“The hostess showed me into a room, and said I might just take my food

with a strange gentleman who was seated there already. ‘He is quite a

stranger,’ she said. On stepping in, the man at once struck me as being

what is commonly called an odd fellow. He sat at a table, in front of

the fire, with a Madras handkerchief round his head, after the fashion

of a French sailor, or of labourers in a French seaport. I courteously

approached him, with the words: ‘I hope I don’t incommode you, by coming

to take my breakfast with you?’ The reply was: ‘No, sir!’ spoken with a

strong French accent, and sounding like ‘No, serre.’ ‘Ah!’ I continued,

‘_vous êtes Français_, Monsieur?’ ‘No, serre!’ was the reply; ‘ai em en

Henglieshmen’ (I am an Englishman). ‘Why,’ I continued, ‘how do you make

that out? You look like a Frenchman, and you speak like one.’ ‘I am an

Englishman, because I got an English wife,’ replied he, with the same

accent. Without further investigation of the matter, we agreed, over our

breakfast, to ride together to Pittsburg. He showed himself more and

more of an oddity, but at last admitted that he was a born Frenchman,

from La Rochelle, had been brought to Louisiana when a child, had grown

up in the sea-service, but had gradually become a real American. ‘Well,’

said I, ‘but how do you reconcile that with your quality of an

Englishman?’ To which he replied, in French at last: ‘_Au bout du

compte, je suis un peu cosmopolite; j’appartiens à tous les pays._’”

When we mention that all the dialogue in the above extract, with the

exception of one sentence, is, in the original, in the same languages in

which we here give it, and that such polyglot passages are of constant

occurrence throughout these volumes, it becomes evident that Mr Nolte

will sorely puzzle and tantalise such of his German readers as are

unacquainted with French, and with that composite Anglo-Saxon tongue for

which the learned German has declared his preference over all other

modern languages. The eccentric traveller was Audubon, the famous

ornithologist, who was also bound for New Orleans. On reaching

Pittsburg, no means of conveyance offered except Mr Nolte’s boat, and as

he had by this time discovered that the naturalist was not only an

accomplished draughtsman, but a good and amiable man, he offered him a

cot in his little cabin, a service which Audubon afterwards thankfully

recorded and acknowledged in the third volume of the text to his great

work on “American Ornithology.” Mr Nolte knew nothing of the object of

his guest’s journey until they reached Limestone, a small place in the

north-western corner of Ohio State. There they landed their horses,

intending to visit Lexington, and thence proceed to Louisville, where

Audubon expected to find his wife—the daughter of an Englishman named

Bakewell. “At Limestone,” says Mr Nolte, “we had hardly finished our

breakfast, when Audubon suddenly sprang up. ‘Now, then,’ he cried to me,

in French, ‘I must begin to lay the foundations of my establishment!’

Thereupon he took from his pocket a parcel of address-cards, a hammer,

and some small nails, and began nailing one of the cards upon the door

of the little tavern. It contained the words:

AUDUBON & BAKEWELL,

COMMISSION MERCHANTS.

PORK, LARD, AND FLOUR.

NEW ORLEANS.

So, said I to myself, you have found a rival before reaching your

journey’s end. But I felt little inclination to deal in the flesh of

swine, or apprehensive of very formidable opposition from my new

acquaintance. We rode on to Lexington, chief town of Kentucky, a

flourishing place, where I heard much talk of a certain highly-gifted

lawyer, who, during the elections for Congress, had distinguished

himself by his pugilistic prowess in the streets and taverns. This man,

who soon afterwards became more and more celebrated, was Henry Clay,

whose exterior was no way calculated to give a high idea of his

intellectual qualities, but who had already acquired great fame as an

orator.

“A horrible custom was at that time almost universal amongst the

inhabitants (for the most part rough and brutal people) of the Western

States. It was that of allowing the finger-nails to grow until they

could be cut into the shape of small sickles, which were used, in the

quarrels and fights that continually occurred, to scoop out the eyes of

an opponent. This barbarous art was called gouging. During our ride

through Kentucky, we saw several persons who wanted an eye, and others

who had lost both. The excitement then prevalent in the United States on

account of the misunderstanding with England, was much greater in the

western provinces than on the seaboard, and the feeling of irritation in

the former was very considerable. Passing through Frankfort on my way to

Louisville, I learned that the Kentucky State Legislature was just then

sitting, and I determined to witness its proceedings, in order to

compare it with the Territorial Legislature of Louisiana, which was

composed of the strangest mixture of born Americans, and of French and

Spanish creoles. Hardly had I entered the hall, when I heard a very

animated orator indulging in a violent diatribe against England. ‘We

must have war with Great Britain,’ he said. ‘War will ruin her commerce!

Commerce is the apple of Britain’s eye—there we must _gouge_ her!’ This

flower of rhetoric was prodigiously applauded, and I could not deny that

for a Kentucky audience it must have a certain poetical charm.”

Thus, sketching by the way a state of society which a lapse of forty

years has fortunately greatly altered for the better, Mr Nolte reached

Louisville. The Ohio had been for some days frozen, and his boats, with

his friend and partner, Hollander, were fast bound in the ice some

distance higher up the stream. “Three days afterwards, just as we sat

down to dinner, the whole house was violently shaken; glasses, plates,

and bottles fell from the table—most of the guests sprang up, with the

cry: ‘There is the earthquake, by jingo! There is no humbug about it!’

and ran out into the street. The commotion was soon over, and people

returned to their houses. Early next morning I learned that the shock

had broken up the ice on the river, and that several boats had come down

to Shippingport, a little town about a league off.” Among them were

Nolte’s craft, and he continued his journey, presently quitting the

clear transparent stream of the Ohio, and entering the slimy waters of

the Mississippi. In voyages of that kind it was customary to bring-to at

nightfall, and make fast the boats to the shore until next morning,

snags and sawyers rendering progress unsafe during the darkness. On the

evening of the 6th February 1812, the halting-place was hard by the

little town of New Madrid. About twenty boats, which had left

Shippingport together, were there assembled. “It was a bright moonlight

night,” says Mr Nolte; “at eleven o’clock my partner, Hollander, had

gone to bed, and I was sitting at a little table drawing a caricature of

President Madison—who had just published a flaming proclamation, calling

upon the nation to ‘put on armour and warlike attitude,’ but who was

said to be himself completely under petticoat government—when a terrible

report, like the sudden roar of cannon, echoed without, immediately

succeeded by innumerable flashes. The Mississippi foamed up like the

boiling water in a kettle, and then again receded with a rushing sound;

the trees of a little wood near to which we had moored our boats,

cracked, broke, and were overthrown. The terrible spectacle lasted for

several minutes: there seemed no end to the vivid lightning, to the

alternate rise and fall of the troubled water, and to the crash of

falling trees. Hollander, startled from his sleep, called out, ‘What is

that, Nolte?’ I could only tell him that I myself did not know, but took

it for an earthquake. I went on deck. What a sight! The river, which had

resumed its ordinary course, was covered with floating trees and

branches, borne rapidly along by the current. Of the town, only a few

very distant lights were to be seen. It was a real chaos. Our little

crew consisted of three sailors, whom want of employment, in consequence

of the embargo, had driven to Pittsburg, and of a river-pilot. They told

me that the other boats had all cut loose from the shore and floated on,

and asked me if we should not do the same. It struck me that if, under

ordinary circumstances, it was unsafe to proceed by night, it must be

doubly dangerous now that the river was covered with floating trees. And

so we remained where we were. The rising sun showed us the unfortunate

city of New Madrid more than three parts destroyed, and flooded, with

here and there one of the wretched inhabitants making his way out of the

ruins. Our boats were in the centre of a sort of island formed by

falling trees, and several hours passed before we could extricate

ourselves. At Natchez, which we reached on the thirty-second day, and

where we remained a week, we heard full particulars of the earthquake,

but we saw nothing of any of the boats that had surrounded us on the

evening of the 6th February. At New Orleans, the only sign perceived of

the commotion was a swinging to and fro of the chandeliers in the

ball-room, and the sickness and fainting of a great number of ladies.

This remarkable earthquake commenced in the north-west of Missouri

state, was felt more or less throughout Louisiana, and extended through

the Gulf of Mexico to Caraccas, where it played great havoc, destroying

nearly the whole city, and swallowing up or reducing to poverty forty

thousand persons. Nothing more was ever heard of the boats, and if we

had not remained stationary we should doubtless have shared their fate.”

After five years’ absence, Mr Nolte found New Orleans greatly increased

in size, but very little improved with respect to the character of its

inhabitants, who had added to their former bad qualities a taste for

lawsuits and chicanery, introduced amongst them by an immigration of

greedy advocates from the Northern States. Mr Nolte—who, as somebody

said of him, many years later, when he was an inmate of the Queen’s

Bench at the suit of the litigious and crack-brained ex-duke of

Brunswick, was all his life the plaything of misfortune, and whose best

concerted and most prudent plans were invariably marred by some

unforeseen incident or disaster—had no sooner taken and furnished a

house in the chief city of Louisiana than news came from Washington of

war having been declared against England—a crushing blow to our poor

adventurer’s well-founded hopes of extensive and profitable transactions

with the great European houses who wished him well and favoured his

enterprise. There was no help for it; he could but cross his hands and

pray for peace. The Mississippi was blockaded by British men-of-war. The

state of things at New Orleans resembled the intolerable monotony and

inactivity of a calm at sea, with the difference that the latter can

last but a few days or weeks, whilst the former might endure for years.

