CHAPTER VII.

PHILANTHROPISTS.

One conviction forms the basis of all correct admiration for the

heroism and intrepidity of scientific discoverers, the marvellous

inventions of mechanicians; the sublime enthusiasm of poets, artists,

and musicians; the laborious devotion of scholars; and even of the

intelligent industry of the accumulators of wealth: it is that all

their efforts and achievements tend, by the law of our nature,

to the amelioration of man’s condition. In every mind swayed by

reflection, and not by impulse or prejudice, the world’s admiration

for warriors is regarded as mistaken, because the deeds of the

soldier are the infliction of suffering and destruction, spring from

the most evil passions, and serve but to keep up the real hindrances

of civilization and human happiness. Statues and columns erected

in honour of conquerors, excellent as they may be for the display

of art, serve, therefore, in every correct mind, for subjects of

regretful rather than encouraging and satisfactory contemplation. The

self-sacrificing enterprises of the philanthropist, on the contrary,

create in every properly regulated mind, still purer admiration,

still more profound and enduring esteem, than even the noblest and

grandest efforts of the children of Mind and Imagination. The DIVINE

EXEMPLAR himself is at the head of their class; and they seem,

of all the sons of men, most transcendently to reflect his image,

because their deeds are direct acts of mercy and goodness, and misery

and suffering flee at their approach. Harbingers of the benign reign

of Human Brotherhood which the popular spirit of our age devoutly

regards as the eventual destiny of the world, they will be venerated,

and their memories cherished and loved, when laurelled conquerers

are mentioned no more with praise, or are forgotten. Emulation is

sometimes termed a motive of questionable morality; but to emulate

the high and holy in enterprises of self-sacrificing beneficence can

never be an unworthy passion; for half the value of a good man’s life

would be lost, if his example did not serve to fill others with such

a plenitude of love for his goodness, as to impel them to imitate him.

It is the example of the philanthropist, then, that we commend, above

all other examples, to the imitation of all who are beginning life.

We would say, scorn indolence, ignorance, and reckless imprudence

that makes you dependent on others’ effort instead of your own; but,

more than all, scorn selfishness and a life useless to man, your

brother, cleave to knowledge, industry, and refinement; but, beyond

all, cleave to goodness.

In a world where so much is wrong—where, for ages, the cupidity of

some, and the ignorance and improvidence of a greater number—has

increased the power of wrong, it need not be said how dauntless must

be the soul of perseverance needed to overcome this wrong by the

sole and only effectual efforts of gentleness and goodness. That

wisdom—deeply calculating wisdom—not impulsive and indiscriminate

“charity,” as it is falsely named—should also lend its calm but

energetic guidance to him who aims to assist in removing the miseries

of the world, must be equally evident. To understand to what morally

resplendent deeds this dauntless spirit can conduct, when thus guided

by wisdom, and armed with the sole power of gentleness, we need to

fix our observance but on one name—the most worshipful soldier of

humanity our honoured land has ever produced: the true champion of

_persevering_ goodness.

JOHN HOWARD,

Inheriting a handsome competence from his father, whom he lost

while young, went abroad early, and in Italy acquired a taste for

art. He made purchases of such specimens of the great masters as

his means would allow, and embellished therewith his paternal seat

of Cardington, in Bedfordshire. His first wife, who had attended

him with the utmost kindness during a severe illness, and whom,

though much older than himself, he had married from a principle of

gratitude, died within three years of their union; and to relieve

his mind from the melancholy occasioned by her death, he resolved on

leaving England for another tour. The then recent earthquake which

had laid Lisbon in ruins, rendered Portugal a clime of interest

with him, and he set sail for that country. The packet, however,

was captured by a French privateer; and he and other prisoners

were carried into Brest, and placed in the castle. They had been

kept forty hours without food or water before entering the filthy

dungeon into which they were cast, and it was still a considerable

time before a joint of mutton was thrown into the midst of them,

which, for want of the accommodation even of a solitary knife, they

were obliged to tear to pieces and gnaw like dogs. For nearly a week

Howard and his companions were compelled to lie on the floor of this

dungeon, with nothing but straw to shelter them from its noxious and

unwholesome damps. He was then removed to another town where British

prisoners were kept; and though permitted to reside in the town on

his “parole,” or word of honour, he had evidence, he says, that many

hundreds of his countrymen perished in their imprisonment, and that,

at one place, thirty-six were buried in a hole in one day. He was

at length permitted to return home, but it was upon his promise to

go back to France, if his own government should refuse to exchange

him for a French naval officer. As he was only a private individual,

it was doubtful whether government would consent to this; and he

desired his friends to forbear the congratulations with which they

welcomed his return, assuring them he should perform his promise, if

government expressed a refusal. Happily the negotiation terminated

favourably, and Howard felt himself, once more, at complete freedom

in his native land.

It is to this event, comprising much personal suffering for himself,

and the grievous spectacle of so much distress endured by his sick

and dying fellow-countrymen in bonds, that the first great emotion

in the mind of this exalted philanthropist must be dated. Yet, like

many deep thoughts which have resulted in noble actions, Howard’s

grand life-thought lay a long time in the germ within the recesses of

his reflective faculty. He first returned to his Cardington estate,

and, together with his delight in the treasures of art, occupied his

mind with meteorological observations, which he followed up with such

assiduity as to draw upon himself some notice from men of science,

and to be chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society.

After his second marriage, he continued to reside upon his estate,

and to improve and beautify it. The grounds were, indeed, laid

out with a degree of taste only equalled on the estates of the

nobility. But it was impossible for such a nature as Howard’s

to be occupied solely with a consideration of his pleasures and

comforts. His tenantry were the constant objects of his care, and

in the improvement of their habitations and modes of life he found

delightful employment for by far the greater portion of his time.

In his beneficent plans for the amelioration of the condition of

the poor he was nobly assisted by the second Mrs. Howard, who was a

woman of exemplary and self-sacrificing benevolence. One act alone

affords delightful proof of this. She sold her jewels soon after her

marriage, and put the money into a purse called, by herself and her

husband, “the charity-purse,” from the consecration of its contents

to the relief of the poor and destitute.

The death of this excellent woman plunged him again into sorrow,

from which he, at first, sought relief in watching over the nurture

of the infant son she had left him, having breathed her last soon

after giving birth to the child. When his son was old enough to be

transferred entirely to the care of a tutor, Howard renewed his

visits to the continent. His journal contains proof that his mind

was deeply engaged in reflection on all he saw; but neither yet

does the master-thought of his life appear to have strengthened to

such a degree as to make itself very evident in the workings of his

heart and understanding. His election to the office of high sheriff

of the county of Bedford, on his return, seems to have been the

leading occurrence in his life, judging by the influence it threw on

the tone of his thinkings and the character of his acts, to the end

of his mortal career. He was forty-six years of age at the time of

his election to this office, intellectual culture had refined his

character, and much personal trial and affliction had deepened his

experience: the devotion of such a man as John Howard to his great

errand of philanthropy was not, therefore, any vulgar and merely

impulsive enthusiasm. We have seen that the germ of his design had

lain for years in his mind, scarcely fructifying or unfolding itself,

except in the kindly form of homely charity. The power was now about

to be breathed upon it which should quicken it into the mightiest

energy of human goodness.

He thus records the grievances he now began to grow ardent for

removing: “The distress of prisoners, of which there are few who

have not some imperfect idea, came more immediately under my notice

when I was sheriff of the county of Bedford; and the circumstance

which excited me to activity in their behalf was, the seeing some,

who by the verdict of juries were declared _not guilty_—some, on whom

the grand jury did not find such an appearance of guilt as subjected

them to trial—and some whose prosecutors did not appear against

them—after having been confined for months, dragged back to gaol, and

locked up again till they could pay _sundry fees_ to the gaoler, the

clerk of assize, &c. In order to redress this hardship, I applied

to the justices of the county for a salary to the gaoler in lieu of

his fees. The bench were properly affected with the grievance, and

willing to grant the relief desired; but they wanted a precedent for

charging the county with the expense. I therefore rode into several

neighbouring counties in search of a precedent; but I soon learned

that the same injustice was practised in them; and looking into the

prisons, I beheld scenes of calamity which I grew daily more and

more anxious to alleviate.” How free from violence of emotion and

exaggerated expression is his statement; how calmly, rationally, and

thoughtfully he commenced his glorious enterprise!

He commences, soon after this, a series of journeys for the

inspection of English prisons; and visits, successively, the gaols

of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby,

Stafford, Warwick, Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, and Buckingham.

In many of the gaols he found neither court-yard, water, beds, nor

even straw, for the use of the prisoners: no sewers, most miserable

provisions, and those extremely scanty, and the whole of the rooms

gloomy, filthy, and loathsome. The greatest oppressions and cruelties

were practised on the wretched inmates: they were heavily ironed

for trivial offences, and frequently confined in dungeons under

ground. The Leicester gaol presented more inhuman features than any

other; the free ward for debtors who could not afford to pay for

better accommodation, was a long dungeon called a cellar, down seven

steps—damp, and having but two windows in it, the largest about a

foot square; the rooms in which the felons were confined night and

day were also dungeons from five to seven steps under ground.

In the course of another tour he visited the gaols of Hertford,

Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and Sussex; set out

again to revisit the prisons of the Midlands; spent a fortnight in

viewing the gaols of London and Surrey; and then went once more on

the same great errand of mercy into the west of England. Shortly

after his return he was examined before a Committee of the whole

House of Commons, gave full and satisfactory answers to the questions

proposed to him, and was then called before the bar of the House to

receive from the Speaker the assurance “that the House were very

sensible of the humanity and zeal which had led him to visit the

several gaols of this kingdom, and to communicate to the House the

interesting observations he had made upon that subject.”

The intention of the Legislature to proceed to the correction of

prison abuses, which the noble philanthropist might infer from this

expression of thanks, did not cause him to relax in the pursuit

of the high mission he was now so earnestly entered upon. After

examining thoroughly the shameless abuses of the Marshalsea, in

London, he proceeded to Durham, from thence through Northumberland,

Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire, and inspected not only

the prisons in those counties, but a third time went through the

degraded gaols of the Midlands. A week’s rest at Cardington, and

away he departs to visit the prisons in Kent, and to examine all

he had not yet entered in London. North and South Wales and the

gaols of Chester, and again Worcester and Oxford, he next surveys,

and discovers another series of subjects for the exertion of his

benevolence.

“Seeing,” says he, in his uniform and characteristic vein of

modesty, “in two or three of the _county gaols_ some poor creatures

whose aspect was singularly deplorable, and asking the cause of

it, I was answered they were lately brought from the _Bridewells_.

This started a fresh subject of inquiry. I resolved to inspect the

Bridewells; and for that purpose I travelled again into the counties

where I had been, and indeed into all the rest, examining _houses

of correction and city and town gaols_. I beheld in many of them,

as well as in county gaols, a complication of distress; but my

attention was particularly fixed by the gaol-fever and small-pox

which I saw prevailing to the destruction of multitudes, not only of

felons in their dungeons, but of debtors also.” His holy mission now

comprehended for the philanthropist the enterprise of lessening the

disease as well as unjust and inhuman treatment of prisoners.

The most striking scene of wrong detailed in any of his narratives

is in the account of the “Clink” prison of Plymouth, a part of the

town gaol. This place was seventeen feet by eight, and five feet and

a half high. It was utterly dark, and had no air except what could

be derived through an extremely small wicket in the door. To this

wicket, the dimensions of which were about seven inches by five,

three prisoners under sentence of transportation came by turns to

breathe, being confined in that wretched hole for nearly two months.

