LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY Mr. H. H. KM iani ^^ '^T -r^f^.^^J ■^/((Hk f/m *"**'* "5^1% :'%• y//y- . 7///< yfu//u//. ///-. <:>!^/ ^ElDoraDo BMtion THE WORKS OF BAYARD TAYLOR VOLUME VII INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN STUDIES IN GERMAN LITERATURE G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON 27 WEST TWENTY-THIKD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND ®;^c ^nitlurbockcr ^rcss A VISIT TO INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN IN THE YEAR 1853 BY BAYARD TAYLOR author's revised edition Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by G. P. PUTNAM & CC, in the Clerk's Oflace of ihe District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, Copyright ey MARIE TAYLOR 1882 DeDicateO TO CHARLES A. DANA BY HIS ASSOCIATE AND FRIEND. PREFACE. With this volnmft ends the record of two and a half years of travel, wliich was commenced in the " Jonraey to Central Africa/' and continued in tbf^ "Lands of the Saracen." In bringing his work to a close, the author cannot avoid expressing his acknowledgment of the pub- lic interest in those portions of his narrative already published — an interest which has justified him in the preparation of this volume, and encouraged him to hope that he will again be received at the same firesides as a gossip and companion, not as a bore. Although the entire travels herewith presented em- brace India, China, Japan, the Loo-Choo and Benin Islands, and the long homeward voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. th<^y were all accomplished in the space H PREFAOB. of a year. Hence, some of my descriptions may bear the marks of haste, and I may, occasionally, have found- ed a judgment on the first rapid impressions, which a greater familiarity with the subject might not have con- firmed. I can only say, in answer to objections of this Ivind, that I have conscientiously endeavored to be cor- rect and impartial, and that, in preparing this work foi the press, I have carefully tested the original impressions recorded on the spot, by the truer images which slowly ripen in the memory, and by the light of subsequent experience. The portions of the book devoted to India and China are as complete as the length of my stay in those coun- tries allowed me to make them. The account of my visit to Loo-Choo and Japan, however, is less full and detailed than I could have wished. In accordance with special regulations issued by the Secretary of the Navy I was obUged to give up my journals to the Department, at the close of my connection with the Expedition, It was understood that they would be retained and em- ployed in the compilation of the Narrative of the Expe- dition, now being prepared by order of Congress. Ab my accounts of the most interesting events which I wit- PREFACE. • Vll oeesed had already been published, and were therefore common property, I made application to Government for the favor of being allowed to copy portions of my journal — especially that part relating to Loo-Choo^ which would have enabled me to supply the links be- tween tne published accounts : but my request was per- emptorily denied. My papers will no doubt be restored to me, after the completion of the Government work : otherwise, like John Ledyard, in a precisely similar case, I shall have the alternative of an unusually tenacioufi memory. During my journeys and voyages in those remote parts of the world, I was treated with great kindness and hospitality by the English and American merchants and officials established there, and received assistance in the prosecution of my plans, which T take sincere plea- sure in acknowledging. I desire, especially, to return my thanks to Commodore Perry, to whose kindness I was indebted for the most interesting portion of my experiences ; to the Hon. Humphrey Marshall, late U. S, Commissioner to China ; to Capt. Buchanan, U. S. N. ; to Edward Cunningham, Esq., U. S. Vice-Consul at Bhanghai ; to Henry G. Keene, Esq., of the E. I. Com^ nil PREFACE. pany's Civil Service, and Capt. R. Baird Smith, of the Bengal Engineers ; and to the American Missionaries in India and China, from all of whom I received every assistance in their power. B. T. New Yobk, Au^ttst^ 1856. CONTENTS CHAPTER L Leavin? Gibraltar— Voyage up the Mediterranean— Landing at Alexandria— Dlatrlbu tion^of Passengers— A Cloudy Day In Egypt-A Joyful Meeting— The Desert Vanft- We Start for Suez— Cockney Fears— The Road and Station-houses— Suez— Transfer tc the India Steamers— Our Passengers and Crew— The Mountains of Horeb— Ked Sea Weather and Scenery— A Glimpse of Mocha— The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb— An Ex- tinct Hades— The Fortress of Aden— Arrival— The Somali— Ride to the Old Town - Population of Aden— Temperature— The FortlflcationB— The Track of the Anglo- Saxon— Departure-Disregard of Life— Araby the Blest— Life on the Achilles— Ap- proach to India— Land !— The Ghauts of Malabar— Arrival at Bombay, . 18 CHAPTER IL & Foretaste ot India— Entering Bombay Harbor— I Reach the Shore- My First Ride in a Palanquin— Mr. Pallanjee's Hotel- Appearance of Bombay— Its Situation— The First Indian Railroad- English Hospitality— American Consuls and Residents— The Parsees— Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy— His Family and Residence— Parsee Faith and Ceremonies— Bridal Processions— A Drive to Malabar Hill— Tropical Gardens— Tax on Palm-Trees— A Hindoo Temple-The Jeejeebhoy Hospital— Dr. Bhawoo Da,- Jee ^ CHAPTER IIL EiLdoo and EgypMan Antiquities- The Hindoo Faith— The Trinity— A Trip to Ele- phanta— Scenery of the Bay— Landing on the Island— Front View of the Cave- Temple— Portuguese Vandalism— The Colossal Trinity— The Head of Brahma- Vishnu— Shiva— Remarkable Individuality of the Heads— The Gnanlians of the Shrine— The Columns of Elephanta— Their Type in Nature— Intrinsic Dignity of all Eeligloiis— Respect for the Ancient Faiths— The Smaller Chambers of the Templf^-- The Shrine of the Sterile— Tamarind Trees— Smaller Cave-Temples— Eetam to Bombay Island— Sunset in the Botanic Garden, ** C0HTEKT8. OHAPTEB IV N^ev-Tear s Day— A 'fiopical Gift — AP&rsee Bangalow — Oar Beceptlon-^^e'vrlng tl« Betel-Nut— The Naatch-Glrl»— Their Dances— Sapper— Prejudices of Caste— Th« Bengalee Dance— A Gilded Bridegroom— Piercing Music— Ship-Building lu Bom- bay-Education of the Natives— Their Appeals to Parliament, . . . . M CHAPTER V. Preparations for Departure— Warnings-Filial Gratitude— The Banghy Cart— A Night- Gallop through Bombay— The Island Eoad— Ferry to the Mainland— Despotism ol the Banghy-Cart— Morning Scenery— The Bungalow— Breakfast— The Sun as a Phy- gician— An Arm.v of Bullocks— Climbing the Ghauts— Natural Pagodas — The Sum- mit—A Kind Sergeant— The Second Day— Eesemblance to Mexico— Natives and Villages— The Menagerie Man in Egj-pt- An English Cantonment— Dhoolia— The Lieutenant and his Hospitality— A Kough Eoad— Accident— Waiting in the Jungle— The Bullock-Cart— Halt at Seerpore, 08 CHAPTER VL Departure from Seerpore— Another Break-down— A Crippled Cart— Palasnehr — Indian Horses and Drivers — -Jungle — The Banyan Tree— The Tamarind — The Natives of the Jungle— Military Salutations — The Town of Sindwah— Tokens of Decay— The Slndwah Jungles — A Dilem?ua — The Vindhya Mountains — The Station of Mhow— Arrival at Indore— The Town- -The Kajah's Palace— The E^ah and lils Hlstory- His Tastes — Hindoo Temples and their Worshippers— The tlnglish liesidency- Cold Weather T8 CHAPTER VII. fhe Mail-Cart— Setting out from Indore— Night Travel -Stupidity of the Natives— Mussulmen- Nearly an Accident — Scenery of the Eoad— A Polite Englishman- Miseries of the Journey— A Tiger Party— Budjrungurh— Goonah— A Free Use of Hospitality— The Thugs and Eobbers— Second Halt— Miss Burroughs — Going On— The Plain of Hindostan — Approach to Agra— A Landmark, . . . . M CHAPTER VIIL A-kbarabad— The Modern City— The English Cantonments— Rev. Mr. Warren— The Fort of Agra— The Jumraa Mnsjeed — Entering the Fort — Judgment-Seat of the Emperor— The Gates of Somnauth— Akbar's Palace— Splendor of Its Decorations— The Palace of Glass— A Cracked Thrnne-The Pearl Mosque— Tomb of Akbar, at Secundra- An Indian Landscape — Saracenic Art— Mission Prlntlng-OfQce — The American Missions— The Agra Jail— Dr. Walker's System ol Education— Arlthme- ticln Chorus— EfiFect of the System, 101 CHAPTER IX. Excursion to Futtehpore-Slkree— The Road Thither— Approach to the Ruins— Theb Extent and Grandeur— The Palace of Kajah Beer-Bul- Perfect Condition of tb< Remains- Shekh Busharat-Ali— Age of Futtehpore — The Emperor's Palace- Rooms of the Sultana Mariam— Akbar's Tolerance— The Five Palaces— The PlKai of Council— Profusion of Ornament— The Emperor's SalutaticHi— The Elephant G«tii CONTENTS. xi •nd Tower— The Durgat— Shekh Selim-Chlshtl— He glyes a Son to the Emperor- The Splendor of his Tomb — View from the Gateway— An Experiment— Tiflto ia the Palace— The Story of the E^jah Beer-Bol and the Ruby— Last View of Futteh- por«-flikree, lu CHAPTEE X. Ustaut Views of the Taj— Tomb of Itmun e' Dowlah— The Garden of Bama— Nl^t Worship— The Taj Mahal— Its Origin— The Light of the Harem— Portal and Avenue to the Taj— Its Form— Its Inlaid Marbles and Jewel Work— Tomb of Noor-Jehan- - The Dome — Resemblance to Florentine Art— Proofs of Saracenic Design— The Bcho under the Dome -Beauty of the Taj — Saraceiiic Architecture— Plan of Shah Jehan— Garree Dawk— Leaving Agra— Night— Allyghur— The Grand Trunk Road —Distant View of Delhi— Arrival, 180 CHAPTER XL Delhi— The Mogul Empire at Present— Ruins of former Delhla— The Observatory— A Wildernessof Ruin— Tomb of Sufdur Jung— TheKhuttubMlnar— Its Beauty— View from the Summit— Uncertainty of its Origin— The Palace of Aladdin— Ruins of i Hindoo Temple — Tomb of the Emperor Humayoon — Of Nizam-ud-deen — Native Sam Patches— Old Delhi— Aspect of the Modern City— The Chandnee Choke— Ba- yaderes— Delhi Artisans and Artists — The Jumna Musjeed — A Hindoo Minstrel and his Songs — The Palace of Akbar II. — Neglect and Desolation — The Dlwan — An Elysium on Earth— The Throne Hall— The Crystal Throne— The Court of Akbar XL —A Farce of Empire — The Gardens — Voices of the Salt»na8— Palace Pastimes, 148 CHAPTEE XIL Departure for the Himalayas—" Laying a Dawk " — Last View of Delhi— A Rainy Night — Quarters at Meerut — The Dawk Agent — Hindoo Punctuality — Meerut — Palanquin Travelling — Tricks of the Bearers — Arrival at Roorkhee — Adventures In Search of a Bieakfaet— First View of the Himalayas — A Welcome Invitation— Roor khee — The Ganges Canal— Its Cost and Dimensions— Method of Irrigation — The Government and the People — Aqueduct over the Selanee Elver— Apathy of the Natives, , . 160 CHAPTEE XIIL Native Workmen at Roorkhee — Their Wages— Departure for Hurdwar- AlternooB View of the Himalayas — Peaks visible from Roorkhee — Jungle-grass — Jowalapore —Approach to the Siwalik Hills — First View of the Ganges — Ganges Canal— Pre- diction of the Brahmins — An Arrival — ^The Holy City of Hurdwar — Its Annual Fair— Appearance of the Streets — The Bazaar— A Himalayan Landscape — Travel la the Jangle — A Conflagration— The Jungle by Torch-Light— Arrival at Dehra, 1 Ti CHAPTER XrV. Reception by Mr. Keene — We start for the Himalayas — The Dehra -Dhoon — Moming View of the Sub-Himalayas— Leopards— Rajpore — Wilson, the "Ranger of th« Himalayas"- Climbing the Mountain— Change of Seasons — The Summit of th« Ridge— Village of Landowr— Snow-Drifts— The Pole and the EqxMitor-E«y, Ml Xll CONTENTS. Woodside— Mast-Hdad of the Sab-Hlmalayas — View of the ftnowj Peaks— €nn4 Asiatic Tradition— Peculiar Structure of the Himalayan Banges — Seenery of tb« Main Chain— The Paharreea— Polyandry— The Peaks at Sunset— The Plain of Hlndostan- A Cloudy Deluge, 182 CHAPTER XV. Return to Denia— The Dhoon— System of Taxation— The Tea-Culture in India-^ Tea Garden at Kaologir— Progress by Fwce— Elde to the Bobber's Cave— A Sikh Tem- ple — A Sunny Picture — Sikh Minstrelsy— Eajth Loll Singh— English Master? and Native Servants — Preparations for Departure, IM CHAPTER XVL Bide to Shahpore— The Rajah's Elephant— The Pass of the Siwallk Hills— I Resume the Palanquin— The Large Punch-House — Saharunpore — The American Mission— The Botanic Garden— A Dreary Journey — Travellers — Salutations — Return to Meerut— A Theft— Journey over the Plains— Scenery of the Road- The Pollution of Touch— Fractious Horses— Arrival at Cawnpore— Capt. Blddell— The English Cantonments, 208 CHAPTER XVIL Crossing the Ganges— Night-Journey to Lucknow — Arrival — A Mysterious Visitor — A Morning Stroll— The Goomtee River— An Oriental Picture — The Crowds of Llick« now — Col. Sleeman, ibe Resident — Drive through the City — The Constantinople Gate — Arcbitectviral Effects— The Imambarra — Gardens and Statues — Singular Dec- orations of the Tomb — The Chandeliers — Speculation in Oude — Hospital and Mosque —The Kings Xtw Palace — The Martiniere — Royalty Plundered— The Dog and the Rose- Water — Destruction of the King's Sons — The Explosion of a Fiend — Misrule In Oude— Wealth of Lucknow— A Ride on a Royal Elephant— The Queen-Dowa- ger's Mosque— Navigating the Streets— A Squeeze of Elephants— The Place of Exe- eution — TLe Choke — Splendor and Corruptlnn, 214 CHAPTER aVHL Ketam to Cawnpore — An Accident— The Road to Allahabad — Sensible Pilgrims- Morning— Beauty of AUaliabad— The American Missionaries — The Hindoo Festival —The Banks of the Ganges — Hindoo Devotees— Expounding the Vedas — The Place of Hair- A Pilgrim Shorn and Fleeced — The Place of Flags — Venality of the Brah- mins— Story (if the Contract for Grass — Junction of the Ganges and Jumna— Bathing of che Pilgrims— A Sermon— The Mission— Subterranean Temple— The Fort o4 Allahabad, 22« CHAPTER XIX. Crossing tiie Ganges — Pilgrims Returning Home — Vagaries of tne Horses — Benares- Prof Hall— The Holy City— Its Sanctity— The Sanscrit College— Not el Plan z\ Education- Village of Native Christians— The Streets of Benares— Sacred Bulls— Their Sagacity and Cunning— The Golden Pagoda— Hindoo Architecture— Worship of the Llngam- Temple of the Indiac Ceree— The Banks of the Gangeiy— Bathing Devotees— Preparations for Departure, 28f CONTENTS. nii CHAPTER XX. Hoonllght on the (Janges— The Unholy River— Scenery of the Plata*— Egyptian Landscapes — Sasseram — Mountains near the Soane River — View of the Ford— Creasing — The Second Day's Journey — Tbe Hills of Behar — Meeting with an Ac- quaintance—Wild Table-Land— Sunset— A Coolie Trick— The Aborigines of Lidia— Triumph of the Red-haired Lady— Horse Gymnastics— The Lady Defttated — Man- glepore — An Eccentric Night-Journey — The City of Burdwau — Tropical Scenery- Wrecked on the Road — A Wrathful Delay — Wrecked again — Journey by Moonlight —Another Wreck— An Insane Horse— The Hoogly River— Yet Another Accident— k Momtag Parade— The End of " Garree-Dawk," 260 CHAPTER XXL Cmpresslons of Calcutta — The Houses of tbe Residents— Public Bulldtags and Instito- tlons — Colleges — Young Bengal— Museum of the Asiatic Society— The Botanic Garden— Calcutta at Sunset — Scene on tbe Esplanade — English Rule in India— Ite Results — Its Disadvantages— Relation of the Government to the Population— Ten- ure of Land - Taxes— The Sepoys — Revenue of India— Public Works— Moral Chan- ges — Social Prejudices, . . . . 2QS CHAPTER XXIL Departure fi-om Calcutta— Descending the Hoogly River — An Accident— Kedgeree— The Songs of the Lascars — Saugor Island— The Sandheads— The Bay of Bengal- Fellow- Passengers— The Peak of Narcondan— The Andaman Islands — Approach to Penang— A Malay Garree — Beauty of the Island — Tropical Forests — A Vale of Par- adise — The Summit — A Panorama — Nntmeg Orchards — The Extremity of Asia — The Malayan Archipelago— Singapore — Chinese Population— Scenery of the Island —The China Sear-Arrival at Hong-Kong, 87S CHAPTER XXIIL Trip to Macao — Attached to the U. S. Embassy — On Board the Steam-Frigate Susqne- hanna— Departure trom Macao — The Coast of China- Tbe Shipwrecked Japanese— Their Address to the Commissioner — The Eastern Sea —The Archipelago of Chnsan —The Mouth of the Yang-tse-Kiang— The Steamer Aground— Rumors of the Reb- els — Arrival at Wooeung— Entering the Woosung River — Chtaese Junks— Appear- ■nee of tbe Country — Approach to Shanghai— Arrival, ., ... 287 CHAPTER XXIV. rhe Commissioner decides to visit Nanking— Preparations for the Voyage— Departure of four Japanese — The Susquehanna leaves — Woosung — Bush Island and Tsung- Mtag— We strike the Blonde Shoal— The Chinese Pilots— Escape of a Boat— Off th« Bhoftl— Mr. Bennett's night cruise after the Boats— Unfavorable Reports— The Re- turn-End of the Expedition — Successful Trip of the Susquehanna in tbe Bummer ori864, W CHA?TEE XXV. Life to Bhangh«i— The Rebels Expected— My Journal- The Fall of Nanking- Th« Grain Trade— Soo-Chow Threatened— Barbarities at Nanking— Rumors Concern CONTENTS. hie the Rebels— Capture of l,orch as— Threats towards Foreigneis — Alarm of th Taoa-tal — A Kebel l^roclamation — Imperial Rewards and Pardons — Col. ila stall'l Proclamation — Xankliig Besieged by the Imperial Army — Flight fr )iii Sliangbai— Sir George Bonham — Meetings of the Foreign Residents— Ransom for Shanghai— Soo-Chow not Taken — Uncertainty — Mr. Meadows at Soo-Chow — Deleusive Worlu Commenced — Trouble with the Men of Foo-Kien — Marauders in th<^ Country- Burning of Thieves — The Foo-Kieu Grave-yard — Desertion of the City — A En« moied Battle— Death of Tien-teh— Mr. Meadows — Various Rumors— Return of the Science — Destruction of Chin-klang-foo— The Kxcitement Subsides, . . 801 CHAPTER XXVL Chineee and Foreigners at Shanghai — Situation of the City — A Chinese Promenade— Burjing-Grounds— Money for the Dead— A Baby Tower— The Ningpo House- Coffins— Chinese Gypsies— A Street of the Suburbs— The City Gate— A ChlneM Pawnbroker s Shop — A Temple — The Statue of Boodh — A Priest at his Devotions — Stenches of the Streets — Beggars — Shops — View of the Tea-Garden— Chinese Gamblers— An Artistic Mountebank— The Baptist Chapel— Scene from its Tower— The Hills — Fanciful Signs — Missionary Labors in China — Apathy of the People— A Chinese Residence— The Library— The City Prison— Torture of the Prisoners— A Bath House— Character of the Mongol Form— The Tutelar Deity of Shanghai— Boodh at Sunset— Kite Flying, 881 CHAPTER XXVIL * An Earthquake— Sensations it Producea— Its EflFects— Additional ShockB— The Bowl- ing Alley— Hairs In the Soil— A Shower of Sand— Visit of the Taou-tai to Col. Marshall— Chinese Visiting Cards— The Taou-tai's Appearance — Reception of the Dignitaries— A Chinese Military Review— The Soldiers and their Equipments— Their Discipline— Uncouth Weapons— Absurdity of the Parade— The Commissioner visits the Taou-tal— Reception— The Taou-tal's Residence— Chinese Refreshments- Departure 889 CHAPTER XXVUL Spring at Shanghai— Appearance of the Country— Crops— National Conveyance of China— Houses of the Lower Classes— Sail on the River— The Pagoda— Village Market — Sweetmeats and Children — Showers of Cash — Chinese Horticultural Exhi- bition — The Lan-whei — Chinese Love of Monstrosity— Moral Depravity of the Race —Landscape Gardening— A Soldier and his Drill -The Cangue— Visit of the Hermet to Nanking- The Rebels— Their Christianity— Condition of the City— Arrival of the U. S. Steam Frigate JTismsippi— Commodore Perry— CoL Marshall's Chlnee« Dinner— Mr. Robert Fortune, 84* CHAPTER XXIX. State of Things at Shanghai— The 81oop-of-War Plymouth— Preparations for Depart- ure—Entering the Naval Service — Its Regulations — Procuring a Uniform— The Master's- Mates— Establishing a Mess — Departure for Japan— A Gale — Shipwrecks- Standing out to Sea— Arrival ai the Great Loo-Choo Island— A Missionary— Beautj of the Harbor of Napa— The Native Authorities— Going Ashore — Jumping over t Oond Beef- -Landlag— The Town of Napa-Klang— 8ple»— Dr. Betteihelm'i Real, dence, . . . . . . . . 3« COITTKNTS. XV CHAPTEE XXX. Visit of the Eegect— The Island of Loo-Choo — An Exi)loration of the Inter or— S Escape it — Taking Families by Surprise — The Landscapes of Lco-Cboo— The Cung-guda — Watches and Counter- Watches — Commodore Perry's Visit to Shui— Disembarkation— The Order of March— Curiosity of the Natives—March to the Capital— Eeception at the Gate — A Deception Prevented — The Viceroy's Castle — ^The Inner Courts — The Commodores Reception — A Tableau — Salutations and Ceremonies— Visit to the Regent's House — A State Banquet in Loo-Choo — Edibles and Beverages — Extent of the Dinner— Toasts — The Interpreter, Jchiraeichi — De- parture — Eiding a Loo-Choo Pony — Eeturn to the Squadron, . . . .870 CHAPTEE XXXL Departure — The Bonin, or Arzobispo Isles— Death of a Chinese Opium Smoker— A Peruvian Bark — Approach to the Bonin Islands — Pilots — Entering Port Lloyd — Go- ing Ashore— A Settler's Hut— Society on the Island— Mode of Life— An Old Inhab- itant and his Mate — Productions of the Island — A Coaling Station for Steamers — Bucklaud Island— A Basaltic Cavern — English Claims to the Islands, . 889 CHAPTEE XXXIL Expl(Ming Parties Appointed-My Part- Setting Out— Climbing the Hills— The Soil and Productions — Land-Crabs — Crossing a Eidge — A Tropical Eavine — Signs ol Habitation— A Marquesan and his Household— South- Sea Pilots- The Valley— The Forest Again— Trees — Shooting a Wild Boar- The Southern Coast— A Precipice- Dangerous Climbing — A Frightful Ravine — Descending the Precipices — South-Easi Bay— The Nom -Camp— Ascent of the Eavine — The Party beginning to Fag— The Valley Again— A Slippery Ascent— A Man Lost— Firing Signals— Eeturn to the Vessel, . . 398 CHAPTER XXXIIL BMum to Loo-Choo — Malls— Departure for Japan — The Island of Ohosima— The Japanese Coast — The Headland of Idzu— Precautionary Measures — Cape Sagami — The Bay of Yedo — Approach to Uraga— A Hint— T.ie Squadron Halts— Japanese Boats— A Talk at the Gangway— The Vice Governor of Uraga— His Eeception— The Boats Repulsed — Japanese Boatmen — Watch-fires — Yezaimon. Governor of Uraga— Consultations — An Express to Tedo — The Emperor appoints a Commissioniir —Permission to Land— Skilful Negotiations— Scenery of the Bay— The Fortifica- tions—The Pi^ak of Fusl-Yamma— Canvas Defences— A Surveying Party- Sounding along Shore— Forts and Soldiers- Threatened Collision— A Second Survey— A Mi- rage — Warlike Appearances — Lieut. Bent's Encounter with Forty-five Jfc,paneee Boats— Eesult of the Survey, . 41C CHAPTEE XXXIV. Ph« Day of Landing— Preparations on Shore — The Bight of Gorl-hama- Japaneae Military Display — Arrival of the Governors— Their Official Dresses — PrecAUtlOM OB Board- -The Procession of Boats — An Insolring Scene — The Landing — Namben XVI COITTKNTS. of the Escort— Th« Japanese Troops — The CJommodore's Landing— March to the House of Reception — Japaoeee Body -Guard— The Hall of Audience— Two Japanesf Princes — Delivery of the President's Letter— An Official Conversation- Return to tl»e Squadron, 424 CHAPTER XXXV. ':%e Japanese Officers on Board— Their Manners— Their Dislike to the Chinese— Tbeli Swor.*s— Their Curiosity- Passing up the Bay— Beauty of the Scenery—" Perry's Bay "—Junks bound for Tedo— Another Visits-Further Surveys— The Natives- - An Excursion towards Yedo— Extent and Capacity of the Upper Baj —Change oi Anchorage— The Surveys Proceed— Interchange of Presents— A Dilemma— Final Satisfaction— Farewell of the Japanese Officials — Commodore Perry's Diplomacy- Departure from Japan— A Multitude of Boats— Oosima— The Islands off the Bay— Discoveries— Formation of the Group — We Sail for Ohoslma— A Typhoon— Return to Loo-Choo— The Second Visit to Japan, .... ... 488 CHAPTER XXXVL Negotiations with the New Regent— Capt Hall's Account of Loo-Choo — Napoleon's Incredulity— Its Correctness— Verification of the Japanese Chroniclen-The Three Castles— The Government of Loo-Choo— Provisions Ibr the Squadron— Duplicity of the Officials— The Markets Deserted— The Spies— The Telegraph and Daguerre- otype In Loo-Choo— Demands of Commodore Perry— The Regent's Reply— The Commodore successful— A Scene In the Market-place — Chase and Capture of a Spy —The Coal Depot— Exhibition of Loo-Choo Industry— National Contrasts— Steam- ship Line across the Pacific, 44fi CHAPTER XXXVIL Setum to Hong Kong— End of the Cruise — Experience of Naval Life — My Duties on Board — " General Quarters '" — Our Crew — Decline of Naval Discipline — False Sjt tem of Promotion— Delays— What is Needed— Harmony of Government at Sea— The Abolition of Corporeal Punishment — Want oi an Efficient Substitute — Govern- ment on Sea and Land— Mr. Kennedy's Proposal for Registered Seamen — EfiFect of Long Cruisea— Need of Small Vessels in Chinese Waters, .... 454 CHAPTER XXXVIIL Impressions of Hong-Kong— A Man DrowTsrd at Midnight— Hong-Kong fh)m the Water— The town of Victoria— The Island of Hong-Kong— The Hong-Kong Fever- Hospitality of Foreign Residents In China— Their Princely Style of Living— Rigid Social Etiquette— Balls— Tropical Privileges— The Anglo-Saxon Abroad, . 46£ CHAPTER XXXIX Morements of the Squadron— Cumslngmoon — The Naval Hospital at Macao — Qoiel Life— A Chinese Beggar— The Band— The Memories of Macao— Sltuaion of th« Town— Its Appearance— Desertion of the Place— Its Tropical Gardens— The Cam- po — The Temple of Wang Hya— Anecdote of Cnsliing — Society in Macao— Chines* All-Soals' Day— Discordant Noises— The Grotto of CamoCns— The Casa Gardens— The Grotto at Daybreak -French Irreverence— Preparations to Retoni Hom»— Leaving th/i Naval 8«rvio>-Trips to Hong-Kong and CamfllBgnjooo, . . 414 CONTENTS. Xni CHAPTER XL Increase of the BquAdron— Disposition of the Vessels— Passage to Canton— First View of the City— The Foreign Factories— Old and New China Streets— Talking " Pi- geon English "—The Great Temple of Honsn — Ceremonies of the Priests — Sacred Books and Pigs— The Lotus Blossom— Dwellings of the Priests — A Eetired Ab hot — Opium Smoking in China— The Oplum-Plpe — Flavor and Fascination of the Drug— Its Effects — A Walk around Canton- The Walls— Entering the City— For- eign Devils — A Tea-House — Beyond the Subarbs — A Chinese Panorama — ^Thf Feast of Lanterns— Dr. Parker's Hospital— The Eve of Departure, . . 486 CHAPTEE XLL farewell to China— Whampoa — A Musical Good-Bye — The Bogne Forts — The Last Link— The China Sea— Life on the Sea-Serpen1>-The Straits of Mindoro— Pictu- resque Islands — Calm Sailing — Moonlight in the Tropics — " Summer Isles of Eden * —The Sooloo Sea— The Cagayanes Islands — Straits of Basilan — Mindanao — A Na- tive Proa— The Sea of Celebes — Entering the Straits of Macassar— Crossing th« Equator— Ofif Celebes— Lazy Life— The Java Sea— Passing the Thousand Islands- Approach to the Straits of Sunda, SOf CHAPTEE XLIL Altering the Straits of Sunda— Malay Boats — The Mangosteen- Bargaining with thv Natives — Scenery of the Straits — Angier — Passing the Straits — Death on Board— The Indian Ocean— A Submaiine Earthquake — A Tropical Sunset — A Fatal Escape —The Trade Wind— Mozambique Channel— The Coast of Africa— Doubling the Cape — Southern Constellations— Distant View of Table Mountain — On the Atlantic —The Trades again— Restoration— A Slaver, 511 CHAPTEE XLIII. Proposed Call at St Helena— First View of the Island— Its Cllfl^— Approach to James- town — View from the Anchorage — Landing — The Town and Eavine — Ascending the Gorge — Looking Down—" The Briars " — Summit of the Island— Pastoral Land- •cape — Sea- View— Approach to Longwood— Reception— The Billiard-Room— Scene of Napoleon's Death— His Bedroom— Desecration of Longwood— The New Eesi dence — The Longwoo.l Farm— The " Crown and Rose "—National Pecnliaritiob - The Grave of Napoleon — The Old Woman's Welcome — Condition of the Grave — BL Helena Literature — The Old Woman's Admirable Story — ^Napoleon's Spring— Betom to Jamestown — Departure from the Island 52ituated the residences of the w^ealthier inhabitants, which are generally of brick or red sandstone. The veran- dahs and hanging balconies, with their exquisite Saracenic arches, carved ornaments and stone lattice-work, remind one of Caiio. The street is also a sort of bazaar, and during the day presents a very busy and animated scene. It is so narrow that two vehicles can with difficulty pass, while all the other streets of the city are only attainable by pedestrians. On the side facing the Jumna there are few striking buildings except the Custom-House, once the palace of a rich native. Stone ghauts, here and there, lead down to the holy stream, which at the time of my visit was so much diminished by the dry season that it did not occupy more than one-third of its bed. South of the city are the cantonments, divided into the rivil and military lines, and occupying a space of five miles in length by nearly two in breadth The bungalows of the Engf THE CANTONMENTS — MR. WAJftREN. 108 lish residents are neat, cottage-like buildings of one story, with steep, thatched roofs. Each stands in its cwn "com- pound," or enclosure, so that the cantonments present a truly suburban aspect. Broad roads, as smooth and hard as a floor, run in all directions, and offer admirable drives to the inhabi- tants, whose buggies may be seen at all hours of the day, dashing back and forth. A spacious square, planted with young trees, is called the Park, and beyond this rises the lofty spire of the English Church. The various public buildings — the Bank, the Post-office, the Government House, and others, are distinguished from the private residences by their size, but have little pretension to architectural beauty. On entering Agra I was taken to the traveller's bungalow, which stands on a waste plat of ground, adjoining the Park. The succeeding day was so cold, dull and rainy, that I re- mained indoors, and rested my shattered frame. Mr. Thom- Bsson, the Governor of the north-western provinces, to whom I had letters, was absent at Benares, but I was most hospi- tably received by Rev. Mr. Warren, an American Mission- ary, under whose roof I sojourned during my stay. Undei- his guidance, and that of Mr. Hutton, the Editor of The Agra Messenger^ I visited all the objects of interest in the city and vicinity. The Fort, which contains the Palace of Akbar, and the celebrated Motee Musjeed or Pearl Mosque, is one of the grandest structures of the kind in India. It is about a mile and a half in circuit, and its stately, embrasured battlement of red sandstone are seventy feet in height. Nothing can be more imposing than the view of this immense mass of masonry; rising high above the buildings of the modern city, and almost 104 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. overtopping the domes of the Jumma Musjeed (Sunday mosque), which stands without its gates. Its appearance, neV ertheless, is very deceptive with regard to its strength, for (he walls, impregnable as they look, are mere shells, and would not stand a single day's cannonading. Before entering the Fort, I visited the Jumma Musjeed. The front of the mosque faces the principal gate, a broad, en- closed square, which is now used as a market-place, interven- ing between. The mosque stands on a lofty platform, which is reached by a spacious flight of steps. In India all places of worsliip, except the inner shrines — the holy of holies — are open to the conquerors, who walk in, booted and spurred, where the Hindoo and Moslem put their shoes from off their feet. I should willingly have complied with this form, as I did in other Moslem countries, but was told that it was now never expected of a European, and would be in fact a depre- ciation of his dignity. The Jumma JNIusjeed is a melancholy picture of ruin. The walls which enclose the fore-court are tumbling down, and the inlaid inscriptions which surround the fa9ade are falling out, piece by piece. The body of the mosque 18 divided into a central and two smaller side-halls, each of which opens upon the court-yard by a lofty, arched portal, and is surmounted by a swelling oriental dome, of corresponding proportions. India being east of Mecca, the mosque of course occupies the western side of the court, and at each of the adjacent corners rises a lofty and graceful minaret. This is the plan on which all Indian mosques are built, and they vary in architectural beauty according as the portals, the domes and minarets approach a true artistic proportion. Crossing by a drawbridge over the deep moat which sup THE JUDGMENT-SEAT OF AKBAR lOfl rounds the Fort, we passed through a massive gateway and up a paved ascent to the inner entrance, which shows consid- erable taste. It consists of two octagonal towers of red sand- stone, inlaid with ornamental designs in white marble. The passage between them is covered by two domes, which seem to rise from accretions of prismatic stalactites, as in the domes of the Moorish Alhambra. This elegant portal, how- ever, instead of opening upon the courts of palaces, ushers you into a wa>te of barren mounds, covered with withered grass. But over the blank red walls in front, you see three marble domes, glittering in the sunshine like new-fallen snow, and still further, the golden pinnacles of Akbar's palace, and these objects hint that your dream of the magnificence of the Great Mogul will not be entirely dispelled. But first, let us visit the modern Arsenal, which was once the diwan, or Judgment-seat of Akbar. It was formerly an open portico, or loggia, the roof resting on three rows of pil- lars, which were connected by Saracenic arches ; but at present, the outer row of arches being walled up, it forms a spacious hall, divided into three aisles. All the weapons of modern warfare, with here and there a crooked scimetar or battle-axe, of ancient times, are ranged round the pillars and between the arches in those symmetrical groupings peculiar to instruments of death. At the intersections of the central arches hang tri- colored banners of red, blue and yellow, with the names of the British victories in India inscribed upon them in English and Sanscrit. The great curiosity, however, is the celebrated gate of Somnauth, which was carried off by that stern icono- clast. Sultan Mahmoud of Ghuznee. Somnauth was a holy Brahminical city on the coast of Goojerat, and noted at that 5* 106 INDIA, CHINA. AND JAPAN time for the wealth and magnificence of its temples. It is n lated of Mahmoud, that, after having taken the city and com menced demolishing the idols, the Brahmins offered him im mense sums if he would spare the deity of their great tem- ple Mahmoud was only tempted for an instant. "Truth,' be said, is better than gold," and raising his iron mace, he smote the idol, which, as it split, poured from its hollow body a store of gold and jewels far exceeding what the Brahmini had offered him. This incident has afforded subject for poetry to Riickert, the German poet, and our own Lowell The gates were taken by Mahmoud to his capital of Ghuz nee, where they remained until the recent invasion of Aff ghanistan by the English, when that fantastic individual, Lord EUenborough, bore them off to Agra. They are about twelve feet high, elaborately carved and inlaid, and said to bo composed entirely of sandal-wood. On one of the panels three metal bosses are nailed. According to tradition, they were taken from Mahmoud's shield. In the centre of the hall is the throne whence Akbar pronounced judgment, after the cases had been discussed in his presence. It is a pavilion of white marble, inlaid with jasper and cornelian, in the form of flowers, ornamental scrolls and sentences from the Koran Below it is an immense slab of white marble, on which he was accustomed to seat himself. Beyond the arsenal, and in that part of the Fort over- looking the Jumna, is the n onarch's palace, still in a toler- able state of preservation. Without a ground-plan it would be difficult to describe in detail its many .courts, its separata masse J of buildings and iza detached pavilions — which com bine to form a labyrintli, so full of dazzling architectural ef AKBAR*8 PALACE— ITS SPLENDOR. 101 fects, that it is almost impossible to keep the clue. On en* terinor the outer courts, I was at once reminded of the Alham- bra. Here were the same elegant Moorish arches, with theil tapering bases of open filigree work resting on slender double ghafts — a style so light, airy and beautiful, that it seems fit only for a palace of fairies. Akbar's palace is far more com- plete than the Alhambra. No part has been utterly de- stroyed, and the marks of injury by Time and battle, are com- paratively slight. Here a cannon-ball has burst its way through the marble screen of the Sultana's pavilion ; there an inlaid blossom of cornelian, with leaves of blood-stone, has been wantonly dug out of its marble bed ; the fountains are dry, the polished tank in the " Bath of Mirrors " is empty, the halls are untenanted — but this is all. No chamber, no window or staircase is wanting, and we are able to re-people the palace with the household of the great Emperor, and to trace out the daily routine of his duties and pleasures. The substructions of the palace are of red sandstone, but nearly the whole of its corridors, chambers and pavilions are af white marble, wrought with the most exquisite elaboration of ornament. The pavilions overhanging the river are inlaid, within and without, in the rich style of Florentine mosaic They are precious caskets of marble, glittering all over with jasper, agate, cornelian, blood-stone and la[)is-lazuli, and topped with golden domes. Balustrades of marble, wrought in open })atterns of such rich design that they resemble fringes of lace when seen from below, extend along the edge of the battlements. The Jumna w^ashcs the walls, seventy feet be low, and from the balconies attached to the zenana, or won> en's apartments, there are beautiful views of the gardens and 108 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. palm-groves oq the opposite bank, and that wonder of India, the Taj, shining like a palace of ivory and crystal, about a mile down the stream. The most curious part of the palace is the Sheesh Mahal (Palace of Glass), which is an oriental bath, the chambers and passages whereof are adorned with tliousands of small mir- rors, disposed in the most intricate designs. The water falls in a broad sheet into the marble pool, over brilliant lamps, and the fountains are so constructed as to be lighted from within. Mimic cascades tumble from the walls, over slabs of veined marble, into basins so curiously carved that the motior of the water produces the appearance of fish. This bath must once have realized all the fabled Sjdendors of Arabian stoiy The chambers of the Sultanas and the open courts connecting them are filled with fountains. Though the building is an in- crustation of gold, marble, and precious stones, water is still its most beautiful ornament. Within these fairy precincts lie the gardens, still overrun with roses and jasmine vines, in the midst of which fountains are playing. There is also a court, paved with squares of black and white marble, so as to form Si pachisi board. This is a game resembling backgammon, but, instead of ivory pieces, it was played on this colossal board by Akbar and his wives, or eunuchs, with girls, who trotted from square to square as the moves were made. On an open terrace in front of the Diwan e'Khaz, where Akbar sat on great occasions, is his throne, a slab of black narble, about &ix icct square. It is cracked entirely through, whicl my old guide accounted for by saying that when the Mahrattas took Agra, the Rajah of Bhurtpore seated himself on the throne, whereupon it not only cracked fix)m siae to THE PEARL MOSQUE. lOt side, but blood gushed out of its top, in two places. WhcD Lord Ellenborough was Governer-General of India, lie also sat upon it, causing it to shed blood a second time. There are two red stains on its surface, which sufficiently attest these miracles to all good Mussulmen. Opposite the throne is a smaller one of white marble, where, if tradition may be re- lied on, the Emperor's fool, or jester, took his place and bur- lesqued his master. Before leaving the Fort, I visited the Motee Musjeed, or Pearl Mosque, as it is poetically and justly termed. It is. Id truth, the pearl of all mosques, of small dimensions, but abso lutely perfect in style and proportions. It is lifted on a lofty sandstone platform, and from without nothing can be seen but its three domes of white marble with their gilded spires. In all distant views of the Fort these domes are seen, like silvery bubbles which have rested a moment on its walls, and which the next breeze will sweep away. Ascending a long flight of steps, a heavy door was opened for me, and I stood in the court-yard of the mosque. Here, nothing was to be seen but the quadrangle of white marble, with the mosque on its western side, and the pure blue of the sky overheaa. The three domes crown a deep corridor, open toward the court, and divided into three aisles by a triple row of the most exquisitely proportioned Saracenic arches. The Motee Musjoed can be compared to no other edifice that I have overseen. To my eye it is a perfect type of its class. While its architec- ture is the purest Saracenic, which some suppose cannot ex- ist without ornament, it shows the severe simplicity of Doric art. It has, in fact, nothing which can properly be termed ornament. It is a sanctuary so pure and stainless, revealing no INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAB. BO exalted a spirit of worship that I felt humbled as a Chris tian, to think that our nobler religion has so rarely inspired it« architects to surpass this temple to God and Mohammed. After visiting the palace, Mr. Warren accompanied me to the tomb of Akbar, at Secundra, about six miles from Agra Secundra takes its name from Alexander, whose invasion of India has thiis been commemorated by the Moguls. The great Macedonian, however, did not penetrate so far as this, his battle with Porus having been fought on the Jhelum, oi Hydaspes, beyond Lahore. The road to Secundra is studded with tombs, and there are many remains of palaces on the bank of the Jumna. The tomb of Akbar stands in the midst of a large square garden, which has a lofty gateway of red sandstone in the centre of each of its sides. From these four gateways, which are upward of seventy feet high, four grand causeways of hewn stone converge to the central platform, on which the mausoleum stands. The intermediate spaces are filled with orange, mango, banana, palm and peepul trees. In the centre of the causeways are immense tanks and fountains. The platform of solid stone which terminates these magnifi- cent approaches is about four hundred feet square. The mau- soleum, which is square, measures more than three hundred feet on a side, and rises in five terraces, in a pyramidal form, to the height of one hundred feet. Around each of the ter- races runs an arched gallery, surmounted by a row of cupolas, resting on small pillars. The material of the edifice is red sandstone, except the upper story, which is of white marble. A long, descending passage leads from the main entrance to a vaulted hall in the centre of the structure. Light is ad mitted through a few small openings in the dome, barely suf THE TOMB OF AKBaE. Ill ficient to show you a plain tomb, in the form of a sarcopha guB with a wreath of fresh roses lying upon it. Beneath it is the dust of Akbar, one of the greatest men who evei wielded a sceptre — the fourth descendant in a direct line from Tamerlane, the grandson of Baber, the Conqueror, and the grandfather of Shah Jehan, in him culminated the wisdom, the power and the glory of that illustrious line. I doubt if the annals of any family that ever reigned can furnish six suc- cessive monarchs comparable, in the greatness of their endow- ments and the splendor of their rule, to Baber, Humayoon, Ak- bar, Jehan Grhir, Shah Jehan and Aurung-Zebe. On the summit of the mausoleum, which is open to the sky, and surrounded by screens of marble, wrought into pat- terns of marvellous richness and variety, stands a second tomb, under a pavilion of marble, covered with a gilded dome. This is exquisitely sculptured, containing the ninety- nine names of God, in raised Arabic characters, infolded in elaborate scroll-work. At each corner of the upper terrace are two marble turrets, the domes of which are covered with gilded and emblazoned tiles. The screens of marble filigree around the sides are arranged in panels, no two of which pre- sent the same design. There are small openings, at intervals , through which I looked out on the level country watered by the Jumna — ^yellow sandy tracts near the river, but receding into green wheat-fields and dark mango-groves. Agra was al- most hidden from sight by the trees, but above them rose the Bpires of two Christian churches, the red battlements of th Fort, and farther ofi" the dome of the Taj, a silvery disc, like die gibbous moon, just hanging on the horizon. A warmth and sunny silence, like that of Egypt, hung over the land I 12 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAA. ficape. "What I had seen of the splendor of the Moguls emc vrhat I then saw, overpowered me like a magnificent dream. We in America hear so little of these things, and even the accounts we get from English travellers are generally s<. confused and unsatisfactory, that the reader must pardon me, if in attempting the description, I lose myself in details. I thought the Alcazar of Seville and the Alhambra of Granada had already presented me with the purest types of Saracenic architecture, but I was mistaken. I found, in India, concep- tions of Art far nobler and embodiments far more successful There is a Saracenic, as distinctly as there is a Greek and Gothic school of Art — not the inferior, but the equal of these. At Secundra, the tomb of Akbar's Christian wife, the Begum Mariam, who is believed to have been a Portu- guese woman — has been taken by the Church Mission, which has converted it into a printing establishment. It is the lar- gest office of the kind in India, giving employment to about three hundred men, most of whom are natives. Printing is carried on in English, Hindee, Urdoo, Sanscrit and Persian. There is a type foundry connected with it, in whch the casting is done entirely by natives. The wages paid in these establish- ments vary from $1 50 to $1 per month. Many of the labor- ers are Christians, there being a native Christian community of about five hundred persons attached to the Secundra Mis- sion. Most of these, however, are persons picked up during the great famine of 1837, when thousands of children, having been deserted bj their parents, were taken by the Mission- aries and educated in the Christian faith. During that yeai the Missions prospered exceedingly. The Presbyterian Mis sion, at the head of which is Mr. Warren, had just established THE AQEA JAIl US seminaries of education for both sexes, nrhere instruction wa* furnished at a rate which allowed the poorest of the European and half-caste population to send their children. Native scholars were of course admitted, but were obliged to share in the religious instruction of the European children. These schools were under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Fullerton and his wife. Whether IVIissions in general repay the vast pecu- niary expense and sacrifice of life and talent which they ex- act, is a question concerning which I have strong doubts ; but that they have accomplished good in India, and that their ministers are conscientious, zealous and laborious men, I am well satisfied. Mr. Warren also took me to visit the Agra Jail, in which a new and interesting experiment is now being tested, The jail there is a sort of general penitentiary, whither prisoners are sent from all parts of the north-western provinces. The number then incarcerated was about 2,800. The jail encloses a space of about forty acres, wherein are numbers of small buildings and manufactories, as the prisoners are all required to labor about eight hours a day. Dr. Walker, the Superintendent, who formerly had charge of the jail at Mynpoorie, introduced a system of prison education, which was so successful, that when he was promoted to the management of the great central jail at Agra, he determined to continue it. At first he experienced great difficulty, the prisoners suspecting that some mysterious Christian doctrine lay covert in the multiplication- table and the spelling-book; but his perseverance so wrought upon them that all of those employed at labor within the jail (700 being kept upon the roads, in fettered gangs), were willing scholars. il4 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAP AS. Dr. Walker was kind enough to conduct me through the jail, and put the prisoners through, their exercises. It was a most remarkable spectacle. Here were hundreds of mep Beated at their looms, weaving carpets, singing the multiplica- tion table in thundering chorus. " Twelve times twelve,'''' sang the monitor, in a shrill solo : " One hundred and forty-four ! " burst out the chorus, in all sorts of voices. We went into the blacksmith s shops where the prisoners, bj a refinement oi punishment, were made to forge their own fetters, themselves fettered. " Seven times sixteen^'''' sang the solo, as he raised his hammer. ^'■One hundred and twelve^'''' was roared in t ?;wer, drowning the clang and bang of the iron. In the women's department there was a shrill tempest of vulgar fractioEs ; the cooks recited astronomical facts while mixing their rice. Even the hardest cases, confined in solitary cells, were going on with their " a-h abs,^^ through a hole in the door, to a monitor standing outside. The murderers, confined for life (of whom there were several hundred), were not exempted, but went tlirough the numerals while they worked at paper-making. I brought away a sheet of paper, made entirely by these wrettshes, and will present it to King Bomba, whenever he is ready to write his abdication. There is a monthly examination of the prisoners, and they who can read a short story, and repeat the multiplication table of whole numbers and fractions up to 16x16, 6|x25 and 6|x6|^, are entitled to a visit from their friends or a bath in the Jumna, if Hindoos, and a visit to the Taj, if Moslems. The more advanced scholars are obliged to pass in writing, the facts of astronomy, simple and compound interest, &c. There is great emulation among the prisoners, and their progress if BB8ULT8 OF THE SYSTEM. 1 15 rery rapid. As one result of the system, in their moral im- provement, it will be enough to state that in 1851, before ii was introduced , the number of punishments administered for offences committed within the jail, was 162; in 1852, after its introduction, the number so punished was 18. It is not much to the credit of the Government that it only allows the miserable sum of five rupees ($2 50) a month in support of so imp.)rtant an exp<^riment CHAPTER XA THE EUIN8 OF F U T T E H P O R E - 8 I K R E « Excnrsion to Futtelpore-Slkree — The Eoad Thither— Approach to the Eulns— Tiieii Extent ard Grandeur — The Palace of Eajah Beer-Bul — Perfect Condition (^ the Remains— Shekh Bushirat-Ali— Age of Futtehpore — The Emperor's Palace— Rooms of the Sultana Mariam — Akbar's Tolerance — The Five Palaces — The Pillai of Council— Profusion of Ornament— The Emperor's Sal jtation— The Elephant Gat€ and Tower — The Durgah— Shekh Selim-Chishti— H« gives a Son to the Emperor— The Splendor of his Tomb — View from the Gateway — An Experiment — Tiffin in the Palace— The Story of the Rajah Beer-Bol and the Ruby— Last View of Futteh pore-Sikree. Before leaving Agra I made an excursion to the ruins of Futtehpore-Sikree, which are about twenty two miles to the tv^est of the city. I had been so strongly counselled to visit the place, as well from its historic interest (having been the favorite residence of Akbar), as from the extent and magnifi- cence of its remains, that I postponed for another day, though reluctantly, my departure for Delhi. Mr. Sherer, one of the Secretaries of Government, kindly offered to accompany mo, and through his familiarity with the history of those times, the new desolate spot was peopled for me with the phantoms 3f its former inhabitants. I ha^^e rarely had the Past sc KXCURSION TO FDTTEHPORB-SIKREB. 117 dvidly restored, or so completely given myself up to its illo flioDs. The day was one of the whitest in my calendar, and not unworthy to be chronicled beside the memorable Theban days of the previous year. In order to make the excursion in a single day, I had re- lays of horses sent out in advance, and took my departure be- fore sunrisse, in a light garree — a two-wheeled vehicle, resem- bling a genteel cart. The road was broad and good for the first eight miles, and bordered by stately acacia, peepul and neem trees. I passed two or three large walled gardens, belonging to native Rajahs, and a cleanly little village, with several small temples to Vishnu and Shiva. The road gradually be- came rougher, though the country still continued level and tolerably cultivated. My horses, inspired by the pleasant morning air, trotted merrily along, and before three hours were over, Fiittehpore-Sikree was in view, A low range of red sandstone hills appeared in the west, with here and there a crumbling ruin on the crest. The extremity of this rangt, about four miles distant, was covered with a mass of walls, terraces and spires, crowned with a majestic portal, which rose high above them, gleaming against the sky with a soft red lus- tre, as the sun shone full upon it. As I approached nearer, I found that this part of the hill was surrounded by a lofty wall of red sandstone, with a machicolated or notched parapet, and a spacious gate, through which my road ran. It is almost entire, and upwards of six miles in circuit, enclosing a portion of the plain on both sides ol the hill. Driving through the deserted gateway, I was amazed at the piles of ruins which met my eye. Here was a narrow qIU, nearly a mile and a half in length, and averaging a huu 118 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN dred feet in height, almost entirely covered with the remaim of palaces, mosques and public buildings, in some places near ly as perfect as when first erected, in others little else than shapeless masses of hewn stones. Innumerable pavilions resting on open arches, cupolas and turrets, shot up from this picturesque confusion ; but the great portal, of which I have already spoken, dominated over all, colossal as one of the pylons of Karnak. The series of arched terraces, rising one above another up the sides of the hill, gave the place an air of barbaric grandeur, such as we imagine Babylon to have possessed, and of which there are traces in Martin's pictures. But here there was nothing sombre or stern ; the bright red sandstone of the buildings, illumined here and there by a gilded spire, was bathed in a flood of sunshine, and stood, so shadowless as almost to lack perspective, against a cloudless sky. The modern village of Futtehpore at the foot of the hill, was adorned with beautiful trees, and that part of the plain enclosed within the ancient walls was green with fields of young wheat. I drove through the long, rambling street of Futtehpore, not without considerable risk of destroying the stock of the native merchants, for the space between their shopboarda was scarcely wider than my garree. Then owing to the frtupidity of the groom, wlio liad missed the road, I was obliged to return as I camo, and finally climbed the hill on foot. In the palace of Rajah Beer-Bul one of Akbar's Prime Ministers, I found Mr. Sherer, who had come out luring the night in a palanquin. The palace was an exquisite, build- ing, quite uninjured, and had been fitted up with tables, chairs carpets, etc., for the convenience of visitors to the place 8HEEH BUSHARAT-ALI. 119 There was a table set in a cool, vaulted hall in the second story, and Mr. Sherer's servants were preparing breakfast in the Rajah's kitchen. We took our seats on the massive stone terrace of the pahice, to await the meal. The royal residence of AiuaL After breakfast, we set out to make a thorough survey oi he phice. T should first state that Futtehpore-Sikree was « country re-idenee of Akbar, and stood in the same relation to Agra that Windsor Castle does to London. It was completed in 1571, and for twelve years his couit was stationed there. At that time it must have been a populous place, but it is prob- able that the dwellings of the lower classes of the natives consisted then, as now, of mud huts, for there are very few ruins on the plain surrounding the hill. The existence of a Mint and other public edifices, on a very large scale, shows that it was considered as a temporary capital., rather than as a mere palace of summer resort. Commencing with the Emperor's palace, we first visited the separate dwelling assigned to his Christian wife. This, unlike other Moslem buildings, is covered with paintings in fresco, evidently by Persian artists. They are said to repre- sent the adventures of the hero Rustuin as related in Firdusi'a * Shah Nameh." Certain niches, however, over the doors and windows, contain pictures of a different character, and cer- tainly have a religious significance. On one side are the Hindoo gods and goddesses — the elephant-headed Ganeish- Mahadeo, and Lokshmi — and on the other two tablets, almost obliterated, but still sufficiently distinct to show that one of them is intended for the Annunciation. Akbar's latitude in religious matters is w^ell known, but I had not given him credit for so much toleration as this would imply. Among the ornamental designs of this palace, the Greek Cross is not AKBAR^S PALACE. * 12] t luusual, and it is related that when the Jesuits solicited the Emperor's protection, he replied to them: " What would you have ? See ! I have more crosses on my palace than you iu your churches." The buildings of the palace cover the crest of the hill, hav ing superb views on both sides, over many a league of th fruitful plain. There is quite a labyrinth of courts, pavilions, small palaces, gateways, tanks, fountains, and terraces, and I found it difl&cult to obtain a clear idea of their arrangement. Most of the buildings are so well preserved that a trifling ex- pense would make them habitable. For a scholar or poet I can conceive of no more delightful residence. Adjoining the palace of the Christian woman, stands the Panch-Mahal (Five Palaces), consisting of five square platforms, resting on richly carved pillars, and rising one above another in a pyramidal form, to a considerable height. Mr. Sherer supposes it to have been a sleeping place for the servants connected with the palace. Beyond it is a court-yard, paved with large slabs of sandstone, and containing a colossal ^ac^isi-board, such as I have described in speaking of the Palace at Agra. In one corner of the court-yard is a labyrinthine building, of singular design, wherein the ladies of the Emperor's zenana were accustomed to play hide-and-seek. A little further is a sort of chapel, two stories high, and crowned with several cupola? On entering, however, I found that there was but one story, extending to the dome, with a single pillar in the centre, rising to the height of the upper windows. This pillar has an im- mense capital of the richest sculpture, three times its diameter, is'ith four stone causeways leading to the four corners of the phapel, where there are small platforms of the shape of a 122 * INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. ^[uadrant. Tradition says that this building was used h) Akbar as a place for discussing matters of science or religi 3n, himself occupying the capital of the central pillar, while hii chief men were seated in the four corners. In this same court is a pavilion, consisting of a pyramidal canopy of elaborately carved stone, resting on four pillars, which have a cornice of peculiar design, representing a serpent. This pavilion approaches as near the Hindoo style of building. as is possible, without violating the architecture of the palace, which is a massive kind of Saracenic. It was the station of a Gooroo, or Hindoo Saint, whom Akbar, probably from motives of policy, kept near him. The palace of the Sultana of Constantinople is one mass of the most laborious sculpture. There is scarcely a square inch of blank stone in the building. But the same remark would apply to almost the whole of the palace, as well as to that of Beer-Bul. It is a wilderness of sculpture, where invention seems to have been taxed to the utmost to produce new combinations of ornament. Every thing is carved in a sandstone so fine and compact, that, ex- cept where injured by man, it appears nearly as sharp as when first chiselled. The amount of labor bestowed on Futtehpore throws the stucco filigrees of the Alhambra quite into the shade. It is unlike any thing that I have ever seen. And yet the very name of this spendid collection of ruins, which eannot be surpassed anywhere, outside of Egypt, was unknown to me, before reaching India ! We paid rather a hasty visit to the Diwdn-e^-khaZy the Diwdn e^-am, and the mint. The latter is an immense quad- rangle, half blocked up with ruins. In the diwan-e'-am, ig the balcony where Akbar usually made his public appearance ELEPHANT GATE AND TOWEU. 123 ID the morning, to the crowd waiting in the court to gee oi petition him. He was greeted on these occasions with the crj of " Allah ahhar ! " (God is great !) to which he invariably replied : J'iMi jellallihoo ! " (May his glory shine !) This was a mode of salutation introduced by himself, because the two phrases contained his name-Jellal-ud-deen Akbar. I have frequently heard a very similar style of address in Bohemia, where the greeting is : " Praised be Jesus Christ ! " and the answer : " In eternity. Amen." On the north side of Beer-Bul's palace, a little further down the hill*, is the famous Elephant Gate. Akbar at one time intended to make a fortress of the place, and com- menced by building this gate, which is a very noble structure, flanked by two octagonal bastions : but Shekh Selim-Chishti, in whose sanctity the Emperor had great faith, threatened to leave, in case the plan was carried out, and the fortress was therefore relinquished. On each side of the gate is a colos- sal elephant, on a lofty pedestal, but both the animals have lost their trunks, and are otherwise mutilated. A steep paved road, between gardens, hanging one below the other on arched terraces, interrupted occasionally by the ruins of palaces, leads down the hill to the Elephant's Tower, a minaret about ninety feet high, and studded from top to bottom with the tusks of elephants. There is much discussion concerning its character, but the most plausible supposition is that it was erected by Akbar over the grave of a favorite elephant. It is called by the natives the Hiriui Minar (Antelope tower). By this time it was two hours past noon, and I still had the famous Durgah to see. We therefore retraced our steps, and ascended to the highest part of the hill, where the toml 124 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. rises like a huge square fortress, overtopping the palace oi Akbar himself. We mounted a long flight of steps, and en tered a quadrangle so spacious, so symmetrical, so wonderfu' in its decorations, that I was filled with amazement. Fancy paved court-yard, 428 feet in length by 406 in breadth, sur rounded with a pillared corridor 50 feet high; one of th noblest gateways in the world, 120 feet high; a triple-domed mosque on one side ; a large tank and fountain in the centre, and opposite the great portal, the mother-of-pearl and marble tomb of the Shekh, a miniature palace, gleaming like crystai with its gilded domes, its ivory pillars, and its wreaths of won- drous, flower-like ornaments, inwrought in marble filigree. The court, with its immense gate, seemed an enchanted fortress, solely erected to guard the precious structure within. Shekh Selim-Chishti was a very holy man, who became known as such by his intimacy with tigers, several of whom lived with him in a cave on the hill where his tomb now stands. His renown reached the ears of Akbar, who, finding him to be a man of apparent sanctity and considerable wis- dom, built the palace of Futtehpore-Sikree, it is said, to be near him. He consulted him on all important occasions, and, 9.S the story goes, was finally indebted to him for an heir to tiis throne. For some time after Akbar's accession, he was without a son, and twice demanded of the Shekh whether he should ever have one. "No," said the latter; "it is not so written." Now he, the Shekh, had an infant son of six months old ; for these Moslem saints are the reverse of celi bates Upon Akbar coming to make the demand a third time and receiving the same answer, this infant, who waf present in his cradle during the interview, suddenly spoke THE SHEKH AND THE EMPEROR's SON. 126 although never before had he so much as lisped a syllaMe * Father," said he, " why do you send away the Conqueror of the World, in despair?" "Because," said the Shekh although he marvelled not a little at this unexpected ques lion ; " there is no son written for him, unless another will give up the life of a child destined for him ; and who will do this ? " " If you permit me, father," said the infant, " I will die, that a son may be born to the Emperor," — and even be- fore the Shekh signified his consent, he gave up the ghost. That day an heir to the throne was conceived, and in due time was born. There are scandalous persons, however, who say that thip is an allegory, veiling a truth, and that the Shekh, in procuring an heir for the Emperor, did, in fact, give up his own son, but without destroying his life. Be that as it may, Jehan-Ghir, the son of Akbar, bore the name of Selim until he ascended the throne. We are allowed to enter the inner corfidor which sar- rounds the Shekh 's tomb, and to look in, but not to cross the threshold. The tomb, as well as a canopy six feet high, which covers it, is made of mother-of-pearl. The floor is of jasper, and the walls of white marble, inlaid with cornelian. A cloth of silk and gold was spread over it like a pall, and upon this were wreaths of fresh and withered flowers. The screens of marble surrounding the building are the most beautiful in India. They are single thin slabs, about eight feet square, and wrought into such intricate open patterns that you would say they had been woven in a loom. The mosque, which is of older date than the tomb, is very elegant, resembling somewhat the Hall of the Abencerrages in the Alhambra, except that it is mucl larger, and of white marble 126 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. instead of stucco. Busharat-Ali informed me that the Dnr- gah was erected in one year, from the wealth left by the Shekh Selim-Chishti at his death, and that it cost thirty-seven lacs of rupees — $1,750,000. We ascended to the summit of the great gateway, for the .-sake of the panoramic view of Futtehpore-Sikree, and the ad- jacent country. It is a vast plain, and our horizon was de- scribed by a radius of twenty miles — a circle of fresh wheat- fields, dotted wdth mango-groves, and now and then the blue gleam of a river or irrigating canal. There were some low hills in the west, and the famous citadel of Bhurtpore, in that direction, was barely visible. The country, though less gar- den-like, reminded me of the plain of the Nile. A few years ago it was all an uncultivated waste. Mr. Thomasson, the late Lieutenant-Grovernor of the north-western provinces happening to be at Futtehpore-Sikree one day, heard a native say that in Akbar's time, the country was annually over- flowed, so that the palace was in the midst of a lake. "Well," said Mr. T., "I will overflow it, too." And ho ordered the banks of a small river, which flows into the Jum- na near Bhurtpore, to be cut away, so that, when the rainy season came, the water spread over about twenty square miles of land. That year the natives had crops such as had nevei been heard of in those parts, but they had also a fever, which carried off eight hundred persons. However, the Governor made his work good, by cutting a canal to take off the inun- dation, and now the region has regained its health, and kept its big crops into the bargain. We went back to Beer-Bul's palace, where the servants bad prepared tiffin in the mean time. Busharat-Ali sang ar THE STORY OF BEEfi-BUL ANU THE RUB?. 127 A.rab lov^-song, and told us tales of the time of Akbar Some of these could not very well be repeated, as, like most Eastern stories, they were narratives of skilful intrigue ; bu< there was one relating to Beer-bul himself, which I here r© late in the Shekh's words, merely omitting some of his end less repetitions of phrases. " One day," so began the old man, " Akbar-Shah and Rajah Beer-bul were sitting together. Akbar said to Beer- bul, MVhat would you do, if a great misfortune fell upon you ? ' Said Beer-bul, ' I should give myself up to pleasure.' ' How to pleasure,' said Akbar, * when you were unfortu- nate?' 'Still,' said Beer-bul, *I should do it.' The next day Akbar said to Beer-bul, ' Take this ruby, and keep it till I call for it.' Now it was a ruby worth millions of rupeesj such as there never was in the world, before nor since. So Beer-bul took the ruby home to his daughter, and bade her keep it carefully, for it belonged to Akbar-Shah; and she locked it up in a chest with three locks. " Then Akbar sent to the greatest robber in the place, who was condemned to die, and had him brought before him. Bobber,' said he, * I will give you your life, if you can do one thing for me.' 'What is that? ' said the robber. ' You must steal from my Minister, Beer-bul, a ruby which I havo given him to keep,' said Akbar-Shah. The robber agreed and no sooner had he gone into the city upon this errand, than he sent for a very cunning little old woman. There is QOW no woman living who is so cunning as she was, although " — interpolated the Shekh, with a sly twinkle of the eye — ' there are still some, who would be a snatch for Ebliz him- Rilf Well, t\is little cunning old woman went to Beer-buPs 128 INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN. daughter and engaged herself as maid, and she gradually 3c won her confidence that Beer-bul's daughter showed her th» box with three locks and the ruby. So she filched the keys opened the locks, took the ruby, and gave it to the robber^ who brought it to Akbar. Then Akbar threw it into the Jumna, and sent for Beer-bul 'Bring me the ruby,' said he. * Very well,' said Beer-bul, and went home to bring it, but behold ! it was stolen. ' Well, where's the ruby ? ' said Akbar. 'Your Majesty shall have it in fifteen days.' 'Very well,' said Akbar, ' but remember that your head is security for it.' " Beer-bul went home, and said to his daughter, ' We have but fifteen days to live — let us spend them in festivity.' So they ate, and drank, and gave feasts and dances, till in twelve days they had spent many lacs of rupees, and there was not a pice left them to buy food. They remained thus two days On the fourteenth morning, the daughter of a fisherman who 6shed in the Jumna, said to her father : ' Father, the Rajah Beer-bul and his daughter have had nothing to eat for two days; let me take them this fish for breakfast.' So she took them the fish, which Beer-bul's daughter received with many thanks, and immediately cooked. But as they were eating it there came a pebble into Beer-bul's mouth. He took it out in his fingers, and, wah ! it was the ruby. The next morning he went to Akbar-Shah, and said : ' Here is the ruby, as I prom- ised ' Akbar was covered with surprise ; but when he had heard the story, he gave Beer-bul two crores of rupees, and ^id that he spoke the truth — it was better to rejoice than te grieve in misfortune." The moral of this story is rather awkwardly brought out FAREWELL TO FUTTEHPORE-SIRRBB. 129 bui the plot is curious, from its resemblance to the * Ring of Poly crates." It was spun out to a much greater length in the Shekh's narration. I took leave of Mr. Sherer, who was to go back in the evening by palanquin, shook hands with Busharat-Ali, and drove slowly down the hill, and out the gate. I was about two miles distant when the sun went down in a broad crimson glory, and my last view of Futtehpoie-Sikree was as a dari band sublime against the deepening brilliancy. But I shall long remember the day I spent in its palaces. CHAPTEB y. THB TAJ MAHAL. Distant Vtews Jt th« Taj— Tomb of Itmun e' Dowlah— The Garden of Eama— Nighl Worship— Tie Taj Mahal— Its Origin— The Light of the Harem— Portal and Avenue to the Taj— Its Fa;m— Its Inlaid Marbles and Jewel Work— Tomb of Noor-Jehan— The Dome— Resemblance to Florentine Art— Proofs of Saracenic Design— Th* Echo under the Dome -Beauty of the Taj— Saracenic Architecture— Plan of Shah Jehan— Garree Dawk — Leaving Agra— Night— Allyghur — The Grand Trunk Eoad —Distant View of Delhi— ArrivaL I PURPOSELY postponed my visit to the Taj Mahal — the most renowned monument of Agra — until I had seen every thing else in the city and its vicinity. The distant view of this matchless edifice satisfied me that its fame was well deserved. So pure, so gloriously perfect did it appear, that I almost feared to approach it, lest the charm should be broken. It is seen to best advantage from the tomb of Itmun e' Dowlah, the Prime Minister of Shah Jehan, which stands in a garden on the northern bank of the Jumna, directly opposite to the city. I spent an afternoon at this tomb and the Ram Bagh, (Garden of Rama,) two miles further up the river. The for mer is a mausoleum of white marble, elegantly sculptured and Inlaid, standing on a raised platform, from the corners of THE GARDEN OF RAMA. 13 1 which rise marble minarets. Its design shows the same purity of taste, the same richness of fancy, which I had pre- viously remarked in the Pearl Mosque, and afterward in the Taj. The Ram Bagh is a garden which, I believe, formerly belonged to the Mogul Emperors, and is now kept in order as a place of recreation, by the Government. Too much praise cannot be awarded to the British rulers in India, for the care with which they have restored and protected all of these mon- uments of the past, expending large sums to prevent the mosques, palaces and tombs of the former rulers from falling into decay. On account of the humidity of the soil, and the abundance of insects and reptiles, the Ram Bagh is traversed by raised stone causeways, the principal of which inclose water tanks and fountains. It is a pleasant, shady retreat, with a stone balcony overhanging the rapid Jumna, and com- manding a view of many ruined palaces on the opposite bank. There are suites of apartments, comfortably furnished, which are let to visitors at the rate of a rupee per day ; but when the applications are frequent, no one is allowed to stay more than eight days, in order to give a chance to others. My friends brought their servants and a handsome tiffin, of which we all partook, in the largest chamber. We returned across the bridge of boats in the evening. The Hindoos had lighted lamps in front of the many little shrines facing the water, and in some of them stood persons waving a torch back anc forth before the face of the god, crying out at the same time " Ram, Ram, Ram ! " " Ram, Seeta, Ram ! " This cere- mony, with the pouring of the Jumna water over the image, and decorating it with wreaths of flowers;, appeared to be the i32 INDIA, CHINA, ANi» JAPAN. only form of worship observed. There are more subsiantial oflferings made, but if the god gets them, the Brahmins take care that he shall not keep them. To return to the Taj — for the reader expects me to de- Bcribe it, and I must comply, although reluctantly, for I am aware of the difficulty of giving an intelligible picture of a building, which has no counterpart in Europe, or even in the East. The mosques and palaces of Constantinople, the domed tent of Omar at Jerusalem, and the structures of the Sara* cens and Memlooks at Cairo, have nothing in common with it The remains of Moorish art in Spain approach nearest to its spirit, but are only the scattered limbs, the torso, of which the Taj is the perfect type. It occupies that place in Sara- cenic art, which, during my visit to Constantinople, I mis- takenly gave to the Solymanye Mosque, and which, in respect to Grecian art, is represented by the Parthenon. If there were nothing else in India, this alone would repay the jour- ney. The history and associations of the Taj are entirely poetic, It is a work inspired by Love, and consecrated to Beauty. Shah Jehan, the " Selim " of Moore's poem, erected it as a mausoleum over his queen, Noor Jehan — " the Light of the World " — whom the same poet calls Noor-Mahal, " the Light of the Harem," or more properly, " Palace." She is reputed to have been a woman of surpassing beauty, and of great wit and intelligence. Shah Jehan was inconsolable for her loss and has immortalized her memory in a poem, the tablets of which are marble, and the letters jewels : — for the Taj k poetry transmuted into form, and hence, when a poet sees it he hails it with the rapture of a realized dream. Few per MORTAL AND AVENUE TO THE TAJ IS'c sons, of the thousands who sigh over the pages of Lalla Kookh, are aware that the " Light of the Harem " was a real personage, and that her tomb is one of the wonders of the world. The native miniature painters in Delhi show you he' portrait, painted on ivory — a small, rather delicate face, witL large, dark, piercing eyes, and black hair flowing from undei a scarf adorned with peacock's feathers. The Taj is built on the bank of the Jumna, rather more than a mile to the eastward of the Fort of Agra. It is ap- proached by a handsome road, cut through the mounds left by the ruins of ancient palaces. Like the tomb of Akbar, it stands in a large garden, inclosed by a lofty wall of red sand- stone, with arched galleries around the interior. The en- trance is a superb gateway of sandstone, inlaid with orna- ments and inscriptions from the Koran, in white marble Outside of this grand portal, however, is a spacious quad- rangle of solid masonry, with an elegant structure intended as a Cu,ravanseraj , on the opposite side. Whatever may be the visitor's impatience, he cannot help pausing to notice the fine proportions of these structures, and the rich and massive style of their architecture. The gate to the garden of the Taj is not so large as that of Akbar's tomb, but quite as beautiful in design. Passing under the open demi-vault, whose arch hangs high above you, an avenue of dark Italian cypresses appears before you. Down its centre sparkles a long row of fountains, each casting up a single slender jet On both sides, the palm, the banyan, and the feathery bam boo mingle their foliage ; the song of birds meets your ear. and the odor of roses and lemon-flowers sweetens the air Down !?uch a vista, and over such a foreground, rises the Taj. 134 INPIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. It is ai octagonal building, or rather, a square witb the corners truncated, and each side precisely similar. It stande upon a lofty platform, or pedestal, with a minaret at each cor ner, and this, again, is lifted on a vast terrace of solid ma- sonry. An Oriental dome, swelling out boldly from the bas« into nearly two-thirds of a sphere, and tapering at the top into a crescent-tipped spire, crowns the edifice, rising from its centre, with four similar, though much smaller domes, at the corners. On each side there is a grand entrance, formed by a single pointed arch, rising nearly to the cornice, and two smaller arches (one placed above the other) on either hand. The height of the building, from its base to the top of the dome, is 262 feet, and of the minarets, about 200 feet But no words can convey an idea of the exquisite harmony of the different parts, and the grand and glorious effect of the whole structure, with its attendant minarets. The material is of the purest white marble, little inferior to that of Carrara, It shines so dazzlingly in the sun, that you can scarcely look at it near at liand, except in the morn- ing and evening. Every part — even the basement, the dome, and the upper galleries of the minarets — is inlaid with orna- mental designs in marble of different colors, principally a pale brown, and a bluish violet variety. Great as are the dimensions of the Taj, it is as laboriously finished as one of those Chinese caskets of ivory and ebony, which are now so common in Europe. Bishop Heber truly said : "The Pathans designed like Titans, and finished like jewellers,' Around all the arches of the portals and the windows — around the cornice and the domes — on the walls and in the passages, are inlaid chapters of the Koran, the letters being THE TOMB OF KOOR-JEHAN 135 exquisitely formed of black marble. It is asserted tbat tli€ whole of the Koran is thus inlaid, in the Taj, and I can read- ily believe it to be true. The building is perfect in every part. Any dilapidations it may have suffered are so well estored that all traces of them have disappeared. I ascended to the base of the building — a gleaming mar- ble platform, almost on a level with the tops of the trees in the garden. Before e Altering the central hall, I descended to the vault where the beautiful Noor-Jehan is buried. A slop- ing passage, the walls and floor of which have been so polished by the hands and feet of thousands, that you must walk care- fully to avoid sliding down, conducts to a spacious vaulted chamber. There is no light but what enters the door, and this falls directly upon the tomb of the Queen in the centre. Shah-Jehan, whose ashes are covered by a simpler cenotaph, raised somewhat above hers, sleeps by her side. The vault was filled with the odors of rose, jasmine, and sandal-wood, the precious attars of which are sprinkled upon the tomb. Wreaths of beautiful flowers lay upon it, or withered around its base. These were the true tombs, the monuments for display being placed in the grand hall above, which is a lofty rotunda, lighted both from above and below by screens of marble, wrought in filigree. It is paved with blocks of white marble ind jasper, and ornamented with a wainscoting of sculptured tablets, representing flowers. The tombs are sarcophagi of the purest marble, exquisitely inlaid with blood-stone, agate, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, and other precious stones, and sur- rounded with an octagonal screen six feet high, in the opei ^racery of which lilies, irises, and other flowers are inter 136 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. wrronght with the most intricate ornamental desigud. This if also of marble, covered with precious stones. From the re semblance of this screen and the workmanship of the tomb tc Florentine mosaic, it is supposed by some to have been exe- i^uted by an Italian artist ; and I have even heard it stated that the Taj was designed by an Italian architect. One (ook at the Taj ought to assure any intelligent man that this IS false — ^nay, impossible, from the very nature of the thing The Taj is the purest Saracenic, in form, proportions, and ornamental designs. If that were not sufficient, we have still the name of the Moslem architect, sculptured upon the building. I consider it extremely doubtful whether any Italian had any thing to do with the work, though it is barely possible that one may have been employed upon the screen around the tombs. In the weekly account of the expenditures for the building of the Taj, there is a certain sum mentioned as paid to " the foreign stone-cutter," who may either have been Italian, Turkish, or Persian. As for the flowers, represented in bas-relief on the marble panels, it has been said that they are not to be found in India. Now these flowers, as near as they can be identified, are the tulip, the iris, (both natives of Persia,) and the lotus. But I noticed a curious feature ir the sculpture, which makes it clear to me that the artist was ft native. The flowers lack perspective^ which would never have been the fault of an Italian artist of Shah Jehan's time — about the middle ol the seventeenth century. Bishop Heber has declared that he recognized Italian art in the ornaments of the Taj, but he declared also that its minarets have no beauty, that the Fort of Agra is built of granite, and THE ECHO UNDER THE DOME. 13V feU into many other glaring errors, both of taste and ohserva tion, which I have no time to point out. The dome of the Taj contains an echo more sweet, pure and prolonged than that in the Baptistry of Pisa, which is the finest in Europe. A single musical tone, uttered by the voice, floats and soars overhead, in a long, delicious undula- tion, fainting away so slowly that you hear it after it is silent, as you see, or seem to see, a lark you have been watching, after it is swallowed up in the blue of heaven. I pictured to myself the effect of an Arabic or Persian lament for the lovely Noor Jehan, sung over her tomb. The responses that would come from above, in the pauses of the song, must ro semble the harmonies of angels in Paradise. The hall, not withstanding the precious materials of which it is built, and the elaborate finish of its ornaments, has a grave and solemn effect, infusing a peaceful serenity of mind, such as we feel when contemplating a happy death. Stern, unimaginative persons have been known to burst suddenly into tears, on en- tering it; and whoever can behold the Taj without feeling a thriU that sends the moisture to his eye, has no sense of beauty in his soul. The Taj truly is, as I have already said, a poem. It is not only a pure architectural type, but also a creation which satisfies the imagination, because its characteristic is Beauty Did you ever build a Castle in the Air? Here is one, brought down to earth, and fixed for the wonder of ages; yet 80 light it seems, so airy, and, when seen from a distance, so like a fabric of mist and sunbeams, with its great dome soar- ing up, a silvery bubble, about to burst in the sun, that, even after you have touched it, and climbed to its summit, yoi: 138 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. almost doubt its reality. The four minarets which surround it are perfect — nc other epithet will describe them. Yon cannot conceive of their proportions being changed in any way, without damage to the general effect. On one side of the Taj is a mosque with three domes, of red sandstone, cov- ered with mosaic of white marble. Now, on the opposite Bide, there is a building precisely similar, but of no use what- ever, except as a balance to the mosque, lest the perfect sym- metry of the whole design should be spoiled. This building is called the jowciby or " answer." Nothing can better illus- trate the feeling for proportion which prevailed in those dayp — and proportion is Art. In comparing these masterpieces of architecture with the Moorish remains in Spain, which resemble them most nearly I have been struck with the singular fact, that while, at the central seats of the Moslem Empire, Art reached but a com- parative degree of development, here, in India, aiid there, on the opposite and most distant frontiers, it attained a rapid and splendid culmination. The capitals of the Caliphs and the Sultans — Bagdad, Cairo, Damascus, and Constantinople — stand far below Agra and Delhi, Granada and Seville, in point of architecture, notwithstanding the latter cities have but few and scattered remains. It is not improbable that the Moorish architects, after the fall of Granada, gradually made their way to the eastward, and that their art was thus brought to India — or, at least, that they modified and improved the art then existing. The conquest of India by Baber, (grand- son of Tamerlane and grandfather of Akbar,) is almost coeval with the expulsion of the MoDrs from Granada. But the sun grows hot ; it is nearly noon. "We have spent PLAN OF SHAH JEHAN. 13S; three hours in and around the Taj, and we must leave it Nothing that is beautiful can be given up without a pang, but if a man would travel, he must endure many such partings. I must add, however, befoie we go, that on the opposite bani of the Jumna there is an immense foundation-terrace, where- on, it is said. Shah Jehan intended to erect a tomb for him self, of equal magnificence, but the rebellion of his sons, and his own death, prevented it. What the gods permitted to Love, they forbade to Vanity. A shekh, who takes care of the Taj, told me, that had the Emperor carried out his design, the tombs were to have been joined by a bridge, with a silver railing on each side. He told me that the Taj, with its gate- ways, mosque, and other buildings attached, had cost seven crores of rupees— $35,000,000. This, however, is quite im- possible, when we consider the cheapness of labor in those days, and I believe the real cost is estimated at £3,000,000 ($15,000,000), which does not seem exaggerated. On the same evening, after visiting the Taj, I left Agra for Delhi. My kind host, Mr. Warren, whose hospitality was untiring, gave me letters to bis colleagues in other parts of India, and his lady furnished me with the needful provisions for the journey. I went by the garree-dawk^ which was a great improvement both upon the banghy and mail-carts. There were three rival companies for the conveyance of pas- sengers, by carriages, on the Grand Trunk Road, as it is ealled, extending from Calcutta to Delhi, a distance of nine hundred miles. Four years ago, there was no other way of travelling, except on horseback or in a palanquin. Progress m India, though slow, is perceptible. The garree resembles A cab, with the space between the back and front seats filled 140 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN ap and covered with a mattrass. You provide yourself with a quilt aod pillow, stow jour baggage into the bottom, and tako your ease, as if upon your own bed. Thus you can travel and even sleep, with a tolerable degree of comfort. There are relays of horses, about six miles apart, and if no accident should happen, the garree rolls on at the rate of seven miles an hour. I left Agra at eight o clock in the evening. It was a raw, misty, moonlit night, and I found an overcoat indispensable Indeed, during the week I spent in the place, I suffered con- tinually from cold. We had fires in the morning and even- ing, and I was fain to get into the sun at mid-day, though warned not to expose myself to his rays. There was no frost, but the making of ice was carried on briskly, and three thou sand maunds (120,000 lbs.) were already stored in the ice- house. I sat up to take a last view of the Fort and Jumma Musjeed, paid half a rupee toll at the bridge of boats over the Jumna, and then lay down on my mattrass, to try the effect of my new conveyance. It was really quite agreeable, and except when the horses were changed, or took a fancy to baulk and plunge, I could sleep without difficulty. About three o'clock in the morning, the driver awoke me to an- nounce his budlee, or substitute, (a hint for backsheesh,) de- claring that we were at Allyghur. This was once a strong fortress, and the scene of a battle between the English and native troops. There is a pillar erected to commemorate it which pillar I saw in the moonlight, as we drove on towards Delhi The morning showed a splendid road, leading over a boundless plain, covered with fields of wheat, barley, mustard APPROACH TO DELHI. 141 and poppies, and dotted with groves of mango or tamarind trees. Its aspect continued unvaried for hours, except thai there was once or twice a low red hill in the distance, or a native town, with whitewashed mosques and mouldy Hindoc temples near at hand. The road was crowded with native travellers, with bullock-carts, ponies, and on foot, and othei garrees^ conveying the '■^ sahib log''^ (nobility) of the land, passed me frequently. I noticed a sort of native omnibus, drawn by slow horses, wherein natives, and they only, are conveyed at the rate of one anna (three cents) per mile. This is a recent invention. The plain gradually lost its mango groves, and assumed a bleak and sterile appearance. I crossed a river by a hand- some suspension bridge, then the Eastern Jumna Canal, and in the afternoon, when still twelve miles distant from Delhi, descried its mosques on the horizon. As I approached, the great fortress-palace built by Shah Jehan, (nearly as large as the Fort, at Agra,) rose from the plain. The city, which lies to the west of it, was almost hidden by trees, which belt it around. The superb domes of the great mosque rose above them, and on either hand I could see immense tombs and other ruined edifices, scattered far and wide over the plain. I crossed the Jumna, which is here as broad as at Agra, by a bridge of boats, passed a very old, crumbling fortress, over- grown with trees and bushes, then the Imperial Palace, now occupied by His Majesty^ Akbar II., and was finally set dowu at the dawk bungalow. The first thing I did, on arriving in the capital of the Great Mogul, was to order dinner, and by the time that business was over, it was too dark to see anj thing of the city. I had & letter to Mr. Place, of the Delhi 142 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPap*. ki Gazette^ and after making many inquiries of the chokcdar who finally recognized him as being " Palace Sahib " and thfl " chappa-hhana-walla " (printing-office fellow ') procured f ojuide to his residence. The next morning I shifted my quar fers to the shelter of his hospitable roofl CHAPTER XI THE CAPITAL OF THB GBEAT MOGUL Delhi— The Mogul Empire at Preeent— Euins of former Delhis — The Observatory- A Wilderness of Eain — Tomb of Sufdur Jung — The Khuttub Minar — Ita Beauty — Vidw from the Summit — CJncertainty of its Origin — The Palace of Aladdin — Euins of a Hindoo Tf mple — Tomb of the Emperor Humayoon — Of Nizam-ud-deen — Native Sam P.itches— Old Delhi— Aspect of the Modern City— The Chanduee Choke— Ba- yaderes — Delhi Artisans and Artists — The Jumma Musjeed — A Hindoo Minstrel and his Songs — The Palace of Akbar II.— Neglect and Desolation — The Diwan— An Elysium on Earth— The Throne Hall— The Crystal Throne— The Court of Akbar XL —A Farce of Empire — The Gardens — Voices of the Sultanas — Palace Pastimes, Delhi is the Imperial City of India, having been chosen by the Mogul Conquerors as their capital, which it thenceforth remained, except during the reign of Akbar. After the death of Aurungzebe, the power of the Emperors gradually declined ; the Mahrattas and Rajpoots laid waste and seized upon their territories, and finally the English, who found that the shortest way of effecting their object as peace-makers was to become conquerors, took what fragments remained of the Empire. The sovereignty, however, is still acknowledged and treated with the same outward ceremonials of respect and submission, as when the Company owned nothing but a fac- tory in Bengal, and the Mogul was lord of all India. The dominions of Akbar II., the present Emperor, the lineal do scendant of the House of Tamerlane and his illustrious sue 144 INDIA, CHIKA, AKD JAPAN. 3essor8, are embraced within the walls of his palace, and com prise rather less than a square half mile. The Government allows fourteen lacs of rupees ($700,000) annually for tha maintenance of himself, his family, and the princes attached to his Court — a large and hungry retinue, many of whom cannot venture outside of the walls without running the risk of being seized for his debts. They are all in debt, from the Emperor to his lowest menials, and the Government allow- ance is always conveyed to the Palace under a strong guard, to prevent its being forcibly carried off by the creditors. This pitiful farce of Royalty is all that remains of the Mogul Empire — once the most powerful and enlightened sovereignty in Asia. The modern City of Delhi is the latest of the name, and having been founded by Shah Jehan, is still called by the Qatives Shahjehanabad. There were several Delhis, one of the oldest of which is the city built by Toglukh, and called Toglukhabad, the ruins of which lie about fifteen miles to the south of the present city. Another city, now called Old Delhi, built during one of the succeeding reigns, is about two miles distant. It is still surrounded by lofty walls, with cir- 3ular stone bastions, and has several thousand inhabitants. But all of the country south of the Jumna, for an extent of more than ten miles in every direction, is strewed with the ruins of palaces, mosques, and tombs. Whenever the city was taken and desolated in the early wars, instead of rebuild- ng it, the inhabitants founded a new one in the vicinity ; and afterwards, whenever the caprice of an Emperor prompted him to erect a new palace, the nobles, and after them the Bommon people, gradually shifted their residences, until thfi RUINS OF THE OBSERVATORY. 1 4t location of the city was quite changed ; and thus, for centu- ries, Delhi continued to be a migratory capital. For the last two centuries it has been stationary, and will now probably remain so. But the ruins of the former Delhis cover a much greater space than that occupied by the ruins of Thebes, and had they all belonged to one city, it would have been the greatest in the world. On the day after my arrival, Mr. Place drove me in his carriage to the Khuttub Minar, the pride and boast of Delhi as the Taj is of Agra. It is eleven miles distant, in a south- westerly direction. This, again, was a day to be remembered "We left at an early hour, and without entering the city, drove along its walls, past the Cashmere and Lahore Gates. It was a balmy morning, with a pure, crystalline atmosphere, such as I had not seen for weeks. The air seemed to be more dry and bracing than at Agra, for though the temperature was lower, I felt the cold much less keenly. At a short distance from the city, we came upon the ruins of a magnificent obser- vatory. The most prominent object was a colossal gnomon, built of stone, and rising to the height of near forty feet, Around this was a circular plane, precisely parallel to that oi the ecliptic, and nearly a hundred feet in diameter. There were also two circular buildings, with a double row of narrow slits, or embrasures, around them, and the remains of stone tables in the inside, the circumferences of which were divided into degrees. These buildings were no doubt intended for ob- Berviug the rising and setting of stars, measuring their dis- tances from each other, and other similar processes. The ob- servatory could only have been used for astronomical observa- tions of a very simple character. i46 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. Beyond this all was ruin. The country was uneven and covered in all directions, as far as the eye could reach ^ with masses of stone and brick, the remains of walls and arches, and the tombs of princes, saints and scholars who flourished during the Mogul dynasty. The tombs were large square buildings, surmounted with domes. Some were merely of brick and mortar, but others of sandstone and white marble, and adorned with very elegant gateways. Grass and bushes were growing out of the rifts of the domes, and the seeds of the peepul tree, taking root in the mortar, had in many places split asunder the strongest masses of masonry. Duriug many miles of our jour- ney, there was scarcely a change in the melancholy panorama. Ruin succeeded ruin, and between and beyond them there were but perspectives of ruin in the distance. The habitations ot men were few and scattered, and but little of the soil showed any appearance of cultivation. The wild vulture hovered sul- lenly over the waste, and the fox and jackal sneaked about the crumbling walls. That beautiful fragment of Persian poetry, recited by Mahmoud the Conqueror, as he entered Constanti- nople, came into my mind : ** The spider hath woven his web in the imperial palaces; and the owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab." About six miles from Delhi we came upon the splendid tomb of Sufdur Jung, a prince who was connected with the royal house of Oude. It resembles the Taj in design, but is smaller and built of a mixture of sandstone and marble, the effect of which is very beautiful and pleasing. The present King of Oude has appointed a sum for its repair and preser- vation, but there are no signs, in the general air of neglect which pervades the place, of any money having been thus ap THE KHDTTUB MINAB. 147 plied I was quite charmed with the beauty of the architec- tural details, in this edifice ; the arched windows, the vaultea ceilings of the chambers, and the designs of the marble bal- conies, were among the finest things of the kind which I saw in India. From the top of the tomb we first saw the Khuttub Minar, and after five more miles of ruin, drew up in the court-yard of a caravanserai near its base. The unusual form of the Khuttub detracts from its height, when seen from a distance, but greatly increases it on a nearer view, by exaggerating the perspective. Hence, unlike some towers which seem to shrink as you ap preach them, the Khuttub, which at a few miles' distance re- sembles an ordinary factory-chimney, swells to a sublime altitude when you are in its vicinity. It is a round pillar, of 240 feet in height, the diameter at the base being 35 feet, but gradually diminishing to less than 10 feet at the top. It is divided into five stories, the relative height of which decreases in the same ratio as the diameter of the shaft. Each story has a heavy cornice of the richest sculpture, surmounted by a low stone balustrade. The three lower stories are entirely of red sand- stone, fluted, or rather reeded with alternate convex and angu- lar divisions, and belted at short intervals by bands of Arabic inscriptions, sculptured in relief, and of colossal size. The two highest stories are mostly of white marble, without inscriptions, and deviate slightly from the diminishing slope of the pillar, whence it is generally supposed that they were added at a later period. Some English officers, thinking to improve the work, crowned it with a grotesque cupola, which was a ridiculous ex- crescence on the shaft, until Lord Hardiiige ordered it to b* ^aken down. i48 INDIA, CHINA, AlTD JAPAN. Such aie 'he dimensions and style of the renowned Khm fcub, but they are very far from expressing the majesty of it* appearance, or the rich and gorgeous sculpture with which it is adorned. As I stood a short distance from the base, my gaze ravelling slowly from bottom to top, and from top to bottom, Mr. Place declared it to be the finest single tower in the world, and asked me whether I did not think so. I said, " No," foif just then I had Giotto's Florentine Campanile and the Giralda of Seville in my mind, and could not venture to place it above them ; but the longer I looked, the more its beauty grew upon me, and after spending three or four hours in its vicinity, I no longer doubted. It is, beyond question, the finest shaft in the world. We mounted to the summit by a winding staircase of 378 steps, which became so narrow, as the diameter of the shaft diminished, that some of my corpulent friends could never have reached the top. The view was very extensive, and on such a bright, warm day, very beautiful, in spite of its deso- lation. On all sides there was a brown, undulating waste, dot- ted with ruins, but enlivened by an occasional garden or wheat- field. Low, red hills in the south and west, a glimpse of a blue lake in the distance, the massive battlements of the de- serted City of Toglukh in the south-east, and the domes of Delhi in the north, made up the panorama. When the air ig very clear, the crests of the Himalayas, two hundred miles distant, can be discerned on the horizon. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the Khut tub is of Hindoo or Moslem origin. Nothing positive is known concerninsr the date or design of its erection. Som« suppose it to have been a watch-tower, others a monument UNCERTAINTY OF ITS ORIGIN. 145 others a minaret, others again a gigantic symbol of Shiva Both the Hindoos and the Moslems claim it, the former alleg- ing that the Arabic inscriptions were subsequently added by the conquerors. A short distance to the north there is the base of a tower similar in design, but of much grander di mensions, the building of which was relinquished after it had been raised about fifty feet from the ground. This, the Hindoos Bay, was commenced by the Moslems, in order to surpass the Khuttub, which they found impossible. Without entering into a discussion for which I am not prepared, I may venture to say that the three lowest stories appear to me to be of Hindoo construction, both from the singular manner in which the shaft is reeded, and from the absence of arches in the openings for air and light. The arch (which was first introduced into India by the Moslems) appears in the upper stories, and it is generally admitted that they were added at a later period. Some of the Arabic inscriptions refer to the repair of the shaft, and dace from the reign of Feroze Shah, about four and a half centuries ago. The Khuttub stands in the midst of a wilderness of ruins. There are the arcades of what was once a splendid Hindoo temple, changed into the court-yard of a mosque which was begun on a magnificent scale, but never finished, and the con- flicting styles are mixed together in the most incongruous manner. A college of marble and sandstone, in the later Moorish style, stands on one side of it, and a few hundred paces in an opposite direction, lie the ruins — fancy such a thing, if you can — of the palace of Aladdin 1 The genii have taken back their windows of ruby and pearl, the gold and ivory hav€ disappeared, and there are now only a few shapeless chambers, tottering to their falL The remain? of the Hindoo tempU 150 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. show that it must ha^e been one of the finest in this part cf India. The arcades are supported on several hundred columns, scarcely any of which are similar. They are covered, from cap to pedestal, with elaborate sculpture, including figures of the gods, of dogs, horses, monkeys and elephants, of the chain and bellj the pomegranate, and other religious emblems. The domes at the corners of the quadrangles are not vaulted, but formed by flat stones laid diagonally across and overlapping each other, as in the Cyclopean remains of Italy. In the court stands a pillar of iron about eighteen feet high, and called by the natives " Feroze Shah's Walking-Stick." It bears an in- scription in a very ancient character, which long puzzled the scholars, but was finally deciphered by Mr. Prinsep. The col- umn appears to have been set up in token of victory, by a king who flourished about a century before the Christian Era. There are others, similar to it, in other parts of India. There was not suflScient time to visit Toglukhabad — the ruins of which, indeed, are only remarkable for their massivtj masonry ; so, after peeping into Sir Theophilus Metcalf 's elegant country residence, which was made out of one of the old tombs, we drove back to Delhi, taking the tomb of the Emperor Hu- mayoon by the way. This lies to the south-east of the city, adjoining a walled palace or fortress, which is still inhabited. The tomb is on a grand scale, rising to the height of one hun Ired feet, from a noble terrace of solid masonry, but has a most wretched, forlorn air. The floors are covered with litter and filth, the marble screens broken and battered, the dome giveD to bats and owls, and the spacious garden Las become a wast€ of weeds. From the terrace, I counted upwards of fifty simi lar palaces of the dead, several of them, if not on a scale of NATIVE SAM PATCHES. 151 equal grandeur, yet even superior in design and in the richnesf of their decoration. There was an old porter, who attended for the sake of t trifle, by way of backsheesh, and on our leaving, urged us to visit the tomb of Nizain-ud-deeu. I was beginning to feel tired of so much decayed splendor, but my friend said that the plac« was really curious, and so we drove back about half a mile Here there was a small native village — perhaps a remnant of one of the old Delhis — crowded in among the tombs. Nizam ud-deen had truly a splendid mausoleum, of white marble with gilded domes, and there was an inclosure of marble fretwork of great beauty, surrounding the tomb of a daughter of the present Emperor. It was a labyrinth of a place, with a dark, deep tank in the midst, surrounded by high walls on three sides, with a flight of steps leading down to the water, on the fourth side. While we were looking into it, three or four half naked boys made their appearance on the high roofs overhanging the tank, and off"ered to jump down, for a few annas apiece. I ac- cordingly agreed, hardly thinking they would dare such a thing, when three of them boldly sprang from the highest platform, about seventy feet above the water. The fearful picture they made in descending quite took away my breath, and there was a sound when they struck the surface, as if they had fallen upon stone. They soon rose again, and came scrambling up the steps to get their money, complaining, with chattering teeth, of the coldness of the water. In returning to the city, we passed around the walls of Old Delhi, which are upward of eighty feet hi^h. I was anxious to see the interior, but it was then too late, and another oppor- tunity did not afterwards occur. Mr Place, who had resided 152 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. in Delhi for ten years, told me that he had never been insidt the walls. Modern Delhi was the largest and most picturesque native city I had then seen. The houses are of brick and stucco painted in gay colors, and very few of them less than two stories in height. They have tiled roofs, which gives the place, when seen from a minaret, a strong resemblance to Smyrna, and other large Turkish towns. It covers an extent of about two square miles, but is very compactly built, and the population is reck oned at near 200,000 souls. Most of the European residents have their bungalows on the heights outside of the Cashmere Gate, and near the military cantonments. There is an aque- duct of hewn stone traversing the city, which supplies the in- habitants with drinking water, brought from a distance of sev- enty-five miles, the water of the Jumna being strongly impreg- nated with natron, and injurious to health. The palace, which is surrounded by a deep moat, has a massive gateway and bar bican in the centre of its western front. An open space in- tervenes between it and the city, and exactly opposite the gateway begins the Chandnee Choke — the Broadway of Delhi, which runs directly through the centre of the city, to the Lahore Gate. It is a noble avenue, somewhat resembling a Parisian boulevard, having a small aqueduct, fringed with trees, on each side of the main highway, and separating it from the paved sidewalks. The houses are made picturesque by their wooden galleries and balconies,, and some of them are verj^ pretty specimens of architecture. When the heat of the day has subsided, and the afternoon shadows are growing long and cool, all the natives of anj standing or pretension repair to the Chandnee Choke Then THE CHANDNEE CHOKE. 153 broad as it is, it can scarce!/ contain the gay throngs that parade up and down its whole extent. There are Princes of the Em peror's Court, mounted on brilliantly caparisoned elephants ; country Chiefs on horseback, with a fierce air, and weapons in bundanee ; Hindoo Baboos, with the symbol of their caste painted on their foreheads ; kackrees^ drawn by bullocks, and resembling pagodas on wheels, behind whose tassels and dusty red curtains sit the discreet ladies of the land ; travelling mer- chants, slowly pacing along on camels; Sikhs, with forked black beards; long-locked Afighans, with bright, treacherous eyes; and Persians, grave as the maxims of Saadi, besides a vast retinue on foot, exhibiting the most brilliant combinations of color in their garments. The ordinary dress is pure white but here you see in addition, caps and scarfs of the most vivid shades of crimson, blue, green, yellow and orange, with a pro- fusion of gold fringe and spangles. The merchants sit cross- legged in their shops, looking out on the array, and chatting cheerfully with passing acquaintances, while from the balconies above, the Bayaderes, clad in their most attractive finery, play the part of sirens to the crowd below. Here, as in Egypt, only females of this class are allowed to show their faces unveiled, and one has no other authority for forming an opinion regarding the beauty of the sex. Among the many faces I saw while passing througli the Chandnee Choke, there were but two which were really beau- tiful, while most of them were so coarse and repulsive that I fihould think there was little danger of their drawing many victims into their toils. But there was scarcely a house, the upper story of which was not occupied by these creatures. A. native court in India, with its army of pensioned idlers, is 7* 154 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN a hot-bed for all forms of vice, and Delhi is only surpassed ii this respect by Lucknow and Hyderabad. In additior to the manufacture of shawls and scarfs, k which its artisans are only inferior to those of Cashmere and Umritsir, Delhi is celebrated for its jewelry. The gold and eilver smiths produce articles of exquisite workmanship, and occasionally very fine jewels are to be met with. Those of a secondary value, such as agate, onyx, cornelian, topaz, car- buncle and moon-stone, are very plentiful, and may be had at a trifling rate. The bed of the Jumna abounds in beautiful cwnelians, sards and agates. In rambling among the shops I saw several natives of Cashmere, who were exceedingly hand- some men, with skin as fair as a European's and soft brown hair. They belonged evidently to the pure Caucasian stock. A na- tive miniature painter showed me the portrait of a Cashmerian Sultana, which was a vision of perfect loveliness. The features were like those of a high-born English beauty, but with an en- chanting touch of Southern languor in the dark eye, the droop- ing, fringed lid, and the full, crimson lip. He had also a portrait of Tootee "Beegum, a Sikh princess, whose style of bsauty was thoroughly Oriental — a brilliant, passionate face, capable of ex- pressing the extremes of firmness and tenderness. The delicacy of touch and artistic truth of these native artists is extraordi- nary. I know of but few miniature painters in America who could equal them. In landscapes they are not so successful 'or though the pictures are very laboriously finished, and ^hjw fair idea of perspective, they lack color and atmosphere. The Jumma (or Jooma) Musjeed at Delhi is a noble struc- ture, equalled only, as a mosque, by the Motee Musjeed at /Igra. It is on a much larf^er scale than the latter. It stands THE JUMMA OF MU8JEED. 155 hi the middle of the city, at the meeting of four of the prin eipal streets, and is raised on a grand platform of masonry twenty feet high, with broad flights of steps leading up on each side. The material is sandstone and white marble, the three superb domes being built of both, disposed in vertical bands, or stripes. At a distance, when softened by the haze, they resemble huge balloons of striped silk, hovering over the city. We were allowed to walk rough-shod through the court- yard, and to climb one of the minarets, but two Hindoo pil- grims from Ajmere were ignominiously driven out, on attempt- ing to enter. We inquired the reason of this, and were told that the " sahib " had ordered it so, on account of recent fights which had occurred between the rival sects. The two religious, nevertheless, are blended in some degree among the low and ignorant classes, the shrines and sacred places of each being held in common reverence by them. The two Rajpoots whom we saw ejected, seemed vory much mortified that they were not allowed to visit this sanctuary of the Mussulmen. A very curious illustration of Progress in India was fur- nished to me one day, during my sojourn with Mr. Place. We were dining together in his bungalow, when a wandering Hindoo minstrel came along with his mandolin, and request- ed permission to sit upon the verandah and play for us. I was desirous of hearing some of the Indian airs, and my host therefore ordered him to perform during dinner. He tuned the wires of his mandolin, extemporized a prelude which had some very familiar passages, and to my complete astonishment, began singing : " Get out of the way. Old Dan Tucker ! " The old man seemed to enjoy my surprise, and followed up his performance with " Oh, Susanna ! " " Buffalo Gals," and other 16H INDIA, CHINA. AND JaIAN choice Ethiopian melodies, all of which he saiis; with adniira ble suirit aud correctness. I addressed him in English, bui found that he did not understand a word of the lan^ua^e, and had no conception of the nature of the songs he had given us He, had heard some young English officers singing them at Madras, and was indebted entirely to his memory for both tha melodies and words. It was vain to ask him for his native Indian airs : he was fascinated with the spirit of our national music, and sang with a grin of delight which was very amusing As a climax of skill, he closed with ^^ Malbrook se va-t-en guerre^ " but his pronunciation of French was not quite so successful. I had heard Spanish boatmen on the Isthmus of Panama singing " Carry me back to ole Virginny," and Arab boys in the streets of Alexandria humming " Lucy Long," but I was hardly prepared to hear the same airs from the lips of a Hindoo, in the capital of the Great Mogul. It only remains for me to describe my visit to the Empe- ror's Palace. Mr. Place having previously sent a messenger to announce the visit, we found two chobdars (beadles) with silver maces, waiting for us outside of the great gate. We were allowed to drive through, the sentinels presenting arms, into a small court, through a second bastioned gateway, and down a stately, vaulted passage, to a large, open quadrangle where we dismounted and proceeded on foot. The vaulted jrallery must have once been an imposing prelude to the splen- dors of the palace, but it is now dirty and dilapidated, and the quadrangle into which it ushers the visitor resembles a great barn-yard, filled with tattered grooms, lean horses and mangy elephants. The buildings surrounding it were heavy massei of brick and sandstone, and were rapidly falling into ruin AN EIYSIUM ON EARTH. 167 But there was another gate before us, and I hastened through it, hoping to find something which would repay the promise oi the magnificent exterior. There was, indeed, the Palace oi Shah Jehan, but in what condition ! Porticoes of marble, spoiled by dust and whitewash, exquisite mosaics with all the precious stones gouged out, gilded domes glittering over courte heaped with filth, and populated with a retinue of beggarly menials. This was all that was left of the Empire of Tamer- lane and Akbar — a miserable life-in-death, which was far more melancholy than complete ruin. The only parts of the palace I was allowed to see were the diwan^ the throne-hall and the mosque — all of which bear a general resemblance to the palace of Akbar, at Agra, but are more wantonly despoiled. The diwan is an elegant arcade formed by three rows of arches, with 'a pavilion of the purest marble in the centre, inlaid with gold and precious stones. Over this pavilion is the inscription in Persian, which Moore tias introduced in his " Light of the Harem," — " If there bo an Elysium on Earth, it is here — it is here." What an Elysi- um at present ! The throne-hall is a square canopy resting on massive square pillars. It is constructed entirely of white marble, very highly polished, the pillars being inlaid with cornelian and bloodstone, and the ceiling richly gilded. In the centre of this once stood the famous peacock throne, which has re- cently been removed, and we were unable to get a sight of it By persevering, however, we succeeded in seeing the crystal throne of the Great Mogul, which is four feet in diameter by two in height, and the largest piece of rock crystal known to axist. The bases of the pillars in this splendid hall were painted 168 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN with roses and tulips, the colors of which were very well pi© served. The mosque — an imitation of that in the palace a1 A.gra — did not appear to have heard a prayer for years. Akbar II. has reigned in this little dominion since 1805 ind is now upward of eighty years of age. He was the last of the line, but having four sons, the succession will be contin- ued. He devotes his time to literature, amusements and sen- suality. The Mussulmen speak highly of his literary acquire- ments, and his poems in the Persian language are said by those who have read them to possess considerable merit. There is a Court newspaper, entitled The Lamp of NewSj published within the palace, but its columns are entirely devoted to the gossip of the city, and private scandal. Until recently the law administered within the palace bore a resemblance to the bloody rule of former duys. Persons who had incurred the loyal displeasure had their hands, ears or noses cut off, and were then thrust out of the gates. Finally the English Kesi- dent at the Court hinted to his Majesty that these things were very disagreeable and ought to cease. " What ! " said the de- scendant of Tamerlane ; " am I not King in my own palace ? " " Undoubtedly," blandly replied the Resident ; " your High- ness is the Conqueror of the "World and the Protector of Princes ; but such a course is not pleasing to the Governor- Geueral, and it would be a great evil to the world if the friend- ship of two such mighty and illustrious Sovereigns were to be Interrupted ! " The forms of respect to the phantom of the eld authority being thus preserved, the Emperor instituted a milder regimen. We finished our visit by a walk in the gardens. Here, the aid trees, rankly overrun with parasitic plants, with an under VOICES OF THE SULTANAS. 159 growth ot w'Ad and unpruned rose-bushes, afforded a pleasant relief to thft clecay of the imperial halls. But the garden-pa- vilions were tumbling down, the pools and fountain-basins were covered with a thick green scum, and rank weeds grew in 11 the walks. We lingered for some time under the windows of the Zenana^ listening to the clatter of female voices, and trying to draw therefrom some inference as to the features of the Sultanas. Alas ! the tones were all too shrill to have come from beautiful lips. On our way out, several sentinels belong- ing to the Emperor's boy-corps stood at the interior gates and made very respectful salaams as we passed. The poor little half-starvedj half-clothed wretches are obliged to exercise daily, and often four hours at a time. Most of the male inmates of the place were perched upon the roofs, engaged in flying flocks of pigeons, which they made to advance or recede, separate and unite again, by uttering a peculiar cry and waving a long rod with a little flag on the end of it. At the gate we dis- mssed the chobdars with a gratuity, and I went home. ** The spider hath woven hia wel in the imperial palaoek ' CHAPTER XII JOURNEY IN A PALANQUIN. Deparhiie for the Flimalayas— "Laying a Dawk"— Last View of Delhi -A EtUij Nights ^ua-ters at Meerut— The Dawk Agent— Hindoo Punctuality -Meerut— Palanquin Travelling— Tricks of the Bearers— Arrival at Roorkhee— Adventures In Search of a Breakfast— First View of the Himalayas— A Welcome Invitation— Roo^ khee— The Ganges Canal— Its Cost and Dimensions— Method of Irrigation— The Government and the People — Aqueduct over the Selanee Eiver— Apathy of the Natives. At the close of my stay in Delhi, I found that precisely half the time which I had allotted for my transit through In dia had expired, and but a single month remained. However, although nearly a thousand miles from Calcutta, I determined to push on to the Himalayas, and get a glimpse of the highest mountain in the world. Once on the Grrand Trunk Road, on my return, I could depend on making a hundred miles a day by the garree-dawk^ without excessive fatigue, and there were few points of interest, except Allahabad and Benares, to detain me on the way to Calcutta. I therefore made arrangements — " laid a dawk " is the Indian expression — for a trip to Lan- dowr, the highest point in the Himalayas, which can be conv*» LAST VIEW OF DELHI 161 niently reached during the winter season, by way of Roorkhefl and Hurdwar. The distance of Landowr from Delhi is nearly two hundred miles, and there is no carriage dawk beyond Meerut, fifty miles from the latter city. I was therefore obliged to travel by palkee dawk, or palanquin. A statement was drawn up of the different places I intended to visit, with the length of my stay at each, and a messenger dispatched to summon the bearers to be in readiness at the proper time, at the different stations along the road. Twelve days were al- lowed for the trip to Landowr and back to Meerut. The ex- penses of the dawk, including the hire of the palanquin amounted to nearly $60. The garree, or carriage, for Meerut called for me on "Wed Qesday afternoon, the 26th of January, and I took leave of Mr Place, after having been most hospitably entertained by him for four days. The weather was dark, raw and lowering, and I had not crossed the tedious bridge over the Jumna, before the rain began to fall. My last view of Delhi was dull and misty; the palace of Shah Jehan loomed up more grandly than ever, but the domes and minarets of the Jumma Mus- jeed, which need to be touched with sunshine, on a background of blue sky, lost half their airy grace. I had a comfortable cart, with a mattress on the bottom, and disposed my car- pet-bags in such a way as to make it as easy as an arm-chair. The rain increased, however, the roads became wet and slip- pery, and the plain had a dull November look, which was very dreary. I was delayed by the obstinacy of the horses, who finding the cart a little heavier than usual, did their best to disable it. Night soon came on, the rain rattled on the roof, and drawing my quilt around me, I lay down Hud slept uutU 162 INDIA, CIUNA, AND JAPAN. aroused by the driver, asking where he should take me, for w« had reached Meerut. I directed him to go to the ^^ punch jhur'''' (punch house), as a hotel is termed, in this part oi India. There I found consummars^ chokedars, and the othei varieties of servants usually attached to a bungalow, but no one who spoke English. I did my best to get a note conveyed to the person who was to furnish me with a palanquin and bearers the next morning, but found the thing quite impossible. I arose betimes, and set out to find the agent, for seven tt'olock was the time appointed for starting. After endless r^uestions and a walk of three miles, I was finally directed to a mean house, in the door of which stood one of the meanest individuals in appearance, that I ever beheld. He was a half- caste, of a dirty complexion, unwashed, pitted with the small- pox, limping, and dressed in a vile cloak covered with greace and patches. He informed me that the bearers were ready, and pointed to the palanquin, which was standing in the veran- dah.. The man's appearance made me suspicious, and though there was really a palanquin, I feared that before travelling far I should find it to be a little buggy. He promised to send it to the hotel, whither I hastened, expecting to find breakfast ready as I had ordered. Vain hope ! There is no equiva- lent for " punctuality " in the Hindostanee tongue. I waited an hour; the palanquin arrived; I stormed in English, for, unfortunately, I knew no anathemas in their language, but the 20oks were miracles of calmness and deliberation. When breakfast finally came, I was obliged to eat a few mouthfuls liurriedly and depart, lest I should give the bearers along the toad a chance to claim demurrage. Meerai resemble*? the other Indian cantonments in mosf PALANQUIN TRAVELLING. 163 respects. It has a number of handsome bungalows, besides a church with a very ambitious spire. Owing to an abundance of good water, its gardens and orchards are much more luxu- riant than those of Agra and Delhi. It must be both an agree abe and healthy place of residence. The sky was clear, aftei the rain of the previous day, and the air delightfully cool an«J bracing, though colder than I desired. I rode with the palan- quin windows open, and found that by propping myself against a carpet-bag, I could get a tolerable view of the country on both sides. There was little variety in the scenery, as I was still on the great Plain of Hindostan. I noticed, however, some change in the vegetation ; the tamarind and taree-palm were but rarely to be seen ; the peepul and saul were the prin- cipal trees. The wheat was much more backward than in the warmer plains about Agra. I had eight bearers, four of whom only carried the palan- quin at one time. They relieved each other every half-mile, and all of them gave place to a new set, at the end of the stage, which varied from eight to ten miles. There was, besides, a mussalchee, or torch-bearer, who, during the day, carries the superfluous garments of the bearers, and demands backsheesh when they are changed. The amount given is four annas (12^ cents), to each set of bearers. They usually average about four miles an hour on good roads, carrying the palanquin along on a slow, sliding trot, every step of which they accompany with a grunt. I do not know a more disagreeable method of travelling. It is as necessary to preserve a nice equilibrium as in a Turkish caique, and as you lie at full length in a narrow Dox, you cannot turn your cramped limbs without thrusting four body too far on one side or the other. The jolting l64 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAFAN. motion of the palanquin is unpleasant, and tlie meast red grunu of the bearers give jou the idea that they are about to drop you, through fatigue, while nothing can be more annoying thaL their constant stoppage to shift the pole from one shoulder to another. Sometimes they groan out. ^'- juldee jaof'' (gt quickly !) and when they meet any body in the road, they cry ; " Take care ! we have a great Lord inside ! " Thus I jogged on all day, through a tame and monotonous country. I looked continually to the north, for a glimpse of the Himalayas, and once thought I saw some sharp white peaks^ but they gradually moved together and changed their forms. Toward evening my bearers stopped at a village, which they said was the end of their chokee (stage), but that the new bearers, who ought to have been in waiting, had gone on to another village, about a mile distant. To avoid the delay of waiting their return, they offered to take me on to the village for an additional backsheesh ; and I consented. When I arri- ved, however, and found the new bearers in readiness, I asked them : " Is this the beginning of your chokee^ or the village behind us ? " " This is the place," they all exclaimed ; where- upon the others were quite abashed at finding their trickery exposed, and their expected backsheesh lost. At sunset 1 passed through Mozuffernuggur, a large town about thirty-six miles from Meerut. At the next chokee beyond it, I was delayed an hour and a half by the non-appearance of the bear- ers. My men began to shout, and the cries were taken up by one person and another, till they seemed to radiate through K^e whole country, and fill the air, far and near. The meu were at last gathered together, and we went on by t(»rch-light The night was clear and cold, and I lay muffled up, crampe<) ADVENTURES IN SEARCH OF A BREAKFAST. 165 and shivering, until we arrived at the station of Roorkhee. three hours past midnight. There was a Government bungalow, to which the bearers tonveyed me, awoke the sleepy chokedar, kindled a cecoa-nut amp, and left me. I removed every thing from the palanquii the room, fastened the doors, and then lay down upon the charpoy (bedstead), where I slept until morning. On awaking, my first sensation was that of hunger, for I had fasted twenty- four hours, so I summoned the chokedar, and ordered him to get breakfast for me. " Bohut achch\^^ (very well,) said he, and then went on to make some statement, the most prominent words of which were ^^ ghurrecb purwar.-'' I asked him for tea, for eggs, for fowls, but though he always replied " verj well," there was sure to follow something about " ghurreeb purwar." At last I decided that these words referred to some •necessary article, without which he could not provide break- fast. I thought of the Arabic words gurra, a gourd, and gecrbeh, a water-skin, and it was quite plain that " ghurreeb purwar" must mean either a tea-kettle or a frying pan. " Well," said I, when he had repeated the words for the twen- tieth time, " I have no ghurreeb purwar ; you must get one. Go and borrow one from the Sahibs ! " The man stared at me in a wild way, and went off, but not to provide breakfast. I learned afterwards that " ghurreeb purwar " was a title ad- dressed to myself, and means " Protector of the Poor." It ig addressed to all Europeans in these parts, and no exclusive honor is meant thereby, as Bishop Hebor supposed, when he wrote in his Journal, that the people, on account of h.s kindnesi bo them, had bestowed upon him the title of " Protector of the Poor." 166 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN While anxiously waiting for breakfast, I amused myself bj reading a list of the books in the Library of the Ganges Oaual at Roorkhee, which hung upon the wall. Who would have guessed that an humble author, in scrambling about the world, should find one of his works in the furthest corner of India, at the very foot of the Himalayas ? Yet so it was ; and the fact made the place less inhospitable, in spite of my hunger. Where my words have already been, I thought, shall not my body find nourishment ? and while trying to reason myself into the impression that there was a breakfast some- where in Roorkhee, which it was destined that I should eat, I walked out upon the verandaL It was about eight in the morning: an atmosphere of crystal, and not a cloud in the sky. Yet something white and shining glimmered through the loose foliage of some trees on my right hand. My heart came into my mouth with the sud den bound it gave, when, after plunging through the trees likft one mad, tumbling into a ditch on the other side, and scramb- ling up a great pile of dirt, I saw the Himalayas before me I Qnobscured by a single cloud or a speck of vapor, there stood revealed the whole mountain region, from the low range of the Siwalik Hills, about twenty miles distant, to the lofti- est pinnacles of eternal snow, which look down on China and Thibet. The highest range, though much more than a hundred miles distant, as the crow flies, rose as far into the sky as the Alps at forty miles, and with every glacier and chasm and spire of untrodden snow as clearly defined. Their true mag- nitude, therefore, was not fully apparent, because the eye refused to credit the intervening distance. But the exquisite loveliness of the shadows painted by the morning on thosf FIRST \1L\V OF THE HIMALAYAS. 167 ignormous wastes of snow, and the bold yet beautiful outlines of the topmost cones, soaring to a region of perjetual silence and death, far surpassed any distant view of the Alps or any other mountain chain I ever saw. As seen from Roorkhee the Himalayas present the appearance of three distinct ranges. The first, the Siwalik Hills, are not more than two thousand feet in height ; the second, or Sub-Himalayas, rise to eight or nine thousand, while the loftiest peaks of the snowy range, visible from this point, are 25,000 feet above the sea. Far in the north-west was the Chore, an isolated peak, which is almost precisely the height of Mont Blanc, but seemed a very pigmy in comparison with the white cones beyond it. I had a letter to Col. Cautley, the Superintendent of the Ganges Canal, and hastened to deliver it in time to share his breakfast. He was not in Roorkhee, as it happened ; but I learned from tne servant that there was a " sahib " living in the house, and sent the letter in to him. The " sahib '' did just what I had hoped, that is, he came out and asked me in to breakfast with him — which I was but too ready to do The letter was forwarded to Capt. Goodwyn, the next in command, and before the meal was concluded I received a kind note froro that officer, otFering me a room in his house. Roorkhee has suddenly risen into note from being the head* quarters of the Engineers employed on the Ganges CanaL A large workshop ts in operation, and the Government has just established a College for educating Civil Engineers. The Europeans are comparatively few, and the native town is in- habited almost entirely by the workmen employed on the Canal. It is a pleasant, healthy place, scattered over a rising ground, overlooking the Valley of the Ganges, and en- 168 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAH. joys one of the finest prospect& of the Himalayas to be hac from any part of the plains. A very h.indsome Gothic Church (designed by Mr. Price, the gentleman to whom I was in- debted for a breakfast) had been recently tree ted, and this, with the open, turfy common in front of the town, and the ibsence of tropical trees, reminded me strongly of 21ngland. The Ganges Canal is one of the grandest undercakinga oi "ihe present day. It has been constructed under the du^c- tio>- anJ at the expense of the Government, mainly for tht purpose if irrigating the level, fertile tracts between the Ganges ai.d Jumna, but also to afford the means of transport- ing the produr-uoks ^f the country to the head of navigation on the former river, at Ct:w.^pore. The labor of more than ten years had been expended on it at the time of my visit, and four or five years more were considered necessary to complete it.* It will be eighty feet wide, varying in depth according to the season, but probably averaging eight feet, and, including its numerous branches, will have an extent of eight hundred miles ! It taps the Ganges at Hurdwar (eighteen miles to the north-west of Roorkh), and returns to it again at Cawnpor, a distance of more than four hundred miles. The total cost, when completed, will not fall mjich short of £2,000,000, but it is expected to yield a return of £500,000 annually. This cal- culation is based on the success of the East and West Jumna Canals, which are comparatively on a small scale. The former of those was finished in 1825, since when it has paid all the expense of construction, together with an annual interest of 5 * The water was let into the main trunk of the Ganges Canal Id "Jie summer of 1854, and the work, so far as it has gone into operation is perfectly successful SYSTEM OF IRRIGATIOJS. 169 per cent thereupon, and £320,000 clear profit The latter, finished a few years since, has paid the cost and interest, with £30,000 profit. The use of the water for irrigation is not obligatory upor the inhabitants, but they are generally quite willing to avail themselves of it. There are three ways in which it is fur- nished to tliem : First, by villages or companies of cultivators contracting for as much as they want; secondly, by a fixed rate per acre, according to the kind of grain, rice being the most expensive and cotton the cheapest; and thirdly, by renting an cutlet of a certain fixed dimension, at so much per year Along the Jumna Canals the people do not wait, as formerly, to see whether the crops will be likely to succeed without irri gation, but employ it in all seasons, and are thereby assured of a constant return for their labor. The Ganges Canal will be of vast importance in increasing the amount of grain pro- duced in Hiudostan, the design of the Government being to render famine impossible. It is to be hoped that such a dreadful spectacle as the famine of 1838, when hundreds of thousands perished from want, will never again be witnessed in India. That such things have happened is the natural re- sult of the tenure by which land is held and cultivated. The Government is the proprietor, and the zemindars^ or tenants pay 75 per cent, of the assessed value of the products. Thf land is sub-let by the zemindars to the ryots, or laborers, and these, the poor and ignorant millions of India, of course gam little or nothing beyond a bare subsistence. If the crops fail, i;hey have nothing at all. The Ganges Canal will therefore, tc a certain extent, prevent famine, by assuring perennial crops. It will enrich the Government, bccnnso. in addition to the sale 8 170 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAK. of the water, it will increase the rent of the lands as the^ become more productive, but it will very slightly mitigate the condition of the ryots. The greatest modern work in India is the Canal Aqueduct over the Selanee River, at Roorkhee. It is entirely constructed of brick, and, including the abutments, is about a quarter of a mile in length, by a hundred and eighty feet in breadth. There are sixteen arches, of about seventy feet span, and rising twenty feet above the river, the foundations of the piers being sunk twenty feet below the bed. The arches are four feet thick, in order to support the immense pressure of such a body of water. Hundreds of workmen were employed on the structure, and a small railroad had been laid down for bringing the materials. A locomotive was imported from England, but, through the neglect of the native firemen, soon became a wreck. During the short time it was in operation a great number of accidents occurred. It was found almost impossible to keep the natives off the track. Their stupidity in this respect is astonishing. If you have a hard heart you may run over as many as you like in a morning's ride, for they will assuredly not get out of your way unless you force them to it. CHAPTER XIII HURDWAR AND THE GANGEH. Sative Workmen at Roorkhee — Their Wages — Departure for Hurdwar— AfternoM View of the Himalayas — Peaks visible from Roorkhee — Jungle- grass — Jowalaporc —Approach to the Siwalik Hills — First View of the Gauge— Ganges Canal— Pre- diction of the Brahmins— An Arrival— The Holy City of Hurdwar- Its Annual Fair — Appearance of the Streets — Tbe Bazaar — A Himalayan Landscape — Travel in the Jungle— A Conflagration— The Jungle by Torch-Light — Arrival at Dehra. Before leaving Roorkhee I paid a visit to the workshops, where I was much struck with the skill and aptness of the natives employed. The shops are instituted for the purpose of constructing the implements used on the Canal works The machinery is driven by steam and conducted entirely bj natives under European superintendence. One of the depart- ments is devoted to the construction of mathematical instru- ments, which are fully equal to those of English manufacture. " The natives," to use the words of the Superintendent " learn in one sixth of the time which an English workman vould require." Their imitative talent is wonderful, but they totally lack iuvei;tion. This makes them a people easily im- proved, as they are anxious to learn, but never knowing more than is taught them, never using their knowledge as a lamp to explore the unknown fields of science or art. These workmen l72 INDIA CHINA, AND JAPAN. are paid from four to eight rupees a month, according to theii skill, but the ordinary laborers on the Canal, though hired at four (S'2), do not, owing to their indolence, generally recciv« more than two rupees per month, out of which they find them- selves. It is said that one rupee (fifty cents,) monthly, covers all their necessary expenses. After two days at Roorkhee, I summoned the bearers to be in readiness at sunrise, the next morning. Capt. Goodwyn was kind enough to see that all the arrangements were com- plete, besides ordering me an early breakfast, and his amiable lady provided me with a tiffin, which I was to eat in Col. Cautley's bungalow at Hurdwar. The morning was bright and cold, and as I was borne down the bank to the Selanee River, I noticed that a light rime lay upon the grass. The bearers shivered as they waded through the chill water, though their bare legs were nearly as tough and leathery as an elephant's. I opened the palanquin so that I might look on the Hima- layas, as I lay, but their cold morning gleam was not so beau- tiful as the warm red flush which had lain on them during the previous afternoon and evening. I had accompanied my hosts to the cricket-ground, where there was a match between the military and the civilians. The game was explained to me, and politeness required that I should take an interest in its progress ; but my whole soul had gone off to the Himalayas, and I could see or think of nothing else. I was most struck with their exquisite beauty of form and coloring. The faint- est pink of the sea-shell slept upon the steeps of snow, and their tremendous gulfs and chasms were filled with pale-blue shadows, so delicately pencilled that I can only compare thenc to the finest pamting on ivory. When T reflected that each 0/ THE HIMALAyAS: FROM ROORKHEE. 172 those gentle touches of blue wat a tremendous gorge, ' wher6 darkness dwells all day ; " that each break in the harmonioua flow of the outline on the sky — like the hi 3ak in a cadence of music, making it sweeter for the pause — was a frightful i»re- cipice, thousands of feet in depth and inaccessible to human foot, I was overpowered by the awful sublimity of the picture But when their color grew rosy and lambent in the sunset, I oould think of nothing but the divine beauty which beamed through them, and wonder whether they resembled the moun- tains which we shall see in the glorified landscapes of the future world. The snowy chain visible from Roorkhee extends from Nepaul to the borders of Cashmere, and includes some ol the highest peaks, though not the very highest, in the Hima- layas. In front rise the Gungootree and Jumnootree, the sources of the Jumna and Granges, about 25,000 feet high ; further to the eastward, Buddhreenath, a little lower ; and in the distant north-east, the summit of Nundidevi, which has an altitude of nearly 26,000. Dwalagheri, Chumalari, and a third peak which, according to recent measurements, is fully 30,000 feet above the sea, are further to the eastward. There is generally much cloud and mist upon them during the winter season, and at Roorkhee they told me there had not been so fine a view of them for two months, as on the morning of my arrival. After crossing the Selanee River, I was carried on through a low tract, at first covered only with long jungle grass, ten Poet high, but afterward studded with picturesque topes, oi groves, of mango and peepul trees. Being sholt^red by the Siwalik Hills, and inuudated by the overflow of the Gangea 174 INDIA CHUTA, AKD JAPAJT. the vegetation was very luxuriant, and had more of i. tropical character than upon the plains. In the dense jungles along the Ganges, about fifteen miles from Roorkhee, there is ao abundance of tigers, leopards and wild elephants. The deer, antelope and wild boar are also frequent. On my way to Hurdwar I passed through Jowalapore, a queer old town which appeared to have some share in the sanctity of the neighboring city. I sat up in the palanquin to have a better view of the place and people, as I was borne through its tortuous streets. There were a number of temples and caravanserais, and the roofs of the houses were tenanted by sacred apes, whose posteriors were painted of a bright crimson color. The inhabitants looked at me with curiosity, and some of them made very respectful salaams. There was a bazaar and market in full operation, Nhich were almost an exact counterpart of those of the smaller Egyptian towns. Among the crowd I noticed two handsome, fair-skinned Cashmerians. The road now approached the Siwalik Hills, which were steep and covered with jungle to the summit. The gorge through which the Ganges forces its way at Hurdwar made an abrupt gap in their chain, revealing a striking view of the second or Sub- Himalayas, which now completely hid the snowy peaks. It was nearly noon by this time, and the day was warm and summer-like. The bearers threaded the shade of the mango topes, crossed the canal, passed, without enter- ing, the town of Khunkhul, and finally set me down at Col. Cautley's bungalow, at Myapore. This is a little village about half a mile from Hurdwar, at the point where the canal leaves the Ganges. The bungalow — a thatched cottage, pleasantly enrboweied in trees-— was comfortably furnished flRBT VIEW OF THE GANGES. nt though uuteDanted. I took possession for the time; the servant set about making tea for me, and sent word for the Dew bearers to be ready in two hours. Meanwhile I strolled out to see the head of the canal Id ten minutes I stood on the lofty banks of the Ganges, looking down on his clear blue stream. The gorge lay open before me ; the hills rose on either hand covered with a wilderness of jungle ; the white pinnacles of the temples of Hurdwai shone over the top of a belt of trees ; the sacred ghauts led down to the water ; but beyond all, crowning the huge blue bulk of the Sub-Himalayas, towered the snowy cone of Gun- gootree. It was an impressive scene. Here was the rivei beneath my feet ; there one of his most sacred cities ; and in the remote distance the snows wherein he is cradled. I went down the bank, and there, at the last gate of the Himalayas, where they let him out upon the plain of Hindostan, drank of the Holy River. The dam across the Ganges at the head of the Canal was of course postponed until the remainder of the work should be finished, but the abutments and a regulating bridge of red sandstone were already completed. The canal was expected to take away nine tenths of the river at this place — a pros- pect which spread terror among the Brahmins. They de- clared that the goddess Gangajee had announced to them in % vision, that she would never lie quietly in any other than ner accustomed bed. If the English turned her out of it she mif^bt be forced to go a few miles, but she would assur edly break loose and return. The Brahmins, therefore, pre- dicted the total failure of the Canal. The removal of sc much water will be a disadvantage to those who inhabit the f76 IXDI.A, CHINA, AND JAPAN. banks, but Col. Cautley supposes that the loss will be sup plied by springs in the river-bed. "While I was preparing to leave, a garree drove up, oul of which descended a ruddy, powerful man, a lady and twi fat and rosy children. The gentleman, who had charge ol the operations at Mapyore, immediately addressed me in the most cordial manner. He had just brought his family down from Landowr in the Himalayas, to spend a few days, and I learned from him that the snows were fast melting. He had been five years in America, and professed himself de- lighted to meet a citizen of that country. I would willingly have prolonged my stay, but the bearers were waiting, so we shook hands and I was carried on to Hurdwar. This is one of the most curious cities in India. It lies on the western bank of the G-anges, exactly in the gorge formed by the Siwalik Hills. There is but one principal street running parallel to the water, and crossed by others so steep as to resemble staircases. Broad stone ghauts descend tc the river, to allow the pilgrims facility of bathing. Between them, upon platforms of masonry of various heights, are temples to the Hindoo gods, principally to Ganeish and Shiva. The emblem of the latter divinity, the lingam, oi jymbol of the Phallic worship, is seen on all sides. Its sig- nification, however, would never be guessed by a stranger, nor is there any thing indecent in the ceremonies with which it is worshipped. The temples are from twenty to fifty feet high — none, I think, of greater altitude — and generally buih of gray sandstone. There is great similarity in their design, which is a massive square shrine, surmounted by a four-sided or circular spire, curving gradually to a point, so that thr THE HOLY CITY OF HURDWAfl. 177 outline of each side resembles a parabola. All parts of the building are covered with grotesque but elaborate ornaments and many of the spires are composed of a mass of smalle? ones^ overlapping each other like scales, so that at a distarco the J resemble slender pine-apples, of colossal size. Thcro are fifty or sixty temples in and about the city, some of then, being perched on the summit of cliffs rising above it. Mos< of them are whitewashed, and have a new and glaring ap pearance ; but there are others, enclosed in large courtyards which are very black and venerable, and seem to be regarded with more than usual reverence. I could see lamps burning before the idols, in the gloomy interiors, but was not allowed to enter. There is a great annual melaj or fair, held at Hurdwar, which is sometimes attended by a million and a half of persons. I believe there are never less than five or six hundred thousand present. The natives flock from all parts of Hindostan and B^engal, from the Deccan, the Punjab, from Cashmere, Affghanistan, Tartary and Thibet, some as re- ligious devotees, some as worldly tradesmen. For miles around the place it is one immense encampment, and all the races, faces, costumes, customs and languages of the East, from Persia to Siam, from Ceylon to Siberia, are represented. Buying and selling, praying and bathing, commercial fleecing and holy hair-cutting, and all kinds of religious and secular swindling, are in full operation ; and Hurdwar, which is at other timea a very quiet, lonely, half-deserted, out-of-the-way nook, is then a metropolis, rivalling London in its tumult. Some of the missionaries usually attend on such occasions, in the hope of matching brands fronr the burning, but the fires are generally S* 178 INPIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. BO hot that thoy do little more than scorch their fingers fo* their pains. As I passed slowly through the streets, I was much enter tained by the picturesque and filthy appearance of the town [ts holiness was apparent at a glance. It reminded me of one of those naked fakmrs covered with dirt and ashes, who by gazing steadfastly upon their navels, attain the beatitude of saints. The streets were narrow, very dirty and enclosed by high black houses. Blacker and more dirty were the temples. On the low, thatched verandahs in front of the shops, sat groups of sacred monkeys, with painted posteriors, like those of Jowalapore. They were silent and contempla- tive, but the sacred bulls, who blocked up the streets below them, exhibited a cool impudence, which nothing but a human being could surpass. The inhabitants were all engaged in plaiting bamboo splits into baskets. I could not imagine what all this basket-making was intended for, until I refiected that the time of the Fair was approaching, and that the Brahmins would need them as depositories for their spoils. Another part of the Bazaar was entirely filled with a display of beads ; a still larger department was devoted to the sale of idols, hundreds of whom squatted cross-legged on both sides, staring at me with marvellously good-humored faces. G-aneish looked so comical with his elephant's ears and trunh that I felt tempted to give the latter member a tweak. But in the remaining portion of the bazaar was stowed nothiiio but assafoetida, which is brouglit over from Thibet. It musi have been of good quality for the fragrance was overpower- mg My bearers hurried through crying out, as they had TRAVEL IN THE JUMGLB 179 ione since enter mg the town : **' Make way for the Maha- rajah ! " Passing around the hill, the road began to descend, and a superb view of the Dehra Dhoon — a large valley enclosed between the Siwalik Hills and the Sub-Himalayas — presented itself to my view. Before me lay the Ganges, its watera glittering in the sun, as it spread them out in the valley, after forcing a pass through a deep, dark gap in the mountains before me. These mountains, the Sub-Himalayas, stretched far to the west, point lessening and fading beyond point, till the magnificent perspective of the Dhoon was closed by the distant Chore, the twin brother of Mont Blanc. Snow Bparkled on all the summits, though the main range was quite out of view. On my left the rich, woody undulations of the Siwalik Hills swept into the distance, and the great valley below, as far as my eye could reach, appeared to be a bound- less forest I was now fairly within the Himalayas, and this view gave a splendid promise of the scenery which the}' infold. The jungle grew more dense as we advanced, and ihe signs of habitation less and less frequent. The forests were -tie finest I had seen in India, composed principally of saul trees, with clusters of bamboo in the hollows. In some places they were so laced together with vines, which had in turn become trees, that their recesses were almost impenetrable. Hundreds of bright-green parrots chattered on the boughs^ and flowers of brilliant colors gleamed in the foliage. My bearers trotted rapidly through these beautiful solitudes, for tigers are plentiful, and the carcass of a cow, covered with mltures, which lay near the road, hinted of them. There 180 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. were at least fifty huge birds, shrieking and fighting for the morsels which remained, and some of them, who were already gorged, could with great difficulty get out of the way of my men. Toward evening, I was startled by a roaring sound, resembling a high wind advancing through the forest. But 30on dense volumes of white smoke became visible, and oc- casionally streamers of flame shot above the tree-tops. A turn in the road discovered an open tract at the foot of the hills, covered with tall jungle-grass, which the natives had set on fire. The grass was very thick, and from eight to ten feet high, so that the conflagration was on a grand scale. The flames, of a brilliant scarlet color, pressed along the slope with the fury of a charging battalion, and their deep roar, with the incessant snapping and crackling of the grass, made a noise truly awful. I was strongly reminded of my unlucky attempt at burning out lions, on the White Nile, a year previous. The fire had just leaped over the road, and my bearers passed in safety. We were obliged to cross several spurs of the Siwalik range. The same forest still spread its thick fold over them, and the turnings of the road as it rrse or descended, gave it the appearance of a labvrinth. Sunset came on as we were traversing the crest of a long ridge, whence there was a fine view over the leafy wilderness below me, and while I was Dome along by the silent bearers, looking down on the dark ening valley or watching the last flush fading from the Himalayan snows, I felt that there might be times whet palanquin travelling was agreeable. I was a little startled, on being carried into a gloomy glen, to see a dozen meu ourst out of the thickets, but it appeared that they wert ARRIVAL AT DEHRA. 181 travelers, who had taken a nearer path, known only to themselves. When it grew dark, the mussalchee lit his tcrch and walked beside the palanquin, waving the light to and fro, that the bearers might see where to put their feet. The red glow illuminated, with splendid effect, the masses of foliage on either hand, and I lay watchinor it for hour after hour. till I fell from reverie inco sleep. I was awakened once when the bearers were changed, and a second time, when, two hours after midnight they set me down at the hotel it Dehra- OHAPTER XIV. THE H IMAL AY A S. KE»oeptlon bj Mr. Keene — We start for the Himalaya*— The Dehra-Dhoon— Momni View of the Sub-Himalayas— Leopards— Kajpore — Wilson, the "Eanger of th« Himalayas" — Climbing the Mountain — Change of Seasons — The Summit of the Ridge— Village of Landowr— Snow-Drifts— The Pole and the Equator— Eev. Mr. Woodside — Mast-Head of the Sub-Himalayas — View of the Snowy Peaks — Grand Asiatic Tradition — Peculiar Structure of the Himalayan Eanges — Scenery of the Main Chain— The Pabarrees— Polyandry— The Peaks at Sunset— The Plain of Hindostan — A Cloudy Deluga On visiting Mr. Keene, the Deputy Magistrate of Dehra, the morning after my arrival, I was at once installed as an inmate of his house during my stay, and invited to accom- pany him to Mussooree and Landowr, on the following day. The invitation chimed so thoroughly with my own plans, that I accepted it, together with his hospitality. Mr. Keene is one of the few persons in the East India Company's Service, who have devoted their leisure to literary pursuits. He is une of the main props of Saunders^ Magazine^ a very cre- ditable monthly periodical, published at Delhi ; and I do not betray a secret, when I state that he is also the author of the frequent poems signed " H. G. K.," which appear in Blackwood. THE DEHRA DHOON. 183 We rose early the next morning, and after a cup of tea, Bet off in Mr. K.'s buggy for Raj pore, at the foot of the mountains. The town of Dehra is situated near the oeutre of the Dhoon, or Valley, of the same name, which is a tract about seventy miles in length by fifteen in breadth, between the Siwalik Hills and the Sub-Himalayas, and extending from the Granges to the Jumna. Protected alike from the hot winds of the plains, and the cold blasts of the hills, it is one of the most fertile regions in India, and one of the most beautiful which I saw. From Dehra, the whole extent of the magnificent valley is visible. The curves of the Himalayan range fill up its vistas, on either hand, with views of the loftier summits, and thus it appears completely shut out from the world. The vegetation is much more luxuriant than upon the plains, and owing to its sheltered position, most kinds of tropical fruits thrive well, although it lies between 30° and 31° N. The morning was mild and cloudless, the road excellent, and we rattled along merrily between clumps of bamboo and groves of mango-trees, occasionally looking up to the snows that sparkled six thousand feet above us. The houses on the very summit of the mountain were distinctly visible The vast sides and shoulders of the range were scantily clothed with jungle, through which showed the dark-red hue of the soil, softened to a lurid purple by distance. To ward their bases the jungle was dense and green, except where the soil had been cleared and formed into terraces for cultivation. The surface of the valley presented a charming alternation of grain-fields, groups of immense mango trees, and patches of woodland, resembling, in its ge^jeral aspecl 184 INDIA CHINA, AND ZAP AN. the Midland Countieb of England. Mr. Keene pointed ou< a hill to the eastward, as the scene of a bloody battle during the war with the Goorkhas, or hill-tribes, and the spot where Gen. Gillespie fell The fortress, which formerly crowned the hill, has been entirely demolished. The jungles in the valley abound with wild beasts. Only two weeks before, a lady who was taking an afternoon ride to Raj pore, saw two full-grown leopards lying in a field, not more than fifty yards from the road. The beasts gazed at her very complacently, as well-bred leopards might, but attempted no familiarities. In an hour we reached Rajpore, which sits upon the lowest step, or foundation stone of the mountain. On some fine wood- ed knolls to the west of it there are several handsome bunga- lows, the summer residences of invalided or furloughed officers. There is also a little hotel, whither we drove, in order to hire ponies for the climb of seven miles to Landowr. A tall, heavy- featured weather-beaten gentleman of forty-five or fifty, was standing in the verandah. He had a red Scotch complexion, gray eyes, and yellow hair on the sides of his head, the crown being bald. There was something indolent and phelgmatic in his air, and I was greatly surprised when Mr. Keene pointed him out to me as Wilson, the noted " Ranger of the Himalayas," as he is generally called. We entered into conversation with him at once. He had come down from Landowr that morning on his way to Dehra, but would be back in the hills in a few days. He has lived almost exclusively among the upper ranges of the Himalayas for more than ten years, and know every pass (so he informed me), as far as Cashmere. His wanderings have extended as far as Ladak, or Leh, in Thibet, the capital of a state which is at present tributary to Goolah CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN, I8n Siiigb, the Rajah of Cashmere. He said there was no difficulty in reaching either Cashmere or Ladak, and if I had had two months more — but one cannot see every thing. Wilson has much influence over the pahirreesy or mountaineers, and his 8ervic3s are in great request during the summer, when sport- ing tours are made in the upper Himalayas. In addition to fhe ibex, bear, and mountain sheep, there are abundance of superb golden pheasants and other magnificent specimens of fhe feathered race, the skins of which he preserves, and which, ^hen sent to Calcutta for sale, produce him a handsome return. I hired a pony for two rupees, and we immediately set out for Landowr. Mr. Keene, being the Deputy Magistrate of the Dhoon, was escorted through the town by the local police, who took their departure with profound salaams. The road, which was merely a narrow path for horses, notched along the abrupt side of a spur of the mountain, commanded a striking view of a deep gorge on the right hand, the sides of which were ter raced and covered with a luxuriant crop of wheat. As we ascended further, the Dhoon extended below us, checkered with forests and fields, while the white fronts of houses dotted its verdurous map. I was reminded of the view from Catskill Mountain-House, but missed the clearness and brilliancy of our American atmosphere. Here there was a film of blue vapor on the landscape, like a crape over my eyes, through which the more distant objects glimmered in indistinct and uncertain forms. The further we climbed, the dimmer became the scene, uati] there remained but a vapory chaos — the mere ghost of a world below us, out of which rose the summits of the Siwalik Hillf 4S if uphea^-ed by the subsidence of the agitated elements. 186 INDIA, CHINA, iND JAPAN. The road was excessively steep, and only wide enough U admit of two horsemen passing each other. In many placei it overhung descents which were so nearly precipitous that a stone flung out would strike the earth many hundreds of feet below. The jungle became more scanty, and the wild flowers ceased. Patches of snow appeared on the heights on either side, and gushes of a cold wind, sweeping through gaps in the range, now and then blew in our faces. At length we reached the top of a ridge, an outlying spur from the summit upon which Landowr is perched. The road became more level, and when skirting the tremendous gulf separating the branches of the range, was protected by a balustrade. A gateway cut in the rock admitted us to the north side of the ridge we had as- cended, and the passage through it introduced us to a scenery of such a different character, that it mght well be called the Gate of the Seasons. Behind us the sun' shone warm, the grass was green and a few blossoms still kept their places on the trees ; but around and before us were beds of snow, bare, brown patches of sward, and leafless boughs. Only the oak — an evergreen variety, with a leaf resembling the beech — and the rhododendron, retained their foliage. The height before us was sprinkled with one-story bungalows, which clung to such narrow ledges of the mountain over such abrupt and frightful gulfs, that they seemed to have been dropped and lodged there. The precipitous village and the houses scattered along the irregular summit is called Landowr. The place has an extent of a mile and a half, and half the inhabitants, at least during the summer, are English. On one of the highest points, is a large military hospital. About two miles to the THE POLE AND THE EQUATOR. 