But morning was at hand. The rich golden glow of night, to which the

dwellers on the earth's surface are accustomed, as we passed to higher

altitudes, had given place to a thin inky blue. This was obscured by no

fleck or mist, and yet the stars shone through it faint and dim,

despoiling the firmament of its glory. The same loss of power was

manifest on the ushering in of day. The auroral flame, which ordinarily

greets us in the east with such a ruddy laugh, was now nothing better

than a wan and dismal smile; and even the sun, as he struggled up from

what seemed a bed of leaden mist, brought with him only a pallid,

lifeless twilight. It was not that his rays were impeded by cloud or

haze; he had lost his power to shine. He hung there in the heavens like

a great white shield, and looked down on us as rayless and powerless

and devoid of life as a dead man's eye.

Having at length wearied myself with gazing, and feeling chill and weak

from the coldness and tenuity of the atmosphere, I subsided into the

comfort and companionship of the cabins below. Among the passengers I

recognized _attachés_ of the press, besides several gentlemen of

Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, with whom I was somewhat

acquainted. More circumspect, or less slaves to the imagination than

myself, they had contented themselves with in-door observations. But

their enthusiasm was none the less inflamed. In astonishment they

looked at each other; in restless bewilderment they glanced out of the

windows on the desert, trackless plane traversed by the "Flying Cloud,"

and spoke with a species of awe of the shock which the announcement of

what they were then witnessing would give to sober men's minds; and

suggested, in broken sentences, some of the consequences which would be

likely to flow from the grand invention.

What with excitement and lack of sleep, we all found ourselves a little

nervous. Coffee and Havanas failed to allay the feeling; and, in the

absence of the morning papers, we resorted to whist, chess, and our

pocket supplies of the "Atlantic Monthly," "Harper," and so forth, and

to the very select library provided by Messrs. Bonflon and De Aëry, the

proprietors, for the use of the passengers,--and at last to our beds.

It could not be denied that we were nervous. With all the smoothness

and beauty of our running, there was a sensation, an uncertain

quivering motion, not at first noticed and not at all definable, about

our craft, that constantly, suggested the idea that we were standing on

nothing, or, at best, nothing better than dissolving quicksands, which

were liable at any moment wholly to slide away and leave us; and it

required some strength of mind to resist the vagary, and prevent it

from effecting a troublesome lodgment in the imagination.

Thus passed the day, which fortunately, in my case, was succeeded by a

night of repose. The restlessness of mind and body once subdued, Nature

asserted her empire, and I slept profoundly until morning. Another day

and night followed, with little variation from the first; and by this

time, the strangeness and mystery of my situation had quite worn away,

and the feeling of security was established. I trod the upper deck with

all the pride, and more than the composure, of a modern monarch on his

throne.

But the sameness of the scenery of the vast aërial ocean, in which we

were sailing alone, without consort, without ever descrying a sail, or

even keeping a lookout, without so much as ever discovering a floating

plank to remind us of a wreck, or a seaweed to tell us of the land, was

already beginning to pall on the senses, when there appeared in the

distance before us, and multiplying to the right and the left, a

succession of white, sparkling pyramids and cones, resting on the

clouds and flashing in the nether light, like crystal monuments set to

mark the boundaries of space. These were crests of the Rocky Mountains,

covered with perpetual snow.

I gazed on them with rapture. Right in our eye, nearly due west, stood

out Long's Peak, James's Peak, and the Spanish Peaks, at first small in

size, but momently swelling in dimensions; while, far to the north,

were just discernible the more lofty summits of Mount Hooker and Mount

Brown. Lying between Mount James and the Spanish Peaks, inclining to

their eastern slope, lay the green plateau, not yet visible, where we

were to land. Its position was carefully pointed out to Mr. Bonflon and

myself by Mr. De Aëry, but we strained our eyes and used our glasses in

vain. No strength of sight could penetrate the clouds and haze which

covered the body of the mountains, and hid the earth, with the

exception of those lofty silver pinnacles, from our view.

Though these high peaks, like distant masts at sea, were first seen

early in the day, the meridian of noon overtook us before we came up

with them. At length, in increasing numbers and a thousand diversified

shapes, they lay spread out before us, and soon thereafter were

directly under our feet. Our magical machine, coming to a halt,

fluttered like a great bird above them, and gave us an opportunity,

such as probably had never been enjoyed by voyagers before, to spy out

their beauty, their mystery, and their strength.

On nearing the mountains, we had left behind us the twilight of the

void, and come again into the full flood of day. This enabled the sight

to rest upon the scene with pleasure, to examine its diversified

splendors, and penetrate its chasms and gorges, otherwise inaccessible

to man. But to describe them is impossible. Broad fields of sparkling

snow, pyramids of ice, wide fissures shining like steel

mirrors,--produced by some unimaginable convulsion, possibly a thousand

or ten thousand years ago, and large enough to ingulf a city,--with

black humps or spires of granite here and there projecting through the

white; while afar down the rocky sides of interminable swells and

precipices came up a sound of water and a blush of green, betokening

the direction in which we were to look for the generative body of

Mother Earth; all these, and much more which I cannot stop to name,

were grouped in the rough, but magnificent landscape before us.

No cabin could confine me at such a time as this. I stood out on the

upper deck in the extreme bow of the boat; and from an unobstructed

point of view, nearly over the figure-head, in the very abandonment of

daring, feasted my senses on the wondrous glories of this

mountain-scene of enchantment.

De Aëry was at the helm. But I have scarcely introduced this

extraordinary gentleman to the reader. He was a tall, black-haired,

mercurial Frenchman, with an eye like a falcon, who, with only an

occasional Gallicism purposely indulged in, spoke American like a

native. I had every confidence in his prudence and skill in the

management of his craft; and still, as I perceived that we were

gradually settling down in the direction of the loftiest of those

snow-peaks, until scarcely fifty feet intervened between us and its

round, polished brow, to all appearance as solid as feldspar, I raised

my voice and accosted him.

"Halloo! Captain!" said I, "are you intending to land us on this

Atlas-top?"

"_Effectivement_," replied he. "_Mon Dieu!_ B----, come here."

I went to him.

"This," said he, "is the very Old Man of the Mountain. I intend to

plant the stars and stripes in the centre of his bald head."

"Capital!" replied I. "But can you achieve it safely?"

"Yes. I can manage my bird with as much ease as a pigeon poises himself

on his wings, or an Indian steers his canoe. See! we are approaching

the crown of the pinnacle."

I watched the experiment with an interest not unmingled with fear. He

held in one hand a handsome American flag, of moderate size, and

occasionally, with a slight motion of his arm, and a glance of pride,

spread out its silken folds on the motionless air. Gradually the

"Flying Cloud," under his skilful hands, closed upon the bleak,

glittering summit, which, rounding off like the bald head of some

venerable giant, was, at its apex, scarcely ten feet in diameter.

"No eagle, even, has ever set his foot here," said De Aëry. "There is

not a track, or feather, or mark of any living thing to be seen. The

'Flying Cloud' will be the first to explore many mysteries and to

explode others. Not even do the winds reach this height. Boreas and the

bird of Jove,--I will vanquish them both. I will step out upon that icy

peak."

"No, no, Captain," I expostulated. "You might lose your foothold and

perish."

"Not at all," rejoined he, with a laugh. "I am as sure-footed as a

goat. But if you think it risky, Monsieur, I forbear. But the snow

looks solid as adamant. I fear I shall not be able to erect this flag,

unless I have a firm spot for my feet."

By this time our craft had reached a proper position,--her stern

alongside and almost in contact with the jutting peak,--to answer the

ambitious purpose of the Frenchman. Raising the flag of the Republic in

his hand, he requested us all to do it proper honor,--to salute it with

a "three times three,"--as he should succeed in securing it in its

place. Cautiously extending the staff, he brought it in contact with

the snow, and gave it several light blows, for the purpose of

ascertaining its solidity. It seemed of almost icy texture, and emitted

a half-sharp and half-muffled sound in reply. Then, elevating the

standard aloft in both hands, he brought it down with force, as the

farmer urges a stake into the ground; not doubting, as would seem, that

a succession of such blows would be needed in order to achieve his

purpose.

A single stroke of the shaft, however, proved more than enough. To the

surprise and dismay of us all, the firm ringing surface turned out but

a shell, and all beneath, a loose bed of sparkling snow-crystals, like

white sand. The flag sunk down and disappeared, and De Aëry, losing his

balance, plunged over and went with it.

We gazed after him in speechless horror. Before any one of us had

sufficiently recovered himself to speak, we were startled by a dull

sound, like a rushing wind, or distant, rumbling thunder; and an

immense mass of snow, many hundred feet in depth, and covering a third

of the cone, parted from its place, and, like a great, foaming wave,

broken and shapeless, rushed down the mountain's side. For the moment,

all eyes were fixed upon it. At first, it swept on without cohering,

like a cataract of sand; but, on coming in contact with the moister

snow below, it formed into a thousand balls and masses, some rolling

and some sliding, but each gathering bulk and velocity as it went.

By the aid of our glasses we were able to sweep the rough slopes and

precipitous descents below, to the distance of many miles; and,

forgetting De Aëry, we watched the development of the phenomenon with

terror. The larger slides gradually absorbed the smaller ones, as

common fish are swallowed by sharks; but those which remained, fattened

and expanded by what they fed on, assumed enormous dimensions. Choosing

different paths, they pursued their course in smoking tracks of

devastation. Rocks, precipices, forests, furnished no obstruction.

Roaring, crashing onward, as though Mars or the Sun had opened its

batteries upon us, those sliding, whirling worlds of snow swept through

valleys large enough to have furnished sites for cities, without a

check, and bore down or over-leaped all obstacles, as easily as a man

would walk over an ant-hill, or some hollow where a toad had burrowed.

Finally they were lost to sight, passing behind intervening spurs or

ridges of the mountain, or becoming hidden in the cloud-mists which lay

heavily about its base; but the sound continued to roll back upon us

for some time, like the roar of distant artillery. I could no longer

wonder at the terror with which the cry of an avalanche is said to fill

the dwellers among the Alps.

As this absorbing pageant of the mountains disappeared, our thoughts

reverted to De Aëry. Had he been carried away by the snow-slip? or was

his mangled corse below us among the black crags laid bare by that

catastrophe? Turning my gaze beneath, I discovered, far down, many

hundred feet, a moving object, scarcely bigger than a fly, and, on

bringing my glass to bear upon it, perceived that it was the Frenchman.