The only incidents that varied the monotony of life at New Orleans

during that war were of an unpleasant nature. In August 1812, a

frightful hurricane drove on shore eighteen of the ships in harbour, and

unroofed nearly the whole city. A few months later, Mr Nolte broke his

right arm at the elbow by a fall from his horse, and the limb ever

afterwards remained stiff and crooked. Party-spirit ran high; private

scandal, quarrels, and duels, were resorted to by the restless and

disreputable citizens of New Orleans as a refuge from ennui. This

portion of Mr Nolte’s book abounds in curious details. “The whole

neighbouring coast was kept in a state of alarm by the piracies of the

brothers Laffitte from Bayonne, by Jauvinet, Beluche, Dominique, Gamba,

and others, who might be seen promenading the streets of New Orleans in

broad daylight, and wholly unmolested. They had their friends and

connections and warehouses in the city, and sold, almost openly, their

stolen goods, especially English manufactures. But the slave trade was

their great resource. They captured Spanish and other slavers on the

high seas, and took them to their chief depôt, the little island of

Barataria on the coast near New Orleans, whither the planters, chiefly

of French extraction, went to purchase the slaves—for one hundred and

fifty or two hundred dollars, instead of six hundred or seven hundred,

which they would have paid in the market—and conveyed them to their

plantations, up the numerous _bayous_ or creeks intersecting that

district. And as the pirates would be paid in hard dollars, specie soon

began to be rare in the city.” Brought into contact, by certain banking

operations, with reckless and unscrupulous men, Mr Nolte managed to get

involved in a couple of duels, in which his stiff arm was of course

highly disadvantageous to him, and, with his usual good luck, he

received a bullet in his leg, which he still carries about with him. A

serious danger put a temporary end to these squabbles. An attack was

expected from the English, and General Jackson made his appearance at

New Orleans with fifteen hundred men, the most efficient amongst whom

were five hundred riflemen who had served with Jackson in the Indian

war, and were known as Coffee’s Brigade, from their commander’s name.

These were the fellows who picked off the British officers from behind

the cotton-bale barricades, of which the materials proceeded from Mr

Nolte’s stores. Trained in repeated encounters with the savages, they

were the sort of men Sealsfield has so vividly painted, totally ignorant

of military organisation and discipline, but inaccessible to fear,

perfectly cool in danger, of great presence of mind and personal

resource, and, above all, unerring marksmen. Mr Nolte, although his

stiff arm exempted him from service, did not choose to see his friends

go out to fight and himself remain behind—the less so that he was

already suspected of partiality to the English—and he joined the light

company of a battalion of militia, several of whose officers had served

under Napoleon. According to Mr Nolte’s account, Jackson, blustering,

presumptuous, and overweeningly self-confident, would have led his

militia and irregulars to certain destruction at the hands of the

well-drilled British troops, but for the advice given him by Livingston,

who acted as one of his aides-de-camp, to consult a French emigrant

major named St Gême, who had formerly been in the English service in

Jamaica, and now commanded a company in the battalion in which Mr Nolte

had enrolled himself. “This officer had been a great deal with Moreau,

when the latter, on a visit to Louisiana a few years previously, had

scanned, with the critical eye of a tactician, the position of New

Orleans and its capabilities of defence. St Gême rendered General

Jackson and the American cause the great service of making him

understand that, in the open field, the English would surround him and

his handful of inexperienced followers, who had but the name of

soldiers, would utterly rout and certainly capture them; and he pointed

out to him the M’Carthy canal as the position which Moreau had himself

fixed upon as the most defensible, especially for raw troops.” Mr Nolte,

who writes impartially, and without visible leaning either to English or

to Americans, praises Jackson for the self-command (a quality he did not

often display) with which he waived his own wishes in deference to the

opinion of the French general (he must have been mad to have disregarded

it), and abandoned plans which assuredly, if carried out, would have led

to the annihilation of his army and the capture of New Orleans.

Livingston, by whose representations he was induced to take counsel of

the French major, was a much better lawyer and statesman than warrior,

according to Mr Nolte, and showed himself but little where bullets were

flying. When the position decided upon was to be taken up and redoubts

built, the ground was found to be swampy and slimy, and the earth

unavailable for any sort of fortification, whereupon a French engineer

suggested the employment of cotton bales. The plan adopted, Jackson

would lose no time. “It was observed to him,” says unlucky Mr Nolte,

lugubriously, “that he certainly might have plenty of cotton in the city

for six or seven cents a pound, but its conveyance would cause a day’s

delay, whereas a barque, already laden with cotton, and whose departure

for the Havana had only been prevented by the arrival of the English

squadron, lay close to the shore. It had on board two hundred and

forty-five bales, which I myself had shipped just before the invasion,

and sixty others belonging to a Spaniard of New Orleans. I was

ill-pleased, when they could have had cheap cotton for six or seven

cents in the town, to see them land, from a ship all ready to sail, my

best quality, which had cost me ten or eleven cents, and I said as much

to Livingston, who was my usual legal adviser in New Orleans, and whom I

fell in with at Battery No. 3. He was never at a loss for an answer.

‘Well, Nolte,’ said he, ‘since it is your cotton, you will not mind the

trouble of defending it.’ A reply which was the foundation of the story

that, when the owner of the cotton complained of its seizure, Jackson

sent him a musket, with the message that upon no man was it so incumbent

to defend the bales as upon their owner, and that he therefore hoped he

would not abandon them.” Mr Nolte’s whole account of the operations at

New Orleans is clear and graphic, but that brief campaign has been so

often described that we are not induced to dwell at much length upon his

narrative, although it contains some passages that, proceeding from an

actor on the American side, possess particular interest. On the left

wing were the best sharpshooters of Kentucky and Tennessee, invisible in

the cypress wood, and loading their rifles with three or four buckshot

besides the bullet. Their good weapons and sure aim sent destruction

through the ranks of the English, who saw no foe, but beheld all their

officers picked off. The whole right flank of the English column was

raked by this deadly fire, whilst in front the American batteries kept

up an uninterrupted discharge. “From time to time,” says Mr Nolte, “when

the smoke blew aside, I and my company obtained a view over the

battle-field, and there we saw the whole English centre retreating,

throwing away their fascines, and a staff-officer on a black horse

gallop forward, his hat in his hand, which he angrily waved as if

threatening the flying column. Suddenly, struck by several bullets, he

fell backwards from his horse—some soldiers wrapped him hastily in

blankets and carried him off. We learned in the evening that the

staff-officer was the commander-in-chief, General Pakenham.” The fight

was soon over. As Mr Nolte justly observes, it was a butchery rather

than a battle. The Americans, completely sheltered, had but some thirty

men killed and wounded, whilst their opponents had to deplore the loss

of many hundred good soldiers, than whom none braver ever bore muskets,

but whose commander’s good fortune was, upon that occasion,

unfortunately not equal to his often-tried valour, and who, moreover,

was misled by false information.

Mr Nolte does ample justice to the coolness, energy, and resolution of

General Jackson, and shows that even the gasconades and exaggerations in

which he constantly indulged had their use, since he thereby deluded his

own people, and all the prisoners taken by the English concurred in such

formidable accounts of the forces at his disposal as could not fail to

influence the proceedings of the invaders. But after the affair of the

8th January, Jackson, prodigiously elevated by his triumph, was anxious

to assume the offensive. For the second time he was indebted to

Livingston for sound advice. “What would you have more?” said the

lawyer; “the city is saved; the English will not renew the attack.

Against troops like those, whose intrepidity amidst the most frightful

slaughter you yourself have witnessed, what is the use of exposing

yourself and your handful of men to be roughly handled, to the

diminution of your glory and at risk of valuable lives?” As in the case

of the position, the general took his aide-de-camp’s sensible advice,

and, as is not unusual, got the whole credit of adopting the only

rational course. Livingston, some of whose eulogists have made of him a

hero as well as a lawgiver, was seized, it appears from Mr Nolte’s

version of the campaign, with a bad colic on the evening of the 7th,

just after it became known that the English would attack next morning,

and retired into New Orleans, where he next day received news of the

action. An hour afterwards he was back in camp—the English and the colic

having retreated together. Another of Jackson’s volunteer aides-de-camp,

also a lawyer, was off into the city before daybreak on the 8th, without

even a pretext, and passed the morning riding about the streets,

shouting out that the foe was at hand, and calling upon all to arm and

hasten to the field—whereas all capable of bearing arms were in the

field, except a few skulkers like himself. No notice was taken of these

gentlemen’s shy behaviour, and Jackson, in his despatch, drawn up by

Livingston, thanked his military and voluntary aides-de-camp “for their

cool and deliberate bravery!”

The cotton bales used for the redoubts, and a quantity of blankets that

had been taken from Mr Nolte’s warehouse during his absence from the

city, gave rise to discussions which brought out the least favourable

side of Jackson’s character. Immediately after the embarkation of the

English, a commission was appointed to settle all claims. Mr Nolte’s was

for 750 blankets and 245 bales of cotton. The former he was allowed for

at the price of the day on which the English landed—namely, eleven

dollars a-pair; but when the order was submitted to Jackson for his

signature and ratification, he said that as the blankets had been taken

(almost forcibly) by the Tennessee riflemen, they should be paid for in

Tennessee notes—then worth 10 per cent less than New Orleans

paper-money. Mr Nolte was fain to submit to this shabby trick, worthy of

a Connecticut pedlar. As regarded his cotton he had much more trouble.

He produced the invoice, proving that he had bought it, two years

previously, at 10 cents a pound, from a well-known wealthy

cotton-grower. He claimed that price, with the addition of two years’

interest. During the whole of that time, it had never been lower than 10

to 11 cents a pound, and a few days before the landing of the English he

had bought some at 12½ cents. But when the British troops were on shore,

and close at hand, there was a panic; markets fell, the timid realised

at any price, and a small parcel of cotton of the same quality was sold

at 7 cents. When Mr Nolte’s claim was submitted to Jackson, he allowed

it, and said the cotton must be paid for at the price it would have

fetched upon the day the American troops marched out of the town. No

notice being taken of Mr Nolte’s written protest against such manifest

injustice, he went to Jackson, then in all the intoxication of his

triumph, and of the exaggerated homage paid him by his countrymen, and

very well disposed to exert the arbitrary power given him by the

military law he still quite unnecessarily maintained—a stretch of

authority for which it will be remembered that he was afterwards fined

by the civil tribunals. In reply to Mr Nolte’s representation and

remonstrance—

“‘Aren’t you very lucky,’ he asked, ‘to have saved the rest of your

cotton through my defence of the city?’

“‘Certainly, general,’ answered I, ‘as lucky as every other man in the

place, but with this difference, that it costs them nothing, and that I

have to bear all the loss.’

“‘Loss?’ cried the general, getting rather angry—‘loss? You have saved

everything!’

“I saw it was no use arguing with such an obstinate man, and remarked to

him that I only wanted compensation for my cotton, nothing more, and

that the best compensation would be to give me back the same quantity

and quality that had been taken from me; that I would appoint one

merchant, he another; they would agree as to quality, buy the cotton,

deliver it me, and he should pay for it.

“‘No, no, sir!’ replied Jackson; ‘I like straightforward business, and

that is too complicated. You must take 6 cents for your cotton. I have

nothing more to say.’