187 West of Landowr is Mussooree, which is scattered in likf manner, over a ridge nearly a thousand feet lower. The street of the native village through which we passec was covered with snow to the depth of three feet, and owing ko the constant thaw which was going on, our horses had some difficulty in getting through. The roofs were in many places broken by the weight of snow which had fallen upon them. However we reached Mr. Keene's bungalow without accident, where his tenant, Lieut. B., anticipated our wishes by ordering tiffin to be got ready. I had now reached the summit of the second range of the Himalayas, 8,000 feet above the sea. The cottage where we were quartered was perched on a narrow shelf, scooped out of the side of the mountain. From the balcony where I sat, I could have thrown a stone upon the lowest house in the place. For the first time in several weeks, the thermometer was above freezing-point, and the snows with which the roof was laden poured in a shower from the eaves. Around me the heights were bleak and white and wintry, but down the gorge below me — far down in its warm bed — I could see the evergreen vegetation of the Tropics. Buried to the knees in a snow-drift, I looked upon a palm-tree, and could almost smell the blossoms of the orange-bowers in a valley where frost never fell. It was like sitting at the North Pole, and looking down on the Equator. I had a letter to Mr. Woodside, an American Missionary who lived upon the highest point of Landowr, and Mr. Keene md 1 visited him during the afternoon. We had still half a mile to climb before reaching the summit of the mountain, which I found to be a sharp, serrated crest, not more thaf J 88 INDIA CHINA, AND JAPAN. ten yards in breadth. Mr. Woodside's house conii/ianda « Fiew of both sides of the Sub-Himalayas; and a natura mound beside it has been ascertained, by measurement, to be the loftiest spot in this part of the range. The house and mound were purchased by a benevolent Philadelphian, as a sanitarium for Missionaries — a thing much needed by that class. I suggested to Mr. Woodside the propriety of planting a tall flagstaff on the mound, and running up the national colors on certain anniversaries. The view from this point best repaid me for my journey to the hills. The mound on which we stood was conical, and only twenty feet in diameter at the summit. The sides of the mountain fell away so suddenly that it had the effect of a tower, or of looking from the mast-head of a vessel In fact, it might be called the " main truck " of the Sub- Himalayas. The sharp comb, or ridge, of which it is the crowning point, has a direction of north-west to south-east (parallel to the great Himalayan range), dividing the pano- rama into two hemispheres, of very different character. To the north, I looked into the wild heart of the Himalayas — a wilderness of barren peaks, a vast jumble of red mountains, divided by tremendous clefts and ravines, of that dark indigo hue, which you sometimes see on the edge of a thunder-cloud —but in the back-ground, toweriDg far, far above them, rose the mighty pinnacles of the Gungootree, the Jumnootre, the Budreenath, and the Kylas, the heaven of Indra, where the Great God, Mahadeo, still sits on his throne, inaccessible to mortal foot. I was fifty miles nearer these mountains than at Roorkhee, where I first beheld them, and with the addi« Uonal advantage of being mounted on a footstool, equal tc GRAND AEtATIC TRADITION 18^ sue third of tbeir height. They still stood immeasurably above me, so cold, and clear, and white, that, without know- ledge to the contrary, I should have said that they were not more than twenty miles distant. Yet, as the crow flies, a line of seventy miles would scarce have reached their summits ' Though not the highest of the Himalayas, these summits form the great central group of the chain, and contain the cisterns whence spring the rivers of India, Thibet and Bur njah. The snows of their southern slopes feed the Jumna and Ganges; of their northern, the Sutledj, the Indus and tlie Brahmapootra. Around this group cling the traditions of the Hindoo Mythology. Thence came the first parents of the race ; there appeared \h^ first land after the deluge. And upon the lofty table-lands of Central Asia, whereor those peaks look down, was probably the birth-place of the great Caucasian family, from which the Uindoos and our- selves alike are descenccd. Far to the north-west, where the Altay, the Hindoo Koosh (or Indian Caucasus), and the Himalayas, join their sublime ranges, there is a table-land higher than Popocatapetl, called, in the picturesque lan- guage of the Tartars, the "Roof of the World." Under the eaves of that roof, on the table-land of Pamir, if we may trust Asiatic tradition, dwelt the parents of our race. I fancied myself standing on the cone of Gungootree, and looking down upon it. The vast physical features of this part of the world are in themselves so imposing, that we are but too ready to give them the advantage of any myth which invests them with a grand human interest. There is a peculiarity in the structure of the Himalayab I90 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. of which 1 had not heard, until I visited them. At theii north-western extremity, on the frontiers of Cashmere and Afghanistan, the lower or Sub-Himalayas are lofty, and so separated by deep valleys from the higher or snowy range, as almost to form a parallel chain. As we proceed east- ward, however, the relative height of the two ranges gra* dually changes. The peaks of the Upper Himalayas increase in height, while those of the Sub-Himalayas decrease. A little to the east of the Dhoon, the Siwalik Hills cease en- tirely. The Sub-Himalayas gradually dwindle away toward Nepaul, becoming more narrow and broken as they approach the termination of the chain. Dwalagheri, in the main Himalayan chain, once supposed to be the highest moun- tain in the world, is in NepauL But further to the east, is Chumalari, which is still higher, and recent measurements have discovered that another peak, still further eastward, in the former province of Sikim, is higher than Chumalari. This regular increase of altitude in the Himalayas, as you proceed eastward, is very curious. The height of Dwala- gheri is estimated at 27,000 feet; Chumalari, a little more than 28,000, and the third peak, the name of which I forget, fully 30,000 feet! The Rev. Mr. D'Aguilar, whom I saw at Roorkhee, penetrated to the glaciers of Jumnootree. He informed me that in ascending the Himalayas, the productions become not only of the temperate zone, but English in their character ; the flowers, fruit and shrubs being almost identical with those of England. In the valleys, however, is found the deodar, or Himalayan cypress, which grows to a height of more than 200 feet. There is a temple near the source of the Ganges, but owing to the danger and difficulty of th« THE PAHARREEB POLyAl!n)RY. 191 journey, comparatively few pilgrims reach it. Tie air of the mountain is pure, fresh and invigorating, and the pahar rees are said to be both physically and mentally superior tc the inhabitants of the plains. Mr. D'Aguilar considered them as a strikingly honest and faithful race. Owing tc the difficulty of procuring subsistence, and the necessity of restricting the increase of population, Polyandry has existed among them from time immemorial. The woman and her husbands live together harmoniously, and the latter contri- bute each an equal share to the support of the children. Among these people the saying will particularly apply : " It's a wise child that knows its own father." Another of their customs is still more singular. Their ideas of hospitality compel them to share not only their food, but their connubial right with the stranger, and no insult is so great as a refusal to accept it. While in Landowr, I saw several, of them walking bare-legged through the snow, which troubled them as little as it would a horse. They were handsome, muscular fellows, with black eyes, ivory teeth and a ruddy copper complexion. I spent the afternoon with Mr. Woodside, and at sunset went again upon the mound, to witness the illumination of the Himalayas. Although there were clouds in the sky, the range was entirely unobscured, and the roseate glare of its enormous fields of snow, shooting into flame-shaped pinnacles, seemed lighted up by the conflagration of a world. It wag a spectacle of surpassing glory, but so brief, that I soon los the sense of its reality. I was called, however, to witness another remarkable pnenomenon. Turning from the fadinp; hilbi, I looked to the 192 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. south. The Behia Dhoon was buried under a sea of snow white clouds, which rolled and surged against each other sinking and rising, like the billows of an agitated sea. Where wo stood, the air was pure and serene ; but far away, ovei that cloudy deluge — which soon tossed its waves above the peaks of the Siwalik Hills — more than a hundred miles away —and high in air, apparently, ran a faint blue horizon-line, like that of the sea. It was the great plain of Hindostan, but so distant that the delusion was perfect. The great white billows rose, and rose, whirling and tossing as they poured into the clefts of the hills, till presently we stood as on a little island in the midst of a raging sea. Still they rose, disclosing enormous hollows between their piled masses; cliffs, as of wool, toppled over the cavities; avalanches slid from the summits of the ridges and slowly fell into the depths; and as I looked away for many a league over the cloudy world, there was motion every where, but not a sound. The silence was awful, and as the vast mass arose, I felt an involuntary alarm, lest we should be overwhelmed. But to our very feet the deluge came, and there rested. Its spray broke against the little pinnacle whereon we stood, but the billows kept their place. It was as if a voice had said: "Thus far shall thou ?ome, and no further : and here shall thy proud waves Se stayed." CHAPTER Xy SCENES IN THE DEHRA JHOON Rfturu to Dc^^a— The Dboon— System of Taxation— Tlie Tea-Oulture in InJia--Teft- Garden at Kaolo^r— Progress by Force— Rifle to the Robber's Cave— A Sikh Tem- ple—A Sunny Picture— Sikh Minstrelsy— Rajah Loll Singh— English Masters anc Native Servants— Preparations for Departure. We returned from Landowr on Wednesday afternoon, the 2d of February. Lieut. B. urged us to remain another day, but the Himalayas (which I had gone up the mountain at sun rise to see) were half covered with clouds, the snow was melting on all sides, and the paths were almost impassable from mud and slush. There was said to be a specimen of the y (k^ or Tartar cow, at Mussooree, which I should have seen, but for three miles of sloppy road. As it was, I was glad to escape from the dreary though sublime heights of Landowr, and return to Dehra, with its groves and sunny gardens. The air was still more hazy than on the preceding day, but as we descended, the phantom valley flushed into form ind color, and in an hour and a half from the time my pony tumbled down in a snow-drift, I reined him up under a palm tree. Dehra, as I have already stated, is one of the loveliest spots in India. Judging from the number of handsome 9 194 INDIA, CmhJif AND JAPAH. bungalows in and around the town, tlie Anglo-Indians are of a similar opinion. As much of the valley is entirelj given up to jungle, parts of it, which are marshy and un- drained, are considered unhealthy, but a little attention would make it one of the healthiest, as it is one of the most fertile, districts in Northern India. A small irrigating canal hag been carried through the central part, but it does not even pay the expenses, so feeble and defective is the agriculture of the Dhoon. There are reckoned, within its limits, a hun^ dred villages, but the population must be very scanty, since the revenue obtained by Grovernment only amounts to 22,000 rupees. When I state that the tax imposed upon the ze7n- indars^ who hold the land as Government tenants, amounts to 75 per cent, of the estimated value of the products, it will be seen how trifling the actual yield must be. The ryots, or peasants, to whom the land is sub-let by the zemindars, are only able to eke out a bare subsistence, so that here, where thousands of acres of the best land are lying waste, the greater part of the inhabitants are in a state of extreme poverty. This system, by which the East India Company is the virtual proprietor of all the territory under its exclu- sive control, must necessarily be a check to the prosperity of India and the civilization of its people; but when I expressed such an opinion to the English residents, I was generally met by the remark (the same often used by Americans, apolo- getic of Slavery) : " "We did not make it — we found it so." The introduction of the Tea Culture into India is aii mteresting experiment — if, indeed, it can still be considered an experiment. The Government, within the past ten years, has devoted much attention to it. All the principal varieties TEA CULTURE IN INDIA. 195 oi the tea-plant have been imported, experimental gardeni laid out, at different points in the Himalayas, from Assam to the north-western frontier of the Punjaub, and Chinese work^ men procured to teach the preparation of the leaves. Mr. Fortdne, whose travels in China, on his mission to effect these objects, have excited considerable notice, had been dispatched a third time to that country, to procure fresh supplies of plants and workmen. The Tea Plant was first introduced into A« ing, but falling always into the same melting cadences w^hich were too beautiful to be monotonous. He sang, Kac the Arabs, in a succession of musical cries. Around him were Sikh priests and a knot of half-naked boys, some bajking in the full glare of the sun, some seated under the arches of the tomb. They were all necessary parts of the picture Would the music have had the same meaning, if the Sikh had been seated under a pine, on the Catskill ? — No ; that same pine is not more different from the palm which I saw whWe listening to the song, than is Man, in the North, froa Man, in the South. On our return home wi called at the house of the Rajah lioU Singh, a Sikh Chiei'tain. to whom the English are in RAJAH LULL SINGH. 20] debted in a ^reat Dieasure for the 3onquest of the Punjaub But, having been treacherous to his countrymen in the first place, he was afterward accused of meditating treachery to he English, and had only recently been released from tem- porary imprisonment at Agra. He had a pension of 1,000 upees a month from the Government, with which he rented a handsome bungalow, and was living in considerable style He had a great passion for dogs, and was something of a shikari'ee, or sportsman. The guards at his residence pre- sented arms as we rode up, and we were soon afterwards received by the Rajah himself. Loll Singh means " Red Lion," and the name well suited his stout, muscular figure, heavy beard and ruddy face. He was richly dressed in a garment of figured silk, with a Cashmere shawl around hi? waist, and a turban of silk and gold. Rings of gold wire, upon which pearls were strung, hung from his ears to his shoulders. His eye was large, dark and lustrous, and his smile gave an agreeable expression to a face that would other- wise have been stern and gloomy. As he spoke no English, my conversation with him was confined to the usual greet- ings, and some expressions of admiration respecting a favorite spaniel, which he called " Venus." He spent the same evening at Mr. Keene's, appearing in a very rich and elegant native costume, with an aigrette of largo diamonds and emeralds attached to his throat. I was much amused by noticing the opinions of difi'erent English residents, respecting their native servants. Som praised their honesty and fidelity in high terms ; others de* nounced them as liars and pilferers. Some trusted them implicitly with their key.<, while others kept their cupboard? 0* 202 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. and closets carefully locked. Nearly all seemed to agree however, that one can never wholly depend on their truth fulness. There are laws prohibiting the master from beating "his servants, and indeed blows are of no effect. The punish ment now adopted, is to fine them, which has been found very efficacious. They care little for being reproved, if in their own language, but are greatly annoyed by the use of English terms, which they do not understand. Thus, to address a man as : " You wicked rectangle ! " " You speci men of comparative anatomy ! " &c., would be a much greater indignity than the use of the vilest epithets, in Hindostanee. After having enjoyed Mr. Keene's hospitality for five days, I ordered my bearers to be ready on Saturday for the return to Meerut. The day, however, brought a thunder- storm and rain in torrents, obliging me to postpone my departure until the following morning. Eajah Loll Singh offered me his elephant, for the ride through the Siwalik Hills, and as my kind host proposed to take me across the Dhoon in his buggy, I sent the palanquin and bearers on in advance, tc await me at Mohun, on the othor side of the pass CHAPTER XVI JOIRNEY TO MEERUT AND CAWNPOBB. ftfle to Shahpore— The Eajah's Elephant— The Pass of the Siwa.ik Hills— I Keminu the Palanquin— The Large Punch- House — Saharunpore — The American Mission— The Botanic Garden— A Dreary Journey— Travellers— Salutations — Return tc Meerut — A Theft— Jnurney uver the Plains — Scenery of the Road — The Pollution of Touch— Fractious Horses— Ajrival at Cawnpore — Capt, Riddell— The English Cantonments, 1 LEFT Mr. Keene's pleasant residence at Dehra on Sunday morning, the 6th. The thnnder-storm had passed away, the sky was blue and vaporless, the verdure of the beautiful valley freshened by the rain, and the heights of the Sub- Himalayas were capped with new-fallen snow. My host and I took a hasty breakfast, and then set off for Shahpore in his buggy. The distance was nine miles, the road muddy, full of deep pools left by the rain, and ascending as we approached the hills, so that we made but slow progress. From the mouth of the pass I turned to take a last view of the lovely valley. Just within the opening is Shahpore, a native ham let, consisting of about a dozen bamboo huts. Mr. Keene was here met by one of the native police, who engaged to 204 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN Bend a cheprassee with mo to Mohun, for the purpose of seeing that my bearers were ready. The Rajah had kept his promise, and his big she-elephant had already arrived. She knelt at the keeper's command, and a small ladder was placed against her side, that I might climb upon the pad, as I had been unable to borrow a howdah. I had a package of bread and cold roast-beef, to serve me as a tiffin, but was careful to conceal it from the driver, other wise himself and the elephant, with all her trappings, must have undergone purification on account of the unclean flesh, I took a reluctant leave of Mr Keene, seated myself astride on the pad, with the driver before me, on the elephant's neck, and we moved off. The driver was a Sikh, in a clean white and scarlet dress, and a narrow handkerchief bound around his head. His long, well-combed hair was anointed with butter, and, as his head ^as just under my nose, I was con- tinually regaled with the unctuous odors. He carried a short iron spike, with which he occasionally punched the elephant's head, causing her to snort and throw up her trunk, as she quickened her pace. I found the motion very like that of a large dromedary, and by no means unpleasant or fatiguing. Though walking, she went at the rate of about five miles an hour. I noticed that the driver frequently spoke to her, in a quiet, conversational tone, making remarks about the roads and advising her how to proceed — all of which she seemed to understand perfectly, and obeyed without hesitation. After leavincf Shahpore, the road ascended through a wild gorge of about half a mile, where it reached the dividing ridge and thence descended into a winding glen, which showed traces of having been worn through the hills by the action THE PASS OF TEE SIWALIK HILLS. S20£ of water Our path followed the bed of the stream for the distance of eight miles, where the pass opens upon the great plain. The scenery is very wild and picturesque, the hills being covered to their very summits with jungle, the abode of the tiger and wild elephant. None of the peaks are more than 1,000 or 1,200 feet above the bottom of the glen, yel in their forms they have a striking similarity to the great Himalayan range. They are sharp and conical, frequently with a perpendicular front, like a bisected cone, and are divided by deep and abrupt chasms. I was quite charmed with the succession of landscapes which the windings of the pass brought to view, and nothing was wanting to complete my satisfaction but the sight of a tiger. The jungle was filled with parrots, a bird with plumage blue as a turquoise, aiid flocks of wild peacocks The plumage of the latter bird is much more brilliant than that of the domesticated fowl, although the body is smaller. Near the entrance of the pass, a large congregation of monkeys, each seated on a huge boulder left by the floods, gravely watched me as I passed. At Mohun I found my palanquin standing in front of the Police office, which was a bamboo hut. The cheprasseet were very obsequious in their off'ers of service, and imme- diately called together my bearers. I sent back the ele- phant, seated myself cross-legged in the palanquin, and made a very fair tiffin out of the prohibited cow's-flesh and bread. Saharunpore was twenty-nine miles distant, and it was already noon. I therefore urged on the bearers, in the hope of arriving before dark. The plain was very mono- tonous, swept by cold winds from the hills, and appeared like 206 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. a desert, by contrast with the luxuriant Dhoon, The sna went down, and I was still stretched in the tiresome palan- ;|uin, but about dusk the mussalchee (torch-bearer) came and isked where they should take me. I supposed there was a hotel in Saharunpore, and answered ; " to the punch ghur '" (punch-house or hotel). " Which one ? " he again asked. At a venture, I answered: "the burra (large) punch-ghur." Away they went, and in a quarter of an hour, the palanquin was set down. " Here is the punch-house," said the mus- salchee. I crept out, and found myself at the door of the Station Church! There happened, however, to be some natives passing through the enclosure, who directed me to the dawk bungalow, as there was no hotel. I called on the Rev. Mr. Campbell, an American Missionary, in the course of the evening, and he at once quartered me in his house. As my bearers were engaged to start for Meerut the next morning, my kind host arose before sunrise and took me in his buggy to see something of the place. The can- tonments are scattered over a wide space, and have not the comfortable air of those at Meerut. The lanes are lined with the casurena or Australian Pine, a lofty, ragged look- mg tree, with very long and slender fibres, which gives the place the air of an English or German country town. The native city has a population of about 80,000 inhabitants, and appeared to be an industrious and flourishing place. The American Mission at Saharunpore is supported by the Presbyterian Board. The Missionaries have erected a hand some church, two spacious dwelling-houses, and a school house, all within the same enclosure, besides an agency in the native town for the distribution of books, ai)d the dis AMERICAN MISSIONS. 207 CLig«ion of religious matters with any of the natii^es whc choos( tc come forward. Mr. Campbell was sanguine as to the ultimate success of Missions in India. Their schools ?f education (embracing also religious instruction) are cer ainly doing much to enlighten the race; but so far as T Qould learn, very few scholars change their faith, thougl educated as Christians. They look upon the Christian Doctrine very much as we look upon the Greek Mythol- ogy. They are interested in it, they admire portions of it, yet still go on worshipping the lingam, and keeping up the distinctions of caste. I have no doubt that casio is at the bottom of all this, and that many who are convinced in their own hearts of the truth of Christianity, dare not avow it, on account of the ban of excommunication from their friends and khidred, which would immediately follow. Mr. Campbell took me to the Botanic Garden, where I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Jameson, who has charge of the Tea Culture in the north-west. The Garden is one of the finest in India. It is laid out with great taste, and contains nearly all the indigenous trees and plants, besides many exotics. I there saw, for the first time, a cinnamon tree, the large glossy leaves of which were re- dolent of its spicy blood. The cinnamon is brother to our native sassafras. It is of so refined and dainty a nature, that there are but few parts of the world where it will grow. I left Saharunpore at ten o'clock, congratulating myself, as I entered my palanquin, that it was the last journey I should make in such a disagreeable vehicle. It was a veiled, 30ol and dreary day ; the plains had even 3 wintry look, and 208 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. notliing could be more monotonous. I was heartily sicli of the journey before night. The Himalayas were so ob- scured that nothing but a large leaden-colored mass was to hs seeii on the horizon. The road was crowded with people among whom were several Englishmen in their palanquins, OQ thGlr way up to the hills. Numbers of native women also par»sed, some in the hackree, or bullock-cart, and others borne iu a dhoolie, a rude sort of palanquin made of bamboo, and CQT.ered with a cotton cloth. These are the "ferocious DLooliOiS," who, according to Sheridan, in one of his Par liameniriry speeches, " carried off the unfortunate wounded " from tht3 held of battle — the orator, ignorant of Hindostanee, supposing that the "dhoolies" were a tribe of savage people. At dusk I reached a station where the bearers were not on hand, but sii^h vigorous search was made for them that I was not detained more than half an hour. The native salutation in these parts is " Ram, Ram ! " and the answer the same— as if one should say, in English, " God, God ! " instead of "Good morning." I was no longer addressed as "Protector of the Poor," but received the Persian title af Khodawend, which signifies " My Lord." About nine o'clock I reached Mozuffernuggur, only half way to Meerut. I rolled myself in my quilted rezaya, closed the palanquin, except ^irhen the bearers cried out for backsheesh, and so slept, iozed, and waked alternately through the long, chilly night The first streak of dawn showed me the buildings of Sird hana (the former residence of the famous Begum Somroo) on the right, and just as the sun rose the shivering bearew set me down at the hotel in Meerut. I visited the unwashed individual of whom 1 spoke in t THE ROAD TO CAWNPOEE. 209 former chapter, returned him his palanquin, and then .engaged a garree to Cawnpore. The distance was 273 miles, and the cost of a comfortable garree, with relays of horses, about $16. In order to rest, and to allow time for the necessary preparations to be made, I did not leave until evening — a delay which enabled the native servants at the hotel to steal from me a handsome box of Cashmere manufacture — the present of a friend — containing several beautiful Delhi miniatures. T did not discover the loss until reaching Cawnpore, and was the more annoyed at it, as there was then no chancf of replacing the miniatures. The night of leaving Meerut, I again passed Allyghur, much to my regret, for I desired to see the famous pillar of Coal. Morning dawned on the plains of Hindostan. There is almost as little variety in the aspect of these im- mense plains as in that of the open sea. The same fields of wheat, poppies, grain and mustard alternate with the same mango or tamarind groves; the Hindoo temples by the roidr-idf are the same dreary architectural deformities, and the villages you pass, the same collections of mud walls, thatched roofs and bamboo verandahs, tenanted by the same family of hideous fakeers, naked children, ugly women (w\io try to persuade you that they are beautiful, by hiding their faces), and beggars in every stage of deformity. But I noticed, as I proceeded southward, spacious caravanserais, built of burnt brick, though ruined and half deserted ; richei groves of tamarind and brab palm; and the minarets and pagodas of large towns which the road skirted, but did not enter. I stopped at the bungalow of Etah for breakfast, which was ready in an hour. The bungalows on this road 210 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. are much superior to those in other parts of India. Th« floors are carpeted, and there are mattrasses and pillows on the charpoys. The rooms have a neat, homelike air, and are truly oases in that vast wilderness — for such India still is, except where the European hand has left its trace. The day passed away like other days on the plains It was warm luring the mid-hours, and the road was very dusty, in spite of the recent rains. It is a magnificent highway, and would Qot suffer by comparison with any in Europe. The amount of travel is so great, that from sunrise until sunset, I beheld an almost unbroken procession of natives of all descriptions, from the Affghan and Sikh, to the Goorkha of the hills and the Mahratta of the Deccan, with tattoos (as the little coun- try ponies are called), camels, elephants, Persian steeds, buffa- loes, palanquins, dhoolies, hackrees, bullock trains, and the garrees of luxurious travellers like myself. I can, huwever, feel neither the same interest in, nor respect for, the natives of India, as for the Arab races of Africa and Syria. The lower castes are too servile, too vilely the slaves of a de- grading superstition, and too much given to cheating and lying. One cannot use familiarity towards them, without encouraging them to impertinence. How different from my humble companions of the Nubian Desert! About noon I passed Mynpoorie, a civil and missionary Btation, though not, I believe, a military cantonment. To- wards evening I stopped for an hour at another bungalow, to take dinner, and then started for Cawnpore. The drivei was changed again at dusk, and as I was very thirsty, I asked him to get me a drink of water, before giving him his backsheesh. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring t THE POLLUTION OP TOUCH. 21 i glass with me, and tlie people refused to let me touch one of t'heir brass drinking-vessels, as this would occasion them a violent scouring, if not the destruction of the article. After some search, a clay vessel of the rudest description was found, with a spout like a tea-pot, and I was allowed to drink by holding it above my head and pouring the stream down my throat. I had learned the trick of thia on the Nile, or it might have been a strangling matter. To such an extent are the accursed laws of caste carried, that where the English have ruled for nearly a century, their very touch is defilement. On my trip from Bombay to Agra, being ignorant of the practical operation of these laws, I frequently helped myself to the cups of the natives, when they refused to furnish me with drink. In this way, very innocently, I occasioned the destruction of considerable jrockery. We had several fractious horses during the night, but I had learned patience by long experience, and so lay still and let the beast take his course. I think we must have been detained in one spot nearly half an hour, by a horse that would dash from side to side, obstinately refusing to go forward. In the traveller's book at the bungalow where I dined, I read the memorandum of a gentleman who had been left in the lurch by the driver and groom, after they had taken the bits out of the horse's mouth. He was ruu away with, and narrowly escaped being dashed to pieces. [ feared, once or twice, that I might have the same driver and groom, and the same wicked tattoo. At last, when the Great Bear (my nocturnal dial) had passed his occultation and I knew that the dawn would appear in half an hour, 212 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. was set down at the Cawnpore Hotel. SLortly after 1 arrived, a salute of nineteen guns announced the departure of the Governor of the North-West. Looking out of the window of my room, after sunrise, I saw the Ganges flowing beneath it — not a spaikling moun- tain stream, as at Hurdwar, but a deep, muddy river, lined with barges. The opposite bank was a beach of white sand, which glared painfully in the sun. After a visit to a half- blood, or Eurasian banker, I went to the Joint Magistrate Capt. Riddell, whom I found dispensing justice to the natives, under the shade of a huge umbrella tent, in the midst of his own umbrageous compound. He received me very courteously, and insisted on my removing to his house but as I had made arrangements to leave the same evening for Lucknow, I could only promise to spend Saturday morning with him after my return. Cawnpore is a pleasant spot, though it contains nothing whatever to interest the traveller. It is one of the largest cantonments in the Mofussil (the Anglo-Indian term for the rural districts), and the scattering bungalows of the civil and military residents extend for five miles along the western bank of the Ganges, which is high and steep. The town is shaded with neera trees of great size. In walking past the bungalows, I noticed many elegant and well kept gardens, and was more than once greeted with the delicious odor of violets in bloom. Close beside the beds of this humble Saxon flower hung the scarlet buds of the Syrian pomegranate, or the tattered plumes of the tropical banana. The residences are large, but their enormous roofs of thatch contrast oddly witb verandahs supported by Ionic pillars CAWNPORE. 213 The Church is a large Gothic edifice, English from turict to foundatiori stone, and an exile, like those who built it. A Gothic building looks as strangely among palm-trees, ai in Oriental palace on the shores of Long Island Sound CHAPTER X VII. A DAY AT LUCKNOW. {jrossing the Ganges— Night-Journey to Lucknow— Arrival— A Mysterious Vteltor— A Morning Stroll — The Goomtee River — An Oriental Picture — The Crowds of Lack now — Col. Sleeman, the Resident — Drive through the City — The Constantrnopl* Gate — Architectural Effects — The Imambarra — Gardens and Statues — Singular Dec- orations of the Tomb — ^The Chandeliers — Speculation in Oude — Hospital and Mosque — The King's New Palace — The Martiniere — Royalty Plundered— The Dog and the Rose-Watsr — Destruction of the King's Sons — The Explosion of a Fiend — Misrule iu Oude — Wealth of Lucknow — A Ride on a Royal Elephant — The Queen-Dowa- ger's Mosque — Navigating the Streets — A Squeeze of Elephants— The Place of Ei» cution — The Choke — Splendor and Corruption, The post-garrce for Lucknow called for me in the evening, at the hotel. There is a good road from Cawnpore to the former place, with communication twice a day, and the dis- tance, fifty-three miles, is usually made in seven hours. In a few minutes after leaving, we reached the bridge of boats over the Ganges, where I, as the passenger, was obliged to pay half a rupee at each end. This is a regulation peculiar to the Cawnpore bridge, distinguishing it from all others in the world. After crossing the river, we came upon a long plank causeway, extending over the sandy flats on the op- posite side. The night was dark and damp, and I closed A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 215 the panels on each side and disposed myself to sleep. The country between the two places is an extension of the great plain, and there is nothing on the road worth seeing. On awaking out of a sound sleep, about three o'clock in the morning, I found the garree standing before the dooi of the dawk bungalow and post-office, which are both in one building. The drowsy chokedar showed me into a room with eight doors, containing a table and charpoy covered with a rude mattrass. I tried to fasten the doors but four of them, which led into other parts of the build- ing, had no locks. I then half undressed and lay down on the mattrass to finish my night's rest. It might have been an hour afterward, as I was lying in that dim condition betwixt sleeping and waking, when I heard a slight noise at one of the doors — a muffled vibration, as if it had sud- denly opened to a gentle pressure. Listening intently, with all my senses preternaturally sharpened, I heard a very slow and cautious footstep upon the matting, and was try mg to ascertain in which direction it moved, when I dis- tinctly felt the gentlest touch in the world, as if some one had passed his hand down my side. I sprang up in some alarm, uttering an involuntary exclamation, but could nei- ther see nor hear any thing, nor did any thing appear until I became fatigued with watching, and fell asleep again But, from the fact that several attempts at robbery were made the same night, I have no doubt whatever that it was an artful thief in search of plunder, and probably one of fehose adroit scamps to be found only in India, who will take the clothes off a man's back while he is asleep, without awaking him. 216 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. A-fier an early cup of tea, I started off on a solitaij atroll, postponing my visit to Col. Sleeman, the English Itesident, until after breakfast. I set out at random, but soon ascertained the direction in which the principal part of the city lay, by glimpses of its fortress walls, domes and airy minarets. I did not feel inclined, however, to plunge into its depths without a guide, but followed the course of a bazaar, which was filled with venders of fruit, vegetables and firewood. Crowds of people passed to and fro, the gaudy dresses of many of the natives betraying, as at Delhi, the presence of a native court. Some were borne in palan- (|uins, some mounted on elephants, and a few on fine horses of Arabian bl^od. They looked at me with curiosity, as if an Englishman on foot was an unusual sight. On the waj? I passed several small mosques, which showed an odd mix- ture of the Saracenic and Hindoo styles, a hybrid in which the elegance of Saracenic architecture was quite lost. Which- ever way I looked, I saw in the distance, through the morn- mcr vapors, the towers of Hindoo temples, or the bulbous domes of mosques, many of them gilded, and flasliing in the rays of the sun. The street I had chosen led me to a bridge over the rivei Goomtee, which here flows eastward, and skirts the northern side of the city. The word Goomtee means literally, " The Twister, " on account of the sinuous course of the river. Look- ing westward from the centre of the bridge, there is a beautiful view of the city. Further up the river, which flowed with a gentle current between grassy and shaded banks, was an ancient stone bridge, with lofty pointed arches. The left bank tom gradually from the water, forming a long hill, which was crown AN ORIENTAL PICTURE. 211 ed with palaces and mosques, stretching away into the distance where a crowd of fainter minarets told of splendors beyond. The coup d'oeil resembled that of Constantinople, from the bridge across the Golden Horn, and was more imposing, more pictu- esque and truly Oriental than that of any other city in India. The right bank was level, and so embowered in foliage that only few domes and towers were visible above the sea of sycamores, banyans, tamarind, acacia, neem and palm-trees. I loitered on the bridge so long, enjoying the refreshing exhilaration of such a prospect, that I am afraid the dignity of the great English race, in my person, was much lessened in the eyes of the natives. The picture, so full of Eastern pomp and glitter, enhanced by the luxuriance of Nature, was made complete by the char- acter of the human life that animated it. Here were not mere ly menials, in scanty clothing, or sepoys undergoing daily pillo- ry in tight coats and preposterous stocks, but scores of emirs, cadis, writers, and the like, attired in silken raiment and splen- didly turbaned, continually passing to and fro, with servants running before them, dividing the crowds for the passage ot their elephants. The country people were pouring into the city by thousands, laden with their produce, and the bazaars of fruit and vegetables, which seemed interminable, were constantly thronged. At first I imagined it must be some unusual occa- sion which had called such numbers of the inhabitants into the streets ; but I was told that they were always as crowded as then, and that the population of Lucknow is estimated at 800,- 000 inhabitants ! It is, therefore, one of the most populous cities n Asia, and may be ranked with Paris and Constantino- pie, in Europe. Its length is seven miles, the extre.ue bread tit four miles, and the central part is very densely populated. 10 %IQ INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN. After breakfasting at the bungalow, I called upon (3ol Sleo man, the East India Company's Resident, whose works on In- dia, combined with his labors for the extirpation of the Thugs or Stranglers, have made his name known in Europe and America. The Residency is a large and lofty building, deserv- ing the name of a palace, and surrounded by beautiful gardens. I had no letter to Col. Sleeman, but took the liberty of asking his advice relative to the things best worth seeing in Lucknow, as I had but a day to spare. Nothing could exceed the prompt and kind response of that gentleman. He immediately order- ed his carriage, and as he was personally occupied, sent one of his native secretaries to conduct me through the city. I en- tered the bazaar again in grand style, with postilion, grooms and footmen, who ran in advance to clear a way, and obliged even the elephants to stand on one side. Nevertheless the streets were so densely crowded, that we proceeded very slowly. Af- ter threading the masses of the populace for about a mile and a half, between rows of three-story native houses, mosques, and caravanserais, we reached what appeared to be the heart of the city. A spacious gateway spanned the street, over which a for est of tall minarets and gilded domes rose in the distance. Passing through the arch, we entered an open square, with a large mosque and hospital on the left side, and a magnificent gate of white marble beyond. This is called the Roomee Der- wazee or Constantinople Gate, from an idea that it is copied from a gate in that city, but I have no recollection of any gate there which even remotely resembles it. After passing the Roomee Derwazee, I was startled by the imexpected splendor of the scene. I was in the centre of a group of tombs, mosques and pavilions, all of which were of THE IMAMBARRA. 219 marble or covered with white stucco, and surmounted with swelling Oriental domes, which shone like solid gold— fitting crowns to the slender arches, and the masses of Saracenic fili- gree and fretwork, from which thej sprang. A huge stona tank, with flights of steps descending into it on all sides, occu- pied the foreground of the picture. Around its banks, and be- tween the dazzling pavilions, ran a boskage of roses in full bloom, in the midst of which a few tall palms shot up into the sunshine. It was nearly noon, and the sun, now almost vertical, poured such an unrelieved glare upon the scene, that my eyes were not strong enough to endure it for more than two or three minutes. On the left was the gate of the Imambarra, or tomb of Azuf ed-Dowlah, one of the former Nawabs of Oude, and here the carriage drew up. I alighted, and entered a quadrangle surrounded by the same dazzling white architecture, with gild- ed domes blazing against the intense blue of the sky. The en- closed space was a garden, in which stood two beautiful mauso- leums of marble. Several feeble fountains played among the flowers, and there was a long pool in the midst, with a bridge over it, and grotesque wooden figures of sepoys, of the size of life, standing guard at each end. Scattered about the garden were also several copies in plaster of classical statues, and one in marble of Action and his hounds. Although Lucknow is a thoroughly Moslem city, most of the inhabitants, as well as the royal family, belong to the sect of Sheeahs—the descendants of the partisans of Ali — who do not scruple to make pictures oi models of living things. This is a cause of great annoyance and sorrow to the Sonnees, or orthodox Mussulmen, who hold it to '}e a sin in the sight of God. The idea originated, no doubt 220 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. in the icon jclastic zeal of the Prophet and his immediate snr^- cessors. On ascending the marble steps leading to the edifice at the bottom of the garden, I imagined for a moment that I behelc a manufactory of chandeliers. Through the open marble arch- es nothing else was at first visible. The whole building waf hung with them — immense pyramids of silver, gold, prismatic crystals and colored glass — and where they were too heavy to be hung, they rose in radiant piles from the floor. In the midst of them were temples of silver filigree, eight or ten feet high, and studded with cornelians, agates and emeralds. These were the tojabs. The place was a singular jumble of precious objects. There were ancient banners of the Nawabs of Oude, heavy with sentences from the Koran, embroidered in gold ; gigantic hands of silver, covered with talismanic words ; sacred shields, studded with the names of God ; swords of Khorassan steel, lances and halberds ; the turbans of renowned command- ers; the trappings of the white horse of Nasr ed-Deen, mount- ed on a wooden effigy ; and several pulpits of peculiar sanctity. I had some difficulty in making out a sort of centaur, with a Human head eyes of agate, a horse's body of silver, and a pea- cock's tail, but was solemnly informed that it was a correct re- ^)resentation of the beast Borak, on which the Prophet made his journey to Paradise. The bridle was held by two dumpy angels, also of silver, and on each side stood a tiger about fivfi feet long and made of transparent blue glass. These, I was told, came from Japan. I had some difficulty in believing that this curiosity shop was the tomb of the Poet-King, Azuf ed-Dowlah ; but so il Wrs The decorations are principally due to the taste of the SPECULATION IN ODDB. 22 i present king wlio is silly almost to imbecility, and pajs tli€ most absui'd sums for his chandeliers and glass tigers. The two finest chandeliers cost him $50,000 each ; but it is not to be supposed th^t all this "money went into the pocket of the mcr hant. The Grand- Vizier, and other officers of Court, had theii shares, down to the eunuchs. The King gave a small garden palace to one of his wives not long ago. A wall was necessary to screen a part of the garden from the view of the public, and a mason was called upon to undertake the work. On being asked to state the cost he at first said 100,000 rupees, but, calcu lating afterwards, that of this sum the Grrand- Vizier would keep the half, the Minister of the Treasury 20,000 rupees, and various other privileged bloodsuckers a proportionate share, while the building of the wall would actually cost 5,000 ru- pees, he gave up the contract, as a losing job ! No description can fully illustrate the corruption of the Court of Oude. It is a political ulcer of the most virulent kind, and there is no reii> edy but excision. For the sake of Humanity, the East India Company would be fully justified in deposing the monarch and bringing the kingdom under its own rule. Returning through the Constantinople Gate, I entered tlie large building adjacent, which was formerly a hospital, and Btill contains the tomb of its royal founder. Its architecture is purer than that of the Imambarra. The proportions of the halls are admirable, and the deep embroidered arches of the por tico have the finest effect. Adjoining this edifice is a mosque built upon a lofty platform of masonry. It is an ambitious ^ork, but falls behind those of Delhi, and the minarets are so large as to be out of all proportion. On the return to Col Sleemau's, I pass'^d under the walls of an old palace, whict 222 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. were lined with massive buttresses. I was told that it is iisei as a retreat for the wives of former kings. Oapt. Sleeman (the Resident's nephew), who has charge of suppressing the Dacoits, or organized robber-bands of India, took me upon the flat roof of the Residency, whence there is a fine panorama of Lucknow. Two-thirds of the city are aa 3ompletely buried in foliage as the suburbs of Damascus. To the east, at a short distance, was the king's new palace, where he at present resides — a line of white walls and terraces, about half a mile in length, and topped with a mass of gilded towers and domes. Permission to visit it is not given without application two or three days previous, so that I was obliged to be content with an outside view. Near it is the palace of Ferozo Buksh another cluster of gilded domes, and in the distance the marble tower of the Martiniere. This is a college founded by General Martine, a French adventurer, who came out to India as a com- mon soldier, entered the service of the King of Oude, and died a millionnaire. The building, which is of marble, and in a style of architecture resembling nothing on Earth (nor, I should hope, in Heaven), was erected by him during his lifetime, as a palace for the King. The latter, however, refused to take it off his hands, secretly resolving to seize upon it as soon as the old General was dead. Martine, who knew much more of human nature than of architecture, determined to block this game of the King, and when he died, had himself buried in a vault made under the foundation of the building, where he still lies, with a company of soldiers in effigy, keeping guard over his re- mains. No Mussulman will sleep in a house where any one is buried and the King was obliged to respect the General's will THE DOG AN-D THE ROSE-WATER. 223 Which devoted the bmlding to a college, under the name of the Martiniere. To such an extent are the Kings of Oucle plundered that a French cook, who spent some years in the service of a former monarch, is reported to have gone home with a for- tune of $350,000. It was recently discovered that one of the parasites of the Court had been receiving two seers (four lbs.) of rose-water and a jar of sweetmeats daily for thirty years-and for what service? The father of the present King was annoyed, thirty years ago, by the barking of a dog. He sent for the owner, and commanded him to silence the animal. '' Your Majesty," said the man, - nothing will stop his bark- ing, unless he has two seers of rose-water and a jar of sweet- meats given him every day." -Take them, then," said the Kmg, - only let us have no more noise." The knave took his rose-water and sweetmeats daily, and lived luxuriously upon the proceeds for thirty years. The present King is even more foolish and credulous, al- though he has received a good iiterarj education, and has 'the Persian poets at his tongue's end. Although not more than fortj years old, his excesses have already reduced him to a state oi impotence. Nevertheless, his wives and eunuchs flatter him that he has begotten a large number of children, who are car- ried off by a demon as soon as they are born. About once a week (so I was informed) the Chief Eunuch rushes into his pres- ence, exclaiming in great apparent joy, " Lord of the World a son is born unto you ! " " Praise be to God ! " exclaims th« kappy King; " which of my wives has bet,n so highly honored ? » The eunuch names one of them, and the King rises in greal haste to Tiait her and behold his new offspring But sudden 224 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN \y cries and shrieks resound from the women's apartments. A band of females bursts into the room, shrieking and lamenting < great King ! a terrible demon suddenly appeared amongsl us. He snatched your beautiful son out of the nurse's arms and flew through the window with a frightful noise." And so this trick is repeated from week to week, and the poor fool con tinually laments over his lost children. Not long since a Portuguese mountebank happened to heai of this delusion. He repaired to the King, told him that he had discovered the nature of the demon that had molested him, and would destroy him, for a certain sum. The King agreed to the terms, and in a few days, the people of Lucknow were startled by seeing a great body of workmen engaged in dig- ging trenches in a meadow near the river. After several days' labor, they threw up a rude fortification of earth, in the centre of which they buried several barrels of powder. The Por- tuguese declared that he was in the possession of charms, which wo aid entice the demon into the fort, whereupon the train should be fired, and instantly blow him to atoms. A favorable night was selected for the operation, and the inhabitants of the city were shaken out of their beds by a terrific explosion, fol- lowed by a salvo of 121 guns, as a peal of rejoicing over the slaughter of the demon. But alas ! the scattered fragments oi the fiend reunited, and he has since then carried off nearly a score of the King's new-born progeny. This weakness of character, it may readily be imagined, is the prime cause of the evils under wnich Oude is groaning. The Grand-Vizier is an unprincipled tyrant, and to such a de gree of resistance have the people been driven, that the reve Hues are collected yearly with cannon, and a large armed force MISRULE IX OUDE. 225 Oude is the garden of India, and though now so waste and exhausted, from a long course of spoliation, yields a revenue of three crores of rupees ($15,000,000), only one third of which reaches the King's hands. The rest is swallowed up by the band of venal sycophants who surround him. An officer who knew Oude in the reign of Saadet Ali, forty-five years ago, told me that he remembered the time when all the country from Lucknow to Benares bloomed like a garden and overflowed with plenty. jS^ow it is waste, impoverished, andfast relapsing into jungle. Thousands of people annually make their escape over the frontier, into the Company's ter- ritories, and at Cawnpore it is not unusual to see them swim- ming the river under a volley of balls from their pursuers. Great numbers of males of the lower classes enlist as sepoys, in the Company's regiments, and it is estimated that of 200,000 natives from all parts of India who now serve in the army, 40,000 are from Oude alone. Nevertheless, there is far more life, gaiety and appearance of wealth in Lucknow than any other native city in India. This is principally accounted for by the large sums that flow into the city from other quarters. The former monarchs of Oude, fearful of revolutions which might thrust their families from the succession, were in the habit of lending large sums to the East India Company, at an interest of five per cent., for the purpose of securing some property for their posterity, in ease of trouble. Of late years the Company has declined to receive any more such loans, but still continues to pay interest on £6,000,000. At present many of the rich men of Oude in- rest their surplus funds in the Company's paper. There are Desides many pensioners of the Government residing in Luck- aow, and it is estuuated that in addition to the interest paid, 12C 10* 226 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. lacs of rupees ($6,000,000), come into Oude yearly from thf Company's territories. In the afternoon, Capt. Sleeman kindly offered to accom pany me on a second excursion through Lucknow. We were joined by one of his friends, and mounted on three of the King's largest elephants. "With our gilded howdahs, long crim- son housings, and the resplendent dresses of the drivers and umbrella-holders who sat behind us, on the elephants' rumps, we made as stately a show as any of the native princes. It waa the fashionable hour for appearing in public, and, as we entered the broad street leading to the Roomee Derwazee, it was filled with a long string of horses and elephants, surging slowly through the dense crowd of pedestrians. We plunge boldly into the tumult, and, having the royal elephants, and footmen gifted with a ten-man power of lungs, make our way without difficulty. It is a barbaric pageant wholly to my liking, and as I stare solemnly at the gorgeous individuals on the elephants that pass us, I forget that I have not a turban around my brows. We duck our heads involuntarily, as we pass through he great gates, though the keystone is still twenty feet above them. We pass the Imambarra, and a long array of other buildings and at last halt in front of the new mosque, which the King's mother is having built. It is large and picturesque, but shows a decline in architecture. The minarets are much too high. They have fallen down twice, and one of them is going to fall again. The domes are troubled with the same weakness, and, although the devout old lady has already speut $5,000,000 on the mosque, I doubt whether she will ever be able to finish it. Turning back, we plunge into the heart of the city — \iiU A SQUEEZE OF ELEPHANTS. 227 the dart, narrow, crooked old streets of the Lucknow of last century. The houses are three stories high, projecting 3C that the eaves almost touch, and exhibit the greatest variety in their design and ornament. My attention is divided between looking at them, and watching my elephant. Thf Btreet is so narrow and crooked that we run some risk of crushing our howdahs against the second-story balconies, but the beast, with his little, keen, calculating eye, knows precisely how far to go without striking. We pass several elephants safely, and are getting accustomed to the nove] and intricate by-way, when up comes an enormous beast, ridden by a human elephant, in a green silk robe. The animal looks puzzled, and the man looks sullen, and vouch- safes us no greeting. He is a Cadi's secretary, it is true, but our elephants, being royal, take precedence of his. Neither beast will advance, for fear of wedging themselves *,ogether. At last my driver encourages his elephant; he tells him to press close against the wall and slip past; my howdah shoots under a balcony, but I bend profoundly and escape it. We press through, one after another, and the fat gentleman in the green silk gets awfully squeezed. Now we devote our attention to prying into the second stories of the houses, but the windows are all latticed, and there are sparkles through the lattices, which we take to be the flash of eyes. " Here is the gate where the heads of malefactors are exposed," says one of my companions, and I look up with a shuddering expectancy, thinking to see a bloody head spiked over the arch. But there is none at present, and we pasa on to the place of execution — a muddy bank overhanging 228 INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN. a sewer, filled with the drainage of the city. Heie th< heads of the condemned are struck off, after the death- warrant has been thrice made out and signed by the king. This is a custom peculiar to Oude, and wisely adopted to prevent the ruler from shedding blood without due reflection The first and second orders which the executioner receives are disregarded, and the culprit is not slain until the com- mand is repeated for the third time. We return through the Choke, the main street of the old city, after having penetrated for two miles into its depths. There is a crush of elephants, but the street has a tolerable breadth, and no accidents happen. We are on a level with the second-story balconies, which are now tenanted (as those in the Chandney Choke of Delhi) by the women of scarlet, arrayed in their flaunting finery. We see now and then an individual of another class, which I should name if I dared — but there are some aspects of human nature, which, from a regard for the character of the race, are tacitly kept secret. But see ! we have again emerged into the broad street and begin to descend the slope towards the river. The sun is setting, and the noises of the great city are subdued for the moment. The deep-green gardens lie in shadow, but all around us, far and near, the gilded domes are blazing in the yellow glow. The scene is lovely as the outer court of Paradise, yet what decep- tion, what crime, what unutterable moral degradation festei aeneath its surfoxje ! CHAPTER XVIIl. ALLAHABAD, AND A HINDOO FESTIVAL Uetnm to Cawnpore— An Accident— The Eoad to Allahabad— Sensib.e Pllgrimfr- Morning— Beauty of Allahabad— The American Missionaries— The Hindoo Festiva —The Banks of the Ganges— Hindoo Devotees— Expounding the Vedas— The Plac« of Hair— A Pilgrim Shorn and Fleeced— The Place of Flags— Venality of the Brah- mins—Story of the Contract for Grass— Junction of the Ganges and Jumna— Bathing of the Pilgrims— A Sermon— The Mission— Subterranean Temple— The Fort ol Allahabad. 1 LEFT Lucknow at nine o'clock on the evening of the 11th, in the garree for Cawnpore. I was unable to sleep, from toothache, and was lying with shut eyes, longin r for the dawn, when there was a jar that gave me a violent thump on the head, and one side of the garree was heaved into the air, but after a pause righted itself The horse started off at full speed, dragging the wreck after him, but was soon stopped, and I jumped out, to find the spring broken, and the hind wheels so much injured that we were obliged to leave the vehicLi in the road. The driver had no doubt fallen asleep, and the horse, going at his usual rapid rate, had hurled thf garree against a tree. Leaving the groom to take charge oi the remains, the driver took the mail-bag on his head, my car pet-bag in his hand, aud led the horse toward Cawnpore. ) 230 IlSroiA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. followed him, and we tiudged silently forwards for an houi and a half, when we reached the Ganges, at daybreak. It wa» lucky that the accident happened so near the end of the journey The same afternoon I left Cawnpore for Allahabad, in a garree, as usual. Still the same interminable plains, though the landscape became richer as I proceeded southward, except when the road approached the Ganges, where there are fre quent belts of sandy soil, worn into deep gullies by the rain. The fields of barley were in full head, the mustard in blossom, and the flowers of the mango-tree were beginning to open. The afternoon was warm and the road very dusty. I passed the town of Futtehpore at dusk, but experienced an hour's delay during the night, which I was at a loss to account for until I found the next morning that the driver had taken two natives on the roof of the garree, as passengers to Allahabad. They were pilgrims to the Festival, and were thus depriving themselves of the greatest merit of the pilgrimage, which consists in making the journey on foot. There is now quite a sharp discussion going on among the learned pundits, as to whether the merit of a religious pilgrimage will be destroyed by the introduction of railroads. That railroads will be built in the course of time, is certain ; that thousands of pilgrims will then make use of them, is equally certain; a prospect which fills the old and orthodox Brahmins with great alarm. I passed a dreary night, martyred by the toothache. When the sun rose I saw the Ganges in the distance, and the richness and beauty of the scenery betokened my approach tc Allahabad. The plain was covered with a deluge of the richest grain, fast shooting into head, and dotted with magnificent groves of neem and mango trees The road was throngoc' BEAUTY OF ALLAHRABAD. 231 vnth pilgrims, returning from the Festival, and the most of them, women as well as men, carried large earthen jars of Ganges water suspended to the ends of a pole which rested on their shoulders. In spite of the toils of the journey and thr privations they must have undergone, they all had a com- posed, contented look, as if the great object of their lives had been accomplished. In two hours I reached the Allahabad Cantonments, but failing to find the residence of Mr. Owen, of the American Mission, I directed the driver to take me to the hotel. On the way we passed through the native town, which abounds in temples and shrines. Flags were flying in all directions, drums beating, and several processions could be discovered marching over the broad plain which intervenes between the town and the fort. The day was gloriously clear and bahny, and the foliage of the superb neem and tamarind trees that shade the streets, sparkled in the light. I remembered the story of the Mohammedan Conquerors, who were so enchanted with the beauty of the country, and so well satisfied with the mild and peaceable demeanor of the inhabitants, who gave up the place without striking a blow, that they named it Allaha- bad—the City of God. Its original name was Priag, a Hin- doo word signifying « the Junction," on account of the con- fluence of the Ganges and the Jumna. The first face I saw at the hotel was that of a fellow- traveller across the Desert, whom I had last seen at Suea He had just come up from Calcutta, on his way to Lahore. I saw but little of him, as Mr. Owen insisted on my taking a room at his house, where I was again on American soil, on th« banks of the Jumna. I have rarely passed a day more agree 232 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. ftbly than in his pleasant family circle, which was enlarged in the evening by the presence of his colleagues, the Rev Messrs. Shaw and Hay. The American Missionaries in India, wherever I have met them, were to me what the Latin monks in Palestine were, but not like the latter, with a latent hope of reward. They are all earnest, zealous and laborious men, and some of them, among whom I may mention Mr. Owen, and Mr. Warren, of Agra, are ripe scholars in the Oriental languages and literature. Mr. Owen had an appointment to preach to the natives in the afternoon, and I accompanied him to the scene of the festival, on the banks of the Ganges. The climax of the oc- casion was past, and the great body of the pilgrims had de parted for their homes, but there were still several thousands encamped in and around the town. On the plain, near the Ganges, stood an extempore town, consisting of streets of booths, kept by the native merchants, who took care of tiieir temporal and spiritual welfare at the same time, with a dex- terity which would have done credit to a Yankee. Upon mounting a dyke which had been erected to restrain the water of the Ganges during inundations, I again beheld the Holy River and its sandy and desolate shores. It was indeed a cheerless prospect — a turbid flood in the midst, and a hot, dreary glare of white sand on either side. The bank of the river, from the point where we stood to its junction with the Jumna — a distance of nearly half a mile — was covered with Bhrines, flags, and the tents of the fakeers, which consisted merely of a cotton cloth thrown over a piece of bamboo There were hundreds of so-called holy men, naked except a sin- gle cotton rag, and with their bodies covered with ashes or a HINDOO DEVOTEES EXPOtnfDING THE VEDAS. 23S /ellow powder, which gave them an appearance truly hideous. Their hair was long and matted, and there was a wild gleam m their eyes which satisfied me that their fanatical character was not assumed. Many of them were young men, with keen spirited faces, but the same token of incipient monomania in their eyes. Some few were seated on the ground, or in the shade of their rude tents, rapt in holy abstraction, but the most of them walked about in a listless way, displaying theii disgusting figures to the multitude. The shrines, of which there were great numbers, were taw- dry afi'airs of tinsel a-nd colored paper, with coarse figures oi Mahadeo, Ganeish, Hanuman and other deities. Many were adorned with flowers, and had been recently refreshed with the water of the Granges. I was struck with the figure of an old grey-bearded saint, who was expounding the Vedas to a Brah min, who, seated cross-legged under a large umbrella, read sen tence aft^r sentence of the sacred writing. The old felloT* showed so much apparent sincerity and satisfaction, and was so fluent in his explanations, that I was quite delighted with him. Indeed, there was not the slightest approach to levity manifest- ed by any one present. We threaded the crowd of ghastly Jogees, Gosains and other ashy fakeers, to the Place of Hair-Cutting — an enclosed spot, containing about an acre and a half of ground. Here the heads and beards of the pilgrims are shorn, a million of years in Paradise being given by the gods for every hair so offered up The ground within the enclosure was carpeted with hair, and I am told that on great occasions it is literally knee-deep There were only two persons undergoing the operation, and ai I wished to inspect it more closely, I entered the enclosure, 234 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. When the repugnance which the Hindoos have toward destroy ing animal life is understood, the reader will comprehend thai I did not venture among so much hair without some hesitation. A fellow with a head of thick black locks and a bushy beard had just seated himself on the earth. We asked nim who he was and whence he came. He was a Brahmin from Futtehporb, who had made a pilgrimage from Hurdwar, where he had filled a vessel with Ganges water, which he was now taking to pour upon the shrine of Byznath, beyond Benares. In reward for this a Brahmin who was standing near assured us that he would be born a Brahmin the next time that his soul visited the earth. The barber took hold of a tuft on the top of his head, which he spared, and rapidly peeled off flake after flake of the bushy locks. In less than five minutes the man's head and face were smooth as an infant's, and he was booked for fifty thousand million years in Paradise. But the change thereby wrought upon his countenance was most remarkable. Instead of being a bold, dashing, handsome fellow, as he at first ap- peared, his physiognomy was mean, spiritless, and calculated to inspire distrust. I should not want better evidence that Nature gave men beards to be worn, and not to be shaven. As soon as the shearing was finished, three Brahmins who had been hovering around carried the subject off to be fleeced They were sharp fellows, those Brahmins, and I warrant they bled him to the last pice. The Brahmins of Allahabad are not to be surpassed for their dexterity in obtaining perquisites. They have apportioned India into districts, and adjoining the Place of Hair they have their Place of Flags, where there are upwards of two hundred flags stit^iming from high polea The devices on these flags represent the different districts STORY OF THE CONTRACT FOR GRASS. 235 The pilgrim seeks the flag of his district, and there he finds the Brahmin licensed to take charge of him. There is no fixed fee, but every man is taxed to the extent of his purse. One of the Rajahs of Oude, who had been shorn a short time pro- vious to my arrival, gave the fraternity six elephants and the weight of a fat infant son in Cashmere shawls and silver. In justice to the Brahmin caste, I should remark that those who serve as priests in the temples are not to be con- founded with the secular Brahmins, many of whom are fine scholars, and enlightened and liberal-minded men. But the priesthood is perhaps more corrupt than any similar class in the world. They do not even make a pretence of hon- esty. An acquaintance of mine bargained with some Alla- habad Brahmins to supply him with grass for thatching his house. They showed him a satisfactory sample, and he agreed to pay them a certain price. But when the grass came it was much worse than the sample, and he refused to pay them fuU price. The matter was referred for arbitration to three other Brahmins, who decided in the gentleman's favor. But the con- tractors declared they would have the full price. " Why do you not bring me good grass, then ? " said the gentleman. " Because we have it not," they answered. " Why then did you send me such a sample ? " " To make you contract with us," was the cool reply. " You may take the quarrel into Court, for I shall not pay you," declared the gentleman. " We shall not go to Court, for we shall certainly lose the cause," said they ; "but we vnll have the money." Thereupon they went to the carpenter who was building the house, and who was a Hindoo related the case, and called upon him to make up the full sum. The astonished victim declared that it was no affair of his. ** N« 236 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAFAK matter," said they, " if you don't pay it, one of us will commit suicide, and his blood will be upon your head" — this being ihi most terrible threat which can be used against a Hindoo The carpenter still held out, but when the oldest of the Brah mins had decided to kill himself, and was uncovering his bodj for the purpose, the victim was obliged to yield, and went off ir tears to borrow the money. Truly, this thing of caste is the curse of India. Passing the Place of Flags, where the streamers were of all imaginable colors and devices, we descended to the holiest spot, the junction of the Ganges and Jumna. According to the Hindoos, three rivers meet here, the third being the Seriswat- tee, which has its source in Paradise, and thence flows subterra- neously to the Ganges. There were a number of bamboo plat forms extending like steps to the point where the muddy waters of the Ganges touched the clear blue tide of the Jumna. [In this union of a clear and a muddy stream, forming one great river, there is a curious resemblance to the Mississippi and Mis- 30uri, and to the Blue and White Niles.] Several boats, contain- ing flower-decked shrines, with images of the gods, were moored on the Jumna side, the current of the Ganges being exceedingly rapid. The natives objected to our getting upon the platforms, as they were kana, or purified, and our touch would defile them, so we stood in the mud for a short time, and witnessed the ceremony of bathing. The Hindoos always bathe with a cloth around the loins, out of respect for the Goddess Gungajee There were about a dozen in the water, bobbing up and down, bowing their heads to the four points of the oompass, and mut- tering invocations. Others, standing upon the bank, thre\i wreaths of yellow flowers upon the water. On our return to THE AMERICAN MISSION. 237 the encampment of the fakeers, we visited a pit-shrine of Ha numan, the monkey god, who helped Rama in his conquest oi Ceylon. He lies on his back in a deep hole, and is a hideoua monster, about twelve feet long, carved out of a single piftce oi stone. Several natives were prostrating themselves in the dust, aronnd the mouth of the pit. Mr. Owen preached for half an hour in the mission tent among the fakeers. A number of natives flocked around, list- ening attentively, and made no disturbance, though two or three of them were Jogees of the most fanatical kind. They were apparently interested, but not touched. Indeed, so deeply root- ed are these people in their superstitions, that to awake a true devotional feeling among them must be a matter of great diffi- culty. In the evening I attended Divine service in the Mission Church, and was much pleased with the earnest and serious air of the native converts. They were all neatly dressed and be- haved with the utmost propriety. The Missionaries have in Btructed four natives, who were ordained as ministers, under the names of Paul, Thomas, George and Jonas. The mission school was attended by three hundred pupils, the most of whom were natives, and all received religious instruction. There ig also a printing office under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Hay, in which, during the previous year, fix millions of pages, in the Hindoo, Urdoo, and Persian languages had been printed. The Lieut. Grovernor of the Northwest, during his visit tc Allahabad, spoke in public in the highest terms of the labori •)f the American Missionaries. On my way to the fort the next morning, with Mr. Owen, we met one of the Ameers of Scinde, who was a prisoner at large in Hindostan. In the fort three princes of Nepaul were 238 ODIA, CHINA, AKD JAPAK. kept in very strict confinement, on account of having been en gaged in a conspiracy. The most remarkable thing in the fort is a subterranean temple, evidently of great antiquity. It consists of a single low hall, supported by square pillars, and contains many figures of Mahadeo in niches around the walls and a quantity of lingams scattered over the floor. There is a narrow passage issuing from it which has not been explored. Some of the Brahmins say it leads to Benares, and others to Hell. In the centre of the fort stands a column of red sand- stone, resembling the iron pillar at Delhi, and with an inscrip- tion in the Pali character. The arsenal, which occupies part of the zenana of the Emperor Akbar, is the largest in India. In other respects the fort is not remarkable, though, having been repaired by the English, it is in better condition to stand an attack than the immense shells which tower over Agra and Delhi CH APT ER XIX THE HOLY CITY OF IKDIA. r-rossingtheGange^PIlgrlmsEetuming Home-Vagaries of the Horses-Benares- Prof. Hall-The Holy City-Its 8anctIty-The Sanscrit College-Navel Plan <« Education-Village of Native Christian^The Streets of Benares-Sacred Bulls- Their Sagacity and Cunning-The Golden Pagoda-Hindoo Architectur^Worshlp of the Li'ngam-Temple of the Indian Ceres-The Banks of the Ganges-Bathing Devotees— Preps'^tions for Departure. At noon, on Monday, the Uth, I left tlie hospitable roof of Mr. Owen, at Allahabad. On reaching the Ganges, I found the drawbridge open, and a string of upward bound vessels passing through. There were thirty-nine in all, and so slowly were they towed against the stream, that full two hours elapsed, and I still sat there in the heat, contemplating the white and glaring sand-flats of the opposite shore. There was an end of it at last; my garree was pushed across, and over the sands, by a crowd of eager coolies, and having attained the hard, mac- adamized road, shaded by umbrageous peepul and neem trees, I whirled away rapidly toward Benares. My road lay along the northern bank of the Ganges, through a very rich and beautiful country. The broad fields of wheat and barley just eoming into head, were picturesquely broken by "topes "of 240 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. the dark mango or the feathery tamarind, and groves of th? brab palm. It was a land of harvest culture, with all the grace of sylvan adornment which distinguishes a park of plea- sure. The road was thronged with pilgrims returning from the great mela, or fair, of Allahabad. During the afternoon I passed many thousands, who appeared to be of the lowest and poorest castes of the Hindoos. They all carried earthen jars filled with the sacred water of the Junction (of the Ganges and Jumna), which they were taking to pour upon the shrines of Benares or Byznath. At the stations where I changed horses, they crowded around the garree, begging vociferously * " great Being, an alms for Shiva's sake ! " One half-naked, dark-eyed boy of ten years, accosted me in fluent Arabic, ex- claiming : " great lord, may Peace repose upon your turban ! ' with such a graceful and persuasive air that he did not need to ask twice. But for the others, it was necessary to be both blind and deaf, for there was no charm in the serpent-armed Destroyer to extort what had been given in the sacred name of Peace. As night approached, the crowds thickened, and the yells of my driver opened a way through their midst for the rapid garree. They moved in a cloud of dust, of their own raising, and I had no comfort until the darkness obliged them to halt by the roadside and around the villages, after which the atmos- phere became clearer, and the road was tolerably free from obstruction. The horses, however, gave me no peace, and every change, at the relay stations, seemed to be for the worse. After balk- mg at the start, they would dash off in fury, making the body of the garree swing from ?ide to side at every bound, till a crash VAGARiES OF THE HORSES. 241 of some kind appeared inevitable. One of these careers was through a long and crowded village, in which a market was be- ing held. I did not count how many times my flying wheels grazed the piles of earthenware, and the heaps of grain and vegetables, but I know that there were screams of alarm, ges- ticulations, fright and confusion, from one end of the village to the other, and how we ran the gauntlet without leaving a wake of ruin behind us, is a mystery which I cannot explain. I gradually became too weary to notice these aberrations of the propelling force, and sinking down into the bottom of the gar- ree, fell into a sleep from which I was awakened at midnighl by the driver's voice. I looked out, saw a large Gothic church before me, in the moonlight, and knew by that token that iha goal was reached. The next morning I called upon my countryman, ^Lr. Fitz- Edward Hall, to whom I had letters, and, according to Indiau custom, immediately received the freedom of his bungalow. Mr. Hall, who is a native of Troy, New York, is Professor ol Sanscrit in the Sanscrit College at Benares, and enjoys a high and deserved rep'itation throughout India for his attain ments, not only in the classic language of the Brahmins, but also io the Hindoo and Urdee tongues. With his assistance I was enabled to take a hasty but very interesting survey of Be* nares, witnin the two days to which my stay was limited. Benares, the Holy City of the Hindoos, and one of the most ancient in India, lies upon the northern bank of the Ganges, at the point where it receives the waters of the two small trib- utaries, the Burna and Arsee, from whose united names is de* rived that of the town. All junctions of other rivers with the Ganges are sacred, but that of the Juuina and the invisible n 242 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. Seriawattee at Allahabad, surpasses all others in holinesa Nevertheless, Benares, from having been the spot where Mabju deo (if 1 am not mistaken), made his last avatar^ or incarnate appearance on the earth, is so peculiarly sanctified that all per- sons who live within a circuit of five miles — even the abhorred Mussulman and the beef-eating English — go to Paradise, whether they wish it or no. According to the gospel of the Brahmins, the city and that portion of territory included with- in the aforesaid radius of five miies, is not, like all the rest of the earth's bulk, balanced upon the back of the great Tortoise, but up held upon the points of Shiva's trident. In this belief they boldly affirmed that though all other parts of the world might be shaken to pieces, no earthquake could affect the stability of Benares — until 1828, when without the least warning towers and temples were thrown down, hundreds of persons buried in the wreck, and half built quays and palaces so split and sunken, that the boastful builders left off their work, which stands at this day in the same hideous state of ruin. This mundane city, however (they say), is but a faint shadow, a dim reflection of the real Benares, which is built upon a plain half-way be- tween Earth and Heaven. The English cantonments encircle the old Hindoo city. Owing to the deep, dry beds of the small rivers, scarring the rather arid level which it covers, the settlement has not the home-like, pleasing features of others in Hindostan. There are a few handsome private mansions, a spacious church, and the new Sanscrit College, which is considered the finest modern edifice in India. To those who are familiar with the East In. dia Company's efforts in this line, such an opinion will nol raise very high expectations. The College is o Grothic cross — THE SANSCRIT COLLEGE, 243 A reminiscence of Oxford, and beautiful as it is in many re Bpects, we should prefer something else, to project against a background of palms and tamarinds. It is built of the soft rose colored sandstone of Chenar, and the delicate beauty of its but- treeses and pinnacles, wrought in this material, make us regret that the architect had not availed himself of the rich stores of Saracenic art, which the mosques and tombs of the Mogul Em- perors aiford him. Gothic architecture does not, and never can be made to harmonize with the forms of a tropical landscape. The plan of this College is unique and has of late been the subject of much criticism. It was established by the East India Company sixty-three years ago, for the purpose of instructing the children of Brahmins in the Sanscrit Philosophy and Litera- ture, and since the construction of the new building, the Eng- lish College has been incorporated with it. The Principal, Dr. Ballantyne, who is probably the profoundest Sanscrit scholar living, has taken advantage of this junction to set od foot an experiment, which, if successful, will produce an entire revolution in the philosophy of the Brahmins. The native scholars in the English College are made acquainted with the inductive philosophy of Bacon, while the students of Sanscrit take as a text-book the Nyaya system, as it is called, of Guatama, the celebrated Hindoo philosopher. There are many points of ap- proach in these two systems, and Dr. Ballantyne has been led to combine them in such a way as finally to place the student, who commences with the refined speculations of Guatama, up on the broad and firm basis of the Baconian system. The lat> ter is thus prepared to receive the truths of the physical sci ences, a knowledge of which must gradually, but inevitably overthrow the gorgeous enormities of his religious faith. 244 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN After visiting Mr. Reid, the Commissioner of the District Mr. Hall accompanied me to the Mission establishment of the English Church. Here there is a small village of native Christians, whom I could not but compassionate. Cut off foi ever from intercourse with their friends, denounced as un clean and accursed, they showed their isolation by a quiet, pa tient demeanor, as if they passively sustained their new faith^ instead of actively rejoicing in it. There was, however, a visi- ble improvement in their households — greater cleanliness and order, and the faces of the women, I could not but notice, showed that the teachings of the missionaries had not been lost upon them. I wish I could have more faith in the sin- cerity of these converts ; but the fact that there is a material gain, no matter how slight, in becoming Christian, throws a doubt upon the verity of their spiritual regeneration. If lack ing employment, they are put in the way of obtaining it ; if destitute, their wants are relieved; and when gathered into communities, as here, they are furnished with dwellings rent- free. While I cheerfully testify to the zeal and faithfulness of those who labor in the cause, I must confess that I have •not yet witnessed any results which satisfy me that the vast expenditure of money, talent and life in missionary enterpri- ses, has been adequately repaid. I spent a day in the streets and temples of Benares. As a city it presents a more picturesque and impressive whole than either Delhi or Lucknow, though it has no such traces of ar chitectural splendor as those cities. The streets are narrow and crooked, but paved with large slabs of sandstone ; the houses aie lofty substantial structures of wood, with projecting sto- ties, and at every turn Ihe eye rests upon the gilded conicaJ THE SACRED BULLS OF BENARES. 245 domes of a Hindoo temple or the tall minaret of a Mchamme dan mosque. It is a wilderness of fantastic buildings, in which you are constantly surprised by new and striking combinationg and picturesque effects of light and shade. I should have been content to wander about at random in the labyrinth, but my companion insisted on going at once to the Golden Pagoda, or great temple of Mahadeo, and thither we accordingly went. The narrow streets were obstructed, in the vicinity of the temple, with numbers of the sacred bulls. Benares swarma with these animals, which are as great a nuisance to the place as the mendicant friars are to Rome. They are knowing bulls, perfectly conscious of their sacred character, and presume up- on it to commit all sorts of depredations. They are the terror of the dealers in fruits and vegetables, for, although not al- ways exempted from blows, no one can stand before their horns — and these they do not scruple to use, if necessary to secure their ends. Sometimes, on their foraging expeditions, they boldly enter the houses, march up stairs and take a stroll on the flat roofs, where they may be seen, looking down with a quiet interest on the passing crowds below. From these emi- nences they take a survey of the surrounding country, calcu- late its resources, and having selected one of the richest spots «7ithin their circles of vision, descend straightway, and set ofl on a bee line for the place, which they never fail to find. When the fields look promising on the other side of the Gan- ges, they march down to the river banks, and prevent any passenger from going on board the ferry-boats until they are permitted to enter. They cross and remain there until the supplies are exhausted, when they force a passage back in the game manner. The gardens of the Eufrlish residents frequentlj 846 IKDIA, CHINA, AUTD JAPAN. Buffer from their depredations, and the only effectual way ol guarding against them is to yoke them at once, and to kee| them at hard labor for a day or two, which so utterly disgusta them with the place that they never return to it. It is also affirmed that they carefully avoid the neighborhood of those butchers who supply the tables of the English, having observed that some of their brethren disappeared in a mysterious man- ner, after frequenting such localities. We were fortunate in our visit to the Golden Pagoda, for it was one of the god's festival days, and the court and shrines of the temple were thronged with crowds of worshippers. The most of them brought wreaths of flowers and brass vessels of Granges water, to pour upon the symbols of the divinity. The Pagoda is built of red sandstone, which seems to have grown darker and richer by age, and by contrast with the blazing gold of its elaborate spires, has a wonderfully gorgeous appear- ance. The style of architecture is essentially the same in all Hindoo temples. The body of the structure is square and massive, enclosing the shrine of the god. From a cornice of great breadth, and often covered with sculptured ornaments, rises a tall spire, of parabolic outlines, which has the look of being formed by an accretion of smaller spires of similar form. [t has a general resemblance to a pine-apple or rugged pine- cone. Where the temple is enclosed within a court, as in this instance, there are usually a number of separate shrines, and the clusters of spires and small ornamental pinnacles, entirely covered with gilding, form a picture of barbaric pomp not un- «Forthy the reputed wealth " of Ormuz or of Ind " The alirines stood within dusky recesses or sanctuaries, lighted bj lamps filled with cocoa-nut oil. They were in charge of WOESfflP OF THE LINGAM. 247 priests or neophytes, who offered us wreaths of jasmine-blossoms, fragrant, and moist with Ganges water. I was about to ac- cept some of them, but Mr. Hall requested me not to do so, as the act was one of worship, and would be looked upon aa showing respect to Mahadeo. The body of the temple abounded with stone images of the lingam, on all of which lay wreaths of flowers, while the wor shippers, male and female, poured over them the water of the sacred river. The worship was performed quietly and decently, with every outward appearance of respect, and there was nothing in the symbols themselves, or the ceremonies, to give foundation to the charges which have been made, of the ob- scenity or immorality of this feature of the Hindoo faith. The lingam is typical of the creative principle, and by nc means to be confounded with the Priapus of the Greeks ; it rather points to the earlier phallic worship of the Egyptians, with which it was no doubt coeval. There is a profound philo- sophical truth hidden under the singular forms of this worship, if men would divest themselves for a moment of a prudery with regard to such subjects, which seems to be the affectation of the present age. So far from the Hindoos being a licentious peo- ple, they are far less so than the Chinese on one hand or the Mussulmen on the other, and from what I can learn, they are quite as moral as any race to which the tropical sun has given an ardent temperament and a brilliant vitality of physical life. I also visited the temple of Unna-Purna— one of the names of the Goddess Bhavani, the Indian Ceres. It stands on a platform of masonry, surrounded by a range of smallei shrines. Hundreds of worshippers — ^mostly peasants from the surrounding country, were marching with a quick step aroune 248 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. the temple, with their offerings in their hands. The shrine oi the Goddess was so crowded that I had some difficulty in ob taining a view of her dusky figure. The gay, cheerful aspect of the votaries, with their garlands of flowers and brazen urns of water, recalled to my mind the Eleusinian Festivals oi Greece, and the words of Schiller's Hymn flashed into my memory : " Windet zum Kranze die goldenen .^Ehren 1 ** We afterwards went down to the Ganges, and wandered along, past shattered palaces, sunken quays, temples thrown prostrate, or leaning more threateningly than the belfry of Pisa., through a wilderness of fantastic and magnificent forms, watching the crowds bathing in the reeking tanks, or the open waters of the river. Broad stone ghauts (flights of steps) covered the bank, rising from the river to the bases of stately buildings, fifty or sixty feet above. The Ganges here makes a broad bend to the northward, and from these ghauts, near the centre, we saw on either hand the horns of the crescent-shaped city, with their sweeps of temples, towers and minarets glit- tering in the sun. A crowd of budgerows, or river boats, were moored all along the bank, or slowly moved, with white sails spread, against the current. The bathers observed the same ceremonies as I had noticed at Allahabad, and were quite decorous in their movements, the men retaining the dhotee, or cotton cloth twisted about the loins. The Hindoos are great- ly shocked by the English soldiers, who go naked to the em- braces of the Goddess Gunga, — not from that circumstance as eonnected with bathing, but as a want of respect to the hol^ i^eam I finished my visit to the city, by taking a boat and PREPARATIONS FOB DEPARTURE. 249 dowly floating down the Ganges in front of it, until its con- fused array of palaces, and ghauts, and golden spires was in* delibly daguerrotyped upon my memory. The necessity of reaching Calcutta in time for the Hong Kong steamer of the last of February, obliged me to refuse an invitation to a week's tiger-hunting in the jungles of the Vindhya Hills — a prospect which I did not relinquish without some bitter regrets. I thereupon made preparations for m) last " garree-dawk " of 430 miles, with a pleasant prospect oi a bruised head or broken bones, for after so many narrow es- capes, I decided that I either bore a charmed life, or my snai* of injury was near at hand. CHAPTER XX. THE BOAD FROM BENARES TO CALCUTTA Itoonllght on the Ganges— The Unholy Eiver— Scenery of the Plains— Egyptian Landscapes — Sasseram — Mountains near the Soane River— View of the Ford- Crosslng— The Second Day's Journey— The Hills of Behar— Meeting with an Ac- quaintance — "Wild Table-Land — Sunset— A Coolie Trick— The Aborigines of India- Triumph of the Eed-haired Lady— Horse Gymnastics— The Lady Defeated— Mun- glepore— An Eccentric Niglit-Jonrney— The City of Burdwan— Tropical Scenery- Wrecked on the Road- A Wrathful Delay— "Wrecked again— Journey by Moonlighl —Another Wreck— An Insane Horse— The Hoogly River— Yet Another Accident— A Morning Parade — The End of " Garree-Dawk." It was nearly midniglit, on the 16tli of February, wten I left a genial company of Benares residents, and started on my lonely journey to Calcutta. My conductor did not pass through the city, but drove around it to Raj Ghaut, five miles distant. The horse was unharnessed, the carriage dragged down the bank by coolies, and deposited on a ferry-boat. I stretched myself comfortably on the mattress, propped against a carpet- bag, and looked out on the beautiful moonlit river. No spice- lamps, set afloat by amorous Hindoo maidens, starred the sil- very smoothness of the tide. Alas, I fear that the poetry of the Indian world is in a rapid decline There was no sound THE UNHOLY RIVER. 25 1 daring our passage but the light dip of oars, and the shores^ faintly touched by the rays of the setting moon, were wrapped in the hush of slumber. Thus, with a solemn, scarcelj percep- tible motion, I was ferried across the sacred river. A plank road led over the sandy flats on the opposite side, and my horse required the assistance of half a dozen coolies, to reach the level of the cultivated land. We rolled on at a lively pace through the night, and the rising sun found me at Durgowtee, thirty-six miles from Benares.. Here a handsome Buspension bridge crosses the river Karamnasa, the waters of which are so unholy as to destroy the whole merit of a jour- ney to Benares, should they touch the pilgrim's feet. The bridge was built by a late Rajah of Benares, to prevent the thousands of pilgrims who pass along this road, from forfeiting the reward of their devotion. Notwithstanding this act of pious charity, the Bajah was so unpopular among his people^ that they considered it very unlucky to mention his name be- fore breakfast. The country was still a dead level, and though dry at this season, is marshy during the rains. The last season had injured the road greatly, so that for a distance of twenty or thirty miles, but little of it was passable. A rough tempo- rary track had been made beside it, and hundreds of workmen were employed in constructing bridges over the nullas, and re- pairing the embankments. The country, at first almost bare of trees, and covered with but moderate crops, gradually be- came warmer and richer in its aspect. The vegetation increas- ed in luxuriance, and the profusion of the brab palm spoke of the neighborhood of the tropics. The villages were s-haded with huge banyans, peepuls and other umbrageous trees. The Yindhya Mountains appeared blue and distant in the south- ZSZ INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. west, and a nearer range in front marked my approach to th< Soane River. The landscapes reminded me more of Egypt i.han any othef part of India. There was the same summer richness in the foliage of the trees, the same vivid green in the broad fields oi wheat and barley, then fast ripening, and the same luxury of color in the patches of blossoming poppy. But the air, instead of the crystalline purity of the Egyptian atmosphere, waa steeped in a glowing blue vapor — softened by a filmy veil of languor and repose. The sun poured down a summer glow, though a light breeze now and then ran over the fields, and rolled along the road in clouds of whirling dust. Notwith- standing my lazy enjoyment of the scenery, I found my appe tite gradually becoming sharper, and was not sorry to reach the large town of Sasseram, where I halted at the bungalow long enough to procure an afternoon breakfast Resuming my journey, I reached the banks of the Soane River about five o'clock. The mountains on the left, which fellow its course, cease at the distance of some miles from the road, whence they have the appearance of a long blufi" promontory, projecting into the sea. In advance of the last headland rises an isolated peak with a forked top, precisely as I have seen a craggy island standing alone, off the point of a cape. There is no doubt that Central and Southern India at one time constituted an immense island, separated from the main land of Asia by a sea whose retrocession gave to the light the great pbins oi Hindostan and the Indus. The Soane is believed to be the Erranoboas of the old Greek geographers, and at his junction with the Ganges they located the great city of Palibothra. He has a royal bed iv CBOSSINO THE 80ANE BIVEB. 253 ^Lich to roll his waters, which were then shmnken to a shal- low flood by the dry season. Standing on the western bank, the channel stretched away before me to a breadth of nearly four miles — a waste of bare yellow sand, threaded by the blue arnna of the river. Here and there companies of men and oxen dotted its surface, and showed the line of the ford. The tents of those who were waiting to cross on the morrow were pitched on the bank, and the gleam of fires kindled near them shone out ruddily as the sun went down. It was a grand and impressive scene, notwithstanding its sombre and monotonous hues. Such, I imagine, must be the fords of our own Nebras- ka, during the season of emigration. I paid an official of some kind two rupees, after which my horse was unharnessed, and three yoke of oxen attached to the garree. Descending to the river bank a short distance above, the garree was put upon a ferry-boat, to be taken across the deepest part, while the bullocks were driven through to await us on the other side. The main stream is about half a mile wide, and beyond it lie alternate beds of sand, and small, fordable arms of the river We moved at a snail's pace, on account of the depth of the sand. While in the midst of one of the deepest channels, the water reaching to the body of the garree, one of the oxen twisted his head out of the yoke and darted off. There was great plunging and splashing on the part of the natives for a few minutes, but they succeeded in recovering him, and at length, after a passage of more than two hours, we attained firm earth on the opposite side. In spite of the lovely moonlight, I shut up the garree, and courted, slumber. I passed a tolerable night, and at daybreak reached Shergotty, one hundred and thirty miles from Be 254 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. nares. The country, for ten miles after leaving that town^ was level and gloriously rich. The wheat and barley w?re taking on their golden harvest hue, and the plantations of poppy sparkled in the sun like sheets of freshly-fallen snow. The villages were frequent, thickly settled, and had a flour- ishing air. The road still swarmed with Hindoo pilgrims, returning from Benares and Allahabad, almost every one carrying his two jars of Ganges water. At the stations I was assailed by clamorous beggars of all ages and sexes. The troops of coolies on the road were also annoying, by laying hold of the garree at the difficult places, running with it half a mile, and then demanding backsheesh. They made a ridiculous feint of pushing with all their strength, although I could see that there was not the least strain on their muscles, and constantly cried out, with much energy. " Push away there — a great lord is inside ! '* I was now in the hilly province of Behar, where the coun- try becomes more undulating, and the cultivation more scanty. A chain of mountains which had been visible for some time in front, began to enclose me in their jungly depths. The road still continued good, the ascents being gradual, and the nullag crossed by substantial bridges. The hills were covered with jungle to their very summits, and the country on either hand, as far as I could see, was uncultivated. The people had a wild, squalid look, and showed evidence of different blood from the race of the plains. I halted in the afternoon at the bun- galow of Dunwah for my single daily meal, and while waiting for it, a garree drawn entirely by coolies came up the road from the Calcutta side. The traveller, it seemed, had inten- tions similar to mine, for his coolies brought him to the buU' THE TABLE-LAND OF BEHAR. 255 ^low, and I soon heard his voice in the next room^ ordering tea and " moorghee grill " (broiled chicken). When I waa employed on my own meal, he came in to see who I was, and we were both surprised to find that we had been fellow-passen gers on board the Haddington, and had parted company at Suez, more than two months before. Leaving Dunwah, I had two chokees of gradual ascent, among hills covered with jungle, and then reached, as I thought, the dividing ridge, and anticipated a corresponding descent; in place whereof, a level table-land, dotted with de- tached mountain groups, opened before me as far as the eye could reach. Though thinly inhabited, the soil appeared to be fertile, and the air was purer thai? on the plains of the Ganges. It was a wild, romantic region, and gave me the idea of a country just beginning to be reclaimed from a state of nature. One would scarcely expect to find hundreds of miles of such land, coexistent with the dense population of other parts of India. Yet, during my travels, I saw a vast deal of waste and uncultivated territory. Were all its resources developed, the country would support at least double its present popula- tion. The sunset was beautiful among those woody ranges, and the full moonlight melted into it so gently that it seemed to arrest and retain the mellow lustre and soothing influences of twilight At a chokoe which I reached soon after dusk, the neople represented to me that the road beyond was mountain JUS, and that two coolies would be necessary, in addition tc the horse. " Well," said I, " let two of you come." I wait- ed in vain for the hills, however, for we went forward at a full gallop, the whole distance. Looking behind to see whethey 256 INDIA, CHINA, AHD JAPAN. this increase of speed was occasioned by the coolies, I discorei ed those two gentlemen comfortably seated on the rumble, witl their legs dangling in the air, while every few minutes thej uttered cries of such energy, that one would have supposed they were straining every nerve with the violence of their ef forts. When we reached the station, they came up boldly and demanded their pay, whereupon I retorted by asking pay of them for their conveyance. They slunk away, quite chop-fall- en at my discovery of their trickery. At dawn the next morning, I reached a town called Topee- chanchee. Beyond this point the mountains gradually reced- ed on either hand, and at last appeared only as isolated peaks, rising from the plain. Near Gyra, there is a lofty single peak, celebrated as being the sacred hill of the Jains, who are said to have five temples on the summit. None of them are visible from the road. The natives I met in this part of Behar differ- ed considerably in appearance from the Hindoos of the plains, and probably belonged to the aboriginal tribes who are still found among those hills. The head is much larger and long- er, in proportion to the size of the body, which is short, thick and muscular. Several German missionaries have located themselves in this region, and are said to have had consider- able success in their labors for the conversion of these wild tribes. During the forenoon I was overtaken by a green garree, in which sat two ladies. As it approached, I heard a shrill voice urging on the driver, who lashed his horse into a gallop, and Bs the vehicle passed, the elder lady thrust her head out of the window, and nodded to me with an air of insolent triumph <5he had a decidedly red face, diversified with freckles, keer ADVENTOfiES ON THE ROAD. 257 gray eyes, a nose with a palpable snub, and a profusion o1 coarse hair, of a color, which I will charitably term auburn. [t was rather humiliating to be passed in the race by a female of that style of beauty, but I did not dispute her triumph. A.fter leaving Gyra I journeyed all the afternoon over an undu- lating upland, covered with jungle and crossed by broken chains of hills, which sank into long, regular, surfy swells, as I approached the plains of Bengal Thus far, beyond a few balks and harmless gymnastics, I had slight cause to com- plain of the horses furnished to me; but here my troubles commenced in earnest. The initiative was taken by a vicioua animal, which bolted away from the station, dashed off the road, and after hurling the garree within six inches of a pit ten feet deep, was recovered, and with much persuasion in- duced to go forward. I was comforted, however, by passing in ray turn, the green garree, but the red-haired lady this time turned her face steadfastly away from me, while a scowl of ill- humor added to the upward tendency of her nose. I looked out and nodded triumphantly, but she only sneered with more freezing contempt. She overtook me again at Burdwan, the next morning, but after that I kept the lead, and saw no more of her. As night approached, I reached the boundary of the hills; an unbroken level extended to the horizon. The air was ex- ceedingly mild and balmy, and the moonlight so delicious that I sat up for hours, enjoying it. At Munglepore, which I reached about eight o'clock, I met a gentleman and lady, on their way to the North-West, in a private carriage, drawn by eoolies. I had a pleasant half-hour's talk with them, and on leaving, the gentleman gave me his name as Major -, of the 258 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAJf. ^th, and asked me to visit him if I ever came to the Pun jaub. The horses, that night, deprived me of all sleep Sometimes the garree was planted firmly for half an hour in one spot, and then with a sudden impulse it shot forward with flying speed, swerving from one side of the road to the other, until a collision of some kind seemed inevitable. Once, the horse ran away, and was only brought up by dashing against the abutment of a bridge ; and at another time, being awaken- ed by an unusual movement of the garree, I looked out and found it on the steep side of a hill, with three natives holding on to the uppermost wheels, to prevent it from overturning. Notwithstanding all these perils, we succeeded in reaching Bardwan, seventy-two miles from Calcutta, by daybreak. This is a large town, and the residence of a Raj an. It is a beautiful place, about two miles in length, and hf-s a large number of European residences. Here I was first struck with the difference between the vegetation of Bengal and the north- western provinces. Instead of those level Egyptian plains, with their topes of mango and tamarind, here were the gorge- ous growths of the West Indies, or the Mexican tierra caliente. In the gardens of the Europeans, the PoinscUia hung its long azure streamers from the trees, and the Bougainvillia raised its mounds of fiery purple bloom; the streets were shaded with lofty peepul trees, mixed with feathery groups of the cocoa palm ; the native huts were embowered in thickets of bamboo, over which towered the cotton tree, with its bare boughs and clusters of scarlet, lily-shaped blossoms. I amv^ ed at Burdwan at such an early hour, and the new gariee and horse were gotten ready tor me with so little delay, that thorc was no time to procure breakfast, before leaving the town. 7 A WBATHFUL DELAY. 259 set out With the expectation of arriving at Calcutta the same evening, but had not proceeded more than five miles, wheu the horse began to plunge, struck his hind feet through the front of the garree, snapped the axle, and left me stranded on the road. I dispatched the driver with the horse, back to Burdwan, to bring another vehicle, and took my seat on the ruins to watch over my baggage. Two hours thus passed away; three hours; the sun stood high and hot in the heavens, and at last my pipe< to which I invariably turn for patience, failed of its effect. Twenty-four hours had elapsed since I had eaten, and the pangs of fasting were superadded to the wrath of deceived hopes. Another hour^ elapsed and it was now high noon ; I hailed the natives who passed, and tried to bribe them to drag my carriage back to the town, but they either could not un- derstand, or would not heed me. Still another hour, and with it, finally, the new conveyance came. My wrath was too greal for words, but if looks could have affected him, the driyei would have crumbled to ashes on the spot. Now, thought L the Fates are satisfied, and I shall be allowed to pursue my journey in peace. But, after making a mile or so of the second stage, the horse, perceiving two empty wagons by the road-side, dashed up against them with the garree, and there remained. Neither blows nor entreaties would induce him tc budge a step, and the driver finally unharnessed him and went back for another. This time I only waited two hours, and I neither smoked nor spoke, for I was fast approaching the apathy li despair. Toward sunset I reached a bungalow and achiev ed a meal, after which, somewhat comforted, I continued mj 'ourney. 260 IKDIA, CHINA AHD JAPAH As the road approached the Hoogly River, the country became more thickly settled, and the native villages viere fre- quent. The large mansions, gleaming white in the moonlight the gardens, the avenues of superb peepul trees and groves of palm, spoke of the wealth and luxury of the inhabitants The road was shaded with large trees, between whose trunks the moonshine poured in broad streaks, alternating with dark nesses balmy with the odor of unseen flowers. I became tranquil and cheerful again, deeming that my trials were over- Vain expectation ! While passing through the very next vil- lage, the horse ran madly against a high garden wall on the right hand, and there stuck. He was unharnessed, the garree dragged into the middle of the road, harnessed again, and we started. The same thing happened as before; he gave two frantic leaps, and dashed us against the wall. If ever there was an insane animal, that was one. Six times, as I am a Christian, he dashed me against that wall. The driver's whip was soon exhausted, and I, beside myself with anger, having nothing else at hand, took my long cherry-wood pipe, and shivered it to pieces over his flanks. But he was inspired by the Fiend, and I was obliged to send him away and hire coolies to drag the vehicle as far as the Hoogly, six miles dis- tant, where I arrived shortly after midnight. I was ferried across the river, took another horse, and hav mg only two stages to Calcutta, confidently lay down and went to sleep. I was awakened in half an hour by the stopping of the garree. Will it be believed that that horse, too, had come to a stand ? Yet such was the plain Truth — Fiction would Dever venture on such an accumulation of disasters — and once more the driver went l^ack for another animal, leaving the gar THE END OF " GAEREE-D AWK. " 861 ree, with myself inside, in the middle of the road. 1 slept, 1 knew not how long, until aroused by the sharp peal of Tolleys of musketry. The sun was up; I rubbed my eyes and looked out. There I was, in the midst of Barrackpore, in front of the parade-ground, where some four or five thousand Sepoys were going through their morning drill. I watched their evo lutions, until the last company had defiled off the field, for the driver, probably surmising my fondness for military specta- cles, did not make his appearance for another hour. And now we sped down the grand avenue, which, straight as an arrow, and shaded by giant banyans and peepuls, leads from Barrackpore to Calcutta. Gradually palace-like resi- dences, surrounded with gardens, made their appearance on either side of the road. These, in turn, gave place to bamboo huts, with thatched roofs. Presently, a muddy moat appeared, and having crossed it, I felt that I was at last inside of the Mahratta Ditch, and that my perils were over. In half an hour afterwards I was quartered at Spence's Hotel; my jour- ney of 2,200 miles in the interior of India was finished, and ] bade adieu — for ever I trust, — to "garree-dawk." CHAPTER XXI. CALCUTTA THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN INDIA. [mpressions of Calcutta— The Houses of the Residents— Public Buildings and Institu tions— Colleges— Young Bengal— Museum of the Asiatic Society— The Botani< Garden — Calcutta at Snnset — Scene on the Esplanade — English Rule in India — Itt Results— Its Disadvantages— Relation of the Government to the Population- Ten- ure of Land -Taxes — The Sepoys— Revenue of India — Public Works— Moral Chan- ges — Social Prejudices. I REACHED Calcutta on the 21st of February, and embarked for Hong Kong, on the 28th. My stay was consequently too short to justify me in attempting more than a general descrip- tion of the city, and the impression which it made upon me After the glowing accounts I had heard in the Provinces, of its opulent social life and architectural magnificence, I confess to a feeling of disappointment. It is the London, or rather the Paris, of India, and the country magistrate, after years of lonely life in the jungles, or in some remote cantonment, looks forward to a taste of its unaccustomed gayeties, as one of the bright spots in his life of exile. But it by no means deserves to arrogate to itself the title of the " City of Palaces," so long as Venice and Florence, or even Cadiz and La Valletta, re- main in existence. It is not a city of palaces, but — the Euro pean portion at least — a city of large houses ; and the view oi tbe long line of mansions on the Chowringhee Road, extend THE HOUSES OF THE REblDENlb- 263 ing northward to the Government Palace and the City Hall, as seen from the banks of the Hoogly, is certainly an architectU' ral diorama, which would not disgrace any capital in Europe. Beyond this view, which, as it is the first that strikes the eye of a stranger arriving by sea, explains the unbounded admira- tion of many travellers, there is little to satisfy one's expecta- tions. It is a fair outside, a frontispiece of wealth and parade, concealing the insignificance and poverty of the interior. Pen- etrate the thin crust, which hints of greater splendors behind it, and you are soon lost in winding, dusty avenues, lined with the mean and narrow dwellings of the lower classes of the na- tive population. The houses of the European residents, and of the wealthy native Baboos, are all built on the most spacious plan. The chambers are very large and lofty, for the purpose of coolness, and the open, arched verandas of the exterior throw a little grace around the large, blank masses of building. The mate- rial employed is brick and mortar only, which is plastered and painted white or cream-colored. On account of the damp, hot atmosphere of Bengal, the painting must be renewed every year, otherwise it becomes mildewed. The upper stories display a great quantity of windows, with green jalousies be- fore them. These mansions are mostly furnished in a rich and elegant style, though straw matting takes the place of carpets, and broad punkas (for creating an artificial current of air) hang from the ceiling. A large retinue of servants — varying from ten to thirty — move about in their long white garment and fiat tmbans, hearing your commands with folded hands and a profound inclination of the head. The style of living is sumptuouSj but rather too closely modelled after LondoD 2t54 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. habits. Perhaps there is no community in Europe which lives in a style of equal luxury, this being the headquarters of the General Government, and the seat of many of the best offices in its gift. Calcutta has little to show, in the way of architecture The Government Palace is said to be a very cool and comfort- able residence, which, in that climate, compensates for manj defects ; but let the reader picture to himself five immense cubes of masonry, touching each other precisely like five black squares on a chess-board, with a low dome over the central one, and he will have a correct picture of it. The City Hall, a semi-Greek structure, is to my eye the finest building in the place. It has a noble hall, supported by two rows of Corin- thian columns. The Metcalfe Hall, with a Corinthian portico, the new Hospital, Hare's Hindoo College, the Medical College, and other edifices, are proud testimonials of the public spirit and liberality of the citizens of Calcutta, and their architec- tural excellence is a matter of secondary importance. The new Cathedral, however, which has lately been erected at a cost of $150,000, reflects little credit on its projectors. It is Gothic, of an impure and disproportionate character, and being planted at one of the most prominent points on the Chowrin- ghee Road, must be a perpetual eyesore to such of the resi- dents as cherish a taste for Art. Several flourishing col* leges have been established, of late years, for the improvement of the native population. That which was founded by the late David Hare, Esq., ranks among the first. I received an invi tation to attend a performance of Hamlet^ in English, by a company of Hindoo students, within its walls. Another phil- ^uilirop citizen had just completed a college for females, the "young bengal." 266 success of which is doubted, as the Hindoo girls are betrothed rery early, and after that ceremony, kept in strict seclusion. There are two mission schools, under the patronage of the Church of Scotland, in each of which there are more than a thousand pupils. Although the conversions to Christianitj are comparatively few, the enlightened influence of Educa tion, and, more especially, of European society, is making it self felt among the intelligent native families, and a party which styles itself " Young Bengal " is rapidly increasing its ranks. The young men, whose faith in the absurdities of the religion of their fathers is destroyed, have just entered the stage of utter scepticism, through which they must pass in »rder to reach the true Gospel. Their scorn and irreverence is manifested in eating the flesh of the sacred cow, making themselves tipsy with the forbidden blood of the grape, and disregarding the awful limits and restrictions of caste. Many Europeans are shocked at these proceedings, but I think they are hopeful signs. You cannot tear the deep-rooted faith of ages out of the heart of a race without tearing up with it all capacity for Faith. But a new soil gradually forms, and the seed of Truth, if dropped at a happy moment, takes living hold therein During my stay in Calcutta, I enjoyed the hospitality of my countryman, Mr Barstow, and his partner Mr. Ashburner, a Scotch gentleman. Here, as every where throughout India, every door is opened to the stranger, with a spontaneous and generous hospitality which is equalled in no other part of the world. Mr. Chas. Hufi"nagle, the American Consul, to whom I was indebted for many kind attentions, accompanied me to the Botanic Gardens, and to the Museum of the Asiatic Soo» 12 2r)6 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. etj. The latter embraces a fine library, including many rare works in Oriental languages, a large zoological and mineralog ical collection, and a number of Hindoo antiquities, gathered from different parts of India. Among the latter is a stone covered with Pali characters, from which Mr. Prinsep, the distinguished scholar and antiquarian, obtained his clue to the reading of inscriptions in that language. The Museum, how- ever, is evidently suffering from neglect; the statues and sculptures taken from ancient temples, are scattered about the grounds, and exposed to the action of the weather, and many of the specimens of natural history have been injured by the rav- ages of the white ants. The Botanic Garden, which is on the opposite bank of the Hoogly, three or four miles below the city, is a beautiful spot, and contains an unusually rich collection of the trees and plants of the Tropics. The banyan tree, with its 110 trunks, is considered a great lion, but I had seen speci- mens of more than double the size in the valley of the Ner- budda. Among the ornamental plants, I was most struck with the Amherstia nobilis, a native of Burmah, with glossy green foliage, and long, pendent spikes of scarlet flowers ; the Bougainvillia spedahilis, one broad sheet of purple bloom and the Poinsettia, whose sky-blue clusters, ten to fifteen feet in length, hung like streamers from the trees on which it lea ed. From half an hour before, until an hour after sunset, Cal jutta is to be seen in its greatest glory. Then, all who can procure an equipage, drive on the esplanade, an open space oi three or four miles in length by nearly a mile in breadth, ex- tending along the banks of the Hoogly, from the Government Palace to Fort William, and still further, to the country sub SCENE OS THE ESPLANADE 26*3 orb of Garden Reach. All the splendor of Chowringhee Roaa fronts on this magnificent promenade, and I forgave the pride of the Calcuttanese in their city, when I joined the brilliant stream of life in the main drive on the banks of the river, watching hundreds of lordly equipages passing and repassing, while on the other hand, the three miles of stately residencet — palaces, if you insist upon it — shone rosy-bright in the face of the setting sun. The Parsee, the Hindoo and the Mussul- man mingled in the ranks of the pale Englishmen, and reclin- ed in their carriages, or drove their mettled Arabs with as much spirit as the best of their conquerors. Their Cashmere shawls, their silks and jewels, and the gay Oriental liveries of the syces and footmen, gave the display an air of pomp and magnificence which threw Hyde Park and the Champs Elysees into the shade. The fine band from Fort William, playing lively airs on the green, gave the crowning charm to the hour and the scene. The languor of the Indian day was forgotten, and the rich, sensuous life of the East flashed into sudden and startling vividness. I shall try to retain the impression of these sunset views of Calcutta, for they belong to that class of memories which are but enriched by time. Here, on the eve of my departure from India, is a fitting occasion to say a few words on the character and the results of the English rule. The Government of the East India Company presents an anomaly to which there is no parallel in history. It is a system so complicated and involved, embrac- ing so many heterogeneous elements, and so difficult to grasp, as a whole, that the ignorance manifested even in the English Parliament, with regard to its operations, is scarcely to be wondered at. From the rapidity of my progress through the 268 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. country, and the disconnected and imperfect nature of my ob- servations, I feel some reluctance in venturing upon the sub ject^ and the reader must be contented to receive a few general impressions, instead of a critical dissection of the system, which, indeed^ would occupy too much space, even if I were compe^ tent to undertake it. My previous notions of English rule in India were obtained chiefly from the articles on the subject in the progressive newspapers of England, and were, I need hardly say, unfavor- able. The American press is still more unsparing in its denun- ciations, though very few of the writers have any definite idea of the nature of the wrongs over which they grow so indignant. That there are wrongs and abuses which call for severe repre- hension, is undeniable ; but I have seen enough to satisfy me that, in spite of oppression, in some instances of the most grind- ing character, in spite of that spirit of selfish aggrandizement which first set on foot and is still prosecuting the subjugation of India, the country has prospered under English Government. So far from regretting the progress of annexation, which has been so rapid of late years, (and who are we^ that we should cast a stone against this sin ?) I shall consider it a fortunate thing for India, when the title of every native sovereign is ex- tinguished, and the power of England stretches, in unbroken integrity, from Cashmere to Cape Comorin. Having made this admission, I shall briefly refer to some of the most promi- ent evils and benefits of the system. It is the misfortune of India that it is governed by a com- mercial corporation, which annually drains the country of a large proportion of its revenues. It is true that the amount of the dividend on the East India stock is fixed by Parliament BAST INDIA COMPANY. 269 and cannot be exceeded ; but that stock, with the debts in curred, by various expensive wars, amounts to upwards oi $225,000,000, to meet the interest on which requires an annua expenditure of $15,000,000. Besides this, a large amount oi monej passes out of the country in the form of salaries and pen eions (the Oivil Service being much better paid than any othei service in the world), so that a constant system of depletion is carried on, which would have greatly impoverished the coun- try by this time, had not its effects been partially counteracted by other and compensating influences in the Government. The governing machinery is also very unwieldy and lumbering, fettered by a system of checks, which, as some of the depart- ments are seven thousand miles apart, renders it extremely difficult to introduce new measures, no matter how urgent may be the necessity for their adoption. Parliament in this in- stance adheres to the old maxim of quieta non movere^ and al- though the charter of the East India Company comes up for renewal once every twenty years, few steps have been taken to lop off the old excrescences and simplify the action of its exec- utive powers. The relation of the Government to the laboring millions o* India is one that has been frequently condemned. It was in- herited from the former rulers, but has since undergone con Biderable modification, and not, I am sorry to say, for the bet- ter. It is substantially that of landlord and tenant, the Government holding all the land as its own property, and leas- ing it to the inhabitants according to a certain form of assess- ment. In some instances it is leased directly to the laborers in others tc zemindarSj or contractors on a large scale, whc nub-let it to the former at an advanced rate, and practise ty 270 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. rannical extortions upon them, in order to increase their OWB profits. The worst feature of this system is, that the rents increase in proportion to the productiveness of the land, so that it discourages the laborer from endeavoring to improve hig portion. I have been informed that the amount received by Government averages about 75 per cent, of the value of the produce. The consequence is that the laborers, whether leasing from the zemindars or directly from the Government officers, make but a bare subsistence from year to year. In almost any other country they would be kept permanently at staryation point, but in India their wants are so few and their habits of life so simple, that the amount of positive distress is compara- tively small. For a common laborer, such as are employed by Government on roads and canals, four rupees a month, or $24 a year, is considered good wages, and there are millions who manage to subsist on half this sum. In Bengal and Madras the condition of the laboring popu- lation is most unfavorable, on account of the peculiar land systems which have been adopted in those presidencies. In Madras, where what is called the Ryotwar system is in force, a general assessment of all produce and property is made every year, and the rents fluctuate according to this standard, within the limits of a maximum rate, fixed by Government. But in order to carry out this system, the assistance of a large num- ber of petty native officials is required, and the abuses which we perpetrated under it are said to be absolutely monstrous In the north-west provinces, where an assessment is only made every thirty years, and the occupation and cultivation of £ tract of land constitutes a sort of claim to the renewal of the lease, the country is in a much more flourishing state. The THE SEPOIfS. 271 soil is under excellent cultivation, and the inliabitants arc thrifty and contented, while in the neighboring kingdom of Oude, grinding taxes are extorted every year by the force of an armed soldiery, districts which twenty years ago blossomed as a garden, are now waste and deserted, and thousands of op pressed subjects annually escape into the Company's territo- ries, where they find at least security of life and property. Despotic as the Company's government certainly is, it is a well- regulated despotism, and its quiet and steady sway is far pre- ferable to the capricious tyranny of the native rulers. It speaks well for the Government that its military service is popular among the natives. There is no conscription, the Sepoy regiments being raised entirely by voluntary enlistment, and could be increased to any extent, if desired. The miKtai-y force amounts to about 240,000 men — larger, one would sup- pose, than is actually needed, since it entails a great expense upon the country. The men are well fed and clothed — with the exception of the tight coats and stiff leather stocks in which they are tortured daily — and receive a liberal pay. They make excellent soldiers, and when placed on the flanks of a European battalion, march to battle as bravely as any in the world. For discipline, drill and soldierly appearance, some of the regiments would be noted anywhere. The land revenue is of course the main source of supply to the Government, but there are some other taxes which are almost as severely felt by the population. The manufacture of opium is a Government monopoly, which yields a nett annual revenue of $15,000,000 The duty on salt is enormous, and as this is an article of universal consumption, is very severely felt- It amounts in some parts of the country to two rupees ($1) the 272 IKDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. maund, while in the territories of native princes the article may be bought for six annas (twenty cents) the mauncu The internal customs which formerly existed have been abolished, and a gradual amelioration of the burdens under which the native population has been weighed down, seems to be taking place. Though very slow to expend any money in public works, the Government still moves forward in this direction — and lately by guaranteeicg to the holders of stock in the India Railroad Companies five per cent, for twenty years, gave a powerful impetus to an undertaking which will in time change the whole aspect of the country. The Grand Trunk Road, extending from Calcutta to Delhi, a distance of 900 miles, and now being carried on to Lahore, is one of the finest highways in the world. The Ganges Canal, which will cost $10,000,000 when finished, will cover with perpetual harvests the great peninsular plain between the Ganges and Jumna, and render famine impossible in the north of India. There is scarcely a large city in the Company's dominions without its schools, its colleges and its hospitals, supported mainly by Government bounty. The moral changes which have been wrought within the last hundred years, or since the battle of Plassy laid the true foundation of the present vast commercial appanage, are even greater than the physical. The Civil Service, though liable to objection, from the favoritism practised in the appointment of its officers, and their promotion by seniority, without regard to fcalent or capacity, still secures to the native a more just and equitable administration of law than he could obtain fronr magistrates of his own race. The horrid practice of suttee, oi ridow-burning, has been totally suppressed ; the confederatioi SOCIAL PREJUDICES. 278 of Thugs, or Stranglers, which extended throughout all Cen- tral India, has been broken up, and the Dacoits, or robber bands, which are still in existence along the Ganges, and in he hilly country at the foot of the Himalayas, are gradually becoming extinct. With few exceptions, order and security/ reign throughout the whole of India, and I doubt whether, on the whole, there has been less moral degradation and physical suffering at any time since the power of the Mogul Emperora began to decline. There is one feature of English society in India, however, which I cannot notice without feeling disgusted and indignant I allude to the contemptuous manner in which the natives even those of the best and most intelligent classes, are almost invariably spoken of and treated. Social equality, except in some rare instances, is utterly out of the question. The tone adopted towards the lower classes is one of lordly arrogance , towards the rich and enlightened, one of condescension and patronage. I have heard the term " niggers " applied to the whole race by those high in office ; with the lower orders o* the English it is the designation in general use. And this, too, towards those of our own Caucasian blood, where there is no ■nstinct of race to excuse their unjust prejudice. Why is it that the virtue of Exeter Hall and Stafford House can tole- rate this fact without a blush, yet condemn, with pharisaic zeal, the social inequality of the negro and the white- races in America ? My visit to India occupied only two months, and conse- quently some of my conclusions may be too hastily drawn. I have never made a more interesting, or instructive journey, oi visited a country better worthy of thorough and confcientioui 12* 274 INDIA, CfflNA, AND JAPAN. study. The historical problem which it presents is jet di& tant from its solution, and it is one vhi'^h nc inCiiiber of the 4nglo-Saxon race can contemplate yr'lh indiffoif.r. coats of our sturdy little ponies, reached the flag-staff, 2,500 feet above the sea. Here there is a summer residence oi the Governor, and half a dozen private bungalows. The pure air of the heights, with the refreshing temperature, which stands at from 70° to 75° during the whole year, make this a most delightful place of resort. I climbed to the cross- trees of the flag-staff in order to get an uninterrupted view oi the wide summer panorama. The lowland of Penang, with its orchards and gardens, lay at my feet ; across the strait stretched A PANORAMA. 283 many a league of forest, divided here and there by the gleam- ing windings of rivers, and far back in the vapory distance arose the mountain spine of the Peninsula of Malacca. To the south and west, over scattered island-cones of verdure, surved a great hemisphere of sea, behind which, hidden by the warm noonday haze, were the mountains of Sumatra. That part of the peninsula lying opposite to Penang has been ac- quired by the East India Company, and erected into a pro- vince, with the title of Wellesley ; further south, Malacca and Singapore are English dependencies ; the gap between Arracan and Tenasserim has been filled up by the recent annexation of Pegu, and now, of two thousand miles of coast line between Calcutta and Singapore, there are not more than two hundred, to which the English title is still wanting. The Anglo-Indian Empire stretches from Beloochistan to the China Sea, They now talk of the natural boundaries of Burmah as obviating the need of further annexation to the Eastward ; but when did their lust of aggrandizement ever heed any natural boundary except the sea ? On our return to the ship we visited a nutmeg plantation The trees, which are from twenty to thirty feet in height, are planted in rows, at intervals of about twenty feet. The leaf is dark green and glossy, resembling that of the laurel, and the fruit, at a little distance, might be taken for a small russet- colored apple. When ripe the thick husk splits in the centre, ahowing a scarlet net-work of mace, enveloping an inner nut, black as ebony, the kernel of which is the nutmeg of commerce. The clove-tree, not then in its bearing season, has some re^ semblance to the nutmeg, but the leaf is smaller, nnd the foliage more loose and spreading. Ab we drove through the orchard 284 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. the warm air of noon was heavy with spice. The rich odoB exhaled from the trees penetrated the frame with a sensatior of languid and voluptuous repose. Perfume became an appe- tite, and the senses were drugged with an overpowering feeling of luxury. Had I continued to indulge in it, I should ere ong have realized the Sybarite's complaint of his crumpled rose-leaf. In the Strait of Malacca, the heat was rather oppressive, the thermometer standing at 88° in the coolest part of the shij We ran down within sight of the peninsula, and on the after no'on after leavinoj Penanor had a distant view of the town of Malacca. The next morning I went on deck, just in time to see the southern extremity of the Continent of Asia. The Pe- ninsula of Malacca tapered away to a slender point, complete- ly overgrown with palm and mangrove trees, which rose in heavy masses from the water's edge. At the end, a single cocoa-palm stood a little in advance of its fellows, leaning out- ward, as if looking intently across the Southern Sea. The water was smooth and glassy, and belts of a paler green be- trayed the hidden banks of coral. Island after island arose in the distance, until we were inclosed in an archipelago of never- fading verdure. They were tenanted entirely by the Malay races; some were hilly and irregular in appearance, while other rose like green cones from the tranquil sea. The Island of Singapore, which we were approaching, was comparatively ow, but not without a picturesque beauty in* the irregularity of ts shores. The strait through which we sailed resembled an inland lake rather than a part of the ocean, for the islands were SO crowded together in the distance as quite to intercept the «ea-horizoii. Presently we entered what seemed a river — th< SINGAPORE CHINESE POPULATION. 285 narrow strait between Singapore and a small adjacent island, and halted alongside a large wooden pier, in what is called the New Harbor. The town of Singapore is three miles distant, but as the steamer remained twenty-four hours to coal, we embarked in garrees drawn by Malay ponies, and were carried straightway to the " London Hotel, where we remained until next day. The town is purely commercial, and has grown up principally within the last ten or fifteen years. The population is esti- mated at 40,000 or 50,000, the greater part of whom are Chinese. There are several of their pagodas in the place, and three large burying-grounds, densely populated, in the vicinity. This was my first sight of a large Chinese community, and the impression it left was not agreeable. Their dull faces, without expression, unless a coarse glimmering of sensuality may be called such, and their half-naked, unsymmetrical bodies, more like figures of yellow clay than warm flesh and blood, filled me with an unconquerable aversion. The scowling Malay, with his dark, fiery eye, and spare but sinewy form, was ennobled by the comparison, and I turned to look upon him with a great sense of relief. The Island of Singapore is hilly and undulating, although no part of it rises more than 500 feet above the sea. On the eastern side of the town is the English suburb, which contains a number of pleasant residences. The Governor's mansion is delightfully situated on a hill above, commanding a fine view of the harbor, and the large island of Bintang in the distance. The hills around it are covered with turf as fresh and green as that of England. The temperature of the island, which lies in 1° 18^ N., is healthy and agreeable, and scarcely varies 286 tlirongbout the whole year. The vegetation is kept constanl ly fresh and luxuriant by frequent showers. The interior ol the island is covered with plantations of pepper and nutmeg. The depredations eommitted by tigers are said to be frightful, since in spite of a government bounty for their destruction, more than three hundred persons are annually devoured by them. We left Singapore on the morning of the 9th, and after passing the island of Bintang, entered the China Sea. Not- withstanding it was the season of the north-east monsoon, we were favored with calm weather and clear skies. During the first two days we passed Pulo Aor, and the barren groups of the Anambas and Natunas, after which nothing occurred to break the monotony of the voyage, until the morning of the 16th, when in the midst of a thick and rainy gale from the north, which came up suddenly during the night, we made the rocks called the Asses' Ears, off the Ladrone Islands, at the mouth of the Gulf of Canton. We got shelter from the heavy swell under the lee of the Lemma Island, and as the clouds broke away a little, saw before us the barren hills of Hong Kons In two hours more we were at anchor in the 'larbor. CHAPTER XXIII. VOrAQE UP THE COAST OP OHIHA. Prip to Macao— Attached to the U. 8. Embassy— On Board the Steam-frigate Snsqne hanna— Departure from Macao— The Coast of China^The Shipwrecked Japanese- > Their Address to the Commissioner— The Eastern Sea— The Archipelago of Chnsaii —The Mouth of the Tang-tse-Kiang— The Steamer Aground- Rumors of the Reb- els— Arrival at Woosung— Entering the Woosung River— Chinese Junks— Appear- ance of the Country — Approach to Shanghai— ArrivaL On arriving at Hong Kong, one of my fellow-passengers en- tared my name at the Club House, a part of which was fitted up as a hotel. The weather was cold, raw and cloudy, and I spent the greater part of my time in-doors, reading the late files of European journals. The U. S. steam-frigate Susquehaima was lying in the harbor, ready to sail for Macao, and as I de- sired to visit Canton, I accepted Capt. Buchanan's invitation to cross in her to the former place, whence I could take the Canton steamer. She left Hong Kong on the morning of the ^Oth, and after a pleasant run of four hours anchored in Macao Roads. I went ashore, expecting to proceed to Canton on the morrow: but no one knows what a day may bring forth. Upon calling on the U. S. Commissioner, the Hon. Humphrey 288 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN Marshall, to whom I had letters, he generously offered to attach me to the Embassy, that I might be able to accompany him to the seat of war in the North. So rare an opportunity of see ing the most interesting portion of China during the present remarkable crisis in the history of the Empire was not to be neglected ; and on the following morning I again found myseli on board the Susquehanna, listening to the thunders of the sa- lute which welcomed the Commissioner. It was worth all my long wanderings in foreign lands and among strange races, to experience the pride and satisfaction of walking the deck of a national vessel, and hearing again the stirring music of our na- tional airs. One must drink deep of absence and exile to learr the tenderness of that regard for his native land, which at home lies latent and unsuspected at the bottom of his nature. I want no man for a friend, whose heart will not beat more warmly at the sight of his country's banner floating on a dis- tant sea. The handsome stem-cabin of the Susquehanna was appro- priated to the use of the Commissioner, and his suite, consisting of Dr. Peter Parker, Secretary of Legation, Mr. 0. H. Perry Private Secretary, and myself. Wo found in Capt. Buchanan the Commander, all that his reputation as a gentleman and a brave and gallant officer, led us to anticipate ; while the officers under his command justified the high opinion I had formed of our naval corps, from the few whom it had previously been my good fortune to meet. Under such auspices, our voyage up the coast of China was one of the most agreeable I ever made. We left Macao, about nine o'clock on the morning of the 21st, and stood outward to sea, past the Lemma Island. The THE COAST OF CHINA. 289 day was warm and calm, and the barren Chinese coast was anobscured by cloud or vapor. It is a bold, rugged shore, in^ dented with small bays and estuaries, and bounded by a fringe of lofty island-rocks, which are for the most part uninhabitable. In its general features, it resembles the coast of California, but ia in reality more sterile, though hardly more so in appear- ance. Towards evening we saw the promontory called Breaker Point in the distance, and during the night passed within half a mile of the Lamock Islands. The next morning was dull and overcast. We were already within the Straits of Fu-kien, or the Formosa Channel, as it is now called, and had a strong head-wind. During the day we had occasional glimpses of the islands and promontories of the coast, on our left, but too dark and indistinct to be satisfactory. About noon, we passed the headland of Quemoy, north of the Bay of Amoy, which is one of the five ports opened to foreigners by the English war. Its commerce, however, is next to nothing, nearly all the foreign trade being concentrated at Canton and Shanghai. On Monday afternoon the thirteen shipwrecked Japanese sailors, who, having been picked up at sea and taken into San Francisco, were sent to China by the order of our Govern- ment, and placed on board the Susquehanna, were summoned in a body upon the quarter-deck to pay their respects to the " big mandarin," as they termed Col. Marshall. They made a 7ery profound inclination of the head, removing their caps at the same time. Dr. Parker addressed them in Chinese, which ihey did not understand when spoken; but as the Chinese characters are known to the Japanese (the same character sig- nifying the same word in both languages), he was enabled to communicate with them. They appeared cheerful and in good 13 290 nSTDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAfi. condition. They were nearly all dressed in sailor costum^ with clothes which the officers and men had given them. It was curious to note the variety of feature, form and expression among these men, all of whom belonged to the same class There was one with an unusually broad face and dark com- plexion, who corresponded to Golownin's description of the Kurile inhabitants of the northern portion of the Empire. They wore their hair short upon the crown and front of the head, but hanging loose and long at the back and sides, which Dr. Parker declared to have been the former Chinese custom, shaven heads and long tails having been introduced by the Mantchow Dynasty. The features of these Japanese were much better than those of the corresponding class of Chinese. The day following their presentation a note written in Chinese characters was addressed by them to CoL Marshall It was very fragmentary and laconic, owing, no doubt, to the small stock of characters in the writer's possession. It was addressed on the envelope: "To the American King — from thirteen Japanese," and the contents were as follows : '' We, thirteen Japanese men, have fathers, mothers, young brothers, old brothers, wives, children. You go to Shanghai : go to Japan!" On Wednesday we continued to advance against a strong head-wind, catching but few and cloudy glimpses of the coast During the day we passed the mouth of the estuary of Foo« chow-foo, another of the five ports. Before night, we had passed through the Formosa Channel, and were in the Tong-hai, or Eastern Sea, which is bounded by China, Corea, the Japanese Island of Kiusiu, and the Lew-Chew Archipelago. The next oaorning we were off the province of Che-Kiang. Soon after wmrise we mjvie a small island called the Straw-Stack, and still THE ARCHIPELAGO OF CHUSAN. 291 fortlier, a headland called Mushroom Peak, from its shape, the sides being perpendicular, and the summit slightly projecting over them. At the other extremity of the same promontory there was a tall isolated rock resembling a pagoda. The af temoon was raw and foggy, and as there was a large number of fishing junks off the coast, our steam-whistle was blown repeat edly, as a signal for them to get out of the way. On Friday there was a dense fog, with frequent showers ot rain, and we saw no land until evening, when we made the rocks called the Brothers, at the eastern end of the Archipelago of Chusan. We had had no observation for a day or two, but when the fog lifted and showed the rocks, we were not a mile from our supposed position. The night set in dark and stormy, and as the tides and currents, which prevail in this part of the Archipelago, are very uncertain, we felt our way in the fog into a strait between the islands of Chusan and Chinsan, and came to anchor under the lee of the latter. It blew violently during the night, but the gale had the effect of clearing away the fog, so that we were able to get under way again at daylight. We rounded the eastern point of Chinsan, and running in a Qorth-west course, soon made the two groups called the Rug ged Islands and Parker's Islands. The water became yellow and muddy, showing that we were already within the influence of the great Yang-tse-Kiang River, and when scarcely abreast the southern entrance, it was as turbid as the Mississippi at New Orleans. The volume of water brought down by the river must be enormous ; the southern mouth, which comprises about two thirds, or less, of the main stream, is thirty miles in breadth. Parker's Island was green and beautiftd, and ap peared to be cultivated. Most of the other islands were lofty. 292 INDIA, cnnrA, ahb japan. rugged, as their name denotes, and hopelessly barren. The smaller ones were mere rocks, cleft and divided by deep chasms, like those on the western coast of Scotland. The wind ivas keen, cold, and strong from the north, and the thermome- ter down to 60°. The sky was a cool, pale blue, veiled with haze, but the sun shone cheerily at intervals. As we ap proached our destination, the Japanese desired another inter- view with the Commissioner. It was intimated that they wished to land at Shanghai, make their way to Chapoo, the Chinese port of communication with Nagasaki, and embark in a junk for the latter place, Chapoo is south of Shanghai, on the Bay of Hang-Chow, and about ninety miles distant. At noon we reached Gutzlaff Island, at the mouth of the Yang-tse-Kiang (Son of the Sea), and commenced the difficult navigation of the river. The island is a round, rocky hillock, rising 210 feet from the water. From its prominence, and position at the mouth of the river, it is a valuable landmark for vessels. The Yang-tse-Kiang is here about twenty miles broad, flowing between the mainland of China, and the large island of Tsung-Ming. Both shores are a dead level, dyked to prevent inundation, like the banks of the lower Mississippi, and not to be seen from the narrow channel in the middle of the river, which is lined on both sides by extensive sand-banks. We had a strong wind and tide against us, and did not lose Bight of Gutzlaff Island until near four o'clock. The water became more dense and yellow as we proceeded, and the pad- dles of the steamer stirred up large quantities of the soft mud of the bottom. The depth of the stream varied from four ti fire fathoms. At six o'clock, as the crew was beaten to quarters, it was THE FRIGATE AGROUND. 298 DOtieed that the engines moved sluggishly, and soon afterwards fchc ship refused to obey her helm. She was immediately stopped; and a careful sounding showed only two and three quartei fathoms. The previous sounding had been disturbed by the wake of the wheel, and tlie sinking of the lead into the oose mud, so that we had run about half a mile upon the South Shoal before being aware of it. The engines were backed, but the strong northern gale and ebb tide kept us sta- tionary for about an hour, after which the ship began to move by fits and starts. The guns were run forward to lighten her stern, and the tide setting in her favor, she worked herself off by nine o'clock, and came to anchor in deep water. We started again the next morning, with the flood tide. The day was crystal-clear, and a bracing wind blew from the north-east. In an hour or two we were hailed by an American pilot, who had been taking a French vessel out of the river. He startled us with the news that the rebels had invested Nanking with an army of 200,000 men, captured all the Chinese war-junks in the Yang-tse-Kiang, and cut off supplies from the beleaguered troops — with many other particulars, which, like all rumors afloat at that time, were greatly exagge- rated. In another hour the mainland of China was visible on our left — a low shore, covered with trees, and dotted with the houses of the natives. Numbers of junks were anchored along the beach, and the wreck of a European vessel toid of the dangers of the navigation. The island of T^ang-Ming was barely visible to the east. We reached the mouth of the Woosung River about noon, and cast anchor a mile from the shore, to wait for a tide to carry us over the bar. On making signals, a junk came out for the mails, with which she started 294 INDIA, CHIHA, AND JAPAV at once for Shanghai The mouth of the river "was jrowdec] with vessels, the greater part of which were native junks. The stream is about half a mile in breadth, and is protected hy two batteries, the northern one having 126 guns. The shore if well wooded, and the trees, with their thin texture and the greenish-gray hue of their budding leaves, showed that we had again reached a climate where spring is known. Mr. P. S. Forbes, U. S. Consul at Canton, and Mr. Cun- ningham, Vice-Consul at Shanghai, who had ridden down to Woosung in expectation of the Susquehanna's arrival, came or board shortly after we dropped anchor. At 4 P. M., the tide being again flood, we stood into the river through the fleet of junk sat its mouth. It was a delicate piece of manoeuvring, but the vessel minded her helm admirably, and threaded the mazes of the crowded anchorage without touching one of the craft. The tide carried us safely over the bar, and we kept on up the river at nearly our full speed. The stream was covered with junks lying at anchor or sailing up and down. Our steam-whistle warned them to clear the track, and they obeyed with alacrity, the crews gathering upon the high poops to sur- vey us as we passed. Most of the junks had inscriptions across the stern and along the sides of the hull. Some, which Dr. Parker read, denoted that the vessel was in Government service : others had fantastic names, such as " The Favorable Wind," " Happiness," &c. All the larger ones had four masts, each mast carrying a single oblong sail, made of very closely woven matting, crossed with horizontal slips of bamboo, so that it could be reefed to any extent required. The people had ft lighter complexion and more regular features than tht SHORES OP THE WOOStING RIVER 295 natives of the southeni provinces, and in lieu of, the nmhiella hat wore the round black cap of the Tartars. The country on both sides of the river is a dead level ot rich alluvial soil, devoted principally to the culture of rice and wheat. The cultivation was as thorough and patient as any I had seen, every square foot being turned to some useful ac- count. Even the sides of the dykes erected to check inunda- tions were covered with vegetables. These boundless levels are thickly studded with villages and detached houses, all of which are surrounded with fruit-trees. I noticed also occasionally groves of willow and bamboo. The country, far and wide, is dotted with little mounds of earth — the graves of former generations. They are scattered over the fields and gardens in a most remarkable manner, to the great detriment of the cultivators. In some places the coffins of the poor, who cannot afford to purchase a resting-place, are simply deposited upon the ground, and covered with canvas. The dwellings, but for their peaked roofs, bore some resemblance to the cottages of the Irish peasantry. They were mostly of wood, plastered and whitewashed, and had an appearance of tolerable comfort The people, who came out to stare in wonder at the great Bteamer as she passed, were dressed uniformly in black or dark blue. Numerous creeks and canals extended from the river into the plains, but I did not notice a single highway. The landscape was rich, picturesque and animated, and fully corresponded with what I had heard of the dense population and careful agriculture of China. I was struck with the gene« ral resemblance between the Woosung and the lower Missisr fdpp', and the same thing was noticed by others on board. Before sunset, we discovered in the distance the factoriei 296 IKDIA^ CHINA, ANT JAPAM. and flagstaffs of Shanghai. The town had a more imposing appearance than I was prepared to find. The river makes a sharp bend to the south-west at this point, and over the tops of the trees on the southern bank, we could see a forest of masts, a mile in length, belonging to the native junks. The numbei of foreign vessels anchored before the factories did not exceed twenty. Rounding the point, we swept between the shipping, past the stately row of tall European residences, and a neat church (Gothic), to the reach in front of the. American Consulate, one of the largest and handsomest buildings on the river. The English war-steamers Hermes and Salamander, and the brig Lily, lay anchored there, and the French war-steamer Cassini, a little further up the stream. Beyond them commenced the wilderness of junks, packed side by side in one unbroken mass. As the anchor dropped our band struck up " Hail Columbia " followed by the English and French national airs. Mr. Cunningham invited the Commissioner and his suite to take rooms at the Consulate, where that splendid hospitality which distinguishes the foreign communities in China is prac- tised to its fullest extent. We found various and contradictory rumors afloat with regard to the Chinese rebels, but it was gen- erally believed that Nanking had fallen into their hands. The merchants were in hourly expectation of hearing tJiat the great city of Soo-Chow, the capital of the silk-growing district, and only seventy miles from Shanghai, had been invested. CHAPTER XXiy. AN ATTEMPT TO VISIT NANKING I he Commlss'oner decides to visit Nanking— Preparations for the Voyage — Departun of four Japanese — The Susquehanna leaves — Woosung — Bush Island and Tsuuf Mtng— We strike the Blonde Shoal— The Chinese Pilots— Escape of a Boat— Off thfl Shoal— Mr. Bennett's night cruise after the Boats— Unfavorable Eeports— The Re- turn—End of the Expedition— Successful Trip of the Susquehanna In the Summer of 1854 Three days after our arrival, the Commissioner decided U start for Nanking. The near approach of the rebel forces to the foreign settlement of Shanghai, the uncertainty with regard to their views towards foreigners, and the utter impossibility of obtaining reliable accounts from the seat of war through th€ Chinese authorities, led him to this step. The visit was pro- jected with the sole view of obtaining information, that he might best know how to guard the interests of American citi- Eens in China. Like the representatives of England and France in Shanghai, he determined on preserving the strictest neutrality during the civil war then raging in the North. But if, as all accounts concurred in representing, Nanking had already fallen, it was a matter of importance that the rebel leaders should be assured of this neutrality and of the 13* 298 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. necessity, on their part, of respecting the rights of foreign citizens. The adoption of this course was rendered still more imperative by the falsehoods which the Chinese authorities^ and especially the Taou-tai (G-overnor) of Shanghai had pub Ushed and circulated concerning the enlistment of foreign aid. Two hundred tons of coal were taken on board the Susque- hanna, and application was made to the Taou-tai for native pilots who knew the river. These he readily furnished, hoping perhaps that our appearance off Nanking would be interpreted to the advantage of the Imperialists. Hundreds of Chinese continued to visit the Susquehanna up to the hour of her de parture. Several of the American residents made application to accompany us on the voyage, but, with the exception of Mr. Forbes, no other passenger was taken on board. Previous to sailing, four of the Japanese left our ship. One of theii countrymen — one of those who were turned back from Japan m the Morrison, in 1837 — ^was then residing in Shanghai, and he promised to assist them. Neither Capt. Buchanan nor the Commissioner had any authority to keep them on board. They desired their countryman, Otokitchi, to say that they thanked the officers and men of the ship from their hearts, and would never forget their kindness toward them. Two of them wept like children when they left. We started at floodtide, on the afternoon of the Ist of April. The bund, or quay, of Shanghai was crowded with spectators of our departure. We were two hours and a half reaching Woosung. The rich plains on either hand were greener and more beautiful than they appeared on the passage up. The willow trees planted along the nmnerons little canals intersecting the country were rapidly bursting into leaf. In BUSH ISLAND AND TSUNG-MING. 299 Spite of these tokens of spring, a keen, benumbing wind blew from the north-east, and the cabin was not comfortable without fire. There Is perhaps no other part of the world where spring is so tardy. We crossed the bar without difficulty, but after- wards had to thread a fleet of junks, filling up a reach of moYi\ than half a mile. This feat was admirably managed, without running afoul of any of the craft, though the winding channels between them were scarcely broader than our beam. The Susquehanna obeyed her helm as readily as a ferry-boat. We anchored for the night in the main channel of the Yang-tse- Kiang, a mile from shore. At daybreak, the ten Chinese boats which had been engaged for the purpose of going ahead to feel the channel, started in advance. We hove anchor and left at seven o'clock. The four Chinese pilots were on deck, seemingly confident of their ability to carry us through. Just above Woosung, we passed Bush Island ; the large island of Tsung-Ming, separat- bg the northern and southern mouths of the Yang-tse-Kiang, was visible beyond it in the distance. ' Both of these islands have been formed from the alluvial deposits of the river, and are yearly increasing in size. Capt. Potter (an American pilot, who accompanied us) informed me that ten years ago there was but one bush on the smaller island (whence its Dame), and not an inhabitant. At present it is covered with trees and thickly studded with cottages. Tsung-Ming, a cen. tury ago, was a sand-bar ; at present it supports a population of six hundred thousand. The immense deposits brought down by the Yang-tse-Kiang, the Hoang-Ho, and other rivers must in the course of time entirely fill up the mouth of the \rellow Sea. 300 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAli. Our mosquito fleet was still visible, running rapidly ahead with the monsoon filling their square sails, and I was looking through a telescope at the clusters of Chinese who were watching us from the shore, when the ship suddenly struck iipcn a shoal. She was only going at half-speed, and the engine was stopped soon enough to prevent her jamming very hard upon the sand. Still, there she stuck, and as the ebb-tide had just commenced, every efifort was made to get her off be- fore the water fell. There were fourteen feet at the bows, and three and one fourth fathoms at the stern : the bottom hard sand. The wheels were backed and a hawser sent out over the stern, to warp her off, but without avail. The place where we struck proved to be the Blonde Shoal, twelve or fifteen miles from Woosung. The accident was entirely owing to the care- lessness or treachery of the principal Chinese pilot. We had boats enoudi to have sounded out for us all the shoals as fax as Harvey's Point, but he insisted on sending them ahead, saying that he was perfectly familiar with the channel, and did not require their services for a hundred li (thirty miles) fur- ther. He put on an offensive, stately air, and carried his head high until chastised by Mr. Cunningham's comprador, who accompanied us as interpreter and commissary. The latter, on receiving an impertinent reply to a question which he had asked by command of Capt. Buchanan, immediately struck the ^ilot in the face, and brought him to his knees in supplication. When it was found we could not get off, Capt. Buchanan determined to send the Chinese bum-boat, which accompanied us, ahead to the other boats, with one of the pilots. But the men, instead of keeping up the river, immediately made all speed for the shore. One of the brass field-pieces was hauled GETTING OFF THE SHOAL. 