convent, there were many surmises concerning his disappearance. It was
thought that he had again embarked upon some voyage of discovery.
I believe he had, and it was a desperate one for him. The other
Argonauts married such maids as were left unmarried, and they did
well to do so. Some of the old sweethearts regretted their haste, and
looked enviously upon the new brides of Dreamland; but most of them
were satisfied with their children, and contented with such husbands
as Heaven had sent them.
Life grew slow in the little drowsy seaport; the old tales of
the Symplegades were stale and tedious; the Argonauts had become
spiritless and corpulent and lazy. One night a great gale swept in
from the sea: the earth fairly trembled under the repeated shocks
of the breakers. Old people looked troubled and young people looked
scared, and on the worst night of all the convent bell was heard to
toll, and then everybody feared something dreadful was happening to
the nuns, and everybody lay still and hoped it would soon be over.
The nuns wondered who rang the bell; and when every one had denied all
knowledge of it, it was known that most likely the devil had rung it,
for it was a dreadful night, and such a one as he best likes to be out
in.
In the morning, when the wind and the sea had gone down somewhat,
the wreckers found a stark corpse among the rocks under the headland,
lying with its face to the tower. It was dreadfully mangled: no
one could identify it as being any one in particular, and it
was impossible to know whether death had occurred by accident or
intentionally; so it was shrouded and put away out of Christian burial
in the common field of the unfortunate. The nuns sang a _requiem_, as
was their custom, and Maud prayed earnestly for all followers of the
sea; and the echo of her _miserere_ is the saddest line in the story
of Jason's Quest.
CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.
FOREBODINGS.
What weight is this which presses on my soul?
Powerless to rise, I sink amidst the dust:
The days in solemn cycle o'er me roll,
While, praying, I can only wait and trust.
--Trust the dear Hand that all my life has led
Through pastures green, by waters pure and still:
If now He leads me through dark ways and dread,
Shall I dare murmur, whatsoe'er His will?
DEER-PARKS.
There is nothing in England at the present day much more distinctly
an institution of that country than its deer-parks. Although it
seems probable that the Saxons had some sort of enclosed or partially
enclosed chases where deer were hunted or taken in the toils, the
regular and systematic enclosure of parks would appear to have come
in with the Normans. According to the old Norman law, no subject
could form a park without a grant from the Crown, or immemorial
prescription, which was held presumptive evidence of such a grant.
On the Continent there would appear to have been much more strictness
in this respect than in England. "In April, 1656," says Reresby in his
travels, "I returned to Saumur, where I stayed two months: then I went
to Thouars in Brittany, where the duke of Trémouille hath his best
house. Thouars is looked upon as one of the best manors in all
France, not so much for profit (a great extent of land there sometimes
affording not much rent), but for greatness of tenure; five hundred
gentlemen, it is said, holding their lands from it. Going to wait on
the duke, I found him very kind when I told him my country, the late
earl of Derby having married his sister. [1] He commanded me to dine
with him, and the next time mounted me upon one of his horses to wait
on him a-hunting in his park, which, not being two miles about, I
thought of little compass to belong to so great a person, till I found
that few are allowed to have any there save the princes of the blood.
So true is it that there are more parks in England than in all Europe
besides."
A large park would appear to have been among the many luxuries of the
princely Medici, for Reresby says: "Ten miles from Florence the duke
hath another country-house, nothing so considerable in itself as in
its situation, standing betwixt several hills on one side, covered
with vines and olive trees, and a valley divided into many walks by
rows of trees leading different ways: one leads to a park where the
great duke hath made a paddock course by the direction of Signior
Bernard Gascoigne, an Italian, who, having served our late king in
his wars, carried the pattern from England. Near to this house,
Poggio-Achaiano, is another park, the largest in Italy, or rather
chase, said to be thirty miles in compass."
Foremost amongst English parks is Windsor. The immense tracts by which
Windsor was formerly surrounded consisted of park and forest. Windsor
Forest has gradually diminished in size. In the time of Charles I. it
contained twelve parishes, and probably covered not less than 100,000
acres. According to a survey in 1789-92, it amounted to 59,600 acres,
of which the enclosed property of the Crown amounted to 5454. Like all
the other forests in England, it has been much encroached on, and now
consists of only some 1450 acres adjoining Windsor Great Park. The
rest of the land formerly composing it has been sold or leased. Enough
of the forest remains, in conjunction with the park, to enable the
visitor to make many delightful excursions. The most agreeable way
of seeing this sylvan country is on horseback. Perhaps nowhere in the
world can one get a more delicious canter. By a little management it
is easy to take a ride of twenty-five miles without more than a couple
of miles off the turf. In 1607 the Great Park was stated at 3650
acres: it consists now of about one thousand acres less.
The principal royal park in modern days, next to Windsor, is Richmond.
This covers more than two thousand acres, and, thanks to the railway,
may almost be regarded as a lung of London, being only eight miles
distant from the city. Richmond Park is as replete as Windsor with
historical association, and came into especial importance in the reign
of Charles I. That king, who was excessively addicted to the sports of
the field, had a strong desire to make a great park, for red as well
as fallow deer, between Richmond and Hampton Court, where he had large
wastes of his own, and great parcels of wood, which made it very fit
for the use he designed it for; but as some parishes had rights of
commonage in the wastes, and many gentlemen and farmers had good
houses and farms intermingled with them which they had inherited or
held on lease, and as, without including all these, the park would not
be large enough for Charles's satisfaction, the king, who was willing
to pay a very high price, expected people to gratify him by parting
with their property. Many did so, but--like the blacksmith of Brighton
who utterly refused to be bought out when George IV. was building his
hideous pavilion, and the famous miller of Potsdam, that Mordecai at
the gate of Sans Souci--"a gentleman who had the best estate, with a
convenient house and gardens, would by no means part with it, and made
a great noise as if the king would take away men's estates at his own
pleasure." The case of this gentleman and his many minor adherents
soon caused a regular row. The lord treasurer, Juxon, bishop of
London, who accompanied Charles to the scaffold, and other ministers
were very averse to the scheme, not only on account of the hostile
feeling it had evoked, but because the purchase of the land and making
a brick wall of ten miles around it, which was what the king wanted,
was a great deal too costly for his depleted exchequer. However,
Charles, with his usual fatal obstinacy, would not hear of abandoning
the scheme, and told Lord Cottington, who did his utmost to dissuade
him from it, "he was resolved to go through with it, and had already
caused brick to be burned and much of the wall to be built." This
beginning of the wall before people consented to part with their land
or common rights, increased the public feeling on the subject, and,
happening at a time when public opinion was growing strongly
against arbitrary rule, was no doubt one of the circumstances which
contributed to Charles's fall.
George II. and Queen Caroline lived much at Richmond, and the
interview between Jeanie Deans and Her Majesty took place here.
Jeanie, it will be remembered, told her ducal friend that she thought
the park would be "a braw place for the cows"--a sentiment similar
to that of Mr. Black's Highland heroine, Sheila, who pronounced it "a
beautiful ground for sheep."
The practice of hunting deer in a park, now quite a thing of the past,
appears to have been very prevalent at Richmond during this reign, and
apparently was attended with considerable risk. In a chronicle of 1731
we read:
"_August_ 13, 1731. The royal family hunted a stag in Richmond new
park: in the midst of the sport, Sir Robert Walpole's horse fell with
him just before the queen's chaise, but he was soon remounted, and Her
Majesty ordered him to bleed by way of precaution.
