which included Italy, Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, and Holland, but
I have told you enough for you to understand what a task he had
undertaken. When he was abroad he was sometimes entreated to attend
private patients, so widely had his fame spread; and though he did not
pretend to be a doctor, he never refused to give any help that was
possible, and it was through this kindness that he lost his life. Once,
during a visit to Constantinople, he received a message from a man high
in the Sultan's favour, begging him to come and see his daughter, as she
was suffering great pain and none of the doctors could do anything to
relieve her. Howard asked the girl some questions, and felt her pulse,
and then gave some simple directions for her treatment which soon took
away the pain, and in a few days she was nearly well. Her father was so
grateful that he offered Howard a large sum of money, just as he would
have done to one of his own countrymen, and was struck dumb when Howard
declined the gift, and asked instead for a bunch of the beautiful grapes
that he had seen hanging in the garden. As soon as the official had made
sure that his ears had not deceived him, he ordered a large supply of
the finest grapes to be sent to Howard daily as long as he stayed in
Constantinople.
So for a whole month we can imagine him enjoying the Pasha's grapes, in
addition to the vegetables, bread, and water which formed his usual
meals, taken at any hour that happened to be convenient. If he wished to
go to visit a prison or hospital or lazaretto, there was no need to put
it off because 'it would interfere with his dinner-hour,' for his dinner
could be eaten any time. Not that there were any hospitals, properly
speaking, in Constantinople; for though there was a place in the Greek
quarter to which sick people were sent, hardly a single doctor could be
found to attend them, and the only real hospital in the capital was for
the benefit of cats.
* * * * *
Now in most of the great seaport towns along the Mediterranean,
lazarettos, or pest-houses, were built, so that passengers on arriving
from plague-stricken countries should be placed in confinement for forty
days, till there was no fear of their infecting the people. In England,
in spite of her large trade with foreign lands, there were no such
buildings, and it is only wonderful that the plague was so little heard
of. Howard determined to insist on the wisdom and necessity of the
foreign plan; but as he always made his reports from experience and not
from hearsay, he felt that the time had come when he should first visit
the lazarettos, and then go through the forty days' quarantine himself.
This experiment was more dangerous than any he had yet tried, so instead
of taking a servant with him, as had generally been his habit, he set
out alone in November 1785.
* * * * *
As regards lazarettos, he found, as he had found with regard to prisons
and hospitals, that their condition depended in a great degree on the
amount of care taken by the ruler of the city. In Italy there were
several that were extremely well managed, especially in the dominions of
the grand duke of Tuscany; but he had made up his mind that when the
moment came for his quarantine it should be undergone in Venice, the
most famous lazaretto of them all. He took ship eastwards, and visited
the great leper hospital at the Island of Scio, where everything was
done to make the poor creatures as comfortable as possible. Each person
had his own room and a garden of his own, where he could grow figs,
almonds, and other fruit, besides herbs for cooking.
From Scio Howard sailed to Smyrna, and then changed into another vessel,
bound for Venice, which he knew would be put in quarantine the moment it
arrived in the city. The winds were contrary and the voyage slow, and
off the shores of Greece they were attacked by one of the 'Barbary
corsairs' who infested the Mediterranean. The Smyrna crew fought hard,
for well they knew the terrors of the fate that awaited them if
captured, and when their shot was exhausted they loaded their biggest
gun with spikes and nails, and anything else that came handy. Howard
himself aimed it, and after it had fired a few rounds, the enemy spread
his black sails and retired.
* * * * *
At length, after two months, Venice was reached, and as a passenger on
board a ship from an infected port, Howard was condemned to forty days'
quarantine in the new lazaretto. His cell was as dirty as any dungeon in
any English prison, and had neither chair, table, nor bed. His first
care was to clean it, but it was so long since anyone had thought of
doing such a thing that it was nearly as long before the dirt could be
made to disappear, and meanwhile he was attacked by the same headache
which had always marked his visit to such places, and in a short time
became so ill that he was removed to the old lazaretto. Here he was
rather worse off than before, for the water came so close to the walls
that the stone floor was always wet, and in a week's time he was given a
third apartment, this time consisting of four rooms, but all without
furniture and as dirty as the first.
