LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
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 ^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<!tliiii 
 Out— Entry into the Capital — Reception— The Old Mandarin in fcr a Journey— Ilii 
 Eesignatlon— Programme of the Exploring Trip — Espionage in Loo-Choo —Et 
 deavors t> 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 52<? 
 
 CHAPTEE XLIV. 
 
 rrade Weatbt:-r— Phosphorescence of the Sea — Ocean Nymphs — Butterflle* fn Mid 
 Ocean- The Noth-East Trades— A Gale off the Bermudas— Nautical Alms-GIvin| 
 — The G.ilf Suearo— Escape from Cape Uatteras- Fair Wind— Winter Weather— 
 The Last Day oi the V oyage — Landing in New York— Eetroapect, 084
 
 IKDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE OVERLAND ROUTE TO INDIA. 
 
 LeaTing Gibraltar— Voyage up the Mediterranean— Landing at Alexandria— DiBtribU' 
 tion of PasseugtTs— A Cloudy Day in Egypt — A Joyful Meeting — The Desert Vans— 
 We start for Suez— Cockney Fears— The Road and Station-houses— Suez — Transfer to 
 the India Steamers — Our Passengers and Crew — The Mountains of Horeb— Red Sea 
 Weather and Scenery— A Glimpse of Mocha— The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb— An 
 Extinct Hades — The Fortress of Aden — Arriyal — The Somali — Ride to the Old Town 
 — ^Population of Aden— Temperature — The Fortifications — 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. 
 
 My passage to Bombay had been secured a month before ; 
 the ticket was in ray pocket ; the horses I had ridden from 
 Granada had gone back under charge of Jose, my merry 
 guide and groom ; and finally, on the 27th of November, 
 1852, the mail steamer from Southampton to Alexandria, two 
 days overdue, was signalled from the top of Gibraltar Rock. 
 There was no tie to bind me to Europe : my travelling trunk 
 was already {racked, my bill paid, and the needful stock of 
 Gibraltar cigars laid in. My face was turned eastward ono«
 
 14 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 more, but T looked beyond the Orient, to those elder lands of 
 India and Cathay, where the sun of Egypt and of Greece 
 first rose. Long before the outward-bound passengers had 
 finished their rambles in the Alameda, I went out the water 
 gate of the town, and the sunset-gun found me impatiently 
 pacing the d(?ck of the Haddington, 
 
 Our vo} age up the Mediterranean was a dreary one, and 
 without any incident worthy of being recorded. There were 
 a hundred and seventy passengers on board, and the cabins 
 fore and aft were stowed as closely as the steerage of an emi- 
 grant ship. The raw, gusty weather we encountered, made 
 our quarters doubly disagreeable, while, owing to the comforta- 
 ble indifference of the officers, nothing was done to alleviate the 
 annoyance. In fact, it required symptoms of incipient ship- 
 fever, and the strong protest of a few resolute passengers, tc 
 procure for us the simple relief of a wind-sail in the cabin. 
 The fare resembled that of the Pacific Mail Steamers, during 
 the first year of their establishment ; and the price of passage 
 was in about the same ratio. The Peninsular and Oriental 
 Company, like all gieat monopolies, is a model of meanness. 
 
 We ran along, under the lee of the Spanish Mountains, to 
 Cape de Gatte, then crossed to the 13arbary Coast, which we 
 Bkii ted to Cape Bon, catching now and then a rainy glimpse 
 of the distant Atlas, touched at Malta, and after a vojage of 
 eleven days — time enough to have crossed the Atlantic — took 
 a pilot off Alexandria, at daybreak on the 8th of December. 
 [ looked upon the crowd of windmills on the Cape of Figs, 
 the light-house on the island of Pharos, and Pompey's Pillar 
 in the distance, with almost the feeling of one returning tc 
 his native land. A clear, balmy Egyptian morning welcome*
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF PASSENGERS. H 
 
 as after the gales of the Mediterranean, and the anchor had 
 not been dropped five minutes before the passengers began tc 
 make for the shore. We left our baggage in a heap upon the 
 deck, with the assurance that we should find it again, on arriv- 
 ing at Suez. The Egyptian Transit Company has puolished 
 very strict regulations, limiting the length, breadth, and depth 
 of trunks and portmanteaus to be conveyed across. I scrupu- 
 lously arranged my baggage according to these rules, but 
 5)und, on reaching Alexandria, that nobody else had done so, 
 and that packages of treble the prescribed dimensions were 
 accepted and forwarded without objection. Only two cwt. 
 are allowed free, extra baggage to India being charged at the 
 rate of £60 ($300) per ton. Several of my fellow-passengers 
 paid from £10 to £20 for over-weight. 
 
 The day before our arrival, a meeting of the passengers 
 was held, in order to decide by lot their respective places in 
 the omnibus vans from Cairo to Suez. As each van held six 
 persons, and there were enough of us to fill twenty-eight vans, 
 we formed ourselves into as many parties of six each, appoint- 
 ing one of the number to draw. Those parties, for instance, 
 who drew the numbers from one to ten, were sent off in the 
 first steamer from Alexandria, and the first batch of vans 
 from Cairo, and were obliged to wait m Suez for the more 
 fortunate drawers of the last numbers, who thus gained a lit- 
 tle time in the former cities. As my party had drawn one 
 of the last vans, we had the whole day in Alexandria, which 
 enabled us to get our letters and papers from home, refresh 
 ourselves with a Turkish bath, and lay in a stock of choice 
 Latakieh for the Indian part of the voyage. The hotels were 
 eiled to overflowing, more than a hundred passengers from
 
 |6 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 India having been waiting six days for our arriTal. We 
 barely succeeded in finding seats at Key's Hotel d'Europe 
 The arched entrance resembled a bazaar ; venders of tobacco, 
 whips, tarbooshes, pipes, shawls &c., thronged on all sides, 
 and the clamor of the donkey-boys was something terrible to 
 the uninitiated. I found a number of acquaintances among 
 the motley multitude, most of whom not only remembered 
 my face, but my name also, hailing me with : " Thanks be tc 
 God, Howadji T ! you are welcome back ! " 
 
 At the appointed hour, we went on board the barge, in the 
 Mahmoudieh Canal, and were towed off by a small steamer. 
 In the sweet, mild air of the evening, we sat on deck, watch- 
 ing the palm-trees by starlight, till it grew chilly and damp 
 with the heavy night-dews. "We then went below, and spread 
 ourselves out on some bare tables and benches, until 2 A. M.. 
 when we reached Atfeh. Here a better steamer was waiting 
 for us. The transfer was soon made, and in another hour wo 
 were breasting the current of the glorious old Nile — the 
 river of rivers. The morning was cold and gray, and we had 
 a dark, rainy, disagreeable day. I had never known such 
 weather in Egypt. In fact, until an hour before sunset, when 
 the clouds broke away, it was neither Egypt nor the Nile. 
 The leaves of the palm-trees were all blown one way, the Fel- 
 lahs lay in their huts for shelter, scarcely a boat was to be 
 Been on the river, the camels and Bedouins vanished from the 
 horizon of the Libyan Desert, and the dull, brown, opaque 
 ftood lost all of the mystery and solemnity of its character. 
 
 It was after dark before we reached the Barrage, at the poinl 
 of the Delta. Our Arab firemen heaved the wood into theii 
 ftimaces, until the chimney was red-hot, and 9 great mass o/
 
 A JOYFUL MEETLNG. 11 
 
 scarlet flame, pouring out of the top, flapped and snapped in 
 the wind like a Moslem banner. On we went, throwing aside 
 the turbid waves, past the glimmering lights of Slioobra and 
 the dim minarets of Boulak, till the ruddy glare of torches 
 on the Transit Wharf announced the end of our voyage. 
 Here, the passenger- were obliged to give up their carpet- 
 bags, a^* no baggage is allowed in the Desert vans. This mat- 
 ter settle<1, we got into the omnibus, drove up the broad 
 avenue of acacias, and into the great square of Cairo. 
 
 I went with my friends to the Hotel d'Europe, and found 
 my old landlord. Monsieur Nolt4, as fat and obliging as ever. 
 To my great joy, my faithful dragoman, and companion on 
 the White Nile, Achmet, was in Cairo, and as I was obliged 
 to leave early the next morning for Suez, 1 sent for him im- 
 mediately. Nothing could exceed the surprise and joy of the 
 honest Theban. We had abundance of news for each other, 
 and old experiences to talk over, and did not separate until 
 long after midnight. Some of my i)arty, by rising early, rode 
 up to the Citadel by sunrise ; but 1 contented myself with a 
 donkey-ride through the Ezbekiyeh, accompanied by Achmet 
 and the little shaylan of a donkey-boy who served me a year 
 before. 1 would have given more than I am willing to confess, 
 for the sake of staying a month in Egypt. Cairo, in the win- 
 ter, is one of the most delightful cities in the world ; and the 
 brief morning glance I had of it brought back with double 
 force the charms of my past Oriental life. 
 
 At 8 o'clock, I bade adieu to Monsieur Nolt^, and 
 Achmet and the donkey-boy, and took my place in the allot- 
 ^d van. These vehicles bear a strong resemblance to a 
 baker's cart. They are about six feet by four in size, mounted
 
 18 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 OQ a single pair of wheels, and entered by a door in th« 
 rear. Each van carries six persons, so you may conceive that 
 there is ver}' little vacant space. The driver sits on a box in 
 front, and an Arab assistant rides on the step behind. There 
 are four horses to each, which are changed about every five 
 miles. The distance to Suez — 84 miles — is divided into six- 
 teen stages, and the usual length of the journey is sixteen 
 hours. 
 
 Our six vans, forming one *' batch," as it is called, receive 
 their respective parties, and we dash out of Cairo by the Suez 
 gate. The morning is exquisitely mild, fair, and balmy, and 
 the palm-groves of the Nile, on our left, never looked more 
 beautiful. Outside of the gate there is an encampment of 
 Beveral hundred tents, which we take to be those of the pil- 
 grims preparing for their journey to Mecca. Some of the 
 party are absorbed in the Tombs of the Caliphs, and others 
 in Abbas Pasha's white Italian palace, when, as we climb a 
 long, sandy rise — the first step of the Desert — an eye that 
 knows in what direction to look, sees the Pyramids looming 
 large and blue, far away over the city. You can look at noth- 
 mg else, when you have the Pyramids in your landscape, and 
 so we watch them fade, and sink, and recede, till our horses 
 draw up at the first station in the Desert. 
 
 Yes, this is the Desert: but the young lady who goes out 
 to be married in India would not have thought it. The Nile 
 Valley is still in sight behind us; but even looking toward 
 the Red Sea, here is a broad macadamized road, filled with 
 camels, and Arabs, and donkeys, to say nothing of our six 
 rapid coaches; two telegraph towers on the sandy hills; and 
 five miles before us, the station where we shall again change
 
 COCKNEY FEARS — THE DE8EB1. 19 
 
 ikorses. It is a barren, desolate country, certainly ; but it v 
 not the Desert of one's dreams — not that silent, fiery world of 
 tawny sand and ink-black porphyry mountains in the heart of 
 Nubia, over which I had travelled a year before. 
 
 I was amused at seeing many of our passengers, immedi 
 ately on reaching Alexandria, wind great white shawls around 
 their hats, and hang green veils over their faces. While 
 crossing the Desert, although the temperature was not above 
 70® at noon, they persisted in doing the same thing, and some 
 of them even protected their eyes with spectacles, although 
 there was no glare that would have made an infant wink 
 According to their ideas, they were in constant peril of hav- 
 ing a sun-stroke, or catching the ophthalmia. My com- 
 panions on the van were inured to an Indian sun, and so we 
 threw aside all fears, and made merry from one side of the 
 desert to the other. At the fourth station we stopped an 
 hour to breakfast. Here we found a spacious two-story 
 house, with a large dining-salon, divans, Sac, and an excellent 
 breakfast for thirty persons on the table. There were several 
 neat l^edrooms for the accommodation of persons who wish 
 to make the journey more slowly. 
 
 The country through which we passed was low and monoto- 
 nous, and we saw no mountains until we approached the Red 
 Sea. There are three trees on the road — one large and two 
 small ones, but no wells. At the eighth, or half-way station, 
 we had dinner, and were allowed two hours rest. The meals 
 were all gotten up and served by natives, the Transit Ad- 
 ministration being a perquisite of the Pasha of Egypt. Con- 
 sidering that every thing has to be brought from Cairo, they 
 were very good indeed. Opposite the Central Station, Abbai
 
 20 INDIA, CHINA, ANB JAPAK 
 
 Pfislia built a large palace on the summit of a hill, whew 
 ne often went to spend a few days and breathe the health/ 
 desert air. All the supplies, of course, have to be brought 
 from the Nile — ^a distance of nearly fifty miles. I approve 
 entirely of the Pasha's taste, and should like nothing bettef 
 than the use of a suite of apartments in the palace for a few 
 •nonths. The long white front of the building, crowning a 
 naked range of gray hills, has a striking effect when viewed 
 from the Suez road. 
 
 The sun set before we left the midway station. We drove 
 on in the dark, without other incident than passing long 
 strings of camels laden with our baggage, and the specie and 
 mails tor India. Now and then some of our teams would 
 come to a halt in a streak of deep sand, and this would detain 
 all the others, for the orders are very strict that the vans 
 should keep together. There are no ascents or descents on 
 the road worth notice. A raiboad could be constructed with 
 but moderate trouble and expense.* 
 
 An hour after midnight we reached Suez, and were at 
 once driven to the Government Hotel, a dreary quadrangular 
 Duilding on the sea-shore. The rooms were all filled, of 
 course, but we obtained a cotton quilt and part of a hard 
 divan in the billiard-room, at the rate of a dollar apiece. 
 All the baggage arrived during the night. Even the specie- 
 laden camels, which left Cairo at the same time as ourselves, 
 
 * Recent mails from the East (May, 1855) announce that Said Pasha 
 has detennined to extend the Alexandria and Cairo Railroad, now nearly 
 completed, to Suez. It the work is prosecuted with the same vigor ai 
 heretofore, the transit from Alexandria to the latter place, three yean 
 will occupy but eight or ten hour
 
 SUEZ 21 
 
 j^ere at Suez early the next morning. The t^o steamers, the 
 Hindostan and Achilles, lay at the anchorage, three miles off 
 but there was a smaller steamer in waiting to take us out. 
 Our baggage, tickets, and other preliminaries, engaged all out 
 time, and I saw nothing of Suez except the white quadrangle 
 of the hotel, two ugly minarets, and a great ciuantity of mud 
 huts. I suspect these are about as much as anybody sees. 
 The American flag was flying from a lofty flag-stafi", on ac- 
 eount of the presence of the Hon. Humphrey Marshall, U. S. 
 Commissioner to China, who was on board the Hindostan. I 
 took leave of a number of good friends, who were bound to 
 Madras, Calcutta, and China, and went on board the Achilles. 
 The day was excessively hot and sultry, and the Captain of 
 our steamer received a sun-stroke while on shore, from the 
 effects of which he was confined to his berth during the whole 
 voyage. 
 
 We weighed anchor about 10 o'clock the same evening, 
 the Hindostan having left an hour before us. Our passen- 
 gers were between seventy and eighty in number, and as the 
 Achilles rated less than a thousand tons, we were crowded 
 rather too much for comfort, though in all respects we fared 
 better than we did on board the Haddington. The stewards! 
 were mostly Hindoos, the sailors the same, the cooks two Por- 
 tuguese and a Chinaman, and the firemen hideous, monkey- 
 faced negroes from Mozambique. Among the passengers were 
 a Portuguese General, the Grovernor of Mozambique, a Turkish 
 Bey, Ambassador to Yemen, and a Transylvanian, who for 
 fifteen years was Court Physician to Runjeet Singh at 
 Lahore, and was then bound for Cashmere and ThibAt 
 Amid such a motley gathering of character and nationalities
 
 t2 vJWDIA, CHINA, AND JAFAN. 
 
 there was oo lack of diversion. For myself, when 1 drani 
 Bombay water, at© re-il curry, hailed the waiter as " kbit- 
 mudgar ! " and was addressed by bim as " sabib ! " I felt that 
 I was already in India. 
 
 The morning showed us the shores of Egypt on the one 
 band, and the red mountains of the Sinaitic Peninsula on the 
 other. The Gulf of Suez is so narrow that you have a dis- 
 tinct view of both shores, alike hopelessly sterile, but en- 
 chanting in outline and color. The thousand-fold shadows of 
 those sandstone mountains, tinted with the fairest rose, pur- 
 ple, and violet hues, are pencilled with the delicacy of a min- 
 iature painting. The loftier range of Horeb, which rises 
 inland, presents a sharp, serrated outline. I tried to per- 
 suade myself that I saw the peak of Sinai, but the ship's 
 officers insisted that it was not visible from the Gulf of Suez. 
 In addition to the absorbing interest of the scene, the shores 
 had a grand continental significance. Here was Africa, there 
 Asia. Like the Bosphonis which parts Europe and Asia, or 
 the straits of Gibraltar, where Africa confronts Europe, this 
 part of the Red Sea possesses a grandeur beyond that which 
 Nature gives it. 
 
 In the afternoon we passed Ras Mohammed, at the ex- 
 tremity of the Peninsula where the Gulf of Akaba joins that 
 of Suez. We then lost sight of the Arabian shore, while 
 only the higher peaks of the mountains in tlie deserts of 
 Egypt and Nubia were visible. On the 13th, we entered the 
 tropics, and each day thenceforth showed a marked increase 
 of temperature. By the noon observation on the following 
 day, we were in Lat. 21° 30', off the port of Djidda. and no! 
 than a hundred miles, in a straight line, from Mecca—
 
 REli SEA WEATHER AND SCENEBY. 23 
 
 probably the nearest approach I shall ever make to the Holy 
 City. 
 
 After passing St. John's Islands, off the ancient port of 
 Berenice, we lost sight of both shores until the evening of the 
 I6th, when Djebel Tor, or Teir, a lofty volcanic island, ap- 
 peared on the left. Early the next morning we made Djebe? 
 Sogheir, and ran along close to its shores. It is about a 
 thousand feet in height, and resembles a huge mass of cin- 
 ders. Some palms were growing on the northern slope, but 
 there was no sign of habitation. We had a violent head- 
 wind, or rather gale, similar to those which are frequently 
 met with off the mouth of the Gulf of California. Yet, in 
 Bpite of this strong current of air, the thermometer stood at 
 S5° on deck and 90° in the cabin. For two or three days we 
 lad a temperature of 90° to 95°. This part of the Red Sea is 
 considered to be the hottest portion of the earth's surface. In the 
 summer the air is like that of a furnace, and the bare red moun- 
 tains glow like heaps of live coals. The steamers at that 
 time almost invariably lose some of their stewards and fire- 
 men. Cooking is quite given up, and the panting and swel 
 tering passengers drink claret and water and eat dry biscuits. 
 
 In the afternoon we had a glimpse of the town of Mocha 
 about ten miles distant. It is built on low land, but a range 
 of mountains rises in the background. With a telescope, I 
 could plainly distinguish the white citadel, and a long line of 
 low, flat-roofed buildings, looming through the hot vapors of 
 the coast. The famous Mocha coffee does not grow in the 
 vicinity of the town, but is brought from the valleys of the 
 interior. Hodeida, further up the coast, is another port for 
 its exportation, but the foreign trade of both these places ha$
 
 24 INDIA, CHINA, .VND JAPAN. 
 
 been almost entirely destroyed by the rise of Aden. The cof 
 fee is taken down to the latter port in the native coasters, oi 
 by caravans from the interior, and there shipped for Europe and 
 other parts of the world. Much of the so-called Mocha coffee, 
 I am told, is actually grown in Abyssinia. 
 
 We now approached the Straits of Bab-el-^Iandeb, th? 
 " Gate of Tears," which we passed about midnight. The pas* 
 sao^e for vessels is about three miles wide, and not at all dan- 
 gerous in clear weather. The Arabian and Abyssinian shores 
 are hilly, but not mountainous. Had not the weather been so 
 hazy, we should have seen the lofty range of the Danakil, on 
 the Abyssinian side. The latitude of the Straits is about 
 12° 40', about the same which I had attained the previou 
 winter, on the White Nile. 
 
 On the next morning we were in the Indian Ocean. The 
 barren volcanic headlands of Arabia Felix rose on our lefl, 
 point beyond point, till at last a larger and loftier mass was 
 declared to be the Rock of Aden. The pale-green water 
 through which we were sailing told of reefs and shoals, and 
 the ship made a wide curve to the eastward before entering 
 the bay. The main land of Arabia presents a level, sandy 
 coast, with few indentations, and the Bay of Aden is formed 
 by two narrow peninsulas which project from it at right angles, 
 their extremities shooting up suddenly into clusters of black, 
 ragged volcanic cones, about 1,500 feet in height. No de- 
 scription can give any idea of the savage sterility of these 
 mountains. They are masses of cinders and scoriae, glowing 
 as if with still unextinguished fires, and the air around them 
 quivers with the heat radiated from their sides. Their formi 
 exhibit all the violence of the convulsion which created them
 
 THE F0RTRES8 01'^ ADEN. 2fk 
 
 heaps of V^urned fragments, cliffs divided by deep fissures, and 
 sharp, inaccessible cones, shooting upward like congealed 
 flames from the rubbish of extinct craters. Some profane 
 tourist speaks of Aden as resembling " Hell with the fires 
 put out " — a forcible simile, but very much to the point. 
 
 The town and fortress of Aden occupy the eastern pe- 
 ninsula, which was obtained from the Sultan of Lahadj, in the 
 year 1839, partly by force and partly by treaty. The sum of 
 $250,000 was paid to the Sultan by the East India Company, 
 and the chieftain prudently sold what was already more than 
 half wrested from him. Nevertheless, his son and successor 
 did his best to have the bargain annulled, offering to refund 
 the money. This was of course rejected, and the place was 
 for a number of years exposed to assaults from the Arabs of 
 Lahadj, who were violently opposed to the sale, and to the 
 establishment of a foreign colony on the coast. In spite of all 
 precautions, robbery and murder were constantly perpetrated 
 in the town and camp, until the fortifications on the land-side 
 were completed. At present, there is tolerable security inside 
 of the walls, but no one ventures many miles into the interior, 
 unless attended by a strong armed escort. The harbor of 
 Aden was known to the Romans, and its importance as a 
 point of communication with the Indies seems to have been 
 understood by the Turks, as there are still the remains of for- 
 tifications^ which were constructed in the time of Solyman 
 the Magnificent. The rock is about six miles in length, by 
 from two to three in breadth, and its highest point is said tc 
 oe 1 ,800 feet above the sea. 
 
 We ran in, along the western base, until on turning a small 
 headland, we came upon a sheltered roadstead, in which half a 
 2
 
 26 JMDIA. CHINA, AND JAl AN. 
 
 dozen EDglish colliers and a number of small Arab craft Ja} 
 at anchor. Here our own anchor dropped, and the ship was 
 presently surrounded by boats rowed by half-naked blacks, 
 some of whom made themselves entirely so, and commenced 
 diving and splashing in the water, in the hope of getting 
 shillings thrown over for them to fish up. A few long, one- 
 story white houses and some heaps of Newcastle coal were 
 scattered over a level piece of sand, at the head of a cove, and 
 on a slight eminence towards the sea there was a group 
 of cane huts, built in the Robinson Crusoe style. On this 
 eminence there is a sunken battery, barely visible from the 
 water, but said to be strong enough to sink any hostile vessel 
 which may attempt to enter the harbor. A few days before 
 our arrival, a French corvette, which had been cruising in the 
 Indian Ocean, came into Aden with her guns ready shotted 
 and manned, in full expectation of being fired upon, her com 
 mander supposing that Louis Napoleon had commenced the 
 invasion of England. I went ashore in a small boat, rowed 
 by four Somali, or natives of the African coast, near Cape 
 Guardafui. They appear to be a low variety of the Arab race, 
 having dark brown skins, deep-set eyes, long, straight noses, 
 and handsome, curling hair. They are less partial to mutton- 
 fat than the tribes on the Red Sea, but their long locks, which 
 are naturally of a glossy blue-black hue, are dyed brown, or 
 dark red, which imparts a goat-like, satyric air to their lank, 
 nimble figures. Their language is a very bad Arabic, whi(;h 
 I could with difficulty understand. No sooner had we landed 
 than we were surrounded with the owners of donkeys and 
 horf^s, anxious to hire them to as for a ride to Aden. The
 
 BIDE TO THE OLD TOWN. 27 
 
 aid town lies on the other side of the Peninsula, und is no< 
 visible from the landing-place. 
 
