REUNITED WITH HIS FAMILY IN ENGLAND
Maury arrived in England from Mexico, on March 29, 1866, and was once
more united with his wife and younger children in London, at No. 30
Harley Street. His appearance had been so completely changed by the
sorrows, hardships, and anxieties of the long years of separation that
none of his children knew him. Indeed, his youngest daughter, on seeing
him for the first time after his arrival, exclaimed, “This is not my
papa! This is an old man with a white beard!”
As soon as Maury had departed from Mexico, those who were jealous of
him and hostile to the Empire and Maximilian brought pressure to bear
which resulted in the abolishing of the immigration scheme. This was
made known to Maury through the following letter from the Emperor:
“My dear M. F. Maury,—Impelled by motives of economy and convenience
to abolish the Imperial Commission of Colonization which in the month
of September of last year I confided to your loyalty and superior
knowledge, I must on informing you of this measure express the pleasure
and satisfaction I feel for the exertions you have so successfully made
in the Empire to augment its population, without which the various
sources of wealth contained in its fruitful soil cannot be made
productive. If your talents cannot for the present be made available
in that way, I am convinced that they will be eminently useful in the
direction of the Observatory which situation I formerly conferred
on you, and in which I trust you will continue, that our beautiful
firmament examined by your intelligent eye may procure us the means
of profiting by the knowledge which science has already acquired, and
of making even new discoveries to increase the fame which you have
already so justly attained. Whenever circumstances will permit a new
development of colonization, I intend making appeal to your advice and
activity and I will now direct the necessary localities to be prepared
in the Palace for the Observatory in order to be able to have you
always near me. Believe me, Your affectionate, Maximilian”.
[Illustration:
MAURY AND HIS FAMILY REUNITED IN LONDON IN 1868 AFTER HIS RETURN
FROM MEXICO.
Mrs. J. R. Werth of Richmond, Virginia, a daughter of Maury (Mary
Herndon Maury in the photograph) has kindly identified the group as
follows: beginning with the lady standing on reader’s left, Eliza
Hull Maury, daughter; Admiral M. H. Jansen, Netherlands Navy, a
warm friend of the family; Lucy Minor Maury, daughter; Mary Herndon
Maury, daughter; Matthew Fontaine Maury, Junior, son; Mrs. Diana
Fontaine Maury Corbin, daughter. Commodore Maury is seated holding
his granddaughter, Nannie Maury Corbin, while Mrs. Matthew Fontaine
Maury is seated to reader’s right. Date of picture, 1868.]
This letter probably occasioned no very great surprise to Maury, but
he waited several weeks after receiving it before he replied, in part,
as follows: “I read, in your letter of April 19th, fresh proofs of
your Majesty’s confidence and friendly consideration; I am touched by
them. I am grieved to learn that your Majesty should be compassed with
difficulties so serious as must be those which made it necessary to
abandon such a cherished policy as I know that of colonization to have
been.... Colonization being suspended, I fear that my return to Mexico
would tend rather to increase the embarrassments than to smooth any of
the difficulties by which your Majesty is surrounded. This fear, my
solicitude for the welfare of the Empress and yourself, and the deep
concern I feel for your success in one of the noblest undertakings
that ever animated the human breast, make me pause.... In stating the
conclusion, I hope I may not be considered unmindful of obligations
or insensible to kindness. Far from it. Proof that I recognize both
in their highest sense is found in the fact that in homage to them I
forego the high and honorable position so kindly offered me near the
person of your Majesty in the service of your Empire.... That God may
ever have your Majesties in His holy keeping is the constant prayer of
your earnest well-wisher and humble friend, M. F. Maury”. Thus came to
an end Maury’s attempt to found a “New Virginia” in Mexico.