He was standing on a bare rib of rock, with his flag still in his hand,

and apparently unharmed. Waving the ensign to attract our attention, at

the same time he shouted with the whole strength of his lungs. But his

voice scarcely reached us, and probably would not alone have attracted

our notice. We replied with encouraging cheers; and the "three times

three," which we had intended for the American eagle, was given on the

spot to De Aëry.

But how to rescue him from his perilous condition was indeed a serious

question. The "Flying Cloud," it was obvious, with her great size and

spreading pinions, could not venture among those ticklish quicksands,

whose insecure foundations had just been so strikingly illustrated

before us. Indeed, the slightest jar might precipitate another fall of

snow, and bury the object of our solicitude five hundred feet deep in

its bosom. The sagacity of Mr. Bonflon relieved us from our dilemma. He

hoisted out the small car or tender, and, letting it down with great

care and precision, safely accomplished the object. In the space of

half an hour, De Aëry, without a scratch, and, like a gallant Gaul,

rather proud of his adventure than frightened at it, was again restored

to our arms.

Drawing off from our dangerous proximity to the "Old Man of the

Mountain," which had so nearly proved fatal to at least one of our

number, but astonished beyond measure at the novelty of our experiences

and the grandeur of the scenes we had witnessed, we retraced our course

for a short distance, and, gradually lessening the interval between us

and the earth, soon had the satisfaction of hearing the cry of "Land,

ho!" from the look-out man. The valley was in sight where we were to

take in water and enjoy a little picnic on the green grass, ere the

form and smell of Mother Earth, with her homely but blessed realities,

should be quite forgotten.

We effected our landing in complete safety. The spot was a little,

luxurious nook among the lesser hills, with few trees, but full of wild

flowers, wild fruits, and wild grasses. Everything about it was wild,

but cheering and charming, especially to air-wanderers like us. The

foot of the white hunter, or even of the roving Indian, had perhaps

never visited it, nor foraging-parties of the buffalo or deer, for we

saw no signs of them; but birds of varied plumage and song, and troops

of squirrels, with footprints here and there of the grizzly bear, and a

drove of wild turkeys, with red heads aloft, rushing over an eminence

at our left as we approached, and an occasional whir of a rattlesnake

at our feet, sufficiently indicated the kind of denizens by which the

plateau was inhabited.

Here, on the rich sward and delicate mosses, under the shadow of some

willows, we spread out our repast by the side of a clear

mountain-spring; and, to say nothing of old Otard and Schiedam

Schnapps, opened some bottles of Sparkling Catawba, and old Jersey

Champagne, of a remote vintage, which I have now quite forgotten. With

the flow of these beverages flowed our speech, in jovial words and

songs and raillery enough, if not in wit. De Aëry, as having by a

hair's breadth just escaped with his life, and in virtue of his

extraordinary feat in leaping five hundred feet or more through a bank

of snow, now that the danger was over, was made the butt of much

pleasantry, which he bore with his usual equanimity and grace.

When these arrowy flights at the expense of the light-hearted Frenchman

had exhausted themselves, I took occasion to inquire of him what his

sensations were during his brief burial. He replied as follows:--

"I thought nothing at all about it. I remember feeling chagrined

because I was making a failure, and clung tight to my flag, fearing to

lose that too. _Mon Dieu!_ It might be expected that one would feel

cold, buried up in ice; but such was not the case. I was hot. The snow

burned my face, as it came in contact with it. As to the ride, it was

pleasant enough, but rather rapid and perplexing to the breath. It was

like sinking into a pit of quicksand, where everything gives way below

one, as though the bottom of the world had fallen out. There was the

struggle of a moment to keep the fine snow out of my mouth and

nostrils, as I drew in my breath, and the next instant my feet came in

contact with the solid rock, where you discovered me. The magnificent

avalanche you describe I know nothing about. I neither heard nor saw

anything of it, only as I afterward examined the marks it had left

behind it. This leads me to suppose that I was a good deal confused at

the time, though I was not aware of it. Indeed, I have an impression of

seeming to turn somersets in my descent, and this may account for it.

But, for the honor of France, I saved my adopted country's flag."

High-minded Gaul! We all praised and honored him, and comforted him for

his disappointment. It was a noble attempt he had made, to nail the

American banner to the head of Mount James, impelled by the loftiest of

motives,--and, like many others of its kind, had for the present

failed. At some other time he might prove more successful; or some

other might achieve the object in his place, and so appropriate his

laurels; but no one would be likely to excel him in his flying leap. In

this he had distanced even the famous traveller at Rhodes.

Having given a couple of hours to this species of recreation, we

weighed anchor, and again got under way. Slowly and smoothly, without a

ripple or a jar, we ascended through the blue ether to our former

altitude, and floated off over those majestic mountain-tops, toward the

west. Loath to part from scenes of such impressive beauty,--scenes,

alone paralleled in our recollection by fabulous tales of Oriental

enchantment,--we gazed behind us at those flashing crests of alabaster,

until they grew small in the distance, and finally were wholly lost to

our sight. With them disappeared the last vestige of the solid earth,

and we were again afloat in space.

The following night and day were passed like their predecessors.

Another night came, and we were over the eastern bound of the State of

California. A few hours more, without accident, would terminate our

remarkable voyage, and set us down in the city of San Francisco. All of

us were brimming high with hope. Though we did not anticipate reaching

the station before one or two o'clock in the morning, and probably

should not disembark before dawn, we were loath to retire to rest. It

was near midnight before all of us were in our berths.

But when at length there, I found it impossible to sleep. The

excitement attendant on the beginning of the trip seemed to have

returned on me with a double force. I listened for some sound to

relieve the awful stillness which, like the wing of Death, seemed to

have settled over the "Flying Cloud"; but there was no soughing of the

wind, as at sea, and no noise to be heard, save the monotonous movement

of the engine and the paddle-wheels; and this, so evenly did they play,

was rather a motion than a sound.

This period of restlessness was succeeded by one of strange

bewilderment, which might have been sleep, or might not Rapidly

changing scenes and fantastic figures, some of them beautiful and some

horrible, flitted before me like a dissolving panorama. A band, as

though of steel wire, seemed to encircle my brain, and to compress it

closer and closer; and the spine, for its whole length, felt as though

subjected to a like crushing pressure.

How long this state of hallucination continued I have no means of

knowing. From it, by a great effort, I suddenly aroused myself, and

returned to my proper senses. Where I was, and all the extraordinary

events of the last few days, were clear in my recollection. But I was

weighed down with weakness, and found, on attempting to speak, that I

had no voice.

Suspecting that I had been stricken by some terrible disease, I

attempted to rise; and, loath to disturb any of my fellow-travellers,

undertook to crawl out upon the upper deck. This, after a good deal of

effort, I accomplished. Lying, therefore,--I could not stand,--I prayed

for a breath of air to relieve my hot and oppressed brow; but in vain.

The atmosphere seemed gone. Chill and dark, the heavens spread out

above me without a twinkle or a smile. The full-moon was there, and

there was no cloud or haze to obscure her light; but she did not shine.

Her white, rayless face was a mockery to the night. The same was true

of the stars. The dazzling canopy was faded out, and Cygnus and the

Great Bear were subdued to pallid points, like patches of white-gray

paper stuck upon a wall.

Floating by the side of the "Flying Cloud," and nearly of her size, I

discovered a dark, irregular object, and dragged myself to the edge of

the deck to investigate it more closely. The two came together, but

without damage or friction. They touched and parted, like substances

nearly at rest in still water. I put out my hand on the strange

visitor, and received a pretty severe shock, as though I had been

subjected to the action of an electric battery. At the same time, a

light, bluish flame ran over its surface, showing me more accurately

its form and dimensions. To the touch, it was solid and cold, like iron

or granite. I pressed upon it, and it yielded like a floating dish. I

tried to break off a fragment, but was unable to separate so much as a

scale.

A moment's reflection convinced me of the nature of this apparent

island in the air. It was an immense aërolite; and with this conviction

came the solution of my own painful state. We had unconsciously passed

beyond the controlling power of the earth's gravitation, into that

region of the upper atmosphere, where, science informs us, these

meteoric stones float in equilibrium, until some accidental impulse

throws them from their balance, when they are precipitated to the

surface of the earth. I must be dying for lack of air. And the man at

the helm, where was he? He must have fallen asleep, and left our vessel

to her own buoyant fancies. And my companions! Bonflon! De Aëry! All

ere this might have perished, and the "Flying Cloud," aside from

myself, be bearing into these upper altitudes nothing but a load of

death.

Terror-struck, I dragged myself, with all the speed I could accomplish,

to the stern. There sat the helmsman at his post, but asleep or

insensible. I shook him, but he gave no signs of life. I shouted with

what little strength I had, but in vain.

"Wake up! wake up!" I cried, "or we are lost!"

At length he opened his eyes, but did not move.

"Wake up!" I screamed again. "Breakers ahead, and worse. You have let

the craft run wild. We are above our level. We are all dying for lack

of air."

"Oh, let me sleep!" he murmured. "I must sleep a little while longer.

It can't--can't be morning yet."

By this time, fright, or the necessity of the occasion, was renewing my

strength.

"Dick!" I shouted in his ear, "Dick, you scoundrel! you will murder us

all. Do your duty, or I will shoot you!"

With this I discharged a barrel of my revolver above his head, which,

like my voice in my efforts at hallooing, sounded only as a faint echo

of itself, but, nevertheless, proved sufficient to give his dormant

faculties a shock. He started up, and, though still but half-conscious,

took the helm and gave it the direction I bade him.

From him I hastened to the engineer, whom I found in a like state of

insensibility. I succeeded in arousing him; but it was necessary that

he should be made to comprehend the difficulties of our

situation,--that our craft, water-logged as it were, would float

forever where she was, for all anybody could say to the contrary, until

forced down by the power of the engine alone to lower and life-giving

atmospheric planes. To get him to understand this was not so easy. But

I succeeded in part, and, in my anxiety for my friends, rushed below to

look after their condition.

