and the street-sweepers. At first thought it seems improbable that the squalid wretches who can barely earn sous enough to live on, to whom fifty cents a day are fine wages, should have a ball. But all things are possible in Paris in the way of popular amusements. In the Rue Mouffetard, then, near the Rue Pot de Fer, we read on the wall of a gloomy building a yellow advertisement which is translatable thus, literally:
GREAT HALL OF THE OLD OAK.
MOUFFETARD STREET, 69, HOUSE OF LACROSSE,
_All the Sundays, departing from the first January, up till Fat Tuesday_.
BALL OF NIGHT!
DRESS, MASK, DISGUISE.
A Grand Orchestra, composed of Artists of Talent, will be conducted by G. Maurage, who will have performed a Repertory entirely new, composed of Quadrilles, Valses, Polkas, Schottisches, Varsoviennes, Mazurkas, Redowas, Lancers, etc.
ENTRANCE–On the Sundays, five cents; at ordinary times, four cents. One commences at 8 o’clock.
Although one commences at eight o’clock on the bills, one does not commence in reality at any such unfashionable hour. If we are so innocent as to go to the ball-room before ten o’clock, we shall find only a crowd of boys and girls gathered about the entrance of the hall, waiting to see the guests arrive. Needless to say, no carriages roll up to this door. The revelers come on foot, emerging from dark alleyways, descending from garrets by creaking old staircases, filtering out one by one into the street, and making their way to the ball-room in couples or alone. To find the ball in the full tide of successful operation we should arrive about half-past ten in the evening. Entering then through a long, broad passage, midway of which we deposit five sous each with the Cerberus on guard, we pass into a hall crowded with people. The hall is not larger than that of an average country-tavern ball-room in New England: the space occupied by the dancers will accommodate perhaps fifty quadrille sets. (There are no “side couples” in the quadrilles of Paris popular balls; hence a set consists of but four persons.) This would indicate a pretty large ball-room to most minds, but the dancers here are crowded so close upon each other that they really occupy a surprisingly small space.
Up and down the two sides of the long hall are ranged coarse wooden tables, with the narrowest benches at them for use as seats that I think ever served that purpose. Sitting on a Virginia fence is the only exercise I remember that suggests the exceeding narrowness of the benches at the ragpickers’ ball. On the side of the tables nearest the wall runs a narrow alley, down which we walk in search of a seat. On the other side the tables are protected from the dancers–who might otherwise bang destructively against them, to the detriment of wine-bottles and glasses–by a stout wooden railing. Reaching the lower end of the hall, we find an unoccupied seat, and are able to survey the scene at our leisure.
The hall is lighted by no fewer than six chandeliers, with numerous burners, and between the chandeliers depend from the ceiling large glass balls, coated inside with quicksilver, which serve to reflect the light and add something of brilliancy. There are two round holes for ventilation in the ceiling: the only windows are two which are at the lower end of the hall, and look out on a gloomy courtyard surrounded by a high wall, on whose ridged top is a forbidding array of broken bottles imbedded in the mortar. On an elevated platform at one side, as high as the dancers’ heads, sits the orchestra “composed of artists of talent,” thirteen in number; and it is but justice to say that they make excellent music–far better than that we commonly hear at home in theatres and at dancing-assemblies. Blouses are abundant on the floor, in spite of the fact that the ball is advertised to be “dress, mask, disguise.” Near us is a dusty blousard in huge wooden shoes, who dances no less vigorously with his head and arms than with his legs; and how earnestly he does bend to his work! He is one incessant teeter. While the music sounds he never flags. He spins, he whirls, he balances: he stands upon the toes of his wooden sabots and pirouettes with clumsy ease, like one on stilts. He claps his hands smartly together, flings them wildly above his head, and pounds away with his feet as if it were his firm intention to go through into the cellar. But, though our attention is centred on him, he is by no means alone or peculiar. Around and around whirl others and others, under the gleaming chandeliers, in the clouds of tobacco smoke, dancing as vigorously, flinging their hands above their heads as wildly, as he. Here and there handsome costumes are seen, but the majority are in Cardigan jackets or blouses: many are in their shirt-sleeves. All wear their hats and caps. Women in male attire and men in women’s frocks and ribbons are a favorite form of disguise: occasionally there is one of an elaborately grotesque character. The spectators, sitting at the tables or strolling down the narrow aisles, look on with applause and laughter at the boisterous scene. Occasionally one jumps upon a table and flings up his arms with a hilarious yell, but he is promptly tumbled down again. When the quadrille is over many of the dancers go on jumping and skipping, loath to have done; but the floor is promptly cleared by two men in authority, the proprietors of the place, for there is rigid discipline here.
In the interval, while the music is silent, three or four policemen armed to the teeth, with swords at their sides and glittering uniforms, saunter in an idle, unconcerned manner up and down the cleared floor, with the air of men who have no earthly use for their time, and are walking thus merely to stretch their legs a bit. But they are keenly on the alert, these gendarmes. They cast their eyes on us where we sit with a sidelong glance which seems to say, “We see you, you two men in tall hats,” for we presently find we are conspicuous in this crowd by the hats we wear. A ragamuffin Pierrot in a white nightcap is seen to touch a trousered female on the arm and look leeringly at us, and is overheard to say, “Vois donc, Delphine, those aristos there–have they hats?–quoi?” Whereupon I nod good-naturedly to them, and Delphine comes up to us with a smile. “One sees easily thou art not Parisian, little father _(p’tit pere_)” she says to me. “Rest tranquil, then–thou shalt see dancing–rest tranquil.” And with a flirt of her heel she bounds into the middle of the floor with her cavalier as the orchestra sounds the preliminary strain of a waltz.
It is the custom here for the orchestra to sound this preliminary note as a foretaste to the dancers of the coming piece. Then the musicians rest on their instruments while the two men in authority on the floor set up a stentorian call of “Advance, mesdames and messieurs: one is about to begin the waltz,” or the polka, as the name of the coming dance may be. At this cry, through the little gates which open here and there in the wooden railing a crowd of eager clients pour upon the floor and range themselves in place. The men in authority coolly proceed to collect a tax of two sous from each couple, and then the music and the dance begin. In waltzing the dancers simply put their arms around each other’s necks, and thus embracing vigorously, face to face, they spin about the room, bumping against each other, laughing, shouting and chaffing. Waiters in white aprons dodge about among the dancers, taking orders for wine, beer and punch, and exciting our constant amazement that they do not get knocked down and trampled on. One of them approaches us and asks what we will take. Observe, he does not ask if we will take anything, for if you sit you must “consume” either drink or cigars. Your five cents paid at the door, you perceive, entitle you to neither a seat nor a dance. The constant drinking which goes on is the heaviest source of income of the establishment, after all. Yet nobody is drunk. In New York a like amount of guzzling would have put half the men under the table by this time. It is a popular notion that Frenchmen _never_ get drunk, but this exaggerates the truth. One sees almost as much drunkenness among the lower classes in Paris as in New York, but the amount of drunkenness is so trifling in proportion to the enormous amount of tippling that goes on among Frenchmen that the matter is a cause of constant wonderment to visitors from other lands.
At the end of the waltz the floor is promptly cleared again. One woman puts her hand on the rail-fence and leaps over unconcernedly, rather than take her turn at the gate. Then the band strikes up the opening strain of the popular opera-bouffe quadrille of the hour, and the air echoes with the shout on every side, “C’est Angot! C’est Angot!” and the struggle for places is furious. “Madame Angot,” the heroine of a fashionable opera-bouffe, is a market-woman, and a sort of goddess among the blousards, who are eager to dance to the inspiring melody of her song. The men in authority have little need to persuade the dancers with their cry of “Avancez! avancez!” this time: they have only to collect the sous, and the wild revelry begins. The tallest man in the room leads on to the floor the shortest woman–a little humpbacked dwarf: he is smoking a cigar, and she a cigarette, and they dance with fury while puffing clouds of smoke. The man jumps in the air with wondrous pigeon-wings, slaps his heels with his hands, shouts and twists his lank body into grotesque shapes. The little dwarf, madly hilarious, rushes about with her head down, swings her long dress in the air, whirls and “makes cheeses,” and in the climax of her efforts kicks her partner squarely in the back amid roars of laughter.
Across the way from this ball-room there is a large “brewery,” as it is called–a combination of beer-hall, wineshop, cafe and billiard-room–where for eight cents you may play a game of billiards, or for twelve cents may play an hour. Beer is four cents the glass, and wine two cents, for in Paris wine is cheaper than beer. Blousards crowd this place at all hours of the night.
Near by is a cafe concert. A “Grande Soiree Lyrique” is the entertainment offered us at the Maison Doucieux, as we learn from the rudely-written handbill which hangs at the entrance. Through a long, winding, narrow, dark and dirty passage, up a rickety stone staircase, through another passage, and we stand in a crowded hall, at whose lower end a rude stage is erected, on which a ragged man is bawling a comic song. In the midst of it there is a disturbance: a drunken man has climbed upon the back of a seat to light his pipe at the chandelier, and falling thence has enraged the fallen-upon to that extent that a fight ensues. In a twinkling the tipsy man is dragged out of the door, to the delight of the audience, who shout “Bravo!” as he disappears. The concert is not entertaining, and we follow him out. He is carefully propped up against a wall by those who put him into the street, and when we come upon him is growling maledictions upon his enemies, with his hair about his eyes and his hands clawing the air. Four bareheaded women, roaring with laughter, come marching abreast along the middle of the street, and picking up the drunkard’s battered hat disappear in the gloomy distance, boisterously thrusting the hat upon each other’s heads in turn.
A cafe chantant of a more pretentious sort than the Maison Doucieux, but still the peculiar resort of the blousard–for there are cafe chantants of many grades in Paris–may be found in one of the back streets near the Boulevard St. Martin. Some of the cafes chantants are patronized by the well-dressed class, and a blousard is no more likely to be seen in their orchestra fauteuils than in the same division of the regular theatres. The El Dorado, for example, in the Boulevard Strasbourg, is as large and almost as elegant as Booth’s Theatre in New York, but it is a cafe chantant. Keeping still to the favorite haunts of the blousard, we enter the showiest of the cafes chantants peculiar to him–as free-and-easy a _beuglant_ as one could wish. Beuglant, by the way, is the argot name of this sort of place; and as the word comes from _beugler_, to “bellow,” it may easily be seen how flattering it is as a definite noun for a place where the chief attraction is the singing.
It is late when we enter the beuglant, and the place is crowded to suffocation and thick with tobacco smoke. The hall is an immensely large one, with gleaming chandeliers, frescoed nymphs and cupids on the walls, a regular stage and a regular orchestra. A venerable man in gray hair and spectacles saws away at the big bass; a long-haired, professor-looking person struggles laboriously with the piano; there are two violinists, a horn, a trombone, a flute and a flageolet. On the wall is a placard where we read that the price for the first _consommation_ is fifteen sous, but that subsequent consommations will be furnished at the ordinary price. Consommation is the convenient word of cafes chantants for food or drink of any kind, and every visitor is forced by the rules of the place to “consume” something as his title to a seat. Nothing is furnished more nearly approaching food than brandied cherries, but the drinks include all the noxious and innoxious beverages known to the French–from coffee, sugar-water or tea to brandy, rum and absinthe. In the list of the stronger drinks, a compound of sugar, lemon, hot water and whisky (which I believe I have heard mentioned under the name of punch in remote towns of Arkansas and Minnesota) is here known as “an American.” The first time one hears the order, “Bring me an American, waiter, and let him be hot, mind you–as hot as one can swallow him,” it is a little surprising.
