SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1890. WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST. By Walter Gillette Bates. FOR various purposes, scientific and historical, we find writers treating of the United States under the three great divisions of the Eastern Highlands, the Central Plain, and the Western Pla- teau. This rough natural division is also useful from an agricultural stand-point. These three sections show certain gen- eral differences in climate, in the lay of the land, in the fertility of the soil, in the presence or absence of forests, and in the water-supply, which, in turn, lead to a marked diversity in crops, in the size of farms, and in the methods of working them. Take, for instance, the problem of the water-supply, which is probably, little as Eastern farmers realize it, the most im- portant factor in agriculture. Along the Atlantic coast there is an abun- dance, in some places an over - abun- dance, of rain. Heavy snows fall in winter, and are retained by the forests covering the hills. The streams do not run dry in summer, and a drought of a month is a rare occurrence. In the Mississippi Plain the rainfall is in most places lighter. The smaller streams at times dry up in summer, and a drought of over a month is not un- common. Still, the lack of rain has never yet caused a failure of crops over any extended area. As we approach the one-hundredth Copyright, 1889, by Charles Scribners Soiss. All rights roserved. VOL. VII. No. 1. Dam Partly Finishedwith Reservoir Allowed to be Partially Filled. Walost Grove Ariz. 4 WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST. meridian, however, we discover a new phase of the water-supply. The one- hundredth meridian cuts into two parts Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Thdian Ter- ritory, and Texas. Somewhere in the western half of these States there runs an irregular, shifting line, across which the unaided natural rainfall is not suf- ficient to raise a crop every year. To the west of this line lie about one mill- ion two hundred thousand square miles of land, over two-fifths of the entire United States. Of course, this vast ter- ritory is not all arid. One block of magnificent land, including northern California, western Oregon and Wash- ington, has an ample rainfall. And scattered everywhere, on rich bottom- lands close to rivers, on high mesas partly covered with forests, or in narrow mountain-valleys, lie many farms which depend for water on the rainfall and the natural humidity of the soil. Nevertheless this great territory is properly called the arid region of the United States. The annual rainfall is not only small, ranging from about twenty inches in the north to a little over two inches in southwestern Arizona, but is exceedingly variable. Signal-service re- ports that show a rainfall of forty inches in one year will show perhaps not more than ten inches the following year. The greater part of the rain falls at one time, in the winter, when it cannot be used. A large portion of the country is overdrained. The streams do not flow on the surface of the ground, but have cut their way deep into the bed-rock in the case of some of the larger rivers, like the Colorado, thousands of feet. The country is completely overlaid with a net-work of these artificial drains. Whenever a heavy rain happens to fall in summer the water at once rushes off the thin soil into these washes or cafions, which for a few hours or days are raging torrents, but before a week is past are entirely dry. The water that has fallen, perhaps several inches, has disappeared without doino the sli~htest good to the soil. In the Southwest, where the streams flow through sandy rather than rocky beds, many of them reverse the natural conditions, being largest at their source and gradually dwindling to noth View of Lake Basin~ Walnut Grove Ariz,, Before Building of Dam. WA TEP-S TO RAGE IN THE WEST. 5 ing as they sink beneath the sand. In short, the rainfall of the arid region is not only small and variable but it comes at unseasonable times and drains away almost as soon as it falls. Until very recently the people of the United States have not been much in- terested in this section, from an agri- cultural stand-point. Up to this time there has been an abundance of good land unoccupied in the Mississippi Val- ley. The far West has been the land of mines and ranchesa desert terrible in its vastness and barrenness. But near- ly all the good farming-land of the Cen- tral Plain has now been taken up. The Dakotas, which have been receiving and absorbing the mass of immigrants since the lands of Nebraska Kansas and Min- nesota have been appropriated, are now well - settled States. When Oklahoma was recently opened, twice as many set- tlers stood ready as there was land for them to occupy. Still the great stream of European immigration rolls in upon us. The Eastern States still send their young men west. Where are all these new farmers to find the farms to work? In their search for them they are making their way into every part of the Western Plateau. They are at last, by necessity, forced to turn to the arid region, hith- erto unthought of as a field for agricul- ture. As these pioneers press on into this unknown land, they find the common picture of it misleading. They find that, if the country be a desert, it is so only from lack of water and not from the sterility of the soil. Wherever water is found in sufficient quantity, they see crops in nowise inferior to the best grown in the Eastern or Central States. In the Southwest they find many produc- tions which cannot be grown anywhere else in the country. Most important of all, they find that the rainfall, though small, is almost everywhere sufficient for farming, if it did not mass itself in un- favorable times of the year and disap- pear so rapidly. The problem is so to regulate, increase, or store this small water-supply as to make fruitful this rich but idle soil. It is a problem full of interest to every farmer in the great West, but, on a larger scale, a probleni of the utmost moment to the whole United States, if not to the Walnut Grove, after Partial Filling of the Artificial Lake. 6 WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST. world. All land in the East is either in ing this has yet been suggested. In prac- the hands of private owners or covered tice, the search is first of all for a subter- with forests on mountain-sides which ranean supply of water. Wells are sunk, are almost untillable. Nearly all the and if, by any peculiar formation of the land of the Central Plain that can be soil, water is found near the surface, cultivated by the natural water-supply is already appropriated, and every acre will be taken up within a decade. In the West lies this immense territory two-fifths of the wholethe greater part of whose soil is capable of rich return but which now lies unproductive. Can this land, in any way, be covered with farms, and these millions of acres made productive? What a problem is this, both for the present and, still more, for the future of our country and the over- crowded world. It is the pr6blem of the reclamation of an empire. The people of the West, in their rest- less, American way, are attacking this problem from every side. The simplest theoretical solution would be to increase the rainfall or to shift it from the win- ter to the spring and summer months, but no practical method of accomplish- windmills are used to irrigate small farms. Artesian water is sought for persistently everywhere, in some places with great success, in many more with blank failure. Private companies are boring holes in every level, unwatered m c~a. Territorial legislatures offer re- wards for the first artesian well flowing so many gallons an hour. Again, a trial-well may be driven in the bed of a dry wash and disclose a stream of water flowing below. If so, a tight dam sunk to bed-rock brings this to the surface, to be drawn away in the irrigating ditch. A deep, narrow trench dug directly across a narrow valley will often fill with a good-sized stream. Water developed~ from any of these subterranean sources is applied to the soil by the well-known method of irriga- tion. But these methods are unimpor Construction of the Walnut Grove Dam. WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST. 7 tant compared with irrigation from such living streams as exist. These living streams are either small creeks, high in mountain-valleys, or the larger rivers which do not run dry at any time of the year. The corresponding system of ir- Flume across the Santa Ana River, Riverside Water Company Cal. rigation is either on a small or a large scale. The settler in the mountain-valley throws a rude dam of sand or brush across the little creek that flows through his land, digs a ditch a few feet wide along the hill-side as far as his farm runs, turns the water out of it across his land as he needs it, and, as long as the stream flows, raises his crops independent of the cloudless sky. The dam very likely washes out every year and the ditch must be redug each spring, but this work is slight compared with the certainty of a good crop. But this is not the system of irrigation whose fame by much advertisement is spread everywhere. This is irrigation on the characteristically large scale of 8 WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST. the West. Its genesis is simple. The laws of the Western States and Territo- ries everv~vhere recognize and protect the rights of the first or prior appro- priator of water. If the first settler on the banks of a stream draws off, in his ditch, one half or the whole of the cus- tomary flow to irrigate his farm, he has the right to take this one-half or the whole llcw forever, to the entire exclu- sion of any subsequent settler. But the same rule applies to rivers of large size. As the quick-witted Westerner stands by the side of one of the great rivers and looks over thousands of acres of desert land along its banks, he sees a fortune in the situation. Only get cap- ital enough together, organize a great company, dig an immense canal which will appropriate all the water in the river, and yoa command the whole val- ley. It is the position of the Western railroads repeated. Instead of waiting for settlers to come and dig little ditches as they need them, an immense capital digs one huge canal watering thousands of farms, and then draws settlers by ad- vertisement and boom. So all over the West, throughout Colorado, in central and southern California, in Montana and Idaho, on the Salt and Gila Rivers in southern Arizona, there are great companies, with capitals running into the millions, putting this idea into effect. The canals they dig are twenty, thirty, or even fifty miles long. The largest are a hundred feet wide and ten feet deep, very rivers in themselves. They follow the contour of the country, running back farther and farther from the river as the latter falls away. The main canal gives off lateral branches at frequent intervals, and by an ingenious system of gates, crossings, and ditches sends water to every foot of arable ground between it and the river. The land belongs to the Government, and is taken up by individual settlers at mere- Beginning of a Flume at Walnut Grove. WA TEN-S TO RAGE IN THE WEST. 9 Completed Dam at Walnut Grove rear view (410 feet acroaa, at top 110 feet high). ly nominal prices under the Desert Land Act. But the water belongs to the canal company, and it is this water that the settler really pays for. He sows his one hundred and sixty acres with grain or alfalfa, or plants his twenty acres with grapes, oranges, or olives, and under a cloudless sky in a few years has a farm producing as no Eastern farm ever does. A dozen or a hundred square miles of desert are transformed in five years into a wonder of blooming fruitfulness. Yet even this meagre description of the marvellous development of the power Two 25 inch Delivery Pipvu Running through the Walnut Grove Dam. rL. jiA 10 WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST. of water through irrigation shows its limitations. It is of necessity confined to those streams that never run dry, and is confined to a comparatively nar- row strip of level land along such rivers. Even the largest canals seldom run more than ten miles away from the stream and, of course, irrigate only on one side, toward the river. It is not too much to say that this system of irriga- tion from living streams is already ap- proaching its limit. The first large canals were built only a few years ago; yet so fast does enterprise move in the West that it is probable that every available river of any size either has its canals already in operation, or all of the water appropriated and the canals laid out. The Southern Pacific Railroad was built across southern Arizona in 1880, practically opening up a new country. There are now over two hundred and fifty miles of main canal in the Salt and Gila Valleys of that region, and many more under way. Colorado in 1886 had nearly one thousand miles of irrigating canal. In short, just as the amount of land that can be cultivated from subterranean water is limited, so the amount that can be irrigated from living streams is also limited; and, at the present rate, that limit will be reached in a comparatively short time. The problem of making the great arid region productive must be attacked upon some other side. The latest solution of the problem i~ that of water-storage. Its idea is this. Although not many of the streams carry water throughout the year, they all run full at some time within the year. As described before, many of them are rag- ing torrents in the early spring or for a few days in summer after a cloud- burst in the mountains. This water i~ now wasted or worse than wasted, de- nuding the land of its soil and carry- ing destruction to dams and irrigating canals. The plan of water-storage is to impound this water as it runs to waste in the season of flood and use it in the season of drought. Select the proper valleys for water-basins, close their out- lets with dams, store great lakes of water when the mountain-snows melt~ and then let it out slowly and at will Irrigating Orange Grove Riverside Cal. WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST 11 through flumes and ditches to the lands belowthis is the essence of the new idea. It is to this solution of the prob- lem of aridity that all eyes are now turning in the West. Governors are urging its importance in their messages, and legislatures are memorializing Con- gress to turn their attention to the un- rivalled fitness of their particular State or Territory for its trial. The Govern- inent is investigating its feasibility, both through a Congressional commission and by a hydrographic survey. Private com- panies are locating dam-sites, laying out colonies and towns, and building enor- mous dams. The main essentials of successful wa- ter-storage on a large scale are three: a water-basin, a lake-site, and the land to be irrigated, in proper relation to one another. The water - supply must be sufficient to fill the dam every year; if possible, twice a year. The catchment basin or area drained by the stream to be dammed should therefore be as large as possible. To ascertain the supply that can be relied upon, the flow of water in the stream should be carefully measured many times during the year. If possible, the average of several successive years should be taken, for it must never be forgotten that the efficiency of any sys- tem of water-storage is measured by the very smallest amount of water stored in the very dryest year. As to the lake-site, this must general- ly be a large and level valley, everywhere enclosed by hills except where the wa- ter escapes, which should be through a caiion narrow enough to be dammed at a reasonable expense. The valley must widen out at once above the dam-site, or the lake-capacity will be small what- ever the height of the dam; its bottom must be nearly level for a long distance, or the dam will have to be built too high. The larger the lake-surface and the smaller the gap to be closed, the cheaper the dam and the more water stored. Finally, the dam must be situated somewhere near and at a higher level than the land to be irrigated. For there must be some cheap and easy way of transferring the water from the point of collection to the point of application. It is obvious from this that every caiTion in the West is not a natural dam- site, nor every mountain-valley capable of becoming an artificial lake. It is to ascertain more accurately where these natural dam-sites are that the present hydrographic survey is being made. The Government at present does not propose to build any dams, but to in- vestigate the extent to which the arid lands of the West can be redeemed by irrigation, to select sites for storage- reservoirs, and to segregate the irrigable from the non-irrigable lands. The sur- vey corps will measure proposed lake- basins, find out how many gallons of water they will hold with dams of vari- ous heights, measure the flow of water in streams, and determine the amount of arable laud commanded by any par- ticular reservoir. This is work which corresponds very closely to that done by the Hydrographic Survey in mapping the coast-lines of the country. It is well that it should be carried on by the Gov- ernment, as such work is generally done badly or not at all by individuals eager to complete their proposed design and get returns. Whether the Govern- ment should build such dams and irri- gating works as are found feasible is a very different question. But Western enterprise has not waited for Government aid. Although the stor- ing of water for the purposes of irri- gation is a new idea in this country, private capital is already making the experiment. In particular, there have been four very large dams finished within the last few years which it may not be uninteresting to describe briefly particularly as each of them represents a different type of structure, and the four together, probably all the kiads that are likely to be built. They show clearly, moreover, the influence of their situation on the type followedsuch as the pres- ence or absence of abundant building- stone, and the cheapness or dearness of cement, as the dams lie near to or far from railroads. Near Merced, in central California, a large irrigating canal, seventy-five miles long, has been in process of construction for six years. A few miles from the city the course of the canal lay across a wide valley or depression, around which the canal must either make a wide de The Sweetwater River Dam, near San Diego Cal. WA TER-S TO RAGE IN THE WEST. tour or cross it by an expensive flume. It was finally decided to dam up the lower end of the valley and convert it into a storage-reservoir. The dana, of necessity, is one of earth, which was scraped and hauled into place by men and teams. It is nearly a mile long and, in places, sixty feet high. It took five years to build and, as its position is not a favorable one, was very expensive. The lake formed covers six hundred and fifty acres, and holds five thousand five hundred million gallons when full. At Walnut Grove, forty miles south of Prescott, Ariz., a dam was completed in 1888 which also depends upon gravity as the principle of its construction, but is built of stone instead of earth. It lies in the typical position for such struct- ures, closing the narrow outlet of a wide valley. Its situation, in the interior and naanv miles from a railroad, precluded the use of cement, while the sides of the very caflon it closes furnished an inex- haustible supply of the best granite. The dam is a huge wedge-shaped core of loose rock thrown in just as it was blasted from the hill-sides, and kept in place and shape by wide back and front walls. These walls are hand - laid, but are without cement. With no further protection the water would, of course, flow away almost as fast as if no dam were there. This protection is supplied by a double apron or skin, of three-inch planks, lined with tarred felting, calked, and painted with water-proof paint, cov- ering the whole water-face of the dam, and resembling in many ways the side of a ship. The dam is one hundred and ten feet high, and the lake, which now forms the largest body of water in Ari- zona, covers a surface of seven hundred and fifty acres, and impounds four thou- sand million gallons. The third dam is the one across the Bear Valley in San Bernardino County, Cal. Its principle, that of the arch, is entirely different from that of the two dams already described, and the structure would attract attention any- where for the boldness of its design. Popularly speaking, it is a carefully con- structed but surprisingly thin wall, curv- ing upstream and keyed securely into the rocky banks. It holds back the water not on account of its weight, but because the arch which it forms trans- mits the pressure to the sides of the caflon. It is but twenty feet thick at base and less than three at the top. By occupying a position of great natural advantage this reservoir, with a dam but sixty feet high, covers an area of two thousand two hundred and fifty acres, and holds ten thousand million gallons. The aristocrat of the four, however, lies near San Diego, Cal. It has been built by a company closely allied to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa F6 Railroad Company, across the Sweetwater River, and commands a large tract of land owned by it about National City. It is most carefully constructed of cut rock laid in Portland cement. It combines the two mechanical principles already men- tioned, depending upon its weight for stability, but being built in the form of an arch for additional security. The dam is about ninety feet high, and the lake, now full, covers seven hundred and twenty-five acres and holds six thou- sand million gallons. The water is con- veved to the land below in iron pipes in- stead of the cheaper flumes and ditches. Of these there are already sixty miles in place. This brief description of these four dams already constructed may show something of the variety and magnitude of the work begun, but it shows little of the peculiar and picturesque conditions which surround it. The building of a great dam anywhere is a most difficult task, involving the best, and often the boldest, engineering skill, great admini~- trative ability, and the most scrupulous fidelity in minute details. But the diffi- culty is multiplied many times when we transfer the point of operation to some wild, unopened mountain - caiion in the extreme West. The railroads are far away; even a wagon-road must be cut for miles in the sheer mountain-side. The engineer and his assistants must be brought together from distant places and will probably be totally unfamiliar with the region, its climate, and the class of labor employed. In the Southwest this labor must be largely Mexican, now that public opinion prevents the employ- ment of Chinese. If not Mexican, then it must be the scarce, highly paid, inde- pendent white labor of the West. I 14 WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST With a road constructed to the scene of action, work must begin at the very foundation. The ground must be cleared of trees, a camp laid out, sleep- ing and eating houses built for work- men, a store and saloon provided and stockeda little town, in fact, built up in a day, aud this on land that was but yesterday an unbroken mountain-caiion. Work on the dam begins at once, and, if it is to be pushed forward to any advan- tage, mast be carried on under the most thorough system of oversight and divi- sion of labor. One gang of excavators attack the dam-site and push their way rapidly to bed - rock; another begin to blast the stone to be used in the dam from the quarries, to be transferred by carmen, and placed in the hands of a fourth gang of masons or stone-layers as fast as place is made for them. Dy- namite or giant powder is used freely and recklessly, and the air resounds with tremendous blasts at all times of the day and night. If lumber is to be used, either in the dam or flume, timber must be located, a saw-mill put up, and a complete lum- ber camp equipped, often many miles from the dam. Freighters, those most essential adjuncts of camp-life, must be gathered together and their work or- ganized. If it is considered necessary to push the work, as it generally is, with impatient stockholders awaiting results, then operations must be carried on by night as well as by day, and elec- tric lights shine over rocks which have seldom seen even the camp-fire of the hunter or cowboy. Much expensive machinery must be hauled in over the steep mountains. This machinery must be put together and worked under the rudest and most primitive conditions, at a time when the slightest delay may mean great loss. The stoppage of a single pump may allow a hole to fill up which has taken weeks to excavate. The breaking of a single important piece of machinery at that distance from the place of manufacture often causes intol- erable delay. Moreover, the several hundred work- men must be well housed and fed, espe- cially the latter, if they are Americans. Indeed, the wishes and prejudices of these laborers must be catered to in every particuiar. The work must al- ways be hurried, not only to satisfy stockholders, but in order to complete Irrigation for Alfalfa, by Flooding the Ground, Arizona Canal Company, Salt River Valley. WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST. 15 a substantial portion during the dry sea- son. The engineers are at the mercy of the laborers, for the latter are few and most offensively independent. They work when they choose and lay off in the same way. A pay-day sees saloons and gambling-houses in full blast, and but little work is forthcoming for a week. Yet, notwithstanding all these draw- backs the extreme roughness of the country, the distance from the base of supplies, the lack of experienced fore- men, the turbulence of the laborers if the engineer in charge has true Ameri- can administrative ability the work goes forward with astonishing rapidity. Sup- plies, tools, and machinery are ordered by car - loads and hauled in from the railroad by twenty - mule teams. Men adapt themselves quickly to new posi- tions and are made foremen of the various gangs, store-keepers, or mana- gers of the food-supply. The store, the boarding-house, the corral, even the saloon, if moral principles do not inter- fere, are managed by the company and turned into a source of profit. A stage- line to the nearest railroad station is started, a post-office is establishedin short, a town of four or five hundred in- habitants springs, full-grown, into exist- ence. As the dam rises from its firm foun- dation on bed-rock, it is time to think of the means of transferring the water to the irrigable lands below. If the country is rolling, this will be by means of a ditch or canal; if rocky, by a flume or pipe-line. The surveying corps, which up to this time have been en- gaged in plotting the lake-basin in or- der to ascertain its exact capacity at every level, are now put to work in the field. As many surveys are necessary. for a flume-line as for a railroad, and the final one must stake out the ground with the utmost precision. If a ditch is the plan adopted, gangs of excavators, aided by machinery where the country is level, are started simultaneously on sections of convenient length; if a flume, the excavators level off a flume-bed and are followed by gangs of lumbermen and carpenters. At places, as in the case of the Merced Canal, long tunnels must be cut through impeding high- lands. Supplies, pipe or lumber, tools and machinery, must be rapidly and continuously forwarded to all these moving camps. So the work, more and more systemat- ized and simplified as it goes on, comes finally to an end. The dam and flumes are finished, the floods come, the lake fills, and at last the water is drawn off to do its appointed work on the lands that are waiting for it with the thirst of cen- turies. Of these great reservoirs, although many are planned, not many have been completed, no others as large as the four described. But these are looked upon only as the forerunners of a great sys- tem. The prescient Western eye, as it looks across one of these artificial lakes, sees not one dam but hundreds, not a billion of gallons of water stored but thousands of billions, not one waste turned into a garden but a Sahara made to bear fruit. To a large extent this enthusiasm is justified. Congress is acting in the matter in a most com- mendable way. Private enterprise is eager to seize the golden opportunity before it is too late. One can scarcely pick up a newspaper without reading of the organization of a water-storage com- pany, or the beginning of work on some reservoir. Many of the projects thus gravely put forward would seem the wildest folly to conservative Eastern men. This com- pany proposes to close a certain valley by an enormous dam, then pierce the enclosing mountains with a tunnel sev- eral miles long, throwing the water thus stored into the valley next across the ridge, but lying at a lower level. An- other proposes to tap and drain in the same way a large natural lake in the Sierras. A third plans the diversion of a river as large as the Colorado, and the reclamation of a whole territory by irri- gation. The West never shrinks from a proposal on account of its boldness, and, indeed, is often justified by its suc- cess. It is, however, possible that these peo- ple are too sanguine in their new faith, and that the storing of water is not des- tined all at once to convert a million square miles of desert into a garden of plenty. If this is so, it will not be be- 16 WATER-STORAGE IN THE WEST. cause there is not fertile land in abun- dance. Nor will it be because the rain- fall is not sufficient when properly conserved to irrigate the soil. But it is possible that sites for storage-reser- voirs which can be utilized by private enterprise will not be found in as great numbers as is confidently expected. This fact will be authoritatively settled by the hydrographic survey now in progress. The gist of their work is to locate possible reservoirs, and criticism must be suspended until their work is completed, at least in part. Their sur- vey will undoubtedly point out many val- uable reservoir-sites and not a few sur- prisingly fine ones, but it is also likely to demonstrate that the mountains are not full of them. The conditions of suc- cess which have been mentioned a stream affording enough water, a large lake-basin, a very narrow dam-site, and proximity to irrigable landsare rigid conditions and absolutely essential to any development by private capitaL If the supply of water is not large enough, if the storage-capacity is too small, if the dam or the flume costs too much, the enterprise will not pay, and that is the end. This, of course, is from the stand-point of private enterprise, which asks, Will it pay, and pay quickly? There re- mains the question of Governmental construction, the building of permanent dams on a large scale at public expense. To this there are, of course, obvious objections the enormous outlay in- volved, the opportunity for jobbery, the danger that the work would be badly done. Yet the arguments in favor of Governmental construction are not with- out force. The main one is that govern- ments can afford to do what private en- terprise can not. It is not absolutely necessary that their work should pay dividends from the first or second year, nor that it should pay at all, in the strict commercial sense. The Government, therefore, ~ould build reservoirs where none would otherwise be built, and look for returns in the water-rents of hun- dreds of years to come. Another argument is found in the fact that the United States owns the land, which private speculators do not. The latter must look for dividends from the rent of the waterthe land, however valuable, being sold by the Government at a nominal price. But the Government, if it owned the dams, could not only charge a yearly rental for the water, but could sell the land at greatly increased prices. Again, it is urged that the publicity of Governmental construction would re- sult in better work than can be hoped for under any other system. If there are any engineering works that call for the most scrupulous honesty in their con- struction they are these reservoirs, which are planned to stand for ages, and whose destruction menaces not only the prop- erty but the lives of whole communities. A private company is always anxious to spend as little as possible, and so gravi- tates toward the lowest limit of safety and expense. It may be that under Governmental construction, notwith- standing the great temptation for job- bery, the very magnitude and publici- ty of the undertaking would enforce more careful designing and sounder work. Whether it is best for the Government to enter upon this momentous work is a question not to be answered in a day. Nor is this necessary. Although nearly all the available land in the country which can be cultivated by the natural rainfall has been appropriated, it is by no means all in full cultivation. Yet this state of affairs is approaching, and it will approach all the faster if the pres- ent immigration from Europe is allowed to go on unchecked. When this time comes, when the great Mississippi Valley begins to feel some of the European evils of over-population, which the East already feels, and cannot relieve itself, as the East has always done, by drafting off its surplus popu- lation to the West, the Government may well ask itself whether it can any longer afford to leave one-third of its domain a desert. It may seem far better to be- gin the construction of public works on the very largest and most extended scale, on a plan which aims, from the first, at the utilization of every drop of water that falls within the area of the arid region. Such a system would re- quire very many years for its completion, many years even for elaborating the plan. AN OLD-FASHIONED LOVE-SONG. 17 It would perhaps be an undertaking as foreign to the present character of our Government as the system of agricult- ure it contemplates is to the good old methods we have inherited from Eng- land. But with the future in view, the growth of population, the filling up of all the countries which now welcome colonists, the consequent dearth of land, the impossibility of desert-reclamation by private capital, it is not altogether visionary to say that Governmental in- terference on the largest scale will be the inevitable result. AN OLD-FASHIONED LOVE-SONG. By H. C. Bunner. TztL me what within her eyes Makes the forgotten Spring arise, And all the day, if kind she looks, Flow to a tune like tinkling brooks; Tell me why, if but her voice Falls on mens ears, their souls rejoice; Tell me why, if only she Doth come into the companie All spirits straight enkindled are, As if a moon lit up a star. Tell me this thats writ above, And I will tell you why I love. Tell me why the foolish wind Is to her tresses ever kind, And ouly blows them in such wise As lends her beauty some surprise; Tell me why no changing year Can change from Spring, if she appear; Tell me why to see her face Begets in all folk else a grace That makes them fair, as love of her Did to a gentler nature stir. Tell me why, if she but go Alone across the fields of snow, All fancies of the Springs of old Within a lovers breast grow bold; Tell me why, when her he sees, Within him stirs an April breeze; And all that in his secret heart Most sacredly was set apart, And most was hidden, then awakes, At the sweet joy her coming makes. Tell me what is writ above, And I will tell you why I love.

AN OLD-FASHIONED LOVE-SONG. 17 It would perhaps be an undertaking as foreign to the present character of our Government as the system of agricult- ure it contemplates is to the good old methods we have inherited from Eng- land. But with the future in view, the growth of population, the filling up of all the countries which now welcome colonists, the consequent dearth of land, the impossibility of desert-reclamation by private capital, it is not altogether visionary to say that Governmental in- terference on the largest scale will be the inevitable result. AN OLD-FASHIONED LOVE-SONG. By H. C. Bunner. TztL me what within her eyes Makes the forgotten Spring arise, And all the day, if kind she looks, Flow to a tune like tinkling brooks; Tell me why, if but her voice Falls on mens ears, their souls rejoice; Tell me why, if only she Doth come into the companie All spirits straight enkindled are, As if a moon lit up a star. Tell me this thats writ above, And I will tell you why I love. Tell me why the foolish wind Is to her tresses ever kind, And ouly blows them in such wise As lends her beauty some surprise; Tell me why no changing year Can change from Spring, if she appear; Tell me why to see her face Begets in all folk else a grace That makes them fair, as love of her Did to a gentler nature stir. Tell me why, if she but go Alone across the fields of snow, All fancies of the Springs of old Within a lovers breast grow bold; Tell me why, when her he sees, Within him stirs an April breeze; And all that in his secret heart Most sacredly was set apart, And most was hidden, then awakes, At the sweet joy her coming makes. Tell me what is writ above, And I will tell you why I love. ~ ~ (f ~ ~J r( WI ~ ~) ~ THE PARIS EXPOSITION. NOTES AKD IMPRESSIONS. By W. C. Brownell. I. was fitting that one of the very greatest events of modern history should be celebrated by one of the greatest spectacles of modern times; but it is a little curious that the political should exceed even the spectacular interest of the latter. This was, nevertheless, true of the recent Paris Centennial Exposition, I think. At least its political importance was very great, and that a mere worlds fair should have had such an importance is a phe- nomenon positively unique. The Expo- sition, in fact, appealed to the mind as forcibly, as brilliantly, as it did to the eye. Its significance was as salient as its splendor, and it was very splendid indeed. It was a great national reas- surance, the embodied triumph of the Republic at home and abroad, the wit- ness of the present Republics soundness and strength, and the attestation of the practical puissance of, in general, the re- publican ideal. The Republic and republicanism were very fortunate. The commemoration of 1789 is a very different thing from a com- memoration of 1793. Only to a pedant, one would say, can even the fall of the Bastille seem typical of anarchy, and real- ly the celebration might have been taken as the apotheosis of constitutional gov eminenta fete in which every nation of Europe, but that of Russia, might, one would think, cordially join. Every cabinet of importance, however, held aloof; and the effect of the monarchical abstention was very dramatic. It gave France at once a position of relief and distinction. Her isolation in reality placed her on a pedestal. It gave her the same position in the impartial im- agination that she occupied a century ago, when she was preaching the eman- cipation of the people everywhere, before she had begun to enslave the na- tions they composed. European hos- tility, in a word, did her the very great service, in this practical age of politics, of rendering her politically interesting. And republicanism shared the benefit of this service with her. The opposition and the lukewarmness of the monarchical world, moreover, gave a distinctly French aspect to the Expo- sition. It was not so much universal as national. Except the exhibits of South American republics, and the sensational Oriental contributions, there were in the general and cursory view of the grounds and buildings, almost no elements that were not French. Speaking loosely, wherever one wandered idly, or what- ever department he inspected closely, the most interesting and admirable ob- jects were French. And, of course, in mere mass, French preponderance was overwhelming. Inthis way a very strong

~ ~ (f ~ ~J r( WI ~ ~) ~ THE PARIS EXPOSITION. NOTES AKD IMPRESSIONS. By W. C. Brownell. I. was fitting that one of the very greatest events of modern history should be celebrated by one of the greatest spectacles of modern times; but it is a little curious that the political should exceed even the spectacular interest of the latter. This was, nevertheless, true of the recent Paris Centennial Exposition, I think. At least its political importance was very great, and that a mere worlds fair should have had such an importance is a phe- nomenon positively unique. The Expo- sition, in fact, appealed to the mind as forcibly, as brilliantly, as it did to the eye. Its significance was as salient as its splendor, and it was very splendid indeed. It was a great national reas- surance, the embodied triumph of the Republic at home and abroad, the wit- ness of the present Republics soundness and strength, and the attestation of the practical puissance of, in general, the re- publican ideal. The Republic and republicanism were very fortunate. The commemoration of 1789 is a very different thing from a com- memoration of 1793. Only to a pedant, one would say, can even the fall of the Bastille seem typical of anarchy, and real- ly the celebration might have been taken as the apotheosis of constitutional gov eminenta fete in which every nation of Europe, but that of Russia, might, one would think, cordially join. Every cabinet of importance, however, held aloof; and the effect of the monarchical abstention was very dramatic. It gave France at once a position of relief and distinction. Her isolation in reality placed her on a pedestal. It gave her the same position in the impartial im- agination that she occupied a century ago, when she was preaching the eman- cipation of the people everywhere, before she had begun to enslave the na- tions they composed. European hos- tility, in a word, did her the very great service, in this practical age of politics, of rendering her politically interesting. And republicanism shared the benefit of this service with her. The opposition and the lukewarmness of the monarchical world, moreover, gave a distinctly French aspect to the Expo- sition. It was not so much universal as national. Except the exhibits of South American republics, and the sensational Oriental contributions, there were in the general and cursory view of the grounds and buildings, almost no elements that were not French. Speaking loosely, wherever one wandered idly, or what- ever department he inspected closely, the most interesting and admirable ob- jects were French. And, of course, in mere mass, French preponderance was overwhelming. Inthis way a very strong THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 19 impression of French superiority was very subtly instilled. So that by frown- ing on the Republic, Europe not only gave it relief and interest, but indirectly magnified France herself in every civil- ized and impressionable mind. The domestic opposition was equally maladroit. There can be but little doubt but that, could they have divined the great success of the Exhibition, the conservatives and anti-parliamentarians would have united with the Government in its support, in order to have reaped a share of the credit for it. Had they done so they would certainly have minimized it as a political event. As it was, when the enterprise was in its inceptive stages they gambled on its failure. They withdrew a support which would have assured success at the outset (though, as the event proved, it was really needless), and thus, instead of discrediting the gov- ernment with the sober classes for ex- travagance and display, it demonstrated not only how admirably the govern- ment could get along without them, but how well France herself had got along all the years that she had been deprived of the benefit of their direction. With such resources, and such an admirable development of them as the Exposition witnessed, the demand for a saviour of the country, in the person of either the Comte de Paris or of General Bou- langer, became ridiculous. The country appeared to have been already saved, and the monarchists and anti-parliamen- tarians did their best to prove that it had been saved by the Opportunists. The electors seemed, at all events, to take this view on September 22d, in the result of which election the success of the Exposition, made as it was by Europe and by the domestic Opposition the test of the parliamentary Republics efficiency, was a factor whose importance it is probably difficult to exaggerate. Defamation and detraction at home and abroad, the necessity of keeping au- thoritative measures within the lim- its of republican liberty, of preserving order and freedom together, of washing in public a certain amount of soiled lin- en, dissensions in the ranks of its own followers all these phenomena, from which in countries less alive or more des- potic government is free, had had an un doubted discrediting effect on the pres- tige of the government. The success of the Exposition, by demonstrating a na- tional prosperity and improvement whol- ly inconsistent with inefficient adminis- tration, restored the peoples faith in its representatives and its system. It is interesting to note, furthermore, that the Expositions success throws a good deal of light on our habit of ap- plying certain principles of our own An- glo-Saxon political philosophy to French politics. These principles clearly have not the a priori universality which we attach to them if what we deem stability of government is not necessary to a na- tions progress and prosperity. To many foreign observersespecially to England, the old ally of Napoleon Ill., from whose journals we hear the most about French politicsthe state of French affairs dur- ing the past few years has seemed ex- treinely alarming on account of the in- stability of the governmenta phrase referring partly to the short life of French ministries, but particularly to the existence of large and powerful po- litical parties opposed to the very form itself of the government. A country in this conditionto say nothing of M. Zola, whose eccentricities fascinate Eng- lish attention must be in rapid deca- dence, it is argued, because this is what decadence is. Yet the Exposition is a monumental demonstration of the con- trary. In its five months of existence it probably convinced many per cent. more Anglo-Saxon political philosophers than any amount of written exposition could do, that if France is in decadence her decadence is one which it would be gro- tesque in any other European country to commiseratecertainly in one which has still to settle its land, its social, its religious, and its Irish questions. What is stable in France is institutions, and the Exposition is a convincing proof of the comparative unimportance of the very form of the governuient itself, important as this is, and as Frenchmen feel it to be, as is witnessed by the heat and violence of their discussion of it. Owing to the Exposition, as I have im- plied, the so-called fundamental differ- ences between French political parties will seem less significant than they have seemed. This is witnessed by the recent 20 THE PARIS EXPOSITION. elections, with the consequent disappear- ance of the grosser side of Boulangism. And if there should also result a practi- cal acceptance of the Republic by any considerable share of the reactionary party, of which there are now some signs, the political effect of the Exposi- tion would be in the highest degree sen- sationaL But what it has alreadyproved, and proved abundantly, is, that these dif- ferences are in reality much less funda- mental and significant than we are apt to fancy them. For no such concrete exhibition of a nations power and civilization could have been created by one political par- ty alone. The Republicans deserve the credit of it, in the way I have indicated: because it was abandoned to them by the Opposition, and because they con- ceived, created, and administered the enterprise. At the same time it was pre-eminently the work of the whole na- tion, politicians apart, and stood as a monumental attestation of that prodig- ious force, French patriotism. Whatever differences might divide it as to the form of government best in itself, or best adapted to the needs of France, the great mass of Frenchmen forgot these so soon as the project took shape and the honor of France was engaged. The politicians apart, there were no absten- tions. Every class, from the artist to the artisan, contributed its best, and the re- sult was the product of national enthu- siasm on a grand scale and carried into minute detail. The hostility of Europe probably served only to fan the flame of this enthusiasm among even the ranks of the reactionaries; French royalists are essentially more democratic than most European liberals who are liberal through conviction merely, and not in- terest, and they have found the rule of the Republic so elastic that practi- cally they have little fault to find. Doubtless, had the r~gime been monarch- ical instead of republican, there would have been the same striking consensus of patriotic effort, the same evident pre- dominance of patriotic over partisan feeling. But the regime had been re- publican, truly republican since 1877, and the result not only proved the pros- perity and progress of the country un- der itnot only proved that very great industrial and intellectual eminence could be attained under it in the face of quite unparalleled difficulties; that a na- tion, eschewing militarism on the one hand, and making of every citizen a sol- dier on the other, might nevertheless ex- cel nobly in the arts of peacebut proved also that under it French patriotism was as puissant as ever, and could so show itself in rational, and, so to speak, rou- tine, as well as in dramatic impressive- ness. II. As a spectacle the striking feature of the Exposition was the Exposition itself the ensemble, the general coup dceil, its unity, in a word. The advantageous side of the French passion for subordi- nating the detail to the mass was never better illustrated. One need only think of the enormous scale on which this was done, the dimensions of the elements of the gigantic organism, to appreciate how grandiose must have been the ef- fect of composition, scrupulously mani- fest in every part. Such an effect is the end and aim of whatever is truly picto- rial, of course. And such a picture as the Champ de Mars and the Trocad6ro in this sense presented can never have been composed. The sense was con- stantly impressed by it, even in moments of special study of particular exhibits. Interesting as these were in detail, there was always something more in- teresting, more absorbing, namely, the whole to which they contributed. The Tour Eiffel itself took its place tranquilly and sedately among the members of the organism. It need hardly be said that this ef- fect was not fortultous. It was, of course, very carefully calculated; and this calculation, as felicitous as it was careful, was distinctly and sensibly one of the chief elements in the delight of the eye which it produced. There was probably never so large a space of the earths surface, covered by works by the hand of man, from which the element of the picturesque was so definitely ab- sent. One felt that everything had been arranged, considered, combined, com- posed, as I saythat nothing had been left to itself, to the inequalities of the THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 21 ground, to the necessities of hampered means, to the chances of conflicting in- terests, to the whim of individuals or the notions of cliques, to the haphazard of independent initiative and private en- terprise. This is the first, and perhaps the most essential, effect of a work of art, and an international exhibition is, as a whole, a work of art or it.is nothing; constructed picturesqueness on the one hand, or a mere convenient medium for the display of industrial and a~sthetic ob- jects on the other, can never attain the effect of unity which gives to a composi- tion its attractiveness and its indepen- dent raison d~tre. You entered the grounds anywhere, and were in the presence of this pict- ure. At first, and remembering the convenience of the little railroad at Philadelphia in 1876, I was inclined to moralize on our superior sense of util- ity and necessity. There was a steam tramway, to be sure, which united the Champ de Mars with the Esplanade des Invalides, but it was useful chiefly to convey persons from one end of the Ex- position to the other when they found the grounds between them and home. It conducted no one to points of in- terest. There were, I soon found, no points of interest. There were, that is to say, no interstitial waste places. Large as the grounds were, the build- ings were not scattered over them in isolated individual interest, but were in- terdependently combined. They fringed the great parallelogram of the Champ de Mars in almost unbroken succession; a fence was needed only to secure places of entrance and exit; the only view was, like that of any other theatre, from the inside. On the Esplanade des Invalides they were arranged in files and ranks like a town, with outlying suburbs of caf6s, and the slighter colonial structures. Standing under the great arch of the Tour Eiffel, with your back to the Trocad6ro, stretching its enclosing and concentrat- ing wings around one end of the quad- rilateral, you faced the Central Dome, which rose some two hundred and twenty-five feet into the air, with a di- amet~r of over one hundred feet. On either side of it were the wings of the Palais des Industries Diverses, of which it formed the central entrance. At their lateral limits the porticos which bordered these joined those of the build- ings devoted to foreign industries, which came toward you till they reached on either hand the Palais des Beaux Arts and the Palais des Arts Lib6raux. These, identical in general structure, and thus contributing a very marked effect of symmetry, extended nearly to the Tower. Around and back of you were numberless buildings, mainly the special pavilions of the Spanish re- publics, those of the French aquarell- ists and of the French pastellists, of the different theatres and casinos, deftly distributed among grassy mounds and clumps of trees. The lawn between the Tower and the Central Dome was a car- pet of brilliant green bordered by broad gravel walks, and accented by gleam- ing sculpture, glistening fountains, and a decorous profusion of flowers that seemed to have strayed down from the Trocad6ro gardens, where they formed an essential part of the display. The concentric effect of the spectacle, the manifestly contributory function of each part, may be readily imagined. This effect of unity was powerfully assisted by the general excellence of all the structural details of the Exposition. There were no jars, no discordant notes of eccentric taste, nothing to break the agreeable uniformity of a high level of competence and cultivation. The color effect was particularly charming. The Central Dome was a dusky gold bronze, heightened by the brilliant bits of bur- nished gold and primary color which decorated the portal it surmounted. It left, in color, something like the general impression created by the interior of St. Marks at Venice. The twin domes of the Fine Arts and Liberal Arts Palaces were of a delicate blue-green faYence pricked out with fretwork of yellow and white, not unlike Persian tiling, and, indeed, bearing a strong resemblance to the color of the Dieulafoy find recently set up in the Louvre. The palaces them- selves were of masonry, made of large bricks of terra-cotta delightfully mottled in tints of gold and fawn and salmon, and flecked here and there with the white of sculptured figures in relief and in the round, the piers carrying the sumptuous entablatures running along the build- 22 THE PARIS EXPOSITION. ings on either side of the arcaded por- tals being of skeleton iron painted a pale flat blae, and inclosing light terra-cotta tiling decorated in relief with much structural sense. So that in color as well as in form the great mass of build- ings was a composition indescribably bright and gay as a whole, and in detail exhibiting a crescendo of gravity and richness, from the clear transparent notes of the extremities to the sober sumptuousness of the Central Dome. The architecture was architecture in the sense in which few modern build- ings are, namely, perfect expression of purposethe style developed out of the necessities of the problem rather than a conventional style arbitrarily adopted and adapted. Its or4gins were trace- able enough, of course, and it was clear- ly enough French. But it was, as one may say, of the IJuiversal Exposition style. It was open to strict criticism here and there, no doubt as, for ex- ample, the unstructural imposts of the central portal, which seemed more like mammoth modelling than true construc- tion, and such a building as the pavilion of the aquarellists, which was a trivial even if a dainty bit of pistache stucco. But ordinary criticism was hardly in order, so important an element of the general expression was the transitori- ness that is so essential a trait of a Universal Exposition. If the arch- traves of the Liberal and the Fine Arts Palaces were carried on piers of skeleton iron-work filled in with terra-cotta, their portals made of brick and decorated with plaster, and if terra-cotta garlands and cupids ornamented their friezes; if the imposing building of the War Department was of plaster modelled in forms consecrated to lasting stone ; if much of the purely decorative sculp- ture of the grounds was of the same material; if the Central Dome was too laden with gold and color to serve as anything but the focus of a prodigious fetethe sense of nice adjustment of form to function was so much the great- er. Just such a light and gay and airy effect was in this way secured as the inner feeling of fitness demanded. Everything was simply as solid, as sub- stantial, as thorough, as complete as its motive demanded, without the excess of simulating a permanence foreign to its idea. And yet so lavishly had the oil in the lamp of sacrifice been burned, so lit- tle compromise had been made with in- evitable impending demolition, that, to an American at leastaccustomed to a much more radical expression of transi- torinessperhaps the liveliest impres-. sion to be obtained from the Exposition was that it was as fine as the French people could make it. If it had faults or shortcomingsand I believe Mr. Ed- ison found the machinery rn-arranged in some respectstheir conception and not at all the execution of it was respon- sible. They, at all events, illustrated their ideal of a worlds fair. They had just what they wanted. No expense of time, care, patience, talent, or money had been spared. In these regards the con- sideration that a building was to be erected for only a temporary purpose had manifestly been allowed no weight. Attention had obviously been concen- trated on the end to be attained. No detail was neglected, no general effect deemed too costly. Had the Tour Eiffel sprung from the motive of the Tower of Babel it could not have been constructed and decorated with severer scrupulousness. Had the twin palaces of the Liberal and the Fine Arts been designed for the permanent housing of the treasures that for less than half a year filled their spacious halls, they could not have worn a more unstinted and ex- uberant aspect. The buildings, indeed, were decoratel with a freedom and fulness of fancy in the highest degree creditable to French architects, who certainly do not usually err on the side of the rococo. Not only were they decorative and festal in color and general conformation, but they were ornamented with a gay profusion of gala whose prodigality was nevertheless strictly subordinate to decorum and good taste. There was no hint of the note which German, Italian, or Spanish Universal Exposition architecture would be sure to strike. One need hardly speak of the decoration which the French sculpture of the past ten years, variously distributed about the grounds, constituted; or of the special decora- tions of the grounds and buildings by THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 23 the numerous and cultivated guild of French sculptors and painters, except to chronicle the success of the monu- mental fountain by Coutana work full at once of brio and of elevation, besides being immensely clever in more conven- tional respects. One need only mention that the fa9ade of Machinery Hall was decorated with a group representing Electricity, by Barrias, and one per- sonifying Steam, by Chapu; that the Central iDome was surmounted by a France Distrll)uting Crowns, by Dela- planche; that Rodin contributed a heroic Architecture to the Fine Arts, and Aub6 a Printing to the Liberal Arts building; and that the interior of the Central Dome was decorated by La- vastre with a fine frieze representing the procession of the nations. Few of these works were to be regarded as masterpieces. