Less than a mile north of the town a conical craggy hill rises

like an island from the middle of the wide valley. On this hill,

Potala, (the name of which M. Huc writes Boodhala, and interprets,

questionably,[12] to mean "Mount of Buddha,") is the residence of

the Tibetan flesh-and-blood divinity. It is a great cluster of

temples and other buildings, terminating in a lofty four-storied

edifice towering over the others, crowned by a dome or canopy

entirely covered with gold, and encircled by a range of gilded

columns. From this lofty sanctuary the great Lama may contemplate

on festival days the crowds of his adorers moving in the plain, and

prostrating themselves at the foot of the holy hill. The subordinate

buildings of this acropolis serve as residences to a crowd of Lamas

of all ranks, who form the court and permanent attendants of the

sacred sovereign. Two avenues lined with trees lead from the city

to the Potala, generally thronged with mounted lamas of the court,

and with pilgrims from a distance, who, as they move along, thread

their long rosaries, and mutter the sacred symbol of their faith.

The crowds around the Potala are in continual motion, but generally

grave and silent, as if in religious abstraction. It is probably

etiquette to be so.

[12] The Tibetan scholar Csoma de Körös writes it _Patala_.

Unfortunately our missionaries have ventured on no graphic

illustrations; and the only attempt that we know of to delineate

this interesting citadel of Buddhism, is a plate contained in the

narrative of Grueber and Dorville's journey, given by Athanasius

Kircher in his _China Illustrata_. It is meagre enough, but yet

looks genuine, and not a mere Amsterdam concoction.

A singular legend is stated by Huc to exist, both at Lhassa and

among the dwellers by the Koko-Noor, (the great salt lake on the

north-east frontier of Tibet,) that the waters of that basin

formerly occupied a subterraneous site beneath the capital city;

but, on the breaking of a charm which detained them there, they

passed off under ground, and flooded the valley where the lake

now exists. It is curious that Turner met with a version of this

same tradition on the southern frontier of Tibet; but there it was

related that Buddha, in compassion to the few and wretched creatures

who then inhabited the land, drew off the waters through Bengal. A

similar tradition regarding the valley of Katmandoo exists in Nepaul.

The people of Tibet are of the great Mongolian family, and

exhibit its characters in a very marked degree;--platter face,

with prominent cheek-bones, button-hole eyes and upright eyelids,

squashed nose, wide mouth, retiring chin, scant beard, coarse black

hair, deeply-marked and weather-beaten countenances; naturally of a

pale-brown colour, but tanned to any depth of copper, not without

a ruddy tint at times; of a considerable variety of stature. The

English traveller who, in traversing the steep valley-sides of

the Himalaya, comes for the first time on a party of Tibetans

driving southward their flock of sheep and goats--each little

quadruped, like a camel from Lilliput, laden with some twenty

pounds of salt or borax--is struck at once with the idea that he

has stumbled on a group of Esquimaux out of Parry's voyages. These

quaint, good-humoured people frequent the fairs of the British

hill-territory, to exchange their salt for wheat and barley; and

sometimes they get so far from home as to astonish, with unwonted

apparition, the evening promenaders at Simla or Mussooree.

These uncouth peasants, though perhaps the best ethnographic

studies, are not to be taken as samples of the culture and

refinement of Tibet. The higher classes of the country have only

been known to those few travellers who have penetrated to the

capitals--Ladakh on the one side, Lhassa and Teshoo Loombo on

the other. All these seem to have been most favourably impressed

with the kindly and simple, but by no means unpolished manners

of the educated class; the plain and unaffected language, the

mild and unassuming demeanour, of the ruling prince at Teshoo

Loombo--which Turner, at the same time, says was characteristic of

all well-educated Tibetans--fully accords with the character of the

regent-minister at Lhassa, as he appears in the later narrative of

M. Huc.

Dark woollen cloth is the standard material of dress, formed into

a wide frock, trousers, and leggings, the last replaced in the

wealthy by boots of Russia, or other costly leather. Over all is

worn a capacious mantle of cloth, sometimes lined with fur. From

a red girdle depend various purses, containing the wooden teacup

inseparable from a Tibetan, flint and steel, and other odds and

ends. Gay broad-brimmed hats are in vogue at Lhassa, but are rarer

in the west. The women dress much like the men, and plait the

hair in narrow tresses hanging on the shoulders. On the top of

the head the Ladakh women wear a flat lappet of cloth or leather,

descending in a peak behind, stuck over with beads of turquoise,

amber, and cornelian; and the back hair is gathered in a queue,

which is lengthened by tassels of coloured worsted intermixed with

shells, bells, and coins, until it nearly touches the ground.

Though not veiled, like the Moslem women, with muslin or calico,

their charms are subjected to a much more efficacious disguise.

Before leaving home, every respectable woman at Lhassa plasters

her face with a black sticky varnish like raspberry jam, which

gives her an aspect scarcely human. The practice is said at Lhassa

to have been introduced some centuries ago, in order to check the

immorality which was then rampant in the city. But it appears to

be widely diffused, and is probably ancient. Rubruquis refers to

something like it in the thirteenth century. Grueber and Dorville,

who travelled through Tibet and Nepaul in 1661, say, "The women

of these kingdoms are so hideous that they are liker demons than

human creatures; for through some superstition, instead of water

they always use a stinking oil to wash with; and with this they

are so fetid and so bedaubed that they might be taken for hateful

hobgoblins." But tastes differ, and the same unguent which the

missionaries represent as intended to render the women hideously

unattractive, or at least a modification of it in fashion at Ladakh,

Moorcroft appears to think is adopted as a cosmetic. From all the

fathers could learn, the black varnish has not altogether reformed

Tibetan morals.

The strange, repulsive custom of _polyandry_, or the marriage of

one woman to several brothers, is diffused over the greater part

of Tibet, though it is not mentioned by Huc as existing at Lhassa.

It is not confined to the lower ranks, but is frequent also in

opulent families. Turner mentions one instance in the neighbourhood

of Teshoo Loombo, where _five_ brothers were living together very

happily under the same connubial compact.

Moorcroft speaks of three meals a-day as the practise of Ladakh,

but this extraordinary symptom of civilisation does not seem to

be general. In Eastern Tibet, regular meals are not in vogue; the

members of a family do not assemble to dine together, but "eat

when they're hungry, drink when they're dry." We remember to have

heard a graphic description of the Tibetan cuisine from a humourous

_shikaree_, or native Nimrod, of our Himalayan provinces. "The

Bhoteea folk," he said, "have a detestable way of eating. They take

a large cooking-pot full of water, and put in it meat, bread, rice,

what not, and set it on the fire, where it is always a-simmering.

When hungry, they go and fish out a cupful of whatever comes

uppermost, perhaps six or seven times a-day. Strangers are served

in the same way. If a man gets hold of a bone, he picks it, wipes

his hands on his dress, and chucks it back into the pot; so with

all crumbs and scraps, back they go into the pot, and thus the

never-ending, still beginning mess stews on."

Tea, however, is a staple article of diet, and is served on all

occasions. A vast quantity is imported, artificially compressed

into the form of solid bricks of about eight pounds weight, in which

shape it requires little packing, and forms a most handy article for

barter. Instead of infusing it after our fashion, they pulverise a

piece of the brick and boil it in water, with a proportion of salt

and soda; then churn it up with a quantity of butter, and serve

the mess in a teapot. At Tassisudon, Turner admired the dexterity

(comparable to that of a London waiter manipulating a bottle of

soda-water) with which the raja's attendant, before serving the

liquid, "giving a circular turn to the teapot, so as to agitate

and mix its contents, poured a quantity into the palm of his hand,

which he had contracted to form as deep a concave as possible, and

hastily sipped it up." When taken as a meal, _tsamba_, or the flour

of parched barley, is added, each man mixing his own cupful up into

a sort of brose or gruel with his five natural _spatulæ_. Meat is

abundant, but is taken as an extra or embellishment, rather than

as a staple of diet. In cookery, the people appear to have none of

the genius of their neighbours, either of India or of China. Hares,

winged game, and fish, though abundant, are not eaten, so that they

have scarcely any meat but mutton, (excepting occasionally yak

beef,) and their mutton they have but three ways of serving--viz.,

absolutely raw, frozen, and boiled. The frozen meat having been

prepared in winter may then be kept throughout the year, and carried

to any part of Tibet. European travellers generally commend this

meat, which undergoes no process of cookery.

The Tibetans, being no great water-drinkers, the liquid next in

importance to tea is an acidulous beverage made from fermented

barley, known through more than 20° of longitude as _chong_.

Turner absurdly calls it whisky, but it is rather analogous to

beer. It requires a large quantity to produce intoxication, but,

nevertheless, that result _is_ attained.

One of the peculiar customs which prominently mark the whole Tibetan

race is the use of the _khata_, or scarf of ceremony. This is a

fringed scarf of Chinese silk gauze, which is interchanged on all

occasions of ceremonious intercourse, even the most trivial, and in

every rank of society. They are to be had of qualities and prices

suited to all pockets, and no Tibetan travels without a stock of

them. In paying formal visits, in asking a favour, or returning

thanks for one, in offering a present or delivering a message to

a superior, the _khata_ is presented. On the meeting of friends

after long separation, the first care is to exchange the _khata_.

In epistolary correspondence, also, it is customary to enclose

the _khata_; without it, the finest words and most magnificent

presents are of no account. Turner mentions that the Bhotan Raja

once returned a letter of the Governor-General's, because it was

unaccompanied by this bulky but polite incumbrance.

Of all the quaint modes of salutation among men, that in fashion at

Lhassa is surely the quaintest and most elaborate; and we can fancy

that it affords room for all the graces of a Tibetan Chesterfield.

It consists in uncovering the head, sticking out the tongue, and

scratching the right ear! and these three operations are performed

simultaneously.

