CHAPTER IX.

No occurrence worthy of record signalised our voyage from Lisbon

to Passages. As you are a member of the Yacht Club, though, and

passionately fond of romantic scenery, follow my advice, and treat

yourself, some fine week in the summer, to a run along the north

coast of Spain--say from Cape Finisterre to the mouth of the

Bidassoa. By the bye, hadn't you better reverse it? An awkward thing

you'd find it, to catch an on-shore wind at the head of the Bay of

Biscay. What would become of you--ah, and what would become of that

clever little craft of yours, the Water Wagtail, with her dandified

rig, and her enormous breadth of beam, and her six pretty little

brass popguns as bright as candlesticks, should a stiff north-wester

surprise you on that horrid coast? Won't it be better, then, to

secure some safe roadstead--the Gironde for instance--make that your

starting-point; choose your weather; and, coasting along the shores

of Biscay and Asturias, have the pleasure of feeling that you are

running out of the Bay, and not running into it?

That I leave to you. But depend upon it, if you visit that coast,

you will see not merely rocks, not merely mountains, not merely

wild scenery; but scenery so peculiar in character, that you will

not easily find the like. Such was the scenery which, on a fine day

towards the beginning of March, 1814, I viewed one morning early,

standing by the side of the Hon. Mr Beckenham, third lieutenant

of the M----. Mr B., having the morning watch, and thinking it

dull alone, had persuaded me to turn out, long, long before

breakfast;--as he said the night before, "to view that magnificent

coast at daybreak;" but, as he obligingly informed me when I came on

deck, "that he might enjoy the pleasure of my agreeable society."

The scene, at a first glance, rather disappointed my expectations.

"Stupendous ridge of mountains those Santillanos, though," said Mr

B.; "equal, I should think, to the Pyrenees themselves--of which, in

fact, they are a continuation, though some maps of Spain don't show

it."

The view, as I viewed it, had a threefold character. _First_, there

was the coast itself; a black line, occasionally diversified with

specks of white; this line a ledge of rocks, extending along shore

as far as the eye could reach, both east and west. The ocean-swell,

incessantly rolling in, though the morning was still, thundered on

this eternal sea-wall: and the surf, of which, at our distance, the

eye distinguished nothing but those white specks, visible from time

to time, presented, when viewed with a glass, every conceivable

variety and vagary of breaking waves: the foam now rushing up some

sloping shelf, like troops storming a breach; now arched sublime in

a graceful curve, that descended in a smoking deluge of spray; now

shooting vertically to a columnar height, as though the breaker had

first dashed downwards into some dark abyss, and then, reverberated,

flew sky-high in a pillar of froth. Beyond this line of rocks,

appeared, _secondly_, a ridge of low hills, presenting nothing very

remarkable, either in aspect or in outline. And beyond these again,

further up the country, appeared, _thirdly_, a very respectable and

loftier range--mountains, if you're a Lincolnshire man, and choose

to call them so.

"So, this is your ridge of mountains," said I. "Stupendous? I don't

call twelve or fourteen hundred feet stupendous, anyhow. And I'm

inclined to think you might look down on most of them, at that

altitude."

"You don't see them," said he. "You are looking at the coast range.

Do you perceive nothing beyond?"

"Nothing but a few light clouds," said I, "in the sickly blue of the

morning sky."

"Well, look at them," replied Mr. B. "View those clouds attentively.

Watch whether they change their shape, as clouds usually do, when

seen near the horizon."

I watched, but there was no visible change. The clouds were

fixtures! Sure enough, those faint, pale streaks above the hills,

that gleamed like aerial patches of silver vapour, were no other

than the lofty summits of the distant Santillanos, capped with

snow, and touched by the beam of early morning. It was worth a

turnout, any day.

Well, at length we reached Passages. Night had closed in, before we

dropped our anchor off the harbour's mouth. The captain dreaded the

very disaster to which I have already alluded, that of being caught

by an on-shore wind in that ugly corner. It was settled, therefore,

that a boat should be sent at once to announce our arrival, and the

treasure landed next morning early, in order that the frigate might

be off with the least delay possible.

Next morning early, then, the treasure--dollars packed in boxes,

one thousand dollars in a bag, two bags in a box--was brought up

from the hold, and stowed in three boats alongside. Making my best

bow to the captain, and tendering both to him and to his staff, my

sincere and grateful acknowledgments for all the polite attentions,

&c., I stepped over the side, and seated myself in the boat destined

for my conveyance. In the largest boat, which also contained the

largest portion of the treasure, sat the Hon. Mr Beckenham; in the

next was a middy; in my own, which was the smallest, were only

about half-a-dozen boxes, and four sailors to pull ashore. Mr B.

requested me to steer. We pulled for the mouth of the harbour, which

was distinguishable, at the distance of a mile, by an abrupt and

narrow cleft, dividing two lofty hills; and by a line of foam, which

extended right across the entrance, without any visible opening.

Three boats leaving the ship in company, there was a race of

course. Mine was astern, having been brought close alongside for my

accommodation, and so getting the last start. The race was commenced

by middy, who, by the rules of the service, ought to have kept

astern of Mr B., and therefore tried to get ahead of him. My men,

seeing the contest, began pulling like mad; and, though outnumbered

by the crew of the other boats, yet ours being light, and the

weather moderate, soon overtook and passed them. We pulled away,

maintaining the lead, till a dull roar, like continued thunder,

reminded us that we were just upon the bar. There it was, right

ahead, crossing our course, not a hundred yards distant, and no

passage perceptible; the sea, elsewhere, comparatively tranquil,

there swelling and raging, like a mild-tempered man in a passion;

the breakers curling, flouncing, tumbling one over the other,

rolling in opposite directions, tilting as they crossed, and flying

up with the force of the shock. How were we to pass? or by what

dodge to give the go-by? My men, excited by the race, would have led

at that moment into Charybdis. Still they pulled, onward, onward,

to all appearance right upon the reef. The difficulty was solved,

like many other difficulties, just when we got into the thick of

it. The reef, single in appearance, was in reality double; that

is to say, it consisted of two ledges, one ledge overlapping the

other: so that, just at the instant when three strokes more of the

oars would have taken us into the midst of the tumblification, a

narrow opening, with comparatively smooth water, appeared at our

left; a turn of the rudder brought us cleverly round into that

friendly channel, and the next moment we floated on the tranquil

surface of the outer harbour. The luff-tackle and the reefer, as

if they had let me go ahead only to see how a landsman could turn

a corner, now seemed disposed to renew the race. Raising a shout,

which rang from hill to hill in the cleft of that narrow roadstead,

their crews gave way again with redoubled ardour. But, having gained

the precedence outside, we easily kept it in smooth water, and led

in, with a sweep, through the larger harbour to the town. There,

as we coasted along, I noticed a little jetty; and on it, in the

full uniform of our department, a little man, who was anxiously

watching our approach. I laid my boat alongside, jumped ashore,

and received a hearty welcome from Mr Deputy-Paymaster-General

Q----, whom I had previously known at Lisbon, and who was now in

charge of the military chest at Passages. Another individual whom

I had met at Lisbon, a gentleman holding office in a department

attached to the army--suppose, for want of a better name, we call

him "My Friend"--stepped up at the same time, as if he had come by

accident, was amazingly glad to see me, took my hand, and greeted

me with many smiles--begged I wouldn't think of troubling myself

about a billet--his quarters were quite roomy enough for two. Had

I a mule? Shouldn't be able to get one in all Passages. Must have

something. He would sell me a pony cheap.

A working party was at hand, to convey the boxes of specie from

the jetty to the office, which was established hard by, for the

convenience of landing remittances that came by sea. A guard was

now set, and the sailors turned to, handing the boxes smartly out

of the boats, and ranging them on _terra firma_; the shore party

began conveying them from the jetty into the office. The Hon. Mr

Beckenham was in a dreadful fuss to get back to the frigate. "The

skipper wants to be off while the wind is fair, and the men haven't

breakfasted,"--nor had he. Up came my commanding officer just at the

moment, and hoped Mr B. and the middy would favour us with their

company to breakfast, as soon as the boxes were stowed.

Mr B. glanced circularly at the horizon, looked at the clouds,

looked at the flags in the harbour, looked at the clouds again.

"Don't think there's any sign of a change of wind at present," said

he. "Blows very steady from the south, sir," said the middy. The

boxes were housed; they suffered themselves to be persuaded, and

walked with us into the office. "My friend" also received an invite,

and came in company.

The men in the boats were supplied with bread, butter, and cheese;

some enormous Spanish sausages, by way of a relish, delicious

Spanish onions, as mild as an apple, and a handsome allowance of

brilliant draught cider. By all means ship a barrel, if you touch at

Passages in the Water Wagtail. Mr Q---- conducted us to his private

apartment, where we found a substantial breakfast awaiting us. I

walked into the balcony, which looked towards the water; took a view

of the men in the boats. All had their knives out, each sat in an

attitude of his own, the cider evidently gave general satisfaction,

the prog was rapidly disappearing, and the subject of conversation

was twofold--the race, already accomplished, from the frigate to

the jetty; and the race, soon to come off, from the jetty to the

frigate. "My friend" stood at my elbow, saw me laughing at Jack,

laughed himself--laughed heartily. "When will you come and look at

the pony?" said he. Mr Q---- summoned us to breakfast.

Breakfast over, the lieutenant and his aide-de-camp took their

leave. I went to look after my baggage, of which "my friend" had

taken charge in the hurry of landing, promising to see it stowed

with the treasure, where it would be under a guard. There was the

guard, and there was the treasure; but there, was not my baggage.

Found him--demanded an explanation. "Why, to tell the truth, the

working party being there, he had embraced the opportunity, and

had sent off my things at once to his own billet. We might as well

go there at once. Could look at the pony by the way." Just as we

started, my commanding officer called after me, "Mr Y----, I shall

want you to give me a few particulars respecting the treasure. You

may as well do so before going out. Then you may consider yourself

at liberty for the rest of the day." I accompanied him into a small

room, on the door of which was wafered "Private." "My friend" waited

outside, in the street.

"Did you send any message to that gentleman last night," said Mr

Q----, "when the boat came ashore from the frigate?"

"None whatever, sir. I didn't even know he was at Passages."

"Wasn't he aware that you were coming from Lisbon?"

"I don't see how he could be, sir. For it wasn't mentioned there

till the day before I sailed; and of course no intelligence could

have come in that time by land."

"Then he didn't meet you this morning by appointment?"

"Certainly not, sir. The meeting was quite casual."

"Casual? He was waiting about here for an hour before you landed;

running into the office, out of the office, poking his nose into

every corner--couldn't think what he wanted. Oh, I suppose he must

have fallen in with the second lieutenant yesterday evening. That's

how he heard of you, no doubt. Old cronies, I suppose."

"Not at all, sir. We met twice at Lisbon. That's all that I ever saw

of him, till this morning."

"Indeed! Well, he seems very attentive. Does he appear to have any

object? What was he saying to you in the balcony?"

"Said something about a pony he wants to sell. That was all, sir."

"Oh!" said Mr Q----. The "oh" came out something like a groan

a yard long, first forte, then minuendo, with the forefinger

applied laterally to the apex of the nose, and one eye sapiently

half-closed. "Ay, ay; I see. That's what he's after, no doubt; he

wants you to buy Sancho. Well, perhaps you can't do better. I know

the pony well. Doubt whether you'll find anything else to suit you

in all Passages. A mule, indeed, would answer your purpose better;

but the price of mules is enormous. Have you drawn your allowance

for a horse?" "No, sir. As I came by water, and dollars are

cumbersome, I thought it best to defer that till I reached Passages."

"Oh, very well; it's all right, then. Mr Y----, I feel it my duty

to say this to you; let me know before you close the bargain. Till

then, the eighty dollars are as well in my hands as in yours.

Horses will soon be dog-cheap. Few to be had in Spain for love or

money; lots, though, in France. Once at headquarters, you may mount

yourself _ad libitum_; and the pony will do well enough to carry

you up. Well, Mr Y----, with regard to quarters, the town is so

full, I was thinking we must try and accommodate you here. But as Mr

what's-his-name has made the offer, I feel it my duty to say this to

you--you had better accept it."

"Will you look at the invoice of the treasure, now, sir? Or shall I

bring it to-morrow?"

"Show it me now. Any gold?"

"All silver, sir; dollars, half-dollars, and quarters."

"What's this? Eight bags of a thousand, halves; twelve bags,

quarters; five bags, small mixed. Why, it will take us an age to

count it all."

"My fingers were sore with counting, before I left Lisbon, sir."

"Yes; and they must be sore again, before you leave Passages. Glad

to find you have had practice, though. Shouldn't mind the dollars:

a middling hand, you know, can count his thirty thousand a-day;

but that small mixed takes no end of time. Well, Mr Y----, I feel

it my duty to say this to you--hold yourself in readiness to start

for headquarters, in charge of treasure, this day week at latest.

