"'As the king's hand is known by lavish largess,--
Little to him what is to thousands wealth,--
So in the sparing gift and long-delayed
We see the careful bounty of the gods.'"
"Those are the words of a Pagan priestess," Harry answered. "The hand
of our God is not known by its parsimony. He does not force on us what
we will not accept, but His bounty is limited only by our trust in it.
Ask large enough!" he exclaimed, springing up, and standing before
us,--
"'Ask large enough! and He, besought,
Will grant thy full demand!'"
"Who says that?" asked the Doctor.
"The greatest religious poet of the old time, translated by the
greatest of the new,--David, by Milton."
It was I who answered,--for Harry, absorbed in his own thoughts, had
not heard the question.
"You uphold him!" cried the Doctor, almost accusingly.
He rose presently and walked off for home. Harry and I followed, but
at a little distance, for he had the air of wishing to be alone.
I found that Harry's interest in the question of slavery was not new.
In Europe, it had pained him deeply to see the injury done to the
cause of freedom by our tolerance of this vestige of barbarism,--in
truth, a legacy from the arbitrary systems we have rejected, but
declared by the enemies of the people to be the necessary concomitant
of republican institutions. He has studied, as few have, the history
of slavery in the United States, and its working, political and
social. It has not escaped him, that, though limited in its material
domain, it has not been so in its moral empire: North, as well as
South, our true development has been impeded. His great love for his
country, his delight in what it has already attained, his happy hopes
for its future, only quicken his sight to the dangers which threaten
it from this single quarter. He sees that not only the national
harmony is threatened by it, but the national virtue;--for a habit of
accepting inconsistencies and silencing scruples must infallibly
impair that native rectitude of judgment and sincerity of conscience
through which the voice of the people is the voice of God. It is this
perception, not less than the strong call the suffering of the weak
makes upon every manly heart, that has brought Harry Dudley to the
conviction that the obliteration of slavery is the work of our time.
We talked of the slave; of his future, which depends not more on what
we do for him than on what he is able to do for himself. We spoke of
the self-complacent delusion cherished among us, that he brought his
faults with him from Africa, and has gained his virtues here; of the
apprehension consequent on this error, that what is original will
cleave to him, while that which has been imposed is liable to fall
from him with his chain.
We talked of the mysterious charm possessed by the name of Africa,
while its wonders and wealth were only divined and still unproved. We
talked of Henry the Navigator; of the great designs so long brooded in
his brain; of the sudden moment of resolution, followed up by a
quarter of a century of patience; of the final success which was to
have such results to the world,--in the African slave-trade, which he,
of Christian princes, was the first to practise,--in the discovery of
America by Columbus, to whose enterprises those of Henry immediately
led.
If we could suppose that man ever, indeed, anticipated the decrees of
Providence, or obtained by importunity a grant of the yet immature
fruits of destiny, it might seem to have been when Henry of Portugal
overcame the defences of the shrouded world, and opened new theatres
to the insane covetousness of Western Europe. We cannot suppose it.
Doubtless mankind needed the terrible lesson; and, happily, though the
number of the victims has been immense, that of the criminals has been
more limited.
The history of early Portuguese adventure--this strange history, full
of the admirable and the terrible, attractive at the same time and
hateful--owes nothing of its romance or its horror to the fancy of the
poet or of the people. It does not come to us gathered up from
tradition, to be cavilled at and perhaps rejected,--nor woven into
ballad and legend. It has been preserved by sober and exact
chroniclers. The earliest and most ample of its recorders, called to
his task by the King of Portugal, was historiographer of the kingdom
and keeper of its archives. Long a member of the household of Prince
Henry, and the intimate acquaintance of his captains, he heard the
story of each voyage from the lips of those who conducted it.
He makes us present at Henry's consultations before the fitting out of
an expedition,--at his interviews with his returning adventurers. He
gives us the report of the obstacles they met with, and the
encouragements. We follow the long disappointment of the sandy coast;
gain from the deck of the caravel the first glimpse of the green land,
with its soft meadows, quietly feeding cattle, and inviting shade. We
receive the first kindly welcome of the wondering inhabitants, and
meet their later defiance.
These earliest witnesses to the character of the black man are among
the most sincere. They were not tempted to deny to him the qualities
they found in him. They had no doubt of the validity of the principle,
that the stronger and wiser are called upon to make property of the
faculties and possessions of the weaker and simpler; they were as
sincerely persuaded that the privileges of superiority were with
themselves. They believed in the duty and glory of extirpating
heathenism, and with it the heathen, if need were. They acted under
the command of "their lord Infant," to whose bounty and favor their
past and their future were bound by every tie of gratitude and
expectation. They had no occasion, then, to malign their victims in
order to justify themselves. They did not call in question the
patriotism of the people whom they intended to dispossess, nor its
right to defend a country well worth defending. This people was odious
to them for its supposed worship of "the Demon," and for its use of
weapons of defence strange to the invaders, and therefore unlawful.
But, even while grieving for the losses and smarting under the shame
of an incredible defeat, they admitted and admired the courage by
which they suffered. If they seized and carried away the children left
on the river-side in barbarian security, with as little remorse as any
marauders that came after them, they made themselves no illusions in
regard to the feelings of the father, who, discovering his loss,
rushed down to the beach in a vain attempt at rescue, "without any
fear, through the fury of his paternal love." They made no scruple of
employing guile, when it served better than force,--the civilized and
the Christian are thus privileged in their dealings with the man of
Nature and the Pagan,--but their report does justice to the loyalty of
primitive society. Nor does their chronicler feel any call to make
himself their advocate. Glorying in their exploits, he is not ashamed
of their motives. He does, indeed, bestow higher praise on those with
whom desire of honor is the more prevailing incentive; but he has no
fear of detaching any sympathies by avowing that their courage was
fired and fortified by the promise and the view of gain.
I related to Harry some scenes from this narrative. He asked me to
write it out, and hereafter to continue it, by gathering from other
early witnesses what indications are to be found of the original
qualities of the black races; of their condition and civilization, and
of the character of their institutions, before they had been
demoralized and disorganized by foreign violence and cunning. I had
already sketched to him my views on this subject. His historical
studies, his knowledge of the laws and customs of primitive peoples,
enabled him to draw at once, from the facts I stated, the inferences
to which I would have led him, and to see titles to respect where more
superficial minds might have found only matter for a condescending, or
perhaps a disdainful, curiosity.