Tibet has always been a subject of curiosity, not more from its

inaccessibility than from the singular nature of its government,

resting, as is well known, in the hands of a sovereign, elective

under a singular and superstitious system, who, by the name of

Dalai (_the ocean_) Lama, is not only king and spiritual father,

but also the embodied divinity of his people. The Buddhistic faith,

numbering as its adherents a greater population than any other

existing creed, when driven from its native soil, India, (in which

it has long been totally extinct, though its gigantic footsteps

still mark the surface in all parts of the peninsula,) spread over

Nepaul, Ceylon, the kingdoms of the Transgangetic Peninsula, China,

Corea, Japan, Tibet, and the whole Mongolian region to the confines

of Siberia. The essential idea of Buddhism appears to be a peculiar

development of the notion which runs through nearly all the Asiatic

pagan philosophies, and which, interwoven with the fantasies of the

innumerable Gnostic sects, once spread its influence to the centre

of the Christian world--viz., that all the external world is but

a transient manifestation of the Divine Being, and the souls of

all living creatures are emanations from Him; that these souls,

whilst included in material and perishable bodies, are in a state of

imperfection, degradation, and suffering; and that the great object

of intelligent creatures should be final release from the clog of

the flesh, and abdication of all personal identity, to be absorbed

in the universal soul. Considerable difference of opinion exists

among the learned as to the true epoch of Sakya Muni or Gautama, the

Indian deified saint, or _Buddha_, who was the propagator of the

doctrine in the particular form which derives its appellation from

him; but the latest of the various periods assigned for his death is

543 B.C. After a long life spent in preaching humility, self-denial,

meditation on the divine perfections, and the celebration of solemn

ritual services of praise and worship, he is believed himself to

have been, at death, absorbed into the divine essence on account

of his great attainments in sanctity. Sakya was followed by a

succession of sacred personages, who are to be regarded either as

mortals whose attainments in sanctity have reached, in repeated

transmigrations, to a divine eminence, though not yet to the final

absorption of a Buddha, or as voluntary incarnations of souls whose

virtue _had_ attained to freedom from the necessity of renewed

terrestrial life, but who chose to dwell again on earth in order

to aid men in the attainment of perfection, and facilitate their

reunion with the universal soul. It is this part of the system which

has assumed an exaggerated prominence in Tibet and Mongolia, where

these regenerations have gradually, in the general faith, taken the

form of continual and manifold incarnations of Buddha, or the Divine

Being.

In combination with this doctrine, and the stress laid on meditation

and ritual worship, a vast proportion of the inhabitants, both in

Tibet and Mongolia, one at least out of every family where there are

more than one son, devote themselves to a religious life, and many

of these dwell together in monastic communities. The Shabrongs or

Regenerate Buddhas are so numerous that many of the chief convents

possess one. These personages, though all esteemed divine, appear

somehow to vary in spiritual consideration as well as temporal

grandeur, as one Marian idol in the Church of Rome has more sanctity

and miraculous power ascribed to it than another has. The most

eminent and most venerated of all is the Dalai Lama. The exercise

of his authority is in theory unlimited; he is the centre of all

government. But since, in the capacity of manifested divinity, he

could not, without derogation of his sacred character, mix himself

up with the numerous trivialities of human affairs, few questions

are actually submitted to him; he is regarded only in the most

amiable light, as absorbed in religious duty, or interfering only to

exercise the most benign attributes. The general administration of

the government is carried on by another personage, also a Shabrong,

nominated by the supreme Lama, and known as the _Nomé-Khan_; by the

Chinese and the Western Tibetans, he is generally called King of

Tibet Proper. The Nomé-Khan is appointed for life, and can only be

removed by a _coup-d'état_. He is assisted in administration by four

lay ministers called _Kalongs_.

The provinces are governed by ecclesiastical princes receiving their

investiture from the Dalai Lama, and acknowledging his supremacy,

but enjoying apparently a good deal of practical independence.

The most important of these princes, and in spiritual estimation but

little below the Dalai Lama himself, is the Punjun Rimboochee of

Jachee (or Teshoo) Loombo, known to the British in India as Teshoo

Lama. The intercourse between the Anglo-Indian Government and this

prince arose as follows:--In 1772 the Deb Raja, or sovereign of

Bhotan, laid claim to and seized Kooch Bahar, a district at the

mouth of the Assam Valley, adjoining Rungpoor. A sepoy force was

sent to expel the hill people, which they speedily accomplished,

pursuing the enemy to their mountains. The raja, alarmed for his

own dominions, applied for the intercession of Teshoo Lama, who was

then regent, spiritual, and political, of the whole of Tibet, during

the minority of the Lhassa pontiff. The Lama sent a deputation

to Calcutta, with a letter to Warren Hastings, then Governor--"an

authentic and curious specimen," says Turner, "of his good sense,

humility, simplicity of heart, and, above all, of that delicacy

of sentiment and expression which could convey a threat in terms

of meekness and supplication." The deputation, and the presents

which it bore from a country so mysterious and inaccessible,

excited intense interest at Calcutta--the Governor at once acceded

to the Lama's intercession, and determined to take advantage of

the opportunity afforded to acquire knowledge of those obscure

regions, and to find, possibly, new outlets to British commerce,

under circumstances so favourable and unlooked for. He accordingly

despatched Mr George Bogle, a civilian, with presents and specimens

of articles of trade. Bogle started in May 1774. There was a good

deal of delay and difficulty made on the part of the Tibetan

government about granting him a passport; and it was not till

October that he arrived at the residence of the Lama. The two seem,

during Bogle's visit, which continued till April 1775, completely to

have gained each other's confidence and good-will. The Englishman,

on his return, always spoke of the Lama as one of the most able and

intelligent men he had ever known, maintaining his rank with the

utmost mildness of authority, and living in the greatest purity

and simplicity of manners. Turner, whose mission will be mentioned

presently, found these praises confirmed by the very strong and

unusual impression of regard which the sovereign's gentleness and

benevolence had left among his subjects. On the other hand, the

Lama showed his confidence in Bogle, by remitting to him some time

after a considerable sum of money, to be expended in the erection

of a temple and dwelling-house on the banks of the Hoogly, for the

use of his votaries in Bengal. The characteristic reason assigned

for this wish was, that during the numerous series of the Lama's

regenerations, Bengal was the only country in which he had been born

twice. In 1779, when the Lama, after repeated invitations, visited

Pekin, he, in the same friendly spirit, requested Mr Bogle to go

round to Canton, promising to obtain the Emperor's permission for

his proceeding to the capital. This singular tryst came to nothing

in consequence of the death of the Lama at Pekin--in accordance

with a fatality which seldom spares the vassal princes of Central

Asia on their visits to the Chinese court--and that of Mr Bogle

himself about the same time. The brother and minister of Teshoo Lama

communicated the circumstances in letters to Mr Hastings, stating

that they were in continual prayer for the accomplishment of the

transmigration; and, soon after intelligence of this important event

was received, the governor sent a renewed deputation as bearers

of congratulations, in which (in the lax Anglo-Indian spirit of

that age) the continued identity of the Lama was fully recognised.

The result of Captain Samuel Turner's mission, as regarded the

establishment of commercial intercourse with Tibet, was nothing,

but it obtained for us at least a very interesting and valuable

book. Turner had the privilege of an interview with the young Lama,

at that time past eighteen mouths old; and as the occasion was

unique of its kind, we abstract his account of it. The envoy found

the infant placed in great form on an elevated mound, covered with

embroidered silk; on the left stood the child's father and mother,

on the right the officer specially appointed to wait on him. Turner,

advancing, presented a white scarf, and put into the Lama's hands

the Governor-General's present of a string of pearls and coral. The

other things were set down before him, and having then exchanged

scarfs with the father and mother, the Englishmen took their seats

on the Lama's right. The infant turned towards them, and received

them with a cheerful look of complacency. "During the time we were

in the room," says Turner, "I observed that the Lama's eyes were

scarcely ever turned from us, and when our cups were empty of tea

he appeared uneasy, and, throwing back his head, and contracting

the skin of his brow, continued to make a noise, for he could not

speak, until they were filled again. He took some burnt sugar out

of a golden cup containing confectionary and, stretching out his

arm, made a motion to his attendant to give it to me. He sent some

in like manner to Mr Saunders, who was with me." Turner then made

him a speech, expressing the Governor-General's grief at hearing of

his decease in China, and his joy at the news of his reappearance;

his hope that their former friendship might be increased, and that

there might be extensive communication between his votaries and

British subjects. "The little creature turned, looking steadfastly

towards me with the appearance of much attention while I spoke,

and nodded with repeated but slow movements of the head, as though

he understood and approved every word, but could not utter a

reply.... His whole attention was directed to us; I must own that

his behaviour on this occasion appeared perfectly natural and

spontaneous, and not directed by any external action or sign of

authority."

The existing Punjun or Teshoo Lama is described by Huc from report,

in 1816, as a man of about sixty years of age. It is, therefore,

very probable that he is the same person who was seen by Turner

in infancy; and if so, he has fulfilled the promise of mark, then

precociously exhibited. He has great fame throughout Tibet and all

Tartary, his partisans claiming for him spiritual power at least

equal to that of the Dalai Lama, and never naming him without deep

reverence. His influence has waxed the more from the fact that three

successive Dalai Lamas have perished before attaining majority.

He is said to be of majestic port, and surprising vigour for his

age. All pilgrims to the holy sites of Tibet visit Jachee Loombo,

and, after making their offerings to the Teshoo, are enrolled in

the brotherhood of Gylongs instituted by him, of which all Tartar

Buddhists aspire to be members, and which, doubtless, will one day

play an important part in the history of that part of Asia. The

votaries of Teshoo Lama are satisfied that he is acquainted with

all languages, and converses with the pilgrims of all countries,

"each in the tongue in which he was born." His predecessor, Panjun

Irtinnee, being a native of Ladakh, was able to converse with Mr

Bogle in Hindustanee, and as the bystanders believed their unknown

language to be English, this strongly confirmed their belief in the

polyglot powers of their chief.

Prophecies of coming events, all tending to the glorification of

Punjun Remboochee, are in the mouths of all; and that personage is

said to be preparing himself, by the practice of military exercises,

and the accumulation of horses, for his warlike career.

The Lama next in influence and sanctity appears to be the

Geesoo-Tamba, whose residence is at Oorga or Kooren, among the

Khalka Tartars, beyond the great Gobi desert, on the banks of the

Toola river, which flows northward into the Siberian Lake Baikal.

This potentate, from his special influence over the Mongol tribes,

is an object of great jealousy at Pekin. In 1839 he alarmed that

court by announcing an intended visit. Great stringency was employed

in reducing the number of his retinue, but his progress through

Mongolia was a continued ovation, the Tartars thronging on all

sides to meet and worship him. Geesoo Tamba's visit was hurried

over, and, according to the rule in such cases, he died on his way

back.[13] Most of the living Buddhas, even in the Tartar convents,

are natives of Tibet, and the influence of the Chinese Emperor has

been exerted to arrange that the Geesoo Tamba shall always seek his

transmigration there.

