N V' A ST' r 7— • -^ % «L ;-j r%o NATIVE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA. lurking party of natives, who might have seen my smoke, would be likely to dis- cover us during the hours of darkness. But though I would not infrequently see the smokes of the blacks, and hear them cooceing miles away, it was not often that I met them. Upon one of the very first of my long trips, however, I had a rather singular adventure 90 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. with a young black fellow, who proved to be anything but a pleasant acquaintance. I was riding slowly along the bank of a small creek, where grew thick groves of stately old gum-trees, when the strokes of a tomahawk came to my ears at no great distance ahead. Dick raised his head a little to listen, as was his wont at the least unusual noise; but I allowed him to walk slowly on toward the sounds, for I had a curiosity to see what the blacks were doing. Directly ahead of us was a thicket of young mallec scrub, where manna might have been pulled off by the pint; and passing this, we came to an open growth of box and gum trees. Here I found the axeman, thumping away lustily at the trunk of a big hollow gum-tree, which he had felled by burning it off at the roots. Evidently he was hunting opossums. No other person was in sight; he was alone, — a tall, lithe young fellow, in the scantiest of apparel. A single, long Jaaring feather, white as snow, was stuck in his curling back hair. His back was turned to me ; and his stone tomahawk made such a noise on the hollow gum that he heard nothing of my approach over the soft, yielding soil. I let Dick walk leisurely along till he was within fifty yards of the gum- tree, then drew rein and stood still, to watch the action of the native when he should discover us. After a time he ceased his blows, to rest for a moment, and then a slight snort from Dick instantly attracted his attention. With a sudden jump, like that of a startled cat, he faced us, and stood with dilated eyes, petrified with amazement or fright. Probably he had never before seen a horse, or a white man on horseback. He may well have taken us for one and the same creature, — some monster of which he had never even heard. I raised my hand in token of peaceful intent, and spoke reassuringly, though it is not to be supposed that the young native understood my words. He was as straight as a gun-barrel, and he faced me, every muscle tense, and all his senses on the alert. At length, with an audible puff of his breath, he slightly shifted his posi- tion, and then, without stooping, he raised, with the toes of his bare right foot, one after the other, three spears, each made of a long light reed, that lay on the ground close by. Next he picked up with the other foot his woolba, or throwing stick. Seeing that he was preparing to take the offensive, having resisted his first natural ipipulse to run away, I quietly unslung my gun, still speaking in a UJ^E AMONG THE BLACK AUSTRALIANS. 91 gentle tone to him, and had just got it in my hands when he had a spear fixed in the ivoolba ready to throw. The muscles of his right arm rose in a big knot, and the spear quivered like a serpent's tongue. At the same instant I presented my piece ; then for some moments we watched each other's movements. I could but admire the nerve displayed by the savage. There was not a sign of fear in his attitude, which was that of full defiance, if not aggression. Dick so much disliked both the smell and the looks of him that he presently gave vent to a loud snort. Up to that moment I had expected the black would throw his spear, but the snort of the horse seemed to alarm the native more than the sight of us had done. With a quick backward leap, he cleared the trunk of the gum, and sprang to the cover of a clump of young box-trees. Not at all sorry that the affair had terminated without a contest, flowered my gun, waved my unarmed hand in token of good intent, and touching Dick with the spur, rode away. Glancing back, I could see the black form of the resolute native still in the cover of the box-woods. He was watching us with an expression anything but friendly. I should like to know what idea led him first to watch and mark my course and then follow on my trail; for follow me he did all that day and longer. Toward night I came to a lake of which the creek was the outlet. It was a pretty sheet of water, with sandy and pebbly shores; and about a hundred yards from the point where I halted to cook my supper that night there was a cluster of three small islands covered with malice brush. The evening was warm. I bathed and led Dick into the water for a rub- down ; and finding the water shallow, it occurred to me to cross over and sleep on one of the islets. Accordingly, after dusk had fallen, I led Dick across to one of the most fertile of them, and hitching him up among the scrub, spread my blanket on the dry, earthy bank and fell asleep there. Late in the night the moon rose in a clear, starlit sky, and it must have been two o'clock when I was wakened by a slight splashing in the still water. Raising up a little, I looked shoreward, and saw a dark object, a black, I felt sure, standing in the lake, between the island and the shore. Something in the form suddenly brought to my mind the young hunter of the previous forenoon ; and fearing that he had summoned a party, I glanced rather anxiously along the moonlit shore, but could see nothing. He was alone ; but that he was hunting for me with evil intentions. I was sure. Plainly he had reconnoitred my camp-fire and my tracks thoroughly 92 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. enough already to conclude that I had crossed over to the islets, and was now considering the idea of attempting to surprise me there. Of course I could easily have shot him where he stood, and possibly, under the circumstances, might have been held excusable for doing so; but I did not wish to injure him unless compelled to do so in self-defence. I de- termined to scare him. Accordingly I suddenly shouted at him in tones that were re-echoed from the entire circuit of the lake shores. He started back at this sudden salute ; but after a few minutes' hesitation he again advanced into the water to cross over, brandishing his spear and muttering to himself. I waited till he was within a hundred feet of the bank where I lay, then discharged one barrel of my gun over his head. The flash and the report — a sound probably never heard by him before — had the effect which I had an- ticipated. With a sharp cluck in his throat, my nocturnal visitor made a rapid retreat, and regaining the sandy beach, disappeared. I did not fall asleep again, but saw nothing further of him until morning. His tracks in the sand, all about the place where my fire had been kindled, abundantly testified to his faithful efforts to find me. I cooked my breakfast and set off on my way home, feeling content to let this newly discovered lake be the limit of my westward riding for this trip ; and although I had kept a very sharp eye out for any traces of my sable acquaintance, I saw nothing of him at first. But when I had ridden about two miles, and was passing a little thicket at a walk, and within sixty or seventy feet of the brush, what seemed like a flash of yellow light shot past my face, and I heard a soft low whiz. It startled Dick ; he bounded suddenly forward and struck into a canter. Glancing back, I saw my very much-attached friend looking after me from the edge of the copse, with a disappointed expression on his round young black face. He had launched a spear at me, and barely missed his mark. Startled and angry, I was much tempted to requite his effort with a charge of kangaroo-shot, but contented myself with promising it to him next time if he did not desist. My horse went on at a good pace for four or five miles ; we then entered a sage plain and toiled across this, at a walk, for several hours. Coming at length to a water-hole, where there was fresh grass, I dismounted to allow Dick to feed a while. After a time I stepped upon a rock to look about, and at almost the same instant saw a black head — minus the feather now — rise up cautiously for a look, twenty or thirty rods from where I stood. LIFE AMONG THE BLACK AUSTRALIANS. 