Having declined Maximilian’s invitation to continue in his service,
Maury began to cast about for some other way of earning money to
support his family. The first thing that suggested itself to his mind
was to make use of his new discoveries in the electric mine. Though
the English engineer Holmes had carefully guarded the secrets embodied
in these new ideas which had been intrusted to him by Maury, yet he
had done nothing in their exploitation and a clear field was thus left
for Maury to attempt to secure their adoption by the various European
governments. He accordingly conceived the idea of opening a sort of
school for instructing any representatives that foreign countries might
send to him, for the fee of 500 pounds per country. This offer was made
by him through a circular, which he sent out April 25, 1866 to various
diplomats in London, recommending three representatives from each
country. He was almost immediately invited by the French government
to come to Paris to teach its representatives, for which instruction
the sum of 25,000 francs was to be paid. Maury accepted this offer,
and in the course of his lectures, given on May 21 and 28, 1866, he
demonstrated the effectiveness of his electric mines on the River Seine
at Saint Cloud in the presence of the Emperor Napoleon. This visit led
to his being invited to become a French citizen, and his being offered
a position in the Meteorological Observatory in Paris. His family was
not willing for him to accept this position but preferred to return
to the United States at the earliest opportunity, and he accordingly
declined the offer.
In July, 1866 representatives from Sweden and Norway, and Holland
came to London to be instructed. There is some evidence that Russia
and England also sent representatives at this time. “I have a school
under weigh”, humorously wrote Maury, “with Sweden and Norway as
pupils—board and tuition 500 pounds. They will graduate in ‘sea
mining’ this week. Monday the 16th, the school opens for the Dutch at
500 pounds. I have heard no more about turning Frenchman. But the King
of Wurttemberg has been pestering me to keep the Prussians out of his
pea-patch of a kingdom. ‘Barkis is willing’, but I can’t say whether
anything will come out of it; I think not as the war looks like it is
drawing to a close”.
The lectures which Maury gave in connection with the demonstrations
of his mines gave an introductory sketch of all that his predecessors
since the time of Priestly had done in this field, an account of all
that had been accomplished by the South with this new weapon during the
late war, and then in detail the results of his own experiments. As
far as the submarine mine was concerned, he added nothing new to what
he had set down in the agreement with Holmes which was drawn up by him
just before leaving England near the close of the war. But as to their
use on land, the following details appear for the first time among his
papers: “After this hasty sketch, I come to electrical torpedoes for
guarding mountain passes and roadways, etc., for the protection of
strongholds and the defense of fortified positions. Shells cast for
the purpose should be used, but in an emergency tin canisters, or any
other perfectly water-tight cases, will answer. I am not aware that
electricity was used by either of the belligerents in the late American
war for springing mines on land.
“The cases for land-torpedoes should be shells cast expressly for the
purpose. The thickness of the shell being from one-fourth to an inch,
and even more, or less, according to the size and the probable handling
in transportation.
“They should be spherical; only instead of a hole for the fuse, as in a
hollow shot, they should have a neck like a bottle, with a cap to screw
over—not in—the neck. The case should be charged through the neck,
and the wires let in through two holes, counter-sunk, diametrically
opposite, the counter-sinking being for the purpose of receiving
pitch or other resinous matter to keep the water out. The fuse, being
adjusted to the wires, should be held in its place by a string through
the neck, while the wires are drawn out taut and sealed within and
without. Having proved the fuse, first fill and then drive in a wooden
peg. Then fill the space between it and the screw-cap with red lead,
and screw down tight so as to make it water-tight. Now secure the tails
of the wires so that they will not be chafed or bruised, and the mine
is ready to be packed for transportation. They are generally to be used
in stone fougasses, the wire being buried at convenient depths, and
all marks of fougasses and trenches removed as completely as possible.
Any number, not exceeding twenty-five or thirty, may be arranged in
a single circuit for the ebonite; but if the magnetic exploder of
Wheatstone be preferred, and the ground be perfectly dry, hundreds may
be planted in a ladder-circuit, which you have seen handled.
“The operator may be at any distance from these mines when he explodes
them, provided only he has established some mark or point which, on
being reached by the enemy, should serve as his signal. The area of
destruction of one fougasse, properly constructed, with a charge of
twenty or twenty-five pounds of powder, may be assumed to be that of
a circle seventy-five or eighty yards in diameter. Twenty mines would
therefore serve for a mile. Several miles may be planted in a night,
and the assailants may be enticed or invited out in the morning. Passes
before an invading army may be mined in advance, and thus, if he cannot
be destroyed, his progress may be so retarded by dummies or sham mines
as almost literally to compel him to dig his way.
“The power to telegraph through these torpedoes is of little
consequence, inasmuch as there need be but one station and one
operator. Using the testing-fuse manufactured by Abel, and a weak
voltaic current, the operator can at any time satisfy himself as to
continuity. Thus bridges and gulfs or breaks are not required for the
land as they are in sea-mining. Ebonite has the further advantage on
land that it takes but a single wire.
