Hero Tales from History
by Smith Burnham · English · Gutenberg #49356 · 590,764 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Hero Tales from History
Author: Smith Burnham
Release date: July 3, 2015 [eBook #49356]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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[Illustration: Franklin's Printing Office and Book Shop
Benjamin Franklin, printer, was one of the greatest men of his time. He
wrote philosophical essays and some doggerel verse, published “Poor
Richard’s Almanac,” and became a great inventor. The painting shows
Christ Church in the background.]
HERO TALES
FROM HISTORY
BY
SMITH BURNHAM, A.M.
HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, WESTERN
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
CHICAGO PHILADELPHIA TORONTO
DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
PREFACE
An interest in history and a love of historical reading will be most
readily acquired by those children who approach this rich field of
literature through the medium of stories of the great figures of the
past. Such stories, if properly selected and told, give children those
vivid concrete pictures of men and of events which are vitally essential
to any real understanding of bygone days. At the same time such history
stories may be so selected as to hold up right ideals of conduct and of
character. Moreover, by their appeal to the emotions, which lie very
near to the springs of conduct, they move to action. Tales of
gentleness, of honor, of justice, of courage, of fortitude in suffering,
of intrepidity in danger, of dauntless resolution, of iron will, inspire
children to an emulation of those virtues. These “Hero Tales from
History” have been written in the faith set forth in this paragraph.
Through these stories the author aims to inculcate the fundamental
virtues just named and at the same time to acquaint children with the
names and achievements of some of those great men and women whose lives
and characters are a part of our racial and national inheritance.
In the selection of the tales in this book the author has drawn upon all
ages. Here are mighty men of the ancient world and makers of modern
America. Some of the characters chosen as the heroes of these stories
are great figures in world history, but the greater part of them were
selected because they are among the foremost heroes of our own country
and of our own culture. Of course in a book of this size many valuable
stories had to be omitted. But it is believed that all the tales
included are typical and representative.
These “Hero Tales” are not biographies of the men about whom they are
told, neither has any attempt been made to join them into a connected
historical narrative. They are just stories from the past told with
constant thought of the stage of mental development of the children for
whom they are intended. Each story has a hero, each is full of action,
and the author has tried to tell each one in clear and simple language.
The author has also tried to make each story teach its intended lesson
without any moralizing on his part.
The history of the past can never become a vital thing to us until the
men of the past are live, flesh and blood men. It is the author’s hope
that these “Hero Tales from History” will help to make threescore great
figures from our past something more than names to the children who may
enjoy this book.
SMITH BURNHAM.
CONTENTS
PAGE
MIGHTY MEN OF LONG AGO
MOSES, THE GREATEST LAW-GIVER, AND THE MEEKEST MAN 1
DAVID, THE GIANT-KILLER KING 6
HOMER, THE HERO POET OF ANCIENT GREECE 10
SOCRATES, THE “GRAND OLD MAN” OF GREECE 15
ALEXANDER, THE BOY WHO CONQUERED THE WORLD 20
FOUR FAMILIAR SAYINGS OF JULIUS CÆSAR 24
HEROES OF THE MIDDLE AGES
THE CHRISTMAS CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE 32
ALFRED, THE GREATEST OF THE SAXON KINGS 37
HOW WILLIAM OF NORMANDY CONQUERED A KINGDOM 42
LION-HEARTED RICHARD AND WOLF-HEARTED JOHN 47
JOAN OF ARC AND THE LILIES OF FRANCE 52
FOUR LEADERS IN THE OLD WORLD
SHAKESPEARE, THE GREATEST MAKER OF PLAYS 58
HOW CROMWELL CHANGED PLACES WITH THE KING 61
NAPOLEON, THE CORSICAN BOY WHO RULED EUROPE 65
NELSON, THE HERO OF TRAFALGAR 72
DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS
COLUMBUS, THE MAP-MAKER WHO FOUND A NEW WORLD 78
MAGELLAN, THE MAN OF THE STRAITS 84
CORTES, THE CONQUEROR 89
DE SOTO, A GOLD HUNTER IN SOUTHERN SWAMPS 96
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, ENGLAND’S FIRST GREAT SAILOR 102
SIR WALTER RALEIGH, THE FAVORITE OF GOOD QUEEN BESS 109
HENRY HUDSON, THE MAN WHO PUT HIMSELF ON THE MAP 115
LA SALLE AND THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI 120
LIVINGSTONE, THE WHITE MAN OF THE DARK CONTINENT 126
PEARY, A HERO OF THE GREAT WHITE NORTH 137
COLONISTS AND PIONEERS
JOHN SMITH, THE CAPTAIN OF MANY ADVENTURES 145
CHAMPLAIN, THE FATHER OF NEW FRANCE 151
MYLES STANDISH, THE BRAVE LITTLE CAPTAIN OF PLYMOUTH 160
JOHN WINTHROP, A PURITAN MAKER OF MASSACHUSETTS 170
ROGER WILLIAMS, A MINISTER WHO LIVED THE GOLDEN RULE 176
LORD BALTIMORE, CALVERT AND CLAIBORNE,
THE THREE FATHERS OF MARYLAND 180
WILLIAM PENN, THE FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA 185
PATRIOTS OF THE REVOLUTION
PATRICK HENRY, THE “FIREBRAND OF THE REVOLUTION” 190
NATHAN HALE, WHO SPOKE THE BRAVEST WORDS IN HISTORY 194
LAFAYETTE, THE BOY HERO OF TWO WORLDS 201
THE IMMORTAL REPLY OF JOHN PAUL JONES 208
GENERAL MARION, THE CAROLINA “SWAMP FOX” 217
WINNERS OF THE WEST
WOLFE AND MONTCALM, THE RIVAL HEROES OF QUEBEC 224
DANIEL BOONE, THE GREAT INDIAN FIGHTER OF KENTUCKY 232
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK, THE YOUNG HERO WITH A GREAT IDEA 240
LEWIS AND CLARK, TWO ADVENTURERS IN THE FAR WEST 247
DAVID CROCKETT, THE HERO OF THE ALAMO 258
FAMOUS INVENTORS
HOW ELI WHITNEY MADE COTTON KING 266
“FULTON’S FOLLY” 270
HOW MORSE SENT LETTERS BY LIGHTNING 274
CYRUS H. MCCORMICK AND THE STORY OF THE REAPER 279
ELIAS HOWE AND HIS SEWING MACHINE 282
EDISON, THE WIZARD OF MANY INVENTIONS 285
THE GREATEST AMERICANS
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THE BOY WHO WAS DILIGENT IN BUSINESS 292
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND HIS MOTHER 296
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, THE ORPHAN BOY FROM THE WEST INDIES 301
THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE FATHER OF DEMOCRACY 309
ANDREW JACKSON, AMERICA’S MOST POPULAR HERO 315
WEBSTER, CLAY, CALHOUN, THREE GREAT CHAMPIONS IN CONGRESS 320
THE KIND HEART OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 327
ULYSSES S. GRANT, THE GENERAL WHO HATED WAR 332
THE NOBLE SOUL OF ROBERT E. LEE 341
DAVID FARRAGUT, THE HERO OF MOBILE BAY 346
THE STRENUOUS LIFE OF ROOSEVELT 352
CLARA BARTON, “THE ANGEL OF THE BATTLE-FIELD” 358
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, THE AMERICAN CHILDREN’S POET 365
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
FRANKLIN’S BOOKSHOP IN PHILADELPHIA _Frontispiece_
MOSES PRAYING ON MOUNT SINAI 5
DAVID PLAYING HIS HARP BEFORE KING SAUL 9
HOMER, THE BLIND POET 11
SOCRATES TAKES THE CUP OF POISON FROM HIS JUDGES 18
ALEXANDER THE GREAT AT ONE OF HIS LUXURIOUS BANQUETS 23
THE ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR 28
CHARLEMAGNE IS CROWNED EMPEROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD AT ROME 35
KING ALFRED DIVIDES HIS LAST LOAF OF BREAD WITH THE POOR BEGGAR 39
KING WILLIAM WOUNDED IN SINGLE COMBAT 45
KING RICHARD FORGIVES BERTRAND DE GURDUN 48
THE VICTORIOUS RETURN OF JOAN OF ARC TO ORLEANS 55
SHAKESPEARE AMONG HIS FRIENDS IN LONDON 59
OLIVER CROMWELL VISITING THE POET MILTON 63
EMPEROR NAPOLEON AT THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO 70
NELSON RECEIVING THE SWORD OF THE SPANISH ADMIRAL 74
COLUMBUS PLEADING HIS CAUSE BEFORE KING FERDINAND AND QUEEN ISABELLA 81
FERDINAND MAGELLAN 85
HERNANDO CORTES 90
THE CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF MEXICO BY CORTES 93
DE SOTO ON THE BANK OF THE MISSISSIPPI 100
QUEEN ELIZABETH KNIGHTING DRAKE ON BOARD THE “GOLDEN HIND” 107
THE BOYHOOD OF RALEIGH 110
THE DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER 117
THE SHIPS OF FRANCE AT THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI 124
DAVID LIVINGSTONE, THE BRAVE SCOTCH MISSIONARY 127
PEARY IN ARCTIC DRESS WITH HIS ESKIMO DOGS 138
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 145
THE MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS 149
WHEN BRAVE AND COURTEOUS CHAMPLAIN SURRENDERED QUEBEC 158
THE MARCH OF MYLES STANDISH 163
GOVERNOR JOHN WINTHROP 170
THE LANDING OF ROGER WILLIAMS 179
GEORGE CALVERT, LORD BALTIMORE 181
WILLIAM PENN 185
PENN’S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS 189
PATRICK HENRY DELIVERING HIS CELEBRATED SPEECH 191
THE LAST WORDS OF CAPTAIN NATHAN HALE 199
GENERAL LAFAYETTE WOUNDED AT THE BATTLE OF BRANDYWINE 204
JOHN PAUL JONES COMMANDING THE “BON HOMME RICHARD” 215
GENERAL MARION, THE CAROLINA “SWAMP FOX” 218
THE MARQUIS DE MONTCALM 225
THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE 231
DANIEL BOONE, THE GREAT INDIAN FIGHTER OF KENTUCKY 233
COLONEL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 241
LEWIS AND CLARK ON THEIR EXPEDITION INTO THE FAR WEST 249
DAVID CROCKETT, HERO OF THE ALAMO 259
ELI WHITNEY, INVENTOR OF THE COTTON GIN 267
WHITNEY’S FIRST COTTON GIN 268
ROBERT FULTON, INVENTOR OF THE STEAMBOAT 270
THE “CLERMONT,” FULTON’S FIRST STEAMBOAT 273
S. F. B. MORSE, INVENTOR OF THE TELEGRAPH 275
MORSE’S FIRST TELEGRAPH SOUNDER 277
CYRUS H. MCCORMICK, INVENTOR OF THE REAPER 280
MCCORMICK’S FIRST REAPER 281
ELIAS HOWE 283
HOWE’S FIRST SEWING MACHINE 284
THOMAS A. EDISON AND ONE OF HIS EARLY DYNAMOS 287
WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL TO HIS MOTHER 299
THE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND HAMILTON 305
THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 312
GENERAL JACKSON AT THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 319
CLAY, CALHOUN AND WEBSTER, “THE STATESMEN OF THE COMPROMISE” 321
THE BOY LINCOLN READING BY THE FIRELIGHT 328
GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT 333
LEE’S INVASION OF THE NORTH 343
FARRAGUT IN THE RIGGING AT THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY 351
THEODORE ROOSEVELT AS COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 353
CLARA BARTON, “THE ANGEL OF THE BATTLEFIELD” 360
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 366
MIGHTY MEN OF LONG AGO
MOSES, THE GREATEST LAW-GIVER, AND THE MEEKEST MAN
Long ago in the land of Egypt there lived as slaves to the Egyptians a
race of white people called the Hebrews. There were so many of them that
the Egyptians began to be afraid that they would over-run the land. So
the cruel king, or the Pharaoh, as he was called, commanded that all the
baby boys of the slave race should be thrown into the River Nile. But
one little child escaped this fate, for his poor slave mother disobeyed
the king and hid her baby in her hut. When he was three months old, his
mother was afraid she could not keep him quiet any longer. So she made a
basket, and plastered it inside with pitch, so that it would be
water-tight and float like a boat. Into this basket-boat she put her
baby.
The mother set the strange little boat on the edge of the River Nile,
among the tall reeds called bulrushes, very near the place where she
knew the king’s daughter came every day to bathe. It was a cool spot,
well guarded and safe from the terrible crocodiles that lived in the
Nile. After making sure that the little boat would not sink, the mother
went back to her work, leaving her daughter Miriam to see what became of
her baby brother.
Just as the wise mother had planned, the princess soon came with her
ladies-in-waiting, and spied the cradle basket rocking on the waves near
the shore. She told one of her maidens to bring it to her. The king’s
daughter knew too well of her father’s command to drown or kill all the
boy babies of the Hebrew slaves. So when she found a baby crying there,
she pitied the poor mother who had obeyed the king by putting him in the
river, still fondly hoping to save his life.
When the Pharaoh’s daughter saw the babe, she said, “This is one of the
Hebrews’ children!” There was a pleading look in the face of the little
child. He seemed to ask the princess to take him in her arms. The
princess herself was married but she had no children. That baby, smiling
through his tears, touched her mother-heart. How could she help saving
his little life from her father’s cruel law by claiming him as her own?
Just then Sister Miriam bowed before the princess and said, “Shall I go
and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the
child for thee?”
The king’s daughter was, pleased and said, “Yes, go.” So the happy
sister ran and brought her mother to the great stone palace of the
Pharaohs. Then the princess said, as if the mother were only a child’s
nurse, “Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee
thy wages.”
So, besides saving his life, that mother was royally paid for taking
care of her own son instead of working as a slave out in the hot sun.
Besides, she had a good chance to tell him, as he grew up, of the one
true God. What if her boy should save his father’s people from slavery,
when he became a man in the palace of the Pharaohs?
In due time the daughter of the king adopted the young Hebrew as her own
son, and named him Moses, which means “Saved,” because she had rescued
him out of the river. When Moses was old enough he went to live with
his royal mother, where he was educated in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians, who at that time, nearly four thousand years ago, were the
most learned people in the world. Although he studied in the college of
the priests, who believed in the Sun, the Moon and many other gods,
Moses never forgot what his mother had taught him about the true God.
Young Prince Moses had a great deal to do while he was growing to
manhood. He is said to have become commander-in-chief of the Egyptian
army that conquered the black and savage race living a thousand miles up
the Nile.
In the Bible story are these words:
“And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he
went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he
spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
“And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw there was no
man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
“Now when Pharaoh heard this, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses
fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian.”
This Pharaoh was not the father of Moses’ foster mother, who was now
dead. It is said that this king was afraid Moses would drive him from
the throne and become Pharaoh himself.
For forty long years the exiled prince lived in Midian, studying,
planning, and writing. It was during this time that he made the great
decision of his life. He resolved to save his own people, the million
Hebrews who were slaves to the Egyptians.
At last, Moses and his brother Aaron appeared before the Pharaoh, and
announced that God had demanded that the king should let the children of
Israel go free. It was a hard thing to ask, for the Egyptians still
needed the great army of slave men to build great pyramids and temples.
The king refused, and consented, and refused again, until plague after
plague was sent upon the land of Egypt. At last, when the king’s son,
and the oldest child of every Egyptian family in the whole country had
died in one night, the terrified and heartbroken king called for Moses
and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up and get you forth from among my
people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go.”
“And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their
kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their
shoulders.”
This going out of the Hebrew people bound for the Promised Land, nearly
four thousand years ago, is called “the Exodus.” To this day it is
celebrated by the Jews every year as the Passover.
When the Pharaoh realized that the great stone temples and pyramids of
Egypt might never be finished, he was afraid because he had let the
slave people go. So he ordered out his horses and chariots and drove
hard after them till he caught them in camp beside the Red Sea. The
frightened Hebrews began to cry and accuse Moses of deceiving them and
leading them out into a great trap, to be killed like a million helpless
sheep, by Pharaoh’s army.
But Moses told the wailing crowds not to be afraid. Before the king’s
horses and men caught up with them a strong east wind came up and kept
the tide from running in, thus leaving a bare sand bar right in front of
them across that arm of the Red Sea. Moses commanded the people to march
over as on dry land, an order which they lost no time in obeying. Then
the Pharaoh and his horsemen came up behind and drove hard after them
upon the sand bar. But the heavy chariots stuck in the mud beneath the
sand, and when the Egyptians reached the middle the wind changed, and
the tide, which had been held back so long, rushed in and drowned
Pharaoh and his army. Then Miriam and Moses and Aaron led these million
freed slaves in a grand victory chorus of song about their hairbreadth
escape.
[Illustration: MOSES PRAYING ON MOUNT SINAI.
_From an old print_]
But the people were always scolding and complaining against Moses, the
dear, gentle leader who had saved them from their cruel bondage. It was
his patient love for his thankless people, while through forty years
they wandered in the wilderness, that gave Moses the name of being the
meekest man that ever lived.
At Mount Sinai Moses received from God and gave to the people the Ten
Commandments, written on two tablets of stone. He spent his time during
the long years of wandering in the wilderness in planning the laws and
religion for his beloved people. He himself never entered the Promised
Land, but died in the wilderness, somewhere on a mountain called Nebo.
The Bible makes this statement of his death:
“So Moses the servant of the Lord died there. And he buried him in a
valley, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.”
DAVID, THE GIANT-KILLER KING
Nearly three thousand years ago a bright, handsome Hebrew lad was
playing a harp while watching his father’s sheep on the hills of
Bethlehem.
One dark night there was a great stir among the sheep, and David saw a
bear making off with one of the lambs. There were no guns in those days,
but David had a sling, and he could fling a pebble almost as swift and
straight as a boy can shoot a bullet to-day. So David ran and killed the
bear by driving a stone through the big brute’s eye into its brain. When
he took the trembling lamb back to its mother, what should he see but a
lion starting off with a sheep in his huge jaws. There was no time to
gather pebbles. Grabbing a jagged rock in one hand, David seized the
great beast by the mane with the other, and aimed quick blows at the
lion’s eyes, breaking his skull before the lion could drop his prey and
fight back.
That was a great night’s work for one lone lad. After quieting his
frightened flock, David took his harp and made up a song of thanks to
the God of Israel for saving him alive from the jaws of the lion and the
paws of the bear.
Not long after this, David’s old father sent out to the hills for him.
When the youth came down to the house, he found Samuel, Prophet of God
and Judge of Israel, waiting for him. David’s seven older brothers stood
around eyeing him strangely, as the prophet said, “This is he,” and
baptized him by pouring oil on his head.
“What did the prophet anoint me for?” David asked his father.
“To be king of Israel instead of Saul.”
“But I am only a boy, and King Saul is so big and strong--head and
shoulders taller than other men. Why did not the prophet anoint our
Eliab? He is almost as tall as the king himself.”
“The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”
After that David went back and herded his father’s sheep, but his
brothers were jealous of him because he had been anointed to be king.
As had often happened in the days of the Judges, the heathen Philistines
came up and made war against the people of Israel, and the eldest three
of David’s brothers were in the king’s army. Many weeks went by, but no
word came from the camp. So the father sent David down with provisions
for the brothers and a present for their captain.
The shepherd boy found the two armies in camps opposite each other,
across a narrow valley. Every one was excited over Goliath, a giant who
came down every day into the valley from the army of the Philistines and
challenged the king of Israel and all his men. Goliath was nearly eleven
feet tall. He wore a bronze helmet about as big as a bushel measure, and
his spear was like a weaver’s beam. Even King Saul and David’s tall
brother Eliab were much too small to fight with the Philistine giant.
David could not bear to hear Goliath calling the king and his soldiers
cowards and repeating wicked words about the God of Israel. So he went
and told Saul he would like the chance to go down and fight the
insulting giant.
The soldiers laughed at this, and Eliab told his young brother to go
home and mind his “few sheep in the wilderness.” But David would not be
put off. He told how God had helped him kill a lion and a bear in one
night. The lad was so earnest that the king consented to let him try.