Harry's request came to confirm an intention whose execution I had
continually put off to a more convenient season. I gave him my promise
gladly, and determined to begin while he was still with me, that I
might have the pleasure of reading over at least the first pages with
him. Dr. Borrow likes to spend two hours or so after breakfast in
arranging and labelling his pressed flowers; Harry is pleased to have
some active work in his day. It was agreed between us that he should
give that time to helping Karl and Fritz, and that I should take it
for writing. I resolved within myself, though, that I would not wait
for the morning. Dr. Borrow was not in talking vein that evening. We
broke up early. As soon as I found myself in my room, I took out my
portfolio and began. It happened to me, however,--as it has often
happened to me,--that what I wrote was not what I had meant to write.
FRIDAY, April 12, 1844.
I was to tell the story of the Finding of Guinea. But let us leave the
land of mystery and promise still lying in shadow, until we have first
informed ourselves a little concerning the world with which the
Portuguese explorers are to bring it into relation,--the civilized and
Christian world, which is about to rush into the opened road,
proposing, in exchange for dominion and gold, to share with its
intended tributaries its own moral and spiritual wealth, and to endow
them with the fruits of its social and political wisdom.
We must be content to receive our accounts of Africa from Europeans:
let us try to look at Europe with the eyes of an African.
Let us suppose that the Moorish traders, whose golden legends drew the
eyes of Europe southward, have excited in a Ialof or Fulah prince a
desire to see the wonders of the North. Or rather, let the traveller
be a Mandingo; for that people is as remarkable for good judgment as
for truthfulness, and our observer of Christian manners must be one
who will not easily commit injustice. We will give him about a
three-years' tour,--more time than most travellers allow themselves
for forming an opinion of a quarter of the globe. It is the year 1415
schemes of African expedition are germinating in the brains of the
Portuguese Infants. The Mandingo has heard of Portugal from the Moors,
and of the young prince who has questioned them of Africa with so keen
an interest. Portugal, then, attracts him first. We may take it for
granted that the representative of Africa is well received. We may
suppose him to be entertained with the superb hospitality that Bemoy,
the Ialof prince, actually met with at the Portuguese court something
more than half a century later. All its magnificence is displayed for
his admiration; and its most delightful entertainments, such as
bull-baiting, feats of dogs, tricks of buffoons, and the like, are put
in requisition for him as for Bemoy.
The Mandingo traveller is, of course, very welcome to Prince Henry, as
a living evidence of the existence of the hidden world he has dreamed
of. The reports he receives of its resources, from so competent a
witness, confirm his hopes and inflame his zeal. He expresses to the
stranger his strong desire to see these interesting regions brought
into communication with Europe, and discloses those projects of
maritime adventure whose execution afterwards gained him the surname
of the Navigator. The manners and conversation of Henry are very
acceptable to his foreign guest, who is especially won by his
disinterestedness: for this prince, and his young brother Ferdinand,
not less ardent than himself, have the good of Africa as much at heart
as that of their own country. They wish, so they tell him, to aid its
advance in science and the arts; above all, they wish to carry there a
religion which has been revealed to them, and which cannot but prove
an inestimable blessing.
The Mandingo is surprised, and at first a little disturbed, by this
last announcement; for the account he has heard of the religions of
Europe is not such as to make him desire to see any of them
transported to Africa. But he learns that he has been grossly
misinformed: it is not true, as the Moors have reported, that the
Europeans are ignorant of a Supreme Being and worship only idols: they
do, indeed, pay homage to the images of tutelary divinities, whom they
call saints; but they are perfectly aware that these are subordinate
beings. The Africans themselves might, on the same evidence, be
accused, by a superficial traveller, of a like deplorable ignorance.
Neither is it true that many of the states of Europe worship an Evil
Demon who delights in carnage and is propitiated by massacre. On the
contrary, the Christian religion, which prevails in the greater part
of Europe, teaches especially love to God and love to man; it is
opposed to every form of violence, forbidding even retaliation, and
requiring its followers to love not only friends and strangers, but
even enemies. This account he receives from a good priest, who is
appointed to give him instruction. He is greatly moved by the
exposition of this sublime doctrine. Far from dreading, he now
ardently desires to see the influences of the religion of Christendom
extended to Africa. He has arrived at a favorable time for studying
its precepts; for Portugal is at peace with itself and its neighbors:
an unusual state of things, however, and not likely to last, as the
stranger cannot but soon perceive,--for preparations unmistakably
warlike are going on about him. He observes that the people are
agitated by various apprehensions; he hears them murmur at their
increased burdens, and at the prospect of having their sons taken from
them to die in a foreign land. All this is very puzzling to our
traveller. How reconcile it with the religion he was on the point of
embracing? At the court he sees elation and mystery on the faces of
the younger men; in those of the elder, grave concern. The people, he
finds, are as ignorant as himself of the object of the military
preparations: some saying that a new war with Castile is impending;
others, that the king is about to aid the Father at Rome against the
Father at Avignon. He is more and more perplexed; but, mindful of the
reserve and delicacy becoming a stranger, he is sparing of questions,
and waits for time and a wider experience to enlighten him.
In the mean time, he turns his attention to what seems to concern
himself more nearly. He believes that Henry, whom he perceives to be
as resolute as adventurous, will one day carry out his schemes of
maritime enterprise, and that he will thus exercise an influence on
the destinies of Africa. Will this influence be exerted for good or
evil? He sets himself to study the character of the young prince more
carefully, makes diligent inquiry concerning his deportment in
childhood, and tries to collect information in regard to his
lineage,--for this is a point much considered among the Mandingos. He
is so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of an ancient nobleman,
versed in the history and traditions of the country, as well as in
those of the royal court, and fond of telling what he knows, when he
has a safe opportunity,--for he is a man of experience, and does not
make either the past or the future a topic of conversation with his
brother-courtiers. To him the African addresses his questions, and not
in vain. The old man knew the present king when he was only Grand
Master of the Order of Avis, and the Infant Henry has grown up under
his very eyes. All that the traveller learns in regard to Henry
himself is satisfactory; and he finds that King John, his father, is
regarded as a just and wise sovereign. But, on nearer inquiry, he
discovers that this great king is, in fact, a usurper; for, in
Portugal, the successor to the crown must be the son of his father's
principal wife, and King John had not this advantage. He learns, with
yet more regret, that this sovereign is of a family in which filial
impiety is hereditary. The first of the dynasty, King Alphonso, made
war against his own mother, and imprisoned her in a fortress, where
she died, having first, as the Mandingo heard with horror, bestowed
her malediction on her son and his line. She foretold that he should
be great, but not happy; that his posterity should live in domestic
strife and unnatural hatred; that success should only bring them
sorrow, and even their just enterprises should turn to evil.
