These are three volumes of spirit-stirring scenes, understood to
be written by Captain Trelawney, the friend of Lord Byron. They are
said to embody many incidents of the early life of the writer, though
portions are too strongly tinged with romance to belong to sober
reality. The Younger Son is driven from his native hearth by a cruel
father. His proud spirit revolts at such oppression. He sings with Byron
And now I'm in the world alone,
Upon the wide wide sea;
But why should I for others groan,
When none will sigh for me.
His father intends him for the church, but instead of being sent to
Oxford, he is taken to Portsmouth, and shipped on board a line of battle
ship, the Superb, as passenger to join one of Nelson's squadron; but
through delay he falls in with the Nelson fleet of Trafalgar, two days
after the deathless victory. He returns to England, and is sent to Dr.
Burney's navigation school. He next sails for the East Indies, and at
Bombay he falls in with an adventurous stranger, whom he is minute in
describing, "to account in part for the extraordinary influence he
gained, on so short an acquaintance," over his mind and imagination.
He became his model. The height of his ambition was to imitate him,
even in his defects. Thenceforth his life of adventure begins. In its
progress, he describes many beautiful scenes in the East with touching
enthusiasm, and some of his pictures of luxuriant nature are admirably
painted.
We pass over these to the heroine, at Port St. Louis:
_An Arabian Beauty_.
"Zela had the blood of a fearless race. She had been bred and
schooled amidst peril always at hand. Not having learnt to affect
what she did not feel, she crossed ravines, wound along precipices,
and waded through streams and rivers, not only without impeding us
by enacting a pantomimic representation of fears, tears, entreaties,
prayers, screaming, and fainting, but she was such a simpleton as not
even to notice them, unless, in the usual sweet, low tone of her voice,
to remark that they were delightful places to sit in, during the sultry
part of the day; or she would stop her pony over a precipice to gather
some curious flowers, drooping from a natural arch; or to pluck the
pendant and waving boughs of the most graceful of Indian tress, the
imperial mimosa, sensitive and sacred as love, shrinking from the
touch of the profane.
"'Put this,' she said, holding out a branch, 'in your turban; for I am
sure in some of these hollow caves and dreary chasms the ogres live;
they feed their young with human blood, and they love to give them the
young and beautiful. Put it in your turban, brother,--since you say I
must not call you master;--and never frown,--I do not like to see it,
for then you are not so handsome,--I mean, good, as when you smile.
Do not laugh, but take it. It will preserve you from every spell and
magic. Nothing bad dares come near it.'
"While crossing a sandy level, suddenly she started, as her eye caught
some object. Without stopping her horse, which was ambling along, she
sprang off, and ran up a sand hill, like a white doe. Never having
witnessed any thing like this before, I was so astonished that she was
returning, ere I could overtake her to ask if an ogre had lured her with
his evil eye. 'O, no,' she cried,--'look here! You like flowers, but did
you ever see any so lovely as this?--Smell it,--'tis so sweet, that the
rose, if growing near it, loses its beauty and fragrance, from envy of
its rival.'
"Certainly I thought she was bewitched. It was a glaring, large, red
bough, full of blowzy blossoms, and yellow berries, with a musky, foeted
odour. 'Why,' I exclaimed, 'you have as much reason to be jealous of old
Kamalia, your nurse, as the rose to be jealous of such a scraggy bramble
as this! Faugh! the smell makes me sick.'
"I suppose I was instigated to make this rude speech by her fondling
and kissing it. Her dark eyes expanded; and she seemed, for an instant,
to view me with astonishment, then with sorrow; as they closed, I
perceived that their brightness was gone, and the long, jetty fringe,
which arched upwards as it pressed her cheek, was covered with little
pearly dew-drops. The branch fell from her hand under my feet, her
sprightly form drooped, and the tones of her voice reminded me of the
time when she hung over her dying parent, as she said,--'pardon me,
stranger! I had forgotten you are not of my father's land. This tree
covered my father's tent, sheltered us from the sun, and kept away the
flies, when we slept in the day. Our virgins wreathe it in their hair,
and, if they die, it is strewed over their graves. So, I can't help
loving it better than any thing. But, since you say it makes you sick,
I won't love it, or gather it any more.' Then her words became almost
inarticulate from sobbing, as she added,--'Why should I wear it now?
I belong to a stranger!. My father is gone!'
"I need scarcely say that I not only returned the flowers, and pleaded
my ignorance, but I went up to the hill, and pulled up the tree by the
roots. 'Sweet sister,' said I, 'I was only angry with it because you
abused the favoured tree of our country, the rose. But now, as the sun
shines on it, and I see it nearer,'--looking at her,--'I do think the
rose may envy it, as the loveliest of my country women might envy you.