The only weapons David took were his staff and his sling. On his way to
meet the giant he stopped at the brook and picked up five smooth
pebbles. Both armies looked on breathless at the strange combat. Great
Goliath laughed at little David, as if the king of Israel were playing a
joke on him. He cursed David by all the gods of the Philistines, and
yelled:
“Am I a dog, that thou shouldst come to fight me with a stick? For this
I will feed thy little carcass to the birds.”
Then David shouted back to Goliath, “I come in the name of the God of
Israel whom thou hast defied.”
All the Israelites and Philistines saw the boy make a quick motion with
his sling, and heard a thud. The giant dropped his heavy spear, threw up
his huge hands and fell, with a groan and a great clatter of armor, face
downward on the ground.
David’s first pebble had done the work. It had gone swift and straight
through the eye-hole in Goliath’s brass helmet and sunk deep into his
low, brutal forehead, killing him almost instantly.
“And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead they arose and
fled. The children of Israel returned from chasing after the
Philistines, and they spoiled (looted) their tents.”
[Illustration: DAVID PLAYING HIS HARP BEFORE KING SAUL.
_From the painting by Schopin_]
King Saul was so thankful that his own life had been saved, and that the
people were spared from being slaves to the Philistines, that he made
David come and live in his palace as a younger brother to his son,
Jonathan. This prince was not jealous like David’s own brothers. David
and Jonathan became such good friends that, though this happened nearly
three thousand years ago, people say yet that two boys or men who are
very friendly with each other are “like David and Jonathan.”
After a time Saul and Jonathan were both killed in a battle with the
Philistines. Then David became king of Israel. He proved to be one of
the best of rulers. He wrote many of the Bible Psalms and played on his
harp as he sang them. He planned to build a great house of worship for
the God of Israel in Jerusalem, but, because he had been a man of war,
he felt unworthy to do such sacred work. So he left the temple to be
built by his son Solomon, the wisest king that ever ruled over Israel.
HOMER, THE HERO POET OF ANCIENT GREECE
Long, long ago, when the world was young, and before men began to write
books, a kind of men called “bards” used to wander about the land of
Greece, from town to town and from court to court, playing the harp and
singing of the deeds of the heroes of Greece. As years went on there
came to be very many such tales sung by the bards, and handed down from
father to son. At last, there came a day when men learned to write. Then
the person whom we call Homer, the earliest and greatest poet in the
history of the world, gathered together these hero tales and wrote them
in beautiful poetry. This work of collecting these scattered stories of
the exploits and adventures of the
[Illustration: HOMER, THE BLIND POET, WAS LED FROM PLACE TO PLACE BY A
YOUNG BOY WHEN HE WENT TO SING HIS SONGS AND RECITE HIS WONDERFUL POEMS
OF ANCIENT GREECE.]
Greek gods and heroes and making them into one great hero poem, called
an “epic,” was done nearly three thousand years ago.
Although nobody really knows anything surely about the life of this
ancient Homer, the story goes that he was blind, and that he was very
poor, as poets often are. After his death, when his two great poems had
made him famous, seven different cities in Greece claimed each to have
been his home. But the facts of his life matter very little when
compared with the wonderful stories that he left for all the world to
read. His epics were imitated by the greatest poets of Rome, Italy, and
England, and have been translated many times into both poetry and prose.
There were two of these epics--the “Iliad,” picturing the siege and
downfall of ancient Ilium, or Troy; and the “Odyssey,” describing the
ten years’ wanderings of Odysseus, or Ulysses, on his way back home
after the destroying of Troy by the Greeks.
The war against Troy, which lasted ten years, was started because Paris,
son of Priam, the old king of Troy, carried off from her home, Helen,
the lovely wife of one of the Grecian kings. The “Iliad” tells of the
bold deeds of many heroes on both sides. The strongest fighter in Troy
was Hector, another son of King Priam. Achilles was the greatest hero on
the side of the Greeks. One of the most beautiful scenes in art as well
as in poetry is that of Hector saying good-bye to his wife and baby boy,
and one of the best known examples of friendship is that of Achilles for
his friend Patroclus.
The great gods and goddesses--for the early Greeks believed in many
gods--all took sides in the struggle for Troy. Apollo, Minerva, and Juno
helped the Greeks; Mars and Venus helped the Trojans. They chose the
side of the people who had especially served and worshiped them, using
their mighty power to help and direct in the long war.
After nine years the Greeks pretended that they were going to give up
the struggle and sail away to their homes. They built a huge wooden
horse to leave as a peace offering, telling the Trojans that it was a
gift for them to offer to their gods. The Trojans were only too willing
to think that the Greeks were giving up the fight. They would not listen
to the princess Cassandra, who warned them of danger, saying, “I fear
the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.” In spite of her words the city
fathers accepted the strange present and trundled the big horse within
their walls. That night some Greek soldiers who were hidden inside the
hollow wooden figure jumped out of their hiding place, opened the six
gates of Troy, and let in the Grecian army. The great warriors waiting
outside swarmed in and soon captured the city.
Helen, the stolen queen, sailed back home and lived there in her little
Grecian kingdom for many years after her rescue by her royal husband and
his brother, another king, with the help of the Greek heroes and the
gods who sided with them.
Among the Greeks who fought at Troy was Ulysses. His journeyings on the
way from Troy to Ithaca, the rocky island where he was king, form a
wonder story of ancient life and travel. Ulysses’ ships were driven
about to many strange places. First he came to the land of the lotus
eaters, where some of his men ate the lotus flowers and forgot their
homes and friends. The rest of them came next to the country of the
Cyclops, giant monsters with only one eye in the middle of their
foreheads. The chief Cyclops caught the Greeks, shut them up in the cave
where he kept his sheep, and ate two of them for his supper every day.
Ulysses was clever enough to think of a way by which he and his men
might escape. While the giant was out of the cave he sharpened a stake
by burning it in the coals, and when the Cyclops fell asleep after his
hearty supper, Ulysses and four of his men drove this sharp stake into
his one eye, blinding him. Then the leader tied each of his men under
one of the Cyclops’ sheep, and himself clung to the long hair beneath
the largest ram. When the sheep crowded out of the cave the giant did
not know that they were carrying his prisoners with them. Before he
discovered the trick the Greeks were safe on their ship.
After another voyage, Ulysses and his men landed on the island of Circe,
a beautiful witch who turned the men all into swine and made them stay
with her a long time. But Apollo and Minerva helped Ulysses undo the
spell of the charmer. Circe warned Ulysses against the Sirens, who would
tempt them by their singing only to destroy them all, and against Scylla
and Charybdis--a risky place for a ship to pass, between a great rock
and a dangerous whirlpool.
The wife of Ulysses also was beset with many trials and dangers. She was
surrounded by neighboring princes, each of whom wished to marry her and
become king of Ithaca. She kept on with her weaving, putting these
suitors off by telling them she would give them her answer when she
finished her weaving--but each night she unraveled all the weaving she
had done in the daytime.
During the twenty long years of Ulysses’ absence, Penelope’s young son
grew to manhood and started out to find his father. He reached home,
after a vain search, just at the time when Ulysses came back. The king
of Ithaca was disguised by the goddess Minerva as an old beggar, so that
no one recognized him but his good old dog.
Ulysses arrived at his palace at the very moment when, the suitors
having become too urgent, Penelope brought out Ulysses’ bow and agreed
to marry the man who could bend it and shoot an arrow through six rings
placed in a long line, as her heroic husband had been known to do. The
feeble looking beggar was allowed to look on while the princes tried
frantically to win the hand and the throne of the fair Penelope. One
after another failed in the desperate attempt. Then the seemingly aged
stranger asked them to let him try to bend the great, stiff bow and
shoot the heavy arrow. They laughed at and insulted him, but he took the
bow, bent it with ease, and shot the long arrow straight through all the
rings, just as Ulysses used to do.
Penelope gave a cry of joy, for she knew then that the stranger was none
other than her long-lost husband. Ulysses’s disguise suddenly
disappeared, and with his son’s aid he shot the impudent suitors who had
tormented his wife all those years.
SOCRATES, THE “GRAND OLD MAN” OF GREECE
Socrates was the son of a sculptor of Athens in the days of Pericles, a
ruler who encouraged art and culture and made his city famous for its
learning and beauty. As a boy, Socrates was taught by his father to
carve statues. Nearly a thousand years afterward, a traveler in Greece
described a group of figures, called “The Graces,” carved by the
youthful Socrates. But the young man was not satisfied with being a
sculptor. While he was working at his carving, his active mind kept
trying to find out the reason for everything.
In Athens at this time there were not only many painters and sculptors,
but numbers of men called philosophers, who gave all their time to
thinking out the meaning of what they saw in the world around them, and
trying to teach that meaning to such people as would listen to them.
These philosophers differed widely from one another in their views. Some
of the things they thought would seem very queer to us to-day, but they
were doing their best to find out the truth.
A group of philosophers who held the same views was called a “school.”
The schools of philosophy were not like the schools of to-day. They were
simply gathering places, in some one’s house, or on a street corner, or
in a public porch, or in a grove, where men who liked to think came
together for talk and debate. Instead of children sitting quietly at
desks, a school was made up of grown men walking about and talking a
great deal.
Socrates found that he was much more interested in listening to what the
philosophers thought than he was in carving statues. So he gave up his
work with his father and went out to visit the schools. But as he went
from one school to another, he could see that no one of them was right
in every way. He decided that he could not learn the real truth from
them. So he resolved to walk the streets and ask questions of the people
he met there. He was so anxious to know that he could learn from anyone
he talked with, whether man, woman, or child. He met many men who
thought they were philosophers when they were not, for it was
considered a great thing to be known as a famous thinker, and all men
aimed at it.
When Socrates met a man who claimed to be wise, he would ask questions
as if he himself did not know anything, and he would thus lead on from
one thing to another till sometimes he made the man say the very
opposite of what he had said before, making him ashamed of himself. This
way of drawing out the truth by questions and proving the wrongness of
some ways of reasoning is known to-day as the “Socratic method.”
The Greeks were great believers in beauty. They thought whatever is
beautiful must be right. But Socrates saw handsome men and beautiful
women leading wrong lives, and he made such people angry by saying so.
Socrates himself was far from handsome. He was short and thick-set. His
head was bald and his eyes bulged out in a comical way. His nose was
broad and flat; his lips were thick and his ears stood out, making him
look like the clowns the Greeks laughed at in their great out-door
theaters.
More than this, Socrates was poor. He had learned, while a young man,
that those who had most of the so-called good things of life were the
most unhappy. So he made up his mind that the best kind of wealth lay in
not wanting much. He did not care for good things to eat. He went
barefoot, and wore the same thin garment both summer and winter.
The Greeks were fond of art for the sake of art. But Socrates believed
in right living, and loved art only for heart’s sake--for the sake of
doing good and making people happy. He also believed that to know is to
live, and that in order to live right one must first know what is right.
He claimed to have a certain force or voice within which showed him
what was right. He was the first of all the wise men of the heathen
world to believe that this inner light should be a correct moral guide
to right living.
Even the gods the Greeks worshiped did things of the worst kind; they
were spiteful, cruel, and wicked. So the people did not think it wrong
to act as their gods did. They did not understand what Socrates meant
when he said he had a voice within himself which told him what he should
or should not do. So they thought he was trying to make them believe in
a strange god, when they had too many already.
[Illustration: SOCRATES TAKES THE CUP OF POISON FROM HIS JUDGES.]
Socrates was a great lover of his country. When the Greeks went to war
he went in the ranks as a private soldier, and fought like a hero. In
one battle he saved the life of a rich, handsome, brilliant young man
who was very popular in Athens. This youth soon learned to love the
homely old philosopher and studied with him. Two other great men were
pupils of Socrates. One of these became one of the greatest historians
and the other a great philosopher. They were both authors, and they
wrote all that is known to-day about Socrates, who did not leave any
writings to show what he believed and taught.
Of course, most people failed to understand Socrates, and so they made
him the laughing stock of the town. Yet many young men, led by the youth
whose life Socrates had saved, came to him to learn how to live and be
useful and happy.
But the people who were jealous of his influence over the young men of
the city accused the old philosopher of teaching them of other gods and
thus corrupting their minds. They had him arrested, but his students
followed him to the prison, where he kept on teaching them the right way
to live. Socrates was tried by a law-court of citizen judges and
defended himself very ably. The story of his bold defense is told in a
book called the “Apology of Socrates,” by a famous Greek writer named
Plato. He spoke of his aim to show people how little they knew so that
they might learn more, and told his judges that he intended to go on in
the same way if they spared his life. He was condemned to die, however,
and thirty days after the trial they gave him a cup of poison called
hemlock to drink. After he had taken this he went on talking to his
students of the hope of a happier life beyond the grave. This was four
hundred years before the birth of Christ. Socrates came nearer the
Christian belief than any other philosopher of that ancient time who had
no knowledge of the Bible and its teachings.
ALEXANDER, THE BOY WHO CONQUERED THE WORLD
Alexander was the son of Philip, king of Macedon, a country to the north
of Greece. His father was a great general as well as a king. Young
Alexander was a strong, active, handsome lad. A story is told of his
“breaking” a wild horse which had been presented to Philip by a
neighboring king. This horse was named Bucephalus--the Greek word for
“Bullheaded.” He reared, bit, snorted, and pawed the air, if any one
tried to mount him. King Philip was indignant at being given such a
present, and was about to send back the “bullheaded beast,” as too
dangerous to the life or limb of anyone who attempted to ride him. But
Alexander noticed that the horse was frightened even at his own shadow.
He begged his father to let him conquer such a splendid animal. The lad
was so much in earnest that the king decided to let him try.
The young prince showed no fear as he walked up beside Bucephalus and
patted him on the neck. He wanted to keep the horse from being
frightened, as his fright was the cause of his wildness. By degrees the
boy managed to turn the great brute’s head toward the sun so that he
could not see his shadow. Throwing off his velvet mantle, Alexander
suddenly sprang on the horse’s back. Instead of trying to restrain or
guide the frightened steed, the boy let him go as fast as he would
across the plain. When Bucephalus grew tired, the shrewd rider began to
turn his head this way and that, while speaking kindly and patting him
soothingly. When they returned from their long run, Bucephalus obeyed
the prince’s word and touch as a gentle, well-trained horse should. It
is said that the huge beast learned to kneel for Prince Alexander to
mount, and that he carried his young master proudly through many a
battle.
The king was so pleased with the courage and wisdom Alexander displayed
in conquering Bucephalus that he said to his son, “You should have a
larger kingdom than Macedon to rule.”
As if to fulfill this wish, Philip went to war with several of the
neighboring kings and left his sixteen-year-old son to rule over Macedon
while he was absent. Then Alexander was allowed to command certain
companies of the Macedonian army; in this he showed wonderful courage
and wisdom.
Philip was murdered when Alexander was twenty. Then the kings whom the
father had conquered tried to throw off the rule of Macedon. They said,
“This new king is only a boy.” But Alexander answered when he heard it,
“They think I am a boy; I will show them that I am a man.” And he
did--not only by defeating the kings and armies his father had beaten,
but by conquering the other states around Macedon whose kings had turned
in to help Alexander’s enemies.
At this time the greatest monarch in Asia was Darius, king of the
Persians. He sent several nobles of his realm to seek the friendship of
Alexander, king of Macedon. These men were surprised when they saw that
the young ruler was not interested in their stories of the wealth and
splendor of the vast countries of Darius. Instead, Alexander wished to
hear about the extent of their kingdom, about its different peoples, and
about the location of the rivers, roads, and cities. The men from Persia
said to members of the court of Macedon, “Our old king is _rich_; but
your young king is _great_.”
Alexander, both king and general, had a strange thirst for power. He
left a true friend to control his kingdom in Europe and started east,
with only a small army, to conquer the vast countries on the continent
of Asia. King Darius laughed at the very idea of “a mere boy,” with so
few soldiers, coming to conquer him and the greatest and richest empire
in the world. He came to meet the Macedonian army with an armed host
about ten times as large as Alexander’s. “That boy” soon routed and
scattered the hosts of the Persians, and King Darius had to fly for his
life, leaving his wife and her mother behind, as Alexander’s prisoners.
The young conqueror was kind to these and to all other prisoners of war.
This was wholly different from the custom then; for ancient conquerors
killed or made slaves of those whom they defeated in battle. Alexander
gained two great victories over Darius and captured other kingdoms and
walled cities after long sieges and hard-fought battles.
While in Asia he came to a temple where there was a puzzle which no one
had solved. This was a strange knot in a long leather strip. This knot,
it had been prophesied for centuries, could never be undone except by
the one who was to conquer Asia. Alexander felt that he must unloose
this terrible tangle in some way or other. So, when he was brought into
the temple, which was at a place named Gordium, he took his sword and
cut the strangely knotted thong in pieces! Ever since then when any one
meets and solves in a surprising way what seems to be an impossible
problem, he is said to have “cut the Gordian knot,” as Alexander did in
the temple at Gordium.
The young conqueror marched down into Africa, and not only took
possession of Egypt, the greatest kingdom of
[Illustration: ALEXANDER THE GREAT AT ONE OF HIS LUXURIOUS BANQUETS.]
that vast region, but built, near one of the mouths of the wide river
Nile, a city to which he gave his own name. That city, Alexandria, is
still one of the largest cities on the continent of Africa.
It became necessary for Alexander to lead his army farther eastward into
Asia. After his great successes he began to indulge his appetites, in
eating and drinking and in other harmful ways. Once, in a fit of drunken
anger, he killed his best friend. This made him ashamed and sad when he
came to himself and realized what he had done.
Because of his many victories Alexander is called “the Great.” When he
was only twenty-six, he had conquered all the important nations in the
world of his day. It was because he had now nothing to strive after that
he gave way to evil passions. He is said to have “wept because there
were no more worlds to conquer.” He became ill and died as a result of
his excesses, leaving no child or relative to rule over the great
kingdoms he had acquired.
Although Alexander the Great had conquered the world, he could not
govern himself. Hundreds of years before his day, Solomon, the wise,
rich king, wrote in his Proverbs:
“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth
his spirit than he that taketh a city.”
FOUR FAMILIAR SAYINGS OF JULIUS CÆSAR
Julius Cæsar was born at Rome more than two thousand years ago, about
one hundred years before Christ. His family belonged to a noble clan of
the patricians. The people of Rome were divided into three classes. Of
these the patricians were highest in rank and fewest in number. There
were many more in the middle class, which at that time was largely made
up of free men who could vote and hold office. The lowest class and by
far the largest number were the slaves.
More than half of the Roman slaves were white, many having blonde hair
and blue eyes. These had been brought as captives from the northern
countries and sold in Rome. Some of the slaves, especially those who
came from the Greek lands in the East, were more refined than the
ignorant, brutal Roman masters for whom they had to do the hardest and
dirtiest kinds of work. Worse than this, the Roman law allowed cruel
masters to whip, torture, and even kill these educated men and women.
By right of the might of her wonderful armies, Rome made herself
“Mistress of the World.” So the patricians and the freemen looked with
contempt upon other nations and said to themselves, “To be a Roman is
greater than to be a king.” The patricians were the proudest Romans, and
the Cæsars were among the haughtiest patricians. Their family belonged
to the rich, ruling class when little Julius was born.
Of course, there was no such thing as the Christian religion in Julius
Cæsar’s day. The only believers in the one true God were the Jews, who
lived in the little, far-off country now called the Holy Land. The best
educated Romans believed in Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Venus, and many other
deities who, they imagined, were ruling over them, and who were as
selfish and cruel as the Romans themselves.
There were no public schools for children in Rome. Instead of millions
of printed books, there were a few rolls of parchment on which Latin
words were printed very slowly by hand. Instead of using paper to write
on, the Romans scratched their letters and messages on tablets of wax
with large needles. As there were no newspapers then, the people learned
what was going on in the world by word of mouth from speakers in the
Forum, an open city square with a stone platform, around which crowded
thousands of listeners.
The highest ambition of the youthful Julius Cæsar was to speak well to
the people in the Forum and to win their friendship. He grew to be a
tall, handsome, brilliant young man. He was not rich, and while his
friends led lives of ease and pleasure, this young Cæsar studied hard.
He learned to read and speak Greek, because then the greatest poems,
orations, and plays were in that language. He traveled thousands of
miles, to Greece and Asia Minor, to learn to be a good speaker and
writer. And though he was a patrician, his real sympathy lay with the
poor and the middle class, whose side he took almost from boyhood.