The African asks anxiously whether the religion of the Christians had
already been revealed in the time of Alphonso. His venerable friend
replies that it had, and that Alphonso, by his great piety displayed
in the building of monasteries and in the slaughter of Moors,--for he
did not spare even the tender infants,--averted from himself some of
the effects of the curse. But though he obtained the crown of Portugal
and was permitted to triumph over the infidels, yet it was remarked
that his life was disturbed and unhappy, and that he met with strange
disasters in the midst of his successes. The curse seemed to deepen
with time. His grandson, the second Alphonso, set aside his father's
will, and seized on the inheritance of his sisters; a third Alphonso,
son to this second one, deprived his elder brother of his throne; the
fourth Alphonso rebelled against his father, and was rebelled against,
in his turn, by his son Peter, whose wife he had murdered, and who, in
revenge, ravaged the country that was to be his own inheritance. When
he came to the throne, Peter caused the men who had been the
instruments of his father's crime to be put to death by horrible and
lingering tortures, which he himself superintended. This Peter,
surnamed the Severe, was father to the reigning king, entitled John
the Great.
The Mandingo, hearing this history of the royal house of Portugal, is
made to feel that he is indeed in a country of barbarians: a fact
which the pomp of their court, and the account he has heard of their
religion, had almost made him forget. The old courtier becomes more
and more communicative, as he sees the surprise and interest his
narrative excites, and ventures at last, in strict confidence, to
reveal that King John himself, before attaining to the crown, gave
evidence of the qualities that marked his house. He assassinated with
his own hand a man whom he considered his enemy, after inviting him to
an amicable conference; he spread devastation and horror through the
kingdom on his way to the throne, which, when he seized it, had
several other claimants. One of these was, like himself, a son of
Peter the Severe, and had the superiority of a legal birth; but he,
having murdered his wife, went on foreign travel, and happening, when
the throne of Portugal was left vacant, to be in the dominions of the
husband of his niece,--another of the claimants,--was seized and
thrown into prison. In this state of the family-affairs, John, the
Grand Master of Avis, saw a chance for himself. He consented to act,
until the true heir should be decided on, as Protector of the kingdom,
and in this capacity opened the prisons, offering pardon to all who
would enter his service. He thus formed a devoted little army, which
he provided for by giving it license to plunder the enemies of order,
among whom, it seemed, were dignitaries of Church and State, and holy
recluse women: at least, their estates were ravaged, themselves
murdered, and their dead bodies dragged through the streets in terror
to others. There was no lack of recruits; the reformed convicts found
the path of duty as congenial as that of crime, and all the ruined
spendthrifts and vagabonds of the country were content to link their
fortunes to those of the Protector. No corner of the kingdom was left
unschooled by summary executions. In fine, the adherents of the Grand
Master played their part so well, that the people, tired of the
interregnum, begged him to make an end of it and set the crown on his
own head. He complied, and the country had the relief of being ravaged
by the armies of his Castilian competitor and of supporting his own
forces in a more regular manner.
But all this is now over; the kingdom has enjoyed an interval of
peace, and begins to look with pride on the prince who won it so
adroitly and governs it so firmly. The curse which hung over the royal
line seems to have been baffled, or, at least, suspended, by his
irregular accession. He has held his usurped sceptre with a fortunate
as well as a vigorous hand. His five sons are dutiful, united, and of
princely endowments.
The Mandingo then inquires about the descent of Henry on the maternal
side, and learns that his mother is a sister of the late king of
England, a great and wise sovereign, whose son Henry, the fifth of the
name, now reigns in his stead. He must see the island-kingdom governed
by Prince Henry's cousin and namesake. But he postpones this
visit,--for he hears that in a certain city of the mainland the most
illustrious persons of Europe are assembled to hold a solemn council,
whose decrees are to have force in all Christian states. Even the
Supreme Pontiff himself is to be there, the head of the Christian
world, superior to all potentates. The African will not lose such an
opportunity of studying the manners and institutions of Europe. He
hastens to Constance, where the concourse and the magnificence surpass
his expectations. He inquires earnestly if he may be permitted to see
the Great Pontiff, and learns, to his surprise, that three sacred
personages claim this title, to the great confusion and misery of
Christendom, which has already shed torrents of blood in these holy
quarrels and sees new wars in preparation. Nor is this the worst that
is to be dreaded. The power of the rightful Pontiff extends into the
future life; and as each of the claimants threatens the followers of
his rivals with terrible and unending punishment in the next world,
the uncertainty is truly fearful. One of the pretenders is compelled
by the council to renounce his claims, and is instantly thrown into
prison, that he may have no opportunity of resuming them. A second
withdraws his pretensions by deputy; and it is understood that the
council intends to require a similar resignation of the third, that
the anxiety of the world may be put to rest by the election of a
fourth, whose rights and powers shall be unquestionable. There seems,
however, no prospect of a speedy solution of these difficulties; and
our traveller, having seen all the great personages of the assembly,
with their equipages and attendants, begins to weary of the noise and
bustle. But he hears that a ceremony of a very particular kind is
about to take place, and stays to witness it; for he will neglect no
opportunity of improvement. He is present, therefore, at the burning
of John Huss, which he understands to be a great propitiatory
sacrifice. When he hears, the following year, that a holocaust of the
same kind has again been offered in the same place, he, of course,
feels justified in recording it as an annual celebration. He notes as
a remarkable circumstance, that the victim, on both occasions, is
taken from the same nation; but he cannot learn that any law
prescribes this selection, or that the efficacy of the sacrifice would
be affected by a different choice. Another circumstance which seems to
him noteworthy is, that, whereas, under their old religions, the
people of these countries offered up, in preference, malefactors
reserved for the purpose, or captives taken in war, the Europeans of
this newer faith, on the contrary, select men without spot or blemish,
and possessed of all the gifts and acquirements held in highest honor
among them. He hears vaunted, on all sides, the virtue and learning of
Huss, and, above all, his extraordinary eloquence,--for this gift is
held in as much esteem in Europe as in Africa. He hears the same
encomiums pronounced on the second victim, Jerome of Prague, and
learns, at the same time, that the possession of these powers renders
his doom the more necessary. He can but infer that the great, though
mistaken, piety of the Christians makes them conceive that only what
they have of best is worthy to be devoted to so sacred a purpose. But
these reflections were made a year later. We must go back to the
summer of 1415.