93 The rascal had been tracking me, and had, like a snake, burrowed along beneath the sage brush, hoping to creep up within spearing distance, unob- served. Perceiving now that I saw him, he rose up boldly and spat toward me. Evidently he had conquered his fear and was hot for revenge. I fancied that by discharging my gun over his head the night before, I had probably given him the idea that it was a weapon of noise rather than of harmful execu- tion ; but badly as he was behaving, I yet disliked to fire upon him. By night, however, he would prove a dangerous neighbor, particularly on the sage plain. I felt that I was obliged to act in self-defence in the matter. Withdrawing the heavy load from my left barrel, I recharged it with bird- shot, leaving the kangaroo-shot in the right as a last resort. Remounting the rock, I then called out in a threatening tone of voice to my pursuer. He replied with a shout of defiance, and advanced menacingly, shaking his spears ; and perhaps to try my courage, he sent one of his boomerangs hur- tling over my head. Just at this point I discovered a serpent in the trees. I discharged my gun at it, and the shot severed its head from its body, and he came tumbling down. The sight alarmed the black, and he disappeared ; and I rode hastily away, but felt insecure until the next day. He did not appear again this time. One day in October, of the year 1848, — October is a mid-spring month in Victoria, — a party of Wongut blacks from up the Goulburn River made a raid on one of my outlying flocks. This act annoyed me very much, and led to a collision which might well have brought my career as a sheep farmer to an abrupt termination. The flock in question consisted of two hundred and seventy-five weaned lambs, now nearly grown and mostly fat. I had separated them from the par- ent flock, and placed them under the care of a young Irishman named Cough- lin, who had recently come out from the old country. On this particular forenoon, Mike, my boy, was sitting under a box-wood bush, watching his lambs and smoking, when his reveries were suddenly inter- rupted by a tap on his shoulder from the handle of a spear. Turning, he saw a strapping black, in all the beauties of the war-paint, which were as yet new to him. He was fully armed with shield, spear, and waddy. To say that Mike was alarmed would be a mild way to describe his mental condition. His terror may have amused the sable warrior, and led him to change his first intention of knocking out the shepherd's brains. " He grinned horrid, sir," so Mike afterward related, and merely said, pointing to the pipe, " Give smoke." Mike gave up the pipe instantly. The 94 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. black placed the pipe in his own mouth, drew a few whiffs, and said, " White pella sit down." Mike lost no time in doing so, and then the intruder quietly took up the Irishman's gun, which stood against a bush close at hand, and walked away with it. When at a distance of a hundred yards, he gave a shrill " coo-ee ! " and fifteen or sixteen other blacks came out of a scrub thicket a little way off, where tliey had been lying hidden. They ran around the flock, divided it, separated from the rest about a hundred and thirty of the lambs, and drove them away. Mike, who had been sitting on the ground meantime, and " trimblin' loike a lafe," as he very honestly confessed, now came home as fast as he could to report. He told me his story with tears in his eyes, and gave, me his opinion that it was " a very onruly counthry, sir, intirely." Upon riding to the place, we found a hundred and forty-five of the lambs quietly feeding, and Mike's gun lying on the ground where the black had in- vited him to be seated. It w^as not easy to understand why they had returned it, unless they wished us to know that mutton was the only thing which they felt in need of. Perhaps they thought returning the gun would partly excuse the theft of the lambs. Captain Tamany added to this account of life in the bush a curious story that he had heard of an adventure with the great serpents of Australia, called the Australian boas. THE SLEEPING BOAS. Besides the enormous tiger-snake, one meets in the forest of Australia boas of enormous size, length, and weight. They live in trees much of the time, and shelter themselves under the leaves by night, and sun themselves on the branches by day. They so closely resemble the dead branches of the trees when they are dormant or watching for their prey that one fails readily to discover them. In Australia, one may not see a serpent for many weeks, or one may be frequently surprised by finding enormous boas and tiger- LIFE AMONG THE BLACK AUSTRALIANS. 95 snakes in one's way. The old couriers or postilions used to relate many fearful adventures with boas, and the early explorers described their encounters with tiger-snakes. Horses and dogs share the uni- versal fear of these death-dealing foes. I once heard a story of a traveller who had lain down to sleep by a fire in a hut made of bushes, and became aware that there was some unknown living thing in the place. He could hear a slow movement, but could not tell what it meant. He became drowsy at last, when he was suddenly startled by a cold, heavy body creeping over him. He knew it was a deadly snake, and that his only safety was to remain perfectly motionless. The long body grew heavy, but passed slowly along over his shoulders. At last the weight became less and less, and finally the tail disappeared, and the sound of the movement died away in the bushes. Qne day as an explorer was travelling through an Australian forest with a band of natives, his attention was attracted by the odd appearance of a long dead limb of a tree, which seemed to have grown double. He halted, and pointed toward it. " A boa," said a black boy in the party. The explorer was uncertain. *' I will go and see," said the black boy. The bo}' ran up a tree near the forest giant whose high limb presented the odd appearance. " A boa," said the boy. " He is a big one. I will kill him." He secured a heavy stick, and climbed up the great tree and dealt the boa a succession of sharp blows on the head, and sent it tumbling to the ground. He slid back to the ground, saying, " I see another." " Where } " asked the explorer. "In the leaves up there." In a tree almost over the heads of the party was a shining cluster of green leaves. Tangled among the sunny foliage was another 96 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. terrible snake. The boy ran up the tree, dealt the monster a blow, which caused it to spring into the air, and fall- to the earth. The blacks killed both of the serpents, and began to drag the bodies away. " What are you going to do with them ? " asked the traveller. " Eat them," was the answer. That evening, the blacks made a great oven, and heated it. They put into it the huge bodies of the two serpents, and covered them with grasses and leaves that the steam might not escape. When the oven was opened an hour later, the black men had a feast. The flesh when cooked was white like an eel. It looked inviting ; but our explorer, with his hereditar}'^ aversion to reptiles, could not be induced to taste it. The blacks thought that his taste was very peculiar, and could see no reason for his refusal to sup with them on such rich food. Grandmother Tamany said one or two such stories as the last was enough for a single evening, and begged that for the sake of her nerves, and the sleep of the young people, the story-telling might turn to some more cheerful subject. "To the kangaroos," said Eric. " Yes, that would be better," said Grandmother Tamany, " though one would not care to dream of kangaroos." " The Australian kangaroo," said Captain Bridewell, " is the most curious animal in existence. It is called a marsupial because it has a pouch in which it carries and nourishes its young, Its fore-feet are small, and look like arms ; its hind-feet are long and very strong, and are armed with sharp nails. The great kangaroo is nearly eight feet lono", and stands some five or six feet hiH-i, and looks in the distance like a human being. The animal was first made known to the world by Captain Cook, who discovered it in 1770. His story sounded like one of the tales of Sinbad the Sailor. It was hard to believe that there really existed an animal whose young lived in her =—^^^^^ ■^ - v^^^ ^"'i-^i-^-l— HE DEALT THE BOA A SUCCESSION OF SHARP BLOWS. LIFE AMONG THE BLACK AUSTRALIANS. 