The Romans governed themselves, in some ways, as the people of the
United States do to-day. That is, their consuls, or governors, were
elected by the patricians and the free men. Sometimes the patricians
were in power; at other times, the people of the middle class succeeded
in electing their leaders. But in those cruel times the winning party
sometimes killed the chiefs on the other side, and treated them all as
if they were enemies at war. The uncle of Julius Cæsar had been one of
the chiefs overthrown in such a civil war, and the young man inherited
his uncle’s love for the cause of the common people.
The first deed of Cæsar that brought him into public notice took place
while he was traveling in the East. A crew of pirates, or sea robbers,
captured him and held him prisoner until a large sum of money, or a
ransom, should be paid. Julius Cæsar succeeded in raising the amount and
paid it to them to set him free. But before he left the pirates he told
them that if he ever caught them he would have his revenge. Then he went
and collected men and ships, caught his former captors, won back his
ransom money, and ordered the ring-leaders crucified. Crucifixion was
the Roman penalty for pirates and other thieves.
From the time Julius Cæsar was thirty years old, he was constantly in
one office or another in the Roman republic. One early position was that
of director of shows and sports. The Romans had theaters, with seats of
stone rising one behind another from the central space, like the seats
in a circus or college stadium. Here thousands of people could see and
hear actors, poets, orators, and debaters. One of these theaters was so
large that eighty thousand people could witness the games at one time.
Instead of football and baseball, the Romans had running races and
wrestling matches by athletes and fighters who came from all parts of
the world. Most of them were slaves. Among them were men called
gladiators, who fought each other with swords until one or the other was
killed. The cruel Romans liked this part of the sport best.
Julius Cæsar provided such splendid shows and games that he made himself
very popular with the people. He was elected to one office after
another; and finally, after being sent as a kind of governor to Spain,
was chosen one of the two consuls. The office of consul was the highest
in Rome, and was somewhat similar to our president. When his term
expired, Cæsar was made governor over the Gauls, a half savage people
who lived in the country that is now northern Italy, Switzerland, and
France.
During the nine years while Cæsar was in Gaul, he had to fight many
battles and conquer many dangerous tribes. Besides that, he crossed to
the island of Britain, now called England. But Cæsar was kind to his
enemies and prisoners. His “Journal,” which tells of his wars in Gaul,
is read to-day as one of the simplest and best books ever written.
[Illustration: THE ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR.]
His wonderful victories and great kindnesses made Cæsar the idol of the
people. But he had enemies at home, and a rival, another great general
named Pompey. The Senate were on the side of Pompey, and at last they
decreed that if Cæsar did not give up his command and dismiss his army
by a certain day, he would be called an enemy of the country. Pompey and
the Senate were against the poorer classes, and Cæsar knew that if he
yielded to this command, the common people, whose friend he was, would
lose their freedom. So instead of disbanding his army he marched it to
the borders of Italy. He stopped on the bank of a little river called
the Rubicon. Anyone who crossed that river with an army was considered
an enemy of Rome. When Cæsar decided to cross the river and advance with
his army against the city, he exclaimed, “The die is cast!” His words
meant that he could no more go back than a die, once thrown out of the
dice-box, can be taken back. Nowadays, when a man decides to do
something which may bring great loss to him if he does not win, and from
which he cannot draw back, once he has begun, he is said to have
“crossed the Rubicon.”
Cæsar’s fortunes, however, did not desert him, and he succeeded in
driving Pompey away and finally conquering him. Within three years,
after many victorious battles in Greece and Egypt and Asia Minor, he
returned to Rome in triumph. By this time the Senate were willing to do
anything for him that he wanted, and the adoring people chose him
Dictator for ten years. That meant that although he was not called king
he had almost the same power as a king.
Two of Cæsar’s sayings are often quoted. Once, when he was pursuing
Pompey, he started on a voyage when a storm seemed to be coming up. The
sailors were afraid to cross the sea, but he said to them, “You carry
Cæsar and his fortunes!” They set sail at once and reached the other
side in safety. At another time he caught an escaping army in Asia. He
announced this victory in three words: “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” the meaning
of which was, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
By his policy of kindness to the people as dictator, Cæsar so won their
love that they came even to worship him as one of their gods. The month
in the year in which he was born was at this time named in his honor,
for our word July is a shortened form of Julius. He governed Rome well
and made many useful changes. One thing that he did was to arrange the
calendar, which before this time was very clumsy. It was he who divided
the year into months of so many days each, very much as it is divided
now.
The climax of Cæsar’s popularity was reached when he was offered a
crown, to show that the people of Rome wished him to be their king. He
refused this honor three times in public. But not all the men of Rome
shared in this admiration of Cæsar, for one party, some of whom had been
his friends, felt that his growing power was not good for Rome. They
wanted their country to be a republic, and not to be ruled by a king. So
they began to plot against Cæsar.
On the fifteenth of March, 44 B. C., just as Cæsar was about to take his
seat in the presence of the Roman Senate, a group of men gathered round
and began plunging their daggers into his body. Among them was Marcus
Brutus, for whom Cæsar had done many kindnesses. When Cæsar saw Brutus
with his dagger raised to stab him to the heart, he exclaimed with a sad
smile, “And thou too, Brutus!” Then, covering his face with his mantle,
he fell down and died. Of the twenty-three knife wounds that were found
in Cæsar’s body, Shakespeare wrote that the stab of Brutus was “the most
unkindest cut of all.”
Although Cæsar was murdered to keep him from bearing the name of king,
the mightiest monarchs of modern times took the name of Cæsar as the
highest title a king could have--as the “Kaiser” of Germany and the
“C-zar” of Russia. When these two recent Cæsars were put down, there
remained no ruler in Europe who believed in governing by the cruel Roman
law that “Might makes Right.”
HEROES OF THE MIDDLE AGES
THE CHRISTMAS CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE
About twelve hundred years ago, thousands of Saracens, who were among
the followers of Mohammed, crossed the narrow strait from Africa into
Spain. The world was then coming out of those centuries of ignorance and
fear which are known as the Dark Ages. The dark-skinned people--Arabs
and Africans--who followed Mohammed, went about converting people by
making them prostrate themselves with their faces turned toward the East
and repeat the Mohammedan creed. Those who refused to bow down and
repeat this creed were killed. Of course everyone was very much afraid
of missionaries who used such methods as these, and large parts of Asia
and Africa had come under Mohammedan control. When they reached the
shores of Spain, they thought they were going to convert and conquer
Europe, too.
The Saracens marched north through Spain and into the country of the
Franks, whose great-great-great-grandchildren are the French people of
to-day. Here the victory of the invaders ceased to be so easy, for they
were met by a certain Duke Charles, who beat them in a great battle near
Tours and drove them back. For his bravery in saving Europe from these
dark-skinned enemies, Duke Charles was named Martel, the Franks’ word
for “hammer.”
Charles the Hammer had a son, Pepin, who was called the Short, because
he was not a tall man. But though he was small, Pepin had a big, brave
heart. He fought for his country against the Lombards, a savage people
in North Italy, and he was rewarded for his valor and success by being
made king of the Franks.
When Pepin was crowned by the Pope, he had a son Charles, twelve years
old. This Charles was so ambitious that, even while a boy, he began to
dream of conquering other nations, and becoming king not only of France
but of other lands as well. All through his boyhood he dreamed of what
he would do if he were king. It was not many years after his father’s
death, when he became king in fact, before Charles Martel’s grandson had
conquered so many nations in the south and so many savage tribes in the
north of Europe that he became a king of kings, or emperor, and received
the title of Charlemagne, which means Charles the Great.
Perhaps the best thing that Charlemagne ever did was to keep Alcuin, a
scholar from Britain, at his court as a trusted friend and teacher. In
those days such men in other kings’ palaces were merely chaplains or
religious teachers, but Alcuin taught the king, the queen, and the
princes grammar, spelling, arithmetic, and other common branches. This
Palace School proved to be such a good thing that the emperor ordered
that not only any child of a nobleman, but even of the poorest peasant,
could come to it if the boy showed talent for learning. The books in the
Palace School were printed very slowly with a pen, sometimes in bright
inks and gold. As there were no public libraries in those days, Alcuin
searched the world for books for his pupils. These parchments were rare
and very costly. Instead of Charles’s children going to school, the
Palace School went with the children, as the emperor moved from place to
place and from palace to palace.
Charlemagne’s armies were led by brave knights called paladins. The
foremost of these paladins were Roland and Oliver, who fought in combats
and tournaments. They were both of heroic size, eight feet tall, and
performed the same feats, so that one could not be distinguished from
the other. A story is told of these two having fought five days on an
island in the River Rhine without either of them gaining the least
advantage over the other; so now, when two men are equal in some great
struggle, people exclaim--“A Roland for an Oliver!”
Roland, also called Orlando, was the chief hero, and Oliver seems to
have been his reflection or shadow. Roland was a nephew of Charlemagne.
He is described in the “Song of Roland” as having a wonderful horse, a
miraculous saber, and a magic horn, which he blew so that it could be
heard thirty miles. The greatest story told of him is that he commanded
the rear guard of Charlemagne’s army as they were returning from Spain
through a pass in the Pyrenees Mountains. Set upon by 100,000 Saracens,
Roland blew his magic horn so that his uncle the emperor heard it eight
miles away.
In the advancing guard with Charlemagne, however, lurked an evil genius,
who told the anxious emperor that Roland’s horn was not a signal of
distress, but that his nephew was hunting stags in the mountains. Roland
fought until the 100,000 Saracens were slain, and he had only fifty of
his 20,000 soldiers left. Then 50,000 more Saracens came out of the
mountains and killed the brave paladin and his fifty men. While Roland
was dying of his wounds, this legend goes on, he threw his magic sword
into
[Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE IS CROWNED EMPEROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD AT
ROME.
_From an old print_]
a poisoned stream. Another version of the story is that Roland died of
starvation while trying to find his way, wounded and alone, through the
mountains to catch up with the army.
Charlemagne and his valiant paladins rode and fought in all parts of
Europe, beating the savage Germans beyond the Rhine, and conquering
tribes and peoples all over Europe almost as far as Constantinople, the
great capital of the Eastern Empire. At last the dream of the
twelve-year-old lad at his father’s crowning came true, when Charlemagne
himself was crowned at Rome, the city of the Cæsars, as Emperor of the
Western World, on Christmas Day, in the year of our Lord 800.
It is written that the crowning of Charlemagne was prepared as a
surprise to him by the Pope and his people in Rome. While Charles and
his sons were kneeling before a shrine very early on that Christmas
morning, Pope Leo appeared in the great church with a crown of gold set
with many precious gems, and placed it on the head of the kneeling king,
thus proclaiming him Emperor of the Western World. In an instant the
Pope, the cardinals, the priests, and the people rose from their knees
and chanted these words:
“To Charles the Augustus, crowned of God, the great and pacific emperor,
long life and victory!”
Charlemagne was a wise and good emperor who did many things to help his
people. He built a lighthouse at Boulogne to guide ships to port,
encouraged farming and made wise laws. He was kind to scholars and his
favorite recreation was talking to them. He spoke several languages very
well and wrote a great deal. Among his writings were a grammar, poems in
Latin and many letters.
ALFRED, THE GREATEST OF THE SAXON KINGS
Over one thousand years ago, the king of the West Saxons on the island
of Britain, now England, had four sons. Alfred, the youngest of these,
was his father’s favorite. When this boy was only five, his royal father
sent him to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope. After Alfred came back his
queen-mother died, and the father made a pilgrimage, or religious
journey, to Rome, taking young Prince Alfred, with many court gentlemen,
soldiers, and servants.
On their way the king and his train were given a royal welcome by the
king of France. Alfred’s father fell in love with the beautiful young
daughter of the French king, and asked her hand in marriage. Her father
consented, so the royal wedding took place on the Saxon king’s return
from Rome.
Alfred’s new mother soon became very fond of him. Young as he was, he
had learned to play the harp. But when he was twelve years old, Alfred
had not been taught to read. Saxon kings and princes thought most kinds
of learning were for priests and lawyers. When gentlemen made contracts
or signed law papers, they did not write their names, but “set their
signs and seals thereunto,” as is done to-day in legal documents. All
the books were written on parchments in Latin.
One day Alfred saw his French stepmother reading a roll of parchment on
which Latin words were printed by hand in many colors. As the lad
admired it, the queen told him she would make him a present of the
scroll as soon as he learned to read and understand it. He went right
out and coaxed a monk, or priest, to teach him Latin, and he soon became
the happy owner of the beautiful parchment.
Learning to read opened a new world to Prince Alfred. He wrote verses
and songs for his harp, and began to compose both words and music of
hymns to be sung in the cathedral near his father’s palace.
When Alfred was fourteen his father died. Each of his three older
brothers became king, one after another, and died within a few years.
Alfred was twenty-two when the last brother died and left him to be
king. Some rough people, called Danes, from the north countries across
the sea, had landed on the island of Britain, and the Saxons were
compelled to give battle to them so as not to be killed or made slaves
to those rough Northmen. So Alfred had to fight to keep on being king.
When he began to reign, he ruled like all the other kings he had known.
His father and brothers had treated the people as if they were made only
to work and pay their way, like cattle; so Alfred did the same at first.
The fierce Danes kept coming over in larger numbers. In a hard-fought
battle, Alfred was defeated and most of his army was slain. Flying for
his life, the young king found a hiding place in the hut of a swineherd,
a man who tends hogs. This man knew who Alfred was, but kept the king’s
secret from his wife, who thought the stranger was a poor soldier from
the Saxon army.
Many stories are told of what the king did while he lived in the hut of
this swineherd. These tales have changed so much, all the hundreds of
years which have passed since Alfred’s time, that they are called
legends. The best known of these is the story of the king and the cakes.
Once when the housewife was going out to do some work, she asked him,
while he was fixing his bow and arrows, to mind the cakes she had left
baking in the ashes of the fireplace. The distracted king’s mind was on
higher things than coarse meal cakes. When the woman came in she found
them burning. She was so angry that she called Alfred a good-for-nothing
beggar, and added that if he could not pay for what she gave him to eat,
he ought at least to look after her cakes a little while.
[Illustration: KING ALFRED DIVIDES HIS LAST LOAF OF BREAD WITH THE POOR
BEGGAR.]
Alfred had the good sense to see his own conduct through the poor
woman’s eyes. So, instead of being angry or telling her who he was, he
said gently, “I am sorry I was so careless. I will try not to forget
again.”
“A soft answer turneth away wrath,” Alfred had read in the roll of
Proverbs in his Latin Bible. It may have been during the long months he
spent in the home of this shepherd that the humbled king decided to
translate the best parts of the Bible into the Saxon language so that
the people could read it.
Another story is that Alfred stayed in the hut alone while the family
were away fishing. He had only a loaf of bread to last until their
return. A beggar came and asked for bread. Alfred broke his little loaf
in two, gave the man half, and ate his half with the beggar. The
swineherd returned that day with fish enough for a family feast. In the
night the beggar of the day before appeared, as an angel, to the captive
king, and said that God had seen how Alfred had humbled his heart so
that he was now fitted to rule his people wisely and well.
The Danish army was now encamped not far from the king’s hiding place.
Encouraged by the vision of the shining pilgrim, Alfred started out to
see for himself how strong the enemy were and what they were going to
do. So he disguised himself as a wandering musician, playing a harp. He
played and sang for the Danish soldiers, and was soon taken before their
fierce leader, like David, with his harp, before King Saul. The Danes
were so pleased with him and his music that they asked him to stay with
them. As soon as he had found out all he wanted to know, he took up his
harp and left the camp of the enemy. The Danes invited him to come
again.
Hurrying back to the swineherd’s hut, Alfred sent word to the leaders
among his people that he was alive and ready to go on with the war
against the Danes. The people had been in despair, for they had believed
that their brave young king was dead.
The Saxon chiefs came at once and knelt to King Alfred. When the poor
woman realized who her guest was, she fell on her knees and begged him
to forgive all she had said to him. Alfred lifted her tenderly from the
ground, and told her he would reward her and her loyal husband when he
was safe on his throne again.
The Danish army was astonished, early one morning, to hear three trumpet
blasts, and to see a great army of Saxon soldiers marching to meet them,
led by that wandering minstrel! Of course, the Saxons gained the victory
and made the Danes promise not to come and attack them again. They
agreed, but did not keep their word long. After that, instead of waiting
for the Danes to land in Britain, King Alfred fitted up a fleet of ships
so that he could go out and fight them on the sea. This has been called
“the beginning of the British navy.”
Then Alfred improved the years of peace by making laws which allowed the
people more rights and privileges. He invented a simple clock of
candles, by which the people could tell the time of day. He rebuilt the
towns that had been destroyed in the war and trained his people not only
to fight but to till their farms. He made wise laws and did much to
educate his subjects by having books translated from the Latin into
Anglo-Saxon, the language of the Saxons. Best of all, he translated the
Bible into the language of the people. Because of all the acts which
taught the people how to make their lives better and happier he is known
in history as Alfred the Great. In one of his histories, King Alfred
wrote what he tried to do in his own life:
“My will was to live worthily as long as I lived and, after my life, to
leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works.”
HOW WILLIAM OF NORMANDY CONQUERED A KINGDOM
When the first son was born to Robert, Duke of Normandy, and Arlette,
the daughter of a tanner, the nurse laid the day-old baby on the straw
carpet of the castle. In those days most of the floors of the houses,
whether huts or castles, were of earth or stone, covered with straw
which could be cleared out, as from a modern stable, to allow fresh
straw to be laid down. When placed on the floor in his little blanket,
Baby William reached out and clutched some of the straws so tightly in
his small pink fists that one of those who noticed smiled and said, “He
will take fast hold on everything he lays his hands on when he grows
up.”
When William was seven, Duke Robert, his father, being about to make the
voyage to the Holy Land, called some of his nobles together and said, “I
am resolved to journey to the place where our Lord Christ died and was
buried. But because I know this journey is full of dangers, I would have
it settled who should be duke if I should die.”
The nobles and knights took an oath that they would stand by his son
William and not let any one keep him from being duke of Normandy. Then
Duke Robert sailed away and died during the long voyage.
William was away hunting in a Norman forest when his faithful fool (as
they called a sort of clown kept by a king to amuse the court) broke in
where he lay asleep and shouted, “Fly, or you will never leave here a
living man!” The young duke jumped up, dressed in haste, and mounted his
horse, riding through the forest in the moonlight and fording rivers
till he came to the castle of a friend who was sure to be faithful to
him. This knight and his three sons rode with William to his own castle.
It turned out that a number of the Norman lords who had taken the oath
to satisfy Duke Robert were now declaring that they would not serve
under the low-born grandson of a tanner. The fool had learned that they
were plotting rebellion and the death of his young master.
William, who was now twenty years old, gathered an army of loyal knights
and men, and waged fierce warfare against the traitors, who retreated
within the walls of a Norman town. The young duke soon captured the
town, and proved to these rebels, as well as to the men of the
neighboring kingdom of France, that the grandson of a tanner might be a
greater general than the son of a king. At the beginning of a great
battle of brave knights against braver knights, a champion of heroic
size came out from the ranks of the enemy and threw down his gauntlet,
or glove, challenging any knight of Normandy to come and fight him with
the sword. William himself took up the gauntlet, and drove his sword
through an open place in the big knight’s armor, so that he fell from
his horse dead.
Then, like the Philistines of old when David slew their giant, the
Duke’s enemies fled in all directions. Many of them were slain in
battle, others while running away were cut down by the battle-axes of
Norman knights, and many more perished in the flooded river.
Those were brutal days, when people thought that whatever a great king
or noble might do was all right if he only had the power to put it
through. An example of such high-handed dealing is William’s conquest of
England. He had once paid a visit to Edward the Confessor, the priestly
king of England. The duke claimed, on his return to Normandy, that
Edward had promised to leave the kingdom to him, as a relative. It
happened that Harold, an English earl, was shipwrecked on the coast of
Normandy. William seized Harold, shut him up in prison, and kept him
there until he promised to do his best to make William King of England
at the death of Edward.
Two years later, when Edward the Confessor died, it was found that in
spite of his promise to William he had advised in his will that Harold
be elected king by the witan, an assembly of English freemen. This body
of men took the good old king’s advice, chose Harold king, and saw that
he was crowned at once. Harold excused himself for breaking his word to
William because King Edward had decided in his favor instead of
William’s, and because the oath he had made had been forced from him
while he was a prisoner.
