C'^C.V' M ■'i ^^ ',,' IG-ZAG OURNEYS ON THE !lii^l .■,%**. t •.-".*.- IN Souther Lands! :^; ^#- r^Msm 0,-,o\o 0*° .0, \ 00 \o o r ^ /^ ZIGZAG lOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. The Zigzag Series, HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN EUROPE. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN CLASSIC LANDS. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ORIENT. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE OCCIDENT. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN NORTHERN LANDS. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN ACADIA. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE LEVANT. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE SUNI^'Y SOUTH. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN INDIA. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ANTIPODES. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE BRITISH ISLES. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREA T NORTH- WEST ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MISSISSIPPI. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITER- RANEAN. ESTES AND LAURIAT, Publishers, BOSTON, MASS. THE MEDITERRANEAN. Zigzag Journeys ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. FULLY ILLUSTRATED. BOSTON: ESTES AND LAURIAT, PUBLISHERS. i*e#6 Copyright, 1893, By Estes and Lauriat. All Rights Reserved. Santbersttg ^ress: John Wilson and Son, Cambrtdge, U.S A. PREFACE. HE purpose of this book is to explain the Consular Service of the United States, and to relate those curious stories which are often told in the Con- sulates of the East and which resemble the " Thou- sand and One Nights," or the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The Consulates of the East sometimes become famous story-telling places in which caravan tales, sea tales, and travellers' tales are told in an original way ; and it is with this peculiar lore that this, the fifteenth volume of the " Zigzag Series," seeks to interest the reader. Many of the tales of Consulates are geographically and historically mstructive, and some of them have the peculiar flavor of old Oriental traditions. The pet animals and birds of Consulates are also interesting topics, and are introduced in these Consular museums. The Zigzag books or annuals, like many magazines with a definite educational purpose, make use of interpolated stories to illustrate and to give interest to their pages. Most of these stories have been written by the author, but helps from other pens have sometimes been sought. In this book the author is indebted to George H. Coomes, of Warren, R. I., an old sailor, and a popular writer of sea stories, for helps 8 PREFACE. which are credited in their places. He is also indebted to Messrs. Harper Brothers for permissicm to reproduce here some of his own stories, using the illustrations originally made for them. He has sought in this, as in former volumes, to make clear a useful subject by that sympathetic story-telling art, which, although a melange, leaves the purpose at last clear in the mind. Few books have been written to make our diplomatic and consular service better known to the young people, and the author hopes that these Tales of the Consulates may serve this purpose of popular information. The Oriental stories in this volume are selected and edited out of a careful study of books on Oriental folk-lore, it being the authors purpose to give to young people those which most interested him. The sources of these stories are fully credited, so that the lover of Oriental tales can follow the study, if he have access to the best libraries. H. B. 28 Worcester Street, Boston, Mass. CONTENTS. Chapter Pacf. I. A Zigzag Journey to Zag-a-Zig 13 II. How Consuls are appointed. — Their Duties. — The Story- telling Garden. — The Capitol by Moonlight. — The Singing Mouse. — The Village Mystery 26 III. A Plan for a Journey of Educational Travel .... 53 IV. Caracas on the First Day of the Revolution, 1892. — Amusements at Sea 79 V. Gibraltar 112 VI. Algeria. — Tunis. — The Holiest Place in Africa . . . 130 VII. Marseilles 146 VIII. Consular Pets and Parrots 156 IX. Venice 165 X. Stories and Studies while detained in Quarantine . . 191 XI. The Mediterranean and its Legends 216 XII. St. Sophia. — The Dervish's Fairy Tale ....:.. 232 XIII. Brindisi. — An odd Story-Teller 240 XIV. Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes 258 XV. Naples. — Roman Fairy Tales. — The Storv of Sordello 277 XVI. The White-Bordered Flag 308 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page The Mediterranean Frovtispicce Pitti Palace, Florence 15 On the Mediterranean i£-''~T'^ caliphates are orone. The United States a ^i^ the and f ji-^^<5 ^^^^ English consular offices of the ports of the ^^i^y'£C Mediterranean are the interestinor storv-tellins: ^-rf"* places of to-day. How I have enjoyed the hours spent in the consular offices of the Southern ports of Europe ! It was once my good fortune to visit all the American and English consulates on the coasts of the Mediterranean and of the Red Sea to the ports of Mecca. In other words, I made a journe\- under Government instructions from Washington to Zag-a-zig, as a town near Suez was called ; a Zigzag journey of the Mediterranean from Cadiz to Zag-a-zig. The evenings in halt of the consulates I visited were spent in story-telling, and I collected at the time a library of English, French, and Oriental story-books." The speaker was Captain John Van der Palm, a veteran in the consular service of the United States. The place was the picnic- grounds of the old Van Ness mansion near the White House in Washington. 14 ZIGZAG JOURXEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. John Van der Palm was a midclle-aged man, a widower, with an only son, named Percy. This boy had accompanied his father in several journeys to consular ports, in the interest of the State Depart- ment. Mr. Van der Palm had once served as a consul in several ports, but in late years had been employed as a general agent of the State Department in the consular service. Percy Van der Palm was a story-loving boy. He early developed a lively appreciation of sea tales, wonder tales, and Oriental imagina- tion. It was his delight to accompany his father to the social rooms of the State Department, and meet there old foreign ministers, consuls, and commercial agents, and to listen to tlieir narratives, which often had all the interest and force of the best story-telling. riie Van der Palms were friends of the occupants of the old Van Ness mansion, who used often to invite their friends to the famous garden of the house to spend the spring and summer evenings. These friends were usually consuls or commercial agents. So stories of all lands came to be told here, in this unconventional way, greatly to the delight of Percy. He himself began to wish to travel, and he formed a plan to study to make himself an acceptable candidate as a consular clerk. " Well, Percy," said his father one day, " what profession will you choose for life ? Your education should now be turned into some preparation for a single thing. Life is too short for many things. The age demands superior fitness for one thing to open the door to one's success. Your story-telling days are now over. The time for fables has passed." •' No, father ; my stor3'-telling days have only begun. Let me study languages, commercial book-keeping, and commercial law. I intend to apply to the President for a place as consular clerk." " And what would you do then ? " " After such a clerkship .-^ " " Yes, you would not wish to be a consular clerk for life? " A ZIGZAG JOURNEY TO ZAG-A-ZIG. I 7 " I would seek to become a secretary of legation, a diplomatic agent, a naval attache, or a consul, such as you have been. Let me qualify myself for some place in the service of the Department of State. I would like a government position in that department above all things. Such people are in touch with all the world. They study everything. The world is their country, and their countrymen are all mankind. Their minds have no latitude or longitude ; they take the world as a whole. Their very forms of conversation make other men seem small. Other men suppose ; they know'.' " Well, my son, I am glad that you take such a philosophical view of the State service. I am pleased with your decision. But I once heard of a man who had a son who wished to see the world, and — " " Well, father ? " " He went to his father and said, ' Father, I want to travel and see the world.' " " And what did his father say .-^ " " He said, ' My son, I am very willing that you should travel and see the world, but I would be sorry to have the world see^)/^'/^.' " " Oh, father, you do not mean that ! " " I should be unwilling that you should seek employment in the office of the State Department without a long and a thorough prepara- tion. Our diplomatic service in the past has often not been a credit to our country. Politicians have been given places that should have been filled only by trained men. Your education must begin now. It must be first in languages, then in mathematics, then in law, and in general knowledge always." " Where shall I beQ:in in lano:uag:es } " " Your education in languages must begin in the countries where those languages are spoken. I shall send you to the city of Mexico to study Spanish, and then, perhaps, to my friends in Caracas. I shall then send you for a year to the ports of the Mediterranean, to study French, Italian, and the eastern tongues, and to learn commercial 1 8 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. usages. I have friends in nearly all those ports. I may be able to go with you myself; we may be able to make together a sort of a Zig- zag journey from Washington to Port Said, or Zag-a-Zig. Should you go to Caracas to study, you would indeed make such a journey around the world as well as across the Mediterranean. The famous railway up the Andes from La Guayra to Caracas is called the Zig Zag. I will think over your plan. Your education must consist largely in educational travel; this is the highest education, and will become a ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. part of intellectual training of the future. Let us go down to the Garden. I have been promised a story to-night by one who knows the history of the Van Ness house." " The ghost story 1 " " Yes." The two passed down the avenue and turned into the monument grounds. It was near sunset, and the western trees seemed glimmer- ing with golden fruitage. Light airs rippled the leaves. The day had been hot, but was cooling. The Garden ? All Washington knows of that strangely beautiful place. How shall I describe it } I cannot better do so than in the story of A ZIGZAG JOURNEY TO ZAG-A-ZIG. 1 9 the place as it existed in former years, which an old visitor that night related to the Van der Palms as they sat under the trees \\\ the mellow air : — THE MYSTERY OF THE MYSTERY.^ AN OLD WASHINGTON GHOST STORY. One keen December day, a {&\\f years after the war, I arrived in Washing- ton to spend a few weeks with a friend who was making his home at this old Van Ness mansion, near the White House, and adjoining the grounds where the Washington Monument now stands. The mansion is almost a ruin now, and its beautiful grounds are broken and faded, but it was in its glory then, with its quaint porticos, its halls and gardens and beautiful trees. In the same yard with the fine house, which had been associated with the best social life of many administrations, stood the so-called Marcia Burns's cottage, in which Sir Thomas Moore was entertained in Jeft'erson's days, on the occasion of his unhappy visit to Washington. In this cottage lived Davie Burns, the stubborn Scotchman, whom General Washington compelled to sell his plantation for the site of the city. " Your position," said Davie Burns to Washington. " makes you feel that all is grist that comes into your hopper. Who would you have been, I should like to know, if you had n't 'a' married the Widow Custis? " I had loved the songs of Tom Moore in my boyhood. M}- mother used to sing them. The " Last Rose of Summer," the "Vale of Avoca." "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls," came ringing back in memory; and after an hour with my friend in the Van Ness hall, I went out into the yard, and sat down on one of the benches, and looked at the little gray cottage where the famous author of" Lallah Rookh " and the "Loves of the Angels" had been entertained when the city was new. An old negress came sauntering by. W^'th mv Northern freedom I said to her, — " Auntie, this all seems to me a place of mysteries ! " " A place of mysteries, dat is wot it is, Massa Nof, — dat am wot it is. Dat am de suUer [cellar] whar dey was goin' to prison Linkem [Lincoln] in de las' days ob de war. Wot you think of dat, Massa Nof? De 'spirators did nt intend on killin' him at first; dey had planned to 'duct him, an' jus' hide him ' Originally published by the author in the " Household." Used by permission. 20 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. in dat dar suller. An' den a still boat was to come ober de ribber, like de white bosses, wid still oars, movin' up an' down so still, an' day were to steal him away, an' hold him for a ransom. Dat story sort o' haunts dat suller yet. It nebber happened, but de ghost of it all am dar jus' de same. " Dar be some ghosts dat nebber happened, Massa Nof. De white hosses ain't de only ghosts that come round here o' nights. Marcia Burns, she come on summer nights, when de roses all hang in de dews in de thin light ob de moon, an' de mockin' bird am singin' his las' song. " De white hosses, dey come on Christmas nights, — six white hosses on seven Christmas nights, Massa Nof, widout any heads on dem an' dar necks all smokin'. It may be you 11 stay ober Christmas time, Massa Nof, an' see 'em wid your own eyes." Of what was this old negress talking? Her eyes dilated as she spoke of the six white hosses, and she raised her arm and looked like a seeress. "What are the six white horses?" I asked. "I never heard of them before." "You didn't! Now dat am strange! I must call you Massa Up-Nof. Eberybody knows about 'em here. Dey am ghosts, — jus' ghosts. Dey are de ghosts ob de six white hosses dat all dropped right down dead wid broken hearts on de night dat Marcia Burns, as dey call Mrs. Van Ness, gabe up her soul to de angels. Dat am wot dey am." My friend came out of the house. The old negress heard the door close, and gave her head a toss, and with an air of mystery moved away. '* It is rather cool for you to be sitting here," my friend said. " You need your overcoat. We have kindled the fires." " Dwight," said I, " what is it the old negress has been telling me about six white horses? — one of the oddest things I ever heard." " Oh, nonsense, Herbert. An old Christmas tale ; the negroes believe it yet. lam going to the station; will be back soon. You had better go in. There's a chill in the air." He passed out of the gate. I did not go in. The ancient place seemed to throw over me a spell. I had heard that the early Presidents used to be entertained here; that Marcia Burns Van Ness was a kind of Washington saint; that she founded the orphan asylum, and that the government stopped on the day that she was buried. "The government stopped," I said to myself, absently, "but did the six white horses really fall down dead?" " Dat dey did." A ZIGZAG JOURNEY TO ZAG-A-ZIG. 21 The words seemed to come out of the air. I looked up, and the old negress again stood before me. She was on her way to some place outside the gate. " An' Massa Up-Nof, jus' you let me tell you somethin' : De white hosses am a mystery, but dar am a mystery ob de mystery. I '11 tell you some day, I will." She passed out of the gate. The sun was setting ; the last breeze seemed to die, and I sat in the silence trying to picture to myself the past of this most wonderful place. Dwight refused to talk to me about the six white horses. I went to For- tress Monroe to spend a week or two, and while there I wrote to a lady in Georgetown, who well knew the history of the Van Ness place, and asked her about the legend of the six white horses. The return letter intensely interested me. It was as follows : — Georgetown, December 20. Dear Herbert, — Scrapbooks, old notes, a few letters from friends living near Seven- teenth Street in Washington, bring to me about the same data you seem to possess. The " headless horses " number " j/.r," because General Van Ness drove to his best coach six. when guests were many and distinguished. He died at the age of seventy-si.\. He married the beautiful Marcia Burns when he was thirty ; he was then a New York member of Congress. During all those years he gave annually a large, gay, fashionable entertainment to all of Congress, during the holidays. They were the Christmas events of society. On the anniversary of that event, the six headless horses are said to appear " to this day " ! They are seen at twelve o'clock at night, any or all nights during Christmas week. (You know, in the South, the Christmas revelry lasts all the week.) An old lady of eighty tells me, " The horses do gallop round and round the mansion in Mansion Square, and sometimes stop right in front of the old pillars of the porch and rock to and fro and moan and sigh. They are white as snow, with smoke and mist and white flame, like burning brandy, going upward from their shoulders." They stop ni their midnight gallops and listen at the door for the old voices of George \Vashington, Hamilton, Clay, Jefferson, the Taylors, and hundreds of distinguished men of that time. They come over the river, as most of the men are buried there. The unseen spirits of the great dead hover about the grounds, anil make the aspen trees shiver, the willows moan, as the horses dash past. Old Mr. Van Ness comes with his own horses, and it is his spirit appearing in them. Tom Moore spent one week there, and comes generally at Christmas time, his voice repeating verses composed for the beautiful Marcia Van Ness, and as repeated at one entertainment to her, is still heard as the clock strikes t-weive. One old man says, " Dey los' dere heads [the horses] when ole massa was put in de big, gran' mos-lem ! " (The mausoleum now stands in Oak Hill Cemetery. ^Ve see it 2 2 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. often.) " An' dey lay in de dus' ; an' when dey was seen nex' day, smoke was dere heads, like 07i\.o de day ob jedgment." Another theory says : " The six beautiful, fiery horses died of grief, and were buried on the place. A rise in the Potomac River washed them far away. The next Christmas they returned " like death on the pale horse," in bodily form, with cloudy heads, and the general's eyes flashing through the smoke and flames. Sometimes the very faces of the guests appeared plainly." Montgomery Blair used to say that the six headless horses did appear to the servants annually, and that his own slaves had repeated to him their stories " until he himself believed them." The lonely Taylor family of " The Octagon House," whose collection of curios are now in the Corcoran building, told funny stories of the " ghosts," credited up to the eighties : " Six headless horses gallop round the old house and grounds annually ; always white and large, and with heads oi fire. The servants run, and more courageous, intelligent persons spend the night trying to hold the horses. They fly past them, and dissolve before their eyes ! A noise of rushing wind and voices in the distance, a splash in the water, and all is still." One note of 1885 says : "The headless horses are, of course, a myth, but few of the neighbors care to pass a night in the place, near Christmas time. We have hidden behind the brick wall, but found it a ghostly spot." ^ The story had grown with the letter, and my imagination grew. The inci- dents of the smoking necks of the horses, of Tom Moore's songs at Christmas at the midnight hour, of the terrified servants, and the dissolving spectres, all fixed themselves on my mind, and haunted my sleeping and waking dreams. On the 24th of December I returned to Washington, to pass the holidays with my friends at the old Van Ness house. As I passed the gate into the great garden, I met the old negress again. "De land! am you come back? Don' you be frightened now; you listen right now to wot you' Auntie Wisdom 's gwine to say. Dar am a mystery ob de mystery. I 'se found it out, I dun has. " Dem beliebs dat dar are witches. Dar de witches are ; Dos dat tink dar ain't no witches, Dar ain't no witches dar. Now. Massa Up-Nof, don' you be 'fraid. I '11 tell you somethin' befo' you go. Dar's got to be a mental mind to see dem tings; de 'maginations 1 These are extracts from a real letter, for nearly every incident of this strange story is true. I have used only a slight framework of fiction, and that framework does not include any essential historical event. A ZIGZAG JOURNEY TO ZAG-A-ZIG. 23 got to hab eyes ; you 'member now wot yo' Auntie Wisdom says, an' don' you get scared at anyting dey tells you. Dar '11 be libely times about mid- night. Glad to see ye. But I mus' hurry on ; wot Massa Blair, he say, if he heard me talkin' dis way wid a gent'man from up Nof ! No account nigger like me. But I 'se yer true frien', I 'se am ! I likes peoples wot live up Nof! " It was a beautiful night. The Capitol seemed to stand in the air like a mountain of marble, and when the moon rose and illumined the grand porticos of the nation's halls, the air, as it were, became enchanted, as if it held a celes- tial palace of light. The Capitol by moonlight is one of the most beautiful scenes on earth. It rivals the visions of the Taj, and impresses the imagination as the very genius of American destiny. There was a gay party in the old house on that Christmas eve. Amid the social entertainments I once or twice heard an allusion to the " six white horses," as though the legend were merely a joke. The guests departed by eleven o'clock, and a half hour later I found myself in the guest-chamber, look- ing out of the window on Marcia Burns's cottage, the evergreens, and