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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850

Author: Various


        
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[Illustration: titlepage]




  BLACKWOOD'S

  Edinburgh

  MAGAZINE.

  VOL. LXVII.
  JANUARY-JUNE, 1850.

  [Illustration: Buchanan]

  WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;
  AND
  37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

  1850.


BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.




BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  NO. CCCCXI.       JANUARY, 1850.       VOL. LXVII.




CONTENTS.


  THE YEAR OF REACTION,                           1

  MY PENINSULAR MEDAL. BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.
     PART III.,                                  15

  AMERICAN ADVENTURE,                            34

  HOWARD,                                        50

  THE DARK WAGGON. BY DELTA,                     71

  THE GREEN HAND--A "SHORT" YARN. PART VII.,     76

  BRITISH AGRICULTURE AND FOREIGN COMPETITION,   94


  =SECOND EDITION.=

  EDINBURGH:
  WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
  AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

  _To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._

  SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

  PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.




BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  NO. CCCCXI.       JANUARY, 1850.       VOL. LXVII.




THE YEAR OF REACTION.


If the year 1848--"THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS" was one pre-eminent
among all others for the magnitude and interest of the events
it brought forth, the year which has just expired--THE YEAR OF
REACTION--is still more worthy of serious reflection, and affords
subjects for more cheering meditation. If the first exhibited the
whirlwind of anarchy let loose, the second showed the power by
which it is restrained; if the former filled every heart with dread
at the fierce passions which were developed, and the portentous
events which occurred in the world, the latter afforded reason for
profound thankfulness, at the silent but irresistible force with
which Omnipotence overrules the wickedness of men, and restrains the
madness of the people.

                "Celsâ sedet Æolus arce,
    Sceptra tenens, mollitque animos, et temperat iras.
    Ni faciat, maria ac terras coelumque profundum
    Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verruntque per auras.
    Sed Pater Omnipotens speluncis abdidit atris,
    Hoc metuens; regemque dedit qui foedere certo
    Et premere et laxas sciret dare jussus habenas."[1]

  [1] _Æneid_, i. 56.

The history of the world during those periods of convulsion, happily
of very rare occurrence, when an eruption of popular passions
takes place--when thrones are overturned, and the long-established
order of things is subverted--is nothing else but the folly and
wickedness of man warring against the wisdom of nature. All history
demonstrates that there is a certain order of things which is
favourable to human felicity--under which industry flourishes,
population increases, the arts are encouraged, agriculture improves,
general happiness is diffused. The basis of such a state of things
is the _security of property_; the moving power which puts in
motion the whole complicated machine of society, is the certainty
that every man will enjoy the fruits of his toil. As clearly do
past events demonstrate, that there is a state of things wherein
the reverse of all this takes place; when industry is paralysed,
population arrested, the arts languish, agriculture decays, general
misery prevails. The chief cause of such a state of things is to
be found in the insecurity of property, the dread that industry
will not reap its appointed reward; but that external violence
or domestic spoliation may interfere between the labourer and
the fruits of his toil. When such a state of things arises from
internal commotion, it is generally preceded by the warmest hopes,
and the most unbounded anticipations of felicity. It is universally
characterised by a resolute disregard of experience, and a universal
passion for innovation in all the institutions of society, and
all the relations of life. It constantly appeals to the generous
affections: speaks of humanity, justice, and fraternity; proclaims
mankind as brothers; and professes the warmest desire for general
felicity, and the diminution of the sources of human suffering. It
veils the advance of selfishness under the guise of generosity.
Revolutions demonstrate that the homage which vice pays to virtue is
not confined to individuals. The maxim of Rochefoucault applies also
to nations. Its truth is never seen with such brightness as during
the intensity of a revolution; and this demonstrates at once the
wisdom which governs, and the selfishness which desolates the world.

So prone, however, are the bulk of mankind to delusion; so easily
are they led away by expressions which appeal to their passions, or
projects which seem to forward their interests; so little are the
lessons of experience either known to, or heeded by, the immense
majority of men, that we should be led to despair of the fortunes of
the species, and dread in every age a repetition of the seductive
passions which had desolated the one that had preceded it, were it
not that a provision is made for the extinction of popular passion
in the very first effects of its ebullition. It is in its _effect
upon property_ that the curb is found which restrains the madness of
the people; by the insolvency it induces that the barrier is formed,
which as a matter of necessity forces back society to its habitual
forms and relations. In the complicated state of social relations in
which we live, it is by the capital of the rich that the industry
of the poor is put in motion; by their expenditure that it is
alimented. However specious and alluring the projects may be which
are brought forward by the popular leaders, they involve in them one
source of weakness, which inevitably ere long paralyses all their
influence. Directly or indirectly, they all tend to the destruction
of property. To excite the passions of the working classes, they are
obliged to hold out to them the prospect of a division of property,
or such a system of taxation as practically amounts to the same
thing: the immediate effect of which is a cessation of expenditure
on the part of the affluent classes; a hoarding of capital; a run
upon the banks for specie; universal scarcity of money, general
distrust, and a fearful decrease of employment. These evils are
first felt by the working classes, because, having no stock, they
are affected by any diminution in their daily wages; and they
are felt with the more bitterness that they immediately succeed
extravagant hopes, and highly wrought expectations. Invariably the
effects of revolutions are precisely the reverse of the predictions
of its supporters. No man is insensible to his own suffering,
however much he may be so to that of his predecessors; and thence
the universal and general reaction which, sooner or later, takes
place against revolutions.

That this reaction would take place to a certainty, in the end,
with the French revolution of 1848, as it had done with all similar
convulsions since the beginning of the world, could be doubted by
none who had the least historical information: and in our first
article on that event, within a few weeks of its occurrence, we
distinctly foretold that this would be the case.[2] But we confess
we did not anticipate the _rapidity_ with which the reaction has
set in. Not two years have elapsed since the throne of Louis
Philippe was overturned, and a republic proclaimed in Paris amidst
the transports of the revolutionary party over all Europe, and the
gaze in astonishment of all the world; and already the delusion is
over, the transports are at an end, the Jacobins are silent, and
the convulsed commonwealth is fast sinking back to its pristine
monarchical form of government. Every country in Europe felt the
shock. The passions were universally let loose; sanguinary wars
arose on every side; and while the enlightened Free-traders of
England were dreaming, amidst their cotton bales, of universal
and perpetual peace, which should open to them the markets of the
world, hostilities the most terrible, contests the most dreadful,
dissensions the most implacable, broke out in all quarters. It was
not merely the war of opinion which Mr Canning long ago prophesied
as the next which would desolate Europe: to it was superadded the
still more frightful contest of races. The Lombard rose against
the German, the Bohemian against the Imperialist, the Hungarian
against the Austrian; the Celt and the Saxon stood in arms against
each other. Naples was rent in twain; a revolutionary state was
established in Sicily; the supreme pontiff was dethroned at Rome;
Piedmont joined the innovating party; Lombardy rose up against
Austria, Bohemia was in arms against Vienna, the Magyars revived
against the Germans the fierce hostility of five centuries; Prussia
was revolutionised, Baden ravaged, Denmark invaded; the Poles could
with difficulty be restrained amidst the general effervescence; the
Irish openly made preparations for rebellion and separation from
Great Britain. England itself was shaken: the gravity and practical
tendency of the Anglo-Saxon character in part yielded to the general
contagion. London was threatened with a revolutionary movement; the
Chartists in all the manufacturing towns were prepared to follow the
example; treasonable placards, calling on the people to rise, were
to be seen on all sides; and the mighty conqueror who had struck
down Napoleon exerted his consummate skill in baffling the rebellion
of his own countrymen, and won a victory over anarchy not less
momentous than that of Waterloo, and not the less memorable that it
did not cost a drop of human blood.

  [2] See "The Fall of the Throne of the Barricades," April 1, 1848.

What a contrast, within the short period of eighteen months, did
Europe afterwards exhibit! France, the centre of impulsion to the
civilised world, was restrained; the demon of anarchy was crushed in
its birthplace; the visions of the Socialists had been extinguished
in the blood of the barricades. Dispersed, dejected, in despair,
the heroes of February were languishing in exile, or mourning in
prison the blasting of their hopes, the ruin of their prospects, the
unveiling of their sophistries. Revolution had been crushed without
the effusion of blood in Berlin: law had regained its ascendency;
rebellion had quailed before the undaunted aspect of the defenders
of order and the throne. Naples had regained the dominion of Sicily;
the arms of France had restored the Pope at Rome; the Eternal City
had yielded to the assault of the soldiers of Louis Napoleon.
Austria had regained her ascendency in Italy; the perfidious
aggression of Charles Albert had been signally chastised by the
skill and determination of the veteran Radetsky; Milan was again the
seat of Imperial government; the dream of a Venetian republic had
passed away, and the Place of St Mark again beheld the double-headed
eagle of Austria at the summit of its domes. Baden was conquered,
Saxony pacified; the fumes of revolutionary aggression in Schleswig
had been dissipated by the firmness of Denmark, and the ready,
although unexerted, support of Russia. Poland was overawed by the
Colossus of the North; and even the heroic valour of the Magyars,
so often in happier days the bulwark of the Cross, had yielded to
that loyalty and tenacity of purpose which has so long distinguished
the Austrian people, joined and aided by the support which, on this
as on many previous occasions, Russia has afforded to the cause of
order in Europe. Though last, not least, Great Britain was pacified:
the dreams of the Socialists, the treason of the Chartists, had
recoiled before the energy of a people yet on the whole loyal
and united. Ireland, blasted by the triple curse of rebellion,
pestilence, and famine, had ceased to be an object of disquietude
to England, save from the incessant misery which it exhibited; and
its furious patriots, abandoning in multitudes the land of their
birth, were carrying into Transatlantic regions those principles of
anarchy, and deathless hatred at civilisation, which had so long
laid waste their own country.

Acknowledging, as all must do, with devout thankfulness, that
it is to the Great Disposer of events that we are to ascribe so
marvellous a DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL--so blessed an escape from a fate
which would have renewed, in Europe, a devastation as wide-spread,
and darkness as thick, as occurred during the middle ages--it may
yet, humanly speaking, be discerned how it is that our salvation
has been effected. The days of miracles are past; the law is not
now delivered amidst the thunders of Mount Sinai; the walls of
fortresses do not fall down at the sound of the Lord's trumpet;
there is no longer a chosen people, over whose safety the eye of
Omnipotence watches, and whom, in the last extremity, the destroying
angel rescues from their enemies. The direction of human affairs by
Supreme Wisdom; the coercion of wickedness; the support of virtue;
the ceaseless advance of the race of man, amidst all the folly and
selfishness with which its concerns are conducted, have not, indeed,
passed away: all these are in as complete operation now as when
the Red Sea opened to the retreating Israelites, or the walls of
Jericho fell before the blast of Joshua's trumpet, or the rending
of the vail of the Temple announced that the era had commenced when
the whole human race was to be admitted to the sanctuary of the
temple. But it is by human means alone that Providence now acts; it
is by general laws that the affairs of men are regulated. The agents
of Omnipotence are the moving principles of the human heart: the
safeguards against ruin are to be found in the barriers which, in
injured interests or counteracting passions, are raised up amidst
the agitated multitude, against the further progress of devastation.
It is not from oblivion, therefore, but with a constant recognition
of Divine superintendence, that we shall now endeavour to trace out
the means by which the most alarming moral pestilence which ever
appeared in modern times has been arrested; the happiness of Europe
saved, for the time at least, from the destruction by which it was
menaced--from the earthquake in its own bosom; and the progress of
real freedom throughout the world prevented from being blasted by
the selfish ambition or insane delusions of the demagogues who, for
a time, got possession of its current.

The first circumstance which must strike every observer, in the
contemplation of the terrible crisis through which we have passed,
is, that the destruction with which we were threatened was mainly,
if not entirely, owing to _want of moral courage_ on the part of
the depositaries of power. The Revolution in Paris, it is well
known, owed its success entirely to the pusillanimity of the _men_
of the royal family. Louis Philippe, old and enfeebled by disease,
was paralysed by a still more fatal source of weakness--the
consciousness of a throne won by treason--the terror inspired by
the sight of the barricades, behind which his own government had
been constructed. His sons who were present showed that the Orleans
family had lost, with the possession of a usurped throne, the
courage which, for several generations, had constituted the only
virtue of their race. The King of Prussia abandoned the contest
in Berlin in the moment of victory--a nervous reluctance to the
shedding of blood paralysed, as it had done in the days of Louis
XVI., the defenders of the throne. In Austria, the known imbecility,
physical and moral, of the emperor, rendered him wholly unequal
to the crisis in which he was placed--delivered over the empire,
undefended, to a set of revolutionary murderers, and rendered a
change in the reigning sovereign indispensable. In Rome, the Pope
himself began the movement--he first headed the reform crusade;
and whatever his unhappy subjects have since suffered is to be
ascribed to his blind delusion and weak concessions. Such was the
conduct of the kings of Europe--such the front which our sex in
high places opposed to the revolutionary tempest. But women often,
in the last extremity, exhibit a courage which puts to shame the
pusillanimity of the men by whom they are surrounded; and never was
this more signally evinced than in the present instance. The Queen
of France tried in vain, at the Tuileries, to inspire her husband
with her own heroic spirit; the Duchess of Orleans showed it in
front of levelled muskets in the Chamber of Deputies; and, that
order is still preserved in our country, is to be ascribed in no
small degree to the firm conduct of the sovereign on the throne, and
the determination with which she inspired her government to risk
everything rather than concede one iota to the revolutionists.

As it was the opposite conduct from this, and the moral weakness of
the depositaries of power, which mainly induced the revolutions
of 1848, and rendered them so formidable, so those causes which
have at length arrested that terrible convulsion seem to have been
no other but the moral laws of nature, destined for the correction
of wickedness and the coercion of passion, when they have risen to
such a pitch as seriously to endanger the existence of society. And,
without presuming to scan too deeply the intentions of Providence,
or the great system by which evil is brought out of good, and an
irresistible power says to the madness of the people, as to the
storms of the ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther, and
here shall thy proud waves be staid," we may probably discover,
humanly speaking, the means by which the evil has been arrested.

The first circumstance which has produced the reaction, and arrested
the progress of evil so much more rapidly than was the case in the
former great convulsion, is the memory of that convulsion itself.
It is no doubt true, that every generation is taught by its own
and none by its predecessors' sufferings; but, in the case of the
first French Revolution, the suffering was so long-continued and
dreadful, that the memory of it descended to the next generation. It
was impossible that the sons of the men who had been guillotined,
exiled, or mown down by the conscription, who had seen their estates
and honours torn from them by the ruthless hand of Revolutionary
violence, should not retain a vivid sense of the sufferings they had
experienced, and the wrongs they had undergone. All classes, not
excluding even those who had been most ardent and active in support
of the first Revolution, had writhed alike under the calamities
and exactions of the latter years of the war, and the ignominious
conquest in which it had terminated, which was only felt the more
keenly from the unparalleled triumphs to which the nation had so
long been habituated. Add to this, that the attention of all the
intelligent classes of society in Europe generally, and in France in
particular, had been long, and to an extent of which in this country
we can scarcely form an idea, riveted on the events of the first
Revolution. The Reign of Terror was not forgotten; the prophecy
of the historian[3] proved true:--"A second French Revolution, of
the same character as the former, and the age in which it is to
arise must be ignorant of the first." Its heartstirring incidents,
its mournful catastrophes, its tragic events, its heroic virtue,
its appalling wickedness, its streams of blood, were indelibly
engraven on the hearts of a considerable, and that too the most
influential, part of the people. The revolutionists, indeed,
in every country--the Red Republicans in France, the Chartists
in England, the Rebels in Ireland, the Carbonari in Italy, the
_Illuminés_ in Germany, were perfectly prepared to renew for their
own profit the same scenes of spoliation, bloodshed, and massacre.
But such extreme characters form, even in the most depraved society,
but a small part of the whole inhabitants. It is the delusion or
timidity of the great body, not the absolute strength or numbers of
the violent party, which is the principal danger. The force of the
first Revolution consisted in its novelty; in the enchantment of its
visions, the warmth of its professed philanthropy, the magnitude of
its promises. But time had dispelled these, as it does many other
delusions. The mask had fallen from the spectre which had charmed
the world, and the awful form of DEATH had appeared.

  [3] ALISON.

The second circumstance which tended to coerce, more rapidly than
could have been hoped for, the progress of the revolution of 1848,
was the firmness and loyalty of the soldiers. It is historically
known that it was the defection of the troops which brought on,
and rendered irresistible the march of the first Revolution: which
induced, in rapid succession, the Reign of Terror, the assignats,
the conscription, the capture of Paris, the subjugation of the
kingdom. But here, too, experience and suffering came to the aid of
deluded and wandering humanity. It was seen that what is unjust and
dishonourable is _never_ expedient: that the violation of their
oaths by the sworn defenders of order is not the commencement of
the regeneration, but the first step in the decline of society: and
that to fear God and honour the king is the only way to insure,
not only the preservation of order, but the ultimate ascendancy of
freedom. On the foundation of the revolt of the Gardes Françaises
in 1789, were successively built the despotism of the Committee of
Public Salvation, the blood of Robespierre, the carnage of Napoleon.
The awful example was not lost on the next generation. The throne
of Charles X. was overthrown by the defection of the troops of the
line; but it was again found that the glorious fabric of civil
liberty was not to be erected on the basis of treachery and treason.
None of the troops revolted on the crisis of February 1848. The
Guards and the line were alike steady. Marshal Bugeaud, when he
received the command, speedily passed the whole barricades, and in
six hours would have extinguished the revolt. The throne was lost
not by the defection of the troops, but by the pusillanimity of
the princes of the blood; and accordingly, when the next contest
occurred--as occur it ever will in such cases--the troops were
resolutely led, the revolution was put down under circumstances ten
times more formidable, though not without a frightful loss of human
life.

We are so accustomed to the loyalty and steadiness of the English
army, that the possibility of their wavering never enters into our
imagination. But still all must admit that we too, with all our
boasted safeguards of popular representation, general information, a
free press, and centuries of freedom, stood on the edge of an abyss;
and that, not less than Austria or Prussia, our salvation had come
to depend chiefly, if not entirely, on the fidelity of the soldiers.
If the six thousand men who garrisoned London on the 10th April
1848 had wavered, and one-half of them had joined the insurgents,
where would now have been the British constitution? Had a hundred
thousand men from Kennington Common crossed Waterloo Bridge, headed
by a regiment of the Guards, and three regiments of the line, where
would now have been the British liberties? Where would have been all
the safeguards formed, all the hopes expressed, all the prophecies
hazarded, as to its being perpetual? But in that dread hour, perhaps
the most eventful that England ever knew, we were saved by the
courage of the Queen, the firmness of the government, the admirable
arrangements of the Duke of Wellington, and the universal steadiness
and loyalty of our soldiers. We are quite aware of the special
constables, and the immense _moral_ influence of the noble display
which the aristocracy and middle classes of England made on that
occasion. But moral influence, often all-powerful in the end, is not
alone sufficient at the beginning; physical force is then required
to withstand the _first assault_ of the enemy: and, highly as we
respect the civic force with batons in their hands; and fully as we
admit the immense importance of that citizen-demonstration in its
ultimate effects, we ascribe our deliverance from the instant peril
which threatened, entirely to the steadiness of the British army,
and the incomparable arrangements of their chief.

In the Continental states, order succeeded in regaining the
ascendency over anarchy entirely in consequence of the fidelity of
the soldiers. On that memorable day, when the Prussian army marched
into Berlin playing the old airs of _the monarchy_, and formed in
a circle around, distant only twenty-five paces from the insurgent
host, and there tranquilly loaded their pieces, the opposing forces
were directly brought into collision; it was seen that, in a few
seconds, law or rebellion would be victorious. Law prevailed, as
it generally does where its defenders are steady and resolutely
led--and what has been the result? Is it that freedom has been
extinguished in Prussia, that liberty has sunk under the pressure of
tyrannic power, and that a long period of servitude and degradation
is to close the bright meridian of her national splendour? Quite
the reverse: anarchy has been extinguished in Prussia only to make
room for the fair forms of order and liberty, which cannot exist but
side by side; the revolutionists are overawed, but the lovers of
real freedom are only the better confirmed in their hopes of the
ultimate establishment of a constitutional monarchy, such as Prussia
has been sighing for for thirty years. It is ever to be recollected
that the prospects of freedom are never so bright as when they are
in the inverse ratio to those of revolution; liberty is never so
safe as where anarchy is most thoroughly repressed; despotism is
never so near at hand as immediately after the greatest triumphs of
insurrection.