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive of a masterpiece by M. Dela- planche. But as decoration of a worlds fair they, of course, far surpassed the result that any other people could hope to obtain. And the lavish work of the well-known sculptors and painters aside though it should be added that this was often invoked by private exhibitors as well as by the administrationthe taste displayed in the general frame- work of the Exhibition was very note- worthy. The exhibits were classified with that order for which the French are famous. Each department of art or industry counted as a separate whole in the general spectacular composition. Each had its own kind of portal, hang- ings, cases, and canopies, all designed with the taste obtainable only where this sort of thing is a tradition, and thus, even in the most industrial portions of the Exhibition, contributing to the gen- eral effect of unity and excellence. III Ix ability to secure these qualities the French have, it will hardly be denied, an advantage over any people in the world. As one of our commissioners remarked to me, the French are natu- rally exhibition sharps. Doubtless the Exhibition of 92 will be an ex- tremely interesting one. It may attest our progress, and indeed our eminence, in many fields besides the industrial and material ones. It will, of course, of- fend those who have the interests of art deeply at heart more than did even the Tour Eiffel at Paris. If it is representa- tive it will have its share of corn-palaces and butter-women; perhaps the slight success obtained at Paris by our repro- duction of the Venus of Milo in choco- late will not discourage those to whom Parisian taste seems deficient in imag- inativeness. But these may very well be taken as superficial incidents in what may very well prove a truly important, interesting, and significant display. I hope, however, it will be deemed neither supercilious nor unpatriotic if I suggest that, should the Exhibition of 92 as a spectacle possess the unity and excel- lence of the Paris Exposition, we shall certainly have cause for congratulation. There are three disadvantages against which, as compared with the French, we shall be compelled to struggle. One is the disadvantage of possessing no site which can be compared for fitness with that which Parispossesses en permanence, and the impossibility of our constructing one. A fit site for a Universal Exhibi- tion is not a belvedere; nor are topo- graphical inequalities and sylvan poten- tialities pertinent features of such a site. We have been talking for the past few months as if they were ; but the moment we get down to practicality we shall discover that we have been using the word site as if it were a universal norm, so to speak, and that a site, and a site for a Universal Exposition are two different things. The site at Paris is in the latter sense an ideal one. The Trocad6ro palace, with its tall towers and wide sweep, dominates a large acreage of gardens which decline toward the Seine and communicate by the Pont dkna with the vast space of the Champ de Mars immediately opposite. Along the left bank of the river extends, as far as the large Esplanade des Invalides, a sufficient width of unoccupied ground to prevent any interruption of the Ex- hibition, so that whether you are in the Trocad6ro gardens, the Esplanade des Invalides, or the Champ de Mars, you are merely in a part of a compact exhibition divided formally rather than really into 24 THE PARIS EXPOSITION. three grand divisions, which thus furnish opportunity for grouping in a large and effective way without the disadvantage of mutual isolation. But the great ad- vantage of this site is that it is within so few minutes walk from the centre of Paris that it may be justly called cen- tral, and the advantages of a central site in Paris are simply incomparable. No site in the world for a worlds fair can compare with that which makes it the nucleus of Paris. And this by no means because of accessibility by land and water, by tramway, cab, bus, and walkingwhich nevertheless means that the Exhibition may be as much an even- ing as a day exhibitionbut because Paris itself is a perpetual spectacle, and merely incloses in its inner enceinte the spectacle of the moment. The parks, the boulevards, the theatres, the muse- umseverything in the way of distrac- tion and instruction for which Paris is famousborder a Universal Exhibition at Paris with a zone of far greater at- tractiveness for a worlds fair crowd than can elsewhere be obtained. A Universal Exhibition in Paris, in a word, has not only the interest of being for the mo- ment the nucleus of the greatest spec- tacle in the world, but the advantage of sharing the burden of entertaining its guests with surroundings which are in themselves of unequalled attractiveness and interest. A second spectacular disadvantage which it would be greatly to our credit in any substantial degree to overcome is the fact that, unlike the French, we have no competent organization, di- rected by a long and splendid tradition of ~sthetic dignity and taste, to create and control the Exhibition of 92. For everything but formal initiative we are dependent on that immense, that salu- tary, but in some respects that ineffec- tive force known as private enterprise.~~ There is no need to praise the manifold beneficence of private enterprise. An American can hardly open his mouth on this subject without uttering com- monplaces. And we may maintain that not only in such matters as building ever so many more miles of railway than we really need, or in fighting a gigantic war on an essentially militia basis, we have demonstrated the utility of private enterprise, but also that officialism is very disastrous in the sphere of a~sthet- ics itselfand at the same time appre- ciate the fact that, for the creation and control of an immense spectacle whose worst dangers are dissonance and hete- rogeneity, officialism with a conservative and cultivated sesthetic tradition has an immense superiority. In such a matter officialism is not divorced from general enthusiasm, it directs it. It is not an artificial but a co-ordinating influence. Compared with a worlds fair due to the private enterprise of a number of public-spirited plutocrats and interested business houses, one born of govern- ment interference is intensely popular, and has a rational and natural sanction. The French Government, in the case of the Paris Exposition, was eminently a popular exponent, as our phrase is, and merely organized the national en- thusiasm, which its machinery, in already perfect condition for such a function, enabled it to do with admirable ease and efficiency. It was not embarrassed by the selection of a site, nor by the question of raising funds, nor by the best means of employing the funds at its disposal. Sure, like ourselves, of the national and popular support, but able to dispense with the cumbrous and snail-like necessity of assurance of it, it could attack the problem of organization with directness. All it had to do was to call together the engineers, architects, sculptors, and decorators, and lay the general problem before them. To say that a committee, however represent- ative, enthusiastic, and intelligent, can do this as easily and effectively, is like saying that training and experience are of no value in the conduct of enterprises of this kind. The architects of the Ex- hibition of 1892 will doubtless be the last functionaries appointed. The absence of any body of engineers, architects, sculptors, and decorators at all commensurate in numbers, solidarity, and ~esthetic tradition, is the third, and perhaps the chief disadvantage, the rec- ognition of which is a first step toward overcoming it. We are famous for our engineering feats, and no doubt we can look forward to something as interesting and impressive in this sense as eithe1~ the Tour Eiffel or the Palais des Ma- THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 25 chines. But spectacular composition is quite another matter (and it will be un- derstood that it is of this exclusively that I am speaking) and it may certainly be doubted if to this end our engineers and architects would pull together as sapiently and harmoniously as the fa- mous corps of the Paris Exposition. Pos- sibly the engineers would feel that they had little to learn from the architects, even in the direction of sesthetic adapta- tion. Speculation aside, however, and engineering apart, it is clear that the city which in architecture, painting, and sculpture is the worlds school at the present day, must, for that reason, pos- sess an amount of talent to be drawn upon far in excess of that existing else- where. If we had anything correspond- ing in amount, we might argue advan- tages from our freedom from the dry and sapless character of official art. We certainly have no official art, and certainly what art we have is free as the air of heaven. But it happens that not only is official art the ideal kind for the construction and decoration of a Universal Exhibition, up to a certain point, but that beyond that point Paris has the advantage of the free art which the present extremely liberal Ministry of the Fine Arts is doing so much to en- courage. Still, the greatest poem, says Scherer, speaking of Faust, is not that which is most skilfully constructed, but that in which there is the most poe- try; and however little a poem and a worlds fair resemble each other, perhaps in 1892 the contents of our Exhibition will atone for any possible shortcomings in form. We may be sure they will, in any case, in the eyes of persons who think it will need no great effort to eclipse the Paris spectacle even as a spectacle. Iv. So much had been said against it that a visitor to the Exposition might have been excusably surprised not to find the Tour Eiffel vulgar. But the unprejudiced visitor must have been still more surprised to find it a posi- tively agreeable object. It was, how- ever, not only not vulgar, but agreeable. A priori objections to it were certain- ly reasonable enough. Everyone must have sympathized with the protest of the Paris artists made before the Tower was begun. The chances were entirely against the aesthetic success of some- thing that was supposed to aim exclu- sively at height; though after all, now- adays, since we have discovered that motive is of no importance in art, what does it matter if the motive of a work of art be height? Do we not all know certainly, if we do not we are not mod- ern that technic is what counts? If technic be generally competent and specifically admirable, the result must be successful. And technically the Tour Eiffel was superb. It may have been intended merely to be astonishing, but in reality it was in the highest degree impressive. Height, indeed, was not its sole mo- tive. M. Eiffel has said, I believe, and there are advocates of essaying such an enterprise at our Exhibition in 1892, that it would be perfectly easy to erect a tower twice as high. The English, as usual perhaps not quite seizing the point of view in a non-utilitarian and foreign matter, consoled themselves by reflecting that it would take two Tours Eiffel to make a single span of the great Forth Bridge. Its motive was impres- siveness. To the end of impressiveness size is certainly an important considera- tion. No one would pretend that a model of the Brooklyn Bridge would be as impressive as the original, any more than people who care chiefly about the looks of things (and who were the chief critics of the Tower in advance) would maintain that its utilitarian function is an element of its impressiveness. And size rather than height, was the main source of the Towers impressiveness as an extraordinary structure. It did not appear extraordinarily high; probably it would not have done had it been double its actual height; everyone who saw it for the first time expressed disappointment; its height was something which had to grow on one, so largely had the imagina- tion discounted it. But it appeared from the first extraordinarily big. The im- mense anchorage and piers, the tremen- dous spans of the lower arches, the enor- mous mass of iron wreathing upward, the vast platforms, containing spacious 26 THE PARIS EXPOSITION. caf6s and promenades and a large per- manent population, hardly required the reflection that all this was a mere me- chanical necessity to the end of placing a stationary point a thousand feet in the air to impress one with a sense of the grandiose in pure construction such as few other works can. Impressiveness on this scale and of this unique sort seems to me, I confess, all aesthetic theorizing aside, an extreme- ly laudable end for the main featurethe noveltyof a universal exhibition. There is a certain dignity in a mammoth ob- ject of the kind erected solely for a com- memorative purpose, provided it be kept within the limits of taste and sense, pro- vided, that is to say, it be, although a monster, distinctly not a monstrosity. The mere fact that the Tour Eiffel was a prodigious structure, and gave to thousands of people, through its mere size and height, such a sensation as they had never experienced in their lives, without appearing architecturally ab- surd, is, I think, its very sufficient ex- cuse. But in addition to this the tower was, as I have said, a distinctly agreeable object. Its lines were fine, its propor- tions harmonious, the entire structure agreeable in ils evident slenderness and obvious strength. From some points of viewsufficiently distant for one to lose the sense of constructionthe curve of the outline seemed perhaps weak, ow- ing to the spread of the base and the tenuity of the top. But it should be remembered that it is particularly true of architecture that the mind has always to come to the assistance of the eye, or, in other words, that the eye should be a trained one. In the nnmerous reduc- tions of the Tower the base undoubtedly appears too heavy for the top; but in looking at the Tower itself one instinc- tively recalls the tremendous service the base has to perform, and the curve be- comes thus truly a line of beauty. If the essence of architectural beauty were, as is sometimes maintained, the complete expression of function, then the Tour Eiffel would rank high as a work of ar- chitecture. This is not, however, the es- sence of architectural beauty, but only an essential condition of it; and perhaps the most that one can say of the Tower, accordingly, is that it is a beautiful work of engineering. But it can be said of it with entire sobriety that in virtue of its obviously logical structure it far sur- passes in beauty such works of archi- tecture as are essentially constructed decoration instead of decorative con- struction. Eliminate the pleasure to be derived from association and from the sculptures and mouldings and folia- tionsthe thousand felicities which be- long to stone and belong to stone alone and I am not sure that the delight to be obtained from looking at the myriad thrusts and points of resistance, the bolts and rivets, the long upward-spring- ing shafts, the manifest communication of accumulated power from tier to tier of rods and girders, was not in its way worthy to be compared with that to be derived from standing before the fa9ade of a cathedral. Moreover, the Tower was eminently a part of the Exposition. It dwarfed nothing. It composed delightfully. It dominated easily, but not arrogantly, the buildings and landscape, and though you were generally, when out-of-doors, half conscious of its presence, it did not ob- trude itself. In a word, it took its place the place that had been provided for it in the general plan. It was a central point of interest from its character, and of observation from its prominence; but it distinctly contributed to the ensemble rather than formed an eccentric and dis- cordant note. Its eminence had noth- ing exclusive and egoistic about it. It helped, indeed, to decorate, to embellish the Champ de Mars, which was by no means merely its abject environment. This effect was due partly to the inter- est of the other constructions, the beauty of the Central Dome, the charming color and delightful aspect of the lateral pal- aces, the brilliance of the lawns, the fountains, the groups of sculpture, the scores of isolated structures scattered about; but it was due also to the so- briety and good taste with which it was itself decorated. V. No part of the Exposition was more conspicuous than that contributed by what it is convenient to call the Orient though in this case the Orient ex THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 27 tended to the Pillars of Hercules. Paris, especially artistic Paris, was delighted with these examples of an exotic civiliza- tion. Cairo Street was in some respects the centre of the Exhibition, though it only fringed a portion of one of its sides. It was very well done; the illusion was as complete as possible. There was nothing cynical about the reconstruction of an Egyptian or other streetnothing obviously superficial and clumsily imita- tive. The street was, to use the current slang, manifestly sincere. The bronze Egyptian donkey-boys, clad in long blue tunics, were very genuine. They thumped and shouted to their beasts, laden with most incongruously Occi- dental freight, as it is probable they do on the banks of the Nile. The carved jalousies and oriels, glued to the per- pendicular walls of whitewash, and hang- ing over and just out of the reach of the bustling, elbowing, clamorous crowd be- low them, were express importations. The caves and cellars and gloomy re- cesses, redolent of perfumes and dusky with pastilles, contained indubitably genuine carpets and trinkets, and were presided over by genuine, if polyglottic, followers of the Prophet. Genuineness must have been the only excuse for the hoarse cries, the strident calls, the or- chestral cacophony, which bewildered the sense of hearing even more than the barbaric color and form did the eye. But in spite of the genuineness of it allin spite, moreover, of the typical nat- ure of it allit was impossible, I think, for the wholly sane sense to avoid being depressed by a feeling of its essential artificiality. Is this, after all, what Islam has to give us? Is this the sum of its contribution to the delight of the eye, the pride of life, or the gayety of na- tions? These raucous girls and decrepit men pressing upon our attention fili- gree, little boxes, scent-bottles, ciga- rettes, pipes, bits of lacquer, beads, bangles, slippers, embroideries, and the thousand Oriental notions of their trivial bazaars are melancholy in direct proportion to their reality and repre- sentative character. Pass on to the stucco India Palace, filled with Hindo- stan stuffs and inlaid gewgaws, varied, marshalled, and commercially organized by English commercial tact, and the same sensationthe same impression of the Orientoppresses you. It is pict- uresqueness run to seed, the scum of a civilized decadence, the flotsam and jet- sam of a worn-out world, the frivolity and cynical pueriity of a taste grown absolutely mechanical, the sordid squalor of an intelligence utterly disillusionized. This effect was of course immensely heightened by the incongruousness of the whole Asiatic exhibit. Over all hung the gray sky of Paris, the white mud of the Champ de Mars was underfoot, the crowd was a crowd of badauds and for- eigners from the three remaining quar- ters of the earth, Paris showers sprinkled the court -yards and pattered against the chiselled latticesin the fairest of fair weather the Paris atmosphere was cruelly indiscreet and uncompromising beside the intense sunlight and warm blending of the Easteru air. Apart from its environment, at any rate, one concluded, the things that Cairo Street and its dependencies stood for were not properly to be appreciated. Just what they need, namely, a subordination and absorption into an ensemble which re- treats and retires and does not justify itself in such emphatic and defiant fash- ion as here, here is lacking. Judged by the criteria which the rue du Caire sup- plied, Gautier, Fromentin, IRegnault, Pierre Loti are incomprehensible. The grime was more salient than the color, the chaos more prominent than the pict- uresqueness. Perhaps, indeed, the rea- son why the Orient pleases artists so much is because it furnishes only the elements of a picture; because it is mag- nificently heterogeneous and haphazard; because, in a word, it is so truly unpic- tonal. Perhaps, even in the Orient, as well as in the rue da Caire, it is the im- agination that is stimulated rather than the sense that is pleased. But so far as the ordinary amateur is concerned I dont know that it makes much differ- ence in the resultant effect on the sense and nerves whether the barbarism that one is experiencing be rudimentary or decayed. We may say, perhaps, that crudity is more refreshing morally, be- cause one is accustomed to think of it as the beginning of better things and unconsciously credits it with the virtues of a fancied future. On the other hand, 28 THE PARIS EXPOSITION. there is undeniably a certain harmony in the debris of elements once composed and still united which is a~stheticafly a shade more agreeable; the picture has tone, however the parts may lack distinc- tion, and however purposeless and puer- ile the ensemble. But to appreciate how utterly lacking in distinction was all this vaunted pict- uresqueness, this fancied romanticism of color and costume and custom which made up the rue du Caire, one had only to turn into the neighboring rooms of the Japanese exhibits. The contrast af- forded one of the acutest and most ele- vated sensations of ~esthetic pleasure it is possible to experience. One was at once in a rarer atmosphere, and ex- changed tQmultuousness for serenity, a ragged and dishevelled disorder for intelligence, refinement, elegance; the dregs of a dissipated relaxation for the true tension of cultivated exertion; an abandoned orgy for the repose and san- ity of the pursuit of perfection. This general effect of the Japanese rooms was perhaps more remarkable than the excellence of the special exhibits, though this was, of course, very great indeed, and as the tickets on bronzes and porce- lains disclosedmany museums and pri- vate collections will be the richer for treasures of delicate and sensitive art. Outside and right and left was glitter and tinsel the gaudy grotesquerie of Siamese imagination, the trumpery trin- kets of Egypt, Morocco, Asia Minor; within, space and quiet; beautiful objects grouped, without sacrifice of individual interest, in tall black and glass cabi- nets; wide passage-ways between these, the courtesy of civilization manifest in the demeanor of the attendants, and the purely decorative features of the frame- work of the whole distributed with a chaste abstention from profusion and a dignified reserve in display in the high- est degree impressive. It seemed diffi- cult to fancy the danse du ventre going on amid the abominable cacophony of gongs and castanets a dozen steps away. Going on, however, it was the live- long day. Every hour, every half-hour of the afternoon and evening, in half a dozen grimy cafes the Terpsichorean ideal of the Orienl was illustrated anew, and so absolutely mechanical and list- less was the spirit that infused the per- formers that, to a reflecting person, it was the audience that was really the spectacle. The audience was at all events a study. The number of women was ludicrously disproportionate, and the number of American women was notice- able. Some of them seemed slightly pen- sive, but all were interested. Their large eyes grew larger still. They almost for- got decorum in crowding for a better view, in leaning over the backs of chairs, in concentrated, absorbed attention. They seemed to be making the acquaint- ance of a new world of phenomena, to be learning something which it is well known is the state of mind most exciting to the American girL But it is perhaps doubtful if their acquisition was capable of formulation. In most cases it must have remained in the state of pure im- pression; and probably most of them will agree that, important as impressions are, this one was, on the whole, unsatis- factory. If there were anything distinctly sen- suous about the danse du ventre it might be more reprehensible, but i.t could not fail of being more interesting. Great- er reprehensibility would have secured what was, in fact, most lamentably lack- ing, namely, a raison di2tre, and a raison dI2tre always makes a thing more inter- esting. Doubtless, in its origin, its pri- mordial idea, this series of contortions had significance, just as much of the symbolism of more spiritual ceremonial which now subsists in equally empty though more decorous fashion was once full of meaning, however esoteric and Eleusinian. At Paris and to-day it is absolutely hollow and dull. Fatima had the air of a bored contortionist. Her movements were extraordinary, and I was not surprised to hear that one of her comrades, forced to perform them from morning till night, and thus robbed of the recuperating repose which un- doubtedly she enjoyed in Cairo or Sa- lonica, had died of peritonitis at one of the hospitals. But anatomical paradox has in itself really no excuse for exist- ence if it be both ugly and insignifi- cant, and if in addition there be no heart in it. There was, on the contrary, heart, and little else, at the other end of the THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 29 Champ de Mars, where the Gitanas were appropriatelyinstalled in the Palais des Enfants. These Spanish gypsies, mainly female, with enough of a mascu- line intersprinkling to give variety and conventional point to their perform- ances, seemed veritably to have le diable au corpswhich is perhaps merely a mod- ern rendering of the old phrase pos- sessed of the devil. Their entertain- ment seemed the incarnation of caprice. Nothing more riotous, formless, and abandoned can be imagined. It was im- possible at first to get the thread of it, to reduce it to anything like coherence. After a time one became habituated or demoralized enough to fancy he could divine the point of view. But this point of view once seized appeared all the more wildly extravagant, all the more impu- dent and atrocious. The noise was deafening. The music, to whose accom- paniment the antics of the dancers were adjusted, was furnished by little tambourines absolutely echoless and non-vibrant, the national castanets, and a remorselessly persistent handclapping, which was first mystifying, then madden- ing, and finally, by dint of tireless con- tinuance, stupefying. Its measures were marked at irregular intervals, suggested by the whim of the individual members of the company, by shouts and cries of the most epileptic violence. Happily, to most of the audience they probably seemed inarticulate. The dancing was mostly of a kind whose essential inde- corousness was no doubt essentially modified by its calm deliberation and technical correctness. But I think the fondness for it of artistic Paris was an acquired taste. The Javanese dancers were a troupe of an altogether different character, and it is only just to credit the go4tfaisand~ of the Parisians wiUa preferring them to the flagrant and turbulent contortions just mentioned. They were neither noisy nor abandoned. The music was slow, regular, and savage only in timbre. It tortured the nerves in an insidious and unsuspected way onlylike certain forms of Chinese punishment, which at first seem wholly bearableand did not assail them violently, as did that of the Spanish and Egyptian virtuosi. And to its unphrased, unmodulated monotony VOL. VII.3 the dancers moved with trailing steps in slowinfinitely slowcurves, wreathing their arms, or rather their hands, with the wrist as a pivot, in a sinuous sedate- ness quite impossible to characterize or describe. As they circled about the little stage, a solemn-visaged youth in perhapsfull canonicals, surrounded by a group of attendant girls, they seemed to be performing a series of barn-yard evolutions, as of a slowly strutting cock encircled by his harem of hens. It was decorous to the point of solemnity, and the sense of measure was certainly pre- served to an almost measureless degree. The dancers were never carried beyond themselves by the entrain of the dance, but very visibly and agreeably controlled and regulated their gestures and poses. In this sense the performance was clearly an artistic one. But at the end of a half hour the observer who did not find it monotonous must have been a deter- mined seeker after sensations. The elaborate but limited sinuosity of the waving hands and flexible wrists seemed at last perfectly insipid, and, instead of being intentional, merely the reduction to a factitious appearance of order, of movements in reality hap - hazard and fortuitous, by a slowing of the pace to such an extent that the sense of slowness disguised the lack of character in the design. After the Gitanas any exhibi- tion of decorum was agreeable, but be- fore long the emptiness of pure decorum made itself dismally perceived, and one could not help thinking that the Pari- sian amateurs who went into ecstasies over the Javanese did not analyze their sensations with sufficient assiduity. They must have seemed a little na?fs to the Javanese themselves, whose re- signed expression was now and then apparently varied by a shade of amuse- ment at the simplicity of their audi- ences. In themselves, however, the dancers were more interesting than their ser- pentine posturings. There was one, espe- cially, a girl of fourteen or fifteen, but evidently at the acme of maturity, over whom all artistic Paris was excited. Her skin, of which a great deal was visible, was of the most beautiful golden hue, with citron shadows, and her arms were mod- elled with an extraordinary delicacy. 30 THE PARIS EXPOSITION. Her face was decidedly of a moon-like character, with eyes wide apart, and a rudimentary nose of concave outline. But, as a venerable and philosophic Frenchman who sat behind me remarked, What difference does it makea line like this or a line like that? What is really beautiful is youth. And this young woman was the incarnation of youth. It seems that our noses appear ridiculous to Javanese connoisseurs, and that the unvarying mark of a Batavian caricature is an exaggerated nose; per- ihaps it was our noses as well as our na~vet~ that amused the performers. It is well to have a standard, an ideal, even of noses, however; it is a great simpli-. tier; and one reflected that even people who believe in concave noses have an advantage over those who believe only in youth. In the first place, they have more youth themselves. In this sense the Parisian delight in all this trans- planted irrelevance seemed extremely old. vi THE industrial display was doubtless very good, though special competence is required in order to speak of it in- telligently. Our own exhibit made a poor showing, for example; but judging by the grands prix and medals it ob- tained it must have been a valuable contribution to a worlds fair, considered as an institution for the development of industry and manufactures. No one, however, could fail to note the immense commercial preponderance of Great Britain in these respects over the pro- tected countries of the Continenteven that part of the Continent which enjoys the superiority over England of artistic instincts, a tradition of culture, and the Code Napoleonand as at Philadelphia, in 1876, the English exhibit constituted a vast object-lesson in political economy which the dullest might learn by mere dint of looking. The educational side of the Exposition, too, was extremely prominent. Everyone has read of the street of the habitations of man in all ages, of the history of labor series, of the scientific congresses held in almost unbroken succession from the opening to the close of the Exposition, and of such conspicuous importance as to in- duce the London Spectator to speculate in a long article on the worth of such congresses after all. But for the ordi- nary observer, of all the contents of the Exhibition, the art therein gathered was the most interestingwhether this be or should be the case at a worlds fair or not. Naturally here France reigned un- rivalled, both because the French at- tach so much value to art, and the Ex- position was so eminently French, and because there is, comparatively, so little modern art outside of France. But the French display was rendered far more impressive than otherwise it would have been, more impressive indeed than its warmest admirers could have expected it to be, by the happy idea of the retro- spective exhibition of French master- pieces in painting and sculpture exe- cuted during the past hundred years. The Cent ennaire was, in truth, the very core and centre of the Exposition. The Louvre and Luxembourg together give no such vivid sense of the value of French art, of the title of French schools to rank with those of Italy and Holland, as the splendid array of sculptures and canvases spread out under the spacious blue dome of the Fine Arts Palace and overflowing into the contiguous galleries on either side. Here only could one get a just notion of the richness, the long career, and the vitality of distinctly French art after its emancipation from Italian leading-strings. For Fragonard, who was painting in 1789, almost carries it back to the days of reaction from Ital- ian influence, and from Fragonard to Itodin stretched a line of works illustrat- ing every phase of its later evolution amply and splendidly. How much, too, there was in each successive phase was a lesson in catholic appreciation hardly otherwise to be obtained. The Cen- tennaire was almost a demonstration of the truth of Mr. Henry James~s wise re- mark, that art is only a point of view, and genius mainly a way of looking at things. Prudhon, David, Ingres, Pela- croix, Couture, Corot, Millet, Courbet, Manet, Puvis de Chavanneshow much to say for itself here had each of these interhostile points of view over which THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 31 such fierce battles have been fought, and such heated intolerance exhibited. Fragonards witchery and abandoned nisouc~ance; Prudhons grace and lam- bent color; Davids sense of self-control and perfect power of expressing what he deemed worthy of expressing; Ingres linearly beautiful demonstrations of his sincerityhis saNity, indeedin pro- claiming that drawing was the probity of art; Delacroixs splendid proofs that color and action are alone worth atten- tion; Corots triumphant assertion that blithe serenity is natures truest note; Courbets superbly stated proposition that only the petty lies without the do- main of artistic subject, and that one motive is as good as another even elegance itself provided you take it largely enoughall these various points of view seemed invincible when you stood before the splendid illustrations of them that the (Jentennaire contained. You might theorize at your leisure, and note among other things the steady evo- lution of technic which these master- pieces of French art attested during the past hundred years; but philosophizing in their presence seemed professional and almost priggish. Both the Centennaire and the exhibi- tion of current French art, the paintings and sculpture of the past ten years, showed one tendency or trait of the ut- most significance, namely, a perfect catholicity of official selection. Can- vases and statues figured in each which had either been rejected at the Salon or treated with contumely there. Courbet and Bodin had apparently become the head of the corner. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this ap- parent divorce between the Government and the Institute, this enthusiastic adop- tion, and not mere countenancing, by the former of free, in spite of the frowns of academic art. It is not fanciful to say that it would never have happened under a monarchical regime, that the republican faith and its triumph have broadened the artistic as well as the political horizon, and in the field of ~es- thetics as well as of politics now reigns the genius of liberty and an ideal impa- tience of restrictions and conventions so far as these tend to hamper, hinder, or exclude talent of any kind. The care- ful cherishing of salutary, the careful curbing of dangerous influences, the timid and perhaps selfish trades-union spirit, which hitherto the Administration has more or less warmly supported in the Institute, have for the moment given way. IJltramontanism has indeed given place to radicalism, one may say, and possibly the pendulum has swung over far in the direction from which it has so long by main strength been withheld. But no one can doubt that whatever ex- travagance may be considered to accom- pany the change will, in its turn, be sufficiently curbed by the great forces of conservatism always at work in French art, and in the public to which French art appeals, and that the Institute knows its trade too well, and really possesses too fine a sense of sobriety and measure to lose more than the surplusage of power which official aid once gave it and gives it no longer. So that the change I speak of cannot fail to be as salutary as it is notable. Much dissatisfaction was expressed at the prominence of Manet and the presence of Monet at the Exposition, and there need be no fear that any school of free art will perma- nently receive the government support which will make it in turn officiaL This, however, does not imply acquit- tal of the modernists themselves of the charge of intolerance, and in their contributions to the exhibition of cur- rent art there was, I think, abundant evidence of the fanaticism which is per- haps an inevitable accompaniment of the energy requisite for effective Protestant- ism. What can you accomplish in at- tacking any system unless you attack it systematically? And the French plein- air painters, as a rule and in the mass, seem really to paint as if nothing else in the world were worth a moments thought except the just reproduction of out-of-doors values. These painters made the most vivid impression of any of the various French schools to whose works gallery after gallery was devoted, perhaps owing to our having grown familiar with the Bonnats and Benjamin Constants, and Henners and Laurenses and Detailles. They are the painters not, I think, of the indefinite, but prob 32 THE PARIS EXPOSITION. ably of the immediate future. They date from Manet as a matter of fact, though, as so often happens in a move- ment of this kind, Bastien - Lepages modification of Manets uncompromising attitude has been adopted by most of them. Monet and luminarisine are yet to come, perhaps, and though it is hard to imagine what phase of nature will be left after that upon which a school may concentrate its attention, yet as the phases of nature are infinite the succes- sion of schools will doubtless continue. No one not a traditional adherent of the academic conventions can fail to ap- preciate the excellence of the plein-air painters. It is not to be doubted that their procedure is worthy of a scientific age, and mathematical to the last degree. The doctrine they advocate and illus- trate simply demands an exact corre- spondence in the light and dark scale of a picture to that of the natural scene represented, exact imitation both of lo- cal tints and general tone being impos- sible, owing to the difference between natures highest light and lowest dark, and the potentialities of the palette. In other words, as you can squeeze absolute white out of no tube, you must first de- termine the scale of your picture, and then make every note in it bear the same relation to every other that the corre- sponding note in nature bears to its fel- lows in its own different scale. And what this value of the note should be, you can figure out with mathemati- cal precision. Only in this way can the effects of light and airthose two most pictorial of natures effectsbe caught, it appears; and some of the painters, indeed, sketch in figures instead of col- ors, marking the values of their differ- ent notes; for example, 65, 80, 45, etc., instead of endeavoring to match local tones. Color? One scheme of color is as good as another; it is light that brings colors into harmony, and harmony is the end to aim at. Form? Get the value right, and let the object model itself. Chiaro-oscuro? An anti- quated artificiality! Sentiment? Mere literature! Pedantry here naturally re- sults in the phenomenon known as trompe lwil (optical illusion is hardly so good a term), but it is undeniable that the plein- air painters have established a technical standard by their undivided attention to values which must prove of very great importance in painting. They have spoiled for everyone the old, hot, studio- painted works. They have raised the standard of naturalistic representation by still another degree, and have accord- ingly performed a service comparable with those associated .with the names of the great technical innovators in the same line of developmentGiotto, Sig- norelli, Ghirlandaio, Claude, Rembrandt, Velasquez. And they have imposed their view everywhere Germany, Norway, Russia, America most of alland even England. At the same time much honor as is the due of reformers who raise the stand- ard of technic in painting, it is impos- sible not to reflect that technic is, after all, machinery, and that in art what a man says is of importance, as well as how he says it. We may hereafter re- quire of painters that in attempting nat- uralistic representation they commit no solecisms, and that to that end they pay as much attention to atmosphere as to form, color, and chiaro-oscuro. We may come to find M. G~r~me as na?f in this sense, as we do Cimabue in drawing. But something else may be demand- ed as well, something besides machin- ery, something besides good painting. In this something the French painters who are now the leaders in their art are distinctly lacking. They show you how nature looks to you, if you have looked closely at her manifestations. What they think and feel, how they are im- pressed, seems a matter of no impor- tance. Their art is objectivity reduced to system, and consequently to artistic barrenness. For what permanently in- terests and attaches in art is personal impression, or, in the case of a school, the sharing of some personal impression, some way of looking at things by a number of artists that is not the way, the scientific way the way in which Raphael and Michael Angelo were im- pressed by line and form and mass; Titian and Tintoretto by color; Velas- quez by reality; Rembrandt by chiaro- oscuro; Corot by the morning; Millet by toil and resignation ; IDelacroixby energy; the school of Leonardo, of the Della Robbia, of the fifteenth-century Floren THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 33 tines, by some spiritual view of life, ap- pealing indirectly to the mind through the eye, as formal poetry appeals to it directly. In a word, the essence of painting is poetry and not science. And the French painting of the day, with its preoccupation with the niceties of nat- uralistic representation, can be regarded only as a powerful agent in perfecting the medium through which the painting of the future will have to express itself. This in itself is a very honorable distinc- tion, it need not be said, and perhaps it is inconsistent with a more spiritual ac- complishment. But it was impossible to avoid turning with pleasure, and, in- deed, with a certain sense of relief, at the Exposition, from the galleries of clever and sapient current French art to the Centennaire, where from every canvas you got a personal impression, a definite and distinct point of view ; where, in fine, every picture was a syn- thesis instead of an exhibition of imper- sonal cleverness, and where imagination counted for more than observation. After the French galleries the Ameri- can rooms I should think would have been found by an impartial spectator the most interesting, partly because they were interesting for other than purely ~nsthetic reasons. They furnished sub- ject for much discussion that was really of an ethnological character. Whatever we do in an asthetic way interests Euro- peans in this way first of all perhaps; their attitude to it is one of curiosity. To the mass of the French especially, perhaps, Chateaubriand is still an au- thority on America; America still sug- gests to them red-skins and virgin for- ests, an environment of wildness and savagery modified in these later days by an enviably successful philistinism. As a matter of fact our artists are infinitely less attracted by wildness and savagery than theirs, of course; but the very nat- ural reason for this is something they quite fail to comprehend. They are con- stantly reproaching us with our imita- tiveness and demanding originality of us, quite forgetting that a certain ob- jectivity, necessary in order to secure artistic appreciation, depends solely on unfamiliarity, and that originality in art demands art even before originality. Our material may have immense poten- tialities though I confess to a feel- ing sometimes that Europeans exagger- ate these but the point of view demands a perspective that intimate association to some extent forbids. It was inevitable, at any rate, that as soon as we began to pay any systematic attention to painting we should be pre- occupied with the endeavor to learn how to paint rather than to be original. Painting is, after all, a difficult matter, and painting well is as necessary as it is difficult, if you are to satisfy any inter- est more abiding than that of mere cu- riosity. The American exhibit showed at any rate that Americans have learned how to paint, and French critics who object to their cleverness in imitation modestly forget that it is difficult to paint well nowadays without imitating the French plein-air painting. It would be as rational to object to the adoption by a European War Department of the latest invention in arms or ammunition. France has been the pioneer in the prog- ress of realistic rendering of nature, and as nothing but the realistic rendering of nature is thought of nowadaysby Frenchmen at all eventsit seems a lit- tle superficial in them to reproach ar- tists of other nationalities with a prompt and elastic recognition of the fact. It is true that the defects of the great and distinguished French quality of mod- ernity appear rather sharply accentu- ated in the work of the Franco-Ameri- cans, as, artistically, the Americans who paint in Paris may be called. You feel, I am bound to acknowledge, the limita- tions of this quality more in the Franco- American than in the French rooms. It is a little more express and external, a little less spontaneous and native as ex- hibited by Mr. Charles Sprague Pearce or Mr. Alexander Harrison than it is as illustrated even by Manet himself. You are more obsessed by the preoccupation with values, et prceterea nihil. The illu- sion is more striking and therefore less illusive. The effect of trompe lccil is more arrogant and unabashed. But this is perhaps due to the exaggeration of objective enthusiasm, and as soon as things take their places a little better, as soon as plein-air painting becomes as conventional among the Franco-Ameri 34 THE PARIS EXPOSITION. cans as it has among the Frenchmen themselves, we may fairly expect to see less of the machinery of their work. Meantime the machinery is in admirable order, and is the best machinery to be had. It does not so much matter, after all, who invented it. As to specific imitation, the imitation, that is to say, by certain Americans of certain French masters, that, I think, was greatly exaggerated by the French critics. To say, as M. Maurice Hamel does, in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, that Cabanel and Manet, G6r6me and Car- olus Duran, Bouguereau and Dagnan, Whistler and Munkacsy, Jules Breton more than Millet, are in turn or simul- taneously consulted by American paint- ers is clearly confused and mechanical rhetoric. Mr. Whistler is himself more of an American than anything else, and much more so than Mr. Sargeiat, who may be accused of being an imitator of Carolus Duran only in so far as a pupil who far surpasses his master may be. No one imitates Bouguereau or Jules Breton or Munkacsy. But in saying that American painting as exhibited at Paris showed the gift of assimilation, a quick eye, manual dexterity, the as- surance of precocious virtuosi, a liking for effect and sensationalism, little medi- tation in the presence of reality, slight reflection upon phenomena, few passion- ate confidences, resulting in aesthetic gymnastics and samples of pure clever- ness, and that, finally, it appeared alert, adroit, and superficial, M. Hamel must be admitted to be on surer ground. Still, the French critics made the mis- take of judging of the American exhibit by the room kept for themselves by the Franco-Americans, to the neglect of that devoted to American painters painting at home. There were three very suf- ficient reasons for this. Probably we should have to put first of all their a priori conviction that America is a veri- table Nazareth in art matters, and there- fore it would pay only to inspect the work of Americans painting in Paris, whence the induction that as these painters showed more imitativeness than originality, America must be a Nazareth indeeda kind of symmetrical and cir- cular logic especially French perhaps. In the second place, it was impossible to see any of the paintings in the purely American room as satisfactorily as all of those in the Franco-American gallery, and impossible to see many of them at all; the Franco-Americans had had everything their own way. In the third place, the Franco-Americans paint so much better than their stay - at -home compatriots that anyone to whom, as to French critics, insufficient technic is a dispensation from any scrupulous exam- ination of motive, would naturally de- vote himself principally to the works of the former. MI the same, it is, I think, regrettable that these gentlemen were not as generous as they could well have afforded to be. Our exhibition would certainly have gained had there been no such arbitrary and unpatriotic division of forces in the presence of the enemy. I think, indeed, the French critics would have been more impressed had the Franco-Americans surrendered the bet- ter room to their less fortunate fellows, though doubtless that would have been a refinement of patriotic feeling not to be exacted of foreign colonists of any kind. The Dutch pictures were not the most interesting of the Exposition, but I think possibly they were the most sin- cere. A serene atmosphere pervaded the rooms, a tranquil sense of haven-like aloofness from the storms and whirling eddies of technical discussion; some- thing of the placid quiet that pervades as a decorous mist the tree-lined ave- nues of the Hague, where most of the distinguished Dutchmen have their stu- dios, and catches up the soft and sober reflections of the low-toned objects it enshrouds; something of the breezy reaches and gusty dunes of Schevenin- gen and of the sedate picturesqueness of Amsterdam streets. After Manets stac- cato how soothing is Mesdags utmost animation! After Mr. Meleherss aston- ishing trompe lceil how large and free seem Mauves stretches of plain and cool gray cloud-filled skies! This is what it is to be ii~ harmony with nature, one reflects, as he remarks the absence of all effort to spy out her secrets, to solicit over-anxiously her intimacy, to treat her as a model and make of her a specta- cle. What good sense, what good taste THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 35 every canvas attested! How markedly absent any trace of vulgarity, of intel- lectual fret, of insecurity, of special and urgent appeal, of pose of any kind! And at the same time it need hardly be said that the impression made by the Netherlands galleries was very far re- moved from that produced by an art essentially bourgeois. Dutch technic has always saved Dutch art from that re- proach; and though it had more power in the days of Van der Meer of Delft, and De Hooghe, to say nothing of such strenuous personalities as Rembrandt and Franz Hals, it never had more dis- tinction than it has at the present time. Distinction is, indeed, one of its very salient characteristics. Clear, cool color, firm and free drawing, a nice instinctive sense of values, without over-emphasis in this regard, never separating, as it were, space and the air that fills it in order to show that you appreciate both, and a certain deft precision of touch bordering on elegance were noticeable in scores of canvases. But, on the other hand, what the Dutchmen, too, seem really lacking in is imagination. Their attitude toward nature is very fine, but it is a trifle tranquil. They sacrifice, efface themselves in natures presence. They are impressionable, but half-consciously so, by assimilation and absorption as it were, rather than through positive enthusiasm. Enthusi- asm, indeed, is a word hardly to be found in their vocabulary. They are rather sympathetic even than impres- sionable. One feels that they have lived long in the environment they paint, that they were born in it, that they have never left it, that they love it as the son who was not prodigals must have loved his home appreciatively, affec- tionately, ~ut a little unemotionally. And they might, of course, show far more impressionability than they do and still show a defective imagination; the impressionable and the imaginative genius being so different as sometimes to seem mutually exclusive. They ex- hibit less temperament, less personal feeling, even than the Frenchman, who is given over to technic, and whose great defect is the sacrifice of temperament to technic, because the latter, however impersonal and unsympathetic his atti- tude toward nature, nevertheless pursues technic with a personal ardor quite ab- sent from the composed competence of the Netherlands painters. But how tri- umphantly they rise above the defects of their admirable qualities must be ones last reflection as he turns from the Neth- erlands rooms to those wherein he will find more imagination, more enthusi- asm, and more perturbation. The French appreciation of the Eng- lish pictures was significant both of the catholicity of French appreciation and of the merit of English pictures. The extreme unlikeness of the American and English contributions struck every- one, but it was curious to note how much more the French cared for that foreign art which differed most from their own than they did for that which resembled it most. The reason clearly was the in- dividuality of the English pictures which as a whole, however they might witness either antiquated or elementary technic, nevertheless testified to a belief in the imagination as the most important fac- tor in the production of fine art. And it would be difficult to conceive a more striking attestation of the value of imag- inativeness in painting than the mani- fest respect which the French showed for works which in many other respects invited their clemency. Elsewhere the French ideal reigned supreme. Ma- drazo and Rico illustrated it in the Span- ish rooms, though, of course, a decided trace of Fortuny was noticeable in the canvases of each of them. The Germans, too, and Russians, who were nevertheless very impressiveespecially counting the striking street-studies of Marie Bash- kirtseffwere more careful about ex- pression than about idea. Finally, and I confess that to me the fact was dis- appointing, both Segantini and Nono showed that Italy is still occupied main- ly with technical problems. That, after all, one must conclude, is the note of the moment in art. ATONEMENT. By Edith M. Thomas. Tnou repentest, and thy tears Flow for those misfeatured years That, with old reproach and taunt, Thine amended footsteps haunt. But thou mayest not, in sooth, Placate thine aggriev~d Youth. Thou repentest, and wouldst heap, From thy bin and coffer deep, Store upon their nakedness Whom thou spurnedst all pitiless. But thou mayest not find peace In late doles of thine increase. Thou repentest, and wouldst yield All the trophies of the field Where a great heart vailed to thee That thy fame upreared might be. But thou mayest not rebuild What thy lustier growth has killed. Thou repentest, and thy breast Heaves for one that (well at rest) Once thy crossed or wanton will Could with cruel tremor fill. But thou mayest not confer Aught upon that slumberer. Thou repentest !dost thou deem Heaven is lent unto thy scheme That thou mayest now undo What thy writhing heart-strings rue, And with dealings sooth and kind Of their aim thy Furies blind? Thou repentest, and wouldst press Forward to a sweet redress. Ay; but if a God prefer In thy wakened breast should stir Grief to keep thy purpose pure, What for thee but to endure? Thou repentest! Well, repent. Urge naught else, but be content That the callous chord did break, That thy heart at length could ache. Ache! thou heart long proof to pain, Though thy prayer no God constrain.

