[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 140.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
PARK PEARLS.
By the cottage, a stranger is hailed with sharp palpable hostility,
followed by a guttural sentence inwardly spoken. The watchdog pours
out his durable qualities on the intruder’s ear. To prevent any
misunderstanding, he tells, most forcibly, of the consequences of
a nearer approach. As the inmates of the hamlet are thus warned,
an unknown face gazes on him, waiting at the wicket. I love the
creature’s voice. It sounds of a home, although not mine. It hints of a
domestic circle with chubby bairns, little dumpy arms, tiny prattling
feet, dirty faces—as all children have if left to their own sweet
will—children of the woods and parks, little rural arabs—the human
world in miniature uncontrolled. The barking is incessant. A mellow
voice spreads over the grassy lawns; on the pensive air, a hollow
metallic ringing is carried out, eddying as tiny wavelets to the shore
of a tiny pool—the music of an echo, touching the high towers of the
mansion-house, rebounding to the forest edge—clear, fine, and pleasing.
The winter sunny rays moisten the crust by the gateway, and the earth
seems saturated by a shower which fell days ago—a shower of snow.
Around the open glade, a stately circle of beech and fir trees marks
the park’s outline. The day is cold and damp; the seasons hang in the
balance.
In summer here, I know a tree whereon the cushat builds, a tree of fir.
On the green soft cushion around its base the children gather needles
and pins for youthful household purposes—age reflected in infancy.
These trees are honestly Scotch, riveted to the soil; the nettle and
the thistle lower in the scale. Around the wood-pigeons’ abode, mighty
beeches extend their branches, and sycamores shelter the approach—trees
born of ancestral days, veterans of the forest; and at eventide, when
the sun is warm, carrying its fire-flame westwards, the low Coo,
coo! familiarly resounds over the park—a plaintive moaning from the
tree-top. The lark from the mossy meadow tells his tale of love and
devotion, going high above the forest shadows, revelling in the ether,
shouting vocally in the sky, making the aërial hall ring with its
joyous out-pourings—a musical day-star, a pearl from earth and the clod
paying homage at the footstool of light.
Over the emerald ground-work, a rook is seen; when the wind is high, he
courts the lee-side of the forest, and hugs the bushes on the border,
passing like a mighty rushing blast, causing the dead leaf to swirl
on the grass. Atop the fence circling the copse, the magpie sits with
piratical flashes in his eye, brooding over the stratagem required for
further business. Down to the field he goes, and over the meadow-land
on strong wing, tail floating gaily in the breeze; a gem, a pearl, a
bird of surpassing beauty, up to the fir-trees, chattering harshly,
loudly, defiantly. A continuous warble, an entertaining exhibition of
voice-power on the part of the hedge-sparrow, enlivens the bushes under
the shadow of the beeches; its capabilities of a very high order—a low,
sweet, liquid song. In a meditating mood it sits; with an inquisitive
air it looks for food under the stems. Its little nest is cosy; its
contents four blue turquoises set in a brown environment.
Cuck-oo, cuck-oo! What a mystic sound! a half-human, a legendary
echo, a resemblance half-bird, half-mammal expression; a source of
infinite conjecture, a perfume from an unseen flower. There it sits, a
brown, dark, spotted-like creature, with long arrow-like body, lengthy
ocean-steamer-formed bird, a true migrant, a sailor on the winds, a
voyager across the oceans; an outlaw, a bohemian, living by the way,
dropping its egg in the nest of some absent one, leaving the care of
its offspring to another; an ichneumon in feathers. Cuck-oo, cuck-oo!
The sound comes from the bushes out there. No! There he sits still, not
knowing he is observed. Strange bird, dweller in eternal summer climes,
hater of northern blasts; and as you reflect, he is gone down the grove
to seek his mate.
Following each other, wailing, calling, the lapwings dive, rise, and
scream again, flapping their rounded paddles—brilliant pearls of colour
touched by the sunlight. What hilarity; what gestures they cut over the
park, down the slope, and across the fields. Joyful birds, birds of
the earth and the fullness thereof. The cheerful merry notes come on
the breeze, and contain a wildness, a free, piquant taste of nature’s
highways. In spring, the notes bring with them the milkboy’s song and
the ploughman’s whistle. You feel the air refreshed; a balminess fills
the glade, seeks between the tree arms, clusters round the hedge,
reassuring the crocus and the primrose. Your heart goes out to meet
the bird, even be it unseen, as if photographed on the mind; the rural
scene within a certain range springs before the imagination, called up
afresh. All nature claps its hands in pride and ecstasy.
With a hurried Cha, cha, cha, cha! the blackbird leaves the stone
wall—a cock-bird, black as jet—to attend his lady on the park’s
surface. A rollicking sprightliness characterises his movements; his
tone is sharp, full of intricacies, hard to interpret. In autumn, when
the nests are empty, how delightful to walk through the copse—a clump
of dwarfed trees, everything in repose. The nests, the homes, the beds
of the departed little ones, rest there between the forks and amongst
the benty undergrowth, remnants of blithe mirth-making and droll
expressions. A few feathers—vivid remembrance of garments—the broken
twigs and sere leaves are toys. Singing now is in silvery strains;
before, it was golden; now restricted in its compass and its range.