When Howard visited this place the door had not been opened for five

weeks. With considerable difficulty he entered, and with deeply

wounded feelings beheld an emaciated human being, the victim of

barbarity, who had been confined there ten weeks. This unfortunate

creature, who was under sentence of transportation, declared to the

humane visitor who thus risked his health and was happy to forego

ease and comfort to relieve the oppressed sufferer, that he would

rather have been hanged than thrust into that loathsome dungeon.

The electors of Bedford, two years after Howard had held the

shrievalty of their county, urged him to become a candidate for the

representation of their borough in Parliament. He gave a reluctant

consent, but through unfair dealing was unsuccessful. We may, for a

moment, regret that the great philanthropist was not permitted to

introduce into the Legislature of England measures for the relief of

the oppressed suggested by his own large sympathies and experience;

but it was far better that he was freed from the shackles of

attendance on debates, and spared for ministration not only to the

sufferings of the injured in England but in Europe.

He had long purposed to give to the world in a printed form the

result of his laborious investigations into the state of prisons in

this country; but “conjecturing,” he says, “that something useful

to his purpose might be collected abroad, he laid aside his papers

and travelled into France, Flanders, Holland, and Germany.” We have

omitted to state that he had already visited many of the prisons

in Scotland and Ireland. At Paris he gained admission to some of

the prisons with extreme difficulty; but to get access to the

state prisons the jealousy of the governments rendered it almost

impossible, and under any circumstances dangerous. The intrepid heart

of Howard, however, was girt up to adventure, and he even dared to

attempt an entrance into the infamous Bastille itself! “I knocked

hard,” he says, “at the outer gate, and immediately went forward

through the guard to the drawbridge before the entrance of the

castle; but while I was contemplating this gloomy mansion, an officer

came out of the castle much surprised, and I was forced to retreat

through the mute guard, and thus regained that freedom, which, for

one locked up within those walls, it would be next to impossible to

obtain.” In the space of four centuries, from the foundation to the

destruction of the Bastille, it has been observed that Howard was

the only person ever compelled to quit it with reluctance.

By taking advantage of some regulations of the Paris Parliament,

he succeeded in gaining admission to other prisons, and found even

greater atrocities committed there than in the very worst gaols in

England. Flanders presented a striking contrast. “However rigorous

they may be,” says he, speaking of the regulations for the prisons

of Brussels, “yet their great care and attention to their prisons is

worthy of commendation: all fresh and clean, no gaol distemper, no

prisoners ironed. The bread allowance far exceeds that of any of our

gaols; every prisoner here has two pounds of bread per day, soup once

every day, and on Sunday one pound of meat.” He notes afterwards that

he “carefully visited some Prussian, Austrian, and Hessian gaols,”

and “with the utmost difficulty” gained access to “many dismal

abodes” of prisoners.

Returning to England, he travelled through every county repursuing

his mission, and after devoting three months to a renewed inspection

of the London prisons again set out for the continent. Our space will

not allow of a record of the numerous evils he chronicles in these

renewed visits. The prisoners of Switzerland, but more than all, of

Holland, afforded him a relief to the vision of horrors he witnessed

elsewhere. We must find room for some judicious observations he

makes on his return from this tour. “When I formerly made the tour

of Europe,” are his words, “I seldom had occasion to envy foreigners

anything I saw with respect to their _situation_, their _religion_,

_manners_, or _government_. In my late journeys to view their

_prisons_ I was sometimes put to the blush for my native country.

The reader will scarcely feel, from my narration, the same emotions

of shame and regret as the comparison excited in me on beholding

the difference with my own eyes; but from the account I have given

him of foreign prisons, he may judge whether a design for reforming

their own be merely visionary—whether _idleness_, _debauchery_,

_disease_, and _famine_, be the necessary attendants of a prison,

or only connected with it in our ideas for want of a more perfect

knowledge and more enlarged views. I hope, too, that he will do me

the justice to think that neither an indiscriminate admiration of

every thing foreign, nor a fondness for censuring every thing at

home, has influenced me to adopt the language of a panegyrist in

this part of my work, or that of a complainant in the rest. Where I

have commended I have mentioned my reasons for so doing; and I have

dwelt, perhaps, more minutely upon the management of foreign prisons

because it was more agreeable to praise than to condemn. Another

motive induced me to be very particular in my accounts of _foreign

houses of correction_, especially those of the freest states. It was

to counteract a notion prevailing among us that compelling prisoners

to work, especially in public, was inconsistent with the principles

of English liberty; at the same time that taking away the lives of

such numbers, either by executions or the diseases of our prisons,

seems to make little impression upon us; of such force are custom

and prejudice in silencing the voice of good sense and humanity. I

have only to add that, fully sensible of the imperfections which must

attend the cursory survey of a traveller, it was my study to remedy

that defect by a constant attention to the one object of my pursuit

alone during the whole of my two last journeys abroad.”

He did not allow himself a single day’s rest on returning to England,

but immediately recommenced his work here. He notes some pleasing

improvements, particularly in the Nottingham gaol, since his last

preceding visit; but narrates other discoveries of a most revolting

description. The gaol at Knaresborough was in the ruined castle, and

had but two rooms without a window. The keeper lived at a distance,

there being no accommodation for him in the prison. The debtors’ gaol

was horrible; it consisted of only one room difficult of access,

had an earthen floor, no fire-place, and there was a common sewer

from the town running through it uncovered! In this miserable and

disgusting hole Howard learned that an officer had been confined some

years before, who took with him his dog to defend him from vermin:

his face was, however, much disfigured by their attacks, and the dog

was actually destroyed by them.

At length he prepared to print his “State of the Prisons of England

and Wales, with preliminary observations, and an Account of some

Foreign Prisons.” In this laborious and valuable work, he was largely

assisted by the excellent Dr. Aikin, a highly congenial mind; and

it was completed in a form which, even in a literary point of view,

makes it valuable. The following very brief extract from it, is full

of golden reflection: “Most gentlemen who, when they are told of the

misery which our prisoners suffer, content themselves with saying,

‘_Let them take care to keep out_,’ prefaced, perhaps, with an angry

prayer, seem not duly sensible of the favour of Providence, which

distinguishes them from the sufferers: they do not remember that we

are required to imitate our gracious Heavenly Parent, who is ‘_kind

to the unthankful and the evil_!’ They also forget the vicissitudes

of human affairs; the unexpected changes, to which all men are

liable; and that those whose circumstances are affluent, may, in

time, be reduced to indigence, and become debtors and prisoners.”

As soon as his book was published he presented copies of it to most

of the principal persons in the kingdom,—thus devoting his wealth, in

another form, to the cause of humanity. When it is recounted that he

had not only spent large sums in almost incessant travelling, during

four years, but had paid the prison fees of numbers who could not

otherwise have been liberated, although their periods of sentence had

transpired, some idea may be formed of the heart that was within this

great devotee of mercy and goodness—the purest of all worships.

The spirits of all reflecting men were roused by this book: the

Parliament passed an act for the better regulation of the “hulk”

prisons; and on Howard’s visiting the hulks and detecting the

evasions practised by the superintendents, the government proceeded

to rectify the abuses. Learning that government projected further

prison reforms, he again set out for the continent to gain additional

information in order to lay it before the British Parliament. An

accident at the Hague confined him to his room for six weeks, by

throwing him into an inflammatory fever; but he was no sooner

recovered than he proceeded to enter on his work anew, by visiting

the prison at Rotterdam,—departing thence through Osnaburgh and

Hanover, into Germany, Prussia, Bohemia, Austria, Italy, Switzerland,

and back through France, again reaching England. Not to enumerate

any of his statements respecting his prison visits, let us point

the young reader to the answer he gave to Prince Henry of Prussia,

who, in the course of his first conversation with the earnest

philanthropist, asked him whether he ever went to any public place

in the evening, after the labours of the day were over. “Never,” he

replied, “as I derive more pleasure from doing my duty than from any

amusement whatever.” What a thorough putting-on of the great martyr

spirit there was in the life of this pure-souled man!

Listen, too, to the evidence of his careful employment of the

faculty of reason, while thus enthusiastically devoted to the

tenderest offices of humanity: “I have frequently been asked what

precautions I used to preserve myself from infection in the prisons

and hospitals which I visit. I here answer once for all, that next

to the free goodness and mercy of the Author of my being, temperance

and cleanliness are my preservatives. Trusting in Divine Providence,

and being myself in the way of my duty, I visit the most noxious

cells, and while thus employed ‘_I fear no evil_!’ I never enter

an hospital or prison before breakfast, and in an offensive room I

seldom draw my breath deeply.”

Mark his intrepid championship of Truth, too, as well as of Mercy.

He was dining at Vienna, with the English ambassador to the Austrian

court, and one of the ambassador’s party, a German, had been uttering

some praises of the Emperor’s abolition of torture. Howard declared

it was only to establish a worse torture, and instanced an Austrian

prison which, he said, was “as bad as the black hole at Calcutta,”

and that prisoners were only taken from it when they confessed what

was laid to their charge. “Hush!” said the English ambassador (Sir

Robert Murray Keith), “your words will be reported to his Majesty!”

“What!” exclaimed Howard, “shall my tongue be tied from speaking

truth by any king or emperor in the world? I repeat what I asserted,

and maintain its veracity.” Profound silence ensued, and “every one

present,” says Dr. Brown, “admired the intrepid boldness of the man

of humanity.”

Another return to England, another survey of prisons here, and he

sets out on his fourth continental tour of humanity, travelling

through Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, and then, again, Holland

and Germany. Another general and complete revisitation of prisons in

England followed, and then a fifth continental pilgrimage of goodness

through Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Holland. During

his absence from England this time, his friends proposed to erect a

monument to him; but he was gloriously great in humility as in truth,

benevolence, and intrepidity. “Oh, why could not my friends,” says

he, in writing to them, “who know how much I detest such parade, have

stopped such a hasty measure?... It deranges and confounds all my

schemes. My exaltation is my fall—my misfortune.”

[Illustration: JOHN HOWARD.]

He summed up the number of miles he had travelled for the reform of

prisons, on his return to England after his journey, and another

re-examination of the prisons at home, and found that the total

was 42,033. Glorious _perseverance_! But he is away again! having

found a new object for the yearnings of his ever-expanding heart.

He conceived, from inquiries of his medical friends, that that most

dreadful scourge of man’s race—the plague—could be arrested in its

destructive course. He visits Holland, France, Italy, Malta, Zante,

the Levant, Turkey, Venice, Austria, Germany, and returns also by

Holland to England. The narrative glows with interest in this tour;

but the young reader—and how can he resist it if he have a heart to

love what is most deserving of love—must turn to one of the larger

biographies of Howard for the circumstances. Alas! a stroke was

prepared for him on his return. His son, his darling son, had become

disobedient, progressed fearfully in vice, and his father found him a

raving maniac!

Howard’s only refuge from this poignant affliction was in the renewal

of the great mission of his life. He again visited the prisons of

Ireland and Scotland, and left England to renew his humane course

abroad, but never to return. From Amsterdam this tour extended to

Cherson, in Russian Tartary. Attending one afflicted with the plague

there, he fell ill, and in a few days breathed his last. He wished

to be buried where he died, and without pomp or monument: “Lay me

quietly in the earth,” said he; “place a sun-dial over my grave,

and let me be forgotten!” Who would not desire at death that he had

forgone every evanescent pleasure a life of selfishness could bring,

to live and die like John Howard?