 I took a horse and rode off at once, followed by the at- 
 tendant native. The road, which is alternately of sand and 
 macadamized volcanic cinders, follows the curve of the bay 
 towards the northern end of the rock, where there is a strong 
 gate, affording the only land communication with the sandy 
 Arabian plains beyond. The natives are here obliged to give 
 up their arms, owing to which precaution there are now but few 
 crimes committed, in comparison with former years. As I 
 rode along, between the black, scorched hills, and over the 
 blistering sand, amid the almost insupportable glare of white 
 Doonday heat, my eyes turned to seek the dazzling blue and 
 violet-green tints of the bay with an exquisite sense of relie£ 
 After two or three miles of this travel, the road turned inland, 
 psceuding the less abrupt slopes of the hills. I came at length 
 to an artificial pass, about forty feet deep, by twenty wide, cut 
 through the comb of the central ridge. It was closed by a 
 ponderous double gateway, and the wall of circumvallation 
 crossed by an arch. An Indian sepoy stood guard at the gate 
 as I passed through. The road was filled with Arabs from the 
 interior, bringing camel-loads of their produce to market, and 
 with the mongrel natives of the African coast. Among the 
 latter I readily distinguished the natives of Adel, the country 
 lying south of Abyssinia. Major Harris, in his " Highlands 
 of Ethiopia," calls them the '-mild-eyed Adael," and truly 
 the expression of their features is feminine in its mildness and 
 gentleness. They, as well as the natives of Aden, speak Arabic 
 substituting only the Hindoostanee word " mhib " (master,/ 
 for the " Eowadji " of Egypt.
 
 ^ INDIA; CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 Beyond the pass, the town of Aden came into view, h 
 lies in a circular sandy basin, almost enclosed by black moun- 
 tains of volcanic cinder. The buildings, which are spaciou? 
 huts of wood, cane or mud, one story in height, are scattered 
 over an extent of three quarters of a mile. The dry bed of 
 a torrent which divides the town, proves that it sometimes rains 
 at Aden, although I was informed that a heavy fall of rain 
 does not occur more than once or twice a year. A new mosque, 
 a small Christian Church, and a tall tower (built, I believe, for 
 an observatory), were the only objects which distinguished them- 
 selves amid the mass of huts. There were two or three feeble 
 attempts at cultivating small square yards of ground, and 
 these pigmy specks of green gave life and cheerfulness to a 
 scene which would otherwise have been depressing from its 
 utter desolation. The only water on the peninsula is brackish 
 and disagreeable, and is rarely used in an unmixed state. The 
 Arabs bring a better kind from the opposite headland, for 
 which they are paid at the rate of $1.50 per 100 gallons. 
 The only things the place affords are fish and oysters; all 
 other supplies must be imported. There are a number of 
 shops in the town, kept by Hindoo merchants, and there for 
 the first time I saw the Parsee, or Fire- Worshipper, wearing; 
 the high chintz mitre which is peculiar to his sect. 
 
 I made the tour of the airy bamboo huts on the beach, 
 where the 78th Regiment was quartered. The soldiers were 
 lounging lazily in the shade, for since the wall of defence has 
 been finished, their duties are very light. Some of the 
 •fficers had brought their families with them, so that there was a 
 small English community. The temperature of Aden ranges 
 encrally from 80° to 90°, with a maximum of 98°. and 8
 
 THE FORTIFICATIONS. 
 
 mmimum of 75^, being more equable than almost any othei 
 climate in the world. As there is no miasma from vegetable 
 matter, it is considered healthy. An officer who had been 
 stationed there more than four years, informed me that out of 
 ninety men whom he brought with him, he had only lost two. 
 
 I rode through the bazaar in the native part of the town 
 The principal commodities were coarse cotton stuffs, dates, 
 sugar, spices, and bad tobacco. I dismounted at a small coffee 
 shop, but both the coffee and the narghileh were so intolerably 
 bad that I gave them to the nearest native. A large crowd of 
 Arabs collected around me, and the most intelligent of them 
 asked me the news from Damascus and Stamboul. They said 
 there had recently been war in Yemen, and that Shekb Hoa 
 sayn was then at the head of the tribes. Leaving the town, 
 I returned to the western side of the peninsula and visited 
 the Turkish Wall, which is the main defence of the place, on 
 the land side. The Rock of Aden resembles that of Grib- 
 raltar in being attached to the main land by a narrow strip 
 of sand, but instead of presenting an unbroken line of pre- 
 cipice, as at the latter place, the hills form a crescent, with 
 the concave side toward the north. The points of this 
 crescent are connected by a powerful wall, further protected 
 by a deep moat and sloping glacis, and the heights at each end 
 are crowned with batteries. Immense sums have been ex- 
 pended on these fortifications, which, though far from being 
 completed, now afford perfect security against foes by land. 
 
 The value of Aden as a naval station has been much ex- 
 aggerated. It has been called the " Gibraltar of the East," 
 perhaps with reason, since, like Gibraltar, it can be of no use 
 ^thont a fleet. At present it could scarcely be called im-
 
 30 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 pregnable, but were it so, might readily be starved into capit 
 ulation, as Gibraltar might be, if England should lose hei 
 naval supremacy. Nevertheless, as a necessary station od 
 the Overland Route, its possession is of the utmost impor 
 tance to England, and it belongs to her geographically ^ aa 
 the Fillibusters say. The fortifications are most admirablj 
 planned. The skill and genius exhibited in their design im- 
 pressed me far more than the massive strength of Gibraltar 
 [ never felt more forcibly the power of that civilization which 
 follows the Anglo-Saxon race in all its conquests, and takes root 
 in whatever corner of the earth that race sets its foot. Here, 
 on the farthest Arabian shore, facing the most savage and 
 inhospitable regions of Africa, were Law, Order, Security, 
 Freedom of Conscience and of Speech, and all the material 
 advantages which are inseparable from these. Herein con- 
 sists the true power and grandeur of the race, and the assu- 
 rance of its final supremacy. 
 
 The population of Aden, which was little more than 1,000 
 at the time it was acquired by England, now amounts tc up- 
 wards of 20,000. It has almost ruined Mocha and the other 
 Arabian ports on the Red Sea, having usurped the greater 
 part of their commerce. It is a free port, and the native 
 merchants are but too willing to transfer their trade to it, 
 thereby escaping the burdensome and indiscriminate duties 
 exacted by the Turkish Government. The resident merchanti 
 in Mocha, Hodeida and Djidda have petitioned the East India 
 Company to establish Customs at Aden, but without efi'ect. 
 
 The Achilles took on board three hundred tons of coal, 
 and at half-past nine in the evening fired her signal gun foi 
 the passengers to come oiF. One young lady, however, re
 
 THE INDIAN OCEAN. 3l 
 
 mained nearly two hours longer, tlie steamer waiting soleij on 
 her account. Less consideration was shown to a lucklesa 
 native, who had fallen asleep in one of the boats and was not 
 observed until we were under way. He was immediately 
 thrown overboard in spite of his entreaties, and left to take hia 
 chance of reaching the shore, which was half a mile distant 
 There was a collier lying about a hundred yards off, but he 
 would not be able to get on board of her so late at night, and 
 the forcing of him into the sea, under the circumstances 
 showed a most criminal disregard of human life. 
 
 On the following day, some mountains about a hundred 
 miles east of Aden were in sight ; they were our last view of 
 Araby the Blest. We were from fifteen to twenty miles dis- 
 tant from the shore, and the loveliest tints of violet, lilac and 
 rose-color concealed its sterility. After leaving the Red Sea, 
 the temperature became a few degrees cooler, the thermometer 
 showing 80° at night, and 85° to 87° at noon. The Indian 
 Ocean was calm and peaceful, the violence of the north-east 
 monsoon being over, so that, although it blew in our faces, it 
 only served to freshen our nights and noons. We took our 
 meals under an awning on deck, and some of the passengers 
 preferred sleeping there. Where this open-air life is possible 
 at sea, a long voyage is endurable — otherwise, rather a thou 
 sand miles on land, than a hundred on the waters. 
 
 Our fare was so much better than that on board the Had 
 dington, that we aid not complain much. The coffee and tea, 
 however, gave evidence of astonishing skill, for I never im- 
 \gined it possible that these beverages could be so badly made. 
 The passengers were often quite unable to distinguish oni 
 Ijom the other. On the other hand we had capital bread, the
 
 32 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAK, 
 
 baker being a Chinaman, who kept secret his manner of pre 
 paring it. The curry was genuine, and would have compen- 
 sated for many deficiencies in other respects. On Christmas 
 Day we had a handsome banquet on deck, and turkey was 
 liberally dispensed to all on board. The evening was spent ic 
 festivities, the passengers dancing polkas on the quarter-deck, 
 the wild Africans yelling and clapping hands amid-ships, and 
 the sailors performing hornpipes on the forecastle. 
 
 The distance from Aden to Bombay is 1,664 miles, and 
 after having been at sea nine days, with a prospect of getting 
 out of coal, we grew at last somewhat impatient. Finally, 
 on the morning of the 27th of December — precisely a month 
 after I embarked at Gibraltar — the cessation of the monsoon, 
 the sultriness of the air, the appearance of the clouds, and the 
 arrival of a dove on board, denoted the proximity of land. I 
 have rarely approached any country with a keener interest. 
 Scarce Vasco de Grama himself, after weathering the Cape 
 of Storms, could have watched for, the shores of India with 
 more excited anticipation. That vision of gorgeous Ind, the 
 Empress far away in the empurpled East, throned on the best 
 grandeurs of History and canopied by sublime tradition, was 
 about to be confirmed, or displaced for ever. Near at hand, 
 close behind the blue sea-horizon, lay that which would either 
 aeighten the fascination of her name, or make it thenceforth 
 but an empty sound to the ear of Fancy. 
 
 Therefore, in spite of the breathless heat. I keep watch 
 from one of the paddle-boxes. At noon there is a cry of 
 " Land ! " from the foremast, and in a short time the tops of 
 mountains are faintly discernible on the horizon. These are 
 the Western Ghauts, which extend along the Malabar Coast*
 
 aPPROACfl lu -BuMBAY. 33 
 
 irom Cape Comorin to Surat. The island of Salsotte, north 
 of Bombaj, next rises, and ere long we distinguish the light 
 house, at the entrance of the harbor. A considerable extent 
 of coast, north and south, is visible — the mountains picturesque 
 and beautiful in their forms, and exhibiting, in their drapery 
 of forests, a marked contrast to the desert hills of Arabia, 
 which we have last seen. We are now near enough to distin- 
 guish the city, the dwellings of the residents on Malabar Hill, 
 and the groves of cocoa-nut and date trees which cover the 
 island. The sea swarms with fishing-boats, and our native 
 pilot is already on board. We are signalled from the light- 
 Ihouse, and being five days behind our time, are no doubt anjf 
 iously looked for. 
 
 The B.'iy opens magnificently as we advance. It lies be- 
 tween the islands of Bombay and Salsette and the mainland^ 
 and must be fifteen or twonty miles in length. Both shores 
 are mount. linous and thiukly covered with the palmy growths 
 of the tKipics. All is confusion on board, and I also must 
 prepare lo set foot on the land of Brahma, Vishnu uid Sbiva
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OP BOMBAY. 
 
 A Foretaste of India— Entering Bombay Harbor— I Eeach the Shore— My First Eide 
 In & Palanquin— Mr. Pallanjees Hotel— Appearance of Bombay— Its Situation — The 
 First Indian Eailroad— English Hospitality— American Consuls and Eesidents— The 
 Parsees — Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy— His Family and Eesidence — Parsee Faith and 
 Ceremonies— Bridal Processions — A Drive to Malabar Hill — Tropical Gardens — Tax 
 <m Palm-Trees— A Hindoo Temple— The Jeejeebboy Hospital— Dr. Bhawoo Dajee. 
 
 Before reaching Bombay, I had a slight foreshadowing of 
 Indian life. The servants on the steamer being all Indians, 
 and the passengers mostly belonging to the East India service, 
 many peculiarities of every-day life were already familiar to 
 me. I had mastered the mysteries of curry; I learned to 
 say " tiffin " instead of " lunch ; " I became accustomed to 
 
 eing addressed as " sahib," and even ventured so far into 
 Hindustani, as to call out boldly at table : "pani do ' " (give 
 
 e water) or : " saf hasan lao ! " (bring a clean plate). Thug 
 the first bloom of the new land was lost to me — all those 
 nameless slight peculiarities which surround you with an en- 
 chanted circle when you first plunge yourself into another 
 climate and another race. Nevertheless, there was enougb
 
 GOING ASHORE. 38 
 
 left to make my landing on Indian soil a circumstance of no 
 ordinary character. 
 
 We came slowly up the splendid bay, until within half a 
 mile of the town. The shores being low, nothing but aw array 
 of brown tiled roofs, and a small Gothic spire, was visibk 
 behind the crowd of vessels at anchor. On the other hand, 
 however, the islands of Eiephanta and Panwell, and the raogea 
 of the Mahratta Ghauts, were gorgeously lighted up by the 
 evening sun. But little time was allowed for admiring them ; 
 the anchor dropped, and a fleet of boats, conveyicg anxious 
 friends and relatives, gathered about us. The deck wag 
 covered with pyramids of baggage, all was noise and confusion, 
 here shouts of joy and there weeping, here meeting and there 
 parting, many scenes of the drama of life enacted at the same 
 moment. Finding myself left wholly to my own re&ources, I 
 set about extricating myself from the bewilderment, and ac- 
 cepting the first native who addressed me, I embarked for the 
 shore before the other passengers had thought of leaving. 
 " Rupees," said the master of the boat, holding up three of 
 his fingers. " ^A;," (one) I answered. Up went two fingers. 
 '' j&A;," again ; and so I went ashore for one. We came to a 
 Btone pier, with a long flight of steps leading down to the 
 water. The top of it was thronged with natives in white 
 dresses and red turbans. Among them were the runners of 
 the hotels, and I soon found the one I wanted. At a small 
 customs office on the pier, my baggage was passed unexamined, 
 on my declaring that I had but two pounds of Turkish to- 
 bacco. A line of cabs, buggies and palanquins with theii 
 bearers was drawn up on the pier, and in order to be as Indiai 
 «8 possible, I took one of the latter.
 
 36 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAP A*. 
 
 It was not a pleasant sensation to lie at full length in a 
 cnshioned box, and impose one's whole weight (and I am by 
 no means a feather) upon the shoulders of four men. Ii is a 
 conveyance invented by Despotism, when men's necks w^re 
 footstools^ and men's heads playthings. I have never yet 
 been able to get into it without a feeling of reluctance, as if I 
 were inflicting an injury on my bearers. Why should they 
 groan and stagger under my weight, when I have legs of my 
 own ? — and yet, I warrant you, nothing would please them 
 less than for me to use those legs. They wear pads on the 
 shoulders, on which rests the pole to which the palanquin is 
 suspended, and go forward at a slow, sliding trot, scarcely 
 bending their knees or lifting their feet from the ground. 
 The motion is agreeable, yet as you are obliged to lie on your 
 back, you have a very imperfect view of the objects you pass. 
 You can travel from one end of India to another in this style, 
 but it is an expensive and unsatisfactory conveyance, and I 
 made as little use of it as possible, in my subsequent journeys. 
 
 As I was borne along, I saw, through the corners of my 
 eyes, that we passed over a moat and through a heavy stone 
 gateway. I then saw the bottoms of a row of fluted Grecian 
 pillars — a church, as I afterwards found — then shops, very 
 much in the European style, except that turbaned Hindoos 
 and mitred Parsees stood in the doors, and finally my bearers 
 came to a halt in a wooden verandah, where I was received by 
 Mr. Pallanjee, the host of the British Hotel. I was ushered 
 up lofty flights of wooden steps to the third story and in* 
 stalled in a small room, overlooking a wide prospect of tiled 
 roofs, graced here and there with a cocoa-nut or brab palia 
 The partitions to the rooms did not reach the ceiling; there
 
 4.PPEARANCE Oh BOMBAY. 37 
 
 ^ei*e nc glass windows, but merely blinds, and every breeze 
 that came, swept through the whole house. The servants were 
 mostly Portuguese, from Goa, but as India is especially the 
 country of servant and master, every person is expected to 
 have one for his own use. I chose a tall Hindoo, with one red 
 streak and two white ones (the signs of caste) on his forehead, 
 who, for half a rupee daily, performed the duties of guide, 
 interpreter, messenger and valet de chambre. Nothing can 
 exceed the respect shown to Europeans by the native ser- 
 vants. They go far beyond the Arab and Turkish domestics 
 of the East, or even the slaves in Egypt. No Russian serf 
 could have a greater reverence for his lord. As a natural 
 consequence of this, they are noted for their fidelity; the 
 ayahs, or nurses, are said to be the best in the world. 
 
 Bombay, as a city, presents few points of interest to a 
 traveller. It is wholly of modern growth, and more than 
 half European in its appearance. It is divided into two parts 
 — the Fort, as it is called, being enclosed within the old Por- 
 tuguese fortifications and surrounded by a moat. It is about 
 a mile in length, extending along the shore of the bay. 
 Outside of the moat is a broad esplanade, beyond which, on 
 the northern side, a new city has grown up. The fortifica- 
 tions are useless as a means of defence, the water of the moat 
 breeds mosquitos and fevers, and I do not understand why 
 the walls should not have been levelled, long since. The city 
 within the Fort is crowded to excess. Many of the streets 
 are narrow, dark and dirty, and as the houses are frequently of 
 wood, the place is exposed to danger from fire. The popula- 
 tion and trade of Bombay have increased so much within the 
 last few years, that this keeping up of old defences is a great
 
 38 
 
 rm^IA. PHIVA. AND JAPAN 
 
 inconvenience So t'ai arc tl'c old practices preserved, that ai 
 one particular gate, where there was a powder magazine twenty 
 years ago, no person is "permitted to smoke. Southward of 
 the Fort is a tongue of land — formerly the island of Colaba 
 but now connected by a causeway — on which stands the light 
 house. To the north-west, beyond the city, rises Malabar 
 Hill, a long^ low height, looking upon the open ocean, and 
 < ompletely covered with the gardens and country-houses of 
 the native and European merchants. 
 
 The mainland is distant from Bombay about fifteen mile?, 
 across the bay. Steamers run daily to Panwell, whence there 
 is a mail-coach to Poonah, the old Mahratta capital, about 
 seventy miles distant. Northward of the Island of Bombay, 
 lies the large Island of Salsette, which is connected with it by 
 two causeways, and Salsette has lately been united to the 
 mainland by a bridge, the strait, at the northern point of the 
 island, being less than half a mile wide. This bridge was 
 built by the Railroad Company, who have already finished 
 thirty-five miles of the great road which is to connect Bom- 
 bay and Calcutta. The rails were laid as far as Tanna at the 
 lime of my visit, and the trains commenced running shortly 
 afterwards. The engineers were occupied in locating that 
 part of the line which crosses the Grhauts, and which is the most 
 difficult and expensive portion of the road. The East India 
 Company guarantees 5 per cent, annually on the stock, for the 
 period of twenty years, owing to which encouragement, (with 
 out which, indeed, the undertaking were impossible,) sharei 
 were at a premium. 
 
 During my brief stay in Bombay, I made some acquaint 
 ances among the English residents, to wliom T wa;^ indebted
 
 AMERICAN CONSULS AND RESIDENTS. 39 
 
 for much cordial hospitality. The English in IndiS, are said 
 to be the most hospitable people in the world, even to those 
 who bring no letters of introduction. The kindness of mj 
 friends, and especially of Capt. R. Baird Smith, of the 
 Bengal Engineers, supplied me with letters for all the principal 
 towns in the interior, so that I had double assurance of a 
 friendly reception. There were no American merchants in 
 Bombay at the time, nor even a Consul. Appointments had 
 been made, and Consuls had gone out, but none of then- 
 found the profits of the office equal to its expenses. The last 
 one had appointed Mr. Dossabhoy Merwanjee, one of the 
 principal Parsee merchants, his agent, but the latter had no 
 authority to act in a Consular capacity. The house of Dos- 
 sabhoy Merwanjee & Co., however, is actively engaged in 
 American trade, most of the vessels which come out from our 
 ports being consigned to it. I was indebted to the members of 
 the firm for much kindness. The only American reiidonts were 
 some missionaries, who have established a school 'xnd church, 
 and a Boston ice merchant, who was a man of 3ome impor- 
 tance in such a climate. The ice was preserved in a large 
 stone rotunda, and sold at the rate of four annas (J 2 cents) 
 the pound. The consumption is increasing, much use of it 
 being now made by the physicians, and with the best effect. 
 
 My good fortune in making the acquaintance of Dossabhoy 
 Merwanjee, and other members of the celebrated Lowjee 
 Family, to which he belongs, gave me some insight into native 
 society here — an imperfect experience, it is true, but enough 
 to satisfy me that in few of the English works on India 
 which I have read, has justice been done to the character of 
 the native population. The Parsees, especially, form a com-
 
 40 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAfAA. 
 
 munity distinguished for its intelligence, enterprise and public 
 spirit. It would be no exaggeration to say that more thau 
 half the wealth of Bombay is in the hands of this class. Sir 
 Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, the Parsee knight, presents one of the 
 most striking examples of commercial success to be found in 
 the history of any country. This gentleman, whose splendid 
 benevolence has imperishably connected his name with his 
 native city, was the architect of his own fortune. By pru- 
 dence, economy and intelligence he rose from one success to 
 another, till at present his fortune is estimated at three crores 
 of rupees ($15,000,000.) He has given away in charities of 
 various kinds upwards of $2,000,000, and scarcely a day 
 passes without recording some further evidence of his gene- 
 rosity. Among other works which owe their existence to 
 him — and for which he was knighted by the Queen, being the 
 first native who ever received that distinction — are the 
 Hospital which bears his name, the Causeway from Bombay 
 Island to Salsette (called Lady Jamsetjee's Causeway), and 
 the Aqueduct for supplying the city of Poonah with water. 
 I had a glimpse of him one evening, as his carriage passed me 
 in the street : he was then verging upon his eightieth year, 
 and very infirm. His eldest son, Cursetjee, inherits his en- 
 terprise and boldness, and possesses a large fortune of his own 
 making. Another of his sons has distinguished himself as 
 a Persian scholar, and has published a work on the Era of 
 Zoroaster. 
 
 Dr. Bhawoo Dajee, a distinguished Hindoo physician 
 kindly accompanied me to Sir Jamsetjee's town residence, a 
 large and elegant mansion within the fort. The old gentle- 
 man was absent, but we were received by his son Sorabiee
 
 FAITH AND CUSTOMS OF THE PARS££B. 41 
 
 who inquired after Mr Charles Norton, of Cambridge, and 
 showed me a North American Review , containing Mr N.'f 
 biography of Sir Jamsetjee. The residence is very elegantly 
 furnished, in a style combining European comfort with Oriental 
 display. Portraits of the different members of the family occu- 
 pied the walls, and in the centre of the principal saloon stood 8 
 splendid testimonial, in wrought silver, three feet high, pre- 
 sented to Sir Jamsetjee by three of the Bombay merchants. 
 
 The Parsees settled on the Malabar Coast about eight 
 centuries ago, after their expulsion from Persia. They are 
 as is well known, followers of Zoroaster, recognizing one 
 Grood and one Evil Principle, who contend for the mastery of 
 the Universe. They worship the sun, as the representative 
 of God, fire in all its forms, and the sea. Their temples con- 
 tain no images, but only the sacred fire, and though they have 
 fixed days for the performance of various rites, they repeat 
 their prayers every morning, soon after sunrise. The dead 
 are neither buried nor burned, but exposed to the air within 
 a walled enclosure, on the summit of a hill. The bodies of 
 the rich are protected by a wire screen, until wasted away, but 
 those of the poor are soon devoured by birds of prey. The 
 children are generally married at from two to five years of 
 age, and brought up together, until of a proper age to assume 
 the duties of married life. Most of the marriages are cele- 
 brated in the winter season, and the streets continually re- 
 sounded with the music of the bridal processions. First came 
 a string of palanquins and carriages, filled with children of 
 both sexes — and very feeautiful are the Parsee children — clad 
 in silk bespangled with gold, and with pearl and emerald 
 ornaments in their ears. Then a band of native musicians,
 
 •2 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 generally playing " Lucy Long," or " Carry me back." &c. 
 after them the bridal dowry, covered with massive extinguish 
 era of silver, and the procession was always closed by a con 
 course of women, whose loose floating mantles of scarlet 
 crimson, orange, yellow and purple silk, gleamed in the sun, 
 
 " Like tulip beds, ot different shape and dyes, 
 Bending beneath the invisible west- wind's sighs." 
 