301 to the stern, brought to bear on her, and a few shots fired across her bows, in order to bring her back, but she continued to make away, although the balls ploughed up the sea just be- yond her. It happened that the pilot was not on board, as wap supposed, but had remained with us, though in great fear for his life. Mr. Bennett, Master of the Susquehanna, was then sent off for the pilots, in one of the ship's cutters At ebb-tide we had but eight feet water under our bows and seventeen under the stern. At midnight on Saturday night it began to blow very violently from the north, so that about five o'clock, when the tide had risen a few feet, the vessel seemed to be slowly work ing herself loose. The foresail was bent on, and she immedi- ately gave evidence of feeling it. A few backward strokes of the wheels urged her clear of the shoal, and she hung buoy- antly in deep water. But in the distance of a few ship's lengths the water suddenly shoaled again, and she was brought to anchor in five fathoms, with some little difficulty. The utter inefficiency of the pilots was again displayed by their de- claring that the channel was on the right of the shoal, when our own soundings the day previous had shown that it was on the left side. About eight o'clock, Mr. Bennett made his appearance in the cutter. He and his crew were benumbed with cold, hav* insr passed the whole night on the river. After running about twenty miles, he stood in toward Harvey's Point, at the north- ern extremity of Tsung-Ming, where the fleet was to have waited ; but on inquiring of some fishermen, learned that it had gone further up the river. About ten miles further, he fonnd the junks at anchor in a creek, on the southern bank 302 INDIA, CHOTA, AHD JAPAN. By the time they were collected together, it was ten o'clock at night. Capt. Potter and the comprador went on board tha boats, which were ordered to follow the cutter^ and return to the Susquehanna. They all got under way at the same time, bui in the darkness of the night the cutter soon lost sight of them She grounded repeatedly on the shoals, and finally got entangled among the bamboo fishing-stakes. The sea continu- ing to rise, and the gale to blow more violently, she waa obliged to come to anchor until morning, when she put off again and beat down to us. Capt. Buchanan and the Com- missioner decided, on hearing Mr. Bennett's report, that it was expedient to return to Woosung. The necessity of put- ting back was keenly regretted by all on board, but the ex- treme peril to which the vessel was exposed, in case the voy* age was continued, left no other alternative. We were obliged to wait for the first of the flood- tide, to run down to Woosung, which detained us until four o'clock. In the mean time, Capt. Potter and the comprador arrived with the other boats. The former reported that no dependence could be placed either on the chart or the Chinese pilots, and that the only way in which the Susquehanna could go up the river, would be to re- survey and buoy out the channel — a work which could not be accomplished in less than two weeks. The failure of our un- dertaking, the results of which promised to be of great interest and importance at the time, is another proof of the unfitness of large steam frigates for the service required in Chinese watera Two small, active steamers, such as the English possessed iu the Hermes and Salamander, would do more work than a score of unwieldy leviathans. We returned down the river the way we came, but on ap RETURN TO 8HAHOHAI. 303 proaching Woosung were again exposed to danger throngh the ignorance of the pilots. The water suddenly shoaled, in spite of their assertion that we were in the deep channel, and our hull touched just as the engines began to back water. We got off barely in time. The command having been given to let go the starboard anchor, a seaman, who was standing upon the port anchor, mistaking the order, and thinking it was about to drop with him, sprang into the river. He was picked up, however, with no other injury than a good drenching. The next morning we were delayed for some time in cross- ing the bar, by a large fleet of grain-junks, bound outward or their way to Pekin. A Portuguese lorcha, bearing the flag of the Taou-tai, passed us on her way up the Yang-tse-Kiang. The Susquehanna's hull touched on the bar, in two and three quarter fathoms, but the engines dragged us safely over. Within the bar lay a still larger fleet of junks, ready to pro- ceed to Pekin. Each of them had the words " Kiang-nan''' on the stern, — literally " South of the River," t. 0., the Yang- tse-Kiang. A handsome outward-bound junk bore the poetical name of the " Ocean Star." At noon we were again at Shanghai, and dropped anchor in the old position, in front of the American Consulate. So ended the expedition to Nanking. Note. — ^The Susquehanna made a second attempt to reach Nanking in the summer of 1854, after her return from Japan. She had on board th« Hon. Robert IVfLane, successor to Col. Marshal, as U. S. CommissioncT to China. On this occasion, the small steam-*-^ Confucius was employed ta run in advance of the Susqueaanna and sound out the channel. After passing 304 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. Blonde Shoal no serions difficnlty was experienced, a depth of from eight tc Berenteen fathoms having heen fonnd in the Yang-tse-Kiang, as far as Nanking. After the Commissioner had commnnicated with some of the rebel chiefs, and the object of the voyage was accomplished, a farther ex- ploration of the river was made as far as Wn-hn, a large town sixty mUei above Nanking. No foreign vessel had ever before advanced beyond th« latter city. The river was found to be everywhere broad and deep, flowing through superb valleys ; the soil was fertile and capable of supporting an immense population. The current was very swift, and the Susquehanna^ on her return, frequently ran at a speed of sixteen or seventeen knots. Hei appearance, especially in the regions beyond Nanking, created the greatesl astonishment among the Chinese, thousands of whom crowded the banks ai she passed. The voyage was completed with entire success, no aocicent of any kind having occurred CHAPTER XXV. A SHANGHAI JOURNAL. Lffe in Saanghal— The Rebels Expected— My Journal— The Fall of Nanking— The Grain Trade— Soo-Chow Threatened— Barbarities at Nanking— Rnmore Ck)ncern- Ine the Kebels— Capture of Lorch as— Threats towards Foreigners— Alarm of the Taou-tai— A Rebel Proclamation— Imperial Rewards and Pardons — Ck)L Marshall's Proclamation— Nanking Besieged by the Imperial Army— Flight from Shanghai- Sir George Bonham— Meetings of the Foreign Residents- Ransom for Shanghai— Soo-Chow not Taken— Uncertainty— Mr. Meadows at Soo-Chow— Defensive Worka Commenced— Trouble with the Men of Foo-Kien— Marauders in the Country- Burning of Thieves— The Foo-Kien Grave-yard— Desertion of the City— A Ru- mored Battle— Death of Tien-teh— Mr. Meadows— Various Rumors— Return of th« iScwnc^— Destruction of Chin-klang-foo— The Excitement Subsides. Afteb our inglorious return, the Embassy was again shifted to the American Consulate, and we became once more the guests of our kind friend, Mr. Cunningham. I was supplied with a room and the services of a young Chinese valet, and having, as etiquette prescribed, made the first calls upon the American and English residents, received in due course of time invitations to dinner in return. The presence of the Susque- hanna, with a fine band of music on board, was the occasion of a round of festivities, which were kept up with more or less energy, during the remainder of my stay. The presence of both the American and English Commissioners, and of five vessels of war at once, was an unusual event for Shanghai, and 306 INDIA, CHnrA, AND JAPAN. m spite of the rumored approach of the rebels, the ignoranoe of their disposition towards foreigners, and the anticipation ol \n assault, society there had never before been so gay and ani* mated. During the first fortnight of April, we were in almost daily expectation of the appearance of the vanguard of the rebel army. Each hour brought a new rumor, and each day led to conclusions and conjectures which the morrow proved to be un- founded. Although the true rebellion did not commence until some months afterwards, and the recollection of those days has doubtless been obliterated from the memories of the foreign residents of Shanghai, by the more stirring events which fol- lowed, they were suflBciently exciting and interesting at the time. I know no better way of giving a picture of the uncertainty of all news in China, than by transcribing a few pages from a journal which I kept at the time ; April 5th, 1858. At length we have positive news that Nanking has fallen. The Taou-tai of Shanghai admits it, which is a certain sign of Its correctness. The information was received yesterday by M. de Montigny, the French Consul, through the Catholic Missionaries at Nanking, but the fact was doubted by most of the merchants here until the Taou-tai confirmed it. In the final assault, 20,000 Tartars were slain. The streets were blocked up with corpses, and 1,000 cash each was paid by the victors for their removal. Twenty thousand rebel troops were left to garrison the city, and a body of 40,000 was dispatched to intercept the imperial troops on their way from Pekin, to Taise the siege. The rebels, it is said, will establish theii THE GRAIN TRADE— BOO-CHOW THREATENED. 30? capital at Nanking, and for the remainder of the year wil) content chemselves with consolidating their power in tht South and West. One circnmstance, which has operated in their favor, is the almost total destruction of the grain trade between the South and North, by means of the Grand Canal. This ha? been caused within a few years by inundation between the Yang-tse-Kiang and the Hoang-ho, which have damaged the Canal to such an extent as to render it impassable for the larger class of vessels. The immense transportations of grain, for the supply of the northern portion of China, which were formerly made entirely through this channel, are now trans- ferred to the coasting-junks, which sail at this season fron? Shanghai, Chapoo and Ningpo. The city of Soo-Chow, it is said, has paid a ransom of 700,000 taels, to be exempted from capture and pillage. There seems to be no doubt of this, as business is beginning to revive there, and several Soo-Cliow families, who had fled to this place, returned last night to their homes. It is not yet known whether a descent on Shanghai is meditated, but word reached us yesterday that Tien-teh does not intend to interfere in any way with foreigners in China. April m. Yesterday Mr. Forbes conversed with a native, who re tnmed in one of the Taou-tai's lorchas from Nanking. The man *s known tc the Americans here, who place full reliance on hie communication. He states that, after the taking of Nanking the city was given up to sack and slaughter, during three days and 20,000 Tartars — men, women and children — ^wer« massa ,^08 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN- cred The Viceroy was quartered and his remains nailed tc f\ie four gates of the city. Previous to his death his veins were opened and his blood made to flow into a large vessel of water which the conquerors drank. His daughter, a girl of nineteen was stripped in the public square, bound upon a cross, and her heart cut out. Many of the Tartar officers were thrown into boiling oil, or tied to stakes surrounded with bundles of oiled straw, and slowly roasted to deatL The recital of these atro- cities has aroused the utmost horror and indignation among the foreign residents. They were previously, almost to a man, disposed to rejoice at the success of the rebels. That the Viceroy has been slain, is beyond a doubt. CoL Marshall has received the news officially, through the Governor of Soo-chow, upon whom the functions of Viceroy now de- volve, and who is supposed to possess the seals ; though an- other account says they were lost at Nanking. The ransom paid by the merchants of Soo-Chow only exempts the city from pillage. The rebels announce their determination to attack it, and the gates have been closed for several days. The rumors afloat to-day are still more alarming. The re- bels are stated to be marching to Hang-Chow, a large city about midway between here and Ningpo, at the head of the intervening gulf. Their proclamations have been received by the Governor of Soong-Keang, a city only forty miles from this place, and it is also supposed that they have been private- Iv sent here, to the native merchants. Tien-teh was to hav€ been formally inaugurated as Emperor yesterday, at Nanking A.mong the tribute sent from Soo-Chow were 1,000 pieces of jrellow sillk to be used on the occasion. The Taou-tai this morning sent word that twenty of the CAPTURB OF LOBCHA& 309 torch as which he had dispatched to the relief of Nanking had fallen into the hands of the rebels ; who, he feared, having the papers in their possession, would attempt to pass the Cus torn House at Woosung under false colors, and gain possessioc .nf that port. A lorcha, which he had sent up a week ago with $100,000, came back with an acknowledgment of its re ception, signed by one of the rebel chiefs. It is reported that the captain, or supercargo, quietly delivered the money and took the receipt, thinking it was all right. The merchants here hinted to the Taou-tai that the sooner all his grain-junks were cleared for Pekin, the better, and he acted upon this sugges- tion. The river to-day was crowded with sails, and at least sixty or seventy junks dropped down to Woosung. There are still upwards of a thousand in port, and the foreigners are anxious that they should all be removed. In case of an attack they would undoubtedly be fired by the rebels, and set adrift to float down upon the foreign shipping. Mr. Meadows, the interpreter of the British embassy, has been informed by a Chinese banker that the rebels have ad- dressed the native inhabitants of Shanghai, bidding them be assured, as it is not them, but the foreign population, whom they intend to attack. After the rumors of Tien-teh's Chris- tianity and his pacific intentions towards foreigners, this news is' rather startling, but there may be some reason for crediting it. The fact that the foreigners here have received no communication from the rebels is in itself suspicious — the rastom of the latter having invariably been to send the pro- clamations in advance of their coming. Those who write upoi their doors the word " Obedience''^ are saved from pillage. 310 IKDIA, CHIUTA AKP JAP AH. Apttl Itk. Tliifl has been a day of excitement. About noon we re- ceived intelligence that an attack would certainly be made on Shanghai There were rumors of a proclamation which stated that the Chinese inhabitants had nothing to fear, but that the Taou-tai must be given up, as they intended to punish him for sending supplies to Nanking. The foreign residents would not be interfered with, provided they gave security not to carry od the opium trade. There are now vessels lying at Woosung laden with opium to the amount of $3,000,000. This rumor if true, would stir up the English to more active measures, Su George Bonham's avowed policy at present being a masterly inactivity. The Taou-tai is alarmed. He . called to-day upon the English and American Consuls. He denies that Soo-Chow is fallen, says his wives and treasures are still in the city, but that, on the approach of da-nger, he will remove them to the Custom House, in the tnidst of the foreign settlement. About three o'clock several English officers imagined they heard the report of cannon at Woosung. I mounted to the roof of the Consulate, whence the shipping at that port is discernible, but could perceive no signs of firing. However, the English deemed it expedient to land 140 men with three or four field- pieces, and had companies of armed sailors patrolling the streets in the evening. A document has at last been procured, which was taken from one of the gates of Soo-Chow. It is issued in the name of two of the rebel generals, declaring their intention to take Chin-Keang-foo, Soo-Chow, Hang-Chow, Soong-Keang and Shanghai The Mantchows, it says, are itterly annihilated. IMPi!;i..AL BKWARDS AND PARDONS. 811 and as for the foreigners, they are not human beings. The iD habitants of the three first-named cities have nothing to fear but all good Chinese residing in the two last should imme diately remove to the distance of 100 U (33 miles), until the army has passed through, as it is by no means certain that there will not be fighting at Shanghai. This document ex- plains the great panic of the Chinese to-day, and their hasty emigration from the city, which has been going on without in- terruption, from sunrise to the present hour (11p.m.). The streets are crowded with porters, carrying off chests and boxes of valuables. Mr. Taylor, an American Missionary, showed me some translations from the Pekin Gazette, from which it is evident I hat the Imperial Court, is in great consternation. The Em- peror declares his anxiety is so great that he can neither eat nor sleep. The capture of Woo-Chang-foo and Ngan-King is announced, but no mention is made of the siege of Nanking. The Taou-tai of this place is to be promoted for his loyalty. Several Generals, who ivere slain hy the rebels, are promoted to the rank of Governor, and others who ran away, but died after- wards, are, on that account, absolved from the punishment due to their cowardice ! So imbecile and absurd a Court as that of China never before governed a great Empire. Its duration or overthrow is a matter of complete indifference. Col. Marshall drew up a proclamation this evening, to be issued by the representatives of France and America, since Sir George Bonham refuses to co-operate. It is a brief but forcible paper, declaring that, security of life and property having been assured to the citizens of both countries on the faith of trea ties with the Emperor of China, no invading army could be 312 INDIA, CHIHA, AND JAPAN. permitted to occupy the foreign settlement here, or exact a tribute from the inhabitants. Furthermore, that the pillag« of Shanghai would endanger the foreign residents, and would be resisted. With regard to the contest now waging, a strict and impartial neutrality would be preserved. It is proposed to forward this proclamation to the rebels to-morrow. April ^th. Yesterday a dispatch was received, to the effect that Nan- king had been invested by the Imperial troops, and that the re- bel forces had gone back from Soo-Chow for its relief. It was addressed to the Taou-tai by Heang-Yung, a Tartar General who appears to hav^e acted bravely at the taking of Woo-Chang- foo. According to the proclamation of the Taou-tai, this gen- eral arrived before Nankin on the 31st of March, in advance of the main body of the Imperial troops. He calls upon the inhabitants of the province not to be alarmed, as the rebels will be exterminated to a man. Now the proclamation of Lo and Wang, the two rebel generals, states that Tien-teh was crowned Emperor at Nanking on the 31st of March, and it is unlikely that both events occurred at the same time. Notwith- Btanding the proclamation of the Taou-tai the emigration from the city, yesterday, was more active than ever. The hund (quay) and streets were crowded with porters, conveying the goods and treasures of the wealthy class, who are flying for refuge to the villages in the country. No proclamation has yet been issued by the foreign repre- sentatives. Sir George Bonham yesterday sent around the draft 3f one, which differed in no material point from that of CoL Marshall, except that it was more diffuse, and carefully avoided MEETINGS OF THE FOEEIGN RESIDENTS. 313 speaking of the rebel forces. In order to secure the consent of all to a single declaration, Col. Marshall amalgamated the two but Sir George still refuses to co-operate. M. de Montignj has subscribed to the American proclamation, which will pro bably be issued this morning. The English still keep a bodj of armed sailors on shore, and on board all the vessels of war the usual drill with small arms is carried on every day. Yesterday afternoon the English and American residenti met at their respective Consulates to adopt measures of defence Twenty-seven Americans came together and discussed the mat ter, in true American style : each one wanted to have his own way, and only ten subscribed to Mr. Cunningham's proposals that a company should be formed, armed and exercised. Sev- eral of the Missionaries were quite ready to enter into this arrangement, and one of them, who is a graduate of West Point, offered to undertake the task of drilling them. The English acted with more unanimity, and the most of them subscribed their names to a similar proposal. The Chinese merchants of Shanghai have made up the sum of 83-10,000 for the ransom of the city. Yesterday a deputation from them was sent off to Tien-teh, to remain with him as hostages for the payment, until the city shall be taken. It is said that the Taou-tai himself subscribed largely to the sum. Several of the " long-haired rebels" are reported to be in the city, and there is no doubt that their spies are al- ready here. Fifteen hundred desperadoes from the province of Foo-Kien are waiting the mom'^nt of attack, to commence pillaging ; but the Chinese who now remain have the impre* Bion that the Americans and French will defend the city. U 314 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. Jpyil lOth. We have now come to the conclusion that for the present we have no reason to fear an attack on Shanghai. The armj which was marching upon Soo-Chow has not yet made its ap- pearance before that city, having probably gone back to raise the siege of Nanking. Since the Taou-tai's proclamation no further news has been received, but the foreign residents are satisfied that they are safe for at least ten days longer. The Chinese continue to flock out of the city, though not to such an extent as during the previous two days. Now, since the alarm has subsided, the English have begun to adopt active measures of defence. Yesterday afternoon they had forty or fifty sailors at work, throwing up a three-gun redoubt, at the northern end of the race-course. The sailors and marines were drilled in artillery practice at the same time, on the green in the centre of the course. To-day the news of the advance of the Imperial army apon Nanking is confirmed. Mr. Meadows left here last night at midnight, for the rebel camp, disguised as a Chinaman. He took along a European dress, to wear after arriving, and is un- derstood to possess an order from the Taou-tai to the local authorities on the road, to facilitate his progress. April ISth. We are still in the same delightful state of uncertainty, m regard to the future. The rebels and the Imperial forces commanded severally by Tien-teh and Heang-Yuen, have met, and, accordiiLg to Chinese custom, appointed day before yester« day for the battle : so that we may expect to hear something in two days more — but it is too much to hope that we will gel DEFENSIVE WORKS. 3lg fche truth, or any tking near it. On Monday evening, a lettei was received from Mr. Meadows, who has reached Soo-Chow He found the city perfectly tranquil. The deputation of mer- chants commissioned to take the ransom to Tien-teh, had re- turned after proceeding as far as Chin-Kiang-foo, where they found a body .a the Imperial troops. They were obliged to hasten back, to prevent the ransom from falling into the wrong hands. This corroborates the report of the rebels having re- treated from Chin-Kiang-foo and fallen back upon Nanking, in order to concentrate their strength for an encounter with Heang- Yuen's army. Meanwhile the work of defence goes on. The English have taken it upon themselves to construct a double ditch from Soo-Chow creek across to the north-western angle of the city wall, covering the rear of the foreign settlement. An attack, if made at all, will most probably be made from the native city, across a creek which is commanded by the big guns of the Susquehanna. At a meeting held at the English Consu- late yesterday, the resident merchants decided to bear the ex- penses of the work. Several hundred coolies have been em- ployed upon the ditch, which is a slight affair, that would not resist a charge of European cavalry, but may prove sufficient against Chinese, The breastwork runs directly across the race-course, and to-day has reached the graveyard of the men of Foo-Kien, a body of whom came to stop proceedings. The Chinese have a great regard for the graves of their ancestors, which, indeed, are the only objects for which ihey exhibit the least reverence. These Foo-Kien people are a fierce, disorder ly set, and the natives of Shanghai are in great dread of them. The assistant Engineer of the English steamer Salaynande^ 316 INDIA, CHINA, AHD JAPAN. mysteriouslj disappeared two days ago, and has not returned When last seen on Monday night, he was quarrelling witli some Foo-Kien boatmen, and it is now surmised that thej murdered him. Several dead bodies have floated down tb€ river within % few days. We hear already of bands of marauders in the vicinity. The magistrates of the difl"erent districts have formed a league for their protection, and have resolved to burn alive any man who is caught plundering. Two cases have occurred with- in a few days. On Monday a band of forty robbers entered a village about two miles from here and demanded a quantity of ricfc from the inhabitants — which was paid. Two of the men, however, lingered behind, and demanded of one of the villagers that they should be paid 20,000 cash (about $14), The man said he had but 8,000 cash in the house, which he would give them. While pretending to get it he found means to whisper to a coolie, who went out and summoned the people. The house was surrounded, the robbers taken and condemned to be burned. One of them was placed beneath the pile, and se- curely bound. The other was laid upon the top, and several times burst the cords which held him and sprang from the flames. He was relentlessly dragged back, until all power of resistance was lost. In a village about ten miles from here, four Canton men were found plundering a pawnbroker's shop, and suffered the same horrible fate. In every village is sus- pended a gong, which is to be sounded in case of an attack. It is from these bands of desperadoes that the older residenta anticipate trouble. The Mission Establishment beyond Soo* Chow creek has been furnished with arms by Capt. Buchanan, and its inmates keep up a watch at night. Mr. Yates, of the TROUBLE WITH THE MEN OF FOO-KIBN 31Y Baptist Mission, who had placed his family on board one of the merchant vessels, has returned to his house. In passing through the city yesterday, I noticed many streets which were almost entirely deserted. Mr. Shortrede, the Editor of the Frie^id of China, who came down from the hills two days ago, met two hundred boats on their way to Soo-Chow, laden with people and property. April nth. The difficulty with, the Foo-Kien men has not yet been settled. On the Chinese coolies being prevented by a band of them from digging up the graves, the English brought a field- piece, loaded it, and threatened to fire in case they did not retire. For a time they dispersed, but soon returned in much greater numbers. It is now said that they have decided to allow the breastwork to be thrown up, in case pledges are given by the English, that when the danger is over the earth shall be restored to its former place. This demand will be complied with and the work will proceed, but as the embankments are made upon the line of a proposed road which the merchants have been endeavoring to open, it may be doubted whether the latter will keep faith with the men of Foo-Kien. On my visit to some American Missionaries in the city yesterday, I was struck with its air of desolation. There are streets where hardly a house is inhabited. Where we found crowds on oui first arrival, there is now scarcely a single soul to be seen. I have no doubt that 50,000 persons have emigrated from th« sity within the past two or three weeks. News reached us yesterday, that a battle had been fonghl 318 INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN. before the walls of Nanking, in which the advantage rested with the Imperial troops. Great numbers were slain on both sides^ and the revolutionary army had retired within the walls. A letter was also received from Mr. Meadows, who is still at Soo- Chow, where he intends remaining. He repeats the stories which had already reached us, with the additional fact that Tien-teh is actually dead, as was surmised by some, and that the name of the present chief is Tae-ping. Mr. Meadows ap pears in European costume, and has received no molestation. He has put himself in connection with the mandarins, and expects to be protected. The celebrated pagodas on Golden Island in the Yang-tse-Kiang, opposite Chin-Kiang-foo, are said to have been entirely destroyed by the rebels, and all the Buddhist priests beheaded. If this be true, the library of Chinese Literature on the island—one of the most valuaHe in the Empire— has probably perished also. April 11th. Flying rumors from Nanking, favorable to the rebels, now begin to reach us. It is quite evident, from the tenor of the various reports, that the Imperialists have at least gained no success. An intelligent Chinaman, who was on board one of the Taou-tai's lorchas, in the neighborhood of Nanking, states that the accounts we had received of the valor of Heang-Yuen, the Tartar general, are without foundation. The people have unbounded confidence in the rebels, whom he represents as just and humane in their dealings with them. Heang-Yuen, he says, keeps aloof and avoids giving battle. A native m^ssengei dispatched by the Eev. ^Ir. Taylor, about two weeks ago, re RETURN OF THE BARK "SCIENCE." 319 turned yesterday, having succeeded in reaching Xanking. His account is greatly exaggerated; he says there are 500- 000 Tarter troops around Nanking, and an equal number of rebels within the walls. The latter never intended to have advanced upon Shanghai, and the report of their march to- wards Soo-Chow after the taking of Xanking was occasioned by the flight of the Imperial troops in that direction. The American bark Science, despatched by the Taou-tai to the relief of the Imperial fleet, arrived at Woosung on Thurs- day night, andCapt.Roundy was here at breakfast yesterday morning. He only ascended the Yang-tse-Kiang seventy-five miles, and attributes his difficulties entirely to the Chinese pilots. There is water enough for the largest vessels in the channel, which, however, is narrow and tortuous. A letter was received last night from Capt. Bush, of the schooner Dewariy which had reached Chin-Kiang-foo. He states that he had landed and walked through the city, which was entirely deserted — not a soul to be seen. The inhabitants had all gone to Nanking, but under what circumstances, he does not inform us. A letter was also received from Mr. Meadows, who had been deserted by all his servants, and was unable to procure % boat to proceed further. The foreign residents now no longer apprehend an attack, but the native merchants are still in a state of alarm. The period covered by these extracts from my journal was the most exciting portion of my residence at Shanghai After the first alarm had subsided, the fugitive Chinese returned, trade resumed its usual course, and the place enjoyed severs months of comparative quiet. During the following yeai 320 DTDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAK. 1854, however, all that we had anticipated in the spnng of 1853 actually came to pass. The city fell into the hands of the rebels, and the defence the foreign merchants had thrown up as a protection against them, served, singularlj enough, to protect themselves from the assaults of the Tm perialists. CHAPTER XXVI A CHINESE PBOMEKADE. Chinese smd Foreigners at Shanghai — Situation of the City — A Chinese Pioirenade- Burylng-Grounds— Money for the Dead — A Baby Tower— The Nlngpo Hooa©- Coffins— Chinese Gypsies— A Street of the Suburbs— The City Gate— A Chines* Pawnbroker's Shop — A Temple — The Statue of Boodh — A Priest at his Devotioni — Stenches of the Streets— Beggars — Shops — View of the Tea-Garden- Chinese Gamblers — An Artistic Mountebank — The Baptist Chapel — Scene from its Tower — The Hills— Fanciful Signs — Missionary Labors in China — Apathy of the People— A Chinese Residence — The Library— The City Prison— Torture of the Prisoners— A Bath House— Character of the Mongol Form— The Tutelar Deity of Shanghai— Boodh at Sunset— Kite Flying. During the two weeks chronicled in the foregoing journal notwithstanding the warlike excitement which was more or less shared by all, I devoted several days to visiting the Chinese city and the points of interest in its environs. Unlike Canton and the other cities of the South, Shanghai is thrown open without restriction to the foreigner, and he may even wander unmolested for a distance of thirty or forty miles into the interior. The natives there, instead of despising the " out- side barbarians," look up to them with profound respect ; the cry of ^^ Fan-kwei / ^^ (foreign devil !) which pursues you in Canton, is never heard in the streets ; the stupid faces of the 14^ 322 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. populace are turned towards you with an expression of good will, and there is no hindrance whatever to your studies of the peculiarities of Chinese character and habits. I was soon quite satisfied with the extent of my observations. Superficia. as they were, I found nothing in the subject sufficient to tempi me into a further endurance of the disgusting annoyances of a Chinese city. I shall ask the reader's patience during th^ promenade on which I propose to take him, since it is for the first and last time. The scenes we shall witness are curious, in spite of their disagreeable features, and a conscientious trav- eller must describe things as he sees them. But, first let me give some necessary details of the topography of Shanghai The city lies upon the right bank of the Whang-po (or, as it is called by foreigners, the Woosung) River, about fourteen milea above its junction with the Yang-tse-Kiang. The river here makes a sharp bend to the south, so that the city faces the east. The Chinese town, which is walled, is in the form of a semi' circle, with its chord upon the river. It is about five miles in circumference, and contains a population of 300,000. To the north of this, and separated from it by a small creek, is tha foreign settlement, which extends along the river for three- quarters of a mile. The houses are large and handsome, fre- quently good examples of the simpler forms of the Palladian style, and surrounded by gardens. Along the water is a broad quay, called the " bund,^^ (from an Indian word,) which is tlie evening resort of the residents, and the great centre of business and gossip. The foreign community, exclusive of the mission- aries, consists of about 170 persons, 14 of whom are ladies. It is, beyond dispute, the most cheerful, social and agreeable community in China. BURYING-GROUNDS ^MONET FOR FHE DEAD. 323 I was greatly indebted to the Rev. Charles Taylor, of tha Methodist, and the Rev. M. T. Yates, of the Baptist Mission for pilotage through the mazes of Shanghai, and explanations of the many curious scenes we witnessed by the way. Although it required several short excursions to make me familiar with the objects which most interest the stranger, I hope, in the course of one extended walk, to bring them all under the reader^s notice, so that there will be no necessity for again taking him within the city walls. Leaving the American Consulate, we proceed westward along the banks of a little creek, lined with willow trees. Beyond the limits of the settlement we come upon exten- sive burying-grounds, where rank grass and weeds hide the tombstones, centuries old. These places are sacred, and though the dead have long been forgotten, and their families become extinct, no one dares to interfere with the soil under which they rest. In the midst of one of these neglected cem- eteries, stands a horse, of the natural size, sculptured in gray granite. On many of the tombs are heaps of silvered paper, made into the form of ingots of sycee silver, which are car- ried there and burnt, for the purpose of paying the expenses of the dead, in the other world. The usual order of things is reversed in this case, and what is merely the shadow here, be- comes the substantial silver there. Judging from the quanti- ties consumed, the dead must live in a most extravagant style. Between the graves and the city wall stands a low building, in » clump of cedar trees. This is one of the " Baby Towers," of which there are several near the city. All infants who die inder the age of one year are not honored with burial, but done up in a package, with matting and cords, and thrown into 324 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. the tower, or rather well, as it is sunk some distance below the earth. The top, which rises about ten feet above the ground, is roofed, but an aperture is left for casting in the bodies. Looking into it, we see that the tower is filled nearlj to the roof with bundles of matting, from which exhales a pestilent effluvium. Some distance further, near the north-western angle of the city wall, we reach the " Ningpo House," as it is called, a beneficial institution of an interesting character. It was hmli and is supported by a club of Shanghai merchants and traders, who are natives of Ningpo, for the purpose of afi'ord ing relief to those of their countrymen who may become des- titute, and taking charge of the bodies of those who die. It is a collection of low buildings, principally of stone, and se- parated by paved court-yards into the different departments which it embraces. In one part we find the aged and infirm furnished with food and shelter, both of the plainest kind; in another we enter what appears to be a great coffin ware- house, but is in fact a repository of dead bodies. The ponderous coffins of poplar or sycamore plank, stained of a dark red color, and covered in some instances with gilded hieroglyphics, are ranged in compartments, according to the sex and time of decease of the occupant. They are thus kept for three years, wheti, if not reclaimed by their relatives at Ningpo and trans- ported thither for burial, they are deposited in a cemetery ad- joinmg the buildings. The bodies are firmly packed in fine lime, which prevents any exhalations from the coffins. We should not suspect that in the warehouse through which we pass there are upwards of a hundred corpses, some of whicli have been there nearlv the whole of the allotted time There CHINESE GYPSIES. 325 are several other beneficial institutions of a similar character ic Shanghai, and their provisions appear to be carried out with fidelity and conscientiousness. In each of the establishments there is a hall hung with lanterns, and usually containing the idol of one of their gods, wherein the Directors meet, to smoke, drink tea, and discuss their affairs. Not far from the Ningpo House, there is a camp of Chinese Gypsies. These outcasts have little in common with the Gypsies of Europe and the East. They are of pure Mongolian blood, and only resemble the former in their wandering habits, their distinct social government, and their mendicity, which constitutes, in fact, almost their only means of support. Their degradation is almost without parallel, and I doubt if there be any thing in human nature more loathsome than their appear- ance. Here they are, on this bleak hillock, over which a few stunted cedars are scattered. Their lairs — for they cannot be called tents — of filthy matting are not more than four feet high, and barely large enough to contain two persons. They are built upon the cold, wet earth, with perhaps a little straw to protect the bodies of the inmates. Two or three stones and a heap of ashes, on the side of the hill, are all their domestic ap- pliances. As we approach, a wild head, with long, tangled hair, and deep-set, glaring black eyes, is thrust out from each ol the lairs. Some lie still, merely following us with their gaze, like a beast surprised in his den ; others crawl out, displaying garments that are dropping to pieces from sheer rottenness, and figures so frightfully repulsive and disgusting, that we move away repenting that we have disturbed this nest of human vermin We now enter an outer street, leading to the northern gata of the city. It is narrow, paved witl^ rough stones, and carpeted 526 INDIA. CHINA^ Ain) JAPAN. with a deposit of suft mud. The houses on either hand are ol wood, two stories high, and have a dark, decaying air. The lower stories are shops, open to the street, within which the pig-tailed merchants sit behind their counters, and look at o« out of the corners of their crooked eyes, as we go by. The streets are filled with a crowd of porters, water-carriers, and other classes of the laboring population, and also, during the past week or two, with the families and property of thousands of the inhabitants, who are flying into the country, in anticipa- tion of war. At the corners of the streets are stands for the sale of fruit and vegetables, the cheaper varieties of which can be had in portions valued at a single cash — the fifteenth part of a cent. A bridge of granite slabs crosses the little stream of which I have already spoken, and after one or two turnings we find ourselves at the city gate. It is simply a low stone arch, through a wall ten feet thick, leading into a sort of bastion for defence, with an inner gate. Within the space is a guard- house, where we see some antiquated instruments, resembling pikes and halberds, leaning against the wall, but no soldiers. A manifesto issued by the Taou-tai — ^probably some lying re- port of a victory over the rebels — is pasted against the inner gate, and there is a crowd before it, spelling out its black and vermilion hieroglyphics. Turning to the left, we advance for a short distance along the inside of the waU, which is of brick, about twenty feet thick, with a notched parapet. Carefully avoiding the heaps of filth and the still more repulsive beggars that line the path, we reach a large, blank building, about two hundred feet square. This is a pawnbroker's shop — ^for the Chinese are civ- ilized enough for that- -and well worth a visit. Th^ front fen 327 tJfance admits us into the office, where the manager and his at fcendants are busily employed behind a high counter, and a crowd of applicants fills the space in front. We apply foi permission to inspect the establishment, which is cheerfully granted ; a side-door is opened, and we enter a long range of store-houses, filled to the ceiling with every article of a Chinese household or costume, each piece being folded up se- parately, numbered and labelled. One room is appropriated wholly to the records, or books registering the articles deposited. There are chambers containing thousands of pewter candle- sticks ; court-yards piled with braziers ; spacious lofts, stuffed to the ceiling with che cotton gowns and petticoat-pantaloons of the poorer classes, and chests, trunks, boxes and other cabinet- ware in bewildering quantities. At a rough estimate, I should say that tnere are at least 30,000 costumes ; when we asked the attendant the number, he shrugged his shoulders and said: '* Who could count them ? " There are three or four other establishments, of nearly similar magnitude, in the city. They are regulated by the Government, and are said to be con- ducted in a fair and liberal spirit. At the next angle of the wall stands an old Boodhist temple, brfore the door of which lie two granite lions, broken and overthrown. Squatted on a pedestal within is a gilded idol, about five feet high, while in recesses on either hand are the guardians or watchers of the temple — gigantic figures, armed with swords, and glittering with the gaudiest colors of the Chinese pallet. We pass through this vestibule and ascend a flight of steps to an inner temple, where the god appears in colossal form, and in spite of his slack hands fallen on his knees, his heavy, hanging abdomen, his bloated cheeks, and thi ft28 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. good-humored silliness of his face, his appearance is at leasl respectable. Any colossal representation of the human body, if not an intentional caricature, is to a certain degree majestic and impressive; and though the Chinese Boodh stands, in rank of idolship, far below the Indian Brahma and the grand Egyptian Amun-Re, one cannot flout him to his face. In a chamber adjoining this we find a female divinity — the Queen of Mercy — whose Chinese title I forget. Hearing a continual thumping noise in the room beyond, we push open the door and surprise a Boodhist priest at his devotions. He is seated at a table with a book open before him, from which he is chanting prayers with a monotonous, drawling tone, while with one hand he thumps incessantly with a small wooden hammer upon a hollow drum of the same material. This drum is called by the same name as the great fish upon which the earth rests, and which its sound soothes into quiet. When, at any time, even for a minute, there is no drum beaten throughout the whole world, the fish at once becomes uneasy, and his contortions occasion earthquakes. The priest wears a yellow robe, his skin is yellow, his head is shaven bald, his face is puckered with wrinkles, and altogether he is one of the oddest and funniest old men that ever was seen. He looks up, nods, with a queer twinkle in his eyes, looks down again, and up again, but never once pauses in his chanting or his thumping. We now take a street which strikes into the heart of the eity, and set out for the famous " Tea Gardens." The pavement is of rough stones, slipperv with mud, and on one side of the itreet is a ditch filled witn black, stagnant slime, from which arises the fouiest smell. Porters, carrying buckets of offal^ brush past us ; public cloacw stand open at the comers, and STENCHES OF THE STREETS ^BfiaGAKS. 329 the clw«(Jies and persons of the unwashed laborers and beggars distil a reeking compound of still more disagreeable exhala tions. Ooleridge says of Cologne : ** I counted two and seyenty etenches, All well defined — and several stinks ; " but Shanghai, in its horrid foulness, would be flattered by such a description. I never go within its walls but with a shudder and the taint of its contaminating atmosphere seems to hang about me like a garment long after I have left them. Even in the country, which now rejoices in the opening spring, all the freshness of the season is destroyed by the rank ammoniated odors arising from pits of noisome manure, sunk in the fields. Having mentioned these things, I shall not refer to them again ; but if the reader would have a correct description of Shanghai, they cannot be wholly ignored. It requires some care to avoid contact with the beggars who throng the streets, and we would almost as willingly touch a man smitten with leprosy, or one dying of the plague. They take their stations in front of the shops, and supplicate with a loud, whining voice, until the occupant purchases their de- parture by some trifling alms ; for they are protected by the law in their avocation, and no man dare drive them forcibly from his door. As we approach the central part of the city, the streets become more showy and a trifle cleaner. The shops are large and well arranged, and bright red signs, covered with golden inscriptions, swing vertically from the eaves. All the richest shops, however, are closed at present, and not a piece ol the celebrated silks of Soo-Ohow, the richest in China, is to be fouu^ 11 the city. The manufactures m jade-stone, carved 330 IMDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. bamboOj and the furniture of Ningpo, inlaid with ivory and boxwood, are still to be had in profusion, but they are more curious than elegant. Indeed, I have seen no article of Chinese workmanship which could positively be called beautiful, unless it was fashioned after a European model. Industry, perse- rerance, and a wonderful faculty of imitation belong to these people ; but they are utterly destitute of original taste. The " Tea Garden" is an open space near the centre of the city, devoted to the recreation of the populace. In the midst of a paven square is a pool of greenish, stagnant water, in which stands a building of two stories, with the peaked, curved, overhanging roofs, which we always associate with Chinese ar- chitecture. It is reached by bridges which cross the water in curious zigzag lines, so that you walk more than double the actual distance. On the opposite side are several similar build- ings, surrounded by masses of artificial rock-work, but the only token of a garden is a pair of magnolia trees, clothed in the glory of their fragrant, snowy blossoms. Every body remem- bers the old-fashioned plates of blue Liverpool ware, with a representation of two Chinese houses, a willow tree, a bridge with three Chinamen walking over it, and two crows in the air. These plates give a very good representation of the Tea Garden, which is a fair sample of what is most picturesque in Chinese life. The buildings are tea-houses, and on entering we find them filled with natives of all classes, drinking strong decoctions of the herb, and smoking their slender pipes of bamboo, with bowls about the size of a lady's thimble. The tea is prepared in enormous pots suspended over furnaces of clay. The master of the house shows us a vacant table, but we de- tline his hint, and pass out to view the crowds in the square CHINBSE MOUNTEBANKS. 331 Here is a man leading a white goat with only three lega prhich he wishes to sell, but on a careful examination we per- ceive that one of the fore legs has been neatly amputated while the animal was young. There are half a dozen gaming tables, each surrounded by its crowd of players and spectators. The Chinese are inveterate gamblers, and as the stakes at many of these tables are as low as a single cash, few are so poor that they cannot make a venture. One of the methods has some resemblance to the "little jokers," so well known at our race courses. The player has three sticks, the ends of which are thrust through his fingers. There is a hole through each of the other ends, which are held in his hand; a cord is passed through one of them, and the play consists in guessing which one, as the cord may be transferred from one to the other by a quick movement of the fingers. I put a " cash'' on the board, make a guess, and win a cake of suspicious-look- ing candy, which I give to the nearest boy, to the great merri- ment of th'i bystanders. There are also stands for the sale of pea-nuts, reminding us of the classic side-walks of Chatham street, and for the sake of Young America, we must invest a few cash in his favorite fruit. But here is an entertainment oi an entirely novel character. A man seated on the pavement, holds in his hand a white porcelain tile, about a foot square. This he overspreads with a deep-blue color, from a sponge dipped in a thin paste of indigo, and asks us to name a flowei I suggest the lotus. He extends his fore-finger — a most re- narkable fore-finger, crooked, flexible as an elephant's trunk, and as sha'-p as if the end had been whittled off — gives three oi four quick dashes across the tile, and in ten seconds or less to ! there is the flower exquisitely drawn and shaded, its snowy 332 INDIA, CHINA, AlTD JAPAN. cup hanging in the midst of its long swaying leaves. Three more strokes, and a white bird with spread wings, hovers ovei it; two more, and a dog stands beside it. The rapidity and precision of that fore-finger seem almost miraculous. He covers the tile with new layers of color, and flower after flowei 8 dashed out of the blue ground. The Chapel of the Baptist Mission is in a street near the Tea Garden, and its tower, about seventy feet high, affords an excellent panoramic view of the city and surrounding country. Looking aown upon the city, we see nothing but a mass of peaked roofs, covered with tiles which are blackened by age, and here and there the open courts and heavier architecture of temples. The serrated line of the wall surrounds it, and the rich alluvial land extends wide beyond, dotted with vil- lages, clumps of cedar, groves of fruit-trees, or the mounds of ancient cemeteries. The broad river winds through the cen tre of the landscape, and the number of junks gliding over its surface with their square sails spread to the east wind, give animation to the scene. In front of the city they are an- chored in a dense mass a mile in length, and numbering not ess than two thousand. The din of gongs and drums and the sputtering of fire-crackers, burnt to secure the aid of the wa- ter-gods, reaches us at this distance. Eight or nine miles up the river stands a tall pagoda, and as the air is clear to-day the summits of "The Hills,*' as they are caled by the foreigD esidents, are faintly visible in the west. These hills, which ire a favorite resort of foreigners during the hot season, are twenty-five miles distant. They are the first range which breaki the vast level of the plains, and command a view of the large FANCIFUL SIGNS. 333 town of Soong-Keang in the interior, and the country stretch bg toward Soo-Chow. Looking to the river, our eyes are attracted by a large tea- srarehouse, on the wall of which are painted four enormouf characters. Our missionary friend interprets them as signify- ing " The Place of Heavenly prepared Leaves." In the fanci- ful and figurative character of their signs, the Chinese remind as of the Arabic races. There is a shop for the sale of sam- shoo, or rice-whiskey, in Hong-Kong, which bears over its door the following inscription : " The joys of Paradise are nothing but a state of perpetual intoxication ! " The announcements of vessels up for California are headed with the enticing call : ' To the Golden Mountains I " Notwithstanding the efforts of many zealous and devoted missionaries who have been sent to China, the number of genu- ine converts is very limited. The Chinese nature appears to be so thoroughly passive, that it is not even receptive. A sort of listless curiosity leads them to fill the chapels of the mis- sionaries, and to gather in crowds around those who preach in the public places, but when the exhortation is finished, away they go, without the least ripple of new thought in the stag- nant waters of their minds. The mental inertia of these people seems to be almost hopeless of improvement. Even while the present rebellion is going on — a struggle which, one would sup- pose, would enlist their sympathies, if a single spark of patriot- ism or ambition remained — the great mass of the people main- tain the most profound apathy. Some advocate of universal peace has cited China as the example of a nation which hae luccessfully pursued a pacific policy ; but I say, welcome he the thunder-storm which shall scatter and break up, though by S3 4 INDIA, CHINA, AHD JAPAN. the mdans of fire and blood, this terrible stagnation I Wh would not exclaim with Tennyson: •' Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." But we are curious to inspect the dwelling of a Chinaman of the better class, and our friend, who is fortunately able to assist us, conducts us to the house of a wealthy old merchant. It is a stone building, recently erected, and every thing about it indicates great neatness, and an approach to taste in the owner. In the open verandahs are boxes of the mau-tan, or rose-scented peony, with gorgeous white and crimson blossoms, and the lan-whei^ a water-plant of an orchideous nature, with a long spike of yellowish-green flowers. The mavrtan also decorates the rooms, which are hung with laiitemL, of stained glass. The furniture is of wood, of a stiff, uncomfortable pat- tern, but elaborately carved. The owner, an urbane polite old gentleman, regales us with cups of stewed tea, whose delicate aroma compensates for the absence of milk and sugar, and asks us up stairs into his library. The shelves are covered with Chinese works, bound in their wooden covers, and in the centre of the room stands a bronze frame, with three apertures at the top, and a bundle of arrows. The latter are the implements of a game which the host explains to us, by taking the arrows to the further end of the room, seizing one by the tip of the shaft with his thumb and fore-fijiger, and throwing it so as to fall into one of the small circular openings of the frame. We try a game, whereof the victory, owing to his more extensive practice, remains with him. Toward the northern side of the city is the prison. On each side of the outer gate is painted the figure of an avenging A CHIINE8E PRISOJU- livinity, whose black face and glaring eyeballs strike terroi into the minds of the natives. This gate gives admittance to a quadrangular court, surrounded by ranges of cages or cells, wherein the prisoners are subjected to different degrees of punishment, according to their crimes. Some are in chambers divided by strong bamboo gratings ; others at large, with heavy shackles fastened to their legs; and the more criminal cases are confined separately in narrow cages, which bind them in the smallest and most cramped space, with their knees drawn up to their chins. Their heads project through holes in the top, and as we pass, their faces are turned to us with a wild, haggard look of suffering. Some of them have been kept for weeks, immovable in those frames of torture, and their condition is too horrible for description. The cell adjoining that in which they lie, and divided from it only by some bamboo stakes, is the one appropriated by the Chinese authorities for foreign pris- oners. On the beams are carved a number of names, princi- pally German, and probably those of refractory sailors. The English G-overnment, in those ports where the Consul possesses judicial authority— as in China, Turkey, and the Barbary States— always erects a separate prison for the confinement of English subjects. Our Government, however, from an admira- ble economy, prefers thrusting its citizens into these loathsome dens, the condition and associations of which increase tenfold the horrors of imprisonment. A few days ago the entire crew of an Amerian vessel in port passed a night in the very cell before us. On our way to the city wall we pass one of the public baths, and curiosity induces us to step in. The building is low, damp and dirty, and filled with a rank, steamy, uncleai 336 IITOIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. fttmoDphere. It consists of three apartments, in one of which the bathers undress, bathe in the next, and lounge smoking on the benches, in an unembarrassed state of nudity, in the third, A.S it is towards evening, they belong mostly to the lower classes, and look quite as filthy after the bath as before. Th< water is not changed throughout the day, and its appearance and condition may perhaps be imagined. The small tank is filled in the morning, and kept heated by a farnace under it The price of a bath diminishes in proportion as the water gets dirty, until, in the evening, it falls to a single cash (the fifteenth part of a cent). By holding my breath, I remain in the dark, reeking den, long enough to see two yellow forms immersed in the turbid pool, and then rush out stifled and nauseated. Among the bathers in the outer room there are several strong, muscular figures, but a total want of that elegant symmeti-y which distinguishes the Caucasian and Shemitic races. They are broad-shouldered and deep-chested, but the hips and loins are clumsily moulded, and the legs have a coarse, clubby character. We should never expect to see such figures assume the fine, free attitudes of ancient sculpture. But here, as every where, the body is the expression of the spiritual nature. There is no sense of what wc understand by Art — Grace, Har- mony, Proportion — in the Chinese nature, and therefore we look in vain for any physical expression of it. De Quincey, who probably never saw a Chinaman, saw this fact with the elairvoyant eye of genius, when he said : " If I were con- demned to live among the Chinese, I should go mad." Thii is a strong expression, but I do not hesitate to adopt it. Before terminating this long and, perhaps, wearisome ram* ble, let ns enter the great temple of the tutelar divinity d/ BOODH AT BUHSET. 337 Shanghai. The obese idol, cross-legged, and with bis hand#^ upon his knees, is fifteen feet high, and seated upon a pedestai of about twelve feet. He is gilded from head to foot, and' looms grandly through the dusk of the lofty hall. On each side are the gilded statues of nine renowned Chinese saint? and sages— eighteen in all— of the size of life. The sacred drum, four or five feet in diameter, and raised on a prop of heavy timbers, stands on one side of the entrance, and the great bell — e universal feature of Boodhist temples— on the other. We beat the drum and strike the bell with a mallet, until the temple rings with a peal of barbaric sound. The priesta look on, smiling, for the act is not one of irreverence, but of devotion, in their eyes, and while we are amusing ourselves, we do homage to the great Boodh. The broad interior of the temple is dusky with the evening shadows, when the last red beam of sunset, falling through an upper window, strikes full upon the golden face of the god, lighting that only, so that the large features blaze upon us out of the gloom, as if moulded in living fire. It is as if Boodh had asserted his insulted majesty, and while he is thus transfigured we own that he is sublime. On our return to the foreign settlement, we hear loud, humming noises in the air, and looking up, see a strange collec- tion of monsters hovering in the sky. An enormous bird, with outspread wings of red and gold, is soaring directly over our heads ; a centipede, twenty feet long, is wriggling yonder ; a fanciful dragon shoots hither and thither ; and a mandarin, in his robes of state, makes his airy ko-iows, or salutations, to the gazers below. The natives are indulging in their national Amusement of kite-flying, and as long as there is light enough left they will continue, with the eagerness of children, to m» 15 338 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. noBUTre their painted toys. We draw a long breath of relief when we have passed the wall and the muddy creek, and as we walk homeward, mentally revolve the question, whether it is worth satisfying one's curiosity at the expense of so much an noyauce and disgust. CHAPTER XXVII ■ ABTHQUAKE8 AND OFFICIAL VISITS. iu Earthquake— Sensations it Produced— Its Effects— Addition a Shocks— The Bow » Ing Alley— Hairs In the Soil— A Shower of Sand— Visit of the Taou-tai to Col, Marshall— Chinese Visiting Cards — The Taou-tai's Appearance — Reception of th« Dignitaries— A Chinese Military Review- The Soldiers and their Equipments— Their Discipline— Uncouth Weapons — Absurdity of the Parade — The Commlssionei visits the Taou-tai— Reception— The Taou-tai's Residence— Chinese Refreshment*— Departure. Our attention was for a time diverted from iLe alarm and ex- citement occasioned by rumors of the approach of the rebels, through the unexpected visitation of an earthquake, which occurred on Thursday night, the 14th of April. On that evening, M. de Montigny, the French Consul, entertained CoL Marshall at dinner. Capt. Buchanan and Purser Barry, of the Susquehanna, Mr. Cunningham, Capt. de Plas, of the French steamer Cassini, and several other gentlemen were present. About a quarter past 11 o'clock, as the guests were taking leave, some of them being still in the passage, putting on their overcoats, for it was a dark, drizzling night, there was a sudden, violent noise, the timbers of the house cracking and the walls swaying to and fro. I was standing just under the eaves at the tim^, and my first impression was that the building vraa tumbling down upon me. I made a spring into the court, 340 IITDIAy CHmA, AND JAPAN. with, a strange feeling of bewilderment, for every thing wai reeling and unsteady. All this was the work of an instant There was a cry from the ladies within, and they came rushing out in great terror, exclaiming: "an earthquake! an earth quake ! " We stood in the open court-yard, awaiting a second shock. The earth continued to heave with a slow, regular motion, gradually diminishing, until the throbs ceased. It produced a slight giddiness and nausea in some of us. Im- mediately after the shock passed away, a wild outcry arose from the Chinese city, and the large woodeu drums in the tem- ples were heard sounding far and near. The object of thig was to soothe the great fish upon which the earth rests, and by whose uneasiness the earthquake was caused. On reaching the Consulate, we found that everybody in the house had felt the shock, and the chandeliers in the drawing- room were still vibrating from it. Mr. L., one of the clerks, stated that his attention was first called to it by seeing several doors which had been locked, fly open without any apparent agency. In the other house belonging to Russell & Co., a chimney was thrown down, and one of the joists drawn from its socket and forced through the ceiling. About fifteen yards of a high brick wall around Mr. Nye's house was overthrown, and a large Chinese warehouse in the city almost entirely de- stroyed. The dogs (of which there is no scarcity in Shanghai) howled dismally while the motion lasted. The direction of the wave was from north east to south-west, and the extent of its motion was, I should judge, about two feet. Shanghai ip subject to slight shock.?, but this was the most severe which had been felt for several years. The nearest volcanoes are iv EFFECTS OP THE EARTHQUAKE. 341 the Japanese island of Kiusiu, about six hundred miles dis tant About midnight two additional shocks were felt, but they were much lighter than the first. On retiring to rest, we found that a number of articles in the rooms had been thrown upon the floor. In the morning I walked up to the northern part of the settlement, where the shock appeared to have been much more violent than at the southern end. In Mr. Nye'a godown (warehouse) the heavy bales of goods were hurled from \heir places. Several chimneys were sprung and walls cracked, but the nature of the soil on which Shanghai stands — an elastic, clayey loam, two hundred feet in depth — saved the place from greater injury. In company with some friends I went to the bowling-alley, the walls of which had previously showed a disposition to give way, and were supported on one side by props. After playing an hour or two, we noticed that the southern wall had suddenly sunk outwards more than six inches, and was cracked from top to bottom. There had been, in fact, another smart shock at that very time, and we had not perceived it. The props alone prevented the whole building from coming down upon our heads. The Chinese servants stated in the morning that hairs were always found in the earth after an earthquake, and brought up two or three gray horse-hairs — or what appeared to be such — which they professed to have found in the yard. Several of the gentlemen immediately went down and commenced searching, and to their astonishment found numbers of gray filaments from four to ten inches long. They projected two or three inches from the soil, and were most abundant among the grass. Thej were strong, like a coarse hempen fibre, and were readily drawi 342 IIJDIA, CHINA) AND JAPAN. out without breaking. After a careful examination with a powerful magnifying glass, it was found that they had not the tubular structure of hair, but what they were and whence thej came, was a mystery. Some of the profane summarily ac- counted for them by declaring that the shock of the earthquake caused the earth's hair to stand on end, from fright. Thej were picked up in nearly all the gardens in town. The Chinese say they are only found for three days after a shock, which, so far as I could learn, also proved correct. Another circumstance attending the earthquake, was the shower of fine dust, which fell for two or three days afterwards. The same thing was noticed after the earthquake of 1846, which was less violent. The wind was from the north-west, and the sand, which some suppose to come from the great Desert of Kobi, in the interior of China, was so fine as to be impalpable, yet filled the air to such an extent that the sun was covered with a yellow film, and the view obscured as by a thick haze. The Chinese reported that a town about thirty miles distant had been entirely swallowed up, and that a tract of land a mile square had sunk, and had been replaced by a deep lake. We decided at once to pay a visit to the spot, but on inquiry found so many contradictory stories regarding it, that it was quite impossible to discover where the town was. There were three or four slight shocks afterwards at intervals of two or three days. On the 9th of April, the Taou-tai of Shanghai paid an official visit to Col. Marshall, and to the frigate Susquehanna. He had given notice of his intention two days before, and came in state, attended by four mandarins, and with a long ♦•etinue of pcarecrow followers. A little in advance of thoir CHINEbE VISITIBO CABDB. • 34S arrival, the cards of the dignitaries were sent to the Ccmmia sioner. They were long slips of crimson paper, inscribed with rows of glaring hieroglyphics, and enclosed in crimson envelopes, The Taou-tai's ran thus :• " Woo-keen-chang, of the Ta-Tsing Empire, by Imperial appointment Salt Commissioner, Inten* dant of the Circuit of the Prefectures of Soo-Chow, Soong Keang and Tae-Tsung, in the province of Keang-nan, holding the rank of Judge, promoted five degrees, &c., presents hia compliments." One of the others was still more remarkable : " Lan-wei-wan, of the Ta-Tsing Empire, Haefung of the Pre- fecture of Shanghai, in the province of Keang-soo, and expec- tant of the office of Prefect, knocks his head and presents compliments." How titles would multiply in America, if all the " expectants" of office adopted this plan ! "We should be overrun with such characters as — Hon. Elijah Pogram, Ex- pectant Minister to Russia; Jedediah Peabody, Expectant Collector of Sag-Harbor — and so to the end of the chapter. The Taou-tai was received with all due distinction, and hia interview with the Commissioner lasted about an hour. He was a small man, near fifty years of age (his mustache denot- ing a grandfather) ; his complexion was a pale, bloodless yellow, his eyes lively and piercing, and his rather contracted features expressed a keen, shrewd and unscrupulous character. He was formerly a hong merchant Df Canton, and is still best known to foreigners by his old name of Sam-qua. He spoke the " pigeon English," or commercial jargon, with tolerable fluency, though the conversation was partly carried on in Chinese, by Dr. Par- ker. He was dressed in robes of a rich, stiff silk, embroidered with the insignia of his office, and wore a cap with the single peacock's feather and opaque red button of a mandarin of the 344 IBDIA, CHIBA, AJSTD JAPAN. fchird class. In Ms suite was the Colonel of the regular troops Btationed at Shanghai — a tall, dignified old mandarin, who con- ducted himself with a grave and courteous dignity, beside which the Taou-tai, with his fidgety and undecided manners, showed to disadvantage. On entering the room where the Commissioner received them, they all performed the Ko-toWy or national salutation, by clasping their hands in front of their breasts, and bowing profoundly with a shaky motion, like those porcelain mandarins with which we are all familiar. They were regaled with tea, champagne and port, and took wine with great gravity, rising and bowing profoundly when they drank. After leaving the Commissioner they went on board the Susquehanna, where Capt. Buchanan received them with a salute of nine guns. They all expressed the greatest astonishment and admiration at the size and strength of the vessel. During the visit, Col. Marshall expressed a wish to witneea a review of the Chinese garrison of Shanghai, and the Taou- tai at one promised to make a public display of the troops, in order to exhibit his military resources to the foreign commu- nity. Accordingly, as we were entering the city the next after- noon, a frightful clamor of gongs announced the approach of some unusual spectacle, and we soon became aware that the Taou-tai was fulfilling his promise. First came half-a-dozen old six-pounders, mounted on clumsy carriages, which made ti frightful clatter as they rolled over the rough pavement. They were followed by porters bearing chests of ammunition, slung from bamboo poles ; then a company of soldiers in dark blue dresses, with a circular coat-of-arms on the breast and back, armed with long spears ; another company, with ginjalls, t long, heavy stock, mounted on a tripod when it is fired, and A CHINESE MILITABY DISPLAY. 34£ /jarrying a ball about the size of a grape-shot; afterwards more spearmen, alternating with companies of matchlocks, and followed by more lumbering six-pounders, chests of am- munition, gongs, yellow banners, covered with hieroglyphics, and other curious and fantastic objects — the procession rushing along without order or organization, shouting and laughing, oi brandishing their arms in the most uncouth and barbaric style Such a display never was witnessed in Shanghai before. There were about four hundred regular soldiers, some of whom were exceedingly well-formed, lusty men, and clothed in an appro- priate costume — a short tunic girdled around the waist, full trowsers gathered at the knees, and tight leggings — but the greater portion were evidently porters and peasants, hired for the ocasion, to swell the ranks of the soldiery, and produce an impression of the Imperial power. There were in the procession some very curious weapons, which I do not suppose any other army in the world can ex- hibit. In addition to pikes for sticking the enemy, poles for punching them, clubs for beating them, and flails for threshing their heads, I saw some wooden beams about five feet long with handles at each end, the use of which is — to push them out of the way / When part of the procession was retarded at any point, the companies behind them made up the loss, by rushing down the street at full speed, leaping in the air as they went, charging with their lances, swinging their flails and shaking their clubs, with cries which were meant to be terrific, but which were ludicrous in the extreme. Among the officers who rode on shaggy native ponies, we recognized the venerable Colonel, who bowed to us with a touch of pride in passing, Last of all, preceded by yellow banners and a deafening tern 15* 346 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. pest of gongs, came the Taou-tai himself, in his green Bedao chair, followed by the Government executioners, in red dressep and high conical caps, decorated with the long tail feathers (A the pheasant. The grave and self-satisfied air cf the high official was most amusing. The whole thing was like a Chinese travesty of Don Quixote. After parading through the prin- cipal streets of the foreign settlement, the procession returned to the city, which it entered by the western gate. A few days afterwards. Col. Marshall returned the visit of the Taou-tai, at his official residence within the city. He waa accompanied by Dr. Parker, Secretary of Legation, and Mr. Cunningham, Vice-ConsuL The party set out in sedan chairs, crimson cards having been sent in advance, according to Chinese custom. Along the way — a distance of a mile or more — the Taou-tai had stationed attendants with gongs, which were dire- fuUy beaten, as we passed. It was a raw, rainy day, and the streets had more than their usual quantity of mud and filtk After entering the city gate, I, who was last in the procession, was rather startled at finding my chair suddenly dropped in the mnd. Looking out, I found the bearers deliberately bargaining at a stall for new straw-sandals, which they purchased and put on their feet leisurely enough, before they picked me up again. On reaching the Taou-tai 's residence, the salute of three gims had been fired, and the discordant noises of a dozen dire instru- ments were dying away. I was carried through a wooden por- tal of a dark-red color, across a paved court-yard, and finally deposited in a portico or verandah, where the Taou-tai had just formally received the Commissioner and the rest of his suite The attendants made a loud announcement of some kind as I VISIT TO THE TAOU-TAI. 347 passed tlie portal, which was repeated from one to the other, till it reached the Taou-tai at the same time with myselfl We were conducted through a plain but spacious hall, open on two sides to the air, across a small inner court, and into another hall, or audience-room, partially closed by movable screens. It was gaudily furnished, but without an extravagant show of wealth. The predominant color was dark-red, and the walls were relieved with painted tablets of light-blue or green, containing long inscriptions. The floor was covered with a red felt cloth, and straight-backed chairs of camphor- wood were placed around small tables of the same material, containing boxes of sweetmeats. The Commissioner was con- ducted to a raised divan in the centre, covered with red cloth, upon which he and the Taou-tai seated themselves, with refresh- ments between them. The latter was more at his ease than on the former occasion, and did the honors of his mansion with more grace than I had anticipated. The conversation was animated, and principally of a general nature, though he made occasional reference to the rebellion. After his manifestoes concerning the success of the Imperialists, I did not consider his expressions on the subject as worthy of much attention, and the commencement of the material part of the entertain- ment soon gave me a more interesting field of observation. Cups of birds-nest soup were presented to us, together with porcelain spoons and chop-sticks of ivory and silver. This curious dish fully justifies the taste of the Chinese ; it is exceed- mgly delicate and nutritious. The Chinese wine, served warm, •n square silver cups, was also quite palatable, and there was a preparation of almonds, sugar, and rice flour, boiled into a paste, to which we all did full justice. It was, however, a light 348 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. collation rather than a regular meal, and the greater part con sisted of dried and candied fruits, such as oranges, dates, citrons and various kinds of nuts. At the conclusion segars were offered to us, while the Taou-tai took his bamboo pipe. There was a host of attendants, all prompt, silent, and respectful. Sam-qua was too long a resident of Canton, not to have taken some hints from the habits of the foreign merchants there. At OUT doparture, he accompanied the Commissioner to the outer court. Three guns were fired off as the chair of the lat- ter passed through the portal ; the musicians, stationed in a gallery on the side of the court, struck up a horrible discord, which made the gongs that sounded along our homeward march melodious by contrast. The curious natives thronged the streets, to stare at us, and it was a relief when we readied the foreign suburb of Shanghai. CHAPTER XXVIII. INCIDENTS OF LIFE IN SHANQHAI. Spring at Shanghai— Appearance of the Country— Crops— National Conveyance ci China— Houses of the Lower Classes— Sail on the Elver— The Pagoda— Village Market— Sweetmeats and Children— Showers of Cash — Chinese Horticultural Exhi- bition — The Lan-whei — Chinese Love of Monstrosity— Moral Depravity of the Eaoe —Landscape Gardening— A Soldier and his Drill-The Cangue— Visit of the HermM to Nanking— The Rebels— Their Christianity— Condition of the City— Arrival of th« U. S. Steatn-Frigate Mississippi— Q^mvaf Things at Shanghai— The 81oop-of-War Plymouth— Preparations for Depart ore— Entering the Naval Service— Its Regulations— Procuring a Uniform— The Master'6-Mate&— Establishing a Mess— Departure for Japan— A Gale— Shipwrecks- Standing out to Sea— Arrival at the Great Loo-Choo Island— A Missionary— Beauty of the Harbor of Napa— The Native Authorities — Going Ashore — Jumping over i Coral Eeef— Landing— The Town of Napa-Kiang— Spies— Dr. Bettelhelm's Eesi dence. Immediately after the transfer of Commodore Perry's broad pennant to the Susquehanna, active preparations were made for the departure of the squadron on its mission to Japan Since the return of the Hermes from Nanking, there was very little apprehension of danger, either among the Chinese or the foreign residents. The former had very generally returned to their homes and opened their shops, in accordance with thd Taou-tai's commands. The American commercial houses nevertheless, addressed a letter to Col. Marshall, asking that they should not be left entirely defenceless — on account of which application, Commodore Perry detached the sloop- of- wai Plymouth from the squadron for a few weeks longer. CoL Marshall, who had as ^'^et not been able to find a proper Chinea ENTERING THE NAVAL SERVICE. 361 ofi&cial to receive his letters of credence, finally made applica- tion to the Court at Pekin. He desired to proceed to the mouth of the Pai-ho River, in the Yellow Sea, and there await his answer, but a council of sailing-masters, called together by the Commodore, reported, after a long consultation, that it would be impossible to get within sight of the shore in a vessel drawing so much water as the Plymouth. Tuesday, the 17th of May, was appointed for the departure of the Sus- quehanna and Mississippi, the sloop-of-war Saratoga having already sailed from Macao for an unknown rendezvous. I had extended my travels to China with a strong hope of being able to accompany the Expedition to Japan. On the arrival of Commodore Perry, I learned that very strict orders had been issued by the Navy Department against the admis- sion on board of any of the vessels, of any person not attacheo to the service and subject to its regulations. Capt. Buchanan, who had no clerk, and was justly entitled to one, very kindly proposed that I should go in that capacity ; but as there were two vacancies in the rank of master's-mate, which the Commo- dore had power to fill, and as my willingness to enter the service temporarily, removed the only objection he had urged, I decided to take the latter chance. I therefore signed an article of allegiance, and became an ofl&cer of very moderate rank, with unlimited respect for my superiors, and the reverse for my inferiors. This enlistment, which I most gladly and readily made, rendered me subject to all the regulations of the Navy Department; especially to that order promulgated for the benefit of the officers of the Expedition, which obliged them to give up to the Department every journal, note, sketch, nr observation of any kind made during the cruise. I thertf 16 .iG2 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAfAN. fore closed mj eld journal, and commenced a new one from tin iay I entered — which latter is now in possession of the Navy ( Department, according to agreement. Nearly all the officers, on the contrary, had ceased keeping journals from the day the Drder was issued. I should have had some hesitation in sub- mitting myself to that almost absolute power, which is the life of the Naval Service, had I not already known so well the officers of the Susquehanna. My confidence was not misplaced, for, from the Commodore down, with but a single exception, I received nothing from fhem 'but kindness and courtesy, during my connection with the service. I had some dfficulty in procuring the necessary uniforms There were none but Chinese tailors in Shanghai, who work entirely from ready-made patterns. By foraging among the officers I procured a sufficient number of anchor buttons, and a crest for my cap ; in the shop of a French merchant I found some cloth of the proper color ; I borrowed one coat for the sleeves, another for the body, and another for the arrangement of buttons ; and by keeping a watchful eye upon the tailor, finally succeeded in obtaining both undress and full-dress uni- forms, which came within two buttons of being correct. Having assumed the blue, and buttoned my coat up to the throat in order to display the eighteen gilded eagles and anchors which decorated its front, I walked down the bund to try its affect. I endeavored to appear careless and self-possessed, but the first man-of-war'sman who passed betrayed me. I know that I actually blushed when he lifted his tarpaulin, and I doubt to this day whether I returned his salute. A little further, a jolly, red-headed tar, with a large cargo of samshoo aboard, came up and shook my hand heartily, promising me an ESTABLISHING A MESS. 363 oyatiji supper in New York, after our return. I felt more ai home in the service after such a characteristic ■welcome, and was not afterwards embarrassed by my buttons. The places of acting master's-mates (the rank of warranted Qiaster's-mates being now obsolete) had been purposely left racant, in order that it might be filled by artists and natu- ralists, who would thus belong to the service and be under the control of its officers. The rank and uniform is that of a passed midshipman, but the pay — twenty-five dollars a month- is considerably less than half of what the latter receives On the East India station it just about suffices for the pay ment of the mess-bill. There were three master's-mates on board the Mississippi — Mr. Heine, the artist; Mr. Draper who had charge of the telegraph apparatus ; and Mr. Brown, daguerreotypist. As they were specially subject to the Com- modore's orders, they were transferred to the Susquehanna, and I joined them in forming a separate mess, to which was added Mr. Portman, the Commodore's interpreter and clerk. The vessel was so crowded, that we had some trouble in finding sufficient room for our mess-table and stores, but were finally placed upon the orlop deck, beside the main hatch, and over the powder magazine. My cot was slung in the same place at night, where it was brought by a sturdy main-topmau, who had it in his particular charge. A cadaverous Chinaman, A-fok by name, was shipped as our steward, and an incorrigible black deck-hand appropriated to us as cook. We were thus provided with all the requisites of a mess, and although theie was some grumbling from time to time, on account of the heat and darknesi of the orlop deck, the incompetency of the steward, or the villainy of the cook, I found my situation 364 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN quite as comfortable as I anticipated, and never regretted having embraced it. . -i^ ' ki last the day of our departure, the 17th of May, arrived It was a warm, calm, sunny day, and as the black volumea began to rise from the smoke-stacks of the two steam-frigates, the whole foreign population of Shanghai flocked down to the bund. Mr. Forbes and Mr. Cunningham came on board foi a pleasure trip to the Saddle Islands, whence they intended re- turning in a large junk which had been sent down with a final instalment of coal. About three o'clock the cornet was hauled down, the anchor hove, and we slowly threaded our way through the shipping, the band, stationed on the hurricane deck, play- ing in answer to the cheers and shouts which followed us. It was an exciting moment, for we were now leaving the frontiers of commerce and national intercourse, and our next port would be in one of those strange, exclusive realms which we hoped to open to the world. The cannon and the music ceased ; the shouts became faint and died away altogether ; the houses of Shanghai gradually passed out of sight, and before sunset we came to anchor in the Yang-tse-Kiang, off Woosung. The next day we proceeded down the river. There was a gale of mingled wind and rain, and we ascertained that the store-ship Supply^ which had come from Hong Kong to join the squadron, was aground on the North ShoaL She was in imminent danger for a time, but was finally got oflf without damage. In the evening, the junk which had been laden with coal ran aground, and soon became a complete wreck Her crew, consisting of twelve men, were with difficulty saved by the Mississippi's boats. The Susquehanna had a large boat in tow, belongicg to Mr. Cunningham, and by soire mismin PUTTING OUT TO SEA. 365 agement of the native sailors, one side of it was stove in against the frigate's quarter. The wreck still held by the hawser dragging after us, the sea bieaking over the terrified Chinese^ who pounded their foreheads against the piece of deck that re- nainedj and implored to be taken off. This was done as soon as possible, and the drenched Celestials had no sooner touched our deck than they prostrated themselves, and thumped their heads vigorously at the feet of the officer. On account of the gale, and the dangerous navigation of the Archipelago of Chusan, the squadron remained two days near the Saddle Islands. The weather then became clear, and Messrs. Forbes and Cunningham, with the shipwrecked China- men, having found a means of return to Shanghai, left us, and the squadron stood out to sea. Shortly after passing the islands a streak of dazzling emerald appeared on the horizon, herald- ing our release from the treacherous waters of the Yang-tse- Kiang. The brown, muddy tint gradually passed off the hem- isphere of sea, like an eclipse from the face of the sun ; thfc vessels fell into line, the Susquehanna in advance, and the Mississippi, with the Supply in tow, following on our port quarter, and we were at last under way for the unknown ren- dezvous. The ship's course soon revealed to us what we had suspected — that the squadron would first proceed to the Great Loo-Choo Island. With calm weather, we sailed three or four days in a south- east direction, and on the morning of the 26th saw some scat- tered, uninhabitable islands belonging to the Loo-Choo group. The day was clouded, with frequent thunder-showers ; but we succeeded in making the Great Loo-Choo early in the after- Doon, and with the assistance of Capt. Beechey's chart, felt om 366 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAP AH. way into the harbor of Napa-Kiang, at its south-western extremity^ before dark. As the island first came in sight we descried a vessel off the weather-beam, which soon proved tc be the Saratoga making her way up, punctual to her appoinfc- m-jnt. The first landmark we made was Abbey Point, at the southern end of the harbor, by means of which, and a curious bluff called Capstan Rock, we were enabled to find the nar- row entrance leading between cora* reefs to a safe ancliorage within. The rain began to fall in torrents soon aiter our ar- rival, and the green, misty hills of the island were soon lost in the gloom of night. The same evening a native boat came off, bringing Dr. Bet- telheim, the sole European resident on the island. He was a missionary, who had been placed there by a society of Eng^ lish naval ofl&cers, who, about seven years ago, formed the de- sign of Christianizing those parts, and selected the Dr. as their first instrument. It was eighteen months since any vessel had touched at Napa, and the missionary came on board in a state of great excitement. He was received by the Commodore, and after a stay of an hour, returned to the shore. When the next morning dawned, bright and clear, I thought I bad never seen a more lovely landscape than the island pre- sented, • The bay was clasped by an amphitheatre of gently undulating hills, in some places terraced with waving rice-fields, in others covered with the greenest turf, or dotted with pictu resque groups of trees. Bowers of the feathery bamboo — next to the palm, the most graceful of trees — almost concealed the dwellings which nestled together in the little dells opening intc the bay, and which, with their stone enclosures and roofs of red tiles, hinted of a much higher civilization than we had expected THE BAY OF NAPA 36'i The spurs of the hills which ran dowD to the sea termiuated 11 abrupt bluffs, in many places so shattered and irregular as to resemble castles and abbeys in ruins. Beyond and to the righn of Capstan Hock, we saw the houses of the town of Napa, with the mouth of a little estuary, wherein some Chinese and Japa nese junks were anchored ; while on the top of the highest hill three or four miles inland, one of the bastions of the Eegent'f castle towered above the trees. The exc^uisite harmony in the forms of the scene, the dazzling green of the foliage, and the sweet, delicious air which came to us off the shore, charmed us like a glimpse of Paradise, after the monotonous levels and polluted atmosphere of China. There was no intercourse with the shore until after some negotiations had taken place between the Commodore and the high native dignitaries. The latter came off in rude, flat-bot- tomed boats, propelled with paddles. They were exceedingly grave and dignified men, dressed in loose robes of grass cloth, and with curious yellow caps on their heads. Both their per- sons and their garments were scrupulously clean ; their long, silky beards were carefully combed out, the particular hairs lying parallel to each other, and every thing about them gave evidence of a care and neatness which I have never seen sur- passed. They were greatly astonished at the size and strength of the steamer, and when one of the field-pieces was fired three times as a salute, several of the attendants dropped upon the deck from the shock of their surprise. On the second day after our arrival, when the Commodor aad come to a good understanding with the native authorities, De gave the officers of the squadron permission to go ashore. t jumped into the first boat which put oif from the Susque 368 INDIA, CllIXA, AND JAPAN. hanna, and which happened to be manned by a dozen Chinest, from a number who had been shipped at Shanghai, as dech hands. The wind was blowing fresh, the sea was rmining briskly, and the Chinamen, who had probably never had an oai *n their hands before, did little but catch crabs and confuse each other. We rapidly drifted away from the vessel and away from the shore, until, finally, one of the midshipmen ordered the coolies to cease, and with the assistance of two oi three others stepped the mast and set the sheet, to run in on the wind. But he did not know the harbor, and in the twink- ling of an eye, the boat, which was running at the rate of seven or eight knots, dashed upon a coral reef. It was too late to wear off, so we bounced across it, the boat striking upon the tops of the growing coral trees, with every wave. Having reached deep water again, we found ourselves in a lake, or pool, completely encircled by the reef. The only means of escape was to jump back again, which we finally accomplished with- out staving in the boat, and after a wearisome pull, reached the steamer, where we procured a fresh crew, and were finally put ashore at the foot of Capstan Rock. By this time several boats had landed, and groups of officers and men were strolling towards the town. Behind a hedge of the prickly pandanus^ there was a cluster of bamboo huts, inhabited mostly by fishermen — lank, tawny, half-naked figures, who looked at us with a sort of listless curiosity. Their families were all concealed within the houses. As we advanced towards the town, I noticed that two or three indi' viduals, in robes of salmon-colored grass-cloth, hovered neai each party, and, without seeming to watch closely, took note of every movement that was made. We soon entered the mair THE TOWN OF NAPA. 369 street, wliicli was broad and well paved, and as neat as it could well be. It was enclosed by massive walls of coral and po- rous limestone, about ten feet bigh, over wbicb bung a variety f flowering shrubs and the branches of glossy tropical trees, growing in the gardens behind them. The dwellings were within these enclosures, and if we saw, by chance, a gate un- locked, and ventured to enter, we invariably found the place vacant and deserted. The salmon-colored gentlemen did their duty well. We succeeded in getting ^a very accurate idea oi the situation of the town, its size, the character of its architec- ture, and the outward appliances of its social life; but the inhabitants, except a few men and boys who lingered here and there in the streets, had totally disappeared. On my return to the vessel, I called at the residence of Dr. Bettelheim, which was a very neat cottage furnished bin. by the authorities of Loo-Choo, on a slope behind Capstan Rock. His family consisted of his wife, a mild, amiable English woman, and two children. The house was plain, but comforta- ble, and the view from the neighboring rock enchanting, yet I 3ould not but doubt whether any thing can atone for such a complete removal from the world of civilized men. Even the zeal of the Missionary must flag, when it is exercised in vain After seven years' labor, all the impression which Dr. Bettel- heim appears to have produced upon the natives is expressed in their request, touching from its very earnestness : " take tbi man away from among na 1 " 16* CHAPTER XXX. VISIT TO THB CAPITAL OF LOO CHOO- rislt of the Kegent— The Island of Loo-Choo — An Exploration of the Interior- Setting Out— Entry into tbe Capital— Reception — The Old Mandarin in for a Jonrney- His Resignation — Programme of the Exploring Trip — Espionage in Loo-Clioo — En- deavors to Escape it — Taking Families by Surprise — The Landscapes of Loo-Choo — The Cung-quds—W &tchea and Counter-Watches — Commodore Perry's Vi^t to Shui— Disembarkation— The Order of March— Cariosity of the Natives — March to the Capital — Reception at the Gate — A Deception Prevented — The Viceroy's Castle —The Inner Courts — The Commodsre's Reception— A Tableau— Salutations ana Ceremonies — Visit to the Regent's House — A State Banquet in Loo-Choo — Edibles and Beverages — Extent of the Dinner— Toasts — The Interpreter, Ichirazichi — De- parture—Riding a Loo-Choo Pony — Return to the Squadron. Two days after our arrival at Loo-Choo, the Regent of the Island paid a formal visit to Commodore Perry, on board of the Susquehanna; and Monday, the 6th of June, was fixed upon as the day when the Commodore should return his vibit at Shui, the capital, which lies some three or four miles to the north-east of Napa. The kingdom, or vice-royalty of Loo-Choo, which is tribu- tary to the Japanese Prince of Satsuma, though frequently visited by exploring vessels within the past fifty years, had been comparatively little known previous to our arrival. Hall Broughton, Beechey, and the French Admiral Cecile, had sur AN EXPLORATION OF THE INTERIOR. 371 vejed portions of the coast, but the interior of the island remaiued a terra incognita. The officers of H. B. M. steamer Sphinx, which visited Napa in February, 1852, were the first who were received in the royal castle of Shui. The heir to the rice-royalty is a boy, who was about eleven years old at the time of our visit, and the Government was therefore intrusted to the hands of a Regent, until he should have attained his majority. As soon as communication with the shore had been estab- lished. Commodore Perry appointed four officers from the Susquehanna and Mississippi, to make an exploring tour through the island. I had the good fortune to be one of the party. We set out on Monday morning, May 30th, with a week's leave of absence, and after having explored rather more than half the island, returned on the afternoon of June 4th. We were allowed to take with us four seamen, and four Chinese coolies to carry our tents and camping utensils. The party was well armed, and furnished with ammunition and ship's rations for the necessary cime. This exploration was in many respects one of the most peculiar and interesting episodes of travel I ever enjoyed. In these days of discovery, a piece of virgin earth is comparatively rare. There are few spots on the Earth's surface, so accessible as Loo-Choo, into which the European race has not yet penetrated. I regret that my application to our Government for permission to copy that portion of my journal describing it, should have been denied, and that hence I am unable to give at present a detailed account of the jour- oey. The island is about sixty miles in length, from north to south, with a varying breadth of from five to ten miles. Tha Dorth-eastern extremity, beyond Port Melville, which we were 372 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN obliged to leave tinexplored, for want of time, is wild, moon tainous, and but thinly inhabited. In order to avoid the cun ning and deception of the authorities, no previous notice of oui journey was given to them. We landed and marched directly into the interior, without so much as saying, "by your leave.' We had not proceeded more than half a mile, however, before we were overtaken by a native mandarin of the fifth rank, with several subordinate officers, who had been sent in all haste to follow us and watch our movements. Their faces exhibited considerable surprise and alarm, as they beheld eight armed men, with the cool assurance natural to Americans, taking the direct road to Shui, their capital. We carried with us, as a token of our nationality, a small boat's ensign, and on arriving at the gate of the capital, one of the sailors fastened it to a light bamboo staff, which he stuck into the barrel of his musket, and thus we bore the flag boldly through the centre of the town and around the very walls of the Viceroy's castle. But rapid as we had been in our march from Napa, scouts were in advance of us, and the capital ap- peared to be entirely deserted. Every house was closed, and scarcely a soul was to be seen in the streets. The few whom we met glided past us with anxious faces, and the cloud on the brows of our attendant spies grew darker as we advanced. We kept on, nevertheless, and after passing through the town, took a course by the compass, and struck across the hillp towards the opposite shore of the island. From the summit of a ridge, about a mile and a half to the eastward, we had a glorious view of green valleys, sloping down to a broad bay beyond which extended the blue horizon-line of the open Pacific As it drew towards evening, the old mav'^arin who sus THE MANDARIN US FOR A JOURNEY. 37.1 pected that we were merely making a day's excursion into the country, intimated that it was time to return "We replied by signs, that we were going much further, and would not return foi several days. This was more than he had bargained for : he had been appointed to watch us and dare not leave us — and now, will- ing or not, he must make the tour of the whole island. His look of blank perplexity was at first very amusing, but seeing that there was no help for his case, he submitted to it with true East- ern passiveness, and laughed heartily with us at the prospect be- fore him. I must confess that the thirst for exploration made us somewhat unfeeling. In our desire to see as much of the island as possible within the time allotted to us, we led the old mandarin such a dance as he certainly never performed before. Although he made use of his authority over the natives, and frequently obliged them to carry him in the kago, or sedan- chair of Japan, he would come into the encampment every evening, slapping his legs to show how fatigued they were, and amusing us, in a good-humored way, with signs of the great exhaustion he felt. Notwithstanding this, he visited us regu- larly every morning at daybreak, to inquire after our health, and exhibited so much patience and kindly feeling in every way, that in spite of the annoyance which his office caused us, we all felt a cordial friendship towards him. We encamped for the night on the shore of the bay, to which the name of Matthews' Bay was given by Commodore Perry, in memory of Lieut. John Matthews, of the Plymouth who first surveyed it, and who was afterwards lost at the Benin Islands, in a typhoon. Travelling northward the next day, over the ridges of the beautiful hills, and by foot-paths through forests, we reached at sunset a village on the shore of 374 INDIA, CHDTA^ AND JAPAN. Barrow's Bay. On the road we discovered the ruins of ai. ancient castle, crowning the summit of a high peak. It waa 235 paces in length by 70 in breadth, with walls from six to twelve paces in thickness. We afterwards ascertained that it had been the palace of one of the former kings of Loo-Choo, when the island was divided into three sovereignties. On the third day we proceeded around the head of Barrow's Bay, and across the northern promontory, to a village called " Ching," or " Kanafa." Thence we struck northward into the heart of the island, over a range of mountains covered with dense tropi- cal forests, intending to make the head of Port Melville, on the opposite side, but having swerved too much to the left, came down to the shore at a village called Na-Komma. We spent the fourth night at the village of Un-na, the features of whose lovely valley I have attempted to represent in the fron- tispiece to this volume. The fifth day was a weary march of twenty-eight miles in a burning sun, over mountains, through tangled thickets, deep rice-swamps, and in the glaring sand of the sea-shore. We halted for the night at a place called Chan- do-kosa, and the next day, after travelling about twenty-five miles in a heavy rain, reached the harbor of Napa, having journeyed more than a hundred miles through a territory pre- viously untrodden by white men. The perfection to which the system of espionage is carried in Loo-Choo — and consequently in Japan, for the system is uo doubt the same in both countries — is almost incredible. I have no doubt that before the second day of our trip was over, the fact was known throughout the whole island, and watcherE were set around every village, to look out for our approach. We were surrounded with a secret power, the tokens of whict ESPIONAGE IN LOO-CHOO. 375 «rere iiiTisible, jet which we conld not move a step without feeling. We tried every means to elude it, but in vain. The lovely villages with which the island is dotted were deserted at our approach, and the inhabitants so well concealed that we arely succeeded in finding them. Only the laborers who were at work in the fields were allowed to remain, and even they were obliged to keep at a distance from our path. We changed our course repeatedly, in the endeavor to mislead the spies, but they seemed to comprehend our designs by a species of instinct and wherever we went they had been before us. We scattered our forces, each one taking a separate course, but the spies were still more numerous than we. We could perceive, however, from the demeanor of the natives, that they were well disposed towards us, and felt a strong curiosity to become acquainted with us — and that it was not so much fear of ourselves, as dread of the power of their rulers, which kept them aloof. I had a great desire to learn something of their social and domes- tic life, and made frequent efforts to accomplish my object, by plunging into the woods from time to time, outstripping the spies, and then darting suddenly into some neighboring village. Although I entered many houses, in two or three instances only did I find the inhabitants within. On my appearance, which must have been very unexpected and startling, the womer fell upon their knees, uplifting both hands in an attitude of supplication, while the men prostrated themselves and struck their foreheads upon the earth. I could only assure them by plgns of my friendly disposition, and found no difliculty in allaying their apprehensions, whenever the spies gave me time enough. On one occasion, where I found two women employed in weaving the coarse cotton cloth of the country, after th* 376 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. first surprise was over, they quietly resumed their occupa tion. In other respects, the journey was as agreeable as it WM interesting. The island is one of the most beautiful in the j^orld, and contains a greater variety of scenery than I have ever seen within the same extent of territory. The valleys and hill-sides are cultivated with a care and assiduity, which puts even Chinese agriculture to shame ; the hills are crowned with picturesque groves of the Loo-Choo pine, a tree which the artist would prize much more highly than the lumberman ; the villages are embowered with arching lanes of bamboo, the tops of which interlace and form avenues of perfect shade ; while, from the deep indentations of both shores, the road along the spinal ridge of the island commands the most delightful pros pects of bays and green headlands, on either side. In the sheltered valleys, the clusters of sago-palm and banana trees give the landscape the character of the Tropics : on the hills, the forests of pine recall the scenery of the Temperate Zone The northern part of the island abounds with marshy thickets and hills overgrown with dense woodland, infested with wild boars, but the southern portion is one vast garden. The villages all charmed us by the great taste and neatness displayed in their construction. In the largest of them there were buildings called cung-qu''Sj erected for the accommoda- tion of the agents of the Grovernment, on their official journeys through the island. They were neat wooden dwellings, with tiled roofs, the floors covered with soft matting, and the walli fitted with sliding screens, so that the whole house could be thrown open or divided into rooms at pleasure. They were surrounded with gardens, enclosed by trim hedges and wcrf OOMMODORE perry's VISIT TO SdJL 37? always placed in situations where they commanded the view of a pluasaut landscape. These buildings were appropriated tc our use, and when, after a hard day's tramp, we had hoisted our flag on the roof and stretched ourselves out to re&t on the oft matting, we would not have exchanged places with the old Viceroy himself. As a matter of precaution, we kept regular watches through the night, but the natives also kept a eouuter-watch upon us. The cung-qua was often surrounded with a ring of watch-fires, and as the inhabitants seized this opportunity of gratifying their curiosity, we frequently saw hundreds of dusky heads peering at us through the gloom until the appearance of one of the Government spies scattered them as efiTectually as if a bomb-shell had exploded among them. On our retura to the squadron, I was gratified to find my- self among the number chosen to accompany the Commodore on his visit to the Regent, at Shui, on the Monday morning following. The hour of departure was fixed at nine o'clock, and the boats pushed ofi" from the difi'erent vessels at the same time. The Susquehanna's launches and cutters, conveying the field-piece, seamen, bandsmen and marines, presented a very lively and animating show, as they rocked over the swell ing waves. The morning was cloudy, with a brisk wind ; but though a passing shower threw its veil over the hills while on our way to the landing-place, the sky soon came out bright and blue, and the day was as fresh and pleasant as could have been wished. * The point of disembarcation was the little village of Tu mai^ lying north of the sandy flats (covered at high tides) which separate the promontory of Napa from the hills of the island. From this place it is not more than two miles to Shui 378 DTDIA, CraiTA AND JAPAN. On entering the creek which runs up to Tumai we found most of the boats already arrived, and the marines drawn up in line along the road under a grove of trees. Groups of officers, m undress uniform, were gathered in the shade; the boats' crews, in high spirits, were watching the preparations, and some hundreds of natives, among whom were many of the more respectable class, looked on with evident interest. The Com- modore's barge having arrived, he, with Commander Adams, Captain of the fleet, Lieut. Contee, Flag Lieutenant, and Com- manders Buchanan, Lee and Walker, passed in review the files of marines and artillerymen. The procession then formed in regular order. First went the two field-pieces, each with the American ensign displayed, under the command of Lieut. Bent, of the Mississippi; the interpreters, Mr. Wells Williams and Dr. Bettelheim, walked in advance, followed by Mr. Bennet, Master of the Susquehan- na, who commanded the first field-piece. After the artillery followed the Susquehanna's band, and a company of marines, under Major Zeilin. The Commodore came next, in a sedan- chair, which our carpenter had made for the occasion. It was carried by four Chinese coolies, with a relay of four more. A marine walked on each side as body-guard, with two of the Commodore's personal attendants. Behind the chair were the Captain of the Fleet, the Flag Lieutenant, and the Commo- dore's Secretary. Six coolies followed, bearing the presents intended for the Prince and Queen Dowager, guarded by a file of marines. Among them I noticed arms of different kinds, and specimens of American manufactured goods. The officers accompanying the Commodore followed in a body, headed by Commanders Buchanan, Lee and Walker. Their servants, the THE MAR. B TO SHUT. 37S Mississippi's band, and a second company of marines, under Capt. Slack, of the Mississippi, closed the procession. The entire number of persons composing it, was about 215, of whom 32 were officers, 122 seamen and marines, and 30 musicians. It was one of the most picturesque processions of its siz€ that T have ever seen. The beauty of the day, the brilliant green of the wooded hills through which our road lay, and the cheerful strams of the bands, gave the occasion a most inspir- ing character. Numbers of the natives gathered on both sides of the road to see us pass, and a large crowd followed in our rear. There did not appear to be the least alarm on their part, but a pleased excitement, for the procession, notwithstanding its martial character, had a festive and friendly air. In the narrow lanes branching into the road, the foremost ranks of the crowd knelt, the next stooped, and those in the rear stood up- right, in order to allow as many as possible to see the display Very soon, however, we emerged from the village, passed a large temple at the foot of the hill behind it, and came out upon the open, undulating country south of Shui. The rice- fields rolled in heavy waves before the wind, and the dark green foliage of the groves in which Shui is embowered, glittered in the sun. The natives were grouped here and there, in the shade of clumps ot the Loo-Choo pine, and numbers of them were seen running along the ridges between the rice-fields in order to get ahead of us and obtain another view. The march occupied nearly an hour, the bands playing alternately during the whole time. The road was familiar tc me, as we had passed through Shui on our tour of exploration, but the other officers were charmed with the scenery, especially fts we climbed the hill on which the capital is built, and saw J80 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN the rich cultivated landscape spreading away south^va^d anii westward. The Loo-Choo official, appointed to meet us at the landing-place, and accompany us to Shui, proved to be Chang' yaen, the same old Pe-ching, or mandarin of the fifth class, who had been our guide and companion during the expedition At the gate of Shui, we were met by a crowd of native digni- taries, with their attendants, all in brilliantly clean robes of grass-cloth, and red and yellow hatchee-matchees, as the pecu- liar cap worn in Loo-Choo is called, upon their heads. The old E-egent, and his three venerable coadjutors, the Treasurers of the Kingdom, here made their appearance, and after salut ing the Commodore, turned about and accompanied the pro cession, which passed in through the central arch, without halt, and marched up the great street of the city. There was a large train of native servants, in attendance upon the Regent and Chiefs, bearing umbrellas, " chow-chow" or refreshment boxes, cases for caps, and other articles. The inscription over the gate is " The Central Hill," signifying, according to Mr. Williams, " the place of authority." The lower orders of the natives are not permitted to pass through the central arch. The main street is lined with high walls, with but few alleys branching out of it. It was kept clear of spectators by the native officers who preceded us, except in a street on the left, leading to the house of the Regent, which was filled with a concourse of persons. On reaching this point, the Regent, who was in advance, requested, through his interpreter, that the procession should proceed at once to his house. As this was evidently a scheme to prevent our entering the castle, a determination on the Commodore's part which seemed to give them much anxiety, Mr. Williams paid no attention to the THE viceroy's castle. 381 request; ]mt marched on toward the castle gate. The reeep tion of the officers of the Sphinx within its walls, left the Com- modore no alternative but to exact equal respect. The Regent did not seem to have anticipated that we should carry the point, for the gate of the castle was closed. A. messenger was sent forward at full speed to open it, and make preparations for the Commodore's reception. On reaching the entrance, the artillery and marines were drawn up in line, and the Commodore, followed by his staff and suite of officers, walked past into the castle, while the troops presented arm a and lowered the ensigns, and the band struck up "Hail Columbia." Entering the first gateway, we found a second wall and portal above us, still further strengthened by a natural cliff, upon which part of it was built. Along the foot of this wall and the parapet of the one below, grew clusters of the beauti- ful sago palm, many of which wero in flower. A small stream of water, trickling from an aperture above, fell into a subter- ranean drain. On either side of it were planted two tall stone tablets, with sculptured inscriptions upon them. Two rudely sculptured lions, nearly the size of lif«, were placed at the second entrance, which ushered us into an outer court of the palace, on the summit of the height. It was irregular in shape, and Burrounded by houses which appeared to be designed for ser- rants and others attached to the royal household. On the eastern side was another gateway, resembling the Chinese por- tals of honor. It consisted of two arches, and the Commodore and his suite were conducted through the right-hand one. rhii brought us into what appeared to be the central court of the palace. It was not more than eighty feet square, surround^ B82 l^^DIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. ed with one-storj wooden edifices, remarkable neither for style aor decoration. The court was paved with gravel and large tiles, arranged in alternate lozenges. The hall of reception was on the northern side, the other buildings, or portions of the mam edifice, being closed by screens against all view from with- out. Into this hall, which, like all Loo-Choo houses, had an outer verandah, the Commodore was conducted, and placed at its head on the right hand, followed by the other officers, accord- ing to their rank. Chairs of dark wood, varnished, and made exactly upon the principle of our camp-stools, were brought, and all the guests were soon ranged in a single row along the right hand, and a double one across the bottom of the room, while the Regent and Treasurers sat upon the left side, with a double rank of attendants behind them. The Interpreters occupied a position at the head of the room, between the Commodore and Regent. On the wall above them was a large red tablet, with an inscription in gilded characters, which Mr. Williams trans- lated as signifying : " The Elevated Enclosure of Fragrant Festivities." Neither the Queen Dowager nor the young Prince made their appearance. Among the reasons urged by the Regent why the Commodore should defer his visit to Shui, was the alleged illness of the Queen, caused by the visit of the officers of the Sphinx. The royal lady's nerves, it was said had been 80 agitated by that event, that she had been under medical treatment ever since, and another occurrence of the kind might prove dangerous to her. The Commodore politely offered to send one of his surgeons to prescribe for her, but this was declined. It was probably not considered politic to produce the Prinoe. on account of his youth. After the first salutations bad beer CHINESE VISITING CARDS. 383 made, tables were brought, and cups of very weak tea present ed to the guests. Smoking boxes were distributed around the room, and dishes of leathery twists of gingerbread placed upon the tables. But it was evident that our coming had not been expected, and no preparationts made to receive us. The sides of the room were separated from the other parts of the build- ing by paper screens, and I fancied that there were listeners and observers (possibly the old Queen herself) behind them. The whole scene, in fact, could hardly have been less interest- ing to the native spectators than to ourselves. The strong contrast between the American uniforms of blue and gold, and the simple gray and fawn-colored robes of the four dignitaries who confronted them, as well as between the keen eyes and ac- tive, energetic faces of the one race, and the venerable gray beards and impassive features of the other, gave it somewhat of a dramatic air, which rather added to, than diminished the impression it made. Those four personages had all the gravity and dignity which might have belonged to Roman Senators, or rather, to members of the Venetian Council of Ten. After the usual salutations on both sides, the Commodore invited the Regent and his three associates to visit him on board the Susquehanna. He stated that he intended leaving Napa in a day or two, but that he should return again after ten days, and would receive them at any time they appointed, either before or after his absence. To this they replied that they would leave the time of the visit to be fixed by the Com- oiodore himself, whereupon he stated that he preferred it should be postponed until after his return. They acceded tc this with apparent gratification. Several large red cards, simi- lar to those used on state occasions in China, were then pro- 384 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. luccJ. The Regent taking tliem in his hand, all four rose eame forward a few steps, and bowed profoundly. The Com Qiodore and all the others rose and returned the salutation The Commodore then stated, that if there were any articles OJi board any of the vessels which the Regent might need, oi desire to possess, he would gladly supply him with them. Thcj' again rose, advanced, and bowed as before. The dignitaries did not seem quite at ease, probably on account of our having stolen a march upon them, in entering the castle. The interview had lasted nearly an hour, when the Regent rose and proposed that the Commodore should pay him a visit at his official residence. The procession was thereupon formed in the same order, and returned to the street, where we had been invited to enter, on our arrival. The Regent's house was in this street J a short distance from the main avenue. The seamen, marines and musicians remained behind, in charge of a few officers. The Commodore and his suite were conducted into the house, which was rather larger than usual, but not but we did nol pass within hail. The sight of a leviathan steamer — the first that ever ploughed those seas — towing a large vessel after her, must have greatly astonished the Peruvians. At sunrise on the 14th, we saw the Bonin Islands before us, with the Bailly Islands about fifteen miles distant, in a south-easterly direction, and Parry's Group barely visible in the north-east. The three islands of the Bonin Group, Peel, Buckland, and Stapleton, lie close together, within an extent, collectively, of ten miles from north to south. We made for the harbor of Port Lloyd, on the western side of Peel Island, where the only inhabitants — a small community of Kanakas, with some runaway English and American sailors — have taken up their abode. On approaching the entrance to the harbor a gun was fired for a pilot, which, it appeared, was the first intimation the residents had of our arrival. In a short time two canoes appeared, and we were boarded by two natives, who attracted considerable attention, as being the vag- abond inhabitants of that remote corner of the world. One of them appeared to be a cross between Portuguese and Kanaka. He wore a tattered straw hat, blue cotton jacket and panta- loons, and was bare-footed. The other was a youth about twenty years old, lithe and graceful in his form, and with a quick, bright eye and rather intelligent face. He was the only native of the island, and the son of a Portuguese named John Bravo. Their sailing directions were of little use, but the entrance to the port was broad and deep, and we moved on slowly and securely to an anchorage in twenty-one fathoms, abreast a 392 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. dense grove of trees, bordering a beach on the northern shoie Nearly east of us rose the high twin peaks, named " The Paps ^ by Capt. Beeehey ; a little further to the south, beyond a rockj islet named " Castle Rock," was a narrow beach, at the foot of a ravine, down which flowed a stream, the usual watering- place of the whalers. With the exception of three or four similar beaches, the shores were bold and precipitous, and the mountain? bebiud, rising in steep, picturesque outlines, were covered to their very summits with the richest tropical vegeta- tion. Towards evening I went ashore in the gig. Near the northern beach there is a bank of coral, dropping suddenly mto a track of deep water, which forms what is called " Ten Fathom Hole." This extends so far up the bay, that vessels of the largest size may lie within a hundred feet of the shore, hi a position completely landlocked, and sheltered from every wind. The trees which lined the beach were entirely new to me. They had heavy, crooked trunks and boughs, and large ovate leaves of a bright-green color. The settlers called them tamanas. Two immense turtles, which had been caught the night before, lay sprawling upon their backs in the shade, and a white man, who described himself as an Englishman named Webb, with two Kanakas, were sitting lazily upon an inverted canoe, made of the hollowed trunk of a tree. The shells of other turtles were lying on the sand, and exhaled not the freshest of odors. An opening through the trees showed us a neat cabin behind, surrounded with a low paling. The Englishman, who was civil and respectful, though si- lent J ~arely speaking unless in answer to our questions, led the way and opened the door. The interior was small, but exceed- SOCIETY OS PEEL ISLAND. 393 ingly neal and tasteful. The frame of the hut, and the ridge- poles and rafters were all of equal size, and painted a light blue color. The thatch was of leaves of the fan-palm, and im pervious to rain. There was an outer room, with a table and a few chairs, and two sleeping apartments in the rear, which were kept carefully closed during the day, on account of the abundance of mosquitos. The walls were covered with Chinese matting, and a row of gaudily-colored French lithographs of female figures hung across the partition. Within the paled enclosure were two other low, rude structures of palm leaves, one of which served as a kitchen, while the other was appro- priated to the Kanakas, a well, and three flourishing papaya trees Behind the house was a narrow and beautiful plain, covered with sweet potatoes, melons, and sugar cane, with the palm forests of the mountains in the background. The line of trees along the beach was narrow, and merely left to protect the garden-land in the rear from the violence of sudden squalls, which sometimes prevail in the summer. The Englishman stated that he had been seven years on the island. There was a kind of hesitation in his manner of speaking, which I fancied arose from an absence of intercourde with civilized society, as he seemed to be a man of average in- telligence. There was, apparently, little association among the settlers. So far as I could learn, there are no rules of government accepted by them ; each lives upon his own soil, by virtue of the right of pre-emption, and interferes as little as possible in the affairs of his neighbors. The oldest inhabitant, who probably exercises a sort of authority in cases of dispute^ is a native of Massachusetts, named Savory, who has been on the islaud since 1831, and is considered ^lio richest of the 17* o94 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. settlers. His money has been principally made by selling aweet potatoes to whaling ships, at the rate of two dollarg a barrel ; in addition to which he has a still, and manufactures rum from sugar-cane. At the time of our visit he had two hogsheads of it, which was said to be of excellent quality. The population is continually floating, with the exception of four or five persons who were among the original settlers of the island. Sailors from the whaling vessels frequently desert, and remain & year or two, after which they embark again. The whalers are mostly American, and, according to the settlers, generally conduct themselves peaceably. There was a flagrant exception, however; in the case of one vessel, the crew of which robbed Savory of $2,000 and carried off the daughter of Bravo, to- gether with a Kanaka woman. The persons implicated wert afterwards arrested at Honolulu for the abduction, but by that time the women were satisfied with their captivity, and de- clared that they left the island of their own accord. Fui'ther up the beach, we found another hut, inhabited by an old Englishman, who had been there for more than twentj years. He was upwards of fifty years old, of small stature, but hale and active, and the sun, which had bleached his brown hair into a tow color, had burned his face, neck, breast and arms of a deep red. He seemed to have wholly forgotten the world from which he came, and declared his intention never to leave the island, but to die, as he had lived, in that Pacific Bolitude. He had a Kanaka woman, named Bet, a frightfully fat and ugly creature, but very good humored. On our asking for water-melons, he sent her with a bag into the field, and when she had returned with three or four of the ripest, the gAod woman sat down to take breath, and never ceased chuck A COALING STATION FOR STEAMERS. 396 ling with delight at the rapacity with which we sliced a ad ate them. We saw a miinber of banana trees, but it was too soop in the season for the fruit to be ripe. The sweet potatoes were a round, mealy variety, and superior in every way to the Chinese. The old man had a rough apparatus for crushing sugar-cane, and a boiler in which he made molasses from the juice There were a number of fowls and ducks in the vicinity of all the cabins, but so wild, the people informed me, that it was impossible to take them alive. In fact, the settlers seemed to lack nothing which the simple wants of nature required, and probably preferred the easy, quiet life of the island, and its genial climate, to the society of their homes and the ruder toils which would await them there. There have been moments when I have coveted such a lot ; but now, nothing could have been more terrible than the prospect of being left among them. While I inhabit the world, let me be borne on its most crowded stream, and feel the pulses of its deepest and most earnest life! Commodore Perry saw at once the advantages of Port Lloyd as a station for steamers, whenever a line shall be estab- lished between China and California. It is not only the most eligible, but perhaps the only spot in the Pacific, west of the Sandwich Islands, which promises to be of real advantage for such a purpose. It is about 3,300 miles from the latter place, and 1,100 from Shanghai, and almost on the direct line between the two points. If the Sandwich Islands are to be included in the proposed route (as is most probable). Peel Island is even preferable to a port in Japan, which, on the other hand, would be most conveiiiei t for a direct northern line from Oregon. The Commodore, on fhe day after our arrival, obtained from Mr 396 IND/A, CHIHA, AND JAPAN. Savor} the title to a tract of land, on the northern side of th<^ bay, near its head. It has a front of 1,000 yards on the water and extends across the island to a small bight on the northern side, which he named Pleasant Bay. The location is admirably adapted for a coaling station for steamers, since a pier fifty feet long would strike water deep enough to float the largest vessel The soil of Peel Island is the richest vegetable mould, and might be made to produce abundant supplies, while its moun- tain streams furnish a never-failing source of excellent water. The Commodore also paid a visit to Bucklaud Island, accompanied by Commanders Buchanan, Adams and Walker, and a number of officers. The cattle which we had brought from Shanghai were put ashore on the eastern side of Peel Island, at a point where there was good water, and, as Savory stated, a tolerably large tract of table-land. The sheep were left on Stapleton Island, where there were already about six thousand wild goats. On the day before leaving Port Lloyd, I went in a boat to examine a fine marine cave in a bold island rock, at the southern entrance of the Bay, to which Beechey gave the name of " Southern Head." The trap rock, which here takes a basaltic form, exhibits several large apertures, one of which extends through the Head, to the beach on the opposite side. The entrance is about fifteen feet wide and thirty high, with from one to two fathoms of water. Soon, however, the roof expands to a height of forty or Mcy feet, in the form of a Gothic arch, with a longitudinal beam, or keystone, inserted in the centre After rowing along for twenty-five yards, we came to a beach of smooth pebbles, upon which a light shone through from the other side, and passing a low aich, and climbing a mound of ENGLISH CLAIMS TO THE ISLAND. 397 eartli and stones, we stood upon the opposite shore. "In a largi rocky headland, lying opposite to us, there was a cave a hun dred yards long, passing entirely through, and traversed by the canoes of the natives. After taking a bath in the clear, shaded waters, where we had moored our boat, we pulled out again through another branch of the cave, with a narrower entrance. Not far from this there was still another cave, wth two entrances, separated by a huge pillar of rock. The water was so clear that we distinctly saw bottom at four fathoms. The bod of the cavern was varied with groves of blue and purple corals, and the rocks beneath the water line were studded with patches of the purest emerald green, caused, apparently, by the combina- tion of some of their component parts with the salts of the sea. Through the dark, rugged arch of the entrance, the bright blue surface of the bay, and the sides of the palmy hills beyond, shone with indescribable lustre, like a picture burnt in enamel. Capt. Beechey took possession of the Benin Islands in the name of Great Britain, though with what justice I cannot see, since he could not claim the right of discovery. There waa' some attempt at one time, I believe, to found a colony, but it nas long since been relinquished. The only show of English sovereignty at the time of our visit was a ragged flag, left in the charge of a Kanaka, who hoisted it the day after oilr arri- val. Mellichamp, who was sent to Port Lloyd by the English Consul at Honolulu, had left nearly two years previous, fo Guam, where he was then remaining, unable, it was said, to leave the place. CHAPTER XXXII. AX EXPLORIXG TRIP THROUGH PEEL ISLAXD. Exploring Parties Appointed — My Part — Setting Out — Climbing the Hills — The Soil and Productions — Land-Crabs — Crossing a Ridge — A Tropical Ravine — Signs of Habitation — A Marquesan and his Household — South Sea Pilots — The Valley — The Forest Again — Trees — Shooting a Wild Boar — The Southern Coast — A Precipice — Dangerous Climbing — A Frightful Ravine — Descending the Precipices — South East Bay — The Nom-Camp — Ascent of the Ravine — The Party beginning to Fag — The Valley Again — A Slippery Ascent — A Man Lost — Firing Signals — Return to the Vessel. Ox the day of our arrival at Port Lloyd, Commodore Perry announced his determination to send two exploring parties into the interior of the island on the following day. Dr. Fahs, Assistant Surgeon, was appointed to the command of one, and myself of the other. A number of volunteers at once offered themselves, and we made our selections and arranged our plans without delay. AYe were supplied with carbines, ammunition, and haversacks, with a day's rations. The island is not more than six miles in length, in a straight line, so that it was thought that two parties might readily explore the whole of it iu the course of a day. Dr. Fahs and I accordingly divided it between us, he taking the northern portion, or that CLIMBING THE HILLB. 399 lying immediately around Port Lloyd, while I decided to strike across the central part of the island to its southern extremity touching by the way, if possible, on Fitton Bay, a harbor od the eastern coast. My party consisted of Mr. Heine, artist ; Mr. Boardman, Midshipman ; Mr. Lawreuce, Assistant Engineer ; Mr. Hamp- ton, Purser's Steward ; Dennis Terry, a seaman ; Smith, a marine, and a Chinese coolie. We left the ship's side before sunrise, and were put ashore at the watering-place at the head of the bay. I divided the rations and ammunition, allotting to each man his share, so that we all carried light loads. There was no one at the watering-place except a Kanaka, whom we could not obtain for a guide. He pointed out, however, a small foot-path, which he said went over the hills to a Kanaka settlement, about three miles distant. We struck into it at once, plunging into a wilderness of dense vegetation, which furnished a faint type of our experience for the rest of the day. The path was steep and slippery ; the plants were wet with a heavy dew, and the wild parasitic vines which hung from tree to tree, continually caught us in their toils. The trees were principally palm, among which I noticed the true sago palm, from which the sago of commerce is made. The soil was a rich, dark red loam, composed of disintegrated trap rock and vege- table mould. The same soil prevails all over the island, so far as my observations extended, except on the northern shore of Port Lloyd, where it is mixed with a grayish sand and pebbles Trap rock, of a coarse texture, appeared frequently on thu Bteeper declivities of the ridge, and I noticed growing in the crevices a variety of the hibiscus, with a large flower of a dull orange color The ground was in many places covered with <00 INDIA, CHINA, AND J AT AN. a shower of white blossoms, which I afterwards found ha3 dropped from a tree about thirty feet high, with a small glossy leaf, thick foliage, and a stout trunk of a whitish color The forest became more dense as we reached the summit of the ridge. The thick, luxuriant crowns of the palms, above our heads, kept out the rays of the sun, and the trunks and creepers combined made such an impervious shade that it was impossible to see more than fifteen or twenty yards in any direction. The path was but little used, and rather difficult to be traced. As we came into the beds of water-courses leading down the opposite side, the multitudes of large brown land-crabs that scampered out of our path was truly amazing. The ground was alive with them in the cool, moist corners of the ravines, and some of them were fully six inches in breadth The top of the ridge, an undulating region, furrowed with deep guUeys, was about a mile and a half in breadth, after which we came upon a descent at so sharp an angle that we were obliged to swing ourselves down from tree to tree, to prevent tumbling into the bottom of the ravine. An opening through the woods showed us a wild dell, completely shut in by precipi- tous mountains, every foot of whose sides, except the walls of naked rock on either hand, was covered with the richest foliage. A stream of good water lapsed over the rocky bottom, fringed by rank thickets of palm and other trees, while the bristling pandanus thrust its serried, spiky leaves over the tops of the clilfs, and the long, loose tresses of flowering creepers, shaken from some overhanging bough, swung in the air. The scenery was tropical in every feature, and as wild and rugged as nature could make it. The ravine opened to the southward into a narrow vallet A MARQUESAN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. 401 (yhicb showed signs of being inhabited. Crossing the stream we came upon a patch of the taro plant, the stalks of whiel were the highest and most luxuriant I ever saw. We here losi the path, and struck directly through the taro. It was fullj/ six feet high, and so drenched with the night's dew that we were speedily wet to the skin. Finding the forest beyond im- practicable, on account of its steepness and density, we re- turned to the bed of the stream. The little valley into which it ushered us was covered with patches of sweet potato, taro, pumpkins, tobacco, sugar-cane, and the sida^ or Indian goose berry, growing with a prodigal strength and luxuriance. Two huts thatched with palm-leaves, stood in the centre of the ralley. Finding them both deserted, though exhibiting evi deuces of having been occupied that morning, we £red oui guns, the report of which was answered by a hail. Presently a South-Sea Islander, in a coarse cotton shirt and pantaloons, and with one half of his face tattooed a light blue, made his appearance. He said he was a native of Nukaheva, in the Marquesas, and his name was " Judge." He conducted us around the corner of the mountain, where the valley opened westward to the sea. The stream became a creek deep enough for canoes, in one of which the Judge had just arrived, bring- ing a large turtle with him He was already half through with the operation of cutting up the flesh, while four dogs looked OQ wistfully, waiting to pick the shell when he should have finished. The Judge was apparently in good circumstances, having in addition to his hut, his plantation, his turtles and dogs, a pen of black hogs. I asked him to accompany us to the southern extremity of the island, which he said was aboul three or four miles distant There was no path, and be did :t02 INDIA, CHINA, iND JAPAN. QOt seem inclined to go, but he sent his boy after a companion, who, he said, could pilot us over the hills. The latter was a tawny native of Otaheite, and spoke very little English. He confessed that he knew the way, as well as the wild-boar haunts in the woods, but refused to go without the Judge. As it was next to impossible to find our way without a guide, I settled the mattei by taking both. The valley was bounded on the south by high mountains, which appeared to us impassable, on account of the lines of mural rock, rising one above another to their very summits. The main branch, however, was not that into which we had at first descended, but ran away to the eastward, whence the stream came down a long ravine, between two peaks. The natives informed me that the sea was about half a mile distant, from which I should judge the entire length of the valley to be near a mile and a half, with an average breadth of a quarter of a mile. Its bed is the richest loam, and all the vegetables planted by the settlers were unequalled of their kind. The stream ol water is sweet and pure, and the supply is constant in all sea sons. I saw several lemons in the Judge's hut, which had been raised in the valley. The tebacco was five feet in height, and had the same pale green, velvety leaves, which characterize the famous tobacco of Latakieh. We proceeded in a south-eastern direction into the ravine, which, we ascended, following the water course. Large rounded masses of trap rock lay in its bed, and still further we came upon large perpendicular crags of greenstone, from ten to forty feet in height. In some places beds of a coarse conglomerate, which had frequently an appearance of sandstone, rested upon the trap. The forest was very dense, and from the moist, unc KILLING A WILD BOAB. 403 tuous nature of the soil, our progress was exceedingly toil Bome. The further we ascended, the darker and deeper be* came the wood, and as the Otaheitan informed us we were no^w in tlic neighborhood of wild boars, we crept forward silently Bnd cautiously. While we were resting on the top of a cliff, two of the party, who were in the rear, started a boar and shot at him, but unsuccessfully. After leaving the water course we climbed the side of the ravine by clinging to the roots of trees and the tough cordage of parasitic vines. The party became scattered, owing to the absence of any path, and the impossi- bility of seeing more than ten yards in any direction. Among the palms I noticed a variety with broad fan-leaves, and leaf- stems six to eight feet in length, the jagged edges of which wounded our hands. There was also a variety of the pandanus, with a singlf* straight trunk, from near the base of which pro- jected a number of shoots or props, which became roots aftei they reached the soil. There were frequently twenty or thirty of them, forming a pyramidal basis to the slender column, which rose about fifteen feet, crowned with its leafy capital. While halting on the top of the ridge for the rest of the party to come up, the dogs commenced barking in a ravine on the other side. Two of the ofl&cers started off at once, and in a short time we heard shots at a distance. We made for the Bound, and after plunging through a frightful thicket of the horny-leaved pandanus, in the midst of which I found a wild boar's lair, reached the bed of a brook, where the hunters were gathered about a young boar. He was about a year old, and of a dark brownish-gray color, with a long snout, resembling the Chinese hog. We took out the liver and kidneys, and sus- pended the body to a tree, to be left until our return Is 404 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. another half hour we had crossed the dividing ridge of the island, and began to descend the southern side. Through an opening in the foliage I caught a glimpse of the sea^ and climbed a tree to obtain a look-ont. I found that we were on the broA» of a very steep ridge, about 1,500 feet in height, looking down upon a small bay, opening to the south-east. Beyond its south- ern promontory the sea was again visible, with the group of Bailly's Islands in the distance. The mountains descended in precipices to the water, so that access was impossible, except near the head of the bay, where two abrupt ravines, or rather chasms, showed a speck of sandy beach at their meeting. The Otaheitan professed to know the way, and set out, creeping slowly down the steep, we following, forcing our way on our hands and knees through almost impervious thickets, until a sudden light broke through the wilderness, and we found ourselves on the brink of a precipice, the height of which we could not then estimate, though I afterwards saw that it must be near two hundred feet. From its base the mountain sloped away so steeply to the brink of other precipices below that we seemed to swing in the air, suspended over the great depth which intervened between us and the sea. My head reeled for a moment, as I found myself perched on such a giddy height, and either retreat or descent seemed impossible. The guide, it was evident, had taken us too far to the left, and it was necessary partly to retrace our steps, in order to regain a position which would enable us to avoid the precipice. We elung cautiously to the strong grass which grew on the brink, and thus crept along for about two hundred yards, over a place where the least impetus would have sent us headlong hundreds of feet below. On this part of the mountain I found a shriil SOING DOWN THE PRECIPICE. 40t; rfith. a dark, glossy leaf, which diffused a powerful balsamic odor. Finally, attaining a point where the precipice ceased, we commenced going downward at the angle of about 60"' The soil was so slippery, and the vines and horny leaves of the palms hung so low, that the best way of descending was to lir fiat on one's back, and slide down until brought up by a thicket too dense to get through. With an infinite deal of labor, and at the risk of our necks, we at last reached the ravine, or chasm, and hoped that thf worst of our toils were over. But the worst was yet to come I can place implicit faith in Herman Melville's account of the precipices of Typee, after our own experience, which, in fact, bore a striking resemblance to his. The ravine descended by a succession of rocky steps from ten to forty and fifty feet in perpendicular height, down which we clambered with hands and feet, often trusting the soundness of our bones, if not our very lives, to the frail branch of a tree, or to the hold of a root dangling from the brink. As from the top of a tower, we looked on the beach, lying at our very feet, and seemingly to be reached by a single leap, though still far below. Down, down we went into the black depths of the chasm, in constant fear of reaching a wall which we could not pass, until at the junc- tion of another ravine, we came upon the hewn stump of a tree, a sign that others before us had penetrated the wilder- ness^ and heard the roar of the surf near at hand. The seaman, Terry who had accompanied me on the exploring trip through Loo-Choo, and myself, were considerably in advance of the rest of the party Terry was a man after my own heart, for Buch an expedition Nothing could daunt him, and no hard ?hips could tire him out. We sat down on tlie beach, under aD 406 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAK. overhanging rock, and looked back on the steep down whici we had clomb. When I saw it from below, and discerned the last of the party standing on the brink of one of the crags, showing us what our own position had been, I could scarcely believe our descent possible. The guides called the place " South-East Bay." They stated that it was frequently visited by whalers, for wood and water ; which accounts for the stump of the tree, and the pre- sence of a patch of tomatoes, which we found growing in a wild state, along the banks of the stream. The fruit was about the size of a cherry, and very fresh and palatable. When all had arrived, we built a fire under the eaves of the rocks, and while the dry drift-wood was burning to embers, took a bath in the sea. The water was deliciously cool, and the long, heavy swells rolled directly in from the Pacific and broke over our heads. We broiled the boar's liver on pieces of coral, and this, with 8 ship's ration of salt pork and biscuit, and a few handfuls of raw tomatoes, made us a most palatable repast. By the time we had sufficiently rested, and Mr. Heine had made a sketch of the bay, it was two o'clock, and I therefore broke up the camp and started homeward. The natives said that there was no other way of returning except the road by which we came. We all shrank from the idea of climbing that terrible path, but there was no help for it. Up we must go, and up we went, clinging for life to the roots of trees, or the sharp little corners of the rocks with one hand, while we clutched our carbines with the other. There was not a breath of air : the tli rmom.ter must have shown at least 90*^, and the toil was so severe that one of the parliy became ill, and lagged behind. We were obliged to halt everv THE PARTY BEGINING TO PAO. 407 fiye minutes, for two others also begau to show signs of exhau* tion, and were more than once on the point of giving out. But all things must have an end, and at length we reached the sum- mit ridge, whence the descent to the ravine where we had left the wild boar was comparatively easy, after what we had already gone through. The Otaheitan shouldered the boar, and wi returned, with but one or two halts to rest the exhausted mem- bers of the party, to the native huts in the valley, where W' arrived a little before six o'clock. One of the gentlemen wat by this time so much spent that he hired the Otaheitan to carr^ him in a canoe round to the Kanaka settlement at the southen end of Port Lloyd, the rest of us taking a path which le<3 thither by land. The evening was cloudy and rain began to fall, which hastened our departure. Ascending the same ravine by which we had reached the valley, as far as the taro patch, the Judge turned suddenly to the left and began climbing the slippery side of the mountain at an angle of about 50°. He declared that this was the usual road, but my eyes, although somewhat exercised in wood-craft, could not detect the least trace of a path. Under the thick clusters of sago palms was a dense un dergrowth of fern, in which we could gain no foothold, and were continually falling flat on our faces. The Judge himself began to be fagged by this time, and frequently proposed that we should rest. The others were in no wise averse to this, but I felt little fatigue from the labors of the day, and was so anx tons to reach the Kanaka settlement before dark that I hurried iLem oiiward. After gaining the summit, the way was easier, and we met with occasional faint traces of a path Passing over an undulating tract for a mile or more, we came upon the 108 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. western slope of the island, overlooking Southern Head, and the entrance to Port Lloyd. I now saw that a deep, picturesque bight made in below the Head to the mouth of the valley we I" ad left, and that the shortest and most usual route of the na- tives between the two settlements, was by sea. The sides of the hills we traversed were covered with a deep, coarse grass, waist-high, and so thick that we fairly waded through it. It was a fortunate circumstance for us that there are no venom- ous reptiles on the island. I was in advance, the others being scattered along the side of the hill, when I happened to notice that one of the party was missing. I sent back the coolie, and then the Judge, and finally ordered a halt, while I returned to look for him. After calling and searching for some time without effect, he was at last found lying in the bottom of a glen, asleep, as he stated. He stumbled along with us for a short time, when he tumbled mto the grass, declaring that he was utterly exhausted, and would remain there all night. Finding that we could not get him to go forward, we picked him up by main force, and carried him to the summit of the hill, where I left a man in charge of him while we hastened down, in order to gain the flag-staff above the Kanaka settlement, and fire a volley to bring a boat off for us. We plunged through the cane-fields, stumbled up the hill, and found ourselves on a high cliff, overlooking the bay. The big hull of the Susquehanna was barely visible in the darkness. "We fired half a dozen volleys, when we heard the report of musketry from the base of the Paps, at the head of the bay. It was, as we conjectured, the party of Dr. Fahs, signalizing like ourselves for a boat. At length, fearful lest our signal should not have been heard, I sent the marine in a RETURN TO THE VESSEL. 40S canoe to bring a boat. He met the first cutter half way, but the tide being out, she was obliged to anchor off the reef in front of the settlement, and send the canoe to take us in small companies. We waited half an hour for our missing comrade, and finally eached the ship's side about 10 o'clock weary and famished. Though I suffered less, I believe, than most of the others it \vaf certainly the hardest day's work of my life. 18 CHAPTER XXXII 1. ¥OYAGE TO JAPAN AND RECEPTION THEBk Return to Loo-Choo — Malls— Departure for Japan — The Island of Ohoeim* -The Japanese Coast— The Headland of Idzu -Precautionary Measures— Cape Sagaml— The Bay of Yedo — Approach to Uraga— A Hint — The Squadron Halts— Japanese Boats — A Talk at the Gangway— The Vice Governor of Uraga— His Reception— The Boats Kepulsed— Japanese Boatmen— Watch-fires — Tezalmon, Governor of Uraga- Consultations — An Express to Yedo — The Emperor appoints a Commissionei —Permission to Land — Skilful Negotiations — Scenery of the Bay— The Fortifica- tions—The Peak of Fu.~-i-Yamma— Canva? Defences— A Surveying Party— Sounding along Shore— Forts and Soldiers— Threatened Collision— A Second Survey— A Mi- rage— Wurlike Appearances— Lieut Bent's Encounter with Forty-five Japanes* Boats— Eeeult of the Survey. On our retorn to Loo-Choo, where we arrived on the 24th ol June, we found the Plymouth in the harbor. She had left Shanghai in comparative quiet, and with no present apprehen- sion of an attack. She was most welcome, on account of hav bg brought the mails for the squadron. After having been seven months without news from home, the delight with which 1 received a large package of letters can only be comprehended by those who have had similar experiences. As all the vessels oomposing the squadron at that time were now at the rendez- vous, immediate preparations were made for our departure for Japan. Owing to the foresight with which the vessels had been supplied, little was needed exceot a stock of fresh provi THE JAPANESE COAST 411 iiouB, which the Loo-Choo authorities, after some delay and oquivocatioD, furnished us at double the ordinary price. The squadron, consisting of the Susquehanna (flag-ship), Mississippi, Plymouth and Saratoga — the two sloops of war being taken in tow by the two steamers — sailed from the har- bor of Napa-Kiang, on the 2d of July. On the night of the 3d and morning of the 4th, we passed the large island of Oho- sima, part of the Kingdom of Loo-Choo. This island, which has been known to the Dutch, through the Japanese charts, and was seen by the French Admiral Cecille in 1846, is not found on English charts. The U S. ship Preble, in 1849, supposed she had made the first discovery of it, and gave it the name of " Preble Island." It has never been visited by a foreign vessel. It is thirty or forty miles long, mountainona, and thickly inhabited. After passing it we had very sultry weather, until we reached Japan — the thermometer standing at 84® at night, and 88° to 90° at noon, in the coolest place on board. . At daybreak, on the morning of July 8, we first made land, which proved to be Cape Idzu, a lofty headland on the coast of Niphon, not far south of the entrance of the great Bay of Yedo. The Brocken and Vulcan Islands were in sight on our right After passing Bock Island, we stood in nearer to the shore, which loomed up grandly through the hazy atmosphere. The promontory of Idzu is a group of mountains, rising to the height of five or six thousand feet, their summits scarred with slides, and their sides mostly covered with forests, though here and there we could discern patches of cultivated land. There were a number of fishing junks off" the coast, some of which put back again as we approached. The wind was ahead, we had all sails il2 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. furled and the yards squared, and the sight of oni two im- mense steamers — the first that ever entered Japanese waters — dashing along at the rate of nine knots an hour, must have Btruck the natives with the utmost astonishment. Leaving the mountains of Idzu behind us, we stood across he mouth of the Bay of Kowadzu (as the southern half of the bifurcate Bay of Yedo is called), toward Cape Sagami at the extremity of the promontory which divides the two. The noon observation gave lat. 34° 67' N. and soon afterwards Cape Sagami came in sight. We lay to while the Captains of the Mississippi, Plymouth and Saratoga came on board, to receive instructions, and then resumed our course. The decks were cleared for action, the guns shotted, the small arms put in complete order, and every precaution taken, in case we should meet with a hostile reception. Near Cape Sagami we descried a large town, and as we came within two miles of the shore, a number of junks, amounting to twelve or fifteen, put ofi", with the evident intention of visiting us. Each one bore a large banner, upon which characters were inscribed. The rapidity of our progress, against the wind, soon left them behind, no doubt completely nonplussed as to the invisible power which bore us away from them. The Bay now began to be thickly studded with fishing smacks, with here and there a large junk. The shores of Sagami are exceedingly picturesque and beautiful. They rise in abrupt bluffs, two hundred feet in height, gashed with narrow dells of the brightest verdure, jvhich slope steeply down to the water, while the country be- hind rises in undulating hills, displaying a charming altemar tion of groves and cultivated fields. In the distance rose JAPANESE BOATS. 4 IS mouEtam ranges, receding behind each othei until the vapoi hid their farthest summits. The eastern coast, belonging to the province of Awa, now came in sight ahead of us, for we were entering the narrowest part of the Bay, leading to the apper Bay of Yedo. The distance from shore to shore here varies from five to eight miles, but afterwards expands to twelve or fifteen. We kept directly up the Bay, and in half an hour after doubling Cape Sagami saw before us a bold promontory mak- ing out from the western coast, at the entrance of the Upper Bay. Within it was the Bight of Uraga, and we could plainly see the town of the same name at the head of it. The Ply- mouth and Saratoga were cast off, and we advanced slowly, sounding as we went, until we had advanced more than a mile beyond the point reached by the Columbus and the Morrison. We were about a mile and a half from the promontory, when two discharges of cannon were heard from a battery at its ex- tremity, and immediately afterwards a light ball of smoke in the air showed that a shell had been thrown up. An order v^as immediately given to let go the anchor, but as the lead still sLowed 25 fathoms, the steamer's head was put in toward the shore, and in a few minutes the anchor was dropped. Another shell was fired after we came to anchor, and four or five boats filled with Japanese approached us. The rowers^ who were all tall, athletic men, naked save a cloth around the loins, shouted lustily as they sculled with all their strength toward us. The boats were of uupainted wood, very sharp in the bows, carrying their greatest breadth of beam well aft, and were propelled with great rapidity. The resemblance of theii model to that of the yacht America, struck every body ob 414 IKDIA. CHINA. AND J vPAN. board. In the stern of each was a small flag, with three hori aontal stripes, the central one black and the other white. In each were several persons, who, by their dress and the two awords smck in their belts, appeared to be men of authority. The first boat came alongside, and one of the two-sworded individuals made signs for the gangway to be let down. Thii was refused, but Mr. Wells Williams, the Interpreter, and Mr. Portman, the Commodore's clerk (who was a native of Holland)^ went to the ship's side to state that nobody would be received on board, except the first in rank at Uraga. The conversa- tion was carried on principally in Dutch, which the interpre- ter spoke very well. He asked at once if we were not Ameri- caDS, and by his manner of asking showed that our coming had been anticipated. He was told that the Commander of the squadron was an officer of very high rank in the United States, and could only communicate with the first in rank on shore. After a long parley, the Vice-Governor of Uraga, who was ic the boat, was allowed to come on board with the Interpreter and confer with Lieut. Contee, the Flag Lieutenant. The Jap- anese official, a fiery little fellow, was much exasperated a/ being kept in waiting, but soon moderated his tone. He was told that we came as friends, upon a peaceable mission ; that we should not go to Naugasaki, as he proposed, and that it was iuiiulting to our President and his special minister to propose it He was told, moreover, that the Japanese must not commu* nfcate with any other vessel than the flag-ship, and that no boats must approach us during the night. An attempt to surround as with a cordon of boats, as in the case of the Columbus and Vincennes, would lead to very serious consequences. They had with them an official notice, w ritten in French, Dutch and En^ JAPANESE BOATS WARNED OFP. 415 lish, and intended as a general warning to all foreign vessels directing them to go no further, to remain out at sea, and send word ashore, why they came and what they wanted. Thia Lieut. Contee declined to see or ackowledge in any way. The same notice was taken to the Plymouth by another boat, which waa at once ordered off. Commodore Perry had evidently made up his mind from the first not to submit to the surveillance of boats. The dignified and decided stand he took produced an immediate impression upon the Japanese. They were convinced that he was in ear- nest, and that all the tricks and delays with which they are in the habit of wheedling foreign visitors would be used in vain. Several boats having followed the first one, and begun to collect round us, the Vice-Governor was told that if they did not return at once, they would be fired into. One of them went to the Mississippi ; and after being repulsed from the gangway, pulled forward to the bows, where some of the crew tried to climb on board. A company of boarders was immediately called away, and the bristling array of pikes and cutlasses over the vessel's side caused the Japanese to retreat in great haste. Thenceforth, all the Japanese boats gave us a wide berth, and during the whole of our stay, none approached us except those containing the officials who were concerned in the negotiations. I may here remark that our presence did not seem to disturb^ in the least, the coasting trade which finds its focus in Yedo. Without counting the hundreds of small boats and fishing smacks, between sixty and seventy large junks daily passed up and down the bay, on their way to and from Yedo. The Japa nese boatmen were tall, handsomely formed men, with vigorouj 9nd symmetrical bodies, and a hardy, manly expression of coun 416 INDIA CHINA, AHD JAPAN. tenance. As the air grew fresher towards evening, they put on a sort of loose gown, with wide, hanging sleeves. As the cre^ of each boat were all attired alike, the dress appeared to be a uniform, denoting that they were in Government service. The most of them had blue gowns, with white stripes on the sleeves, meeting on the shoulder, so as to form a triangular junction, and a crest, or coat-of-arms, upon the back. Others had gowns of red and white stripes, with a black lozenge upon the back Some wore upon their heads a cap made of bamboo splints, resembling a broad, shallow basin inverted, but the greater part had their heads bare, the top and crown shaved, and the hair from the back and sides brought up and fastened in a small knot, through which a short metal pin was thrust. The officers wore light and beautifully lacquered hats to protect them from the sun, with a gilded coat-of-arms upon the front part. In most of the boats I noticed a tall spear, with a lacquered sheath for the head, resembling a number or character, and apparently referring to the rank of the officer on board. After dark, watch-fires began to blaze along the shore, both from the beach and from the summits of the hills, chiefly on the western side of the bay. At the same time we heard, at regular intervals, the sound of a deep-toned bell. It had a very sweet rich tone, and from the distinctness with which its long rever- berations reached us, must have been of large size. A double night-watch was established during our stay, and no officers except the Purser and Surgeons were exempt from serving. But the nights were quiet and peaceful, and it never fell to my let to report a suspicious appearance of any kind. The next morning, Yezaimon, the Governor of Uraga and the highest authority on shore, came off, attended by twa TTNEXPECTED CONCESSIOKte. 