99 own body, and whose heads would protrude from it to eat herbage as she passed about. " The kangaroo outleaps the run of the swiftest dogs. When tired out with the pursuit of dogs and brought to bay, it rises upon its hind-legs, and awaits attack. It is able to kill a dog by a single stroke of its sharp claws. " Its meat is greatly esteemed, and the hunting of the kangaroo is one of the principal diversions of Australia. It is a very timid animal, and becomes easily tamed, but is dangerous if brought to bay." Little Mary Hartwell was a dreamer, and she had heard the old sea-captains relate their stories of the Antarctic Sea so many times that her fairy-land became the South Pacific Ocean. While other children were playing with dolls, tin soldiers, and wooden animals, Eric and Mary made ships of wood and paper and sailed them over imaginary waters. " Let 's go to sea," Mary used to say to Eric, " and catch whales ; " and they would make a South Pacific Ocean of the carpet, and harpoon imaginary whales and return rich with barrels of oil to the supposed port of New Bedford. It was queer to hear the pale little girl shout in her play, " There she blows! You harpoon him, Eric, and I will cut up the blubber; and we will return after a good voyage with all our sails a-flying, and fire a cannon when we come to port." One day Mary said to the captain, " Do you really think that you will ever go to sea again } " " Oh, I don't know, pet, I am growing old." " I would like to go to sea, Grandpa." " You ! what would you do at sea } " " Catch whales." The captain laughed, and said, "Catch whales; the top of the world to ye all ! " " Does n't it hurt them to harpoon them, — torture them, I mean } I would want to kill them quick ; I would hate to see them suffer." lOO ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. " What ideas my little girl has in her head ! " said the captain. " When I go whaling, I shall just see the whales blow, and let them go. What is the use of money only to have a good time with ? I would n't kill anything for money ; I would rather be a missionary. But I would like to go to sea." "What for?" " Oh, I don't know. To see the sun shine on the wide, wide waters ; to see the lovely birds ; to see the whales ; to see all the things that you have told us about ; to see the storm, and hear the wind whistle, and then to drift and sail day after day, day after day, and feel that the land was far, far away; to feel well; to feel happy; to hear the sailors tell their yarns ; to dream of home ; to be away, away, — I can see it all in my mind. If you ever do go to sea again, I have de- cided that I want to go with you. I 'd be company for you, — would sing for you, would sew for you. I would like to go around the Horn, and drift and sail, and drift and sail under the sky. Oh, there is something that makes me want to go. I have been thinking of what you said of the voyage around the world, and I love to dream of it all; to think of the sunrise on the big ocean, and the stars, and the great waves and the calms, — I should think it would be like being all alone with God. I do hope that you will go to sea just once more, and let me go with you. It would make me grow." "Yes, you dear child," said the captain, "it would make you grow; the top of the world to ye ! I would be very happy at sea with you with me. Four eyes can see with twice the delight of two. But you are young, and I am getting old ; and I never shall grow any younger again. Our years will always be just so many apart, until I shall make my last voyage to the port from which I never shall return. But I may go to sea again ; I can't tell what may happen." " And if you do, }'ou will let me go with you .?-" "Yes," said Captain Tamany, "yes, yes! that I will; the top of the world to ye ! " CHAPTER V. THANKSGIVING AT CAPTAIN TAMANY'S. HANKSGIVING DAY is the New England Christmas. It was the Puritan day of family reunions, of sports, games, and story-telling. That day the red settle shone in the light of the great log-fire. Captain Tamany of the " Tammany " kept Thanksgiv- ing, as all the old New Bedford sea-captains did. He desired to make the festival of this year a particularly joyful one, on account of Captain Bridewell's visit. " What shall be our plan ? " he asked of his wife one day. " I do not know. Leave the dinner to me, as my part. I will see that that comes on the table well. You and the children must arrange for the amusements." Mary Hartwell sang and played well ; and there was one piece of music that was always sung at Captain Tamany 's on Thanksgiving days, when the captain was at home. It was " The Landing of the Pilcrrim Fathers in New Enoland," beeinnine, — •'The breaking waves dashed high." The words were written by Mrs. Hemans after reading an account of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in a paper once sent to her by her brother in Canada, and the music was composed by her sister, Miss Browne. The poem and music were given to Sir Walter Scott to secure a publisher. Captain Tamany loved this piece of music I04 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. because it caught the spirit and heroism of the scene. He first se- lected that as a part of the Thanksgiving entertainment, and assigned it to Mary. Captain Tamany had made his home famous for the uniqueness of his hoHday parties. He loved children, took an interest in the day- school and Sunday-school, and on Christmas days made presents "from over sea," as he said, to the boys and girls in a charity house near the city. Among the unique parties that Captain Tamany gave was an orange party, at which all kinds of oranges were served with orange cake and orange sherbet; and the rooms were decorated with orange, and the guests wore orange colors. The scene was enlivened by the banjo and songs of the South. As unique was an apple party, at which many varieties of apples were served, and the guests wore colors of green, yellow, and red. " I have hit upon a plan of amusement for Thanksgiving evening," the captain said to Mary while the subject was under discussion. " We will have a nut party, at which we will tell the old folk-lore stories. We will serve as many kinds of nuts as possible, and have nut cake, almond cake, and walnut taffy, and we will call the stories that we tell on the red settle before the fire, ' Nuts to Crack.' The stories shall be humorous, and relate to mysteries. The old towns used to be full of stories like these, — queer old ghost stories." Captain Tamany was a natural story-teller. He had an instinct for story-telling. He loved to collect quaint old stories of the early New England days, of colonial houses, and of whale-ships and sea- faring craft. He was a lover of ghost stories and wonder tales, — not those awful tales of mystery that used to send children frightened to bed, but those with a comical ending, in which the cause of some super- stitious excitement was fully explained. He had a large store of queer stories of this kind ; and however much one might object to THANKSGIVING AT CAPTAIN TAMA NT'S. 105 ghost stories in general, as a cause of deceptive and unnatural terror, every one liked to hear /izs stories, and children especially. So when invitations began to go out to the nut party, and Mary and Eric announced to their friends that the captain would relate some stories that would be " nuts to crack," an unusual interest and expectation was awakened in the old New Bed- ford neighborhood. The night was a glorious one, crisp and clear. The hunter's moon rose over the sea like a golden sun. The Thanksgiving dinner had been one that embraced all the dishes of the old New Eng- land days, beginning with succo- tash, and ending with pumpkin pies and apple dumplings with potato crusts, and nuts of many varieties. The evening party was at- tended by all of the children in the neighborhood. Nuts of many II kinds, and cakes, and confections made partly of nuts, had been pro- vided for all the guests; and Captain Bridewell and Aunt Tamany as well as the good captain of the " Tammany " had prepared them- selves to relate stories which would furnish mental " nuts to crack." Captain Tamany began the story-telling with an odd account of an THE OLD NEGRO PREACHER AND THE CHESTNUT. I06 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. old negro preacher who took a chestnut into the pulpit, and declared that he was as sure of gaining the heavenly estate as he was of eating " that chestnut." " Holy Moses ! " the preacher suddenly exclaimed, as he proceeded to carry out his object-teaching, — " Holy Moses! and can I ebber believe my eyes ? The thing is rotten ! " Aunt Tamany related a story which used to be known as " Would you, or would n't you ? " The story was often told a half-century or more ago beside the fires of old New England inns. According to this story, a traveller who had stopped at an inn which was full of guests, had been sent for lodgings to the old storehouse chamber, and was awakened very early in the morning by the sound of the voices of the landlord and land- lady, who entered the room very softly, the woman holding a light, and the man having a huge knife in his hands. At every step the man halted and said, " Would you, or would n't you ? " and the woman would make answer, " Yes, go