ATONEMENT. By Edith M. Thomas. Tnou repentest, and thy tears Flow for those misfeatured years That, with old reproach and taunt, Thine amended footsteps haunt. But thou mayest not, in sooth, Placate thine aggriev~d Youth. Thou repentest, and wouldst heap, From thy bin and coffer deep, Store upon their nakedness Whom thou spurnedst all pitiless. But thou mayest not find peace In late doles of thine increase. Thou repentest, and wouldst yield All the trophies of the field Where a great heart vailed to thee That thy fame upreared might be. But thou mayest not rebuild What thy lustier growth has killed. Thou repentest, and thy breast Heaves for one that (well at rest) Once thy crossed or wanton will Could with cruel tremor fill. But thou mayest not confer Aught upon that slumberer. Thou repentest !dost thou deem Heaven is lent unto thy scheme That thou mayest now undo What thy writhing heart-strings rue, And with dealings sooth and kind Of their aim thy Furies blind? Thou repentest, and wouldst press Forward to a sweet redress. Ay; but if a God prefer In thy wakened breast should stir Grief to keep thy purpose pure, What for thee but to endure? Thou repentest! Well, repent. Urge naught else, but be content That the callous chord did break, That thy heart at length could ache. Ache! thou heart long proof to pain, Though thy prayer no God constrain. e~ e~ 0 ~ ~0 ~ ~ 0 ~-4~ 0 ~ e+ 0 ~j~0 0 ~ 0 ~ e4- 0 0 0 ~ ~ ~ 0~0 0 ~ ~J2~ ~

e~ e~ 0 ~ ~0 ~ ~ 0 ~-4~ 0 ~ e+ 0 ~j~0 0 ~ 0 ~ e4- 0 0 0 ~ ~ ~ 0~0 0 ~ ~J2~ ~ 38 TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. of a country and that of its people, one realizes that the race who dwell here must be different from those of the rest of the world. The struggle against the rough and adverse elements of Northern climates, the necessity of fighting them in order to live, the possibility of finally mastering them, have developed the best capabilities of the human race ; while the contemplation of this desolate land, ly- ing prostrated like a helpless slave under the tyranny of a sun implacable, has en- gendered idleness and fatalismpure vegetative life. At twilight, Tripoli, the last Turk- ish town of northern Africa, outlines itself faintly, then disappears in dusky haze. One by one the stars come into luminous life until the heavens are all a twinkling blaze; the sea, murmuring ever her soft and vague refrain, sleeps with the transparency of a mirror, fleck- ed here and there with fugitive traces of phosphorescence. In the morning we enter an open space pompously called harbor: no forest of masts, hardly three or four ships at anchor, no signs of activity, and involuntarily our thoughts travel to far away natal lands and contrast their busy scenes with this African torpor. In the profound silence, the most trifling sounds of earth are heard with perfect distinctness. At a few cable lengths Tripoli, shimmering in a luminous atmosphere, smiles at us in her matinal parure ; she is circled with an oasis of palms studded with hundreds of domes and minarets that the rising sun kindles into dots of scin- tillating light: behind old Spanish walls the houses stand forth white and delicate against a sky of amethyst: the slightest details are visible, and all touches one with a penetrating charm. It is the eternal enchantment of the cities of the Orient seen at a distance; but, alas! set foot within them, the illu- sion vanishes and disgust seizes you. They are like beautiful bodies having the appearance of life but within which the worm of death and decay eats cease- lessly. It is related of a dilettante that, during his sojourn at Constantinople, he contented himself with admiring the marvellous aspect of the city from the deck of his yacht refusing to go ashore, Outside the Walls at Sunset. TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. 39 lest closer acquaintance would bring disillusions too cruel. He was right; the Orient of dreams and poesy is not the Orient of reality; magic appear- ances conceal the desolate spectacle of a society arrived at the last limits of de- cadence. The depravity of manners, the immorality and corruption of the administration, the enervation of char- acter, have ruined Turkey. It is not only an Empire which is falling, but a civ- ilization which is passing. Willing or not, you are made to take part in the noisy scene on deck when a horde of dirty rascals try to waylay you. How much talent is then wasted! how many ruses and combinations of all sorts over the few cents they make by carrying you and your luggage to the Custom House. There also what jost- ling, what a noise ; all this little world is in uproar, everyone signalling, ges- ticulating, speaking at once. Such a fray bewilders a civilized man, but those familiar with Southern exuberance re- gard it tranquilly, well knowing the dis- order is more apparent than real and that these people who bawl so loudly always end by understanding one an- other. The traveller who has acquired that most necessary art not to be in a hurry procures rapidly enough the ex- amination of his luggage. An instant after, following some robust porter, he traverses an open place encumbered with the tables and benches of a caf6, and is not a little surprised to find himself the object of general curiosity to the in- ternational representatives of the Chris- tian colony. Coffee and nargiles are there nierely as a pretext, in reality the gathering is in his honorthe arrival of a respectable traveller being an event rare enough to interest an entire popu- lation. The name, the quality of this novelty are known before he reaches land. Will he do this, will he do that? He has a smart look. Who knows but w I~k On the Beach. A Guesmith. 40 TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. he is one of these spies! France and Italy covet this country and, as seems to be the custom of the day, have sent offi- cers hither on secret missions. As a result, all conscientious tourists making gives them an original aspect, is that the houses, scarce six feet apart in the widest streets, are connected by nu- merous arcades, felicitously preventing the walls from nearing each other in slight inquiries as to what they see run the risk of being taken for spies. The portal passedTripoli being a fortress, as one infers from the wretched- looking soldiers seated about cross- legged, mending stockingsone enters a maze of crooked and irregular streets. What is nowhere else seen, and what a too dangerous kiss. All is a trifle primitive here, the architecture like the rest. There are scarcely any handsome or even decent-looking houses except consular residences and a few liabita- tions of wealthy merchants, which are rich and vulgar. However, what some despise others enjoy. If one cannot ex Minaret of the Mosque el Gourdji. TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. 41 in a Shop. their scanty coverings, elbow Jews in ridiculous costumes, half native and half European. In a few moments one has met with an infinite variety of ne- groes, from the pure type almost with- out nose and with enormous jawbones and huge lips to those whose lineaments are absolutely Caucasian. Porters, in simple tunics corded about the waist, carry heavy swinging bales on long poles resting on their sho alders, cheering their progress the while with an invo- cation to Allah and his innumerable prophets, chanted by an old man and re- peated by the chorus; a true song of savages, bursting forth like a fanfare of trumpets. Veiled women, voluminously wrapped, pass by like ambling bundles of clothes. Officers by scores, those of the new school stiff but neat, trying to resemble their German confr~res, since the fashion in Turkish circles is to imi- tate the lions of the day; the older officers kindly looking enough, but in what miserable costumes! Moorish dandies stroll and pose languidly about, seemingly absorbed in preserving their immaculate patent-leather slippers from any impertinent fleck of dirt. Crafty- featured Greeks and Levantines thread their insinuating way among the motley groups. At each step it is a new tab- leau, and the desire seizes you to stop while the eyes follow a curious type, and turning from it with regret fall on ten as pect to live comfortably in Tripoli, as in Tunis or Cairo for example, at least it has the advantage of not being half- civilized like them. Under the Sultans rule it has remained the capital of a truly barbaric state, still virgin of un- provements and with just enough dilap- idated abandon, dirt, and picturesque- ness to make the delight of the artist. In the variegated crowd filling the streets scores of types may be distinguished: Arabs of the town, draped in their blankets like Romans in their togas, and, in fact, the jaram is the direct de- scendant of the toga and, judging from its looks, seems to have retained all the dirt of those interven- ing centuries; others, whose costume consists simply of r a flowing robe, generally white, or, to be precise, which was once white! Sometimes this robe is of V ~ silk of vivid hue, and the ~ effect of that gay note in a bit of street is like a poppy Carrying Haifa. in a wheat-field. Bedouins, whose limbs, wiry and strongly muscled interesting. We must move on, however, shine a superb bronze color through but not without looking at that fat bon 42 TRIPOLI OF BARBAR Y. bon merchant squatted in a corner be- fore a little table whereon are spread unrelishable sweets. He stirs them lazily with fingers of doubtful cleanli- ness, psalmoding the while the Pharisee s prayer, interlarded no doubt with male- dictions addressed to us dogs of infi- dels! Notwithstanding his dirtiness, he does not lack a certain dignity; his eyes are half-closed, but their glance is fine and piercing. Is he not a fitting personification of that enigmatic Orient, bountifully gifted by nature, but which chooses to remain immobile among the peoples who march forward? From the window of our chamber in the Locanda we see a bit of blue sky, deep and luminous as a precious stone, against which a koubba, melon-shaped, outlines itself all white and incandescent. The sun makes resplendent a perspec tive of houses and gives an air of nobil- ity to the most vulgar and common de- tails. The light, vivid as it is, does not hurt like the reflections from our skies of tin. The shadows bathed in such light become cool and transparent; ca- ressing zephyrs pass from time to time. What is better than to abandon our- selves a whole day to that irresistible charm, eloquent preacher of Horaces philosophy? Only a portion of the Mediterranean coast has remained out of the beaten track of tourists, yet thousands of them pass every month within a days sail of it. It is that long reach of shore which extends from Tunis to Egypt, and no- where in the entire length of northern Africa does the Great Desert advance so near the sea. The dike of the Atlas range, rising from the J Atlantic Coast and extending far eastward, protects a large strip of fertile lands, once the granary of Rome, against the invading Sahara. This range loses itself and is finally ef- faced at the gulf of the Lit- tle Syrta, and the vast, long- pent up element, knowing no more barrier, spreads its yel- low, sandy waves as far as the Nile, enveloping the last half - submerged s u m m its which form a rosary of oases. That estuary of the Sahara is the port of the Black Conti- nent. It is the natural road by which central Africa has been attacked by many illus- trious explorers: Clapperton, Dr. Barth, Gerhard Rohlfs, Nachtigall, to cite only a few, have taken Tripoli as their starting-point because of the relative facility of coinmuni- cation with the Baad el Aubid, the Country of the Blacks. That fact explains the past and present importance of the town. The only vestige of antiquity spared by the iconoclastic mania of the Moslems is a triumphal arch erected to the glory of a forgotten Emperor Aure- han. It rises amid minarets, and the The Roman Triumphal Arch. TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. 43 V ~ 2 Ruins at Leptis Magna. little shops of a Maltese market and despite its mutilations, its disfigured bass- reliefs, and the butchers stall that finds shelter under its marble blocks, that hoary witness of the past preseives a stamp of noble grandeur. Groaning camels stalk slowly past it, and crowds of noisy Moors take the place of the Roman legions. IJuder the domination of Rome Tripoli, however, was not the most important town of the province. It was from Leptis Magna, situated some sixty miles to the east, that the caravans of Phornicians, those sturdy traders of antiquity, and of Greek and Roman merchants started for the interior. Lep- tis, sharing the fate of the once prosperous African colonies, is to-day but a heap of ruins buried in the solitude, majestic and without boundaries, of the The Castle. 44 TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. desert. A young Bedouin, watching his meagre flock at their scant pasturage of herbs, was the only human being I saw there. Leaning on his staff, he seemed to listen, like Virgils shepherd, to the noise this vanished past had once made in the world. A destiny as mysterious as that of the distinguished generations of which these ruins are the forgotten remains leaves them to disappear slowly under the gnawing breath of that infi- nitely smallthe sand! and a near cen- tury will not perceive even the traces of their obliteration. The province of Tripoli, if measured by its official frontiers, which exist only in theory, presents an area larger than the German Empire; but while the name Germany signifies for Germans the work of unity elaborated during centuries, the ideal of right and duty, the home where floats the flag for which one dies, in short, that chain of tradi- tional solidarities linking the cradle of the child with the venerated tombs of the fathers of the country, the land of which we speak has no other name for the million of men she sustains than that of Bled el Mouley, the Coirntry of the Mas- ter. Between the state of things this one fact reveals and the so- cial conditions implied by our ideas of nationality there is, there- fore, an abyss. The nomads are bent on avoid- ing tax-paying, which is easily done. Who cares about pursuing them in a district without roads, water, towns, resources of any sort? The Governor insists on the payment of taxes only when his soldiers can make such in- sistance successful. On this con- dition alone can he accomplish his other duties, protect the cara- vans and oases against the ag-. gressive pirates of the desert, and prevent fights and thefts among the tribes. It is easy to under- stand that beyond the collecting of taxes along the coast he can do nothing. The little he can do he does only too well. The country which fifty years ago was prosper- ous under the Arab rule has fallen into terrible misery. The Pashas, one after another, have pressed the life out of her so that she is now like a squeezed lemon. The Turkish shepherd of the Tripohitan flock has at command about ten thousand men, a force much greater than necessary to retain the coun- try in vassalage, and intended chiefly to resist a possible annexation by France or Italy. These soldiers remind one of their ancestors, those disordered hordes who hurled themselves like a devastating torrent on the Lower Empire. Their life, encampments, mano~uvres are an anachronism that would amuse a man of the profession. To say that they are dressed in rags is but to hint at the truth. Their shoes, for example but have they any shoes? What name can be applied to those pieces of wood, shreds of stuff or skin, that are nailed, /7 ill 1,11 ( ~/ ~ Ii I In a Negro Village. TRIPOLI OF BARBARK 45 glued, pieced together with marvellous ingenuity? The appearance of a march- ing regiment is like that of a flock of sheep, each going according to his fancy if not pushed by his neighbor. These poor wretches can every day study the value of the proverb of Harpagon., Shyloclcs brother, that it is necessary to eat in order to live, but not to live in order to eat indeed, they prove it is not necessary to eat much to live. At least, their lives pass untroubled by gout, if gout comes, as is said, from excess of table. Even their pay, ridicu- lously small as it is, exists only on paper. The pay-days are as rare as the happy days in the life of Abd el iRhaman, the Magnanimous, Caliph of Cordova, who, the Arab historians assure us, found, after careful search, but fourteen in his whole life. The same rule applies to the officers, the highest only escape it. A field-marshal gets his 3,400 francs a month, but the captains do not receive their 80 francs, and being married, with- out fortune, and disqualified for other occupations, how do they manage to live? The weak point of the army is there, in its officers, whose daily fight against misery destroys their devotion and emulation. But here we see con- scientious Turkey, always full of good intentions that are never realized, seek- ing a remedy (naturally not the needed one) by asking of Germany superior officers to organize and instruct her own. This little story is typical enough to be worth telling: The Prussian staff sent men of & itc, among them the celebrated Van der Goltz, whose military writ- ings are classical, they were largely and regularly remunerated, gifts, decora- tions, flatteries were showered upon them, but, of course, their advice was not listened to. As men of conscience and endeavor they were chagrined at this re- sult and, finding themselves unable to fulfil their mission, have wanted to re- sim The Turks tried to retain them with gold, which proved a secondary consideration to men of such stamp, and formal orders from Berlin were neces- sary to keep them at their posts. A Pasha said one day to one of these Ten- tons: Dear Excellence, why do you lament? You are paid, consideration is heaped upon you, and in return but one thing is asked of youto do nothing. Go to the Brasserie, drink your beer, smoke your pipe, and trouble no more the tranquillity of your conscience. Yet, despite its vices and shortcomings, the Turkish army presents a redoubt- able mass ; other armies treated in like manner would revolt, but it preserves its spirit of passive obedience. If the re- sources of tactics are lacking, the sol- diers do their duty with admirable emsern- ble, enduring privations and sufferings, fighting with stubborn fury, dying cheer- fully, because of a perfect unanimity of sentiment and a common tie, less ele- vated but more powerful than patriotism fanaticism! This was proved in Tur- keys last war. The time of con- quest is past with her, but there is no doubt that she will resist an in- vading enemy with a glory, even an efficacy, born of her despair. The gnawing worm of the army, that mis- ery, making of the soldiers mendi- cants who solicit public charity in Type of Negro. 46 TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. a sometimes brutal manner, is also that of the administration, whose employees ought to receive a regular salary, but do not. They have to do something to procure the neces- saries of life, and have no other re- source except to sell their influ- ence. It is easy to believe that such a state of affairs engenders injustices, arbi- trary acts, and that the Turks, as a result, are not loved by the na- tives whom it would have been so easy to concili- ate. Although they cleverly in- ~ spire themselves i with the Machia- vellic principle of Louis XI. of France, de divi- ser pour r~gner, and, like the Eng- lish in India, ad- roitly use the tribes one against another, yet had they been Chris- tians their rule would have been brief. But their force lies in the fact that doininators and vassals belong to the same religion. It is also fanaticism that unites them. Very unlike the Christians, the Faithful of to- day are en messe the same fervid Faith- ful as in the time of Omar and Mo- hammed. Incredulity, indifference, so widely spread among other sects, are unknown among them. Mohammedanism, already twelve cen- turies old, has, after a period of inactiv- ity, awakened anew in Africa, and is rapidly spreading. The reason of this vitality is found, I believe, not so much in the Koran, which contains, among in- coherencies, many grand and beautiful things, as in the genius of the Arab race. It was not alone the beauties of the Koran that made the success of the religion which surrounded the Mediter ranean with a crescent, extended over Africa, whose points were at Saragossa and Stamboul. No! behind the New Idea was the Scimitar, that most histo- rians have seen alone, and above all, there was a lu- minous pleiad of scientists and ar- tists, its best propagators. It is necessary to study the places subservient to Arab rule to gain an adequate idea of that civiliza- tion which follow- ed the lieutenants of Mohammed, simple men of the sword, and agents of a progress they probably did not themselves s e e. The Unique God (for Mohammed, imitating Moses and preceding Luther, instituted the cult of the One God) was af- firming himseli through the most beautiful literary and scientific con- ceptions, the perfecting of agriculture, manufactures of all kinds, a new archi- tecture, algebra, medicine, the intelli- gence of practical things united to a lofty idealism. Such was the civiliza- tion the Cid destroyed in Spain, the Turks have allowed to die in their hands, the Arabs have forgotten. It is with the Turks, that is to say, with the Tartars, of Turkestan, that Islam is waning. Those invading Tartars never knew how to re- alize prosperous results from their con- quests, while the Arabs at one time al- most civilized Europe. It is in Constan- tinople Mohammedanism lowers her crescent, and there she will fall, but to re- vive again among the Arabs, and through them yet play a great r6le in Africa. The characteristic note of Tripoli is its diversified population, and as Con- TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. 47 stantinople is a sort of magic lantern through which defiles all the Asiatic world, so this city presents an ethnological exposition of African humanity. Neither in Cairo nor in Tangiers are there such varieties. Side by side with the local tradesmen are to be found the merchants of the interior and the caravaneers, fierce types, with wild looks and noses like eagles beaks. It is from the centre of Africa, that little known home of exclusive- ness and barbarism, where nature imprints on man her rudeness and savagery, that come the passers-by you meet with in the bazaars of Tripoli. Untouched by our refinement of thought, possessing violent organizations, listening to all ap- peals of the brute nature, they examine you insolently, nor move aside to let you pass. But beware how you treat them, and God forbid your jostling them un- thinkingly, for here you are in an enemys country. Yet in view of the fact that the large Asiatic element, composed mostly of convicts, is of the same unsavory order, it is remarkable that the town should be so quiet. Murders are almost unknown, and as to theft, sad to say, Europeans of the lower order have the monopoly of it. I have said that the Arabs are oppressed by their masters, the Turks; these in turn, as well as the Arabs, are victimized by the Jews. The Eastern Jew has remained what j~ he was in medi~val times, a scourge; and the hatred he excited then, a hatred under- stood in visiting these countries, had other than purely religious grounds. He disgusts us to-day by his sordid habits as he did Taci- tus (Judeorum wos sordidurn). No matter what his trade is, apparent or confessed, he is essentially an usurerthe perpetual mo- tion of the duro (dollar). The Moslem, hay- ing the bad habit of contracting debts which he never troubles to pay, is seldom ready to meet his obligations; our Hebrew knows An Arab Merchant. that, and cheerfully consents to prolong the loan, naturally doubling or trebling the rate of interest. Thus the fortune of the Arab is like the sand in the hour-glass, and dribbles atom by atom into the pocket of the usurer. r I 48 TRIPOLI OF BARBARY I In the Jewish quarter we find our- selves in a new world, for the rest of the town, by contrast, is cleanliness itself. If elsewhere, walking is often difficult on account of the narrowness of the streets, here it is a torment to drive one mad. Flocks of scrofulous children of all ages cry, shout, roll in the gutters. As soon as a foreigner is seen, they gather around him, looking curiously at every detail of his costume, guessing at the significance of his gestures or glances, and begging in all possible styles, from the most heartrending to the most im- pudent. On all sides a hundred petty trades find shelter in fetid holes, haunted by types that seem to have just escaped from Rembrandts brush. Through the open doors of the schools one sees the little ones bending over their Hebrew text, spelling, with guttural modulations and rhythmic movements of the head, the verses of the Prophets that promise the re-establishment of Zion. The Jewish, as well as the Moslem universities pre- serve intact the great divisions of the scholastic, all based on the Holy Book, and are copies of European universities of the thirteenth century. That immo- bile Orient always keeps the key and illustration of our past. In the synagogues, crowded during hours of service, the people walk about, talking business as if in an exchange, while nasal detonating voices scan the lessons of the Old Testament. What a contrast the mosques offer to such a spectacle, with the long series of white- robed Faithful, their simple and digni- fied gestures, their repose and medita- tions soothed by the trembling voice of an old imam murmuring a prayer. The large Maltese population is the bulk of a flourishing Catholic church, and there are also many other sects, but all, with- out exception, have that point in com- mon, fanaticism. These faiths, degraded as they are by superstition, nevertheless offer to the miserable, consolations the rationalistic sciences cannot give, a res Outside the Gates of Tripoli. C TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. 49 ignation to the evils of the present life because of the blessed hope that foresees at the end of it a paradise of reward and happiness. I cannot leave the subject without speaking of the admirable devotion of the Sisters who come to pass a life of sacrifice in this exile. They dedicate themselves to the education of little Christian girls, a task rendered nearly hopeless by the spectacle of vice con- stantly before these children. Rolling without complaint their rock of Sisyphus, insulted by the crowd, hardly respected by their co-religionists, they excite our truest sympathy, and one bows with re- spect to these charitable women, who pa~ss in that Oriental mire as the person- ification of purity and sacrifice, giving an example unfortunately too sterile. The life and animation of the town centres at the Sovics (bazaars), and it is most interesting to walk through their vaulted galleries, watching the Tripo- lines at their different vocations. As each trade has its section the shops of competing tradesmen are side by side, with here and there small coffee- and barber-shops. Gaudy cotton goods at- tract the Oriental taste, and dark-skinned Bedonins haggle fiercely about them with calm Moors sitting cross-legged and imperturbable. In dusky holes bordering a narrow lane, the old men bending over brazeros, chiselling rude silver jewellery, seem, with their black turbans, dingy beards, and noses adorned by huge glasses, like dismal shapes evoked by Aladdins lamp. ChatteLs are hung on nails or lie about in a beggarly array of greasy boxes, but despite the scant skill displayed, buyers are plen- tiful. Especially on market-days, the street is crowded with villagers who have come to sell their products, and who never fail to invest what little money they have made in presents for their wivesfrom gallantry? Oh, no but because Arab women fulfil the office of the family safe, and carry on their backs the common fortune in silver ornaments. These peasants press to- gether like a flock of sheep before each shop, scrambling one upon another, the better to see, and turning the desired object many times in their hands before buying it. The Tuesday market, held outside the gates, is the event of the week. Early in the morning a large open space near the sea is invaded by a swarm of people and beasts; little by little the merchan 7/ / ( ~ . An Arabic Religious Seminary. 50 TRIPOLI OF BARBARY. dise is unloaded and spread on the sand under the shelter of mats or small tents, and the merchants squat, cigarette in mouth, patiently awaiting customers. E8abroa mm Allah! Patience is a gift of God! The Friday market, held in the oasis, a little distance from the town, is a less important replica of this in all but the situation, which is picturesque in the extreme. The sandy roads, that form a tangled net through the gardens, are on that day traversed by cavalcades of all kinds which make a continuous procession of charming little pictures. This feast of the eye has its thorns of dis- comfort, for in these incased roads the heat is extreme, the least motion raises the dust in whirlwinds, and the vegeta- tion exhales a heavy, suffocating odor. On all sides the exasperating grating of well-pulleys produces a motif too Wagnerian for uneducated ears, in a pastoral symphony played by a full orchestra of buzzing insects, grass- hoppers whirring shrilly, and the sun- scorched palms crackling their dry branches. In each garden rise the two arms of a well, between which an enor- mous leathern bag mounts and descends on a rude wooden pulley, the chief in- strument of the above-mentioned mu- sic, discharging at each trip a flood of water. The negro laborer uses a camel, an ox, sometimes his wife, to give the motion to the machine by going up and down an inclined plane. The move- ment does not stop day nor night during the nine months of the dry season, and it is thanks to that water, which is life, thanks to constant care, that the verdure of a semi-tropical vegetation blooms gay- ly in the sand. Under the protection of pomegranate, fig, orange, lemon, and banana trees, through whose heavy foli- age the sun percolates, flourish maize and wheat, vegetables and flowers of all sorts. Above it all, the stately palms balance their heads in the superheated atmosphere. The nomads often pitch their en- campments on the limits of the oasis under the protection of some zapti6 (policemen) we could approach their black tents, raised but a few feet above the ground, without fearing either the hostile attitude of the inmates or the dogs, whose hair bristled fiercely at sight of the Christian. These miserable tents, furnaces in summer, ice-chests in The Pipe Bearer. A Marabout. / 2 TRIPOLI OP BARBARY. 51 winter, are preferable as a habitation each have some novel mode of prayer, to the hovels of the villages, for the wind and promenade the streets with flags at least, carrying away the deleterious and drums. Of course, they deign to miasma, purifies them. The dwellers receive the offerings of the Faithful, for nnder tents are certainly more robnst it is well understood that Gods chosen A Douar, or Bedouin Encampment. and better built than the Arabs of the oases. Although poor as Job, they con- sider themselves free men, their lives are passed in perpetual travels and fights, while the town-people live where they are born and worA~for which the nomads despise theni as poor devils of mercmtis, merchants, workers, a very insulting epithet, and they maltreat and plunder them as well as the Christians. Indeed, the Bedouin is in perpetual war- fare with all, even with his own kin, ful- filling the prophecy of the angel to Ha- gar, that Ishmael will be a wild man his hand will be against every man, and every mans hand against him.Gen. xvi. 12. Town and oases are studded with small domes piously adorned with float- ing rags and tatters marking the tombs of saints. Marabout is the name for the tomb and its saintly occupant. The genus marabout has not been inaptly deseribed as either a drivelling idiot or a predatory fanatic, more commonly the first. In fact, the greater lunatic, the holier saint! Allah has taken his senses aforetime to paradise!~~ They people cannot work like common mor- tals. One is thankful that they do not assail passers - by with the wail of the professional mendicants. These latter are intolerable with their eternal Give alms, in the name of God. Most of these beggars are strong and healthy, ex- cept for the prevalent Oriental disease of laziness. Asking one of them what is his profession, he will answer tranquilly, che,rtmc~s, a substantive that can only be translated by the phrase, I sun myself. Another will naively say: ~ I have a brother who is a camel conduc- tor, meaning, My brother works, I am dispensed from doing the same. The best idea to be had of the flat- lying city is from the lofty minaret of the Djem~i el Gourgi, largest and most modern of the mosques. It is difficult to obtain permission to visit these sanctuaries, but the Pashas word was a powerful Sesame. Up the narrow, wind- ing staircase we climbed until our limbs ached, but at last we stood on the sacred spot where the JiihtezzirL calls to prayer, and, leaning over the parapet, were rewarded by a splendid panorama. 4 / 4. 4/ I 52 TRiPOLI OF BARBARY. The doves came flying round us, and into the stillness of height the hum of the city rose from the busy bazaars, while from the strong lungs of street dealers came up strange Oriental cries. A plain of blazing white roofs lies bak- ing under the sun ; here and there rise creamy domes and a few delicate min- arets; narrow streets wind between them where camels kneel and Arabs gesticu- late. The city walls engirdle all, and be- yond them, in the harbor, are two sad- looking Turkish men-of-war, a few Le- vantine craft of queer shape and rig, and occasionally a European steamer. The sea is of the loveliest turquoise blue ima- ginable, and near the shore transpar- ent, light-green patches show the rocks at the bottom. Yonder a dangerous reef encircles the harbor ; it might easily be formed into a useful pier, but a former Pasha decided that the rocks were too old to bear the weight of masonry! Framing the town between two bands of sand, like an emerald necklace on the brown breast of a Bedouin girl, lie the greatest oases of palms in the world. The dunes of the Sahara rise faintly, shadows trembling in an atmosphere of diamond dust. Though so chatoyantes from afar, they are, nevertheless, nude and arid. Thus it is with that Orient made so enchanting and fascinating through poetical distance. Is it not a little the same with all that dazzles us at a distance in life? A Negro Orchestra. 13i Graham P. Tornson. BUT the folk nell pianura, Two leagues distant, who will tell them? Who will brave the rush of waters Should, perchance, the flood outstrip him? Who will bear the news to IRocca, Far beneath us on the lowlands, That the reservoir is broken, And the water rushing, roaring, Like a wild bull in his madness, Like the sea let loose upon us, Wasting farm, and field, and village, Soon must speed to overwhelm them? We are safe enough, God willing, By the grace of the Madonna Warned beforehand of the danger: Ay, but who will warn the others, For the way is long and weary, And the path is full of peril? In the blazing summer sunlight, Swift adown the rugged footway, Down the rocky road and barren, Through the scattered, gnarled gray olives Leaning low, their twisted branches Stretched, like withered hands, to stay him, On and on sped Tonio Mauzi, Fleet of foot and gay of courage, In the race with Death for rival. At the entrance to the hamlet, Where the tavern-door stands open, In the dusty golden sunshine Blithely went the game of morra, With a quick, uneven cadence, Short and same as dropping water: Eager voices, outfiung fingers Unoquatroottocinque!~ By the door a hooded wine-cart VOL VII. 5 Waited, and the beasts in harness Now and then awaking, stirring, Set their listless bells ajingle. Blithely went the game of morra, To a quick, uneven cadence Dueottoquatro-nove Till the hard, short thud of footsteps Hastening toward the village Roused the players from their pastime: And, behold! a dusty figure Running breathless and exhausted; Bare his breast, his lips were parted, Gasping on the windless noontide, And his feet were bare and bleeding. Laughing rose they up to seize him, Drew him, laughing, in among them; Noisily they strove together, In a jovial contention Drowned with jests his breathless plead- ing; Laughed to scorn his words of warning. Boon companions, mad and merry, Still they held him there among them In the dusty golden sunlight; Challenged him to drink and gamble, Dazed him with their empty laughter, Till, at last, he strove for freedom, Roused to wild despair and anger. Let me go! oh, fools, unloose me! Save yourselves, the flood is coming; Loose me, I have come to warn you. Holy G6su! listen to me Let me go to warn the others Curses on you! it is coming, And you hold me here among you, Waste the precious time in brawl- ing THE BALLAD OF TONIG MANZI.

13i Graham P. Tornson. BUT the folk nell pianura, Two leagues distant, who will tell them? Who will brave the rush of waters Should, perchance, the flood outstrip him? Who will bear the news to IRocca, Far beneath us on the lowlands, That the reservoir is broken, And the water rushing, roaring, Like a wild bull in his madness, Like the sea let loose upon us, Wasting farm, and field, and village, Soon must speed to overwhelm them? We are safe enough, God willing, By the grace of the Madonna Warned beforehand of the danger: Ay, but who will warn the others, For the way is long and weary, And the path is full of peril? In the blazing summer sunlight, Swift adown the rugged footway, Down the rocky road and barren, Through the scattered, gnarled gray olives Leaning low, their twisted branches Stretched, like withered hands, to stay him, On and on sped Tonio Mauzi, Fleet of foot and gay of courage, In the race with Death for rival. At the entrance to the hamlet, Where the tavern-door stands open, In the dusty golden sunshine Blithely went the game of morra, With a quick, uneven cadence, Short and same as dropping water: Eager voices, outfiung fingers Unoquatroottocinque!~ By the door a hooded wine-cart VOL VII. 5 Waited, and the beasts in harness Now and then awaking, stirring, Set their listless bells ajingle. Blithely went the game of morra, To a quick, uneven cadence Dueottoquatro-nove Till the hard, short thud of footsteps Hastening toward the village Roused the players from their pastime: And, behold! a dusty figure Running breathless and exhausted; Bare his breast, his lips were parted, Gasping on the windless noontide, And his feet were bare and bleeding. Laughing rose they up to seize him, Drew him, laughing, in among them; Noisily they strove together, In a jovial contention Drowned with jests his breathless plead- ing; Laughed to scorn his words of warning. Boon companions, mad and merry, Still they held him there among them In the dusty golden sunlight; Challenged him to drink and gamble, Dazed him with their empty laughter, Till, at last, he strove for freedom, Roused to wild despair and anger. Let me go! oh, fools, unloose me! Save yourselves, the flood is coming; Loose me, I have come to warn you. Holy G6su! listen to me Let me go to warn the others Curses on you! it is coming, And you hold me here among you, Waste the precious time in brawl- ing THE BALLAD OF TONIG MANZI. 54 THE BALLAD OF TONJO MANZJ. Hear the fellow, Giaconino! Is he drunken or demented? What, birbante! would you strike us? Aiuto! call the Guardia! Rid us of this foolish fellow. For the knave comes running, look you, Stumbles, panting, in upon us, Stammers out some idle story, Raves of floods, and prates of dangers Was he drunken or demented? C/hi .sapera? Maledetto! Yet we rose to bid him welcome, Bade him join our bout of rnorra, Set a flask of wine before him And the stubborn beast requites us With his fury and his curses, And his lies about a deluge. Mad he is, or drunkbelieve us! Let him cool his frenzied fancies On the stone flags of the prison. Still, exhausted and despairing, Piteous, he told the story Of his fruitless strife to save theni, And the fast-approaching danger Of his racewith Death for winner. None would hear him, none would heed him, Who would heed a drunkards ravings? Mad or drunkennay, what mattered? Through the village street they haled him, Bound his feet with iron fetters, Bound, and cast him into prison. And the swart, black shadows length- ened, And the wine-cart started homeward With its tinkling chime of mule-bells. Sprang a cry athwart the voices Of the players sharp and sudden Novecinque God of mercy! Fly! the waters are upon us Run! the reservoir is broken We are lost !are lost already! All the twilight rang with voices; Shouting men and sobbing women. Like a herd of frightened cattle Running headlong all together, Each one striving to be foremost, Filled the street awhile, but quickly Passed, and left it blank and silent, Till the flood roared down upon it. When the fear was past and over, And the folk flocked back to Rocca, Walling for their ruined homesteads, And the gear all waste and worthless, Some there were that gossiped, Surely There was one who ran to warn us, But he stayed to brawl and gamble, And they thrust him into prison Andso quickly came the waters They forgot him, poverino! On the gray stone floor they found him, Stark hands clinched, and face turned downward Poor dead face! distorted, blackened, With the agony of drowning. In the dusty golden sunlight, Where the tavern-door stands open, Blithely goes the game of morra Eager voices, outfiung fingers, Unoquatroottocinque! And beyond there, in the prison, Thus it waslike many another All in vain, by all forsaken, For his world died Tonio Manzi. EXPIATION. By Octave Thanet. I. 4Y the puddles and sluices of water show- ed, unless the rider flashed his lantern down the road. Then a disk of land- scape, a kind of weird etching, was struck out of the night. Huge gum- trees dripped on either side; a stealthy patter of rain-drops dribbling through the thicket of trumpet-vines, tar-blank- ets, and briar which masked the swamp beneath. The rain had ceased, but not a star appeared to illumine this surly and dismal nature. North and south, as the lantern-bearer knew, the rotten corduroy was drawn in a straight line across the morass. North and south, east and west, only a few lonely cabins with their clearings broke the monotony of the forest between the Village River and the Black. Wherever the land was creased by a depression, the water covered the roots of the cy- presses and tupello-gums. What a country to live in! mut- tered the rider; is all Arkansas like this, I wonder? Anyone could guess from the voice that he who spoke was not a Southern- er. It was a very pleasant voice, how- ever, with nice modulations, and when the lantern rays swerved at a stumble of the horse, they showed a slender, well-knit figure, and a delicate, bright young face, with gentle brown eyes, and not enough down on the upper lip or cheek to hide a mobile mouth and rounded chin; altogether a handsome young fellow. Tiny wrinkles at the cor- ners of the eyelids and a dimple in the cheek hinted that this was also a young fellow who laughed easily. He was laughing now, swinging the lantern above his mud-splashed legs. What a figure of fun you are, Fair- fax Rutherford, said he, gayly, and yet you dont look half the native either. With a praiseworthy notion of suiting his dress to the country, Fairfax, before he left England, had bought such an outfit as they sell you in Regent Street for the bush. Therefore he was clad in a wide, cream-colored soft hat, a shooting-jacket of brown duck which bristled with pockets, and corduroy trousers pushed into leggins. Father will laugh at me, I dare say so his thoughts rambled on but I thin/c he will be glad; what a bore to be a stranger to ones own father! He tried to recall his single youthful visit to his fathers plantation. Only a few pictures would come. A great, white, ill-built house and mysterious clutter of outbuildings; bare-footed negroes tumbling over each other, in their efforts to make haste wid de din- ner; outside, the river noises behind the willows, the wind in the cypress brakes, the reckless hunts through the cane, the grinning black faces among the cotton bolls, the hogs rooting under the peccan trees, and cattle browsing on the wide fields; the unkempt figures which used to loiter round the store and gin; that good little romp his step- mothers daughter, Addle; those two mischievous, riotous, soft-hearted lads, his brothers, and the jocular, shabby, easy-going planter, his father; such were the pictures that all at once made Fairfax Rutherford sigh, for the old bar- barous, plentiful days were gone forever, and the boys lay in their unmarked sob diers graves. Soon his thoughts strayed to a conver- sation which he had heard that afternoon, just before he started. He had passed through the Federal lines, and his days journey ended with sunset at a poor tav- ern, post-office and store as well, where he hoped to procure another horse and a guide. Guide there was none to be had, but the woman who kept the house, when she was told his name, greeted him warmly, and bestowed on him her only horse, a broken-down Texas pony with the string-halt. She set before him her

EXPIATION. By Octave Thanet. I. 4Y the puddles and sluices of water show- ed, unless the rider flashed his lantern down the road. Then a disk of land- scape, a kind of weird etching, was struck out of the night. Huge gum- trees dripped on either side; a stealthy patter of rain-drops dribbling through the thicket of trumpet-vines, tar-blank- ets, and briar which masked the swamp beneath. The rain had ceased, but not a star appeared to illumine this surly and dismal nature. North and south, as the lantern-bearer knew, the rotten corduroy was drawn in a straight line across the morass. North and south, east and west, only a few lonely cabins with their clearings broke the monotony of the forest between the Village River and the Black. Wherever the land was creased by a depression, the water covered the roots of the cy- presses and tupello-gums. What a country to live in! mut- tered the rider; is all Arkansas like this, I wonder? Anyone could guess from the voice that he who spoke was not a Southern- er. It was a very pleasant voice, how- ever, with nice modulations, and when the lantern rays swerved at a stumble of the horse, they showed a slender, well-knit figure, and a delicate, bright young face, with gentle brown eyes, and not enough down on the upper lip or cheek to hide a mobile mouth and rounded chin; altogether a handsome young fellow. Tiny wrinkles at the cor- ners of the eyelids and a dimple in the cheek hinted that this was also a young fellow who laughed easily. He was laughing now, swinging the lantern above his mud-splashed legs. What a figure of fun you are, Fair- fax Rutherford, said he, gayly, and yet you dont look half the native either. With a praiseworthy notion of suiting his dress to the country, Fairfax, before he left England, had bought such an outfit as they sell you in Regent Street for the bush. Therefore he was clad in a wide, cream-colored soft hat, a shooting-jacket of brown duck which bristled with pockets, and corduroy trousers pushed into leggins. Father will laugh at me, I dare say so his thoughts rambled on but I thin/c he will be glad; what a bore to be a stranger to ones own father! He tried to recall his single youthful visit to his fathers plantation. Only a few pictures would come. A great, white, ill-built house and mysterious clutter of outbuildings; bare-footed negroes tumbling over each other, in their efforts to make haste wid de din- ner; outside, the river noises behind the willows, the wind in the cypress brakes, the reckless hunts through the cane, the grinning black faces among the cotton bolls, the hogs rooting under the peccan trees, and cattle browsing on the wide fields; the unkempt figures which used to loiter round the store and gin; that good little romp his step- mothers daughter, Addle; those two mischievous, riotous, soft-hearted lads, his brothers, and the jocular, shabby, easy-going planter, his father; such were the pictures that all at once made Fairfax Rutherford sigh, for the old bar- barous, plentiful days were gone forever, and the boys lay in their unmarked sob diers graves. Soon his thoughts strayed to a conver- sation which he had heard that afternoon, just before he started. He had passed through the Federal lines, and his days journey ended with sunset at a poor tav- ern, post-office and store as well, where he hoped to procure another horse and a guide. Guide there was none to be had, but the woman who kept the house, when she was told his name, greeted him warmly, and bestowed on him her only horse, a broken-down Texas pony with the string-halt. She set before him her 56 EXPIA TION. best of food, also, fried pork, and corn bread, and chicory coffee. While lie ate he could overhear his hostess talk- ing to some wayfarer. The man, with the vigilant curiosity of rustics and of the troublous time, had noted iRuther- fords hat in the gallery. Who all you got in thar? said lie. He done come, answered the wom- an, briefly. Fair Rutherford? Mymy! Mymy! Wunt the ole man be chirked up! Whut likes he, onyhow? Favor Jeff or Rafe? Naw, he pintedly does favor his maw. But he got the same pleasant laffin turn like his paw. He aint so tall an stout like Jeff an Rafe, but he are a mighty pretty young man. The man laughed good-naturedly. Women folkses is all fur looks. Now t my mine, Jeff an Rafe ben the pur- ties young fellers I ever did see. Run an ride an shootlaw me, they warnt nuthin theyd orter know they didnt done, by gum! An flghtinmy Lord! I caynt git satisfied, nohow, with them boys bein killed up! I ben with Jeff at Springfieldleadin the charge with three wyounds onto himjess like the ole man, them boys. Hes mighty gayly an pleasant, but I tell ye he are a painter * in battle. He didnt quit fightin till he must. An I stuck tew him, blame my skin! You did, shore, Mist Fowler, re- sponded the woman, warmly; bettern some of his own kin. Look at Mr. Fairfax Rutherford stayin over to Eu- rop stiddier comm home an fightin not that hed a got are good neether by comm. I heard tell he ben a abolitionist, an thats how come he went tuh Europ. Shucks, naw, sir. Aunt Hizzie she tole me a plumb diffrent tale; sayd he ben waitin on Mis Rutherford thats dead-warnt she the third? The man laughed, and asked how was he to know? he couldnt keep up with the old mans marryings. Yes, sir, she ben the third, an she belonged down t Little Rock; an the cunnel he jes loved her tew kill, but Mist Fairfax Rutherford got her word tew marry him, an when he diskivered her mind ben a turnin tur the cunnel, he taken it mighty hard, hut he give her back her word an lit out an went t Europ. Didnt do nare meanness tew the cunnel. Must a ben a durned fool ! was the mans contemptuous comment; but whether his contempt was excited by Fairfax Rutherfords forbearance or his going to Europe did not appear. He was a mighty pretty man, con- tinued Mrs. Crowder, mneditatively. I kin jes see the way he looked when he come yere on a visit. Never did come but twicet. Hit ben in the fall of the year. Yes, sir. An if ye please, he wears a coat all trimmed up with fur, kase of it bein so cole up North. They all sent the kerridge, an little Fair hopped aout an ben a limpin raoun, like he uster. He gives a sorter styart like, when he fust seen the chile, an I heerd him say t hisseff, Yes, hes got the eyes. Eyes like hem, ye onderstand. Anybuddy cud see lie jes sot the world an any + by that ar boy, from the fust minnit. The cunnel let him cyar way kase he sayd the doctors in Lunnon cud cure his laig; and they done it fur a fac. He came back oncet on a visit an didnt halt a bit. Looked like his paw cudnt bar ter pyart with him that time, nohow, but I reckon hed guy his word. Then hed stick tew hit, said Fow- her, doggedly; the ole man never rues back.t Reckon the young feller will be goin aout by sun up? He are goin aout this evenin, Mist Fowler. Hes heerd his paw done broke his haig an is right feeble, an he caynt stop. Says its a straight road an he doan mind mud. Hes fixin t go m~aow. Looks like he got grit. I lowed he had when I heerd baout his letter t the ole man. Writ it soons lie heerd baout Rafe. Say, wisht I cud cyar the boy longer me, but twudnt be bes, I recken. Waal, mud aint moren shoe-mouth deep moster the way, ans ye say, Mis Crowder, hits a straight road. An its me they alls ayfter, not him. Say, Tobes like ter be a spell gittin of that, cudnt I jes git a squint at him? * Panther. They were not uncommon in Arkau~as at t Any is often used for all. this datein the sixties. $ Rue back is to try to get ont of a bad bargain. EXPIATION. 