41*} interpreters, who gave their names as Tatsonoske aud Tokosh- iuro. He was received by Commanders Buchanan and Adams, and Lieut. Contee. He was a noble of the second rank • his robe was of the richest silken tissue, embroidered with ^old and silver in a pattern resembling peacock feathers. The object of his coming, I believe, was to declare his inability to act, not having the. requisite authority without instructions from Yedo. At any rate, it was understood that an express would be sent to the Capital immediately, and the Commodore gave him until Tuesday noon to have the answer ready. Sunday passed over without any visit, but on Monday there was an informal one. From Tuesday until Wednesday noon, Yezaimon came ofl three times, remaining from two to three hours each time. The result of all these conferences was, that the Emperor had specially appointed one of the Chief Counsellors of the Empiro to proceed to Uraga, and receive from Commodore Perry the letter of the President of the United States, which the Com- modore was allowed to land and deliver on shore. This prompt and unlooked-for concession astonished us all, and I am con vinced it was owing entirely to the decided stand the Commo- dore took during the early negotiations. "We had obtained in four days, without subjecting ourselves to a single observance of Japanese law, what the Russian embassy under Resanofll failed to accomplish in six months, after a degrading subser vience to ridiculous demands. From what I know of the nego- ciations, I must say that they were admirably conducted. The Japanese officials were treated in such a polite and friendly manner as to win their good will, while not a single point to which we attached any importance, was yielded There was a mixture of firmness, dignity and fearlessness on 18* 418 INDIA) CHm/L, AKD TAP AN. 3ur side, against which their artful and dissim ilating policj was powerless. To this, and to our material strength, I at- tribute the fact of our reception having been so different from that of other embassies, as almost to make us doubt the truth of the accounts we had read. From our anchorage off Uraga, we enjoyed a charming panorama of the bay. It far surpassed my preconceived ideas of Japanese scenery. The western shore is bold and steep, runnitg here and there into lofty bluffs of light-gray rock, but the greatei* part of it is covered with turf, copsewood and scat- tered groves of trees, all of the brightest and freshest green. From Uraga to another and shallower bight, which makes in nearly two miles below, the shore is less abrupt, and shows more signs of cultivation. The hills behind, though not above 500 feet in height, are beautifully undulating iu their outlines, and dotted with groves of pine and other trees. From Urdga to the end of the promontory — a distance of a mile and a quarter — there is an almost unbroken line of villages. The house? are of wood, with sharp roofs, some pointed in the Chinese style, some square and pyramidal. A few were painted white, but the greater number were unpainted and weather- beaten. At least a hundred small craft, with a number of junks, lay in the harbor of Uraga, and thence to the headland there were two hundred boats, lying close in-shore. I examined the fortifications frequently and carefully, through a glass, and found that their strength had leen greatly exaggerated. Two of them appeared to have been recently made, and on a bluff, half enclosing Ihe little harbor of Uraga on the east, there was another, still in the course of construc- tion. Between this and the headland thfire were three bat CANVAS FORTIFICATIONS. 41^ fceries, and at the extremity one, making five in all. Tlie em brasures were so large, that from our position a good marks- man might in a short time have dislodged every one of their gmis. The chief post was the central battery, near which waa a village, and several buildings of large size, apparently arsenals or barracks. Every morning and evening, when the air was clear, we had a distinct view of the famous volcanic peak of Fusi- Yam- ma, rising in the western heaven, high above the hills, and sixty miles away. In the evenings its solitary cone, of a pale violet hue, was defined with great distinctness against the' rosy flush of sunset, but in the morning, when the light fell full upon it, we could see the scars of old eruptions, and the cold ravines of snow on its northern side. It is the highest moun- tain in Japan, and estimated to be twelve or thirteen thousand feet above the sea-level. On the morning after our arrival, the Japanese put up a false battery of black canvas, about a hundred yards in length, on the shore south of Urdga. There was no appearance of guns, but with a glass I saw two or three companies of soldiers in scarlet uniform, riding through the groves in the rear. Id most of the batteries they also erected canvas screens behind the embrasures — with what object it was difficult to conceive. These diversions they repeated so often during our stay, that at last we ceased to regard them ; but it was amusing to heaf gome of our old quarter-masters now and then gravely report to Captain Buchanan : " Another dungaree fort thrown up, air!" On Saturday morning a surveying expedition, consisting if one boat from each ship, under the charge of Lieut. Bent 420 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. of the Missisippi, was sent for the purpose of sounding up tho bay. The other officers were Lieut. Guest, of the Susquehauna, Lieut. Balch, of the Plymouth, and Mr. Madigan, Master of the Saratoga. The boats carried, in addition to the usual en sign, a white flag at the bow, and were fully manned with irmed seamen. They ran up the bay to a distance of about four miles, and found every where from thirty to forty- three fathoms of water. The recall was then hoisted, and a signal gun fired, to bring them back. In the afternoon they sounded around the bight of Uraga, keeping about a cable's length from the shore. They found five fathoms of water at this distance, though nearer to the beach there were occasional reefs. Mr. Heine, the artist, obtained a panoramic sketch of the shore, with the batteries, villages, and other objects in detail. On approaching the forts, the soldiers at first came out, armed with matchlocks, but as the boats advanced nearer, they retired within the walls. The forts were all of very rude and imperfect construction, and all together only mounted fourteen guns, none of which were larger than nine-pounders. The whole number of soldiers seen was about four hundred, a considerable portion of whom were armed with spears. Their caps and shields were lacquered, and glittered in the sun like polished armor. The carriages of the guns were also lacquered. The embrasures were so wide that the guns were wholly unpro- tected, while they were so stationed that the forts could be stormed from either side, with very little risk to the assaulting party. The parapets were of earth, and about twelve feet iu thickness, and the barracks in the rear were of wood. Indeed, the whole amount of the Japanese defences appeared laughable «ffcer all the extravagant stories we Kad heard EXPLORING THE BAY. ^O;!^ Mr MaJigan approached, at one place, to within a hundred yards oi the shore. Ihree official personages were standing upon a bank of earth, when some one in the boat raised a spy- glass to get a nearer view of them. No sooner did they be hold the glittering tube pointed at them than they scrambled down as quickly as possible, and concealed themselves. There were three boat-loads of soldiers near the shore, who made eio-ns to him to keep off, but he answered them by pointing out the way he intended to go. Thereupon they put off, and bore down upon him so rapidly, that he at first thought they intended to run into him, and ordered his men to trail their oars and put caps on their carbines. The boats stopped at once, and made no attempt to interfere with the cutter's course. On Monday morning the same surveying party was agaiL dispatched up the bay, followed by the Mississippi, which was designed to protect them, and tow them back in the evening. Lieut. Bent's boat was in advance, and as he passed the pro- montory of Uraga, three Japanese boats put out to meet him. The officers in them made signs to return, but he kept steadily on his way. We watched the progress of our boats with glasses, but at the distance of four miles, they, with the Mis- sissippi, passed out of sight behind the point. Several Government boats, fully manned, were seen from lime to time, pulling across the bay, in the direction of the Burveyiug fleet, but no prominent movement occurred until noon. At this time the distant shores were so lifted by the effect of a mirage, that we saw land extending entirely around the head of the bay, where previously none had been visible, The eastern shore was remarkably distinct, and for the first time we observed a low, sandy promontory stretching out into 422 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. the bay, five or six miles to the north of us. Near the middle of it rose a low mound, on which, by the aid of a glass, we could discern a number of soldiers, clustered around some white objects, which I took to be tents. In a short time several hundred men were marched down to the beach, where they formed a line nearly half a mile in length. At least fifty banners, of various colors and devices, were planted along the line. \ number of Government boats, similar to those which had visited us, were drawn up on the beach. The greater part of the soldiers embarked in the boats, which put off, one after another, and made directly across the bay. We saw nothing more until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when the Mississippi made her appearance, at a distance of ten miles. The head- land of Uraga was crowded with soldiers, who came out to see her pass. From some of the officers who were of the party, I learned the following particulars : In ascending the bay, they were constantly met by Government boats, the officers in which urged them, by signs, to return. They kept on their course, however, until Mr. Bent endeavored to proceed to the V 'd of a deep bay on the western coast. Here he was met by forty- five Japanese boats, which placed themselves in front of him, to intercept his progress. He ordered his men to lay on their oars and fix bayonets to their muskets, but this produced no impression. As the Mississippi was more than two miles astern, he dispatched one of the boats to summon her, and then, ordering half his men to pull directly towards the Ja-panese boats, while the other half held their arms in readiness, he steadily approached their line. They made signs and threaten' ing gestures, to which he paid no heed, and ag this cutter a) perry'b bat. 423 most touched their oars, they gave way, overawed by what must have seemed to them an insane determination. The ap- proach of the Mississippi soon dispersed the whole of them. The boats every where obtained deep soundings, with a bottom of soft mud. The furthest point reached was ten or twelve miles from our anchorage. The shores were bold and steep, with mountains in the background, and the bay (to which Lieut. Bent gave the name of Perry's Bay) offered a secure and commodious anchorage. On her return j the Missis* aippi came down the centre of the bay, finding every whrw abundance of water. OH APTEB XXXiV . THE FIBST LANDING IN JAPAN Thj Day of Landing— Preparatloiis on Shore — ^The Bight of Gorl-hama— Japanese Military Display— Arrival of the Governors — Their OfBcial Dresses— Precautlona on Board— The Procession of Boats— An Ii.ppiring Scene — The Landing— NuinberH of the Escort — The Japanese Troops — The Commodore's Landing — March to the House of Eeception— Japanese Body-Goard — The Hall of Audience — Two Japanese Prlncee — Delivery of the President's Letter — An Official Conversation— Return to the Sqnadron. It was finally arranged with the Japanese officials, that the President's letter should be delivered on Thursday morning, July 14, at the town of Gori-hama, two miles south of Uraga. The morning was heavy and dark before sunrise, but soon afterwards cleared off brilliantly. As soon as the shore could be distinguished, it was seen that the principal battery on the promontory of Urdga had been greaty amplified and adorned by screens of cotton canvas, in honor of the occasion. On the hill above, among the trees, there were two small forts, orTather paTilions, of the same material. The canvas was stretched along a row of stakes so as to form a species of panelling, on which the Imperial coat-of-arms was painted, alternating with other devices. Behind the canvas we could see that numeroua companies of soldiers were drawn up in different costume froio 'APANE8E MILITARY DISPLAY. 425 that which they usually wore. Their arms were bare, aud the body covered with a short tunic of a dark-brown, blue or pur- ple color, bound with a girdle at the waist. About eight o'clock the anchors were lifted, and the Sasquehanna and Mississippi moved slowly down the Bay, leaving the Plymouth and Saratoga. "We soon saw two boats bearing the Government flag pulling abreast of us, but furthei in shore, and accompanied by four other boats with red ban- ners, probably containing a military escort. As the bight opened behind the promontory, we saw a long line of canvaS walls, covered with the Imperial crest, stretching quite around the head of the bight. In front were files of soldiers, standing motionless on the sandy beach. A multitude of banners of va- rious brilliant colors gleamed in the sun. Near the centre of the crescent formed by the troops, were planted nine tall standards — four on one side and five on the other — from which broad scarlet pennons hung to the ground. In the rear of these three new pyramidal roofs showed that a house had been prepared expressly for the Commodore's reception. On the right, upwards of fifty or sixty boats were drawn up in a line parallel to the beach, each having a red flag at its stern. From the head of the bight a narrow valley extended inland between luxuriantly wooded hills. On the left side was a pic- taiesque little town, the name of which the Japanese informed as, was Grori-hama, The place was undoubtedly chosen, both on account of its remoteness from^ Uraga, which is a port of customs, and the facility which it afforded to the Japanese for the exhibition of a large military force — a measure dictated alike by their native caution, and the love of display for whioli they are noted. 426 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. The anchor was no sooner down, than the two Gk)vernment Doats sculled alongside, and Tezaimon, with the Inte^pnite^s^ Tatsonoske and Tokoshiuro, came on board. The second boat contained the Deputy Governor, Saboroske, and an attendant ofl&- cer. They were accommodated with seats on the quarter-deck until all our preparations for landing were completed. They were dressed, as they had hinted the day previous, in official garments of rich silk brocade, bordered with velvet. The gowns differed little in form from those they ordinarily wore, but were elaborately embroidered, and displayed a greater va- riety of gay colors than taste in their disposal. Saboroske had a pair of short and very wide pantaloons, resembling a petti- coat with a seam up the middle, below which appeared his bare legs, and black woollen socks, with an effect rather comical than otherwise. His shoulders contained lines of ornament in gold thread. All the officers wore their crest, or coat-of-arms, embroidered upon the back, sleeves and breasts of their gar- ments. The boats of the Mississippi, Plymouth and Saratoga, were alongside in less than half an hour after our anchor dropped, and preparations were made for leaving at once. Both steam- ers lay with their broadsides to the shore, and the decks were cleared, the guns primed and pointed, ready for action, in case of treachery. Commanders Kelly and Lee remained on board their respective ships, in order to act in case of necessity. The morning was very bright and clear, and the fifteen laun- ches and cutters, containing the officers, seamen, marines, and bandsmen, presented a brilliant appearance, as they clustered around our starboard gangway. Commander Buchanan took the lead, in his barge, with one of the Japanese Government THE LANDING. 421 boats on each side Merrily as the oars of our men dipped the waves, it required their utmost to keep pace with the athletio scullers of Japan. The other American boats followed nearly in line, and the van of the procession was more than half-way to the sliore when the guns of the Susquehanna announced the Commodore's departure. The gleam of arms, the picturesque mingliug of blue and white, in the uniforms, and the sparkling of the waves under the steady strokes of the oarsmen, com- bined to form a splendid picture, set oflf as it was by the back- ground of rich green hills, and the long line of soldiery and banners on the beach. All were excited by the occasion, and the men seemed to be as much elated in spirits as those who had a more prominent part in the proceedings. We all felt, that as being the first instance since the expulsion of the Por- tuguese from Japan, when a foreign Ambassador had been officially received on Japanese soil, it was a memorable event in the history of both countries, and that, if not an augury of the future and complete success of the Expedition, it was at leaat a commencement more auspicious than we had ventured to anticipate. An impromptu jetty composed of bags of sand, had been thrown up for the occasion near the centre of the crescent- shaped beach at the head of the bight. Capt. Buchanan, who had command of the party, was the first to leap ashore. The remaining boats crowded rapidly in beside the jetty, landed as many of their crews as had been detailed for the escort on ihore, and then pulled off about fifty yards. The seamen and marines were formed into a line as soon as they were landed, and presented a compact and imposing file along the beach The officers commanding detachments were Commanders Bu 428 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. chanau and "Walker, and Lieuts. Gillis and Taylor. The bodies of seamen were in immediate charge of Lieut. Duer, of the Susquehanna ; Lieut. Morris, of the Mississippi ; Lieut. Mat- thews of the Plymouth, and Passed Midshipman Scott, of the Saratoga. Including the other officers, there were upwards of 320 persons landed, while the Japanese troops amounted, as they themselves informed us, to five thousand. We had 112 marines, about 120 seamen, 50 officers, and 30 or 40 musicians. About a hundred yards from the beach stood the foremost files of the Japanese, in somewhat loose and straggling order. Their front occupied the whole beach, their right flank resting on the vil- Isicre of Gori-hama, and their left against a steep hill which bounded the bight on the northern side. The greater part were stationed behind the canvas screens, and from the num- bers, crowded together in the rear, some of the officers estima- ted their force at nearer ten than five thousand men. Those in the front rank were armed with swords, spears and match- locks, and their uniform differed little from the usual Japanese costume. There were a number of horses, of a breed larger and much superior to the Chinese, and in the background we saw a body of cavalry. On the slope of the hill near the vil- lage, a great number of natives, many of whom were women, had collected, out of curiosity to witness the event. A salute was fired from the Susquehamia, as the Commo- dore left, accompanied by his staff, Commander Adams, and Lieut Contee, and the men had scarcely been formed into line before his barge approached the shore. The officers compos- ing the Commodore's escort formed a double line from the jetty, and as he passed between them fell into proper order be- hind him. He was received with the customary honors, and JAPANESE BODY-GUARD. 429 the procession immediately started for the place of reception, A stalwart boatswain's mate was selected to bear the broad pennant of the Commodore, supported by two very tall and powerful negro seamen, completely armed. Behind these fol lowed two sailor boys, bearing the letter of the President and the Commodore's letter of credence, in their sumptuous boxes, wrapped in scarlet cloth. Then came the Commodore himself, with his staff and escort of officers. The marine force, a fine, athletic body of men, commanded by Maj. Zeilin, with a de- tachment from the Mississippi, under Capt. Slack, led the way, and the corps of seamen from all the ships brought up the rear. The house of reception was directly in front of the landing, but an intervening screen rendered a slight detour necessary in order to reach the entrance; and Maj. Zeilin made the most of this circumstance, in order to display our forces to the Japanese. There certainly was a marked contrast between the regular, compact files of our njen, and their vigorous, mus- cular figures, and the straggling 'ranks of the mild, effeminate- featured Japanese. In front of the house were two old brass four-pounders, apparently of Spanish manufacture, and on each side stood a company of soldiers, who belonged either to the Imperial forces, or to the body-guard of the Prince. Those on the left wore a uniform somewhat resembling the modem Egyptian dress. It was of a dark gray color, having full trowsers, gathered below the knees, a broad sash around the waist, and a white cloth, similar to a turban, bound upon the head. They were armed with the old Tower muskets, which are to be found in every part of the world, with flint locks and bayonets Those on the right wore a different uniform, ex 430 INDIA* CHIKA, AND JAPAN. hibiting a mixture of dull brown and yellow in its colors, and carried matchlocks of an antique fashion. Yezaimon and the Interpreters preceded us, in order to sho^ the way. The distance from the jetty to the door of the build- ing was so short, that little opportunity was given me foi noticing minutely the appearance of the Japanese, or the order of their array. The building into which the Commodore and Buite were ushered was small, and appeared to have been erected in haste. The timbers were of pine wood, and numbered, as if they had been brought from some other place. The first apartment, which was about forty feet square, was of canvas with an awning of the same, of a white ground, with the Im perial arms emblazoned on it in places. The floor was covered with white cotton cloth, with a pathway of red felt, or some similar substance, leading across the room to a raised inner apartment, which was wholly carpeted with it. This apartment, the front of which was entirely open, so that it corresponded precisely to the diwan in Turkish houses, was hung with fine cloth, containing the Imperial arms, in white, on a ground of violet. On the right hand was a row of arm-chairs, sufficient in number for the Commodore and his stafi", while on the op- posite side sat the Prince who had been appointed to receive the President's letter, with another official of similar rank. Their names were given by the Interpreter as " Toda Idzu-no- Kami," Toda, Prince of Idzu, and " Ido Iwami-no-Kami," Ido, Prince of Iwami. The Prince of Idzu was a man of about fifty with mild, regular features, an ample brow, and an intelligent, reflective expression. He was dressed with great richness, ID heavy robes of silken tissue, wrought into elaborate orna* naents with gold and silver thread. The Prince of Iwami wac AN OFFICIAL CONVBRSATIOH. 431 At least fifteen years older, and dressed with nearly ec^ua, Bpleudor. His face was wrinkled with age, and exhibited neither the intelligence nor the benignity of his associate. They b^th rose and bowed gravely as the Commodore entered, but immediately resumed their seats, and remained as silent and passive as statues during the interview. At the head of the room was a large scarlet-lacquered box, with brazen feet, beside which Yezaimon and the Interpreter, Tatsonoske, knelt. The latter then asked whether the letters were ready to be delivered, stating that the Prince was ready to receive them. The boxes were brought in, opened, so that the writing and the heavy golden seals were displayed, and placed upon the scarlet chest. The Prince of Iwami theu handed to the Interpreter, who gave it to the Commodore, an official receipt, in Japanese, and at the same time the Inter- preter added a Dutch translation. The Commodore remarked that he would sail in a few days for Loo-Choo and Canton, and if the Japanese Government wished to send any dispatches to those places he would be happy to take them. Without ma- king any direct reply, the Interpreter asked : " When will you come again ? " The Commodore answered, " As I sup- pose it will take some time to deliberate upon the letter of tho President, I shall not wait now, but will return in a few months to receive the answer." He also spoke of the revolution in China, and the Interpreter asked the cause of it, withou^ translating the communication to the Prince. He then in quired when the ships would return again, to which the Com modore replied that they would probably be there in April or May. "All four of them? "he asked. "All of them,' answered the Commodore, " and probably more. This is but a *32 INDIA, CHINA, ANT JAPAN. portion of the squadron.'' No further conversation took place The letters having been formally delivered and received, the Commodore took his leave, while the two Princes, who had fulfilled to the letter their instructions not to speak, rose and remained standing until he had retired from their presence. The return to the boats was made in the same order, the bands playing " Hail Columbia " and " Yankee Doodle," with more spirit than ever before, and few of those present, I ven- ture to say, ever heard our national airs with more pride and pleasure. Yezaimon, Saboroske, and the two Interpreters at- tended the Commodore to the boat, and as the embarkation of the different boats' crews occupied some time, on account of the smallness of the jetty, several of the Japanese soldiers profited by the delay to come down and examine us more close- ly. Many of our men strayed along the beach, picking up shells and pebbles as mementoes of the visit. In Jess than twenty minutes, however, all were embarked, and we returned to the ships, accompanied by the two Japanese boa* '3 yliich Kad piloted us to the shore. Before twelve o'clock t'^e ancliora were lifted, and both vessels were under way oa a **nu3« Mp the bay. CHAPTER XXXV. THB UPPEB BAT OP TBDO. riki Japanese Officers on Board-Their Manners-Their Dislike to tlie Cliinese- WwU Swords— Their Curiosity— Passing up the Bay— Beauty of the Scenery-" lerry'i Bay ''—Junks bound for Yedo— Another Visit— Further Surveys— The Natives- In Rscursion towards Yedo— Exteot and Capacity of the Upper Bay— Change oi Anchorage— The Surveys Proceed— Interchange of Presents— A Dilemma— Final Satisfaction — Farewell of the Japanese Officials— Commodore Perry's Diplomacy- Departure from Japan— A Multitude of Boats— Oosima— The Islands off the Bay- Discoveries— Formation of the Group— We Sail for Ohosima— A Typhoon— Return to Loo-Choo— The Second Visit to Japan. Yezaimon, Saboroske, and the Interpreters accepted an invi- tation to remain on board until we reached Uraga, and have their boats towed at our stern. This gave them a chance of seeing the steam-engine in operation, for which they had ex- pressed a great desire. They were conducted over the ship, and saw the engine from all points of view, betraying; a great deal of curiosity in regard to its operation, but no fear. They even obtained a glimmering idea of the manner in which the steam acted, to set the enormous mass in motion. Tatson- oske asked if it was not the same machine in a smaller com 19 434 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. pass which we used on railroads. During their inspection of the ship they saw many things which must have been new and strange to them, but their composure and self-possession were Uot in the least disturbed. Notwithstanding the decks were crowded with ofl&cers and men, whose curiosity to see them was very great, they were to all appearance unconscious of it, and conducted themselves with as much ease and propriety aa I ever saw among the most refined people. The complexion of these oflBcers was a dark olive, but not too dark to allow a ruddy tinge on the lips and cheeks. Their eyes were somewhat larger, and not so obliquely set as those of the Chinese, their foreheads broader and more open, with a greater facial angle, and the expression of their faces denoted a lively and active mind. Notwithstanding that spirit of cunning and secrecy which, through the continual teachings of their government has become almost a second nature to them, their faces were agreeable and expressive. Their motions and gesturts were characterized by an unstudied grace, and it was the unanimoua opinion of all our officers that they were as perfect gentlemen as could be found in any part of the world. A curious illus- tration of their dislike to the Chinese, who are greatly inferior to them in propriety, and elegance of manner, occurred while they were on board. One of their Interpreters, noticing some of the Chinese deck-hands, who had been shipped at Shanghai, asked with a face expressive of great contempt and disgust ' '^Is it possible that you have Chinese among your men?" Mr Portman with much readiness, but not entire candor, replied '* These men are ihe servants of our sailors,''' and thereby re- instated us in the good opinion of the Japanese. While going their roimds their swords were left in tb« BEAUTY OF THE SCEIfEBT. 48fi cabin, and most of the officers made use of the opportunity to examine them. The steel was of admirable quality, and kept in good condition, although the shape of the blade was rather unwieldy, and the handle was without a guard. The scabbards were made of shark-skin very handsomely polished. While ic the cabin, a globe was brought, and the position of the United States shown to the Japanese. Tatsonoske immediately [)ointed out Washington and New York, and seemed tolerably familiar with the geography of our country, as well as that of Europe, He asked wheiher in America many of the roads were not cot through the mountains — evidently referring to railroads. Ye- zaimon expressed his de-ire to examine a revolver, several of which the Japanese had noticed in the otficers' belts. Com- mander Buchanan theretore fired off all the chambers of a genuine " Colt," from the qnarter-deck, to his great astonish- ment. Before we had half gratified their curiosity, (which the steam-whistle raised to the highest pitch,) we were off Uraga, and they were obliged to leave. As we moved out past the promontory of Uraga, the west- ern shore opened on the lett, showing a broad deep bay, era- bosomed by hills covered with the greenest and most luxuriant foliage, and with several large villages at their base. We ap- proached within three miles of the eastern shore, which is lof- tier and wilder than the western, risuig into a range of rugged mountains, which showed no signs of habitation or cultivation. But the lower slopes, which undulated gently to the water, dharmed me by the rich beauty of their scattered groves, and the green terraces and lawns into which centuries of patient culti vation has formed them. Outside of England there is nothing *o green, so garden-like, so full of tranquil beauty. To the north 436 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. the hills gradually sank away, and a sandy spur three 3r foui miles in length, stretched into the bay. This proved to be the ground whereon we had seen the parade of Japanese soldiers when the surveying boats ascended the bay. The two mounds which I had noticed through a glass, were surmounted with batteries of about five guns each. Changing our course we made over toward the other sidC; steering for a bold projecting headland, about twelve miles be- yond that of Uraga. In the intervening bight, to which Lieut. Bent, as the first surveyor, gave the name of "Perry's Bay,* there are two lovely, green islands. The shores of the bay are as tnickly settled and as assiduously cultivated, as about and below Urdga. During the voyage up, we had at no time loss than seven fathoms, and generally from thirty to forty. After going a short distance, beyond the point reached by the Mississippi, and upwards of ten miles beyond our former anchorage, we dropped anchor a mile and half from the shore, in thirteen fathoms. The inward-bound junks, I noticed, made for a point a little east of north from our position. According to the Ja- panese charts, and the best descriptions of Yedo, this must have been the direction of the capital. A long, low headland wag visible with the glass, with (apparently) another bight beyond it; but to the north-east, for a segment of about 30°, no land could be seen. This also corresponded to the form of the bay, as given in Japanese charts. Toward evening we had another visit from Yezaimon, who had followed us from Uraga, with the intention of finding out what our motives were in proceeding so far up the bay. What- ever objections he may have made, they did not appear to be eflPectual, for as long as we remained, the survey was prosecuted AN EXCURSION TOWARDS YEDO. 43'; with great spirit and activity. On the following day (Friday) Lieuts. Cooper, of the Susquehanna, Clitz, of the Mississippi, Goldsborough, of the Saratoga, and Mathews, of the Plymouth, sounded around the islands and up the head of the bight, where ihey found a deep inlet, into which flowed a beautiful river. The banks were studded with villages, groves, and gardens, and the officers were enraptured with the beauty of the scenery. The natives of both sexes, old and young, came down the banks and saluted them in a friendly manner, bring- ing them cool spring-water to drink, and ripe peaches from their gardens. On Friday afternoon, the Commodore went on board the Mississippi, transferring his broad pennant to that ship for £ few hours, while he made an exploring trip still further up the bay. After going ten miles in the direction of Yedo, the Mississippi put about in twenty fathoms water, and returned to her former anchorage, having reached, as was supposed, a point within eight miles of the capital. On the western shore the large towns of Kanagawa and Kowazacki were seen; while on the extremity of a cape in front, not more than four miles distant, stood a tall white tower, resembling a light- house. Three or four miles beyond and within this point was a crowd of shipping, which was without doubt the anchorage of Sinagawa, the southern suburb of Yedo. There was every probability that the Mississippi could have advanced to a point within cannon-shot of the city. The head of the bay rounded to the eastward, and in that direction the shores be- came low and fiat, and finally disappeared below the horizon The squadron had, therefore, advanced twenty miles farthei tip the Bay of Yedo than any previous vessel, and shown con 138 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. clusively that, instead of being shallow and unnavigable, at had formerly been supposed, it contains abundance of watei and excellent harbors. It is, in fact, one of the largest and finest bays in the world, and second to none in the varied and delightful scenery of its shores. Early on Saturday morning we moved from our first an- chorage to another, five or six miles further down the bay, and much nearer to the shore. There was abundance of watei every where, and all around the beautiful little island, a line dropped close to the shore gave five fathoms. The western coast, which was less than a mile distant, appeared wonderfully green and beautiful. It curved inward so as to form a charm ing sheltered bay, near the head of which the two villages of Otsu and Torigasaki lay embosomed in foliage. There was a small battery, almost masked by trees, on the summit of the island, and another on the point of the cape below us. This part of the bay is completely land-locked, the promon- tory of Uraga projecting so far as to cover one third of the eastern shore. The surveying boats were occupied during the whole of the day, without any interference on the part of the Japanese, who seemed to have made up their minds to submit to these unusual proceedings. Too much credit, however, cannot be awarded to the different officers, and especially to Lieut. Bent, for the coolness and courage with which they pro- secuted iheir work. When we consider that this, one of the greatest bays in the world, liad hitherto never been surveyed, the interest and value of their labors will be better under* itood. Yezaimon came again on Saturday morning, accompanied by both the Interpreters. This time they brought a numbei .INTERCHANGE OF PRESENTS. 439 cf presents, as souvenirs of our visit — consisting of lac()[uered cups, very light and elegant in form, brocade silks, richly wrought with gold and silver thread, tobacco pipes and pouches, and fans covered with hideously distorted and lackadaisi'^a^ pictures of Japanese ladies. The Commodore was willing Ur receive them, but insisted on giving something in return. A selection of American manufactures was made, which, with some maps, engravings, arms and other articles, formed a re- turn more than equal in value. They refused to take any thing, affirming that it was forbidden by their laws, and would sub- ject them to the danger of losing their lives : besides, thej declared, the presents offered them were too valuable to be ac- cepted. They were each willing to receive some small articles, which could be readily concealed about their persons, but were positively informed that we could accept of nothing unless they took our gifts, with the exception of the arms, which were re- moved, as they stated that they could in no case give or re- ceive arms. When Yezaimon saw his presents about to be tumbled back into his boat, he yielded at once, choosing what he probably considered the least dangerous horn of the di- lemma. In the afternoon they returned in the best possible humor, their course having apparently been sanctioned by some higher authority on shore. They brought off a quantity of fowls in light wicker coops, and three or four thousand eggs in boxes, taking away in return a large case of American garden-seeds. The inter view lasted a considerable time, as they were socially disposed and partook of refreshments, both solid and liquid. Tatsonoske stated, in a half-confidential way, that the letter of the Presi dent had been received in Yedo, and that if the translatioi '140 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. which they had already obtained through the Dutch correspond ed with the original, the Government would be disposed to re gard it very favorably. He also hinted that Yezaimon would 8hortly be promoted to a much higher rank. The latter was exceedingly jovial, and stated, by an expressive pantomime, that he would shed tears on the departure of the squadron. It was dusk when the boat pulled off, and the shadows of tho wooded hills, lengthening over the water, soon hid from sight the last glimpse of our Japanese friends. On Sunday morning, the 17th we hove anchor and started for Loo-Choo, having in the space of ten days accomplished more than any other nation had been able to effect for the last two centuries. The universal feeling on board was one of hon- est pride and exultation. Knowing the cunning and duplicity of the people with whom we had to deal, it was a satisfaction to find all their arts of diplomacy completely shattered by the simple, straightforward, resolute course adopted by Com- modore Perry. Nothing could have been better managed, from first to last ; and I have reason to know that the final success of the Expedition was owing to no fortunate combination of circumstances, but wholly to the prudent and sagacious plan pre-arranged by its Commander. The day of our departure was clear and warm, and the morning light fell softly on the verdurous shores, as we passed the promontory of Uraga. The soldiers were all gathered on the terraces, in front of the batteries to see us pass. The Mississippi kept such a station on our port quarter, that from the shore she would appear as far behiaid the Saratoga, as that Fessel from the Susquehanna; and the sight of four great war-ships, with all sails furled and yards squared, keeping THE ISLANDS OF THE BAT. 441 eqiki-distant from each other to a hair's breadtn, yet moving through the water at the rate of eight or nine knots, must have struck the Japanese as something miraculous. The day was clear that the inhabitants of both shores had an excellent jpportunity of seeing the performance of the vessels, and we oon found that the news of our departure had preceded us. As we drew abreast of Cape Sagami, and made down the centre of the bay, keeping much nearer the eastern shore than on our entrance, we found the water covered with boats, which had brought out loads of the Japanese to get a nearer view. The bay was sprinkled with them, far and near, and at a moderaU calculation, I should say that there were at least five hundred Some of them were so curious as to approach within four or five hundred yards, when the men lay on their oars, and re- mained standing motionless until long after we had passea. I caught a parting glimpse of the cone of Fusi-Yamma through the rifts of a pile of fleecy clouds, high over the head of the Bay of Kowadzu. We steered for the uorthem or main entrance of the bay, keeping between three and four miles from the northern shore, which belongs to the province of Awa. Vries Island, or Oosima, lay to the south of us. It has a bold, convex outline, and its summit was lost in the c'^ouds. It is an admirable land- mark for mariners, and in connection with Cape Idzu and Kock Island, forms a sure guide for vessels entering the Bay of Yedo from the east or south. Our course was nearly due Bouth for the remain ler of the day, and the chain of islands which extends from the mouth of the bay to the penal colony of Fatsisio, gradually rose to view. They seem to have beer irerj imperfectly explored, foi on none of our charts were they 19* 142 INDIA, CHINA, kND JAPAN laid down .^orrectly Vulcan Island is conspicuous for ill iofty, conical pummit, the sides of which are streaked with de- posits of lava. It was covered, from the brink of its sea- worn orags, with the most luxuriant vegetation. To the east of i^ was another island, not giveL in any chart, and the Commodoije accordingly took the explorer's right, and named it " Missis- sippi Island." A cluster of very peculiar pointed rocks, rising like broken obelisks to the height of a hundred feet, received the Susquehanna's name. The Plymouth and Saratoga were also honored — the first with a large isolated rock, the second with an island — both of which we claim the merit of dis- covering. The features of this group are grand and imposing. The shores of these islands are mostly precipitous, presenting few accessible points, and being nearly circular in form, enhance the effect of the lofty summits into which they rise. I counted eight around us at one time ; some bold and strongly defined, from their vicinity ; others distant, blue, and floating in a va- pory atmosphere, like the phantoms of islands. We could not discern any dwellings upon them, but it is probable that they Are partly inhabited. We passed through them all before sun- set, and still steering southward, hoped to have caught a glimpse of Fatsisio, which could not have been more than twenty-five miles distant; but night set in, and the vessels were put upon their course for Loo-Choo. For the next two days, we ran in a south-westerly direc- tion, aided by a strong east wind. The Saratoga was cast off in Lat. 30° N., and left to make her way to Shanghai, where she was ordered tc wintei. The Mississippi also cast off the Plymouth, which was directed to sound aad survey along th« RETURN TO LOO CHOO. 443 w^estern side of Ohosima (the island supposed to liave been discovered by the Preble), while the Susquehanna would cruise . along the eastern side. Commodore Perry's intention was to •ipend two or three days in fixing the position and dimensions of the island, and in communicating, if the nature of the coast would allow, with the inhabitants. We looked forward to the visit with interest, as there is no account of any vessel having ever touched there. It is not often that the traveller meets with a large community of semi-civilized people, to whom the European race is unknown. On Wednesday, July 20th, however, a typhoon came on from the east. Our topmasts and topgallant-masts were sent down, and we scudded along with only the trysails set. The Susquehanna rolled in a most extraordinary manner, and the great pivot-gun on her poop, was so secured with lashings, and bindings of every description, that it resembled an im- mense cast-iron babe in swaddling-bands. For two days the storm continued to rage with much violence. Both our fore and main trysail-gaffs were carried away, and the Mississippi lost two of her boats. We stood off and on for two days, but the sea continued so rough that the idea of proceeding tc Ohosima was finally abandoned, and we made for the harbor of Napa, in Loo-Choo, where we arrived on the 25th. Thus ended N the first campaign of the United States Expedition to Japan- - concerning which, it will ever be to me a source of pride and satisfaction, to say: Pars parva fui. Note. — The result of the Expedition to Japan is now known all over the world. Commodore Perry returned to the Bay of Yedo in February, 1854, his squadron augmented by the steam-frigate Powhatan the sloops-of-war ^ihccdnnian and luadalia, and the store-ships f^cx 444 INDIA, CHINA, AISD JAPAN. ington and Southampton. He anchored before Ivanagawa, a remoU suburb of Yedo, and after vanous interviews with a Council of nve Princes of the Empire, appointed to confer with him, concluded a treaty of amity and commerce between the United States and Japan, at the village of Yoko-hama, near Kanagawa, in the beginning oi April. By this treaty the ports of Simoda, in Niphon (about 120 miles from Yedo), Hakodadi in the island of Jesso, and Napa-Kiang in Lot» Choo, are opened to American vessels for the purposes of trade. The squadron visited both the former ports, and the officers of the Expe- dition were allowed perfect liberty to go on shore, mingle freely with the inhabitants, and make excursions inland to the distance of twenty miles. The success of the negotiations was as complete, in fact, as the most sanguine friend of the undertaking could have desired, and reflects great honor on the skill and prudence which marked the course oi CJonmiodore Perry. As my connection with the Expedition ceased after our return to China, I shall not attempt a history of its second and fai more interesting campaign — a complete account of which the public will soon possess in the national work now bfing published under tht iropervision of Commodore Perry. CHAPTER XXXYI. OPERATIONS IN LOO-CHOO. Negotiations with the New Regent— Captain Hall's Account of Loo-Choo— Napo- leon's Incredulity— Its Correctness — Verification of the Japanese Chronicle— The Three Castles— The Government of Loo-Choo— Provisions for the Squadron —Duplicity of the Officials— The Markets deserted— The Spies— The Telegraph and Daguerreotype in Loo-Choo — Demands of Commodore Perry — The Regent's Reply— The Commodore successful— A Scene in the Market-place— Chase and Capture of a Spy— The Coal Depot— Exhibition of Loo-Choo Industry— National Contrasts — Steamship Line across the Pacific. During our second visit to Napa-Kiang, on our return from Japan, Commodore Perry opened negotiations with the new Regent (tlie old one having been deposed during our absence), for the purposi of procuring privileges, which would enable him to make the island a permanent rendezvous for the squad- ron during its stay in the East. In order to grant his re- quests, it was necessary to depart in some degree from the ex- clusive principle, which the Loo-Chooans have either borrowed from, or had forced upon them by Japan ; and consequently, while — knowing our strength and their weaknes^s — they avoided a candid opposition^ they know how to assume an attitude of passive resistance, which was far more perplexing. The ap- 446 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. parent insincerity of their declarations, the shifts to which thej resorted, and the deception they attempted to practise upon us taught the Commodore, finally, the only effective method of dealing with them, and gave us a better insight into their real character than has fallen to the lot of any explorers who visit- ed the island before us. I cannot here avoid allusion to the well-known work ot Capt. Bacil Hall, who has given the most full and detailed ac count of Loo- C hoc which we possess. He was commander of the Lyra^ which, with the frigate Alceste, visited the island thirty-five years ago, and remained about six weeks at Napa- Kiang. He had considerable intercourse with the natives, whom he paints in the most glowing colors, as models of primi- tive simplicity, innocence and goodness, such as are to be found in no other part of the globe. He announces as facts that tliey were ignorant of the use of money, that they had no arms, and that wars were unknown in their history. When Capt. Hall afterward mentioned these things to Napoleon, at St. Helena, the Emperor shook his head incredulously, and ex- claimed : " Point d^ armes / point de guerres ! — impossible I '' He was right; and the Captain, on these afid many other points, was thoroughly cajoled by the Loo-Chooans. When we first arrived they told us the same things, yet we soon found that they were familiar with money and arms — especially the former — and Klaproth's translation of the "jRaw To Sets,^^ a Japanese chronicle, gives an account of their wars Their wonderful innocence and simplicity prove to be the disguises assumed by a marvellous cunning, and their alleged goodness ol heart is illustrated by a G vernment which makes luxuriouj drones of a small class, and abj ct slaves of all others. GOVERNMENT OF LOO-CHOO. 447 During our exploration of the island, we found an interest ing verification of its former history, as given in the Japanese chronicle. It is there stated, that there were originally three kingdoms, called the Northern, Central and Southern, the firsl nd last named of which were in the course of time, and after lingering civil wars, absorbed by the third. On our exj edi tion into the interior, in the beginning of June, we discovered, as T liave already stated, the ruins of the fortress-palace of the Northern King — a massive edifice, 600 feet in length, on the summit of a mountain. The present Viceroy, descended from the rulers of the Central Kingdom, still inhabits their castle the inscription over the gate of Shui, the capital, is : " The Central Hill," and it was therefore to be expected that the castle of the third King might be found in the southern part of the island. Accordingly, on our return from Japan, Com- modore Perry directed several ofl&cers, of whom I was one, to make explorations in that quarter, and we finally discovered the ruins of the castle, about four miles south-east of Napa, on the summit of a precipitous cliff, which commanded a view of an extensive and beautiful landscape. The place is called by the natives " Timagusku," and has been so despoiled that only two gateways remain entire. The outer walls inclose an area of nearly eight acres. It was not so easy to obtain correct particulars concerning the structure of the Government, although its character waa exhibited in its effects upon the population. The present Vicero? is a minor, and the chief authority is exercised by a Regent, the three Treasurers of the kingdom, and perhaps some additional officers, forming a Council which he consults, and in which, apparently, is vested the right to appoint or de 448 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. pose him. There are also various grades of civil rank, as ir China and JajDan. The soil is considered the property of the State, and all that it yields is divided into ten parts, six ol wliich are appropriated by the Government. There is ever} evidence that a system of espionage, similar to that of Japan, is practised. The deep-rooted fear and mistrust of the people toward the officers of the Grovernment, can only be accounted for by the existence of such a system. Wherever we went we found ourselves preceded and followed by spies, who drove the populace from our path, forced them in some instances to quit their dwellings or abandon their villages, and prevented them from holding any communication with us. Although, owing to the remonstrances made by Commodore Perry, this annoy- ing surveillance was relaxed toward the close of our stay, it was never wholly abandoned. After our arrival at Napa-Kiang, in May, the squadron was in want of fresh provisions, and the Commodore requested that supplies might be furnished, promising that full value should be paid for every article. The Loo-Choo authorities at first objected, stating that their island was poor, and that money was of no use to them, but that they would furnish gratuitously what little they could spare from their own needs ; yet after some negotiations, they agreed to the demand, and fixed a scale of prices, which, on comparison with those of China, we found to be sufficiently high. The weU-stocked markets of Napa, and the rich gardens and harvest-fields which covered the island, contradicted their complaints of poverty. When the day of settlement came, they were al- ways in readiness to receive the money, and took the Spanish CrOVERNMENT SPIES, 449 iollars and A.merican eagles w'lh great satisfaction. Thas th€ way was broken for a closer iDtercourse with the people. The next step was to obtain our supplies direct from the markets of Napa. The persons appointed to fill up the lists Bent from the different vessels fulfilled their office in a very satisfactory manner. In few instances was more than half the amount supplied, \\hich had been called for, and at last, when a mess needed a dozen fowls and a hundred eggs, it was neces- sary to demand 50 of the one, and 500 of the other. The ob- ject of this -was to keep up the appearance of poverty, thi)ugh at the same time the public markets, open to the natives, abounded in every thing which we stood in need of. Many persons — both officers and men — went ashore repeatedly, and endeavored to make purchases, but they were successful in very few instances. They were dogged by spies, whose appearance sufficed to clear the market in a few minutes. The natives fled precipitately in all directions, leaving their stands of fruit, vegetables, potterv and other articles of sale or barter, entirelj unprotected, and the market-square which, when we first caught sight of it, was crowded with hundreds of busy buyers and sellers, was left vacant and desolate. Tlie same course yis followed in all parts of the town. Shops were closed, streets deserted, and though we sometimes endeavored to steal a marcli upon the inhabitants by darting suddenly into a private dwelling, we rarely succeeded in finding any. one within Yet, whenever, by chance, we met with them when no spies were visible, they showed an evident good-wiU towards us, and a desire to cultivate a familiar mtercourse, At such times they thankfully accepted money or presents, which they steadfastly refused, when any agent of the Qovem- 450 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. ment was near. On our tours of exploration, we generally carried with u<5 a quantity of ship's bi.-cuit, which the inhabi- tant- of tlie villages took very eagerly, seeming to consider il a great delicacy. During our first visit, the Commodore applied to the au- thorities to lea>e liim a house on shore for a short time, that the daguerreotype and telegraphic apparatus might be put up and tested. They designated the little temple near tlie village of Tumai, two miles north of Napa, which had been given to Capts. Maxwell and Hall, as a hospital for their seamen. There is a coirect sketch of it in Hall's work. Messrs. Brown and Draper, the artists, went ashore with their assistants, and remained ther*' three week-. Tliey were daily vi-ited by num- bers of the better class of natives, who watched theif operations with the greatest curiosity. They at once compiehended the properties of the daguerreotype, and willingly sat for their portraits. They understood the necessity of remaining per- fectly quiet, and were as rigid as statues, not venturing to move an eyelid. When the impression was good, nothing could exceed their wonder and delight. The excessive moist- ure in the air of Loo-Choo, and the absence of any fitting lo- cation for the instruments, operated unfavorably upon the plates, and not more than twenty good pictures were procured. These, however, are of much value, as giving perfect represen- tations of the features and costumes of the Loo-Chooans. The telegraphic api)aratus worked admirably, and though the natives could only pariially comprehend its character, they re^ garded it with a kind of superstitious awe. Considering the advantages which the island of Loo-Choo offered as a temporary naval station, and rendezvous for the EASTERN DIPLOMACY AQAXS, 451 Bquadron — its proximity to Japan ; its temperate and healthy climate ; its secure harbor, and its remoteness from the jealous watchfulness of rival nations — Commodore Perry made the following demands of the Regent : 1st, that the Government should lease him a building suitable for a coal depot ; 2d, that the markets of Napa should be thrown open to us, and the na- tives be allowed to deal directly with us, without the tedious and unsatisfactory agency of the oflBcial purveyors ; 3d, that the system of espionage to which we had been subjected, should be relinquished in future ; and 4th, that the Government should make a collection of the articles manufactured in the island, in order that we might have an opportunity of purchas- ing specimens. It was represented, in support of these de- mands, that two months of intercourse, during which they had no single cause of complaint against any person belonging to the squadron, should be sufficient to convince them of our friendly disposition toward them ; that in allowing us to pur- chase the commodities which their people offered for sale, we conferred a direct benefit upon them ; that we had explored their island, seen its abundant resources, and knew that they would be enriched, not impoverished, by the supplies which they furnished us; and lastly, that both as friends to the Loo-Chooans, and as the representatives of a great nation, the employment of spies to watch our motions was an indignity to which we could no longer submit. Tlie reply of the Regent was a good illustration of the in- sincere, evasive diplomacy of P^astern nations. It granted nothing and denied nothing. With regard to the coal depot, tt was suggested that the people would steal the coal in case it was deposited there; that typhoons might blow down the 152 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN building; that there was no part of the harbor where G.SLi. eould be landed, Sio. As for the markets, they had never pre* rented us from going there to purchase, but the people feared and they fled away because they w^ere afraid. The persona who followed us were not spies, but officers appointed to watch over, protect and assist us. If we did not desire them they would be released from their service. The reply wound up as usual, by a declaration of the smallness and poverty of the island. The Commodore however took a blunt, straight for- ward course which obliged them to give a decisive answer, and as in the case of the Japanese, he gained his point. His diplo- macy, no doubt, seemed somewhat arbitrary in both cases, buJ where dissimulation and evasion form the web of a policy, as with these nations, there is no course so effective as plain com- mon sense, backed up by a good reserve of physical force. A number of us went ashore the day after the concessions were made, in order to test their good faith. "We entered Napa, and set out for the market-place, keeping a good watch to see whether any spies were lurking about. Most of the shops were shut as usual, but we found the market crowded, and a brisk trade going on in vegetables, cheese, pork, earthenware, paper, plain cotton goods, and the other articles in common use among the natives. At first, our appearance created no dis- turbance, but we had scarcely reached the middle of the square, when the crowd began to scatter as if a bomb shell had fallen among them. The superannuated old women who could not get out of the way, crouched behind their umbrellas, and if wfl approached them, turned their heads aside or stuck them undei their arms, that they might not see us. Except by them, and a few men of the lowest class, the place was «oon deserted BUILDING A COAL DEPOT. 45S We looked n all directions for the source of this dispersion, and at last caught a glimpse of the head of a spy, peeping cautiously around a comer. We instantly gave chase, but he escaped us. Wherever we went, we saw them dodging us in th< distance, and if we turned on our steps and followed them, they took to their heels. But tliere was one — an ill-favored, one- eyed gentleman in a robe of yellow grass-cloth — who peisisted in keeping close to us. At last a spirited midshipman started in chase of him. Away they raced through the poi k market, the people scattei-ing on both sides before them, yet looking on with evident amusement. The one-eyed gentleman spread his robes on the wind, but the midshipman gained on him, and finally grasping him by the back of the neck, gave him a shaking that made his remaining eye quiver in its socket. He did not return, and we had the satisfaction of purchasing some cucumbers in the market — which was at least a beginning of trade. The site for a coal depot was at once selected, the dimen- Bions given, and before we left, a company of Loo-Choo carpen- ters were on the ground, hewing the timbers which were to form the frame of the building. It was located in the creek of Tumai, the most convenient place for landing, and near the Httle temple, which was at that time occupied by an officer and two or three men from the storeship Supply. The sloop-of- war Plymouth was ordered to remain at Napa, until relieved by the Vandalia, so that the entering wedge we drove into Loo-Choo ex elusive n ess, which had remained intact up to the time of our arrival, will continue to widen the breach, and effect a permanent opening for intercourse with the rest of mankind. 454 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. The " Great Exhibition " of Loo-Choo Industry came off ol the niorniug we left Napa for iiong Kong. It took place in the cung-qua, a government buildli^g of the town, under the auspicos of the Mayor and a number of civil officers. As il was probably the first attempt at such a display ever made in the Island, it was got up in creditable style. The articles con sisted of Loo-Choo cotton and grass-cloths, in pieces and made into garments ; Japanese silks ; brass hair-pins ; straw sandals , fans ; tobacco pipes and pouches, of various kinds ; chow chow, or refreshment boxes ; paper, of different colors ; earthen pots, pans and vases, some of them neatly glazed, and a great variety of black and scarlet lacquered ware. The fair was at- tended by all of the officers who could be spared from the vessels, and as they were all anxious to procure some souvenir of the Island, the sales were brisk and rapid, and most of the articles went off at a premium. We computed that there were at least a hundred dollars spent on the occasion. The steamers were under sailing orders, and the activity that prevailed on our part seemed to puzzle and bewilder the deliberate and im- passive Loo-Chooans. Such avidity to purchase such apparent recklessness of expenditure, were quite beyond their compre hension. They lost " the run " of us, and looked on in help- less amazement, trusting to Fate for the final balance to show a preponderance in their favor. Thus, in addition to the establishment of friendly inter- course with Japan, Commodore Perry has opened Loo-Choo, its most important dependency. At the same time, by his purchase of the tract of land best adapted for a coal depot, on Port Lloyd, in the Bonin Islands, he has secured to the United States the most available station in the Western Pacific for s ENTERING PORT LLOYD. 455 line of steamers between China and California. Hoi.olulu and Port Lloyd are the natural stopping-places on the route be- tween San Francisco and Shanghai. For the first, coal may be transported from Oregon and Vancouver's Island; for th( second, from tlie Japanese island of Kiusiu, less than five hundred miles distant. Loo-Choo lies too far south for the route to Shanghai, but that to Hong Kong passes near it. Ita commerce is too trifling to be an object of consideration ; but as a naval statior < r a port for supplies, it has many things to recommend it, and the step whicn has been made toward bring- ing it into the list of lands which are open to intercourse with the civilized world, deserves to be recorded \ CHAPTER XXXVIl. NAVAL LIFE. Return to Hong Kong— End of the Cruise — Experience of Nayal Litis — My Dutae* oa Board— "General Quarters "—Our Crew— Decline of Naval Discipline— False System of Promotion— Delays— What is Needed— Ilarmony of Government at Sea— Th« Abolition of Corporeal Punishment — Want of an Efficient Substitute — Government on Sea and Land — Mr. Kennedy's Proposal for Registered Seamen — Efifect of Long Cruises— Need of Small Vessels in Chinese Waters. We sailed from Loo-Choo on the Ist of August, but were delayed by stroug head-winds, until we had doubled the south- ern end of the island of Formosa, and entered the China Sea. On the second day out from Napa we saw some of the Madjico- sima Islands, which lie between Formosa and the Loo-Choo group, and at dusk tlie same evening met the sloop-of-war Vandalia, on her way to join the squadron. Salutes were ex- changed, Capt. Pope reported himself to tiie Commodore, re- ceived his orders, and the vessels lost each other again in the darkness. The rest of the voyage was without incident. B taking a more southern course than usual across the China Sea, we missed encountering the steam-frigate Powhatan^ which sailed from Hong Kong on the 6th, the day previous to MY DUTIES ON BOARD. 451 oxir arrival th^jre. At sunset on the 7tli, I saw again the bleak hills and the long semi-European town which I had left in March previous, and when the anchor dropped m the harbor ay last cruise on a Government vessel was at an end. I shall always look back upon my short experience of naval ife as one of the most agreeable and interesting episodes of my travels. Apart from the rare opportunity which it afforded me of visiting and exploring remote and unfrequented portions of the earth, it has enabled me to gain some insight into the nature and operations of a service, which, to a commercial na- tion, like our own, must ever be the most important arm of protection and defence. I cannot avoid making a few remarks upon our naval system before taking a final leave of it — and such observations as I make, may not be inappropriately offered at present, when our Government, after a long and culpable neglect of the Navy, seems to be at last slowly awaking to the necessity of reorganizing it. Although my rank of acting Maker's Mate rendered mt liable to be called upon at any time to discharge the duties usually assigned it, it imposed upon me no higher obligation in reality, than that of conforming in all respects to the etiquette of the service. I was attached to the corps of artists, who held the same rank, and were especially subject to the Commodore's orders ; and when not employed on explorations — a branch of duty of which I was never weary— occupied myself with mak- ing sketches of birds, flowers, fish and landscapes, and with keeping a faithful record of our experiences. The fact that 1 messed on the orlop deck, went up and down the port ladders, and smoked forward of the main shaft, did not exclude m€ from the hospitalities of the warrl-room acd the commanderr 20 458 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAFAW. oabins. By Commodore Perry and Capt. Buchanau* especiallv r was treated with unvarying kindness. The only ship's duty I was called upon to perform, besides 'ating charge of a boat now and then, and keeping a two-hour Fatch in Japan, was to appear in my station at "general quar- ters," which were beaten quite frequently previous to our arri- val in the Bay of Yedo. " General quarters," I should state for the information of the landsman, is a combination of a re- view and a sham fight. Every one of the ship's company has his place assigned to him, and at the well-known rappel, and fife-call, officers, seamen, mariners and boys fall into their proper places, the rolls are called, and the formalities of a na- val engagement are practised. The guns are run in, loaded, and run out and fired ; the seamen, armed with cutlasses and boarding pikes, trot fore and aft, crowding the rail on alternate bows and quarters, to repel imaginary boarders ; the marines, behind them, load and discharge noiseless volleys in rapid suc- cession ; the bell gives the signal of fire, for the ship has been ignited by an intangible hot shot ; the pumps are rigged, and by great exertions the invisible flames are extinguished — and, last of all, the hostile flag strikes, and the band plays " Yankee Doodle" in token of victory. My station was at first on the orlop deck, over the magazine, to superintend the passing up of immaterial powder-cans, but I was afterwards transferred to the quarter-deck, where I spent the hour in watching the perform- ance of our great pivot-gun. There was also target practice, idQ which the officers usually joined, and I was struck with the large proportion of good shots among the ship's conrpany. Although I was not often brought into direct contact with the crew, I soon made acquaintance with them, and learned tc FALSE SYSTEM OP PROMOTION. 46^ tmderstand and appreciate tlie blunt, hearty, generous sailoi character. There is a great variety of elements in every crew, but the good and bad are more readily known than in any so- ciety on shore. Dissimulation is soon detected on shipboard, as on the battle-field, no man can purchase a substitute or shift nis duty upon other shoulders than his own. Whatever may be the faults of ccamen , they are, as a class, honest, open-hearted and courageous — full of firm masculine fibre and a healthy cheerfulness — and I confess to a warm attachment for them. It is a serious fact, felt even more keenly by those in tht service than by the public at large, that the efficiency of our Navy has been of late years greatly impaired, and that it is no longer animated by the same prompt, active, energetic spirit, which drew into its ranks some of the boldest and bravest characters which adorn our history. The nature of the service is such as to stimulate and keep alive the ambition of those enlisted in it; and we must therefore look to the legislation which con- trols it, for the cause of this change. The two prominent evils under which the Navy now labors are, a relaxation of disci- pline among the men, and a system which, among the officers, makes promotion dependent entirely upon seniority, and, by rendering null any amount of brilliant service, discourages all manly emulation. As there has hitherto been no retired list, the officers who are incapacitated by age or disease, or any other cause, from active service, hang as a dead weight upon the chances of aU those whose term of service is less than theirs. In time of peace, their ranks are continually accumulating, so that the number allotted to each grade having once been filled up, pro* uiotions after that >3an only take place to fill th.e vacanciei 460 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. caused by death. The younger officer, therefore, giows old in ai inferior rank, and by the time he is invested with a command having passed the best years of his life in a subordinate posi tion, is naturally timid and distrustful of himself under ro- ftponsibilities. which he would have borne lightly, if bestowed before his youthful energy and ambition were wholly deadened. This very energy and ambition of youth constitutes the stamina of naval and military life, and that service will inevitably de- cay, which does not extend to it at least a partial encourage- ment. Under the system at present pursued by the Government, our Navy is gradually filling up with Passed Midshipmen of thirty, and Lieutenants of forty-five, while an officer whose hail is not entirely gray (if indeed he has any left to show), before attaining the rank of Post Captain, may consider himself especially fortunate. There is a weight of invalided, indolent, or superannuated material above him, which nothing but the slow process of death can remove. No deed of daring, no bold achievement, no amount of hazardous and arduous duty, involv- mg years of absence from all the amenities of civilized life, will advance him one step nearer the post, which terminates the vista of his ambition. No one complained of the efficiency of the Navy when Perry, Decatur and Lawrence were Captains, at an age when no Passed Midshipman is now rash enough to dream of a Lieutenant's commission. Heroes are made early ; and the English and French Grovernments acknowledge the fad by promotmg for meritorious conduct, as well as fcfr length of days. Li the French Navy, I believe, one third of the promo- tions are based on this ground. A retired list, such as has recently been provided for by ai HAEMONT OP GOVERNMENT AT SEA. 46i »ct of Congress, will partly remedy the evil, but it is nol sufficient. A man who has rendered special and signal ser- vice to his country deserves to be rewarded. This claim, which is partially recognized in our Army, ought to have equal weight in the Navy. Not that I believe that in cases where the honor of the country is at stake, our naval officert would be found wanting in courage and spirit, but the prospect of re- ward would keep alive an active pride and emulation, which would manifest itself at all times, and on all occasions. Oui most promising officers would not then be driven to resign as they are now by the disheartening prospect of twenty or thirty years of subordinate rank, which no exertion of theirs can ren- der more brief. It is impossible that such a state of things should not tell upon the discipline of the ship, even where there are no more direct influences at work. The relations in which all, officers and men, stand to each other, on board of a man-of-war, are so intricate and so nicely adjusted, that a derangement in any quarter is felt throughout the whole machine. When it ope- rates in perfect harmony, no pyramid could be more symmetri- cal. But if the Captain, or cap-stone press uncomfortably hard on the layer beneath him, the pressure makes itself felt through all the courses that follow, down to the seamen — the broad base on which all rest. A well-appointed frigate, where discipline is encouraged by duty, and authority tern pered by justice, is to me the crowning miracle of social go vernment. There is at present no effective system of punishment foi ioinor offences on board our men-of-war. Congress, by taking Away the only recognized penalty, that of corporeal pimisb 162 INDIA) CHIHA, AND JAPAH. ment without fixing any legal substitute has thrown upon the officers the responsibility of inventing new forms of punishment, which shall correct the faults of the offender without withdrawing him from active duty, or rendering the officer himself liable to censure, on the ground of in- human or extraordinary measures. No such punishment haa yet been discovered. That which was recommended at the time flogging was abolished — solitary confinement, on bread and water — is no punishment at all to the vicious or re- fractory seaman, who sees in it an excellent opportunity of skulking from work ; while the other plans in force — such as carrying a sixty-eight pound shot, standing lashed fast in one position for a certain number of hours, &c., are looked upon as a kind of slow torture, and in many cases tend to exasperate still further a nature already vicious. Either of these methods punishes the good as well as the bad, by removing the offender from his work, which thus falls upon the honest and faithful sea- men. The good men who are never punished, are rewarded for their fidelity by being obliged to perform more than their share of the labor, and are gradually being driven out of the service. I have heard it proposed that the idle and insubordinate shall be mulcted in their wages, and the sums thus deducted divided among the others. I am correct in my estimate of the sailor character, when I say that very few of them would accept such a reward. In fact, where a man really guilty has been pun- ished by the loss of his wages for a number of months the en- tire crew has united to repay him the loss. Few sailors are destitute of a sense of honor, which would lead them to spm-n the taking of a shipmate's wages, no matter how culpable thai shipmate might bci MISTAKEN PHILANTHROPY. 46b No deductions can be drawn from tlie experience of society on shore which would be of much advantage in the government of a ship on ihe open ocean, cut off from the world, and a world in itself, but in many respects of a very different order from that with which landsmen are acquainted. Every member of this world has his appointed station and his regular daily duties. He is subject to inexorable laws, and obedience to those laws must be enforced at every hazard Without entire and abso- lute subordination a navy cannot exist. Its character is neces- sarily despotic, in fact, all sea life is so, and must always be 60. Its government demands the exercise of the strictest jus- tice, and of justice to all. In its forms of punishment, there- fore, that which most effectually preserves discipline, which corrects the guilty without throwing an additional burden on the good, is the most expedient. Among the seamen who compose the crews of our national vessels, there is every variety of character. Men as brave, manly and g'enerous as any class can afford, there are ; in most cases, no doubt, the major part of the crew are reputable in their conduct ; but there is always — at least, under the pre- sent system — a leaven of depravity and sullen, dogged wicked- ness, which will bend to nothing but material force. I have seen so frequently the inefficiency of the other methods of pun- ishment employed, and have heard, from the men themselves, each honest desire for the restoration of the old regime, that I cannot avoid the conclusion that the entire abolition of cor- poreal punishment in the Navy, without authorizing some effective substitute, was one of those mistaken acts of philan thropy which are founded on abstract ideas of humanity rathei tban a practical knowledge of human nature. It has morf 464 INDIA CHINA, Ain) JAPAN. than once happened, on board our vessels, that the seamen, in defiance of authority, have seized below decks and soundly flogged the idle and vicious, whom all other punishments had failed to intimidate. Mr. Kennedy, Ex-Secretary of the >lavy, in one of his An- nual Reports, recommends a course which will partly remedy the evil by drawing into the service a better class of men, and thereby rendering punishments of all kinds less frequent. 1 allude to his proposal for creating a class of " registered seamen," who shall be permanently attached to the Navy, and receive an increased rate of pay with every five years of their service. The high wages now paid to sailors in the mer- chant service will soon render the adoption of some such plan necessary, in order to procure seamen at all — notwithstanding the superior comforts which a man-of-war afibrds, and that representative national character which is so gratifying to the pride of an American tar. There are many noble fellows among our seamen, and the adoption of a measure like Mr. Kennedy's, which would retain them in the service and identify them with its achievements, would go far toward restoring that energy and morale which once made our crews the finest in the world. I am too proud to admit that they are not so still ; but every year makes the difterence between the slackening discipline of our vessels, and the perfect and thorough subordination witnessed in the English Navy, mor* painfully perceptible. While upon this theme I must allude to another circum- Btance which has an injurious operation — at least upon the vessels attached to the East India station, and I have no doubt the Pacific and African stations as welL I allude to thfl SMALL BTEAUEB8 NEEDED. 465 xength of the cruise. Three years in those climates, hot and tmhealthy as they are, is trying to any constitution, Tvhile from the absence of all that can excite or amuse, the men gradually become spiritless and depressed. So far removed from home, exposed to gross sensual temptations, where every indulgence is followed by a terrific penalty, the length of the cruise tends inevitably to demoralize the crew. An active cruise of two years would accomplish far more than an idle one of three. What is needed for the East India station is not a leviathan 97ar-steamer like the Susquehanna, which cannot go within thirty miles of Ning-po and Foo-chow-foo, and can barely man- age to reach Shanghai, but two small steamers, drawing not more than twelve or fourteen feet of water. When Canton was menaced, we could with difficulty get a store-ship within reach of the factories, to watch over the interests of our citizens. If a fleet of piratical junks was hovering about the Ladrone Islands, and one of our big vessels attempted to follow, they were off at once into water too shallow for us. The small English steam- ers Hermes and Styx did more in this way for the security of oommerce, than all other men-of-war on the coast collectively. 20» CHAPTER XXXTIII. MO NO- KONG SOCIETY IN CHINA. ■^x:? reasloas of Hong-Kong— A Man Drowned at Midnight — Hong-Koag from th« Water— The town of Victorla^The Island of Hong-Kong— The Hong-Koi g Fever— Hospitality of Foreign Residents In China— Their Princely Style of Living— Elgld Social Etiquette — Balls— Tropical Privileges — The Anglo-Saxon Abroad. My first impressions of Hong-Kong were not very favorable, but I attributed them partly to the gloomy March weather which prevailed during my stay. After the genial quiet of Macao, and the mellow historic light which plays about its de- caying palaces, the thoroughly modern air and desolate sur- roundings of the place became still more distasteful to me, and an unfortunate association which I shall never be able wholly to banish from memory, increased the feeling into absolute dis like. On the second evening after our arrival I went ashore wiih some friends, and did not return until ten o'clock. My cot was not yet slung, for my hammock-boy was one of the crew of the Captain's boat which had also gone ashore. He was a strong, dark-eyed, lusty fellow named John Williams — one of the maintopmen, who are generally the picked men of the ihip. About eleven o'clock Williams made his appearance, A MAN DROWNED Al MIDNIGHT. 467 with m}^ cot, which he slung in its accustomed place ; but in Btead of silently going forward again, as was his wont, he turn- ed suddenly and asked me whether I thought it possible that he could get a release from the service. His mother, he said, had died, and some property had fallen to him which he wished to secure. T advised him to consult with some of the officers, who were better acquainted with the customs of the service. He seemed to labor under a singular depression of spirit, and after lingering for some time in silence, as if reluctant to turn away, he finally said : " Well, sir, it is the last cruise I shall ever make," — and left me. My cot was slung in a temporary poop-cabin on deck, which Commodore Perry had ordered to be erected for the use of the artists. I had not slept more than two hours, when my sleep was suddenly broken by a cry — a wild, gurgling, despairing cry which still rings in my ears whenever I think of that night. 1 sprang from my cot and listened. There was a trampling of feet on the deck outside, a hurried order, " cut the painter 1 " and again a bubbling cry, but feebler, under the stern. I sprang to one of the windows, looked out, and saw a hand beat- ing the water blindly and convulsively in the eddy of the rud- der. I was about to spring out when a coil of rope fell in the water and the hand grasped it. A horrible phosphorefccnl light shone around the body, struggling beneath the surface Three men were in the little dingey which lay under the stern, but before they could cut the painter, the hand let go its weak hold, the rope slackened, and the body sank. The men had no oars, but half drifting with the tide, half paddling with theii hands, they floated over it. Just beyond — just out of theii reach — a head rose an instant to the surface once more, mak 468 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. ing a ring of ghastly light. There was one bubble, and it sank forever, the phosphorescent gleam sinking slowly with it, nntii nothing more was seen. The drowned man was no other than John Williams. He had the mid-watch, and his station was on the forward guard of the star-board paddle-box. It was conjectured that he had sat down upon a bucket to rest, near the edge of the guard, and had either fallen asleep and reeled over, or lost his balance by the tilting of the bucket. One of the cutters was moored be- side the paddle-box, and he probably struck upon it and dis- abled himself, as he was known to be an excellent swimmer. Some of the men asserted that they had seen a large fish dart past just before he let go his hold of the rope, and supposed that he had been carried under by a shark. His body was found however two or three weeks afterwards unmutilated, and was placed in the cemetery at Houg-Kong, where a tomb-stone was erected over it by his messmates. I have seen death in many shapes, but there was an awful fatality about this which shocked me profoundly. Night and day I heard the terrible drowning cry, until I feared that my ear would never lose the consciousness of it. Nearly a month afterwards, I again visited Hong-Kong, and having been rowed ashore from the steamer, in the dusk of evening, the oars struck a phosphorescent lustre from the water ; I grew deathly sick at the image which those gleams recalled. It is, therefore, if not my fault, at least my misfortune, that I cannot endorse the praises of Hong-Kong, which its residents are accustomed to bestow upon it. Seen from the water, the town, stretching for a mile along the shore, at the foot of Victoria Peak, whose granite cliff towers eighteen him- HONG-KONG FROM THE WATER. 46fi dred feet above, bears considerable resemblance to Gibraltar The Governor's mansion, the Bishop's Palace, the Church and Barracks occupy conspicuous positions, and the houses of mer- chants and government officials, scattered along the steep sides of the hill, give the place an opulent and flourishing air. So far from being disappointed in this respect, one is surprised to find that ten years of English occupation have sufficed to civi- lize so completely a barren Chinese island. The town is almost entirely made up of the long street called Victoria Road, which runs parallel to the shore. It is broad, well built and well paved, and being the great thorough- fare of the place, lengthening into a military road which makes the circuit of the island, has at all times a busy and an imated air. The streets which cross it strike directly up the hill, and are in many places so steep that it has been found necessary to turn them into flights of steps. The gray granite of which the island is composed furnishes excellent material for building purposes, and is extensively employed in the houses, streets and piers. Large quantities of it, dressed in the quar- ries by Chinese laborers, are shipped to San Francisco- where it is in great demand. Several entire buildings have been sent over and erected in that city. The English Church is a large Gothic building, without any pretensions to architec- tural beauty. On a natural platform above it, stands the palace of Bishop Smith — a long mansion in the Elizabethan style. The Governor's new residence was in the course of con- struction, and not sufficiently advanced to hint at its char acter. The island of Hong-Kong is about thirty miles in circum- ference, and consists of a desolate cluster of mountains, whioh 470 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. ofFer no opportunity of cultivation. Nearly all the frait and vegetables consumed in the town come from Macao. There it a small village, inhabited by Chinese fishermen, on the south ern side^ and a Military Hospital on the east, looking upon the Lymoon Passage, which opens into the China Sea j but the English colony is concentrated in and about the town of Vio toria, which is built on the northern side, facing the mainland The harbor is spacious, with a good anchorage, and well shel- tered, except in case of an unusually violent typhoon. From the position of the town, it is cut off from the south-west mon- soon in summer, while the vapors collected by the mountain contribute to produce an intense moist heat, which occasions violent fever. The " Hong-Kong fever," as it is called, has been described by some facetious traveller as combining the worst symptoms of cholera, yellow and typhus fevers, with other and worse features of its own. The mortality among the troops stationed here was formerly very great, but it has been lessened of late years by the adoption of stringent sanitary measures. For amusements, besides riding, boating, yacht regattas, &c., there is a club, with a library, reading and billiard rooms, and a bowling-alley, much frequented by Americans. The so- ciety is not extensive, but intelligent and agreeable., and the same lordly hospitality, with which I first became acquainted io India, prevails not only here but throughout all the foreign communities in China. This custom originated long ago, in the isolation to which the foreign merchant was condemned, and the iufrequency of visitors from the distant world, which he had temporarily renounced. Then all houses were opec to the guest, and the luxury which had been created tc PRINCELY STYLE OF LIVING 471 soften the gilded exile, was placed at his command. The es- tablishment of steamship lines, the building of hotels and othei progressive agencies, have somewhat moderated this liberality, and may in time reduce it to the cautious and guarded hos- pitality of home ; but there is still enough of the old genial spirit left to make a stranger feel satisfied with the welcome he receives. I doubt if there be another class of men, who live in more luxurious state than the foreign residents in China. Their households are conducted on a princely scale, and whatever can be had in the way of furniture, upholstery or domestic ap pliances of any sort, to promote ease and comfort, is sure to be found in their dwellings. Their tables are supplied with the choicest which the country can afford, and a retinue of well- drilled servants, whose only business it is to study their habits, anticipate all their wants. All the management of the house- hold is in the hands of native servants. The " comprador " furnishes the necessary supplies — for which he generally ob- tains a fat commission — the butler regulates the internal economy ; and every inmate has one or more personal servants, who have charge of his own private wants. The expense of keeping up such an establishment is of course very large ; but BO also are the profits of a flourishing commercial house, and this easeful and luxurious mode of life, while it tends to pre- serve health in a climate hostile to the Northern race, furnishes a solace, sensuous though it be, for the want of those more en- lightened recreations which a civilized land affords. These little communities, nevertheless, arc subject to iron laws of etiquette, any infraction whereof, either purposely oi through ignorance, makes society tremble to its foundatioas. A i72 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN custom which refers particularly to strangers, has been trani planted thither from India, and is now in full force. The newly arrived, unless he wish*^s to avoid all society, must go the rounds of the resident families, and make his calls. The calls are re- turned, an invitation to dinner follows in due course of time, and every thing is en train for a footing of familiar intercourse This custom seems to me to reverse the natural course of so cial ethics. It obliges the stranger to seek his welcome, in- stead of having it spontaneously tendered to him. The resi dents defend the practice, on the ground that it allows a man to choose his own society — an obvious bull, since he cannot know who are congenial to him until he has met them ; and on the other hand, the opposite course would allow them to choose his society or not, as they preferred. In India, among the Company's servants, the rule is rigidly enforced, and nothing creates greater scandal than a violation of it. There are private balls occasionally — public, rarely, if ever - -where quadrilles, and waltzes, and polkas, are danced with as much spirit as at any outside the Tropics ; but there is a considerate departure from the etiquette of the North, in allow- ing the gentlemen to appear, on such occasions, in a white linen jacket, and with a simple ribbon in place of a cravat. Nay, if so minded, he may even throw wide his collar, and enjoy a cool throat. This barbarism — as every young lady of proper taste must consider it — I find highly commendable But it requires a great struggle in John Bull to throw down those starched barricades which flank his closely-rasped chin and protect his mutton-chop whiskers. In Calcutta, even in the dog-days, nothing less than a collar rigid as plank, and a black cloth dress-coat, is tolerated. Verily, the Saxon clings THE ANGLO-SAXON ABROAD. 473 to his idols with a pertinacity which we cannot snfficientl}! admire. Make a certain costume the type of respectability with him, and he carries the idea all over the world. If bear- skins and woollen blankets were the evening costume of the West-End or Fifth-Avenue, you would soon find him com- placently sporting them on the Equator. In the incessant heat of the Tropics he drinks his heavy sherry, and indulges in his brandy-and-water, with as much freedom as in the airs of England, and if not cut short in his career by fever, finally goes home with a damaged liver and no digestion at all. On the shores of Cathay, he keeps up the hours and habits of the London season ; in the cinnamon groves of Ceylon, he breatht^ the atmosphere of Pail-Mall. CHAPTER XXXIX. A PICTURE OF MACAO. KovQmentB of tbe Sqnadron— Cnmslngmoon— The Naval Hospital at Ma(»o--QuieJ Late— A Chinese Beggar— The Band— The Memories of Macao— Situation of the Town— Its Appearance— Desertion of the Place— Its Tropical Gardens — The Oana po— The Temple of Wang Hy&— Anecdote of Cashing— Society In Macao— Chinese All-Sonls' Day— Discordant Noises— The Grotto of Camoens— The Casa Gardens— The Grotto at Daybreak— French Irreverence — Preparations to Eetam Home— LeavUig the Naval Service— Trips to Hong-Kong and Cumslngmoon. We remained but two or tliree days at Hong-Kong : the season of typhoons was at lirmd, and it was considered advisable to place the squadron in some more sheltered anchorage. The Mississippi proceeded to Blenheim Reach, near Whampoa, where part of tlie British East India Squadron was already anchored ; the Susquehanna, after touching at Macao, to land Commodore Perry, was ordered to Cumsingmoon, about fifteen miles further to the north. This is merely a small Chinese vil- lage, on an island of the same name, with the advantages of a sheltered anchorage in front of it, a healthy air and good water. The hills are bare and bleak in aspect, and no place could well be more forlorn, as a sojourn. After four days. However, the Brtists corps received notice that rooms had been appropriated <^UIET LIFE. 475 M) tbein in a building in Macao, which had been leased as a Naval Hospital. A Portuguese lorcha was dispatched to carrj us and our baggage to the city, and we took leave of the good old Susquehanna. We had a slow but agreeable run down the coast, anchored in the inner harbor of Macao, and before night were fully installed in our new quarters. The Naval Hospital stood upon the central ridge of the island, and was consequently in the highest part of the city, overlooking the broad Canton Gulf on one side, and on the other the tiled roofs of the Portuguese houses below, the inner harbor, with its scanty fleet of junks, lorches and iauka boats, and the bare, stony hills of the island beyond. In front rose a hill, with a deserted convent on its summit glowing in the broad white glare of the breathless August noons. The lower story of th^ Hospital was appropriated to the invalids, of whom there were about twenty, and the Commodore's band ; the sur- geons and artists occupie 1 the rooms above. With A-fok aa steward, and the market of Macao at hand, rich in fruit and vegetables, we fared rather better than on ship's rations and tough Japanese fowls, while the enclosed verandah, on account of its airiness, furnished admirable sleeping accommo- dations during the dog-days. The time passed on quietly and without particular incident, and T found the repose of our life very grateful, after the active experiences and vicissitudes of the past year. There was no serious duty to interfere with the indulgence of that tropical indolence, which is such a luxury after the fatigue of travel. Our principal annoyance was an old Chinese beggar-woman who sometimes drove us to desperaticn with her piercing, mo- Qotonous wail, from her station in the shade of the house oppo i7n INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. site, and no amount of " cash" (the cheapest alms in the wo d, would drive her away She would then only howl the n are pertinaciously for more. Nothing could have been more trying to the nerves than her eternal : " Chin-chin — a — a — a I poor man — a — a / how kin do — a — a — a / " But twice a day our fine brass band of twenty instruments rehearsed in the long hall below, usually commencing with the ringing chant of the Por- tuguese National Hymn. The old beggar then retired from the field in confusion. A few tawny Portuguese, with close- cropped, blue-black hair, would sometimes pause to listen aa they passed through the almost deserted streets. The music awoke no chord of patriotism or pride in their breasts ; Macao has ont-lived even that. The strain ceased, and then the rich, lyrical throb of " Hail Columbia" would rise exultingly into the still blue air, while the stars and stripes hung motionless from the peak of the flag-staff, at the American Consulate below us. Though I heard our country's anthem every day, my heart beat more quick and warm under all that summer languor, and my thoughts would turn for a moment to the dear land on the other side of the world. I prefer Macao to any other place in China, partly on account of the picturesque beauty of its position, and partly because it is less Chinese. It has a history which attaches it to the history of our race; it has human associations with which we can sympathize. The annals of the Ming and the Hang dynasties are no more to me (with the exception of the reign of that splendid invader, Kublai Khan,) than those of the Man in the Moon ; but the memories of Camoens, the Poet, and St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle, embalm Maca ) for ever 11 the eyes of the European race. It was the first beacon whence VIBW OF THE CITY. 477 the light of Christianity and the liberalizing influenced of coin tnerce went forth into the dark places of the East. And no\\' useless and worn out as it seems, with its commerce destroyed, its palaces vacant, its grandees beggared, and its importance aa a foothold of civilization totally gone, there is a mournful charm in the silence of its grass-grown streets, and the memory of its former power and opulence still clothes it with a shadowy dignity. Here, at least, there are traces of Art and Taste, and all those monstrosities of Chinese CT/i-taste, which would make China a living purgatory to any one with a keen appreciation of the Beautiful, are thrust into the background, and do not spoil the harmony of the picture. The Portuguese settlement of Macao comprises a ridgy peninsula about four miles long, attached to the southern end of a large Chinese island, by a narrow, sandy neck, across which a wall was thrown in the early d^ys of the colony. The city is built in a dip of the hills, near the extremity of the penin sola, and to the east faces the Roads, the usual anchorage oi foreign shipping. It has another face on the west, looking upou tlie Inner Harbor, a narrow strait shut in by lofty islands Another channel, called the Typa, between two barren islands, about a mile and a half to the southward, is the usual anchorajre of vessels during the typhoon season, on account of its shel- tered situation. The view of the city from the Roads is very imposing, and with the island-mountains in the background, has been compared by many persons- to that of Naples from the bay, but I could see scarcely a single point of resemblance A crescent-shaped bay, nearly a mile in length, fronts the ^ater, and behind the massive stone pier, or Praya, rises a row of stately buildings of a pale yellow or pink color. The foliag* 478 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. of tropical gardens peeps out beliind them, and tlie ridge is crowned with the square-towered Cathedral and several churches. At the northern point is an Alameda, or public square, planted with trees, above which rises a fortress. Fur ther to the north, on the top of a lofty hill, is the Fort of Guia or Del Monte, and a larger but somewhat dismantled fortifica fcion looms behind, on the middle ridge of the peninsula. Even before landing, one notes the deserted aspect of the place. There are no crowds on the Praya ; the houses have a decaying, mouldy appearance, and you listen in vain for thai hum of life which floats about the centres of trade or industry. The solitary sentry at the foot of the Portuguese flag-staflf seems to be dozing at his post. Now and then some Chinese porters pass, or four servants carrying a sedan chair with all the blinds down. During the summer, when most of the foreign merchants in Canton send their families there, on account of the temperate sea air, many of the spacious old mansions are inhabited, and servants with impudent faces lounge about the open gateways. Were it not for the scanty revenue which they derive from the lease of their ancestral palaces, many of the old Portuguese families would be entirely destitute. Indeed, it is already a mystery how some of them contrive to exist. Piece by piece the old plate, and diamond by diamond the old jewels are sold, while the parsimony of the household belies the appearance of wealth which still lingers about the massive buildings and the luxuriant gardens. These fine old gardens are the greatest ornament of the city, hiding its dilapidation, and recalling, in the care and taste which they have not wholly outgrown, those which adorn the cities of Southern Spain. Although the winters are wet and THE CAMFO. 479 oold, all the hardier varieties of tropical fruits thrive well, and even the mango, the papaya and the gnava are found in the markets. On the garden-terraces, in the upper part of the city, whence you have a charming panorama of the island-stud- ded gulf, the spiry cypress and the orange of Portugal miuglf» their foliage with the palm, the bamboo and the Indian banyan In August, the high walls which enclose them are festooned with enormous masses of the night-blooming cereus, whose milky blossoms, a foot in diameter, diffuse a sweet and powerful odor. Around the fountains the sacred lotus opens its sunnj cup, tipped with as pure a rose as summer daybreak can show The lagistrwmia, with its soft, crape-like racemes of white or crimson, and the burning scarlet of the pomegranate flower, star the deep green masses of foliage. Nature is always luxurious within the Tropics. Two gates in the northern wall of the city lead to what ia called the Campo — an open, cultivated tract of country sepa- rated by a bleak ridge from the sandy flat which divides the Portuguese territories from the Chinese. The Campo is tra- versed by an excellent road, uniting with a new one which has been cut along the face of the bluffs on the eastern side of the island. The two combined form an agreeable drive, and every evening towards sunset, all who possess or are rich enough to hire a horse or equipage, may be seen taking their way along the Praya to the Alameda, and thence striking out on the course of the Campo. This drive of three or four miles, with a gallop over the sands to the Chinese barrier, is a grateful release to the Canton merchant, and iia comparison with the confinement rf his hongs, the Campo appears as boundless and as free as an Illinois prairie. The fort of Gruia, with a ^tcep zigzag path 480 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. leading up to its battlements, towers high over it, on the east on the opposite side the Chinese village of Wang-Hya, lies em bedded in bamboo and Indian fig-trees ; over a level covered with rice-fields and vegetable gardens, stretches a wide blue arm of the bay, and the mountains of the western island leaa «4way to the south, disclosing other channels and other islands beyond. I paid a visit to "Wang-Hya (or in the Macao dialect, Mong-ha), which gives its name to the treaty concluded between the United States and China, under the auspices of our great mandarin Gushing (Coo-Shmg, a genuine Chinese name), and the Commissioner Keying. The signing of this treaty and the festivities consequent thereupon, took place in the great tem- ple of WarQg-Hya — a large building of gray granite, rather more simple and tasteful in its architecture than Chinese tem- ples usually are. In fact, but for the enormous misshapen gods, glaring all over with vermillion and gilding, those mas- sive courts and heavy, overhanging roofs, shaded by the broad arms of several giant Indian fig-trees, would afibrd a very pleasing picture. There is a Macao legend to the efi"ect that, when Cushing went out in state to meet Keying, he was at- tended by the Portuguese band belonging to the Governor, and that the drum-major of the band made such an impression upon the Chinese authorities by his portly size, and the glitter of his ull-dress uniform, that they imagined him to be the American mandarin, and wasted several profound salutations upon him before the mistake was discovered. As for amusements in Macao, there were none except the daily stroll on the Praya and ride in the Campo, with an occa- sional dinner or dance. The Governor, Senhor Guimaraes, was CHIHESE ALL SOUL's DAI. 481 ail urbane and polished gentleman, and entertained frequently and there were a few Portuguese families who still kept up something of the old state. The theatre, a reminiscence of the palmy days of Macao, had long been closed, but was again opened for a concert given by our band, who made Macao ring with such music as had not been heard for years. The bugle players belonging to the Portuguese garrison are very fine, but the Governor's band would scarcely be tolerated any where else. By the Commodore's permission, our band performed on the Alameda every Thursday evening, and all Macao weni there in the moonlight to look upon the sparkling bay, and drink, with thirsty ears, the sweet strains. During my stay, the Chinese residents celebrated their great religious festival — a sort of All Soul's Day, or worship paid col- lectively to all the gods and saints in their mythology, their own ancestors included. It is a convenient way of lumping together a number of minor worships, and wiping out with one grand stroke the delinquencies of the year ; and the essence of the Chinese religion not being love of God, but fear of the devil, they manage to propitiate their neglected Satans by a terrific thumping of tom-toms, and a fizzle and splutter of fireworks, which lasts three days. On the occasion, they constructed a large framework on the Praya, which was covered with mus- lins, silks, and spangled paper, so as to represent the shrine of a temple. It was about 15 feet high, by 30 in length, and hung with lamps of every quality and fashion, from Bohemian ciystal to horn and mica. A variety of hideous divinities, with ^»lack or copper-colored faces, squatted on shrines or stood stiflj erect in niches; and in a recess at one end, three or four noisi tians made an infernal din with gongs, tom-toms and lon^ hoi 21 482 INDIA, jhina, and japan. low bamboos which emitted shiieks that made your uei\es quiver. I doubt if the word " harmony " is to be found in the Chinese language. Not even the sense of a rhythm could be extracted from the dreadful discord, but each instrument of torture raved in its own way, regardless of the others. What must be the nature of those who take delight in such sounds ? The loveliest spot in Macao is the garden and grotto of Camoens, and thither the stranger first turns his steps. Dui ing my first visit there, in March, it was the only thing I saw The Susquehanna was to leave for Shanghai early in the morn- ing, and as there was a chance that I might not return, I suc- ceeded, with much difficulty, in making the swarthy landlord of the " National Hotel " comprehend what it was that I wanted to see. He called me before daybreak, and gave me an old Chinaman as guide to the place. We threaded a nurabei of crooked streets in the dusk, passed the faqade of an eminent Jesuit church, which was destroyed by fire, and at length reached a little grassy square on the hill, in the north-western corner of the city. By dint of knocking and calling, my guide aroused a sleepy serv^ant, who opened agate and admitted me mto a trim parterre, redolent of rose and jessamine, and open- ing into a deep garden, wherein the shadows still lingered thick and dark under the trees. A large and stately mansion now occupies the site of the Franciscan Convent in which Camoens lived. The property belongs to Count Salvi, who has offered it for sale, for the sum of $5,000, without finding a r^irehaser. I took my way at random through the garden, seeking, in the gray morning twilight, for the grotto whose shelter gave birtl) to the " Lusiad.'' It was a wilderness of large trees AN BXILED POET. 488 made still more intricate in some places by a thick under- growth, and the rank parasitic vines which clung from bough to bough. It followed the slope of the hill, terraced here and there, while the highest part was overhung by immense granite boulders, heaped one upon the other, till the topmost masses towered above the trees. I found an aviary with a dead tree in it, showing that birds had once been there; a fountain, dry and cracking to pieces ; and finally, noticing a small chapel reared upon a rock in the thickest part of the wood, was led to the object of my search. The grotto is simply a natural portal formed by three great boulders of grey granite, within whose arch the poet found shade and coolness and privacy. It is not a cayern of Jeremiah, to feed austere thoughts and gloomy prophecies, but a grotto just too stern not to be Arcadian and idyllic. The portal is now closed at each end by an iron grat- ing, and within it stands a bronze bust of the poet, elevated on a lofty pedestal, containing three stanzas from the Lusiad, in bronze letters. The dawn gradually brightened, as I stood beside tlie grating; the darkness under the trees faded into twilight, but the features of the poet were not discernible in the gloom which filled the recess. Fit monument to him, who turned into glory the shame of banishment and the sorrow of exile — who made the power and the injustice of the land that gave him birth alike immortal 1 I frequently went there afterwards by daylight, but the genus loci was less distinct and impressive than in that silent morning hour. The Chevalier di" Rienzi, a Frenchman who Btyles himself, " poete exile," has had a tablet cut upon the rook beside the grotto, and a poem of his own in praise of Cam- oens inscribed upon it. The poem is good, considering that if 484 mDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. is FreucL, and if the Chevalier di Rienzi had a name in litei ature, we might pardon, and even approve, his desire to couple it with the illustrious Camoens. To me, who never heard of him before, the deed is presumptuous and profane ; though a housand times less so than some French doggerel upon Cam- oens written in the visitor's book. From the terrace on the western side of the garden there are lovely views of the innei harbor, especia% towards sunset; and the " Casa Gardens," aa they are called, are a frequent resort of the foreign residents at that hour. My days passed away quietly and indolently enough, through the remainder of August. The thermometer ranged from 80° to 93° in the shade, and the sun, hanging directly in the zenith at noon, poured down a flood of white heat. Macao seemed wholly deserted at such times, notwithstanding its society was larger and more animated than usual I began to make preparations for returning home, a course which was ren- dered necessary by my long absence. The fact of my having entered the service bound me for the entire cruise, but Commo- dore Perry, with his u&ual kindness, on learning that a prolonged absence would be a serious disadvantage to me, gave me leave to resign. I desired to return by way of San Francisco, but aa no vessel was then up for that port, I changed my plans and took passage for New York in the clipper ship Sea Serpent^ Captain Howland, which was announced to sail from Whampoa »D the 9th of September. I made a trip to Itong-Kong to draw some funds from the Oriental Bank, and had the satisfaction of receiving $347 for a letter of credit on London for $500. In returning I took a ^amjpan^ as the Chinese boats are called, and made the run u TRIP TO CDMSINGMOON. 485 Macao in five hours and a half, at the risk of falling into the hands of the pirates who infest the Lemma and Lin-tin Islands I also went up to Cumsingmoon, in the fast boat of old Eyok, who supplied the squadron, with fresh provisions, and passed nother night on board the dear old Susquehanna. I began to ove the very timbers of the staunch frigate that had been my home, more or less, for six months, and I felt a keen pang on moving away from ner huge black hull and the gallant soula within it. M^y pr^sp'^rous breezes attend her and them, wher- ever thev sail! CHAPTER XL, SCBHEb IS aS U A nO V ti D uaSxoK. [ II crease of (he Sqiuulron— Disposition of the Vessels— Passage to Canton— First Visit of the City— The Foreign Factories— Old and New China Streets— Talking * Pi- geon English "—The Great Temple of Ilonan— Ceremonies of the Priests— Sacred Books and Pigs— The Lotus Bloscom— Dwellings of the Priests— A Retired Ab- bot — Opium Smoking In Chlnar— The Opium-Pipe — Flavor and Fascination of the Drug— Its Effects— A Walk around Canton— The Walls— Entering the City— For- eign Devils — A Tea-llouse — Beyond the Suburbs — A Chinese Panorama — The Feast of Lanterns— Dr. Parker's Hospital— The Eve of Departnre. By the end of August, all the vessels of the squadron had arrived in China, with the exception of the store-ship Lexing- ton. The Macedonian, Vandalia and Southampton were sent to the anchorage at Cuinsingmoon, whither the Powhatan^ which returned to Hong-Kong on the 25th, also proceeded. She was detained eight days at Loo-Choo, in order to remedy a slight defect m one of her engines. The store-ship Supply^ arrived at Hong-Kong on the 27th, having touched at Ainoy on her way from Loo-Choo. Canton was in a very unsettled state, and the foreign merchants anticipated trouble, on account of the spread of the rebellion. All the American firms addressed a letter to Commodore Perry, begging that a national vessel might be sent up to the Macao Passage, within a mile and a half of the factories. The Supply was therefore ordered FIRST VIEW OF CANTON. 487 np the river, as all the other vessels of the squadron drew toe much water to pass the bar. Our great steam frigates certainly contributed to our success in Japan, but they are nearly use- less for service in the Chinese waters. I took the anchor from my cap on the 5th of September after four months' service, and in the evening of the same day bade adieu to my messmates and embarked on board the steamer for Canton. Mr. Contee, the Flag-Lieutenant of the Squadron, who had procured leave of absence on account of ill-health and had also taken passage on the Sea Serpent, accompanied me It was after sunset when we left, and my last glimpse of Macao was the dark silhouette of its hills against the fading sky. We had an indistinct night-view of the Bogue Forts, at the Bocca Tigris, or mouth of the Whampoa River, after which I sought a couch on one of the hard benches in the cabin, but failed to extract much repose from it. The steamer did not reach her destination until daybreak the next morning. Consequently, whatever there may be of the picturesque or striking in the approach to Canton, was lost tc me. As the rapid dawn of the South brightened into sunrise, I found that we were anchored in the middle of the stream between the foreign Factories and the famous temple of Honan. The Pearl River, at this place, is not more than a quarter of a mile wide, and thickly studded with junks, flower-boats and those crowded hulks which contain the " floating population"— an important item in the census of the city. What little can be seen of the native part of Canton from this point, is low and mean, unrelieved by a single pagoda. The foreign Factories on the contrary, inclosing a parallelogram of three or fom acres, which extends down to the river, are substantial blocks 4-88 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. of buildings, four stories in height. The open space has been turned into a Botanical Garden, which is kej.t in excellent order, as it affords the residents their only chance for agreeable exercise, except that of boating on the river. In this gardoD four lofty flag-staffs, planted at regular intervals, display the colors of America, France, England and Denmark, and in the centre a neat Gothic Chapel stands on the site of the old Hog- Lane, renowned during the troubles of 1841. The factories are divided into different " hongs" — English, American, Danish, Slc. — but the foreign community is crowded into narrow bounds, hemmed in on all sides by the jealousy of the native authorities, and a five minutes' walk will embrace its utmost limits. Adjacent to the factories are the streets occupied by the Chinese " hong merchants," whose dealings are almost wholly with foreigners, and the markets and shops of mechanics, which depend on foreign custom. The most noted thoroughfares are Old and New China-streets, and Looking-Glass and Spectacle- streets, which in their quaint forms and brilliant coloring, their gay, bustling and lively aspect, resemble the bazaars of Orien- tal cities. They are narrow, the houses two stories in height, with projecting roofs, the fronts of a dark blue or green color, with a mixture of bright red, and still farther relieved by the gilded hieroglyphics which cover the vertical swinging signs. In Old and New China-streets there are also English signs which inform you that A-Kow or Hu-ping deals in silks, or porcelain, or lacquered ware, or ivory, or mother-of-pearl, or Bandal-wood, or silver. The predominant talent of the Chinese is their faculty of imitation, and since their intercourse with foreigners has become less restricted, they have been obliged to PIGEON ENGLISH 489 abanion many of their former grotesque models and accept others more consonant with a civilized taste. This is shown in the patterns of their silks, the form and style of their articles in silver and ivory, and their furniture. The display in theif shops is tempting to a stranger, but purchases were ruinous at a crisis, when money commanded fifty per cent, premium at Canton, and seventy. |ve per cent, at Shanghai. Whoever first invented the " pigeon English," as it is called —the jargon used by foreigners in their intercourse with Chi- nese—deserves an immortality of ridicule. The jargon has now become so fixed, that it will take several generations to eradicate it. The Chinaman requires as much practice to learn it as he would to learn correct English, while the English- man, in his turn, must pick it up as he would a new language. Fancy, for instance, a man going into one of the silverware shops in New China-street, and saying, " My wantye two piece Bnuff-box : can secure ? " when his meaning is simply — " I want two snuff-boxes: can you get them?" To which A-Wing gravely answers : " Can secure." Or, another declaring : " My no savey that pigeon" — which signifies m English : " I don't anderstand the business." If you make inquiries at a hotel, you must ask : " What man have got top-side ? " (who are up Btairs ? ) and the Chinese servant will make answer : " Two piece captain, one piece joss-man, have got." (There are two captains and a clergyman.) It was some time before I could bring myself to make use of this absurd and barbarous lingo, md it was always very unpleasant to hear it spoken by a lady. As far as sight-seeing is concerned, Canton has very little to offer the traveller, and I was so thoroughly surfeited with Ohina that I made no effort to see mo^e than the most proml 21* 490 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. nent objects. Mr. Wells Williams and the Rev. Mr. Bounej were kiud enough to accompany me through the Templt; of Honan, on the opposite side of the river. This is a place of great sanctity, embracing within its bounds a well-endowed college of Bcodhist priests. There are a number of temples or rather shrines of the gods, standing within enclosed courts, which are shaded by large and venerable trees. We first passed through a portal, placed in advance, like the pylon of an Egyp- tian temple, with a colossal figure on each side, of the watch- ers or guardians of the edifice. With their distended abdo- mens, copper faces and fierce black eyeballs, they might very well have passed for Gog and Magog. The temples were mas- sive square structures, with peaked roofs, containing colossal gilded statues of various divinities, most of whom were seated crvss-legged, with their hands on their stomachs and a grin of ineffable good-humor on their faces. They were no doubt rep- resented a-s having dined well, and therefore the more easily to be propitiated. We reached the main temple in time to wit- Qess the rites of the Boodhist priests. Numerous candles and "joss-sticks" of sandal-wood were burning at the feet of the vast statues, and the shaven-headed priests, thirty or forty in number, walked solemnly in a circle around the open space before them, chanting their hymns. The character of the chants was very similar to some of those used in the Roman Catholic service, and there were other features in the ceremonies of the priests which showed the same resemblance. I believe thi^ fact has been noticed by other travellers. After the chanting was concluded, the priests came out iii single file and passed into the large building which they mhab ited in common. Some of them paused to speak with Mr THE LOTUS BLOSSOM. 491 Boniey, who was known to them, and whom they seemed tc regard without the least animosity, notwithstanding his mis- sionary character. We then entered a labyrinth of smalle- buil lings, in one of which was a printing establishment, where the legends of Boodhism were multiplied in great quantities. Many of the books were illustrated with curious woodcuts A little further, we came upon the stable of the sacred hogs, and were allowed a look at the venerated animals. Alas 1 like many humans, their swinish nature was only increased and intensified by their exalted station. Very slothful and greedy were they. The temple, without its various attendant edifices, courts and gardens, covers an area of forty-two acres. The garden, however, is a mere vegetable patch, with a pond of the sacred lotus m the midst. Several of these superb plants were in bloom, and we bribed a laborer to wade out into the slimy pool and procure us a few blossoms. The slender stem, five feet in length, upholds a broad cup, as elegant in form as the Warwick Yase, and about eight inches in diameter, when fully expanded. The leaves have the velvety whiteness of alabaster, veined with delicate pencillings of the purest rose-color, and in the centre lies the fruit, an inverted cone of pale green, surrounded with a fringe of golden anthers. The perfume has that fresh and healthy sweetness which never cloys the sense. The Rose may be a queen among flowers, but the Lotus, sublime in its p^jTity, grace and exquisite beauty, is a goddess. How gorgeous ft show must its blosscms make, on the White Nile, where, at the first ray of sunrise, tens of thousands flash open all at nnce. along leagies of shore I Beyond the pool was a little copse, in which stood a small 492 INDIA, building, used in the incremation of the dead priests. It wa? a simple chamber, with a small entrance, and vents for the escape of the smoke. The bodj is placed on a funeral pile, which is replenished until the flesh is roasted into cinders and the bones calcined into dust. On our way back to the river we passed through the habitation of the priests, taking a look at their kitchens and refectories. A number of the younger brethren gathered around us, lusting strongly after the carnal gratification of cigars, and my whole stock was soon divided among them. Mr. Bonney took me to visit a former abbot, a man of much learning, who was then living in a quiet way, on a pension. He received us with much cordiality, and showed us his bachelor establishment of three rooms and a little gar- den, which were kept in great neatness and order. He was about sixty years of age, and his pale face, calm eye and high, retreating brow, spoke of a serene and studious life. In an inner chamber, however, I noticed one of those couches which are used by the opium-smokers, and the faint, subtle odor of the drug still hung about the furniture and the walls. In spite of the penalties attached to it by Chinese law, the smoking of opium is scarcely a concealed practice at present. t have seen it carried on in open shops in Shanghai, where there are some streets which are never free from the sickening smell. It had always been my intention to make a trial of the practice, in order to learn its effects by personal experience, anr^. being now on the eve of leaving China, I applied to a gen- tleman residing in Canton, to put me in the way of enjoying a pipe or two. He was well acquainted with a Chinaman who was addicted to the practice, and by an agreement with ham took me to his house one evening. We were ushered into t SMOKING OPIUM. long room, with a divan, or platform about three feet high, ai the further end. Several Chinamen were in the room, and one. stretched out on the platform, was preparing his pipe at a lamp. The host invited me to stretch myself opposite to him, and place my head upon one of those cane head-stools which serve the Chinese in lieu of pillows. The opium-pipe is a bamboo stick, about two feet long, having a small drum inserted near the end, with an aperture in its centre. A piece of opium, about twice the size of a pin's head, is taken up on a slender wbe and held in the flame of the lamp until it boils or bubbles up, when it is rolled into a cylindrical shape on the drum, by the aid of the wii'e. It loses its dark color by the heating and becomes pale and soft. Having been sufficiently rolled, it is placed over the aperture, and the wire, after being thrust through its centre, to allow the air to pass into the pipe, is withdrawn. The pipe is then held to the flame, and as the opium burns, its fumes are drawn into the lungs by a strong and long-continued inspiration. In about half a minute the portion is exhausted, and the smoker is ready for a second pipe. To my surprise I found the taste of the drag as delicious as its smell is disagreeable. It leaves a sweet, rich flavor, like the hnest liquorice, upon the palate, and the gentle stimulus it communicates to the blood in the lungs, fills the whole body with a sensation of warmth and strength. The fumes of the opium are no more irritating to the windpipe or bronchial tubes, than common air, while they seem imbued with a rich ness of vitality far beyond our diluted oxygen. I had supposed that opium was smoked entirely for the purpose of mental ex- ailaration, and that to the smokers, as to many who intoxicate 194 INDIA, CHIKA, AND JAFAN. themselves mth ardent spirits, there was no sensual gratifica tion in the mere taste of the article The reverse is undoubtedlj the truth, and the practice, therefore, is doubly dangerous Its victim becomes hopelessly involved in its fascinating illu eions, and an awful death, such as I had witnessed not long before, is sure, sooner or later, to overtake him who indulges to excess. I have a pretty strong confidence in my own powers of resistance, but do not desire to make the experiment a second time. Beyond the feeling of warmth, vigor and increased vitality, softened by a happy consciousness of repose, there was no effect, until after finishing the sixth pipe. My spirits then became joyously excited, with a constant disposition to laugh ; bril- liant colors floated before my eyes, but in a confused and cloudy way, sometimes converging into spots like the eyes in a pea- cock's tail, but oftenest melting into and through each other, like the hues of changeable silk. Had the physical excitement been greater, they would have taken form and substance, but after smoking nine pipes I desisted, through fear of subject- ing myself to some unpleasant after-effect. Our Chinese host informed me that he was obliged to take twenty pipes, in order to elevate his mind to the pitch of perfect happiness. T went home feeling rather giddy, and became so drowsy, with slight qualms at the stomach, that I went to bed at an early hour. I had made an arrangement to walk around the walls of Can- ton the next morning, with Mr. Bonney, and felt some doubt as to whether I should be able to undertake it ; but, after a deep and refreshing sleep, I arose at sunrise, feeling strongei And brighter than I had done for weeks past. The walls of Canton are about eight miles in oirouit TH THE STREETS OF CANTON. 496 This is but a limited extent for a city, which contains upwards of a raillion of inhabitants, and more than half the population probably live without the walls, on the side next the river In those dark, narrow, and crooked streets which lie behind he factories, the swarm of human beings is uninterrupted from the earliest dawn until late in the night. We set out at an hour when few of the Europeans were stirring, and the streets were already so crowded that it was difficult to avoid contact with the porters and water-carriers — a contact to be shunned at all hazards. Though there was less noisome filth than in the streets of Shanghai, more senses than one were offended, and 1 felt rr^ch relieved when, after a walk of more than two mileSj we came into a less thickly settled quarter. A Chinese city is the greatest of all abominations, and one ceases to wonder at the physical deformity, or the monstrous forms of licentious- ness, which are to be found among the lower classes of the na- tives, when he has seen the manner in which they live. Our road in many places skirted the wall, which is of brick, about twenty-five feet high, and with a machicolated pa- rapet. At the angles there is sometimes a rude square bastion, surmounted by an ornamental edifice — probably a pleasure- house belonging to gardens within. "We passed several gates. into all of which I looked, but could not see that the streets within differed in the least from those without. Near tho south-eastern corner Mr. Bonney entered suddenly, I following, and we passed across the angle and out at another gate, withou any one attempting to hinder us. While we were in the neigh borhood of the factories, we were allowed to pursue our way unnoticed, but in the straggling suburbs on the eastern side We were frequently hailed with Ihe insulting cry of ^^ Fan i96 INDIA, CHINA, AHD JAPAN. kwei ! " (Foreign Devil !) One old man, who was at work ii\ nis shop, made an exclamation as we passed, which Mr. Bon ney translated thus : " I lifted up my eyes, and behold ! twc devils suddenly appeared before me ! " One of these devils however belied the character given him, by carrying with him bundle of Christian tracts, which he distributed with a lib- eral hand, every one, old or young, male or female, accepting them with great willingness. They are too willmg in fact. The carelessness with which they take every thing that is of- fered them shows a lack of respect for their own faith, an ab- sence of that inherent devotional spirit, which alone can serve as the groundwork of their Christianization. At a gate near the north-eastern corner, we stopped at a tea-house to take some refreshment. A company of Chinese of the middle class in the white garb of mourning, were wait- ing there to attend the funeral of some friend. The host brought us steaming cups of tea or rather tea-stew, very strong and invigorating, and a crisp sort of cake seasoned with pork and sugar. Some of the Chinese entered into conversation with Mr. Bonney, in a good-humored friendly way, but one young dandy stretched himself upon the bench beside our ta- ble, and indulged in some contemptuous remarks on foreigners 1 was well satisfied to be ignorant of the language, for his man- nei was so insolent, that I could not have replied with the same mildness and prudence as my companion. The suburbs now ceased, and the open cultivated country reached to the foot of the city wall. To the east extended a fertile plain, dotted with villages, as far as the White Cloud Hills, whose barren summits arose in the distance. We kept on, up a little valley to s^me spimgs under a hill on the north VIEW FROM THE FORT 497 ern side of the city, which supply the only good water to be had. They gush up, strong and abundant, from the bottom ol the dell, which was crowded with water-carriers, going to and from the gates. The hill is crowned with a fort which com- pletely commands the city. It was taken without difficult) by Lord Gough, during the English war, and every prepa- ration was made to open a bombardment, when the ransom ol $5,000,000, tendered by the Chinese merchants, was offered and accepted. There is now a small garrison within it, but the sen- tinel who stood at the entrance, hastily retreated within the walls as wo approached, and did not make his appearance again until after we had left. The view from the fort is very fine, taking in all of Canton, the course of the Pearl River from Whampoa to the mountain- ous region in the west, the White Cloud Hills, and the rich delta of the river, stretching away to the Bocca Tigris. The mountains which surround this wide landscape are bleak and barren, and contrast strongly with the garden-like beauty of the plain. The broad arms of the river, dotted with boats and junks ; the many villages, half-hidden among groves of fruit trees; the lofty pagodas that rise here and there from the banks ; and the crowded city itself directly under the eye — the central point which unites the interest of all these scattered objects — combine to form a panorama unique but thoroughly Chinese in its character, and affording as good a type of Chinese scenery as is readily accessible to foreigners. The northern part of Canton rests upon the side of a hill, whose summit is crowned by a great square red temple four stories in height h. slender pagoda, towards the river, is the only other prominent irchitectural objoct. About one third of the space with thf 498 INDIA, CmNA, AND JAPAN walls is taken up with gardens. We did not remain long upoD the hill, which is in bad repute, on account of the robheriei committed in its vicinity. After descending to a little village^ and passing several wet fields of lotus and the taro plant, we came again to the filth and crowds of the outer city, and finally reached our starting-point, after an absence of three hours. The Feast of Lanterns (as it is called, though incorrectly by foreigners) was celebrated during my visit, but with much less splendor than usual, on account of the disturbed state of society. The flower-boats on the river were all ablaze with lamps, and the shops in the principal streets were gaily illumi nated. There were also " sing-songs " (theatrical performan- ces), discordant instruments of noise, and other sources of Chi- nese pleasure, but the whole display was irregular, barbaric, and utterly devoid of grand effect. When I called to mind the fiery mosques of Constantinople, and the cannon thunders of the Night of Predestination, the Feast of Lanterns seemed a farce in comparison. I was much interested in a visit to Dr. Parker's Chinese Hospital. Some idea of the good accomplished by this institu- tion may be gathered from the fact, that since its establishment more than forty-nine thousand persons have been admitted. Dr. Parker himself is a very accomplished surgeon ; his gal- lery of portraits exhibiting the tumors which he has removed, and the collection of stones which illustrates his skill in lithot- omy, would be treasures to the Museum of a Medical College. His operations in lithotomy, especially, have been remarkably successful, as he has lost hut four out of, I believe, thirty -twg patients. While in Canton I enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. GideoD LEAVING CHINA. 499 Nye, Jr., one of the prominent American merchants, who is well known at home through his taste for Art. My stay was very pleasant and interesting, and I could have agreeably prolonged it ; but I was not sorry when my last night on Chinese soil arrived. The reader may have rightly conjectured that I am not partial to China, but this much I must admit : it is the very best country in the world — to leave. CHAPTER XLI THE IKDIAK ISLES. Farewell to China— "Whampoa — A Musical Good-Bye — The Bogue Forts— The Last Link— The China Sea— Life on the Sea Serpent— The Straits of Mindoro— Pictu- resque Islands — Calm Sailing— Moonlight In the Tropica — "Summer Isles of Eden " —The Sooloo Sea— The Cagayanes Islands— Straits of Basllan— Mindanao— A Na- tive Proa— The Sea of Celebes— Entering the Straits of Macassar— Crossing the Equator— Off Celebes— Lazy Life— The Java Sea— Passing the Thousand Islands- Approach to the Straits of Sunda. On the morning of the 9th of September we left Canton in the Macao steamer, which had been chartered to tow the Sea Serpent out to sea. We went swiftly down the crowded stream, passing the Factories, the temple of Ilo-nan, and the floating houses of the aquatic Cantonese, and soon reached the long stretch of green paddy-fields extending to Whampoa. The day was shady, but with a soft, cool, clear atmosphere, which mel- lowed and deepened the rich colors of the landscape. The White Cloud Hills rose high over the undulating region between, which, with its grcves, villages and tall pagodas, refreshed the eye, but took not the least hold on the heart. I found myself admiring its beauty with a cold, passionless appreciation, im oonneoted with the slightest regret at leaving it, or the least A MUSICAL GOOD-BYE. 501 wish to behold it again. There may be scenes in China fair to look upon, but they are ennobled by no lofty human interest, lighted by no gleam of poetry or art. Near the mouth of Lob Creek we passed a tall pagoda, and another within a mile or two of Whampoa, crowning the top of a verdant knoll. The latter was built of dark-red stone, and with the ivy and wild shrubs waving from the horned roofs of its nine stories, was really a picturesque object. The shipping of Whampoa was now visible, and in less than half an hour we lay alongside of the good clipper which was thence- forth to be our ocean home. Whampoa is a long, scattering Chinese town, on the southern bank of the river. The foreign vessels anchored in the reach, for a distance of more than a mile, give the place a lively air, and the low, conical hills which rise from the shore, crowned here and there with Chinese buildings, relieve the tameness of the swampy soil on which the town is built. We were obliged to wait for the flood-tide, which detained us two hours. The anchor was cheerily lifted at last, and we got under way for New York. In going down the river we had a fair view of all the vessels of war anchored in Blenheim Reach, which was only half a mile distant, on our right. The Mississippi lay nearest to us, and as we drew near the opening of the reach one of her boats appeared, with the band on board, float- ing side by side with us, while they played our stirring national airs. It was a parting compliment from Capt. Lee to Lieut. Contce. The Sea Serpent's crew gathered on the forecastle, gave three hearty cheers, which the Mississippi's men answered with a will, standing up in the boat. This was our last glimpse of naval !if o, and a fitting farewell to the service. I looked ir 502 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. raiii for the Susquehanna, which was expected from Cumsing moun, but she had not arrived. I would have given much foi another sight of her big hull and familiar spars; and, bettei Htill, for a hail from some of her jolly men. The river now became broader and frequently expanded on either side into great arms, some of which extended for many miles into the country. We passed the first bar, which was created by the Chinese sinking junks to prevent the English from reaching Canton. A high hill on the southern shore, near the second bar, which we reached about 5 p. m., is crowned with a pagoda 150 feet high, which is visible at a great dis- tance. Beyond this, the river again expands, to be finally contracted into a narrow pass, at the Bocca Tigris, which we fortunately reached before dusk. It is a fine, bold gateway formed by two mountainous islands, which leave a passage of about half a mile between them. There are several Chinese batteries on either hand, but they are more formidable in appearance than in reality. By the time we had passed the Bogue, it was dark. The tide was now in our favor, and we stood away towards Lintin. We had a large number of friends, including Messrs. Nye and Tuckerman of Canton, at dinner in the cabin, but about 10 p M. they all bade us good-bye and returned aboard the steamer. We were cast ofl" a little after midnight, and taking a north- east wind ran down past the Ladrrues at the rate of ten knots an hour. "When I went on deck in the morning, China was no longer visible. The weather was dull and rainy, but we con- tinued to make good progress. On the afternoon of the 12th, oy which time we had made 300 miles, a violent squall came m tearing our maintop-gallant sail and jib into ribbons. Heavj LIFE ON THE 8BA SERPENT. 503 showers of rain succeeded, and durmg the night the wind grad ually settled into the regular south-west monsoon. By noon the following day, we were in Lat. 14* 54^ N.— consequently soutb of the Paracel Reefs, and beyond the latitude of violent typhoons. As the wind still blew steadily from the south-west, Captain Howland determined to change his course and make for the Straits of Mindoro, Basilan and Macassar, hopmg to get the south-east trade wind in the Java Sea, and thus make a better run to Angier than by slowly beating down the China Sea. I found the Sea Serpent an excellent sea-boat, in every respect. She behaved admirably on a wind, slipping through the water so softly that we would not have suspected the speed she made. Although so sharp in the bows, she was very dry, scarcely a spray flying over the forecastle. In addition to Lieut. Contee and myself, there was but one other passenger, Mr. Parkman of Boston. Capt. Howland was accompanied by his wife and child. The officers were intelligent and obliging, and our party, though small, was large enough to be agreeable. We were all well satisfied with the prospect of a cruise among the Indian Isles, and therefore welcomed the Captam's decision. At sunset, on the 14th, we made land ahead, at a considerable distance. As the passage required careful navigation, on account of its abundant reefs, we stood off and on until the next morn- ing. Passing the North and North-west Rocks, the mountain- 3us island of Busvagon, or Camelianes, opened to the south and east, its lofty hills, and deep, picturesque valleys clothed in eternal green. The rocky islets which bristled between us and its shores exhibited the most striking peculiarities of form and structure. Some shot upwards like needless or obelisks from 504 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN tlie dark-blue sea; others rose in heavy masses, like the tirrets or bastions of a fortress, crowned with tufts of shrubbery. Tha rock of which they were formed was of a dark slate coL)r, in vertical strata, which appeared to have been violently broken off at the top, bearing a strong resemblance to columnar basalt Busvagon stretched along, point beyond point, for a distance of forty or fifty miles. The land rose with a long, gentle slope from the beaches of white sand, and in the distance stood the vapory peaks of high mountains. We sailed slowly along the outer edge of the islets, to which the larger island made a warm, rich backgroimd. The air was deliciously mild and pure, the sea smooth as glass, and the sky as fair as if it had never been darkened by a storm. Except the occasional gambols of the bonitas, or the sparkle of a flying-fish as he leaped into the sun, there was no sign of life on these beautiful waters. Towards noon the gentle. south-east breeze died away; and we lay with motionless sails upon the gleaming sea. The sun hung over the mast-head and poured down a warm tropical lan- guor, which seemed to melt the very marrow in one's bones. For four hours we lay becalmed, when a light ripple stole along from the horizon, and we saw the footsteps of the welcome breeze long before we felt it. Gradually increasing, it bore us smoothly and noiselessly away from Busvagon and the rocky towers and obelisks, and at sunset we saw the phantomlike hills of the southern point of the island of Mindoro, forty miles distant. The night was filled with the glory of the full moon —a golden tropical radiance, nearly as lustrous, and far more Boft and balmy, than the light of day — a BLystic, enamored bridal of the sea and sky. The breeze was so gentle as to be felt, and no more ; the ship slid as silently through the water PICTURESQUE ISLANDS. 505 HB if her keel were muffled in silk ; and the sense of repose in motion was so sweet, so grateful to my travel-wearied senses, that I remained on deck until midnight, steeped in a bath of pure indolent happiness. Our voyage the next day was still more delightful From dawn until dark we went slowly loitering past the lovely islands that gem those remote seas, until the last of them sank asteiD in the flush of sunset. Nothing can be more beautiful than their cones of never-fading verdure, draped to the very edge of the waves, except where some retreating cove shows its bear-h of snow-white sand. On the larger ones are woody val- leys, folded between the hills, and opening upon long slopes, overgrown with the cocoa-palm, the mango, and many a strange and beautiful tree of the tropics. The light, lazy clouds, suf- fused with a crimson flush of heat, that floated slowly through the upper heavens, cast shifting shadows upon the masses of foliage, and deepened, here and there, the dark-purple hue of the sea. Retreating behind one another until they grew dim and soft as clouds on the horizon, and girdled by the most tranquil of oceans, these islands were real embodiments of the joyous fancy of Tennyson, in his dream of the Indies, in " Locksley Hall." Here, although the trader comes, and the flags of the nations of far continents sometimes droop in the motionless air — here are still the heavy-blossomed bowers and the heavy-fruited trees, the summer isles of Eden in their pur- ple spheres of sea. The breeze fell nearly to a calm at noon- day, hut our vessel still moved noiselessly southward, and island after island faded from green to violet, and from violet to the dim, pale blue that finally blends with the air. The next day was most taken up with calms. The captain 22 bOt) and mates spent much of their time in shifting the sails bo aa tc get the most of the faint wind-flaws that reached us, watching for distant ripple-lines on the ocean, or whistling over the rail In the afternoon land was descried ahead — the Oagajanea Islands, a little group in the middle of the Sooloo Sea. We passed between them about four o'clock, and had a fair view on either hand. The shores are smooth walls of perpendicular rock, about a hundred feet in height, and almost completely hidden under a curtain of rich vegetation. Here and there the rock falls away, leaving little beaches of sand, behind which rise thick forests of cocoa or palm. I could distinguish with the glass half a dozen bamboo huts on the shore. A few boats were drawn up on the beach. The islands looked so lovely as we passed them, in the soft lustre of sunset, that I longed for a day of calm, to go ashore where so few Europeans have ever set foot, and have a glance at the primitive barbarism of the natives. The sea still remained as smooth as a mountain lake. We saw great quantities of drift-wood, upon which boobies and cormorants perched in companies of two and three, and watched for fish as they drifted lazily along. In the neighborhood of the islands we frequently saw striped snakes, four or five feet in length. The lofty coast of Mindanao, one of the largest of the Philippine Islands, was visible at sunrise, on the 19th. Before long Basilan appeared in the south-east, and by noon we were in the mouth of the strait. The observation gave Lat. 7^ S' N., Long. 121° E. Two vessels were descried ahead, a ship and a brig, both lying close in to Mindanao, and apparently becalmed. In fact, we could easily trace a belt of calm water near thi STRAITS OF BASILAN. 507 M^ore, criused by the high hills of the island, \9hich prevented r.he southern breeze from " blowing home." Four or five small islands — the commencement of the Soo- loo Archipelago — lie to the westward of Basilan. The strait is from six to eight miles wide at its narrowest part, and toler- ably free from dangerous points. To the north, the hills of Mindanao, completely mantled with forests, rise grandly to the height of near two thousand feet. The shore presents an almost impenetrable array of cocoa palms. There were two or three cleared spaces on the hills, and as we entered further into the strait, we could see with the glass not only some native huts, but the houses of Spanish residents on the shore. Still fur- ther, at the head of a little bight, and protected by a level island of palms, we saw the Spanish settlement of Sambooan- gan. There were several large two-story houses, and a white chapel, before which lay half a dozen small craft at anchor. A native proa put out from the shore, some distance ahead of us, and we at first thought she was making for us with a load of fruit. As she came nearer she hoisted a huge yellow flag, with a red ornamental border, and some large red characters in Chinese. There were six persons on board, and he who appeared to be the leader wore a yellow robe. The boat had an outrigger on each side, and was propelled by paddles and a light canvas sail. She came near us, but to our disappointment dropped astern and passed over to Basilan. The latter island is remarkably picturesque in its appear- ance, its long, wavy slopes of foliage shooting into tall conical peaks. In passing through the strait, these piles of eternal vegetation on either hand have an enchanting effect. I took sketches of both islands, which preserved their outlines, hui 508 ODIA, CHINA AND JAPAN. could not give the least idea of their richness and beauty. Wt had a light westerly wind, with the tide in our favor, and just as the moon arose like a globe of gold, passed the eastern moutb of the strait and entered the Sea of Celebes. We now experienced a succession of calms and baffling winds for five days, as we stood south by west across the Sea of Celebes, making for the Straits of Macassar. There was an oc- casional squall of an hour or two, which gave us a " slant " in the right direction. The wind at last shifted, so that we were able to run upon our course close-hauled, and on the afternoon of the 25th we caught a distant and misty view of the Haring Islands. The next morning at sunrise, we saw the lofty head- land of Point Kaneoongan, in Borneo, at the western entrance of the straits. Cape Donda, in Celebes, thirty miles distant, ap peared for a short time, but was soon hidden by showers. On the 27th, at noon, we were in 0® 5^ S., having crossed the Equator about 11 a. m., and thenceforth, for four days, w(^ slowly loitered along through the Straits of Macassar, with light, variable winds, and seasons of dead, sultry calm. The mercury stood at 88^ in the coolest part of the ship. The sea was as smooth as a mirror, and as glossy and oily in its dark- blue gleam, as if the neighboring shores of Macassar had poured upon it libations of their far-famed unguent Occa sionally we saw the shores of Celebes, but so distant and dim that it was rather like a dream of land than land itself. We walked the deck languidly, morning and evening, sat under the the awning by day, alternately dozing and smoking and read- ing, watched the drift-wood floating by — mangrove logs, with companies of sea-fowl making their fishing excursions —at< PASSING THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. 60^ lur occupation and slept with difficulty : and thus the day? On the 2d of October a light south wind reached us, and we left the dim, far-off headlands of Celebes — the land of san lal-wood groves and birds of Paradise. We made the twin focks called " The Brothers," off the southern point of Borneo, and about noon passed between the islands of Moresses and Little Pulo Laut. The latter are noble piles of verdure, rising a thousand feet from the water, in long undulating out- lines. The Java Sea is a beautiful piece of water, compara- tively free from reefs and shoals, and rarely exceeding forty fathoms in depth, so that vessels may anchor in any part of it. Its surface is as smooth as a lake, and even when making eight or nine knots, there was scarcely any perceptible motion in the vessel. The temperature was delicious, and the south wind so bland, sweet and elastic, after the sultry, surcharged atmos- phere of Macassar Straits, that the change was perceptible in the temper and spirits of all on board. "We had light but favorable winds, and for four days more stood across the Java Sea, averaging about 100 miles a day. The water was alive with snakes and flying-fish. Passing the Lubeck Islands and Carimon Java, we approached so near the Javanese shores that on the evening of the 6th the delicioua land-breeze came off to us, bringing an odor of moist earth and vegetable exhalations. We expected to have a glimpse of Ba- tavia, but made considerable northing, so that we lost sight of the low Java coast before morning. At noon we made th« Thousand Islands, and as they have been but very imperfectlj explored, we were obliged to go completely to the northward t>f them, instead of taking one of the numerous channels be bio INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN. tween. They are small and low, but thickly covered vifb trees, among which the cocoa-palm predominates. I counted thirty-three islands within a sweep of a hundred degrees The wind being dead ahead, we stood on the northern tack until w( made the North Watcher, and then fetched a S. by E. course, the current setting us to windward. The same evening, how- ever, the wind changed, and before I turned into my berth, w« were thirty miles off Angier Point, the last gateway interven- ing between us and the Indian Ocean. "We had been twenty- eight days in making the voyage from Whampoa — a distAnoe 08 we sailed, of 2,613 niles. CHAPTER XL II. ABOUND T HE CAP Entering the Straits of Sunda-Malay Boats-Tho Mangoste en-Bargalnlng with ttie Nanvcs-Scenery of tbe Strait*- Angier-Passing tbe Sti aits-Death on Board- The Indian Ocean-A Submarfne Earthquake-A Tropical Sunset-A Fatal Escape -The Trade Wind-Mozambiqne Channel-The Coast of Africa-Doubling the Cape-Southern Constellations-Distant View of Table Mountain-On the Atlandc —The Trades again— Restoration— A Slaver, I AROSE at sunrise on the morning of the 8th of October^ in time to see the Sea Serpent enter the Straits of Sunda. On our left, five or six miles distant, arose the lofty headland of Point St. Nicholas; in front was the rock called "The Cap,' and the island of " 'Thwart-the-Way,» while the mountains of Sumatra were barely visible far to the west. We were scarcely abreast of the headland when two native prahus, or boats, were seen coming off to us, the boatmen laboring at their sweeps with a sharp, quick cry, peculiar to semi-barbarous people. One of the boats was soon alongside, with a cargo of yams, plantains and fowls, with such fancy articles as shells, monkeys, parroqutts and Java sparrows. The captain and erew were Malays, and nearly all spoke English more or lesa auently The former had an account-book, showing his deal 512 IMDIA, CHINA AlTD JAPAli. ings with ships, and a printed register from the Dutch Govern ment, containing notices of the vessels called upon in the straits We were gratified to find that we had not been beaten, the shortest passage from Whampoa, previous to our own, being hirty days. The second boat soon arrived, and between the two Capt. Howland managed to procure about fifteen cwt. of yams, with abundant supplies of potatoes, fowls, and paddy. The fruits they brought off were plantains, cocoa-nuts, ripe and green, and a few 7nangosteens, which were then going out of season. The latter were mostly rotten, but the few fresh ones which we picked out were enough to convince me that its fame as the most exquisite of all fruits had not been overrated. The very look of the snow-white pulp, softly imbedded in its thick, juicy, crimson husk, is refreshing ; and its melting coolness and sweet- ness, relieved by the faintest mixture of a delicious acid flavor, makes it the very nectar and ambrosia of the vegetable world. Certainly no other fruit is comparable to it in flavor and lus- ciousness. While the boat went back to Angier for fresh supplies of paddy and other necessaries — an arrangement which deprived us of all chance oi landing there — we slowly drifted down the straits with the tide, past Cap Rock and towards 'Thwart-the- Way. I was charmed with the beauty of the Javanese shore. Low hills, completely covered with foliage, rose from the water, with ascending upland slopes beyond, and groups of lofty moun tains in the background. In the almost interminable wealth of tropical vegetation which covered the land, the feathery cocoa-palm and the massive foliage of the banyan could be plainly recognized. Passing the picturesque headlands and DEATH ON BOARD. 518 leafy wildernesses of " 'Thwart-the-Way," w{; lay to off Angler, waiting for the boat. "We were nearly two miles from shore, but the scattered Malay village, the big banyan-tree, the Dutth fort, and the light-house, with its tiled roof, were all distinctly visible. The lofty promontory of Rajah Bassa, on the Sumatra side, loomed in the distance. The wind was blow- ing fresh from the south, and favorable for us, but we were obliged to lay to nearly an hour for our supplies, surrounded in the mean time with small boats, from which we purchased fish, shells, parroquets and Java sparrows. At last, all the fresh stores were shipped, and we ran off before a spanking breeze. Point St. Nicholas, Button Rock, Angier and 'Thwart- the-Way soon disappeared, and the superb conical peak of the island of Crockatoa rose on our lee bow. We saw Prince's island at dusk, on the weather bow, and entered the Indian Ocean before the twilight had wholly faded — having made tht passage through the straits under unusually favorable auspices At midnight a man who had been shipped by the Consul at Canton, died on board. He was an old sailor, who had fallen ill at Manilla, whence he had been sent to China, and there, by a blind course of drunkenness and harlotry, sealed his own doom There was no hope of his recovery, for he had liimself cut it off. It was a case of deliberate suicide. But he had probably survived all friends, all associations of home, all manly energy and virtue, all pleasure in even mere animal enjoyment, all hope of any thing better in life, and accepted death with a reckless insensibility which disarmed it of fear. He waa buried at noon the next day, Capt. Howland reading the furieral lervice. The next morning the ehange from the island seas of thi 22* 514 " INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN. Indies, to the open ocean, was at once manifest in the dark-hlac of the water, the paleness of the sky, the clearness and tracing freshness of the air, the wider stretch of the horizon, and the long, deliberate undulations of the sea, which gave our vessel & motion we had not felt for weeks before. Towards noon the wind abated, leaving us swaying uneasily to and fro, with the sails flapping heavily against the masts. On Monday evening, the 10th of October, an unusual inci- dent happened to us. The night was clear, and cooler than usual, with a light breeze, not more than three knots at most, and the same heavy swell which we had had for two days pre- vious. I was walking the quarter-deck with Mr. Cornell, the second mate, about a quarter past eleven o'clock, when the ship suddenly stopped, and shook so violently from stem to stern that every timber vibrated. This motion was accompanied by a duU rumbling, or rather humming noise, which seemed to come from under the stern. We were at first completely puzzled and bewildered by this unexpected circumstance, but a moment's reflection convinced us that it proceeded from an earthquake. Capt. Howland and Mr. Contee came on deck just in time to feel a second shock, nearly as violent as the first. Those who were below heard a strong hissing noise at the vessel's side. There did not appear to be any unusual agitation of the water, notwithstanding the vessel was so violently shaken. The length of time which elapsed, from first to last, was about a minute and a half. The breeze fell immediately afterwards, and we had barely steerage way until morning. The sunset on the following day was one of the most superb [ ever saw. The sky was divided into alternate bands of pure blue and brilliant rose color, streaming upwards and outwardf THE TRADE WIND. 515 tVom the sun, without any interfusion or blending of their hues At the horizon the blue became amber-green, and then gold, and the rose-tint a burning crimson. A mountainous line of heavy purple clouds formed a foreground along the horizon, behind which the rayed sky shone with indescribable splendor, doubling its gorgeous hues on the glassy surface of the sea. There was a dead calm all night, and at noon the reckoning showed a progress of twenty-eight miles in twenty-four hours. The swell was worse than ever, and the sails seemed to be slowly beating themselves to pieces against the masts. On the morning of the 14th I lost a pretty little parroquet which I had bought at Angier. He had become so tame that I took him out of the cage to feed, and while to all appearance contentedly eating rice in my hand, he shot off suddenly, darted through the cabin like a flash, and out of one of the stern-ports. He was gone in an instant, and lost to me for ever — an instance that even freedom may be fataL The afternoon was cloudy, with frequent squalls, but about midnight the wind came up out of the south and increased at such a rate, that by daylight we were making twelve knots an hour. The swell was still heavy, the sea covered with sparkling foam-caps, and the sky streaked with flying masses of cloud. The air had a bracing, exhilarating freshness and steadiness, which led us to hope that we had at last caught the long-desired " trades." Our hopes were entirely fulfilled. My log of the voyage showed the consecutive days' runs of 269, 235, 227, 261, and 247 miles, during which time the ship kept on her course, scarce shifting a sail. The weather was gloriously clear and brilliant, urith an elastic and bracing air, and a temperature ranging from 70® to 77^*. The sunsets were magnificent ; and at night th« 516 INDIA, CHINA AND JAI AN new Southern constellations united themselves to the superb array of Northern stars, reaching from Taurus to Gemini, and formed one sublujie and glittering band across the heavens. On the 21st, the wind abated, and we made but 148 miles, but it fre.shened the next day, and so held until the 29th, when we achieved 268 miles, passed the latitude of Madagascar, and entered the Mozambique Chaiuiel. Here we encountered a heavy cross-sea and head current, but were cheered by the sight »f the Cape pigeon and albatross, which wheeled and swooped across our wake, in lines as perfectly rhythmical and harmo- aious as strains of music. On the 1st of November, the wind shifted to the south-west, obliging us to run close-hauled. In the evening the sea becamo rery rough, rolling in long, heavy swells, which indicated that we had entered the ocean current setting westward around the Cape. The ship plunged so violently that we came down to double-reefed topsails, and logged less than five knots. About four o'clock the next morning, while it was yet perfectly dark, 'jhe air was so pervaded with a fresh earthy smell, that the Captain tacked and stood off on a south-east course. Daylight showed us the bold, bleak coast of Africa, about five miles dis- tant. We had made the land about fifty miles south of Port Natal. At nine o'clock, however, we tacked again, the wind having shifted sufficiently to enable us to clear the land, although we ran within eight or ten miles of it during the whole day. The coast rose in long ridges of bleak hills, which, near th sea, were streaked with fields of barren sand, but further inland were green, and covered with thickets. Th-re was not the slightest sign of cultivation, and I should have considered SOUTHERN CONSTELLATIONS. 