along." The couple had really come to cut some ham for breakfast ; but the traveller thought it was their purpose to murder and rob him. Grandma Tamany, or Aunt Tamany, as she was generally known, had a very vivid imagination, and she made the journey of the innkeepers in the traveller's room a very long one, and held the company in suspense as to the meaning and out- come of the suggestive event. Captain Bridewell related an odd story of a haunted ship ; and then Captain Tamany gave a "Nut to Crack" which much pleased the children. It was as follows : — THE MYSTERIOUS SACK; OR. TWO BUSHELS OF CORN. Farmer Brown was shelling four bushels of corn on the cob, which, accord- ing to the mathematics and tabular weights and measures of old New England days, would make two bushels of corn for the purpose of the farm bin or the miller. He was shelling the four bushels of corn by use of a common cob in his right hand, which cob he used to remove the kernels by pressure. This THANKSGIVING AT CAPTAIN TAMANY'S. 107 oldtime way of shelling corn made the hands hard and horny, and the mus- cles of the wrist strong. Woe be to the culprit who should have fallen into the hands of a professional corn-sheller ! He might as well have been bound with withes of hornbine. The boy who felt the withy grasp of such a left hand, and the application of a but- ton-wood rod by such a right hand, was sure to have his memory perma- nently quickened, and the lesson usually proved effectual. Such farmers, from their lord- ly dialogues with their oxen, had strong voices as well as hands, and when one of them said, " Boy," it meant much. And " boy" was just the word that Farmer Brown said while shelling corn. Harry Brown, the " boy," started. " Boy " was a word of command from the generalissimo of the farm. "Sir?" Mrs. Brown was sit- ting in the armchair by the stand, knitting by the tallow candle. Mr. Brown was shelling corn because he had nothing else to do; and Mrs. Brown was knitting because she had nothing else to do; and Harry Brown was studying a music-book by good old William Billings, of Stoughton, because he sang in the choir of Hard- Scrabble Church, — which is a real name, and not one made up for story- telling purposes. Harry had been drawling " Do, mi, sol, do," when the word of command came. " Boy, seeing as it is now almost Thanksgiving time, I 'm going to do just the rieht thine — " » ^'>^ -^--^.^^^^^e^ NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE MURRAY. Io8 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA, Mrs. Brown dropped her needles. What was going to happen? She was a thrifty, frugal woman. Was Mr. Brown going to give away something out of their hard earnings and savings? If so, what, and to whom? No unworthy person, she hoped. '• I 've been thinking over this bushel of corn ; I always do a deal of thinking when I am shelling corn." *' What you been thinking about, Eben? " " About the sermon that Elder Leland preached on the text, ' For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye; do not even the publicans so? ' Now, Peter Rugg has not used me just right, and I am going to make him a present of two bushels of corn. And, boy, you shall carry it over to him to-morrow morning on horseback." Mrs. Brown's cap border lifted. She dove at the snuffers, and snuffed the candle with a spiteful dive at the long black wick. "Eben!" "Well, Eunice?" " Peter Rugg just gets his living by doing nothin', don't he?" " Yes, but he is sick now ; and you know the text. There 's no merit in doin' just what you want to do, and havin' your own way and will, and lookin' for reward, Elder Leland says — " " And Peter Rugg's wife, she goes a-visitin' for a livin', and eats up every- body's plum-cake and apple-sass — " " Yes, yes ! but Peter was shiftless — born so, tired-like — and she had to eat something; and he's sick now." " Well, I don't approve no such doin's. I don't believe in encouragin' idle- ness. If a man will not work, neither shall he eat ! There now, Eben ! " " Do, mi, sol, do," sang Harry. "The morning sun shines from the east, And spreads its glories to the west." He was practising the " Ode on Science," — the crowning attainment of all musical efforts in these simple singing-school days. " Well, I do declare, Eben, I hope if you send two bushels of corn, of your own shellin too, to that shiftless Peter Rugg— I do hope — " "What, Eunice?" " That it will never get there." "Sho! Eunice; that ain't the right sperit, —when our barns and cribs are full too, and Peter is the only real poor person in the town too ; and he 's the only one in all the world that has n't used me quite right too. I '11 have to THANKSGIVING AT CAPTAIN TAMANY'S. lOQ send it to him, or else be very poor and mean in soul, and carry about with me a feelin' that I have n't done my duty, and been grateful for all my blessin's. Eunice, I 'm goin' to do it anyhow." " Well, all that I 've got to say is that I do hope that the grist will never get there." " Now, boy, you may go to singin'-school." Harry slipped away with the parallelogram of an "American Vocalist" under his arm. The singing-school made great progress on the " Ode on Science " that night, and Harry had descended into those deep and cavernous regions of solemn bass foundations with the ambition of a basso profiuuio. The moon was hanging over the dark shoulders of Greylock, and the lights glimmering on Stafford Hill, as he returned. It was a crisp night, with a gleam of frost crystals everywhere in the bare harvest fields, the blue gentian pastures, and alluvial cranberry meadows. He continued to sing; he could not help it, — the piece haunted him. Nothing at all so wonderful as the accomplishment of that piece by the singing-school had ever before come into his experience. The words, too, were magical to him, — like a new world. So in the new creations of the poet and composer, he jogged along, singing, until he came to the graveyard where Capt. Joab Stafford and the heroes of Bennington lie buried, and then he continued to wJiistle the same tune. A boy at that time did not know what might happen when he was passing a graveyard. The next morning Harry received the same peremptory summons to atten- tion, — "Boy!" Now, this was not intended in this strange case to be re- proachful toward Harry, but to let prudential Eunice understand that in this case of casuistry his mind was made up. " Boy, bring the old roan horse ; and I will put on his back the two bushels of corn." Eunice heard the order, and she knew that the laconic word was meant for her ears. She said nothing, but went on grinding coffee,- pounding locker, mixing johnny-cake, straining milk, boiling potatoes, breaking eggs, " settin' " the table, " shooing " the hens from the doorstep, feeding the dog, and " scat- ting " the cat ; and all those varied and multiple duties that fall to the expe- rience of a thrifty farmer's wife for the sake of being supported. The sun rose red over the valley and intervales. The blue jays seemed to blow about screaming, and the crows cawed in the walnut-trees. The con- quiddles had ceased to sing; but there was a chipper of squirrels everywhere. One could hear the old mill-wheel turning in the distance two miles away. The trees on Park Lane, the scene of the Mason farms, were blazing like an no ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. army with crimson oriflammes, and fat turkeys were- gobbling around every farmhouse for miles. This was J:he farm region of the famous Cheshire cheeses, — one of which, weighing more than twelve hundred pounds, had been pre- sented to President Jefferson, Elder Leland acting as envoy for the merry farmers, and preaching all the way to Washington and back while executing the curious commission. After breakfast Harry brought the sorrel horse to the door, and Eben, whose benevolent heart had prompted him to a duty in spite of itself, put on his back the two bushels of corn so as to form a kind of saddle, one bushel on one side, and the other on the other. " Take the corn to the mill," said Eben ; " have it ground, then take the meal to Peter Rugg, and be sure to tell him that /sent it." Harry was no idiot boy like that in Wordsworth's tale of Betty Foy; but this morning his wits went wool-gathering. The " Ode on Science " and his musical triumphs of the night before had quite turned his head, and he started off singing, — " The morning sun shines from the east, And spreads its glories to the west." This was literally true. The morning was bright and the air exhilarating, and the mountains in all the over-floods of glory most inspiring. After singing the " Ode on Science," Harry essayed " Majesty," and he made