"_Aug_. 28, 1731. The royal family hunted in Richmond Park, when the
Lord Delaware's lady and Lady Harriet d'Auverquerque, daughter to the
earl of Grantham, were overturned in a chaise, which went over them,
but did no visible hurt. Mr. Shorter, one of the king's huntsmen, had
a fall from his horse, and received a slight contusion in his head.
"_Sept_. 13, 1731. Some of the royal family and persons of quality
hunted a stag in Richmond Park. A stag gored the horse of Coulthorp
Clayton, Esq., and threw him. The Lady Susan Hamilton was unhorsed.
"_Sept_. 14, being Holy Rood Day, the king's huntsmen hunted their
free buck in Richmond new park with bloodhounds, according to custom."
It will be noted that this sport took place at a season when no
hunting is now done in England.
There are two other small royal parks within a walk of Richmond--Bushy
and Hampton Court. Both contain magnificent trees.
The New Forest is now the only royal appanage of the kind, and the
House of Hanover has never made use of it for hunting purposes,
although the Stuart kings were very fond of going there. It was to
enjoy this territory that Charles II. commenced the magnificent
palace at Winchester, the finished portions of which are now used as
barracks. Nell Gwyn's quarters at the deanery are still shown. Up to
1779 there was a great tract of royal forest-ground near London, on
the Essex side, known as Enfield Chase, containing numbers of deer. If
we remember rightly, it is alluded to in _The Fortunes of Nigel_.
There are many more parks in the south than in the north of England--a
circumstance which is remarkable, having regard to the wilder
character of the ground in the former.
According to a valuable work on parks published a few years ago by
Mr. Shirley, a large landed proprietor, there are three hundred and
thirty-four parks still stocked with deer in the different counties
of England, and red deer are found in about thirty-one. It is
supposed that the oldest is that attached to Eridge Castle, near that
celebrated and most ancient of English watering-places, Tonbridge
Wells, in Sussex. It is very extensive, and there are no less than
ninety miles of grass drives cut through the park and woods. Almost
the largest park is that attached to the present duke of Marlborough's
famous seat, Blenheim. A large proportion of this magnificent demesne
formed part of Woodstock Chase, a favorite hunting-seat of British
sovereigns from an early date up to the time of Queen Anne. It was
then granted by the Crown to the hero of Blenheim, far more fortunate
in respect of the nation's gift than the hero of Waterloo, whose grant
of lands lay in a swamp which it cost him a little fortune to drain.
Next to Blenheim, in point of size, stands Tatton in Cheshire,
the seat of Lord Egerton. It contains 2500 acres, and the portion
appropriated to deer is far larger than at Blenheim. Tatton is from
ten to eleven miles around.
Another extensive park, 1500 acres, is that at Stowe, the duke of
Buckingham's. When in 1848 the family misfortunes reached a climax
which necessitated the sale of everything in Stowe House, the deer
in the park were sold off. But twenty-five years have rolled by, and
restored in a great degree the prosperity of the family. The duke is
again living at his splendid ancestral seat, is by degrees restoring
to their former home as the opportunity offers many of its scattered
treasures, and has restocked the park with deer.
Two parks pre-eminently famous for the magnificence of their oak
timber are Keddleston, Lord Scarsdale's, in Derbyshire, and Bagot's
Park, Lord Bagot's, in Staffordshire. The latter, which contains a
thousand acres, is a very ancient enclosure. It contains, besides the
deer, a herd of wild goats said to have been presented by Richard II.
to an ancestor of the present owner.
Parks vary from a paddock of twenty-one acres to twenty-eight hundred,
but the most usual dimensions are from one hundred and fifty to four
hundred acres. For a _multum in parvo_ of beautiful park scenery the
traveler in search of these charming specimens of the picturesque may
be advised to take a tour in Herefordshire and Worcestershire; and
if he be a horseman he will do well to ride through the country.
"Anyone," says Mr. Shirley, "who ascends the steep crest of the
Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, and looks down from the summit of
the ridge on the western side of the hills upon the richly wooded and
beautifully undulating country which lies stretched beneath as far as
the mountains of South Wales, would at once be struck with the 'bosky'
nature of the scenery, and its perfect adaptation for the formation of
deer-parks and sylvan residences."
Grimsthorpe, Lady Aveland's (inherited from the dukes of Ancaster,
extinct); Thoresby, Earl Manvers's, formerly the duke of Kingston's,
father of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and Knowsley, Lord Derby's, are
also very large parks.
A writer on Grimsthorpe in 1774 says: "On a former visit I was told
that the park was sixteen miles and three quarters in circumference,
and esteemed the largest in England: since then it has, nevertheless,
been somewhat enlarged, but different spots in it are cultivated."
A few parks have been created and others restocked during the present
century. In Norfolk, Lord Kimberley, the present secretary of state
for the colonies, has restored the deer which were removed during the
present century, saying, it is reported, that "a place is not a place
without deer"--a sentiment shared by many of his countrymen regarding
an ancient grand-seigneur home. In the same county a new park has
been created at Sandringham, the seat of the prince of Wales, the deer
having been brought from Windsor. Sandringham Park and Woods were half
a century ago a sandy waste, but fell into judicious hands and were
admirably planted. The modern history of the place is remarkable.
Toward the close of the century it became the property of a French
refugee, Mr. Matou. This gentleman having been driven from his native
country by the Revolution, conceived somehow the idea of importing
from Sicily immense quantities of rabbit skins, which were used for
making hats of a cheap kind which passed for beaver. In this way he
acquired a large fortune. In England he mixed in the best society, and
became very intimate with Earl Cowper, first husband of the well-known
Lady Palmerston, and at his death bequeathed Sandringham to the
Honorable Spencer Cowper, that nobleman's younger son, who married
Lady Blessington's stepdaughter, Lady Harriet Gardiner, after her
divorce from Count d'Orsay. When the prince of Wales was casting round
for a country-seat, Sandringham was selected. Lord Palmerston was then
in office, and some ill-natured things were said as to the sale of his
stepson's place having been a much better thing for Mr. Cowper than
for the prince of Wales. Vast sums have since been spent here.
Where a deer-park has long existed on his paternal estate, it goes
to an Englishman's heart to give it up. An incident in point occurred
about twenty years ago. In a secluded part of Devonshire, approached
by the narrow, high-hedged, tortuous lanes characteristic of that part
of the country, stands a magnificent old Tudor mansion known as Great
Fulford Hall. Here for upward of six hundred years have been seated
the Fulfords, a family of Saxon origin, the rivals of the Tichbornes
in antiquity. The mansion of Fulford was garrisoned by Charles I., and
taken by a detachment of Cromwell's army in 1645. The marks they left
behind them may be seen to this day. The Fulfords have supporters to
their arms, a very rare circumstance in the case of commoners. These
supporters are two Saracens, and were granted in consideration of
services in the Crusades. "Sir Baldwin de Fulford fought a combat
with a Saracen, for bulk and bigness an unequal match (as the
representation of him cut in the wainscot at Fulford doth plainly
shew), whom yet he vanquished, and rescued a lady." This gentleman's
granddaughter was the mother of Henry VIII.'s favorite, Russell, first
earl of Bedford, and the Fulfords are connected with a hundred other
ancient and honorable houses. But for a long time the heads of the
house have failed "to marry money;" and when this happens for two
or three generations in the case of a country gentleman with a large
family to portion off, the result must usually be impecuniosity. Thus,
when the late Mr. Fulford succeeded to the family property in 1847,
he found himself the owner of a majestic old dilapidated mansion,
surrounded by a deer-park, which had been gradually growing less until
the portion of the park devoted to this purpose was little more than a
big field.