As I anticipated, I found every one of them in a state of incipient

asphyxia. But the "Flying Cloud" was already descending into denser

air. Oxygen and pressure were performing their mystic work; and within

half an hour I had the pleasure of seeing them all restored to

consciousness and rapidly returning strength. But the renewed lights

exposed a sight almost too frightful to mention. Every man of us was

crimson from escaped blood, which seemed to have oozed forth, like a

pale-red dew, from every pore of our bodies.

Messrs. Bonflon and De Aëry, when they came to realize the danger from

which we had so narrowly escaped, were nearly dumb with horror. The

lively Frenchman exhibited a sensibility which the extremity of his

single peril, a day or two before, had failed to call up. He wept

aloud. Mr. Bonflon was circumspect and thoughtful. He did not lose his

Yankee balance; but both of them, each in his own way, overwhelmed me

with expressions of obligation.

But the dangers of this dreadful night--a night which can never pass

from my recollection--were not yet over. We were all gathered in the

main cabin, congratulating each other, next after our escape, on our

rapidly returning strength,--happy in the thought that our trip out,

though sprinkled with danger, was so near a prosperous completion, and

almost momently expecting to hear the stroke of the bell which should

announce to us that the red light to designate our place of landing was

in sight, when, instead of the silver ring of this messenger of peace,

we were startled and horrified by an alarm of fire.

Bonflon and De Aëry rushed to the engine-room. A cloud of smoke poured

out from the door by which they disappeared. They were gone only for a

moment; for no man could remain in the hell of flames and vapors into

which they ventured and live. They came out dragging with them the

half-suffocated, scorched, and blazing engineer. How the accident

occurred, it was impossible to divine and useless to inquire. Closing

the door tightly after them to confine the flames, where confinement,

except for the briefest period, among matter so combustible, and

partitions scarcely more formidable than those of a paper bandbox, was

clearly impossible, they threw the burning engineer into our arms, and

themselves took the management of the craft.

De Aëry, in this crisis, rose from the man to the hero, almost to a

demigod. His orders rung through the startled air clear and round like

the voice of a golden bell. Bonflon seconded him with coolness and

decision. With us a moment sufficed to extinguish the burning garments

of the engineer; but by that time the flames had burst from the

engine-room, and that part of the beautiful boat was a ragged,

crackling ruin.

Fleeing to the upper deck, and taking refuge in the bow, we became

sensible that we were descending through the air with frightful

rapidity. When the accident occurred, we were already at a low level,

on the look-out for the signal at our station. This circumstance was in

our favor, if anything could be, when a danger so imminent and dreadful

was pressing. Land, like a hazy shadow, was just discoverable in the

dim distance below us; and oh for one foot of it as a place of rest!

But if it were possible to escape the flames, it was clear enough that

we must be dashed in pieces against the solid earth.

De Aëry was now the only one remaining in the stern. He was exposed to

great peril, but refused to quit his post while it remained possible to

control in any degree the motions of the vessel. The flames played

about him without shaking his courage or his coolness, and broke

through upon the upper deck and separated him from us with a seething

hedge and whirlpool of fire. We lost sight of him, and supposed he had

perished, when suddenly his voice, issuing from the midst of the

furnace, rung on our ears like a trumpet.

"Up the ropes! quit the ship, or you die, every man of you!" he

shouted; and at the same time we discovered him emerging from the

flames and smoke, and ascending the network which enveloped the balloon

and connected it with the ship. We followed his example; some of our

number--the more timid or the more daring, it would be difficult to say

which--continuing the ascent until they had reached the upper surface

of the gas-chamber, and placed its entire fragile bulk between them and

the hazard they most dreaded.

The momentary refuge afforded by these upper works was scarcely

attained, when the bow, where we had stood but a minute before, and the

whole hull of the "Flying Cloud" with it, blended together in one mass

of surging fire. The appearance in the heavens of this strange sight,

to a watcher at some _rancho_, or in the not distant city of San

Francisco, if such there were, must have afforded a more vivid

illustration of the fall of a blazing star or meteoric wonder than

astronomer has ever put on record.

But I delay the catastrophe. Land and water soon became distinguishable

from each other beneath us, and hills from valleys, and forests from

bare plains. There was little wind, except the fierce currents rushing

upward, produced by the heat of our own conflagration. This, for the

time, subdued everything to itself, and, as we approached the ground,

served by its direction to modify the fury of our descent. The denser

lower atmosphere also contributed to the same end; and, most

fortunately, when we reached the earth, and the collision came, we

struck in water instead of on the land.

Still, the collision was a fierce one. With the mass of fire between

us and the ground directly below, blinded by the smoke and half

suffocated by the heat, we were not conscious of the good fortune that

awaited us, until, with a swoop and a plunge, we found ourselves

submerged, and, with an equal velocity, immediately thrown back again

by the buoyant force of the balloon into the open air. The flood of

fire in which we had descended was instantly extinguished; and we awoke

to a sense of our possible safety in darkness rendered doubly profound

by the contrast.

Daylight was near at hand. By a careful adjustment of our weights we

kept the balloon from rolling, and sustained ourselves above the water

among the netting. As morning came, we discovered we had landed in a

small lake, hardly large enough to be dignified with the name, but

obviously of considerable depth. The shore was not distant: and as the

day was sultry, with a little grateful labor at swimming and towing, on

the part of a few of us, we soon reached it. There we examined into

each other's condition. Scarce one of us but was able to show damage by

fire, or from too rough contact with the fragments of the "Flying

Cloud," which preceded us in our plunge into the lake. But no bones

were broken, and no one badly flayed. The case of the engineer was the

worst; but even he was able to keep upon his feet, and pronounced in no

danger.

No hut or field or sign of inhabitants was to be seen. With mixed

feelings, in which, for the present at least, the sense of personal

safety triumphed over all regrets, even with Messrs. Bonflon and De

Aëry, at the shipwreck of so many brilliant hopes, we scuttled that

part of our craft still afloat, and sunk it in the lake; and with weary

footsteps, but unobstructed with baggage, as near as we could determine

by the aid of a compass, took the direction toward San Francisco. A

couple of hours brought us to the _rancho_ of Señor José Dianza, who

received us as a band of pilgrims over the Plains, who, at the hands of

robbers and the elements, had lost everything but life, and helped us

on to the city of the land of gold.

It is needless to detain the reader with the particulars of our return.

They were such only as occur to thousands in the rough and circuitous

transit between San Francisco and New York. We came home by the Isthmus

route, and in ships that ploughed the honest waves. We explained our

absence to our disturbed families and friends as best we might; and

some will remember--and if they do not, they can refresh their

recollection by a reference to the public prints--that several missing

gentlemen of some importance in the world, about that time, suddenly

reappeared upon the stage of action.

We resolved that the whole affair in which we had been engaged should

remain forever buried in oblivion. But time and reflection have wrought

a change with me, though I shall not presume to disturb the veil which

covers my associates. I have come to consider the adventure quite too

good to be lost, and the experiment in aerial navigation, which came so

near proving successful, of too much importance to science to be

suppressed. Hence, conquering my repugnance, I have decided, on my own

responsibility, to give these interesting and valuable particulars to

the world.

* * * * *

DOG-TALK.

Exactly,--Dog-Talk. And I sit down to write some of it out, in the

middle of this pleasant month of May, lest, peradventure, if I postpone

my task for a few weeks longer, I may fall in with my memories some

time in the raging days of the dog-star, when the overwhelming sense of

dog, in which, for the true working out of these memories, I must first

dip my mind, may debar me from enjoying to the fullest extent the

bounteous tap of Croton water which tinkles with such rivulet chiming

from the silver (German) faucet into the marble (wash-hand) basin with

which one side of my apartment is adorned. Hydrophobia is one thing,

and hydrophobiaephobia is another.

Although but the mid-time of May, as I have said, the thermometer is

reported at something not far short of eighty degrees, and that in as

much shade as can possibly be had in the street in which I write, which

is a brick street of New York, with one catalpa-tree in it,--a poor,

vegetable fakir, standing on his one leg at a distance of about three

blocks from "our corner," and sprawling out all round with his

shrivelled hands, as if to catch the passing robe of some rambling

breath of fresh air. With a trustful hope that this statement may be

accepted in extenuation of the inevitable platitudinism down the gently

inclined plane of which I feel myself impelled to slide into my

memories, I will endeavor to bring some of the latter to the surface.

I fancy it has been already remarked by writers,--though that will not

prevent me from repeating it,--that, of all the four-footed friends of

man, none, not even that corpulent chap, Elephant, has contributed more

voluminously to the literature of anecdote than that first-rate fellow,

Dog. Let me also take the liberty of recalling, in corroboration of

others who have previously drawn attention to the same fact, that from

the earliest ages we trace Dog as the companion, friend, and ally of

him whom alone he condescends to acknowledge as master, to accept as

tutor, and to sympathize with in the spirit of hostility to obnoxious

things, and in attachment to the sports of the field. It can hardly be

necessary for me to explain that I allude to Man.

Above all other created things, Man is the one that laughs,--a remark,

so far the present writer is aware, entirely original, and vastly more

indicative of genius than the best of the platitudes incidentally

referred to above. Some of the lower animals weep. The deer, for

instance, has been observed to shed tears in the extremity of terror,

and the hard-pressed hare cries like an ill-regulated child; but not

one of them indicates any emotion analogous to the laughter of Man,

excepting Dog. True it is, that we hear of a "horse-laugh." There is a

beast, too, called the "laughing hyena," and a dismal beast he is.

Among the feathered tribes there flourishes an individual named the

"laughing falcon." From inanimate creation the poet has evoked for us

"Minni Haha," or the "laughing water"; and the expression, "it would

make a cat laugh," is frequently made use of in reference to anything

very ridiculous. But in every one of these cases of so-called laughing

things, the sound only of the laughter is there,--the sentiment is

wanting. Not so with Dog, who, when the spirit of fun moves him, smiles

beamingly with his eyes, giggles manifestly with his chops, or laughs

uproariously with his tail, according as the occasion demands.

