the assuagement of the Indian famine.
Although vast numbers perished of hunger, vast numbers were saved by a
well-conducted system of dispensing food suitable to the simple wants
of the people. The natives of Southern India live chiefly on rice,
and a little serves them. The distribution of rice was accordingly a
ready and easy method of succouring the poor famishing families. Along
with boiled rice there was usually given a cup of water, rendered
palatable by some sharp condiment, such as pepper or chillies. This
desire for hot-tasting condiments seems to be an inherent necessity in
warm climates, for which Nature has made the most beneficent provision.
With these few preliminary remarks, we proceed to offer some extracts
from the letters of a young medical gentleman connected with the army
at Madras, descriptive of the plans adopted to feed the assembled
crowds who flocked to large camps or barrack-yards in a state of
pitiable suffering. The letters were no way designed for publication, a
circumstance which gives them additional value.
'_MADRAS, July 25, 1877._--There is not much news this week. One day I
drove out to one of the Relief Camps beyond Palaveram to see it. A most
curious and interesting sight it was. We went at half-past five, which
was feeding-time; and there we saw nine thousand five hundred starving
wretches all seated on their hunkers [crouched down in a sitting
attitude on their heels], awaiting their food. What a motley crew and
queer mixture of old men with more than a foot in the grave; strong
men and young women and unweaned babes all mixed indiscriminately, but
all seated in long rows of about a hundred each, in perfect order, and
kept so by not more than a dozen native police with two half-caste
inspectors. The majority of the people were Pariahs. Few caste
people care to come to the camps, and prefer to die rather than have
their food cooked for them by non-caste persons. However, there were
some--about two hundred in all--Hindus and Mohammedans, and they were
set apart from the Pariahs.
'The food, rice, is cooked in enormous chatties, and then spread out
on matting to cool; after which it is put into gigantic tubs, which
are carried slung on bamboos by a couple of coolies to the people, and
a large tin measureful given to each. A measureful of pepper water
(a mixture of chillies and water) is also given to each, and as much
drinking-water as they like.
'So much for the food; now for the camp itself. It is situated on a
large plain, and the inclosure is about a mile round. It is in the
form of a square, three sides consisting of chuppers [a kind of wood
and matting tents], roofed in, and protected from the wind on one
side, being open on the other. Each of the three chuppers or houses
of accommodation is built of the very simplest material: the floor
is hardened mud, perfectly smooth and comfortable, as you know the
people make it; while the roof consists of leaves matted together,
supported on bamboos, and the side of matting. Each chupper is about
a quarter of a mile long, and has accommodation for no end of people,
the evils of overcrowding being avoided by the almost free exposure
to the air. To windward is the Hospital, a good building, rain-proof,
and covered in on all sides. Still further away are cholera and
small-pox hospitals. The people at the camps receive two meals a day
of rice and pepper water; and once a week on Sundays they get mutton.
At this camp alone not less than fifty bags of rice were cooked and
consumed daily, sometimes much more. The camp is open to all comers,
and each is provided with a cloth and residence. The people appear
all to be contented and happy, and await their turn for food calmly
and patiently. The feeding is proceeded with rapidly now; but when
first the famine came, it was not so; and owing to the paucity of
servants, the feeding used to last from five P.M. till five the next
morning. Rather trying for starving people to wait that time; hard
too on the servants. Now, thanks to good administration, the feeding
is all finished in about three hours. I was struck on the whole with
the aspect of the people; they all with few exceptions looked well and
in good condition. However, the Inspector said, had I seen them when
they first came, it was different, and that if they were to return to
their own villages, they would be dead in a few days. In fact, all the
villages round are empty. Rice has now reached the appalling price
of three and a half measures for the rupee, and of course one has to
pay all one's servants extra. The poor cannot live, and they say the
famine is getting worse! Only one man did I see who was lying among the
others. Poor fellow! he had just managed to crawl into camp, and he was
dying. I ordered him to be removed to the Hospital, a living skeleton.
'The Hospital was truly a sad sight, the saddest I ever saw. There in
one ward, lying on the floor, were a dozen beings, literally living
skeletons, with sunken eyes, and ghastly hollow cheeks, and livid lips,
with their bones almost protruding through the flesh; too ill to move,
and barely able to turn their glassy, stony stare upon you. Yes, dying
all from starvation, and being hourly brought nearer death by wasting
diarrhœa or dysentery.