CONCLUSION.

Work, and the true nobility of being devoted to it, distinguished

every exemplar recorded in our sketch; and no name of eminence or

excellence can be selected in human annals who has ever used the

phrase, which can only console idiots, that “he is perfectly happy,

for he has nothing to do, and nothing to think about!” “Nothing to

do!” in a world whose elements are, as yet, but partially subdued

by man, and whose happiness can be augmented so incalculably by the

perfecting of his dominion over Nature. “Nothing to think about!”

when language, and poetry, and art, and music, and science, and

invention, afford ecstatic occupation for thought which could not

be exhausted if a man’s life were even extended on the earth to a

million of years. “Nothing to do, and nothing to think about!” while

millions are doing and thinking,—for a human creature to profess that

he derives pleasure from such a state of consciousness, is to confess

his willingness to be fed, clothed, and attended by others, while he

is meanly and despicably indolent and degradingly dependent.

Young reader, spurn the indulgence of a thought so unworthy of a

human being! Remember, that happiness, worth the name, can never

be gained unless in the discharge of duty, or under the sense of

duty done. And work is duty—thy duty—the duty of all mankind.

Whatever may be a man’s situation, from the lowliest to the highest

he has a work to perform as a bounden duty. Such was glorious

Alfred’s conviction as a king: such was Lackington’s conviction as

a tradesman. For every diversity of mind and genius the universe in

which we live affords work, and the peculiar work for which each mind

is filled becomes its bounden duty by natural laws. “First of all we

ought to do _our own duty_—but, first of all,” were the memorable

death-bed words of Canova; and the conviction they expressed

constituted the soul-spring of every illustrious man’s life. The

life of Canova was—work: so was the life of Shakspere, of Milton,

of Jones, of Johnson, of Handel, of Davy, of Watt, of Newton, of

all-glorious Howard. Their lives were “Triumphs of Perseverance:”

even their deaths did not lessen their triumphs. “Being dead, they

yet speak.” They are ever present with us in their great words and

thoughts, and in their great acts. Their spirits thus still conjoin

to purify and enlighten the world: they are still transforming

it, in some senses more effectually than if still living, from

ignorance, and vice, and wrong and suffering, into a maturing sphere

of knowledge and might over Nature, and justice and brotherhood.

Let every earnest heart and mind be resolved on treading in their

footsteps, and aiding in the realisation of the cheering trust that

the world shall yet be a universally happy world, and so man reach

that perfect consummation of the “TRIUMPHS OF PERSEVERANCE!”

THE

TRIUMPHS OF ENTERPRISE.

THE

TRIUMPHS OF ENTERPRISE.

INTRODUCTION.

Without Enterprise there would have been no civilization, and there

would now be no progress. To try, to attempt, to pass beyond an

obstacle, marks the civilized man as distinguished from the savage.

The advantage of passing beyond a difficulty by a single act of trial

has offered itself, in innumerable instances, to the savage, but in

vain; it has passed him by unobserved, unheeded. Nay, more: when led

by the civilized man to partake of the advantages of higher life,

the savage has repeatedly returned to his degradation. Thus it has

often been with the native Australian. A governor of the colony,

about sixty years ago, by an innocent stratagem took one of the

native warriors into his possession, and strove to reconcile him to

the habits of civilized life. Good clothes and the best food were

given him; he was treated with the utmost kindness, and, when brought

to England, the attention of people of distinction was lavished

upon him. The Australian, however, was at length relanded in his own

country, when he threw away his clothes as burdensome restraints

upon his limbs, displayed his ancient appetite for raw meat, and

in all respects became as rude as if he had never left his native

wilderness. Another trial was made by a humane person, who procured

two infants—a boy and a girl—believing that such an early beginning

promised sure success. These young Australians were most carefully

trained, fed, and clothed, after the modes of civilized Europe, and

inured to the customs of our most improved society. At twelve years

old they were allowed to choose their future life, when they rejected

without hesitation the enjoyments of education, and fled to their

people in the back-ground to share their famine, nakedness, and cold.

A savage would perish in despair where the civilized man would

readily discover the mode of extricating himself from difficulty;

and yet, in point of physical strength, it might be that the savage

was superior. Enterprise is thus clearly placed before the young

reader as a quality of mind. He may display it without being gifted

with strong corporeal power; it depends on thought, reflection,

calculation of advantage. Whoever displays it is sure to be in some

degree regarded with attention by his fellow men; it wins a man the

way to public notice, and often to high reward, almost unfailingly.

But the purpose of the ensuing pages is not to place false motives

before the mind; to display any excellence with a view expressly to

notice and reward and not from the wish to do good or to perform a

duty, is unworthy of the truly correct man. The promptings of duty

and beneficence are evermore to be kept before the mind as the only

true guides to action.

In the instances of Enterprise presented in this little volume,

the young reader will not discover beneficence to have been the

invariable stimulant to action. Where the actor displays a deficiency

in the high quality of mercy, the reader is recommended to think

and judge for himself. The instances have been selected for their

striking character, and the reader must class them justly. Let him

call courage by its right name; and when it is not united with

tenderness, let the act be weighed and named at its true value.

CHAPTER I.

The word “Enterprise,” which, it has just been observed, marks the

character of the civilized man as distinguished from the savage,

might also be used with some degree of strictness to characterise

man as distinguished from the lower animals. Their instincts enable

some of them, as the bee and the beaver, to perform works of wondrous

ingenuity; but none of them step beyond what has been the vocation

of their species since it existed. The bounds of human exertion, on

the other hand, are apparently illimitable. Its achievements in one

generation, though deemed wonderful, are outstripped in the next;

and the latest successful efforts of courage and skill serve to give

us confidence that much or all which yet baffles man’s sagacity and

power in the realm of nature shall be eventually subjected to him; he

is a being of Enterprise.

If endowed simply with bounded instincts he might have remained

the wild inhabitant of the forest covert, or continued the rude

tenant of the savage hut; his limitless, or, at least, indefinite

and ever-progressing mental capacity, has empowered him to overcome

obstacle after obstacle in the way to his increasing command over

Nature; the triumphs of one generation have been handed down to the

next, and the aggregate to those ages succeeding; and the catalogue

of these “Triumphs of Enterprise” would now form a library of

incalculable extent, since it would lead reflection into every path

of the dominions of history and natural philosophy, of science and

art.

The rudest display of this great characteristic of man is the

assertion of his superiority to the rest of the animal world, and

seems to offer a primary claim to observation. The stronger and

fiercer animals would be the first enemies with which man had to

struggle. With his conquest of their strength and ferocity, and

subjection of some of their tribes to his use and service, his

empire must have begun. Had we authentic records remaining of the

earliest human essays towards taming the dog, domesticating the cat,

and training for beneficial use or service the goat, the sheep, and

the ox, the horse and the elephant, the camel, the llama, and the

reindeer, such a chronicle would be filled with interest. Fable,

however, surrounds the scanty memorials that remain of this as well

as of higher departments of human discovery in the primeval ages.

Abundant material exists in ancient history for a narrative of the

more exciting part of these triumphs—the successful display of man’s

courage as opposed to the mightier strength of the more ferocious

animals; but the accounts of such adventures in later times are less

doubtful, and a brief recapitulation of a few of them will serve

equally well to introduce the “Triumphs of Enterprise.”

GENERAL PUTNAM,

[Illustration: GENERAL PUTNAM]

Who signalised his courage in the struggles with the French on the

continent of North America about the middle of the last century,

removed after the war to the State of Connecticut. The wolves, then

very numerous, broke into his sheepfold, and killed seven fine sheep

and goats, besides wounding many lambs and kids. The chief havoc was

committed by a she-wolf, which, with her annual litter of whelps,

had infested the neighbourhood. The young were generally destroyed

by the vigilance of the hunters, but the mother-wolf was too wary

to come within gun-shot, and upon being closely pursued would fly to

the western woods, and return the next winter with another litter

of whelps. This wolf at length became such an intolerable nuisance

that Putnam entered into a combination with five of his neighbours

to hunt alternately until they could destroy her; two, by rotation,

were to be constantly in pursuit. It was known that having lost the

toes of one foot by a steel trap she made one track shorter than

the other. By this peculiarity the pursuers recognised in a light

snow the route of this destructive animal. Having followed her to

Connecticut river and found that she had turned back in a direct

course towards Pomfret, they immediately returned, and by ten o’clock

the next morning the bloodhounds had driven her into a den about

three miles from Putnam’s house. The people soon collected with

dogs, guns, straw, fire, and sulphur, to attack the common enemy.

With these materials several unsuccessful efforts were made to force

her from her den; the dogs came back badly wounded, and refused to

return to the charge; the smoke of blazing straw had no effect,

nor did the fumes of burnt brimstone, with which the cavern was

filled, compel the wolf to quit her retirement. Wearied with such

fruitless attempts, which had been continued until ten o’clock at

night, Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter, but in vain. He

proposed to his negro to go down into the cavern and shoot the wolf,

but the negro dared not. Then it was that Putnam, declaring he would

not have a coward in his family, and angry at the disappointment,

resolved himself to destroy the ferocious beast or to perish in the

attempt. His neighbours strongly remonstrated against the perilous

undertaking; but he, knowing that wild animals are intimidated by

fire, and having provided several slips of birch bark, the only

combustible material which he could obtain that would afford light

in this deep and darksome cave, prepared for his descent. Having

divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and fixed a strong rope

round his body by which he might at a concerted signal be drawn out

of the cave, he fearlessly entered head-foremost with the blazing

torch in his hand.

The aperture of the den, on the east side of a very high ledge of

rocks, was about two feet square; thence it descended obliquely

fifteen feet, then running horizontally about ten more it ascended

gradually sixteen feet towards its termination. The sides of this

subterranean cavity were composed of smooth and solid rocks, which

seem to have been driven from each other by some great convulsion of

nature. The top and bottom were of stone, and the entrance to it in

winter being covered with ice was exceedingly slippery. The cave was

difficult of access, being in no place high enough for a man to stand

upright, nor in any part more than three feet wide.

Having groped his passage to the horizontal part of the den, the

most terrifying darkness appeared in front of the dim circle of

light afforded by his torch. “It was silent as the tomb; none but

monsters of the desert had ever before explored this solitary mansion

of horror,” says the relator. Putnam cautiously proceeded onward;

came to the ascent, which he mounted on his hands and knees, and then

discovered the glaring eyeballs of the wolf, which was sitting at

the extremity of the cavern. Startled at the sight of the fire, she

gnashed her teeth and gave a sullen growl. As soon as he had made

the discovery he gave the signal for pulling him out of the cavern.

The people at the mouth of the den, who had listened with painful

anxiety, hearing the growling of the wolf, and supposing their friend

to be in danger, drew him forth with such quickness that his shirt

was stripped over his head and his body much lacerated. After he had

adjusted his clothes and loaded his gun with nine buck shot, with a

torch in one hand and his musket in the other, he descended a second

time. He approached the wolf nearer than before. She assumed a still

more fierce and terrible appearance, howling, rolling her eyes, and

gnashing her teeth. At length, dropping her head between her legs,

she prepared to spring upon him. At this critical moment he levelled

his piece and shot her in the head. Stunned with the shock, and

nearly suffocated with the smoke, he immediately found himself drawn

out of the cave. Having refreshed himself and permitted the smoke to

clear away, he entered the terrible cave a third time, when to his

great satisfaction he found the wolf was dead; he then took hold of

her ears, and making the necessary signal, the people above, with no

small exultation, drew the wolf and her conqueror both out together.