In AUSTRIA a different and more melancholy prospect has been
exhibited. That great and noble country has been the victim,
not merely of the passions of revolution, but of those of race.
It has been torn asunder, not only by the ambition of the
revolutionists, and the ardent zeal of a people yet inexperienced
in social dissensions sighing after freedom, but by the force and
inextinguishable rivalry of different and discordant races. The
Lombard has risen up against the German, the Bohemian against
the Austrian; the Magyars have buckled on their armour against
both, and, animated alike by revolutionary zeal and national
jealousy, have striven to obtain what they deem the first of
blessings--national independence--by revolting against the
government of Austria, in the moment of its utmost need. That
strange compound of races and nations, the Austrian monarchy,
in which it is hard to say whether the Slave, the Magyar, the
Teuton, the Lombard, or the old Roman had the preponderance, and
the union of which, for so long a period, had been a subject of
astonishment to all observers, at length revealed its inherent
weakness. Worse than the war of opinion, the war of races began.
Like the Lacedemonian confederacy, after the defeat of Leuctra, or
the Athenian after the catastrophe of Aigos Potamos, or the Roman
republic after the disaster of Cannæ, the Austrian aggregate of
kingdoms threatened to fall to pieces on the dreadful shock of
opinion which resulted from the success of the French revolution.
The contest of nations did not now intervene, to bar the spread
of democratic ideas; the military passions were not arrayed in
opposition to the civic. Lamartine was perfectly right in his
prognostic: the pacific French revolution of 1848 achieved greater
conquests, in three months, than the warlike republic of 1793 had
gained in ten years. Prussia was apparently revolutionised; Austria
was all but won to the democratic side; Vienna, Prague, and Milan
were in the hands of the insurgents. Never, in the darkest periods
of the revolutionary war, was Austria in such desperate straits,
as when Radetsky retreated behind the Mincio, and the treacherous
assault of Charles Albert was aided by the whole strength of
revolutionary Italy, and the tacit support or lukewarm indifference
of France and England.

But in that awful hour, by far the most perilous which Austria
ever knew, and which threatened with immediate and irrevocable
destruction the whole balance of power in Europe, she was saved by
the fidelity of her native soldiers, and the incomparable spirit of
her German nobility. Then appeared in its highest lustre what is
the principle of life and the tenacity of purpose which exist in an
aristocratic society, not yet wholly debilitated by the pleasures
and the selfishness of a court. Although the Hungarian nobles,
for the most part, sided with the Magyar insurgents; although the
whole Lombard troops had passed over from the standards of Radetsky
to those of Charles Albert, and all the Hungarians in his service
sullenly wended their way back to their native places; although
Prague was wrested from the crown by the Bohemian insurgents, and
Vienna by a vehement urban tumult in the capital; although Hungary
was not only lost, but arrayed in fierce hostility against the
monarchy--the noble Austrian leaders never lost heart--they realised
the dream of the Roman poet--

    "Si fractus illabatur orbis,
     Impavidum ferient ruinæ."

Windischgratz in Bohemia, Radetsky in Italy, Jellachich in Austria,
stood forth as the saviours of the monarchy, and, with it, of the
cause of European freedom. Though deserted by their sovereign, who
had bent before the revolutionary tempest, they fronted, sometimes,
it is believed, in opposition to constrained orders, the dangers
with which they were assailed--they acted in conformity with the
maxim of a noble people not yet debased by democratic selfishness:
VIVE LE ROI QUAND-MEME! Slowly, but steadily, the forces of order
regained their ascendant over the assaults of anarchy. The Tyrol,
ever steadfast in its loyalty, first offered an asylum to the
emperor, when driven from his capital; Prague was next recovered,
and Bohemia coerced by the moral courage and skilful dispositions
of Prince Windischgratz; Radetsky, shortly after, reinforced by
the loyalty of Austria, regained his ascendant on the Mincio,
routed the revolutionary rabble of Italy, and restored Milan to the
Imperial government; Vienna, after a desperate conflict, was won by
the forces of Order; and Jellachich and Windischgratz enjoyed the
proud triumph of having restored his capital to their discrowned
sovereign. Hungary, inhabited by a bolder and more numerous race,
actuated by stronger passions, held out longest, and was only
subdued after a sanguinary conflict, by the aroused vigour and
national passions, aided by the support of the Colossus of the
North, which has so often sent forth its battalions as the last
resource of order and religion, when all but vanquished by the
forces of anarchy and infidelity. Yet, though thus constrained,
in the last extremity, to call in the aid of the Czar, and array
a hundred thousand Muscovites on the plains of Hungary, the stand
thus made by the Austrian monarchy is not the less glorious and
worthy of eternal remembrance. It demonstrates what so many other
passages in the history of that noble people indicate, how great is
the strength, and unbounded the resources, of a brave and patriotic
nation, even when afflicted by the most terrible disasters; and how
uniformly Providence, in the end, lends its protection to a people
who have shown themselves worthy of its blessings, by faithfully
discharging their duty in a period of disaster. The year 1849 will
ever rank with the glories of Maria Theresa, the triumph of Aspern,
the devotion of Wagram, as the brightest periods in the long and
glorious Austrian annals.

The people of England, ever ready to sympathise with even the name
of freedom, and prone beyond any other nation to delusions springing
from generous feelings, acting on erroneous information, were at
one time much disposed to sympathise with the Hungarian insurgents.
They enlisted the wishes of a considerable part, especially of
the citizens of towns, on their side. Never were generous and
estimable feelings more misapplied. The contest in Hungary, it is
to be feared, was not in the slightest degree a struggle for public
freedom: it was an effort only to establish the _domination of a
race_ in opposition to a lawful government. Like the Sikhs or Ameers
in India at this moment, the Normans in England in former times,
or the "insane plebeian noblesse" of Poland, whom John Sobieski
denounced as the authors of the ruin of his country, the Magyars
were a proud and haughty dominant race, not a fourth part of the
whole inhabitants of Hungary, but brave and ambitious, and animated
with the strongest desire of establishing an independent oligarchy
in their wide-spread country. They took the opportunity for
asserting their principles when Austria was pierced to the heart,
and its provinces, apparently all falling asunder, had the fairest
prospect of establishing separate dominions, as in the ancient Roman
empire, on the ruins of the Imperial authority. Had they succeeded,
they would have established the same monstrous tyranny of a dominant
race, which has so long blasted the happiness, and at length
destroyed the independence of Poland.

That the contest in Hungary was one for the domination of a race,
not the freedom of people, is evident from two circumstances
which have been studiously kept out of view by the Liberal party,
both on the Continent and in England. The first is that _after_
the emperor had conceded to Hungary the most extreme liberal
institutions, based on universal suffrage, the Magyar leaders sent
private orders to all the Hungarian regiments in Radetsky's army
to leave his banners, and return to Hungary; thus rendering to
all appearance the dismemberment of the monarchy inevitable, and
surrendering the Italian provinces, the brightest jewel in the
Imperial crown, to the tender mercies of Charles Albert. The second
is, that, in the contest which ensued, the Hungarians were in the
end overthrown. Possessing, as Hungary does, fourteen millions of
inhabitants--nearly a moiety of the whole Austrian empire, and four
times more than Upper and Lower Austria, with the Tyrol, which
alone could be relied on in that crisis--it is evident that, if the
_whole_ Hungarian people had been united, they must have proved
victorious, and have decided the contest long before the distant
Muscovite battalions could have appeared on the theatre of war. The
Hungarian insurrection broke out in April 1848, and was aided by
contemporaneous revolts in Prague, Lombardy, Venice, and Vienna. To
all appearance the Austrian monarchy was torn in pieces. Muniments
of war they had in abundance: Comorn, with its vast arsenal and
impregnable walls, opened its arms to receive them. When Georgey
capitulated, he had one hundred and thirty-eight guns, besides
those in the hands of Kossuth and Bem. Fully half the military
stores of Austria fell into the hands of the Hungarians, the moment
the insurrection broke out. Yet, with all these advantages, they
were overcome. This demonstrates that the war was not a national
one, in the proper sense of the word: that is, it did not interest
the _whole_ people. It was an effort of a gallant and ambitious
race, forming a small minority of the population, to establish a
domination over the whole remainder of the inhabitants, and sever
themselves from the Austrian empire; and a greater calamity than
such a separation, both to the Hungarians themselves and the general
balance of power in Europe, cannot be imagined.

How was the balance of power to be maintained in Europe, especially
against Russia, if the Austrian monarchy had been broken up?
Experience had long ago proved that no coalitions for the
preservation of the independence of central Europe, either against
Russia on the one side or France on the other, had the least chance
of success, in which Austria did not take a prominent part. Even the
disasters of the Peninsular campaigns, and the awful catastrophe
of the Moscow retreat, could not enable Europe to combat Napoleon,
till Metternich, at the Congress of Prague, threw the weight of
Austria into the scale. It was by an alliance of Austria, France,
and England that, at the Congress of Vienna, a curb was put on the
ambition of Russia: by a similar alliance that the Turkish empire
was saved from ruin, when the Muscovite standards were advanced to
Adrianople, and the Pacha of Egypt was encamped on Scutari. It was
a coalition of Austria, England, Russia, and Prussia, which in 1834
coerced the ambition of France, when M. Thiers had sent orders to
the French admiral to attack and burn the English fleet in the bay
of Vourlas, at dead of night. But if Austria had been broken up into
a Hungarian, a Lombard, and a Bohemian republic, how was such an
alliance to be formed? What central power could, in such an event,
have existed under such circumstances, to oppose a mid impediment to
the grasping ambition of Russia on the one side, and France on the
other? Prussia, it is well known, is entirely under the influence
of Russia, and does not, except in the first fervour of revolution,
venture to deviate from the policy which it prescribes. Sweden and
Denmark are mere subsidiary states. Austria alone is so strong as
to be able, with the aid of England, to bid Russia defiance; and
is situated so near to its southern provinces, as to be actuated
by a ceaseless dread of its encroachments. The breaking up of the
Austrian empire would have been a fatal blow to the balance of
power, and with it to real liberty in Europe. It would have left the
field open to the Cossacks on the one side, and the Red Republicans
on the other.

It is deeply to be regretted that Austria was not able to regain its
dominion over its rebellious Hungarian subjects, without the aid
of the Muscovite arms. Although the Czar has recalled his troops
after the vast service was rendered, and no projects of immediate
aggrandisement are apparent, yet it is impossible to doubt--it is
fruitless to attempt to disguise--that the influence of Russia in
the east of Europe has been immensely extended by this intervention.
So weighty an obligation as saving an empire from dismemberment is
too great to be easily forgotten; and supposing, what is probably
the case, that gratitude is a feeling unknown to cabinets--and
that the recollection of salvation from ruin is likely to produce
no other sentiment but that of dislike--still the contest, which
was adjourned, rather than decided, on the Hungarian plains, has
for a very long period, it is to be feared, thrown Austria into
the arms of Russia. They are united by the common bond of enduring
interest. The Magyars in Hungary, the Poles in Sarmatia, are the
enemies of both; and each feels that it is by a close alliance
of the cabinets, that the evident dangers of an insurrection of
these powerful and warlike races can be provided against. It is
more than probable that a secret treaty, offensive and defensive,
already unites the two powers; that the crushing of the Magyars was
bought by the condition, that the extension of Muscovite influence
in Turkey was to be connived at; and that the Czar will one day
advance to Constantinople without fear, because he knows that his
right flank is secure on the side of Austria. Certain it is, that
the _joint_ demand made by Austria and Russia, for the extradition
of the Hungarian refugees, and which, as all unwarrantable stretch
against the independence of Turkey, was resisted with so much spirit
and wisdom by England and France, looks very like the first-fruits
of such an alliance. And observe, now, the immediate effects on the
balance of power of the revolution of 1848. This invasion of the
independence of Turkey was made by Russia and Austria in concert,
and was only resisted by France and England! Woful, indeed, for the
interests of real freedom, has been the result of those convulsions
which have ended in transplanting Austria from its natural position,
and have converted the jealous opponent of Muscovite power into its
obsequious ally. Nothing could have effected such a metamorphosis,
but the terrible convulsion which almost tore out the entrails of
the Austrian empire. But that is ever the case with revolutionists.
Blinded by the passions with which they are actuated, they rush
headlong on their own destruction; and destroy, in their insane
ambition, the very bulwarks by which alone durable freedom is to be
secured in their own or any other country.

It is commonly thought in this country that the war in Hungary was
a contest for national independence, and that it bears a close
analogy to the memorable conflicts by which, in former times,
the independence of Scotland was maintained, or the liberties
of England purchased. There never was a more unfounded opinion.
_After_ the Hungarian insurrection had taken place, indeed, and
when the Austrian empire had been wellnigh torn to pieces in the
shock, Hungary was formally incorporated with Austria, just as
the grand-duchy of Warsaw was with Russia after the sanguinary
revolt of 1831, and Ireland with England after the rebellion of
1798. But _anterior_ to the revolution, what step had the cabinet
of Vienna taken which was hostile to the independence of Hungary?
Not one. The constitution which the Austrian government had given
to the Hungarians, if it erred at all, did so on the liberal side:
for it conceded to a people, scarcely emerged from barbarism, a
constitution founded on universal suffrage, such as England, with
its centuries of freedom, could not withstand for three months. It
was the Hungarian insurgents who are responsible for the loss of
their national independence; because they first put it in issue by
joining Lombardy and the revolutionists of Prague and Vienna, in
their assault upon the Imperial government, at a time when nothing
whatever had been done which menaced their separate existence. The
truth is, they thought, as many others did, that the Austrian empire
was breaking up, and that now was the time to become a separate
power. Having voluntarily, and without a cause, committed high
treason, they cannot complain with reason, if in a mitigated form
they incur its penalties by forfeiting their national existence.

The ultimate suppression of the revolt in Hungary has been attended
with a most distressing amount of bloodshed on the scaffold, and the
occurrence of several mournful scenes, in which courage and fidelity
have asserted their wonted superiority, in the supreme hour, over
all the storms of fate. God forbid that we should either justify or
approve of such severity, or deprive the heroic Hungarian leaders of
the well-earned praise which some of them deserve, for their noble
constancy in misfortune! But while fully admitting this on the one
hand, we must, in justice to the Austrian government on the other,
recall to recollection the circumstances in which they were placed
at the close of the contest, the dangers they had undergone, and
the dreadful devastation which the Hungarian war had brought upon
their country. When Georgey capitulated and Comorn surrendered,
Austria was wellnigh exhausted by the conflict: she had owed her
salvation in part at least to foreign intervention. She had been
forced to proclaim her weakness in the face of Europe, and to bring
down the hated Muscovite battalions into the heart of the empire. In
judging of the course which her rulers, when victorious, pursued,
we must in justice recall to mind the perils they had escaped, and
the humiliations to which they had been reduced. We must recollect
also the state of civilisation which Hungary has attained, and go
back, in imagination, to what we ourselves did in a similar stage of
national progress. Hungary is hardly more advanced in civilisation
than England was during the Wars of the Roses, when the prisoners on
both sides were put to death without mercy, and eighty princes of
the blood or nobles were massacred in cold blood; or than Scotland
was when the Covenanters murdered all the Irish in Montrose's army,
with their wives and children. What did the English government do
at Carlisle after the advance of the Pretender to Derby, or in
Ireland after the rebellion of 1798? What has she recently done in
the Ionian islands, after the insurrection in Cephalonia? Nay, would
we have been less rigorous than the Austrians, even at this time,
if we had been reduced to similar extremities? It is very easy to
be lenient after an insurrection which has been extinguished in a
cabbage garden, and rendered the insurgents ridiculous in the eyes
of all the world; but what should we have done, and how would we
have felt, if Smith O'Brien at the head of the Irish rebels had
invaded England, taken London, nourished for a year and a half a
frightful civil war in the heart of the empire, and compelled us to
call in the legions of France into the midland counties to save the
nation from ruin? We do not mean, by these observations, to justify
the executions of Haynau and the other Imperial generals: God knows,
we deplore them as much as any one can do, and yield to none in
admiration of the heroism of the Hungarian leaders, who have shown
themselves so worthy of the noble nation to which they belong. But
we extenuate, if we cannot justify, the severity of the Austrians,
by the recollection of their sufferings; and reserve the weight of
our indignation for those insane and selfish demagogues who, for
their own elevation, lighted so terrible a conflagration, and caused
so much noble blood to be shed, alike on the part of those who
fanned and those who sought to extinguish the flames.

The third circumstance which seems to have mainly tended to stop
the progress of revolution in Europe, has been the great amount of
_interests_ in France which could not fail to be injured, either
by foreign warfare or domestic Socialist triumph. This is mainly
owing to France having already undergone fusion in the revolutionary
crucible. Scarcely anything remains to melt, but the dross which
had flowed out of the first furnace. The great estates and church
lands were divided; two-thirds were cut off from the national debt.
Nobody remained to despoil but the _tiers état_ and revolutionary
proprietors. They stood shoulder to shoulder in defence of their
all, which they saw was seriously menaced; and thence the stoppage
of the revolution at Paris, and the rapid retrograde movement of
opinion on the subject, in the majority, over all France. Foreign
war was not less an object of apprehension than internal spoliation.
The peasants recollected the conscription and the Cossacks, and
the weighty contributions of the Allies; the bourgeois dreaded
the cessation of foreign travelling in their country, and the
termination of the prolific shower of English gold. It was a general
terror that the best interests of society were in danger which
produced the determined resistance to the insurgents in Paris on the
23d of June, and formed the majority of four millions who elected
Prince Louis Napoleon to the president's chair. Beyond all doubt,
the greater part of the electors, when they recorded their suffrages
for him, understood they were really voting for an emperor, and
opposing the barrier of force to the revolution.

This circumstance suggests a very important consideration, on which
it well becomes the people of this country to ponder, in reasoning
from the example of France to themselves. It is not unusual now to
hear the opinion advanced, that the result of universal suffrage in
France proves that the apprehensions entertained on this subject, on
this side of the Channel, are unfounded; and that, in truth, there
is no such effectual barrier against revolution as universal, or, at
least, a very low suffrage. America is frequently referred to, also,
in confirmation of the same opinion. But under what circumstances
has universal suffrage been forced to uphold property in these two
countries? Recollect that both are overspread with a host of small
proprietors: in France no less than 6,000,000 persons, for the most
part in very indigent circumstances, being holders of land; and in
America, the whole soil, from its having been so recently reclaimed
from the forest, and the law of equal succession, _ab intestato_,
being in the hands of the actual cultivators. But can any opinion
be formed from this as to what would be the effect of a change in
the electoral law, which created 6,000,000 of voters in a country
where there are not 300,000 holders of land, and not above an equal
number of proprietors in the funds? It is evident that we can never
argue from a country which _has been revolutionised_, and where
property _has been divided_, to one where neither of these events
has taken place. Doubtless the robber will make a fight before he
allows his prey to be torn from him; and when there are six millions
of persons, for the most part possessed of the fruits of robbery,
the rendering these back will not be very easily effected. But
if we would see the effect of an extended suffrage, in a country
which has not been revolutionised, and where the strong curb-chain
of individual interest does not exist to restrain the majority,
we have only to look to what the electors of France in 1793 did
with the estates of the church and the nobility; to what the
American freeholders did in 1837, when they destroyed five-sixths
commercial wealth of the country, by raising the cry "Bank, or no
Bank:" or what the British ten-pounders have done with the other
classes of society, and, eventually, though they did not intend it,
with themselves, by their measures of free trade and a restricted
currency. Beyond all doubt, _these_ measures would at once be
repealed by an extended constituency; but are we sure they would
stop there? What security have we they would not apply the sponge to
the National Debt, confiscate the church property, and openly, or by
a graduated assessment on land, divide the estates of the nobility?

But perhaps the most powerful agent, which has been at work, in
stopping the progress of revolution in Europe, has been the public
and private INSOLVENCY which in an abandoned state of society
inevitably and rapidly follows such convulsions. This is the great
check upon the government and the madness of the people. That
France, ever since the revolution of February 1848, has been in a
state of almost hopeless monetary embarrassment, is well known to
all the world. In fact, nothing but the most consummate prudence,
and the adoption of the wisest measures on the part of the Bank of
France, has saved them from a general public and private bankruptcy.
What those measures were, will immediately be explained. In the mean
time, to show the magnitude of the difficulties against which they
had to make head, it is sufficient to observe, that in twenty-one
months the Revolutionary Government has incurred a floating debt
of £22,000,000; and that the deficiency for the year 1849, wholly
unprovided for--and which must be made good by Exchequer bills, or
other temporary expedients--is no less than _eleven millions and a
half sterling_. It is not surprising it should have swelled to this
enormous amount; for the very first demand of revolutionists, when
they have proved victorious, is to diminish the public burdens and
increase the public expenditure. And they did this so effectually
in France, that in one year after the revolution of 1848, they had
increased the public expenditure by 162,000,000 francs, or about
£6,500,000; while they had caused the public revenue to fall by
248,000,000 francs, or nearly £10,000,000!