the woods ring with : — " On cherub and on cherubim Full royally he rode, And on the wings of mighty winds Came flying all abroad." He made even the chipmunks run, and the grave jays stop to listen. He was a happy boy, a very happy boy. It was a long way from the red house and barn of Eben Brown's farm to the great wooden mill-wheel on the Housatonic ; but Harry did not urge the roan horse, who had no disposition to be urged. Why should one travel fast when everything is bright and beautiful? Eben had tied the bag tightly the night before, after he had reduced the four bushels of corn to two. He picked up every kernel of corn that he had chanced to scatter over the floor, and put it into the bag. Now, in the house there were mice, — sly mice. And when all the family were in the other world of dreams on the night before, one or two of these mice had explored the kitchen, and finding not so much as a single kernel of corn, after all the vigorous shelling, had each gnawed a little hole, one in either end THANKSGIVING AT CAPTAIN TAMANY'S. Ill of the bag, and had made a dainty meal, and slipped away, leaving the two little holes. The motion of the sorrel horse, as he walked mathematically along, began to shake out the corn through either end of the bag, slowly at first, but very freely at last, unperceived by Harry, whose mind was on wings in the far-off musical sky. As he went on singing and whistling, and sifting the corn unperceived, a strange annoyance befell the felicitous knight of the two bushels of corn. The hens ran after him from the farmhouses, the great flocks of turkeys gobbling, the waddling geese quacking. He passed the great dairy farms under the cool shadow of Greylock.and the Park Lane Ridge. Everywhere there followed him great flocks of poultry, — hens, ducks, geese, and turkeys ; they grew to be almost an army at last, cackling, quacking, gobbling. But Harry did not stop to investigate the cause of all this gathering of wings and bills behind him. The fowl all seemed happy; so was he. It was a bright and happy morning. Once or twice he shook his fist at some new flocks of turkeys that came flying and gobbling down from an old stone wall. " Don't you gobble at me ! " he said, and then went on, singing. The composite army of farm fowl left him at last, and he came in sight of the foaming mill-wheel that was tossing the cool waters of the Housatonic near the grand old orchards of what was once one of the New Providence farms. New Providence is a vanished village now. Its churches and inns used to be on Stafford Hill, but Cheshire village has taken its place. One cannot so much as find New Providence on the map. It was settled by the Masons and Browns and Coles from Swansea, Mass., and Coventry, R. I. The colony went to Sackville, N. B., first, but finding the climate too rigorous, followed their pas- tor, Elder Mason, to the Berkshire Hills and founded Cheshire under the name of New Providence. Suddenly Harry ceased singing. The horse's back began to grow hard. He thought that he would adjust the bag and make his position easier. He clasped the bag — and what a look of amazement must have come into his face ! there was nothing in it, not so much as a single kernel of corn ! Harry had heard of witches and things bewitched, of people casting an evil eye, of the awful ghost story that Elder Leland used to tell. He recalled his mother's wish, and wondered if that had not bewitched the bag. Had the bag untied? He looked to see. No, there was the string. His heart thumped, and he felt hot flashes and cold shivers creep over him. He stopped the horse. Crows cawed above him. The mill-wheel turned and turned before him. Why should he go forward? He had nothing for the 112 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. miller; and what, oh, what could he say to the miller if he went to the mill with an empty bag? He would retrace his way, and see if that would offer any clew to the ap- palling mystery; but it offered none. There was not so much as a kernel of corn in the road, and the turkeys and geese and ducks and pullets everywhere seemed contented, with full crops and fat sides. They did not even gobble or quack or cackle. The world all seemed serene and happy. What should he say to his father? And to his mother? And what would the world say now? And Elder Leland, who had been visited by a ghost and had heard voices from the sky? So toward the red farmhouse Harry Brown turned his horse's head in wonder and amazement. He thought of the awful Indian tales and ghost tales of old Swansea, from which the early settlers had come; of witches riding on broomsticks in the air, and " spells " and " evil eyes " and all sorts of imaginary mysteries. In this frame of mind he rode up under the hour- glass elm in front of the house, and his father came to the door. " Did he receive it well, sonny ? " asked Eben, with a beaming face. " It is gone," said Harry, with a doleful face. "What gone?" " The grist." "Sho! Where?" Here Eunice's white head appeared. She A DEVIL-FISH OF THE INDIAN OCEAN. thrcw her apron over it and listened anxiously. " It disappeared." "Where?" " Into the air." THANKSGIVING AT CAPTAIN TAMANYS. 113 " How? " " Spirits." " Boy ! " " There, Eben," said Eunice, " mind what I told you ! The universe is agin ye. You could n't get a grist to Peter Rugg's if you were to go yourself. 'T would be flying in the face of Providence. The powers are agin ye. I used to know all about spells and such things in old Swansea." " We '11 see ; we '11 see," said Eben. That evening Eben shelled out two more bushels of corn. In the morning he brought out the old roan horse, and put a bag with the corn on his back. He then went to the barn and brought a stiff button-wood rod which he had used for various purposes of discipline and correction. "Boy! " "Sir?" " Mount that horse." Harry mounted as before. " Go to mill ; I '11 follow." The pilgrimage was performed with alacrity and safety. The meal was carried to poor Peter Rugg, and received with a grateful and penitent heart. Eben returned home happy, but whatever became of that first bag of two bushels of corn was always a wonder to Harry, to Eunice, and their friends. Eben's expectations were realized in regard to Peter Rugg. The good act restored his better will and heart, and made him a true friend for life. Eben used to tell the story, and say, " Always follow your better will, and do your duty, though the universe be agin ye." And so I will close by saying, " The top of the world to ye all." The entertainment was continued by the song of " The Land- ing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England," a precocious effort by Mary, and was concluded by a reading by Captain Bridewell. This reading consisted of a selection of poetry altered from Michael Scan- Ian, and adapted for recitation with music. While Captain Bridewell was rendering the last stanzas, Mary played the Kerry Dance on the piano, using the soft pedal. 114 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF DERRY. When I was a bachelor, young and hearty, Comfort-taking, Merry-making, The pride of each frolic and party, I had friends whom I loved and who loved me, In their kindness who never reproved me. I was full of youth's fires And wild desires, And gave play to each spirit that moved me. Unburdened by care, I went to the fair And danced to the Humors of Kerry, The gayest of boys For frolic and noise In the beautiful city of Derry. But discontent like a blight came o'er me; Song and story, Gold and glory. Mixed in gleams Of glowing dreams, Were forever flowing before me. I resolved to cross the wide ocean, To carve out wealth and promotion ; Come back, make amends By enriching my friends, — 'T was a wild, a fanciful notion. So I bade good-by To my friends, and I Kissed my love's lips of cherry, And the very next day I sailed away From the beautiful city of Derry. I worked on many a winding river, In vale and in mountain, Never countin' The years going by. So sure was I In my dreaming that Fortune would give her THANKSGIVING AT CAPTAIN TAMANY'S. 1 15 Rich stores of golden treasure, Pour out her soul without measure. I spent my life In labor and strife, And fled the gay smiles of pleasure, Still dreaming of home And bright days to come, When boys should all call me Sir Terry, And on comrades of old Should lavish my gold In the beautiful city of Derry. At last I won Miss Fortune's smiling, And with the witch's Smiles came riches, To bless me at last For the barren past And her years of deceit and beguiling. And soon o'er the blue waters going, With fair winds merrily blowing, The days of my youth On the winds of the south Came back to my memory glowing. By