Waiters move laboriously about among the legs of the audience, bearing salvers laden with wine, beer, Americans and bottles of water. The audience is rough and ready; hats and caps are worn habitually; pipes are diligently smoked–cigars are rare. Women are seldom seen here, except upon the stage, where they sit in a semicircle in a somewhat formal manner, each holding a bouquet in her lap carefully wrapped round with white paper, each wearing flowers in her elaborately coiffe hair and in the folds of her silken skirts, and each with arms and shoulders bare. From time to time these women come forward and _sing_–songs not always strictly adapted to the family circle, perhaps. But the favorite vocalist is a comic man, who emerges from behind the scenes in a grotesquely exaggerated costume–an ill-fitting, long, green calico tail-coat, with a huge yellow bandana dangling from a rear pocket; a red cotton umbrella with a brass ring on one end and a glass hook on the other; light blue shapeless trousers; a flaming orange–colored vest; a huge standing collar, and in his buttonhole a ridiculous artificial flower. This type of comic singer is unknown in American concert-halls of any grade, though he is sometimes seen at the German concerts in the Bowery of the lowest class. Here he is very cordially esteemed. The ladies behind him yawn in a furtive manner under cover of their bouquets, but the audience is hilarious over him as he sings about his friend Thomas from the country, who came up to Paris to see the sights and shocked everybody by his dreadful manners. He put his muddy boots on the fauteuils, did mon ami Thomas; he fell in love with a gay woman of the Boulevards whose skin was all plastered up like an old cathedral; he ate oysters with a hair-pin at dinner; he offered his toothpick to his vis-a-vis, and altogether conducted himself in such a manner that one was forced to say to him (_chorus_), Ah, my friend Thomas! at Paris that’s hardly done. Ah, mon ami Thomas! at Paris that is not done at all. The audience is in ecstasies of delight at this ill-bred conduct on the part of the cousin from the provinces–secretly conscious as they are, even though they be blousards, that they are Parisians, and know how to behave themselves in a polite manner; and the vocalist, recovering from his last grimace, gives them another dose. He relates that his friend Thomas wanted to go to the grand opera; so he took him to the Funambules: the fool swallowed that–il a gobe ca!–and when the tenor began to sing Thomas roared out, “Tais-toi donc!” and began to bellow a comic song, whereupon I dragged him out, protesting (_Chorus_), Ah, mon ami Thomas! a Paris ca n’se fait guere. Ah, mon ami Thomas! a Paris ca n’se fait pas!
When a sentimental song is sung the audience pay little attention. To patriotic songs they listen respectfully. A song which breathes the glories of literature as represented by Montaigne, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Moliere is tolerated idly. But when the stage is presently cleared for a ballet the young blousards–for they are mostly young men who gather here–are all attention. What is their disgust at perceiving that the dancers are men in ancient Greek costumes, who do a sword-fight to music, with periods of sudden tableau-attitude striking! They are a bit ridiculous, these Greeks, flopping about the stage in tights and tunics, and presently three or four blousards near me begin to guy the performance. “Ah-h-h!” they cry, grinning broadly; “ah, ah, ha! ha-a-a-a!”–putting into this utterance a world of amused scorn. The “regulator” of the establishment–a solemn man in a tail-coat who walks about the hall preserving order–gets angry at this. “Restez tranquilles,” he says to the jeerers, with expressive and emphatic forefinger leveled at the group. Whereupon one of them, a handsome chap in a soft hat, leans his elbows squarely on the table in front of him, wags his head saucily and openly chaffs the solemn regulator. “Ah, bah!” he says, “do we come _here_ to keep still?” The superintendent threatens to call the police: the blousards laugh him to scorn. “You would make a fine figure of yourself bringing here the police, wouldn’t you? Look then at what we have consumed!” pointing to the empty glasses before him on the table. “Go along, then, do–go quickly–and bring here the police, old wag that you are!” The regulator perceives the force of this argument. “But they should be more respectful,” he says, appealing to me: “n’est ce pas, m’sieu?” and with this walks away. The hall is so large, and the noise which fills it so prodigious, that this little altercation has attracted no general attention, as it must have done in a quieter place.
The theatre named by the beuglant’s funny singer the “Funambules,” to which he took his friend Thomas under pretence that it was the opera, is one of the queerest of the blousard’s places of resort. It is a droll little underground theatre–literally underground, with no windows, no opening of any kind to the light of day, and no ventilation. We reach it by a long winding way of pleasantly-lighted stairs and corridors, and find ourselves in a room incredibly small for a theatre–a mere little box of a place, not wider, I should judge, than sixteen feet, nor more than fifty feet deep, but so curiously and ingeniously arranged with seats in tiers upon an inclined plane that quite a numerous audience can find room within it. The “fauteuils d’orchestre,” or orchestra-chairs, are the front row of benches, nearest the stage. The “parterre” is the back rows. There is a little bird’s nest of a gallery at the rear of the room, where the spectators cannot stand up without striking the ceiling with their heads. At the sides of the space set apart for the musicians are two queer little private boxes, perched up against the wall like old-fashioned pulpits, and reached by a narrow flight of steps like a ladder. The aristocratic seats (after the boxes) are the fauteuils d’orchestre, for which we pay the ruinous sum of twenty-five sous each. Here we are in an atmosphere utterly unlike that of the beuglant just described, for this is a place where the honest blousard comes with his wife and children for an evening of innocent amusement. Directly behind us sits a family of three generations–a bent old man of seventy-five or eighty years, gray-haired and venerable; a round-faced, middle-aged blousard with his dark-eyed wife; and their two little babies, scarcely old enough to prattle, and who lisp their delight with beaming eyes to “dan’pere.” Next me is a bright-eyed boy of four years, with clustering curls about his fair forehead, who sits bolt upright in his mother’s lap and comments in subdued but earnest tones on the performers on the stage. “Pou’quoi fait-on ca?” (“What are they doing that for?”) is his favorite question during the evening, varied by the frequent and anxious remark, “Mais, c’n’est pa’ encore fini?” (“But it is not yet finished?”). A cat is asleep on the steps of the private box at the left. Neither of the boxes is tenanted, by the way, as they are inordinately expensive–fifty sous each occupant, or some such heavy sum of money. Under one of them there is a cozy cupboard, where the woman-usher (in a neat muslin cap with pink ribbons) keeps the candies and cakes she sells to the audience between the acts. Upon the poor little profits of her office here this honest woman lives, and keeps herself as tidy as if she had ample pin-money. She thrusts a little wooden footstool under the feet of each woman in the audience, and is amply repaid with a sou at the end of the evening. The footstool is welcome, for a Frenchwoman is ill at ease at a place of amusement without her little “bench” under her foot: it is invariably brought her at theatres or cafes, as a rule; and each of the larger theatres in Paris has a dozen or so of these “ouvreuses,” as they are called, who are paid usually two sous by each lady who accepts a little bench. In the present instance the fee is as small as it possibly could be, and the bench-woman ekes out her income by selling cakes, oranges and candies. Curiosity to know her earnings elicits the frank reply that she often makes as much as thirty sous a night in her sphere of labor.
The Funambules orchestra is composed of three instruments–a big bass, played by a tall, genial-looking man who wears a flannel shirt and a paper collar, and has a bald head; and a piano and violin, played by two handsome, dark-haired, romantic-looking young men, apparently brothers. The music is excellent. The performance lasts from seven till twelve, five hours, and includes three pieces. The first is a farce, in which the orthodox stage papa looks over the top of a screen in a fury at the orthodox stage-lovers, and ends the piece by joining their hands with the orthodox “Take her, you young rascal!” The second piece is a nautical, black-eyed-Susan sort of drama, with the genteel young navy lieutenant who sings like a siren; the jolly old tar who swaggers like a ship in the trough of the sea; the comic servant who is in love with the heroine, and whose passion brings him droll burdens of woe; and so on. Both these pieces are interspersed with songs, duets, quartets, after the manner of the old-fashioned Dibdin “Jolly Waterman” style of pieces, never seen on our stage now-a-days, nor on the French stage except at minor theatres. Follows a pantomime–_Monsieur Goosequill’s Troubles_–the only pantomime of the kind introduced in America by the Ravels that I have ever seen in Paris, this style of entertainment having gone completely out of fashion in France. The papa of the farce (who was also the Jack Tar of the drama) reappears in the pantomime as Pierrot, the white-faced clown; and tremendously funny is he. There is a weird, elastic harlequin in a ghastly mask which he never lifts; and an amazing notary in an astounding nose, who proves to be Monsieur Goosequill. There is a humpback of hideous deformity and a Columbine of seraphic loveliness; and all Monsieur Goosequill’s troubles come out of the fact that he endeavors to marry the humpback to the Columbine, who prefers to marry the harlequin. And so the notary’s quill sets fire to the inkstand: the table is bewitched and treads on his corns; and indeed he suffers terribly and turns somersaults of agony. Peace arrives at last through the humpback giving up his suit; the curtain falls on Columbine and harlequin bowing and backing, hand in hand; gran’pere and the babies are all three fast asleep; but the bright-eyed boy in his mother’s lap asks with unabated interest, “Pou’quoi fait-on ca?”
In the Boulevard Beaumarchais, close by the old Place of the Bastile, stands the grandest of the theatres habitually visited by the blousard. Its most constant patrons are the furniture-makers of the Faubourg St. Antoine, who bring to the theatre a decided perfume of mahogany and rosewood, and suggest the varnish of newness which the place would otherwise sadly lack. The quarter in which it stands is not a specially suspicious one by day, but at night it is ill calculated to inspire confidence. There are villainous-looking, slouching wretches about, who eye you curiously and not too amiably. The theatre has had its day of splendor, but is now a frowzy-looking concern–very roomy, somewhat suggesting the Old Bowery Theatre, but lacking its cheerful aspect. The audience is without exception of the blousard class: the patrons of the Old Bowery, even in its latest years, were almost millionaires in comparison. The highest-priced seats (excepting the proscenium-boxes, which are never occupied) cost forty sous. You can sit in the gallery for five sous if you like the company of the Paris gamin. At the entrance of the theatre there is a placard which reads thus: “By paying twenty-five centimes one enters immediately without making queue.” The ticket-seller is a prosperous-looking old woman of fifty or there-about, who wears a beribboned cap and side-curls, and has a mouth which tells of years spent in the authoritative position she occupies. She is stern to a terrible degree with the average blousard who approaches the round hole whereat she reigns; but to us, who indulge in the extravagance of paying the extra five sous for the privilege of entering without taking our place in the queue at the door, she relaxes visibly.
The curtain rises at seven o’clock, here as at all the theatres where the blousard pays his money, and the amusement continues until after midnight. But it is not amusing. There are several pieces on the bill, but’ the chief one, a drama in five acts, is a poor thing, played by mediocre actors in the most dismal manner possible. The scenery is worn and dilapidated and wretched; the play turns on the sufferings of the poor; there are two or three murders, a suicide, a death from starvation, and such a glut of horrors that the whole entertertainment is dismal and depressing to the last degree. Yet the theatre is usually well patronized, and the audience seems intensely interested. The blousard loves to see depicted on the stage a degree of misery more terrible than that which is his daily lot. For the dramas which depict high life–unless it be the high life of the old days of beruffled and silk-stockinged cavaliers–he cares very little. And in his serious modern dramas the hero must be a blousard, the villain a fine gentleman, the blousard to marry the heroine in the last act, and the fine gentleman to be sent to the galleys.
WIRT SIKES.
EIGHT HUNDRED MILES IN AN AMBULANCE.
TWO PAPERS.–1.
The United States is the only country in the world that has its frontier in the middle. The Great American Desert, stretching from the Canadas to the Gulf in a belt nearly a thousand miles in breadth, is now the true divide between the East and the West; and as if that were not enough, it is backed by the long ranges of the Rockies, which, though they flatten out and break down here and there, have yet quite enough of “sassy country” to make a very respectable barrier. A century ago the Alleghanies were the boundaries–now we look upon them as molehills; then the vast prairies lay in the way, like an endless sea; then the Mississippi, like Jordan, rolled between. But all this is now as nothing. We have jumped the old claim of the Alleghanies, we have crossed the prairies, we have spanned the Mississippi with a dozen splendid bridges, and now the great lines of railroad make but a mouthful of the desert, and digest the Rockies as easily as an ostrich his pebbles and tenpennies. The old fables of magic cars, in which magicians could annihilate space and time, are now dull and tame. Like a dream the desert glides by while a sunrise, a sunset, lights up the measureless waste; we pass some low hills, and the Rockies that loomed before us are circumvented and flanked; we whirl through a wild canon, and they are left behind. Have we seen the desert, the mountains? No. It is but a glimpse–a flat space blackened with prairie-fires, a distant view of purple peaks. Few become intimate with this our wonderful frontier, and most people scorn it as an empty, useless, monotonous space, barren as the sea.