57 Come by and see him. Better not, better not, some un mought come by an see us tgether, but Id like fur t see him. Apparently Mrs. Crowder acquiesced; for Fairfax, whose ears were abnormally acute, heard cautious footsteps outside, and had a sense of being inspected through the window. He had listened to the whole conver- sation with a mingling of interest and amusement. How the half-forgotten dialect returned to him, with its soft drawl and nasal accent, and those singu- lar inflections which seemed to leave the voice poised in mid-air, as it were, at the close of a sentence. At some parts of the talk he winced. His fathers many marriages were a sore point to him, as human natures com- promises with the ideal always are to youth. To be the third Mrs. Ruther- fords son seemed bad ~ough, but to have the fourth Mrs. Rutherford mov- ing about the house, and, in a painstak- ing way, dusting the portraits of her predecessors, was almost indecent. I dare say its the country, he muttered, everybody seems to be marrying his or her third or fourthHello! He reined in his horse sharply, and looked down the road. Certainly that was the splash of hoofs through the mud. Thstinctively he let the lantern, which was slung about his neck, drop into its natural position, while with his free hand he drew a pistol. The Federal troops had forced Marmaduke and Shelby to retreat; but bands of guerillas infested the country. Offscourings of both ar- mies, outlaws of all kinds, under the pre- tence of patriotism, they stripped the miserable citizens of what dregs of prop- erty war had left them. Fairfax, hearkening, felt an ominous tremor run through his horses limbs. In a second the pursuing horse galloped into the circle of light. A man, hatless and coatless, was clinging to the beasts neck; his arms clasped about the neck, his head hanging. The horse, a power- ful bay mare, galloped recklessly over the rotten timber. Fairfax shouted; he saw that the man must be wounded, be- cause there was blood on his hair and his shirt. Simultaneously he caught at the flying bridle. The mare stopped and flung up her head; the rider lay like a limp rag. I say, are you hurt? called Fair- fax ; do you want some brandy? Then he started violently, bent over the man, and touched his hand. Great heavens! he muttered, what a horror! It was the man who had talked with Mrs. Crowder that afternoon,andhe was stone-dead. Somebody had lashed the unfortunate creature to the horse, tying his wrists together about the neck, and his feet by the ankles. The young fellow looked at him with a quivering face. He was shaken by a confusion of pity and horror. It was his first sight of violent death. Bred in the daintiest and smoothest of old-world civilization, bloodshed and personal peril were only printed words to him. Here he was, flung into the arena. And he was conscious of an excited curiosity, besides his pity and his horror. At the same time another obscurer emotion threaded his sensations, more personal, with an edge of pain to it; an emotion haunting and subtle like a nightmare recollection, gone before it can be viewed distinctly. Back, far back in his childhood, in dark rooms, in negro cabins listening to hobgoblin yarns of conjured victims; once, wringing his hands on a river bank while a girl, hardly a year older than he, wades into the current, branch in hand, and rescues a drowning boy; or on horseback galloping after dogs and hounds toward the horrible tusks at bay; in a hundred similar experiences that intangible terror had its springs. How far back yesterday seemed the old childish spectre ; but now I believe Im afraid of being afraid ! cried young Fairfax. His thoughts, which take longer in the telling, did in fact occupy the brief- est space; and all the while he was holding the bay mares rein and staring at the livid face flung over her neck. When the young man shifted his lan- tern for better examinationnot with any hope of finding a lingering of life, for no creature could live a minute with that jagged tear in his brainhe per- ceived a folded paper pinned very care- fully to the back of the dead mans shirt. 58 EXPIA TION. To Rutherfords amazement the paper bore his own name. He unpinned it and opened the folds to find these words: This is Mr. James L Fowlerhe was shot by the graybacks. He was a right good friend of your father. For Gods sake, take him to his wife and six chil- dern. This is importlant. They live on the you side of Runing Watter. Rite on your road, the horse knows the way. The handwriting was cramped and uneven, and there was no signature. Well, here is a pretty mess, said Fairfax; Running Water? where the deuce is Running Water? and does the you side mean this side or the further side? Confound it, I used to know! His vague terrors had all disappeared; he was occupied entirely with the dis- tasteful errand proposed to him. But he did not consider, for a second, the re- fusing of it; even had the man not been his fathers friend, there were the miser- able wife and six children waiting on the you side of Runing Watter. Dismounting, he bound up the man s head with his silk handkerchief, as de- cently as he could; after which he got on his sorry hack again, and rode on, leading the bay mare. It did flash across him once that it might be a trap; but he could see no motive for the needless pains, since any guerillas minded to capture and plun- der him need only wait on the road. No, it was more likely that some help- less witness of the murder had taken such strange means of sending the mur- dered mans body home. Yet, as he pored over the note again, he was struck with the impression of something underlying the words. This is important, he repeated, and why marked? What an extra- ordinary way to express himself. By Jove, it may be herself, for anything I know. He wondered if the writer could be Mrs. Crowder. The man must have been shot directly after I left so he made out the story and it must have been somebody who knew me and knew where I was going, and what an old signpost I was riding. Overtake me! by Jove, a cow could overtake this brute. The road grew better for a little space, but presently dipped into a denser forest. Fairfaxs lantern showed him the gleam of water. A dark stream wound among the, cypress trunks into the night. Plainly, this was Running Water, and on the other side should be poor Fowlers house; yes, he could see the twinkle of a light. Riding nearer, the shape of a house took outlinea large, low, gambrel-roof- ed houseand at a window the light. A pang struck the young mans heart as he thought how the light was shining for the father thus taking his woful last ride. A childs white head was close to the lamp, and a woman held up a baby to make futile clutches at its own little laughing face in the window-pane. Fairfax could have groaned. How can I tell them ? he thought. Con- found the kind-hearted meddler that saddled this nasty business on ~ But there was nothing for it now but to go on. Moreover, at this moment, a couple of yelping hounds burst out of the shadows to plunge at their masters legs with a tumult of howls. The door was opened, showing a woman who held a rude lamp on high. Even at that moment Fairfax perceived that she was young and pretty. Above the voices of another woman and the elder children rang a sweet, high little treble Daddy comm! Daddy com- in ! Fairfax felt heartsick. We all reckoned you werent com- ing to-night, said the young woman, shading her eyes with a slim white hand, while the other lifted the lamp for a wider view. The light brought her a picture which made her run swiftly to the horses head. Hes been hurt? she said, in a very low voice; oh, poor fellow! Fairfax was aware of a quick relief, a sense of companionship; this wasnt the way that a sister or wife would talk; the girl must be some neighbor; and afterward he remembered how sure he felt, with the first glance, that she was a woman to help one. A few nervous, brief sentences told her all that he knew of the tragedy. She took the note. As she read, the lamplight was on her fine profile, and loosened hair, and the lovely oval of one cheek. EXPIA TION. 59 How admirably pretty she was, to be sure! But it was not her beauty that made the young fellow stare at her. He was looking at the fingers on the note white, smooth fingers, with almond- shaped nails. Why, its a lady! he exclaimed. Just then she lifted her eyes. They were swimming in tears. Oh, Cousin Fair, that I should not have known you! she said. It is Adele, then, cried he. Of course; how could he have failed to recognize her before, his little cousin who was his step-mothers daughter? He might have taken his childhoods privilege on her soft, pale cheek, but a voice from the doorway recalled him, like a blow. Looks like you all a long spell out thar, said Jim Fowlers wife; come on in, Ill be shore chillin * ef I stan yere much longer. Fotch the gentleman by, Miss Della, please, wile Jim putts up the hosses. The young man and the girl ex- changed a glance of miserable confi- dence, each conscious of a touch of re- lief in the others presence. You stay here, whispered Adrle, get between him and the light so she caynt see ; Ill tell her. The light wavered above her brown head as she ran into the house. The door was shut behind her. Outside, to Fairfax waiting while the hounds crouched at their dead masters feet, whimpering, and the wind was rising in the cypress brake, it seemed a long time before the door opened again; and, dur- ing it all, he could not hear a sound from within. I feel as I used to feel when I was a cowardly little cub, was his involun- tary comparison; if only AdUe would come! She had come; at least she was on the threshold. A lad of thirteen or fourteen stood behind her, crying bit- terly but silently. He held the rude grease lamp ~ of the country ; and Addle helped Fairfax lift poor Jim Fow- 1cr from his horse. Together they bore him into the house and laid him on his chilling, in Arkansas, does not mean catching cold or heing cold; bot having the chill, which is part of the agne common in low lands. bed, where the widow came and bent over him. She was dreadfully calm, though the children made a din of grief about her. She did not seem to know when the boy coaxed them into another room. But Fairfax saw Della send a compassionate glance after the little fellow. Theys things t be done, the widow said, in a dull, hard voice, things ; holp me, Miss Della. It would be in his boots, said the girl. Yes, we lowed to putt it in his stocking, said the woman, bending over him, dry-eyed, but tremb]ing, and straining at the boots. They were the very raggedest, forlornest boots that Fairfax had ever seen; and removed there were revealed strips of rag twisted about the feet in place of stockings, as is done in some parts of Arkansas to this day. Yet otherwise the mans attire was whole, and cleaner than common. The woman fell to unwinding the rags with desperate haste. All at once she straightened herself and pushed some- thing at Ad ale, saying: Didnt you tole me you was young Rutherford? Yes, madam, Fairfax interrupted, I am Fairfax Rutherford. Then thars you paws money, said she. Fairfax was at a loss for words. The woman had thrown the package at him, perforce he had caught it and held it, dumbly. Caount hit, she said, sharply; thar had orter be twenty-one thousan five hundred dollars. Look if hits thar! More and more bewildered, Fairfax assured himself that the roll of green- backs contained the exact sum men- tioned. Certainly, he said, gently, you are right, but He offered Jim five hundred for to go and get it, said the woman, dully, an he got it. Gimme that ar five hun- dred an git on you hoss and fly! Them that killed him will be ayfter you. Ye better make haste. The ambiguous wording of the note grew plain to Fairfax. The writer knew the secret and was trying guardedly (for the paper might fall into hostile hands) to help him to his fathers money. EXPIA TION. But the rest was as dark as ever; he was oniy sure that he could not leave the widow of the man who had been murdered on his fathers errand in such a plight. So he told her. Her tense mood had snapped the in- stant her search ended, and she was sit- ting on the bed now, stroking the dead mans face and whispering in the deaf ears pitiful broken sentences : Ye know I tole yetew great a risk, tew great, tew greatwe cud of made out without the money, Jim, if the stock be gonebut whatll I do with the chil- dren, Jim, without you? Oh, I caynt bar it! I caynt! I caynt! And so writhed herself down to the floor and grovelled there. It was a most painful sight to see, but not so painful as to see her, the next moment, totter to her feet and clutch l~oth Rutherfords arms, fairly shaking him in her deadly vehemence, while her voice rang through the room. Twas Dick Barnabas done it! He fund aout an done it fur the money. Ye kin keep ever cent er that ar five hundred ef yell kill Dick Barnabas! Kill him, kill him ! Hush, Mrs. Fowler, the children will hear, said Adele, quietly ; well kill him, sure. She slipped her strong young arm about the poor souls waist and very gently pulled her away. Fairfax would have pushed the five hundred dollars into her hands. I will do all I can to bring the assassin to justice, he murmured, feeling sure that he was n~t saying the right thing, but knowing nothing better. He saw her eyes glitter. I want em Icilled! she screamed, killed and a layin dead. I want t see it, myself! I will do all I can to give you that pleasure, madam, replied Fairfax, dryly. Dear me, what a Rob Roy Macgregors wife sort of woman she seems to be! he was thinking. An Ill holp you, mister, piped a shrill little voice. It was the boy, who had stolen back and was listening, un- perceived. In this extraordinary country the very babes seem to thirst for blood, thought Fairfax. The boy was a sallow, white-haired lathe of a youngster, such as one may see by the dozen in the Arkansas River bottoms, but his insignificant presence dilated with passion. He went on: Baby an Jims t sleep, an sis is a gyardin of em. I tole er the big bear d git her, ef she come outer the room. I I know suthin she he looked at his mother doan know. Tell us, Bud, honey, Ad~Ae said, lay- ing a white hand on the sharp little shoulder. So the boy told: Yestiddy evenin,* ayfter you come, baout a hour, I reckon; I ben aout in the patch snatchin cotton; an I heerd two bosses acomin. One on em was that thar big black with a blazed face Dick Barnabas horse! cried Addle. Yaas, maam, I ben sorter skeered up, an I hid hind the cotton so they all didnt see me, an they warnt nare critter raoun, an Dick he got off his hoss an projicked raoun the yeard wilst you all ben in the haous, can I cudnt git tew ye. Then he went back an they all rid off agin. The poor wife of the mur- dered man pushed her hair off her fore- head, struggling to catch the meaning of the boys words. How came ye didnt tole me? said she, yed orter. I tole paw, right straight. What d he say? Nuthin ; jes whistled. That thar aint all. Paw done suthin you uns doan know. He came out fore he went off; an he guy me a right nice sheet of paper an a pencil. Sayd he taken em frura Miss Della. An he axed me write on it. I member whut I writ. Twa~ like thisjes goods I cud write. Deai Cunnell, the money is gone, yestiddy, by then he made me make some queer raound tricks on the paper; sayd they didnt mean nuthin, but they all would reckon they didan the rest war Look aout! an it ben signed by two big crosses. Thats all. What did your paw do with the let- ter, Bud? said Della. He put it insider the money belt he got frum the Yankees when he ben pay- roled. Addle stooped over the form on the bed. The belt is gone, she said, quiet- ly; I thought as much. Oh, its plain * There is no afternoon South. Morning, evening, and night are the parts of day. EXPIATION. 61 enough. He didnt tell us of the dan- ger, he only told us that he would put on those old boots and rags instead of stockings, because he might meet some of those villains and they would be for robbing him, and would find the money stripping his clothes. But he knew all the time, and he took that letter to mislead them and save the money, what- ever happened to him. Oh, while there is a Rutherford living we will never for- get how he laid down his life for us; nor shall his wife and children want while we have anything left. An you all will kill Dick Barnabas? the wife cried, you will ? We will, said Ad~4e, between firm lips, I swear it. She raised her right hand. We all swar it! squeaked the boys shrill, excited voice. Their hands were in the air, even Fairfaxs, who felt the melodramatic twang of it all as jarring. The picture remained with him his life through: a bare room where the unplastered walls and uncarpeted floor were of the same rough boards; huge logs crackling and spouting flame in the great crooked fireplace; and the fire-light, rather than the feeble glow of the lamp, displaying the table spread for supper; the split-bottom chairs, the coarse, bright quilt that had been half-wrapped about an indistinct and distorted shape, the white pillows shin- ing beneath a ghastly head, and, back in the shadow, these dark figures with their uplifted hands and glistening eye- balls. Enough, also, of the atmosphere of the studio (the elder Fairfax was an artist) had affected young Rutherfords sensibilities to cause a quick perception of the grace of Dellas pose and the no- ble lines of her neck and shoulders. We swear it, they said, together, Fairfaxs lips moving with the others. Now, Cousin Fairfax, said Addle, all emotion disappearing from her man- ner, you must go. And leave you here alone with the chance of those scoundrels returning, cried Fairfax. No, thanks, Addle ; you will have to submit to my society for to- night. But you must go, Cousin Fair, said she, quietly; there is almost no show of Barnabas troubling us; we have no money. He dont know of the five hun- dred dollars you have left here. He thinks it has gone to IJnk Ralph. Thats why you must go, Cousin Fair, he may need you the worst kind, and I dont need you the least bit on earth. But if you should be attacked? The young man was torn between two motives. He must save his father, yet how could he leave this delicate girl to such unspeakable risks? I reckon we can make out, said Adile; cant we, Bud? I reckon, said the solemn boy; she killed a wild cat onct. I kin shoot too; an we know a place in the woods to hide. Thats so, Cousin Fair, AdMe added; dont wait here, fly back to Montaigne. I dont need you, and Uncle Ralph does, for I expect they will have gone straight there. Oh, Im sending you into danger, she said, choking, but its your place to help him! An youll fotch a heap more danger on we uns, mister, said the boy, bluntly, a bein here, than youll be holp. Fur Dick 11 be ayfter you nex. That argument conquered. Five min- utes later the bay mare was carrying Fairfax swiftly through the night. II. THE plantation of Montaigne is on the Black River. High hills roll back from one shore, the rich, flat, bottom land darkens the other with its exhaustless forest of gum and cypress. Long ago the old house was burned; but in Colo- nel Rutherfords day it was the great house of all the country round. Where the forest recededfor a mere breath- ing space as it werestood the little settlement, while from a knoll crowned with sycamores the planters house overlooked the plantation. A beetling roof shaded the piazza, that is to say, the upper story of the piazza, which was in two stories in front of the house, hav- ing a lattice below where honeysuckle climbed and sent out floating tendrils to grasp the rnde pillars above, and being bisected by a wide, open hall gallery, such a hall is named in Arkan- sas. The gallery, when Colonel Ruther- ford ruled at Montaigne, bore the sem 62 EXPIATION. blance of a museum of arms. There, used to hang the shot-guns, rifles, re- volvers, and powder-horns; there, were Dat ar ben de mostis powerfullis mixtery dat ebber done pass my lips. stored hatchets, meat-saws, and axes supposing them to be in their appointed place, which, to be sure, was not the most likely thing in the world on a plantation; and, there, swung all the finery of a Southern rider, in saddle, spurs, and blankettruly a pretty sight. Not so pretty, I dare say, were the heaps of flour-sacks and meal-bags and the like stores of provisions which Aunt Hizzie, the cook, never would keep in any other spot than the back gallery; or her dingy and tousled bunches of yarbs de- pending from the ceiling; and, certainly, nothing pretty, only dark mystery, occu- pied that corner shelf whereon, from a time so far back that no memory of the young Rutherfords ran to the contrary, had rested Aunt Hizzies mixteries. Aunt Hizzie herself regularly swal- lowed any drugs left by the family, to sabe dem ; and there was a tradition that she had been cured of a sorrowful attack of de conjure sickness by the half bottle of horse liniment which Rafe Rutherford threw into the ash-barrel My word, she was overheard to narrate, dat ar ben de mostis power- fullis mixtery dat ebber done pass my lips. Hit strike me so heavy Ise a wrastlin wid it de enjurin night. But it sho sen de sickness off a runnin. Bress de Lawd, I aint got take no mo! Aunt Hizzie, in her white turban (economically made out of a castaway flour-sack), with a blue apron trying to define a waist for her rotund shape, was always a figure in the gallery when din- ner was under way. On one side of the gallery was the dining-room, unplastered, as were all the rooms, but painted, and having a wainscoting put up by a clever carpen- ter from the North, in the Rutherfords palmy days. He it was who built the tall sideboard in the wall, which made the expensive black walnut sideboard from Little Rock look like a dwarf cran- ing its neck up at a giant. Before the war the sideboards held a glittering show of glass and silver. Hues of taw- ny brown and amber and dusky reds gleamed like jewels in old-fashioned de- canters, welcome to every comer. All the rooms were on the same gener- ous scale, high-studded, with wide win- dows and deep-throated fireplaces, big enough to hold half a forest; and relics of the faded pomp of old Virginia days were scattered among the primitive fur- niture of a new country, suggesting gold embroidery (a thought tarnished) on a linsey-woolsey gown. There were signs of a womans pres- ence also, fresh curtains draping the windows (by this time darned with a pathetic care), bunches of swamp hack- berries and holly twigs in showy vases bought on some of the Colonels trips to New Orleans or Memphis, a little flutter of feminine fancies in needle- work over tables or chairs. And, on the library walls, three expensive frames of dingy gilt enclosed three landscapes in oil, painted by the present Mrs. Ruth- erford when young. They all had deep- blue skies with cotton-wool clouds, and a rolling green landscape and puffy dark trees. In fact they were about as dreadful as even a young ladys work can be; but it was the custom of the EXPIATION. 63 Colonel to sit and smoke before them, and contemplate them with innocent pride. From thence most commonly his eyes would go (after a seconds pause before his father in his Mexican war regimentals) to the row of the three former mistresses of Montaigne. The first two were rosy and smiling young matrons, wearing their hair (black or yellow) in short round curls, and shrugging their plump shoulders out of their low-necked frocks; but the third Mrs. Rutherford had been painted by another hand. Fairfax Rutherford, during their brief betrothal, had made this picture. He had painted her, a slender girl in a white frock, plucking flowers in an arbor, and smiling over her shoulder at some unseen comer. Composition and handling were as crude as the treatment was ambitious; but perhaps because the artists heart was in the work he had succeeded where a more skilful hand might have failed, and captured the evanescent and pensive loveliness of his subject. Long afterward, in a moment of expansion, Fairfax said of his brothers wives: Ralph was married by father to his first, his second married him, but he married poor Daisy. And the fourth Mrs. Rutherford? asked the friend. Fairfax shrugged his shoulders. Oh, she just happened, said he. My brother is the most chivalrous of men, and Mrs. Peyton Rutherford was his second cousins widow without a penny. He married her to take care of her; and really it hasnt proved such a bad arrangement ; she is a silly sort of creat- ure, but she has done very well by Ralph. Besides the pictures the library walls were further adorned by what in ante- bellum days was known as a land- scape paper, representing iunumerable castles on the Rhine. There was one drawback, however, to the impressive beauty of this paper; insomuch as the plantation painter who hung it, being new to the business, had misplaced some of the rolls, a large proportion of the castles were made to stand on their heads. The library, like the other rooms, had an enormous fireplace and a cypress mantel painted black. Library may seem rather a courtesy title for a room containing only a single case of books; but there had been a library in his Virginia home, and a library the Colonel would have in Arkansas. The book-shelves held such books as Mon- taignes Essays, the Waverley Nov- els, the poems of Tom Moore and Lord Byron (that was how the Colonel re- ferred to him), Shakespeares works and Miltons Paradise Lost, Macaulays History of England, some old vol- umes of Congressional Reports, present- ed by friends in the House, Youatt on the Horse,the Medical Encyclopt~e- dia, and Niless Register. The Colonel (when he was ill or of a rainy Sunday) would occasionally dip into the other books; but Montaigne, according to his wife, he read every day in the world. And she was sure she couldnt imagine why, because it certainly was a scandalous book, and the Colonel was the most moral of men; he wouldnt even repeat any of those wicked stories gentlemen are so fond of telling among themselvesnot unless they were very funny indeed. Doubt- less the honest man, of his own motion, had hardly discovered the Essays; but he inherited Michel Montaigne, like the family prejudices, his traditions of honor, and his fathers sword. His own edition (the English translation of Coste, A.D. 1759) was bequeathed to him by his grandfather, a man of scho- larly tastes, for whom he always enter- tained a tender affection, and who val- ued the genial old wit and gossip, and often would season his own conversa- tion with Montaignes high flavors. At first Ralph Rutherford read for the sake of the old man and his com- ments, pencilled here and there. It was a labor of reverence and gratitude. But presently, from poring over the book he began to admire it; at last, to love it, as only the men of few books love their favorite. Many was the doughty battle that he had fought with his chief crony, a Presbyterian minister, who owned a farm hard by, concerning the Essays. Parson Collins called them a profligate book, and gave Montaigne no quarter. It was a sly delight to the Colonel to cull virtuous maxims or worldly sense from his treasure, and 64 EXPIA TION. display them, unlabelled, until the par- son was ensnared to praise them, when he would remark: Yes, sir; Mon- taigne usually is sound. Glad you ap- prove of him! Tnt! tut! Ralph, the parson used to answer warmly, of course he has some decent sentiments, but approve of that atheistical, unprin- cipled old rake, no, sir, never! Id be ashamed to read him! But as for the Colonel, he was vainer of his knowledge of Montaigne than of his shooting, which is a good deal to say in the back woods. He liked to quote from the Essays, though he seldom stuck closely to tke text, and he told Mon- taignes classical fables with a beautiful faith. But his crowning proof of affec- tion was to give the essayists name to his plantation. A few of the books overflowed into the combination book-case and writing-desk which the Colonel called his secretary. He was sitting before it on the morning fo.llowing Fairfaxs ride. Mrs. Ruther- ford had the rocking-chair opposite, her back to the row of portraits; but this attitude was from no design, she was incapable of jealousy, and bestowed the same painstaking dustings and yearly washings and wrapping in pink mosqui- to netting, which she did upon her own pictures. She did not grudge the dead ladies of Montaigne any posthumous af- fection. He likes me better than eith- er of you, you poor things, was the un- spoken thought, as she sewed quietly be- fore the painted faces, and I reckon he cared more for Daisy than for all three of us together. Well, I cant make him quite like Peyton either. Perhaps the fourth Mrs. Rutherford was hardly the fool Fairfax senior es- teemed her, notwithstanding her silence, herinability to understand epigrams, and her awful landscapes. At any rate she was pleasant to look upon, being a fair, placid woman, whose hair was still a lively brown, whose cheeks kept a pink- ish tinge, and whose eyes were soft as her voice. She was not talking much this morning, but at intervals the Colonel would look up from his book, and then she would smile and make some remark out of her thoughts. Near them was an open window, for in October the Arkansas sun will for- get, for days, that the season is not summer. A belated bluebird twittered and hopped on the window-sill. Then he rose, spread his wings, and flew past the big white store, over the black chimney of the gin and the whitewashed negro quarters, and grew into a black speck above the cypress wall beyond. The Colonels eye followed the mite and his brow contracted. Only a little beyond the brake was the grassy field where the white headstones stood guard over his dead wives and the four little children who had died; but the Colonel was thinking that his two tall boys lay ftw.from their kindred. The wife watch- ing him could have echoed his sigh, be- cause she, in her turn, thought how her husband was changed. His hair is right gray, she said to herself, sadly, and he stoops; he never did stoop be- fore. The Colonels massive head, with its curly silver hair, thick as a boys, was bent slightly, but not for better seeing; no, Ralph Rutherfords brilliant black eyes could catch the glint of a pos- sums fur by moonlight still. The eyes were gentle and kind as well as brilliant, and held a twinkle of humor; Colonel Rutherford being, in fact, the famous story-teller of the country, and loving a good joke better than bread. He was a keen hunter also, and the best rider in his regiment, which need not disparage hundreds of good horsemen. Rather below than above the common stature, his figure inclined to heaviness, but showed iron muscles in the deep chest and long arms. His face, fringed by a short gray beard, was a round oval; the chin and jaws were square, but the mouth was small, the nose delicate, and the brows candid and beautiful. There was about the whole air of the man an extraordinarily winning expression of frankness and humanity, though just now the featQres were darkened into sadness. He aint reading, hes studying, thought Mrs. Rutherford, always studying about the boys. Oh, dear, if wed only had a child! Maybe it wouldnt have been a boy, though, and Dellas like his own daughter. But a little boyhed be fifteen, now. Well, EXPIA TION. 66 theres Fair. She changed a sigh into a smile, as women learn to do, and said aloud: I reckon there was a crowd round the mill this morning when they heard about the meal. The Colonel nodded, his face brighten- ing. You may say so. I didnt know there were so many folks left in the country. We havent enough left to feed a chicken. Dear me, Colonel, I hope you left enough for ourselves, cried Mrs. Ruth- erford, all the housekeeper aroused. Oh, Aunt Hizzie took care of that, answered the Colonel, laughing. She had link Nels on hand with a wheelbar- row plumb full of sacks. But those folks, they did seem terrible pleased to get the meal, and specially the flour. The poor critters have been eating the wheat in the dough. I hope you didnt take any of our money, said Mrs. Rutherford. Greenbacks or gold, said her hus- band. Then he laughed. What I did take, added he. I expect you let them have it whether they had money or not. Well, yes, maam; those that had a little money wanted to get close to me for the first show; but, says I, N-no, p- poor folks get just as hungry as rich! The Colonel always stuttered a little when excited. We will all be as poor as the rest of them, soon, if you go on that way, Ralph. We are better off than most of them, honey, answered the Colonel, easily; theres that twenty But Mrs. Rutherford stopped him with a frightened look, drawing her chair nearer. There aint a wall with plaster on it in the house, Colonel; do remember that. Nor there aint a thief on this plan- tation either, black or white, Hettie. Oh, dont you worry; Dellas all right at Fowlers, and she and Jim will be round this evening, peart as peart. Well, I hope so, answered Mrs. Rutherford, her voice lowered to a whis- per. Has Dick been doing anything lately? Deviling round about as usual, said the Colonel; heard he hung a poor Jew pedler down on Cash * tother day. Hed sold his cotton, and Dick lowed he had ought to have some money. Twas told me they hung him up four times, and ever time they let him down he howled for mercy, but he wouldnt tell a word about the money, and the last time they let him down he was dead, and they couldnt do no more with him. Theyre fiends incarnate, those fellers, and if it hadnt been for this cursed leg Id have had Dick Barnabas swinging! Look at it, we all sitting down at home a-shaking, w-waiting for Dick to come and murder us! I shant wait Oh, hush! cried the lady, implor- ingly; if anybody was to hear and tell, Dick would Hew-wouldnt do nothing more than hes aiming to do now, my dear! was the Colonels answer, with a chuckle; hes as mad as he can be, anyhow, and has been ever since he lit out of the army to escape being shot. A b-bad bargain for Arkansas he wasnt, too. Oh, dear, I wish he had been, sighed Mrs. Rutherford. Theres a right smart of scoundrel in the country to carry on the devils trade besides Dick Barnabas ; but hes got a heap of em with him, and once hang his gang up we may have peace. The others are just ornery scamps, not sense enough to keep from stealing from each other; but D-Dick has a head on him. And Im not denying that Dick has his good qualities. Dick Barnabas! Yes, maam, Dick Barnabas; they aint very many, but theyre like old Aunt Ter~nies teeth; she aint got but three, you know, but theyre on opposite sides, so she makes out to do a p-power of eating with em. Thats the way with Dicks good points, not many, but theyre jest where theyll do the most good. Hes brave as the devil, and hes tolerable kind to beasts (knows a heap about them, too), and hell stick to his bargains. I dont think I ever knew Dick to rue back. Not even his bad trade with Parson Collins. Say, Hettie, did I ever tell you about that trade? If you did I must have forgotten, * cash is a small river. They never say Tl~ Cash, but Cash simply. 66 EXPIA TIOM said Mrs. Rutherford, who had heard the story half a dozen times; but it was true enough also that she did forget her hus- bands stories; and true or not, the good Christian soul could have found warrant with her conscience for stretch- ing a point if she might help him lose his sorrows, even for a little while. He settled himself comfortably in his chair, with a twinkle of the eye. Must a been six or seven years ago that it happened, said he. Yes, maam, I re- member it was bout two years after Parson lost his wife, and there was talk of his marrying the Widow Bainbridge; I dont believe he ever did think of her, but you know the talk. Thats how I fix the date. She married old man War- ner in the spring, and this was the fall beforenot that its any consequence on earth. Dick, he was renting of me then, a in-mean Jew Injun, same like he is now, and getting most his livelihood swapping horses. Parson had a big white mule, they called her May Jane. She wasnt none too young, but she was terrible strong and spry, and the most remarkable animal for in-intelligence you ever saw. She wasnt exactly ill,* as they call it down here, but she had got a right smart of tricks like all those old mulesonly, being so much cuter, she had more. One of her monkey-shines was to al- ways refuse to go past a fence corner. I dont know why, but you couldnt get her past a fence corner no way on earth. If you pushed her too hard, shed begin rearing and kicking, and finally lay plumb down on the ground, her four legs kicking away like boiling water. The only way with her was to get off and pat her and much her, and lead her round the corner. Then she was all right, and would step out right well un- til the next corner. Another trick was, shed take a notion into her head that she had done travelling enough in one direction, and if you didnt politely turn round, shed likes not run you spang up against a fence-rail and scrape your leg. But the blamedest fool notion she had was about the dinner-horn; when- ever shed hear the Parsons horn go, no flill-tempered, cross. They say of a patient in Ar- kansas, He must be getting better, he is so ill! matter where the critter might bemid- dle of the row ploughing, maybeoff shed go, just the same, bullet line back to the barn. All such like tricks made her, in spite of her cuteness, a sorter un- easy beast for to have on a fyarm. So, Parson lowed hed sell her. He tried to sell her to me, and for some reasons Id have liked right well to buy the pesky critter. Wed a screw press then, and I never did see a mule on earth could pull downs big a bale as May Jane but Dad gum erb-begging your pardon for the expression, my dearif you left her by her lone a ininnit, shed break the gears, and jest naturally split the mud to the byarn. Thats May Jane! So I wouldnt buy. Well, Parson he didnt know quite how he could fix it. Happened one day he was at the store and praising of May Jane, as usual, and, as his ill-luck would have itproviden- tially, I daresay he would put itDick Barnabas came along with a load of cot- ton. He saw the mule, and Parson looks out of the window, and theres Master Dick studying of his mule. He never let on. But he wags his finger at Unk Nels and asks if we all didnt want May Jane up to the press for a spell that morning. Well, of course we did, for she could work powerful well. And just as IJnk Nels was going off Parson says, carelessly, Oh, lIJnk Nels! If Mr. Dick Barnabas should look round to see how she can pull, I trust you all wont putt her under a bad character. You had ought to seen that niggers teeth flash; he hopped onto the notion in a second. All the niggers jest natu- rally hated Dick always, he used to knock em about so. Well, directly Dick santers over to the gin, where he finds May Jane pulling with all the power, and every nigger praising her. He gits her out and looks her overoh, we could see him from the store, riding her round and walking about her. Dick was of the opinion nobody knew as much about a horse or a mule as he did. In a little while he goes back to the Parson, with trade in his eye. Kinder old mule; howll Parson swap? Well, Parson shook his head, lowed he wouldnt tradeval- uable mule, very intelligent, perfectly sound, etc. Thats all right, Parson, said Dick, growing eager; hows my EXPIATION. 67 clay back hoss? No, thank you, Mr. Barnabas, says the Parson; looks like we couldnt trade, and I must be going. So Dick offered some more, but Parson grew cooler, the hotter he grew. Ill tell you all about that mule, Mr. Barnabas, said the Par- son, her good points and her bad. Naw, ye dont, says Dick, I kin see fur myself, ye aint no need to praise the critter. He was so sus- picious he lowed the Parson meant to lie to him, and he reckoned himself to be smarter. Well, so they had it back and forth, till final- ly Dick offered two year- ling steers that the Par- son had been trying to get. Now, Parson knew that was the biggest kind of a trade, and the rest of us was nearly choking with laugh to see Dick getting stuck so neatly; but Parson wasnt going to seem too eager, so he wanted a calf thrown in; and finally they compromised; trade even, and Dick fetch over the steers. He done it that very evening before sun- down, he was so possessed to get the mule. And when he discovered May Janes little playful ways with fences and dinner-horns, he was the maddest man you ever saw. He was rarin and charg- in. Accused the parson of swindling. I assure you, my dear, I was within an inch of pitching the scoundrel out of the window. Would if IL hadnt wanted to hear what Collins would say. He was as cool as cool. Softly, softly, Mr. Barnabas, says he, I told you the mule was intelligentyou wont deny she is; and perfectly soundwell, aint she? And I offered to tell you her good and her bad points, but you wouldnt listen. Is it my fault you wouldnt? says Par- son, while the whole storeful of men laughed. But Ill tell you what, says he, if you want to swap over again and have it said that Dick Barnabas rued back, you can. Naw, by ; never mind, Dick always did swear like a steamboat captain; he swore a big oath and said he never had rued back, and he never would. The most comical pyart of the story is, Parson had been eying those steers for all summer, and want- ing for Dick to trade for a horse he had that was nearly bout a hundred years old and a stump-sucker to the bargain, and Dick wouldnt look at it; but he got so terrible sick of May Janes deviltry that he traded her off back to Parson for that identical aged horse. It made Dick most sick, that trade did. He swore he would get even with Parson Collins if it took him a hundred years. I wonder he hasnt done Mr. Collins a meanness before now, said Mrs. Ruth- erford. Oh, well, said the Colonel, gayly, even graybacks have got to have some excuse, and Collins is the most popu- lar man in the country. Chaplain all through the war and mighty kind to our boys, and brave as they in-make them. Then he knows more bout the beastis than any man around. Hes doctored most everybodys horse or colt or cownever charge a cent; and hes a mighty good, pious man, liberal and stirring, free house to everybody. No, maam, I dont guess even Dick could get the boys to do him mean unless they were to get a heap of money by itand May Janes little playful waya with fences and dinner horns. 68 EXPiATION. Collins is poor as the next man, nowa- days. Why, the feller toted his own cotton to be burned when the order came. Thats more than we did, honey, hey? Well, I hope so, Colonel Rutherford, answered the lady. You might have made such a useless sacrifice, but Adele said General Marmaduke and General Shelby hadnt any right to burn our cot- ton. They did it for the best, undoubt- edly, my dear; still, it certainly was too late, and it has only increased our hard- ships without helping the Confederacy. I dont see, Colonel, why you didnt wait and have the Federal colonel who is coming this way bring ourit. The money? said the colonel, in his jovial loud voice, and Mrs. Ruther- ford actually had to lay her slim hand over his mouth. He gallantly kissed the fingers. I would, said he, if Id known Id have smashed my leg and have to let Della go for me. But it looked like it was a good chance, the money coming far as Crowders with the Yanks; and if I and half a dozen men could have gone outbut nobody will suspect Jim, no- body knows the money is coming, any- how. Oh, Jims safe enough. Dont you reckon he had better go out after Fair when he comes? When do you expect Fair? Thats the trouble. I caynt tell. He writes he will start immediately, but when will he get to St. Louis, and from there on here? Dont s-see what we all can do but wait. If Fair would only let us know in time, said Mrs. Rutherford, theres a heap of things he could fetch us from St. Louislittle things he could bring in his saddle-riders, like soda and needles and pins; but I expect he wont think to do that. Pins we do need the worst; but, now, pepper and spices and thread he wouldnt have a bit of trouble, if we could only get him word. And va- nilla extract, we have been out of such things so long Ive nearly forgotten they exist, and we used to call them necessa- ries. Nothing is a necessary but salt, said the Colonel; we have to get that, some way, soon. If it wasnt for the Gray- backs we could have a boat on the river and supplies regular. My lord, were licked, and every man who aint a c-crazy fool knows it! What is the use of ram and chargin round the country and burning the cotton? These precious jewels of Dick Barnabas are enough sight worse than the Yankees. Half of them d-deserters, too. Well, I wisht I had another chance at D-Dick! There was silence for a little space, be- cause Mrs. Rutherford was absorbed in counting her stitches while the Colonel revolved fresh plans for Barnabass de- struction. From them he looked up again at the picture on the wall, the young girl in her white gown, with her sweet face. Had he been her lover, find- ing enough favor in her sight to win her heart from his handsome brother, ten years younger than he? Of all his life, full as it had been of robust exhilaration and ambition and emotion, what time had matched that with its sweetness and its pain? All the inarticulate poetry of the mans nature groped backward to- ward those years when she was with him. Only three years; Fair was a baby when she died; he could see the little trick playing on the floor with his fathers great boots, the sunshine on his curls. The Colonel uttered a sigh like a groan, not conscious that he sighed. I reckon Della and Jim will fetch a letter from Fair, said Mrs. Rutherford, quickly, dropping her count. He will be grown a young man,~~ said the Colonel; they tell me he is a young man of very distinguished ap- pearance and an elegant gentleman. The Colonels diction, become slipshod during years of careless living in the wilderness, had fits of stiffening into that dignity which pertained to a Vir- ginia gentlemans speech when he was young, and, long ago, Mrs. Rutherford had noted that such occasions of fine language were likely to accompany any mention of Fairfax. In truth, the Colo- nel was fonder and prouder (so Mrs. Rutherford often thought) of this lad, who had spent almost all his life away, than of the dutiful sons who had never left him, and who had fought and fallen at his side. She knew that he always carried Fairs letters in his pockets, ready to come out for reading aloud to We all swar It Iage lii. 0 70 EXPIA TION. And wound about the creaturea neck, a gleaming and hiaaing anake. anyone who might be interested in them, and in default of such listener to be pored over and chuckled over by the Colonel himself. If anything could have irritated her placid amiability it would have been her further knowledge that the Colonel often had gone shabby himself, in order to send money to Fair. And he doesnt need it the least bit on earth, was Mrs. Rutherfords silent comment; Fairfax Rutherfords rich; he gets enormous prices for his pict- ures, and that rich old aunt left him all her New York property; he has ten times as much as poor Ralph. But she admitted that the Colonel only stinted himself for his Rachels boy, he never took from the portion of Leahs sons. Ralph is right just and upright, said Mrs. Rutherford, and I dont be- lieve the boys ever suspected he didnt love them just as much as Fair. They thought Fair was the finest young gen- tleman in the world, too. Dear boys, they were so good! The poor lady felt the tears stinging her eyelids, and rose up hastily on a pre- text of hearing Aunt lizzie. She would not have her husband see her wet eyes. When two people have been through deep sorrow and trouble together, often each, for the others sake, clings to a makeshift of cheerfulness. It is as if they hung by a board balanced over a precipice ; let one loosen his hold, the safety-plank must fly up, and it will be all over with the other. Theres Hizzie disputing with lIJnk Nels again, cried Mrs. Rutherford. Then her simulated interest grew real, for she caught a few words. Bad news you reckons, does ye? How come ye aint fotch im by tuh me? A mutter in a mans deeper tones was indistinguishable. Aunt Hizzies voice rose again: Naw, ye wm~nt go tell ole marse or ole miss, needer. Pears like ye aint got no sense. Whut ye sayin? Ye talk so gross nobuddy on yearth kin foller you wudsmummum mumble mum! Folkses got good sense caynt, let lone igits. Lemme talk tuh im! Up went Hizzies voice, as if she were talking to a foreigner or a deaf man. Ye seekin Miss Della, Slick Mose? Ole Miss? Ole Miss fo sho? Look at 7 ,/ ,j /7 // EXPIATION. 71 de critter, Nels. Well, sahl dars blood all over im, shos you bawn, Nels. My Lord, is there more affliction for this unhappy house? the Colonel groaned, involuntarily struggling to rise. Oh, hush, said Mrs. Rutherford, soothing him, although she was visibly paler and trembled ; you stay stilL Its only Slick Mose. Ill go out. In the gallery the negro man and woman were staring at a truly hideous figure. It was the shape of a man, ragged, soaked, with blood-stains on the arms and on the tattered shirt; a crouch- ing thin thing, bareheaded and bare- footed; and wound about the creatures neck, a gleaming and hissing snake. The face, with its tangle of pale red hair, its little vacant eyes and working mouth, held the plain signs of Slick Moses un- happy condition. He was an idiot lad whom Mr. Collins had found chained to a staple in his fathers yard, and had given a good mule to rescue. He di- vided his time between the plantation and Mr. Collinss farm, and Addle Ruth- erford was the only person, save the minister, who had any control over him. These two he would follow and obey like a dog. They understood the gibberish which passed for speech with him. The creature had a mania for hiding things, and so cunningly that it was the rarest thing in the world for them to be found unless Parson Collins or AdUe inter- fered. Thanks to them his idiosyncrasy did little mischief. Another trait was his grewsome liking for snakes. Be- tween him and all the brute creation existed a strange sort of understanding, such as sometimes does exist between the lowest order of human kind and animals; but Mose peculiarly affected snakes. Half the terror the harmless, timid fellow inspired (and it was exces- sive) was due to this trait. For the other half, came his extraordinary phys- (To he continued.) ical agility and his uncanny wood lore, mocking the beasts calls so well that they would, answer him; familiar with every lead of timber * and every glade f in the swag ; ~ climbing like a racoon and diving like an eeL Mrs. Rutherford shared the general shrinking, although she had always been kind to Mose. Now he ran to her, pulled at her gown, grov- elled at her feet, and pointed toward the door, all the while uttering a harsh, inarticulate cry. Lada, he repeated numberless times. Lada was his word for AdZAe. It was supposed to be his effort to say Lady. Then, gesticu- lating wildly, he poured out a torrent of incoherent sounds, of which the word kill was the only one to be distin- guished. Who is killed? cried Mrs. Ruther- ford. Notnot Della? In her sud- den agony of anxiety she grasped Moses shoulder. He shook his head violently. Instantly Mrs. Rutherfords fears flew to the money, the loss of which, indeed, meant nearly ruin to them. Is it Jim Fowler? she asked; try, Mose, try to speak plain! Again the idiot shook his head, and with a look of agony repeated Parson,~~ kill, and Fair. He clasped his hands together, shrieking, Oh, Fair! oh, Fair! He extended his arms, the most violent grief and horror depicted on his countenance. Finally, he hurled himself on his knees and appeared to be straining to lift something from the ground. Dat Slick Mose aimin tuh tell we uns how somebuddy done! exclaimed Aunt Hizzie. Lord send nothing has happened to Fair, cried Mrs. Rutherford ; if there has it will kill the Colonel. But one thing is sure; he wants us to follow him, and weve got to do it. Timber grows in kinds on the Black River, here oaks, now ash, now gum; such a strip is called a lead. t The old English word is retained for an open space in the wood. ~ Low, damp place. The negro boy, arms whirling wide in sir, shot over the side of the cliff. Page 80. IN THE VALLEY. By Harold Frederic. CHAPTER XV. THE RUDE AWAKENING FROM MY DREAM. LOOK back now upon the week which followed this home-coming as a season of much dejection and un- happiness. Per- haps at the time it was not all un- There was a great mixed tribulation. deal to do, naturally, and occupation to a healthful and vigorous young man is of itself a sovereign barrier against un- due gloom. Yet I think of it now as all sadness. Mr. Stewart had really grown aged and feeble. For the first time, too, there was a petulant vein in his attitude toward me. Heretofore he had treated my failure to grow up into his precise ideal of a gentleman with affectionate philosophy, being at pains to conceal from me whatever disappointment he felt, and, indeed, I think, honestly try- ing to persuade himself that it was all for the best. But these five months had created a certain change in the social conditions of the Valley. For years the gulf had been insensibly widening, here under our noses, between the workers and the idlers; during my absence there had come, as it were, a land-slideand the chasm was now manifest to us alL Some- thing of this was true all over the Col- onies: no doubt what I noticed was but a phase of the general movement, part social, part religious, part political, now carrying us along with a percept- ible glide toward the crisis of Revolu- tion; but here in the Valley, more than elsewhere, this broadening fissure of division ran through farms, through houses, ay, even through the group gath- ered in front of the family fireplace separating servants from employers, sons from fathers, husbands from wives. VOL. VIT.7 And, alas! when I realized now for the first time the existence of this abyss, it was to discover that my dearest friend, the man to whom I most owed duty and esteem and love, stood on one side of it and I on the other. This was made clear to me by his commentsand even more by his man- nerwhen I told him next day of the great offer which Mr. Cross had made. Not unnaturally I expected that he would be gratified by this proof of the confidence I had inspired, even if he did not favor my acceptance of the proffered post. Instead, the whole matter seemed to vex him. When I ventured to press him for a decision, he spoke unjustly and impatiently to me, for the first time. Oh, ay! that will serve as well as anything else, I suppose! he said. If you are resolute and stubborn to insist upon leaving me, and tossing aside the career it has been my pleasure to plan for you, by all means go to Albany with the other Dutchmen, and barter and cheapen to your hearts content. You know its no choice of mine, but please yourself! This was so gratuitously unfair and unlike him, and so utterly at variance with the reception I had expected for my tidings, that I stood astounded, looking at him. He went on: What the need is for your going off, and mixing yourself up with these peo- ple, I fail for the life of me to see. I suppose it is in the blood! Any other young man but a Dutchman, reared and educated as you have been, given the society and friendship of gentlefolk from boyhood, and placed, by heaven! as you are here, with a home and an es- tate to inherit, and people about you to respect and loveI say nothing of obey- ing themwould have appreciated his fortune, and asked no more. But no! You must, forsooth, pine and languish to be off tricking drunken Indians out of their peltry, and charging some other Dutchman a shilling for fourpence worth of goods !

