What has it attained? Let as go on. In the first place, what remains

of the gigantic cloud, which men attempted to catch, embody, and

model into a palpable form, although with hands inexperienced, and

with as little of the creative and vivifying health really within

its power, as Frankenstein, when he sought to remould the crumbling

elements he possessed into a human form, and produced a monster. What

remains of the great united German empire of men's dreams? Nothing

but a phantom of a central power, grasping the powerless sceptre of

a ghostly empire; surrounded by ministers whose dictates men despise

and disregard, in veritable exercise of their functions, as ghostly

as itself. The position of the Imperial administration has become a

byword and a scoff; and it is lamentable to see a prince, whose good

intentions never have been doubted, and whose popular sympathies have

been so often shown, standing thus, in a situation which borders upon

the ridiculous--an almost disregarded and now useless puppet--a _quasi_

emperor without even the shadow of an empire; and yet condemned to play

at empire-administrating--as children play at kings and queens--none

heeding their innocent and bootless game. How far the edicts of the

defunct Frankfort parliament, and the decrees of the government of

the Imperial Vicarage--paralysed in all real strength, if not utterly

defunct now--are held as a public mockery, is very pithily evidenced to

the least open eyes of any traveller to the baths of Germany, at most

of which the gambling tables--supposed to be suppressed, and declared

to be illegal by the shade of the "central power,"--openly pursue

their manoeuvres, and earn their gains as of yore; or, at most, fix

upon the doors of their hells a ticket, written "_salons reservés_,"

to give them the faint appearance of private establishments, and thus

adopt a very flimsy pretext, and effect a most barefaced evasion of a

hitherto useless law. _Croupiers_ and gamblers sit squatting, most

disrespectfully, at almost every bathing-place, upon the Imperial

edict--as the toads and frogs squatted upon King Log--treating him as a

jest, and covering him with their filthy slime. By what authority--of

the same Imperial Vicar also--the whole country around Frankfort is

overrun with Prussian soldiers, it would be difficult to show. That

the so-called free city itself should be occupied by a joint garrison

of Prussian and Austrian troops for its protection, may be looked upon

as a legal measure, adopted and authorised by a new parliament, and a

central power, such as it is, as by the old Diet. But when we see in

every village round about--in every house, in almost every hovel--those

hosts of Prussian spiked helmets gleaming in the sun--those Prussian

bayonets planted before every door--those Prussian uniforms, studding,

with variegated colour, every green rural scene; when we never cease to

hear upon the breeze--wherever we may wander in the country--the clang

of Prussian military bands, and the tramp of Prussian infantry; when

we find the faces of Prussian military at every window, and observe

Prussian soldiers mixing in every action of the common everyday life of

the country; and then turn to ask how it comes that Prussian soldiers

swarm throughout a part of the land in no way belonging to Prussia, we

are able to receive no more reasonable answer than that "they are there

because they are there"--an explanation which has a more significant

meaning in it than the apparently senseless words seem to express.

"They are there because they are there"--that is to say, without any

recognised authority from any central German power. "They are there

because they are there,"--because Prussia has sent them. Where, then,

is the central power?--what is its force? what its authority? what its

sense? If, then, all that still remains, in living form, of that great

united Germany of men's dreams, is but the "shadow of a shade," in

power--a power disregarded--even more, despised and ridiculed--what has

revolutionising Germany attained in its chase after the phantom of its

hopes?

If in this respect it has _attained_ nothing which it can show, after

more than a year's revolution, for the avowed or pretended purpose of

obtaining some result to this very end, it cannot be said, however,

that nothing remains to Germany of its dream of unity. Spite of

sad experience--spite of the uselessness of every effort--spite of

sacrifices made and sorrows suffered--Germany still pursues its phantom

with as much ardour as before. Like the prince in the fairy-tale, who,

panting, breathless, half-dead with exhaustion and fatigue, still

hunted without rest for the imaginary original of the fair portrait

placed in his hands--untired and unyielding, after the repeated

disappointments of lifting veil after veil from forms which he thought

might be that of the beloved one--still driven on by an incurable

longing--still yearning despairingly, and with false hope,--so does

Germany, after lifting veil after veil only to find delusive spectres

beneath, still yearn and long for the object of its adoration. It is

impossible to travel, even partially, through the country, without

discovering, from every conversation with all classes, that the intense

craving for this object--this great blessing of a grand and powerful

United Germany--is as strong as ever--far stronger than ever! For

what was not very long ago only the watchword of the fancied liberal

student, in his play of would-be conspirator--what was but the pretext

of really conspiring and subversive democrats--what grew only by

degrees into the cry of the people, who clamoured, not knowing what

they clamoured for--has taken evidently the strongest root throughout

the whole mass of German nationality, and _grows_--grows in despite

of the rottenness of the branches it has as yet sent forth--grows

in despite of the lopping, breaking, and burning of its first

offshoots--grows in despite of the atmosphere of contention, rather

than of union, that becomes thicker and more deleterious to its growth,

around it, and of the blight it daily receives from the seemingly

undispersable mildew of hatred, suspicion, and total want of sympathy

between Southern and Northern Germany, which formerly arose only from

uncongeniality of temperament, mixed up more or less with difference

of religious creed, but now is generated by a thousand causes. This

intense craving for the possession of the phantom--increasing, it

would seem, in proportion as the phantom flies farther and farther

from the grasp--is no longer expressed by the student, the democrat,

and the man of the people: it pervades all classes from below to

above; it is in the mouth of the man of caution and of sense, as in

that of the wild and poetico-political enthusiast; it becomes more

and more universal, and it amounts to a mania. Ask of whom you will,

"Whither tends German hope?" and the answer will still and ever be the

same--"German unity." But ask no more; for if you inquire, as last

year, into the "how," the "when," the "where," the answer will in most

cases be given in the same strain of incomprehensible and still more

impracticable rhapsody--visionary, poetical, noble sometimes, but

purposeless as before; or men will shrug their shoulders, shake their

heads, and sigh, but still dream on the dream of German unity--still

clamour for it loudly. And well may they shake their heads and groan,

if such be the end and aim of all German aspirations! for where,

indeed, is the pith that leads to it? That which Germany is itself

following up, leads (for the present at least) visibly from it, and

not towards it. Prussia has promulgated its constitution,--and we may

ask, _par parenthèse_, whether _that_ is to be put forward as the

great end which revolutionising Germany has attained, after more than

a year's revolution? Prussia has called upon all Germany to join with

it, hand in hand, in this constitution, granted and given, but not

accepted, at the hands of a Frankfort parliament. In answer to its

call, it has found the cleft between Northern and Southern Germany--the

cleft, of envy and jealousy, suspicion and mistrust--growing wider

and wider to oppose it. It has attempted to form a partial union of

Northern Germany--between the more northern states of Prussia, Hanover,

and Saxony; but even in this union has been disunion--reticence,

and suspicion, and doubt, and indecision, among the proposed allies

themselves; while Austria, Bavaria, and even Wurtemberg, have held

aloof to sulk and scoff, and have seemed to bide that time when Austria

should be less shackled, and could better oppose the supremacy of

Northern German influence. Coalitions even now are talked of, to which,

if Prussia be not a stranger, it is to be admitted only as a humbled

ally. With these feelings, which exist not only between powers, but

in the people, the cry of United Germany is but a jest--the longing

a green-sickness. Certainly revolutionising Germany has not thus far

attained any step in its progress towards the great desideratum of its

nationality. The only semblance of progress has been, in the advances

of Prussia towards supremacy, in the cession of the principality of

Hohenzollern Sigmaringen to its territory, (an example which other

small German principalities may follow,) in its present occupation of

the free town of Hamburg, in its military occupation of the duchy of

Baden, of which more further on. But if these be steps towards a united

Germany, tell it to Southern Germany, and hear what it will say!

If so little, then, has been attained by revolutionising Germany, in

its progress towards its most loudly clamoured desire, let us see what

else it has attained. After a year's labour, which was not without

its throes, revolutionising Germany, as represented by its central

parliament, brought forth its constitution--a rickety child, but fully

expected by its fond, and in many respects infatuated parents, to grow

into a giant, and flourish under the edifice of a United German Empire.

The implicit adoption of this bantling by the several German states,

as their heir and future master, was declared by revolutionisers to be

the _sine quâ non_ of their sufferance still to exist at all, under

the will of the people. Unhappy bantling, decked out with all sorts of

promised gifts for the future weal of mankind by its would-be fairy

godmothers! it proved but a changeling--or rather an imp, provided

with every curse, instead of every blessing; as if the gifts it was

intended to bestow had been reversed by a wicked fairy among the

godmothers, who had more power than the rest. And, of a truth, there

was such a one among them: and her name was Anarchy or Subversion,

although the title she gave herself was Red Republic, and the beast

on which she rode was Self-interest. The consequence was, that the

very contrary occurred to that which revolutionisers had prophesied or

rather menaced. Prussia, and the other states, which refused to adopt

the bantling, thus menacingly thrown into their arms, have gone on,

we cannot say the "even," but uneven "tenor of their way"--no matter

now by what means, for we speak only of the strange destinies of the

much-laboured, long-expected, loudly-vaunted Frankfort constitution.

Almost the only one--at least of the larger states the only one--that

seemingly accepted the adoption forced upon it, with frankness,

willingness, and openness, has been convulsed by the most terrible of

civil wars. In Baden, the acceptance of the Frankfort constitution,

and _not its rejection_, by a well-meaning, mild, but perhaps weak

ruler, was eagerly seized upon as a pretext for disaffection, armed

insurrection, civil war; while Wurtemberg, where it was received by the

king, although with evident unwillingness, or, as he himself expressed

it, in a somewhat overstrained tone of pathos, "with bleeding and

broken heart," narrowly escaped being involved in the same fearful

issue. The process by which this result was attained in Baden was

curious enough, although fully in accordance with the usual manoeuvres

of the anarchical leaders of the day, who, while denouncing Jesuitism,

in many parts of the world, as the great evil and anti-popular

influence against which they have most to contend, evidently adopt the

supposed and most denounced principle of Jesuitism--that "the ends

justify the means"--as their own peculiar line of conduct; and use

every species of treachery, deceit, falsehood, and delusion, as holy

and righteous weapons in the sacred cause of liberty, or of that idol

of their worship which they choose to nickname liberty. In showing

what revolutionising Germany has, or rather perhaps has not, as yet,

attained, we must briefly, then, revert once more to that insurrection

and its suppression, that has so fearfully devastated the duchy of

Baden, and its neighbouring province of the Palatinate, which, although

belonging to Bavaria, is so distant and divided from that kingdom as to

be included, without further distinction, in the same designation.

It was with almost prophetic spirit that we, last year, spoke of the

unhappy duchy of Baden, which had then, as since, the least cause of

complaint of any of the several subdivisions of Germany. "Nothing,"

it was then said, "can be more uneasy and disquieting than its

appearance. In this part of Germany, the revolutionary fermentation

appears far more active, and is more visible in the manner, attitude,

and language of the lower classes, than even in those (at that time)

hotbeds of revolutionary movement, Austria and Prussia. To this

state of things the confinity with agitated France, and consequently

a more active affinity with its ideas, caught like a fever from a

next-door neighbour's house, the agency of the emissaries from the

ultra-republican Parisian clubs, who find an easier access across the

frontiers, and the fact also that the unhappy duchy has been, if not

the native country, at least the scene of action of the republican

insurgents, Hecker and Struve, have all combined to contribute."

"It is impossible to enter the duchy, and converse with the peasant

population, formerly and proverbially so peacefully disposed in

patriarchal Germany--formerly so smiling, so ready, so civil, perhaps

only too obsequious in their signs of respect, now so insolent and

rude--without finding the poison of those various influences gathering

and festering in all their ideas, words, and actions."