 My friend Cursetjee Merwanjee, accompanied me one 
 afternoon in a drive around the environs of Bombay. Aftei 
 passing the esplanade, which is thickly dotted with the tents 
 of the military and the bamboo cottages of the officers, we 
 entered the outer town, inhabited entirely by the natives- 
 The houses are two or three stories in height, with open wood- 
 en verandahs in front, many of which have a dark, mellow old 
 look, from the curiously carved posts and railings of black 
 wood which adorn them. Mixed with the houses are groups 
 of the beautiful cocoa-palm, which rise above the roofs and 
 hang their feathery crowns over the crowded highway. Out- 
 side of the town hall is shade and the splendor of tropical 
 bloom. The roads are admirable, and we rolled smoothly 
 along in the cool twilight of embowered cocoa, brab and date 
 palms, between whose pillared trunks the afternoon sun poured 
 streams of broad golden light. The crimson sagittaria 
 flaunted its flame-like leaves on the terraces; a variety of 
 the acacia hung thick with milky, pendulous blossoms, and 
 every gateway disclosed an avenue of urns leading up to the 
 verandah of some suburban palace, all overladen with gor- 
 geous southern flowers. We rode thus for miles around and 
 over Malabar HiU, and along the shores of the Indian Ocean.
 
 TAX ON PALM-TRKE8. 43 
 
 antil the hills of Salsette, empurpled by the sunset, shone in 
 the distance like the mountains of fairy land. 
 
 I had thought the Government of Egypt despotic, foi 
 taxing the poor Nubias a piastre and a-half (7^ cents) an- 
 nually for each of their date-trees, but the East India Com- 
 pany exacts from one to three rupees (50 cents to $1.50) on 
 each tree according to its quality. As the principal produce 
 of the trees is tari^ a kind of palm wine, used only by the 
 natives, such a tax appeared enormous, and gave color to what 
 I had already heard, that the resources of the country are 
 mercilessly drained by the Company, for the purpose of car- 
 rying out its expensive system of annexation, and at the same 
 time paying the regular yearly dividend to the stockholders. 
 However, I had determined, on entering India, to clear my 
 mind of all preconceived opinions, and to judge of the effects 
 of British rule as impartially as possible. I shall therefore 
 draw no conclusion at present from this single instance of 
 oppression. 
 
 In the course of our excursion we visited a Hindoo Tern 
 pie on the western shore of the island. It is dedicated to the 
 five principal divinities, each of whom has his separate shrine. 
 We were not permitted to go further than the doors, but the 
 attendants removed the hangings and showed us the figures of 
 the gods. Their names were in the Mahratta language, and I 
 do not remember the Sanscrit appellation of any except Maha- 
 deo. The temple occupied the summit of a small hill, ana 
 was approached by ghauts, or flights of steps, of hewn stone 
 Near it there was a much older shrine, with an image in a 
 dark recess. A tiger, rudely sculptured, sat in the outei 
 norch, facing it Several bells hung from the roof, and each
 
 |4 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 of the natives who accompanied us rang one of these, both on 
 passing in, and out. 
 
 Dr. Bhawoo Dajee took me to visit the Jamsetjee Jee 
 jeebhoy Hospital, the name of which declares its founder. 1\ 
 IS a one-story stone building, in the Gothic style, and divided 
 into a number of wards, where the destitute Christian, Jewish, 
 Hindoo, Parsee, or Mahometan invalid is taken in and well 
 cared for. There were about three hundred patients at the 
 time of my visit. The hospital is very clean, kept in excel- 
 lent order, and the patients appeared to be enjoying as much 
 comfort as was possible, in their condition. Opposite the 
 hospital is the Grant Medical College, an excellent institution, 
 which was then attended by about thirty native students. 
 Bhawoo Dajee himself is a graduate of this College, where 
 he received the gold medal, and was besides awarded a prize 
 of six hundred rupees for an essay on Infanticide. As a phy- 
 sician and surgeon he is among the first of his class in Bom- 
 bay, and in tnat refinement and liberality which distinguishes 
 the gentleman and the scholar, he would be a noted man any 
 where. I esteem it a particular good fortune which brought 
 me to his acquaintance.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 T H B C A V E-T EMPLES OF ELEPHANTA. 
 
 Hindoo and Egyptian Antiquities— The Hindoo Faith— The Trinity— A Trip to Ele- 
 phanta— Scenery of the Bay— Landing on the Island— Front View of ihe Cave- 
 Tempi e—Portugu?se Vandalism— The Colossal Trinity— The Head of Brahms- 
 Vishnu— Shiva— Remarkable Individuality of the Heads— The Guardians of the 
 Bhrine— The Columns of Elephanta— Their Type in Nature— Intrinsic Dignity of aU 
 Religions— Respect for the Ancient Faiths— The Smaller Chambers of the Temple— 
 The Shrine of the Sterile— Tamarind Trees— Smaller Cave-Temples— Return to 
 Bombay Island — Sunset in the Botanic Garden. 
 
 While in Bombay, I took a step further back into the past, 
 than ever in all my previous experience. In Egypt, you are 
 brought face to face with periods so remote, that they lie more 
 than half within the realm of Fable ; yet there the groping 
 antiquarian has pierced the mystery, and leads you down from 
 dynasty to dynasty, on the crumbling steps of hieroglyphic 
 lore. But in India, — the cradle, as many believe, of the 
 Human Race — we have no such helps, and while we gaze 
 upon the tokens of a faith which was no doubt, pre-existent 
 to that of the Pharaohs, science sits down baffled and leavea 
 as to Wiinder in the dark. No Wilkinson or Champollion 
 writes on the altars of the gods : " B. C— so and so much." 
 Ths whole backward vista of Time is thrown open, and we are
 
 46 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 free to retrace the ages, even to the days when there wer« 
 giants. I no longer marvel at any of the ancient faiths; I 
 only wonder that those vast, strange and gorgeous systems of 
 mythology ever should have disappeared from the religions of 
 the world, while such types of them remain in existence. 
 
 The Hindoo faith, in its original and pure form, was s 
 consistent monotheism, and no doubt is still so understood bj 
 the more intellectual of its professors. The parent Deity 
 Brehm, was an invisible and Omnipotent God, the maker of 
 Heaven and Earth, and like the Divinity of the Buddhists. 
 too great for mortal comprehension. The three deities wh£ 
 sprang from him may be regarded rather as personificationE 
 of his attributes than as distinct personalities. These deities, 
 who form the Trimurti, or Hindoo Trinity, are Brahma, the 
 Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and Shiva, the Destroyer. 
 Among the emblems of the latter is a new-born infant, show- 
 ing that Life is continually reproduced from Death. From 
 these three spring a host of inferior deities, who, with their 
 progeny, amount to the number of thirty-three millions, of 
 whom three millions are evil, and the remainder good. Here 
 the pieponderance of Good over Evil in the government of the 
 world, and consequently the beneficence of the ruling Deity, 
 is strikingly acknowledged. The original faith has greatly 
 degenerated, as all the old religions have, and among the 
 ignorant millions exists only in the most extraordinary super- 
 stitions and the grossest forms of idolatry; but no one can 
 deny the simple grandeur of its first conception. 
 
 However, as I am a traveller, and not a theologian, let me 
 return to the subject, which is my visit to the Cave-temples 
 of Elcphanta. These celebrated remains are upon the Island
 
 8CENERV OF THE BAY. 47 
 
 »f Elephanta, in the bay, and about seven miles distant from 
 Bombay. I was accompanied by the captain of an . American 
 bark. We engaged a bunder-boat, a craft witli a small cabin, 
 Bomething like the kangia of the Nile, embarked at the 
 Apollo pier, and went up the bay with the flood tide. We 
 passed the fort and floated along the shore as far as Mazagaun, 
 where the wind favored us for a run out to the island. The 
 Bcenery of the bay is beautiful, the diff'erent islands rising 
 from the water in bold hills covered with vegetation, while the 
 peaks of the Malabar Ghauts cut their sharp outlines against 
 the sky, on the opposite side. Butcher's Island, which lies 
 between Bombay and Elephanta, is comparatively low and flat, 
 and has a barren appearance, but it contains a number of 
 European bungalows, and seems to be a favorite place of resi- 
 dence. Elephanta, on the contrary, which is about a mile in 
 length, is lofty, and covered with palm and tamarind trees. 
 Its form is very beautiful, the summit being divided into two 
 peaks of unequal height. 
 
 The water is shallow on the western side, and as we ap- 
 proached several natives appeared on the beach, who waded 
 out two by two, and carried us ashore on their shoulders. A 
 well-worn foot-path pointed out the way up the hill, and in a 
 few minutes we stood on the little terrace between the two 
 peaks, and in front of the temple. The house of the sergeant 
 who keeps guard over it still intervened between us and the 
 entrance, and before passing it I stood for some time looking 
 icross to Bombay and Salsette, enchanted with the beauty of 
 the prospect before me. More than half the charm, I found, 
 lay in the rich, tropical foliage of the foreground. 
 
 Turning, I passed around the screen of some baaana treet
 
 48 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 and under the boughs of a large tamarind. The original 
 entrace to the temple is destroyed, so that it is impossible to 
 tell whether there was a solid front and doorway, as in the 
 Egyptian rock-temples, or whether the whole interior stood 
 open as now. The front view of Elephanta is very picturesque. 
 The rock is draped with luxuriant foliage and wild vines, 
 brilliant with many-colored blossoms, heightening the myste 
 rious gloom of the pillared hall below, at the farthest ex 
 fcremity of which the eye dimly discerns the colossal outlines 
 of the tri-formed god of the temple. The chambers on each 
 side of the grand hall are open to the day, so that all its 
 sculptures can be examined without the aid of torches. The 
 rows of rock-hewn pillars which support the roof, are sur- 
 jiounted by heavy architraves, from which hang the capitals 
 and shattered fragments of some whose bases have been 
 entirely broken away. The Portuguese, in their zeal for de- 
 stroying heathen idols, planted cannon before the entrance of 
 the cave, and destroyed many of the columns and sculptured 
 panels, but the faces of the colossal Trinity have escaped 
 mutilation. 
 
 This, the Trimurtij is a grand and imposing piece of 
 sculpture, not unworthy of the best period of Egyptian art. 
 [t reminded me of the colossal figures at AbooSimbel, though 
 #ith less of serene grace and beauty. It is a triple bust, and 
 with the richly-adorned mitres that crown the heads, rises to 
 fche height of twelve feet. The central head, which fronts 
 the entrance, is that of Brahma, the Creator, whose large 
 calm features, are settled in the repose of conscious power m 
 if creation were to him merely an action of the will, and not 
 an eflFort On his right hand is Vishnu, the Preserver, re
 
 THE COLOSSAL TRINITY. 49 
 
 presented in profile. His features are soft and femifiinei full 
 of mildness and benignity, and are almost Grecian in theii 
 outlines, except the under lip, which is remarkably thick and 
 full. The hair falls in ordered ringlets from under a cap 
 something between a helmet and a mitre. The right arm 
 which is much mutilated, is lifted to the shoulder, and from 
 the half-closed hand droops a lotus-blossom. The third mem- 
 ber of the Trinity, the terrible Shiva, the Destroyer, is on the 
 left of Brahma, and, like Vishnu, his head is turned so as tc 
 present the profile. His features are totally different fron 
 the other two. His forehead is stern, ridged at the eyebrows 
 his nose strongly aquiline, and his lips slightly parted, so a» 
 to show his teeth set, with an expression of fierce cruelty ano 
 malignity. A cobra twists around his arm and hand, which 
 grasps the snake by the neck and holds it on high, with hood 
 expanded, ready to strike the deadly blow. 
 
 Nothing astonished me more, in this remarkable group, that 
 the distinct individuality of each head. With the exception 
 of the thick under lip, which is common to all three, the 
 faces are those of diff'erent races. Brahma approaches the 
 Egyptian and Vishnu the Grecian type, while Shiva is not 
 unlike the Mephistopheles of the modern German schooL 
 The group stands in an excavated recess, or shrine, at the 
 entrance of which, on each side, are two colossal statues. 
 They are more rudely executed, and the faces exhibit a grosser 
 type, the nose being broad and slightly flattened, and the lips 
 thick and projecting. The hand holds the lotus-flower, and 
 the eyes are closed, but the expression of the face is that of 
 liappy reverie rather than sleep. Had the temple been Budd- 
 hist, I should have said that they were meditating their final 
 
 3
 
 50 INDIA, CHINA. AND JAPAN. 
 
 beatific absorption into the Divine Essence. The jame figures 
 are seen in other parts of the temple, and their aspect 
 perfectly harmonizes with the symbols introduced into tK« 
 piirely ornamental parts of its architecture. 
 
 This reminds me of the columns supporting the roof, 
 which were unlike any others I had seen. The lower part ifl 
 square, resting on a plinth, but at about half the height it 
 becomes circular and fluted — or rather filleted, the compart- 
 ments having a plane and not a concave surface. The capital 
 is a flattened sphere, of nearly double the diameter of the 
 dhaft, having a narrow disc, with fluted edges, between it and 
 the architrave. I knew these columns must have some type 
 in Nature, and puzzled myself to find it. On visiting one of 
 the smaller temples on the eastern side of the island, the re- 
 semblance flashed upon me at once — it was the poppy-head. 
 The globular capital and its low, fluted crown, are copied 
 almost without change from the plant, and these two symbols 
 — the poppy and the lotus — ^with the closed eyelids and placid 
 faces of the colossal guardians, give the whole temple an air 
 of mystic and enchanted repose. One involuntarily walks 
 through its dim and hushed aisles with a softer step, and 
 speaks, if he must speak, in an undertone. 
 
 There is something in every form of religion worthy of 
 general respect ; and he who does not feel this, can neither 
 auderstand nor appreciate the Art which sprang from "he 
 ancient Faiths. Our teachers of religion speak with sincere 
 and very just horror and contempt of all forms of idolatry, 
 yet, under pain of their anathemas, I dare assert, that he who 
 can revile Osiris and Amun-Re, is unworthy to behold the 
 ironders of Thebes. The Christian need not necessarily be ai
 
 RESPECT FOR THE ANCIENT FAITHS. 61 
 
 iconoclast: nay more, his very faith, in its perfect charity 
 and its boundless love, obliges him to respect the shrines 
 where the mighty peoples of the ancient world have bowed 
 and worshipped. Besides, there is Truth, however dim and 
 eclipsed, behind all these outward symbols. Even the naked 
 and savage Dinkas of Central Africa worship trees ; and so do 
 I. The Parsees worship the sun, as the greatest visible mani- 
 festation of the Deity; and I assure you, I have felt very 
 much inclined to do the same, when He and I were alone in 
 the Desert. But let not the reader, therefore, or because I 
 respect the feeling of worship, when expressed in other forma 
 than my own, think me a Pagan 
 
 The walls of the great hall of the temple of Elephanta, 
 are divided into tablets, or compartments, each of which con- 
 tains, as a central figure, the colossal statue of some god, sur- 
 rounded by a host of inferior deities. Few of these have 
 escaped the fanatical fury of the Portuguese, but sufficient 
 remains to show the bold and masculine character of the art 
 which produced them. The smaller figures are introduced 
 above and at the sides of the central god, and some of the 
 tablets have a striking resemblance to pictures of the old 
 Italian masters, representing a saint surrounded by a cloud 
 of cherubs. In the absence of all inscriptions, it is impos- 
 sible to determine at what time the temple was excavated. 
 The architecture, judged by its style alone, appears to be 
 the antecedent of the Egyptian, which would then represent its 
 perfect development, modified somewhat by being transplanted 
 to a diflerent soil. But I believe that most ethnographers 
 ftow consider that the ancient Egyptians and Hindoos aw
 
 52 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 kiiidred branches of one stock, whose seat is to be looked foi 
 somewhere in Central Asia. 
 
 The side chambers of the temple are much smaller, ana 
 the walls are covered in the same manner, with sculptureo 
 tablets. Some of the figures have been recently smeared with 
 red paint, a sign that they are still worshipped by some of 
 the Hindoo sects. At the foot of a flight of steps which 
 leads to the chambers on the left of the grand hall, two 
 curious figures of dogs seated on their hind legs, which have 
 been very lately excavated, are erected on pedestals. Il 
 requires an experienced antiquarian to tell whether they are 
 dogs, lions, or dolphins. There are three or four small in- 
 closed apartments resembling the adyta of the Egyptian 
 temples. In the centre of each is a low pedestal, or platform, 
 upon which stands a stone about three feet high, with a round- 
 ed top — the Lingam, which is one of the most ancient as well 
 as common of the Hindoo symbols. One of these, in parti cu- 
 far, is still in great repute among the natives, and is resorted 
 to by the Hindoo women, who seat themselves upon it for a 
 certain length of time, as a cure for barrenness. I was told 
 that an English lady of Bombay, whose marriage had not had 
 the desired result, was induced to try the experiment, which, 
 to her great surprise, w&s successful. 
 
 After spending some time in the larger temple, two natire 
 boys showed us the way to the two smaller ones, which are 
 nigher up the hill, on its eastern side. Other visitors haC 
 eome in the mean time, and a company of sailors weie em- 
 ployed in knocking down the pods of the tamarind trees. 
 The husk incloses a thick paste, wrapped around the seeds, 
 with an intensely acid, but agreeable taste. From the gap
 
 THE SMALLER TEMPLES. 68 
 
 between the two peaks of the islands, we looked down into a 
 Icvely little valley on the opposite side, gradually widening t( 
 the water, near which was a native hamlet. I longed to pitcl 
 my tent in one of its palm-groves, and to spend a week iu 
 tudying the strange gods in the caverns above. 
 
 The smaller temples have been much mutilated. The 
 entrances are nearly filled up with rubbish, and the innei 
 chambers are now the abodes of the jackal and the serpent. 
 They were too dark to be properly seen without torches, which 
 we had not, but I could perceive that many of them contained 
 the upright stone, and the usual sculptured tablets on the 
 walls. The outer courts of both were supported by elegant 
 poppy-headed pillars, a few of which have escaped destruction 
 Excavation would no doubt reveal much that is now bidden, 
 but the Governnment has no taste for such things, and there 
 are few archaeologists in Bombay. The most that has been 
 done is to build a cottage and station a sergeant at the en- 
 trance of the great temple, in order to prevent visitors from 
 injuring the sculptures. 
 
 The afternoon shadows were growing long by this time, 
 admonishing us to return. The wind had risen, and as it was 
 not entirely favorable, we were obliged to run up the bay, past 
 a point of the Island of Salsette, before we could make a tack 
 for the city. Instead of going on to Bombay, however, wu 
 landed at the pier of Mazagaun, and drove to the Botanic 
 Garden, near the Governor's residence, at Parell. The garden 
 is laid out with great taste, and filled with a variety of rare 
 tropical treee, among which are several superb Brazilian palm» 
 [ there saw the first banyan- tree, but the specimen was too 
 young to justify its fame. The flaming blossoms of the
 
 64 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 azalias, pelargoniums and sagittarias first deepened in hue. 
 and then grew dusky and indistinct in the fading flush of 
 sunset, as I wandered through the palmy alleys, breathing ol 
 "nard and cassia," and the voluptuous Persian rose. But 
 the short southern twilight sank away, and 1 rode back to 
 Bombay, with the silvery, meteoric lustre of the zodiacal 
 light gleaming over my path* 
 
 i
 
 CffA^PTER IT 
 
 A NAUTCH AMONG THE PAE8EES. 
 
 New- Years Day— A Tropical Gift— AParsee Bungalow— Our Reception— Chdwinj; thi 
 Betel-Nut -The Nautch-Girls— Their Dances— Supper— Prejudices of Oaste— The 
 Bengalee Dance— A Gilded Bridegroom— Piercing Music -Ship-Building in Boaibay 
 -Education of the Natives — Their Appeals to Parliament 
 
 The morning of New- Year's Day, 1853, dawned clear and 
 beautiful. Lord Falkland, Governor of the Bombay Presi 
 dency, gave a splendid ball at his residence at Parell, on the 
 previous evening. The simple ceremony of calling upon him 
 would have insured me an invitation ; but as I carelessly neg- 
 lected to do this, and therefore missed the ball, I accepted the 
 more readily an invitation to attend a navtch at the country 
 residence of my Parsee friends, on the following evening. A 
 servant came to my room early on New-Year's morning, with 
 a tray heaped with fruit, a large bunch of roses, and a polite 
 note from Dossabhoy Merwanjee Wadya and his associates, 
 containing the compliments of the season, and an invitatioD 
 to be at Parell at half-past nine o'clock. I could not help 
 being struck with the difference between New- Year in Bom- 
 bay and in New York. While my friends were making theii
 
 56 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 round of calls, muffled in furs, and witn red noses and frostj 
 hands, I was sitting on an open verandah, as lightly clad as 
 possible, looking down on the palms and papayas in the gar 
 dens below, and listening to the songs of birds gathered oe 
 all the house-tops, my New- Year's gift consisting of a pum 
 melow (a fruit resembling the shaddock, but of much finer 
 flavor), a pile of oranges and golden bananas, and a pawn, 
 for chewing, wrapped in a gilded betel-leaf. 
 
 Three countrymen — all who were in Bombay, with the 
 exception of the Missionaries — were also invited, as well as 
 two Englishmen, but the remainder of the guests were native, 
 Parsee and Hindoo. A pleasant drive of five miles brought 
 us to the country-house, which was built on land granted to 
 the family by the East India Company, on account of the 
 services they have rendered as ship-builders. It was a spa- 
 cious one-story bungalow, and brilliantly lighted up for the 
 occasion with hanging lamps of cocoa-nut oil, which gives out 
 a very delicate and pleasant perfume while burning. We 
 were ushered into a hall, around the sides of which were 
 couches made in imitation of sofas, and not so lazy and luxu- 
 rious as the Turkish divan. The floor was carpeted, and the 
 musicians and nautch-girls were seated in a group in one 
 lorner. 
 
 Dossabhoy, and our friends, Hirjeebhoy, the head builder 
 m the Bombay dock-yard, Jamsetjee and Cursetjee, received 
 as cordially, and immediately on taking our seats, bunches of 
 fragrant roses were presented to us, over which fresh rose-water 
 was sprinkled from a silver vase. Another servant then appeared 
 with a tray oi pawns, which the Parsees were already chewing 
 rigor lusly. Indeed, you rarely see a native, of whateve?
 
 CHEWING THE BETEL-NUT. 5? 
 
 condition, without a pawn Id his mouth. They are composed 
 of chips of betel-nut, cardamum seeds and betel-leaf, to which 
 8ome add lime made from mussel-shells. In order to be like 
 he rest, I commenced chewing, and found the taste very much 
 ike sassafras, but more astringent. It is by no means dis« 
 agreeable, and must be rather conducive to health than other 
 wise, or it would not have become a universal custom. Both 
 the leaf and nut are excellent tonics.* The juice only is swal- 
 lowed, but the practice of chewing makes both the mouth and 
 teeth, for the time, of a bright red color. I was quite shocked 
 on landing, to see so many natives (as I thought) spitting 
 blood. 
 