The dreadful prostration of industry which such a state of the
public revenue implies, would have proved altogether fatal to
France, had it not been rescued from the abyss by the surpassing
wisdom with which, in that crisis, the measures of the Bank of
France were conducted. But the conduct of that establishment, at
that trying crisis, proved that they had taken a lesson from the
archives of history. Carefully shunning the profuse and exorbitant
issue of paper which, under the name of assignats, effected
so dreadful a destruction of property in France in the first
revolution, they imitated the cautious and prudent policy by which
Mr Pitt surmounted the crisis of 1797, and brought the nation
triumphant through the whole dangers of the war. They obtained an
act from the legislature authorising the issue, not of £600,000,000
sterling of notes, as in 1793 and 1794, but of 400,000,000 francs,
or £16,000,000 sterling, not convertible into gold and silver.
This, and this alone, it was that brought France through the crisis
of the Revolution. Specie, before this aid was obtained, was fast
disappearing from circulation; the Bank of France had suspended cash
payments; three of the principal banks in Paris had become bankrupt;
the payment of all bills was suspended by act of government--for
this plain reason, that no debtor could find cash to discharge his
engagements. But this wise measure gave the French people that most
inestimable of all blessings in a political and monetary crisis--a
currency which, without being redundant, is sufficient, and, being
not convertible into the precious metals, neither augments the
strain on them, nor is liable to be swept away by foreign export. In
consequence of this seasonable advance, the crisis was surmounted,
though not without most acute general suffering; and industry, since
a government comparatively stable was established, in the person
of Prince Louis Napoleon, has revived to a surprising degree over
the whole country. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the general
misery which prevailed in France, desolated by a revolution, but
sustained by a moderate inconvertible paper currency, was greater
than was felt in the manufacturing cities of Great Britain, saved
by the firmness of government and the good sense of the nation
from a political convulsion, but withering under the fetters of
a contracted currency, and unrestricted admission of foreign
produce.[4]

  [4] In Paris, after the Revolution in April and May, it was
  stated there were 300,000 persons out of employment, including
  the dependants of those without work. This number was, doubtless,
  fearfully great out of a population of 1,200,000 souls. But it was
  exceeded in some parts of Great Britain. In April 1848, the number
  of unemployed persons in and around Glasgow was so excessive, that
  an examination of them was made, by order of the magistrates of that
  city, with a view to an application to government for assistance.
  The men out of work were found, in that city and its vicinity, to
  be 31,000, which, allowing two and a half dependants to each male,
  implies 93,000 persons destitute of employment, out of a population
  at that time estimated at 360,000; being somewhat more than 300,000
  out of 1,200,000 in Paris.

One thing is perfectly apparent from the result of the revolution in
Italy, that the establishment of either civil liberty or political
independence is hopeless in that beautiful peninsula. The total
and easy rout of the Piedmontese and Tuscan forces by Radetsky is
a proof of this. Venice was defended by its Lagunæ--Rome not by
the descendants of the ancient masters of the world, but by the
revolutionary mercenaries of Poland, Hungary, and Germany, whom the
Austrian victories drove back from the banks of the Po to those
of the Tiber. On the other hand, the example of Naples, where the
firmness of the king has preserved in the end his dominions entire,
though Sicily for a time was severed from the kingdom, and Naples
itself was the theatre of a bloody convulsion, proves alike of what
flimsy materials revolution is composed in the south of Europe, and
through what a perilous crisis a nation can be safely conducted,
when the depositaries of power are not unworthy of the elevated
duties with which they are entrusted.

Still more important is the lesson read to the world by the
attempted revolution in England and Ireland. That Great Britain was
threatened with the convulsions, in the throes of which France and
Germany were labouring, is universally known. The Chartists openly
declared that monarchy could not stand two months in England or
Scotland; the Repealers were counting the hours till the Saxon was
expelled from the Emerald Isle, and a Hibernian republic proclaimed
in Dublin, in close alliance with the great parent democracy in
Paris. Where are these boasters now? The English revolutionists
were morally slaughtered in London on the 10th April: the Irish
rebels were blown into the air by the fire of the police in the
cabbage garden. They have been more than vanquished; they have been
rendered ridiculous. In despair, they are now leaving in crowds
their wo-stricken isle; and it is to be hoped a better race, more
industrious habits, and a more tractable people, will gradually be
introduced into the deserts which Celtic improvidence and folly has
made. It is a glorious spectacle to see an attempted revolution
which broke out in both islands suppressed almost without the
effusion of blood; and England, the first-born of freedom in modern
times, reasserting, in its advanced period of existence, at once the
order and moderation which are the glorious inheritance of genuine
Liberty.

Would that we could say that our foreign policy during the two last
eventful years has been as worthy of praise, as the conduct of our
government in combating our internal enemies has been. But here the
meed of our approbation must fail. Contrary alike to our obvious
interests and to our real and long-established principles, we have
apparently been guided by no other principle but that of fomenting
revolution, after the example of France, in every country which the
contagion had reached. We all but severed Sicily from Naples, and
openly assisted the Sicilian insurgents with arms and ammunition.
We once stopped, for "humanity's sake," the Neapolitan expedition
from sailing to combat the rebels: we more than once interposed
in favour of Charles Albert and the Piedmontese revolutionists:
we have alienated Austria, it is to be feared, beyond redemption,
by our strange and tortuous policy in regard to the Hungarian
insurrection: we, without disguise, countenanced the revolutionary
Germans in their attack upon the Danes. What object Ministers had
in that, or how they thought the interests of England, a great
commercial and exporting nation, were to be forwarded by throwing
its whole customers into confusion and misery, we cannot divine.
Apparently, their sympathy with revolution anywhere but at home,
was so strong, that they could not abstain from supporting it all
around them, though to the infinite detriment of their own people.
And it is a most curious circumstance, that, while the Chancellor of
the Exchequer constantly told us--no doubt with a certain degree of
truth--that the failure of our exports, and the general distress of
the country, was, in a great degree, to be ascribed to the European
revolutions, the whole policy of the Foreign Office, during the
same period, was directed to countenance and support these very
revolutions.

But from the painful contemplation of the follies and aberrations
of man, let us turn, with thankfulness, to the contemplation of the
great moral lessons which the events of the two last years teach
us as to the wisdom and beneficence of Nature. It is now clear
beyond the possibility of doubt, that the wisdom of Providence has
provided barriers against the passions, vices, and follies of men;
and that if the leaders in thought and station fail in their duty,
an invisible bulwark against the progress of anarchy is provided
in the general misery which is the consequence of their excesses.
Pre-eminent above all others in the history of mankind, THE YEAR
OF REACTION, immediately succeeding THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS, is
fraught with the demonstration of these great and consoling moral
and religious truths. From it the patriot will derive consolation
and hope, amidst the darkest periods which may yet be in store for
the human race: for never was a darker period than that through
which we have passed; and from its checkered scenes the virtuous
and upright will draw the conclusion that there are limits to human
wickedness even in this scene of trial; and that the safest, not
less than the most honourable course, for all classes, from the
throne to the cottage, in periods of danger, is to be found in the
fearless discharge of DUTY.




MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.

BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.

PART III.--CHAPTER VII.


Next morning, shortly after daybreak, we were all hurried out of
our berths by Joey, to come on deck, and take a first view of the
coast of Spain. We made the land to the north-east of Cape Villano,
and were not a little struck with the bare, black, scowling aspect
of that mountainous and iron-bound coast. Off Oporto we stood in,
with the design of entering the river. But a signal from the shore
announced the bar impassable, and we had nothing before us but
the delightful prospect of standing off and on, till the weather
permitted us to land the bags. Gingham, I observed, stood anxiously
peering with his telescope in the direction of the bar, where the
sea, for miles, was foam and fury. "Well," said I at last, "are you
looking for a cork in that yeast?"--"I am," replied Gingham, "and
there it is. See, they have passed the bar. We shall soon have them
alongside."

I saw nothing, but at length was able to discern in the distance
a small speck, which was executing most extraordinary vagaries in
the midst of the surf. Now it was high, now low; now visible, now
lost. Its approach was indicated, not so much by any perceptible
change of position, as by an increase of apparent magnitude.
Gingham now handed me the glass, and I saw a large boat, full of
men, pulling towards us like Tritons. At length they reached the
ship. Smart fellows those Oporto boatmen--know how to handle those
clumsy-looking, enormous boats of theirs. What a scene was that
alongside! The wind high; the sea rough; the boat banging against
the ship's side; the men in her all talking together. Talking? Say
jabbering, shouting, screaming. I was in perfect despair. Where was
my Portuguese? Hadn't I studied it at Trinity College, Cambridge?
Couldn't I make out a page of my Portuguese Gil Blas? Hadn't I got
a Portuguese grammar and dictionary in my trunk? And hadn't I got
a nice little volume of Portuguese dialogues in my pocket? Yet not
one word could I understand of what those fellows in the boat were
bawling about. Their idiom was provincial, their pronunciation
Spanish. That I didn't know. It seemed to me, at the time, that all
my toil had been wasted. Never despair, man. If you want to learn a
language, and can't learn it in the country, why, learn it at home.
You may, you probably will, feel at a loss, when you first get among
the natives. But, after two or three days, all will begin to come
right: your ear, untutored hitherto, will begin to do its part; then
your stores of previously acquired knowledge will all come into use,
and you may jabber away to your heart's content. But mind, whatever
the language you learn--Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, or
High Dutch--go to work in a scholarlike, businesslike manner; learn
the verbs, study the syntax, master all the technicalities, or you
are doing no good. Doubtless, in your travels abroad, you will fall
in with lively old English residents, who "speak the language as
fluently as a native," and tell you it's all nonsense, _they_ never
looked into a grammar, nor into a book neither. But never mind that;
follow your own plan. Speak the language whenever you can--that of
course; hear it spoken; dine at the table d'hôte--that's worth a
five shilling lesson at any time, and you get your dinner extra;
but, all the while, read daily, work your grammar, turn out the
words in your dictionary, and mark the result. You, after a space,
can not only speak the language, but _write_ it; whereas those
intelligent individuals, let alone writing, can't _read_ it. Another
suggestion, which I--but where are we? What are we talking about?
While I am boring you with suggestions, the despatches have been
handed into the boat; the boat has shoved off, and is making for the
shore--plunging, ramping, tearing through the surf under a press
of sail: and, on the deck of the Princess Wilhelmina gun-brig,
stand three new and very rum-looking passengers--a Spaniard, a
Portuguese, and a nondescript--one deal box, one old leathern
portmanteau, one canvass bag, two umbrellas (blue,) one ditto
(red,) and a high-crowned Spanish hat, tied up in a faded cotton
pocket-handkerchief.

Our new companions were all a little "indisposed" the first day;
but, the weather moderating in the night, they grew better the next,
and were able to take their places at the dinner table. The Spaniard
had come on board, assuming that he was to victual himself, or pay
extra. Under this impression, opening his box in the forenoon, he
produced with much gravity a bundle, consisting of half-a-dozen
oranges, some very coarse brown bread, a flask of wine, and a chump
of splendid garlick sausage, all tied up together, in a second
cotton pocket-handkerchief. Spreading said handkerchief on the cabin
table as a cloth, he next brought out from his pocket a formidable
cheese-toaster, and was preparing to do battle with the prog. The
Major, perceiving his mistake, addressed him in Spanish, politely
explaining that the passage-money covered everything, and that
he could call for whatever the ship afforded. The Hidalgo, thus
advised, and courteously thanking the Major, contented himself with
an orange, carefully tied up the remaining provender as before, and
restored it to the sky-blue deal box.

This act of the Major's, benignant reader, piqued my curiosity. The
Major was a very good fellow, as you have doubtless discovered ere
this; but he was not a man to do anything without a _motive_. I
couldn't feel easy, without getting to the bottom of it.

"Very kind of you, Major," said I, "to give the Don that information
respecting his rights _in transitu_."

"Kind?" said the Major indignantly; "what do you mean by kind? Had
he once attacked that sausage, we should have smelt garlic all the
way to Lisbon." I now appreciated the Major's urbanity.

"Close fellows, those Spaniards," added the Major. "I knew very well
he wouldn't give me part of his sausage. Didn't go for it."

"Why, if you had shared the feast," said I, "we should have smelt
garlic twice as bad."

"Yes," replied the Major "but _I_ shouldn't have smelt it _at all_."

Said hidalgo was a tall, kiln-dried attomy of a man--hair black
and lanky--forehead high and corrugated--eyebrows pencilled and
elevated--eyes almost closed by the dropping of the eyelids--nose
long, thin, and very inexpressive--mouth diminutive--chin
sharp--cheek-bones high and enormously prominent--cheeks hollow and
cadaverous, regular excavations; half one of his oranges, stuck in
each, would about have brought them to a level with his face. Of
course he was dubbed Don Quixotte. The Portuguese came on board
with his hair dressed as a wig, enormous white choker, no neck
(that's why I called him Punch,) _chapeau de bras_, short black
cock-tail coat, white silk waistcoat flowered green and gold, black
satin unmentionables, black silk stockings, and top-boots--the
tops a sort of red japan. As to the third visitor, no one could
assert who he was, or what he was. He obtained a passage without
any document from the Oporto authorities, on the plea that he was
a courier, and carried despatches from Oporto to Lisbon. This, the
Colonel remarked, was rather odd, as the bag generally went by
land. One said he was a Spaniard; another said he was a Jew. Gingham
pronounced him a Frenchman:--but what could a Frenchman be doing
there? The one index of his identity was a nose, which forthwith won
him the name of 'Hookey.' Hookey spoke French, Spanish, Portuguese,
lots besides--disclaimed English--yet seemed always listening while
we talked. He was constantly smiling, too; the habit had given him a
deep semicircular maxillary furrow--say trench if you will--on each
side of his ugly mug. There was something in his smile that I didn't
like. If he saw you looking at him, he put on a smile.

At dinner the Colonel, anxious to do the honours, took an early
opportunity of challenging Don Quixotte to a glass of wine. The Don
filled a bumper; the Colonel nodded: the Don, with majestic and
silent gravity, rose slowly from his seat, his glass in one hand,
the other on his heart; bowed profoundly to each of the company in
succession; tossed off the wine; melo-dramatically extended the
empty glass at arm's length; bowed again; sighed; squeezed his hand
very hard upon his heart, and sat down. The Major challenged Punch,
who half filled his tumbler, sipped, filled up with water, sipped
again, nodded then, not before, as if he would say "Now it will do,"
and drank off the whole. Captain Gabion challenged Hookey, who,
alone of the three, performed correctly. "Hookey, my boy," thought
I, "where did you learn that?"

Neither Punch nor Don Quixotte manifested the least disposition to
amalgamate with us. They kept themselves apart, replied civilly
when addressed--that was all. I must say, speaking from my own
observations, it is a slander which describes the English abroad as
exclusive. The exclusiveness, so far as I have seen, lies much more
with the Continentals.

But if, on the present occasion, the Spaniard and the Portuguese
kept their distance, it certainly was far otherwise with my friend
Hookey. I take the liberty of calling him my friend, because
I was particularly honoured by his attentions. I have already
said that he seemed interested in our conversation. The interest
extended to everything about us. He inquired respecting each and
every one; his name, his rank, his department, his destination:
asked me, in an off-hand way, if I could guess how many troops
the British general had--what was to be the plan of the ensuing
campaign--did our Government intend to carry on the war with
vigour? When, by inquiring elsewhere, he discovered that I was
attached to the military chest, he redoubled his attentions, and
eke his interrogatories. Had I bullion on board? How much? Should I
convey treasure from Lisbon to headquarters? On bullock-cars or on
mules? By what route? Of course I should have a guard--did I know?
Travelling up the country would be dangerous as the army advanced
into Spain--wouldn't it advance?--when?--he knew every part of the
Peninsula--was himself bound for headquarters after delivering his
despatches--would be happy to go with me--wouldn't mind waiting a
day or two in Lisbon--would assist me in obtaining a servant--a
horse--a mule--anything. I, communicative as he was inquisitive,
lavished information in floods; advised him as to the amount of
bullion on board, to go down into the hold, and see with his own
eyes; informed him, as a particular secret, that I shouldn't wonder
if I was sent to headquarters, unless it happened otherwise; and
hadn't the least doubt that I should have the conveyance of whatever
amount of treasure was placed under my charge for that purpose;
declined saying anything then about a servant, horse, or mule, as I
should probably find "Milord Vilinton" had thought of me, and had
everything of that kind ready against my arrival; begged to tell him
I was a person of great importance, but maintaining the strictest
incognito--hoped he wouldn't mention it. Presently he stole away to
the forecastle, where I got a sight of him. He was jotting down like
mad.

On the evening of our second day from Oporto, we made the Berlings;
been six weeks at sea, from leaving the Tagus. If, instead of
coasting it, which secured them a foul wind, they had struck out at
once, from the mouth of the river, two or three days' sail into the
Atlantic, they would probably have got the wind they wanted. That is
what Captain Nil did, when I came home, passenger from Lisbon, 1843,
in his clever little fruit-ship, the King Alfred. Didn't we give the
go-by to the northerly current which blows down the coast, and catch
a south-wester, which was just what we needed? Didn't we jockey two
other orangemen, that started in company, and thought to beat us by
working up along shore? And didn't we bring our prime oranges first
to market, and sell them off-hand at London Bridge, with an extra
profit of ten shillings a chest?

The morning after we passed the Berlings, we saw the Rock of Lisbon.
This, I suppose, is about the most striking object the mariner
beholds, in approaching any coast in the known world. Not more than
fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, it stands so dark
in tint, so grim in aspect, so ragged in outline, you fancy some
fresh earthquake has heaved it up, crude and pinnacled, from the
volcanic bowels of the soil, and there left it to frown above the
waves that thunder at its base, and spout up in unavailing froth and
fume. "There it stands," said Gingham, "the old Rock! Often have I
rounded it before; often have I viewed it; often have I ranged it:
worthy the attention of the naturalist; still more of the geologist;
but, above all, of the meteorologist: the Promontory of the Moon;
yes,

    The hill where fond Diana looked and loved,
    While chaste Endymion slept and dreamed of heaven:

the advanced guard of mountain ridges, that condense the
invisible vapours of the ocean; the medium and thoroughfare of
electric communication between Europe and the Atlantic! See how
the thin air of the tropics becomes mist, when it reaches those
thunder-splintered pinnacles--hem! _Lady of the Lake_. See how
it caps them with a perpetual cloud, which, though perpetual, is
constantly diminished by the moisture which it discharges, and
constantly replenished by fresh supplies of vapour from the sea.
Here, the wind is north: but there, in that elevated region, the
upper current is blowing steadily from the south-west. Take my
advice, Mr Y----. Don't leave Lisbon without visiting the Rock. Go
to Cintra. Inquire for Madam Dacey's hotel; and don't allow her to
charge you more than two dollars a-day, wine included, spirits and
bottled porter extra."

Gingham now drew out his telescope. "Ah!" said he, "there's Colares;
and there's Cintra, just at the base of the Penha. There goes a
donkey party, on a visit to the Cork Convent. My respects to the
old Capuchins. There's Madam Dacey herself, fat and rosy as ever,
scolding Francisco the cook for spoiling that omelet. How are you,
old lady?--Villain! He's making a _pâté_ with one hand, and taking
snuff with the other! Don't roast that hare, blockhead; it's dry
enough already. Make it into soup. That's the way to serve a Cintra
hare. Clap a thin slice of bacon on the breast of each of those red
partridges, before you put them down. What, boil that gurnet? Bake
it, bake it, stupid! Serve it up cold for supper: beats lobster,
and should be dressed the same way--oil, cayenne, vinegar, and a
modicum of salt. I say, Francisco; mind you send up the soup hot.
What an extraordinary fact, Mr Y----! You may get good soups, and
all the materials for good dinners, go where you will; but our
own countrymen are the only people in the world who know how a
dinner should be served up, and set on table. Why, sir, at those
hotels at Lisbon and Cintra, I've tasted most splendid soups,
magnificent!--but, positively, sent to table lukewarm--neither hot
nor cold--tepid, sir! what do you think of that?"