The pheasant from the cover skulks hastily away, and in the sun shines
as a pearl of great price. His ruby head he cannot hide—it is too
lovely. It sets off as a coronet his kingly robes. ‘Uneasy lies the
head that wears a crown.’ An irresistible habit attends the luckless
bird; he peers from the herbage, and the sun catches the treacherous
colours, denouncing the retreat of this majestic park glory. There
is an unspeakable mellowness. Insect and bird, both are loth to
frolic; they are not now so fond of being seen, eluding the watchful
eye; contented trills are all that is now heard. Yellow, full-eared
cornfields, charged with the honey of a season, like soldiers, laden
with booty, now ‘pile their arms’ in squares and companies over the
harvest battle-field.
With the stillness of a mid-day in the park, at that moment when even
the birds are gone, the insect world vanished, there is a sudden
seeming pause. The daisy and the clover say it is the meridian, the
exact moment when the dial casts no side shadow. It resembles the
dinner-hour, the din and rattle hushed for a time. When the cuckoos
meet here in the gushing summer day, when the down-pouring of the
golden rays from the clear sky parches the pebbly brook, and curls
up the grass of the park, then the combination of pride, blitheness,
and mid-day fervour of breezes modified, refined by the park trees,
disperse in the quiet inclosure, and mingling in space with the warm
air, vanish, as it were, in an unanswerable manner.
Kittiwakes from the rocky heights wander, by the aid of their beautiful
wings, over the park round the copse, circling, screaming with angry
voice, with a majesty, an aristocratic air, no flurried haste. These
wings are seasoned by the salt of the ocean. They move over the reefs,
the shoals, the surface-swells of the landscape; but their gaze pierces
not the crest of the earth, but is thrown back tauntingly, while
their eyes search pleadingly. These water-washed pearls rest in twos
and threes, white dots on the carpet of green. The daisy, dandelion,
clover, and the tints of many grasses, cut out lovely patterns before
your eyes; the primrose makes a golden margin, the bushes raise the
edge. In the language of flowers, the surface holds communion. Above
the long rank growth on the ditch-side, the sorrel loves to dwell, and
thistles keep watch over their lowly neighbours.
A transient glimpse of a pretty bird in the depths of the bushes
rivets the attention—a redstart!—jerky, flirting beauty. This tangled
undergrowth seems a fit habitation only for the badger, or a likely
cover for the fox. That admixture of ruby and turquoise might well
adorn the scrupulously trimmed lawn before the mansion-house. Why stay
in such a sequestered nook? You are an uncommon friend. Right glad am
I to make the acquaintance of such as you, even here. How restless you
wander along the bough, your shrill note doubtless being apprehensive
of danger, away under the bushes without a parting word. A robin fills
the place—that hero of many a tale, that picture-painted creature
evolved from the reddish-tinted egg shells. His family meet him on the
broom that overhangs the bank. The earthwork has fallen, disclosing the
boughs that were once underground, appearing now like strong cables
from ship to anchor. Its home is there, behind the rootlet, and between
that and the earthen wall. At evening, puffed up, ball-formed, it
sits challenging a robin not far off in vocal speech, a ruby spot, a
blood-stained front without a scar. The notes remind you of olden days.
Something is gone, is awanting; a vagueness immeasurable borders the
song. There is a want, although he sings in language liquid and clear.
It is in harmony with the half-sleeping water babbling through the
grasses. He is a wild Red Indian, sighing, jerking, laughing, smiling
at the weather of the seasons.
Two, three! Keep still; there go the rabbits. Move your foot amongst
those dead leaves—magic, they are gone! Thud, thud! be it anger, fear,
or defiance. Thud! the very earth vibrates in harmony with the animals’
spirit. Over the entrance, on the tree-roots grow long variegated
lines of stainless white vegetation—whiter under there, against the
earth—a soft quartz in a soft rock. That sapling is dead, nipped in
its youth. Its leaves are golden, its virgin beauty was green. All
other trees are in their native garb. In its fall, its dying agony,
its roots wrenched from the soil, the earth still adhering; it had
groaning, fallen, clenched its comrade; and now petrified, its arms are
rigid, death-like. The bunnies burrow under the shelter of the upturned
sapling; but otherwise its history is wrapped in unconcern. Only the
bee, that in its flight catches the reddish glow, and halts to know the
cause. The common blue butterfly, in its diurnal flight over the park
in search of sweets, at times erects its wings, there exhibiting the
rows of matchless pearls imprinted on the border of its garment. The
wren leaves not the tree in its misfortune, but twits its plaintive
miniature trill from under the withered leaves and débris swept against
its surface, accumulating with every fresh breeze.
Again the participating musical stumble of the blackbird comes from the
tree-branch on the copse margin—a male voice, a bass, with variations
of chattering fluency. Late insects linger at the outskirts, and roam
the extent of the park. The insect hum rises from the herbage here and
there; a bee, trapped by the spider’s snare, hums, buzzing vengeance
on the fisher casting his silken net there. In the bushes, a slight
fluttering—a leaf floats unheard to the ground, to increase the mouldy
earth. The repose is broken again and again—droning beetles, and the
tingling flight of the moths fluttering around the willows at the burn.
The tawny owls hoot, throwing a weird enchantment on things adjacent,
their muffled, softened wings carrying them from view along the forest
edge. A solitary starry pearl, a snowdrop of the heavens, bursts the
crust of the empyrean—then it is night.
IN ALL SHADES.