IN THE VALLEY. By Harold Frederic. CHAPTER XV. THE RUDE AWAKENING FROM MY DREAM. LOOK back now upon the week which followed this home-coming as a season of much dejection and un- happiness. Per- haps at the time it was not all un- There was a great mixed tribulation. deal to do, naturally, and occupation to a healthful and vigorous young man is of itself a sovereign barrier against un- due gloom. Yet I think of it now as all sadness. Mr. Stewart had really grown aged and feeble. For the first time, too, there was a petulant vein in his attitude toward me. Heretofore he had treated my failure to grow up into his precise ideal of a gentleman with affectionate philosophy, being at pains to conceal from me whatever disappointment he felt, and, indeed, I think, honestly try- ing to persuade himself that it was all for the best. But these five months had created a certain change in the social conditions of the Valley. For years the gulf had been insensibly widening, here under our noses, between the workers and the idlers; during my absence there had come, as it were, a land-slideand the chasm was now manifest to us alL Some- thing of this was true all over the Col- onies: no doubt what I noticed was but a phase of the general movement, part social, part religious, part political, now carrying us along with a percept- ible glide toward the crisis of Revolu- tion; but here in the Valley, more than elsewhere, this broadening fissure of division ran through farms, through houses, ay, even through the group gath- ered in front of the family fireplace separating servants from employers, sons from fathers, husbands from wives. VOL. VIT.7 And, alas! when I realized now for the first time the existence of this abyss, it was to discover that my dearest friend, the man to whom I most owed duty and esteem and love, stood on one side of it and I on the other. This was made clear to me by his commentsand even more by his man- nerwhen I told him next day of the great offer which Mr. Cross had made. Not unnaturally I expected that he would be gratified by this proof of the confidence I had inspired, even if he did not favor my acceptance of the proffered post. Instead, the whole matter seemed to vex him. When I ventured to press him for a decision, he spoke unjustly and impatiently to me, for the first time. Oh, ay! that will serve as well as anything else, I suppose! he said. If you are resolute and stubborn to insist upon leaving me, and tossing aside the career it has been my pleasure to plan for you, by all means go to Albany with the other Dutchmen, and barter and cheapen to your hearts content. You know its no choice of mine, but please yourself! This was so gratuitously unfair and unlike him, and so utterly at variance with the reception I had expected for my tidings, that I stood astounded, looking at him. He went on: What the need is for your going off, and mixing yourself up with these peo- ple, I fail for the life of me to see. I suppose it is in the blood! Any other young man but a Dutchman, reared and educated as you have been, given the society and friendship of gentlefolk from boyhood, and placed, by heaven! as you are here, with a home and an es- tate to inherit, and people about you to respect and loveI say nothing of obey- ing themwould have appreciated his fortune, and asked no more. But no! You must, forsooth, pine and languish to be off tricking drunken Indians out of their peltry, and charging some other Dutchman a shilling for fourpence worth of goods ! 74 IN THE VALLEY. What could I say? What could I do but go away sorrowfully, and with a heavy heart take up farm affairs where I had left them? It was very hard to realize that these rough words, still rasping my ears, had issued from Mr. Stewarts lips. I said to myself that he must have had causes for irritation of which I knew nothing, and that he must unconsciously have visited upon me the peevishness which the actions of others had engendered. All the same, it was not easy to bear. Daily contact with Daisy showed changes, too, in her which disturbed me. Little shades of formalism had crept here and there into her manner even toward me. She was more dis- tant, I fancied, and mistress-like, toward my poor old aunt. She rose later, and spent more of her leisure time upstairs in her rooms alone. Her dress was no- tably more careful and elegant, now, and she habitually wore her hair twisted upon the crown of her head, instead of in a simple braid as of old. If she was not the Daisy I had so learned to love in my months of ab- sence, it seemed that my heart went out in even greater measure to this new Daisy. She was more beautiful than ever, and she was very gentle and soft with me. A sense of tender pity vague- ly colored my devotion, for the dear gin seemed to my watchful solicitude to be secretly unhappy. Once or twice I strove to so shape our conversation that she would be impelled to confide in me to throw herself upon my old broth- erly fondness, if she suspected no deeper passion. But she either saw through my dumsy devices, or else in her inno- cence evaded themfor she hugged the sorrow closer to her heart, and was only pensively pleasant with me. I may explain now, in advance of my story, what I came to learn long after- wardnamely: that the poor little maiden was truly in sore distress at this timetorn by the conflict between her inclination and her judgmentbetween her heart and her head. She was, in fact, hesitating between the glamour which the young Englishman and Lady Berenicia, with their polished ways, their glistening surfaces, and their at- tractive, idlers views of existence, had thrown over her, and her own innate, womanly repugnance to the shallowness and indulgence, not to say license, be- neath it all. It was this battle the prog- ress of which I unwittingly watched. Had I but known what emotions were fighting for mastery behind those sweet- ly grave hazel eyeshad I but realized how slight a pressure might have tipped the scales my wayhow much would have been different! But I, slow Frisian that I was, com- prehended nothing of it all, and so was by turns futilely compassionate and sulky. For again, at intervals, she would be as gay and bright as a June rose, trip- ping up and down through the house with a song on her lips, and the old laugh rippling like sunbeams about her. Then she would deftly perch herself on the arm of Mr. Stewarts chair, and daz- zle us both with the joyous merriment of her talk, and the sparkle in her eyes or sing for us of an evening, upstairs, playing the while upon the lute (which young Cross had given her) instead of the discarded piano. Then she would wear a bunch of flowersI never sus- pecting whence they cameupon her breast, and an extra ribbon in her hair. And then I would be wretched, and gloomily say to myself that I preferred her unhappyand next morning, when the cloud had gathered afresh upon her face, would long again to see her cheer- ful once more. And so the week went by, miserably, and I did not tell my love. One morning, after breakfast, Mr. Stewart asked Daisy to what conclusion she had come about our accepting Philip Crosss invitation to join a luncheon- party on his estate that day. I had heard this gathering mentioned several times before, as a forthcoming event of great promise, and I did not quite un- derstand either the reluctance with which Dais3~ seemed to regard the thought of going or the old gentle- mans mingled insistence and deference to her wishes in the matter. To be sure, I had almost given up in weary heart-sickness the attempt to un- derstand his new moods. Since his harsh words to me, I had had nothing IN THE VALLEY. 75 but amiable civility from himnow and then coming very near to his old-time fond cordiality but it was none the less grievously apparent to me that our relations would never again be on the same footing. I could no longer an- ticipate his wishes, I found, or foresee what he would think or say upon matters as they came up. We two were wholly out of chord, be the fault whose it might. And so, I say, I was rather puzzled than surprised to see how much stress was laid between them upon the question whether or not Daisy would go that day to Cairucross, as the place was to be called. Finally, without definitely having said yes, she appeared dressed for the walk, and put on a mock air of surprise at not finding us also ready. She blushed, I remember, as she did so. There was no disposition on my part to make one of the party, but when I pleaded that I had not been invited, and that there was occupation for me at home, Mr. Stewart seemed so much an- noyed that I hastened to join them. It was a perfect autumn day, with the sweet scent of burning leaves in the air, and the foliage above the forest-path putting on its first pale changes toward scarlet and gold. Here and there, when the tortuous way approached half-clear- ings, we caught glimpses of the round sun, opaquely red through the smoky haze. Our road was the old familiar trail northward over which Mr. Stewart and I, in the happy days, had so often walked to reach our favorite haunt, the gulf. The path was wider and more worn, nowalmost a thoroughfare, in fact. It came to the creek at the very head of the chasm, skirting the mysterious circle of sacred stones, then crossing the swift water on a new bridge of logs, then climbing the farther side of the ravine by a steep zigzag course which hung dangerously close to the precipitous wall of dark rocks. I remarked at the time, as we made our way up, that there ought to be a chain, or outer guard of some sort, for safety. Mr. Stewart said he would speak to Philip about it, and added the information that this side of the gulf was Philips property. It is rough enough land, he went on to say, and would never be worth clearing. He has some plan of keeping it in all its wildness, and building a little summer-house, down below by the bridge, within full sound of the water- fall. No doubt we shall arrange to share the enterprise together. You know I have bought on the other side straight to the creek. Once the road at the top was gained, Cairncross was but a pleasant walking measure, over paths well smoothed and made. Of the mansion in process of erection, which like Johnson Hall was to be of wood, not much except the skeleton framework met the eyebut this promised a massive and imposing edifice. A host of masons, carpenters, and laborers, sufficient to have quite depopulated Johnstown during the day- light hours, were hammering, hewing, or clinking the chimney-bricks with their trowels, within and about the structure. At a sufficient distance from this tumult of construction, and on a level, high plot of lawn, was a pretty marquee tent. Here the guests were assembled, and thither we bent our steps. Young Cross came forth eagerly to greet usor, rather, my companions with outstretched hands and a glowing face. He was bareheaded, and very beautifully, though not garishly clad. ~In the reddish, dimmed sunlight, with his yellow hair and his fresh, beaming face, he certainly was handsome. He bowed ceremoniously to Mr. Stewart, and then took him warmly by the hand. Then with a frank gesture, as if to gayly confess that the real de- light was at hand, he bent low before Daisy and touched her fingers with his lips. You make me your slave, your very happy slave, dear lady, by coming, he murmured, loud enough for me to hear. She blushed, and smiled with pleasure at him. To me our young host was civil enough. He called me Morrison, it is true, without any Mr., but he shook hands with me, and said affably that he was glad to see me back safe and sound. Thereafter he paid no at- tention whatsoever to me, but hung by Daisys side in the cheerful circle out- side the tent. 76 IN THE VALLEY. Sir William was there, and Lady Berenicia, of course, and a dozen others. By all I was welcomed home with cordialityby all save the Lady, who was distant, not to say supercilious in her manner, and Sir John Johnson, who took the trouble only to nod at me. Inquiring after Mr. Jonathan Cross, I learned that my late companion was confined to the Hall, if not to his room, by a sprained ankle. There being nothing to attract me at the gathering, save, indeed, the girl who was monopo- lized by my host, and the spectacle of this affording me more discomfort than satisfaction, the condition of my friend at the Hall occurred to me as a pretext for absenting myself. I mentioned it to Mr. Stewart, who had been this hour or so in great spirits, and who now was chuckling with the Lady and one or two others over some tale she was tell- ing. Quite right, he said, without turn- ing his head, and so, beckoning to Tuip to follow me, I started. It was a brisk hours walk to the Hall, and I strode along at a pace which forced my companion now and again into a trot. I took rather a savage comfort in this, as one likes to bite hard on an aching tooth. For I had a profound friendship for this poor black boy, and to put a hardship upon him was to suffer myself even more than he did. Tulp had come up misshapen and undersized from his long siege with the small-pox, and with very rickety and unstable legs. I could scarcely have sold him for a hundred dollars, and would not have parted with him for ten thousand, if for no other reason than his deep and dog-like devotion to me. Hence when I made this poor fellow run and pant, I must have been pos- sessed of an unusually resolute desire to be disagreeable to myself. And in truth I was! Mr. Jonathan Cross made me very welcome. His accident had befallen on the very day following his return, and he had seen nobody save the inmates of the Hall since that time. We had many things to talk about among others, of my going to Albany to take the agency. I told him that this had not been quite decided, as yet, but avoided giving reasons. I could not well tell this born-and-bred merchant that my guardian thought I ought to feel above trade. His calm eyes per- initted themselves a solitary twinkle as I stumbled over the subject; but he said nothing. He did express some interest, how- ever, when I told him whence I had come, and what company I had quitted to visit him. So Mistress Daisy is there with the rest, is she? he said, with more vigor in his voice than I had ever heard there before. Soso! The apple has fallen with less shaking than I thought for! I do not think that I made any re- mark in reply. If I did, it must have been inconsequential in the extreme, for my impression is of a long, heartaching silence, during which I stared at my companion, and saw nothing. At last I know that he said to meI recall the very tone to this day: You ought to be told, I think. Yes, you ought to know. Philip Cross asked her to be his wife a fortnight ago. She gave no decided answer. From what Philip and Lady Berenicia have said to each other here, since, I know it was understood that if she went to him to- day it meant yes! This time I know I kept silence for a long time. I found myself finally holding the hand he had extended to me, and say- ing, in a voice which sounded like a strangers: I will go to Albany whenever you like. I left the Hall somehow, kicking the drunken Enoch Wade fiercely out of my path, I remember, and walking straight ahead as if blindfolded. CHAPTER XYL TULP GETS A BROKEN HEAD TO MATCH MY HEART. WITHOUT heed as to the direction, I started at a furious pace up the road which I found myself uponTulp at my heels. If he had not, from utter weariness, cried out, after a time, I IN THE VALLEY. 77 should have followed the track straight, unceasing, over the four leagues and more to the Sacondaga. As it was, I had presently to stop, and retrace my steps to where he sat on a way-side stump, dead-beat. Dont you wait for me, Mass Douw, if youre bound to get there quick ! he said, gasping for breath. Dont mind me! Ill follow along the best I can. The phrase get there it was al- most the only English which poor Tuip had put into the polyglot sentence he really utteredarrested my attention. Get where? I had been headed for the mountainsfor the black water which dashed foaming down their de- files, and eddied in sinister depths at their bases. I could see the faint blue peaks on the horizon from where I stood, by the side of the tired slave. The sight sobered me. To this day I cannot truly say whether I had known where I was going, and if there had not been in my burning brain the latent impulse to throw myself into the Sacondaga. But I could still find the spotchanged be- yond recollection as the face of the country iswhere Tulps fatigue com- pelled me to stop, and where I stood gazing out of new eyes, as it were, upon the pale Adirondack outlines. As I looked, the aspect of the day had changed. The soft somnolent haze had vanished from the air. Dark clouds were lifting themselves in the West and North beyond the mountains, and a chill breeze was blowing from them upon my brow. I took off my hat, and held up my face to get all its cooling touch. Tulp, between heavy breaths, still begged that his infirmity might not be allowed to delay me. Why, boy! I laughed bitterly at him, I have no place to go to. Nobody is waiting for menobody wants me. The black looked hopeless bewilder- ment at me, and offered no comment. Long afterward I learned that he at the moment reached the reluctant conclu- sion that I had taken too much drink in the Hall. Or no! I went on, a thought com- ing to the surface in the hurly-burly of my mind. We are going to Albany! Thats where were going! Tulps sooty face took on a more du bious look, if that were possible. He humbly suggested that I had chosen a roundabout route; perhaps I was going by the way of the Healing Springs. But it must be a long, lonesome road, and the rain was coming on. Sure enough, the sky was darkening: a storm was in the air, and already the distant mountain - tops were hidden from view by the rain-mist. Without more words I put on my hat, and we turned back toward the settlements. The disposition to walk swiftly, which before had been a con- trolling thing, was gone. My pace was slow enough now, descending the hill, for even Tulp, who followed close upon my heels. But my head was not much clearer. It was not from inability to think; to the contrary, the vividness and swift succession of my thoughts, as they raced through my brain, almost frightened me. I had fancied myself miserable that very morning, because Mr. Stewart had spoken carelessly to me, and she had been only ordinarily pleasant. Ah, fool! My estate that morning had been that of a king, of a god, in contrast to this present wretchedness. Then I still had a homestill nourished in my heart a hopeand these were happiness! I laughed aloud at my folly in having deemed them less. She had put her hand in hisgiven herself to him! She had with her eyes open promised to marry this English- manfop! du]lard! roysterer! insolent cub !so the rough words tumbled to my tongue. In a hundred ways I pict- ured hercalled up her beauty, her delicacy, her innocence, her grace, the refined softness of her bearing, the sweet purity of her smile, the high dig- nity of her thoughtsand then ground my teeth as I placed against them the solitary image my mind consented to limn of hima brawling dandy with fashionable smirk and false blue eyes, flushed with wine, and proud of no bet- ter achievement than throwing a miller in a drunken wrestling bout. It was a sina desecration! Where were their eyes, that they did not read this fellows worthlessness, and bid him stand back, when he sought to lay his coarse hands upon her? 78 IN THE VALLEY. Yet who were these that should have saved her? Ah! were they not all of his class, or of his pretence to class? Some of them had been my life-long friends. To Mr. Stewartand I could not feel bitterly toward him even now I owed home, education, rearing, every- thing; Sir William had been the earliest and kindliest of my other friends, eager and glad always to assist, instruct, en- courage me; John Butler had given me my first gun, and had petted me in his rough way from boyhood. Ye~ now, at a touch of that hateful, impalpable thing, class, these all vanished away from my support, and were to me as if they had never been. I saw them over on the other side, across the abyss from me, grouped smiling about this new- comer, praising his brute ability to drink and race and wrestle, compli- menting him upon his position among the gentrysave the mark !of Tryon County, and proud that they had by never so little aided him to secure for a wife this poor trembling, timid, fasci- nated girL Doubtless they felt that a great honor had been done her; it might be that even she dreamed this, too, as she heard their congratulations. And these men, honest, fair-minded gentlemen as they were in other affairs, would toss me aside like a broken pipe if I ventured to challenge their sympa- thy as against this empty-headed, sat- ined, and powdered stranger. They had known and watched me all my life. ~y smallest action, my most trivial habit, was familiar to them. They had seen me grow before their eyesdutiful, obedient, diligent, honest, sober, truth- ful. In their hearts they knew that I deserved all these epithets. They them- selves time out of mind had applied them to me. I stood now, at my early age, and on my own account, on the threshold of a career of honorable trade, surely as worthy now as it was when Sir William began at it far more humbly. Yet with all these creditable things known to them, I could not stand for a moment in their estimation against this eharacterless new-coiner! Why? He was a gentleman, and I was not. Not that he was better borna thou- sand times no! But I had drawn from the sell-sacrificing, modest, devoted man of God, my father, and the resolute, tireless, hard-working, sternly honest housewife, my motherthe fatal notion that it was not beneath the dignity of a Mauverensen or a Van Hoorn to be of use in the world. My ancestors had fought for their little country, nobly and through whole generations, to free it from the accursed rule of that nest of aristocrats, Spain; but they had not been ashamed also to work, in either the old world or the new. This other, this EnglishmanI found myself calling him that as the most comprehensive ex- pletive I could usethe son of a pro- fessional butcher and of an intriguing woman, was my superior here, in truth, where I had lived all my life and he had but shown his nosebecause he pre- ferred idleness to employment! It was a mistake, then, was it, to be temperate and industrious? It was more honorable to ride at races, to play high stakes and drain three bottles at dinner than to study, and to do ones duty? To be a gentleman was a matter of silk breeches and perukes and late hours? Out upon the blundering play- wright who made Bassanio win with the leaden casket! Portia was a woman, and would have wrapped her picture nay, herselfin tinsel gilt, the gaudier the better! But why strive to trace further my wrathful meditations? There is noth- ing pleasant or profitable in the con- templation of anger, even when reason runs abreast of it. And I especially have no pride in this three hours wild fury. There were moments in it, I fear, when my rage was wellnigh murderous in its fierceness. The storm camea cold, thin, driving rain, with faint mutterings of thunder far behind. I did not care to quicken my pace, or fasten my coat. The in- clemency fitted and echoed my mood. On the road we came suddenly upon the Hall party, returning in haste from the interrupted picnic. The baronets carriage, with the hood drawn, rumbled past without a sign of recognition from driver or inmates. A half-dozen horse- men cantered behind, their chins buried in their collars, and their hats pulled down over their eyes. One of the last IN THE VALLEY. of theseit was Bryan Leffertyreined up long enough to inform me that Mr. Stewart and Daisy had long before started by the forest-path for their home, and that young Cross had made short work of his other guests in order to accompany them. Were not after complaining, though, said the jovial Irishman; its human nature to desert ordinary mortals like us when youth and beauty beckon the other way. I made some indifferent answer, and he rode away after his companions. We resumed our tramp over the muddy track, with the rain and wind gloomily pelting upon our backs. When we turned off into the woods, to descend the steep side-hill to the water.fall, it was no easy matter to keep our footing. The narrow trail was slippery with wet leaves and moss. Looking over the dizzy edge, you could see the tops of tall trees far below. The depths were an indistinct mass of dripping foliage, dark green and russet. We made our way gingerly and with extreme care, with the distant clamor of the falls in our ears, and the peril of tumbling headlong keeping all our senses painfully alert. At a turn in the path, I came sharply upon Philip Cross! He was returning from The Cedars: he carried a broken bough to use as a walking-stick in the difficult ascent, and was panting with the exertion; yet the lightness of his heart impelled him to hum broken snatches of a song as he climbed. The wet verdure under foot had so deadened sound that neither suspected the presence of the other till we suddenly stood, on this slightly widened, overhanging platform, face to face! He seemed to observe an unusual something on my face, but it did not interest him enough to affect his cus- tomary cool, off-hand civility toward me. Oh, Morrison, is that you? he said, nonchalantly. Youre drenched, I see, like the rest of us. Odd, that so fine a day sirould end like this ; and made as if to pass me on the inner side. I blocked his way and said, with an involuntary shake in my voice which I could only hope he failed to note: 79 You have miscalled me twice to-day. I will teach you my true name, if you likehere! now! He looked at me curiously for an in- stantthen with a frown. You are drunk! he cried, angrily. Out of my way! No, you are again wrong, I said, keeping my voice down, and looking him square in the eye. Im not of the drunken set in the Valley. No man was ever soberer. But I am going to spell my name out for you, in such manner that you will be in no danger of forgetting it to your dying day. The young Englishman threw a swift glance about him, to measure his sur- roandings. Then he laid down his cudgel, and proceeded to unbutton his great-coat which by some strange freak of irony happened to be one of mine that they had loaned him at The Cedars for his homeward journey. If the words may be coupled, I watched him with an enraged admira- tion. There was no sign of fear mani- fest in his face or bearing. With all his knowledge of wrestling, he could not but have felt that, against my su- perior size and weight, and long famil- iarity with woodland footing, there were not many chances of his escaping with his life: if I went over, he certainly would go tooand he might go alone. Yet he unfastened his coats with a fine air of unconcern, and turned back his ruffles carefu]ly. I could not maintain the same calm in throwing off my hat and coat, and was vexed with myself for it. We faced each other thus in our waistcoats in the drizzling rain for a final moment, exchanging a cross-fire sweep of glances which took in not only antagonist, but every varying foot of the treacherous ground we stood upon, and God knows what else besidewhen I was conscious of a swift movement past me from behind. I had so completely forgotten Tulps presence that for the second that fol- lowed I scarcely realized what was hap- pening. Probably the faithful slave had no other thought, as he glided in front of me, than to thus place himself between me and what he believed to be certain death. 80 IN THE VALLEY. To the Englishman the sudden move- ment may easily have seemed an attack. There was an instants waving to and fro of a light and a dark body close before my startled eyes. Then, with a scream which froze the very marrow in my bones, the negro boy, arms whirling wide in air, shot over the side of the cliff! Friends of mine in later years, when they heard this story from my lips over a pipe and bowl, used to express sur- prise that I did not that very moment throw myself upon Cross, and fiercely bring the quarrel to an end, one way or the other. I remember that when Gen- eral Arnold came up the Valley, five years after, and I recounted to him this incident, which recent events had re- called, he did not conceal his opinion that I had chosen the timid part. By God!~ he cried, striking the camp-table till the candlesticks rattled, I would have killed him or he would have killed me, before the nigger struck bottom!~ Very likely he would have done as he said. I have never seen a man with a swifter temper and resolution than poor, brave, choleric, handsome Arnold had and into a hideously hopeless morass of infamy they landed him, too! No doubt it will seem to my readers, as well, that in nature I ought upon the instant to have grappled the Englishman. The fact was, however, that this un- foreseen event took every atom of fight out of both of us as completely as if we had been struck by lightning. With a cry of horror, I knelt and hung over the shelving edge as far as possible, striving to discover some trace of my boy through the misty masses of foliage below. I could see nothing could hear nothing but the far-off dash- ing of the waters, which had now in my ears an unspeakably sinister sound. It was only when I rose to my feet again that I caught sight of Tulp, slowly mak- ing his way up the other side of the ravine, limping and holding one hand to his head. He had evidently been hurt, but it was a great deal to know that he was alive. I turned to my an- tagonistit seemed that a long time had passed since I last looked at him. The same idea that the struggle was postponed had come to him, evidently, for he had put on his coats again, and had folded his arms. He too had been alarmed for the fate of the boy, but he affected now not to see him. I drew back to the rock now, and Cross passed me in silence, with his chin defiantly in the air. He turned when he had gained the path above, and stood for a moment frowning down at me. Jam going to marry Miss Stewart, he called out. The sooner you find a new master, and take yourself off, the better. I dont want to see you again. When you do see me again, I made answer, be sure that I will break every bone in your body! With this not very heroic interchange of compliments we parted. I continued the descent, and crossed the creek to where the unfortunate Tulp was waiting for me. CHAPTER XVII. I PERFORCE 5AY FAREWELL TO MY OLD HOME. THE slave sat upon one of the bowlders in the old Indian circle, holding his jaw with his hand, and rocking himself like a child with the colic. He could give me no account what- ever of the marvellous escape he had had from instant deathand I was forced to conclude that his fall had been more than once broken by the interposition of branches or clumps of vines. He seemed to have fortunately landed on his head. His jaw was broken, and some of his teeth loosened, but none of his limbs were fractured, though all were bruised. I bound up his chin with my handkerchief, and put my neckcloth over one of his eyes, which was scratched and swollen shut, as by some poisonous thing. Thus bandaged, he hobbled along behind me over the short remain- ing distance. The rain and cold in- creased as nightfall came on, and, no longer sustained by my anger, I found the walk a very wet and miserable affair. When I reached The Cedars, and had sent Tulp to his parents with a promise to look in upon him later, I was still without any definite plan of what to say or do upon entering. The immensity of IN THE VALLEY. 81 the crisis which had overtaken me had not shut my mind to the fact that the others, so far from being similarly over- whelmed, did not even suspect any reason on my part for revolt or sorrow. I had given neither of them any cause, by word or sign, to regard me as a rival to Crossat least, of late years. So far as they were concerned, I had no ground to stand upon in making a protest. Yet when did this consideration restrain an angry lover? I had a savage feeling that they ought to have known, if they didnt. And reflection upon the late scene on the gulf-sideupon the alter- cation, upon the abortive way in which I had allowed mastery of the situation to slip through my fingers, and upon poor Tulps sufferingsonly served to swell my mortification and rage. When I enteredafter a momentary temptation to make a stranger of myself by knocking at the doorDaisy was sitting by the fire beside Mr. Stewart; both were looking medi~tively into the fire, which gave the only light in the room, and she was holding his hand. My heart melted for a second as this pretty, home-like picture met my eyes, and a sob came into my throat at the thought that I was no longer a part of this dear home-circle. Then sulkiness rose to the top again. I muttered some- thing about the weather, lighted a can- die at the fire, and moved past them to the door of my room. Why, Douw, asked Daisy, half- rising as she spoke; what has hap- pened? Theres blood on your ruffles! Where is your neckcloth ? I made answer, standing with my hand upon the latch, and glowering at her: The blood comes from my Tulps broken head; I used my neckcloth to tie it up. He was thrown over the side of Kayaderosseros gulf, an hour ago, by the gentleman whom it is announced you are going to marry! Without waiting to note the effect of these words, I went into my room, clos- ing the door behind me sharply. I spent a wretched hour or so, sorting over my clothes and possessions, trinkets and the like, and packing them for a journey. Nothing was very clear in my mind, between bitter repining at the misery which had come upon me and the growing repulsion I felt for making these two unhappy, but it was at least obvious that I must as soon as possible leave The Cedars. When at last I re-entered the outer room, the table was spread for supper. Only Mr. Stewart was in the room, and he stood in his favorite attitude, with his back to the fire and his hands behind him. He preserved a complete silence, not even looking at me, until my aunt had brought in the simple evening meaL To her he said briefly that Mistress Daisy had gone to her room, weary and with a headache, and would take no supper. I felt the smart of reproof to me in every word he utteredand even more in his curt tone. I stood at the window, with my back to him, looking through the dripping little panes at the scattered lights across the river, and not ceasing for an instant to think fore- bodingly of the scene which was im- pendent. Dame Kronk had been out of the room some moments when he said, test- ily: Well, sir! will you do me the honor to come to the table, or is it your wish that I should fetch your supper to you? The least trace of softness in his voice would, I think, have broken down my temper. If he had been only grieved at my behavior, and had shown to me sorrow instead of truculent rebuke, I would have been ready, I believe, to fall at his feet. But his scornful sternness hardened me. Thank you, sir, I replied, I have no wish for supper. More seconds of silence ensued. The streaming windows and blurred frag- ments of light, against the blackness outside, seemed to mirror the chaotic state of my mind. I ought to turn to hima thousand times over, I knew I oughtand yet for my life I could not. At last he spoke again: Perhaps, then, you will have the po- liteness to face me. My association has chiefly been with gentlemen, and I should mayhap be embarrassed by want of experience if I essayed to address you to your back. I had wheeled around before half his first sentence was out, thoroughly 82 IN THE VALLEY. ashamed of myself. hi my contrition I had put forth my hand as I moved to- ward him. He did not deign to notice or rather to respond tothe apolo- getic overture, and I dropped the hand and halted. He looked me over now, searchingly and with a glance of ruin- gled curiosity and anger. He seemed to be searching for words sufficiently formal and harsh meanwhile, and he was some time in finding them. hi the days when I wore a sword for use, young man, and moved among my equals, he began, deliberately, it was not held to be a safe or small matter to offer me affront. Other times, other manners. The treatment which then I would not have brooked from Cardinal York himself, I find myself forced to sub- mit to, under my own roof, at the hands of a person who, to state it most lightly, should for decencys sake put on the ap- pearance of respect for my gray hairs. He paused here, and I would have spoken, but he held up his slender, ruf- fled hand with a peremptory, Pray, al- low me! and presently went on: hi speaking to you as I ought to speak, I am at the disadvantage of being wholly unable to comprehend the strange and malevolent change which has come over you. Through nearly twenty years of close, and even daily observation, rendered at once keen and kindly by an affection to which I will not now refer, you had produced upon me the impres- sion of a dutiful, respectful, honorable, and polite young man. If, as was the case, you developed some of the to me less attractive and less generous virtues of your race, I still did not fail to see that they were, in their way, virtues, and that they inured both to my material profit and to your credit among your neighbors. I had said to myself, after much consideration, that if you had not come up wholly the sort of gentleman I had looked for, still you were a gentle- man, and had qualities which, taken al- together, would make you a creditable successor to me on the portions of my estate which it was my purpose to entail upon you and yours. Believe me, Mr. Stewart, I inter- posed here, with a broken voice, as he paused again. I am deeply very deeply grateful to you. He went on as if I had not spoken: Judge, then, my amazement and grief to find you returning from your voyage to the West intent upon leaving me, upon casting aside the position and du- ties for which I had trained you, and upon going down to Albany to dicker for pence and hapence with the other Dutchmen there. I did not forbid your going. I contented myself by making known to you my disappointment at your selection of a career so much in- ferior to your education and position in life. Whereupon you have no better conception of what is due to me and to yourself than to begin a season of sulky pouting and sullenness, culminating in the incredible rudeness of open insults to me, and, what is worse, to my daugh- ter in my presence! She has gone to her chamber sick in head and heart alike from your boorish behavior. I would fain have retired also, in equal sorrow and disgust, had it not seemed my duty to demand an explanation from you before the night passed. The blowthe whole crushing series of blowshad fallen! How I suffered under them, how each separate lash tore savagely through heart and soul and flesh, it would be vain to attempt to tell. Yet with the anguish there came no weakening. I had been wrong and fool- ish, and clearly enough I saw it, but this was not the way to correct or chastise me. A solitary sad word would have unmanned me; this long, stately, satiri- cal speech, this ironically elaborate trav- esty of my actions and motives, had an opposite effect. I suffered, but I stub- bornly stood my ground. If I have disappointed you, sir, I am more grieved than you can possibly be, I replied. If what I said was in fact an affront to you, and toherthen I would tear out my tongue to recall the words. But how can the simple truth affront? What was this you called out so rudely about the gulfabout Tulps be- ing thrown over byby the gentleman my daughter is to marry? since you choose to describe him thus. I spoke the literal truth, sir. It was fairly by a miracle that the poor devil escaped with his life. How did it happen? What was the IN THE VALLEY. provocation? Even in Caligulas days slaves were not thrown over cliffs with- out some reason.~~ Tuip suffered for the folly of being faithful to mefor not understanding that it was the fashion to desert me, F replied, with rising temerity. He threw himself between me and this Cross of yours, as we faced each other on the ledgewhere we spoke this morning of the need for a chainand the English- man flung him off! Threw himself between you! Were you quarrelling, you two, then? I dare say it would be described as a quarreL I think I should have killed him, or he killed me, if the calamity of poor Tulps tumble had not put other things in our heads. My faith! was Mr. Stewarts only comment. He stared at me for a time, then seated himself before the fire, and looked at the blaze and smoke in appar- ent meditation. Finally he said, in a somewhat milder voice than before: Draw a chair up here and sit down. Doubtless there is more in this than I thought. Explain it to me. I felt less at my ease, seated now for a more or less moderate conference, than I had been on my feet, bearing my part in a quarrel What am I to explain? I asked. Why were you quarrelling with Philip? Because I felt like itbecause I hate him! Tnt! tut! That is a childs answer. What is the trouble between you two? I demand to know! If you will have it and all my re- sentment and sense of loss burst forth in the explanation because he has destroyed my home for me: because he has ousted me from the place I used to have, and strove so hard to be worthy of, in your affections; because, alter a few months here, with his fine clothes and his dashing, wasteful ways, he is more regarded by you and your friends than I am, who have tried faithfully all my life to deserve your regard; because he has taken but I broke down here. My throat choked the sound in sobs, and I turned my face away that he might not see the tears which I felt scalding my eyes. 83 My companion kept silent, but he poked the damp, smudging sticks about in the fireplace vigorously, took his spectacles out of their case, nibbed them, and put them back in his pocket, and in other ways long since familiar to me be- trayed his uneasy interest. These slight signs of growing sympathyor, at least, comprehensionencouraged me to pro- ceed, and my voice came back to me. If you could know, I went mourn- fully on, the joy I felt when I first looked on the Valleyour Valleyagain at Fort Stanwix; if you could only real- ize how I counted the hours and minutes which separated me from this home, from you and her, and how I cried out at their slowness; if you could guess how my heart beat when I walked up the path out there that evening, and opened that door, and looked to see you two welcome meah! then you could feel the bitterness I have felt since! I came home burning with eagerness, homesickness, to be in my old place again near you and herand the place was filled by another! If I have seemed rude and sullenthat is the reason! If I had set less store upon your love, and upon herherliking for me, then doubtless I should have borne the dis- placement with better grace. But it put me on the rack. Believe me, if I have behaved to your displeasure, and hers, it has been from very excess of tenderness trampled underfoot! At least the misunderstanding had been cleared up, and for a time, at all events, the heart of my life-long friend had warmed again to me as of old. He put his hand paternally upon my knee, and patted it softly. My poor boy, he said, with a sym- pathetic half-smile, and in his old-time gravely gentle voice. Even in your tribulation you must be Dutch! Why not have said this to meor what then occurred to you of itat the outset, the first day after you came? Why, then it could all have been put right in a twinkling. But no! in your secretive, Dutch fashion you must needs go aloof, and worry your heart sore by all sorts of suspicions and jealousies and fears that you have been supplanteduntil, see for yourself what a melancholy pass you have brought us all to! suppose 84 IN THE VALLEY. by chance, while these sullen devils were driving you to despair, you had done injurY to Philip perhaps even killed him! Think what your feelings, and ours, would be now! And all might have been cleared up, set right, by a word at the beginning! I looked hard into the fire, and clinched my teeth. Would a word have given me Daisy? I asked from between them. He withdrew his hand from my knee, and pushed one of the logs petulantly with his foot. What do you mean? he demanded. I mean that for five years I have de- siredfor the past six months have, waking or sleeping, thought of nothing else but this desire of my heartto have Daisy fcr my wife. As he did not speak, I went on with an impassioned volubility altogether strange to my custom, recalling to him the tender intimacy in which she and I had grown up from babyhood; the early tacit understanding that we were to inherit The Cedars and all its be- longingsand his own not infrequent allusions in those days to the vision of our sharing it, and all else in life, to- gether. Then I pictured to him the brotherly fondness of my later years, blossoming suddenly, luxuriantly into the fei-vor of a lovers devotion while I was far away in the wilds, with no gracious, civilizing presence (save al- ways Mr. Cross) near me except the dear image of her which I carried in my heart of hearts. I told him, too, of the delicious excitement with which, day by day, I drew nearer to the home that held her, trembling now with nervous- ness at my slow progress; now with timidity lest, grasping this vast happi- ness too swiftly, I should crush it from very ecstasy of possession. I made clear to him, moreover, that I had come without ever dreaming of the possibility of a rivalas innocently, serenely confi- dent of right as would be a little child approaching to kiss its mother. Fancy this child struck violently in the face by this mother, from whom it had never before received so much as a frown! I concluded; then you will understand something of the blow which has sent me reeling. His answering words, when finally he spoke, were sympathetic and friendly enough, but not very much to the point. This was, doubtless, due to no fault of his: consolation at such times is not within the power of the very wisest to bestow. He pointed out to me that these were a class of disappointments exceedingly common to the lot of young men ; it was the way of the world. In the pro- cess of pairing off a generation, prob- ably ninety-nine out of every hundred couples would secretly have preferred some other distribution; yet they made the best of it, and the world wagged on just the same as before. With all these, and many other jarring commonplaces, he essayed to soothe meto the inevitable increase of my bitter discontent. He added, I remem- ber, a personal parallel: I have never spoken of it to you, or to any other, but I too had my grievous disappointment. I was in love with the mother of this young Philip Cross. I worshipped her reverently from afar; I had no other thought or aim in life but to win her favor, to gain a position worthy of her; I would have crossed the Chaunel, and marched into St. Jamess, and hacked off the Hanoveri- ans heavy head with my fathers broad- sword, I verily believe, to have had one smile from her lips. Yet I had to pocket this all, and stand smilingly by and see her wedded to my tent-mate, Tony Cross. I thought the world had come to an endbut it hadnt. Women are kittle cattle, my boy. They must have their head, or their blood turns sour. Come! where is the genuineness of your affection for our girl, if you would deny her the gallant of her choice? If I believed, I blurted out, that it was her own free choice! Whose else, then, pray? If I felt that she truly, deliberately preferred himthat she had not been decoyed and misled by that Lady Ber Fie upon such talk! said the old gentleman, with a shade of returning testiness in his tone. Do you com- prehend our Daisy so slightly, after all these years? Is she a girl not to know Ii The blowthe whole crushing series of blowohad fallen Page 82. VOL. V 11.S 86 IN THE VALLEY. her own mind? Tut! she loves the youngster; she has chosen him. If you had stopped at home, if you had spoken earlier instead of mooning, Dutch fashion, in your own mind, it might have been different. Who can say? But it may not be altered now. We who are left must still plan to pro- mote her happiness. A hundred bride- grooms could not make her less our Daisy than she was. There must be no more quarrels between you boys, re- member! I forbid it, your own judg- ment will forbid it. He will make a good husband to the girl, and I mistake much if he does not make a great man of himself in the Colony. Perhaps who knows?he may bring her a title, or even a coronet some of these days. The crown will have need of all its loyal gentlemen here, soon enough, too, as the current runs now, and rewards and honors will flow freely. Philip will lose no chance to turn the stream Cairn- cross way. My aunt came in to take away the untouched dishesMr. Stewart could never abide negroes in their capacity as domestics, and soon thereafter we went to bedI, for one, to lie sleepless and disconsolate till twilight came. The next morning we two again had the table to ourselves, for Daisy sent down word that her head was still ach- ing, and we must not wait the meal for her. It was a silent and constrained affair, this breakfast, and we hurried through it as one speeds a distasteful task. It was afterward, as we walked forth together into the garden, where the wet earth already steamed under the warm downpour of sunlight, that I told Mr. Stewart of my resolution to go as soon as possible to Albany, and take up the proffered agency. He seemed to have prepared himself for this, and offered no strong opposi- tion. We had both, indeed, reached the conclusion that it was the best way out of the embarrassment which hung over us. He still clungor made a show of clingingto his regret that I had not been satisfied with my position at The Cedars. But in his heart, I am sure, he was relieved by my perseverance in the project. Two or three days were consumed in preparations at home and in conferences with Jonathan Cross either at Johnson Hall, or at our place, whither he was twice able to drive. He furnished me with several letters, and with volumi- nous suggestions and advice. Sir Will- iam, too, gave me letters, and much val- uable information as to Albany ways and prejudices. I had, among others from him, I remember, a letter of pres- entation to Governor Tryon, who with his lady had visited the baronet during my absence, but which I never pre- sented, and another to the uncle of the boy-Patroon, which was of more utility. In the hurry and occupation of mak- ing ready for so rapid and momentous a departure, I had not many opportu- nities of seeing Daisy. During the few times that we were alone together, no allusion was made to the scene of that night, or to my words, or to her be- trothal. How much she knew of the in- cident on the gulf-side, or of my later explanation and confession to Mr. Stew- art, I could not guess. She was some- what reserved in her manner, I fancied, and she seemed to quietly avoid being alone in the room with me. At the final parting, too, she proffered me only her cheek to touch with my lips. Yet I could not honestly say that, deep in her heart, she was not sorry for me and tender toward me, and grieved to have me go. It was on the morning of the last day of September, 1772, that I began life alone, for myself, by starting on the journey to Albany. If I carried with me a sad heart, there yet were already visible the dawnings of compensation. At least I had not quarrelled with the dear twain of The Cedars. As for Philip Cross, I strove not to think of him at all. (To be continued.) THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. By Hc;i;jy T. F/nc/i. THE beaut~ of Spanish women has lono been proverbial, an(l no ques- tion is so frequently asked of a tour- ist returning from Spain as, Did von really find the women as pretty as they are said to 1)e ~ The writers of travel- sketches, and even the guide-books to Spain, instead of continino themselvcs, as in other countries, to such stal)le top- ics as railroads, hotels, l)alaces, l)arks, promenades, theatres, and galleries, sel- doin describe a province or a city without specially noting the characteristics of the women, an ci dwelling on their beauty. To give only a few instances: Ford, who perhaps knew Spain as thoroughly as any foreigner or native ever knew it, says, in speaking of Galicia, that many of the maidens of from fifteen to twenty are strikingly handsome. In Anda- lusia the female, worthy of her mate, often presents a form of matchless sym- metry, to which is added a I)eeuliar and most fascinating air and action. The Valencian women, especially the middle audi better classes in the capital, are by no means so dark-complexioned as their niates sinoularly well fo are rmed, ~ among the prettiest and most fascinating iii all Spain. Schmidt-Weissenfels, in his Charakterbilder aus Spanien, cle votes a whole chapter to the women of Spain, in which lie notes the disappoint- ment which he, in common with many tourists, felt, because he had fancied that all the wonien of Spain must be beautiful but ultimfiately he joins the (horlis of (liscriminatimig worshippers. Another Gerninan, Dr. Moritz Willkomm, in his elaborate three-volume treatise on Die Pvreniiische Hall )insel, never loses an ol)J)ortunity to discourse on the phys A Belle of Tarragona.

THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. By Hc;i;jy T. F/nc/i. THE beaut~ of Spanish women has lono been proverbial, an(l no ques- tion is so frequently asked of a tour- ist returning from Spain as, Did von really find the women as pretty as they are said to 1)e ~ The writers of travel- sketches, and even the guide-books to Spain, instead of continino themselvcs, as in other countries, to such stal)le top- ics as railroads, hotels, l)alaces, l)arks, promenades, theatres, and galleries, sel- doin describe a province or a city without specially noting the characteristics of the women, an ci dwelling on their beauty. To give only a few instances: Ford, who perhaps knew Spain as thoroughly as any foreigner or native ever knew it, says, in speaking of Galicia, that many of the maidens of from fifteen to twenty are strikingly handsome. In Anda- lusia the female, worthy of her mate, often presents a form of matchless sym- metry, to which is added a I)eeuliar and most fascinating air and action. The Valencian women, especially the middle audi better classes in the capital, are by no means so dark-complexioned as their niates sinoularly well fo are rmed, ~ among the prettiest and most fascinating iii all Spain. Schmidt-Weissenfels, in his Charakterbilder aus Spanien, cle votes a whole chapter to the women of Spain, in which lie notes the disappoint- ment which he, in common with many tourists, felt, because he had fancied that all the wonien of Spain must be beautiful but ultimfiately he joins the (horlis of (liscriminatimig worshippers. Another Gerninan, Dr. Moritz Willkomm, in his elaborate three-volume treatise on Die Pvreniiische Hall )insel, never loses an ol)J)ortunity to discourse on the phys A Belle of Tarragona. 88 THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. ical and mental peculiarities and charms of the seiioritas of each province. The women of Malaga are liote(l for their beauty and grace as are those of San Roque, Almeria, Baza, etc.; while to the maidens of Cadiz is accorded the rare distinction of being the most graceful of all Andalusians. The most cosmo- politan of French writers, Th(ophile Gautier, in his delightful Voyage en Espagne, records on every other page the impression made on his poetic mind by the black-eyed belles of Spain ; and even Signor Dc Amic~s, though lie hails from a country in which beautiful wom- en are much more abmnlant than in France, gives vent in every chapter to his ral)turons a(lmirationso that, in com- ing across a book like the Rev. E. F. Hales Seven Spanish Cities, in which no reference is anywhere made to Span- ish women and their appearance, one feels as if one had rea(1 a (lescription of California in which no mention was Tne Moorish TypeGranada. THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. 89 made of the Yosemite Yalley or Lake Tahoe. The opinion seems to prevail that the women of northern Spain are less attrac- tive than those of Anda- lusia, but my own obser- vation did not bear out this belief. The Andain- sian maiden is more am mated a 11 Cl coquettish, an(l a shade more grace- tnt although the Castilian is by no means deficient in grace; bat, on the other haul, regular, finely ellis- elled features are more common in Madri(l than in Seville. Yet the mix- ture of types is so great everywhere that it is dif- ficult to make general as- ~ertions with a satisfac- tory degree of accuracy ; and in Spain the dlifllcultv is increased by the climatic conditions which induce women to seek the seclusion of their cool and shady rooms and patios and avoid the streets, so that it is not easy to collect data un- less one is familiar with all their haunts and habits. Formerly the bull-ring was a good place to study feminine types, and Gautiers happy sketch of the Mala- gue7ia was made in the Plaza de Toros; but at present, I am happy to say, the number of women who go to witness this vulgar spectacle is comparatively small. I attended only one fight, but I often made it a point to be outside the ring when the sport was over, and I es- timated that not more than two or three per cent. of the spectators who passe(l oat were women. Formerly, too, pic- turesque groups of women could al- ways be found in the cathedrals, not too much absorbed in their devotions to shun the admiring gaze of strangers. But Spain is at present in a period of indifference, if not antagonism, to relig- ion, and the consequence is that one may visit the most famous cathedrals at any hour and find only a small group of worshippers, except on the principal ho- lidays. Walking along the streets in the evening one may catch a glimpse of a family group having their tcrtulia, or reception, in the patio or central court of their house; or, in the afternoon, see here and there on a shady balcony a couple of dark-eyed (lamusels not averse to fan-and-eve flirtations at a safe dis- tance, when the duenna is out of sight. But these are only scat- teredi cases, an(1 if one wishes to see a multitude of women together in a Spanish city, the only place where omme can feel certain of finding them is in the alameda, or public pro1mmem~adle, g e n e r a Ii y framnedi in with fine trees ami(l adlornedi with semi trol)ical flowers, which every city, town, audi vil- lage possesses. Busy audi cosmnd)politan Nil a dl r i Cl alone (perhaps I should adid Barcelomma) affords an opportunity to review its women in the streets, namely, in the Puerta dcl Sol, the principal square of the city, imito which half a diozemi streets from every point of the compass con- verge, amid which therefore receives from time differemit quarters of the city constant streams of all classes of the population, from the aristocratic young lady out shm opping with her mamma or chaperon, to tIme factorygirl, or the peasant-woman on a visit to the capital. Among the most interesting types to be seen here are the maoo- las, who corresl)ondl to the Parisian grisette, though they are in- finitely more grace- ful and i~retty. True, it is saidl that the maco- las have pass- ed away, but it is only their pictu- resque cos- tumes which have disap- pearedl ; time girls them- selves are there, as fresh and lively, and plump and saucy, and black-eyed as ever. But to see the women of the well-to- do classes (with a good sprinkling of the others), time best place in Madrid, From A Spanish Marriage, by Fortuny. From At the Ball, by Madrazo. 90 THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. as elsewhere, is the public promenade, or the Prado. Every aft eruoou, wheu the suu a~)proaches the horizon and the air becomes cooler, they come out ill swarms from their shuttered houses and form ~ piocession in the alameda, which soou becomes as crow(led as upper F if t Ii Avenue on Sunday after- noon. The stranger may join the pro- cession, or for a peim~ occu- py one of the thousands of seats which line the pi~)1uei1a(le, and observe the crowd at ease. Occa- sionally a car- riage of aristo- cratic apl)ear- ance passes by, holding among its occul)ants a strikino beau Corner of the Garden by 1L From In a Casanova. tv ou, as a rule, it is not among the degenerate nobility, but in the more democratic pe(lestriail throng, that the finest gems are to be found. The first thing that strikes a foreigner is that, except in the case of some fain- ily groups. the sexes are separated, the women and girls walking apart from the men, in couples or groups. This seems the stranoer in view of the fact that this daily promenade is indulged in by Spanish society less from the hygienic motive of oettiiio exercise and fresh air than as a sort of public reunion or recel)tioii an openau salon. But though the hdies (10 not walk or talk with the men, they know that they are the observed of all observers, and that none of their beauty is wasted on the tiesert air. Nor are they afraid to look at the men in returnfor Spanish girls have none of the bashful timidity and coy hesitation which distinguish French and German, and most Enohish oirls 0 Rather do they resemble American girls in their frank natural gaze and uncon straine(l bearing a trait which has the same cause in both countriesthe polite an(l chivalrous treatment of the women by the men. American women, on first arriving in Spain, may feel inchinedl to (loubt this, because the men stare at them so unblushingly on the street and in public vehicles. But it must be re- menmbere(l that in Spain it is not consid eredl rudle to stare at a woman. On the contrary, it is taken by the women as a compliment, and a just tribute to their beauty. And, within limits, there is something to be saidi for this view. The Spanish women, half a century ago, ap- l)earedl even in their promenades in low diress, audi Th(ophile Gautier wrote tbat at first he had some dhifhculty in accus- tomimig himself to seeing women, d~ co/laKes as at a ball, with 1)are aims, satin shoes on their feet., flowers in the hair, amid a fan iii hand, promenadling without an escort in a public place. If we may believe Augustus Hare, the Sevillanas appearedi in low diress in tIme alameda as late as twenty years ago but to-(la these shapely arms and grace- fully curvedi neck tui(l shoulders are no longer to be seen out - doors, and the mortality from l)mmeumlionia has doubt- less diecreasedi considerably among the women since the fashion changed. From Toe Spanrab Maiden, by Soon. THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. 91 With few exceptions the Madrilefias are neatly and tastefully dressed, so far as this is possible with the Parisian dresses which have almost entirely taken the place of the picturescue na- tional costumes, except among the peas- ants. Unless a reaction sets iu it will soon be difficult to (listinguisli a Span- ish from a French lady by her dress. But it seemed to me as if a reaction had already set in at Madrid. I had read in several books that French hats and bonnets were worn by most of the Madrilefias, and that the mantilla was rapidly disappearing; but I found that, although the fashionable women in the carriages all wore hats, of those in the promenade the niaj ority wore mantillas, while about ten in a hundred went bare- headed. How any one can frequent the Prado of Madrid and say that feminine beau- tv is rare in that city, as some have done, iS to me a mystery which can only be solved by supposing that in the eyes of those who passed this judgment the i(leal of feminine beauty is a tall, state- ly blonde. With such an ideal a man must necessarily be disappointed in Ma- (iridi, where tall blondes are as rare as l)runettes are in Sweden. The wom- en of Madrid are in most cases petite or medium - sized brunettes, and those that specially attract the attention have plump, symmetrical figures, full busts, small hands an(i feet, and a complex- ion sometimes dark, sometimes as lioht 0 as a l)lon(les but blue or gray eyes anti gol(len hair are far to seek. True, Tln3ophile Gautier remarks, in his chap- ter on Madri(l, that you cannot walk down the Prado twice without meeting seven or eight blondes of all shades, to glaring red cc rocx 1)a7bc (IC (Jhcrlc.s Qciut. It is a mistake to suppose that there are ito blondes in Spain. Blue eyes abound there, but they are not so much admired as black eyes. This was fifty years ago, aiid the fact that I saw very few blue eyes and blondes in Ma- A Peasant Girl of Maragata. 