Like his ancestor in the time of "the troubles," Mr. Baldwin Fulford
was a Conservative, and had been very useful to his party. It was
intended, therefore, to reward his services when the time came by a
county office, which would have placed him at ease pecuniarily. When
this office fell vacant the Tories were "in," and all seemed secure
for Mr. Fulford's interest. But there's many a slip 'twixt cup and
lip. A gentleman applied to the prime minister for the place for a
friend of his, whose services to the party he duly dilated on.
"I understood," said his lordship, "that Mr. Fulford's claims are
considered paramount." "Mr. Fulford!" was the rejoinder. "I scarcely
thought that such a place as this would be an object to Mr. Fulford--a
gentleman of great position, with a deer-park and all that sort of
thing." "A deer-park! You surprise me. I understood that Mr. Fulford's
circumstances were extremely reduced. This alters the matter."
Unfortunately, the, minister committed himself too far to draw back
before making inquiries, when he learned that a deer-park having
existed at Fulford for some four or five centuries, its owner had
kept as a memento of grand old days a little remnant of the herd in
a paddock, as before mentioned. He never recovered the blow of this
disappointment. The heir to the property is, we believe, a son of the
late bishop of Montreal. The family motto is "Bear up"--one eminently
suited to its present condition, and we may hope that it will be
followed so successfully that this ancient stock, which has held for
so long a high place among the worthies of Devon, may once more win
the smiles of Fortune.
Many of the most picturesque parks are but little known, lying as
they do remote from railway stations. Mr. Nesfield, the great
landscape-gardener, considers that Longleat, the marquis of Bath's,
near Warminster, has greater natural advantages than any park in
England, and that these have been made the most of.
Lord Stamford's park of Bradgate, in Leicestershire, is in the highest
degree interesting. It is mostly covered with the common fern or
brakes, and the projecting bare and abrupt rocks rising here and
there, with a few gnarled and shivered oaks in the last stage of
decay, present a scene of wildness and desolation in striking contrast
to some of the beautiful adjoining valleys and fertile country.
Another gem of its kind is Ugbrook. This is situated a few miles from
the Newton-Abbot station of the South Devon Railway, and lies in a
rocky nook on the confines of Dartmoor. Macaulay, whose brother was
vicar of the neighboring parish of Bovey-Tracey, knew it well,
and tells us in his _History_ that Clifford (a member of the Cabal
ministry) retired to the woods of Ugbrook. He was a lucky man to have
such paternal acres to retire to, but probably the visitor to-day sees
this park in a condition which Charles's minister would indeed have
enjoyed. There is no place in England where a man may feel more
grateful to those who have gone before him for their taste and
forethought in creating a sylvan paradise. Although not very large,
this park contains almost every variety of scenery. There is a grove
gloomy from the heavy shadows of the magnificent trees which compose
it, glorious avenues of lime and beech, and monarch-like trees, which,
standing alone amid an expanse of sward, show to the fullest advantage
their superb proportions. Entering the park on one side, the road
winds beside a river, to which the bank gently slopes on the one hand,
whilst on the other it rises precipitately, clad with the greenest
foliage. An especial feature of this place is what is known as "the
riding park," a stretch of smooth turf extending some miles, from
which you may get a view over thirty miles, with the rocky heights of
Dartmoor Forest, where the autumn manoeuvres take place this year, on
the one hand, and the Haldon Hills on the other. This ancient heritage
is still the property of the Cliffords, the present peer being eighth
baron in direct descent from the lord treasurer. The Cliffords have
always remained constant to the Roman Catholic faith, and a Catholic
chapel adjoins the mansion.
A discriminating foreign tourist writes of Lord Hill's park,
Hawkstone, in Shropshire, which, also lying rather off the beaten
track, is comparatively little known: "I must in some respects give
Hawkstone the preference over all I have seen. It is not art nor
magnificence nor aristocratic splendor, but Nature alone to which it
is indebted for this pre-eminence, and in such a degree that were I
gifted with the power of adding to its beauty, I should ask, What can
I add? Imagine a spot so commandingly placed that from its highest
point you can let your eye wander over fifteen counties. Three sides
of this wide panorama rise and fall in constant change of hill and
dale like the waves of an agitated sea, and are bounded at the horizon
by the strangely formed, jagged outline of the Welsh mountains, which
at either end descend to a fertile plain shaded by thousands of lofty
trees, and in the obscure distance, where it blends with the sky, is
edged with a white misty line--the Atlantic Ocean."
Moor Park, in Hertfordshire, is remarkable for the following tradition
concerning it: In Charles II.'s reign it was bought by the duke of
Monmouth, whose widow--she who
In pride of youth, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb--
is said to have ordered the heads of the trees in the park to be cut
off on being informed of her husband's execution. This tradition is
strengthened by the condition of many of the oaks here, which are
decayed from the top. The duchess sold the place in 1720, thirty-five
years after the duke's death. This is the Moor Park of apricot fame,
but not the one where Sir William Temple lived when Swift was his
secretary.
Most of the oldest and finest trees in England are naturally to be
found in the deer-parks. At Woburn, the duke of Bedford's, is the
largest ash--ninety feet high and twenty-three feet six inches in
circumference at the base. The Abbot's Oak, on which the last abbot
was hung, stands, or lately stood, here. It is remarkable that oaks
are more often struck by lightning than any other trees. At Tortworth,
Lord Ducie's, in Gloucestershire, is a chestnut asserted to have been
a boundary tree in the time of King John. So late as 1788 it produced
great quantities of chestnuts. At five feet from the ground this tree
measured fifty feet in circumference.
The lover of fine trees should wander through the glades of Lord
Leigh's park at Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire, where tall and shapely
oaks grow with such symmetry that you do not guess their size, and are
surprised to discover on measuring them how great it is.
Oh, how I love these solitudes
And places silent as the night--
There where no thronging multitudes
Disturb with noise their sweet delight!
Oh, how mine eyes are pleased to see
Oaks that such spreading branches bear,
Which, from old Time's nativity,
And th' envy of so many years,
Are still green, beautiful and fair
As at the world's first day they were!
Writing of the confines of the ancient forest of Sherwood, Mr. Howitt
says of those sylvan delights: "The great woods have fallen under the
axe, and repeated enclosures have reduced the open forests, but at
the Clipstone end still remains a remnant of its ancient woodlands,
unrifled except of deer--a specimen of what the whole once was, and a
specimen of consummate beauty and interest. The part called Bilhaghe
is a forest of oaks, and is clothed with the most impressive aspect
of age that can be presented to the eye in these kingdoms. Stonehenge
does not give you a feeling of greater eld, because it is not composed
of a material so easily acted on by the elements. But the hand of Time
has been on these woods, and has stamped them with a most imposing
character. The tempests, lightnings, winds and wintry violence of a
thousand years have flung their force on these trees, and there they
stand, trunk after trunk, scathed, hollow, gray, gnarled, stretching
out their bare, sturdy arms, or their mingled foliage and ruin, a life
in death. All is gray and old. The ground is gray beneath, the trees
are gray with clinging lichens--the very heather and fern that spring
beneath them have a character of the past. If you turn aside and step
amongst them, your feet sink in a depth of moss and dry vegetation
that is the growth of ages, or rather that ages have not been able to
destroy. You stand and look round, and in the height of summer all
is silent: it is like the fragment of a world worn out and forsaken.