From among the numerous records of successful encounter with tigers,

let us select that of

LIEUT. EVAN DAVIES,

[Illustration: LIEUT. EVAN DAVIES]

Which occurred while the British army was lying at Agoada, near Goa,

1809. A report was one morning brought to the cantonment that a very

large tiger had been seen on the rocks near the sea. About nine

o’clock a number of horses and men assembled at the spot where it

was said to have been seen, when, after some search, the animal was

discovered to be in the recess of an immense rock; dogs were sent in

in the hope of starting him, but without effect, having returned with

several wounds. Finding it impossible to dislodge the animal by such

means, Lieut. Davies, of the 7th regiment, attempted to enter the

den, but was obliged to return, finding the passage extremely narrow

and dark. He attempted it, however, a second time, with a pick-axe in

his hand, with which he removed some obstructions that were in the

way. Having proceeded a few yards he heard a noise which he conceived

to be that of the animal. He then returned, and communicated with

Lieut. Threw, of the Artillery, who also went in the same distance,

and was of a similar opinion. What course to pursue was doubtful.

Some proposed to blow up the rock; others, to smoke the animal out.

At length a port-fire was tied to the end of a bamboo, and introduced

into a small crevice which led towards the den. Lieut. Davies went

on hands and knees down the narrow passage which led to it, and by

the light of his torch he was enabled to discover the animal. Having

returned, he said he could kill him with a pistol, which, being

procured, he again entered the cave and fired, but without success,

owing to the awkward situation in which he was placed, having only

his left hand at liberty. He next went with a musket and bayonet,

and wounded the tiger in the loins; but he was obliged to retreat as

quickly as the narrow passage would allow, the tiger having rushed

forward and forced the musket back towards the mouth of the den.

Lieut. Davies next procured a rifle, with which he again forced his

way into the cave, and taking deliberate aim at the tiger’s head,

fired, and put an end to its existence. He afterwards tied a strong

rope round the neck of the tiger, by which it was dragged out, to the

no small satisfaction of a numerous crowd of spectators. The animal

measured seven feet in length.

Combats with wild elephants are still more dangerous than with the

tiger. From the following account given by a sojourner in India,

the extreme hazard attending such enterprises will be seen, while a

reflection can scarcely fail to arise on the wondrous superiority of

man’s sagacity which has enabled him to reduce this mightiest of land

animals to docile servitude.

[Illustration: Elephant]

“We had intelligence,” says the narrator, “of an immense wild

elephant being in a large grass swamp within five miles of us. He had

inhabited the swamp for years, and was the terror of the surrounding

villagers, many of whom he had killed. He had only one tusk; and

there was not a village for many miles round that did not know the

‘Burrah ek durt ke Hathee,’ or the large one-toothed elephant; and

one of our party had the year before been charged and his elephant

put to the right-about by this famous fellow. We determined to go in

pursuit of him; and accordingly on the third day after our arrival,

started in the morning, mustering, between private and government

elephants, thirty-two, but seven of them only with sportsmen on their

backs. As we knew that in the event of the wild one charging he

would probably turn against the male elephants, the drivers of two

or three of the largest were armed with spears. On our way to the

swamp we shot a great number of different sorts of game that got up

before the line of elephants, and had hardly entered the swamp when,

in consequence of one of the party firing at a partridge, we saw the

great object of our expedition. The wild elephant got up out of some

long grass about two hundred and fifty yards before us, when he stood

staring at us and flapping his huge ears. We immediately made a line

of the elephants with the sportsmen in the centre, and went straight

up to him until within a hundred and thirty yards, when, fearing he

was going to turn from us, all the party gave him a volley, some

of us firing two, three, and four barrels. He then turned round,

and made for the middle of the swamp. The chase now commenced, and

after following him upwards of a mile, with our elephants up to

their bellies in mud, we succeeded in turning him to the edge of the

swamp, where he allowed us to get within eighty yards of him, when we

gave him another volley in his full front, on which he made a grand

charge at us, but fortunately only grazed one of the pad elephants.

He then made again for the middle of the swamp, throwing up blood and

water from his trunk, and making a terrible noise, which clearly

showed that he had been severely wounded. We followed him, and were

obliged to swim our elephants through a piece of deep stagnant water,

occasionally giving shot, when making a stop in some very high grass

he allowed us again to come within sixty yards, and got another

volley, on which he made a second charge more furious than the first,

but was prevented making it good by some shots fired when very close

to us, which stunned and fortunately turned him. He then made for the

edge of the swamp, again swimming a piece of water, through which

we followed with considerable difficulty in consequence of our pads

and howdahs having become much heavier from the soaking they had got

twice before. We were up to the middle in the howdahs, and one of

the elephants fairly turned over and threw the rider and his guns

into the water. He was taken off by one of the pad elephants, but

his three guns went to the bottom. This accident took up some time,

during which the wild elephant had made his way to the edge of the

swamp, and stood perfectly still looking at us and trumpeting with

his trunk. As soon as we got all to rights we again advanced with the

elephants in the form of a crescent, in the full expectation of a

desperate charge, nor were we mistaken. The animal now allowed us to

come within forty yards of him, when we took a very deliberate aim at

his head, and, on receiving this fire, he made a most furious charge,

in the act of which, and when within ten yards of some of us, he

received his mortal wound and fell dead as a stone. His death-wound

on examination proved to be from a small ball over the left eye, for

this was the only one of thirty-one that he had received in his head,

which was found to have entered the brain. When down he measured in

height twelve feet four inches; in length, from the root of the tail

to the top of the head, sixteen feet; and ten feet round the neck. He

had upwards of eighty balls in his head and body. His only remaining

tusk when taken out weighed thirty-six pounds, and, when compared

with the tusks of tame elephants, was considered small for the size

of the animal. After he fell a number of villagers came about us, and

were rejoiced at the death of their formidable enemy, and assured us

that during the last four or five years he had killed nearly fifty

men; indeed, the knowledge of the mischief he had occasioned was

the only thing which could reconcile us to the death of so noble an

animal.”

* * * * *

Exciting as such accounts of contest with powerful land animals are,

they yield in depth of interest to the records of the whale fishery.

The potent combination of human courage and intelligence is so fully

manifested by an excellent description of these daring but well

ordered enterprises, contained in one of the volumes of the Edinburgh

Cabinet Library, that we present it to the young reader almost

entire:—

[Illustration: Whale and ships]

“As soon as they have arrived in those seas which are the haunt

of the whale, the crew must be every moment on the alert, keeping

watch day and night. The seven boats are kept hanging by the sides

of the ship ready to be launched in a few minutes, and, where the

state of the sea admits, one of them is usually manned and afloat.

These boats are from twenty-five to twenty-eight feet long, about

five and a half feet broad, and constructed with a special view to

lightness, buoyancy, and easy steerage. The captain or some principal

officer seated above surveys the water to a great distance, and the

instant he sees the back of the huge animal which they seek to attack

emerging from the waves, gives notice to the watch who are stationed

on deck, part of whom leap into a boat, which is instantly lowered

down, and followed by a second if the fish be a large one. Each of

the boats has a harpooner and one or two subordinate officers, and is

provided with an immense quantity of rope coiled together and stowed

in different quarters of it, the several parts being spliced together

so as to form a continued line usually exceeding four thousand feet

in length; to the end is attached the harpoon, an instrument formed

not to pierce and kill the animal, but by entering and remaining

fixed in the body to prevent its escape. One of the boats is now

rowed towards the whale in the deepest silence, cautiously avoiding

to give any alarm, of which he is very susceptible. Sometimes a

circuitous route is adopted in order to attack him from behind.

Having approached as near as is consistent with safety, the harpooner

darts his instrument into the back of the monster. This is a critical

moment, for when this mighty animal feels himself struck he often

throws himself into violent convulsive movements, vibrating in the

air his tremendous tail, one lash of which is sufficient to dash

a boat in pieces. More commonly, however, he plunges with rapid

flight into the depths of the sea or beneath the thickest fields

and mountains of ice. While he is thus moving, at the rate usually

of eight or ten miles an hour, the utmost diligence must be used

that the line to which the harpoon is attached may run off smoothly

and readily along with him; should it be entangled for a moment

the strength of the whale is such that he would draw the boat and

crew after him under the waves. The first boat ought to be quickly

followed up by a second to supply more line when the first is run

out, which often takes place in eight or ten minutes. When the crew

of a boat see the line in danger of being all run off, they hold

up one, two, or three oars, to intimate their pressing need of a

supply; at the same time they turn the rope once or twice round a

kind of post called the bollard, by which the motion of the line and

the career of the animal are somewhat retarded. This, however, is a

delicate operation, which brings the side of the boat down to the

very edge of the water, and if the rope be drawn at all too tight may

sink it altogether. While the line is rolling round the bollard the

friction is so violent that the harpooner is enveloped in smoke, and

water must be constantly poured on to prevent it catching fire. When,

after all, no aid arrives, and the crew find that the line must run

out, they have only one resource—they cut it, losing thereby not only

the whale but the harpoon and all the ropes of the boat.

“When the whale is first struck and plunges into the waves, the

boat’s crew elevate a flag as a signal to the watch on deck, who

give the alarm to those asleep below by stamping violently on the

deck, and crying aloud, ‘A fall! a fall!’ On this notice they do not

allow themselves time to dress, but rush out in their sleeping-shirts

or drawers into an atmosphere the temperature of which is often

below zero, carrying along with them their clothing in a bundle

and trusting to make their toilette in the interval of manning and

pushing off the boats. Such is the tumult at this moment that young

mariners have been known to raise cries of fear, thinking the ship

was going down.”

[Illustration: Whirlpool]

The period during which a wounded whale remains under water is

various, but is averaged by Mr. Scoresby at about half an hour. Then,

pressed by the necessity of respiration, he appears above, often

considerably distant from the spot where he was harpooned and in a

state of great exhaustion, which the same ingenious writer ascribes

to the severe pressure that he has endured when placed beneath a

column of water seven hundred or eight hundred fathoms deep. All the

boats have meantime been spreading themselves in various directions,

that one at least may be within a _start_, as it is called, or about

two hundred yards at the point of his rising, at which distance they

can easily pierce him with one or two more harpoons before he again

descends, as he usually does for a few minutes. On his reappearance

a general attack is made with lances, which are struck as deep as

possible to reach and penetrate the vital parts. Blood mixed with oil

streams copiously from his wounds and from his blow-holes, dyeing

the sea to a great distance, and sprinkling and sometimes drenching

the boats and crews. The animal now becomes more and more exhausted,

but at the approach of his death he often makes a convulsive and

energetic struggle, rearing his tail high in the air, and whirling

it with a noise which is heard at the distance of several miles.

At length, quite overpowered and exhausted, he lays himself on his

side or back and expires. The flag is then taken down, and three loud

huzzas raised from the surrounding boats. No time is lost in piercing

the tail with two holes, through which ropes are passed, which, being

fastened to the boats, drag the fish to the vessel amid shouts of joy.

One reflection must arise in the mind of the young reader—if he

have begun to reflect—on reading this brief description of whale

fishery enterprise. Man’s attack upon the whale is _not_ an act of

self-defence; is it, then, justifiable? We cannot go into the whole

argument which would present itself when such an important question

is asked. We leave the reader to grapple with the difficulty as a

healthy exercise for his understanding, only reminding him that the

conveniences of civilization in the degree hitherto reached would

be immensely curtailed if Man were not allowed to sacrifice for his

own use the lives of animals which, either by their gentle nature or

the localities they occupy, are without the range of the noxious and

dangerous class.