We left Cheyenne early in July, under the care of a paymaster of the U.S.A., to visit with him some of the forts and Indian agencies of Wyoming Territory and beyond. Our party consisted of twelve persons, including six ladies and three children. There were two ambulances for us, and three wagons containing all the comforts necessary in camping out for some weeks. It was promised that we should see wonders, and should go where no white women had ever been before. At 6.45 on a beautiful morning, with a fresh breeze blowing over the desert, the party set forth, looking forward with delight to a continuous picnic a month long. Soon every vestige of human habitation disappeared, and we were alone in the midst of one of the loneliest lands in the world. Sahara itself, that bugbear of childhood, could not be much more desert than this. Fort Laramie, distant nearly one hundred miles, two long days’ journey toward the north, was our first point of destination. Over ridge after ridge of the vast rolling plains, clothed with thin brown grass, we rode: no other vegetation was visible but the prickly pear, white thistle and yucca, or Spanish bayonet–stiff, gray, stern plants, suited to the stony, arid soil. The road was good, the vehicle comfortable, the air sweet and cool: along the many ruts in the sand grew long rows of sunflowers, which fill every trail on the plains for hundreds of miles, and give a little color to the colorless scene. The season of flowers was nearly over in that rainless country, but a few still lingered, and among them was the familiar larkspur, growing wild. At first, the long low hills seemed lonely as graves, but we soon found there was not a rod of ground but had its inhabitants. Everywhere something was moving, some little beast, bird or insect: larks sang and perked about on the stones; prairie-birds twittered; gophers (pretty creatures with feathery tails and leopard spots) slid rapidly to their holes; prairie-dogs sat like sentinels upon their mounds and barked like angry puppies; great pink-and-gray grasshoppers, so fat that they could hardly waddle, indulged their voracity; and brown crickets and butterflies were seen on every side. An antelope disappears in the distance: a brigand-like horseman rides up and asks the way. He is a suspicious-looking character, and pistols are cocked. We have not our full escort, and are there not greenbacks among us? But he too disappears in the distance. Is his band lurking among those hills? We like to think so.
About fifteen miles up and down brought us to our first ranch, on Pole Creek, a dry stream, with osiers, shrubs and weeds in its bed. It was pleasant to see something green, even so little, and something human, though only a long, low whitewashed cabin; but this touch of life did not make much impression upon the wilderness, save to make it seem wilder. A plover was flying about, “crying and calling:” a large flock of cow-buntings, our old acquaintances, followed the cattle that grazed in the bed of the stream. We gathered twenty species of flowers here, among them a tiny scarlet mallow and a white oenothera or evening primrose. In the three rooms of the ranch there was refreshment to be found, doubtless of a spirituous nature, but we watered our mules and went on. It was ten miles farther before we came to our next ranch, so thinly settled is the country. Being time for our noonday rest, we took refuge from the fierce heat and glare of the desert in the clean rooms of Mrs. Fagin, dined on our own provisions and drank the excellent milk she brought us.
Still on the ambulances rolled, over the hot, high table-land, till about five o’clock we saw some strange yellow bluffs before us, and descended into the valley of the Chug, a clear stream flowing through a fringe of willow, box-elder (a species of maple) and the cottonwood poplar. Here was Kelly’s Ranch, a large one, close by which we were to camp for the night. We found there Lieutenant F—- and an escort of twenty horse, which had been sent to meet us from Fort Laramie. They had our tents pitched for us, and everything ready. A wild, lonely place was this green valley, with its fantastic waterworn bluffs that bore a grotesque resemblance to turtles, seals and other great sea-beasts, and it was delightful to see trees again and to hear the sound of running water. The children at once pulled off shoes and stockings and began to paddle in the stream, and some of the elders followed. It was arranged that we should have supper and breakfast in the ranch, which was a sort of tavern, and we found the supper quite good enough for hungry people, despite the odor of onions that pervades the hearths and homes of this region.
Kelly was a tall, dark, slender man, with large melancholy eyes, soft, but never meeting you quite frankly–eyes into which you could not look very far. It is not easy for us to understand the life of this man and his “pard,” with their Indian wives and half-breed children, fifty miles from anywhere; yet they seemed very busy and comfortable. He was asked how he liked it. “It’s rather lonesome,” he replied. He was a man of few words, and went about silently in carpet slippers, waiting on us at table. No one else appeared, but we had glimpses of the Indian women in the kitchen preparing the meal. After supper we all sat down on buffalo robes spread upon the dewless grass, while the sun went down in glory and the twilight gathered in the sky, realizing that we were camping out for the first time in our lives, and having a delicious sense of adventure, a first sip of the wine of the wilds. “Early to bed and early to rise” is the rule in camp, and so when the stars came out we turned in. As soon as the sun set another climate reigned over the Plains. The nights are always cool, dry and delicious, and fifty miles of ambulance-traveling is a good preparation for sleep. Yet when all was still I came out to look at the night, for everything was so strange and new that sleep at first would not come. The scene was wild enough. The twilight still glimmered faintly; the sky was thick with stars of a brightness never seen in more humid air; the Milky Way was like a fair white cloud; the fantastic bluffs looked stranger than ever against the pale green west; and the splendid comet was plunging straight down into; the Turtle’s mouth. A light from the blacksmith’s forge glowed upon the buildings, tents and low trees: in the stillness the hammer rang out loud, and there was a low murmur of voices from the officers’ tent. In the middle of the night we were wakened by hearing the galloping of a horse, perhaps a passing traveler, and when it ceased a new sound came to our ears, the barking and whining of wolves.
The next morning we were off at six. Our road lay in the green valley of the Chugwater, under the pale bluffs, channeled and seamed by the rains into strange shapes. We never tired of watching our train as it wound up and down, the white-covered wagons with red wheels and blue bodies, the horsemen loping along, picturesquely dressed, with broad hats, large boots, blue trousers and shirts of every color. Their riding was admirable, and as they appeared and disappeared among the trees or behind some rising ground the effect was always picturesque. The valley was charming after so much desert, for it was long since we had seen a good tree. The principal one in Cheyenne was not larger than a lilac-bush, and had to be kept wrapped in wet towels. The light vivid tints of the box-elder contrasted well with the silvery willows and cottonwoods, and still better with the long rows of sage-brush in the foreground and the yellowish cliffs behind. A high, singular butte called Chimney Rock was conspicuous for many miles; also a long one called the Table. There were several ranches in the valley, and many splendid cattle.
About ten o’clock we stopped at Colonel Bullock’s ranch. Not a soul within: all hands were gone off to a “rounding out,” or branding of cattle–a wild scene, they say, and worth seeing. The herders, rough men with shaggy hair and wild, staring eyes, in butternut trousers stuffed into great rough boots, drive the cattle together, a mass of tossing horns and hoofs, and brand the names of their several owners upon them–a work full of excitement and not unattended with peril. We looked curiously about the ranch, which resembled others we had seen: a log house, furnished with the necessaries of life, with buffalo skins and arms in plenty lying about, and some hanging shelves, containing a number of very good books, including a classical dictionary. About the middle of the day we rested a few minutes at Owen’s Ranch, where lived a handsome blond young man with a nice white wife. His corral was surrounded with a wall of neat masonry, instead of the usual crooked posts. Here were Chug Springs, the head of a branch stream, and from thence we went over what we were told was the toughest divide in the whole country. The heat was scorching over the dreary, dusty wastes of sand and alkali, where hardly the cactus could find sustenance. This was our first glimpse of the Mauvaises Terres, the alkali-lands, which turn up their white linings here and there, but do not quite prevail on this side the Platte. The Black Hills of Wyoming, with their dark jagged outlines, gave life to the backward view, and when they were concealed Laramie Peak appeared on the left–a mountain of noble form and color. At Eagle’s Nest the yellow bluffs again started up, opening with a striking gateway, through which a fine picture of the blue peak showed itself down a dry valley, a chimney rock in the foreground giving emphasis to the view. The bluffs disappeared, and there was again the desert, and always the desert, with its heat and dust. Our four shining black mules went bravely on, however, and at five o’clock we came in sight of Fort Laramie, a little brown spot far away over the plain. In less than an hour we arrived at the post in a whirlwind of dust.
We were expected, for had we not followed the telegraph-wires? Utter strangers as we were, at once we were made to feel at home, and everything was done for the comfort of the weary travelers. A description of this fort will do for all the rest, though this is one of the oldest, largest and most important posts. There is no sort of fortification whatever: a large parade-ground, nearly destitute of grass and planted with half-dead trees, is surrounded by the barracks and quarters, neat, low buildings, and beyond, at one end, are the ordnance and sutler’s stores. A hospital and a large old barrack called Bedlam tower above the rest: more buildings straggle away toward the Laramie River, where there is a bridge. The position commands the river and bluffs. No grass, no gardens, no irrigation, no vegetables nor anything green is here. One good-sized cottonwood, perhaps coeval with the post, seemed as much of a veteran as the old artilleryman, a character always pointed out to strangers, who has lived at the post ever since it was a post, and is distinguished as the ugliest man there. His seamed and scarred face looks as if it had been through many storms and many Indian fights. Another distinguished character is the pet elk, a privileged person, who abuses his privileges by walking into houses and eating up hats, shoes, window-curtains, toys–anything to satisfy his voracious appetite.
On the 14th of July we were off for Fort Fetterman. To our surprise, the morning was delicious, though the mercury at noon the day before had ranged at over 100 deg. in the shade. Laramie Peak was still in sight, and was so, in fact, for weeks, till upon nearer acquaintance the fine old mountain became a friend for life. The country was still wilder and lonelier than that we had seen, and not a single habitation lay upon our route. All had been burnt by the Indians. We followed at some distance the right bank of the North Platte, all day over a barren country of low hills and scattered pines, bounded by a range of whitish bluffs beyond the river. We halted a few moments at Warm Spring, where a clear basin of tepid water bubbled and boiled and overflowed into a good-sized brook. Then on to Big Bitter Cottonwood, where we had our nooning among the trees on the wide sandy bed of the stream, which had sunk under ground for many miles, as is the custom of rivers here. It gushed forth near by, however, in copious springs, which gave us abundance of water and supported quite a luxuriant growth of vegetation. Wild currants delighted the children, clematis twined its white blossoms among the scarlet buffalo-berries, graceful osiers waved in the wind, and wild flowers were plentiful. It was a pleasant place among the wilds, and had perhaps been a happy home, for here were the ruins of a ranch burnt by the Indians. Here, too, were other ruins–of beaver-dams, built by the first settlers of all.
Leaving this creek, we went on to Little Bitter Cottonwood, a similar dry creek, but smaller and more lightly timbered. Then passing some more low hills with a few pines, always with the Platte on the right and Laramie Peak on the left, we crossed a long hill or divide called Bull Bend, and descended into the fine valley of Horseshoe Creek. We were now upon the old Overland Route to California, once so much traveled, but now deserted for the railroad. Here was the abode of Jack Slade, one of the station-masters on that famous stage-road–a man of bad reputation, and more than suspected of having been a freebooter, and even a murderer. This did not prevent his station from being one of the best on the road, his horses always good, his meals easily bolted. Of him and of his band you may read the history in Mark Twain’s _Roughing It_. After the railroad was finished the Indians descended upon these lonely ranches in the valley of the Platte, now left out in the cold: they attacked Slade’s house one morning in force, and there was a savage fight. Jack and his band succeeded in driving them off, but the next day the Indians returned in larger numbers, killed some of the whites and burnt the ranch. We next hear of Jack Slade in Montana, where he took to his old trade again. The Vigilants thought they must “draw the line somewhere,” so they drew it at Jack Slade. He escaped several times the threatened vengeance, saved by the intercession of his wife, a faithful and determined woman, but he did not mend his ways. One day, when she was absent, they took him and hung him to a tree. Strange to say, he did not “die game.” His wife came galloping in on the scene, but it was too late: all was over for Jack Slade. It was strange and interesting to hear this wild story in the very spot where it happened–to see the blackened ruins and the graves of those who fell in that long day’s struggle, the lonely bluffs that once looked down on Jack Slade’s ranch and echoed to the trot of his famous teams. The creek here makes a wide bend, leaving a fertile intervale where thousands of cattle could graze: the trees are always green, the river never dry. About three o’clock we came to our camping-ground among the timber on the clear stream, over against the inevitable bluffs. Fire had destroyed some of the finest trees, and on the great black trunks sat flocks of chattering blackbirds, the little chickadee’s familiar note was heard, and a crane flew away with his long legs behind him, just as he looks on a Japanese tray. The scene of encamping is ever new and delightful. The soldiers are busy in pitching tents, unloading wagons and gathering wood; horses and mules are whinnying, rolling and drinking; Jeff, the black cook, is kindling a fire in his stove; children are running about, and groups in bright colors are making, unconsciously, all sorts of charming effects among the white wagons and green trees.