 In a short time the musicians had finished tuning their 
 instruments, and the two nautch-girls (bayaderes) took theii 
 places on the floor. The word bayadere is a French invention 
 and is unknown in India. These girls were about tweny-five 
 years of age, small in stature, dark-brown in complexion, plain 
 in features, and inert and languid in expression. They were 
 far from being as handsome or graceful as the Almchs who 
 danced for us in the temple of Luxor. They wore full robes 
 of a gay color, descending nearly to the ancle, but confined by 
 a broad shawl so far below their hips as to restrict the motion 
 
 * Prof. Johnston says : " On those who are accustomed to use it, the 
 oetel produces weak but continuous and sustained exhilarating effects. 
 And that these are of a most agreeable kind, may be inferred from the 
 very extended area over which the chewing of betel prevails, among 
 Asiatic nations. In the damp and pestilent regions of India, where th» 
 natives live upon a spare and miserable diet it is really very condvr 
 to health. Part of its healthful influence in fever-breeding districts _ 
 probably to be ascribed to the pepper-leaf which is chewed along witi 
 the betel-nut." 
 
 3»
 
 58 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 of their feet. They had also shawls around th^ir heada 
 trowsers of red silk, and slippers. The musicians commenced 
 singing a melancholy, monotonous measure, with a lively ac- 
 companiment on their lutes. The girls joined in the singing 
 occasionally lifting their arms with the utmost deliberation, 
 or slightly shifting the position of their feet. Now one ad- 
 vanced a few steps and as slowly retreated, now the other. I 
 aever saw a dance so spiritless and inexpressive. 
 
 Some of the songs, on the other hand, pleased me exceed- 
 ingly. Less wild and barbaric than the Arab chants, they 
 are pervaded with the same expression of longing and of love^ 
 and though sung by voices which were occasionally shrill and 
 harsh, still preserved a touching air of tenderness. Aftei 
 witnessing two or three dances, we were called into the other 
 room, to a collation of fruits and sweetmeats, in which the 
 Parsees joined us, contrary to the usual custom of their sect. 
 This restriction, however, does not seem to be a part of their 
 faith, but to have resulted from a long residence among the 
 Hindoos, who maintain such a religious distinction of caste, 
 that to the Brahmin, the mere touch of one of the lower 
 orders is defilement, and can only be removed by bathing 
 and change of apparel. The Mussulmans in India have 
 adopted the same notions, and will neither eat with Christians 
 nor drink from the same vessels. 
 
 During the interval, the nautch-girls made a change in the 
 liashion of their dress, by binding their robes in such a man- 
 ner that they reached only to the knees, and giving theii 
 turbans a flattened form, like those worn by the natives of 
 Bengal. In fact, the dance which succeeded was called th< 
 Bengalee. It diiFered little from the preceding, except that
 
 THE BENGALEE DANCE 59 
 
 the measure was more animated, and the languid shuffling of 
 the feet done in somewhat quicker time. The song which 
 accompanied it was translated to me, and ran thus : " My be- 
 loved Nabob, take me to Calcutta : with the howdah on the 
 elephant, the saddle on the horse." This is the style of 
 poetry of which these songs are usually composed, but some 
 of them cannot be so safely translated There are nautch 
 girls who have a fame among the natives equal to that of 
 Taglioni or Ellsler in Europe, and who are paid at the rate 
 of five hundred rupees a night, but they are to be found at 
 the Courts of the native sovereigns in Northern India, where 
 the na,utches are got up on a grand scale 
 
 The previous evening, on my way home from tlie Botani 
 Garden, I met a magnificent marriage procession in the streets 
 of the native town. First came a large number of beautiful 
 children in open vehicles, the pearls and spangles of their 
 dresses glittering in the light of torches, which were bornf 
 on long poles, and waved in riotous jubilee to the sound cf 
 the music. Behind them were boys in jewelled robes, on 
 horseback, with servants holding golden-fringed umbrellas 
 above their heads. The music — a piercing medley of fifes, 
 drums, and lutes — came next, and then the bridegroom^ 
 mounted on a white horse. He was a man of about twenty, 
 clad in splendid robes of white silk, embroidered with gold 
 His turban gleamed with pearls, and his cheeks and forehead 
 were covered with gold leaf. He was a living El- Dorado, but 
 sat so grave and motionless on his horse, staring straight 
 before him, that he might have been taken for a bedizened 
 itatue. A servant, holding a silver screen resembling a fan. 
 valked on each side of him, and behind him came the dowry
 
 6U INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 borne on men's heads. It was contained in twcr^ty cr thirl\ 
 miniature houses, arranged so a? to form a quadrangle, with a 
 temple in the centre. 
 
 I passed a number of houses illuminated for marriage fes- 
 tivities, and from one of them there came the sound of a flute 
 more shrill and piercing, I have no doubt, than any other 
 flute in the world. Its tones were so intensely shrill as to 
 become tangible. They were shot out of the open windows 
 like barbed arrows, and whenever any one struck you it was 
 followed by a keen sense of pain. They flew whistling down 
 the street, rattling against the walls, transfixing all civilized 
 ears and torturing all susceptible nerves. I shudder, even 
 now, to think of the smarts I endured while passing that 
 house. 
 
 The Wadya family, to which my host belonged, have been 
 for more than half a century the ship-builders of Bombay. 
 The vicinity of the teak forests lias occasioned the building of 
 several ships of the line for the British Navy in the dock- 
 yard there. The first of these, the Minden^ has been in 
 service for nearly fifty years, and her condition still attests 
 the excellence of her construction. It was between her 
 decks, while lying ofi" Fort McHenry, that Francis Key wrotn 
 our " Star-spangled Banner." The present head-builder 
 Ilirjeebhoy Merwanjee, had on the stocks at the time of my 
 visit, two steamships of eighteen hundred tons each. He was 
 nearly three years in England, studying his profession, and 
 has published a work in English, giving his views of English 
 institutions and society. The Government has done much 
 for the natives in the establishment of such institutions as the 
 Grant Medical College, the Elphinstone Institution, an(J
 
 THE NATIVES AND THE GOVERNMENT. bl 
 
 Others , but much still remains to be done. The amount ex 
 pendecl for educational purposes in the Bombay Presidency 
 is about £12,500, which is insuffi3ient to support any general 
 system of instruction. The Board of Education consists of 
 three English residents and three natives ; in its operation it 
 embraces instruction in the Mahratta and Guzeratee, as well 
 as the English and Hindostanee languages. The Elphinstone 
 Institution has at present about 1,400 scholars, the great pro- 
 portion of whom are studying in the English department. 
 They are, however, first required to pass in the vernacular 
 languages. The respect in which such men as Mountstuart 
 Elphinstone and Sir Charles Forbes are held by the natives, 
 shows how truly they appreciate every effort for their improve 
 ment, and how eagerly they would respond to any measure 
 which had their good in view. 
 
 The more intelligent of the natives took advantage of the 
 approaching renewal of the East India Company's Chartei 
 (which expired in April, 1854), to form associations and draw 
 up memorials for presentation to Government, in which they 
 represented the disadvantages of the present system in its effect 
 on the native population. The movement was rather too late 
 to be productive of much effect, but it was interesting as show- 
 ing the temper of the native subjects in India. I saw none 
 of the memorials except that of the Bombay Association, which 
 was drawn up by Dr. Bhawoo Dajee. It was an admirably 
 written document, moderate and respectful, but at the same 
 time firm and dignified in its tone, stating with great clear 
 iies9 the causes of complaint, and suggesting means of redress
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BANGHY CABT 
 
 I'reparations for Departnre-Warninsrs— Filial Gratitude— The Banghy Cart— A Kighfc 
 Gallop thr( ugh Bombay— The Island Road— Ferry to the Mainland— Deep jtiiam ol 
 the Ba3ghy-Cart— Morning Scenery— The Bungalow— Breakfast— The Sun as a Phy- 
 sician—An Army of Bullocks— Climbing the Ghauts— Natural Pagodas— The Sum- 
 mit—A Kind Sergeant— The Second Day — Resemblance to Mexico— Natives and 
 Villages— The Menagerie Man in Egypt— An English Cantonment — Dhoolia — The 
 Lieutenant and his Hospitality— A Rough Road— Accident— "Waiting in the Jungle— 
 The Bullock-Cart— Halt at Seerpore. 
 
 As I was bound for China, and could spare but a very short 
 time for my journeys in India, I remained only a week in 
 Bombay. The information given me by my English friends 
 did not furnish a very satisfactory prospect of visiting Delhi 
 and the Himalayas, and reaching Calcutta, within the space o^ 
 two months, without a much greater expenditure of money 
 than I was prepared to make. The usual mode of travelling 
 aad up to that time been by palanquin, a mode as costly as it 
 is disagreeable. The post-road to Agra, however, had recently 
 beer made passable for a small cart which carried the mails, 
 and just before my arrival a hanghy-cart had commenced run- 
 ning from Bombay tolndore. a distance of 375 miles, or about
 
 PREPABATI0N8 FOR DEPARTURE. 
 
 63 
 
 half way to the former city. A hanghy meaus, I believe, a 
 package, or something of that sort, and the cart answers to a 
 package-express. Mr. Cowasjee Ruttonjee, the contractor, 
 assured me that the trip would positively be made within six 
 days, travelling day and night. The fare was four annas 
 (twelve cents) per mile, or nearly $47, exclusive of expenses 
 by the way. This, for India, was considered cheap travelling, 
 and I resolved to make a trial of it. I was obliged to give up 
 the idea of taking a servant with me, and to trust entirely to 
 about twenty words of Hindostanee, which I had picked up on 
 board the Achilles. Many were the evil predictions made to 
 me by most of my English friends : " You can never stand the 
 fatigue; you can get nothing to eat; you will be perfectly 
 helpless if any thing happens," etc. But an old officer, who 
 had travelled not only over all India but nearly all the world, 
 wisely comforted me. " Never mind what these people say," 
 said he ; " they are accustomed to travel luxuriously, with re- 
 tinues of servants. Depend upon it, you will get along without 
 the least difficulty." 
 
 I sent my heavy baggage by the steamer to Calcutta, lim- 
 ting myself to two small carpet-bags, which was all that 
 Cowasjee would take in his cart. My Hindoo servant, witl 
 the one red and two white stripes on his forehead, procured 
 me a native tailor, who made me several pairs of pantaloons, 
 of a shape so remarkable that I have not been able to wear 
 them, to this day. Perhaps as I grow older, my form wiU ap 
 proach nearer to the standard of Hindoo Art, and they will 
 .hen become serviceable. The striped servant looked very 
 forlorn and disconsolate, as he carried my carpet-bags from 
 Pallaniee's Hotel to the Express Office, ou the evening of the
 
 S4 IHDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 3d of Jai lary. " my master ! '* he bewailed : * I am werrj 
 Borry to part with you. You are my father, and I am youi 
 8on. my father, I shall never forget you ! " Considering 
 that he was of a dark-brown complexion, forty years old, and 
 rather ill-favored, I was not anxious to accept the relationship^ 
 but, not to be wanting in parental regard, I gave him nearly 
 double the wages agreed upon. Not only did he show no grat 
 itude, but importuned me for more — so little filial affection i? 
 there in India ! 
 
 The banghy-cart was in readiness before Cowasjee's office, 
 when I arrived. It was a square, springless buggy, with a 
 white canvas top, and extremely heavy shafts and wheels. 
 My baggage and the packages for the interior were stowed in 
 the body of the vehicle, the driver and I took our seats, 
 Cowasjee inclined his body and touched his Parsee mitre, and 
 away we dashed into Monument-square. A groom ran at the 
 horse's head till we were fairly under way, and then climbed 
 upon the box behind us. We went out of the gates of the 
 Fort, crossed the esplanade, and entered the busy native town^ 
 where we encountered two marriage processions. The red 
 torches glittered on pearls and gold embroidery, on the silver 
 pyramids of the dowry, and the rainbow silks of the women. 
 Our horse, frightened by the noise of the drums and cymbals 
 dashed off furiously, making directly for a blank wall, before 
 which several persons were passing. The driver seemed pow- 
 erless, and we came instantly upon the wall, catching one of 
 the natives between it and the wheel. I sprang forward, seized 
 the reins and drew the horse around just in time to save the 
 Dian's life, though not, I fear, to prevent his being badly in 
 jared. The horse now started at a mad gallop down tht
 
 THE ISLANDS AT NIGHT. 65 
 
 stieet, wMcli was crowded with people. The driver stooped 
 down and raised to his month something which, in the dark 
 ness, resembled a bottle. He did indeed take a horn — and 
 blew the most terrible blasts, as we careered onwards ike 
 Shiva, the Destroyer, the white-robed, ghost-like natives scat- 
 tering on all sides before us. I grasped tie top of the cart 
 tightly and awaited the result, for the horse swerved from 
 side to side in such a manner that a crash seemed inevitable. 
 However, in less time than it has taken to write these lines, 
 we were outside of Bombay, and the cessation of noise and 
 glare restored the animal to his senses. 
 
 There was no moon, but we had the brilliant starlight of 
 the tropics, and for an hour after leaving, the zodiacal light 
 stood like a shining obelisk in the west. The road was broad, 
 and as smooth and as hard as a floor, and in less than an hour 
 we reached the first station. Another horse was in readiness, 
 and not less mettlesome than tbe first, so that we made fully 
 six miles an hour. The road was embowered in mango, syca- 
 more, palm and tamarind trees, whose breath made the night 
 warm and balmy. Our lamps shed transient gleams on the 
 rich masses of foliage, and I was so delighted with the pictures 
 thus brought out of the darkness on either hand, that 1 
 reached the end of the gardens and of Bombay Island with 
 regret. A solid stone causeway extends across the shallow 
 strait to the Island of Salsette, whose hills now rose dimly 
 before me. In these hills are the caves and temples of Ken 
 *ry. During my stay at Bombay I had not time to visit them 
 but I was informed that they are on a much smaller scale thaB 
 those of Elephant-.i, though so num rous that the nativer 
 reckon their number at nine hundred,
 
 66 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 We changed horses twice on the island of Salsette, once a1 
 ft village of mud and bamboo huts, so thoroughly Egyptian in 
 appearance that I could have believed myself on the banks of 
 the Nile. At midnight we reached the northern end of the 
 island, which is about twenty miles in length. We roused 
 the sleepy ferrymen, who dragged the cart upon a platform 
 laid across two small boats, and slowly rowed us over to the 
 mainland of India. The strait, as well as I could distinguish, 
 is very crooked, and not more than a quarter of a mile in 
 breadth. Up to this time I had not spoken, nor been spoken 
 to, for a very good reason, but no sooner was the cart hauled 
 ashore, than the boatmen came up to me exclaiming : " kishti- 
 walla : chirramirry / " (As much as to say ; " we are the 
 boatmen, give us a gratuity." I remembered the words, and 
 found them next morning in my vocabulary.) I gave them a 
 small fee, and then the driver came up, saying " Salaam, sahib 
 — chirramirry / " So there could be no doubt as to the mean- 
 ing of " chirramirry." 
 
 With a new driver and a new horse I again started for- 
 ward. The country was more open and undulating, and all 
 signs of gardens and residences disappeared. Now and then 
 we passed a mud village, and about every hour changed horses 
 at a rude station, before reaching which the driver blew 
 furious peals upon his trumpet. In consequence of this, we 
 generally found the horse in waiting, and experienced no 
 delay in changing. The night wore away, the waning moon 
 came up, and then the morning-star ; the travelling natives, 
 encamped among the trees, began to bestir themselves, and 
 with the first streak of daylight their heavy ox-wagons were 
 *.n motion. Now came the horn again into play, and thence
 
 MORNING SCENERY. 67 
 
 I'oitli there was ao cessation of its warning blasts. Everj 
 tiling must give uaj to the banghy-cart. Woe to the native 
 who, having heard the horn half a mile behind him, still dozed 
 on, allowing his plodding cattle to keep the best track. Down 
 jumped the groom, battering the beasts out of the way, and 
 a touch of the driver's whip not seldom quickened the 
 senses of their masters. No one dared to remonstrate, for the 
 banghy-cart is attached to the Post- Office Department. 
 
 Morning showed me an open, rolling country, studded 
 here and there with clumps of trees, and showing occasional 
 Bigns of cultivation. As it was then the dry season, the grass 
 was brown and withered, and the soil parched. The sea was 
 out of sight, and the broken ranges of the Ghauts before me, 
 seemed near at hand. The road was broad and good, and 
 bridged over the gullies, but so beaten by continual travel, 
 that we swept along in a cloud of dust. I hailed the rising 
 sun with the fervor of a Parsee, for the night had been so 
 cold, that in spite of a thick great-coat, I was chilled to the 
 very bones. I was getting hungry, also, and knowing that we 
 must be approaching a bungalow, I took out Forbes's Hindos- 
 tanee grammar, and began searching for the words to express 
 my wants. Having prepared a sufficient stock of nouns, and 
 the verbs " bring " and " give," I deemed myself capable of 
 achieving a breakfast. 
 
 But first, it is necessary to explain the meaning of a bun- 
 galow. I believe it is the general term in India for a resi- 
 dence of the better class, as the English, except in large cities, 
 always speak of their houses as " bungalows." On all the 
 principal lines of road throughout the country, the Govern- 
 ment hag erected bungalows, at intervals of from ten to twenty
 
 d8 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 milos, for the accommodation of European travellers. Th( 
 natives have their serais, resembling the Turkish khans, and 
 unless travelling by post, are not admitted into the bungalows 
 The latter are plain but substantial cottages, furnished onlj 
 with tables, chairs, and bedsteads, and generally containing 
 two dining and two sleeping apartments. There are cut- 
 houses for the residence of a native servant, called a peon, who 
 has charge of the establishment, and for the cooks, or mess- 
 men, who are obliged to procure supplies and prepare meals 
 according to a fixed scale of prices. For the use of the bun- 
 galow, each traveller pays one rupee (fifty cents) per day 
 Were it not for this excellent arrangement, one would be 
 obliged to take tents and all the paraphernalia of a house 
 hold, and to carry supplies with him from place to place. A 
 register for the names of travellers is kept in each bungalow, 
 and they are requested to note the sums paid, in order to pre 
 vent dishonesty on the part of the peons. By nine o'clock 
 we reached the village of Khurdee, sixty-four miles from 
 Bombay. The word "hazree" (breakfast) i^onveyed my in 
 tention to the driver, and he answered : " Achcha, sahib " 
 (very well, sir). I succeeded so well with the messman that in 
 an hour an excellent curry and omelette smoked upon the 
 table. The natives, all along the road, have ingrafted some 
 English words upon the Hindostanee, and frequently use them 
 in a very amusing manner. Whenever I asked for eggs, I 
 was almost sure to be asked in return : " S^alf hiled or mom^ 
 kf ^ " I was provident ei.ough to supply myself with a paper of 
 tea in Bombay, since it is not always to be had on the road. 
 
 On getting into the cart, at the last station before reach, 
 mg Khurdee the step broke, and as T fell, my knee struci
 
 rtUN-CURE AN ARMY OF BULLOCKS. 69 
 
 apon a projecting bolt, causing such intense pain as almost to 
 depriv^e me of my senses By the time we halted againj the 
 joint was so stiff that I could scarcely bend it. The hurt pro- 
 duced such a chilliness that my teeth chattered, and I was 
 fain to sit in the sun while breakfast was preparing. The 
 morning was scorchingly hot, and I soon noticed that the heat 
 seemed to draw out the pain from the injured limb. In fact, 
 after sunning it half an hour I was able to get up and walk as 
 usual, and thenceforth never felt the slightest inconvenience 
 from the injury. This is a case of sun-cure, which I recommend 
 to any one who is anxious to start a new system of healing. 
 
 Khurdee lies at the base of the Ghauts, and our road now 
 plunged into a wild, hilly region, covered with jungle. The 
 road was broad, but very rough, and so steep that nothing but 
 the emigrant trail over the Sierra Nevada could equal it. At 
 the worst descents, my conductor called upon the aid of half a 
 dozen bullock-drivers, who seized the shafts and pushed back 
 ward with all their force. Our progress was still further 
 hindered by the endless throng of bullocks which we met. 
 They were laden with bags of rice and of grain, and bales of 
 cotton, and on their way downward to the coast. Between 
 Khurdee and Kussara, a distance of twelve miles, we must 
 have passed from fifteen to twenty thousand of them. They 
 were all heavily laden, and jogging on at a slow, patient walk, 
 which would carry them about ten miles a day. Those, how- 
 ever, who are trained to harness and employed by the natives 
 %s draught animals, easily tra^ el twenty-five miles a day, ever 
 on a long journey. Though the cow is such a sacred beast ir 
 India, there is no end to the labor imposed upon her children, 
 nor is she herself always spared.
 
 70 INDIA, CHINA, AM) .JAPAN. 
 
 We were nearly four hours in malting the twelve miles 
 over the .pass of Rudtoondee, and then came down upon 
 Ku.^sara, a little village situated in a dell at the foot c.f the 
 Tull Ghaut. The highest i)arapet of the range was now 
 above us and the final a.^cent to the table-land commenced. 
 The pbysicial formation of this part of India very much re- 
 Berables that of the Western Coast of Mexico. The summit 
 level is nearly uniform, but instead of presenting a mural 
 front, it thrusts out projecting spurs or headlands, and is 
 cloven by deep gorges. Sharp peaks rise here and there from 
 the general level, formed of abrupt but gradually diminishing 
 terraces, crowned by domes or towers of naked rock. At a 
 distance, they bear an extraordinary resemblance to works of 
 art, and, what is very striking, to the ancient temples of the 
 Hindoos. Is this an accidental resemblance, or did not the old 
 races in reality get their forms of architecture directly from 
 Nature? It is certainly a striking coincidence that all the 
 hills in the Nubian Desert should be pyramids, and all the 
 peaks of the Indian Ghauts pagodas. The word ghaut means 
 a flight of steps, as the Ghauts are a succession of tenaces 
 descending from the table-land to the sea ; and every principal 
 Hindoo temple is approached by a ghaut. The formation oi 
 the summits is a characteristic of Indian scenery. Tennyson, 
 who, 1 believe, has never been in India, describes in two lines 
 the most peculiar aspects of the country : 
 
 "And over hilh with peaky tops engrailed^ 
 And many a tract of palm ami rice. 
 The throne of Indian Cama slowly sailed, 
 A summer fanned with spice." 
 
 There is a splendid artificial road leading up the Tul'
 
 THE KIND SERGEANT. •* 
 
 Glhaut As a piece of engmeevmg, it will vie with some of 
 the best roads in Europe. Tlie grade is so slight that wc 
 drove all the way on a fast trot, and the windings around the 
 sides of the gorge gave me grand views of the lower terraces 
 „f the Ghauts. At the top, we entered on the great table 
 land of Central India. It was an open, undulating region 
 ranch better cultivated than any I had yet seen, and crossed, 
 at intervals of twenty to thirty miles, by high ranges of hills. 
 The air was drier and purer than below, and the setting sun 
 shone broad and warm over tracts of wheat and sugar-cane. 
 We rolled along merrily, through the twilight and into tli<: 
 darkness again, and towards nine o'clock came to the large 
 town and military station of Nassick. 
 
 I went directly to the bungalow, for I was quite ready foi 
 dinner. An Englishman came out of one of the rooms, and 
 not only assisted^ me in ordering the meal, but sent his own 
 servant to help get it ready. He evidently took me for an 
 officer (for a traveller is a rare sight in India), and meekly 
 remarked, "lam only a sergeant, in the Engineers Corps. 
 I caught the fever in the jungles at Khurdee, and have beeo 
 sent up here to recover." I was very much fatigued, and lay 
 down upon the bare bedstead, while dinner was preparing. 
 The sergeant brought his pillow and placed it under my head, 
 xnd when I awoke after two hours' sleep, I found his cloak 
 carefully wrapped around me and himself tenderly matching, 
 that nothing might disturb my slumbers. It was nearly mid- 
 night before the bangby-cart came. I took leave of the kind- 
 hearted sergeant, and we set out at a slow pace. We had 
 already crossed the watershed of India, and soon after leaving 
 Kassick, forded the Godavery, one of the largest streams it
 
 1 2 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAl'AA. 
 
 the country, which empties into the sea on the Coromandel 
 Coast, not far from Madras. Soon afterwards we entered a 
 large town by a gateway, with a Moorish arch, and threaded 
 the silent streets — a scene which recalled forcibly to mj 
 mind, a midnight ramble through the town of Ekhmin, in 
 Upper Egypt. 
 