[13] "It is said that when the son of a chieftain attains the age

of from ten to fifteen, the father is invited to Pekin, and, after

being treated with every mark of distinction, is sent back to his

tribe. On the route, some Chinese functionary, in the course of the

usual interchange of civilities, in which tea forms a prominent

part, takes an opportunity of giving him a medicated draught: his

son, whose youth and inexperience render him harmless, is raised to

his father's dignity, to be removed by a similar method in his turn

before he becomes dangerous."--MOORCROFT and TREBECK, vol. i. p.

380.

Other sanctities of celebrity are the Chang-kia-fo, a sort of grand

almoner to the court of Pekin, and the Saja-fo, residing near the

Himalayas, who has a singular and special mission. He is day and

night in prayer for the perpetual fall of snow on the peaks of the

mountains; for, according to Tibetan tradition, behind that range

dwells a savage race, which only bides the thawing of the snows

to pass the barrier, massacre the tribes of Bod, and seize their

country.

The story related by Tavernier Grueber and Father Giorgi,[14]

regarding the degrading superstition with which the basest personal

relics of the reigning Lama were cherished by his votaries, was

utterly denied to both Bogle and the French missionaries. The

former ascribes the origin of the story to the Lama's practice

of distributing little balls of consecrated flour, which the

superstition of his more ignorant votaries may have converted into

what they pleased.

[14] _Alphabetum Tibetanum_, p. 247.

Convents are exceeding numerous both in Tibet and Mongolia. In the

former their number is said to amount to 3000, some near Lhassa

containing as many as 15,000 members.

These convents consist usually of groups of whitewashed cells or

cottages, clustered together on a hill-side, interspersed with

temples of fantastic architecture. Opposite the great entrance to

a temple is a sort of altar, above which the idols are enshrined,

usually of handsome Caucasian features and colossal size, seated

cross-legged. Before the chief image, (representing Maha-muni or

Sakya,) and on a level with the altar, is a gilded seat for the

Regenerate or Grand Lama of the convent, the rest of the apartment

being occupied by rows of carpeted benches.

At prayer time, a conch blown at the temple-gate summons the members

to their devotions. After making three prostrations to the head,

they take their places, according to precedence, on the benches,

seating themselves cross-legged and _vis-à-vis_, as choir and

anti-choir. When a bell, rung by the master of the ceremonies, gives

the signal, all commence muttering in a low tone a preparatory act

of devotion, as they unrol on their knees the rubrical form of the

day. After this short recitation is an interval of profound silence.

The bell rings again, and then rises a psalmody of responsive

choirs, in a grave and melodious tone. The Tibetan prayers, broken

usually into verses, and composed in a style of rhythmic cadence,

lend themselves with marvellous effect to concerted recitation. At

intervals of repose, fixed by the rubrics, the instrumental band

executes a piece of music. In the Tartar choirs this is described

by Huc as a confused and stunning jumble of instruments, all the

performers emulous in din. Turner, however, in a similar description

of the service, speaks more respectfully of the Tibetan instrumental

music. According to the latter authority also, the Tibetans possess

a musical notation. Their instruments are generally on a large

scale;--sliding trumpets from six to ten feet long, which Moorcroft

describes as of very deep and majestic intonation; kettle drums;

cymbals, highly mellow and sonorous; gongs, hautboys; a large

shallow drum, mounted on a tall pedestal: these, with the human

tibia and the sea-conch, compose their religious band.

From the earliest traveller to the court of the Grand Khan, to

the last vice-regal aide-de-camp whose arduous duties have led

him up the Sutlej to the pleasant slopes of Cheenee in Kunawur,

whence Ramsay of Dalwolsie dealeth law to the millions of India

from under the ripening grapes, all witnesses of the Lamaitic

worship have been struck with the extraordinary resemblance of many

features of the ecclesiastical system and ritual to those of the

Roman Catholic Church. Rubruquis, who travelled in the thirteenth

century, mentions a Mongolian people called Jugurs, (probably the

Chakars of M. Huc,) whom he brands as rank idolaters, but at the

same time admits that it is most difficult to distinguish many of

their observances from those of the Catholic Church. They had holy

candles, rosaries, and conventual celibacy. The further description

of these Jugurs identifies them as Buddhists. "They placed their

ideas of perfection in the silent and abstracted contemplation of

the Divinity. They sit in the temples on two long forms, opposite

to each other, repeating mentally the words, _Om mam hactami_,

but without uttering a word." The missionaries of after days are

struck by the same resemblances. Father Grueber, in 1661, states

that at Lhassa there are two kings--one civil, the other sacred.

"They regard the latter as the true and living God, the eternal and

celestial Father. Those who approach prostrate themselves before

him and kiss his feet, exactly as is done to his holiness the Pope;

so showing the manifest deceits of the devil, who has transferred

the veneration due to the sole Vicar of Christ to the superstitious

worship of barbarous nations, as he has also, in his innate

malignity, abused the other mysteries of the Christian faith."

Father Desideri, without directly making such comparisons, indicates

more marvellous coincidences than any one else; in fact, he drew

some aid from a lively imagination when he deduced that the people

of Ladakh had some idea of the Trinity, because they sometimes used

the singular and sometimes the plural in speaking of the Deity,

and from the form of the sacred symbol constantly in their mouths,

which he simplifies into _Om ha hum_! "They adore," he goes on to

say, "one _Urghien_(?), who was born seven hundred years ago. If you

ask them if he was God or man, they will answer sometimes that he

is both God and man, and that he had neither father nor mother, but

was born of a flower. Nevertheless, they have images representing

a woman with a flower in her hand, and this, I was told, was the

mother of Urghien. They adore several other persons, whom they

regard as saints. In their churches you see an altar covered with

an altar-cloth; on the middle of the altar is a sort of tabernacle,

where, according to them, Urghien resides, although at other times

they will assure you that he is in heaven." Turner and Moorcroft,

Protestant laymen, were as much struck by the resemblance of the

choral service to the mass as the Roman priests, and none testify

to it more frequently than our latest travellers, Huc and Gabet.

"The crosier, the mitre, the Dalmatica, the cope or pluvial which

the Grand Lamas wear in travelling, the double-choired liturgy,

the psalmody, the exorcisms, the censer swung by five chains, and

opening and shutting at will; the benedictions given by the Lama,

in stretching his right hand over the head of the faithful; the

rosary, the ecclesiastical celibate, the spiritual retreats, the

worship of the saints; fasts, processions, holy water," (and they

might have added, the tonsure, the ringing of bells during service,

the conclave assembled in a temple to elect a pontiff, and the

appellation of _Eternal Sanctuary_ applied to Lhassa, the Rome of

their faith, by the Tartars,) "in all these numerous particulars

do the Buddhists coincide with us." The matter-of-fact Moorcroft

describes a Lama of Ladakh as dressed almost like a cardinal.

Allowing for some accidental and some exaggerated similarities,

more analogy remains than can well be explained, without supposing

that the Lamas may have borrowed and adapted parts of the Church

ritual from the Nestorians, who were early diffused over Asia; or

perhaps that the churches of the latter, sinking in corruption and

ignorance, had merged in the sea of superstition which surrounded

them, leaving only some corrupted relics of external rites floating

on the surface to mark that a church of Christ had once existed

there.

As the Christian world is divided into Papist and Protestant, and

the body of Islam into Soonnee and Sheea, so also the Lamas have

their two great sects, the _Gelook-pa_ and _Dok-pa_, distinguished

by the colour of their caps--yellow being adopted by the former, red

by the latter.[15] Celibacy is _binding_ only on the Gelook-pa, but

all who aspire to superior sanctity profess it. They all abstain

from taking animal life, and some of especial austerity will not

even take vegetable life, deeming it unlawful to cut down a tree

unless it be withered, or to gather fruit unless it be ripe. Strong

drink is forbidden to all the sects. The reform which originated

the sect of the Gelook-pa, now predominant over Tibet and Mongolia,

and claiming the Emperor himself as one of its adherents, was the

work of Tsongkhapa, a celebrated Tibetan teacher of the fourteenth

century. He is traditionally stated to have derived his doctrine

from a mysterious western stranger, endowed with great learning and

Slawkenbergian nose. To the innovations in the Lamaitic worship

introduced by Tsongkhapa, the missionaries ascribe many of the more

striking resemblances to Roman ritual, and they feel inclined to

believe that the mysterious stranger from the West may have been

a Catholic missionary, whose teaching was imperfectly received or

apprehended. The large nose they conceive may only be an indication

of the European physiognomy from the Mongolian point of view. We

have a counterpart portrait of the Mongolian from a Caucasian

pencil, in Benjamin of Tudela, who speaks of the "Copperal Turks"

as having _no noses_, but only two holes in the face through which

they breathe. So also Rubruquis, when he was presented to the wife

of Scacatai, a Tartar Khan, verily thought she had cut and pared her

nose till she had left herself none at all!

[15] The red Lamas are stated by some travellers to constitute

several sects.

Among other Romanising rites we find something analogous to masses

for the dead. In a temple at Ladakh, Moorcroft witnessed the

consecration of food for the use of the souls of those condemned

to hell, without which, it was believed, they would starve. The

chief Lama consecrated barley and water, and poured them from a

silver saucer into a brass basin, occasionally striking two cymbals

together, and chaunting prayers, to which an inferior Lama from

time to time uttered responses aloud, accompanied by the rest in

an under-tone. Somewhat different appears to have been the annual

festival in honour of the dead, or "All Souls," of which Turner

gives a striking description. As soon as it became dark, a general

illumination was displayed on the summits of all the buildings

of the monastery; the tops of the houses on the plain, and of

the distant villages, were also lighted, exhibiting altogether a

brilliant spectacle. Though accustomed to esteem illuminations the

strongest expressions of public joy, Turner now saw them exhibited

as a solemn token of melancholy remembrance--an awful tribute of

respect to the innumerable generations of the dead. Darkness,

silence, interrupted occasionally by the deep slow tones of the

kettle-drum, trumpet, gong, and cymbal; at different intervals, the

tolling of bells, and loud monotonous repetition of sentences of

prayer, sometimes heard when the instruments were silent, all united

to produce an impression of seriousness and awe. Remarkably similar

is the description given by the Frenchmen of the nocturnal litanies

which they witnessed when resident in the convent of Koonboom.[16]

Another impressive devotional practice is mentioned by the last

travellers, and one which is the more pleasing, as not being

confined to the clergy. "They have at Lhassa a touching custom,

which we were almost jealous of meeting among unbelievers. In the

evening, as the daylight is passing into twilight, all the Tibetans

suspend their occupation, and meet in groups, according to sex and

age, in the public places of the town. As soon as the parties are

formed, all sit down on the ground, and begin to chaunt prayers in

a slow and subdued tone. The aggregation of the sound of prayer,

rising all over the city, produces a vast and solemn hum of harmony,

which strangely moves the spirit."