William, however, was very angry when he heard that Harold had allowed
himself to be crowned king of England. Getting together as large an army
as he could in Normandy, he sailed across the Channel. In leaping ashore
from his boat he tripped and fell forward with his hands upon the
ground. Realizing that his soldiers would think this a bad sign, he
clutched both hands full of earth, and rising he held them up,
exclaiming, “See, I have taken possession of this land of England.”
The Normans took position in the village of Hastings. Harold went into
camp on top of Senlac hill, now called Battle, about six miles from
Hastings, and dug trenches around. Here a great battle began at four
o’clock in the morning of the 14th of October, 1066. In advance of the
Norman lines rode a knight in armor, bearing the duke’s colors, singing
the Song of Roland, the great paladin in the army of Charlemagne, who
had lived and fought nearly three hundred years before. It was a brave
combat, with many knights and nobles on each side. The Norman found the
Englishman a foeman worthy of his steel.
[Illustration: THE ELDEST SON OF KING WILLIAM REBELLED AGAINST HIS
FATHER’S AUTHORITY AND FLED TO THE CASTLE OF GERBEROI. KING WILLIAM
PURSUED HIM AND BESIEGED THE CASTLE. DURING THE SIEGE THE KING WAS
WOUNDED BY HIS SON IN SINGLE COMBAT, BUT THEY WERE AFTERWARDS
RECONCILED.]
The Saxons, entrenched on Battle Hill, held their ground so well that
William saw he could not gain the day unless he drew them away from that
point of vantage. So he ordered a retreat, and the honest Saxons chased
the flying Normans, expecting to catch and slay them. But to their great
surprise, the Normans turned and fought harder than before. Harold was
killed by an arrow shot into his eyes. The Saxon army, without a
commander, was thrown into confusion, and thus the day was won by
strategy. William, Duke of Normandy, became William the Conqueror of
England.
No one now had a better claim to the throne of England than William; so,
in the new Westminster Abbey, on Christmas Day, 1066, he was crowned,
and took his proud place in history as William the First of England. He
had to fight four years longer to break down all opposition from the
northern counties. In rewarding the Norman knights and nobles who had
helped him gain possession of England, the king gave them great estates
scattered over the kingdom. William brought to the island many scholars
and bishops, and did much to establish the Church of England. Though he
had been rough and cruel, he was both shrewd and wise in proving his own
rights and in strengthening his kingdom.
William ruled England with a strong hand for twenty-one years. He
forbade the buying and selling of slaves; yet he reduced the Saxon
farmers to serfs almost as low as slaves. He ordered a record like a
census made, and a survey of the kingdom which was recorded in what is
called the Domesday Book.
It was terribly hard for the good, honest Anglo-Saxon people to see the
Normans move into their homes and force them to work like slaves on the
very places they themselves had owned. But the Normans had the power and
the Saxons could not help themselves. For hundreds of years the Normans
spoke the French language, and the Saxons, the English. The very names
of the meats on your table at home are signs of the Norman Conquest,
nearly nine hundred years ago. The animals in the pastures and stables
of England were called by the names the Saxons gave them--as cow, calf,
sheep, swine. But the meats of those animals when cooked and served upon
the tables of the masters are still known by the Norman French names, as
beef (Norman name for cow), veal (Norman for calf), mutton (Norman for
sheep), pork (Norman for hog or swine). Milk is a Saxon word, but cream
is from the French, because the Saxons had to milk the cows and drink
only milk, while they served their Norman lords the cream.
The Norman traits of keenness, tact, and worldly wisdom have been
mingling for many centuries with the honest, sturdy integrity of the
Anglo-Saxons. Little by little, as the races grew together, the nobles
became less haughty and cruel and the poorer people were lifted out of
their poverty. But it took many centuries for men to learn the lesson
that
“Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.”
LION-HEARTED RICHARD AND WOLF-HEARTED JOHN
The great-grandson of William the Conqueror was Henry the Second of
England, a great and powerful king. At his death, in 1189, he left two
sons, Richard and John. As Richard was the older he was at once
proclaimed king and duly crowned in Westminster Abbey. He was also Duke
of Normandy, and thought this a greater honor than to be king of
England.
About a hundred years before the time of Richard, great armies had begun
to sail from several of the countries of western Europe to the Holy Land
in Syria. The rock-hewn tomb of Jesus, near Jerusalem, was in possession
of the followers of Mohammed--Turks, Arabs, and Saracens--who controlled
the country. The Christian people of Europe thought it very wrong that
the Saracens owned the Holy City of Jerusalem and could keep Christians
from coming to worship at the tomb of their Lord. So throngs of soldiers
went to the Holy Land to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, or tomb. The wars
which they fought for this cause were known as the Crusades.
[Illustration: KING RICHARD GENEROUSLY FORGIVES BERTRAND DE GURDUN, WHO
HAD ATTEMPTED TO ASSASSINATE HIM.
_From the painting by John Cross_]
In the First Crusade, the Christian knights captured not only the Holy
Sepulchre but also the city of Jerusalem. In the Second Crusade, about
fifty years later, the crusaders were beaten back by the Saracens. Two
years before Richard became king, the Mohammedans again captured
Jerusalem and the sacred tomb.
Young King Richard was fired with a holy zeal to win back the Holy City
and the Sepulchre, and, if possible, to find the cross upon which Jesus
of Nazareth was crucified. This relic was believed to have been hidden
by the Saracens.
King Richard made many sacrifices to raise money for a Third Crusade.
His brother John was glad to have Richard go away on such a distant and
dangerous mission, leaving the younger brother to rule over England
during the king’s long absence. John was as cowardly as Richard was
brave, and, down in his heart, he hoped the Turk would kill his brother
so that he could have the throne. Because of the king’s knightly courage
he was given the title of Richard Lion-heart. If John had been named for
the animal he was most like, he would have been called John Wolf-heart.
Richard was joined by King Philip of France, and the two kings, with
their armies and those of the Archduke of Austria, reached the Holy Land
in due time. They attacked the walled city of Acre--called Akka by the
Arabs--and captured it after a long, hard fight and the loss of many
thousands of soldiers.
But Richard was as overbearing as he was brave. He ordered other kings
and dukes about, and his manner was so masterful that he made Philip and
the Archduke of Austria very angry. After several bitter quarrels, the
king of France left Richard to fight on without him. The French king
sailed away home with most of his army, and plotted with Prince John to
injure the absent brother and make John King of England while Richard
was still alive.
Many tales are told of the struggle between Richard, king of England,
and Saladin, the sultan of the Saracens. For hundreds of years after
Richard Lion-heart’s campaign in the Holy Land, Arab mothers would
frighten their children by warning them that Richard would get them if
they were not good. Sir Walter Scott’s great novels, “Ivanhoe” and “The
Talisman,” are stories of life in England at this time, and of knightly
tournaments which took place between Richard and Saladin during this
Crusade.
While the Crusaders were trying to capture Ascalon, it became necessary
for them to work like stone masons in rebuilding certain walls. Richard
went to work with a royal will, and most of the nobles and knights
followed his example. But the Archduke of Austria said he was the son
neither of a carpenter nor of a mason, and flatly refused to help. This
made King Richard so angry that he struck the Archduke a blow with his
mailed fist and gave him a resounding kick with his heavy iron boot.
With all his holy zeal to take the Holy City, Richard Lion-heart had not
learned that “he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a
city.” Then the Archduke and his Austrian army also left Richard to
fight on alone with his few remaining soldiers.
What Richard had found hard enough with the help of the king of France
and the Archduke of Austria was impossible without them. But Lion-heart
was not only a very brave man but a fine general. He defeated the army
of Saladin in a great battle at Arsuf and twice led the Christian forces
within a few miles of Jerusalem. Quarrels among the crusaders however
made it impossible to continue the war. King Richard also received bad
news from home, that his brother John was plotting against him aided by
King Philip of France. So he and Saladin made a truce to stop fighting
for three years, three months, three weeks, and three days. Then the
brave king of England started for home. Richard sent his army the long
way round by water, while he and a few knights, disguised as pilgrims,
tried to go the short way by land, across Austria and Germany. In spite
of his disguise, Richard was recognized by an Austrian soldier. When the
Archduke heard that Richard was crossing his dukedom, he sent soldiers
at once to capture the king who had insulted him.
Richard was a prisoner in a great castle for two years. A story is told
of a young troubadour, or wandering minstrel, who started out to find
his royal master by playing a lute and singing songs of love and hymns
of the Crusaders. After months of wandering, he sang under a castle wall
a favorite song of Richard’s, and heard, to his great joy, a deep bass
voice within the German fortress joining in the hymn. He well knew that
the voice was none other than Richard Lion-heart’s. Saying nothing, he
hurried away and told some English friends where their lost king was.
They rushed to Richard’s rescue and paid the Emperor of Germany, who was
over the Archduke in rank and power, a royal ransom to have their brave
king set free.
When Philip of France heard that Richard was out of prison, he sent word
to John, who had been making believe that his brother the king was dead,
“Take care of yourself. The devil has broke loose!” When Richard reached
London, John pretended to be very glad to receive his dear brother back
as from the dead.
Richard reigned only a few years after that, for he was killed in one of
his wars with Philip of France. While he was as brave as a lion, Richard
was also as fierce and cruel as the king of beasts. He was not a good
man as people to-day regard manhood, but he was much better than his
cowardly brother John, who became king after Richard’s death.
JOAN OF ARC AND THE LILIES OF FRANCE
Five hundred years ago a little French peasant girl was working outside
the stone hut where her father’s large family lived, when she heard, or
thought she heard, a voice saying to her, “Joan, be a good child; go
often to church.”
This Joan of Arc was so kind-hearted and so thoughtful for others that
her friends made fun of her and said she was not like other girls; and
her parents feared that she was growing too good to live. But Joan only
wondered and smiled, said her prayers, and went often to church. When
she was twelve or thirteen, she began to see visions and hear what she
called “the Voices,” saying over and over, “Joan, trust in God; for
there is great sorrow in the kingdom of France.”
“It must be St. Catherine and St. Margaret,” Joan said to herself, as
she sat spinning for hours at a time. What was the sorrow in France, and
how could _she_ make things better just by being good? She even doubted
whether the visions she had seen and the Voices she had heard were
anything but her own half-waking dreams.
One day she overheard the parish priest of Domremy, where she lived,
telling of the troubles of France. For almost a hundred years the kings
of England had claimed and fought for the right to rule over France, and
lately, under their soldier king, Henry the Fifth, had defeated the
French and driven their armies into the southern part of their own land.
Henry the Fifth had died, but his son still claimed the French throne;
and the French prince, or Dauphin, as he was called, had not been
crowned king, because the English held the city of Rheims, where all
French kings were crowned. The English armies were pushing southward to
lay siege to the French city of Orleans.
Joan heard the good priest and her father and mother sighing over the
sad day that had come when foreigners were fighting to make slaves of
the French people. And the dear Dauphin whom God had given them for
their king was now flying from place to place before the armies of
England.
After that day the Voices grew more earnest and definite. “Go to the
governor,” they urged her; “go and ask him to give you soldiers, and
send you to the help of the king.” Poor little Joan’s heart sank within
her, and she protested, “I am only a young girl. I don’t know how to
ride or to fight. They will only laugh at me.” But the Voices kept on
insisting, “Go! go! go! and we will help you save France.”
Joan told her parents what the Voices were telling her to do. Her father
laughed and threatened to punish her if he heard any more of such talk,
and her mother was afraid her strange little daughter was going to die.
Joan’s brothers and sisters made fun of her and asked if she wished to
marry the Dauphin and be Queen of France.
But Joan had a kind uncle who loved and sympathized with her. Her mother
let her go to visit Uncle Durant, hoping her poor little girl might
forget the Voices. When Joan told her uncle what she kept seeing and
hearing, he promised to help her all he could. So he went with his
anxious little niece to the governor of that part of France, and stood
by her as she told the great man about the Voices, and repeated the
latest command they had given her for him:
“Send and tell the Dauphin to wait, and not offer battle to his
enemies; because God will give him help before the middle of Lent. The
kingdom belongs not to the Dauphin, but to my Lord; but my Lord wishes
that the Dauphin shall be king and hold it in trust. In spite of his
enemies he shall be king of France, and I will lead him to be crowned.”
“And who is your lord?” demanded the governor with a sneer. “The King of
Heaven,” said Joan of Arc proudly. The governor, who was a rough
military man, laughed loud and long at the faith of the little peasant
girl in a white cap, red petticoat, and wooden shoes. Instead of doing
as she asked, he told her uncle to give her a good whipping, to beat the
foolishness out of her head, and send her home to her father.
Baffled and discouraged, Joan went home with her uncle. But the Voices
kept saying in her ears, “Go! go!” Back to the governor she went, but he
treated her as badly as before. Then they found another man to whom she
told her story and added, “God in Heaven has told me to go to the
Dauphin; with His help I must do it, even if I have to go on my knees.”
This friendly gentleman was deeply touched by her earnest words.
The people in the country who knew and believed in Joan of Arc pleaded
with the men of influence in the neighborhood, and it was at last
arranged that Joan should go and tell her story to the young king of
France. To see if God were guiding her, as she claimed, the king changed
places with a noble in his court; but instead of going up to the
pretended king who sat in the seat of honor, Joan walked straight to the
prince, where he stood behind some men of the court.
It is easy to believe what we will. The Dauphin listened to the burning
words of the peasant girl with the pure,
[Illustration: THE VICTORIOUS RETURN OF JOAN OF ARC TO ORLEANS.
_From the painting by J. J. Scherer_]
Madonna-like face. After she had won the king’s approval it was not so
hard for Joan to go on obeying the Voices. Dressed in a suit of armor
which shone like silver, she led a French army to the relief of Orleans.
She carried everywhere a beautiful white banner, embroidered with
lilies.
The English laughed at that silly girl trying to be a man, and called
her insulting names; but Joan did not mind, for she felt safe under the
protection of the saints in heaven. One day, in an attack upon a fort
held by the English, the Maid, as the French army now called her, was
wounded in the foot; but she would not stop fighting. She mounted her
horse again and led the charge as though nothing had happened. The
English then thought she was a witch--that is, a woman working for the
devil.
In another battle an arrow was shot clear through her shoulder so that
the barb stuck out five inches. Then the enemy raised a shout of
triumph. “The Maid can be wounded and killed,” they yelled. “She is not
a witch, so we are not afraid of her.” But one of Joan’s company pulled
out the arrow and she led them fiercely in the assault. The English
soldiers were frightened, for in those days every one believed in
witches. Joan drove the enemy from one place to another until all the
south country was cleared of the English forces. Then the Maid of
Orleans, as she was now called, led the king, with his court and the
French army, to the old city of Rheims, where he was crowned, with great
joy and splendor, as Charles the Seventh.
The Maid had put the lilies on her banner as the symbol of purity and of
God’s love and care over France. The French lily, or fleur-de-lys, has
been the emblem of France through all the centuries since the days of
Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans.
Now the Maid, who had done all that the Voices had commanded, was ready
to return home to spin and to tend the sheep on the hills of Domremy;
but weak-hearted King Charles begged her to stay long enough to drive
all the English out of France.
Against her wish, Joan yielded. While fighting outside the walls of a
town not far from Paris, she was surrounded by armed men of the enemy.
By mistake or through fear, some French people shut the gate in such
haste that the Maid was left outside fighting a dozen soldiers
single-handed. She was captured and put in a dark, damp prison. Here the
poor girl, then only nineteen, was frightened and tortured to make her
sign a paper confessing that she was a wicked witch, and that all she
had done was by the help of the devil.
After waiting a long time in vain for the ungrateful prince, whom she
had made king of France, to come and save her with his army, or to pay a
large sum of money to ransom her, she was compelled to stand an unjust
trial during which she was many times abused and insulted. This wicked
trial was conducted by a false bishop, who condemned that sweet, heroic
young girl to be burned at the stake in the market-place of Rouen on the
24th of May, 1431.
Twenty-five years after her death the Pope reversed the decision of the
corrupt bishop. In 1920, nearly five hundred years after the Maid was
burned to death, high and holy men in the ancient Church to which she
belonged took the great step of declaring Joan of Arc, the peasant girl
of Domremy, one of the noble army of martyrs in the communion of
saints.
FOUR LEADERS IN THE OLD WORLD
SHAKESPEARE, THE GREATEST MAKER OF PLAYS
Perhaps there is no one who has done so much for the world, yet about
whose life so little is known, as William Shakespeare. His father was a
farmer and market man, and his mother was Mary Arden, a prosperous
farmer’s daughter. The father was so highly respected that he was made
high bailiff, or mayor, of Stratford-upon-Avon, where the Shakespeare
family lived.
It was one of the father’s duties to give out licenses to players or
actors who went from town to town performing their plays. Sometimes they
gave their shows out of doors; and when theaters were built they were
galleries around a space of ground. The people who paid the most stood
or sat in the galleries and the poor people saw the play from the
ground, called the pit. Strolling players were looked upon in those days
almost as tramps are to-day. They had to have licenses like street bands
nowadays. They often gave their shows in a town square and took up a
collection for their pay.
John Shakespeare was fond of these shows, and there is no doubt that his
son William was taken to see them before he went to the Stratford
Grammar School when he was seven years old. Here the boy is said to have
studied Latin, writing, and arithmetic. Judging from the specimens that
are still to be seen of William Shakespeare’s penmanship, it was not a
great success. One of the great
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE AMONG HIS FRIENDS IN LONDON.
_From the painting by John Ford_]
play-writers of Shakespeare’s time wrote that Will had learned “small
Latin and less Greek” at school. But Latin was the chief study in the
schools of that time. It was sung and spoken in church, and it was
thought necessary for even a farmer’s son to study that language.
When William was thirteen his father was unfortunate in business, and
the boy had to leave school to earn his living. There is a legend that
he started in to learn the butcher’s trade, but it seems more likely
that he worked as a lawyer’s boy and clerk. If all accounts are true, he
must have been a mischievous lad, for the story goes that he was once
taken up for poaching, or shooting a deer, in the park of one of the
great men in the county.
When he was eighteen Will Shakespeare married a farmer’s daughter eight
years older than himself. By the time he was twenty-one the young father
had three children. Two of these, Hamnet and Judith, were twins. Hamnet
died before he grew to manhood, and about all that is known of Judith
Shakespeare is that she, like her mother, never learned to read. It was
not thought necessary then for farmers’ wives and daughters to read and
write.
A lawyer’s clerk with five mouths to feed could hardly find enough to do
in Stratford to earn a living, so William Shakespeare went to London to
seek his fortune. It is said that he began life in the great city by
holding horses in front of one of the theaters, as they did not have
hitching-posts in Shakespeare’s days. Then he was promoted to be
prompter’s boy. One of his duties was to tell the actors when it was
time for them to go on the stage and play their parts.
Nothing is really known of what the young man from Stratford was doing
for six or seven years. He made his living in one way or another in
connection with the theaters. At the end of that time a dying actor left
some bitter lines about Will “Shake-scene.” But another actor at this
time called Shakespeare a good man, a graceful actor, and a witty writer
of plays. Shakespeare seems not to have been a leading actor. It is said
that he took the part of the Ghost in his own play of “Hamlet.” He
became so successful as a writer that he was “commanded” to bring his
company and produce a play before Queen Elizabeth in one of her palaces.
It is recorded that Shakespeare was paid from thirty to seventy-five
dollars for one of his plays. While it is true that thirty dollars would
buy as much then as three hundred dollars to-day, yet that was a very
small price to pay for the greatest dramas ever written. But the real
value of the greatest things of the world cannot be measured by money.
Every one is said to have at least one great chance in life.
Shakespeare’s Door of Opportunity was the door of a theater. He did not
wait for it to open; he opened it himself. Shakespeare’s life showed
that “poets are born, not made.” He had the keenest insight into the
human heart and life of all the writers who ever lived.
HOW CROMWELL CHANGED PLACES WITH THE KING
In Shakespeare’s day Queen Elizabeth came first in the thoughts of all
the people of England. She was almost worshiped by the men of wealth and
genius whom she gathered at her court, and by the people at large. By
her cleverness and wisdom she kept England peaceful and prosperous
almost all through her reign. But she never married; so, when she died,
her cousin, James Stuart, king of Scotland, became king of England.
James had been brought up to think that because he was king, everybody
must bow to him as the Lord’s anointed. It was he and his councilors who
drove the Pilgrim Fathers out of England because they would not worship
God, as James wished them to, in the Church of England, of which he was
the head.