92 THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. drid seemed to me a striking confir- mation of the theory which I have en- deavored to establish in mx work on Romantic Love and Personal Beauty, that in every country the blondes have diminished and the brunettes gained in numbers during the last few gener- ations. The circumstance noted by Gautier, that blue eves are less prized in Spain than black eyes, helps to ex- plain this. To gain further light on this subject, I spent several hours in the magnificent galleries of Madrid, Seville, etc., study- ing the heads of female portraits and fancy paintings. In the canvases of Velasquez the hair, like the eyes, is generally dark, but in the portraits of royal personages occasionally light, and even flaxen, which may be accounted for, however, by the fact that female royalty is very apt to be an imported article. Female portraits are remarka- bly rare in Spanish galleries, owing, per- haps, to the jealousy of husbands, and one has to content himself, therefore, with Madonnas and other fancy types. An examination of the Murillos might lead to the inference that two or three centuries ago blondes were the typical women of Spain, for the hair of his Madonnas (as of his angels) is generally yellowish, or brown with a yellowish streak, and rarely black; although the Jewish nationality of the Virgin sug- gests a special reason why realistic art should have given her raven locks. But this inference would go too far, inas -rem rerun Ivs Immaculate Conception in the Louvre. THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. 93 much as there are other ways of ac- counting for Murillos predilection for golden hair. It was one of the rules of his predecessor, Pacheco, that the Vir- gin should have light hair, and perhaps Murillo found the golden hue more fas- cinating to paint. Moreover, it is pos- sible that the Italian fashion, which in those days favored blond hair, may have extended to Spain, and influenced Murillo. The Madrid gallery is full of master-works by Titian, Tintoretto, Ye- ronese, Guido Reni, and other Italians, in all of which the hair of the women is blond, although their eyes are black, while the men have black hair as well as eyes. Now we all know how extreme- ly rare is the combination of black eyes with yellow hair. Black-haired women very often have the eyes of blondes gray, violet, or bluebut black-eyed women are almost always brunette in hair and complexion too. Hence we may suspect that the Italian women of that period dyed their hair; a suspicion which is confirmed by historic informa- tion. Taking all these facts into con- sideration, we can see that Murillos Ma- donnas do not throw any light on the relative number of blondes and bru- nettes in his day. But they are interest- ing in a hundred other ways. Though a realist in his sketches of contempo- rary life, Murillo was not a realist in the historic sense, and there is no more of the typical Jewish nose in his Virgins than of the Jewish hair, and of the Oriental eye only so mQch as has found its way into that most glorious product of natures workmanship, the Andalu- sian eye. These Madounas are simply faithful portraits of young Andalusian girls of his time, and it is astonishing to see how little the type has changed in almost three centuries, for to-day you can see these self - same girls walking about in Seville and other Andalusian cities, and even as far east as Murcia. Spain has lost the finest of the Murillos, and the hundred and twenty thousand dollars of French money she received in return seems but a poor compensation for it. The Immaculate Conception in the Louvre is the most perfect Madonna ever put on canvas, not only on account of the general arrangement of the pict- ure and the marvellous beauty of the VOL. VIJ.9 features, but because of the natural, un- affected expression, so different from the simpering, pathologic facial contor- sions of many Italian Madonnas, which seem like portraits of hysterical nuns. Although Murillo makes no special concessions to the Semitic type in his Virgins, a trained eye can find plentiful evidence that there are some drops of Jewish blood in the interuational com- pound of Spanish beauty. This is more obvious in some cities than in others, and especially so in Toledo, which har- bored a large number of Israelites be- fore the time of their expulsion from Spain. As a German writer with a French name, G. von Beaulien, remarks: To-day we still find, in the narrow faces, the dark, almond - shaped eyes, and the clear - cut, almost contiguous eyebrows, traces of Arabic and Semitic blood. Few of the Jews, however, have ever returued from their exile, and to find their descendants one has to go to Morocco, where Jewesses may be seen of such rare beauty that one cannot but congratulate the Spanish women of to- day that some drops of Semitic blood were contributed to their veins by the ancestors of these African Jews, who still preserve the Spanish language and Spanish usages. Cordova generally follows Toledo on the tourists programme, and here he enters Andalusia, that wonderfully in- teresting province which includes five cities so widely known yet so diverse as Cordova, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and Granada, and famed more than any other part of Spain for the grace, beauty, and vivacity of its women. When I said, in a preceding page, that the alameda, in the evening, was the only place where one could get a good view of the women of Spain, I should have added, excepting on holidays or fairs. On these occasions the peasants and other payesas, or coun- try - folks, flock into the cities by the thousand, and mingle with the burghers in the streets at all hours till long after midnight. I happened to be in Cordova on a holiday, but among the numbers that crowded the streets and the brill- iantly illuminated alameda in the even- ing I saw far fewer beauties than in simi- lar crowds at Madrid. The average face had features less regular, an expression 94 THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. less bright and quick, than in the capi- tal. Evidently I had not yet reached the head-quarters of Andalusian beauty, and the city which, during the darkest periods of European barbarism, was the Athens of the West, the seat of arts and science, had obviously degenerated. Still, there were many faces and figures that arrested the admiring attention; but I was disgusted to notice the en- croachments of the French hat on the mantilla. The women in the two- and four-horse carriages of course wore hats, and of those in the promenade a much larger proportion than in Madrid; so that, if there really was a reaction against French hats at the capital, as I fancied, it had not yet reached Cordova, noras I discovered laterthe other cities of Andalusia. Now, if there is one a~sthetic opinion that I would defend with my last drop of ink, it is that the Spanish mantilla is infinitely more becoming to all women, and especially to brunettes, than the French hat or bonnet. Nor have I ever met a man who did not cordially agree with me on this subject. I have spoken with Spaniards of all classes, who regretted the disappearance of the mantilla; and of all the English, French, Italian, and German books on Spain that I have read, there is not one which does not go into raptures over the effects of the mantilla, and lament its displacement by the hideous, unbe- coming Parisian hats. There is little space for quotation in a magazine article, but I cannot refrain from citing two or three corroborative sentences. Mr. J. S. Campion, in his On Foot in Spain, speaks of the man- tilla as a fashion giving even to the plainest a certain air of refinement; and of the bonnet - wearing belles at Saragossa he says that their appear- ance is not, as they fondly fancy, im- proved by their Paris coiffure quite the contrary. Among the elegant head- dresses of lace veils and mantillas, the bonnets, though as pretty ones as the centre of French taste ever sent forth, look flaunting, vulgar, almost barbar- ous. But as French testimony against French fashions is no doubt more valu- able than that of an Englishman, let us hear what two competent French judges have to say. M. Germond de Lavigne, who wrote the valuable Hachette guide to Spain, and who is a member of the Acad6mie Espagnole, exclaims: As for the mantilla, may it please heaven to make its reign eternal, and that it may come out victorious in this war of bad taste and ridicule audace which is waged against it by French fashion, and the hat trimmed with ribbons and feathers. And how Th~ophile Gautiers artistic sensibilities were wounded by being pursued, even in Spain, by the products of Parisian civilization, which, like Rousseau, he detested with all his soul, is indicated by several passages in his book. The Spanish coiffure, he ex- claims in one place, is the most charm- ing that could be imagined. With a mantilla a woman must be ugly as the three vertus th~ologales not to seem pretty. And when he arrived at Gi- braltar, after tarrying in Andalusia for several months, he broke out into the following tirade: For a long time I had not seen on the heads of wom- en these horrible galettes, these odious paste-board caps, covered over with a piece of cloth, which go by the name of hat, and within which the beautiful sex shroud themselves in these so - called civilized countries. I cannot describe the disagreeable sensation I felt at sight of the first Englishwoman I met, a hat with a green veil on her head, marching along like a grenadier, on her large feet shod in big boots. Not that she was uglyon the contrary; but I had be- come accustomed to the purity of race, the delicacy of the Arab horse, the ex- quisite grace of gait, the Andalusian del- icacy and grace, and this rectangular figure, with its regard & am~, lifeless physiognomy, angular gestures, with her prim and precise bearing, her flavor of cant, and the absence of all naturalness, produced on me a comically disagree- able impression. The essence of Andalusian feminine charms could not be better described, positively and negatively, than in this sentence. Heaven knows, the stiff, clumsy hat looks ungraceful enough on the head of our women, who are used to be thus caged; but on the dark Anda- lusian head, hitherto entirely free, or but lightly covered by a silk veil, it seems like a saddle or harness thrown THE BEAUTY OP SPANISH WOMEN. 95 over a wild colt of the pampas. Fortu- nately, there are still some national fes- tive occasions when all Spanish women wear the mantilla, so that there is hope that the opportunity for comparison may aid the survival of the fittest head- dress. In Spanish cathedrals, too, none but foreigners ever wear a hat, and at the bull-fights the audience does not al- low anything but mantillasa custom which almost reconciles one to this bar- barous sport; and which makes one wish that our audiences would follow the example. Why should not American women wear mantillas at the theatre, and thus end the reign of the odious and im- pertinent big hat? The peculiar value of the mantilla lies in this, that it can be adapted to the style of each individual face, like the hair itself; indeed, it may be looked upon as an addition to the hair; and everyone knows how much a fine crop of hair adds to a womans beauty and apparent youth. Even if the Parisian hats did not de- tract so much from ~he beauty of the women of Cordova, it would be hardly worth while to spend much time in studying the Andalusian type of beauty in this city, whose million inhabitants (in the days of Mohammedan rule) have dwindled down to 48,000, when Seville, with its 135,000 typical Andalusians, is only five hours distant by rail. Oddly enough, in Seville, so renowned for the charms of its majas, cigareras, and other classes of girls, a tourist unacquainted with the habits of Spanish women might walk about for days and only see a few hundred. For Seville is the warmest city in Spain, and more than elsewhere the women love the cool seclusion of their rooms, where they can lounge in deshabille, gossip, read, sing, and eat sweetmeats at their ease. Moreover, they have a slice ~f nature with the blue sky and plenty of fresh air right in the centre of their houses, in their patios adori~ed with flowers, statuary, and foun- tains, so that they do not feel tempted to go out except for the social five-oclock promenade in the alameda. A glance at this promenade suffices to show that no reaction in favor of the mantilla has yet reached Seville. Still there are not a few who cling to that becoming gar- ment, and it is they who chiefly attract the admiring gaze of strangersto which, by the way, they are by no means indif- ferent. Indeed it is amusing to observe how quick Spanish girls are in noticing that they are observed. The eyes of these Andalusians, in which Oriental sensuous- ness is blended with European refine- ment, are the chief glory of Spain, and fortunately as abundant as blackberries in Oregon. Even young men and boys here often have eyes that would be the pride and the fortune of belles in other countries, and Murillo surely did not have to seek five minutes for the models of his lovely beggar-boys. Blue eyes, southern skies and oceans, and northern glacier centres, are deep and fascinating, but not so mysterious and unfathomable as these dark eyes behind the long, black- fringed curtain of their amorous lashes. No wonder the Spaniards care naught for blue eyes, though they have the ad- vantage of rarity and novelty; for no blue eye can ever rival the color of the Spanish sky or the Mediterranean, but what is there in nature to match the black eyes of Seville? Hazel, horse- chestnut, ebony, even the lustrous coal- black stem of maidenhair fernhow dull and lifeless they all seem in compari- son! One may tire of the eternal blue sky and the unshaded ocean, and long for a few clouds; but never of the An- dalusian eyes; they are never monoto- nous; they have their passing clouds, their storms, and heaveuly frowns. Gautier, indeed, seems to object that they are not sufficiently discriminating; that they smile on all and everything alike: An Andalusian girl will fix her passionate eyes on a passing cart, a dog that runs round after its tail, children who play bull-fight. The eyes of north- ern people are dull and empty by the side of these; the sun has never left its reflection in them. But I am con- vinced that when this girl turns her eyes on her favored caballero, they are still more passionate and intense, and that this explains all the incredible stories of Spanish jealousy and dagger episodes. Every nation seems to have a special ~esthetic mission. England stands in the front line in literary and poetic de- velopment. Italy has achieved the high- est in painting, and Germany in music. The mission of Spain has been to evolve 96 THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. the most perfect type of personal beauty and grace, the petite brunette, and to transmit to Europe what is best in Ori- ental and African physiognomy, espe- cially the large black eyes and the long dark lashes, and arched black brows, without which no eyes, whatever their color, can be perfect. But the eyes are by no means the only features in which Andalusian brunettes are pre-eminent. In symmetry of figure they have no rivals in Spain or out of Spain. The complexion, though sometimes too dark and swarthy, is in most cases remark- ably free from blemish, and the dark hair is luxuriant, long, and always neatly done up. In the market-place of Seville you will wonder at the long rows of flower-stands, mostly with red pinks and roses, the favorite Spanish flowers. Most of the girls wear one of these flowers in the hair; and a red pink or rose in the dark tresses of an Andalu- sian maiden is more beautiful than a cluster of rubies or diamonds. This simple device enhances the beauty of a girl more than the artifices of a dozen French milliners, and I have often won- dered why the women of other coun- tries so rarely follow this example. But it is with the art of personal adornment as with all other artssimplicity of style is the test of perfection, and the most difficult to acquire. The part of the Andalusian face which is least apt to be perfect is the nose, which often has a pronounced convex curvature of the bridge, so that in this feature the average Sevillana is inferior to the Madrilelia and Valenciana. This, however, is only one type of the Sevil- lana; others have straight noses, while snub noses appear to be rare here as in other parts of Spain. It is true of Spain, as of every other country in Europe, that the lower part of the face is less apt to be good than the upper. Among the lowcr classes in Andalusia the chin is very apt to be fat and clum- sy and the mouth large and vulgar, this being the unfavorable aspect of the ~sthetic bequest from Africa. In the upper classes the mouth is smaller and more refined, and the lips less African. Their teeth, irreproachable as their eyes and hair, are as dainty as a mouses, their foreheads more apt to be too low than too high; but the forehead is of secondary importance in the estimation of personal beauty, because its short- coming can be so easily remedied by the arrangement of the hair and man- tilla. As regards her stature and mould, the Andalusian girl is almost invariably a petite brunette, and although not all are plump, and many are too stout, the majority have exquisitely symmetrical tapering limbs, well - developed busts (flat-chested women are almost unknown in Spain), and the most dainty and re- fined hands and feet. Regarding these feet Gautier makes the most astound- ing assertion, that without any poetic exaggeration it would be easy here in Seville to find women whose feet an in- fant might hold in its hands. A French girl of seven or eight could not wear the shoes of an Andalusian of twenty. I am glad to attest that, if the feet of Sevillian women really were so mon- strously small fifty years ago, they are so no longer. It is discouraging to see a man like Gautier fall into the vul- gar error of fancying that, because a small foot is a thing of beauty, therefore the smaller the foot the more beautiful it must be. Beauty of feet, hands, and waists is a matter of proportion, not of absolute size, and too small feet, hands, and waists are not beautiful, but ugly. We might as well argue that since a mans foot ought to be larger than a womans, therefore the larger his foot the more he has of manly beauty. If Andalusian women really had feet so small that a baby might hold them in its hands, they would not be able to walk at all, or, at least, not gracefully. But it is precisely their graceful gait and carriage for which they are most famed and admired. All Spanish women are graceful as compared with the wom- en of other nations, but among them all the Andalusians are pre-eminent in the poetry of motion, and this is prob- ably the reason that, although regular facial beauty is perhaps commoner in Madrid than in Seville, I found that you cannot pay a greater compliment to a girl in northern Spain than by asking her if she is an Andalusian. It would be useless to seek among land- animals for a gait comparable to that of THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. 97 the women of Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and Granada and when von compare it to the motion of a swan on the water, a fish in the water, a bird in the air, it is the birds and the fishes thot mnst feel eoinphmented. There is an easy, elastic nioveinent of the neck, trunk, and limbs, with nO more sense of con scions effort than in the drooping branches of a weeping-willow swaying ai)ont in the wind. In these two things, the avoi(lancc of angularity and jerki 11C55, and the absence of COnSCiOUS pose 111(1 effort, lies the essence of grace, and it is noteworthy that all classes in Spain have their share of it, even the I)casallts. Lest I be accused of exaggeration, let me cite tile testimony of Mr. Campion, who, in speaking of a imeasailts (lance at Saragossa, says: Yalses, 1molkas, ma- A Peasant Girl of Tarrapona. 98 THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. zurkas, were danced with an agility, grace, and precision far superior to any- thing of the kind I have seeil in France. Indeed, the worst dancing of these coni- mon peasants was better than the best English ball - room performances. One of the sights of Seville which no tourist misses is the cigar factory, in which the Govern- ment employs about five thousand wom- en and girls. The showing about of visitors is accord- ingly looked upon as a regular source of income by the porter and the mat- rons. After getting permission to enter, you are placed in charge of a matron who shows you through her own depart- ment, and then passes you on to another, and so on, until your stock of pesetas and half-pesetas put aside for fees is ex- hausted. These matrons accompany the visitors, not in order to prevent the girls from flirting with them (nothing could do that), but to see that no tobacco or bundles of cigarettes may disappear. Before entering each room a bell is rung to warn the girls, who are in great d~s- habill~ on account of the heat, to put on their wrappers, and as the door opens scores of round arms and pretty shoul- ders are seen disappearing, while sev- eral hundred pairs of coal - black eyes are fastened on you. The passages are lined with cradles, and the poor young girl-mothers to whom they belong mi- plore us with eyes and hands for a penny for the iVIurillos of the future lying in them. These girls are more frank than subtle in their flirtations. There is not one in the crowd who will not be imme- diately conscious of a mans gaze fixed on her, nor will she be the first to turn her eyes away. Some will wink, and even throw a kiss from a distant corner at the rich Inglese (all foreigners are supposed to be wealthy Englishmen). They are a merry lot, on the whole, these poor girls, the cleverest of whom make only two pesetas, or forty cents a day, for which they have to toil twelve or fourteen hours in a tobacco-reeking atmosphere. Not that they object to the tobacco at all. They are allowed to smoke if they wish, and many make use of this privilege. They are remarkably deft at rolling the cigarettes, but not all seem eager to make as many as possi- ble; for some are idling, and others are asleep; but no one cares, as each is paid according to the number she rolls. Cadiz, like Seville, has a cigar factory, which harbors about two thousand wom- en. But as it is not mentioned in the guide-books as one of the sights, it is rarely visited, and the porter and ma- trons have not yet taken to exploiting tourists. The lot of these girls is hap- pier than that of the Sevilhian (Jarm ens, for their factory is built right by the bay, so that they have a fresh sea-breeze all day long through the open windows. Possibly the superior hygienic condi- tions of Cadiz are responsible for the fact that the average of beauty seemed higher here, and there were certainly fewer of those hideous old crones and vulgar-mouthed young women who low- ered the average in the Seville factory. Among the most striking beauties was one of the matrons, over forty years of age a proof that not all Spanish work- ing women lose their charms with the first bloom of youth. The Malaguehias, like the Gaditanas, seemed to me somewhat less petite and. coquettish than the Sevillanas, and to approach in regularity of physiognomy somewhat nearer to the Madrilefias, though with a few more drops of Afri- can blood in their veins. Here I found n~yself thoroughly of a mind with Gan- tier when he wrote that lie saw admir- able heads, superb types of which the painters of the Spanish school have not sufficiently availed themselves, and which would yield to a talented artist a series of valuable and entirely new studies. I may add in this connection that it is extraordinarily difficult in Spain to get satisfactory typical portraits or photo- graphs of the abundant beauties. Even in Laurents famous photographs, which are otherwise so good, attention appears to have been rarely paid to the faces, From A Spanish Marriage, by Fortuny. THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. 99 the costumes alone being considered. In these respects Italian women have been much more fortunate. Owing to its world-wide commercial relations, and its fame as a winter re- sort, Malaga has a large foreign popula- tion, many of whom have intermarried with natives. One evening I was sitting on a bench in the alameda, wondering whether these foreigners exerted any perceptible influence on the manners and customs of the Spaniards, when an incident occurred which seemed to an- swer the question in the affirmative. Two young ladies, evidently of good family and breeding, were walking along, when an officer met them, bowed politely, faced about, and joined them. His offi- cious gallantry toward both indicated that he was not a relative, and for a mere acquaintance or friend to join ladies in the alameda is entirely contrary to Span- ish etiquette. The next day my suspi- cions regarding foreign influences were confirmed by the story of an American merchant whom I met at a club. He said he had lived in Malaga more than twenty years, and had married a Span- ish girl. Spanish methods of courtship, however, did not meet his approval, and so he made up his mind to do his love- making in his own fashion. Accordingly he intimated to the parents, whom he knew to be favorably disposed toward him, that he had no desire to spend his evenings eating iron, but wished to woo the maiden in the American style. The parents, who had travelled and seen the New World, agreed to his request, and allowed him to meet their daughter in the parlor, unchaperoned. Tourists who get their information out of old books will tell you that the Spanish lover courts his girl by planting himself under her window and serenading her with voice and guitar or mandolin. This was true a century ago; but even in Wash- ington Irvings day it was a rare sight, as he tells us, and to - day you would have to go to regions very remote from railways to see it. And it seems as if even the Orientalish custom of eating the iron, with its insulting insinuations against masculine honor and feminine discretion, were fast becoming obsolete; for although I spent many hours in the evening walking about the streets in search of such scenes, I came across only one. It was at Cordova, and the young lady was sitting on a chair in her iron cage, engaged in languorous conversa- tion with her adorer outside. The opinion prevails that Spanish girls are as restricted in their opportu- nities for meeting young men, and as little considered in the choice of a hus- band, as French girls; but this belief is utterly erroneous. In Spain, it is true, young girls of the best families are not allowed to go across the street with- out a chaperon, nor do they walk with the men in the alameda; but in other respects they have almost as many op- portunities to meet the men as German and English girls. Instead of being de- liberately secluded from the masculine eyes, as in France, they are placed on daily exhibition, as it were, in the ala- meda. In the evening a young man, if a relative, or if he has been once invited by a family, may meet all its members at the tertalia, or reception in the patio, and while the elders discourse politics or play cards, the young folks talk and flirt and sing and dance ad libiturn. Should he be a total stranger he may even thus seek to win her favor by eat- ing the iron. He has perhaps repeat- edly seen her on the alameda, and her eyes may have told him that she cer- tainly does not abhor him. So he fol- lows at a respectful distance, notes where she lives, and in the evening seeks a stolen interview at the barred window. If he finds her agreeable he calls again, and after he has been there half a dozen From a painting by Worms. 100 THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. times he becomes known as a novio, which is something half-way between an admirer and an accepted lover. A girl may have as many novios as she chooses to encourage, and if one of them tires of her he simply stays away, and no harm is done nor breach-of-promise suit in- stituted. There is no formal and public engagement, as in some European coun- tries, but after the young man has come to an understanding with the parents he is permitted to see her inside of the iron bars. The Spaniards are a conservative nation, and their iron bars have been ex- ported to their American colonies, where the young lovers likewise are compelled to play the bear before them before being admitted into the house. But ul- timately these bars will rust away, and the tertulia become more and more ac- cessible as a preamble to courtship. The modern Spanish novelists are gradually enlightening their countrymen regard- ing the march of civilization and the manners and customs of other countries, and in due time, without doubt, the American method of courtship will come into vogue in Spain, as it is now grad- ually gaining ground in England and Germany. At Granada I was struck by seeing a larger number of blue and gray eyes than in other Andalusian cities, though this may have been accidental; for, on the other hand, it seemed as if there were an extra drop of African blood in the veins, darkening the complexion and intensifying the mysterious lustre of the large black eyes. History repeats itself in Granada, for, just as this city was the last stronghold of the Moors, four cen- turies ago, so to-day it has become the head-quarters of another vanishing race, the Spanish gypsies, whose number is now estimated at forty thousand. It is probable that, as the best authority on the subject, George Borrow, sug- gests, there is a sprinkling of gypsy blood in Andalusian veins; and if he is rioht in holding that the race of the Romany is perhaps the most beautiful in the world, it would be an unpardon- able oversight to omit reference to the Gitanas in an essay on Spanish wom- en. The Granadan gypsies dwell, like animals, in caves dug into the hill-side opposite the Alhambra. It is a street where all are beggars, and the visitor soon finds himself surrounded by a mob of men, women, and children, all howling for coppers, and crowding him imper- tinently with uplifted palms. Their clothes are filthy rags, and the first man who accosted me had on nothing but a pair of trousers. The young women are plump, petite, and cast in symmetri- cal moulds, and if they wore the mantilla (which they never do) it would be diffi- cult in some cases to distinguish them from Andalusians. Those that I saw agreed with the generalization in which Borrow summed up his wide experience, that their forms, their features, the ex- pression of their countenances are ever wild and sibylline, frequently beautiful, but never vulgar ; for even the ugliest had cbaracteristic lines and gestures which made them interesting. One girl of sixteen, noticing that I was study- ing her face with an admiring glance, immediately saw her opportunity, and based her claims for a copper on the fact that she was so pretty. She had regular features, but her nose and lips were a trifle too thick. Her eyeball, mirroring a smile in its dark - brown iris, was beautiful, but the upper lid was somewhat irregularly shaped, and nei- ther the brows nor the lashes so long and graceful as the Andalusian. Yet she was the prettiest of the group, with the exception of one sitting in front of a cave and having her hair done up by her mother. This one was of striking beauty, but the majority were plain, and the oldest ones positively hideous. I had a notion that all gypsies were black-eyed, but several of those ~n the Albaicin had gray eyes. They are of medium size, and have none of the Ori- ental features of the Andalusian eye, and the expression, too, is utterly dif- ferent. Of the generality of gypsy eyes I should say that their chief pe- culiarity was the absence of a definite expression, possibly owing to an im- perfect mobility of the upper lid, or to the fact that the pupil seems not clearly defined, causing a vacant gaze like that of a cat, which never seems to look di- rectly at you but to squint, as it were. Borrow describes it as a strange star- ing expression, which to be understood THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH WOMEN. 101 must be seen, and a thin glaze, which steals over it when in repose, and seems to emit phosphoric light. Catalonia, the last Spanish province b3fore reaching French soil, is already half-French in the aspect of the cities as well as the inhabitants. The Cat- alonians are a solemn, industrial peo- ple, with little of the animation and ar- tistic impulses of the Andalusians. In regard to the beauty of the women the doctors once more disagree; for while one pronounces them superbly beautiful, another denies them both the classic beauty of the Yalencian pro- file and the poetic gracAf the Audalu- sian. The truth, as usual, lies midway, and may be most pregnantly expressed by saying that if you come to Barcelona directly from France you will find the women more beautiful than you will if you come via Granada and Valencia. Contrast and comparison have much to do with our general estimate of beauty; and when I left Spain, and spent a few days in Marseilles and Geneva, I could not see any beauty or grace at all in French and Swiss women, though under other circumstances I would, perhaps, have been less fastidious. Yet, although I came to Catalonia direct from Valen- cia, I noted many striking beauties, not only in Barcelona but also in the coun- try districts, especially during an excur- sion to Montserrat. Among the pilgrims to that elevated shrine were some of the handsomest and loveliest country-girls it had ever been my good luck to see; girls with sparkling black eyes, rosy cheeks, regular noses and mouths, and superb figures the very embodiment of exuberant health. What was, perhaps, most noticeable in these country - girls was their clear soft skin and delicate complexion. Yet these were by no means exceptional, for I had found that almost all Spanish women, except those who still persist in the nasty and suicidal use of paint and powder, had charming complexions. No- where in the world is there so much sunshine and so little shade as in tree- less Spain, where you will constantly see crowds of country-women standing in the broiling sun without any head- dress, fan, or parasol to shade them; yet in no country will you find the women so free from freckles and other skin blemishes. This affords most con- vincing proof of the theory, which I have elsewhere advocated, that the sun is not the cause of freckles, but is in reality a beautifier of the skin, which needs it as much for its healthy action and proper coloring as does a plant. And lest it be supposed that my faculties of observa- tion were obscured by a preconceived theory, let me quote the remarks of Mr. Campion, who on his foot-tour through Spain had the best of opportunities for observation, and who had no theory: The personal appearance of the females of the peasantry is a daily source of as- tonishment to me. They are continu- ally exposed to the weather, wear noth- ing to protect their faces, their head- dress is but a parti - colored kerchief, bound round their back hair; yet the majority of them have really beautiful complexions, not swarthy, not rough, but fair and quite delicate, with a rosy tinge and very smooth skin. The Spanish complexion, in a word, is almost as sure to be fine as are Span- ish eyes and teeth and hair. If I were asked to state in one sentence where- in lies the chief advantage of Spanish women over those of other countries, and to what they chiefly owe their fame for beauty, I should say that if a Spanish girl has round cheeks, and a medium- sized, delicately cut nose and mouth, she is almost certain to be a complete beauty; whereas, if an American or English girl has a good nose, mouth, and cheeks, the chances are still against her having a beautiful complexion and fine eyes, hair, and teeth, which Span- ish girls ar~ always endowed with, as a matter of course. But over and above everything else, it is the unique grace and the exquisite femininity, unalloyed by any trace of masculine assumption or caricature, that constitute the eternal charm of Spanish women. VOL. VII.11 ELECTRICITY iN THE HOUSEHOLD. By A. E. Kenne/ly. iT would be strange, indeed, if so readily controlled an agent as elec.- tricity, an Arid before whom time and space seem to vanish, did not cross the threshold of our homes and enter into our household life. We find, in fact, that the adoption of electrical household appliances is daily becoming more wide- spread, here adding a utility, and there an ornament, until in the near future we may anticipate a period when its pres- ence in the homestead will be indispen- sable. The first application of electricity to household purposes was presented by the electric bell, early in the century, and annunciators of various kinds soon followed. For many years this was the only convenience it afforded, but the discoveries of the teleph~e, the elec- tric light, and the electric transmission of power within the last thirteen years, have given it a tremendous impetus whose ultimate consequences are not yet within view. Even if, as seems un- likely, these brilliant achievements are destined to stand alone, not succeeded by further discoveries, many years must elapse before their full use shall have been reached; just as in the case of the pianoforte, which took more than a hun- dred years from its first invention to be- come the common guest we find it in the household of to-day. In the electric bell, the pressure of the linger on a button brings two strips of metal into contact and com- pletes a circuit, forming as it were an electrical endless chain from the bat- tery through the wires, bell, and an- nunciator. lie whole circuit instantly gives passage to a current of electricity, and in consequence becomes endowed with magnetic properties throughout. By means of an accumulation of wire, as a coil round a horseshoe bar of iron, the magnetism is locally intensified to an extent necessary for the attraction of the iron hammer bar, and by a simple automatic device the blow on the bell is reduplicated. A similar electro-mag- net in the annunciator releases by its pull a shutter, indicating the room whence the call has come. No system can be imagined more simple, and in spite of many an overtasked battery or dust-invaded indicator, it everywhere holds its own. To put mechanical pull- bells into a modern dwelling, is an an- achronism. The same principle is the basis of every annunciator system, with such modifications as improvement in the particular direction of the design may have suggested. Even those complex- looking annunciators to be met with in large hotels, which by means of a dial in every chamber enable its inmate to call for almost any common requirement, from a newspaper to a complicated beverage, differ from the general plan only in their power to signify a particu- lar summons by the aid of a definite number of successive contacts and cor- responding electro-mechanical impulses. A good example is afforded by the burg- lar alarm apparatus. Every door and window through which entrance could be forced is fitted with a simple clip, ad- justed to make, on the least opening, a metallic contact which sets an alam~ An Electrical Call.

ELECTRICITY iN THE HOUSEHOLD. By A. E. Kenne/ly. iT would be strange, indeed, if so readily controlled an agent as elec.- tricity, an Arid before whom time and space seem to vanish, did not cross the threshold of our homes and enter into our household life. We find, in fact, that the adoption of electrical household appliances is daily becoming more wide- spread, here adding a utility, and there an ornament, until in the near future we may anticipate a period when its pres- ence in the homestead will be indispen- sable. The first application of electricity to household purposes was presented by the electric bell, early in the century, and annunciators of various kinds soon followed. For many years this was the only convenience it afforded, but the discoveries of the teleph~e, the elec- tric light, and the electric transmission of power within the last thirteen years, have given it a tremendous impetus whose ultimate consequences are not yet within view. Even if, as seems un- likely, these brilliant achievements are destined to stand alone, not succeeded by further discoveries, many years must elapse before their full use shall have been reached; just as in the case of the pianoforte, which took more than a hun- dred years from its first invention to be- come the common guest we find it in the household of to-day. In the electric bell, the pressure of the linger on a button brings two strips of metal into contact and com- pletes a circuit, forming as it were an electrical endless chain from the bat- tery through the wires, bell, and an- nunciator. lie whole circuit instantly gives passage to a current of electricity, and in consequence becomes endowed with magnetic properties throughout. By means of an accumulation of wire, as a coil round a horseshoe bar of iron, the magnetism is locally intensified to an extent necessary for the attraction of the iron hammer bar, and by a simple automatic device the blow on the bell is reduplicated. A similar electro-mag- net in the annunciator releases by its pull a shutter, indicating the room whence the call has come. No system can be imagined more simple, and in spite of many an overtasked battery or dust-invaded indicator, it everywhere holds its own. To put mechanical pull- bells into a modern dwelling, is an an- achronism. The same principle is the basis of every annunciator system, with such modifications as improvement in the particular direction of the design may have suggested. Even those complex- looking annunciators to be met with in large hotels, which by means of a dial in every chamber enable its inmate to call for almost any common requirement, from a newspaper to a complicated beverage, differ from the general plan only in their power to signify a particu- lar summons by the aid of a definite number of successive contacts and cor- responding electro-mechanical impulses. A good example is afforded by the burg- lar alarm apparatus. Every door and window through which entrance could be forced is fitted with a simple clip, ad- justed to make, on the least opening, a metallic contact which sets an alam~ An Electrical Call. ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 103 bell in operation, and at the same time indicates the room where the invasion is being made. By means of a small key, or switch, the battery is cut off during the day. Such a system adds greatly to the security of a house- hold, and only needs occasional regular supervision, since all the contacts are necessarily somewhat exposed to dust and moisture. A trial once a week is a matter of a few minutes only, and is am- ply repaid by the greater sense of se- curity it gives. It has been said that a burglar would soon ascertain whether a house were so guarded, and that before opening a window he could, by remov- ing a pane, find means to cut the electri- cal wire connection at the sash. This ob- jection is, however, invalid, for the sys- tem can be easily arranged to give the alarm equally well for any disconnection so made. Another most useful system, on the same plan, controls the automatic regu- lation of temperature. How much dis- comfort and indisposition would be saved in many a household if the tem- perature were constantly maintained in every apartment at the desired point, both in sammer and winter, indepen- dent of irregularities of the season! So far as concerns our winters this is quite within practicable limits, while in sum- mer the temperature can always be mod- erated, if not actually kept uniform, by utilizing the controlling power of elec- tricity. Thus in winter time, whether a house be warmed by water, hot air, or steam, it is only necessary to place in each room an automatic thermometer which makes a contact as soon as the tempcrature reaches the desired point, and to arrange that the contact so made shall electro - magnetically cut off the supply of heat from that chamber. The subsequent cooling of the room below the limiting temperature causes the thermometer to break the circuit and readmit the heat, and it is only neces- sary to keep an abundant supply in re- serve in order to obtain a practically equable temperature. Such a thermom- eter, generally called a thermostat, is made by riveting side by side two strips of different materialsgenerally brass and rubberwhich expand differently at the same degree of heat. The compos ite strip so formed is warped by changes of temperature which unequally affect the lengths of the components; and be- ing free at one extremity while firmly fixed at the other, the effect of this warping is magnified into an apprecia- ble range of movement at the free end. This enables a contact to be made at any point within that range, while a screw adjustment and dial arrange for the contact to take place at any tempera- ture within desirable limits. The parlor thermostat can therefore be set at 700 while that in the hall is fixed for 600. It is generally claimed by those who have adopted the system that a decided saving in fuel is effected, in addition to the comfort gained through the abso- lute prevention of overheating in any part of the house. The thermostats are so sensitive as to respond to the change of a single degree in temperature. The maintenance of the equilibrium, then, depends on the supply of heat and the facility for its distribution through each room when once admitted. In the same way, during the summer months, this thermostat can, by an ad- ditional contact, control the supply of fresh or, if possible, ice-cooled air, so as to maintain a pleasant temperature within doors. Such a system has for two years been in successful operation at a large country house near Green- wich, Conn. In winter-time it is warm- ed by fresh air drawn in through an underground pipe, and heated by pass- ing through a reservoir in which a long steam-pipe circulates. Thence it is fanned into the different rooms through dampers, each controlled electro-mag- netically by a separate thermostat. In summer the water-supply of the house, as it comes from deep wells, takes the place of the steam in the circulating pipe of the reservoir, and so cools the incoming air; the same thermostats adjusting the distribution. In this way the temperature is maintained through- out the house at 70~ in winter, and does not exceed 750 in summer; while the ven- tilation is controlled by the same appar- atus. The fire-alarm system depends upon a similar thermostat set for higher tem- peratures, usually from 120~ to 160~. The contact in this case rings an alarm 104 ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. bell and indicates the room where there is danger. It is hardly possible to over- estimate the utility of a well arranged fire - alarm household - system, which makes it possible to extinguish a fire in its beginning. Statistics certainly show a marked decrease, by the use of elec- trical fire-alarm systems, upon the num- ber of serious fires in towns; but the conflagrations that have been saved by the timely local warning of domestic ap- paratus, report can never tell. In some town-houses fire is not the only rebellious element over which con- stant watch has to be maintained, water overflow from tanks and bursting pipes being almost as much to be dreaded. The Journal of the Fran/din Institute called attention, six months since, to an electrical device which is set in operation by a float, the contact so established cutting off the water - supply or indi- cating the danger as soon as a definite level is reached. An electric door-open- er has also been lately designed by which visitors can be admitted without delay. The closing of the door compresses a powerful spiral spring, which is then held in check by a lever until the lat- ter is released by an electro-magnetic impulse. The spring forces open the door, the latch at the same moment be- ing withdrawn. Of inferior importance to these sys- tems, which guard the safety of the household, but yet of great interest and utility, is the clock system. Apprecia- tion of time and its value is said to be the test of a nations activity; and it is surely a luxury to see all the clocks in a house keeping an even pace. There are several methods in use for this pur- pose, and they form two distinct classes, one adopting centralized government, the other local administration. In the former a single clock as standard drives all the others electro-magnetically, their operation depending entirely on the electricity supplied during its periodic contacts. In the latter, each clock is a free and independent timekeeper whose rate, however, is under regular electrical control from the standard. This con- trol may be exerted continuously on the pendulums, but perhaps the simplest and most satisfactory household system yet tried is that in which the control is effected once in each hour. Exactly at the hour the standard clock makes a contact completing a circuit through all the controlled timepieces, and electri- cally exciting a magnet in each. In obedience to this impulse, a pair of arms spring from the dial at the fig- ure XII, and meet swiftly in the centre with the minute hand tight in their embrace, and vanish the next instant behind the dial, where they await the next hourly summons. Each clock is thus mechanically corrected every hour, as the arms sweep over three minutes space on each side of the true vertical, and the clock that fails to keep time by three minutes in the hour may well be submitted to internal examination. Another convenience which is some- times added to a system of time regula- tion is an arrangement for electrically winding up the clocks at regular inter- vals. So long as the electrical supply is maintained, and the clockwork con- tinues in proper working order, such a system forms as near an approach to perpetual motion as the conditions of our planet give us the right to expect. The electric time-detector is an in- strument much used in large buildings over which continual supervision is needed. It serves to register the time at which visits are paid to any particu- lar part of the premises, and, in fact, successfully solves the problem of keep- ing watch upon the custodian. A dial, rotating by clock-work once in twelve hours, carries round a paper disk over a perforated metal plate. Each push but- ton in the house controls, by its own pair of wires, one electro-magnet, the arma- ture of which, on attraction, punches a hole in the paper disk through a particular aperture in the plate. This hole is always in a certain ring marked for the purpose. The watchman going round the building pushes the various buttons on his way, thus registering his progress on the paper disk by punched holes; the rings marking the buttons and the angular position indicating the time. The discovery and introduction of the electric telephone has marked an era in ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 105 the annals of household affairs, as the existeiice of four hundred thousand in the United States to-day amply attests. The economy of time its use has effected is incalculable. Its greatest fault is per- haps an occasional tendency to mingle the speech of one interlocutor with the couversatioii of less interested iieighl)ors. Within the limits of a residence, no bet- ter interior communication can generally be had than by the ordinary speaking tube ; but in connection with outbuild- mugs on aim estate, the telephone is a VOL. VII.12 oTeat a(lvaiitage. Wh en several such 0 houses are (onnecteti by telephone with the main building, it is possible to ar- range that any two can communicate with each other on the same wire with- out calling the attention of the rest, a sv stem saving much time and trouble. As many as eight telephones are some tunes worked in this way on the same wire, and although only two can employ the line at one time, the calling of any puticulam person is not heard by the others. Sewing Machine Run by Electricity the entire motor concealed in the wheel-cane at the ott, II A Conservatory Lighted with Incandescent Lamps. ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 107 S The Electrical Fan. Among the greatest gifts that elec- tricity has bestowed on domestic life, is the incandescent electric light. There can be little doubt that, when experience shall have given confidence in its trust- worthiness, while time shall have ren- derel its many excellences familiar, it will be adopted in all households. It neither consumes nor pollutes the air in which it shines, whereas the ordinary sixteen candle-po wer gas-burner vitiates the atmosphere with its products of combustion to the same extent as the respiration of five persons. Besides, those products ultimately injure books, paintings, and ceilings continually cx- posed to their influence. As the gas-jet develops some fifteen times as much heat as the electric lamp of equivalent power, the latter adds greatly to the comfort of a house in warm weather. In the nursery it is particularly wel- come, for it requires no matches, can- not set fire to anything, even if deliber- ately broken while lit, and effectually checks the youthful tendency to experi- ment with fire. In addition to this, its complete amenability to control, and submission to all change of position or equilibrium, render it everywhere admirably adapted to the purposes of adornment. Some of ~K~fr ~o\(2r The Edison Phonograph. ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 109 the most charming effects can be pro- duced by good taste in the choice of centres of illumination, together with appropriate surroundings. In the par- lor an illuminated painted vase, lighted from within, may vie in attractiveness with the pictures on the walls, whose colors are almost as readily appreciated by incandescent as by day light; while opalescent globes of varied shade tone the brightness everywhere into subdued harmony. In the billiard-room the table is brilliantly lit, without danger of soot or oil marring the baize, and on the ve- randa the lamps shine heedless of the wind. A very pretty effect can be also produced in conservatories, by suspend- ed lamps of different colors half-hidden in the foliage. The electric light can also be made to give a very beautiful effect in illuminat- ing garden fountains. For this purpose a chamber has to be excavated beneath them, and immediately under the jet a thi2k plate of glass is inserted, water- ticvht An arc-lamp directs its light di- rectly through this plate into the column of water rising vertically above it, and the enclosed air, together with the broken surfaces of the jet, scatters this light in all directions, thus giving the liquid the appearance of being sell-luminous. The color of the illumination is varied by means of tinted slides passed horizontal- ly beneath the glass plate in the roof of the vault. A very handsome display of this description was made at the Paris Exhibition this year. The steps in the development of an incandescent lamp during manufacture have been traced in the article on Electricity in Lighting, in the issue of this Magazine for August, 1889. When the completed lamp is placed in circuit, the carbon filament conducts electricity but only imperfectly, and the latter thus requires a certain pressure to force it through the lamp. The work done in overcoming the resistance so offered is developed into heat proportional to the square of the velocity of flow. The frictional opposition of a pipe to the passage of water it conveys, generates heat at greater rate than the square of the velocity; but these two cases of mo- tion present many analogies, although the pipe deals with the transmission of VoL. VII.13 matter itself, while the filament deals with the transmission of a condition of matter only. At a certain electrical pressure on the filament the right quantity of electric- ity flows through it to bring its tem- perature to the incandescent point of due candle power. At this pressure the lamp will last probably two thou- sand five hundred working hours. If our best microscopes had a magnify- ing power perhaps ten thousand times greater than that they now reach, and it were possible to subject the glow- ing filament to their examination, we might expect to find the ultimate parti- cles or molecules of carbon vibrating and colliding with an intensity that now baffles the imagination. We can fancy that at the surface of the filament an occasional molecule, projected outward with more than usual force, would bound beyond the range of retractive influence, and be hurled past recall (like the cel- ebrated projectile of M. Jules Verne) against the distant inner surface of the glass globe. Gradually the latter would be darkened by the thickening meteoric accumulation, while the filament would weaken, as its dwindling substance (en- during such tremendous internal com- motion) suffered structural decay, until at some point disruption would ensue, followed immediately by loss of conduc- tion and extinction of the light. The greater the electrical pressure brought to bear upon the lamp, the higher the incandescence attained. The lifetime of a lamp, endowed at the outset with average v.itality, thus depends en- tirely on its treatment, and can be made almost what we please, from a few mo- ments to even many years, according to the degree of incandescence it is called upon to produce. In fitting up a house with the electric light, a little consideration is required to obtain the greatest convenience. The switches by which the lamps are turned on and off should usually be placed just inside the door, where they can be reached on entering or leaving the apartment. In the bedrooms, howevei, they should be suspended from the ceil- ing in such a mauner as to be accessible on first entry, over a bracket by the door, and then movable to within easy 110 ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. reach of the bedside; or, better still, there may be two alternative switches one at the door and the other by the bedstead. One test of a well-designed installation is that the householder should be able to visit the entire build- ing, commencing with the hall door, from attic to cellar and back, without once being left in the dark, or leaving lamps burning on any floor behind him as he makes the journey. A good plan, that has been carried out in more than one instance, is to have a spare lamp in each room under sole and direct control of the burglar- and fire-alarm systems, in such a way that the forcing of any window, or any dangerous excess of tem- perature, may not only ring the alarm, but also light up the whole house. In many cases where electricity is not itself the illuminant, the electric spark is often adopted for the purpose of lighting the gas. In theatres, for exam- ple, a frictional electrical machine is em- ployed which, when rotated by hand, is connected in succession to the various wires leading to different jets or clus- ters, and the sparks, passing between two metallic points set close to the burner, ignite the gas. Similar arrange- ments on a smaller scale are in house- hold use. The pull on a pendant chain or the pressure on a button allows the current to pass from a battery through a small induction coil, the spark of which flashes at the burner. The most ingenious apparatus of all, however, is the hand gas-igniter, which, without any battery, pro~luces a spark between two points in its tip on the simple pressure of a button on its side. This compact instrument is, in fact, an electrical rotating influeuce machine (acting on similar principles to some of the most powerful generators of high- tension electricity), and it is difficult to realize that this safe and simple appa- ratus can produce sufficient electricity to light the gas, when the electrical pressure between the points at the mo- ment of emitting a spark must be many times greater than that exerted upon an incandescent lamp. Its operation de- pends upon the rotation of an internal cylinder which causes the initial charge to be augmented at a rapid and increas ing rate until the tension is sufficient to create a spark between the opposed points. The transmission of power is anoth- er application of electricity which has practically been evolved only within the last decade, and which is still in its in- fancy. Its usefulness in the household is second only to that of illumination. Ignorant as we still are of the real nat- ure of this marvellous agent, we know at least that electricity implies power; all the evidences by which we are rendered sensible of its presence are manifesta- tions of energy. The electric motor is the machine by which electrical power is rendered me- chanically available. Its principle is en- tirely magnetic; the pull that a wire con- veying an electric current is seen to exert upon a compass needle in its vicinity being here enormously intensified by having a large horseshoe electro-magnet for the compass needle, and many turns of wire close up within its grasp instead of the single conductor. The revolving cylinder of separated copper segments on which the brushes rest, called the commutator, is nothing more than an electric treadmill, by which the current is cut off each wire in turn as it reaches the point of most powerful atti~action, so that the current is always kept advanc- ing toward the magnetic pole, butnever reaches it [see p. 654, June, and p. 182, Aug., 1889. The qualifications which peculiarly fit the electric motor for household use are its compactness, perfect control, si- lence, and cleanliness. It is a wonder- fully compact piece of mechanism, for, in domestic sizes it weighs under one hundred pounds per horse-power, and its amenability to control is evident from the fact that the turning of a switch will stop or start it. One great secret of this compactness lies in the fact that the motion is rotary, and not oscillatory like that of a piston; hence the great speed it can attain, as also the absence of jar and noise in its work. A small motor may thus become an orna- ment, as well as a useful instrument. The illustration on page 105 shows aDiehl mo- tor attached to a sewing-machine spindle. In any house supplied with the electric ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 111 light it is only necessary to connect the motor with the electric mains, like a lamp, and turning the switch sets the machine at work, thereby saving the hundredth part of a horse-power, which is the usual amount of energy needed to drive it by treadle, not to mention the comfort gained and nerve - force con- served. As another example of use and orna- ment united, circular fans driven by motors are not uncommon, and are luxuries in hot weather, when even the exertion of waving a fan counteracts the comfort so produced [p. 107]. The electric motor is destined to enter largely into the operation of elevators in town-houses, all its good qualities being in this case shown to advantage. In dwellings supplied with the electric light it is only necessary to fix in posi- tion a motor fitted with the requisite gearing, and connect the same to the elevator with wire ropes, the power being taken direct from the electric mains. In this respect, also, electricity, as a power-distributor, contrasts favor- ably with other sources in the reach of modern engineering. For, if elevators were to be operated from a central sta- tion by hydraulic power supplied to each house through pipes, then an ele- vator in motion would take as much energy from the station when empty, as when fully occupied by passengers unless, indeed, complicated devices were introduced to avert this waste. The electric motor, on the contrary, would, if properly selected, only draw from the mains the proportional amount of power required for the load to which it was subjected, in addition to what little it expended in overcoming the friction of its own mechanism, and consequently, so far as the supply of power was con- cerned, would be much more economi- cal. Another suitable task for the electric motor in country-houses is pumping. Where water has to be elevated from wells or cisterns to the attic level for household distribution, art and science lend the means, while electricity supplies the power. By the use of the rotary pump, the plant, which may be placed in the cellar, can be made won- derfully compact and quiet in its per- formance. How vivid is the contrast between this simple apparatus and the blindfolded horse, that, for the same purpose, has so often been condemned to describe endless circles, with a long trail-beam as radius and a well as cen- tre. A float in the reservoir above breaks a contact as soon as the level of water there has reached the desired lim- it, and so automatically stops the motor until further supply is demanded. In the same way motors have been applied to lawn - mowers, to carpet - sweepers, to shoe-polishers; and, in fact, there is no household operation capa- ble of being mechanically performed, of which, through the motor, electricity cannot become the drudge and willing slave. It has even been applied to serv- ing at table. A miniature railroad track runs round the table within easy reach of each guest, and thence, by ornamented trestlework, to the wall, disappearing through a shutter. The dishes, as elec- trically signalled for by the hostess, are laid on little trucks fitted with tiny motors, and are started out from the pantry to the dinner-table. They stop automatically before each guest, who, after assisting himself, presses a button at his side and so gives the car the im- petus and right of way to his next neighbor. The whole journey having been performed, the cars return silently~ to their point of departure. The electric motor is also perhaps the most nearly perfect means known of ob- taining steady, smooth, and continuous mechanical motion, and largely, with this object in view, it has been introduced into the