[16] HUC, vol. ii. ch. iii.

The Buddhistic, symbol, or mystic form of concentrated prayer, _Om

mani padme hom_, is not only heard from every mouth, or silently

repeated on the rosary, but is to be seen written everywhere--in

streets, public places, walls of apartments, on the fringes of the

ceremonial scarf, on the flags that wave from the house-tops, and

from cairns on the mountains; engraven on the rocks, carved on

monuments by the way, or formed with stones, in gigantic spelling,

on the hill-side, so as to be legible at considerable distances.

Rich Buddhists maintain travelling Lamas, to go about, like Old

Mortality, with hammer and chisel, multiplying the sacred sentences

on the faces of the cliffs, and on stones by the highway. The words

are Sanscrit, and came from India with the Buddhist faith in the

seventh century. The Lamas say that these sacred words include an

infinity of doctrine, which the life of man suffices not to survey,

but their infinitesimal amount of meaning to the uninitiated is said

to be--"_Oh, the precious lotus.--Amen!_"

The great difference between the Tibetan lama-serais and the

convents of Romanised Europe appears to be, that the members of

the former, though subjected to the same rule, and under one

superior, cannot be said to live in common, the various gradations

of wealth and poverty being as distinctly marked among them as among

the laity. Lamas in rags may sometimes be seen begging of their

wealthy brethren in the same convent. The revenue of the convent

foundation, if it has one, is distributed at intervals in the form

of a scanty supply of meal, in rations proportioned to rank in the

hierarchy. Occasionally donations from pilgrims also fall to be

divided. Sometimes a pilgrim "stands" tea to the whole convent--no

small expense, when it numbers several thousand members. Many Lamas

augment their means by practising as physicians, fortune-tellers, or

exorcists; by various handicrafts, or by keeping retail-shops for

the benefit of their brethren. Others are occupied in printing or

transcribing religious books. The character is alphabetic, being a

modification of the Nagari or Sanscrit letters introduced by Tongmi

Sambodha, one of the first missionaries of Buddhism; but printing

is, of course, conducted on the Chinese block system. The leaves

are loose, printed on both sides, placed between two wooden boards,

and tied with a yellow band. The character used in correspondence

differs greatly from that of the printed books and literary MSS.,

being much more rounded and fluent. It is, however, perhaps, like

our own writing, only a modification of the other adapted to a

current hand.

The classic Tibetan literature appears to consist in two or three

great collections, or cyclopædias, in many volumes, the greater part

translated in remote times from ancient Sanscrit works. From the

abstracts given in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_,

by the one European who has mastered the subject, Alexander Csoma de

Körös,[17] these books appear to be a dreary wilderness of puerile

metaphysics and misplaced labour.

[17] This very remarkable person, a native of Pesth, travelled

to the East about thirty years ago, with the view of tracing the

original birthplace of the Hungarian race, which he conceived was

to be found in Tibet. Moorcroft, on one of his expeditions, whilst

resident at Ladakh, encountered him travelling in the garb of

an Armenian, and obtained for him from the khalun, or minister,

permission to reside in the monastery of Zanskar, (south-west of

Lé). Here he spent several years mastering the Tibetan literature,

and composing a grammar and dictionary of the language. This great

work was carried on when, for four months, the thermometer was below

zero, in a room nine feet square, and without a fire! He afterwards

proceeded to Calcutta, and resided there till 1841 or 1842, engaged,

under some patronage from the Bengal government and Asiatic Society,

in publishing the works above mentioned, and many other notices of

Tibetan literature.

In 1842 he visited the hill-station of Darjeeling, in sanguine

expectation of being able to prosecute a long-meditated journey to

Lhassa, but shortly after his arrival was seized with fever, and

died.

According to M. Huc, the Lama physicians reckon 440 maladies

affecting the human frame, neither more nor less. Their medical

books, which the students of the faculty have to learn by heart,

consist of a mass of aphorisms, more or less obscure, and a number

of recipes. Most of their medicines are vegetable simples, generally

mild and inoffensive. The number of their "simples," however,

includes "_laudamy_ and _calamy_." At least, they have the art of

preparing mercury, and use it as a specific, producing salivation.

This result they promote by gagging the patient with a stick.

Their diagnosis they derive principally from the pulse, professing

to discover the seat of disease from its peculiar vibratory motion

rather than its frequency. They have not the Chinese horror of

bleeding, and practise cupping by help of a cowhorn and oral

suction. Small-pox is held in great dread; indeed, they scarcely

attempt to treat it, but endeavour to save the uninfected by cutting

off all communication at the risk of starving the sufferers. The

infected house or village is often razed to the ground.

Some of the baser class of the Lamas seek notoriety and lucre

by juggling and disgusting feats, professing to rip open their

stomachs, to lick red-hot iron bars, &c. &c., and to perform other

such exploits. Messrs Huc and Gabet knew a Lama who was generally

reputed able at will to fill a vessel of water by means of a

certain form of prayer. They never could get him to perform in

their presence, however. He said that, as they had not the same

faith, the attempt would be unsuccessful, and perhaps dangerous. He

obliged them by reciting his charm, which, it must be confessed,

reads so like a Dr Faustus contract, that one cannot but suppose

that the preconceived ideas of the good missionaries have lent

it a little colouring. The Lama was, perhaps, after all, only an

_electro-biologist_. Respectable Lamas affect to frown on such

displays, but wink at them occasionally, for profit's sake.

Lamas of an ascetic spirit, not content with the duties of the

convent, sometimes seek the seclusion which the desolate wilds

of their country offer so plentifully, dwelling in eyries on the

pinnacles of hills, either cut in the rock, or formed of timber

attached to the cliff like swallows' nests. Sometimes these

eremites, like Simon of the pillar, renounce all intercourse with

the world--depending for their sustenance on the gifts of the devout

dropt into a sack, which is let down from the inaccessible cell by a

long cord.

Convents of nuns also exist, both in Tibet Proper and in Ladakh;

they do not, however, appear to have been visited by any traveller,

and the French fathers make no mention of them.

The inhumation of the dead is entirely unpractised in Tibet. The

body of the sovereign Lama alone is preserved entire, and deposited

in a shrine which is ever after looked on as sacred, and visited

with religious awe. The bodies of inferior Lamas are burnt, and

their ashes carefully preserved, to be enclosed in small metallic

images, which have places assigned them in cabinets ranged in the

sacred buildings. Sometimes, but not often, bodies are committed to

the waters of lakes or rivers; but the common disposal of the dead

is by making them over--

----κυνεσσιν

οιωνοισι τε πασι--

either in carrying the corpses to the tops of lofty

eminences, where the divided limbs are left for a prey, or, in

depositing them in regular golgothas assigned for the purpose. These

are enclosed yards, having openings left in the foot of the walls

for the admission of dogs and wolves. But the most popular form of

this practice is when the body is cut in pieces at once, and given

to the dogs to eat. For the interment, or rather the _incanition_,

of persons of distinction, in certain convents sacred dogs are

maintained, which are set apart to this office. Strabo, Cicero,

and Justin mention such customs as current among the nations of

Central Asia. They prevail not only in Tibet, but among the nomad

tribes of Mongolia, and appear to have no connection with the

existing religion of these races. The practice of the Parsees is

well known to be of a similar character. The most sanctified Lamas

are privileged to eat and drink out of the skulls of bodies which

have been thus devoured by beasts. Rosaries also are made from these

skulls, and the larger bones are often converted into trumpets.

The profane vulgar, though uninstructed in the tedious liturgic

lore which the Lamas acquire, not without plentiful corporal

chastisement in the days of their pupilage, are enabled to achieve

a meritorious amount of devotion by the aid of certain whirligigs,

or prayer-mills--cylinders of wood or pasteboard, inscribed with

the words of prayer, and rotating on a spindle. These _chu-kor_, or

turn-prayers, which at one time, as a pet subject of allusion with

Thomas Carlyle, almost rivalled Thurtell's gig, are either portable

or stationary, generally turned by hand, but often by water-power;

and in the Tartar huts they are suspended over the fireplace, so as

to rotate like smoke-jacks, in behalf of the peace and prosperity of

the family.

Various penances are performed by the pilgrims who visit the sacred

places. Some make the circuit of the convent buildings laden

with enormous piles of sacred books. The task achieved, they are

reckoned to have recited all the prayers which form their load.

Others perform the same circuit in measuring their length upon

the ground at each step. This is a task often undertaken by great

numbers following each other in single file; and if the convent be

extensive, the day, from dawn till dusk, is occupied in the task.

Some penitents, instead of making the tour of a single convent,

perform long journeys in this fashion. The practice is known in

India; and we remember to have heard of a Hindoo worthy, who, some

sixty or seventy years ago, undertook to measure his way from

Hurdwar to Calcutta, prophesying the while that, when he should have

achieved his dusty task, the days of the Feringees' power would be

numbered. Great was the twisting of mustaches and the furbishing of

tulwars among the disaffected; but, alas! in passing Cawnpoor the

unlucky prophet made his last prostration; he was laid hold of by

the general, and hanged.

We had purposed to conclude this paper with a sketch of the journeys

of previous travellers in Tibet, and some details of the last very

interesting one from which we have derived many particulars, but we

have now room for only very brief indications.

The name of Tibet appears to have first become known to Europe in

the itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish Rabbi, who travelled

to the far East about the year 1160. He mentions that country as

producing musk, but errs widely in placing it only four days'

journey from Samarkand.

In the succeeding century, when the flood of Mongolian conquest,

under Jenghiz and his successors, dissolved all political barriers,

and brought the civilisations of the East and West for the first

time in contact, a greater amount of intercourse ensued between

Europe and interior Asia than has ever occurred before or since.