“Forts may be protected against assault, and your own rifle-pits from
occupation by an enemy, simply by a proper distribution of those new
engines of war. They may be planted line within line, and one row above
another, and so arranged that volcanoes may be sprung at will under the
feet of assaulting columns.
“The only attempt that was made in the late American war to bring the
electrical torpedo into play on the land was made by the Confederates
at Fort Fisher, in 1865, just before its fall. The narrow landspit
over which the attacking party had to advance was mined. The officer
in charge used the magneto exploder. But the mines would not go
off, owing no doubt to defective arrangement, for the instrument
was new to him, and he had not been posted up as to the virtues of
the ladder-circuit. The instrument used on this occasion was just
such a one as this before you. It was the first that had reached
the Confederacy. Here is then a most striking illustration of the
importance of previous study and drill in this new and important arm of
defense”.
In addition to Wurttemberg, Maury offered this instruction in electric
mining to her enemy Prussia, and also to the Governor General of Canada
for the sum of 1000 pounds sterling. These offers were not accepted.
His experiments had, however, been made known in this way to a number
of different governments, later information concerning his discoveries
leaked out through his agent in London to other countries, and finally
his system became so generally known that his particular contributions
to the development of this weapon of warfare were lost sight of, and as
a consequence Maury has not been given the credit that is justly due
him in histories of the electric mine.
The money which Maury received from these demonstrations of mines came
at a time when it was greatly needed, for he had lost practically all
his property in the United States through the war and after his last
arrival in England he had had the further misfortune to lose, through
the failure of a banker, all he had brought from Mexico. At about this
time, however, assistance came to him from another source. Indeed,
before his departure from England near the end of the war, a “Maury
Testimonial” had been begun at the instigation of some of his English
friends, especially the Reverend Dr. Tremlett, and by Commodore Jansen.
While Maury was in Mexico, these friends solicited funds for him both
in England and on the Continent, Tremlett even taking the trouble of
traveling through Sweden, Denmark, and Russia for that purpose. A
few months after Maury’s return to England this sum had reached the
total of 3000 guineas. Holland contributed 1100 pounds, the Grand Duke
Constantine gave privately 1000 pounds, and naval officers, scientists,
and friends of Maury in England and elsewhere on the Continent
subscribed the remainder.
The presentation was made at a special dinner given in Maury’s honor
at Willis’s Rooms in London on June 5, 1866. Sir John Pakington,
First Lord of the Admiralty, presided, and there were present the
Danish, Mexican, and Argentine ministers, six British admirals, high
officers of the Swedish and Russian navies, General Beauregard of the
Confederate army, Professor Tyndall, and many of Maury’s personal
friends like John Laird, Commodore Jansen, and Dr. Tremlett, who was
Honorary Secretary of the Testimonial Fund. The purse containing the
3000 guineas was presented in a handsome silver-gilt casket, and was
accompanied by the following testimonial: “We the undersigned beg
your acceptance of the accompanying purse of Three Thousand Guineas
in appreciation and acknowledgment of the eminent and disinterested
services which through years of untiring zeal in the cause of science
you have rendered to the maritime nations of the world. Receive from
us this public testimony of our regard with every wish for your future
welfare and happiness”.[22]
In July, 1866, Maury was engaged by Richardson and Company, a
publishing house of New York City, to write a series of geographies for
the public schools. It was agreed to make the series embrace “First
Lessons in Geography”, “Intermediate Geography”, “Manual of Geography”,
“Academic Geography”, and “Physical Geography”. Maury was to be paid
$10,000, $1000 for each volume on the receipt of the manuscript and
$1000 more for each volume three months after publication. He was
to receive also $600 for revising each book, for five successive
years. The following year an additional agreement was signed for the
publishing of “Practical Astronomy for Schools”, Maury to receive $1500
after the delivery of the manuscript and $1500 three months after its
publication.
In August, 1866 Maury wrote, “I am hard at work on Geography No. I,
‘Brave’ drawing the maps. Well, I could not wind up my career more
usefully—and usefulness is both honor and glory—than by helping to
shape the character and mould the destinies of the rising generations”.