I was thinking, just at that moment, that I should like to hear
more about Cintra. But Gingham had now got on the subject of
_la cuisine_; _la cuisine_ was one of his hobbies (he kept a
_stud_)--and, once mounted, there was no getting him off. Yet
Gingham, much as he delighted in dinner-giving, was not himself a
gourmand. In him the passion was disinterested--a matter of taste--a
sentiment. And ah! need I add how it enhanced the value of his
friendship?

About noon we crossed the bar; by two P.M. were off Lisbon, and,
while I was all agape, admiring the surpassing beauties of the
scene, had dropped our anchor. Captain Gabion took me by the elbow,
and proposed that we should sojourn at the same hotel. The motive
transpired that afternoon. Gingham had his own quarters, in the Rua
d'Alecrim. We all landed together at the Yellow House, where our
luggage underwent an examination--in those days a very off-hand
business, the English, in fact, being in military occupation of the
country. My traps were despatched among the first; and I sat waiting
for the Captain, whose turn came later. Meanwhile Hookey's bag was
opened, and the contents turned out. Among them I expected to see a
letterbox; but there was nothing that looked like despatches. While
Hookey was engaged with his bag, he was joined by a shabby-genteel
personage, who had the look of a military man in plain clothes--an
Englishman, or, I rather thought, an Irishman. They recognised each
other at once, and seemed to meet by appointment--left the office
arm in arm, the new-comer carrying Hookey's bag. They passed without
observing me, as I sat in the background near the door, among bags
and boxes. _Both_ were speaking _English_: _i. e._, Hookey, English
as it is spoken by Frenchmen; his companion, English as it ought
to be spoken, the pure vernacular of the Sister Isle. "Kim, kim
away wid ye, now; isn't it aal krikt and wrigler?"--"Oh, yase;
now I sal comb vid you, presently." "Aha! Mister Hookey; so you
don't understand English," thought I. Not to be an eavesdropper,
I started up, and put out my paw, in tender of a parting shake.
Hookey, a little taken aback, clasped it fervently in both his; and,
repudiating disguise, laughed, and spoke English again, grasping
and shaking my fist with intense cordiality. I suppose it was his
surprise, that made him substitute greeting for leave-taking: "Ah,
how you do, sare? I hope you varraval."

Gingham took a kind but rather distant leave. The Captain and I
adjourned with our luggage, which was first cleverly laid together
and packed, and then borne, swinging by ropes from two bars, which
rested on the shoulders of four stout Gallegos, who walked two and
two, hugging each other round the neck, and stepping together in
admirable time. The Captain indicated the road; and we soon reached
our domicile, MacDermot's Hotel (as it was then called), Rua do
Prior, Buenos Ayres,--for air and prospect, the finest situation in
all Lisbon; and that is not saying a little.

I was for ordering dinner forthwith. The Captain, for reasons best
known to himself, wished an hour's delay. Reluctantly acceding, I
retired to my private apartment, and commenced operations in the
soap and dowlas line. Presently the Captain tapped at my door,
and entered. Wanted me just to walk down with him to the water's
side--wanted me particularly. Away we went. The Captain spoke
little--seemed to have some project. At length he opened: "I rather
think the skipper will catch a precious good hiding presently; serve
him right." All this was Greek to me, though I had heard something
of the skipper's bad conduct to the Major.

We now, having descended by a side street as steep as a ladder,
entered the main road, or broadway, which runs by the water's side.
Who should meet us there, but the Major? He was evidently on the
look-out for us, and joined forthwith. "Has the boat left the brig
yet?" said Captain Gabion.

"Not yet, I think," said the Major; "I saw her alongside, though.
Come down to the water's edge. That's the place."

We descended, through a passage between stone walls. Captain Gabion
now addressed me a second time: "Mr Y----, I have already undertaken
to officiate as the Major's friend. You must pick up the skipper."

"Well, but what's it all about?" said I. "Hadn't any idea of your
intention. You never told me."

"No time for explanation now," said the Captain. "Will you
officiate, or will you not?"

"Always ready to do the needful when the case requires," said
I. "But, if the Major feels himself aggrieved, is there no other
redress? Won't it be _infra dig._?"

"The fact is," said the Major, "I don't intend to give him a
_heavy_ licking--only just to polish him off a bit. As to redress,
if I lodged a complaint, it must come ultimately before our own
authorities. Now Englishmen abroad, when ill-treated, are always
ignored or deserted by their government. I've seen that often.
That rascal would get off scot-free; and the very fact of my
having applied would be remembered to my disadvantage, and perhaps
would injure me in my profession. If I was a Frenchman or a Yankee
travelling abroad, and had been oppressed or ill-treated, I would
apply to my government. But as I am an Englishman, what would be the
use?"

"Well," said I, "the skipper's conduct on board was very bad, I
admit; to you, I've heard, particularly. But it's all over now.
Come, let him off this time."

"Very well," said the Major. "In a fortnight he sails for
England--takes home a ship-load of British officers, sick, wounded,
invalided. If he ill treats such fine fellows as you and me, and
goes unpunished, how will he treat them, do you think? I'll tell you
what. All I fear is, after he has got a few taps, he'll go down;
then there'll be no getting him up again, and he'll escape with only
half his deserts. Now that's just what I want you to prevent."

"Well," said I; "if I am to officiate as the skipper's friend, of
course I must do him justice. I only tell you that."

"Very well," said the Major, between his teeth. "You pick him up;
that's all."

We reached the high bank by the water's edge, just above the
landing-place. A boat was seen approaching from the Princess
Wilhelmina: four men pulling, skipper steering. Captain Gabion
addressed the Major:

"I'll tell you what; it won't do here. First, there isn't room.
Secondly--don't you see?--when he gets more than he likes, he has
nothing to do but to roll down the bank, jump into the boat, and
shove off. Thirdly, the boat's crew might interfere; and then we
should get the worst of it."

Meanwhile the boat reached the jetty; the skipper landed; ascended
the bank by a zigzag path with Snowball at his heels; passed without
noticing us, as we stood among other lookers on; and walked up the
passage. The Major followed him. Captain Gabion and I followed the
Major.

Just as the skipper was emerging from the passage into the street,
the Major stepped smartly after him, and tapped him on the shoulder,
exclaiming, "Take that, you ruffian." _That_ was a sharp application
of the toe.

Like a caged lizard touched in the tail, the skipper sprang fiercely
round.

"What's that for?" he cried, with a furious look.

"Ah, what's that for?" replied the Major, administering a stinging
soufflet.

The skipper, calm in an instant, and savage in cold blood, commenced
peeling. I stepped up to him, received his jacket, and handed it to
the nigger, thereby installing myself in office. The Major turned up
the cuffs of his coat-sleeves.

"Now, coolly, my man," said I, as the skipper went in like a mad
bull.

The first three rounds, like the Three Graces, had a
mutual resemblance. Superior to the Major in weight and
strength--formidable, too, as a hitter--the skipper did not succeed
in planting a single effective blow. Some were stopped, some were
dodged, some fell short, and one or two hit short. Still worse for
the skipper, he had no idea of guard. His antagonist, a first-rate
_artiste_, went on gradually painting his portrait. At the end of
the third round, "his mammy wouldn't a' knowed him." The Major, in
striking, did not throw in his weight, merely hit from the shoulder
and elbow. But his punishing told: he hit with a snap; he hit fast;
he had the faculty of rapidly hitting twice with the same hand.
In short, the skipper was evidently getting the worst of it. All
this time, the Major continued perfectly cool and fresh; and, like
Shelton, the navigator--whom I remember well, though you, perhaps,
do not--as often as he stopped a hit, he politely inclined his
head, as much as to say, "Well intended--try again." At the close of
the third round, however, in consequence of the skipper's attempting
a rush, the Major was constrained to put in a really hard blow as a
stopper. It not only answered that purpose, but nearly lifted the
skipper, and sent him reeling some paces backwards.

Instead of coming, as before, to my extended arms, and seating
himself, like a good child, on my knee till time was up, the skipper
now staggered towards Snowball, and began rummaging in his jacket. I
was too quick for him. Just as he extracted an enormous clasp-knife,
I whipped it out of his hand, and passed it to Captain Gabion. On
this demonstration, supposing that "legitimate war" was at an end,
and my "occupation gone," I was quietly walking away, with my hands
in my pockets. But the Captain, having first communicated with the
Major, met and stopped me, saying, "Come, we overlook that. The next
round."

The fourth round presented no novelty. The painting went on; I may
say, this time, was pretty well finished. Never was an ugly monkey
more completely "beautified" than the poor skipper. He still had
his strength and wind, and there was as yet no reason why he should
not ultimately win--especially as he hit out like the kick of a
horse, and one of his blows, if it told, might have turned the day.
I began, however, to be apprehensive that he would soon be put _hors
de combat_, by losing the use of his peepers. When, therefore, I
sent him in the fifth time, I whispered, "You must try to close, or
you'll have the worst of it."

Suddenly rushing in, giving his head, and boring on with his right
arm extended, the skipper, at the commencement of the fifth round,
contrived to get his left about the Major's waist. This led to
a grapple, and a short but fierce struggle. The skipper had the
advantage in physical power; but the Major was his superior in
wrestling, as well as in the nobler science. They fell together, the
Major uppermost. On the ground, strength resuming its advantage,
the skipper soon rolled the Major over, and had the ascendency.
Supposing the round concluded, I was going to pull him off. "Let
alone, let alone," said the Major; "leave him to me." The Major, I
presumed, was waiting an opportunity for a "hoist."

The skipper now, with his right arm extended, held the Major's
extended left, pinned down by the wrist. The skipper's left arm and
shoulder were passed under the Major's right, so as completely to
put it out of commission. With his left hand, the skipper seemed to
be pulling the Major's hair. All this was so completely _hors des
règles_, that nothing but the Major's veto kept us from interposing.

At this juncture of the combat there was evidently something out of
the usual course, which particularly interested the nigger. Stooping
down almost to a squat, his face peering close over the heads of
the two combatants, his big eyes bulging and gloating with eager
expectation, his mouth open, his blubber lips projecting, and his
two hands uplifted and expanded with intense curiosity, he watched
the result. Just in time, I grasped the skipper's thumb! Half a
second more, and the Major's eye would have been out of its socket!

Captain Gabion, breathing the only execration I ever heard from his
lips, choked the skipper off.

The Portuguese bystanders, though much interested in the fray, had
not been thoroughly sensible of its character. To them, probably,
the fight had looked as if a man, in perfect possession of his
temper, had been merely playing with a very savage assailant, so
clean and easy was the Major's style of punishing. But now, when
they walked up, and looked in the miserable sufferer's face, they
perceived the serious nature of the castigo administered. Instead of
features they beheld--a mask, I was going to say, but that would be
incorrect; for in most masks, you have eyes, nose, and mouth. Here,
distinctness was obliterated; and as to eyes, why, you couldn't see
the eyelashes. I handed the skipper to Snowball, advising he should
be taken on board, and seen to. Snowball walked of, conducting him
down the passage. I thought of the knife, procured it from the
Captain, ran, and handed it to the nigger. "Tell him," said I,
"never to use that again, except for cheese-toasting, picking his
teeth, and so forth." "Yes, massa; me tell him you say so." "I say,
Snowball," added I, "hadn't you better put a little oil on his face,
to keep off the mosquitos? If they get at him as he is now, they'll
drive him mad." "Ah no, massa," said Blackey, regretfully; "no
muskitto here, dis tree, five week; dis place too cold, mosh very.
Let alone, no muskitto on de wottah here, nebber at no time."

I hurried back, and found Captain Gabion supporting the Major, who
stood with both hands spread out over his right eye, and, to all
appearance, suffering intense agony. Blood was visible between his
fingers, and on his cheek. The Captain, solicitous to ascertain the
amount of injury, made a gentle attempt to withdraw the Major's
hands.

"Don't! don't!" gasped the Major. "Has he--got my eye--in his
pocket?"

"All right, all right," replied the Captain; "you have still a spare
eye to wink with. Near thing, though."

"To-night I meant to have slept at Villa Franca," said the Major,
still speaking as if his agony was extreme. "My man is waiting just
by with the horses, at the _chafriz_."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Captain Gabion; "to-night you must sleep
at our quarters. Pledget is there, and will look at your eye. Mr
Y----, there's the _chafriz_; that stone fountain, where you see the
open space."

I stepped in that direction, and found an English servant, holding
two horses. The Major had intended to "polish off" the skipper,
mount forthwith, and away for Sacavem at a hand-gallop. So he might;
only that the skipper, according to his own ideas of manly combat,
having got his opponent undermost, and secured a grip of the Major's
love-lock with his four fingers, had hooked his thumb-nail, and eke
a portion of his thumb, in the ----but enough. I brought up the man
and horses, and with some difficulty we got the Major to the hotel.

Pledget was there, examined the eye, did not consider the injury
serious, but deferred giving any decided opinion. Ordered the Major
to bed, and prescribed leeches: wanted to apply a poultice, but
the patient couldn't bear the pressure. For a few days he remained
a prisoner. After that, I met him in the streets with a green
shade--eye doing well. Next spring, saw him on duty. No damage was
then visible, save and except a small scar at the inner corner of
the eye.

How soon, or how slowly, the skipper recovered from his polishing
I never learned. The skipper, it appears, a year or two before the
American war broke out, had put into the Tagus in a vessel from New
Orleans, damaged. She was detained for repairs; and he, not liking
an idle life, had procured employment in a Falmouth ship. After the
war commenced, he chose to continue in the packet line. The exact
nature of his offence, offered to the Major, I never ascertained.
But it was something connected with the pumping of bilge-water,
when the Major was suffering from sea-sickness, prostrate on the
deck. Some years after, I heard of the skipper again. He had left
Falmouth, and had obtained the command of a packet running between
Southampton and the coast of France. He still had a bad name for
insulting and ill-treating his passengers; and, what is curious,
he again received a polishing from an English officer, at Dieppe.
On this occasion, if I mistake not, the operator was an officer
of the engineers. Whether said officer came out of the _mêlée_ a
Cyclops--the little dog forgot to mention.


CHAPTER VIII.

The morning after our landing from the packet, I sought out, and
with some difficulty discovered, my uncle's office; where I was very
cordially received by both uncles, and very politely by the other
gentlemen of the department. I announced myself prepared to start
forthwith for headquarters; fully expecting to be off that night, or
next day at latest. Uncle No. 1 told me I must go home with him to
dinner, and see my aunt and cousins. Uncle No. 2 advised me to look
out for a billet.

All this sounded ominous. The sympathising reader is already
advised, that my progress from Lisbon to headquarters was not quite
so expeditious as I had anticipated. The cause of the delay was this.

My dear mother, as I have already related, had overruled all
objections to my joining the Peninsular army; and through her
influence, my honoured father gave his reluctant consent. Shortly
after, he was ordered to sea: his ship left the Downs; and he did
not return, till after my departure from England. As the time of my
departure drew nigh, my dear mother, left to her own cogitations,
began to view the subject in a very different light. In short, she
was perfectly frightened at her own act; and, when it came to the
last, wrote off, without my knowledge, a letter to my uncle No. 2,
entreating him by all means to detain me at Lisbon, not for the
world to send me up the country--in short, to keep me far beyond the
sound, let alone the range, of hostile cannon. Her letter, posted at
Deal the very day I started thence for London, came out to Lisbon
by the same conveyance with myself; and was doubtless in my uncle's
hands, when I presented myself at the office. Many years after, in
looking over some old correspondence, I found a letter of hers to my
father at sea, revealing the whole plot.

Next morning, I again presented myself, still expecting to receive
my orders, and be off slick to headquarters. Uncle No. 2 was there;
hoped I had not been _much_ tormented with bugs and fleas; pointed
out a desk with a high seat; and informed me--that was my place!

The scene, which would have instantly appalled the whole department,
had I given expression to my feelings, was happily prevented by one
reflection, which struck me just in time; viz., that I was now an
_employé_, bound to obedience by military law, and that Nunky was my
commanding officer.

I sulkily took my seat; and Nunky left me for a few minutes, to the
pleasing process of mental digestion. Presently, he stood by my side
with a huge bundle of papers:--laid the papers on my desk.

"A fortnight," said he, "will probably elapse ere you can proceed to
headquarters. I wish, in the mean time, you would just see what you
can do, in arranging these convalescent accounts. We could not spare
a hand for them, and they have got sadly into arrear. Do try what
you can make of them."

I went to work;--worked hard for a fortnight. At the end of that
time, with occasional directions from my uncle, the confused mass
of accounts was reduced to something like order. Still nothing
was said about my journey to headquarters. Fresh work was given
me, which took another week. I began to get regularly savage--was
rapidly turning misanthrope--sympathised with George Barnwell. Nunky
requested my company in a private room.

"You came out," said he, "expecting to go up the country."

"Yes; and on that understanding I applied for the appointment, as
I expressed in my letter from England. On that understanding too,
unless I mistook the reply, my services were accepted."

"Well, G----," said he, "I put it to yourself. The fact is, those
plaguy convalescent accounts have given us more trouble than all
the business of the office besides. Till you came out, we never
have had a clerk that could do them. You do them excellently.
Of course, you are well aware the public service is the first
thing. The long and the short of it is, you perform this duty so
much to our satisfaction, your uncle J---- and I have come to the
determination--we must keep you with us at Lisbon."

This, my dear madam, with the exception of being crossed in
love--and to that, you know, we all are liable--was my first serious
disappointment in life. Baulked in my schemes of military glory--for
already, in imagination, I was a gentleman volunteer, had mounted a
breach, and won a commission--I had now but one remedy; to resign
my clerkship, and return forthwith to England. And this, under
other circumstances, I should doubtless have done. But the case, as
I then viewed it, stood thus. Here were my two dear uncles, with
enormous responsibility--that of dispensing and accounting for the
whole ready-money transactions of the Peninsular army; here was one
miserable branch of accounts, which gave them more trouble than all
the rest; and here was I, the only lad that could tackle it. Though
that, by the bye, was just so much soft solder; for there were at
least a dozen gentlemen, in our department, who could have made
up and kept the convalescent books quite as well as myself, and
probably far better.

Well; bad luck to the shilling. There was no remedy; so I settled
to my work; devoting my leisure hours, as a safety-valve, to the
furious study of Portuguese and Spanish. This blew off my wrath, and
in after years proved of good service.

But I rather suspect, gentle reader, you're a bloody-minded fellow,
and want to get away without further bother from Lisbon to the
seat of war, among shot and shells, grape, canister and congreves.
So, cutting it short, I shall just tell you how, at last, I
out-generalled my dear uncle, and broke from bondage. After that, if
you've no objection, we'll be off at once to join the army.

Please to bear in mind, then, that I was utterly unconscious
of any wish that I should remain at Lisbon, on the part of my
honoured parents, or either of them. Had I been aware, I would have
acquiesced. My position, according to the view which I now took of
it, was this. My parents had acceded to my scheme of joining the
army: my uncles had brought me out upon that understanding, and upon
no other: and yet, on my arrival, instead of forwarding me up the
country, had, for no earthly reason that I could discover, detained
me at Lisbon, to discharge a duty which, it was now perfectly clear,
might quite as well have been committed to other hands. This, I say,
being my actual view of the case, you will not think it strange,
that I deemed it perfectly fair to employ all lawful means for my
own enlargement and emancipation.

An opportunity presented itself, in the early part of 1814. The
Allied army was now in the Pyrenees and south of France. Convoys of
specie had been, from time to time, despatched to headquarters; and
were always accompanied by a clerk or conductor of our department,
who went in charge. While headquarters remained in Portugal, or were
not far advanced into Spain, this duty was considered an agreeable
change, and was rather sought than shunned. But, as the distance
lengthened, the departmental view of the subject became different.
The journey was now tedious, and began to be deemed unsafe. Reports
occasionally reached us of British officers ill treated, robbed, or
murdered on the road, by our brave Spanish allies. Our conductors,
who were for the most part natives, began to be very subject to the
fever of the country. Whenever their turn came to take the charge of
treasure to headquarters, they were sure to have it. Well; how could
they help that? You see, it was an _intermittent_ fever. In this
condition of affairs, another large amount of specie was counted
out, packed, and all ready for remittance: and--no conductor being
forthcoming--one of my fellow-clerks received directions to make
the usual preparations for attending it to headquarters. Obeyed, as
a matter of course; but didn't like it at all. Communicated to me
his secret sorrows--was really far from strong--would much prefer
remaining at Lisbon. My determination was taken: I volunteer, as his
substitute. Proposed my plan, to which he assented with hilarity.

Still, there, was need of management. Had I spoken to Nunky in
private, I knew full well I should be foiled. Combining persuasion
with authority, he would discourage the scheme, and I should have
no course but acquiescence. So, waiting till office-hours, I took
my usual place, expecting his appearance in the great room, where
half-a-dozen of us were seated together at our desks.