These were the trees under which King John pursued the red deer six
hundred years ago, these were the oaks beneath which Robin Hood led
up his bold band of outlaws.... Advance up this long avenue, which the
noble owner of the forest tract has cut through it, and, looking right
and left as you proceed, you will not be able long to refrain from
turning into the tempting openings that present themselves. Enter
which you please, you cannot be wrong. These winding tracks, just
wide enough for a couple of people on horseback or in a pony phaeton,
carpeted with a mossy turf which springs under your feet with a
delicious elasticity, and closed in with shadowy trunks and flowery
thickets--are they not lovely?"
In the time of Elizabeth the largest park in Warwickshire, and one
of the very finest in England, was that which surrounded the castle
rendered classic ground by the immortal limning of Scott--Kenilworth.
In a survey taken in the time of James I. it is stated that "the
circuit of the castle mannours, parks and chase lying round together
contain at least nineteen or twenty miles in a pleasant country, the
like both for strength, state and pleasure not being within the realme
of England." Kenilworth came to an end in Cromwell's time, a period
very unfavorable to these sylvan paradises. He had the park cut up and
divided amongst various grantees. How much damage was done to the
park interest by the civil wars the following extract from the Life of
Margaret, duchess of Newcastle, attests: "Of eight parks which my
lord had before the wars, there was but one left that was not quite
destroyed--viz. Welbeck Park of about four miles compass; for my
lord's brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, who bought out the life of my
lord in that lordship, saved most part of it from being cut down; and
in Blore Park there were some few deer left. The rest of the parks
were totally defaced and destroyed, both wood, pales and deer; amongst
which was also Clipston Park of seven miles compass, wherein my lord
had taken much delight formerly, it being rich of wood, and containing
the greatest and tallest timber trees of all the woods he shad;
insomuch that only the pale-row was valued at two thousand pounds. It
was watered by a pleasant river that runs through it, full of fish and
otters; was well stocked with deer, full of hares, and had great
store of partridges, poots, pheasants, etc., besides all sorts of
water-fowl; so that this park afforded all manner of sports, for
hunting, hawking, coursing, fishing, etc., for which my lord esteemed
it very much. And although his patience and wisdom is such that
I never perceived him sad or discontented for his own losses and
misfortunes, yet when he beheld the ruins of that park I observed him
troubled, though he did little express it, only saying he had been
in hopes it would not have been so much defaced as he found it, there
being not one timber tree in it left for shelter."
The number of deer-parks in Scotland and Ireland is small. The
principal park in the former is that of the duke of Buccleuch at
Dalkeith Palace, near Edinburgh. At Hamilton, belonging to the duke of
that ilk, are wild cattle similar to those at Chillingham.
A wonderfully picturesque Irish park is Rockingham, the Hon. L. King
Harinan's, in the county Roscommon. The traveler will observe this
beautiful and very extensive demesne as he goes from Boyle to Sligo.
It is at the foot of the Curlew Mountains, and contains a magnificent
sheet of water surrounding an island on which stands an ancient
castle, still inhabitable. At Strokestown, in the same county, is a
small park, where Mr. Mahon, its former owner, planted many years ago
all sorts of forest trees, to see how far the deer would eat them: the
only tree they entirely avoided was the beech.
There is nothing grander in the three kingdoms than Lord Waterford's
seat, Curraghmore. Taken with the adjoining woods, the demesne
contains five thousand acres. The special feature of this superb place
is grandeur; "not that arising from the costly and laborious exertions
of man, but rather the magnificence of Nature. The beauty of
the situation consists in the lofty hills, rich vales and almost
impenetrable woods, which deceive the eye and give the idea of
boundless forests. The variety of the scenery is calculated to please
in the highest degree, and to gratify every taste."
At Lyme Park, the splendid old seat of the Leghs in Cheshire, "a very
remarkable custom," says Lysons, "of driving the red deer, which has
not been practiced in any other park, either in England or abroad, was
established about a century ago by an old park-keeper, who occupied
that position for seventy years, dying at over one hundred years of
age. It was his custom in May and June, when the animals' horns were
tender, to go on horseback, with a rod in his hand, round the hills
of this extensive park, and, having collected the deer, to drive them
before him like a herd of common horned cattle, sometimes even opening
a gate for them to pass through. When they came to a place before the
hall called the Deer-Clod, they would stand in a collected body as
long as the spectators thought fit; the young ones following their
dams, and the old stags rising one against another and combating with
their fore feet, not daring at this season of the year to make use of
their horns. At the command of the keeper they would then move forward
to a large piece of water and swim through the whole length of it,
after which they were allowed to disperse."
Following the example of the abbots, many of the bishops formerly had
deer-parks, and up to 1831 the bishop of Durham, a prince-palatine
in his diocese, had a park at his country-seat, still his residence,
Bishops-Auckland; but now the only prelate enjoying this distinction
is the bishop of Winchester, at Farnham Castle, in Hampshire.
"There are some," says a writer in an early number of the _Westminster
Review_, "who enclose immense possessions with walls and gates, and
employ keepers with guns to guard every avenue to the vast solitudes
by which they choose to be surrounded. Let such men pitch their
tents in the deserts of Sahara or the wild prairies of America. What
business have they here in the midst of a civilized community,
linked together by chains of mutual obligation and dependence?" These
observations apply to few private parks now-a-days. Permission to
drive, ride or walk through them is rarely refused. Almost the only
cases where there is much strictness in this respect are those of
parks situated near a great watering place, such as Brighton or
Tonbridge Wells. Thus, at the former, Lord Chichester's rule is that
all persons on horseback or in carriages may pass through his ground,
but foot-passengers are not allowed. The late Lord Abergavenny, a man
of very shy and retiring disposition, was the least liberal park-owner
in England. The gates of his superb demesne of Eridge very rarely
revolved on their hinges; and this was the more remarkable, inasmuch
as he did not reside there more than three months in the year. The
story was told that at his accession to the property he had been
more liberal, but that one day he was seated at luncheon alone when,
suddenly looking up, he observed to his horror three proletarians
flattening their noses against the window-pane, and gaping with
exasperating interest at the august spectacle of a live lord at
luncheon. To pull the bell and issue an order for the immediate
removal of the intruders was, in the graphic language of the dime
novel, the work of a moment; and from that hour the gates of Eridge
were so rigorously sealed that it was often a matter of difficulty
even for invited guests to obtain admittance.
It may seem very ill-natured sometimes to refuse admittance on
easy terms to such places, and to act apparently in a sort of
dog-in-the-manger spirit. But it should be borne in mind that the
privilege when accorded has not unfrequently been abused, more
especially by the "lower middle class" of the English people, whose
manners are often very intrusive. Such persons will approach close
to the house, peer into the windows of private apartments, or push
in amongst the family and guests while engaged in croquet or other
out-door amusements. Another common offence is leaving a disgusting
_débris_ lying about after a picnic in grounds which it costs the
owners thousands of pounds yearly to keep in order. The sentiment from
which such places are kept up is not that of vulgar display. They
are hallowed by associations which are well depicted by the late Lord
Lytton in an eloquent passage in _Earnest Maltravers_:
"It is a wild and weird scene, one of those noble English parks at
midnight, with its rough forest-ground broken into dell and valley,
its never-innovated and mossy grass overrun with fern, and its
immemorial trees, that have looked upon the birth, and look yet upon
the graves, of a hundred generations. Such spots are the last proud
and melancholy trace of Norman knighthood and old romance left to the
laughing landscapes of cultivated England. They always throw something
of shadow and solemn gloom upon minds that feel their associations,
like that which belongs to some ancient and holy edifice. They are the
cathedral aisles of Nature, with their darkened vistas, and columned
trunks, and arches of mighty foliage. But in ordinary times the gloom
is pleasing, and more delightful than all the cheerful lawns and sunny
slopes of the modern taste."