[Illustration: Decoration]

CHAPTER II.

Equally early with their contests with wild animals primeval men

would have had to encounter peril, and to overcome difficulty in

the fulfilment of the natural desire possessed by some of them to

visit new regions of the earth. Even if the theory be true which is

supported by hundreds of learned volumes, that man’s first habitation

was in the most agreeable and fertile portion of Asia, by the banks

of the Tigris and Euphrates, the native characteristic of enterprise

would impel some among the first men to go in quest of new homes or

on journeys of exploration and adventure; and, as the human family

increased, removal for the youthful branches would be absolutely

necessary.

To these primal travellers the perils of unknown adventure and the

pressure of want would most probably have proved excitements too

absorbing to have permitted a chronicle of their experience, even had

the art of writing then existed. But details of adventure as wild and

strange, perhaps, as any encountered by those earliest travellers

exist in the volumes of recent discoverers; and while glancing at

these we may imagine to ourselves similar enterprises of our race in

the thousands of years which are past and gone. Let it be observed,

in passing, that the young reader will find no books more rich and

varied in interest than those of intelligent travellers; and if our

slight mention of a few of their names as partakers in the “Triumphs

of Enterprise” should induce him to form a larger acquaintance

with their narratives, it can scarcely fail to induce thoughts and

resolves that will tend to his advantage.

The perils to be undergone in desert regions are not more forcibly

described by any travellers than by Major Denham, Dr. Oudney,

and Captain Clapperton, the celebrated African discoverers. “The

sand-storm we had the misfortune to encounter in crossing the

desert,” says the former, “gave us a pretty correct idea of the

dreaded effects of these hurricanes. The wind raised the fine sand

with which the extensive desert was covered so as to fill the

atmosphere and render the immense space before us impenetrable to the

eye beyond a few yards. The sun and clouds were entirely obscured,

and a suffocating and oppressive weight accompanied the flakes and

masses of sand which, I had almost said, we had to penetrate at

every step. At times we completely lost sight of the camels, though

only a few yards before us. The horses hung their tongues out of

their mouths, and refused to face the torrents of sand. A sheep

that accompanied the kafila (the travelling train), the last of our

stock, lay down on the road, and we were obliged to kill him and

throw the carcass on a camel. A parching thirst oppressed us, which

nothing alleviated. We had made but little way by three o’clock in

the afternoon, when the wind got round to the eastward and refreshed

us a little; with this change we moved on until about five, when we

halted, protected in a measure by some hills. As we had but little

wood our fare was confined to tea, and we hoped to find relief from

our fatigues by a sound sleep. That, however, was denied us; the

tent had been imprudently pitched, and was exposed to the east wind,

which blew a hurricane during the night; the tent was blown down,

and the whole detachment were employed a full hour in getting it up

again. Our bedding and every thing within the tent was during that

time completely buried by the constant driving of the sand. I was

obliged three times during the night to get up for the purpose of

strengthening the pegs; and when in the morning I awoke two hillocks

of sand were formed on each side of my head some inches high.”

[Illustration: Camels]

Dr. Oudney, the partner of Denham and Clapperton, in their

adventurous enterprise, affords details more frightful in character.

“Strict orders had been given during a certain day of the journey,”

he informs us, “for the camels to keep close up, and for the Arabs

not to straggle—the Tibboo Arabs having been seen on the look out.

During the last two days,” he continues, “we had passed on the

average from sixty to eighty or ninety skeletons each day; but the

numbers that lay about the wells of El-Hammar were countless; those

of two women, whose perfect and regular teeth bespoke them young,

were particularly shocking—their arms still remained clasped round

each other as they had expired, although the flesh had long since

perished by being exposed to the burning rays of the sun, and the

blackened bones only were left; the nails of the fingers and some

of the sinews of the hand also remained, and part of the tongue of

one of them still appeared through the teeth. We had now passed six

days of desert without the slightest appearance of vegetation, and

a little branch was brought me here as a comfort and curiosity. A

few roots of dry grass, blown by the winds towards the travellers,

were eagerly seized on by the Arabs, with cries of joy, for their

hungry camels. Soon after the sun had retired behind the hills to the

west, we descended into a wadey, where about a dozen stunted bushes,

not trees, of palm marked the spot where water was to be found. The

wells were so choked up with sand, that several cart-loads of it

were removed previous to finding sufficient water; and even then the

animals could not drink till nearly ten at night.”

[Illustration: Camp]

Nor was it merely the horrors of the climate which these intrepid

travellers had to encounter. Their visitation of various savage

tribes drew them into the circle of barbarous quarrels. The peril

incurred by Major Denham, while accompanying the Bornou warriors in

their expedition against the Felatahs, is unsurpassed for interest

in any book of travels. “My horse was badly wounded in the neck,

just above the shoulder, and in the near hind leg,” says the Major,

describing what had befallen himself and steed in the encounter;

“an arrow had struck me in the face as it passed, merely drawing

the blood. If either of my horse’s wounds had been from poisoned

arrows I felt that nothing could save me [The tribe he accompanied

had been worsted.] However, there was not much time for reflection;

we instantly became a flying mass, and plunged, in the greatest

disorder, into that wood we had but a few hours before moved through

with order, and very different feelings. The spur had the effect of

incapacitating my beast altogether, as the arrow, I found afterwards,

had reached the shoulder-bone, and in passing over some rough ground

he stumbled and fell. Almost before I was on my legs the Felatahs

were upon me; I had, however, kept hold of the bridle, and, seizing

a pistol from the holsters, I presented it at two of these ferocious

savages, who were pressing me with their spears: they instantly

went off; but another, who came on me more boldly, just as I was

endeavouring to mount, received the contents somewhere in his left

shoulder, and again I was enabled to place my foot in the stirrup.

Re-mounted, I again pushed my retreat; I had not, however, proceeded

many hundred yards when my horse came down again, with such violence

as to throw me against a tree at a considerable distance; and,

alarmed at the horses behind, he quickly got up and escaped, leaving

me on foot and unarmed. A chief and his four followers were here

butchered and stripped; their cries were dreadful, and even now the

feelings of that moment are fresh in my memory; my hopes of life were

too faint to deserve the name. I was almost instantly surrounded, and

incapable of making the least resistance, as I was unarmed. I was

as speedily stripped; and, whilst attempting first to save my shirt

and then my trousers, I was thrown on the ground. My pursuers made

several thrusts at me with their spears, that badly wounded my hands

in two places, and slightly my body, just under my ribs, on the right

side; indeed I saw nothing before me but the same cruel death I had

seen unmercifully inflicted on the few who had fallen into the power

of those who now had possession of me. My shirt was now absolutely

torn off my back, and I was left perfectly naked.

[Illustration: Battle]

“When my plunderers began to quarrel for the spoil, the idea of

escape came like lightning across my mind, and, without a moment’s

hesitation or reflection, I crept under the belly of the horse

nearest me, and started as fast as my legs could carry me for the

thickest part of the wood. Two of the Felatahs followed, and I ran

on to the eastward, knowing that our stragglers would be in that

direction, but still almost as much afraid of friends as of foes. My

pursuers gained on me, for the prickly underwood not only obstructed

my passage but tore my flesh miserably; and the delight with which I

saw a mountain-stream gliding along at the bottom of a deep ravine

cannot be imagined. My strength had almost left me, and I seized the

young branches issuing from the stump of a large tree which overhung

the ravine, for the purpose of letting myself down into the water,

as the sides were precipitous, when, under my hand, as the branch

yielded to the weight of my body, a large _liffa_, the worst kind

of serpent this country produces, rose from its coil, as if in the

act of striking. I was horror-stricken, and deprived for a moment

of all recollection; the branch slipped from my hand, and I tumbled

headlong into the water beneath; this shock, however, revived me, and

with three strokes of my arms I reached the opposite bank, which with

difficulty I crawled up, and then, for the first time, felt myself

safe from my pursuers.

“Scarcely had I audibly congratulated myself on my escape, when the

forlorn and wretched situation in which I was, without even a rag

to cover me, flashed with all its force upon my imagination. I was

perfectly collected, though fully alive to all the danger to which

my state exposed me, and had already began to plan my night’s rest

in the top of one of the tamarind trees, in order to escape the

panthers, which, as I had seen, abounded in these woods, when the

idea of the _liffas_, almost as numerous and equally to be dreaded,

excited a shudder of despair.

“I now saw horsemen through the trees, still farther to the east, and

determined on reaching them if possible, whether friends or enemies.

They were friends. I hailed them with all my might; but the noise

and confusion which prevailed, from the cries of those who were

falling under the Felatah spears, the cheers of the Arabs rallying

and their enemies pursuing, would have drowned all attempts to make

myself heard, had not the sheikh’s negro seen and known me at a

distance. To this man I was indebted for my second escape: riding up

to me, he assisted me to mount behind him, while the arrows whistled

over our heads, and we then galloped off to the rear as fast as his

wounded horse could carry us. After we had gone a mile or two, and

the pursuit had cooled, I was covered with a bornouse; this was a

most welcome relief, for the burning sun had already begun to blister

my neck and back, and gave me the greatest pain; and had we not

soon arrived at water I do not think it possible that I could have

supported the thirst by which I was being consumed.”

The exciting narrative of travel in the central regions of Africa the

young reader may pursue in various volumes, from those describing

the adventures of Leo Africanus, in 1513, to the narrative of the

intrepid career of Mungo Park, in 1796. From the dangers of travel in

the torrid zone the spirit of contrast would direct us to a glance at

the perils of adventure in the arctic. Here a pile of books written

by men of science await us; but, unfortunately, many of them, like

the volumes of Maupertuis and Pallas, though rich in details of

natural philosophy or natural history, possess little interest as

narratives of adventure. Their authors had little or none of the

true heroic spirit of the man of enterprise, who never courts ease

when the way of danger is the real path to entire knowledge. The

spirit of Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke marks more accurately the proper

constitution of the traveller united with the tendencies of the man

of science. He had resolved to attempt reaching the North Pole; but

having arrived at Enontakis, in latitude 68 degrees, 30 min., 30

sec., N., he was seized with illness, and obliged to return to the

south. He thus writes to his mother, from Enontakis:—

“We have found the cottage of a priest in this remote corner of the

world, and have been snug with him a few days. Yesterday I launched

a balloon, eighteen feet in height, which I had made to attract the

natives. You may guess their astonishment when they saw it rise from

the earth. Is it not famous to be here within the frigid zone, more

than two degrees within the arctic, and nearer to the pole than the

most northern shores of Iceland? For a long time darkness has been a

stranger to us. The sun, as yet, passes not below the horizon, but he

dips his crimson visage behind a mountain to the north. This mountain

we ascended, and had the satisfaction to see him make his courtesy

without setting. At midnight the priest of this place lights his

pipe, during three weeks of the year, by means of a burning-glass,

from the sun’s rays.”

Of all travellers in the northern regions, though not the most

intellectual, the hardiest and most adventurous is Captain Cochrane.