On his way down to London to be crowned, James stopped at the beautiful
estate of Sir Oliver Cromwell. In the royal company was the king’s
eldest son, Charles, called by the Scottish people “the bonnie prince.”
The little Scotch boy, only six years old, already thought that the
world was created for him and that no other boy had any rights which he,
Prince Charles, was bound to respect.
The story goes that Sir Oliver Cromwell sent for his nephew, whose name
was Oliver Cromwell also, to play with the prince. When little Noll, as
they nicknamed Oliver, came in, his uncle presented him to the boy
prince. Young Oliver tried to shake hands with Charles. Old Oliver, who
wanted the boy to bow and kiss the prince’s hand, said, “Pay your duty
to Prince Charles.”
“I owe him no duty,” said Noll Cromwell. “Why should I kiss that boy’s
hand?”
King James only laughed at the Cromwell lad’s spirit, and Charles and
Noll were left to play together. The prince soon struck the other boy,
as he was in the habit of doing, but naughty Noll struck back and sent
“the bonnie prince” howling to the king with royal blood streaming from
his little freckled nose.
Sir Oliver and the members of the royal party looked with holy horror
at the boy who had laid his hands on the Lord’s anointed. Some of them
thought young Oliver ought to be imprisoned in the Tower of London or
even beheaded for his wickedness. But King James had sense enough to see
that it was well for the prince to get “tit for tat” once in a while; so
he only looked hard at little Oliver and said:
[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL VISITING THE POET MILTON. CROMWELL IS
CARRYING THE LARGE HAT AFFECTED BY THE ROUNDHEADS.
_From the painting by David Neal_]
“Thou art a bold lad; and if thou live to be a man, my son Charlie would
do wisely to be friends with thee.” Then he turned to Sir Oliver and the
frightened friends standing there, saying, “Harm not the lad. He has
taught my son a good lesson, if heaven do but give him grace to profit
by it. If he be tempted to play the tyrant over the stubborn English,
let him remember little Oliver Cromwell.”
Young Oliver went to Free School and then to a Puritan college in
Cambridge University; but he had to leave school on account of the death
of his father. Before he was thirty Cromwell was elected to Parliament,
of which his cousin, John Hampden, was also a member.
Meanwhile King James died and his son, the prince with whom Oliver had
quarreled when a boy, became King Charles the First. King James had been
so sensible at times and so foolish at others that he has been called
“the wisest fool in Europe.” But Charles had even less sense than his
royal father. He tried to abolish Parliament, thus setting up his own
will against the will of the people of all England and Scotland.
Parliament, led by such men as Cromwell and Hampden, stood up for the
rights of the people against tyranny. All lovers of liberty and human
rights are greatly in debt to these two brave men who risked their lives
to save their country from the selfish wilfulness of kings. Englishmen
now were divided into two parties. The king’s party were the Cavaliers,
or Church of England men, who wore wigs or long curls and dressed in
velvets, silks, and laces like grown-up Lord Fauntleroys. The
parliamentary party were called Roundheads, so named because they cut
their hair short, as men do to-day. Oliver Cromwell, who never saw an
army until he was forty, was suddenly found to be a great general.
Because of their stern, unyielding courage, Cromwell’s soldiers were
called “Ironsides.” They often went into battle with a prayer on their
lips, or, in a grand chorus, sang a psalm of David while striking
valiantly for the right.
At last it became necessary to sacrifice King Charles in order to secure
the victory for Parliament, which stood for the freedom of Englishmen
against the tyranny of kings. So a court set up by Parliament voted to
put the king to death, and Oliver Cromwell was one of the signers of the
death-warrant. As James, the king’s father, had driven the Pilgrims out
of the country, so now the Puritans in Parliament forced the king’s sons
to leave the country for their country’s good.
During the few years in which Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector of
England, he did much to strengthen the nation and to repair the great
harm brought upon it by the foolish whims of its extravagant kings. It
was then that England learned the terrible lesson which Europe had to be
taught almost three hundred years later--that no king has a divine right
to do wrong to the people.
NAPOLEON, THE CORSICAN BOY WHO RULED EUROPE
Though Napoleon Bonaparte was the greatest soldier of his time, he was
small in body. His fullest height was a little above five feet. The
story of his strange career shows how a poor, puny little lad made
himself emperor of France and master of Europe, so that kings, generals,
and prime ministers bowed, like so many servants, to his imperial will.
He began, while he wore petticoats, to wish to be a soldier. He threw
away his baby rattle for a brass cannon, and his first playthings were
little iron soldiers. When he was old enough to play with other boys, he
always chose to be a soldier and, small as he was, he was the one who
told the bigger boys just what to do. Even then, if his mother gave him
a piece of cake, he would go out to the edge of the little town and
trade it to an old soldier for some coarse, black army bread. As he grew
older, this soldier-longing became his ambition. His health was never
very good. He was often nervous, wilful, and hard to manage. But he had
a keen sense of honor, and always despised a coward.
Napoleon’s home was the rugged island of Corsica. While he was still a
little boy, he found, between some rocks, near the shore, a cave which
he claimed for his own. This is still pointed out to thousands who come
to visit the boy’s birthplace, as “Napoleon’s Grotto.”
At that time there was a feud between the boys of the town and the
shepherd lads on the hills around. Little Napoleon told the other town
boys that if they would do as he said, he would make those big country
boys stop throwing stones at them whenever they met. The town lads
agreed to this; so Napoleon told them to gather stones and pile them in
a row a little distance below the fortress which the shepherds had
chosen behind some rocks on top of their hill.
The pale Bonaparte boy led his young army up till the country youths
fired a volley of stones at them. Then he turned and ran down the hill
followed by his company. The enemy came out and gave chase, pell-mell.
This was just what Napoleon expected. When the little leader got down to
the piles of stones he shouted--_“Halt!”_
His soldiers obeyed.
_“Stones!”_
Each boy gathered up as many as he could carry.
“_About face!_--FIRE!”
Before the astonished shepherds could stop they were met by a shower of
rocks. The big fellows broke and scattered in all directions, and two of
them were taken prisoner. Captain Bonaparte would not let them go till
the other country boys pledged themselves not to touch his “men” again.
Thus eight-year-old Napoleon became the leader of the boys in his home
town.
Before he was ten, he was sent to a military school in France, where
sons of noblemen were educated. Some of those French boys were wayward,
mean, and savagely cruel. They made fun of the shy country lad, for his
rough Corsican ways and speech, and because he was small and sallow.
Napoleon had entered the school on a scholarship, so they sneered at him
as “the charity boy.” He could not speak French at first, and pronounced
his own name so that it sounded like the French words for “Nose of
straw.” As Napoleon’s nose was long, straight, and thin, they laughed
and shouted his nickname, “Mr. Straw Nose!”
All this made the proud, sensitive lad speechless with rage. He kept
himself away from the rest. A garden plot was assigned for each cadet to
tend. A few of the others were too idle to take care of theirs, so they
gave them to Napoleon and he kept them in order as his own. In the
center of his little kingdom he built an arbor where he could stay alone
to study and plan as he had done in his little cave in Corsica, and woe
to those who entered there without his permission. He had suffered this
sort of life nearly four years before his father and mother managed to
visit their boy, who was almost a prisoner in military school. Napoleon
wrote of the shock the visit gave his mother:
“When she came to see me at Brienne she was frightened at my thinness. I
was indeed much changed, because I employed the hours of recreation in
working, and often passed the nights in thinking about the days’
lessons. My nature could not bear the idea of not being first in my
class.”
After finishing at this academy, Napoleon went to the military college
at Paris. Father Bonaparte’s death, about this time, left the family
poorer than ever. Sometimes Napoleon did not have enough to eat. But
that did not prevent him from studying hard. His great ambition kept him
from starving. Some time after his graduation he was assigned to a small
command in Paris. “Red” revolutionists were trying to destroy the city.
Young Napoleon thought it high time to stop them. A mob gathered in a
public square threatening to kill people and burn their houses. He
opened fire on the mob and cleared that square in short order. It was
said afterward, “Bonaparte stopped the French Revolution with a whiff of
grapeshot!”
From being “the Man of the Hour” Napoleon went on until he became “the
Man of Destiny.” He was raised to the highest rank, and as General
Bonaparte became commander-in-chief of the French army in Italy, where
he gained brilliant victories over the Austrians. But the Austrians
would not stay beaten, and while Napoleon was away in Egypt, Austria
started in to win back its control of northern Italy.
When Napoleon returned to Paris he was the idol of the people. They
elected him consul, a kind of president, of the French republic. The
Austrians were pleased at this, as it would keep “the Little Corporal,”
as the soldiers called Napoleon, in Paris. He would have to send another
commander to Italy, and the Austrians had gotten such a start that they
could win the victory before the French forces could go around the Alps.
Austria was already crowing over its triumph and all Europe was laughing
because General Bonaparte had been “caught napping,” when one May
morning Consul Napoleon and a great army came tobogganing down the
mountain sides into the plains of Italy, as if they had fallen from the
sky.
In a letter to his older brother, Napoleon wrote of this:
“We have dropped here like a thunderbolt; the enemy didn’t expect it,
and hardly believe it yet.”
He had made his soldiers climb up the Alps Mountains in the highest,
steepest place, dragging heavy cannon and army supplies after them. By
his wonderful feat of crossing the Alps, Napoleon won by surprise the
victory at Marengo, just as he had beaten the shepherd lads when he was
a boy of eight.
The people now made their hero consul for life. After that it was easy
for him to make himself Emperor of the French. At his coronation
Napoleon snatched the crown out of the hands of the pope and placed it
on his own head, to show that he was emperor by the right of his own
might. Yet Emperor Napoleon kept on leading his armies in person. He
still had to fight with other nations to hold his place as master of
Europe. He gained even more brilliant victories, as Emperor Napoleon,
than he had won as General Bonaparte. Not content with his record as a
great conqueror, he gave the French people the _Code Napoléon_, a set of
laws
[Illustration: EMPEROR NAPOLEON AT THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO WATCHING THE
DOWNFALL OF HIS WONDERFUL ARMY.
_From the painting by David Neal_]
which proved him to be also a wise statesman and law-giver.
The kings and nobles of Europe always hated Napoleon. They said he was
vulgar, and called him “the Corsican upstart.” But the French people
loved him as one of themselves. No general or emperor ever had more
devoted followers than Napoleon Bonaparte. Millions of men gave their
lives willingly to fight his battles. He waged war after war till there
were but few fighting men left in France. Then the people began to think
that Napoleon loved them because they could help him win victories to
give him more power and fulfill his high ambition. They began to say
among themselves, “He is sacrificing us for his own glory.” While at the
height of his power, Napoleon exclaimed, “What are a million lives to a
man like me!”
When the people lost their faith in him, Napoleon began to lose instead
of win his battles. Generals and nobles stopped flattering him and began
to fight him. His own brothers and sisters, whom he had made kings and
queens, deserted him. Even his wife forsook him, taking with her his
only son, the idol of his heart.
Napoleon’s last battle was at Waterloo, in Belgium. Because this loss
brought ruin to him, the name of the place became a kind of proverb.
When overwhelming defeat comes to a great man, people say, “He has met
his Waterloo!”
The conquered conqueror was taken prisoner and sent thousands of miles
away as a captive to the bleak island of St. Helena. He made the best of
his hard lot as “the fortunes of war.” But the years of loneliness
endured by this friendless conqueror, who all his life had been selfish
and merciless, are suggested by a well-known picture, which shows
Napoleon on the shore of that far-off rock in the southern sea, standing
with hands clasped behind him, looking off across the ocean to where
France lay.
NELSON, THE HERO OF TRAFALGAR
A small English boy strayed away from his grandmother’s house after she
had warned him that gypsies encamped near by might carry him off. When
the old lady found the little fellow sitting beside a stream too wide
for him to cross, she exclaimed:
“Why did you run away, Horatio? I was half dead with fear--”
“Fear!” demanded the little lad, still in petticoats. “What is that? I
never saw a fear.”
The boy’s father’s name was Nelson. He was a clergyman of the Church of
England. His wife had died when this boy was a baby, leaving eight
children for the invalid father to care for. Once while the father was
away for his health, young Horatio heard that his mother’s brother had
been appointed to the command of a British man-of-war. Horatio said to
an older brother: “Do, William, write to my father and tell him that I
should like to go to sea with Uncle Maurice.”
Thinking the navy might be a good place for the boy and a benefit to his
health, Doctor Nelson wrote to his brother-in-law. The bluff sea-captain
wrote right back:
“What has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he, above all the
rest, should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come, and
the first time we go into action a cannon-ball may knock off his
head and provide for him at once.”
Thus young Horatio Nelson entered the Royal Navy. One of his first trips
was as coxswain on a voyage to the Arctic regions. While dragging the
ship’s boats over the ice, the sailors had to fight with walruses and
polar bears. Coxswain Nelson killed a big white bear and carried home
the skin for his father.
When Horatio was fifteen he made a voyage on the warship _Seahorse_ to
the East Indies. A year and a half in that hot climate made the frail
lad so ill that he had to go home. Of his thoughts while sailing home on
sick leave he once said:
“After a long and gloomy revery in which I almost wished myself
overboard, a sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within me and
presented my king and country as my patrons. My mind exulted in the
idea. ‘Well then,’ I exclaimed, ‘I will be a hero, and trusting in God,
I will brave every danger.’”
Young Nelson had too much pluck to be sick long. England was then at war
with France and Spain, and he fought his country’s enemies in malarial
regions where hundreds of his fellows died from the poisoned air and
serpent bites. When Horatio was twenty-two his health again failed, and
he had to spend months in Brighton to recover it.
When peace was signed between England and France, in 1783, Nelson was
twenty-five. He was presented at court in that year, as he was a
favorite with the Duke of Clarence who afterward became King William the
Fourth.
The next year Captain Nelson was placed in command of the battle-ship
_Boreas_. He was very kind to the thirty midshipmen on board. When a boy
was afraid to climb a mast, Nelson would say to him with a winning
smile:
“I am going to race to the masthead and beg that I may meet you there.”
Once when he was invited to dinner with the governor of Barbadoes,
Nelson said, “Your Excellency must excuse me for bringing one of my
midshipmen. I make it a rule to introduce them to all the good company I
can, as they have few to look up to besides myself while they are at
sea.”
[Illustration: NELSON RECEIVING THE SWORD OF THE SPANISH ADMIRAL
SURRENDERED AFTER A NAVAL BATTLE IN THE WAR OF 1797.
_From the painting by David Neal_]
It is not surprising that men under his command exclaimed, in comparing
him with other men, “_Nelson_ was the man to _love!_”
The wars of Great Britain with Napoleon kept the young navy officer in
active service. During a siege a shell burst and destroyed the sight of
his right eye. In another attack he was wounded in the arm. He shouted
to those who wished to remove him from the fray,
“Let me alone; I have yet my legs and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make
haste and get the instruments. I know I must lose my right arm; so the
sooner it is off, the better.”
In 1798, when Napoleon started out with the French fleet for an unknown
port, to surprise and lay waste the countries of people friendly to
Great Britain, these instructions were issued to Admiral Nelson: “Take,
sink, burn, and destroy the French fleet.” With his battleships Nelson
set out to search the Mediterranean, but for a long time he was unable
to find the French fleet. At last it was found at anchor in Aboukir Bay
at the mouth of the Nile. The French were caught in a trap. Though
Nelson had not eaten or slept much for many days and nights, he invited
his officers to dinner on his flagship, the _Vanguard_, to discuss the
coming battle. “If we succeed, what will the world say?” asked one of
the officers.
“There is no ‘_if_’ in the case,” replied the admiral sharply. “We are
sure to succeed, but who may live to tell the story is a very different
question.”
Admiral Nelson had the colors flying from six different places on his
flagship when they went into battle that very night. That engagement,
now known as the battle of the Nile, was one of the greatest naval
combats in history. The French flagship, _L’Orient_, on which Napoleon
had sailed to carry war into Egypt, was blown up and the French admiral
killed with all on board. The battle raged from seven in the evening
until three in the morning. Though the French had thousands more men
than the British, most of them were killed. Nelson sent boats to rescue
them from the burning French ships, but they preferred to go on fighting
through the flames, amidst bursting shells and exploding powder
magazines.
Napoleon’s fleet was utterly destroyed. Nelson wrote of that night’s
work:
“Victory is not a name strong enough for such a scene; it is a
conquest.”
The whole world, which had suffered in dread of “that monster,
Napoleon,” went wild over the news. England made Nelson a baron and
voted him a pension of ten thousand dollars a year. Other nations,
rulers, and corporations showered upon him great sums of money, gold
boxes filled with diamonds, jeweled swords, and gem-incrusted souvenirs.
The Queen of Naples, a sister of Queen Marie Antoinette, who had lately
been beheaded by the French people, was beside herself with joy. The
poor people of Italy expressed their gratitude when Nelson’s fleet was
anchored in the bay of Naples. Bringing cages of birds to the shore,
they opened the doors and let the birds out to fly about the flagship
and light on the beloved admiral’s shoulders.
Three years later the conquering hero was called to strike another blow
against Napoleon near Copenhagen, Denmark. Admiral Nelson opened the
attack on the allied fleet, but the admiral higher in command, thinking
it might be well to give Nelson a chance to withdraw a little, signaled
him to retire to repair several disabled ships. Nelson, hearing of this,
put his spyglass to his blind eye and winked as he said: “I really do
not see the signal. Keep on flying mine for ‘closer battle.’ That’s the
way _I_ answer such signals!”
The men of both fleets fought with undaunted courage for five long,
terrible hours. The enemy lost 1800 men and 6000 prisoners, but the
British had only 250 killed, and 680 wounded. Of the Battle of
Copenhagen, Nelson wrote:
“I have been in one hundred and five engagements, but this has been the
most terrible of all.”
For the victory at Copenhagen Nelson was made a viscount. But there was
no time for celebrations after this, for Napoleon was now waging war to
the death. Lord Nelson seemed to realize that the next fight must be the
end either of France or of England. At last the great day came, off Cape
Trafalgar, Spain, on the 21st of October, 1805. It is told of Admiral
Lord Nelson that as he walked the deck of his flagship, _Victory_, that
morning, his knees trembled more with excitement than fear. The
one-eyed, one-armed hero looked down and shook his fist at his legs,
saying: “Shake away, there! You would shake worse than that if you knew
where I’m going to take you to-day.” Then he gave the order for that
immortal signal: “ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY.” Trafalgar
was the greatest of all Nelson’s victories. It broke the power of
Napoleon and paved the way for Wellington at Waterloo.
At a shot from the mizzenmast of a French ship, the Lord Admiral fell.
Captain Hardy of the _Victory_ knelt beside him.
“They have done for me at last, Hardy,” he gasped.
Nelson lived for hours, giving his last directions, then died in the
moment of his greatest triumph.
“Now I am satisfied,” were his last words. “Thank God, I have done my
duty.”
DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS
COLUMBUS, THE MAP-MAKER WHO FOUND A NEW WORLD
In a tall narrow house in the midst of a block on a narrow street in
Genoa, Italy, lived a poor woolworker named Columbus. This slender house
was only two windows wide and seven stories high. In the lowest story,
in which there were a wide door and a grated window, Signor Columbus
stored the bales of wool which he washed and carded, using a tool
somewhat like the curry-comb for cleaning horses. He thus prepared the
wool to be spun into yarn, which would later be woven and made up into
clothing and blankets.
A small boy named Christopher went in and out of this foul-smelling
place to play and work. Very little is known of the boyhood of Columbus.
As Genoa was a large seaport town, it is supposed that he spent much of
his time on the wharves watching the boats-galleys from Venice, with
gay-colored sails, and strange-looking craft from Asia and Africa, with
long, slim, lateen wings, veering about like swallows of the sea.
There were pirates, or highway-robbers of the sea, in those days. Little
Christopher was sure to hear thrilling stories of how they fought
hand-to-hand with sabers and axes, and of how the wicked but powerful
pirates murdered the men on merchant ships and carried off the women
and children to be slaves in distant lands. Young Columbus seems to
have been fired with a boyish longing for--
“A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,”
for the next that is known of him is that he narrowly escaped from
drowning in a shipwreck by swimming six miles to shore on a boat oar.