REGINALD WYNFORD.
[Footnote 1: This was the famous Charlotte de la Trémouille, so
admirably portrayed by Scott in _Peveril of the Peak_. Her direct
male heirs terminated in her grandson, the tenth earl, and she is now
represented in the female line by the duke of Atholl, who through her
claims descent from the Greek emperors.]
RAMBLES AMONG THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS.
TWO PAPERS.--I.
"Well, Abdallah, what have you in view that can tempt one to a ramble
on such a breezeless morning as this?" was my question of the turbaned
exquisite who had just presented himself on the balcony where we sat
at sunrise inhaling the fragrant breath of a thousand flowers. We
were at Singapore, that little ocean gem at the foot of the Malayan
peninsula, where, fair as a pearl, she nestles in the crested coronet
of the deep blue sea. The whole island is but twenty-seven miles long,
with a width varying from three to twelve; but in no other area of
such limited dimensions can the tourist find so much of enchanting
beauty and picturesqueness, or such a variety of tropical products, as
in this "garden of the East." Without mountains, but with its central
peak of Bookit Timá rising about six hundred feet above the sea, the
scenery is diversified with richly-wooded hills, evergreen dales,
and luxuriant jungle-growth drooping over and reflecting its graceful
fringes in many a little babbling brook. The fruits of the island are
varied and luscious, the foliage perennial, and its myriads of flowers
so gorgeously tinted, so redolent of balmy odors, that one is fairly
bewildered with the superabundance of sweets. Of course we were
nothing loath to tarry a few weeks on this fairy isle, and we gladly
availed ourselves of the opportunity thus afforded to enrich our
herbariums and sketchbooks with new specimens by making occasional
excursions to the jungles, and now and then a picnic to some of the
thirty smaller islands that surround Singapore. But as the foreign
tourist in those enervating tropical regions is not slow to acquire
the Oriental love of ease and inveterate aversion to fatigue even in
pleasure-seeking, we usually left our Mussulman comprador to seek out
objects of interest and report to us beforehand, thus saving us from
the weariness of many a bootless expedition, and catering to the
precise tastes and desires of each of us in the way of adding to our
treasures.
On the morning in question Abdallah had just brought in the invariable
morning coffee, served in the purest and tiniest of porcelain cups;
and while we listlessly sipped the fragrant Mocha he seemed scanning
our faces with more than usual interest, evidently expecting just such
a question as I had asked. What a picture he was as he stood there
in flowing robes and huge turban, with his jet black moustache and
bronze-brown complexion, one small hand placed over the heart in token
of his absolute devotion to the foreign sahibs, and his lithe, supple
form leaning forward in the most obsequious attitude imaginable! His
answer was characteristic:
"Well, Madam Sahib, I find much beautiful flower, but not all where
lady sahib can go, unless she can ride in sampán. Some roads too small
for palanquin, and lady sahib's satin slipper must not be soiled with
dust or mud. But I engage one big sampán with six men to pull, and, if
the foreign sahibs all please, we make one grand picnic to Pulo Nánas
(Pineapple Island) and Pulo Panjan. They can ride first to where boat
is waiting, visit Pulo Nánas, take breakfast under orange tree, see
much fine fruit trees, and then go to Pulo Panjan, where I gave orders
for dinner to be served for the sahibs."
"But pray tell us who is to serve it," laughingly responded one of our
party. "Are we to have monkeys or wild squirrels for caterers? It must
be one or the other, as I am sure I have been informed that neither of
those islands are inhabited by human beings."
"No man there, true, sahib," was our Mussulman's ready rejoinder.
"But I send small boat with two men to pull, and two cooks, with rice,
fowls, and everything wanted for breakfast and dinner. I believe they
already at Pulo Nánas, cooking breakfast; the palanquins are also at
the door; and so, if it be the sahibs' pleasure, it is better to start
before the sun gets very high."
All this certainly promised well for us pleasure-seekers, and was no
doubt quite as satisfactory an arrangement for our scheming comprador,
who always took care to add to every charge a very liberal commission
for his own valuable services. We well knew that he was cheating us
on a grand scale, but of what avail was such knowledge? We should
gain nothing by discharging one who had at least the merit of being
good-looking, well-mannered and pleasant-speaking, only to engage
another less civil and probably no more honest. And in India all
disbursements for personal and household expenses are made through
these compradors or stewards--not of necessity, but because it is
the custom of the country, and in the East one never rebels against
established usage.
Our preparations were soon made: sketchbooks, drawing materials and
covered baskets for specimens were transferred to the keeping of
our faithful Mussulman, and we set out, anticipating a day of rare
enjoyment. We were fortunate in securing the company of Mr. M----,
the accomplished president of the Anglo-Chinese College, who had
spent some thirty years in Singapore, and was well acquainted with its
localities and objects of interest. He was like a complete volume with
illustrations on everything pertaining to the East, could answer all
manner of unheard-of questions about things that everybody else had
forgotten, and had always ready an appropriate anecdote or story just
to the point. His very dress was characteristic. It consisted of loose
trousers of gray linen, and an old-fashioned white hunting-coat with
Quaker collar, and huge pockets that would have answered very well
for the saddle-bags of an itinerant surgeon. These were designed
as receptacles for such stray "specimens" in botany, geology or
conchology as he might chance to discover _en route_; while thrust
into a smaller breast-pocket he carried a brace of huntsman's pistols,
with antique powder-horn and shot-pouch slung over the shoulder. His
hat was a Panama with low, round crown and a rim nearly as large as
an ordinary umbrella. A Chinese youth, an orphan adopted by Mr. M----
years before, accompanied his patron in a full suit of yellow nankin
made _à la Chinoise_, with broad-brimmed straw hat, long, braided
queue, and the inevitable Chinese fan. The rest of us donned our white
linen "fatigue suits," and leghorn hats of such vast dimensions as
bade the wearers have no thought for umbrellas. Thus equipped, we
were ready for all sorts of emergencies--climbing rocks, diving into
jungles or wading through muddy creeks.
The drive was for the most part through spice plantations and groves
of orange and palm, and, without delays, would have brought us in an
hour's time to the coast. But we could not consent to press onward
to the goal ahead without pausing for at least a glimpse of the many
objects of interest on the way. First we strolled over a plantation
of black pepper cultivated by Chinamen. The vine is a creeper with
a knotty stem that if unpruned will reach the height of near thirty
feet, but in order to render the vines more productive they are kept
down to about a dozen or fifteen feet, and each is trained over a
separate pole or prop. At each joint of the stem the plant puts out
its fibrous tendrils, grasping the prop, and so climbing to the top.
Whenever a vine happens to trail on the ground these tendrils, like
strawberry "runners," shoot into the earth, but then they bear no
fruit. The branches are short, brittle and easily broken, the leaves
deep-green, heart-shaped and very abundant, and the blossom a cluster
of small white flowers, almost destitute of odor. The fruit hangs in
long clusters of some forty or fifty grains each, somewhat after the
fashion of the wild grape, though much more diminutive in size. Until
after it has reached its full size it is green, when at maturity of
a bright red, and black only after it has become thoroughly dry. When
the berries begin to redden the bunches are gathered and spread upon
mats in the sun to dry: then the corns soon wither, turn black and
drop from the stems, becoming thus the shriveled black pepper known in
commerce. What is known among us as white pepper was formerly supposed
to be a different species from the black; but the sole difference is
in the curing, that intended for white pepper being placed in baskets
under water until sufficiently swollen for the exterior pellicle to
rub off by rolling in the hands after being again dried in the sun.