Most of the work on these school books was completed before he left
England to return to Virginia in the summer of 1868, but at that time
only the first two of the series; namely, “First Lessons in Geography”
and “The World We Live In”, which was the “Intermediate Geography”
of the contract, had been published. From the very beginning their
reception in the United States was very flattering, and Maury was
delighted with his success.
The first little book contained only sixty-two pages. Its preface
stated that the pupils were to be taken on imaginary voyages and
journeys twice around the world—once by sea and once by land, and
it closed with these very significant words: “The teacher should
_teach_, as well as _hear recitations_”. The second book had just one
hundred pages, and was published the same year. These two books were
later merged into one, which was entitled “Elementary Geography”, and
afterwards called “New Elements of Geography”. In the preface of the
1922 edition of the latter is the following tribute to Maury’s ideas of
pedagogy: “Maury refused to follow the plan of all accepted textbooks
of that day. His plan was to present, in simple words and in the form
of a story, interesting facts about the different peoples of the
earth, their homes, their industries, and the lands where they live;
and at the same time to call attention to those physical laws which
largely determine the condition, the character, and the industries of
a people.... When published, these geographies were such a radical
departure from the old methods that many teachers were not prepared
to accept them; but leading educators have gradually come to Maury’s
position, and to-day the principles that he advocated are endorsed by
the Committee of Fifteen of the National Educational Association”. The
account of the other books in Maury’s geographical series, which were
not published until after his return to Virginia, will be found in the
next chapter.
When Maury left Mexico he had some hope of becoming connected with the
laying of submarine cables in the Atlantic. But the only opportunity
that presented itself was the offer of 1000 pounds for the use of his
name in connection with the North Atlantic Cable. Maury was unwilling
to agree to this, and the proposition did not materialize. He kept up
his interest in such engineering work, however, and in July, 1866 he
wrote that he had filed “provisional specifications” for a patent to
improve the manufacture and laying of deep-sea cables, which would
decrease the cost almost one half. But in the final successful laying
of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, completed in that very same month,
Maury had no part. Though Field had been, before the war, quite ready
to accord him due credit for his assistance in laying the first cable
across the Atlantic, yet at the banquet given him by the New York
Chamber of Commerce at the Metropolitan Hotel, on November 15, 1866,
he only casually referred to Maury’s name. Two years later at a dinner
in his honor in Willis’s Rooms, London, on July 1, 1868, Field did
not even mention, in his speech, the name of Maury, who that very day
sailed at last for his home in the United States.
The success of the Atlantic Cable, however, brought Maury another
decoration. This was offered by Maximilian in the following letter: “My
dear Counselor Maury,—It was with pride that I heard of the scientific
triumph just achieved, and due to your illustrious labors. The
Transatlantic Cable, while uniting both hemispheres, will continually
recall to their minds the debt of gratitude they owe to your genius. I
congratulate you with all my heart, and I am pleased at announcing to
you that I have appointed you Grand Cross of the Order of Guadalupe.
Receive the assurance of the good wishes of your affectionate,
Maximilian”. Maury, not realizing perhaps that Maximilian recognized
justly his right to share in the honor of the final success of the
laying of the Atlantic Telegraph, replied modestly, “The letters of the
16th and 18th of August with which I am honored show how kind and good
your Majesty always is. They do me much—too much honor, for I had no
hand in the achievement to which your Majesty so graciously refers.
The Telegraphic Cable in which I am to take part is not yet ready; when
it is, I hope to deserve the Imperial ‘well done’ which is ever ready
to encourage all good works. For the present, therefore, I do not ask
for the decoration of Grand Cross of the Order of Guadalupe”.
In the same letter, Maury shows that he was not unmindful of the trend
of events in Mexico, for he continued, “Events have vindicated the
wisdom of my not returning to Mexico. Jealousies within and enmity
without had already paralyzed my efforts to serve your Majesty and
Empire. I still see in the efforts of the Emperor and Empress of Mexico
to give good government with its blessings to that distracted country
one of the most sublime moral spectacles that is to be found in the
annals of dynasties. As soon as I discovered that I could not assist in
the noble work I resolved to stay away, for I have not the heart either
to hinder or embarrass your Majesty in these great labors. Animated by
the sentiments which I professed when first we met, I have the honor
to subscribe myself an humble but true friend of your Majesty’s. M. F.
Maury”.