We spread our blankets in the shade and dream. The children’s voices sound pleasantly. They are bathing in a still pool which the eddy makes behind the bushes, though the cool clear water is rushing down fast from Laramie Peak. It seems as if we were almost at the world’s end, so lonely is the place, but there is nothing to fear. Indians will not attack so large a party as ours. A strong wind rises and sways the willows, making the wild scene wilder than ever; a blood-red sunset flames from the horizon to the upper sky: and as it darkens, and the wolves begin to howl, we think of Jack Slade and all the wild stories we have heard of robbers and fights and Indian massacres.
At reveille we all started up. It was 4-1/2 A.M. Had we slept? We knew not. All had been blankets and–blank. A pail of water and a tin basin, a little “Colgate” for cosmetic, on went the warm flannels, and we were ready by five o’clock for breakfast in the dining-tent. Here we had camp-stools and tables, and upon the latter coffee, beef-steaks, fried potatoes, preserves and olives. Though all our meals had to be very much alike, they were always excellent and did credit to the commissariat. As Carlyle remarks, “Honor be to the man who cans! He is Canning, Koenig, or King!” How people lived here before the days of canned vegetables it is hard to imagine. Before six we were packed and off again. The morning ride in the cool invigorating air, before the heat of the day came on, was the most delightful of our experiences.
Winding first through a pass between hills of sandstone and rubble, where moss-agates are found (an excellent place for an ambush), we followed the same sort of country as before over a succession of small creeks and divides. These table-lands were always barren, and covered with the same thin gray vegetation, but sometimes adorned with a few flowers–the beautiful agemone or prickly poppy, with its blue-green leaves, large white petals and crown of golden stamens; the pretty fragrant abronia, and the white oenothera. A deep pink convolvulus was common, which grew upon a bush, not on a vine, and was a large and thrifty plant. Sage and wormwood were seen everywhere, and on the streams we found larkspur, aconite, little white daisies and lungwort, lupines and the ever-present sunflower. But usually all was barren–barren hills, barren valleys, barren plains. Sometimes we came upon tracts of buffalo-grass, a thin, low, wiry grass that grows in small tufts, and does not look as if there were any nourishment in it, but is said to be more fattening than corn. Our animals ate it with avidity. Was not all this dreary waste wearily monotonous and tame? Monotonous, yes; but no more tame than the sea is tame. We sailed along day after day over the land-waves as on a voyage. To ride over those lonely divides in the fresh morning air made us feel as if we had breakfasted on flying-fish. We felt what Shelley sings of the power of “all waste and solitary places;” we felt their boundlessness, their freedom, their wild flavor; we were penetrated with their solemn beauty. Here the eyesight is clearer, the mind is brighter, the observation is quickened: every animal, insect and bird makes its distinct impression, every object its mark. There is something on the Plains that cannot be found elsewhere–something which can be felt better than described–something you must go there to find.
Under the superb blue sky we went on and on, over a country all tops and bottoms, some of the bottoms with wet creeks, most of them with dry. We lunched at a pretty creek, a wet one, called La Bonte (it is charming to find the soft French and Spanish names so common here), a pleasant timbered stream, and a great place for Indian massacres. The ruins of the ranches once standing in this valley are still to be seen, and the graves of a lieutenant and twenty-four soldiers killed by the Indians many years ago.
The afternoon sun blazed upon the low hills, mere heaps of rubble like old moraines, where sometimes a little red sandstone cropped out and gave the wearied eyes a change of color. Always the noble vault of sky, the flying cloud-shadows, the Laramie range with its torn outlines softened by distance, which looked so near, yet was so far. Constantly we said, “How like to Arabia or Palestine!” We only asked for camels to make the resemblance perfect. The gray sage-brush tinted the long low solemn hills like the olives of Judaea; the distant bluffs looked like ruined cities; the mirage was our Dead Sea. The cattle-and sheep-farmers follow the same business as Abraham and Isaac, and are as sharp in their dealings as Jacob of old. The Indians are our Bedouins, and like them they “fold their tents and silently steal.” Once in looking back the illusion was perfect. The Sea of Galilee was behind us, and upon its banks stood the old cities of Capernaum and Nazareth towered and walled and gray. We had not then seen the verses of Joaquin Miller, in which he expresses the same idea in better words–in words of prophecy.
After a long hot ride we were glad to see the flag waving over Fort Fetterman, though the signs of human habitation did not seem to belong there. The post is not as large as Fort Laramie, but otherwise as like it as one pea to another, and stands in the same way at the junction of a stream (La Prele) with the Platte, upon a bluff that commands the two rivers. The view from thence at the moment of sunset was impressive–of the two streams, bordered with green, and the vast country beyond the Platte, more barren and alkaline even than the nearer side.
At the fort we found the same kindness and hospitality as at Laramie. Our quarters were in a large empty house, the abode of the commanding officer of the post, then absent with his family, where we were made very comfortable. Our meals were provided at other officers’ quarters, and everything was done for our entertainment. Our rooms were on the ground floor, and we were startled at reveille to see five or six dogs leap in at the open windows and run about the floor. Just awakened, we hardly knew in the dim light what manner of wild beasts they might be. Afterward, we heard that this was the custom in the family. A pet porcupine in the house amused us very much. He was a grotesque little creature, and very tame and affectionate, following the servant about like a little dog, and fondling her feet. His quills had been drawn or shed, but they were beginning to grow again, like pin-feathers.
In this quiet, kindly little post nothing seems ever to happen, but the air is full of Indian rumors. A Gatling gun, pointed at the universe, seemed to promise the enemy a sharp reception if a scare ever came. This diabolical little mitrailleuse would not be pleasant to look upon as it ground out grim death in such a matter-of-fact way. A few days were very agreeably spent at Fetterman (of which the very name tells of Indian murders), and there we found courteous, educated men and gracious, lovely women. It was wonderful what elegant little entertainments they managed to give us in this far-away outpost of civilization.
On Saturday, July 18, we set out to return to Fort Laramie. The route was the same, and nothing occurred to vary it save the little incidents, not worth telling, which yet give the real charm to a journey. Our party was made still larger by the addition of some mounted traders and their train of wagons. It was always pleasant to see them, for there are no such riders as upon the frontier, where every one sits easily and perfectly, and the large boots and the sombreros make every man a picture. Again we were on La Bonte at noon, on Horseshoe at night. We begin to feel at home here, and it is truly a place to like, with its many bird-voices and rushing breezes. We encamp; the soldiers laugh and sing; a simple joke seems to go a great way; one lassos another, and all roar when he misses. The steam of cooking rises on the air: we feel again the charm of camp-life, and our sleep is sweet in the night. Once more the morning red flashes upon the sky, then changes to yellow and to gray. Clouds come over, the roaring wind that always blows at Horseshoe scatters the limbs from the burnt trees, but it will not rain. No such luck, but it will be cool and pleasant for our journey. Passing by the ruins of Jack Slade’s ranch, the long curve of the Horseshoe, the bluffs and the plains, we are once more at Fort Laramie, and sitting in the cool evening air upon the friendly verandah of Major W—-, hearing the band play.
Our stay at the post was short, but we had time to attend a charming little ball given us by the officers, and to drive along the really pretty banks of the Laramie. And now we were to leave them once more for a wilder country still, the Indian Territory itself, and to visit Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies, the names of which alone gave us a sense of adventure and of nearness to savage life. Our escort was increased to fifty men, under command of Captain S—- and two lieutenants, and we took along with us a large supply-train for the agencies of about thirty wagons, so that, numbering the teamsters and drivers, our party was at least one hundred strong.
Fording the Platte, a large deep stream, was a little unpleasant to us novices, for we tumbled about a great deal over the stones in the river-bed, and felt as if an upset was quite possible. The crossing is sometimes dangerous, and there is a rope-ferry, but to-day the water was low and fordable with ease. We are now no longer in the United States, but in the Indian country. No ladies have ever taken this journey before except the wives of the agents, who have been there but a few weeks. In fact, these agencies were only established a short time ago and the Indians are not yet very friendly to them. The country was wilder, vaster and more barren than ever, with fewer streams and broader divides. Tantalizing showers flying across the distant mountains did not cool the dry, hot air. At noon we began to see a long detached ridge, an advanced post of the Rockies, called Rawhide Peak, and at night we camped on Rawhide Creek, a rather desolate stream, without timber, bordered only with shrubs and weeds. It seemed cheerful, however, upon its stony banks with such a gay crowd as we had, so many soldiers and other people about, with their wagons, horses, mules, tents and mess-chests. But a great black cloud was rising over Rawhide Peak, and just as we were seated comfortably at dinner down came the whirlwind upon us, nearly blew over our tent, and covered our dinner with a thick coating of the dust of the Plains. Beds, clothing, hair, mouths, noses, were full of the fine gray powder. What if our dinner was spoiled? ‘Twas but the fortune of war. The blow was soon over, and we managed to dine off the scraps, so as not to go quite hungry to bed. The rain poured down for five minutes, and laid the dust when too late, the sky cleared, and a wonderful rainbow, three deep, appeared in the east. The sunset was one not to be forgotten. The deep blue-black of Rawhide Peak, cut sharp by the clear gleaming apricot sky, and above the flying clouds, wavered and pulsed with color and flame. We watched them by the camp-fire till twilight faded and moon and stars shone with desert brilliancy. Shaking the dust from our beds as a testimony against the spiteful spirits of Rawhide Peak, we slept with our usual profundity. Always, however, before bedtime we had to go through the little ceremony of removing the burs from our clothing, for every plant in this country seems to have a bur or a tick-seed, and we found a new one in every camp. Sometimes they were arrows or needles an inch long, sometimes triangles with sharp corners, sometimes little spiked balls, sometimes long bags with prongs. There was no end to their number and variety, and they grew to be one of our studies.
After the first wrench of waking, the morning, from dawn to sunrise, was always beautiful. It amused us while dressing to watch the ears of the mules moving against the pale yellow sky, and the men, like black ghosts, stealing about. We crossed a wide, noble mesa clothed with buffalo-grass: there was no heat, no dust, and the long caravan before us made, as usual, a moving picture. The desert looked more like Palestine than ever, with the low buttes and sandhills yellow in the distance. “Towered cities called us then,” yet when we reached them we found but desolation, “and the fox looked out of the window.” The queer little horned frogs, lizards, rattlesnakes and coyotes were the sole inhabitants. “Them sandhills,” we were told, “tracks across the country for a thousand mile.”
Our next halt was at Niobrara Creek, called also L’eau qui court and Running Water, These three names (all with the same meaning) are far prettier than the place. Not a stick of timber, not a shrub, can be seen upon its banks. There was a flowing stream, a wide meadow, full of what looked like pink clover, but was only a bitter weed, and behind and before us the desert, in which our lively little camp was the only life to be seen. We soon found that we were not beyond the power of the spirits of Rawhide Peak. “O’er the far blue mountain” came the whirlwind punctually at dinner-time, but, fortunately, we had been somewhat beforehand with it, and had already stowed away our soup safely. The dust could not get at the champagne which we drank in honor of a wedding anniversary. Lighting our camp-fire, we forgot all else in listening to stories of the war and its heroic life; of Indian scares and massacres; of handfuls of men defending themselves behind their dead horses and driving back the foe; of brave young fellows lying cold and mutilated upon the Plains; of freezing storms of snow and hail; and of the many hair-breadth ‘scapes and perils of the wilderness, till we all became Desdemonas of the hour. We felt that though we were probably as safe as ever in our lives, yet there were possibilities that gave our position just enough spice of danger to be exciting.
Looking out during the night, I saw a misshapen gibbous moon, of a strange green-cheese color, setting between the four legs of a mule, whose body made an arched frame for it. The effect was most grotesque. A ride on horseback next morning over the fresh breezy divide was a charming change from the monotonous ‘bus. How the larks sang for us on that bright morning! and coyotes and blackbirds with white wings fled away before us. A little after noon we struck the sources of the White River, pleasant springs on a hillside, bubbling forth among the first trees we had seen since we left the Laramie. Then we descended into a fine shady valley: all our old friends were there in thickets–the box-elder, willow, birch and cottonwood, the alder, osier and wild cherry, currant, gooseberry, buffalo-berry and clematis. As we went on, brushing through the thick foliage, the hills on either side became higher, and grew into bastions, castles, donjon-keeps and fantastic clustered chimneys, like Scott’s description of the valley of St. John. The river went circling about through the intervale, so that we had to cross it constantly upon the little bridges made during the White River expedition in the February before. It was pleasant thus to wind along under the overarching boughs, coming frequently upon some pretty reach of the stream, where we could watch the cavalcade crossing, dashing out from under the bushes or watering the horses, while the heavy white-topped wagons plunged into the water and slowly mounted the opposite bank. In the distance the men were scouring the hillsides for deer, and perhaps looking out a little for Indians also. We went on in military order, with mounted pickets in advance, in the rear and on both sides; not that there was any danger, but an Indian is an inscrutable mystery, a wolf on two legs, and it is not easy to know what he may do.