His step was heard in the passage. Half-a-dozen tongues ceased to
wag, and half-a-dozen pens went hard to work, while half-a-dozen
noses came into close contiguity to half-a-dozen official documents.
Nunky entered, took his seat, and commenced the perusal of a pile of
letters. I stood beside him.

"Well, G----?"

"I believe, sir, Mr N---- has received instructions to prepare for
a journey to headquarters. Not being in very good health, he would
be glad, with your permission, to remain at Lisbon. I therefore beg
leave to offer myself as his substitute."

Nunky gave me a look:--saw at once that he was beat. In private,
he might have urged his objections: but, before the whole office,
he could not appear to dissuade me from taking my turn at a duty,
now considered anything but agreeable. No course, then, remained
for him, but to signify his consent. "Oh, very well," said he, "if
that's the way you've settled it between yourselves. Of course,
_I_ can have no objection. Get the usual advance, then; draw your
allowance for a mule; and have all ready for starting the day after
to-morrow."

Exchanging winks with my fellow-subs, right and left, I returned
triumphant to my seat. Nunky remained a few minutes at his desk,
evidently in a little bit of a fidget. How could I tell that,
do you think, when I sat with my back to him? Oh, I suppose you
never were a clerk in a public office. Else you wouldn't require
to be informed, that office-clerks have eyes in the back of their
heads. When the governor is present, his actions, each and all, are
seen and chronicled by every subordinate in the room. And a great
relief it is, let me tell you, to the tedium of public business, to
recount, criticise, and dramatise them, the moment he's off. Nunky
took up a letter, and began to read it--laid it down unread--took
up another--rose from his seat--sat down again--put on his hat--and
bolted.

Dicky Gossip--a Portuguese clerk commonly so called--rushed
forthwith to the front office, and returned with equal rapidity.
"Ah, Mister Y----, you is doane. You no sall go up to de coantree
deece toim. Your oankle I vos see him git into him coashe. Ah, him,
gallop down de treet, faster as four mules can carry him. Ah, Mister
Y----, I sall tell you vot!"

In the course of the afternoon, I received a message to attend my
uncle in another apartment. He met me with a look of triumph, which,
I feared, boded no good.

"Well, G----," said he, "I wish you had mentioned that business this
morning in private. Then, you know, we would have talked it over
together. As, however, you chose to tender your services in the
public room, of course I was forced to view the thing officially,
and there's no remedy for it. You have volunteered for headquarters,
and to headquarters you must go."

"Oh, thank you, sir! thank you. That's just what I always wished."

"Just what you always wished? Of course I know that, as well as you
can tell me, Mr G----. Happy to say, though, I have effected one
arrangement, which will make matters far safer, and more agreeable
too."

"I fear, sir, if you send me off without the treasure, you will have
some difficulty--"

"No, no, G----; you and the treasure will go together; that of
course. But the fact is, I've been thinking those Spanish fellows
behave so ill, I'm hardly justified in forwarding so large an amount
of specie by land, all the way from Lisbon to the Pyrenees. In
short, since you spoke to me this morning, I have been on board the
flag-ship--seen the admiral. You and the treasure go to Passages
in a frigate. Beautiful vessel--passed under her stern in coming
ashore."

Alas, my object, then, was only half effected! I was to join the
army, but not to travel through Spain. Nunky saw my chagrin and
chuckled.

"Come, come, Mr G----," said he, "you beat me this morning; now I've
beat you. So make up your mind to a voyage by his Majesty's frigate
the M----. Be quick with your arrangements, for she's prepared to
sail at a moment's warning. We shall ship the treasure instanter. So
everything is ready, when you are."

The next day, at noon, I stood on the deck of the M----, a silent
and admiring spectator of a grand, peristrephic panorama, as we
glided down the Tagus under easy sail.


CHAPTER IX.

No occurrence worthy of record signalised our voyage from Lisbon
to Passages. As you are a member of the Yacht Club, though, and
passionately fond of romantic scenery, follow my advice, and treat
yourself, some fine week in the summer, to a run along the north
coast of Spain--say from Cape Finisterre to the mouth of the
Bidassoa. By the bye, hadn't you better reverse it? An awkward thing
you'd find it, to catch an on-shore wind at the head of the Bay of
Biscay. What would become of you--ah, and what would become of that
clever little craft of yours, the Water Wagtail, with her dandified
rig, and her enormous breadth of beam, and her six pretty little
brass popguns as bright as candlesticks, should a stiff north-wester
surprise you on that horrid coast? Won't it be better, then, to
secure some safe roadstead--the Gironde for instance--make that your
starting-point; choose your weather; and, coasting along the shores
of Biscay and Asturias, have the pleasure of feeling that you are
running out of the Bay, and not running into it?

That I leave to you. But depend upon it, if you visit that coast,
you will see not merely rocks, not merely mountains, not merely
wild scenery; but scenery so peculiar in character, that you will
not easily find the like. Such was the scenery which, on a fine day
towards the beginning of March, 1814, I viewed one morning early,
standing by the side of the Hon. Mr Beckenham, third lieutenant
of the M----. Mr B., having the morning watch, and thinking it
dull alone, had persuaded me to turn out, long, long before
breakfast;--as he said the night before, "to view that magnificent
coast at daybreak;" but, as he obligingly informed me when I came on
deck, "that he might enjoy the pleasure of my agreeable society."

The scene, at a first glance, rather disappointed my expectations.
"Stupendous ridge of mountains those Santillanos, though," said Mr
B.; "equal, I should think, to the Pyrenees themselves--of which, in
fact, they are a continuation, though some maps of Spain don't show
it."

The view, as I viewed it, had a threefold character. _First_, there
was the coast itself; a black line, occasionally diversified with
specks of white; this line a ledge of rocks, extending along shore
as far as the eye could reach, both east and west. The ocean-swell,
incessantly rolling in, though the morning was still, thundered on
this eternal sea-wall: and the surf, of which, at our distance, the
eye distinguished nothing but those white specks, visible from time
to time, presented, when viewed with a glass, every conceivable
variety and vagary of breaking waves: the foam now rushing up some
sloping shelf, like troops storming a breach; now arched sublime in
a graceful curve, that descended in a smoking deluge of spray; now
shooting vertically to a columnar height, as though the breaker had
first dashed downwards into some dark abyss, and then, reverberated,
flew sky-high in a pillar of froth. Beyond this line of rocks,
appeared, _secondly_, a ridge of low hills, presenting nothing very
remarkable, either in aspect or in outline. And beyond these again,
further up the country, appeared, _thirdly_, a very respectable and
loftier range--mountains, if you're a Lincolnshire man, and choose
to call them so.

"So, this is your ridge of mountains," said I. "Stupendous? I don't
call twelve or fourteen hundred feet stupendous, anyhow. And I'm
inclined to think you might look down on most of them, at that
altitude."

"You don't see them," said he. "You are looking at the coast range.
Do you perceive nothing beyond?"

"Nothing but a few light clouds," said I, "in the sickly blue of the
morning sky."

"Well, look at them," replied Mr. B. "View those clouds attentively.
Watch whether they change their shape, as clouds usually do, when
seen near the horizon."

I watched, but there was no visible change. The clouds were
fixtures! Sure enough, those faint, pale streaks above the hills,
that gleamed like aerial patches of silver vapour, were no other
than the lofty summits of the distant Santillanos, capped with
snow, and touched by the beam of early morning. It was worth a
turnout, any day.

Well, at length we reached Passages. Night had closed in, before we
dropped our anchor off the harbour's mouth. The captain dreaded the
very disaster to which I have already alluded, that of being caught
by an on-shore wind in that ugly corner. It was settled, therefore,
that a boat should be sent at once to announce our arrival, and the
treasure landed next morning early, in order that the frigate might
be off with the least delay possible.

Next morning early, then, the treasure--dollars packed in boxes,
one thousand dollars in a bag, two bags in a box--was brought up
from the hold, and stowed in three boats alongside. Making my best
bow to the captain, and tendering both to him and to his staff, my
sincere and grateful acknowledgments for all the polite attentions,
&c., I stepped over the side, and seated myself in the boat destined
for my conveyance. In the largest boat, which also contained the
largest portion of the treasure, sat the Hon. Mr Beckenham; in the
next was a middy; in my own, which was the smallest, were only
about half-a-dozen boxes, and four sailors to pull ashore. Mr B.
requested me to steer. We pulled for the mouth of the harbour, which
was distinguishable, at the distance of a mile, by an abrupt and
narrow cleft, dividing two lofty hills; and by a line of foam, which
extended right across the entrance, without any visible opening.

Three boats leaving the ship in company, there was a race of
course. Mine was astern, having been brought close alongside for my
accommodation, and so getting the last start. The race was commenced
by middy, who, by the rules of the service, ought to have kept
astern of Mr B., and therefore tried to get ahead of him. My men,
seeing the contest, began pulling like mad; and, though outnumbered
by the crew of the other boats, yet ours being light, and the
weather moderate, soon overtook and passed them. We pulled away,
maintaining the lead, till a dull roar, like continued thunder,
reminded us that we were just upon the bar. There it was, right
ahead, crossing our course, not a hundred yards distant, and no
passage perceptible; the sea, elsewhere, comparatively tranquil,
there swelling and raging, like a mild-tempered man in a passion;
the breakers curling, flouncing, tumbling one over the other,
rolling in opposite directions, tilting as they crossed, and flying
up with the force of the shock. How were we to pass? or by what
dodge to give the go-by? My men, excited by the race, would have led
at that moment into Charybdis. Still they pulled, onward, onward,
to all appearance right upon the reef. The difficulty was solved,
like many other difficulties, just when we got into the thick of
it. The reef, single in appearance, was in reality double; that
is to say, it consisted of two ledges, one ledge overlapping the
other: so that, just at the instant when three strokes more of the
oars would have taken us into the midst of the tumblification, a
narrow opening, with comparatively smooth water, appeared at our
left; a turn of the rudder brought us cleverly round into that
friendly channel, and the next moment we floated on the tranquil
surface of the outer harbour. The luff-tackle and the reefer, as
if they had let me go ahead only to see how a landsman could turn
a corner, now seemed disposed to renew the race. Raising a shout,
which rang from hill to hill in the cleft of that narrow roadstead,
their crews gave way again with redoubled ardour. But, having gained
the precedence outside, we easily kept it in smooth water, and led
in, with a sweep, through the larger harbour to the town. There,
as we coasted along, I noticed a little jetty; and on it, in the
full uniform of our department, a little man, who was anxiously
watching our approach. I laid my boat alongside, jumped ashore,
and received a hearty welcome from Mr Deputy-Paymaster-General
Q----, whom I had previously known at Lisbon, and who was now in
charge of the military chest at Passages. Another individual whom
I had met at Lisbon, a gentleman holding office in a department
attached to the army--suppose, for want of a better name, we call
him "My Friend"--stepped up at the same time, as if he had come by
accident, was amazingly glad to see me, took my hand, and greeted
me with many smiles--begged I wouldn't think of troubling myself
about a billet--his quarters were quite roomy enough for two. Had
I a mule? Shouldn't be able to get one in all Passages. Must have
something. He would sell me a pony cheap.

A working party was at hand, to convey the boxes of specie from
the jetty to the office, which was established hard by, for the
convenience of landing remittances that came by sea. A guard was
now set, and the sailors turned to, handing the boxes smartly out
of the boats, and ranging them on _terra firma_; the shore party
began conveying them from the jetty into the office. The Hon. Mr
Beckenham was in a dreadful fuss to get back to the frigate. "The
skipper wants to be off while the wind is fair, and the men haven't
breakfasted,"--nor had he. Up came my commanding officer just at the
moment, and hoped Mr B. and the middy would favour us with their
company to breakfast, as soon as the boxes were stowed.

Mr B. glanced circularly at the horizon, looked at the clouds,
looked at the flags in the harbour, looked at the clouds again.
"Don't think there's any sign of a change of wind at present," said
he. "Blows very steady from the south, sir," said the middy. The
boxes were housed; they suffered themselves to be persuaded, and
walked with us into the office. "My friend" also received an invite,
and came in company.

The men in the boats were supplied with bread, butter, and cheese;
some enormous Spanish sausages, by way of a relish, delicious
Spanish onions, as mild as an apple, and a handsome allowance of
brilliant draught cider. By all means ship a barrel, if you touch at
Passages in the Water Wagtail. Mr Q---- conducted us to his private
apartment, where we found a substantial breakfast awaiting us. I
walked into the balcony, which looked towards the water; took a view
of the men in the boats. All had their knives out, each sat in an
attitude of his own, the cider evidently gave general satisfaction,
the prog was rapidly disappearing, and the subject of conversation
was twofold--the race, already accomplished, from the frigate to
the jetty; and the race, soon to come off, from the jetty to the
frigate. "My friend" stood at my elbow, saw me laughing at Jack,
laughed himself--laughed heartily. "When will you come and look at
the pony?" said he. Mr Q---- summoned us to breakfast.

Breakfast over, the lieutenant and his aide-de-camp took their
leave. I went to look after my baggage, of which "my friend" had
taken charge in the hurry of landing, promising to see it stowed
with the treasure, where it would be under a guard. There was the
guard, and there was the treasure; but there, was not my baggage.
Found him--demanded an explanation. "Why, to tell the truth, the
working party being there, he had embraced the opportunity, and
had sent off my things at once to his own billet. We might as well
go there at once. Could look at the pony by the way." Just as we
started, my commanding officer called after me, "Mr Y----, I shall
want you to give me a few particulars respecting the treasure. You
may as well do so before going out. Then you may consider yourself
at liberty for the rest of the day." I accompanied him into a small
room, on the door of which was wafered "Private." "My friend" waited
outside, in the street.

"Did you send any message to that gentleman last night," said Mr
Q----, "when the boat came ashore from the frigate?"

"None whatever, sir. I didn't even know he was at Passages."

"Wasn't he aware that you were coming from Lisbon?"

"I don't see how he could be, sir. For it wasn't mentioned there
till the day before I sailed; and of course no intelligence could
have come in that time by land."

"Then he didn't meet you this morning by appointment?"

"Certainly not, sir. The meeting was quite casual."

"Casual? He was waiting about here for an hour before you landed;
running into the office, out of the office, poking his nose into
every corner--couldn't think what he wanted. Oh, I suppose he must
have fallen in with the second lieutenant yesterday evening. That's
how he heard of you, no doubt. Old cronies, I suppose."

"Not at all, sir. We met twice at Lisbon. That's all that I ever saw
of him, till this morning."

"Indeed! Well, he seems very attentive. Does he appear to have any
object? What was he saying to you in the balcony?"

"Said something about a pony he wants to sell. That was all, sir."

"Oh!" said Mr Q----. The "oh" came out something like a groan
a yard long, first forte, then minuendo, with the forefinger
applied laterally to the apex of the nose, and one eye sapiently
half-closed. "Ay, ay; I see. That's what he's after, no doubt; he
wants you to buy Sancho. Well, perhaps you can't do better. I know
the pony well. Doubt whether you'll find anything else to suit you
in all Passages. A mule, indeed, would answer your purpose better;
but the price of mules is enormous. Have you drawn your allowance
for a horse?" "No, sir. As I came by water, and dollars are
cumbersome, I thought it best to defer that till I reached Passages."

"Oh, very well; it's all right, then. Mr Y----, I feel it my duty
to say this to you; let me know before you close the bargain. Till
then, the eighty dollars are as well in my hands as in yours.
Horses will soon be dog-cheap. Few to be had in Spain for love or
money; lots, though, in France. Once at headquarters, you may mount
yourself _ad libitum_; and the pony will do well enough to carry
you up. Well, Mr Y----, with regard to quarters, the town is so
full, I was thinking we must try and accommodate you here. But as Mr
what's-his-name has made the offer, I feel it my duty to say this to
you--you had better accept it."

"Will you look at the invoice of the treasure, now, sir? Or shall I
bring it to-morrow?"

"Show it me now. Any gold?"

"All silver, sir; dollars, half-dollars, and quarters."

"What's this? Eight bags of a thousand, halves; twelve bags,
quarters; five bags, small mixed. Why, it will take us an age to
count it all."

"My fingers were sore with counting, before I left Lisbon, sir."

"Yes; and they must be sore again, before you leave Passages. Glad
to find you have had practice, though. Shouldn't mind the dollars:
a middling hand, you know, can count his thirty thousand a-day;
but that small mixed takes no end of time. Well, Mr Y----, I feel
it my duty to say this to you--hold yourself in readiness to start
for headquarters, in charge of treasure, this day week at latest.
If I can get you off a day or two earlier, all the better. But the
money must be counted; the boxes must be looked to and repaired.
And then the mules--why, you'll want sixty at least. Let me see.
Nearer eighty, unless I can take part of the silver, and give you
doubloons. Well, I'll see old Capsicum in the course of the morning,
and ascertain what mules he can let me have. Be here to-morrow at
ten, and then I shall be able to tell you more about it."

Delighted to hear once more the name of Capsicum, and doubting
whether to call on him, or wait till we met, I was leaving the room
to rejoin "my friend" in the street, when Mr Q---- called me back.

"Of course, you know, Mr Y----," said he, "I have no wish to
interfere with a fair bargain. Make your own agreement for the
pony. I have nothing to say against the party who wishes to sell,
and would be the last man to disparage a gentleman attached to any
department of the British army. Only I feel it my duty to say this
to you--keep your weather-eye open. Good morning."

"My friend" and I walked off together to the stable. His Portuguese
servant, Antonio, was in attendance, led out the pony, walked
him, trotted him, led him in again. The pony, I thought, was a
respectable pony enough; not in bad condition, neither; rather
small, though, for a rider six feet high. His legs, supple,
well-turned, and slender, were decidedly Spanish. But the barrel,
round, bulging, and disproportionably large; the hum-drum, steady,
_business-like_ pace; the tail, long, thick, and coarse the drooping
neck, the great hairy ears, the heavy head, the lifeless eye, and
the dull, unmeaning cast of countenance, betokened rather a Gallic
origin. I declined giving an immediate answer as to purchasing.
"My friend," with a laugh, said I was quite right; and we walked
off together to his billet. "Very dull place, this Passages," said
he. "Shall be happy to go with you across the harbour, and show you
the market. By the bye, of course, before you leave, you'll take a
view of St Sebastian. There stands the poor old town, all knocked
to smash, just as it remained after the siege. If you wish to form
a conception of the tremendous effect of cannon-balls, ride over by
all means. You may get there in less than half-an-hour, upon the
pony."

We now reached "my friend's" quarters, which consisted of one long,
narrow room, with a couple of windows at the end nearest the street,
and a couple of alcoves at the other, each alcove containing a very
humble bed. As to the windows, you are not to understand by the term
window, bless your heart, anything in the shape of glass, sashes,
or window-frame; but simply a stone opening in the stone wall, with
nothing to keep out the wind and rain, but a pair of old clumsy
shutters, which were far from shutting hermetically. The whole
furniture of the apartment consisted of a ship's stove, borrowed
from one of the transports in the harbour; a door laid on two
trestles, to serve as a table; and, on each side of the said table,
a bench. Yet often, when the troops were engaged in active service,
such accommodations as ours would have been deemed a luxury; and
many a wrangle arose for far worse quarters. I noticed that the
trestles and benches, which consisted of rough deal, hastily knocked
together, looked new. This "my friend" explained, by informing me
that the captain of the transport had lent him his carpenter. Having
seen to my baggage, which was all right, and ascertained that we had
four hours to dinner, I took the first opportunity of cutting my
stick, having inwardly formed my determination to be off at once on
foot, and take a view of St Sebastian. Six or seven months had now
elapsed since St Sebastian was stormed and taken by the British and
Portuguese forces.