SATURDAY, April 13, 1844.
It is in the month of August that our African traveller arrives in
England. The king is just setting off on a hostile expedition against
a country whose inhabitants, though Christian, like the English, are
held by them in detestation and contempt. Just before going, the king
is obliged to cut off the head of one of his cousins. The cause of
this severity is thus explained:--The late king, cousin to his own
predecessor, dethroned and killed him; and it being a rule in England
that what has been done once is to be done again, the present king
lives in great fear of cousins. He finds the people considerate of
these royal exigencies. He hears praises bestowed on the clemency of
the young Henry, who remits,--so it is reported,--in the case of his
kinsman, a grievous part of the punishment which the law awards to
treason, only suffering the sentence to be executed in full on a man
of inferior rank condemned with him as his accomplice.
Notwithstanding the disturbed state of the times, the stranger is well
received, and is questioned with avidity. He is gratified to find that
his country is a subject of interest to the English as well as to the
Portuguese. They seem, indeed, to be fully aware that Africa is the
most favored portion of the globe. They are never tired of asking
about its perpetual summer, its marvellous fertility, its
inexhaustible mines. Even the common soldiers in Henry's army "speak
of Africa and golden joys." He finds that some of the learned maintain
that continent to have been the first home of man, and believe that
the terrestrial Paradise lies somewhere hidden among its mountains.
When he becomes a little more familiar with his hosts, however, he
finds that they entertain some notions not altogether so flattering.
They are curious about a certain people of Africa who live in the
caves of the earth, whose meat is the flesh of serpents, and who have
no proper human speech, but only a grinning and chattering; they ask
him whether his travels in his own country have extended as far as the
land of the Blemmyes, a people without heads, who have their eyes and
mouth set in their breasts. He answers, a little stiffly, that he has
no knowledge of any such people. When they go on to inquire whether he
ever ventured into the region inhabited by the Anthropophagi,
explaining at the same time what peculiarities are intimated by that
name, his indignation almost gets the better of him, and he denies,
with some vehemence, that such wretches hold any portion of his native
soil. His English friends assure him that it is nevertheless very
certain that such a people live in the neighborhood of the Mountains
of the Moon. When he finds that he cannot otherwise persuade them out
of this injurious opinion, he ventures, though with as much delicacy
as possible, to tell them, that, while on the mainland of Europe, he
heard stories equally wonderful and equally absurd of their own
island. In especial, he heard a Frenchman assert that the eating of
human flesh was practised in some part of the dominions of the English
king. He assures his English friends that he refused to credit this
story, as well as some other particulars in regard to their island,
which seemed to him too monstrous for belief, though they were given
to him on the authority of a Greek traveller of high reputation, who
had not long before visited England in company with the Emperor of the
East, and who had enjoyed extraordinary opportunities for studying the
manners of the most polite society of the kingdom. The Mandingo is
here interrupted by his English hosts, who make haste to assure him
that the Greeks are everywhere known to be great liars; that the same
may be said of Frenchmen; and that, indeed, there is no nation of
Europe, except their own, whose word is at all to be relied upon. The
Mandingo refrains from passing so severe a judgment on the travellers
who brought back such rash reports of his own country, but he permits
himself to suppose that they did not themselves visit the regions
whose manners they described, but received with too little examination
stories prevalent in other, perhaps hostile, countries; for he is
obliged to confess, with regret, that Africa is not, any more than
Europe, always at peace within itself. For himself, he protests, that,
even if his natural caution did not prevent him from accepting too
readily the statements of the enemies of England, he should have been
guarded from this error by the favorable accounts he had heard from
Henry of Portugal, by whom he had been warned against believing the
stories current among the common Portuguese, who held their English
allies in ungrateful abhorrence, and regarded their visits in the same
light as those of the plague or of famine. His English friends approve
the African's candor; but he can perceive, that, so far as his own
country is concerned, they remain of their first opinion. They
politely turn the conversation, however, from the men of Africa to its
animals,--asking, in particular, about that strange creature, shaped
like a pig, but having a horse's mane, whose shadow, falling on a dog,
takes from him the power of barking, and which, lurking near a
sheepfold until it learns the shepherd's name, calls him by it, and,
when he comes, devours him. The African does not deny that an animal
possessed of these endowments may somewhere exist, but he is not
acquainted with it; neither has he met with the wonderful stone, said
to be found in the same creature's eye, which, being placed under a
man's tongue, causes him to foretell future events. This ignorance of
the natural history of his country does not raise his reputation with
the English.
They give him, on their part, every opportunity of forming a correct
judgment of their own country,--not concealing or extenuating things
liable to be found fault with by a stranger. Indeed, he cannot enough
admire the contented and cheerful character of this people, who find
advantages where others would have seen deficiencies or evils, and
account by latent virtues for disagreeable appearances on the surface.
They congratulate themselves that their sun never oppresses them with
its rays,--that their soil has not that superabundant fertility which
is only a temptation to laziness. They tell him, with pride, that it
is necessary, in travelling in their country, to go in strong parties
and well armed: for such is the high spirit and great heart of their
people, that they cannot bear to see another have more than
themselves; and such is their courage, that what they desire they
seize, unless the odds are plainly too great against them. One special
subject of gratulation among the English he finds to be the possession
of a king whose passion is military glory; inasmuch as the foreign
wars in which he engages the country have the double advantage of
keeping up a warlike spirit in the nation, and of clearing off the
idle hands, which might become too formidable, if their natural
increase were permitted. The Mandingo, seeing so much land in the
island left to itself, cannot help thinking that the hands might find
employment at home. But he suppresses this reflection, and, turning
the conversation upon agriculture, inquires how so energetic a people
as the English can be contented with so scanty a return from their
land; for he has remarked that the meagreness of their crops is not
wholly due to the poverty of the soil, but likewise, and in great
measure, to very imperfect tillage. Many reasons are given for this
neglect of their land, all more or less creditable to the English
people, but not very satisfactory to the mind of the stranger. At
last, however, one is brought forward which he at once accepts as
sufficient: namely, the insecurity of possession. It seems that
property in England often changes owners in the most unexpected
manner; so that a common man, who has hired land for cultivation of
its noble proprietor, is liable to be suddenly ejected, and to lose
all the fruits of his industry, to say nothing of the risk he runs of
laying down his life with his lease. For it appears that the nobles of
the country are equally remarkable for courage with the other idle
persons, and display it in the same manner. If they think themselves
strong enough to add their neighbor's estate to their own, they
will--so one of the Mandingo's English friends tells him--"make
forcible entry and put out the possessor of the same, and also take
his goods and chattels, so that he is utterly disinherited and
undone."