Yet, with all his wonderful gifts of intellectual ability, we cannot

concede to Dog the possession of the supereminent faculty called

reason,--the faculty which, as an eminent writer--Tupper, I

think--remarks, places Man immeasurably above all the other animals

stationed so much lower down, and by virtue of which he is lord and

master of them all, leading Behemoth over the land with a ring in his

nose, and towing Leviathan across the waters with a harpoon in his

ribs. Fine as the line may appear which separates instinct from the

divine gift of reason, we must see that progress, an essential

consequence of the latter, is denied to the former. It is quite

possible that the dogs which accompanied the first mariner in the first

argosy were educated to fetch and carry, or were even so far

accomplished as to sit up and beg; and it is but little more their

descendants can do at the present day. But what of Man, who weathered

safely the storm of storms in that same Ark? Compare that venerated

bark, as imagined by us from traditionary description, with the least

eligible of the ferry-boats which scud across our crowded rivers, and

we have answer enough for the present, so far as progress is concerned.

Well, if Dog has never invented so much even as a patent rat-trap,--a

thing, you see, that might have saved him some labor,--if he persists

in disregarding the majesty of Fashion, and continues to move about in

society with the same kind of coat on his back as that worn by his

first ancestor, hatless, disaffected of shoes, and totally obtuse to

the amenity of an umbrella,--if, in fact, his only approach to

humanity, as distinguished by apparel, is his occasional adoption of a

collar precisely similar in general effect to those in which Fashion,

empress of Broadway and of a great many other ways, condemns her

wretched votaries to partial strangulation,--well, say I again, in

spite of all this, Dog is prime company. Intimately associated as I

have been from earliest boyhood with many excellent fellows of the

family, from social communion with which I am at present debarred only

by the direful necessity of dwelling in lodgings,--a necessity which,

if distasteful to Man, to Dog, oh, how fatal!--bound, I may say, as I

was for years, not by straps and chains only, but by ties of confident

friendship also, to canine comrades possessing the purest elements of

worth and humor, it is to me a task not altogether devoid of interest

to fall back on such memories as may enable me to chronicle a few

reminiscences of the nobilities and eccentricities of the race.

Before I discourse of individual dogs of the present century, however,

with whom I have had the pleasure of being personally acquainted, let

me reproduce the following short tale of a dog from an old French

volume,--a tome fittingly adorned with ears of that noble animal

innumerable.

Persimel St. Remi was a gentleman of fortune, whose income was derived

principally from large rented farms, the dues arising from which he

sometimes collected himself, in preference to intrusting that important

duty to a steward or agent. On his excursions for that purpose, he was

generally accompanied by a favorite little spaniel, of a kind too small

to be of any service to him as an escort, but inestimable for his

qualities as a companion. One day M. St. Remi had ridden a long way to

collect certain sums of money due him in arrears of rent, but which he

had little expectation of being able to obtain without further trouble.

To his agreeable surprise, however, his tenants paid him the whole

arrears,--an event so unexpected that he could not conceal his

exultation as he clinked the heavy bag of money on the pommel of his

saddle, when cordially taking leave of his farmers. Merle--that was the

little dog's name--was equally delighted; for his moods were always

regulated by those of his master,--such is the mysterious sympathy

between Dog and us; and ever as his master laughed cheerily to the

chink of the gold, on his homeward ride, Merle barked and bounded

alongside of him, clearly understanding that gold is a thing to be

laughed _with_ and not _at_, and that it is no laughing matter to be

without it. This is what the old French writer asserts respecting the

inward sentiments of that small dog. How he arrived at a knowledge of

them, I know not, nor is it any business of mine. Well, Persimel St.

Remi galloped on and on, until they reached the way-side well about

halfway home,--the old stone trough, with the water sparkling into it

from the grotesque spout carved out of the rock. Here he pulled bridle

to water his horse, refreshed him further by slackening the girths of

the saddle, and, unstrapping the bag of gold which was attached to the

holsters, he placed it by his side on the rock, while he splashed his

hands and face in the cool water. By-and-by he drew up the girths,

mounted his horse dreamily, for he was a man of contemplative moods,

and rode away from the way-side well, forgetful of his treasure, which

lay temptingly on the flat rock, ready to the hand of the first comer.

Not so his faithful dog, who, having in vain tried to lift the bag,

which was too heavy for him, ran swiftly after the rider, whose

attention he strove to arouse by barking violently, and careering round

and round the horse when he slackened his pace. Failing thus to attract

notice, he went so far in his zeal as to bite the horse pretty severely

in the fetlock, which caused him to swerve on one side, and wake up his

master to a vague sense of something wrong, the first idea that

occurred to him being that his dog had gone mad. Cases of hydrophobia

had lately occurred in the neighborhood, and St. Remi was convinced of

the seizure by it of his poor dog when they reached the brook which

flowed across the road. Instead of luxuriating and drinking in this, as

he usually did, the spaniel circled away to where it narrowed, and

leaped across it in his run. Then St. Remi, drawing a pistol from his

holsters, fired at and shot his faithful companion, averting his eyes

as he touched the fatal trigger, and galloping rapidly away from the

death-cry that smote upon his ear; and, as he dashed the spurs into his

reeking horse, he invoked maledictions on the money which was the cause

of this unfortunate journey. The money! but where was it? Suddenly he

pulled up his harassed steed, and the unhappy truth flashed upon him:

he had left his treasure by the way-side well, and had shot his

faithful dog for trying to remind him of it. Riding back to the well

with mad speed, he found by traces of blood upon the path that the poor

spaniel had dragged himself thither again to guard his master's gold to

the last. There he found him, stretched out beside the bag of money,

with just strength enough left to raise his head towards his master,

with a look of forgiveness, ere he died.

The chronicler does not state what M. St. Remi did with all that

money,--though we may be safe in supposing that he very exactly knew;

but we would fain hope that he expended a moiety of it in founding a

retreat for decayed dogs, as a monument to the poor little spaniel so

faithful to him in life and in death.

Sporting dogs,--the setter, the pointer, the fox-hound, and all the

several varieties of hound, have had their historians, from Dame

Juliana Berners to Peter Beckford, and that more recent Peter whose

patronymic was Hawker; while, on our side of the Atlantic, the late

"Frank Forester" has reduced kennel-practice to a system from which the

Nimrod of the ramrod may not profitably depart. Apart from history,

however, and from didactic argument, the individual trails of dogs

remarkable in their day have but too rarely been recorded. Certainly

the shepherd's colley has been admirably individualized by the Ettrick

Shepherd; but many a terrier--"a fellow of infinite fancy"--has passed

through the world's worry without ever seeing his name in

print,--unless, indeed, he happened to have fallen among thieves, and

found himself lamp-posted accordingly,--has passed the grizzle-muzzle

period of doghood unbiographied, and gone down to his last burrow

unsung.

Among the regrets with which we are saddled for our omissions, not the

least of mine is now galling me for having neglected to reduce to

writing, on the spot, curious facts which fell under my immediate

notice in the course of many years' companionship with a somewhat

miscellaneous assortment of canine friends,--

"The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart."

Nevertheless, I will endeavor to bring together in this paper such

stray reminiscences of doggery in general as may occur to me while I

write, illustrating the subject, as I proceed, with occasional passages

from the careers, of humble, but eccentric individuals of the race.

Extinction has been the fate of some varieties of the dog, which have

been either superseded by the progress of machinery, or have gone to

decay in consequence of the annihilation of the animals for the chase

of which they were maintained. When there were wolves in the mosses and

caverns of Ireland, for example, there were wolf-dogs to hunt them. The

last wolf of that country--and _he_ was a wonder, from the then rarity

of the animal--was killed about one hundred and fifty years ago; and

although the breed of hound then known as the Irish wolf-dog--one of

the largest, noblest, and most courageous of the canine race--was kept

up to some extent for nearly a century later, we doubt much whether a

single pure specimen of the variety is now in existence; unless,

indeed, it may so happen that some _ultimus Romanorum_ of the tribe

still licks his patrician chops in the kennels of the Marquis of Sligo,

in the possession of which family the last litter was many years ago

supposed to be.

Reverting to times when I was a boy, I remember me of a generation of

bandy-legged, foxy little curs, long of body, short of limb, tight of

skin, and "scant of breath," which were regarded as the legitimate

descendants of a superseded class,--the Turnspit of good old times. The

daily round of duty of that useful _aide-de-cuisine_ transpired in the

revolution of a wheel, along the monotonous journey of which he

cantered, as a squirrel does in his rolling cage, keeping in motion, by

his professional exertions, the wheels and spinners of the spit upon

which the joint was kept turning before the fire. The tight skin of

this ugly dog was evidently a provision of Nature to secure him from

entanglement with the machinery amid which his business was conducted.

Had a Scotch terrier, for instance, whiskered and plumed, descended

from his own more aristocratic circle to disport himself in that where

turnspit was the principal mover,--the kitchen-wheel,--he might have

found himself cogged, and caught up, and spitted, and associated

promiscuously with leg of mutton as roasted hare; in which capacity he

might eventually have been eaten with currant-jelly and considerable

relish, receiving more honor, perhaps, "in that connection," than had

ever in his lifetime been lavished on him as a member of society.

But Turnspit's profession is a thing of the past, his very existence a

myth. The roasting-jack, with a wind-up weight by which the spit was

turned, cut him out first of all; other inventions further diminished

his importance. But the tea-kettle--which he somewhat resembled in

figure, by-the-by--scalded him clean off the face of creation; for the

bright steam-engine, attached nowadays to the kitchens of our principal

hotels, has given a new turn to affairs, ruling the roast after a

fashion that sets back old Turnspit into the remotest corner under the

backstairs of the Dark Ages. I have alluded to his alleged descendants,

as pointed out to my observation in boyhood; but they were an effete

and degenerate race, purposeless, and wallowing much with the pigs,

whom their grandsires would have recognized only to roast.

In one instance only, and that on this side of the Atlantic, do I

remember having been introduced to any dog whose profession was at all

analogous to that of the turnspit of other days. Falling into

conversation with an old Dutch-Yankee farmer, in a remote and very

rural district, I made some remarks about his dog, which was a very

large, heavy one, of that no-particular-kind happily classified by the

comprehensive natural philosophers of the barn-floor as "yellow dog."

Farmer assured me that this fine fellow--whose name I am ashamed to say

I have forgotten--did all the churning of the farm-dairy by imparting

his motive power to a wheel. This piece of ingenuity, Farmer informed

me, was originally and exclusively an inspiration from the intellect

which animated his, Farmer's, proper clod; nor was he greatly

exhilarated when I narrated to him the tradition of the turnspit, whose

memory, I regret to record, he spurned as that of a "mean cuss,"

destitute of that poetry which dwelleth in the pastoral associations of

the dairy.