the Potomac. The house became still, but sounds of merriment from time to time broke on the air from the negro quarters. I wondered where Auntie Wisdom might be, and, but for the impropriety, I would have been glad to talk with her as the critical hour of twelve drew nigh. Tom Moore probably wrote the once famous song, '• The Lake of the Dismal Swamp" here, on returning from Norfolk, or here formed it in his mind. As I sat by the window, gazing across the Potomac, under the high moon, I could almost hear my old mother singing that song again: — " They made her a grave too cold and damp For a heart so warm and true ; And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where all night long by her fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe. " Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds. And his path is rugged and sore; Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds. Through many a fen where the serpent feeds, And man never trod before. " And near him the she-wolf stirs the brake, And the copper snake breathes m his ear, Till he starting cries — *' 24 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. A shriek rent the air at this point of my mental recitation. It came from the negro quarters. The yard was soon filled with colored servants, and among them was Aunt Chloe, the woman of wisdom. *' Comin', comin', comin' on de wings ob de wind ! " the old negress began to exclaim in a wild, high, gypsyish tone, bowing backwards and forwards and waving her hands in a circle. The negroes around her seemed beside them- selves with terror. What was coming? I looked out on the Potomac over the motionless trees. On the margin of the river was rising a thin white mist, which formed itself into fantastic shapes as it rolled along and broke over the marshes in the viewless currents of the air. One of these mist forms began to condense, and drift toward the gardens of the house. "Comin", comin', on de winds! The Revelations am comin', an' wot's gwine to sabe us now? " I opened the window. The clocks were striking twelve in the church towers. " The Powers above, sabe us ! " shrieked Aunt Chloe. " Fall upon yo' knees. The dead are upon ye all. You that has bref, rend de skies ! " " Jerusalem and Jericho ! " cried a negro who was called Deacon Ned. He seemed to think that in the union of these two words was prophylactic virtue, and repeated them over and over again. Then a cry went up, which might have reached the skies, had the celestial scenery been as near as it appeared on that still December morning. Deacon Ned followed the piercing cry with the starthng declaration : — " De yarth am comin' up an' de hebens am comin' down ! " With this thrilling announcement in my ears, I left my room, and went down into the hall, and out into the air. A Christmas carol from the chimes of some unknown tower was floating through the sky like an angel's song. Aunt Chloe, the woman of occult wisdom, rose up when she saw me. " Oh, Massa Up-Nof, dey is comin' ! Wot you say now? " "Where?" '' Dere — don' ye see 'em? Clar as de mornin ! Hain't ye got de clar vision?" She pointed wildly to one of the forms of the night mist, and stood with one arm raised and white-orbed eyes. " Don' ye see dat white boss dar, widout any head, an' smokin'? An' don' ye see dem five white bosses dat am bein' created behind him ? " Then she pointed again toward the marshes, and I saw them. A ZIGZAG JOURNEY TO ZAG-A-ZIG. 25 There, as plainly as I ever saw anything, was a white horse without a head, his neck smoking. Behind him were five other white horses rising from the marshes. " You see, now? " " Yes." " You hab de clar vision? Wot did I tell ye ! " " I see." " You can't discern dese tings widout de seein' eye. Wot did I tell ye ! " The forms rolled over the marshes, and through the outward shrubbery of the gardens, and disappeared, dissolving as they approached the higher part of the city. The negroes stood like statues. " It has passed by," said Deacon Ned. " Bress de Laud ! " " Aunt Chloe," said I, " you said there was a mystery of the mystery. What is it? 1 must know." She heaved a deep sigh, but as of relief, and then said, slowly, " Massa Up-Nof, nobody sees 'em as hosses until dey are told dat dey be horses. Den dey hab de seein' eye. Do ye see? " " I see." I did, indeed. *' Dey was hosses, warn't dey now, Massa Up-Nof? " " Yes, Aunt Chloe, I saw them as plainly as I saw the President's horses on Inauguration Day." The negroes disappeared in the shadows. I slept serenely, and when I awoke, all the Christmas bells were ringing. There was a mystery of the mystery, and that key will unlock many doors. But I shall never forget the impressions made upon my mind that night at the old Van Ness house; and wherever Christmas may find me, that haunting memory will always return again. No American Christmas story ever made such a vivid impression upon me, or left in my mind so many suggestive lessons. And the story is substantially true. CHAPTER II. HOW CONSULS ARE APPOINTED. —THEIR DUTIES. — THE STORY- TELLING GARDEN. — THE CAPITOL BY MOONLIGHT — THE SINGING MOUSE. —THE VILLAGE MYSTERY. YOUNG mind with an inborn purpose is haunted by ideals. Dreams of life which shall be realities float before it. Percy Van der Palm loved to loiter about the old Washington garden, and read books that related to the duties and opportunities of the foreign ofifices of the Department of State. The " Register " of the State Department is a very simple document, but he was often found reading it, and making the catalogue a wonder-book by associating with some name in it a mental picture. For example, one would usually find pages like that on our next page of little interest. Some (like that on page 28) relate to the consulates of Spain and Italy, to which Percy's dreams somehow seemed to be tending after what his father had said. But however dry such pages of ofificial history may seem to our readers, they were leaves of story books to Percy, as we have said ; they were titles of fictions which were founded, like old novels, on facts, which his interpretative fancy filled. There was another book issued by the Department of State which his imagination used in a like way. It was entitled " United States Consular Regulations." It was a large book for a record, handsomely bound. Many afternoons found him in the old haunted Garden, studying in this book facts that he hoped might have a bearing on his future. HOir COASL/LS ARE Al'FOhXTED. 27 REGISTER OF EXISTING OFFICERS, EMPLOYES. ETC. OFFICERS AND CLERKS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE. Offices, salaries, and names. Where Whence born. appointed. Secretary of State ($8,000). John W. Foster Ind. Assistant Secretary of State (84,500).' William F. Wharton .... Mass. Second Assistant Secretary of State ($3,500). Alvey A. Adee N. Y Third Assistant Secretary of State ($3,500). William M. Grinnell . . . , Solicitor ($3,500). Frank C. Partridge Chief Clerk ($2,750). Sevellon A. Brown N. Y N. Y Chief of the Diplomatic Bureau (S2,ioo). Thomas W. Cridler . . . . Chief of the Consular Bureau ($2,100). Francis O. St. Clair . . . Chief of the Bureau of Indexes and Archives ($2,100). John H. Haswell Va. X.Y. NY. Chief of the Bureau of Accounts ($2,100). Francis J. Kieckhoefer . . . D. C. Service in the Department. Ind. Mass. D. C. N. Y. Commissioned June 29, 1S92. Commissioned April 2, \\ Appointed Secretary of Legation at Madrid September 9, 1870; Char^^e d'Affaires at dif- ferent times ; transferred from Madrid and appointed clerk class four July 9, 1877 ; ap- pointed Chief of Diplomatic Bureau June 11, 1878; commissioned Third Assistant .Secre- tary July 18, 1882 ; commissioned Second Assistant Secretary August 3, 1886. Commissioned February 11, 1892. Vt. ... Vt. . . . j Commissioned June 10, 1S90. N. Y. W. Va. Md. N. Y. D.C. Appointed temporary clerk December 21, 1864 ; clerk class one July i, 1866; class two Octo- ber 16, 1866; class four June i, 1S70; Chief of Bureau of Indexes and Archives July i, 1873; member of Board of Civil Service Ex- aminers for Department of State August 7, 1873; Chief Clerk August 7, 1873; resigned to take effect February i, 188S; reappointed Chief Clerk February 11, 1S90. Appointed clerk of $900 class October i, 1875 ; class one July i, 1880; class three November I, 1881 ; class four Februar}- i, 1884; Chief of the Diplomatic Bureau July, 15, 1S89. Appointed temporary clerk November 12. 1S65; class two June 7, 1870; class three June 22, 1871 ; class four July 1, 1S74 ; temporary Chief of the Consular Bureau June 7. i88i ; permanent Chief of the Consular Bureau November i, 188 1. Appointed temporary clerk Januan,- 23, 1865; class one August i. 1867 ; class two March 22, 1869; class three June i, iS-o; class four June 22, 187 1 ; Chief of the Bureau of Indexes and Archives August 7, 1S73. Appointed temporary clerk August i, 1S74; class one December i, 1S74 ; class three November 20, 1877 : class two July i, 187S ; class three Feburary 27, iSSo; class four July I. 1S80; Chief of Bureau of Accounts and Disbursing Clerk January 28, 1884 28 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. UNITED STATES CONSULAR SERVICE. ITALY. Place. Castellammare Do Catania . Do Florence Do Bologna Genoa . Do San Rcmo Leghorn Do Carrara Messina . Do Gioja . Milazzo Milan Do Naples . Do Do Bari . Rodi . Palermo Do Girgeitti Licaia Marsala Irapani Rome Do Do Ancona Cagliari Civita Vecchia Turin (b) Do Venice (b) Do Name and Title. Alfred AL Wood . Nestore Calvano Carl Bailey Hurst * Augustus Peratoner, James Verner Long Spirito Bernardi Carlo Gardini James Fletcher (//) Frederico Scerni Albert Amcglio . Radcliffe H. Ford Emilio Masi . . Uhsse Boccaccl . Darley R. Brush V. Z. Gjffoiii . . . Pietro Siraatsa . George W. Pepper Anthony Richman John S. Twells . Rob't O'X. Wickersham Phihp S. Twells , Nicholas ScliHck , T. del Gindice Horace C. Pugh Carmelo G, Lagana Francis Ciotta Arthur Verderame George Ray son Tgnazio Mar rone Augustus O. Bourn Charles M. Wood Charles M. Wood A. P. Totnassini . Alphonse Dol . G. Marsanich St. Leger A. Touhay ( Hugo Pizzotti Henry A. Johnson V. C. A. V. C. A. C. &D.C. C. &D.C. Agt. . C. V. C. Agt. . C. &D.C. Agt. C. &D.C. Agt. Agt. C. &D. C. . C. V. C. D.C. Agt. Agt. . C. v.c. Agt. Agt. Agt. Agt. C. G. & D. C. G. n) C. C. Agt. Agt. Agt. C.A. C.A. . C. Frederick Rechsteiner, V.&D. C. N. Y. . Germany Pa. Gt.Brit. Me. Iowa Ireland Pa. . Ind. R. I. Vt. France D.C. N. Y D.C. Pa. low Me S. Dak. Ohi Pa Ind R. I Vt. D.C D.C July Sept. July Nov. Feb. Mar. June May Dec. Nov. Jan. Oct. June July 13. 30, 22, 22, 27, 14, 10, 6, 14, 10, 22, Aug. Mar. Jan. Mar. Feb. Nov. July Feb. Mar. Oct. Dec. Apr. Apr. Dec. Oct. June Feb. Mar. Mar. June June Jan. Apr. Mar. June 6, 12, 30, ii> 27, 7, I, 8, 6, 16, -/. 21, 24, 26, 12, 24. 19. 7, 14, 7, 28, 29, 878 891 883 88 1 883 883 883 892 889 882 892 §1,500 880 S90 885 890 883 890 892 878 890 884 892 888 874 890 8S9 884 873 875 879 862 892 1,500 jSi, 519.00 1,500 2,314.00 1,500 52900 3,296 50 1,500 40.00 3-72 50 I.. 500 706 50 5-93 7- 50 1,500 No fees. 55.00 2,059.50 1,500 2,400.50 455-50 125.00 8,028.50 5,000 476.00 17100 56.50 308.00 670.50 1,200 Fees. 74-50 1350 83.00 350-50 1,000 S67.00 HO IV CONSULS ARE APPOINTED. 29 Let me give a few of them ; they will show how our foreign service is conducted, and will serve as pictures of the beginnings of diplomatic and consular life. CLASSES OF CONSULAR OFFICERS: THEIR POWERS AND DUTIES. The Consular Service of the United States consists of agents and consuls- general, vice-consuls-general, deputy consuls-general ; consuls, vice-consuls, deputy consuls; commercial agents, vice-commercial agents, deputy commercial agents; consular agents, consular clerks, interpreters, marshals, and clerks at consulates. Consuls are of two classes: (i) Those who are not allowed to engage in business, and whose salaries exceed one thousand dollars per annum ; (2) Those who ave allowed to engage in business. The latter class of consuls is again sub- divided into — ( i) Those who are salaried (known as consuls in Schedule C), and, (2) Those who are compensated from the fees which they receive for their services. These clerks, to the number of thirteen in all, are appointed by the Presi- dent after examination, and can be removed only for cause stated in writing and submitted to Congress at the session first following such removal. Appli- cants must be over eighteen years of age, and citizens of the United States at the time of their appointment, and must pass examination before an examining board, who shall report to the Secretary of State that the applicant is qualified and fit for the duties of the ofiice. They may be assigned to different consul- ates at the pleasure of the Secretary of State ; and, when so assigned, they are subordinate to the principal consular officer, or the vice or deputy at the post, as the case may be. If the applicant for the office of consular clerk is in a foreign country, he may be examined by a series of written questions by the Minister of the United States in that country, and two other competent persons to be named by him. The result of the examination, with the answers of the candidate in his own handwriting, will then be transmitted to the Secretary of State. Consular clerks are required to discharge such clerical and other duties of the consul- ate as may be assigned to them by the principal offfcer, whose instructions in all respects they are carefully to observe and obey. Punctual daily attendance at the consulate during office hours, diligence in the discharge of the consular duties, a cheerful obedience to the directions of their superiors, a courteous bearing toward all persons having business with the consulate, and uprightness 30 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. of conduct in all respects will be expected from them. Disobedience, want of punctuality, neglect of duty, the abuse of their credit in pecuniary transac- tions, or exceptionable moral conduct will be followed by the revocation of their commissions. The department is authorized by law to allow for the hire of clerks, when the money is actually expended therefor, as follows : To the consul at Liverpool, a sum not exceeding the rate of two thousand dollars for any one year; and to the consuls-general at London, Paris, Havana, and Rio de Janeiro, each a sum not exceeding the rate of one thousand six hundred dollars for any one year; to the consuls-general at Berlin, Frankfort, Montreal, Shanghai, Vienna, and Kanagawa, and for the consuls at Hamburg, Bremen, Manchester, Lyons, Hong-Kong, Havre, Crefeld, and Chemnitz, each a sum not exceeding the rate of one thousand two hundred dollars for any one year ; and the consuls at Bradford, Marseilles, and Birmingham, each a sum not exceeding the rate of nine hundred and sixty dollars for any one year ; to the consuls-general at Calcutta, Port au Prince, and Melbourne, and to the consuls at Leipsic, Sheffield, Sonneberg, Dresden, Nuremberg, Tunstall, Ant- werp, Bordeaux, Colon (Aspinwall), Glasgow, Panama, and Singapore, each a sum not exceeding the rate of eight hundred dollars for any one year ; to the consuls at Belfast, Barmen, Leith, Dundee, Victoria, and to the consuls- general at Matamoros and Halifax, each a sum not exceeding the rate of six hundred and forty dollars for any one year ; to the consuls-general at Mexico and Berne and to the consuls at Beirut, Malaga, Genoa, Naples, Stuttgart, Florence, Manheim, Prague, Zurich, and Demerara, each a sum not exceeding the rate of four hundred and eighty dollars for any one year. The allowance to be made from this appropriation to the several consulates named being within the discretion of the Department of State, the amount of the allowance will be determined by the requirements of each office. No clerk will be employed without special instructions authorizing it, and the name and nationality, as well as the proposed amount of compensation of each clerk, will be reported to the department. APPOINTMENT AND QUALIFICATION OF CONSULAR OFFICERS. Consuls-general and consuls are appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. They qualify by taking the prescribed oath (a copy of which is furnished by the department for the purpose), and by executing a bond to the United States in the form prescribed by the department. HOW COA'Sl/LS ARE APPOINTED. 3 I Consuls-general and all consuls and commercial agents whose salaries exceed one thousand dollars a year are required, before receiving a commis- sion, to execute a bond (Form No. 2) containing an express stipulation against engaging in business Those whose salaries are at the rate of one thousand dollars or less, all of whom are entitled to the privilege of trading, execute the bond given in Form No. 3 ; and those who derive their compen- sation from fees (who may also engage in business) execute the bond prescribed in Form No. 4. The prohibition as to transacting business may, however, be extended, in the discretion of the President, to all consular officers, whether receiving salary or fees. All principal consular officers are required by law to take the oath in Form No. i. For instructions respecting the sureties on the bond and the formalities of its execution see note to Form No. 2. A consul-general or consul appointed to one consulate is prohibited from holding the office of consul-general or consul at any other consulate, or from exercising the duties thereof. Commercial agents are appointed by the President. They qualif}" for their offices in the same manner in all respects as consuls-general and consuls. Vice-consuls-general, deputy consuls-general, vice-consuls, deputy consuls, vice-commercial agents, deputy commercial agents, and consular agents are appointed by the Secretary of State, usually upon the nomination of the principal consular officer, approved by the consul-general (if the nomination relates to a consulate or commercial agency), or, if there be no consul-general, then by the diplomatic representative. If there be no consul-general or diplomatic representative, the nomination should be transmitted directly to the Department of State, as should also the nominations for subordinate officers in Mexico, British India, Manitoba, and British Columbia. The nominations for vice-consul-general and deputy consul-general must be submitted to the diplomatic representative for approval, if there be one resident in the country. The privilege of making the nominations for the foregoing subordinate officers must not be construed to limit the authority of the Secretary of State, as provided by law, to appoint these officers without such previous nomination by the principal officer. The statutory power in this respect is reserved, and it will be exercised in all cases in which the interests of the service or other public reasons may be deemed to require it. Consular officers recommending appointments of this character must in all cases submit some evidence of the capacity, character, and fitness of the nom- inee for the office, and also information respecting his residence and the State or country of which he is a citizen or subject. A nomination failing to give these particulars will not be considered. The nomination must be made in a 32 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. dispatch addressed to the Assistant Secretary of State, transmitted through the legation or consulate-general, or directly, as the case may be. A minor will not be approved for any subordinate consular office. All persons nom- inated for subordinate appointments must be able to speak and read the English language. These pages may seem dull, yet they illustrate certain facts that American boys should know, as it should be a part of education to show how the departments of our own government are conducted. Reader, when you are travelling, always visit the consulates, and also the stations of the missionaries of your own church. You will find more information in these places than anywhere else. It is the consul's business to answer your questions in regard to travel and to treat you well, and he will usually do these things with great pleasure to himself as well as to you. As for the missionary stations, they stand for progressive education, and you may make yourself a kind of mis- sionary by bearing good reports of the progress that such places usually illustrate. Such visits will educate your heart as well as your head, and perhaps stimulate your conscience. Go ! Percy was delighted with the tales of the East. Let me give you from time to time some of the books that he read. "Count Lucanor," a Spanish book, written a century before the invention of printing, was a favorite study. It had the charm of old Spain and Moorish places. Its author was Don Juan Manuel, the Spanish Chaucer. We will give you some tales from this curious book. " Folk-Lore Legends, Russian and Polish," as published by W. W. Gibbings, i8 Bury Street, London, he also found rich in tales that were almost as charming to the fancy as the story of the days of " Good Haroun Alraschid.*' We shall give you adaptions of the best stories from these pages, as they are still the delight of the Eastern ports. Percy also liked those American stories that closely resemble those of the East. THE SINGING MOUSE. 