Such were the views written last year; and this state of things has

since continued to increase, as regards popular fermentation, and

disposition to insurrection. Demagogic agitators swarmed in the land,

instilling poison wherever they went, and rejoicing as they saw the

_virus_ do its work in the breaking out of festering sores. The tactics

of this party, in all lands, has been to try their experiments upon

the military; but it has only been in Baden, thus demoralised, and

disorganised by weakness of sufferance, and a vain spirit of concession

and looked-for conciliation, that these subjects were found fitting

for the efforts of the experimentalisers. The _virus_ had already done

its work among them, to the utmost hopes of the poisoning crew, when

the New Frankfort Constitution--the rejection of which was to be the

signal for a _quasi_ legal insurrection--was accepted by the Grand-duke

of Baden. But the agitators were not to be thus baffled. A pretence,

however shallow and false, was easily found in the well-prepared

fermentation of men's minds; and the military, summoned by demagogic

leaders to tumultuous meetings, were easily persuaded that a false,

or at least a defective draught of the new boasted constitution had

been read to them and proclaimed--that, in the _real_ constitution, an

enactment provided that the soldiers were to choose and elect their own

officers--that this paragraph had been carefully suppressed; and that

the military had been thus deprived and cheated of their rights. Easily

detected as might have been the falsehood, it nevertheless succeeded

in its purposes. The military insurrection, in which the tumultuous

and evil-disposed of the lower classes, and a great portion of the

disaffected peasantry joined, broke out on the very evening of one of

these great meetings; and, by means of a well-prepared and actively

organised concentration of measures, in various parts of the duchy

at the same time. Thus was the very acceptance of the revolutionary

constitution made in Baden a pretext to stir the land to insurrection.

After the full account already published in these pages, it is needless

to enter into detail, with regard to the events which marked the

progress and suppression of this great insurrection. It is only to show

the insensate state of mind to which revolutionary agents, left to

do their will, were able to work up the military; the confused ideas

and purposes, with which these would-be revolutionising German heads

were filled; the ignorance that was displayed among these men, said to

be _enlightened_ by "patriots," and their want of all comprehension

of the very rights for which they pretended to clamour--in fact, the

utter absence of any experience gained by the lower classes, and

especially the military portion of them, after more than a year's

revolutionising, that we briefly recapitulate some of the leading

events of the outbreak. It was with a perfect headlong frenzy that the

garrison of the fortress of Rastadt first revolted; it was with just

as much appearance of madness that the mutiny broke out simultaneously

in the other garrison towns. There was every evidence of rabid mania

in the deplorable scenes which followed, when superior officers in

vain attempted with zeal and courage to stem the torrent, and, in many

instances, lost their lives at the hands of the infuriated soldiery;

when others were cruelly and disgracefully mis-handled, and two or

three, unable to contend with the sense of dishonour and degradation

which overwhelmed them as military men, rushed, maddened also, into

suicide, to have their very corpses mutilated by the men whom they had

treated, as it happened, with kindness and concession; when others

again, who had escaped over the frontiers, were, by a violation of the

Wurtemberg territory, captured, led back prisoners, and immured, under

every circumstances of cruelty and ignominy, in the fortress they had

in vain attempted loyally to guard. There was madness in all this; and

then we learn, to complete the deplorable picture, from a very accurate

account of all the circumstances, lately published by a Baden officer,

as well as from another pamphlet, more circumscribed in detail, but

fully as conclusive as regards narration of feeling, in almost every

page, that when the insurgent soldiers were asked by their officers

what they wanted, they could only answer, "Our rights and those of the

people;" and, when questioned further, "What are those rights?" either

held their tongues and shook their heads in ignorance, or replied with

the strangest _naïveté_, "That you ought to know better than we."

Still more strikingly characteristic of the insensate nature of the

struggle are the examples where the infatuated soldiers parted from

their officers with tears in their eyes, then, driven on by their

agitators, hunted them to the death; and then, again, with eyes opened

at last to their delusion, sobbed forth the bitterest repentance for

their blindness.

It has been already seen how the Grand-duke fled the land, how Baden

was given up, in a state of utter anarchy, to a Provisional government,

that existed but long enough to be utterly rent and torn by the very

instruments which its members had contributed to set in movement;

and to a disorganised, tumultuous army, prepared to domineer and

tyrannise in its newly-acquired self-power; how the insurrection was

suppressed, after an unwilling appeal to Prussia by the Grand-duke--how

the insurgent troops were dispersed by means of a Prussian army--and

how Rastadt was finally surrendered by the revolutionary leaders. As

these events have already been detailed, and as it is our purpose to

ask in general, "What has revolutionising Germany attained?" we need

do no more on this head, than ask, "What, by its late movement, has

revolutionising Baden attained?" "What then is the present position,

and the present aspect of the country, after the armed suppression?"

What, indeed! Poor old Father Rhine, although still, in these

revolutionary days, somewhat depressed in spirits, does not now,

however, exhibit that aspect of utter melancholy and despair which we

last year pictured; he has even contrived to reassume something of

that conceited air which we have so often witnessed in his old face.

Foreign tourists, if not in the pleasure-seeking shoals of aforetime,

at least in very decent sprinklings, return again to pay him visits;

and the hotels upon his banks give evidence that his courts are not

wholly deserted. Ems, from various causes independent of its natural

beauties--the principal one of which has been the pilgrimage of French

Legitimists to the heir of the fallen Bourbons, during his short

residence in that sweet bathing-place--has overflowed with "guests."

Homburg has had scarcely a bed to offer to the wanderer on his arrival.

Rhenish Prussia, then, has profited, by its comparative state of quiet,

somewhat to redeem its losses of last year. But the poor duchy of

Baden still hangs its head mournfully; and Baden-Baden, the fairest

queen of German watering-places, finds itself utterly deprived of its

well-deserved crown of supremacy, and seems to have covered itself,

in shame, with a veil of sadness. Although all now wears again a

smiling face of peaceful quiet, and Prussian uniforms, which at least

have the merit of studding with colour the gay scene, give warrant

for peace by the force of the bayonet, yet tourists seem to avoid the

scene of the late fearful convulsions, as they would a house in which

the plague has raged, although now declared wholly disinfected. A few

wandering "guests" only come and go, and tell the world of foreign

wanderers with dismal faces, "Baden-Baden is empty!" Travellers seem

to hurry through the country, as swiftly as the railroad can whirl

them across it, towards Strasburg and Bâle--ay! rather to republican

France, or fermenting Switzerland: they appear unwilling to turn aside

and seek rest among the beautiful hills of a country where the reek

of blood, or the vapour of the cannon-smoke, may be still upon the

air. In Baden-Baden bankrupt hotels are closed; and the lower classes,

who have been accustomed to amass comparative wealth by the annual

influx of foreigners, either by their produce, or in the various

different occupations of attending upon visitors, wear the most evident

expression of disappointment, listlessness, and want. Baden pays the

bitter penalty of insurrection, by being utterly crippled in one of the

branches of its most material interests. It bears as quiet an aspect

outwardly, however, as if it were sitting, in humiliation and shame,

upon the stool of repentance. There is nothing (if they go not beyond

the surface) to prevent foreign pleasure or health seekers from finding

their pleasure or repose in this sweet country; and in what has been

simply, but correctly, termed "one of the loveliest spots upon God's

earth," as of yore; but they are evidently shy, and look askance upon

it. Baden pays its penalty.

Although nature smiles, however, upon mountain and valley, and romantic

village, as cheerily as before, and there is gaiety still in every

sunbeam, yet traces of the horrors lately enacted in the land are

still left, which cannot fail to strike the eye of the most listless,

mere outward observer, as he whisks along, the country--sometimes

in the trampled plain, on which nature has not been as yet able to

throw her all-covering veil again, and which shows where has been

the battle-field, which should have been the harvest-field, and was

not--sometimes in the shattered wall or ruined house--sometimes in the

wood cut down or burned. At every step the traveller may be shown, by

his guide, the spots on which battles or skirmishes have taken place,

where the cannon has lately roared, where blood has been shed, where

men have fallen in civil contest. Here he may be conveyed over the

noble railway-bridge of the Neckar, and see the broken parapet, and

hear how the insurgents had commenced their work of destruction upon

the edifice, but were arrested in its accomplishment by the rapid

advance of the Prussian troops. Here again he may mark the late repairs

of the railroad, where it has been cut up into trenches, to prevent the

speedy conveyance of the war-material of the enemy. If he lingers on

his way, he may seek in vain in the capital, or other "residence towns"

of Baden, where ducal palaces stand, for the treasures of antiquity

which were their boast. Pillage has done its work: insurgents have

appropriated these objects of value to themselves, in the name of the

people; and the costly and bejewelled trappings of the East, the rich

gold inlaid armour, and the valuable arms, brought in triumph home

by the Margrave Louis of Baden, after his Turkish campaigns, are now

dispersed, none knows where, after having fed the greed of some French

red-republican or Polish democrat. But it is more particularly in the

neighbourhood of the fortress town of Rastadt, where the insurgents

last held out, that the strongest traces of the late convulsions may

be found. Marks of devastation are everywhere perceptible in the

country around; the remains of the temporary defences of the besiegers

still lie scattered in newly dug trenches; and the blackened walls

of a railway station-house, by the road-side, tell him how it was

bombarded from the town by the besieged insurgents, and then burned to

the ground, lest it should afford shelter to the besiegers. These are,

however, after all, but slight evidences of what the duchy of Baden has

attained by its late revolution. If we go below the surface, the dark

spots are darker and far more frequent still.

It is impossible to enter into conversation with persons of any class,

without discovering, either directly or indirectly, how deeply rooted

still remains the demoralisation of the country. The bitterness of

feeling, and the revolutionary mania of revolutionising, to obtain

no one can tell what, may have been crushed down and overawed; but

they evidently still smoulder below the surface and ferment. The

volcano-mouth has been filled with a mass of Prussian bayonets; but it

still burns below: it is clogged, not extinct. The democratic spirit

has been too deeply infused to be drugged out of the mass of the people

by the dose of military force. Fearful experience seems to have taught

the sufferers little or nothing; and although, here and there, may be

found evidences of bitter repentance, consequent upon personal loss of

property, or family suffering, yet even below that may be constantly

found a profound bitterness, and an eager rancour, against unknown and

visionary enemies. Talk to that poor old woman, who sits with pale face

upon a stile on the mountain-side. She will weep for the son she has

lost among the insurgents, and deplore, with bitter tears, his error

and his delusion; and yet, if you gain her confidence, she will raise

her head, and, with some fire in her sunken eye, tell you that she has

still a son at home, a boy, her last-born, who bides but his time to

take up the musket against "those, accursed enemies of the people and

the people's rights!" Enter into conversation with that shopkeeper

behind his counter, or that hotel-keeper in his palace hotel--both

are "well to do" in the world, or have been so, until revolutions

shattered the commerce of the one, or deprived the other of wealthy

visitors--you may expect to find in them a feeling, taught them at

least by experience, against any further convulsion. No such thing;

they are as ripe for further revolution as the lower classes, and as

eager to avenge their losses--not upon those who have occasioned them,

but upon those who would have averted them. Even in the upper classes

you will find that craving for the idol, "United Germany," to which

we have before alluded, and which seems to invite revolutions, rather

than to fear them. Of course exceptions may be found, and many, to the

examples here given; but in putting these figures into the foreground

of the picture to be painted of the state of Baden, (if not of Germany

in general,) we firmly believe we have given characteristic types of

the prevailing feelings of the country. German heads, once let loose

into the regions of ideal fantasy, be it political or philosophical,

or the strange and unpractical mixture of both, seem as if they were

not to be recalled to the earth and the realms of palpable truth by the

lessons of experience, however strongly, and even terribly, inculcated.