The valley grew wider and spread into a great bare plain, still bordered with pine-sprinkled bluffs, through which the river dodged about without any apparent reason, and wherever it went the trees followed. Before we came in sight of the agency we were met by several officers and traders, glad of a little change of society. They conducted us to our camp on a pleasant rising ground about a mile from the agency, overlooking the cavalry and infantry camps in front and rear. It is a wild, lonely, fascinating place, this White River Valley, shut out from the world by its castled bluffs, though should we climb them we should only find another desert. We dined under a bower of pine boughs beside our tents, that served for a parlor. In the evening everybody called to see us, including the only two ladies in the place, wives of the traders, who looked too delicate to bear the hardships of the wilderness. Perhaps the hardships are not great, but the loneliness must be terrible in the long, long winters.
The next day we drove over to the agency, eager to see the Indian dance that had been promised us. The place consists of several government and private buildings surrounded by a stockade. When we arrived a large number of Indians were already there, mostly squaws and children, mounted on ponies and dressed in their gayest blankets and embroideries. Their ponies are very pretty, small, gracefully-formed horses, not clumsy as we had expected. The mantles of the squaws were of deer-skin, but covered entirely with beads, the groundwork of deep sky-blue ones, with gay stiff figures in brilliant colors. They were gracefully cut, somewhat like a “dolman,” and had a rich, gorgeous effect in the crowd. Most of them wore necklaces of “thaqua”–the quill-like white shell which is brought from the Pacific, and serves them for small change–and heavy earrings of the same shells, a quarter of a yard long. Their ears were slit from top to bottom to hold these great earrings: sometimes they wore two pairs, with heavy mother-of-pearl shells at the end of each. The necklaces covered the whole chest, like a bib or a breastplate. The parting of their long black hair was painted red, and their cheeks daubed with red, yellow and blue. Most of them had flat faces and flat noses: very few were in the least good-looking. Hundreds were waiting outside the gates, among them some half-breed boys.
Soon the braves began to come in. With a glass we could see great numbers of them winding out of the hills from their hidden camps, well mounted and flashing with bright arms and gay trappings. It was a strange, wonderful scene of motion and color, with the gray, unchangeable desert and the pale walls of the buttes for a background. The men came crowding, tearing in at a great pace, and soon we could see the dancing-party dashing along in all their feathers and war-paint, an inconceivably wild, savage cavalcade. On they rushed, beating a great drum in solemn cadence, shouting, blowing fifes, and firing their pieces into the air. There was as much noise as on a Fourth of July. We had to stand back to let them pass, for there was a scene of the wildest confusion as they all, horse and foot, rushed pell-mell into the stockade, followed closely by the squaws and children on their spirited ponies. It was a piece of _real_ savage life. Following after them, we went up into the second story of the agent’s house, where we could look down upon the barbaric crowd. The squaws made a brilliant circle all round the inside of the enclosure, gay as a terrace of flowers. About fifteen men squatted round the big drum, which must have been five or six feet in diameter, and began a weird song, interspersed with grunts and yells. It had a measured cadence, but not a semblance of music. Meanwhile the braves who were to join in the dance formed themselves into two circles of about thirty men each, and the rest sat upon their horses, looking imperturbable. The principal chiefs did not join in the dance, and two or three came up into the room where we were.
The dresses of the dancers were varied and splendid. Most of them wore the usual trousers or Indian leggings of blue cloth, cut off below the hips, with another cloth for the loins, and those that had no trousers had their legs painted. Embroidered blankets of blue or red cloth, moccasins, belts, tobacco-pouches, and cases for scalping-knives, all beaded, with glittering arms and tomahawks, hung about them everywhere, but the chief piece of finery was the war-bonnet; and a tremendous show it made. A turban of fur or scarlet cloth went round the head, adorned with tall eagles’ feathers in a crown, such as we see upon the wooden figures before cigar-shops, and from this hung down a long piece of scarlet cloth, about a quarter of a yard wide, and long enough to trail on the ground a yard or two behind. This was ornamented with a fringe of eagles’ feathers on each edge, like the backbone of a fish, and as it waved about nothing could be more superb. The savage dandies were evidently proud of their appearance, and to say that they were “got up regardless of expense” was simply a fact, for their wardrobes must have cost considerable sums–half a dozen ponies at least. Standing in a circle, they danced, shouting and singing. It was a slow measured step, but no more like dancing than their singing was like singing. Another gorgeous circle was formed on the other side of the stockade, and both parties kept up this weird dance with great gravity. One young fellow laughed, twisted about, and conducted himself a little like a harlequin. All held the hands upon the haunches and bent forward. This was called an Omaha dance. After a while all stopped dancing, and one of the squad of chiefs rode into the circle and began to relate his experience, while at every pause the emphasis was given by a strange roll of the drum. He was telling some savage exploit, the interpreter said, against the Pawnees. The crowd applauded with wild grunts and savage cries. Then the circle rose and danced again, then another chief spoke, and so on, some on foot and some on horseback, till one whom we had selected as the most grotesque horror of the whole came into the circle. He was painted all over a greenish-rhubarb color, like a stagnant pool: his chin was blue, his face was streaked with red. He wore a very short shirt of deer-skin, with a very deep fringe of black horsehair. Though sansculotte, his legs were painted with red and blue hands on the rhubarb ground: all over his horse were these red and blue hands and red stripes, and the beast had a red mane and tail. This villain, who had a most appropriate name, unmentionable to ears polite, completed his charms with a great pair of blue goggles. The red stripes upon his horse signified how many horses he had taken–the red hands, the number of prisoners.
The names of these fellows, as translated for us by the interpreter, were odd enough. Besides the great chiefs, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, there were Red Dog, Red Leaf, Red Horse, Little Wound, White Crane Walking, Man Afraid of (Losing) his Horses, Crow that don’t like Water, Man who Sings in the Long Grass, Turkey Legs, Lone Horn, Sitting Bull, Spider, Yellow Bear, Blue Horse, Two Strike, White Crow, Long John, Friday, Face, Hand, Man that Sleeps under the Water, Man that Looks the Sun blind, Wish, Three Bears, Blue Tomahawk, White Thunder, etc., etc. These Indians were Sioux of the wildest kind, about as savage as any there are. Our lives were in their hands, and they were well mounted and well armed. Still, we were safe enough so near the camp, for they are very prudent, and never attack unless they are five to one. Besides, they have rations given them every ten days by government, and they don’t quarrel much with their bread and butter. In fact, they are paupers, and we are all taxed to support them and the army which is more than necessary as a police to keep them in order. When the dance was half over about twenty soldiers came into the gate and produced quite a panic among the squaws and children, who shrieked with terror and rushed toward the larger gate. The braves did not think it the correct thing to show any fear.
One might live a thousand years at the East and never see anything so wonderful as this dance: it is impossible to give a true idea of its life and color. It was the real thing, not a theatrical or Cooperesque imitation. All was new to us, and we were probably as new and strange to most of our entertainers. Many crowded round us with evident curiosity, desiring to shake hands with us and to say, “How? Kola! (friend).” Those who could speak a few words of English plied us with questions as to our ages, the relationships that existed between us, whose squaws the ladies were, and whose were the little blond-haired children. Certain articles of finery seemed to be greatly valued among them, such as red, white and blue umbrellas, like those used as signs in our cities; patchwork and Marseilles quilts; orange shirts and green dresses; pink and pearl shells; little bells; small mirrors; and beads about four inches long made of fine pipeclay. These beads cost a dollar and a half each, and are made especially for them in one place in Massachusetts. They wear them in rows of twenty or thirty on the breast, making quite an expensive necklace.
The dance lasted, perhaps, two hours. After all were tired presents were brought and laid upon the ground, consisting of hard-tack, calico, etc. All through the dance the wind was blowing the dust about in clouds, and the Indians held their blankets and fans of eagles’ feathers to their eyes. Several wore blue goggles–we knew not whether for use or beauty.
LAURA WINTHROP JOHNSON.
A MEETING AT SEA.
It seems like a long, long while ago since Uncle Joseph told it to me as a recollection of his youthful days; and as Uncle Joseph was then no longer young, it must have been long, long ago that it happened. It was dull work sitting day after day on the hard benches and listening to lectures on therapeutics and anatomy which I had already heard twice _verbatim_–for I was a third-course student–and it was scarcely more entertaining to sit alone in my cozy little chamber and pore over the dry details of my medical textbooks. How often would my gaze wander through the attic-window to rest upon the broad blue bosom of the Ashley, and watch the course of the rippling current which flashed and glistened in the October sunlight! It was very hard to fix my mind upon the contra-indications of calomel and the bromides while the snowy gulls were circling gracefully over the gliding waters, and the noisy crows were leading my thoughts across the stream to the island thickets where I knew the wild-deer lay. I remember how I used to interpret their cawing into mocking laughter because I had no wings to follow them into those shady fastnessess, which were filled by my hunter’s fancy with all kinds of temptations to manly sport. And then, just as I was about to turn; with a great effort from the alluring scene, there would be a sudden commotion among the distant wavelets, and a huge white mass would flash for a moment in the sunshine as the enormous devil-fish of the Carolina waters would spring into the air in his unwieldy gambols, and fall again with a mighty splash into his native element.
“Then you had better have had your study-hours at night.” I am sure that’s what you are thinking. I thought so too, and put the thought into practice; but then it _would_ be moonlight sometimes, and the white beams would shimmer on the water, and the regular beat and dash of the oars would come to my ears in time with the wild, chanting melody of the boatmen’s song. That was just the way of it on the night when I heard this story; and when my cigar had burned out and the autumn air had begun to chill me with its fresh, crisp breath, I said to myself, “It’s of no use. I’ll shut the old book and spend an hour with Uncle Joseph.”
The moon did not have it all her own way that night, notwithstanding her tempting brightness. There was a threatening scud over the harbor to the eastward, and the freshening sea-breeze brought an occasional warning murmur from the breakers on the distant bar. By the time I had made all my little arrangements and stepped out on the quiet street, I found my light waterproof quite comfortable, and prudently went back for a moment to exchange my night-cane for an umbrella. When I reached the end of my walk the cold rain was already beginning to fall, and the wind was gustily hurrying round the corners of the streets and rattling the loose tin upon the housetops. A very few minutes elapsed between my three raps with the old-fashioned brass knocker and the appearance of the neat-looking servant who opened the door. But I may as well use the brief opportunity to tell you that Uncle Joseph was not my uncle at all, and that my habit of calling him so had grown out of a long intimacy with certain nephews and nieces who were very dear to the old gentleman’s heart. They were all scattered now–the older girls married and gone, the younger away at school, and the two boys, my childhood and boyhood friends, completing their professional education at a foreign university. But still I loved to visit Uncle Joseph, and he always had a warm and kindly welcome for me. None knew better than he the kind of entertainment most likely to please a young friend and attract him from places of idle amusement; and I knew that a well-timed evening-call at his bachelor home meant a dozen or two of oysters, a glass of old brown sherry, a fragrant cigar and an hour’s chat which was often instructive and never prosy.
On that particular night the oysters were fried to exactly the right shade of brown, and the delicate “mill-pond” flavor, so well known to every Charleston taste, was especially fine; the old sherry–just two glasses of it apiece-seemed milder and warmer and richer than ever before; and the havanas never seemed so fragrant. These were not limited, for Uncle Joseph smoked only in the evening, and he liked to keep an open box within reach of his hand. A little fire would have been more cheerful, but it was hardly late enough in the season, and we made out very well for a cozy evening by drawing our easy-chairs to the sides of the little centre-table, and getting the cigar-box and ash-holder at a convenient distance between us.