my side on the green Was Kitty McQueen, And we danced to the Humors of Kerry; The moonbeams danced too. As they used to do In the beautiful city of Derry. A gorgeous summer night was shaking Her dark locks over Her ocean lover, And I saw the red morning was breaking ; 'T was then o'er the blue waves appearing. We saw the green hills of old Erin. The sun flung his light Through the shadows of night, And we hailed the glad omen with cheering. Into the bay I sailed that day. And I leaped to the shore from the wherry. The dream I had prized Was at last realized, — I was rich in the city of Derry. Il6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. I looked around in wildest wonder, Paused and faltered ; Things looked altered. In all the place I knew no face ; The town seemed all battered asunden I asked for my friends in the city, I searched through the maidens for Kitty ; But none heard before Of the name that I bore, Till an old man looked on me with pity, And he said with surprise, While tears filled his eyes, " Why, God bless you, jour name must be Terry, That sailed far away On that long summer day, When we two were boys in Derry. •' Ah, many a year your love sat sighing, Patient waiting. Never mating (She named your name in dying) ; Her heart beat true Alone for you. And oft when the roses were blooming, And the bees through the gardens went humming, The boys used to meet At the end of the street. And talk with delight of your coming; But the long years passed on, And they took, one by one, The sad, the serene, and the merry. Some are gone o'er the waves, And some to their graves In the beautiful city of Derry." I wander away in the shadowy gloaming, Sadly musing, Always choosing The path of glooms Among the tombs, And think —do they know I am coming? I sit on the graves where they 're sleeping, Lone watch in my lone years keeping. THANKSGIVING AT CAPTAIN TAMANY'S. 117 And this is thy meed, worldly greed, Sorrow and woe and weeping ; 1 'd give all the gold The ocean can hold To kiss my love's lips of cherry, Be young once more, With friends galore, In the beautiful city of Derry. CHAPTER VI. WHAT AUSTRALIA TEACHES IN REGARD TO MORAL RECOVERY. USTRALIA has solved the problem," Captain Tamany used to say from time to time, as he would drop the morning paper, and look absently out to sea. One late autumn morning, he took off his spectacles suddenly, and tapped them on the table, and exclaimed with more than usual vigor, " Australia solved that problem long, long ago ! " By " that problem " his good wife knew that he did not mean a right ballot system, or the Wakefield principle in regard to the rela- tion of land to immigration, or temperance physiological teaching in school, but something new. Australia, in the captain's view, had solved many of the problems of life, and had illustrated the truth of the literal teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, which the world is so slow to interpret rightly and follow. " What problem now.? " asked Grandmother Tamany. " Oh, the problem that General Booth is studying, and which the Prince of Wales, Canon Farrar, and the leaders of English thought are commending. Any man may become a good man if he has a sufficient reason and the opportunity. The Gospels teach that, and the work of all the world's sympathetic evangelists show it. Now moral truth is a sufficient reason, but emigration is the opportunity. General Booth is right ; Australia solved that problem long ago. The WHAT AUSTRALIA TEACHES. 119 convicts of her early penal colonies recovered. Why ? They would not have recovered had they been turned loose in England. But as a rule, they did recover in the great ocean continent. The land offered them not only a new opportunity, but one where the stigma of their old crimes did not follow them. In Australia the world offered them a fair chance. There, when a man repented, his sins were blotted out. Yes, yes. General Booth is right, — it is running water that becomes pure and fertilizes the earth. The world is wide ; the British empire is im- mense. Give the poor people in the dark dis- tricts of London a chance in the free air. General Booth's plan is not a flying school ; it is one of the most sensible movements of the time ; it is the Gospel, — the real spirit of humanity and Christianity. I tell you that old Van Dieman's Land solved that problem long ago." Captain Tamany had advocated the Australian ballot system long before it was adopted in the States, and the Wakefield theory before it began to be discussed by the Farmers' Alliance, and temperance teaching in schools before it became a part of the work of the W. C. T. U. He had often talked to clergymen and others of the general reformation of the expirees of Australia, and what that re- formation taught, and he was delighted to find that the plans of General Booth, which proposed the removal of the most degraded people of London to colonial waste lands, were receiving the commendation of the most influential English people. It was interesting to hear Captain Tamany advocate these views. He was often asked to speak on public occasions before societies of beneficence, and his favorite topic was Moral Recovery, or The Expirees of Australia. He believed that the change wrought in many of the I20 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTHALIA. expirees and bush-rangers was a lesson for the world to learn in the methods of benevolent work. He used to give a lecture on the sub- ject, that expressed his views. It was called, ■ — THE EXPIREES OF OCEANA; OR, MORAL RECOVERY. Among the heroes of the world none have done a better work for mankind than those who by obeying the spiritual laws of God have changed evil hered- ity into good heredity. Happy is his lot who has had good ancestors. *' There is born in man an essence that makes him the kind of being he is," says a writer on heredity ; and to purify life and make its tendency high and noble is more than to gain wealth or fame. " Character is everything," said Charles Sumner when dying. The best legacy a man can leave those who come after him is moral strength and a renewed life. What a true man would wish his children to become, that he will be for the sake of his children. There was published in France some years ago a book of startling analy- sis of family life. It has been republished in America under the simple title, " Heredity." No right-thinking man could ever read this work without hun- gering for righteousness, and praying to be delivered from his evil desires and inherited weaknesses. One shuts the book, appalled at the power that lies within him to bless or curse the future, to create happiness or misery, to be merciful or cruel to unborn generations. He is made to see that the strength of his own overcoming is likely to be the moral strength of his offspring, and that righteousness is the one crown of life. The book is scientific, but its un- conscious moral teaching is the ancient declaration of Moses in regard to sin and holiness. Many are doubtless familiar with that popular scientific work, Galton's " Hereditary Genius." Such are able to see clearly that genius produces its own children, and that great minds in literature, statesmanship, and the arts are the results of predisposition. The evidence is overwhelming. It is an agreeable thing thus to follow the rising tide of literary ability until there comes out of such favored ancestry a genius of such open vision as to lead and influence mankind. But the laws of the degeneracy of the mental capac- ity and perceptions are as real. A muddy tide bears impure water through all its course, and the low tide runs out. The unrestrained temper of the grand- parent may become a murder in the inherited weakness of a grandson, for the weakness of evil traits often skips one generation. WHAT AUSTRALIA TEACHES. 