If I can get you off a day or two earlier, all the better. But the

money must be counted; the boxes must be looked to and repaired.

And then the mules--why, you'll want sixty at least. Let me see.

Nearer eighty, unless I can take part of the silver, and give you

doubloons. Well, I'll see old Capsicum in the course of the morning,

and ascertain what mules he can let me have. Be here to-morrow at

ten, and then I shall be able to tell you more about it."

Delighted to hear once more the name of Capsicum, and doubting

whether to call on him, or wait till we met, I was leaving the room

to rejoin "my friend" in the street, when Mr Q---- called me back.

"Of course, you know, Mr Y----," said he, "I have no wish to

interfere with a fair bargain. Make your own agreement for the

pony. I have nothing to say against the party who wishes to sell,

and would be the last man to disparage a gentleman attached to any

department of the British army. Only I feel it my duty to say this

to you--keep your weather-eye open. Good morning."

"My friend" and I walked off together to the stable. His Portuguese

servant, Antonio, was in attendance, led out the pony, walked

him, trotted him, led him in again. The pony, I thought, was a

respectable pony enough; not in bad condition, neither; rather

small, though, for a rider six feet high. His legs, supple,

well-turned, and slender, were decidedly Spanish. But the barrel,

round, bulging, and disproportionably large; the hum-drum, steady,

_business-like_ pace; the tail, long, thick, and coarse the drooping

neck, the great hairy ears, the heavy head, the lifeless eye, and

the dull, unmeaning cast of countenance, betokened rather a Gallic

origin. I declined giving an immediate answer as to purchasing.

"My friend," with a laugh, said I was quite right; and we walked

off together to his billet. "Very dull place, this Passages," said

he. "Shall be happy to go with you across the harbour, and show you

the market. By the bye, of course, before you leave, you'll take a

view of St Sebastian. There stands the poor old town, all knocked

to smash, just as it remained after the siege. If you wish to form

a conception of the tremendous effect of cannon-balls, ride over by

all means. You may get there in less than half-an-hour, upon the

pony."

We now reached "my friend's" quarters, which consisted of one long,

narrow room, with a couple of windows at the end nearest the street,

and a couple of alcoves at the other, each alcove containing a very

humble bed. As to the windows, you are not to understand by the term

window, bless your heart, anything in the shape of glass, sashes,

or window-frame; but simply a stone opening in the stone wall, with

nothing to keep out the wind and rain, but a pair of old clumsy

shutters, which were far from shutting hermetically. The whole

furniture of the apartment consisted of a ship's stove, borrowed

from one of the transports in the harbour; a door laid on two

trestles, to serve as a table; and, on each side of the said table,

a bench. Yet often, when the troops were engaged in active service,

such accommodations as ours would have been deemed a luxury; and

many a wrangle arose for far worse quarters. I noticed that the

trestles and benches, which consisted of rough deal, hastily knocked

together, looked new. This "my friend" explained, by informing me

that the captain of the transport had lent him his carpenter. Having

seen to my baggage, which was all right, and ascertained that we had

four hours to dinner, I took the first opportunity of cutting my

stick, having inwardly formed my determination to be off at once on

foot, and take a view of St Sebastian. Six or seven months had now

elapsed since St Sebastian was stormed and taken by the British and

Portuguese forces.

Less than an hour's walk brought me to the scene of that fierce,

and, for a period, doubtful conflict. The road was closed up by

hills, which afforded no opportunity for a prospect; and not a soul

did I meet in the whole distance. All at once I came in sight of

the battered and demolished fortress. Imagine a town knocked to

pieces. Imagine this town suddenly presenting itself to your view.

The road unexpectedly opened upon a sandy plain, on which rose a

few eminences, called the Chofres, that had afforded a position for

some of the breaching batteries of the besiegers; at the extremity

of this plain ran the river Urumea, discharging itself into the sea;

and on an isthmus, beyond the river, stood St Sebastian. It stood

like a city in the desert. All was solitude and desolation. The

town, though it had contained many thousand inhabitants, at this

moment afforded no visible indication of human residence. It was not

forsaken; yet nothing could I discover of the tokens which usually

indicate life and activity as we approach the abodes of men--on the

road, neither vehicles, nor cattle, nor human beings. I was alone,

and the city was solitary. No; here, at my feet, upon the sandy

plain, was a memorial, at least, of man and of his doings. A rise in

the level had been washed down at its edge by the rains of winter;

and, projecting from the crumbling bank, appeared the bleached

and ghastly remains of a human being; doubtless one out of the

multitudes who, having fallen in the siege, had been consigned to

a shallow and hasty grave. I will not deny that the sight arrested

my steps. Remember, it was the first victim of war I had ever

looked upon. Nay, more; it invested the whole panorama with a new

character. I stood, as it were, surveying a vast cemetery, the soil

now concealing in its bosom the multitudes who, not long before,

had drenched its surface with their blood. Entering the town, I

did indeed see before me, as "my friend" had said, "the tremendous

effect of cannon-balls." Yet that was not the whole: destruction

appeared in a threefold aspect. The batteries had knocked houses and

defences into rubbish and dust; the mines had torn up the works from

their foundations; and a general conflagration had ravaged the whole

town. The scene was sombre and oppressive. War had now advanced

his pavilion into other lands; but here had left in charge two vast

and hideous sentinels--Desolation and Silence! I passed through

some of the principal streets, in which the fallen stones had been

piled on each side, to make a thoroughfare; and walked along the

ramparts, where some of the dead were still visible, partially

covered by fragments of the ruined masonry. No living creature

did I encounter, save one, a miserable object, a soldier in the

Spanish uniform, apparently an invalid, recovering from wounds or

sickness. On my approaching him, he appeared unwilling to speak or

be spoken to. Nor is it difficult to explain why a Spaniard, meeting

an Englishman on the walls of St Sebastian, should feel little

disposed for conversation. And so I visited the place, inspected the

fortifications, and returned to Passages, without exchanging a word

with any one.

"My friend," in honour of my arrival, had invited a brace of

dinner-guests: one, like myself, a clerk of the military chest, the

other a young hospital mate. Our dinner was excellent; Irish stew,

a Passages hare, and an enormous omelet, all cooked by Antonio;

capital draught cider; with the cheese, two bottles of English

porter as a particular treat; and Andalusian wine _ad libitum_.

I must here say a word on the subject of Irish stew. A standing dish

at headquarters was that Irish stew. Amongst the followers of the

army were a number of youths, Spanish and Portuguese, principally

the latter, age from sixteen to twenty, happy, on the small

consideration of a few dollars per month, to enter the service of

any Senhor Inglez who would hire them. Most of the clerks attached

to headquarters had a servant of this description; and as each clerk

was entitled to draw double rations, the arrangement was convenient.

It was the chief business of this servant, to discharge the two

very congenial duties of groom and cook; and no one was eligible

to the office who could not make Irish stew. "Well, Pedro, what's

for dinner to-day?"--The answer was invariable, "Oirish-too." The

ration beef--it was generally beef--was popped into a saucepan with

anything else that came to hand--bread, onions, leeks, potatoes if

you could get them, and just enough water to cover the whole;--then

stewed. Whatever the ingredients, still it was "Oirish-too."

Now--perhaps the idea never struck you--the true difference between

English and foreign cookery is just this: in preparing butcher's

meat for the table, the aim of foreign cookery is to make it tender,

of English, to make it hard. And both systems equally effect their

object, in spite of difficulties on each side. The butcher's meat,

which you buy abroad, is tough, coarse-grained, and stringy; yet

foreign cookery sends this meat to table tender. The butcher's meat

which you buy in England is tender enough when it comes home; but

domestic cookery sends it up hard. Don't tell me the hardness is in

the meat itself. Nothing of the kind: it's altogether an achievement

of the English _cuisine_. I appeal to a leg of mutton, I appeal to

a beef-steak, as they usually come to table; the beef half-broiled,

the mutton half-roasted. Judge for yourself. The underdone portion

of each is tender; the portion that's dressed is hard. Argal, the

hardness is due to the dressing, not to the meat: it is a triumph of

domestic cookery.--Q.E.D. Well; if time was short--say, a meal to

be prepared on coming in from a march, the rations not issued till

three hours after, and Pedro ordered to "make haste, and get dinner

_depressa_,"--why, then, to appease the wolf in your stomach, the

Irish stew was ready in no time--boiled like fury--dished up in half

an hour. In that case, you got it in the genuine English style--done

in a hurry: the broth watery and thin, the potatoes bullets, and

the _bouilli_ shrunk, indurated, screwed up into tough elasticity,

by the sudden application of a strong heat, and the potent effect

of hard boiling. Engage a "good plain cook"--tell her to boil a

neck of mutton--that will show you what I mean. All London necks of

mutton come to table crescents--regularly curled. But if, on the

contrary, you were in quarters, or the troops halted a day, then you

got your Irish stew after the foreign fashion. Breakfast cleared

away, your horse is brought to the door, that you may ride a few

miles forwards, and take a view of the operations, or ogle Soult

through a telescope. Pedro then commences his culinary operations

forthwith. The beef--and what-not besides--is whipped into the

saucepan; the saucepan is set among the embers upon the hearth: and

there it stands--not boiling--scarcely simmering--suppose we say

digesting--throughout the forenoon, and till you are ready to eat.

Long before dinner, savoury steams announce a normal process of

the _cuisine_, a process both leisurely and effectual. At length,

crowned with laurels, and, like all heroes, hungry after fighting,

you return from the skirmish in front, having barely escaped a stray

cannon-ball that made your horse--oh, didn't it?--spin round like a

teetotum. The rich repast awaits you--the whole is turned out, and

smokes upon the table--the _bouilli_ is tender, the "jus" appetising

and substantial, the _tout-ensemble_ excellent. And if, with an eye

to his own interest in the concern, Pedro has slipped in a handful

or so of garlic, why, you live all day in the open air--so it

doesn't much signify.

Well, so much for Irish stew. We wound up the evening with

ship-biscuit and brandy-and-water--ration brandy--French--superb.

What an exchange for the horrid _agoardente_ of Lisbon, that

excoriated your palate, indurated your gizzard, and burnt a hole in

your liver! I happened to mention my morning visit to St Sebastian.

All my three companions had seen St Sebastian during the siege--were

present at the storming. "Sorry I was not ordered up in time," said

I.

"You'll never see anything like that," said the doctor.

"Well, can't you tell me something about it?"

"No, no," replied he; "rather too late for that to-night. I must be

moving."

"Come, gentlemen; mix another tumbler round," said "my friend." "If

we cannot go into particulars, at least, for the satisfaction of Mr

Y----, let us each relate some one incident, which we witnessed when

the city was taken by storm. Come, doctor; you shall begin."

"Really," said the doctor, "it was such a scene of slaughter and

confusion, I can hardly recollect anything distinctly enough to tell

it. I got into the town almost immediately after the troops, to look

after the wounded; just those that required to be operated on at

once. Found my way into a by-street; came among some of our fellows,

who were carrying on such a game, drinking, plundering, firing at

the inhabitants, and I don't know what-all besides, I was glad

enough to escape with my life, and got out of the place as fast as

I could. Don't really remember any particular occurrence to relate.

Oh, yes; just as I was coming away, I saw one old woman--beg pardon;

ought to have said elderly gentlewoman--pinned to a post with a

bayonet, for defending her daughter's virtue."

Well, gentlemen, said "my friend," "I also will relate an incident,

connected with that dreadful day. But, first of all, I must show

you something. What, would you say, is the value of that, doctor?"

He produced a very handsome diamond ring. "Worth fifty dollars at

least," said the doctor, holding it to the lamp. "I say, _worth_ it;

that is, in the trade. Would sell, in Bond Street, for more than

double that price, as they'd set it in London." The doctor, I should

mention, was the son of a fashionable watchmaker--bore the sobriquet

of Tick.

"Well," continued my friend, "how do you think I became possessed of

that ring? Just after the town was carried, I watched a lull in the

firing from the castle, and went in over the breach. Only one or two

round-shot fell, as I was climbing up. Met there an English sailor,

a man-of-war's man, coming along in high good humour, perhaps a

little the worse for liquor. He was shouting, laughing, holding up

his two hands, as if he wanted me to look at them. The fellow had

been plundering; plundering a jeweller's shop. "Now I'm dressed out

for a ball," said he, "all for one like a Spanish lady." What d'ye

think he had done? All his fingers, both hands, were covered down

to the tips with splendid rings, rings set with precious stones,

as thick as curtain-rods. Brilliants, rubies, emeralds, amethysts,

he had stuck them on, one after the other, till there was no room

left. Told him I'd buy them: offered him a dollar for the lot; two

dollars; five dollars. 'Avast,' said he, 'I'm a gentleman. Don't

want none of your dumps, messmate. Shouldn't mind giving you one,

though, for good luck. Here, take this big un.' It was a great

ugly Brazilian topaz. 'No, no,' said I; 'give me this little one.'