The prevailing feeling, however, at the present time in Baden, among

the lower classes, seems the hatred of the occupation of the Prussian

army, which has saved the land from utter anarchy. The very men who

have been taught by their demagogues to clamour for "German Unity" as

a pretext for insurrection, look on the Prussian military as usurping

aliens and foreign oppressors. Military occupation is certainly the

prevailing feature of the country. Prussian troops are everywhere--in

every town, in every village, in every house, in every hovel. Whichever

way you turn your eyes, there are soldiers--soldiers--soldiers--horse

and foot. The military seem to form by far the greater half of the

population; and, much disposed as many may have been to greet the

return of the Grand-duke to his states, as the symbol of the cause of

order, yet, in spite of birthday _fêtes_, and banners, and garlands,

and loyal devices in flowers, which have bedecked the road of the

traveller in the land not long since, these same men will grumble to

you of those "accursed Prussian soldiers," who alone were able to

restore him to his country, when the Baden army, as troops to support

their sovereign, existed no longer--when those who composed it fought

at the head of the insurgents. The very shadow of a Baden army, even,

is not now to be found. And it is this fact, and the evidences that an

insurrectionary spirit is still widely spread abroad, which are given

as the excuse of a continued Prussian occupation. It is difficult,

certainly, for a traveller in a land so lately convulsed, and still

placed in circumstances so peculiar, to arrive at truth. Prussian

officers will tell him how, on the arrival of the Prussian army in the

country, and the dispersion of the insurgents, flowers were strewn

along its path by the populations, who thus seemingly hailed the

Prussian soldiers as their deliverers; and in the next breath they will

inform him that this was only done from _fear_, and that, were it not

for this salutary _fear_, the insurrection would break forth again. He

may suspect that this account is given as the pretext for a continued

occupation of the land. But Baden officials will tell him that such

is the case--that Prussian troops alone keep, down a further rising;

and if he still suspects his source, he will certainly find among the

people, at all events, both the hatred and the fear. Meanwhile the

Prussian officers seem to think that both these feelings are necessary

for the pacification of the land; and, upon their own showing, or

rather boasting, they inculcate them by flogging insolent peasants

across the cannon, by shooting down insurgent prisoners, who spit upon

them from prison windows, without any other form of trial, and by other

autocratic repressive measures of a similar stamp. Meanwhile, also,

they seem, by all their words as well as actions, to look upon Baden as

a conquered province, acquired to Prussia, and openly and loudly vaunt

their _conquest_. Let it not be supposed that this is exaggeration. It

is the general tone of Prussian officers--ay, and even of the common

Prussian soldiers occupying the duchy of Baden--with a super-addition

of true Prussian conceit in manner, indescribable by words. In spite

of what we may read in late newspaper reports, then, of conciliation

between the two great powers of Northern and Southern Germany, we may

well ask, What will rival Austria say to this? Where is the prospect

here of a great United Germany? And, after this _resumé_ of the

present position of Baden as a part, we may well ask, also, What has

revolutionising Germany attained as a whole?

We have seen that the main object, and at all events the chief pretext

of the revolution, the establishment of a great United Germany, is

still further from the grasp of the revolutionising country than

ever--although it remains still the clamour and the cry. Prussia may

point in irony to its advances, by the occupation of the duchy of

Baden and of Hamburg, and by its acquisition of the principality of

Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and smile while it says that it has effected

thus much towards a union of Germany under one head. Or, in more

serious mood, it may put forward its projected alliance of the three

northern German potentates. But, with regard to the former, what, in

spite of the reports we hear of conciliation, will be the conduct of

jealous Austria, now at last unshackled in its dealings? The latter

only shows still more the cleft that divides the northern portion of

the would-be united country from the southern. "United Germany" only

remains, then, a plaything in the hands of dreamers and democrats--a

pretty toy, about which they may build up airy castles to the one--an

instrument blunted and notched, for the present, to the other. What has

revolutionising Germany attained here?

What declared last year the manifesto of Prince Leiningen, then

Minister for Foreign Affairs, and leading member of the cabinet

of the newly established central power--put forward, as it was,

as the _programme_ of the new government for all Germany? It

denounced "jealousies between the individual states, and revilings

of the northern by the southern parts of the empire," as "criminal

absurdities;" and yet went on to say that "if the old spirit of discord

and separation were still too powerfully at work--if the jealousy

between race and race, between north and south, were still too strongly

felt--the nation must convince itself of the fact, and return to the

old feudal system." It declared, however, in the same breath as it

were, that "to retrograde to a confederation of states would only

be to create a mournful period of transition to fresh catastrophes,

and new revolutions." Failing of the realisation of the great union,

to which the revolution was supposed to tend, the manifesto then

placed revolutionising Germany between the alternative of returning

to a part, which it declared impossible, or further convulsions and

civil wars. It put Germany, in fact, into a cleft stick. Has a year's

revolution tended to extricate it from this position? The alternative,

remains the same--Germany sticks in the cleft stick as much as ever.

Revolutionising Germany, with all its throes and all its efforts, has

attained nothing to relieve it from this position. Without accepting

the manifesto of Prince Leiningen, either as necessarily prophetic,

or as a political dictum, from which there is no evasion or escape,

it is yet impossible to look back upon it, while trying to discover

what revolutionising Germany has attained, without sad presentiments,

without looking with much mournful apprehension upon the future fate of

the country. To return, however to the present state of Germany--for

the investigation of that is our purpose, and not speculation upon the

future, although none may look upon the present without asking with a

sigh, "What is to become of Germany?"

We find the revolutionary spirit crushed by the events of the last

year, but not subdued; writhing, but not avowing itself vanquished.

The fermentation is as great as heretofore: experience seems to have

taught the German children in politics no useful lesson. Now that the

great object, for which the revolution appeared to struggle, has

received so notable a check, the confusion of purposes, (if German

political rhapsodies may be called such;) of projects, (if, indeed,

in such visionary schemes there be any,) and pretexts, (of a nature

so evidently false,) is greater than ever--the confusion not only

exists, but ferments, and generates foul air, which must find vent

somewhere, be it even in imagination. Of the revolutionary spirits whom

we sketched last year in Germany, the students alone seem somewhat to

have learned a lesson of experience and tactics. Although many may

have been found in the ranks of insurgents, yet the general mass has

sadly sobered down, and, it may be hoped, acquired more reason and

method. The Jews--we cannot again now inquire into the strange whys and

wherefores--still remain the restless, gnawing, cankering, agitating

agents of revolutionary movement. The insolence and coarseness of the

lower classes increases into bitter rancour, and has been in no way

amended by concession and a show of good-will. Among the middle-lower

classes, the most restless and reckless spirits, it appears from

well-drawn statistical accounts, are the village schoolmasters, (as

in France)--to exemplify that "a little learning is a dangerous

thing"--the barbers, and the tailors. Had we time, it might form the

subject of curious speculation to attempt to discover why these two

latter occupations, (and especially the last one) induce, more than

all others, heated brains and revolutionary habits; but we cannot stop

on our way to play with such curious questions. Over all the relations

of social, as well as public life, hover politics like a deleterious

atmosphere, blighting all that is bright and fair, withering art in

all its branches, science, and social intercourse. And, good heavens,

what politics!--the politics of a bedlamite philosopher in his ravings.

In the late festivities, given in honour of Goethe at Frankfort, the

city of his birth, to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of that

event, when it might have been supposed that all men might have, for

once, united to do homage to the memory of one whom Germans considered

their greatest spirit, politics again interfered to thwart, and

oppose, and spoil. The democratic party endeavoured to prevent the

supplies offered to be given by the town for the festivities, because

they saw the names of those they called the "aristocrats," among

the list of the committee, even although men of all classes were

invited to join it; and, when a serenade was given before the house

in which the poet was born, the musicians were driven away, and their

torches extinguished, by a band of so-called "patriots," who insisted

upon singing, in the place of the appointed _cantato_ composed for

the occasion, the revolutionary chorus in honour of the republican

Hecker--the now famous song of the revolutionary battle-field, the

_Hecker-Lied_. And such an example of this fermentation of politics

in all the circumstances of life, however far from political intents,

is not singular: it is only characteristic of the everyday doings

of the times. Among the upper classes, those feelings which we last

year summed up in the characteristic words, "the dulness of doubt and

the stupor of apprehension," have only increased in intensity. None

see an issue out of the troubled passage of the revolution. Their

eyes are blinded by a mist, and they stumble on their way, dreading

a precipice at every step. This impression depicts more especially

the feelings of the so-called moderates and liberal conservatives who

had their representatives among the best elements of the Frankfort

parliament, and who, with the vision of a united Germany before their

eyes, laboured to reach that visionary goal, at the same time that

they endeavoured to stem the ever-invading torrent of ultra-revolution

and red-republicanism. "The dulness of doubt, and the stupor of

apprehension," seem indeed to have fallen upon them since the last vain

meeting of the heads of their party in Gotha. They let their hands

fall upon their laps, and sit shaking their heads. Gagern, the boldest

spirit, and one of the best hearts that represents their cause and

has struggled for its maintenance, is represented as wholly prostrate

in spirit, unstrung--_missgestimmt_, as the Germans have it. He has

retired entirely into private life, to await events with aching heart.

If any feeling is still expressed by the moderate liberals, it has

been, of late, sympathy in the fate of Hungary, which the Prussians put

forward visibly only out of opposition to Austria, at the same time

that, with but little consistency, they condemn all the agents of the

Hungarian struggle.

We have endeavoured to give a faint and fleeting sketch of what

revolutionising Germany has attained, after a year's revolution. The

picture is a dark one, of a truth, but we believe in no ways overdone.

In actual progress the sum-total appears to be a zero. The position

of Germany, although calmer on the surface, is as difficult, as

embarrassing, as much in the "cleft stick," as when we speculated upon

it last year. All the well-wishers of the country and of mankind may

give it their hopes; but when they look for realisation of their hopes,

they can only shake their heads, with the Germans themselves, as they

ask, "What will become of Germany?"

THE GREEN HAND--A "SHORT" YARN.

PART V.

The next evening our friend the Captain found his fair audience by the

taffrail increased to a round dozen, while several of the gentlemen

passengers lounged near, and the chief officer divided his attention

between the gay group of ladies below and the "fanning" main-topsail

high up, with its corresponding studding-sail hung far out aloft to

the breeze; the narrative having by this time contracted a sort of

professional interest, even to his matter-of-fact taste, which enabled

him to enjoy greatly the occasional glances of sly humour directed

to him by his superior, for whom he evidently entertained a kind of

admiring respect, that seemed to be enhanced as he listened. As for

the commander himself, he related the adventures in question with a

spirit and vividness of manner that contributed to them no small charm;

amusingly contrasted with the cool, dry, indifferent sort of gravity

of countenance, amidst which the keen gray seawardly eye, under the

peak of the naval cap, kept changing and twinkling as it seemed to run

through the experience of youth again--sometimes almost approaching to

an undeniable wink. The expression of it at this time, however, was

more serious, while it appeared to run along the dotted reef-band of

the mizen-topsail above, as across the entry in a log-book, and as if

there were something interesting to come.

"_Well_, my dear captain," asked his matronly relative, "what comes

next? You and your friend had picked up a--a-what was it _now_!"

"Ah! I remember, ma'am," said the naval man, laughing; "the

bottle--that was where I was. Well, as you may conceive, this said

scrap of penmanship in the bottle _did_ take both of us rather on end;

and for two or three minutes Westwood and I sat staring at each other

and the uncouth-looking fist, in an inquiring sort of way, like two

cocks over a beetle. Westwood, for his part, was doubtful of its being

the Planter at all; but the whole thing, when I thought of it, made

itself as clear to me, so far, as two half-hitches, and the angrier

I was at myself for being _done_ by a frog-eating, bloody-politeful

set of Frenchmen like these. Could we only have clapped eyes on the

villanous thieving craft at the time, by Jove! if I wouldn't have

manned a boat from the Indiaman, leave or no leave, and boarded her in

another fashion! But where they were now, what they meant, and whether

we should ever see them again, heaven only knew. For all we could say,

indeed, something strange might have turned up at home in Europe--a new

war, old Boney got loose once more, or what not--and I could scarce

fall asleep for guessing and bothering over the matter, as restless as

the first night we cruised down Channel in the old Pandora."