The plants are propagated by cuttings, which are generally placed some
six feet apart, sometimes being trained over the trunk of an old tree,
and at others over a strong stake. The vines commence bearing the
third year, and continue to do so for a dozen or more, when they
are rooted up, new ones having been previously planted to take their
places.
We next called at two gambier plantations, both owned and conducted by
Chinamen who came to the island a few years before as common coolies.
The gambier (_Funis uncatis_) was formerly called terra japonica, from
being supposed to be an earth and to come from Japan. It is grown
on sandy soil or dry hills, and requires very little labor in
cultivation. It is a slender-stemmed, vine-like shrub with oval-shaped
leaves and pale purplish flowers in clusters. The seeds germinate in
forty days, and the seedlings are transplanted when about nine inches
high. When full grown they reach a height of ten feet or more, and
after the first year the leaves and branches are regularly gathered
and prepared for the market. Men and boys were engaged in plucking
the leaves and conveying them, in mat-bags suspended on each end of a
bamboo staff, to the boiling-ground. Here they were boiled until the
water was evaporated, and the inspissated juice deposited, which we
afterward saw drying in little squares. It is a powerful astringent,
having one-tenth more tannin than any other substance known. It is
used by the natives as a dye, also as a salve for wounds and for
chewing with betel-nut and tobacco, besides being largely exported
to Europe for tanning leather and for dyeing. All through the gambier
plantations, and in every department of the labor of preparing it
for the boiler, I observed that not a female was to be seen, and on
inquiring the reason was gravely told that gambier plants would not
flourish if touched by a woman! "Sensitive plants" indeed, so readily
to discern the difference between the handling of the two sexes!
Our next call was at a coffee plantation, where we saw sixty thousand
young and healthy coffee trees, and two-thirds of them in a bearing
condition, yielding in the aggregate not less than fifty thousand
pounds of dry coffee per annum. The trees are beautifully formed, and
rise naturally to the height of sixteen feet or more, but when under
culture are kept at five or six feet for the convenience of collecting
the ripe fruit. They are planted in rows, the leaves grow opposite
each other, and many sessile flowers are produced at their insertion.
The blossoms are pure white, and when the plants are in full bloom
nothing can exceed their beauty or fragrance, the branches looking
as if frosted with snow, while the air is filled with the delicate
perfume. But the scene is brief as enchanting: the flowers fade a few
hours after they are full blown, to be succeeded by tiny berries that
are at first green, then a yellowish red, and finally ripen into a
rich crimson or purple; after which, unless gathered at once, they
shrivel and drop from the tree. This is about seven months after the
blooms make their appearance. The pulp is torn off and separated
from the seeds by means of a machine, and the grains, after being
thoroughly washed, are dried in the sun and put up in bags. Chek
Kongtwau, the Chinese proprietor of the plantation, not only walked
with us over his grounds, and answered all our questions with
exemplary patience, but insisted that we should go into the house, be
presented to his wife and partake of a lunch. He regaled us with tea
and coffee of his own growing and curing, excellent turtle steaks,
boiled rice, and curry made of shrimps and cucumbers stewed together.
For vegetables there were the Malay lobak, a tender white radish, and
the cocoa-nut bud stewed in the milk of the ripe fruit; and as dessert
we had placed before us, for the first time, the far-famed durian, so
universal a favorite among Orientals as to command a higher price than
any other fruit in market, yet so abominably disgusting in smell that
the olfactories of few strangers can tolerate its approach. To me the
odor seemed precisely that supposed to be produced by the admixture of
garlic and assafoetida; and as a plate piled with the rich golden pulp
was placed before me by our hostess, I came so near fainting as to be
compelled to seek the open air. The old Chinaman followed me, and
when he had learned the cause of my indisposition, laughed heartily,
saying, "Wait a year or two. You have not been in the country long
enough to appreciate this rare luxury. But when you have become
initiated into a knowledge of its surpassing excellences, never an
orange, pineapple or other fruit will you touch when a durian can be
had."
Just as we were re-entering our palanquins, Chek Kongtwau inquired
whether we had yet seen the anoo palm or sago tree, of which he said
there was but a solitary specimen in the island, most of the sago
manufactured at Singapore being brought in its crude state from the
swamps of Sumatra. He told us the famous tree was several miles from
his house, out of our direct route, but if we had time to visit it he
would undertake to guide us safely through the jungle to and from the
tree. We found it standing in solitary grandeur in a low swamp, and
lifting its long pinnated leaves from the extreme top of a trunk full
thirty feet high and twenty-eight inches in diameter. Its general
appearance is not unlike the cocoa-nut palm. Our conductor called the
sago tree _sibla_, but the Malays give it the name of _rumbiga_. They
say that each tree, if kept properly pruned down, will produce at
least five hundred pounds of pith per annum; but it soon degenerates
if suffered to grow to any considerable height. The pith is soaked
in large troughs of running water until it dissolves and afterward
settles, the sand and heavy dirt sinking beneath it, and the fibres
and scum floating on top. After being separated from these impurities
the sago is dried, and then granulated by passing it through
perforated plates till it becomes smooth and polished like so many
pearls, when it is packed in boxes and bags for sale. We did not see
the process that day, of course, but afterward at the large factory on
the river a few miles above the settlement.
One more plantation, a grove of the stately areca-nut or betel trees,
we determined to visit before taking the boat. The smooth road was
bordered everywhere with the beautiful melastoma or Singapore rose, of
perennial foliage and always in bloom, underneath acacias and palms;
and the very earth was carpeted with beauty and fragrance enough to
have formed the bridal-couch of a fairy queen. Over such a highway
three miles were quickly made, and we alighted at the entrance of a
narrow lane that led to the abode of Cassim Mootoo, the Malay owner
and cultivator of the betel-nut plantation. At the outer door a stone
monster of huge proportions and uncouth features kept guard against
the uncanny spirits that are supposed to frequent out-of-the-way lanes
and dreary passages. The planter received us pleasantly, accepted our
apologies for troubling him, and offered to show us over the grounds.
He was far less courtly in manners than the Chinese coffee-cultivator,
to whom we should scarcely have ventured to offer a fee, while out of
the Malay's cunning eyes there gleamed the evident expectation of a
snug bonus of silver rupees, which he received as a matter of course
when we bade him adieu, and having counted them over and jingled
them for a moment in his fingers, he thrust them into his pouch as he
re-entered the house.
We found the areca trees planted in rows, and growing to the height of
some forty feet, with straight, branchless trunks, terminated at the
top with ten or twelve pinnated leaves, each of which is full five
feet long. The fruit grows in clusters immediately below the tuft
of leaves. The outer shell is of a bright golden hue, that gradually
deepens to crimson as the fruit matures, and when opened shows a
brown, astringent nut about the size of a nutmeg. This is the portion
chewed with chunám and tobacco all over the East; and its use is so
universal that one seldom meets a man, woman or child of any Oriental
nation whose mouth is not filled, always and everywhere, with the
execrable mixture. Pepper leaves are sprinkled with chunám (lime) and
rolled up: a slice of betel-nut with a quid of tobacco is placed in
the mouth first, and then the rolled-up leaf is bitten off, and all
masticated together. When a visitor calls the betel-box is immediately
passed to him; and as in regard to the eating of salt in Western Asia,
so, in the eastern and southern portions, those who have once partaken
of betel-nut together are ever after sworn to faithful and undying
friendship. The use of the areca-nut preserves the teeth from decay,
but keeps them stained of a disgusting brick-red color.