He gave it me; I thanked him; and he walked away, laughing and

shouting.--Worth fifty dollars, you say. Is it though, doctor? For

forty-five down, you shall have it."

The doctor made no reply; and, for a few seconds, there was a dead

silence. "Come, Mr Pagador senior," said he; "I've got three gunshot

wounds, an ague, and a dysentery.--Must see them all, before I go to

bed. Please to proceed."

"I think," said my fellow-clerk, "our host had a good chance of

being shot, when he mounted the breach; for the French, I remember,

kept up a fire on all who passed that way, long after it was

carried. You're sure you got that ring on the breach, are you?... I,

also, had a narrow escape, after I got into the town. I was walking

up one of the streets, and passed a wine-shop, where a lot of our

fellows were assembled, within and without. A few yards beyond was

a corner; another street crossed. Just at the crossing, in the

middle of the road, lay an English soldier, dead. There was nothing

particular in that; for I had passed several dead before, as I came

along. Walking on, I noticed two soldiers looking at me and talking.

'Better tell him, then,' said one of them. 'Tell him yourself,'

said the other; 'I shan't tell him. He's only a commissary.' Just

before I reached the corner, some one gently laid hold of my arm.

I turned round. It was that officer of the engineers--Gabion--yes,

Captain Gabion. 'Wouldn't advise you to go beyond the corner,'

said he.--'Why not?' said I. 'Don't you see that man lying on the

road?' said he.--'Any danger?' said I. 'I'll soon let you see that,'

said he: 'have the kindness to lend me your hat.' I gave him my

hat--staff-hat--bought it new at Vittoria. He stepped forward, held

it out by one end, just poked about half of it beyond the corner.

Crack! a rifle-bullet came clean through it. 'The French,' said

he, 'still occupy that street. I set a sentry here just now, to

keep people from passing on. But he's off; plundering, I suppose,

or getting drunk. I'm sorry for your hat, though.' Rum trick, that

of Captain Gabion's, I must say. I thought it very unkind. Kept me

from getting shot; much obliged to him for that. But spoiled my new

staff-hat--cost me ten dollars."

"Yes," said the doctor, "that's just what he is; always up to some

practical piece of wit, and grave as a judge. Grave? I should rather

say melancholy. Such a fellow for joking, too! Why, he'd crack a

joke if a shell was fizzing at his feet. One of the coolest officers

in the service."

"Where is Captain Gabion now?" said I.

"Oh, somewhere in advance," said the doctor; "you may be sure of

that; somewhere with the troops in the south of France. He and his

friend, that major of the artillery, had a narrow escape, though, in

the winter. Must needs go paying a morning visit to a French family

just this side of St Jean de Luz, before the enemy were driven

across the Nivelle. Just escaped a party of them by hard riding.

Don't see, though, that your hat, Mr Pagador, is much the worse,

merely for being pinked."

"It makes people stare so," said he, "that's all I care about. Looks

just exactly as if one had been shot through the head."

"Shouldn't mind giving you my new foraging cap and a dollar for it,"

said "my friend." Again there was a short silence. It was clear, in

fact, that "my friend's" disposition to barter and bargain was not

altogether admired.

"Well, gentlemen," said I, "you have all been good enough to tell me

something about St Sebastian. Now, I'll tell you something. Did you

ever see a dead man swim?"

"I've seen a dead man float," said the doctor; "never saw one swim."

"Well, that's what I saw this morning. And you may see it to-morrow,

if you choose to go and look. I'll tell you how it was. The tide was

up, and the river Urumea nearly full. I was standing on that part

of the rampart, where, as you know, the rubbish dislodged by the

springing of the mine is shot down into the bed of the river. In

that vast heap, no doubt many of the storming party found a grave,

where they still lie buried, under tons upon tons of shattered

masonry. In some instances, however, the sufferers were not entirely

overwhelmed by the explosion; and their remains are still partly

visible, bleached by the sun and wind. The water was perfectly

clear; you might see the rocks in the bed of the stream. My eye,

measuring the shattered pile on which I was standing, mechanically

descended from its summit to its base, which juts out far into

the river. Just under water, I noticed something in motion. The

appearance attracted my attention. Descending the mound to the

water's edge, what do you think I saw? A man half emerging from the

fragments, and swimming, yes, swimming beneath the surface, striking

out with both hands, as if struggling to get free. So visible was

the object, so distinctly I saw every movement, my first impulse was

to step down into the water, drag him out from the rubbish before

he was drowned, and land him on _terra firma_. I looked again--he

was long past drowning. There he had swum, at high water, every day

since the city was stormed, and the mine was sprung. His bones,

half bared of flesh, were still held together by the ligaments; the

mine, by its explosion, had buried him up to the middle; but from

the loins he was free: the play of the waves tossed him to and fro;

the water, in its flux and reflux, now caught his arms and spread

them out; from his sides to their full extent, now brought them

back again:--anybody would have said it was a man swimming. Well, I

shall dream of it to-night. I shall again be standing on that breach

before daylight; fancy I see the dead man swimming out beneath my

feet; and perhaps hear him calling for help under water. Only hope I

mayn't fancy it's myself."

"It's curious," said the doctor, "when a fellow first joins, how a

thing of that kind strikes him as remarkable. Well, good night all."

AMERICAN ADVENTURE.[5]

[5] _Sights in the Gold Regions, and Scenes by the Way._ By THEODORE

T. JOHNSON. New York: 1849.

_The California and Oregon Trail: being Sketches of Prairie and

Rocky Mountain Life._ By FRANCIS PARKMAN, Jun. New York and London:

1849.

_Los Gringos; or an Inside View of Mexico and California: with

Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia._ By LIEUTENANT WISE,

U.S.N. New York and London: 1850.

There is a class of literature peculiarly American, and unlikely

to be rivalled or imitated to any great extent on this side the

Atlantic, for which we entertain a strong predilection. It is the

literature of the forest and the prairie, of the Indian camp and

the backwood settlement, of the trapper's hunting ground, and,

we now must add, of the Californian gold mine. It comprises the

exploits and narratives of the pioneer in the Far West, and the

squatter in Texas; of the military volunteer in Mexico, and the

treasure-seeking adventurer on the auriferous shores of the Pacific.

In common with millions of Europeans, we have watched, for years

past, with wonder, if not always with admiration, the expansive

propensities of that singularly restless people, who, few in number,

in proportion to their immense extent of territory, and prosperous

at home under the government they prefer, yet find themselves

cramped and uneasy within their vast limits, and continually, with

greater might than right, displace their neighbour's boundary-mark

and encroach upon his land. The mode in which this has been done,

in a southerly direction, by the settlement of emigrants, who,

gradually accumulating, at last dispossess and expel the rightful

owner, has been often described and exemplified; and nowhere more

graphically than by Charles Sealsfield, in his admirable _Cabin

Book_ and _Squatter Nathan_. The Anglo-German-American, deeply

impressed by the virtues of his adopted countrymen, and especially

by that intelligence and enterprising spirit which none can deny

them, sees merit rather than injustice in the forcible expulsion of

the Spaniard's descendants, and makes out the best possible case in

defence of the Yankee spoliator. Still, when stripped of factitious

colouring and rhetorical adornments, the pith of the argument seems

to be that the land is too good for the lazy "greasers," who must

incontinently absquatilate, and make way for better men. As for

Indians, they are of no account whatever. "Up rifle and at them!"

is the word. In utter wantonness they are shot and cut down. Let us

hear an American's account of the process.

"When Captain Sutter first settled in California he had much

trouble with the Indians, but he adopted, and has pursued

steadily from the first, a policy of peace, combined with the

requisite firmness and occasional severity. Thus he had obtained

all-powerful influence with them, and was enabled to avail

himself of their labour for moderate remuneration. Now all was

changed: the late emigrants across the mountains, and especially

from Oregon, had commenced a war of extermination, shooting

them down like wolves--men, women, and children--wherever

they could find them. Some of the Indians were undoubtedly

bad, and needed punishment, but generally the whites were the

aggressors; and, as a matter of course, the Indians retaliated

whenever opportunities occurred; and in this way several unarmed

or careless Oregonians had become, in turn, their victims.

Thus has been renewed in California the war of extermination

against the aborigines, commenced in effect at the landing

of Columbus, and continued to this day, gradually and surely

tending to the utter extinction of the race. And never has this

policy proved so injurious to the interests of the whites as in

California."--(_Sights in the Gold Regions_, p. 152-3.)

Mr Johnson illustrates by examples the system he thus condemns,

and shows us war-parties of white men issuing forth for _razzias_

upon Indian villages, receiving, as they depart, the valedictory

benediction of the patriarch of the settlement, a veteran

backwoodsman, well known in the Rocky Mountains as a guide and

pioneer, and who, after a long and adventurous career, has at last

located himself, with his active, reckless, half-breed sons in the

beautiful and romantic valley of the Saw Mill. This bloody-minded

old miscreant, John Greenwood by name, boasted of having shot

upwards of a hundred Indians--ten of them since his arrival in

California--and hoped still to add to the murder-list, although

incapacitated by age from distant expeditions. His cabin was the

alarm-post where the foragers assembled, and whither, on their

return from their errand of blood and rapine, they brought their

ill-gotten spoils, the captive squaws, and the still reeking

scalps of their victims. With male prisoners they rarely troubled

themselves; although, upon one occasion during Mr Johnson's stay in

their vicinity, they brought in a number, and shot seven of them in

cold blood, because, "being bad-looking and strong warriors," it

was believed they had participated in the murder of five English

miners, surprised and slain a short time previously. Expeditions

of this kind are called "war-parties;" and the propriety of the

system of which they form a part is as fiercely and passionately

defended by the Americans in California, as is the propriety of

slave-holding by the free and enlightened citizens of the southern

states of the Union. It were far from prudent to preach emancipation

in Florida or Louisiana; at the "diggins" it is decidedly unsafe

to call the shooting of Indians by the harsh name of murder. "We

saw a young mountaineer, wild with rage, threaten the life of an

American who had ventured to suggest that the murders committed by

these Indians were provoked by many previous murders of the whites,

and that they should not be avenged by _indiscriminate_ slaughter,

but by the death of the _guilty_." The horrible character of the

frequent massacres is aggravated by the adoption, on the part of

the white savages, of the repugnant and barbarian usages of the

unfortunate heathens whom they first provoke and then hunt to the

death, by the tearing off of scalps, and suchlike hideous and

unchristian abominations. Unfortunately, these scenes of slaughter

and atrocity are of constant occurrence, not only in that far-off

land where gold is to be had for the gathering, but wherever the

white man and the red come in contact. The air of the prairie and

backwoods seems fatal to all humane and merciful feelings, and

the life of the Indian is held no dearer than that of skunk or

buffalo. Mr Parkman tells us of "a young Kentuckian, of the true

Kentucky blood, generous, impetuous, and a gentleman withal, who

had come out to the mountains with Russel's party of California

emigrants. One of his chief objects, as he gave out, was to kill an

Indian--an exploit which he afterwards succeeded in achieving, much

to the jeopardy of ourselves and others, who had to pass through

the country of the dead Pawnee's enraged relatives." No censure

is passed upon this generous and gentlemanly young murderer by Mr

Parkman, whose book would nevertheless indicate him to be a man of

education and humanity, but who is apparently unable to discern any

moral wrong in wantonly drilling a hole through the painted hide of

a Pawnee. The system of extermination seems practically inseparable

from the aggrandisement of American territory at Indian expense.

When Mexicans are to be ejected, the process is more humane, or at

least less cold-blooded and revolting in its circumstances. But,

although the barbarity diminishes, the injustice is as great. By

American annexators and propagandists, respect of property may be

set down as an Old World prejudice; still it is one by which we are

contented to abide; and we cannot see the right of any one to turn

a man out of his house because he does not keep it in repair and

occupy all the rooms, or to pick a quarrel with him as a pretext for

appropriating a choice slice of his garden. A considerable portion

of the people of the United States are evidently convinced that they

are the instruments of Providence in the civilisation and population

of the New World, and look forward to the time as by no means remote

when their descendants and form of government shall spread south

and north, to the exclusion of British rule and Spanish-American

republics, from Greenland to Panama. As a preparatory step, their

pioneers are abroad in all directions; and some of them, being handy

with the pen as well as with the rifle, jot down their experiences

for the encouragement of their countrymen and edification of

the foreigner. Before us are three books of the kind completely

American in tone and language, and of at least two of which it

may safely be affirmed that none but Americans could have written

them. In fact they are written in American rather than in English;

particularly Mr Johnson's "Sights," of which we can truly say

that, but for our intimate acquaintance with the language of the

United States, acquired by much study of this particular sort of

literature, we should have made our way through it with difficulty

without reference to the dictionary, which we presume to exist, of

American improvements on the English tongue. The book swarms with

Yankeeisms, vulgarisms, and witticisms; the latter of no elevated

class, and seldom rising above a very bad pun; notwithstanding

which, _Sights in the Gold Regions_ is a very amusing, and, to

all appearance, a very honest account of life at the diggings.