He had originally intended to devote himself to African discovery,

conceiving himself competent for that arduous undertaking, by

experience of the fatigues he had borne in laborious pedestrian

journeys through France, Spain, and Portugal, and in Canada. “The

plan I proposed to follow,” says he, “was nearly that adopted

by Mungo Park, in his first journey—intending to proceed alone,

and requiring only to be furnished with the countenance of some

constituent part of the government. With this protection, and such

recommendation as it would procure me, I would have accompanied

the caravans in some servile capacity, nor hesitated even to sell

myself as a slave, if that miserable alternative were necessary,

to accomplish the object I had in view. In going alone, I relied

upon my own individual exertions and knowledge of man, unfettered

by the frailties and misconduct of others. I was then, as now,

convinced that many people travelling together for the purpose of

exploring a barbarous country, have the less chance of succeeding;

more especially when they go armed, and take with them presents of

value. The appearance of numbers must naturally excite the natives to

resistance, from motives of jealousy or fear; and the danger would be

greatly increased by the hope of plunder.”

The answer he received from the Admiralty being unfavourable, and

thinking that a young commander was not likely to be employed in

active service, he planned for himself a journey on foot round the

globe, as nearly as it could be accomplished by land, intending to

cross from northern Asia to America at Behring’s Straits. Captain

Cochrane did not realise his first intent, but he tracked the

breadth of the entire continent of Asia to Kamtschatka. Hazards and

dangers befel him frequently in this enterprise; but he pursued it

undauntedly. His perils commenced when he had left St. Petersburg but

a few days, and had not reached Novogorod.

“From Tosna my route was towards Linbane,” says our adventurer, “at

about the ninth milestone from which I sat down, to smoke a cigar or

pipe, as fancy might dictate. I was suddenly seized from behind by

two ruffians, whose visages were as much concealed as the oddness

of their dress would permit. One of them, who held an iron bar in

his hand, dragged me by the collar towards the forest, while the

other, with a bayonetted musket, pushed me on in such a manner as to

make me move with more than ordinary celerity; a boy, auxiliary to

these vagabonds, was stationed on the roadside to keep a look-out.

We had got some sixty or eighty paces into the thickest part of

the forest, when I was desired to undress, and having stripped off

my trousers and jacket, then my shirt, and finally my shoes and

stockings, they proceeded to tie me to a tree. From this ceremony,

and from the manner of it, I fully concluded that they intended to

try the effect of a musket upon me, by firing at me as they would

at a mark. I was, however, reserved for fresh scenes; the villains,

with much _sang froid_, seated themselves at my feet, and rifled my

knapsack and pockets, even cutting out the linings of the clothes

in search of bank bills or some other valuable articles. They then

compelled me to take at least a pound of black bread, and a glass

of rum, poured from a small flask which had been suspended from my

neck. Having appropriated my trousers, shirts, stockings, and shoes,

as also my spectacles, watch, compass, thermometer, and small pocket

sextant, with one hundred and sixty roubles (about seven pounds),

they at length released me from the tree, and, at the point of a

stiletto, made me swear that I would not inform against them—such, at

least, I conjectured to be their meaning, though of their language

I understood not a word. Having received my promise, I was again

treated by them to bread and rum, and once more fastened to the tree,

in which condition they finally abandoned me. Not long after, a boy

who was passing heard my cries, and set me at liberty. With the

remnant of my apparel, I rigged myself in Scotch Highland fashion,

and resumed my route. I had still left me a blue jacket, a flannel

waistcoat, and a spare one, which I tied round my waist in such a

manner that it reached down to the knees; my empty knapsack was

restored to its old place, and I trotted on with even a merry heart.”

He comes up with a file of soldiers in the course of a few miles and

is relieved with some food, but declines the offer of clothes. A

carriage is also offered to convey him to the next military station.

“But I soon discovered,” he continues, “that riding was too cold,

and therefore preferred walking, barefooted as I was; and on the

following morning I reached Tschduvo, one hundred miles from St.

Petersburg.” At Novogorod he is further relieved by the governor, and

accepts from him a shirt and trousers.

He reaches Moscow without a renewal of danger, and thence Vladimir

and Pogost. In the latter town he cheerfully makes his bed in a style

that shows he possessed the spirit of an adventurer in perfection.

“Being too jaded to proceed farther,” are his words, “I thought

myself fortunate in being able to pass the night in a _cask_. Nor

did I think this mode of passing the night a novel one. Often, very

often, have I, in the fastnesses of Spain and Portugal, reposed in

similar style.” He even selects exposure to the open air for sleep

when it is in his power to accept indulgence. “Arrived at Nishney

Novogorod, the Baron Bode,” says he, “received me kindly, placing me

for board in his own house; while for lodging I preferred the open

air of his garden: there, with my knapsack for a pillow, I passed

the night more pleasantly than I should have done on a bed of down,

which the baron pressed me most sincerely to accept.” A man who thus

hardened himself against indulgence could scarcely dread any of the

hardships so inevitable in the hazardous course he had marked out for

himself.

Accordingly, we find him exciting the wonder of the natives by his

hardihood, in the very heart of Siberia. “At Irkutsk,” is his own

relation, “in the month of January, with forty degrees of Reaumur, I

have gone about, late and early, either for exercise or amusement, to

balls or dinners, yet did I never use any other kind of clothing than

I do now in the streets of London. Thus my readers must not suppose

my situation to have been so desperate. It is true, the natives felt

surprised, and pitied my apparently forlorn and hopeless situation,

not seeming to consider that, when the mind and body are in constant

motion, the elements can have little effect upon the person. I feel

confident that most of the miseries of human life are brought about

by want of a solid education—of firm reliance on a bountiful and

ever-attendant Providence—of a spirit of perseverance—of patience

under fatigue and privations, and a resolute determination to hold

to the point of duty, never to shrink while life retains a spark,

or while ‘a shot is in the locker,’ as sailors say. Often, indeed,

have I felt myself in difficult and trying circumstances, from

cold, or hunger, or fatigue; but I may affirm, with gratitude, that

I have never felt happier than even in the encountering of these

difficulties.” He remarks, soon afterwards, that he has never seen

his constitution equalled; but the young reader will remember that

the undaunted adventurer has strikingly shown us how this excellent

constitution was preserved from injury by shunning effeminacy.

Yet our traveller’s superlative constitution is severely tested when

he reaches the country of the Yakuti, a tribe of Siberian Tartars.

He crosses a mountain range, and halts, with the attendants he has

now found the means to engage, for the night, at the foot of an

elevation, somewhat sheltered from the cold north wind. “The first

thing on my arrival,” he relates, “was to unload the horses, loosen

their saddles or pads, take the bridles out of their mouths, and

tie them to a tree in such a manner that they could not eat. The

Yakuti then with their axes proceeded to fell timber, while I and the

Cossack, with our lopatkas or wooden spades, cleared away the snow,

which was generally a couple of feet deep. We then spread branches of

the pine tree, to fortify us from the damp or cold earth beneath us;

a good fire was now soon made, and each bringing a leathern bag from

the baggage furnished himself with a seat. We then put the kettle on

the fire, and soon forgot the sufferings of the day. At times the

weather was so cold that we were obliged to creep almost into the

fire; and as I was much worse off than the rest of the party for warm

clothing, I had recourse to every stratagem I could devise to keep

my blood in circulation. It was barely possible to keep one side of

the body from freezing, while the other might be said to be roasting.

Upon the whole, I passed the night tolerably well, although I was

obliged to get up five or six times to take a walk or run, for the

benefit of my feet. The following day, at thirty miles, we again

halted in the snow, when I made a horse-shoe fire, which I found had

the effect of keeping every part of me alike warm, and I actually

slept well without any other covering than my clothes thrown over me;

whereas, before, I had only the consolation of knowing that if I was

in a freezing state with one half of my body, the other was meanwhile

roasting to make amends.”

Captain Cochrane’s constitution had so much of the power of

adaptation to circumstances, that he was enabled to make a meal even

with the savagest tribes. A deer had been shot, and the Yakuti began

to eat it uncooked! “Of course,” says he, “I had the most luxurious

part presented to me, being the marrow of the fore-legs. I did not

find it disagreeable, though eaten raw and warm from life; in a

frozen state I should consider it a great delicacy. The animal was

the size of a good calf, weighing about two hundred pounds. Such a

quantity of meat may serve four or five good Yakuti for a single

meal, with whom it is ever famine or feast, gluttony or starvation.”

The captain’s account of the feeding powers of the Yakuti surpasses,

indeed, anything to be found in the narratives of travellers which

are proverbial for wonder. “At Tabalak I had a pretty good specimen,”

he continues, “of the appetite of a child, whose age could not exceed

five years. I had observed it crawling on the floor, and scraping up

with its thumb the tallow-grease which fell from a lighted candle,

and I inquired in surprise whether it proceeded from hunger or liking

of the fat. I was told from neither, but simply from the habit in

both Yakuti and Tungousi of eating wherever there is food, and never

permitting anything that can be eaten to be lost. I gave the child

a candle made of the most impure tallow, a second, and a third—and

all were devoured with avidity. The steersman then gave him several

pounds of sour frozen butter; this also he immediately consumed.

Lastly, a large piece of yellow soap—all went the same road; but as

I was convinced that the child would continue to gorge as long as

it could receive anything, I begged my companion to desist as I had

done. As to the statement of what a man can or will eat, either as

to quality or quantity, I am afraid it would be quite incredible.

In fact, there is nothing in the way of fish or meat, from whatever

animal, however putrid or unwholesome, but they will devour with

impunity; and the quantity only varies from what they have to what

they can get. I have repeatedly seen a Yakut or a Tungouse devour

forty pounds of meat in a day. The effects are very observable

upon them, for, from thin and meagre-looking men, they will become

perfectly pot-bellied. I have seen three of these gluttons consume a

reindeer at one meal.”

These doings of the Siberian Tartars, our young readers will have

rightly judged, however, are not among the most praiseworthy or

dignified of the “Triumphs of Enterprise;” and we turn, with a sense

of relief, to other scenes of adventure.

The grand mountain range of the Andes, or Cordilleras, with its

rugged and barren peaks and volcanoes, and destitution of human

habitants, sometimes for scores of miles in the traveller’s route,

has afforded a striking theme for many writers of their own

adventures in South America. Mr. Temple, a traveller in 1825, affords

us some exciting views of the perils of his journey from Peru to

Buenos Ayres.

In the afternoon of one of these perilous days he had to ascend and

descend the highest mountain he had ever yet crossed. After winding

for more than two hours up its rugged side, and precisely in the

most terrifying spot, the baggage-mule, which was in front, suddenly

stopped. “And well it might, poor little wretch, after scrambling

with its burden up such fatiguing flights of craggy steps!” exclaims

this benevolent-minded traveller; “the narrowness of the path at

this spot did not allow room to approach the animal to unload and

give it rest. On one side was the solid rock, which drooped over our

heads in a half-arch; on the other, a frightful abyss, of not less

than two hundred feet perpendicular. Patience was, indeed, requisite

here, but the apprehension was, that some traveller or courier might

come in the contrary direction, and, as the sun was setting, the

consequences could not fail of proving disastrous to either party. At

one time, I held a council to deliberate on the prudence of freeing

the passage by shooting the mule, and letting it roll, baggage and

all, to the bottom. In this I was opposed by the postilion, though

another as well as myself was of opinion that it was the only method

of rescuing us from our critical situation before nightfall. I never

felt so perplexed in my life. We were all useless, helpless, and

knew not what to do. After upwards of half an hour—or, apprehension

might add a few minutes to this dubious and truly nervous pause—the

mule, of its own accord, moved on slowly for about twenty yards, and

stopped again; then proceeded, then stopped; and thus, after two

hours’ further ascent, we gradually reached the summit. Two or three

times I wished, for safety’s sake, to alight, but actually I had not

room to do so upon the narrow edge of the tremendous precipice on my

left.”