“I wanted to make the whole thing clear to him, but he cut me short:

‘Come, sir, come! Take a glass of whiskey-and-water; you must be damned

dry after all your arguing.’

“All I could do was to say: ‘Well, general, I did not expect such

injustice at your hands! Good morning, sir!’ And I went away. Three days

afterwards news came of the conclusion of peace, and the consequence was

an immediate rise of cotton to 16 cents, at which price I bought several

parcels. The committee of claims were embarrassed; they felt that it was

now impossible to fob me off with 6 cents. At last I was asked if I

would _now_ be content with payment of my invoice; and I agreed to be

so, since I must else have complained to Congress, and the affair might

have dragged on for years.”

Some pages are devoted by Mr Nolte to an appreciation of Old Hickory’s

character. He condemns his arbitrary and overbearing disposition, and

his cruelty to the unfortunate Indians, whom he so implacably and

perseveringly hunted down, but does justice to his shrewdness and other

good qualities, considering, however, that good luck had more to do than

commanding talent with the distinction and popularity he attained to in

the States—an opinion which we suspect to be now entertained by a very

large number of Jackson’s countrymen. Of the general’s tone and

manners—rough as those of a far-west woodsman—Mr Nolte gives some

humorous examples. After the action in front of New Orleans,

demonstrations innumerable were made in the hero’s honour. On his return

into the city, Mrs Livingston placed a crown of laurel upon his head,

which seemed considerably to embarrass the slayer of Seminoles, who took

it off as if it burned his brow; the ladies subscribed for a costly set

of jewels for Mrs General Jackson; and the principal inhabitants got up

a grand ball in the French Exchange. Mr Nolte, who had seen more public

festivities than most of the people of New Orleans, was a prominent and

active member of the committee.

“The upper part of the Exchange was arranged for dancing, the lower part

for supper, with flowers, coloured lamps, and transparencies. Before

supper, Jackson desired to go alone and take a view of the arrangements,

and I had to show him the way. On one of the transparencies, between the

arcades, were to be read the words: ‘Jackson and victory, they are but

one.’ The general turned round to me, in a more cordial manner than I

might have expected, and asked, ‘Why did you not say Hickory and

victory, they are but one?’ After supper the hero of the day gave us the

diverting spectacle of a _pas de deux_ between him and his wife—an Irish

emigrant of low origin and considerable corpulence, whom he had taken

away from a planter in Georgia. To see those two, the general a long

lean man with skeleton-like limbs, and his wife, a short thick specimen

of the female figure, dancing opposite to each other like half-drunken

Indians, to the wild tune of ‘Opossum up a gum tree,’ was truly one of

those remarkable spectacles which would be sought in vain in any

European ballet.”

During the second year of the war between England and the States, a fine

West Indiaman of 900 tons burthen, the “Lord Nelson,” was captured by

the Yankee privateer Saratoga, taken into New Orleans, and sold by

auction for a fourth of its value. Mr Nolte was the purchaser. Now that

the war was over, he loaded her with cotton and deerskins, altered her

name to the “Horatio,” and sailed for Nantes, with several passengers on

board. The ship was but just outside the mouths of the Mississippi, when

she spoke a vessel that had made an unusually short voyage from Havre,

and brought news of Napoleon’s landing at Cannes, rapid march through

France, and reinstallation in the Tuileries. Two Frenchmen, who were

amongst the passengers, and one of whom had served under the emperor,

were overjoyed. Presently it was discovered that the “Horatio” had not

enough ballast for her two thousand bales of cotton, and she put into

the Havana to supply the deficiency, thus somewhat lengthening her

voyage. Off the Scilly Islands she spoke the monthly packet from London

to New York. After the interchange of a little nautical information:

“What news from France?” roared Mr Nolte’s captain through his

speaking-trumpet. “The Duke of Wellington and the British army are in

Paris,” was the reply. “Where is Buonaparte?” “Fled—nobody knows where.”

And the two ships pursued their respective courses. The French

passengers would not believe a word of it. It was English news, they

said, manufactured in London; and they proved to each other, as clear as

sunlight, that it was physically and morally impossible the intelligence

should be true. It took the testimony of a French pilot, and the sight

of the white flag on the banks of the Loire, to convince them that

Napoleon had again fallen. The French population of New Orleans went yet

farther in their incredulity. The Buonapartist _Courrier de la

Louisiane_ analysed the news, and ingeniously proved that the pretended

victory of the Allies was merely a mask for a total defeat; that the

emperor had achieved one of his great triumphs, which should forthwith

be celebrated. And accordingly Napoleon’s bust, crowned with laurels,

was that evening carried in procession, by the light of hundreds of

torches, with several bands of music playing French national

airs;—premature rejoicings, which the confirmation of the defeat of the

French converted into profound consternation.

Paris, whither Mr Nolte hastened as soon as possible after landing, was

full of novelty and excitement, and the focus on which the eyes of

Europe were fixed. He devotes an interesting chapter to sketches of

“Paris after Waterloo.” Amongst the crowds of foreign uniforms were here

and there to be seen, he says, “spectral figures, in long blue coats

buttoned to the chin, spurred boots, and hats pressed down over their

eyes. These men, who cast such gloomy glances around them, were the

officers of the disbanded French army. The ribbon of the Legion of

Honour had disappeared from their button-hole, but it was easy to

recognise them by their flashing eyes and fierce expression when an

English uniform drew near. An accidental push or touch on the foot,

often unavoidable in a crowd, and they would burst out, in great

bitterness, with an angry—‘_Je suis Français, Monsieur!_’ or, ‘_No,

Padrone, questa e l’uniforme di Amburgo!_’ and if the ‘_Pardon,

Monsieur!_’ was not forthcoming, a quarrel was the almost inevitable

result. The police had the difficult task of keeping these remnants of

the French army out of Paris, but they were not very successful in so

doing. Notwithstanding the violent irritation of the French military,

which was kept under only by the strong hand, nobody in Paris went

amongst them more fearlessly than the Duke of Wellington, who showed

himself everywhere in a plain blue frock, with the English red scarf

round his waist, and a simple red and white feather in his cocked hat,

and usually rode about alone, followed only by a sergeant. Thus plainly

equipped and slenderly escorted, I saw him one morning ride into the

court of the Hotel de l’Empire, and ask for the celebrated London banker

Angerstein, who was stopping there.” Ney’s death, the restaurants and

coffeehouses then in vogue, and which were thronged with English and

Prussian officers, and grand reviews of the allied troops, are in turn

glanced at. At the review of the Russian guard, drawn up along the whole

length of the boulevards, Mr Nolte had a particularly good view of the

sovereigns. By favour of a colonel, with whom he had fallen into

conversation, he was allowed to remain within the line cleared by the

sentries, and close to the colonel’s horse. “Suddenly the three monarchs

came riding rapidly up, the Emperor Alexander in the middle, his eyes

directed to the ladies in the balconies and at the windows—on his right

the Emperor Francis, with a serious straightforward gaze—on his left

King Frederick-William III., who seemed to be examining the grisettes in

the crowd rather than the ladies at the windows. The staff, according to

the estimate of my obliging colonel, comprised more than a thousand

military men of all nations. As good luck would have it, the sovereigns

and their whole retinue paused in front of the regiment on my right, and

the colonel pointed out to me the Russian grand-dukes, the Austrian

archdukes, several Prussian princes, Wellington, Schwarzenberg, Blucher,

Platoff,” &c. &c. Of all the commanders then assembled in Paris, the

most dissatisfied was the American general, Scott (since noted for his

campaign in Mexico), who had been opposed to the English on the Canadian

frontier, had taken a fort or two, and was looked upon by his countrymen

as a military star of the very first magnitude—second only to Jackson,

and equal to any other warrior then extant. He had been sent to Europe

to increase his military knowledge and study the art of war, and reached

Paris fully convinced that all the great chiefs of the Continental

armies would hasten to greet and compliment him. “To his visible

vexation, he found himself completely mistaken. In the great military

meetings in the French capital, where Wellington, Blucher,

Schwarzenberg, Kutusoff, Woronzoff, and a host of other celebrities,

laden with stars and orders, were assembled—the long thin man, in his

blue coat without embroidery, and with only a pair of moderate-sized

epaulets, excited no attention. Scott could not get over the contrast

between the figure he had so recently cut in his native land, and the

insignificance he was condemned to in France, and he often exhibited

bitter and somewhat laughable ill-humour.” After a visit to the field of

Waterloo, Mr Nolte returns to America, on cotton speculations intent—of

which, and of Baring Brothers, he for some time discourses, until we are

not sorry to see the theme changed, and him back in Paris, passing a

Sunday at the country-house of _Maison sur Seine_, built by Louis XIV.,

and then just purchased from the French government by the banker Jacques

Laffitte, whom he found in his park, accompanied by two plainly-dressed

and plain-mannered Englishmen, who talked knowingly about cotton, and

whom he took for Manchester cotton-spinners. At dinner, to his surprise,

although Casimir Perrier and several deputies and Frenchmen of mark were

present, the places of honour were for the Englishmen. He made up his

mind that they must be very great people in the cotton-spinning

line—perhaps the first in Manchester—and that they must have large

credits on Laffitte’s house—that giving, not unfrequently, the measure

of the hospitality of Parisian bankers. Laffitte, who was a great

talker—given to discourse for hours together, with scarcely a break, and

with innumerable digressions totally irrelevant to the subject under

discussion—was loquacious as usual, and related many things that had

occurred during the Hundred Days. At that time Napoleon had sent for and

consulted him almost daily. Laffitte said that he had never been a

worshipper of Napoleon’s, but he then had opportunity of convincing

himself that the emperor possessed, in the highest degree, the art of

popularity. “‘He was very confidential with me,’ said Laffitte, ‘spoke

without reserve, and once made a striking remark concerning our nation.

“To govern the French,” he said, “one must have arms of iron and gloves

of velvet.”’ My readers may probably have heard this remark, but not the

reply immediately made by Madame Laffitte’s right-hand neighbour (one of

the Manchester cotton-spinners aforesaid). ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that is very

true, but—he often forgot to put on his gloves.’ The remark was so apt

and true that all present laughed heartily. I asked my next neighbour

who the witty foreigner was, and learned that it was the Marquis of

Lansdowne.”