At the noise of the coming Tartars, Europe stood amazed, and even

the bewildered Danes were deterred for one season from starting

for their herring fishery on our northern shores, lest they should

fall into the hands of this mysterious foe. Pouring over Hungary

and Poland to the frontiers of Silesia, they defeated and cut in

pieces the duke of that country with his army, and it seemed as

if the knell of Christendom had sounded, when providentially the

death of the great Khan summoned the host back into Tartary; and

the invasion of Western Europe, though often threatened, was never

resumed. Embassies from the Roman Pontiff and European princes, at

first of intercession and supplication, afterwards on more equal

terms, when the dread of the Khan had passed away, were despatched

and reciprocated. Monks of Flanders, France, and Italy, visited the

seat of the Grand Khan, and a Latin archiepiscopate was established

in Pekin. French artists worked in gold and silver for the court of

Kara-Korum, and a banished Englishman was the first ambassador from

the Tartars to the king of Hungary; whilst Mongols of distinction

found their way to Rome, to Barcelona, to Paris, to London, to

Northampton. "The arts, the faith, and the language of the nations

of Asia became a subject of curiosity and study, and it was even

proposed to establish a Tartar chair in the university of Paris."[18]

[18] REMUSAT, quoted in Huc.

During this extraordinary intercourse, which continued for a century

and a half, the lines of travel eastward lay generally to the north

of Tibet, and hints of its existence are rare and slight. Marco

Polo, indeed, who travelled in the last quarter of the thirteenth

century, devotes two of his Herodotean chapters to "the Province

of Thibet." A few particulars, such as the existence of powerful

dogs, of the musk animal, and the current use of salt in barter, are

recognisable, but the country referred to is apparently the wild

and rugged region of the Si-fan, towards the east and north-east of

Tibet.

Oderic of Portenau, a travelling friar, who died in 1331, mentions

Tibet, and is the first who speaks of the Grand Lama as the _pope of

the idolaters_.

The Romish missionaries of later times made repeated attempts to

establish themselves in the Trans-Himalayan regions. The first who

appears to have succeeded in penetrating them was Antonio d'Andrada,

a Portuguese Jesuit, with three companions of his order. In 1624

they ascended the Ganges by Hurdwar and Srinuggur to Budrinath, a

celebrated place of Hindoo pilgrimage on the eastern branch of the

sacred river. Apprehending hindrances to their advance, they made

a desperate attempt to cross the pass into Tibet, (probably the

Niti, or one of those nearer Lake Manusaráwur,) whilst it was still

deep in snow, and without a guide. They succeeded, after frightful

suffering, in surmounting the pass, but, finding the country at

their feet a trackless sheet of snow, were compelled to return.

Waiting for the usual convoy after the melting of the winter snow,

they again effected the passage, and proceeded to what they call

Rudac, the capital of Tibet. There is a fort so called (Radokh or

Rohtuk) beyond the Indus, near the head of the Pangkung Lake; but

Ladakh or Le is more likely to have been the place intended.

Though it seems scarcely credible that four strangers should have

found their way twice across the Himalayan passes unguided, and

before the regular season of transit, and yet survive to tell

the tale, it must be said that Andrada's description of their

Himalayan travels, in other respects, bears every mark of truth.

The precipitous paths along the Ganges, the files of pilgrims

shouting as they trudged to Budrinath, the demon-like Jogees whom

they encountered, the straight and lofty pines and cypresses, the

large rose-bushes, and forests of flowering trees, (rhododendron,)

the rope bridges, the sufferings in the snow and from the attenuated

air, are all plainly drawn from actual experience.

The next visitors to Tibet, and the first Europeans, so far as we

know, who reached Lhassa, were the Fathers Albert Dorville and J.

Grueber of the Chinese mission. They started from Pekin in June

1661, and travelled through China to Sining-fu, on the north-west

frontier. From this place their route probably coincided with that

of Huc and Gabet, who reached the same place from Eastern Mongolia.

Their journey thence to Lhassa, Grueber describes as extending for

three months through the deserts of Kalmuk Tartary, alternately

sandy and mountainous. After some stay at Lhassa, they proceeded

over the mountain range of "Langur, the highest existing, so that

on its summit travellers can scarcely breathe on account of the

subtlety of the air; nor can it be passed in summer, on account of

the virulent exhalations of certain herbs, without manifest danger

to life." Descending into the kingdom of _Necbal_, (Nepaul,) they

passed some time at the capital, _Cudmendou_ (Katmandoo). Quitting

Nepaul, they entered the kingdom of _Maranga_ (the Morung, or

forest tract below the hills.) Proceeding by _Mutgari_ (Mooteeharee

probably, in Tirhoot) to _Battana_ (Patna) on the Ganges, and thence

to Benares, they reached Agra after 214 days' travelling from Pekin,

exclusive of stoppages. Dorville died of fatigue shortly after the

accomplishment of this heroic journey. The narrative, as abstracted

in Kircher's _China Illustrata_, is adorned with some rather good

cuts, most of which appear to have been derived from genuine

sketches.

In the fifteenth volume of _Lettres Edifiantes_ is an epistle dated

from Lhassa, 10th April 1716, by Father Hipolito Desideri, a Jesuit.

It relates his journey from Goa to Delhi, where he was joined by

a brother missionary; thence by Lahore over the Pir Punjál to

Kashmeer, and, after a residence of six months there, across the

passes of the Himalayas, to Le or Ladakh, which he describes as the

royal fortress of the kingdom of Great Tibet, or _Buton_. Whilst

making arrangements to settle at Ladakh, and commencing the study

of the language, the fathers heard for the first time of a _third_

Tibet, (viz. the Lhassa country, in addition to Little Tibet or

Balti, and Great Tibet, or Ladakh,) and thought it necessary to

proceed to explore it. The journey occupied them from August 1715 to

March 1716. Desideri and his comrade are the only Europeans who have

ever travelled from Ladakh to Lhassa; but, unfortunately, they give

no particulars of their route except these dates, and even the great

delay which they indicate is not accounted for.

Previous to this, a Capuchin mission had visited Lhassa _via_ Nepaul

in 1707, and a few years later, a dozen brethren of that order

were established there under Father Horace della Penna. They sent

home flourishing accounts of their success; but their additions

to our knowledge of the country were very meagre. About 1754 this

mission appears to have been expelled, and found refuge for a time

in Nepaul. Some fifty volumes, the relics of the mission library,

were, in 1847, recovered from Lhassa by Mr Hodgson, through the

courtesy of the Grand Lama himself, and were transmitted to Europe

to be presented to Pio Nono, whose reputation was then fresh and

fragrant. Some itineraries and other curious particulars, derived

from the correspondence of the Lhassa mission, are buried, among a

mass of crude learning and rubbish, in a quarto published at Rome in

1762, under the name of _Alphabetum Tibetanum_, by Antonio Giorgi,

an Augustin friar.

Of the missions of Bogle and Turner we have already spoken. In 1811,

a Mr Manning succeeded in reaching Lhassa by their route, but was

arrested and sent back by the Chinese. He died soon after without

publishing any particulars of his journey. The sacred lakes of Ngari

have been visited by Moorcroft, Captains Henry and Richard Strachey,

and one or two more. Ladakh and the adjoining districts have been

explored by the two former travellers, the Cunninghams, and others.

But within this century, save Manning, no European, till Huc and

Gabet, had penetrated to Tibet Proper. The enthusiastic Hungarian

scholar, who would have gone with advantages possessed by none else,

was cut off just as he deemed this object of his cherished hopes

attainable.

A few words remain to be said more particularly of the work which

suggested this paper. These need be few, because a translation of

the whole work has been announced since we commenced writing.

The book which the missionaries have produced is not altogether

satisfactory. It too well justifies its title of _Souvenirs_ by the

lamentable paucity of dates, of which there are not half-a-dozen

in the whole narrative of their two years' pilgrimage. Even the

period of their starting is not stated at the time, and is only to

be distinctly gathered from some retrospective calculations. Their

geographical starting-point, too, is as obscure as the chronological

one. Our maps help us little in following the details of their

travels; and that which is inserted in their book is of as little

aid as any other, being, in fact, dated five years previous to

their journey. Nor, we fear, will they be found to have added much

to the materials of future geographers; their work contains no

indication of a single bearing or altitude, nor indeed had they the

necessary instruments. The possession, indeed, of MS. maps would

have endangered their lives in any collision with Chinese authority,

such as actually befel them at Lhassa; but many valuable data

might have been recorded without graphical embodiment. The worthy

men, however, make no pretensions to science; they record of the

Ko-ko-noor or Blue Lake on the north-east frontier of Tibet, that it

has a flux and reflux of tide, without any further particulars of

so marvellous a phenomenon, though they were some time encamped on

its banks: they ascribe unquestioningly their sufferings, in passing

certain lofty mountains, to poisonous exhalations from the soil; and

they quit Tibet without a word as to the vexed question regarding

the course of the Sanpoo. But they have given us a most readable and

interesting personal narrative of a life of continued hardships,

and of frequent suffering and danger in remote regions, the routes

through which were partly never before recorded in detail, and

partly never before trodden by any European.

FOREST LIFE IN CANADA WEST.[19]

[19] _Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada._ By SUSANNA

MOODIE. In 2 vols. London: 1852.

Ladies of Britain, deftly embroidering in carpeted saloon,

gracefully bending over easel or harp, pressing, with nimble finger,

your piano's ivory, or joyously tripping in Cellarian circles,

suspend, for a moment, your silken pursuits, and look forth into

the desert at a sister's sufferings! May you never, from stern

experience, learn fully to appreciate them. But, should fate have

otherwise decreed, may you equal her in fortitude and courage.

Meanwhile, transport yourselves, in imagination's car, to Canada's

backwoods, and behold one, gently nurtured as yourselves, cheerfully

condescending to rudest toils, unrepiningly enduring hardships you

never dreamed of. Not to such hardships was she born, nor educated

for them. The comforts of an English home, the endearments of

sisterly affection, the refinement of literary tastes, but ill

prepared the emigrant's wife to work, in the rugged and inclement

wilderness, harder than the meanest of the domestics, whom, in her

own country, she was used to command. But where are the obstacles

and difficulties that shall not be overcome by a strong will, a

warm heart, a trusting and cheerful spirit?--precious qualities,

strikingly combined by the lady of whose countless trials and

troubles we have here an affecting and remarkable record.

The Far West of Canada is so remote a residence, and there is so

much oblivion in a lapse of twenty years, that it may be necessary

to mention who the authoress is who now appeals (successfully,

or we are much mistaken) to the favour of her countrymen, and

more especially of her countrywomen. Of a family well known in

literature, Mrs Moodie is a sister of Miss Agnes Strickland, the

popular and accomplished historical biographer. In 1831, Miss

Susanna Strickland published a volume of poems. Had she remained

in England, she in time, perhaps, might have rivalled her sister's

fame as one of the most distinguished female writers of the day.