Although not strictly in connection with the subject of this article, I

will here relate a story told to me, on the same occasion, by that old

farmer, because it struck me as being rather a good one, and is not

particularly long.

Seeing that I took notice of a smock-frocked rustic employed in

foddering the cattle,--a rustic whose legs and accent were to me

exclusively reminiscent of the pleasant roads and lanes of cheery

Somersetshire,--Farmer informed me that he was a newish importation,

having made his appearance about there early in the previous winter.

While snow, of such quality and in such quantity as they have it in

that region, was yet a novelty to the bumpkin, he was dispatched on

horseback, one day, to the neighboring village, strict instructions

being given him to ride carefully in the middle of the track, as,

treading in the deep snow, the horse might "ball,"--an expression

applied to taking up snow in the hollow of the hoof, which causes the

animal to stumble. An unusually long time elapsed before the messenger

made his appearance from his mission, and then he was seen making his

way painfully through the snow, leading the horse after him by the

bridle.

"What's wrong now?" inquired Farmer, as he glanced at the animal's

knees; "been down, I guess; did Old Horse ball?"

"Noa," replied Bumpkin, "a didn't joost bawl, but a groonted

consoomedly every toime a coom down. Oi thowt a wur a-gwoan to bawl the

last toime we coom down together, and zo oi joost stayed down and

walked 'im whoam."

When doggy men beyond ocean talk about a terrier, they usually

pronounce it _tarrier_, and not _terrier_, as we mostly call him on

this bank of the Atlantic. There is no authority for the former

pronunciation, that I know of, beyond usage, which, however, is much

taken as a standard in England. Thus, an English merchant will talk to

you about his _clarks_, an American about his _clurks_. The French word

_terrier_--derived, of course, from _terre_--signifies not only the

dog, but a burrow in the earth; a kind of retreat in which such dogs

are supposed to pass a portion of their existence, occupied in the

subterrene branches of the chase. It means, also, a land-roll or

register. In Lower Canada, which is essentially France, I recollect the

label, _"Papier Terrier,"_ upon the door of a public-land-office. A

friend of mine, clandestinely and under cover of darkness, removed the

label, substituting for it a scurrilous one setting forth "Pasteboard

Poodle," an announcement which did not appear to convey any particular

idea whatever to the unsettled mind of the haggard provincial _chef du

bureau_, as it flashed upon him next morning in the light of the glad

young autumn day. But, reverting to pronunciation, _tare_-ier would, of

course, more correctly reverberate the sound of the French original

than either of the other usages, while it would possess the advantage

of conveying a suggestion of that proclivity for tearing, so

characteristic of the animal designated by the term. On this important

question the learned philologists wrangle. For my part, I stick to

_tarrier_, which comes "oncommon handy," as the horse-dealer hinted,

when reproved by the Cambridge student for reducing a noble animal

nearly to the level of a donkey by calling him "an 'oss."

And of all the terrier tribe, there is no quainter little fellow than

he of the Island of Skye,--known to his friends and admirers as the

"Skye dog." This little animal, which, in length of spine, shortness of

legs, wildness of hair, and litheness of movement, resembles one of

those long, hirsute caterpillars oft-times to be observed by the happy

rambler in the country, as it promenades across his path, possesses

many distinctive traits, which separate him, in a manner, from Dog in

general, assimilating him somewhat, indeed, to the _ferce_, which find

in rapine and carnage the subsistence which Nature evidently has not

intended that they should realize in communion with man. The peculiar

odor of the fox is his, though in a mitigated degree. He loves to make

a lair under the bushes by tearing up the turf with his teeth and paws,

and to lie in it. He is of a shy and reserved disposition, and usually

more lively at night than by day. These are attributes of beasts of

prey. Unlike all other members of the terrier family, he cares nothing

about rats. He will sit down and bark in a tone of contempt at one

turned out before him in a close passage or room, declining, in fact,

to recognize rats as game, unless entered at them while very young. I

speak only of the pure, unmixed Isle-of-Skye dog, or "tassel terrier,"

as he is sometimes called by rabbit-hunters,--a breed difficult to

obtain in perfection, and one which is particularly scarce in this

country. The proper game or quarry of this animal is the otter, which

he does not hesitate to follow into his very burrow in the river-banks;

nor is he afraid to attack one nearly double his size.

Having, time after time, possessed several of these dogs, verified as

being derived from the best stock on the island, from which their

parents--who understood no language but Gaelic--were brought direct, I

have noted some of their odd, whimsical ways, a few of which I will

illustrate, taking for my exponent one very remarkable little fellow

who was a genuine type of his kind.

This animal was one of the smallest of his family, and of a color

uncommon among them; for they are mostly either of a yellowish dun, or

of that slaty mouse-color known among dog-fanciers as "blue,"--a tint,

by the way, particularly appropriate for a dog of Skye. Sometimes they

are black; but Sambo, better known to his familiars as Sam, was of a

sooty brindle, with a very dark muzzle, and eyes burning out like black

stars from the cloud of shaggy hair that mantled upon his brow. Next to

the shortness of his legs, the length of his body was one of the most

remarkable physical freaks I remember to have observed; neither of

these attributes, however, having a chance of notice in comparison with

the quantity and denseness of his long, soft hair,--for the coat of a

true Skye dog is fleecy, rather than wiry. It was the joint result of

the shortness of his legs and the length of his beard that the fatter

appendage continually swept the ground,--an inconvenience which I once

undertook to remedy by trimming it off short with scissors. No Turk

could have more indignantly resented the process than did that small

quadruped,--his Celtic feelings being so severely wounded by it, in

fact, that he abstained from sustenance for three days, putting himself

into moral sackcloth and ashes for that period by retiring into his

penitential cell under a chest of drawers.

When quite a pup, hardly half-grown, he played a trick unaccountable to

me at this day as it was then. Sam had the run of the house, and he

availed himself of it. On going into the breakfast-room, one morning

early, I observed a singular phenomenon in connection with a large,

cold round of beef, which was the _pièce de résistance_ on the table.

It was curious to behold a round of cold beef with a tail, which it

wagged, and feathered, and beckoned with, as if to say, "Come, eat me."

The tail was the tail of Sam, whose body was concealed far down in the

interior of the tower of beef, into which he had cut his way with great

perseverance and success. But the puzzle was, how he got there; for

there was no chair within reach of the table, and he was much too small

to have jumped up on it; while the theory of the servant, who

propounded that he must have climbed up by the table-cloth, tooth over

claw, was wild, and simply entitled to the contempt of any person aware

of the difference between dog and cat. There is but one acceptable

theory on the subject,--that he was down in the caverns of the beef,

_tail and all_, before it was brought up-stairs, and so escaped notice.

Early in life, he contracted--from evil association, perhaps--a vulgar

trick of running after carriages and barking at the horses' heels, a

trick of which I in vain tried to break him. Once, when he was about a

year old, I took him up beside me into a high _calèche_, in which we

were going some distance. The moment the horse started, Sam jumped out

to have a bark at his heels, when, to my horror, the wheel of the

vehicle, in which there were three of us, went right over the middle of

his body, cutting him, apparently, in two; but he was up in a second,

and barking at heels and wheels for half a mile before we could pull up

and get him in again. This accident appeared to decide him in the

choice of a profession, for he devoted himself energetically, from that

hour, to the pursuit and baying-at of all manner of wheeled things

propelled by horse-power.

A rat he would never touch, although I introduced him to one before he

was a year old; he manifested neither fear of the vermin, nor surprise

at it, but simply took no interest in it. He had much pleasure in

worrying cats; but that was owing, I fancy, to a sad discomfiture he

once met with from one. Walking through a suburb one day, with Sammy

trotting before me in dreamy mood, to which he was much given, a small,

but remarkably severe cat made a sudden and very fierce dash at him

from a cottage-door, taking him so completely aback, that he tumbled,

head over tail, into a deep, dirty pool of green, stagnant water, such

as is usually to be seen in the pleasure-grounds environing a

suburbo-Hibernian shanty. His appearance, on emerging from that

cesspool, was the reverse of majestic; but the incident gave him such

an idea on the subject of cats, that he always persecuted them

remorselessly from that day; nor did he ever again walk through a

suburb in any other frame of mind than a particularly wide-awake one,

and with his tail up.

These dogs are curiously sensitive about their dignity, and sometimes

do not recover their elasticity of spirits for several days after

having undergone a process of correction. I recollect a singular

instance of this sensitiveness displayed by Sambo, in which he also

manifested a kind of inferential power wonderfully akin to reason.

One morning, a tumult of dogs in the street drew him to the window, out

of which he looked by jumping on a chair, just as a troop of "curs of

low degree" tore past after a rather genteel-looking dog with a kettle

tied to his tail. They whirled rapidly by in a turmoil of dust, and

clink, and cur-dog yelp, but not so rapidly as to prevent Sam from

perceiving the terrible degradation to which a gentleman-dog had been

subjected. The sight had a visible effect on his spirits, for he

immediately became quite depressed as to tail and mind, a condition

which influenced him for a day or two, after which he again appeared

comparatively cheerful, and took his place in society with his

accustomed cautious conviviality. About a month after this, he was seen

coming very slowly along a lane which led up to the back of the

house,--a course hardly ever taken by him, as he was a parlor-dog, and

considered himself entitled to the freedom of the hall-door. Creeping

on in the shadow of the wall, he arrived with a very crest-fallen

aspect at the kitchen-door, where the cause of his ignominious approach

was made manifest to those who were watching him. _He had a kettle tied

to his tail_. Now this animal must surely have argued in his own mind,

that running away with a tin kettle is a sure way of attracting

undesirable notice; also, that proceeding through a public thoroughfare

with such an appendage is injudicious, and likely to result in

trouble. The circumstance of the runaway dog and the tumult after him

had left its impression upon him; and, travelling on his experience, he

rightly judged that an unpleasant affair of the kind might best be

hushed up by quietly making one's way home through back-lanes and the

kitchen-door.