BY GRANT ALLEN,
AUTHOR OF ‘BABYLON,’ ‘STRANGE STORIES,’ ETC. ETC.
CHAPTER XLIII.
When Nora and the doctor reached the door of Orange Grove, they found
Edward Hawthorn waiting to receive them, and the servants already busy
trying to remove as far as possible the signs of the wreck so lately
effected by the wild rioters. Several neighbouring planters, who had
come down from the hills above, stood in armed groups around the gate;
and a few mounted black constables, hastily summoned to the spot by the
fire, were helping to extinguish the smouldering ashes. Only Delgado’s
dead body lay untouched upon the sofa, stiff and motionless, for not
one of the negroes dare venture to set hands upon it; and in the room
within, Marian sat still, looking anxiously at Harry Noel’s pallid face
and livid eyelids, and his bloodstained shirt, that yet heaved faintly
and almost imperceptibly upon his broad bosom at each long slow-drawn
inspiration.
‘He is living?’ Nora asked, in a hushed voice of painful inquiry; and
Marian answered under her breath, looking up at the bluff doctor: ‘Yes;
he’s living still. He’s breathing quite regularly, though very feebly.’
As for Macfarlane, he went to work at once with the cool business-like
precision and rapidity of his practised profession, opening the
bloodstained shirt in front, and putting his hand in through the silk
vest to feel the heart that still beat faintly and evenly. ‘He’s lost
a great deal of blood, no doubt, Mrs Hawthorn,’ he said cheerily;
‘but he’s a strong man, and he’ll pull through yet; ye needn’t be too
anxious—thanks to whoever put this handkerchief around his arm. It’s a
good enough tourniquet to use on an emergency.—Was it you, Miss Dupuy,
or Mrs Hawthorn?’
A round spot of vivid colour flashed for a moment into Nora’s white
cheek as she answered quietly: ‘It was me, Dr Macfarlane!’ and then
died out again as fast as it had come, when Macfarlane’s eyes were once
more removed from her burning face.
‘Ye’re a brave lass, and no mistake,’ the doctor went on, removing the
tourniquet, and stanching the fresh flow rapidly with a proper bandage,
produced with mechanical routine from his coat pocket. ‘Well, well,
don’t be afraid about him any longer. It’s a big cut, and a deep cut,
and it’s just gone and severed a good big artery—an ugly business; but
ye’ve taken it in time; and your bandage has been most judiciously
applied; so ye may rest assured that, with a little nursing, the young
man will soon be all right again, and sound as ever. A cutlass is a
nasty weapon to get a wound from, because those nigger fellows don’t
sharpen them up to a clean edge, as they ought to do rightly, but just
hack and mutilate a man in the most outrageous and unbusiness-like
manner, instead of killing him outright like good Christians, with a
neat, sharp, workman-like incision. But we’ll pull him through—we’ll
pull him through yet, I don’t doubt it. And if he lives, ye may have
the pleasure of knowing, young lady, that it was the tourniquet ye made
so cleverly that just saved him at the right moment.’
As Macfarlane finished dressing and tending Harry’s wound, and Harry’s
eyes began to open again, slowly and glassily, for he was very faint
with loss of blood, Nora, now that the excitement of that awful evening
was fairly over, seemed at last to realise within herself her great
loss with a sudden revulsion. Turning away passionately from Harry’s
bedside, she rushed into the next room, where the women-servants were
already gathered around their master’s body, keening and wailing
as is their wont, with strange hymns and incoherent songs, wherein
stray scraps of Hebrew psalms and Christian anthems were mingled
incongruously with weird surviving reminiscences of African fetichism,
and mystic symbols of aboriginal obeah. Fully awake now to the blow
that had fallen so suddenly upon her, Nora flung herself in fierce
despair by her father’s side, and kissed the speechless lips two or
three times over with wild remorse in her fresh agony of distress
and isolation. ‘Father, father!’ she cried aloud, in the self-same
long-drawn wail as the negresses around her, ‘they’ve killed you,
they’ve killed you! my darling—my darling!’
‘Dem kill you—dem kill you!’ echoed Rose and Nita and the other women
in their wailing sing-song. ‘But de Lard ob hebben himself avenge you.
De grabe yawnin’ wide this ebenin’ for Louis Delgado. De Lard smite
him—de Lard smite him!’
‘Get away, all you auld crones!’ the doctor said, coming in upon them
suddenly with his hearty Scotch voice, that seemed to break in too
harshly on the weird solemnity of the ghastly scene. ‘Let me see how it
was they killed your master. He’s dead, you say—stone-dead, is he? Let
me see—let me see, then.—Here you, there—lift up his head, will you,
and put it down decently on the pillow!’
Nita did as she was told, mechanically, with a reproachful glance from
her big white-fringed eyes at the too matter-of-fact and common-sense
Scotchman, and then sat down again, squatting upon the floor, moaning
and crooning piteously to herself, as decorum demanded of her under
such circumstances.
The doctor looked closely at the clotted blood that hung in ugly
tangles on the poor old man’s gray locks, and whistled a little in a
dubious undertone to himself, when he saw the great gash that ran right
across Mr Dupuy’s left shoulder. ‘An awkward cut,’ he said slowly—‘a
very severe and awkward cut, I don’t deny it. But I don’t precisely
see, myself, why it need have positively killed him. The loss of blood
needn’t have been so very excessive. He’s hacked about terribly, poor
old gentleman, with their ugly cutlasses, though hardly enough to have
done for a Dupuy, in my opinion. They’re very tough subjects indeed to
kill, all the Dupuys are.’