Involved in the commercial disasters of 1825–6, Mr Nolte left New

Orleans, sixteen years after his first establishment there, and went to

seek in Europe that fortune which had constantly eluded his grasp in the

States. His success in the Old World was little better than in the New.

In after years, he again more than once visited America, and engaged in

enormous cotton speculations, in which he burnt his fingers. Cotton

seems to have had for him the same irresistible attraction that dice

have for the veteran gambler. Although many of his misfortunes were the

result of circumstances neither to be foreseen nor guarded against, and

although we may suppose that he makes out the best case he fairly can,

the impression left by his book upon the reader’s mind is, that Mr

Vincent Nolte has been, to say the least, a very venturesome person, and

that his abilities and opportunities would have amply sufficed to insure

him ultimate affluence, had he been less impatient to acquire a large

and rapid fortune. On the other hand, he deserves credit for his

unflinching pluck, and for his elasticity under misfortune. When he left

New Orleans, he attempted to form a partnership at Havre, but in vain;

and he himself frankly admits that he was unsuccessful, because the

merchants with whom he would have associated himself were deterred by

his reputed taste for the vast and daring operations in which he had

been early initiated. The slow but sure gains of the steady trader he

never had patience to collect; the ordinary routine of commercial

affairs was to him wearisome and intolerable; he carried into the

peaceful paths of trade something of that venturesome and aspiring

spirit which, upon the battle-field, insures the soldier high

distinction or sudden death—a bullet or a marshal’s baton. We regret to

fear that it has led Mr Nolte, after his long and busy life, to no very

prosperous position; although he seems to preserve to the last the

spirit and vigour that have borne him through so many trying

vicissitudes. At the time now referred to, he was still in his prime,

and full of hope and confidence. From Havre he betook himself to his

favourite city of Paris, where, by the assistance and introduction of

his staunch friends the Barings, he was on the eve of concluding a

partnership for the establishment of a house at Marseilles. The

circulars were printed; Mr Nolte took a run to Hamburg, Holland, and

England, to visit commercial friends, and everywhere he met a kind and

encouraging reception. He reached Southampton, on his return to Paris,

two hours after the departure of the packet, and, with characteristic

impatience, rather than wait two days, hired an open boat, whose owner

undertook to land him at Havre early the next morning. It was a

moonlight night, and a fair wind at starting, but he was becalmed in the

Channel, and lay a whole day roasting in the sun. Upon the morning of

the 26th July 1830, he landed at Havre, and posted on to Paris. At Rouen

he remarked signs of uneasiness, and the troops were under arms; at

Courbevoie he received the first news of the fatal ordinances; outside

the Paris barrier, a few persons stopped his chaise, and tore the white

cockade from the postilion’s hat. Paris was enacting the most peaceful

and respectable of its numerous revolutions.

Mr Nolte witnessed the proceedings of the three days of July, and betook

himself to Marseilles, where he had scarcely commenced business when the

failure of the Irish-French bankers who were to advance the greater part

of the capital on behalf of his partner compelled him again to abandon

it, and once more to return to Paris. He had been on very intimate terms

with General Lafayette during that veteran revolutionist’s visit to the

United States in 1825, had travelled with him, acted as his banker,

rendered him some service, and shown him many attentions; for which he

deemed himself far more than compensated by the privilege of the

general’s society, and by the interest of his conversation. Alone with

him, in the cabin of the American steamer which the authorities of New

Orleans had allotted to the use of Washington’s old friend and comrade,

Lafayette spoke freely of his past life and present opinions, and Mr

Nolte was astonished by the revelation of plans which he would never

have suspected to have lingered in that venerable head—so soon, in all

probability, to be laid in the grave. The man who, at least as well as

any living, had had opportunities of judging the Bourbon

character—before and since the day when, upon the balcony at Versailles,

he kissed, in sign of peace and good understanding, the hand of the

defamed and martyred Marie Antoinette, amidst the acclamations of

assembled thousands, whose discontent the symbol and the promised return

of the royal family to Paris promptly, although but temporarily,

appeased—declared his conviction of its unworthiness. For the good of

France, in his opinion, she must expel the race of whom Talleyrand so

truly said, that they had forgotten nothing, and learned nothing.

“‘France cannot be happy under the Bourbons,’ said Lafayette, ‘and we

must get rid of them. It would be already done, had Laffitte chosen.’

“‘Indeed!’ I exclaimed; ‘how so?’

“‘It is not so long ago,’ continued the general, ‘that you will have

forgotten how two of the regiments of guards that were ordered to Spain

under the command of the Duke of Angoulême, halted in Toulouse, and

showed signs of raising the banner of revolt. The affair was quickly

suppressed, and kept as quiet as possible. But the plan was ripe! I knew

that from my private correspondence with several officers, and nothing

but money was wanting for a successful insurrection then to have

occurred. I addressed myself to Laffitte; he had scruples; he would and

he would not. At last I offered to carry the thing through without his

participation. On the first occasion when we are alone together—I said

to him—but as soon as possible, lay a million of francs in bank-notes

upon the chimney-piece—I will put them in my pocket without your

perceiving it. The rest you may leave to me! Laffitte hesitated, was

undecided, and at last declared he would have nothing whatever to do

with the affair. And so the whole project fell through!’

“I could not conceal my surprise. ‘Had I heard what you have just told

me from any other lips than yours, general,’ I said, ‘I would not have

believed a word of it.’ The general merely replied, ‘_C’etait pourtant

ainsi._’”

In 1830 Lafayette’s desire was fulfilled—not to its full extent, for he

wished the Bourbons to be replaced by a republic, partly because he

believed that form of government the best suited to render France happy

and prosperous, and partly because it would have best enabled him to

gratify his unbounded greed of popularity. But the Bourbons had fled,

and France had a citizen king and a national guard. Arms were required

for the latter, and Mr Nolte thought that their supply would be a

profitable business—quite in his way, because there was much money to be

made in a short time. Lafayette, besides being commander-in-chief of the

national guard, was the intimate friend of Gerard, Louis Philippe’s

first minister of war, in whose department the matter lay, and who was

desirous of making contracts for the supply of muskets. Mr Nolte betook

himself to Lafayette, who received him most cordially (embracing him, to

the infinite astonishment of his aide-de-camp, who had taken Nolte for

an Englishman), and gave him the strongest recommendation to Gerard; the

result of which was, that he obtained extensive contracts for the supply

not only of muskets, but of the _briquets_ or short Roman swords which

Soult, who succeeded Gerard at the war-office, introduced into the army,

and by which the mercenary old marshal—so his enemies affirmed, and

thousands to this day believe—himself pocketed no inconsiderable sum. Be

this true or not—and Soult’s proved rapacity at many previous periods of

his life gave but too much probability to the accusation—Mr Nolte had

occasion, whilst carrying out his contracts, which extended over a

considerable time, to note several instances of that venality of French

officials which rose to such a height under Louis Philippe’s reign as at

last to extend to his very ministers, and to constitute one of the

prominent causes of his dethronement. As early as 1831, Mr Nolte assures

us, itching palms were plenty in France, and that amongst personages of

no humble rank. But as far as military men were concerned, this was a

mere continuation of the traditions and usages of the Empire—that period

of unrefined sensuality and reckless extravagance, during which

Napoleon’s subalterns, following their leader’s unscrupulous example,

filled their pockets whenever and wherever they could, without much

regard to the delicacy of the means employed. Amongst the anecdotes

illustrative of this state of corruption to be found in Mr Nolte’s

Reminiscences, is one of a certain general officer, not named, whom he

thought it advisable to propitiate by a present. In this case, as in all

others of the kind in which he had to deal with men of good breeding and

position, the puzzle was how to administer the _douceur_ so that it

might be taken without embarrassment. Mrs Nolte, to whom her husband

communicated his difficulty, undertook to ascertain, through her

acquaintances, the tastes and partialities of the high functionary in

question. She discovered that he was very fond of snuff-boxes.

“This ascertained,” says Mr Nolte, “I chose a very handsome box, and

placed a bank-note in it, in such a manner that on opening the box the

amount, 1000 francs, must immediately catch the eye. Then I took the

first opportunity that presented itself, when my friend had recourse to

his own box for a pinch, to produce mine, as if for the same purpose. It

immediately attracted his attention. ‘That snuff-box is really in

excellent taste!’ he exclaimed. ‘Since it pleases you, general,’ I

replied, ‘oblige me by accepting it as a keepsake!’ He thanked me, took

the box, and at once opened it. I did not long remain in doubt as to the

manner in which my present would be received. ‘Aha!’ he cried, ‘but it

is right you should know that I am a great snuff-taker. A double pinch

never does any harm, my dear sir!’ and so saying, he pocketed the box.

The hint sufficed. On my return home, I enclosed a second thousand-franc

note, with my card, in an envelope, and sent it to him.”

Another officer of rank, a colonel of artillery, who had served under

Napoleon, and was then in command of the arsenal at Havre, made some

difficulty about receiving a much larger sum, offered him by Mr Nolte in

acknowledgment of important and gratuitous services, most kindly

rendered. He ended by pocketing the affront, when it was sent by Mr

Nolte under cover to his confidential servant, and probably, as an old

soldier of the Empire, he thought it quite equitable and honourable that

he should have his slice of the contractor’s gain. But he afterwards

made a most generous use of a portion of the sum. Poor Nolte, after

toiling hard for three years, during which time he delivered arms to the

amount of nearly eight millions of francs, fell amongst thieves, as too

often happened to him, and was swindled out of all his earnings. Some

time afterwards, when he was absent from Paris in pursuit of fresh

schemes, Colonel Lefrançois happened to hear that his wife was in

embarrassed circumstances, and immediately called upon her. “My dear

Madam,” he said, “I have received a great deal of money from your

husband, much more than I had any claim to—I have spent and squandered

the greater part of it, as one is wont to do with windfalls of that

kind. But now that you need it, it is my duty to return you what

remains. Here it is—do me the favour to accept it. You, your husband,

and your little family, will always be dear to me.” This trait contrasts

pleasingly with the numerous others, of a very contrary nature, to be

found in the record of Mr Nolte’s Parisian experiences and transactions.

These were of a nature to bring him into unavoidable—but, to him, in no

way discreditable—connection with various equivocal characters. Some of

his contracts were for secondhand muskets, which he employed agents to

seek in the brokers’ shops of Paris. Many of these agents were

recommended to him by the subordinate officials of the war-office.