The African dismisses his surprise on the subject of agriculture, and
gives his attention to the cities, expecting to see the national
industry turned to arts which might offer a more certain reward. He
finds that the most skilful artisans are foreigners. It occurs to him,
seeing the great demand for weapons of all sorts among the English,
and their love of golden ornaments, that some of the skilful cutlers
and ingenious goldsmiths of his own country might find encouragement.
But he gives up this hope, when he sees the hatred borne to the
foreign artisans by the natives, who need their skill, but grudge them
the profit they draw from it. It is not an unheard-of thing for a
foreign artisan or merchant, who has begun to be a little prosperous,
to have his house pulled down about his ears. And well for him, if he
escape with this! Besides, the jealousy of the people obliges the
kings to be always making regulations for the injury of these
foreigners; thus the laws are perpetually changing, so that by the
time the unlucky men have adapted themselves to one set they find
they are living under another. The restrictions and heavy exactions of
the law are not enough: foreign artisans and traders are further
subjected to the capricious extortions of the collectors. The Mandingo
congratulates himself on the more liberal policy of his own country,
and on the great respect paid there to the professors of useful arts,
whose persons are inviolable even in time of war; above all, he
reflects with satisfaction on the sacredness of the common law there,
which, having been handed down through centuries, is known to all and
admits of no dispute,--whereas, under this system of written
enactments, continually varied, a man may spend his life in learning
the rules he is to live by, and after all, perhaps, become a
law-breaker before he knows it.
Notwithstanding some drawbacks, the African enjoys his visit to the
English highly, and finds much to praise and admire among them. He
does not neglect to note that they have the choicest wool in the
world. This possession, he finds, has endowed them with a branch of
manufacture which may be regarded as national. Their woollen cloths
are not very fine, it is true, but they are much prized, both in
England and in foreign countries, for their strength and durability.
He is much impressed by the religious architecture of the Christians.
Before their sacred edifices, he feels his soul lifted into a sublime
tranquillity, as in the presence of the grandest objects in Nature. He
is much moved at recognizing in the rich stone carving a resemblance
to the ornamental cane-work of African houses. This reminds him of
what he once heard said by a learned Arab,--that Africa was the first
home of the arts, as of man himself, and that they had gone forth from
their too indulgent mother to be perfected in sterner regions, where
invention is quickened by necessity. He cannot but bow before the
wisdom of the superintending Providence which has caused the rigors of
climate and the poverty of soil so to act on the mind of man, that,
where Nature is less great and exuberant, his own works are the more
transcendent, so that his spiritual part may never lack the food it
draws from the view of sublime and genial objects.
He admires less the arrangements of private dwellings. He finds that
in England, as in Africa, the habitations of families in easy
circumstances consist of several houses; but, instead of being all
placed on the ground at a little distance from each other, the square
in which they stand surrounded by a pretty palisade, as is the case in
Africa, they are here piled one upon another, sometimes to a
considerable height, so that it is necessary to mount by long flights
of uneasy steps; and then, in the cities, houses occupied by different
families often adjoin each other, having a partition-wall in common,
and their doors opening on a common way, so that it would seem the
people living in them can have no proper notion of home or of domestic
retirement. He finds that the houses of the common people in the
country are not of more durable material than African houses. Those of
the great are very commonly of stone, and, unless ruined by violence,
are capable of serving for centuries. The African does not think this
an advantage, as in the case of the temples; for these damp stone
houses, so long used as human abodes, become unwholesome; and what is
even worse, when evil deeds have been committed in them,--and this is
too often the case with the houses of the powerful,--the contagion of
guilt hangs round the walls, and the same crime is repeated in
after-generations.
The African learns, while in England, what was the real aim of the
warlike preparations he saw going on in Portugal. He hears of the
taking of Ceuta,--an event which excites almost as much interest in
England as in Portugal; for the English are supposed to have had a
great part in this success. He hears, however, the chief merit
ascribed to a beneficent being who bears the title of "The Lady of
Mercy." It seems, the besiegers landed on a day especially consecrated
to her; and to her kind interposition is referred the taking of the
city and the terrible slaughter of the Moors who defended it. The
African asks how favors of this kind can be made consistent with the
character ascribed to this divinity, and is answered, that her mercies
are for those who reverence her,--that the unbelieving Moors have no
claim on her grace. He is pained; for the lovely qualities he has
heard attributed to this gracious being had drawn his heart to her as
to one well fitted to be a dispenser of the bounties of Heaven. But it
does not appear that she is consistent even in the protection of
Christians; for he hears it mentioned as an auspicious augury, that
the English king effected his landing in the Christian kingdom of
France on the eve of her chosen day; and later, when the Battle of
Agincourt fills England with rejoicing, he hears the circumstance
again referred to, and the Merciful Lady invoked as a benefactress.
He is daily more and more perplexed in regard to the religion of the
Christians. He obtains instruction of an English priest, and finds he
has made no mistake as to its tenets: it is understood to teach
universal love and ready forgiveness in England as in Portugal. Yet he
observes that nothing is considered more shameful among Christians
than to pardon an injury; even the smallest affront is to be atoned by
blood; and so far from the estimation in which a man is held depending
on the good he has done, he is the greatest man who has slain the
greatest number of his fellow-creatures.
As he stands one day before a cathedral, marvelling how people so
selfish and narrow in their religious views could imagine this grand
temple, which seems, indeed, raised to the Universal Father, his
attention is drawn to a man of noble aspect, who is observing him with
a look so kind and pitiful that he is emboldened to give the
confidence which it seems to invite.
"I cannot understand the religion of the Christians!"
"The time will come when they will understand it better themselves.