By the end of June, 1866, matters had come to such a pass in Mexico,
through the exhaustion of the resources of the government, the
announced determination of Napoleon III to withdraw all French troops
from the country, and the opposition to Maximilian’s regime by both
republicans and clericals in Mexico as well as by the government of
the United States, that the throne appeared so much in danger that the
Empress determined, much against Maximilian’s wishes, to go to France
to make personal appeal for assistance from the Emperor Napoleon, who
had promised Maximilian to support him in Mexico for five years.
After failing to secure help from the French Emperor who had concluded
that it was not politic for him longer to support his protegees in
Mexico, she left the palace of Saint Cloud, after exclaiming, “What
after all should I, a daughter of a Bourbon, have expected from the
word of a Bonaparte!” Going thence to Pope Pius IX in Rome, she was
equally unsuccessful in obtaining papal intervention. So terrible
was the effect of this failure upon the overwrought Empress that
she immediately afterwards, October 1, lost her reason and became
hopelessly insane.[23]
Maximilian was informed of his wife’s condition, and made up his mind
to abdicate the throne. In this he was advised by General Bazaine,
through instructions from his master, Napoleon himself, who wished
Maximilian to leave with the French troops. But in an evil hour he
listened to the advice of the clericals and made up his mind to remain
in Mexico. Events then moved rapidly to a tragic climax. The French
troops began leaving in February, 1867, the last embarking March 12;
the republican government under Juarez extended its power rapidly, and
on May 15 at Queretaro Maximilian with his Mexican generals Miramon and
Mejia were betrayed by Colonel Lopez to the Juarists and, after a trial
by court-martial, were shot on June 19. Of this event Maury wrote,
“Poor Max! He died for his honor. He and ‘my’ Carlotta are the martyrs
of the age”.
As affecting his own affairs, he afterwards wrote of this Mexican
tragedy, “But for my good luck in having J. D. and Mal. for enemies
to send me here into banishment, and then kind Mexican villains to
intrigue me out of Mexico, you see the rocks that but for enemies I
should have split upon”. A very few years afterwards the mills of the
gods ground out their punishment for the faithless Emperor Napoleon,
and his empire went down like a house of cards before the onrush of
the German armies in 1870. Of Maury’s connection with Maximilian and
Napoleon, his cousin Rutson Maury wrote, “It was a special Providence
that carried you away from Mexico and that prevented your linking your
fortunes with those of Louis Napoleon”.
Maury’s decision to remain in England turned out better, in every way,
than he had anticipated. Here in London in the midst of most pleasant
and congenial surroundings he lived with his wife, three youngest
daughters, and son Matthew, Jr., who was then attending the London
School of Mines. During this peaceful life, in 1866, Maury became a
regular member of the Church, being confirmed with his son and his
daughter Lucy in Dr. Tremlett’s church at Belsize Park, London, by Dr.
Charles Todd Quintard, Bishop of Tennessee, who was then in England to
attend the Pan-Anglican Assembly at Lambeth and also to raise money for
the University of the South at Sewanee.
In 1868, Maury was signally honored by Cambridge University which
bestowed upon him the degree of LL.D. He was accompanied to Cambridge
for the ceremonies by his wife, his daughters Mary and Lucy, and his
friend, the Reverend Dr. Tremlett. Maury thus humorously referred to
the occasion: “So you don’t know what I mean by the ‘coronation’, eh?
Why boy, I’m a Cambridge LL.D. and am going there, I and Max and the
Queen on the 28th—she to unveil the Prince Consort and I to be rigged
up in ‘died garments from Bozra’ in a gown and a cap and a beautiful
red silk cowl and hear myself all done up in Latin!”
The “Max” whom Maury mentioned in this letter was Max Müller, the
famous Sanskrit scholar. Still another distinguished savant received
the LL.D. on the same day; this was William Wright, translator of
Egyptian manuscripts and hieroglyphics at the British Museum.[24] He
wrote afterwards to Maury of the bestowal of the degrees as follows:
“I have not been at Cambridge lately, but I know that all our friends
there are well. Max Müller is now in Germany; I hope to see him at Kiel
at the end of September, when we shall both attend the gathering of the
German Orientalists. Lord, what a figure we three of us looked, dressed
up like _lobsters_, in the midst of that big hall, gazed at by such a
host of people, ‘when shall we three meet again?’ Certainly never under
the like circumstances. I was glad to see that Oxford conferred its
degree the other day on your poet Longfellow”.