33 The long twilights of the story-telling garden had the atmosphere for such curious tales and wonder-tales. His fathers friends in the State Department and old consular friends would gather under the trees, and with them social travellers, and tell tales of many lands. After the story-telling they would leave the garden to see the dome of the Capitol gleaming over the city in the moonlight. Let me give you some of these old stories by visitors from the New England port cities, that have the Oriental curiosity and flavor. There were two that particularly held Percy's fancy. The boy used to repeat them to new visitors, and they seemed to many to have an almost Eastern charm. The favorite of all these peculiar stories w^iich he used to relate with sympathetic coloring, after the Eastern way, and which we reproduce in our own, was, — THE SINGING MOUSE. " GOOD-BY, Alice. It is a cold morning, and it seems hard to go away and leave you all alone in the dark ; but I must work. We have to work to live. To-morrow will be Christmas. I wish I had something to give you ; but I have n't. Never mind, Alice, I love you." The old man opened the door to go, then looked back on his blind daughter, whom he was about to leave all alone for the day. He wished to saj- something- more to comfort her in the long hours of loneliness that were to follow. "Well, be good, Alice. Perhaps the good fairies will come to you; they come at Christmas-time, they say, to those who believe that the world is good." He closed the door. " The world." The words had a strange far-away meaning to Alice. She had never seen the world. She had felt the sunshine, she had heard distant bells ringing on Sundays, and happy birds singing in the cool green trees of the park on summer morns. She knew when the seasons came and changed, but she had never seen the springs light up the hills, and burst into flowers, or the summer dawns and groves and rivers and hay-fields, or the autumn fruits and burning leaves, or the fleecy fall of white snows. The winds of the seasons sang to her; she had listened to their music for si.xteen years. When a youno- '>4 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN child she had had the scarlet-fever, and it had left her weak and helpless, and a slow darkness had come over her eyes, shutting out the light more and more day by day, until at last the bright world disappeared, and was lost. She was blind. She could now only dimly remember that she had ever seen the world. Only two things had left pictures on her mind ; they were the face of her mother, who was now dead, and a canary-bird that had sung over her bed in her sickness. She loved to dream of them always, — the beautiful face and the golden bird. Late in the morning an old woman named Lucy came into the room. She always visited the blind girl once a day, and in winter oftener. " Can I do anything for you, Alice?" she asked kindly. " Father says that to-morrow will be Christmas. It is the day of Christ, and I suppose that everything is beautiful. Shall I ever see Christmas? I wish I could ! " " Oh, Alice, believe that you will, and you will. How bright the snows glisten on the roof of the Perkins Institute for the Blind ! I wish you could see the wings of the doves that fly among the chimneys over there. It always looks bright up there ; all places look pleasant where people do good." " For the blind? Did you say for the blind? Could I not go there? Per- haps they would help me." " But you would have to leave your dear old father. That is an asylum, and your eyes are all grown over. But don't lose heart, child. Strange things happen to those that believe. The believing heart receiveth all things. Ask the Lord to send you the good fairies of Christmas, and the good fairies will come. I have always noticed that the good fairies come to those who expect them." " Oh, Lucy, I do so wish I could see, like you ! The bells will ring, but I shall not see the Day Beautiful. Don't you pity me, Lucy? Let me kiss you." The old woman clasped the girl to her bosom. " Lucy, I believe in you — and father." The faith of the girl touched the old woman's heart. There are few sweeter words than these, " I believe in you." The confidence made old Lucy wish to help the sightless girl. Faith always has this influence. Lucy turned away, and a happy thought came into her mind, like an angel flying across the sky. She had a few pennies. She would buy some chestnuts from the griz/.ly old chestnut-roaster on the street, and would put them in Alice's stocking. So she stopped at the door as she was about to go, and said, — " Alice, other girls hang their stockings under the shelf on Christmas Eve, and they do say that the good fairies come in the night and put things into THE SINGING MOUSE. 35 them. You hang up yours to-night above the stove. You cannot tell what may happen. I see you have faith in your heart. It is a good thing to believe in God and everybody. If all people did this, what a happy world it would be ! ' Alice did not comprehend all this homely philosophy, but she felt the spirit of it. She heard Lucy going. A new delight came into her heart, her face grew bright, and she said, — " Oh, Lucy, I feel that everything is good around me and above me, and I believe in everything ! I shall see Christmas — the Day Beautiful — some day. Yes, Lucy, I surely will. I feel it Jure. I shall see." She crossed her white hands on her heart, and sat smiling. Old Lucy went away, but Alice sat there still, as lovely as a mute statue of Faith. She heard the footsteps hurrying by on the street, a rift of sunlight came into the room from the thinly parting snow clouds, and she felt the brightness of the light that she could not see. There was a little noise in the room — a rustle. Something was there, — a tiny something. Was it a fairy's foot ? It was now here, now there, airy, timid. Alice listened. She heard nothing more for a time. She recalled the tales of Grimm, Anderson, Fouque, Haupt, and Hoffmann that her mother used to tell her. Was it a fairy? It was not the wind, for the air was still. Again an airy trip across the floor like a little wing. Was it the spirit of the dead canary that she could see still in the dim twilight of memory? Her heart beat. Again and again it sped across the floor, like a thing of air. Once it came near her feet. Oh, that she could see ! What was that? Music? Surely it was. In a corner of the room. Soft music like the summer wind among the high wires over the street, like a harp in the park, like the dead canary's remembered song, only not sharp like that — more light, more soft, more timid. Fairy music it might be. A fairy play- ing a harp. It came again. It could not be a cricket. Crickets sometimes came to those tenement-houses in the dead world, but it was winter now. How it sang and sang! Alice listened with a thrilled and wonder-delighted heart. She moved her foot. The music was gone with a little rustle like a wing. "Lucy!" she screamed. Old Lucy came. " What, Alice, girl? " " My old canary has come back, and has been singing to me. Something good is going to happen. Do dead birds sing? " Lucy did not know. She saw nothing and heard nothing. She kissed 36 ZIGZAC, JOURNEYS OX THE MEDITERRANEAN. Alice, and only said, "You have been dreaming, child; but dreams of faith often come true." That afternoon the street was all bells. Door-bells were ringing. There were bells on the horses, bells on the sleds of the children. The sun of the short da}- faded out of the room, and all the air became melodious and palpita- ting with chimes. At twilight all was music, — bells, bells, bells. Then fell a hush between the twilight and the evening festivals. The street lamps were lit; one of them flashed into the window. There were a few still moments, a rustle, and the same sweet harp-like, cricket-like music filled the room again. Alice did not stir. It lasted long. There was a footfall on the stairs, another little rustle and an airy run, and the music was gone. The door opened. " Oh, father, father, my dead canary has been here, and has been singing to me! Oh, it was like silver; so beautiful — beautiful! I wish that I could see ! " " Be patient, my little daughter. Perhaps it will all come by-and-by. I told you that the fairies of good came to those who believe in them. I have brought home a whole loaf of pound-cake and two oranges to-night because it is Christmas Eve, and I have been thinking so much of }'ou to-day. We will eat them together." Poor old Hugh Meadowcraft, the laborer at the docks where ships unloaded their freight, felt a new vitality in his weary limbs as he rattled the grate, and put the meat on the stove to fry, and poured out the coffee into the coffee-pot, and prepared the evening meal. His employer, the ship-master, had added two dollars to his simple wages for this week. He had paid his rent for his two rooms, and bought a pound-cake for her, and he was a happy man. He heard nothing but goodness in all the bells that were ringing near and far, and as he sat down to his tea with his blind child, he said, " I tell you what it is, Alice, this is a good world to live in ; and I think that the next will be better still. There's nothing, child, like love and faith and hope; they are all the world of happiness. A king can have no more. Smell the coffee, and hear the kettle sing. The bells are all ringing yonder, everywhere." They ate in happy silence. Suddenly there was a lute-like sound, like a harp of air. " Listen, father." " Fairies." Old Hugh moved his chair. The music ceased. " You have heard it, father — the canary ? " " It is very strange. It is nothing bad, Alice ; it bodes no evil ; only a good fairy ever sang like that." THE SINGING MOUSE. 37 Night came, with the temples of the stars shining in the sky ; the streets throncred ; there were merry voices in the clear still air. Old Lucy came in, and laughed at Alice's fairy. Nine o'clock came, and Hugh went to his room, and Alice for the first time in her life hung up her stocking for Santa Claus, or the fairies, or the spirit of good that haunts the world's better self. She went to bed — it had been a thrilling day to her — and went to sleep to dream of the song of .the golden bird. She awoke early, or was awakened by a little noise. What was that? A nibbling sound under the shelf and over the stovepipe ; in the very place where she had hung her stocking. She rose softly, slowly. The nibbling sound continued, and there was a rustle as of nuts. Hush ! The canary was singing again, — in the dark, under the shelf, over the stove-pipe, where she had hung her stocking. She crept toward the place silently and listened. Could it be? Yes, the music was in her stocking, away down in her stocking toward the foot. How sweet and silvery and happy it was ! She put out her trembling hand and grasped the top of the stocking; she felt a motion of some living thing in it. She pinched the toe: it was full of something. What had happened? She screamed. Her father came to the door with a light. " What is it, Alice?" " The canary in my stocking." " No, no, girl. Here, let me see." Old Hugh opened the top of the stocking. " Santa Claus has been to see you, Alice ; and he has left a mouse, I do declare." Old Lucy came, running. "See here, will wonders ever cease? Alice has found a mouse in her stocking." " Kill it ! " said old Lucy. " It is after the nuts that — " " Oh, no, no; don't kill it! " said Alice. " I beg of you, don't kill it! It sings." " Oh, no, girl, it don't sing ; and it will eat up all the nuts. Let me call the cat." "Oh, no; I tell you it sings like a canary. Let me have the stocking ; " and Alice seized it, and threw herself upon the bed. " Let me have it — let me have it until day ! " said she. " Let me be alone with it for a little while. Oh, please do ! It means good to me. I feel it does. Let me have it a little while." "Let her be," said old Hugh. "Perhaps it is a singing mouse — who knows? I have heard of them. They bring good luck. Likely it was that she heard yesterday, and that we heard at tea." 38 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. Morning came, — a splendor of billowy clouds, sunshine, and glistening snow. Old Hugh rose late, and came into the room. " Oh, father, it has been singing again ; and the stocking is half full of nuts, and I have touched // with my hand It is soft, and its heart makes its little body tremble all over. Did Santa Claus leave it, father? " "I don't know; and it isn't much matter, I guess, as long as you are happy." The mouse continued to nibble the nuts and to sing. Hugh began to be interested in it. He called old Lucy into the room to hear it sing. "Just you be still and listen," said he. The mouse began to nibble, then to sing. The doctor called to see a sick woman who lived in the house. " Doctor," said Lucy, " did you ever hear of such a thing as a singing mouse? " " Yes." " There 's one in the other room, and I want you to hear it." The doctor was in a hurry to go, but his curiosity was excited. He stepped into Alice's room, saw the little mouse in the trap cage, and presently heard it sing. It looked so cunning standing there on its hind-feet, and moving its fore- feet as though playing on a tiny violin — so pretty, so toy-like, so comical — that the doctor was delighted, and he lingered there for nearly half an hour, notwithstanding his haste at first to go. Then his face turned to Alice — how happy and lovely she looked ! — and he said, — " What is the matter with your eyes, my girl?" " I am blind. I cannot see you or father ; I cannot see Christmas, the day that they call Beautiful ; I cannot see the singing mouse. Oh, doctor, I wish I could see ! I feel that some good influence is following me. Can't you help me .'* " " Come to the window with me, my girl, and let me examine your eyes. You ought to be treated by an oculist," said he. " I declare, I must tell my friend Phillips about you. His wife is an invalid ; she will want to see the singing mouse. She likes to meet everybody who has trouble and to make them happy. She feeds with coin all the organ-grinders in the street, and watches at her window for faces in distress. Here is a case for her. My girl, I have hopes that you may see again. There is a growth over your eyes ; it may be removed. I will be your friend. What is your name? " " Alice — Alice Meadowcraft." He went away slowly, leading Alice back to her chair. And the mouse was singing. THE SINGING MOUSE. 39 " Will be your friend." Alice's face was a picture of happiness, and beauti- ful with hope. " Friend ! " He might cause the heavens to lift again before her eyes full of sunrises, moonrises, sunsets, rainbows, and stars. He might cause the flowers to bloom again, the birds to come again, to her eyes. He might bring again the face of her father to hers, and she might yet see the Day Beautiful. There lived on Essex Street at this time a tall, patriarchal man, with grand manners and a most beautiful face, whom the whole nation feared, but whom all the poor people of that neighborhood loved. He would face a political mob with perfect calmness, but he could never say " No " to an unfortunate man or a homeless child. He was of distinguished family, and had inherited wealth ; a graduate of Harvard, and a correspondent of the greatest statesmen of the world, yet he lived in a simple way, and died poor, having given away all that he had. He sleeps now in a lot assigned him by friendly charity in the beautiful Milton (Massachusetts) burying-ground, near the old house of the " Suffolk Resolves," which " resolves " was the first Declaration of Independence. This man, whose criticism even good President Lincoln declared that he dreaded more than any other, and whose white hand waved mobs backward like a prophet's, at this time towered through the streets near where the Old Colony and Albany depots now are, loved, feared, hated, carrying his own market basket in the morning, and at night thrilling assemblies with silver- tongued eloquence such as is not now heard in Boston. His wife was an invalid, and he was her nurse for a lifetime. The next day the doctor came to the long rambling house where Alice lived, and he brought with him this statesman who scorned public office, but whose words moved the conscience of the people and led the struggles of the world. How grand and noble he looked as he stood there in that poor room and took the hand of Alice, the blind girl ! " I have come to hear your little mouse sing," said he. Then he started back. He looked upon the blind eyes of that beautiful face. " I must let you go over and see Ann. She will send you to Mrs. Anagnos." The little mouse was induced to sing after a time, and the two went away. " I will call for you some day," said the patriarch. "Mrs. Anagnos!" Who was Mrs. Anagnos? The name rang in Alice's mind. She asked the few that came into her room who was Mrs. Anagnos. None of them knew. At last the grocer came with a simple parcel. Alice asked him the question that so haunted her. 40 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. *' Oh, she is the daughter of Julia Ward Howe — she who wrote, — ' Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming ot the Lord.' " And he hurried away. But the mouse was singing. The line seemed a prophecy. Who wrote it, — Mrs. Julia Ward Howe or Mrs. Anagnos? She would ask the newsboy when he passed. She did. His answer was odd, but satisfactory : — " She is the wife of Mr. Anagnos, who keeps the Blind Asylum over in South Boston, and helps blind people to read. He might make yon see. Better go and see her. She is a great big woman, and she 's just good to everybody, like Mis Phillips. She 'd make you see, like 's not. I 'd try her, anyway." Alice went back to her room, her mind all roses, and the little mouse was singing again. One day the patriarch came again, and he took Alice to the two-story brick house on Essex Street, to meet his invalid wife. Piow tenderly they talked to her ! And " Ann " kissed her, and said, — " We will see your father, and I think I will send a carriage for you some day, and you shall visit Mrs. Anagnos. I think, too, that Mrs. Anagnos will want you to stay with her a while, and I perhaps will take care of )'our mouse while you are gone. I love little animals, and I live in my room alone." " Do you think that she will make me see?" said Alice, — " see father and the day that they call Beautiful? '" The high rooms of the Blind Asylum at South Boston overlook the city, the bowery suburbs, and the glorious harbor. The world of life, of spires, towers, ships, parks, and gardens, lies under them. In one of these rooms Alice found a new home. And here one day the doctors gave her a breath of ether, and she went away to dreamland ; and when she came back again, Mrs, Anagnos stood over her, and kissed her, and a doctor said, — " The operation has been successful. You will see again." " When? "' said Alice, whose eyes were in thick bandages. " Oh, when?'' "I will say on Christmas Day, — the day you call Beautiful. You must be kept in a dark room until then. If your eyes do well, I will let your friends come to see you next Christmas, and I will lift the curtain, and you shall see the world again." Touchingly faithful were the visits of Mrs. Anagnos to the silent room of Alice. All the blind people loved this woman whom they could not see, but whose presence was a spiritual benediction. Her heart was always with them, "'WAIT TILL THE SUN GOES INTO A CLOUD,' SAID THE DOCTOR." THE SINGING MOUSE. 43 and when she lay dying, her last request was, " Don't forget my poor bHnd children." Christmas was drawing near; streets were crowded and bells were ringing again ; the mellowness of autumn lingered, and there was an April blue in the December sky, " I shall see the world to-morrow," said Alice. " Yes, to-morrow," said the doctor; "and your father and friends will be here." It was Christmas afternoon. Alice sat in a dim room, the bandages had long been removed from her eyes, and she had seen Mrs. Anagnos in the shadows, and had kissed her face. For a few days, indeed, she had sat in a room that was almost light. She had been tempted again and again to lift the curtain, and open the blind, and steal one glimpse of the new world. Her father came. She looked upon his old hard hands — into his eyes. They were like her own. His hair was white — not like hers. Were other men's heads so white? One of the teachers had sent her a Christmas rose. How lovely it was ! How pitiable it seemed that any one should be unable to see it ! Dr. Howe came, his soul of love shining through his noble face. The doctor came — he who had promised to be her friend — and the patriarch. Shadow people were they all, but such glorious shadow people ! The doctor's hair was not white ; it was like her own. His face was not white ; it was olive, and a rose was on it. Alice was filled with wonder at the stately shadow people, but her heart went out to the doctor at once. Was it not he who had said, " I will be your friend "? " Wait till the sun goes into a cloud," said the hospital doctor. A shadow passed over the glimmering window. " Now ! " The curtain was lifted. There it lay — the Day Beautiful! The blue sky, with the sun curtained in a cloud ; the broad city, with its dome ; the long harbor, with its white sails ; the streets full of people ; the parks ; the far horizons ; there it lay, — the world ; and she had come among the people of all this beautiful existence to be one of them. " This is Christ's da}'," she said. " Yes." " Are other days like this? " " Yes — all." " And I shall see them ? Oh, what a bliss it will be to live ! " She turned to her friend the doctor with streaming eyes, and said. " It was you that promised to be my friend. I owe this all to you." 44 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. " No," he said ; " it was the mouse, — the singing mouse." " It was not a common mouse. Do you think so?" •' No; it was a singing mouse." " I did not mean that ; it was all a finger of — something." She held out her hand and looked at her own finger. " I can't tell what I want to say. Don't you know, doctor.?" It was a wet day in February; I recall it well. It had rained and rained, and all the tall houses were dripping. It had been announced that a private FAXEUIL HALL. citizen would that day lie in state in Faneuil Hall, The Shaw Guards were to escort the remains thither, and stand guard over them. He had never held an office ; he had never led Senates or armies, or anything but the march of human thought. Yet the great square filled with people in the rain. Faneuil THE VILLAGE MYSTERY. 