As he spoke, he leant down cautiously over the body, and listened for
a minute or two attentively with his ear at the heart and lips. Then
he held his finger lightly with close scrutiny before the motionless
nostrils, and shook his head once or twice in a very solemn and ominous
fashion. ‘It’s a most singular fact,’ he said with slow deliberation,
looking over at Edward, ‘and one full of important psychological
implications, that the members of every nationality I have ever had
to deal with in the whole course of my professional experience—except
only the Scottish people—have a most illogical and ridiculous habit of
jumping at conclusions without sufficient data to go upon. The man’s
not dead at all, I tell you—not a bit of it. He’s breathing still,
breathing visibly.’
Nora leapt up at the word with another sudden access of wild energy.
‘Breathing!’ she cried—‘breathing, doctor! Then he’ll live still. He’ll
get better again, will he, my darling?’
‘Now ye’re jumping at conclusions a second time most unwarrantably,’
Macfarlane answered, with true Scotch caution. ‘I will not say
positively he’ll get better again, for that’s a question that rests
entirely in the hands of the Almighty. But I do say the man’s
breathing—not a doubt of it.’
The discovery inspired them all at once with fresh hope for Mr Dupuy’s
safety. In a few minutes they had taken off his outer clothing and
dressed his wounds; while Nora sat rocking herself to and fro excitedly
in the American chair, her hands folded tight with interlacing fingers
upon her lap, and her lips trembling with convulsive jerks, as she
moaned in a low monotone to herself, between suspense and hope, after
all the successive manifold terrors of that endless evening.
By-and-by the doctor turned to her kindly and gently. ‘He’ll do,’ he
said, in his most fatherly manner. ‘Go to bed, lass, go to bed, I tell
ye. Why, ye’re bruised and beaten yourself too, pretty awkwardly!
Ye’ll need rest. Go to bed; an’ he’ll be better, we’ll hope and trust,
to-morrow morning.’
‘I won’t go to bed,’ Nora said firmly, ‘as long as I don’t know whether
he will live or not, Dr Macfarlane.’
‘Why, my lass, that’ll be a very long watch for ye, then, indeed, I
promise you, for he’ll not be well again for many a long day yet,
I’m thinking. But he’ll do, I don’t doubt, with care and nursing. Go
to bed, now, for there’ll be plenty to guard you. Mr Hawthorn and
I will stop here to-night; and there’s neighbours enough coming up
every minute to hold the place against all the niggers in the whole of
Trinidad. The country’s roused now; the constabulary’s alive; and the
governor’ll be sending up the military shortly to take care of us while
you’re sleeping. Go to bed at once, there’s a guid lassie.’
Marian took her quietly by the arm and led her away, once more half
fainting. ‘You’ll stop with me, dear?’ Nora whispered; and Marian
answered with a kiss: ‘Yes, my darling; I’ll stop with you as long as
you want me.’
‘Wait a minute,’ the good doctor called out after them. ‘Ye’ll need
something to make you sleep after all this excitement, I take it,
ladies. There’s nothing in the world so much recommended by the faculty
under these conditions as a good stiff glass of old Highland whisky
with some lime-juice and a lump of sugar in it.—Ye’ll have some whisky
in the house, no doubt, won’t you, Uncle Ezekiel?’
In a minute or two, Uncle ’Zekiel had brought the whisky and the
glasses and the fruit for the lime-juice, and Macfarlane had duly
concocted what he considered as a proper dose for the young ladies.
Edward noticed, too, that besides the whisky, the juice, and the sugar,
he poured furtively into each glass a few drops from a small phial
that he took out unperceived by all the others from his waistcoat
pocket. And as soon as the two girls had gone off together, the
doctor whispered to him confidentially, with all the air of a most
profound conspirator: ‘The poor creatures wanted a little sedative to
still their nerves, I consider, after all this unusual and upsetting
excitement, so I’ve just taken the liberty to give them each a drop or
two of morphia in their whisky, that’ll make them both sleep as sound
as a child till to-morrow morning.’
But all that night, the negroes watched and prayed loudly in
their own huts with strange devotions, and the white men and the
constables watched—with more oaths than prayers, after the white man’s
fashion—armed to the teeth around the open gate of Mr Dupuy’s front
garden.
RECENT NOTES FROM THE LAND OF EGYPT.
To those who are interested in ancient Egypt, and to the student
of Biblical archæology, the last few weeks have given treasures of
discovery. First, there was the unbinding and exposing to view of
the mummies of Ramses II. and III., and the identification of that
of Queen Nofre-tari; then the discovery, by Mr Flinders Petrie, of
‘El Kasr el Bint el Yahudî’ (the Castle of the Jew’s Daughter), which
throws a flood of light upon the few verses in Jeremiah xliii. where
we read that Johanan, the son of Kareah, followed by the captains of
the forces, the remnant of Judah, and the Hebrew princesses, daughters
of the blinded and dethroned Zedekiah, fled to Tahpanhes, the court
of Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt. Lastly, there was the interesting
meeting of the Egyptian Exploration Fund (see _Chambers’s Journal_,
No. 70), when an account of the finding of the Greek settlement of
Naukratis was given, and specimens of the treasures found there were
exhibited. To Professor Maspéro we are indebted for the sight of the
celebrated Pharaohs; and any one travelling in Egypt should not fail
to visit the ‘Hall of the Mummies,’ in the Boulak Museum, near Cairo,
where, in glass cases, they will see the faces of these kings exposed
to view. First of all, before describing the appearance of the dead
monarchs as they emerged from the endless folds of the mummy-cloths, it
may be worth while to glance cursorily at their history.