'One woman I shall never forget. She had her back to me, and her
shoulder-blade stood out so fearfully that I gazed upon it in momentary
expectation of its coming through the skin. So awful was it, that I
felt almost tempted to take my nail and scrape it, in order to see the
white of the bone. Perhaps the saddest sight of all was the lying-in
ward, where a lean mother was to be seen unable from weakness to nurse
the bag of bones she had given birth to; barely a child surely, with
its huge head and sunken eyes and its projecting wee ribs. Poor infant,
it couldn't live long.'
'_August 7._--This morning I was up at five, and after my breakfast of
porridge and goat's milk, was driving out to Jeramuchi Famine Relief
Camp, eleven and a half miles distant. The camp is much the same as the
Palaveram one I already described to you; but it is superior, and more
luxurious in some ways. It is not built in the form of a square, and is
all the better of that, I think. It is fenced in all round with a trim
palisading, as was the other camp, sufficient to prevent the people
straying at night. The chuppers are arranged on the pavilion system,
right down the centre of the camp. During the day they are entirely
open at both sides, therein differing from the Palaveram ones, where
one side is always closed. However, at night either side can be closed,
as the sides consist of pieces of matting on a wooden framework, which
is hinged to the side of the roof; and during the day the sides are all
put up, supported on two bamboos each.
'The children at this camp are all collected together and fed first,
the grown-up people afterwards. This morning I saw five thousand
children, in age from twelve to infants, mustered for breakfast. An
old gentleman with great swagger played a tom-tom with a couple of
sticks; it was in the shape of a kettle-drum, and they all mustered,
standing up in a row. M---- and I walked down two streets of these
children. They were almost all bright and happy-looking; and on being
asked if they had enough to eat, they all replied in the affirmative,
save one boy about twelve, who shook his head and smote his belly. Poor
creature; his looks confirmed his words; there he was on two legs like
walking-sticks, mere bones without an atom of muscle, on which he could
hardly stand. On being asked when he came in, he said last night. Where
were his father and mother? Oh, father, mother, brother, sister, and
he all left village together; walked many, many miles; no food. First
sister, then mother, died on the road; then brother; yesterday father;
he alone being able to reach the Relief Camp.
'This tale is only a repetition of dozens of the same. He was ordered
milk and port wine as extras; and I hope the poor orphan being will
recover. We went over the rest of the camp; saw the men and women
all sitting patiently in rows in their dreamy eastern way, silently
awaiting the summons of the tom-tom after the children's breakfast
was over, to call them to theirs. On coming to the Mohammedan women,
about thirty in number, they all promptly stood up. One could not but
be struck with their appearance, so fair-skinned, clean-looking, and
handsome, compared to the Pariahs and others. They all spoke Hindustani
of course, and were most polite and respectful. Despite the poorness of
their attire and the absence of their jewellery, they had a refined air
about them, and a superior look totally foreign to the ordinary Hindu.
One young girl I was particularly struck with; she could only have
been about fifteen, with most lovely eyes and perfect teeth, and such
a figure. Ah! I thought, if this young woman was dressed in European
clothes and was a lady, she would make a figure in London. Dressed in a
scarlet and golden saree, with bangles and other jewellery, she would
to my mind have been the realisation of my idea of an Indian princess.
'The Hospital presented the same sad scene of cases of emaciation as
at Palaveram; there were more than one hundred cases of dysentery and
diarrhœa. I also saw another case of a milkless mother trying to suckle
her newly born handful of bones in the lying-in ward. It is a mercy
with such a large community that no cholera prevails. They have about
twenty cases of small-pox. Leaving camp, we saw two stretchers coming
in with coolies. Every morning the highways and byways are searched
for three miles round; and those poor creatures who have died or are
found dying, unable to come to camp, are brought in. If dead, they are
at once buried about a mile away from camp; if alive, they are sent to
Hospital. The famine continues very bad; and there was a great meeting
in Madras at the Banqueting-hall, when it was acknowledged government
could not now cope with it without extraneous aid. Accordingly a
telegram was despatched to England, calling on the Lord Mayors of
London, Dublin, Manchester, Liverpool, and the Lord Provosts of
Edinburgh and Glasgow, to open subscription lists. I am sure it is a
worthy cause.... In Mysore alone there have been more deaths the last
three months than during the last five years. The Viceroy is said to be
coming down immediately from Simla to personally inspect the state of
matters.'