Ordinary washing was again useless to remove the thick coating of filth
of all kinds, and at length Howard felt himself getting so ill that by
the help of the English consul he was allowed to have some brushes and
lime, which by mixing with water became whitewash. He then brushed down
the walls without hindrance from anyone, though he had made up his mind
that if the guard tried to stop him, he would lock him up in one of the
rooms. Almost directly he grew better, and was able to enjoy his tea and
bread once more.
The rules for purification of the infected ships were most strict, but
it depended on the prior, or head of the lazaretto, whether they were
carried out or not. All woollen, cotton, and silk materials, which were
specially liable to carry infection, were carefully cleansed. The bags
in which they were packed were all emptied, and the men belonging to the
lazaretto were strictly forbidden to touch them with their hands, and
always used canes to turn over the contents of the bags. This was done
daily for forty days, when they were free from infection. Other things
were kept in salt water for forty-eight hours, and short-haired animals
were made to swim ashore.
[Illustration: He brushed down the walls without hindrance from anyone.]
On November 20, Howard was set free, his health having suffered from the
lack of air and exercise, and from anxiety about his son, whom he had
left in England. However, he still continued his tour of inspection, and
it was not till February 1787 that he reached home. After a short time
given to his own affairs, in making the best arrangements that he could
for his son, now completely out of his mind, he was soon busily employed
in putting a stop very vigorously to the erection of a statue to his
honour. The subscriptions to it had been large, for everybody felt how
much the country owed to his unwearied efforts in the cause of his
fellow-men, carried out entirely at his own cost. But Howard would not
listen to them for one moment.
'The execution of your design would be a cruel punishment to me,' he
says in a letter to the subscribers. 'I shall always think the reform
now going on in several of the gaols of this kingdom, which I hope will
become general, the greatest honour and most ample reward I can possibly
receive.'
It was Howard who was right, and his friends who were wrong, for though
after his death they would no longer be denied, it is not the picture of
the statue in St. Paul's which rises before us at the name of John
Howard, but that of the prison cell.
HANNIBAL
If we could go back more than three thousand years, and be present at
one of the banquets of Egypt or of the great kingdoms of the East, we
should be struck by the wonderful colour which blazed in some of the
hangings on the walls, and in the dresses of the guests; and if,
coveting the same beautiful colour for our own homes, we asked where it
came from, the answer would be that it was the famous Tyrian purple,
made at the prosperous town of Tyre, off the coast of Palestine,
inhabited by the Phoenician race.
* * * * *
The Phoenicians were celebrated traders and sent their goods all over
the world. Ships took them to the mouth of the Nile, to the islands in
the Cornish sea, to the flourishing cities of Crete almost as civilised
as our own; while caravans of camels bore Phoenician wares across the
desert to the Euphrates and the Tigris, most likely even to India
itself. Soon the Phoenicians began to plant colonies which, like Tyre
their mother, grew rich and beautiful, and far along the north African
coast--so runs the old story--the lady Dido founded the city of
Carthage, whose marble temples, theatres, and places of assembly were by
and by to vie with those of Tyre itself.
But before these were yet completed, a wanderer, tall and strong and
sun-burned, towering nearly a head over the small Phoenician people,
landed on the coast and was brought before the queen, as Dido was now
called.
His name, he said, was Æneas, and he had spent many years in fighting
before the walls of Troy for the sake of Helen, whom he thought the
loveliest woman in the world, till he had looked on Dido the queen.
After the war was ended he had travelled westwards, and truly strange
were the scenes on which his eyes had rested since he had crossed the
seas.
Dido listened, and as she had talked with many traders from all
countries she understood somewhat of his speech, and bade him stay
awhile and behold the wonders of the city she was building. So Æneas
stayed, and the heart of the queen went out to him; but as the days
passed by he tired of rich food and baths made sweet with perfumes, and
longed for wild hills and the flocks driven by the shepherds. Then one
morning he sailed away, and Dido saw his face no more; and in her grief
she ordered a tall pyre to be reared of logs of sandalwood and cedar.
When all was prepared she came forth with a golden circlet round her
head, and a robe of scarlet falling to her feet, till men marvelled at
her fairness, and laid herself down on the top of the pyre.
'I am ready,' she said to the chief of her slaves, who stood by, and a
lighted torch was placed against the pile, and the flames rose high.