Others he fell in with casually. Thus, in the month of December 1831, a

down-looking man, of unprepossessing exterior, accosted him on the

stairs of the artillery depot, in the Rue de Luxembourg, and offered his

services for the purchase of old muskets. Mr Nolte briefly replied, that

if he knew of a parcel of such weapons for sale, he would send to look

at them, and would buy them if price and quality suited. Accordingly,

several small parcels of arms were purchased of this man, whose name was

Darmenon, and whose flighty, uncertain manner always displeased Mr

Nolte, and made him think he must have done something that would not

bear daylight. On inquiry of the police, he learned that he was a

forger, who had served his time at the galleys. He could not, however,

on this account, make up his mind to refuse the unfortunate fellow’s

services, and so, perhaps, drive him again to crime, so he continued to

employ him, and Darmenon made himself very useful, and, moreover, gave

him constant information of the plans and movements of the malcontents

of the Faubourg St Antoine. Through him and other agents, Mr Nolte was

kept informed of the number of muskets daily brought into Paris, the

persons to whom they were delivered, and various other particulars. It

was rare that more than 100 or 120 came in at a time. One morning,

however, Darmenon informed his employer that 2600 had been brought in at

an early hour through the barrier of St Denis, and had been taken to the

faubourg of the same name. On reporting this at the ministry of war, Mr

Nolte received directions to purchase the whole lot immediately on

government account, and regardless of price. The purchase was effected,

but not without some competition, which he thought unlikely to proceed

from a merely mercantile motive, and on setting his agents to work, he

found that his competitors were the Legitimists, who had been very busy

for some time past. He became convinced, from this and other information

that reached him, that there was a plot in existence against Louis

Philippe, and he desired Darmenon to keep a sharp look-out, and inform

him of whatever came to his knowledge. The occupation seemed to the

taste of the ex-galley-slave, who reported, on the morning of the 1st

February, that several Carlist emissaries were at work in the Faubourg

St Antoine, that towards noon there would probably be a gathering of

workmen, who would raise the banner of Henry V., and that at ten o’clock

at night the conspirators would leave the house, No. 18 Rue des

Prouvaires, force their way into the Tuileries, where there was to be a

ball that evening, surround Louis Philippe, lead him away, and put him

to death. The conspirators, with whom Darmenon confessed himself to have

been long in the habit of intercourse, had offered him 6000 francs for

200 muskets, and had paid him 2000 francs in advance. These

circumstantial details, and the sight of the notes, convincing Mr Nolte

of the truth of the story, he jumped into his cab and drove to the

prefecture of police, then presided over by the notorious Gisquet. On

his way he called at the Bourse. There had been a sudden fall of 1½ per

cent, owing to alarming rumours and to heavy sales by the Carlists.

Gisquet, with whom Mr Nolte was acquainted, discredited, or affected to

discredit, the whole affair, but noted a few particulars, and politely

thanked his informant for the needless trouble he had given himself.

But, before seven o’clock that evening, Darmenon had the whole 6000

francs in his possession. The 200 muskets were to be sent for before ten

o’clock. Mr Nolte again hurried to Gisquet, and asked if he should

deliver them. “Yes,” was the reply; “a few at a time; I will have them

followed.” Mr Nolte gave the needful instructions, and was informed, the

next morning, by his storekeeper, that Darmenon had had seventeen

muskets delivered to him, and had been forthwith arrested. The Paris

papers of the 2d February announced that the police, with Mr Carlier

(then chief of the municipal guard, since prefect of police under the

Republic) at their head, had forced their way into the house, No. 18 Rue

des Prouvaires, at 11 o’clock on the previous night, and, after some

resistance, had captured the whole band of conspirators there assembled.

From the evidence on the trial, it appeared that Gisquet, incredulous to

the eleventh hour, was even then undecided what to do. He feared the

attack of the opposition press, ever ready to accuse the police of

fabricating the plots they discovered. Carlier at last put an end to his

perplexity, by violently exclaiming, “They are armed; we are of superior

force; we must enter the house and use our weapons!” An hour later this

was done; a municipal guard was killed, and Carlier himself received a

slight bullet-wound on the head.

When Marshal Soult, Mr Nolte tells us, learned that it was one of his

contractors who had led the way to the discovery of the plot, he was

displeased that he had not been first informed of it, instead of the

prefect of police. He was jealous of Thiers, then minister of the

interior, who, on his part, bore him no love. Soult would not have been

sorry to expose the inefficiency of his colleague’s police; Thiers,

owing to the course adopted by Mr Nolte, was enabled to make a boast of

its vigilance. All the merit of the affair was attributed to Gisquet,

who was promoted to the rank of officer of the Legion of Honour. And

when that worthy, after he was dismissed for his venality and scandalous

immorality, wrote his memoirs and attempted justification, he ascribed

the discovery of the plot of the Rue des Prouvaires entirely to his own

activity and zeal, and made no mention whatever of Mr Nolte.

A chapter of amusing gossip, headed “Reminiscences of the Artistic World

of Paris,” tempts us to linger, but the length to which this paper has

already extended admonishes us to pause. We conclude by extracting a

short anecdote, which we do not remember to have before heard, of that

eccentric genius, Horace Vernet. It was some time before the capture of

the Smala, his picture of which added so greatly to his reputation.

Vernet was in Marshal Bugeaud’s camp, where all the soldiers knew of his

presence, and one of them, who had promised to send his portrait to his

mother, went to him and asked him if he would undertake the work, and at

what price. Vernet’s reply was that he could not do it for less than a

twenty-franc piece. The soldier thought this rather a high figure, but

agreed to pay it, provided the likeness was perfect. This the painter

promised that it should be, and accordingly, when the picture was done,

it was exhibited in the camp, and the striking resemblance was

proclaimed by all the comrades of the original. Thereupon the soldier

paid the stipulated price, which Vernet quietly pocketed, observing that

an artist must live by the price of his work. On leaving the camp, two

days afterwards, he sent twenty napoleons to the captain of the

soldier’s company, for distribution to him and his brave comrades.

Seldom, either in print or in the flesh, have we fallen in with so

restless, versatile, and excursive a genius as Vincent Nolte, Esq., of

Europe and America—no more limited address will sufficiently express his

cosmopolitan domicile. The reader will perhaps imagine, after the

perusal of this tolerably desultory paper, that we have traced a

considerable portion of his journey through life. No idea was ever more

erroneous. We have only picked a little here and there, and have taken

scarcely any notice of the parts the author doubtless considers the most

important in his book, and which will certainly be read with strong

interest by bankers and merchants old enough to remember the mercantile

history of the first quarter of the present century. It is chiefly to

those intimate and personal commercial details that we attribute the

uncommon success Mr Nolte’s autobiography has had in its place of

publication, and in Germany generally. Independently of those, it

contains matter of interest and entertainment for all classes of

readers.

A SPORTING SETTLER IN CEYLON.[12]

One of the most striking features of the present age, with reference to

our own country, is to be found in that wonderful chain of steam

communication, which within the last few years we have seen gradually

linking together the British dominions, and which must girdle the globe

before it completely connects every portion of our vast empire. But if

it is a subject of national pride that our possessions are scattered so

widely over the face of the earth, the universal ignorance which

prevails respecting them in the mother country only becomes the more

incomprehensible and deeply to be deplored. Moreover, the comparatively

small amount of intelligence which has been brought to bear upon the

subject has been most partially and improperly distributed. The

_colonies_ of Great Britain have engrossed all the sympathies of the

home public. The _dependencies_ are utterly neglected, or, which comes

to much the same thing, consigned unreservedly to the tender mercies of

the Colonial Office.

However much may be regretted this marked preference in favour of the

colony, it is easily accounted for. An inviting and almost totally

uninhabited country of vast extent and genial climate, possessing a

fertile soil, and sources of unknown wealth, tempts a certain class of

the home community to quit for ever their native shores and risk their

fortunes in those distant lands, which henceforward possess an interest

in the eyes of those they have left behind, and create in them the

spirit of inquiry and enterprise. In the case of the dependency, no such

inducement exists. A tropical climate is a bugbear utterly appalling to

the intending emigrant. He shudders at the bare idea of passing the rest

of his existence in a temperature of 90°, exposed to the attacks of

cholera, fever, natives, and snakes. He has heard of fortunes having

been made in India, but he has never heard of children having been

brought up there, and so having failed in the attempt to get a

writership for his son, he pities the lot of those who are more

successful, does not bestow a second thought upon that continent to

which his country owes, in a great measure, her prosperity, and betakes

himself, with his wife and family, to the backwoods of Canada.

And if India is treated with such indifference, what must be the fate of

that large pear-shaped island at its southern extremity, perhaps more

easily recognised by the well educated as Taprobane than as Ceylon. To

be sure, Trincomalee (the white man’s grave) is a name familiar to their

ears, but the existence of Colombo, a city containing 60,000

inhabitants, and the seat of government, is altogether ignored, just as

the Cingalese themselves seldom hear of England, or are accustomed to

think of it only as the capital of London. The absence of any recent

popular work upon Ceylon may in some measure account for, while it

cannot quite excuse, this ignorance. And we should certainly deeply

commiserate any one who, in a moment of infatuation, attempted to

acquire his information from the work of Sir Emerson Tenant, which was

published about two years ago, entitled _Christianity in Ceylon_. Those

who are really interested in the subject of Christianity will find it

treated of there in a cold, unsympathising manner, calculated rather to

repel than to attract them. Indeed, the unfavourable reception which

this book has already met with, proves that the general public, but too

little mindful of Christianity at home, care as little for its

development in Ceylon as did Sir Emerson himself during his late

administration as Colonial Secretary of the island. Mr Baker has

evidently a much better appreciation of the popular taste, when, instead

of “Christianity,” he gives us “The Rifle and the Hound” in Ceylon; and

we entertain no doubt that the result will prove this satisfactorily

alike to himself and to his publishers.