In a subsequent letter, October 25th, the writer adds--'The accounts
are still dreadful. Many poor creatures die after reaching the camps,
from inability to swallow or receive the nourishment offered to them
in the hospitals. The day the Viceroy visited Bangalore, no fewer than
ninety dead bodies were found in the streets and the bazaar. The people
at home have certainly done much to help their poor brethren in India;
but I believe they would do still more were they to be thoroughly aware
of the terrible scenes which have come under my notice.'
In conclusion, it is not out of place to say that the frequently
occurring famines in that country call for measures of prevention as
well as temporary aid. In making roads and railways, the English have
done vast service to India; but something equally imposing in the way
of irrigation from artificial tanks and from rivers has seemingly
become an absolute though costly necessity, for only by such means
can a repetition of these dire famines be averted. In this direction
evidently lies the duty of legislators, and we hope they will, with
considerate foresight, be not slack in its performance. There might
also, possibly, be something done by enabling masses of the redundant
population to emigrate, under safe conduct, as coolies to countries
where their labour is required.
W. C.
A BURIED CITY.
The history of the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii under the
ashes of Vesuvius is well known; but long before that period, and
contemporary with the age of Stone, a city in the Grecian Archipelago
was buried in the same manner, with its inhabitants, their tools, and
their domestic utensils. Here they have lain for thousands of years,
until M. Christomanos, Professor of Chemistry at the University of
Athens, called the attention of the public to them.
There is a small group of islands to the north of Candia where these
discoveries have been made, chiefly in Santorini and Therasia, which
with one or two others form a circle round a bay. The two already
mentioned are in the shape of a horse-shoe, with the concavity turned
inwards, rising from the bay in almost inaccessible cliffs. Horizontal
strata of deep black lava, layers of reddish scoria, and cinders of
violet gray, are unequally distributed over these steep rocks, the
whole being covered by pumice-stone of a brilliant whiteness. A few
banks of marble and schist crop out to shew the original formation over
which the volcanic ashes have poured; and long vertical streams of what
has been molten matter can be traced down the cliffs. On the opposite
side, facing the open sea, the islands are altogether different,
sloping gently down, and covered with pumice-stone, the light fragments
of which are soon displaced by the wind, and sometimes carried to great
distances by the equinoctial storms. A few villages are scattered
about, and the vine clothes the ground with its beautiful greenery.
From time immemorial the pumice of Santorini and Therasia has been
dug out for building houses; and when mixed with lime, it affords an
excellent cement, acquiring such hardness that it resists shocks of
earthquakes and the action of air and water. It has been used for
building piers and moles along the Mediterranean; and recently the
works at the Isthmus of Suez and the ports of Egypt have given a great
impetus to the trade, and thus opened out the underlying soil and
remains of human habitations. There are immense quarries where the
stone has been worked; the material being transported to the edge of
the cliff, and thrown down a _glissade_ about a hundred and fifty feet
high, to the side of the ships awaiting it. Contenting themselves with
cutting up the highest layers only, the workmen avoided the lower part,
which seemed to be mixed with stony masses. These hindered their work,
and were not valuable; but upon examination they prove to be walls
of ancient houses. This had no interest for the owners of the land,
who had long been aware of the fact; but an accidental visit from M.
Christomanos awakened the interest of scientific folks at Athens.
At first the idea arose that this was an ancient burial-ground, and
that the tombs had been hollowed out of the pumice-stone after the
volcanic eruption; but it is now fully ascertained that they were built
long before. The largest edifice, which has been cleared of the tufa
which fills it, consists of six rooms of unequal size, the largest
being about eighteen feet by fifteen; and one wall extends round a
court of twenty-four feet in length, with a single entrance. The walls
are built in quite a different manner from the fashion now used in
the islands; they are formed of a series of irregular blocks of lava,
uncut, laid together without any order; no mortar, but the interstices
filled with a kind of red ashes. Between the stones, long twisted
branches of the olive-tree are laid, still covered with bark, but in a
very advanced state of decomposition. The wood has become nearly black,
as if burnt, and falls to powder at the slightest touch. The inside of
the rooms has never been whitewashed; but probably a rough coating of
red earthy matter, similar to that which lies between the stones, has
been put on.