They are now like little children, who do, indeed, reverence the words
of their father, but have not yet understanding to comprehend and
follow them."
The Mandingo has no time to thank his new instructor. A party of
ruffians, who have been for some moments watching the venerable man,
now seize upon him, put irons on his hands and feet, and drag him
away, amid the shouts and cries of the people, who crowd round, some
insulting the prisoner, others bemoaning his fate, others asking his
blessing as he passes. The wondering traveller can get no other reply
to his questions than, "A Lollard! a Lollard!" uttered in different
tones of disgust or compassion.
He learns, upon inquiry, that the Lollards are people who hold
opinions disagreeable to the king and to the great generally. For they
pretend to understand the doctrines of the Christian religion after a
manner of their own; and it is thought this interpretation, if
disseminated among the common people, would cause serious
inconvenience to their superiors. In order to prevent the spread of
these dangerous doctrines, open and notorious professors of them are
shut up in prison. Yet, notwithstanding the severities which await the
adherents of this sect, such is the hard-heartedness of its leaders,
that, when they can manage to elude justice for a time, they use
unceasing efforts to persuade others to their ruin. There are among
them some men of eloquence, and their success in making converts has
been so great that the prisons are filled with men of the better
condition, who look for no other release than death; while, in the
dungeons below them, people of the common sort are heaped upon each
other, perishing miserably of fevers engendered by damp and hunger.
In spite of this unfavorable account of the Lollards, the African is
glad when he hears that the only one of them he knows anything about
has escaped from prison,--for the second or third time, it seems.
The words of the fugitive have sunk deep into the heart of the
Mandingo. But the distant hope, that the Christians may in time grow
up to their religion, cannot revive the delight which, when he first
became acquainted with its doctrines, he felt in the thought that this
divine revelation was to be carried to Africa. What teachers are those
who themselves know not what they teach! His heart is heavy, when he
sees how the Christians triumph over the fall of Ceuta. Their foot
once set on African soil, their imagination embraces the whole
continent. He sees the eyes of the narrators and the listeners
alternately gleam and darken with cupidity and envy over the story of
the successful assault, and of the immense booty won by the victors,
who "seem to have gathered in a single city the spoil of the
universe." He is not reassured by the admiration bestowed on the craft
of the Portuguese, who contrived to keep their intended prey lulled in
a false security until they were ready to fall upon it. They sent out
two galleys, splendidly equipped and decorated, to convey a pretended
embassy to another place. The envoys, according to private
instructions, stopped on the way at Ceuta, as if for rest and
refreshment, and, while receiving its hospitality, found opportunity
to examine its defences and spy out its weak points. The King of
Portugal himself, arriving near the devoted place with the fleet that
brought its ruin, deigned to accept civilities and kind offices from
the Infidels, in order the better to conceal his designs until the
moment came for disclosing them with effect. The Mandingo recalls with
less pleasure than heretofore the kind words of the Infant Henry and
his brother. When he hears that the terrible first Alphonso of
Portugal has made himself visible in a church at Coimbra, urging his
descendants to follow up their successes, he shudders with foreboding.
We will not follow our explorer through all his voyages and
experiences. They are numerous and wide. He carries his investigations
even to the far North, where Eric of Pomerania wears the triple crown,
placed on his head by the great Margaret. His wife is Philippa of
England, niece and namesake of the mother of Henry of Portugal. It is,
in part, interest in the family of that prince, his first intimate
acquaintance in Europe, which leads the African on this distant
journey. But he soon finds that neither pleasure nor profit is to be
had in the dominions of Eric, an untamed savage, who beats his wife
and ruins his subjects. The great men who rule under him are as bad as
himself. Some of them have been noted sea-robbers; even the prelates
are not ashamed to increase their revenues by the proceeds of piracy.
The traveller gives but a glance to the miseries of Sweden, where the
people are perishing under Eric's officials, who extort tribute from
them by the most frightful tortures, and where women, yoked together,
are drawing loaded carts, like oxen.
He returns to England, where he finds preparations making for a solemn
sacrifice. He hears, not without emotion, that the victim selected for
this occasion is the stately man who once stood with him in front of
the great cathedral. He visits the place chosen for the celebration,
and sees the pile of wood prepared to feed the fire, over which the
victim is to be suspended by an iron chain. He cannot bring himself to
witness the sacrifice, but he afterwards hears that it was performed
with great pomp in the presence of many illustrious persons. The king
himself, it seems, once superintended a similar ceremony in the
lifetime of his father, by whom this species of sacrifice had been
reinstituted after a very long disuse. It is customary to choose the
victim from among the Lollards, as it is thought that the chance of
serving on these occasions will contribute to deter people from
adopting, or at least from proclaiming, the unsafe opinions of that
sect.
The African traveller's last visit is to France. He made an earlier
attempt to see that country, but, finding it ravaged by invasion and
by civil war, deferred his design to a quieter time. Such a time does
not arrive; but he cannot leave one of the most important countries of
Europe unseen. On landing in France, he finds the condition of things
even worse than he had anticipated. But he resolves to penetrate to
Paris, in spite of the dangers of the road. He passes through
desolated regions, where only the smoke rising from black heaps gives
sign of former villages, and where the remaining trees, serving as
gibbets, still bear the trophies of the reciprocal justice which the
nobles and gentlemen of the country have been executing on each other.
It is on this journey through France that the Mandingo learns to be
truly grateful for having been born in a civilized country. The
unfortunate land in which he now finds himself has at its head a young
prince who has robbed his own mother and sent her to prison. Such
impious guilt cannot, the African feels, fail to draw down the
vengeance of Heaven. Accordingly, when he reaches the capital, he
finds the inhabitants engaged in an indiscriminate slaughter of their
friends and neighbors. It almost seems to a stranger that the city is
built on red clay, so soaked are the principal streets with blood.
The traveller meets no one sane enough to give an explanation of this
state of things. Nor does he require one. It is plain that this people
is afflicted with a judicial madness, sent upon it for the crimes of
its chiefs. He finds his way to a street where the work seems
completed. All is quiet here, except where some wretch still struggles
with his last agony, or where one not yet wounded to death is dragging
himself stealthily along the ground towards some covert where he may
perhaps live through to a safer time. The stranger stoops
compassionately to a child that lies on its dead father; but, as he
raises it, he feels that the heaviness is not that of sleep, and lays
it back on the breast where it belongs. In a neighboring quarter the
work is still at its highest. Where he stands, he hears the yell of
fury, the sharp cry of terror, the burst of discordant laughter, rise
above the clang of weapons and the clamor of threatening and
remonstrance; while, under all, the roar of a great city in movement
deepens with curse and prayer and groan. And now a woman rushes from a
side-street, looks wildly round for refuge, then runs, shrieking, on,
until, stumbling over the dead bodies in her way, she is overtaken and
silenced forever.