Uncle Joseph was not eccentric, nor was there anything extravagant in the general style of his housekeeping; but the furniture of this little sitting-room was unique, and could not have been duplicated for a very large sum of money. It required a close degree of observation to discover that several articles in common use were really specimens of rare _virtu_, and everything indicated that the owner had been a traveler, fond of collecting mementos of the distant lands which he had visited; but whether his travels had been those of a mercantile sea-captain or of a wandering gentleman of leisure would have been hard to determine. There was a neat walnut bookcase with well-filled shelves, on the top of which stood a large glass case containing a huge stuffed albatross, and just opposite was a small but exquisitely-carved Venetian cabinet adorned with grotesque heads of men and animals, and surmounted by a small square case in which was a beautifully-mounted specimen of the little spotted brown owl of Greece, the species so common among the ruins of the Acropolis. On the mantelpiece were a small bronze clock, a quaint Chinese teapot and a pair of delicately-flowered Sevres vases. On the table the engraved tooth of a sperm whale did duty as a paper-weight, a miniature gondola held an inkstand and pens, and a sprig of red coral with a sabre-shaped ivory blade formed the most beautiful paper-knife I ever saw. A single oil-painting hung on the wall–a finely-executed marine representing two stately ships becalmed near each other on a glassy sea under the glare of a tropical sun–and in a corner, resting upon a light stand, the top of which was a charming Florentine mosaic, was a polished brass box containing a ship’s compass. I had been from boyhood familiar with all these things, but I never tired of looking at them, especially at the albatross and the owl–the former so suggestive of Coleridge and the unfathomable depths of the far-away Indian Ocean, and the latter always leading my thoughts away back to the fierce-eyed Athene and her Homeric compeers.
Uncle Joseph got up and unlocked the Venetian cabinet to put away the decanter, his invariable habit as soon as the second glass was filled. As he did so there was a clink as of glass against glass, and the old gentleman hastily took out a small, dusty black bottle, examined it with great care and returned it with evident relief: “I was afraid I had carelessly broken the last bottle of that precious Constantia which I brought with me from the Cape of Good Hope. It is strange that no soil will grow that wine but that of one little vineyard under the South African sun.”
“Uncle Joseph, you never told me anything about your voyages. But what are you keeping that wine for?” “To drink a welcome home to Joe when he returns from Europe next month. You must dine with us the day after he gets back. Will has still another year at Goettingen.”
“Nothing would give me more pleasure.”
“You spoke of my voyages just now: have you never heard the story of my early life?”
“Never, Uncle Joseph,” I answered eagerly. “Can’t you tell me all about it to-night?”
“Well, perhaps I may. That bottle of wine suggested memories of a singular and sad incident, and the sound of that storm without recalls it all as if it were yesterday. It happened on the homeward passage when I made my last voyage to the Cape, and I have never since looked at that Constantia without thinking of it.”
The old gentleman walked across the room and gazed long and earnestly at the picture of the ships; then he seemed to find something very interesting in the compass-box on the stand; then he locked the cabinet, and lighting a cigar stretched himself back in his easy-chair, and smoked for a while with closed eyes. I sat thoughtful and silent until he roused himself with a slight effort: “Draw a chair for your feet, Frank, and take a fresh cigar: you’ll find them very mild. Go to sleep if I get prosy when fairly wound off on my yarn. I am going to begin at the very starting-place.
“Of course you know I am an Englishman, for you were quite old enough, when you first knew us all at Stewart’s hotel on Broad street, to remember now all about it. The children were then in mourning for their dear mother, but lately dead, and had just come over to make their home with me. My father was a clergyman, possessed of an independent fortune and holding a comfortable living in a sea-coast town some twenty miles from Liverpool, where I was born four years after my only brother. There were only the two of us, and my earliest recollections are connected with the dangerous and mischievous pranks which John and I used to play in and upon the waters of the Irish Sea. I always was fond of John, as I believe he was of me, but he was a domineering fellow, never satisfied unless he had the lead in everything: very dull at his books, but quite handsome, even when a lad, and having a certain smartness about him which was very taking. He was the elder son, and the favorite of my father, though my mother never showed any partiality between us. John never treated me well. Heaven knows, I have no unkind thoughts of him for it now, poor fellow! but I wish to tell you the whole story exactly as it was. I was a fair scholar, and generally had my own tasks to do, and John’s also. I worked out all his hard sums and problems, construed his Virgil while I was only reading Caesar, and often wrote his Greek exercise when I was almost too sleepy to keep my eyes open. The consequence was that my own lessons were often neglected, and if I got a caning for my failure, I had no sympathy from John, although it was the price I paid for his good mark.”
“It was confoundedly mean of him,” I remarked, knocking the ashes from my cigar. But Uncle Joseph did not notice the interruption.
“In short, I was John’s fag at school, though not at all a willing one, and the situation was quietly accepted for me at home. My father was singularly blind to my brother’s faults. His ambition was to purchase the patronage of his living and have John succeed to it; but we both preferred paddling about in the salt water, and holding a sheet in the fishermen’s smacks with a stiff norther after us, to studying our catechism or making Hebrew letters. We were both expert and fearless swimmers, with good wind and strong limbs. In after years I remember well a wager which I lost at Honolulu to remain under water as long as a famous Kanacka diver: I rose just four seconds before him. When I was thirteen I could cast a line, manage a spritsail, pull an oar or handle a tiller as well as any boy on the north coast of England. John was equally fond of the water, but his constant habit of putting the heavy work on me prevented his becoming as good a practical sailor as I was. No man can make a good sea-captain who has not had plenty of experience in splicing sheet-ropes and climbing shrouds. In our vacations we had plenty of pocket-money and went about pretty much as we pleased; and we frequently ran down the coast to Liverpool on board some of the small vessels which sailed from our bay. On these trips we often amused ourselves with the masters’ instruments, which were rough and simple enough. John had a good weather-eye, and could take an observation as well as any old salt, but he never had patience to use a logarithm table, and I always did the calculations. It was only amusement for me then, but served me many a good turn afterward. Well, things went on in this way for several years, and meantime my home was not pleasant to me. I grew restless and dissatisfied under the restraints and mortifications of my secondary position; and, besides, as the younger son I knew I should have to make my own way in the world. Our mother had gone to her rest, John’s domineering ways had grown on him, and my father, absorbed in his parochial and literary work, and more wrapped up in his eldest son than ever, seemed to have no definite plans for my future.”
Uncle Joseph’s cigar had gone out, and he had not noticed it until now. He struck a match and relit it, and smoked thoughtfully and in silence for several minutes. The wind had fallen, and the rain, which had been driving against the windows, was now coming down heavily with a steady, monotonous splash.
“About this time an event took place which has left a lasting impression upon my life. The old physician who had held the village practice for forty years died suddenly of apoplexy, and his successor was a gentleman of high culture–an Oxford wrangler, it was said–about forty years of age, with a daughter of sixteen, an only child. Of course the first time I saw her at church I fell desperately in love: boys always do that with a new face. She was a sprightly girl, with soft blue eyes, dark hair, fair complexion, white teeth, a lithe figure and a smiling, roguish mouth.”
Uncle Joseph seemed to be talking to himself, not to me, and I thought he started when I exclaimed, “Why, Jane might have sat for that picture! You describe her exactly as she was when I saw her last, just before she left home for St. Mary’s Hall.”
“So she might, Frank, but I was not thinking of _her_ then. The doctor’s daughter was not a bit romantic, and her name was just plain Ellen Jones. But boys will be boys. It was not a week before I found that John was as much in love as I was, and he was soon paying marked attentions to the young lady. I knew at once, from long experience, that my chance was gone; and indeed it was only a boyish fancy with me, after all, for I was too young to think of marrying.
“One day we had an adventure which I often think of now when I look at that picture hanging there. Two of the fishermen had bought new boats, about the same size, but differing somewhat in rig and model, and there was much talk about their respective sailing qualities. A stiff breeze was blowing and some ugly clouds were gathering to seaward, but John proposed that we should try the boats for a short sail, and with the owners’ consent we pushed off to round the outer buoy and back as a test of speed. The boats had each a single spritsail, but I felt sure that John’s carried too much canvas and would not behave well in a gale. We soon got them on the wind, and were sailing pretty evenly together when I heard the muttering of distant thunder. A moment more and the sails were flapping heavily, everything was still as death, but the white-caps were plain enough to what had been the leeward a short time before. We were a good mile from shore, and I called out to John to look out for flaws, and put my boat about on a homeward tack. Without a moment’s warning the gale burst upon us, and as my own boat bowed gracefully to the wind and threw the water from her bows, I saw John’s mast quiver and bend as a large sea swept over the gunwale and drenched him from head to foot. ‘Let go your sheet!’ I shouted, ‘and luff her up into the wind.’ But instead of doing so, he hauled powerfully upon the swelling sail, put his helm hard down, and the next moment the boat was tossing bottom up, and John was struggling in the seething waters. I had no fears for his life, for he was a powerful and skillful swimmer, and this was not the first upset for either of us; but I never was so deeply impressed before by John’s bad seamanship. He gained the boat without difficulty, and clambered on to the upturned bottom, so that I had time to let go my sheet and double-reef my sail. I then bore down on him and took him aboard, and the two of us had little trouble in righting his boat and towing her ashore. I have mentioned the incident only because I always connect it in my mind with what happened long years afterward.
“Six months after this our father died, and John wished to be married at once. But Ellen, although she could not hide her attachment to him, steadily refused to engage herself on account of her invalid mother, whose only and devoted attendant she was. Fickleness was not one of my brother’s faults, and he was true and steady in his love for the girl–how true and steady I never knew until I learned it from himself in my ship’s cabin on the broad Atlantic. I found myself with a few thousand pounds and a careless guardian, from whom it was not difficult to get the money into my own hands. In a few weeks I left home for Liverpool, and I have never seen my native town since that day.”
Uncle Joseph paused to light a fresh cigar, and then opened the cabinet and filled the two glasses again. It was the only time I ever knew him to do such a thing.
“Of course I looked naturally to the water, and saw for the first time a prospect of gratifying my boyish longing for the sea. My funds were sufficient to enable me to purchase a pretty staunch little barque and part interest in her cargo of Wedgwood and Sheffield ware, and I sailed in her as a passenger for Naples and a market. It was a foolish venture, but my friends cared just enough about me to assist me in carrying out my plans, while none gave me serious advice. It turned out well, however, and my profits were quite large. Two other voyages, one to New York and the other to Valparaiso, turned out equally well, and meantime I was using my opportunities to study navigation practically under the direction of my master, an old and able seaman. My ambition was to command my own ship and carry my own cargo, a common thing in those days, when the merchant marine of England was generally officered by men who were the peers in every respect of those who held her naval commissions. I had some prudence, however, and therefore chartered my barque and sailed her as master two short voyages to Bremen and Amsterdam with the best under-officers I could secure. Having now full confidence in myself, I sold out, bought a fine new American ship, filled her with an assorted cargo, and cleared for Rio and the South Pacific. I was now twenty-six years old, and it was eight years since I had been at Liverpool, and ten since I had heard anything of John. After my father’s death his old spirit had shown itself very offensively toward me, and we had parted in anger.”
I saw that my old friend was deeply moved by the memories recalled by this part of his story, and partly as a relief to him and partly to gratify my curiosity, I asked him if any of the articles which adorned the room were mementoes of these voyages.
“Every one of them has a story,” he replied. “I myself caught that albatross in the Straits of Magellan with a dolphin-line trolling astern. I should have let him go again, but he beat himself to death before we could get out the hook, and I amused myself by preparing and mounting the skin. That paper-knife has a sad history. I had it made in London. The blade is cut from a walrus’s tooth given to me by a whaling-captain at Hawaii, and I bought the coral which forms the handle from a diver whom I saw bring it up on the Corsican coast. He made a wager with one of my crew that he could bring up another piece of equal value by diving from the ship, went over, and was seized by a shark as he reached the surface. I heard the cry of horror from the men, and rushed to the ship’s side just in time to see the water crimson with his blood.