Skye terriers, when young, are apt to have a bad trick of gnawing and

tearing up articles of wearing apparel, particularly slippers, gaiters,

and such other things as are handy to toss up and catch. The fellow I

am writing about, when very young, destroyed sundry items of my

property in that way. He occupied a buffalo-robe in my room, and I

heard him very busy one night about something, but did not pay much

attention to it, as he was often lively at night. In the morning,

however, on looking for a pair of leather gaiters, I recognized the

remains of them, after much investigation, in a mass of pulp, to which

they had been reduced by the little beast as completely as they could

have been by the most experienced boa-constrictor. This habit I soon

broke him of, by chastising him with the remnants of the worried

article, when there were any left of substance sufficient to weave into

a scourge; nor did he ever recur to it when grown up, except once,

evidencing upon that occasion a remarkable instance of hereditary

instinct.

Some fur caps, and other articles of winter wear, had been shaken out

of their summer quarters for the purpose of beating the moths out of

them and ventilating them generally, with a view to which they were

placed upon the sill of an open window. By some means Sam obtained

access to the room, where he was discovered in the act of mauling a

valuable otter-skin cap, which he had selected out of the whole

collection for his particular amusement. This dog had never seen an

otter; but his ancestors were noted for their game qualities in the

pursuit of that animal, and their speciality must have descended to

him.

Eventually Sambo lost all his self-respect. He became discontented and

addicted to low company, dissipating with vile curs whose owners

enjoyed anything but unblemished reputations,--a fact first notified to

me by a clergyman of my acquaintance who knew him well. The worst of

this was, that he wore a collar with my name engraved on it in full;

and it was a long time before I had an opportunity of redeeming that

misused badge. About the very last time I ever saw him, I think, he

came home with one of his eyes gouged out, a split ear, and other marks

but too suggestive of the tavern brawl. I then deprived him of his

collar; soon after which he returned to his unsettled course of life,

and I never saw him again.

The peculiar, otter-like form of these animals, and the buoyancy given

to them by their long, floating hair, endow them with great facility

for swimming; while the small compass into which they will pack in a

canoe or skiff makes them very useful companions to the sportsman whose

propensities are for paddling about "in the melancholy marshes." I made

an excellent retriever of one of mine by carrying in my pocket a

stuffed snipe, which I would make her hunt up and fetch out of the

weeds into which I had thrown it. She would go back half a mile and

fetch this, when I had hidden it ever so cunningly in a thicket by the

way-side. I also taught her to dive, by making her, while young, fetch

up a little bag of shot from the bottom of a bathtub in my room. By

throwing this into deeper water, gradually, she would soon go down to a

great depth for it. A charge of shot, tied up in a piece of white

kid-glove, with a "neck" left to hold on by, is a good object for the

purpose, as it is readily seen in deep water, and teaches the animal,

besides, to nip gingerly,--a valuable qualification in a retriever. I

remember one of these dogs fetching up from a considerable depth the

watch of a friend of mine, which had slipped out of his pocket into a

clear, still bay, over which he was loitering in his canoe.

From times unrecorded until about twenty years ago, the Skye terrier

awaited confidently his summons to the sphere of rank and fashion.

About that time, the day, which, as the proverb figuratively informs

us, it falls to the lot of each individual of the canine race to enjoy,

began to shine out brightly for the dog of Skye, the first rays of it

that reached him being reflected from no less a luminary than the Crown

of Great Britain; for it was among the Scottish fancies of England's

Queen to adopt as a prime favorite this hitherto obscure quadruped.

Reckoned until that time--if anybody took the trouble of computing him

at all--as one of the ugliest of his race, he at once found himself

invested with all the attributes of a canine Adonis,--a very Admirable

Crichton of dogs,--perfect in intellect, face, figure, and the Hyperion

luxuriance of his copious mane and tail. In our youth, we knew--and

hated--a small, unmitigated snob of a dog called the Pug, a kind of

work-basket bull-dog, diminutive in size, dyspeptic in temper,

disagreeable to contemplate, and distressing to be obliged to admire.

One of the missions in society of Skye Terrier--who, when going before

a high wind, bears no unapt resemblance to a mop or a wisp of tow--was

to mop up Pug, and polish him off the hearth-rug of Fashion; a mission

which he appears to have at least partially accomplished. For now the

black muzzle of Pug is but seldom to be seen protruded from

carriage-window, biding his time for a snap at the first kid-gloved

finger that wags within range of his overlapping tusks in waving

salutation to his dowager mistress,--for, of the dowagers, above all,

he was one of the chronic calamities. Oftener, now, are the well-combed

whiskers and moustaches of Skye Dog to be recognized, dropping over the

drawing-room window-sill, or framed, like a portrait by Landseer, in

the panelled sash of the barouche, out of which he gazes pensively with

the impressive speculation of the true _flâneur_;--yea, for as men of

fashion are, so are their dogs; and so also of the fighting butcher,

who ever has his counterpart in the fighting bull-dog that glowers from

his gory stall.

This exalted value of Skye Dog, in a commercial point of view, has, of

course, given rise to the manufacture of a spurious article; whence it

comes, that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the animal palmed

off on the unsophisticated as genuine has nothing of the real stuff in

his constitution, but is simply a shallow imitation, compounded

according to prescription,--one part common cur-terrier to two parts

insignificant French poodle. And so I take leave of the Skye terrier

with a _caveat emptor_ to the purchaser who does not want to be sold

while he buys.

The sense of humor must surely exist in individual dogs; otherwise it

would puzzle me to account for the singular practical jokes played off

by a water-spaniel once possessed by me. This individual, whose name

was Muff, was a rather small-sized one, of the pure Kentish blood;

liver-colored, with a white ring on his neck, and white paws;

close-curled, wicked-eyed, deep-chested, and remarkably powerful for

his size. Professionally a retriever,--and one of great promise,

although never fully tested with the gun,--his leisure hours, which

included every one in the twenty-four, were passed in the invention and

perpetration of curiously regulated mischiefs, with all of which he

took pains to combine an element of the ludicrous. His great spree was

to run amuck into a flock of small children coming out of school. If

there was a dirty crossing hard by, over which they had to pass, he

would wait until they had got half-way, and then, going through them

like a rocket, would chuck them down into the mud, right and left, as

he sped, keeping straight on in his career until far beyond range of

pedagogue's rod. His trick of making a sudden rush at the heels of

unsuspecting persons--and he invariably selected the right sort for his

purpose--might often have got me into ugly scrapes, but for the tact

with which he invariably ignored his master on such occasions. If

pursued, he never came near me for protection, but fled wildly on,

assuming the character of a dog "on the loose," belonging to nobody in

particular, and quite able to take care of himself. He had a decided

objection to street industrials in general, including Italian

organ-grinders and image-sellers. Once I saw him crouching stealthily

after one of the latter, who was passing through an open square with a

tray of casts upon his head; and before I could get up a whistle or

call him off by name, he had darted like a javelin at the legs of the

refugee, startling him so much out of the perpendicular that the

superstructure of plastic art came to the ground with a crash,

top-dressing the sterile soil of the Campus Martius with a coat of

manufactured plaster of Paris. Marius, blubbering over the shattered

chimney-stacks of Carthage, could not have displayed a more touching

classical spectacle than did that modern Roman lamenting to and fro

among the fragments of his collapsed martyrs and ruined saints; nor

were his pangs fully assuaged even by the application of the universal

panacea to an amount more than double the value of his lost wares.

A great difficulty in training this dog was to bring him "to heel,"--a

still greater one to keep him there when he came. If thrashed into his

proper place in his master's wake, he always resented the indignity by

biting him pretty severely in the legs with a savage whimper. This he

invariably did on first leaving the house with me, sometimes nipping me

so severely, after we had gone a short distance, that I have hesitated

whether to go back for a pistol to shoot him, or forward for a

pennyworth of biscuit to buy him off. When told to "hie away," the

extravagance of his joy knew no bounds. He would have been as

invaluable to a tailor as was to the Parisian _décrotteur_ the poodle

instructed by him to sully with his paws the shoes of the passengers;

for, in the exuberance of his gladness, he but too often rent

insufferably the vestments of the hapless pedestrians in his line of

fire. Sometimes he would turn his assaults upon me, and, springing

suddenly at my "wide-awake," take it from my head, trailing it wildly

away through the mud, and dropping it in some place where it would be

difficult to get at it without wading. Then I would have to conciliate

him to fetch it,--a favor not to be obtained without much stratagem and

diplomacy.

One of this dog's abnormal qualities was the bull-dog one of holding on

to his antagonist in a fight. But few dogs of his size were able to

cope with him; and I once saw him, when in grips with a fierce

bull-terrier by a riverside, precipitate the result by dragging his

adversary into the water, and dipping his head under. He would jump off

the highest bridge to fetch out of the water anything thrown in for

him, never failing to bring it to his master's feet,--except once, when

he steadily declined to recover from the raging element a cane with

which I had, some time previously, administered to him a sound

thrashing for some delinquency. On the first occasion of his being

accidentally left behind at a ferry across a very wide and rapid river,

he swam out some distance after the boat; but, finding the enterprise a

rather hopeless one, soon put back again and waited for the next boat,

on board of which he took his place with a tranquil and business-like

air. This he regularly did on subsequent occasions, without risking the

swim; and when on board, he always seated himself on the upper deck and

as far forward as possible, so as to catch early glimpses of his

friends in waiting.

Among the gifts of this clever animal, I must not forget to reckon a

perception of the truthful in Art. I had a walking-stick, upon the

crooked handle of which was carved, with tolerable skill, a pointer's

head. This piece of sculpture was a source of frequent anxiety to

Muff,--his embarrassment apparently arising from the circumstance of

his not having the gift of speech wherewith to deliver himself of an

opinion on the subject. He would sometimes get up from the sunny spot

on the carpet where he lay, walk over to the corner in which the stick

was deposited, contemplate the handle attentively, with his head on one

side, for several minutes, and then, shaking his head doubtfully,

return to his lair with a sigh. Philanthropist as well as critic, he

once saved the life of a dissipated old sergeant of dragoons, to whom

he had taken a fancy, by rushing into a house which the man had just

quitted in a state of intoxication, and so rousing the inmates by his

gestures, that they at once followed him into the road, alongside of

which the beery old _sabreur_ was found prostrate in a pool of water,

setting his face pertinaciously against that hostile element, even to

what was very near being his last gasp.

Large dogs often appear to take a humorous view of the futile attempts

of small ones to accomplish some feat beyond their strength or stature.