We have, indeed, seldom perused a work with a keener relish than the one

we have just laid down. Our author has shown in it that he can wield his

pen as ably as he can handle his rifle, and in his exciting description

of wild sports in Ceylon, he gives the public a “view halloo” of the

game he is in sight of there, that must stir within him the soul of

every true sportsman. But the interest of Mr Baker’s book does not

consist so much in the telling and graphic manner in which he relates

his own adventures and hairbreadth escapes, as in the perfectly new

character in which he represents the island where he has now permanently

established himself, and where he seems to be enjoying existence in a

capacity hitherto untried in that tropical clime; for he is no

coffee-planter reconciling himself to a solitary existence in the jungle

by the hope of speedily realising what he terms “a comfortable

independence,” upon which to return to his native land—or Ceylon civil

servant, revelling in the prospect of retiring when he is grey-headed to

enjoy anything but a comfortable independence, viz. £500 a-year, or half

the highest salary that splendid service offers to unfortunate younger

sons. Nor is he stationed out here with his regiment, altogether

regardless, as a soldier ought to be, of a comfortable independence, and

anxious to keep his hand in for natives by shooting elephants. He is no

mere dilettante sportsman, endeavouring to recover the effects, and

dissipate the recollections, of half a dozen London seasons. He is a

_settler_—positively a settler in Ceylon. If our preconceived

impressions of this colony be true, what a sanguine temperament our

author must possess, to enable him to expose himself so cheerfully to

the attacks of fever and wild beasts for the rest of his life. There

certainly never was such an act of insanity perpetrated; he might as

well have emigrated to the infernal regions at once. We have no doubt

his friends told him so before he quitted the genial clime of his native

land. But before we condemn him so roundly, let us see where he has

pitched his tent, and what sort of answer he sends back to the inquiries

of these anxious friends of his.

“Here, then, I am in my private sanctum, my rifles all arranged in

their respective stands above the chimney-piece, the stag’s horns

round walls hung with horn-cases, powder-flasks, and the various

weapons of the chase. Even as I write, the hounds are yelling in the

kennel.

“The thermometer is at 62° Fahr., and it is mid-day. It never exceeds

72° in the hottest weather, and sometimes falls below freezing point

at night. The sky is spotless, and the air calm. The fragrance of

mignonettes, and a hundred flowers that recall Old England, fill the

air. Green fields of grass and clover, neatly fenced, surround a

comfortable house and grounds. Well-fed cattle of the choicest breeds,

and English sheep, are grazing in the paddocks. Well made roads and

gravel walks run through the estate. But a few years past, and this

was all wilderness.

“Dense forest reigned where now not even the stump of a tree is

standing; the wind howled over hill and valley, the dank moss hung

from the scathed branches, the deep morass filled the hollows; but all

is changed by the hand of civilisation and industry. The dense forests

and rough plains, which still form the boundaries of the cultivated

land, only add to the beauty. The monkeys and parrots are even now

chattering among the branches; and occasionally the elephant, in his

nightly wanderings, trespasses upon the fields, unconscious of the

oasis within his territory of savage nature.

“The still starlight night is awakened by the harsh bark of the elk;

the lofty mountains, grey with the silvery moonlight, echo back the

sound, and the wakeful hounds answer the well-known cry by a prolonged

and savage yell.

“This is ‘Newera Ellia,’ the sanatorium of Ceylon, the most perfect

climate of the world. It now boasts of a handsome church, a public

reading-room, a large hotel, the barracks, and about twenty private

residences.

“The adjacent country, of comparatively table-land, occupies an extent

of some thirty miles in length, varying in altitude from six thousand

two hundred to seven thousand feet, forming a base for the highest

peaks in Ceylon, which rise to nearly nine thousand feet.

“Alternate large plains, separated by belts of forest, rapid rivers,

waterfalls, precipices, and panoramic views of boundless extent, form

the features of this country, which, combined with the sports of the

place, render a residence at Newera Ellia a life of health, luxury,

and independence.”

So Mr Baker is not quite a maniac after all—in fact, his lines seem cast

in rather pleasant places; and, if we may draw our own inferences from

the brief description he gives us of his island home, the pleasures of

the chase are only resorted to as an agreeable variation from the

ordinary routine of his agricultural pursuits. He is a solitary specimen

in Ceylon of that race so highly respected in our own country, which

combines at once the sportsman, the farmer, and the gentleman.

It has ever been a matter of astonishment to us that no sportsman of the

Cinnamon Isle has before this been inspired by his romantic and

adventurous life to depict those scenes in which he has himself

revelled, so as to allow the public the gratification of participating,

although only in imagination, in wild sports of a nature as exciting and

hazardous as the manner in which they are prosecuted is novel and

enjoyable. We have not only explored, with Gordon Cumming, the interior

of South Africa, but have been bored to death by exhibitions in our own

country of the trophies which attest his courage and energy. Although we

have never visited the Far West, we are as familiar with the life of the

buffalo-hunter or prairie Indian as Washington Irving himself.—For did

we not live among trappers, with the inimitable Ruxton for our

companion, while we have only just returned from a solitary ramble with

Palliser. And so tired are we of shooting tigers and hunting boars in

India with the Cockney who goes out for a winter excursion, or the

“Company’s” lady who wishes to astonish her sisters at home, and disgust

her husband at “the station,” that we should infinitely prefer reading

the account in the county paper of the last run of the subscription

pack, to Mrs M.’s charming description of the Shickar at B——, and the

grand Tomasha with which it terminated. And, indeed, if we are accused

of giving too unfavourable an impression of Indian sport, it is because,

when we compare our own experiences of sport in Bengal with that in

Ceylon, we feel that the merits of the latter have been utterly ignored

and overwhelmed by a profusion of rubbishy, exaggerated pictures of

tiger-hunting and pig-sticking, half of which have been drawn, as a

sportsman can at once detect, by those who have never seen a tiger or a

wild boar before they gave us this account of their “fearful

adventures.” We certainly will maintain that sport in India is very far

inferior to sport in Ceylon, inasmuch as it is much more exciting to

shoot an elephant than to ride one. The insipidity of rocking about on

the back of an elephant, looking for a tiger among long grass, and

running away or not when you find one, as it suits the fancy of the

mahout or the elephant, is easily appreciated by those who have ever

indulged in the delectable amusement of stalking a “rogue,” with nothing

but a pair of rifle barrels and a pair of stout legs to trust to. We

engage to say, that if there were as much elephant-shooting in Ceylon as

there is tiger-shooting in India, the proportion of deaths in the former

country would be as ten to one. We will admit that “shickar”

arrangements are made on a much more magnificent and luxurious scale in

India than in Ceylon; but this is a very secondary consideration with

the true sportsman, and we certainly never enjoyed life more thoroughly

at any time than while making our jungle trips in those wild districts

in Ceylon which are so plentifully stocked with game. What an

independent existence was that! far from the haunts of men by some

secluded tank,—a monument of the industry and greatness of a race long

since passed away,—shadowed over by the lofty and graceful tamarind

tree, is pitched our snug little single-poled tent. Some camp-stools are

our seats by day, and fit into one another so as to form comfortable

beds; the small circular table is fixed to the tent-pole; the canteen,

some green native baskets containing our wardrobe, and a long range of

guns, complete the furniture. It is mid-day, and the occupants are

taking a _siesta_ in their pyjamas; the coolies are snoring where the

jungle forms the densest shade; the cook and servants have built a house

for themselves of branches, and are engaged in culinary occupations. No

sooner is the intense heat of mid-day past than we sally forth, working

steadily for about four hours; then comes the luxurious fare known well

to the Ceylon hunter. Our coolies and ourselves are alike dependent

entirely on our trusty rifles. We sometimes indulge in beer, but it is a

most extravagant practice—always, however, in a good cook. It is not yet

quite dusk: we dine in the open air. There is roast peafowl with buffalo

tongue, venison pasty and jugged hare, with a curry of jungle fowl, with

pigs’ fry, if we are not otherwise well supplied; but, as a general

rule, wild boar is to be avoided, especially if dead elephants are

abundant in the vicinity. Presently the full moon in the cloudless sky

throws the shadows long and sharp over our encampment, and we prepare

for night-work. Our tent is quite concealed from the tank to which we

now repair: it is about three-quarters dry, and the water is not more

than half a mile in circumference. There are two round holes prepared

for our reception close to the water’s edge, of sufficient depth to

conceal the occupants. All through the night, with the moon looking

calmly down upon us, brightly reflected in the waters of the tank, we

watch. As it is early yet, there are plenty of buffaloes still to be

seen. Soon large herds of deer come down to drink; they are quite

unsuspicious, and pass to and fro within a few yards of the loaded

rifles. Then the sharp bark of the elk rings through the still air, and

a noble buck walks knee deep into the water, and a moment afterwards the

doe more timidly follows. Large sounders of pigs grunt about constantly.

After midnight, more important game appears, and rouses the eager

sportsmen to more vigorous action; whether we have made a bag or not

depends upon whether there are elephants in the neighbourhood. If there

are, they will now be heard crashing through the jungle. They come very

slowly, and the excitement is intense; they keep stopping by the way,

and beating about with their trunks. We are getting very impatient—they

never will come! At last, one after another, they stalk across the open

in the clear moonlight; a large herd is soon splashing, and bubbling,

and roaring in the muddy water. They are out of shot, and we are obliged

to stalk them, for moonlight shooting is deceptive, and we have put lime

on the sight of the guns—a precaution, by the way, we do not hear that

Mr Baker adopted when shooting by moonlight. We no sooner fire than the

uproar and noise of the retreating elephants are tremendous: they seldom

charge at night, the whole transaction being too sudden and mysterious;

but the crashing of the jungle, as the terrified herd sweeps through it,

is inconceivable. An hour or two before daybreak chetahs and bears come

stealthily down and stay for a moment, and are gone again. In the course

of one night, in the northern part of Ceylon, we have literally seen and

fired at every description of the game we have just enumerated. At

daybreak we swallow a quantity of warm strong coffee, and only return

when the barrels of our rifles become too hot to hold, unless, indeed,

we are absolutely on the track of an elephant, and then the blazing sun

itself is despised. On our way home we discharge our rifles at the scaly

backs of innumerable alligators that bask open-mouthed upon the sloping

bank, but never with the hope of getting, though sometimes of killing,

one. We have occasionally put a ball between the greaves of their

armour, but can testify most assuredly (although Mr Baker seems to doubt

it) that an alligator’s back will turn a rifle ball at twenty yards, as

upon one occasion the ball from a friend’s rifle lodged in a tree above

us, although he was standing at a distance of about a hundred yards off,

and the alligator at which he had fired was in a totally opposite

direction. And so the days fly past, and our trip is at an end, while

our appetite for excitement and adventure remains unappeased; but we are

soon reconciled to the change from the rough jungle-life to the comforts

of civilisation, for with them we combine the invigorating air of the

mountains, and sport of another kind. The tent is exchanged at Newera

Ellia for the warm thatched cottage, with its rustic porch covered with

sweet-pea and honeysuckle, and well-furnished carpeted rooms, where a

comfortable wood-fire crackles upon every hearth, and sheds its grateful

influence upon the party gathered round it, and which is composed of the

most diverse materials. Bengal civilians, who were supposed to be dying

when they left the Sandheads, are narrating with no little satisfaction

their exploits in the morning’s elk-hunt; officers from Colombo, and

middies from Trincomalee, are eagerly canvassing the prospects for the

morrow; coffee-planters, tourists, and Ceylon officials, have become

excellent friends on short acquaintance, and are all burning to

distinguish themselves. At 5 A.M. it requires some courage to emerge

from beneath a couple of warm blankets: the ground is covered with a

thick hoar-frost, and fingers long accustomed to wield a pen in some

Indian cutcherry can scarcely hold the reins. Enterprising ladies, with

very red tips to their noses, join the party, and the meet is a gay and

animated scene. But we must not follow the fortunes of the hunt—our

reminiscences have already led us beyond the orthodox limits of a

review—and we shall gladly turn to Mr Baker for a description of those

sports which he, in common with ourselves, so highly appreciates. We

would first, however, say a few words more in reference to the lovely

spot in which he has taken up his abode, and of which he has

unfortunately given us a very meagre account.