The other two books are the work, the one of a philosopher in the

woods, and the other of a sailor on horseback. Mr Parkman, who, as

regards literary skill, is superior to either of the companions we

have given him--although his book has less novelty and pungency

than either of theirs--left St Louis in the spring of 1846, on a

tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains, with the

especial object of studying the manners and character of Indians in

their primitive state. He has a good eye for scenery and tolerable

descriptive powers, and some of the adventures and anecdotes he

relates are striking and interesting. But, for a fine specimen of

rich rough-spun Yankee narrative, commend us to Lieutenant Wise of

the United States navy. There is no mistake about the gallant author

of _Los Gringos_. He makes no more pretence to style or elegance

than a boatswain's mate spinning a yarn upon the forecastle.

Despising the trammels of orthography and probability, sprinkling

his comical English with words from half-a-dozen other languages

(often ludicrously distorted), sometimes shrewd, frequently very

humorous, invariably good-humoured and vivacious, this rollicking

naval officer hoists the reader on his shoulders, and carries

him at a canter through his great thick closely-printed New York

volume, with infinitely less fatigue to the rider than he himself

experienced when, perched upon a Spanish saddle, and armed with

a whip "whose lash was like the thongs of a knout," he urged the

sorry posters along the road to Mexico's capital. In a few lines of

preface, the humorous lieutenant discloses his plan and gives us a

glimpse of his quality. "The sketches embodied in this narrative,"

he says, "were all written on the field of their occurrence: the

characters incidentally mentioned are frequently _nommes du mer_. It

is not expected by the author that even the most charitable reader

will wholly overlook the careless style and framing of the work, or

allow it to pass without censure; nor has it been his object to deal

in statistics, or any abstract reflections, but merely to compile

a pleasant narrative, such as may perchance please or interest the

generality of readers; and in launching the volume on its natural

element--the sea of public opinion--the author only indulges in

the aspiration, whether the reader be gentle or ungentle, whether

the book be praised or condemned, that at least the philanthropy

of the publishers may be remunerated, wherein lies all the law and

the profits." After which facetious and characteristic preamble,

Lieutenant Wise goes on board his frigate; is tugged out of Boston

harbour, and sails for Monterey; is alternately buffeted and

becalmed; is in danger of stranding on the Dahomey territory and

reviles creation accordingly, but ultimately escapes the peril

and sets foot on shore at Rio Janeiro, in which pleasant latitude

he frequents the coffee-houses, and partakes of mint juleps and

other cold institutions; watches the niggers dancing and jabbering

their way along the streets, with little fingers affectionately

interlaced, and _sistling_ polkas through their closed teeth; and

is somewhat scandalised, and yet vastly amused, by the _samacueca_,

a South American polka of much grace but questionable decency, on

beholding which he, Lieutenant Wise, being, "as an individual,

fond of a taste of cayenne to existence," clapped his hands and

vociferously applauded. This eccentric dance, however, was at

Valparaiso, we find--not that the fair Brazilians are behind any

of their South American sisters in the license they accord their

supple forms and twinkling feet. At last, and in the heat of the war

between Mexico and the States, Lieutenant Wise reached Monterey,

where his ship cast anchor. California had been taken possession of

by the Americans, and fighting was going on in the neighbourhood.

Before the war, Monterey contained about five hundred inhabitants,

but when Mr Wise, arrived, scarcely a native was to be seen. The

men were away fighting in the southern provinces, a few women

scowled from their dwellings at the _gringos_ (the name given to

Anglo-Americans in Mexico and California). Yankee sentinels were

posted, knife in girdle, and rifle-lock carefully sheltered from the

rain; and persons moving about after dark were greeted at every turn

with the challenge--"Look out thar, stranger!" quickly followed by a

bullet, if they delayed to shout their name and calling. There was

nothing to be had to eat, drink, or smoke, and the general aspect

of affairs was cheerless enough. Presently in rode sixty horsemen,

gaunt bony woodsmen of the Far West, dressed in skins, with heavy

beards and well-appointed rifles, fellows "who wouldn't stick at

scalping an Indian or a dinner of mule-meat," and who belonged to

the Volunteer Battalion, in which they had enrolled themselves "more

by way of recreation than for glory or patriotism." They were not

easy to understand, having passed most part of their lives in the

Rocky Mountains, a district which has its own peculiar phraseology.

"We soon became quite sociable, and, after a hearty supper of

fried beef and biscuit, by some miraculous dispensation a five

gallon keg of whisky was uncorked, and, after a thirty days'

thirst, our new-found friends slaked away unremittingly. Many

were the marvellous adventures narrated of huntings, fightings,

freezings, snowings, and starvations; and one stalwart, bronzed

trapper beside me, finding an attentive listener, began:--'The

last time, captin, I cleared the Oregon trail, the Ingens fowt

us amazin' hard. Pete,' said he, addressing a friend smoking a

clay pipe by the fire, with a half pint of corn-juice in his

hand, which served to moisten his own clay at intervals between

every puff--'Pete, do you notice how I dropped the Redskin who

put the poisoned arrow in my moccasin! Snakes, captin! the

varmints lay thick as leaves behind the rocks; and, bless ye,

the minit I let fall old Ginger from my jaw, up they springs,

and lets fly their flint-headed arrers in amongst us, and one

on 'em wiped me right through the leg. I tell yer what it is,

hoss, I riled, I did, though we'd had tolerable luck in the

forenoon;--for I dropped two and a squaw, and Pete got his good

six--barrin' that the darned villains had hamstrung our mule,

and we were bound to see the thing out. Well, captin, as I tell

ye, I'm not weak in the jints, but it's no joke to hold the

heft of twenty-three pounds on a sight for above ten minits on

a stretch; so Pete and me scrouched down, made a little smoke

with some sticks, and then we moved off, a few rods, whar we got

a clar peep. For better than an hour we see'd nothin'; but on a

suddin I see'd the chap--I know'd him by his paintin'--that driv

the arrer in my hide: he was peerin' round quite bold, thinkin'

we'd vamosed; I jist fetched old Ginger up and drawed a bee line

on his cratch, and, stranger, I giv him sich a winch in the

stomach that he dropped straight into his tracks: he did! In

five jumps I riz his har, and Pete and me warn't troubled again

for a week.'"

After two months passed at Monterey, the American squadron assembled

and a new commodore arrived, whereupon Lieut. Wise's captain was not

sorry to be allowed to lift his anchors, and avoid playing second

fiddle to the new commander-in-chief by transferring his pennant to

the waters of the San Francisco. On the way thither his lieutenant

treats us to some yarns of extraordinary toughness. Speaking of

the lasso, in the use of which the Californians are particularly

skilful--catching a bull by the tail and making him fling a somerset

over his horns, or dragging a grizzly bear for miles to the baiting

place--he calls to mind having once seen a troop of horses "at

General Rosas' quinta, near Buenos Ayres, trained to run like hares,

with fore and hind legs lashed together by thongs of hide: it was

undertaken to preserve the animals from being thrown by the Indian

_bolas_, and the riders, as a consequence, lanced to death. But I

was far more amused one afternoon, when passing a fandango, near

Monterey, to see a drunken cattle-driver, mounted on a restive,

plunging beast, hold at arm's length a tray of glasses, brimming

with aguardiente, which he politely offered to everybody within

reach of his curvettings, without ever once spilling a drop." These

marvellous feats are nothing, however, compared to the cannibal

exploits of some unfortunate emigrants, who, having loitered on

their way, were overtaken by the snow in the Californian mountains,

and compelled to encamp for the winter. Their provisions and

cattle consumed, even to the last horse hide, famine and insanity

ensued. Those who starved to death were eaten by the survivors,

whose appetites, if we may believe Mr Wise, were quite prodigious.

A Dutchman, he gravely assures us, actually ate a full-grown body

in thirty-six hours; and another boiled and devoured, in a single

night, a child, nine years of age. We cannot venture to extract

the revolting details that follow. The lieutenant's facetiousness

upon this horrible subject is rather ghastly; and the particulars

supplied by a young Spaniard, who "ate a baby," are abominable in

the extreme, although possibly true. At least Mr Wise assures us he

had them from the lad's own lips. And, whilst his strength lasted,

poor Baptiste was drudge to the whole party, doing his duty well,

fetching fuel and water, until at last, as he told Mr Wise, "very

hungry, sir; eat anything."

On the wild and dreary track from the States to California,

frightful disasters occur to caravans of emigrants, which,

encumbered with women and children, and sometimes under incompetent

leaders, lose precious time by the way, and are caught and crushed

by the terrible winter of those desolate regions. Journeying near

the Sacramento, Mr Johnson came upon the house of "old Keysburg the

cannibal, who revelled in the awful feast on human flesh and blood,

during the sufferings of a party of emigrants near the pass of the

Sierra Nevada, in the winter of 1847. It is said that the taste

which Keysburg then acquired has not left him, and that he often

declares, with evident gusto, 'I would like to eat a piece of you;'

and several have sworn to shoot him, if he ventures on such _fond_

declarations to them. We therefore looked upon the den of this wild

beast in human form with a good deal of disgusted curiosity, and

kept our bowie-knives handy for a slice of him if necessary."

Sailor though he is, Mr Wise troubles his reader very little with

nautical matters. During a few weeks he was a good deal afloat,

having succeeded to the command of the Rosita, a forty ton schooner,

with a crew of fifteen sailors, a small boy, and a mulatto cook,

who had once been "head bottle-washer of a Liverpool liner, with

glass nubs on de cabin doors;" but otherwise most of his time

seems to have been spent on shore, riding, shooting, dancing, and

love-making, doing military duty in garrison at Mazatlan, throwing

up fortifications, and surprising parties of Mexicans, whose fear

of the Gringos was most intense and ludicrous. In their civil wars,

and when contending with the Spaniards for their independence,

the Mexicans have occasionally fought doggedly, although never

skilfully; but when opposed to combatants of the Anglo-Saxon race,

they have invariably shown themselves arrant cowards. Although the

soldiers of the States have even less military discipline than those

of Mexico, the bodily strength, skill with the rifle, intrepidity,

and self-reliance of the former, would render them formidable

opponents even to well-drilled European troops. As to the Mexicans,

no matter how great the numerical odds in their favour, they never

could or would stand against the hardy Yankee volunteers. In the

summer of 1846, Mr Parkman met, upon the wild and lonely banks of

the Upper Arkansas, Price's Missouri regiment, on its way to Santa

Fé.

"No men ever embarked upon a military expedition with a greater

love for the work before them than the Missourians; but if

discipline and subordination be the criterion of merit, these

soldiers were worthless indeed. Yet when their exploits have

rung through all America, it would be absurd to deny that they

were excellent irregular troops. Their victories were gained

in the teeth of every established precedent of warfare; they

were owing to a singular combination of military qualities

in the men themselves. Without discipline or a spirit of

subordination, they knew how to keep their ranks, and act as

one man. Doniphan's regiment marched through New Mexico more

like a band of Free Companions than like the paid soldiers of

a modern government. When General Taylor complimented Doniphan

on his success at Sacramento and elsewhere, the colonel's reply

very well illustrates the relations which subsisted between the

officers and men of his command. 'I don't know anything of the

manoeuvres. The boys kept coming to me to let them charge; and

when I saw a good opportunity, I told them they might go. They

were off like a shot, and that's all I know about it.'

"The backwoods lawyer was better fitted to conciliate the

good-will than to command the obedience of his men. There were

many serving under him, who both from character and education,

could better have held command than he. At the battle of

Sacramento, his frontiersmen fought under every possible

disadvantage. The Mexicans had chosen their own position; they

were drawn up across the valley that led to their native city

of Chihuahua; their whole front was covered by intrenchments,

and defended by batteries of heavy cannon; they outnumbered the

invaders five to one. An eagle flew over the Americans, and

a deep murmur rose along their lines. The enemy's batteries

opened; long they remained under fire, but when at length the

word was given, they shouted and ran forward. In one of the

divisions, when midway to the enemy, a drunken officer ordered

a halt; the exasperated men hesitated to obey. 'Forward, boys!'

cried a private from the ranks; and the Americans, rushing like

tigers upon the enemy, bounded over the breastwork. Four hundred

Mexicans were slain upon the spot, and the rest fled, scattering

over the plain like sheep. The standards, cannon, and baggage

were taken, and among the rest a waggon laden with cords, which

the Mexicans, in the fulness of their confidence, had made ready

for tying the American prisoners."