Early in the morning-watch a sudden stir of the men on deck woke me,

and I bundled up in five minutes' time. But it was only the second

mate setting them to wash decks, and out they came from all quarters,

yawning, stretching themselves, and tucking up their trousers, as

they passed the full buckets lazily along; while a couple of boys

could be seen hard at work to keep the head-pump going, up against the

gray sky over the bow. However, I was so anxious to have the first

look-out ahead, that I made a bold push through the thick of it for

the bowsprit, where I went out till I could see nothing astern of me

but the Indiaman's big black bows and figurehead, swinging as it were

round the spar I sat upon, with the spread of her canvass coming dim

after me out of the fog, and a lazy snatch of foam lifting to her

cut-water, as the breeze died away. The sun was just beginning to rise;

ten minutes before, it had been almost quite dark; there was a mist on

the water, and the sails were heavy with dew; when a circle began to

open round us, where the surface looked as smooth and dirty as in a

dock, the haze seeming to shine through, as the sunlight came sifting

through it, like silver gauze. You saw the big red top of the sun glare

against the water-line, and a wet gleam of crimson came sliding from

one smooth blue swell to another; while the back of the haze astern

turned from blue to purple, and went lifting away into vapoury streaks

and patches. All of a sudden the ship came clear out aloft and on the

water, with her white streak as bright as snow, her fore-royal and

truck gilded, her broad foresail as red as blood, and every face on

deck shining as they looked ahead, where I felt like a fellow held up

on a toasting-fork, against the fiery wheel the sun made ere clearing

the horizon. Two or three strips of cloud melted in it like lumps of

sugar in hot wine; and, after overhauling the whole seaboard round and

round, I kept straining my eyes into the light, with the notion there

was something to be seen in that quarter, but to no purpose; there

wasn't the slightest sign of the brig or any other blessed thing. What

struck me a little, however, was the look of the water just as the fog

was clearing away: the swell was sinking down, the wind fallen for the

time to a dead calm; and when the smooth face of it caught the light

full from aloft, it seemed to come out all over long-winding wrinkles

and eddies, running in a broad path, as it were, twisted and woven

together, right into the wake of the sunrise. When I came inboard from

the bowsprit, big Harry and another grumpy old salt were standing by

the bitts, taking a forecastle observation, and gave me a squint, as

much as to ask if I had come out of the east, or had been trying to

pocket the flying-jib-boom. "D'you notice anything strange about the

_water_ at all?" I asked in an offhand sort of way, wishing to see if

the men had remarked aught of what I suspected. The old fellow gave me

a queer look out of the tail of his eye, and the ugly man seemed to be

measuring me from head to foot. "No, sir," said the first, carelessly;

"can't say as how I does,"--while Harry coolly commenced sharpening his

sheath-knife on his shoe. "Did you ever hear of currents hereabouts?"

said I to the other man. "Hereaway!" said he; "why, bless ye, sir, it's

unpossible as I _could_ ha' heer'd tell on sich a thing, 'cause, ye

see, sir, there an't none so far out at sea, sir--al'ays axin' _your_

parding, ye know, sir!" while he hitched up his trousers and looked

aloft, as if there were somewhat wrong about the jib-halliards.

The Indiaman by this time had quite lost steerage-way, and came

sheering slowly round, broadside to the sun, while the water began to

glitter like a single sheet of quicksilver, trembling and swelling to

the firm edge of it far off; the pale blue sky filling deep aloft with

light, and a long white haze growing out of the horizon to eastward.

I kept still looking over from the fore-chains with my arms folded,

and an eye to the water on the starboard side, next the sun, where,

just a fathom or two from the bright copper of her sheathing along the

water-line, you could see into it. Every now and then little bells

and bubbles, as I thought, would come up in it and break short of the

surface; and sometimes I fancied the line of a slight ripple, as fine

as a rope-yarn, went turning and glistening, round one of the ship's

quarters, across her shadow. Just then the old sailor behind me shoved

his face over the bulwark, too, all warts and wrinkles, like a ripe

walnut-shell, with a round knob of a nose in the middle of it, and

seemed to be watching to see it below, when he suddenly squirted his

tobacco-juice as far out as possible alongside, and gave his mouth

a wipe with the back of his tarry yellow hand; catching my eye in a

shame-faced sort of way, as I glanced first at him and then at his

floating property. I leant listlessly over the rail, watching the patch

of oily yellow froth, as it floated quietly on the smooth face of the

water; till all at once I started to observe that beyond all question

it had crept slowly away past our starboard bow, clear of the ship, and

at last melted into the glittering blue brine. The two men noticed my

attention, and stared along with me; while the owner of the precious

cargo himself kept looking after it wistfully into the wake of the

sunlight, as if he were a little hurt; then aloft and round about, in a

puzzled sort of way, to see if the ship hadn't perhaps taken a sudden

sheer to port. "Why, my man," I said, meeting his oyster-like old

sea-eye, "what's the reason of _that_?--perhaps there is some current

or other here, after all, eh?" Just as he meant to answer, however, I

noticed his watch-mate give him a hard shove in the ribs with his huge

elbow, and a quick screw of his weather top-light, while he kept the

lee one doggedly fixed on myself. I accordingly walked slowly aft as if

to the quarterdeck, and came round the long-boat again, right abreast

of them.

Harry was pacing fore and aft with his arms folded, when his companion

made some remark on the heat, peering all about him, and then right

up into the air aloft. "Well then, shipmate," said Harry, dabbing

his handkerchief back into his tarpaulin again, "I've seen worse,

myself,--ownly, 'twas in the Bight o' Benin, look ye,--an' afore the

end on it, d'ye see, we hove o'board nine of a crew, let alone six

dozen odds of a cargo!" "Cargo!" exclaimed his companion in surprise.

"Ay, black _passengers_ they was, ye know, old ship!" answered the ugly

rascal, coolly; "an' I tell ye what it is, Jack, I never sails yet

with passengers aboard, but some'at bad turned up in the end,--al'ays

one or another on 'em's got a foul turn in his conscience, ye see! I

say, 'mate," continued he, looking round, "didn't ye note that 'ere

'long-shore looking customer as walked aft just now, with them bloody

soft quest'ns o' his about--" "Why," said Jack, "it's him Jacobs and

the larboard watch calls the Green Hand, an' a blessed good joke they

has about him, to all appearance,--but they keeps it pretty close."

"Close, be d----d!" growled Harry, "I doesn't like the cut of his jib,

I tell ye, shipmate! Jist you take my word for it, that 'ere fellow's

done some'at bad at home, or he's bent on some'at bad afloat--it's

all one! Don't ye mark how he keeps boxhaulin' and skulking fore

an' aft, not to say looking out to wind'ard every now an' again, as

much as he expected a sail to heave in sight!" "Well, I'm blowed but

you're right, Harry!" said the other, taking off his hat to scratch

his head, thoughtfully. "Ay, and what's more," went on Harry, "it's

just comed ath'art me as how I've clapped eyes on the chap somewheres

or other afore this--d----n me if I don't think it was amongst a

gang o' Spanish pirates I saw tried for their lives and let off, in

the Havanney!" "Thank you, my man!" thought I, as I leant against

the booms on the other side, "the devil you did!--a wonder it wasn't

in the Old Bailey, which would have been more possible, though less

romantic,--seeing in the Havannah I never was!" The curious thing was

that I began to have a faint recollection, myself, of having seen

this same cross-grained beauty, or heard his voice, before; though

where and how it was, I couldn't for the life of me say at the moment.

"Lord bless us, Harry!" faltered out the old sailor, "ye don't mean

it!--sich a young, soft-looked shaver, too!" "Them smooth-skinned

sort o' coves is kimmonly the worst, 'mate," replied Harry; "for that

matter ye may be d----d sure he's got his chums aboard,--an' how does

_we_ know but the ship's _sold_, from stem to starn? There's that 'ere

black-avizzed parson, now, and one or two more aft--cuss me if that

'ere feller smells brine for the first time! An' as for this here Bob

Jacobs o' yours, blow me if there an't over many of his kind in the

whole larboard watch, Jack! A man-o'-war's-man's al'ays a blackguard

out on a man-o'-war, look ye!" "Why, bless me, shipmate," said Jack,

lowering his voice, "by that recknin', a man don't know his friends in

this here craft! The sooner we gives the mate a hint, the better, to

my thinking?" "No, blow me, no, Jack," said Harry, "keep all fast, or

ye'll kick up a worse nitty, old boy! Jist you hould on till ye see

what's to turn up,--ownly stand by and look out for squalls, that's

all! There's the skipper laid up below in his berth, I hears,--and to

my notions, that 'ere mate of ours is no more but a blessed soldier,

with his navigation an' his head-work, an' be blowed to him--where's he

runned the ship, I'd like to know, messmate!" "Well, strike me lucky

if I'm fit to guess!" answered Jack, gloomily. "No, s'help me Bob, if

he knows hisself!" said Harry. "But here's, what _I_ says, anyhow,--if

so be we heaves in sight of a pirate, or bumps ashore on a ileyand i'

the dark, shiver my tawsels if I doesn't have a clip with a handspike

at that 'ere soft-sawderin' young blade in the straw hat!" "Well, my

fine fellow," thought I, "many thanks to you again, but I certainly

shall look out for _you_!" All this time I couldn't exactly conceive

whether the sulky rascal really suspected anything of the kind, or

whether he wasn't in fact sounding his companion, and perhaps others

of the crew, as to how far they would go in case of an opportunity for

mischief; especially when I heard him begin to speculate if "that 'ere

proud ould beggar of a naboob, aft yonder, musn't have a sight o' gould

and jowels aboard with him!" "Why, for the matter o' that, 'mate,"

continued he, "I doesn't signify the twinklin' of a marlinspike, mind

ye, what lubberly trick they sarves this here craft,--so be ownly ye

can get anyhow ashore, when all's done! It's nouther ship-law nor

shore-law, look ye, 'mate, as houlds good on a bloody dazart!" "Ay, ay,

true enough, bo'," said the other, "but what o' that?--there an't much

signs of a dazart, I reckon, in this here blue water!" "Ho!" replied

Harry, rather scornfully, "that's 'cause you blue-water, long-v'yage

chaps isn't up to them, brother! There's you and that 'ere joker in

the striped slops, Jack, chaffing away over the side jist now about

a current,--confounded sharp he thinks hisself, too!--but d'ye think

Harry Foster an't got his weather-eye open? For my part I thinks more

of the streak o' haze yonder-away, right across the starboard bow, nor

all the currents in--" "Ay, ay," said Jack, stretching out again to

look, "the heat, you means?" "Heat!" exclaimed the ugly topman, "heat

be blowed! Hark ye, 'mate, it _may_ be a strip o' cloud, no doubt, or

the steam over a sand-bank,--but so be the calm lasts so long, and you

sees that 'ere streak again by sundown, with a touch o' yallow in't--"

"What--_what_, shipmate?" asked Jack, breathless with anxiety. "Then,

dammee, it's the black coast iv Africay, and _no_ mistake!" said Harry.