 All the rest of the night we travelled slowly along, 
 through a rolling country, and about nine next morning reached 
 Chandore, only forty-five miles from Nassick. Chandore is a 
 walled town, situated in a hollow at the foot of the Chandore 
 Ghaut. It boasts several Hindoo temples of dark stone, but 
 none of them remarkable for size or beauty. The gro- 
 tesque idols, their faces smeared with red paint, were visible 
 through the open door. I went to the bungalow for breakfast, 
 and was obliged to wait three hours before the cart came — a 
 delay which enabled me to get a little more sleep. Neverthe- 
 less, the heat and glare of the noonday sun so disposed me tc 
 drowsiness, that I was several times on the point of tumbling 
 out of the cart. I should have stated that at Khurdee we 
 changed vehicles, and after that I had nothing but a square box 
 on wheels, without springs or cover. We crossed the Chan- 
 dore Ghaut by a wild pass, half way up which stands a pagoda, 
 BO old and black that it might properly belong to the Yezidees, 
 or Devil- Worshippers. Beyond the Ghaut we came upon a 
 waste, hilly region, entirely covered with thorny jungle. 
 
 All this part of India reminded me strongly of the table- 
 And of Mexico. There are the same broad, sweeping plains, 
 gashed by deep ravines and gullies ; the same barren chains 
 of hills, and the same fertile dips of lowland, rich in corn an 5 
 2ane I passed through more than one landscape, where, if 1
 
 RESEMBLANCE TO MEXICO. 73 
 
 had been brought blindfold and asked to guess where I was, 1 
 Bbould have declared at once : " This is Mexico." Substitute 
 the words nulla for "arroyo," (gully,) ghaut for "sierra,'' 
 nd jungle for " chapparal," and you change a description of 
 he Mexican into that of the Indian table-land. I must 
 dmit, however, that, in general, Mexican scenery is on a 
 broader and grander scale than here. We Americans need 
 not envy England the possession of India ; for, if we were 
 not a people obstinately opposed to the acquisition of new 
 territory — if we were not utterly blind to " manifest destiny," 
 and regardless of the hints which " Geography " is constantly 
 throwing out to us — we might possess ourselves of Cuba and 
 Mexico, and thus outrival her. Some of my readers may 
 laugh at the absurdity of such an idea ; but when a man is 
 travelling alone, among a strange people, he is scarcely respon- 
 sible for all that comes into his head. 
 
 The resemblance to Mexico, however, does not extend to 
 the towns and population, which are rather those of Egypt. 
 The Indian native is darker than the Egyptian Fellah, and 
 has a more acute and lively face, but in his habits and man 
 ners he has much in common with the latter. He hag the 
 game natural quickness of intellect, the same capacity for de- 
 ception, the same curious mixture of impudence and abject 
 servility, and the same disregard of clothing. The houses are 
 low cabins of mud and bamboo, or in the larger villages, of 
 mud and unburnt bricks, with mud divans in front, and dome- 
 times thatched verandahs resting on wooden pillars. Noth- 
 ing can be more miserable than the appearance of thu smaller 
 villages, which are even inferior to those of the Nile Delta, 
 and I should like to exhibit tlioiii to ;in oriLnnal E-iirlishmar
 
 74 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 w^lio went in the same boat with me from Alexandria to Cairo 
 As we were passing one of the villages on the Nile, he aamc 
 up to me with a horrified expression of face, grasped my arm 
 pointed to the huts, and exclaimed: *' Look there ! people ao 
 tually live there ! " " Is it possible ? " said I, with as much 
 astonishment as I could command- on such short notice. 
 *'Yes," he repHed; "Good God, it's dreadful!" This man 
 was a son of a keeper of a menagerie, and was on his way to 
 Central Africa, in search of the Great Hydrocephalus, oi 
 some other unknown monster. He was in a furious state of 
 indignation, because Discount & Co., the bankers at Alexan- 
 dria, had taken four per cent, commission on his letter of 
 credit. " It's only a month since I left England," said he, 
 " and that's four per cent, a month, and that makes forty- 
 eight per cent, a year. Suppose I had been a year on the 
 way, I should have been ruined. If I had money enough to 
 buy the Hydrocephalus, I should not draw a penny, and then 
 they would have to refund the whole of it. But I'll write a 
 letter to The Times, and we'll see how much more business 
 of that sort they'll do." 
 
 To return to the banghy-cart : we rolled on all the after 
 Qoon through alternate jungle and cultivated land, and 
 toward evening reached Mulleigaum, a military cantonment. 
 It is situated in the middle of an open plain, which, although 
 apparently barren, needs but irrigation to make it one vast 
 garden. The neat bungalows of the English officers are em- 
 powered in foliage and blossoms, which water alone hae 
 3oaxed out of the soil. The orchards of bananas dropped 
 their plumy leaves, and the thick hedges of Persian roses, 
 orimson with blossoms, scented the air far and wide. Througt
 
 DHOOLIA THE LIEUTENANT 78 
 
 the verandahs and open doors I caught glimpses of elegant 
 furniture and pictures within, and once a female figure glided 
 past. I had fancied India to be a place of exile, but nothing 
 could be more cheerful and homelike than these residences. 
 The sepoys were drawn up on the parade-ground for evening 
 review, and a most soldierly appearance they made. We 
 drove to the post-office, and as I had not time to take dinner, 
 I accepted the services of a Portuguese who spoke English, 
 and who ofi'ered to procure me supplies for the road. He 
 obtained some biscuits, boiled some eggs, and made me a bot- 
 tle of strong tea, but refused to accept of the slightest pay for 
 his services. 
 
 Thus supplied, I entered on the third night of my jour- 
 Qey. It was somewhat cloudy and dark, and I could only 
 observe that our road lay over the same wide uplands, except 
 for a few miles, when passing the Lulling Ghaut. The way 
 was rough and stony, and the thumps I received kept me from 
 falling into the road through drowsiness. An hour past mid- 
 night I reached the military station of Dhoolia, 215 miles 
 from Bombay, and was not sorry when the driver informed 
 me that he should go no further that night. Off I started for 
 the bungalow, and on reaching it, was surprised to find the 
 rooms lighted, and a man in English dress on the verandah. 
 He held a small lantern before him, which prevented my see- 
 ing his face. " Is this the travellers' bungalow ? " I asked. 
 He said nothing, but threw the light of the lamp full upon 
 my face, held it there a few moments, and then cried out : 
 '*Why, you're a traveller! Yes. Come in. It's full, but 
 I'll make room for you. I'm just taking a cup of tea : wiL^ 
 \ou take tea, ov beer, or brandy-and-water ? Itchoglan
 
 76 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN 
 
 bring tea ! " There was no resisting such a rapid welcome, 
 and before I had time to put in a word of explanation, I was 
 seated on one end of the table, drinking a cup of tea with the 
 Lieutenant^ for such he proved to be. Meanwhile, he was 
 giving orders on all sides. One servant ran for a bedstead ; 
 another for a pillow; a third for a quilt. "I'll make you 
 comfortable," said he ; " you didn't expect such rough times, 
 did you now ? You thought India was like England, didn't 
 you ? That's the way. But you want to go to bed. Here, 
 let my servants pull off your boots, and help you undress. 
 You never did that in England, you know, and you won't 
 know how to go about it." And so he ran on, what length 
 of time I cannot tell, for I no sooner lay down, than I fell 
 fast asleep. 
 
 I was awakened at sunrise by his servant, with a cup of 
 tea and a plate of biscuit. The Lieutenant walked with me 
 to the Post- Office, and as the cart was not ready, took me to 
 the bungalow of some other officers, who immediately invited 
 me to breakfast. The conversation was so exclusively mili- 
 tary, that I did not feel much interested in it. So-and-so, of 
 the 99th, was going to sell out; such-a-one, of " Ours," had 
 applied for two months' leave, etc. Presently the cart came, 
 and I took a cordial leave of them all. The road, after leav- 
 ing Dhoolia, became indescribably bad. Th«j soil was a soft 
 brown loam, which, after the rains, had been terribly cut up 
 by the heavy bullock-carts, and was now hard and dry. Our 
 horse stumbled slowly along over the ruts, a groom leading 
 him by the head. The country was crossed by deep nullas, 
 or galleys, many of which were very difficult to pass. The 
 scenery presented no new features, except a singular isolated
 
 A BREAK DOWN IN THE JUNGLE. 77 
 
 hill, resembliug a fortress, near Soongheer. Beyond this 
 point it was mostly hilly jungle, with few habitations. Dur- 
 ing the afternoon, we passed three elephants, which wer€ 
 standing in the shade of a large peepul tree, motionless as if 
 ewn out of basaltic rock. 
 
 It was already two o'clock, and we had only proceeded 
 about twenty miles from Dhoolia, when the axle suddenly 
 snapped under the repeated jolts, and I was thrown into the 
 road. I escaped with a slight bruise, and sat down in the 
 jungle to await the issue. As I could neither give nor take 
 suggestions, I was silent; but I had with me that exhaustless 
 fountain of patience, a pipe, and soon attained a mood of 
 cheerful indifference as to what might happen. The driver 
 took out the baggage and packages, and sat down with them 
 on the opposite side of the road ; the groom took the horse 
 and galloped off. An hour passed by ; two hours ; and still 
 we sat in silence, watching the procession of Hindoos, Mos- 
 lems, bullocks, ponies and camels that came and went between 
 us. At last a bullock-cart dashed up on a fast trot, the uag- 
 gage was packed upon it, I took my seat and away we went, 
 leaving the broken banghy-cart in the road. Was that the last 
 of it ? the reader may ask. We shall see. 
 
 We reached a place called Seerpore, at dusk, our brave 
 bullocks having made ten miles in two hours. I had supper, 
 a good night's rest, and breakfast, and there was still no 
 sign of the cart. The messman, who was very civil and at 
 tontive, informed me that it would be mended by noon 
 Meanwhile, there was I, I knew not precisely where. I could 
 not find the place on the map. That it was in India I was cer- 
 tain, because there was a handsome Hindoo temple close be
 
 78 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 side the bungalow, and before the temple an immense ban 
 yan tree, and under the banyan tree two elephants. I made a 
 sketch of the scene, as a memorial of the adventure. 
 
 At last a native entered, and with a profound salaam, 
 said: ''Sahib hanghy-cart taiyar haV (Sir the banghy- carl 
 is ready).
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BANGHY-CART, CONCLUDED — -INDORE» 
 
 Departura from Seerpore— Another Break -down— A Crippled Cart— Palaenehr— Indl« 
 Horses and Drivers— Jungle— The Banyan Tree— The Tamarind— The Natives of 
 the Jungle— Military Salutations— The Town of Sindwah— Tokens of Decay— The 
 Sindwah Jungles — A Dilemma — The Vindhya Mountains — The Station of Mhow— 
 Arrival at Indore— The Town— The Rajah's Palace— The Eajah and his History— 
 His Tastes — Hindoo Temples and their Worshippers— The English Eesidency- 
 Cold Weather. 
 
 It was not without som-e misgivings that I again took my 
 seat in the banghy-cart, and left the place called Seerpore. I 
 was now entering the Sindwah jungles, a desolate region, 
 swarming with tigers, and so unhealthy that from the end of 
 July to the first of January it is impassable. In case of acci- 
 dent there must be detention, and detention in such a case is 
 fraught with danger. However, " nothing venture, nothing 
 win," is the traveller's true maxim. We thumped and bump- 
 ed along in the noonday heat, making about two miles an 
 hour^ and had proceeded five miles, when I saw the axle 
 (which I had been watching) suddenly give way again. I 
 jumped out in time to avoid the crash, and once more took my 
 "icat in the jungle, in the shade of a thorny bush The grooni
 
 80 TNPTA, 
 
 mounted the horse and rode away; the driver unpacked the 
 baggage and seated himself opposite to me, and thus we sat 
 for three hours. " Patience," after all, is the watchword of 
 life. It may seem incredible, but I was thoroughly patient 
 during all this time. 
 
 The groom at last appeared with a new cart — and such a 
 cart ! It had been broken so often, that it was a hopeless crip- 
 ple. The square box had such a pitch forward, and the step 
 was so short, that I could by no possibility keep my seat with- 
 out holding fast with both hands. By this time it was dusk, 
 and we crept forward gradually, the horse occasionally falling 
 down in the ruts, and coming to a stand-still every fifty yards, 
 until urged forward by repeated cries of " ai bap / ai hhai ! " 
 (Oh, my father ! my brother ! ) About ten o'clock we reached 
 a village called Palasnehr, only sixteen miles from Seerproe, 
 taving been ten hours on the way. The driver succeeded in 
 making me understand that he did not intend to go any fur- 
 ther that night. I therefore went to the bungalow, and 
 aroused the sleepy khitmudgra, (butler,) " What can I get for 
 supper ? I asked. " Kuch na^^ (nothing). So I took a carpet- 
 bag for a pillow, lay down on the bare bedstead, and slept 
 soundly until morning. " Can you get me any thmg foi 
 breakfast? " I asked again. ^^ Kuch na^ And the banghy- 
 cart being ready, I went away hungry from Palasnehr. 
 
 The road was a little better, but as we travelled on a trot 
 instead of a walk, the cart lost nothing of its roughness, 
 which, indeed, was rather increased. The labor of holding on 
 taxfcd me sorely, and as there was no relaxation, except when 
 we stopped to change horses, the muscles of my arms and legs 
 at last became so exhiusted that I was ready to double up and
 
 IKDIAN HORSES AND DRIVERS 8) 
 
 sink together in a heap. My wrists and ankles were swollen foi 
 several days afterwards, from the effects of that ride. Tht 
 horses and drivers on this part of the road are probably the 
 worst in the world. The driver's knowledge is confined to hold- 
 ing the reins, and even this he understands very imperfectly. 
 Instead of choosing the smoothest part of the road he takes the 
 roughest, and if a stone is to be seen, his satisfaction is not 
 complete unless the cart runs over it. He frequently swerves 
 '30me distance from the direct track to eff'ect this object. Aa 
 for the horse, he is the master, and if any exertion is neces- 
 sary you may possibly flatter but cannot force him into it. 
 When first harnessed he never starts of his own accord. One 
 groom stands at his head patting and coaxing, while two 
 others push at the wheels until they press him forward. He 
 then backs, and sometimes sits down on his haunches. More 
 force is put to the wheels, until backing becomes a labor to 
 him, and then he goes forward as long as the road is level. 
 But by and by you come to a slight ascent. He knows 
 already where it is, and unless you keep him on a gallop he 
 stops at the bottom. The groom jumps down and runs to his 
 head. " Tab di " (pat him), says the driver, and while the 
 former pats him on the neck, the latter cries out in most en- 
 dearing tones : " Oh, my father, my brother, my bully, my 
 brave fellow !" Thus encouraged he makes a start, and gets 
 about half way up the rise, when he stops and leisurely backfl 
 dcwn again to the bottom. This is repeated three or four 
 times, and finally some of the buUocli-drivers are called on tc 
 assist They lay hold on the wheels, and the horse, instead 
 Df drawing up the cart, is himself pushed up with it. On one 
 pccasion, where there was a rise of about one foot in ten for a 
 4*
 
 g2 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 hundred yards, I was obliged to wait an hour and a half be 
 fore we succeeded in passing. 
 
 Soon after leaving Palasnehr, the road crossed the Sind- 
 wah Grhaut, a range of hills about six miles in breadth and 
 severed with jungle. Beyond them opened the valley of the 
 Nerbudda; the Vindhya Mountains, on the opposite side, 
 though fifty miles distant, were dimly visible. Between lay a 
 wild waste of jungle, almost uninhabited, a reservoir of 
 deadly malaria and a paradise for panthers and tigers. The 
 word "jungle," I should explain, is used to express any kind 
 of wild growth, from a thicket to a forest, whether highland 
 or lowland. The diflferent varieties are distinguished as " close 
 iungle, thorn jungle, wet jungle," etc. About Sindwah the 
 iungle is close, composed of thick clumps of shrubbery and 
 small trees, with here and there a magnificent banyan or pee- 
 pul tree towering over it. In the valley of the Nerbudda there 
 are many banyans, and some of great size. Few trees present 
 grander mas&es of foliage than this. Instead of a low roof 
 of boughs, resting on its pillared trunks, as I had supposed, it 
 sends up great limbs to the height of a hundred, or even a 
 hundred and fifty feet, and the new trunks are often dropped 
 from boughs thirty feet high. They hang like parcels of 
 roots from the ends of the boughs, and when broken ofi" and 
 {)revented from reaching the earth, continue to increase and 
 become woody like the trunk. I have seen a tree on wbich 
 huge half-trunks, that had never reached the earth, hung 
 from the branches, like the fragments of shattered pillars, 
 hanging from the roof of an Egyptian rock-temple. Thfi 
 leaves ot the banyan are large, glossy and dark-green, and ii
 
 THE TAMARIND TREE. 8f. 
 
 the winter the foliage is studded with buds of a bright purple 
 color. 
 
 The only other large trees that I remarked, were the 
 sycamore (peepul) and the tamarind. The acacia and mimofsa 
 are occasionally met with, and the date and brab palms thrive 
 in the valleys. The tamarind frequently rivals the banyan in 
 size, while its foliage is wonderfully graceful and delicate. 
 The leaflets of its slender pinnate leaves are so small, that the 
 Koran could not more forcibly describe the torments of the 
 Mahometan Hell, than when it says that the sinners in the 
 nether fires shall receive, to cool their thirst, just so much 
 water as will lie on one of these leaflets, once in a thousand 
 years. Of the smaller trees and shrubs, there is a great va- 
 riety, but the tamarind and banyan are the characteristic trees 
 of India, as the palm is of Egypt, and the magnolia and cy- 
 press of our Southern States. 
 
 From Dhoolia to the Nerbudda, my road was through the 
 District of Candeish, which, two or three weeks previous, was 
 the subject of general attention, on account of the rising of 
 the natives. The disturbance had been quelled, but if I had 
 not had such confidence in the potency of English rule, I 
 should have felt that I was exposed to some danger. We met 
 continually with companies of armed natives — not the mild, 
 abject inhabitants of the cultivated districts, but the tall, 
 fierce sons of the jungle — men with keen eyes, heavy black 
 beards, and a striking expression of courage and defiance iD 
 their whole bearing. They did not stoop and touch the earth 
 \n humble salutation, as I passed, but looked me full in the 
 feice, without a single word of greeting. Some were armed 
 with the long Bedouin guns, some with spears, and all wore sa
 
 S4 INDIA) CmiirA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 bres. They were nearly all on foot, but a few, who seemed 
 to be men of authority, rode on ponies. I should judge they 
 were mostly Mahometans, from their turbans, and from the 
 cast of their features. It is very easy to distinguish between 
 the followers of the rival religions, without reference to any 
 distinguishing mark of dress, and merely from the expression 
 of the face. 
 
 We constantly met long trains of laden bullocks and witl 
 numbers of hackrees, or native ox-carts. Many of the trains 
 were accompanied by cheprasses, or Government servant, 
 (distinguished by a band over the shoulders with an inscribed 
 brass plate upon it), and by sepoys. In all my life I never 
 received half the number of military salutations, as during 
 this journey. Of course I was in the East India Company's 
 service, for nobody else travels there; my brown face showed 
 that I had been a long time in the country, and my habit of 
 never expressing astonishment, when among a strange people, 
 was sufficient, in spite of my ignorance of the language, to 
 certify to the fact. Every sepoy drew himself up, faced right 
 about, gave his right arm a wide sweep and brought his hand 
 to his cap. I made an officer's response, of course, but 
 merely gave a slight nod to the salutations of the peasants, 
 though they sometimes almost prostrated themselves before 
 me. Near Sindwah we passed a small village, where all the 
 male inhabitants rushed out of their houses, ranged them- 
 jelves in a row beside the road, with the elder or chief at 
 their head, and successively touched the dust and their fore 
 heads. It is not to be inferred that these humiliating tokens 
 of reverence and submission to the English power have been 
 forced upon the people. They learned submission long ago
 
 t)E5ERTED DISTRICTS. 85 
 
 it is natural to them. The Indian servant not only calls yon 
 his father, but his King and his God, and when he wants to 
 ask you a special favor, comes to you with a bunch of grass in 
 his mouth, saying he is your beast. 
 
 During the forenoon we passed Sindwah, a miserable vil- 
 age at present, though once a place of some importance, as its 
 massive fortress testifies. There is some cultivation near it, 
 but the country shows marks of neglect and decay. I was old 
 that a large part of Candeish, which is now waste jungle, was 
 a flourishing and well-populated region fifty years ago. I 
 could at first find no adequate reason for these tokens of 
 decay ; but I believe that, in most instances, they are owing 
 to a superstition of the natives, which prevents them from in- 
 habiting lands belonging to families that have become ex- 
 tinct. They believe that the spirits of the former owners lin- 
 ger upon the soil, and would visit them with calamity, or 
 death, if they persisted in remaining. 
 
 All the rest of the day, and part of the night, we jolted 
 on through the lonely jungles. T was in great hopes of seeing 
 a tiger spring across the road, but had no such luck. Al- 
 though the ground was baked hard and dry, there was still aD 
 exhalation from it, as my shadow appeared with a slight halo 
 around it, such as one sees on a summer morning, when the 
 dew begins to dry. I sufi"ered with a dull headache all day, 
 but the rough road might account for this. Towards mid- 
 night we reached Akbarpore, on the Nerbudda, having made 
 fifty-four miles. I was too sore to wait for supper, but went 
 to sleep at once, after ordering breakfast at sunrise, when the 
 cart was to be ready again Sunrise came, and eight o'clock, 
 but neither cart nor breakfast. At Inst the driver appeared
 
 86 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN 
 
 and made me a number of remarks for which (in my igno 
 ranee of the language) I was none the wiser '' Is the carl 
 ready yet ? " I asked. " Yes, it is ready, but "^ — and here m^ 
 comprehension ceased A horrid suspicion flashed througt 
 my mind : " Is it gone ? " " Yes, it is gone, but " — and he be 
 came unintelligible again " Is there no cart ? " again I asked 
 " Yes, there's a cart, but " — That dreadful " but " com- 
 pletely floored me. I went into the kitchen, took the half- 
 cooked breakfast from the fire, and hurriedly ate it, for I had 
 lived on biscuits for two days. I then went directly to the 
 post-station, but there was no cart there. The people made 
 many observations, but all availed nothing, till at last one of 
 them rose and beckoned me to follow him. We went down to 
 the Nerbudda, which is a beautiful river, a third of a mile 
 wide, crossed the ferry, and behold ! there stood a new cart, 
 and there lay a new driver, asleep in the sun ! 
 
 The road was tolerable, I could now sit without holding 
 on, and thus the journey became pleasant again. The valley 
 of the Nerbudda is very rich and fertile, the soil resembling 
 the black loam of Egy|3t. We passed many fields of flax, 
 covered with blue and white flowers ; wheat, cotton, tobacco 
 and poppies, besides small patches of sugar-cane. All seemed 
 to thrive equally well. But a small proportion of the soil is 
 cultivated, and it is no exaggeration to say, that the valley 
 might be made to support a hundredfold its present popula- 
 tion We now approached the picturesque Vindhya Moun- 
 tains, one of the summits of which was crowned with a white 
 building — the tomb of a Moslem Saint, as well as I could 
 •inderstand the driver. The road passes the mountains, at a 
 place formerly called Ghara, but now Kintrey's Ghaut, it
 
 ARRIVAL AT INDORE. 8? 
 
 honor of the engineer. It is, indeed, admirably planned, 
 though somewhat out of repair. The summit, which sepa- 
 rates the waters of the two sides of India, overlooks a waste 
 and bleak country. Soon after descending the northern side, 
 we crossed the head-waters of the Chumbul, the largesi 
 affluent of the Jumna. At eight o'clock I reached the military 
 station of Mhow, within fourteen miles of Indore, and was so 
 well satisfied that I allowed the driver to stop for the night. 
 
 Mhow is a handsome station, the officers' bungalows, sur 
 rounded with small gardens, being scattered over an extent 
 of two miles. It stands on a dry plain, 2,000 feet above the 
 sea, and is considered a very healthy place of residence. 
 The highest point is crowned by a large white church, the 
 spire of which may be seen for some distance. The place is 
 included within the limits of the Madras Presidency. I had 
 only a passing glimpse of the town, as I left early next morn- 
 ing. A drive of two hours, over a good road and through a 
 rolling upland country^ devoted to the opium culture, brought 
 me to Indore, and I bade adieu to the banghy-cart, hoping I 
 might see no more of it. The journey from Bombay occu- 
 pied six days and a half, and I accomplished it with less fa- 
 tigue, though with more bruises than I expected. 
 