Ramses II.—the Sesostris of the Greeks—was the third king of the
nineteenth dynasty. He bears the name of A-naktu, the Conqueror; and in
the rolls of the papyri he is also called Ses, Sestura, ‘Sethosis—who
is called Ramses’—and Setesu. He was a great builder, and a warrior as
well. The land is filled with his buildings and with gigantic statues
of himself and his family; and the walls of the temples are covered
all over with vivid pictures of his battles and victories. Not only in
Egypt are these to be found, but also engraven upon the rock tablets
at Berytus, in Syria, are records of his victories in Asia. He does
not, however, appear to have allowed his architectural plans and his
warlike expeditions wholly to engross his attention, for we find him
dividing the land into _nomes_ or provinces, and setting governors
over them. He seems to have employed the prisoners of war in making
canals for the use of those who lived at a distance from the river. He
also rearranged the scale of rents for land, and made the canal from
the Nile to the Red Sea. In the fifth year of his reign we find him at
Kadesh-on-Orontes, a fortified Syrian town: war had broken out with
the Khita, a Semitic tribe, who had one of their strongholds there.
After a desperate struggle, Ramses appears to have been victorious, and
ratified his treaty with the conquered people by marrying their king’s
daughter. We find him afterwards waging war in Palestine; and it is
certain that he conquered Askelon. He transferred his court to Sân or
Zoan, on the Tanitic arm of the Nile, and from thenceforth Pi-Ramses
became the seat of government. By many, Ramses II. is thought to be
the Pharaoh of the oppression, for whom the children of Israel built
the treasure-cities of Pithom and Ramses. Certain it is that during
this reign the literature and language of Egypt became impregnated with
words borrowed from Semitic sources.
The chief buildings of Ramses II. are the Ramesseum or Memnonium;
a Temple of Victory at Old Qurnah, dedicated to the god Amon; the
rock-temple of Ipsamboul, dedicated to the chief gods of Egypt; the
completion of the Temple of Amon at Luxor, which was left unfinished by
Amenhotep III.; and the great hall in the Temple of Karnak. He erected
two giant statues of himself and two beautiful obelisks, one of which
is in Paris.
The king enjoyed a reign of sixty-seven years; part of which time he
was associated with his father. He must have been nearly one hundred
years old when he died; and from the temple walls at Abydos we learn
that he had sixty sons and fifty-nine daughters. This is the merest
outline of Ramses II., one of the greatest of the Egyptian kings; an
essentially successful man, bold, enterprising, ambitious, and vain.
Now for his personal appearance, in so far as we can judge of it after
its long repose in spices and linen bandages. For the sake of those
whose faith may not be very strong, let us add that the mummy was
opened by Maspéro and Brügsch—two of our greatest Egyptologists—in
presence of a large number of people, English as well as Egyptian,
who verified the official statement made by the high-priest Pinotem
on the coffin lid, and on the outer winding-sheet of the mummy, that
this was in truth the body of Ramses II. The head is long, and small
in proportion to the size of the body; the top of it is bald, but
otherwise the hair is thick. At the time of death it was probably
white; but the spices used in the embalmment have turned it a yellowish
colour. The eyebrows, too, are white and thick; the eyes small and
close together; the temples are sunken; and the nose, long, thin, and
hooked, is also depressed at the tip. The tightness of the bandaging
probably accounts for this. The chin is prominent, and the jawbone
massive, giving a look of determination to the face, which is covered
with a thin beard and moustache. The skin is of a brown hue, with black
marks on it, possibly owing to the bituminous matter used in embalming.
The hands, which are crossed over the breast, are small, and dyed with
henna; the legs and thighs fleshless; the feet long, slender, and
although somewhat flat-soled, are well shaped. They also are stained
with henna. The body is in a good state of preservation; and the
corpse, which is that of a very old man, is also that of a strongly
built and vigorous old man. The examination over, Professor Maspéro
returned the mummy to its glass case, where, with face uncovered, it
may be seen, with the mummies of Pinotem and the priest Nebsouni.
Ramses III.—surnamed Haq-On—Prince of Heliopolis, was not the immediate
successor of Ramses II., although he appears to have taken him for his
model. When he came to the throne, Egypt had degenerated to a miserable
condition, and he first turned his attention to the internal affairs of
the kingdom, rearranging the different castes and fixing their lines
very firmly. He also started a navy, to trade with the countries near
to Egypt. Many of the trees and shrubs in the valley of the Nile were
planted by him, to encourage moisture in the atmosphere and give shade
to the people. His buildings were not nearly so grand or so numerous
as those of Ramses II. He erected several Ramessea and a new temple at
Thebes. He also converted the treasure-house at Medinet-Abou into a
Temple of Victory, bringing all that was most precious into it. From
some of the papyri, we find that he was to have been the victim of a
plot hatched in the harem; but it was discovered, and the conspirators
punished. Ramses III. reigned more than twenty-seven years, and had
eighteen sons and fourteen daughters, to the former of whom he gave
the names of the sons of Ramses II. In his reign, the art of inlaying
glass in alabaster was at its height.