He has made his way out of France, and is planning new journeys, when
he receives, through some travelling merchants, a peremptory summons
from his father, who has heard such accounts of the barbarous state of
Europe that he regrets having given him leave to go out on this
dangerous exploring expedition.
Our Mandingo did not meet the tragic fate of Bemoy, to whom the
friendship of the whites proved fatal. He returned in safety to his
country.
The house of the renowned traveller became a centre of attraction. The
first question asked by his guests was, invariably, whether, in his
long residence among the Christians, he had learned to prefer their
manners to those of his own people. He was happy to be able to assure
them that this was not the case. He had met in Europe, he said, some
admirable men, and he thought the people there, in general, quite as
intelligent as those of his own country, but far less amiable; they
were, perhaps, even more energetic, especially the Portuguese and
English; but he was obliged to add, that their energies were not as
constantly employed in the service of mankind as their professions
gave reason to expect. What he had found very displeasing in the
manners of the Europeans was their disregard of cleanliness. Their
negligence in this respect was a thing inconceivable to an African who
had not lived among them.
He was much embarrassed, when called upon to speak of the religion of
the Europeans and their mode of professing it. His audience was
indignant at the hypocrisy of the Christians. But he was of opinion
that their enthusiasm for their creed and their zeal for its
propagation were undoubtedly genuine. Why, then, did they allow it no
influence on their conduct? He could only conclude that they knew it
to be too good for them, and that, though they found it, for this
reason, of no use at all to themselves, they were perfectly sincere in
thinking it an excellent religion for other people.
The result of his observations on the Christian nations was, that
their genius especially displayed itself in the art of war, in which
they had already attained to great eminence, and yet were intent on
new inventions. Indeed, he gave it as his unqualified opinion, that
the European had a great natural superiority over the African in
everything which concerns the science of destruction.
The Mandingo had news, from time to time, through the travelling
merchants, of what was going on in the North. He heard, in this way,
of the captivity and miserable end of the Infant Ferdinand, of the
accession of a fifth Alphonso, and of the revival of the bloody
dissensions of the royal house of Portugal. He waited long for tidings
of Henry's expeditions, although the year of his own return from
Europe was the same in which John Gonçalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz set
off on the search for Guinea. But the looked-for news came at last, to
bring with it a revival of his old foreboding.
* * * * *
You must allow that I have been tender of Europe. I might have
introduced our traveller to it at a worse moment. Instead of going to
England in the time of a chivalrous, popular prince, like Henry the
Fifth, he might have seen it under Richard the Third; or I might have
taken him there to assist at the decapitation of some of the eighth
Henry's wives, or at a goodly number of the meaner executions, which
went on, they say, at the rate of one to every five hours through that
king's extended reign. Instead of making him report that human
burnt-offerings, though not unknown in England, were infrequent, and
that only a single victim was immolated on each occasion, I might have
let him collect his statistics on this subject in the time of the
bloody Mary. I am not sure that he could have seen France to much less
advantage than in the days of the Bourgignon and Armagnac factions;
but perhaps he would not have formed a very different judgment, if,
going there a century and a half later, he had happened on the
Massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
The African traveller sometimes a little misapprehended what he saw,
no doubt; but he noted nothing in malice. If he did not see our
English ancestors precisely with their own eyes or with ours, at least
he did not fall into the monstrous mistakes of the Greek historian
Chalcondyles, of whose statements in regard to English manners Gibbon
says,--"His credulity and injustice may teach an important lesson: to
distrust accounts of foreign and remote nations, and to suspend our
belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of Nature and the
character of man."
SUNDAY MORNING, April 14, 1844.
Yesterday was the day my journal should have gone; and my delay has
not the usual excuse, for here was already a heavy budget. It is my
love of completeness which has detained it. Next Saturday I can send
you, together with the account of Harry's arrival and visit here, that
of our leave-taking at Omocqua. You will thus have this little episode
in my life entire.
The solicitude we had felt beforehand about Dr. Borrow's entertainment
was thrown away. He has his particularities certainly, but we soon
learned to accommodate ourselves to them. Harry, with perfect
simplicity and directness, all along as on the first day, kept us
informed of the Doctor's tastes and warned us of his antipathies, so
that we had no difficulty in providing for his general comfort. As to
his little humors and asperities, we accepted them, in the same way
that Harry does, as belonging to the man, and never thought of asking
ourselves whether we should like him better without them. One thing I
will say for the Doctor: if, when he feels annoyance, he makes no
secret of it, on the other hand, you can be sure that he is pleased
when he appears to be,--and this is a great satisfaction. He is not
inconsiderate of the weaknesses of others, either. I do not know how
he divined that I disliked his blue glasses, but after the second day
they disappeared. He said our pure air enabled him to do without them.
Then the umbrella,--it attended us on the Saturday's walk. I supposed
it was to be our inevitable companion. But on Sunday it came only as
far as the door; here the Doctor stopped, held it up before him,
considered, doubted, and set it down inside. Harry carried it
up-stairs in the evening. I expected to see it come down again the
next morning,--but it had no part in our pleasant Monday rambles. I
had not said a word against the umbrella.
The engagement I made with Harry that Monday afternoon had Dr.
Borrow's concurrence. He even expressed a willingness to assist at our
readings. The order of our day was this:--In the early morning we had
our walk,--Harry and I. Coming back, we always went round by Keith's
Pine. We were sure to find the Doctor seated on the bench, which had
been left there since the last Sunday, microscope in hand and
flower-press beside him. Then all to the house, where we arrived with
an exactitude which caused the Doctor, whose first glance on entering
was at the clock, to seat himself at the table in a glow of
self-approval sufficient to warm all present into a little innocent
elation. After breakfast we separated,--Harry walking off to take my
place with Karl and Fritz, the Doctor going to his flowers, and I to
my writing. We all met again at an appointed time and place for an
excursion together. We carried our dinner with us; or, if we were not
going very far, had it left at some pleasant spot, where we found it
on our way home. After dinner I read, and then we had an hour or so of
discussion and criticism.