He was less fortunate in his return over the mountains of Tarija.

“Cruel was the sight,” says he, “to see us toiling up full fifteen

miles continued steep to the summit of the Cordillera, that here

forms a ridge round the south-western extremity of the province of

Tarija; but crueller by far to behold the wretched, wretched mule,

that slipped on the edge of the precipice, and—away! exhibiting ten

thousand summersaults, round, round, round! down, down, down! nine

hundred and ninety-nine thousand fathoms deep!—certainly not one yard

less, according to the scale by which I measured the chasm in my

wonder-struck imagination, while I stood in the stirrups straining

forward over the ears of my horse (which trembled with alarm), and

viewed the microscopic diminution of the mule, as it revolved with

accelerated motion to the bottom, carrying with it our whole grand

store of provision.”

Here they were obliged to leave the poor animal to its fate, which

there was no doubt would be that of being devoured by condors. But a

far more serious accident befel Mr. Temple a few days after this. A

favourite horse that he had purchased on his journey to Potosi got

loose, and galloping off after a herd of his own species speedily

disappeared, and was never recovered. His apostrophe to this animal

is a specimen of fine benevolent sentiment. “My horse,” said I to

myself, “my best horse, my favourite horse, my companion, my friend,

for so long a time, on journeys of so many hundred miles, carrying

me up and down mountains, along the edge of precipices, across

rivers and torrents, where the safety of the rider so often depended

solely on the worthiness of the animal—to lose thee now in a moment

of so much need, in a manner so unexpected, and so provokingly

accidental, aggravated my loss. The constant care I took of thee

proves the value I set on thy merits. At the end of many a wearisome

journey, accommodation and comfort for thee were invariably my first

consideration, let mine be what they might. Not even the severity of

the past night could induce me to deprive thee of thy rug for my own

gratification. And must I now suddenly say farewell? Then farewell,

my trusty friend! A thousand dollars are in that portmanteau: had I

lost every one of them, they must, indeed, have occasioned regret;

but never could they have excited such a feeling of sorrow as thou

hast, my best, my favourite horse—farewell!”

If we wished to depicture the earth as it must have appeared to

primeval travellers, Humboldt, the most sagacious of adventurers,

seems to assure us that South America approaches nearest to such a

picture. “In this part of the new continent,” he remarks, “surrounded

by dense forests of boundless extent, we almost accustomed ourselves

to regard men as not being essential to the order of nature.

The earth is loaded with plants, and nothing impedes their free

development. An immense layer of mould manifests the uninterrupted

action of organic powers. The crocodiles and the boas are masters

of the river; the jaguar, the pecari, the dante, and the monkeys

traverse the forest without fear and without danger: there they dwell

as in an ancient inheritance. This aspect of animated nature, in

which man is nothing, has something in it strange and sad. To this we

reconcile ourselves with difficulty on the ocean and amid the sands

of Africa, though in these scenes, where nothing recals to mind our

fields, our woods, and our streams, we are less astonished at the

vast solitude through which we pass. Here, in a fertile country,

adorned with eternal verdure, we seek in vain the traces of the power

of man; we seem to be transported into a world different from that

which gave us birth.”

Of the suffering to be encountered by adventurers in these regions,

we are assured, however, by Humboldt, the chief source does not

consist in the presence of crocodiles or serpents, jaguars or

monkeys. The dread of these sinks into nothing when compared to the

_plaga de la moscas_—the torment of insects. “However accustomed,”

says Humboldt, “you may be to endure pain without complaint—however

lively an interest you may take in the object of your researches—it

is impossible not to be constantly disturbed by the musquetoes,

zaucudoes, jejeus, and tempraneroes that cover the face and hands,

pierce the clothes with their long sucker in the shape of a needle,

and getting into the mouth and nostrils set you coughing and sneezing

whenever you attempt to speak in the open air. I doubt whether there

be a country on earth where man is exposed to more cruel torments in

the rainy seasons, when the lower strata of the air to the height

of fifteen or twenty feet are filled with venomous insects like a

condensed vapour.”

This terrific account of the American mosquito is confirmed by Mr.

Hood, one of the companions of Captain Franklin, in the intrepid

attempt to reach the North Pole by overland journey. “We had

sometimes procured a little rest,” he observes, “by closing the tent

and burning wood or flashing gunpowder within, the smoke driving

the musquitoes into the crannies of the ground. But this remedy

was now ineffectual, though we employed it so perseveringly as to

hazard suffocation. They swarmed under our blankets, goring us with

their envenomed trunks and steeping our clothes in blood. We rose

at daylight in a fever, and our misery was unmitigated during our

whole stay. The food of the mosquito is blood, which it can extract

by penetrating the hide of a buffalo; and if it is not disturbed

it gorges itself so as to swell its body into a transparent globe.

The wound does not swell, like that of the African mosquito, but it

is infinitely more painful; and when multiplied an hundred-fold,

and continued for so many successive days, it becomes an evil of

such magnitude that cold, famine, and every other concomitant of an

inhospitable climate, must yield pre-eminence to it. It chases the

buffalo to the plains, irritating him to madness; and the reindeer

to the sea-shore, from which they do not return till the scourge has

ceased.”

Captain Back, whose Arctic Land Expedition has made his name

memorable, confirms these accounts. After describing the difficulties

of himself and party in dragging their baggage and provisions, and

even their canoe, up high, steep, and rugged ridges, over swamps of

thick stunted firs, and open spaces barren and desolate, on which

“crag was piled on crag to the height of two thousand feet from the

base,” he adds these descriptive sentences of the insect plague: “The

laborious duty which had been thus performed was rendered doubly

severe by the combined attack of myriads of sandflies and mosquitoes,

which made our faces stream with blood. There is certainly no form of

wretchedness among those to which the chequered life of a traveller

is exposed, at once so great and so humiliating, as the torture

inflicted by these puny blood-suckers. To avoid them is impossible;

and as for defending himself, though for a time he may go on crushing

by thousands, he cannot long maintain the unequal conflict, so that

at last, subdued by pain and fatigue, he throws himself in despair

with his face to the earth, and, half suffocated in his blanket,

groans away a few hours of sleepless rest.”

The swarms of sandflies, called _brulots_ by the Canadians, it

appears by the following account of Captain Back, are as annoying

as the mosquitoes:—“As we dived into the confined and suffocating

chasms, or waded through the close swamps, they rose in clouds,

actually darkening the air. To see or speak was equally difficult,

for they rushed at every undefended part and fixed their poisonous

fangs in an instant. Our faces streamed with blood as if leeches had

been applied, and there was a burning and irritating pain, followed

by immediate inflammation, and producing giddiness which almost drove

us mad. Whenever we halted, which the nature of the country compelled

us to do often, the men—even the Indians—threw themselves on their

faces, and moaned with pain and agony. My arms being less encumbered

I defended myself in some degree by waving a branch in each hand;

but, even with this and the aid of a veil and stout leather gloves, I

did not escape without severe punishment. For the time I thought the

tiny plagues worse even than mosquitoes.”

The ardour which can bear a man onward through difficulties and

annoyances of this nature is admirable; but love is united with our

admiration when Capt. Back gives the following testimony to the

benevolence of Sir John Franklin:—

“It was the custom of Sir John Franklin never to kill a fly; and

though teased by them beyond expression, especially when engaged

in taking observations, he would quietly desist from his work and

patiently blow the half-gorged intruders from his hands—‘the world

was wide enough for both.’ This was jocosely remarked upon by

Akaitcho and the four or five Indians who accompanied him. But the

impression, it seems,” continues Captain Back, “had sunk deep, for

on Manfelly’s seeing me fill my tent with smoke, and then throw open

the front and beat the sides all round with leafy branches to drive

out the stupified pests before I went to rest, he could not refrain

from expressing his surprise that I should be so unlike ‘the old

chief,’ who would not destroy so much as a single mosquito.” So true

it is that the real hero, he for whom danger has no terrors, has the

kindest and gentlest nature!

[Illustration: Ostrich]

CHAPTER III.

He who first committed himself to the perils of the great waters must

have been peculiarly distinguished among men for his intrepidity.

Modern adventure on the wide ocean, or in comparatively unknown

seas, is not accompanied with that uncertainty and sense of utter

desolation which must have filled the mind of early adventurers when

driven out of sight of land by the tempest; but neither the discovery

of the compass nor the many other aids to safety possessed by modern

navigators free their enterprises from appalling dangers. The

persevering courage of travellers evermore commands our admiration;

but the voyager takes his life in his hand from the moment that he

leaves the shore. The freedom from fear—nay, the cheerfulness and

exultation he experiences when surrounded by the waste of waters,

far away from the enjoyments of house and home; the unsubduable

resolution with which he careers over the wave and encounters every

vicissitude of season and climate; the strength and vastness of the

element itself which is the chief scene of his daring enterprise:

these are considerations that ever interweave themselves with our

ideal of the sea-adventurer, and render him the object of more

profound and ardent admiration than the mere traveller by land.

To ourselves, as natives of a country whose greatness is owing to

commercial enterprise and superiority in the arts of navigation,

these remarks forcibly apply. Maritime discovery has been oftener,

much oftener, undertaken by England and Englishmen than by any other

country or people in the world. Many secondary reasons for this

might be alleged in addition to the primary one of discovery. Such

undertakings are the means of training our sailors to hardihood and

young officers to the most difficult and dangerous situations in

which a ship can be placed. They accustom the officers how to take

care of and to preserve the health of a ship’s company. They are

the means of solid instruction in the higher branches of nautical

science, and in the use of the various instruments which science has,

of late years especially, brought to such perfection.

The career of the navigator thus assumes a higher character, being

that of a pioneer of science and corroborator of its discoveries,

than the employ or profession of any other man, however elevated

the station allotted him by society. Reflection will convince the

young reader that such men as Cook and Vancouver, Parry and Ross,

are much more deserving of triumphal monuments than martial heroes.

The dangers they encountered were fully as great, while the tendency

of their grand enterprises was not to inflict suffering on mankind

but to enlighten it with the knowledge of distant quarters of the

globe, and to bless and enrich it by the improvement of navigation

and commerce. For these reasons, the claim of the navigator to a

high rank in our brief chronicle of the “Triumphs of Enterprise”

would boldly assert itself, independent of the exciting nature of sea

adventures.

Here is an hour of danger described by the heroic Ross, and occurring

in the month of August, 1818, during that intrepid commander’s search

for the long wished-for “North-West Passage.” “The two ships were

caught by a gale of wind among the ice, and fell foul of each other.

The ice-anchors and cables broke, one after another, and the sterns

of the two ships came so violently into contact as to crush to pieces

a boat that could not be removed in time. Neither the masters, the

mates, nor those men who had been all their lives in the Greenland

service, had ever experienced such imminent peril; and they declared

that a common whaler must have been crushed to atoms. Our safety

must, indeed, be attributed to the perfect and admirable manner

in which the vessels had been strengthened when fitting for the

service. But our troubles were not yet at an end; for, as the gale

increased, the ice began to move with greater velocity, while the

continued thick fall of snow kept from our sight the further danger

that awaited us, till it became imminent. A large field of ice was

soon discovered at a small distance, bearing fast down upon us from

the west, and it thus became necessary to saw docks for refuge, in

which service all hands were immediately employed. It was, however,

found to be too thick for our nine-feet saws, and no progress could

be made. This circumstance proved fortunate, for it was soon after

perceived that the field, to which we were moored for this purpose,

was drifting rapidly on a reef of icebergs which lay aground. The

topsails were therefore close-reefed, in order that we might run, as

a last resource, between two bergs, or into any creek that might be

found among them; when suddenly the field acquired a circular motion,

so that every exertion was now necessary for the purpose of warping

along the edge, that being the sole chance we had of escaping the

danger of being crushed on an iceberg. In a few minutes we observed

that part of the field into which we had attempted to cut our docks,

come in contact with the berg, with such rapidity and violence as

to rise more than fifty feet up its precipitous side, where it

suddenly broke, the elevated part falling back on the rest with a

terrible crash, and overwhelming with its ruins the very spot we had

previously chosen for our safety. Soon afterwards the ice appeared to

us sufficiently open for us to pass the reef of bergs, and we once

more found ourselves in a place of security.”