"And what's more," continued the fellow, coolly, after taking a couple

of short turns, "if there _be's_ a current, why, look ye, it'll set

dead in to where the land lays--an' I'm blessed if there's one aboard,

breeze or no breeze, as is man enough for to take her out o' the suck

of a Africane current!" "The Lord be with us!" exclaimed the other

sailor, in alarm, "what's to be done, Harry, bo',--when d'ye mean for

to let them know, aft?" "Why, maybe I'm wrong, ye know, old ship," said

Harry, "an' a man musn't go for to larn his betters, ye know,--by this

time half o' the watch has a notion on it, at any rate. There's Dick

White, Jack Jones, Jim Sidey, an' a few more Wapping men, means to

stick together in case o' accidents--so d--n it, Jack, man, ye needn't

be in sich an a taking! What the--" (here he came out with a regular

string of topgallant oaths,) "when you finds a good chance shoved into

your fist, none o' your doin', an't a feller to haul in the slack of it

'cause he's got a tarry paw, and ships before the mast? I tell ye what

it is, old ship, 'tan't the first time you an' me's been cast away,

an' I doesn't care the drawin' of a rope-yarn, in them here latitudes,

if I'm cast away again! Hark 'ye, ould boy,--grog to the masthead, a

grab at the passengers' wallibles, when they han't no more use for

'em, in course--an' the pick on the ladies, jist for the takin' o'

them ashore!" "Lord love ye, Harry, belay there!" said Jack, "what's

the good o' talkin' on what an't like to be?" "Less like things turns

up!" said Harry. "More by token, if I hasn't pitched upon my fancy lass

a'ready--an' who knows, old ship, but you marries a naboob's darter

yet, and gets yourself shoved all square, like a rig'lar hare, into

his heestate, as they calls it? For my part, I've more notion of the

_maid_! An' it'll go hard with me if we doesn't manage to haul that

'ere mishynar' parson safe ashore on the strength of it!" "God bless

ye, Harry," answered Jack, somewhat mournfully, "I'm twice spliced

already!" "Third time's lucky, though," replied Harry, with a chuckle,

as he walked towards the side again, and looked over; the rest of

the watch being gathered on the other bow, talking and laughing; the

passengers beginning to appear on the poop, and the Scotch second-mate

standing up aft on the taffrail, feeling for a breath of wind. The big

topman came slowly back to his companion, and leant himself on the

spars again. "Blowed if I don't think you're right, 'mate," said he,

"you and that 'ere lawyer. You'd a'most say there's a ripple round

her larboard bow just now, sure enough--like she were broadside on to

some drift or another. Hows'ever, that's nouther here nor there,--for

my part, I sets more count by the look o' the sky to east'ard, an' be

blowed, shipmate, if that same yonder don't make me think o' _woods_!"

"Well," said Jack, "_I_ goes by sunrise, messmate, an' I didn't like it

overmuch myself, d'ye see! That 'ere talk o' yours, Harry, consarnin'

dazarts and what not--why, bless me, it's all my eye,--this bout, at

any rate--seein' as how, if we doesn't have a stiff snuffler out o'

that very quarter afore twenty-four hours is over, you call me lubber!"

"Ho, ho! old salt," chuckled Harry, "none o' them saws holds good

hereaway, if its the coast of Africay--d----n it, 'mate, _two_ watches

'll settle our hash in them longitudes, without going the length o'

_six_! Han't I knocked about the bloody coast of it six weeks at a

time, myself, let alone livin' as many months in the woods?--so I knows

the breedin' of a turnady a cussed sight too well, not to speak on the

way the land-blink looms afore you sights it!" "_Lived_ in them there

woods, did ye?" inquired Jack. "Ay, bo', an' a rum rig it was too,

sure enough," said Harry; "the very same time I tould you on, i' the

Bight o' Benin." "My eye!" exclaimed the other, "a man never knows what

he may come to. Let's into the rights of it, Harry, carn't ye, afore

eight-bells strikes?" "Woods!" said Harry, "I b'lieve ye, ould ship.

I see'd enough o' woods, that time, arter all!--and 'twan't that long

agone, either--I'll not say _how_ long, but it wan't _last_ v'yage.

A sharp, clinker-built craft of a schooner she wor, I'm not goin' to

give ye her right name, but they called her the Lubber-hater,[13]--an'

if there wan't all sorts on as aboard, it's blaming ye--an' a big

double-jinted man-eatin' chap of a Yankee was our skipper, as sly as

slush--more by token, he had a wart alongside o' one eye as made him

look two ways at ye--Job Price by name--an' arter he'd made his fortin,

I heard he's took up a tea-total chapel afloat on the Missishippey.

She'd got a hell of a long nose, that 'ere schooner, so my boy we

leaves everything astarn, chase or race, I promise ye; an' as for a

blessed ould ten-gun brig what kept a-cruising thereaway, why, we jest

got used to her, like, and al'ays lowers our mainsail afore takin' the

wind of her, by way o' good bye, quite perlite. 'Blowed if it warn't

rum, though, for to see the brig's white figger'ed over the swell,

rollin' under a cloud o' canvass, sten-s'ls crowded out alow an' aloft,

as she jogged arter us! Then she'd haul her wind and fire a gun, an'

go beating away up in chase of some other craft, as caught the chance

for runnin' out whenever they sees the Lubber-hater well to sea--why,

s'elp me Bob, if the traders on the coast didn't pay Job Price half

a dozen blacks a piece every trip, jist for to play that 'ere dodge!

At last, one time, not long after I joined the craft, what does he do

but nigh-hand loses her an' her cargo, all owin' to reckonin' over

much on this here traverse. Out we comes one night in the tail of a

squall, an' as soon as it clears, there sure enough we made out the

brig, hard after us, as we thinks,--so never a rag more Job claps on,

'cause two of his friends, ye see, was jist outside the bar in the

Noon river. Well, bloody soon the cruiser begins to overhaul us, as

one gaff-taups'l wouldn't do, nor yet another, till the flying-jib and

bonnets made her walk away from them in right 'arnest,--when slap comes

a long-shot that took the fore-topmast out of us in a twinkling. So

when the moonlight comed out, lo an' behold, instead o' the brig's two

masts stiff and straight against the haze, there was _three_ spanking

sticks all ataunto, my boy, in a fine new sloop-o'-war as had fresh

came on the station--the Irish, they called her--and a fast ship she

wor. But all said and done, the schooner had the heels of her in aught

short of a reef-taups'l breeze,--though, as for the other two, the

sloop-o'-war picked off both on 'em in the end." At this point of the

fellow's account, I, Ned Collins, began to prick up my ears, pretty

sure it was the dear old Iris he was talking of; and thought I, "Oho,

my mate, we shall have you directly,--listening's fair with a chap of

this breed."

"Well," said he, "'twas the next trip after that, we finds the coast

clear, as commonly was--for, d'ye see, they couldn't touch us if so

be we hadn't a slave aboard,--in fact, we heerd as how the cruiser

was up by Serry Lony, and left some young lufftenant or other on the

watch with a sort o' lateen-rigged tender. A precious raw chap he was,

by all accounts,--and sure enough, there he kept plying off and on,

inshore, 'stead of out of sight to seaward till the craft would make a

bolt; an' as soon as ye dropped an anchor, he'd send a boat aboard with

a reefer, to ax if ye'd got slaves in the hold. In course, ye know,

Job Price sends back a message, "palm-ile an' iv'ry, an' gould if we

can,"--h'ists the Portingee colours, brings up his Portingee papers,

and makes the Portingee stoo'rd skipper for the spell,--but anyhow,

bein' no less nor three slavers in the mouth of the Bonny river at

the time, why, he meant to show fight if need be, and jest manhandle

the young navy sprig to his heart's content. Hows'ever, the second or

third night, all on a suddent we found he'd sheered off for decency's

sake, as it might be, an hour or two afore we'd began to raft off

the niggers. Well, 'mate, right in the midst of it there comes sich

a fury of a turnady off the land, as we'd to slip cable and run fair

out to sea after the other craft what had got sooner full,--one on

'em went ashore in sight, an' we not ninety blacks aboard yet, with

barely a day's water stowed in. The next morning, out o' sight of land,

we got the sea-breeze, and stood in again under everything, till we

made Fernandy Po ileyand three leagues off, or thereby, an' the two

ebony-brigs beating out in company,--so the skipper stands over across

their course for to give them a hail, heaves to and pulls aboard the

nearest, where he stays a good long spell and drinks a stiff glass,

as ye may fancy, afore partin'. Back comes Job Price in high glee,

and tould the mate as how that mornin' the brigs had fell foul o' the

man-o'-war tender, bottom up, an' a big Newfoundling dog a-howlin' on

the keel--no doubt she'd turned the turtle in that 'ere squall--more

by token he brought the dog alongst with him in a present. So away we

filled again to go in for the Bonny river, when the breeze fell, and

shortly arter there we was all three dead becalmed, a couple o'miles

betwixt us, sticking on the water like flies on glass, an' as hot, ye

know, as blazes--the very moral o' this here. By sundown we hadn't

a drop o' water, so the skipper sent to the nearest brig for some;

but strike me lucky if they'd part with a bucketful for love, bein'

out'ard bound. As the Spanish skipper said, 'twas either hard dollars

or a stout nigger, and t'other brig said the same. A slight puff o'

land-wind we had in the night, though next day 'twas as calm as ever,

and the brigs farther off--so by noon, my boy, for two blessed casks,

if Job Price hadn't to send six blacks in the boat. Shorter yarn,

Jack,--but the calm held that night too, and 'blowed if the brigs would

sell another breaker--what we had we couldn't spare to the poor devils

under hatches, and the next day, why, they died off like rotten sheep,

till we hove the last on 'em o'board; and frightful enough it was, mind

ye, for to see about fifty sharks at work all round the schooner at

once, as long as it lasted. Well, in the arternoon we'd just commenced

squabbling aboard amongst ourselves, round the dreg water, or whether

to board one o' the brigs and have a fair fight, when off come a bit

of a breeze, betwixt the two high peaks on Fernandy Po, both the brigs

set stensails, and begins slipping quietly off--our skipper gave

orders to brace after them, and clear away the long gun amidships; but

all on a suddent we made out a lump of a brig dropping down before

it round the ileyand, which we knowed her well enough for a Bristol

craft as had lost half her hands up the Callebar, in the gould an'

iv'ry trade. Down she comed, wonderfle fast, for the light breeze, if

there hadn't been one o' yer currents besides off the ileyand, till

about half-a-mile away she braces up, seemingly to sheer across it and

steer clear of us. Out went our boat, an' the skipper bids every man

of her crew to shove a short cutlash inside his trousers. Says he, "I

guess we'll first speak 'em fair, but if we don't ha' water enough,

it'll be 'tarnal queer, that's all," says he--an' Job was a man never

swore, but he _looked_ mighty _bad_, that time, I must say; so we out

oars and pulls right aboard the trader, without answerin' ever a hail,

when up the side we bundled on deck, one arter the other, mad for a

drink, and sees the master with five or six of a crew, all as white

as ghostesses, and two or three Kroomen, besides a long-legged young

feller a-sittin' and kicking his feet over the kimpanion-hatch, with

a tumblerful o' grog in his fist, as fresh to all seemin' as a fish,

like a supper-cargo or some'at o' the sort, as them craft commonly has.

"What schooner's that?" axes the master, all abroad like; an' says Job,

says he out o' breath, "Never you mind; I guess you'll let's have some

water, for we wants it almighty keen!" "Well, says the other, shaking

his head, "I'm afeared we're short ourselves--anyhow," says he, "we'll

give ye a dipper the piece,"--and accordingly they fists us along a

dozen gulps, hand over hand. "'Twon't do, I guess, mister," says our

skipper; "we wants a cask!" Here the master o' the brig shakes his

head again, and giv a look to the young 'long-shore-like chap aft,

which sings out as we couldn't have no more for love nor money,--an' I

see Cap'en Price commence for to look savitch again, and feel for the

handle on his cutlash. "Rather you'd ax iv'ry or gould-dust!" sings out

the supper-cargo--"hows'ever," says he: "as ye've tooken sich a fancy

to it, short o' water as we is, why a fair exchange an't no robbery,"

says he: "you wants water, an' we wants hands; haven't ye a couple

o' niggers for to spare us, sir, by way off a barter, now?" he says.

Well,'mate, I'll be blowed if I ever see a man turn so wicked fur'ous

as Job Price turns at this here,--an' says he, through his teeth, "If

ye'd said a nigger's nail-parin', I couldn't done it, so it's no use

talkin'." "Oh come, capting," says the young fellow, wonderfle angshis

like, "say _one_ jist--it's all on the quiet, ye know. Bless me,

captin," says he, "I'd do a deal for a man in a strait, 'tickerly for

yerself--an' I think we'd manage with a single hand more. I'll give

ye two casks and a bag o' gould-dust for _one_ black, and we'll send

aboard for him just now, ourselves!" "No!" roars Job Price, walkin'

close up to him; "ye've riz me, ye cussed Britisher ye, an' I tell

ye we'll _take_ what we wants!" "No jokes, though, captin!" says the

feller--"what's _one_ to a whole raft-ful I heerd of ye shipping?"