But it was otherwise ordained. In 1832 she sailed, as Mrs Moodie,

an emigrant to Canada. Under most unfavourable circumstances, she

still from time to time took up the pen. The anxieties and accidents

of her forest life, her regrets for the country she loved so well,

and had left perhaps for ever, and, subsequently, the rebellion in

Canada, suggested many charming songs and poems, some of which are

still extremely popular in our North American colony. Years passed

amidst hardships and sufferings. At last a brighter day dawned, and

it is from a tranquil and happy home, as we gladly understand, that

the settler's brave wife has transmitted this narrative of seven

years' exertion and adventure.

Inevitable hardships, some ill luck, some little want of judgment

and deliberation, make up the history of Captain and Mrs Moodie's

early days in Canada. "I give you just three years to spend your

money and ruin yourself," said an old Yankee hag with whom the

Captain was concluding the purchase of a wretched log-hut. It

scarcely took so long. Borrowing our colours from Mrs Moodie's

pages, we may broadly sketch the discomforts of the emigrant's first

few months in Canada. These were passed near the village of C----,

on the north shore of Lake Ontario. A farm of one hundred and fifty

acres, about fifty of which were cleared, was purchased by Captain

Moodie, for £300, of a certain Q----, a landjobber.

"Q----," says the Captain, who has contributed two or three

chapters to his wife's book, "held a mortgage for £150, on a

farm belonging to a certain Yankee settler, named Joe H----, as

security for a debt incurred for goods at his store. The idea

instantly struck him that he would compel Joe H---- to sell him

his farm, by threatening to foreclose the mortgage. I drove

out with Mr Q---- next day to see the farm in question. It was

situated in a pretty retired valley, surrounded by hills, about

eight miles from C----, and about a mile from the great road

leading to Toronto. There was an extensive orchard upon the

farm, and two log-houses, and a large frame-barn. A considerable

portion of the cleared land was light and sandy; and the

uncleared part of the farm, situated on the flat rocky summit of

a high hill, was reserved for 'a sugar bush,' and for supplying

fuel."

Pleased with the place, Captain Moodie bought it, and, having done

so, had leisure to repent his bargain. Of the land he got possession

in the month of September; but it was not till the following

summer that the occupants of the house could be prevailed upon to

depart. Until then the new comers dwelt in the wretched hut already

mentioned. Even to this hovel Mrs Moodie's English habits of order

and neatness imparted something like comfort; but a still greater

evil, beyond her power to remedy, was connected with her residence.

Her nearest neighbours were disreputable Yankee settlers.

"These people regarded British settlers with an intense feeling

of dislike, and found a pleasure in annoying and insulting

them when any occasion offered. They did not understand us,

nor did we them, and they generally mistook the reserve which

is common with the British towards strangers, for pride and

superciliousness.

"'You Britishers are too _superstitious_,' one of them told me

on a particular occasion.

"It was some time before I found out what he meant by the term

'_superstitious_,' and that it was generally used by them for

'supercilious.'"

All that poor Mrs Moodie endured from her reprobate neighbours,

could not be told in detail within the compass of a much larger

work than hers. But we may glean a tolerable idea of her constant

vexations and annoyance from her first volume, which contains

sketches, at once painful and humorous, of the persecutions to which

she was subjected. Impudent intrusion and unscrupulous borrowings

were of daily occurrence, varied occasionally by some gross act of

unneighbourliness and aggression. Although evidently a person of

abundant energy and spirit, Mrs Moodie, partly through terror of

these semi-savages, and partly from a wish to conciliate and make

friends, long submitted to insolence and extortion. The wives and

daughters of the Yankee settlers--some of whom had "squatted,"

without leave or license, on ground to which they had no right,

made a regular property of her. Every article of domestic use,

kettles and pans, eatables, drinkables, and wearables, did these

insatiable wretches borrow--and never return. They would walk into

her house and carry off the very things she at the moment needed,

or come in her absence and take her gown from the peg, or the pot

from the fire. The three families from which she had most to endure

were those of a red-headed American squatter, who had fled his own

country for some crime; of "Uncle Joe," the former proprietor of

her farm, and still the occupant of her house; and of "Old Satan,"

a disgusting and brutal Yankee, who had had one eye gouged out in a

fight, and whose face was horribly disfigured by the scars of wounds

inflicted by his adversary's teeth. A pertinacious tormentor, too,

was old Betty Fye, who lived in the log shanty across the creek.

Having made Mrs Moodie's acquaintance, under pretence of selling

her a "rooster," she became a constant and most unwelcome visitor,

borrowing everything she could think of, returning nothing, and

interlarding her discourse with oaths, which greatly shocked the

good-tempered English lady.

"'Everybody swears in this country,' quoth Betty Fye. 'My boys

(she was a widow with twelve sons) all swear like Sam Hill;

and I used to swear mighty big oaths, till about a month ago,

when the Methody parson told me that if I did not leave it off

I should go to a tarnation bad place; so I dropped some of the

worst of them.'

"'You would do well to drop the rest; women never swear in my

country.'

"'Well, you don't say! I always hear'd they were very ignorant.

Will you lend me the tea?'"

Tea to-day--it was something else to-morrow. Mrs Moodie tried every

means of affronting her, but long without success. The most natural

and effectual plan would have been to refuse all her demands; but to

this Mrs Moodie, perhaps from unwillingness to disoblige, was tardy

in having recourse. At last she got rid of her by quoting Scripture.

"The last time I was honoured with a visit from Betty Fye, she

meant to favour me with a very large order upon my goods and

chattels.

"'Well, Mrs Fye, what do you want to-day?'

"'So many things, that I scarce know where to begin. Ah, what a

thing it is to be poor! First, I want you to lend me ten pounds

of flour to make some Johnie cakes.'

"'I thought they were made of Indian meal?'

"'Yes, yes, when you've got the meal. I'm out of it, and this is

a new fixing of my own invention. Lend me the flour, woman, and

I'll bring you one of the cakes to taste.'

"This was said very coaxingly.

"'Oh, pray don't trouble yourself. What next?' I was anxious to

see how far her impudence would go, and determined to affront

her, if possible.

"'I want you to lend me a gown and a pair of stockings. I have

to go to Oswego, to see my husband's sister, and I'd like to

look decent.'

"'Mrs Fye, I never lend my clothes to any one. If I lent them to

you, I should never wear them again.'

"'So much the better for me,' (with a knowing grin.) 'I guess

if you won't lend me the gown, you will let me have some black

slack to quilt a stuff petticoat, a quarter of a pound of tea

and some sugar; and I will bring them back as soon as I can.'

"'I wonder when that will be. You owe me so many things that it

will cost you more than you imagine to repay me.'

"'Since you're not going to mention what's past, I can't owe you

much. But I will let you off the tea and the sugar, if you will

lend me a five-dollar bill.'"

This was too much for even Mrs Moodie's patience. She read the

incorrigible Betty a sharp lecture upon her system of robbing under

colour of borrowing, and concluded by saying she well knew that all

the things she had _lent_ her would be a debt owing to the day of

judgment.

"'S'pose they are,' quoth Betty, not in the least abashed at my

lecture on honesty, 'you know what the Scripture saith, "It is

more blessed to give than to receive."'

"'Ay, there is an answer to that in the same book, which

doubtless you may have heard,' said I, disgusted with her

hypocrisy, 'The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.'

"Never shall I forget the furious passion into which this too

apt quotation threw my unprincipled applicant. She lifted up her

voice and cursed me, using some of the big oaths temporarily

discarded for _conscience'_ sake. And so she left me, and I

never looked upon her face again."

Uncle Joe was another pleasant neighbour, and brought up his

children to resemble himself. Mrs Joe would occasionally stroll over

to visit Mrs Moodie, and exult over the unaccustomed toils to which

the young English wife and mother submitted with a cheerfulness that

did her infinite honour. It was a rough and hard life, even for men,

in that Canadian loghouse; much worse, then, for a delicate woman,

and worst of all for one who arrived there with an infant, and whose

family rapidly augmented.

"For a week I was alone," writes Mrs Moodie, in the early days

of her exile, "my good Scotch girl having left me to visit her

father. Some small baby-articles were needed to be washed,

and after making a great preparation, I determined to try my

unskilled hand upon the operation. The fact is, I knew nothing

about the task I had imposed upon myself, and in a few minutes

rubbed the skin off my wrists, without getting the clothes

clean. The door was open, as it generally was, even during the

coldest winter days, in order to let in more light and let out

the smoke, which otherwise would have enveloped us like a cloud.

I was so busy that I did not perceive that I was watched by the

cold, heavy, dark eyes of Mrs Joe, who, with a sneering laugh,

exclaimed, 'Well, thank God! I am glad to see you brought to

work at last.'"

Further, the amiable Mrs Joe declared her intense hatred of all

Britishers, and her hearty wish that her unoffending neighbour might

be brought down upon her knees to scrub the floor. Mrs Moodie had

sense and dignity enough merely to smile at her vulgar malignity.

The impudence of these people knew no bounds. The same evening, Mrs

Joe sent over two of her offspring to borrow something she needed of

the woman she had spitefully abused in the morning.

During Mrs Moodie's abode near C----, Old Satan got married for

the fourth time. This was the occasion of a charivari, a custom

dating from the French occupation of Canada, and still kept up

there. Mrs Moodie has an amusingly _naïf_ chapter on this subject,

concerning which she has collected some curious anecdotes. It is

hardly necessary to explain that a mismatch--of a young and an old

person--is the usual pretext for a charivari.

"The idle young fellows of the neighbourhood disguise

themselves, blackening their faces, putting their clothes on

hind part before, and wearing horrible masks, with grotesque

caps on their heads, adorned with cocks' feathers, and

bells. They then form in a regular body, and proceed to the

bridegroom's house, to the sound of tin kettles, horns, drums,

&c. Thus equipped, they surround the house, just at the hour

when the happy couple are supposed to be about to retire to

rest, beating upon the door with clubs and staves, and demanding

of the bridegroom admittance to drink the bride's health, or in

lieu thereof, a certain sum of money to treat the band at the

nearest tavern."