121 "Where did the crime begin?" asked a warden of a prisoner. "In my ancestors," was the reply; "in me their weakness sunk into a felony." A young man who studies the influence of evil on family life and character will resist the earliest tendencies to sin. He becomes very restrained and sober who is made to see that what he is, his Hfe-work will be, and his offspring's will tend to be. A WADDY FIGHT. " I cannot resist this evil," once said a young man to me. " You are about to marry," said I ; " would you have your children slaves to the passion that holds you ? " " No, never ! " said he. " I must overcome. I will overcome. How could I ever look into a cradle and feel that my child was a slave?" It is a principle of moral evolution that any one can overcome evil if he has a sufficient motive. One bright autumn day I was asked by a stranger in Boston to go with him to Mount Auburn, and to act as guide to the historic graves. I love to visit 122 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. this last resting-place of illustrious benefactors ; it inspires life to do so, and it impresses one with the brevity of the opportunities of time. " Be true to thy best self, for the time is short," is the voice that the soul hears everywhere among these blossoming marbles. Mount Auburn itself is one great poem, as well as a resting-place of poets. My friend and I passed under the imposing Egyptian portal into a wide flower-garden of the dead, and went to the notable graves near, among them, to those of Spurzheim and Longfellow. Then returning to the main way, we bent our steps toward the chapel, to see the statues and rose windows, and to walk around the Sphinx. We were passing the bronze statue of Nathaniel Bowditch, when my friend paused and said, " Did you ever read an English book called " Turning-points in Life ' ? I am reminded of it by an anecdote of the early days of Bowditch. Although he became a man of science, and among the greatest of his time, he was in youth a great lover of the violin. The violin was not a popular instrument among the best people then, although it is becoming so now. The young man's love of the instrument led him into the company of idlers, and he made some unprofitable friends in this way, — people of light character and of no earnest purpose even in their own art. One day he saw the tendency of his life. 'What am I doing,' he said, 'keep- ing company with men of unprofitable influence, simply because they love my favorite music? I will do so no longer. I must follow my highest inspirations and seek to do my best in life.' He turned from light music to science as his better calling. He mingled with the best men of his times; and the record is here, or rather in human progress. What a mistake it would have been had he become an ale-house fiddler ! " Bowditch was too grand to have become a low type of a man ; but he owed much of his greatness to this correction of life, and to a like spirit in all that he did. He was careful not to make second mistakes. A student of history once said, " If I were to choose the character among all men that I would most wish to become, it should be John Hampden." I was recently sitting in Harvard Memorial Hall, amid the walls filled with statues and portraits, and windows beautiful with efiigies of heroes and bene- factors. A window brightened in the sunlight, its colored glass making the figure in it gleam like a vision. The picture or statue in glass was that of John Hampden. What does not English and American liberty owe to this man ! How clearly he saw the cause of the people! How he pleaded for soul liberty, and how earnest was his life ! He may be said to be the father of the liberties of the English race. The oft-quoted lines of the poet Gray came to me, and WHAT AUSTRALIA TEACHES. 1 23 then I recalled that the historians gave a picture of a period of his life when he began to give himself up to selfish pleasures, gratifications, and ambi- tions. He saw the harvest of such courses, and turned his back firmly upon every dissipation that would tend to waste the time of others or to weaken his own powers. From the gayest of men he became one of the most thoughtful, and so prepared his heart to receive the great inspirations that came to him. There are three orders of young men in the course of moral gravitation. The first are those who are able to resist every allurement of vice, and who are little tempted by what they so grandly refuse to learn, — men like young Gladstone, or Bishop Heber, or Wendell Phillips. The second are those who make mistakes, but who do not make second mistakes ; who correct life. The third are those who repeat evil until it becomes habit, and habit, character, and a weak character, the probable destiny of a family. The second class claims our attention here. The young man, who, finding an evil tendency in his life, corrects his mistake, has not only saved his own reputation and spiritual power, he has given to the future an influence and tendency. Some of the noblest characters in the world have been developed from }'oung men who have corrected mistakes. RESISTING EVIL TENDENCIES. In the early days of-American art there went from Boston to London a young man of luminous genius and a pure heart. He was poor in everything but character. The inspiration of the great masters of painting which he saw filled him with a high sense of his calling; he desired to paint nobly, to live nobly, and leave an influence that would help mankind. Among the pictures that he painted was one that was in itself pure, but such as a sensuous mind might pervert by an evil interpretation. To a good mind its influence was good; to an evil imagination it might be made food for evil. A connoisseur of rank and wealth came to this young man's studio, saw this picture, and purchased it. The money relieved the young artist from pressing needs, and the compliment at first made him happy. But when the picture was gone, the artist began to think of the bad influ- ence it might have over the weak and tempted. His conscience began to torture him ; he could not rest. He went at last to his patron. " I have come to buy my picture back." " Buy it back? Did I not pay you well for it? Do you not need money? " "Yes, I am poor; but my art is my life. Its mission must be good. The 124 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. influence of that picture is not good. I cannot be happy with it before the eyes of the world. It must be withdrawn, if I can recall it." The patron admired the heroic purpose of the young artist's life, and sent back the picture. The dialogue was like that we have given, though not in the exact words. The young artist became great, and his character came to command the respect of the two nations. One day there came to him a young pupil whom he felt was in moral danger. He gave the young man his first lesson in almost these exact words : " Young man, if you would succeed in art, you must be pure, for Nature does not reveal herself to those whose eyes are clodded by any known fault or grossness of character." This man corrected his first mistake in life, and never repeated it. He died full of years and honors, and was buried by torch-light in the old ceme- tery in Cambridge, Mass. It is said that the moonlight fell upon the bier as the last rites were being performed, revealing a face so morally and spiritually beautiful as to be of itself an artistic inspiration. The principle that one can overcome evil if he has a sufficient motive, and that religion is the highest of all motives, has made the evangelist powerful in his work. It is true of all life. Bolingbroke left his dissipations when the vision of the crown rose before him. Shakspere thus pictures the altered life of Henry V. : — The breath no sooner left his father's body, But that his wildness, mortified in him, Seemed to die too ; yea, at that very moment, Consideration like an angel came, And whipped the offending Adam out of him. It is especially true of art. It is those who root out the Aveeds of evil tendency that make life most fragrant with roses and lilies. His strength was like the strength of ten Because his heart was pure. Two men stand side by side in a profession. They seem equally capa- ble, equally aspiring, equally moral. Suddenly one of them advances before the other, and becomes a greater master of life and opportunity. In most cases like this, it is the one who has kept his spiritual vision most clear that has seen the larger field of success, and the royal way to it. His life is eclipsed already whose spiritual sight is dimmed. This last principle was the one so clearly recognized by Allston and given to a pupil who became an eminent Christian painter of the Claude School, an impressionist. STATUE OF CAPTAIN COOK, AT SYDNEY, WHA T AUS TRA LI A TEA CHES. 127 • The impressionist is one who receives impressions, uses them in art, and gives them to the world. The School of Impressionists is a distinct one in France in all branches of art. It differs from the schools of the creative imagination, or the romantic and fictitious schools. Wordsworth was an impressionist in poetry, while his friend Southey was a realist; and Coleridge dealt in creative art. "The Excursion" is a series of impressions, while " The Ancient Mariner " is creative fancy, a something made of nothing. Schubert was an impressionist in music; Rossini's overture to " William Tell " is an impression of the Alps. Most landscape-painters and many orators and preachers are impressionists. The highest