A curious picture of military _un_discipline--of egregious cowardice

on the one hand, and fortunate audacity on the other. It is evident

that the Doniphan mode of carrying on the war--consulting the men's

pleasure, with officers drunk before the enemy, and privates giving

the word of command--however successful it may prove against the

wretched Mexicans, or in mountain and guerilla warfare, would never

answer in the open field against a regular and skilfully commanded

army. The question, then, follows,--How far could these staunch

and gallant American riflemen be trained to the strict discipline

and military exercises and manoeuvres essential to the efficiency

of large bodies of troops, without impairing the very qualities,

the feelings of independent action and self-reliance, which render

them so valuable as irregular warriors? This inquiry, however, is

not worth pursuing; for we suppose there is little chance of Uncle

Sam meddling in European quarrels, and sincerely trust he will so

curb his annexing mania as to avoid all risk of European armaments

encountering him in his own hemisphere. Touching these Missourian

volunteers, however, Mr Parkman's account of their appearance, and

of his interview with them, is most graphic and characteristic. One

forenoon he and his companion, Mr Shaw, turned aside to the river

bank, half-a-mile from the trail, to get water and rest. They put

up a kind of awning, and whilst seated under it upon their buffalo

robes, and smoking, they saw a dark body of horsemen approaching.

"'We are going to catch it now,' said Shaw: 'look at those

fellows; there'll be no peace for us here.' And, in good truth,

about half the volunteers had straggled away from the line of

march, and were riding over the meadow towards us.

"'How are you?' said the first who came up, alighting from his

horse, and throwing himself upon the ground. The rest followed

close, and a score of them soon gathered about us, some lying at

full length, and some sitting on horseback. They all belonged

to a company raised in St Louis. There were some ruffian faces

among them, and some haggard with debauchery; but, on the whole,

they were extremely good-looking men, superior beyond measure

to the ordinary rank and file of an army. Except that they

were booted to the knees, they wore their belts and military

trappings over the ordinary dress of citizens. Besides their

swords and holster pistols, they carried, slung from their

saddles, the excellent Springfield carbines, loaded at the

breech. They inquired the character of our party, and were

anxious to know the prospect of killing buffalo, and the chance

that their horses would stand the journey to Santa Fé. All this

was well enough, but a moment after a worse visitation came upon

us.

"'How are you, strangers? Whar are you going, and whar are you

from?' said a fellow, who came trotting up with an old straw

hat on his head. He was dressed in the coarsest brown homespun

cloth. His face was rather sallow, from fever and ague, and his

tall figure, although strong and sinewy, was quite thin, and

had, besides, an angular look, which, together with his boorish

seat on horseback, gave him an appearance anything but graceful.

Plenty more of the same stamp were close behind him. Their

company was raised in one of the frontier counties, and we soon

had abundant evidence of their rustic breeding: dozens of them

came crowding round, pushing between our first visitors, and

staring at us with unabashed faces.

"'Are you the captain?' asked one fellow.

"'What's your business out here?' inquired another.

"'Whar do you live when you're at home?' said a third.

"'I reckon you're traders,' surmised a fourth; and, to crown the

whole, one of them came confidently to my side, and inquired, in

a low voice, 'What is your partner's name?'

"As each new comer repeated the same questions, the nuisance

became intolerable. Our military visitors were soon disgusted at

the concise nature of our replies, and we could overhear them

muttering curses against us. Presently, to our amazement, we saw

a large cannon with four horses come lumbering up behind the

crowd; and the driver, who was perched on one of the animals,

stretching his neck so as to look over the rest of the men,

called out,--

"'Whar are you from, and what's your business?'

"The captain of one of the companies was amongst our visitors,

drawn by the same curiosity that had attracted his men.

"'Well, men,' said he at last, lazily rising from the ground

where he had been lounging, 'it's getting late; I reckon we had

better be moving.'

"'I shan't start yet, anyhow,' said one fellow, who lay half

asleep, with his head resting on his arm.

"'Don't be in a hurry, captain,' added the lieutenant.

"'Well, have it your own way, we'll wait awhile longer,' replied

the obsequious commander.

"At length, however, our visitors went straggling away as they

had come, and we, to our great relief, were left alone again."

A most mirth-provoking specimen of American character. But we

must return to our friend and favourite, Lieutenant Wise, who is

truly a Yankee Crichton in a pea-jacket. Besides his nautical

skill, and the lingual accomplishments already adverted to, he is

a Nimrod in the hunting-field, a Centaur on horseback, a Vestris

in the mazes of the dance. Lovers of wild sports in the West will

luxuriate in his descriptions of hunting exploits, of his combats

with grizzly bears fourteen hundred pounds weight, and his chase of

an antelope whose fore-leg he had nearly severed from its shoulder

with a rifle bullet, but which still managed to run four leagues,

the wounded member "traversing round in its flight like a wheel,"

before receiving its death-wound. Unable to extract a tithe of

the passages that tempt us, we hurry on to his departure for the

Mexican capital, whither he was sent early in the month of May, as

bearer of a despatch, and in company with a Mexican officer, with

whom the lieutenant was at first disposed to be most friendly and

sociable, but who forfeited his esteem by the cool proposal of a

plan to cheat the government, and whom he soon managed to leave

behind--no difficult matter, for the Mexican was cumbered with

portmanteau and sumpter mule, whereas the Yankee's sole baggage, as

he himself informs us, consisted of two shirts and a toothbrush.

Thus lightly equipped, his pace was very rapid; not so much so,

however, as to prevent his noting down all that occurred by the

way. After La Barca and Ruxton, it is a difficult task to give

novelty to an account of Mexican travel and peculiarities. Mr Wise

has surmounted the difficulty; and so great is the freshness and

originality of his narrative, that we read it with as much zest and

enjoyment as if it were the first instead of the twentieth book

relating to Mexico which we have perused within the last few years.

His anecdotes are most racy and piquant; his sketches of Mexican

women, officers, _leperos_, and of his own countrymen in Mexico,

are taken from the life with a truthful and vivid pencil. With the

class of leperos he had already made acquaintance on the threshold

of the country. Turning, one day, into a bowling alley at Mazatlan,

with the officers of a British frigate, he gave a fine horse to

hold to one of those Mexican mendicants. The fellow's hatred of

the _gringos_ was stronger than his love of gain; for no sooner

was he left alone than he drew a pistol from the holsters, shot

the horse, and ran for his life, which certainly would not have

been worth a maravedi had he tarried for the arrival of the enraged

lieutenant. "Oh, Mr Smithers!" exclaims the disconsolate mariner

thus cruelly dismounted--"Oh, Mr Smithers! you keep a good ten-pin

alley, sing a good song, and your wife prepares good chocolate;

you are, together, good fellows; but you should never, O Smithers!

transform your establishment into a knacker's yard. And you, my

cruel _lepero_! had I ever got a sight of you along that weapon you

handled so well--ah! I wellnigh wept for sorrow that night, and did

not recover my spirits for a fortnight." The leperos, we need hardly

explain, are the pest of Mexico--ragged, dirty, often disgusting

with disease or deformity, born idlers, beggars, and thieves--in

the latter capacity so especially skilful, that Mr Wise inclines to

the belief that a man, standing open-mouthed in a crowd of them,

could hardly escape having the gold picked from his molars. They

reaped a rich harvest at the time of the American invasion. It was

a case of "_nos amis les ennemis_." The conquerors were preyed upon

by the conquered. Iron bars were unavailing against the cunning

rogues. "One evening some expert practitioner contrived to entice

a valuable pair of pistols, clothing, and other articles, from my

table in the centre of a large apartment, by introducing a pole and

hook through the iron _grille_ of the window; and the same night, my

friend Molinero was robbed of his bed-clothes, while sleeping, by

the same enterprising method." By a strange tolerance, these leperos

are admitted everywhere; and in the splendid coffee and gambling

houses of the large cities, they are found rubbing their filthy rags

against officers' embroideries and the fine broadcloth of wealthy

burgesses. At Guanaxato, Mr Wise gives a lively description of a

scene of this kind in the handsome saloons of the _Gran Sociedad_,

recalling to our memory, though at a long interval, some striking

pages of the first volume of Sealsfield's gorgeous Mexican romance,

_Der Virey and die Aristocraten_. The lepero's chief pastimes

are thieving, sleeping, and gambling for copper coins. By way of

variety, he occasionally gets up a mortal combat. We think the

following the best account of a knife-duel we ever read:--

"A lepero was purchasing a bit of chocolate; it fell in the

dirt, when another, probably thinking it a lawful prize, seized

it and took a large bite; whereupon the lawful owner swung a

mass of heavy steel spurs attached to his wrist, jingling, with

some force, on the offender's head. In a second down dropped the

spurs, and _serapas_ (a kind of blanket) were wound round the

left arms. With low deep curses and flashing eyes, their knives

gleamed in the light; the spectators cleared a ring, and to work

they went. I sprang upon a stone pillar to be out of harm's way,

and thus had a clear view of the fray. Their blades were very

unequally matched: one was at least eight inches, and the other

not half that measurement; but both appeared adepts at the game,

watching each other like wild cats, ready for a spring--moving

cautiously to and fro, making feints by the shielded arm, or

stamp of the foot, for a minute or two; when, quick as a flash,

I saw two rapid passes made by both: blood spirted from an ugly

wound in the spur-vender's throat, but at the same moment his

short weapon sealed the doom of his antagonist, and he lay upon

the ground, lifeless as the bloody steel that struck him. I

glanced at the wounds after the affair had terminated, and found

the knife had been plunged twice directly in the region of the

heart. There was no effort or attempt made by the beholders to

arrest the parties; and the survivor caught up his spurs--a

bystander quickly folded a handsome kerchief to his neck--and

threading the crowd he was soon out of sight. The corpse was

laid upon a liquor-stand, with a delf platter upon the breast."

The Mexican capital was not a little Americanised at the period

of Mr Wise's visit. The account he gives of the state of affairs

there, is not very creditable to the morals and tastes of the

victorious volunteers; and he expresses a natural doubt whether the

scenes there enacted will have been beneficial to the thousands

of young men whom the war had called to Mexico. The great hotels

and coffee-houses were all under Yankee dominion, with Yankee ice,

and drinks, signs, manners, customs, and habits, "as if the city

had been from time immemorial Yankeefied all over, instead of

being only occupied a short twelvemonth by the troops." Debauchery

of every kind was rife, but gambling was the vice that took the

strongest hold. In the large tavern or _restauration_, where Mr Wise

usually dined, in every nook from hall to attic, with the exception

of the eating-room, in the corridors and on the landing-places,

gaming-tables were displayed.

"Such a condensed essence of worldly hell, in all its glaring,

disgusting frightfulness, never existed. And there never

was lack of players either--no! not a table but was closely

surrounded by officers and soldiers--blacklegs and villains

of all sorts--betting uncommonly high, too--many of the banks

having sixty and eighty thousand dollars in gold alone on the

tables--and once I saw a common soldier stake and win two

hundred ounces at a single bet. Other saloons were filled with

Mexican girls, with music and dancing, attended by every species

of vice, all going on unceasingly, day and night together."

This is an American's account. Of course most of this lavish

expenditure and gambled gold had their origin in the plunder of

Mexico. Indeed, Lieutenant Wise does not mince the matter at all,

but informs us how he himself, after a night-excursion in the

vicinity of Mazatlan, returned laden with spoil, and felt such an

itching to search people's pockets that he made no doubt of soon

becoming as good a freebooter as ever drew sword. He was then,

however, but a novice in the science of pillage, for he afterwards

learned that a saddle, which he had appropriated, contained six

golden ounces, whereby the saddler, to whom he intrusted it for

renovation, was much benefited. When an officer holding the United

States commission saw nothing derogatory in plunder, there can be

no doubt of the rapacity of the dissipated and reckless desperadoes

of which the American expeditionary force was notoriously in part

composed. And in an army where discipline was lax, and a spirit

of anti-military equality prevailed amongst officers and men, the

contagion would rapidly spread. Doubtless this was an aggravating

cause of Mexican hatred to the _Gringos_. Nevertheless, when

the fighting was over, kindness and attention were shown to the

invaders, and some of the Mexican officers appear to have been

thrashed into a most affectionate regard for their conquerors. One

fine fellow, a colonel of cavalry, all gold and glitter, with richly

chased sabre scabbard, and spurs of a dazzling burnish, insisted

upon giving a breakfast to a large party of American officers.

There were a number of Mexican _militaires_ present, all decorated,

some with emblems of battles in which they had been defeated; and

as the repast was in some degree public, (being held in a large

billiard-room,) a number of casual observers assembled round the

table, and helped to drink the numerous toasts, pocketing their

glasses after each, to be ready for the next. The banquet began

with a bumper of brandy, by way of whet; a most miscellaneous

collection of edibles was then placed upon the board, and claret

and sherry circulated rapidly to the health and memory of a host

of living and dead generals, both Mexican and American, beginning

with Washington and Hidalgo, and gradually arriving at Santa Anna

and "Skote," (Scott,) for which last-named pair of warriors Mr Wise

estimates that at least eighty or ninety cheers were given. The

Mexicans, habitually temperate, got exceedingly drunk, and, like

most southerns when in that state, furiously excited; the chief

characteristics of their intoxication being unbounded affection for

their guests, and admiration of their own prowess.