45 Hall market-places were full of drenched people, — poor people, shivering people, teamsters, old farmers, Irishmen, Irishwomen, colored men, colored women, children, folk from out of town, men ot the trades, an army of laborers. Social leaders were not there ; politicians were not there , men who trade in the hopes of the poor were not there ; nor any who, under any pretext, take from the poor their birthright. But the squares were full. There was a dirge in the rain, a procession of black faces, and then a stay in the pouring rain ; after which the great tide of hearts was allowed to pour into the hall. A man and a very beautiful woman came with the surging crowd, and as the woman bent over to kiss the white form of the dead, it seemed as if her heart was broken. The man was compelled to force her away that others might rain tears on the cold roses. That woman was Alice Meadowcraft Holly, and the man was her husband, the doctor. Then I thought of the singing mouse, of the Day Beautiful, and of the good Angel of Faith, whose hand, unseen, had been in it all. Another of these stories which the American practical mind, unlike the Eastern, seeks to explain, was a mid-New-England fireside tale which has found many versions, of which the following is one. THE VILLAGE MYSTERY. One April morning in the early part of the present century, a very curious group of farmers might have been seen in an old blacksmith's shop near the village of Henniker, N. H., intent on discussing a remarkable event that had recently occurred in the neighborhood. A common farm-horse, of no especial note, except it was white, had walked in the night across the deep torrents of Contoocook River at a point where the bridge had been lately washed away by a freshet, carrying a 3'oung woman on his back. The river at the time was swollen, and from twelve to fifteen feet deep. The night was dark and cloudy, and had followed an early spring tem- pest, which the farmers had called the " breaking-up of winter." The young woman was not aware that the bridge had been carried away until the day after this mysterious crossing of the swollen stream. The event was regarded as well-nigh miraculous, and had caused great excite- ment in the usually quiet little village. The proof was positive that the horse had crossed the torrent, and people came daily to visit the old white animal in the stable; and the poor creature that had led an uneventful life of good and 46 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN, steady service among the roads, fields, and pastures of the Contoocook received the name ol The Miraculous Horse. How many people in Henniker many years ago were familiar with the story of The Enchanted Horse in the " Arabian Nights," or with the Mao-ic Horse of Dan Chaucer's delightful fiction, we do not know. But many of them were proud that their town had produced a horse that could walk upon the water even if he could not fly. There were other people, in a very small minority, as is usual in such cases, or was at that time, who believed that some natural explanation could be found for the feat of the water-walking horse, and that time would bring to light some curious solution of the mystery. Such was the state of the public mind on this blue April morning that found a gathering of rugged farmers at the old New Hampshire smithy. The occasion of the extraordinay gathering was as follows : Smith Smart, the honest blacksmith, had been told the day before, by Samuel Samson, the owner of The Miraculous Horse, that the latter would ride over to the smithy the next morning, and have the white horse shod. The interesting animal had not been shod since he had walked upon the water on the cloudy night. Smith Smart therefore regarded the shoeing of the horse as a matter of no common concern, and he had told his friends to " come around " and see the shoes set on the miraculous roadster, and further discuss the mystery. "What time did Samson say that he would be here? " asked old Judge Camp- bell, stamping the snow from his feet, and holding his great hands over the fire of the smithy. " About nine, I guess," said the blacksmith, bearing down on the lever of the bellows, and so sending a red flame into the air which touched the judge's coat- sleeve. " Cracky ! don't you burn me ! " said the judge. " I am not made of iron or steel, if I do sit upon the bench and administer justice. There he comes now, I do declare, I don't know how it may be with the rest of you, but I can't see anything peculiar about that old white horse. He is just a horse, a white horse, to me ; and I would n't have given twenty dollars for him before he walked across the Contoocook on the water. Farmer Samson came riding up to the smithy. He had often done so before, as now, on horseback, and neither he nor the horse had been objects of any special interest to anybody. But he came now gravely and silently, as though he were a prophet, and the heavens were about to fall ; and the old farmers gaped at the horse with open mouths and wide eyes. The farmer dis- mounted, and left the horse standing in the April sun, that poured through the great doors of the smithy. THE VILLAGE MYSTERY. 47 "Well," he said at last, "there he is. If you can shoe the air and the water, shoe him. These are solemn times, judge, — solenm times ! Signs and wonders, wheels within wheels, like Ezekiel's vision ; and I don't know what the world is a-comin' to. I sometimes think that the times of Cotton Mather and ghosts and flying women are about to return again to New England. It is a mystery why fate should set its sign on that old white horse, but so it is." The horse stood there, very quiet and demure. He did not look as though he had been the medium of any special revelation. He did not so much as wink. He was worn with hard work of many years ; had an intelligent, reliable look ; did not fear the forge ; and seemed to be glad that spring had come, and to enjoy the sunshine. No one would have taken him for an oracle. " Samson, did you ever notice anything peculiar about that horse before that awful night? " asked the judge. '* No ; only he is the most sure-footed animal I ever had. Whatever I set him to doin', he will do, — plough without a driver ; furrow without lines ; go home from mill all alone with a bag of meal on his back, and leave the grist at the door. He never had no antics nor capers, nor nothin' of that kind ; but he has had the strongest horse-sense of any animal I ever knew. Seems as though sometimes he had a soul. I always thought that I would hate to kill him when he became old. He might haunt me. " He carried me to be married, and bore away two of my children to their graves; and Martha would have been dead, too, if he hadn't a-walked over the water like a spirit horse in the dead o' night, under the scudding clouds, and brought the doctor just in the nick o' time. Poor old Jack ! there are not many more weddings and funerals for you to go to in my family. I do think, judge, that there ought to be some law to protect an old family horse, — a hospital, or somethin'." Samson twined his fingers in the animal's mane. " I always noticed that that animal had a kind of far-away look in his eye, as though he was sort of pryin' into futurity," said old Deacon Bonney. " It 's a case like Balaam, you may depend. It ain't no use talkin' ; your Martha is a good woman, and she was goin' to die without a doctor, and the powers above just let the good old white horse have his way ; and he went over the river, waterfalls and all, dry shod, like the Israelites of old. He was uplifted." " He never went over the Contoocook River dry shod, without there was somethin' under his feet," said the village schoolmaster, Ephraim Cole, who had come with the rest, as the day was Saturday and a holiday. " Even the Israehtes had the winds to help them. There are no effects without causes. 48 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. and that horse went across the river in some perfectly natural way, you may be sure. Wait and see. Time will tell the truth about all things." " Samson," said the judge, " I want you to tell us the true story of that night, while Smart sets the shoes on that marvellous animal." Smith Smart plied the lever again. The forge began to blaze. Some new shoes were dropped into the fire, and the blacksmith began to pare down the horse's hoofs with his steel scraper. The horse was quite used to these things, and did not move, except at the will of the smith. " He is the patientest hofse to be shod that ever I see," said Smart. " Always was. I noticed that years ago. I always thought that there was somethin' mysterious about him." The men sat down on sooty benches and boxes, and Samson began his strange story. " Well, this is how it was, this way, as I remember. It was early in March, of a Tuesday night. Wife began to feel sick in the evening: chills, and fever flashes. Then she began to have a difficulty of breathin', and I see that she was threatened with pneumonia, and says I to Minnie, my daughter, 'You bridle Jack and go for the doctor as quick as you can. 'T is a dark night, but Jack knows the way. He 's been after the doctor in the night before. Wrap up warm, and don't mind the thunder. It will be cold when you cross the bridge, so wrap up warm.' " I had n't heard then that the bridge had been carried away by the freshet. Well, Minnie, she bridled up Jack and started. It was a troubled night ; I could hear the wind in the branches of the trees, and see the clouds scud across the half-moon. The wind was keen, and Minnie drew the shawl over her head, and gave Jack the rein, and let him go. " Well, when they came to the bridge, or the place where the bridge was, Minnie drew the shawl more closely about her ears, and dropped the rein ; and Jack walked right across the river, carefully like, and Minnie never so much as thought that there was no bridge there, except once during a flash o' lightning. The water was pouring down from the hills in torrents. There had n't been such a freshet for years. Minnie called the doctor, and returned in the same way. " The doctor came late, and found wife very sick ; and I incline to think that his comin' just saved her. After givin' her medicines, he said to me, said he, ' I should have been here before, but for the bridge being washed away. It is a bad road round.' "'The bridge washed away?' said I. "' No, doctor,' said Minnie, 'the bridge is not washed away. I went over it, and came back the same way.' THE VILLAGE MYSIERY. 49 " ' No, no,' said the doctor, said he, in surprise, ' there is no bridge over this part of the Contoocook. You must have been dreaming, Minnie. The horse went round,' " ' No, doctor, I crossed the bridge direct. You will find it so by the horse's tracks. There was a minute or two that seemed to me kind o' strange. There came a flash of hghtning and all around me looked like water.' " Wife was better in the mornin', and 1 had to go to the river. I followed the tracks of Jack goin' and comin'. The horse certainly went to the river, and as Minnie was gone but half an hour, and it would have been an hour's hard riding to have gone and returned the other way, the horse surely crossed the river. " But to make the matter clear beyond a doubt, Minnie's scarf blew off while crossin' the river, and we saw it on the next day at the place that she crossed on a rock in the river. My hired man found the horse's tracks on the other side of the river. — No, sure as preachin', and the stars above us, that horse crossed the river with Minnie on his back. It was a supernatural event of some kind. The horse crossed the bridge, and there was no bridge to cross." There was another confirmation to this amazing story, — a rheumatic old woman living near the river, who stood by her window that night, looking out on the breaking clouds. There came a flash of lightning, and she saw a white horse with a black rider, walking on the water in the middle of the river. She said that she had seen her " death fetch." A long silence followed the emphatic " there ! " of the blacksmith. It was broken by the mathematical schoolmaster. "Will you let me ride the horse down to the river after he is shod? If Minnie could cross where there is no bridge, I can." " You can? " exclaimed a chorus of voices. " Just follow me," he continued. " I think I can show you all how a horse can walk upon the water. What has been done, can be done." Mounting the horse, the schoolmaster rode to the edge of the swollen river, where the old bridge had been. But he did not stop there. Old Jack went on, not stepping far into the water, but seemingly walking upon it. Very care- fully went the horse, but steadily, as though feeling his way. The men gazed in wonder. " That stream is ten feet deep," said one. " Was there ever such a sight before, — a horse walking upon the water?" said another. When Jack reached the other side, the old schoolmaster turned his head, 4 50 ZIGZAG JOURyEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. and waved his hat. He then turned the horse's head, and the two came back again, Hke a general and his war-steed. It was noticed that before taking a step forward, Jack hfted high his right fore-foot and very carefully felt for a place on which to rest it, as though there were hard and reliable places in the gliding water. As soon as the schoolmaster returned, he clasped the horse around the neck, and said, — " Jack, you are a good animal, and know more than most other people do." The farmers began to investigate. They walked into the river. They found that they, too, could walk upon the water. A line of posts covered by wide strips of board belonging to the old bridge, had not been carried away, but remained about half a foot under the surface, the foaming current passing over them. " Time tells the truth about all things," repeated the schoolmaster, " and there are no efifects without causes." " That was risky business," said the judge. It was a very thoughtful procession that followed the trustworthy old white horse back to the smithy. Then the old breadcart man came along, with a jingle of bells, and the judge bought five cakes of gingerbread and treated the company at the blacksmith's. "Cracky!" continued the judge, philosophically, "fingers are fingers, and thumbs are thumbs. If we haven't a miraculous horse, we have a miraculous schoolmaster. Let us be thankful, deacon. What do you say? " And the Deacon said, " Amen." And the bluebirds sang, and the woodpeckers pecked, and flocks of robins chorused, " Cheer up, cheer up ! " in the gnarled old apple-trees, and all the world went on happily, as before. CHAPTER III. A PLAN FOR A JOURNEY OF EDUCATIONAL TRAVEL. The Places to be visited: The City of Mexico; Caracas; a Zigzag Journey ACROSS the Sea from Perxambuco to Gibraltar; then all the Consular Ports of the Mediterranean. HE journey began to Mexico and La Guayra. One day in the Garden Mr. Van der Palm said to Percy, " I have business which will take me to the city of Mexico for some months, and then to Caracas for a few weeks. I shall then go to Pernambuco, and thence sail on a Portuguese steamer directly for Lisbon, stopping for a short time at the Cape Verd Islands and the Canaries. Here is a map; let me trace the route with a pencil." Mr. Van der Palm slowly traced the route to Mexico, South America, and Europe. " I should think such a journey," said Percy, "would be one of the most delightful in all the world." " It is. I know the route well. The valley of the City of Mexico is one of the most beautiful spots in North America, and there are few places in the world more beautiful than Caracas and Valentia in the Maritime Andes. The sea-route from Brazil to Portugal by way of the Southern Islands 4s unequalled at the right seasons of the year." " You will be gone a year ? " " Yes." 54 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. "And I?" " I shall take you with me. You will begin your studies in educa- tional travel in the City of Mexico. You will find it a good place to commence Latin-America Spanish. You can continue the study in Caracas and Valentia; take Portuguese in Pernambuco, and Castilian Spanish at the port of Gibraltar and at Barcelona. You will be able to learn at these ports the commercial law and usages of Spain and Portugal, and to study the literature of those countries in the original language." " Where shall we go from Lisbon and the ports of Spain } " " To all the consular ports of the Mediterranean. It will be a zig- zag journey, as I shall not follow the coast on either side, but pass from the port cities of one coast to the other, as my commission directs." The journey thus planned was at once begun. In Monterey, Percy spoke his first Buenos dias, Sehor; Felizes trades, Senora; Como lo pasa, Msted? In the City of Mexico he began to hear, for the first time, those characteristic Spanish words, in which may be read the decline of the Latin empire in the New World, — Hasta manana (until to-morrow). Here he also began to be familiar with those terms of elegant and deferential politeness which form a part of all the dialogue of Spanish America ; Con mticko gusta ; A los pies de tisted, — At the feet of you (to ladies); and Beso a usted los manos, Caballero, — I kiss your hands (to gentlemen). Here he was not rudely asked to sit down in cold business terms, but, " Be pleased to sit down ; " and he received not one thank for any favor that he did, but a tkotisand, — mil gracias. Here, too, instead of the old Washington garden, he used to go out to study on the Paseo, which we must describe and picture. THE PASEO. 57 ■^•?>< THE GOD OF FIRE. THE PASEO, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STREET IN THE NEW WORLD. The Paseo, from the plaza of the City of Mexico to the castle and gardens of Chapultepec, is probably the most beautiful street in the New World. It is certainly the most historic. It was trodden by ancient monarchs and priests of the Sun ; by Montezumas, caciques, and Spanish viceroys ; and now, at last, by the people's presidents. Its history and traditions cover a period of one thousand years, and no other street in the New World has such a record. The street, or boulevard, or paseo, is some three miles long, and stretches from the place where the great Mexican pyramid once stood, but where now is the cathedral and official palace, to the Castle of Chapultepec, which was once the famous Halls of the Montezumas. It is one long procession of statuary. It might be called the boulevard of the Montezumas. One leaves the grand plaza, where once the great pyramid stood, passes the old palace of Iturbide (the first Mexican monarch after the overthrow of the Spanish power), the Alemada (a music park of enchanting beauty), and comes to two colossal statues of Montezumas. He is now in the Paseo proper. The vista before 58 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANAEN. him is one of the most beautiful in the world. The highway is lined with Spanish cypress and eucalyptus trees, and is sentinelled, as it were, with statues of heroes. Around it stretch meadows of flowers and alfalfa grass. Clarinas sing in the air, and at the end rise the white porticos of Chapultepec, over gigantic trees and beautiful gardens, and shine down on the city like things of life and joy. But this is not all ; over the white castle and the gardens of giant cypresses, gray with mosses and crumbling with the shadows of centu- THE PRESIDEXT S PALACE. ries, loom Popocatapetl and Istaccihuatl like white clouds in the sky, a pearly splendor of glistening snow. The first of these dead volca- noes is higher than Mount Blanc, or any mountains in Europe. One may here gather oranges and one hundred varieties of Mexican roses, and tread the alfalfa meadows, and then glance upward to crystal winters of the sky. THE PASEO. 6 1 The tourist who would see the glory and grandeur of this historic highway would do well to devote to it a day, and to make his first visit to the National Museum, which joins the palace in the plaza. Here he will see Chae Mool, the Aztec god of fire, and the stone statue of TOP OF SACRIFICIAL STONE. Death. The Aztec sacrificial stone is here, and the Calendar Stone. A study of the latter great stone puzzle will give to his mind the proper historical mood and coloring for the three-mile journey to Chapultepec, over which he is to pass. What is the meaning of this mysterious Calendar Stone } The view in Mexico follows a famous lecture by Philip G. G. Valentini, 62 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. published by F. P. Hoeck, that it was an altar for human sacrifices. The learned archaeologist thus interprets it : — " I will, in the first place, inform you in what year, by whose order, and upon what particular festival occasion this stone disk was first made. " It was, according to our reckoning, about the year 147S, or nearly four hundred years ago, and only two years before the death of the then reigning king of Mexico, Axayacatl, that he was reminded by the high priest of the State of a vow that he had once made, who spoke as follows (I will give the long text of the Indian writer, Tezozomoc, in the fewest words) : '" The buildincr of the laroe sacrificial SCULPTURE OX THE SIDE OF THE SACRIFICIAL STOXE. pyramid which you have undertaken approaches its end. You vowed to decorate it with a beautiful work, in which the preserver of man- kind, Huitzilopochtli, could take pleasure. Time presses , do not delay the work any longer." " I think," said the king, " to replace the sacrificial stone which my father once devoted to the god of the sun, with a new one. Let that be laid aside, but carefully preserved. I will give the laborers provisions and clothing that they may select the most proper stone from the quarries, and I will send the sculptor gold, cocoa, and colored cloth, that he may engrave a picture of the sun as it is surrounded by our other great gods." So the workmen went out and quarried the stone, laying it upon rollers, and fifty thou- sand strong men rolled it along. But as it was upon the bridge of THE FASEO. 63 Xoloc, the beams gave way, the bridge broke in pieces, the stone fell into the water, and no one dared to remove it from the bottom of the lake. Then the king was angry and said, " Let them build a new brido'e, with double beams and planks, and bring a new stone from the quarries of Cuyoacan. Let them bring a second stone here, out of which a trough may be made to receive the blood which flows as expiation from the sacrificial stone." When the stone had been THE CATHEDRAL. quarried and prepared, and had been rolled over the bridge in good condition, there was a feast of joy. Then was the question asked, How should the immense stone be placed on the pyramid ?