Mrs Moodie expresses all a woman's indignation at what she styles "a

lawless infringement upon the natural rights of man." The charivari

is usually bought off--she mentions an instance when thirty pounds

were disbursed by an antiquated swain who had wedded a handsome

widow--but sometimes the victim resists, and the consequences are

serious. Shortly before old Satan's bridal, a tragical affair had

taken place at one of these saturnalia.

"The bridegroom was a man in middle life, a desperately resolute

and passionate man, and he swore that if such riff-raff dared

to interfere with him, he would shoot at them with as little

compunction as if they were so many crows. His threats only

increased the mischievous determination of the mob to torment

him; and when he refused to admit their deputation, or even to

give them a portion of the wedding cheer, they determined to

frighten him into compliance by firing several guns, loaded

with peas, at his door. Their salute was returned from the

chamber-window, by the discharge of a double-barrelled gun,

loaded with buck-shot. The crowd gave back with a tremendous

yell. Their leader was shot through the heart, and two of the

foremost in the scuffle dangerously wounded. They vowed they

would set fire to the house, but the bridegroom boldly stepped

to the window and told them to try it, and before they could

light a torch he would fire among them again, for his gun was

reloaded, and he would discharge it at them as long as one of

them dared to remain on his premises. They cleared off."

In point of amusement there is little difference between the first

and the second volumes of Mrs Moodie's book--which, however, is

not intended merely to amuse, but also as "a work of practical

experience," written for the benefit of, and conveying useful hints

to, persons contemplating emigration to Canada. The first volume

is the gayest of the two; there is a vein of great humour in Mrs

Moodie's descriptions and sketches of her neighbours, and of her

wild Irish servant, John Monaghan, who gave Uncle Joe an awful

thrashing for purloining the captain's hay; and of Mrs D., the

Yankee lady, who considered her English neighbours shocking proud

because they did not eat with their "helps," but was of opinion

that all negroes were children of the devil, for that "God never

condescended to make a nigger." But it is in the second volume that

the interest is strongest, and at times becomes intense. Disgusted

with their neighbours, Captain and Mrs Moodie left their farm at

C----, and removed to the township of Douro, forty miles off,

in the backwoods, where they had friends and relatives settled,

and where the society--consisting chiefly of English, Irish, and

Scotch gentlemen, recently come from Europe, and many of them

half-pay officers--was more congenial to their tastes and habits.

Unfortunately, about this time Captain Moodie sold his commission,

in consequence of an intimation in the newspapers that half-pay

officers must either do so or join a regiment. This was not enforced

in the case of officers settled in the colonies, and the captain

greatly repented his haste; the more so, as he was induced to

invest the proceeds of his sale in shares in a steamboat on Lake

Ontario. Q----, the landjobber, appears to have led him into this

investment. He received no interest on his shares, and when, some

years afterwards, the boat was sold, he got back only a fourth of

his capital. The mistake he made in parting with his half-pay was

the cause of great privations and anxiety.

"It was a bright frosty morning," says Mrs Moodie, "when I

bade adieu to the farm, the birthplace of my little Agnes,

who, nestled beneath my cloak, was sweetly sleeping on my

knee, unconscious of the long journey before us into the

wilderness.... It was not without regret that I left Melsetter,

for so my husband had called the place, after his father's

estate in Orkney. It was a beautiful, picturesque spot; and,

in spite of the evil neighbourhood, I had learned to love it;

indeed, it was much against my wish that it was sold. I had a

great dislike to removing, which involves a necessary loss, and

is apt to give to the emigrant roving and unsettled habits.

But all regrets were now useless; and, happily unconscious of

the life of toll and anxiety that awaited us in those dreadful

woods, I tried my best to be cheerful, and to regard the future

with a hopeful eye."

Most nobly, when the toil and anxiety came, did this high-hearted

woman bear up against them. Severer hardships and trials were

perhaps never endured, for so long a period, by one of her delicate

sex. At first, affairs looked promising in the forest. A timely

legacy supplied means to purchase and clear land and to build a

house; a considerable sum still remained in hand, and a good income

from the steamboat stock was looked upon as certain. The first

spring in the forest was spent in comparative ease and idleness.

"Those were the halcyon days of the bush. My husband had

purchased a very light cedar canoe, to which he attached a

keel and a sail; and most of our leisure hours, directly the

snows melted, were spent upon the water. These fishing and

shooting excursions were delightful.... We felt as if we were

the first discoverers of every beautiful flower and stately tree

that attracted our attention, and we gave names to fantastic

rocks and fairy isles, and raised imaginary houses on every

picturesque spot which we floated past during our aquatic

excursions. I learned the use of the paddle, and became quite a

proficient in the gentle craft."

They received visits from the Indians, a number of whom (of the

Chippewa tribe) frequented a dry cedar-swamp hard by, fishing,

shooting, and making maple-sugar, baskets, and canoes. They were

friendly and communicative, grateful for the slightest kindness,

never intrusive or offensively familiar; in short, they were born

gentlemen, and in every respect a perfect contrast and immeasurably

superior to the Yankee squatters at C----. Mrs Moodie devotes the

greater part of a most interesting chapter to stories and traits of

her red friends. No attention, however small, was lost upon these

warm-hearted people. One cold night, late in autumn, six squaws

asked shelter of Mrs Moodie. It was rather a large party to lodge,

but forest hospitality is not stinted. There was "Joe Muskrat's

squaw" and "Betty Cow," and an old white-haired woman, whose scarlet

embroidered leggings showed her to be a chief's wife. After they had

all well supped, mattresses and blankets were spread on the parlour

floor for their use, and Mrs Moodie considerately told her servant

to give the aged squaw the best bed.

"The old Indian glanced at me with her keen, bright eye; but

I had no idea that she comprehended what I said. Some weeks

after this, as I was sweeping my parlour floor, a slight tap

drew me to the door. On opening it I perceived the old squaw,

who immediately slipped into my hand a set of beautifully

embroidered bark trays, fitting one within the other, and

exhibiting the very best sample of the porcupine-quill work.

While I stood wondering what this might mean, the good old

creature fell upon my neck, and kissing me, exclaimed, 'You

remember old squaw--make her comfortable! Old squaw no forget

you. Keep them for her sake,' and before I could detain her she

ran down the hill with a swiftness which seemed to bid defiance

to years. I never saw this interesting Indian again, and I

concluded that she died during the winter, for she must have

been of a great age."

When fortune frowned on _Nono-cosiqui_, "the humming-bird," (the

name given to Mrs Moodie by the Indians, in allusion to the pleasure

she took in painting birds,) when her purse and pantry were alike

empty, and, in Indian phrase, "her hearthstone was growing cold,"

many an acceptable supply of much-needed food was brought to her by

her red friends.

"Their delicacy in conferring these favours was not the least

admirable part of their conduct. John Nogan, who was much

attached to us, would bring a fine bunch of ducks, and drop

them at my feet, 'for the papoose [child,]' or leave a large

muskinonge on the sill of the door, or place a quarter of

venison just within it, and slip away without saying a word,

thinking that a present from a poor Indian might hurt our

feelings, and he would spare us the mortification of returning

thanks."

The coolness and courage of these Indians are remarkable. Mrs Moodie

tells a story of a squaw who was left by her husband in charge of

some dead game, and who, whilst sitting carelessly upon a log,

with his hunting-knife in her hand, heard a cracking amongst the

branches, and, turning round, saw a bear within a few paces of her.

"It was too late to retreat; and seeing that the animal was very

hungry, and determined to come to close quarters, she rose, and

placed her back against a small tree, holding her knife close

to her breast, and in a straight line with the bear. The shaggy

monster came on. She remained motionless, her eyes steadily

fixed upon her enemy, and as his huge arms closed around her,

she slowly drove the knife into his heart. The bear uttered

a hideous cry, and sank dead at her feet. When the Indian

returned, he found the courageous woman taking the skin from the

carcass of the formidable brute."

Mrs Moodie was not likely to emulate such feats as this. She had

a horror of wild beasts, and was afraid even of cattle. Her dread

of lions, tigers, and other unamiable carnivora, was the reason

of her finding herself in Canada. Her husband had a property in

South Africa, where he had passed many years, and whither the fine

climate and scenery made him desirous to return. But his wife

would not hear of it, and, when he tried to remove her exaggerated

terrors, referred him triumphantly to the dangerous encounters and

hairbreadth escapes recorded in a book of his own, called _Ten

Years in South Africa_. A European woman's fear of tigers and

rattle-snakes is natural enough, and let none impute want of courage

to Mrs Moodie. The hero of a hundred fights might feel nervous, if

perched on the top-gallant-yards of a frigate, whose captain might

prefer boarding a French three-decker to riding at a bull-fence.

Mrs Moodie's courage was not of the bear-fighting sort, but of a

higher kind--moral, rather than physical. We read with admiration

and deep sympathy of her presence of mind and intrepidity upon many

trying occasions--when her house, for instance, was blazing over

her head, and she alone was there to rescue her four children and

such portions of her worldly possessions as her strength enabled

her to carry out of the cedar-log dwelling, whose roof "was burning

like a brush heap, and, unconsciously, she and her eldest daughter

were working under a shelf upon which was deposited several pounds

of gunpowder, procured for blasting a well. The gunpowder was in

a stone-jar, secured by a paper stopper; the shelf upon which it

stood was on fire." As to her fortitude under severe suffering--from

bitter cold and other causes--and the perseverance with which she

toiled, even at farm-labour, they are beyond praise.

"In the year 1835, my husband and I," she says, "had worked

hard in the field; it was the first time I had ever tried my

hand at field-labour, but our ready money was exhausted, and

the steamboat stock had not paid us one farthing; we could not

hire, and there was no help for it. I had a hard struggle with

my pride before I would consent to render the least assistance

on the farm, but reflection convinced me that I was wrong--that

Providence had placed me in a situation where I was called upon

to work--that it was not only my duty to obey that call, but to

exert myself to the utmost to assist my husband, and help to

maintain my family."

Most affecting is the account that follows, of hopes disappointed

and hardships endured, in the years 1836 and 1837. To pay off

debts--incurred chiefly for clearing land, and in confident

expectation of deriving an income from the steamboat--Captain

and Mrs Moodie resorted to a pinching economy. Milk, bread, and

potatoes, were for months their only fare. Tea and sugar were

luxuries not to be thought of. "I missed the tea very much," says

the poor English lady, who, on an anchorite's fare, performed a

day-labourer's task, hoeing potatoes, and cheerfully sharing with

her husband the rude toils of the field. "We rang the changes on

peppermint and sage, taking the one herb at our breakfast, the other

at our tea, until I found an excellent substitute for both in the

root of the dandelion." This root, roasted crisp, and ground, proved

a very good imitation of coffee. Squirrel--stewed, roast, and in

pies--was a standard dish at the dinner-table in the bush. In a trap

set near the barn, often ten or twelve were caught in a day. But the

lake was the great resource.