 Indore is the capital of an independent State, and the 
 station of an English "Resident" — an office which is equiva- 
 Wnt to that of an Envoy or Ambassador, except that the 
 Resident meddles rather more in the affairs of the State to 
 «7hich he is accredited. Mr. Hamilton, the Resident at In- 
 dore, was absent on a journey, but I was most kindly received 
 by Dr. Impey, the Residency Surgeon, to whom I had a let 
 tor. With true Indian hospitality, he tooi me at once to hit
 
 88 INDIA, CHINAj 4.ND JAPAN. 
 
 house, where both he and his amiable lady did their utmost U 
 make my sojourn agreeable. 
 
 Indore is a town of about 60,000 inhabitants, having beea 
 much increased within a few years by the tyranny of the 
 Begum of Oodjein, a holy old city about eighty miles distant 
 many of the inhabitants of which have emigrated to the former 
 place. Portions of Indore are well built, reminding me 
 somewhat of Konia, and other places in the interior of Asia 
 Minor. The houses are generally of wood, two stories high, 
 the upper story projecting and resting on pillars, so as to form 
 a verandah below. The pillars and the heavy cornice above 
 them are of dark wood, and very elaborately carved. In the 
 centre of the town is the Rajah's palace, fronting a small 
 square. It is a quadrangle of about four hundred feet to a 
 side, the portion over the main gateway rising to the height 
 of eighty or ninety feet, and visible for many miles around. 
 The architecture is Saracenic, though not of a pure style 
 The gateway, however, and the balconies over it, are very ele- 
 gant, and the main court, surrounded by i, fty pillars of dark 
 wood, connected by ornate horseshoe arches, has a fine efi"ect. 
 The outer walls are covered with pictures of elephants, 
 horses, tigers, Englishmen and natives, drawn and colored 
 with the most complete disregard of nature. 
 
 On our way to the town one evening, we met the Rajal 
 and his suite, just setting out on an excursion into the coun 
 try. He was attended by a large retinue of persons, soldiers 
 dressed in the European style, officials in gaudy dresses hold 
 ing spears and flags, and all the paraphernalia of a pettj 
 prince. He is very fond of display, but I must confess thai 
 the whole show was rather picturesque than imposing. I hac
 
 THE RAJAH OF INDOEB. 89 
 
 a good riow of the Rajah, who was a young man of about 
 twenty, tall and stout for his age, and with a good humored 
 though not remarkably intelligent face. He wore a crimsoD 
 robe, and a rich silken turban, studded with jewels. His 
 story is quite romantic. Twelve years ago he was a poor 
 shepherd boy in the neighborhood of Mhow. The former 
 Rajah, Hurry Rao Holkar, having died childless, and without 
 any near relatives, the State might have readily fallen into 
 the possession of the East India Company. Instead of tak- 
 ing it, however, search was made for a successor, and the poor 
 shepherd boy was found to belong to a remote branch of the 
 family. He was thereupon invested with the Rajahship, and 
 Mr. Hamilton, the Resident, was appointed Regent during 
 his minority. 
 
 Notwithstanding he was educated under English auspices, 
 the Rajah did not seem to have acquired any English ideas, 
 except a taste for horses and hunting. The only public 
 works of his which were pointed out to me, were a small hos- 
 pital and school, and a bridge across the river, or rather 
 ravine, on which Indore is built. The latter was a very 
 substantial structure, of hewn stone, and cost upwards of 
 $100,000. The finest thing I saw in the place was a well, built 
 by one of the former Rajahs. It was a large square shaft, about 
 forty feet deep, with a broad flight of steps leading down to 
 the water, and cool chambers and balconies of hewn stone, for 
 recreation during the hot weather. 
 
 In riding through and around the town, I was struck with 
 the number of small Hindoo temples. The principal temple i« 
 adjacent to the Rajah's palace ; but as Europeans are not al 
 lowed to enter, I saw only the outside. In the suburbs, how
 
 90 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN 
 
 ever, there are msmy sanctuaries erected to the different gods 
 the most of them being open canopies or domes, resting on pil 
 lars, and none above twenty feet in height. The idols are gen- 
 erally smeared with red paint, a token that they have recently 
 been worshipped. There were multitudes of beggars, some of 
 whom asked for alms in the name of Vishnu, and others in 
 the name of Allah, the latter being Mussulmen. In one 
 street we passed a house where the piercing shrieks of a fife 
 and the dreadful clatter of a drum announced a marriage fes- 
 tival, and not far off, two women, seated in front of a door, 
 howled incessant lamentation for a corpse within : Destruc- 
 tion and Reproduction, both the attributes of the god Shiva, 
 Ln whose name a beggar at that very instant demanded char- 
 ity. 
 
 There is a picturesque orchard of mango and date trees 
 on the eastern side of the town, but the soil is too thin on 
 the uplands around it to sm|)port much vegetation. The gar- 
 den of the Resident is artificially made. His residence, 
 which I visited, is a stately stone mansion, with large and 
 lofty rooms, furnished in superb style. He maintains a great 
 state, which he may well do on a salary of £4,000 a year, in 
 a country where labor and the ordinary necessaries of life 
 cost next to nothing. The wages of a field-laborer here are 
 two annas (six cents) a day, he finding his own food. Women 
 receive one and a half annas, and boys one anna daily. 
 House servants are better paid, as they are obliged to wear 
 rather more garments, but, as each has his particular busi- 
 ness, eight or ten are required to do the work of a smali 
 family. 
 
 I found the weather unpleasantly cold, coming from thi
 
 COLD WEATHER. 
 
 9 
 
 latitude of Bombay. During the nights the temperat ire waf 
 BO low that thin cakse of ice frequently formed on shallow? 
 pools. From the supplies thus collected, the English resi 
 dents are furnished with ice during a part of the hot season.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE MAI L-C A R T. 
 
 rhe Mail-Cart— Setting out from Indore— Night Travel— Stupidity of the Natl eft- 
 Mussulmen— Nearly an Accident— Scenery of the Road— A Polite Engliehn-an— 
 Miseries of the Journey — A Tiger Party— Budjrungurh—Ooonah — A Free Use ol 
 Hospitality— The Tliugs and Robbers— Second Halt— Miss Bnrrongha — Going On— 
 Tlie Plain of Hindostan— Approach lo Agra— A Landmark- 
 
 At sunset on the 1 1th of January, I took leave of my hos 
 pitable hosts at Indore, and again ventured upon unknown 
 seas. I had taken passage for Agra in the mail-cart, a ve- 
 hicle precisely resembling the banghy cart, but with the ad- 
 vantage of greater speed. The distance to be travelled was 
 380 miles, and the fare 50 rupees, which is considered very 
 cheap in India, but would be very dear in any other country. 
 The average rate of speed is from eight to nine miles an hour, 
 BO that the mail reaches Agra in a little more than two days 
 from Indore; but as few mortal frames would be equal to 
 such work, travellers are allowed to make the journey in sev- 
 eral stages, by stopping at any of the dawk bungalows od 
 the road and waiting for the next day's mail. 
 
 The mail cart is propelled by two horses, one of which in 
 an outrigger. This facilitates the ascent of slight elevation-i
 
 NIGHT TRAVEL. 93 
 
 in the road, except when the two animals choose to move it 
 different directions, which is by no means a rare occurrence. 
 However, I found that I could retain my position on the boi 
 without holding fast with both hands, and this was a great 
 improvement on the banghy cart. We set off at a full gallop, 
 over a hard, well beaten road, and through a rolling, open 
 country. The twilight died away and the young moon went 
 down before we reached Dewas, twenty-four miles from In- 
 iore, and thenceforth we galloped by starlight. Ever the 
 Bame rolling upland, thinly inhabited and scantily cultivated ; 
 broad belts of jungle, more dreary and stunted than in the 
 regions south of the Nerbudda, and crossed by frequent 
 abrupt nullas. Occasionally we passed low ranges of stony 
 hills, where the rate of our speed caused a most intolerable 
 jolting. The native villages, slumbering under the broad 
 arms of peepul and banyan trees, were picturesque enough in 
 the gloom, which hid their dirt and deformity, while the gro- 
 tesque cones of their temples were the only objects that 
 showed with any distinctness. The silent driver always blew 
 a discordant blast on his horn while passing through these 
 villages, and on approaching the post-stations, which are from 
 five to seven miles apart. We always found a few sleepy 
 grooms in waiting with the fresh horses, which were slowly 
 harnessed to our cart, and after going through their exercise 
 of backing and rearing, sprang forward with a galvanic start, 
 and an impetus which did not cease until we rew up at the 
 next post. 
 
 Thus the night wore away. My only amusement was Id 
 watching the Great Bear, as he slowly wheeled around the 
 pole star, for in ray previous watches I had learned tc
 
 IHDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 measure the nours of the night by his progress. The drivei 
 now and then made a remark, very profound, no doubt, if ] 
 had understood it I always assented, to avoid discussion, 
 which would have been embarrassing, and if he addressed 
 a question to me, invariably answered : " I don't know.'' 
 There is no use in telling these people that you don't under- 
 stand their language, for they jabber away to you just the 
 same as ever. It is much better to make a short and despotic 
 use of the few words you know, and restrict the conversation 
 to those remarks which are indispensable. As we proceeded 
 northward, I noticed that Arabic words were frequently used. 
 The form of salutation was the usual " salaam aleikoom" of 
 the East, and the driver exclaimed, each time that he mounted 
 the cart: "in the name of the most merciful God." In ad- 
 dition to this, he frequently touched the rim of the wheel and 
 his forehead alternately several times with his fore-finger — pro- 
 bably as a charm to prevent accidents, and I devoutly hoped 
 it might be efficacious, for we had no other safeguard. Had 
 the axle snapped, as in the case of the banghy-cart, I should 
 DOt have gotten off so easily. 
 
 When morning came, there was so little change in the 
 features of the landscape that I could have believed myself 
 it ill in sight of Indore, and yet we had made more than a 
 hundred miles during the night. I was quite benumbed 
 from the coldness of the air, and began to feel the effects of 
 the jolts I had undergone. Soon after sunrise the driver dis* 
 covered that one of the linch-pins was broken off, so that the 
 wheel kept its place from mere force of habit. He asked me 
 whether he should proceed, but as I knew he ouly put the 
 question for form's sake, since the mail could not be detained
 
 BCENEEY OF THE ROAD. 9£ 
 
 I told him to drive on, which he did, " in the name of the 
 most merciful God." Our speed, after this, was more furioui 
 than before, and a mad gallop of six miles, during which I 
 constantly kept myself braced in an attitude to spring out; 
 brought us to the next post, where we were fortunate enough 
 to find a substitute for the pin. During the day we passed 
 two mail-carts, lying by the road-side, with their axles broken 
 
 Nothing could exceed the monotony of the scenery, which 
 while the dry season lasts, wears a bleak and desolate aspect. 
 During the rains, when the soil is hidden under a deluge of 
 borbage, and the ragged shrubbery of the jungles starts intc 
 now bloom and foliage, it must present a very different 
 appearance. Except in the sheltered hollows, where the 
 palm still flourished, there was no token of a tropical climate. 
 I found more interest in observing the crowds of natives whom 
 we met on the road. In addition to the different Indian races, 
 who had now become tolerably familiar to me, there were oc- 
 casionally men of taller stature, lighter complexion, and a 
 bold, unsubmissive^ expression of face, whom I took to be 
 Sikhs or Affghans 
 
 About noon we reached a place called Bursud, where there 
 was a traveller's bungalow, occupied by an English family. A 
 lady was standing in the verandah, and I took off my hat to her 
 as we passed. Politeness is its own reward, for no sooner had 
 we stopped to change horses, than the lady's husband made hia 
 appearance, and very politely asked me to take some refresh 
 ments. The invitation was timely, for the appetite of a hun 
 gry man is not satisfied with biscuits (which was all my store), 
 but I had determined to reach Goonah, half-way to Agra, be 
 tore resting, and could not detain the mail. I only men
 
 96 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 tion the circumstance as another instance of the hospitalitj 
 of the Englisli in India. 
 
 By this time I was in that feverish and excitable condition 
 ^hioh shows that one's powers of endurance are beginning to 
 give way. I was bruised and shaken from head to foot 
 racked with aches and pains, and above all exquisitely tor 
 tured by a small iron rod which ran around the box whereon 
 we sat, to prevent our being thrown into the road. The mark 
 of that rod was imprinted on my flesh for days afterwards 
 During the afternoon we came into a hilly country where 
 the road was a little better, and I experienced some relief 
 The hills were covered with jungle, but there was cultivation 
 in the valleys between, especially about the little town of Ra- 
 googurh, which is the residence of a Rajah. It is a walled 
 town of rectangular form, with round towers at the corners, 
 but the walls have tumbled down in various places, making 
 unsightly breaches and disclosing the poverty of the dwell iugg 
 within. 
 
 A short distance further we overtook a large concourse of 
 natives, all of whom carried long bamboo poles in their hands 
 A.mong them were several cheprassees, or Government s.r 
 vants, and two or three sepoys. They all drew up in a line 
 on each side of the road, making the most profound salaams 
 as I passed between their ranks. I was at a loss to understand 
 this display until, at the end of the concourse, I came upon a 
 magnificent elephant (the largest I ever saw), when I <lecided 
 that these must be the attendants of the Rajah of Ragoo- 
 gurh. The whole thing was explained, however, by the ap' 
 pearance of two English gentlemen and some attendants car 
 rying a wild boar. They had been out tiger hunting, and th(
 
 A TIGER-HUNTER BUDJRDNGURGH. 9l 
 
 crowd of natives with bamboos were tbe " beaters," who are 
 employed in India, instead of dogs, to sweep the jungles and 
 start the beasts from their coverts. One of the gentlemen. 
 I afterwards learned, was one of the most noted tiger slayer? 
 in the country, and had just recovered from being dreadfully 
 mangled by a panther, an accident which had lamed him for 
 life. He had suffered fever, lockjaw, paralysis and partial 
 mortification, yet outlived them all, to the amazement of 
 every body and the dismay of the tigers. 
 
 At the mouth of a wide bay formed by the hills is the 
 town of Budjrungurli, which, according to an itinerary of the 
 road, is the residence of one of Scindiah's pundits; so that. 
 if I had not the satisfaction of beholding a learned Pundit, I 
 at least saw his habitation. The town is perched on a tongue 
 of land which shoots out from the hills, dropping into a preci- 
 pice of naked red rock on three sides. With its tottering 
 w^alls, and the tall, parabolic domes of a cluster of temples 
 on the plain below, it made a striking picture in passing. 
 There was now but one more stage to Goonah, and after pass- 
 ing the shoulder of the hill beyond Budjrungurh, I saw in 
 the distance the goal for which I had been so ardently long- 
 ing. Its thatched houses, half hidden in groves of tamarind 
 and date-palm, beckoned to me across a broad plain of wheat 
 and poppies, which basked in the warm light of the descend- 
 ing sun. In half an hour I dismounted in the bazaar, having 
 travelled 185 miles in less than twenty-four hours. 
 
 Tbe traveller's bungalow was occupied by an invalided 
 
 ofi&cer, who had charge of kee; ing the post-stationb in order. 
 
 There was a spare room, which I at once appropriated, and 
 
 throwing myself upon the bare charpoy oedstead, fell asleep 
 
 5
 
 98 IXDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN 
 
 I was aronsed by a native, whom I took to be the khitmudgai 
 of the bungalow, and who delivered himself of several unin 
 telligible sentences. I thereupon went to the officer's room 
 and wit) I an apology for my intrusion, begged him to interpret 
 for me. " Why," said the captain, " he says you have only to 
 order what you like for dinner — beef-steak, mutton chops, 
 sherry, brandy or beer." Here is truly a model bungalow 
 I thought. " Will you tell him," I asked, " to get me the 
 best dinner he can, and a bottle of beer, as soon as possible?" 
 " The dinner is ready," said the servant ; which means that 
 you will get it in three hours, and in just that time it was 
 brought to me. But the next day I discovered, accidentally, 
 that the man I had taken for the khitmudgar was the cap- 
 tain's own servant, and that the worthy officer had simply trans- 
 lated his own hospitable message to me ! 
 
 An English Lieutenant, who was encamped in the village 
 with a company of sepoys, came up and spent the evening 
 with me. He was born in India, and I was the second Ame- 
 rican he had ever seen. He invited me strongly to stop the 
 next evening at Meeana, where he proposed to encamp, and 
 promised to prepare refreshments for me. He moved awaj 
 early in the morning, and as I could not stop at Meeana, I saw 
 him no more. The mail-cart came along the next day about 
 two p. M., and as I had spent all the morning in sleep, I felt 
 ready to undertake the latter half of the journey. When I 
 called the true khitmudgar, in order to pay him for my meals, 
 he declared that I owed him nothing, for every thing had 
 been sent to me by the " captain-sahib." then went to the 
 latter, explained my mistake and apologized for my appar 
 eDt rudeness, f r any other course was out of the question
 
 THE THUGS. 98 
 
 " Pshaw ** said the Captain, bluntly : "don't say a word Am 
 long as I live in the bungalow, travellers are of course my 
 guests." 
 
 My host, moreover, warned me against a frightful nulla, of 
 gully, in which the mail-cart was upset a few days before, and 
 the drivel's thigh broken. Night came on before we reached 
 the locailty, but though we crossed a number of deep nulla?, 
 I could not discover the scene of the accident. Robbers are 
 plentiful in this part of the country, and even the mail-cart 
 had just been plundered. All the region between Indore 
 and Agra, was once noted as being the principal haunt 
 of the Thugs, or Stranglers. The system is now almost if 
 not wholly extinct ; at least, the Thugs no longer dare to 
 practise their horrid trade upon Europeans. This is owing to 
 the vigorous measures adopted by the Government, which 
 has lately taken up the task of suppressing infanticide, and 
 will, it is to be hoped, be equally successful. 
 
 Not to tire the reader with too many details of my prog- 
 ress, I will only state that about ten o'clock that evening I 
 reached a village called Tongra, on the banks of a small lake, 
 and was there obliged to halt another day, on account of the 
 seat thence to Agra having been previously engaged by an 
 English officer. The rest was not unwelcome, and the silent and 
 attentive khitmudgar was a capital purveyor. On leaving, 
 I indorsed the opinion of Miss Burroughs, who wrote in the 
 traveller's book that this was the only bungalow worthy of 
 the name. I was pleased to see that all travellers since her 
 time had done the same, for several pages were thickly stud- 
 ied with: " Ditto to Miss Burroughs." 
 
 At the same hour on the following evening the mail-carl
 
 100 INDIA, CHINA. AND JAPAN. 
 
 cauie, and away we galloped over rolling uplands, through wastei 
 of jungle, and across umberless nullas. Thus the chill, uiicoin 
 fortable night passed away. The rising sun showed a barren 
 valley, shut in by brown hills, covered with long grass and 
 and. Climbing out of this valley upon a bleak eminence, 1 
 saw like a boundless sea before me, the great Plain of Hin- 
 dostan — that vast, alluvial level, which extends without a 
 break from Calcutta to the Indus. We now entered on a 
 richer and more cheerful region. The villages were embow- 
 ered in tamarind and sycamore trees, and with the exception 
 of occasional belts of sand, the plain was well cultivated. 
 We were ferried across the Chumbul, the principal affluent of 
 the Jumna — a shallow river, nearly half a mile in breadth, and 
 flowing at the bottom of a deep bed which it has worn for itself 
 in the sandy soil. 
 
 Passing Dholpore, the residence of a Rajah, and Jajow, a 
 picturesque old place, with a handsome mosque and serai, we 
 rapidly approached Agra. 1 looked forward to the distant 
 belt of trees which hid the city, with the sensation of a mab, 
 who, after drifting for days on a dangerous sea, approaches a 
 safe harbor. At last, a snow-white dome stood suddenly on 
 the horizon, and I hailed the renowned Taj Mahal, for I knew 
 it could be none other. There was Agra, the City of AkbWj 
 and I — to borrow the words of Eothen — I had lived to s. jk 
 %nd I saw it
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 THE CITY O F AKBAR. 
 
 Ubarabad— The Modern City— The English Cantonments -R«v. Mr Warren— Th« 
 Fort of Agra— The Jumma Musjeed— Entering the Fort— Judgment-Seat of th< 
 Emperor-The Gates of Somnauth-Akbar's Palace-Splendor jf its Decorationa- 
 The Palace of Glass-A Cracked Throne— The Pearl Mosque-Tomb of Akbar, at 
 Secundra— An Indian Landscape-Saracenic Art— Mission Printing-Oface— Th« 
 American Missions-The Agra Jail-Dr. Walker's System of Education-Arithme- 
 tic in Chorus— Effect of the System. 
 
 Agra is still called by the natives Akbarabad— the Gty 
 of Akbar— from the renowned Emperor to whom it owes its 
 origin. All its former splendor grew up under his reign, 
 and all its arcliitectural remains, except the Taj Mahal, date 
 from his time. In this respect it differs from Delhi, which, 
 althouglx still called by the Mohammedans Shal.jehanabad, 
 (from Slmh Jehan, tlie grandson of Akbar), is more especially 
 the capital of the Mogul Emperors, and bears the memo- 
 rials of many successive reigns. Yet I doubt whether their 
 combined feebler lights can equal the sunlike lustre of Ak- 
 bar's name, and whether their city, with all its stores of his- 
 toric associations, can so interest and attract the traveller as 
 this, the capital of the greatest man who ever ruled in India
 
 102 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 The modern city is not even the shadow of the ancient 
 capital. That has wholly passed away, except the Fort — a citj' 
 it itself — and some ruined palaces on the bank of the Jumna. 
 E^ut for nearly two miles in every direction, the mound?, re- 
 mains of walls and other indications of habitations are abun- 
 dant. Much more was to be seen a few years ago than at 
 present, but as the old bricks were constantly taken to con- 
 struct new buildings, these vestiges gradually disappeai'ed. 
 The population, which once numbered more than half a mill- 
 •.on, has dwindled to about 70,000, and the native city has 
 little more to interest the traveller than any ordinary Indian 
 town — Indore, for instance. There is one principal street, 
 passing through its whole length to the gates of the Fort, and 
 in this are >ituated 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 Ai<bar was on our left; the grand Durgah, or tomb of 
 Shekh Selim-Chishti on the right, and the empty (inadraugles 
 into which we looked, showed no trace of ruin. The stone 
 pavements were partly overrun with grass, but not a block of 
 the arched cori-idors surrounding them had tumbled from its 
 place. How like yesterday seemed the Futtehpore of three 
 centuries ago ! The palace was deserted, not ruined, and its 
 lord was not dead, but absent. I felt like an intruder in the 
 sculptured chambers of Beer-Bul, and should not liave been 
 much surprised had a chobdar, with his silver mace, made his 
 appearance, to drive me away. 
 
 The guardian of the place, a lusty old Mussulman, named 
 Shekh Busharat-Ali, came to make his salaam and accompany 
 me over the ruins. He was a stout man of fifty-five, with a 
 gray moustache, and a face expressive of great good-will and 
 good-humor. He wore a white turban and a cotton gown, tied 
 on the left shoulder, so as to expose the left side of a most sleek 
 and capacious chest. The Hindoos and Parsees tie their gar- 
 ments on the right shoulder, in opposition to the Mussulmans. 
 Busharat-Ali was a very devout follower of the Prophet, and 
 knew most of ihe Koran in Arabic. He was greatly delighted 
 when I addre-sed him in that language, and thereafter was 
 continually repeating prajers and singing passages of the Ko- 
 lan, that I might perceive how much he knew. His knowl- 
 edge of Futtehpore was much inferior to that of Mr. Sherer 
 wlio had carefully studied the history of Akbar's reign, bu/
 
 120 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 he was a pleasant companion during our rarables among th« 
 ruins, and we suffered him to go through with his stories and 
 traditions as u>uaL 
 
 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«<sam, a district north of Bengal and lying on the 
 Brahmapootra River. A company was formed about fifteen 
 years ago, for the cultivation and manufacture of Tea ; but 
 through ignorance and inexperience, it was for some time a 
 losing coiicern. At present, however, it has so far succeed- 
 ed as to produce 300,000 pounds of Tea, and to pay 10 per 
 cent, annually to the Company. The experimental gardens 
 in the nort^hern and western parts of the Himalayas have 
 been established more recently, and the natives are now 
 beginning to take up the cultivation of the plant. 
 