"Our gallant host, in a few disjointed observations, assured us

that he was not only brave himself, and loved bravery in others,

but that his horse was brave, and had been wounded in divers

battles. '_Io soy valiente!_' said the fierce colonel, pounding

the orders on his capacious breast, and forthwith proclaimed to

the audience his intention to pay for everything that anybody

could possibly eat or drink for a fortnight; and, seizing me by

the arms, he impressively remarked that I was the most intimate

friend he ever had except his wife, and requested me to throw

his huge shako up to the ceiling, solely for _amistad_, and for

the good-fellowship of the thing--which I instantly did, and

made the bearskin and golden plates ring against the rafters.

Thereupon he called for more wine, and desired all who loved

him to break a few glasses, commencing himself with a couple of

decanters."

At which period of the action the landlord cut off the supplies

of liquor, anticipating, doubtless, the entire demolition of his

establishment; and the revellers got to horse, and went for a turn

in the Alameda, then thronged by all the fashion of Queretaro, in

which city these jovial proceedings occurred. After galloping round

the promenade, at a pace that terrified the natives, Lieutenant Wise

ran a "jouist," as he calls it, with one of his Mexican friends, who

was still under the influence of his unwonted libations.

"In true Californian style, he shook his bridle, gave spur, and

came leaping like a flash towards me. I was no novice at the

sport, and, touching one of the finest horses in the army with

my heel, the gallant sorrel sprang forward to meet him. We met

in full career; my charger stood like the great pyramid, but the

shock rolled my antagonist into the street. I should in courtesy

have got down from the saddle to his assistance, but, reflecting

that without a ladder I never should be able to get on my high

steed again, I remained quiet. Being a sailor, I gained great

reputation by this feat, and gave an entertainment on the

strength of it."

Surely there never was a jollier fellow than Lieutenant Wise of

the United States navy. A rare good companion he must be, a real

_bonus socius_ across a julep, a very storehouse of fun, frolic,

and adventure. So well do we like his society, that we are only

sorry we cannot at present accompany him further on his rambles, or

return with him to Mazatlan, where he arrived at a flying gallop,

after a ride of 2500 miles on horseback--the last 112 leagues in

fifty-three hours, (said to be the quickest trip on record,) to be

received by a host of friends, and by a Yankee band playing, "Hail,

Columbia!" and sail with him to Polynesia, and revisit Valparaiso

and Lima, and many other places, in all of which he manages heartily

to amuse both himself and his reader, till he finally drops anchor

in the waters of the Chesapeake, arriving, with equal satisfaction

to both parties, at the end of 450 pages, and 55,000 miles. His

book richly deserves an independent notice; but as we started by

associating it with others, we are compelled to lay it aside,

whilst we visit the glittering coast of California, in company

with Mr Theodore Johnson, who arrived on the 1st of April 1849 in

Sancelito Bay, and proceeded forthwith to look for the city of the

same name, whose wide and elegant streets he had frequently traced

upon the map. After some search, he found the city. "It consisted

of one board-shed and one tent, holding on to the hill-side like a

woodpecker against a tree." Thus was his first illusion dissipated.

A few other Californian castles were speedily to crumble. "The

latitude of Richmond, and climate of Italy, the gold of Ophir, the

silver, red wood and cedar of Solomon's temple, the lovely valley

of the Sacramento, the vineyards of France, indigo of Hindostan,

and wheat of America, golden rocks, and rivers flowing over the

same metal," such were a few of the bright promises that had lured

him, "in company with thousands of his go-ahead countrymen," to the

Eldorado of the Pacific. These were the things he expected; let

us collect, from his first week's experience in California, those

that he really found. Ugly barren hills, a miserable sandy-clay

soil, producing a weed which a starving jackass will scorn, and

a fine dust, against which the most impenetrable eyelids are

not proof, a repulsive and disagreeable climate in the month of

April, (growing worse as the summer advances,) the extremes of

heat and cold following each other in constant succession, water

often extremely scarce, and impregnated with quicksilver, platina,

and other minerals, killing the fish, and giving Christians the

Sacramento fever, "a slow, continual fever, which men go about

with for months; but in its more violent forms soon mortal, always

affecting the brain, and, in case of recovery, leaving the mind

impaired. The lung fever and rheumatism are brought on by working

in the cold water, and stooping continually under the burning sun."

The scurvy, too, was prevalent, from the use of salt provisions, for

none could find time to procure fresh ones, to hunt or tend cattle;

and if they did leave their eternal digging for such pursuits, the

prices they expected were preposterous. Wild cattle and game are

plenty in the valley of the Sacramento and adjacent mountains, but

in California the hours are truly golden, and not to be wasted on

kitchen considerations; to say nothing of the hardship of driving

wild oxen or carrying a gun across a rugged country with the

thermometer at 109° to 112° in the shade--the usual temperature in

June and July, and one fully justifying the derivation of the name

California from two Spanish words signifying a hot oven, _caliente

horno_. "The thermometer stood at 90° Fahrenheit, at noon, in the

shade of Culloma valley, on the 16th of April; and at night we slept

cold in our tent with our clothing on, and provided with abundant

blankets." With such a climate, and with no grass in the mountains

fit to sustain them, it is no wonder that the best pack-horses can

carry but one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds weight across

the mountains, and frequently fall down and die if overladen. At the

time referred to--that is to say, in the month of April last--Mr

Johnson "continually saw old miners departing for the cañons[6] of

the middle and north Forks, with one month's supply of provisions,

consisting of seventy-five lb. of pork and seventy-five lb. of pilot

bread, for which they paid respectively at the rates of one hundred

and fifty and one hundred and twenty dollars per hundred pounds!

Now, although the prices of these articles were rapidly declining

on the sea-board, by reason of the immense importation, yet the

price of fresh beef was twenty-five dollars per hundred pounds in

San Francisco, and must farther enhance there, the supply then being

quite insufficient. Fresh provisions will therefore be consumed at

the seaport and trading towns, and not in the mining region. The

humbug of preserved meats was already exploded, great quantities

having been spoiled." All this was very different from the promised

vineyards and corn-fields; and Mr Johnson, who had not come to

California to feed on salt junk at six shillings a pound, and to

drink mercurial water, began to wish himself back again almost as

soon as arrived.

[6] "A cañon is the narrow opening between two mountains, several

hundred and sometimes a thousand feet in depth; rising, some of

them, like perpendicular cliffs on either hand, as if torn asunder

by a violent convulsion of nature. Through these pour the rushing

mountain torrents of the _wet diggins_ of the gold regions of

California."--_Sights in the Gold Regions_, p. 180.

In countries where a large majority of the men are content to give,

year after year, their skill, energy, and time, in exchange for a

few hundred pieces of gold, or even of silver, the reports of a

land where the most precious of these metals turns up under the

ploughshare, abounds in the rivers, mingles with the highway-dust,

and is picked from the bricks of the houses, are naturally at first

received with doubt and misgiving, and suspected of exaggeration,

if not condemned as fiction. We confess, for our part, that we

attached little weight to the first accounts of Californian marvels,

and that long after the wise men of the East had begun to debate,

in the shadow of the grasshopper, the possible effect upon the

currency of the anticipated influx of the produce of the diggings,

we still were sceptics as to the magnitude of the newly-found

treasure. But even those who gave readiest credence to the tale

of wonder, could hardly, we should have thought, have expected

that the ingots were to be gathered without trouble or pain beyond

that of performing a long journey and filling a big bag. Evidently

this was Mr Johnson's notion, and that of not a few others of his

sanguine countrymen, "who left their homes and families, and the

decencies of civilisation, with the expectation of acquiring an

adequate competency by the efforts of a single year." At what figure

Mr Johnson rates an "adequate competency" we know not; but it is

evident he expected to be placed on pretty nearly the same footing

as those Oriental princes who, after wandering through the desert

to the enchanted gardens, had the free pick of trees whose fruits

were diamonds and rubies. The real state of affairs proved very

different. A few persons, dwellers in California when the golden

richness of the soil was first discovered in 1848,[7] may have made

large fortunes on easy terms, by being early in the field, and

through barter with the Indians, who (before they were frightened

and soured by the shooting and scalping practices of the Oregonians

and others) were willing enough to labour and trade, and to give

gold-dust weight for weight for glass beads and other baubles. We

read of one man, a western farmer, owner and occupier of a loghouse,

known as the Blue Tent, who arrived in California before the gold

discoveries, treated the Indians well, learned their language,

employed them to dig, and realised, it is said, two hundred thousand

dollars. Another old settler, we are told, accumulated, in the

season of 1848, also by help of the Indians, nearly two bushels of

gold-dust. Our arithmetic is not equal to the reduction of this

into pounds sterling, but at a rough estimate we should take it to

represent a very pleasing sum--possibly the competency Mr Johnson

aspired to. But those palmy days of gold-gathering have fled,

violently driven away; the Indians, welcomed with bullets instead

of beads, will work no more, and every man must dig for himself.

And so did Mr Johnson--but only for a very short time, and with no

very prosperous result. The gold fever, under whose influence he and

his companions started for the diggings, was still burning in their

veins when, on the second day after leaving San Francisco, they

halted for the night on the river bank, and one of them, "thrusting

his bowie-knife into the ground, revealed innumerable shining yellow

particles, immediately announced gold discoveries on the Sacramento,

and claimed the _placer_." But it was mica, not gold. They had much

further to go, and worse to fare, before reaching the right metal.

It was the interest of the United States' government and of certain

speculators to tempt emigrants to the distant territory on the shore

of the Pacific; and accordingly, says Mr Johnson, "the wonders of

the gold region were trumpeted to the world, with unabating, but

by no means unforeseeing zeal. Glowing accounts were sent to the

United States of the result of all the most successful efforts in

the mines. To these were added a delicious climate and wonderful

agricultural fertility. The inaccessibility of the _placeres_, the

diseases, the hardships, &c. &c., were quite forgotten or omitted."

And thus a certain number of ambitious young men, (many of them

wholly unfitted, by their previous mode of life for roughing it

in a new country,) were lured from their comfortable homes in New

York and elsewhere, in the confident expectation that, on arriving

in California, they would ascend beauteous rivers in commodious

ships, sleep on board at night, and pleasantly pass a few hours

of each day in collecting the wealth that lay strewn upon the

shore. Such is the account given of the matter by poor Johnson, who

denounces the journey across the mountainous and roadless country

as most toilsome, and the whole adventure as disappointing and

unsatisfactory. At last he and his companions reached the lower

bar[8] on the south fork of American River, shouldered shovels,

buckets, and washing-machine, and applied themselves to the task.

[7] At Sutter's saw-mill, from which the Culloma valley takes its

second name, Mr Johnson saw and conversed with Mr Marshall, a

proprietor of the mill, and one of the first discoverers of the

gold. The discovery was made when cutting out the mill-race, across

a portion of the former bed of a stream. "He pointed out to us the

particular location of the first discoveries. This is some fifty

yards below the mill, where a large fir-tree extends across the

race. He stated that they threw up a good deal of gold, mixed with

the sand and clay, before they seriously examined it, or ascertained

its character." It must have struck many as singular, that gold

mines so near the surface should so long have been unobserved.

California was explored as far back as the year 1700 by the Jesuit

Eusebio Kino, who first ascertained it to be part of the great

American continent, and not an island, as was previously believed:

Soon afterwards, missionary stations were established there, paving

the way for the Spanish conquest of the country. Some of the

_padres_ still remain, but their mission-houses are dilapidated,

and their influence is gone. To them Mr Johnson attributes the

long concealment of the metallic wealth of California. "That these

priests were cognisant of the abundance of the precious metal at

that period, (a century ago,) is now well known; but they were

members of the extraordinary society of the Jesuits, which, jealous

of its all-pervading influence, and dreading the effect of a large

Protestant emigration to the western, as well as to the eastern

shores of America, applied its powerful injunctions of secrecy to

the members of the order; and their faithful obedience, during so

long a period, is another proof both of the strength and the danger

of their organisation."--_Sights in the Gold Regions_, p. 111.

[8] "This '_placer_,' or _bar_, is simply the higher portion of

the sandy and rocky bed of the stream which, during the seasons

of high water, is covered with the rushing torrent, but was now

partially or entirely exposed. This is covered with large stones

and rocks, or, on the smooth sand, with clumps of stunted bushes or

trees."--_Sights in the Gold Regions_, 177.