"Moodie and I used to rise by daybreak, and fish for an hour

after sunrise, when we returned, he to the field, and I to dress

the little ones, clean up the house, assist with the milk, and

prepare the breakfast. Oh, how I enjoyed those excursions on the

lake!--the very idea of our dinner depending upon our success

added double zest to the sport."

Even here there was some compensation. The strange,

Robinson-Crusoe-like existence had its joys as well as its sorrows.

Who can doubt that, seasoned by labour, squirrel pie had, for the

dwellers in the forest, such savour as few epicures find in pasty

of choicest venison? The warm breath of summer, too, alleviated the

hardships of the poor emigrants. But winter came, and, with winter,

privation and misfortune.

"The ruffian squatter P----, from Clear Lake, drove from the

barn a fine young bull we were rearing, and for several weeks

all trace of the animal was lost. We had almost forgotten the

existence of poor Whisky, when a neighbour called and told

Moodie that his yearling was at P----'s, and that he would

advise him to get it back as soon as possible. Moodie had to

take some wheat to Y----'s mill, and as the squatter lived

only a mile farther, he called at his house; and there, sure

enough, he found the lost animal. With the greatest difficulty

he succeeded in regaining his property, but not without many

threats of vengeance from the parties who had stolen it. To

these he paid no regard; but a few days after, six fat hogs,

on which we depended for all our winter store of animal food,

were driven into the lake and destroyed. The death of these

animals deprived us of three barrels of pork, and half-starved

us through the winter. That winter of '36, how heavily it wore

away! The grown flour, frosted potatoes, and scant quantity of

animal food, rendered us all weak, and the children suffered

much from the ague."

Under these circumstances, great was the glee when a stray buck was

shot. Spot, Katie's pet pig, had to be killed, in spite of the tears

and entreaties of its little owner, for the family were craving

after a morsel of meat. Here is a melancholy note in the diary of

the emigrant's wife:--

"On the 21st May of this year, my second son, Donald, was born.

The poor fellow came in hard times. The cows had not calved, and

our bill of fare, now minus the deer and Spot, only consisted

of bad potatoes, and still worse bread. I was rendered so

weak by want of proper nourishment that my dear husband, for

my sake, overcame his aversion to borrowing, and procured a

quarter of mutton from a friend. This, with kindly presents from

neighbours--often as badly off as ourselves--a loin of young

bear, and a basket containing loaf of bread, some tea, fresh

butter, and oatmeal, went far to save my life."

Think of this, ye dainty dames, who, in like circumstances, heap

your beds with feathers, and strew the street with straw. Think of

the chilly forest, the windy log-house, the frosted potatoes, the

five children, the weary, half-famished mother, the absence of all

that gentle aid and comfort which wait upon your slightest ailment.

Think of all these things, and, if the picture move you, remember

that the like sufferings and necessities abound nearer home, within

scope of your charity and relief.

Quitting, for a while, the sad catalogue of her woes, Mrs Moodie

launches forth into an episode which fills one of the most

characteristic chapters of her work. In the midst of these hard

times, an Englishman--with whom Captain Moodie had once travelled in

the mail to Toronto, and whom he had invited to call on him, should

he come into his part of the country--dropped in upon them one

evening, proposing to remain for the night. He was their inmate for

nine months. Mrs Moodie disliked him, from the very first day, for

he was a surly, discontented, reckless scamp, but somehow there was

no getting rid of him. He grumbled over his first meal of salt pork,

dandelion coffee, and heavy bread; and he grumbled almost daily,

until the happy morning when he left them for good and all. Malcolm

(as Mrs Moodie chooses to call him) told his host that he was in

hiding from the sheriff's officers, and should esteem it a great

favour to be allowed to remain a few weeks at his house. The captain

was far too good-natured and hospitable to refuse his request. "To

tell you the truth, Malcolm," said he, "we are so badly off that we

can scarcely find food for ourselves and the children. It is out of

our power to make you comfortable, or to keep an additional hand,

without he is willing to render some little help on the farm. If you

can do this, I will endeavour to get a few necessaries on credit, to

make your stay more agreeable." The proposition suited Malcolm to

a hair. By working for his keep, he got rid of the obligation, and

acquired a right to grumble. As to the work he did, it was really

not worth speaking of. Mrs Moodie had a sort of rude bedstead made

for him out of two large chests, and put up in a corner of the

parlour. Upon that he lay, during the first fortnight of his stay,

reading, smoking, and drinking whisky and water from morning till

night. There was a mystery about the fellow which he did not care

fully to clear up, but portions of his history oozed out.

"He was the son of an officer in the navy, who had not only

attained a very high rank in the service, but, for his gallant

conduct, had been made a Knight-Companion of the Bath. He had

himself served his time as a midshipman on board his father's

flag-ship, but had left the navy, and accepted a commission

in the Buenos-Ayrean Service during the political struggles

in that province. He had commanded a sort of privateer under

the government, to whom, by his own account, he had rendered

many very signal services. Why he left South America, and came

to Canada, he kept a profound secret. He had indulged in very

vicious and dissipated courses since he came to the province,

and by his own account had spent upwards of four thousand

pounds in a manner not over-creditable to him.... He was now

considerably in debt. Money he had none; and, beyond the dirty

fearnought blue seaman's jacket which he wore, a pair of

trousers of the coarse cloth of the country, an old black vest

that had seen better days, and two blue-checked shirts, clothes

he had none. He shaved but once a week, never combed his hair,

and never washed himself. A dirtier or more slovenly creature

never before was dignified by the title of a gentleman. He was,

however, a man of good education, of excellent abilities, and

possessed a bitter sarcastic knowledge of the world; but he was

selfish and unprincipled in the highest degree."

This piratical sea-bear quarrelled with Mrs Moodie's servants,

disgusted and offended her by his ungentlemanly habit of swearing,

and behaved altogether so outrageously that any one less forbearing

and good-tempered than Captain Moodie would have turned him out of

the house before he had been a month in it. But the captain, who

lacked not spirit on occasion, had Highland notions of hospitality;

and, moreover, he pitied the unhappy scapegrace--whose vile temper

was his own greatest curse--and bore with his infirmities. Malcolm

got the ague, and poor Mrs Moodie nursed him.

"During the cold fit, he did nothing but swear at the cold, and

wished himself roasting; and, during the fever, he swore at the

heat, and wished that he was sitting in no other garment than

his shirt on the north side of an iceberg."

The only trait that somewhat reconciled Mrs Moodie to her rude guest

was his affection for one of her children, a merry golden-haired

little boy. When left alone with her in the house, he almost

frightened her by his strange, sullen stare, and told her stories

about wild deeds of bloodshed committed in his privateering days,

and was very anxious to read her a manuscript work on South America,

for which Murray, he said, had offered him a sum of money, but to

which she preferred not listening. At last he got so indolent and

insolent that Captain Moodie was roused to anger, sharply reproved

him, and ordered him to be gone. But it was not a trifle in the

way of rebuke that would drive Malcolm from free bed and board.

He walked away for a few hours, and then returned and joined

the family party, as if nothing had happened. One day, however,

a nickname applied to him by Mrs Moodie's eldest girl put him

in a furious passion, and he took himself off for ever, as his

entertainers hoped. They were mistaken.

"Two months after, we were taking tea with a neighbour, who

lived a mile below us on the small lake. Who should walk in but

Mr Malcolm? He greeted us with great warmth, for him; and when

we rose to take leave, he rose and walked home by our side.

'Surely the little stumpy man (the name Katie had given him) is

not returning to his old quarters?' I am still a babe in the

affairs of men. Human nature has more strange varieties than any

one menagerie can contain, and Malcolm was one of the oddest of

her odd species. That night he slept in his old bed below the

parlour window, and for three months afterwards he stuck to us

like a beaver."

The manner of this strange being's final departure was as eccentric

as that of his first coming. On Christmas eve he started after

breakfast to walk into Peterborough to fetch raisins for next day's

pudding. He never came back, but left Peterborough the same day

with a stranger in a waggon. It was afterwards said that he had

gone to Texas, and been killed at San Antonio de Bexar. Whatever

became of him, he never again was seen in that part of Canada. Mrs

Moodie's account of his residence in her house is full of character,

and admirable for its quietness and truth to nature. "Firing

the Fallow," and "Our Logging Bee," are also, apart from their

connection with the emigrant's fortunes, striking and interesting

sketches of Canadian forest life. We are unable to dwell upon or

extract from them, and must hasten to conclude our notice of this

really fascinating book.

Rebellion broke out in Canada. Captain Moodie, although suffering

from a severe accident he had met with whilst ploughing, felt

his loyalty and soldiership irresistibly appealed to by the

Queen's proclamation, calling upon all loyal gentlemen to join

in suppressing the insurrection. Toronto was threatened by the

insurgents, and armed bands were gathering on all sides for its

relief. So Captain Moodie marched to the front. Regiments of militia

were formed, and in one of them he received command of a company.

He left in January, and Mrs Moodie remained alone with her children

and Jenny--a faithful old Irish servant--to take care of the house.

It was a dull and cheerless time. And yet her husband's appointment

was a great boon and relief. His full pay as captain enabled him to

remit money home, and to liquidate debts. His wife, on her side, was

not inactive.

"Just at this period," she says, "I received a letter from a

gentleman, requesting me to write for a magazine (the _Literary

Garland_) just started in Montreal, with promise to remunerate

me for my labours. Such an application was like a gleam of light

springing up in the darkness."

When the day's toils--which were not trifling--were over, she robbed

herself of sleep--which she greatly needed--to labour with her pen;

writing by the light of what Irish Jenny called "sluts"--twisted

rags, dipped in lard, and stuck in a bottle. Jenny viewed these

literary pursuits with huge discontent.

"You were thin enough before you took to the pen," grumbled

the affectionate old creature--"what good will it be to the

children, dear heart! if you die afore your time by wasting your

strength afther that fashion?"

But Mrs Moodie was not to be dissuaded from her new pursuit. She

persevered, and with satisfactory results.

"I actually," she says, "shed tears of joy over the first

twenty-dollar note I received from Montreal."