A friend of mine once possessed a very large animal of a cross between

the Mount St. Bernard dog and the English mastiff, and as remarkable

for his good-nature as for his great strength and courage. Rambling out

one day, accompanied by this trusty friend, they came upon a group of

rustics engaged in the ignoble diversion of baiting a badger, an animal

much in request among English dog-fanciers as a test for the pluck of

their terriers. "Drawing a badger" is the proper sporting-phrase,--the

animal being chained to a barrel, from the recesses of which he

contends savagely with the fierce little dogs pitted against each other

to drag him out within a given time. Nero looked on at the sport with a

majestic air of contempt, as dog after dog was withdrawn from the

conflict. At length, disgusted with the failures, he watched his

opportunity until the badger made a dive from his den at a retreating

foe, when, snapping him up by the collar, he thundered away down the

road with the barrel flying after, nor ever stopped until he reached

home, nearly a mile away, where he safely deposited badger and barrel

in the immediate vicinity of his private residence in the stable-yard.

One of the worst vices by which a dog can be beset is a propensity for

killing sheep. It is not a common vice, but, where it exists, it

appears to be inveterate and beyond all hope of reform. Shutting up the

delinquent with a dangerous ram has often been recommended as a certain

mode of disgusting him with mutton, should he survive the discipline

inflicted on him by the avenger of the blood of his race. I can recall

but one instance within my experience in which this corrective was

tested. It was in the case of a sulky dog of a breed between the red

Irish setter and something larger, but less patrician, upon whom the

thirst for blood fell at uncertain intervals, impelling him then to

devastate the very sheepfolds of which in his capacity as watch-dog he

might have been considered as _ex officio_ the guardian. This vile

malefactor had been ordered for execution, and the noose was already

coiled for his caitiff neck, when a neighbor of his master's--a great

raiser of sheep--begged for him a reprieve, kindly volunteering the use

of a truculent, but valuable ram belonging to him, for the purpose of

illustrating the homaeopathic theory above alluded to. At nightfall the

ram was brought and turned into a paddock, where he was left fettered

to the dog with a couple of yards of chain. At the dawn of morning the

ram's master approached confidently the arena of discipline, secure of

a result triumphant for his theory. But theory was a delusion in this

instance; for the red dog Tanner sat there alone and surfeited with

mutton,--though there was a good deal of the ram still left.

It is wonderful what an amount of crime can be committed, even

by a small dog, when, like the _Chourineur_ of Eugene Sue, he is

under the glamour of blood. Of this there came to my knowledge a

well-authenticated instance, one for the truth of which I can vouch. A

settler in a remote bush-district had been to the nearest village,

which was many miles from his clearing. It was in March, and the

surface of the snow--which was quite two feet deep--was frozen to a

hard crust, as he travelled homewards in his cutter, accompanied by a

currish dog, not nearly so large as an average pointer. About

nightfall, and when some two miles from home, a herd of nine deer

crossed his track, struggling away into the woods with uncertain

plunges, as the treacherous crust gave way beneath them at every bound.

While they were yet in sight, the dog gave chase, and they all

disappeared into the dark forest together; nor did the dog return to

the call of his master, who, after whistling to him for a short time,

proceeded on his way and drove home without him. Early next morning the

cur made his appearance, glutted and gory, and looking the very picture

of dissipation. Struck by his appearance, they took the back track on

his trail, which led them to a hollow in the bush, where the snow was

much trampled and draggled with blood, and in and around which every

one of the nine deer lay dead, pulled down and throttled by one

miserable cur, who had the mastery over them, because he could run on

the surface of the snow, through which they sunk. The dog's master--at

whose shanty I once stayed when on a fishing-excursion--was much

mortified at the occurrence, as the deer-hunting season was past, and

he was one of Nature's sportsmen, a game-keeper by instinct.

I have but one more anecdote of a dog, for the present; and that is one

for the truth of which I distinctly decline to vouch. It was imparted

to me by a calker, who owned a woolly French poodle, which remarkable

animal, he informed me, used to swim out regularly once a week,--on

Saturday evenings, I think he said,--with a large wisp of tow in his

mouth, upon the ascension of his fleas into which place of refuge, he

would "let it slide" down the current and swim back tranquilly to the

shore, there to slumber away another week in comparative comfort.[1]

[Footnote 1: The calker's dog had probably never read Olaus Magnus,

though that worthy Archbishop wrote something very like dog-Latin; but,

as dwellers on the margin of the "Atlantic," we have too great a

respect for a prelate who believed in the kraaken and the sea-serpent,

not to refer our valued Cynophilist to the Thirty-Ninth Chapter of the

Eighteenth Book _De Gentibus Septentrionalibus_, where he will find the

same story told of the fox.--_Eds. Atlantic._]

Having thus calked my Dog-Talk--bark, in fact--with this very tough bit

of yarn, I now trustfully commit it to the mercies of the "Atlantic."

THE RECKONING.

Your thought may recur with mine

To a certain place in the city,

Where you sometimes have chanced to dine;

If not, why, the more's the pity!

Did you notice the delicate way

Whereby, with the trencher and cup,

Comes a hint of the matter of pay,

In a counter laid _blank side up_?

Now,--not to pervert the intent

Of a courtesy gentle and rare,

Or observance so civilly meant

With disparaging things to compare,--

By the token your messenger brings,

Did such services never suggest

A likeness to manifold things

Of the world, and the flesh, and--the rest?

Command whatsoever you will,

To pamper your folly or pride;

You shall find, that unfailingly, still,

The _counter_ is laid beside,

Silently,--seemingly fair,--

Till an angel the disk shall turn,

And the soul's great debt, the inscription there,

On her vision shall burst and burn!

* * * * *

A TRIP TO CUBA.

MATANZAS.

A hot and dusty journey of some six hours brought us to Matanzas at

high noon. Our companions were Cubans, Spaniards, Americans, and

game-chickens, that travel extensively in these parts, sometimes in

little baskets, with openings for the head and tail, sometimes in the

hands of their owners, secured only by a string fastened to one foot

and passed over the body. They seem to be objects of tender solicitude

to those who carry them; they are nursed and fondled like children, and

at intervals are visited all round by a negro, who fills his mouth with

water, and squirts it into their eyes and under their feathers. They

are curiously plucked on the back and about the tail, where only the

long tail-feathers are allowed to grow. Their tameness in the hands of

their masters is quite remarkable; they suffer themselves to be turned

and held in any direction. But when set down, at any stage of the

journey, they stamp their little feet, stretch their necks, crow, and

look about them for the other cock with most belligerent eyes. As we

have said that the negro of the North is an ideal negro, so we must say

that the game-cock of Cuba is an ideal chicken, a fowl that is too good

to be killed,--clever enough to fight for people who are too indolent

and perhaps too cowardly to fight for themselves,--in short, the

gladiator of the tropics.

Well, as we have said, we and they arrived at our journey's end in the

extreme heat of the day; and having shown our paper and demanded our

trunks, we beat an instantaneous retreat before the victorious monarch

of the skies, and lo! the Ensor House, dirty, bare, and comfortless,

was to us as a fortress and a rock of defence.

Here I would gladly pause, and, giving vent to my feelings, say how

lovely I found Matanzas. But ever since Byron's time, the author is

always hearing the public say, "Don't be poetical," etc., etc.; and in

these days both writer and reader seem to have discovered that life is

too short for long descriptions,--so that, when the pen of a G. P. R.

James, waiting for the inspirations of its master, has amused itself

with sketching a greater or less extent of natural scenery, the rule of

the novel-reader is invariably, "Skip landscape, etc., to event on

thirty-second page." Nevertheless, I will say that Matanzas is

lovely,--with the fair harbor on one hand and the fair hills on the

other, sitting like a mother between two beautiful daughters, who looks

from one to the other and wonders which she loves best. The air from

the water is cool and refreshing, the sky is clear and open, and the

country around seems to beckon one to the green bosom of its shades.

"Ob, what a relief after Havana!" one says, drawing a full breath, and

remembering with a shudder the sickening puffs from its stirring

streets, which make you think that Polonius lies unburied in every

house, and that you nose him as you pass the door and window-gratings.

With this exclamation and remembrance, you lower yourself into one of

Mr. Ensor's rocking-chairs,--twelve of which, with a rickety table and

a piano, four crimson tidies and six white ones, form the furniture of

the Ensor drawing-room,--you lean your head on your hand, close your

eyes, and wish for a comfortable room, with a bed in it. A tolerable

room you shall have; but for a bed, only a cot-bedstead with a sacking

bottom,--further, nothing. Now, if you are some folks that I know, you

will be able to establish very comfortable repose on this slender

foundation, Nature having so amply furnished you that you are your own

feather-bed, bolster, sofa-cushion, and easy-chair, a moving mass of

upholstery, wanting only a frame to be set down in and supported. But

if you should be one of Boston's normal skeletons, pinched in every

member with dyspepsia, and with the mark of the beast neuralgia on your

forehead, then your skin will have a weary time of it, holding your

bones, and you will be fain to entreat with tears the merciful

mediation of a mattress.

Now I know very well that those of my readers who intend visiting Cuba

will be much more interested in statistics of hotels than in any

speculations, poetical or philosophical, with which I might be glad to

recompense their patience. Let me tell them, therefore, that the Ensor

House is neither better nor worse than other American hotels in Cuba.

The rooms are not very bad, the attendance not intolerable, the table

almost commendable. The tripe, salt-fish, and plantains were,

methought, much as at other places. There were stews of meat, onions,

sweet pippins, and _ochra_, which deserve notice. The early coffee was

punctual; the tea, for a wonder, black and hot. True, it was served on

a bare pine table, with the accompaniment only of a bit of dry

bread,--no butter, cake, nor _dulces_. But Mr. Ensor has heard, no

doubt, that sweet things are unwholesome, and is determined, at

whatever cost to his own feelings, to keep them out of the way of his

guests, who are, for the time, his children. Then there is an excellent

English servant called John, whom, though the fair Ensor did berate

him, we must enumerate among the comforts of the establishment. There

is a dark corner about _volantes_, which they are disposed to order for

you at a very unreasonable profit; but as there are plenty of livery

stables at hand, and street _volantes_ passing all the time, it will be

your own fault, if you pay six dollars where you ought to pay three.