At the north side there are two windows; a third and a door are found
on the other sides, and several openings into the different rooms. As
these were formed by pieces of wood, which have decayed, the situation
of the openings is chiefly ascertained by the mass of stones that have
fallen in. In every case the roof lies in the interior of the rooms,
and has been formed of wood laid upon the walls in such a manner as
to be sloping; whilst in the largest apartment a cylindrical block of
stone buried in the floor, has evidently supported a beam of wood, from
which radiated the other pieces of the roof.
The things which have been discovered in this building are numerous
and varied. There are vases of pottery and lava, seeds, straw, the
bones of animals, tools of flint and lava, and a human skeleton. It
may be remarked that not one article of iron or bronze has been found,
not even the trace of a nail in the pieces of wood which have formed
the roof; the absence of metals is complete. The pottery is all well
proportioned, the commonest kind consisting of yellow jars, very thick,
and capable of holding many gallons. They are filled with barley, the
seeds of coriander and aniseed, gray peas, and other articles which
cannot be made out. The form, material, and size resemble the jars used
in Greece for keeping cereals in very early though historic times.
In many of the rooms, heaps of barley lie against the walls. There
are smaller jars of finer ware and a brighter colour, ornamented with
circular bands and vertical stripes. The colouring-matter, of a deep
red, has been put on in a moist state without variety of design, being
always in circles and straight lines.
Besides a double necklace and ear-rings of a woman, many articles
made of obsidian, a volcanic product sometimes called volcanic glass,
have been found in Therasia. These are cut, but not polished; some
of a triangular form have probably been the points of arrows; others
are like small knives or scrapers for preparing skins. The use of
obsidian appears to have been common during the Stone age among those
nations who lived in volcanic regions, and even in later periods. It
is said that it is still used by the women of Peru for scissors. It
was more generally in vogue before the discovery of metals than since,
particularly in Greece, where arms and tools of stone disappeared after
copper was found. In the strata where they are at Therasia, there is
nothing of iron or bronze.
Two small rings of gold are rather remarkable; they are so small that
they would not pass over a child's finger. It may be inferred that
they were links of a necklace. In each there is a hole about the size
of a needle's eye. Probably they had been threaded one after another
on the same string, and not interlaced like the rings of a chain. The
interior is hollow; and no indication of soldering can be perceived,
neither does the gold seem to have any alloy of other metal. The maker
had flattened the bit of native gold by hammering it to the state of a
thin circular leaf, and then folding it up with the edges to the inside
of the ring. As gold has never been found in Santorini or in any of
the neighbouring volcanic islands, it proves that the inhabitants held
communication with the continent; certain streams of Asia Minor having
been celebrated in antiquity for the great quantity of gold brought
down.
Geologists have endeavoured to draw out the history of the terrible
event which overwhelmed these islands and their inhabitants. At the
beginning of the tertiary period, Greece, united to Africa, seems to
have formed part of a large marshy continent, where now flows the
Mediterranean. It was inhabited by those gigantic mammifers whose bones
have been largely found in Africa. Towards the close of this epoch a
lowering of the land separated Europe from Africa, and gave to the
Mediterranean its present configuration. An oscillation of the crust of
the earth afterwards produced openings, through which igneous matter
has flowed. Torrents of lava gave birth to the volcanic rocks which are
to be found in Greece and the neighbouring islands, and a volcano had
evidently opened in the present bay of Santorini. The hill Saint Elias,
the top of which forms the culminating point of the island, was then
an island composed of schist and marble. The igneous matter, cooled
by contact with the water and the atmosphere, attached itself to this
hill, and the whole united together, formed the space now occupied by
Santorini, Therasia, and Aspronisi. Repeated layers of lava, scoria,
and ashes collected during many ages when the crater which occupied the
central part was gradually becoming undermined.