He landed near a town in Portugal and soon found work in a map-maker’s
shop. Here he had a chance to learn all the geography that was known
four hundred years ago. Most of the maps he made were drawn as if the
world were flat. But there were curious charts with lands and seas
outlined on the six sides of a cube, and others drawn as if the world
were shaped like a huge section of stovepipe. Young Columbus found the
maps very interesting; but what seemed most wonderful of all was the
idea that the world was round, as every child now knows.
In those days a man was not allowed to believe anything different from
what every one else thought. So when young Columbus began to claim that
the earth was round, people laughed at him. They thought he was crazy.
Of course, a few astronomers and scientists knew how to prove the
roundness of the earth by the shadow it casts on the moon in an eclipse,
but most of the people could not understand such things. Columbus
himself could notice that the surface of the ocean, within the short
distance he could see, was slightly curved. He resolved to miss no
chance to prove his theory, by learning all he could about newly-found
lands; and he even began planning to sail around the earth to India and
Far Cathay, as China was called in the old days.
Travelers had been overland to the Far East and back. Daring sailors had
sailed along the coast of Africa. But the great body of water to the
west of Portugal was called the Sea of Darkness. People believed that
terrible sea-monsters haunted its dark waters, and that if men were to
sail far enough westward, their ship would go beyond the brink of the
world, as over a giant waterfall, and fall down, down through space
forever.
So when Christopher Columbus tried to persuade the king of Portugal and
the princes of other countries to fit out a few ships and let him prove
the roundness of the earth by sailing west to the Far East, no one would
listen to him seriously. But the poor man could not give it up, though
he spent many years wandering from country to country to persuade some
one rich and powerful enough to supply the ships and men for such a
dangerous voyage. Queen Isabella of Spain and her husband, King
Ferdinand, listened to him, but when the matter was referred to the
royal council, those grave men shook their heads and said such a thing
was absurd and unfit for a queen even to think about.
Columbus was in despair. His wife was now dead and he had his little son
Diego with him. The two were tramping across the country and came, about
sunset, to a monastery on the border of Spain, where the boy asked for a
drink just as the monk in charge happened to be passing. This monk spoke
to Columbus and, seeing what an interesting man he was, invited the
strangers in. Columbus told his strange, sad story. This monk had been a
friend and adviser to Queen Isabella. Also he knew two sailors who might
be a help in such an undertaking. He wrote at once to the queen, urging
her to let Columbus come and talk
[Illustration: COLUMBUS PLEADING HIS CAUSE BEFORE KING FERDINAND AND
QUEEN ISABELLA OF SPAIN.]
over the matter once more. She wrote back that she would like to hear
what her friend the monk might have to say about it. He started the very
night he received the queen’s letter, and talked with her about
converting to the Christian faith the people of the new lands Columbus
might discover. As a result of this talk the good monk wrote to Columbus
who, with his young son, was waiting at the monastery:
“Our Lord has heard his servants’ prayers. My heart swims in a sea
of comfort and my spirit leaps with joy. Start quickly, for the
queen awaits you, and I yet more than she. Commend me to the
prayers of my brethren and of the little Diego. The grace of God be
with you.”
The queen received Columbus this time with sympathy and kindness. She is
said to have pledged her jewels to raise money enough to fit out three
ships for his great voyage. Columbus was to command one of these and the
monk’s friends were to be captains of the other two. But after making
the little fleet ready, they could not induce sailors to man the vessels
for their ghastly voyage across the Sea of Outer Darkness. Sailors were
always superstitious. Even to-day they will not start out on Friday, and
many seafaring men will refuse to sail with a ship if the flag should
happen to be raised “union down,” or wrong side up, no matter how
quickly it may be set right. At last Columbus had to take convicts out
of prison and condemn them to hard labor as sailors for the terrible
trial trip. Some of these men were desperate criminals.
The unknown western sea was far wider than Columbus had thought. This
showed that the world must be much larger than he supposed. As they
sailed on and on, day after day and week after week, across the
untraveled sea, the superstitious convict-sailors were half-dead with
fear. They planned to murder the Admiral, as Columbus was now called,
and his two captains, in order to turn the ship about and go back before
they were engulfed in some great whirlpool of disaster. Columbus kept
himself well guarded, and coaxed and flattered the frightened creatures,
promising them all kinds of wealth and pleasures if they would only keep
on a day or two longer. He offered an extra prize to the man who first
caught sight of land.
On the night of the 11th of October, 1492, one of the sailors saw a
glimmering light to the west. On the morning of the 12th, the Admiral
was an early riser. There lay a tropical island, with “gardens of the
most beautiful trees I ever saw,” he said afterward. The sea was as deep
blue as that along the shores of his native Italy. He and his two
captains went ashore, with well-armed men in boats from all three ships.
The water was clear and the bottom was white with sand and shells, while
strange, bright fish darted about as they paddled along. On the island
were parrots and other birds of gay plumage flitting from tree to tree
as if startled by the coming of the first white men into their world.
Columbus did not need his armed soldiers. After looking a long while he
saw naked red men peering at them from behind the strange, tropical
plants. After he made signs of friendship, the natives were no longer
afraid.
Christopher Columbus was first to set foot on the new-found shore.
Falling on his knees, his eyes filled with tears of joy, he bowed his
face and kissed the sand of the new world. The happy company repeated
prayers and sang a hymn of praise. The naked natives looked on with
wonder to see the leader, who was dressed in rich red velvet, set up a
red, white, and gold banner--the combined flag of Ferdinand and
Isabella--and go through a long ceremony. They did not know that those
white strangers were claiming the country in the name of a king and
queen far across the sea. Columbus named this island--one of the group
now called Bahamas--San Salvador, or Holy Saviour. He still thought he
had reached the Far East.
Admiral Columbus returned to Spain to report upon his reaching eastern
India by sailing west. With him went ten of the red men he had found,
whom he called Indians. He made several voyages after that--only once
landing on the continent of South America. Some of his Spanish followers
were jealous of their Italian Admiral, and Columbus died in a prison in
Spain, after all he had done for that country, without even knowing that
it was America, not India, that he had discovered.
MAGELLAN, THE MAN OF THE STRAITS
Among the lads in many lands who were thrilled by the stories of
Columbus and his discoveries was twelve-year-old Ferdinand Magellan, a
Portuguese boy. Like thousands of youths all over Europe, he then made
up his mind to sail the seas and seek his fortune.
Portugal, though a small country, was the home of many men of great
energy and daring. A Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, had sailed
around the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern point of Africa, and
discovered that way to India and the Moluccas, or Spice Islands. On
these voyages the Portuguese had landed, traded, and taken possession of
important parts of Africa. Others had followed in the wake of Columbus,
discovering and claiming vast regions in South America.
So young Magellan formed a partnership with another adventurer and
started out on voyages of discovery. For nearly ten years he journeyed
to and fro between his little homeland and various points in East
Africa, India, the Malay Peninsula, and the islands beyond. Frequently
he had to fight battles with savage native tribes. In one battle he
received a wound that made him lame for life.
[Illustration: FERDINAND MAGELLAN.]
When Magellan came home, he suggested to the king of Portugal that it
would be a great thing for Portugal if a passage across or around
America could be discovered, which would shorten the distance, time, and
expense of going from Europe to the Spice Islands. He hoped the king
would equip a fleet for such a voyage of discovery; but the king
refused, and he set out for Spain to get help for his great undertaking.
At this time he received a letter from a friend who had settled in the
Spice Islands, saying that he had “discovered another new world, larger
than that found by Vasco da Gama.” Magellan wrote to this friend that he
would soon be visiting those islands himself--“If not by way of
Portugal, then by way of Spain.”
After a long wait, the Spanish king consented to furnish five ships with
two hundred and thirty-four officers and sailors, and to stock them with
provisions to last through a two-year voyage. It was agreed also that
Magellan and his partner should receive one-twentieth of the profits of
their undertaking; and that they should be governors of the islands they
discovered.
At last, after two long years of waiting, Magellan’s fleet was ready to
sail. Crossing the Atlantic seemed an easy matter then--twenty-seven
years after the first voyage of Columbus. The first land they reached
was the mainland of South America. The natives along the northern coast
were friendly and ready to exchange enough fish for ten men for a
looking-glass, a bushel of sweet potatoes for a bell, and several fowls
(or even one of their own children) for a butcher-knife. Those people
lived in huts and went almost naked, except for aprons of parrots’
feathers. There were many birds of bright plumage and plenty of monkeys
in those regions. Some of the natives were cannibals, cooking and eating
the flesh of men they captured or killed in battle.
The little Spanish fleet coasted along toward the south. The wide mouth
of the La Plata deceived them so that they sailed in until they found
that it was only a river. As they drew nearer to the South Pole it grew
intensely cold. The men on the ships begged Magellan to turn round and
go home. Some of their number died of exposure and want, and the rest
were afraid they could not live through such a winter. Not only did
they suffer from the bitter cold, but their ships had been damaged by
storms on the way down the coast.
They stayed several weeks at a port in the country now called Patagonia
without seeing a person. But one day an Indian giant strode in upon
them. He was so tall that the white men’s heads barely came up to his
waist. His hair was dyed white, his face colored red, and he had painted
wide yellow circles around his little, black eyes. When they let him see
himself in a big steel mirror he was so astonished that he jumped
backward and knocked down four of the Spaniards standing around him.
When he understood that it was himself he saw in the looking-glass, he
was pleased and they made him a present of a small metal mirror. They
found the Patagonians to be savages of a very low and brutal type, who
ate raw meat, and even rats, like beasts of prey. If they felt sick they
stuck arrows down their throats, and gashed their foreheads with
shell-knives when their heads ached.
Many of Magellan’s men now turned against him, planning to murder him
and those who stood by him, and then to sail back to Spain. Though they
were the larger number the energetic ship master beat them at their own
game. He executed one ringleader, and sailed away leaving another rebel
on the shore, where he was, no doubt, soon killed and eaten by the
cannibals.
As July and August are the coldest months near the South Pole, the
weather began to moderate in October, which is a spring month. January
and February are the hot season in that climate. On the 21st of October,
1520, they “saw an opening like unto a bay,” and after sailing through
its winding ways they found to their great joy, that it led out at the
other end into a vast expanse of water. At last they had discovered the
only natural passage from sea to sea through the American continents.
Some of their ships had been lost and their provisions were eaten. Most
of the men begged to turn back, now that they could report that they had
found a great ocean beyond South America. “No one knows,” they said,
“how wide this open sea is, and we may all starve before we reach the
Moluccas.”
But Ferdinand Magellan would not turn back. He accused them of having
faint hearts, and said that even if they had to eat the leather on the
ships’ yards he would still go on and discover what he had promised the
King of Spain.
One dark night the commander of the largest ship deserted the others and
went back to Spain with the greater part of their provisions. The other
ships were thirty-eight days winding their way through the straits to
which the great leader’s name was afterward given, the Straits of
Magellan. They saw so many fires in the land away to the south of them
that they named it Terra del Fuego--Land of Fire.
Brave Magellan’s threat had to be carried out. All their provisions had
either been eaten or were wholly unfit to eat. So all they had to live
on for a long time was the leather on the ships’ yards. They hung it
over the sides of the ship to soak several days in the salt water as
they sailed along. Then they cooked it over a coal fire. The wide sea
they were now crossing was so free from storms that Magellan named it
the Pacific Ocean.
After three months of hunger and thirst, risking their lives in their
devotion to leader and country, they discovered a group of islands now
named the Marianne or Ladrone Islands. Here they enjoyed the luscious
fruits and reveled in plenty of fresh water to drink. From the Ladrones
they sailed on and discovered the Philippines, where the natives were
friendly and brought them coconuts, oranges, bananas, fowls, and palm
wine, which they gladly exchanged for metal looking-glasses, red caps,
beads, and trinkets.
Besides his wish to sail round the globe and take possession of new
islands for Spain, Magellan’s great desire was to make the savage people
Christians. He had the happiness of seeing thousands of dusky islanders
kneeling before the crosses he had set up. But in his zeal to show those
heathen the power of the Christian’s God, he led the warriors of one
island in a fight against some unconverted savages and lost his life.
In three years, lacking twelve days from the time they started out, the
ship _Victoria_ returned to the Spanish port from which it had sailed,
after making the first voyage around the world. This vessel was loaded
with spices from the Moluccas, as Magellan had planned. A faithful
lieutenant represented their departed leader at the court of King
Charles of Spain, who rewarded the few survivors with high honors and
liberal pensions.
CORTES, THE CONQUEROR
Among the millions of people who wondered at the strange stories of the
new lands discovered by Columbus was Hernando, a seven-year-old son of a
Spanish noble family named Cortes. His young mind was filled with
longing for adventure. As soon as he was old enough Hernando left home
to seek his fortune on the island of Santo Domingo in the new world. The
governor of this island was pleased with the manner, pluck, and energy
of Cortes, and offered to sell him a large estate on easy terms. But the
young Spaniard answered haughtily, “I did not come here to plough like a
field laborer; I came to get gold.”
It was not long before young Cortes saw a chance for adventure. He went
with a Spanish governor to settle the island of Cuba. He soon became a
favorite with this governor also. An adventurer returned from the part
of the mainland now called Central America and Mexico with tales of the
great wealth of the people called Aztecs, and of the gold mines there.
[Illustration: HERNANDO CORTES
_From a painting by Peale, in Independence Hall, Phila._]
The governor of Cuba decided to send ships and men to conquer that
country, and offered the command to Cortes, who worked like a hero to
get ready for the campaign. He equipped eleven vessels with six hundred
men. A hundred or more of these were sailors and workmen; and the rest,
soldiers, some of whom were armed with muskets and some with crossbows.
There were fourteen small cannon and sixteen horses in the outfit.
As Cortes was about to sail, the governor of Cuba changed his mind and
sent an order to Havana giving the command of the expedition to another
officer. But shrewd young Cortes got wind of this in time, and sailed
away before the governor’s messengers arrived.
The soldiers and other men of the expedition agreed to stand by the
brave leader and capture the new country for King Charles of Spain in
their own name instead of the Cuban governor’s. This was exactly what
that governor feared Cortes would try to do.
When the Spaniards landed on the continent the natives were afraid. They
had never seen a horse, and they thought the men on horseback were
monster human beings with four legs, half man and half horse. Yet they
came bravely out of their hiding places to do battle with such frightful
invaders. Then the Spaniards fired a cannon volley and shot off their
muskets so that several of the Indians fell dead. “They are gods!”
shouted the natives in deadly fear. “They have the lightning and thunder
in their hands!” It did not take long for Cortes to make terms with
these natives, some of whom became allies and interpreters for the
Spaniards.
After founding a city at the coast, which he named Villa Rica de la Vera
Cruz (Rich City of the True Cross), now called Vera Cruz, Cortes
prepared to conquer the empire of the Aztecs with six hundred Spaniards
and several thousand Mexican Indians. Montezuma, emperor of the Aztecs,
heard of his coming, and tried to make him leave the country by sending
rich presents from his capital in the mountains. But that did not stop
Cortes.
In order to insure victory, the Spanish general committed a brave though
desperate act. Choosing one ship from his fleet he manned it and sent a
trusted officer back--to Spain, not Cuba--with some of Montezuma’s rich
presents. With these Cortes sent other proofs of the wealth of the
country which he was about to conquer and add to the empire of King
Charles of Spain. Then, after taking from the other ten ships everything
the Spaniards could use in the new country, Cortes ordered those vessels
burned and sunk. Thus, having burned their bridges behind them, they
had no way of escape but to go forward and fight for their fortunes,
their country, and their very lives.
On the march of two hundred miles to Montezuma’s capital, the Spaniards
beat the Tlascalans in battle and made friends with those Indians
against the Aztec tyrant, as the Indians called Emperor Montezuma.
The Indians of the hot countries of America were not so savage as those
who lived in the northern parts of the continent. But they had a
terrible religious rite which they had learned from the Aztecs. They
offered human lives to appease the sun god. Though the Aztecs were a
peaceable people otherwise, they often went to war to take prisoners for
these horrible sacrifices.
Cortes broke into a temple at one place on the way and murdered the
priests who were killing and offering human beings to the sun god. He
set up a cross and invited the people to become Christians or be killed.
In that way he gained many converts from among the frightened Indians.
But with Hernando Cortes this kind of conversion was but a step toward
gaining gold and power for himself and for the king of Spain. After many
terrible battles, in which he massacred the helpless natives by
thousands, he and his few hundred white men, with thousands of Indian
allies, reached the capital of Montezuma. Built of stone on an island in
the midst of a beautiful lake, this civilized city was connected with
the mainland by six long stone bridges or causeways. The splendid
capital, with its palaces and temples of hewn stone, had much of the
beauty of Venice. The city measured twelve miles around. It was then
hundreds of years old, and proved that the ancient Aztecs knew how to
build great stone houses and bridges.
[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF MEXICO BY CORTES
_From the painting by Alonzo Chappel_]
Montezuma came out to meet Cortes, borne on a golden throne on the
shoulders of Aztec nobles and officials. He wore priceless feathers and
his garments were embroidered with many-colored gems. Even his shoes
were gold. His courtiers carried carpets to lay down before him, so that
his sacred feet should not touch the ground. How the eyes of those
greedy Spaniards glittered when they beheld such signs of the great
wealth of Montezuma and his people!
The white men were received with great honor. They were served in golden
goblets with a strange, rich drink which the Aztecs named chocolatl.
This delicious drink is now called chocolate or cocoa. Montezuma told
the Spaniards that their coming had been foretold by the priests for
hundreds of years, ever since the visit of a pure white man, a son of
the Sun who had come down from the skies. This sun-god had told the
Aztecs that he would come again with other sun-gods and reign over the
empire forever.
Cortes pretended to be the long-expected “fair god” of the Aztecs, and
persuaded Montezuma to visit him in the palace assigned to the Spanish
leader and his officers during their stay in the city. The people, who
had no reason to believe in the Spanish soldiers, crowded around the
sedan chair of their king, crying out against him because he was placing
himself in the wicked hands of the strangers. Montezuma told them not to
fear, for their guests were honorable men and he was sure that all would
be well with him. But he soon found that he was not a guest but a
prisoner, betrayed by a pretense of friendship. The Mexicans came again
and attacked the palace which Cortes and his men had now turned into a
fortress. During the months when the Spaniards held Montezuma as a
prisoner a fierce war was waged with the Mexicans.
While Cortes and his army were in such desperate straits, word came that
the governor of Cuba had sent ships and nearly a thousand men to bring
the general and his followers back, to be punished as deserters. Cortes
and a picked band crept out of the capital one dark night, marched
hundreds of miles to the coast, and surprised and defeated the army the
governor had sent. Then he returned, with all those armed men and many
more cannon and horses, to relieve the small garrison he had left to
hold the many thousands of Aztecs at bay, and capture the city of
Mexico.
The Aztecs were frightened when they saw the thousand soldiers Cortes
now brought up against them, for it looked as if the new troops had come
down from the skies to the help of the Spaniards. When the battle was
fiercest, the broken-spirited emperor went out to plead with the natives
to stop their fighting. This made them so angry that they hurled stones
at him and he died of a broken heart. The hatred of his own people was
even harder to bear than Spanish cruelty.
After more fierce fighting, Cortes completed the conquest of Mexico.
Years afterward he returned to his old home in Spain, where he was, for
a time, treated as a great conqueror. But he suffered in later years
from remorse for his treachery and cruelty. When he grew old he was
imprisoned through the influence of Spanish enemies.
One day an old, broken man with shaggy gray locks pushed through the
crowd around King Charles of Spain, now known as Emperor Charles the
Fifth and the most powerful monarch in the world. When the emperor asked
the old man who he was, he replied with indignant pride,
“I am Cortes, the man who has given you more provinces than your
ancestors left you cities.”
DE SOTO, A GOLD HUNTER IN SOUTHERN SWAMPS
Hernando de Soto was the Spanish grandee, or noble, appointed governor
of Cuba and “the Floridas” about twenty-five years after Florida was
discovered. It was Ponce de Leon who landed near the southern point of
North America, on Easter Day, 1513, and named that lovely country
Florida--Land of Flowers. De Leon had heard a beautiful story that far
inland in the heart of the wilderness there was a magic spring that
would make young forever all who drank of its sparkling waters. Though
he searched long and eagerly, Ponce de Leon discovered no Fountain of
Eternal Youth, but he did find endless swamps full of snakes and
alligators.