Less than an hour's walk brought me to the scene of that fierce,
and, for a period, doubtful conflict. The road was closed up by
hills, which afforded no opportunity for a prospect; and not a soul
did I meet in the whole distance. All at once I came in sight of
the battered and demolished fortress. Imagine a town knocked to
pieces. Imagine this town suddenly presenting itself to your view.
The road unexpectedly opened upon a sandy plain, on which rose a
few eminences, called the Chofres, that had afforded a position for
some of the breaching batteries of the besiegers; at the extremity
of this plain ran the river Urumea, discharging itself into the sea;
and on an isthmus, beyond the river, stood St Sebastian. It stood
like a city in the desert. All was solitude and desolation. The
town, though it had contained many thousand inhabitants, at this
moment afforded no visible indication of human residence. It was not
forsaken; yet nothing could I discover of the tokens which usually
indicate life and activity as we approach the abodes of men--on the
road, neither vehicles, nor cattle, nor human beings. I was alone,
and the city was solitary. No; here, at my feet, upon the sandy
plain, was a memorial, at least, of man and of his doings. A rise in
the level had been washed down at its edge by the rains of winter;
and, projecting from the crumbling bank, appeared the bleached
and ghastly remains of a human being; doubtless one out of the
multitudes who, having fallen in the siege, had been consigned to
a shallow and hasty grave. I will not deny that the sight arrested
my steps. Remember, it was the first victim of war I had ever
looked upon. Nay, more; it invested the whole panorama with a new
character. I stood, as it were, surveying a vast cemetery, the soil
now concealing in its bosom the multitudes who, not long before,
had drenched its surface with their blood. Entering the town, I
did indeed see before me, as "my friend" had said, "the tremendous
effect of cannon-balls." Yet that was not the whole: destruction
appeared in a threefold aspect. The batteries had knocked houses and
defences into rubbish and dust; the mines had torn up the works from
their foundations; and a general conflagration had ravaged the whole
town. The scene was sombre and oppressive. War had now advanced
his pavilion into other lands; but here had left in charge two vast
and hideous sentinels--Desolation and Silence! I passed through
some of the principal streets, in which the fallen stones had been
piled on each side, to make a thoroughfare; and walked along the
ramparts, where some of the dead were still visible, partially
covered by fragments of the ruined masonry. No living creature
did I encounter, save one, a miserable object, a soldier in the
Spanish uniform, apparently an invalid, recovering from wounds or
sickness. On my approaching him, he appeared unwilling to speak or
be spoken to. Nor is it difficult to explain why a Spaniard, meeting
an Englishman on the walls of St Sebastian, should feel little
disposed for conversation. And so I visited the place, inspected the
fortifications, and returned to Passages, without exchanging a word
with any one.

"My friend," in honour of my arrival, had invited a brace of
dinner-guests: one, like myself, a clerk of the military chest, the
other a young hospital mate. Our dinner was excellent; Irish stew,
a Passages hare, and an enormous omelet, all cooked by Antonio;
capital draught cider; with the cheese, two bottles of English
porter as a particular treat; and Andalusian wine _ad libitum_.

I must here say a word on the subject of Irish stew. A standing dish
at headquarters was that Irish stew. Amongst the followers of the
army were a number of youths, Spanish and Portuguese, principally
the latter, age from sixteen to twenty, happy, on the small
consideration of a few dollars per month, to enter the service of
any Senhor Inglez who would hire them. Most of the clerks attached
to headquarters had a servant of this description; and as each clerk
was entitled to draw double rations, the arrangement was convenient.
It was the chief business of this servant, to discharge the two
very congenial duties of groom and cook; and no one was eligible
to the office who could not make Irish stew. "Well, Pedro, what's
for dinner to-day?"--The answer was invariable, "Oirish-too." The
ration beef--it was generally beef--was popped into a saucepan with
anything else that came to hand--bread, onions, leeks, potatoes if
you could get them, and just enough water to cover the whole;--then
stewed. Whatever the ingredients, still it was "Oirish-too."
Now--perhaps the idea never struck you--the true difference between
English and foreign cookery is just this: in preparing butcher's
meat for the table, the aim of foreign cookery is to make it tender,
of English, to make it hard. And both systems equally effect their
object, in spite of difficulties on each side. The butcher's meat,
which you buy abroad, is tough, coarse-grained, and stringy; yet
foreign cookery sends this meat to table tender. The butcher's meat
which you buy in England is tender enough when it comes home; but
domestic cookery sends it up hard. Don't tell me the hardness is in
the meat itself. Nothing of the kind: it's altogether an achievement
of the English _cuisine_. I appeal to a leg of mutton, I appeal to
a beef-steak, as they usually come to table; the beef half-broiled,
the mutton half-roasted. Judge for yourself. The underdone portion
of each is tender; the portion that's dressed is hard. Argal, the
hardness is due to the dressing, not to the meat: it is a triumph of
domestic cookery.--Q.E.D. Well; if time was short--say, a meal to
be prepared on coming in from a march, the rations not issued till
three hours after, and Pedro ordered to "make haste, and get dinner
_depressa_,"--why, then, to appease the wolf in your stomach, the
Irish stew was ready in no time--boiled like fury--dished up in half
an hour. In that case, you got it in the genuine English style--done
in a hurry: the broth watery and thin, the potatoes bullets, and
the _bouilli_ shrunk, indurated, screwed up into tough elasticity,
by the sudden application of a strong heat, and the potent effect
of hard boiling. Engage a "good plain cook"--tell her to boil a
neck of mutton--that will show you what I mean. All London necks of
mutton come to table crescents--regularly curled. But if, on the
contrary, you were in quarters, or the troops halted a day, then you
got your Irish stew after the foreign fashion. Breakfast cleared
away, your horse is brought to the door, that you may ride a few
miles forwards, and take a view of the operations, or ogle Soult
through a telescope. Pedro then commences his culinary operations
forthwith. The beef--and what-not besides--is whipped into the
saucepan; the saucepan is set among the embers upon the hearth: and
there it stands--not boiling--scarcely simmering--suppose we say
digesting--throughout the forenoon, and till you are ready to eat.
Long before dinner, savoury steams announce a normal process of
the _cuisine_, a process both leisurely and effectual. At length,
crowned with laurels, and, like all heroes, hungry after fighting,
you return from the skirmish in front, having barely escaped a stray
cannon-ball that made your horse--oh, didn't it?--spin round like a
teetotum. The rich repast awaits you--the whole is turned out, and
smokes upon the table--the _bouilli_ is tender, the "jus" appetising
and substantial, the _tout-ensemble_ excellent. And if, with an eye
to his own interest in the concern, Pedro has slipped in a handful
or so of garlic, why, you live all day in the open air--so it
doesn't much signify.

Well, so much for Irish stew. We wound up the evening with
ship-biscuit and brandy-and-water--ration brandy--French--superb.
What an exchange for the horrid _agoardente_ of Lisbon, that
excoriated your palate, indurated your gizzard, and burnt a hole in
your liver! I happened to mention my morning visit to St Sebastian.
All my three companions had seen St Sebastian during the siege--were
present at the storming. "Sorry I was not ordered up in time," said
I.

"You'll never see anything like that," said the doctor.

"Well, can't you tell me something about it?"

"No, no," replied he; "rather too late for that to-night. I must be
moving."

"Come, gentlemen; mix another tumbler round," said "my friend." "If
we cannot go into particulars, at least, for the satisfaction of Mr
Y----, let us each relate some one incident, which we witnessed when
the city was taken by storm. Come, doctor; you shall begin."

"Really," said the doctor, "it was such a scene of slaughter and
confusion, I can hardly recollect anything distinctly enough to tell
it. I got into the town almost immediately after the troops, to look
after the wounded; just those that required to be operated on at
once. Found my way into a by-street; came among some of our fellows,
who were carrying on such a game, drinking, plundering, firing at
the inhabitants, and I don't know what-all besides, I was glad
enough to escape with my life, and got out of the place as fast as
I could. Don't really remember any particular occurrence to relate.
Oh, yes; just as I was coming away, I saw one old woman--beg pardon;
ought to have said elderly gentlewoman--pinned to a post with a
bayonet, for defending her daughter's virtue."

Well, gentlemen, said "my friend," "I also will relate an incident,
connected with that dreadful day. But, first of all, I must show
you something. What, would you say, is the value of that, doctor?"
He produced a very handsome diamond ring. "Worth fifty dollars at
least," said the doctor, holding it to the lamp. "I say, _worth_ it;
that is, in the trade. Would sell, in Bond Street, for more than
double that price, as they'd set it in London." The doctor, I should
mention, was the son of a fashionable watchmaker--bore the sobriquet
of Tick.

"Well," continued my friend, "how do you think I became possessed of
that ring? Just after the town was carried, I watched a lull in the
firing from the castle, and went in over the breach. Only one or two
round-shot fell, as I was climbing up. Met there an English sailor,
a man-of-war's man, coming along in high good humour, perhaps a
little the worse for liquor. He was shouting, laughing, holding up
his two hands, as if he wanted me to look at them. The fellow had
been plundering; plundering a jeweller's shop. "Now I'm dressed out
for a ball," said he, "all for one like a Spanish lady." What d'ye
think he had done? All his fingers, both hands, were covered down
to the tips with splendid rings, rings set with precious stones,
as thick as curtain-rods. Brilliants, rubies, emeralds, amethysts,
he had stuck them on, one after the other, till there was no room
left. Told him I'd buy them: offered him a dollar for the lot; two
dollars; five dollars. 'Avast,' said he, 'I'm a gentleman. Don't
want none of your dumps, messmate. Shouldn't mind giving you one,
though, for good luck. Here, take this big un.' It was a great
ugly Brazilian topaz. 'No, no,' said I; 'give me this little one.'
He gave it me; I thanked him; and he walked away, laughing and
shouting.--Worth fifty dollars, you say. Is it though, doctor? For
forty-five down, you shall have it."

The doctor made no reply; and, for a few seconds, there was a dead
silence. "Come, Mr Pagador senior," said he; "I've got three gunshot
wounds, an ague, and a dysentery.--Must see them all, before I go to
bed. Please to proceed."

"I think," said my fellow-clerk, "our host had a good chance of
being shot, when he mounted the breach; for the French, I remember,
kept up a fire on all who passed that way, long after it was
carried. You're sure you got that ring on the breach, are you?... I,
also, had a narrow escape, after I got into the town. I was walking
up one of the streets, and passed a wine-shop, where a lot of our
fellows were assembled, within and without. A few yards beyond was
a corner; another street crossed. Just at the crossing, in the
middle of the road, lay an English soldier, dead. There was nothing
particular in that; for I had passed several dead before, as I came
along. Walking on, I noticed two soldiers looking at me and talking.
'Better tell him, then,' said one of them. 'Tell him yourself,'
said the other; 'I shan't tell him. He's only a commissary.' Just
before I reached the corner, some one gently laid hold of my arm.
I turned round. It was that officer of the engineers--Gabion--yes,
Captain Gabion. 'Wouldn't advise you to go beyond the corner,'
said he.--'Why not?' said I. 'Don't you see that man lying on the
road?' said he.--'Any danger?' said I. 'I'll soon let you see that,'
said he: 'have the kindness to lend me your hat.' I gave him my
hat--staff-hat--bought it new at Vittoria. He stepped forward, held
it out by one end, just poked about half of it beyond the corner.
Crack! a rifle-bullet came clean through it. 'The French,' said
he, 'still occupy that street. I set a sentry here just now, to
keep people from passing on. But he's off; plundering, I suppose,
or getting drunk. I'm sorry for your hat, though.' Rum trick, that
of Captain Gabion's, I must say. I thought it very unkind. Kept me
from getting shot; much obliged to him for that. But spoiled my new
staff-hat--cost me ten dollars."

"Yes," said the doctor, "that's just what he is; always up to some
practical piece of wit, and grave as a judge. Grave? I should rather
say melancholy. Such a fellow for joking, too! Why, he'd crack a
joke if a shell was fizzing at his feet. One of the coolest officers
in the service."

"Where is Captain Gabion now?" said I.

"Oh, somewhere in advance," said the doctor; "you may be sure of
that; somewhere with the troops in the south of France. He and his
friend, that major of the artillery, had a narrow escape, though, in
the winter. Must needs go paying a morning visit to a French family
just this side of St Jean de Luz, before the enemy were driven
across the Nivelle. Just escaped a party of them by hard riding.
Don't see, though, that your hat, Mr Pagador, is much the worse,
merely for being pinked."

"It makes people stare so," said he, "that's all I care about. Looks
just exactly as if one had been shot through the head."

"Shouldn't mind giving you my new foraging cap and a dollar for it,"
said "my friend." Again there was a short silence. It was clear, in
fact, that "my friend's" disposition to barter and bargain was not
altogether admired.

"Well, gentlemen," said I, "you have all been good enough to tell me
something about St Sebastian. Now, I'll tell you something. Did you
ever see a dead man swim?"

"I've seen a dead man float," said the doctor; "never saw one swim."

"Well, that's what I saw this morning. And you may see it to-morrow,
if you choose to go and look. I'll tell you how it was. The tide was
up, and the river Urumea nearly full. I was standing on that part
of the rampart, where, as you know, the rubbish dislodged by the
springing of the mine is shot down into the bed of the river. In
that vast heap, no doubt many of the storming party found a grave,
where they still lie buried, under tons upon tons of shattered
masonry. In some instances, however, the sufferers were not entirely
overwhelmed by the explosion; and their remains are still partly
visible, bleached by the sun and wind. The water was perfectly
clear; you might see the rocks in the bed of the stream. My eye,
measuring the shattered pile on which I was standing, mechanically
descended from its summit to its base, which juts out far into
the river. Just under water, I noticed something in motion. The
appearance attracted my attention. Descending the mound to the
water's edge, what do you think I saw? A man half emerging from the
fragments, and swimming, yes, swimming beneath the surface, striking
out with both hands, as if struggling to get free. So visible was
the object, so distinctly I saw every movement, my first impulse was
to step down into the water, drag him out from the rubbish before
he was drowned, and land him on _terra firma_. I looked again--he
was long past drowning. There he had swum, at high water, every day
since the city was stormed, and the mine was sprung. His bones,
half bared of flesh, were still held together by the ligaments; the
mine, by its explosion, had buried him up to the middle; but from
the loins he was free: the play of the waves tossed him to and fro;
the water, in its flux and reflux, now caught his arms and spread
them out; from his sides to their full extent, now brought them
back again:--anybody would have said it was a man swimming. Well, I
shall dream of it to-night. I shall again be standing on that breach
before daylight; fancy I see the dead man swimming out beneath my
feet; and perhaps hear him calling for help under water. Only hope I
mayn't fancy it's myself."

"It's curious," said the doctor, "when a fellow first joins, how a
thing of that kind strikes him as remarkable. Well, good night all."




AMERICAN ADVENTURE.[5]

  [5] _Sights in the Gold Regions, and Scenes by the Way._ By THEODORE
  T. JOHNSON. New York: 1849.

  _The California and Oregon Trail: being Sketches of Prairie and
  Rocky Mountain Life._ By FRANCIS PARKMAN, Jun. New York and London:
  1849.

  _Los Gringos; or an Inside View of Mexico and California: with
  Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia._ By LIEUTENANT WISE,
  U.S.N. New York and London: 1850.


There is a class of literature peculiarly American, and unlikely
to be rivalled or imitated to any great extent on this side the
Atlantic, for which we entertain a strong predilection. It is the
literature of the forest and the prairie, of the Indian camp and
the backwood settlement, of the trapper's hunting ground, and,
we now must add, of the Californian gold mine. It comprises the
exploits and narratives of the pioneer in the Far West, and the
squatter in Texas; of the military volunteer in Mexico, and the
treasure-seeking adventurer on the auriferous shores of the Pacific.
In common with millions of Europeans, we have watched, for years
past, with wonder, if not always with admiration, the expansive
propensities of that singularly restless people, who, few in number,
in proportion to their immense extent of territory, and prosperous
at home under the government they prefer, yet find themselves
cramped and uneasy within their vast limits, and continually, with
greater might than right, displace their neighbour's boundary-mark
and encroach upon his land. The mode in which this has been done,
in a southerly direction, by the settlement of emigrants, who,
gradually accumulating, at last dispossess and expel the rightful
owner, has been often described and exemplified; and nowhere more
graphically than by Charles Sealsfield, in his admirable _Cabin
Book_ and _Squatter Nathan_. The Anglo-German-American, deeply
impressed by the virtues of his adopted countrymen, and especially
by that intelligence and enterprising spirit which none can deny
them, sees merit rather than injustice in the forcible expulsion of
the Spaniard's descendants, and makes out the best possible case in
defence of the Yankee spoliator. Still, when stripped of factitious
colouring and rhetorical adornments, the pith of the argument seems
to be that the land is too good for the lazy "greasers," who must
incontinently absquatilate, and make way for better men. As for
Indians, they are of no account whatever. "Up rifle and at them!"
is the word. In utter wantonness they are shot and cut down. Let us
hear an American's account of the process.

     "When Captain Sutter first settled in California he had much
     trouble with the Indians, but he adopted, and has pursued
     steadily from the first, a policy of peace, combined with the
     requisite firmness and occasional severity. Thus he had obtained
     all-powerful influence with them, and was enabled to avail
     himself of their labour for moderate remuneration. Now all was
     changed: the late emigrants across the mountains, and especially
     from Oregon, had commenced a war of extermination, shooting
     them down like wolves--men, women, and children--wherever
     they could find them. Some of the Indians were undoubtedly
     bad, and needed punishment, but generally the whites were the
     aggressors; and, as a matter of course, the Indians retaliated
     whenever opportunities occurred; and in this way several unarmed
     or careless Oregonians had become, in turn, their victims.
     Thus has been renewed in California the war of extermination
     against the aborigines, commenced in effect at the landing
     of Columbus, and continued to this day, gradually and surely
     tending to the utter extinction of the race. And never has this
     policy proved so injurious to the interests of the whites as in
     California."--(_Sights in the Gold Regions_, p. 152-3.)