* After it was placed in position, we read that it was sunk in the surface of an altar. The altar is of stone, of the height of eight men, and of the length of twenty cubits. Before it the trough was placed. A bloody festival was held for the dedication of this sacrificial slab, and 64 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. upon it thousands of victims were slain. The king, as chief sacrificer, on the first day killed a hundred of victims with his own hand, drank of their blood, and ate of their flesh ; and so arduous was his labor, and so much did he eat, that he became sick, and soon after died. He had only time to have his portrait sculptured upon the surface of the rock of Chapultepec, according to the custom of Mexican kings.' So much for Tezozomoc's report. " That the sacrificial stone here mentioned is the one still extant, I will, in addition to the description, bring a still further proof. No doubt this stone served for all their bloody sacrifices up to the year 152 1. In that year the Spaniards captured the city; and Cortez ordered the destruction of the entire pyramid, and that the canals of the city be filled with its fragments. Neither Cortez nor Bernal Diaz, nor any of the chroniclers of the conquerors, make mention of the existence of any such monument as the afore-described stone. They did not undertake its destruction ; nay, they even placed it in the market-place, on exhibition, where the pyramid once stood. This we have from a missionary chronicler named Duran, between the years 1551 and 1569, who says he has always seen it in the same place, and that there has been so much talk about it, among Spaniards and natives, that finally his eminence, the Bishop of Montufar, took umbrage, and ordered its burial in the place where it stood, in order that the memory of the infamous actions that had been perpetrated upon it might be blotted out. Until the year 1790 no one of the many writers on Mexican antiquities has made the least mention of it. In that year the repair of the pavement of the market-place was undertaken. In a deep excavation the laborers struck a slab of stone which gave such a hollow sound from the stroke of the iron that they thought a treasure-vault might be concealed under it. When they lifted the slab they found no treasure-vault, but were astonished when they beheld on one side, the spectacle of this incomparable treasure of ancient Mexican art. The clergy wished it to be again buried, THE PASEO. 65 but the art-loving and liberal viceroy, Revillagigedo, ordered it to be exposed. He caused it to be built in on the southerly side of the cathedral, in the ashlar work of one of its towers, so that all could see it. Here it remained until the year 1885, when it was removed to the National Museum, where it now stands. " No one had then the least idea that such a stone had ever existed, or for what purpose it might have served. The archaeologists said at once that it must have some connection with the worship of the sun. They thought the shield in the centre represented the ancient sun-god; and as they found the always well-known twenty pictures of the days of the Mexican month engraved about in a circle, they gave to the disk the name by which it is still known, — the Mex- ican Calendar Stone. " The ancient Mexicans had a superstition that the sun-god would destroy the world in the last night of the fifty-second year, and that he would never come back. To prevail on him to remain, they offered to him of their own free will the greatest sacrifices ; not a human life only, but also on all their hearths, and in all their dwellings and temples, they extinguished their fires. They left it to the goodness of the god to give them back this element so necessary to mankind. They broke all their household furniture; they hung black masks before their faces ; they prayed and fasted ; and on the evening of the last night they formed a great procession to a neighboring mountain. Arriving, there is found a man lying on a circular stone, who gives himself voluntarily as a sacrifice to the god. Exactly at the midnight hour a priest thrust a knife into his breast, tore out the heart, and raised it toward the starry heavens with uplifted hands, while another priest laid a small round block of dry soft wood upon the open wound, and a third priest, springing on the stone and kneeling over the body, placed a hard stick perpendicularly on the block, which he then with his hands caused to revolve. This violent friction produced a spark, which was caught up, and was immediately carried to a neighboring 5 66 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. funeral pile, whose rising flame proclaimed to the people the promise of the god to delay for a season the destruction of the world, and to grant to mankind a new lease of fifty-two years of existence." This is thrilling history. The tourist may now go out into the open air, under the blue sky, pass the palace, the cathedral, the flower and bird market, and enter San Francisco Street on his way to the wonderful Paseo. The great cathedral shines like the sun, holding its great ^bells in air. The palace where the great pyramid once stood throngs with bright, happy faces. The bazaars are gay with color. Women with- THE TOMR OF JUAREZ. out bonnets, or any head covering, mingle with the gayly dressed senors ; and lazy, happy peons, as the poorer classes of Mexicans are called, sit in the sun along the crowded way. Passing the old palace of Iturbide, now a grand hotel, one pauses at the Alemada, and rests among the statues and fountains in the deep cool shadows of cathedral-like trees. Or perhaps he crosses a F!''1WliilT' lil ala:i!31ll ill!!!i.:li. JlliMI]llllilllLl|i ll | ||y|!J.^.l)^J|ii|^j THE FASEO. 69 street or two beyond the Alemada, and visits the Mexican garden of the dead, called the Pantheon, in the shadows of the crumbling church of San Fernando. Here is the pyramidal tomb of Juarez, hung with wreaths of immortelles from all the Mexican States, and bright with living flowers. In the chamber of the pyramid is the efifigy of STATUE OF CHITAAHUAC. the emancipator of Mexico in white marble. It represents Juarez as lying dead on the lap of Mexico, the face of the goddess nation being turned to the sun. It is one of the most beautiful works of art in America. Iturbide was the first monarch of Mexico. He threw off the Spanish yoke; but it was Juarez who made the Indian races free and gave them the rights of men. Entering the Paseo between the statues of the Montezumas, the charm of the wonderful highway begins. Before the tourist rises a 70 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. most beautiful statue of Columbus, surrounded, as it were, by a court of Montezumas and later heroes. One of these monuments is very painful, but long holds the eye. It represents two Aztec kings, chained to blocks of stone, and being tortured by the Spaniards, who have lighted slow fires under their feet to make them disclose their treasures of gold. On one side of the Paseo is the ruin of a gigantic aqueduct man- THE PLAZA AND LA MITRA, MONTEREY. tied with vines. The way is lined with heavy stone seats. Cool trees wave above them. Out of these shadowy vistas one sees the houses of Mexican ofiRcials and foreign ministers, — prison-hke look- THE PASEO. 71 ing Structures on the outside, but beautiful within, where patios or open courts, surrounded by zulas or halls, stand open to the sky. Chapultepec glimmers in the distance, — a pile of simple beauty that haunts one forever. The castle and gardens of Chapultepec ! Who can describe them? Their charm is overwhelming, and yet money did not nor could not create them. There is poetry and sentiment in the air. The birds sing of the spirit of the place. One sits down under the ancient cypresses, some of which are fifty feet in circumference, and pictures the past. Here were the halls of the Montezumas; here a romantic viceroy, Galvez, lifted his white palace out of the ruins of the past ; here Carlotta saw a few happy days ; and here come the cantering presidents of the last republic to spend their summers ! One won- ders how the American soldiers ever scaled the walls of rock-ribbed elevation. From the airy porticos one looks down upon the white city burn- ing in pure, clear sunlight, and up to the mountains that glimmer in the cerulean splendor of the far sky, and feels that this is the throne of beauty in the New World. Below are the old baths of the Montezumas, and close at hand is the military academy. Clarinas sing; soldiers without occupation march to and fro; glittering officers on slick ponies and gay saddles disappear in the winding ways of the ancient cypresses ; children play about the cages of native wild animals in the cool gardens below, and afar the air is a melody of bells. But the present vanishes from the mind. Here the tourist, be he a poet or not, dreams. The visions of Prescott's history rise before him. The vanished courts of the Montezumas glitter around him, and in fancy he sees the tocalli smoking where the melodious city now stands. As he returns past the orange sellers, the flower-girls, and the pulque dealers, he is perhaps glad that the native Indian races are again masters of their own country. Juarez was an Indian; President 'J 2 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. Diaz has native blood. The Indian races in all Spanish- American countries are retrieving their ancient rights, and are seeking to put education in the place of ignorance. The influence of the Latin conquerors is failing and departing, and the halls of the vicerovs are being changed into seats of learning. In this movement, the Mexican President leads, and the twentieth century will be likely to find the beautiful Paseo of Mexico more glorious than in all the eventful and picturesque centuries of the past. After six months' studies in Mexico, under a Spanish teacher, Percy accompanied his father to Caracas, whose port is La Guayra. At this port he made the acquaintance of genial Consul Hanna ; and at the window of the consulate that looked out on a narrow street, he listened to many stories of the Spanish Main, one of which we give here, — our first story of a consulate : — AN ESCAPE FROM PIRATES.^ If a feeling of superstition with regard to unlucky vessels were ever pardon- able, it must surely have been so in the case of the brig " Crawford," owned first at Freetown, Mass., and afterwards for many years at Warren, R. I. It would seem as if no nervous person, acquainted with her history, could have trod her decks in the still midnight watches upon the ocean, without a creeping sensation of dread. The writer has a distinct recollection of this little full-rigged brig, as a vessel which figured prominently among the notable craft of his boyhood. There were dark stains on her deck which had the appearance of iron rust, but which all knew were not iron rust. She had been the scene of a tragedy that, with its associations, was one of the most remarkable upon record. Her whaling voyages from Warren, of which she made a number, were all unfortunate in a pecuniary sense. From one of them, after an absence of fourteen months, she returned without having taken a drop of oil, — her cap- tain having actually been obliged to purchase a supply for the binnacle lamp at some foreign port. By Geo. H. Coomer, in the " Household," by permission. AN ESCAPE FROM PIRATES. 73 But the one dreadful event of her history had occurred while she belonged to Freetown. In fact, it was chiefly in consequence of this that she was sold to her purchasers in Warren, — her original owners feeling that they could no longer bear to look upon her. It was, I think, about 1829, that the " Crawford " sailed for the West Indies, under the command of a Captain Brightman, whose crew consisted of his two mates, a cook, and three foremast hands. Her outward cargo was disposed of at Havana, and she was nearly ready for the homeward voyage when four Spaniards came on board, seeking fora^ passage to the United States. They were villanous-looking fellows, with swarthy faces and flashing black eyes. The mate advised Captain Brightman not to accept them, and urged his objections with some force. The captain himself hesitated at first; but the thought of the passage-money was too tempting, and he finally consented to take the strangers on board. One of the four passengers could speak English, but his companions knew only Spanish. After the brig had been at sea a few days, the cook detected this man, whose name was Tardy, in the act of sprinkling some white substance on a quantity of food in the galley. Tardy explained that the article was a kind of seasoning well known in Cuba, and that he wished the officers and crew to try its flavor. The cook scraped off as much of it as he could ; but, although the fact of his doing so shows that he must have Had a suspicion of foul play, he unfor- tunately did not make known the incident until too late. He may have thought that his knife had removed all danger. Immediately after eating, the captain and chief mate were taken violently ill. The foremast hands also felt some bad effects from their meal, though in a less degree ; but the second mate escaped, as his duties on deck had kept him from eating with the captain. As to the four passengers, they, of course, had taken care not to touch the food on which the white powder had been sprinkled. It was now that the terrified cook told the mate what had occurred in the galley. But in a few moments his voice was silenced forever. He was struck down by the murderous pirates, who, seeing that their work was but half accom- plished by the poison, at once proceeded to complete it with their knives. The captain and chief mate they killed in the cabin ; the cook and one of the foremast hands were murdered close by the windlass, on the forward part of the deck; while another sailor was killed as he stood at the wheel. Meanwhile, the second mate, whose name was Durfee, and a man named 74 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. Allen Bicknell, of Barrington, R. I., who were now the only survivors, ran aloft, in the forlorn hope of thus saving their lives. The pirates fired at Bicknell with pistols, wounding him as he stood in the foretop. Tardy now hailed the second mate, promising to spare his life if he would come down, as they required him to navigate the vessel. He accordingly decended, and was not harmed. Seeing the officer in present safety, Bicknell, the poor sailor, already wounded, asked if they would spare him also. Upon receiving a reply in the affirmative, he came painfully down the rigging; but the moment he reached the deck he was killed. The vessel was now entirely in the possession of these monsters, and the feelings of Durfee must have been indescribable, as he realized the extent of the tragedy and his own dreadful situation. He knew, of course, that the pirates would never, if they could help it, permit him to Iea\'e the vessel alive. It might serve their purpose to spare him for a time, but unless he should be able to hit upon some manner of deliverance, the fate of his shipmates must at last be his. The bodies of the victims were thrown into the sea, and the four murder- ous scoundrels then commenced searching the cabin, being apparently aware that she had on board a considerable amount of money. This they brought on deck and divided, all the while talking rapidly in Spanish. Tardy now informed the second mate that the brig must be taken to South America. Durfee well knew that should he carrj^ the wretches to that part of the world, his own doom would be sealed the moment they reached its shores. He sought for some excuse to land elsewhere and fortunately found one. " I can take you to South America," he said, " but for such a voyage we must have more water. We have only enough to last for a short time, and we may be sixty or seventy days on the passage." Tardy uttered a Spanish oath or two, and then asked if a supply could not be obtained by entering some inlet of the coast where there would be no danger of capture. "Yes," replied Durfee, glad that the pirate had anticipated a proposition which he himself had intended to make. " We could run in at night and get out before morning. Then we should be all ready for a voyage to South America or an\'where else." Tardy flourished his knife fiercely before the face of his helpless prisoner, thus indicating what would be done in case of the least attempt at deception. Durfee's nerves had already suffered terribly, and it was only by the greatest effort that he could maintain anything like an appearance of calmness. Hastily running over in his thoughts the various inlets of the coast, he ^ i_^ AN ESCAPE EROM PIRATES. 77 resolved upon making for Chesapeake Hay. He was far, however, from telHng the pirates of his decision, but led them to suppose that the destination was some obscure nook among islands and promontories. It was fortunate for him that they knew nothing whatever of the coast, and were ignorant even of the existence of the wide water sheet which he had in mind. He used to relate that while the vessel was running on the course he had chosen, and he was filled with the most dreadful anxiety lest his plans should, after all, miscarry. Tardy would come to him, and with oaths, boast of the murders he had committed. Great was Durfee's anxiety as the brig made the land. Soon his fate would be decided. He thought with a sickening sensation of the pirates' threats, but he thought, too, of the fort at Old Point Comfort; and upon this his hope rested. It must, of course, be approached at night; and luckily the Spaniards were as anxious for the cover of darkness as was he himself, so that he was permitted to keep off shore until past sunset. Then the little brig stood in under all sail. With a fine breeze she passed Cape Henry, and continued her course up the bay. It was for Durfee an hour of unspeakable suspense. At any moment the pirates might take alarm, and he felt almost a surprise to find that they did not do so. Here and there could be seen distant lights, but the shores were hidden in darkness, and the evil-eyed wretches, wary as they were, seemed not to suspect treachery. Being for the time in command, as navigator and pilot, the anxious officer was at the wheel, while his unwelcome companions stood ready to shorten sail and let go the anchor at his bidding. It may well be imagined that he measured with every nerve alert each inch of the way. The brig's yawl hung at the stern davits. He had made sure that its tackles were in running order. How near to the fort would he dare to approach before bringing the brig to? Presently he directed his dangerous crew to take in the light sails and the courses. Tardy repeated the order in Spanish, and it was obeyed. " Let go the topsail halyards," was the next command; and down came the top-sail yards upon the caps. Clearing his throat for another effort, Durfee felt that his heart-throbs were almost suffocating. Nevertheless, he was able to command his voice. " Stand by to let go anchor ! " he cried, feeling that in another moment he would know his fate. The four pirates ran to the windlass. " Let go ! " There was a splash under the bow, and a swift paying out of the cable. Just then Durfee sprang over the taffrail and into the boat, lowering it instantly, 78 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. and with a violent push sent it spinning from under the brig's counter; then, seizing an oar, he commenced sculhng with all his might. As he did so, he heard the Spaniards rushing aft, but they were too late to get more than a glimpse of him in the darkness. The grim fortress at Old Point Comfort was not a quarter of a mile distant. Durfee's calls drew the attention of the sentries, and in a few minutes there were lights gleaming from a row of port-holes, with the black muzzles of cannon looking threateningly forth into the darkness, and a dozen soldiers were at once ordered to board the vessel. On reaching her, they found only three of the pirates on deck. These were at once made prisoners. Hurrying into the cabin, they found Tardy lying dead upon the floor. Struck with despair at the impossibility of escape, he had chosen to die by his own hand rather than to await the inevitable halter. His three accomplices were tried and hanged at Norfolk. They died pro- testing their innocence, and declaring that the entire guilt rested upon their dead confederate. As to poor Durfee, the second mate, after the dreadful scenes he had passed through, he was never really himself His nervous system had been thoroughly shattered. Who can wonder that painful thoughts were always associated with the " Crawford," or that a gloom should seem to invest even the old Warren wharf where she used to lie? 'iVJi CHAPTER IV. CARACAS ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE REVOLUTION, 1892.— AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. ERCY was in Caracas on the first day of the last revolution, when President Palacio issued his proc- lamation that made the revolution inevitable. Percy will never forget that scene as he stood in the plaza of Bolivar. It was a bright March day, and the circle of hills — a part of the '' thousand hills " of the Caraci — shone serenely in the clear purple sky. It is eternal springtime here. The port of Caracas, La Guayra, three thousand feet below, is one of the hottest cities in the three Americas, but the capital is cooled by its altitude. Caracas stands on a plateau or v'alley in the maritime range of the Andes, which here rise to a height of nearly ten thousand feet ; and the city itself is three thousand feet above its port and the sea. It has a most romantic history, being associated with the names of the early discoverers, — with Drake, Raleigh, and the poetic cavalier. Ponce de Leon. Percy and his father had been wandering about the beautiful city, amonoj the crowds that stood tellinsf each other with terriblv serious faces that great political events were at hand. They had seen the solitary church that survived the great earthquake nearly a hundred years ago, and had wondered how the worshippers in that church must have felt on that eventful Saint's day, when they rushed to the doors, to find that all the other churches and houses had gone down, and twelve thousand people had perished ! Every tourist wlio 8o ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. IS familiar with history sees in fancy that scene. They had been to Calvario, or Calvary Hill, where Guzman Blanco, Venezuela's ambi- tious ex-president, had made a park, as it were, in the sky, and placed his own statue upon it, — which was erected too soon, for the people forced him into exile and tore it down. 1.. -^^\ V BOLIVAR. On returning from the long walk they found the plaza and all the public squares filled with excited people. They sat down in the plaza near the statue of Bolivar. The statue is a wonder, and commemorates the deeds of a most ■mmmmm^ mlrl iillil CARACAS ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE REVOLUTION, 1892. 83 wonderful man. It was made in Germany, is equestrian, and to the imagination, the horse of brass seems to have leaped proudly into the air, leaving the hero in a most gracious attitude in his saddle to face the people he had liberated. It is the pride of Caracas, as well it may be, and one of the marvellous creations of art in the world. STATUE OF BOLIVAR, CARACAS. The guards came out of the military palace in front of the plaza. The press began to issue copies of the President's manifesto, and the newsboys to sell them on the street. Every one knew what it was, but desired to read it with his own eyes. His own life and destiny might be involved in it. Every copy was eagerly seized as it came out from the press, and was read with staring eyes, and passed on to others. 84 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. MBfe--' " // means war,^' was the one short sentence that passed from hp to lip. In many cases those three words covered the thought, " It means me ! " The Venezuelan well knows the meaning of a revolution. The political situation may be briefly stated. President Palacio desired a re-election by the House of Deputies. He saw that he would fail to secure it, and imprisoned certain of the deputies for political reasons ; but it was popularly believed it was a subterfuge that tliere might be left no quorum, and that he [llj ^j mioht thus have an excuse for con- tinning in office, in default of an election. He thus assumed dictato- rial powers, in the name and in the interest of the liberal party which had done so much for Venezuela. The Supreme Court declared his course illegal, and he imprisoned the judges. The country rose against him; and Ca- racas, the cap- ital, found it- self in a state of siege. The shad- ows of the A YOUTHFUL BEGGAR OF CARACAS. high Andes began to fall upon the valleys and the green palms and coffee plan- tations of La Guayra. The top of Calvary Hill flashed in the paling- sun. The plaza and streets were black with men, each holding in his hand the white sheet of the manifesto. The bells rang, — it was Lent, — and half-veiled women pushed their way through the excited crowds to the golden churches. CARACAS ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE REVOLUTION, 1892. 85 It was not a noisy, but a silent crowd. There was an expression of inquiry in every dark face. It was like those days of our own war, when President Lincoln's proclamation made the pulses of great cities to stand still. There was an awful silence in those crowds, and the same was here. A Venezuelan was with our travellers. He owned an estate in the interior, twenty-four miles square, as large as a province. His ANCIENT HOUSE IN CARACAS. brother had been killed in a former revolution, and he had lived much in Europe and could speak English well. He turned his face toward the grand statue of Bolivar, that looked like a thing of life in the sunset of the Andes. He did not talk politics. No one did. He simply said, " They offered Simon Bolivar the crown, and he answered them : ' I have achieved the liberation of 86 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. live countries. That is all the honor I desire ! ' His heart is in the cathedral of Santa Martha, and his dust is in yonder Parthenon. I would that his spirit were here !" From Caracas, Percy sailed for Pernambuco. He was now in the seas of the great American discoverers. '■ The years roll back — we see again Thy fleet, Columbus, dare the main, Upborne by Faith, till rises fair The new world m prophetic air ! The mighty waves yield to thy prow; The stormy heavens before thee bow . The sun stands still, and earth appears A wheeling star 'mid circling spheres ! "Then Science rose ; then Learning woke ; And Freedom's voice to heroes spoke ; And Progress broke the chains of time. And upward marched to heights sublime. No day like this 'neath purple skies E'er met expectant prophets' eyes ; The drums of peace the roll-call beat, And nations pass on children's feet ! " O Star of Faith, that led afar Columbus, 'neath the Hesperian Star, Shine on the world's new march, and light Hope's aspirations for the right ' Achievement waits yet bolder keels Than broke the waves of old Antilles, The unattained to find and prove In virtue, brotherhood, and love ! " THE CONSULAR FLAG. " I keep the flag of my country always waving," said Consul Hanna of La Guayra. Percy looked upon that flag as one of the most beau- tiful objects in the narrow streets. It is one of the most beautiful objects in the world. " Do all consuls fly the American flag daily ? " asked Percy of his father at the beginning o! his voyage towards the islands of the Canary birds. CARACAS ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE REVOLUTION, 1892. 87 "Consuls," said his father, "have no claim to any foreign ceremo- nial, but they may glory in the flag. The consular regulations as issued from the State Department are something like this : — " 'The consuls have a right to the private use of the flag, and the right to place the national arms and the name of the consulate on the ofifices is given by- treaties with Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the Netherlands (and colonies); on GRAND OPERA HOUSE, CARACAS. their offices or dwellings by treaty with Belgium and Germany; the right to place the national flag on their dwellings, except where there is a legation, b\- treaties with Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Germany, Roumania, and Serbia ; the right to place the arms, name, and flag on their offices or dwellings by treaties with France and Salvador ; and the right to place the name and flag on their dwellings by treaty with Colombia.' "And," added Mr. Van dcr Palm, "the consular ofifice in some coun- tries, like the old Hebrew cities of refuge, is practically inviolable. 8S ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. " To quote the instructions: — " ' This inviolability of office and dwelling is secured by treaties with Bel- gium, Bolivia, Corea, France, Germany (of consuls not citizens), Italy, Morocco, Muscat, Roumania, Salvador, and Serbia; but the dwelling cannot be used as A DONKEY CAR, CARACAS. an asylum. It is agreed with Colombia that the persons and dwellings of con- suls are to be subject to the laws of the country, except as specially exempted by treaty. The consulates in Germany are not to be made asylums for the subjects of other powers.' " He added, still quoting the consular instructions of the State Department : — " ' By convention with Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Roumania, Serbia and Italy, the consul is exempted from arrest, except for crimes. By treaty with Turkey he is entitled to suitable distinction and necessary aid and protection. In Muscat he enjoys the inviolability of a diplomatic officer. In Austria- AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. 89 Hungary and France he is to enjoy personal immunities; but in France, if a citizen of France, or owning property there, or engaged in commerce, he can claim only the immunities granted to other citizens of the country who own property, or to merchants. In Austria-Hungary and Roumania, if engaged in business, he can be detained only for commercial debts. In Colombia, the fourteen consuls of the United States have no diplomatic character. In Great Britain, Liberia, Netherlands (as to colonies), Nicaragua, and Paraguay they arc regarded as appointed for the protection of trade.' " So you see that a consul in his little office somewhat resembles the old Roman officer of that name. He has a little republic of his own." Percy began to study Portuguese stories and poems on the ship, which belonged to Lisbon. One of these stories, which we quote, we found very curious. We give the version that we find in English Folk- Lore: — THE SEVEN, IRON SLIPPERS. ( From Portuguese Folk-Tales, by Consiglieri Pedroso.) There lived once together a king and a queen, and a princess who was their daughter. The princess had worn out every evening seven pair of slippers made of iron; and the king could not make out how that could be, though he was always trying to find out. The king at last issued a decree that who- soever should be able to find out how the princess managed to wear out seven pairs of slippers made of iron in the short space of time between morning and evening, he would give the princess in marriage if he were a man, and if a woman he would marry her to a prince. It happened that a soldier was walking along an open country' road, carry- ing on his back a sack of oranges, and he saw two men fighting and giving each other great blows. The soldier went up to them and asked them, " O men, why are you giving each other such blows?" " Why, indeed should it be ! " they replied. " Because our father is dead ; and he has left us this cap, and we both wish to possess it." " Is it possible that for the sake of a cap you should be fighting?" inquired the soldier. 90 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. The men then said, " The reason is that this cap has a charm, and if any one puts it on and says, * Cap, cov^er me so that no one shall see me ! ' no one can see us." The soldier upon hearing this said to them, " I '11 tell you what I can do for you ; you let me remain here with the cap whilst I throw this orange to a great distance, and you run after it, and the one that shall pick it up first shall be the possessor of the cap." The men agreed to this, and the soldier threw the orange to a great dis- tance, as far as he possibly could, whilst the men both ran to pick it up- Here the soldier, without loss of time, put on the cap, saying, " Cap, make me invisible ! " When the men returned with the orange they could see nothing and nobody. The soldier went away with the cap, and further on he met on his road two other men fighting, and he said to them, " O foolish men, why do you give each other such blows? " The men replied, " Indeed, you may well ask why, if it were not that father died and left us this pair of boots, and we each of us wish to be the sole possessor of them." The soldier replied, " Is it possible that for the matter of a pair of boots you should be fighting thus? " And they replying said, " It is because these boots are charmed, and when one wishes to go any distance he has only to say, ' Boots, take me here or there,' wherever one should wish to go, and instantly they convey one to any place." The soldier said to them, " I will tell you what to do ; I will throw an orange to a great distance, and you give me the boots to keep. You run for the orange, and the first that shall pick it up shall have the pair of boots." He threw the orange to a great distance, and both men ran to catch it. Upon this the soldier said, " Cap, make me invisible, boots take me to the city; " and when the men returned they missed the boots and the soldier, for he had gone away. He arrived at the capital and heard the decree read which the king had promulgated, and he began to consider what he had better do in this case. " With this cap, and with these boots, I can surely find out what the princess does to wear out seven pairs of slippers made of iron in one night." He went and presented himself at the palace. When the king saw him he said, " Do you really know away of finding out how the princess, my daughter, can wear out seven pairs of slippers in one night? " The soldier replied, " I only ask you to let me try — " AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. 9 I " But you must remember," said the king, " that if at the end of three days you have not found out the mystery, I shall order you to be put to death." The soldier to this replied that he was prepared to take the consequences. The king ordered him to remain in the palace. Every attention was paid to all his wants and wishes ; he had his meals with the king at the same table, and slept in the princess's room. But what did the princess do? She took him a beverage to his bedside and gave it to him to drink. This beverage was a sleeping-draught, which she gave him to make him sleep all night. Next morning the soldier had not seen the princess do anything, for he had slept very soundly the whole night. When he appeared at breakfast the king asked him, " Well, did you see anything? " " Your Majesty must know that I have seen nothing whatever." " The king said, " Look well what you are at, for now there only remains two days more for you, or else you die ! " The soldier replied, " I have not the least misgivings." Night came on and the princess acted as before. Next morning the king asked him again at breakfast, " Well, did you see anything last night? " The soldier replied, " Your Majesty must know that I have seen nothing whatever." " Be careful, then, what you do. Onl\- one day more, and you die ! " The soldier replied, " I have no misgivings." He then began to think it over. " It is very curious that I should sleep all night. It cannot be from anything else but from drinking the beverage which the princess gives me. Leave me alone ! I know what I will do. When the princess brings me the cup I shall pretend to drink, but shall throw awa\- the beverage." The night came, and the princess did not fail to bring him the beverage to drink to his bedside. The soldier made a pretence to drink it. but instead threw it away, and feigned sleep though he was awake. In the middle of the night he saw the princess rise up, prepare to go out, and advance towards the door to leave. What did he do then? He put on the cap, drew on the boots, and said, " Cap, make me invisible ; boots, take me wherever the princess goes." The princess entered a carriage, and the soldier followed her into the carriage and accompanied her. He saw the carriage stop at the seashore. The princess then embarked on board a vessel decked with flags. The soldier on seeing this, said, " Cap, cover me, that I ma\' be in\"isible," and embarked with the princess. She reached the lands of giants ; and when on 92 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. passing the first sentinel, he challenged her with, " Who 's there?" "The Princess of Harmony," she replied. The sentinel rejoined, " Pass with your suite." The princess looked behind her, and not seeing any one following her, she said to herself, "The sentinel cannot be in his sound mind; he said 'Pass with your suite; ' I do not see any one." She reached the second sentinel, who cried out at the top of his voice, "Who's there?" "The Princess of Harmony," replied the princess. "Pass with your suite," said the sentinel. The princess was each time more and more astonished. She came to the third sentinel, who challenged her as the others had done, "Who's there?" "The Princess of Harmony." "Pass on with your suite," rejoined the sentinel. The princess, as before, wondered what the man could mean. After journeying for a long time the soldier, who followed her closely, saw the princess arrive at a beautiful palace, enter in, and go into a hall for dancing> where he saw many giants. The princess sat upon a seat by the side of her lover who was a giant. The soldier hid himself under their seat. The band struck up, and she rose to dance with the giant, and when she finished the dance she had her iron slippers all in pieces. She took them off and pushed them under her seat. The soldier immediately took possession of them and put them inside his sack. The princess again sat down to converse with her lover. The band again struck up some dance music, and the princess rose to dance. When she finished this dance another pair of her slippers had worn out. She took them off and left them under her seat. The soldier put these also into his sack. Finally, she danced seven times, and each tiriie she danced she tore a pair of slippers made of iron. The soldier kept them all in his sack. After the ball the princess sat down to converse with her lover ; and what did the soldier do? He turned their chairs over and threw them both on the middle of the floor. They were very much surprised, and they searched every- where and through all the houses and could find no one. The giants then looked out for a book of facts they had, wherein could be seen the course of the winds and other agencies peculiar to their race. They called in a black servant to read in the book and find out what was the matter. The soldier rose up from where he was and said, " Cap, make me invisible." He then gave the negro a slap on the face; the negro fell to the ground, while he took possession of the book and kept it. The time was approaching when the princess must depart and return home ; and not being able to stay lon- ger, she went away. AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. 93 The soldier followed her, and she returned by the same way she came. She went on board ; and when she reached the city, the carriage was already waiting for her. The soldier then said, " Boots, take me to the palace; " and he arrived there, took off his clothes, and went to bed. When the princess arrived she found everything in her chamber just as she left it, and even found the soldier fast asleep. In the morning the king said, " Well, soldier, did you see anything remarkable last night? " " Be it known to your Majesty that I saw nothing whatever last night," replied the soldier. The king then said, " According to what you say, I do not know if you are aware that you must die to-day." The soldier replied, " If it is so I must have patience, what else can I do?" When the princess heard this she rejoiced much. The king then ordered that everything for the execution should be prepared before the palace windows. When the soldier was proceeding to execution he asked the king to grant him a favor for the last time, and to send for the princess so that she should be present. The king gave the desired permission, and the princess was present when he said to her, " Is it not true to say that the princess went out at mid- night? " " It is not true," replied the princess. "Is it true to say," again asked the soldier, "that the princess entered a carriage, and afterwards went on board a vessel and proceeded to a ball given in the kingdom of the giants?" " It is not true." The soldier yet asked her another question, " Is it true that the princess wore out seven pairs of iron slippers during the seven times she danced? Then he shewed her the slippers. " There is no truth in all this," replied the princess. The soldier at last said to her, " Is it true to say that the princess at the end of the ball fell on the floor from her seat, and the giants had a book brought to them to see what bewitchery and magic pervaded and had taken possession of the house, and which book is here?" The princess now said, " It is so." The king was delighted at the discovery and happy ending of this affair, and the soldier came to live in the palace and married the princess. 94- ZIGZAG JOURNEYS OX THE MEDITERRANEAN. The voyage to the volcanic Cape Verd Islands was a delightful one, over the smooth waters of tropical seas. The stars of the South- ern Cross gleamed over the waters ; the nights were clear, cool, and refreshing ; the days, long splendors. There were on board English, Spanish, and Portuguese, some forty in number. Time at last hung heavily, and Percy was sought for diversions. He found himself able to speak Spanish well, and he introduced to the passengers the simple educational amusements of his old Washington life. Among these were " Daft Day," in which each one was expected to act the most simple character, like Simple Simon. People were easily imposed upon and cheated. The origin of this play is very odd, and Mr. Van der Palm, one evening on board, gave the following history of it : — HOGMAXAY. Perhaps no poet has ever presented such a pleasing picture of the old Yule Days, in the halls of the barons, as Sir Walter Scott. Who does not love to recall it during mid-winter holidays, even now.-* " On Christmas eve the bells were rung, On Christmas eve the mass was sung, Then opened wide the Baron's hall, To vassal, tenant, serf and all." When the white towers of Abbotsford rose over the Tweed, and became Sir Walter Scott's home, its master delighted to reproduce the old Christmas sfames and customs of the time of the barons. The songs of the old minstrels of the camp and court were sung ; the bag- pipes were played, and the old legends of England and Scotland were told. The stories have entered into Scott's prose works, and the songs of the old harpers and minstrels, which he loved to revive on such occasions, have been made familiar to the world through his poems, AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. 95 especially through the " Lay of the Last Minstrel " and the " Lady of the Lake." The Christmas days at Abbotsford were a picture of the past. Scott wrote the " Bonnets of Bonny Dundee " on Christmas days. Christmas days, we say, for the old-time Christmas was not a single day. but a season. It often lasted from Christmas Eve until Twelfth Night, the sixth of January, and at Abbotsford, from Christmas Eve until Hogmanay. •' Hogmanay?" \Miat is that.