De Soto, the new governor of Florida, made up his mind that Ponce de
Leon was a very foolish old man. He ought to have known that there are
no such things nowadays as springs of eternal youth. He, Hernando de
Soto, was going to show his practical good sense by finding solid,
yellow gold--for what good is youth without money to enjoy it with? De
Soto was already a very rich man, for he had served under Pizarro, the
cruel conqueror of Peru, and he had gone home to Spain one of the
wealthiest of its grandees, in those days of wonderful discoveries and
marvelous fortunes. Still Hernando de Soto was not satisfied. He wanted
to be like Pizarro or Cortes--to conquer a great country and capture
from its dusky people gold mines and vast wealth.
Therefore on a bright July day he left Cuba in charge of a high official
and sailed away. He and his knights in armor stood on the decks of their
nine ships, large and small, and waved farewells to the fair ladies who
stood on the castle tower at Havana weeping bitterly, fearing that they
would never see their brave lords and knights again.
Governor de Soto and his fleet came to anchor in the harbor now known as
Tampa Bay. During the night they were aroused by horrible yells and
showers of arrows from the shore. In the morning the Spaniards made a
landing, though the natives fought hard to keep them back. Before night
they met a man who could be of great use to them. He was a member of a
party that, after De Leon’s discovery, had gone to Florida to find gold,
but had been driven back. This young man, Juan Ortiz, had been captured
and kept by the Indians as a slave. A member of De Soto’s scouting party
tells how they met this poor fellow:
“Towards sunset it pleased God that the soldiers descried at a
distance some twenty Indians painted with a kind of red ointment
that they put on when they go to war. They wore many feathers and
had their bows and arrows. And when the Christians ran at them, the
Indians fled to a hill, and one of them came forth into the path,
lifting up his voice and saying in Spanish,
“‘Sirs, for the love of God, slay not me! For I am a Christian like
yourselves. I was born in Seville, and my name is Juan Ortiz.’”
The Spanish governor received Ortiz as if he were his own long-lost son.
He made himself very useful because he knew both the Spanish and the
Indian language, and thus could help the Spaniards to talk to the
natives.
De Soto now started inland leading a brilliant company of knights and
private soldiers, all in bright armor. Over the shining helmets were
waving plumes, and many a mailed fist held aloft a rich and beautiful
banner. There were hundreds of horsemen and many more men marching on
foot. No more richly dressed men and horses ever started out on a
Crusade to regain possession of the Holy City. But the object of this
Spanish quest was gold. Spanish serving men drove along with this rich
and gay procession four hundred fat hogs. De Soto had decided not to
risk being starved to death as so many explorers had been. And
gamekeepers held in leash, not falcons to catch and kill birds or
beasts, but bloodhounds for hunting Indians.
Instead of mountains of rocks from which gold could be mined, De Soto’s
men found swamps. The weather was sultry and moist. Insects got inside
their knightly armor and stung them to madness, and venomous serpents
coiled around their armored legs. Indians shot poisoned arrows at them
from the bushes. Their coats of mail were so heavy that stout knights
sank deep in the bogs. They advanced very slowly; they wallowed rather
than marched, and their days and nights were spent in weariness and
torture.
The fame of the white men went on ahead of them. As De Soto advanced he
found the savages on the warpath ready to drive back the invaders. All
along their line of march they could hear savage threats in the
distance. Juan Ortiz told the Spaniards that the Indians were shouting:
“Keep on, robbers and murderers! In Apalachee you will get what you
deserve. No mercy will be shown to captives, who will be hung on the
highest trees along the trail.”
After the Spaniards had marched through the lands of five different
chiefs, they found a great chieftain who seemed to wish to make friends
with the white men. De Soto gladly accepted, but Juan Ortiz warned him
to look out for treachery. So the white men were secretly prepared; and
when the traitor chief gave the signal to his men to attack, the
Spaniards raised their battle cry, “_Santiago!_” and thousands of the
savages were killed by a few hundred Spaniards. Hundreds of Indians
took refuge in a lake. There five good swimmers would lie side by side,
on the surface like logs, forming a human raft on which the best archer
would stand and shoot back at the white men. The fight lasted all day
and nearly all night. Before morning all the Indians were killed or
captured, put in chains, and divided among the Spaniards as slaves.
The Indians, who at first thought the white men were gods, were now sure
they were devils. The boasted village of Apalachee was only a few straw
huts on a knoll in the center of a great swamp. And the savages who
defended it with bows and arrows were no match for armed Spaniards; the
white men killed nearly all of them.
Cold weather came on, and the Spaniards went into winter quarters. A
beautiful Indian girl-chief in that region came bringing pearls and gems
to the Spanish chieftain. But he demanded gold. When she understood this
she sent men to a far country for the yellow metal he desired so
eagerly. De Soto and his men now rejoiced, for they thought they had
found the object of their long and painful search. When the red
messengers returned the stuff proved not to be gold. It must have been
copper ore or “fool’s gold.”
During the second year of their long march, the Spaniards were led
southward to Mabila, which is believed to have stood on the shore of
Mobile Bay. This was a huge fortress, the greatest native town the white
men had yet seen. Within an immense stockade or wall of tree trunks on
end stood a number of houses each of which would hold hundreds of
Indians.
Tuscaloosa, the Mabile chief, set a trap for the Spaniards. The battle
which took place here was the worst of all. The
[Illustration: DE SOTO ON THE BANK OF THE MISSISSIPPI
_From the drawing by H. L. Stephens_]
Spaniards lost seventy men and forty horses. Then they set fire to the
Indians’ houses, and the savages perished in the flames.
De Soto’s men were heartily sick of fighting. They also despaired of
finding gold in southern swamps. The governor heard here that they were
plotting to desert him at Mabila and return by boat to Havana. So,
instead of waiting for a ship to come from Cuba, he ordered them to
march farther into the wilderness. As the prospect of finding gold
became more desperate, De Soto seemed to grow more cruel. Indians were
beheaded for small offenses; friendly scouts were tortured and sent back
with insulting messages to their chiefs.
The farther west the Spaniards went the more bitterly the natives fought
and the more successful they were in battle. In one place the Indians
burned nearly all the Spaniards’ hogs, and feasted on roast pork for
many days. After terrible wanderings, the few remaining Spaniards came
to a wide stream at Chickasaw Bluff, a few miles above the present city
of Vicksburg.
Though it is often stated that De Soto discovered the Mississippi, he
was not the first Spaniard to see that wide and muddy stream. The Great
River meant nothing to him. As he wandered up and down its banks he
contracted malarial fever and died miserably. Faithful friends placed
the body in his heavy armor and wrapped that in blankets weighted with
sand. Then, on a dark night, they paddled out into the middle of the
stream and sank it in a hundred feet of water, where the Indians could
not find it and wreak their revenge upon De Soto’s remains. His
followers attempted to go farther west but became discouraged and
descended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, ENGLAND’S FIRST GREAT SAILOR
Among little Francis Drake’s earliest memories was his home in the hulk
of an old ship near a navy yard in the south of England. His father was
a sort of chaplain to the fleets which kept coming and going there.
Francis heard the wild tales of seafaring men about pirates and
Spaniards, and seafights, and the wonderful wealth in distant lands.
Young Drake’s soul was fired with a fervent longing for life and
adventure on the high seas or the Spanish Main, as the region along the
northern coast of South America was called, where wedges of gold and
silver from Peru and pearls and precious stones were stored in treasure
towns, waiting to be shipped to Spain. But Francis was the eldest of
twelve children and his father was poor. So the lad was bound out till
he was twenty-one to work for a skipper, or owner of a small trading
vessel called a barque. In his work there was plenty of lifting and
lugging to do--moving baskets and bales on and off his master’s boat. He
had to work long hours--often at night. His food was scarce and coarse
and his pay was very small indeed, for his work was thought not worth
much more than his learning the sailor trade.
Sometimes they sailed the barque across the Channel to France or Holland
and brought back a cargo to England; but that was as far as such a small
craft could be trusted to go. Francis often saw great ships riding high
on their majestic way to foreign lands, and he felt sure that those
lucky sailors would have thrilling times with pirates and Spaniards, and
come home loaded down with gold and silver, spices, precious gems, and
thrilling stories. Much as he yearned to go on a long voyage, the
faithful fellow stayed by his master, worked hard, and learned all the
ins and outs of sailing a ship, whether large or small.
Just before Francis was old enough to be his own man the good skipper
died. As he had never married and had no near relatives, he left his
barque to his faithful apprentice. Young Drake continued the business,
running from port to port and market to market for about a year, when he
saw a chance to sail on a longer voyage and engage in a larger
enterprise. He had a cousin, John Hawkins, who was captain of a vessel.
This cousin now had a little fleet of five ships and was about to engage
in the slave trade. As Francis had learned to manage a ship, Captain
Hawkins offered to put the smallest vessel in his fleet under his young
cousin’s command. So Francis sold his barque and became captain of his
cousin’s ship _Judith_.
Now, at the age of twenty-two, Francis Drake was embarking on the voyage
of life with the prospect of great adventures, as he had always dreamed
of doing. Slave trading was not considered wrong four hundred years ago.
The ships would go to Africa and buy or carry off negroes and take them
to some foreign country to work in fields and mines. There the blacks
would be sold for gold, silver, pearls and other things of great value.
Sometimes the owner of a fleet would make a fortune in a single
adventure. Of course, there was a great risk to run. Although England
and Spain were not then at war, the English and Spanish treated each
other as enemies when they met on the high seas.
For this voyage, Captain Hawkins got leave of Queen Elizabeth “to load
negroes in Guinea and sell them in the West Indies.” As a sign that the
hundred and seventy men on Hawkins’s fleet saw nothing wrong in stealing
black men from their homes and selling them to be slaves, here is a
motto which that captain had written to govern his soldiers and sailors:
“Serve God daily, love one another, preserve your victuals, beware of
fire, and keep good company.”
Hawkins and Drake seem to have had no trouble in seizing negroes on the
coast of Africa, or in selling their human cargo in the Spanish ports of
America. But as these slavers were starting back to England they were
caught in a storm and had to go into a harbor in Mexico for safety and
to repair damages. While they were there a Spanish fleet five times as
large as theirs, loaded with gold and pearls, came in also for repairs.
The English agreed to leave the Spaniards without touching their ships
if the Spaniards would let them alone. But the Spanish captain did not
keep his word and there was a fierce battle. Hawkins and Drake did great
damage to the Spanish fleet. They reached England safely with two of
their ships, though they had lost nearly all the treasure they had
received as pay for the slaves.
Captain Drake complained to the queen of the way in which the Spaniards
had deceived them, but she was afraid to go to war with a country which
had such a powerful navy as Spain’s was then. So the bold English
captain took matters into his own hands. He made one voyage after
another, attacking Spanish settlements where gold and silver were
stored, boarding Spanish vessels, killing the men or taking them
prisoners, and bringing their rich cargoes to England. Within a few
years the Spaniards lived in terror of their lives when they heard that
Francis Drake was near, and the king of Spain appealed to Queen
Elizabeth to stop those attacks, calling Drake “the master thief of the
western world.”
On one of these expeditions, Drake landed on the Isthmus of Panama, or
Darien, as it was then called. Some of the natives showed him the way
across to the South Sea, or the Pacific Ocean, as Magellan had named it,
and when they had ascended a mountain about half-way across, Drake
climbed a tall tree from which he gazed upon the broad, unexplored
ocean.
“May God give me leave and life to sail that sea but once!” murmured
Captain Drake to his companions.
But Queen Elizabeth had heard of the terror of the Spaniards and ordered
him to stop, lest he plunge her kingdom into a Spanish war before
England was ready. So for a while Francis Drake stayed at home and
suffered because he was not allowed to fight with the Spaniards.
About five years after his first sight of the Pacific, Captain Drake
sailed away from England in command of a fleet of five vessels of which
the flagship was the _Golden Hind_. The object of the voyage was a
secret. This was about sixty years after Magellan, the Portuguese
master-sailor, had discovered and passed through the straits named for
him.
It took five months for the fleet to reach the eastern coast of South
America. In due time they found and passed through the Straits of
Magellan; but the ocean beyond was more terrific than Pacific, for a
fierce storm drove the _Golden Hind_ even farther south than Tierra del
Fuego, so that Drake was first to land at Cape Horn, the southern-most
point of South America. At the place where the waters of the Atlantic
meet those of the Pacific, Drake lay down and embraced the sharp point
of rock and exclaimed: “I am the only man in the world who has ever been
so far south!”
All the ships in Drake’s fleet but the _Golden Hind_ had either been
sunk, broken, or scattered. Now at last he had “leave and life to sail
that sea but once”--with one ship alone. The undaunted hero sailed up
the western coast of South America to capture treasure from the gold
mines of Peru. When he came near Valparaiso, some Spaniards in a ship
saw the _Golden Hind_ approach. Never dreaming that an English ship
could be in that ocean, they were astonished to see a gun presented
through a porthole and to hear an English voice calling on them roughly
to surrender. So they stared and cursed under their breath while “the
master thief of the western world” took charge of their ship with sixty
thousand gold pesos, jewels, merchandise, and a stock of wine.
When the people of Valparaiso heard that the dreadful Drake was in their
harbor, they fled from the city. The little English crew entered the
town, and stocked up with bread, bacon, and wine, which they enjoyed to
the full after many months of famishing. In a day or two the _Golden
Hind_ sailed away northward toward Peru.
At another port they waylaid three unguarded barques and captured
fifty-seven bricks of silver, each weighing about twenty pounds. When
they came to the port of Lima, there were seventeen vessels anchored in
the harbor. Not daunted by numbers, Drake sailed right into the harbor,
captured them all with his one ship, and made their men prisoners while
he plundered the whole Spanish fleet. By this time the alarm had been
spread along the coast that Drake was capturing everything in sight, and
the
[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH KNIGHTING DRAKE ON BOARD THE “GOLDEN
HIND”
_From the drawing by Sir John Gilbert, R.A._]
governor of Peru with two thousand men was waiting for him at Callao.
Drake’s good luck seemed now to desert him. In the presence of that
waiting army the wind died down and the _Golden Hind_ was becalmed,
helpless, and unable to move a yard. The Spanish governor grinned as he
went out in boats from the shore with four hundred soldiers, to take
back all the precious cargo Drake had lately captured. But before the
armed men reached the English ship a gale blew up and Drake sailed away,
laughing and waving farewells to his pursuers.
The cargo from the last ship they captured overloaded the _Golden Hind_
with tons of gold, silver and precious gems. It was useless to overhaul
any more galleons, for they now had all their ship could carry. Their
only thought was to get their treasure home safe and sound. Sailing
across the Pacific, they were sixty-eight days without sighting land.
The _Golden Hind_ began to show the strain of her long voyage; so they
set up a forge on an island in the South Pacific and spent weeks in
making repairs, so that the ship might complete her voyage around the
world. After they had sailed more than a month longer, the ship ran on a
ledge of rocks. Seeing that they could not get her off, they threw six
cannon overboard, then the sugar and spices, then great fortunes in
silver. At last they managed to work her off the ledge into deep water.
Still it was nearly a year before they reached the harbor of Plymouth,
England.
The wildest dreams of the boy Francis Drake were now more than realized.
All England buzzed with his astounding exploits. The city bells rang and
there was a general holiday, with feasting and dancing. Queen Elizabeth
came down from London and dined with the great captain on the _Golden
Hind_. Before she left the deck, the captain knelt before her and she
tapped him on the shoulder with his sword, thus knighting him Sir
Francis Drake.
After this the greatest of the English knights of the high seas made
many voyages, dealing out destruction to Spanish galleons and treasure
stores. He attacked cities and burned fleets--reporting to the queen
that he had just “singed the Spanish king’s beard.” Drake was one of the
four chiefs in command of the English ships that destroyed the Spanish
Armada. No one did more than he to take the sea power away from Spain
and give it to England, and thus make it possible for the English to
begin the settlement of our country.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH, THE FAVORITE OF GOOD QUEEN BESS
A gay company was waiting before the old palace at Greenwich, beside the
River Thames below the City of London, on a summer afternoon in the days
of Elizabeth. They were watching for the queen and her intimates to come
down the broad steps in front of the palace.
There had been a shower, and the trees, grass, and bright flowers
glistened in the sunshine.
“Here comes Her Majesty!” exclaimed some in the waiting throng as a
woman in middle life descended the steps, attended by the Earl of
Leicester and other nobles and knights whose names are well-known to
history. The queen was slender, with her light auburn hair dressed up
from her high, pale brow. Her chief mark of beauty was her small,
delicate hands with long, taper fingers, of which she was rather vain.
She was richly dressed in a heavy silk brocade, and a collar of costly
lace stood up from her shoulders behind her slender neck like an open
fan.
[Illustration: THE BOYHOOD OF RALEIGH. AS HE LISTENS TO THE SAILOR’S
TALE OF THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA, RALEIGH RESOLVES TO WIN IT FOR ENGLAND
WHEN HE IS A MAN.
_From the painting by J. E. Millais_]
The court, after receiving her gracious greetings, followed the queen in
a grand promenade through the park. Elizabeth soon came to a spot where
the recent shower had left a shallow pool of water. A quaint writer
describes this scene:
“Her Majesty meeting with a plashy place, made some scruples to go
on, when Raleigh (dressed in the gay and genteel habit of those
times) presently cast off and spread his new plush cloak on the
ground, whereon the Queen trod gently over, rewarding him
afterwards with many suits for his so free and seasonable tender of
so fair a foot-cloth.”
Walter Raleigh was a handsome young man, six feet tall, with curly brown
hair and beard. He had been a soldier in France and an officer in
Ireland, and had made several voyages of discovery with his gallant
half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
It was the fashion--indeed it seemed necessary then--for men at court to
flatter the middle-aged maiden queen, who was foolish enough to believe
that she was as lovely as they told her she was. The Earl of Leicester
once entertained her at Kenilworth Castle, where he had all the clocks
stopped on the moment of her arrival to show that no notice should be
taken of the passing of time during her visit there.
So Queen Bess could hardly help feeling flattered when such a gallant
and good-looking courtier as Raleigh bowed before her and laid his cloak
as a velvet carpet for her to walk upon. Riches, lands, castles, and
even happiness go by favor in royal circles. Some time after this, the
queen made her favorite a knight, with the title Sir before his name.
One day the queen saw Raleigh taking a diamond ring off his finger and
scratching something on a window-pane.
“Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.”
Then she took from her own slim hand a diamond and cut in the glass
under what he had written, this rhyme:
“If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all.”
Of course, each reigning favorite of the queen became an object of envy
to the rest of the court. Lord Leicester, who was now slighted by her
Majesty for this new knight, did all he could to injure Raleigh. The
young Earl of Essex did his utmost, later, to turn the queen against Sir
Walter. But for a long time Raleigh remained high in favor.
Raleigh was the first Englishman to attempt to plant a colony in the New
World. By way of compliment to the maiden queen, he named the whole
region which he was trying to settle, Virginia. Returning from an early
voyage, he introduced into Ireland the potato, first found in South
America. He also discovered the pineapple (so named because it is shaped
like a pine cone) and imported it to England. Another thing Raleigh is
said to have introduced into England was tobacco, which the American
Indians raised and “drank,” as they called smoking, in pipes of copper
and clay. Raleigh had a silver pipe made for his own use. One day when
he was smoking in his library, a manservant came in with a pot of ale,
and, thinking his master was on fire, yelled with fright as he poured
the ale over him! It is said that the queen asked Sir Walter to smoke in
her presence; but when she tried to learn to use tobacco in that way,
she stopped because it made her ill.
Sir Walter Raleigh was in active command of a number of English ships in
the fleet which defeated the Invincible Armada, sent against England by
King Philip the Second of Spain. For her favorite’s part in that great
adventure, the queen made him an admiral. Later, he was wounded in a
naval battle near Cadiz, Spain. When asked what had been done for him on
account of his heroic services there, Admiral Raleigh sadly replied,
“What the generals have got I know least. For my own part, I have got a
lame leg and deformed. I have not wanted good words, and exceeding kind
and regardful usage; but I have possession of nought but poverty and
pain.”
Some one must have told the queen of this speech, for she called Raleigh
back to the palace and appointed him once more her captain of the guard.
When Queen Elizabeth died, James Stuart, king of Scotland, became king.