I have given you the readings of two days. I shall try to copy the
rest for you in the course of the week. Copying is work; I cannot do
any this morning; and then I have still other things remaining to me
from those days which I have not yet shared with you.
On Tuesday, the ninth, the first day of the new arrangement, Harry
went away as soon as breakfast was over. The Doctor rose, as if going
to his room, hesitated, and sat down again. I saw that he had
something to say to me, and waited. My thoughts went back to the
conversation of the afternoon before. Had I really displeased him? He
spoke seriously, but very kindly.
"Harry has no need of incitement in the direction of"----
He stopped, as if for a word which should be true at once to his pride
and his disapprobation. He did not find it, and began over again:--
"It is the office of friendship to restrain even from generous error.
It is possible to err on the side of too great disinterestedness. A
man such as Harry will be, while living for himself,--living nobly and
wisely as he must live,--is living for others; he has no need to
become a crusader."
"Harry will be what he was meant to be; you would not have him force
himself to become anything else?"
"No, I would not," the Doctor answered confidently, yet with a little
sadness in his voice. "It almost seems," he added, a moment after,
"that the qualities which fit a man for a higher sphere are
incompatible with his success in this."
"Not, perhaps, with what Harry would call success."
"I am ambitious for him; I own it. And so are you, though you do not
own it. You want to see him recognized for what he is."
Certainly it is natural to wish that others should love what we love,
should admire what we admire. Our desire of sympathy, our regard for
justice, both ask it. But we must have trust.
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove."
I could not answer the Doctor immediately. "Whatever course Harry may
take," I said at last, "his power will make itself felt. He will
disappoint neither of us."
"He has never given me a disappointment yet; though I prepare myself
for one, whenever he begins anything new. We have no right to expect
everything of one; but, whatever he is doing, it seems as if that was
what he was most meant to do."
"It is in part his simple-mindedness, his freedom from the disturbing
influence of self-love, which gives him this security of success in
what he undertakes. You have said that Harry was one to take his own
path. I will trust him to find it and hold to it."
"I must come to that," answered the Doctor, whose anxiety had
gradually dissipated itself. "I don't know why I should hope to guide
him now, if I could not when he was seven years old. On the infantile
scale his characteristics were then just what they are now, and one of
them certainly always was to have a way of his own.
"'The hero's blood is not to be controlled;
In childhood even 'tis manly masterful.'
"And yet he was always so tender of others' feelings, so ready to give
up his pleasure for theirs, you might almost have thought him of too
yielding a nature, unless you had seen him tried on some point where
he found it worth while to be resolved."
The Doctor sat silent a little while, held by pleasant thoughts, and
then began again:--
"There comes back to me now an earlier recollection of him than any I
have given you. I witnessed once a contest of will between him and a
person who was put over the nursery for a time in the absence of its
regular head, and who was not thoroughly versed in the laws and
customs of the realm she was to administer. Harry could not have been
much more than two, I think, for he had hardly yet English enough for
his little needs. He was inflexible on his side; the poor woman at
first positive and then plaintive. She had recourse to the usually
unfailing appeal,--'But, Harry, do you not want me to love you?' He
held back the tears that were pressing to his eyes,--'I want all the
peoples to love me.' But he did not give way, for he was in the right.
"Candor, however, obliges me to add that he did not always give way
when he was in the wrong. Oh, I _was_ in the right sometimes."--The
Doctor laughed good-humoredly in answer to my involuntary smile.--"You
may believe it, for Harry has admitted it himself later. Our debates
were not always fruitless. I have known him come to me, three months,
six months, after a discussion in which we had taken opposite sides,
and say,--'I see now that you knew better about that than I did. I was
mistaken.' On the other hand, some of his little sayings have worked
on me with time, if not to the modification of my opinions, at least
to that of my conduct, and sometimes in a way surprising to myself.
For the rest, I liked to have him hold his ground well, and was just
as content, when he did make a concession, that it was made out of
deference, not to me, but to truth.
"I don't know whose opinion was authority with him. He did not respect
even the wisdom of the world's ages as condensed in its proverbs, but
coolly subjected them to the test of his uncompromising reason. I
remember somebody's citing to him one day, 'A penny saved is a penny
earned.' He considered it, and then rejected it decisively, proposing
as a substitute,--'A penny spent is a penny saved.' I suppose that
little word of his has spent me many a penny I might have saved,--but
I don't know that I am the poorer.
"Another of his childish sayings passed into a by-word in the
household. He was filling with apples for her grandchildren the tin
kettle of an old family pensioner, whose eyes counted the rich, red
spoil, as it rolled in. 'Enough!' says the conscientious gardener, who
is looking on. 'Enough!' echoes the modest beneficiary. '_Enough is
not enough!_' gives sentence the little autocrat, and heaps the
measure. I thought of this as he was walking beside me, grave and
silent, over Harvey's well-ordered plantation. 'The child is father of
the man.'"
The time was past when the Doctor had scruples in talking of Harry or
I in asking. He forgot his flowers, and I my writing. Nothing more
interesting to me than real stories of childhood. As a means of
instruction, it seems to me the study of the early years of the human
being has been strangely neglected by the wise. I listened well, then,
whenever, after one of his contemplative pauses, the Doctor began
again with a new "I remember."
"I remember being in the garden with him once when a barefooted boy
came in and asked for shoes. Harry ran off, and presently reappeared
with a fine, shining pair, evidently taken on his own judgment. A
woman, who had been looking from the window, came hurrying out, and
arrived in time to see the shoes walking out of the gate on strange
feet. 'Why, Harry, those were perfectly good shoes!' 'I should not
have given them to him, if they had not been good,' the child
answered, tranquilly. The poor woman was posed. As for me, I ignored
the whole affair, that I might not be obliged to commit myself. But I
thought internally that we should not have had the saying, 'Cold as
charity,' current in our Christian world, if all its neighborly love
had been of the type of Harry's.
"You are not to suppose that Harry and I were always at variance. Our
skirmishing was our amusement. He was teachable, very teachable,--and
more and more as he grew older. Some of the happiest hours I have to
look back upon were passed with him by my side, his reverent and
earnest look showing how devoutly, with what serious joy, his young
soul welcomed its first conscious perceptions of the laws of Nature,
the sacred truths of Science."