 One of the gardens is at Kaologir, about three miles from 
 Dehra, and I visited it in company with Mr. Keene. Mr. 
 Fortune considers that a level alluvial soil, like that of the 
 Dhoon, is not so well adapted for tea as the hilJy country 
 about Almorah and in the Punjaub, and if he be correct I 
 did not see the plant in its greatest perfection; though I 
 ghould think it difficult for any plantation to present a more 
 flourishing appearance than parts of that at Kaologir. It 
 consists of three hundred acres of level gound— a rich, dark 
 toam, mixed with clay — and contains plants in every stage 
 of growth, from the seedling to the thick, bushy shrub, six 
 feet high. Tt was then the blossoming season, and the nexi
 
 196 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 crop of leaves would not be gathered before May. The plant 
 bears some resemblance to the ilex, Dr holly, but the leaf i^ 
 smaller, of a darker green, and more minutely serrated. The 
 olossom is mostly white — in some varieties a yellowish-brown 
 — and resembles thai of the wild American blackberry. 
 The plants were set about three feet apart, in rows four 
 feet from each other, with small channels between, for the 
 purpose of irrigation. Mr. Fortune, however, considers that 
 irrigation is rather injurious than otherwise. 
 
 Mr. Thomson, the Superintendent of the plantation, as- 
 sured me that the average yield of the plants, after they had 
 reached a proper growth for plucking, might be set down at 
 I cwt. per acre, though, under favorable circumstances, it 
 could be increased to 200 lbs. At present, the Dehra and 
 Almorah teas sell for purely fancy prices, being bought up 
 with avidity at the annual sales, at from two to three rupees 
 a pound. Dr. Jameson, who has charge of all the Tea planta 
 tions in the north-west, estimates that when the culture shall 
 have become general, Tea can be profitably produced at six 
 annas (18 cents) the pound. The zemindars, who are with 
 difficulty brought to accept of the slightest innovatioji, are 
 very reluctant to undertake the culture, although the G overn- 
 ment not only releases them from all tax upon land j lanted 
 with Tea shrubs, but binds itself to buy from them, £ t a re- 
 munerative price, all the Tea they can produce. It ij now 
 proposed to command every zemindar who leases property 
 beyond a certain number of acres, to cultivate five acres of 
 the Tea plant Those who know the natives best say that 
 this is the only way in which Tea Culture can be rapidlj 
 extended; the natives being perfectly willing to obey any
 
 rtlDE TO THE ROBBER's CAVE. l^' 
 
 wromauds, although they may be immovable to all persua 
 sion. I have been told that when urged to introduce certair 
 improvements into their system of agriculture, they often 
 answer : " If you really want us to do so, why don't you give 
 IS the hookm (command) ? " There would seem to be some 
 eason, then, in such a despotic mode of introducing the Tea 
 Culture. I drank of both the Dehia and Almorah Teas, 
 which were deliciously pure and fragrant, though much 
 stronger than the adulterated Teas exported from China. 
 
 The garden at Kaologir was kept in fine order, the fields 
 being perfectly clean and free from weeds, and separated from 
 each other by hedges of Persian roses, of the deepest crimson 
 dye and intensest summer perfume. We passed through the 
 plantation, and struck across an open tract of country toward 
 the tents of Mr. Thornhill, the Magistrate of the Dhoon. 
 He received us hospitably under the shade of his patriarchal 
 mano-o-trees, and lent us two horses, to take us to the Rob- 
 ber's Cave, which was three or four miles distant, among the 
 hills at the base of the Himalayas. We had a charming ride 
 through alternate groves, jungles and grain-fields. The great 
 mountains before us lay warm and red in the afternoon sun. 
 and away to the west, like a soft, white cloud, the Chore lifted 
 his snowy head. The peasants were at work in the fields, 
 and boys, clad only in the dhotee, or breech-cloth, tended the 
 cows as they browsed along the edges of the jungle. 
 
 Finally the path brought us to the brink of a deep sunken 
 glen, the sides of which were walls of magnificent foliage. It 
 extended before us for nearly a mile, narrowing as it ap 
 preached the hills, two of which overhung and finally blocked 
 It up Our horses scrambled down with some difficulty, and
 
 l98 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 we followed the course of a clear mountain stream^ \?hioli 
 issued from the further extremity. As the glen grew nar- 
 rower, its sides became more steep and lofty, yet so tho- 
 roughly draped with shrubs and pendant vines, that scarcely a 
 particle of soil was visible. The foliage rolled down in gor 
 geous masses, on either hand, dipping its skirts in the clear, 
 bright stream, that flowed at the bottom. But the glen at length 
 became a ravine, the ravine a crevice, and the hills closed, 
 leaving only a split, as of an earthquake, for the passage of the 
 water. A cold wind blew continually from the opening. We rode 
 within it a short distance to notice the splendor of the leafy, 
 sunlit glen, seen through the black jaws of the gloomy passage. 
 The rock is a coarse conglomerate of limestone, whence I suspect 
 that the " Cave," as it is called, is a natural grotto, and not a 
 crevice produced by an earthquake, as some persons suppose. 
 By wading in the bed of the stream, you can pass entirely 
 through the hill, a distance of nearly a mile, emerging into & 
 similar glen on the opposite side. I was struck with the re- 
 «<emblance of the place to the famous " Annathal," near 
 Eisenach, in Germany. 
 
 One morning I made a visit to a Sikh temple, of great 
 sanctity, which stands at the further end of the town. It is 
 3onnected with the tomb of a Gooroo, or Saint, and is about 
 two hundred years old. It is enclosed in a spacious court, and 
 appears to have been built on the site of some older edifice, as 
 a portion of the gateway is evidently of much earlier date than 
 the tomb. One of the buildings, now used as a habitation, has 
 a portico of very grotesque design, covered with paintings 
 representing events in the Saint's life, and, singularly enough 
 portraits of some of thp Hindoo gods. The religion of the Sikhf
 
 I 
 
 A SIKH TEMPLE. 199 
 
 is a oompromige between Islam and Hindooism, rejecting all the 
 minor divinities of the latter and accepting, in their stead, the 
 One God of the Moslems, without the full recognition oi 
 Mahomet as his Prophet. They abjure caste, but, probably out 
 of regard for the feelings of their converts, abstain from eating 
 cow's flesh. Tlieir moral code is very similar to that of the 
 Hindoos and Moslems. One of the pictures in the portico 
 illustrates a miracle which happened to the Sikh Saint, during 
 a visit which he made to Mecca, Being directed by the 
 Moslem priests to sleep with his feet to the Kaaba, he refused, 
 and lay down with his head towards it, but during the night it 
 turned around in a marvellous manner, and presented itself to 
 his feet ! 
 
 A second gateway admitted us into a garden, containing the 
 tomb of the Saint, and the tombs of his four wives. The form- 
 er stands in the centre, the latter in the four corners of a paved 
 court, and are connected with each other by .narrow stone cause- 
 ways. The Saint's tomb is covered with a lofty dome, ajid 
 surrounded with a cloister, richly enamelled and painted, in the 
 style of the Mogul tombs about Agra and Delhi. It has no 
 pretensions to architectural beauty, but was a most picturesque 
 object, with its white dome, its deep shadowy arches, and the 
 brilliancy of its colors half touched with sunshine, half buried 
 in the shade of two massive peepul trees. Over the corner of 
 the platform rose the stems of the palm and Italian cypress, and 
 beyond the garden-wall appeared the tufted tops of some clumps 
 of bamboos. It was a picture ready for the sun-steeped pencil 
 »f Cropsey. 
 
 But after we had passed around to the front, another pic- 
 ture, not less beautiful, was speedily formed. A blind Sikt
 
 20C 
 
 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 fakeor, who had pilgrimed his way thither from the Pun 
 jaub, lay in the sun, half-propped against one of the pillars 
 with a sitar, or Indian violin, in his hand. "We asked hiu: 
 to play for as, whereupon he slowly tuned the strings, tooi 
 p a short bow and began playing one of those passionate 
 melodies of love and languishment, which you only hear in 
 a southern clime. The body of the violin was of wood, 
 curved and ribbed so as to resemble a crooked gourd, or a 
 segment of a fossil ammonite. It had a short neck, and four 
 strings of catgut, under which were eight very slender wires, 
 out of the reach of the bow, but tuned so as to give out a 
 spontaneous accord to the notes produced upon the strings. 
 The tones were like those of an ordinary violin, but \ery 
 pure, sweet and ringing. I should think the instrunent 
 capable, in the hands of a master, of producing the Liost 
 exquisite musical effects. In the Sikh'a hands, it spoke truly 
 the language of Southern love, now passionate, now i» ;plor'> 
 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.<?«*.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PROM CALCUTTA TO HONO EDNO. 
 
 Departure from Calcutta— Descending the Hoogly River— An Ac jident— Kedgeree— 
 The Songs of the Lascar*— Saugor Island— The Sandheads— The Bay of Bengtl- 
 Fellow- Passengers— The Peak of Narcondan— The Andaman Islands— Approach tc 
 Penong- A Malay Garree— Beauty of the Island— Tropical Forests— A Vale of Par- 
 adise—The Summit— A Panorama— Nutmeg Orchards— The Extremity of Asia— 
 The Malayan Archipelago— Singapore— Chinese Population— Scenery of the Island 
 —The China Sea— Arrival at Hong Kong. 
 
 The steamship Pekin was advertised to leave Calcutta at day- 
 light on the 28th, so I drove down to Garden Keach, where she 
 lay, the evening previous, and passed the night on board. When 
 I went on deck, the sun was rising broad and red between the 
 tall Australian pines on the bank; steam and smoke were jet- 
 ting out of the steamer's funnels ; crowds of natives, with a few 
 Europeans, were gathered on the shore, and all the confusion oi 
 letting go cables, bringing baggage at the last moment, shout- 
 ing from the paddle-boxes, and ringing bells on the fore^-astle, 
 showed that we were about to start. The steamer's head was 
 swung around by the tide, then running at the rate of seven or 
 eight knots an hour ; we ran upon two buoys placed near the 
 shore, broke some floats from the port wheel, and then started 
 for the sea. A little below our anchorage we passed th(
 
 276 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 Bishop's College, on the western "bank of the Hoogly. It con 
 gists of several detached buildings, in the hideous ludo-Gdthic 
 style introduced by the English. It is an ostentatious institu- 
 tion, and of little practical use in a religious point of view. 
 
 We swept too rapidly past the beautiful residences on both 
 banks of the Hoogly — spacious white mansions standing in 
 lawns shaded with the mango, the cocoa-palm and the Aus- 
 tralian pine, overgrown with jungle creepers, and surrounded 
 with gardens gay with the crimson BougainviUia or the long 
 white chalices of the Datura^ fringing the water's edge. Two 
 miles further these evidences of taste and luxury disappeared, 
 and the scattered villages of the natives, with a few patches of 
 corn and cane around them, kept back the primeval jungle. 
 Turninor the ande of Garden Reach, we lost our distant view 
 Df the Ochterlony Monument, the beacon of Calcutta, though 
 the numbers of native and foreign craft, with steam-tugs, as 
 cending and descending the river, still showed our proximity 
 to a mart of commerce. For some distance along the western 
 bank the people are brick-makers, and their quaint pyramids of 
 yellow clay frequently rise above the tops of the cocoa trees. 
 The Bengalees live in thatched bamboo huts, directly on the 
 water's edore, with a dense rank wilderness behind them. The 
 cocoa-nut palm is the principal tree, though the mango also 
 flourishes, and the graceful areca is sometimes seen. The cot- 
 ton tree, with its showers of scarlet, lily-shaped blossoms, is a 
 Host brilliant object, and splendidly stars the deep greenback- 
 ground of the jungle. Tigers are abundant in these parts, and 
 the river abounds with crocodiles, but I left India without 
 having seen either of those beasts. The green parrot screamed 
 fron? the tops of the palms, brown vultures swept lazily
 
 KEDGEREE SONGS OF THE LA8CABS. 277 
 
 t&iough the air, and a few sea-gulls skimmed the waves, but no 
 more ferocious animals met my eyes. 
 
 About thirty miles down the river, we ran into a hand- 
 some three-masted schooner, carrying away her bow-sprit and 
 cutting in twain one of our quarter-boats. We went more 
 slowly after this, for the navigation was becoming intricate, ol 
 account of the breadth of the river and the frequency of sand- 
 banks. The shores being a dead level, and the jungle with 
 which they are covered not very lofty, they soon sank to a low 
 green line on either side, and the native villages ceased. As 
 far as Diamond Harbor, about sixty miles below Calcutta, 
 there is a good road on the eastern bank, and telegraph stations 
 at intervals. The river is here four miles broad, and gradually 
 widens as we approach the sea. We dropped down to Kedge* 
 ree^ on the western bank, about sunset, and there halted unti! 
 the next morning at ten, in order to cross St. James's Bar 
 n^ith the flood tide. As we were hoisting anchor, the smoke of 
 a steamer was descried in the offing, and on nearer approach 
 she proved to be the Tenasserim, returning from Rangoon with 
 Lord Dalhousie, the Governor General, and suite on board. 
 
 While listening to the songs of the Lascars, and Chinamen, 
 as they were getting up the anchor, I was struck with the resem- 
 blance of one of their refrains to one of the songs of the Nile 
 boatmen. The rhythm was trochaic trimeter, with a redun- 
 dant syllable, precisely like the " Ed-doohkan el-liboodeh 
 fayn?'''' of the Arabs. The chorus of these Lascars was 
 ' Panch sepparree Bombay-ka ' " (Five betel-nut palms of 
 iBombay.) They sang in perfect accord, and the air was really 
 /ery sweet and melodious. The rhythm was marked by a 
 (Strong accent on the long syllables, which seems to bo a gen
 
 278 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 eral custom of Eastern singers. Another simple and c( mmoL 
 measure with the Hindoos is: ^^Hathee-par howdah, ghora- 
 par j'een^^ (the howdah on the elephant, the saddle on the 
 horse), which corresponds to that of Motherwell's ballad : 
 
 " Home came the saddle, 
 He nevermore 1 ** 
 
 We crossed the mouth of the river to Sanger Island, quite 
 sinking the western shore, and after running past its solitary 
 light-house and dreary tiger jungles, stood out for the Sand- 
 heads. The extreme point of Sanger Island is believed by the 
 Hindoos to mark the junction of the Ganges with the sea, and 
 they accordingly esteem it as one of the holiest spots in India. 
 At a certain season of the year they flock thither in great 
 numbers, for the purpose of bathing and offering sacrifices 
 This was my last view of India, for, although we were thread- 
 ing the channels of the Sandheads and surrounded by the 
 muddy waves of the Gunga, for two or three hours afterwards, 
 no land was visible. About noon we discharged the pilot, and 
 having fairly entered on the broad Bay of Bengal, headed for 
 Penan g. 
 
 The voyage across the bay was remarkably pleasant. 
 There was a profound calm in the air and on the water, and 
 our progress through it created but a faint semblance of a 
 breeze. The mercury ranged from 80^ to 85^\ the tempera- 
 ture at which indolence becomes a luxury. I had been so 
 bruised, jolted, shaken and excited by my journey through 
 India, that the sweetness of the air, the repose of the sea, and 
 the quiet movement of our vessel, were exceedingly grateful 
 and refreshing. There were only six other passengers, and
 
 TEE ANDAMAN ISLANDS. 279 
 
 each ol us possessed an entire state-room — a great advantage 
 in a voyage in the tropical seas. The captain, a red-haired 
 giant in appearance, was one of the frankest, heartiest and 
 most genia!. of commanders, and the other officers were quiet 
 and gentlemanly in their manners. Among the passengers 
 were Sir Lawrence Peel, Chief Justice of Bengal, and Mr. 
 Dorin, Secretary of the Board of Directors of the East India 
 Company. 
 
 After sailing two or three days across the Bay, towards 
 the Burmese coast, we passed one night through the Cocoa 
 Islands, off the northern point of the Great Andaman. The 
 next day we saw the island of Narcondan — a single volcanic 
 peak, which rises from the water to the height of 2,500 feet. 
 Its summit was hidden in clouds, and its sides completely 
 covered with the richest vegetation. It is singular that so lit- 
 tle should be known of the Andaman Islands, which lie high 
 up the Bay of Bengal, almost on the route between Calcutta 
 and Burmah. The larger island is about a hundred miles in 
 length, and has a splendid harbor at its northern extremity. 
 The East India Company at one time attempted to make a 
 settlement there, but failed on account of sickness amonor the 
 colonists. The natives of the islands are believed to be simi- 
 lar to the Papuans, though some consider them a branch of 
 the African race. It is said that they are cannibals, but very 
 little is known of their habits and modes of life. 
 
 Approaching the promontory of Malacca, we caught a dis- 
 tant view of the island of Salanga, and then stood in nearer 
 the eastern shore. On the morning of the 6th of March, we 
 made the island of Penang, which is separated from the peniu' 
 Bula by a strait less than a mile in width The town of Pf
 
 280 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 nang lies on the inner side, where the narrowness of the strait 
 forms a secure harbor for vessels. The eastern half of the 
 island is nearly level, rising to the west into a group of loftj 
 mountains, clothed to the summits with forests. A strip of silvei 
 beach along the shore, divided the pale emerald of the sea — a 
 hue which betrays a floor of coral — from the darker tint of the 
 forests of cocoa palm, which rose behind. Here and there a 
 picturesque Malay village crouched in the shade, and num- 
 bers of small fishing craft dotted the surface of the water. A 
 Chinese junk, with sails of matting, divided into a score of 
 reefs, and with a great black eye on each side of her square 
 bows, moved slowly past us on her way to Singapore. The 
 morning wind, blowing off the land, fanned us with spicy odors, 
 and hinted of the groves of nutmeg and clove-trees, for which 
 Penang is celebrated. 
 
 When the steamer came to anclior, and we were informf 
 that seven hours was the limit of our stay, I determined to 
 7isit the signal-station on the summit of the highest peak of 
 the island, about eight miles distant, and set off at once, in 
 company with one of the officers. We landed at a little wooden 
 jetty, where a number of light garrees, with a pony harnessed 
 to each, were collected, in anticipation of employment. One 
 of the passengers, who was stationed at Penang, engaged two 
 saddle-ponies for us, and dispatched them in advance, to await 
 as at the foot of the mountain, while we proceeded thither in a 
 garree. The road was admirable, and the Malay groom, run- 
 ning at the pony's head, propelled him forwards even too fast 
 for our liking. The purity of the air, t' e cloudless beauty of 
 the day, and ihe glorious groves of bain and bloom-^-of deep 
 green shades, and glossy lustres, and gorgeous coloring—
 
 PENANO TROPICAL FORESTS. 281 
 
 chrongh which we drove, have never been surpassed, in all m^ 
 experience of the tropics. I thought then, and I think so 
 still, that Penang is the most beautiful island in the world. 
 The dwellings of the English residents are large, airy bunga- 
 ows, embowered in gardens, and surrounded by groves of 
 cocoa and areca palm, the nutmeg and bread-fruit trees. The 
 native town, inhabited by Chinese and Malays, is small, and 
 lies close upon the water, but for miles around it extends a suc- 
 cession of beautiful residences and rich plantations, reaching to 
 the foot of the hills. The Chinese houses, scattered along the 
 road, with their great red hieroglyphics, and the queer, solemn- 
 ly-stupid yellow faces of their inmates, catch the eye of the 
 traveller from the west, and tell him that he has at last reached 
 the borders of the Far East. 
 
 After a drive of four miles, we entered a little dell, where 
 a stream of water, stealing through the woods, fell over the 
 rocks in a miniature cascade. Several lithe Malay youths 
 were bathing in the shallow pool at its foot, and their glowing 
 \)rown bodies glistened in the sun. Here we mounted our 
 ponies, and commenced the ascent. The path wound back- 
 wards and forwards through dense thickets, between banks 
 covered with gigantic fern, till it attained a ridgy spur of the 
 mountain, which it followed upward to the central heights. 
 We soon entered the forests, which gradually became so dense 
 and dark as to shut out every ray of the sun. Trees of thick, 
 glossy foliage, mingled their tops a hundred feet above our 
 heads, and in their shade arose a luxuriant undergrowth 
 Ferns, whose fronds were frequently from ten to fifteen feet in 
 length, bent their arching plumes above our heads; strange 
 plants, of new and graceful form, clustered od either hand, ane
 
 282 QTDIA, CHINA, AHD JAPAH. 
 
 birds of bright plumage darted in and out of the foliage 
 There was one, hidden in thickest shades, whose clear, pro- 
 longed, bell-like note, rang continually through the forest — & 
 wild, wizard call, which overflowed all the air, and was taken 
 ap in one spot as soon as it ceased in another. 
 
 We had advanced in this way about two miles, when an 
 opening in the trees disclosed a view to the south, into the 
 heart of a valley of more than Arcadian loveliness. It might 
 have been three miles in length by less than a mile in breadth, 
 and the orchards of palm, orange and spice-trees which covered 
 its lap, almost concealed the dwellings of the planters. It lay 
 between hills of billowy green, which, uniting at the farther 
 end, formed a gorge or gateway of forests, through which shone 
 the dark-blue sphere of the sea. It was a landscape from the 
 paradise of dreams, basking in the light of its own serene and 
 perfect beauty. As I looked down on it from that window of 
 the region of shade, I could have believed that I stood on the 
 Delectable Mountains, and that the valleys of the Land of 
 Beulah were at my feet. 
 
 Again we plunged into the depth of the forest, and after 
 two miles more of climbing, which moistened every hair in th(> 
 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^mva<Aox& Perry— CoL Marshall's Chinese 
 Dinner — Mr. Robert Fortune. 
 
 Spring, at Shanghai, comes slowly. When we arrived, at the 
 close of March, the trees were budding into leaf, but did not 
 attain their fall foliage before the middle of May. The wea- 
 ther during April was dull and showery, with a lower temper- 
 ature than would be looked for elsewhere in the same latitude. 
 There was scarcely an evening when fire was not necessary to 
 our comfort. Until all the summer crops had been planted, 
 and for a week or two afterwards, there was little satisfaction 
 in going into the country, where the vernal odors of grass 
 and flowers were wholly lost in the intolerable stench arising 
 from pits of manure. But towards the end of April, when the 
 rumors of war became less frequent, when the shocks of earth
 
 350 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 q[uakes had subsided, and the sun made his appearance from 
 time to time, I took many afternoon strolls in various direc- 
 tions, and became familiar with the country life of the 
 Chinese. 
 
 There is nothing striking or picturesque in the scenery of 
 this pan of China. The country is a dead level, watered with 
 sluggish creeks, and intersected with ditches and canals. It is 
 studded far and near with shapeless mounds of earth erected 
 over obsolete natives; sparingly dotted with clumps of dark 
 3edar-trees or plantations of the inestimable bamboo, and enli- 
 vened by occasional hamlets, which, shaded with bushy willows, 
 have a pleasant, rural aspect when seen from a distance, but 
 are mostly disgusting when you draw near. The soil is a verj 
 rich clayey loam, and yields abundant crops of rice, wheat, 
 sweet potatoes, beets, beans, pea-nuts, and the other staples of 
 Chinese food. Much of it must have been originally marsh 
 land, which has been drained by canals and the gradual rise 
 of the coast, from the deposits of the Yang-tse-Kiang. The 
 paths from village to village are on narrow dykes, winding be- 
 tween the fields, and crossing the ditches by bridges formed oi 
 single large slabs of granite, which are brought down from the 
 hills. Occasionally you see a highway, six or eight feet broad, 
 pared with blocks of stone, laid transversely, but I doubt 
 whether a carriage could go in any direction further than two 
 or three miles from the city. I sometimes met a Chinaman 
 of the better class mounted on a sturdy little pony, and once 
 encountered a traveller from So o- Chow in the national coit 
 veyance of China — the wheelbarrow! He was seated side» 
 ways, with his legs dangling below, while his baggage, placed 
 on the opposite side, served to trim the vehicle. It was a one-
 
 HOUSES OF THE LOWEE CLASSES. 35 j 
 
 horse wheelbarrow, propelled by a stout coolie, with a strap 
 over his shoulders, and made a doleful creaking as it passed 
 The persons whom I met showed every sign of civility and re- 
 spect, and had time permitted, I might have extended my strolls 
 to a distance of thirty or forty miles, without meeting any hin- 
 drance. In the villages I frequently entered the houses of the 
 people, to which they made no objection, but seemed rather 
 gratified at the distinction. The domestic arrangements were 
 very simple ; the dwellings were all of one story, rarely having 
 more than two rooms, and containing only the rudest appliances 
 of a household. The beds were usually of matting, with bam- 
 boo pillows, but the poorer natives slept upon coarse mats laid 
 upon the earth, with wooden stools under their heads. It 
 is not advisable to be too curious, or to spend much time in 
 inspecting Chinese dwellings, on account of their abundant 
 vitality. For the same reason, many features of domestic life 
 among the lower classes must be passed over in silence. 
 