517 it aniuhabited, but for several lar/^e fires which were buramg on the iiills. The next morning, November 3d, found us becalmed oflF the Eastern headland of Algoa Bay. It was a warm, cloudless third of May in the lower hemisphere. We sounded, and finding fifty-five fathoms, endeavored to turn the calm to account by fishing for cod; but after sending down the line four times and having two hooks bitten off, a breeze came out of the east and began moving us forward too fast for tne sport. The east wind nobly befriended us. At noon on the 4th we reached our Southern Ultima Thule (Lat. 35° IT^ S.), and headed westward for the Atlantic, fifty miles from the African coast. Cape Lagulhas, the southern extremity of the Conti- nent, was 97 miles distant. The sky was cloudless, the sun warm, the air deliciously pure, and just cool enough to make walking on the quarter-deck enjoyable. The sea was smooth, and no sign in air or ocean betokened that we were in the vicinity of the dreaded Cape of Storms. At night the young moon, Jupiter and Venus, if not exactly in conjunction, were so near it as to shine as with the light of a single planet. But two or three degrees distant from each other, they formed a splendid triangle, the effect of which, on the roseate field of the austral sunset, was indescriba- bly magnificent. The sky was intensely clear, and towards midnight Taurus, Orion, Sirius, Canopus, the Southern Cross and the Magellan Clouds were all visible at once, bewildering the eye with their lustre. The next morning we could plainly distinguish, though at a great distance, the vapors hanging over the Cape and the headlands which bound False, or St. Simon s Bay, on the east. Towards noon they were lifted by the sua; 518 INDIA, CHINA ANT JAPAN and the far, faint, blue outline of Table Mountain, with that of the four or five broken peaks forming the Cape, was dis* tinctly visible. They were so precisely similar to the pictures I had seen, and to that in my imagination, that I recognized them at once, with a feeling of familiar acquaintance. They slowly passed astern, and at four o'clock faded out of sight behind us. And so farewell, savage old Africa 1 Shall I ever see your shores again ? Now, at last, I felt that our prow was turned homewards— that our keel ploughed the Atlantic, and the old far-off Asian world lay behind me. We were again sailing for the North Star, for the hemisphere where the strong heart of the world beats, and will beat for ever ! We were on our own side of the globe, and I felt — what I had not before felt, since leaving China — that every day was bringing me nearer home. The very sky was changed ; the sea was of a deeper blue ; the waves danced and sparkled with a merrier life ; the clouds gathered into larger masses and grouped themselves together with a sense of power, no longer like the slumberous vapors of the East, smouldering languidly away, in the fires of the sun. There was a prophecy of America in the very air, and I invoked a threefold benediction on the cold south-wind, which filled every inch of our towering piles of canvas, and carried us through the night at twelve knots an hour, dashing the ocean into phos- phoric foam. After making 532 miles in two days, the wind abated, and we dragged along slowly for three days more, through the vaii- able latitudes, before taking the trade-winds again. The alba- tross and Cape pigeon followed us, past their usual latitudes, until the increase of temperature, in the neighborhood of the A SLAVER. 51S Tropics, warned them to return. The trade- wind, which w( took on the 10th of November, was rather sluggish, and even with the addition of sky-sails and royal studding-sails, our pace was languid. The sea was unusually calm, and the swells over whioh we expected to be " rolling down to St. Helena," accord- ing to the sailor's ditty, did not make their appearance. No voyaging could be calmer and more agreeable, and our routine of life had come to be so settled and unvarying, that the day slipped by unawares. I employed this period of quiet and iso- lation in recalling and rewriting a large package of letters, descriptive of things in India and China, which had gone down in the steamer Lewiston, in the China Sea. Floating over that sleepy, deserted sea — for we saw but a single vessel — I was enabled to reproduce the Past so vividly that not a feature was wanting, and, almost word for word, the lost letters were restored. On the morning of the 11th we passed the meridian of Greenwich, and began to count western longitude. The only other incident was the sight of a rakish-looking brig, which passed several miles astern. Mr. Contee, who had made a cruise in the African Squadron, at once pronounced her to be a slavor, Her movements betrayed an evident anxiety to avoid no. CHAPTEE XLIII. A DAT AT BT. HELEHA. rtopoeed CaU ftt 8t Helena— First View of the Island— Its Cllflb— Approach to Jime» town— View from the Anchorage — Landing — The Town and Eavine— Ascending the Gorge — Looking Down—" The Briars '" — Summit of the Island— Pastoral Land- scape — Sea- View — Approach to Longwood— Reception- The Billlard-Eoom— ^cene of Napoleon's Death— His Bedroom — Desecration of Longwood— The New Resi- dence—The Longwood Farm— The " Crown and Rose " — National Peculiarities— The Grave of Napoleon — The Old Woman's Welcome — Condition of the Grave- st Helena Literature — The Old Woman's Admirable Story — Napoleon's Spring— Retam to JameAtown— Departure ttaia the Island. The three passengers on board the Sea Serpent were greatlj delighted to learn from Capt. Howland, on the liay when we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, that the water was getting short, and he had therefore decided to touch at St. Helena for a fresh supply. We had already been more than sixty days on board, and the sea, with all its wonderful fascination, was growing monotonous. Here was an event which, in addition to its positive interest, would give us at least five days of anti cipation and a week of active remembrance, virtually shorten- mg our voyage to that extent ; for at sea we measure time less by the calendar than bv our individual sense of its duration. BT. HELENA. 521 I have spent several montlis on shipboard, when, according to the almanac, barely a fortnight had elapsed. The trade- wind bore us slowly northward, and when I went OD deck at sunrise, on the 14th of November, St. Helena was in sight, about twenty-five miles distant. It was a dark-blue mass, filling about twenty degrees of the horizon, and of nearly ttniform elevation above the sea, but gradually resolved itself into sharper and more broken outlines as we approached. Except upon a lofty terrace on the southern side, where there was a tinge of green and some traces of fields, the coast pre- sented a frightfully rocky and inhospitable appearance. Nev- ertheless it displayed some grand efiects of coloring. The walls of naked rock, several hundred feet high, which rose boldly from the sea, in some places overhanging their base, were tinted as by " the deep-blue gloom Of thunder-shower," the hollow chasms between them being filled with gorgeous masses of purple-black shadow, under the sultry clouds which hung over the island. At the south-eastern extremity were two pointed, isolated rocks, probably a hundred fe^t high. We stood arouud the opposite extremity of the island, making for the port of Jamestown, which faces the north-west. The coast on this side rises into two bold heads, one of wly'sh pro- jects outward like a gigantic ^^apstan, while the othe^r runs slantingly up to a pointed top, which is crowned with a signal station. The rock has a dark, bluish-slate color, with streaks of a warm reddish-brown, and the strata, burst apart in the centre, yet slanting upward toward each other like the sides of 522 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. a Tolcaoo, tell of upheaval by some tremendous subterranear agency. The structure of the island is purely volcanio, and except the rock of Aden, on the coast of Arabia, I never sa^ a more forbidding spot. The breeze increased as we drew near the island, but when we ran under the lee of the great cliffs, fell away almosi entirely, so that we drifted lazily along within half a mile of them. At length a battery hove in sight, hewn in the face of the precipice, and anchored vessels, one by one, came out behind the point. We stood off a little, urged along by occa- sional flaws of wind, and in a short time the shallow bight which forms the roadstead of St. Helena lay before us. There was another battery near at hand, at the foot of a deep, barren glen, called Rupert's Valley, from which a road, notched in the rock, leads around the intervening cliffs to the gorge, at the bottom of which Jamestown is built. A sea-wall across the mouth of this gorge, a row of ragged trees, weather-beaten by the gales of the Atlantic, and the spire of a church, were all that appeared of the town. The walls of the fort crowned the lofty cliff above, and high behind them towered the signal station, on the top of a conical peak, the loftiest in the island. The stone ladder which leads from the tower to the fort was marked on the face of the cliff like a white ribbon unrolled from its top. Inland, a summit covered with dark pine-trees, from the midst of which glimmered the white front of a coun- try mansion, rose above the naked heights of the shore. This was t *e only gleam of fertility which enlivened the terrible sterility of the view. Further in-shore a few gun-boats and water-boats lay at anchor, and some fishing-skiffs were pulling about. As w« VISIT TO LONGWOOD. 523 forged slowly along to a good anchoring ground, the Americau consul came off, followed by a boarding-officer, ind jre at once received permission to go ashore and make the most of our short stay. The consul's boat speedily conveyed us to the land- ing-place, at the eastern extremity of the town. Every thing had a dreary and deserted air. There were half-a-dozen men and boys, with Portuguese features and uncertain complexions, about the steps, a red-coated soldier at a sentry-box, and two or three lonely-looking individuals under the weather-beaten treea Passing a row of mean houses, built against the overhanging rock, a drawbridge over a narrow moat admitted us within the walls. A second wall and gate, a short distance further, ushered us into the public square if Jamestown. Even at its outlet, the valley is not more than a hundred and fifty yards wide, and the little town is crowded, or rather jammed, deep in its bot- tom, between nearly perpendicular cliffs, seven or eight hundred feet in height. At the top of the square is the church, a plain yellowish structure, with a tall, square, pointed spire ; and beyond it Market street, the main thoroughfare of the little place, opens up the valley. A carriage — almost the only one in Jamestown — was pro- cured for Mrs. Howland ; my fellow-passenger, Parkman, pro- vided himself with a saddle-horse, and we set out for Longwood. We had a mounted Portuguese postillion, and rattled up the steep and stony main street in a style which drew upon us the eyes of all Jamestown. The road soon left the town, ascending the right side of the ravine by a very long and steep grade. Behind the town are the barracks of the soldiery and theii ijarade-ground — all on a cramped and contracted scale; then some dreary burial-grounds, the graves in which resembled 524 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. heaps of cinders ; then a few private mansions, and green gai den-patclies, winding upwards for a mile or more. The deptl and narrowness of the gorge completely shut out the air ; the heat was radiated powerfully from its walls of black volcani rock, and the bristling cacti and yuccas by the roadside, with full-crowned cocoa-palms below, gave it a fiery, savage, tropical character. The peak of the signal-station loomed high above us from the opposite side, and now the head of the ravine — a precipice several hundred feet high, over which fell a silver thread of water — came into sight. This water supplies the town and shipping, beside fertilizing the gardens in the bed of the ravine. It is clear as crystal, and of the sweetest and freshest quality. Looking backward, we saw the spire of the little church at the bottom projected against the blue plain of ocean, the pigmy hulls of the vessels in the roads, and a great triangular slice of sea, which grew wider and longer as we ascended, until the horizon was full fifty miles distant. Near the top of the ravine there is a natural terrace about a quarter of a mile in length, lying opposite to the cascade. It contains a few small fields, divided by scrubby hedges, and, near the further end, two pleasant dwelluig-houses, surrounded by a garden in which I saw some fine orange-trees. This is " The Briars," memorable for having been Napoleon's first res- idence on the island. The Balcombe family occupied the larger of the two dwellings, which is flanked by tall Italian cypresses, while the other building, which was then a summei pavilion, but was afterwards enlarged to accommodate the Em peror and his suite, received him on the very night of his land- mg from the Bellerophon. It stands on a little knoll, over- looking a deep glen, which debouches into the main valley juaf THE GRAVE OF NAPOLEON. 62.') belo^. The place is cheerful though solitary ; it has a sheL tered, ':imiiy aspect, compared with the bleak heights of Long- wood, and I do not wonder that the great exile left it with regret. Miss Balcombe's account of Napoleon's sojourn at " The Briars," is among the most striking reminiscences of his life on the island. Just above the terrace the road turned, and, after a short ascent, gained the crest of the ridge, where the grade became easier, and the cool south-east trade-wind, blowing over the height, refreshed us after the breathless heat of the ravine. The road was bordered with pine-trees, and patches of soft green turf took the place cf the volcanic dust and cinders. The flower-stems of the aloe-plants, ten feet in height, had already begun to wither, but the purple buds of the cactus were opening, and thick clusters of a watery, succulent plant were starred with white, pink, and golden blossoms. We had now attained the central upland of the island, which slopes down- ward in all directions to the summit of the sea-wall of cliffs On emerging again from the wood, a landscape of a very dif- ferent character met our view. Over a deep valley, the sidea of which were alternately green with turf and golden with patches of blossoming broom, we looked upon a ridge of table land three or four miles long, near the extremity of which, sur- rounded by a few straggling trees, we saw the houses of Long- wood. In order to reach them, it was necessary to pass around the head of the intervening valley. In this direction the land- scape was green and fresh, dotted with groves of pine and white country-houses. Flocks of sheep grazed on the turfy hill-sideSj and a few cows and horses ruminated among the clumps of iroom. Down in the bottom of the vaDey, I noticed a small 526 I2n>lA, CHINA| ASD JAPAN. enclosure, planted with Italian cypresses, and with a squaw white object in the centre. It did not need the postillion's words to assure me that I looked upon the Grave of Napoleon Looking eastward towards the sea, the hills became bar* and red, gashed with chasms and falling off in tremendous pre oipices, the height of which we would only guess from the dim blue of the great sphere of sea, whose far-off horizon was drawn above their summits, so that we seemed to stand in the centre of a vast concavity. In color, form, and magnificent desola- tion, these hills called to my mind the mountain region sur- rounding the Dead Sea. Clouds rested upon the high, pine- wooded summits to the west of us, and the broad, sloping val* ley, on the other side of the ridge of Longwood, was as green as a dell of Switzerland. The view of those fresh pasture slopes, with their flocks of sheep, their groves and cottages, was all the more delightful from its being wholly unexpected. Where the ridge joins the hills, and one can look into both valleys at the same time, there is a small tavern, with the familiar English sign of the " Crown and Rose." Our road now led eastward along the top of the ridge, over a waste tract eovered with clumps of broom, for another mile and a half when we reached the gate of the Longwood Farm. A broad avenue of trees, which all lean inland from the stress of the trade-wind, conducts to the group of buildings, on a bleak spot, overlooking the sea, and exposed to the full force of the wind. Our wheels rolled over a thick, green turf, the freshness of which showed how unfrequent must be the visits of strangers. On reaching the gate, a small and very dirty boy, with a milk-and-molasses complexion, brought out to us a notice pasted on a board, intimating that those who wished to see the napoleon's apartments. 521 resideDce of the Emperor Napoleon must pay two sliiUingJ a-piece in advance ; children half-price. A neat little English woman of that uncertain age which made me hesitate to ast her whether she had ever seen the Emperor, was in attendance, to receive the fees and act as cicerone. We alighted at a small green verandah, facing a wooden wing which projects from the eastern front of the building. The first room we entered was whitewashed, and covered all over with the names of visitors, in charcoal, pencil, and red chalk. The greater part of them were French. " This," said the little woman, " was the Em- peror's billiard-room, built after he came to live at Longwood. The walls have three or four times been covered with names, and whitewashed over." A door at the further end admitted us into the drawing-room, in which Napoleon died. The ceil- ing was broken away, and dust and cobwebs covered the bare rafters. The floor was half-decayed, almost invisible through the dirt which covered it, and the plastering, falling off, dis- closed in many places the rough stone walls. A winnowing- mill and two or three other farming utensils, stood in the cor- ners. The window looked into a barn-yard filled with mud and dung. Stretched on a sofa, with his head beside this win- dow, the°great conqueror, the " modern Sesostris," breathed hi. last, amid the delirium of fancied battle and the bowlings of a storm which shook the island. The comer-stone of the jamb, nearest which his head lay, has been quarried out of the wall, and taken to France. Beyond this was the dining-room, now a dark, dirty barn aoor, filled to tue rafters with straw and refuse timbers. W< passed out into a cattle-yard, and entered the Emperor's bed- room. A horse and three cows were comfortably stalled ther» 628 INDIA, CHINA, AKD JAPAN. in, and the floor of mud and loose stones wa? corered witl dung and litter. " Here," said the guide, pointing to an un^ asuallj filthy stall in one corner, " was the Emperor's bath- room. Mr. Solomon (a Jew in Jamestown) has the marble bathing-tub he used. Yonder was his dressing room " — a big brinded calf was munching some grass in the very sp t — " and here '' (pointing to an old cow in the nearest comer) ^' his at- tendant slept." So miserable, so mournfully wretched was the condition of the place, that I regretted not having been content with an outside view of Longwood. On the other side of the cattle-yard stands the houses which were inhabited by Count Montholon, Las Casas, and Dr. O'Meara ; but at present they are shabby, tumble-down sheds, whose stone walls alone have preserved their existence to this day. On the side facing the sea, there are a few pine-trees, under which is a small crescent-shaped fish-pond, dry and nearly filled with earth and weeds. Here the Emperor used to sit and feed his tame fish. The sky, ov-jrcast with clouds, and the cold wind which blew steadily from the sea, added to the desolation of the place. Passing through the garden, which is neglected, like the house, and running to waste, we walked to the new building erected by the Government for Napoleon's use, but which he never inhabited. It is a large quadrangle, one ?tory high, plain but commodious, and with some elegance in its arrange ment. It has been once or twice occupied as a residence, but is now decaying from very neglect. Standing under the brow of the hill, it is sheltered from the wind, and much more cheer- ful in every respect than the old mansion. We were conducted through the empty chambers, intended for billiard, dining, drawing, and bed-rooms. In the bath-room, where yet stands MILDNESS OF AMERICAN CHABACTEB. 529 the woodea case which enclosed the marble tub, a flock of geese were luxuriating. The curtains which hung at the win- dows were diopi)iiig to pieces from rot, and in many of the rooms the plastering was cracked and mildewed by *he leakage of lains through the roof. Near the building is a neat cottage, in whicli Geiu ral Bertrand and his family formeilj resided. It is now occupied hj the gentleman who leases the farm of Lou't- «vood from the Government. The farm is the largest on the island, containing one thousand acres, and is rented at £315 a year. Th<^ u[)lands around the house are devoted to the rais- mg of oats and barley, but grazing is the principal source of profit. I plucked some branches of geranium and fragrant helio- trope from the garden, and we set out on our return. I pre- vailed upon Mr. Parkman to take my place in the carriage, and give me his horse as far as the " Crown and Rose," thereby securing an inspiring gallop of nearly two miles. Two Eng- lishmen, of the lower order, had charge of the tavern, and while I was taking a glass of ale, one of them touched his hat very respectfully, and said: " Axin' your pardon, sir, are you from the States?*' I answered in the affirmative. "There!" baid he, turning to the other and clapping his hands, " I knew it ; I've won the bet." " What were your reasons for think- ing me an American ? " I asked. " Why," said he, " the gen- tlemen from the States are always so mild! I knowed you was one before you gut oft" the horse." We sent the carriage on by the road, to await us on the othei side of the glen, and proceeded on foot to the Grave. The path led down through a garden filled with roses and heliotropes The peach-trees were in blossom, and the tropical loquat^ which 23 530 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. L bad seen growing in India and China, hung full of ripe yellow fruit. As we approached tho little enclosure at the bottom of the glen, I, who was in advance, was hailed by a voice crying out, " This way, sir, this way 1 " and, looking down, saw at the gate a diminutive, wrinkled, old, grizzly-headed, semi-negro semi-Portuguese woman, whom I at once recognized as th custodienae of the tomb, from descriptions which the officers ol the Mississippi had given me. " Ah ! there you are ! " said I; " I knew it must be you." " Why, Captain 1 " she exclaimed • " is that you ? How you been this long while ? I didn't know you was a-comin', or I would ha' put on a better dress, for, you see, I was a-washin' to-day. "Dickey ! " — addressing a great, fat, white youth of twenty-two or twenty-three, with a particularly stupid and vacant face — " run up to the garden, and git two or three of the finest hokys as ever you can, for the Captain and the ladies ! " At the gate of the enclosure hung a placard, calling upon all visitors to pay, in advance, the sum of one shilling and six- pence each, before approaching the tomb This touching tes- timony of respect having been complied with, we were al- lowed to draw near to the empty vault, which, for twenty years, enshrined the corpse of Napoleon. It is merely an ob- long shaft of masonry, about twelve feet deep, and with a rude roof thrown over the mouth, to prevent it being filled by the rains. A little railing surroimds it, and the space between is planted with geraniums and scarlet salvias. Two willows — one of which has been so stript by travellers, that nothing but the trunk is left — shade the spot, and half-a-dozen monumental cypresses lift their tall obelisks around. A flight of steps leads bo the bottom of the vault, where the bed of masonry which DESECRATION OF NAPOLEON^S TOMB. 531 enclosed the coffin still remains. I descended to the lowest step, and there found, hanging against the damp wall, a writtei« tablet stating that the old woman, then waiting for me at the top, told an admirable and excellent story about the burial of Napoleon, which travellers would do well to extract from her and that one shilling was but a fair compensation for the pleasure she would afford them. Appended to the announce- ment were the following lines, which I transcribed on the «pot ; *' FiEMLT strike my bounding lyre, Poet's muse can never tire, Nosegays gay and flowers so wild, Climate good and breezes mild, Humbly ask a shilling, please. Before the stranger sails the seas. Napoleon -was in love with a lady so true. He gave her a gold ring set with diamonds and pearis, Which was worthy the honors of many brave earls. But she died, it is said, in her bloom and her beauty. So his love broken-hearted For ever was parted. He drank of the spring and its water so clear. Which was reserved for his use, and he held it most 3 ear. So he died, so he died. In the bloom of his pride. In his life he sat under yon lone willow-tree, And studied the air, the earth, and the sea ; His arms were akimbo, his thoughts far away. He lived six months at the house on the hill, at hia friend's, the brave General Bertband by u ame. and from thence he would come To visit the spot. And stand in deep thought. Forgotten or not * 682 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. If I had been saddened by the neglect of Longwoed, 1 was disgusted by the profanation of the tomb. Is there not enough re\ erence in St. Helena, to prevent the grave which » great name has hallowed, from being defiled with such abomi- nable doggerel ? And there was the old womar;, who, having Been me read the notice, immediately commenced her admirable and inteie-ting story in this wise : *' Six years he lived upon the island. He came here in 1815, and he died in 1821. Six years he lived upon the island. He was buried with his head to the east. This is the east. His feet was to the west. This IB the west. Where you see that brown dirt, there was his head. He wanted to be buried beside his wife Josephine ; but, as that couldn't be done, he was put here. They put him here because he used to come down here with a silver mug in his pocket, and take a drink out of that spring. That's the reason he was buried here. There was a guard of a sergeant and six men up there on the hill all the time he was down here a-drinkin' out of the spring with his silver mug. This was the way he walked." Here the old woman folded her arms, tossed back her grizzly head, and strode to and fro with so ludicrous an attempt at di«:nity, that, in ^pite of myself, I was forced into laughter. "Did you ever see him?" 1 asked. '' Yes, Cap- tain," said she, " I seed him a many a time, and I always said, * Good mornin', Sir,' but he never had no conversation with me." A draught of the cool and delicious lymph of Napo- leon's Spring completed the farce. I broke a sprig from one of the cypresses, wiote my name in the visitor's book, took the "boky" of gillyflowers and marigolds, which Dickey had col- lected, and slowly remounted the opposite side of the glen My thoughts involuntarily turned from the desecrated grave t€ DEPARTURE FROM ST. HELENA. 683 that fitting sepulchre where he now rests under the bannere of a hundred victorious battle-fields, and guarded by the timinvorn remnant of his ftiithful Old Guard. Let Longwood be levellea to the earth, and the emptv grave be filled up and turfed over! Better that the-e memorials of England's treachery should be Been no more ! We hastened Iiack to Jamestown, as it was near sunset. The long shadows already filled the ravine, and the miniaHire gardens and >t!eets below were more animated than during the still heat of the afternoon, (japi. rfowiand was waiting for us, as the ship was ready to sail. Before it was quite dark, we had weighed anchor, and were slowly drifting away fiom the desolate crags of the island. The next morning we saw again the old unbroken ring of the sea. CHAPTEB XLIV. HOMEWABD. Trade Weathei -Phosphorescence of the Sea— Ocean Nymphs— Butterflies In Mid- Ocean— The North-East Trades— A Gale ofiF the Bermndas— Nautical Alms-GIvinj —The Gulf Stream— Escape from Cape Hatteras— Fair Wind— "Winter Weatbe»>- The Last Day of the Voyage — Landing in N«w York — Retrospect. For tliree days after leaving St. Helena we had calm, sluggish weather, but on the 17th took the trade- wind again, and for five days thereafter averaged 200 miles a day. The wmd was steady, dead astern, and the sea calm, with very little swell. The sky was overcast, and the atmosphere sultry, with a tern perature ranging from 80° to 85°. Flying-fish appeared in greater quantities than I ever noticed before. The phospho- rescence of the sea was wonderful. The first half of the night was dark, as the moon was entering her last quarter, and the ship's wake was a dazzling trail of silver fire. The rudder dashed out of the darkness clusters of luminous globes about six inches in diameter, which scattered and spread, growing brighter as they approached the surface. The light rippling of the waves, far and wide, kindled brilliant sparkles, which stud TH£ NORTH-BAST TiiADEb 536 ded the watery firmament like stars, to which the long, wavy, sliming wake of our vessel formed the Milky Way. One who leaned over the stern asked me whether those fiery globes were not the astral lamps with which the Undines lighted their sub oceanic caverns; but I refused to accept the fancy. The imagination positively forbids any such poetical creatures to inhabit the vast desert spaces of ocean. The Undines are the nymphs of rivers and fountains ; the mermaid only haunts the shore. The mid-sea is too vast, too cold in its barren sublimity, to be peopled by human dreams. At midnight, on the 24th of December, we crossed the Equator in Long. 30° W., having been fifty-nine days in the Southern Hemisphere. We hoped "o have taken the north-east trades soon afterwards, but were tantalized for a week with calms, and light, variable winds, during which we did not average more than 125 miles a day. On the 1st of December, in Lat. 12° N. a large butterfly and two dragon-flies came on board. The nearest land, the coast of Guiana, was more than 900 miles distant. I have never seen it stated that these insects are capable of such long flights. We had been on board the Sea Serpent eighty-one days, and our hopes of spending Christmas at home were rapidly dimin- ishing, when the long-desired trade-wind struck us. On the 2d of December we made 216 miles; on the 3d, 265 miles; and on the 4th, three hundred miles, which was our best day's run during the voyage. Our good ship fairly whistled through the water, cutting her way so smoothly that there was scarcely foam enough before her bows to throw a scud over the fore- castle, or wake enough behind her stern to tell that she had passed The beautiful wave-lines of her counter allowed the 586 Iin>IA, CHINA) AND JAPAN. dead water to close as passively as if the ocean had not beec disturbed. On the morniug of December the 11th, in Lat 32° N. and off the lee 3f the Bermudas, the wind hauled round to the north-west and blew half a gale for the two following days, during which we ran westward under close-reefed topsails. So it came to pass that on the 14th we were two degrees west of New York, and somewhere off Darien, in Georgia. The wind then shifted more to the westward, and by noon on the 16th, we were in the edge of the Gulf Stream, about 75 miles to the south-east of Cape Fear Three or four vessels bound north, were in sight, apparently driven under the lee of Cape Hat- teras, like ourselves, by the violence of the northern gale. In the afternoon, an hermaphrodite brig, which had risen on the weather bow, stood down towards us and we saw a boat put off from her. We suspected at first that the brig might be a relief vessel, but were soon undeceived by the boat coming alongside. A raw, rough fellow, in a flannel shirt and red cap, came over the side, and stated that the brig was a Nova Scotian, bound from Magna to Cape Breton, had been out twenty days, and had but four days' provisions on board. He was on a begging errand, and was successful enough to get a barrel each of flour, Dread, pork and beef The brig had encountered strong north- erly aud north-easterly winds for the previous eight days. The boat's crew were hale, athletic Nova-Scotiana and it was refreshing to see such well-knit, sinewy frames, such bold, hearty features, and such ruddiness of warm and healthy blood As the Bermudas had not suffered us to pass, I hoped that the sailor's couplet would apply both ways, and that Cape Hatteras would let us off easily On Saturday morning, the 17th, a ESCAPE FROM CAPE HATTERA8. 537 breeze sprang up from the south-east. Gradually increabiug, ii hauled to the northward and westward, and by noon we were dashiug on our course at the rate of ten knots. The sky was too overcast to obtain an observation, but according to the eckoning we were in Lat. SS'^ 16^ N. and Long. 75^ 17^ W. At 2 p. M. we ran across the inner edge of the Gulf Stream^ and came at once upon soundings. The line of junction between the dark-blue water of the Gulf, and the pale-green of the shoals was marked with wonderful distinctness. The stern of our vessel was in the former, while the latter reached to hei waist. Within the distance of a ship's length, the temperature of the sea changed from 72° to 62^. The water immediately became of a paler green, and we felt an ugly ground swell. At the same instant Mr. Cornell discerned land off the port beam, and a single glance sufficed to show that it was Cape Hatteras, which, according to our reckoning, should have been weathered two hours before. The current of the Gulf Stream had evidently been much retarded by the strong north-eastern gales. It blew hard during the night, and there was a very heavy sea in the stream, but on soundings the water was smoother. We ran the whole night with no other sail than close-reefed fore and main topsails, and reefed foresail. In the morning the sky was clear and cold, and the air for the first time biting and wintry, rendering our heaviest clothing necessary to support the sudden change from the Tropics. The wind gradually veered to W. N. W., but by noon we were off Cape Henlopen. We ran close-hauled all day, striving to get to windward in order to make Sandy Hook the next morning, but found ourselves at sunrise about 40 miles to the eastward of it. The transitioD 588 DfDU, CHINA, AND JAPAN. to a winter climate was like a cold-plunge bath. Tl e ther. mometer sank to 25°, and water froze on deck. At noon a pilot-boat hove in sight, running down towards us. The Bhip was put about, in order to meet her, but this movement gradually brought a bark, which was to windward of us, be- tween us and the boat, and as the latter hoisted signal, the boat was obliged te give her the only pilot aboard. We had a tedious night, of alternate calms and snow- squalls, and I slept very little, out of anxiety lest a stiflF nor'wester should spring up and blow us out to sea again But by morning we had a pilot aboard, and taking advan- tage of a shift of the wind, made a tack which brought us in sight of Sandy Hook and of two steam-tugs. At ten o'clock the Leviathan had grappled us ; the useless sails were furled, and we sped surely and swiftly, in the clear winter sunshine, up the outer bay, through the Narrows and into the noble harbor of New York. The hills of Staten Island glittered with snow; the trees had long been bare and the grass dead ; and for the first time in nearly three years, I looked upon a winter landscape. It was the 20th of December, and 101 days since our departure from Whampoa. We rapidly approached the familiar and beloved city, and at 2 f. m. I landed on one of the East River piers. I had left New York on the 28th of August, 1851, and had thus been absent two years and four months. During this time I had visited most of the countries of Europe, ascended the Nile to the Negro kingdoms of Central Africa, journeyed in Palestine, Asia Minor, and India, visited China twice, and taken part in the American expedition to Japan. I had travelled altogether about fifty thousand miles, and in all my BETR08PECT, 539 wanderings, in all my intercouise with men of whatever race Of clime, had been received with kindness and attended by uniform good fortune. Let me hope that the reader, who has had the patience to accompany me through the narrative of this long and adventurous journey, will arrive at its close with the same faith in those innate virtues of human nature which no degrada- tion can obscure, and the same dependence on that merciful Providence whose protection extends over all lands and STUDIES IN GERMAN LITERATURE BAYARD TAYLOR WITH A.N' IXTRODUCTION BY GEORGE H. BOKER author's REVISED EDITION COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTN.AM'S SONS 1879 Ufcc iknicftctbocfeer press, 1ftcw llort Electrotyped. Printed, and Bound by G. P. Putnam's Sons INTRODUCTION. It was the known intention of Bayard Taylor to pre- pare the material which composes the following work for publication. A partial arrangement for that pur- pose had been made between him and the present pub- lishers. Had he lived to complete his plan, doubtless the form of the matter would have been changed, by adapting it to the reader rather than the hearer, and the scope of the whole work would have been enlarged and, here and there, elaborated, so as to complete a design which was necessarily restricted by the brief limits of time prescribed to a course of lectures. However much additional interest might have been- given to the work, had Taylor lived to carry out his purpose, the editors felt themselves to be unauthorized to attempt changes so serious, which might have left upon the volume the impress of their literary style and opinions rather than those of the actual author. Noth- ing beyond the corrections of verbal errors and of over- iy introduction; sights lias therefore been attempted. The original manuscripts of the author have been closely followed, even to the preservation of the lecture form, which, now and then, may seem to be better adapted to oral delivery, and to the sympathetic appreciation of a crowded lecture-room, than to critical examination under the dry light of the study. The object at which Taylor aimed, in preparing his course of lectures for delivery before the students of Cornell University, in which institution he held an honorary professorship, was that the lectures should serve as an introduction to the literature of Germany. He claimed nothing more for them. Completely as he may have treated of some subjects — as in the lecture devoted to the dissection and the elucidation of the underlying moral purpose of "Faust," or in that one in which he makes clear and gives relative position to the strange and abnormal genius of Richter — in the main his object was rather to introduce, to interest and to invite the student to a further pursuit of the subject for himself, than to provide him with accurate and thor- ough knowledge of a field so wide as that of the litera- ture of the most cultivated nation of Europe. Not one course of lectures nor many courses, not one volume nor many volumes, could have accomplished a task so INTRODUCTION. V vast as a full critical history of German literature, from its remote Gothic sources to its gigantic product in Goethe and his famous contemporaries. The reader will therefore take these lectures for what they profess to be, at that value which the author himself set upon them, as a guide to intending students of German literature, and not as a profound commentary, ad- dressed to those who are already well versed in the subject. However modest may have been Taylor's aim in making his lectures elementary and popular, rather than profound and exclusive, such was the native power of his intellect and the depth of his knowledge of German literature, that, whenever he touches an author critically, he rises to a style of treatment that may win the admiration of the most scholarly, and furnish food for reflection to the most thoughtful. The lectures on Goethe and that greatest of modern poems, "Faust," and on that literary curiosity, half god and half moun- tebank, Jean Paul, are filled with the light of discov- ery, and abound with the most subtle and suggestive critical analysis. The marks of the same powerful hand may be discerned throughout the other lectures. Taylor touched nothing that he did not beautify; nothing came beneath his eye that did not glow with VI INTRODUCTION, an infectious light; fresh truth was born of every old truth which he disclosed; and so great was his rever- ence for intellectual superiority, that the heroes of his theme rose into demi-gods through his mere com- panionship. The difference between a lecture and a treatise is as great as that between an oration and an essay. The former addresses itself to the mind, through the fleet- ing perceptions of the ear, and gives no time to the unci erstandingfortherevisingprocess of thought. The style of the lecture should be simple, direct and forci- ble. It should not be so elaborate and complex, in its manner o^^ announcing truth, as to call upon the logical jDowers of the hearer, lest the thread of the discourse be lost from th-e moment the effort at reasoning begins. An argument is out of place in a lecture. It should give us the fruits of the intellect rather than the pro- cess by which they matured. It should treat its subject dogmatically. It should pour itself, in an entire and unbroken stream, into the ear of the hearer, with a cur- rent that should bear him along, without the chance or the wish for a pause of reflection, satisfied with the present idea and eager for the next, both w^ill and reason enchained, passive and compliant under the spell of the speaker's voice, postponing to another INTRODUCTION, yii occasion all intellectual differences and all doubts of the seeming truths which are uttered. These qualities will be found, as they should be found, in the lectures before us. The style is so pure and simple that no one can mistake the meaning of a sentence of the text, while it often attains to passages of unconscious eloquence, that must indeed have been striking when heightened by the noble presence, the skilful elocution and the earnest mien of the author. Keeping in mind the wide difference of treatment that should be found in subjects addressed to the ear from those addressed to the eye, we know that we do Taylor scant justice in thus literally reproducing his lectures from the original manuscripts, rather than in the more elaborated form of the essay, into which he would have cast them for publication. We deprive them of his vitalizing presence, without instilling into them the new life which he might have given them with the after-touches of his fruitful pen, and we perpetuate in them qualities which, although both proper and admi- rable in oral delivery, may awaken cavil or antagonism when reproduced in hard print. This dilemma was, however, unavoidable. The editors feel themselves to be simply the intermediaries between the author and the public. However much these lectures might have yiii INTROBVCTION, been improved by toning tliem down to the strict de- corum of matter intended for publication, by excluding from them the forms in which audiences are addressed or appealed to, as well as certain familiarities and play- fulnesses of phraseology — all quite fitting in a lecture, and enjoyable by the hearers ; — yet we felt a reluctance to touch the text of Taylor with irreverent hands, or to tear to pieces even that which we meant to reconstruct, or to assume a responsibility in the act which the pub- lic might not be disposed to tolerate. Taylor was too high a character, and he filled too large a place in our literature, to be subjected, in the helplessness of death, to the wrong of having his work tampered with, even by tender hands, devoted to fulfilling a purpose of his own. The master's hand is as stiff as the pencil which he held, his blood is as dry as the colors upon his palette : let the pupils stand before his unfinished work in the stillness of reverence ; but let no one impose a tone or a tint upon the canvas, lest the world of to-day and the world of to-morrow should say that the picture is not his. G. K B. CONTENTS. PAGB Introduction • ^^ I. Earliest German Literature 1 II. The Minnesingers ^^ III. The MEDi^vAii Epics ^^ IV. The Nibelungenlied ^^^ V. The Literature of the Reformation. ... 135 VI. The Literature of the Seventeenth Century 167 VIL Lessing ^^^ VIII. Klopstock, Wieland and Herder 234 ^^ „ . 266 IX. Schiller X. Goethe S37 XL Goethe's -'Faust" 388 XIL Richter ♦ EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. Every one knows how much is added to our under- standing of an author's works when we become ac- quainted with his biography. We thus discover what qualities he has inherited, what others have been deve- loped through the vicissitudes of his life, and what have been attained by labor and aspiration. This is equally true of the literature of a race. It has its pedigree, its birth and childhood, its uncertain youth, and its vary- ing fortunes through the ages, before it reaches a ma- ture and permanent character. Although it grows in grace and variety of expression, and charms us most when it gives large and lofty utterance to the thought and feeling of our own times, we none the less need to turn back and listen to the prattle of its infancy. I therefore propose to go back to the earliest known foundation from which German Literature grew, and to trace, in outlines which I shall try to make both simple and clear, the chief phenomena of its early life. The task is not easy ; for the development of the literature of a people must inevitably take hold of History with one hand, and of Philology with the other, — both sciences essential to the intimate knowledge of all important 1 1 2 GERMAN LITERATURE. literary works, yet forbidden to me within the limits wliicli I have chosen. But, even after avoiding, as far as may be possible, historical and j^hilological digres- sions, I find myself embarrassed by the abundance of the purely literary material ; for the annals of Ger- many not only extend much further into the past thaa those of England, but the research of her scholars has been longer and more laboriously employed in illumi- nating the dark corners of her history. The dullest chronicler, the most mechanical rhymester who ever turned the hand-organ of doggerel, if he has left but a paragraph or couplet behind him, is labelled and placed on his pedestal in the pantheon of early Teu- tonic letters ; but, fortunately, no disguise of language, no magic of distance or the romance of circumstances, can wholly bewilder us. When we begin honestly and earnestly to study the records which have been pre- served, we soon perceive the relative value of names and achievements, and it is not difficult to separate the few original, really creative minds from the crowd of imitators and secondary intelligences. I shall, therefore, confine myself to those names and works which belong, by undoubted right, to the literary history of Germany, — the landmarks, sometimes wide apart, which indicate change and j^rogress, — and shall simplify my task by the omission of many names which would furnish, at best, only a dry catalogue, difficult to remember, and of little value when remembered. EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. 3 The aborigines of Germany had their bards, their battle-songs, and their sacrificial hymns, when they first became known to the Komans. From the little which Tacitus tells us, we are justified in inferring a more ad- vanced stage of civilization among the Germans than is now implied in the term "barbarian." The Eomans, like the Greeks, looked down upon all other races with a certain degree of contempt, and generally misrepre- sented both their condition and their capacities. When the emperor Julian the Apostate declares that the songs of the people on the Rhine sounded to him like the cries of birds of prey, his opinion is worth no more to us than that of any man now-a-days who thinks the German language harsh and disagreeable because his ear is not accustomed to the sound of it. About the time of Julian's short reign, a work was written, which has escaped to refute the inference which might be drawn from his statement, — or, at least, to render it very improbable. This work has only a philological relation to German literature, but the interest which it possesses in this respect is so remarkable, — it stands so entirely alone, with nothing before it, and nothing for nearly four hundred years after it, — that one must here pause, having found the starting-point of our in- vestigations. "When the Goths commenced their migration west- ward from the plains north of the Black Sea, in the fourth century after Christ, they gradually became 4 GERMAN LITERATURE. Christianized on tlie way. One of the first converts, by name Ulfilas, born in the year 318, became a bishop of gi'eat sanctity, who was highly honored by the em- perors of the East. He died in 388, immediately after attending the oecumenical council of Constantinople, where he defended the Arian doctrine. The Goths, I may here remark, remained Arians for three hundred years longer, and their priests read the services in their own language until the ninth century. Ulfilas trans- lated the Bible, except the Books of Kings and Chro- nicles, into Gothic; and tradition says that he was obliged to invent an alphabet, as the Goths had no written language at that time. Copies of his transla- tion were known to be in existence about the year 900 ; then they disappeared, and the work was lost to the world for more than six hundred years. The fact that Ulfilas was an Arian undoubtedly caused his translation to be regarded as heretical, and led to its suj)pression. Toward the close of the sixteenth century, Mercator, who has given his name to his projection of the globe, discovered the four Gospels of Ulfilas in the Abbey of Werder, in Northern Germany. The ancient manu- scri23t was carried to Prague, where, at the close of the Thirty Years' War, it fell into the hands of the Swedish Count Konigsmark, who presented it to the University of Upsala. It is called the " Codex Argen- teus,^' or silver codex, from its being illuminated in sil- ver letters on purjDle parchment. In the year 1818, the EARLIEST GERMAIN LITERATURE, 5 Epistles of St. Paul, in the translation of Ulfilas, were discovered in the monastery of Bobbio, in Lombardy. Thus we have recovered nearly the whole of the New Testament in Gothic, written within twenty or thirty years of the same time when the celebrated Greek manuscripts of Mount Sinai and the Vatican are be- lieved to have been written. The value of this work requires no explanation. The German scholars seem to be entirely agreed that the language of the Goths in the fourth century, thus risen to new life after centuries of death, is very superior to the German language, to which it gave birth, in harmony and purity of tone, in grammatical construc- tion, in richness and precision of expression, and esj^e- cially in dignity and power. * They find it familiar and foreign at the same time, hinting its old relationship of blood and feeling, yet breathing of much that has been lost in the mixing of the races and washed away by time. If the Gothic language be the legitimate mother of the Old German, it must also be, through the Saxon, the grandmother of English, and of the Swedish and Danish. A single j^assage from the Gospels of Ulfilas will make this evident, even to those who are not far advanced in German studies. I take the Lord's Prayer, which, phrase by phrase, can easily be compared with either the English or German words : Atta unsar, thu in himinam, veilinai namo tliein ; qvimai tliiudi- nassus theins ; vairthai vilja theins, sve in himina, jali ana airtliai ; 6 GERMAN LITERATURE. lilaif unsarana tliana sinteinan gif uns himma daga ; jah aflet uns thatei skulanssijaima svasve jali veis afletam tliaim skulam unsaraim ; jail ni briggais uns in fraistubnjai, ak lausei uns af thamma ubilin ; unte theina ist thiudangardi, jah malits, jah vultlius in aivins. Amen. Here we see one of the lost stages of travel, whereby many of the words of our daily usage were carried from their far home in India, through Tartary, over the Cau- casus, around the Black Sea, and so westward until they reach history. It is a curious circumstance that the two sounds of tl\, in English, are derived from the Gothic. The German race must once have used these sounds, and then have lost them. But they were carried by the Visigoths to Spain, and still belong to Icelandic, after having been dropped out of Swedish and Danish. We might almost say that the Gothic of Ulfilas is the point whence the elements which have become separated in English and German began to diverge ; but there are one or two later fragments wherein they are still blended. A language so finely developed as the Gothic must have had its literature. We may assume this as cer- tain, even without evidence. Nevertheless, as in those buildings of the Middle Ages which are constructed out of the ruins of Eoman and Grecian cities, we still see the ancient chisel-marks and fragments of carvings and inscriptions, so in the literature of the German lan- guage, after it took its distinct form, we constantly de- tect the earlier Gothic material. But we are unable to reconstruct the fragments. We only know that the EARLIEST GERMAJi LITERATURE. 7 sixth and seventh centuries must have been rich in songs and warlike ballads, which kept alive the deeds of Theodoric and Odoaker, kings of Italy, and Attila, the Hun, and the heroes of Burgundy and Flanders who still survive in the ^' Nibdungenlied,'' As Christianity extended its dominion, the influence of the priests was exerted to substitute sacred for secular literature. The Greek and Roman authors, moreover, constituted an aristocracy, beside which any j^roductions of a language counted barbaric, must sink to the lowest plebeian level. What learning there was in those days, we may easily imagine, turned up its nose at the strains of the native minstrels. The man who converted the pagan Saxons by the sword, who laid the first broad foundations of German nationality and German civilization, was the first to value these half-suppressed elements of a new literature. He is called Karl the Great in the history of his own race, but we know him better as Charlemagne. While in the interest of Christianity, he put down the old Teutonic religion with one hand and pushed back the Saracens with the other, he was far wiser than the Christian spirit of his day. He did not attempt to transfer the already crumbled culture of pagan Rome to the banks of the Rhine, but used it as a guide to a new, an independent German culture. His one mistake was that he confided the execution of his plans exclu- sively to the clergy, as the only educated class, instead 3 GEFcMAy LITERATURE. of creating a class of learned men outside the pale of the Church. Charlemagne loved the German language, and was acquainted with its songs and ballads. He caused a complete collection of the latter to be made, and had them sung or recited at his court, rightly seeing in them the basis of a new literature. We are perhaps indebted to this circumstance for the reappearance of the ancient themes in the later epics ; but the original collection is irrevocably lost. Ludwig the Pious undid, as far as it was possible, the great national work of his father. In his bigoted old age, he refused to hear the German songs which he was accustomed to recite in his youth, — and we can understand how immediately the clergy would take advantage of his prejudices, to suppress the growing national taste, and keep literature as well as religion in their own hands. The long strife between Germany and Eome, which has broken out afresh in our time, secretly existed then. Although some of the early German emperors virtually selected the popes, the Church was patient, and probably then anticipated the day when, at Canossa, two hundred and fifty years later, Gregory VII. would set his foot on a German emperor's neck. The treaty of Yerclun, in 843, between the grandsons of Charlemagne, was a fortunate event for Germany, if it could have been perpetual, for it dissolved the politi- cal connection with Italy. But death and life were tied EARLIEST GEIIMAX LITERATURE. 9 togetlier bj Otto I., a hundred years later, and the evil that followed has not been worked out of the race to this day. We have no record of any particular edict concerning the suppression of the collection of ballads made by order of Charlemagne ; but the multi- plication of copies must have ceased during the reign of his son, and those already in existence could hardly survive theological prejudice for three hundred years, until the Hohenstaufen emperors protected a new era of literature. From the few fragments of the language which have been preserved, I shall quote a part of the oath of Charles the Bald, the grandson of Charlemagne, in 842, very nearly five hundred years later than the Gothic of Ulfi- las. You will notice that both the German and Scan- dinavian elements have become more marked, while the English, or rather Anglo-Saxon character, has been diminished by separation : In godes minna ind in tlies christianes folches ind unser bedherS gehaltnissi, fon thesemo dage frammordes, so f ram so mir got gewiczi indi malid furgibit, so baldib tesan minan bruodber soso man mit rebtu sinaE bruodber seal, in tbiu tbaz er mig so sama duo, indi mit Ludberen in nobbeiniu tbing ne gegangu tbe minan willon, imo se scaden werdben. At this time there were several distinctly marked dialects, the chief of which, in Germany, were the High- German, which w^as again divided into Frankish and Suabian, and the Low-German, or Saxon, fi'om which 1^ 10 GERMAN LITERATURE. the Plattdeutscli of to-day is descended. Tlie separation of both the Anglo-Saxon and the Scandinavian branches had commenced before the time of Charlemagne, and the remains of their early literature are not generally included in that of Germany. The fragment of the poem of Beowulf, for instance, is given to our race by the German scholars, partly for philological reasons, and partly because it belongs to a different Sagejihreis, or legendary cycle. Had the heroic ballads of the sixth and seventh centuries been preserved, we might perhaps have been able to mark the exact point from which each of the two great modern languages moved in different directions ; but we can only say that the earliest literary remains, which are sjDecially and distinctly German, date from after the separation. The earliest of these is known as the "Hildebrands- lied'' — the Song, or Lay of Hildebrand. Only a small part of it survives, and we owe its existence to a for- tunate chance. It appears that two monks of the monastery of Fulda, who had perhaps originally been soldiers, filled u-p two or three blank pages of a theo- logical manuscript by writing upon them what they remembered of a popular heroic j)oem. The manu- script is as old as the middle of the ninth century, and the poem was probably composed between 750 and 800, or nearly at the same time as the oldest Scandinavian Edda. The fragment is still preserved in the library at Cassel. It is written in tlie Low-German dialect, but EARLIEST GERMAIN LITERATURE. \\ with Higli-German forms of construction, and is, there- fore, much more difficult to read than the Oath of Charles the Bald. The story has a remarkable resemblance to that of Sohrab and Eustum, told by the Persian poet Firdusi in his "Shah Nameli,'' and retold in admirable English verse by Matthew Arnold. Hildebra*nd, one of the warriors of Theodoric the Goth, has been thirty years absent with his master, among the Huns, and now returns with him to his own kingdom. Hildebrand had there left behind him a wife and a young son. This son, by name Hadubrand, now a strong warrior, comes forth with his men to meet the strangers, and chal- lenges his father to combat. Hildebrand recognizes his son, tells him his story, and offers him his golden bracelets. But Hadubrand answers that his father is dead, that sea-faring men brought the news of his death, that he believes Hildebrand to be a crafty Hun. and he will only accept the bracelets with the lance, sword against sword. Hildebrand finds it impossible to decline the defiance ; lances are cast, swords are drawn, and the shields of both are hacked in pieces. Here the fragment breaks off; but the Song of Hilde- brand, although not written, seems to have lived orally among the people, and seven hundred years later it was sung again by Kaspar von der Roen. The end is that Hadulirand is overcome, but not slain, by his fa- ther, and both return together to the wife and mother. The " HiklehraMlslied'' is written in a rude alliterative 12 GERMAIN LITEBATURE. saga-measure, — that original form of verse from whicli our rhymed poetry is derived. This, in its turn, is un- doubtedly the later modification of some much older form. The fact that classic poetry was read according to quantity, and the saga-measure according to accent, shows the comj^lete independence of the early Gothic and German jDoetry of the influence of the Greek and the Roman. It is impossible to guess when either al- literation or rhyme originated ; both are probably as old as well-developed human language ; for children and savages always discover them and play Avith them. But the fact that alliteration appears equally in the oldest German, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian, indicates that it must have been inherited by each equally from the Gothic ; and thus it is perhaps as old a form of poetry as the Homeric hexameter. The ancient rule required that the accent not only fell on the important words, but two words in the first line, and one in the second, must commence with the same letter. The effect is that of a half-rhyme at the commencement and middle of a line, instead of a whole rhyme at the end. In fact, the early Norsemen and Germans called this measure the Sfahreim, and the three alliterative words Liedstahe (song-sticks), or bars, upon which the lines rested, very much as a melody is supported by bars, in music. This is the derivation of our word sfave, which we still use to designate the verse of a song. To make the ex- planation clearer, I will quote two stanzas in the saga- EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. 13 measure, from Lowell's poem of " The Yoyage to Yin- land " : ** Weak was the Old World, Wearily war-fenced ; Out of its ashes. Strong as the morning, Springeth the new. Beauty of promise, Promise of Beauty, Safe in the silence Sleep thou, till cometh Light to thy lids I " As we find the first written basis of the language in the Gothic Gospels of Ulfilas, so we find the first sur- viving relic of a native, autochthonous German litera- ture in the Song of Hildebrand. Let us now examine what is left of it. I will first select the passage where Hadubrand, the son, speaks to Hildebrand, the father : Hadubraht gimahalta Hiltibrantes sunu : " Dat sagetun mi lisere liuti : alte anti f rote, dea er hina warun, dat Hiltibrant hsetti min fater ih h'-ittu Hadubrant. Forn her oftar giweit, floh her Otachres nid, hina miti Theotrihhe enti sinero degano filu. Her furlaet in lante luttila sitten prut in bure, barn unwahsan, arbeolaosa." So spake Hadubrand, Son of Hildebrand : Said unto me Some of our people. Shrewd and old. Gone hence already. That Hildebrand was my fathel called, — I am called Hadubrand. Erewhile he eastward went. Escaping from Odoaker, Thither with Theodoric And his many men of battle. Here he left in the land, . Lorn and lonely, Bride in bower, Bairn ungrown. Having no heritage." 14 GERMAN LITERATURE. I think we cannot lielp feeling both the simplicity, and the natural dignity, of these lines. The language is the jDlainest possible ; there is not here, nor anywhere in the poem, an ajDproach to metaphor ; the situation is so thoroughly epic, that it requires no poetical adorn- ment. After Hildebrand throws down his golden brace- lets, and Hadubrand charges him with being a tricky old Hun, the latter says : Dat sagetun mi seolidante westar ubar wentilsaeo, dat man wic furnam : Tot ist Hiltibrant, Heribrantes suno ! " This said unto me Sea-faring men, From over Midland-sea, That battle took him : Dead is Hildebrand, Son of Heribrand ! " Notice, now, how the poem continues Hiltibraht gimahalta, Heribrantes suno : 'Wei a gisihu ih in dinem hrustim dat du habes heme herron goten, dat du noh bi desemo riche reccheo ni wurti." Spake then Hildebrand, Son of Heribrand : Surely see I From thine armor. Hast at home here King that is kindly, Wast not yet in his ranks Ranged as a war-man." Then he continues, in a strain all the more tragic from its bareness : Welaga nu, waltant got 1 wewurt skihit ! ih wallota sumar6 enti wintro sehstic, dar man mih eo scerita Well - a - day now, governing God! Woe-worth shall happen 1 Summers full sixty, And winters, I wander. Ever called with the crowd EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. 15 in folc sceotanter6, Of shooters of spears ; so man mir at bure senigeru Nor in mine own stronghold banun ni gifasta. Delayed, as the dead. Nu seal niih suasat Now shall the child of me chind suertu hauwan. Smite me with sword, breton mit sinu billjii Bite me with broad steel, eddo ih imo ti banin werdan." Or I be his slayer." There is nothing more nobly simple and natural in Homer than this last passage. Without the least effort, by the commonest means, the poem here rises to the highest epic and tragic grandeur. The last lines of the fragment, where the fight commences, are not less fine: Do la^ttun se oerist askim scritan, scarpen scurim, dat in dem sciltim stont. (Then let they first the ash stride forth, with a sharp storming, so that it stood in the shields.) The passages I have given amount to about one- third of what remains of the original poem. Some scholars consider that the song of Hildebrand formed part of the collection made by order of Charle- magne. This is merely conjecture ; but it is very possi- ble that the lines I have quoted may have been recited at the court of that emperor. The next work which has been preserved dates from near the middle of the ninth century. It is sometimes called the '' Old-Saxon Gospel Harmony;' and sometimes the ''Hdiandr an ancient form of the modern German 16 GERMAN LITERATURE, word HeUand, the Sayiour. There seem to be some grounds for the tradition that it was written by a Saxon peasant, who was looked upon by the people as specially inspired for the purpose, during the reign of Ludwig the Pious, the son of Charlemagne. The object of the writer was undoubtedly to make the life and works of Christ, as related in the Gospels, known to the common people through the medium of their own language, and the alliterative poetic measure in which they had chanted to their own not yet forgotten deities. The priests, therefore, must have taken pains to substitute this Christian poem for the songs and ballads of the heroes, as a means of securing the faith of those tribes who, like the Saxons, had been converted by force. The poem is a remodelling of the Gospel narrative, rather than a translation ; in style, manner and language it has an original character, and the figures of Christ and His disciples receive a new and warm and impressive life in its lines. Vilmar even goes so far as to say: "It is by far the most excellent, complete and lofty work which the Christian poetry of all races and all times has produced. Apart from its religious sub- stance, it is one of the noblest poems ever created by the imaginative human mind, and in some passages and descriptions may be placed beside the strains of Homer. It is the only really Christian epic." Without accept- ing such an extravagant estimate, I am at least quite ready to admit that it contains a purer and more at- EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. VJ tractive poetic element than tlie " Messiah " of Klop- stock, or the religious poetry of the English language. It is often noticed, by readers as well as critics, that what is called religious poetry rarely possesses any striking literary value ; and the same may be said of political poetry. There is here, I think, simply a con- fusion of terms. If we substitute the adjectives doc^ trinal and ijartisan for "religious" and "political," the cause of the failure is evident. Literature lives and flourishes in the freest atmosphere of spiritual and political aspiration, but it begins to perish when the attempt is made to narrowly define and limit and cir- cumscribe those passions of the human soul. The old Saxon ^' Heliand'' only tells the story of Christ's life. Its writer knew the people he was addressing, and he chose the simplest way to reach their imagination and emotions. The Hebrew air which seems to blow from the Old Testament over the New, is not felt in his poem : the characters and situations, no less than the speech, are Saxon. We might almost fancy that Christ is the beautiful god of the Scandinavians, the white Balder, in a more perfect form. I shall quote a passage where the disciples questioned him concerning the last day, the end of the world : you will notice that it is a paraphrase of the 24th chapter of Matthew : Tho gengun imo is iungaron to, Then went His disciples Him unto, fragodon ina so stillo * And questioned Him secretly ? 18 GERMAN LITERATURE, Hus lango seal standen noli," quandun sie, ■ thius werold an wunuiun, er than that giwand kume, that the lasto dag liohtes skioe thurh wolkanskion ? eftho hvan is eft thin wan ku- man an thenne middilgard, mankunni te adomienne dodun ondi quikun? Fro min, the godo, us is thes firwit miJdl waldandeo Krist, hvan that giwerden sculi ! " Tho im andwordi alowaldo Krist godlic fargaf, them gumun selbo. 'That habad so bidernid," quad he, 'himilrikies fader, waldand thesaro weroldes, so that witen ni mag enig maunisc barn, hvan thiu marie tid giwirdid an thesaru weroldi. Ne il ok te waran ni kunnun godes engilos, thie for imo geginwarde simlun sindun. Sie it ok giseggian ni mugun te waran mid iro wordun, hvan that giwerden sculi, that he willie an thesan middil- gard, mahtig drohtin, 'How long shall stand yet," quoth they, ■ This world so winsome, Ere then the end come. And the last day's light Shine through the closing Clouds of the firmament ? When meanest thou to come To this middle mansion. Unto mankind. To judge and doom The quick and dead? Lord mine, the loving. Deep our desire is. All-governing Christ, To know when it cometh ! '* Answered them thereupon All-governing Christ, Godlike gave to them. Even themselves, the men. So hath He hidden it," quoth he, ' Heaven's high Father, Ruling the earth-realm. So that know it may none Of the children of men When that wonderful day Dawns on the world. Nor also verily know it God's very angels, W^ho present before Him Perpetually wait. Neither dare they declare it. With truth of willing word- speech, When it shall come, That He, in this middle man- sion, Living Lord, EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. 19 firino fandon. Fader wet it eno, helag fan himile ; elcur is il biholen allun, quikiin endi dodun, hvan il kumi werdad. Ik mag in thoh gitellien, hvilic er tecan bivoran giwerdad wunderlic, er lie an tliese werold kume an themu mareon daga. That wirdid er an the no manon skin, jac an theru sunnun so same : gisverkad siu bethiu, mit finistre werdad bifangan ; fallad sterron, hvit hebentungal, endi lirisid erde, bivod thins brede werold. Wirdid sulikaro bokno filu : grimmid the groto seo, wirkid thie gebenes strom egison mit is udhiun erdbuandiiin. than thorrot thiu thiod thurh that gethving mikil, folc thurh thea forhta : than nis f ridu hvergin ; EC wirdid wig so maneg char these werold alia hetili afhaben ; endi heri ledid kunni obar odar. " Sin shall sentence. Knoweth it the Father only. Holy One from heaven ; Else is it darkened from all. Both the quick and the dead. Yet will I truly tell you. Signs to be seen beforehand, Wondrous to witness, Or ever He weighs the world On the famous day of doom. The moon shall make it mani- fest. Yea, and the sun the same : Clearness of them shall be clouded Deeply, and drenched in dark- ness : Fall shall the star-fires. White tongues of heaven. Earth wofully tremble. The wide world shiver. Many shall be such marvels : Grimly shall the great sea Roar with his waves in wrath. And the deep become a dread To the Earth-dwellers. Pine then shall the people, Torn by the tribulation, Multitudes fall in their fear ; For peace shall perish. And wars so murderous. Many and mighty. Waste the world." I would especially call attention, in this passage, to the greater brevity and strength of expression, the sim- 20 GERM AX LITERATURE. pier construction of the language, as compared with modern German. Gervinus, however, very correctly re- marks that the external form of a language is no sure indication of the genius of the people Avho speak it : we must measure the importance of the thoughts expressed. The greatest richness, power and flexibility avail but little, if the race is intellectually impoverished, or if its intellectual growth is forcibly suppressed. While we admire this wonderful work of a Saxon peasant — the literary brother of Caedmon, our earliest Anglo-Saxon singer, after Beo^^nilf — we must remember that his sub- ject, alone, has saved his poem. Had he written of Theo- doric or Siegfried, he would have been frowned upon, if not silenced, by the emperor and the clergy. Indeed, the success of the ^' Heliand " led to the production of a rival poem, by Otfried, a Benedictine monk, who possessed the learning of the monasteries of Fulda and St. Gall, and made the classic authors his models, although he wrote in German. In the dearth of literary remains from that age, his work is interesting and valuable. It shows the accomplished scholar, as the " Heliand " shows the unlettered, but genuine poet. Otfried's poem is written in High-German, and in regular, rhymed stan- zas, so that it marks the transition from the ancient to the modern form of poetry. Ehyme already existed, and it is also nearly certain that the songs of the people were occasionally divided into verses of equal length, so that Otfried is entitled to no merit for the mere form EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. 21 of his work. He manifests both skill and scholarship, but he is cold, mechanical and studied. I find that his lines, although nearer German, are more difficult to read than those of the " HeliamL'" I will quote the cor- responding passage, where the disciples question Christ concerning the end of the world, to show the difference between the two. Otfried's poem was finished in the year 868, about thirty years after the other. Er saz sid tliemo gange in themo oliberge ; f ragetun sie nan siintar — sie was es filu wtintar : " Sage uns, meistar, tlianne wio tliiu zit gigange, zeichan wio tliii queman scalt, ioli wio tliiu worolt ouli zigat?" "Goumet," quad er, "thero dato, ioh weset glawe, tlirato, thaz in ni daron in fara thie managon luginara. " Yrwehsit iamarlitliaz tiling ubar thesan worolt ring, in liungere int in suhti in wenegeru fluliti ! " After this walk, He set Himself on Olivet ; Him closely did they question, Great marvel then possessed them. " Declare us, Master, now, When comes the time, and how. What signs shalt thou, ere coming, send. And how the world shall find its end?" "These things consider," said He; Be prudent, wise, and ready And 'gainst the danger 'ware ye Of liars that would ensnare ye. " Great misery shall be liurled Over all the ring of the world. In plague and hunger breaking. In flying and forsaking ! " Here I omit several stanzas, w^here the versions do not agree, and give three more which nearly correspond in language with the " Heliand " : " Duit mano ioh thiu sunna mit finstere unwunna. " The sun and moon shall frown In woe of darkness down. 22 GERMAN LITERATURE. ioh fallent oali thie sterron in erda filu ferron. " Sill, weinotthanne tliuruli thia quist al thaz hiar in erdii ist, tliuruh tliio selbum grunni al tliiz worolt kunni, " So selient se mit githuinge queman tliara zi thmge fon wolkonon lieiasun then selbon mennisgen sun ! " And fall shall every star On earth, both near and far. " Behold this trouble deep Shall make all earth to weep ; For these same troubles sent, All sons of men lament. " They with amaze unending, To judgment then descending Shall see, through the cloudy span, The self-same Son of Man ! " This will suffice to show the difference in dialect and character between the two poems. It is a curious cir- cumstance that both the Saxon peasant and the monk Otfried, in their rival Gospel Harmonies, studiously avoid every reference to Jewish history or customs : they even omit the name of Jerusalem. We have no means of ascertaining the relative popularity of the two poems ; but this must have partly depended on the dia- lect in which they were written. Toward the end of the ninth century, short hymns and religious poems of a narrative character became frequent. Only four or five, Avliich are rather doggrel than poetry, have come down to us. One more relic of the earliest German literature, and only one, remains to be mentioned. This is the ^'Lud- migsUed,'' which celebrates the victory of Ludwig III. over the Normans, at Saulcourt, in the year 881. It was written by Hucbald, a learned monk, soon after the battle, and the original manuscript, in Hucbald's own EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. 23 hand, is still in existence. It was discovered at Va- lenciennes in France. There are two peculiarities about this song : it is the first secular work in German, by a clerical author ; and, secondly, it is not a Lied, or song wherein the chief interest belongs to the words, the musical accompaniment being of secondary import- ance, but a Leich, or song written especially for music, wherein the melody partly determines beforehand what words shall be used. Thus it resembles the text of an opera melody, as contrasted with the Lieder, or with the songs of Burns. In such airs as casta diva, or suoni la tro?nha, the words are simply a carpet thrown down, over which the music walks triumphant ; but when the true Volkslied, or song of the people, appears, the melody comes to it, and lives with it as a loving and faithful handmaid. The language of the "Hildehrandslied'' and the "Z«c?- ivigslied " shows the contrast between the natural poetic speech, and that which springs only from culture. The former is as simple as the speech of a child ; the char- acters are placed before us without explanation, we hear them speak and see them act, and the story is told ; but the monk Hucbald's song of victory begins with a description of Ludwig as a servant of God, and especially recommended to His favor. Trial and proba- tion are sent to him ; malice, falsehood, and treachery surround him. Then, when the trouble of his people from the invasion of the Normans becomes great, God 24 GERMAN LITERATURE. speaks to liim in person, commissioning him to promise helj) and comfort, and assuring him of victory in ad- vance. The honest okl monk does not see that Ludwig ceases to be heroic in proportion as he becomes sancti- fied : any general will lead his troops into battle when he foreknows his own success. I will quote only the description of the battle, of which we have but twenty lines, part of the manuscript being lost. This is the most spirited and picturesque portion of the poem : Tho nam her skild indi sper, ellianliclio reit lier, wold er war erraliclion sina widarsaliclion. Tho ni was iz buro lang, fand her thia Xorthman ; Gode lob sageda ; her sihit, thes her gereda. Ther kuniug reit kuono, sang lioth f rono, joh alle saman sungun : Kyrrie leison ! " Sang was gisungan, wig was bigunnan ; bluot skein in wangon, fipilodiin ther Vrankon. Thar vaht thegeno gelih, nichein so so Hludgwig ; Bnel indi kuoni, thaz was imo gekunni. Suman thuruh skluog her, suman thuruh stah her : Then took he spear and shield, Mightily rode to xhe field ; Ready he was, and merry. To test his adversary. Little time went round Ere he the Xormans found : " God be praised ! " he panted : He saw what he wanted. The king rode knightly : He sang a song lightly. And all sang together : " Kyrie eleison! " Ceased the song's delighting. Begun was the fighting : Blood in cheeks shone clearly. Fought the Franks so cheerly. Ludwig, hero-like. Struck as none could strike, With speed, and force, and spirit : Such did he inherit. One he battered dead. Another stabbed and sped, EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. 25 Here tlie description breaks off suddenly, and the re- mainder of the manuscript is a thanksgiving of Ludwig and his Franks after the battle. This earliest period of German literature, commencing with the first traces of the written language, covers a space of about eight hundred years. The scholars are agreed in fixing, as the period of its termination, the accession of the Hohenstaufens to the German imperial throne, in 1138. But from the production of the ''Liid- wigsliecV' to this latter date, two centuries and a half intervene. It is surprising that all the records which remain to us from that long period possess scarcely any literary importance. An apparent desert separates the old from the mediaeval realm. Yet the whole country, during this time — especially under the reign of the Ottos — was growing in industry, in civil order, in wealth, security and intelligence. We shall find, in- deed, if we carefully study history, that there was a literature, but of an imitative, artificial character, writ- ten in Latin, and not in German. Otto I., who began to reign in 936, added Italy again to the Empire, after a separation of nearly a hundred years, and the power of the Church began to increase. He studied the classics, his son, Otto II., married a Grecian princess, with whom Byzantine a] t and architecture came to Germany, and Otto III. spoke Greek almost as well as German. Besides, Arianism had been suppressed, the last ves- tiges of the old Teutonic faith had disappeared, and the 2 26 GERM AS LITERATURE. priests, released from the labor of conversion, could devote mucli of tlieir time to other than theological studies. Europe was covered with stately and wealthy monasteries, and some of them — as St. Gaul, Fulda, Corvey, and Hildesheim — became famous seats of learning. In addition to the legends of saints, and the chronicles of the Church, which were now written in great numbers, the picturesque episodes of early Ger- man history were taken up, and made the subject of Latin epics, some of which still exist, either complete or in fragments. I do not consider, however, that these works properly belong to German literature ; their in- terest is simply historical. It is reasonable to suppose, nevertheless, that the taste of the people for those earlier stores of poetry from which the ^^ Niebelungenlied'' and ^'Reynard the Fox " were afterwards created, was not suppressed, although their continued production was discouraged in every way. But, during these two hundred and fifty years, the peo- ple were passing through that change of habits and relations to one another which followed their change of faith. It was a period of ferment and transition, but of a material rather than an intellectual character, until the close of the eleventh century when the Crusades commenced. The native German element of poetry lay dormant, but it was not dead. Yilmar very justly says : " Even as the strength and activity of the soul is not extinguished in sleep, so we dare not affirm this of the EARLIEST GERMAN LITERATURE. 27 German people during tlie almost dumb and barren tenth, eleventh, and first half of the twelfth, centuries. As in dreams were preserved, as in the faltering, half- conscious speech of dreams were sung, the old heroic ballads of Siegfried and Theodoric, of Chrimhild and Hagen, of Walther and Attila." I have given no specimens of the prose literature of Germany during the eight centuries which I have briefly reviewed, for the simple reason that there is none. Nearly all chronicles or documents were written in Latin, and the German author, of course, preferred to use a language which his fellow-authors throughout Europe could read without translation. Besides, in the civilization of the races, poetry is the first form of literature, as sculpture is the first form of art. Men demand in the beginning, not ideas nor illusive copies of realities, but a shape, palpable to the eye or the ear, and thus the most perfect art is the earliest born. Indeed, we might say, that the primitive poetry of Germany, with its rude, short, strong lines, falling like the blows of a hammer, and dinting the memory with their allite- rative words, helped to make the popular mind ductile and softer for the reception of ideas. The literature of Greece, France, Scandinavia and England was equally built on a basis of poetry. As I said in the commencement, it is difficult to de- scribe the intellectual growth of a race during those remote ages, without the illustration of its history. 28 GERMAN LITERATURE. Yet we have tlie relationship of blood and character to assist us, and I rely somewhat on those intellectual instincts which have come down to us from the Goths and Saxons, to fill up some of my own omissions. To me, the lines of the ''Heliand " and ^' Hildebrandslied " — even the Gothic words of Ulfilas — have something familiar and home-like about them. Without making any spe- cial study of the language, the meaning gradually comes of itself, like something which has been once learned and then forgotten. In the age of the Minnesingers and the courtly epics, to which we now turn, we shall find fancy and feeling and elegant versification, but nothing more artlessly simple, more vigorous or noble, than the songs of the earliest days. n. THE MINNESINGERS. In spite of Buckle and the other writers of his school, all the phenomena of human civilization cannot yet be so arranged and classified that we are able to find their inevitable causes. Wealth may follow commerce, in- dustry and order may follow peace and just government ; but the literature and the art of a people arise through a combination of influences, which we cannot always trace to their sources. But we may at least discover the cir- cumstances and conditions which encourage or depress their growth. "When a period of creative activity has commenced, we can then partly account for its character. In other words, no one can explain how that mysterious quality which we call genius is planted in the spirit of man ; but, after it has been so planted, and begins to select the material for its work, its operation is modi- fied according to general intellectual laws, the eifect of ' which upon it may be studied. There are three circumstances in the history of Ger- many, which did not produce the famous company of authors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but which greatly favored their productiveness, and wonder- 29 30 GEBMAN LITERATUBE. fullj helped the literary development of the entire Ger- man j)eople. These circumstances are in chronological order — first, the Crusades ; second, the accession of the Hohenstaufens to the imperial throne ; and third, the rise of Provengal literature, the first native growth from any of the Eomanic languages. These were contempo- rary events ; for, although the first crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099, the Emperor Conrad III., the first Hohenstaufen, was crowned in 1138, and took part in the second crusade in 1147. After the recajDture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, Barbarossa led the third crusade in 1189 — the same in which Philip Augustus of France and Eichard the Lion-heart were commanders. Finally, Frederick II., the Hohenstaufen, and the great- est German emperor since Charlemagne, undertook the fifth crusade in 1228. The Hohenstaufen line ceased with the death of Conrad 11. in 1254 Now, if we turn to Provencal history, we shall find that the poetry of the Troubadours was developed from the rude popular song and ballad into that ele- gance and melodious form which made it the courtly minstrelsy of France and Italy, between the years 1090 and 1140, and that its period of achievement lasted until the year 1250, so that the golden era of Provencal literature exactly corresponded with the reign of the Hohenstaufen line. Rudel, whose romantic love for the Princess of Tripoli has inspired so many later ballads, was a contemporary of Diethmar von Aist, one of the THE MINNESINGERS, 31 first Minnesingers; and Bertrand de Born, in whose lines we hear the blast of the trumpet and the clash of swords, was a contemporary of Walther von der Yo- gelweide, who sang of birds and the blossoms of May. Some of the German scholars deny that the trouba- dours contributed toward the revival of poetry by the Minnesingers, for the reason that the former sang of battles and heroic deeds, while the latter sang of love and sorrow and the influence of Nature. This distinc- tion is correctly drawn : the Minnesingers were not imitators, but nevertheless they did owe their immediate popularity in Germany, and the encouragement accorded to them by the ruling princes, to the fashion which was first set by the Courts of Aix, Toulouse and Arragon. In fact, William, Count of Poitiers, was one of the earli- est troubadours, and three kings of Arragon are named in the list of minstrels. Then, as in Schiller's poem, "The Might of Song," the poet sat beside the monarch, if he did not happen to be a monarch himself. Turning to the history of the house of Hohenstaufen, we find that although six emperors of that house reigned from 1138 to 1254, a period of one hundred and sixteen years, the character and importance of the Hohenstaufen rule is due to two men, Frederick Bar- barossa, who reigned thirty-eight years, and his grand- son, Frederick II., who reigned thirty-six years. Both of them were men of culture and refined literary taste, and Frederick II. himself wrote poems in the Arabic 32 GERMAN LITERATURE. and Provencal languages. Even tlie boj Conradin, tlie last of the line, wlio was executed bj Charles of Anjou in 1268, left two German poems behind him. Both Barbarossa and Frederick II. distinguished themselves by a bold and determined resistance to the growing power of the Popes. They were both called " heretics" by the clergy ; Frederick II. was excommunicated, his sudden death was attributed to poison, and it was the influence of Rome which exterminated his race within twenty years after his death ; yet, during the century of the Hohenstaufens, Germany was comparatively free from the nightmare of priestly rule. Barbarossa be- came the symbol of national sentiment and national unity among the people : Frederick II. laid the founda- tion for that middle class, between the nobles and the peasants, which is the present strength of every nation of Europe ; and he began unconsciously to prepare the way for Luther, three hundred years before the Reformer's birth. They were great political architects, who builded broader and stronger than they knew. From the Rhone to Mount Tabor and the Sea of Gali- lee, from the Baltic to the gardens of Sicily, their lives were battles and marches ; they sat on portable thrones, and their palaces were tents. Although Europe paid five million lives for a ninety years' occupation of Jerusalem, and a two hundred years' possession of the coast of Palestine, her real gain was worth the sacrifice. The nations drew new THE MINNESINGERS. 33 virtues and new graces of character from the Crusades. Their people came out of seclusion into a grand con- tinental society ; all minor interests were lost in the two great inspirations — war and religion ; narrow preju- dices were swept away, ignorance corrected, knowl- edge exchanged, and Christian courtesy began to take the place of barbaric manners. When, in some Phry- gian forest, or some valley of Taurus or Lebanon, the Provencal sat beside the Saxon, the Norman beside the Suabian, and the lively strains of the jongleur alter- nated with some grave old Teutonic ballad in the saga- measure, there was already that stimulus of emulation which is the first condition of literary growth. The three influences which I have mentioned were blended together in their operation on the German people — the education of the Crusades, the courtly fashion of song, with the elegant Provencal models, and finally the intelligence and taste of the rulers, combined with their defiance of the authority of Rome. In regard to this latter point, I must add a word of explanation. I should not venture to say that the intellectual development of an individual or a race is very seriously affected by the character of his or its religious faith. Barbarossa, Frederick II., Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, were Catholics, as were Dante and Tasso. But I do assert, with the positiveness of profoundest belief, that no other agency in the history of man has so injuriously 2^ 34 GERMAN LITERATURE. interfered with his growth in knowledge as the ec- clesiastical power of any faith which seeks to bring under its exclusive control and government all forms of intellectual growth. In this country, where we have never had, and never can have, a union of Church and State, it is difficult for us to understand the spiritual tyranny which any form of religious belief will always assume when it has the power. The Church of Eome, in the Middle Ages, was despotic, because all civilized Christendom belonged to it ; but any earlier or later variety of faith would, under the same circumstances, have assumed the same character. Tolerance is always an acquired, not a natural virtue. In the development of German Literature, the religious element every now and then asserts itself, and must be mentioned. I wish, therefore, to treat it simply as an inevitable fact, without prejudice or partisan views. For two hundred and fifty years, as we have seen, the creative spirit of literature in Germany had been sunk in a sleep like death ; but it now began to re- vive. It meets us, at the start, in a new character, and is the expression of a new spirit. The stages of transition between the '' Hildehrandslied,'' the "Heliand/' the rhymed couplets of Otfried and Hucbald and the smooth, elaborate stanzas of the Minnesingers, have been lost. The new race of minstrels began by bor- rowing form and melody from the troubadours ; but this was all they borrowed. They belonged to an im- THE MINNESINGERS. 35 pressible, emotional race, in whom the elejnents of song always existed, and in whom the joy of expressing and communicating fancy and feeling to others was always strong. Their language had so changed in the mean- time that it is now called the Mediaeval High-German by scholars, to distinguish it from the Old High-Ger- man of Charlemagne's time. The first attempts at lyrical poetry, in the twelfth century, show the stiff joints of a speech which is not accustomed to trip in musical measures ; but it very soon became flexible and warm, and learned to follow the moods of its masters. The age that now commences was especially one of epic poetry, and quite as remarkable in this respect as was the age of Elizabeth for English dramatic poetry. The Minnesingers did not precede the epic poets, but w^ere contemporaneous with them, and both of the titles may be applied with equal justice to several famous authors. I take the lighter strains first, because they spring more directly from the character of the age, and are a part of that minstrelsy which you will meet in English history, in the persons of Taillefer and Blondel and Richard of the Lion-Heart. In fact, the song of love or sorrow was as common throughout Europe as the red-cross on the left shoulder of the Crusader. These songs were remembered and sung by thousands who were unable to hear or recite the epic poems, and thus the people were taught to enjoy brief lyrics of action or feeling. The lyrical poetry of every modern language 36 GERMAN LITERATURE. grew from this basis, and our chief wonder, in contrast- ing the lays of the troubadours with those of this day, must be that the improvement, so far as concerns the graces of rhythmical form, has been so slight between that time and this. We have the names and many of the poems of a large number of the Minnesingers — quite as many, indeed, as is necessary ; but our knowledge of the authors is gene- rally defective, and an exact chronological arrangement of them cannot be made. One of the earliest is Dieth- mar von Aist, and I quote his little song of the " Falcon," because its subject is simple and unaffected, while the language shows that rhyme is still an unaccustomed restraint. Ez stuont ein vrouwe aleine tint warte uber heide, unt warte ilir liebes, so gesach sie valken vliegen. So wol dir, valke, daz du bist ! Du vliugest, swar dir lieb ist ; du erkiusest dir in dem walde einen bourn, der dir gevalle. Also ban oncb ib getan : ib erkos mir selben einen man den erwehlten miniu ougen ; daz nident scbone vrouwen. O we, wan lant si mir min liep ? jo engerte icb ir dekeines trutes niet !" So wol dir, sumerwunne ! Daz gevogel sane ist gesunde, alse ist der linden ir loup. Tbere stood alone a lady And waited on tbe moorland, And waited for her lover, And saw tbe falcon flying. All, liappy falcon tbat tbou art I Tbou fliest wbere tbou pleasest; Tbou cboosest from the forest The tree which best thou lovest. And tlius have I done also : I chose a man to be mine own, In mine eyes tbe one elected, And envied am by fairest dames. Alas, why will they not leave my love? For none of theirs I ever han- kered." Fair art thou, joy of summer ! The song of birds is wholesome As are its leaves unto the linden. TEE MINNESINGERS. 37 I must pass over many names — Frieclricli von Hansen, the brave knight who fell in Asia Minor, Heinrich von Veldeck, Hartmann von Aue, and other noble minstrels — only pausing to quote this one verse of Heinrich von Morungen : Ez ist site der nahtegal, 'Tis the way of the nightin- gale, swan si ir lie! volendet, s6 ge- That when her song is finished swiget sie ; she sings no more ; Dur daz volge ab ich der swal, But the swallow as mate I hail, diu durch liehe, noch durch leide Who neither for love nor woe, ir singen nie verlie. ceases her strain to pour. Reimar the Old is another who tempts me with the increasing sweetness of his lines ; but I must also pass him by to reach the fairest and most attractive name among the Minnesingers — Walther von der Vogelweide. "Where or when he was born, we do not know : his youth w^as spent in Austria, at the court of Duke Frederick. At the close of the twelfth century we find him with Philip of Hohenstaufen, then with Otto of Wittelsbach, defying Pope Innocent III. in bold verses, when the Pope excommunicated the Emperor ; and, finally, fol- lowing Frederick II. to Palestine, scourging priests and monks with his satire, openly scoffing at the claims of the Papal power, and, as a writer of his time charges, "turning thousands from their duty to Eome." He was ennobled by Frederick II. and presented with an estate near Wiirzburg. He was buried in the cathedral of that city, leaving a sum of money to the monastery to buy corn 38 GERMAN LITERATURE. for the birds which were fed out of four hollow spaces cut in the top-slab of his tombstone. His will was car- ried out for several hundred years, and the tombstone, with the hollows for the Fogeliveide, still exists. In his youth, Walther von der Yogelweide was poor. He began life as a jongleur, a traveling minstrel, riding from castle to castle, and singing his songs to lords and ladies, to the accompaniment of his violin. Even after he reached the life of courts and became the minstrel of emperors, his circumstances do not seem to have im- proved. Some touching verses still exist, wherein he begs Frederick II. to grant him a home which he may call his own. "Have pity," he says, "that I am left so poor, with all my rich art. If I could once warm my- self at my own hearth, how would I then sing of the birds and of flowers and of love ! " He adds that he is tired of the title of " guest " — if he can only be " host," instead of "guest," he will ask no more. It is pleasant to know that Frederick was moved by this appeal, and gave the weary old j^oet a home. In Walther's songs, we find the nature of the born poet enforcing its own expression. The imperfect Ger- man of his day becomes fluent and musical in his verses; but the truer test of his quality is that we soon cease to think of the language, quaint and strange as it appears, and are brought face to face, and heart to heart, with the minstrel himself. More than any other poet of the Middle Ages, he seems to us modern in feeling and in TEE MINNESINGERS. 39 style. He was one of tlie very first, not merely to de- scribe Nature and rural life, but to express a sweet and artless delight in her manifold aspects. After him, Chaucer, then Shakespeare, with a long interval between, Cowper and Wordsworth, and, among us, Longfellow, Bryant and Whittier, have chanted the beauty of the external world ; but, with all their higher graces of art, none of them can so immediately set us in the midst of May-time, blossoms and bird-songs, by a simple, child- like line, as Walther von der Vogelweide. Here is a little song of his, called *'Maienwonne^^ (the Bliss of May) : Muget ir scliouwen, waz dem meien wunders ist beschert ? Selit an, pfaffen, selit an, leien, wie daz allez vert ! Groz ist sin gewalt ; ine weiz, ob er zouber kiinne : swar er vert mit siner wiinne, dan is niemen alt. Would you see how May to May-men Bringeth marvels new ; Priests, behold ! — behold it lay men, What his might can do I He is uncontrolled : I know not if magic is it ; When his joys the world re- visit, Then is no one old. Wol dir, meie, wie du scheidest allez ane haz ! Wie wol du die boume kleidest und die heide baz ! Diu hat varwe me. '* Da bistkurzer, ich bin langer \" also stritents uf dem auger bluomen unde kle. Happy May, thy spell divideth All, but not in hate ! Every tree in leafage hideth. Nor the moorlands wait. Colors fall in showers : " I am long and thou art short," Thus iu fields they strive and sport. Clover, grass and flowers. 40 GERMAN LITERATURE. Roter mund, wie dii dich swa- chest ! La din lachen sin ! Sham dich, daz dii mich an la- chest nach dem schaden min. 1st daz wol getan ? Owe so veiiorner stuude ! So] von minneclichem munde solch unminne ergan ? Rosy mouth, why thus degrade thee. Let thy laughter be I Shame of scorn shall not evade thee, After wounding me. Doest thou kindly so ? Ah, lost hours that we are prov- ing. When from lips that seem so loving Such unlove should flow ! Altliough this song has the character of a Leich, in suggesting music, the language is nowhere bent to adapt itself to the rhythm. Form and substance melo- diously embrace each other : the stanza shows that the author has carefully studied rhythmical effect, yet his feeling fills it so evenly that the measure seems as un- studied as the song of a bird. The alliteration of the saga is also retained, but so skillfully, so delicately sub- ordinate to the expression of joy in the May-time, that we do not immediately perceive it. Here is another minne-song, remarkable for being written in the dactylic measure : W61 mich der stunde, daz ich sie erkande, diu mir den lip und den muot hat betwungen, sit deich die sinne so gar an sie wande, der si mich hat mit ir giiete verdrungen ! Happy the moment when first I beheld her. Conquering body and soul with her beauty ; Since when my service the more hath compelled her Still with her kindness to fet- ter my duty. THE MINNESINGERS. 41 daz icTi gescheiden von ir nilit enkan, daz hat ir schoene und ir giiette geinachet und ir roter mund, der so liep- liclieu lachet. So that from her I can never more part. This from her goodness and grace, and thereafter Her roseate mouth, with the charm of its laughter. Ich han den muot und die sinne gewendet an die vil reinen, die lieben, die guoten : daz muez' uns beiden wol wer- den volendet swes ich getar an ir hulde ge- muoten. swaz ich ie freuden zer we ride gewan, daz hat ir schoene und ir gliete gemachet und ir roter munt, der so liep- licheu lachet. Spirit and senses and thought I have given Unto the best and the purest and dearest ; Now must the bliss be complete, as in heaven, Since I have dared to desire to be nearest. If the world's blisses were dear to my heart, 'Twas from her goodness and grace, and thereafter Her roseate mouth, with the charm of its laughter. I find in tliese little madrigals of Waltlier von der Vogelweide, the same grace and sweetness and willful play of fancy, as in those of Herrick and Carew. His sentiment for women is of the most refined and knightly character ; and it is remarkable how the fine enthusi- asm of his nature breaks out as fresh and ardent as ever, whenever he mentions love or the spring-time. Before turning to his didactic and satirical strains, I must quote three more stanzas, in illustration of this delightful quality. The first is from his poem of " The Glorious Dame " — " Die Herrliclie Frau.'^ 4:2 GERMAN LITEUATURE. Got hate ir wengel liohen fliz : er streicli so tiure varwe dar, so reine rot, so reine wiz, hie roeseloht, dort liljenvar. Ob ich'z vor siinden tar gesa- gen, so saehe ich s'iemer gerner an dan himel oder himelwagen. Owe waz lobe ich tumber man ? mach' ich sie mir ze her, vil lihte wirt mins mundes lop mins herzen ser. God was so careful of her cheeks; He spread such precious colors there, That pure and perfect, eithef speaks, Here rosj-red, there lily -fair. Not meaning sin, will I declare That I more fain on her would gaze Than on the sky or Starry Bear. Ah, foolish me, what is't I praise ? If I, too fond, exalt her so. How soon the lip's delight be- comes the bosom's woe. Now take the opening stanzas of liis song — " Sj)ring and Women," which I quote on account of its bright, sunny character : So die bluomen uz dem grase dringent, same si lachen gegen der spile- den sunnen, in einem meien an dem morgen fruo, und die kleinen vogellin wol singent in ir besten wise die sie kunnen, waz wlinne mac sich da genozen zuo ? ez ist wol halb ein himelriche. Suln wir sprechen, waz sich deme geliche, s6 sage ich, waz mir dicke baz ^Vhen the blossoms from the grass are springing. As they laughed to meet the sparkling sun. Early on some lovely morn of May, And all the small birds on the boughs are singing Best of music, finished and again begun. What other equal rapture can we pray ? It is already half of heaven. But should we guess what other might be given. So I declare, that, which in my sight, in minen ougen hat getan und Still better seems, and still ^vould taete ouch noch, gesaehe ich seem, had I the same de- daz. light. THE MINNE8JN0BBS. 43 Swa ein edeliu schoene f rouwe When a noWe dame of purest beauty wol gTkleidetunde wol gebun- Well attired, with even gar- ° nislied tresses, dnrch kurzewile zuo vil Uuten Unto all, in social haWt, goes, hovdiehen hOehgemuot, niht Finely gracious, yet subdued to duty, umbrslende ein wenic under Whose impartial glance her State expresses, ^samlrlnne gegen den ster- As on stars the sun his radiance throws ! der'mr bringe uns al sin Then let May his bliss renew -, US : wa. Tst'dr;6 wunnecliches un- What is there so blissful to us als ir vil minneclicher lip ? As her lips of love to see ? We possess nearly tvo hundred of the poems and songs of Walther von der Vogelweide. Some of them are brief single verses, which chronicle some event of his life or his individual relation to the times m which he lived ; yet, slight as they are, they are characterized by a roundness, a completeness, an elegance,, which show the master's hand. I should like to quote some stanzasof his poem " In the Promised Land," apparently written in Palestine; but my space is so brief that I prefer selecting, as more characteristic of the Hohen- staufen period, his defiance of Pope Innocent III., writ- ten after the latter had excommunicated the Emperor Otto. He commenced by comparing him to Pope Syl- 44 GERMAN LITERATURE. vester II., whose former name was Gerbert, wlio had the common reputation of being a magician, and was believed by the peoj^le to have been carried off by the Devil. Walther says : Der stuol ze Rome ist allererst berilitet rehte als hie vor bi einem zouberaere Gerbrrehte. Der gap ze valle niwet wan sin eines leben : s6 wil sicli dirre uud al die kristenlieit ze valle geben. Wan riiefent alle zungen bin ze liimele wafen iind fragent got, wie lange er welle slafen ? Sie widerwiirkent siniu were und velschent siniu wort : sin kameraere stilt im sinen bimelhort, sin sliener roubet hie und mordet dort, sin birte ist z'einem wolve im worden under sinen scbafen. The chair at Rome is now properly filled, as it was formerly by the magician Gerbert. He plunged into ruin only his own one soul : the present one will ruin himself and all Christendom. WTiy do not all tongues cry to heaven, and ask God how long He will quietly look on? They oppose His works, and counterfeit His words : the Pope's treasurers steal from God's heavenly hoard : his judges rob here, and murder there, and God's shepherd has become a wolf among His sheeiD. Here is another, even stronger, provoked by the simony, which was then prevalent in the Church, and the sale of absolutions which, three hundred years later, gave Luther such a weapon against Eome : Ir bischov' unde ir edelen pfaffen, ir sit verleitet. Selit wie inch der babest mit des tievels stricken seitet 1 Saget ir uns, daz er sant Peters sliizzel habe, so saget, war umbe er sine lere von den buochen schabe ? Daz man gotes gabe iht koufe oder verkoafe, daz wart uns verboten bi der toufe. THE MmNE8IN0ER8. 45 Nu lere et'z in sin swarzez buocli, daz ime der liellem6r hat gegeben, und uz im lese et siniu ror, Ir kardenaele, ir decket iuwern kor : tinser alter frone der stet undr einer iibelen troufe. Ye bishops and je noble priests, you are misled. See how the Pope entangles you in the Devil's net ! If yon say to me that he has the keys of St. Peter, then tell me why he banishes St. Peter's teach- ing from the Bible ? By our baptism it is forbidden to us that God's sacraments should be bought or sold ! But now let him read that in his black book, which the DevU gave him, and take his tune from Hell's pipe ! Ye cardinals, ye roof your choirs well ; but our old holy altar stands exposed to evil weather. This is strong language for the year 1200. In other poems Walther speaks of the inefficiency of a pro- fession of faith, without good works, very much as any practical Christian of our clay might speak. His boldness was equal to his honesty : he gives us a very distinct impression of his fine, manly, independent character, of a life unstained by the prevalent vices of his day, and of a simple, loving nature which his many years of court-life do not seem to have vitiated. When he asks Frederick II. to give him a home, it is because he feels that his services deserve re- ward ; and, indeed, the property he finally received was barely sufficient to support him in his age. The dis- tinguished Minnesingers were nearly all of noble blood ; for the nobles of Provence and Arragon had set the fashion, and it was not so easy for a plebeian minstrel to crowd his way into the company of the knightly singers. Walther von der Vogelweide did this — for he 46 GERMAN LITERATURE, was ennobled late in life — and lie also, by the force of his native genius, made his supremacy- acknowledged. Al- though we know less of him than of many of his con- tem23oraries, we cannot study the literature of the day without finding that his character immediately detaches itself from the company around him, and shines out alone in its clearness and sweetness and strength. The number of Minnesingers is quite large, but many of them have but a slight literary importance, and I will not burden your memories with a complete cata- logue. Passing over Ulric von Singenberg, who wrote a lament for Walther von der Vogelweide, I shall j)ause a moment at the name of Nithart, who is interesting from the circumstance that, although he was a wealthy noble, the material of his songs was mostly drawn from pea- sant life, and have almost a coarsely realistic character, while Walther, the born peasant, is always noble and dignified in his verses. Nithart was also a crusader ; his poetic life belongs to the middle of the thirteenth century. His pictures of common life, dances, festivals, love-making, tricks and quarrels, are lively and some- times amusing, but prosaic in tone. He was a ready rhymer rather than a poet. One of Walther von der Yogelweide's imitators, who during his life acquired nearly an equal fame, is called the Marner, an old German word corresponding exactly with our Mariner. His real name is unknown, although he was said to have been a nobleman. His verses have THE MmNESINGERS. 47 a more didactic character than those of his master, but in rhythmical form they show an almost equal skill. Walther was really the first who gave fluency and music to the High-German dialect, and his followers, whatever might be their amount of talent, were quick to copy the external graces of his style. Of the many poems of the Marner, I will quote one in which he mentions the themes he is accustomed to sing at court : Icli sunge ein bispel oder ein spel, ein warheit oder ein liige, icli sunge wol, wie Titurel die Tempi eise bi dem grale ziige, wie siieze ist Sirenen don und arc des cocatrillen zorn. Icli sunge oucli drachen viurin kel, unt wie der grife vliige, wie sich des salamander vel in heizem viure stralite und smiige unt wie sich teilt sliimaeren lip unt wie diu vipper wirt ge- born. Icb sunge oucli wol, wie siniu eiger briieten kan der struz ; icb sunge oucli wol, wie sicli der fenix junget uz ; ich sunge ouch wie der lit, der manigen in der wunderburc verslanden bat dur sinen git. I would sing a fable or a tale, A truth or lie, for good example ; How forth to seek the Holy Grail Titurel led the knights of the Temple ; How fierce the rage of crocodile, how sweet the Siren's tone. I would sing of the fiery dragon's throat, And how the griffin flietli ; And how the salamander's coat Unto the flame reply eih ; How the Chimaera's body parts, and how the snake is grown. I would also sing how on its eggs the ostrich broods ; And how the phoenix is renewed, burned up with spicy woods; And also where the hero lies asleep, Who slew so many in the magic keep. 48 GERMAN LITERATURE. Ein wunder wont dem hove bi 'Mid wondrous custonis, thus, mit wunderliclien siten : the wondrous beast at court mit pfawen schriten. Struts like a peacock, for their sport, unt mit menschen triten With human feet and height, kan ez lagen, losen, biten ; Must lie and beg and bite, ez hat mit siner zungen wafen And many a lord must wound, maneges herren muot ver- with tongue that knows to sniten : smite : dem kan ich gesingen niht, nun For such I cannot sing — 'twould rede ist an ime gar ver- be a mock delight ! lorn. Tlie scornful air of the closing words suggests to us that the poem is satirical, the subjects being those demanded by the taste of the courts, not those which the poet would prefer to sing. The Marner was an- other bold, independent character who scourged the vices and follies of his day ; but he lived beyond the protection of the Hohenstaufens, and, after an old age of poverty and ]3ei'secution, was basely murdered. Among the other minstrels of note were Burkhardt von Hohenfels and Ulric von Winterstetten, whose songs are noted for illustrations drawn from the knightly pastime of the chase ; the two Eeinmars, Keinmar the Old and Keinmar von Zweter, agreeable singers, but without original character ; Master Johannes Hadlaub, who has left behind him some very sweet pastoral and harvest songs ; the monk Wernher ; Conrad of Wiirz- burg, and Heinrich von Meissen, who became famous under the name of Frauenlob. In addition to these, there were many who were known by epithets, either THE MINNESINGERS, 49 assumed or bestowed upon them by the people — such as the Chancellor, the Undaunted and the School- master of Esslingen. In sifting their productions, we do not often find more than a few grains of genuine, vital poetry in a bushel of wordy chaff; but they all have a real value, from their constant references to the man- ners, morals and customs of the age. I will quote a few lines from Conrad of Wiirzburg, written about forty years after Walther von der Vogelweide, to show what progress had been made in developing the rhythmical capacity of the language : Jar lane wil diu linde Tear-long will tlie linden vom winde The wind in sicli velwen, Go waving, Din sicli vor dem walde While a tempest sorest ze balde The forest kan selwen ; Is braving ; Truren uf der heide To wail the moorland through, mit leide One's sorrow man iiebet ; Is doubled ; sus hat mir diu minne Sweetly love's pretenses die sinne My senses betrliebet. Have troubled. It is not often that Goethe, or Kiickert, or Uhland employs a difficult metre with such apparent lightness and ease. But in Conrad's lines the sound is more than the sense. Toward the close of the thirteenth century, a great elaboration and refinement of form takes the place of fancy and sentiment, and from this sign we anticipate the coming decay of literature. 3 50 GERMAN LITERATURE. Even Ulric von Winterstetten, to whom we must grant some amount of native talent, took the pains to write verses in lines of a single syllable, such as this : Wol uf , ir kint, sint YPO, so muoz buoz sorgen sin ! Truren, var hin I Sin, mnot tuot heil werden schin. It is impossible to translate this ; but an imitation will answer just as well : At night, " Boys ? " In fright, " No,— Says the wife : Guess I " *' My life, " Oh, Hear, Yes ! Near, That's Noise ! " Cats ! " One more quotation from Conrad of Wiirzburg will be enough to make clear the degeneracy into which the old German minstrelsy fell. This is a stanza from his '-^ Winter-Song": Schoene doene klungen jungen liuteu, triuten inne mlnue merte; sunder wunder baere THE MINNESmOERS. 51 swaere wilden bilden heide, weide rerte, do vr6 sazen die der ger lazen spil wil hie. Instead of a translation, I shall quote a few lines from Thomas Hood's comical proposition to write blank verse in rhyme, which is very much like it: " Evening has come, and from the dark park, hark. The signal of the setting sun — one gun ! And six is sounding from the chime, prime time To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain — Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out, Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade. Denying to his frantic clutch much touch ! " I give these grotesque specimens, because there is a poetical moral to be drawn from them. I hardly need to point it out. A poem may have perfect form, as a woman may have perfect physical beauty ; but the per- fect poem requires feeling and thought, as the perfect woman must have goodness and intelligence. Form, alone, gives us a waxen doll, heartless and brainless. This characteristic is not peculiar to tlie age of the Minnesingers : there are volumes of poetry, published every year, in which we find it very clearly manifested. The minstrelsy of that age, like all popular forms of literature, presents two different aspects. We may say, indeed, that every era of literature has three classes of writers — first, the Masters, who originate new forms of expression, and, by the poAver of their genius, force the race to accept them; second, tin honest secondary in- 52 GERMAN LITERATURE, telligences, who imitate and illustrate and popularize, clear-siglited to follow tliougli incapable of leading ; and lastly, that class of vain and shalloAv minds avIio, as Tennyson says, turn the new flower into a weed, — who unconsciously parody the very spirit which they aspire to possess. Yet their grotesque affectation may deceive a portion of the public, and they may die in the full conviction of literary immortality. Among the Minne- singers, I should only admit Walther von der Yogel- weide to the rank of a master. In the second class I should place the Marner, Eeinmar von Zweter, Master Hadlaub and Burkhardt von Hohenfels ; while no bet- ter representative of the extravagant burlesque of imi- tation would be desired than Ulric von Lichtenstein. He was an Austrian, of the same race from which the present Princes of Lichtenstein are descended, and ap- pears to have begun his career as a knight and minstrel about the year 1223. If Cervantes had known anything of the German Minnesingers, we might charge him with borrowing parts of his Don Quixote from Ulric von Lichtenstein's history. The latter deliberately chose his Dulcinea, and for years devoted himself to singing her praises, although she only returned him scorn and ridicule. He relates that she would not at first look at him on account of his having three lips. He thereupon went to Gratz and employed a surgeon to cut off one of them. It was probably a hare-lip, the upper one count- ing for two. Then, at a tourney in Brixen, one of his THE MINNESINGERS. 53 fingers was wounded, and lie sent lier word that he had lost it for her sake. The lady discovered soon after- ward that the wound was healed, and she so ridiculed him that he had the finger actually cut off and sent to her in a box lined with green velvet. AfterAvard, he dressed himself as a woman, braided his hair with pearls, called himself "Dame Venus," and traveled through Germany and Italy, challenging the knights to fight with him (or her), in honor of the scornful lady. He traveled in state, with banners, marshals, heralds, musicians, and a retinue of men and women, and it is gravely related that, during the years of this singular and most expensive pilgrimage, he fought no less than five hundred and seventy-eight times. Yet, when it was over, and he called upon the lady for whose sake he had dared so much, she had him thrown out of the window of her castle ! She assured him repeatedly that she not only did not love but actually hated him, and it is not probable that there was the least love on his side. She was a married lady, and he had his own wife and chil- dren in his castle of Lichtenstein ; yet for thirty-three years he kept up the absurd farce, writing poems, sing- ing and fighting, followed by crowds of silly knights who admired his constancy and bravery, and enjoying an immense amount of popularity. The colossal affec- tation of his career seems to us little short of idiocy ; but every age has the same phenomena, and it would not be difficult to find names now, both in Europe and 54 GERMAN LITEBATURE. America, wliicli have become notorious from as absurd reasons as that of Ulric Yon Liclitenstein in his day. I will quote nothing from his long-winded work, called "Fraiiendiensf/' Woman's Service, because I find it a prosaic, tiresome performance, of little more value in German literature, except as a curious picture of the times, than are the novels of Sylvanus Cobb in ours. Heinrich von Meissen, or Frauenlob, has also a more conspicuous place than he deserves. It was his good luck that he lived at the close of the 23eriod when min- strels had become scarce, and the glory of the better singers threw a reflected light on his own performances. He is said to have established the first school of min- strelsy in Mainz, in the early part of the fourteenth century. When he died, women bore his body, with weeping and lamentations, to his tomb in the cathedral, and, as an old chronicler says, " poured so much wine upon the tombstone, that the whole church was flooded with it." In the schools afterward established, where versification was taught as we teach grammar or arith- metic, he is credited as the inventor of thirty-five meas- ures. About five hundred of his strophes have survived, — quite enough to enable us to judge of his quality as an author. He has given us his own opinion of his merits in one of his poems. Speaking of Eeinmar, Wol- fram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Yogelweide, he says: "They sang of the froth and neglected the substance, but I dip from the very bottom of the ves- THE MINNESINGERS. 55 sel, and the shrine of mj song should be splendidly crowned. I am the master of all those who have sung heretofore, or who sing now. I wear the yoke of pro- foundest thought, and my words and harmonies never wander from the track of the true sense." In spite of these lofty claims, the most of his pOems are so obscure, artificial and involved, that they cannot now be read with any satisfaction. Yet, when he chooses to be simple and natural, singing some theme which appeals to the com- mon sentiment of man, he has still the power to give us pleasure. One of his poems, entitled " Honor Women ! " commences : O reiniu wip, ufhaltunge aller woman, pure, all worlds in welde thee preserving gen Gote unt gen der muoter sin, For God and for His Mother divine, als hie mit sange ich melde, My song proclaims, from thee unswerving, si sint der hohsten saelden schrin : Of highest souls art thou the shrine : kein meister mac ir hohez lop vol- No master can exhaust thy lofty denken. praises. The phrase nflmltunge aller welde suggests to us at once the exclamation of Faust, " Inbegriff von alien Himmeln." Frauenlob stands at the close, as Diethmar von Aist at the beginning of this bright period of one hundred and fifty years, during which the seeds of all modern lyric poetry were planted in Provence and Germany. The most famous event in the literary history of the Middle Ages — the Sange rkrieUj or War of the Minstrels, 56 GERMAX LITERATURE. in the Wartburg Castle, near Eisenach, — is such a sin- gular mixture of possible fact and evident fiction, that we shall probably never ascertain the true story. German scholars seem to be agreed that there was a meeting of Minnesingers, a tournament of song, at the Wartburg, between the years 1204 and 1208 ; but they cannot satis- factorily explain in what manner the romantic legend grew, so many features of which were long accepted as undoubted history. The old chroniclers relate that the combat took place at the court of Hermann, Landgraf or Count of Thuringia, and his wife, the Countess Sophia. There were present Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Yogelweide, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Eeinmar von Zweter, Biterolf and the Virtuous Scribe. The penalty of failure was death by the executioner's hand, and this fate fell upon Henry of Ofterdingen, who implored the mediation of the Countess SojDhia, claim- ing that he was unfairly judged, and asking time to bring his master, the minstrel Klingsor, from Hungary, to aid him. The prayer was granted : Henry went to Hun- gary, reappeared wdth Klingsor in a year and a day, and the latter succeeded, with the devil's assistance, in rivaling, though not overcoming. Wolfram von Eschen- bach. The result was, however, that Henry of Ofter- dingen's life was saved. The few facts are, that the Landgraf Hermann of Thu- ringia was a patron of literature ; that both Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide were his TEE MINNESINGERS. 57 guests in the Wartburg, and that the courtly minstrels who chanted their own songs sometimes met in rivalry. But Eeinmar von Zweter belongs to a later generation, the Hungarian Klingsor is certainly a fictitious charac- ter, and there is no satisfactory evidence of a Heinrich von Ofterdingen, if the Minnesinger who is simply named Heinrich be not the same. The poetic frag- ment, purporting to be the strife between Klingsor and Wolfram von Eschenbach, betrays the speech of the end of the thirteenth century, and some conjecture that it was written by Frauenlob. Not many years ago, the restoration of the Wartburg, which afterward became the scene of the most memora- ble year of Luther's life, was undertaken by the Grand- Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and it was found that many win- dows and arched galleries in the most beautiful Byzan- tine style, frescoes and other forms of ornament, dating from the time of the Landgraf Hermann, had been filled up, plastered over and hidden by later masonry. The ancient halls have now resumed their original char- acter, and the walls within which the minstrels sang, the raised dais for the ruling prince and his wife, and the deep mullioned windows through which they looked on the wooded mountain ranges around, stand at pres- ent as they then stood. While there, knowing that at least two renowned Minnesingers had certainly sung within that liall, I found it easy to believe the pic- turesque legend. 3* 58 GERMAN LITERATURE. The story of Tannhanser belongs to the same neigh- borhood, and some traditions connect him with the war of the minstrels, although he was contemporary with Hermann's son, Lndwig, and with the latter's wife. Si Elizabeth of Hungary. The Horselberg, a barren ridge which rises over an intervening valley, northeast of the Wartburg, is believed to be the mountain of Yenus, in the interior of which Tannhanser found the heathen goddess and her court. In order to appreciate the legend of Tannhiiuser, it must be remembered that the ancient gods were not immediately forgotten after the. triumph of Christianity. The common peoj)le gradually came to look upon them as evil demons, who still existed, and the one to be mos. dreaded was Dame Yenus. She was supposed to live somewhere, with her Nymphs and Graces, in a wonderful subterranean garden. The knight Tann- hiiuser, in the legend, finds the entrance to this garden, descends and lives there a year in the midst of pagan delights. He grows weary at last, comes back to the world, recognizes his sin, and wanders as a penitent pilgrim to Rome. There he confesses everything to the Pope, and begs for pardon : but the Pope, holding a staff in his hand, answers : " Sooner shall this dry stick burst into blossoms, than pardon come to a sin like thine ! " Tannhanser wanders back to Germany in de- spair ; but three days after his departure the Pope's staff bursts into blossom. A messenger is instantly TEE MINNESmGERS. 59 dispatched with the news of the miracle and the par- don. It is too late : Tannhiinser has already gone down again to the garden of Dame Venus, and never returns. Thus the name of the real Tannhauser is surrounded by a romantic interest, at once tragic and tender, which is justified by nothing in his life or his rather common- place poems. He w^as an Austrian, a crusader, and died about the year 1270. With all the magic which later poets, and last of all a modern composer, have thrown backward upon his name, I find it impossible to feel any interest in his poetry. The concluding lines of his "Minstrel's Lament" will give a sufficient idea of his style : Min hus, daz stat gar ane dacli.swie ich dar zuo gebare, min stnbe stelit gar ane tlir, daz ist mir worden swaere, Min kelre ist in gevallen, min ktiche ist mir verbrunnen, min stadel stat gar ane bant, des bous ist mir zerrunnen ; mir ist gebacben, nocb gemaln, gebrtiwen ist mir selten ; mir ist diu wat ze dimnegar, des mag ich wol entgelten : mich darf durch geraete nieman niden, nocb beschelten. My bouse, it stands without a roof, however I repair it ; My chamber stands without a door, 'tis ha'-d for me to bear it ; My cellar-vaults have tumbled in, my kitchen has been burned up, My barn it stands without a lock, no hay could there be turned up: They never grind nor bake for me, they brew for me but rarely. My coat is worn so very thin I am treating it unfairly ; None has a right to envy me, still less to scold m© squarely. There is not much of the transcendental worshiper 60 GERMAN LITERATURE. of the antique goddess in these lines ; but, fortunately, when we come to substitute History for Komance, if we find many sliadowy beauties shrink away to a basis of rather coarse fact, we are compensated by the discovery of unsuspected grace and nobility and gentle manhood. It is a bright, animated, eventful age which we find re- flected in the literature of the Minnesingers ; not trivial, for the stern premonition of coming struggle is felt ; frank, artless, and natural, but almost never coarse; original, because reaped on fresh fields, by fresh hands ; and with a direct impress of Nature, which we find for the first time in any literature. We can only express it properly by its German word Gemiith^ which, in our language, includes both feeling and sentiment. A hun- dred years later, the kindred blood sent the same warmth to the heart and brain of Chaucer, and an inde- pendent English literature began to grow, not by the same stages, but by related laws of development. No one can study the two periods, without feeling how near the natures of the races still were to each other. m THE MEDIEVAL EPICS. I HAVE already said that tlie age of tlie Minnesingers was especially an age of epic poetry, and that many of its authors were renowned in both qualities. It is pos- sible that the brief lyrics and songs of love and of the charms of nature, performed as important a service in popularizing literature and furthering the higher educa- tion of the whole people, as the somewhat ponderous epics of the time ; but the broad and massive character of epic poetry, the deeper elements with which it deals, give it an intrinsic dignity and authority which cannot belong to the short flights of lyric song. The latter may furnish the ornament of the temple, but the former contributes the blocks and the pillars which give it space and permanence. In examining the German epics of the Middle Ages, and tracing the sources of their material, as well as the tastes or fashions of thought which have had an influ- ence in determining their character, we soon discover the presence of two very clearly separated elements. One has a racy flavor of the native soil, the other be- trays the presence of foreign ingredients. One seems to have grown through the richer development of that 61 62 GERMAN LITERATURE. autoclitlionous poetic genius wliich produced the ''Htlde- hrandslied" itself a descendant of older and wholly lost lays of the ancient Teutonic gods and heroes ; the other, starting from the Latin ej^ic, " Walther of Aquitaine," in the tenth century, and reyived by the German ^'Uneid,'' of Heinrich von Yeldeck, in the twelfth, assimilated the romantic material of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, became quickened with a different soul and embodied itself in different forms. In short, as the sim^^lest dis- tinction between the two, I should call the first the epic poetry of the People, and the second the epic poe- try of the Courts. One is represented by the ^'Nihelun- genliedy' with its continuations, and ^^Gudrun; " the other by the epics of ''Tristan^' "Parzwcd;' "Erel" ''Iicein;' ^^Titurel " and the shorter heroic ballads. I am obliged to omit a numerous class of works which appeared during the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, many of which have been preserved, for the reason that they are only embodiments of the legends of the Church, the lives of the saints, or the exploits of Greek and Roman heroes, in a poetical form — rhymed narratives of little literary value, although they were no doubt important agents in the education of the race. In days when there were neither newspapers, political meetings, elections, societies of Eeform or cheap litera- ture, men might very well sit down to the perusal of an epic of seventy-five or one hundred thousand lines ; but when I select the five or six, which really deserve notice THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 63 as illustrations of tlie narrative genius of that age, and find that they will average nearly twenty thousand lines apiece, I find my task sufficient, and must not go be- yond it. The ''Nihdungeniied'' and "Gudrim'' must be treated separately. They floated along, under the favoring cur- rent which bore the courtly epics, almost unnoticed, and working upon the race by very slow and subtle agen- cies. Their influence on the German authors of our day has been much greater than it appears to have been upon the minstrels of the Middle Ages. But the epics of Gottfried von Strasburg, Wolfram von Eschen- bach, Hartmann von Aue and the Priest Conrad, had an immediate effect upon the language and literary tastes of the educated classes throughout Germany. They have a monumental character in the literary history of the race ; they are part of the expression of a great and wonderful period, not dark, as it has been foolishly called, but full of scattered lights, uncertain as morn- ing, restless as early spring, and, like both, bringing life unto men. Like the Elizabethan dramatists, all the famous epic poets and Minnesinoers were contemporaries ; the life of Wolfram von Eschenbach, the greatest of the former, from about 1150 to about 1230, covers the epic and the best of the lyric period. The Latin narrative poetry of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and the versified religious legends, undoubtedly prepared the 64 GERMAN LITERATURE. way for the greater works which followed ; but the first fresh impulse toward the creation of genuine heroic epics was given, between 1170 and 1180, by the nearly simultaneous production of three narrative poems of great length, — the "JRolartdsUed'' of Priest Conrad, the ^^Alexaiidei'slied " of Priest Lamprecht, and the ^^Eneid'' of Heinrich von Veldeck. The first of these is a transla- tion of the earlier French ^^ Chanson de Roland;'' the sec- ond is a rhymed history of Alexander the Great, with romantic amplifications ; and the third is a very free translation, in the romantic manner, from Yirgil. The popularity of these works may have been one cause which led the greater poets to exercise their genius in the same field, since they too commenced their literary career as Minnesingers. The subject of the ''Rolandslied''' belongs to the litera- ture of France. I need only say that Geoffrey of Mon- mouth, whose chronicles of Arthur and his Knights of the Eound Table were professedly translations of the Welsh legends, preceded the German epics by fifty or sixty years, so that their material was certainly drawn from him and from the French versions of the same legends. History gives us little knowledge of either ivoland or of Arthur : we cannot be sure of much more than the simple fact that there were such per- sons ; but the marvelous legendary growths which col- lect around certain names, have an astonishing vitality : like the air-plants of Brazil, their gorgeous blossoms THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 65 and exquisite fragrance seem to spring from nothing. Tlie ''Chanson de Roland'' is no longer read, except by scholars, but the famous paladin still lives and wields his sword Durindarte, and blows his tremendous horn at Eonyeval, in Ariosto's ''Orlando " and in the exquisite ballads of Uhland. During the Middle Ages, the different sagenkreise, or legendary circles, sometimes became curi- ously mixed, not only with each other, but with certain striking episodes of classic history. Thus the feat of Xerxes at the Hellespont was transferred to Charle- magne, who, as early as the tenth century, was believed by the people to have built a bridge across the sea in order to visit Palestine. Then Charlemagne's pilgrim- age was transferred to Arthur, who was said to have made a journey to Jerusalem at the invitation of the Sultan, — although he lived long before there were any sultans ! As the legend passed from age to age, each version took the entire stamp and character of the day — precisely as Tennyson's Arthur and Geraint and Elaine and Guinevere are not Celts of the sixth century, but ideal English men and women of the nineteenth. I doubt, indeed, whether any literary work would be generally acceptable to the people if this were not so — that is, if the speech, customs and character of former ages were reproduced with historical accuracy. But the mirage, which the Komancers impose between far-off, insignificant circumstances and our eyes, turns the for- mer into grand, illusive forms. Arthur, for example, 66 GERMAN LITERATURE. seems to have been tlie owner or feudal lord of the island of Avalon, on the coast of Brittany — the name Avalon signifying apple-trees. After his death, it was said in Cornwall that he had gone to Avalon, and the word gradually came to signify some Armoric Elysium, whence he w^ould return in time and drive the Saxons from Britain. In Tennyson's verse, the mysterious trans- formation becomes complete, and we read of Arthur carried away to " The island -valley of Avilion Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea." So the Arthurian legends become larger, broader, and transformed in many important features, in passing into German epic song. Their personages are advanced from the sixth century to the twelfth, and their love, sorrow, jealousy and revenge express themselves ac- cording to the fashion of the later time. But, as in the old Flemish paintings, we can study the costume of the artist's time and home as well in a Holy Family as in a tavern scene, so here the foreign theme is only an il- lustration of the tastes, opinions and habits of the age. The wonderful age of epic poetry in German}^, un- der the Hohenstaufen Emperors, lasted about as long as the age of English drama, under Elizabeth and James I. — about fifty years. It is difficult to describe several epics satisfactorily, in a single lecture ; but I THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 67 may perhaps be able to enlist your interest by sbowing how the same material which we find in them has taken possession of modern Literature and Art. They were all inspired by the half-historic, half-romantic legends which already existed. The chief of these were the following : — first — the oldest Scandinavian Eddas, with the story of Sigurd and Brynhilda : second— a lost group of Gothic and Burgundian legends, one of which we find in the Lay of Hildebrand : third — the Celtic group of King Arthur and the Knights of the Kound Table: fourth— the search for the Holy Grail; and lastly, a great number of subordinate legends, partly growing out of these, partly borrowed from the Orient during the Crusades, and partly original Now, it is very singular to notice how all this material has been worked over, with little change except that of detail, in the literature of our day. I need only recall to your memory Bulwer's epic of " King Arthur ; " Longfellow's ''Golden Legend;" Tennyson's "Idylls of the King;" Matthew Arnold's " Tristram and Iseult ; " Swinburne's poem of "Tristram and Iseult;" Morris's "Lovers of Gudrun," and "Sigurd the Yolsung;" the German, Jordan's " Nibelmigenlied,'' and finally, Wagner's operas of "Lohengrin " and the ''Nihelungeii Trilogy,'' performed at Bayreuth. It will certainly help us to estimate the true value of these works, by knowing the sources from which they sprang. Moreover, by taking par- allel passages from the poems of the German and the 68 GERMAN LITERATURE. modern authors, we have the best possible illustration of the changes in modes of poetic expression which have taken place in the lapse of six hundred and fifty years. I shall adhere to the plan, which I stated in begin- ning these lectures, of noticing only those works which give a distinct, characteristic stamp to each literary pe- riod. Therefore, in treating of the German epics of the twelfth century, I shall select the three greatest repre- sentatives, and say nothing of the crowd of inferior singers who imitated them. It is remarkable that we know so little of the lives of these three principal epic poets. We can only conjec- ture, from some collateral evidence, the probable time when they were born and died. Gottfried von Stras- burg seems to have first died, and Wolfram von Eschen- bach to have outlived Hartmann von Aue. I shall com- mence with the last, as certainly the least endowed. It is unknown whether he was of Swiss or of Suabian birth; it is only known that he was noble. He was one of the crusaders under Barbarossa, devoted himself to poetry after his return, and died somewhere between 1210 and 1220. He seems to have enjoyed a great deal of popularity, and Gottfried of Strasburg, in his ^^ Tristan" ranks him high above Wolfram von Eschenbach, proba- bly because the latter was a more dangerous rival. Hartmann von Aue wrote four epics — "^reA-," "6^re- goriiis vom Steine'' (Gregory of the Rock), "Der arme JSeinrich" (Poor Henry \ and "/^rem." Three of these THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 69 were based on foreign originals, from wliicli tliey differ only in a few details and in manner of treatment. One, the " Poor Henry," appears to have been derived from a tradition in the poet's own family, or, at least, in his native province. For the subject of his '^Erek,'' I refer you to Tennyson's poem of "Enid," in his "Idylls of the King." In Hartmann's epic Enid is also the wife, but the husband is named Erek instead of Geraint. The story is almost exactly the same, except that Tennyson reconciles Geraint with his wife imme- diately after the slaughter of Earl Doorm in his castle, while Hartmann first adds another adventure. He brings Erek to the castle of Brandigan (Burgundy?), whose lord has overcome eighty knights in combat, and holds their eighty ladies imprisoned. Erek slays the lord of Brandigan, liberates the ladies, and then goes with Enid to Arthur's Court. It may interest you to compare corresj^onding passages from the German cru- sader and the modern English poet : Nu kam ez also nacli ir site, Now happened it as was their wont, daz er umb einen mitten tac Tliat lie, about the warm noon- tide an ir arme gelac. Was sleeping by her side. Nu gezam des wol der sunnen The sun therein so faii-ly beamed schin, daz er dienest muoste sin. That he their servant seemed, wand er den gelieben zwein When he the wedded pair durch ein vensterglas schein So through the window there unt het die kemenaten Did light, that in the room, liehtes wol beraten. There nothing was of gloom. 70 GERMAN LITERATURE. daz si sich mohten underselien. Daz ir von fluochen was gesclie- lien, da begunde se denken an : vil galies rulite si liin dan ; si wande, daz er sliefe. Einen siuften nam si tiefe unde sach in vaste an ; si sprach : " We dir, vil armer man, unt mir ellendem wibe, daz ich bi minem libe s6 manegeu fluocli veruemen sol ! " D6 vernam Erec die rede wol. Als si der rede bet gedaget, Erec sprach: " Fro we Enite, saget, waz sint iwer sorgen, die ir da klaget verborgen ? " Nu wolde sis gelougent ban ; Erec sprach : " Lat die rede stan ; des nemet in ein zil, daz ich die rede wizzen wil. Ir miiezet mir benamen sagen, waz ich inch da horte klagen, daz ir vor mir sns habt verswi- gen/' Si vorhte, daz si wurde gezigen von im ander dinge unt seite imz mit gedinge ; daz er ir daz gehieze, daz erz ane zorn lieze. And they each other well could see. Then fell to thinking she. That he, through her, was exe- crate ; Thence was her trouble swift and great ; She thought he was asleep ; Now sigheth she full deep. And looketh on him steadily. She said : "Poor man, alas for thee And me, thy miserable wife. That ever in my life So many curses should receive ! " All this did Erek well perceive : When she that speech had fin- ished, Tell me, Dame Enid," Erek said, ^Yhat then may be your pain. That you so secretly complain ? " Now when deny would she. Said Erek : " Let your talking be; And be your duty so. As I your words desire to know. Verily you must say again What now I heard you sore com- plain. What you from me have thus concealed." She feared lest there might be revealed To him, quite other thing. And spoke, he promising To hear withouten wrath. What now she spoken hath. THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 71 Als er vernam die maere, When he the story heard waz diu rede waere, What was her spoken word, ersprach: " Der rede ist gnuoc "Enough of speech!" then said getan ! " te. Zehant hiez er si uf stan. He bade her rise, get ready, daz si sich wol kleite And dress herself with care unte an leite In garments fair, daz beste gewalte. Donning the best array daz si lender haete. That In her presses lay. Sinen knaben er seite, The page he bade with speed daz man im sin ros bereite Prepare his own strong steed, und ir phiirt der fro wen Eniten ; Dame Enid's palfrey there be- side ; er sprach, er wolde riten He said that he would ride uz kurzwilen : For pastime far away : des begunden si do ilen. So forward hastened they. Tennyson's " Enid " : " At last it chanced that on a summer mom (They sleeping each by other) the new sun Beat thro' the Mindless casement of the room, And heated the strong warrior in his dreams : Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside. And bared the knotted column of his throat. The massive square of his heroic breast. And arms on which the standing muscle sloped. As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone. Running too vehemently to break upon it. And Enid woke and sat beside the couch, Admiring him, and thought within herself. Was ever man so grandly made as he ? Then, like a shadow, past the people's talk And accusation of uxoriousness Across her mind, and bowing over him, Low to her own heart, piteously she said : " ' noble breast, and all-puissant arms. Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men ileproach you, saying all your force is gone? 72 GERMAN LITERATURE. I am the cause, because I dare not speak And tell him what I think and what they say. And yet I hate that he should linger here ; I cannot love my ord and not his name. Far liever had I gird his harness on him, And ride with him to battle and stand by, And watch his mightful hand striking great blows At caitifEs and at wrongers of the world. Far better were I laid in the dark earth, Not hearing any more his noble voice, Not to be folded more in these dear arms. And darkened from the high light in his eyes. Than that my lord thro' me should suffer shame. Am I so bold, and could I so stand by. And see my dear lord wounded in the strife. Or may be pierced to death before mine eyes. And yet not dare to tell him what I think. And how men slur him, saying all his force Is melted into more effeminacy? O me, I fear that I am no true wife.* "Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke. And the strong passion in her made her weep True tears upon his broad and naked breast, And these awoke him, and by great mischance He heard but fragments of her later words. And that she feared she was not a true wife. And then he thought, ' In spite of all my care. For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains. She is not faithful to me, and I see her Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur's hall.* Then tho' he loved and reverenced her too much To dream she could be guilty of foul act. Right thro' his manful breast darted the pang That makes a man, in the sweet face of her "Whom he loves most, lonely and miserable. At this he hurl'd his huge limbs out of bed. And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried, * My charger and her palfrey,' then to her, ' I will ride forth into the wilderness ; THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 73 For tho' it seems my spurs are yet to win, I have not fall'n so low as some would wish. And you, put on your worst and meanest dress And ride with me.' And Enid ask'd, amaz'd, ' If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault.' But he, ' I charge you, ask not, but obey.' " These passages illustrate not only tlie common source from which both poets derived their material, but also the different manner of treatment between a poet of the twelfth century and one of the nineteenth. Tennyson has endeavored to imitate the old epic simplicity — rather the Greek, it is true, than the German or Anglo- Saxon — but he cannot escape the atmosphere of our day. As compared with Hartmann von Aue, he has less of simple, direct, natural narration, iand much more both of description and of subjective stady of character. I will pass over "Gregory of the Rock," founded on an obscure legend concerning Pope Gregory VII., which will not well bear repeating, and come to the ^^ Arme Heinrich.'" Here, again, the material has been used by a living poet, and you all are — or ought to be — familiar with it. The author is Longfellow, and the poem is the "Golden Legend." Instead of Heinrich von Aue, Long- fellow calls the hero Prince Henry of Hoheneck, and gives him Walther von der Vogelweide as a friend. He takes only the thread of the story from Hartmann — the incurable disease, the self-sacrifice of the maiden, the journey to Salerno, and the happy termination of the story in her marriage with the prince, and has so en- 4: 74 GEKMAN LITERATURE. ricliecl and adorned it with tlie fairest suggestions of liis own genius tliat it becomes a new creation. Certainly no more exquisitely finished and harmonious poetical work has been written in this country than the " Golden Legend." Hartmann's last ej^ic, "Iwein,'' is taken from the tradi- tions of King Arthur and the Round Table. The name Iioein is the Welsh Evan, the Eussian Ivan, the English John. The poem, except toward its close, is a repeti- tion of the adventures of the Knight Iwein, as related in the Welsh Mabinogion. This, no less than his other epics, bears the stamp of elegant mediocrity. His verse is carefully constructed, the separate episodes are often well narrated, but the characters are not consistent nor properly sustained, and the poem becomes wearisome to one accustomed to better models. Nevertheless, among the German critics there are very different verdicts pronounced upon Hartmann von Aue. Some consider him an undoubted master, com- bining sentiment, power and purity of style: others condemn him for a total lack of high poetic instinct. Grimm, curiously enough, has expressed himself on both sides of the question in different works. If we avoid either extreme, yet place him decidedly below both Gottfried and Wolfram, I think we shall come nearer fixing his true place. But his importance in his age cannot be fairly estimated by our modern literary stand- ards. The very smoothness and polish, which become TBE MEDIEVAL EPICS. 75 SO wearisome to us when they are not penetrated with the presence of a strong informing spirit, may have been an agency of culture, as well as a charm, to his contem- poraries. Of Gottfried von Strasburg, we only know that he was probably a native of the city for which he is named ; that he was not of noble family, but well edu- cated, and apparently in good circumstances, and that he must have died, still comparatively young, before 1210. One of the old manuscripts has a portrait which represents him as a young man with long, curling locks, but its authenticity cannot be relied upon. He was perhaps a personal friend of Hartmann von Aue : it is not known that he ever met Wolfram von Eschenbach. Gottfried also drew the subject of his one epic, " TW-s- f«??," from English and French sources. It had even been used before him by a German poet, Eilhart von Oberg, who, some thirty years before him, wrote a poem called ^^ Tristan'' in the Low-German language. Like the ^'Erel-''' and ^^Arme Heinricli'' of Hartmann, you will find the substance of the story in poems by tAvo living authors —in Tennyson's Idyll of "The Last Tournament," and in the " Tristram and Iseult " of Matthew Arnold. The plot, in its general outline, has a resemblance to the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, but it is more tragic, because the element of magic is introduced, and the final sorrow is thus not the consequence of voluntary sin. It is, in fact, one of the most touching and beautiful of all those 76 GERM AX LITERATURE. purely romantic legends wliich were so popular over all Europe during the Middle Ages. None of tlie charac- ters are historical : it seems to have had no original connection with the Arthurian stories, although it was afterward attached to them, and its invention is ascribed to some Celtic minstrel of Brittany. The outline of the story is so simple that it may be told in a few words. Mark, the king of Cornwall, who resided at the castle' of Tintagil, so famous as the resi- dence of Uther, the father of Arthur, had a nephew, Tristan or Tristram, who was the most gallant and ac- complished knight of his court. The king of Ireland, having promised the hand of his daughter Iseult, Isut, or Isolde, as the name is differently written, to King Mark, Tristan was sent to bring the bride to Cornwall. On leaving Ireland, Iseult' s mother gave her daughter's attendant lady, Brangaene by name, a love-potion to be secretly administered to her and her royal bridegroom on the day of their nuptials, in order to secure their wedded bliss. But the magic elixir was administered, by mistake, to Tristan and Iseult, during the voyage from Ireland to Cornwall. This fixed the destiny of both during the remainder of their lives. The spell compelled them to love each other, though separated by holy vows. The truth was soon discovered at the Court of Cornwall, and Tristan, to avoid his uncle's wrath, went to Brittany, where he met another Iseult — she is sometimes called Iseult of Brittany and some- TEE MEDIEVAL EPICS. 77 times Iseult of the White Hands — whom he married, more out of gratitude than love. But the infection of the magic potion was still in his blood : he wandered forth, tormented by his passion, and became the hero of many daring exploits which made his name famous in Britain. At last, sick, worn, and wounded nigh unto death he returned to Iseult of the White Hands, who is represented as a sweet, forbearing and forgiving woman. Her nursing was of no avail ; and a messenger was sent to bring Queen Iseult of Cornwall, who alone could heal him. She fled from King Mark's Court, crossed to Brit- tany in a wild storm, and reached Tristan's castle just in time to see him die. Her heart broke, and she sank dead beside his corpse. Another version, which I pre- fer not to believe — in fact, refuse to believe — states that the vessel which was to bring Iseult of Cornwall was to hoist white sails on returning, if she was on board ; but black sails, if it came without her. Iseult of Brittany bribed the captain to hoist black sails, in either case. When the ship was seen afar, and the color of the sails was reported to Tristan, he died in disappointment and despair : Iseult of Cornwall found only his dead body. King Mark, w^ho had learned the story of the magic potion, had them buried side by side. He planted over Iseult a rose, and over Tristan a grape-vine, which twined themselves around each other as they grew, and could not be separated. It is curious how this last particular has lived to this day in the Ballad of Lord 78 GERMAN LITERATURE. Lovel, wliicli is still sung by the country people of Eng- land : ' ' And out of lier breast tliere grew a red rose, And out of liis breast a brier." This is, of course, only the slightest framework of the story. Gottfried is a more daring and original poet than Hartmann; in the scenes and ejDisodes, from first to last, he allows his invention full play, and so enriches and extends the material that, although his poem con- tains thirty books and twenty thousand lines, it was ter- minated by his death when only two-thirds had been written. Both the choice of the subject and the man- ner of treatment give evidence of true literary feeling and skill, but not of that grand, independent disregard of former models or prevalent fashions which marks the pathfinder. He took the forms which he found, with all their monotony, their interminable diffuseness and tolerance of digressions. They became purer and stronger in his hands ; the great mass constantly moves with life, but it still lacks that harmony and mu- tual dependence of parts, that organic unity, which every great literary work must possess. There are many passages which may be read with delight, but the perusal of the whole v>^ork becomes a rather serious task. ^^ Tristan' commences with an Eingang, or Introduction, in which the author explains his reasons for writing the poem, and the service which he thereby hoj^es to ren- THE .MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 79 der to tlie noble and loving among men. In the very first stanza we recognize liis cliaracteristic style : Gedaelite man ir ze guote nilit, von den der werlde guot ge- schilit, so waere ez allez alse nilit, swaz guotes in der werlt ge- schiht. If we the good sliould never heed, That haps on earth, as is de- creed, Then were it nothing worth, in- deed. That any good should be de- creed. Another stanza, quite as terse and sound, is : Tiur' unde wert ist mir der man, Dear and worthy is the man der guot and iibel betrahten kan. Who good and evil study can : der mich und iegelichen man Who me and every other man nach sinem werde erkennen At his true value measure can. kan. The first book describes the loves of Prince Eeivalin, the father of Tristan, and Blanchefloeur, his mother, the sister of King Mark. Their meeting in the spring- time reminds us of the similar scene in the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. There is such a charming brightness and freshness in the lines, that I must quote the passages diu senfte sueze sumerzit diu haete ir sueze numiiezekeit mit siiezem flize an si geleit. diu kleinen waltvogelin, diu des oren froude solen sin, The soft and tender summer air Disturbed the summer idlesse there, And woke sweet industry, and fair. The little wood-birds singing clear. It should be such a joy to hear, 80 GERMAN LITERATURE. bluomen, gras, loup unde Muot und swaz dem ougen sanfte tuot und edele lierze erfrouwen sol, des was diu sumerouwe vol : man vant da, swaz man wolte, daz der mcie bringen solte : den scliate bi der sunnen, die linden bi dem brnnnen, die senften linden ■wdnde, die Markes ingesinde sin wesen engegene maclieten. die liebten bluomen lacheten uz dem betouwetem grase . des meien friunt, der grliene wase, der baete uz bluomen ane geleit so wunneclicbin sumerkleit, daz si den lieben gesten in ir ougen widerglesten. diu siieze boumbluot sacli den man so rehte suoze lacliende an, daz sich daz L.ei:ze uud al der muot wider an die lacliende bluot mit spilnden ougen machete uud ir allez wider lacbete. daz senfte vogelgedoene, das siieze, daz seboene, daz oren unde muote vil dicke kumet ze guote. Blossoms, grass, and leaves on trees. And wbat the eye may gently please. And joy to noble hearts may yield. Of that was the summer-mea, dow filled. All one wished was gathered then Of what the May-time brings to men : Shade, when the sun would sting ; Lindens beside the spring ; And soft, sweet winds that sent Where Mark's retainers went, A fresh delight to meet them : And the bright buds laughed to greet them, In the dewy grass that day ; And the green turf, the friend of May, Wove from its own loveliness So delightful a summer dress That in the guests' glad eyes 'Twas mirrored in fairer wise. The bloom of trees looked down on men So openly, sweetly smiling then. That heart and mind and senses lent The dancing blood their light content. And forever made reply In the light of the merry eye. All notes the birds repeat, — So beautiful, so sweet, — That unto heart and ear So goodly 'tis to hear. THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 81 daz fulte da berc unde tal. Rang there from hill and dale, diu saelige nahtegal. And the hUssful nightingale — daz liebe siieze vogelin. The dear, sweet birdling she daz iemer siieze mueze sin, That ever sweet shall he, daz kallete uz der blilete From out the blossoms trolled mit solher iibermiiete, So clear and over-bold, daz da mane edele herze van That many a noble heart that heard, froud' unde hohen muot gewan. Took joy and hope from the happy bird. I have not space to describe the wealth of pictur- esque incidents with wliich Gottfried has amplified the story. Tristan is brought up as the son of Eual in Bjittanj, is carried off by the Norwegians, shipwrecked on the coast of Cornwall, and becomes, as a boy, hunter and minstrel at the Court of King Mark. Rual wanders over the world to find him, comes finally to Tint;'gil and discloses his relationship to the king, after which there are many adventures before Iseult enters upon the scene. The last book describes Tristan's wooing of Iseult with the White Hands in Brittany. He sings at the Court of the old Duke Jovelin, her father, a pas- sionate song with the refrain, in the French of that day : " Isot, ma drue, Isot m'amie, en vus ma mort, en vus ma vie ! " thinking in his heart only of Iseult of Ireland, while the ladies and knights imagine that he is celebrating her of the White Hands. Among other quaint and curious episodes, the twenty- fifth book is taken up with the account of a little dog 4* 82 GERMAN LITERATURE. named Petitcriu, whicli a fairy in Avalon had presented to Gilan, tlie Duke of Wales. The hair of the dog shimmered in all bright colors, and around its neck there was a bell, the sound of which banished all sor- row from the heart of him who heard it. Tristan wins Petitcriu from Duke Gilan, and sends him to Iseult, whose sorrow for her absent lover is instantly soothed when she hears the bell ; but, remembering that Tristan is wandering alone and unconsoled, she takes the bell from the dog's neck and throws it into the sea. I find no better specimen of Gottfried's narrative style than the passage where Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink the love-]Dotion : Nu man gelante in eine habe : nu gie daz vole almeiste abe durcli banekie uz an daz lant ; nu gienc oucb Tristant ze bant begrtiezen unde bescbouwen die liebten sine vrouwen. Und als er zuozir nider gesaz, unt redeten diz unde daz von ir beider dingen, er bat ini trinken bringen. Nune was da niemen inne an die kiineginne, wan kleiniu juncfrouwelin ; der einez spracb : " Sebt, bie stat win Now tbev a barbor came unto, Wbere nearly all tbe vessel's crew Went fortb to land, on pastime bent ; And Tristan, also, straigbtwaj went To greet, witb bliss o'erladen, Tbe brigbtness of tbe maiden. And as be tbus beside ber sat, And tbey bad spoken of tbis and tbat, Of tbings concerning botb, Said be : "To drink I were not loatb." Now was tbere no one tbere. Beside tbe Princess fair, But one small waiting-maid : Tbe wine is bere," sbe said. THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 83 in disem vazzeline." Neiu ! ezii was nilit mit •wine, docli ez im geliche waere, ez was din waernde swaere, diu endelose lierzenot, von der si beide lagen tot. Nu was ab ir daz unrekant : si stuont uf unt gie liin ze liant, da daz tranc und daz glas verborgen unt bebalten was. Tristande, ir meister, bot si daz ; er bot Isote viirbaz : si tranc ungerne und ilberlanc, unt gap do Tristand, unde er tranc, unt wanten beide, ez waere wun. le mitten gienc oucli Brangaen in, unde erkande daz glas, unt sacb wol, waz der rede was. Si ersclirac so sere unde erkani, daz ez ir alle ir kraft benam, unt wart relit als ein tote var. Mit totem lierzen gie si dar : si nam daz leide veige vaz, si truog ez dannen unt warf daz in den tobenden wilden se. ■ Owe mir armen," sprach se, " owe 1 Witbin tbis flagon fine." All, no ! It was not wine : Though wine's hue it might bor- row, 'Twas filled with coming sorrow, With endless heart-pain brim- ming high, Whence both at last must die. But she thereof was ignorant : She rose, and straightway thith- er went. Innocent and unchidden, Where glass and drink were hid- den ; Brought to Tristjin, her master brave, Who first to Iseult gave. She first refused, then drank and laughed, And gave to Tristan, and he quaffed : They both imagined, it was wine. Then came Brangaene, saw the shine Of that bright flagon, knew it well. And did forbode the coming spell. So great her terror was, that she Lost force and senses utterly. And she became as are the dead. With deathly heart then forth she sped, That fatal flagon of all the w-orld Took with her, threw, and down- ward hurled Into the wild and raging sea. Ah, woe ! " she cried, " 0, mis- erable me ! 