During the ceremonies, the Dean made a long oration in Latin, which
was addressed to the newly-made “learned Doctors”. The portion of
this which introduced Maury is as follows: “I present to you Matthew
Fontaine Maury, who while serving in the American Navy did not permit
the clear edge of his mind to be dulled, or his ardor for study to
be dissipated, by the variety of his professional labors, or by his
continual change of place, but who, by the attentive observations of
the course of the winds, the climate, the currents of the seas and
oceans, acquired these materials for knowledge, which afterwards in
leisure, while he presided over the Observatory at Washington, he
systematized in charts and in a book—charts which are now in the
hands of all seamen, and a book which has carried the fame of its
author into the most distant countries of the earth. Nor is he merely
a high authority in nautical science. He is also a pattern of noble
manners and good morals, because in the guidance of his own life he
has always shown himself a brave and good man. When that cruel Civil
War in America was imminent, this man did not hesitate to leave home
and friends, a place of high honor and an office singularly adapted
to his genius—to throw away, in one word, all the goods and gifts of
fortune—that he might defend and sustain the cause which seemed to him
the just one. ‘The victorious cause pleased the gods’, and now perhaps,
as victorious causes will do, it pleases the majority of men, and yet
no one can withhold his admiration from the man who, though numbered
among the vanquished, held his faith pure and unblemished even at the
price of poverty and exile”.
Thus did England make amends for its former failure to honor Maury
before the Civil War when medals and decorations were bestowed upon
him by so many other European governments. While in Cambridge, Maury
gave a lecture on “Science and the Bible; Educational Ideals of the
South” to further the interest in England in the financial support of
the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. In this address he
contended for religious education in the college, and maintained that
the Bible and science do not conflict if each is rightly interpreted.
Not long after Maury’s return to England, his friends began to urge him
to return to the United States. There was some talk of a professorship
in astronomy for him at the University of Virginia; and a definite
offer of a chair in the Virginia Military Institute was made to him by
the Superintendent as early as February, 1867. A little later he was
asked to become the vice-chancellor of the University of the South,
and for several months he was favorably inclined toward accepting this
position. He finally decided, however, in favor of the professorship
at the Virginia Military Institute at $2000 a year. He did not go
to Sewanee, he said, because he thought the Episcopalians at the
North were not disposed to assist the institution and the financial
arrangements did not give the assurance of reasonable grounds for
success.
Maury’s letter of acceptance of the Chair of Meteorology in Virginia
Military Institute is, in part, as follows: “I thank you kindly for
your letter of the 3rd inst. (April, 1868), explaining my duties in the
new Chair. They being such as therein defined, you have induced me to
accept. I should lack courage to undertake a regular course of lectures
as one of the faculty, simply because it would lead me into an untried
line of life; and as my rule is to put my heart into whatever I attempt
to do, and try my best, I should have to work overmuch—especially at
the beginning—and I am afraid of that. The consideration, therefore,
that I am not to be charged with a class, or expected to deliver a
regular course of lectures, removes a ‘sea of troubles’ and leaves me
in a field of research in which I am not altogether a ‘raw hand’....
You certainly do draw a very bright picture of the work that is before
me (The Physical Survey of Virginia)—of the results that are expected
from it, and of the success that is to attend my labors. We do not
weigh in the same balance the force that I can bring to the work.
Therefore, as bright as your picture is, I have my fears of what there
may be on the other side. ‘Still, it’s wise and brave to hope the
best’, and, bringing willing hearts and ready hands to the work, we’ll
try to rub even the dark side bright, should it be turned towards us”.
Though the General Amnesty was not passed until May 22, 1872, and
Virginia had not as yet been restored to normal relations with the
Union, her passing from Federal military control to home rule taking
place from April to November, 1869, still the Northern attitude toward
the Confederate leaders had already undergone considerable change, as
evidenced by the release of Jefferson Davis under bail of $100,000 in
May, 1867. Maury felt sure, therefore, that he would not be molested
if he returned to the United States, and accordingly after bidding his
many warm friends in England farewell, he set sail with his family from
Liverpool, on July 1, 1868, for the home from which he had been absent
for six years,—years filled with unusual and trying experiences.