I'll plant it in our garden.'
"'O, how good you are!' she exclaimed; 'and I'll plant a rose-tree near
it, and they shall mingle their sweets; for our love and care of them
will make them live together without envy. Every thing should love each
other. I love every tree, and fruit, and flower.'
"Still I observed, as her thin robes were disarranged, that her little
downy bosom fluttered like an imprisoned bird panting for liberty; and,
to turn her thoughts from what had pained her, I said,--'Do not fear,
dear Zela. That is the last stream we have to cross; and then we shall
ride over that beautiful plain.'
"'O, stranger!' she replied, 'Zela never feared any thing, but her
father, when angry; and then, those who feared not to gaze on the
lightning, when all the world appeared to be on fire, feared to look
in his face. Then his voice was louder than the thunder, and his lance
deadlier than the thunderbolt. Last evening, when you talked to that
tall man, who is so gentle, you looked like my father; and I thought you
were going to kill him, and I wanted to tell you not; for I have read
his eyes, and he loves you much. It is very bad to be angry with those
that love us.'
"'Oh, you mean Aston! No, dear, I was not angry with him. I love him
too. We were talking of the horrid cruelties practised on the poor
slaves here; and I was angry at that.'
"'I wish I knew your language! How I should have loved to hear you! And
then I should have slept; but being ignorant of that, I did nothing but
weep, because I thought I saw you angry with one that loves you.'"
* * * * *
"It was only in Zela's absence that I could dwell on her portraiture.
She had just turned her fourteenth year; and though certainly not
considered, even in the east, as matured, yet, forced like a flower,
fanned by the sultry west wind, into early developement, her form, like
its petals bursting through the bud, gave promise of the rarest beauty
and sweetness. Nurtured in the shade, her hue was pale, but contrasted
with the date-coloured women about her, the soft and transparent
clearness of her complexion was striking; and it was heightened by
clouds of the darkest hair. She looked like a solitary star unveiled
in the night, The breadth and depth of her clear and smooth forehead
were partly hidden by the even silky line from which the hair arose,
fell over in rich profusion, and added to its brightness; as did the
glossy, well-defined eye-brow, boldly crossing the forehead, slightly
waved at the outer extremities, but not arched. Her eyes were full, even
for an orientalist, but neither sparkling nor prominent, soft as the
thrush's. It was only when moved by joy, surprise, or sorrow, that the
star-like iris dilated and glistened, and then its effect was most
eloquent and magical. The distinct ebon-lashes which curtained them were
singularly long and beautiful; and when she slept they pressed against
her pale cheeks, and were arched upwards.
"That portion of the eye, generally of a pearly whiteness, in hers was
tinted with a light shade of blue, like the bloom on a purple grape, or
the sky seen through the morning mist. Her mouth was harmony and love;
her face was small and oval, with a wavy outline of ineffable grace
descending to her smooth and unruffled neck, thence swelling at her
bosom, which was high, and just developing into form. Her limbs were
long, full, and rounded, her motion was quick, but not springy, light
as a zephyr. As she then stood canopied beneath the dense shade of that
sacred Hindoo tree, with its drooping foliage hanging in clusters round
her, in every clasped and sensitive leaf of which a fairy is said to
dwell, I fancied she was their queen, and must have dropped from one of
the leaves, to gambol and wanton among the flowers below. Running to
her, I caught her in my arms, and said, 'I watched your fall, and have
you now, dear sprite, and will keep you here!'--pressing her to my
bosom.
"'Oh, put me down! You hurt me,--I have not fallen,--oh, let me go!'
"'Will you promise then not to take flight to your leafy dwelling, in
that your fairy kingdom-tree?'
"'What do you mean? Oh, let me go,--you'll crush me!'
"I gently placed her on the ground, and told her my fears. The instant
I unclutched her, she ran to her old attendant, scared like a young
leveret; and this was my first embrace of my Arab maid.
"That it may not be considered I exaggerate, when speaking of the Arabs
in India generally, I must refer the reader to what a recent, learned,
and unprejudiced traveller says of them: 'The Arabs are numerous in
India; their comparative fairness, their fine, bony, and muscular
figures, their noble countenances, and picturesque dress, intelligent,
bold, and active,' &c.
"Zela's father was all this, and her mother a celebrated beauty brought
from the Georgian Caucasus, and twice made captive by the chance of war.
After giving birth to Zela, she looked, and saw her own image in her
child, blessed it, and yielded up her mortality. Is it to be marvelled
at, that the offspring of such parents was as I have described, or
rather what I have attempted to describe? For I am little skilled in
words, or words are insufficient to represent what the eye sees, and
the heart feels."
We must return to these very attractive volumes.
* * * * *