84 GEUMAK LITERATURE. daz ich zer werlde ie wart geborn ! Ich anne, wie lian ich verlorn min ere unt mine triuwe ! Daz ez Got iemer riuwe, daz ich an dise reise ie kam, daz mich der tot do niht ennam, do ich an dise veige vart Mit Isote ie bescheiden wart ! Owe Tristan unde Isot ! diz iranc ist iuwer beider tot ! " Nu daz diu maget und der man, Isot unde Tristan, den tranc getfunken beide, sa was ouch der werlde unmuoze da, Minne, aller herzen lagerin, Tint sleich zir beider herzen in. E sis ie wurden gewar, do stiez se ir sigevanen dar, unt zoch si beide in ir gewalt : si wurden ein und einyalt, die zwei unt zwivalt waren e : si zwei en waren do niht me widerwertic under in : Isote haz, der was do hin. Diu suonerinne Minne, diu haete ir beider sinne von hazze also gereinet, mit liebe also vereinet. That ever to the world was born! 0, wretched me, how am I shorn Of honor and fidelity ! Xow God's great pity granted be, That ever I this journey made, — That death had not the purpose stayed. Or ever on this voyage of woe With Iseult I should go ! Iseult and Tristan — fatal draught ! 'Tis woe and death to both that quaffed ! " Now that the maiden and the man. Fair Iseult and Tristan, Both drank the drink, upon them pressed What gives the world such sore unrest, — Love, skilled in sly and prowling arts. And swiftly crept in both their hearts : So, ere of him they were aware. Stood his victorious banners there. He drew them both into his power : One and single were they that hour That two and twofold were be- fore. They twain were verily no more Opposed thence, under his sway ; For Iseult's hate had flown away. The troubled senses of the two Sweet Love, the Expiator, knew. Made clean of hate that blighted, Gave love that so united. THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 85 daz ietweder dem andern was durliluter als ein s^jigelglas. Si liaeteu beide ein herze ; ir swaere was sin smerze, sin smerze was ir swaere ; si waren beide ein baere an liebe unde an leide, unt lifden sicb doch beide, unt tete daz zwivel unde scbam si scliamte sich, er tete alsam ; zi zwivelte an im, er an ir. That either to the other was More crystal-clear than mirror- glass. Both had one heart between them, Her pain became his sorrow, His sorrow was her pain ; And both were fondly fain SufEering to share, and bliss •, Yet hid the sense of this And felt both doubt and shame : She was abashed, and he the same ; He doubted her, she doubted him. The clearness and purity of tlie language will make themselves felt, even by one who is only slightly fa- miliar with the German of the Middle Ages. Of all the Minnesingers and courtly epic poets, I find that Gott- fried and Walther von der Vogelweide offer the least difficulty to the modern reader, — for the same reason that Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" is the English book most easily read by a German: they combine elegance of style and the nicest choice of epithets with the greatest simplicity and fluency. To one already ac- quainted with German, the poets of the Middle Ages are more rapidly understood through the ear than through the eye, because the rules of spelling have been varied much more, during the last five or six hundred years, than those of pronunciation. The latter, in fact, still exists as a vulgar dialect, in the mountain regions of Central Germany. I have quoted, 86 GEI^MAX LITERATURE. purposely, the original text instead of tlie transla- tions into Modern German, because I think a little attention will enable you to understand it nearly as well, and something of its peculiar racy flavor will always be felt, even when not entirely understood. If you are familiar with Tennyson's poem of " The Last Tournament," in his "Idylls of the King," I beg you to notice the violence he has done to the original legend. He quite omits the episode of the magic love- potion, and presents Tristan and Iseult to us as a pair of common sinners. It is this very magic spell — the equivalent of the Fate of the Greek tragedies — which moves our deepest symjDathies, and ennobles the two characters. Tristan cannot escape his devotion, in the legend ; he is made faithful by a fatal spell ; but Tenny- son makes him sing : " Free love ; fi'ee field ; we love but while we may ! " Gottfried von Strasburg certainly possesses, in a very high degree, the talent of poetic narrative. We may tire of his interminable details, when reading several books of ''Tristan' connectedly ; but we may open the work anywhere, and we strike at once upon life, move- ment, brightness. The uniformity of the short iambic measure, which allows little variety of cadence, is not favorable to a long epic poem ; but the authors of that age seem to have known only this measure and a rather rough alexandrine. The iambic pentameter appears in their lyrics, and moves with both sweetness and dig- THE MEDIEVAL EPICS 87 nity ; yet it never occurred to them to use it in narra- tive poetry. I shall last notice him whom I consider the greatest of the courtly minstrels — Wolfram von Eschenbach. Although he was a noble, we know less of his personal history than of that of the peasant Walther. The date of his birth is unknown ; even the place is uncertain, al- though the village of Eschenbach, in Franconia — some fifty miles west of Nuremberg — has been fixed upon by most scholars. He was wholly uneducated — could not even read or write ; — the materials of his epics were read to him by others, and his own verses were dictated to scribes. He lived for many years at the court of the Landgraf Hermann of Thuringia, in the Wartburg, and after the latter's death is supposed to have been driven away by the severe piety of his son Ludwig and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. He died somewhere about the year 1230. When, in reading Gottfried von Strasburg's ''Tristan" I came upon the passage in the eighth book, where he speaks of Hartmann von Aue, how he "through and through colors and adorns a story, how clear and pure is the crystal current of his words," — followed by a reference to Wolfram von Eschenbach, as " the inventor of all strange things, hunter of wild stories," — I could not reconcile the unfriendly words Avith the place and fame of the two authors. There is no probability that they ever met, or some personal enmity of Gottfried 88 GERMAJSr LITERATURE. miglit explain tlie passage. But, after more carefully examining Wolfram von Esclienbacli's epics, I am satis- fied that the radical difference between the poetic con- stitutions of the two men, together with the despotism of conventional tastes in their day, furnish a sufficient explanation. If you take the two men — one blond, blue-eyed, joyous, graceful, sympathetic, and one dark, brooding, with deep-set, inscrutable eyes, irregular in his movements, abstracted and proud — and ^\\i them into garments of the same stuff and the same cut, you will have an illustration of the difference between Gott- fried's ''Tristan' and Wolfram's "ParzivaJr The change of spirit and atmosphere is so marked, that one need not be a critical scholar to feel it. I have quoted the open- ing lines of the former epic : now take the opening of ''Farzival " : 1st zwivel lierzen nahgebtir, Is doubt a neigliborto tbe lieart, daz muoz der sele werden sur ? That to the soul must be a smartl gesmaeliet unde gezieret Disgrace and honor bide ist, swa sich parrieret As equals, side by side, unverzaget mannes muot. In the strong man and bold, als agelestern varwe tuot. Like magpie's hue twofold, der mac dennoch wesen geil, Yet may he joyful be, wand' an ime sint beidin teil When unto both sides free, des himeles und der helle. To heaven and to hell, der unstaete geselle But when he's false and fell, hat die swarzen varwe gar. Then black's his hue in verity, und wirt ochnahder vinstervar : And near to darkness standeth he: so habet sich an die blanken So he who steadfast is, and right, der mit staeten gedanken. Holds only to the color white. THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 89 diz fliegende bispel This flying parable, I wis ist turn ben liuten gar ze snel, Too fast for silly people is ; sine mugen's niht erdenken ; They cannot come the meaning nigh, wand' ez kan vor in wenken Since it before their minds will rehte alsam ein schelles base. Even as flies a frightened hare. Here we feel, in the very first words, tlie presence of a metaphysical or rather psychological element : the sense is compact, and the lines move as if with a different step, although the measure is the same as in "Tristan" There are none of those sparkling epithets which entice us on from point to point ; but, on the other hand, we feel the touch of a grave and lofty intelligence, to whom the thought is more than its external form. In Wolfram the poetic nature seems to move forward centuries, at a single stride ; but the poetic art fails to keep pace with it. Even the language no longer seems the same : the construction is unnecessarily forced, uneven, and im- presses us like a different dialect, until we perceive that it is only the dialect of an individual mind, our insight into which will furnish us the key. The name is our English Percival, and the hero is that knight of Arthur's Eound Table, who alone saw the Holy Grail, after the transfiguration of Sir Gala- had which Tennyson describes in the second of his last volume of Idylls. A Provencal poem by Guiot, and the French legend of " Chretien de Troyes'' seem to have been Wolfram's chief authorities for the story; but he has 90 GERM AX LITERATURE. amplified and enriched it, not like Gottfried in "Tristan,'^ for the delight of picturesque narrative, but with refer- ence to the spiritual symbolism which pervades it. The search for the Holy Grail — the San Graal — the cup from which Christ drank at the last supper with his dis- ciples, is one of the most mysteriously beautiful legends of the Middle Ages. Galahad, whom Tennyson has celebrated, is not mentioned by Wolfram. The story, as he tells it in ^'Farzival/' is so rich in details, that I cannot take time to repeat them : the rudest outline must suffice. The poem commences with the adventures of Gamuret of Anjou, the father of Parzival, who, after becoming King of Wales and Norway and marrying Queen Herze- leide, dies in Bagdad. The sorrowing Queen retires into the desert of Soltane, and brings up Parzival as a peasant-boy. When he grows up« and sees the gay knights riding by, he begs leave to go out and seek adventures, and his mother finally consents, but puts on him a fool's cap and bells. After overcoming various knights, he reaches Arthur's court, but is not yet ad- mitted to the Eound Table. An old knight, named Gurnemanz, teaches him knightly mamiers, and sends him forth with the caution not to ask many questions. He rescues the Queen Condwiramur from King Cla- mide of Brandigan, marries her and becomes King of Brobarz. On his way to visit his mother, after these events, he comes to a castle beside a lake. The King, THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 91 with four linndred kniglits, sits at a table in a splendid liall, and all are fed by the miraculous 2:)Ower of the Holy Grail, which the Queen places upon the table. The King bleeds from a wound, and the knights are overcome with sorrow, but Parzival, who is most hos- pitably treated, asks no question. On leaving, he learns, too late, that he has been inMonsalvalsche, the castle of the Grail, and should have asked the King the cause of his wound. Soon after this, Arthur, who has heard of Parzival's wonderful exploits, leaves his capital of Car- duel to seek him. After fighting, incognito, with several, he is recognized by Gawain, and becomes a member of the Round Table. Several books are devoted to the adventures of both Parzival and Gawain, in their search for the Grail. Neither finds it, but both perform wonders of bravery, strength and self-denial. Toward the close, without any apparent reason for the preference given, or the sudden change of destiny, a sorceress announces to Par- zival, at Arthur's table, that he has been cliosen King of the Grail. He thereupon goes to the lost castle, heals the former King, by asking him the cause of his wound, and declares his son Lohengrin, — who after- ward, as the Knight of the Swan, becomes the hero of a romantic legend, — King of Wales, Norway, Anjou and several other countries. This is a very insufficient sketch of the story, but the episodes are so attached to each other, by the associated 92 GERMAN LITERATURE. fates of the different characters, that they cannot easily be separated. The author's peculiar genius is mani- fested in every part, and thus the work has a spiritual coherence which distinguishes it from all other epics of the age. Parzival is not a mere form of action — a doer of deeds, like Hartmann's EreTc ; or a heroic lover, like Gottfried's Tristan: he is a pure, noble, aspiring soul, and the Grail is to him the symbol of a loftier life. Many scholars, indeed, consider that he represents the life of the spirit, and Gawain the life of the world, and they have found a more j)ervading and elaborate alle- gorical character in the work than, I think, was ever intended by its author. But in regard to the tendency of his genius, we cannot be mistaken. I must confess that the more I study the poem, the more I find a spiritual meaning shining through its lines. The perfect innocence and purity of Parzival, as a boy, are wonderfully drawn : the doubts of his age of manhood, the wasted years, the trouble and gloom which brood over him, suggest a large background of earnest thought ; and, although the symbolism of the Holy Grail may not be entirely clear, it means at least this much — that peace of soul comes only through Faith and Obedience. Like Tennyson's Galahad, Wolfram seems to say, in Parzival : " I muse on joy tliat will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Wliose odors haunt my dreams.'* THE MEDIEVAL EPICS. 93 To Wolfram von Eschenbacli, the external shows of life were but disguises through which he sought to trace the action of the moral and spiritual forces which develop the human race. His psychological instincts were too profound for a simple tale of knightly adven- ture ; he was not enough of a literary artist to arrange his conceptions of man's nature into a symmetrical form, and then to represent them completely through his characters; and thus we find, in "Farzwcd,'' a struggle between the two elements — between thought and lan- guage, between idea and action. This peculiarity is at first a disturbance to the reader, but it does not prevent him from feeling the latent, underlying unity of the work. The parting of Queen Herzeleide from her son Parzi- val is one of the simpler passages, yet even here we find some of Wolfram's characteristic expressions : Der knappe tump unde wert The boy, silly yet brave in- deed, iescb von der mnoter dicke ein Oft from his mother begged a pfert. steed. daz begiinde se in ir herzen That in her heart did she la- klagen. ment : sie dahte " i'n wil im niht ver- She thought: "him must I sagen : make content, ez muoz aber vil boese sin." Yet must the thing an evil be." do gedahte mer diu kiinegin, Thereafter further pondered she: " der liute vil bi spotte siut. " The folk are prone to ridicule, toren kleider sol min kint My child the garments of a fool ob sime liehten libe tragen. Shall on his shining body wear, wirt er geroufet unt geslagen, If he be scoffed and beaten there, 94 GERMAN LITERATURE. so kumet er mir lier wider wol." owe der jaemerliclien dol ! diu f rouwe nam ein sactuocli : sie sneit im hemede unde bruocli, daz doch an eime stucke er- scliein, unz enmitten an sin blankez bein. daz wart f lir toren kleit erkant. sin gugel man obene drufe vant. al friscli ruch kelberin von einer hut zwei riballin nacb sinen beinen wart gesniten. da wart groz jamer niht vermiten. din kilnegin w^s also bedalit, sie bat beliben in die nalit. dune solt nilit liinnen keren, ich wil dicb list e leren. an uugebanten strazen, soltu tunkel f ilrte lazen : die sihte unde luter sin, da solte al balde riten in. du solt dicli site nieten, der werelde griiezen bieten. op dicli ein gra wise man zuht wil lern als er wol kan, dem soltu gerne volgen, und wis im niht erbolgen. sun, la dir bevolhen sin, swa du guotes wibes vingerlin mligest erwerben unt ir gruoz, daz nim : ez tuot dir kumbers buoz. Percbance lie'll come to me again." Ab, me, bow wretched was her pain ! The dame a piece of sackcloth seeks, And cuts therefrom a shirt and breeks, Tbat both in one they seem to be, And reach below to the white knee. For a fool's dress known was that, And up above a pointed hat. Then from a fresh, rough heifer's hide Stuff for two shoes did she di- vide, And cut them so to fit his feet ; And still her dole was great. The Queen considered all aright. And bade him tarry over night. ' Hence not sooner shalt thou go^ Ere I to thee shall wisdom show. Shun untraveled road : Leave dark ways unt rode ; If they are sure and fair, Enter and journey there. Strive to be courteous then. Offer thy greeting to men. If thee a gray wise man Duty will teach, as well he can, Willingly follow his rede. And auger him not with deed. Son, be advised this thing : If thou a good dame's ring And her greeting may'st win to thee. Take : and thy troubles shall lighter be. IHE MEDn^VAL EPICS. 95 du solt z'ir kusse gahen und ir lip vast' iimbevahen : daz git geliicke und liohen muot, op sie kiusclie ist unde guot." Hasten to kiss her face, And to clasp her in firm em- brace ; For, when she is good and pure, 'Twill good luck and courage in- sure." As a specimen of his descriptiye style, I will quote some lines from the fifth book, where, in the magic cas- tle of Monsalviilsche, the Queen, Repanse de Sclioie, brings the Holy Grail to the King's table : Sie nigen. ir zwuo do truogen They bowed. Then twain of dar them did bear uf die tavelen wol gevar The silver to the tables fair daz silber, unde leiten'z nider. Full carefully, and there did place : do giengen sie mit ziihten wider And they returned with modest grace zuo den ersten zwelven san. To the first twelve within the hall, ob i 'z gepriievet rehte han, If I have rightly counted all, hie sulen ahzehen frouwen sten. Must there now'eighteen ladies be. Behold! six others next we avoy nu siht man sehse gen in waete die man tiure gait : daz was halbez plialt, daz ander pfell' von Xinnive. dise unt die ersten sehse e truogen zwelf rocke geteilet, gein tiwerr kost geveilet. All clad in cloth men precious hold: The stuff was half of silk and gold, Muslin of Nineveh the rest. These, and the first six, thus were drest Alike in mantles two - fold wrought, And for a heavy treasure bought. 96 GERMAN LITERATURE. niicli den kom din kiinegin. Now after them advanced the Queen, ir antlitze gap den schin, With countenance of so bright a sheen, sie wanden alle ez wolde tagen. They all imagined day would dawn. man sach die maget an ir tragen One saw, the maiden was clothed on pfellel von Arabi. With muslin stuffs of Araby. uf einem griienen achmardi On a green silken cushion she truve sie den wunsch von par- The j^earl of Paradise did bear, dis, bede wurzeln unde ris. Complete, — root, branch, begin- ning, end, — daz was ein dine, daz hiez der The Grail it was, all-glorious, Gral, erden wunsches iiberwal. Repanse de schoye sie hiez, die sich der gral tragen liez. der gral was von solher art : wol muose ir kiusche sin be- That she who bore it must be fair, Beyond perfection Earth can lend. Repanse de Schoie, so runs the tale. Was name of her that bore the Grail ; And so its nature did endure. wart, diu sin ze rehte solde pflegen : pure. Of just and perfect heart, and strong diu muose valsches sich bewe- To frighten falsehood, sin and gen. Voreme grale komen lieht : diu warn von armer koste niht sehs glas lane luter wol getan, dar inne balsam der wol bran. do sie komen von der tiir ze rehter maze alsus her fiir. wrong. Before the Grail there came a light. The worth whereof was nothing slight : Six cups of dazzling crystal held A burning oil that balm dis- pelled. Now when, in proper order, all. Entering, had traversed the high halL THE MEDIEVAL EPIC 8. 97 mit ziihten neic diu klinegin The Queen bowed down with modest grace, und al diu juncfrouwelin And the six maidens bowed the face, die da truogen balsemvaz. WTio bore the cups of burning balm, diu klinegin valscheite laz The bJameless Queen, proud, pure and calm, sazte fur den wirt den gral. Before the host put down the Grail ; diz maere giht daz Parzival And Percival, so runs the tale, dicke an sie sach unt dahte. To gaze upon her did not fail, diu den gral da brahte. Who thither bore the Holy Grail. I have chosen those passages which illustrate Wol- fram's manner as a poet, especially as compared with Gottfried's. We have no means of estimating the influ- ence of either upon his day and generation. Gottfried's allusion indicates that there were rival audiences as well as authors, and, since we find the critics divided now, we may well believe that there was greater di- versity of opinion then. Wolfram's adherents would be among the thinkers, who were then rapidly increasing in number ; Gottfried's among the men of refinement and education. The latter may be called the literary ancestor of Wieland ; but Wolfram's lineal descendant, with a long line of generations between, was Goethe. Neither of the other two epics of Wolfram — " WiUe- halm'' and ^^TitureV — was completed: the latter was barely begun, at the time of his death. The " Wille- halm " celebrates the adventures of Wilhelm von Orange, 5 98 GERMAN LITERATURE. of Provence, tlie son of the Count of Narbonne, in his wars with the heathens. He undoubtedly followed a Provencal original in this, as in ''Parziv /," and was per- haps led to the theme by his admiration of Wilhelm's character. ^'Titurer' is an outgrowth from ^'FarzivaV : the same characters appear. It is written in a different metre, and shows, in the fragment which remains, a greater force ancl fluency of expression. Although the length of the last line interferes with the movement of the verses, it is easy to see how much more freely the author's thought carries itself, without losing any- thing of its subtlety and suggestiveness. I quote a few stanzas from the conversation of the two lovers, Schionatulander and Sigune : Sigune says : " Ich weiz wol, du bist lands unt " I know full well that tliou of liute groziu frouwe ; lands and people art the Queen ; des enger ich alles niht, wan daz I seek not that, so through thine din herze dur din ouge eyes thy heart be seen, schouwe, also daz ez den kumber min be- So that it doth perceive my denke : weight of sorrow ; nu hilf mir schiere, e daz din Then help me now, ere heart minn min herze und die and love a deeper trouble froude verkrenke." borrow ! The Queen answers : ** Swers6 minnehiit, dazsinminne "If one hath such a love that ist gevaere danger therein be, deheime als lieben friunde, als The unfitting word, to friend so du mir bist, daz wort unge- dear as thou to me, baere THE MEDIAEVAL EPICS. 99 wirt von mir nimer benennet I ne'er will name witli name of minne : love or lover : Got weiz wol, daz icL nie bekan- For, knowetli God, love's loss or de minnen fliist, noch ir ge- gain I never did discover. winne. "Minne, ist daz ein Er? malit du " For love, is it a He? Canst give minn mir diuten ? solution just ? Ist daz ein Sie ? Kumet mir minu. Is it a She ? So come it, how wie sol icli minne getriuten ? shall I dare trust ? Muoz icli sie behalten bi den Must love with dolls be left, and locken? childish rapture? Od fliuget minne ungerne uf hant Or flieth it out of hand in the durh die wilde ? ich kan woods ? I surely can recap- minn wol locken." ture." Here you will notice, not only the expression of the feeling, but also the tendency to speculate upon its nature, Avhich is a peculiarity of Wolfram von Eschen- bach. It is not too much to say that he was the only profound thinker among the German authors of the Middle Ages. Wolfram takes the same delight in many-syllabled geographic names, as Milton ; and there are many of his lines which ring with the same half-barbaric music as the latter's " Aspramont and Montalban." He is an un- lettered minstrel, with great qualities in the rough ; a man of high aims and noble aspirations, struggling with insurmountable limitations, and missing real greatness on account of them. In Gottfried's case, we have every- thing but the original quality of intellect ; but Wolfram, having that, misses the clear and harmonious form which must be added, chiefly through the want of the 100 GERMAN LITERATURE. culture wliicli Gottfried possessed. Could the two have been united in one individual, Germany would have had her great mediaeval poet, the equal of Dante. But the epithet great must be denied to this courtly literature. The influence of the church and of classic learning, though greatly weakened, was still too pow- erful to permit a positive departure from previous paths of thought. The new wine was poured into old bottles, but it was not quite strong enough to burst them. So, these epics remain as priceless illustra- tions of the growth of the German mind during the Middle Ages, of the long fermentation which clarified into purity and flavor centuries afterward, not immortal in their own solitary right, but from the circumstances out of which they grew. Add to them the lyric poetry of the Minnesingers, and we are astonished at the pro- ductiveness of the age. From this point we must date the commencement of a national culture ; for much of the great work of Charlemagne had been undone in the three centuries between him and the Hohenstaufens. If the literature of the latter period failed of its immediate and full efl'ect, through the re-intervention of political and ecclesia^^tical causes, it was none the less a basis of achievement upon which the race thenceforth stood ; and if w^e could read the secrets of History, we should perhaps find that the harp preserved for Germany a better possession than was lost to her by the sword. IV. THE NIBELUNGENLIEB. "We now come to tliat otlier literary element of the Middle Ages, which is of earlier origin than the courtly epics, but which only assumed its present form about the time when they were produced. I have called it the epic poetry of the People, because, more than any- thing else in the literature of the human race — not even excepting the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" — it has the character of a growth rather than a composition. "We may guess when its growth began; we can very nearly determine the time when that growth ended ; but there our knowledge stops. By whom, or under what cir- cumstances, the first legends came into being, — how they were kept alive, increased, transformed with each generation — who took the rude, shapeless, separated parts, and united them in one grand, coherent form, — are questions which cannot be positively answered. The more carefully we study the "NibehmgenUecl" and its history, the more we are impressed with its exceptional character. Unnoticed in the records of the ages; ignored, perhaps contemptuously disparaged by the minstrelsy of the courts ; kept alive only through the inherited fondness of the masses for their old tra- 101 102 GERMAN LITERATURE. ditious, it lias been almost miraculously preserved to us, to be now appreciated as the only strong, original crea- tion of tlie youth of the German race. The fact that we find in the ^' Nihelungenlied " traces of the ancient mythology, with various incidents which are given in the earliest prose Edda of the Scandina- vians, together with characters taken from the most stirring history of the Volker wander iing, or Migration of the Races, proves the antiquity of the material. But the anachronism of making Theodoric the Great, the Gothic King of Italy, and Attila, King of the Huns, contemporaries, also gives us a clue to the probable time when the two elements began to be fused together. Attila died in 453, and Theodoric in 526. The unedu- cated mass of people would soon forget dates, and con- fuse the events of former generations ; but some little time must be allowed to elapse before this could take place. The " oldest inhabitants " must first die, before the united legends could be publicly recited without their accuracy being disputed by some grey-haired lis- tener. We can hardly assume that the first blending of the different elements took place before the year 600, or much later than a century afterward. It is most prob- able that the collection made by Charlemagne included all that was in existence in his day ; but, that collection being lost, we are left without any record of the growth or changing character of the legend, until the tenth cen- tury. THE NIBELUNOENLIEB. 103 First of all, I must recall to jour memory tlie features of the migration of the tribes. The commencement of this remarkable historical episode is usually hxed about the year 375, in which year the Huns, coming from Cen- tral Asia, and first overcoming the Alans, between the Yolga and the Don, broke up the ancient kingdom of the Goths, and started them on their wanderings west- ward. The Ostrogoths had up to that time possessed the country between the Don and the Dniester, in South- ern Kussia, and the Yisigoths, all the region north of the Danube, as far westward as the river Theiss, in Hungary. Gradually pressing westward, and driving the other tribes, including the original Germanic races, before them, the Huns, then under Attila, were finally arrested by the great battle near Chalons-sur-Marne, where they were defeated by the Romans under Aetius and the Yisigoths under Theodoric I. This was in the year 451, and two years later Attila died. The Yisigoths, under Alaric, had already invaded Italy in 402, but ten years later they passed through Southern Gaul into Spain. The Ostrogoths, on the contrary, did not reach Italy until 488, under Theodoric the Great, who made Ye- rona his capital, and is therefore called, in the German legends Dietrich von Bern. After Theodoric's death, the kingdom existed for a few years, but finally ceased about 554, and the Gothic blood mixed itself with that of the Lombards, the Helvetians and the Germans, losing all distinctive national character. 104 GERMAN LITER ATUBE. The Burgundians, who were a Germanic race, inha- biting the region between the Vistula and the Oder, in Prussia, were also driven to west and south in the gen- eral movement, and first settled, eighty thousand men strong, in Gaul, between Geneva and Lyons. Here they became Arian Christians in the space of eight days, seven days being allowed for conversion and one for baptism. Sidonius Apollinarius describes them as men from six to seven feet high, clothed in the skins of beasts, and valuing their freedom as the highest possession. When Attila entered Gaul in 451, the Burgundian King Gundicar (supposed to be the Gunther of the "Mbe- lungenliecr') opposed his march with ten thousand war- riors, but all were slain after a long and heroic defense. The tribe finally moved northward, and occupied the country from the Bhine westward, including the present French province of Burgundy. This is all of the great migratory movement which we require to know, in reading the " Xihehmgenlied ; '^ the other elements embodied in it are either taken from the same source as the older Scandinavian Edda, or were added as the story was transmitted from mouth to mouth for centuries. Lachmann, who devoted a great deal of labor to the examination of the existing manu- scripts and their chronological character, as derived from the language, has fixed upon twenty lays, or sep- arate chapters of the poem, as being of an ancient origin ; the remaining nineteen he considers as addi- TEE NIBELUNGENLIED. 105 tions made about tlie close of tlie twelftli century, for the purj)ose of uniting the whole into one consistent story. He states that tliere were two, if not more, at- tempts to perform this difficult task, without counting the previous changes which he thinks the original lays must have undergone in the course of several centuries. About one hundred and eighty years after the close of this mediaeval period of German literature, printing was invented, and one of the earliest native works which was transferred from manuscript to type was Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzivai." The '^Nibdimgerdied" seems to have been already forgotten by the people ; and not until the year 1751 was a part of it published by Bodmer, in Zurich, under the title of " Chriemhild's Eevenge." The first complete republication of the entire epic was made by Miiller in 1782. Afterward, Lachmann and the Brothers Grimm made careful com- parisons of the three complete manuscripts, and it now appears to be settled that the oldest is that of Munich, the next that of St. Gall — although there are but a few years' difference between them, either way — and the latest, that belonging to Baron von Lassberg. This last is the most com2:)lete, but appears to be the least authentic. The Munich manuscript is generally attri- buted to the great unknown, who conceived the idea of creating an epic unity out of the scattered ma- terial,^ — an idea which he carried out with' wonder- ful power and skill, and so nearly achieved the highest 5^ 106 GERMAN LITERATURE. success that we wonder how he should have falir^n short of it. Since Lachmann, however, other scholars have taken up the study of the poem with the fresher and keener knowledge of our day. Zarncke, Bartsch, and last of all, Hermann Fischer, have applied to it the tests of philological and metrical criticism ; and the chief result is that the belief which was so long entertained — which suggested to the Greek scholar Wolff his celebrated Homeric theory — that it was the production of many authors, combined and thrown into a symmetrical form by some poetic editor, has been generally given up. It is now admitted that the greater portion of the poem was the work of one author, who took the chief incidents of the story from a version of the popular legend, writ- ten by order of Bishop Piligrim of Passau, somewhere about the year 980. The time when the '' Nibelungenlied,'' in its present form, was written, has also been approxi- mately fixed. It could not have been earlier than 1130, nor later than 1180 : thus it precedes the romantic epics by a few years. One of the early Minnesingers, who was called " the Kiirenberger," has left behind him fifteen detached stanzas, written in the measure of the '^ Nibeliingenlied.''' It is conjectured that he was either Magnus or Konrad von Klirenberg, who were natives of Upper Austria, and the German critics incline more and more to the beliex that we must accept him as the great poet of the Middle THE NIB ELUNGEN LIED. 107 Ages, liitherto unknown. Fischer asserts that the ''Nihdumjenlied " was either originally written, or care- fully revised and polished, about the year 1170, and that it was intended to be recited at courts, and heard by noble auditors. It is quite certain that between the years 1190 and 1200, the poem was reproduced in two different copies, one of which, called the ^'Vulgata,'' ad-= dressed itself to the common people. The aristocratic version had but a short life, if indeed any life : the taste of courts preferred the epics based on the Arthurian legends. But the people gratefully accepted and cher- ished their version, and for one hundred and fifty years the few fragments of their poetry which survive, betray its influence. If you remember the bareness and bluntness of the ^'Ilildehra'iidsUecV — the simple means by which strong effects are produced — you will understand the original character of the " Nihelungenlied,'' which is still pre- served through all the changes of language. But with this simplicity of diction, it is richer in incident than the "Iliad." The stage is crowded with characters ; for the union of three legendary cycles in one work, w^hich shall combine the best features of all, has resulted in a condensation which excludes the prolific description and sentiment of the courtly epics. There are not quite 10,000 lines, instead of the 20,000 of Gottfried or Hart- mann. Certain forms of expression are repeated, as in their poems, but the action varies with each Aventiure, 108 GERMAN LITERATURE. or adventure, of the thirty-nine, and the poem closes as abruptly as it begins. Carlyle says, with entire truth: "The unknown singer of the 'Nihdungen,' though no Shakesj^eare, must have had a deep poetic soul. . . . His poem, unlike so many old and new pretenders to that name, has a basis and an organic structure, a begin- ning, middle and end ; there is one great principle and idea set forth in it, round which all its multifarious parts combine in living union. Eemarkable it is, moreover, how along with this essence and primary condition of all poetic virtue, the minor external virtues of what we call taste, and so forth, are, as it were, presupposed : and the living soul of Poetry being there, its body of incidents, its garment of language, come of their own accord." Now let us take up the " Xibelungenlied,'' in the form it wore, at the end of the twelfth century. It may be so easily read, that I have never been able to see the neces- sity of the translations into modern German. This is the opening stanza : Uns ist ill alten maeren ] •wun- We find in ancient story ] won- ders vil geseit ders many told, von heleden lobebaeren, | von Of heroes of great glory, | of grozer arebeit, spirit strong and bold ; von frouden, hocligeziten, \ von Of joyances and liigb-tides, | of weinen und von klagen ; weeping and of woe, von Kiiener recken striten | mu- Of strife of gallant fighters, | get ir nu w under hoeren mote ye now many wonders sagen. know. You will notice that the measure is peculiar. Each THE NIBELUNGENLIEB. 109 line is divided by a caesural pause so marked that there is a space left between the words to indicate it. The first half of the line has three iambic feet, with a redun- dant syllable ; the latter half three feet, except in the closing line of the stanza, where it occasionally has four. The measure varies in effect, sometimes bold and strong, with a fine irregularity of movement, sometimes sweet and musical, but frequently rough and halting, and it requires some familiarity before it adjusts itself to the ear. Yet how near it came to a noble rhythmical form may be seen from those ballads of Uhland, wherein he has taken the same metrical principle, and simply given it regularity. Take the opening of his historical Sua- bian ballads, for instance : "1st denn im Schwabenlande verschollen aller Sang," etc. Are then the Suabian valleys, by sounds of song unstirred. Where once so clear on Staufen the knightly harp was heard, Apd why, if Song yet liveth, proclaim not now its chords The deeds of hero-fathers, the clash of ancient swords? Or take the opening of Macaulay's " Horatius," throw two lines into one, and you have the same measure : " Lars Porsena of Clusium, by the nine gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more." The second stanza of the '^Nihelungen " is : Ez wuohs in Burgonden | ein vil There once was in Burgundy | a edel magedin, maid of high degree, daz in alien landen | niht schoe- That in all lands and countries | ners mohte sin, no fairer might there be ; 110 GERMAN LITERATURE. Kriemliilt gelieizen : I si wart ein A lovely -woman was she, { scoeue wip. Cliriemliild was she liight, dar umbe inuosen degene | vil For her sake many swordsmen | verliest n den lip. must lose their lives in fight. Thus simply the theme ojDens. Chriemhild the fair and Brunhild the dark are the heroines ; Siegfried the Strong, Gunther and Hagen, Attila and Theodoric the heroes. The sagas of the Niblungs and the gods Odin and Loki, the marches of the Huns and Goths, magic and human passion, love and hate, are now mixed to- gether in a wild, fierce and fateful storj, which yet does not soar so high as to lose its hold on the gene- ral sympathies of men. At the same time with the fair Burgundian maiden, lived in the Netherlands Siegfried, the son of King Siegemund and Queen Siegelinde. He is synonymous with the Sigurd of Scandinavian saga, the fair, strong young knight who overcomes men, giants and dragons. When he has reached the proj^er age, Siegfried is knighted ; then, refusing to accept his father's sceptre, he goes to "Worms, where Chriemhild lives under the care of her three brothers, Gunther, Gemot and Gei<= selher. He does not see the famous beauty until after he has conquered the Saxons and Danes, and brought the Danish King Lindegast captive to Worms : then he is presented to her, she thanks him, and he is permitted to give her a kiss. He asks Gunther for her hand, which is promised to him on condition that he will accomj^any THE NIBELUNGENLIED. HI the latter to Iceland and assist him in his wooing of Queen Brunhild. Gunther's uncle, Hagen, who after- ward becomes the evil genius of the story, and the knight Dankwart accompany them. The enterprise would liave failed had not Siegfried possessed a tarn- kappe, or cap which rendered the wearer invisible, and the sword Balmuug of marvelous power. Besides, he had bathed in the fat of a dragon which he had slain, and was invulnerable except in a small spot, between the shoulders, where a linden-leaf had fallen upon him as he bathed. The amazon Brunhild fights with Gunther, but is really vanquished by the invisible Siegfried. The lat- ter then steers to the land of the Niblungs, takes pos- session of a great treasure, or hoard, which he had previously won in a fight with giants, and returns to Iceland with a thousand of ^he Nibelungen warriors, as Gunther's escort when he carries Brunhild to Worms. When the two are married, Siegfried also receives the hand of Chriemhild. He assists Gunther again in over- coming the magical strength of Brunhild, and gives the amazon's girdle and ring to his wife, together with the "MMnngenhorf.'' To this treasure a curse is at- tached, and an evil fate follows its possessor. Siegfried and Chriemhild rule for ten years as King and Queen of the Netherlands ; then, with a large retinue of Nibelungen warriors, they pay a visit to Worms, at the invitation of King Gunther. After the first splen- 112 GERMAN LITERATURE. did festivities, a strife for precedence arises between Chriemliild and Brunhild : the two queens meet at the door of the cathedral, and each insists on entering first. Brunhild claims that Siegfried is Gunther's vassal ; Chriemhild retorts by asserting that Siegfried, not Gun- ther, overcame her rival in Iceland, and produces the ring and the girdle in proof. The two kings, who are sum- moned by their wives, endeavor to compose the quarrel ; but the uncle Hagen goes secretly to Brunhild, and promises to revenge her. Externally there is peace again, but the elements of ruin are at w^ork. Hagen now goes to Chriemhild, professes to be a friend, and offers to w^atch over Siegfried, in case Brunhild should attempt any secret revenge. Chriemhild is deceived by the old traitor : she tells him of the vulnerable spot on Siegfried's back, where the linden-leaf lay, and even braids an ornament over the spot on his mantle, so that Hagen may know where to ward off a blow. The catastrophe instantly follows. Siegfried is taken out to hunt by Gunther and Hagen, and in a moment of the gayest peace and confidence is treacherously slain. But Chriemhild's woes are not yet at an end : Sieg- fried's father returns in haste to his own land : Gunther persuades his sister to bring the '^Nihelungenhort'" to Worms, which is no sooner done than he seizes it by force, and its attending curse is thus transferred to his own house. It is not long before the three brothers, Gunther, Gemot and Geiselher, begin to quarrel about THE NIBELUNGENLIED. 113 the treasure, and finally Hagen sinks it in the Ehine, making each take an oath that he will not reveal the spot while either of the others is alive. In the meantime the count Riicliger comes to Worms to solicit Chriemhild's hand for Attila. She hesitates, until Eiidiger hints that she may in this way obtain her revenge for Siegfried's death ; then, taking her brothers Gemot and Geiselher, she sets out for the Danube, reaches the land of the Huns, and is married to Attila. The account of the wedding in Vienna, of their life in Attila's castle, and Chriemhild's wise government are minutely described in the poem. She has a son who is named Ortlieb, she possesses the entire love and confi- dence of Attila, she is renowned among the Huns and in foreign lands, but the dream of vengeance never fades from her mind. Night and day she plans how to get possession of her uncle Hagen, her brother Gunther, and the Nibelungen treasure. Finally, in the thirteenth year of her marriage, she persuades Attila to send two minstrels to Burgundy, and invite the whole court to a grand high-tide, or festival, in the land of the Huns. Hagen foresees danger, and counsels against accepting the invitation, but he is overruled. I must here explain that the Burgundians, after obtaining the treasure and its Nihlung guardians, are thenceforth called ''Nihe- hmgen,'' and the poem, from this point to the end, was called the "Nihehingennoth " — need, extremity, or fate. The journey to the Danube, the crossing of that river 114 GERMA^^ LITERATURE. and the arrival of tlie Nibelungen at Attila's Court, are described in detail, Avitli great spirit and pictu- resqueness. It is evident tliat the last author is on fa- miliar ground : he mentions places which retain nearly the same names at the present day. As the march advances, the omens increase ; even Theodoric appears and warns the Nibelungen of their coming dangerc Hagen, whose part in these final lays is compared by some of the German critics to that of Cassandra in the " niad," now becomes grand in spite of his treachery. His fidelity to his friend Yolker, the minstrel, his courage, his desperate bravery, his unshaken attitude of hero- ism, lift him beside Chriemhild into a splendid tragical prominence, beside which the other characters — Gun- ther, Attila, Theodoric and Hildebrand — sink into com- parative indistinctness. Kiidiger, only, rises into promi- nence toward the close, as a man of singular honor and nobility of nature. But Hagen towers above all, grim- mer and grander than Macbeth, in his defiance of the coming doom. Attila, who knows nothing of Chriemhild's plans of vengeance, receives the Nibelungen kindly, and sleeps innocently during the night when her armed Huns are waiting the opportunity for murder, of which they are deprived by Hagen's watchfulness. In the morn- ing, when the guests are dressing for mass in the cathedral, Hagen tells them : " Ye must take other garments, ye swordsmen, hauberks instead of silk shirts, THE NIBELUNGENLIED. 115 shields instead of mantles ; and now, mj masters dear, squires and men likewise, ye shall most earnestly go to church, and lay before the high God your sorrow and your dire extremity ; for verily death is nigh unto us." At the royal feast in Attila's hall, the strife, instigated by Chriemhild, commences, and Hagen first strikes off the head of her son, Ortlieb. Then swords are drawn and murder is loose. Theodoric, with a mighty voice, at- tempts to stop the fray, but in vain ; then he, Attila and Chriemhild Avithdraw. From this point to the end all is movement and passion ; every incident is illu- minated as by a fierce crimson light. No mere outline can do it the least justice. The Huns press into the hall, and all night there is naught but carnage, fire and the terrible noise of fighting. At last all are slain but Hagen and Gunther, both sorely wounded. They are bound by Theodoric, whose warriors, except Hildebrand, have shared the common fate, and are then brought before Chriemhild, who demands to know where they have sunk the ^'NibdungenJiorf Hagen answers that he cannot tell while Gunther lives. The latter is instantly slain, and then the fierce old uncle says : " Now none knoweth of the hoard but God and I, and from thee, she- devil, shall it be forever hidden! " Thereupon Chriem- hild seizes his own sword — the famous sword Balmung, which had once belonged to Siegfried — and strikes off his head. Attila laments his fate, but Hildebrand — the hero of the "Hildebrandsliecr' — slays the avenging 116 GERMAN LITERATURE. Chriemliild, and the poem closes, after this terrible night of slaughter, with these stanzas : Hildebrant mit zorne | zuo Kriemhilde spranc, er sluoc der Kiineginne | einen swaeren swertes swanc. ja tet ir diu sorge | von Hilde- brande we, waz molite si gehelfen | daz si so griizliclien sere ? D6 was gelegen aller | da der reigen lip. ze stticken was geliouwen | do daz edele wip. Dietrich und Etzel | weinen do began : si klageten innecliclie | beidin mage unde man. Diu vil michel ere | was da gele- gen tot. die liute beten alle [ jamer unde not. mit leide was verendet | des Kii- niges bobgezit, als je diu liebe leide | z'aller jtingiste git. I'ne kan iu niht besclieiden, | waz sider da gescbacb: wan ritter unde vrouwen ) wei- nen man da sacb, dar zuo die edelen knebte, | ir lieben friunde tot. hie hat daz maere ein ende : ] daz ist der Nibelunge not. Then Hildebrand in fury | to Chriemhild did go, And struck the queen with fal- chion I a sore and heavy blow ; Of Hildebrand her terror | was more than she could hide. But nothing did it help her | that there so miserably she cried. Now slain were all that should be, I they lay without en life. And she was hewn to pieces, | and dead, that royal wife ; Theodoric and Attila | a weeping then began ; Sore was the lamentation | of maiden and of man. Ah, how much was the splen- dor I which there lay dead and cold ! And fell on all the people | dis- tress and woe untold ; In sorrow thus was ended | the high -tide of the King, As after joy comes always | some sad and cruel thing. I cannot tell you further | what happened of the tale, Except that knights and ladies | were seen to weep and wail. And eke the gallant swords- man, I whose dearest friends lay low. And here the story endeth: | this is the Nibelungen woe. TEE NIBELUNGENLIED. 117 Even from the very brief sketches of the courtly epics which I have given, you will be able to recognize how strongly the ^^ Nihelungenlied'' contrasts with them in plan, character and expression. The strong, large fea- tures of the old legends, both Gothic and Scandinavian, still look upon us from its lines ; something of the rude- ness, but also the power, of the early Bardic songs is felt in its measures ; the Christian faith has been added, it is true, but without changing in any way the pagan virtues and vices of the original characters. Siegfried and Hagen are made of other flesh and blood than the love-stricken Tristan or the pure-souled Parzival. There are no fair descriptions of nature, no expressions of sentiment or emotion beyond the most necessary utter- ances. When Siegfried is treacherously slain, he only says : " I lament nothing upon the earth except Frau Chriemhild, my wife." " In poetry," says a critic, " the rude man requires only to see something going on ; the man of a more refined nature wishes to feel ; while the man of the highest culture asks that he shall be made to reflect." The "Nibdungenlied" fulfills the first of tliese conditions to the utmost : there is action, much of it of the most tremendous character, from beginning to end; and the stage, vast as it is, is always crowded Avith per- sons. But the second condition is not entirely neglected in the poem, as we now have it. The genius who moulded all its alien elements into such a grand unity may very well have added those slight, almost uncon- 118 GERM AX LITERATURE. scions touches wliicli constantly aj)j)eal to our sympathy. Indeed the latter effect is most frequently produced where it is not planned beforehand, as we have seen in Hildebrand's words to his son Hadubrand, before they fight. The action of the thirty-nine Avenf lures is so continu- ous and so rich in details, that it is somewhat difficult to find brief illustrative passages. We must be satisfied with three specimens, not better than many others in the poem, but more easily detached from the context : the first is the meeting of Chriemhild and Sieg- fried, after the latter has defeated the Saxons and Danes : Do hiez der kiinec riclie { mit siner swester gan, die ir dieuen solden, ] wol huu- dert siner man, ir und siner mage : | die truogen swert euhant. daz was daz liovegesinde | von der Biirgonden lant. Then ordered for Ms sister | the King so rich and proud, A hundred men of battle | unto her service vowed. For her and for her mother, | a sword in every hand : Such were the royal servants | in the Burgundian land. Nu gie diu niinnecliche | als6 der morgenrot tuot uz den triieben wolken. | da sciet von maneger not der se da truog in herzen | und lange het getan : er sach die minneclichen | nu vil herlichen stan. There came the fair and lova- ble I as comes the morning- glow From clouds that would obscure it. I And gone was many a woe From him who in his bosom j had yearned for her so long : He saw her stand before him | in beauty bright and strong. THE NIBELUNGENLIED. 119 Ja luhte ir von ir waete | vil manec edel stein : ir rosenrotiu varwe | vil min- necliclien scein. ob iemen wiiuscen solde, | der kunde niht gejehen daz er ze dirre werelde | liete iht scoeners gesehen. Upon Iter garment sparkled | full many a jewel -stone ; Her rosiness of color | like parest love-light shone. Whatever one might hope for, I yet now he must confess That here on Earth could noth- ing I surpass her loveliness. Sam der liehte mane sternen stat. vor den des scin so luterliche | ab den wolken gat, dem stuont si nu geliche | vor maneger frouwen guot. des wart da wol gehoebet | den zieren heleden der muot. Even as the shining full-moon I comes out before the stars, So pure in powerful lustre | it melts the cloudy bars. So verily she in beauty | before all ladies there : And all the gay young heroes | were proud to see her fair. Die richen kameraere | sah man vor in gan. die hohgemuoten degene [ die 'n wolden daz niht Ian, sine drungen da sie sahen | die minneclichen meit. Sivride dem herren | wart beide lieb tinde leit. Court- servants made a passage, I in glittering array. The strong, courageous swords- men I followed upon her way ; And ever pressed and crowded I to see the maiden go. Now this was unto Siegfried | a joy and yet a woe. Er dahte in sinem muote : | "wie kunde daz ergan daz icli dich minnen solde ? | daz ist ein tumber wan. sol aber ich dich vreraeden, | s6 waere ich sanfter tot," er wart von den gedauken | vil dicke bleich unde rot. Within his thought he ponder- ed: I " How thought I, I was fain With love of man to woo thee ? I It is a fancy vain : And yet, should I avoid thee, | so were I earlier dead." He grew, while thus a-thinking, I oft pale, and then how often red I 120 GERMAX LITER A TURE. Do stuont so minnecliclie | daz Sigemundes kint, saiii er entworfen waere | an ein perinint von guotes meisters listen, | als man ime jach, daz man helt deheinen | nie so scoenen gesacli. Tliej saw tlie son of Sieglind, | lover-like standing there. As if he had been painted, j on parchment clear and fair. By hand of some good master : I 'twas pleasant him to see. For none so grand a hero | be- held before as he. Do sprach von Burgonden herre Gemot : der der iu sinen dienest | so gliet- lichen hot, • Gunther, yil lieber bruoder, | dem suit ir tuon alsam vor alien dis en recken : | des rats ich nimmer mich gescam. Then swiftly spake Lord Ger- not, I of the Burgundian land: To him who did us service | with such a mighty hand, To him, dear brother Gunther, I now offer fitting pay In presence of the warriors : | no man will scorn my say. Ir heizet Sivreden | zuo miner s wester kumen, daz in diu maget grueze : | des habe wir immer f rumen. diu nie gegruozte recken, | diu sol in griiezen ptiegen : da mite wir haben gewunnen | den vil zierlichen degen." Summon straightway Siegfried I unto our sister pure, That so the maiden greet him : I 'twill bring us luck, be sure ! She who never greeted heroes | shall grace to him award. And thereby we shall win us | the service of his sword." Do giengen 's wirtes mage man den helt vant. da si sprachen zuo dem recken | uzer Niderlant : iu hat der kiinec erloubet, | ir suit ze hove gan, sin swester sol inch griiezen : | daz ist zen eren iu getau. " The King's friends, then ad- vancing I where the hero still did stand, Spake to the mighty warrior | from out the Netherland : The King's will hath permitted I that you to court repair ; His sister there shall greet you : I this honor shall be your share." THE NIBELUNQENLIEB, 121 Der herre in sinem muote | was des vil gemeit. d6 truog er ime lierzen | lieb ane leit, daz er sehen solte | der scoenen Uoten kint. mit minneclichen tugenden | si gruozte Sivriden sint. The hero, gentle-hearted, | re- joiced to hear the word ; Love, free of doubt or torment, I in all his senses stirred. With hope that Ute's daughter, I the fair one, he should see : And she with gentle glances | received Siegfried full cour- teously. Do si den hohgemuoten | vor ir stende sach, do erzunde sicli sin varwe. [ diu scoene magt sprach : sit willekomen, her Sivrit, | ein edel ritter guot." do wart ini von dem gruoze | vil wol gehoehet der niuot. But when before her standing | she saw him bold and proud, Like flame her color kindled ; I the Fair One spake aloud : Be welcome here. Sir Siegfried, I a noble knight and true ! " And he from such a greeting | a higher courage drew. Er neig ir flizecliche ; | bi der hende si in vie. wie rehteminnecliche | erbider f rouwen gie [ mit lieben ougen blicken | ein ander sahen an der herre und ouch diu f rouwe : I daz wart vil tougenlich getan. He bowed to her full gently, | to thank her for her rede. Then drew them towards each other I love's yearning and its need ; With eyes that shone more fondly I each then the other spied. The hero and the maiden : | that glance they strove to hide. Wart iht da friwentliche | get- wungen wiziu hant, von herzen lieber minne, | daz ist mir niht bekant. 6 If then some softer pressure | on her white hand might be. Love's first and heart -sweet token— I it is unknown to me. 122 GERMAN LITERATURE. doch enkan ich nilit gelouben | daz ez wnrde Ian : si liet im liolden willen | kunt vil sciere getan. But yet believe I cannot ] fhat they did not do so ; For hearts of love desirous | were wrong to let it go. Bi der sumerzite ] und gein des meijen tagen dorft er in sime herzen | nim- mer mer getragen so vil der hohen vreude | denn' er del gewan, do im diu gie enliende | die er ze trute wolde ban. In tbe days of summer ] and in the time of May, He never in bis bosom | again might bear away So much of highest rapture | as in that hour he knew. Seeing her walk beside him, | whom he so wished to woo. Bo gedahte manec recke : | "hey waer' mir sam gescehen, daz ich ir gienge enhende, | sam ich in ban gesehen, oder bi ze ligene ! | daz liez' ich ane haz." ez gediente noch nie recke ] nach einer kiineginne baz. Then thought many a swords- man : — I " Ha ! if I were but thou And 1 could walk beside her { as I see thee now, Or, perhaps, embrace her — | I were ready, sure ! " Never served a swordsman | queen so good and pure. Von swelher kiinege lande | die geste komen dar, die namen al geliche | niwan ir zweier war. ir wart erloubet kiissen | den waetlichen man : im wart in dirre werlde | nie so liebe getan. And from whatever country | a guest was present there. In the high hall was nothing | he looked on but this pair. To her it was permitted | the gallant man to kiss : In all his life he never | knew aught so dear as this. Der Kiinec von Tenemarke | der sprach sa zestunt : diss vil hohen gruozes | lit man- eger ungesunt. Began the King of Denmark, | and these the words he spake : Sure, such a noble greeting | here many a wound doth make : THE NrBELUNGENLIED. 123 des icli vil wol enpfinde, | von Sivrides hant. got enlaze in nimmer mere | komen in miniu kiinges lant." As I around me notice, | and all from Siegfried's hand : God grant he never travel | into my Danish land." Tlie whole chapter entitled "How Siegfried was slain," is an admirable j^iece of narrative, gay, bright, full of joyous action, until the hero is treacherously struck, when it becomes as simple as if told by a child. These are the concluding verses : " Ir mtiget iucli lihte riiemen, sprach do Sifrit. '' bet ich an iu erkennet mortliclien sit. den ich hete wol behalten vor iu | nimen lip. mich riuwet nilit so sere | s6 vrou Kriemhilt min wip. You may lightly boast," said Siegfried | of the Nether- land, But had I known your purpose, I against your murderous hand Had I full well protected | my body and my life : On earth I grieve for nothing | but Dame Chriemhild, my wife. " Nu miieze got erbarmen | deich ' ie gewan den sun dem man daz itewizen | sol nah den ziten tuon daz sine mage iemen | mortliche han erslagen, moht' ich," so sprach Sifrit, | " daz sold' ich pilliche klagen." Do sprach vil jaemerliche verchwunde man : der welt ir, kiinic edele, | triuwen iht began May also God take pity | on the boy I leave behind. Who in all time henceforward | must hear the taunt unkind, That his own friends his father I have murderously slain. If I had time, with justice | I might of that complain." Then mournfully spake fur- ther I the hero nigh to death : noble King, if ever | ye drew a faithful breath, 124 OERMAK LITERATURE. in der werlt an iemen, [ lat iu bevolhen sin uf iuwer genade | die lieben triutinue min. If ever kept ye pledges, ] I do entreat ye here To hold in grace and pity | my sweetheart fair and dear. Und lat si des geniezen ] daz si iuwer swester si. durch aller fiirsten tugende | wont ir mit triuwen bi. mir miiezen warten lange | min vater und mine man. ez enwart nie vrouwen leider | an liebem vriunde getan." Let it to her be profit | that she's your sister still : For every princely virtue | com- mands your faithful will. For me my land and father | will long and vainly wait : Never met any woman | from a dear spouse such bitter fate." Die bluomen allenthalben | von bluote waren naz. do rang er mit dem tode : | un- lange tet er daz, want des todes waf en | ie ze sere sneit. do mohte reden niht mere | der recke klien' unt gemeit. The blossoms all around him | wet with his blood became : With death he fiercely strug- gled, I not long he did the same ; The sword of death was on him | and cut him very sore ; And soon the noble warrior | could speak a word no more. D6 die herren sahen | daz der helt was tot, si leiten in uf einen schilt, | der was von golde rot, und wurden des ze rate, | wie daz solde ergan daz man ez verhaele | daz ez het Hagene getan. Now when the lords beheld there | the hero pale and cold, Upon a shield they laid him, | the which was red with gold. Then they began to counsel | how further to proceed, That none would learn the se- cret I that Hagen did the deed. D6 sprachen ir genuoge : | " uns ist iibele geschehen. ir suit ez heln alle j unt suit gel- iche jehen, After this wise spake many : ( "An evil thing is done. We'll hide it with a story, | and all shall sav, as one. THE NIBELUNGENLIED. 125 da er rite jagen eine, | der Kriemliilde man, in sliiegen scachaere, | da er fiiere durcli den tan." Do sprach von Tronege Ha- gene : | ' * ich bringe'n in daz lant. mir ist vil unmaere, ] und wirt ez ir bekant', diu so liat betriibet | den Priin- liilde muot. ez alitet mich vil ringe, | swaz si weinens getuot." As he alone rode hunting, | this son of Siegmund's line. The ruffian robbers slew him | among the woods of pine. '* Then spake von Troneg Hagen : ( ' ' Him home myself will bear. And if she learn who did it, j for that I shall not care. Yea, she that vexed Brunhilde | before the people's eves. It will concern me little | if now she weeps and cries. " For the third specimen, I will take a passage which Mr. Carlyle has translated. When the Nibelungen come to the Danube, on their way to the Court of Attila and Chriemhild, they are at a loss how to cross the river. Hagen learns from the mermaids where to find the fer- ryman, and is ordered by them to call himself Amelrich, or he will not be allowed to enter the boat. When this has taken place, however, and the ferryman sees that it is not Amelrich whom he has taken on board, he wrath- fuUy orders Hagen to leap on shore again : Nune tuot des niht," sprach Ha- gene ; | "trurec ist min muot, nemet von mir ze minne | ditze golt vil guot. unt fiiert uns liber tusent ross | unt also manigen man." do sprach. der grimme verge : [ "daz wirdet nimmer getiln." Now say not that, " spake Hagen ; I " Right hard am I bested. Take from me, for good friend- ship, I this clasp of gold so red ; And row our thousand heroes | and steeds across this river." Then spake the wrathful boat- man, I " That will I surely never." 126 GERMAN LITERATURE. Er huop ein starkes ruoder, | micliel uncle breit, er sluoc ez iif Hagenen, | (des wart er ungemeit), daz er in dem scliifiFe | struchte uf siniu knie. so rehte grimmer verge | kom dem Tronegaere nie. Then one of his oars lie lifted, | right broad it was and long, He struck it down on Hagen, | did the hero mickle wrong. That in the boat he staggered, | and alighted on his knee ; Other such wrathful boatman | did never the Troneger see. D6 wolde er baz erziimen | den iibenniieten gast : er sluoc eine schalten, | daz diu gar zerbrast, Hagenen uber daz houbet : | er was ein starker man. da von der Elsen verge | grozen schaden da gewan. Mit grimmegem muote ] greif Hagene zehant vil balde z'einer scheiden, | da er ein wafen vant, er sluoc im ab daz houbet | und warf ez an den grunt. diu maere wurden schiere | den stolzen Burgonden kunt. His proud unbidden guest | he would now provoke still more ; He struck his head so stoutly | that it broke in twain the oar, With strokes on head of Ha- gen ; ! he was a sturdy wight : Nathless had G elf rat's boat- man I small profit of that fight. With fiercely-raging spirit | the Troneger turned him round, Clutch'd quick enough his scab- bard, I and a weapon there he found ; He smote his head from off him, I and cast it on the sand: Thus had that wrathful boat- man I his death from Ha^ gen's hand. ^ These passages, I am aware, will not avail to give an adequate representation of tlie whole tone and atmo- sphere of the poem. The attractiye quaintness and artlessness of the old dialect, with its many curious THE yiBELUNGENLIEB. 127 idiomatic jjlirases, cannot be j^i'sserved in our modern English, any more than the same fresh and racy flavor which we find in the older English of Chancer and Sj)en- ser. Neither can the mere skeleton of the story, as I have been forced by want of sj^ace to give it, do justice to the many touches which constantly soften its gather- ing chronicles. of slaughter. When Kiidiger, who obeys Attila's command with a heavy heart, and goes with his warriors to attack the Nibelungen in the fatal banquet- hall, gives his own shield to Hagen, to replace that which has been hacked to pieces, we are told that "many cheeks were red with weeping." Gemot and Geiselher beg Queen Chriemhild to spare their lives, for they were all nursed by one mother ; but when she promises to do so if only Hagen, the murderer of Sieg- fried, be given up, the gallant Kings answer : " That can never be." There is the phantom of an implacable Fate behind all those dreadful deeds : the kings and warriors clearly see the coming doom, and they meet it like heroes. At the close, we have forgotten the perfidy of Hagen, the fury of Chriemhild, the meanness of Gun- ther, the weakness of Attila, and are ready to join in that general lamentation which indiscriminately mourns all the slain. If the historical tradition of the Burgundian King Gundicar and his ten thousand warriors falling before Attila's march into France, be the exaggerated form of an actual occurrence, this may be one of the bases of the 128 GERMAN LITERATURE. " Nibelungenlied.'" The other and earlier basis is Scan- dinavian saga, not history, — or history in mythological disguise. The only other facts are that Attila's first wife, named Herka, is certainly the Halke of the epic ; while an ancient Hungarian chronicle, of somewhat doubtful character, speaks of his second wdfe as Kriemheilch. Theodoric and Hildebrand are anachronisms, not to be explained by the supj)osition that the former is intended for the Visigoth, Theodoric I. This is the slender root of fact to which hangs the wonderful growth of so many centuries. If I have not been able to prove it to you, in this brief space, I trust that I have at least indicated why the ^^ Nihelimgenlied'^ may be one of the most remarkable poems ever written. It is one of the oldest epics of our race. But when the enthusiastic German scholar calls it a Gothic Iliad, he uses an epithet which only confuses our ideas. It has neither the unity nor the nobility of style which we find in Homer. There is the same dif- ference as between a Druid circle of huge granite boul- ders, although overgrown with ivy and wild blossoms and encircled by a forest of Northern pine, and a sym- metrical marble temple on a sunny headland beside the blue sea. The world has fallen into a bad habit of nam- ing everything after something else. Let us call the Greek epic the "Iliad,'' and the old German epic of the people nothing else but the "Nilielnngenlied" In regard to that unknown man, whose genius, in the THE NIBELUNGENLIED. 129 thirteenth century, sealed and transmitted to us the precious inheritance, I cannot do better than repeat Carlyle's words : " His great strength is an unconscious, instinctive strength ; wherein truly lies his highest merit. The whole sjoirit of Chivalry, of Love and heroic Yalor must have lived in him and inspired him. Everywhere he shows a noble sensibility ; the sad accents of parting friends, the lamentings of w^omen, the high daring of men, all that is worthy and lovely prolongs itself in melodious echoes through his heart. A true old Singer, and taught of Nature herself ! Neither let us call him an inglorious Milton, since now he is no longer a mute one. What good were it that the four or five letters composing his name could be printed, and pronounced with absolute certainty? All that is mortal in him is gone utterly : of his life, and its environment, as of the bodily tabernacle he dwelt in, the very ashes remain not : like a fair, heavenly Apparition, which indeed he ivas, he has melted into air, and only the Voice he uttered, in virtue of its inspired gift, yet lives and will live." It is difficult to ascertain, at this distance of time, whether any stimulus was given to the popular forms of poetry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by the poetry of the courts ; but the latter certainly gave license ^-which, in literature, is life, — to the former. The same phenomena, of course, would be found in both circles. Even as the renown of Walther, Wolfram, Gottfried and 6* 130 GERMAN LITERATURE. Hartmanu would call into life a. host of inferior min- strels, so the popularity of the "Mbelungenlied'' would inspire imitations, ri^^al epics, based, like itself, on older lays, and even fanciful continuations of the same story. Many of these still remain, but I can only mention a single one of them — " The Lament," which some consider to be of earlier origin than the latest form of the "Nihe- limgen.'' It commences where the latter terminates — in the castle of Attila, among the corpses left by the great slaughter. It is written in the short couplet, which we have already met in ''Tristan' and ''ParzivaJ,'" and the inferiority of which to the Nibelungen verse we feel more clearly than ever, if we take it up immediately after the latter. It is a weaker hand, which endeavors to ex- press that woe which the master only dared to indicate ; but there is one really touching passage, where Theo- doric calls upon the j^^ople to cease from weeping, through God's help ; and the author says : " as much as they promised it to him, yet did they not do it." When the dead have all been lamented, the minstrel Schwem- mel is sent as a messenger, to bear the news to Worms. Frau Ute, the mother of the three Kings and Chriem- hild, dies of sorrow : the amazon Brunhild falls sense- less ; and the young Siegfried, her son and Gunther's, is proclaimed King of the Nibelungen. Of the other epics or epical fragments which have been saved, I will only mention "Gudrun,'' as the most complete in form, and the next in literary character, THE mSELUNOENLIED. 131 after the '' Nibelungenlied" The subject, however, be- longs to a different sagenkrels, or legendary circle : the scene is laid alternately in Ireland, Wales and on the Saxon shores of the North Sea. The same subject has very recently been used by a living poet, Mr. William Morris, in " The Lovers of Gudrun," — one of the narra- tives in his " Earthly Paradise." This circumstance, at least, may increase your curiosity to explore a field of literature so long forgotten to Germany, and even now almost unknown to the very race whose civilization flowed from the same original fountain. If we, as Americans, in the national sense, have an equal share in Shakespeare, Spenser and Chaucer, with our English brethren, so the Gothic and Saxon blood in our veins claims the inheritance of the "SildebrandsUed " and the early Nibelungen legends as fully as the German people. I have not now time to repeat the story of Gudrun and her lovers, of her brother Ortwin, and her betrothed, Herwig, of her captivity, and her hard service as a washerwoman by the sea-shore, of the fierce battle which released her, the joy of her mother Hilde, and the mar- riage of all the principal characters, which happily closes the thirty-two Aventinres of the poem. Its char- acter seems almost idyllic when contrasted with the tragedy of the '' Nihelungenlied.'' Perhaps this distinc- tion may be felt^ in the single quotation which I shall give, where Horant, the " storm-eagle " of Denmark, 132 GERMAN LITERATURE. appears as a minstrel at the Court of Hagen, Gudrun's father : Do sich diu nalit verendet | and ez begunde tagen, Horant begunde singen, | daz da bi in den hagen geswigen alle vogele j von si- nem siiezen sange. die liute, die dii sliefen, | die enlagen do niwet lange. Now when tbe nigbt was end- ed I and it was near to dawn, Horant began bis singing, | and all the birds were drawn To silence in the hedges, | be- cause of his sweet song ; And the folk who still were sleeping, | when they heard him slept not long. Sin liet erklang im shone, | ie holier and ie baz. Hagene ez selbe horte; | bi sinem wibe er saz. iiz der kemenaten | muosten s'in die zinne. der gast wart wol beraten. | ez horte ez diu junge kiini- ginne. Sweetly to them it sounded, | so loud and then so low ; And also Hagen heard it, | with his wife of rose and snow. Forth they came from the cham- ber. I tothe hangingbalcony; As the minstrel wished, it hap- pened; I for the young Queen heard the melody. Des wilden Hagenen tohter | und ouch ir magedin, die sazen unde loseten, | daz diu vogellin vergazin ir doene | uf dem hove frone, wol horten ouch die helde, | daz der von Tenemarke sane so schone. The daughter of wild Hagen, | and her maidens highest and least. They sat and silently listened, | while the songs of the small birds ceased, About the court of the castle, | and the heroes also heard, How the minstrel of Denmark chanted, | so sweetly the souls of all were stirred. D6 wart im gedanket | vonwiben und von man. do sprach von Tenen Fruote: | '* min neve mohte s'lan. He was thanked by every woman, I and after by all the men, And out of the guests of Denmark, I spake bold Fruote then : THE NIBELTJNGENLIEB. 133 sin Tingef iiege doene, | die ich in lioere singen. wem mag er ze dienste | als un- gef iiege tagewise bringen ? " ^Ij nephew should leave his singing : | 'tis too unskilful- ly played : To whom may he be bringing | this awkward morning sere- nade?" Do sprachen Hagenen helde : | " herre, lat vernemen: niemen lebet so siecher, | im mohte wol gezemen hoeren sine stimme, | diu get uz sinem munde." daz wolde got von himele," | sprach der kiinic, "daz ich sie selbe kunde." Answered Hagen, the hero : ] " My lord, let me know your mind ! No one unsmote by sickness | could pleasure fail to find In the beautiful voice that com- eth I out of his mouth so true :" Said the King : " Would to God in heaven | that I myself the same could do ! " Do er due doene gesanc, alle die ez horten, so lane. sunder vol duhte ez niht sie heten'z niht geahtet | einer hande wile, obe er solde singen, | daz einer mohte riten tusent mile. When he had sung three mea- sures, I even to the end each song, Every one thought who heard them, I the time was not so long. They had not thought it longer | than the turning of a hand, Though he sang while one were riding | a thousand miles across the land. Here there is altogether a softer, more lyrical spirit than in the '' Nihelungeny Something of the sentiment of the Minnesingers has been incorporated into the older legend, and it takes not only the form but also the feeling of the later age. Gervinus says — and in this sense we may admit the comparison — that '^Gudrim" bears the 134 GERMAN LITERATURE. same relation to tlie "Nibdungenlied'' as tlie ''Odyssey" to the "Iliad : " " it has many qualities," he adds, " which we would willingly see added to the greater epic. It avoids the dry, colorless manner of narration, without adopting the hollow love of ornament of the courtly poets. Both poems may claim an immortal honor for the nation. They reach equally far into time with their deeds, cus- toms and views of life, — and into those times, whereof the prejudiced Roman enemies reported the bravery and barbarism, but also the fidelity and honesty, the honor and chastity of our venerable ancestors." So far I may quote and accept the views of the great historian of German literature ; but when he compares these epics with the "inflated and disgusting British romances," referring to the legends of Arthur and the Holy Grail, he shows rather the egotism of his blood than the impartial vision of his calling. But, in reality, we need no critical guide for this period, when we have once mastered the language. There was no elaborate art, even for the most accom- plished of the courtly minstrels : each expressed what he knew, without those disguises or affectations of deeper wisdom which are common in a more highly developed age. The popular epics are as frank and transparent as the unlettered human nature of the race, and it is not the least of their many excellent qualities that they inspire us with a better respect for that nature, since it produced them. THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. The fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries seem, at first sight, to present nearly a blank in the history of Ger- man literature, and it would greatly simplify my task if I could omit all notice of them, and pass at once to the new spirit which was born with the Keforma- tionl^and partly because of it. Such an omission, how- ever, would leave unexplained the manner of a change which distinguishes the German literature of the Mid- dle Ages from that which succeeded it after so long an interval. The two intervening centuries were in some respects the darkest in mediseval history; they were certainly the most confused ; and whether we take the political, the religious or the literary element, we shall have equal difficulty in finding an easy path through the chaos. With the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty the power of the German Emperors in Italy was broken, to be soon entirely lost. The same result which attended the partial religious enfi'anchisement of Germany fol- lowed the political enfranchisement of Italy : the stars of Dante and Petrarch rose, as those of Walther and 135 136 GERMAN LITERATURE. Wolfram set. Art and Literature revived tliere, under the new republics, but in Germany the successors of the Hohenstaufens were men of a very different stamp. Rudolf of Hapsburg first set the example of a narrow attention to the affairs of his race, but he was no lover of the minstrels — and perhaps with good reason. The mediaeval passion for song began at the top and worked downward, from reigning princes and poetic knights, through the subordinate classes of society. By the end of the thirteenth century the aristocratic power of production was exhausted, while the j)opular element — in spite of the '^Nibelimgenlied''' and ^' Gudrun"—]iSid not yet worked its way upward to influence the tastes or instincts of the higher classes. There was no prose literature as yet, and nearly a hundred years more elapsed before the official documents and records of the country were written in the German language. We can hardly wonder that courtly patronage was withheld, when the minstrels had come to be bores, both in their numbers and in the quality of their songs. The largesse bestowed on a few lucky ones tem23ted great numbers of poor, ambitious, half-educated nobles to adopt the profession, and Germany began to resound with the strains of hungry, pretentious and not even elegant mediocrity. Then began the rivalry of the im- perial candidates, the fierce discussion between emperor and nobles, the petty feuds of several hundred reigning princes, counts and prelates, — the appearance of a grow- THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 137 ing middle class, — all these causes resulting in constant war or menace of war. Pestilence, in new and fearful forms, followed by famine, swept over Europe ; Huss came, and was burned, leaving a sword behind him which was not sheathed until nearly two hundred and fifty years had passed ; and the forerunners of the modern time appeared, as the mariner's compass, gun- powder, watches and the art of printing. Yet, during this season of agitation and conflict and violence, the basis of a new literature was laid, partly through the revival of the ancient instincts of the people, and partly from the stimulus of coming religious and political struggles. The two literary forces which were so marked in the Hohenstaufen period continue to be distinguished for some time afterward. Both the courtly and the popu- lar minstrels followed for a while the same retrograde path. Even as they had evolved the epic from ballad material, they now began to take epic subjects and, from deficiency of power, to treat them as ballads; and, as is always the case, their vanity and arrogance increased in proportion as their performance ISecame contemptible. We have but to read a few pages of Hugo von Montfort, Oswald von Wolkenstein, or Al- brecht's "Tihirel,'' to see the decadence of the courtly poetry ; or of Kaspar von der Eoen and Ulric Fiiterer, to see how the popular poetry kept pace with it down- ward. The one man who, in imitation of Petrarch, was 138 GERMAN LITERATURE. crowned by the Emperor, Frederic III., in the fifteenth century, was Conrad Celtes, whom we do not know as a l^oet. A single fact may be mentioned, to show the utter absence of the most ordinary literary instinct in that period. A Baron von Eapoltstein, who perceived that' Wolfram von Eschenbach had omitted from his '^Farzivcd " many episodes of the original legend, which would not harmonize with his poem, employed a Jew to translate, and a scribe to write for him, all these epi- sodes, which, turned into the worst doggrel by himseK, he then published as a continuation of Wolfi-am's great work! Even the " TheuercJank '' of the Emperor Maxi- milian, although it must have been immensely admired by the courtiers, is too stupid to be read by any healthy person now-a-days. The scholar Yilmar, with all his apparent reverence for Maximilian, cannot help say- ing : " the ' Tlwuerdank ' now rests in the dust of the libraries, even as the noble Maximilian in the mould of his imperial vault. Let us leave them in peace, the great Emperor and his little book ! " About the only conclusion we can draw fi'om the examination — I will not say the study — of those inferior works, is this : that Wolfram von Eschenbach was the one master whom the degenerate jDoets imitated in epic narrative, and Walther von der Yogelweide was their model in Minne-song. They must, therefore, have en- joyed a popularity in their own day, and have made an impression strong enough to be inherited by the com- THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 139 ing generations, — ^just as now no one dares to dispute Milton's or Dryden's place, tliongli so few read them. In the popular poems, a didactic element gradually be- came apparent, possibly encouraged by the continued reproduction of the much older poem of '■'Beineche Vos,'' which appeared, in the latest and best version, in Liibeck, in the year 1498. This is another of those works which come down to us, like the "Nibehmgen- Ued,'' out of an impenetrable mist. We cannot say when or where it originated : we only know that it also grew by the accretion of scattered fragments or independent fables, that it was twice written in Latin, under the name of '^Rehiardus,'' in Flanders, in the twelfth century, that it soon after (or, possibly, even earlier) entered French and German literature, was retold by an unknown German author in the thirteenth century, and aljout the same time by William de Matoc, in Dutch, — some of these versions containing from fifty to one hundred thousand lines. I cannot undertake more than the mere mention of this remarkable work, not because it does not deserve it, but simply because it seems to have exercised no very important influence upon German literature, in compari- son with the heroic epics. It contains, in fact, so much shrewd knowledge of human nature, so much wit and vivacity, and, as a story, is constructed with such un- doubted skill, that when Goethe undertook to reproduce it in his own finished hexameters, he did not dare to change the original in any essential particular. But, 140 GERMAN LITERATURE. "Reinecke Fuchs'' is a comjDound fable, born of tliose times wlien the fox, tlie lion, tlie wolf, the bear, the ass and the hare were made the object of that satire which the author was not at liberty to fling openly upon their human representatives. Fable is the refuge of the poet when his people are barbarous and his ruler despotic. As soon as he may venture to satirize and scourge the vices of classes, and then of individual characters, its office is at an end. For men are always more legiti- mately his theme than beasts, and Fable is only gene- rally poj^ular among restricted and undeveloj^ed races, or with children in jDassing through the corresponding stage of growth. Not even Goethe's genius, and Kaul- bach's after him, can make men read ^'Belnecke FucJis'' at this day. It impresses us as a performance of masked figures, and we j)refer to see the full range of undis- guised human expression on the stage. I find very lit- tle evidence that the older poem contributed toward the development of even the humorous element in Ger- man literature. It is an illustration, and a valuable one ; but in dealing with the direct and powerful influences, the effects of which we can trace from century to cen- tury, it must be set aside, to be considered afterward from an independent point of view. There are records, nevertheless, left by the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries,which possess a genuine inter- est for us. Unnoticed at the time, much of the material must have died, as naturally as it originated, ignorant THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 141 of its own value ; but here and there a little song or ballad, like tlie English Eeliques gathered by Percy and Ellis, has survived the storms of the ages. The popular songs — by which I mean, not those written for the peo- ple, in imitation or continuation of the earlier heroic ballads or epics, but those written by the people them- selves, — nay, not written, only sung, verse sprouting from verse as simply as leaf from leaf on a plant — these songs show that we have found a new spirit. They are an evidence that the impulse from above, under the Ho- henstaufens, has at last touched bottom, and quick- ened the latent poetic instinct of the people, which begins to speak with the childish stammer of a new lan- guage. Take, for example, this little " Trooper's Song," from the fifteenth century, hinting of plunder, but very bold and spirited : Woluf, ir lieben gsellen, die uns gebruodert sein, und raten zuo ! wir wcillen dort prassen iiber Rein ; es kumt ein friselier summer, daruf icli mein sach setz, als ie lenger, ie dummer : tin bin ! wetz, eber, wetz ! wack, biietlein, in dem gfretz ! Up and away, good comrades, Ye gallant brothers mine. Ride fast ! it is our purpose To dash beyond the Rhine. There comes a fine fresh summer And promises good store : The longer 'tis, the better ; Up, whet your tusks, old boar I The pasture waits once more. Der sumer sol uns bringen ein frischen freien muot, leicht tuot uns irn gelingen, so kum wir hinder guot ; The summer, it shall bring us Good luck and courage pure : Success for us is easy. And gay return is sure. 142 GERMAN LITERATURE, sie sein vil e erritten. Many rode out before us dan graben, dise scbetz. And treasure found in store ; wir ban uns laug gelitten : We're starved too long already ; bin bin ! wetz, eber, wetz ! Up, wbet your tusks, old boar ! wack, biietlein, in dem gfretz ! Tbe pasture waits once more. . Drumb last iicb nit erscbreck- Tben be not slow or timid, en, ir f riscben krieger stolz ! Ye troopers, fresb and good ! wir zieben durob die becken We'll break tbrougb bedge and tbicket, und rumpeln in das bolz ; And crasb across tbe wood ! man wird nocb unser geren Ours sball be name and bonor und nit acbten so letz, As good as any wore : all ding ein well tuon weren: Wbat otbers do, we'll do it : bin bin ! wetz, eber, wetz ! Up, wbet your tusks, old boar ! wack, biietlein, in dem gfretz I Tbe pasture waits once more. I tliink it requires but a slight familiarity with the German language, to feel the complete variation in tone and spirit between these verses and those of the Minnesingers. The movement, the character, almost the language, is that of modern song : so might Theodor Korner have written, had he lived in those days. This popular poetry grew u]^ simultaneously with another variety of lyric art which I must mention here, since it can be traced back to the middle of the four- teenth century, although its period of bloom was much later. It is the most remarkable phenomenon in the intellectual history of any people. One who is unac- quainted with the development of German literature might well be pardoned for doubting it. The fact that thousands upon thousands of persons organized for the THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 143 purpose of writing poetry, and kept up their organiza- tion for centuries, seems incredible. What is called the Meistergesanfj in Germany (master-poetry, though a bet- ter translation is trade-poetry) was the successor of the Minnegesang , and there is some reason for conjecturing that Frauenlob, the last, and, to my thinking, the poor- est of the Minnesingers, was one of the first Masters of the trade. When the organized societies had existed for some time throughout Germany, and traditions of former generations of professional singers began to gather about them, an attempt w^as made to give a Ma- sonic mystery and antiquity to the craft; but it is not officially mentioned in documents before the close of the fourteenth century, and there is no evidence what- ever that any of the guilds were in existence before the year 1300. The mechanics, singularly enough, were among the first to enroll themselves, and it is probable that the conservatism of their class was the chief means of sustaining these guilds of song for five hundred years; for, although the famous school of Nuremberg was closed in 1770, the last songs were sung by the twelve masters of Ulm, in the year 1330. A rapid sketch of the nature and regulations of one of these master-schools must not be omitted. Each city had its own laws and customs, but the constitution of all was similar. The general method, according to which all songs must be written — called the Tnhulatur — was first adopted. Then the members of the guild 144 GERMAN LITERATURE. were divided according to their knowledge and skill. Those still ignorant of the rhjtlimical laws were called "Puj^ils;" those acquainted with those laws, "School- friends;" those who knew several "tones" (forms of verse), were "Singers;" those who were able to compose new words to the old tones, were "Poets;" and, finally, those capable of inventing a new tone, were " Masters." Frauenlob, for instance, was the inventor of thirty-five such new tones. The names given to them were very- cur ious and ludicrous. In his " Hyperion," Longfellow mentions the " flowery-paradise-measure, the frog-mea- sure, and the looking-glass-measure," — and he might also have added "the much-too-short-sunset-measure, the striped-saffron-flower-measure, the English-tin-mea- sure, the blood-gleaming-wire-measure, the fat-badger- measure, the yellow-lion' s-hide-measure, and the de- ceased-glutton-measure ! " "When the guild assembled, three officials, called the 3Ierher, took their seats upon a raised platform ; their business was to listen sharply, detect faults in the singers, and either punish or reward them according to their deserts. The rules, in this respect, were very strict : among the crimes were not only unusual words, slight rhythmical changes or variations in the melody, but even what were called " false opinions." Whoever succeeded in fulfilling all the laws of the Tabidatur, and was therefore perfect in the trade, received a silver chain to which a medal, containing the head of King THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATIOX. 145 David, was attached : the second prize was a wreath of artificial flowers made of silk. When we consider that, from first to last, this institu- tion of the Master-Song existed five hundred years, and that every considerable town in Germany had its guild, we may guess what a colossal quantity of mechanical poetry was produced. On the other hand, we shall not wonder that so little of it has survived. The Eeforma- tion only strengthened it by giving it a religious char- acter, and the Thirty Years' War probably only made the blood-gleaming-wire-measure more common, for it hardly shook a single society out of existence. Of the thousands of Masters who lived and died, only one — the greatest — has been much heard of outside of Ger- many, and that is Hans Sachs, of Nuremberg, the writer of more than six thousand poems and dramatic pieces. Even he, though the later poets and the modern critics of Germany have recognized his merit and deserved prominence in a dreary literary age — even he cannot escape the hard mechanical touch of his laws of master- song. In Kaulbach's picture of the Eeformation, he is drawn in his leather apron, seated, and counting off the feet of his verse with his thumb and forefinger. This is a nice characteristic ; for I need hardly tell you that the Poet who is born, and not made, never counts his feet in that way. Nevertheless, there is little of Hans Sachs's poetry which does not suggest to me that thumb and forefinger. 146 GERMAN LITERATURE. Since the members were almost exclusively meclia- nics, we might expect that so long a metrical discipline must have affected the tastes and instincts of the peojDle. It must, at least, have j)artly laid the basis of that general aesthetic development which occurred seventy or eighty years ago. At the present day there are few educated Germans, men or women, who cannot write rhythmically correct verse. But when we come to speak of poetry as the expression of intellectual growth, the result would probably be the very opposite. The good mechanics confounded the letter and the sj)irit, like many men in much higher stations. I confess there is something picturesque and even beautiful in this long devotion to the external form, with all its unnatural and ludicrous features ; and I am ready to agree with Longfellow, when he, a Master-singer, thus sings of those old Master- singers : " From remote and sunless suburbs came tbej to tbe friendly guild. Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build. As the weaver plied his shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme ; And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime ; Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom." Here, then, are the chief features of German litera- ture between the years 1300 and 1500 — weak echoes of the epic and the minne-song, gradually dying of their own imbecility : the institution of poetry as a trade or THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 147 handicraft (more correctly, wordicraft) ; tlie modest growth of a new spirit of song among the common peo- ple; the increasing prominence of the didactic element, and the slow and painful effort of the neglected Ger- man prose to raise itself into notice. The invention of printing, at the start, gave currency to many more indif- ferent works than to those which needed to be saved ; but the fermentation which preceded the great religious movement had already commenced, and it was destined to stamp its character upon nearly all the literature of the next century. Before we turn to the coming change, let me mention two or three works which lift themselves a little above the level of the intermediate period. In the first place many knightly legends and old traditions were trans- lated and read throughout Germany — among others *^Die sieben iceisen 3Ieister'' (The Seven Wise Masters) and the "Gesta Romanorum ;'^ various historical chroni- cles were written ; and the theological writings of Tauler, the mystic, and Gailer von Kaysersberg, are worthy of notice. Sebastian Brandt, toward the close of the fif- teenth century, published his ^^ Narrenschif (Shij) of Fools) and his '' Nan^nsptegeV (Mirror of Fools), or a didactic poem of a Hudibrastic character, full of shrewd and pithy phrases, in a coarse Alsatian German, and with frequent gleams of a genuine humor. It was very popular for some years, until the religious division of Germany drew nearer, when Brandt, like his successor, X48 GERMAN LITERATURE. Thomas Murner, became a bitter opponent of tlie Refor- mation. Murner followed with his ''Narrenheschworung " (Conjuration of Fools) ; but his chief merit was his ver- sion of the pranks of Till Euleiispiegel (Till Owlglass) — a famous book ever since that day. A translation of it was published in this country only four or five years ago. I might also mention the names of Rosenbliit and Muscatbliit, and of that hand-organ grinder, Caspar von der Roen, but only because they sometimes occur in German literature. They wrote nothing of sufficient interest to review here. The Reformation was partly heralded by pamphlets and poems, as well as by sermons. All the princiiDal Reformers rose at once, as authors, far above their immediate literary predecessors. That daring and inde- pendent spirit which grew from their strongest spiritual convictions extended itself to everything which they spoke or wrote. In forgetting the conventionalities of literature, and giving their whole soul and strength to the clearest utterance of their views, they unconsciously acquired a higher literary style. In singing what they felt to be God's truth, they did not take the Minne- singers as models, or consider the artificial rules of the Masters; and so there came into their songs a new, veritable sweetness and strenpjth, drawn directly from the heart. It was no time for purely aesthetic develop- ment ; fancy or imagination could not soar in that stern, disturbed atmosphere. But the basis was then laid, on THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 149 which the immortal literature of the last century is founded. Zwingli was born in November, 1483, Luther two months afterward, and Ulric von Hutten in 1488. They worked simultaneously, but in different ways and with very different degrees of literary merit. Zwingli was polemical, Hutten satirical, and Luther creative. Hutten's Dialogues, in point, satire and rapid ease of movement, surpass any German prose before him ; but they, like all German prose up to that time, are marked by the local dialect of the author. The language was gradually developing its qualities, but in an irregular and not very coherent fashion. Philologically, there were almost as many different varieties of prose as there were authors, while poetry (except the unnoticed songs of the people) had hardened into the rigid moulds made for it more than two hundred years before. The man who re-created the German language — I hardly think the expression too strong — was Martin Luther. It was his fortune and that of the world that he was so equally great in many directions — as a per- sonal character, as a man of action, as a teacher and preacher, and, finally, as an author. No one before him, and no one for nearly two hundred years after him, saw that the German tongue must be sought for in the mouths of the people — that the exhausted expression of the earlier ages could not be revived, but that the newer, fuller and richer speech, then in its childhood, 150 GERMAN LITERATURE. must at ouce be acknowledged and adopted. He made it tlie Yeliicle of what was divinest in human lan- guage ; and those who are not informed of his manner of translating the Bible, cannot aj^preciate the origi- nality of his work, or the marvelous truth of the in- stinct which led him to it. With all his scholarship), Luther dropped the theo- logical style, and sought among the people for phrases as artless and simple as those of the Hebrew writers. He frequented the market-place, the merry-making, the house of birth, marriage or death among the common people, in order to catch the fullest exjDression of their feelings in the simplest words. He enlisted his friends in the same service, begging them to note down for him any peculiar, sententious phrase ; " for," said he, " I can- not use the words heard in castles and at courts." Not a sentence of the Bible was translated, until he had sought lor the briefest, clearest and strongest German equivalent to it. He writes, in 1530 : " I have exerted myself, in translating, to give pure and clear German. And it has verily happened, that we have sought and questioned a fortnight, three, four weeks, for a single word, and yet it was not always found. In Job we so labored, Philip Melanchthon, Aurogallus and I, that in four days we sometimes barely finished three lines. . . . It is well enough to plow, when the field is cleared ; but to root out stock and stone, and prepare the ground, is what no one will." THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 151 He illustrates liis own plan of translation by an ex- ample wliicli is so interesting that I must quote it : "We must not ask tlie letters in tlie Latin language how we should speak German, as the asses do, but we must ask the mother in the house, the children in the lanes, the common man in the market-place, and read in their mouths how they speak, and translate accord- ing thereto : then they understand, for they see we are speaking German to them. As when Christ says : Ex ahundantia cordis os loquitur. Now if I were to follow the asses, they would dissect for me the letters and thus translate : * Out of the superabundance of the heart, speaks the mouth.' Now tell me, is that spoken German ? What German understands that ? What is superabundance of the heart, to a German? No Ger- man would say that, unless he meant that he had too much of a heart, or too big a heart, although even that is not correct ; for superabundance of heart is no Ger- man, any more than — superabundance of house, super- abundance of cooking-stoYe, superabundance of bencli ; but thus speaketh the mother in the house and the common man : Whose heart is full, his mouth overflows. That is Germanly spoken, such as I have endeavored to do, but, alas ! not always succeeded." Luther translated the Bil)le eiglity years before our English version was produced. I do not know whether the Englisli translators made any use of his labors, although they inclined toward the same plan, without 152 GERMAN LITERATURE. following it so conscientiously. In regard to accuracy of rendering, tliere is less difference. Bunsen, in his "Bibehcerl','' states that there are more than five hundred errors in either version. But, in regard to the fullness, the strength, the tenderness, the vital power of language, I think Luther's Bible decidedly superior to our own. The instinct of one great man, is, in such matters, if not a safer, at least a more satisfactory guide than the ave- rage judgment of forty-seven men. Luther was a j)oet as well as a theologian, and, as a poet, he was able to feel, as no theologian could, the intrinsic difference of spirit and character in the different books of the Old Testament, — not only to feel, but, through the sympa- thetic quality of the poetic nature, to reproduce them. These ten years, from 1522 to 1532, which he devoted to the work, were not only years of unremitting, prayer- ful, conscientious labor, but also of warm, bright, joyous intellectual creation. We can only appreciate his won- derful achievement by comparing it with any German prose before his time. Let me quote his version of the 139th Psalm, as an example of the simplicity, the strength and the nobility of his style : Herr, du erforschest micli, und kennest micli. 2. — Icli sitze Oder stehe aiif, so weisst du es ; du verstebest meine Qedanken von feme. 3. — Ich gehe oder liege, so bist du um micli, und sieliest alle me'ne Wege. 4. — Denn siehe, es ist kein Wort auf meiner Zunge, das du, Herr, niclit Alles wissest. THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. I53 5.— Du schaffest es, was icli vor oder liernacli tliue, und lialtst deine Hand iiber mir. — Solches Erkenntniss ist mir zu wunderlicli und zu lioch ; ich liann es niclit begreifen. —Wo soil ich liingelien vor deinem Geist? Und wo soil ich Mn- fiiehen vor deinem Angesicht ? — Flilire ich gen Himmel, so bist du da. Bettete ich mir in die Hcille, sielie, so bist du audi da. — Nahme icli Fliigel der Morgenrotbe, und bliebe am aussersten Meer, 10.— So wiirde mich docli deine Hand daselbst fiibren, und deine Reclite mich halten. 11. — Sprache ich: Finsterniss moge mich decken ; so muss die Nacht auch Licht um micji seyn. 12.— Denu auch Finsterniss nicht finster ist bei dir, und die Nacht leuchtet wie dpr Tag ; Finsterniss ist wie das Licht. Now let us take a few verses from the well-known chapter of Paul— the thirteenth of the first EjDistle to the Corinthians, and feel how Luther was equally capable of expressing the warmth, the tenderness and the beauty of the original. You will note that the word " charity" of our version is more correctly rendered " love " : Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit Engelzungen redete, und hatte der Liebe nicht ; so ware ich ein tonend Erz, oder eine klingende Schelle. 2.— Und wenn ich weissagen konnte, und wiisste alle Geheimnisse, und alle Erkenntniss, und hatte alien Glauben, also, dass ich Barge versetzte, und hatte der Liebe nicht ; so ware ich nichts. 3-— Uiid wenn ich alle meine Habe den Armen gabe, und liesse mei- nen Leib brennen, und hatte der Liebe nicht ; so ware mir's nichts niitze. 4.— Die Liebe is langmiithig und freundlich, die Liebe eifert nicht, die Liebe treibt nicht Muthwillen, sie blahet sich nicht, 5.— Sie stellet sich nicht ungeberdig, sie suchet nicht das Ihre, sie lasst sich nicht erbittern, sie trachtet nicht nach Schaden, 7* 154 GEBMAN LITERATURE. 6. — Sie freuet sich niclit der Ungerechtigkeit, sie freuet sich aber der Wahrlieit, 7. — Sie vertragt Alles, sie glaubet Alles, sie lioffet Alles, sie duldet Alles. 8. — Die Liebe horet nimuier auf, so docb die Weissagungen aufh6ren werden, und die Sprachen aufhoren werden, und das Erkenntniss auflioren wird. I liave not tlie time to compare, as I should wish, certain passages, verse by verse, nor, indeed, to dwell longer on a work which, although a translation, pos- sesses for the German race the literary importance of an original creation. Let us take two very different examples of Luther's abilities as an author — the first, that celebrated hymn, ^'Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott'^ which should be properly chanted to his own music, as it still is in Germany, in order to be fully appreciated. The theme is taken from the forty-sixth Psalm; the translation is Carlyle's : EIn feste burg ist vnser Gott, A safe stronghold our God is still, ein gute wehr vnd waffeu : A trusty shield and weapon ; Er hilfft vns f rey aus aller not He'll help us clear from all the ill die vns itzt hat betroffen. That hath us now o'ertaken. Der alt bose feind The ancient Prince of Hell mit ernst ers itzt meint, Has risen with purpose fell ; gros macht vnd viel list Strong mail of Craft and Power sein grausam riistung ist, He weareth in this hour, aufi erd ist nichts seins gleichen. On Earth is not his fellow. Mit vnser macht ist nichts ge- With force of arms we nothing than, can, wlr sind gar bald verloren : Full soon were we down-ridden ; Es streit f iir vns der rechte man, But for us fights the proper Man, den Gott hat selbs erkoren. Whom God himself hath bidden. THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 155 Fragstu, wer der ist ? er heisst Jhesiis Christ, der HERR Zebaoth, vnd ist kein ander Gott, das felt mus er behalten. Vnd wenn die welt vol Teuffel wer, vnd wolt vns gar verschlingen, so fiirchten wir vns nicht so sehr, es sol vns doch gelingen. Der Fiirst dieser welt, wie sawr er sicli stelt, thiit er vns docli nicht, das macht, er ist gericht, ein wortlin kan jn fellen. Das wort sie sollen lassen stan vnd kein danck dazu haben, Er ist bey vns wol auff dem plan mit seinem geist vnd gaben. Nemen sie den leib, gut, ehr, kind vnd weib : las fahren dahiu, sie habens kein gewin, Das Reich mus vns doch bleiben. Ask ye, Who is this same? Christ Jesus is his name. The Lord Zebaoth's Son, He and no other one Shall conquer in the battle. And were this world all Devils o'er, And watching to devour us. We lay it not to heart so sore. Not they can overpower us. And let the Prince of 111 Look grim as e'er he will. He harms us not a whit : For why? His doom is writ, A word shall quickly slay him. God's Word, for all their craft and force. One moment will not linger. But spite of Hell shall have its course, 'Tis written by his finger. And though they take our life, Goods, honour, children, wife. Yet is their profit small ; These things shall vanish all, The City of God remaineth. We seem to hear the steps of a giant, to whom every- thing must give way, in the strong, short march of the original lines. I meant to quote, as a contrast to this, the letter which Luther wrote to his little son, as delightfully artless and childlike a piece of writ- ing as anything which Hans Christian Andersen has ever produced. But it is so well known that I have decided to translate, instead, a Christmas poem for 156 GERMAN LITERATURE. children, whicli I believe lias never been rendered into English : VOm Himel lioch da kom ich From Heaven I come, a herald her, true, ich bring euch gute newe mehr, To bring glad tidings down to you. Der guten mehr bring ich so viel So much good news I hither bring dauon ich singen vnd sagen wil. That 1 thereof must speak and sing. Euch ist ein kindlein heut ge- There's born, to-day, a little born, child, von einer Jungfraw, auserkorn, And from a Virgin, pure and mild ; Ein klndelein, so zart und fein, A babe so fine and fair to see, das sol ewr freud vnd wonne It must your bliss and fortune sein. be. Es ist der HERR Christ vnser 'Tis Christ, the Lord, our God Gott, indeed, der wil euch f iirn aus aller not. Who out of trouble us shall lead ; Er wil ewr Heiland selber sein, He shall your Saviour be, and make von alien sunden machen rein. Ye pure of sin for his sweet sake. Er bringt euch alle seligkeit. All joy to you his hand shall bear, die Gott der Vater hat bereit, Which God the Father did pre- pare, Das jr mit vns im himelreich That so with us ye children be solt leben nu vnd ewigleicl\ In his own heaven eternally. So mercket nu das zeichen reclit, Now mark ye well what tokens these : die krippen, windelein so schlecht, The manger and the cloth of frieze. THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 157 Da findet jr das kind gelegt. The little baby there ye'll find, das alle welt erhelt und tregt. Who shall the world sustain and bind. Des lasst vns alle frolich sein Let us with gladness and with prayer vnd niit den hirten gehen hinein, Now enter with the shepherds there, Zu sehen, was Gott vns hat be- To see what God for us hath schert, done mit seinem lieben Sou verehrt. In giving us his darling Son. Merck aufE, mein hertz, vnd sich Look up, my dears ! turn there dort hin : your eyes : was ligt doch in dem krippelin, What is it in the manger lies ? Was ist das schone kindelin ? Who is the babe, the lamb, the dove? es ist das liebe Jhesulin. 'Tis little Jesus whom we love. Bis willekomen, du edler gast. Be welcome, guest so nobly prized, den Sunder nicht verschmehet Who hast the sinner not de- hast, spised, Ynd kompst ins elend her zu And should'st thou come thro* mir ; woe to me, wie sol ich immerdancken dir ? How shall I render thanks to thee? Ach, HERE, du schopffer aller Ah, Lord ! who did'st all things ding, create, wie bistu worden so gering. How art thou fallen to low estate ! Dass du da ligst aufE durrem Upon dry grass thou liest here : gras, dauon ein rind vnd esel ass. Beside thee feed the ass and steer. Vnd wer die welt vielmal so Were the whole world full as *t weit, could hold von edel stein vnd gold bereit. Of precious jewels and of gold, 158 OERMAX LITERATURE. So wer sie docli dirviel zuklein, For tliee 'twere far too small 'twould be zu sein ein enges wigelein. A narrow cradle unto thee ! Der sanimet vnd die seiden dein, Tlij velvet and thy silks, to-day, das ist grob hew und windelein, Are coarsest cloth and roughest hay, Darauff du, Konig so gross vnd Whereon thou, mighty King, reich, dost lie her prangst, als wers dein Hi- As grandly as in Heaven high. melreich. Ach, mein hertzliebes Jhesulin, Ah, Jesus, darling of my breast, mach dir ein rein sanfft bettelin, Make thee a pure, soft bed of rest Zu rugen in meins hertzen Within my heart as in a shrine, schrein, das ich nimer vergesse dein. That so I keep thy love divine. Dauon ich allzeit frohlich sey, Thence happy shall I always be, zu springen, singen imer frey And leap and sing, rejoicing free. Das rechte Sussaniue schon, As one who feels the perfect tone mit hertzen lust den siissen thon. Of sweet heart-music is his own. Lob, ehr sey Gott im hcichsten Glory to God in the Highest thron, spend, der vns schenckt seinen einigen Who us His only Son did send. Son, Desfrewen sich der engel schar. While angels now sing hymns of cheer, vnd singen vns solchs newes To give the world a glad New- jar, year. I make no apology for quoting this simple strain ; for when we have the expression of a man's power and energy on the one side, and of his delicacy of mind and playful tenderness of heart on the other, we haye THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 159 the hroadest measure of liis character. The influence of Luther on German literature cannot be explained until we have seen how sound and vigorous and many- sided was the new spirit which he infused into the language. For it is not simply the grand and stately elements which must be developed ; not the subtlety which befits speculation, or the keenness and point which are required for satire ; but chiefly the power of expressing homely human sentiment and painting the common phases of life. The hymns — or rather, devotional poems, — written by Luther's contemporaries, have a greater or less resemblance to his, in form and style. The one lied of Ulric von Hutten, commencing "/cA liaVs gewagt,'^ has the keenness of a sword-thrust : those of Paul Eber, Hermann, Nicolai and others vary according to the tem- perament or talent of the writer, but have a family re- semblance. Some are rough in measure and almost rude in diction ; others have some fluency and melody, with no special literary merit. To read them after Luther, is like reading Dr. Watts after Milton's " Hymn on the Nativity." I do not consider it necessary to give any specimens of their hymns, except a single verse from that written by the Duke John Frederick, the Magnanimous, of Saxony : As 't pleases God, so let it pass ; The birds may take my sorrow ; If fortune shun my house to-day. I'll wait until to-morrow. 160 GERMAN LITERATURE. The goods I have I still shall save. Or, if some part forsake me. Thank God, who's just ; What mnst be, must ; Good luck may still o'ertake me ! The secular poets of the first half of the sixteenth century may be easily reviewed. I find no author of note, except Hans Sachs, although some of the shorter lyrics of Weckrlin and Andraea are more than mechani- cal verse. One of the most prolific of this class of poets was Helmbold, whose productions were almost as plentiful, and not much more valuable, in a literary sense, than the rhymed advertisements of the news- papers now-a-days. Hans Sachs, who was born in 1494 and lived until 1576, must not be confounded with the host of Master- singers. He was a man of genuine native ability, of great experience and unusual learning. Educated at a good school as a boy, he then became a shoemaker, traveled as a wandering journeyman all over Germany, from the Baltic to the Tyrolese Alps, was a hunter in Maximilian's service, made the personal acquaintance of Luther, and returned to Nuremberg, at the age of twenty- two, to marry and devote himself to poetry. He was in easy circumstances, and did not need to depend on his trade. He knew all German and the best of classic literature, and even ihe works of Petrarch and Boccaccio. His glowing Protestantism gave much of his poetry a THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 161 religious and didactic character, and the soulless me- chanism of the Master-craft is too frequently apparent ; but we also meet with lyrics and short dramatic pieces which are full of nature and grace, and which charm us by their happy felicity of language. If we approve only five per cent, of his productions, we shall still have three hundred good works out of six thousand. His narra- tive tone is sometimes admirable, especially when he describes the scenes and circumstances of the life around him, not inventing, but representing poetically — to use Grimm's distinction between erdichten and dichten. He seems to be happiest when both subject and sentiment are what is called hiirgerUch, that is, belonging to the solid, thrifty middle class : there is nothing of the fine frenzy in him. Among English authors, I might com- pare him to Crabbe in the qualities of careful, nice ob- servation and sturdy good sense, but Crabbe was much his inferior in grace and variety of expression. Lessing and Goethe were among the first to rescue the fame of Hans Sachs from the disrespect into which it had fallen, under the dominion of French taste in Germany. Now, the honest Master is lifted again upon his proper pedes- tal, and sits (to quote Longfellow again) : " as in Adam Puscliman's song, As the old man, gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and long." I have had some difficulty in selecting a single short poem of Hans Sachs, which may illustrate the lighter 162 GERMAN LITERATURE. and more graceful features of liis Muse. Every poem is accomjDanied by a statement of its measure, whether copied from an older master or original The latter, of course, is the more characteristic. As scarcely any- thing of Hans Sachs has ever been translated, I must furnish at least one specimen ; and I have taken a short poem, which he says was written in 1517, in his own " silver measure." DICHTEK UND SINGER. Icli lob ein briinlein kiile mit urspmnges aufwiile fur ein gross wasserhiile, die keinen ursprung hat. Sicli allein muss besechen mit zufliessenden bechen der briinnlein, mag ich spreclien ; die liiil nit lang bestat. Wan von der sunen grosser hitz im sumerlangen tak die liiil wirt faul und gar unniitz, gewint bosen gescbmak; sie trucknet ein, wirt griin und gelb; so friscliet sicli das briinnlein selb mit seinem uresprunge, beleibet unbezwunge von der sune scheinunge, es wirt nit faul nocb mat. n Das briinlein icli geleicbe einem dicliter kunstreiche, THE POET AND THE SINGER. I like a fountain, flowing Beside a cavern, showing No token, in its going. Of whence its waters came. Itself must fill forever, And by its own endeavor. The urn of its light river : The cave is not the same. Wlien from the sun's increasing heat, In days of summertime, The cave is neither fresh nor sweet, But smells of mould and slime. And dries, and groweth rank and green -, Then doth the fount itself keep clean From out its hidden sources, — Conquers the sun's hot forces In all its crystal courses, And grows not foul nor dull. That fountain I compare to The poet, who doth swear to TUB LITEBATURE OF THE REFORMATIOK. 163 der gesang anfenkleiche diclitet aus klinsten grunt ; Bas lob icli den mit rechte f iir einen singer scTileclite, der sein gesang enpfeclite aus eines fremden munt. Wan so entspringet neue kunst, nocli sherfer, dan die alt, des singers gesang ist umsunst, er wirt gesckweiget bait ; er kan nit gen neue gespor sie sei im den gebanet vor durcli den dichter on slierzen. The poetry he's heir to ; And honors art the more. But he — I say with sorrow — Is a wretched singer thorough, Who all his songs must borrow From what was sung before. For when new art is born again, Better than ancient tune, The singer's song is all in vain ; He shall be silenced soon : No effort of his own avails To follow on those fresher trails, 'Gainst him whose fancies bear der aus kunstreichem herzen kan dichten ane scherzen neu gesang alle stunt. Whose heart and art declare us. That lightly he can spare us A new song every hour. III. Won alle kiinst auf erden teglich gescherfet werden von grobheit und gef erden, die man vor darin fant. Von gesang ich euch sage, das er von tag zu tage noch scherfer werden mage durch den dichter, verstant. Darum gib ich dem dichter ganz ein kron von rotem golt und dem singer ein griinen kranz. darbei ir merken solt : kem der singer aiif todes bar, sein kunst mit im al stirbet gar ; wirt der dichter begraben, sein kunst wirt erst erhaben miintlich und in buchstaben gar weit in mengem lant. Our art, of truth the mirror. Should daily be the clearer Of coarseness and of error. That erewhile clouded it. And song — there's nothing surer ! — Should day by day be purer. And nobler, and securer. Made by the poet's wit. Therefore a crown of red-gold sheen The poet should receive ; The singer but a garland green. That ye this truth believe : Lieth the singer cold and dead, His art with him hath perished ; But when the poet dieth His art that end denieth. And liveth still, and flieth To many a distant land. . 164 GER3IAN LITERATURE. The songs of tlie people continued to increase and to be sung, during the period of the Eeformation. It is only in them, in fact, that we find the music and the melody of verse, of which the devotional and didactic poetry is so bare. The character of these songs remains the same as in the previous century, but the language shows a great improvement. Take this lovely little " Hunter's Song," by some unknown peasant-author : Es jagi; ein jeger wolgem&t A hunter hunted merrily, er jagt auss frischem freiem mut Under the leafy linden-tree ; wol unter eine grune linden, His free, strong heart upbore him ; er jagt derselben tierlein vil Many a beast he hunted down, mit seinen schnellen winden. With his greyhounds fast before him. Er jagt uber berg und tief e tal under den stauden liberal, sein hornlein tat er blasen ; sein lieb under einer stauden sass, tet auf den jeger losen. He sped through vale, o'er mountain cold. The thicket and the bushy wold, And blew his horn so clearly ; But under the boughs his sweet- heart sat,' And looked on him so dearly. Er schweift sein mantel in das gras, er bat sie, dass sie zu im sass, mit weissen armen umbfangen : " So gehab dich wol, mein trosterin ! nach dir stet mein verlangen. Upon the ground his cloak he threw, Sat there, and her beside him drew, And said, her white hand press- ing : Well may'st thou fare, con- soler mine, My one desire and blessing ! THE LITERATURE OF THE REFORMATION. 165 " Ha; uns der reif, hat uns der " If hoar-frost come, or snow be sclme, seen, hat uns erfrort den griinen kle, To kill for us the clover green die bltimlein auf der heiden : And the blossoms on the heather, wo zwei herzlieb bei einander Nor frost nor snow can part the sind, twain die zwei sol niemant scheiden. " Who love, and sit together ! " Or this little song of tlie "Nettle-Wreath" : " O baurnknecht, lass die roslein ''0 peasant-lad, let the roses be ! Stan ! • sie sein nit dein ! ._ Not for thee they blow ! du tregst noch wol von nessel- Thou wearest still of the nettle- kraut weed ein krenzelein." Thy wreath of woe." Das nesselkraut ist bitter und The nettle-weed is bitter and saur, sour, und brennet mich: And burneth me : verlorau hab ich mein schones But that I lose my fairest love /ieb da/ reuwet mich. Is my misery. /j]s rent mich sehr, und tut mir This I lament, and thence my / heart in meinem herzen we : Is sad and sore : gesegn dich gott, mein holder God keep thee now, lost, lovely bul, girl ! ich sehe dich nimmer me ! I shall never see thee more. At first it may seem remarkable that, with such elements as Luther's prose and the birth of a true poetry among the people, there was not an immediate revival of literature in Germany. The new faith, how- ever, did not bring peace, but a sword. If arms silence laws, they silence letters all the more speedily. The 166 GERMAN LITERATURE. oppressions of tlie feudal system, whicli brouglit on tlie Peasants' War in Luther's time, were strengthened by the bloody failure of that war : rulers and nobles trod out everT spark of a claim for better rights among the people. Thus, toward the close of the sixteenth cen- tury, when Spain and Italy and England were rejoicing in their classic age of literature, the finer mind of Ger- many seemed to be dead. But for Luther's achieve- ments, the Age of the Reformation would seem to be one of baffled promise, separated by dreary centuries from the literature of the Middle Ages, on the one hand, and that of the modern period on the other. Yet, as the strong foundations of an edifice must sometimes wait long for the building of the superstructure, so here the basis of the later development w^as complete, and the development itself predicted, in spite of all delays. YL THE LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. In our journey downward, from the earliest period of German literature, we have traversed very different regions. We found ourselves, at the start, as in a rough land of mountains and dark fir forests, inhabited by a strong and simple race. There are meadows and fresh clearings in the valleys, but from the deeper gorges we hear the chant of Druids and the harps of the last Bardic singers. Then Ave issue upon a long, barren waste, beyond which lies the bright, busy, crowded land of the Middle Ages, with its castles and cathedrals, its marches and tournaments, its mingled costumes of the East and the West, its echoes of Palestine and Provence, of Brittany and Cornwall. Then again comes a waste, through which we walk wearily for a long time, before we reach a new region — a land of earnest workers and builders, where the first resting-place we find is the block of a new edifice, not yet lifted to its place — a land of change and preparation, overhung by a doubtful sky, but overblown by a keen, bracing air, in which the race again grows strong. We have now one more long, half- settled stretch of monotonous plain to traverse, before 167 168 GERMAN LITERATURE. finding the work of the builders completed, and the substructures of thought risen into temples which stand fair and firm under a sky of eternal sunshine. It is impossible for me, now, to give even a flying explanation of the many depressing influences which operated directly upon the literary activity of the Ger- man people during the latter half of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth century. I can only name the chief of them : first, the change in the spirit and character of the Reformation, after the Peasants' War, and again after Luther's death, coupled with the in- fluence of the nobles and the ruling princes, who were at once despotic and indifferent to letters; then the terrible Thirty Years' War, — the cruelest infliction to which any people were ever exposed ; and, finally, the subjection of Germany to the tastes and the fashions of France and of French thought. Although Luther had created the modern High-Ger- man on the basis of the common speech of the peo- ple, and forced the Low-German into the position of a dialect, the dry theological tendency of his successors interfered directly with his work. The true beginning of a new literature having been found, it could only be developed in the same direction. But when the demo- cratic element in the Reformation was suppressed, the popular mine of speech which Luther discovered was no longer worked. Indeed the religious principle, which was inherited by the next generation, became a different LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 1G9 agency from that wliicli liacl been attained tlirough struggle and sacrifice. It liad no longer the same vital, informing power ; and it settled rapidly into a dogma- tism only less rigid than that of the Church of Pvome. Not only the literary interests suffered under this state of things, but the very language became corrupted by neglect and the style of ignorant and pretentious writers. In the beginning of the seventeenth century. Dr. Fabri- cius writes : " Our German tongue is not to that extent poor and decayed, as many persons would now have us believe, so patching and larding it wdth French and Italian, that they cannot even send a little letter with- out furbishing it with other languages, so that one, in order to understand it, ought to know all the tongues of Christendom, to the great disgrace and injury of our German language." It was probably the same circum- stance which led Fischart to write, a little earlier : " Our language is also a language, and can call a sack a sack, as well as the Latins can call it a saccus." Directly following this haughty indifference of the higher class, this spiritual degeneracy of the middle class, and the suppression of the claims of the common people, came the Thirty Tears' War, — that terrible period from which Germany, in a material and political sense, has been nearly two hundred years in recovering. Whole regions were so devastated that the wolf and the bear resumed their original ownership ; the slow edu- cation of centuries was swept away ; a second barba- 8 170 GERMAN LITERATURE. rism, worse than tlie first, in some instances took its place ; and tlie Westplialian Peace left a land broken and despoiled of nearly everything, except the power of the rulers over their subjects. I have seen more thar one district of Germany which, in 1850, had just re- covered the same amount of population, of cattle and of agricultural productions which it possessed before the year 1618. It is only by such statements that we can measure the results of that struggle. The Germany of to-day is not the work of its petty princes, not the work of the sham emperors, whose " holy Koman" sceptre was the symbol of imaginary power, but the work of the people, liberated, educated, conscious of their strength and grand in exercising it. When we have studied the history of Germany suffi- ciently to comprehend the constant, almost indescrib- able trials and sufferings of the people during this period, we no longer wonder at their retarded intellec- tual development. But for an infinite patience and courage, they must have lost their national identity, like the Goths and Burgundians. But, as we have seen, much good seed had been planted, and such seed will always germinate, though held in the hand of an Egyp- tian mummy for three thousand years. It was only a delayed, not a prevented growth. Two men then arose who belong to the greatest minds of the world— two men whose peculiar labors abstracted them from the miserable circumstances into which they were born, LITERATURE OF THE SEYENTEENTR CENTURY. 171 and rendered them comparatively independent of tlieir time. Tliey were Kepler and Leibnitz. One belongs to science, and tlie other to philosophy. But Kepler is hardly to be called an author, and Leibnitz wrote chiefly in Latin, and therefore hardly connects himself with German literature. The one author who especially represents the latter half of the sixteenth century is Johannes Fischart. We know very little about his life — not even the proba- ble date of his birth ; but only that he was a jurist and theologian, that he lived in Strasburg, Speyer and For- bach, that he traveled much, having visited England, and was acquainted with many languages. He was partly a contemporary of Shakespeare, to whose portrait his own has some resemblance, and whom he resembled also in the wonderful breadth and variety of his accom- plishments. Although his works were quite popular during his life, they seem to have been wholly forgotten at the close of the Thirty Years' War, and his name was almost unknown when revived by the late recognition of Bodmer and Lessing. There was really, in the long interval between his death and the birth of these men, no author of sufficient scope to appreciate his works, unless it was Frederick v. Logau, who probably never heard of him. The first thing which strikes us in Fischart is his style, which reminds us of Kabelais, and sometimes of Bichter. His vocabulary is inexhaustible, and his sati- 172 GERMAJS LITERATURE. rical humor never wearies. He is quite equal to Rabe- lais in the invention of comical words, and it is therefore almost impossible to translate many of his best pas- sages. He even transforms, or Germanizes with great humor, words of foreign origin, constituting, in fact, a very curious form of punning, — as iiielancliolisch, which he turns into maid'Mng-choUscJi,2^odagra into j)/oten-gramy and Jesuiter into Jesu-ivider. Such specimens will give you an idea of his peculiar manner. In a sort of gro- tesque absurdity, he was the forerunner of a class of American authors who are now attempting to make everything in the world comical for us, from the raising of potatoes to the massacre of St. Bartholomew; but, unlike those American authors, his fun rests on a broad foundation of learning, and is constantly softened and lightened by a noble humanity. When his humor is apparently most lawless and chaotic, he never loses sight of its chosen object. 'Even his "Aller Practik Grossrmitter," which seems to be a collection of absurdi- ties, was meant to cure the people of their dependence on soothsayers and prognosticating almanacs. I regret that I have not had time to attempt the translation of a few passages, in which Fischart's remarkable humor and style might be preserved ; but in order to give any- thing like a fair representation of his comic genius in English, we should have to find a man like Urquhart, the translator of Eabelais, and such translators appear as rarelv as the original authors. LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 173 I can give only a little specimen of liis serious prose, from Ins " Book of Conjugal Virtue," wherein he com- pares matrimony to a ship : On tlie sea the wind is the governing power ; in the household it is God. In this house- ship, trust in God fills the sails favorably : the mast, to which the sails are fastened, is the Divine institution of mar- riage : the anchor is a believing, enduring hope. The ship's tackle is the house-furniture ; the freight is all household service ; the crew are those who perform it : the sea is the world, the great sea-waves are the many troubles and anxieties which come to the house-folks, in trjing to support themselves in honor. The tacking of the ship is the going out and in : the lading and unlading are the expenses and the incomes. Shipwreck is the ruin that comes upon a house, either from dying away of the wind of God, or from the slack, evil sails of mistrust, or from dissipated courses. The shrouds on the mast are a good conscience ; the pennon at the mast-head is faith in God, the compass is the commandments of God. The rudder is Obedience, the figure-head at the prow is the fear and honor of God. The deck is decent life and fidelity of them that serve. Pirates are the devils that disturb married life, and the envious who attack the house-ship. And finally, even as the islands of the sea, — yea, half the world — were not inhabited save for navigation, so lands and places would be desolate, but for the households of marriage. And as unto him who goes to sea the sailing prospers, so he prospers in his household who applies an honest art and skill thereto. Not unjustly do we compare a household to a vessel, since the first house and the first house-keeping, during and after the Deluge, were a ship and in a ship. Fischart was a man of strong religious and patriotic feelings. In his " Serious Warning to the beloved Ger- mans," he gives a picture of what Germany then was and what she should be, which will apply to the history of the first half of this century. " What honor is it to you," he asks, "that you praise the old Germans because 174 GERMAN LITERATURE. the J fought for their freedom, because they suffered no bad neighbors to molest them? And you disregard your own freedom, you can hardly be secure in your own land, you allow your neighbor to tie his horse, head and tail, to your hedge." Fischart was a native of Elsass, and the neighbor, of course, was France. In another poem, he exclaims : " The flower of freedom is the loveliest blossom ! May God let this excellent flower expand in Germany everyw^here : then come j^eace, joy, rest and renown ! " Fischart first introduced the Italian sonnet into Ger- man literature. His poetical versions of some of the Psalms more nearly approach Luther's in rugged gran- deur than those of any other writer of the time ; but his verse lacks the ease and the animation of his prose. As a prose writer, he gives exactly that element to the lan- guage which the Reformers could not furnish in their graver works — an element of playful and grotesque humor which does not again appear until we find it in Eichter. But Fischart, coming after Luther and profit- ing by his labors, cannot be called a founder. Had he fallen upon other times — for instance on an age of dra- matic literature, like Shakespeare — his great natural powers might have been more broadly and happily de- veloped. As in the case of Wolfram von Eschenbach, we feel that the man must have been greater than his works. I have mentioned the corruption which came upon the LITKRATVRE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. I75 language about the close of the sixteenth century, and have given you two instances to show that it was griev- ously felt by men of intelligence. In spite of the con- tinual religious and political agitation, the class of cul- tivated 2:)ersons slowly increased : the need of a literary reformation was recognized, and finally, in 1617, a year before the breaking out of the Thirty Years' War, a society was formed, on the model of those Italian litera- ry associations, some of which exist to this day. It was called the " Fruit-bringing Society," or the " Order of the Palm" : its chief object was to restore and preserve the purity of the German tongue. It seems like an omen of the future that this society — the first sign of a distinct literary aspiration since the Crusades — should have been founded in the Duchy of Weimar. It was followed by the " Sincere Society of the Pine," in Stras- burg, in 1633 ; the " German-thinking Brotherhood," in Hamburg, in 16-13, and various later associations, the objects of Avhich were identical or related. Now, al- though literature cannot be created by societies, lite- rary influence can be ; and it was a member of the Order of the Palm whose example and success made the High- German the exclusive language of poetry, as Luther, a hundred years before, had made it the language of prose. I allude to Martin Opitz, the founder of what is called the Silesian school. He was born in 1597, some years after Fischart's death, and died in 1639. His short life 1 76 GERMAN LITER A TURE. was one of such successful labor, when we consider the unfortunate time, that his deserts, on account of what he did for the language, overbalance the harm which he inflicted upon the popular taste bj a false system. His prose work, upon the principles of German poetry, written in 1624, declared, in advance, the character of nearly all the poetic literature of the century. His doctrine is, briefly, that the author should use only the pure High-German; that he should draw his themes from Nature, but not describe things as they are, so much as represent them as they might be, or ought to be ; and, finally, that his only models should be the classic authors. Opitz seems to have followed the French work of Scaliger, and his views therefore har- monize with that of the French classical school of the time. He was both crowned as a poet and ennobled by the Emperor Ferdinand ; he received official stations and honors, and his influence thus became much more extended and enduring than the character of his works would now lead us to suppose. We can scarcely say, in fact, that he was taken down fi'om his lofty pedestal until about the middle of the last century. But the establishment of the literary societies and the example of Opitz certainly saved verse, in those days, from the disgraceful condition into which prose had fallen ; for, while the prose writers of the seventeenth century utterly lack the strength and dignity and tenderness and idiomatic picturesqueness of those of the Eefor- LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. I77 mation, either expressing themselves awkwardly and laboriously, or showing the taint of a vulgar dialect, the poets, with all their pedantry and affectation, are always admirably pure in language and careful in diction. Opitz was a man of the world, with more ambition than principle. A Protestant, he could become the secretary of Count Dohna, who used torture to force Catholicism upon his Silesian vassals ; a German, he died in the service of the King of Poland. We could not expect to find the fiery sincerity of a true poet ex^ pressed in such a life ; and we do not find it in his works. In form and language he is almost perfect : within the limits which he fixed for himself, he displays an exquisite taste, and we cannot come upon his works, directly from those which immediately preceded them, without a sudden surprise and pleasure. Take the two opening stanzas of his poem " To the Germans," which seems to have been inspired by some event of the Thirty Years' War : Auff , aujff , wer Teutsche Frey- Up, now ! who German Freedom lieit liebet, loveth, Wer Lust, fiir Gott zu fechten And wlio for God is proud to hat ! bleed ! Der Schein, den mancher von Mere show of faith, that many sich giebet moveth, Verbringet keine Ritter-that. Was never nurse of knightly deed ! Wann fug vnd Vrsach ist zu When need and cause command brechen, decision, 8* 178 GERMAIN LITERATURE. \Yan Feind nicht Freund melir 'SMien former friends as foes we bleiben kan, ban, Da muss man nur vom Selien Then speecli must follow clearer spreclien, vision, Da zeigt das Hertze seinen Mann. And by liis heart we know the man. Lass die von jhren Krafften sagen. Die schwach vnd bloss von Tu- gend sind : Mit trotzen wird man Bienen jagen, Ein Sinn von Ehren, der gewinnt. Wie gross vnd starck der Feind sich mache, Wie hoch er schwinge Muth vnd Scliwerd, So glaube doch, die gute Sache 1st hundert tausend KdpfEe werth. They on their strength may prate reliance AVhose virtue 's weak, and bare, and cold : 'Tis chasing bees to talk de- fiance. But Honor wins because 'tis bold ! Though mightily the foe may face us, And wave a sword that terror spreads. The cause each true man now embraces Is worth a hundred thousand heads ! This is almost the German of to-daj. The quaint, archaic character of Fischart's verses and Eber's hymns has suddenly disappeared ; we hear only familiar words and melodies. From this time forward the language of German poetry is modern, and the authors must be valued according to our present standards. I will quote one other brief lyric of Opitz, as an example of his oc- casional grace and sweetness : EILE DER LIEBE. Ach liebste, lass vns eilen, Wir haben zeit : Es schadet das verweilen Vns beyderseit. THE HASTE OF LOVE. Ah, sweetheart, let us hurry! We still have time. Delaying thus we bury Our mutual prime. LITEUATUnE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 179 Der edlen schonlieit Gaben Flielm fuss f iir fuss, Dass alles, was wir liaben, Verschwinden muss. Der Wangen Ziehr verbleicliet, Das Haar wird greiss, Der Augen Fewer weichet. Die Brunst wird Eiss. Das Miindlein von Corallen Wird vngestalt. Die Hand als Sclmee verfallen, Ynd du wirst alt. Drumb lass vns jetzt geniessen Der Jugecd Frucht, Eb' als wir folgen miissen Der Jabre Flucbt. Wo du dicb selber liebest, So liebe mich ! Gieb mir das, wann du giebest Verlier aucb ich. Beauty's brigbt gift shall perish As leaves grow sere : All that we have and cherish Shall disappear. The cheek of roses fadeth. Gray grows the head ; And fire the eyes evadeth. And passion 's dead. The mouth, love's honeyed win- ner. Is formless, cold ; The hand, like snow, gets thin- ner, And thou art old ! So let us taste the pleasure That youth endears, Ere we are called, to measure The flying years ! Give, as thou lov'st and livest, Thy love to me. Even though, in what thou givest, My loss should be ! The tendency of tlie literary societies, like that of the guilds of the Master-singers, was to increase the quantity of aspirants for poetic honors, while unfavor- ably affecting the quality of their productions. It is probable that the despotism of the French, or pseudo- classical ideas, was as severe, in its way, as the metrical rules of the Masters ; but it was a despotism of princi- ples, not of mechanical forms. The number of Avriters during the century was greater than that of the six- 180 GFAUIAN LITERATURE. teentli, and, if we set aside Lntlier and Fiscliart from the latter, their average performance v. as of a higher quality. It appears to be a level which we are crossing, but there is a gradual ascending slope perceptible, if we look a little closer. There is, fortunately, such a radical difference of spirit between the German and the French languages that the power of imitation is limited : the French models could not be reproduced without losing much of their original character. Moreover, the religious element, to some extent, operated against the foreign influence in literature ; for, about the middle of the century, the dry theological life which succeeded the Reformation was quickened by a change. Paul Gerhardt, and after him especially Spener, inaugurated a mild, gentle, half ecstatic form of devotion, which in- fected large classes throughout Germany, and continued to exist and oj^erate in the following century. It was rather a sentiment than an active force ; and coming im- mediately after the misery of the desolating war, it had something of the character of those prayer-meetings which business men hold in Wall Street during a finan- cial crisis, and at no other time ; yet it was genuine, and it was wholly German — therefore a good and ne- cessary agency, which operated indirectly upon litera- ture. The seventeenth century is therefore interesting to us as a field of conflicting influences, and it is curious to see how they sometimes unconsciously existed side LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 181 bj side. The Order of the Palm, for instance, contained nine noble members to one commoner, — that is, nine who habitually used the French, as a court-language, yet were associated in order to i3reserYe the purity of Ger- man! Many of the poets of the Silesian school were nobles; and by the middle of the century the reigning Saxon princes began to imitate the course of their pre- decessors, four or five hundred years before, in patron- izing Literature. The field of letters, which had pre- viously been Suabia, Franconia and the Upper Ehine, was now suddenly transferred to Saxony and Silesia, and all the noted authors of the century were produced there. Fully as many writers appeared as during the age of the Minnesingers, and the proportion of inferior talent is about the same. I must necessarily adopt the same plan in treating of them— select the few who lift themselves above the general level of mediocrity, and let the rest go, for the present. The standard of lan- guage and the general character of diction, which Opitz established, were followed by all his successors, and for this reason our study of the age and its irregular growth is greatly lightened. The next poet, in the order of birth, was Paul Flem- ming, whose short life, from 1609 to 1640, interests us as much, by its consistent manliness and truth, as we are repelled by the worldliness and want of principle of Martin Opitz. Longfellow, you will remember, gives Paul Flemming's name to the hero of his "Hyperion.'* 182 GERMAN LITERATURE. He was a Saxon, the son of a wealthy clergyman. As a joung man he was attached to an embassy sent by the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein to Moscow, and imme- diatelj after his return, joined the famous embassy to Persia which was described by Olearius. The priva- tions of this journey, which occupied four years, so undermined his health that he died in a year after his return to Germany. He had just taken the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Leyden, had settled in Hamburg, and was preparing for his marriage, when he was called away, leaving a beautiful legacy in his j^oems. He sur- passes Opitz, who was his model, in warmth and ten- derness and sincerity of tone. There is less of a cold, hard, exquisite polish manifest in his lines, but they are more simply melodious and fluent. If Opitz, in his manner only, reminds us somewhat of Pope, Flemming has a slight resemblance to Collins. He possesses one quality which was developed by his many years of travel, which distinguishes him from all other writers of his time, and which, had he lived, might have given him a much greater eminence : he had a clear, objective power of looking at the world and the life of men. After the age of twenty-four, but two years of his life were spent in Germany ; and he was denied that rest and quiet development which might have emancipated him from the literary fashions in which he was educated. That he would have so emancipated himself I think is certain ; for he shows so clear and healthy a vision, so LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 183 broad and warm a humanity. His power of descrip- tion, moreover, was remarkably vigorous and pictu- resque. The opening of his poem on a cavalry soldier reminds us at once of old George Chapman and of Schiller : Ein frischer Heldenmulit ist tiber alle Schatze, . St iiber alien Neid : er selbst ist sein Gesetze, Sein Mahl, sein Sold, sein Preiss. Er reisset durch die Zeit, Vergnliget sicli durch sich, lasst bey sich Rub' und Streit, Inn gleicher Waage stehn. In all that Paul Flemming wrote — in his warlike alexandrines, in his hymns, his sonnets, and in his lyrics and madrigals — I find an equal excellence. For sweet- ness and a delicate play of fancy, some of his sonnets approach those of Petrarch, and there is more genuine passion in the address to his soul, entitled " Why de- layest thou?" than in all Opitz ever wrote. Flem- ming's poems were first collected and published, two years after his death, by the father of his betrothed bride. The sonnet which he wrote on his death-bed is a good illustration both of his genius and his fine manhood : Icb war an Kunst und Gut, an In art, wealth, standing, was I Stande gross und reich, strong and free ; Dess Gliickes lieber Sobn, von Of honored parents, fortune's Eltern guter Ehren, chosen son, Frey, Meine ; knnte mich aus Free, and mine own, and mine meinen Mitteln nehren ; own substance won ; Mein shall fioh iiberweit : kein I woke far echoes, — no one sang Landsmaun sang mir gleich , like me ; 184 GERMAN LITERATURE. Von reisen hocligepreist ; f iir keiner Miilie bleich ; Jung, waclisam, unbesorgt. Man wird mich nennen horen, Biss dass die lezte Glut diss al- les wird verstoren. Diss, Deutsclie Klarien, diss gantze danck ich Euch 1 Verzeiht niirs, bin icbs wertli, GottjVater, Liebste, Freunde? Ich sag Eucli gute Nacbt und trete willig ab : Sonst alles ist getban biss an das scbwartze Grab. Was frej dem Tode stebt, das tbu er seinem Feinde ! Was bin icb viel besorgt, den Otbem auffzugeben? An mir ist minder nicbts, das lebet, als niein Leben! Praised for my travels, toiling cheerfully. Young, watchful, eager, — named for what I've done, Till the last sands of earthy time be run. This, German Muses, was your legacy ! God, Father, Dearest, Friends, is my worth so ? I say good night, and now must disappear : The black grave waits, all else is finished here : What Death may do, that do he to his foe ! To yield my breath shall bring me little strife : There's naught of life in me that less lives than my life I I give one more example, strength and grace : for the sake of its brief Lass dich uur nichts nicht tauren mit trauren ! Sey stille ! Wie Gott es f iigt. So sey vergniigt, Mein Wille ! My soul, no dark depression borrow From sorrow I Be still ! As God disposeth now. Be cheerful thou. My will ! Was wilst du heute sorgen auff morgen? der eine steht allem fiir; Der giebt auch dir das deine 1 To-day, why wilt thou trouble borrow. For to-morrow? One alone Careth for all that be : He'll give to thee Thine own J LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 185 Sey nur in alien Handel Stand, then, whatever 's under. taken, olin Wandel, Unshaken ! Steh' f este ! Lift up thy breast ! Was Gott beschleust, Whatso thy God ordains, das ist und heisst Is and remains das beste. The best ! Paul Flemming is another instance, like Schiller and Burns and Charles Lamb, where the quality of the author's character becomes a part of his fame. One who knows nothing of his personal history will feel his nature in his works. I should like to linger longer in his company, but the mild eyes of Simon Dach, the huge wig of Gryphius, and the modest dignity of Fried- rich von Logan's attitude warn me that we are not yet halfway through the century. Of Simon Dach there is little to be said. He was born on the eastern yerge of Germany, at Memel, in the beginning of the century, j)assed the greater part of his life as Professor of Poetry at the University of Konigs- berg, and died in 1659. He was a follower of the Sile- sian school, and a writer of many hymns which combine correctness of form with sincere devotional feeling. His natural tendency seems to have been to imitate the VolksUeder, or common songs of the people, and how narrowly he missed an original place in literature may be seen from the popularity of his song ^'Anke von Tharaw!' which every German knows and sings at this day. It is written in the Low-German of Eastern 186 GERMAN LITERATURE. Prussia. The tradition says that Annie of Tharaw was betrothed to him and then left him for another, where- upon he wrote the tender ballad as a piece of bitter irony ; but the same story is told of the authorship of our familiar Scotch ballad, "Annie Lawrie," and is per- haps untrue in both cases. The feeling, in both the Scotch and the Low-German ballad, is very similar, as you will notice, and the melodies attached to both are as tender as the words. I will give you the original, and Longfellow's admirable translation : Anke von Tliaraw oss, de my gefollt, Se OSS milin Lewen, milin Goet on mihn Gcilt. Annie of Tharaw, my true Jove of old, Slie is my life, and my goods, and my gold. Anke von Tharaw hefft wedder eer Hart Op my gerochtet on Low 'on on Schmart. Annie of Tharaw, her heart once again To me has surrendered in joy and in pain. Anke von Tharaw mihn Rikh- dom, mihn Goet, Du mihne Seele, mihn Fleesch on mihn Bloet ! Annie of Tharaw, my riches, my good, Thou, my soul, my flesh, and my blood ! Quom allet Wedder glihk on ons tho schlahn, Wy syn gestinnt, by een anger tho stahn. Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come snow. We will stand by each other however it blow. Kranckheit, Berfiilgung, Bedrof- nos on Pihn, Sal vnsrer Love, Yernottinge syn. Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain Shall be to our true love as links to the chain. LITERATURE OP THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 187 Recht as een Palmen-Bolim aver As the palm-tree standeth so stick stocht, straight and tall, Je mehr en Hagel on Regen an- The more the hail beats, and fticht ; the more the rains fall, — So wardt de Low' on ons machtich So love in our hearts shall grow on groht, mighty and strong, Dorch Kryhtz, dorch Lyden, Through crosses, through sor. dorch allerley Noht. rows, through manifold wrong. Wordest du glihk een mal von Shouldst thou be torn from me my getrennt, to wander alone, Leewdest dar, wor om dee In a desolate land where the sun Sonne kuhm keimt ; is scarce known,— Eck woll dy f iilgen dorch Woler, Through forests I'll follow, and dorch Miir, where the sea flows, Dorch Yhss, dorch Ihsen, dcirch Through ice, and through iron, fihndlocket Hahr. through armies of foes. Anke von Tharaw, niihn Licht, Annie of Tharaw, my light and mihne Scinn, my sun. Mihn Leven schlucht ock on The threads of our two lives are dihnet henonn. woven in one. Wat ock gebcide, wart van dy Whate'er I have bidden thee gedahn, thou hast obeyed, Wat ock verbcide, dat latstu my Whatever forbidden thou hast stahn. not gainsaid. Wat heft de Love diich ver een How in the turmoil of life can Bestand, love stand, Wor nich een Hart oss, een Where there is not one heart, Mund, eene Hand ? and one mouth, and one hand ? Wor cim sock hartaget, kabbelt Some seek for dissension, and on schleyht, trouble, and strife ; On glihk den Hungen on Katten Like a dog and a cat live such begeyht. man and wife. 188 GERMAN LITEBATURE. Anke von Tharaw, dat war wy Annie of Tliaraw, such is not nicli dolin, our love ; Du bust myu Dyhfken, myn Thou art my lambkin, my chick, ScLalipken, mibn Hobu, and my dove. Wat tick begehre, begebrest du Wbate'er my desire is, in tliine obk, may be seen ; Eck labt den Rock dy, du batst I am king of the household, and my de Brohk. thou art its queen. Dit oss dat, Anke, du soteste It is this, O my Annie, my Ruh, heart's sweetest rest, Een Lihf on Seele wart uht ock That makes of us twain but one on Du. soul in one breast. Dit mahckt dat Lewen tom This turns to a heaven the hut Hammlischen Rihk, where we dwell ; Dorch Zanken wart et der Hel- While wrangling soon changes len gelihk. a home to a hell. We cannot wonder that tlie peasant-poets were silent during this century. The people had suffered too sorely to sing much else than those devotional poems, in which they were directed to find consolation. This was the greatest misfortune bequeathed by the Thirty Years' War — that the nobles, as a class, soon repaired their losses and enjoyed their former state, while the people were so bruised and crippled, so weak and des- titute of the means of recovering their strength, that their material condition was probably worse, and their opportunities for development less, than under the Ho- henstaufen Emperors. The war lasted so long that it finally educated its own soldiery, from whose brutal character no decent song of battle could be expected. A later generation, at the end of the century, gave us LTTEUATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 189 one song, or rather ballad of war, wMcli lias outlived all tlie others of the time — the well-known ^'Frinz Eufjenius, der edle Bitter," which celebrates the bravery of Prince Eugene of Savoy at the battle of Belgrade, The fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries were much more prolific in folk-songs, and they were of a better literary character than those of the seventeenth century. Keturning to the Silesian school, we find that the first important successor of Opitz was Andreas Gryphius, also a Silesian, born in 1616. He was well educated, a remarkable philologist for his time, familiar with the classical and Oriental languages and all the living tongues of Europe ; he traveled for two years, visiting Italy and England, became Syndic of Glogau, his native place, and died in 1664 Gryphius must be placed be- low Opitz as a lyric poet, although in form and finish he is an equal ; but he did not create a school, like the latter. He only obeyed the laws which had been already adopted. His poetry has a melancholy, almost a dreary character : his favorite themes were church- yards, death, and rest after troubles. But he deserves to be specially mentioned as a dramatic author. He was the first to elevate the dramatic literature of Ger- many, which, up to this time, seems to have been chiefly modeled on the puppet plays and miracle plays. As a good English scholar, Gryphius had the highest models, and one of his comedies, '^ Peter Squenze," gives tolera- bly clear evidence that he was acquainted with Shake- 190 GERMAN LITERATURE. speare. It is true that Peter Quince of tlie " Midsum- mer Night's Dream " was ah-eady kuown in Germany, as a character, through the English traveling actors ; but Grjphius imitates the device of a play within a play, from the "Pyramus and Thisbe " of Shakespeare. His tragedies of "Leo Armenius,'' "Pajnnian' and ''Karl Stuart " are declamatory and grandiloquent, somewhat like those of Dry den's famous rival, Elkanah Settle ; but they at least inaugurated in Germany a much better character of dramatic art. In this resjDect, we must give Gryphius a similar credit to that which we have given to Opitz : he advanced the literary standard of his day. After the models which they furnished, — ■ the one in purity of language and the external structure of verse, the other in the dramatic treatment of a proper subject, — no author dared to return to the imperfect standard of previous times. There was thus a general advance of skill and taste, in spite of the adherence to a false system. We see something similar in the phe- nomena of our American literature at the present day. But the "sensational" element, as it is called, which has crept into English and American literature, is even worse in its effect on the mental habits of the people than was the affected classicism of the seventeenth cen- tury ; for it goes beyond " the modesty of nature," in- stead of falling below it. With Andreas Gryphius the first Silesian school came to an end. Yilmar, in his history of the period, gives LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 191 some curious examples of its affectations, and some of them remind us of similar features in tlie English litera- ture of the last century. Where the earliest German poets used simple substantives, as night, the forest, the sea, the mediaeval authors added the most obvious ad- jectives, as dark night, the green wood, the blue sea. The Silesians made a deliberate chase after elegant and original words, and the discovery of a new adjective was a cause of rejoicing to the brotherhoods of the Palm and the Pine. Thus, hlach evening was first adopted ; but presently some fortunate poet hit upon broion, and all evenings were brown, to the end of the century. You will find the same word, ax^plied to evening and shade, by Gray and Collins ; and morning, you will notice, was nearly always purple in the last century. In the sen- sational school, now-a-days, all things are opal, topaz, emerald or ruby ; and it is doubtful whether we can get any farther. Opitz established the fashion: he made all tears salt, all water glassy, all north-stars cold, for his followers. The earth, according to his mood, was either a great round, a beautiful round or a desdkde round. Addison calls it a " terrestrial ball," and Tennyson styles the moon " an argent round." Now, you can readily imagine that after Opitz and Gryphius had been accepted as models, their later fol- lowers, being utterly deficient in original genius, knew nothing else to do but to copy and exaggerate their most obvious characteristics. This is, in fact, the distinction 192 GERMAN LITERATURE, of what is called tlie second Silesian school. It rose into existence, toward the end of the century, under the leadershi^D of two noblemen, Hoffmanswaldau and Lo- henstein. Let me give you a single specimen from the first of these, and I think you will require no further illustration of the character of the school : " Your coun- tenance gives strength and light to the stars. The year has four seasons, you but one, for the spring always blossoms on your lips. Winter does not approach you, and the sun is hardly permitted to shine beside the beam of your eyes. You carry virtue in a splendid purple dish, ornamented, as it seems, with white ivory : your mouth is the retreat of a thousand nightingales, and the tongues of angels beg to be admitted therein as servants." Add to such stuff as this the mechanical jingle of Siegmund von Birken — whom Southey seems to have imitated in his " Falls of Lodore," — the tiresome melodies of Christian Gryphius, the literary son of his father Andreas, and the blood-and-thunder tragedies of Lohenstein, and we cannot help feeling that the only use of this second Silesian school was to create such a disgust with the system, that a reaction must inevitably follow. So, in England, the bombast and nonsense of the aristocratic writers, of exactly the same period, was followed by the revival of Queen Anne's time. This is the translation of a passage from Siegmund von Birken, which may have suggested the tinkling music in the " Falls of Lodore " : LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 193 WELCOME TO SPRING-. They're glancing, entrancing and dancing, Tlie blossoming meadows ; While gleameth, and beameth, and streameth The dew in the shadows. They're spreading, and wedding, and shedding. The freshly-leaved branches ; And rustle, and hustle with bustle The wind as it launches. They spring out, and sing out, and ring out. The pipes in their blowing ; In daytime the playtime of May-time The shepherds are showing. But tliere was one man, also a Silesian, yet standing as much alone as Milton, and Dryden after him, whose works are as the shadow of a rock in a weary land. This is Friedrich von Logau, another of the neglected minds who first received recognition and critical justice from Lessing. He was born in 1604, educated at Brieg, in Silesia, where he was a page in the house of the reigning Duke, and afterward, having studied jurispru- dence, an official in the chancery of the Duchy. He was poor, dependent on a small salary, and his life was one of toil and trouble. A complete collection of his aphorisms, epigrams and lyric poems was published under the name of Salomon von Golaw, in 1654, and in the following year he died. Five or six years before his death, he was elected a member of the Order of the Palm ; but he seems to have had very little intercourse with the other Silesian members, and his works show only slight traces of the influence of the school. 