In this manner Dido perished, but her name was kept green in her city to
the end.
[Illustration: She came forth with a golden circlet round her head.]
But though Dido was dead, her city of Carthage went on growing, and
conquering, and planting colonies, in Sicily, Spain, and Sardinia. Not
that the Carthaginians themselves, though a fierce and cruel people,
cared about forming an empire, but they loved riches, and to protect
their trade from other nations it was needful to have strong fleets and
armies. For some time the various Greek states were her most powerful
enemies; but in the third century before Christ signs appeared to
those with eyes to read them that a war between Carthage and Rome was at
hand.
Now it must never be forgotten for a moment that neither then, nor for
over two thousand years later, was there any such thing as Italy, as
_we_ understand it.
The southern part of the peninsula was called 'Greater Greece,' and
filled, as we have said, by colonies from different Greek towns. In the
northern parts, about the river Po, tribes from Gaul had settled
themselves, and in the centre were various cities peopled by strange
races, who for long joined themselves into a league to resist the power
of Rome. But by the third century B.C. the Roman empire, which was
afterwards to swallow up the whole of the civilised world from the
straits of Gibraltar to the deserts of Asia, had started on its career;
the league had been broken up, the Gauls and Greeks had been driven
back, and the whole of Italy south of the river Rubicon paid tribute to
the City of the Seven Hills on the Tiber.
* * * * *
Having made herself secure in Italy, Rome next began to watch with
anxious eyes the proceedings of Carthage in Spain and in Sicily. The
struggle for lordship was bound to come, and to come soon. As to her
army, Rome feared nothing, but it was quite clear that to gain the
victory over Carthage she must have a fleet, and few things are more
striking in the great war than the determination with which Rome, never
a nation of sailors, again and again fitted out vessels, and when they
were destroyed or sunk gave orders to build more. And at last she had
her reward, and the tall galleys, with high carved prows and five banks
of oars, beat the ships which had been hitherto thought invincible.
* * * * *
It was in 263 B.C. that the war at last broke out in Sicily, and after
gaining victories both by land and sea, Rome in the eighth year of the
contest sent an army to Africa, under the consuls Regulus and Volso,
with orders to besiege Carthage. The invading army consisted of forty
thousand men, and was joined as soon as it touched the African shore by
some tributary towns, and also by twenty thousand slaves--for Carthage
was hated by all who came under her rule because of her savage cruelty.
At the news of the invasion the people seemed turned into stone. Then
envoys were sent to beg for peace, peace at any price, at the cost of
any humiliation. But the consuls would listen to nothing, and Carthage
would have fallen completely into her enemy's hands had the Romans
marched to the gates. But at this moment an order arrived from the Roman
senate, bidding Volso with twenty-four thousand men return at once,
leaving Regulus with only sixteen thousand. With exceeding folly Regulus
left the strongly fortified camp, which in Roman warfare formed one of
the chief defences, and arrayed his forces in the open plain. There
Carthage, driven to bay, gave him battle with her hastily collected
forces. The Carthaginians, commanded by Xanthippus, a better general
than Regulus, won the day, and only two thousand Romans escaped
slaughter. The victory gave heart to the men of Carthage, and when news
came from Sicily that Rome had been driven back and her fleets
destroyed, their joy knew no bounds. In her turn Rome might have lain at
the feet of the conqueror, but Carthage had no army strong enough to act
in a foreign land, and contented herself with destroying during the war
seven hundred five-banked Roman ships, which were every time replaced
with amazing swiftness.
* * * * *
The war had raged for sixteen years when Hamilcar Barca, father of the
most famous general before Cæsar (except Alexander the Great), was given
command over land and sea. He was a young man, not more than thirty, and
belonged to one of the oldest families in Carthage. Unlike most of his
nation, he valued many things more highly than money, and despised the
glitter and show and luxury in which all the Carthaginians delighted. A
boy of fourteen when the first Punic war began (for this is its name in
history), his strongest passion was hatred of Rome and a burning desire
to humble the power which had defied his own beloved city. It did not
matter to Hamilcar that his ships were few and his soldiers
undisciplined. The great point was that he had absolute power over them,
and as to their training he would undertake that himself.