Ramses III. was altogether an inferior man to his predecessor of the
same name, although probably more intelligent; and from the shape
of the forehead, we might judge him to have had the intellectual
capacities largely developed. But he was eaten up with vanity, and
a desire to imitate in everything Ramses II. His buildings are less
numerous than that monarch’s; in style they are far inferior, and the
construction is poor. His wars were chiefly fought close at home,
either with the neighbouring Philistines or the tribes in the frontier
of his country. This, condensed into a few sentences, is the outline
of his life. In appearance, as seen at Boulak, when the mummy was
uncased, he was a small man, much inferior in size and build to Ramses
II, although his forehead is of better proportions. No hair is visible
on either face or head; the cheek-bones are not so high, the nose not
so hooked, the chin and jaw less massive. Professor Maspéro thinks that
the eyes were larger than those of Ramses II., which were small; but
it is difficult to be certain about this, as they have been extracted,
and the lids even removed. The mouth is horribly large, and out of
proportion to the rest of the face; the lips are thin; and many of the
teeth are in a perfect state of preservation. The displaying of the
features of Ramses III. was indeed a proof of great skill and patience
on the part of the operators, for when the last coverings were removed,
the face was found to be completely hidden by a coating of bitumen,
which had to be taken away piecemeal with the utmost care. The mummy,
face uncovered, stands now in a glass case by the side of Ramses II.;
and the lid of the sarcophagus in which he was buried is in the Museum
at Cambridge.
The mummy of Queen Nofre-tari was found with those of Ramses II. and
III. in the hiding-place at Dayr-el-Bahari; but it became in such a
bad condition, and smelt so horribly, that it was necessary to get
rid of it. Accordingly, Professor Maspéro decided to open it; and by
doing so, settled a knotty historical question. Was Nofre-tari, the
popular and deeply revered queen of king Aahmes I. of the eighteenth
dynasty, a negress? On some of the monuments, she is represented with
fine hair and yellow skin; on others, with a distinctly negro type of
face. Truly, she was worshipped at Thebes under the form of Hathor, the
black goddess of Death and the nether world. Did, then, the story of
her belonging to one of the black races of mankind originate in this,
or was there real ground for depicting her with a black complexion?
The investigation of the mummy answered the question; for although, on
being opened, it began to crumble away and dissolve into black matter,
it was quite possible to ascertain that she was a woman of full age and
middle height, and that she belonged to the _white_ races of mankind.
The opening of these mummies was the last official work of Professor
Maspéro, and the description of them is gathered from his Report.
Unfortunately for all Egyptologists, he has been obliged to resign his
post of Director of the Excavations and Antiquities in Egypt.
We must now pass on from the interesting Hall of Mummies, and convey
ourselves in thought to a dismal, dreary corner of the north-eastern
Delta, where, in the neighbourhood of the mounds of Tell-el-Defenneh,
Mr Flinders Petrie has discovered the remains of the ancient palace
in which Apries Hophra gave shelter to the fugitive daughters of
Zedekiah. This ‘Castle of the Jew’s Daughter,’ as it is called by the
Arabs to-day—the ‘Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes’ of the Bible, was built
by Psammetichus I. Under the corners of the building, Mr Petrie has
dug out the foundation deposits, consisting of seals, small tablets,
engraved with the king’s name and royal titles, bricks, &c. It was
probably the stronghold of those Carian and Ionian mercenaries to whom
Psammetichus granted a permanent settlement at Daphnæ of Pelusium.
The building itself was square, lofty, and of massive structure. It
stands in the remains of a quadrangular courtyard, the whole covering
an area of two thousand feet in length by one thousand feet in
breadth. Originally, it must have been walled in, the great boundary
wall being fifty feet in thickness. A gate on the north side opened
towards the canal; another on the south, to the military road between
Egypt, through Palestine, into Syria. The ‘Kasr’ also possessed a
tower which has probably served at different times as an outlook,
general’s headquarters, and a royal palace. Nor can we assign one date
only to it; it has been added to at various times, and to meet the
requirements of the different owners. It is hopeless to conjecture in
how many stories it was originally built; but the main part of the
building contained sixteen square rooms on each floor, with walls, both
outside and partition, of immense strength. Now, the basements, which
are all that is left, were the offices of the royal palace, and very
interesting are the discoveries which Mr Petrie has made there. First
of all, there is the kitchen, a big room with deep recesses in the
sides, and containing a dozen or more large jars, which somehow have
managed to escape the general destruction; also two flat dishes, three
small flat iron pokers, two corn-rubbers, some weights, and a large
knife made of iron. Then there is a room which we may suppose to have
answered to the butler’s pantry, for it was evidently the room where
the wine-jars were brought to be opened; but although there was not one
amphora to be found, there were scores of lids lying scattered about,
many of them stamped with the cartouches of Psammetichus I., and Necho,
his successor. On a rubbish-heap outside were found the broken amphoræ,
some of them having the lute-shaped ‘nefer’ written on them in ink, a
mark signifying ‘good.’ There is a tiny chamber containing a sink; and
from the contents of that sink, it can only have served one purpose,
and that the scullery. Mr Petrie describes it as being ‘formed of a
large jar with the bottom knocked out, and filled with broken potsherds
placed on edge. The water ran through this, and thence into more broken
pots below, placed one in another, all bottomless, going down to the
clean sand four or five feet below.’ These sherds were literally
clogged with fish-bones and animal matter.