Edison phonograph, an instru- ment destined to play the very impor- tant parts of music preserver, recorder, and amanuensis in the household of the future. On the surface of its cylinder the delicate wavelets that the voice has impressed sometimes cannot exceed the fifteen-thousandth part of an inch, and on their due representation in vibrations of the air the reproduction of the stored- up sound has to depend. The electric motor enables all these to be repro- duced in a manner that would not be possible if there was any unsteadiness or tremor in the movement of the work- ing parts [p. 108]. The motor also supplies parlor organs S 112 ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. with air, and has been applied to auto- matic pianos. A bright prospect also opens for the application of electricity in country-houses, in the direction of ar- tificial horticulture. Among the condi- tions that differentiate vegetable and an- imal life there seems to be this remark- able fact, that plants do not essentially require sleep or periods of intermit- tence in growth and activity. This is evidenced by the continuous and rapid growth of plants in the far North during that brief but happy summer in which the sun never sets. The electric arc lamp has been found, by the late Sir William Siemens and others, to practi- cally replace the sun in its effects on plant life, over a somewhat contracted range, so that an extensive conservatory lit by powerful arc lamps would be effi- ciently supplied for night growth by some two candle-power per square foot of area. A hot-house in reality artifi- cially produces latitude in all respects save sunlight, which the electric light is ready, in part at least, to replace. Public attention has latterly been drawn to the question of electric heat- supply to houses, and it has been fre- quently supposed that the apparent nov- elty of the plan favored its commercial success. The fact is, however, that of all the practical applications of electric- ity, there are none whose limits and possibilities are more clearly defined and better understood than heat distri- bution, for the simple reason that it has been attentively studied for the last ten years. This is apparent from the fact that the problem and task of electric lighting is, primarily and essentially, electric heating. Almost all the energy supplied electrically for the purposes of illumination is dispensed in the form of heat, and this heat is expended with the maximum economy that the engineering of the day permits in maintaining our carbon filaments at incandescent tem- perature. Despite the high economy in the consumption of power that the electric lamp possesses in comparison with combustible sources of illumina- tion, it has lately been shown, by experi- ments at Cornell University, that only some five per cent. of this heat is yielded in rays of light, the remainder (at pies ent essential to securing this result) be~ ing spent in raising the temperature of the air and surrounding objects. Con- sequently, whatever improvements the art of electric lighting may effect in economizing this large heat expenditure, and raising it into visible radiance, sci- ence appears to have determined that a given supply of electrical power can only yield the same amount of heat that it now develops in passing through our lamps. One form of electric heater operating within narrow limits might bring a piece of metal to melting-point, while another only slightly raised the temperature of a large volume of water; still, the total quantity of heat developed in each for a given supply of electrical energy would be precisely the same. The only economy that can be looked for in the distribution of heat lies, therefore, in saving the waste incurred by forcing electricity through the mains, and this is a margin that modern engin- eering has already rendered compara- tively narrow. Heat being already distributed elec- trically on a large scale to houses for the operation of incandescent lamps, can be, and already has been, applied for heating purposes exclusively. The difficulty of carrying out this plan on a large scale, in order to replace house- hold stoves and furnaces, is a purely economical one. The question ulti- mately reached is, whether labor can be saved to a community if all the coal necessary for their heat-supply through the medium of electricity be burned in one central station, and the electrical power so obtained distributed gener- ally, instead of continuing the usual custom of burning the coal in each house locally. On the one hand, the lo- cal process of combustion is at present a wasteful, as well as a dirty one, most of the heat escaping by the chimneys; while, on the other hand, the steam-en- gine is necessary in the central station to convert the furnace heat into elec- tricity, and the best modern engines are only capable of utilizing ten per cent. of the heat developed from the combustion of coal under their boilers; so that, when the machinery and con- ducting system of n ius~re taken into account, the verdict (notwithstanding ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 113 household smoke and waste) has been hitherto against the economic possibil- ity of the electrical distribution of heat on a large scale. But every improve- ment effected in the machinery for the conversion of furnace heat into electric- ity, every advance made in the progress of electrical engineering, modifies in proportion the balance of advantages in this great social problem, and it is well within the reach of possibility that electric heating may be as successful at some future date as electric lighting it- self. Even now there are many occa- sions where heat is required to be ap- plied very locally, in culinary purposes, for instance, and where the cleanliness and convenience of the electrical method might outweigh the objection of slight extra expense. The advantage to a man whose duties call him out during the night, of being able, from his bedroom, to set an electric coffee-heater at work in his dining-room, so that by the time he is ready to leave the house he finds hot coffee awaiting him, and all without arousing any person in the house, far outweighs the three or four cents for electrical power that the beverage has probably cost him. Similarly, there are times when a foot-warmer is worth many times over the expense of elec- trically preparing it at a few minutes notice. Both of these commodities are in act- ual use. The stove is an ornamental case enclosing a coffee-pot, or, in another form, it may be a kettle in an asbestos lining, round which circulate coils of wire, the passage of the electric current through these coils generating the heat. In one convenient form the current that would feed fifteen ordinary incandescent lamps will produce hot coffee in ten minutes. For the working of all the electrical household appliances that have been mentioned, some source of electrical sup- ply is, of course, required, and the best to adopt must depend upon the posi- tion of the house, its size, and the pre- cise amount of duty that electricity will perform in it. The different bell-an- nunciator and alarm systems generally require surprisingly little power to operate them, and no difficulty will be found in supplying each system from a battery; or it may even be possible to let one battery suffice for all. Three or four cells of the Leclanch6 type will sometimes work a bell system continu- ously for two years without any atten- tion, but it is always well to replenish a battery in time before its activily is exhausted, lest at some important m6- ment it fail in its duty. When, however, it is desired to supply a house with electric light, heat, or mo- tive power, batteries for these purposes, unless on a very small scale, are hardly to be recommended. In the first place they would necessarily be troublesome to maintain, and in the second they would, in the present state of the art, be very costly. Power is obtained from a battery by the slow combustion of the zinc in its plates, and as metallic zinc is not found like coal, ready prepared in nature, the process for obtaining it is by comparison expensive. Probably no battery in existence can furnish elec- trical power at theoretically less than twenty - five cents per horse- power per hour in material alone, while actually the best cost, as a rule, fifty cents; and a horse -power is well applied locally if it gives illumination equivalent to two hundred candles. The only prospect that seems open to the extended success- ful application of the primary battery to light and power is in the possibility of its chemicallyproducing, during its work, compounds which have directly or indi- rectly a commercial value. If this end, which has long been striven for, could Je successfully attained, and a sufficient- ly large market found for the produce, the battery might come forward as the most advantageous source of electrical supply. At present, however, recourse is had to mechanical sources of electricity dynamo-machines driven by steam-en- gmesand it is no exaggeration to say that the practical success of electric lighting is due to the dynamo-machine as a source of electric supply. In towns electric lighting from cen- tral stations is developing so rapidly that it is now very generally possible to obtain electricity from street mains like gas or water a plan that will al- ways be more economical and convenient than local production. Large buildings, 0 114 ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. or groups of buildings, may sometimes be lighted advantageously by a local plant, but for a town dwelling a sepa- rate engine and dynamo is generally out of the question. The great convenience attending electrical supply from street mains is the absence of all batteries and their attendant requirements. The ar- rangement of the different interior sys- tems on this plan is illustrated in the accompanying diagram. Plan of Wiring a Houae for ita Varioua Electrical Appliancea. It will be seen that the honse mains are connected through an elec- tricity meter direct with the street mains; that the lamps, heaters, and motors, wherever they may be situated, are operated directly from the house mains or their ultimate ramifications; while the annunciator, clock, and alarm systems are all o p erated from submains connected to the central mains through simple regulating coils of wire, termed resistances. Their object is to reduce the electrical pressure on these subsystems to the desired limit for their effective operation, since the whole electrical sup- ply they need probably does not exceed that given to one incandescent lamp hu~ng continuonsly. In this way electrical economy is obtained and the safety of the more delicate apparatus insured. The diagram shows that the house mains receive their supply through a meter which keeps a register of all the electricity traversing it. The electric- ity on entering the meter has two paths open to it, one by wavy metal strips above, and the other through coils of wire and bottles beneath. The proportions of these are so arranged that the strips conduct, let us say, one thousand times better than the coils and bottles, and, as electricity always divides between two paths in the exact ratio of their conductivity, the quantity which passes through the strips will be just one thousand times as great as that passing though the bottles. These latter are filled with a weak solution of zinc sulphate, and each con- tains two zinc plates about one inch square. In obedi- ence to laws discovered by Michael Faraday, fifty-five years ago, the electricity which passes through this bottle from one zinc plate across to the other through the solution, causes a cer- tain quantity of zinc to be dissolved from the plate it leaves, and the same quan- tity to be deposited on the plate it reachesthe quan- tity of metal so transferred bearing an invariable known ratio to the electricity that has passed. These bottles are removed and replaced every month, and the change of weight in the dried plates compared after the lapse of that term. The amount of zinc found to have been transferred then determines the quantity of electricity that has passed through the bottle, and one thousand times this quantity has en- tered the house through the metal strips during that time. There is thus no ma- chinery to get out of order, no moving parts to clog, or friction to overcome, and with the bottles exchanged every month the meter itself is almost imperishable. For country-houses beyond the lim- its of central station distribution, elec- tricity must be locally produced to fur- nish light and power. For installations not exceeding fifty lamps, the gas-en- gine advantageously replaces steam when coal gas is obtainable at a moderate THE LOST PLANT. 116 rate, as there is then no boiler, and less attention is also required. A gas-en- gine and dynamo in a barn or neigh- boring outhouse form a very convenient electrical supply, and, as a matter of fact, a given quantity of gas so burned in a good engine, not only expends its vitiating products of combustion out of doors, but will also yield from twenty- five to thirty per cent. more illumination through the medium of electricity than when furnishing light directly. That is to say, the electric lamp is so much more economical in energy that it gives this excess notwithstanding the neces- sary loss in the engine and dynamo In- herent to the conversion of heat into electrical power. The mistake is sometimes committed of sealing up wires in the plastering of walls, as though they were not liable to a mortality from which even the elec- tricity they convey does not render them exempt. It is certainly best to have wires placed out of sight, but where ac- cess to them can always be had if needed; and generally, if an electric system is worth introducing into a household, it is worth carrying out, not lavishly, but thoroughly and well. It is also unfair to suppose that an appliance needs no supervision or repair because it is electrical. Every such instrument is essentially of mechanical nature and in- evitably subject to the requirements our knowledge of mechanism leads us to expect. On the other hand, when prop- er care and judgment have been exer- cised upon the introduction of these ap- pliances, the superiority of electricity for domestic purposes over every other known power (even in the matter of in- dependence from supervision) is incon- testibly exemplified. Nor is it to be supposed that any of the applications above alluded to are visionary, for all are in actual use. Some are still regarded in the light of luxu- ries, it is true, but almost all necessaries were once in that favored class. Even tobacco is regarded to-day as a neces- sity of existence, and if history tells truly, table knives and forks were lux- uries of the most extravagant type two hundred years ago. Considering, then, that the household is in itself the condensed history of a nations past, the centre of its pres- ent, and the cradle of its future, it is doubtful whether, among the many triumphs of the age that electricity may claim, any can be quoted of brighter re- nown than the rapid progress it has al- ready made in the cultivation of the arts of life, and its adaptation to the needs and graces of the household. THE LOST PLANT. (A CONSULAR EXPERIENCE.) By John Pierson. THAT evening we were playing whist at the Governors house, as we had the habit of doing two or three times a week. I had as partner my French colleague, NI. Dorat, still a young man, who had arrived in the island as consul two or three months before. I had not seen very much of him, for it was the season of the year when we old fellows feel disinclined to much move- ment; with the exception of an occa- sional outing in a boat, or on a donkey, I had confined myself chiefly to my books and my garden. With most of us our gardens were great sources of amusement and delight. There was always a pleasurable excitement when a new package of seeds arrived from Eu- ropefor everything grew so .well and fast; and many were the tin-boxes of bulbs and plants imported in the gen- erally vain hope that something new might possibly be found. No one was contented with the productions of the island; we all wanted something differ- ent. Each had his own little fad, and mine was to reproduce in this tropical country an old-fashioned English gar- den, with its hollyhocks and larkspurs, its columbines and daffodils, its lavender

THE LOST PLANT. 116 rate, as there is then no boiler, and less attention is also required. A gas-en- gine and dynamo in a barn or neigh- boring outhouse form a very convenient electrical supply, and, as a matter of fact, a given quantity of gas so burned in a good engine, not only expends its vitiating products of combustion out of doors, but will also yield from twenty- five to thirty per cent. more illumination through the medium of electricity than when furnishing light directly. That is to say, the electric lamp is so much more economical in energy that it gives this excess notwithstanding the neces- sary loss in the engine and dynamo In- herent to the conversion of heat into electrical power. The mistake is sometimes committed of sealing up wires in the plastering of walls, as though they were not liable to a mortality from which even the elec- tricity they convey does not render them exempt. It is certainly best to have wires placed out of sight, but where ac- cess to them can always be had if needed; and generally, if an electric system is worth introducing into a household, it is worth carrying out, not lavishly, but thoroughly and well. It is also unfair to suppose that an appliance needs no supervision or repair because it is electrical. Every such instrument is essentially of mechanical nature and in- evitably subject to the requirements our knowledge of mechanism leads us to expect. On the other hand, when prop- er care and judgment have been exer- cised upon the introduction of these ap- pliances, the superiority of electricity for domestic purposes over every other known power (even in the matter of in- dependence from supervision) is incon- testibly exemplified. Nor is it to be supposed that any of the applications above alluded to are visionary, for all are in actual use. Some are still regarded in the light of luxu- ries, it is true, but almost all necessaries were once in that favored class. Even tobacco is regarded to-day as a neces- sity of existence, and if history tells truly, table knives and forks were lux- uries of the most extravagant type two hundred years ago. Considering, then, that the household is in itself the condensed history of a nations past, the centre of its pres- ent, and the cradle of its future, it is doubtful whether, among the many triumphs of the age that electricity may claim, any can be quoted of brighter re- nown than the rapid progress it has al- ready made in the cultivation of the arts of life, and its adaptation to the needs and graces of the household. THE LOST PLANT. (A CONSULAR EXPERIENCE.) By John Pierson. THAT evening we were playing whist at the Governors house, as we had the habit of doing two or three times a week. I had as partner my French colleague, NI. Dorat, still a young man, who had arrived in the island as consul two or three months before. I had not seen very much of him, for it was the season of the year when we old fellows feel disinclined to much move- ment; with the exception of an occa- sional outing in a boat, or on a donkey, I had confined myself chiefly to my books and my garden. With most of us our gardens were great sources of amusement and delight. There was always a pleasurable excitement when a new package of seeds arrived from Eu- ropefor everything grew so .well and fast; and many were the tin-boxes of bulbs and plants imported in the gen- erally vain hope that something new might possibly be found. No one was contented with the productions of the island; we all wanted something differ- ent. Each had his own little fad, and mine was to reproduce in this tropical country an old-fashioned English gar- den, with its hollyhocks and larkspurs, its columbines and daffodils, its lavender 116 THE LOST PLANT. and rosemary and sweet-scented shrubs and herbs. Dorat had not been there long enough, we thought, to catch the prevailing taste; his garden, which was large, and in the time of his predecessor had been very fine, was now neglected and had gone to waste; and if he occa- sionally put into it some wild plant which he had found, it was only for his experiments on the food and ways of life of the insects which he was always collecting and studying. He had also a pronounced taste for ornithology, and for natural history of every kind; and, in pursuit of specimens, accompanied by an old native whom he had somewhere picked up, made constant excursions often for days at a timeinto the swampy andlittle known interior of the island. Just behind my chair was standing a young English officer, named Furniss, apparently a family connection of the Governorat all events, a member of his official and personal householdwho had arrived by the last steamer. He was waiting for the end of the rubber to take a hand, and while the cards were being dealt was asking some questions about the methods of travelling and an- nouncing his intention of making some botanical excursions. One or two things struck me in what he said, and, looking over my shoulder, I jestingly remarked, So you are going to look for Humms Simwa. As I turned back I inter- cepted such a look, seemingly of hatred, from beneath the dark brows and lashes of my partner that I almost dropped the cards I was dealing. There was some- thing which made me feel thoroughly uneasy. Furniss had started a topic to which my chance remark had given more interest; and, after we had begun to play, the conversation still went on behind my back. Although my partner kept control of his game, and made no mistakes, I could see that he was lis- tening to every word that Furniss said, and closely watching every movement that he made. I grew more and more nervous, till at last I could stand it no longer, and called out, rather abruptly, as others thought: My dear Furniss, if you keep on looking at my cards and talking of botany at the same time I shall think each trick a new and rare species and shall lose all the points. Furniss, somewhat offended at my tone, walked away from the table. When the rubber was over Dorat withdrew, by rights, and I refused to play longer, which was misinterpreted by some of the party, as was also a whis- pered remark of mine to Furniss in passing, which was overheard by some- one, that I would see him again later. I went into the other room, to a balcony overlooking the sea, and lighted a ci- gar, while reflecting on what course I ought to pursue. The fact is that a German botanist named Humin had discovered in this island a plant which possessed singular curative virtues, used among the natives, but the exist- ence of which they carefully concealed. Medicallyas Humm had shown by ex- perimentsit was as important as cin- chona or condurango, or the more re- cently introduced coca. Humm had brought away a sufficient amount of the drug for it to be thoroughly tested in European laboratories and hospitals; but the plant had never been found again. One academy after another had offered prizes for its discovery, which in the aggregate then amounted to a large suma sum sufficient to encourage an enterprising man to encounter great risks in its search. It was evident from what Furniss said that he had come out to look for it; hoping that his connec- tions and his official position would en- able him to conduct his explorations more easily and more thoroughly than those who had gone before him. Sev- eral had already visited the island for this purpose; but they had either fallen victims to the climate, or had given up the quest in despair, in consequence of the difficulties put in their way by the natives. It was equally plain to me, from his conduct at the card-table, that Dorat had come out for the same pur- pose; although he had so far concealed his plans and his interest in plants, in order to blind the eyes of the English. He had the advantage of being in bet- ter relations with the natives, because French prestige and French influence are persistent in any place which has once been under French rule; and the only foreign words which the natives used were also French. Although the English have held the island for a long THE LOST PLANT. 117 time they hold it simply as conquerors, and have never succeeded in identify- ing themselves with the people. I had not been smoking long before I was joined by Dorat, who was evidently looking for me. With great politeness and delicacy he offered me his services as to a colleague in difficulties; and, when he saw my look of astonishment, in answer to my questions told me that everybody believed that I was to have a duel with Furniss. English customs, we seeespecially on such pointswere not yet predominant in the island; and duels were not yet uncommon, although they were generally innocu- ous. I of course thanked him for his kindness, and promised to call on him if I stood in need of a friend; but ex- plained that between an old, irritable fellow like myself, and a young man like Furniss, there would probably be no difficulty which could not be settled with an explanation, or, if need be, with an apology. The talk passed on to other things, when suddenly Dorat asked, How did you come to mention the Simcea Ilurnmii? Oh! I said, that is an old idea of mine; I thought of looking for it when I first came; so that I naturally suspect every fresh man of the same desire. And you never did look for it? No, I was always naturally indolent; I broke my ankle a week after I ar- rived; that and the heat and malaria, and the bother of travelling in the in- terior have kept me quiet. But I have never lost a Platonic interest in it, and if you find it I shall congratulate you heartily. But why should I look for it? In the first place, my dear colleague, why should you mention it at all, if it were of no interest to you? And, sec- ondly, you must know as well as I do that very large rewards are offered for finding it, with which will follow a wide scientific fame. Why shouldnt you find it? You are young and vigorous; being French, you have influence with the natives; you already, if I mistake not, speak something of their language; you make frequent shooting excursions into the interior; and you can perfect- ly well make botanical experiments in your neglected garden at the consulate. The spirit of old Hume would, I am sure, be delighted if you should carry out his beneficent intentions.~~ You call him Hume; do you mean Humm? Yes, the last was his German name; but when he got naturalized in America he was so laughed at on account of his name that he changed it to Hume. You knew him, then? Yes, I met him first when I was quite a boy, when I joined a scientific party to the Rocky Mountains, and, as I had been a comrade of Eaton and Brewer, was much interested in botany. We got to be very good friends then; but I had almost forgotten about him until I met him again when I was vice-consul at Tripoli. He had come there to study assafcetida and laserpitium and other precious plants which the ancients ob- tained from that region. I was able to lodge him in my house, and we renewed our old acquaintance; you know he died there, or, rather, in the interior; but he left me his papers, andwell, come and breakfast with me to - morrow, about twelve, and I will show you something that will interest you. Throwing away the end of my cigar I went back to the drawing-room, and finally found Furnissto whom I at once apologized for my brusque lan- guageand asked him, if he did not mind my limp, to walk home with me, as I had something to tell him. He readily consented, and as soon as we could get away we walked down the quiet tree- lined street until we reached my garden. Then I persuaded him to sit awhile with me in the veranda, where I knew that we could not be overheard. My faithful servant brought us out narghi- lehs, for this souvenir of my life in Asia and Africa still clings to me; the broad- leaved plants looked fantastic in the moonlight, and we were glad to neutral- ize the strong, heavy odors with the smoke of our pipes. The outlook on the garden gradually brought us to the subject of plants, and, after we had got warmed up on this topic, with the help of a glass or two of good old Madeira, I told him that I had overheard enough of his conversation to make me under- stand that he had come out expressly to find the lost plant. He frankly admit- 118 THE LOST PLANT. ted his purpose, without the slightest hesitation; and gradually was led on to talk of his past life, of the influences which had moulded it, and of his hopes for the future. Wdll,I said, Iwill do all I can -for you; and perhaps I can give you certain information which you do not possess. But I must be fair all round. Dorat is a colleague of mine, with whom I am on the best possible terms; and whatever information I give you I must give him. Dorat, he said, the French consul, who was your partner to-night? Has he come here, too, for this purpose? Yes; I never suspected it till this evening; now I know it. He is coming to tiffin with me to-morrow; and the best way to manage the thing will be for you to meet him. But, as I want a witness or two, bring the Governor with you. Ill send him a little note early in the morning, and I will try to find one or two others also. Oh, I think there will be no diffi- culty about that, as the Governor has already told me of your breakfasts; be- sides, to-morrow is Sunday, and he will have no engagement after church. But youre as solemn and mysterious as though some great event were impend- ing. What is the matter? The matter, my dear fellow, is sim- ply this, that you must entirely forget all that I tell you, and act entirely on your own judgment. Be on your guard against your rival. Never trust your- self alone with him, if you meet him in the interior. From what I saw to-night I believe him quite capable of killing you, if need be, to prevent your succeed- ing to his detriment. Not so bad as that, I hope. Not a word more ever on this sub- ject. You know all that I fear. Take your own course. We shall see you to- morrow at noon. Ii Gun breakfast was unusually pleasant, for I had succeeded in getting hold of NI. Blancsub6, one of the richest and most hospitable planters of the island, a man universally liked for his wit and his good company, and respected for his intelligence and probity. The Gov- ernor was in better form than I had ever seen him, gave us amusing stories of his experiences in other coloniesand he seemed to have lived in some capacity in nearly every part of the globeand by great good luck assisted me by ap- pearing in an entirely new and unex- pected character. Apropos of some of the fruit, he launched out in a discourse on the vegetable productions of the dif- ferent places where he had been which would have done credit to Grant Duff himself. When we began to smoke I brought out a portfolio and showed some of the very curious things that I had been able to retain in my wandering lifeauto- graph letters of Bruce and Burckhardt; a sketch-map of Humboldt; a relic of Connolly and Stoddart from Bokhara which had not been found by Dr. Wolff; photographs of Con vol vulus Sabbatius and (Jampanula Sabbatia which I had myself taken from living plants at Capo di Noli, the only place in the world where they grow; and a few similar things. You are an amateur photographer, then? said NI. Blancsub6. Dont be alarmed for yourself, mon- sieur, there are no instantanepus came- ras concealed in the walls to take you in an unguarded moment; I photograph only plants. And I could show our friends here, if they were not already too learned to need them, photographs of nearly every plant growing on the island, except of the one we all want most to see, the Simcea Ilurnmii. I can, how- ever, show you something about that; but before I open this envelope I must make a bargain with them. What I want is the drug. At one time I should have been glad of the fame of the dis- covery, but now I am too old to care much about that, as well as of the great reward offered for the plant; but, while money is always an object, I have luckily a few weeks ago received a legacy large enough to enable me to live wherever I please in tolerable comfort. Therefore if I show now what I have carefully pre- served, in the hope that I might myself some day be fortunate enough to come across the plant, I must ask both Dorat and Furniss, or whoever is the discov- erer, to furnish me with one living root, THE LOST PLANT. 119 after he has taken proper measures to secure his priority of discovery. To this they both agreed, and after telling them in detail of my acquaintance with Humm or Hume; of his tragic death in the desert, on the eve of another voyage to our island; and of how he came to make me the heir of his secret, I showed them, first, a careful water-col- ored drawing of the plant, and then a dried specimen of it just as it was com- ing into bloom. Finally, I unfolded a leaf of paper on which Humm had drawn from memory a sketch of the lo- cality where the plant was found, and of the route which he had taken from the coast. Unfortunately the paper had got worn out at the folds, from be- ing carried in the old botanists pocket- book; and the chart was so illegible and confused as to be of comparatively lit- tle value. The astonishment and inter- est with which my revelations were re- ceived by all present, although Blancsu- b6 needed a few words of explanation in order further to understand the matter, were so great as to justify me to myself for the little coup de thUUre which I had prepared. When one gets old, ones vanity is pleased with even such little harmless successes. While the map was being carefully examined by the Governor, who was trying to identify localities, Blancsub6 suggested what, strangely, never oc- curred to methat it might be photo- graphed. This I offered to do at once and to give both Dorat and Furniss copies, as well as to allow them the use of the little herbarium I possessed and of all my photographs of plants. But, I said, you will notice from Humms note that the plant was found just coming into bloom on October 6th, and to-day is September 20th. If either of you intend to look for it in earnest you must lose no time. You will, of course, take your own ways of announc- ing the discovery so as to secure the priority; although I believe that, accord- ing to the conditions of most of the re- wards offered, the plant must be brought back in a living condition and planted in a botanical garden. The Governor has one here under his charge, though I am surprised to learn to-day that he takes such a personal interest in it. I must tell you, also, that I have still de- posited in a safe place a bit of the drug, which, however, is not unknown to others, and which will serve for the identifica- tion of the plant; and I shall be greatly pleased if, when you find it, you will send a messenger to let me know. When you come back I hope to be able to show you a fairly good specimen of it grow- ing in my own garden. They all laughed at my last remark, which they thought a mere bit of 4~haff; but, in very truth, I had a few days be- fore planted in an out-of-the-way place a tuber which I had every reason to be- lieve was that of the Sirna?a. m. WITHIN the week both Furniss and Do- rat started on the quest, the former tak- ingthe route whichhe had combined with the Governors from Humms sketch- map; and the latter preferring, on hints received from the natives, to begin with the other end of the island, whither he went by sea. For some days we heard nothing. At last one afternoon a negro brought me a laconic note from Furniss, saying simply: I have found it, and, with due ingratitude, I hope that I am ahead even of you. I immediately went out and looked again at my precious plant; for the tuber had sprouted, and the rapidly unfolding leaves were begin- ning (at all events to my imagination) to present a strong resemblance to the dried specimen given me by Humm. I am ashamed to tell how many times that day I had already looked at the plant; and, indeed, I was beginning to grow nervous, anxious, envious, and jealous of my rivals; and to think that I had made a precious old fool of myself in being so generous with my information. After all, what difference did it make to me if they did kill each otherpeople whom I hardly knew? But as the cool fresh- ness of evening approached my amiabil- ity returned; and I resolved to go to the Governors and invite myself to din- ner, and find out what informationhe had received; for I felt sure that he knew something more. Sir Thomas was in very good spirits, but could tell me noth- ing that I did not know. He was glad to see me, and, for a wonder, we were 120 THE LOST PLANT. quite alone. We concluded that piquet would be better than the usual double- dummy; the card-tables were brought out, the lights were being arranged, and the soda-water and glasses exposed on the side-table, when a clatter of hoofs was heard coming down the road, and in a moment more a message was brought to us from a coffee-planter that the body of a man had been found at the bottom of a precipice, in a place about twenty miles away, but hard to reach. It was thought to be that of an Englishman, apparently a scientific man, as he had been collecting plants; and the request was made for the despatch of someone to identify, if possible, the corpse, with instructions as to its burial. We had no question but that it was Cap- tain Furniss, as we knew of no one else corresponding to the description. From what I knew, or rather suspected, it flashed through me at once that there had been foul play. But I considered it best, for the moment at least, to keep my suspicions to myself, as they might be entirely unfounded. After a hurried consultation with me as to the best course to pursue, Sir Thomas decided that two or three men from the hospital should go on at once with extra horses, and that he and the doctor would leave before daybreak, driving as far as the road was practicable, so as to reach the field of the accident at the earliest pos- sible moment in the morning. I readily acceded to his suggestion to accompany him. We had little time for sleep, as we started very early, and the sun was just rising when we had to leave the high- road and mount our horses. Had it not been for the errand on which we were bent and our desire to hasten, I should have greatly enjoyed this early ride on one of our delightful Southern spring mornings. As we descended the ridge we had opposite a hill-side, which we had to cross later, covered with planta- tions of coffee and pepper, while the valley below was green with the sugar- cane. Flowers of all kinds grew in profusion along the roadside, and I could not help observing them carefully and mentally repeating their names. But the detour was long, and it was a toilsome march. That the body was that of Captain Furniss there could be no doubt. There were no signs of stabs or shots, but it was so bruised and cut by the rocks that, although it had been care- fully covered with leafy boughs~ decom- position had already begun, and it was necessary to bury it as soon as possible. Due note, however, was taken of its po- sition and of various apparently petty details. One circumstance I could not help noticing at once, and I naturally called the Governors attention to it. The botanical specimen-box lay at a lit- tle distance from the body; it had evi- dently been opened and a search had been made among the plants it had con- tained; for they were lying in a con- fused heap, not as if they had been accidentally shaken out. This certainly looked strange. The plant that was sought for was not among them. The pressing-boards were missing, and as I felt sure that he or one of his men would carry them, that also seemed strange. Those, however, we afterward discov- ered, caught on a ledge of rock above. One of the men climbed up with difficulty and threw them down to us; they were still strapped together, but the drying- paper contained no plants of any kind, and in all probability they had not been used in that last days excursion. Out of pardonable curiosity I looked care- fully at every sheet, even holding them up to the light; and it seemed to me as if on one I detected the outline of the Simcea. With the consent of the planter who owned the land, a grave was dug for poor Furniss close to the spot where he fell, and his body was tenderly and rev- erently placed in it, Sir Thomas read- ing, in a broken voice, the English bu- rial service, with only myself to make the responses. We resolved to place a tablet or cut an inscription upon the nearest rock in commemoration of this martyr to science. I could not help thinking of a similar tablet I had once seen in the old quarries near Syracuse where the Athenians had been impris- oned and starved. But that was to an Am- erican midshipman, named Nicholson, who had fallen in a duel with a British officer, in maintaining the honor of his flag, in the opening years of the century. THE LOST PLANT. 121 It needed no hint of mine as to my private suspicion to induce Sir Thomas to proceed to a minute investigation of the rock from which Furniss had fallen. For that it was necessary to return to the high road, proceed along it some distance farther, and then turn to the left over a difficult bridle-path, and then a foot-path among the rocks. I did not feel equal to this, and stayed in the little hut on the roadside where we had left the carriage; while Sir Thomas, who had kept up wonderfully, went on with the others to the scene of the accident. The report which they brought back was, in one sense, very satisfactory. The place from which Furniss had fallen was identified, close to a splendid clump of that lovely, fragrant flower which the natives call narunathe botanical name of which escapes me nowwhich was somewhat rare, and was the finest Sir Thomas had ever seen. The marks were seen where Furnisss foot had slipped, and there were no traces of a struggle or of the presence of anyone else. He had apparently been engaged in securing fine specimens of the naruna, when a treacherous branch or twig broke and down he went Nevertheless it was impossible entirely to exclude the hy- pothesis that he might have been pushed off by some barefooted native coming up in silence behind him. We had wondered what had become of Furnisss servants; but while we were resting from the fatigue and emotion of the day, we were joined by them. They did not yet know of his death. Two mornings before, owing to the illness of the special man who carried his traps and assisted him in placing the speci- mens between the drying - papers, the captain had insisted on starting out alone, with the expectation of returning in the course of a couple of hours. It was ouly, however, toward night that his absence caused any apprehension. They looked for him in vain that night, and had been searching for him with- out result ever since. So far their evi- dence all agreed. They utterly denied having met any other white man for several days before that, and had seen no suspicious character either on tl~e day of Furnisss disappearance or since. They had not seen Dorat. But when they tried to explain why they had not brought away the whole of their mas- ters collections, or even all of his kit, there were strange and suspicions hesita- tions and contradictions. They professed to know nothing of any living plants, planted, or otherwise preserved by Fur- niss. As the place which had been the captains last headquarters was a long way off and difficult to reach, Sir Thomas decided not to go himself, but to send one of the men from the hospital, on whom he thought he could thoroughiy depend, back there with one of Furniss s black followers, in order to make a thor- ough investigation of the camp, and bring away everything, explaining to him the importance of the matter. It seemed to us quite plain that some- one whether a rival or a native herb- doctor, or, rather, herb-charmer, or, per- haps, one of the plantation-hands who had discovered the bodyhad searched the botanical case found near the corpse; and that someone had probably also searched his tent; at the same time we had no actual proof that Furniss had yet attempted to dig up and remove any specimens of the plant, even if he had found it. He had perhaps waited to do that until the instant of starting on his return, when it would be in the more developed state. Nor did we find out anything subsequently to make us change that opinion. We were just taking a hasty bite be- fore starting on our return to town, when there suddenly came on one of those torrential showers which are not unusual in tropical countries. Fortu- nately the hut in which we were stood on high ground, or we should have run the risk of being swept away. Rain fell in sheets. The continued thunder and vivid flashes of lightning frightened the horses, while the poor natives cowered on the floor of the hut from fear. It seemed as if the storm would never end; but just when the thatehed roof was becoming like a sieve, and we were beginning to be wet by the drizzle, the storm passed away as suddenly as it had begun. It was, however, impossible to move. The ground was water-soaked and the road too heavy for our vehicles; more than that, the dry bed of the little 122 THE LOST PLANT. stream we had crossed in the morning was now filled with a rapid, raging river. There was nothing to do but to wait. By sunrise the stream had fallen suf- ficiently to allow us to proceed, and we reached the town without any serious difficulty, but through what a scene of desolation! Everywhere the lowlands were covered with gravel and mud; good land had been temporarily ruined, and the sugar-canes were broken down and destroyed. We heard afterward that in other places serious damage had been done to the coffee and spice plan- tations. My servant, as he opened the door for me, had a careworn and dejected look, as if reproaching me for having stayed out all night; and when, while waiting for a cup of tea, I started down the garden-path, he warned me to be care- ful as the ground was undermined and treacherous, or something of that sort. A fear passed through my mind, which, alas! was only too well founded. The consulate was not far from the edge of a little stream, which, in swelling so suddenly, had cut for itself another tem- porary channel and had swept away a part of my gardena part which had contained many plants which were dear to me, and, more than all, that precious plant which I before believed and now felt sure was the Sirncea. IV. DAYS passed, and there was no news from Dorat. The accident to Furniss, the destruction of my garden, and the silence oL Dorat, worked so strongly upon my nerves that I became disgusted with the island and everything in it, and I had serious thoughts of resigning. My work had not been hard at this post, for the trade with the United States was not great, and American ships came so in- frequently that the quarrels and com- plaints of the crews were rather a diver- sion than a burden. But a few busy days happened to come just then, and made me feel how wretched my life would be were I deprived of just that kind of work to which I had been accus- tomed from my youth up. I was too old to engage in another occupationeven had I needed so to doand could not bear the thought of absolute idleness. Besides, the position itself is a pleasant one to a man old in the service, who neither overrates its advantages nor neglects its opportunities. Some of my friends used to think me unpatriotic because I had lived so many years abroad. But they forgot that I was all this time in the Government service; and I am sure that, if anything will make a man patri- otic, it is to feel that it is his sole duty in life to guard and advance the inter- ests of his country without other cares or occupations. He is not, like people who remain at home, distracted by the struggle for existence, and thinking of the duty he owes to his country only when drawn on the jury, or dunned by the tax-collector, or inspirited by par- ty enthusiasm just before an election. Abroad, his consular or diplomatic du- ties form the chief object of his life; and distance and time make him love and cherish more some manifestations of our national life which, it is true, might after a long absence in other lands prove irksome to him were he liv- ing at home. I therefore thought better of this, and sent by steamerto be telegraphed from Sueza request for a leave of absence, to be taken at once. Before resigning, I thought I would go home on leave, and see whether I could not obtain pro- motion or a change of post; but, as I had no intention of ever returning to the island, I proceeded to pack up or oth- erwise dispose of my goods and chattels. At last, one morning I received a mes- sage from the g~rant of the French consulate saying that Dorat was ill with malarial fever at the other end of the island. He had been very low for sev- eral days, but had finally roused suffi- ciently to send word, and hoped to see me before he died. Much as I could have wished to go to him, the journey was at that time beyond my strength. We decided to send a good doctor, who agreed that, if Dorat were in a state that he could be moved, he should be brought down to the nearest point on the coast, and from thence, if possible, to Port Philip by sea. I even gave the doctor the bit of the precious drug that I had preserved so long, explaining its THE TODD VILLE RAFFLE. 123 qualities, with the idea that it might possibly be of use. In a few days Dorat was brought to town, very weak, pale, and emaciated; but the doctor seemed to think that he had passed the crisis, and that if care- fully nursed he would slowly recover. Although I was expecting to sail in the next steamerfor I had received a fa- vorable reply to my telegramI felt that I could not under the circumstances leave Dorat in this condition, andto make a long story shortI threw up my passage, stayed on, and devoted my- self to looking after him, making him comfortable, and cheering the hours of his convalescence until he was strong enough to be sent home, when we came to Europe in the same steamer. It was impossible not to be impressed with his patience, his gentleness, his strong will, and his devotion to science. His character appeared to me in an en- tirely new light, and all my foolish sus- picions and prejudices speedily vanished. It was a long time, however, before I dared tell him of the accident to Fur- niss, and of my own personal disap- pointment. To this he seemed to pay no attention, and I said nothing more. It was only some days afterward that he seemed suddenly to remember the in- cidents just preceding his journey to the interior, and inquired how Furniss had fared. He was evidently sincerely shocked and astonished at the story I had to tell him. Indeed, at first, all memory of recent events seemed to have passed away from him, leaving his mind a blank. When he had recovered his memory he felt sure that just at the time when he was fighting with the fever he had seen and handled the Simcea, and made preparations for its transport; intending to start on his return on the very day when he was stricken powerless. But these may have been delusions of his fevered brain. From that time his most ardent desire was to get well quickly in order to visit again that locality where he was sure the Sirncec& grew. For my part, I tried to persuade him that we had prob- ably all been victims of a delusion, and that the quest was hopeless. I should perhaps have succeeded in this had not the incoming steamer brought, with introductions to me, a small scientific party organized and sent out by Cornell University with the in- tention of making a careful exploration of that and the neighboring islands, which had been never really explored since the time of Bougainville, and then only superficially. Among the special objects of the expedition was that of discovering the Simcea, as well as the finding of some traces of the dodo. My part of the play was ended; and I there- fore not only gave all the information that I couldtelling these enthusiastic young men the outward story of the most recent events; but I also made over to them for the museum of the university all my collections and special books, about the disposal of which I had been somewhat in a quandary. I have not yet heard, however, that the expedi- tion has discovered either the lost bird or the lost plant. THE TODDVILLE RAFFLE. By Edgar Mayhew Bacon. THE day of the big raffle had ar- rived. All the sporting men of the township, and that included about two-thirds of the male population, gath- ered in the bar-room of Jacksons tavern and prepared for the annual event by deep potations of crude whiskey and the unsavory combustion of alleged Havanas. Toddville had a custom, all its own, which was sufficiently unique to merit a prefatory word of explanation. All property forfeit to the town through non-payment of taxes, as well as unre- deemed securities or such chattels as had been accepted for debt or fine, were appraised by a committee, who took their aggregate values as a basis and prepared a certain number of lot- tery tickets which were sold at a uni- form price to all comers. In purchasing

THE TODD VILLE RAFFLE. 123 qualities, with the idea that it might possibly be of use. In a few days Dorat was brought to town, very weak, pale, and emaciated; but the doctor seemed to think that he had passed the crisis, and that if care- fully nursed he would slowly recover. Although I was expecting to sail in the next steamerfor I had received a fa- vorable reply to my telegramI felt that I could not under the circumstances leave Dorat in this condition, andto make a long story shortI threw up my passage, stayed on, and devoted my- self to looking after him, making him comfortable, and cheering the hours of his convalescence until he was strong enough to be sent home, when we came to Europe in the same steamer. It was impossible not to be impressed with his patience, his gentleness, his strong will, and his devotion to science. His character appeared to me in an en- tirely new light, and all my foolish sus- picions and prejudices speedily vanished. It was a long time, however, before I dared tell him of the accident to Fur- niss, and of my own personal disap- pointment. To this he seemed to pay no attention, and I said nothing more. It was only some days afterward that he seemed suddenly to remember the in- cidents just preceding his journey to the interior, and inquired how Furniss had fared. He was evidently sincerely shocked and astonished at the story I had to tell him. Indeed, at first, all memory of recent events seemed to have passed away from him, leaving his mind a blank. When he had recovered his memory he felt sure that just at the time when he was fighting with the fever he had seen and handled the Simcea, and made preparations for its transport; intending to start on his return on the very day when he was stricken powerless. But these may have been delusions of his fevered brain. From that time his most ardent desire was to get well quickly in order to visit again that locality where he was sure the Sirncec& grew. For my part, I tried to persuade him that we had prob- ably all been victims of a delusion, and that the quest was hopeless. I should perhaps have succeeded in this had not the incoming steamer brought, with introductions to me, a small scientific party organized and sent out by Cornell University with the in- tention of making a careful exploration of that and the neighboring islands, which had been never really explored since the time of Bougainville, and then only superficially. Among the special objects of the expedition was that of discovering the Simcea, as well as the finding of some traces of the dodo. My part of the play was ended; and I there- fore not only gave all the information that I couldtelling these enthusiastic young men the outward story of the most recent events; but I also made over to them for the museum of the university all my collections and special books, about the disposal of which I had been somewhat in a quandary. I have not yet heard, however, that the expedi- tion has discovered either the lost bird or the lost plant. THE TODDVILLE RAFFLE. By Edgar Mayhew Bacon. THE day of the big raffle had ar- rived. All the sporting men of the township, and that included about two-thirds of the male population, gath- ered in the bar-room of Jacksons tavern and prepared for the annual event by deep potations of crude whiskey and the unsavory combustion of alleged Havanas. Toddville had a custom, all its own, which was sufficiently unique to merit a prefatory word of explanation. All property forfeit to the town through non-payment of taxes, as well as unre- deemed securities or such chattels as had been accepted for debt or fine, were appraised by a committee, who took their aggregate values as a basis and prepared a certain number of lot- tery tickets which were sold at a uni- form price to all comers. In purchasing 124 THE TODDVILLE RAFFLE. these tickets it had long been custom- aryto throw dice for choice of numbers, and as such a selection could be noth- ing more than guesswork the result of every drawing was watched with great interest. Among the prominent loungers at Jacksons, upon the day in question, was Jerry Winkle. He had but little money, and that little he had invested in a single chance for a ticket; but the very wealthiest capitalist of them all, even old Major Gumble, who had paid for ten goes with the air of a man who could afford ten more if he wished, did not support a loftier mien. Winkles broad-brimmed felt hat, worn at a rak- ish angle, suggested a challenge. Over the frayed front of a shirt of question- able purity an unbuttoned waistcoat disclosed the flowing ends of a necktie. To wear a necktie was in itself a dis- tinction in a town where most men were content to go collarless. Jerrys hands were thrust into his pockets, and his trousers into his boots. The fact that these boots were red as to tops and foxy about the heels, did not at all interfere with the impression that they were intended as a groundwork for spurs. Newbury King rested one elbow on the bar, shook the dice-box and threw. Ace, three, four, and six spots were the result. Six n fours ten, n fours fourteen, chanted Jackson. Next!, Major Gumble took the box. He peer- ed into its depths with an air of great authority and rattled the cubes as one who has but to command fortune. He cast; six chances: sixteen, eleven, four- teen, twenty-two, thirteen, tenhe look- ed annoyed and called for a whiskey; then, with glass in one hand and box in the other, he smiled once more on the attentive crowd and threw again: eleven, nine, twenty, twenty-three. Twenty- three is hard to beat, he said serenely. From Major Gumble the box passed to Jerry Winkle. After a little flourish he rolled out four sixes. That beats it, Major! he laughed. The number of those who ventured was so large that the afternoon was nearly spent before the last one had tried his luck. Once the cast of four sixes was equalled and Jerry was called in from the porch to match his rival. Again he won, and drank at his oppo- nents expense. He had been drinking during the day at almost everybodys expense, so that it was no wonder that his gait was becoming unsteady and his speech more rapid than coherent. Shame, aint it? commented John Bulow, one of the village trustees. Jerry didnt never have no head onto him: anyway not for licker. When the sunset had faded and the deep shadows began to rest in the valley the poor drunkard lay on a wooden set- tee on the tavern porch. The noise of carousing, the excitement of the raffle, had subsided. Something curious had happened, and from the manner of those who surrounded the prostrate, slumber- ing man in the growing dusk it was difficult to tell whether that something was a joke or a tragedy. Hi, Jerry! wake up, shake yourself. The prizes has been named. The sleep- er growled something but refused to be awakened. Who beat? asked a late-coiner, stepping in from the road at that mo- ment. Jerry Winkle, here, drawed first cut and got the biggest card. Whatd he draw? Why, you see, the spokesman looked around as though he suspected that the matter might have a humorous side to it, and waited to catch anyone laughing; you see hes ben an drawedOh, blast it, I cant tell ye, its too redeek- bus; and here he began to laugh, the others joining in. The absurd incon- sistency of what they knew to be coming captured the imagination of that audi- ence, and the more they guffawed and shouted over it the funnier it seemed. At last the noise they made partially aroused the sleeper. Whaish th mat ?. he mumbled, feebly. Why, Jerry, gasped the Major; Jerry, you drunken reperbate you, youve ben an drawed the church. Toddville had had a church once. but its organization lapsed, and the building, long mortgaged, had gone to the hammer and sold for a song. This was the prize that Jerry Winkle had gambled for, sworn over, got drank about, and won. There it stood, down THE TODD VILLE RAFFLE. 