 We made an excursion one morning to the pagoda, which 
 stands on the left bank of the Whang-po River, about eight 
 miles above the city. The wind was fair, and Mr. Cunning- 
 ham's fleet clipper-yacht soon carried us past the thousand 
 junks and notched brick walls of Shanghai. It was in the be- 
 ginning of May, and the shores, low and greenly wooded, bore 
 some resemblance to those of the Delaware, below Philadel- 
 phia. We passed several large junks, which had come through 
 from the Bay of Hang-Chow, by a canal which leads from the 
 old city of Chapoo to the Whang-po River. After a run of 
 Bn hour and half, we moored the yacht at the mouth of a small 
 creek, and walked to the pagoda, which was a quarter of 8 
 mile distant. It is built of pale red sandstone, and with its
 
 352 INDIA, CHINA, JlSD JAPAN. 
 
 ten stories diminisliiiig in beautiful proportion, each ovei 
 hung bj a pointed, up-tumed roof, it is truly a graceful ob 
 ject. The pagodas are the only symmetrical things in 
 Chinese architecture, and I think it doubtful whether the idea 
 of them was not first borrowed from India. All of those whicl 
 I saw, or which travellers generally see in China, are compa- 
 ratively modern. 
 
 There was a little village scattered about the foot of the 
 structure, and the country people were holding a market there. 
 The supply of vegetables, sweetmeats, and cheap, coarse articles 
 of dress was very large: the jugglers were present in strong 
 force, and the beggars were over-zealous in their attendance, 
 I amused myself with buying many varieties of nondescript 
 pastry and confects, at such cheap rates, that it was difficult to 
 pay little enough. I then distributed my purchases among the 
 children, the larger of whom took them with avidity, while 
 the younger and more shy held back from the foreign barba- 
 rian, until encouraged by their pleased parents. To escape 
 from the popularity which followed, we climbed to the summit 
 of the pagoda, whence we beheld a circular panorama, de- 
 scribed by a radius of twenty-five miles. It was beautiful 
 only from its extent, and its monotony of green, through which 
 wandered a few brown veins of rivers. I soon turned to con- 
 template the more animated manscape at my feet. Seeing a 
 crowd of beggars standing together in dejected attitudes, I 
 east a handful of cash into the air, in such wise that the coine 
 would fall plump among them, and then dropped behind th» 
 parapet of the pagoda. There was a metallic rattle on the 
 stones, followed by a cry of amazement, for nothing was visi* 
 ble, of course, and they had not seen us ascend the pagoda.
 
 A iJHINESE FLORAL EXHIBITION. 35c 
 
 Several other miraculous showers followed, but a desire -o see 
 the beggars scramble, betrayed us at last. We were greeted 
 with loud cries, and arms thrown greedily aloft, beckoning 
 for more. I cast among them upwards of twenty handfuls, and 
 by thus expending the munificent sum of forty cents, enjoyed 
 the feelings of a monarch, who scatters golden largesse. 
 
 One day I attended a native horticultural exhibition, 
 which was held in an old temple, within the walls. The open 
 courts of the building were filled with rows of flowering 
 plants, in earthen pots and vases, which were also arranged in 
 circles around some weak fountains in the centre. There 
 were some fine specimens of the mau-tan, or peony, white, pink, 
 and crimson, and with an odor very similar to that of the rose; 
 but the most admired flower seemed to be the lan-whei, a bul- 
 bous water-plant, with a blossom resembling that of the orchids 
 in form, yet of a dirty yellowish-green hue. The great aim 
 of the Chinese florist is to produce something as much unlike 
 nature as possible, and thus this blossom, which, for aught I 
 know, may be pure white, or yellow, in its native state, ia 
 changed into a sickly, mongrel color, as if it were afflicted 
 with a vegetable jaundice, or leprosy. There was a crowd of 
 enthusiastic admirers around each of the ugliest specimens, and 
 I was told that one plant, which was absolutely loathsome and 
 repulsive in its appearance, was valued at three hundred 
 dollars. The only taste which the Chinese exhibit to any 
 degree, is a love of the monstrous. That sentiment of harmo- 
 ay, which throbbed like a musical rhythm through the life of 
 the Greeks, never looked out of their oblique eyes. Theii 
 mnsic is a dreadful discord; their language is composed of na 
 sale and consonants; they admire whatever is distorted or ur
 
 354 INDIA, chuja, and japah. 
 
 Qatural, and the wider its divergence from its original beautr^ 
 or symmetry, the greater is their delight. 
 
 This mental idiosyncrasy includes a moral one, of similai 
 character. It is my deliberate opinion that the Chinese are, 
 morally, the most debased people on the face of the earth. 
 Forms of vice which in other countries are barely named, are 
 in China so common, that they excite no comment among the 
 natives. They constitute the surface-level, and below them 
 there are deeps on deeps of depravity so shocking and horrible, 
 that their character cannot even be hinted. There are some 
 dark shadows in human nature, which we naturally shrink 
 from penetrating, and I made no attempt to collect informa- 
 tion of this kind; but there was enough in the things which I 
 could not avoid seeing and hearing — which are brought almost 
 daily to the notice of every foreign resident — to inspire me 
 with a powerful aversion to the Chinese race. Their touch is 
 pollution, and, harsh as the opinion may seem, justice to our 
 own race demands that they should not be allowed to settle 
 on our soiL Science may have lost something, but mankind 
 has gained, by the exclusive policy which has governed China 
 during the past centuries. 
 
 I soon grew tired of the jaundiced lan-wheis, and diverted 
 myself with examining a labyrinthine garden in the rear of the 
 temple. It was a piece of rock-work, of the most absurd and 
 grotesque character. The fragments of gray, disintegrated 
 limestone were plastered and riveted together in the form of 
 precipices and mountain-peaks, one of which was at least twenty 
 feet high, with a cork-screw path encirling it many times be 
 fore it allowed the adventurous traveller to mount the cap 
 Btone. In the crevices of the rocks were little basins of soil
 
 A SOLDIER AND HIS DRILL- 355 
 
 in which magnolias and mau-tans were growing, while, far 
 down in the depths of the valleys you saw several green, slimy 
 lakes, from Lhree to five feet in length. After having suffi- 
 ciently enjoyed this sublime view, I discovered a means of 
 exit through a low, arched grotto into the street, and did not 
 scruple to make use of it. 
 
 Continuing my walk at random, I came to a very old, di- 
 lapidated temple, in the southern part of the city. The jolly 
 fat idols had been removed, and the place was occupied as a 
 barrack by some of the Taou-tai's troops. Several indolent 
 soldiers were hanging about a tank of water in the centre of the 
 court-yard, and the thought of seeing a Chinese military drill 
 came into my mind. I offered the least lazy and most good- 
 humored of the party fifty cash to perform his exercise, and 
 found him quite willing to comply. He soon appeared with a 
 wooden weapon about five feet long and one foot wide, with a 
 handle like that of a fiddle-bow, running parallel to its length, 
 and fastened at each end. This he brandished in the air, first 
 on one side, then on the other, sometimes swinging it like an 
 axe, sometimes drawing it downwards with both hands like a 
 comb, and occasionally thrusting one end of it behind him, as 
 if he was warding off an attack in the rear. The attitudes 
 were very amusing, and each imaginary blow was accompanied 
 with a howl of defiance, and an expression of face which was 
 meant to be terrific. The performance lasted about half an 
 hour, and I considered that the cash were well earned. 
 
 On my return home, I saw near the city gate a man suf 
 faring the punishment of the cangue. This is a heavy wooden 
 wheel, which is fastened around the criminal's neck, and pro- 
 ects outwards so far that he cannot touch his head with hL«
 
 B56 LNDIA, CHOTA, AHD JAPAH. 
 
 hands. He therefore nms the risk of starvation, unless he has 
 friends or relations^ who are able and willing to feed him All 
 the inconveniences resulting from this mode of punishment soon 
 become tortures, and when the culprit is sentenced to undergo 
 it for two or three months, his plight would be insupportable 
 to any but a Chinaman. The man in question had a wretched, 
 haggard look, but I saw no one who seemed to commiserate 
 him in the least. 
 
 On the 23d of April, the British war-steamer Hermes left 
 for Nanking, with Sir George Bonham on board. As the 
 Hermes drew four or five feet less water than the Susquehan- 
 na^ it was supposed that she would be able to proceed up the 
 Yang-tse-Kiang. Sir George's object was to communicate 
 with the rebels, and inform them of the entire neutrality of 
 the foreign powers. The Taou-tai of Shanghai had circulated 
 reports throughout the interior, that all the foreign war- 
 steamers were in league with him, and were to be dispatched 
 to Nanking. The Hermss returned on the 5th of May, having 
 been absent twelve days. She was four days in reaching 
 Nanking, having twice grounded in the river. She passed the 
 outposts of the rebel army near Chin-Kiang-foo, where she was 
 fired upon, but very slightly damaged. Having reached the 
 anchorage at Nanking, the officers succeeded in communicating 
 with the rebel chiefs, by whom they were well received. Tho 
 latter stated that they were not hostile to foreigners, and ha<l 
 never intended to attack Shanghai They professed to be 
 Christians, and declared that their leader, Tae-ping, was a 
 younger brother of Jesus Christ. From various indications 
 however, it was supposed that their Christianity, such as it was 
 was founded on the belief that, through its supernatural influ
 
 THE HERMES AT NANK NO. 357 
 
 ence, they would obtain the same divine favor to which tliev 
 asmbed the success of the English in the late Chinese war. 
 
 Mr. Meadows sent to the American Embassy copies of 
 books which were ob+ained from the rebels. Among them 
 was Grutzlaff's translation of the book of Genesis. They also 
 had the Ten Commandments, which they promulgated as a 
 divine law, changing the seventh so as to read thus: "Thou 
 shalt not commit adultery, nor smoke opium." The latter of- 
 fence is punished with death. The chief Tae-ping (Universal 
 Peace,) was not seen by Sir George Bonham, nor any of hia 
 suite. He professed to be divinely inspired, receiving his com- 
 munications direct from the Almighty. Nanking was almost 
 wholly deserted by its former inhabitants, and its streets pre- 
 sented a pitiable spectacle. The rebels went about dressed in 
 gorgeous silks, which they had taken from the despoiled shops 
 of the merchants; sycee silver was abundant, and the most 
 extravagant prices were paid for umbrellas, buttons, pistols, 
 old clothes, and other articles on board the Hermes. Many of 
 the sailors made large sums in thus disposing of their super- 
 fluous garments. A splendid robe of the most costly furs was 
 given in exchange for a worn-out midshipman's unifonn. 
 Hundreds of the rebels visited the Hermes, while she lay l-e- 
 fore the city, and some of her officers went ashore, and even 
 passed a night among the people, without the least molesta- 
 tion 
 
 The steamer Bombay arrived on the 3d of May, bringing 
 the long-delayed European and American mails, together with 
 the intelligence that the U. S. steam-frigate Mississippi, the 
 flag-ship of the Japan Expedition had left Hong Kong foj 
 Shanghai. Early on the following morning, we saw from th(
 
 358 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN. 
 
 hoQse-top, through a glass, her broad pennant at the mouth oi 
 the Woosung River. Although drawing more than twentj 
 feet, she succeeded in crossing the bar without delay, and came 
 up to the city, where she dropped anchor beside the Susque- 
 hanna. On the 9th of May, Commodore Perry transferred his 
 pennant to the latter vessel, with the usual ceremonies of firing 
 salutes and manning the yards — a spectacle which drew the 
 greater part of Shanghai to the hund. The Commodore be- 
 came a guest at the American Consulate for the remainder of 
 his stay, and his presence and that of the Mississippi's officers, 
 gave a fresh impetus to the social activity of the foreign popu- 
 lation. Thenceforth there were balls, dinners, and other en- 
 bertainments, in great abundance. 
 
 Among these festivities, the most notable was a Chinese 
 dinner which Col. Marshall gave at the Consulate. The build- 
 ing was in a blaze of lanterns and flowers. An arched ave- 
 nue of colored lights led from the gate to the door, where the 
 visitor ascended between a double row of fragrant white and 
 crimson tnau-tans to the first story. Here, the quaint sills 
 lanterns were redoubled; curious baskets and urns of grass 
 and shells, filled with flowers, were suspended from the ceiling, 
 and the dining-room, handsomely draped with flags, contained 
 a veritable bower or arbor of greenery enshrining the Ameri- 
 can eagle. The dinner was prepared with great care, not onl^/ 
 the Taou-tai's silver cups and chopsticks, but even his cook 
 having been borrowed for the occasion. The dishes were 
 numerous and palatable, but hardly substantial enough for a 
 civilized taste. They were mostly soups, and some of them 
 were distinguished by very peculiar flavors, which I found 
 difficult to analyze. The choicest dishes were bird's-nest soup
 
 ROBERT FORTUNE. 359 
 
 shark's fins, and a dark, stringy substance, which tne Taoa-ta 
 said he had procured from Pekin, at great expense. The din 
 ner was followed by a grand ball, and a supper in Europear 
 style. 
 
 There were rumors of trouble at Ningpo, and the French 
 Bt earn or Cassini made a trip to that city. Mr. Robert For- 
 tune, author of " Wanderings in China," and " A Journey to 
 the Bohea Mountains," who had arrived in Shanghai a short 
 time previous, also left for Ningpo, whence he proposed making 
 new journeys into the interior. Mr. Fortune is a plain, unas- 
 suming man, and an enthusiastic botanist, and by his daring 
 excursions into the tea districts, has added greatly to our 
 knowledge of the interior of China. Mr. Forbes, who went to 
 Ningpo in the Cassini. returned about the 10th of May in a 
 (Chinese junk, by way of Chapoo.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE D. 8. EXPEDITION TO JAPAN 
 
 strte (>f 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 
 <Iistinguiphed by any appearance of wealth, or insignia of office. 
 It consisted of a central hall with wings, open toward the 
 court-yard, from which it was only separated by a narrow 
 verandah, approached by a flight of stone steps. The building 
 was of wood, and the pillars supporting it, with the beams of 
 the ceilings, were painted of a dark-red color. The floor was 
 covered with thick, fine matting, each mat being rigorously 
 made according to the legal dimensions. 
 
 Four tables were set in the central apartment, and three Id 
 each of the wings, and already covered with a profuse colla- 
 tion. Immediately on entering we were requested to seat our* 
 selvos. The Commodore, with Commanders Buchanan and
 
 A BOYAL DIXNER. 885 
 
 Adams, took the highest table on the right hand, and the Regent 
 and his associates the one opposite on the left. At each corner 
 of the tables lay a pair of chop-sticks. In the centre stood an 
 earthen pot filled with sackee, surrounded with four acorn 
 •jups*, four large cups of coarse china, with clumsy spoons of 
 the same material, and four tea-cups. From this centre radiated 
 a collection of dishes of very different shapes and sizes, and still 
 more different contents. There were nineteen on the table at 
 which I sat, but I can only enumerate a few of them : Eggs, 
 dyed crimson and sliced ; fish made into rolls and boiled in fat ; 
 cold pieces of baked fish ; slices of hog's liver ; sugar candy ; 
 cucumbers ; mustard ; salted radish tops ; curds made of bean 
 flour ; fragments of fried lean pork, and several nondescripts, 
 the composition of which it was impossible to tell. 
 
 The repast began with cups of tea, which were handed 
 around, followed by tiny cups of sackee, which was of much 
 superior quality to any we had yet tasted on the island. It was 
 old and mellow, with a sharp, sweet, unctuous flavor, somewhat 
 like French liqueur. Small bamboo sticks, sharpened at one 
 end, were then presented to us. We at first imagined them to 
 be tooth-picks, but soon found that they were designed to stick 
 in the balls of meat and dough, which floated in the cups of 
 soup, constituting the first course. Six or eight cups of different 
 kinds of soup followed, and the attendants, meanwhile, assidu- 
 ously filled up the little cups of sackee. We had a handsome, 
 bright-eyed youth as our G-anymede, and the smile with which 
 he pressed us to eat and drink, was irresistible. The abundance 
 of soup reminded me of a Chinese repast. Of the twelve courses 
 — the number appropriated to a royal dinner — which wero 
 served to us, eight were soups, and many of them so similar iu 
 17
 
 S86 INDIA, CHINA, AHD JAPAN. 
 
 composition as not to be distinguished by a palate unpractised 
 in Loo-Choo dolicaoies. The other four were — ^gingerbread; 
 a salad made of bean-sprouts and tender onion-tops ; a basket 
 of what appeared to be a dark-red fruit, about the size of a 
 peach, but proved to be balls, composed of a thin rind of 
 unbaked dough, covering a sugary pulp ; and a delicious mix- 
 lure of beaten eggs, and the aromatic, fibrous roots of the gin- 
 ger-plant. The gingerbread had a true home flavor, and waa 
 not to be despised. The officers did their best to do honor to 
 the repast, but owing to the number of dishes could do little 
 more than taste the courses as they were served up. Although 
 we left at the end of the twelfth course, we were told that 
 twelve more were in readiness to follow. 
 
 After the eighth or ninth course, the Commodore rose and 
 proposed as a toast, the health of the Queen Mother and the 
 young Viceroy, adding : " Prosperity to the Loo-Chooans, and 
 may they and the Americans always be friends ! " This toast, 
 having been translated to the Regent, appeared to gratify hiio 
 highly, and it was drunk standing, with Loo-Choo honors, 
 which consists in draining the tea-spoonful of sackee at one 
 gulp, and turning the cup bottom upwards. The Commodore 
 afterwards proposed the health of the Regent and his associates, 
 which the latter returned by giving that of the Commodore and 
 the officers of the Sej[uadron. By this time the anxiety and 
 embarrassment of the Chiefs had entirely worn oS, and the 
 entertainment wound up with the best possible feeling. How 
 much of the anxiety was assumed, or what was its cause, we 
 had no means of ascertaining; but from what little I have seen 
 of the Loo-Chooany, I am h^atisfied that there is a strong basis of 
 eunning in their cliaracter. The interpreter on the part of th«
 
 HETURN ON BOARD. 387 
 
 Regent was a verj intelligent young native, name Ichirazichi^ 
 who had been educated at Pekin, where he remained three 
 years. He spoke a little English, and had some knowledge, 
 both of the geographical position of the United States, and 
 their history. He spoke of Washington as a very great Man- 
 darin. He had a more swarthy complexion than is usually 
 found among the educated Loo-Chooans, a keen black eye, and 
 A sniewd, cunning expression of countenance. 
 
 The Commodore left the Regent's house about one o'clock, 
 when the procession formed in the same order as before. The 
 subordinate officials accompanied us to the gate, and the old 
 Pe-ching again took his station in advance. On starting down 
 the hill, the four ponies, which had gone up with us with- 
 out finding riders, were again led to the rear. Several of us 
 profited by this neglect, to mount for a ride down, and try the 
 temper of the Loo-Choo horses. The ponies were very small 
 animals, of a bay color, but rather active and spirited. They 
 were accoutred like the Chinese horses, with saddles of Turkish 
 fashion, and enormous iron stirrups, curved backwards, so as 
 to admit not only the foot but part of the leg. They were 
 led by grooms, and we could not succeed in bringing them 
 into line behind the rear company of marines, on account of 
 their jealousy of each other. The little chargers kicked and 
 plunged several times with great vivacity. 
 
 The sun, shining full in the face of the hill, made our de- 
 scent a sultry one, but as we came upon the wooded slopes a 
 sea-breeze met us, and groups of the boats' crews who had 
 come ofi" to convey us back to the vessels, were seen under the 
 trees, watching our approach Several hundreds of the na- 
 tives followed us, and as we drew near the shore, they were
 
 388 INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN. 
 
 seen scampering over the rice-fields in every direction, to gel 
 a final view of our array. Fifteen boats, each flying the 
 American colors, lay in the mouth of the creek. The Com- 
 modore and suite immediately embarked, and the wind being 
 fair, the cutters hoisted sail, and dashed away over the bright 
 blue waves, passing the slow white launches, with their loada 
 of marines and artillerymen. All were on board by half-past 
 two. without any untoward incident having occurred to mai 
 the successful issue of the trip.
 
 C H AFTER XXXI. 
 
 VOYAGE TO THE BONIN ISLANDS. 
 
 Departure— The Bonin, or Arzobispo Islea— Death of a Chinese Opium Smoker- ^A 
 Peruvian Bark— Approach to the Bonin Islands— Pilots— Entering Por. Lloyd— Go- 
 ing Ashore- A Settler's Hut — Society on the Island— Mode of Life— An Old Inhab- 
 itant and liis Mate— Productions of the Island— A Coaling Station for Steamers— 
 Buckland Island— A Basaltic Cavern— English Claims to the Islands 
 
 On the 9th of June, Commodore Perry left the harbor of Napa 
 in the Susquehanna, for a visit to the Bonin or Arzobispo 
 Isles, which lie in Lat. 27^ N., Long. 140^ SO^E.jOr between 
 eight and nine hundred miles from Loo-Choo. We took the 
 sloop-of-war Saratoga in tow, leaving the Mississippi behind, 
 as we did not expect to be absent more than two weeks. 
 
 The Bonin Islands have scarcely been heard of in the Uni 
 ted States, except through an occasional whaling vessel, som^ 
 of which are in the habit of touching there, in order to pro- 
 cure fresh provisions. They are about 500 miles in a south- 
 erly direction from the Bay of Yedo, and are called by the 
 Japanese Mo or Mou nin sima, signifying " uninhabited 
 islands," whence the English term, Bonin. In Kompfer's work 
 on Japan, there is an account of their discovery by the Japan- 
 286, two and a half centuries ago, and the same, with a more
 
 390 INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN 
 
 minute description of their appearance and productions, is to 
 be found iu Klaproth's translation of a Japanese work on the 
 three tributary Kingdoms of Corea, Loo-Choo, and JesOo 
 They were also discovered by a Spanish Admiral, and named 
 the " Islas del Arzobispo," long prior to Capt. Beechey's visit 
 and survey in 1827. To the latter navigator, however, we 
 are indebted for the first accurate account of their location 
 and extent. 
 
 We were favored by the south-west monsoon, and had a 
 delightful run of five days, with nothing to interrupt the uni- 
 formity of sea life, except frequent calls to " general quar- 
 ters," and the death of Mr. Williams' Chinese Secretary 
 The latter fell a victim to the practice of smoking opium. He 
 attempted to give it up, and this, with a spell of sea-sickness 
 on board the Saratoga, so enfeebled him that no medicines 
 produced any effect, and he sank into a state of nervelessness 
 and emaciation shocking to witness. His body was reduced 
 to a skeleton, and all his nervous energy so completely de- 
 stroyed, that for a week before his death every fibre in his 
 frame was in a state of constant agitation. His face was a 
 ghastly yellow, the cheeks sunken upon the bones, and the 
 eyes wild and glassy with a semi-madness which fell upon hun. 
 His whole aspect reminded me of one of those frightful heads 
 in wax, in the museum of Florence, representing the effects of 
 the plague. He was a complete wreck, both in mind and 
 body, and nothing that I ever saw of the results of intoxica- 
 tion from spirituous liquors has impressed me with half the 
 horror. 
 
 On the moming of the 12th we passed a Peruvian bark, 
 with a cargo of coolies bound for the guano islands. She wae
 
 ENTERING PORT LLOYD. 391 
 
 Bteeiing nearly the same course as ourselves, under a cloud of 
 canvas, with studding-sails and royals set> 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.
 
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