On the outer edge of Cassim's plantation, where the soil was damp, we
noticed several long rows of the nepah palm, generally known as attap,
and extensively used for thatching houses in the East. It has the same
huge pinnated leaves as most of the other palms, but is destitute of
the long straight trunk, the leaves commencing from near the root, and
the entire height being seldom more than twelve or fourteen feet. We
saw also a few specimens of the hutan, a strange-looking palmate shrub
with leaves fifteen feet long, which are generally used by the Malays
for sails, in lieu of canvas, for their piratical proas. But the
strangest of all the palms we saw was the talipát, so called from the
Bali word _talipoin_, a priest; and the name was originally derived
from the fact that the sacred fans used by Booddhist priests in
their religious ceremonies are formed of its leaves. This fan is a
prescribed item of clerical costume, and no conscientious Booddhist
priest ever appears without this long-handled fan held directly in
front of his face, to prevent the sacred countenance from coming in
contact with anything unclean. The sacred books of the Booddhists and
Brahmins are also written on the talipát palm leaves, as are many
of their historical records and scientific works. This mammoth tree
sometimes reaches the height of nearly two hundred feet, and its trunk
the circumference of twelve feet. It lives to the age of nearly a
century, but blossoms only a single time; during the whole period of
its existence. The flower, some thirty feet in length, bursts with a
loud explosion at maturity, and in dying scatters the seeds that are
to produce the next generation of trees. A single leaf will sometimes
measure forty feet in circumference; and it is no unusual sight on the
Malabar coast, where storms are so fierce and sudden, to see ten or
fifteen men finding shelter in a boat over which is spread a single;
palm leaf, which effectually shields all from both wind and rain. When
the storm has subsided the huge leaf may be folded up like a lady's
fan, and is so light as to be readily carried by a man under one arm.
The talipát never grows wild, it is said, as do most of the other
palms; and it reaches its greatest perfection in the island of Ceylon.
All that I ever met with were under cultivation, being tended and
nursed with the utmost care. Indeed, half a dozen talipát palm trees
are a fortune in themselves, the leaves being very profitable as
merchandise, while a crop may be gathered every year during a long
life, and then the tree be of sufficient value to be bequeathed to the
heirs of the owner.
Bidding adieu to our Malayan host, we once more entered the
palanquins, and in a little while were set down on the coast, where
lay our sampán with flag hoisted and pennons gayly flaunting in the
breeze. First we passed Battu Bliah, "the sailing rock"--so called
from its fancied resemblance to a ship under widespread canvas; then
around an abrupt projection of Erskine's Hill, in a narrow passage
between Singapore and Baltan Máteo, we came in full view of
the promontory upon the highest point of which is built the
palace-bungalow of the old sultan-rajah who held sway over the island
previous to its purchase by Sir Stamford Raffles for the British
government, in 1819. The old rajah has passed away, but the bungalow
is still occupied by his son, a pensioner on the English Crown, and
one of the most daring pirates in all that region--successful enough
to have achieved a fame for prowess, but too crafty ever to be caught.
At Pulo Nánas, where we were to lunch, we found the cloth was already
laid on the green grass under the protecting shadow of a huge orange
tree, whose ripe golden fruit offered a dainty dessert. We took our
seats with the "professor" at the head, and were soon discussing the
merits of boiled chicken, fried fish, omelette, oysters, turtle eggs
and sundry fruits and confections with the zest created by seven hours
of active exercise in the open air. Then came the reaction, inclining
every one more to repose than research, and the hours would probably
have been dreamed away barren of adventures, had it not been for our
indomitable professor. We had missed him but a moment, when suddenly
he reappeared, holding at arm's length what seemed in the distance
about a dozen brown, scaly snakes a yard long, all strung together.
Simultaneously the entire company sprang to their feet and started for
a race as this regiment of frightful reptiles was thrust into their
midst by the radiant "dominie," whose face was fairly aglow with
mischief. "Where did they come from? What are you going to do with
them?" exclaimed everybody at once, turning to look at the monsters as
they lay passive and motionless where the professor had thrown them.
"Give them to Saint Patrick, to keep company with those he drove out
of the Emerald Isle; or we'll have them for dinner if you prefer,"
was the laughing response. Reassured by the non-combatant air of the
dreaded reptiles, we ventured a nearer approach, and our astonishment
may readily be imagined when we found not snakes, but simply a cluster
of the pendent blossoms of the rattan tree (_Arundo bambos_), one of
the strangest of all the floral products of the tropics. They hang
from the tree in clusters usually of ten or twelve, each a yard or
more in length, looking like a soldier's aigrettes suspended among the
green leaves, or perhaps still more like a string of chestnut-colored
scales threaded through the centre. Waving to and fro in the summer
breeze, as I afterward saw them, intertwined with the graceful
tendrils of the beautiful passion-flower with its rare feathery
chalice of purple and gold, and flanked on every side by ferns of
exquisite symmetry, reflecting their dainty fringes in the clear
waters, the _tout ensemble_ is one of radiant loveliness, seemingly
too fair to be hidden away among lonely jungles.
Consigning our newly acquired treasure to the keeping of the
comprador, we sauntered forth in search of other discoveries, and were
richly rewarded by finding several perfect specimens of the monkey-cup
or pitcher-plant (_Nepenthes distillatoria_). This plant is found in
moist places, such as are suited to the growth of ferns, mangroves
and palmate shrubs. It has pendent from each leaf a natural pitcher or
elongated cup, growing perfectly upright and capable of holding a pint
or more of liquid. It is provided also with a natural cover, which
when closed prevents the ingress of leaves or rubbish falling from
other trees. The most curious circumstance connected with this strange
plant is, that it is nearly always found full of pure, sparkling
water, and that the lid closes of itself as soon as the receptacle is
full, and opens whenever it is empty. The water is thus protected from
dust, and kept always fit for the use of thirsty travelers, as well as
of the immense troops of monkeys that inhabit tropical jungles. When
the dainty cup has been drained of its refreshing contents, this
wonderful little plant again throws wide the portals of its exhausted
receptacle for the free entrance of rain or dew. Another plant, one
we had often heard of, and sought for without success, the so-called
oyster tree, was found, and proved to be nothing very wonderful after
all. It is simply an ordinary oyster or other shell-fish, that, tired
of lying in the mud, concludes by way of variety to try swinging
in the air for a while, and so fastens itself to the long, pendent
branches of the mangroves that grow luxuriantly on the shores of most
tropical islands.
There seeming to be no more objects of interest to detain us at Pulo
Nánas, and our chuliahs having already gone on to prepare dinner at
Pulo Panjan, we rallied our forces and followed suit. It was already
four o'clock, and so near the equinoctial line, where there is no
twilight, it is dark soon after six; but then Pulo Panjan was on our
route homeward, and we should have time at least to dine and gather
some of the beautiful flowers for which the island is famous, as well
as to taste the white pineapple, a rare and exquisite variety that
grows here in great abundance. Both rind and pulp are of a pale
straw-color; hence the name, to distinguish this species from the
ordinary golden-colored fruit, which is far inferior to the white.
Those we obtained were magnificent specimens--large and juicy, with a
flavor to tempt the appetite of the veriest epicure. Abdallah peeled
them in such a way as to remove the bur entire, and brought them
to our grassy "board" on pure white porcelain plates garnished with
wreaths of fragrant flowers. Never were the gods feasted on nectar
and ambrosia more divinely luscious than the white pines and golden
mangoes, the rich juicy grapes and sparkling sherbet, with which
we were regaled on that bright summer eve at the base of the old
flagstaff towering above our heads.