Mr Johnson illustrates by examples the system he thus condemns,
and shows us war-parties of white men issuing forth for _razzias_
upon Indian villages, receiving, as they depart, the valedictory
benediction of the patriarch of the settlement, a veteran
backwoodsman, well known in the Rocky Mountains as a guide and
pioneer, and who, after a long and adventurous career, has at last
located himself, with his active, reckless, half-breed sons in the
beautiful and romantic valley of the Saw Mill. This bloody-minded
old miscreant, John Greenwood by name, boasted of having shot
upwards of a hundred Indians--ten of them since his arrival in
California--and hoped still to add to the murder-list, although
incapacitated by age from distant expeditions. His cabin was the
alarm-post where the foragers assembled, and whither, on their
return from their errand of blood and rapine, they brought their
ill-gotten spoils, the captive squaws, and the still reeking
scalps of their victims. With male prisoners they rarely troubled
themselves; although, upon one occasion during Mr Johnson's stay in
their vicinity, they brought in a number, and shot seven of them in
cold blood, because, "being bad-looking and strong warriors," it
was believed they had participated in the murder of five English
miners, surprised and slain a short time previously. Expeditions
of this kind are called "war-parties;" and the propriety of the
system of which they form a part is as fiercely and passionately
defended by the Americans in California, as is the propriety of
slave-holding by the free and enlightened citizens of the southern
states of the Union. It were far from prudent to preach emancipation
in Florida or Louisiana; at the "diggins" it is decidedly unsafe
to call the shooting of Indians by the harsh name of murder. "We
saw a young mountaineer, wild with rage, threaten the life of an
American who had ventured to suggest that the murders committed by
these Indians were provoked by many previous murders of the whites,
and that they should not be avenged by _indiscriminate_ slaughter,
but by the death of the _guilty_." The horrible character of the
frequent massacres is aggravated by the adoption, on the part of
the white savages, of the repugnant and barbarian usages of the
unfortunate heathens whom they first provoke and then hunt to the
death, by the tearing off of scalps, and suchlike hideous and
unchristian abominations. Unfortunately, these scenes of slaughter
and atrocity are of constant occurrence, not only in that far-off
land where gold is to be had for the gathering, but wherever the
white man and the red come in contact. The air of the prairie and
backwoods seems fatal to all humane and merciful feelings, and
the life of the Indian is held no dearer than that of skunk or
buffalo. Mr Parkman tells us of "a young Kentuckian, of the true
Kentucky blood, generous, impetuous, and a gentleman withal, who
had come out to the mountains with Russel's party of California
emigrants. One of his chief objects, as he gave out, was to kill an
Indian--an exploit which he afterwards succeeded in achieving, much
to the jeopardy of ourselves and others, who had to pass through
the country of the dead Pawnee's enraged relatives." No censure
is passed upon this generous and gentlemanly young murderer by Mr
Parkman, whose book would nevertheless indicate him to be a man of
education and humanity, but who is apparently unable to discern any
moral wrong in wantonly drilling a hole through the painted hide of
a Pawnee. The system of extermination seems practically inseparable
from the aggrandisement of American territory at Indian expense.
When Mexicans are to be ejected, the process is more humane, or at
least less cold-blooded and revolting in its circumstances. But,
although the barbarity diminishes, the injustice is as great. By
American annexators and propagandists, respect of property may be
set down as an Old World prejudice; still it is one by which we are
contented to abide; and we cannot see the right of any one to turn
a man out of his house because he does not keep it in repair and
occupy all the rooms, or to pick a quarrel with him as a pretext for
appropriating a choice slice of his garden. A considerable portion
of the people of the United States are evidently convinced that they
are the instruments of Providence in the civilisation and population
of the New World, and look forward to the time as by no means remote
when their descendants and form of government shall spread south
and north, to the exclusion of British rule and Spanish-American
republics, from Greenland to Panama. As a preparatory step, their
pioneers are abroad in all directions; and some of them, being handy
with the pen as well as with the rifle, jot down their experiences
for the encouragement of their countrymen and edification of
the foreigner. Before us are three books of the kind completely
American in tone and language, and of at least two of which it
may safely be affirmed that none but Americans could have written
them. In fact they are written in American rather than in English;
particularly Mr Johnson's "Sights," of which we can truly say
that, but for our intimate acquaintance with the language of the
United States, acquired by much study of this particular sort of
literature, we should have made our way through it with difficulty
without reference to the dictionary, which we presume to exist, of
American improvements on the English tongue. The book swarms with
Yankeeisms, vulgarisms, and witticisms; the latter of no elevated
class, and seldom rising above a very bad pun; notwithstanding
which, _Sights in the Gold Regions_ is a very amusing, and, to
all appearance, a very honest account of life at the diggings.
The other two books are the work, the one of a philosopher in the
woods, and the other of a sailor on horseback. Mr Parkman, who, as
regards literary skill, is superior to either of the companions we
have given him--although his book has less novelty and pungency
than either of theirs--left St Louis in the spring of 1846, on a
tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains, with the
especial object of studying the manners and character of Indians in
their primitive state. He has a good eye for scenery and tolerable
descriptive powers, and some of the adventures and anecdotes he
relates are striking and interesting. But, for a fine specimen of
rich rough-spun Yankee narrative, commend us to Lieutenant Wise of
the United States navy. There is no mistake about the gallant author
of _Los Gringos_. He makes no more pretence to style or elegance
than a boatswain's mate spinning a yarn upon the forecastle.
Despising the trammels of orthography and probability, sprinkling
his comical English with words from half-a-dozen other languages
(often ludicrously distorted), sometimes shrewd, frequently very
humorous, invariably good-humoured and vivacious, this rollicking
naval officer hoists the reader on his shoulders, and carries
him at a canter through his great thick closely-printed New York
volume, with infinitely less fatigue to the rider than he himself
experienced when, perched upon a Spanish saddle, and armed with
a whip "whose lash was like the thongs of a knout," he urged the
sorry posters along the road to Mexico's capital. In a few lines of
preface, the humorous lieutenant discloses his plan and gives us a
glimpse of his quality. "The sketches embodied in this narrative,"
he says, "were all written on the field of their occurrence: the
characters incidentally mentioned are frequently _nommes du mer_. It
is not expected by the author that even the most charitable reader
will wholly overlook the careless style and framing of the work, or
allow it to pass without censure; nor has it been his object to deal
in statistics, or any abstract reflections, but merely to compile
a pleasant narrative, such as may perchance please or interest the
generality of readers; and in launching the volume on its natural
element--the sea of public opinion--the author only indulges in
the aspiration, whether the reader be gentle or ungentle, whether
the book be praised or condemned, that at least the philanthropy
of the publishers may be remunerated, wherein lies all the law and
the profits." After which facetious and characteristic preamble,
Lieutenant Wise goes on board his frigate; is tugged out of Boston
harbour, and sails for Monterey; is alternately buffeted and
becalmed; is in danger of stranding on the Dahomey territory and
reviles creation accordingly, but ultimately escapes the peril
and sets foot on shore at Rio Janeiro, in which pleasant latitude
he frequents the coffee-houses, and partakes of mint juleps and
other cold institutions; watches the niggers dancing and jabbering
their way along the streets, with little fingers affectionately
interlaced, and _sistling_ polkas through their closed teeth; and
is somewhat scandalised, and yet vastly amused, by the _samacueca_,
a South American polka of much grace but questionable decency, on
beholding which he, Lieutenant Wise, being, "as an individual,
fond of a taste of cayenne to existence," clapped his hands and
vociferously applauded. This eccentric dance, however, was at
Valparaiso, we find--not that the fair Brazilians are behind any
of their South American sisters in the license they accord their
supple forms and twinkling feet. At last, and in the heat of the war
between Mexico and the States, Lieutenant Wise reached Monterey,
where his ship cast anchor. California had been taken possession of
by the Americans, and fighting was going on in the neighbourhood.
Before the war, Monterey contained about five hundred inhabitants,
but when Mr Wise, arrived, scarcely a native was to be seen. The
men were away fighting in the southern provinces, a few women
scowled from their dwellings at the _gringos_ (the name given to
Anglo-Americans in Mexico and California). Yankee sentinels were
posted, knife in girdle, and rifle-lock carefully sheltered from the
rain; and persons moving about after dark were greeted at every turn
with the challenge--"Look out thar, stranger!" quickly followed by a
bullet, if they delayed to shout their name and calling. There was
nothing to be had to eat, drink, or smoke, and the general aspect
of affairs was cheerless enough. Presently in rode sixty horsemen,
gaunt bony woodsmen of the Far West, dressed in skins, with heavy
beards and well-appointed rifles, fellows "who wouldn't stick at
scalping an Indian or a dinner of mule-meat," and who belonged to
the Volunteer Battalion, in which they had enrolled themselves "more
by way of recreation than for glory or patriotism." They were not
easy to understand, having passed most part of their lives in the
Rocky Mountains, a district which has its own peculiar phraseology.

     "We soon became quite sociable, and, after a hearty supper of
     fried beef and biscuit, by some miraculous dispensation a five
     gallon keg of whisky was uncorked, and, after a thirty days'
     thirst, our new-found friends slaked away unremittingly. Many
     were the marvellous adventures narrated of huntings, fightings,
     freezings, snowings, and starvations; and one stalwart, bronzed
     trapper beside me, finding an attentive listener, began:--'The
     last time, captin, I cleared the Oregon trail, the Ingens fowt
     us amazin' hard. Pete,' said he, addressing a friend smoking a
     clay pipe by the fire, with a half pint of corn-juice in his
     hand, which served to moisten his own clay at intervals between
     every puff--'Pete, do you notice how I dropped the Redskin who
     put the poisoned arrow in my moccasin! Snakes, captin! the
     varmints lay thick as leaves behind the rocks; and, bless ye,
     the minit I let fall old Ginger from my jaw, up they springs,
     and lets fly their flint-headed arrers in amongst us, and one
     on 'em wiped me right through the leg. I tell yer what it is,
     hoss, I riled, I did, though we'd had tolerable luck in the
     forenoon;--for I dropped two and a squaw, and Pete got his good
     six--barrin' that the darned villains had hamstrung our mule,
     and we were bound to see the thing out. Well, captin, as I tell
     ye, I'm not weak in the jints, but it's no joke to hold the
     heft of twenty-three pounds on a sight for above ten minits on
     a stretch; so Pete and me scrouched down, made a little smoke
     with some sticks, and then we moved off, a few rods, whar we got
     a clar peep. For better than an hour we see'd nothin'; but on a
     suddin I see'd the chap--I know'd him by his paintin'--that driv
     the arrer in my hide: he was peerin' round quite bold, thinkin'
     we'd vamosed; I jist fetched old Ginger up and drawed a bee line
     on his cratch, and, stranger, I giv him sich a winch in the
     stomach that he dropped straight into his tracks: he did! In
     five jumps I riz his har, and Pete and me warn't troubled again
     for a week.'"

After two months passed at Monterey, the American squadron assembled
and a new commodore arrived, whereupon Lieut. Wise's captain was not
sorry to be allowed to lift his anchors, and avoid playing second
fiddle to the new commander-in-chief by transferring his pennant to
the waters of the San Francisco. On the way thither his lieutenant
treats us to some yarns of extraordinary toughness. Speaking of
the lasso, in the use of which the Californians are particularly
skilful--catching a bull by the tail and making him fling a somerset
over his horns, or dragging a grizzly bear for miles to the baiting
place--he calls to mind having once seen a troop of horses "at
General Rosas' quinta, near Buenos Ayres, trained to run like hares,
with fore and hind legs lashed together by thongs of hide: it was
undertaken to preserve the animals from being thrown by the Indian
_bolas_, and the riders, as a consequence, lanced to death. But I
was far more amused one afternoon, when passing a fandango, near
Monterey, to see a drunken cattle-driver, mounted on a restive,
plunging beast, hold at arm's length a tray of glasses, brimming
with aguardiente, which he politely offered to everybody within
reach of his curvettings, without ever once spilling a drop." These
marvellous feats are nothing, however, compared to the cannibal
exploits of some unfortunate emigrants, who, having loitered on
their way, were overtaken by the snow in the Californian mountains,
and compelled to encamp for the winter. Their provisions and
cattle consumed, even to the last horse hide, famine and insanity
ensued. Those who starved to death were eaten by the survivors,
whose appetites, if we may believe Mr Wise, were quite prodigious.
A Dutchman, he gravely assures us, actually ate a full-grown body
in thirty-six hours; and another boiled and devoured, in a single
night, a child, nine years of age. We cannot venture to extract
the revolting details that follow. The lieutenant's facetiousness
upon this horrible subject is rather ghastly; and the particulars
supplied by a young Spaniard, who "ate a baby," are abominable in
the extreme, although possibly true. At least Mr Wise assures us he
had them from the lad's own lips. And, whilst his strength lasted,
poor Baptiste was drudge to the whole party, doing his duty well,
fetching fuel and water, until at last, as he told Mr Wise, "very
hungry, sir; eat anything."

On the wild and dreary track from the States to California,
frightful disasters occur to caravans of emigrants, which,
encumbered with women and children, and sometimes under incompetent
leaders, lose precious time by the way, and are caught and crushed
by the terrible winter of those desolate regions. Journeying near
the Sacramento, Mr Johnson came upon the house of "old Keysburg the
cannibal, who revelled in the awful feast on human flesh and blood,
during the sufferings of a party of emigrants near the pass of the
Sierra Nevada, in the winter of 1847. It is said that the taste
which Keysburg then acquired has not left him, and that he often
declares, with evident gusto, 'I would like to eat a piece of you;'
and several have sworn to shoot him, if he ventures on such _fond_
declarations to them. We therefore looked upon the den of this wild
beast in human form with a good deal of disgusted curiosity, and
kept our bowie-knives handy for a slice of him if necessary."

Sailor though he is, Mr Wise troubles his reader very little with
nautical matters. During a few weeks he was a good deal afloat,
having succeeded to the command of the Rosita, a forty ton schooner,
with a crew of fifteen sailors, a small boy, and a mulatto cook,
who had once been "head bottle-washer of a Liverpool liner, with
glass nubs on de cabin doors;" but otherwise most of his time
seems to have been spent on shore, riding, shooting, dancing, and
love-making, doing military duty in garrison at Mazatlan, throwing
up fortifications, and surprising parties of Mexicans, whose fear
of the Gringos was most intense and ludicrous. In their civil wars,
and when contending with the Spaniards for their independence,
the Mexicans have occasionally fought doggedly, although never
skilfully; but when opposed to combatants of the Anglo-Saxon race,
they have invariably shown themselves arrant cowards. Although the
soldiers of the States have even less military discipline than those
of Mexico, the bodily strength, skill with the rifle, intrepidity,
and self-reliance of the former, would render them formidable
opponents even to well-drilled European troops. As to the Mexicans,
no matter how great the numerical odds in their favour, they never
could or would stand against the hardy Yankee volunteers. In the
summer of 1846, Mr Parkman met, upon the wild and lonely banks of
the Upper Arkansas, Price's Missouri regiment, on its way to Santa
Fé.

     "No men ever embarked upon a military expedition with a greater
     love for the work before them than the Missourians; but if
     discipline and subordination be the criterion of merit, these
     soldiers were worthless indeed. Yet when their exploits have
     rung through all America, it would be absurd to deny that they
     were excellent irregular troops. Their victories were gained
     in the teeth of every established precedent of warfare; they
     were owing to a singular combination of military qualities
     in the men themselves. Without discipline or a spirit of
     subordination, they knew how to keep their ranks, and act as
     one man. Doniphan's regiment marched through New Mexico more
     like a band of Free Companions than like the paid soldiers of
     a modern government. When General Taylor complimented Doniphan
     on his success at Sacramento and elsewhere, the colonel's reply
     very well illustrates the relations which subsisted between the
     officers and men of his command. 'I don't know anything of the
     manoeuvres. The boys kept coming to me to let them charge; and
     when I saw a good opportunity, I told them they might go. They
     were off like a shot, and that's all I know about it.'

     "The backwoods lawyer was better fitted to conciliate the
     good-will than to command the obedience of his men. There were
     many serving under him, who both from character and education,
     could better have held command than he. At the battle of
     Sacramento, his frontiersmen fought under every possible
     disadvantage. The Mexicans had chosen their own position; they
     were drawn up across the valley that led to their native city
     of Chihuahua; their whole front was covered by intrenchments,
     and defended by batteries of heavy cannon; they outnumbered the
     invaders five to one. An eagle flew over the Americans, and
     a deep murmur rose along their lines. The enemy's batteries
     opened; long they remained under fire, but when at length the
     word was given, they shouted and ran forward. In one of the
     divisions, when midway to the enemy, a drunken officer ordered
     a halt; the exasperated men hesitated to obey. 'Forward, boys!'
     cried a private from the ranks; and the Americans, rushing like
     tigers upon the enemy, bounded over the breastwork. Four hundred
     Mexicans were slain upon the spot, and the rest fled, scattering
     over the plain like sheep. The standards, cannon, and baggage
     were taken, and among the rest a waggon laden with cords, which
     the Mexicans, in the fulness of their confidence, had made ready
     for tying the American prisoners."

A curious picture of military _un_discipline--of egregious cowardice
on the one hand, and fortunate audacity on the other. It is evident
that the Doniphan mode of carrying on the war--consulting the men's
pleasure, with officers drunk before the enemy, and privates giving
the word of command--however successful it may prove against the
wretched Mexicans, or in mountain and guerilla warfare, would never
answer in the open field against a regular and skilfully commanded
army. The question, then, follows,--How far could these staunch
and gallant American riflemen be trained to the strict discipline
and military exercises and manoeuvres essential to the efficiency
of large bodies of troops, without impairing the very qualities,
the feelings of independent action and self-reliance, which render
them so valuable as irregular warriors? This inquiry, however, is
not worth pursuing; for we suppose there is little chance of Uncle
Sam meddling in European quarrels, and sincerely trust he will so
curb his annexing mania as to avoid all risk of European armaments
encountering him in his own hemisphere. Touching these Missourian
volunteers, however, Mr Parkman's account of their appearance, and
of his interview with them, is most graphic and characteristic. One
forenoon he and his companion, Mr Shaw, turned aside to the river
bank, half-a-mile from the trail, to get water and rest. They put
up a kind of awning, and whilst seated under it upon their buffalo
robes, and smoking, they saw a dark body of horsemen approaching.

     "'We are going to catch it now,' said Shaw: 'look at those
     fellows; there'll be no peace for us here.' And, in good truth,
     about half the volunteers had straggled away from the line of
     march, and were riding over the meadow towards us.

     "'How are you?' said the first who came up, alighting from his
     horse, and throwing himself upon the ground. The rest followed
     close, and a score of them soon gathered about us, some lying at
     full length, and some sitting on horseback. They all belonged
     to a company raised in St Louis. There were some ruffian faces
     among them, and some haggard with debauchery; but, on the whole,
     they were extremely good-looking men, superior beyond measure
     to the ordinary rank and file of an army. Except that they
     were booted to the knees, they wore their belts and military
     trappings over the ordinary dress of citizens. Besides their
     swords and holster pistols, they carried, slung from their
     saddles, the excellent Springfield carbines, loaded at the
     breech. They inquired the character of our party, and were
     anxious to know the prospect of killing buffalo, and the chance
     that their horses would stand the journey to Santa Fé. All this
     was well enough, but a moment after a worse visitation came upon
     us.

     "'How are you, strangers? Whar are you going, and whar are you
     from?' said a fellow, who came trotting up with an old straw
     hat on his head. He was dressed in the coarsest brown homespun
     cloth. His face was rather sallow, from fever and ague, and his
     tall figure, although strong and sinewy, was quite thin, and
     had, besides, an angular look, which, together with his boorish
     seat on horseback, gave him an appearance anything but graceful.
     Plenty more of the same stamp were close behind him. Their
     company was raised in one of the frontier counties, and we soon
     had abundant evidence of their rustic breeding: dozens of them
     came crowding round, pushing between our first visitors, and
     staring at us with unabashed faces.

     "'Are you the captain?' asked one fellow.

     "'What's your business out here?' inquired another.

     "'Whar do you live when you're at home?' said a third.

     "'I reckon you're traders,' surmised a fourth; and, to crown the
     whole, one of them came confidently to my side, and inquired, in
     a low voice, 'What is your partner's name?'

     "As each new comer repeated the same questions, the nuisance
     became intolerable. Our military visitors were soon disgusted at
     the concise nature of our replies, and we could overhear them
     muttering curses against us. Presently, to our amazement, we saw
     a large cannon with four horses come lumbering up behind the
     crowd; and the driver, who was perched on one of the animals,
     stretching his neck so as to look over the rest of the men,
     called out,--

     "'Whar are you from, and what's your business?'

     "The captain of one of the companies was amongst our visitors,
     drawn by the same curiosity that had attracted his men.

     "'Well, men,' said he at last, lazily rising from the ground
     where he had been lounging, 'it's getting late; I reckon we had
     better be moving.'

     "'I shan't start yet, anyhow,' said one fellow, who lay half
     asleep, with his head resting on his arm.

     "'Don't be in a hurry, captain,' added the lieutenant.

     "'Well, have it your own way, we'll wait awhile longer,' replied
     the obsequious commander.

     "At length, however, our visitors went straggling away as they
     had come, and we, to our great relief, were left alone again."