-^ It is a lost holiday of old provin- cial France and England and Scotland. It meant "on to the mistle- toe ! " a cry of the minstrels and the children in the old provinces of France on that merry day. It really means "the last day of the year," or the end of the Christmas season. " Daft Day " it was called in Scotland, because on that day the people were at liberty to act as foolishly as they pleased. It became, in Sir Walter Scott's time, a children's day, and Hogmanay was the crowning event of the Abbotsford's Christmas holidays. Scott was, at this time, at the prime of life, and was writing "The Tales of the Crusaders." He was concealing the authorship of his works, and was spoken of as "The Great Unknown." Every one believed him to be the real author of the Waverley Novels, but none of his guests could ever discover how^ or when he did his literarv work. Captain Hall thus speaks of an evening at Abbotsford during the holidays: "In the evening we had a great feast indeed. Sir Walter asked us if we had ever read 'Christabel,' and upon some of us admit- ting with shame that we never had seen it, he offered to read it, and took a chair in the midst of all the party in the library. . . . He also read to us the famous poem on ' Thomas the Rhymer's Adventure with the Queen of the Fairies.' There was also much pleasing sing- ing ; many old ballads, and many ballads pretending to be old. were sung to the harp and piano-forte." We note this programme, for it is suggestive. The reading and 96 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN, singing of old historic ballads is a worthy entertainment for the even- ings of the Christmas holidays. The mood of Scott, at this time, is thus pictured by Hall, in the description of a breakfast after the holidays : " At breakfast, to-day, we had, as usual, many stories. " I quite forget all these stories but one. ' My cousin, Walter Scott,' said he, 'was a midshipman some forty years ago, in a ship at Portsmouth. He and two companions had gone ashore, and had over- stayed their leave, and spent their money, and run up an immense bill at the tavern on the Point. " ' The ship made a signal for saiHng, but the landlady said, — " ' " No, gentlemen, you shall not go without paying your reckoning.'' '" But they had nothing wherewith to pay. '""I '11 give you one chance," said she. " I am so circumstanced here that I cannot carry on my business as a single woman, and I must contrive, somehow, to have a husband. You may go, if one of you will marry me. I do not care which it is, but one of you shall have me, or you shall all go to jail, and the ship sail without you." '" They agreed to comply. The marriage ceremony was performed, and the three sailed away, including the husband. Some months after, at Jamaica, a file of papers reached the husband, and looking them over carelessly, he suddenly jumped up, and exclaimed in ecstasy, "Thank heaven, my wife has been hanged!"'" We give this story with slight abridgment. "Yesterday being Hogmanay," says Hall, in his Journal, January i, 1825, "there was a constant succession of Guisards, — that is, boys dressed up in fantastic caps, with their shirts over their jackets, and with wooden swords in their hands." About one hundred boys, in fools' costumes, used to visit Sir Walter on this Daft Day. They sometimes acted a masque or pantomime. Sir Walter used to give each boy and girl who visited him on Hog- manay a "penny apiece" and an oaken cake. AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. 97 The memories of the Christmases at Abbotsford were a delisfht to the people of Meh'ose for many years. There are some yet Hving who remember them, with their celebration of the old lost holiday of Hog man ay. '•A Cliristmas gambol oft would cheer A poor nian"s heart for half the year." The picture of the gracious face of Sir Walter Scott at the doors of Abbotsford, with his dogs, the hills showing above the clustered towers of the great mansion, and the Tweed rolling below; the pipers with their bagpipes ; the gathering children on the grounds, with their harlequin caps, and shirts over their jackets, and wooden swords; the funny play, the distribution of the pennies and oaken cakes is one worthy of a poet or artist, and one in which any reader will love to remember the Wizard of the North. The spirit of it, too, has a Christmas lesson for all, — the happiness that makes happiness, and the equality of love that the herald angels sang, — '• Centuries ago." Among the diversions that Percy used to entertain his English friends were : — BOOK PARTIES. The book party consists of a reading family, or several families, who hold a meeting once a week, or at stated periods, to rehearse to each other the contents of books that each member has lately read. Each member of the circle presents a title of a book, new or old, gives an analysis of its contents, perhaps reads a few selections from it as an illustration, and criticises it and ofives his view of its literarv value and moral worth. A general discussion may follow the presentation of this subject- matter. It will be better that the books shall not be presented in a topical way, — as, for instance, scientific books on one evening, fiction on 7 98 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. another, or travel, art, or poetry, at stated times. It is more interesting if the analysis is made miscellaneous ; there should be variety and contrasts. Parties of this kind stimulate good reading and educate the mind to an acquaintance with the best thought. The social feature is healthy, and the discussions are sure to be animatinor and entertainino-- A very pleasant amusement of this order is the play which we may call " Animated Book Titles." A party is given in which each guest is to appear as the representative of a title of a book, or as a character of a popular and well-known book. A young man who comes with a hoe may represent " Ivanhoe" (I 've an hoe). The "dude" who appears in contortions may be " Oliver Twist " (all-of-a-tvvist). We have seen " Lucille " puzzle a company by being acted as a scene in a shoe- maker's shop, — Loose keel. Such titles as " The Ring and the Book," " We are Seven," " Never too Late to Mend " (a seamstress), are suf^ciently suggestive. The woxdEiLrydice will admit of carefully prepared classical tableaux The word may be used as a sentence, as " You-ride-I-see," in a mock dialogue between two persons of fortunate and unfortunate social standing. The conductor of the entertainment m.ay say, " My whole is one word, and represents a character of classical fiction. The whole word will first be acted as a sentence, in the form of a dialogue between a poor debtor, who has to go on foot, and an equestrian, who has just alighted from a fine horse. The second scene will represent the character in tableau." The second scene will be Orpheus and his lyre (the music may be played on a piano) at the door of a darkened room, and an appear- ance of the shade of Eurydice. She follows Orpheus as he beckons over his shoulder until she comes to a place near the door, when he, contrary to the commands of the gods, looks around, and she vanishes after the manner of the old mythological story, which should be care- fully studied by the leader of such an entertainment. The tableau can be made very beautiful. AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. 99 In the Orange Party everything is supposed to assume the colors of Lord Baltimore. The dresses of the ladies must be orange, or orange and white, or orange and black. The orange color in them is to be made conspicuous or to predominate. The gentlemen will wear orange neckties, perhaps orange sashes or vests. The rooms or halls are to be trimmed with orange colors, as festoons of orange cloth, or green boughs to which oranges are attached. If possible, decorate the dining-room with the Spanish moss of Florida. Your fruit dealer, or any friends that you may have in Florida, will secure the moss for you. The rooms, in which we attended the party, were so trimmed. Provide orange shades for the lights, which is easily done by cover- ing the globes with orange silk or tissue paper. The refreshments are to be oranges of all kinds. It is not so expensive to provide these as it might seem. Tangerine, Musketine, Navel, Blood, and Indian River oranges, together with Florida grape- fruit, are to be found in the cool seasons in nearly every large market, as are also Havana oranges and the Sicilian varieties. These all should be picturesquely piled upon a long table, and the pyramids decorated with leaves, evergreens, Spanish moss, or flowers. In serving the oranges there should be a lecturer, whose office it is to describe each variety, as it is quartered and laid upon the plates. Let many varieties be laid cut upon each plate, so that the eating and the testing of the flavors will furnish a very pleasant theme for conversation. Sugar will be served with the oranges for the sour varieties and grape-fruit. Orange cake may also be served. The music will be plantation songs to the accompaniment of the guitar or banjo. American negro melodies and Spanish boleros were sung at Percy's arrangement of such a party, to which his father added a lecture on oranges. lOO ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. The Question Class is a very entertaining and educational home amusement. The game consists of presenting the names of obscure places for guessing, and " throwing light " on them by description and history. For example : " Where is Zag-a-zig ? " A long pause. " Shall I throw light ? " The one who has given out the word may begin to give the history of the Suez Canal. The geography of obscure names in poems may be used in this way; also obscure names of battle-fields, Belgrade ; and Indian names and their meanings. An odd question has sometimes been asked at such parties, which is usually difficult to answer, but very stimulating to thought : " Who would you choose to be if you could not be yourself } ' To which last one of the passengers made answer, " The next best man in all the world." The ship was so steady in the afternoons that these refined amuse- ments answered well. When the ship was unsteady, new games of pitching quoits were favorites. The men played and the women laughed at their miscalculations. In the evenings songs were sung, — songs of many lands, — among them, " Songs of the Pyrenees," " Songs of Caracas," and the " Mexi- can National Hymn," that in Mexico announces the President, and is only played when the President is present. Percy composed a student's song to the air of the " Red, White, and Blue." He sung it daily at the meetings for diversions. The ship touched at the Cape Verd Islands, and again at the *' blue Canaries." Percy saw the native canary birds, which here were gray. These islands were among the earliest discoveries of navi- gators who ventured beyond the Pillars of Hercules, as Gibraltar was once called. Percy could imagine how the Peak of Teneriffe, twelve thousand AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. lOI feet high, must have looked to the crews of Columbus as it blazed over the sea. From these sea volcanoes, chimneys of the sea, the ship sailed directly to Lisbon. Thence Mr. Van der Palm and Percy took passage for Gibraltar. During the voyage the passengers and officers amused themselves at times by repeating proverbs. A prize was offered to the person who could collect and repeat the largest number of Proverbs of the Sea. Percy was something of a student of this kind of literature, and having the assistance of a popular book of sea literature, presented at the end of the voyage the longest list, and was voted a Solomon and the purse. PROVERBS OF THE SEA. 1. The sea is like sorrow, — one never sees the end. 2. My good-will toward you is as great as the sea, and my love as its depth. 3. A bad reputation spreads even to the sea. A good reputation remains at the threshold of the door. 4. Patience is grander than the ocean. 5. One can look into the bosom of the sea, but one cannot see what is in the heart of man. 6. We shall pass away ; the land and the sea will remain. 7. As rich as the sea. 8. Rich as the sea, or rich as Saint Peter, are expressions used of a man who possesses a large fortune. To the Breton sailor, all which falls to the sea belongs by right to Saint Peter. 9. Give yourself a pond when you wish the sea ; it is insatiable. 10. Nothing is richer than the sea. 11. There are many things in the field, but there are more in the sea. 1 2. Avarice is like the sea ; it takes all and gives nothing. I02 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON IHE MEDITERRANEAN. 13. Not for all the treasures of the ocean, would I place its limits to my existence. 14. Avarice is a sea without bottom, and rarely does a man fall therein and save himself. 15. Hell, the sea, and avarice never have enough. 16. Three things are insatiable ; priests, monks, and the sea. 17. The sea complains it wants water. 18. He measures the waters of the sea in his fist (he attempts an impossibility). 19. He is building a bridge over the sea. 20. To carry water to the sea (to carry something to a place where there is a great abundance). 21. To turn water into the sea ; to give to the rich. 22. He gives of the water of the ocean (to obtain from the aid of another or to draw from an abundant source, but to give nothing from his own heart). 23. To throw water into the sea; to do good to the rabble. 24. No sea without water, no God without wisdom. 25. A drop of water does not make the sea. 26. Can the sea be filled with the falling dew ? 27. The sea is in want of water (when a woman has no reply to make on the spot.) 28. To demand of avarice is to dig into the sea. 29. Drop by drop the sea is drained. 30. Water always runs into the sea. 31. All water goes to the sea, and all money passes through the hand of the rich. 2^2. All the waters go to the sea, and 3^et it is not more full. 33. The sea receives into its bosom sweet waters, and that which it gives is salt. 34. Rivers run to the sea. 35. All rivers do what they can for the sea. &' AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. IO3 36. The sea refuses no river. '}^']. Follow the river, and you '11 get to the sea. 38. He drinks the sea and the fishes. 39. To drink the sea is a difficult task. 40. When one has drunk the sea, he can well eat the fishes (when one has suffered a great outrage, one can well endure others). 41. I am so very thirsty, I could drink the sea. 42. It is as though he attempted to count the sands of the desert or to drink the ocean. 43. One cannot dry the sea with sponges. 44. Can a dog lapping water diminish the ocean } 45. He went to the sea and he found it dry. (He who proceeds without courage would do well to turn back, for he will fail in his enterprise.) 46. He could not find water in the sea. 47. To be in the ocean and to return to one's home thirsty. 48. Salt as the sea. 49. To salt the sea and the fishes (to salt too much). 50. A merchandise is salt when it has been paid for dear. 51. There is more water to drink in wells than in the sea. 52. There is more to drink in a bottle than in the sea. 53. In the water of the sea, one can see his (visage) face (changeableness). 54. To till the shore of the sea (to take useless trouble). 55. I have only learned to till upon the sea and to reap upon the rocks. 56. Could he who cannot leap over a canal, jump over the sea ? 57. He desires to cross the ocean, but cannot cross a little streaui. 58. A tenacious man is like the sea upon the rock. 59. The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the world. 60. He who is master of the sea is master of the earth. 61. The seas make the soul of man. The waves 2:ive him intelligence. I04 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. 62. A fool throws a stone into the sea. One hundred wise men could not draw it out. 63. If you are not happy, you can throw yourself into the sea. 64. Treacherous as the ocean. 65. He that would sail without danger, must never go on the sea. 66. He that would learn to pray, let him go to sea. 67. When starting for war, make one prayer ; when going upon the sea, make two prayers ; do you wish to marry, make three prayers. 68. He who would learn to pray should go to sea; and he who would know how to sleep should go to church. 69. Sailors have no need of books to learn to think of God ; the sea and the heavens speak clearly enough to them. 70. The sea is a beautiful sight from the shore. 71. Praise the sea, (but) a in foreign country. 72. Praise the sea, but hold yourself on the shore. 73. It is much better to trust one's self to men on land than to sails on the sea. 74. It is safer to live poor on land than rich on sea. 75. Nothing is more subject to changes than the sea. 76. Everyman who wishes to be reduced to misery and to beggary has only to trust his life and fortune to the sea. 77. One sou earned upon land is worth more than ten earned on the sea ; one can possess a sou earned on the land, but he can see the ten earned on the sea drown themselves. 78. There are two things of which we demand something without ceasing ; they give without reserve and without spite, — the sea and the land. 79. I encompass the land with all the coasts. I am agitated with frequent tempests ; it is I who go where the water has the most space in which to move (the sea). 80. What is the most impossible thing } To dip the sea with a sieve. AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. IO5 81. What is that which carries easily a cartload of hay but which cannot carry a sou ? The sea. 82. In the salt sea fresh fish are born. 83. Do not sell the fish which are yet in the sea. 84. To fish well, it is necessary to go to the sea. 85. The sea does not complain of the fishes. 86. Do good, and throw it to the sea ; whether the fishes swallow it or men forget it, God will remember it. 87. A straw can remain in the sea, but a secret cannot remain in the soul. 88. If the sea boiled, plenty of fish would be cooked. 89. If the ocean became clouds, the universe would be submereed. 90. The sea does not buy fish. 91. The sea is a good paymaster. 92. The sea belongs to the whole world. 93. The sea does not burn ; there is nothing which crowds. 94. Man is like the sea; if he does not move to-day he will to-morrow. 95. Man is like the sea, what he does to-day he will do to-morrow. 96. Not the sea, but the wind, makes vessels perish. 97. To mix heaven and earth (deep trouble). 98. The sea even, which is so great (grand), becomes calm. 99. The virtues which have not been tried by danger are not in honor either in empty ships or among men. 100. To search by land or sea. loi. Fortune is like the sea, sometimes high and sometimes low. 102. The world resembles the sea: we see those drown who do not know how to swim. 103. He sails on a full sea. 104. To sail in great waters. 105. Being on the sea, sail ; being on the land, settle. 106. " The sea tires," said the man who had already eaten his pro- visions after sailing the first quarter of a league. I06 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. 107. Some one said that his great-grandfather, grandfather, and his father died on the sea. " If I were you," said one to him, " I would never go upon the sea." " Why," he repHed ; " where did your great- grandfather, grandfather, and father die ? " " Where, if not in their beds .