The terrors of an iceberg scene are most graphically depicted by

Ross, in the account of his second voyage of discovery. “It is

unfortunate,” says he, “that no description can convey an idea of

a scene of this nature; and, as to pencil, it cannot represent

motion or noise. And to those who have not seen a northern ocean in

winter—who have not seen it, I should say, in a winter’s storm—the

term ice, exciting but the recollection of what they only know at

rest, in an inland lake or canal, conveys no ideas of what it is

the fate of an arctic navigator to witness and to feel. But let

them remember that ice is stone; a floating rock in the stream,

a promontory or an island when aground, not less solid than if it

were a land of granite. Then let them imagine, if they can, these

mountains of crystal hurled through a narrow strait by a rapid

tide; meeting, as mountains in motion would meet, with the noise of

thunder, breaking from each other’s precipices huge fragments, or

rending each other asunder, till, losing their former equilibrium,

they fall over headlong, lifting the sea around in breakers, and

whirling it in eddies; while the flatter fields of ice forced against

these masses, or against the rocks, by the wind and the stream, rise

out of the sea till they fall back on themselves, adding to the

indescribable commotion and noise which attend these occurrences.”

How tremendous must be the sense of danger to the tenants of a frail

ship amidst such gigantic forces of nature, the most inexperienced

reader can form some conception. But, overwhelming as the feeling of

awe must be with the sailor surrounded with such terrors, it must

be infinitely more tolerable than the prolonged and indescribably

irksome heart-ache he experiences when inclosed for months in fixed

ice, encompassed on every hand with desolation. “He must be a

seaman,” says the same gallant adventurer, “to feel that the vessel

which bounds beneath him, which listens to and obeys the smallest

movement of his hand, which seems to move but under his will, is ‘a

thing of life,’ a mind conforming to his wishes: not an inert body,

the sport of winds and waves. But what seaman could feel this as we

did, when this creature, which used to carry us buoyantly over the

ocean, had been during an entire year immoveable as the ice and the

rocks around it, helpless, disobedient, dead? We were weary for want

of occupation, for want of variety, for want of the means of mental

exertion, for want of thought, and (why should I not say it?) for

want of society. To-day was as yesterday—and as was to-day, so would

be to-morrow: while, if there were no variety, no hope of better,

is it wonderful that even the visits of barbarians were welcome? or

can anything more strongly show the nature of our pleasures, than

the confession that these visits were delightful—even as the society

of London might be amid the business of London? When the winter has

once in reality set in, our minds become made up on the subject;

like the dormouse (though we may not sleep, which would be the most

desirable condition by far), we wrap ourselves up in a sort of furry

contentment, since better cannot be, and wait for the times to come:

it was a far other thing to be ever awake, waiting to rise and become

active, yet ever to find that all nature was still asleep, and that

we had nothing more to do than to wish and groan, and—hope as we best

might.” How truly poetical his description of human feeling amidst

the eternal appearance of ice and snow!—“When snow was our decks,

snow was our awnings, snow our observations, snow our larders, snow

our salt; and, when all the other uses of snow should be at last

of no more avail, our coffins and our graves were to be graves and

coffins of snow. Is this not more than enough of snow than suffices

for admiration? Is it not worse, that during ten months in a year the

ground is snow, and ice, and ‘slush;’ that during the whole year its

tormenting, chilling, odious presence is ever before the eye? Who

more than I has admired the glaciers of the extreme north? Who more

has loved to contemplate the icebergs sailing from the Pole before

the tide and the gale, floating along the ocean, through calm and

through storm, like castles and towers and mountains, gorgeous in

colouring, and magnificent, if often capricious, in form? And have

I, too, not sought amid the crashing, and the splitting, and the

thundering roarings of a sea of moving mountains, for the sublime,

and felt that Nature could do no more? In all this there has been

beauty, horror, danger, everything that could excite; they would have

excited a poet even to the verge of madness. But to see, to have

seen, ice and snow—to have felt snow and ice for ever, and nothing

for ever but snow and ice, during all the months of a year—to have

seen and felt but uninterrupted and unceasing ice and snow during all

the months of four years—this it is that has made the sight of those

most chilling and wearisome objects an evil which is still one in

recollection, as if the remembrance would never cease.”

To bid farewell to his ship in these regions of deathly solitariness

must be a trial of the heart even severer than its sense of awe amid

icebergs, or wearisomeness with the eternal snow. This fell to the

lot of the brave Ross and his crew. Fast beset where there was no

prospect of release, they commenced carrying forwards a certain

quantity of provisions, and the boats with their sledges, for the

purpose of advancing more easily afterwards. The labour of proceeding

over ice and snow was most severe, and the wind and snow-drift

rendered it almost intolerable. On the 21st of May, 1832 (for this

was during Sir John Ross’s _second_ voyage) all the provisions from

their ship, the Victory, had been carried forward to the several

deposits, except as much as would serve for about a month. In

the process of forming these deposits it was found that they had

travelled, forwards and backwards, three hundred and twenty-nine

miles to gain about thirty in a direct line. Preparation was now made

for their final departure, which took place on the 29th of May.

“We had now,” continues the commander, “secured everything on shore

which could be of use to us in case of our return; or which, if

we could not, would prove of use to the natives. The colours were

therefore hoisted and nailed to the mast, we drank a parting glass

to our poor ship, and having seen every man out, in the evening I

took my own adieu of the Victory, which had deserved a better fate.

It was the first vessel that I had ever been obliged to abandon,

after having served in thirty-six, during a period of forty-two

years. It was like the last parting with an old friend; and I did not

pass the point where she ceased to be visible without stopping to

take a sketch of this melancholy desert—rendered more melancholy by

the solitary, abandoned, helpless home of our past years, fixed in

immovable ice till Time should perform on her his usual work.”

After a full month’s most fatiguing journey, they encamped and

constructed a canvass-covered house. This they deserted, and set out

once more, but, after several weeks’ vain attempt to reach navigable

water, were compelled to return, “their labours at an end, and

themselves once more at home.” Here—of the provisions left behind

them—flour, sugar, soups, peas, vegetables, pickles, and lemon-juice,

were in abundance; but of preserved meats there remained not more

than would suffice for their voyage in the boats during the next

season. A monotonous winter was spent in their house; and the want of

exercise, of sufficient employment, short allowance of food, lowness

of spirits produced by the unbroken sight of the dull, melancholy,

uniform waste of snow and ice, had the effect of reducing the whole

party to a more indifferent state of health than had hitherto been

experienced.

“We were indeed all very weary of this miserable home,” says Sir John

Ross. “Even the storms were without variety: there was nothing to

see out of doors, even when we could face the sky; and within it was

to look equally for variety and employment and to find neither. If

those of the least active minds dozed away their time in the waking

stupefaction which such a state of things produces, they were the

most fortunate of the party. Those among us who had the enviable

talent of sleeping at all times, whether they were anxious or not,

fared best.”

At length the long-looked-for period arrived when it was deemed

necessary to abandon the house in search of better fortune; and on

the 7th of July, being Sunday, the last divine service was performed

in their winter habitation. The following day they bid adieu to it

for ever! and having been detained a short time at Batty Bay, and

finding the ice to separate and a lane of water to open out, they

succeeded in crossing over to the eastern side of Prince Regent

Inlet. Standing along the southern shore of Barrow’s Strait, on the

26th of August they discovered a sail, and, after some tantalizing

delays, they succeeded in making themselves visible to the crew of

one of her boats.

“She was soon alongside,” proceeds Sir John Ross, “when the mate

in command addressed us, by presuming that we had met with some

misfortune and lost our ship. This being answered in the affirmative,

I requested to know the name of his vessel, and expressed our wish

to be taken on board. I was answered that it was the ‘Isabella of

Hull, once commanded by Captain Ross;’ on which I stated that I was

the identical man in question, and my people the crew of the Victory.

That the mate who commanded this boat was as much astonished at

this information as he appeared to be I do not doubt; while, with

the usual blunderheadedness of men on such occasions, he assured me

that I had been dead two years! I easily convinced him, however,

that what ought to have been true, according to his estimate, was a

somewhat premature conclusion, as the bear-like form of the whole

set of us might have shown him had he taken time to consider that we

were certainly not whaling gentlemen, and that we carried tolerable

evidence of our being ‘true men, and no impostors’ on our backs, and

in our starved and unshaven countenances. A hearty congratulation

followed, of course, in the true seaman style, and after a few

natural inquiries he added that the ‘Isabella was commanded by

Captain Humphreys,’ when he immediately went off in his boat to

communicate his information on board, repeating that we had long been

given up as lost, not by them alone, but by all England.

“As we approached slowly after him to the ship, he jumped up the

side, and in a minute the rigging was manned, while we were saluted

with three cheers as we came within cable’s length, and were not long

in getting on board of my old vessel, where we were all received by

Captain Humphreys with a hearty seaman’s welcome.

“Though we had not been supported by our names and characters, we

should not the less have claimed, from charity, the attentions that

we received, for never was seen a more miserable-looking set of

wretches; while, that we were but a repulsive-looking people, none

of us could doubt. If to be poor, wretchedly poor, as far as all

our present property was concerned, was to have a claim on charity,

no one could well deserve it more; but if to look so as to frighten

away the so-called charitable, no beggar that wanders in Ireland

could have outdone us in exciting the repugnance of those who have

not known what poverty can be. Unshaven since I know not when,

dirty, dressed in the rags of wild beasts instead of the tatters

of civilization, and starved to the very bones, our gaunt and grim

looks, when contrasted with those of the well-dressed and well-fed

men around us, made us all feel, I believe for the first time,

what we really were as well as what we seemed to others. Poverty is

without half its mark unless it be contrasted with wealth; and what

we might have known to be true in the past days, we had forgotten to

think of till we were thus reminded of what we truly were as well as

seemed to be.

“But the ludicrous soon took place of all other feelings; in such a

crowd and such confusion all serious thought was impossible, while

the new buoyancy of our spirits made us abundantly willing to be

amused by the scene which now opened. Every man was hungry and was

to be fed, all were ragged and were to be clothed, there was not

one to whom washing was not indispensable, nor one whom his beard

did not deprive of all English semblance. All, everything, too, was

to be done at once; it was washing, dressing, shaving, eating, all

intermingled; it was all the materials of each jumbled together;

while, in the midst of all, there were interminable questions to be

asked and answered on all sides: the adventures of the Victory, our

own escapes, the politics of England, and the news which was now

four years old. But all subsided into peace at last. The sick were

accommodated, the seamen disposed of, and all was done for all of

us which care and kindness could perform. Night at length brought

quiet and serious thoughts, and I trust there was not one man among

us who did not then express, where it was due, his gratitude for

that interposition which had raised us all from a despair which none

could now forget, and had brought us from the very borders of a not

distant grave to life, and friends, and civilization.