power to receive impressions in any art or calling comes from clear seeing, the open vision of a pure heart and life. Any evil is a speck in the mental eye; any disturbance of the conscience means a loss of clear per- ception and mental power. Out of all human efforts it is only the spiritual that lives ; and when a man loses his spiritual force, he loses his crown, the immortality of his influence. The Hebrew societies of the Nazarites, the Rechabites, and the Essenes, understood this principle. These people wholly or in part abstained from flesh and wine, lived in tents, and wore long hair, and practised self-denial for the sake of spiritual power. The prophet promised immortality to the house of Rechab for this pure seeking for spiritual light. Noble minds in all ages have perceived the principle, and overcome evil for the sake of their mission in life. " Every man is a debtor to his profession," says Bacon. Longfellow guarded his inspiration like a vestal fire. Whittier has ever sought seclusion for the best thought. Emerson left the most con- spicuous pulpit in Boston and fled to the Concord woods. " All that I have I give to this cause," said Charles Sumner in his speech on universal liberty. The prophets of old came down from the mountain-tops. Paul schooled him- self in the Desert of Arabia. The overcoming of self and sin is the first principle of all free, true, and inspirational living. Young William Penn dreamed of liberty and equality, and the dream was fulfilled in Pennsylvania. He began life in an age of license, wit, and insincere politeness, the days of the gay court of the Merry Monarch and the Cavaliers. Shocked at the immorality of Christ College, he cloistered his serene intellect amid the unstudious gayeties around him, clarified the eye of his conscience, and began to see that the only principles worth living for were righteousness and charity as taught in the Gospels. He heard the old Quakers preach, and inclined to their doctrines. His father, the admiral, a favorite of the Duke of York, kept a jovial table, and resolved to bring his son to London and 128 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. destroy his seriousness. He was sent to the theatres, given dog and gun, and tempted with " hard dancing and late dining." Young Penn yielded to the influence of the dissipation for a time. One day he went to hear Thomas Loe, the Quaker apostle, preach. The subject of the discourse was " Overcoming." Penn heard him say, " There is a faith that overcomes the world, and a faith that is overcome by the world." It seemed a message to him. He resolved to fol- low the faith that overcomes the world, and from that hour he became a solitary wanderer in the world. He had corrected life, and desired no second taste of the vanishing dissipations of camp, college, or court. He overcame the world, and left to it an empire founded on the principles of righteousness and peace. The world is full of disappointed men. They made second mistakes, and formed habits that drew down tlieir wings to the earth. OVERCOMING ADVERSE HEREDITY. The young student of adverse heredity who should study Galton would close the book with a feeling of regret and sorrow. All men may not have pious ancestors, but all may be the founders of worthy families, or at least leave to posterity an honorable example and name. Bridges, the missionary to the Land of Fire, was of unknown parentage, but the world honors him. Henry M. Stanley is perhaps the most useful man of his generation, but his childhood's home was a house of charity. Thomas Todd made the name of his poor insane mother precious ; it was in a lucid interval of madness that she told him that he must become a minister of God. Africanus, under his roof of human skulls, prayed and received a changed nature. Thomas Walsh, who wrote the sublime hymn, "The God of Abram praise," overcame the most terrible propensities to evil and prayed so long in the struggle that his knees became stiff. " He was the worst boy in all that country round," one said of him; but his sainthood became the example of his times. Dr. Samuel Johnson was scrofulous, and his life was a constant struggle with inherited tendencies to idleness and sloth. You would hardly expect such an heredity and such a temptation from one of the most useful men of his age. He understood the power of habit, and strove to resist every wrong ten- dency in his life that might become a habit. " I cannot drink a little wine," he said, as a reason why he should drink none at all. He dreaded the in- fluence of sloth, which was always besetting him. Regretting that he had not done more during one of the years of his life, he wrote in his journal: "This is not the life to which heaven is promised." Yet he rose superior to the weak- ness of his animal nature, did the most exact and painstaking work, became a benefactor, and left an imperishable name. WHAT AUSTRALIA TEACHES. I 29 AUSTRALIA'S ANSWER. But if there were needed an overwhelming proof that man can reform if he has a sufficient motive, and will reform if he has an opportunity, it is furnished in the convict laborers who made Australia and Tasmania habitable and their masters rich. Had these convicts been turned loose in London on the ticket- of-leave system or as expirees, they would as a rule have returned to their own kind, and been dragged down by the depressing influence of their own bad rep- utation and evil association. Let loose in a new land, what followed? I will let a famous traveller answer. " What do you see," says he, " in our colonies founded on convict labor? " You see tens of thousands who were convicts, as their fathers and mothers were. " And what are they now? " As orderly, moral, respectable, and prosperous people as you shall any- where meet. " What are these wealthy, educated, and prosperous people? " Why, they are your reformed convicts. " Show me one such reformation in London, and I will show you ten thou- sand there." To this view I can add my testimony. I have travelled over the parts of Australia that came to be settled by such penal laborers, and was safe. I never saw any class of people who were so ambitious for the education of their own children. I believe in man ; I believe in human nature ; I believe in giv- ing a man an opportunity where society will not hound him down, and that such a man in a new land will seek to recover the image of God. Captain Tamany liked to give this lecture.' He was an enthusiast in his own theories, and it was curious to find a man preaching to New England audiences the lessons of social progress that he had learned in Australia. ^ A part of this lecture was published in the " Chautauquan " for September, 1890. 9 CHAPTER VII. THE OCEAN CURE. APTAIN TAMANY had great faith in a sea voyage in a sailing vessel as a cure for diseases of a rheu- matic character and of the respiratory organs. " The sea," he used to say, " is the great health restorer. It is the old English remedy, and one whose good results have been proven for generations ; and of all sea voyages for invalids, whether from England or America, the best is that to Australia. For a century a great majority of the consump- tives who have made a sea voyage from England to Australia have found returning health on the sea. " It is reasonable that this should be so," he would add. " A sea voyage compels one to live in the open air. The air is the food for the lungs. Feed the lungs, and the disease is arrested. " Again, the system in the case of wasting diseases needs new blood. A sea voyage creates appetite, and a desire for oily foods. The appetite renews the blood, and the sluggish pulses bound again. " Again, in rheumatic troubles there is no bath like the sun bath. The sun is a great physician in all diseases, but especially in those of vitiated blood. Were I an invalid, I would try the sea, the sun, and the Indian Ocean islands." Captain Tamany often repeated such statements as these after the arrival of Captain Bridewell. He had several motives for doing so. % THE OCEAN CURE. 131 One was the invalidism of his wife, whom he wished to try a sea voy- age. Mrs. Tamany had been subject to muscular rheumatism for some years, and the disease grew, despite the best medical treatment. He had another motive of which he hardly dared to speak. Little Mary Hartwell was very delicate in health, and her mother had died of consumption. The captain thought that he saw an unmistakable tendency toward the hereditary disease in the paleness and weakness of his little grandchild, and he desired to see her change into a woman of strong lungs and nervous force and ample resources of ITS BROAD EXPANSE OF WATER." -» — . 4,-' :^ , "V05r£'**'?*"i