“In the spring of 1832 I accepted a very advantageous offer for charter, and with several passengers sailed for Cape Town on what proved to be my last voyage (excepting the return trip) as a ship-master. We had rough weather most of the way out, and a long passage, but nothing occurred which would interest you now. The season was a disastrous one to shipping on that route, and before leaving the Cape I had the vessel thoroughly overhauled, and was fortunate enough to secure three or four good seamen to make up a full crew. My first officer was an old salt, a strict disciplinarian, but kind to the men and a favorite with them all. Like most of his class, he was given to profanity in private conversation, but he never swore at the men, and always encouraged them at their work with cheery words. The weather was lovely when we sailed for home, and continued so until we were four days out. The ordinary routine of a master’s duty was simple enough, and I had plenty of leisure for watching the beautiful Cape pigeons which followed the ship’s wake, my favorite amusement when tired of reading. We were a little out of the common track of vessels in those seas, and sighted very few sail, none of which passed within hail. On the morning of the fifth day out I indulged myself a little, having been up quite late the night before studying the charts, and it being the first mate’s watch, a man in whom I had great confidence. When I turned out I found the ship becalmed. We were not yet in the calm latitudes, and I did not altogether like the looks of the weather. The sea was as smooth as an immense expanse of blue steel; there was a long, low swell, like the memory of yesterday’s breeze, but not a ripple could be detected by the glass in any quarter; the sky had an almost coppery glow, and the sun blazed down with a force which made all the seams of the deck-planks sticky with melting pitch. Still, the barometer was rising, and there was nothing to indicate danger. Although competent to perform skillfully all the duties of my profession, I had not, as you know, that long experience which alone can give a seaman thorough knowledge of all his perils even before they are apparent. I felt no apprehensions, therefore; and when I saw how Mr. Kelson was overhauling every rope and sail and spar, and making everything snug alow and aloft, I only congratulated myself on having an officer who kept the men too busy to get into mischief, and lost no opportunity for putting and keeping everything in order.”
I now knew that Uncle Joseph was “fairly wound off” on his yarn, for I never before had heard him use so many sea-phrases. All of them I did not fully understand, but he was evidently thinking very little of me, and did not stop to explain.
“It was about four bells when the lookout in the cross-trees sung out, ‘Sail ho!’
“‘Where away?’ I asked.
“‘Broad on the port-beam,” was the answer.
“I made out the vessel with my glass very easily from the deck, but paid no more attention to the matter until I came up from breakfast, an hour later. Not a ripple was stirring, nor a ghost of a breath of wind, but the two ships were several miles nearer, and evidently approaching, though their relative position was somewhat different. She was slowly drifting on one current, and we as slowly on another diagonally across her track. The stranger was a large Clyde-built ship, and carried far more canvas than was necessary in a calm, but I thought she might be drying her sails. I was waiting for her to get within hail, but her captain anticipated me and hailed first.
“‘Ship ahoy!’ came over the water, ‘What ship is that?’
“The Ariadne, Alford master, from Cape Town for Portsmouth. What ship is that?’ I replied.
“‘The Ellen, Alford master, from Liverpool for Cape Town. Will send a boat aboard with letters for home.’
“The coincidence of names had evidently not been noticed, or produced no impression. But I saw it all in a moment, and I had to grasp the mizzen-backstay to keep from falling. My brother John, whom I had not seen or heard from for nearly fifteen years, had drifted across my way on the vast and pathless ocean! Ah, how often since have I asked myself if a Providence _could_ be clearer–if this, with all its consequences to my after-life, could have been had not He who keepeth the winds as His treasures and measures the oceans in the hollow of His hand so ordered it for the furtherance of His own wise and beneficent will! Not a thought of anger toward my brother crossed my mind–not a solitary harsh memory of the past. My heart yearned to him with a tender and womanly love, and the only shade on the brightness of my joy was the slight doubt whether he would feel thus toward me. The order had already been passed on the Ellen to lower away a boat, and my voice sounded husky and unnatural as I shouted back an invitation to her master to board me in person. I recognized John with the aid of my glass as he returned a hearty ‘Ay, ay!’ and dropped lightly from the futtock-shrouds into the boat. In ten minutes he lay alongside of my vessel, and in two more stood upon the deck. I remember well how my heart beat and my tongue refused its office as he stepped forward to greet his stranger host; how he stopped suddenly as if frozen to the deck when he looked full in my face; how his whole frame trembled and his cheeks grew ashy pale as he almost whispered, ‘Joseph?’
“‘John!’
“And then we were clasped in each other’s arms and sobbed like children, while each hid his face on his brother’s shoulder.
“Kelson told me afterward how the rough seamen gazed at us for a while in astonishment, and then, with a delicacy of feeling which even such unrefined natures can sometimes exhibit, moved quietly off and left us unobserved; but I forgot for a while that there was any one else on the ship besides my new-found brother and myself. It was full five minutes before either of us could utter a word, and then, after a few brief expressions of surprise and pleasure, John sent word to his first officer that he would spend the day on the Ariadne, and giving our orders to keep the ships together, which was easy enough now that both were in the same current, we retired together to my cabin.
“That day was, I honestly believe, the brightest and happiest of my life. Not a word was said by either of us in reference to any jar or unpleasantness in the past–not a reproach for long and unfraternal negligence through all these years of separation. Each listened eagerly to the story of the other’s life, questioned closely for every minute detail, sympathized with every slight misfortune, and expressed a hearty pleasure in every incident of happiness or success. I learned how John had passed a year after my departure in uncertainty as to his plans for the future, and in the vain effort to break the resolution of Ellen Jones. Then he purchased a vessel, as I had done, and crossing the ocean ran for two years between New York and the West Indian ports. His career was not as fortunate as mine had been, and when, after eight years of a seaman’s adventurous life, he was rewarded for his faithful devotion by the hand of the woman whom he loved, he was no richer than my father had left him. Ellen had made two voyages with him–one just after their marriage, and one two years later, after their baby died. John lost money on this last trip, but was steadily repairing his fortunes when, about a year before our meeting, he lost his ship and cargo off the coast of Newfoundland, barely escaping with his crew by the assistance of a fishing-vessel which had answered their signal of distress. This misfortune had reduced him to very straitened circumstances, and he had left his wife with five little ones at home, hoping for a successful venture in this voyage to the Cape, every guinea of his capital having been invested in a half interest in the Ellen and her cargo. There was nothing to require our attention, as our ships were lying as still and motionless, but for the drift, as if riding at anchor in a road-stead; so we talked together until the steward announced dinner, and after that adjourned to the after-deck with a box of cigars and a bottle of wine, where we resumed our conversation. The weather continued unchanged, and I shall never forget the quiet happiness of those hours as we sat under the awning looking at the Cape pigeons and schools of flying-fish, and chatting about the pleasant memories of our boyish days. It was near sunset when John Alford asked me to signal his boat, and soon afterward he left the Ariadne. We both expected the wind to rise during the night, but intended keeping our ships together until next day, and so made all our arrangements for signaling, so that we might not part company in the darkness.
“When I went below I met Kelson at the cabin door. ‘The barometer’s taken a start downward, sir,’ said he: ‘we shall have nasty weather before morning.’
“‘It is very likely,’ I answered, ‘but I think the old ship can stand some weather. Set the watches with two good men in each, and have everything snug for a blow.’
“‘Ay, ay, sir!’ answered the careful fellow: ‘all that’s done already. I’ve seen these South Atlantic calms before now. The sails are all clewed up and the useless spars sent down: the boats are secured, the movables all double lashed, and the storm-staysails made ready to bend on.’
“‘Then we shall only have to keep a good lookout, and if it blows, let it blow. Give the watches strict orders not to lose the Ellen, Mr. Kelson.’
“‘Ay, ay, sir! The Lord grant it isn’t a cyclone! I don’t like ’em.’
“It was about nine o’clock that night that I heard a light ripple against the ship’s side, and a moment after the creaking of the yards as the rising breeze moved them slightly. I at once went on deck, and my first glance showed me how fortunate I was in having such a first officer as Kelson. The night was as black as pitch: the wind came in little puffs and flaws, and then for a moment would die away altogether. There was a low, ominous murmur in the distance like the sighing of a pine forest, and now and then the faint muttering of thunder. Suddenly there was a sharp, jagged flash which seemed to run halfway round the horizon, followed instantly by a rattling peal like a running fire of field-pieces. A silence and a stillness followed this opening overture like that of the valley of death. I sprang to the pilot-house and seized the wheel, for I knew everything would depend upon _that_, but as yet there was neither lee nor weather side, for it was impossible to guess from what quarter the wind would strike us. There was a brief period of suspense, which seemed to me an hour long, the dead silence broken only by the cheery ring of Kelson’s voice giving his orders with a promptness and decision which was sweet music to my ears. A moment more and the whole sky was one blaze of dazzling light; in a second of time I saw with almost supernatural distinctness every rope and spar, every brace and shroud of the ship; I saw the illimitable black expanse of water on the port side, and the Ellen, a mile distant on the starboard bow, her outlines as sharply defined as in a silhouette; I saw the figures of men ascending her shrouds, and with utter amazement I saw that her topsails were set. But as I glanced away from her I saw a dark wall of water on our starboard beam, crested with glittering foam and twenty feet or more in height, bearing right down upon us.
“‘Hard a-lee!’ came the voice of Kelson, drowned in a crash of thunder which words are powerless to describe, and as the good ship swung round responsive to the touch of her helm, all was again Egyptian darkness, and the wind rushed upon us with the howl and roar of a thousand hungry wild beasts. The Ariadne answered her helm like a tender-mouthed colt, but she was not quick enough for the enormous sea which the next moment broke on her starboard quarter. The decks were deluged with water, which must have swamped the ship had not every hatch been securely battened; the starboard quarter-boat was crushed like an egg-shell, and swept from her davits with the wreck of the bulwarks, which were stove in like a cigar-box; the masts bent like reeds and quivered to the keelson, and the strong mizzen storm-staysails burst with the report of a twelve-pounder. The Ariadne careened until her lee-earrings dipped into the sea, but righted herself as she came before the wind, and rose like a duck on the back of the angry swells. It was a fearful night, and every incident of it is photographed indelibly on my memory. There was not a rag of canvas on the ship except her heavy main-staysail, and yet one after another the topmasts splintered and fell, hampering the lower rigging and littering the deck with the wreck, the broken royals making terrible work as they whipped about in the storm; but it was utterly impossible to cut them loose. Well, it’s getting late, and I must hurry to the end of my story. The storm lasted about three hours, and then the wind fell almost as suddenly as it rose.
“When daylight came there was no trace of the tremendous commotion of the night except the heavy swell of the wearied sea. We had weathered the gale in safety, and although the Ariadne was dreadfully battered and her rigging badly cut up, there was no damage which we were not able to repair sufficiently well to continue our voyage.”
Uncle Joseph paused as if he had no more to say. I waited a moment, and then ventured to ask, “How did the Ellen get through it?”
“When the sun rose clear I swept the horizon with my glass, but she was not in sight. She has never been heard of since.”
Again the old gentleman paused, but this time I dared not break the silence. At last he dropped the stump of his cigar into the ash-holder and said, “I never made but one more voyage after that, and that was to bring John’s orphans to Charleston after their mother’s death.”
ROBERT WILSON.
ART–EXPERIENCE OF AN IGNORAMUS.
When I remember my first visits to the picture-galleries of Europe, I am filled with compassion for the multitudes of my country-folk who yearly undergo the same misery. I hope they do not all know how miserable they are, and fancy that they enjoy themselves; but with many the suffering is too great for self-deception, and they come home to look back upon those long halls, filled with the masterpieces of ancient and modern art, as mere torture-chambers, whence nothing is brought away but backache, headache, weary feet and an agonizing confusion of ideas. Some of them avenge themselves by making fun of the whole matter: they tell you that there is a great deal of humbug about your great pictures and statues; that Raphael is nearly as much overrated as Shakespeare; that it is all nonsense for people to pretend to admire headless trunks and dingy canvases. To them I have nothing to say: they find consolation in their own cleverness. But a great many are left with a mingled sense of disappointment and yearning: they cannot get rid of the thought that they have missed a great pleasure–that a precious secret has remained hidden from them, and that through no fault of theirs. It is to these, who have my sincere sympathy, and to those who have the same trials before them, that I offer the result of three years’ acquaintance with the great galleries of Europe, premising that I have no technical knowledge of art: I have only learned to enjoy it.
We Americans generally bring total want of preparation with us from home: pictures and statues, their subjects and their authors, except a few of the most famous, are equally unknown to us. This is to some degree our own fault. All that we can learn by reading is valuable. I do not refer to criticism or descriptions, but what may be called the general literature of art–the lives of artists, the history of the various schools, even mythology and the lives of the saints; which last were the favorite theme during the best period everywhere except in England, whose native art is not much over a century old. This is within the reach of every one on this side the Atlantic, and to know what a picture is about is to have one source of confusion removed. Besides which, all accessory information adds much to the general interest and is a help in the first stages. Criticism is to be excepted, as tending to disturb the integrity of one’s individual impressions, difficult enough to keep independent under the influence of a great name. The beginner ought not to seek the opinion of others–except in devoting his attention to the works of highest fame, which is following the verdict of the world, and not of a person or set–until he has one of his own, always bearing in mind that his is probably wrong, and keeping his conceit down and his mind open to conviction. The study of works of art with the handbooks of connoisseurs belongs to the higher branches of aesthetic education, of which I have naught to tell.