"The scene presented to us was new indeed, and not more

extraordinary than impressive. Some, with long-handled shovels,

delved among clumps of bushes, or by the side of large rocks,

never raising their eyes for an instant; others, with pick and

shovel, worked among stone and gravel, or with trowels searched

under banks and roots of trees, where, if rewarded with small

lumps of gold, the eye shone brighter for an instant, when the

search was immediately and more ardently resumed. At the edge

of the stream, or knee-deep and waist-deep in water, as cold as

melted ice and snow could make it, some were washing gold with

tin pans, or the common cradle-rocker, while the rays of the

sun poured down on their heads with an intensity exceeding any

thing we ever experienced at home, though it was but the middle

of April. The thirst for gold and the labour of acquisition

overruled all else, and totally absorbed every faculty. Complete

silence reigned among the miners: they addressed not a word to

each other, and seemed averse to all conversation."

After digging and washing twenty bucketfuls of earth, Mr Johnson's

party had obtained but four dollars' worth of gold. At noon, the

sun's heat being intolerable, they knocked off from work; not much

encouraged by the result. This, however, they admit, was a poor

digging, the stream being yet too high, and the bar not sufficiently

exposed--to say nothing of their being novices at the work. They

persisted little, however: another trial was made with no better

result; and, in short, a week's effort and observation sickened

them of a toil so far less lucrative than they had anticipated. Two

of the party (Mr Johnson was one of them) resolved to return to

San Francisco till the healthier season of winter; a third, having

some goods, took to trading; the fourth and last, a hardy little

down-easter from Maine, stuck to the diggings.

By this time, we are not entirely dependent on American books or

newspaper correspondence for intelligence from the Californian

mines. Some portion of the gold that has come to this country has

been brought by the finders; and only the other day, a party of them

reached England, having left the diggings as lately as the beginning

of October. The details obtained from these men, who are of various

European countries, confirm, in all important particulars, the

statements of Mr Johnson, with merely the difference of tint

imparted by failure and success. Either easily discouraged or

physically unequal to encounter the hardships inseparable from the

search for and extraction of the gold, Mr Johnson, disappointed in

his sanguine expectations, makes a sombre report of the speculation;

whereas these more persevering and prosperous miners, having safely

returned to Europe, their pockets full of "chunks," scales and dust

of the most undeniable purity and excellence, naturally give a more

rose-coloured view of the enterprise. They admit, however, (to use

the words of one of them,) that "it takes a smart lad to do good in

California," and that it is useless for any one to go thither unless

prepared to rough it, in the fullest sense of the word. At first,

they inform us the amount of theft and outrage was very great; but

summary and severe punishment checked this. Mr Johnson deplores the

existence of Lynch-law. It really appears to us that California is

the very place where such a system is not only justifiable, but

indispensable. One miner stated that he belonged to a band or club,

thirty in number, who threw together all the gold they found, and

shared alike; sharp penalties being denounced against any member of

the society who attempted to divert his findings from the common

stock. The amount obtained by each member of this joint-stock

company during the season of eight or nine months was equivalent

to thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds sterling. Not quite the

"adequate competency" anticipated by Mr Theodore T. Johnson, but

still a very pretty gain for men, most of whom would probably have

found it impossible, in any other way, and in the same time, to

earn a tithe of the amount. More than one of them proposed, after

depositing his treasure safely in Europe, to augment it by a second

trip to the gold region; and held the time occupied by the voyage

to and fro as little loss, digging being impeded by the winter

snows. The winter of 1848-9 was very severe, the snow lying four

feet deep on the mountains, and having fallen even on the coast; a

circumstance unprecedented in California, whose Spanish and Indian

inhabitants attributed the disagreeable phenomenon to the American

intruders. Notwithstanding this unwonted rigour, however, we learn

from Mr Johnson that "large numbers of hardy and industrious

Oregonians spent the last _winter_ in the mines of California,

generally with success commensurate with their perseverance,

prudence, and sobriety." The lumps of gold, according to the account

of the miners already referred to, (and which tallies exactly in

this particular with Mr Johnson's statement) are found in what are

called the dry diggings, in the red sandy clay of the ravines on the

mountain sides; whilst the dust and scales are obtained by washing

the earth and sand from the rivers. Lumps of pure gold, with a

greater or less admixture of quartz, are also found in the crevices

of a white-veined rock.

Whilst denouncing the expense of health and labour at which the

Californian gold is obtained, Mr Johnson admits the vast quantity

of the metal that has been and still is being collected. In town,

fort, and settlement,--in every place, in short, where a score

or two of men were congregated, he beheld astonishing evidence

of its abundance. "Quarts of the dust or scale gold were to be

seen on the tables or counters, or in the safes of all classes

of men; and although the form of small scales was most common,

yet pieces or lumps of a quarter to three ounces were to be seen

everywhere; and among several _chunks_ one was shown us by C. L.

Ross, Esq., weighing _eighty-one ounces_. This was solid pure gold

with only the appearance of a little quartz in it." In one day he

saw bushels of gold, most of it too pure for jewellery or coin,

without alloy. Although the price of the metal was maintained at

sixteen dollars per ounce, its depreciation in comparison with

labour and merchandise was enormous; and in the mines, during the

winter of 1848, "a good deal of gold was sold for _three or four

dollars the ounce_." Carpenters and blacksmiths received an ounce

a-day. Lumber was at six hundred dollars per thousand feet. A lot of

land, purchased two years previously for a cask of brandy, fetched

eighteen thousand dollars. At a French _café_, a cup of coffee,

bit of ham, and two eggs, cost three dollars, or 12s. 6d. A host

of details of this kind are added, most of which have already been

given in the American and English newspapers. Captain Sutter's

saw-mill was earning a thousand dollars a-day. At the Stanislaus

diggings, in the winter of 1848-9, a box of raisins, greatly needed

for the cure of scurvy, then raging there without remedy, sold

for its weight in gold dust, or four thousand dollars! Reckless

expenditure is the natural consequence of easily-acquired wealth.

The diggers, after a brief period of severe labour, would come into

town for what they called "a burst," and scatter their gold dust

and ingots like sand and pebbles, keeping "upon the ball" for three

or four days and nights, or even for a week together, drinking

brandy at eight and champagne at sixteen dollars the bottle, often

getting helplessly drunk and losing the whole of their gains.

One fellow, during a three days' drunken fit, got rid of sixteen

thousand dollars in gold. Two hopeful youths, known as Bill and

Gus, who took an especial liking to Mr Johnson and his party, had

come in for "a particular, general, and universal burst;" and they

carried out their intentions most completely. They were tender in

their liquor, and, in the excess of their drunken philanthropy, they

purchased a barrel of ale at three dollars a bottle, and a parcel

of sardinas at eight dollars a box, and patrolled the district,

forcing every one to drink. In paying for something, Bill dropped a

lump of gold, worth two or three dollars, which Mr Johnson picked

up, and handed to him. "Without taking it, he looked at us with a

comical mixture of amazement and ill-humour, and at length broke out

with--'Well, stranger, you _are_ a curiosity; I guess you hain't

been in the diggins long, and better keep that for a sample.'" Even

in all sobriety, miners would not be troubled with anything less

than dollars, and often scattered small coins by handfuls in the

streets, rather than count or carry them. And as neither exorbitant

prices nor drunken bursts sufficed to exhaust the resources of

the gold-laden diggers, gambling went on upon all sides. "Talk of

_placers_," cried an American, who had just cleared his thousand

dollars in ten minutes, at a _monte_-table in San Francisco; "what

better _placer_ need a man want than this?" At Sutter's Fort, a

halting-place of the miners, gambling prevailed without limit

or stint, men often losing in a single night the result of many

months' severe toil. Drunkenness and fighting diversified the scene.

"Hundreds of dollars were often spent in a night, and thousands on

Sunday, _when Pandemonium was in full blast_." Such iniquities were

no more than might be expected amongst the ragamuffin crew assembled

in California, and which included discharged convicts from New South

Wales, Mexicans, Kanakas, Peruvians, Chilians, representatives of

every European nation, and thousands of the more dissolute and

reckless class of United States men.

It is not surprising that some of the minority of honest and

respectable men, who found themselves mingled with the mob of

ruffians and outlaws assembled in California, thought the prospect

of wealth dearly purchased by a prolonged residence in vile society

and a most trying climate, and by labour and exposure destructive to

health. Mr Johnson assures us that, among the miners who had been

long at the diggings, he saw very few who were not suffering from

disease--emaciated by fever till they were mere walking shadows, or

tormented by frequently recurring attacks of scurvy and rheumatism.

If there was a constant stream of adventurers proceeding to the

diggings, there was also a pretty steady flow of weary and sickly

men returning thence. It would seem, from Mr Johnson's account,

that no previous habit of hard labour qualifies the human frame to

follow, without injury, the trying trade of a gold-grubber. "We met

a party of six sailors, of the Pacific whalers, who were returning

to go before the mast again, swearing, sailor-fashion, that they

would rather go a whaling at half wages than dig gold any more."

Mr Johnson was somewhat of the same way of thinking. He sums up a

general review of California in the following words:--

"So large an emigration of the American people, as have gone

to that territory, must make something of the country. They

will make it one of the states of this Union, at all events,

and speedily, too: and although the country is only adapted

by nature for mining and grazing, yet a constant trade must

result from the former, and more or less agriculture be added

to the latter, from the necessity of the case. A few have made,

and will hereafter make fortunes there, and very many of those

who remain long enough will accumulate something; but the

great mass, all of whom expected to acquire large amounts of

gold in a short time, must be comparatively disappointed. The

writer visited California to dig gold, but chose to abandon

that purpose rather than expose his life and health in the

mines; and as numbers were already seeking employment in San

Francisco without success, and he had neither the means nor the

inclination to speculate, he concluded to return to his family

and home industry."

Finally, the disappointed gold-seeker addresses to his readers a

parting hint, apprehensive, seemingly, of their supposing that

his own ill-success has warped his judgment, or induced him to

calumniate the country. "If you think," he says, "we have not shown

you enough of _the elephant_, but got on the wrong way and slid off

backwards, please to mount him and take a view for yourself." By

which metaphorical phrase, if the worthy Johnson means that we are

to go to the diggings, and judge for ourselves, we can only say we

had much rather take his word than his advice, and read his book by

our fireside than tread in his footsteps amongst the mountains of

California.

Without further comment, but with a warm recommendation, we close

these three American volumes. It were idle to subject to minute

criticism books that make no pretensions to literary merit, and

which, professing only to give, in plain language, an account of

the writers' personal adventures and experiences, are written in

off-hand style, and are wholly free from pedantry and affectation.

If they are occasionally somewhat rude in form, like the men

and countries they portray, they at least are frank and honest

in substance; and they contain more novelty, amusement, and

information, than are to be found in any dozen of those vapid

narratives of fashionable tourists with which the Bentley and

Colburn presses annually cram the nauseated public. We have been

much pleased and diverted by the unsophisticated pages of Messrs

Johnson, Wise, and Parkman.

HOWARD.[9]

[9] _John Howard and the Prison-World of Europe._ From original and

authentic Documents. By HEPWORTH DIXON.

To add another to the numerous eulogies which have been justly

bestowed on the memory of Howard the philanthropist, is not our

object. We are far from making the attempt: our aim is to contribute

something to the more accurate and familiar knowledge of the man

himself--his life, his character, his career, his services.

It not unfrequently happens that the great men of history, whom we

have admired in our youth, sink grievously in our estimation, and

lose their heroic port and proportions, when we survey them more

nearly, and at a season of maturer judgment. They shrink into the

bounds and limits of commonplace mortality. We venture even to

administer reproof and castigation, where, perhaps, we had venerated

almost to idolatry. Such is not the case with Howard. Poets have

sung his praises, and his name has rounded many an eloquent period.

Howard the philanthropist becomes very soon a name as familiar to

us as those of the kings and queens who have sat upon our throne;

but the vague admiration, thus early instilled into us, suffers no

diminution when, at an after period, we become intimately acquainted

with the character of the man. We may approach the idol here without

danger to our faith. We may analyse the motive--we may "vex,

probe, and criticise"--it is all sound. Take your stethoscope and

listen--there is no hollow here--every pulse beats true.

The Howard that poets and orators had taught us to admire loses

none of its greatness on a near approach. But it undergoes a

remarkable _transformation_. The real Howard, who devoted his

life to the jail and the lazaretto, was a very different person

from that ideal of benevolence which the verse of Darwin, or the

eloquence of Burke, had called up into our minds. Instead of this

faint and classic ideal, we have the intensely and somewhat sternly

religious man, guided and sustained, every step of his way, not

alone, nor principally, by the amiable but vacillating sentiment

which passes under the name of philanthropy, but by an exalted,

severe, imperative sense of duty. It is Howard the Christian, Howard

the Puritan, that stands revealed before us. The form changes, but

only to grow more distinct and intelligible. The features have no

longer that classic outline we had attributed to them; but they bear

henceforth the stamp of reality--of a man who, without doubt, had

lived and moved amongst us.