We had not much time for roaming, but gathered whole handfuls of the
lotus or water-lily, with its pale-blue, golden or rose-tinted blooms
gleaming up from the sparkling waters like the fabled charms of
mermaid or sea-nymph. There are many varieties of this exquisite
flower--blue, pink, carnation, bright yellow, royal purple fringed
with gold, and, more beautiful than all, pure, virgin white, with
the faintest possible rose tinge in the centre of each section of the
corolla, a just perceptible blush, as of its own conscious loveliness.
This last variety is the royal flower of Siam: it is borne before
the king at weddings, funerals and all state festivals, and the royal
reception-rooms are always beautifully decorated with the young buds
arranged in costly vases of exquisite workmanship. The costly silk and
lace canopies over the cradles of the infants of the king's family
are also made in the form of a lotus reversed; and it is said that in
cases of fever or eruptive diseases the leaves of the fresh lotus are
spread over the royal couches, as being not only sanitary, but more
agreeable to the invalid than the ordinary linen or silk bedding.
Guided by the rare rich perfume of its waxen buds, we found a choice
specimen of the bride-like moon-creeper, and bore if off, vine, blooms
and all, to a place among the floral adornments of our own home.
We reached home at eight o'clock, after a cruise, by sea and by land,
of thirteen hours; but the day had been so replete with enjoyment that
we scarcely felt conscious of fatigue, and were off again the next
morning, soon after sun-rise, for a ride to Bookit Timá ("hill of
tin"), the central and loftiest peak of Singapore Island. It is nine
miles from the city, with a smooth road to the very summit, so that
we might go either in pony palanquins or on horseback. We chose the
latter, as affording us better opportunity for observation and
the collection of "specimens," and, as we could readily gain the
mountain-top in season for a nine o'clock breakfast, the heat would
not be oppressive. Abdallah despatched the chuliahs, each with a stout
load of provisions, table-ware and cooking-utensils, at dawn, and
when we arrived our _déjeuner_ was ready to be served. The viands were
tempting and the cookery faultless, but we could scarce do justice to
either, so eager were we to begin our explorations on the summit and
sides of this beautiful hill, or rather hills, for there are twin
peaks closely connected, and each presenting an enchanting view of
verdant fields and fertile valleys, of the neighboring city, the wide
expanse of blue waters beyond, and the shipping in the harbor. Having
satisfied ourselves with gazing at the distant prospect, we began to
descend in search of adventures, sending our ponies ahead to await
us at the base of the mountain, where we were to dine. Onward
we strolled, gradually descending, every step marked by
novelties--flowers, grasses, weeds and shrubs vieing with each other
in varied and glad-some beauty. At length we sat down to rest beneath
a huge bombax or cotton tree (_Bombax ceiba_), its widespread branches
and thick foliage shielding us effectually from the noonday sun, a
fragrant blossom falling occasionally into our laps or pelting us over
head and shoulders, while with every passing zephyr the fleecy down
from the ripe bolls floated hither and thither, looking for all the
world like a snow-storm, except that the sun was shining luminously
in the clear heavens. This tree must have been sixty feet in height,
a grand, noble type of a green old age after scores of years well
and usefully spent, still vigorous and productive. We met specimens
afterward even taller and larger than this, and they are said
sometimes to reach the height of a hundred feet. The timber is light
and porous, and is in great demand for boats. Lower down, the various
palms, especially the cocoa-nut and cabbage, were all about us. The
former is found in nearly every tropical clime, and is of all trees
the one most indispensable to the East Indian, furnishing him with
meat, drink, medicine, clothing, lodging and fuel. The ripe kernel of
the nut, besides being eaten, has expressed from it an excellent oil,
that feeds all the lamps in an Oriental house, supplies the table with
a most palatable substitute for butter, and the belle with a choice
article of perfumery; the green nut affords a delicious beverage
to the thirsty traveler; the fibrous covering of the nut is readily
converted into strong and durable cordage, and the polished shells
into drinking-cups, ladles and spoons; the leaves are frequently used
for thatch, the wood for lathing and musical instruments, and the sap
for toddy, an intoxicating drink very common in the East. The tree is
graceful and pretty, with a tuft of large pinnated leaves at the top,
and nestled cosily in their midst are the clusters of fruit. It grows
to the height of forty or fifty feet, is long-lived, and bears fruit
nearly the whole year round. The cabbage palm is much less common in
a wild state, and few planters will take the trouble to cultivate
it, since a whole tree must be destroyed to obtain a single dish. The
edible part consists of snow-white flakes found just inside the bark
near the top of the tree. When stewed in the expressed juice of the
cocoa-nut it constitutes one of the most luscious dishes I have ever
eaten. The tree is tall and large, and the pinnated leaves very long.
In the moist portions of the jungle toward the foot of the hill were
whole groves of the fragrant pandanus, ferns of infinite variety, and
a species of wild mignonette with a perfume like that of commingled
strawberries and lemon. Now and then we paused beneath the thick
green foliage of the _Magnolia grandiflora_, as it towered in stately
grandeur above its sister flowers, acknowledged queen of the parterre,
and dispensing with genuine Oriental profusion its rare and delicious
perfume. A step farther and our gaze was riveted by the modest purity
of the spotless japonica, the fragrant tuberose and Cape jessamine,
the graceful passion-flower, with its royal beauty and storied
reminiscences, the peerless dauk-málé, fragrant and fair, the _Kalla
Indica_, with its five long petals of heavenly blue, the gold-plant
of the Chinese, and crimson boon-gah-riah of the Malays, the last two
consecrated symbols in the religious rites of those nations. What a
medley of sweets, flaunting their gay colors in the bright tropical
sunshine! Then the innumerable company of roses--tea, moss, perpetual,
cluster, climbing, variegated, and a score of others--how fair, fresh
and fragrant they are, peerless, queen-like still, even amid such a
gorgeous array of ripe floral charms! These, and a thousand others for
which we have no names in our language, are scattered profusely over
those sunny lands of dreamy beauty, vieing with each other in rare,
rich perfume, exquisite grace of form and matchless blending of their
warm, ripe colors.
The next day we dined at Dr. Almeida's, and in his magnificent garden
found several choice specimens of both the _Victoria regia_ and the
_Rafflesia Arnoldi_, the two largest flowers in the world, each bloom
measuring two feet in diameter. But the rarest of all the doctor's
treasures was the night-blooming cereus. There were six blooms in full
maturity--four on one stalk and two on another--creamy, waxen flowers
of exquisite form, the leaves of the corolla of a pale golden hue
and the petals intensely white. The calyx rises from a long, hollow
footstalk, which is formed of rough plates overlapping each other like
tiles on a roof. From the centre of this footstalk rises a bundle of
filaments that encircle the style, stamens springing also from the
insertion of the leaves of the corolla, lining it with delicate beauty
and waving their slender forms with exquisite grace. But the
real charm of the cereus is its wondrous perfume, exhaled just at
night-fall, and readily discernible over the circuit of a mile. The
peculiar odor cannot be understood by mere description, but partakes
largely of that of sweet lilies, violets, the tuberose and vanilla.
After the bud appears the growth is very rapid, often two or three
inches a day--that is, in the height of the stalk, the flower
expanding proportionately. When fully grown it begins to unfold
its charms as the twilight deepens into night, and reaches perfect
maturity about an hour before midnight: at three o'clock its glory is
already beginning to wane, though scarcely perceptibly; but at dawn
it is fading rapidly, and by sun-rise only a wilted, worthless wreck
remains, good for nothing but to be "cast out and trodden under foot
of men."
FANNIE R. FEUDGE.
A PRINCESS OF THULE.
BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."