"Go an' ax the sharks, ye beggar!" says the skipper;--"here my lads!"

says he, an' makes grab at the other's throat, when slap comes a jug

o' rum in his eye-lights, and the young chap ups fist in quick-sticks,

and drops him like a cock, big as he was. By that time, though, in a

twinklin', the master was flat on deck, and the brig's crew showed no

fight--when lo an' behold, my boy, up bundles a score o' strapping

men-o'-war's-men out of the cabin. One or two on us got a cut about the

head, an' my gentleman supper-cargo claps a pistol to my ear from aft,

so we knocked under without more to do. In five minutes time everyman

jack of us had a seizing about his wrists and lower pins,--and says

Job Price, in a givin-up sort o' v'ice, 'You're too cust spry for

playin' jokes on, I calc'late, squire,' he says. 'Jokes!' says the

young feller, 'why, it's no joke--in course you knows me?' 'Niver

see'd ye atween the eyes afore,' says Job, 'but don't bear no malice,

mister, now.' 'That's it,' says the t'other, lookin' at the schooner

again,--'no more I does--so jist think a bit, han't you really a nigger

or so aboard o' ye--if it was _jist_ one?' 'Squash the one!' says

Job, shakin' his head nellicholly like--an' 'Sorry for it,' says the

chap, ''cause ye see I'm the lufftenant belongin' to the Irish, an'

I carn't titch yer schooner if so be ye han't a slave aboard.' 'Lawk

a'mighty!--no!' sings out Job Price, 'cause bein' half blinded he

couldn't ha' noted the lot o' man-o'-war's-men sooner.--'But I _can_,'

says the other, 'for piratecy, ye see; an' what's more,' he says,

'there's no help for it now, I'm afeared, mister what-they-call-ye!'

Well, 'mate, after that ye may fancy our skipper turns terrible down

in the mouth; so without a word more they parbuckles us all down below

into the cabin--an' what does this here lufftenant do but he strips

the whole lot, rigs out as many of his men in our duds, hoists out

a big cask o' water on the brig's far side, and pulls round for the

schooner,--hisself togged out like the skipper, and his odd hands laid

down in the boat's bottom." You won't wonder at my being highly amused

with the fellow's yarn, since the fact was that it happened to be

one of my own adventures in the days of the Iris, two or three years

before, when we saw a good many scenes together, far more, wild and

stirring, of course, in the thick of the slave-trade; but really the

ugly rascal described it wonderfully well.

"Well," said Harry, "I gets my chin shoved up in the starn-windy,

where I see'd the whole thing, and tould the skipper accordently. The

schooner's crew looked out for the water like so many oysters in a

tub; the lufftenant jumps up the side with his men after him, an' not

so much as the cross of two cutlashes did we hear afore the onion-jack

flew out a-peak over her mains'l. In five minutes more, the schooner

fills away before the breeze, and begins to slide off in fine style

after the pair o' brigs, as was nigh half hull-down to seaward by this

time. There we was, left neck an' heel below in the trader, and he

hauled up seemin'ly for the land,--an' arter a bit says the skipper

to me, 'Foster, my lad, I despise this way o' things,' says he, 'an't

there no way on gettin' clear?' 'Never say die, cap'en!' I says; an'

says he, 'I calc'late they left considerable few hands aboard?' 'None

but them sleepy-like scum o' iv'ry men,' I says,--but be blowed if I

see'd what better we was, till down comes a little nigger cabin-boy

for some'at or other, with a knife in his hand. Job fixes his eye on

him--I've heerd he'd a way in his eye with niggers as they couldn't

stand--an' says he, soft-sawderin' like, 'Come here, will ye, my lad,

an' give us a drink,'--so the black come for'ad with a pannikin, one

foot at a time, an' he houlds it out to the skipper's lips--for,

d'ye see, all on us had our flippers lashed behind our backs. 'Now,'

says he, 'thankee, boy,--look in atwixt my legs, and ye'll find a

dollar.' With that, jest as the boy stoops, Job Price ketches his neck

fast betwixt his two knees, an' blowed if he didn't jam them harder,

grinning all the time, till down drops the little black throttled on

the deck. 'That's for thankin' a bloody niggur!' says he, lookin' as

savitch as the devil, and got the knife in his teeth, when he turned

to and sawed through the seizing round my wrists--an' in course I sets

every man clear in quick-sticks. '_Now!_' says Job, lookin' round,

'the quicker the better--that cussed lubber-ratin' hound's got my

schooner, but maybe, my lads, this here iv'ry man'll pay expenses--by

th'almighty, if I'm made out a pirate, I'll arn the name!'

"Well, we squints up the hatchway, and see'd a young midshipman

a-standing with his back to us, watching the brig's crew at the braces,

an' a pistol in one hand--when all at once our skipper slips off his

shoes, run up the stair as quiet as a cat, an' caught the end of a

capstan-bar as lay on the scuttle. With that down he comes crash on

the poor fellow's scull from aft, and brained him in a moment. Every

man of us got bloody-minded with the sight, so we scarce knowed what

we did, ye know, 'mate, afore all hands o' them was gone,--how, I an't

goin' for to say, nor the share as one had in it more nor another. The

long an' the short on it was, we run the brig by sundown in amongst

the creeks up the Camaroons river, thinkin' to lie stowed away close

thereabouts till all wor cold. Hows'ever they kicked up the devil's

delight about a piratecy, and the sloop-o'war comes back shortly,

when night an' day there was that young shark of a lufftenant huntin'

arter us, as sharp as a marlinspike--we dursn't come down the river

nohow, till what with a bad conscience, fogs, and sleepin' every

night within stink o' them blasted muddy mangroves an' bulrushes

together, why, mate, the whole ten hands died off one arter the other

in the fever--leaving ownly me an' the skipper. Job Price was like a

madman over the cargo, worth, good knows how many thousand dollars,

as he couldn't take out--but for my part, I gets the brig's punt one

night and sculls myself ashore, and off like a hare into the bush by

moonlight. No use, ye know, for to say what rum chances I meets with

in the woods, livin' up trees and the like for fear o' illiphants,

sarpents, an' bloody high-annies,--but, blow me, if I didn't think

the farther ye went aloft, the more monkeys an' parrykeets you rowsed

out, jabberin' all night so as a feller couldn't close an eye--an' as

for the sky, be blowed if I ever once sighted it. So, d'ye see, it

puts all notions o' fruits an' flowers out o' my head, an' all them

jimmy-jessamy sort o' happy-go-lucky yarns about barbers' ileyands

and shipherdresses what they used for to spell out o' dicshinars at

school--all gammon, mate!" "Lord love ye, no, surely," said Jack; "it's

in the Bible!" "Ay, ay," said Harry, "that's arter ye've gone to Davy

Jones, no doubt; but I've been in the South-Sy ileyands since, myself,

an' be blowed if it's much better there! Hows'ever, still anon, I took

a new fancy, an' away I makes for the river, in sarch of a nigger

villache, as they calls 'em; and sure enough it warn't long ere right

I plumps in the midst on a lot o' cane huts amongst trees. But sich a

shine and a nitty as I kicks up, ye see, bein' half naked, for all the

world like a wild man o' the woods, an' for a full hour I has the town

to myself, so I hoists my shirt on a stick over the hut I took, by way

of a flag o' truce, an' at last they all begins for to swarm in again.

Well, ye see, I knowed the ways o' the natifs thereabouts pretty well,

an' what does I do but I'd laid myself flat afore a blasted ugly divvle

of a wooden himmache, as stood on the flour, an' I wriggles and twists

myself, and groans like a chap in a fit--what they calls _fittish_,

thereaway--an' in course, with that they logs me down at once for a

rig'lar holy-possel from Jerusalem. The long an' the short on it was,

the fittish-man takes me under charge, and sets me to tell fortins or

the like with an ould quadrant they'd got somewheres--gives me a hut

an' two black wives, begad! and there I lives for two or three weeks on

end, no doubt, as proud as Tommy--when, one fine morning, what does I

see off shore in the river but that confounded man-o'-war tender, all

ship-shape an' ataunto again. So, my boy, I gives 'em to understand as

how, bein' over vallible at home with the King of England, in course

he'd sent for to puckalow me away--an' no sooner said, but the whole

town gets in a fluster--the fittish-man, which a knowing chap _he_ was,

takes an' rubs me from heel to truck with ile out on a sartain nut, as

turned me coal-black in half an hour, an' as soon as I looks in the

creek, 'mate, be blowed if I'd a knewn myself from a nigger, somehow!"

To tell the truth, as _I_ thought to myself, it was no wonder, as

Master Harry's nose and lips were by no means in the classic style,

and his skin, as it was, didn't appear of the whitest. "So there, ye

know, I sits before a hut grindin' away at maize, with nothink else but

a waist-cloth round me, and my two legs stuck out, till such time as

the lufftenant an' two boats' crews had sarched the villache, havin'

heerd, no doubt, of a white man thereabouts--an' at last off they went.

Well, in course, at first this here affair gives the fittish-man a

lift in the niggerses eyes, by reason o' havin' turned a white man

black--'cause, ye see, them fittish-men has a riglar-bred knowledge on

plants and sichlike. But hows'ever, in a day or two I begins for to

get rayther oneasy, seein' it didn't wash off, an' accordently I made

beknown as much to the fittish-man, when, my boy, if he doesn't shake

his mop-head, and rubs noses, as much as to say, 'We an't agoin' to

part.' 'Twas no use, and thinks I, 'Ye man-eatin' scum, be blowed if I

don't put your neck out, then!' So I turns to with my knife on a log o'

wood, carves a himmage twice as big an' ugly as his'n, and builds a hut

over it, where I plays all the conjerin' tricks I could mind on--till,

be hanged if the niggers didn't begin to leave the fittish-man pretty

fast, an' make a blessed sight more o' me. I takes a couple more wives,

gets drunk every day on palm-wine and toddy-juice--as for the hogs an'

the yams they brought me, why I couldn't stow 'em away; an' in place

o' wantin' myself white again, I rubs myself over an' over with that

ere nut, let alone palm-ile, till the bloody ould fittish-man looks

brown alongside o' me. At last the king o' the niggers thereaway--King

Chimbey they called him, or some'at o' the sort--he sends for to see

me, an' away to his town they takes me, a mile or two up the country,

where I see'd him; but I'm blowed, Jack, if he'd got a crown on at

all, ounly a ould red marine's coat, an' a pair o' top-boots, what was

laid away when he warn't in state. Hows'ever he gives me two white

beans an' a red un, in sign o' high favour, and gives me to know as I

wor to stay there. But one thing I couldn't make out, why the black

king's hut an' the josst-house, as they calls it, was all stuck round

with bones an' dead men's skulls!--'twan't long, though, ere I finds

it out, 'mate! That ere fittish-man, d'ye see, wor a right-down imp to

look at, and devilish wicked he eyed me; but still anon I sends over

for my wives, turns out a black feller out on his hut, an' slings a

hammock in it, when the next day or so I meets the first fittish-man

in the woods, an' the poor divvle looks wonderfle friendly-like,

makin' me all kinds o' woeful signs, and seemin'ly as much as to say

for to keep a bright look-out on the other. All on a suddent what does

he do, but he runs a bit, as far as a tree, picks up a sort of a red

mushroom, an' he rubs with it across the back o' my hand, gives a wink,

and scuttles off. What it meaned I couldn't make out, till I gets back

to the town, when I chanced to look at my flipper, and there I see a

clean white streak alongst it! Well, I thinks, liberty's sweet, an'