Those who have rested content (and we think there are many such)

with that impression of Howard which is derived from the panegyrics

scattered through our polite literature, and who accordingly

attribute to him, as the master-motive of his conduct, simply a wide

benevolence--a sentiment of humanity exalted to a passion--must

be conscious of a certain uneasy sense of doubt, an involuntary

scepticism; must feel that there is something here unexplained, or

singularly exaggerated. Their Howard, if they should scrutinise

their impression, is a quite anomalous person. No philanthropist

they have ever heard of--no mere lover of his kind, sustained only

by the bland sentiment of humanity, not even supported by any new

enthusiastic faith in the perfectibility of the species--ever lived

the life of this man, or passed through a tithe of his voluntary

toils and sufferings. Philanthropists are generally distinguished

for their love of speculation; they prefer to think rather than to

act; and their labours are chiefly bestowed on the composition of

their books. Philanthropists have occasionally ruined themselves;

but their rash schemes are more notorious for leading to the ruin of

others. As a race, they are not distinguished for self-sacrifice, or

for practical and strenuous effort. There must, therefore, to the

persons we are describing, be a certain doubt and obscurity hanging

over the name of Howard the philanthropist. It must sound like a

myth or fable; they must half suspect that, if some Niebuhr should

look into the matter, their heroic figure would vanish into thin air.

Let them, however, proceed to the study of the veritable Howard,

and all the mystery clears up. The philanthropist of the orator

gives place to one who, in the essential elements of his character,

may be ranked with Christian missionaries and Christian martyrs.

Instead of the half-pagan ideal, or personification of benevolence,

there rises before them a character which a rigorous analysis

might justly class with those of St Francis or Loyola, or whatever

the Christian church has at any time exhibited of exalted piety

and complete self-devotion. The same spirit which, in past times,

has driven men into the desert, or shut them up in cells with the

scourge and the crucifix; the same spirit which has impelled them to

brave all the dangers of noxious climates and of savage passions,

to extend the knowledge of religion amongst barbarous nations--was

animating Howard when he journeyed incessantly from prison to

prison, tracking human misery into all its hidden and most loathsome

recesses. He who, in another century, would have been the founder

of a new order of barefooted monks, became, in Protestant England,

the great exemplar of philanthropic heroism. Perhaps he too, in one

sense, may be said to have founded a new religious order, though

it is not bound together by common rules, and each member of it

follows, as he best may, the career of charitable enterprise that

lies open before him. The mystery, we say, clears up. Benevolent

our Howard was, undoubtedly, by nature, as by nature also he was

somewhat imperious; but that which converted his benevolence into

a ceaseless motive of strenuous action, of toil, and of sacrifice;

that which _utilised_ his natural love of authority, transforming it

into that requisite firmness and predominance over others without

which no man, at least no reformer, can be rigidly just, and, face

to face, admonish, threaten, and reprove; that which constituted

the mainspring and vital force of his character, was intense piety,

and the all-prevailing sense of duty to his God. The craving of his

soul was some great task-work, to be done in the eye of Heaven. Not

the love of man, nor the praise of man, but conscience, and to be a

servant of the Most High, were his constant motive and desire.

Men of ardent piety generally apply themselves immediately to

the reproduction in others of that piety which they feel to be

of such incomparable importance. This becomes the predominant,

often the sole object of their lives. It is natural it should be

so. In such minds all the concerns of the present world sink into

insignificance; and their fellow-men are nothing, except as they

are, or are not, fellow-Christians. Howard was an exception to

this rule. Owing to certain circumstances in his own life; to the

manner of his education; to his deficiency in some intellectual

qualifications, and his pre-eminence in others, he was led to take

the domain of physical suffering--of earthly wretchedness--for

the province in which to exert his zeal. For the preacher, or

the writer, he was not formed, either by education or by natural

endowment; but he was a man of shrewd observation, of great

administrative talent, of untiring perseverance, and of an

insatiable energy. The St Francis of Protestant England did not,

therefore, go forth as a missionary; nor did he become the founder

of a new sect, distinguished by any doctrinal peculiarity; but

he girded himself up to visit, round the world, the cell of the

prisoner--to examine the food he ate, the air he breathed, to rid

him of the jail-fever, to drive famine out of its secret haunts,

and from its neglected prey. It was this peculiarity which led men

to segregate Howard from the class to which, by the great elements

of his character, he belongs. To relieve the common wants of our

humanity was his object--to war against hunger and disease, and

unjust cruelties inflicted by man on man, was his chosen task-work;

therefore was it vaguely supposed that the sentiment of humanity was

his great predominant motive, and that he was driven about the world

by compassion and benevolence.

His remains lie buried in Russia. Dr Clarke, in his travels through

that country, relates that "Count Vincent Potoçki, a Polish

nobleman of the highest taste and talents, whose magnificent library

and museum would do honour to any country, through a mistaken design

of testifying his respect for the memory of Howard, has signified

his intention of taking up the body that it might be conveyed to his

country seat, where a sumptuous monument has been prepared for its

reception, upon a small island in the midst of a lake. His countess,

being a romantic lady, wishes to have an annual _fête_ consecrated

to benevolence; at this the nymphs of the country are to attend, and

strew the place with flowers." There are many, we suspect, of his

own countrymen and countrywomen, who would be disposed to honour the

memory of Howard in a similar manner. They would hang, or carve,

their wreaths of flowers upon a tomb where the emblems of Christian

martyrdom would be more appropriate. We need hardly add that the

design of the romantic countess was not put into execution.

The vague impression prevalent of this remarkable man has been

perpetuated by another circumstance. Howard has been unfortunate

in his biographers. Dr Aikin, the earliest of these, writes like

a gentleman and a scholar; manifests throughout much good sense,

a keen intelligence, and a high moral feeling; but his account is

brief, and is both defective and deceptive from his incapacity, or

unwillingness, to portray the religious aspect of the character

he had undertaken to develop. Dr Aikin's little book may still be

read with advantage for the general remarks it contains, but it is

no biography. Neither was Dr Aikin calculated for a biographer. He

wanted both the highest and the lowest qualifications. Details, such

as of dates and places, he had not the patience to examine; and he

wanted that rarer quality of mind by which the writer is enabled

to throw himself into the character of a quite different man from

himself, and almost feel by force of sympathy the motives which have

actuated him. This the cultivated, tasteful, but, in spite of his

verse, the quite didactic mind of Aikin, was incapable of doing.

The Rev. Samuel Palmer, who had known Howard for thirty years,

appended to a sermon, preached on the occasion of his death, some

account of his life and career. But this, as well as several

anonymous contributions to magazines, and a brief anonymous life

which appeared at the same time, can be considered only in the light

of materials for the future biographer.

The task lay still open, and Mr Baldwin Brown, barrister-at-law,

undertook to accomplish it. He appears to have had all the

advantages a biographer could desire. He had conversed with the

contemporaries and friends of Howard, and with his surviving

domestics--an advantage which no subsequent writer could hope to

profit by; he was put in possession of the materials which the

Rev. Mr Smith and his family, intimate friends of Howard, had

collected for the very purpose of such a work as he was engaged

on; Dr Brown, professor of theology at Aberdeen, another intimate

friend of Howard, transcribed for him, from his commonplace book,

the memoranda of conversations held with Howard, and committed

to writing at the time; and, above all, he was furnished with

extracts and memoranda from diaries kept by Howard himself, and

which fortunately had escaped the general conflagration to which

the philanthropist, anticipating and disliking the curiosity of the

biographer, had devoted his papers. Several influential men amongst

the Dissenters interested themselves in obtaining information for

him; and the list of those to whom he expresses obligations of

this kind, occupies two or three pages of his preface. Mr Brown

was himself a man of religious zeal--we presume, from his work, a

Dissenter: he could not fail to appreciate the religious aspect of

Howard's character. As a lawyer, he was prepared to take an interest

in the subject of his labours--the reformation of our prisons

and our penal laws. Thus he brought to his task many peculiar

advantages; and the work he produced was laborious, conscientious,

and very valuable. Unfortunately, Mr Baldwin Brown was a dull

writer, by which we here imply that he was also a dull thinker, and

his book will be pronounced by the generality of readers to be as

dull as it is useful. Notwithstanding the attractive title it bears,

and the many interesting particulars contained in it, his biography

never attained any popularity. It was probably read extensively

amongst the Dissenters, to whose sympathies it more directly appeals

than to those of any other class of readers; but we think we are

right in saying that it never had much circulation in the world at

large.

More parsonic than the parsons, our lawyer-divine can resist no

opportunity for sermonising. The eloquence of a Dissenting pulpit,

and that when it is but indifferently _supplied_--the tedious

repetition, and the monotonous unmodulated periods of his legal

text-books--these combine, or alternate, through the pages of Mr

Brown. Yet those who persevere in the perusal of his book will be

rewarded. He is judicious in the selection of his materials. He

presents us with the means of forming an accurate conception of

Howard; though, in so doing, he seems to reveal to an attentive

reader more than he had well understood himself.

Tedious or not, this is still the only biography of Howard. A Mr

Thomas Taylor has written what appears to be an abridgment of the

work. His book is more brief, but it is still more insipid. What

notion Mr T. Taylor has of biography may be judged of from this,

that he thinks it necessary, in quoting Howard's own original

letters, to amend and improve the _style_--preserving, as he says,

the sense, but correcting the composition. He is apparently shocked

at the idea that the philanthropist should express himself in

indifferent English, even though in a hasty letter to a friend.

Very lately Mr Hepworth Dixon, whose work has recalled us to this

subject, has presented us with a life of Howard. It cannot be said

of Mr Dixon's book that it is either dull or insipid; it has some

of the elements of popularity; but we cannot better describe it in

a few words than by saying that it is a _caricature_ of a popular

biography. Its flippancy, its conceit, its egregious pretensions,

its tawdry _novelistic_ style, are past all sufferance. It is too

bad to criticise. But as, in the dearth of any popular biography

of Howard, it has assumed for a time a position it by no means

merits, we cannot pass it by entirely without notice. For, besides

that Mr Dixon writes throughout with execrable taste, he has not

dealt conscientiously with the materials before him. His notion

of the duty of a biographer is this--that he is to collect every

incident of the least piquancy, no matter by whom related, or on

what authority, and colour it himself as highly as he can. Evidently

the most serious preparation he has made, for writing the life of

Howard, has been a course of reading in French romances. It is with

the spirit and manner of a Eugene Sue that he sits down to describe

the grand and simple career of Howard.

Mr Dixon has not added a single new fact to the biography of Howard,

nor any novelty whatever, except such as he has drawn from his own

imagination. Nor does he assist in sifting the narrative; on the

contrary, whatever dust has the least sparkle in it, though it has

been thrice thrown away, he assiduously collects. That he should

have nothing new to relate is no matter of blame; it is probable

that no future biographer will be able to do more than recast and

reanimate the materials to be found in Brown and Aikin. But why

this pretence of having written a life of Howard from "original

documents?" We beg pardon: he does not absolutely say that he has

written _the Life of Howard_ from original documents--the original

document, for there is but one, may apply to the "_prison-world

of Europe_," of which also he professes to write. This "earliest

document of any value connected with the _penology of England_,"

which, with much parade, he prints for the first time, relates to

the state of prisons before the labours of Howard. Impossible to

suppose, therefore, that Mr Hepworth Dixon meant his readers to

infer that, by the aid of this document, he was about to give them

an original Life of Howard.

Let us look at Mr Dixon's preface--it is worth while. It thus

commences:--

"Several reasons combined to induce the writer _to undertake the

work of making out for the reading world_ a new biography of

Howard; the chief of them fell under two heads:--

"_It lay in his path._ Years ago now, circumstances, which do

not require to be explained in this place, called his attention

to the vast subject of the _prison-world_."

We must stop a moment to admire this favourite magniloquence of our

author. Howard wrote a report on the state of prisons; Mr Dixon

writes on nothing less than the _prison-world_ of Europe! He heads

his chapters--"The Prison-world of the Continent," "The Prison-world

of England." If Mr Dixon, in his patriotic labours, should turn his

attention to the nuisance of Smithfield market, he would certainly

give us a treatise on "The _Butcher-world_ of Europe," with chapters

headed, with due logical gradation, "The Butcher-world of England,"

and "The Butcher-world of London."

"It lay in his path," was one reason why he wrote his biography.

"It needed to be done," was the other. We agree in the last of

these reasons, whatever demur we make to the first. A more popular

biography than Mr Brown's would certainly be a useful book. But what

can Mr Dixon mean by saying, that, "although Howard was the father

of prison-science, the story of his life has hitherto been made out

without reference to that fact?" Messrs Brown and Aikin were not,

then, aware that the excitement of the public attention to the great

subject of prison-discipline was the chief result, and the direct

and ostensible aim of the labours of Howard!

But now we arrive at Mr Dixon's statement of his own peculiar

resources for writing the Life of Howard, and the valuable

contributions he has made to our better knowledge of the man; in

short, his claims upon our gratitude and confidence:--