Besides reading, of course all opportunities of seeing good specimens at home should be made the most of. These are far from so rare as ten years ago. In Boston the Athenaeum, in New York the Metropolitan Art Museum, and both in the latter city and Philadelphia the private collections–which the kindness of their owners makes almost as accessible as public ones–afford us examples of most contemporary painters and of some of the older masters; while our schools of design are provided with casts from the most celebrated antique statues, and many of the best modern ones come to our shores. The Arundel Society of London publishes chromo-lithographs of uncommon merit after the finest and most curious paintings of the Old World. But the best preparation of all is a knowledge of drawing: even if nothing is acquired beyond the ability to copy a cast correctly or sketch a landscape roughly but faithfully, it is a long step over the primary difficulties of the path.
The very first of these difficulties is to know what we really like. It is probably impossible to look at a famous work with eyes clear from preconceived impressions: copies, engravings, photographs, have familiarized us in some measure with the finest things in the world. However imperfect an idea may be given by reproductions of great pictures–great in size as well as merit–whether we have seen a Marcantonio or a Raphael Morghen or only a _carte de visite_–a notion of their chief features is acquired: we recognize them from the farther end of the gallery, whither indeed we have generally come in quest of them, and the results are very like those of a first sight of Niagara. Everybody knows how that looks–the huge downpour of the American Fall, the graceful rush of the slenderer stream formed by Goat Island, the mighty curve and tremendous placidity of the Horseshoe Fall, the clouds of spray, the lightly poised rainbow. But all this does not give us the feeling of Niagara: one person is overwhelmed, another enraptured, very many are disappointed. Besides, we are bothered by notions of how we ought to feel at such a moment. All these hinderances the majority of us will meet at the outset. After seeing a few masterpieces, a superficial acquaintance with the characteristics of the most elaborated painters is soon acquired, and then comes the difficulty of judging honestly of the effect upon one’s self of a picture which bears so great a name. Yet all Tintoretto’s paintings are no more equal than Sir Walter Scott’s novels or Byron’s poems: Titian trips as Homer nods. Of course we cannot expect to distinguish between the good and the bad of a great master, but there is no reason for our admiring everything from his hand. A great step is gained when we know whether we are pleased or not.
All our familiarity with the composition of great pictures does not prevent our becoming bewildered by their size and color on first beholding them. The number of canvases and conflict of hues in a gallery confuse the eye and irritate the nerves. One looks down the interminable corridors, the immense halls, the endless suites of rooms, with growing dismay: as one succeeds another, and the inmost chamber seems farther off as we advance, the nightmare sense of something which is impossible, yet must be done, begins to weigh upon us. And this goes on day after day with a protracted strain upon the limbs, the senses and the brain, until real injury sometimes ensues. After traversing almost without a pause the great art-palaces of Munich, Brussels, Antwerp, The Hague and all the minor ones on the route, on reaching Amsterdam, with its inexhaustible picture-shows, I had got to the point where I sat down amidst the Rembrandts, forced to declare that I would rather look at so much wall-paper of a good pattern. This is utter folly. One cardinal rule in seeking either pleasure or profit is not to tire one’s self. When time is limited and the opportunity may never recur, the temptation is almost overpowering: this is our only chance–we must not lose it. But it _is_ lost if we overtask the perceptions and carry away no idea with us: there is no gain, and positive harm. No one new to galleries should look at pictures for more than an hour together, and I think that one who knows and cares much about them will not wish to do so for more than double that time. We learn by degrees to go through a gallery much more rapidly than at first, for unless we have adopted some plan of selection we begin by looking at every picture. After a while we merely glance at the greater number, and get over the ground much more quickly, though we spend a long time before the rest. If in this cursory survey a picture strikes and pleases you, look at it by all means, return to it again and again, and see whether the charm works or wears out: it may be the starting-point of your whole career of enjoyment. Do not run counter to your natural impulse if you have any: no matter whether you suspect the picture to be bad or by an inferior master, look at it and enjoy it as much as you can. If you are only honest with yourself, you will not care for it long if it be poor.
A good plan for getting our ideas into order on going into a gallery is to take one master and look only at his works for a day or two, and then at the others of his school, else there is a terrible confusion of names, dates, periods, manners and subjects in our heads. This cannot always be accomplished, for in some choice collections there are but a few specimens of each master, though in the large ones there are always more than enough for a beginner’s first day. It is best to begin with a comparatively modern master, and work back gradually, otherwise the eye is puzzled by inaccuracies of drawing, perspective, color. The early painters can hardly be expected to delight us at first: we are shocked by the unnatural proportions, the grotesque countenances. To cite an extreme case, the first view of Giotto’s frescoes, where men and women with bodies of board, long jointless fingers, rigid plastered hair, and dark-rimmed slits for eyes whose oblique glance imparts an air of suspicion to the whole assembly, will suggest merely a notion of their grotesqueness. By and by we shall grow used to the deformities, and recognize the primitive truthfulness of attitude and expression, the spirit which animates these ungainly forms and faces, until at length we look at the painter with the eyes of his contemporaries, and judge him by the standards of his own time, on which his claims rest. Then we shall admire him. The Venetians of the sixteenth century are the easiest to look at, however much of their genius and wonderful skill be lost on a novice, for they knew as much about anatomy and perspective as any painter of to-day, and their men and women are such glorious creatures, with backgrounds of such stately architecture or such magnificent scenery, all displayed in a revel of color, that pleasure outruns comprehension in the beholder.
The subject of a work of art exercises a great influence at first. Some subjects naturally attract, others awe, others repel, and some have no interest for us whatever: this, of course, is entirely apart from the intrinsic sources of enjoyment. Next we are affected by the way in which the subject is treated; and this, too, is a moral or intellectual appreciation, rather than an aesthetic one. Perhaps, as a general rule, the enjoyment of landscapes precedes that of figures, and expression strikes us sooner than form, while color comes last of all; but this differs with different temperaments. I suppose there are few who do not feel a little stupid amusement at first at inaccuracies of costume and accessories in the older pictures, but we soon become as indifferent to them as the painters were themselves. One grows so accustomed to see scriptural personages presented in the dress and surrounded by the architecture or landscape of Southern Europe of three centuries ago that the anachronism or inconsistency ceases to strike one. Perhaps it is because armor and flowing robes, colonnades and branching trees, never seem out of keeping with events of a certain dignity. I am not sure that the traveler ever becomes quite unconscious of the incongruity of the old Flemish dress and decorations, in most cases strongly enhanced by the prim composure which is the elementary expression of the earlier Netherlandish faces: this is still discernible through all transitory emotions of fear, hate, love or anguish, and does not fail to produce very tragi-comic combinations. I remember a group of a man in the dress of an Antwerp burgher sitting on a three-legged stool, with his head on the knee of a discreet-looking woman in a long-waisted, plain-skirted gown, with a high square bodice closed by a plaited neckerchief, her hair drawn tightly back under a close round cap, her pocket hanging from her girdle on one side, and on the other a small array of housewifery implements, among others a pair of scissors, with which she is clipping his locks: her expression is so placid and thrifty withal that it seemed clear she was saving a penny for her goodman instead of sending him to the barber. But this was not the painter’s idea: the two were Samson and Delilah. Better than this was a painting of Susannah and the elders, where the chaste Susannah is depicted clothed to the throat like a Dutch burgomaster’s wife, with a close cap and long veil, while her perilous ablutions are typified by a small wash-basin on the ground beside her. Another almost as grotesque was a Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Breughel the Elder–a snow-scene in the wide street of a red brick, high-gabled village–soldiers, parents, children, all in the stiff, ungraceful Flemish dress of the sixteenth century, the poor little children, in square trousers and pinafores, clinging to their mothers’ narrow skirts. Oddly enough, it made the story more real to me than it had ever seemed before, quite painfully and terribly so, indeed: dispoiled of its usual conventional character, it became definite, and the very historical inaccuracy which destroyed the traditional conception made it an historical fact. We have only to go to Ghent and Bruges to see how the genius and devout earnestness of the Van Eycks, Van der Heyden and Hemling raise their pictures above trifling absurdities. It is undeniable that with many of us the constant presentation to our eyes of the incidents of our Saviour’s life, especially His passion, gives them more reality than even the most frequent reading of the Bible. This renders the crucifixion extremely painful, intolerable in powerful pictures. I knew of an intelligent, sensitive little child who burst into convulsive sobbing before Tintoretto’s great Crucifixion in the Scuola San Rocco at Venice. In the Belvedere at Vienna there is a picture by Rubens of the dead Christ in the arms of the usual small group: His mother is removing with a light, tender touch a thorn which is still piercing the cold brow. The whole picture is in the same spirit, and I never could look at it with dry eyes. Yet in Rubens’s hands this and all kindred subjects are generally repulsive. The very early masters are prone to fix the attention upon some revolting detail of torture or too material and agonizing exhibition of physical suffering, but their stiff, hard outlines, absence of perspective and childishness of composition, with the element of the grotesque which is seldom absent, take the edge off their effect. Later, when art has advanced, and is capable of affecting us more deeply, refinement too has advanced: there is less simplicity, but merely painful detail is subordinated to general expression and skill of drawing and color. It is where the two meet, as in Rubens, that the result is most harrowing: the picture I have just spoken of is the only one of his in which I ever saw any sign of delicacy or tenderness, any appeal to the deeper and more exquisite emotions. Nevertheless, by degrees his genius helps one to surmount his realism. On my first visit to Antwerp I looked for a few minutes–which was as long, as I could bear it–at the great Descent from the Cross in the cathedral, and turned away with the conviction that I could never have anything but distressing and disagreeable impressions from that picture. Six months afterward I was in Antwerp again: I could not see the Descent often enough, and spent my last hour in the place before it. Yet he is a brutal painter withal, and such subjects, however magnificently treated by him, could never give me the same unmixed enjoyment as in the hands of the gentle and pensive Vandyke.
Some people maintain that all great works of art speak for themselves, and will make their appeal at once to a person capable of appreciating them, without any previous experience or education. This is impossible, for were it so the fine arts would be an exception to the rules which govern everything else in life–music, literature, moral beauty and the beauties of Nature. It must be with them as with other things: knowledge, cultivation, practice enhance the power of enjoyment. Of course, in this, as in all matters, individual organization will tell powerfully; but take an intelligent, educated person of average perceptions, who has never seen a single good picture, and set him before one of the greatest in the world, and I doubt if he would receive any genuine pleasure from it. _A fortiori_, an uneducated person, one who could appreciate the first masterpiece he ever saw the first time he ever saw it, would be a prodigy only second to him who could produce one without preliminary study. The picture which I think calculated to appeal most powerfully and universally is Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, where the grouping of the figures and the expression of each head, as well as the disposition of the whole, can hardly fail to produce a deep impression on any one of thought and feeling; yet even here there would be a first shock, to any untrained eye, from the faded colors, the defaced and spotted surface; and this must be got over before the fresco can be even seen. Moreover, in my experience, there is no pleasure connected with the whole business of seeing galleries like that of revisiting them: not only should we return to them daily on first acquaintance, but we should make a practice of seeing them again after an interval of months whenever it can be done: it is surprising what a comprehension and enjoyment of their chief treasures grows up during absence.
Little by little, through divers probations, we begin to feel ground under our feet. We have our likes and dislikes, our favorite masters, pictures and statues, which are like old friends. Instead of weariness, vexation and a vain effort to comprehend, a delightful sense of repose and coming pleasure steals over us as we enter a gallery. The lovely forms, the noble composition, the delicious color minister to us, mind and body, and soothe us like music or the smile of Nature; and the plastic arts have this advantage over music, that they are impersonal. We cannot identify ourselves with what moves us in painting or sculpture or architecture: on the contrary, it lifts us out of ourselves, away from our griefs and cares, instead of giving them a more intense and poignant expression, which at some moments is all the divinest music seems to do. Their influence is always benign and serene, and we may always have recourse to it, while the secrets of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann lie hidden between leaves, in the keeping of crabbed little hieroglyphs, and a voice, an