The few Englishmen of a lower class in society who have found their way

to Newera Ellia are thriving well; they are, for the most part,

discharged soldiers, or persons whose original object, in coming to

Ceylon, was to superintend coffee plantations. English blacksmiths,

carpenters, shoemakers, or tailors, are all sure of plenty of

employment; while storekeeping, or taking charge of the residences of

those government functionaries who are fortunate enough to possess them,

is a profitable occupation. The great drawback to extensive settling in

Newera Ellia, is the absence of a permanent market. At some seasons of

the year the plain is overflowing with civilians and military men from

the lower provinces, or from the continent of India, who flock to enjoy

its bracing climate; at other times visitors are few and far between,

and the produce must be transported in bullock-carts to Kandy or

Colombo.

The nearest coffee plantations are situated in Dimboola, seven or eight

miles distant, the elevation of the plain being too great for the growth

of the berry. All the ordinary productions of our kitchen-gardens are to

be procured in abundance, and delicious strawberries may here be grown,

to recall to the acclimatised Company’s servant the long-forgotten

tastes of his native land. There can be no doubt that when the merits of

Newera Ellia become better known they will be more highly appreciated,

while its proximity to India will then insure those who have settled

there a speedy and profitable return for their outlay.

We regret that the scope and tenor of Mr Baker’s work do not admit of a

full account of his farming experiences, which must have been both novel

and interesting. His sketches of scenery are graceful and life-like,

evincing a warm susceptibility and a cultivated mind—qualities which

must ever distinguish the thorough sportsman from a mere butcher on a

large scale. “To a true sportsman,” says our author, “the enjoyment of a

sport increases in proportion to the wildness of the country.” The

deliberate manner in which Mr Baker awaits the furious charge of a rogue

elephant, with his rifle on full cock, wrapped in the contemplation of

the beauties of nature, is truly appalling to us uninitiated Westerns;

and, indeed, at these critical moments he is ever most enthusiastic—a

very Izaak Walton of Nimrods.

“There is a mournful silence in the calmness of the evening, when the

tropical sun sinks upon the horizon, a conviction that man has left

this region undisturbed to its wild tenants. No hum of distant voices,

no rumbling of busy wheels, no cries of domestic animals meet the ear.

He stands upon a wilderness, pathless and untrodden by the foot of

civilisation, where no sound is ever heard but that of the elements,

when the thunder rolls among the towering forests, or the wind howls

along the plains. He gazes far, far into the distance, where the blue

mountains melt into an indefinite haze; he looks above him to the

rocky pinnacles which spring from the level plain, their swarthy

cliffs glistening from the recent shower, and patches of rich verdure

clinging to precipices a thousand feet above him. His eye stretches

along the grassy plains, taking at one full glance a survey of woods,

and rocks, and streams; and imperceptibly his mind wanders to thoughts

of home, and in one moment scenes long left behind are conjured up by

memory, and incidents are recalled which banish for a time the scene

before him. Lost for a moment in the enchanting power of solitude,

where fancy and reality combine in their most bewitching forms, he is

suddenly roused by a distant sound, made doubly loud by the

surrounding silence—the shrill trumpet of an elephant.”

This is a good specimen of our author in his softer moods; but we must

hurry on to more stirring scenes. Some seven or eight years ago Mr Baker

visited Ceylon on a sporting tour, and the first part of his volume is

devoted to an account of his adventures upon that occasion. He

subsequently returned to Ceylon, and, making Newera Ellia his permanent

headquarters, he enjoyed elk-hunting at his own doors; and, having

profited by former experience, made his elephant-shooting excursions in

a deliberate and well-organised manner. His battery consisted “of one

four-ounce rifle (a single barrel) weighing twenty-one pounds, one long

two-ounce rifle (single barrel) weighing sixteen pounds, and four

double-barrelled rifles, No. 10, weighing each fifteen pounds.” The No.

10 double barrels did most execution, and were twelve-grooved, carrying

a conical ball of two ounces and a half. It is certainly a popular

delusion to suppose that smooth bores are better than these for

elephant-shooting. We have already enumerated the varieties of game at

which this formidable battery is directed.

About eighty miles to the north-east of Kandy, the lake of Minneria lies

embosomed amid the most luxuriant vegetation, presenting a sheet of

water twenty miles in circumference; and here, far distant from the

haunts of men, surrounded by some of the loveliest scenery which Ceylon

can boast, Mr Baker introduces us to his first buffalo. Our author’s

brother is the only companion of his sport; they have just arrived in

the island, and consequently are complete novices in its wild sports. No

sooner do they reach Minneria than, carried away by the excitement of

such close proximity to their noble game, they sally forth to attack a

herd of buffaloes, improperly supplied with ammunition. A bull charges

and is wounded, the herd retreats, and our author, leaving his brother

to extinguish the wounded bull, follows another, who disdains a rapid

flight. He is at length overtaken, and as he faces about to his pursuer,

Mr Baker puts two balls into his chest at fifteen paces, without effect,

“save that his eye, which had hitherto been merely sullen, was now

beaming with fury, but his form was motionless as a statue.” This is

decidedly startling—more startling still to find that there is not

another ball left. It was now the bull’s turn. “I dared not turn to

retreat, as I knew he would immediately charge, and we stared one

another out of countenance.” For a quarter of an hour Mr B. stares

fiercely but hopelessly at his maddened antagonist, then a bright

thought flashes across him:—

“Without taking my eyes off the animal before me, I put a double

charge of powder down the right-hand barrel, and tearing off a piece

of my shirt, I took all the money from my pouch, three shillings in

sixpenny pieces, and two anna pieces, which I luckily had with me in

this small coin for paying coolies. Quickly making them into a rouleau

with the piece of rag, I rammed them down the barrel, and they were

hardly well home before the bull again sprang forward. So quick was it

that I had no time to replace the ramrod, and I threw it in the water,

bringing my gun on full cock in the same instant.”

His brother now comes up:—

“It was the work of an instant. B. fired without effect. The horns

were lowered, their points were on either side of me, and the muzzle

of the gun barely touched his forehead when I pulled the trigger, and

three shillings’ worth of small change rattled into his hard head.

Down he went, and rolled over with the suddenly checked momentum of

his charge. Away went B. and I as fast as our heels would carry us,

through the water and over the plain, knowing that he was not dead but

only stunned.”

We have generally found in the course of our own short experience that

there was nothing for meeting a charge like a little ready money, but

this is squaring accounts with a vengeance. In a moment more Mr Baker

must inevitably have paid the debt of nature—he paid 3s. 6d. instead,

and we will venture to say he never before spent that sum more quickly

or satisfactorily to himself. Upon the following day our two sportsmen

are charged by a herd, and again narrowly escape destruction.

“Although,” says Mr Baker, “I have since killed about two hundred wild

buffaloes, I have never witnessed another charge by a herd. This was an

extraordinary occurrence, and fortunately stands alone in

buffalo-shooting.” Mr Baker only thinks it necessary to select from his

extensive buffalo-shooting experiences those occasions which involved

considerable personal hazard, and exhibited, at the same time, the

extraordinary courage and instinct of the animal. Unless

buffalo-shooting be followed up as a sport by itself, the real character

of the animal must remain unknown. “Some will fight and some will fly,

and no one can tell which will take place—it is at the option of the

beast. Caution and good shooting, combined with heavy rifles, are

necessary. Without heavy metal the sport would be superlatively

dangerous, if regularly followed up.” Mr Baker places great confidence

in, and is not a little proud of, his heavy rifles, and he gives some

wonderful instances of his performances with them, which fully justify

his high estimate of their capabilities. The last day’s work on the

occasion of his subsequent visits to Minneria is worthy of record. He

begins by knocking over a bull at three hundred and fifty-two paces,

then a cow from horseback at a long range, and a bull at about four

hundred yards. These are mere experiments; presently he comes to closer

quarters. A young bull is hidden in a thick cover, and our author rides

in to dislodge him:—

“I beat about to no purpose for about twenty minutes, and I was on the

point of giving it up when I suddenly saw the tall reeds bow down just

before me. I beard the rush of an animal as he burst through, and I

just saw the broad black nose, quickly followed by the head and horns,

as the buffalo charged into me. The horse reared to his full height as

the horns almost touched his chest, and I fired as well as I was able.

In another instant I was rolling on the ground, with my horse upon me,

in a cloud of smoke and confusion.

“In a most unsportsmanlike manner (as persons may exclaim who were not

there), I hid behind my horse as he regained his legs. All was

still—the snorting of the frightened horse was all that I could hear.

I expected to have seen the infuriated buffalo among us. I peeped over

the horse’s back, and, to my delight and surprise, I saw the carcass

of the bull lying within three feet of him. His head was pierced by

the ball exactly between the horns, and death had been instantaneous.

The horse having reared to his full height, had entangled his hind

legs in the grass, and he had fallen backwards without being touched

by the buffalo, although the horns were close into him.”