Some small tablets engraved with the name of Aahmes II., and a bronze
seal of Apries, were also found; and in some of the other rooms were
seen lying about several Greek vases, many of them well painted with
representations of sphinxes, dancers, chariot-races, harpies, &c.
Amongst the débris, have been picked up amulets, two rings, a sword
handle with wide curved guard, some scale-armour, beads, seals, &c.;
and several large amphoræ, quite perfect, and a great many broken ones,
although not so badly broken but that they can be mended. The once
stately building is now a heap of blackened, flame-scorched ruins,
while the ground all round it is thickly strewn with the débris of its
past treasures. It must have fallen into very revengeful hands before
even it was set on fire, for it has evidently been ruthlessly knocked
to pieces and dismantled, besides being burnt. Did the king of Babylon,
as is indicated in the book of Jeremiah, indeed spread his tent on
the hard mud pavement in the square courtyard, and after giving over
‘such as were for death to death, and such as were for captivity to
captivity, and such as were for the sword to the sword,’ commence the
work of destruction? We cannot tell: we know that he did come, and
that, according to Babylonian accounts, he conquered. The Egyptians
admit that he came, but say he was defeated. Anyway, there are three
_steles_ in the Boulak Museum inscribed with his names, titles, and
parentage, which there is every reason to believe were picked up by
the Arabs near this place. Whether Nebuchadnezzar conquered or not,
‘Pharaoh’s house at Tahpanhes’ is now but the wreck of a departed glory.
The recent meeting of the Egyptian Exploration Fund was particularly
interesting. At it, Mr Ernest Gardner gave a vivid account of
Naukratis, for the excavation of which we are indebted to Mr Petrie
and himself. Naukratis was an ancient Greek settlement in Lower
Egypt, whose site, until lately, was lost in obscurity. We know that
it contained five celebrated temples—the Pan-Hellenion, and the
temples of Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and Aphrodite; of these, four are
now discovered. During this present year, Mr Gardner has found the
cemetery of Naukratis. It is a little distance from the town itself,
and, unfortunately, cannot be wholly excavated, as there is a modern
Arab cemetery exactly over it. The part already dug out is evidently
the more modern of the two, as it only contains graves subsequent to
the sixth century B.C. From a strictly antiquarian point of view, it
is therefore the less interesting, although that date gives the most
flourishing period of the history of Naukratis. There was not one
single mummified body found; the funerals were evidently conducted
strictly after the manner of the Greeks. Coffins of tile and wood,
the latter adorned with terra-cotta ornaments, were found in the
graves; articles both of use and beauty were found buried with the
dead. In one case, alongside of the deceased lady’s jewellery, was
found her rouge-pot, still half full of rouge, and beautifully painted
on the outside. Among the many things found in the town itself is a
portrait head of the time of Berenike II., made in blue porcelain; a
fine archaic statue of Apollo as a hunter, laden with spoils; and two
very fine vases of large size. The ruins of the Temple of Aphrodite,
built upon the foundations of two earlier ones, consist of little else
than mud walls. In front of it is the altar, made of the ashes of
the victims, bound together with a mud casing. Thus, after centuries
of burial, has the excavator’s spade brought us face to face with
Naukratis, once the most flourishing Greek settlement and trading-port
in Lower Egypt.
A TALE OF TWO KNAVERIES.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.
It was a melancholy and foggy November morning, and in its yellow gloom
that legal byway known as Southampton Buildings, Holborn, looked even
more frowzy and less respectable than usual. That, at least, was the
opinion of Mr Blackford, solicitor, who had no love for the scene of
his daily labours, as he turned into his office at the usual hour,
nodded to the clerk and the office-boy who made up his modest staff,
hung up his hat and coat on their particular peg, and passing into his
private room, proceeded to open and read the half-dozen letters which
lay on his desk. With one exception, these were not of a pleasing or
cheerful nature. There was, in the first place, a rather peremptory
reminder that the office rent was overdue, and must be paid forthwith.
Then came a refusal to ‘settle,’ by the payment of a sum of money, a
doubtful compensation-for-injuries action against a Railway Company,
which Mr Blackford had undertaken upon the very sporting principle of
charging nothing unless he should succeed; in which happy event he
would retain half the spoils. Beneath this lay a letter declining to
make an advance on certain dilapidated house-property belonging to a
client, and commenting sharply on certain alleged misrepresentations;
and then followed two or three more such epistolary missives.
Mr Blackford’s face wore a very excusable expression of disgust as he
took up the last of the pile; but he brightened a little as he read
it through. This at anyrate meant ‘business’—above all, business for
which the payment, though not large or ungrudgingly rendered, would be
certain and prompt. It was signed ‘William Franklin,’ and it contained
a request that Mr Blackford would call on the writer that day, in
order to take instructions for his will. Now, William Franklin was
the lawyer’s best client; a retired tradesman of some wealth, and of
a litigious disposition which had for several years brought as much
profit to the business as all the rest of the connection put together.
The solicitor hastily replied to such of his correspondents as required
that attention, glanced at his diary, which showed him plenty of
leisure time for the day—a far too usual circumstance with him; and
was preparing to keep Mr Franklin’s appointment, when his office-boy
knocked and entered.
‘A gentleman to see you, sir.’