I'm blessed if a man's able to cruize much to windward o' right-down

slavery, thinks I, if he's black! Howsomever, thinks I, I'll jest hold

on a _bit_ longer. Well, next day, the black king had the blue-devils

with drinkin' rum, an' he couldn't sleep nohow, 'cause, as I made out,

he'd killed his uncle, they said--I doesn't know but he'd eaten him,

too--anyhow, I see'd him eat as much of a fat hog, raw, as ud sarve

out half the watch--so the fittish-man tells him there's nought for

it but to please the fittish. What that wor, blowed if I knew; but no

sooner sundown nor they hauls me out o' my hut, claps me in a stinking

hole as dark as pitch, and leaves me to smell hell till mornin', as I

thought. Jist about the end o' the mid-watch, there kicks up a rumpus

like close-reef taups'ls in a hurricane--smash goes the sticks over me;

I seed the stars, and a whole lot o' strange blacks with long spears,

a-fightin', yellin', tramplin', an' twistin' in the midst o' the

huts,--and off I'm hoisted in the gang, on some feller's back or other,

at five knots the hour, through the woods,--till down we all comes in

a drove, plash amongst the very swamps close by the river, where, lo

an' behold, I makes out a schooner afloat at her anchor. The next thing

I feels a blasted red-hot iron come hiss across my shoulders, so I

jumped up and sang out like blazes, in course. But, my flippers bein'

all fast, 'twas no use: I got one shove as sent me head-foremost into

a long canoe, with thirty or forty niggers stowed away like cattle,

and out the men pulls for the schooner. A big bright fire there was

ashore, astarn of us, I mind, where they heated the irons, with a chap

in a straw hat sarvin' out rum to the wild blacks from a cask; and ye

saw the pitch-black woods behind, with the branches shoved out red in

the light on it, an' a bloody-like patch on the water under a clump

o' sooty mangrooves. An' be d--d, Jack, if I didn't feel the life

sick in me, that time--for, d'ye see, I hears nothin' spoke round me

but cussed French, Portingeese, an' nigger tongue--'specially when it

jist lightens on me what sort on a case I were in; an' thinks I, 'By

G--if I'm not took for a _slave_, arter all!--an' be hanged but I left

that 'ere, 'farnal mushroom a-lying under that there tree yonder!' I

begins for to think o' matters an' things, an' about Bristol quay, an'

my old mother, an' my sister as was at school--mind ye, 'mate, all

atwixt shovin' off the mangroves an' coming bump again the schooner's

side--an' blow me if I doesn't tarn to, an' nigh-hand commences for

to blubber--when jist then what does I catch sight on, by the lantern

over the side, but that 'ere villain of a fittish-man, an' what's more,

King Chimbey hisself, both hauled in the net. And with that I gives

a chuckle, as ye may suppose, an' no mistake; for, thinks I, so far

as consarns myself, this here can't last long, blow me, for sooner or

later I'll find some un to speak to, even an I niver gets rid o' this

here outer darkness--be blowed if I han't got a white mind, any ways,

an' free I'll be, my boy! But I laughs, in course, when I see'd the

fittish-man grin at me,--for thinks I, my cocks, you're logged down for

a pretty long spell of it!"

"Well, bo', somehow I knows no more about it till such time as I sort

o' wakes up in pitch-dark, all choke and sweat, an' a feller's dirty

big toe in my mouth, with mine in some un else's eye,--so out I spits

it, an' makes scramble for my life. By the roll an' the splash, I

knowed I wor down in the schooner's hold; an' be hanged if there wan't

twenty or thirty holding on like bees to a open weather-port, where the

fresh wind and the spray come a-blowing through--but there, my boy,

'twere no go for to get so much as the tip o' yer nose. Accordently, up

I prizes myself with my feet on another poor devil's wool,--for, d'ye

see, by that time I minds a man's face no more nor so much timber!--an'

I feels for the hatch over me, where by good luck, as I thought, there

I finds it not battened down yet, so I shoved my head through on deck

like a blacksmith's hammer. Well, 'mate, there was the schooner's deck

wet, a swell of a sea on round her, well off the land, no trifle of a

morning gale, and the craft heeling to it--a lot o' hands up on her

yards, a-reefing at the boom mains'l and fo'taups'l, an' begod if my

heart doesn't jump into my mouth with the sight, for I feels it for

all the world like a good glass o' grog, settin' all to rights. Two or

three there was walkin' aft the quarterdeck, so out I sings 'Hullo!

hullo there, shipmates, give us a hand out o' this!' Two on 'em comes

forud, one lifts a handspike, but both gives a grin, as much as to

say it's some nigger tongue or other, in place o' good English--for,

d'ye see, they'd half their faces black-beard, and rings i' their

ears--when up walks another chap like the skipper, an' more the looks

of a countryman. 'D--n it,' roars I again, 'I'm a free-born Briton!'

with that he lends me a squint, looks to the men, an' gives some sort

o' a sign--when they jams-to the hatch and nips me fast by the neck.

'Devil of a deep beggar, this here!' says he; 'jist, give him the gag,

my lads,' says he; 'the planters often thinks more of a dumby, 'cause

he works the more, and a stout piece o' goods this _is_!' says he.

Well, 'mate, what does they do but one pulls out a knife, an' be blowed

if they warn't agoin' for to cut out my tongue; but the men aloft sung

out to hoist away the yards; so they left me ready clinched till they'd

belay the ropes. Next, a hand forud, by good luck, hailed 'Sail-O,' and

they'd some'at else to think o' besides me; for there, my boy, little

more nor three miles to wind'ard, I see'd the Irish as she come driving

bodily out o' the mist, shakin' out her three to'gallant-sails, an' a

white spray flying with her off one surge to another. Bloody bad it

was, mind ye, for my wind-pipe, for every time the schooner pitched,

away swings my feet clear o' the nigger's heads,--'cause, d'ye see, we

chanced for to be stowed on the 'tween-decks, an' another tier there

was, stuffed in her lower hold--an' there I stuck, 'mate, so as I

couldn't help watchin' the whole chase, till at last the hatch slacks

nip a bit, and down I plumps into the dark again."

"Well, bo', the breeze got lighter, an' to all seemin' the cursed

schooner held her own; but hows'ever, the sloop-o'-war kept it up all

day, and once or twice she tips us a long shot; till by sunset, as I

reckoned, we hears no more on her. The whole night long, again, there

we stews as thick as peas--I keeps harknin' to the sighs an' groans,

an' the wash along the side, in a sort of a doze; an' s'help me Bob,

I fancies for a moment I'm swinging in my hammock in the fox'sle, an'

it's no more but the bulkheads and timbers creakin'. Then I thinks

its some un else I dreams on, as is d--d oneasy, like to choke for

heat and thirst; an' I'm a-chuckling at him--when up I wakes with the

cockroaches swarming over my face. Another groan runs from that end to

this, the whole lot on us tries hard, and kicks their neighbours to

turn, an' be blowed if I knowed but I was buried in a churchyard, with

the blasted worms all acrawl about me. All on a sudden, nigh-hand to

daybreak it was, I hears a gun to wind'ard, so with that I contrives

for to scramble up with my eye to the scuttle-port. 'Twas a stiffish

breeze, an' I see'd some'at lift on a sea, like a albatrosse's wing,

as one may say--though what wor this but the Irish's bit of a tender,

standing right across our bows--for the schooner, ye see, changed her

course i' the night-time, rig'lar slaver's dodge, thinkin' for to drop

the sloop-o'-war, sure enough. But as for the little f'lucca, why,

they hadn't bargained for her at all, lying-to as she did, with a rag

o' sail up, in the troughs of the sea, till the schooner was close on

her. Well, no sooner does they go about, my boy, but the muskeety of a

cruiser lets drive at her off the top of a sea, as we hung broadside to

them in stays. Blessed if I ever see sich a mark!--the shot jist takes

our fore-top fair slap--for the next minute I see'd the fore-topmast

come over the lee-side, an' astarn we begins to go directly. What's

more, mate, I never see a small craft yet handled better in a sea, as

that 'ere chap did--nor the same thing done, cleaner at any rate--for

they jist comes nigh-hand tip on our bowsprit-end, as the schooner

lifted--then up in the wind they went like clock-work, with a starnway

on as carried the f'lucca, right alongside on us, like a coachman

backing up a lane, and _grind_ we both heaved on the swell, with the

topmast hamper an' its canvass for a fender atwixt us. Aboard jumps

the man-o'-war's-men, in course, cutlash in hand, an' for five minutes

some tough work there was on deck, by the tramp, the shots, an' the

curses over our heads--when off they shoved the hatches, and I see'd

a tall young feller in a gold-banded cap look below. Be blowed if I

wasn't goin' to sing out again, for, d'ye see, I'm blessed if I took

mind on the chap at all, as much by reason o' the blood an' the smoke

he'd got on his face as aught else. Hows'ever, I holds a bit meantime,

on account o' Job Price an' that 'ere piratecy consarn--till what does

I think, a hour or two arter, when I finds as this here were the very

lufftenant as chased us weeks on end in the Camaroons. So a close

stopper, sure enough, I keeps on my jaw; an' as for scentin' me out

amongst a couple o' hundred blacks in the hold, why, 'twere fit to Paul

my own mother herself.

"Well, Jack, by this time bein' near Serry Lone, next day or so we

got in--where, what does they do but they _lubber-rates_ us all, as

they calls it, into a barracoon ashore, till sich time as the slaver

ud be condemned--an' off goes the tender down coast again. Arter

that, they treats us well enough, but still I dursn't say a word; for

one day, as we goed to work makin' our huts, there I twigs a printed

bill upon the church-wall, holdin' out a reward, d'ye see, consarnin'

the piratecy, with my oun name and my very build logged down--ownly,

be hanged if they doesn't tack on to it all, byway of a topgallant

ink-jury to a man, these here words--'He's a very ugly feller--looks

like a furriner.' Well, mate, I an't a young maiden, sure enough--but,

thinks I, afore I fell foul o' that blasted fittish-man an' his nut,

cuss me if I looks jist so bad as that 'ere! So ye know this goes more

to my heart nor aught else, till there I spells out another confounded

lie in the bill, as how Cap'en Price's men had mutinied again him,

and murdered the brig's crew--when, in course, I sees the villain's

whole traverse at once. So seein' I watched my chance one night, an'

went aboard of a Yankee brig as were to sail next day; an' I tells the

skipper part o' the story, offerin' for to work my passage across for

nothin'--which, says he, 'It's a hinteresstin' narritife'--them was

his words; an' says he, 'It's a land o' freedom is the States, an' no

mistake--an't there no more on ye in the like case?' he says. 'Not as

I knows on, sir,' I answers; an' says he, 'Plenty o' coloured gen'lmen

there is yonder, all in silks an' satins; an' I hear,' says he,

'there's one on 'em has a chance o' bein President next time--anyhow

I'm your friend,' says he, quite hearty. Well, the long an' short of

it was, I stays aboard the brig, works my spell in her, an' takes my

trick at the helm--but I'm blowed, Jack, if the men ud let me sleep

in the fok'sle, 'cause I was a black,--so I slung my hammock aft with

the nigger stoo'rd. D'ye see, I misgived myself a bit when we sank the

coast, for thinks I its in Africay as that 'ere blessed mushroom are to

be found, to take the colour off me--hows'ever, I thinks it carn't but

wear out in time, now I've got out o' that 'ere confounded mess, where,

sure enough, things was against me--so at last the v'yage were up, an'

the brig got in to New Orleens. There I walks aft to the skipper for to

take leave, when says he, wonderfle friendly-like,--'Now my lad,' says

he, 'I'm goin' up river a bit for to see a friend as takes a interesst

in your kind--an' if ye likes, why, I'll pay yer passage that far?' In

course I agrees, and up river we goes, till we lands at a fine house,

where I'm left in a far-handy, ye know, while the skipper an' his

friend has their dinner. All at once the gen'lman shoves his head out

of a doure, takes a look at me, an' in again,--arter that I hears the

chink o' dollars--then the skipper walks out, shuts the doure, an' says

he to me, 'Now,' he says, 'that's a 'cute sort o' tale you tould me, my

lad--but it's a lie, I guess!' 'Lie, sir!' says I, 'what d'ye mean?'

for ye see that 'ere matter o' the iv'ry brig made me sing small, at

first. 'No slack, Pumpey,' says he, liftin' his fore-finger like a

schoolmaster,--ain't yer name Pumpey?' says he. 'Pumpey be d----d!'

says I, 'my name's Jack Brown'--for that wor the name, I'd gived him,

afore. 'Oh!' says he, 'jest say it's Gin'ral Washinton, right off!