125 in the valley, its white clapboarded sides gleaming dully in the twilight. Will Dorset, the last-corner, did not join in the general mirth as he looked first at the unconscious owner and then at the newly acquired property. The news of the raffle and its result spread like wildfire. Country places have no need for newspapers. News travels across lots and up lanes and over fences with a celerity that nothing but its growth can equal for marvelousness. Anent Jerry and his church. It was a shame. The Squire, to whom Will had reported the matter, said so, and the sentiment was echoed by the best people in that little community. But neither the verdict of the more conservative towns-people, neither the dictum of those who had lost their right to conduct the churchs affairs, nor the scoffing of the stranger within the village gates could alter the incongruous fact. On the Sunday following the raffle Jerry was on his way to witness a ball match which was to take place in a lot two miles down the valley. He paused in passing the church, and looked at his big possession with a feeling that was part pride and part shame. That there church is mine, he thought. But I aint no sort to own a church neither. He went around and inspected the sheds. Good sheds, too, he soliloquized. He tried the basement door. It was locked. Won- der who in creation has got the key? Kinder funny, too, not to know where the key to a mans own church is. Next he essayed to open a window. The nail which had fastened the sash down fell out and it yielded to his vigorous push. With somewhat the feeling of a burglar he clambered in and surveyed his prop- erty. There was the pulpit, with well- worn cushion, where old Dominie iRees had long ago pounded and expounded. Jerry could well remember how, when he was a little boy, he had used to sit in one of the pews and dangle his short legs as he squirmed under that ponder- ous eloquence. That pew on the north aisle, just under the window, was the one that had belonged to his people. He seated himself there, where his father had sat, and reaching out his hand to the book-rack took therefrom the old VOL. VIL14 hymn-book. It had Jacob Winkle, Esqr. written in bold characters across the fly-leaf. Jerry had worn his hat during these first moments of occupancy. He now took it off and placed it on the seat in front of him. As he did so the whimsical aspect of the proceeding struck him so that he laughed aloud. Then, hushed in spite of himself by the cold echo of his own mirth, he looked nervously around. At the moment he could almost have sworn that the old audience-room was full of the old wor- shippers looking at him, the intruder, in condemnation. It was broad daylight, and the empty place, even with its shutters closed, af- forded no suggestive shadows where a ghost might lurk, yet in its Sabbath stillness it was populous. Across the aisle was where the ministers family used to sit. Up yonder by the pulpit, still stood the chair once occupied by the gray-haired precentor. It was easy to picture his tall form, clad in the claw- hammer coat and voluminous stock of an older time, as he rose, book in hand, to raise the tune. Over the whole room was that pervading, peculiar at- mosphere that long-disused apartments often have; not mouldy, nor close, nor damp; but obsolete. There was a dis- tinct flavor of antiquity about it, as though the last sexton, when he shut the big door for the last time, had shut in a fragment of that year. Beside the new proprietor, stuck be- tween the cushion and pew-back, was a large palm-leaf fan. It had his mothers name written in faint pencil lines upon one of its radial divisions. Yesterday Jerry had thought to sell the building as old lumber, if nothing better offered; perhaps put up a shanty of some sort for himself upon the site. But to-day the matter took a different aspect. He might almost as readily re- solve to sell the modest tombstone that marked the last resting-place of his par- ents out there in the little graveyard. He rose with a start, intending to leave the building. There were people coming up the road; so he waited till they had passed before climbing out again. Off in the distance he could hear the shouts that encouraged some bats- man to make a home run. The game 126 THE TODD VILLE RAFFLE. was in progress. For him to be absent would excite more comment than he cared to face just then. Reaching the field he lounged up to that angle of the snake fence where a group of rustic sportsmen had congre- gated, and received a running fire of greeting and comment. Hello, Jerry! es got up? Jerry, hows the church? When you goin to begin preachin? The poor fellows new relation to the big building up the valley had at last been generally accepted as ludicrous. Jerry wouldnt jine the church, so the church had to jine Jerry. This from one of the wits. Another add- ed: Like the ole man in the tale that wanted the mountain. Mountain wouldnt come to the ole man, so the ole man had to mosey along to the mountain, as the feller sez. The subject of these remarks did not enjoy them. The influence of his re- cent quiet half-hour in the church was still strong upon him. He could not summon his usual ready wit to answer jibe with jibe; so he turned his atten- tion to the game and was soon among the loudest of those who encouraged the players. Should think youd be ashamed of yourself, Jerry, a-spendin your Sunday this way when youve got a hull meetin- house of your own! said one, joking him. Jerry swung half round, support- ing himself on the arm of one of his com- panions. You shet up, he responded. I had nuf of that. Some folks have got neither church nor releegion. Those who laughed most heartily at this re- tort were careful to keep farthest away from an arm that they knew was still powerful; but after his outburst Jerry became sullen and silent. As time passed people began to no- tice and comment upon a change in this man. It was not that he was better than before, only less companionable and enjoyable. If anything he was drunk ofteneronly he drank in a mo- rose, unsociable way that his friends could not understand. He did not swear less than he had always done, but his conversation between whiles was less entertaining. His very hat lost the jolly, aggressive air which had distin guished it and sat soddenly on the back of his head. Men act so when they are in love or in debt, and sometimes when they are in arrears to conscience. One thing he would not do if it was possible to avoid itto pass the church alone after nightfall. In daytime it was bad enough. Since his visit it had seemed more and more the harboring place for a band of reproachful spirits who saw his character and course in its naked uglinessas he was beginning to see it himself. No doubt the special direction of his imagination was due rather to whiskey than sober conscience. The effect was not less real. He made, in his walks, long detours, crossing fields and sneak- ing along fences till the dreaded spot was avoided. Yet wherever he went he could not get rid of the sight of the white box that stood in lieu of a spire, and which always seemed to be saying to him, What a dis- grace to me you are. He tried to sell it, but, partly no doubt because he hated so to talk about it, he failed to find a purchaser who wanted a meeting-house anyhow. If it had been a cow or a horse, or even a good bull-dog of fight- ing stock, he might have done better. But a church! As long as it stood there it was impossible to get even the worth of the little piece of ground it stood upon. People do not attach much value to a few feet of soil in a country where farms are measured by the hun- dred acres. It became, with its mem- ories, its traditions, its sanctity, a Nemesis always watching his unsteady footsteps. At last he resolved to put an end to his torment. He would destroy the church. One starlight night, having brooded long over this purpose, Winkle start- ed out to put it in execution. Making a wide circuit, to avoid meeting anyone who might be travelling upon the high- way, he stole cautiously across the mead- ow toward his property. He had pro- vided himself with a bundle of straw well saturated with oil, and this he car- ried in his arms, so that it was with difficulty he could pick his way. He stumbled across a ploughed field to the fence row of elms, and kept well in their THE TODDVILLE RAFFLE. 127 shadow till he had gained the brook with its bordering wall of moving wil- lows. This he skirted, approaching the burying-ground. That had not entered into his calculations. There lay the very people the recollection of whom had made the building unbearable to him. For a long time he crouched there in the shade, hugging his bundle of inflammable stuff close, and staring at the few white, irregular stones that seemed to do sentry duty for the great, square, vacant house beyond them. That is where my father and my grandfather lie, was the thought that forced itself in on his mind. There is where I shall be, too, some day, in the old churchyard. And quickly followed the reflection that when the church was gone the churchyard would be naught. In haste now, perhaps because the night air or some other chill was mak- ing it difficult to keep his teeth from chattering, or perhaps because he doubt- ed the strength of his resolution, he piled the straw against one corner and placed a lighted match under it. An opportune gust of wind fanned the flame into instant blaze, lighting for a moment the white clapboards upon which the paint was beginning to crack and peel in places, illuminating the sheds and even casting a glory upon the faces of the carven marble cherubs on the graveyard stones. But had any other spectator been there he would have been most struck with the look upon the incendiarys face. Swift re- pentance, self-hate, condemnation of, his own evil deed, lined it with an expression of lively remorse that the dancing light served to intensify. Then with a spring he threw himself upon the blazing heap and tore it away, trampling it under foot, scorching and scarring himself (as we most of us have done) in the effort to undo the mischief he had begun. One Monday morning Mrs. Busbee was standing by her clothes-lines, basket at foot, learning the latest news from Liza Jane Green, who had just run over with her budget. An its the queerest thing. They aint no sense into some men. What d you spose ever led him to go away that fash- ion, thout ever sayin ay, yes, or no to any of his folks? I ben down at his aunts house an she say shes satisfied t s bout the bes thing and the sensi- bles thing he ever did. They do say he aint ben quite right in his upper story sense he drawed the church in that there raffle, which I claim was about the rediclousest thing a body ever hear tell about. Right er wrong, hes gone clean away out o this place, an I dno but what his aunts mor n half right. He aint but small loss. At the tavern, at the store, down by the blacksmiths forge the same topic was variously discussed. Before the raffle Jerry had been a popular man with a certain class of people, and his sudden departure consequently created a wider ripple of excitement than yours or mine, dear reader, might cause in our com~nu- nity. For a few days his memory was kept green, then his name was occa- sionally mentioned in a reminiscent way, and at last his old-time cronies found it necessary to preface any story in which he figured with the formula, You re- member Jerry Winkle what used to live here; the same one that drawed the church? At length the place that had known him well, and knew little good of him, seemed to know him no more. Once, in- deed, a statement was made by a sales- man who came in his yearly round to the place, that he had seen Jerry running a wheel at a countyfair; but that may have been error, or malice, or simple mendacity. He had faded out of the vil- lage life completely. But the church re- mained and our story henceforth has to do with it. What had become of its owner no one knew; that is to say, no one but Squire Dorset, and he laid out money for the necessary paint and repairs, and paid the taxes when they were due, without ever betraying his principal; for no one doubted that he was simply acting as an agent in the matter. There was not the slightest suspicion that the Squire had purchased the property. He had been an intimate friend of our reprobates father, and he had, perhaps, on that ac- count exerted himself to find a purcha- ser for the son. But if such was the case the Squire 128 THE TODDVILLE RAFFLE. was certainly a most exemplary agent. He not only kept the exterior of the edifice in good condition, but he bus- ied himself as well with the interior, so that the broken benches were repaired, the pulpit furniture furbished up, and even the wails whitewashed. In fact, as though having faith in the dawn of a better day for Toddville, the Squire or rather, that unknown someone whom the Squire representedkept the Lords house ready for occupancy. Once in a while, it is true, his neigh- bors shook their heads and whispered strange things about the Squire. He was getting to be an old man, and it was more than intimated that he was not without the childishness of age. The church had been the cause of one mans unaccountable behavior, and now it really seemed as thoughwell, at any rate, there was no sense in spending good money for such an object. Some very zealous friends, after thoroughly canvassing the matter among them- selves, actually summoned courage to advise young Dorset, the Squires son, to put the old man under restraint. Young Dorset rather surprised his ad- visers by the readiness with which he listened to the suggestion. I only see one way to do that, he replied, quietly, and that is to employ a keeper to go around with him. It is wonderful the interest that we take in our neighbors misfortunes. In twenty-four hours all Toddville knew that Will Dorset thought his father ought to have a keeper. The ole man must be a heap sight wuss n we any of us caclated, observed Jackson. Not long after this a buggy drove up to the Squires door and a quiet-look- ing, rather powerfully built man alight- ed. He was met by Will Dorset. They went quickly into the house together. For a day or two no one had a chance to interview the Squires son, but at last Major Gumble jes took the bull by t other horn, sir, and stopped him on the road. Hows your father, Will? Oh, hes pretty well, considering. I wanted to ask you, Will, whether that there was thehmthe pusson you was speakin about. Oh, yes, said the young man. You may call him a sort of keeper, I guess. He is a sort of a keeper. The new keeper seemed to humor his charge in every possible way. It is a trick that these skilled persons have of keeping their patients from actual out- break. And of course everybody was mightily interested. Really the old gen- tleman seemed harmless enough, only some of his acts were amusing. For instance, on the Saturday following the advent of his attendant he was seen busily tacking up notices on the trees at every prominent point and cross- road within a radius of three miles from the church. These notices read: There will be Divine service to-mor- row (Sunday, June 12th) in the church at Toddville, at half-past ten oclock. People read, grinned, and passed on. But, supposing that the notices might indicate some new phase of mania which nobody wanted to miss, when ten oclock drew near there was a large crowd gath- ered on the road in front of the church. Nor was their coming bootless. Just before the hour arrived the writer of the notices appeared, attended as usual by his keeper. Together they entered the church, after a brief whispered dia- logue during which the stranger seemed to expostulate and the Squire to insist upon some point he was urging. The crowd followed. Squire Dorset walked steadily to his old pew and reverently bowed his head there. The keeper made directly for the pulpit, stood for a moment waiting for the rustle and bustle of the incom- ing congregation to subside, as, with the force of old custom, all found seats, and then gave out the opening hymn: God moves in a mysterious way. Fairly trapped, the people of Todd- yule joined in the singing, bowed their heads in at Least the semblance of wor- ship, and listened to the sermon. When they finally dispersed light on more than one subject began to break upon their understandings. Has the reader also guessed the conclusion? The Rev. Jeremiah Winkle had come home to his church. THE POINT OF VIEW. B ARYES place in the history of art is more nearly unique, perhaps, than that of any of the great artists. He was certainly one of the greatest of sculptors, and he had either the good luck or the mis- chance to do his work ma field almost wholly unexploited before him. He has in his way no rivals, and in his way he is so admirable that the scope of his work does not even hint at his exclusion from rivalry with the very greatest of his predecessors. A perception of the truth of this apparent paradox is the best result anyone can carry away with him after a visit to the exhibition of Baryes works now being held in this city. No mat- ter what you do, if you do it well enough, that is, with enough elevation, enough spir- itual distinction, enough transmutation of the elementary necessity of technical perfec- tion into true significance you succeed. And this is not the sense in which motive in art is currently belittled. It is rather the suggestion of Mrs. Brownings lines: Better far Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means Than a sublime art frivolously. The exhibition is nominally in aid of a fund to erect a monument to Barye in Parisin aid, thus, of a most worthy project, and of American self-esteem in ~sthetic matters; the Barye Monument Association is perhaps counting on making the Parisians blush a little. But there are already many Parisians who appreciate Barye. The exhibitions real function is an educational one, and a wider-spread comprehension of the heroic character of Baryes work, in spite of its ap- parently narrow scope, will be its best out- come. Nothing could be more misleading than to fancy Baryc a kind of modern Cellini. Less than any sculptor of modern times is he a decorative artist. The small scale of his works is in great part due to his lack of opportunity to produce larger ones. Nowa- days one does what one can, even the great- est artists; and Barye had no Lorenzo de Medici for a patron, but, instead, a frowning Institute, which confined him to such work as, in the main, he did. He did it con amore, it need not be added, and thus lifted it at once out of the customary category of such work. His bronzes were never articles de Paris, and their excellence transcends the function of teaching our sculptors and amateurs the lesson that household is as dignified a province as monumental, art. His groups are not essentially clock-tops, and the work of perhaps the greatest artist, in the line from Jean Goujon to Carpeaux, can hardly be used to point the moral that clock-tops ought to be good. Cellinis Perseus is really more of a parlor orna- ment than Baryes smallest figure. Why is he so obviously great as well as so obviously extraordinary? one constantly asks himself in the presence of the bronzes now on exhibition. Perhaps because he ex- presses with such concreteness, such defi- niteness and vigor, a motive so ~urcly an abstraction. The illustration in intimate elaboration of elemental force, strength, passion, seems to have been his aim, and in everyone of his wonderfully varied groups he attains it superblynot giving the behold- er a symbol of it merely, in no degree de- pending upon association or convention, but exhibiting its very essence with a combined Vor.. VI1.15

THE POINT OF VIEW. B ARYES place in the history of art is more nearly unique, perhaps, than that of any of the great artists. He was certainly one of the greatest of sculptors, and he had either the good luck or the mis- chance to do his work ma field almost wholly unexploited before him. He has in his way no rivals, and in his way he is so admirable that the scope of his work does not even hint at his exclusion from rivalry with the very greatest of his predecessors. A perception of the truth of this apparent paradox is the best result anyone can carry away with him after a visit to the exhibition of Baryes works now being held in this city. No mat- ter what you do, if you do it well enough, that is, with enough elevation, enough spir- itual distinction, enough transmutation of the elementary necessity of technical perfec- tion into true significance you succeed. And this is not the sense in which motive in art is currently belittled. It is rather the suggestion of Mrs. Brownings lines: Better far Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means Than a sublime art frivolously. The exhibition is nominally in aid of a fund to erect a monument to Barye in Parisin aid, thus, of a most worthy project, and of American self-esteem in ~sthetic matters; the Barye Monument Association is perhaps counting on making the Parisians blush a little. But there are already many Parisians who appreciate Barye. The exhibitions real function is an educational one, and a wider-spread comprehension of the heroic character of Baryes work, in spite of its ap- parently narrow scope, will be its best out- come. Nothing could be more misleading than to fancy Baryc a kind of modern Cellini. Less than any sculptor of modern times is he a decorative artist. The small scale of his works is in great part due to his lack of opportunity to produce larger ones. Nowa- days one does what one can, even the great- est artists; and Barye had no Lorenzo de Medici for a patron, but, instead, a frowning Institute, which confined him to such work as, in the main, he did. He did it con amore, it need not be added, and thus lifted it at once out of the customary category of such work. His bronzes were never articles de Paris, and their excellence transcends the function of teaching our sculptors and amateurs the lesson that household is as dignified a province as monumental, art. His groups are not essentially clock-tops, and the work of perhaps the greatest artist, in the line from Jean Goujon to Carpeaux, can hardly be used to point the moral that clock-tops ought to be good. Cellinis Perseus is really more of a parlor orna- ment than Baryes smallest figure. Why is he so obviously great as well as so obviously extraordinary? one constantly asks himself in the presence of the bronzes now on exhibition. Perhaps because he ex- presses with such concreteness, such defi- niteness and vigor, a motive so ~urcly an abstraction. The illustration in intimate elaboration of elemental force, strength, passion, seems to have been his aim, and in everyone of his wonderfully varied groups he attains it superblynot giving the behold- er a symbol of it merely, in no degree de- pending upon association or convention, but exhibiting its very essence with a combined Vor.. VI1.15 130 THE POINT OP VIEW. scientific explicitness and poetic energy to which antique art alone furnishes any par- alleL For this fauna served him as well as the human figure, though, could he have studied man with the facility which the Jardin des Plantes afforded him of ob- serving the lower animals, he might have used the medium of the human figure more frequently than he did. When he did, he was hardly less successful; and it is a great pity that reproductions of the four splendid groups which decorate the Pavil- ions Denon and Richelieu of the Louvre are not shown in the current exhibition. They are in the very front rank of the sculpture of the modern world. It is a pity, too, from the point of view of popularizing Baryc, that the inevitably more popular part of the ex- hibition should be composed of one of the most remarkable collections of the pictures of the men of 1830 that have ever been assembled. So much of Thackerays private life is still unfamiliar that not many people were aware that he ever allowed himself the lux- ury of a private secretary. It seems that he did, and there is a holding up of hands more or less general over the intelligence that a certain Mr. Langley, who served him in that capacity for a year or two along about 1860, kept a diary during the term of his employment wherein he set down many sayings and notes of interest about his em- ployer, and that this diary is very shortly to be offered to the world. Whether this Mr. Langley is living or not, and to whom or under what conditions his notes are to be sold, has not transpired at this writing; but there have appeared divers intimations, the nature of which can be accurately gathered from a paragraph of the Tribune, which runs: Reminiscences of a writer so great, and a man so wise and witty and so loved, would be very de- lightf ci no doubt; but what are we to think of one who could record for the public such intimate de- tails of a hero so reserved? If Mr. Langley be publishing them himself, it must be said that he is an ungrateful cur; if he be dead and this is the work of sordid survivors, not much less can be said of them. Thackerays feelings on this matter were so strong that honorable people have regarded his expressed wish with something of the same respect inspired by the legend on Shakespeares grave- stone. That Thackeray should have wished that his private life should remain hid was nat- ural enough. A great many persons now living have similar feelings, and are quite as indisposed as ever he was to be ripped up, as Baron DEyncourt would say, and have their personal concerns published to the world. That his personal wishes in the matter should have bound his daughters and near friends was to be expected, but that they are binding on all men for all time is by no means so clear. For convenience sake a man is permitted, within certain limitations which vary in various countries, to say whoshall have his property when he dies. He can bequeath his houses and lands, his stocks, bonds, money, books, cattle, and bric-a-brac. But he cannot bequeath his wife or his grown children, for they belong not to him but to themselves. No more can he bequeath the story of his life to anyones exclusive use, or to disuse, for that is not his either. That is part of history, and belongs to any son of Adam who cares to investigate and use it. The notion that the worlds acquaintance with the man Thackeray is to be only so intimate as Thackeray might have chosen to permit, is not sound. What is told or said of a man while he is alive he is per- mitted to resent, if he doesnt like it; but if he tries to bind posterity not to explore his record after he is dead, he tries to control what is no longer his. What he did in the world he left in the world, and it belongs to the world ; and, if it is worth while exploring, the world is perfectly at liberty to look it up at its convenience. History is the record of human lives and their results. Consider- ing what Thackeray got out of history, he was the last man who should have objected that history should get its own from him. The truth is that there are few things in the world so valuable as the records of the lives of great men, and particularly of great men who were good. The more complete such records arethe more they include those matters of daily private life which mark the growth of characterthe greater is their value. It is not alone the story of a strong mans strength or a great mans greatness that the world needs. The weak- nesses he overcame, the adversities he struggled through, the thousand mistakes that he survivedthose are what mankind THE POINT OF VIEW. 131 has most need of for its encouragement and help. A great deal of information has come out about Lincoln lately that must be rather painful reading for his children, and dis- tasteful to people who want to canonize him, but not a line of it can be spared. He was one of the men about whom the world has a right to know the whole truth and to strengthen itself with every fact that tells how man can suffer and grow strong. And another man of whom the same is true, though in a less measure, was Thackeray: a great man, a great-hearted gentleman, who loved the truth and struggled toward it all his life long, and whose heart was so tender, and his pity and love for humanity so gentle and constant, that hosts of readers who never saw his face have learned to love him with an intimate personal regard. That the personal history of such a man shall never become known is altogether too much to expect. It is much too valuable to be lost. There are fitnesses of time that may properly be respected, but in due sea- son Thackerays life must be written, if not adequately, at least as fully as possible. Let us hope that these notes of Mr. Langley may add something of value to the existing materials for such a work. A PERSON whose identity it is unnecessary to publish here, but a very important person, was grumbling the other day about those ambitious paragraphs in the untrammelled press which record from December to May that Mrs. Thompson Jones had a party, and Mr. and Mrs. Brown Robinson and Mr. and Mrs. Rogers Smith were there, ex- pressed himself as fatigued with the rec- ord of these events, and with the constant repetition of the same names in connec- tion with them. Why these names and no others, he wanted to know, and argued that the apparent recognition of their worth conveyed in this exclusive notice was one thing that lulled these people in the delu- sion that they were the folks, and made them feel above other persons whose move- ments gained less notoriety. He wanted something done about it. This, to tell him that he is fretting over something that ought not to disturb him. When he goes to the theatre does he com- plain because his name and yours and mine are not on the play-bill, but all the space there is given up to identifying a lot of actors who are not a bit more worthy, when it comes down to real worth, than we are? Let him take rich New York society from the same point of view. The persons whose social achievements get so much more notice than ours may not be really more admirable than we, but they are occupying the stage. So far from being vexed at them, he ought to regard them from afar off with grateful emotions, as persons who are employed to perform social feats at their own expense for his diversion, and whose operations are kindly set forth in the public press so that he can easily inform himself about them when personal observation is not convenient. Not the books in the Astor Library, not the pictures in the Metropolitan Museum, nor Cleopatra, her needle in the Park, are more distinctly ours to use and to profit by than these Brown Robinsons and Rogers Smiths. When their splendor has its set- backs it is for us spectators to draw moral lessons therefrom for our use. When young Thompson Smith elopes with a ballet- dancer we can wag our heads as we read about it and be thankful that our sons are not exposed to the demoralizing influences of large means; and the same when Be- nita Brown Robinson marries some scare- crow prince, or Lawrence Perry the Young- ers difficulties with the governors of the Union Club are advertised to the world. Be sure the recording angel takes regular note of the advantage it is to us to have these rich always with us, and that we shall be held to strict accountability for all the profit we ought to have received from our newspaper familiarity with their ingoings and outcomings, and all their vicissitudes of experience. ADMITTING all the moral degradation of the lively Gaul, let us for one brief moment try to keep our excelling virtue from the question: Why is it that our educated peo- ple read novels still of style so bad, of text- ure so light, of meaning so vacant that no Palais-Royal book-stall would venture to imprint them? Or, rather, why are they of France such artists, and yet such wicked 132 THE POINT OF VIEW. ones? Why do they still care for excel- lence in art, if in nothing else? Incompar- able in the calm pursuits of peace, they throw together a few thousand oils, a few hundred aquarelles, a few million bits of fused sand or baked clay, and all their mighty neighbors flock to Paris and step gingerly, admiring, through the show- shelves of this beaten people. Such artists are they! so delicately, so consummately do they work, each in his quiet little shop, or field, or study! And all the time one has the consciousness of Germany, like some healthy, burly boy, beating noisily for mischief on the outer gates. Yet three things more impressed one than the Exposition, there, abroad, last sum- mer. In one corner of the Place of Peace stands a statue, the typical figure of Stras- burg, of Alsace-Lorraineone of the nine or ten figures that personify the old prov- inces of France. I do not mean such cow- ardly abstractions of convenient government as Indre-et-Loire, Seine Infirieure, Oise- et-Cher, and the like, but Gascony, Bur- gundy, Brittany, Touraineentities, per- sons, that were flesh and blood, and faith, and wine, and fire; things that had a being, and a spirit-of-body, as we say, when France seemed like to have some further history; and hence grew inconvenient, as a heroine in a manage de convenance. The other statues stand naked; but Alsace-Lorraine is buried in a pyre of wreaths and flowers funeral flowers, immortelles; with faded roses, lilies, violets, now a brownish dust, the sentimental offerings of nigh twenty years of Frenchmen. And, over all, a canvas legendwritten on the gates of Stras- burg Qui vrvx9 LA FRANCE! 1871 18 Hardly a Frenchman in all Paris thought that an overweening phrase, when put there first; and now scarce ten years remain; and yet, not yet, has once the German sen tinel at Strasburg, roused at night, called, Who goes there? to the Western fields, and heard the answer, France. And then, one day last August, all the master-singers of the French nation were called together in the Trocad~ro to sing the Marseillaise. Four thousand of them sang it through, and they sang it well and sweet- ly; and the audience was orderly, and ap- plauded with discrimination. And their harmonies seemed to me to give a gentle answer to that unanswered question of the Alsace statue. For whereas, in the hun- dred years last past you could not get three Frenchmen in a cellar, and let them sing the Marseillaise, under their breaths for fear of the law and the Imperial guards, with safety to the roofbut here, with those four thousand Frenchmen singing, the criticism was of lack of force; aux armes! was sung like aux amours. The d~icadence, it is, they tell us there in Paris; and they have a school of writers who affect the name. Perhaps it is so; and with the arts come the vices. Yet surely there may be, as there has been, a greater lit- eratureElizabethan, Greekthat breathes of the sea and the free field, that springs from commerce, not the factory, that be- seems a rising people and a doing world, and yet is built for men and women, not commercial travellers and girls. And then you went to that Rhine no longer French, and there, on the first backward bend of the river, you find the answer again; the huge figure of Germania, plant- ed on the Niederwald, her back to Germany, guarded by the Hohenzollern eagles, and facing to the French frontier. Barbarian it may be; like some nightmare of the dark ages it may seem to enlightened Paris; but it stands there, in the German forest, counter to that recumbent Alsace-Lorraine at the streets corner, to remind a dainty age that strength, after all, must underlie craft, and that hearts do more of this worlds work than heads, to-day. IN A HUNGARIAN VILLAGE, V

VoL VII. SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1890. LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. By Herbert Ward. No. 2. BOUT noon on March A bronzed, meagre, 12, 1877, Stanley, and with blanched hair, leaning forward in his canoe, and shading his eyes ~ from the fierce tropical sun, gazed upon the vast ex- panse of water since known II as Stanley Pool. In his ~ / flotilla of native canoes he had with him his sole sur - viving w hi t e companion, Upoto War Knife. Frank Pocock, and his gal- lant band of Waugwanas, natives of Zanzibar. For more than two years and a half they had travelled ever onward, undergoing the keenest priva- tions, frequently escaping only by that happy tact and judgment which are among Stanleys principal characteris- tics. It will be forever fresh in our minds how, after circumnavigating the central African lakes, he pushed his way to Ny- angwe, where he augmented his forces by engaging some Arabs and their fol- lowing to accompany him down the Lu- alaba River for sixty marches. A por- tion of the caravan floated down the river in canoes, and the remainder forced their way along the banks through the dense and deadly forests, after frightful hardships and large loss of life. The Arabs refused to accompany Mr. Stan- ley any farther, on account of the rav- ages which sickness had made among their numbers, and also on account of the extremely hazardous character of the enterprise, in which they had but little faith. Stanley, undaunted by this desertion, and accompanied by his sole remaining white man (the plucky young English- man Frank Pocock), and his faithful but discontented handful of Wangwana followers, determined to push on at all hazards in canoes. They embarked near the Seventh Cataract, since popularly known as Stanley Falls. Very soon they encountered serious hostility from the natives. At the mouth of the Aruimi River thousands of savages came out in their enormous war-canoes to attack him, crying, Nyama! nyama! (Meat, meat) for in these regions the people are cannilhals, and the significance of their cry was obvious. By dint of hard fighting, indefatigable energy, combined with masterly diplo- macy, he forced his way down the Con- go River to the Atlantic Ocean, thus clearly solving the course and connection of the Lualaba with the Congo. There is, even to this date, no more thrilling book of travel than Stanleys Through the iDark Continent, in which the great explorer has narrated to the world the interesting record of this memorable ex- pedition. When Stanley reached Europe, the keenest public interest was directed tow- ard this vast country, never before vis- ited by a white man, and His Majesty King Leopold II. of Belgium commis- sioned Stanley to return again to the Congo country, and post stations at the most advantageous points, in order that copyright, 1890. by charles Scribners Sons. All rights reserved. 136 LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. these benighted savages in the heart of Africa might receive the benefits of civ- ilization. For four years Stanley tray- elled about the country negotiating treaties for concessions of territory with the native chiefs, which were to form the basis of the creation of the Congo Free State. It was while transporting his boats and small steam-launches through the cataract region of the Congo, in order to put them together on Stanley Pool for the navigation of the Upper Congo, that Stanley was christened by the natives Bula Matadi (The Stone-breaker), from his having blasted rocks which obstruct- ed his road. The name Bula Matadi is uttered with respect and awe by the al- most numberless inhabitants to the ut- most limits of the Congo Free State. In the beginning of 1884 I reached England, suffering from malarial fever contracted while travelling in the far in- terior of North Borneo. As I regained my health my desire to travel in new countries revived, for the fascination of being the first white man to view a new countryto be the first white to visit strange savage tribes, who live in far- away wilds, which have hitherto proved inaccessible to civilizationwas at that time strong within me. I could not do better than to become connected with an enterprise such as Mr. Stanleys consequently, upon receiving an appoint- ment from Brussels, through Mr. Stan- leys influence, I proceeded in 1884 to the Congo. Landing at the mouth of the Congo River, and embarking on a small steam- launch, we steamed an entire day past mangrove swamps, until we reached Boma, now the seat and the principal de- pot of the Government of the Congo Free State. Here are now several large factories belonging to French, Dutch, Portuguese, and English trading com- panies, who exchange Manchester and Birmingham goods for native produce. From Boma, steaming another entire day, we reached Vivi, a station estab- lished by Mr. Stanley at the farthest point of navigation. Vivi Station was at that time the base of administration. There were here about fifteen white men of different nationalities, living in houses made, some of planks, others of mud and grass, and a few, of higher pretensions, were roofed with corru- gated iron. After remaining in Vivi for a few days, in order to receive my instructions, and to prepare my loads for the overland march into the interior, I started with native carriers of the Ba- kongo tribe. For four days I marched on the north bank of the Congo, over rugged hills, through dense patches of forest, ever and anon catching glimpses of the Cataracts of the Congo River, eddying and whirling among enormous rocks and cliffs; while on the south side most picturesque glimpses of the far country beyond were plainly visible. It was the rainy season. Wet weather, deep muddy swamps, long grass, and mosquitoes, were prominent features of this journey. At Isanghila a station had been es- tablished as a depot for the boat service between Isaughila and Manyanga, a stretch of wild, swift water, navigable only with great caution and local knowl- edge. The natives are lazy and indo- lent. The influence of trade-rum here has its demoralizing effect ; their only ambition seems to be to scrape together a few ground-nuts and palm-kernels, which they carry to the European trad- ers at Boma, to sell for trade-rum, a fiery, spirituous poison prepared in Europe solely for the African trade. The Bakongo of this region are in- tensely superstitious. For instance, one of their superstitions is the belief that certain individuals are in league with the elements. Upon one occasion the Type of Sangala. (Drawn by the author.) LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. 137 missionaries desired to build a little iron church on the summit of a hill, near the mouth of the Congo. The natives, however, indignantly refused to allow them. Bribes and persuasions were of no avail, but eventually they ex- plained to the missionaries the reason of their objections. They said, If you build a great, ugly house of iron like that, we shall have no rain. Never has such a house as that been in this coun- try. Such a thing would surely frighten away the rain. Even to this day, in certain parts of the lower Congo, when there is a drought, they attribute it to the white man, For, they say, be- fore the white men came these things always went on regularly. Our dry sea- son was so many days, and our rainy season lasted so many days, but now the elements are demoralized. It was very weak of us to let the white men pass into the country. They have a playful little habit, also, of kidnapping people, and keeping them bound, hand and foot, close prisoners, until the rain comes. A Bangala Native and hia W,fe. 138 LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. Women are, of course, the cause of the majority of the native wars. But the ec- centricities of the elements are the cause of a great deal of trouble and blood- shed. One chief will threaten a neigh- boring chief, in a moment of anger, that he will tie up the rain. Consequent- ly, should the rain be late, the reason is attributed to the threat of this chief, and bloodshed follows. Manyanga h a s a com- manding position on the north bank of the Congo, being built on the crest of a hill, about eighty miles from Isaughila. But it has proved fatal to the health of white men. The rows of rough stone-heap graves at the foot of the hill tell their own sad tale. It might be reasonably supposed that a site so high above the sea- level would be sufficiently elevated to escape the malarial fogs; but the contrary is found to be the case, as at the station on the opposite side of the river, situated on a sand-bank just above the river-level, there is hardly any sick- ness. Hilly sites are constantly under- going changes of temperature; after the blazing heat of the tropical sun comes a cold withering wind, which too frequently is the forerunner of chills which prove so fatal in that country; whereas the low-lying and sheltered sit- uations are not subject to such sudden changes. From Manyanga to Stanley Pool, a distance of about seventy miles, the country becomes more park-like, with long plateaus and picturesque land- scapes. It is a remarkable feature that this portion of the country should be utterly devoid of game. It is, doubtless, on account of the nature of the soil. From the coast to this point the inhab- itants are Bakongo, whose language is soft and rich in expression, and is rendered particularly harmonious by its alliterative concord. Stanley Pool marks the commencement of the Ba- teke tribe, whose language is of a mono- syllabic order, and they have a pecul- iar sing-song mode of speaking. They Type of Bopoto. (Drawn by the author.) are traders, acting as middle - men in the ivory trade between the Babangis of the upper Congo, who come down in their large canoes with tusks of ivory, and the Bakongos, who dispose of the ivory to the Euro- pean traders on the coast. The Batekes are indolent, cunning, and utterly de- void of the elements of civ- ilization. Leaving Stanley Pool, the scenery up to Kwamouth is remarkably picturesque, be- ing thickly wooded country, with bald patches on the summits of the hills, the action of the rain having washed down the rich soil. One is immediately im- pressed by the superiority of this country, when com- pared with that lying be- tween here and the coast. There the hills are more abrupt, more rocky and arid, especially after the grass fires, which occur at the end of each dry sea- son. The first village of importance after leaving Stanley Pool is situated on the south bank. Mr. Stanley estab- lished a small post here, in 1882, leav- ing in command Lieutenant Jannsen, who was known to the natives as Nsusu Mpembe (White Fowl). He was unfortu- nately drowned in tbe autumn of 1883, while crossing the river, his canoe being capsized in a tornado. The country now becomes more culti- vated, and one catches passing glimpses of little villages snugly stowed away in the dense forests which fringe the river. The undulating country at the back is here and there cultivated with patches of cassava, planted in rows. It is here that the Kasai River empties itself into the Congo. There is a marked contrast in the color of the waters, the Kasai being of a thick clayey color, while the Congo is black and muddy. Captain Wissman, the German traveller, was the first to explore the course of this great Kasai River. Previous to his descent, in 1885, its course was purely a matter of conjecture. At the time of his arri- val there was a State station at its con- fluence with the Congo. Wissman had Village Scene at Bangala f I 140 LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. been travelling down the Kasai River for many months in canoes. Upon reaching the Congo he could hardly realize where he was, and his anxiety got so much the better of him that, be- fore he had time to get his canoes prop- erly beached, he had plunged into the water, and wad- ing ashore eagerly asked, What river is this? Since that time other expeditions have ascended the Kasai and its tribu- taries, and its whole course is nowknown to the world. The Congo State has now a post at the far-away headquar- ters of this river, and for many years past Portuguese ad- venturers have been in the habit of vis- iting these districts, engaged in the slave and ivory trade. They are even to this day carrying on their nefarious traffic. The next village of importance on the Congo is Chumbiri. Palm - trees abound, planted in avenues, and under their friendly shade are the huts of the natives, built in streets and open squares. These palm-forests, combined with graceful banana-trees of different hues, and occasional fan and borassus palms, form a beautiful picture in the strong, tropical sunlight. Kwamouth is the division of the Batekes and Ba- bangi tribes. The Babangi are a much more enterprising tribe, and of a more open disposition than the indolent, ava- ricious Bateke. There is a great variety of food in this villagepumpkins, sweet potatoes, egg-fruit, bananas, plantains, palm - nuts, palm - wine, maize, peanuts, manioc; also many plants used by the natives as vegetables, most of them re Knife and Sheath, Kassongo, Central Africa. sembling spinach in flavor. Portions of old canoes turned upside down, and placed at right angles, with a grass roof over them, form seats and are used for native palavers, palm - wine drinking, and general places of assembly. The chief, Thinda, is an old man, generally to be seen lying back upon a log, smoking a long Bateke pipe, with a bent metal stem, the bowl resting on the ground; his son, a bright-eyed, mis- chievous boy of about ten years, sitting beside him. The old chiefs face is generally adorned with paint and with white chalk on his eyelids, and yellow and red stripes and spots down his arms and on his breast ; his mustache is shaved from the upper lip, with the exception of two ends over the corner of the mouth, standing out like bristles; his beard is plaited into a string about six inches long; and hanging over him from a bough of the beautiful, soft - leaved, shady tree under which he reclines, is his staff of state, an old spear, orna- mented with strips of wild - cat skin, and the knob covered with some yellow stuff resembling the bread-crumbs on a fish-ball. During the founding of the Congo State it was decided to establish a sta- tion at Bolobo, on account of the vast population. But it was not until 1883 that a white man was found competent to deal with the natives. Twice the sta- tion had been burnt down, and several fights had occurred, when Lieutenant Liebrechts, a Belgian artillery officer, was placed in command and established order. At Bolobo the natives have great trading interests, and act as middlemen between the up-country ivory traders and the Bateke of Stanley Pool. There are, here, two separate tribes, the Bayansi and the Bamoc. The Bayansi of Bolobo are essentially traders, but the Bamo6 cultivate on an extensive scale and are great fishermen. There is an _____ abundance of ~ - fish, from small white-bait to fish weighing one hundred and fifty pounds; and the natives have various modes of fishing. Tippo Tiba Sandal, with hia compli- menta to Herbert Ward. Hamad ben Mohammed Tippo Tib. 142 LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. For instance, in order to catch the fish fowl, red-legged partridges, and wild-. that frequent the shallow parts around duck in abundance. the sand-banks they use lengths of cane It was in a large plain, just below the trellis about six feet high. They ap- village of Bolobo, that my friend and proach stealthily by night, as a rule, companion, E. J. Glave, once had a very and surround a narrow escape from a charging buffalo. large portion of He had come upon a large herd, con- the shallow water sisting of about two hundred buffalo, by means of the but unfortunately only managed to c an e - w o r k, so wound a bull in the shoulder. The re- that no fish can mainder of the herd stampeded off, but e s c a p e. They the wounded animal trotted into a neigh- then c o n t r a c t boring patch of scrub. As Glave ap- t h e i r circular proached, the infuriated brute rushed wall until the into the open and stood dazed for an circumference is instant, then, with neck extended, he small enough to stuck back his ears, stamped with his admit of their us- foot, and sniffing the air and with an ing their barbed ominous twitch of his tail charged spears. straight for Glave, who was about fifty To the fish who yards off. Glave was armed with a Mar- Cannibal Trophy at Upoto. are inclined to tini rifle, and at the pace tbe wounded (Drawn by the author.) bask in sluggish buffalo was charging lie had to depend water the natives on the one shot. Waiting coolly until are accommodating. They arrange a the brute had approached within a few stockade projecting into the current feet of him, his head close to the ground, about twenty yards, at right angles to bellowing with rage, Glave raised his the river bank. Upon this they attach rifle and shot the infuriated animal in small bushes, the whole forming a break- the heart. So sudden was the shock water, in the lee of which the indolent and so great the impulse that the brute fish can resort, sheltered from the cur- turned a complete somersault, and Glave rent. In the most advantageous position had only time to jump aside to avoid are placed artfully contrived traps, made being crushed. The two Zanzibaris on the principle of our lobster pots, and who accompanied him remained in the baited with manioc root. They are well background, and as they realized the acquainted with the art of curing fish. danger keenly when they saw the dead Upon a platform, built about two feet buffalo, they uttered fervently the Mo- from the ground, across which are laid hammedan prayer, Hemd Ii Allah! small sticks, the fresh fish are arranged, While stalking the herd, Glave had and then thoroughly dried and smoked given a native his helmet to carry, but by means of a fire placed underneath, in the excitement the native had ran During the hot, dry weather they are off into a neighboring bush, where he able to cure fish in the sun, but the was safely perched in a high tree. So climate being generally damp, this pro- thoroughly scared was he by the charg- cess is only occasionally practicable. A ing buffalo that he could not be per- great trade results, in the exchange of suaded to come down with the hat. fish for vegetable food, between the na- They shouted to him that the danger tives who reside on the river banks and was past, but he would not believe it. the inland tribes. In the district of At last another man had to go up the Bolobo is to be found everything that tree and bring down the helmet. In this portion of central Africa produces consequence of the exposure without a large plantations of maize, peanut, hat, Glave was attacked with a very se- sugar-cane, plenty of goats, fowl, ducks, vere fever. That night he became de- and sheep; and the surrounding forests lirious, and it required the united ef- and plains harbor numberless herds of forts of his blacks to control him. elephants and buffalo. In the planta- A station was established at Lukolela tions are always to be found guinea- in 1883 byMr. Stanley, and left in charge 7/ 1. Herbert Ward and Follawers at Bangala Central Africa. ~j r~ 77 I, 144 LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. of my friend Glave. It is an important post, from its strategic position, as here the Congo narrows very considerably, so that everything that passes up and down the river at this point can be clearly seen. It is situated in a dense forest, probably the thickest in the whole country, and which contains a great variety of timber. The natives are a peaceable and good - natured peo- ple. Lakolela is also the centre of a large game district, many species being found in that vi- cinity. In the country at the back of Lukolela there are some powerful but peaceable tribes, at the head of whom is a chief who has rather a unique superstition, w h i c h is that he must not see the river Congo. He is now an old man, close on to sev- enty years; but neither himself nor his father before him has ever seen the river. He has the impression that the day he sees the river will decide the date of his funeral. He will go down within a few miles of it, but never rims the slightest risk of catching a glimpse. Among these peoples there is a custom that a big chief in a dis- trict, on having proved to the satisfac- tion of the assembled chiefs that he is the wealthiest, and, physically speak- ing, the strongest, is invested with the order of the Tall Hat. This resembles very much the stove-pipe hat of civilized life, only with the brim at the top, and is made of plaited fibre. Nearly opposite Lukolela Station is situated the mouth of the Alima, a river very important in connection with Dc Brazzas enterprise, as this water-way completes his transport service through the French Congo territory. The head- quarters of the French Congo posses- sions are at Gaboon, situated on the southwest coast of Africa, one degree south. They convey their transports up the river Oguwe, the mouth of which is at Gaboon. The French ascend this river to the limit of its navigable waters, when they march overland for seven or eight days, and again embarking at the head-waters of the Alima enter the Con- go near Lukolela. This is a very danger- ous route, on account of the many rapids and the rocky nature of the water-way. Many of the villages on the upper Congo consist merely of fifty to sixty log-huts, two-thirds of the popu- lation being generally women. In many dis- tricts women are consid- ered as currency, their value increasing as they attain a greater degree of corpulency. Each woman has as many metal ornaments as she can wear, some compos- ed of iron, others brass and copper. These met- als are the money of the country, so that the more a woman can heap upon herself the greater becomes her value. Each chief has as many wives as he can afford to buy or marry, which is only another form of purchase. Early in the morning few of these women are to be found in the villages, as they start off at daybreak to work in their plantations, and do not return until about noon. However, a few always have to remain to attend to the necessary domestic items of life, such as cooking and their toilet. These central Africans are very partic- ular in all items in connection with their toilet, which consists of plaiting their hair, shaving off the eyebrows, pulling out the eyelashes, cutting their nails right down to the quick, and besmear- ing their bodies with a mixture of palm- oil and camwood. In another part of the village are seen some of the villagers engaged in making fishing nets and basket-work, and being helped by the young boys of the village, who become initiated into these crafts at a very early age. Again, under some shady tree, in another corner of the vil- lage, some natives will be engaged in the manufacture of pottery. In this they display a great knowledge of their work, mixing the different clays so as to stand firing. They have no moulds nothing but the practised eye and hand to assist them, and it is really wonderful Type of Aruimi Native. (Drawn by the author.) LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. 145 Balolo Type. (Drawn by the author.) to see a lump of clay, in the hands of an African savage, moulded, in the space of a few minutes, into a useful article of pot- tery, rendered really artistic by its neat- ness and tasteful design. A busy nook in a village is always the blacksmiths shop, generally merely a grass roof support- ed on bare poles. Like the corre- sponding institution of civilized life, it is the resort of local gossipers. In the centre are the rough bellows, composed of wood and skin. The smelting of the ore is done by means of charcoal fires made in ant-hills. As a rule, the whole kit of the blacksmiths tools in- cludes three or four different kinds of hammers, resembling doctors pestles some pointed, some fiat, and others square. For an anvil, a block of iron about four inches square, and some native cups, made of special clay, for melting metals. The rough iron ore, as provided by nat- ure to man, enters this rough African savages hands, and leaves it either in the shape of a knife, arrow-head, or spear, so deftly and artistically worked as to be universally admired. Lou g practice has given them a very wide knowledge of the nature of metals, and they know exactly how to temper them. A good deal of brass passes through the hands of the village blacksmith, because for means of intertribal trade the brass anklet is in great demand. This metal is introduced into Africa by the white traders, who have penetrated into that country. Before the natives can use this metal they must render it malleable. To effect this they melt into it native lead. One strange thing about all their work is that they make no measure- ments. They rely solely upon their eye and hand, and a glance at a collection of central African weapons shows that they are very seldom Knife and Sheath Mobangi River Upper Congo. deceived. Some of the more intelligent have even found out the simple points in the mechanism of a gnu. It must always be borne in mind that these people are totally unassisted by the benefits such as the white mechanic has in his aid. The native must commence from the very bottom of the tree. He has the iron in the rough, and every tool he needs he must make himself. It is so that they have been compelled to have such a wide grasp of their industries. Some of the villagers are occupied in catering for the thirsty nature which seems to belong to mankind, whether black or white, and which must, at times, be satisfied by something stronger than water. This is provided by pounding up sugar-cane, and, having obtained the juice, allowing it to ferment a day or two, when one of their favorite beverages is formed. The young people of a native village are always in high spirits, amus- ing themselves by games, mimic warfare, and bird - trapping and hunting on a miniature scale; but it is not all play with them. Their parents or masters compel them to take part in work in which they themselves may be engaged. It is a mis- take to imagine that these people are incor- rigibly indolent when we come to consider the enormous amount of time and patience they bestow upon all t h e i r industries. In the morning, when peo- ple are at work, a native village strikes one as a very busy place indeed. Idola of Lower Congo. The next important districts, about fifty miles up river, are Busindi and Irebu, which are thickly populated by native traders. They are middle-men, taking the produceof ivory, camwood, and slavesdown to the lower river markets of Bolobo and Stanley Pool. There is an arrangement between the Busindi and Irebu to the following ef- fect: Busindi has very large plantations of its own, and is situated altogether in an agricultural district, being surround- ed by the large inland villages of Lusa Tippo Tibs Camp at Stanley Falls, with an accumulation of ivory. LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. 147 kani, a very powerful tribe, who at times wage war on the surrounding, but small, villages and thoroughly clear them out. Irebu does not practise agriculture, but has an extensive industry in native pot- tery, as they have in their territory suit- able clay. They do not engage in agri- culture, and the Busindi people do not make pots, so that an extensive exchange is always taking place between the Bu- sindi and Irebupots against agricul- tural products. Just above Irebu is Lake Mantumba, which, in conjunction with Lake Leopold, forms a sort of chan- nel between the river Kasai and the main river Congo, rendering the land en- closed by them geographically an island. Large herds of elephants are to be found almost throughout the whole territory of the Congo Free State. Away in the deadly swamps and impenetrable for- ests of this portion of central Africa they are secure from hunters of any kind. They frequently devastate the plantations of an entire district, and they seem to be instinctively aware of the comparatively inoffensive weapons of the natives. The thundering noise of a herd of elephants stampeding through the forest is indescribable. The shrill- ness of their screaming and trumpeting, and the crashing of trees as they plough their way through the dense, matted undergrowth, is an experience never to be forgotten. As a rule, elephants do not lie down to rest. They stand in a dreamy kind of way, swaying their great bodies backward and forward, and making a peculiar gurgling sound in the throat. Occasionally baby ele- phants will skip playfully about like young lambs, being rebuked with a push from the trunk of an old tusker. The elephants lack of eyesight is amply com- pensated for by its acute powers of scent and hearing. The next place of importance is the dis- trict of Bukute, commonly known from the geographical position as the Equator Station. Its site is one of Mr. Stanleys most happy selection, being situated in the centre of an important river-system and in the midst of several tribes. Here are found the Babangi and Bankundu. The Bankundu are the rightful posses- sors of the country, the Babangi being immigrants who have settled there for the purpose of trading. The formation of the land is low. Indeed, the only portions of the land which are dry at high water are thickly populated. The most important tribe in this district is the Monsok~, who acknowledge but one chief, Euelu. E. J. Glave, who is fre- quently mentioned in Mr. Stanleys last great work, The Founding of the Con- go State, was the first white man to visit these people and to be a blood brother of Euelu. This chief is short, with strongly knit limbs, and with strong lines of determination in his savage face. He has attained his posi- tion simply by his prowess as a warrior. Over his left eye he has the deep scar of an arrow-wound, while all parts of his body are more or less marked from spear and knife wounds. Close by, Glave discovered a settlement of Barumbe, a tribe of nomadic hunters, until then entirely unknown by white men. Formerly they were in the habit of going about from place to place, stay- ing only a few days to hunt the wild pig and other small animals. Their sole arm was the bow and arrow, with which they were very expert. They were timid, and of a lower class than the ordinary equator Bankundu, and were content to admit their own inferiority. Intermar- riage with the Bankundu was not per- mitted, so much lower were they con- sidered. He found these people to be most keen sportsmen, and when track ~ State Axe from the Dwarf Country Watwa Con- go River. ing an elephant want- ed no better compan- ion than a Barumbe hunter. Enelu was intelligent enough to see that it was to his advantage to have such people about him; so while they were on one of their expeditions in his country he prevailed on them to give up their no- Scene at Stanley Falls. LIFE AMONG THE CONGO SAVAGES. 149 madic life and settle down near the Mon- sol& With regard to the river people at the Equator, they cannot be passed without paying a tribute to the Ban- kundu for their pluck and faithfulness. There are three large rivers, besides the several small ones, which enter the Congo within a radius of ten miles of the Equator Station: first the Ouban- gi, which enters on the opposite right bank of the Congoa river possessing four hundred miles of navigable water before coming to rapids. Its banks, as a rule, are dense forest, with the most lux~uriant vegetation immense trees with foliage of varied tints, draped from the topmost bough with brilliant-flow- ered creepers, and vines hanging in fes- toons down to the waters edge, forming at times most gorgeous pictures, ani- mated by the gay chattering of numer- ous species of monkeys, and at times impressing you with an awful silence, broken only by the weird calling, and its accompanying echo, of some strange bird. These forests literally swarm with herds of elephants. Here and there are some large grass plains, the home of the buffalo, antelope, and smaller animals. The natives of the lower reaches are Balui, a branch of the Bangala. They are well-known pirates and cannibals, and are men of fine physique, and are brave when fighting among themselves. This river is identical, no doubt, with Schweinfurths Onelle, as the weapons, utensils, and general habits of these people are the same. In some places are to be seen bunches of twenty or thirty skulls hung up together; at other places the skulls would be arranged around a mound; then again they are frequently arranged on a small plat- form around the house. These are skulls of cannibal victims. Asking a young chief, Do you eat human flesh? I should think so, said he in his own language; dont you? These people fight among themselves simply to pro- vide meat, and accordingly have to be always on the alert, as they may be in the midst of their family circles this morning, and form a savory dish for their enemies at mid-day. The way they fortify their villages shows that they are of no mean inteffi- VOL. VII.17 gence. Around nearly every village there is found a heavy stockade, twelve feet high, made of poles four inches in diameter, being of different lengths so as to form a ragged and uneven top. These poles are sharpened and lashed together horizontally by cross-sticks, forming a most effective and solid bar- ricade. Then, lashed along at every four or five yards of the stockade are bunches of twelve and fifteen lances, made of wood sharpened at the end and burnt to harden them. These are always kept in readiness for an attack, which may happen at any moment, and without the slightest warning. Besides this, they dig a deep dike around their villages, and leave only one small stick across it as a drawbridge. At night and in time of war this drawbridge is drawn in, ren- dering the village almost impregnable, so that these people do most of their fighting on the water. They are clever fishermen, and display great ingenuity in making nets and