On his way home, after this disagreeable rencontre, Mr Baker falls in

with a small herd of five, and drops both bulls and an infuriated cow,

the latter in the act of charging, at a distance of fifteen paces. The

two remaining cows and a calf are killed in their retreat, and Mr Baker

is strolling home satisfied with a bag of ten buffaloes, when he

suddenly stumbles upon a herd of elephants. These beat an immediate

retreat. But singling out a fine bull, Mr Baker drops him severely

wounded with the four ounce, and, taking his second gun, he runs up just

in time to catch him as he is half risen.

“Feeling sure of him, I ran up within two yards of his head, and fired

into his forehead. To my amazement, he jumped quickly up, and with a

loud trumpet he rushed towards the jungle. I could just keep close

alongside him, as the grass was short, and the ground level, and being

determined to get him, I ran close to his shoulder, and, taking a

steady shot behind the ear, I fired my remaining barrel. Judge of my

surprise,—it only increased his speed, and in another moment he

reached the jungle: he was gone. He seemed to bear a charmed life. I

had taken two shots within a few feet of him that I would have staked

my life upon. I looked at my gun. Ye gods! I had been firing _snipe

shot_ at him. It was my rascally horsekeeper, who had actually handed

me the shot-gun, which I had received as the double-barrelled

ball-gun, that I knew was carried by a gun-bearer. How I did thrash

him! If the elephant had charged instead of making off, I should have

been caught, to a certainty.”

This is a judgment upon him evidently for boasting too much of his

battery. The abundance of game at Minneria, however, is not to be

compared to the enormous sports which Mr Baker finds in the almost

unexplored country beyond Hambautotte. “Here the deer were in such

masses that I restricted myself to bucks, and I at length became

completely satiated. There was too much game. During a whole day’s walk

I was certainly not five minutes without seeing either deer, elk,

buffaloes, or hogs.”

Gradually our sportsman gets still more particular; he refuses tempting

shots, and goes out simply in search of large antlers. None appearing of

sufficient size he does not fire, and only kills buffaloes if they look

vicious, and he can get a charge out of them. Notwithstanding this

dainty shooting, he comes home one morning to breakfast, at eight

o’clock, with three fine bucks and two buffaloes in his bag. Altogether

we cannot charge Mr Baker with indiscriminate slaughter. A thorough

sportsman, he is a humane man; but if we may so phrase it, he is a

little too conscientious in his sport. He gives us glimpses of much that

is interesting in his search after game; but, because it is unconnected

with the matter in hand, he hurries us away upon the track of a rogue

elephant or a buffalo, and will not allow us to linger for a moment upon

those fairy scenes which he has himself conjured up, or to inquire more

deeply into subjects of interest he has himself suggested. We should

have liked to have heard a little more of the Veddahs, for instance; but

the district they inhabit is the finest part of Ceylon for sport, so of

course we must not expect to be told about wild men when there are wild

beasts in the case. We have, however, a brief description of the manners

and habits (or rather want of habits) of the animal:—

“The Veddah in person is extremely ugly; short, but sinewy; his long

uncombed locks fall to his waist, looking more like a horse’s tail

than human hair. He despises money; but is thankful for a knife, a

hatchet, or a gaudy-coloured cloth, or brass pot for cooking. The

women are horribly ugly, and are almost entirely naked. They have no

matrimonial regulations, and the children are squalid and miserable.

Still these people are perfectly happy, and would prefer their present

wandering life to the most luxurious restraint. Speaking a language of

their own, with habits akin to those of wild animals, they keep

entirely apart from the Cingalese. They barter deer-horns and

bees’-wax with the travelling Moormen pedlars in exchange for their

trifling requirements. If they have food they eat it; if they have

none they go without until by some chance they procure it. In the mean

time they chew the bark of various trees, and search for berries,

while they wend their way for many miles to some remembered store of

deer’s flesh and honey, laid by in a hollow tree.”

They are expert trackers, but are not so skilled in the use of bows and

arrows as savages usually are. Without any fixed place of residence,

they wander over their beautiful country, always finding abundance to

eat and drink, while the warm temperature renders any description of

clothing superfluous. Upon another occasion, Mr Baker, in search of

elephants, stumbles upon the ruins of Mahagam. As he is unsuccessful in

finding any game, he gives us a short description of what remains of

this ancient city, the first records of which date back to the year 286

B.C.

“We were among the ruins of ancient Mahagam. One of the ruined

buildings had apparently rested upon seventy-two pillars. These were

still erect, standing in six lines of twelve columns: every stone

appeared to be about fourteen feet high by two feet square, and

twenty-five feet apart. This building must therefore have formed an

oblong of three hundred feet by one hundred and fifty. Many of the

granite blocks were covered with rough carving; large flights of

steps, now irregular from the inequality of the ground, were scattered

here and there; and the general appearance of the ruins was similar to

that of Pollanarua, but of smaller extent. The stone causeway which

passed through the ruins was about two miles in length, being for the

most part overgrown with low jungle and prickly cactus. I traversed

the jungle for some distance, until arrested by the impervious nature

of the bushes; but wherever I went the ground was strewed with squared

stones and fallen brickwork overgrown with rank vegetation.”

At Pollanarua the ruins are still more interesting, and our author is

evidently just becoming romantic when his reveries are disturbed in a

manner inexcusable even in a sportsman. He is strolling through shady

glades, and moralising over palaces which have crumbled into shapeless

mounds of bricks: “Massive pillars, formed of a single stone some twelve

feet high, stand in upright rows throughout the jungle here and there

over an extent of miles of country. The buildings which they once

supported have long since fallen, and the pillars now stand like

tombstones over vanished magnificence.” While Mr Baker is wandering amid

these ruins, meditating upon the touching mementoes by which he is

surrounded, of a race long since passed away—

“Comes gliding in with lovely gleam,

Comes gliding in serene and slow,

Soft and silent as a dream,

A solitary doe.”

Instead of quoting Wordsworth, what does Mr Baker do? “I was within

twenty yards of her before she was aware of my vicinity, and I bagged

her by a shot with a double-barrelled gun. At the report of the gun a

herd of about thirty deer which were concealed among the ruins rushed

close by me, and I bagged another doe with the remaining barrel.” Really

Mr Baker should be ashamed of bagging does right and left amid pillars

which stand as tombstones over vanished magnificence; or, if it was the

effect of an impulse irresistible at the moment, the placid reader

should be spared the sudden shock which such an admission is likely to

cause.

The most extensive ruins are strewn over all this country, those of

Anarajapoura, comprising a surface of two hundred and fifty-six square

miles, being the most celebrated. Numerous tanks attest the existence of

a dense population, where now elephants and buffaloes roam unmolested.

The tank at Doolana, a secluded spot, is a favourite resort for single

or rogue elephants; and here Mr Baker and his brother find a notorious

pair, and determine upon their destruction. The difficulty of following

an elephant through the dense forests of Ceylon is so great that the

assistance of native trackers is often absolutely necessary. In this

instance, unfortunately, even the trackers mistake the direction, and

our two sportsmen are standing hopelessly near a wall of impenetrable

jungle, into which the elephants had been seen to retreat, wondering how

they are ever to achieve the desired end, when, says Mr Baker,

“I suddenly heard a deep guttural sound in the thick rattan within

four feet of me; in the same instant the whole tangled fabric bent

over me, and, bursting asunder, showed the furious head of an elephant

with uplifted trunk in full charge upon me.

“I had barely time to cock my rifle, and the barrel almost touched him

as I fired. I knew it was in vain, as his trunk was raised. B. fired

his right-hand barrel at the same moment without effect from the same

cause. I jumped on one side and attempted to spring through the deep

mud: it was of no use; the long grass entangled my feet, and in

another instant I lay sprawling in the enraged elephant’s path within

_a foot_ of him. In that moment of suspense I expected to hear the

crack of my own bones as his massive foot would be upon me. It was an

atom of time. I heard the crack of a gun; it was B.’s last barrel. I

felt a spongy weight strike my heel, and, turning quickly heels over

head, I rolled a few paces and regained my feet. That last shot had

floored him just as he was upon me; the end of his trunk had fallen

upon my heel. Still he was not dead, but he struck at me with his

trunk as I passed round his head to give him a finisher with the

four-ounce rifle, which I had snatched from our solitary gun-bearer.

“My back was touching the jungle from which the rogue had just

charged, and I was almost in the act of firing through the temple of

the still struggling elephant when I heard a tremendous crash in the

jungle behind me similar to the first, and the savage scream of an

elephant. I saw the ponderous fore-leg cleave its way through the

jungle directly upon me. I threw my whole weight back against the

thick rattans to avoid him, and the next moment his foot was planted

within an inch of mine. His lofty head was passing over me in full

charge at B., who was unloaded, when, holding the four-ounce rifle

perpendicularly, I fired exactly under his throat. I thought he would

fall upon me and crush me, but this shot was the only chance, as B.

was perfectly helpless.

“A dense cloud of smoke from the heavy charge of powder for the moment

obscured everything. I had jumped out of the way the instant after

firing. The elephant did not fall, but he had his death wound: the

ball had severed his jugular, and the blood poured from the wound. He

stopped, but, collecting his stunned energies, he still blundered

forward towards B. He, however, avoided him by running to one side,

and the wounded brute staggered on through the jungle. We now loaded

the guns; the first rogue was quite dead, and we followed in pursuit

of rogue number two.”

He had received his death wound, and was found dead in the jungle a day

or two afterwards. We have no doubt a large proportion of those who take

up Mr Baker’s book, will read this, and many other similar adventures

which it contains, in a spirit of profound scepticism. Of course, we

cannot vouch for their credibility otherwise than by saying that, from

our own experience and our knowledge of the experience of others, we

believe not only in the possibility, but in the probability of scenes

such as those described by Mr Baker frequently occurring in a long

course of elephant-shooting. When a man can show three hundred or four

hundred tails adorning the walls of his room, he may fairly expect us to

consider them as vouchers for his own good faith; and carpet sportsmen

may laugh as they please, but they will find, if they have got the pluck

to try to procure similar ornaments, that elephants don’t generally

allow their tails to be cut off without fighting for them, and that the

mild specimen in the Zoological Gardens is not altogether to be taken as

a type of the race generally.

“I have often heard people exclaim,” says Mr Baker, “upon hearing

anecdotes of elephant-hunting, ‘poor things!’