‘Who is it?’ asked his master, rather suspiciously. Unexpected male
visitors are not always welcome to a man whose finances are shaky.
‘Won’t give his name, sir—says he wants to see you on particular
business. I think it’s a new client, sir,’ added the boy
confidentially, understanding tolerably well the reasons of his
employer’s hesitation.
‘Oh! Well—show him in; and don’t forget to hand a chair.’
The visitor entered—a tall, dark, powerful man, with remarkably bright
eyes—well dressed, as Mr Blackford, drawing comfortable auguries
therefrom, at once observed.
‘Take a seat,’ said the solicitor. ‘What can I do for you?’
The stranger sat down, glanced uneasily round the room, went back to
the door, opened and closed it, and returned to his chair. ‘First of
all,’ said he, speaking with the voice and manner of a gentleman—a
voice and manner not too common among Mr Blackford’s clients—‘I must
apologise for presenting myself in this mysterious way. I didn’t give
my name to your clerk, for reasons which you will appreciate presently.
It is Willoughby—Charles Willoughby—and here is my card. I have also a
letter of introduction from my landlord, a client of yours.’
‘I wonder what he’s done?’ was Mr Blackford’s silent comment as he took
the proffered letter. ‘Forgery, perhaps, or embezzlement. The last,
most likely—if either. I daresay it’s only a trumpery County Court
matter, after all.’
The letter simply stated that Mr Willoughby had for the last month
occupied rooms in the writer’s house; that he was a very quiet lodger,
and quite the gentleman; that he seemed to have plenty of money; that
he had asked the writer to recommend a solicitor to him, and that
the writer had at once named Mr Blackford; from whom, it was added
in conclusion, a fair commission on any profits arising from the
introduction would be expected by his zealous client.
‘And what can I do for you, sir?’ once more asked the solicitor, with
the increased respect due to a man who was ‘quite the gentleman’ and
‘seemed to have plenty of money.’
The visitor fixed an anxious look on the lawyer, and replied: ‘Well,
the fact is, Mr Blackford, that I have of late been greatly worried and
annoyed.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Not very pleasant in this depressing weather,
is it?’
‘It is not, indeed,’ assented the other, with a spasmodic and mirthless
laugh, which began and ended in a peculiarly sudden manner.
‘What is the nature of the annoyance?’
The visitor was looking round the room in a bewildered way, and did not
seem to hear the question. On its being repeated, he came to himself
with a start.
‘The annoyance? Oh, it is just this—that I am being followed about by
people who accuse and threaten me in a most unfounded and unjustifiable
manner.’
‘And of what do they accuse you?’
‘Well, I hardly know, the accusations are so extremely vague. But
they all point to horrible crimes committed in the past, without
particularly specifying them. The threats are distinct enough: I am to
be utterly ruined by exposure and denunciation.’
‘Have you ever done anything which would be likely to give these people
a hold on you? You can be perfectly frank with me, you know; we lawyers
hear a great many curious things, but we never talk about them. Few men
can say that their lives will bear very close inspection.’
‘I declare to you solemnly that I can reproach myself with nothing
which, if known, would produce the consequences with which I am
threatened. But you know persistent slander is sure to make its mark
sooner or later; it is impossible to say what harm may have been done
already.’
‘Who are the people?’
‘I don’t know.’ Before giving this unexpected answer, Willoughby looked
down on the floor and round the room with the same lost and puzzled air
as before.
‘You don’t know who they are!’ said Mr Blackford with incredulity.
‘That’s rather strange, isn’t it?—Come, Mr Willoughby; we are quite
alone. Who are they?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ repeated the client; ‘I wish I could.’ He looked
at the lawyer with a pitiably anxious expression, and beads of
perspiration began to appear on his forehead.
‘When and where do they attack you?’
‘Incessantly and everywhere. I am never safe from them. Principally at
my lodgings, and after I am in bed at night. They keep me awake with
their outcry.’
Mr Blackford began to be puzzled. His new acquaintance continued
to regard him with the same eager and helpless look, and wiped his
forehead with a tremulous hand.
‘But—but—bless me,’ said the lawyer, ‘if they come and annoy you in
your lodgings, why don’t you give them in charge?—How many are there of
them?’
Willoughby shook his head gloomily. ‘They are too cunning for that,’
he answered. ‘They are careful to keep out of my sight. I never set
eyes on them; I only hear their voices. And they are in hundreds—in
thousands, for all I can tell.’
Mr Blackford of course at once understood the true state of the case,
and the discovery was not a pleasant one. He was by no means a nervous
man, yet he experienced an electrical sensation in the scalp of his
head at the idea that he was sitting within a yard of an athletic
madman. Clearly, it would not do to contradict so opinionated a
person as this was likely to be; he must be humoured, and induced, if
possible, to go away quietly.
‘That’s awkward—very awkward,’ said the solicitor in a reflective tone.
‘If we can’t see them, you know, how can we get at them so as to set
the law in motion?’
‘I can’t tell what to do,’ said the other despondently; ‘that is why I
have come to consult you. All I know is that they continue to denounce
and threaten me night and day, and that it cannot go on without being
noticed. In that case, my character will be materially injured, and
they will have attained their object. Besides, they are killing me, Mr
Blackford. A man can’t exist without sleep, and I have had but little
for weeks past. And now I learn that they are contriving a plan to
relieve one another at night, so as to keep me awake.’