So, full of hope he began his work, and in course of time, after hard
labour, his raw troops became a fine army.
Hamilcar's first campaign in Sicily--so often the battleground of
ancient Europe--was crowned with success. The Romans were hemmed in by
his skilful strategy, and if he had only been given a proper number of
ships it would have been easy for him to have landed in Italy, and
perhaps marched to Rome. But now, as ever in the three Punic wars,
Carthage, absorbed in counting her money and reckoning her gains and
losses, could never understand where her real interest lay. She waited
until Rome, by a supreme effort, built another fleet of two hundred
vessels, which suddenly appeared on the west coast of Sicily, and gave
battle to the Carthaginian ships when, too late, they came to the help
of their general. The battle was lost, the fleet destroyed, and Hamilcar
with wrath in his soul was obliged to make peace. Sicily, which Carthage
had held for four hundred years, was ceded to Rome, and large sums of
money paid into her treasury for the expenses of the war.
* * * * *
Bitterly disappointed at the failure forced on him when victory was
within his grasp, Hamilcar was shortly after summoned back to Carthage
to put down a rebellion which the government by its greed and folly had
provoked. The neighbouring tribes and subject cities joined the foreign
troops whose pay had been held back, and soon an army of seventy
thousand men under a good general was marching upon Carthage. So
widespread was the revolt that it took Hamilcar, to whom the people had
insisted on giving absolute power, three years to quell the revolt; but
at length he triumphed, punishing the leaders, and pardoning those who
had only been led.
Peace having been restored, Hamilcar was immediately despatched to look
after affairs in Spain, where both Carthage and Rome had many colonies.
Strange to say, he took with him his three little boys, Hannibal,
Hasdrubal, and Mago, and before they sailed he bade Hannibal, then only
nine, come with him into the great temple, and swear to the gods that he
would be avenged on Rome.
If you read this story you will see how Hannibal kept his oath.
* * * * *
As this is a history of Hannibal, and not of his father, I have not room
to tell you how Hamilcar took measures to carry out the purpose of his
life, namely, the destruction of Rome. To this end he fortified the
towns that had hitherto only been used as manufactories or store-houses,
turned the traders into steady soldiers, sent for heavy armed African
troops from Libya, and the celebrated light horse from Numidia, made
friends with the Iberian (or Spanish) tribes, and ruled wisely and well
from the straits of Gibraltar to the river Ebro. But, busy as he might
be, he always had time to remember his three boys, and saw that they
were trained in the habits and learning of a soldier. All three were apt
pupils, and loved flinging darts and slinging stones, and shooting with
the bow, though in these arts they could not rival their masters from
the Balearic isles, however much they practised.
[Illustration: All three were apt pupils.]
When Hannibal was eighteen, Hamilcar was killed in a battle with some of
the native tribes who had refused to submit to the sway of Carthage. In
spite of the hatred that he cherished for everything Roman, he had
earned the undying respect of the noblest among them. 'No king was
equal to Hamilcar Barca,' writes Cato the elder, and the words of Livy
the historian about Hannibal might also be applied to his father.
'Never was a genius more fitted to obey or to command. His body could
not be exhausted nor his mind subdued by toil, and he ate and drank only
what he needed.' He had failed in his aim, but, dying, he left it as a
heritage to his son, who, on the point of victory, was to fail also.
Under Hamilcar's son-in-law, Hasdrubal, the work of training the army,
encouraging agriculture, and fostering trade was carried on as before.
It was not long before Hasdrubal made his young brother-in-law commander
of the cavalry, and often sought counsel from him in any perplexity.
Hannibal was much beloved, too, by his soldiers of all nations, and to
the end they clung to him through good and ill. He gave back their
devotion by constant care for their comfort--very rare in those
days--seeing that they were fed and warmed before entering on a hard
day's fighting, and arranging that they had proper time for rest. To the
Iberians he was bound by special ties, for before he quitted Spain for
his death-struggle with Rome he married a Spanish princess, little
thinking, when he started northwards in May 218 B.C., that he was
leaving her and her infant son behind him for ever.
* * * * *
All this time Rome had been growing both in her influence and her
dominions, when for a while her very existence was threatened by the
sudden invasion of seventy thousand Gauls, who poured in from the north.