The first thing to be done at Matanzas is to drive out and see the

Cumbre, a hill in the neighborhood, and from it the valley of the

Yumori. The road is an improvement on those already described,--the

ruts being much deeper and the rocks much larger; the jolting is

altogether more complete and effective. Still, you remember the

doctrine that the _volante_ cannot upset, and this blind faith to which

you cling carries you through triumphantly. The Cumbre is lofty, the

view extensive, and the valley lovely, of a soft, light green, like the

early leaves and grass of spring, dotted everywhere with the palms and

their dark clusters. It opens far, far down at your feet, and on your

left you see the harbor quiet and bright in the afternoon sun, with a

cheering display of masts and pennons. You would look and linger long,

but that the light will wane, and you are on your way to Jenks his

sugar-plantation, the only one within convenient distance of the town.

Here the people are obviously accustomed to receive visitors, and are

decently, not superfluously, civil. The _major-domo_ hands you over to

a negro who speaks English, and who salutes you at once with,

"Good-bye, Sir!" The boiling here is conducted in one huge, open vat. A

cup and saucer are brought for you to taste the juice, which is dipped

out of the boiling vat for your service. It is very like balm-tea,

unduly sweetened; and after a hot sip or so you return the cup with

thanks. A loud noise, as of cracking of whips and of hurrahs, guides

you to the sugar-mill, where the crushing of the cane goes on in the

jolliest fashion. The building is octagonal and open. Its chief feature

is a very large horizontal wheel, which turns the smaller ones that

grind the cane. Upon this are mounted six horses, driven by as many

slaves, male and female, whose exertions send the wheel round with

sufficient rapidity. This is really a novel and picturesque sight. Each

negro is armed with a short whip, and their attitudes, as they stand,

well-balanced on the revolving wheel, are rather striking. They were

liberal of blows and of objurgations to the horses; but all their cries

and whipping produced scarcely a tenth of the labor so silently

performed by the invisible, noiseless slave that works the

steam-engine. From this we wandered about the avenues, planted with

palms, cocoas, and manifold fruit-trees,--visited the sugar-fields,

where many slaves were cutting the canes and piling them on enormous

ox-carts, and came at last to a great, open field, where many head of

cattle were quietly standing. Our negro guide had not been very lavish

or intelligible in his answers to our numerous questions. We asked him

about these cattle. "Dey cows," he replied. We asked if they gave milk,

and if butter was made on the plantation. He seemed quite puzzled and

confused, and finally exclaimed,--"Dat cows no got none wife." Coming

nearer, we found that the cows were draught oxen, employed in dragging

the canes and other produce of the plantation. Jenks his garden we

found in good order, and beautiful with many plants in full blossom;

but Jenks his house seemed dreary and desolate, with no books, a

wretched print or so, dilapidated furniture, and beds that looked like

the very essence of nightmare. Nothing suggested domestic life or

social enjoyment, or anything--; but as Jenks is perfectly unknown to

us, either by appearance or reputation, we give only a guess in the

dark, and would suggest, in case it may displease him, that he should

refurnish and repaint a little, and diffuse an air of cheerfulness over

his solitary villa, remembering that Americans have imaginations, and

that visitors will be very apt to construct an unknown host from his

surroundings.

The second thing to be done in Matanzas, if you arrive on Saturday, is

to attend military mass at the Cathedral on Sunday morning. This

commences at eight o'clock; but the hour previous may be advantageously

employed in watching the arrival and arrangement of the female

aristocracy of Matanzas. These enter in groups of twos and threes,

carrying their prayer-books, and followed by slaves of either sex, who

bear the prayer-carpet of their mistresses. The ladies are wonderfully

got up, considering the early hour; and their toilettes suggest that

they may not have undressed since the ball of the night before. All

that hoops, powder, and puffery can do for them has been done; they

walk in silk attire, and their hair is what is technically termed

dressed. Some of them bring their children, bedizened like dolls, and

mimicking mamma's gestures and genuflexion in a manner more provoking

to sadness than to satire. If the dressing is elaborate, the crossing

is also. It does not consist of one simple cross, "_in nomine Patris_,"

etc.; they seem to make three or four crosses from forehead to chin,

and conclude by kissing the thumb-nail, in honor of what we could not

imagine. Entering the middle aisle, which is divided from the rest by a

row of seats on either side, they choose their position, and motion to

the dark attendant to spread the carpet. Some of them evince

considerable strategic skill in the selection of their ground. All

being now in readiness, they drop on their knees, spread their

flounces, cross themselves, open their books, and look about them.

Their attendants retire a little, spread a handkerchief on the ground,

and modestly kneel behind them, obviously expecting to be saved with

the family. These are neatly, sometimes handsomely dressed. In this

status things remain until the music of the regiment is heard. With a

martial sound of trumpets it enters the church, and fills the aisles,

the officers taking place within the chancel, and a guard-of-honor of

eight soldiers ranging on either side of the officiating priest. And

now our devotions begin in good earnest; for, simultaneously with the

regiment, the _jeunesse dorée_ of Matanzas has made its appearance, and

has spread itself along the two long lines of demarcation which

separate the fair penitents from the rest of the congregation. The

ladies now spread their flounces again, and their eyes find other

occupation than the dreary Latin of their missals. There is, so to

speak, a lively and refreshing time between the youths of both sexes,

while the band plays its utmost, and _Evangel_, _Kyrie_, and _Credo_

are recited to the music of Trovatore and Traviata. That child of four

years old, dressed in white and gold flounces, and white satin boots

with heels, handles her veil and uses her eyes like mamma, eager for

notice, and delighted with the gay music and uniforms. The moment comes

to elevate the Host, thump goes the drum, the guard presents arms, and

the soldiers, instead of kneeling, bend forward, in a most

uncomfortable manner. Another thump, and all that is over; the swords

are returned to their sheaths, and soon, the loud music coming to an

end, the regiment marches out of church, very much as it marched in,

its devotional experiences being known to Heaven alone. Ladies and

lovers look their last, the flounces rise in pyramids, the

prayer-carpets are rolled up, and, with a silken sweep and rush, Youth,

Beauty, and Fashion forsake the church, where Piety has hardly been,

and go home to breakfast. To that comfortable meal you also betake

yourself, musing on the small heads and villanous low foreheads of the

Spanish soldiery, and wondering how long it would take a handful of

resolute Yankees to knock them all into--But you are not a filibuster,

you know.

THE PASEO--THE PLAZA--DINING OUT.

"As this Sunday is Carnival, you cannot do better than drive about the

city, and then go to the Plaza to see the masks. My partner's wife,

with whom you have now so comfortably breakfasted, will call for you in

her _volante_, between five and six o'clock. She will show you the

Paseo, and we will go and see the masks afterwards."

So spoke a banker, who, though not _our_ banker, is our friend, and

whose kind attentions we shall ever recall, when we remember Cuba. So

he spoke, and so it befell. The pretty American lady, Cubanized into

paleness, but not into sallowness, called at the appointed hour, and,

in her company, we visited the principal streets, and the favorite

drive of the Matanzasts. The Paseo is shorter than that of Havana, but

much prettier. We found it gay with _volantes_, whose fair occupants

kept up an incessant bowing and smiling to their friends in carriages

and on horseback. The Cubans are generally good riders, and their

saddle-horses have the easiest and pleasantest gait imaginable. The

heat of the climate does not allow the severe exercise of trot and

gallop, and so these creatures go along as smoothly and easily as the

waves of the sea, and are much better broken to obedience. The ladies

of Matanzas seem to possess a great deal of beauty, but they abuse the

privilege of powder, and whiten themselves with _cascarilla_ to a

degree that is positively ghastly. This _cascarilla_ is formed by the

trituration of eggshells; and the oval faces whitened with it resemble

a larger egg, with features drawn on it in black and red. In spite of

this, they are handsome; but one feels a natural desire to rush in

amongst them with a feather duster, and lay about one a little, before

giving an available opinion of their good looks.

If the Paseo was gay, the streets of the city were gay also; the

windows filled with faces and figures in full dress, with little groups

of children at the feet of the grown people, like the two world-famous

cherubs at the feet of the Madonna di San Sisto. There were crowds of

promenaders too, everywhere, interspersed with parties of maskers, who

went about screaming at the public with high, shrill voices. Leaving

the _volante_, we descend to the Plaza, where is now the height and

centre of movement. We find it flanked on all sides with little movable

kitchens, where good things are cooked, and with tables, where they are

sold and eaten. Fried cakes, fish, and meats seem the predominant bill

of fare, with wine, coffee, and fruits. The masks are circulating with

great animation; men in women's clothes, white people disguised as

negroes, and negroes disguised as whites, prodigious noses, impossible

chins and foreheads; the stream of popular fancy ran chiefly in these

channels. We met processions consisting of a man carrying a rat in a

cage, and shouting out, "Catch this rat!" followed by a perfect

stampede of wild creatures, all yelling, "Catch that rat!" at the top

of their voices. The twanging of the guitar is heard everywhere,

accompanied by the high nasal voices of the natives, in various strains

of monotony. In some spots the music is more lively, accompanied by the

shaking of a gourd filled with dry seeds, which is called _ghiera_, and

whose "chick-a-chick, chick-chick" takes the place of the more poetical

castanets;--here you find one or more couples exhibiting their skill in

Cuban dances, with a great deal of applause and chattering from the

crowd around. Beside those of the populace, many aristocratic groups

parade the Plaza, in full dress, crowned with flowers and jewels;--a

more motley scene can hardly be imagined. Looking up, one sees in

curious contrast the tall palms with which the Plaza is planted, and

the quiet, wondering stars set in the deep tropical heavens.

But in our evening's programme, tea has been omitted; now, what

availeth a Bostonian without his tea? By eight o'clock, we are pensive,

"most like a tired child at a show,"--by half-past eight, stupid,--by

nine, furious. Two hours of folly, taken on an empty stomach, alarm us

for our constitution. A visit to the _café_ is suggested and adopted.

It proves to be crowded with people in fancy attire, who have laid

aside their masks to indulge in beer, orgeat, and sherbet. While our

Cuban friends regale themselves with soursop and _zapote_ ice sweetened

with brown sugar, we call for a cup of delicious Spanish chocolate,

which is served with a buttered toasted roll, worthy of all imitation.

Oh, how much comfort is in a little cup of chocolate! what an

underpinning does it afford our spiritual house, a material basis for

our mental operations! In its support, we go it a little longer on the

Plaza, see more masks, hear more guitars and "catch-this-rat!" and

finally return, in a hired _volante_, to the Ensor House, where rest

and the bedless cots await us.