9 194 GERMAN LITERATURE. Friedricli von Logan is a noble character, in whatever aspect we consider him. He was an earnest thinker in a thoughtless time ; he was a strong, believing, aspiring soul, a man of steadfast integrity and virtue, in an age of lawlessness and vice. His possessions were wasted by the terrible war; Wallenstein's trooj^s overran the Duchy, and left a trail of barbarism behind them ; but nothing could shake his inherent goodness and bravery for the sake of good. The thousand brief aphorisms which he has left were written as they came to him during a period of twenty-five years of labor : they are simjDly the necessary recreation of his mind. The gov- erning j)rinciple of his life was to do his nearest duty, and he only gave to letters the time which he could spare from his office and the care of his family. The follow- ing couplet of Logau, which is almost proverbial to-day, will be readily recognized in Longfellow's translation: Gottes Miihlen mahlen langsam, Though the mills of God grind mahlen aber treflflich klein ; slowly, yet they grind ex- ceeding small ; Ob aus Langmut er sich saumet, Though with patience he stands bringt mit Scharf er alles ein. waiting, with exactness grinds he all. This image of a mill seems to have been a favorite with him. I find the following satirical allusion to some one of his acquaintance: Fungus' mouth is like a mill, and as fast as ever ran ; For each handful wit it grinds, there's a bushel wordy bran. LITER A2 URE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 195 Here is another: A mill -stone and the human heart are whirled forever round : Where either nothing has to grind, it must itself be ground. This is the general character of Logan's aphorisms — brief, pithy, witty, but with an underlying tone, either of wisdom, or satire, or faith, or tenderness. Many of his couplets or verses have strayed away from him, and are used at this day by thousands who never guess whence they came. I remember that when I first tra- veled on foot through Germany, I often saw these lines in the Sfammbucher, or albums, of the traveling journey- men whom I met on the highways : Hoffnung ist ein fester Stab, Und Geduld ein Eeisekleid, J^ man mit durch ^^'elt und Grab Wandelt in die Ewigkeit. These lines I afterward found in Logan's aphorisms. Like all genuine, thinking brains, his pages are full of suggestions of the expressions of later and more fortu- nate authors. Goethe says : " Es irrt der Mensch, so lang er strebt," but Logau had said before him — " Dass ich irre, bleibt gewiss, alldieweil ein Mensch ich bin." Logau wrote : " Friihling ist des Jahres Rose ; Rosen sind des Friihlings Zier ; Und der Rosen Rosenf iirstin seyd und heisset billig Ihr' ; " and two hundred years after him Tennyson wrote : "Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls. Queen lily and rose in one. " 196 GERMAN LITERATURE. The modern German poet Riickert says : " Repetition is compensation for the transitory bliss" — and we find in Logau " The best nourishment of jDleasure is repeated pleasure." I might extend this list of correspondences, and thus prove, backward, the genuine quality of Lo- gan's genius. There could be no greater contrast than between the members of the second Silesian school, with their thin and weak pretense of ideas, their in- flated diction and deluge of interminable works, and this hard-working, lonely, modest man, crowding his honest thought and sound reflection into a few brief lines, and giving them to the world under an assumed name. He might have furnished not only all of them, but also the devotional poets, Gerhard and Franck, with a better material than they found. There are several sermons and hymns compressed into these four lines of Logau : Mensclilicli ist es, Siinde treiben ; Teufliscli ist 's, in Siinden bleiben ; Cliristlich ist es, Siinde liassen ; Gottlieb ist es, Siind' erlassen. During the whole of the seventeenth century, there is no prose which at all approaches that of Luther in simplicity and strength. We find, it is true, that the provincialism of the writers, — the marks of their par- ticular dialects, — ^begin to disappear, and the pure High- German, under the influence of the literary societies, is gradually gaining ground ; but the popular sources from which Luther drew so much are neglected. Both LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 197 Silesian schools, but especially the second, operated unfavorably upon the prose style of the day. Opitz and Gryphius taught a hard, cold, formal manner, whereby the language loses much of its native life and warmth, and the second school was such a mixture of affectation and bombast, that many of its productions now seem to us to be intentional parodies of their authors. Lohen- stein's romance of "Arminius and Thusnelda," covering nearly 3,000 quarto pages, printed in double columns, is simply monstrous : we marvel that an individual should commit, or a public endure, such an overwhelming of- fense. But we remember how our own ancestors were fascinated vvdtli Clarissa Harlow, and how the German public of to-day reads the nine volumes and 4,000 pages of Gutzkow's " Zauberer von Bom.'' The best prose work of the time is certainly Grim- melhausen's " Simj^licissimiis,'' which bears nearly the same relation to the pompous romances of the Silesian authors as Fielding to Richardson. It is a story of common life, told in bare, clear, racy language, and with the same fresh realism which we find in " Tom Jones " and " Joseph Andrews." Next in value I should rank the homilies and didactic writings of the monk Abraham a Santa Clara, which are also simple in tone, and really effective because they betray no straining after effect. Zinkgref 's historical sketches, the travels of Olearius, and the orations of Baron Canitz, have, at least, the merit of being tolerable where nearly all is positively 198 GERMAN LITERATURE. bad. We can only say tliat the average performance of the prose writers is higher at the close than it was at the beginning of the century. The language by this time was sufficiently deyelopecl, and the excellences and faults of its literature so abundantly manifested, that it was ready for the use of better intellects. These came, soon afterward, in Haller and Hagedorn and Gellert — then followed the first master-mind of the great modern period, Lessing. In studying this long and interrupted intellectual his- tory of the German race, we must beware of confining our interest to individual authors, or even to particular eras. This seventeenth century, which we have been considering, becomes a tedious field of research if we separate it from the centuries before and after it. Each author must be judged, first, in relation to his own time, and the temporary influences which gave char- acter to his works ; then, by the absolute standard of achievement, by his contribution to the permanent ele- ments of growth in his country and in the world. Unless we acquire this latter and broader habit of vision, we may fail to see the true meaning of many lives, the true importance of many historical periods; and we shall surely derive from the general survey one lesson which might escape us if we looked only to particulars — one lesson of the greatest value to every young American whose tastes or talents lead him toward literature : — that nothing is more delusive than the fashion of the LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 199 day : tliat the immediate popularity of a work is no test whatever of its excellence : that the writer who consults the general moods or likings of the public is never likely to achieve genuine and permanent success : — while he who considers only the truth of his thought, the simplicity and clearness of its expression, and its proba- ble value to all humanity, may seem to be disparaged or neglected for a time, but shall surely be acknowl- edged by that everlasting, lofty intelligence of men which is above all fleeting fashions of literature. YIL LESSINQ. We now reach a period where the language is wholly modern. We find no difference, except in style and habit of thought, between the authors of Queen Anne's time and those of our own day : so our German brother finds no greater difference between the present and the authors who were born one hundred and fifty years ago. From this period, we are able to contrast and compare the two languages, as they are now spoken, and thus to appreciate intelligently the two literatures. Instead of giving a general historical survey of modern German Literature, I shall take up, in the order of their lives, the six most prominent authors,- and, by describing them and their works separately, give you, through them, a picture of the times in which they lived. They are — Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, Herder, Schiller and Goethe. The great era of German Literature, which they created, corresponds to the Augustan in Eome and the Elizabethan in England — an era which commenced about the middle of the last century, and terminated, with the death of Goethe, in the year 1832. Within the pre- scribed limits, it will not be possible to give a complete 200 LE88ING. 201 history of the period ; because, more than the literature of any other language, that of Germany, on account of the larger culture of its creative minds, is connected with the contemporary literature of the rest of Europe. We cannot dissociate it, as we can that of England and of France, from the influence of foreign thought and the literary fashions prevalent in other countries. But the life of every author, who has shared in shaping the development of his generation, always reflects, in an individual form, the influences which affect the class to which he speaks, since he must admit them and take them into account, although he himself may remain comparatively independent. I hope, therefore, that an account of the men who have created the modern litera- ture of Germany will, at the same time, enable us to estimate the character of that literature, and its im- portance as an element of human development. One who is familiar with the German language will have little difficulty in selecting the characteristics which distinguish the literature of Germany from that of other nations. You are aware that the German language is subtle, rich and involved in its structure ; while the English, with an even greater flexibility, generally re- mains realistic, simple and direct. These prominent characteristics repeat themselves in the two literatures, for speech and thought have a reciprocal influence. A great genius partly forces the language he uses to adapt itself to his own intellectual quality, and he is partly 9* 202 GERMAN LITERATURE. forced by tlie language to submit his intellect to its laws. Apart from this circumstance, however, the natural tendency of a German author is to express himself in accordance with an intellectual system, which he has discovered or imagined, and adojDted as his ow^n ; while the English author, if he be honest, is more concerned for the thing he expresses, and its effect, than for its fit- ness as a part of any such system. In the private cor- respondence of the German authors, w^e find their works reciprocally analyzed, according to the literary prin- ciples of each ; their conceptions are tested by abstract laws; and felicities of expression, which an English critic usually notices first, are with them a secondary interest. Now, where such theories, or systems, harmonize with the eternal canons of Literary Art — and of all Art, the »key to which may be given in three words, Elevation, Proportion, E-epose — they help, not hinder, the author's best development. Goethe, Lessing and Schiller are illustrious examples of this. But where the system reflects some special taste, some strong 23ersonal ten- dency, as in the cases of Klopstock, Wieland and Rich- ter, it carries its own limitations along wdth it. The author who allows himself to be thus circumscribed, may become ruler over some fair province of literature, but he cannot belong to the reigning line of the king- dom. This tendency, perhaps, explains the fact that German literature seems to reflect a greater range of intellectual LESSING. 203 and spiritual experience than ours. It is more frank, intimate and confidential — sometimes to a degree wliicli is almost repellant to Anglo-Saxon reserve ; for the author is less careful to conceal the operations of his mind ; — it touches the nature of man on many sides, and endeavors to illuminate all the aspects of life. The theoretic tendencies of its authors do little harm, for they counteract each other — nay, they often do good by substituting a fashion of thought for the narrower form of a fashion in expression. During the whole of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, as I have already said, the literary history of Germany may almost be compared to a desert. The annals of scarcely any other modern nation show such a long period of barrenness. But early in the last century, Gleim and Gellert were born — two authors who seem to have been destined to stand between the waste that went before and the harvest which followed. They are thus important or insignifi- cant, according to the side from which we look at them. But, even before they had reached their productive activity, greater minds were in the world. In the year 1724, Klopstock was born; in 1729, Lessing; in 1733, Wieland; in 1744, Herder; in 1749, Goethe; in 1759, Schiller, and in 1762, Eichter. Every six years a new name, destined to be an independent, victorious, per- manent power. Great men never come upon an age entirely unpre- 204 GEHMAI^ LITERATURE. pared to receive them. Tlie secret influences wMcli culminated in a fierce social and political crisis, toward the end of the century, were already at work, and there must have been a large class of receptive minds capable of sustaining those which were born to create. For these latter, however, a season of struggle was certain. There is a vast difference between the silent and the spoken protest. The courts, the universities and the clergy, at that time, held a despc^tic sway over opinion and taste. The young author made haste to secure his titled patron, and paid by flattery for the little freedom of expression which he was allowed to exercise. We can best measure the stagnation of the period, and its general subservience to authority, by the angry excite- ment which followed every attempt at literary indepen- dence. The richest gifts were repelled; the ways to larger liberty w^ere closed as fast as they w^ere opened ; and the present glory of the German race was for a long time resisted as if it were a shame. The man who first broke a clear, broad path out of this wilderness was Gotthold Ephraiin Lessing. I choose him first because he was the true pioneer of German thought — because his life was " a battle and a march " — a long and bitter fight for truth, tolerance and freedom. If his greatest merits seem to have been over- shadowed for a time by the achievements of others, they come all the more clearly to light in that distance of time which gives us the true perspective of men. We LESsma. 205 see liim now as lie was, an unshaken hero of literature, always leading a forlorn hope, always armed to the teeth, always confident of the final victory. I know of no finer instance of justified self-reliance than is fur- nished by his life. He was born in Camenz, a small Saxon town, where his father was a clergyman of scanty means and of a severe and stubborn nature. Being the eldest son, it was meant that he should follow his father's calling. At the age of twelve he was sent to school at Meissen, and three years afterward to the University of Leipzig. But even as a boy he asserted his independence, entirely neglecting theological studies, and devoting himself to languages, literature and the drama. The dictator in literary matters in Leipzig, at that time, was Gottsched, — a man of some ability, but pedantic, conventional and arrogant to the last degree. The boy Lessing was one of the first to dispute his authority. He became a con- tributor to literary journals, writing anacreontic lyrics or stinging criticisms, according to his mood, and in his eighteenth year completed a comedy, ^^Der junge Ge- lehrte " (The Young Savant), which was performed soon afterward. Even at that age, he recognized clearly the characteristics of French and of English literature, and became a partisan for the latter, in order to resist the French influence which was then so powerful in Ger- many. In a short time, he stood almost alone : there were few hands (or, at least, pens) that were not raised 206 GERMAN LITERATURE. against liim. So poor that he was barely able to live, he was called immoral and profligate ; his contempt of the reigning pedantry was ascribed to a barbaric want of taste ; and his refusal to devote himself to theology was set down as atheism. The slanders prevalent in Leipzig reached his home, a?id were followed by angry or reproachful letters from his father. The patience and the good sense with which he endured these troubles are remarkable in one so young. In one of his letters, he quotes from Plautus the words of a father who is discontented with his son; in another, referring to his re- fusal to become a clergyman, he says boldly : " Eeligion is not a thing which a man should accept in simple faith and obedience from his parents," — meaning that it must be developed through the aspiration of the individual souL In his twenty-first year, Lessing went to Berlin, where he succeeded in supporting himself by literary labor. He made the acquaintance of Moses Mendels- sohn, Eamler and the poets Gleim and Yon Kleist, and his mind began to develop rapidly and vigorously in a fresher and freer intellectual atmosphere. Notwith- standing his scanty earnings, he managed to collect a valuable library, and to contribute small sums from time to time for the education of his younger brothers. In the year 1755 his play of ''Miss Sara Sampson " was completed. It was modeled on the English drama, and, as the German stage up to that time had been governed entirely by French ideas, it was a sudden and violent LESSING. 207 innovation, the success of whicli was not assured until ten years later, wlien Lessing produced '^Minna von Barnhelmy The English authors of Queen Anne's time — especially Swift, Steele, Addison and Pope — had an equal share with the Greek aud Latin classics in determining the character of his labors. He was also a careful student of Shakespeare and of Milton, and seems to have caught from them something of the compact strength of his style. After ten years, passed partly in Wittenberg, but mostly in Berlin, Lessing became the secretary of Gene- ral Tauenzien, and in 1760 followed the latter to Bres- lau, where he remained five years. During this time he wrote ''Minna von Barnhdm " and "Laocoon " (or the Limits of Poetry and Painting), which was published in 1766. The great era of German literature commenced with these works. The "Laocoon " in its style, in its equal subtlety and clearness, in its breadth of intel- lectual vision, was a work the like of which had not been seen before. It w^as above popularity, because it ap- pealed only to the finest minds ; but its lessons sank deeply into one mind — that of the young Goethe, then a student at Leipzig — and set it in the true path. The remainder of Lessino's history is soon told. He spent two more years in Berlin, living from hand to mouth, and then accepted the proposition to go to Ham- burg, and assist in establishing a new theatre. The ex- periment failed, and he thereupon made another. He 208 GERMAN LITERATURE. took a partner, and commenced tlie printing and pub- lishing business upon an entirely new plan ; but as neither he nor his partner had any practical knowledge of jDrinting, they failed wretchedly in a year or two. In 1770, Lessing, aged forty-one, found himself penniless, deeply in debt, his library of six thousand volumes scattered to the winds, his father wi'iting to him for money, and his sister reproaching him with being a heartless and undutiful son. But during those three years in Hamburg he had written 'his ^^ Dramaturgie,^^ a work second in importance only to his '^Laocoon.'* The Duke of Brunswick offered him the post of libra- rian at Wolfenbiittel, with a salary of six hundred thalers (about four hundred and fifty dollars ?) a year, and thenceforth his wandering life ceased. He visited Mannheim and Vienna, and accompanied the hereditary Duke of Brunswick on a journey to Italy; but travel seems to have left little impression upon his mind. In the two or three letters from Italy, written to his be- trothed wife, there is nothing about either the country or the antique sculpture, concerning which he had pre- viously written so much. He married in 1776, lost his wife and child in a little more than a year, and then lived as before entirely for literature. The two short letters which he wrote to his friend Eschenburg, after the death of his child and wife, are wonderful ex- pressions of the strength and tenderness of the man. I know not wliere to find, in all the literature of the LESSIJS'G. 209 world, such tragic patlios expressing itself in tlie com- monest words. He does not say what he feels, but we feel it all the more. On the 3d of January, 1778, he writes : I seize the moment when my wife lies utterly unconscious, to ihank you for your sympathy. My happiness was only too short. And it was so hard to lose him, this son of mine ! For he had so much understanding — so much understanding ! Do not think that the few hours of my fatherhood have made me a very ape of a father ! I know what I am saying. Was it not understanding that he came so unwillingly to the world ? — that he so soon saw its unreason ? Was it not understanding that he grasped the first chance of leaving it again ? To he sure, the little fidget-head takes his mother with him, and from me ! — for there is little hope that I may keep her. I thought I might be even as fortunate as other men ; but it has turned out ill for me. Just one week afterward he wrote to Eschenburg : " My wife is dead ; now I have also had this experi- ence. I am glad that no other experience of the kind remains for me to endure — and am quite easy." His "Nathcm der Weise " — the only one of his works which has been translated and published in this country — appeared in 1779, and in 1781 he died, at the age of fifty-two. The closing years of his life were embittered by a violent theological controversy, and the enmity which it excited against him was no doul)t a cause of the slight success which his last great work, "Nathan the Wise," attained. He had not even the consolation of know- ino- that the seed he had sown was vital, and had 210 GERMAN LITERATURE. already germinated. It was a sad ending of a singu- larly cheerful and courageous life. In the biographies of authors, we do not always find that genius rests on a strong basis of character. There are many instances where we apj^rove the mind, and condemn the man. But Lessing's chief intellectual quality was a passion for truth, so earnest and un- swerving, that we cannot help expecting to find it mani- fested in the events of his life; and we shall not be disappointed. Whatever faults niay have been his, he was always candid, honest, honorable and unselfish. He lived at a time when a very little tact and pliancy of nature might have greatly advanced his fortunes — when a little prudent reticence, now and then, would have saved him from many an angry denunciation. But he seems never to have concerned himself with anything beyond his immediate needs. *' All that a man wants, is health," he once w^rote : " why should I trouble myself about the future ? What would be pri- vation to many is a sufficiency to me." In one of his earlier poems, he says: "Fame never sought me, and would not, in any case, have found me. I have never craved riches, for why, during this short journey, where so little is needed, should one hoard it up for thieves rather than himself ? In a little while I shall be tram- pled under the feet of those who come after. Why need they know upon whom they tread ? I alone know who I am." This self-reliant spirit, without vanity. LESSINO. 211 only asserting itself when its independence must be maintained, is very rare among men. Lessing under- stood tlie character and extent of liis own power so well, even as a young man, that all his utterances have a stamp of certainty, which is as far as possible from egotism. We must bear in mind the fact that, when he began to write, literature was not much else than a collection of lifeless forms ; that government still clung to the ideas of the Middle Ages, and that religion had, for the most part, degenerated into rigid doctrine. Lessing's position was that of a rebel, at the start. It was impos- sible for him to breathe the same atmosphere with the dogmatists of his day, and live. His first volume of poems, chiefly imitations of the amorous lyrics of the ancients, gave the opportunity for an attack upon his moral character. In replying to his father, who seems to have joined in the denunciation, he says : " The cause of their existence is really nothing more than my inclination to attempt all forms of poetry." He then adds : " Am I so very wrong in selecting for my youth- ful labor something whereon very few of my country- men have tried their skill? And would it not be foolish in me to discontinue, until I have produced a master-piece ? " Lessing's critical articles, which he began to write during his first residence in Berlin, and especially his " Letters on Literature," soon made him respected and 212 GERMAN LITERATURE. feared, altliougli thej gained liim few friends beyond tlie circle of liis personal associates. Industry, combined with a keen intellectual insight, had made him an admi- rable practical scholar, and few men ever better knew how to manage their resources. His style, as I have said, was somewhat colored by his study of the English language. It is clear, keen and bright, never uncertain or obscure. Like the sword of Saladin it cuts its way through the finest web of s^^eculation. He had neither reverence for names, nor mercy for pretensions, and no mind of looser texture than his own could stand before him. I know of no critical pa]3ers in any literature, at once so brilliant and so destructive. They would have had a more immediate and a wider effect, but for the fact that his antagonists represented the general senti- ment of the time, which could not be entirely suppressed in them. Yet his j)i'iiiciples of criticism were broader than mere defense and counter-attack. To Pastor Klotz, who complains of his "tone" toward him, he answers*. " If I were commissioned as a Judge in Art, this would be my scale of tone : gentle and encouraging for the beginners ; admiring with doubt, or doubting with admiration, for the masters ; positive and repellant for the botchers ; scornful for the swaggerers ; and as bitter as possible for the intriguers. The Judge in Art, who has but one tone for all, had better have none." Unfortunately, he had few opportunities of expressing LESSING. 213 either admiration or encouragement. He never failed to recognize the merits of Moses Mendelssohn, Klop- stock, Wieland and Herder ; but they were authors who stood in little need of his aid. They did not set them- selves in immediate antagonism to the fashion of the age. Their grow^th out of it, and into an independent literary activity, was more gradual ; consequently, each of them acquired, almost at the start, a circle of ad- mirers and followers. But Lessing marched straight forward, looking neither to the right nor to the left, in- different what prejudices he shocked, or upon whom he set his feet. Having, as he conceived, the great minds of Greece, Rome and England as his allies in the Past, he was content to stand alone in the Present. His criticism was positive as well as negative : he not only pointed out the prevalent deficiencies in taste and know- ledge, but he laid down the law which he felt to have been violated, and substituted the true for the false interpretation. I do not think that Lessing' s biographers have fully recognized the extent of his indebtedness to English authors. It has been remarked that his epigramma- tic poems read like stiff translations from the classics : to me they suggest the similar performances of Swift and Herrick. The three plays by which he revolution- ized the German stage — ^^ Miss Sara Sampson,'' " Jfinna von Barnhdm,'' and "Emilia Galoffi,'" — were constructed upon English models. With them the drama of ordinary 214 GERMAN LITERATURE. life was introduced into Germany. They liave kept their place to this day, and are, even now, more fre- quently j^erformed than the plays of Goethe. Although they possess little poetic merit, they are so admirably constructed, with so much regard to the movement of the plot and its cumulative development, that they have scarcely been surpassed by any later dramatic author. Even Goethe declares that it is impossible to estimate their influence on dramatic literature. The "Laocoon,'' although a piece of positive criticism, seems to have been negatively insj)ired by an English book which has long been forgotten. Joseph Spense, whose " Anecdotes " of Pope and others still survives, published in 1747 a work entitled, " Poly metis," — a comparison of the poetry and the art of the ancients, in which he took the ground that they illustrate each other —in other words, that they represent the same events. Lessing, whose interest in classic art had been greatly stimulated by the labors of Winckelmann, was led to examine the subject — to contrast ancient art with an- cient literature, and ascertain whether indeed they were only different modes of presenting the same subject, as Spense asserted, or whether each had its own separate and peculiar sphere of existence. The description of the fate of Laocoon and his sons, in Yirgil, and the famous group of sculpture, mentioned by Pliny (now in the museum of the Yatican, at Eome), furnished him with a text, and gave the title to his work ; but from LE8SIN0. 215 tins startiiig-23oint he rises to the investigation of the nature of Poetry and Art, as methods of expression, and the laws which govern them. Where Gottsched and his school furnished patterns of versification, by which men should be able to write mechanical poetry, Lessing re- vealed the intellectual law, without which all verse is but a lifeless jingle, dreary to the ears of men, and pro- hibited by the gods. The opening sentences of the "Laocoon " will give you some idea of the clearness and precision of the author's mind. He begins thus : The first person who compared Poetry and Painting with each other, was a man of sensitive perception, who felt that both arts af- fected him in a similar manner. Both, he perceived, represent absent objects as present, substitute the appearance for the reality ; both are illusive, yet their illusions give pleasure. A second man endeavored to penetrate to the source and secret of this pleasure, and discovered that in both cases it flows from the same fountain. Beauty, the conception of which we first derive from material objects, has its universal laws, which apply to many things — to action and thought, as well as to form. A third man, reflecting upon the value and the application of these eternal laws, perceived that certain of them are predominant in painting, certain others in poetry ; and that, therefore, through the latter. Poetry may come to the illustration of Painting ; through the former Painting may illustrate Poetrj', by means of elucidation and example. The first of these men was the lover ; the second, the philoso- pher ; the third, the critic. Lessing then proceeds to show that a mere copy of a natural object, no matter how admirably made, does not constitute painting, and tliat mere description does 216 GERMAN LITERATURE. not constitute poetry. In both cases the higher ele- ment of beauty is necessary, and this element can only exist under certain conditions. For instance, Poetry may express continuous action, but Art can only express suspended action. Poetry may represent the successive phases of passion. Art only a single phase at a time. The agents of form and color assist the representation, in one case ; the agency of sound in the other. I can best give Lessing's definition of the U\o arts — which is at the same time a distinction between them — in his own words. He says : Objects, whicli either in themselves or their parts, exist in com- bination, are called bodies. Therefore bodies, with their visible char- acteristics, are the proper subjects of painting. Objects, which succeed each other, or the parts of which succeed each other, are called actions. Therefore actions are the legitimate subject of poetry. All bodies, however, do not exist simplv in space, but also in time. They have a continuance, and each moment of their duration they may appear differently and in different combinations. Each of these momentary appearances and combinations, is the effect of a pre- ceding and may be the cause of a succeeding one, and thus the central point of an action. Painting may therefore imitate actions, but only by suggesting them through bodies. On the other hand, actions cannot exist of themselves, but are obliged to depend upon certain existences. In so far as these exist- ences are bodies, or must be so considered, poetry may represent bodies, buf only by suggesting them through actions. I must admit that this careful and delicate dissection of the principles of Art and Literature, has a greater charm for the German than for the English mind. But without considering Lessing's critical genius, we can- LES8ING. 217 not properly appreciate his power and value. He was forced into this field of activity, and his capacities were sharpened by constant exercise, yet it was his true work after all. The critical and the creative faculties never entirely harmonize in the same brain. The critic detects, by observation and analysis, what the creative genius possesses by a special, splendid instinct. It is therefore possible for an author, commencing an im- portant work, to know beforehand too ivell how it should be done. His intellectual insight may be so clear, so sure and so finely exercised, that nothing is left for the imagination. Instead of following his feeling, knowing that many a bright surprise, many an unexjDected illu- mination of thought will come to help him on the way, he is chilled by the critical faculty, which constantly looks over his shoulder and meddles with his freedom. The evidence of this is nowhere more apparent than in Lessing's poems and j)lays. With all their excellent qualities, they are almost wanting in that warm, imagi- native element which welds thought and passion and speech into one inseparable body. It is remarkable that his style, which is so sustained, so dignified and flexible in his critical papers, should seem slightly hard and mechanical in his verse. His most ambitious work, "Nathan the Wise," has passages where the blank verse is strong and rhythmical, but it has also passages the effect of which is not different from that of prose. The one thing, which we can all feel better than de- 10 218 GERMAN LITEBATURE, scribe, was wanting, to make liim a truly great creative autlior ; but liacl lie possessed it, he would probably have done less service to the world. Just the man that he was, was demanded by the age in which he lived. It aj^pears from his correspondence and the testimony of his friends, that he wrote a drama entitled "Faust^'' the manuscript of which was lost by the publisher to whom it was sent. He never attempted to rewrite it. From the small fragment which remains, and some ac- count of the design of the whole which has been pre- served, this work was undoubtedly more j)oetic and imaginative than any of his other dramatic poems. It coincided with Goethe's great work only in one par- ticular — that the soul of Faust is not lost, and Mephis- topheles loses his wager. His mind was not only fruit- ful, but very raj)id in its operation, and only the smallest portion of his literary plans was carried into effect. One of the severest experiences which Lessing was compelled to undergo had but an indirect connection with literature. He was severely attacked by Pastor Goeze, of Hamburg, for various assertions of opinion, which the latter declared to be unchristian, and the quarrel which followed lasted during the whole of the year 1778. It was carried on by printed pamphlets, of which Lessing wrote fifteen or sixteen. The ground which Lessing assumed would hardly excite any particu- LE8SIN0. 219 lar comment in these days. He declared, for instance, that the spirit is more than the letter ; that the truth of the Gospels is inherent in them, and not to be demon- strated by external proof ; and that the religion of Christ would have been saved to the world, even if the Gospels had not been written. It is difficult for us to com- prehend, now, the violence and bitterness with which Lessing was assailed. Efforts were made to deprive him of his situation as librarian; the Government Censor interfered with his replies, and his life, already so lonely and cheerless, was made almost a burden. He never flinched, never uttered a complaint, never, in any way, compromised his dignity or his manly indepen- dence ; but he seems to have lost something of the hope and confidence of his early days. He must have grown somewhat weary and discouraged. No man stepped forward to stand by his side, and help him fight the battle, and the thousands of eager intelligences, for whom he really spoke and suffered, were silently wait- ing the result. In fact, the end of the conflict came when Lessing, after having forced Pastor Goeze to ad- mit that the authorities of the Fathers of the Church, during the first four centuries of Christianity, would be sufficient, substantiated everything he had asserted by quoting the opinions of the Fathers. In scho- larship, no theologian of his day came near him. His influence, as a religious reformer, has been immense, but is hardly yet recognized by the world. In this 220 GERMAN LITERATURE. sense, lie was no less a martyr tlian Arnold of Brescia and Savonarola. When his "Nathan the Wise" was completed, he issued a prospectus, announcing that it would be pub- lished by subscription. His object probably was to secure a little more from the publication than he could expect from a bookseller. His father had died in debt, and the calls for assistance from his elder sister were both sharp and frequent. It is rather melancholy to read his appeal to his friends, informing them that the price of the work will be one groschen (two and a half cents) for each printed sheet, and that they may deduct a commission of fifteen per cent, for their services in pro- curing subscriptions! As the edition did not exceed two thousand copies, the author's profits must have been very moderate. In his correspondence, Lessing speaks of the work having been finished three years previously, and then laid aside. He declares his weariness of the theological controversy, and speaks of the play as " an attack in flank," as its leading idea is religious toler- ance. The three j^rincipal characters — ^Nathan, Saladin and the Knight Templar — represent Judaism, Islam and Christianity ; and the lesson to be deduced from the plot, is simply that the test of the true religion lies in deeds and works, and not in the mere profession. The finest passage in the work is the story of the rings, which is that of the Jew Melchisedech, as told by Boccaccio, in the third tale of the Decameron. As a LE88ING. 221 specimen of Lessing's best poetical style, and a parable through which he expressed his own tolerance, I will quote it : ]^ath.—Vor grauen Jahren lebt ein Mann in Osten, Der einen Ring von unscliatzba- rem Wertli Aus lieber Hand besass. Der Stein war ein Opal, der bundert scbone Farben spielte, Und batte die gebeime Kraft, vor Gott Und Menscben angenebra zu macben, wer In dieser Zuversicbt ibn trug. Was VVunder Dass ibn der Mann in Osten da- rnm nie Yom Finger liess ; und die Ver- fijgung traf, Anf ewJg ibn bey seinem Hause zu Erbalten. Nebmlicb so. Er liess den Ring Von seinen Sobnen deni Gelieb- testen ; Und setzte fest, dass diesser wie- derum Den Ring von seinen Sobnen dem vermacbe, Der ibm der liebste sey ; und stets der Liebste, Obn' Ansebn der Geburt, in Kraft allein Des Rings, das Haupt, der Fiirst des Hauses werde.— Versteb' micb, Sultan. Sal. —Ich versteb dicb. Weiter ! Nathan.— In gray antiquity tbere lived a man In Eastern lands, wbo bad re- ceived a ring Of priceless wortb from a be- loved band. Its stone, an opal, flasbed a bun- dred colors, And bad tbe secret power of giving favor In sigbt of God and man, to Mm wbo wore it Witb a believing beart. Wbat wonder tben Tbis Eastern man would never put tbe ring From off bis finger, and sbould so provide Tbat to bis bouse it be preserved for ever. Sucb was tbe case. Unto tbe best-beloved Among bis sons be left tbe ring, enjoining Tbat be in turn bequeatb it to tbe son Wbo sbould be dearest ; and tbe dearest ever, virtue of tbe ring, witbout regard birtb, be of tbe bouse tbe prince and bead. Tou understand me. Sultan ? In To ^aZ.-Yes; go on I 222 GERMANS' LITEBATURE. Nath. — So kam nun dieser Ring, von Sohn zu Soliu, Auf einen Vater endlich von drey Scilinen ; Die alle drej ilim gleicli gelior- sani waren, Die alle drey er folglicli gleicli zu lieben Sicli nicht entbreclien konnte. Xur von Zeit Zu Zeit sckien ilim bald der. bald dieser, bald Der Dritte, — so wie jeder sicb mit ilim Allein befand, und sein ergie- ssend Herz Die andern zwey nicht theilten, — wiirdiger Des Ringes, den er denn aucb einem jeden Die fromme Schwaclilieit liatte, zu versprecben. Das ging nun so, so lang es ging. — Allein Es kam zuni Sterben, und der" gute Vater Koninit in Verlegenbeit. Es sclimerzt ihn, zwey Von seinen Sobnen, die sicb auf sein Wort Verlassen, so zu kranken, — Was zu tbun ? — Er sendet in gebeim zu einem Kiinstler, Bey dem er, nacb dem Muster seines Ringes, Zwey andere bestellt, und weder Kosten, Nocb Miibe sparen beisst, sie jenem gleicb. Nathan. — From son to son the ring descending, came To one, the sire of three ; of whom all three Were equally obedient ; whom all three He therefore must with equal love regard. And yet from time to time now this, now that. And now the third, — as each alone was by. The others not dividing his fond heart, — Appeared to him the worthiest of the ring ; Which then, with loving weak- ness, he would promise To each in turn. Thus it con- tinued long. But he must die ; and then the loving father Was sore perplexed. It grieved him thus to wound Two faithful sons who trusted in his word ; But what to do ? In secrecy he calls An artist to him, and commands of him Two other rings, the pattern of his own ; And bids him neither cost nor pains to spare LE88ING. 223 Vollkommen gleich zu machen. Das gelingt Dem Kiinstler. Da er ihm die Ringe bringt, Kann selbst der Vater seinen Musterring Kicht untersclieiden. Froli und freudig ruft Er seine Sohtie, jedeninsbeson- dre ; Giebt jedem ins besondre seinen Seegen, — Und seinen Ring, -und stirbt. — Du liorst doch, Sultan ? Sal. — Ich hor', icli liore ! Komm mit deinem Mahrchen Nun bald zu Ende. — Wird's ? Nath. — Ich bin zuEnde. Denn was nocli folgt, versteht sicli ja von selbst. — Kaum war der Vater todt, so kommt ein jeder Mit seinem Ring. — Und jeder will der Fiirst Des Hauses seyn. Man unter- suclit, man zankt, Man klagt. Umsonst, der rechte Ring war nicht Erweislicli ; — {nach einer Pause, in welcher er des Sultans Antwort erwartet] fast so unerweislich, als Uns jtzt— der rechte Glaube. Sal.— Wiet das soil Die Antwort seyn auf meine Frage? Nath.—^oW Midi bios entscliuldigen, wenn icli die Ringe Mir nicht getrau zu unterschei- den, die To make them like, precisely like to that. The artist's skill succeeds. He brings the rings. And e'en the father cannot tell his own. Relieved and joyful, summons he his sons, Each by himself ; to each one by himself He gives his blessing, and his ring — and dies. — You listen, Sultan ? Sal— Yes ; I hear, I hear. But bring your story to an end. Nath. — 'Tis ended. For what remains would tell it- self. The father Was scarcely dead when each brings forth his ring. And claims the headship. Questioning ensues. Strife, and appeal to law ; but all in vain. The genuine ring was not to be distinguished ; — [After a pause, in which he aicaits the Sultan's answer.'] As undistinguishable as with us The true religion. /Sa?.— That your answer to me ? Nath. — But my apology for not presuming Between the rings to judge^ which with design 224 GERMAN LITERATURE. Der Vater in der Absiclit ma- chen liess, Damit sie nicht zu unterschei- den waren, Sal. — Die Ringe !— Spiele nicht mit mil- !— Ich daclite, Dass die Religionen, die ich dir Genannt, doch wol zu unter- scheiden wiiren. Bis auf die Kleidung ; bis auf Speis iind Trank ! Nath. — Und nur von Seiten ihrer Grunde nicht. — Denn griinden alle sich nicht auf Geschichte ? Geschriebeu oder iiberliefert ! — Und Geschichte muss doch wohl al- lein auf Treu Und Glauben angenommen wer- den ?— Xicht ? Nun, wessen Treu und Glauben zieht man denn Am wenigsten in Zweif el ? Doch der Seinen ? Doch deren Blut wir sind ? doch deren, die Von Kindheit an uns Proben ihrer Liebe Gegeben? die unsnie getauscht, als wo Getiiuscht zu werden uns heil- samer war ? — Wie kann ich meinen Vatern weniger, Als du den deiuen glauben ? Oder umgekehrt. — Kann ich von dir verlangen , dass du deine The father ordered undistin- guishable. /Sa?.— The rings? — You trifle with me. The religions I named to you are plain to be distinguished — E'en in the dress, e'en in the food and drink. Nath. — In all except the grounds on which thev rest. Are they not founded all on history. Traditional or written ? History Can be accepted only upon trust. "Whom now are we the least in- clined to doubt ? Not our own people — our own blood ; not those 'Wh.o from our childhood up have proved their love ; Ne'er disappointed, save when disappointment Was wholesome to us ? Shall my ancestors Receive less faith from me, than yours from you ? Reverse it : Can I ask you to belie LES8ING. 225 Vorfahren Liigen strafst, um meinen nicht Zu widerspreclien? Oder um- gekelirt. Das nehmliche gilt von den Christen. Nicht ? — Sal. — (Bey dem Lebendigen! Der Mann hat Recht. Ich muss verstummen. ) Nath. — Lass auf unsre Ring' Uns wleder kommen. Wie ge- sagt : die Sohne Verklagten sich ; und jeder schwur dem Richter, Unmittelbar aus seines Vaters Hand Den Ring zu haben. — Wie auch wahr ! — Nachdem Er von ihm lange das Verspre- chen schon Gehabt, des Ringes Vorrecht ein- mal zu Geniessen. — Wie nicht minder wahr ! — Der Vater, Betheur'te jeder, konne gegen ihn Nicht falsch gewesen seyn ; und eh' er dieses Von ihm, von einem solchen lie- ben Vater, Argwohnen lass' : eh' miiss' er seine Briider, So gem er sonst von ihnen nur das Beste Bereit zu glauben sey, des fal- schen Spiels Bezeihen ; und er woUe die Ver- rather Schon auszufinden wissen ; sich schon riichen. 10* Tour fathers, and transfer your faith to mine ? Or yet, again, holds not the same with Christians ? Sal. — (By heaven, the man is right ! I've naught to an- swer.) Nath. — Return we to our rings. As I have said, The sons appealed to law, and each took oath Before the judge that from his father's hand He had the ring, — as was indeed the truth ; And had received his promise long before, One day the ring, with all its privileges. Should be his own, — as was not less the truth. The father could not have been false to him, Each one maintained ; and ra- ther than allow Upon the memory of so dear a father Such stain to rest, he must against his brothers. Though gladly he would nothing but the best Believe of them, bring charge of treachery ; Means would he find the traitors to expose, And be revenged on them. Sal. — And now the judge ? 226 GERMAN LITERATURE. Sal.—rnd nun, der Ricliter?— Mich verlangt zu horen, Was du den Ricliter sagen liis- sest. Spricli ! Nath. — Der Ricliter spracli: wenn ihr mir nun den Vater Nicht bald zur Stelle schafEt, so weis' icli eucli Von meinem Stuhle. Denkt ihr, dass ich Rathsel Zu losen da bin ? Oder harret ihr. Bis dass der rechte Ring den Mund eroffne ? — Doch halt ! Ich hore ja, der rechte Ring Besitzt die Wunderkraft, be- liebt zu machen ; Vor Gott und Menschen ange- nehm. Das muss Entscheiden ! Denn die falschen Ringe werden Doch das nicht konnen ! — Nun, wen lieben zwey Von euch am meisten ? — Macht, sagt an ! Ihr schweigt ? Die Ringe vvirken nur zurlick ? und nicht Nach aussen? Jeder liebt sich selber nur Am meisten ? — so seyd ihr alle drey Betrogene Betriiger! Eure Ringe. Sind alle drey nicht echt. Der echte Ring Vermuthlich ging verloren. Den Verlust Zu bergen, zu ersetzen, liess der Vater Die drey f iir einen machen. I long to hear what words yon give the judge. Go on 1 Kath. — Thus spoke the judge: Produce your father At once before me, else from my tribunal Do I dismiss you. Think you I am here To guess your riddles ? Either would you wait Until the genuine ring shall speak ?— But hold ! A magic power in the true ring resides, As I am told, to make its wearer loved, — Pleasing to God and man. Let that decide. For in the false can no such vir- tue lie. Which one among you, then, do two love best ? Speak ! Are you silent ? Work the rings but backward. Not outward? Loves each one himself the best ? Then cheated cheats are all of you ! The rings All three are false. The genu- ine ring was lost ; And to conceal, supply the loss, the father Made three in place of one. LE88ING. 227 gal. — Herrlich, "herrlicli ! Nath. — Und also, fiihr der Rich- ter fort, wetin ilir Nicht meineu Rath, statt meines Spruclies wollt : Geht nur !— Mein Rath ist aber der : ihr nehmt Die Sache vollig wie sie liegt. Hat von Euch jeder seinen Ring von sei- nem Vater So glaube jeder sicher seinen Ring Den echten. — M6glich, dass der Vater nun Die Tyranney des Einen Rings nicht 1 anger In seinem Hause dulden wollen! — Und gewiss ; Dass er euch alle drey geliebt, und gleich Geliebt : indem er zwey nicht driicken mogen, Um einen zu begiinstigen. — Wohlan ! Es eifre jeder seiner unbestoch- nen, Von Vorurtheilen freyen Liebe nach ! Es strebe von euch jeder um die Wette, Die Kraft des Steins in seinem Ring 'an Tag Zu legen ! komme dieser Kraft mit Sanftmuth, Mit herzlicher Vertraglichkeit, mit Wohlthun, Mit innigster Ergebenheit in Gott, Sal.— Oh, excellenti Nath. — Go, therefore, said the judge, unless my counsel You'd have in place of sentence. It were this : Accept the case exactly as it stands. Had each his ring directly from his father, Let each believe his own is gen- uine. 'Tis possible, your father would no longer His hoase to one ring's tyranny subject ; And certain that all three of you he loved. Loved equally, since two he would not humble. That one might be exalted. Let each one To his unbought, impartial love aspire ; Each with the others vie to bring to light The virtue of the stone within his ring ; Let gentleness, a hearty love of peace, Beneficence, and perfect trust in God, 228 GERMAN LITERATURE. Zu Hillf ' ! Und wenn sicli dann Come to his help. Then if the der Steine Krafte jewel's power Bey euern Kindes - Kindeskin- Among your children's children dern aiissern : be revealed, So lad' ich iiber tausend tausend I bid you in a thousand, thousand Jahre, years. Sie wiederum vor diesen Stuhl. Again before this bar. A wisei Da wird man Ein weisrer Mann auf diesem Than I shall occupy this seat, Stuhle sitzen, and speak, Als ich ; und sprechen, Gebt I — Go ! — Thus the modest judge So sagte der dismissed them! Bescheidne Richter. Ellen Frothingham. " Natlian the Wise " was not immediately popular : too many hostile elements were combined against its author. The sectarian spirit of Germany was deter- mined, in advance, not to accept it ; and the crowd of pretentious scholars and second-rate authors, who had felt the sting of Lessing's criticis-m, took every oppor- tunity of revenge. He was accused of glorifying Juda- ism, in the person of Xathan, at the expense of Chris- tianity, and the slander was everywhere circulated and believed, that the Jews of Amsterdam had sent him a gift of a thousand ducats. He outlived the violence of the assault, but with failing health came a weariness of the struggle ; and his last work, " The Education of the Human Race," shows traces of a desire to avoid any fur- ther controversy. What general popularity he enjoyed during his life came from his three earlier dramas ; but the recognition of the best minds — the only fame which a poet values — was due to his " Laocoon" His life LE8SING. 229 was not without its compensations. The hot water in which he lived was much preferable to the stagnant water in which his literary predecessors had slowly de- cayed. There was day-break in the sky before he died, and he, who anticipated so many of the currents of thought of the present day, certainly had clearness of vision to see the coming change. He was like the leader of a forlorn hope, who falls at the moment when victory is secured. The strongest quality of Lessing's mind was his pas- sion for positive truth. The passage in which he sub- limely expresses this aspiration has been often, quoted, but I must give it again : " Not the truth of which any one is, or supposes himself to be, possessed, but the upright endeavor he has made to arrive at truth, makes the worth of the man. For not by the possession, but by the investigation of truth are his powers expanded, and therein alone consists his ever-growing perfection. If God held all truth shut in his right hand, and in his left hand nothing but the ever-restless instinct for truth, though with the condition of forever and ever erring, and should say to me, ' Choose ! ' I should humbly bow to his left hand, and say : * Father, give ! Pure truth is for thee alone ! ' " The period between 1729 and 1781, which Lessing's life covers, was that of transition — and a transition all the more difficult and convulsive because, for a hundred years previous, the intellectual life of Germany lay in 230 GERM AX LITERATURE. a trance resembling death. Althougli the influence of Eousseau and Yoltaire, felt in Germany only less pow- erfully than in France, helped to break uj) the old order of things, there was not the least connection between their action and that of Lessing. He made Yoltaire's acquaintance only to become involved in a personal quarrel with him, and his works show no trace of Rous- seau's ideas concerning education and society. He moved forward on a line parallel with other prominent minds in other countries, but always retained a com- plete independence of them. When he died, the period of struggle was really over, although the fact was not yet manifest. Goethe had published ''Gotz von Ber- UcMngen" and " Werther,'' and Schiller had just writ- ten "i)/e Rdubery Herder had given to the world his '^Poetry of the People," and was employed upon his " Spirit of Hebrew Poetry ; " and Richter, a student of nineteen, had just awakened to a knowledge of his own genius. One by one, the pedants and the mechan- ical organ-grinders of literature were passing off the stage. French taste died two years later, in the person of its last representative, Frederic the Great, and the close air of Germany was at last vitalized by the fresh oxygen of original thought. Lessing's career, indeed, might be compared to a pure, keen blast of mountain wind, let loose upon a company of enervated persons, dozing in an atmosphere of exhausted ingredients and stale perfumes. It was a breath of life, but it made LESsmo. 231 them shriek and shudder. "When thej tried to close the window upon him, he smashed the panes ; and then, with the irreverence of all free, natural forces, he began to blow the powder from their wigs and the wigs from their heads. There is something comically pitiful in the impotent wrath with which they attempted to sup- press him. We can imagine Gottsched, amazed and incredulous that any one should dare to dispute his pompous authority, and even the good and gentle Gel- lert, grieving over the pranks of this uncontrollable young poet. We may be sure that none of his faults of character were left undiscovered, and there are few men of equal power whose character shows so fairly after such a scrutiny. He was accused of being a gambler ; but the facts of his life are the best answer to the charge. As a poorly-paid writer for the press in Ber- lin, and a general's secretary in Breslau, he supported himself, contributed toward the education of his bro- thers, and collected a choice library of six thousand volumes. It is not easy to see what would be left for gambling purposes, after accomplishing all this. His letters to his father exhibit a tender filial respect, a patience under blame and misrepresentation, and a gentle yet firm resistance, based on a manly trust in himself, the like of which I know not where to find. In him, genius and personal character are not to be separated. In one of his conversations with Ecker- mann, Goethe exclaimed : " We have great need of a 232 GERMAN LITERATURE. man like Lessing ; for wherein is lie so great as in his character, in his firm hold of things ? There may be as shrewd and intelligent men, but where is such a char- acter?" At another time Goethe said: " Lessing dis- claimed any right to the lofty title of a genius ; but his permanent influence testifies against himself." Goethe always considered it his special good fortune that Les- sing existed as a guide for his youth. He compares the appearance of ^^3Iinna von Barnhelm " to that of a shining meteor, bursting suddenly on the darkness of the age. "It opened our eyes to the fact," he says, "that there was something higher, something of which that weak literary epoch had no comprehen- sion." I hope that the distinction which I have already indi- cated is now tolerably clear — that as a creative intellect, the highest rank cannot be awarded to Lessing ; while, as a revolutionary power, as a shaping and organizing force, he has scarcely his equal in history. He was a Reformer, in the truest sense of the word, and bore himself through life with the same independence, the same dignity, the same simple reliance on truth, as Luther at Worms. Notwithstanding the ephemeral nature of many of his controversies, the greater part of them may still be read with profit ; for the truth that is in them belongs to no time or country. While some of his contemporaries — Klopstock and Wieland, for ex- ample — are gradually losing their prominence in Ger- LESsmo. 233 man literature, the place wliicli Lessing fills is becom- ing larger and more important. In one of liis early letters to his father, he says : " If I could become the German Moliere, I should gain an immortal name." He did more than this ; he became the German Lessing I KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. I AM obliged, by mj limits, to group together in one lecture, the three distinguished contemporaries of Les- sing — Klopstock, Wieland and Herder — who also as- sisted, though by very different methods, in the literary regeneration of Germany. There was no immediate connection between his and their labors, except that all tended in the same direction ; and the most I can at- tempt will be to give a brief outline of their lives, and the special influence which the mind of each exercised upon the period in which they lived. As all three survived the close of the century, they were more fortunate than Lessing, in beholding the transition accomplished — in seeing the age of formality and pedantry buried without funeral honors, and the age of free, vigorous and vital thought triumjDhantly inaugurated. Although Klopstock, who was born in 1724, was five years older than Lessing, the two were students together at the University of Leipzig, in 1746, and Lessing's dthut as a dramatic author was coeval with the publication of the first three cantos of Klopstock's " J/emas." This is the only coincident circumstance in their lives ; in all X)ther 234 EL0P8T0CE, WIELANB AND HERDER. 235 respects there is the greatest iiulikeness. Klopstock, a native of Quedlinburg, in Northern Germany, was the son of an official, in easy circumstances. His education, completed at Jena and Leipzig, was thorough; no dis- couragements met his early aspirations, and his very first literary venture gave him fame and popularity. As a boy, his ambition was to produce a great German epic, and he first selected the Emperor, Henry the Fowler j as his hero. The study of theology in Jena, and proba- bly Milton's example, led him to change the plan, and adopt, instead, the character of Christ. His classic tastes suggested the form : a German counterpart of the "Iliad," he imagined, must also be written in hexameters. The first three cantos of the "Jlessias " were published in 1748, when he was twenty-four years old, and created the profoundest impression all over Germany. They were read with a reverence, a pious fervor, scarcely less than that claimed for the Sacred Writings. Gottsched and his school, it is true, attempted to depreciate the work ; but it was not felt by the people to be a violent or dangerous innovation, and its popularity was not ef- fected by the attack. On the other hand, Klopstock was welcomed by the Swiss school, and invited by Bod- mer, its head, to visit Zurich. I must here explain that Zurich was then an important literary centre. Tho English influence was there predominant, as the French was at Leipzig, and the two schools were therefore an- tagonistic. In intellectual force and temper there was 236 GERMAN LITERATURE. not much difference between the two, but they achieved some good by partly neutralizing each other's power. Klopstock went to Zurich in 1750, but did not remain there long. Baron Bernstorff, one of the King of Den- mark's ministers, invited him to Copenhagen, offering four hundred thalers a year for his support, in order that he might be free to finish his " Messiah." The proj^osal was accepted, the salary became a pension for life, and for twenty years Klopstock divided his time between Copenhagen and Hamburg. He had no material cares ; his popularity as a poet was so great, that it now seems almost disproportionate to his deserts, and the only shadow upon his fortune was the death of his wife, Meta MoUer, whom he lost in 1758, four years after their marriage. In 1771 he left Denmark, and took up his permanent residence in Hamburg, where, about the year 1800, he was visited by Wordsworth and Cole- ridge. His death took place in 1803, at the age of seventy-nine. The importance of his life, however, must not be measured by its uneventful character. With the ex- cejDtion of his one great sorrow, his years rolled away tranquilly and happily. He was a frank, honest and loving nature, attracting to himself the best friendship of men, and the enthusiastic admiration of women. The Danish pension, which he received at the beginning of his career, secured him against want, and, with all the breadth and humanity of his views, he was fortunate KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 237 enough to escape any serious persecution. Yet, although his life was so serene and successful, the influences which flowed from his works were none the less potent. He was also a reformer, although not militant, like Lessing. We do not see the flash of his sword, and mark the heads that fall at every swing of his arm ; but if we look closely, we shall find that the strength of the enemy is slowly sapped, and his power of resistance paralyzed. In examining Klopstock's place as an author, we must avoid the injustice of applying the standard of a modern and more intelligent taste to his works. The very fact that he attained a swift and widely-extended popularity, proves two things — that there was an ami- able, sympathetic quality in his mind, which appealed to the sentiment of his readers, and that he did not rise so far above their intellectual plane that they were unable to follow him. He might, indeed, have diverged more Avidely from the taste of his time, and still retained his popularity ; for he possessed one of the radical quali- ties of the German nature, which was almost wanting in Lessing — sentiment. He had the power of drawing easy tears, even from those who were unable to ap- preciate his genius. He was more or less a spoiled child, through his whole life. Portions of his history read very strangely to us now. On leaving the Univer- sity, he fell in love with a cousin, whom he addressed as " Fanny " in a number of despairing Odes, because 238 GERMAN LITERATURE. liis affection was not returned. He read these Odes in private circles, weejDing as he read, and moving his hearers to floods of tears. " Fanny " was soon overwhelmed with letters from all parts of Germany, even from Bodmer in Switzerland, either reproaching her for her cruelty, or imploring her to yield. I am glad to say that she had character enough to refuse, and to marry a man whom she loved. Klopstock, afterward, floating on the Lake of Zurich, with large companies of men and maidens, continued to repeat his melancholy verses, until he and all the others wept, finally kissed all around, and cried out : " This is Ely- sium ! " What is called the Sturm und Drang period of Ger- man literature (Carlyle translates the phrase by " Storm and Stress "), was partly a natural and inevitable phase of development ; but in so far as it was brought about by the influence of living authors, Klopstock must be looked upon as one of the chief agencies. When we hear of the boy Goethe and his sister Cornelia declaim- ing passages from the "Messiah," with such energy that the frightened barber dro]3ped his basin, and came near gashing the throat of Goethe the father, we may guess the power of the impression which Klopstock made. It is not sufficient, therefore, that we read the " Messiah " as if it had been written yesterday. We may smile at its over-laden passion and its diffusive sentiment, but Avhen we come to it from the literature KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 239 which preceded it, we feel, by contrast, that a pure and refreshing stream of poetry has at last burst forth from the barren soil. The number of those who in Germany, at present, read the whole of the "Messiah," is larger than the number of those who in England now read the whole of S]3enser's '* Faery Queene ; " but it is yet very small. In fact, life is too short for a poem of twenty can- tos and twenty thousand lines of hexameter, unless it be a truly great poem. Klopstock began the publication of the " Messiah " in 1748 and finished it in 1773 — a period of twenty-five years. It would take more time than I can now spare, to give even an outline of the poem. It commences with the withdrawal of Christ apart from his disciples, to commune with God upon Mount Olivet, includes the Last Supper, the Trial, Crucifixion and Resurrection, and closes in Heaven, when Christ takes his seat, as the Son, on the right hand of the Father. The action, however, is complicated by the introduction of a great number of angels and devils, and the souls of all the chief personages of the Old Testament, l^egin- ning with Adam and Eve. Even the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain are among the char- acters. The opening lines remind us both of Homer and of Milton : Sing', unsterbliclie Seele, der siin- Sing, Immortal Spirit, of sinful digen Menschen Erlosung, man's redemption. Die der Messias auf Erden in sei- Which on earth in his human ner Menschheit vollendet, form fulfilled the Messiah, 240 GERMAN LITERATURE. Und durcb die er Adams Ge- schlechte die Liebe der Gott- lieit, Mit dem Blute des heiligen Biin- des von Xeuem gescheukt hat. Also geschali des Ewigen Wille. Vergebens erhub sich Satan wider den gottliclien Sohn; umsonst stand Juda Wider ilm auf ; er that's und voU- brachte die grosse Versoh.- nrrng. Suffering, slain and transfigured, whence the children of Adam Once again he hath lifted up to the love of the Godhead. Thus was done the Eternal Will: and vainly did Satan Trouble the Son Divine ; and Juda vainly opposed him : As it was willed, he did, and completed the mighty Atone- ment. The " Messiah " is only indirectly didactic and doc- trinal. On account of the multitude of characters, there is a great deal of action, and the narrative continually breaks into dialogue. It is pervaded throughout by the tender humanity of the Christian religion, and has many j^assages of genuine sublimity. But it is pitched altogether upon too lofty and ambitious a key, and the mind of the reader, at last, becomes very weary of hanging suspended between heaven and earth. I will translate another passage, to show how Klopstock de- scribes the Indescribable : Gott sprach so und stand auf vom ewigen Throne. Der Thron klang Unter ihm hin, da er aufstand. Des Allerheiligsten Berge Zitterten und mit ihnen der Altar des gOttlichen Mittlers, God so spake, and arose from his Throne Eternal, resound- ing Under Him, as He arose : the hills of the Holy of Holies Trembled, and with them the altar of the Divine Medi- ator. KL0P8T0CK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 241 Mit des Versolinenden Altar die Wolken des heiligen Dun- kels Dreimal flielm sie zuriick, Zum viertenmal bebt des Gericht- stuhls Letzte Hoh', es beben an ibm die furclitbaren Stufen Sicbtbar bervor, und der Ewige steigt von dem bimmliscben Tbrone. So, wenn ein festlicber Tag durcb die Himmel alle ge- feiert wird, Und mit allgegenwartigem Wink der Ewige winket, Steben dann auf Einmal, auf alien Sonnen und Erden, Glanzend von ibren goldenen Stiiblen, tausend bei taus- end, Alle Serapbim auf ; dann klin- gen die goldenen Stiible Und der Harfen Gebet und die niedergeworfenen Kronen. Also ertonte der bimmliscbe Tbron, da Gott von ibm auf- stand. Yea, witli tbe altar tbe clouds of tbe holy, mysterious dark- ness Tbrice tbey withdrew : the fourth, the Seat of tbe Judge to its summit Shook, and the awful steps that lead to the summit were shaken Visibly : down from his Throne descended then the Eternal. As, when a festival day is ke]3t through the infinite heavens. When the beckon of God is om- nipresently witnessed. Then, at once, on all the suns and all of the planets Shiningly from their golden seats, by thousands of thousands Rise the Seraphim : then f rorn their golden seats tbe ac- cordance Joins the sound of the harps and the clang of the crowns in' their falling : — So, when God stood up, tbe Heavenly Throne resound- ed. If we cannot now find sucli passages as this almost superhuman in their sublimity, we can, at least, with a little effort of the imagination, understand that a large portion of the German reading public should have so considered them, at the time when thej appeared. Klopstock's friends claim that he was the first to intro- 11 242 GERM AX LITERATURE. duce the classic hexameter into the language. He was certainly the first who did so successfully ; but Lessing shows that both the hexameter and the elegiac mea- sure were used by Fischart, in the seventeenth century. Klopstock's hexameters, moreover, are by no means above criticism ; many of his lines try both the ear and the tongue, while now and then we find one which is melody itself. Take, for instance, this line in the origiv nal : Todesworte noch stets und des Weltgerichts Fluch aussprach. Here the ear bumps along over a corduroy road o> hard syllables. Now compare this line : Deines scliwebenden tonenden Ganges melodisclies Rausclieii. It has a linked sweetness which would have ^olighted Milton. Klopstock did not perceive the trr^th, whiclz Goethe afterward discovered, that the hpiPviceter, to be agreeable, must put off its Greek or La/cin habits, an^ adapt itself to the spirit and manner rf ^he German lan- guage ; but his labor was both honest and fruitful. Th& "Messiah" was the result of p deliberate purpose tc produce an epic ; the subject W3 might almost say, wa;^ mechanically chosen, and we 6an only wonder that i^ work j^J'odiiced under such conditions had so much positive success in its day. His " Odes," which also attained a great popularity, were formed upon classical models. He endeavored, KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 243 in tliem, to make eloquence and sentiment supply the place of rhyme. To me they seem like a series of gymnastic exercises, whereby the muscles of the lan- guage became stronger and its joints more flexible, although the finer essence of poetry disappears in the process. Klopstock hoped, and his admirers believed, that he was creating a classic German literature, by adopting the forms which had become classic in other languages. All we can now admit is that he substi- tuted the influence of Greek literature for that of the French ; and this, at the time, was no slight service. His Odes were the earliest inspiration of Schiller, and he had also a crowd of imitators who have left no names behind them. None of his dramatic poems can be called successful. His " Herman's Fight " was written, like his "Messiah," for a deliberate purjDOse — to counteract the French in- fluence which was still upheld in Germany, not only by Gottsched and his school, but also by the Court of Frederick the Great. It was dedicated to Joseph II. of Austria, who was looked upon as the representative of the German spirit. But Klopstock, faithful to his idea of transplanting classic forms, revived the old Teutonic gods, and endeavored to construct a new Ger- man Olympus. The result is very much like a mas- querade. We see the faces and beards of the old Teutonic tribes, their shields and war-clubs, but we hear would-be Grecian voices when they speak. His 244 GEEMAy LITERATURE. attempts in tliis direction, however, led him to a deeper study of the growth and development of the German language, and determined, for many years, the char- acter of his literary activity. In 1780 he published his " Fragments relating to Language and Poetry," and in 1793 his " Grammatical Conversations " — both sound and valuable works. Yet in them, as in his dramatic poems, the effect was greater than its cause. Probably no author of the last century did so much toward cre- ating a national sentiment, toward checking the im- pressibility of the race to foreign influences, arousing native pride and stimulating native ambition. This was his greatest service, es23ecially since the German peo- ple saw in him the. evidence of what he taught. Where Lessing cut his v\'ay by destructive criticism, Klopstock worked more slowly by example. In force and scope and originality of intellect there can be no comparison between the two men : Kloj^stock must always be ranked among minds of the second class : but when we esti- mate what they achieved during their lives, there is less difference. After Gottsched's death there was no one to assail Klopstock's fame, for all the greater minds that followed him aj)preciated his work' and honored him for it. His prominence as an author did not dimin- ish materially during his life, and the true proportions, into which his fame has since then slowly settled, are still large enough to make him a conspicuous figure in the literary history of the age. Although not more KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 245 than ten of liis two hundred odes live in the popular memor}^ his sweet and fervent hymns are sung in all the Protestant churches, and many lines and phrases from his poems have become household words. In Christopher Martin Wieland, we have a personal history almost as placid as Klopstock's, yet an intellect of very different texture, to consider. Through him we shall first make acquaintance with that company of men who have made the name of Weimar almost as renowned as that of Athens. I shall have more difficulty in indi- cating the exact place which he occupies in the lite- rary development of Germany, for the reason that his intellectual characteristics are of a lighter and airier quality, and are not so readily transferred to another language. Wieland was born near Biberach, in Wiirtemberg, in 1733. Like Lessing, he was the son of a clergyman, and as a boy was noted for his lively, precocious intel- lect. He had studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and attempted poetry, at the age of twelve. Three or four years later he acquired the French and English lan- guages, and then entered the University at Tubingen for the purpose of studying law, to which he devoted no more attention than Lessing did to theology. His na- ture was flexible and easily impressed, and the appear- ance of the first three cantos of the " Messiah " impelled him to attempt a similar work. He projected a great German epic, to be called ''ArminiuSy' very little of 24G GERMAX LITERATURE. wliicli Avas written. One of tlie first works whicli lie published was entitled " Ten Moral Letters." These early essays attracted the notice of Bodmer and the Zurich school, and he was incited thither in 1752, as Klopstock had been two years before. He was then a youth of nineteen, and for several years thenceforth he seems to have been entirely under the influence of Bodmer, Gessner and the other chiefs of the Swiss literary clan. He was unfortunate in all his ventures during this period. He commenced an epic, of which Cyrus was the hero, but the first five books were received so coldly by the j)ublic, that the design was given up. A tragedy called ''Lady Jane Gray " met with no better fate, un- less Lessing's merciless review of it can be considered a distinction. He thereupon attempted a lighter and gayer style, choosing as his subject the episode of *' Araspes and Panthea " from Xenophon, but this work also attracted very little attention. He remained in Switzerland until 1760, when he returned to his native place, and accepted a clerkship in the Chancery. The duties of the office were distasteful to so mercurial a nature, and he sought relief fi'om them in undertaking a translation of Shakespeare, which employed him for four or five years. This, I believe, was the first com- plete publication of Shakespeare in German, and it ap- peared most opportunely for the development which had then commenced. Although it has since been super- KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 247 seeled by the more tliorough translation of Sclilegel and Tieck, it was a careful and conscientious work, for which Wieland deserves the gratitude of his country- men. Wieland married in 1765, and four years later ac- cepted the appointment of Professor of Philosophy at the University of Erfurt. After the publication of his Shakespeare, he turned again to authorship, and his persistence at last brought success. With the same susceptibility to external influences, his new attempts were inspired, partly by the French authors of the time, Rousseau among them, and partly by his lyric taste. His ^'Agathon,'' published in 1767, first made him generally and favorably known. Its leading idea is to show in what degree the external world contributes to human develo23ment, and how far wisdom and virtue are sustained by the forces of nature. Three or four works, in which love is the sole theme, followed in quick succession; and, although they were denounced in many quarters, as being free to the verge of immo- rality, they were none the less read. After his accept- ance of the professorship at Erfurt he probably found it expedient to guard himself against a recurrence of the charge, for the character of his works changed, and we find in them an element of satire which up to this time was not exhibited. He next published "i>er goklene Spiegel'' (The Golden Mirror), which was inspired by the liberal j)olicy of Joseph II. Wieland's intellectual 248 GERMAN LITERATURE. nature, thus far, may best be described by our homely word " flighty." There is little evidence of any serious literary principle, any coherent purpose, in his works, and he seems, in this respect, as un-German as j^ossi- ble. But there is a sjDortiye ease and grace in every- thing he undertakes, which is new to the language. If Lessing gave it precision and Klopstock freedom, Wie- land certainly gave it lightness. The first half of Wieland's life and literary activity was passed, as we have seen, in a restless series of changes ; his place of residence, his occupation and the character of his works changing every few years. His wanderings were now to end, and a long season of rest and stability, the effect of which is manifest in his later writings, was granted to his life. In 1772, the Duchess Amalia, of Saxe-Weimar, offered him the post of tutor to the young princes, her sons, with a salary of one thou- sand thalers a year, which afterward was continued as a pension for life. The eldest of these princes was Karl August, the immortal patron of literature, who was then fifteen years old. The Duchess Amalia had already assembled around her in Weimar a supe- rior literary circle, including Knebel, Musaeus and Ein- siedeL Three years later, when Karl August assumed the ducal government, Goethe, then in his twenty-sixth year, was called to Weimar. In the meantime, how- ever, Wieland had published a lyrical drama, "Alces- tisy' which was well received by everybody except KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 249 Goetlie, wlio satirized it in a dialogue entitled : " Gods, Heroes and Wieland." One of Wieland's admirers retorted by publishing a farce, called "Men, Beasts and Goethe." Wieland seems to have been neither vain nor sensitive to attack. He treated the matter good-humoredly, afterward acknowledged the justice of Goethe's satire, and became at once his personal friend. Wieland's intellect became broader and clearer through his intercourse with the Weimar circle. His works, thenceforth, exhibit greater finish and consist- ence ; yet he never entirely emancipated himself from the influence of the French school, never adopted the lofty standard of excellence which Schiller and Goethe, and even Herder, set for themselves. The deficiency was inherent in his nature : his temperament was too gay and cheerful, too dependent on moods and sensa- tions, for the earnest work of his fellow authors. He did good service, however, by establishing, soon after his arrival in Weimar, a monthly literary periodical, called " Der deutscJie Mercury' which he thenceforth edited for more than thirty years, and which was the vehicle through which the most prominent authors be- came known to a Avider circle of readers. In 1780 he published his romantic epic of " Oheron,'' the most permanently popular of all his works. It is an admi- rable specimen of what Goethe calls the naive in litera- ture — the free, graceful play of the imagination. lu- ll* 250 GERMAN LITERATURE. deed, as a specimen of poetic story-telling, it lias not often been excelled in any language. We have, at pres- ent, such a story-teller in England — Mr. William Mor- ris — the graces of whose metrical narratives are now delighting us ; but their tone, even when he chooses a bright Greek subject, is grave almost to sadness. They are chanted in the minor key, and a sky of gray cloud, or, w^hen brightest, veiled by a hazy mist, hangs over all the landscapes of his verse. Change this tone and atmosphere : let them be clear, fi'esh and joyous : add sunshine, and pleasant airs, and the multitudinous dance of the waves, and you have the character of Wieland's poetry. His " Oheron'' is as charming now as when it was first written. It has all the grace and the melody and the easy movement of Ariosto. The severe critic may say that the poem teaches nothing ; that many of the incidents are simply grotesque ; that the plot is awk- wardly constructed ; that the hero exhibits no real he- roism, and the fairy king and queen are borrowed from Shakespeare : the reader will always answer — " All this may be true, but the poem is delightful." The secret of " Oheron " seems to me, that Wieland has combined the joyousness and the freedom of the Greek nature, with the form and the manner of the romantic school in literature. I have re-read it carefully (for the third or fourth time) for the purpose of selecting some passages which might best illustrate its character ; but I find it difficult to make any choice, where the key-note of the poem is so KL0P8T0GK, WIELAKD AND HERDEB. 251 evenly sustained throughout. I will therefore translate a few of the opening stanzas, which will serve my pur- pose as well as any others. You will notice that while these stanzas are each of eight lines, the length and the metrical character of the lines, and the order of rhyme, are varied according to the author's will : Noch einmal sattelt mir den Hippogryplieu, ihr Musen, Zum Ritt ins alte romautische Land ! Wie lieblicli um meinen ent- fesselten Buseu Der holde Walinsinn spielt ! Wer sclilang das magische Band Um meine Stirne ? Wer treibt von meinen Angen den Ne- bel, Der auf der Vorwelt Wundern liegt ? Ich seh', in bnntem Gewilhl, bald siegend, bald besiegt, Des Ritters gutes Scliwert, der Heiden blinkende Sabel. Te Muses, come saddle me tlie Hyppogryff again, For a ride in the old, tbe ro- mantic land ! How sweetly now, around my breast and brain, Tbe fair illusion plays ! Who bound that magic band About my brow ? Who from mine eyelids blew the haze, Hiding the wonders of old days ? I see, now conquered, now o'er- come, in endless labor, The faithful sword of the knight, the Paynim's sliin- ing sabre ! Vergebens knirscht des alten Sultans Zorn, Vergebens drjiut ein "Wald von starren Lanzen ; Es tcint im lieblichen Ton das elfenbeinerne Horn, Urid, wie ein Wirbel, egreift sie alle die Wuth zu tan- zen. In vain the ancient Sultan's wrath and scorn. Threatens in vain a grove of leveled lances ; The exquisite notes are heard of the ivory horn, And the crowd is seized and whirled in tumultuous dances 1 252 GERMAN LITERATURE. Sie drelin im Kreise sich urn. They turn and circle till breath bis Sinn und Athem ent- and sense are lost. gelit. Triumph, Ilerr Ritter, Triumph! Triumph, Sir Knight, is thine! Gewonnen ist die Schone. Thou hast won the beauty : Was siiumt ihr ? Fort I der Why delay ? Thy flag in the Wimpel weht : breeze is tossed ; Nach Rom, dass euern Bund Away to Rome, where the Holy der heil'ge Vater krone I Father claims thy duty l This liglit and rapid movement characterizes the whole poem, which seems to have been written only in holi- days of the mind. The reading of it, therefore, is not a task, but a pure recreation. Wieland, in this respect, was an unconscious and unintentional reformer. Goethe, I have already stated, was led by Lessing to seek for the true principles of literary art ; but it is equally cer- tain that he learned of Wieland to relieve and lighten the gravity of his style — to add grace to proportion, and give a playful character to earnest thought. Wieland must be considered as one of the chief founders of the romantic school. The " Storm and Stress" period, which was simply a fermentation of the conflicting elements — a struggle by means of which the new era of literature grew into existence — com- menced about the year 1770, and continued for twenty years. During its existence the Eomantic School was developed, separating itself from the classic school, by its freedom of form, its unrestrained sentiment, and its seeking after startling effects. It was a natural retalia- tion, that France, forty years later, should have bor- KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 253 rowed this scliool from Germany. Wielancl was not a partisan in the struggle ; neither was he drawn into it, and forced to work his way out again, as were Goethe and Schiller. He belonged to the Eomantic school by his nature, and to the classic school by his culture, but the former gave the distinguishing character to his works. After the completion of " Oberon,'" he undertook the translation of Horace and Lucian, which was followed by the publication of the ''Attische 3Iuseum " — a collec- tion of the principal Greek classics, translated by differ- ent hands. Until Schiller started his magazine, called ''Die Horen " (The Hours), Wieland's " Deutscher Mercur " was the first literary periodical in Germany. His later original works are few and unimportant, and had little influence on the thought of the time. He lived to see the battle of Jena, to be presented by Napoleon with the Cross of the Legion of Honor, in 1808, and died, eighty years old, in the year of German Liberation, 1813. In this brief sketch of Wieland, I have scarcely men- tioned more than half of his works, because it is not necessary for the purpose of indicating his place as an author. Perhaps ten per cent, of the thirty-six volumes which he left behind him, are now read. The winnowing-mill of Time makes sad havoc with works considered immortal in their day. A great deal of Wieland's productiveness has been blown away as chaff, 254: GEEMAN LITERATURE. but enougli sound grain remains to account for liis in- fluence, and to justify our honorable recognition of his genius. If he did not follow truth with the unselfish deyotion of Lessing — if he was not animated by a lofty patriotic purpose, like Ivlopstock — we nevertheless do not feel inclined to judge him too rigidly. His grace, his humor, his delicate irony and refined though rather shallow appreciation of the element of beauty, disarm us in advance. We cannot escape a hearty friendly feeling for the man who was always so cheerful and amiable, and whose works, light as they may seem in comparison, form a counterjDoise for so many of the " heavy weights " in German Literature. Falk relates that on the day after Wieland's burial, Goethe spoke of him in these terms : " He jDossessed an incomparable nature : in him all was fluency, spirit and taste ! It is a cheerful plain, where there is nothing to stumble over, threaded by the stream of a comical wit, which winds capriciously in all directions, and sometimes even turns against its author. There is not the slight- est trace in him of that deliberate, laborious technical quality, which sometimes spoils for us the best ideas and feelings, by making their expression seem artificial. This natural ease and freedom is the reason why I always prefer to read Shakespeare in Wieland's transla- tion. He handled rhyme as a master. I believe, if one had poured upon his desk a composing-case full of words, he would have arranged them, in a little while, ELOP STOCK, W IE LAND AND HERDER. 255 into a charming paem." Although, this is the tribute of a friend who had been for forty years intimate with Wiehind, and was given during the tender sorrow which his loss called forth, it is not exaggerated praise. Just such an intellectual temperament as Wieland possessed was needed in his time. The language as well as the literature was in the process of develop- ment : there were enough of thoughtful and earnest minds engaged in the work, and they would have fallen too exclusively into the serious, brooding habit of the race, had they not been interrupted by Wieland's play- ful fancy and his delicate satire. Our English lan- guage found all these qualities combined in the one man, Shakespeare, but other countries have not been so fortunate. It required three men — Lessing, Wieland and Goethe — to perform a similar service for the Ger- man language. In this respect, the sj)ortive element in Wieland' s mind was as valuable as genius. It is cer- tainly rarer. Much of our modern literature lacks the same quality. It betrays .the grave labored purpose of the author, as if expression were a stern duty, instead of seeming, as it should seem, free, inevitable and joy- ous. Goethe says that Wieland was the only member of the Weimar circle who could publish his works in the monthly " Mercury " by instalments, as they were written, without being at all affected by the miscon- ception of the public or the hostile criticism of his rivals. It is pleasant to contemplate the activity of so 256 GERMAN LITEUATURE. serene and cheerful a mind. He never liad a following of enthusiastic admirers, like Klopstock or Schiller, but the public regarded him always with a kindly good-will. It was for a time fashionable, in Germany, to depreciate his literary achievements. He has been accused of being governed by French influences, be- cause of his light and A^olatile nature ; but the influ- ence, so far as it existed, soon wore off, and left only the natural resemblance, which was no fault. On the contrary, it was his good fortune and that of his con- temporaries. I do not mention Herder last because I consider him the least important of the three, but simj)ly because he came last in the order of birth. Although a good part of the fight had been fought, by the time he was old enough to engage in it, he belongs also to the pioneers and builders. It is remarkable that, in this review of the great German authors of the last century, each retains, from first to last, his own clearly-marked indi- viduality. Each preserves his own independent activity^ while following a similar aim, even after years of the closest personal intercourse. There was a wide field and much work before them, and Nature seems so to have ordered their minds, that each found his fitting department of labor, and all, together, carried forward a broad front of development. Johann Gottfried Herder was born in 1744, in a village in Eastern Prussia, where his father was teacher and KL0P8T0CK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 257 Cantor in the cliurcli. Allowed to read notliing but the Bible and the hymn-book at home, his craving for knowl- edge attracted the attention of a neighboring clergyman, who gave him instruction in Latin and Greek. At the age of eighteen, a Russian physician, who took a great interest in the eager, intelligent, friendless boy, proposed to have him educated as a surgeon, in Konigsberg and St. Petersburg. He fainted on beholding the first dis- section, and the plan was given up ; but he remained in Konigsberg, subsisting literally on charity, and study- ing at the University. The philosopher Kant allowed him to attend his lectures without paying the usual fee. The study of theology specially attracted him, but no branch of knowledge was neglected. After struggling along, under the most discouraging circumstances, for two years, he accepted a situation as teacher in Riga, and began to preach as soon as he had been properly ordained to the office. His popularity became so great, both as a teacher and as an eloquent, earnest preacher, that in the course of four or five years his friends in Riga determined to build a large church, and have him in- stalled as pastor. AX the same time he was invited to become the Director of the German school in St. Peters- burg. He declined both these offers, and left Riga in 1769, intending to make a journey through Europe. At Strassburg, an affection of the eyes obliged him to give up the plan, and to remain in that city for surgical treat- ment. Here he became acquainted with a youth of 258 GERMAN LITERATURE. tTrenty, named Goetlie, and for some montlis the two were inseparable companions. Herder, then twenty-five years old, had already published two works — "Frag= ments concerning Recent German Literature," and "For- ests of Criticism," wherein he had planted himself on the side of Winckelmann and Lessing, taking a strong position of antagonism to the pedantry and superficial taste which those authors assailed. Goethe, who, dur- ing his residence in Strassbnrg, wrote his play of ''Die Mitschuldigen " (The Accomplices) and was brooding over the plan of " G<'dz von BerlicMngen,'' profited greatly by his intercourse with Herder, and his friendship became one of the influences which determined Herder's later life. While at Strassburg, Herder received an invitation to become Court-Preacher at Biickeburg, a town in North- ern Germany, the capital of the little principality of Schaumburg-Lippe. He accepted the call, and remained at Biickeburg, in that capacity, for five years, during which time his reputation as a theologian became so generally established, that he was offered the Professor- ship of Theology at Gottingen. He hesitated to accept the position, because, by order of the Elector of Hanover, it was burdened with certain conditions which were not agreeable. After the negotiations had continued for some months, a day was fixed for Herder's decision, and on that very day he received an offer of the place of Court-Preacher and member of the Clerical Consistory KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER, 259 at Weimar. He delayed no longer, but followed the in- stinct which led so many tempest-tost brains into that quiet and secure harbor of the German Muses. By the end of the year 1776, Wieland, Herder and Goethe were citizens of Weimar. Here the incidents of Herder's life, like those of Wieland's, cease to interest us, and we are occupied only with his literary development. In 1778 he published his " Volkslieder' : the English title, which would best express the character of the work, is "Poetry of the Eaces." It is a careful selection from the popular songs and ballads of nearly all the languages of Europe, including the Lithuanian, Livonian, Servian, Danish, English and Modern Greek. He makes good use of Percy's " Keliques " and the lyrics of the Eliza- bethan dramatists, and even translates passages of Ossian into rhyme. These translations, although not always very literal, are thoroughly poetic, and may be read with satisfaction. His object seems to have been, to direct the attention of the German public to the natural poetic elements which exist in the early civiliza- tion of all races, and thereby to counteract the tendency toward schools or fashions in poetry. He sought to impress the catholicity of his own taste upon the popu- lar mind, and was certainly successful in diverting much of the thought of his day out of the narrow channels in which it had been accustomed to move. In 1782 he published his "Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," a work which has been translated and extensively read in English. 260 GERMAN LITERATURE. It is an exposition of his views in regard to the primitive poetry of the race, in its connection Avith religion. Its indirect tendencj^, as well as that of his strictly theo- logical w^ritings, was to inculcate a broader, a more in- telligent — one might almost say, a more human — reli- gious sentiment. He took the same ground as Lessing, concerning the superiority of the sjDirit to the letter, but, as a clergyman, he was sj)ared the bitter hostility which the layman had provoked. Perhaps, also, the warmth, the eloquence and the enthusiasm which per- vaded all his writings gave his ideas an easier accept- ance than they would have found, if presented with the intellectual bareness and keenness of Lessing's style. Passing over Herder's essays and critical papers, I will only mention two other of his more important works — the metrical romance of ''Der Cidr the materials of which he collected from the old Sj^anish legends and ballads, and his "Ideas toward a Philosophy of Human History," which is generally considered to be his greatest work. " The Cid " is written in unrhymed Trochaics — a measure which was first employed in English by Long- fellow in his "Hiawatha." Although it is considered a classic poem in German, and is still printed in luxurious editions, it is only enjoyed by the more cultivated class of readers. It has somethinsj of the mechanical char- acter of many of his Odes. He was less a poet, in fact, than a man of sensitive poetic taste. He had a large, warm, receptive nature, and his insjDiration came from ELOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER. 261 the feelings ratlier tlian from the imagination. His "Ideas of the Philosoi^hy of History " are the fragments of a larger design. They anticipate many views which have only been taken up and practically developed in the literature of our day. He considers man as an entity, whose different modes of development in the earlier races must be referred to the operation of the same universal laws. He traces the upward tendency, the preparation for a higher spiritual life, through all the varied forms of civilization, and infers the existence of a sublime progressive destiny, of which all our past history is a part. During the later years of his life, Herder became sensitive and irritable, although he still retained his wonderful magnetic power over other men. His per- formance of his official duties was beneficently felt throughout the Duchy. His authority in the Church, his supervision of the schools, his control of the govern- ment-charities, were all characterized by a wise, liberal and thoroughly humane spirit. In 1801 he was ap- pointed President of the Consistory, the highest office belonging to his profession, and was ennobled by the Elector of Bavaria. He lived but two years longer to enjoy these honors, dying in 1803, in his sixtieth year. The Duke, Karl August, ordered the words to be en- graved upon his tomb — " Light, Love, Life." The great influence which Herder exercised during his life cannot be doubted ; yet, in looking over his 262 GERMAN LITERArURE. works at the present day, it is easy to miss the secret of that influence. I confess that, notwithstanclincj the evi- dence of an earnest, brooding mind, which I find every- where — notwithstanding the variety and beauty of the scattered thoughts — Herder's works impress me like £, collection of great, irregular fragments. He has less of positive style than any of his contemj)oraries. His view^s seem to lack an ordered connection, and this gives an air of uncertainty to the operations of his mind. Everything he does resembles a figure which the sculp- tor has not wholly hewn from the marble. Here and there an outline may be clearly cut, the form ar.d ex- pression may be everywhere indicated, but we aro never- theless tantalized by the unchiseled stone hiding as much as it reveals. His design is evidently greater than his power of execution — like the face of the Dawn, which baffled Michael Ansjelo. But this very circumstance, if I rightly interpret it, gives a hint of his true power — and it is an agency which we have not yet considered. I mean the power of sug^ gestiventss. There is something stimulating and pro- vocative in ideas which fall short of their full and cleScX expression. The breadth of Herder's views, aided as they were by his remarkable eloquence, made them attractive at a time when the mind of Germany was throbbing with its highest vitality, and they must have opened innumerable side-paths to others. The place which he attempted to fill was so large, that there was KL0P8T0CK, WIELAND AND HEBDER. 263 necessarily more variety tlian thoroughness in his work. But all that he did helped to widen the intellectual horizon : his spirit was never otherwise than liberal, tolerant and pervaded with the noblest sympathies. Neither his philological learning, nor his philosophy, would now be considered remarkable, but, as one of his critics truly says, they were exactly adequate to his needs and the needs of his time. I think, therefore, that we shall be correct in desig- nating Herder as a procre^dive, rather than a creative power in German literature — that is, that his suggestive, awakening and stimulating influence on other minds was his chief merit. The value of his writings is thus not affected by their want of artistic completeness, — nor is it merely a temporary value. His ideas still re- tain their fructifying character, because the aspiration which underlies them is always lofty and sincere. Goethe, speaking to Eckermann, in the year 1824, thus expressed himself concerning Klopstock and Her- der : " Had it not been for these powerful forerunners, our literature could not have become what it now is. VVhen they came, they were far in advance of tlieir time, and they equally drew it after them ; but now the age has distanced them, and notwithstanding they were once so necessary and important, the}^ have ceased to be vital forces. A young man who should now-a-days draw his culture from Klopstock and Herder, would fall to the rear." 264 QEBMAN LITERATURE. Goethe ascribed tlie unusual culture of tlie middle classes, which had been developed througout Germany during the previous fifty years, more to Wieland and Herder, than to Lessing. " Lessing," he said, " was the highest intelligence, and only an equal intelligence could thoroughly be taught by him. He was dangerous to half-capacities. To Wieland," he added, " all the higher cultivation of Germany owes its style. This class learned a great deal from him, not the least of which was the faculty of appropriate expression." In these remarks, Goethe refers principally to Les- sing's critical works, and he also ignores both his own and Schiller's influence on the national culture. Never- theless, the distinction which he draws is at bottom correct. Taking Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland and Her- der, as the representative forerunners and reformers, who first created the splendid age of literature which they then adorned, we may thus apportion their sep- arate shares in the work. Lessing, unquestionably first, both in intellect and character, was a strong inde- pendent power, operating chiefly on the best thinkers and writers of his day. Klopstock, by his use of the religious element, won the people to his side, employed his influence to implant among them a lofty national sentiment, and gave eloquence, form and expression to the language. Wieland, the literary Epicurean, giving himself up to the shifting play of his moods and sensa- tions, imj)arted lightness, grace and elegance to the KL0P8T0CK, WIELAND AND HERDEH. 265 language, adding sparkle to strength and melody to correctness of form. Herder, finally, broke down the narrower limits of tlionglit, led the aspirations of men back to their primitive sources, placed before them the universal and permanent in literature, rather than the national and temporary, and deepened and widened in every way the general culture, through the fruitful suggestiveness of his ideas. The more we contemplate the lives and the labors of these four authors, the more clearly we feel the necessity of each. The development of the German language had been long delayed, but these men, working simultaneously, raised it rapidly to an equal power and dignity among the other modern tongues of Europe. We now turn from the period of struggle to that of creative repose. The battle has been fought : the ground has been won: we shall henceforth breathe a serener air, and feel the presence of a purer and grander inspiration. 12 IX. SCHILLER. Taking tlie German authors in the order of their pro* gressive development, we are next led to Schiller, who, although he was born ten years later than Goethe, died twenty-seven years earlier. His life is thus included within that of Goethe, but only as the orbit of Venus is included within that of the Earth : the courses may be nearly parallel, but are never identical. In Schiller's case, I have the advantage of dealing with material, much of which is tolerably familiar to English readers. The biograj)hy and essays of Carlyle, and the translations of Coleridge, Bulwer, Bowring and others, have gradually created an impression, in England and America, of Schiller's character and genius — an im23ression which is just in outline, if somewhat vague in certain respects. The more delicate lights and shades, which are necessary to complete the picture, can be given only by the intimate and sympathetic study which the poet inspires in those who have made his acquaintance. Like Burns and Byron, he creates a per- sonal interest in the reader, in the light of which his works are almost inevitably viewed. An indefinable 266 SCHILLER. 267 magnetism clings to liis name, and accompanies it all over the world. In vain Eicliter speaks of " tlie stony Schiller, from whom strangers spring back, as from a precipice"— in vain Mr. Crabb Eobinson describes him as unsocial, and with a wild expression of face-few poets have ever excited more enthusiasm, sympathy, and love in the human race, than Friedrich Schiller. Even when we know his life, and have analyzed his works, the problem is not entirely solved. Mankind seems sometimes to give way, like an individual, to an impulse of unreasoning affection, and the fortunate poet upon whom it falls is sure of a beautiful immortality. Schiller was born on the 10th of November, 1759, in the little town of Marbach, in Wiirtemberg. His father was a military surgeon, who had distinguished himself in campaigns in the Netherlands and Bohemia, where he also served as an officer, and attained the rank of Cap- tain. He was an instance, very rare in those days, of a man who tried, in middle age, to make up for the defi- ciencies of his early education, and whatever capacity Schiller may have received by inheritance came from him, and not from the mother. Noted, as a child, for his spiritual and imaginative nature, Schiller's early ambition was to become a clergyman; but the Duke Karl of Wiirtemberg insisted, against the wish of the boy's parents, on having him educated in a new school which he had just founded in Stuttgart. At the age of fourteen Schiller entered this school, 268 GERMAN LITERATURE. wliicli u^as conducted according to tlie strictest military ideas. The jDuj^ils were considered as so many macliines, to be meclianically developed : not the slightest regard was paid to natural differences of capacity : their studies, their performances, and even their recreation, were regu- lated by an inflexible system. Unable to escape his fate, Schiller at first selected jurisj^rudence, but soon changed it for medicine, in which branch he was gradu- ated, in his twenty-first year. There is no doubt that the severe and soulless discipline to which he was sub- jected for seven years was one cause of the fierce, reck- less, rebellious spirit which pervades his earliest works. The religious asjDiration having been checked, all the strength and passion of his nature turned to poetry. "The Messiah" and the Odes of Klopstock, and Goethe's drama of " Gotz von BerlicJiingenJ' made the most pow- erful impression upon his mind, and the circumstance that all such reading was jjrohibited, only spurred him the more to enjoy it by stealth. Among the authors with whom he became acquainted was Shakespeare, whose power he felt without clearly comprehending it. His own ambition was stimulated by his intense enjoy- ment of poetry, and he attempted both an epic and a tragedy before his eighteenth year. These boyish works he threw into the fire, and then commenced his play of ^^Die Raul)er' (The Robbers), which was completed about the time of his graduation as a military surgeon. After being appointed to a regiment in Stuttgart, and feeling SCHILLER. 269 that the subordinate period of his life was ended, he published " The Eobbers" in 1781, at his own expense, no publisher daring to run the risk. The impression which it produced was as immediate and powerful as that of Byron's " Childe Harold "^ — he woke up one morning and found himself famous. Its wild and passionate arraignment of Society, its daring blending of magnanim- ity, courage and crime in the same character, and the stormy, impetuous action which sweeps through it from beginning to end, startled not only Germany but all Europe. The popular doctrines which preceded the French Revolution, now only nine years off, prepared the way for it : the " Storm and Stress " period of Ger- man literature, exultant over the overthrow of the old dynasties in letters, hailed it with cries of welcome, and in the chaotic excitement and ferment of the time its flas^rant violations of truth and taste were overlooked. Only ii'^ defiant power and freedom were felt and cele- brated, i^^en in reading " The Robbers " now, we are forced to acknowledge these qualities, although we are both amused and shocked at its extravagance. Much of the j)lay cannot be better characterized than by our slang American word — " highfalutin." No one saw this more clearly, or condemned it more emphatically than Schiller himself, in later years. " My great mistake," he once said, " was in attempting to represent men two years before I really knew a single man." The hostility which "The Robbers" provoked was 270 GERMAN LITERATURE. fully as intense as tlie praise. The Conservative senti- ment of Germany rose in arms against it. The Duke sent for Schiller and endeavored to exact a pledge from him that he would j^ublish nothing further without first submitting it to him, the Duke. To a man of Schiller's temperament, this was impossible. Moreover, he had seen the unfortunate poet Schubart, in the fortress of Hohenas]3erg, where he was confined ten years for hav- ing ofiended his Kuler by the liberal tone of his poetry, and could easily guess how much freedom the Duke's censorship would allow him. At the same time Baron Dalberg, Director of the theatre at Mannheim, requested him to adapt " The Eobbers " for representation on the stage. When the first performance was to take place, Schiller, unable to obtain leave of absence, went to Mann- heim without it, and on his return was arrested and im- prisoned. His insubordination gave great offence to the Duke, and it seems probable that severer measures were threatened. But one alternative was left to Schiller, and he adopted it. In 1782, he left Stuttgart in dis- guise, and under an assumed name, went first to Mann= heim, and then to the estate of a friend near Meiningen, where he remained in complete seclusion for almost a year. During this time he completed his plays of "Fiesco " and " Kahale und Liehe " (Intrigue and Love), which were both successful on the stage. It is easy to detect their faults of construction and their over- charged sentiment, but in both the vital warmth and SCHILLEH. 2?i the fire of the author's nature make themselves felt. Tlie general public, who are never critical, found a new sense of enjoyment in Schiller's plays, and accepted him in spite of the critics. Towards the close of 1783, he was summoned to Mannheim, where Baron Dalberg offered him the post of Dramatic Poet, connected with the theatrical management. He re- mained there eighteen months, and during this time started the "Khenish Thalia "—a literary periodical which treated especially of the drama. Various causes, which need not now be explained, combined to make his position disagreeable, and in March, 1785, he took up his residence in Leipzig. The principal cause of this change was a circumstance which many persons would brand as " sentimental," but which seems to me, in the noblest sense, human. Some months previous, he had received a letter from Leipzig, signed by four unknown persons, and accompanied by their miniature portraits. These persons were Huber and Korner, both of whom became afterwards distinguished in letters, and Minna and Doris Stock, their betrothed brides. The letter which they wrote exhibited so much refined and genial appreciation of Schiller's genius — so much affectionate interest in his fortunes — that, to Schiller's eager and impulsive nature, it offered him an escape from the annoyances which attended his position at Mannheim. Korner and Huber received him like brothers. All they had — money, time, counsel, help, — he was free to 272 GERMAN LITERATURE. claim : the " sentiments " of their letter to the unknown poet were justified by the practical results. Schiller's critics and biographers seem to have united in dividing his literary life into three distinct periods, the first of which closes with his emigration from Mann- heim to Leipzig. We might call this the period of Assertion, and designate the others which followed as the jDeriods of Deyelo23ment and Achievement. Up to this time, in fact, we find the evidence of powers, neither harmonious nor intelligent as yet, forcing their way to the light : we find the spirit of other jDoets stimulating him to warmer and more passionate expression than they would have dared : all is vi^dd, luxuriant, teeming wdth life, and permeated with the kindred forces of hoj)e and desire. It was this intense vitality, this out- pouring of a nature which ]3ressed upward and onward with all its energies, which accounts for Schiller's im- mediate popularity. Something similar in English lit- erature was the reception given to Bailey's "Festus" and Alexander Smith's " Life Drama " — but they were really the end of their achievement, whereas this was the beginning of Schiller's. His early plays and poems re- flect the roused and restless spirit of the times, — the uni- versal yearning for light and liberty. The beginning of his literary activity corresponds exactly with the date of Lessing's death. The field was therefore cleared for him, and we shovild not marvel if something of the wild- ness and crudity of a first settler stamj)s his performance. SCEILLEB. 273 In the lyrics belonging to tlie First Period, the glow and warmth which, in his later poems, fuse the su-bject and sentiment together, are already apparent, although the fusion is less perfect. They are mostly irregular in form and incomplete in thought. The poems addressed to "Laura" correspond to Tennyson's youthful lyrics to "Eleanore," "Adeline" and other girlish names, with the difference that the sentiment is German and not English. As an example I will quote two brief lyrics, " Tartarus'' and '^Elysium'' (of the latter only the first half) : GRUPPE AUS DEM TAKTARUS. Horcli— wie Murmeln des em- porten Meeres, Wie durcli hohler Felsen Becken weint ein Bacli, Stohnt dort dumpfigtief ein schweres, leeres, Qualerpresstes Ach ! ScTimerz verzerret Hir Gesiclit ; Verzweiflung sperret Tliren Rachen flucliend auf . Hohl sind ihre Augen, ilire Blicke Spahen bang nach des Cocytus Briicke, Folgen thralinend seinem Trau- erlauf, Fragen sich einander angstlicli leise, Ob nocb niclitVollendung sei? 12* A GROXJP IN TAETARTJS. Hark ! as noises of the lioarse, aroused sea, As tlirougli bollow-tbroated rocks a streamlet's moan. Sounds below there, wearily and endlessly, A torture-burdened groan 1 Faces wearing Pain alone, in wild despairing, Curse tlirougli jaws tliat open "wide ; And witli haggard eyes forever Gaze upon the bridge of Hell's black river, Weeping, gaze upon its sullen tide. Ask each other, then, in fearful whispers. If not soon the end shall be? 274 GERMAN LITERATURE, Ewigkeit schwingt tiber ilinen The End? — tlie scytlie of Time Kreise, is broken ; Bricbt die Sense des Saturns Over them revolves Eternity I entzwei. Now let US turn to tlie briglitiiess and music of his picture of ELYSIUM. Voruber die stohnende Klage ! Elysiums Freudengelage Ersiiufen jegliches Ach — Elysiums Leben Ewige Wonne, ewiges Schwe- ben. EliTSIUM. Gone is the wail and the tor- ture ! Elysium's banquets of rapture Chase every shadow of woe ! Elysium, seeing, Endless the bliss and end- less the being, Durch lachende Fluren ein flo- As musical brooks through the tender Bach. meadows that flow ! Jugendlich milde Beschwebt die Qefilde Ewiger Mai ; Die Stunden entfliehen in golde- nen Traumen, Die Seele schwillt aus in unend- lichen Riiumen, Wahrheit reisst hier den Schleier entzwei. May is eternal, Over the vernal Landscapes of youth : The Hours bring golden dreams in their races, The soul is expanded through infinite spaces, The veil is torn from the vis- age of Truth ! Unendliche Freude Durch wallet das Herz. Hier mangelt der Xame dem trauernden Leide ; Sanfter Entziicken nur heisset hier Schmerz. Here never a morrow The heart's full rapture can blight ; Even a name is wanting to Sor- row, And Pain is only a gentler de- Ught. SCHILLEB. 275 A comparison of these early poems of Scliiller witL. tliose of Klopstock, at his best period, will show how much the language has already gained in fire and free- dom of movement. A new soul has entered into and taken possession of it, and we shall find that the promise of loftier development was not left unfulfilled. Korner married soon after Schiller's arrival in Leip- zig, and then settled in Dresden, whither Schiller fol- lowed him. For nearly two years Korner's house was his home. The play of " Don Carlos,'' which he had begun to write in Mannheim, was there re-written and completed. It was a great advance upon his former works, although far below what he afterwards achieved. Few dramatic poems are more attractive to young men, and, as Goethe says, it will always be read, because there will always be young men. In the character of Don Carlos we detect a great deal of Schiller's own aspiration and impatience of obstacles, while the Mar- quis Posa is at the same time a noble ideal and an impossible man. The great attraction of the play is its sustained and impassioned eloquence. Before its publication, Schiller's circumstances obliged him to cast about for some literary labor which might support him. He finally decided to write an historical work, selecting the Eevolt of the Netherlands for his theme. His preliminary studies were not very thorough, nor was the history ever completed, but its lively and picturesque narrative style gave it a temporary success. 276 GERMAN LITERATURE. He formed various other plans of labor, few of wliicli were carried out — probably because he found it diffi- cult to endure much drudgery of the kind ; and for several years his life was burdened with pecuniary em- barrassments. In 1787 he went to Weimar for the first time, and made the acquaintance of Wieland and Her= der. Goethe was then absent in Italy. The most important result of this visit, however, was his meeting in Eudolstadt with his future wife, Charlotte von Lenge- feld. It was the cause of his returning to Rudolstadt the following summer, and there, in the garden of the Lengefeld family, he first met Goethe. The interview has a special interest, from the fact that these two poets, destined to be friends and co-laborers, mu- tually repelled each other. Schiller wrote of Goethe to Korner : " His whole being is, from its origin, con- structed differently from mine ; his world is not my world ; our modes of conceiving things are essentially different, and with such a combination there can be no substantial intimacy between us." Nevertheless, it was through Goethe's influence that Schiller, early in 1789, was offered the place of Professor of History at the University of Jena. Schiller at first hesitated about accepting the offer, on account of his want both of preparation and of natural fitness, but he was tired of his homeless life, he craved some fixed means of sup- port, and he saw in the appointment the first step towards marriage. In 1858, when the three-hundredth SGHILLEU. 277 anniversary of the University of Jena was celebrated, I met there with a graduate, ninety years old, who had heard Schiller's first historical lecture, in 1789. The account he gave of the rush of the younger students to hear him, and the immediate popularity of the new professor, explained the modest hints of his success which we find in Schiller's letters to Korner. He was so new to the subject that he was frequently obliged to learn one day what he taught the next, but this very circumstance added to the spirit and freshness of his lectures. His productive activity re-commenced with this change in his fortunes. In February, 1790, he married, and the unrest of his life ceased ; but for sev- eral years thereafter he undertook no important work except the "History of the Thirty Years' War," which was completed in 1793. Carlyle speaks of this work as the best piece of historical writing which, up to that time, had appeared in Germany. The causes of this apparent inactivity — that is, inac- tivity, only as contrasted with his usual productive industry— were two-fold. In the year 1791 he was attacked with an inflammation of the lungs which brought him to the verge of the grave, and left lasting consequences behind it. Meyer, the artist, who first met Schiller in that year, states that his appearance was that of a man stricken with death. Goethe was with Meyer, and said, after Schiller had passed : " there are not more than fourteen days of life in him." But 278 GERMAN LITERATURE. there j^roved to be fourteen years, and fourteen years of such earnest, absorbing, unremitting labor, such great and jDrogressive achievement, as can be found in the life of no other poet who ever lived. Although Schiller did not attain the highest, he j)ressed towards the highest with an energy so intense that it seems almost tragic. His illness was a cloud which was speedily silvered with the light of the noblest sym- pathy. The news of his death had gone forth, and a company of his unknown friends in CojDenhagen insti- tuted a solemn service in honor of his name. Among them were the Prince of Augustenburg, Count Schim- melmann, and the Danish poet Baggesen. They met on the shore of the Baltic, pronounced an oration and chanted a dirge, when the news of Schiller's recovery reached them while they were still assembled. A joy- ous song succeeded the mourning services, and the two noblemen pledged themselves to offer the poet one thousand thalers annually for three years, that he might rest and recover his strength. Thus, as his early exile brought him Korner's friendship and help, the illness, which disabled him for a time, gave him a new experience of human generosity. No man can attract such sympathy unless he possesses qualities of charac- ter which justify it. We are reminded of Lowell's lines : " Be noble, and the nobleness tliat lies In other men, sleeping but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own." SCHILLER. 279 However, it was not alone this illness which inter- fered with Schiller's literary activity. I have called his Second Period that of Development, but it was not, there- fore, a period of sound and harmonious growth. Before accepting the Professorship at Jena, his wandering, irregular life had given him little opportunity for quiet study ; the strongly subjective habit of mind, which caused him to throw something of his own nature into all the characters of his dramas, had also interfered with his true education, and the necessity which forced him to take up collateral studies was a piece of good fortune in the end, although he could not feel it so at the time. He was nearly thirty years old before he could appreciate the objective character of Shakespeare's genius. When, at last, his eyes were opened, he looked upon himself and recognized his own deficiencies. After Shakespeare he studied Homer and the Greek drama- tists, and was then led, through his association with the learned society of Jena, into the misty fields of philo- sophical speculation. The latter, no doubt, misled him as positively as the study of the great poets had guided him towards the right path. He became a zealous dis- ciple of Kant, and the few poems which he wrote dur- ing this period show to what an extent his mind was given to theorizing. His poem of " Die Kiinstler " (The Artists), which he considered at the time his best production, is chiefly valuable to us now as an example of poetry crushed by philosophy. His 280 GERMAN LITERATURE. "Esthetic Letters" and liis "Essay on Naive and Sentimental Poetry," written during those years, con- tain many admirable passages, but we cannot help feeling that they interfered with his creative power. It was a period of transition which unsettled the ope- rations of his mind, and sometimes j)revented him from seeing clearly. " The Artist," he wrote, in a pas- sage which has been much admired, "the Artist, it is true, is the son of his time ; but woe to him if he is its pupil, or even its favorite ! Let some beneficent divinity snatch him, when a suckling, from the breast of his mother, and nurse him with the milk of a better time ; that he may ripen to his full stature beneath a distant Grecian sky. And having grown to manhood, let him return, a foreign shape, into his century ; not, however, to delight it by his presence, but dreadful, like the son of Agamemnon, to purify it ! " In this passage Schiller expresses his own temj)orary ambition, but not his true place in literature. The ideal he represents is noble, but it is partly false. The Artist cannot grow to his full stature under a Grecian sky : he must not be " a foreign shape " in his century : he must place his "better time" not in the Past, but in the Future, and make himself its forerunner. Schiller seems to have had an instinct of his unsettled state. Although he conceived the plan of " Wcdlenstein'' while writing his " History of the Thirty Years' War," he hesitated for a long time before beginning to write, and, in his letters to Korner, expresses doubts of his final success. SCHILLER. 281 The one poem which permanently marks this phase of Schiller's life, is ^' Die Gutter GrieclienlaMls'' (The Gods of Greece) — one of the finest lyrics in the lan- guage. The fact that we can detect the secret of its inspiration does not diminish the charm which seduces us to read and re-read it, until its impassioned, resonant stanzas are fixed in the memory. Although it is merely a lament for the lost age of gods and god-like men — a disparagement of the Present, exalting a Past so dis- tant that it becomes ideal — the poem appeals to a universal sentiment, and expresses a feeling common to all educated men, at one period of their lives. Most poets have dropped "melodious tears" upon the crown- ing civilization of Greece, but none with such mingled fire and sweetness as Schiller. At the time when this poem appeared, the Counts Stolberg, who represented a rigidly sectarian clique in German literature, had assumed a position of hostility to the Weimar authors, and they bitterly assailed the "Gods of Greece " on the plea that it was an attack upon Christianity ! This is the usual subterfuge of narrow natures : it is so much sasier to awaken religious prejudices against an author, than to meet him with fair and intelligent criticism. The Stolbergs made a little noise for a time, but their malignity was as futile as that of the publisher, Nicolai, in Berlin, who coolly declared that he would soon sup- press Goethe 1 I quote a few stanzas of the "Gods of Greece:" 282 GEBMAN LITERATURE. Da ilir noch die schone Welt While ye governed yet tlie cheer- regieret, ful nations, — An der Freude leichtem Giingel- While the leading-strings in band Joy's light hand Selige Geschlechter noch gef iih- Led the fair, the happy genera- ret, tions, — Schone Wesen aus dem Fabel- Beings beautiful, from Fable= land ! land 1 Ach, da euer Wonnedienst noch ^Vhile they came, your blissful glanzte, rites to render, Wie ganz anders, anders war es Ah, how different was then da ! the day. Da man deine Tempel noch be- WTien thy fanes with garlands kranzte, shone in splendor, Venus Amathusia ! Venus Amathusia ! Da der Dichtung zauberische Then of Poesy the veD en- Hiille chanted Sich noch lieblich um die Wahr- Sweetly o'er the form of Truth heit wand — was thrown : Durch die Schopfung floss da To Creation fullest life was Lebensfiille granted, Und was nie empfinden wird, And from soulless things the empfand. spirit shone. An der Liebe Busen sie zu Nature, then, ennobled, elevated, driicken, Gab man hohern Adel der Natur, To the heart of human love was prest ; Alles wies den eingeweihten All things, to the vision con- Blicken, secrated, Alles eines Gottes Spur. All things, then, a God con- fessed ! Wo jetzt nur, wie unsre Weisen Where, as now our sages have sagen, decided, Seelenlos ein Feuerball sich Soulless whirls a ball of fire dreht, on high, Lenkte damals seinen goldnen Helios, then, his golden chariot Wagen guided Helios in stiller Majestat. Through the silent spaces of the sky. SCHILLER. 283 Diese Holien f iillten Oreaden, Eine Dryas lebt' in jenem Baum, Aus den Urnen liebliclier Na- jaden Sprang der Strome Silber- scliaum. Jener Lorbeer wand sich einst um Hiilfe, Tantal's Tochter schweigt in die- sem Stein, Syrinx Klage tont' aus jenem Scliilfe, Philomela's Schmerz aus diesem Hain. Jener Bach empfing Demeter's Ziihre, Die sie um Persephonen ge- weint, Und von diesem Hiigel rief Cy- there — Ach, umsonst ! dem schonen Freund. Eure Tempel lachten gleich Pa- lasten, Euch verherrlichte das Helden- spiel An des Isthmus kronenreichen Festen, Und die Wagen donnerten zum Ziel. Schon geschlungne, seelenvoUe Tanze Kreisten um den prangenden Altar ; Eure Schlilfe schmiickten Sie- geskranze, Kronen euer duftend Haar. Misty Oreads dwelt on yonder mountains ; In this tree the Dryad made her home ; Where the Naiads held the urns of fountains Sprang the stream in silver foam. Yonder laurel once was Daphne flying ; Yonder stone did Niobe re- strain : From these rushes Syrinx once was crying, From this forest Philomela's pain. For her daughter Proserpine, the mighty Ceres wept beside the river's fall; Here, upon these hills, did Aphrodite Vainly on Adonis call. Then like palaces your fanes were builded : You the sports of heroes glori- fied. At the Isthmian games, with garlands gilded, When the charioteers in thun- der ride. Breathing grace, the linked and woven dances Circled round your altars, high and fair ; On your brows the wreath of victory glances, — Crowns on your ambrosial hair. 284: GERMAN LITERATURE. Das Evoe muntrer Tliyrsus- Shouts of Bachanal and joyous scliwinger singer, Und der Panther prachtiges Ge- And the splendid panthers of spann his car, Meldeten den grossen Freude- Then announced the mighty bringer ; Rapture-bringer, Faun und Satyr taumeln ihm With his Fauns and Satyrs, voran ! from afar ! Um ihn springen rasende Ma- Dancing Maenads round his naden, march delight us, Ihre Tiinze loben seinen Wein, While their dances celebrate his wines, Und des Wirthes braune Wan- And the brown cheeks of the gen laden host invite us Lustig zu dem Becher ein. Where the purple goblet shines. "We now come to the third and most important period of Schiller's life. There was, as I have said, a natural repulsion between him and Goethe, when they first met; but it extended no deeper than the surface of their natures. Goethe was ten years older, and the license of the " Storm and Stress " school, from which Schiller was just emerging, lay far behind him : the lives of the two men had been wholly different : their temperaments had nothing in common : yet both cher- ished the same secret ambition, both were struggling towards an equally lofty ideal of literary achievement. After Schiller settled in Jena they occasionally met, without being drawn nearer ; but in the course of three or four years, various circumstances compelled them to approach. Both stood almost alone, independent of the clans of smaller authors who assailed them ; both SCHILLEB. 285 felt the need of a generous and intelligent sympathy. Schiller, in 1794, projected a new literary periodical, "i)ze Horen,'' and Goethe's co-operation was too im- portant to be overlooked. He replied to Schiller's letter in a very friendly spirit, and the two scon afterwards met in Jena. They became engaged in a conversation upon natural science, which was con- tinued through the streets to the door of Schiller's house. Goethe entered, sat down at a table, took a pen and paper, and drew what he called a typical plant, to illustrate some conclusions at which he had arrived in his botanical studies. Schiller examined the drawing carefully, and then said : " This is not an obser- vation, it is an idea." Goethe, as he related long after- wards, was very much annoyed by the remark, because it betrayed a habit of thought so foreign to his own ; but he concealed his feeling and quietly answered: " Well, I am glad to find that I can have ideas, without being aware of it." The conversation presently took another turn, and the two poets found various points wherein they harmonized. They parted with the mutual impression that a further and closer intercourse would render them a mutual service ; and there is no literary friendship in all history comparable to that which thenceforth united them. Their unlikeness was both the charm and the blessing of their intercourse. Each affected the other, not in regard to manner, or super- ficial characteristics of style, but by the shock and 286 GERMAN LITERATURE. encounter of tliought, by approacliing literature from opposite sides and contrasting their views, by stimu- lating the better development of each and giving a new spur to his productiveness. The deep and earnest bases of their natures kept them together, in spite of all dissimilarity. Goethe possessed already the element of repose, which was wanting to Schiller. He had a feeling for the proportion of parts, in a literary work, which Schiller was painfully endeavoring to acquire. His imagination worked from above downward, in order to base itself upon real, palpable forms, while the natural tendency of Schiller's was to get as far away as possible from the reality of things. The difference in their tem- peraments was also peculiar. Schiller's habit was to discuss his poetic themes in advance of writing — to change and substitute, to add here and cut off there, and so exhaust the modes of treatment of his subject before he began to treat it ; while Goethe never dared to communicate any part of his plan in advance. When he did so, he lost all interest in writing it. His judg- ment was opposed to Schiller's choice of " Wallenstein'' for dramatic treatment ; but he confessed his mistake when the work was finished. Schiller, on the other hand, insisted that Goethe would write a poem in ottava rima — rhymed stanzas of eight lines — and was thunderstruck when Goethe sent him the entire manu- script of " Hermann unci Dorothea,'' written in hexame- SCHILLER. 287 ters. Tlie thorough independence of the two men is a rare and remarkable feature of their intercourse. The rich correspondence left to us from those jears enables us to restore all the details of Schiller's life and literary labor. The income which he derived from edit- ing and superintending his periodical, "The Hours," was not more than five hundred dollars a year. At the end of seven or eight years it was discontinued for lack of support. Another of the forms of drudgery wdiereby Schiller earned his bread, was the publication of the " MusenalmanacJi " or "Calendar of the Muses " — an an- nual volume of poetry. He was obliged to procure contributions from all the principal German poets, to arrange them in proper order, contract for the printing, read the proofs, superintend the binding, pay the au- thors and send specimen copies to them. The pub- lisher, whose only labor was to sell the books thus furnished to his hands, paid Schiller twenty dollars for every printed sheet of sixteen pages, out of which sum Schiller paid the authors sixteen dollars, reserving four dollars as his own remuneration. His whole profit on the volume was a little less than five hundred dollars, after months of correspondence, of annoyance with tardy printers, and all the interruption which the task caused to his studies. The completion of " Wcdlensfein '' was fortunately delayed by these labors and by the new poetic activity which sprang up through his intercourse with Goethe. 288 QEBMAN LITERATURE. The contact of two such electric intellects struck out constant flashes of light from both. Schiller's poetry, from this time, exhibits a finish, a projDortion, a sus- tained and various music, which shows that his powers were at last reduced to order, and working both joy- ously and intelligently. Those noble poems, " Der Sjjatziergang " (The Walk) and Das Lied von der Glocke " (The Song of the Bell) were soon followed by his famous ballads — some of which are masterpieces of rhythmical narrative. " Der TaucJier " (The Diver), " Der Gang rwLch dem Eisenhammer " (The Message to the Forge) and "Der Bing des PoIyJcrates '' (The Eing of Polycrates) are as familiar to all German school-boys as "Lochiel's Warning" or "Young Lochinvar " to ours, and no translation can wholly rob them of their beauty. In them we find no trace of the crudity and extravagance of the poems of the First Period, nor the somewhat artificial, metaphysical character of most of those of the Second Period. The first foaming of the must and the slow second fermentation are over, and we have at last the clear, golden, perfect wine "cellared for eternal time." These ballads might properly be called ejDical lyrics. Their subjects have an inherent dignity ; their style is simple, sus- tained and noble ; their rhetoric has never been sur- passed in the German language, and their resounding music can only be compared to that of such English poems as Byron's "Destruction of Sennacherib," SCHILLEB, 289 Macaulay's "Horatius," and CampbeU's "Mariners of England." The connection with Goethe gave rise to another joint literary undertaking, of a very different character, provoked by the continual attacks of Count Stolberg, Novalis, Schlegel and their followers. Up to the year 1796, neither poet had taken any notice of the abuse and misrepresentation heaped upon them ; but in the summer of that year, Goethe, who had been reading the Latin Xenia of Martial, wrote a few German Xenia, directed against his literary enemies. Schiller caught the idea at once ; they met and worked together until they had produced several hundred stinging epigrams of two or four lines each, and then they j)ublished the collection. It was like disturbing a wasps' nest. The air of Germany was filled with sounds of pain, rage and malicious laughter. As Lewes says : " The sensation produced by Pope's *Dunciad' and Byron's 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ' was mild compared with the sensation produced by the ^Xenien,' although the wit and the sarcasm of the * Xenien ' is like milk and water compared with the vitriol of the ' Dunciad ' and the 'English Bards.' " Lewes, however, did not appre- ciate the peculiar sting of the " Xemen," which did not satirize the individual authors or their peculiarities of expression, so much as their intellectual stand- point and their manner of thought. The hostility cre- ated by this defence and counter-assault of Goethe 13 290 GERMAN LITERATURE. and Schiller liyecl as long as tlie persons who suffered from it. In the year 1799, the dramatic trilogy of " TVaUen- stein " was completed. Instead of the one tragedy which Schiller had planned, seven years before, he had pro- duced three plays — " Wallensteiiis Lager " (Wallenstein's Camp), an introductory act, in eleven scenes, the object of which is to give a picture of soldier-life, towards the close of the Thirty Years' War: ''Die Piccolomini" which discloses the conspiracy against Wallenstein, and prepares for the tragic sequel of the plot in the third part — '' Wallensteins TocV (Wallenstein's Death). I have said that the work was fortunately delayed, because Schiller had not attained his higher development when he began it. The feeling of uncertainty which made him lay it aside from time to time was a true instinct : he waited until he felt that his powers were equal to the task. How much he had learned, may be seen by com- paring " Wallenstein' and ''Don Carlos.'" It is the dif- ference between passion and eloquence and impetuous movement, and the stately, secure march of a mind which has mastered its material. In " Don Carlos,'' we feel that Schiller has expressed himself affirmatively in the hero and the Marquis Posa, and negatively in Philip II. and the Princess Eboli : whereas, in " Wallenstein,'^ each character has its own objective life, and the poet seems calmly to chronicle the unfoldings of a plot which is evolved by and from those characters. " Walknstein " SCHILLER. 291 belongs in tlie first rank of dramatic poems, after those of Shakespeare. Coleridge's Translation gives a fair representation of it in English, although he has some- times mistaken Schiller's meaning, and sometimes changed the text. The famous passage, referring to the forms of old mythology, which he has added, is very beautiful in itself, but it is dramatically out of place. It may be interesting to you to know just what Schillei wrote, and in what manner Coleridge has amplified the lines. This is the original passage : Die Fabel ist der Liebe Heimath- land; Gem wohnt sie unter Feen, Ta- lismanen, Glaubt gem an G otter, well sie gottlich ist. Die alten Fabelwesen sind nicbt mehr, Das reizende Gescblecbt ist aus- gewandert ; Docb eine Spracbe brauclit das Herz, es bringt Der alte Trieb die alten Namen wieder, Und an dem Sternenbimmel gelin sie jetzt, Die sonst im Leben freundlich mit gewandelt ; Dort ^inken sie dem Liebenden berab, Und jedes Grosse bringt uns Jupiter Nocb diesen Tag, und Venus jedes Scbcine. For Fable is the native home of love ; 'Mid fays and talismans be loves to dwell, Believes in Gods, being bimself divine. Tbe ancient forms of fable are no more. The enchanting race has gone, migrating forth ; Yet needs the heart its language. yet return The olden names when moves the old desire. And still in yonder starry heav- ens they live Who once, benignant, shared the life of earth ; There, beckoning to the lover, they look down, And even now 'tis Jupiter that brings Whate'er is great, and Venus all that's fair 1 292 GERMAN LITERATURR I will now give the mixture of Schiller aucl Coleridge : For Fable is Love's world, his home, his birth-place : Delightedly dwells he 'mong fays and talismans And spirits ; and delightedly believes Divinities, being himself divine. The intelligible forms of ancient poets. The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty. That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain. Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and watery depths ; all these have vanished ; They live no longer in the faith of reason ! But still the heart doth need a language, still Doth the old instinct bring back the old names. And to yon starry world they now are gone. Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth With man, as with their friend ; and to the lover Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky Shoot influence down : and even at this day 'Tis Jupiter brings whate'er is great. And Venus who brings everything that's fair 1 There is no doubt that Coleridge has here touched to adorn : there is nothing in Schiller's lines so fine as *' the fair humanities of old religion " — but his digres- sion is a violation of the dramatic law by which Schiller was governed. We pardon it for its beauty, yet we should be wrong in allowing such a liberty to trans- lators. In 1799, Schiller removed to Weimar. The Duke, Karl August, influenced by Goethe, offered him a pen- sion of one thousand thalers a year, with the condition that it should be doubled, in case of illness. Schiller, however, refused to accej^t this condition, saying : " I SCHILLER. 293 have some talent, and that must do the rest." The suc- cess of " Wallenstein " stimulated him to new labor. During the year 1800, he wrote '^ Marie Stuart;''' in 1801, ''Die Juncjfrau von Orleans'' (The Maid of Orleans) ; " and in 1802, " Die Braut von Messina " (The Bride of Messina). The first and second of these plays were more popular than " Wallenstein^' perhaps for the reason that they are inferior as dramatic works. The interest is more obvious, the action is less involved, and there are passages in each full of that power and elo- quence which tells so immediately upon an audience. In "The Bride of Messina " Schiller made a very daring experiment. He wrote the play in rhyme, and intro- duced a chorus, in imitation of the classical drama. All his rhythmical genius, all the splendor of his rhetoric were employed ; but the result was, and is to this day, uncertain. The "Bride of Messina " is still occasionally presented on the German stage ; but it is listened to more as a brilliant phenomenon than as a confirmed favorite of the public. The innovation has not been naturalized in Germany, and probal^y never will be. In the year 1802, at the request of the Duke, the Emperor of Austria conferred a patent of nobility upon Schiller. The cause of this honor was not his genius as a poet, but the circumstance that his wife, losing the von out of her name in marrying him, had forfeited her right to appear in Court society — a right which she possessed before her marriage. Of course the rules of 294 GERMAN LITERATURE. the Court could not be broken, or the Earth might have been shaken from its orbit ; so the only way in which the Frau Schiller could recover her lost aristocracy was to make her husband Friedrich von Schiller. It was only for her sake that he accepted the title : it enabled him to repay her for the conventional sacrifice which she had made in marrying him. It is true, neverthe- less, that he was far from being democratic in his polit- ical views. The Democracy of Germany celebrates him as its special poet, and condemns Goethe for his aristo- cratic predilections. This impression is so fixed that it is now almost impossible to change it ; yet, if there was any difference between the two poets, Goethe was certainly the more democratic. It seems to me that Schiller's intellectual revolt against authority in his youth, combined with the intense yearning for spiritual growth and spiritual freedom which throbs like an im- mortal pulse of life through all his later works, must be accepted as the explanation. Such expressions as " Free- dom exists only in the realm of dreams," and " The Poet should walk with Kings, for both dwell upon the heights of humanity" — certainly do not indicate a political feel- ing at all republican in its character. In 1814, Goethe said to Eckermann : " People seem not to be willing to see me as I am, and turn away their eyes from every- thing which might set me in a true light. On the other hand, Schiller, who was much more of an aristo- crat than I, but who was also much more considerate SCHILLER. 295 in regard to what lie said, liad tlie remarkable fortune of being always looked upon as a friend of the jDeople. I do not grudge him his good luck : I console myself with the knowledge that others before me have had the same experience." As Schiller's life drew towards a close, the outward evidences of his success came to cheer and encourage him. In Leipzig, in 1803, and in Berlin, in 1804, he was received with every mark of honor. The King of Prussia offered him a salary of three thousand thalers, to take charge of the Eoyal theatre, but he refused to give up Weimar, and the intercourse with Goethe, which had now become an intellectual necessity. His last great work, by some critics pronounced to be his great- est dramatic success, was the play of " Wilhelm Teli;' the subject of which, and part of the material, he owed to Goethe. It is a pleasant illustration of the manner in which the two poets assisted each other. When Goethe visited Switzerland in 1797, he formed the idea of writing an epic poem, with Tell as the hero. He made studies of the scenery, collected historical data, and for two or three years carried the plan about with him, letting it sloAvly mature in his mind, as was his habit of composition. He finally decided to give it up, but, feeling that the subject was better adapted to dra- matic representation than epic narrative, he gave his material to Schiller, reserving only a description of sunrise among the Alps, which is now to be found in 296 GERMAN LITERATURE. the first scene of the Second Part of " Faust.'' The in- tense, glowing quality of Schiller's imagination soon assimilated this foreign material, and in none of his works is there such a fusion of subject, scenery and sentiment. From the first page to the last, the reader — or the hearer — is set among the valleys of the Alps, and surrounded by a brave and oppressed people. His- torians may attempt to show that there never was either a William Tell or a Gessler — that the whole story is a myth, borrowed from Denmark, but Schiller has made Tell a real person for all time. As he says, in one of his lyrics : Was sich nie und nirgends hat begeben. Das allein veraltet nie. There are serious dramatic faults in the work, but they never can affect its jDojDularity. It has that exqui- site beauty and vitality which defy criticism. The dic- tion has all the dignity of that of " Wallenstein,'' with an ease and grace of movement, which cannot be called new in Schiller, and which exhibits the perfection of his best qualities. If any one supposes that the German language is harsh and unmusical, let him listen to the song of the fisher-boy, rocking in his boat on the lake, with which the drama opens : FiSCHKRKNABE. FiSHER-BOY. Es lacbelt der See, er ladet zum Inviting the bather, the bright Bade, lake is leaping ; Der Knabe schlief ein am grii- The fisher-boy lies on its margin nen Gestade, a-sleeping ; SCHILLER. 297 Da liort er ein Klingen, Wie Floten so siiss, Wie Stimmen der Engel Im Paradies. Und, wie er erwachet in seliger Lust, Da spiilen die Wasser ihm um die Brust. Und es ruft aus den Tie- fen : Lieb Knabe bist mein ! Icb locke den Sclilafer, Ich zieh ibn herein. Tben hears he a music Like flutes in its tone. Like voices of angels In Eden alone. And as he awakens, enraptured and blest, The waters are whirling around his breast ; And a voice from the waters Says: "mine thou must be! I wait for the sleeper, I lure him to me 1 " HiRT. Ihr Matten, lebt wohl 1 Ihr sonnigen Weiden I Der Senne muss scheiden, Der Sommer ist hin. Wir fahren zu Berg, wir kom- men wieder, Wenn der Kukuk ruft, wenn erwachen die Lieder, Wenn mit Blumen die Erde sich kleidet neu, Wenn die Brlinnlein fliessen im lieblichen Mai, Ihr Matten, lebt wohl 1 Ihr sonnigen Weiden ! Der Senne muss scheiden, Der Sommer ist hin. Alpenjager. Es donnern die Hohen, es zit- tert der Steg, Nicht grauet dem Schiitzen auf Bchwindlichtem Weg ; 13* Herdsman. Te meadows, farewell ! Ye sunniest pastures. The herdsman must leave you. The summer is gone. We go from the hills, we come ere long When the cuckoo calls, and the sound of song ; When the earth with blossoms again is gay, When the fountains gush in the lovely May Te meadows, farewell ! Ye sunniest pastures, The herdsman must leave you. The summer is gone. Alpine Hunter. The avalanche thunders, the bridges are frail, The hunter is fearless, though dizzy the trail : 298 GERMAN LITERATURE. Er shreitet verwegen He strides in his daring Auf Feldern von Eis ; O'er deserts of snows, Da pranget kein Fruhling, Where Spring never blos- soms Da griinet kein Reis ; And grass never grows, TJnd, unter den Fiissen ein ne- And the mists like an ocean be- blichtes Meer, neath him are tost, Erkennt er die Stadte der Men- Till the cities of men to his vi- schen nicht mehr ; sion are lost. Durch den Riss nur der Through the rifts of the Wolken cloud-land Erblickt er die Welt, The far world gleams, Tief unter den VVassern And the green fields un- der Das griinende Feld. The Alpine streams. Such is the musical overture of Alpine life with which Schiller opens the drama. He never recovered from the inflammation of the lungs, which attacked him in 1791. During the last ten or twelve years of his life he was rarely free from pain, but his mind seems to have been always clear and vigor- ous, and his astonishing industry was really a necessity to his nature. He lived in his art, and was happy in recognizing his own progress towards a lofty and far-off ideal. In order to avoid interruption, he contracted the habit of writing wholly at night, and of keeping off drowsiness by setting his feet in a tub of cold water. He was physician enough to know that he was shorten- ing his life by such an unnatural habit of labor, but his literary conscience was inexorable. For him there was no rest, no relaxation. No sooner was " William Tell " given to the stage, and triumphantly greeted by .the SGHILLEB. 299 public, tlian lie began a new dramatic poem, taking for his liero the false Demetrius, who imposed himself on the Eussian bojards as the true heir to the throne, and reigned for some months in Moscow. In the spring of 1805, when midway in his work, he was seized with a chill at the theatre, and went home, never to leave his door again as a living man. A few hours before his death, he seemed to realize his condition, and uttered the words : " Death cannot be an evil, for it is uni- versal." He died on the 9th of May, aged forty-five years and six months. His remains now rest in a granite sarcophagus, by the side of Goethe, in the vault of the Ducal family at Weimar. In carefully studying Schiller's life and works, and contrasting his position in German literature with that of his contemjDoraries, we are struck with a certain dis- crepancy between his fame and his achievement. With all his rare and admirable qualities, we cannot place him higher than in the second rank of poets — in the list which includes Yirgil, Tasso, Corneille, Spenser and Byron. Yet his place in popular estimation, not only in Germany, but throughout the educated world, is cer- tainly among the first. His fame is of that kind which depends partly upon the sympathetic attraction that sometimes surrounds an individual life, — in other words, the interest of character is added to the intellectual recognition of the poet. We may say that a character so positive as Schiller's breathes through his literary 300 GERMAN LITERATURE. records, and cannot be disconnected from his intellect ; but we sliall only state tlie same fact in a different form. To other poets — to Tasso, Burns and Byron — the same personal interest is attached, yet in no one does it spring from that lofty, unceasing devotion to a noble literary Ideal, which gave its consecration to Schiller's life. Like Lessing, he sought Truth, but not in the realm of fact. To him she was not a severe, naked form, beauti- ful as a statue, but as hard and cold ; she was rather a shaj)e of air and light, j^oised above the confusion of life, in a region of aspiration and hope. The sense of her beauty came to Schiller through sentiment and sensation, as well as through the intellect ; and herein he touches the universal yearning of Man. His power over the harmonies of language was never so grandly manifested as in some passages of Homer, Milton and Goethe ; but it is more uniformly fine than in almost any other poet. From the tones of a flute or a wind-harp he rises to the strength and resonance of an organ, and in many of his lyrics the rich volume of sound rolls unbroken to the end. His language some- times reflects the struggle of his thought to shape itself clearly ; but it is always pure and elevated, and his lines and stanzas cling to the memory with wonderful tenacity. These qualities, which address themselves primarily to the ear, support his sentiment and thought, and bear them, as if unconsciously, into a higher atmosphere of poetry. There is an upward tendency — a lifting of the SCHILLER. 301 intellectual vision, a stirring as of unfolding wings — in almost everything lie has written. He is an example of a genius, not naturally of the highest order, carried by the force of an aspiring, enthusiastic, believing tempera- ment almost to a level with the highest. Where so many others lose faith and cease exertion, he began. That is the difference between the Schiller of " The Eobbers" and the Schiller of " Wallenstein " and the Ballads. Carlyle says of him : " Schiller has no trace of van- ity ; scarcely of pride, even in its best sense, for the modest self-consciousness which characterizes genius is with him rather implied than openly expressed. He has no hatred ; no anger, save against Falsehood and Baseness, where it may be called a holy anger. Pre- sumptuous triviality stood bared in his keen glance: but his look is the noble scowl that curls the lip of an Apollo, when, pierced with sun-arrows, the serpent ex- pires before him. In a word, we can say of Schiller what can only be said of a few in any country or time : He was a high ministering servant at Truth's altar, and bore him worthily of the office he held His intel- lectual character has an accurate conformity with his moral one. Here, too, he is simple in his excellence ; lofty rather than expansive or varied ; pure, divinely ardent rather than great." I have allowed myself no space to examine Schiller's works in detail, because it is better first to define the 302 GERMAN LITERATURE. place which his life occupies in the literary history of Germany, and his individual characteristics as a poet. Though disparaged by the Stolbergs, Eiemer and others, and exalted by Borne and a class of later writers above Goethe, he has fixed his own true place at the side of the latter, lower through the opj)ortunities of life, lower in breadth of intellect and the development of all the faculties, but equal in aspiration and equal in his own field of achievement. His life is an open book for whoever chooses to read it. All his early im- patience and extravagance, all the struggles through which he rose, the steps whereby he climbed to a knowledge of himself and his art, are revealed to our gaze ; but when the history closes, we leave him in the rijDeness, the harmony, the joyous activity of his powers, and this final imj)ression is the standard by which we measure his fame. No German poet siitce Schiller has equalled his mag- nificent rhythm and rhetoric. The language has been made sweeter, clearer, more flexible : it has caught new varieties of movement and melody : it has been forced to reflect the manner of many new minds, yet in the qualities I have mentioned Schiller is still the climax of performance. I can find no more fitting words to close this review of a life measured by heart-throbs and brain-throbs, rather than by years, than the stanzas which Goethe dedicated to his memory, as an epilogue to the "Song SCHILLER. 303 of tlie Bell," wlien it was represented in Weimar, in the year 1815 : " Denn er war unser ! Mag das stolze Wort Den lauten Schmerz gewaicig- ubertonen 1 Er moclite sich bei uns, im sichern Port Nach wildem Sturm zum Dauernden gewhonen. Indessen scliritt sein Geist gewaltig fort Ins Ewige des Wahren, Guten, Sclionen, Und liinter ilim, in wesenlosem Scheine, Lag, was uns Alle bandigt, das Gemeine. Nun gliihte seine Wange rotli und rotter Von jener Jugend, die uns nie entfliegt. Von jenem Mutli, der frilher oder spater. Den Wiederstand der stumpfen Welt besiegt. Von jenem Glauben, der sich stets erliohter Bald kiibn beiTordriingt, bald geduldig schmiegt, Damit das Gute wirke, wacbse, fromme, Damit der Tag dem Edlen endlich komme 1** For be was ours ! Be tbis proud conscionsness A spell that shall subdue our lamentation I He sought with us a harbor from the stress Of storms, a more enduring inspiration. While with strong step his mind did forward press To Good, Truth, Beauty, in its pure creation. And far behind him lay, a formless vision. The vulgar power that fetters our ambition. And thus his cheek grew ed, and redder ever. From that fair youth whose wings are never furled. That courage, crowned at last, whose proud endeavor Tames the resistance of the stubborn world, — That faith, that onward, upward, mounts forever. Now patient waiting, now in conflict hurled. That so the Good shall work, increase and sway, And for the noble man sliall dawn a nobler day I GOETHE. In considering tlie central figure of the great age of German literature — the god, he might be called, who sits alone on the summit of the German Parnassus — I feel how impossible it is to give more than the merest outline of a life which was both broad and long, of an activity unbroken for more than sixty years, and cover- ing in its range nearly every department of Literature, Art and Science. If a cabinet-picture will suffice for Klopstock and Wieland, a life-size sketch for Lessing and Schiller, I feel the need of a canvas of heroic pro- portions when I come to portray Goethe. If I were not afraid of falling into the fault which I have attributed to the German mind — of constructing a theory wherever the operation is possible — I might trace a gradual order of development in the authors who pre- ceded Goethe, and show how his intellect, possessing the supreme quality which was lacking in them, both individually and collectively, became the crowning ele- ment in German literature. But it will be enough to say that he was born " in the fullness of time " — when Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland and Herder were already 304 OOETEE. 305 upon the stage ; and that the experience prepared for him by their labors was precisely that which his devel- opment required. In the case of Klopstock, we have a useful and fortunate, though not a great life ; in Lessing and Schiller, a life of struggle, nobly endured ; in Wie- land and Herder, lives of change, of action and ambi- tion, fruitful in influence ; but in Goethe we find a long, rich, and wholly fortunate life, almost unparalleled in its results. In him there is no unfulfilled promise, no fragmentary destiny : he stands as complete and sym- metrical and satisfactory as the Parthenon. I can best represent his achievements by connecting them with the events of his life ; and must therefore give an outline of his biography. If many of you are already familiar with the principal facts, you will par- don me for repeating them, since I can thus best de- scribe the man. Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born in Frankfort on the Main, on the 28th of August, 1749. His father, the Councillor Goethe, was a man of wealth, education and high social position ; his mother was the daughter of the Imperial Councillor Textor. These officials of the free city of Frankfort considered them- selves on a par with the nobility of other German lands, and were equally proud and dignified in their bearing. Goethe was not only a marvelous child, but he enjoyed marvelous advantages, from his very birth. His mother invented fairy stories for his early childhood ; he learned French from an officer quartered in his father's house ; 306 GERMAX LITERATURE. the best teachers were pro^dcled for him, and when only eight years old, he was able to write — not very cor- rectly, of course — in the German, French, Italian, Greek and Latin languages. His beauty, his precocious talentj his bright, sparkling, loveable nature, procured him an indulgent freedom rarely granted to children, and gave him at the start that indejDendence and self-reliance which he preserved through life. He began to compose even before he began to write : expression, in his case, was co-existent with feeling and thought. Before he was twelve years old, he planned and partly wrote a romance which illustrates his wonderful acquirements. The characters are seven brothers and sisters, scattered in different parts of Europe. One of them writes in German, one in French, one in English, one in Italian, one in Latin and Greek, and another in the Jewish-Ger- man dialect. The study of the latter led him to Hebrew, which he kept up long enough to read a portion of the Bible. At an age when most boys are struggling unwill- ingly with the rudiments of knowledge, he had laid a broad basis for all future studies, and grasped with pas- sionate eagerness every opportunity of anticipating them. There have been similar instances of precocity, but the informing and mastering genius was lacking. The boy Goethe assimilated and turned to immediate use all that he learned. His creative power was devel- oped many years in advance of the usual period. He soon became a hero in the youthful society of Frankfort OOETEE. 