They were defeated in a hard-fought battle and beaten back, but the
struggle with the barbarians was long and fierce, and Rome remained
exhausted. Her attention was occupied with measures needful for her own
defence and in raising both men and money, and except for warning the
Carthaginians not to cross the Ebro, she left them for a time pretty
much to themselves, thinking vainly that, as long as her navy gave her
command of the sea, she had no need to trouble herself about affairs in
Spain or Africa. Indeed, after the severe strain of the Gallic war, the
Roman senate thought that they were in so little danger either from
Carthage or from Greece that their troops might take a sorely needed
rest, and the army was disbanded.
This was Hannibal's chance, and with the siege and fall of the Spanish
town of Saguntum in 218 B.C. began the second Punic war.
* * * * *
For years the young general had been secretly brooding over his plans,
and had prepared friends for himself all along the difficult way his
army would have to march. Unknown to Rome, he had received promises of
help from most of the tribes in what is now the province of Catalonia,
from Philip of Macedon, ruler in the kingdom of Alexander the Great, and
from some of the Gauls near the Rhone and along the valley of the Po.
Many of these proved broken reeds at the time of trial, when their help
was most needed, and even turned into enemies, and Hannibal was too wise
not to have foreseen that this might happen. Still, for the moment all
seemed going as he wished; war was declared, and Rome made ready her
fleet for the attack by sea which she felt was certain to follow.
In our days of telephones and telegrams and wireless telegraphy, it is
very nearly _impossible_ for us to understand how an army of ninety
thousand foot, twelve thousand horse, and thirty-seven elephants could
go right through Spain from Carthagena in the south-east to the Pyrenees
in the north, and even beyond them, without a whisper of the fact
reaching an enemy across the sea. Yet this is what actually occurred.
Rome sent a large force under one consul into Sicily, the troops were
later to embark for Carthage, another to the Po to hold the Gauls in
check, while a third, under Publius Scipio, was shortly to sail for
Spain and there give battle to the Carthaginians. That Hannibal was
fighting his way desperately through Catalonia at that very moment they
had not the remotest idea.
* * * * *
Not only did Hannibal lose many of his men in Catalonia, but he was
obliged to leave a large body behind, under Hanno, his general, to
prevent the Catalans rising behind him, and cutting off his
communications with Spain.
The Pyrenees were crossed near the sea without difficulty, and for a
time the march was easy and rapid along the great Roman road as far as
Nismes, and then on to the Rhone between Orange and Avignon. By this
time the consul, Publius Scipio, who had been prevented for some reason
from going earlier to Spain, and was now sailing along the gulf of Genoa
on his way thither, heard at Marseilles that Hannibal was advancing
towards the river Rhone. The Roman listened to the news with incredulity
and little alarm. How could Hannibal have got over the Pyrenees and he
not know it? A second messenger arrived with the same tale as the first,
but Scipio still refused to believe there was any danger. Why, the late
rains had so swollen the river that it was now in high flood, and how
could any army ford a stream so broad and so rapid? And if it _did_, had
not the envoy said that some Gallic troops were drawn up on the other
side to prevent the enemy landing? So Scipio disembarked his troops in a
leisurely manner, and contented himself with sending out a scouting
party of horse to see where the Carthaginians might be encamped--if they
really were there at all!
* * * * *
Now all the way along his line of march Hannibal had followed his usual
policy, and had gained over to his side most of the Gauls who lay in his
path, and when they seemed inclined to oppose him, a bribe of money
generally made matters smooth. But on reaching the right bank of the
river he found the Gallic tribes, of whom Scipio had heard, assembled in
large numbers on the left bank, just at the very place where he wished
to cross. He knew at once that it was useless to persist in making the
passage here, and some other plan must be thought of.
The first thing Hannibal did was to buy at their full value all the
boats and canoes used by the natives in carrying their goods down to the
mouth of the Rhone, there to be sold to foreign traders. The people,
finding that the army of strange nations with dark skins and curious
weapons did not intend to rob them, but to pay honestly for all they
took, became ready to help them, and offered themselves as guides if
they should be needed. And to prove their good will, they began to help
the soldiers to cut down trees from the neighbouring forests, and to
scoop them into canoes, one for every soldier.