Come,' says he, 'I guess I'd jest tell ye what tripe you belongs

to--you're a Mandingy niggur,' says he. 'It's all very well,' he says,

'that 'ere yarn, but that's wot they'd all say when they comes, they've

been dyed black! Why,' says he, 'doesn't I see that 'ere brand one

night on yer back--there's yer arms all over pagan tattooin'--' 'Bless

ye, cap'en,' I says, a-holdin' up my arm, 'it's crowns an' anchers!'

'Crowns!' says he, turnin' up his nose, 'what does we know o' crowns

hereaway--_we_ ain't barbers yet, I guess.'--Of what he meaned by

_barbers_ here, mate, I'm hanged if I knowed--'sides,' says he, 'you

speaks broken Aimerricane!' 'Merricain?' I says, 'why, I speaks

good English! an' good reason, bein' a free-born Briton--as white's

yerself, if so be I could ownly clap hands for a minnet on some o'

them mushrooms I tould ye on!' 'Where does they grow, then?' axes he,

screwin' one eye up. 'In Africay yonder, sir,' I says, 'more's the pity

I hadn't the chance to lay hands on 'em again!' 'Phoo!' says he, 'glad

they ain't _here_! An does you think we're agoin' for to send all the

way over to Africay for them mushrooms you talks on? Tell ye what, yer

free papers 'ud do ye a sight more good _here_!' says he--'its no use,

with a black skin, for to claim white laws; an' what's more, ye're too

tarnation ugly-faced for it, let alone colour, Pumpey, my man!' he

says. 'I tell ye what it is, Cap'en Edwards,' says I, 'my frontispiece

an't neither here nor there, but if you calls me Pumpey again, 'blowed

an' I don't pitch inty ye!'--so with that I handles my bones in a way

as makes him hop inside the doure--an' says the skipper, houldin' it

half shut, 'Harkee, lad,' he says, 'it's no go your tryin' for to run,

or they'll make ye think angels o' bo'sun's-mates. But what's more,'

says he, 'niver you whisper a word o' what ye tells me, about nuts an'

mushrooms, or sichlike trash--no more will I; for d'ye see, my lad,

in that case they'd jest _hush ye up_ for good!' 'Who d'ye mean!' I

says, all abroad, an' of a shiver, like--mindin' on the slave-schooner

again. 'Why, the planter's people,' says he, 'as I've sold ye to;' an'

with that he p'ints into his mouth, and shuts the door. Well, 'mate, ye

may fancy how I feels! Here I stands, givin' a look round for a fair

offing; but there was bulwarks two-fadom high all round the house, a

big bloodhound chained, with his muzzle on his two paws, an' nobody

seems for to mind me. So I see'd it were all up wonst more; an' at the

thou't of a knife in my tongue, I sits right down in the far-handy,

rig'lar flabbergasted,--when out that 'ere blasted skipper shoots his

head again, an' says he 'Pumpey, my lad, good day,' says he; 'you knows

some'at o' the water, an' as they've boat-work at times hereaway, I

don't know but, if you behaves yerself, they'll trust you with an oar

now an' then; for I tould yer master jist now,' says he, 'as how you

carn't speak no English!' Well, I gives him a damn, 'cause by that time

I hadn't a word to throw at a dog; an' shortly arter, up comes the

overseer with his black mate, walks me off to a shed, strips me, and

gives me a pair o' cotton drawers an' a broad hat--so out I goes the

next mornin' for to hoe sugar-cane with a gang o' niggers.

"Well, 'mate, arter that I kept close enough--says no more but mumbles

a lot o' no-man's jargon, as makes 'em all log me down for a sort

o' double-guinea savitch--, cause why, I were hanged afeared for my

tongue, seein', if so be I lost it, I'd be a nigger for ever, sure

enough. So the blacks, for most part bein' country bred, they talks

nothin' but a blessed jumble, for all the world like babbies at home;

an' what does they do but they fancies me a rig'lar African nigger,

as proud as Tommy, an' a'most ready for to washup me they wor--why,

the poor divvles ud bring me yams an' fish, they kisses my flippers

an' toes as I'd been the Pope; an' as for the young girls, I'm blowed

if I wan't all the go amongst em--though I carn't say the same where

both 's white, ye know! What with the sun an' the cocoa-nut ile, to

my thinkin', I gets blacker an' blacker--'blessed if I didn't fancy a

feller's very mind tarned nigger. I larns their confounded lingo, an'

I answers to the name o' Pumpey, blast it, till I right-down forgets

that I'd ever another. As for runnin', look ye, I knowed 'twas no use

thereaway, as long as my skin tould against me, an' as long as Africay

wor where it wor. So, my boy, I see'd pretty clear, ye know, as this

here bloody world ud turn a man into a rig'lar built slave-nigger in

the long run, if he was a angel out o' heaven!

"Well, 'mate, one day I'm in the woods amongst a gang, chopping

firewood for the sugar-mill, when, by the Lord! what does I light on

betwixt some big ground-leaves and sichlike, but a lot o' them very

same red mushrooms as the fittish-man shows me in Africay!--blowed if

there warn't a whole sight o' them round about, too! So I pulls enough

for ten, ye may be sure, stuffs 'em in my hat, an' that same night,

as soon as all's dark, off I goes into the woods, right by the stars,

for the nearest town 'twixt there an' New Orleens. As soon as I got

nigh-hand it, there I sits down below a tree amongst the bushes, hauls

off my slops, an' I turns to for to rub myself all over, from heel to

truck, till daybreak. So, in course, I watches for the light angshis

enough, as ye may suppose, to know what colour I were. Well, strike me

lucky, Jack, if I didn't jump near a fadom i' the air, when at last I

sees I'm _white_ wonst more!--'blessed if I didn't feel myself a new

man from stem to starn! I makes right for a creek near by, looks at

my face in the water, then up I comes again, an' every bloody yarn o'

them cussed slave-togs I pulls to bits, when I shoves 'em under the

leaves. Arter that I took fair to the water for about a mile, jist to

smooth out my wake, like; then I shins aloft up a tree, where I stowed

myself away till noon--'cause, d'ye see, I knowed pretty well what to

look for next. An' by this time, mind ye, all them queer haps made a

feller wonderfle sharp, so I'd schemed out the whole chart aforehand

how to weather on them cussed Yankees. Accordently, about noon, what

does I hear but that 'ere blasted bloodhound comin' along up creek,

with a set o' slave-catchers astarn, for to smell out my track. With

that, down I went in the water again, rounds a point into the big

river, where I gets abreast of a landin'-place near the town, with

craft laying out-stream, boats plying, an' all alive. D'ye see, bo',

I'd got no clothes at all, an' how for to rig myself again, 'blowed if

I knows--seein' as how by this time I'd tarned as white as the day I

were born, an' a naked white man in a town arn't no better nor a black

nigger. So in I swims like a porpus afore a breeze, an' up an' down I

ducks in the shallow, for all the world like a chap a-takin' a bath;

an' out I hollers to all an' sundry, with a Yankee twang i' my nose,

for to know if they'd see'd my clothes, till a whole lot on 'em crowds

on the quay. Hows'ever, I bethinks me on that 'ere blasted brand atwixt

my shoulders, an' I makes myself out as modest as a lady, kicks out

my legs, and splashes like a whale aground, an' sticks out my starn

to 'em for to let 'em see it's white. 'Hullo!' I sings out, 'han't ye

seen my clothes?' 'No, stranger,' says they, 'some un's runned off with

'em, we calc'lates!' With that I tells 'em I'm a Boston skipper new

comed up from New Orleens; an' not bein' used to the heat, why, I'd

took a bath the first thing; an' I 'scribes the whole o' my togs as if

I'd made 'em,--'split new,' says I, 'an' a beaver hat, more by token

there's my name inside it; an'' says I, 'there's notes for a hundred

dollars in my trousers!' By this time down comes the slave-catchers,

an' says they, hearin' on it, 'That 'ere tarnation niggur's gone of

with 'em, we'll know un by them marks well enough,' says they, an'

off they goes across river. 'Hullo!' I sings out to the folks, 'I'm a

gettin' cold here, so I guess I'll come ashore again, slick off!' I

twangs out. 'Guess ye can't, straunger!' they hails; 'not till we gets

ye some kiverin's!--we're considerable proper here, we are!' 'An't

this a free country, then?' I says, givin' a divvle of a splash; an'

with that they begs an' axes me for to hould on, an' they'd fix me, as

they calls it, in no time. Well, mate, what does they do but one an'

another brings me somethin' as like what I 'scribed as could be, hands

'em along on a pole, an' I puts 'em on then an' there. Arter that, the

ladies o' the place bein' blessed modest, an' all of a fright leest

I'd a comed out an' gone through the town,--why, out o' grannytude,

as they says, they gets up a supper-scription on a hundred dollars to

make up my loss--has a public meetin' logged down for the evenin', when

I'm for to indress the citizens, as they says, all about freedom an'

top-gallantry, an' sichlike. Hows'ever, I jist sticks my tongue in my

cheek, eats a blessed good dinner in a hot-ell, watches my chance, an'

off by a track-boat at sundown to New Orleens, where I shipped aboard

a English barque, an' gets safe out to sea wonst more." "Lord love

ye, Harry!" exclaimed Jack hereupon, "the likes o' that now! But I've

heerd say, them fittish-men you talks on has wonderful knowledge--why,

mayhap it's them as keeps all the niggers black, now?" "Well, bo',"

said Harry, "I don't doubt but if them 'Merricane slaves jist knowed

o' that 'ere red mushroom, why, they'd show the Yankees more stripes

nor stars! D'ye see, if a Yankee knowed as his own father were a-hoein'

his sugar-canes, 'blowed if he wouldn't make him work up his liberty

in dollars! All the stripes, d'ye see, 'mate, is for the blacks, an'

all the stars is for the whites, in them Yankee colours as they brags

so much about! But what I says is, it's curst hard to get through this

here world, shipmate, if ye doesn't keep well to wind'ard of it!" I

was the more amused with this account of the ugly rascal's adventures,

that I remembered two or three of the occasions he mentioned, and he

told them pretty exactly so far as I had to do with them. As for the

fetish-man's curious nut, and that extraordinary mushroom of his,

why 'ten to one' thought I, 'but all the while the fellow never once

touched a piece of _soap_!' which, no doubt, had as much to do with it

as anything besides. Somehow or other, notwithstanding, I had taken

almost a fancy to the villain--such a rough sample of mankind he

was, with his uncouth, grumpy voice and his huge black beard; and he

gave the story in a cool, scornful sort of way that was laughable in

itself. 'So, my lad,' I thought, 'it seems you and I have met twice

before; but if you play any of your tricks this time, Master Harry,

I hope you've found your match;' and certainly, if I had fancied my

gentleman was in the slaver's hold that time off the African coast,

I'd have 'lubber-rated' him with a vengeance! "I say, 'mates," said

he again, with a sulky kind of importance, to those of the watch who

had gathered round during the last half of his yarn, "there's three

things I hates--an' good reason!" "What be's they, Harry?" asked the

rest. "One's a Yankee," said he, "an' be blowed to him! the second's

a slaver; and the third is--I carn't abide a nigger, nohow. But d'ye

see, there's one thing as I likes----" Here eight bells struck out,

and up tumbled the watch below, with Jacobs' hearty face amongst them;

so I made my way aft, and, of course, missed hearing what that said

delightful thing might be, which this tarry Æsop approved of so much.