307 — a poet, an improvisatore and a wit, astonishing his associates by his brilliancy and daring, and at the same time offending his stern, respectable father. In 1765, at the age of sixteen, he was sent to the Uni- versity of Leipzig, to study jurisprudence ; but he soon wearied of that study, as well as of logic and rhetoric, as they were then taught. Except botany and mineral- ogy, he neglected all graver studies, gave up much of his time to society, and imagined himself in love with a maiden two or three years older than himself. His life at Leipzig, it must be confessed, was very wild and irregular. The scornful independence of others, which he asserted, began to show itself in excesses, and at the end of three years he went home with hemorrhage of the lungs and a tumor on his neck. More than a year was needed for his entire recovery, and during this period the better forces of his nature began to assert themselves. He regained his lost balance : his literary aspirations revived, and gradually grew into earnestness and coherence. In his twenty-first year he was sent to Strassburg, to continue his legal studies, but already carrying with him the plan of his first famous work — the tragedy of " Gotz von BerlicUngeny During the seclusion of his illness, he had occupied himself chiefly with alchemy and mystic speculation. The seed of the future " Faust'* was even then sown, and it was not long before it began to germinate. But the greatest fortune of his residence 308 GERMAN LITERATURE. in Strassburg was his acquaintance with Herder, who was five years older than Goethe, and at that time of a graver and profounder temperament. The two men were very much unlike, and they never became intimate friends ; but there is no doubt that Herder's companionship and counsel, during the six months they spent together, was of great value in weaning Goethe from the lawless, im- pulsive mood into which he had fallen. He was sud- denly seized with a desire to overcome everything which seemed like a weakness in his nature. He cured his tendency to giddiness, on looking down from heights, by climbing the spire of Strassburg Cathedral every day. He had a constitutional dread of the super- natural, without believing in it ; so he went into grave- yards at midnight ; he disliked loud voices, and there- fore v» ent as near as possible to the drums of the mili- tary band. He was easily affected by a sense of disgust, and for that reason attended the dissections of the medi- cal class. He also studied electricity, wrote a pamphlet on Gothic architecture, and withal, qualified himself for the degree of Doctor Juris, which he received in a little more than a year. Keturning to Frankfort, he first re-wrote the tragedy of " Gofz von Berlicldngen,'' and was then sent by his father to practice in the Imperial Chancery at Wetzlar, a small town near Giessen. But he remained there only a few months, occupying him- self much more with literature than with law. His tragedy was again revised, and was then published in GOETHE. 309 the spring of 1773. Its popularity was immediate and universal. Compared with Schiller's " Bobbers," pro- duced at very nearly the same age, every reader will feel the great superiority of " Gotzy Here there is nothing crude, and little that is purely subjective. The piece is full of life and movement, and the touch of a master is seen in the delineation of every character. In regard to form, Goethe undoubtedly owed something both to Shakespeare and Lessing, but his management of the historic material is entirely his own. His lite- rary fame was secured at one blow. It is worthy of re- mark that the translation of *' Gotz von Beyiichingen" was Waiter Scott's first essay in literature. The attention of such men as Zimmermann, Lavater, and Klopstock was attracted towards Goethe by this work. His name began to be known throughout Ger- many : he was astonished at his sudden popularity, and considered it, at first, a lucky accident. Soon after the publication of " Gotz,'' the young prince Karl August of Weimar passed through Frankfurt, and sent for Goethe. This was the beginning of a friendship which lasted for fifty-five years, and determined the external circumstances of Goethe's life. Law was now entirely given up, and Goethe, again an inmate of his father's house for two or three years, gave all his time to litera- ture. He planned a tragedy to be called " Mohammed" a fragment of which survives, wrote several admirable lyrics, and produced his satire, called "Gottery Hddefn 310 GERMAN LITEHATURE. mid WidaiKV (Gods, Heroes, and Wieland). In 1774, two years after the events upon wliicli the book is founded had occurred, he published ^' Die Leiden des jungen Wertliers " (The Sorrows of Werther). The history of this work, the prodigious sensation which it pro- duced, and the character of its influence contrasted with the author's design, make it a phenomenon in the annals of literature. The "Storm and Stress" period, to which I have referred, was then apjDroaching its cli- max. Although " Gotz von Berliclmujen " is remarkably free from its sjDirit, Goethe could no more escaj^e the infection than a child can escape the mumps or the measles. His powerful nature experienced every symp- tom of the disease in an aggravated form, and then healed itself. Although no poet ever made freer use of his own sensations and experiences — his joy, suffering, passion and aspiration — yet his habit was to wait until the ex- perience had passed, then holding it firmly apart from him — as a man might hold an amputated limb, wherein every nerve is dead — to make it an intellectual study. He revives the tempest, and lets it rage around him ; but in the centre there is a vortex of calm, where he sits and controls it. " Werther " is a psychological study of this character. Goethe combined his own experience with the tragical fate of a man whom he knew, and produced what is generally called a sentimental story, but which is really a remarkable dissection of a typical character. But it was not so received and understood. All Europe OOETHE. 311 dissolved in a gush of emotion over its pages. It was hailed as the triumph and justification of the senti- mental school, and a whole literature of imitations, parodies and criticisms followed it. Although we cannot divide the literary life of Goethe into periods, like that of Schiller, because his growth was not only steady and symmetrical, but also because some of his faculties were nearly perfect at the start, yet there are occasional pauses in his activity and variations in its character. The one important change in his external life now occurred. In September, 1775, the Duke Karl August invited Goethe to visit him at Weimar. This visit, which lasted two months, was followed by an invi- tation to accept a permanent situation at the Court, with the title of Privy Councillor, and a salary of twelve hundred thalers a year. In spite of his father's opposi- tion, Goethe accepted the offer, and thenceforth Weimar was his home. The appointment of an untitled poet to a place which tradition required to be filled only by a noble, was a great scandal throughout Germany ; but the wild and rather grotesque life led by the Duke and Goethe gave much greater offence. Their chief object seemed to be, to violate all the sacred conventionalities of German courts. They appeared in society in top- boots, cracked whips together in the public market- place, plunged into the river Ilm at midnight, and con- ducted themselves altogether more like boys playing truant than a pair of dignified personages. For some 312 GERMAN LITERATURE. years Goetke's productiveness slackened, because there was now no external incitement, and the internal im- pulse gave way, for a time, to his hearty delight in active physical life. It was his habit to carry a poetical conception for a long time in his brain, allowing it to develop by its own force, until the proper mood and leisure for its delivery arrived: then it was put into words with a rapidity and artistic completion which astonished his friends, who did not guess how much of the labor had been silently performed in advance. So, now, while he seemed indolent, the dramatic poems of " IlMgenie auf Tauris'' " Tasso,'^ and " Egmont^^ were in progress, and portions of the first two were even written in prose. After three years of free, unrestrained life with the Duke, he began to weary of balls, hunts and picnics, and withdrew more and more from the society of the Court. He was eight years older than the Duke, and " the intoxication of youth " (to use his own words) was over with him that much earlier. The inseparable companionship was broken off, although the Duke was steadfast in his friendship. In 1782, Goethe was made President of the Chamber, and en- nobled. The death of his father, in the same year, having made him comparatively wealthy, he deter- mined to carry out his long-cherished plan of a jour- ney to Italy ; but four years still intervened before he succeeded in leaving Weimar. During this time he began to .write his jDhilosophical romance of " Wilhdm GOETHE. 313 Meister,'' which was not published until long after- wards. At last, in 1786, secretly and under an assumed name, he set out for Italy, where he remained for nearly two years, residing alternately in Venice, Florence, Kome, Naples and Sicily. It aj)pears to have been a period of pure and perfect enjoyment. After ten years of dis- tractions, his time was wholly his own. He practised painting, for which he always had a passion, studied classic art, correcting and elevating thereby his poetic ideal, and worked faithfully upon the plans he had car- ried with him. The " Ipliigenie auf Taiiris " and " Eg- mont " were completed, and " Tasso " commenced, before he visited Sicily. I have seen an original manuscrij)t letter, which he wrote from Naples to his servant in Weimar, giving as minute and enthusiastic an account of his literary labors, as if it had been written to a brother author. His little song of " Kenmt clu das Land'' expresses the strength of the longing which drew him to Italy, and he was not deceived in the real experience. When, in 1788, he left Italy to return to Weimar, it was with a feeling of regret so strong that he was positively unhaj^py for months afterwards. The " Iphigenie auf Tauris," which now appeared, is one of the noblest dramatic poems in any language. As Schiller truly said, it is not Greek, but neither can it be called German. It moves in a higher region than 314 GERMAN LITER ATUBE. tliat wliere the signs of time and race may still be read From tlie opening lines : " Hinaus in eu're Schatten, rege Wipfel Des alten, lieil'gen, dicht-belaubten Haines/* to tlie closing farewell of Thoas, the reader breathes the purest ether of poetry. Its grandeur is inherent in the lines, and its finest passages seem to exist of them- selves, rather than to have been elaborated by the thought of years. It is a poem in dramatic form, not a drama ; and the same distinction will apply to " Tasso.^^ Neither is adapted to the stage. " fyhigenie'' was act- ed by the Court at Weimar, Goethe taking the part of Orestes, and the Duke that of Pylades ; but at Weimar Sophocles was performed, — the high cultivation which prevailed there rendering even that possible. " Tasso " may also be called a psychological study. It is almost without action, and is monotonous in tone, but it abounds in fine passages. It is a poem, however, which will never be generally appreciated, except by poets. In " Egmont " Goethe achieved a theatrical success. This tragedy is still more frequently performed than any of his other dramas. Three such works as these should have placed Goethe at once at the head of German literature ; but they seem to have made an impression upon a comparatively small number, at the time of their appearance. The author's genius was felt everywhere, but it disturbed to a greater OOETHE. 315 extent than it gave delight. He stood almost alone : Klopstock was unfriendly, Herder was jealous and sen- sitive, Schiller was still shy and doubtful, and Wieland, who never was else than a large-hearted friend, could give him no satisfactory support. Although, fifteen years before, the nerves of all Europe had been shat- tered by his " JVerfher,'' and his name was as well known as that of Eousseau or Voltaire, yet, when the collected edition of his works was published in Leipzig, in 1790, — an edition containing " Gotz,'' ^'IjMgenie'' " Tasso;' " Fgmoiit;' much of the First Part of " Faust,'' and his exquisite songs and lyrics — the publisher com- plained that the sale was not sufficient to pay his ex- penses ! Those whom he had offended, or who were jealous of his genius or his fortune, now formed quite a large class, including many authors in the flush of a transient popularity. He never betrayed his feelings in such matters, but it is evident that his exclusive devotion to science for some years was partly the con- sequence of a discouragement in regard to his literary work. It is hardly within my province, at present, to speak of Goethe as a man of science, but I may at least mention that his studies in osteology had already re- sulted in his discovery of the inter-maxillary bone ; that his studies in botany led him to the composition of a really important work on the " Metamorphoses of Plants," and that his " Science of Colors " was for a while accepted (though not generally by opticians) as 316 GERMAN LITEM ATURE. having superseded Newton's. He was an eager if not a very thorough observer ; but, being a poet, he was sometimes inclined to de23end rather on his scientific intuitions than on the laborious observation of Nature. In this respect he differed from Humboldt, while he resembled him in his insatiable thirst for knowledge and his untiring industry. We cannot say that the time he devoted to natural science was lost, even if it had been less fruitful in results, for at the same time he made himself acquainted with the metaphysical sys- tems of Kant, Fichte and Hegel, and all those bones and stones kept him close to solid fact while his mind was occupied with pure intellectual speculations. He was never German enough to lose his way in those misty realms, yet it was certainly an advantage to have a basis of reality under his feet. In 1794, nearly six years after Goethe's first interview with Schiller, the two came together again — this time, only to be separated by death. It was not long before the effect of this close intercourse with another spirit, as restlessly creative as his own, began to show itself in Goethe's return to poetry. He was then about pub- lishing the first part of " JVilhelm 3Ieister " — the " LeJir- jalire'' or "Apprenticeship," — and Schiller's friendly intelligent criticism of the work in manuscript was an encouragement which he had not felt for years. This work, which has been admirably translated by Carlyle, might be called a philosophical romance. It is a sin- GOETHE. 317 gular compound of pictures of life, so plain and realistic that they sometimes become actually coarse, with theo- ries of society, labor and education so refined that they frequently lose all practical character. The faults of the work are as positive as its beauties ; but it had no antety23e in literature. Parts of it, such as the episode of Mignon, the criticism on Hamlet, and the detached aphorisms scattered through it, are generally known and admired, but the work, as a whole, is only relished by those readers who are able to think for themselves while they follow the thoughts of another. By a large class it is considered immoral, because some of the characters introduced are not always better than they .should be. The best answer to this charge is given by one of Goethe's most intelligent critics. " In ' Wilhelm 3Ieisfer,' " he says, " there is a complete absence of all moral verdict on the part of the author. Charac- ters tread the stage, events pass before our eyes, things are done, and thoughts are expressed ; but no word comes from the author respecting the moral bearing of those things. Life forgets in activity all moral verdict. The good is beneficent, but no one praises it ; the bad works evil, but no one anathematizes it." This descrip- tion is entirely correct, and it v/ould apply equally to much of Shakespeare. Our American taste of the pres- ent day would hardly be satisfied with a fiction, wherein the good and the bad characters are simply presented, as we see them in ordinary life. An author's princij)les 318 QEB3IAN LITERATURE. are suspected unless he denounces the one and praises the other, — or, at least, heightens the colors so that we shall detect the undercurrent of his own preferences. No man, however, will ever read " Wilhelm Meister " as he reads a certain class of modern romances, for the sake of gratifying an immoral taste : to all except per- sons of genuine intellect and culture, it is a sealed book. Another result of Goethe's intercourse with Schiller was the re-awakening of his lyrical genius. He himself compares the effect upon his poetic faculty to that of a second spring, w^herein a thousand germs of thought, long lying dormant, suddenly sprouted and blossomed. A conception which once entered his brain never was forgotten. Even the idea of a simple little ballad would linger with him for years. So when Schiller and he agreed to write a number of brief narrative poems, he had only to free his mind of the material which had already accumulated there. Some of his finest and most celebrated poems — such as " Die Braid von Cor- intV (The Bride of Corinth), "i>er Gott und die Bajaclere" (The God and the Bayadere), "Ber Fischer" (The Fisher), and " Der Erlhonig'' (The Erl-King) were written at this time. He also arranged for Schiller's periodical, " The Hours," two collections of short epi- grammatic poems, written in the classic distich, and called ''Die Bomischen Elegien'' (The Eoman Elegies) and ''Die Vier Jahreszeiten'' (The Four Seasons). These are ma^sterpieces of poetic art. They, and Schiller's OOETHE. 319 noble poem of " Der Sioaziergang " have naturalized the ancient elegiac measure in the German language. The onlj successful English example I know of, is in the short introductory passages of Clough's " Amours de Voyage." I cannot resist the temptation of quoting a few couplets from the " Jahreszeiten " : Auf, ilir Distichen, frisch ! Ilir mantern lebendigen Knaben 1 Reicli ist Garten und Feld ! Blumen zum Kranze herbei I 3. Reicb ist an Blumen die Flur ; docli einige sind nur dem Auge, Andre dem Herzen nur scbon ; wilble dir, Leser, nun selbst 1 Rosenknospe, du bist dem bllilienden Madclien gewidmet, Die als die Herrlichste sich, als die Bescheidenste zeigt. Viele der Veilclien zusammen gekniipft, das Strausscben erscheint Erst als Blume ; du bist, bausliches Madcben, gemeint. 5. Eine kannt' icb, sie war wie die Lilie schlank, und ihr Stolz war Unschuld ; berrlicber bat Salomo Keine gesebn, 6. Scbon erbebt sicb der Agley und senkt das Kopfcben berunter. IstesGefiibl? oder ist's Muthwill ? Ibr ratbet es nicbt." I regret that I cannot find a translation of " The God and the Bayadere " which at all reproduces its compact power of expression and its majestic rhythm ; indeed, these minor poems of Goethe almost defy translation. 320 GERMAN LITERATURE. In many of them tlie sentiment is as airy and delicate, the charm as easy to feel and as difficult to define, as in the songs of Shakespeare. His mastery over all the powers and possibilities of the language was so marvel- ous, that an almost equal mastery of the resources of the English language is required in one who attempts to reproduce them. A few years ago, among the correspondence of the publisher Yieweg, of Brunswick, a letter of Goethe's was found, consisting of these two sentences: "If you are willing to publish the contents of the accompanying sealed package, send me two hundred ducats (about eight hundred dollars). If you decline, return the pack- age with the seals unbroken." This was a hard condi- tion for the publisher : he deliberated a day or two, then sent the two hundred ducats, and opened the package. It contained the pastoral epic of " Hermann und Dorothea,''' one of Goethe's most perfect works. We happen to know, through his correspondence with Schiller and others, the manner in which it was written. Goethe had finished the " ^c/z27?eis," which we can only call an imitation of Homer, and was encouraged by Schiller to write a poem on the subject of Nausikaa, But the work dragged : by a sudden revulsion of feel- ing, Goethe turned to the life of his own day, took up a subject which had been waiting six or seven years in his brain, planned and arranged it during his official journeys through the Ducliy, and then wrote it in the GOETHE. 321 course of a few weeks of summer leisure. "We have liis own word for the statement that more than half of it was written in nine consecutive days. It was one of his most fortunate inspirations. The perplexed pub- lisher was lucky in his venture, for the poem not only revived Goethe's popularity, but stamped upon the literary circles of Germany the impression of his true power. " Hermann and Dorothea " is the simplest pos- sible idyl of common life. The characters of the par- ents, the young man and the maiden, the clergyman and the apothecary are drawn with exquisite truth and reality ; the measure is fluent as prose, yet flatters the ear like rhyme ; the language is the simplest possible, poetic in its essence, not from ornament, and the events of the story, occupying not more than two days, are so naturally and artlessly evolved, that the reader follows them with pure and perfect enjoyment, from beginning to end. I care not what may be said against the use of hexameter in modern literature : in " Hermann and Dorothea" it is a thorough success. Goethe under- stood, as many poets do not, the importance of form as a vehicle of thought. With all his acquired self- control, his intellectual nature was as sensitive as a wind-harp to the lightest breeze of imagination; but he had the power of retaining every passing strain, every fugitive tone, until they grew to a connected melody. Then he sought for the one form which might most fitly express it, very much as the sculptor seeks 14* 322 GERMAN LITERATURE. for a living model, to assist in bringing out the ideal figure in his brain. He never lost sight of the real truth of Nature, but the commonest scenes and events, in passing through his mind are saturated with a subtle element of poetry. This is nowhere so wonderfully illustrated as in " Hermann and Dorothea," and we can readily understand that it was that one of his works to which he turned with the most satisfaction in his old age. After Schiller's death, in 1805, Goethe lost for a time his interest in literature. Within a year and a half the battle of Jena occurred, and "Weimar was sacked by the French army. It was perhaps the insecurity of his life at the time which led him to marry the mother of his son, with whom he had been living for seventeen years . — or, rather, the sense of insecurity led her to consent to the marriage, which she had refused up to that time. Nothing in Goethe's life has been so misunderstood and misrepresented as his relation to Christiane Yul- pius. "When I was last in Weimar, I discovered a great many facts which throw an entirely new light on this subject. Christiane was an uneducated woman, from a much lower rank in society ; but she understood Goethe's nature as no one else did. Goethe's first important work, after the death of Schiller, was his novel of the " Wahlverwandtschaften" which has been translated " The Elective Affinities." It is much more compact, and, as a story, more co- herent than " Wilhdra 3Ieiste7\" His scientific pursuits GOETHE. 323 absorbed a great deal of liis time during tlie early years of this century, but lie found time to write an autobi- ography under tlie title of " Walirlieit unci Dichtiing " (Truth and Fiction), and in his sixty-fifth year com- menced the study of the Persian and the Arabic lan- guages. At a time when the world supposed that the period of his poetic activity was over, his " West- Ostlicher Divan,'' suddenly appeared. It is a collec- tion of short poems, two or three hundred in num- ber, German in spirit and Oriental in character. In them the fire of a second youth glows and throbs through the wisdom of age. Some of the most beauti- ful brief lyrics he ever wrote are contained in this col- lection. This was the source whence Count Platen and Riickert drew their Oriental inspiration. The impression it produced was so strong that it almost created a new fashion in literature. By this time Goethe had outlived the jealousy and the enmity which had so long assailed him. Kotzebue was powerless ; Novalis and Nicolai were dead ; Schlegel was silent ; the Stolbergs were for- gotten ; and a new generation had grown up, to whom the poet was an acknowledged power. The race was not yet sufficiently developed to appreciate his best work, but they could reverence without reaching that point. He had also withdrawn from official duties. His time was his own ; society came to him at his own conveni- ence, and his life thenceforth was quiet, serene, yet still unweariedly active. 324 GERMAN LITERATURE. He conducted a periodical called " Kunst und AUer- thum," (Art and Antiquity), and wrote a number of scientific essays, but undertook no larger work until after his seventietli year, when he completed " JVilhelm Meister.'' From his seventy-fifth to his eighty-first year, he wrote the Second Part of '^ Faust j" dictated his "Annals," and revised the complete edition of his works, in forty volumes. It is a remarkable fact, show- ing the little protection accorded to literature in Ger- many during the lives of her greatest authors, that this complete edition could only be secured against reprints by other publishers, through a sj)ecial act of the Ger- man Diet, which was granted in 1826. It is doubtful whether Goethe received more than twenty or thirty thousand dollars from his works during the whole of his life ; but his grand-children received fortunes from them. The end came slowly on, like the sinking of the sun, in a cloudless sky. In 1828 the Duke, Karl August, died ; soon after, his widow, the Duchess Luise ; then, Goethe's only son, and he was left alone, still grand and erect in body, and with every sign of intellectual vigor. He was one of the handsomest men that ever lived : the bust taken in Eome is finer than the head of the Apollo. Even eighty years could not bend his figure or dim the splendor of his dark-brown eyes : the Apollo had only grown into the Olympian Jove. Eiickert, in a noble poem, wished for him the fate of the Persian GOETHE. 325 poets, Saadi and Djami, who counted a liundred years, but some hidden part of the machinery had worn out, and a very slight cause brought it to a full stop. He died on the 22d of March, 1832, in his eighty-third year. Karl August directed in his will, that his body should be placed between those of Goethe and Schiller. This was more than the rigid laws of German Courts could endure : the will was disregarded. The two poets rest side by side, in the Ducal vault, but at a proper dis- tance from the reigning family. Yet their sarcophagi, and that of their one princely friend, are those which draw reverent strangers to the vault, and which are always freshly crowned with garlands. In comparing Goethe with Homer and Shakespeare, I mean to assert his equal and independent supremacy, without claiming for him precisely the qualities which made them great. In intellectual character, he is as far removed from either as each is from the other. Homer is specially epic, Shakespeare sj^ecially dramatic, and in Goethe we find the highest equal development of all the powers of the human mind. The word " many- sided," which the Germans apply to him, is not an ade- quate description. The general rule among men seems to be that achievement is the result of concentrated effort in one direction. Goethe reversed this rule ; the broader his field of action became, the more splendid was his achievement. One cause of this phenomenon 326 GEBMAy LITEBATUBE. will be found in a quality whicli formed tlie very basis of liis nature. He was never satisfied until lie had as- certained the positive reality of tlie subject of his thought, and its possible relations to other realities. His fancy and imagination were so healthy and so proj)ortioned to his perceptive faculties, that their ac- tivity was only exercised upon a basis of real form or fact. Those vague yet splendid moods of the mind, in which some poets indulge, were never known to Lim — or, if he knew them, he never gave them expression. With the Swedish Tegner, he believed that *' The obscurely uttered is tlie obscurely thought.'* We find the same realistic element in other poets, but never in such perfect combination with the highest qualities of the imagination. Edgar Poe thus ad- dresses Science — " true daughter of old Time thou art, Who changest all things with thy peering eyes I Why prey'st thou thus upon the Poet's heart. Vulture, whose wings are dull realities ? " and this is a sort of conventional sentiment with all minor poets. Even Schiller, at one period of his life, lamented — in exquisite verse, it is true — the dethrone- ment of the Ideal by the Actual, in life. Goethe, how- ever, would have smiled, and answered in terms like these : '' Science is truth and Poetry is truth : both are infinite and inexhaustible : both are kindred fields GOETHE. 327 ttrougli which the human approaches the Divine Mind, and thej can never be antagonistic in a healthy nature. Poetry is not an exotic plant, brought down to our life from some warmer region, and to be kept alive with arti- ficial heat ; it springs from and clothes all human life with color and sweetness, as grass and daisies cover the whole earth." Goethe could have analyzed the earth in which the rose is planted, and prepared a mathematical table of its ingredients ; he could then have dissected the rose as a botanist, showing the met- amorphoses by which the stem becomes* the leaf and the leaf the blossom ; and finally, letting Science rest, while Fancy arose, fresh for the task, he could embalm the beauty and sentiment of the rose in immortal verse. I think this might be called one of the undeveloped qualities of Shakespeare. The point wherein the two poets touch is their power of assimilating all their acquired knowledge, and using it in the service of poetry. Neither is afraid of descending to the com- monest and coarsest realism, yet either can soar as lightly as a lark into the highest and purest spiritual atmosphere. Both minds claimed the largest liberty, and used it as of right. They walked over the earth, as if bare-headed and bare-handed, taking the brand of the sun, the dust of the highway and the beating of the storm upon their brows — in the strongest contrast to those minds which always seem to go abroad in white 328 GEBMAN LITERATURE. kid gloves and patent-leatlier boots, with an umbrella for the sun and a theoretical Mackintosh for the rain. There is another sense which Shakes23eare possessed by nature, and could only develop by such helps as were possible in his life ; Avhile Goethe, possessing it equally, was able, through his greater fortune, to bring it to the highest and noblest activity. I mean that ele- ment of proj^ortion which was first discovered by the Greek mind ; that adjustment of parts to the whole, of form to spirit, which we call the artistic sense. While Shakespeare was poaching, Goethe was reading Win- ckelmann and Lessing ; while Shakespeare was specu- lating in wool, Goethe was studying the antique mar- bles in the halls of the Vatican : while Shakespeare was desiring " this man's art and that man's scope," Goethe could look abroad and say : *' It is because none reach my art and my scope, that so few fully comprehend me." With such a vast variety of interests as he main- tained throughout his whole life, many of his lighter works are faulty in construction, but nothing which matured properly in his mind is without its underlying law. Indeed, most of the fragments which he left have the roundness and the polish of pebbles of thought, smoothed by attrition in the strong current of his mind. This is not mere finish ; it also includes fullness, as the veins in a pebble may suggest the strata in a quarry. Many of his detached utterances thus hint of a broad back-ground of thought. Take a single one as a speci- aOETHE. 32^ men, though I must cripple its force by turmng it into prose- "Timid wavering of nerveless thouglit, effemi- nate irresolution, anxious lamentation, turn away no misfortune from thee, cannot liberate thee. To hold one's self erect, defying all forces, never swaymg, show- ing original strength, brings down the arms of the Gods in aid ! " . , -ii Here is another : "Impatience is of no service : still less remorse. The latter increases the offense-the former creates new ones." I have purposely compared Goethe with Shakespeare in these two particulars, because in the dramatic pre- sentation of character he is inferior to that greatest of all masters. Shakespeare is universal in his apprehen- sion of human nature : Goethe is universal in his range of intellectual capacities and in his culture. One is greater, the other is riper. Goethe lacks two elements of suc- cess as a dramatist-inventive genius and rapidity of movement. After " Egmont," which was an effort to overcome his natural deficiencies, but which cannot be called a complete success, he gave more attention to dramatic poems than to acting plays. He was an ad- mirable critic, and his counsels helped to make Schil- ler's " Wollenstdn" what it is ; yet it is doubtful whe- ther the material of " WdU..stdnr in W^ own hands, would have been as satisfactorily modelled as by Schil- ler I do not mean to undervalue the genius which he' manifested in both " Qotz von Berlichingen" and 330 GERMAN LITERATURE. " Egmont.'" Tliej are very important works ; but tliey lack the equal power and completeness of such poems as " Ipldgenie auf Tanris" or "Hermann imd Dorothea." He had dramatic genius; he had the power of illus" trating by the force of contrast, and the power of pre= senting characters in their proper objective independ- ence ; yet it seems that there were differences of action in the combination of his many gifts. In other words, certain forms of activity were more free and natural to him than others. It would have been a miracle if this had not been so. I have already alluded to Goethe's habit of using every form of his own personal experience of life, but only after the feeling which accompanied it had become a memory. He j^refaces his lyrics with the couplet : Spjit erklingt, was friili erklang, Early sounds that eclio long : Qliickund Ungliick wirdGesang. Joy and sorrow turn to song. and in his " Trilogie der Leidenschaft " (Trilogy of Pas- sion), the most youthfully fervid poem ever written by a man more than seventy years old, are the lines : Und wenn der Mensch in seiner While men their torment suffer, Qual verstummt and are dumb. Gab mir ein Gott zu sagen, was A God gave me to utter mine in ich leide. song. One consequence of this power is that all passion in his verse obeys the supreme law of proportion. The keenest emotions are expressed, but the author himself GOETHE. 331 is serene. Calm and self-poised, lie paints every ecstasy or every pang : he does not attempt to revive the feel- ing, only to remember it. You cannot imagine his eye " rolling in a fine frenzy," as he writes — but rather the impartial eye of a spirit, surveying the past life of earth. Goethe has been called cold, unsympathetic, selfish, on account of this quality ; and I must admit that, even up to the present day, a large class of per- sons are unable to consider it in any other light. There are a great many who hide their own tears, but expect the author to weep in public. Now, the objec- tive treatment of one's own revelations of life, or of what is observed in the lives of others, is the highest achievement of literary art. Whatever of truth is thus presented, has a general, not an individual significance ; and the truth that dwells in passion cannot be clearly seen while the air of poetry is thick with the very cloud and storm of passion itself. All strong emotion sus- pends the impartial activity of the intellect ; and this is the reason why eloquence is so rarely impartial. Although Goethe possessed this intellectual serenity, as we may call it, his finer faculties were no more under control than in the case of less gifted authors. He could not say to the Ariel of his imagination " Come ! " and he came ; but was obliged to wait the pleasure of the beautiful sprite. As his habit was to arrange the plan of a poem, in all its parts, before putting it into words, he was thus able to work upon any part of it, 332 GERMAN LITERATURE. according to his mood. After a certain amount of prog- ress was made, the manuscript sheets were stitched together, the parts not jet written being filled out with blank paper of a different color ; and as often as one of these sheets was removed and the manuscript inserted in its place, Goethe felt himself freshly encour- aged to go on with the work. He was accustom 3d to say at such times : " I not only know, in my own mind, how much I have added, but it is now palpable to my exter- nal senses." There could not be a better illustration of his equal use of the Real and the Ideal. It is not incumbent upon me, now, to enter into an ex- amination of Goethe's occasional shortcomings. Every- body knows that Homer sometimes nods, and that Shakespeare sometimes rants ; and the admission that Goethe has occasionally mistaken coarseness for satire, or gravity for wisdom, cannot effect his supreme place in literature. Had he not possessed a remarkable power of self-restraint, he would doubtless have sinned more frequently. His position at Weimar, for the first ten years, was more difficult than we can now guess : when it had been stubbornly acknowledged, he stood almost alone as an author until Schiller came to his side : during the excitement which followed the over- throw of Napoleon, he was denounced as an enemy of Germany ; and, finally, the most absolute homage came to him from all quarters, giving to his old age a character of literary royalty which he enjoyed without dispute. GOETHE. 333 A lesser genius would have been affected by this per- versity of circumstances ; but he, " standing erect, defy- ing all forces, never swaying, showing original strength, called down the arms of the gods to his aid." In him, character and intellect were not so closely united as in Lessing; his vital power overran into wayward im- pulses in his early years, and sometimes broke away from his control in later life : but we must judge a man, after all, as much by what he restrains himself from doing, as by wdiat he does, and Goethe has as much right to the plea of multum dilexit as a less exalted intel- ligence. As a mental power, he was splendidly stead- fast. He was as apt at detecting shams as Carlyle, but he pierced them without making any noise about it. So far as he assumes to teach directly, it is in exact consonance with the suggestions of all his highest works ; he preaches independence, self-reliance, toler- ance, mutual help, cheerful acceptance of every fortune, growth as a necessity of being, and knowledge as a ne- cessity of growth. In the poetic appreciation of Nature, Goethe has scarcely an equal among modern authors. The trans- fer to natural objects of the poet's sentiment — the reflec- tion in them of his varying moods — the creation of a sentient spirit beneath the forms of the visible world — all this belongs to modern literature. In English lite- rature it virtually originated with Cowper, was con- tinued by Wordsworth, made popular by Byron and 334 GERMAN LITERATURE. Shelley, until now it lias become the inevitable field which all young authors endeavor to tread. But Goethe was before Cowper and Wordsworth, far more subtle and intimate than the former, and wholly without the air of purpose which we cannot help feeling in many of Wordsworth's descriptive passages. Goethe presents Nature to us, not in a mere catalogue of forms, but with all the more elusive influences which come to us through light and odor, and atmosphere and perspec- tive. If my space allowed me, I could give many in- stances of the delicate instinct which enables him to suggest a landscape in a single line, to give us the very soul of natural objects by phrases so simple that they startle while they charm. I have not before referred to " Faust,'' because it w^s only finished with Goethe's life ; the Second Part was first published after his death. Without studying both parts, no one can understand the author's plan. The First Part, alone, is a sublime dramatic fragment — the whole is a complete and wonderful poem. There is nothing in the literature of any country with which we can fairly compare it. There is no other poem, which, like this, was the work of a whole life, and which so deals with the profoundest problems of all life. It is so universally comprehensive that every reader finds in it reflections of his faith and philosophy. I have the essay of a French critic, who proves it to be a gospel of Pantheism : I have the work of a Catholic GOETHE. 335 professor, who is equally sure that it shows Goethe's reverence for the Church of Eome : I have the work of a Lutheran clergyman, who illustrates its Protestant orthodoxy by parallel texts from the Bible. These criticisms only show how completely it stands above all barriers of sect, all schools of thought, in that atmos- phere of pure humanity where there is no dogma to darken God to the eyes of men. The passions and in- dulgences of youth only bring Faust remorse : place and power at the Emperor's Court fail to satisfy him : the percejDtion of Beauty — which, after all, is only a re- cognition of the Divine harmony — first elevates and purifies his nature, and his hap^^y moment comes at the end, as the result of an unwearied and beneficent activity for the sake of the human race, aided by the Divine love w^hicli is freely bestowed upon all men. The poem embodies all the finest qualities of Goethe's mind, — his rich, ever-changing rhythm, his mastery over the elements of passion, his simple realism, his keen irony, his serene wisdom and his most sacred aspira- tion. The more it is studied, the wider and further it spreads its intellectual horizon, until it grows to be so far and dim that the physical and the spiritual spheres are blended together. "Whoever studies " Faust,'' in connection with the works of the other German authors, cannot but admit that the critic is not wholly mistaken, who asserts that the single elements which, separately, made his compeers great, have combined to make one 336 GERMAN LITERATURE. man greatest ; — that Klopstock's enrichment of the lan- guage, Lessing's boldness and clearness of vision, Wie- land's grace. Herder's universality, and Schiller's glory of rhythm and rhetoric, are all united in the immortal work of Goethe ! You will allow me to close this incomplete sketch with some lines of my own : Dear is the Minstrel, yet the Man is more ; But should I turn the pages of his brain. The lighter muscle of my verse would strain And break beneath his lore. How charge with music powers so vast and free. Save one be great as he ? Behold him, as ye jostle with the throng Through narrow ways, that do your beings wrong, — Self -chosen lanes, wherein ye press In louder Storm and Stress, Passing the lesser bounty by Because the greater seems too high. And that sublimest joy forego. To seek, aspire, and know ! Behold in him, since our strong line began. The first full-statured man ! Dear is the Minstrel, even to hearts of prose ; But he who sets all aspiration free, Is dearer to humanity. Still through our age the shadowy Leader goes ; Still whispers cheer, or waves his warning sign,-^ The man who, most of men. Heeded the parable from lips divine, And made one talent ten ! XI. GOETHE'S "FAUST.'* There are a few poetic works which possess an im- mortal vitality — which so rej^resent the actions and the characters of men, the problem of hnman nature, or the mysteries of human life, that their interest never grows old, their value never diminishes. The " Iliad " of Homer, Dante's ^'Bivina Commedia,'' Shakespeare's " Hamlet " and " Othello," and Goethe's "Faust " be- long to this class. Works like these were never pro- duced simply through the voluntary action of the mind : they grew by an inevitable law, attracting to them the best creative intelligence of the poet, and, when com- pleted, were greater than he himself could know ; for he stood too near them to measure their proj)ortions. The truth that is in them being of no time and no coun- try, only touches the highest intelligences at first, and is then slowly transmitted to still wider and wider circles. Goethe's long and vigorous life enabled him to watch the impression which the First Part of "Faust " gradu- ally produced upon the world ; but the Second Part, only a small portion of which was published before his death, is not yet fully understood and valued as it should be, even by the most cultivated thinkers. Stu- dents of the German language are at this dav dissuaded 15 33/ 338 GERMAN LITERATURE. from reading it on the ground that it is incomprehensi- ble ; and the com23letion of his sublime plan is charged against the author as the weak mistake of his old age ! As Goethe is the dominant figure in modern German literature, so '^ Faust " is the dominant work among his many creations. It is the one conception which began to fill and inspire him at the age of twentj-one, and remained with him until he sealed up the last pages of the manuscript, on his eighty-second birthday. Cher- ished thus for sixty-one years, his whole life forms the basis upon which it rests. Xavier Marmier, the distin- guished French critic, says : "It was the chosen work of Goethe, the well-beloved child for which he delighted to gather the riches of science and the precious fruits of inspiration. It was the bright idea, the mistress of his youth, the companion of his mature age, who was accustomed to keep watch with him, to visit him in his dreams, to live beside him in solitude and society. He bore it tenderly, mysteriously in the depth of his heart, as a lover bears the secret of his first love. He did not reveal its growth, neither displayed its beauties nor caprices ; happy in having created his Galatea, he took pleasure in seeing her move before his mind, in warming her uj)on his bosom, and each day giving her a new life by his artistic word, but he kept her for himself alone, and if other eyes peered too closely, he drew the curtain before his masterpiece. Sometimes he was sombre and thoughtful in the midst of society, for he was GOETHE'S "FAUST." 339 thinking of Faust : sometimes a king came to see him, and he left royalty with pleasure, to return to Faust." When we have learned Goethe's plan, we also per- ceive the great difficulties connected with its execution. "We may regret that portions of the work were so long delayed, but we are very grateful that it was not allowed to remain a fragment. The Second Part is only obscure in some of its details : one clear and easily-traced design runs through it, and the close is a solution of that which is unsolved in the First Part. I shall there- fore consider both as one connected work, which was Goethe's intention, although neither the publishers, the critics nor the translators pay much regard to it. I prefer to give a briefer review of the whole work rather than confine myself to the part which is most familiar, and thus only imperfectly explain its meaning. The Legend of Dr. Faustus first took a form in the sixteenth century, while the belief in witchcraft and diabolical agencies was still prevalent among the peo- ple. The earliest edition of the story, upon which all later variations were based, appeared in 1587, and an English translation of it, published in 1590, furnished Marlow with the material for his tragedy, which was first acted in London, I believe, in 1593. There was an actual Dr. Faust, born in 1490, who studied at the Uni- versity of Wittenberg, and is said to have been ac- quainted with Melanchthon. What special reasons there were for making him the hero of a story, cannot be 340 GERMAN LITERATURE. ascertained witli any certainty ; but the charge of a compact with evil spirits was frequently made against any man of more than usual knowledge. Even Luther believed in the constant activity of a personal and visi- ble devil, whom he imagined he sometimes beheld. The story varies in different versions, but it is sub- stantially this : Dr. Faust having acquired all possible human knowledge, and being still unsatisfied, invoked Satan to grant him the further power he desired. The fiend appeared, and promised to serve him in all things for four and twenty years, on condition of receiving his soul at the end of that time. The compact was made, and signed by Faust with his blood. Then commenced for him a life of indulgence. In an hour or two he was transported to Italy, Egypt or Constantinople : gold, jewels and splendid banquets came at his call : gardens blossomed and trees bore fruit for him in winter, and no man had power to injure him. The Emperor Maxi- milian summoned him to Insbruck, and his magic arts were exhibited before the Court. He brought back Helen of Troy from the Grecian Hades, but was himself taken captive by her beauty, and forced Satan to reani- mate her, in order that she might become his wife. After exhausting all forms of enjoyment, and exercising all powers which he desired, the term came to an end. Helen and her child vanished ; a storm, with terrific thunder and lightning, came at midnight, and in the morning only a few fragments of Faust's body, torn and GOETHE'S "FAUST." 341 mangled by infernal claws, were found in his chamber. He liad a Famulus — a word used to signify servant and amanuensis — by name Cliristoplier Wagner, who followed his example, made a compact with Satan, was served by an evil spirit in the shape of a monkey, and finally met the fate of his master. The belief in witchcraft survived among the people long after law and theology had discarded it, and a dramatized version of Faust was one of the favorite plays given in puppet-theatres, at fairs, or other popular fes- tivals. Goethe probably saw it thus acted, as a child, and when, after his return from Leipzig, he took up the study of alchemy, himself disgusted with the man- ner in which knowledge was then imparted, we can easily understand how the legend must have returned to his mind. The various texts of the old puppet- plays, which I have read, are by no means mere dog- gerel : they show a good deal of dramatic power, and suggest, to a lively imagination, much more than they express. Goethe was not the only one to whom the idea occurred, of making a graver use of the material. Lessing and Miiller (called " the Painter Miiller "), each wrote a tragedy of Faust, without being aware of Goethe's design ; and one of Lessing's friends, writing about the lost manuscript after his death, says that Lessing's Faust was written at a time when in every quarter of Germany a " Faust " was either published or announced. In fact, during the sixty-one years when 342 GERMAN LITERATXTRE. Goethe was occupied with his work, upwards of twenty- nine dramas or poems on the subject of Faust, by other authors, were published in Germany. There must have been something in the intellectual atmosphere of the day — some general craving for power, some dissatisfac- tion with the conditions of life, which made the legend attractive. Goethe took it up, like so many others ; but he alone saw the typical, universal element hidden in it-^he, alone, was able to engraft his own life and the governing forces of all human life upon this wild shoot of a darker age. He began to write in 1773, after the subject had been maturing for two or three years in his brain, and by 1775 had written nearly one half of the First Part. It was composed very slowly, every line and couplet being carefully finished in his mind before being put upon paper. With his removal to "Weimar, the work ceased, and the manuscript was yel- low with age when he took it with him to Italy. Two scenes were added in Rome, and in the edition of his works, published in 1790, first appears : ''Faust, ein Fragment,'' containing not quite two-thirds of the First Part. Stimulated and encouraged by Schiller, he re- sumed the work in 1797, and completed the whole of the First Part, and a considerable portion of the Sec- ond, which belonged to his plan from the start. In 1808, the First Part, as we now possess it, was pub- lished ; but the Second Part, delayed by his scientific and Oriental studies, was suffered to wait until 1824, GOETHE'S "EAUST." 343 by \\rjaich time Goethe was seventy-five years old. The third Act, generally called ''Die Hdlena,'' was pub- lished as a fragment in 1827, and the interest and the curiosity which it excited encouraged Goethe, in spite of his age, to work out the whole of his grand design. In August, 1831, the Second Part was finished, but it was not given to the world until after his death. There is no doubt that the loss of Schiller, the battle of Jena, and the political convulsions which disturbed Germany for ten years thereafter, prevented him from undertaking the Second Part while its plan was fresh and his faculties were in their prime of vigor. We can- not but feel that a great deal was lost by the delay ; yet, on the other hand, we must admit that no other test could have so splendidly proved the youth and the vitality of his genius. Three predominant elements are united in the work, and, while they are generally blended together in harmony, we are sometimes obliged to consider them separately. First, there is that broad, all-comprehensive presentation of the life of man which, at some point or other, touches the experiences of all men — including, moreover, the problem of Good and Evil, simply stated and sublimely solved. Secondly, there is a reflection throughout, of Goethe's own life, — of the phases of passion and thought, through which he passed, of his own faith and doubt, his position in and towards the world. Lastly, there is, especially in the Second Part, matter introduced which has no direct con- 344 GERMAN LITERATURE. nection witli the plan of the work, and interferes with its natural evolution. We can easily, in reading, set this last feature aside, and separate it from the main design wherever we detect it; but we must endeavor not to lose sight of the constant and intimate presence of the two former elements — of Goethe-nature and human nature. Notwithstanding the breadth, ripeness and im- partial quality of Goethe's mind, we catch a fleeting glimpse, here and there, of his individual presence ; or, it may be, that because all his life is so clearly known to us, we see the experience lying far behind the poetry, as we cannot do in ShakesjDeare. Instead of giving you the " argument " of "Faust,'' in advance, let me rather commence at once with an ex- amination of the poem, and unfold it as we proceed. The Dedication, written when Goethe was nearly fifty years old, breathes a subdued and tender spirit. In resum- ing his work, so long after its first inception, he recalls his friends and literary associates — Merck, Lenz, La- yater, his sister Cornelia — nearly all of whom had passed from the earth. It is a sweet and solemn pre- lude that he sings : Sie horen nicht die folgenden TTiey hear no longer these suc- Gesange, ceeding measures, Die Seelen, denen ich die ersten The souls, to whom my earliest sang ; songs I sang : Zerstoben ist das freundliche Dispersed the friendly troop, Gedrange, with all its pleasures, Verklungen, ach ! der erste Wie- And still, alas ! the echoes first derklang. that rang I GOETHE'S "FAUST." 345 Mein Lied ertont der unbe- kannten Menge, Ihr Beifall selbst macht meinem Herzen bang ; Und was sich sonst an meinem Lied erfreuet, Wenn es nocli lebt, irrt in der Welt zerstreuet. Und micb ergreift ein langst entwolmtes Sehnen Nach jenem stillen, ernsten Geisterreich ; Es scliwebet nan in unbe- stimmten Tonen Mein lispelnd Lied, der ^ols- harfe gleicli ; Ein Schauer fasst mich, Thrane folgt den Thriinen, Das strenge Herz, es fiililt sicli mild und weich ; Was icb besitze, seh' ich wie im Weiten, Und was verscliwand, wird mir zu Wirklichkeiten. I bring tbe unknown multitude ,my treasures ; Their very plaudits give my heart a pang, And those beside, whose joy my Song so flattered, If still they live, wide through the world are scattered. And grasps me now a long-un- wonted yearning For that serene and solemn Spirit-Land ; My song, to faint iEolian mur- murs turning, Sways like a harp-string by the breezes fanned. I thrill and tremble ; tear on tear is burning. And the stern heart is tenderly unmanned : What I possess, I see far distant lying. And what I lost, grows real and undying. After this Dedication follows a " Prelude on the Stage " — a conversation between the Manager, the Poet and the Merry-Andrew, or Humorous person of the com- pany. The Manager demands something that will please the public, who have read so much that they have be- come fastidious in their tastes ; his preference would be a sort of literary hash, containing so many elements that each hearer will be certain to pick out something ap- propriate to himself, and all will go home pleased. The Merry- Andrew insists that there must be plenty of fun 346 GERMAN LITERATURE. and follj in the piece ; while the Poet vainly protests against such a debasement of his art, and finally ex- claims to the Manager : " Go, find yourself a more obedient slave ! " The Merry- Andrew answers him with ridicule, and gives his idea of what the world should be, in the following words : In bunten Bildem wenig Klar- In motley pictures little light, heit, Viel Irrthnm nnd ein Fiinkclien Much error, and of truth a glim. Wahrheit, mering mite. So wild der beste Trank gebraut. Thus the best beverage is sup- plied, Der alle Welt erquickt und Whence all the world is cheered auferbaut. and edified. The Manager then puts an end to the discussion by commanding that the work shall be commenced at once. He shows his sordid business nature, his utter ignorance of the poetic character, by saying : Was hilft es, viel von Stimmung What need to talk of Inspira- reden ? tion ? Dem Zaudernden erscheint sie 'Tis no companion of Delay. nie. Gebt ihr euch einmal f iir Poeten, If Poetry be your vocation, So kommandirt die Poesie. Let Poetry your will obey I He ofi'ers all the properties of his theatre — beasts, birds, sun, stars, fire and water, and closes the scene by declaring that if they are properly used, So schreitet in dem engen Bretter- Thus, in our booth's contracted haus sphere. Den ganzen Kreis der Schopf ung The circle of creation will ap- aus pear. GOETHE'S "FAUST.'' 347 Und wandelt, mit bedacht'ger And move, as we deliberately Sclinelle, impel, Vom Himmel durcli die Welt zur From Heaven, across the World, Holle ! to Hell ! To this introduction succeeds a "Prologue in Heaven," imitated from the commencement of the Book of Job. The Prologue begins with a chant of the Archangels, which is so grand that I must quote it entire : Raphael. Die Sonne tont nach alter Weise The sun-orb sings, in emulation, In Bruderspharen Wettgesang, 'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round : Und ihre vorgeschriebne Reise His path predestined through Creation Vollendet sie mit Donnergang. He ends with step of thunder- sound. Ihr Anblick giebt den Engeln The angels from his visage Starke, splendid Wenn Keiner sie ergriinden Draw power, whose measure mag ; none can say ; Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke The lofty works, uncompre- hended, Sind herrlich, wie am ersten Are bright as on the earliest Tag. day. Gabkiel. Und schnell und unbegreiflich And swift, and swift beyond schnelle conceiving, Dreht sich -umher der Erde The splendor of the world goes Pracht ; round, Es wechselt Paradieses-Helle Day's Eden-brightness still re- lieving Mittiefer, schauervoUer Nacht ; The awful night's intense pro- found : 348 GEHMAN LITERATXTRE. Es scliaumt das Meer in breiten The ocean- tides in foam are Fltissen breaking, Am tief en Grund der Felsen auf , Against the rocks' deep bases hurled, Und Fels und Meer wird fortge- And both, the spheric race par- rissen taking. In ewig schnellem Spharenlauf. Eternal, swift, are onward whirled I Michael. , Und Sturme brausen um die And rival storms abroad are Wette, surging Vom Meer aufs Land, vom Land From sea to land, from land to aufs Meer, sea. Und bilden wiithend eine Kette A chain of deepest action forg- ing Der tief sten Wirkung rings um- Round all, in wrathful energy. her. Da flammt ein blitzendes Ver- There flames a desolation, blaz- heeren ing Dem Pfade vor des Donner- Before the Thunder's crashing schlags ; way : Doch deine Boten, Herr, ver- Yet, Lord, Thy messengers are ehren praising Das sanfte Wandeln deines The gentle movement of Thy Tags. Day. The Three. Der Anblick giebt den Engeln Though still by them uncom- Starke, prehended. Da Keiner dich ergriinden mag, From these the angels draw their power, Und alle deine hohen Werke And all Thy works, sublime and splendid, Sind herrlich, wie am ersten Are bright as in Creation's Tag. hour. Mepliistoplieles then steps forward, and in a brutal, GOETHE'S ''FAUST." 349 sneering speech, gives liis opinion of the human race. The Lord asks him if he knows his servant, Faust. Thereupon Mephistopheles offers to bet that he will win Faust's soul if permission be granted. The Lord answers that he is free to try : that man errs as long as he strives and aspires; but He tells Mephis- topheles, in advance, that in the end he will stand ashamed, to see that a good man, through all the ob- scurity of his natural impulses, still in his heart has an instinct of the one true way. Mephistopheles, how- ever, accepts without the least fear that he shall fail. The words which Goethe puts into the mouth of the Lord intimate that Evil is a necessary part of the cre- ative plan. Des Mensclien Thatigkeit kann Man's active nature, flagging, allzuleiclit erschlaffen, seeks too soon the level ; Er liebt sich bald die iinbedingte Unqualified repose lie learns to Ruli ; crave ; Drum geb' icb gern ibm den Ge- Whence, willingly, the comrade sellen zu, him I gave, Der reizt und wirkt und muss. Who works, excites, and must als Teufel, schaffen. create, as Devil. The " Prelude on the Stage " presents, in sharp satir- ical outlines, the relation of the poet to his own time. It shows that Goethe expected no popularity for his work — nay, no intelligent comprehension of its mean- ing. It must be read as a piece of defiant irony. The "Prologue in Heaven" indicates the grand ethical idea underlying the whole poem. Only the form is taken 350 GERMAN LITERATURE. from Job : the problem is stated in different terms, and worked out througli an entirely new and original pres- entation of the life of man. But the manner in which Goethe has done this cannot j)ossibly be understood without reading the Second Part. We now reach the first scene of the tragedy. It is night, and Faust, in an old Gothic chamber, begins his soliloquy. He has studied PhilosojDhy, Jurisj^rudence, Medicine and Theology, and finds himself no whit the wiser than before. His dreary conclusion is, that noth- ing can be known. Then, too, he has lacked in obtain- ing worldly fortune : he has neither lands nor gold, honor nor consideration among men. As a last experi- ment he has turned to Magic, hoping that he may de- tect the secret forces of nature, the undiscovered germs of all power, and rummage no more among empty words. A sense of the free delight of physical life, which he has so long given up for the sake of study, comes over him ; he longs to leave his smoky den, his jars and skeletons, and live the life of the body in the open air. In this soliloquy we find not only the early experience of Goethe, but the early conflict between the physical and the intellectual natures of all men. Faust contemplates the cabalistic sign of the Earth- Spirit, and then invokes its appearance. The Spirit is revealed in a ruddy flame, but Faust turns away his head, unable to endure the vision. The Spirit says: GOETHE'S •'FAUST." 351 In Lebensfluthen. im Thaten- In the tides of Life, in Action's storm, Sturm Wall- ich auf und ab, A fl-^c'^"* ^^^^- VVebeliinundherl A shuttle free GeburttmdGrab. Birth and the Grave, EinewigesMeer, An eternal sea, _ Ein wechselnd Weben A weavmg flowing frSriri^n sansenaen ^^It^^S nrrning loo. '° ^tfstuhl derZeit '*« "^ ''T'rur which Und wirke der Gottheit leben- The garment of Life which digesKleid. the Deity wears 1 There is a profound meaning in the words with which . the Spirit disappears : NichtmbV' No*""*' Faust is now interrupted by the entrance of Wagner, his Famulus, who represents the ordinary, mechamca man without a spark of original thought, and whom all the education in the world only turns into a shallow pedant. The German critics consider him as the type of a Pm^er-^ term which they apply to the large class of half-stupid, commonplace, conTentional mdi- ^duals who enter largely into all society. Wagners remarks only increase Faust's disgust and impatience. After the former's departure, Faust resumes the solilo- quy finds every view of life discouraging, every prospect of attaining satisfactory knowledge hopeless and is gradually led from one morbid impulse to another, untU 352 GERMAN LITERATURE. he settles on the thought of suicide. The conclusion of the scene is so remarkable that I must give it entire : Nun komm lierab, krystallne reine Schale .' Hevor aus deinem alten Futter- An die ich viele Jalire nicht ge- dacht ! Du glanztest bei der Vater Freu- denfeste, Erheitertest die ernsten Gaste, Wenn einer dicli dem andern zugebraclit. Der vielen Bilder kiinstlicli reiche Pracht, Des Trinker's Pfliclit, sie reim- weis zu erklaren, Auf Einen Zug die Holilung aus- zuleeren, Erinnert mich an manclie Ju- gendnacht. Ich werde jetzt dicli keinem Nachbar reichen, Ich werde nieinen Witz an del* ner Kunst nicbt zeigen ; Hier ist ein Saft, der eilig trunk- en macht. Mit brauner Fluth erfiillt er deiiie Hohle. Den ich bereitet, den ich wahle, Der letzte Trunk sei nun, mit ganzer Seele, Als festlich hoher Gruss, dem Morgen zugebracht. And now come down, thou cup of crystal clearest, Fresh from thine ancient cover thou appearest. So many years forgotten to my thought ! Thou shon'st at old ancestral banquets cheery. The solemn guests thou madest merry. When one thy wassail to the other brought. The rich and skilful figures o'er thee wrought, The drinker's duty, rhyme-wise to explain them. Or in one breath below the mark to drain them, From many a night of youth my memory caught. Now to a neighbor shall I pass thee never. Nor on thy curious art to test my wit endeavor : Here is a juice whence sleep is swiftly born. It fills with browner flood thy crystal hollow ; I chose, prepared it : thus I fol- low, — With all my soul the final drink I swallow, A solemn festal cup, a greeting to the morn ! [He sets the goblet to Ms mouth.'] {Chime of hells and choral song.) OOETHE'8 ''FAUST:* Chokus of Angels. Christ ist erstanden ! Freude dem Sterblichen, Den die verderbliclien, Schleichenden, erbliclien Mangel umwanden. Christ is arisen I Joy to tlie Mortal One, Whom the iiumerited, Clinging, inherited Needs did imprison. Faust. Welch tiefes Summen, welch ein heller Ton Zieht mit Gewalt das Glas von meinem Munde ? Verkiindiget ihr dumpf en Glock- en schon Des Osterfestes erste Feier- stunde ? Ihr Chore, singt ihr schon den trostlichen Gesang, Der einst um Grabes Nacht von EngeJslippen klang, Gewissheit einem neuen Bunde ? What hollow humming, what a sharp, clear stroke. Drives from my lip the goblet's, at their meeting ? Announce the booming bells al- ready woke The first glad hour of Easter's festal greeting ? Ye choirs, have ye begun the sweet, consoling chant. Which, through the night of Death, the angels minis- trant Sang, God's new Covenant re- peating ? Chorus of Women. Mit Spezereien Hatten wir ihn gepflegt, Wir, seine Treuen, Hatten ihn hingelegi; ; Tiicher und Binden Reinlich umwanden wir,. Ach ! und wir finden Christ nicht mehr hier. Christ ist erstanden 1 Selig der Liebende, Der die betriibende, Heilsam und iibende Priifung bestanden. With spices and precious Balm we arrayed him ; Faithful and gracious. We tenderly laid him : Linen to bind him Cleanlily wound we : Ah ! when we would find him, Christ no more found we 1 Chorus op Angels. Christ is ascended ! Bliss hath invested him, — Woes that molested him, Trials that tested him, Gloriously ended 1 354 GERMAN LITERATURE. Faust, Was suclit ihr, maclitig und ge- lind, Ihr Himmelstone, mich am Staube ? Klingt dort umher, wo weiche Menschen sind. Die Botschaft lior' icli wolil, al- lein mir felilt der Glaube ; Das Wunder ist des Glaubens liebstes Kind. Zu jenen Spharen wag' ich niclit zu streben, "Woherdieliolde Na<;hricht tont ; Und doch, an diesen Klang von Jugend auf gewohnt, Ruft er auch jetzt zuriick mich in das Leben. Sonst stiirzte sicli der Himmels- liebe Kuss Auf mich herab in ernster Sab- bathstille ; Da klang so ahnungsvoll des Glockentones Fillle, Und ein Gebet war briinstiger Genuss ; Ein unbegreiflich holdes Sehnen Trieb mich, durch Wald und Wiesen hinzugehen, Und unter tausend heissen Thra- nen Fiihlt' ich mir eine Welt ent- stehn. Diess Lied verkiindete der Ju- gend muntre Spiele, Der Friihlingsf eier f reies Gliick ; Why, here in dust, entice me with your spell, Ye gentle, powerful sounds of Heaven ? Peal rather there, where tender natures dwell. Tour messages I hear, but faith has not been given ; The dearest child of Faith is Miracle. I venture not to soar to yonder regions, Whence the glad tidings hither And yet, from childhood up familiar with the note. To Life it now renews the old allegiance. Once Heavenly Love sent down a burning kiss Upon my brow, in Sabbath si- lence holy ; And, filled with mystic presage, chimed the church-bell slowly. And prayer dissolved me in a fervent bliss. A sweet, uncomprehended yearn- ing Drove forth my feet through woods and meadows free. And while a thousand tears were burning, I felt a world arise for me. These chants, to youth and all its sports appealing. Proclaimed the Spring's rejoic- ing holiday ; GOETHE'S "FAUST.' 355 Erinnerung halt micli nun, mit kindlicliem Gefiilile, Vom letzten, ernsten Scliritt zuriick. O tonet fort, ihr siissen Himmels- lieder ! Die Tliriine quillt, die Erde hat mich wieder I And Memory holds me now, with childish feeling, Back from the last, the solemn way. Sound on, ye hymns of Heaven, so sweet and mild ! My tears gush forth : the Earth takes back her child 1 Choeus of Hat der Begrabene Schon sich uach oben, Lebend Erhabene, Herrlich erhoben ; 1st er in Werdelust Schafifender Freude nah : Ach ! an der Erde Brust, Sind wir zum Leide da. Liess er die Seinen Schmachtend uns hier zuriick, Ach, wir beweinen, Meister, dein Gliick I Disciples. Has He, victoriously, Burst from the vaulted Grave, and ail-gloriously Now sits exalted ? Is He, in glow of birth, Rapture creative near? Ah ! to the woe of earth Still are we native here. We, his aspiring Followers, Him we miss ; Weeping, desiring. Master, Thy bliss 1 Chorus of Angels. Christ ist erstanden Aus der Verwesung Schooss. Reisset von Banden Freudig euch los I Thatig ihn preisenden, Liebe beweisenden, Briiderlich speisenden, Predigend reisenden, Wonne verheissenden Euch ist der Meister nah, Euch ist er da ! Christ is arisen, Out of Corruption's womb : Burst ye the prison, Break from your gloom 1 Praising and pleading him. Lovingly needing him. Brotherly feeding him. Preaching and speeding him. Blessing, succeeding Him, Thus is the Master near, — Thus is He here ! The second scene is before tlie city gate, on the Easter holiday. Citizens, students, servant girls, beg- gars and soldiers make their appearance. Each one 356 GERMAN LITERATURE. speaks in his or lier character, and the result is a moi- ley, animated picture of life. Faust passes through the crowd, feeling his desire renewed to be simply a man among men. Accompanied by Wagner, he walks onward to the crest of a neighboring hill, where the sight of sunset calls forth a passage so grand and impassioned, that it is hard for me to resist the temptation of quoting it. But I dare not pause too often by the way. As the dusk begins to gather, they notice a black dog, running around them in circles, gradually drawing nearer. Wagner thinks it is only a stray poodle who is hunting his master, but Faust imagines that a trail of fire follows the animal. He returns to his quarters, taking the dog with him. The Third and the Fourth scenes are in Faust's study. He begins to translate the first chapter of John, while the dog lies on a cushion behind the stove. But he growls and barks fearfully, at each repetition of the text. Faust suspects the presence of an evil spirit in the beast, and proceeds to exorcise it by the usual formula of magic. The spell at last is dis- solved, and Mephistopheles steps forth, in the costume of a traveling scholar. In answer to Faust's questions, he declares himself to be Part of tliat Power, not understood, WTiich always wills the Bad, and always works tlie Good ; and again, he says : I am tlie Spirit that Denies I GOETHE'S ''FAUST.'' 357 explaining that his proper element is Evil, in all its forms. This is the part which he plays throughout the whole poem. He is not Satan, but an intellectual Devil who works by always presenting the opposite of Good. He argues rather than directly tempts, and assures his power over Faust by trains of reasoning which the lat- ter cannot answer, because they are the echoes of his own doubts. Mephistopheles is one of the most re- markable creations in literature. His cunning, his subtlety, his scorching ridicule and savage cynicism form a compound which is only a little more than human, and is not completely infernal. He is the echo of all the reckless and defiant unbelief of the whole human race : in him are concentrated their rebellious impulses, their indulgence, their negation of Virtue, Love and Faith, and herein lies the secret of his power. To look upon him as a conventional devil would lead you to misunderstand him entirely. Like the very qualities of human nature which he repre- sents, he " always icUls the Bad, and always tuorJcs the Good," — that is, in spite of himself. Mephistopheles lulls Faust into slumber by the song of his attendant spirits — a wild, almost unearthly chant which hints at the delight of the senses, without ex- pressing any intelligible thought. He returns next day, and so plays upon Faust's impatient, despairing mood, that the latter curses everything in which he had formerly believed, and at last — satisfied that all I 358 QEBMAN LITERATURE. . forms of liappiness liave become impossible to Mm — exclaims : Werd' icli beruhigt je mich auf When on an idler's bed I stretch. ein Faulbett legen, myself in quiet, So sei es gleich um mich gethan ! There let, at once, my record end ! Kannst du mich schmeichelnd Canst thou with lying flattery je beliigen, rule me, Bass ich mir selbst gef alien mag, Until, self-pleased, myself I see, — Kannst du mich mit Genuss be- Canst thoa with rich enjoyment triigen : fool me, Das sei fiir mich der letzte Tag ! Let that day be the last for me I Die Wette biet' ich I The het I offer. Mephistopheles. Top ! Done 1 Faust. TJnd Schlag auf And heartily ! Schlag ! Werd 'ich zum Augenblicke sa- When thus I hail the Moment gen : flying : Verweile doch ! du hist so "Ah, still delay — thou art so schon ! fair ! " Dann magst du mich in Fesseln Then bind me in thy bonds un- schlagen, dying, Dann will ich gern zu Grunde My final ruin then declare ! gehn ! Dann mag die Todtenglocke Then let the death-bell chime schallen, the token, DannbistdudeinesDienstesfrei, Then art thou from thy service free ! Die Uhr mag stehn, dor Zeiger The clock may stop, the hand be fallen, broken, Es sei die Zeit fiir mich vorbei ! Then Time be finished unto me ! This is tlie compact : and I beg you to remember GOETHE' 8 "FAUST." 359 the words which will give Mephistopheles power over Faust. He must experience a sense of happiness so pure and complete that he shall say to the passing mo- ment : " Ah, still delay — thou art so fair ! " Observe the nature of the problem : through perfect happiness he will lose his soul; yet how shall Mephistopheles evolve happiness from Evil ? Either way there seems to be a paradox — a moral contradiction — and the solu- tion of this riddle is the basis upon which both parts of the poem rests. Faust exclaims, after the compact is made : Stiirzen wir uns in das Raus- Plunge we in Time's tumultuous chen der Zeit, dance. Ins Rollen der Begebenheit ! In the rush and roll of Circum- stance ! Da mag denn Schmerz und Ge- Then may delight and distress, nuss, Gelingen und Verdruss And worry and success, Mit einander wechseln, wie es Alternately follow, as best they kann ; can : Nur rastlos bethatigt sich der Restless activityproves the man I Mann. While Faust retires to prepare for his new life in the world, a student calls. Mephistopheles puts on Faust's cap and mantle, passes himself off for the learned Pro- fessor, and takes the opportunity to give his views upon logic, law, theology and medicine. His remarks are so shrewd and his satire so keen that the student is pro- foundly impressed, and at the close of the interview (like many another student nowadays) requests an 360 GERMAN LITERATURE. autograpli in liis album. This scene is a masterpiece of irony. Goethe called the scene in the witches' kitchen a piece of "dramatic nonsense." Faust, looking in the witches' mirror, perceives the form of Margaret, which at once takes possession of his fancy. The witch gives him a magic potion to drink, which repairs the waste of his body in studies, and restores his youthful vigor. Then follow those simple, exquisite scenes in which Margaret is the heroine. Faust first sees her returning from con- fession, when she repulses his proffered escort. By the aid of Mephistoj)heles and an old neighbor named Martha, he obtains an interview in the garden, and soon succeeds in inspiring a return of his love. Margaret's perfect innocence and her simple trust in him awaken his sense of remorse. The latent good in his nature drives him from her, lest he should become the instru- ment of her ruin ; but MephistojDheles, by painting her loneliness and yearning for the absent lover, brings him back again. Then follows the celebrated scene, wherein Faust gives his confession of faith, in answer to Mar- garet's doubts, and from this point the tragic portion of the story begins. Margaret's prayer to the Virgin is the passionate appeal of a loving and suffering heart. If ever tears were expressed in words, it is in those marvellous stanzas. It is remarkable that, although Margaret is a simple, ignorant girl, accustomed to hard work and no sentiment — although she is vain, and im- GOETBE'8 "FAU8T/' 861 prudent, and yields to her fate from the first, without making the least resistance, no imaginary woman in all literature — not even Imogen, Cordelia or Ophelia — excites so tender a sympathy in the reader. The conception of her character is not only original but daring. She is, simply, a woman, as innocent in her ignorance as Eve in Eden. Sin, crime and madness visit her, but we feel that she is their helpless victim, and that the original purity of her nature can take no permanent stain. The tragical events thicken. Margaret's mother never awakes from a sleeping potion, administered without evil intent: her brother, Valentin, attacks Faust in the street, and is slain by him. Faust and Mephistopheles fly from the city, and she is left alone. She goes to the Cathedral, to seek solace in the religious services, but the Evil Spirit pursues her there. Then follows the Carnival of the Witches, among the Hartz Mountains, on the Walpurgis-Night, which is the First of May. With the opening lines we begin to breathe a supernatural, almost a diabolical atmosphere. All is weird, strange and ghostly. Will-o'-the-wisps dance along the path ; a tempest rushes down the gorges, tearing up the trees by the roots ; showers of sparks fly through the air, and the red moon hangs low on the borders of the sky. The witch scenes in Macbeth are ghastly enough, but they have not the lurid, unearthly atmosphere of the Walpurgis-Night. 16 362 GERMAN LITERATURE. As we move along with the fitful dance or stormy sweep of the rhythm, we feel a creeping of the nerves, as if in the presence of powers brought from another and darker world. Mephistopheles here again reveals his true character, but he cannot persuade Faust to take part in the revels. Faust's thoughts are with Margaret, and he sees her at last, as a phantom, wherein her fate is revealed to him. It is difficult for me to refrain from quoting portions of the Walpurgis-Night ; but I am forced to do it. The Intermezzo (or interlude), called "Oberon and Titania's Golden Wedding," which follows, has really nothing to do with ^^ Faust.'"' Goethe wrote it as a series of " Xenien,'' in another form, and sent it to Schiller for publication in "The Hours." Schiller, however, judged it best not to revive the excitement, which was beginning to subside, and returned it to Goethe, suggesting that he might use it in some other way : thus it came to be interpolated into " Faust.'' It is a collection of very short, sharp stanzas, which snap and sting like a whip-lash, describing Goethe's literary enemies under names which allow the real persons to be guessed. Beturning to the tragedy, we next encounter Faust in a state bordering upon madness. He has learned that Margaret is imprisoned and condemned to death for infanticide. His remorse and passion are so fran- tically expressed, that Mephistopheles, Devil as he is, GOETHE'S "FAUST:* 363 begins to be friglitened. He consents to carry Faust to Margaret's dungeon, and give liis assistance in car- rying her off. One more scene concludes the First Part — the inter- view between Margaret and Faust in the dungeon. It is heart-rending in its tragic power. Margaret, ren- dered insane by her misery — and we are given to un- derstand that the crime for which she is condemned was insanely committed — does not recognize her lover. She takes Faust to be the jailer, and pleads piteously for her life. At last she begins to remember, but dimly and incoherently : she takes no notice of Faust's agonizing efforts to persuade her to fly with him. I will quote the last half of the scene : Maegaret. Meine Mutter hab' icli umge- My mother liave I put to death ; bracht, Mein Kind hab' ich ertrankt. I've drowned the baby born to thee. War es nicht dir und mir ge- Was it not given to thee and schenkt ? me ? Dir auch — Du bist's ! ich glaub' Thee, too ! — 'Tis thou ! It scarce- es kaum. ly true doth seem — Gieb deine Hand ! Es ist kein Give me thy hand ! 'Tis not a Traum ! dream ! Deine liebe Hand ! — Ach, aber sie Thy dear, dear hand ! — But, ah, ist feucht ! 'tis wet ! Wische sie ab ! Wie mich daucht, Why, wipe it off ! Methinks that yet Ist Blut dran. There's blood thereon. Ach Gott ! Was hastdu gethan ! Ah, God ! what hast thou done? Stecke den Degen ein, Nay, sheathe thy sword at last I Ich bitte dich drum ! Do not affray me I 364 GERMAN LITERATURE. Faust. Lass das Vergangne vergangen O, let the past be past ! sein ! Bu bringst mich mn. Thy words will slay me 1 Maegabet. Nein, du musst tibrig bleiben ! Icb will dir die Graber be- schreiben, Ftir die musst du sorgen Gleicb morgen ; Der Mutter den besten Platz ge- ben, Meinen Bruder sogleich darne- ben, Micb ein wenig bei Seit' ! Nur nicht gar zu weit ! Und das Kleine mir an die rechte Brust. Niemand wird sonst bei mir liegen ! Micb an deine Seite zu scbmie- Das war ein susses, ein holdes Gluck ! Aber es will mir nicbt mebr ge- lingen : Mir ist's als milsst' ich micb zu dir zwingen, Als stiessest du micb von dir zu- ruck ; Und docb bist du's und blickst so gut, so f romm. No, no ! Tbou must outli^re us. Now I'll tell tbee the graves to give us : Thou must begin to-morrow The work of sorrow ! The best place give to my mother, Then close at her side my brother, And me a little away. But not too very far, I pray ! And here, on my right breast, my baby lay. Nobody else will lie beside me ! — Ah, within thine arms to hide me. That was a sweet and a gracious bliss. But no more, no more can I at- tain it. I would force myself on thee and constrain it, And it seems thou repellest my kiss : And yet 'tis thou, so good, so kind to see ! Fattst. Fuhlst du, dass ich es bin, so If thou feel'st it is I, then come komm' 1 with me I GOETHE'S "FAUST:* 365 Makgaket. Dalimaus? Out yonder? Faust. Ins Freie. To freedom. Margaret. 1st das Grab drauss' ? If the grave is there, Lauert der Tod, so komm' ! Death lying in wait, then come I Von hier ins ewige Ruhebett' From here to eternal rest : Und weiter keinen Schritt ; — No further step — no, no ! Du gehst nun fort ? Heinrich, Thou goest away ! O Henry, if konnt' ich mit 1 I could go 1 Faust. Du kannst ! So wolle nur I Die Thou canst ! Just will it I Open Thiir steht offen. stands the door. Margaret. Ich darf nicht fort ; f iir mich ist I dare not go : there's no hope nichts zu hoffen. any more. Was hilft es fiiehn ? Sie lauern Why should I fly ? They'll still doch mir auf. my steps waylay ! Es ist so elend, betteln zu It is so wretched, forced to beg miissen, my living, Und noch dazu mit bosem Ge- And a bad conscience sharper wissen ! misery giving ! Es ist so elend in der Fremde It is so wretched, to be strange, schweifen, forsaken, Und sie werden niich doch And I'd still be followed and ergreifen I taken I Faust. Ich bleibe bei dir. I'll stay with thee. Margaret. Geschwind ! Geschwind ! Be quick ! Be quick ! Rette dein armes Kind I Save thy perishing child I 366 GERMAN LITERATURE. Fort ! Imrner den Weg Am Bach hinauf, tj ber den Steg, In den Wald liinein Links, wo die Planke steht, Im Teich. Fass' es nur gleicTi I Es will sich he ben, Es zappelt noch 1 Rette ! Rette 1 Away ! Follow the ridge Up by the brook, Over the bridge. Into the wood. To the left, where the plank is placed In the pool ! Seize it in haste ! 'Tis trying to rise, 'Tis struggling still I Save it ! Save it I Faust. Besinne dich doch ! Nur Einen Schritt, so bist du frei 1 Recall thy wandering will ! One step, and thou art free at last ! Makgaket. Waren wir nur den Berg vorbei ! If the mountain we had only Da sitzt meine Mutter auf einem Stein, Es f asst mich kalt beim Schopf e ! Da sitzt meine Mutter auf einem Stein Und wackelt mit dem Kopfe ; Sie winkt nicht, sie nickt nicht, der Kopf ist ihr schwer ; Sie schlief so lange, sie wacht nicht mehr. Sie schlief, damit wir uns freu- ten. Es waren gliickliche Zeiten ! ! There sits my mother upon a stone, — I feel an icy shiver ! There sits my mother upon a stone. And her head is wagging ever. She beckons, she nods not, her heavy head falls o'er ; She slept so long that she wakes no more. She slept, while we were caress- ing : Ah, those were the days of bless- ing ! FArsT. Hilft hier kein Flehen, hilft kein Sagen ; So wag' ich's, dich hinweg zu tragen. Here words and prayers are nothing worth ; I'll venture, then, to bear thee forth. GOETHE'S ''FAUST.' 367 Margaeet. Lass mich ! Nein, ich leide No — let me go ! I'll suffer no keine Gewalt ! force I Fasse mich niclit so inorderisch. Grasp me not so murderously I an ! Sonst liab' ich dir ja Alles zu I've done, else, all things for the Lieb' gethan. love of thee. Faust. Der Tag grant ! Liebchen 1 Lieb- The day dawns : Dearest I Dear- chen ! est ! Margaret. Tag ! Ja, es "wird Tag ! der letzte Tag dringt herein ! Mein Hochzeittag sollt' es sein ! Sag' Niemand, dass du schon bei Gretchen warst. Weh meinem Kranze ! Es ist eben geschehn I Wir werden uns wiedersehn ; Aber nicht beim Tanze. Die Menge drangt sich, man hort sie nicht. Der Platz, die Gassen Konnen sie nicht fassen. Die Glocke ruft, das Stabchen bricht. Wie sie mich binden und packen ! Zum Blutstuhl bin ich schon entriickt. Schon zuckt nach jedem Nacken Die Scharfe, die nach meinem ziickt. Stumm liegt die Welt wie das Grab I Day ? Yes, the day comes, — the last day breaks for me ! My wedding-day it was to be ! Tell no one thou hast been with Margaret ! Woe for my garland ! The "chances Are over — 'tis all in vain ! We shall meet once again. But not at the dances ! The crowd is thronging, no word is spoken : The square below And the streets overflow : The death-bell tolls, the wand is broken. I am seized, and bound, and de- livered — Shoved to the block — they give the sign ! Now over each neck has quiv- ered The blade that is quivering over mine. Dumb lies the world like the grave ! 368 GERMAN LITERATURE. Faust. O war' ich nie geboren I O had I ne'er been bom I Mephistopheles {appears out Auf ! Oder ilir seid verloren. Off ! or you're lost ere morn. Unniitzes Zagen ! Zaudern und Useless talking, delaying and Plaudern ! prating ! Meine Pferde schaudern. My horses are neighing : Der Morgen dammert auf. The morning twilight is near. Mahgaeet. Was steigt aus dem Boden What rises up from the threshold herauf ? here ? Der ! der ! Schick' ihn fort ! He ! he ! suffer him not ! Was will der an dem heiligen What does he want in this holy Ort ? spot ? Er will mich 1 He seeks me ! Faust. Du soUst leben ! Thou shalt live. Makgaret. Gericht Gottes ! Dir hab' ich Judgment of ■ God ! myself to mich iibergeben ! thee I give. Mephistopheles {to Faust). Komm ! Komm ! Ich lasse dich Come ! or I'll leave her in the mit ihr im Stich. lurch, and thee ! Margabet. Dein bin ich, Vater ! Eette Thine am I, Father 1 rescue me I mich ! Ihr Engel, ihr heiligen Schaaren, Ye angels, holy cohorts, guard me, Lagert euch umher, mich zu be- Camp around, and from evil wahren ! ward me ! Heinrich ! Mir grant's vor dir. Henry ! I shudder to think of thee. GOETHE'S "FAUST." 369 Mephistopheles. Sie ist gericlitet ! She is judged ! Voice {from above). Ist gerettet ! She is saved I Mephistopheles {to Faust). Her zu mir ! Hither to me \ {He disappears with Faust.) Voice {from within, dying away). Heinrich ! Heinrich ! Henry ! Henry I This is all of ^^ Faust " that is known to most readers. But jou will notice that the evolution of the great plan is only commenced : the riddle has not even approached its explanation. Of all the usual experiences of men, Faust has only been drawn to love, but love so inter- fused with conscience and remorse, that the happy moment has not yet blessed him. The compact with Mephistopheles still holds : he has not won his wager, although we may guess that he thinks so. After the compact was made, he says to Faust, " We will first see the little and then the great world." By the " little world," he means the individual expe- rience of the emotions and passions of human nature; and this is the reason why Faust was made young again by the magic draught in the witches' kitchen. By the "great world," he means the experience of a life mov- 16* 370 GERMAN LITERATURE, ing on a broad field of activity, among men, and in sta- tions where its influence will be felt by thousands, or millions, of the race. In this greater world, Mephis- topheles has every opportunity to display his evil talent, and to annihilate the germs of good which baffle him in Faust's nature. The Second Part is therefore wholly different in its character. It is crowded with char- acters, and its events are displayed on a grand stage — so grand, indeed, that Goethe was forced to introduce the element of allegory, and make single persons typify whole classes of society. It requires a ripe and rather philosophical mind to appreciate this part properly, because Faust loses something of his strong human individuality by coming under the control of ideas instead of passions. He leaves behind him the expe- riences through which he touches the lives of all men, and rises to those wherein he touches only the lives of the men who think and aspire. In the opening scene we find Faust sleeping, while Ariel, accompanied by ^olian harps, chants the pro- gressive watches of the night, the restorative influences of Nature. This chant embodies an important feature of Goethe's creed, which he has expressed more fully in other works. He believed most devoutly in pre- serving moral and spiritual health. If there is a moral wound, it must be healed, leaving perhaps a scar be- hind it ; but it must not be kept as an open sore. The chronic inflammation of remembrance and remorse must GOETHE'S ''FAU8T." 371 be avoided. The true atonement for a wrong commit- ted does not lie in nursing the pain it leaves, but in restoration to cheerfulness and courage and hope, for the sake of others. Faust awakes to a scene of sunrise among the Alps, a piece of superb description. We learn that his nature is calmed and refreshed — that, forgetting his Past, he is ready to face Life again with fresh courage. In fact, he afterwards only once refers to anything in the First Part. The next scene introduces us to the Court of the Emperor, who appears on his throne, surrounded by his ministers and lords. Mephistopheles has taken the place of Court Fool. The various ministers make reports, each more discouraging than the other. The treasury is empty ; the realm is lawless and disorgan- ized ; the knights and burghers are at war, and the allies and tributary states are unfaithful. Money, how- ever, is the great need, and Mephistopheles proposes to supply it by digging up all the treasure buried in the soil since the old Pioman times. The proposition meets with favor, but the subject is postponed until after the Carnival, which is near at hand. This Carnival is an allegorical masquerade, repre- senting Society. The young of both sexes appear as flower-girls and gardeners. Intriguing mothers, with marriageable daughters ; rude, offensive natures ; social mountebanks, parasites, roues; the Graces, typifying 372 GERMAN LITEBATUBE. refinement ; the Fates ; the Furies, emblematic of slan- der ,and malice ; Victory, mounted on an elephant, which is guided by Prudence, while Fear and Hope walk on either side ; a chariot driven by a boy personi- fying Poetry, while Plutus sits within and Avarice hangs on behind — all these characters meet and mingle as they are found in the society of the world. The part of Plutus is taken by Faust, while Mephistopheles, true to his character of negation, wears the mask of Avarice. The Emperor himself appears as Pan, at- tended by Fauns, Satyrs, Nymphs and Gnomes. The form of the verse constantly varies in this scene ; it is full of the richest and rarest rhythmical effects. In the next scene the Emperor finds the aspect of affairs completely changed. The treasury is filled, the troops are paid, commerce flourishes, and the whole realm is prosperous. He learns that during the confu- sion of the Carnival, he has been persuaded to sign a document, which was. really a decree for the issuing of paper money, redeemable in gold — after the buried Eoman treasures shall be discovered and dug up. Some of the features of this scene are taken from the Missis- sippi scheme of John Law. Goethe's first intention was to deal with politics instead of finance, and we must regret that he afterwards changed his plan. Meph- istopheles presents Faust to the Emperor as the orig- inator of the paper-money, and the latter appoints him, with the Chancellor, to direct the finances of the GOETHE'S "FAUST." 373 realm. In this scheme, we see the effort of Mephis- topheles to initiate Faust into public life as the surest means to corrupt him ; but we shall soon find that the evil nature has made a mistake. The Emperor is so im^Dressed bj Faust's marvellous power that he desires a special exhibition of his art : he commands him to summon the shades of Paris and Helen to appear before his Court. You will remember that this was a part of the original Faust-legend, and was retained in some of the puppet plays. Faust calls Mephistopheles to his aid, but the latter hesitates to assist him. The task is difficult and dangerous : Faust must descend to the Mothers, holding in his hand a key which Mephistopheles gives him, and touch with it a tripod. The Mothers are vague existences, who dwell outside the bounds of Time and Space. The Court assembles, Faust rises with the tripod, Paris appears and then Helen. The members of the Court criticise their beauty in the true fashionable style, with impertinent praise or absurd censure. But we see that Faust is seized with a passionate adoration of the beauty of Helen, and we now begin to suspect that she is something more than a mere form. She repre- .sents, in fact, the abstract sense of Beauty, the in- forming spirit of all Art, the basis of the highest human culture. The honors heaped upon him by the Emperor, the hollow splendors of Court life, have only touched the surface of Faust's nature. This §74 GERMAN LITERATURE. yision of an Ideal of Beauty masters and draws Lim after it. In the Second Act we are introduced to Faust's old chamber, and to his Famulus, Wagner, who has taken his place, and is trying, like the alchemists of the Mid- dle Ages, to elaborate a human being, a Homunculus, by mixing together the chemical substances of which the body is comj)osed. Mephistoplieles, by a trick, makes the experiment successful, and the Homunculus guides him and Faust to the Pharsalian Fields, on the banks of the Peneios, in Thessaly. Here we have a classical, or Grecian Walpurgis-Night, in contrast to the Gothic one of the First Part. Faust has but one thought — to find Helen, while Mephisto23heles wanders about among the forms of the earliest mythology, feel- ing rather uncomfortable, and a little uncertain what course to pursue. The number of characters is very great. Griffins, Pygmies, Sphinxes, Syrens, Chiron the Centaur, Em- mets, Dactyls, Lamiae, the Phorkyads, Thales, Anaxa- goras, Nereus, Proteus, Nereids and Tritons, Telchines of Ehodes, and the sea-nymph Galatea, all take j)art in this wonderful moonlight spectacle. A great deal of the action has no connection with Faust. Thales and Anaxagoras are the representatives of the Neptunic and Plutonic theories in Geology, and Goethe, as a Neptunist, takes special pains to ridicule the opposite views. All this, however, must be set aside : then, by GOETHE'S '' FAUST: 375 carefully examining what is left, we find that it repre- sents the gradual growth of the element of Beauty, in Art and Religion, from the first rude beginnings in Phoenicia and Egypt, until it culminates in the immor- tal symmetry of the Grecian mind. Since Goethe gives a moral, even a saving power to Beauty, his object is now not difficult to understand. Faust, meanwhile, has gone to Hades, to implore Per- sephone to release Helen ; but we are not informed how this is accomplished. As a specimen of the versi- fication of the classical Walpurgis-Night, I will give the chorus o.^ the Telchines of Rhodes : Wir haben den Dreizack Nep- tunen gesclimiedet, Womit er die regesten Wellen begiitet. Entfaltet der Donnrer die Wolken, die vollen, Entgegnet Neptunus dem grau- liclien Rollen ; XJnd wie auch von oben es zackig erblitzt, Wird Woge nacli Woge von unten gespritzt ; Und was audi dazwisclien in Aengsten gerungen, Wird, lange gesclileudert, vom Tiefsten versclilnngen ; Wesslialb er uns heute den Scep- ter gereicht, — Nun schvveben wir festlicb, be- ruhigt und leicht. We've forged for old Neptune tbe trident that urges To smoothness and peace the re- fractory surges. When Jove tears the clouds of the tempest asunder, 'Tis Neptune encounters the roll of the thunder : The lightnings above may inces- santly gJow, But wave upon wave dashes up from below, And all that, between them, the terrors o'erpower. Long tossed and tormented, the Deep shall devour ; And thence he has lent us his sceptre to-day. — Now float we contented, in festal array. The Third Act is generally called "The Helena." 376 GEBMiiN LITERATURE. The scene opens in Sparta, wliitlier Helen has just re- turned from Troj, in advance of Menelaus. In this act Mephistopheles appears as Phorkyas, a hideous old woman. Helen being Primitive Beauty, he, of course, is obliged to become Primitive Ugliness. I must com- press the incidents of the act into a very brief space. Helen, flying from the vengeance of Menelaus, finds herself suddenly in the court-yard of a Gothic castle, the lord of which is Faust. He makes her queen of his domain, their nuj)tials are celebrated, and they become the parents of a son, Euphorion. In all this there is a double allegory. Helen is not only the ideal of the Beautiful, which rescues Faust from the excesses of passion and worldly ambition, but she also stands for the classical element in Literature and Art. Faust is not only the type of man, working his way upward by the development of his finer faculties, but he also stands for the romantic element in Literature and Art. This secondary meaning is added to the ^YiinduYj idea upon which the whole work is based. Euj)horion, there- fore, is the union of the classic and romantic spirits in one person. He is a perfect embodiment of Goethe's own poetry ; but as Byron's death, at the time when this act was written, powerfully affected Goethe, he determined to make Euphorion a distinct representative of Byron. The act closes with the death of Euphorion and the dis- appearance of Helen, whose garments, left behind her, turn into clouds and bear Faust away. As a specimen GOETHE'S "FAUST.' 377 of tlie noblest literary art, the " Helena " is matchless : the more it is read and studied, the more its wonderful beauty grows upon the reader. The first half of it is written in pure Greek metres, the latter half in short rhymed stanzas that sound like the clash of cymbals. I will only quote from it the Dirge sung by the Chorus, on the death of Euphorion, because it is wholly descrip- tive of Byron : Not alone ! where'er thou bidest ; Nicht allein ! — wo du auch wei- lest, Denn wir glauben dicli zu kennen ; Acli ! weiiD du dem Tag entei- lest, Wird kein Herz von dir sich trennen. Wiissten wir docTi kaum zu klagen, Neideud singen wir dein Loos : Dir in klar und truben Tagen Lied und Mutli war sclion und gross. Acb ! zum Erdengliick geboren. Holier Alinen, grosser Kraft, Leider ! f riib dir selbst verloren, Jugendbluthe weggerafft ; Scbarfer Blick, die Welt zu scbauen, Mitsinn jedem Herzensdrang, Liebesglutb der besteu Frauen Und ein eigenster Gesang. For we know thee what thou art. Ah ! if from the Day thou hid- est, Still to thee will cling each heart. Scarce we venture to lament thee. Singing, envious of thy fate ; For in storm and sun were lent thee Song and courage, fair and great. Ah ! for earthly fortune fash- ioned, Strength was thine, and proud descent ; Early erring, o'er-impassioned. Youth, alas! from thee was rent. For the world thine eye was rarest. All the heart to thee was known ; Thine were loves of women fair- est, And a song thy very own. 378 GERMAN LITEHATTJBE, Docli du ranntest unaufhaltsam Frei ins willenlose Netz ; So entzweitest du gewaltsam Dich mit Sitte, mit Gesetz ; Doch zuletzt das hocliste Sinnen Gab dem reinen Muth Ge\^^cllt, Wolltest Herrliclies gewinnen, Aber es gelang dir niclit. Yet thou rannest uncontrolledlj" In the net the fancies draw, Thus thyself divorcing boldly As from custom, so from law ; Till the highest thought ex- pended Set at last thy courage free : Thou would st win achievement splendid. But it was not given to thee. Wem gelingt es ? — Trlibe Frage, Der das Schicksal sich ver- mummt, Wenn am ungliickseligsten Tage Blutend alles Volk verstummt. Doch erfrischet neue Lieder, Steht nicht langer tief ge- beugt ! Denn der Boden zeugt sie wieder, Wie von je er sie gezeugt. Unto whom, then? Question dreary. Destiny will never heed ; When in evil days and weary, Silently the people bleed. But new songs shall still elate them : Bow no longer and deplore ! For the soil shall generate them, As it hath done heretofore. The Fourth Act was written in Goethe's eighty-sec- ond year, and is the least important of all. Faust cannot live and find the satisfaction of his life in the service of the Beautiful, but its garments bear him above the stony ways of the Earth, and it is thenceforth his com- fort and the consecration of his days. He now insists on a new field of activity : he means to compel Nature to the service of man. There is a part of the Emperor's realm which is uninhabitable, because at times inun- dated by the sea : this he will dike and drain, make fit GOETHE'S '' FAUST." 379 for population, and people with active colonists. Mephis- topheles is bound to obey bis commands, and the greater part of the act is taken up with the description of a battle which is won for the Emperor by his assistance. In return, Faust is presented with a title to the vast sea- swej)t marshes he desires to possess. In the last act, the great work is accomplished. There is a fertile, populous province, intersected by navigable canals, in place of the sea. A harbor for commerce has been built, and near it, in the midst of gardens, stands the palace of Faust. Only two things remain to be done — to drain the last remnant of marsh, and to gain posses- sion of a little cottage and chapel, near at hand, belong- ing to an old couple who refuse to sell or leave it. Faust has not yet found his perfectly happy moment, though he is now nearly one hundred years old. Mephis- topheles, whom we may suppose to be very impatient by this time, endeavors to hasten matters by frightening the old couple to death and burning down the cottage and chapel. Faust curses the rash, inhuman deed, and Mephistopheles is once more baffled. We now feel that the end approaches. The scene changes to midnight, before the palace of Faust. Four gray women enter: one is Want, another Guilt, the third Necessity and the fourth Care. The palace is barred against them — Want, Guilt and Necessity retire, but Care slips in through the key-hole. Faust defies her, but she breathes on his eyes, and he becomes blind. 380 GERMAN LITEBATimE. But, in exchange for the external darkness, his spirit is filled with light : at last ho sees clearly. He urges on the work with haste and energy : " one mind," he says, "suffices for a thousand hands." He groj^es along, feel- ing his way out of the palace, and listens to the clatter- ing of the spades, which, day and night, are employed in draining the last marsh. He feels that he has over- come the hostile forces of Nature, and created new homes for millions of the race. Filled with this grand consciousness, he exclaims : Ja ! diesem Sinne bin icli ganz ergeben, Das ist der Weisheit letzter Scliluss : Nur der verdient sicb. Freibeit wie das Leben, Der taglicb sie erobern muss. Und soverbringt, umruugen von Gefabr, Hier Kindbeit, Mann und Greis sein tiicbtig Jabr. Solcb' ein Gewimmel mocbt' icb sehn, Auf freiem Grund mit freieni Volke stebn. Zuni Augenblicke diirft' icb sa- gen: Verweile docb, du bist so scbon! Es kann die Spur von meinen Erdetagen Nicbt in Aeonen untergebn. — Yes ! to tbis tbougbt I bold witb firm persistence ; Tbe last result of wisdom stamps it true : He only earns bis freedom and existence, Wbo daily conquers tbem anew. Tbus bere, by dangers ^irt, sball glide away Of cbildbood, manbood, age, tbe vigorous day : And sucb a tbrong 1 fain would see, — Stand on free soil among a peo- ple free ! Tben dared I bail tbe Moment fleeing : "Ah, still delay — tJiou art so fair!" Tbe traces cannot, of mine eartbly being, In aeons perisb, — tbey are tbere ! — OOETEE'S "FAUST.'* 381 Im Vorgefiilil von solcliem ho- In proud fore-feeling of sucli hen Gluck lofty bliss, Geniess' ich jetzt den hochsten I now enjoy the highest Mo- Augenblick ment, — this ! He lias said the words : the compact is at an end ; and he sinks to the ground, dead. Mephistopheles has won, to all appearance. Standing beside the body, he calls up the hosts of Hell to surround him and take joint possession of the soul. But while he addresses them in a strain of blasphemous exultation, a glory of light falls from above. The angels appear, scattering celes- tial roses, and chanting : Rosen, ihr blendenden, Roses, ye glowing ones. Balsam versendenden ! Balsam-bestowing ones ! Flatternde, schwebende. Fluttering, quivering, Heimlich belebende. Sweetness delivering, Zweigleinbefliigelte, ^ Branching unblightedly, Knospenentsiegelte, Budding delightedly, Eilet zu bliihn ! Bloom and be seen ! Frilhling entspriesse. Springtime declare him, Purpur und Grlin ! In purple and green I Tragt Paradiese Paradise bear him, Dem Ruhenden hin. The Sleeper serene I The Devils are driven back by this shower of roses, which burn them worse than the infernal pitch and sulphur : the angels seize and bear aloft the immortal part of Faust, and Mephistopheles is left to gnash his teeth in impotent rage. The last scene is laid in some region of Heaven. After chants of ecstatic adoration by the souls of saints, the angels who bear the spirit 382 GERMAN LITERATURE. of Faust sing — and I beg you to mark the words care- fully: Gerettet ist das edle Glied Tlie noble Spirit now is free, DerGeisterwelt vom Bosen : And saved from evil sclieming ; Wer immer strebend sicli be- Whoe'er aspires unweariedly mtiht. Den konnen wir erlosen ; Is not beyond redeeming. Und hat an ihm die Liebe gar And if he feels the grace of Love Yon oben Theil genommen, That from On High is given, Begegnet ihm die selige Schaar The Blessed Hosts, that wait above, Mit herzlichem Willkommen. Shall welcome him to Heaven ! These are the elements of Faust's salvation, and they at once recall to our mind the words of the Lord to Mephistopheles, in the Prologue in Heaven : " Thou shalt stand ashamed to see that a good man, through all the obscurity of his natural impulses, still in his heart has an instinct of the one true way." After further chants by the angels, the Mater Gloriosa — the Yirgin Mary, as the Protectress of Women — soars into space, and the soul of Margaret approaches. She is not yet allowed access to the highest heavenly re- gions, but the hour of her pardon and purification has come. I will quote from this point to the end : {The Mateh Glokiosa soars into the space.) Chorus of Women Penitents^ Du schwebst zu Hohen To heights thou'rt speeding Der ewigeu Reiche, Of endless Eden : Vernimm das Flehen, Receive our pleading, Du Ohnegleiche ! Transcendent Maiden, Du Gnadeiireiche ! With Mercy laden ! GOETHE'S ''FAUST." 383 Magna Peccatkix. {St. Luke, rii. 36.) Bei der Liebe, die den Fiissen By tlie love before Mm kneeL ing.— DeinesgottverklartenSolines Him, Tby Son, a godlike vi- sion ; Tbranen liess zum Balsam flies- By the tears like balsam steal- sen, i^g- , . . Trotz des Pbarisaer-Hobnes ; Spite of Pharisees derision ; Beim Gefasse, das so reicblich By the box, whose ointment precious Tropfte Wohlgeruch hernieder ; Shed its spice and odors cheery ; BeidenLocken,diesoweichlich By the locks, whose softest meshes Trockneten die heiligen Glie- Dried the holy feet and weary 1- der — MuLiEK Samaeitana. {St. John, iv.) Bei dem Bronn, zu dem schon By that well, the ancient station weiland ^ , Abram liess die Heerdefiihren; Whither Abram's flocks were driven ; Bei dem Eimer. der dem Heiland By the jar, whose restoration Kiihl die Lippedurft' berlih- To the Saviour's lips was given ; Bei der reinen reichen Quelle, By the fountain, pure and vernal, Die nun dorther sich ergiesset. Thence its present bounty spending, — Ueberfliissig, ewig helle, Overflowing, bright, eternal. Rings durch alle Welten flies- Watering the worlds unend- set- i^g •- Maria ^gtptiaca. {Acta Sanctorum,) BeidemhochgeweihtenOrte, By the place, where the Im- mortal Wo den Herrn man niederliess ; Body of the Lord hath lain ; Bei dem Arm, der von der Pforte By the arm, which, from the portal, Warnend mich zurucke stiess ; Warning, thrust me back again; 384 GERMAN LITERATURE. Bei der vierzigjalirigen Busse, Der icli treu in Wiisten blieb ; Bei dem seligen Scheidegrusse, Den ini Sand ich niederscli neb- By tlie forty years' repentance In the lonely desert-land ; By the blissful farewell sentence Which I wrote upon the sand ! — The Die du grossen Siinderinnen Deine Xahe nicht verweigei-st Und ein biissendes Gewiunen In die Ewigkeiten steigerst, Gonn' auch dieser guten Seele, Die sich einmal nur vergessen, Die nicht ahnte, dass sie fehle, Dein Verzeihen angemessen ! Theee. Thou Thy presence not deniest Unto sinful women ever, — Liftest them to win the highest Gain of penitent endeavor, — So, from this good soul with- draw not— Who but once forgot transgress- ing, Who her loving error saw not — Pardon adequate, and blessing 1 Una P(ENITENTrDM {formerly named Margaret, stealing closer). Neige, neige, Du Ohnegleiche, Du Strahlenreiche, Dein Antlitz guadig Gliick ! Der frilh Geliebte, Nicht niehr Getriibte, Er kommt zuriick. Incline, Maiden, With Mercy laden, In light unfading. Thy gracious countenance upon my bliss ! My loved, my lover. His trials over In yonder world, returns to me in this ! Blessed Boys {a/pproaching in hovering circles). Er tiberwachst uns schon An machtigen Gliedern, Wird treuer Pflege Lohn Reichlich erwiedern. Wir wurden friih entfemt Von Lebechoren ; Doch dieser hat gelernt, Er wird uns lehren. With mighty limbs he towers Already above us ; He, for this love of ours. Will richlier love us. Early were we removed. Ere Life could reach us ; Yet he hath learned and proved, And he will teach us. GOETHE'S ''FAUST: 385 The Penitent ( formerly named Margaret). Vom edlen Geisterclior umgeben, The spirit-clioir around him see- Wird sich der Neue kaum ge- wahr, Er ahnet kaum das frische Le- ben, So gleiclit er schon der heiligen Schaar. Sieh, wie er jedem Erdenbande Der alten Htille sich entrafEt, Und aus aetherischem Gewande Hervortritt erste Jugendkraft ! Vergonne mir, ihn zu belehren ! Noch blendet ihn der neue Tag. iiig, New to himself, he scarce di- vines His heritage of new-born Being, When like the Holy Host he shines. Behold, how he each band hath cloven. The earthly life had round him thrown. And through his garb, of ether woven. The early force of youth is shown ! Vouchsafe to me that I instruct him ! Still dazzles him the Day's new glare. Mater Gloriosa. Komm ! hebe dich zu hohern Rise, thou, to higher spheres ! Spharen ! Conduct him, Wenn er dich ahnet, folgt er Who, feeling thee, shall follow nach. there I Blicket auf zum Retterblick, Alle reuig Zarten, Euch zu seligem Geschick Dankend umzuarten ! Werde jeder bessre Sinn Dir zum Dienst erbotig ; Jungfrau, Mutter, Konigin, Gottin, bleibe gniidig 1 17 Doctor Marianus {prostrate, adoring). Penitents, look up, elate, Where she beams salvation ; Gratefully to blessed fate Grow, in re-creation ! Be our souls, as they have been. Dedicate to Thee ! Virgin Holy, Mother, Queen, Goddess, gracious be I 386 GERMAN LITERATURE. Chorus Mysticus. Alles Vergangliche All things transitory 1st nur ein Gleichniss ; But as symbols are sent ; Das Unzuliingliche, Earth's insufficiency Hier wird's Ereigniss ; Here grows to Event : Das Unbeschreibliche, The Indescribable, Hier ist es gethan ; Here it is done : Das Ewig-Weibliche The Woman- Soul leadeth us Zieht uns hinan. Upward and on ! To those wlio intend reading the whole work for themselves, I would add a few words in conclusion. In the characters of Faust and Mephistopheles are represented the continual strife between Good and Evil in Man. The first lesson is that man becomes morbid and miserable in seclusion, even though he de- votes himself to the acquisition of knowledge. He must also know the life of the body in the open air, and the society of his fellow-men. He must feel in him- self the j^assions and the impulses of the race : in other words, he must first become a man among men. He must fight, through his life, with the powers of selfish- ness, doubt, denial of all good, truth and beauty. Then, the error and the wrong which he may have committed must not clog his future development. He must re- cover health from moral as from physical disease. The passion for the Beautiful must elevate and purify him, saving him from all the meanness and the littleness which we find in Society and in all forms of ]3ublic life. The restless impulse, which drives him forward, will GOETHE'S "FAUST." 387 save liim — that is, lead bim constantly from one sphere of being to another that is higher and clearer — in spite of error, in spite of temptation, in spite even of vice. Only in constant activity and struggle can he redeem himself — only in working for the benefit of his fellow- beings can he taste perfect happiness. This is the golden current of wisdom which flows through " Faust'' from beginning to end. xn. RICHTER. Of all tlie representative authors of tlie great literary era of Germany, lie who was known as " Jean Paul " during his life, but is now recovering his family name of Eichter, is the most difficult to describe, both in regard to his relative place and the peculiarities of his genius. In the lives and the works of the other authors we find a greater or less accordance with intellectual laws ; while he is phenomenal, almost to the point of being abnormal. They reflect the interests and the influences of their day, as in a clear mirror, — he as in one of those dark glass globes, which we sometimes see in gardens, distorting the reflected forms out of all their natural proportions. During his life, his circle of ardent admirers gave him the name of '' Der Einzige'' — the "only one," or "the unique," — which may very well serve as a measure of his literary character, if not of his elevation. The first impression which a reader gets from his works is that he stands entirely alone, both Avith regard to other authors and to his own age ; but a longer and more careful study shows that his relations to both have only been distorted by the unusual qualities of his mind. 388 BICHTEB. 389 There are intellectual genealogies in literature. Most authors may be sliown to be, not the imitators, but the spiritual descendants of others, inheriting more or less of their natures. In this sense, the blood of Cowper shows itself in Wordsworth, of Gibbon in Macaulay, of Keats in Tennyson, or of Chaucer, after five hundred years, in William Morris. Among E-ichter's prede- cessors, his nearest intellectual ancestor was Laurence Sterne, the author of " Tristram Shandy " and the " Sen- timental Journey," — works which made a much deeper impression upon the literature of Germany than upon that of England. Take the main characteristics of these works — their airy, capricious humor, their unex- pected touches of 23athos, and their brief but marvellous glimpses of liuman nature : add all the sentiment of the Storm and Stress period, with the passionate fury and frenzy taken out of it ; add, also, a prodigious amount of desultory knowledge ; place this compound in the most willful and whimsical of human brains, and you will have a vague outline of Richter. The mixture is so unusual and heterogeneous that its elements cannot be separated by an ordinary critical analysis. Even the German critics, who are so fond of dissecting an author's mind, and showing you every hidden muscle and nerve which directs its motions, have found Richter an uncomfortable subject. He is a lively corpse, and will not hold still under their scalpels. I have endeavored to indicate to you the special fields 390 GERMAX LITERATURE. of action of tlie great authors of whom I have already spoken, — to show how some strong interest or asj^ira- tion of the race found its expression in each ; but Eichter defies any such attempt to define his position. We can only collect all scattered interests, desires or sentiments which the others did not specially repre- sent, and we shall be tolerably sure to find them some- where in him. In a single quality he is ]3re-eminent. Not one of his illustrious compeers approaches him as a humorist. Lessing possessed a keen and brilliant power of irony, but he is never purely humorous. Klopstock and Herder had no comprehension of humor, and Schiller but a very slight trace of it. Wieland shows most of the quality, and his '* Ahderiten " might almost be con- sidered a humorous work, but it would be more correct to call it a lively and playful satire. Goethe's humor is always severe, and sometimes a little ponderous ; in his comedies there is generally an element of grotesque- ness and purposed absurdity. But in Eichter humor is an irrepressible native force, breaking out in the midst of his tenderest sentiment, darting helter-skelter over all his pages, sometimes threatening, sometimes strik- ing sharp and hard, provoking at one moment and de- lighting at another. Some modern English and American writers assert that a genius for humor does not belong to the German people, and that its highest forms are not manifested in BIGHTEB. 391 their literature. I entirely disagree with this view. There are traces of a very genuine humor in Luther : Fischart overflows with it, and in the last century Lichtenberg will compare with any wit of Queen Anne's time. Although Professor of Mathematics and the Na- tural Sciences at Gottingen, Lichtenberg achieved for himself a distinct place in literature. My attention was first called to his works, some years ago, by Fritz Eeuter, the Platt-deidsche humorist of our day. I think even our extravagant American idea of humor will ap- preciate his remark that " a donkey is simply a horse translated into Dutch;" or the manner in which he describes one of his pompous and pretentious contem- poraries, by saying: "He sits down between his two little dogs, and calls himself Daniel in the lions' den." In fact, when he says that "a man who has stolen a hundred thousand dollars ought to be able to live honestly," we think we hear an American speak. He alone would prove the genuineness of German humor, if it were necessary to be done. Eichter's life was passed within narrow limits, and exhibits neither picturesque situations nor startling dramatic changes ; yet it is none the less a story of deep interest. His grandfather was a Franconian cler- gyman, of whom he says that " he was equally poor and pious ; " his father was even poorer, but with no in- crease of piety to compensate for it ; and in 1763, at the little village of Wunsiedel, in the Franconian mountains, 392 GERMAN LITERATURE. he himself was born to a long inheritance of privation. The first twelve years of his life were sj)ent in a village called Joditz, near the town of Hof, in northern Bavaria. The beauty of the scenery, with its contrasts of dark fir-clad hills, sloping fields and bright green meadows, awoke in him that susceptibility to all the forms and the phases of Nature, which is one of the charms of his works. His playmates were the children of the peas- ants, and through them he learned the life of the com- mon people. His father, with a beggarly salary as cler- gyman, had a large family of children, who were both healthy and hungry, and he was barely able to feed, clothe and instruct them. During the long winter even- ings the family burned pine-splints instead of candles. As a boy, Richter attended school in Hof and in a neighboring town to which his father was transferred. He was an insatiable reader, borrowing books wherever he could discover any. It made little difference what the contents were : so they were books, he was satisfied. He furnished himself with paper, pen and ink, copied everything which made an impression on him as he read, and finally stitched the sheets together to form a book. He continued this habit for many years, and the result was a manuscript library, stuffed with the plun- der of thousands of volumes. Everything was there — theology and tin-ware, art and artichokes, science, cook- ery, ideas of heaven, making of horseshoes, aesthetics, edible mushrooms, mythology, millinery — in short, a RICnTER. 393 tolerably complete cyclopaedia, lacking only the alpha- betical arrangement. When he could find no printed volumes to borrow, he read these manuscript collections over again, and a good part of the knowledge contained in them stuck to his memory. During his seventeenth year his father died, and the , family would probably have starved, except for a little help given now and then by the mother's relatives. In 1781, being eighteen years old, Eichter went to the University of Leipzig, hoping to live by teaching while he studied theology. But the uncouth country-boy found no pupils. How he managed to live there for two years none of his biographers fully explain : the only thing certain is that he was forced to abscond to escape imprisonment for debt. Those two years, how- ever, decided his vocation for life : he gave up theology, consecrated himself to literature, and published the first part of a work entitled ''Die Grdnlandischen Prozesse " (The Greenland Lawsuits). Eichter himself says, forty years later, that it was written in his eighteenth year, after daily association with Pope, Swift, Young and Erasmus ; but the reader who is familiar with those authors will look in vain for the least echo ot their style and manner-from beginning to end Eichter's own grotesque individuality is as clearly marked as m any one of his later works. The title was well calcu- lated to excite curiosity ; hence the greater exasperation of the reader, when, instead of some strange Arctic story 17* 394 GERMAN LITERATURE. or fragment of forgotten liistory, lie found merely six Essays— "On Authors," "On Theologians," "On the Yulgar Pride of Ancestry," " On Women and Dandies," and "On the Prohibition of Books." If, nevertheless, he attempted to read one of these Essays, he was confused, at the outset, by a style which at that time must have suggested insanity. The minds of some authors are like a lamp which illuminates the sub- ject, more or less brilliantly, from one side : others walk around the subject, and light it carefully on all sides ; but here was one which seemed to touch off a collection of fire-works, fizzing, snapping and popping in all directions, in the midst of which a part of the subject sometimes gleamed in blue fire, then another part in red fire, and then again a dozen rockets rushed off into the sky, leaving the subject in complete dark- ness. It is very evident to me that in addition to Pope, Swift and Erasmus, Eichter had been attending lectures on physiology. The book is crammed with illustrations of the most extraordinary kind, drawn from that science. Two sentences from the first essay will suffice to give you an idea of its general character. In speaking of the literary pretenders and imitators of the time, he says : " In the dialogue of tragedy, the slang of the rabble is now wedded to the tone of the ode ; the jests of beer-bibbers and the songs of seraphs embrace upon the same tongue, as jugglers draw wine and water from the same barrel. The saliva of poetry BIGHTER. 395 makes the halting tongue of passion limber, and the poetic quill vaccinates the dumb woe with rhetorical pustules." Of course the success of such a work was simply im- possible. The reader, who expected either clear wis- dom or intelligible wit, found himself face to face with a man who seemed to be grinning through a horse-col- lar. But, under all the contortions of a manner which perplexed, amused and offended at the same time, there lurked the genius of the man. A few, a very few per- sonal friends began to believe in him. It must be said, in illustration of his integrity of character, that he never afterwards made the slightest attempt to render his style more acceptable to the public. It had to be ac- quired, almost like a new language, before he became popular. We have a similar instance in English Litera- ture. When Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus" first appeared, as a serial in Frazer's Magazine, the publisher would have discontinued it, in despair, but for the letters of earnest appreciation received from two men, one of whom was Ralph Waldo Emerson. This was in 1835 ; and in 1870 the same work, in a cheap po23ular edition, reached a sale of 40,000 copies. When Eichter left Leipzig, as an absconding debtor and an unsuccessful author, he seemed to have reached the lowest depth of misfortune, and there was appar- ently no way of rising out of it. In fact, he stuck there for years, living with his widowed mother in the town of 396 GEBMAN LITERATURE. Hof, in a state bordering on starvation. He was already a man, in tlie maturity and consistency of liis character. Even liis personal appearance gave rise to the bitterest prejudice against him. He cut off the queue, which all men carried at the time, wore his brown locks loose, without powder, flung away the thick cravat, which then reached from the collar-bone to the ears, and walked the streets with bare throat, — often without a hat. This revolt against what was then not only respecta- bility, but decency, shut him out from occupation which he might otherwise have obtained. There is nothing which the world is so slow to forgive as an independ- ence in regard to personal appearance and habits. The greatest living English jDoet once assured me that there is not courage enough in all London to make a visit in a felt hat. Eichter was one of the j)urest of men, yet for this independence he was branded as immoral ; one of the most religious of natures, he was called an athe- ist. A clergyman in Hof possessed a work which Eichter was very anxious to read, but the clerg}^man angrily refused to lend it, unless Eichter would first wear a cravat and powder his hair ! After three years of painful struggle, a university friend finally procured Eichter a situation as private tutor in his father's family, and thus for three years longer the suffering man was at least fed and clothed. Then he established a school of his own in a little town near Hof, and labored as a gentle, if an unwilling, MIGHTER, 397 pedagogue for four years. Tliis brings us to tlie year 1794, the beginning of his literary success, the first hope of which led him to give up the school and re- turn to his mother, whom he tenderly cherished until her death in 1797. He then left Hof forever, and went to Leipzig and Berlin. This period of Eichter's life embraces ten years of painful and discouraging struggles, and four years of partial success. A knowledge of it is of the greatest im- portance in estimating both his personal character and his intellectual development. The name of Hof sug- gests to me an illustration of the ignorance which a man may manifest, and yet be renowned as a scholar. Prosper Merimee is considered the first German scholar of his time in France, yet he never took the trouble to inform himself that Hof is a Bavarian town. He sup- poses it to mean the Court of some reigning prince, and, in spite of the absurdity and the contradictions which ensue, he continually says of Eichter, while he and his mother were starving together : " Comme il etait a la Cour!'' Eichter meant to continue his " Greenland Lawsuits," but no publisher would even look at them. He waited five years, and in 1788 published a work entitled '^ Austvahl aus des Teufels Papieren'' (Selections from the Papers of the Devil), a collection of essays, full of keen and grotesque satire, but neither attractive nor very profitable reading. His long struggle with 398 GERMAN LITERATURE. . poverty and with the narrow, unjust prejudices of the community in which he lived, gave a sharp and bitter tone to his mind which delayed his literary suc- cess, and thus repeated his misfortune in a new form. But a change was now near at hand, and, singularly enough, it came through a moral rather than an intel- lectual development. He was one day so assailed and ridiculed by some of his narrow-minded neighbors, that the strongest feeling of resentment was aroused. While he was trying to call up words severe enough to express it, his eye fell upon some boys who were playing near He saw suddenly, as in a vision, the troubles and th( sorrows which would leave their marks on those bright^ happy faces ; he felt the pangs which the most fortunate life cannot escape : all that men suffer crowded upon his mind, softened his heart, and he turned away in silence from his persecutors. The same day he wrote in his journal: "Henceforth I will assert my rights a& firmly as ever, but always with gentleness." His next work, finished in 1791, marks this new dejoarture. It is called : " Das Lehen des vergnugfen Schidmeisterhins JVuz'' (The Life of the Cheerful Little Schoolmaster Wuz). Here he forsakes the essay, and attempts what might be called a romance if it had either a plot or a consistent narrative. The characters, as in all his later works, are sometimes wonderfully minute and realistic studies from actual life, and some- times merely mouth-pieces for the expression of the RICETER. 399 author's own humor and fancy. Many of the scenes are evidently pictures of his own personal experience, very minutely sketched, but at the same time so deli- cately and sportively that they never weary the reader. Kichter felt that he had at last discovered the true field for his willful genius. His few friends gave him hearty encouragement, and it only remained to win back the public which he had repelled. His next work, ^^ Die unsichtbare Loge'' (The Invisible Lodge), was the turning-point in his fortunes. It was finished in the summer of 1792, and sent, with an anonymous letter, to an author named Moritz, in Berlin, begging him to read it and, if possible, to find a j)ublisher for it. Moritz groaned when he saw the package, and left the letter unopened for several days. When he finally broke the seal and read the first sentences, he cried out : " This must be from Goethe ! " He then began to read the manuscript aloud to some friends, and very soon ex- claimed : " This is new and wonderful : this is more than Goethe ! " To Eichter he wrote : " Who are you? What are you ? The man who has written these works is immortal ! " A package of a hundred ducats accom- panied the letter ; and Eichter, reeling and staggering like a drunken man, from a joy so intense as to be incredible, hastened home to pour them in a golden stream into the lap of his mother. If the enthusiasm of Moritz did not communicate itself to a very large circle of readers, still an audience 400 GERMAN LITERATURE. was secured ; and Eicliter's next work : ^^ Hesperus oder funfundvierzig Hundsposttage " (Hesperus, or Forty-five Dog-Post Days), which appeared two years afterwards, brought him to the knowledge of all the authors and the critics of Germany. A place was made for him in literature, and a party was recruited for him out of the ranks of the reading public. Herder hailed him as a friend and an ally : the sentiment of the Storm and Stress period, so long deprived of the luxury of weep- ing, blessed him through the fresh tears which fell upon his pages ; and a short time sufficed to transform the ridiculous, despised, unpowdered, bare-throated schoolmaster of Hof into a sort of pastoral and idyllic demi-god, whom princesses sought as a guest. Apart from the new and exceptional genius which he brought into literature, there were several reasons for Eichter's sudden popularity. The increasing excellence of Goethe and Schiller, inform and proportion, was car- rying them beyond the sympathies of that large class who demand feeling and warmth and a certain abandon in their favorite authors : the new romantic school, headed by Tieck and the Schlegels, was not yet suffi- ciently developed to supply the public need ; and jeal- ousy of the Weimar circle, in other parts of Germany, operated to the advantage of any new author who pro- mised to be a rival. Eichter kept the place which he had made for himself. His later works all retain the character of his earlier ones. Except as they were en- BlVRlEH. 401 riched from his experience or his acquired knowledge, they show few traces of develojDment. In this respect there could be no stronger contrast than he presents to Schiller. The only literary endeavor which we can trace in his works is that of exaggerating or multiply- ing the eccentricities of his style. In 1796, Kichter visited Jena and Weimar, and made the personal acquaintance of all the great authors. He first met Herder, walking in the park. Eushing up to him, he cried out : "Art thou he ? " "I am," said Her- der, "and thou art he!" Whereupon they fell into each other's arms. Kichter was drawn into a circle which was very hostile to Goethe, and although the latter treated him with great kindness, he took no pains to secure Goethe's friendship. He seems also to have en- tirely misunderstood Schiller's nature : in fact, his head was a little turned by the praises showered upon him by persons more demonstrative than the two authors : he seems to have expected kisses, embraces and tears, at the first meeting, and calls Goethe frozen and Schiller stony, because they only shook hands and invited him to dinner. In his letters to Herder and Knebel, he ex- pressed these crude impressions, and they were soon repeated in the gossij) of Weimar. The result was Richter's complete estrangement from the two men who most might have helj)ed him onward and up- ward, even as they helped each other. Their cor- respondence shows that they were both profoundly 402 GERMAN LITERATURE. interested in him, and inclined towards a friendly association. After his mother's death, Eichter lived a year in Leipzig, a second in Weimar, and then two years in Berlin, where, in 1801, he married Caroline Meyer, the daughter of a government official. He first selected Meiningen as a residence, but, in 1805, settled perma- nently in the town of Bayreuth, Franconia. Three years later, the Prince-Primate, Dalberg, the only eccle- siastical ruler whom Napoleon did not suppress in Ger- many, gave him a pension of one thousand florins (four hundred dollars) annually, which was continued to him, after the liberation of Germany, by the King of Bava- ria. The remainder of his life was peaceful and un- eventful. He fell into a regular habit of authorship, and not a single year passed without one or more new works from his pen. In order to avoid interriiption, he hired a room in a little tavern on a hill, two or three miles from Bayreuth. Some years ago I visited the place, and found a garret chamber with one window, two chairs, some shelves, upon which Eichter kept his manuscript cyclopaedia, and a writing-desk, in the drawer of which lay an unpublished manuscript in his own handwriting, entitled : " Some Observations upon lis Fools." Some old i3ersons whom I met there de- scribed to me the author, as they had seen him walking out from the town every morning and back every even- ing, with bare throat, a bottle of wine in each side- BICHTEB. 403 pocket, and a white poodle-dog at his heels. One man added : " I was at his funeral, and he was the most beautiful corpse I ever saw." He died at the close of the year 1825, not quite sixty-three years old. The other works of Richter which are best known, are " Titan,'' which is generally considered his greatest ; " Blumen- Fruclit- und Dornenstucke, oder Ehestand, Tod und Hoclizeit des ArmenadvoJcaten SiehenJcds " (Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces, or Married Life, Death and Wedding of the Lawyer of the Poor, Siebenkas) ; " Bos Kampanerthal ; " " FlegeljaJire ; '' ^^ Levana oder Erzieh- ungslehre " (a Theory of Education) ; ^^ Dr. Katzenberger^s Badereise'" (Journey to a Watering-Place), and ^^Vor- schule der Aesthetik " ( Introduction to Esthetics). Ex- cept the last, all these works must be called romances, in the absence of any better term. He published also a number of smaller humorous essays, the most of which are now but little read, except by his spe- cial admirers. The complete edition of his works, published after his death, comprises sixty small vol- umes. It is very evident that it finally became some- thing of a task to him to invent new eccentricities in his manner of treating a subject, and he sometimes carries the grotesque to the verge of idiocy. In "Hes- pertts " the chapters are called " Dog-Post Days," be- cause a dog is supposed to bring them to the author, one by one, in a bottle fastened to his neck : in " Titan " 404 GERMAN LITERATURE, there are no cliapters, but " Johdpenodeii" STibclivided into " Zylxel;'' in the " Flegeljahre'' tlie cliaj)ters liave the names of minerals — mica-slate, feldspar, hornblende — and in the " Invisible Lodge " they are called " Sec- tors.'' Moreover, there is no regular succession of these sedtors, cycles or minerals : they are continually inter- rupted, and the progress of the story — what there is of it — is delayed by " extra sheets," "postscripts," " pasto- ral letters," " addenda," " intercalary days," " circulars," etc. In one of the works the story stojDS suddenly, and then aj^pears a long letter to the publisher, stating that the writer is the author's sister, that her brother has been bitten by a dog, fears that he may have hydro- phobia, and must suspend his labors ! Many of the titles also have no relation whatever to the contents : he calls an essay of a somewhat critical and biographi- cal nature, " Observations made under the skull of a giantess." In short, there are no bounds to the willful, whimsical pranks of his mind. The reader is led by glimpses of a delicate Ariel into swamps and briers, over stone heaps, and is sometimes left alone, in the middle of a labyrinth, to find the outlet as best he may. If he delights in quaint fancy, tender sentiment, pure human sympathy, exquisite pictures of nature, and a power of suggestiveness which keeps his own mind constantly at work, he will bear with the tricksome sprite and follow. But few persons, I suspect, could endure the caprice and the arrogance of Eichter's style. RIGHTER. 405 were it not for the strength and the sweetness of his moral nature. His works are somewhat difficult to read, even to Germans, not so much from the obscurity of his thought as its utter want of form. He often tells you that he has a certain thing to say, and then makes the tour of the world before he says it. The reader finds himself in the condition of a patient waiting for the medicine which a friend has gone to buy, but who, on the way, drops in at the baker's, and the blacksmith's shop, hospital, picture-gallery, prison, hears a prayer in the church, takes a dancing-lesson, has his hair cut, and looks into twenty volumes at a second-hand book-staU. After all this, the friend brings the medicine, and he is so kind and sympathetic, he looks into your eyes with such love, his voice is so soothing, that your vexation dies instantly, and in ten minutes you let him go out again on another errand of the same kind. To acquire a knowledge of Eichter with the least difficulty, one should take one of his works along as a traveling-companion on a railway. He may then be read gradually, with many interruj)tions, with pauses to pursue a little way the fresh tracks of thought he is continually suggesting, and with glimpses of landscape which harmonize with his pages. "We cannot feel much interest in his characters, for they are too shadowy, except when they are drawn from humble life and from actual persons. When Eichter describes the narrow 406 GERMAN LITEBATURE. circumstances of the poor, tlieir customary joys and sorrows, their struggles or perplexities of heart or mind, he is wholly admirable ; but when he rises to that class which possesses the ideally impressible ele- ment, he often makes us laugh now where his first readers were deeply moved. His lofty heroes and hero- ines weep whenever they see anything beautiful ; they embrace and kiss whenever they agree in sentiment; the sight of a sunset from the top of a tower gives them thoughts of suicide, and they never look up to the stars without sighing to be disembodied spirits. They gush with an emotion which is never exhausted : they feed on hopes and longings, and are never happy except when they are inexpressibly sad. Yet, fools as they are, we cannot help loving them. If they could visit us, for only half an hour, on a moonlight night of summer, when the woodbines are in blossom, we should be delighted with their company ; but Heaven forbid that they should come to us in the day-time, and especially in the market-place ! I speak of Eichter's extravagant sentiment, not only because it is one of his prominent characteristics, but also because it immediately presents itself to those who open almost any one of his romances for the first time. " SiebenMs " is the least objectionable in this respect. The characters of the poor, dreaming, unpractical poet of a lawyer and of his exasperatingly matter-of-fact wife, who, in the midst of his eloquent harangue on Eter- BICHTER. 407 nity, interrupts him by saying : , " Don't forget to leave off your left stocking to-morrow morning : tliere is a hole in it ! " — are the author himself and his good old mother. Memory, in this work, acts as a good genius, constantly calling back his fancy from its wanderings ; but in " Titan " and " Hesperus " there is no such re- straint. The characters in these works float over the earth, and only now and then touch it with the tips of their toes. After waving their arms towards heaven, and gazing through tears on the Milky Way, for many pages, they sometimes come down a little, and we hope that they will soberly walk beside us for a few paces ; but no! the contact of the stable reality sends them off with a ricochet^ and the forms that seemed human become indistinct masses of electric light and angels' feathers in the distance. Contrasted with Goethe and Schiller, or indeed with any of his contemporaries, we at once perceive Richter's prominent fault : he has not the slightest sense of form in literature. That patient thought, by which a conception is slowly wrought into consistent and proportioned being, was utterly unknown to him. Instead of complete structures, where the idea sits enthroned like a god in his temple, he gives us piles of materials, fragments of columns and altars, stones carved with fair faces of women and cherubs, with grinning masks, or with wild tangles of arabesque designs. In fact, he strongly suggests the Gothic orna- mentation of the Middle Ages, with its mixture of roses 408 GERMAN LITERATURE. and thistles, its leaves running into heads, its bodies tapering into quaint mathematical designs, and its sin- gular blending of meaning and willful sport. "We see the same tendency, to indulge in the purely fantastic, in Albert Diirer and other early German painters. It is an element compounded of genius, egotism, vanity and fancy ; for the author insists on giving us the play and not the labor of his mind, — the detached suggestions and sketches, instead of the perfect picture. If this were Eichter's only characteristic, he would be an exact embodiment of the undeveloped German mind. Intel- lect, in a crude, formless state of nature, is always will- ful and arrogant. Hence, the worship of form, as an ideal to be attained, purifies the author's conception from his merely personal whims and moods, and thrusts his egotism and vanity into the background, while forcing his fancy to serve as the law of beauty dictates. Eichter might have learned something of this, to his endless ad- vantage, had he allied himself with Goethe and Schiller, and borne with their honest criticism, instead of giving himself up wholly to the luxury of being praised, em- braced and wept over. In their correspondence the two poets called him a tragelaph, or Indian antelope, but there was no offence in applying this term to the gambols of such a free and nimble intellect. Eichter's social success had also its share in mis- leading him. His independence and defiance of per- secution, during these long years of bitter poverty, had RIGHTER. 409 given liim an air of pride and dignity ; lie had a strong and finely - formed body and a superb head, with a brow like Jupiter's, and the frank eyes and mouth of a boy; and thus, at the age of thirty-three, he burst upon the world, which first knew him nearly at the level of his highest performance. He was a welcome phenomenon at the courts of princes, biases with all their ordinary associations. Here was a ver- itable child of nature, who yet observed the laws of society. The aristocratic circles were charmed by his originality, brilliancy and gentleness, while they dreaded to provoke his powers of humor and satire ; so he was allowed to say things which startled the courtiers, he was petted and caressed, and at length innocently led to believe that the more freely he poured forth all the ingredients of his nature, without regard to their arrangement, the more he would gratify the world. His literary development therefore ceased, as I have already said. His pen became a permanent escape-pipe or drain for his mind, carrying off every thought as it welled up. Moreover, humor being the distinctive quality of his genius, he could scarcely have risen to a higher plane without losing something of it on the way. Humor is a quality which may be wisely governed, refined by study and exercise, but it rigidly holds the mind to its own special sphere of thought and invention. It may slyly peep into the cloisters of earnest thought, but it keeps far away from the altars of aspiration. 18 410 GERMAN LITERATURE. Richter is frequently called a poet in prose, but tlie title is liardlj correct. I will admit that he possessed a thoroughly poetic appreciation of nature, and that a few of his scattered concejDtions are adapted to poetic treatment, but I have rarely found an author with so little of the poetic faculty. His idea of j)rose, for the most part, seems to consist in tearing up sentences, and then putting the fragments together at random. Pas- sages of great tenderness and eloquence are frequent, but they are seldom rhythmical. He sometimes refers to jDoets, but never quotes a line fi'om them, exce^^t from the classic authors. A sweet pervading sentiment is often mistaken for poetry, but it is the difference be- tween a ton of marble-dust and a statue. I have indicated Eichter's chief deficiencies, and I now turn to his equally evident merits. His humor can hardly be illustrated by detached passages from his works, because it is so evenly woven into their entire textures. It is full of grotesque surprises, always whim- sical, often absurd, but it is never coarse or cruel. I have twice or thrice found men — not authors — who showed a very similar quality in conversation, where it is always delightful. In Eichter's case, the irresistible tendency to use all the knowledge crammed into his written cyclopaedia, is a hindrance to its lightest and freest exercise. One is sometimes reminded of a peasant- character, in a story by Auerbach, who always danced with three or four hea^y iron wedges in his coat- BICETEB. 411 pockets, to keep the other dancers from crowding him. Often, however, his anatomical, chemical or theological figures of speech are as clear and keen as flashes of lightning. Then through the hnmor we see the fea- tures of some profound truth, and say to the author, " Be as grotesque as you please, so you give us more of this!" A careful study of Richter reveals the element wherein he most reflects the feeling of his time, and which ac- counts for his great popularity. He represents the strug- gle between a real state of things, which was nearly in- tolerable to a large class of Germans, and the dream of something better, sweeter and more harmonious in their lives. The more they felt the one, the more intense became the other. Socially and politically the country was already disorganized, while the living aspirations of the people were forced to accommodate themselves to the old, dead forms. There was, and could be, no im- provement until after a long season of bitter experience. Subjection to France, war, the mockery of the Holy Alliance, and revolution — fifty years of struggle — have brought about the transition ; and we can now hardly realize to ourselves the misery of the previous situa- tion. "We find some expression of it in Schiller's poems, but it was embodied in Richter. He knew the life of the people as no other German author : its realities were so branded into his nature that the ideal life, of which he and his readers dreamed, could not escape from them. 412 GERMAN LITEBATURE. There is thus in his works that continual and almost painful vibration between two extremes, which is an echo of the general restlessness. Gervinus says, in refer- ence to this characteristic : " you cannot walk with the classic cothurnus on one foot, and the other foot bare, without limping." It is true that both extremes are generally represented in the same character ; but in the " Flegeljahre,'' they are divided ; the hero Walt being the poetic and ideal, and his twin-brother Yult the practical nature. This is one of the least confusing of Richter's works, but it was never completed. He is skillful in presenting difficulties ; but when it comes to a solution, he seems pow^erless. In " SiehenMs " also the two char- acters are divided, the wife, Lenette, being the j)racti- cal side of life ; and most readers will therefore find both these works more satisfactory than " Hesperus " or " Titan,' which are more ambitious in design. In them the general plot is quite hidden by the aberra- tions of the characters, and it would be very difficult to describe that of either in an intelligible way. The " Invisible Lodge " is simpler, and an outline of it can be given in a few words. A boy is taken, in infancy, and placed in comfortable subterranean chambers, where the few persons who attend to his needs and educate him impress upon his mind that the dark, narrow world which he knows is the real world. They describe to him sunshine, trees, flowers and all the varied appear- ances of nature as belonging to heaven, — a heaven RIGHTER. 413 to be won by obedience, virtue and faith. His subter- ranean life is meant to symbolize ours : bis transfer to the surface of the earth that of our souls to a higher and brighter sphere of existence. But the symbolism is only material, not moral and spiritual : the boy ex- changes lamp-light for sunlight, color, the sounds of breezes, birds and streams and the bliss of the free air. On the other hand, he rises from the innocence and ignorance of his subterranean life to become acquainted with violence, selfishness and crime. Eichter saw his mistake, afterwards, and called the work "a born ruin." As a specimen of his simpler descriptive style, I wiU quote a passage, translated by Carlyle, from his auto- biography, in which he gives us a picture of his father's household : - To represent the Jodiz life of our Hans Paul,-for by tMs name we shall for a time distinguish him, yet ever changing it with others, -our best course, I believe, will be to conduct him through a whole Idyl-year ; dividing the normal year into four seasons, as so many quarterly Idvls ; four Idyls exhaust his happiness. - For the rest, let no one marvel at finding an Idyl-kingdom and pas- toral-world in a little hamlet and parsonage. In the smallest bed you can raise a tulip-tree, which shall extend its flowery boughs over all the garden ; and the life-breath of joy can be inhaled as well through a window as in the open wood and sky. Nay, is not Man's Spirit (with all its infinite celestial-spaces) walled-in ^vithin a six-feet Body mth integuments, and Malpighian mucuses and capillary tubes ; and has onlv five strait world-windows, of Senses, to open for the boundless, round-eyed, round-sunned All ;-and yet it discerns and reproduces an All ! i tj i x "Scarcelvdo I know with which of the four quarterly Idyls to begin ; for each is a little heavenly forecourt to the next : however, 414 GERMAN LITERATUBE, the climax of joys, if we start with Winter and Jamiarr, will perhaps be most apparent. In the cold, our Father had commonly, like an Alpine herdsman, come down from the upper altitude of his study ; and, to the joy of the children, was dwelling on the plain of the gen- eral family-room. In the morning, he sat by a window, committing his Sunday's sermon to memory ; and the three sons, Fritz (who I myself am), and Adam, and Gottlieb carried, by turns, tbe full coffee- cup to him, and still moregladly carried back the empty one, because the carrier was then entitled to pick the unmelted remains of the sugar-candy (taken against cough) from the bottom thereof. Out of doors, truly, the sky covered all things with silence ; the brook with ice, the village with snow : but in our rooms there was life ; under the stove a pigeon-establishment; on the windows finch-cages ; on the floor, the invincible bull brach, our Bonne, the night-guardian of the court- yard ; and a poodle, and the pretty Scharmantel (Poll), a present from the Lady von Plotho ; — and close by, the kitchen, with two maids ; and farther off, against the other end of the house, our stable, with all sorts of bovine, swinish and feathered cattle, and their noises : the threshers with their flails, also at work within the court-yard, I might reckon as another item. In this way, with nothing but society on all hands, the whole male portion of the household easily spent their forenoon in tasks of memory, not far from the female portion, as busily employed in cooking. "Holidays occur in every occupation ; thus I too had my airing holidays, — analogous to watering holidays, — so that I could travel out in t^e snow of the court-yard, and to the barn with its threshing. Nay, was there a delicate embassy to be transacted in the village, — for example, to the schoolmaster, to the tailor, — I was sure to be de- spatched thither in the middle of my lessons ; and thus I still got forth into the open air and the cold, and measured myself with the new snow. At noon, before our own dinner, we children might also, in the kitchen, have the hungry satisfaction to see the threshers fall-to and consume their victuals. " The afternoon, again, was still more important, and richer in joys. Winter shortened and sweetened our lessons. In the long dusk, our Father walked to and fro ; and the children, according to ability, trotted under his night-gown, holding by his hands. At sound of the vesper-bell, we placed ourselves in a circle, and in concert devotionally chanted the hymn, Die jinstre Nacht bricht stark herein (The gloomy night is gathering round). Only in villages, not in RICETER. 415 towns, where probably tbere is more night than day labor, have the evening chimes a meaning and beauty, and are the swan-song of the day • the evening-bell is as it were the muffle of the over-loud heart, and like a ranee des vaches of the plains, calls men from their runmng and toiling, into the land of silence and dreams. After a pleasant watching about the kitchen-door for the moonrise of candle-light, we saw our wide room at once illuminated and barricaded ; to wit the window-shutters were closed and bolted ; aoid behmd these window bastions and breastworks the child felt himself snugly nestled and well secured against Knecht Ruprecht, who on the outside could not get in, but only in vain keep growling and hummmg." Those passages in Eichter's works wMch are con- sidered purely sublime by his admirers -wherein he is most earnest and profound-impress us like a mind wandering through Chaos, and only not bewildered be- cause of intense faith in God and Man. Carlyle, in an article written soon after Eichter's death, recognized his highest qualities in this eloquent passage: "His faculties are all of gigantic mould ; cumbrous, awkward in their movements; large and splendid rather than harmonious or beautiful, yet joined in living union, and of force and compass altogether extraordinary. He has an intellect vehement, rugged, irresistible ; crushing in pieces the hardest problems, piercing into the most hidden combinations of things and grasping the most distant: an imagination vague, sombre, splendid or ap- palling,— brooding over the abysses of Being, wander- ing through Infinitude, and summoning before us, in its dim religious light, shapes of brilliancy, solemnity or terror ; a fancy of exuberance literally unexampled, for it pours forth its treasures with a lavishness which 416 GERMAN LITERATURE. knows no limits, hanging, like tlie sun, a jewel on every grass-blade, and sowing the Earth at large with orient pearl." This is the testimony of an author who resembles Eichter in the character of his humor and the arrogant individuality of his style. In regard to the latter. Car- lyle quotes Lessing's phrase : " Every man has his own style, like his own nose," and adds: "True, there are noses of wonderful dimensions, but no nose can justly be amputated by the public." I think, however, that we have a right to object when the author insists on twisting and pinching his nose out of shape, or changing its natural hue into a shining redness, through the reck- less intemperance of his fancy. To illustrate Eichter by quotations is like taking single trees out of a jungle where a thousand different kinds are matted together. There are remarkably few short passages which are com23lete when torn from the context. What he says of, or rather to, Music, has often been quoted — " Away ! thou speakest of that which all my life I have passionately sought, which I never find, and never shall find ! " Another fine expression is : "Unhappy is the man for whom his own mother has not made all other mothers venerable ! " In matters of faith he was entirely independent, doubting or deny- ing as his nature prompted ; yet he says : " When in your last hour all faculty in the broken spirit shall fade RICHTER. 417 away and die into inanity — imagination, thouglit, effort, enjoyment — then at the last will the night-flower of Belief alone continue blooming, and refresh with its perfume in the closing darkness." Here is a brief pas- sage which embodies an important truth : " Truthfulness is not so much a branch as a blossom of moral, manly strength. The weak, whether they will or not, must lie. As respects children, for the first ^nq years they litter neither truth nor falsehood — they only speak. Their talk is thinking aloud ; and as one-half of their thought is often an affirmative, and the other half a negative, and, unlike us, they express both, they often seem to lie while they are only talking with them- selves." I might multiply short quotations like these, but they would suggest a false rather than a true im- pression of the author. His glimpses of graver thought are generally coherent, because the exercise of his humor is suspended. It is also very difficult to repro- duce the peculiar quality of his prose in a translation. Its singular, broken cadences, its promise of melodies which are always shattered by discords, require that the form should be almost as carefully retained as in translating poetry. The passages given by Carlyle are much the best translations, on account of the intellec- tual resemblances between him and Richter. You will easily understand that a large class of read- ers are naturally repelled by Richter. In German criti- 18* 418 GERMAN LITERATURE. cism jou will find the most diyergent estimates of his genius ; but no judgment of a purely literary character can be just. His deep and tender humanity must be recognized, as we recognize it in Burns and Hood. In literary art, he is only a disorganizing element, while his moral power and influence have been wholly pure and beneficent. Even his yanity never offends us, for it is as candid and transparent as that of Hans Chris- tian Andersen. That so much strength and weakness, so much delicacy and coarseness, so much knowledge and ignorance, so much melting sentiment and gro- tesque humor, should not only be co-existent, but mixed through and through one another, in the same brain, makes him a permanent phenomenon. There is nothing like him in the literature of any country. If we call him great, we shall find a thousand reasons for taking back the epithet ; yet we cannot possibly press him back into any middle place. Nothing remains for us but to accept the term invented by his followers, and call him '' Der Mnzige " — " The Unique." INDEX. Abraham a Santa Clara, 197. Andrsea, 160. B. Beowulf, 10. Birken, Siegmund von, 193. Biterolf, 56. Brandt, Sebastian, 147. Burkbardt von Hobenfels, 48, 53. Canitz, Baron, 197. Cbancellor, The, 49. Charlemagne, 7, 8, 9, 15. Codex Argenteus, The, 4. Conrad, The Priest, 63, 64. Conrad von Wurzburg, 48, 49, 50. Dach, Simon, 185-188. Diethmar von Aist, 30, 36. E. Egmont, 312, 313, 314, 315, 330. Eilhart von Oberg, 75. Erek, 62, 68, 69-73, 92. Fabricius, Dr., 169. Faust, 307, 334-385, 338-339, 341- 342, 343, 362, 369, 38&-387. Faust, First Part, 315, 337-369, Faust, Second Part, 296, 324, 337, 339, 342, 343, 350, 370-386. Faustus, The Legend of Dr., 339- 341 Fischart, 169, 171-174, 178, 180, 242, 391. Flemming, Paul, I8I-I80. Frauenlob, 48, 54, 55, 57, 143. Friedrich von Hansen, 37. Futerer, Ulric, 137. a. Gailer von Kaysersberg, 147. Gellert, 198, 203, 231. Gerhardt. Paul, 180. Gleim, 203. Goethe, 195, 202, 203, 214, 218, 230, 281, 232, 238, 242, 248, 249, 252, 253, '.254, 255, 258, 259, 263, 264, 266, 268, 275, 276, 277, 281, 284-287, 289, 292, 294, 295,299, 300, 302, 304-336, 390, 400, 401, 407, 408. Gotter Griechenlands, Die (The Gods of Greece), 281-284. Gotz von Berlichingen, 307, 308- 309, 810. 329. Gospel Harmony, The Old Saxon, 15. Gottfried von Strasburg, 63, 68, 74, 75, 78, 82, 85, 86, 87, 97, 99. Gottsched, 205, 215, 231, 235, 243, 244. Gregorius vom Stein, 68, 73. 1 Grimmelhausen, 197. 419 420 INDEX. Grjpliius, Andreas, 185, 189-190, 191, 192, 197. Grypliius, Christian, 192. Gudrun, 03, 63, 130-134, 136. Hadlaub, Master Johannes, 48, 52. Hagedorn, 198. Haller, 198. Hans Sachs, 145, 160-163. Hartmann von Ane, 37, 63, 68, 74, 75, 78, 87, 92. Heinrich, Der Arme, 68, 69, 73. Heinrich von Meissen (see Frau- enlob). Heinrich von Morungen, 37. Heinrich von Ofterdingen, 56, 57. Heinrich von Veldeck, 37, 62, 64. Heliand, Der, 15-20, 28. Hellena. Die, 343, 375-378. Herder, 203, 230, 249, 256-365, 276, 304, 305, 308, 315, 336, 390, 400, 401. Hermann und Dorothea, 320-332, 330. Hildebrandslied, Das, 10-15, 23, 28, 62, 107, 131. Hucbald, 22. Hugo von Montfort, 137. Hutten, Ulric von, 149, 159. Hymns of the tinie of the Refor- mation, 159, 178. Iphigenie auf Tauris, 313, 313, 314, 315, 330. Iwein, 63, 68, 74. K. Kaspar von der Roen, 11, 137. Kepler, 171. Klingsor, 56, 57. Klopstock, 203, 203, 232, 234-345, 346, 348, 354, 356, 363, 364, 268, 275, 304, 305, 309, 315, 336, 390. Kiirenberger, The, 106. Lamprecht, The Priest, 64. Laocoon, 307, 314^216, 338. , Leibnitz, 171. Leich, A., 33. Lessing, 171, 198, 303, 303, 304- 233, 334, 237, 343, 344, 245, 246, 248, 252, 354, 255, 360, 264, 273, 800, 304, 305, 309, 333, 336, 341, 390, 416. Lichtenberg, 391. Logau, Friedrich von, 171, 185, 193-196. Lohenstein, 193, 197. Lord's Prayer, The, in Gothic, 5. Ludwigslied, The, 33-35. Luther, 149-159, 165, 166, 168, 174, 175, 180, 196, 232, 391. M. Marner, The, 46-48, 53. Meistergesang, Der, 143-146, 179. Messias, Der (The Messiah), 334, 335, 336, 338-242, 243, 345. Minnesingers, The, 31, 34, 36, 37, 45, 46, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 133. Minstrels, The War of the (Der Sangerkrieg), 55-57. Murner, Thomas, 148. N. Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise), 209, 217, 320-228. Nibelungen, 113. Nibelungenlied, The, 7, 26, 63, 63, 101-130, 131, 134, 136, 139. Nibelungennoth, 113. Nithart, 46. O. Oath of Charles the Bald, The, 9. Oberon, 249-252, 253. Olearius, 183, 197. Opitz, Martin, 175-179, 181, 183, 183, 189, 190, 191, 197. Oswald von Wolkenstein, 137. Otfried, The Benedictine Monk, 30-33. INDEX. 421 Parzival, 63, 88-97, 98, 105. R. Reimar the Old, 37, 48. ReiDmar von Zweter, 48, 52, 56, 57. Reynard the Fox, 26, 139, 140. Richter, Jean Paul, 171, 202, 203, 230, 267, 388-418. S. Schiller, 183, 185, 202, 208, 230, 243, 249, 258, 256, 264, 266-808, 304, 305, 809, 311, 815, 816, 818, 320, 822, 825, 826, 386, 342, 343, 390, 400, 401, 407, 408, 411. Schoolmaster, The, of Esslingen, 49. Silesian school, The first, 175,181, 185, 189, 190-191, 197. Silesian school. The second, 192, 196, 197. Societies, Literary, of the 17th century, 175, 179, 181. Songs of the People, 164-165, 185, 189. Spener, 180. Stabreim, 12. Sturm und Drang Periode, Die (The Storm and Stress Period), 288, 252, 269, 284, 810, 400. T. Tannhauser, 58-60. Tasso, 812, 313, 314, 315. Tauler, 147. Theuerdank, The, 138. Titurel, 62, 97, 98-99. Titurel, The, of Albrecht, 137. Tristan, 62, 68, 75-86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92. Trooper's Song of the 15th cen- tury, 141. Ulfilas, 4-6, 13, 28. Ulric von Lichtenstein, 52-54. Ulric von Winterstetten, 48, 50. Undaunted, The, 49. V. Virtuous Scribe, The, 56. W. Wallenstein. 280. 286, 287, 290- 292, 298, 296, 829. Walter von der Vogelweide, 31, 33, 37-46, 49, 52, 56, 85, 135, 188. Weckrlin, 160. Wernher, The monk, 48. Werther, Die Leiden des jungen (The Sorrows of Werther), 310. Wieland, 202, 203, 282, 245-256, 259, 264, 276, 304, 305, 310, 315, 386, 890. Wilhelm Meister, 312, 316-318, 324. Wilhelm Tell, 295-298. Willehalm, 97. Wolfram von Eschenbach, 33, 56, 57, 63, 68, 74, 75, 87-89, 93, 97, 99, 100, 105, 136, 138, 174. Zinkgref, 197. UCSB LIBRAKI UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 032 991