James’s mind had been poisoned against Raleigh, whose enemies told the
new king that Raleigh plotted to place James’s cousin, Arabella Stuart,
upon the throne of England. So Sir Walter was imprisoned in the Tower of
London. He was confined there for twelve years, though he proved that
the things his enemies had said against him were untrue. One wicked
creature who had accused him confessed that his story about Raleigh was
made up out of spite.
During the long years of his imprisonment, Sir Walter wrote his “History
of the World,” and experimented in a rude chemical laboratory which he
had fixed up in his prison. He also wrote beautiful poems and many
letters to his friends. For some time Lady Raleigh was allowed to visit
him with their son, Carew. The older son, Walter, had been killed in an
encounter while on a voyage with his father, seeking El Dorado, or the
City of Gold, supposed to lie hidden in northern South America.
At last word came from King James that if Raleigh would go and find
those fabled gold mines for his benefit, his high treason would be
forgiven. So the white-haired knight, lame from a wound he had received
in loyal service of England, started out on another voyage of adventure,
to fight the Spaniard to the bitter end.
But Sir Walter was only hoping against hope, for there was no such mine
there, and the expedition proved an utter failure. Instead of escaping
to another country as he might well have done, he went back and bravely
told King James that the “El Dorado” story was only a Spanish lie.
So the disappointed king ordered Raleigh back to prison, and a corrupt
judge pronounced him guilty of high treason. For that crime, the
Raleigh’s beautiful home estate might legally become the property of the
crown, and Raleigh himself condemned to death.
Raleigh made the best even of this terrible experience. He cheered his
wife by telling her he was ready and glad to go where she could come
too--where they could be happy together always.
On his way to execution, Raleigh noticed a man with a bald head and no
hat. Taking off his own cap he tossed it down to the old man with--
“You need this, my friend, more than I do.”
On the scaffold he made a patriotic speech to the assembled crowd. Then
he asked to see the axe. He smiled as he tried the edge of it with his
thumb, and remarked to the executioner who stood before him, dressed, as
was the custom, in black velvet tights, with a black mask over his face,
“This gives me no fear. It is a sharp and fair medicine to cure me of
all my troubles.”
HENRY HUDSON, THE MAN WHO PUT HIMSELF ON THE MAP
Just as Magellan set out to discover a way through America from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, so Henry Hudson determined to find a
northwest passage from ocean to ocean. The reason for wishing to cross
in the north from one ocean to the other was to save going “round the
Horn,” as sailors call the long voyage around Cape Horn, the southern
point of South America. We now know that there is no northwest passage;
at least, if there is such a waterway it is so near the North Pole that
it is always frozen up. But Henry Hudson, like all sailors in his time,
thought that it would be a simple matter to sail through the open polar
sea and pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific north of North America.
In 1607 this bold British navigator undertook a voyage in the employ, as
he wrote in his journal, of “certain worshipful Merchants of London.”
The object of this voyage was to explore the coast of Greenland and, as
he explained, “for to discover a passage by the North Pole to Japan and
China.” His crew numbered only twelve persons, including one boy, his
own son John. After sailing about for five months, suffering great
hardships, Hudson returned to London without discovering that northern
passage. The next year he started out again, this time sailing
north-east along the coast of Norway, and returned after four months
without finding anything but hardships.
Hudson’s third voyage was made in the employ of the Dutch East India
Company. He sailed from Amsterdam, Holland, with a crew of twenty men
and his young son, on the _Half Moon_. He started out a second time for
a north-east passage, but he found so many difficulties that he turned
his prow westward again, determined to discover the way past North
America. About the 4th of July, 1609, he came to the Grand Banks of
Newfoundland, where he saw a fleet of Frenchmen fishing for cod. After
catching over a hundred of these fish for themselves, the crew of the
_Half Moon_ proceeded to the southwest, as Hudson had heard from his
friend, Captain John Smith, that there was an open way to the Pacific
south of Virginia.
After wandering down the coast and back, the _Half Moon_ entered a broad
bay and anchored beside an island which the natives called Manhattan.
Hudson took possession of this region in the name of his Dutch employers
and named it New Netherland. Here he traded with the Indians and sailed
a little way up the beautiful river which now bears his name. “Here,”
one of his men wrote in the journal, “the land grew very high and
mountainous.” Hudson and his crew were afraid of the Indians. They
captured two red men and tried to hold them as prisoners. They thought
that the other Indians would treat the white men well for fear that
Hudson would kill these two prisoners. But they made their escape
through a porthole and swam to the shore. As the _Half Moon_ got under
way again, the two Indians and their friends stood on the bank,
war-whooping, brandishing tomahawks, and calling for vengeance.
The _Half Moon_ sailed on upstream, and towards night came to anchor
near what is now Catskill Landing. “There,” as it is written in the
journal of the voyage, “we found very loving people and very old men,
where we were well used. Our boat went to fish and caught great store of
very good fish.”
The next morning the fishing was not so good, “the
[Illustration: THE DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER
_From the painting by Warren Sheppard © 1895, by The Woolfall Co._]
savages having been there in their canoes all night.” In the two days
following the ship went only five miles farther up the river. Hudson was
kindly received by an old chief who gave him the best cheer he could.
The natives came flocking on board the ship, bringing grapes, pumpkins,
and beaver and otter skins, which they traded with the sailors for
hatchets, knives, beads, and trinkets.
The ship’s “log” states that they gave some of the savages brandy to
drink. One of these men fell sound asleep, to the astonishment of the
others, who feared he had been poisoned. They took to their canoes and
paddled for shore. After a long powwow a few of the Indians returned
with a quantity of beads. They wanted to pay the white men to lift the
spell which they had put upon the sleeping Indian. The next day the
intoxicated Indian was walking about, well and happy, after his first
taste of “firewater.” This made his friends believe in the white men
again, and the journal goes on to say:
“So, at three of the clock in the afternoon they came aboard, and
brought tobacco and more beads, and gave them to our master; and
made an oration, and showed him all the country round about. Then
they sent one of their company on land, who presently returned, and
brought a great platter full of venison dressed by themselves, and
they caused him to eat with them. Then they made him reverence and
departed, all save the old men that lay aboard.”
Hudson found that it would not be safe to take the ship beyond the site
of the present city of Albany; so the _Half Moon’s_ prow was turned down
stream. On the way back the sailors were met by the two escaped
prisoners with quite a company of savages. More than a hundred braves
surrounded the ship. One climbed up the rudder and others swarmed over
the sides. The crew fired upon them with their muskets, and with the
cannon, blew holes in their canoes. The “thunder and lightning” from the
guns frightened the Indians so that they fled to the shore and took to
the woods.
Hudson himself had had enough. The _Half Moon_ lifted its anchor and
sailed away from the river whose name is Henry Hudson’s most glorious
monument. Stopping in England on his way to Holland, he was engaged by
the London Company to make another voyage in their behalf the following
year. This time the ship he commanded was the _Discovery_. The course
was past Iceland, around the southern part of Greenland, sighting
Desolation Island, which he charted as in the northern part of Davis
Strait. Through the strait which now bears his name he entered the sea
known for all time as Hudson Bay.
This crew was a bad set of men. One young fellow whom Captain Hudson had
picked up and befriended in London proved the worst of the gang. They
did not face their hardships and sufferings with real courage. When
starvation stared them in the face, every man looked out for himself.
They hoarded food, and robbed and fought one another like wild beasts.
At last they turned against Hudson, saying that he had brought them
there to starve.
The young man to whom Hudson had been kindest of all bound his master.
The rest tied up the six men who were most loyal to their chief, and
Hudson’s son. These eight men were put bound into the ship’s boat. Then
the crew hoisted the sail of the _Discovery_. They towed the little boat
for a time, as if they were loath to do the dastardly deed that they had
planned. But when they reached the open sea they cut the rope, and the
little boat containing Henry Hudson and his son was never again seen by
white men.
The ungrateful young man met a fate he richly deserved. In a fight with
Arctic savages he was killed, and several of the rest were mortally
wounded. Still others died of want before the few remaining deserters
were picked up, starving, by a passing vessel. Their names are
forgotten, and they are only remembered at all because of their wicked
treachery. But the map of North America is a fitting monument to the
heroic but ill-fated adventurer and discoverer, Henry Hudson.
LA SALLE AND THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI
Little is known now of the early life of Robert Cavelier de la Salle,
until, at twenty-five or a little less, he came from Rouen, France, to
Montreal. But of his life in America, in those days when the land was
still a howling wilderness, there is much to tell. He was born a century
and a half after Columbus thought he had found the coast of China; yet
this young Frenchman still believed that China was only a little farther
west than the land Columbus found, for he had but a narrow idea of the
width of America.
The people who were living in Canada, the new country along the River
St. Lawrence, were French. They traded with the Indians and trapped and
skinned wild animals for their fur. Those were the days of Indian scouts
and wigwams, and of war and scalp dances. Many of the French lived like
Indians; they played Indian games--running, shooting, snowshoeing,
lacrosse--and they learned to hunt and hide, and to travel stealthily
through the forests, like real red men.
So the Indians liked the French people better than they liked other
white settlers. The French called their scouts wood-runners. These
brave, shrewd messengers went out among the Indian tribes and learned
their languages and customs. Many of them ran from tribe to tribe,
thousands of miles into the wilderness, and came back to the French
settlement with skins of the mink, beaver, otter, and other animals.
They also had strange stories to tell of meadows, which they called
prairies, as level as a floor and hundreds of miles wide, where there
were no trees except along the rivers. Down through this thousand-mile
prairie region they said there were rivers which flowed together into a
wide stream which the Indians called the Mississippi, or Father of
Waters, which kept on in a mighty flood to the unknown south country.
These stories fired the fervent soul of Robert La Salle. He believed
that mighty river should be used as a water highway to the South Sea--as
the Pacific Ocean was still called; and that if they could sail down to
its mouth they would find an outlet to China like the outlet which the
St. Lawrence gave toward Europe. He was always talking about China and
trying in every way he could to raise money for canoes and food and
Indian guides to find the way to China through the western wilderness.
The French people laughed at his enthusiasm and called some land which
he owned beside the rapids above Montreal _La Chine_--French for China.
That suburb of Montreal is still called Lachine, and the rapids are the
Lachine Rapids.
Not having wealth enough of his own, La Salle went to France to ask the
king to approve his plan, and to provide money for the planting of the
lilies of France on the banks of the Mississippi. La Salle’s practical
way of planting French lilies was to build and maintain forts at
different points through all that great western country. Already Fort
Frontenac had been built near the outlet of Lake Ontario, and Father
Marquette, a heroic French missionary, accompanied by a trader named
Joliet had found the Mississippi and explored that great river for
hundreds of miles. On his return to a French settlement Joliet wrote to
Count Frontenac, governor of Canada, telling of the dangers of his
voyage:
“I had escaped every peril of the Indians. I had passed forty-two
rapids; and was at the point of debarking, full of joy at the
success of so long and difficult an enterprise, when my canoe
capsized, after all the danger seemed over. I lost two men and my
box of papers within sight of the first French settlements, which I
had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to me but life,
and the ardent desire to employ it on any service which you may
please to direct.”
When Robert La Salle had permission from the king and his treasurer, and
had borrowed money of his rich relatives in France, he returned to
Canada and made up a party of brave French and Indian guides, scouts,
and interpreters, who were to fight, if need be, to plant the lilies and
forts of France in the great western valley of the Father of Waters.
After they had paddled through Lake Ontario and carried their canoes
past Niagara Falls and the rapids above the Falls, they built their
sailboat, the _Griffin_. On this ship they sailed through the lakes to
the lower end of Lake Michigan. They paddled their canoes down along the
shore of that lake to the St. Joseph River, where they built Fort St.
Joseph. Canoeing up this river, which flows into Lake Michigan, they
carried their barks across to a little stream which led away from the
lake toward the greater rivers of the south country. On their way they
saw Indians of the Illinois tribes, and smoked the calumet, or peace
pipe, with most of these red men. Some tribes were so savage and
unfriendly that the white travelers were afraid to shoot game for food,
or even to build a fire lest a band of Indians on the warpath should see
it and come to kill and scalp them all. But it seems to have been the
fate of most discoverers to find their bitterest foes among those who
should be their friends. One of La Salle’s own party was caught just in
time to keep him from shooting their leader in the back.
Floating down a small stream the travelers came to the Illinois River.
On their way, among friendly tribes, they shot plenty of game. Once they
captured a huge bison, or buffalo, stuck in a swamp and left behind by
the rest of the herd, and feasted on buffalo meat for many days.
At last they came to a place, now called Lake Peoria, where the Illinois
is several miles wide. They decided that this would be a good place to
build a fort. Seeing smoke, they guessed that it proceeded from the
campfire of an Illinois tribe which was said to be hostile to the
French. Seeing wigwams in the distance La Salle arranged the canoes in
rows, and pulled up to the Indian camp. There was a stir in the Illinois
village. The Indian braves came out and received the white men as
friends, and there were feasts and games and dances in honor of their
French guests.
The Indians said that La Salle and his friends might build a fort there.
Built without delay, the fort was named Fort Breakheart, for Robert La
Salle had been going through some heartrending experiences. One of these
was the loss of the lake boat, the _Griffin_, with all the supplies and
equipments.
When La Salle explained to the Illinois tribe what he was seeking, the
chief gave him and his men a solemn warning of perilous falls and
precipices, of cannibal tribes and man-eating monsters. He said that if
they should get by those awful dangers, the mouth of the river was an
awful whirlpool which would engulf them, for no man who had ever gone
down into the mouth of the Father of Waters had returned alive. These
stories so frightened the men of the party--both red and white--that
they deserted their leader. They preferred to endure the ills they had
and risk their lives among savages known to be cruel, rather than fly to
ills they knew not of.
[Illustration: THE SHIPS OF FRANCE AT THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI
_From the painting in the Versailles Collection_]
So La Salle had to go hundreds of miles back to Canada for more men,
funds, and supplies, before he could venture to make the rest of the
trip. After many months’ delay he started out again from Montreal.
There were now fifty-four in his party--twenty-three Frenchmen, eighteen
braves, ten squaws to do the cooking, and three papooses. When they got
back to Fort Breakheart, La Salle gave up building a ship, as he had
decided to make the voyage down the Mississippi in canoes. There was
plenty of game along the river, and in its muddy waters they caught
catfish six feet long and weighing about two hundred pounds. They saw
wild beans along the banks with stalks “as big as your arm,” reminding
one of the tale of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” They had varied experiences
with the different tribes of Indians--Chickasaw, Arkansas,
Natchez--along their course, and found that the “man-eating monsters”
described by the Illinois chief were only alligators. When at last they
reached the mouth of the Father of Waters, there was no whirlpool to
swallow them down; but the river calmly divided into three mouths, each
leading into a broad expanse of salt water which, they learned, was not
the Pacific Ocean but the Gulf of Mexico. On a hill near by, La Salle
raised a wooden pillar on which he nailed the coat-of-arms bearing the
lilies of France, and buried near it a leaden plate on which letters
were engraved to tell future comers that the whole country drained by
the Mississippi belonged to France.
At last, the patient worker and traveler had triumphed. He went back to
Paris and reported all he had done in the name of his beloved king and
country. Robert Cavelier de la Salle had done a greater thing than he
realized. One hundred and twenty years later, Napoleon, Emperor of the
French, sold to the United States the territory of Louisiana, claimed by
La Salle, which is now half of the great republic. This was an
achievement which meant more than the discovery of an outlet to China.
Although a boat may be sailed through long rivers and short canals from
the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, this fact
is hardly thought worthy of mention in these days. A far greater benefit
to America and the whole world was achieved by Robert La Salle, because
he enabled the French government to give to the United States her broad
empire of the west.
LIVINGSTONE, THE WHITE MAN OF THE DARK CONTINENT
Little Davie Livingstone was a queer, quiet Scotch laddie. His father
was a high-minded man, but he was so poor that he had to take Davie out
of the village school when he was ten. In those days, the early part of
the nineteenth century, children began to work when they were very
young. So Mr. Livingstone sent the lad to work, with other boys of his
own age, as a piecer in a cotton mill. David worked from six in the
morning till eight at night, stopping only for lunch.
With his first week’s wages the ten-year-old boy bought a Latin grammar.
He was so eager to learn that he went to night school from eight to ten
at night. He studied till midnight, and even later, when his mother did
not take his books away and send him to bed. His great desire was to be
a missionary. So he took up other languages besides Latin, and such
studies as would fit him for missionary work. As soon as he was able, he
went to London and
[Illustration: DAVID LIVINGSTONE, THE BRAVE SCOTCH MISSIONARY
_From a photograph taken in 1867_]
elsewhere to study, working part of the time, to earn enough to pay his
way.
On a visit to London Livingstone met Doctor Moffat, a leading missionary
in South Africa, and soon decided to work in Africa himself. He had
prepared himself to help men’s bodies as well as their souls. So he went
first as a medical missionary.
Doctor Livingstone’s first mission station, or center, was seven hundred
miles farther north than Doctor Moffat’s, in a region which was
dangerous because of savage men, wild beasts, and, worst of all, an
unhealthful climate. In this lonely place the new missionary began to
tell the ignorant black people about the one true God. He cured them of
their illnesses, and showed them how to dig canals and build dams to
water their little farms. He also taught them to till these farms in a
better way than they had known.
In the region there were many lions. One day, when the missionary was
out with a band of natives, he met one of the big beasts. Livingstone
and one of his black men shot at the lion, which sprang up with a roar
and bounded into the bushes, through the circle the men had made around
him. Then two more lions appeared. Before Livingstone could reload his
gun, he saw one great brute with bristling mane and angry eyes springing
upon him. Its weight bore him to the earth. The lion seized his shoulder
with jaws strong enough to carry off an ox. When some one asked him
afterward what he thought just then, Doctor Livingstone replied, “I was
wondering what part of me he would eat first.” In a letter the doctor
described this adventure:
“With his terrible roar sounding in my ear, the lion shook me as a dog
does a rat; but, strange to say, I felt neither pain nor fear, though
fully conscious of all that passed. As I turned to escape the weight of
his paw, which was resting on my head, I saw his eyes turn toward
Mebalwe [one of the natives], who was about to fire, but his gun missed
fire in both barrels. Instantly the lion quitted his hold of me and
leaped on Mebalwe, biting him badly in the thigh; then he dashed at
another man who was about to attack him with his spear. But at that
moment the previous shots the lion had received took effect and he
dropped to the ground dead.”
Livingstone was bitten in eleven places, his arm was badly mangled, and
bones were broken in several places. It was many months before he was
well. The broken arm was always weak, and he bore the marks of that big
lion’s teeth to his dying day.
While recovering from his wounds, Livingstone made the long journey to
the home of Doctor Moffat, and married that gentleman’s daughter Mary.
Miss Moffat was born in South Africa, so that she knew the language and
ways of the people. This made her a true helpmeet to her husband in his
noble work.
Livingstone called himself “Jack-of-all-trades.” “I read in journeying,”
he wrote, “but little at home. Building, gardening, cobbling, doctoring,
tinkering, carpentering, gun-mending, farriering (horse-doctoring and
shoeing), wagon-mending, preaching, schooling, lecturing in divinity to
a class of three, fill up my time.”
When Livingstone reached the country of one of the black tribes,
thousands of miles to the north, all the people of the region, numbering
six or seven thousand, poured out to see the white man. The missionary
was greatly relieved to find that the chief of this region, who was only
eighteen years old, was disposed to be friendly. The white man and his
party were well cared for and given plenty of good food, of which they
were badly in need. They were nearly starved, because unfriendly natives
on the way had refused to sell them food. In regions where the Arab
slave-traders had robbed, killed, and carried away and sold many of the
natives, the people were afraid of Livingstone, for they thought all
white men must be robbers and murderers. But in reality the brave Scotch
missionary was a great worker against the slave-trade, writing and
saying all he could to make people in Europe and England know how wicked
it was.
Although Livingstone journeyed about so much, travel was very hard and
dangerous. He and his faithful men often had to go up to their necks in
swamps where the hot, moist air was filled with poisonous insects, and
to cross rivers in great peril from the crocodile and hippopotamus. Not
only did Livingstone have numerous hairbreadth escapes from lions,
elephants, and other wild beasts, but he was many times stricken with
the terrible African fever. Because of his wonderful recoveries the
natives thought his life was charmed, and they were afraid he was a
wizard wh
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