A most mirth-provoking specimen of American character. But we
must return to our friend and favourite, Lieutenant Wise, who is
truly a Yankee Crichton in a pea-jacket. Besides his nautical
skill, and the lingual accomplishments already adverted to, he is
a Nimrod in the hunting-field, a Centaur on horseback, a Vestris
in the mazes of the dance. Lovers of wild sports in the West will
luxuriate in his descriptions of hunting exploits, of his combats
with grizzly bears fourteen hundred pounds weight, and his chase of
an antelope whose fore-leg he had nearly severed from its shoulder
with a rifle bullet, but which still managed to run four leagues,
the wounded member "traversing round in its flight like a wheel,"
before receiving its death-wound. Unable to extract a tithe of
the passages that tempt us, we hurry on to his departure for the
Mexican capital, whither he was sent early in the month of May, as
bearer of a despatch, and in company with a Mexican officer, with
whom the lieutenant was at first disposed to be most friendly and
sociable, but who forfeited his esteem by the cool proposal of a
plan to cheat the government, and whom he soon managed to leave
behind--no difficult matter, for the Mexican was cumbered with
portmanteau and sumpter mule, whereas the Yankee's sole baggage, as
he himself informs us, consisted of two shirts and a toothbrush.
Thus lightly equipped, his pace was very rapid; not so much so,
however, as to prevent his noting down all that occurred by the
way. After La Barca and Ruxton, it is a difficult task to give
novelty to an account of Mexican travel and peculiarities. Mr Wise
has surmounted the difficulty; and so great is the freshness and
originality of his narrative, that we read it with as much zest and
enjoyment as if it were the first instead of the twentieth book
relating to Mexico which we have perused within the last few years.
His anecdotes are most racy and piquant; his sketches of Mexican
women, officers, _leperos_, and of his own countrymen in Mexico,
are taken from the life with a truthful and vivid pencil. With the
class of leperos he had already made acquaintance on the threshold
of the country. Turning, one day, into a bowling alley at Mazatlan,
with the officers of a British frigate, he gave a fine horse to
hold to one of those Mexican mendicants. The fellow's hatred of
the _gringos_ was stronger than his love of gain; for no sooner
was he left alone than he drew a pistol from the holsters, shot
the horse, and ran for his life, which certainly would not have
been worth a maravedi had he tarried for the arrival of the enraged
lieutenant. "Oh, Mr Smithers!" exclaims the disconsolate mariner
thus cruelly dismounted--"Oh, Mr Smithers! you keep a good ten-pin
alley, sing a good song, and your wife prepares good chocolate;
you are, together, good fellows; but you should never, O Smithers!
transform your establishment into a knacker's yard. And you, my
cruel _lepero_! had I ever got a sight of you along that weapon you
handled so well--ah! I wellnigh wept for sorrow that night, and did
not recover my spirits for a fortnight." The leperos, we need hardly
explain, are the pest of Mexico--ragged, dirty, often disgusting
with disease or deformity, born idlers, beggars, and thieves--in
the latter capacity so especially skilful, that Mr Wise inclines to
the belief that a man, standing open-mouthed in a crowd of them,
could hardly escape having the gold picked from his molars. They
reaped a rich harvest at the time of the American invasion. It was
a case of "_nos amis les ennemis_." The conquerors were preyed upon
by the conquered. Iron bars were unavailing against the cunning
rogues. "One evening some expert practitioner contrived to entice
a valuable pair of pistols, clothing, and other articles, from my
table in the centre of a large apartment, by introducing a pole and
hook through the iron _grille_ of the window; and the same night, my
friend Molinero was robbed of his bed-clothes, while sleeping, by
the same enterprising method." By a strange tolerance, these leperos
are admitted everywhere; and in the splendid coffee and gambling
houses of the large cities, they are found rubbing their filthy rags
against officers' embroideries and the fine broadcloth of wealthy
burgesses. At Guanaxato, Mr Wise gives a lively description of a
scene of this kind in the handsome saloons of the _Gran Sociedad_,
recalling to our memory, though at a long interval, some striking
pages of the first volume of Sealsfield's gorgeous Mexican romance,
_Der Virey and die Aristocraten_. The lepero's chief pastimes
are thieving, sleeping, and gambling for copper coins. By way of
variety, he occasionally gets up a mortal combat. We think the
following the best account of a knife-duel we ever read:--

     "A lepero was purchasing a bit of chocolate; it fell in the
     dirt, when another, probably thinking it a lawful prize, seized
     it and took a large bite; whereupon the lawful owner swung a
     mass of heavy steel spurs attached to his wrist, jingling, with
     some force, on the offender's head. In a second down dropped the
     spurs, and _serapas_ (a kind of blanket) were wound round the
     left arms. With low deep curses and flashing eyes, their knives
     gleamed in the light; the spectators cleared a ring, and to work
     they went. I sprang upon a stone pillar to be out of harm's way,
     and thus had a clear view of the fray. Their blades were very
     unequally matched: one was at least eight inches, and the other
     not half that measurement; but both appeared adepts at the game,
     watching each other like wild cats, ready for a spring--moving
     cautiously to and fro, making feints by the shielded arm, or
     stamp of the foot, for a minute or two; when, quick as a flash,
     I saw two rapid passes made by both: blood spirted from an ugly
     wound in the spur-vender's throat, but at the same moment his
     short weapon sealed the doom of his antagonist, and he lay upon
     the ground, lifeless as the bloody steel that struck him. I
     glanced at the wounds after the affair had terminated, and found
     the knife had been plunged twice directly in the region of the
     heart. There was no effort or attempt made by the beholders to
     arrest the parties; and the survivor caught up his spurs--a
     bystander quickly folded a handsome kerchief to his neck--and
     threading the crowd he was soon out of sight. The corpse was
     laid upon a liquor-stand, with a delf platter upon the breast."

The Mexican capital was not a little Americanised at the period
of Mr Wise's visit. The account he gives of the state of affairs
there, is not very creditable to the morals and tastes of the
victorious volunteers; and he expresses a natural doubt whether the
scenes there enacted will have been beneficial to the thousands
of young men whom the war had called to Mexico. The great hotels
and coffee-houses were all under Yankee dominion, with Yankee ice,
and drinks, signs, manners, customs, and habits, "as if the city
had been from time immemorial Yankeefied all over, instead of
being only occupied a short twelvemonth by the troops." Debauchery
of every kind was rife, but gambling was the vice that took the
strongest hold. In the large tavern or _restauration_, where Mr Wise
usually dined, in every nook from hall to attic, with the exception
of the eating-room, in the corridors and on the landing-places,
gaming-tables were displayed.

     "Such a condensed essence of worldly hell, in all its glaring,
     disgusting frightfulness, never existed. And there never
     was lack of players either--no! not a table but was closely
     surrounded by officers and soldiers--blacklegs and villains
     of all sorts--betting uncommonly high, too--many of the banks
     having sixty and eighty thousand dollars in gold alone on the
     tables--and once I saw a common soldier stake and win two
     hundred ounces at a single bet. Other saloons were filled with
     Mexican girls, with music and dancing, attended by every species
     of vice, all going on unceasingly, day and night together."

This is an American's account. Of course most of this lavish
expenditure and gambled gold had their origin in the plunder of
Mexico. Indeed, Lieutenant Wise does not mince the matter at all,
but informs us how he himself, after a night-excursion in the
vicinity of Mazatlan, returned laden with spoil, and felt such an
itching to search people's pockets that he made no doubt of soon
becoming as good a freebooter as ever drew sword. He was then,
however, but a novice in the science of pillage, for he afterwards
learned that a saddle, which he had appropriated, contained six
golden ounces, whereby the saddler, to whom he intrusted it for
renovation, was much benefited. When an officer holding the United
States commission saw nothing derogatory in plunder, there can be
no doubt of the rapacity of the dissipated and reckless desperadoes
of which the American expeditionary force was notoriously in part
composed. And in an army where discipline was lax, and a spirit
of anti-military equality prevailed amongst officers and men, the
contagion would rapidly spread. Doubtless this was an aggravating
cause of Mexican hatred to the _Gringos_. Nevertheless, when
the fighting was over, kindness and attention were shown to the
invaders, and some of the Mexican officers appear to have been
thrashed into a most affectionate regard for their conquerors. One
fine fellow, a colonel of cavalry, all gold and glitter, with richly
chased sabre scabbard, and spurs of a dazzling burnish, insisted
upon giving a breakfast to a large party of American officers.
There were a number of Mexican _militaires_ present, all decorated,
some with emblems of battles in which they had been defeated; and
as the repast was in some degree public, (being held in a large
billiard-room,) a number of casual observers assembled round the
table, and helped to drink the numerous toasts, pocketing their
glasses after each, to be ready for the next. The banquet began
with a bumper of brandy, by way of whet; a most miscellaneous
collection of edibles was then placed upon the board, and claret
and sherry circulated rapidly to the health and memory of a host
of living and dead generals, both Mexican and American, beginning
with Washington and Hidalgo, and gradually arriving at Santa Anna
and "Skote," (Scott,) for which last-named pair of warriors Mr Wise
estimates that at least eighty or ninety cheers were given. The
Mexicans, habitually temperate, got exceedingly drunk, and, like
most southerns when in that state, furiously excited; the chief
characteristics of their intoxication being unbounded affection for
their guests, and admiration of their own prowess.

     "Our gallant host, in a few disjointed observations, assured us
     that he was not only brave himself, and loved bravery in others,
     but that his horse was brave, and had been wounded in divers
     battles. '_Io soy valiente!_' said the fierce colonel, pounding
     the orders on his capacious breast, and forthwith proclaimed to
     the audience his intention to pay for everything that anybody
     could possibly eat or drink for a fortnight; and, seizing me by
     the arms, he impressively remarked that I was the most intimate
     friend he ever had except his wife, and requested me to throw
     his huge shako up to the ceiling, solely for _amistad_, and for
     the good-fellowship of the thing--which I instantly did, and
     made the bearskin and golden plates ring against the rafters.
     Thereupon he called for more wine, and desired all who loved
     him to break a few glasses, commencing himself with a couple of
     decanters."

At which period of the action the landlord cut off the supplies
of liquor, anticipating, doubtless, the entire demolition of his
establishment; and the revellers got to horse, and went for a turn
in the Alameda, then thronged by all the fashion of Queretaro, in
which city these jovial proceedings occurred. After galloping round
the promenade, at a pace that terrified the natives, Lieutenant Wise
ran a "jouist," as he calls it, with one of his Mexican friends, who
was still under the influence of his unwonted libations.

     "In true Californian style, he shook his bridle, gave spur, and
     came leaping like a flash towards me. I was no novice at the
     sport, and, touching one of the finest horses in the army with
     my heel, the gallant sorrel sprang forward to meet him. We met
     in full career; my charger stood like the great pyramid, but the
     shock rolled my antagonist into the street. I should in courtesy
     have got down from the saddle to his assistance, but, reflecting
     that without a ladder I never should be able to get on my high
     steed again, I remained quiet. Being a sailor, I gained great
     reputation by this feat, and gave an entertainment on the
     strength of it."

Surely there never was a jollier fellow than Lieutenant Wise of
the United States navy. A rare good companion he must be, a real
_bonus socius_ across a julep, a very storehouse of fun, frolic,
and adventure. So well do we like his society, that we are only
sorry we cannot at present accompany him further on his rambles, or
return with him to Mazatlan, where he arrived at a flying gallop,
after a ride of 2500 miles on horseback--the last 112 leagues in
fifty-three hours, (said to be the quickest trip on record,) to be
received by a host of friends, and by a Yankee band playing, "Hail,
Columbia!" and sail with him to Polynesia, and revisit Valparaiso
and Lima, and many other places, in all of which he manages heartily
to amuse both himself and his reader, till he finally drops anchor
in the waters of the Chesapeake, arriving, with equal satisfaction
to both parties, at the end of 450 pages, and 55,000 miles. His
book richly deserves an independent notice; but as we started by
associating it with others, we are compelled to lay it aside,
whilst we visit the glittering coast of California, in company
with Mr Theodore Johnson, who arrived on the 1st of April 1849 in
Sancelito Bay, and proceeded forthwith to look for the city of the
same name, whose wide and elegant streets he had frequently traced
upon the map. After some search, he found the city. "It consisted
of one board-shed and one tent, holding on to the hill-side like a
woodpecker against a tree." Thus was his first illusion dissipated.
A few other Californian castles were speedily to crumble. "The
latitude of Richmond, and climate of Italy, the gold of Ophir, the
silver, red wood and cedar of Solomon's temple, the lovely valley
of the Sacramento, the vineyards of France, indigo of Hindostan,
and wheat of America, golden rocks, and rivers flowing over the
same metal," such were a few of the bright promises that had lured
him, "in company with thousands of his go-ahead countrymen," to the
Eldorado of the Pacific. These were the things he expected; let
us collect, from his first week's experience in California, those
that he really found. Ugly barren hills, a miserable sandy-clay
soil, producing a weed which a starving jackass will scorn, and
a fine dust, against which the most impenetrable eyelids are
not proof, a repulsive and disagreeable climate in the month of
April, (growing worse as the summer advances,) the extremes of
heat and cold following each other in constant succession, water
often extremely scarce, and impregnated with quicksilver, platina,
and other minerals, killing the fish, and giving Christians the
Sacramento fever, "a slow, continual fever, which men go about
with for months; but in its more violent forms soon mortal, always
affecting the brain, and, in case of recovery, leaving the mind
impaired. The lung fever and rheumatism are brought on by working
in the cold water, and stooping continually under the burning sun."
The scurvy, too, was prevalent, from the use of salt provisions, for
none could find time to procure fresh ones, to hunt or tend cattle;
and if they did leave their eternal digging for such pursuits, the
prices they expected were preposterous. Wild cattle and game are
plenty in the valley of the Sacramento and adjacent mountains, but
in California the hours are truly golden, and not to be wasted on
kitchen considerations; to say nothing of the hardship of driving
wild oxen or carrying a gun across a rugged country with the
thermometer at 109° to 112° in the shade--the usual temperature in
June and July, and one fully justifying the derivation of the name
California from two Spanish words signifying a hot oven, _caliente
horno_. "The thermometer stood at 90° Fahrenheit, at noon, in the
shade of Culloma valley, on the 16th of April; and at night we slept
cold in our tent with our clothing on, and provided with abundant
blankets." With such a climate, and with no grass in the mountains
fit to sustain them, it is no wonder that the best pack-horses can
carry but one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds weight across
the mountains, and frequently fall down and die if overladen. At the
time referred to--that is to say, in the month of April last--Mr
Johnson "continually saw old miners departing for the cañons[6] of
the middle and north Forks, with one month's supply of provisions,
consisting of seventy-five lb. of pork and seventy-five lb. of pilot
bread, for which they paid respectively at the rates of one hundred
and fifty and one hundred and twenty dollars per hundred pounds!
Now, although the prices of these articles were rapidly declining
on the sea-board, by reason of the immense importation, yet the
price of fresh beef was twenty-five dollars per hundred pounds in
San Francisco, and must farther enhance there, the supply then being
quite insufficient. Fresh provisions will therefore be consumed at
the seaport and trading towns, and not in the mining region. The
humbug of preserved meats was already exploded, great quantities
having been spoiled." All this was very different from the promised
vineyards and corn-fields; and Mr Johnson, who had not come to
California to feed on salt junk at six shillings a pound, and to
drink mercurial water, began to wish himself back again almost as
soon as arrived.

  [6] "A cañon is the narrow opening between two mountains, several
  hundred and sometimes a thousand feet in depth; rising, some of
  them, like perpendicular cliffs on either hand, as if torn asunder
  by a violent convulsion of nature. Through these pour the rushing
  mountain torrents of the _wet diggins_ of the gold regions of
  California."--_Sights in the Gold Regions_, p. 180.

In countries where a large majority of the men are content to give,
year after year, their skill, energy, and time, in exchange for a
few hundred pieces of gold, or even of silver, the reports of a
land where the most precious of these metals turns up under the
ploughshare, abounds in the rivers, mingles with the highway-dust,
and is picked from the bricks of the houses, are naturally at first
received with doubt and misgiving, and suspected of exaggeration,
if not condemned as fiction. We confess, for our part, that we
attached little weight to the first accounts of Californian marvels,
and that long after the wise men of the East had begun to debate,
in the shadow of the grasshopper, the possible effect upon the
currency of the anticipated influx of the produce of the diggings,
we still were sceptics as to the magnitude of the newly-found
treasure. But even those who gave readiest credence to the tale
of wonder, could hardly, we should have thought, have expected
that the ingots were to be gathered without trouble or pain beyond
that of performing a long journey and filling a big bag. Evidently
this was Mr Johnson's notion, and that of not a few others of his
sanguine countrymen, "who left their homes and families, and the
decencies of civilisation, with the expectation of acquiring an
adequate competency by the efforts of a single year." At what figure
Mr Johnson rates an "adequate competency" we know not; but it is
evident he expected to be placed on pretty nearly the same footing
as those Oriental princes who, after wandering through the desert
to the enchanted gardens, had the free pick of trees whose fruits
were diamonds and rubies. The real state of affairs proved very
different. A few persons, dwellers in California when the golden
richness of the soil was first discovered in 1848,[7] may have made
large fortunes on easy terms, by being early in the field, and
through barter with the Indians, who (before they were frightened
and soured by the shooting and scalping practices of the Oregonians
and others) were willing enough to labour and trade, and to give
gold-dust weight for weight for glass beads and other baubles. We
read of one man, a western farmer, owner and occupier of a loghouse,
known as the Blue Tent, who arrived in California before the gold
discoveries, treated the Indians well, learned their language,
employed them to dig, and realised, it is said, two hundred thousand
dollars. Another old settler, we are told, accumulated, in the
season of 1848, also by help of the Indians, nearly two bushels of
gold-dust. Our arithmetic is not equal to the reduction of this
into pounds sterling, but at a rough estimate we should take it to
represent a very pleasing sum--possibly the competency Mr Johnson
aspired to. But those palmy days of gold-gathering have fled,
violently driven away; the Indians, welcomed with bullets instead
of beads, will work no more, and every man must dig for himself.
And so did Mr Johnson--but only for a very short time, and with no
very prosperous result. The gold fever, under whose influence he and
his companions started for the diggings, was still burning in their
veins when, on the second day after leaving San Francisco, they
halted for the night on the river bank, and one of them, "thrusting
his bowie-knife into the ground, revealed innumerable shining yellow
particles, immediately announced gold discoveries on the Sacramento,
and claimed the _placer_." But it was mica, not gold. They had much
further to go, and worse to fare, before reaching the right metal.
It was the interest of the United States' government and of certain
speculators to tempt emigrants to the distant territory on the shore
of the Pacific; and accordingly, says Mr Johnson, "the wonders of
the gold region were trumpeted to the world, with unabating, but
by no means unforeseeing zeal. Glowing accounts were sent to the
United States of the result of all the most successful efforts in
the mines. To these were added a delicious climate and wonderful
agricultural fertility. The inaccessibility of the _placeres_, the
diseases, the hardships, &c. &c., were quite forgotten or omitted."
And thus a certain number of ambitious young men, (many of them
wholly unfitted, by their previous mode of life for roughing it
in a new country,) were lured from their comfortable homes in New
York and elsewhere, in the confident expectation that, on arriving
in California, they would ascend beauteous rivers in commodious
ships, sleep on board at night, and pleasantly pass a few hours
of each day in collecting the wealth that lay strewn upon the
shore. Such is the account given of the matter by poor Johnson, who
denounces the journey across the mountainous and roadless country
as most toilsome, and the whole adventure as disappointing and
unsatisfactory. At last he and his companions reached the lower
bar[8] on the south fork of American River, shouldered shovels,
buckets, and washing-machine, and applied themselves to the task.

  [7] At Sutter's saw-mill, from which the Culloma valley takes its
  second name, Mr Johnson saw and conversed with Mr Marshall, a
  proprietor of the mill, and one of the first discoverers of the
  gold. The discovery was made when cutting out the mill-race, across
  a portion of the former bed of a stream. "He pointed out to us the
  particular location of the first discoveries. This is some fifty
  yards below the mill, where a large fir-tree extends across the
  race. He stated that they threw up a good deal of gold, mixed with
  the sand and clay, before they seriously examined it, or ascertained
  its character." It must have struck many as singular, that gold
  mines so near the surface should so long have been unobserved.
  California was explored as far back as the year 1700 by the Jesuit
  Eusebio Kino, who first ascertained it to be part of the great
  American continent, and not an island, as was previously believed:
  Soon afterwards, missionary stations were established there, paving
  the way for the Spanish conquest of the country. Some of the
  _padres_ still remain, but their mission-houses are dilapidated,
  and their influence is gone. To them Mr Johnson attributes the
  long concealment of the metallic wealth of California. "That these
  priests were cognisant of the abundance of the precious metal at
  that period, (a century ago,) is now well known; but they were
  members of the extraordinary society of the Jesuits, which, jealous
  of its all-pervading influence, and dreading the effect of a large
  Protestant emigration to the western, as well as to the eastern
  shores of America, applied its powerful injunctions of secrecy to
  the members of the order; and their faithful obedience, during so
  long a period, is another proof both of the strength and the danger
  of their organisation."--_Sights in the Gold Regions_, p. 111.

  [8] "This '_placer_,' or _bar_, is simply the higher portion of
  the sandy and rocky bed of the stream which, during the seasons
  of high water, is covered with the rushing torrent, but was now
  partially or entirely exposed. This is covered with large stones
  and rocks, or, on the smooth sand, with clumps of stunted bushes or
  trees."--_Sights in the Gold Regions_, 177.

     "The scene presented to us was new indeed, and not more
     extraordinary than impressive. Some, with long-handled shovels,
     delved among clumps of bushes, or by the side of large rocks,
     never raising their eyes for an instant; others, with pick and
     shovel, worked among stone and gravel, or with trowels searched
     under banks and roots of trees, where, if rewarded with small
     lumps of gold, the eye shone brighter for an instant, when the
     search was immediately and more ardently resumed. At the edge
     of the stream, or knee-deep and waist-deep in water, as cold as
     melted ice and snow could make it, some were washing gold with
     tin pans, or the common cradle-rocker, while the rays of the
     sun poured down on their heads with an intensity exceeding any
     thing we ever experienced at home, though it was but the middle
     of April. The thirst for gold and the labour of acquisition
     overruled all else, and totally absorbed every faculty. Complete
     silence reigned among the miners: they addressed not a word to
     each other, and seemed averse to all conversation."

After digging and washing twenty bucketfuls of earth, Mr Johnson's
party had obtained but four dollars' worth of gold. At noon, the
sun's heat being intolerable, they knocked off from work; not much
encouraged by the result. This, however, they admit, was a poor
digging, the stream being yet too high, and the bar not sufficiently
exposed--to say nothing of their being novices at the work. They
persisted little, however: another trial was made with no better
result; and, in short, a week's effort and observation sickened
them of a toil so far less lucrative than they had anticipated. Two
of the party (Mr Johnson was one of them) resolved to return to
San Francisco till the healthier season of winter; a third, having
some goods, took to trading; the fourth and last, a hardy little
down-easter from Maine, stuck to the diggings.

By this time, we are not entirely dependent on American books or
newspaper correspondence for intelligence from the Californian
mines. Some portion of the gold that has come to this country has
been brought by the finders; and only the other day, a party of them
reached England, having left the diggings as lately as 

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