^ " " If I were in your place, I would nevew" go to bed." loS. I have seen a man who has seen another man who has seen the sea. 109. A mariner ought never to laugh till he has reached port. no. A Sicilian who carried figs in his ship w^as wrecked and saved. One day, when he was on the shore and the sea was calm, he said, " I see what you would have ; you wanted my figs ! " The steamer passed over a part of the sea through which Columbus made his outward voyage, and the red peak of Teneriffe recalled to Percy the terror of the crews of the caravels of the discovery. He also remembered the old tale of the kraken, or the sea-monster which was supposed to inhabit the western seas, and to uplift its gigantic head and seize the adventurous ships. There was on board the ship a number of books entitled, " The Fisheries Exhibition Literature," and from one of these volumes he obtained a very interesting account of the early Northern legends of this fabulous monster, which we quote. THE KRAKEN. In the legends and traditions of northern nations, stories of the existence of a marine animal of such enormous size that it more resembled an island than an organized being frequently found a place. It is thus described in an ancient manuscript (about A. D. 1180), attributed to the Norwegian King Sverre, and the belief in it has been alluded to by other Scandinavian writers from an early period to the present day. It was an obscure and mysterious sea-monster, known as the kraken, whose form and nature were imperfectly understood, and it was peculiarly the object of popular wonder and superstitious dread. Eric Pontoppidan, the younger, Bishop of Bergen, and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen, is generally, but unjustly, regarded as the AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. IO9 inventor of the semi-fabulous kraken, and is constantly misquoted by authors who have never read his work (" Natural History of Norway '), and who, one after another, have copied from their predecessors erroneous statements con- cerning him. More than half a century before him. Christian Francis Paullinus, a physician and naturalist of Eisenach, who evinced in his writings an admira- tion of the marvellous rather than of the useful, had described as resemblinfr Gesner's " Heracleoticon," a monstrous animal which occasionally rose from the sea on the coasts of Lapland and Finmark, and which was of such enormous dimensions that a regiment of soldiers could conveniently manoeuvre on its back. About the same date, but a little earlier, Bartholinus, a learned Dane, told how, on a certain occasion, the Bishop of Midaros found the kraken quietly reposing on the shore, and mistaking the enormous creature for a huge rock, erected an altar upon it and performed Mass. The kraken respectfully waited till the ceremony was concluded, and the reverend prelate safe on shore, and then sank beneath the waves. And a hundred and fifty years before Bartholinus and Paullinus wrote, Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, in Sweden, had related many wondrous narra- tives of sea-monsters, — tales which had gathered and accumulated marvels as they had been passed on from generation to generation in oral history, and which he took care to bequeath to his successors undeprived of any of their fascination. According to him, the kraken was not so polite to the laity as to the bishop, for when some fishermen lighted a fire on its back, it sank beneath their feet, and overwhelmed them in the waters. Pontoppidan was not a fabricator of falsehoods ; but, in collecting evidence relating to the " great beasts " living in " the great and wide sea," was influenced, as he tells us, by " a desire to extend the popular knowledge of the glorious works of a beneficent Creator." He gave too much credence to contemporary narratives and old traditions of floating islands and sea-monsters, and to the superstitious beliefs and exaggerated statements of ignorant fishermen. But if those who ridicule him had lived in his day and amongst his people, they would probably have done the same ; for even Linnaeus was led to believe in the kraken, and catalogued it in the first edition of his " Systema Naturn;," as ''Sepia Microcosmos." He seems to have afterwards had -cause to discredit his information respecting it, for he omitted it in the next edition. The Nor- wegian bishop was a conscientious and painstaking investigator, and the tone of his writings is neither that of an intentional deceiver nor of an incautious dupe. He diligently endeavored to separate the truth from the cloud of error and fic- tion by which it was obscured ; and in this he was to a great extent successful, for he correctly identifies, from the vague and perplexing descriptions submitted IIO ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. to him, the animal whose habits and structure had given rise to so many terror- laden narratives and extravagant traditions. The following are some of his remarks on the subject of this gigantic and ill-defined animal. Although I have greatly abbreviated them, I have thought it right to quote them at considerable length, that the modest and candid spirit in which they were written may be understood: — " Amongst the many things," he says, " which are in the ocean, and con- cealed from our eyes, or only presented to our view for a few minutes, is the kraken. This creature is the largest and most surprising of all the animal crea- tion, and consequently well deserves such an account as the nature of the thing, according to the Creator's wise ordinances, will admit of. Such I shall give at present, and perhaps much greater light on this subject may be reserved for posterity. " Our fishermen unanimously affirm, and without the least variation in their accounts, that when they row out several miles to sea, particularly in the hot summer days, and by their situation (which they know by taking a view of dif- ferent points of land) expect to find eighty or a hundred fathoms of water, it often happens that they do not find above twenty or thirty, and sometimes less. At these places they generally find the greatest plenty of fish, especially cod and ling. Their lines, they say, are no sooner out than they may draw them up with the hooks all full of fish. By this they know that the kraken is at the bottom. They say this creature causes these unnatural shallows mentioned above, and prevents their sounding. These the fishermen are always glad to find, looking upon them as a means of their taking abundance of fish. " There are sometimes twenty boats or more got together and throwing out their lines at a moderate distance from each other ; and the only thing they then have to observe is whether the depth continues the same which they know by their lines, or whether it grows shallower, by their seeming to have less water. If this last be the case they know that the kraken is raising himself nearer the surface, and then it is not time for them to stay any longer ; they immediately leave off fishing, take to their oars, and get away as fast as they can. "When they have reached the usual depth of the place, and find themselves out of danger, they lie upon their oars, and in a few minutes after they see this enormous monster come up to the surface of the water. He there shows himself sufficiently, though his whole body does not appear, which in all likelihood no human eye ever beheld, " Its back or upper part, which seems to be in appearance about an English mile and a half in circumference (some say more, but I choose the least for greater certainty), looks at first like a number of small islands surrounded with AMUSEMENTS AT SEA. I i i something that floats and fluctuates like sea-weeds. Here and there a larger rising is observed like sand-banks, on which various kinds of small fishes arc- seen continually leaping about till they roll off into the water from the sides of it ; at last several bright points or horns appear, which grow thicker and thicker the higher they rise above the surface of the water, and sometimes they stand up as high and as large as the masts of middle-sized vessels. It seems these are the creature's arms; and it is said if they were to lay hold of the largest man-of-war they would pull it down to the bottom. After this monster has been on the surface of the water a short time it begins to slowly sink again, and then the danger is as great as before; because the motion of his sinking causes such a swell in the sea, and such an eddy or whirlpool, that it draws everything down with it, like the current of the river Male. " As this enormous sea animal in all probability may be reckoned of the polype, or of the starfish kind, as shall hereafter be more fully proved, it seems that the parts which are seen rising at its pleasure, and are called arms, are properly the tentacula, or feeling instruments, called horns as well as arms. With these they move themselves, and likewise gather in their food. " Besides these, for this last purpose the great Creator has also given this creature a strong and peculiar scent, which it can emit at certain times, and by means of which it beguiles and draws other fish to come in heaps about it. This animal has another strange property, known by the experience of man\- old fishermen. They observe that for some months the kraken or krabben is continually eating, and in other months he always voids his excrements. During this evacuation the surface of the water is colored with the excrement, and appears quite thick and turbid. This muddiness is said to be so ver\' agree- able to the smell or taste of other fishes, or to both, that they gather together from all parts to it, and keep for that purpose directly over the kraken ; he then opens his arms or horns, seizes and swallows his welcome guests and con- verts them after due time, by digestion, into a bait for other fish of the same kind. I relate what is affirmed by many; but I cannot give so certain assur- ances of this particular as I can of the existence of this surprising creature, though I do not find anything in it absolutely contrary to Nature. As we can hardly expect to examine this enormous sea animal alive, I am the more concerned that nobody embraced that opportunity which, according to an account once did, and perhaps never more may, offer, of seeing it entire when dead." CHAPTER V. GIBRALTAR. j]HE Port of Gibraltar to a lover of stories is one of the most interesting in the world. Gibraltar is a rocky promontory, some three miles in length, and is connected with the main- land of Spain, although it does not seem so to be as seen from the sea. The town of Gibraltar has some seventeen thousand inhabitants, and a changing population, and is connected with a garrison of some five thousand men. This town of twenty thousand or more people is a picture of the types of the world. English, Spaniards, Jews and Moors, sailors from all lands, commercial agents, travellers, and adventurers, are to be found here, and the consular rooms are nowhere more interesting. The rock of Gibraltar is the world's greatest fortress, — the pride of England, and the humiliation of Spain, from which it was wrested. It is composed of gray marble and covered with moss and dwarf vegeta- tion. Birds and little animals find a secure home on the sides of the defiant sea mountain, as they are protected by local law. The peak has an elevation of about 1440 feet. He who goes up to the top to see the Bay of Gibraltar, the coasts of Spain and Africa, " the Pillars of Hercules," and the sea, passes grassy glens where grow capers, palmitas, aloes and cacti, where live pigeons, woodcocks, and Bar- bary apes. The wars of Gibraltar would fill volumes, that of 1872 being the most remarkable, when red hot shot, or rains of liquid fire brought THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR.. GIBRALTAR. H^ the fortress securely and for all time, it is probable, under the English dominion. The fortress is one mountain of protected batteries. Noth- ing but some new art of scientific discovery could ever wrest it from the English flag. Gibraltar may be said to be the port of all ports, the capital port of the world. The Mediterranean is the sea of the world. From it the ships of discovery sailed. Its shores are the ruins of empires, and the seats of eastern powers. All nations have their representatives at times in the old commer- cial houses here that line the narrow streets, where children of many colors play together, pet apes gibber, and parrots scream. Here many fiags, a congress of flags, daily float in the sea winds. Curiosities abound in the streets, — ships, commercial houses, and consulates. Gibraltar is the curiosity shop of the world. TALES OF THE CONSULATES OF GIBRALTAR. "THE GRINDING OVER YOUNG." In one of the old consular rooms of Gibraltar, Percy discovered a very old and curious picture. Among all the curiosities of the place, nothing more haunted his imagination than this odd print. He used to return to it as often as he went to that consulate, and stand before it with a stimulated imagination. The picture represented a number of old men in various stages of decrepitude going up an inclined plane to a funnel to be ground over young. There was one man gleefully sinking down into the funnel- shaped hopper to be ground over. A young woman had charge of this wonderful mill, and a priest was praying on his knees during the miraculous grinding. The old man who was to be ground over used some kind of magic medicine to assist the progress, and an expectant group of fair young ladies were waiting to receive the young men as fast as they were ground out. These young ladies were seen going Il6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. happily away with the ground-over men, wlio came out young and handsome, and full of good spirits. The picture was droll, rude, and incongruous, and yet it held the fancy like Ponce de Leon's dream of the Fountain of Youth. " What history has that picture ? " asked Percy of the French consul. " None ; none at all, my American boy. It is tavern print, and may be found in many old taverns on the Continent. It is very droll and popular. This one always excites the curiosity of you Americans." " It would be better if the funnel were larger, and there was a box for mill-stones. How could a man be ground over in that way ? The passage is too small." "■Qzden sabe',' said the consul, in the Spanish term of the place, " I do not wonder that you look at it. The world all wants to be ground over, and most of us need to be. But no day ever returns again ; the days go, and go, and leave us the products of the past. There is some- thing in that picture that makes me serious, as curious as it is. No one over fifty years of age could look upon it without a regret in his laugh. I sometimes find myself dreaming over it. It is a thing that sets one's fancy fiying " The consulates of Gibraltar were indeed story-telling places. The stories of many lands were to be heard here, most of them either tragic or humorous. Here Percy made a study of the tales of the Spanish Chaucer, and gathered into the note-book of his memory some of the most curious happenings and fancies of the world. GIBRALTAR. 119 WHAT HAPPENED TO A MOORISH KING, WHO HAD THREE SONS, AND WHO DESIRED TO KNOW WHICH WOULD BECOME THE BEST MAN. FROM COUNT LUCANOR; Or, the Fifty Pleasant Stories of Patromo, writtex by the Prince Don Juan Manuel, a. d. 1335-1347- First done into English from the Spanish by James Polk, M. D., 186S. Count Lucanor, being one day in conversation with Patronio, said as follows : — " Patronio, there are many young men who are being brought up at my court. Some are of high birth, some are not. Now, I find their manners and dispositions so various that I am perplexed; and, knowing the strength of your judgment, I pray you to tell me how I may be able to form an opinion as to which of them will become the best man." " ]\Iy lord," said Patronio, " the question which you place before me is very difficult to answer, for we cannot speak with certainty of that which is to come; and as what you demand is hidden in the future, so must some uncertainty rest upon my opinion. " But we may be able to form sorne idea by particularly observing their development internally as well as externally. As regards this latter, there is the form of the features, the grace of movement, the complexion, as also the growth of the body and development of its members ; by the principal mem- bers I mean those essential to good health, — the heart, the brain, and the liver. Yet though all the signs may appear satisfactor}-, we can speak with no cer- tainty as to the ultimate result, for seldom do they all accord long, one deraign- ment influencing all the functions, or the contrar}'. But for the most part, according to the indications above named, may we judge of the future. Notice the form of the features, and particularly the eyes, with the grace of movement ; these signs seldom deceive. Do not, however, suppose that gracefulness is dependent upon beauty or ugliness, for there are many men who are handsome and well-formed, but without grace; while again, others, decidedly ill-made, have that gracefulness which entitles them to be called fine men. Nevertheless, the development of the body and limbs should be taken as indications of valor and activity, although it may not be always so. It is, therefore, as I said before, very difficult to speak with certaint\' ; for what appears favorable now may, by the force of circumstances, be entirel}- changed. Again, the condition of the I20 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. mind is still more difficult to understand, when you seek through it for indica- tions of what the young man is to become. You required that I should give you some certain signs whereby you can form an opinion of which of your young men will become the most manly. It will much please me to be per- mitted to recount to you how, upon a similar occasion, a Moorish king proved his three sons, to ascertain which of them would become the bravest man." " Relate to me," said the count, " what that was." " My lord," said Patronio, " there was a Moorish king who had three sons. Now, he having the power to appoint which of them he pleased to reign after him, w^hen he had arrived at a good old age, the leading men of his kingdom waited upon him, praying to be informed which of his sons he would please to name as his successor. The king replied that in one month he would give them an answer. " After eight or ten days the king said to his eldest son, ' I shall ride out to-morrow, and I wish you to accompany me.' "The son waited upon the king as desired, but not so early as the time appointed. When he arrived, the king said he wished to dress, and requested him to bring him his garments. His son went to the Lord of the Bedchamber, and requested him to take the king his garments. The attendant inquired what suit it was he wished for ; and the son returned to ask his father, who rephed, his state robe. The young man went and told the attendant to bring the state robe. " Now, for every article of the king's attire it was necessary to go backwards and forwards, carrying questions and answers, till at length the attendant came to dress and boot the king. The same repetition goes bn when the king called for his horse, spurs, bridle, saddle, sword, and so forth. Now, all being pre- pared, with some trouble and difficulty, the king changed his mind, and said he would not ride out; but desired the prince, his son, to go through the city, carefully observing everything worth notice, and that on his return he should come to give his father his opinion of what he had seen. "The prince set out, accompanied by the royal suite and the chief nobility. Trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments preceded this brilliant cavalcade. After traversing a part of the city onh', he returned to the palace, when the king desired him to relate what most arrested his attention. "'I observed nothing, sire,* said he, ' but the great noise caused by the cymbals and trumpets, which confounded me.' "A few days later the king sent for his second son, and commanded him to attend very early the next day, when he subjected him to the same ordeal as his brother, but with a somewhat more favorable result. GIBRALTAR. 121 " Again, after some days, he called for his youngest son's attendance. Now, this young man came to the palace very early, long before his father was awake, and waited patiently till the king arose, when he entered his chamber with that respectful humiliation which became him. The king then desired him to bring his clothes that he might dress. The young prince begged the king to specify which clothes, boots, and so forth ; the same with all the other things he desired, so that he could bring all at the same time, neither would he permit the attendant to assist him, saying, if the king permitted him he would feel highly honored, and was willing to do all that was required. '• When the king was dressed, he requested his son to bring him his horse. Again the son asked what horse, saddle, spurs, sword, and other requisites he desired to have; and as he commanded, so it was done without trouble or further annoyance. " Now, when all was ready, the king, as before, declined going. He, how- ever, requested his son to go, and to take notice of what he saw, so that on his return he might relate to him what he thought worthy of notice. " In obedience to his father's commands, the young prince rode through the city, attended by the same escort as his brothers ; but they knew nothing, neither did the younger son, nor indeed any one else, of the object the king had in view. As he rode along, he desired that they would show him the interior of the city, the streets, and where the king kept his treasures, and what was supposed to be the amount thereof; he inquired where the nobility and the people of importance in the city lived ; after this, he desired that they should present to him all the cavalry and infantry, and these he made go through their evolutions ; he afterwards visited the walls, towers, and fortresses of the city, so that when he returned to the king it was very late. "The king desired him to tell him what he had seen. The \-oung prince replied that he feared giving offence if he stated all he felt at what he had seen and observed. Now the king commanded him relate everything, as he hoped for his blessing. The young man replied that although he was sure his father was a very good king, yet it seemed to him he had not done as much good as he might, having such good troops, so much power, and such great resources ; for, had he wished it, he might have made himself master of the world. •' Now, the king felt much pleased at this judicious remark of his son. So when the time arrived that he had to give his decision to the people, he told them that he should appoint his youngest son for their king, from the indica- tions he had given him of his ability, by certain proofs of fitness to govern, to which he had subjected all his sons ; although he would have desired to appoint 122 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. his eldest son as his successor, yet he felt it a duty to select the one who appeared best qualified for the station. " And you, Count Lucanor, if you desire to know which of the young men is the most promising, you must reflect on what I have related to you, and, by the adoption of similar means, you will be enabled to form your opinion." The count was much pleased with what Patronio had said ; and as Don Juan found this to be a good example, he ordered it to be written in this book, and with the following lines which say: — By ways and works tlTou mayest know Which youths to worthiest men will grow. Note. — This interesting narrative, evidently of Arabic origin, recalls to us the heroic tale related in the history of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivan, commonly called the Cid Campeador. This interesting tale is immortalized by Corneille in one of his best plays. The story is as follows : The old Count Diego de Vivan, after the gross insult he received from Count D'Orgaz, called his three sons to him, and forcibly pressed their hands within his own. Now, the two elder ones, Fernando and Bermuda, shrieked out as if they had been seized by the gripe of a lion, whilst Rodrigo, the younger, gave no indication of pain, but uttered an exclamation, and said, " If you were not my father, I w^ould strike you ! " To which the count replied, " It would not be the first blow I have received. You now know the offence ; see, here is the sword ; I have nothing further to add. With my white hairs I go to weep over my insulted honor, leaving you, my son, the duty to avenge it." The sentence uttered by the old count, addressing his son, as written by Corneille, is truly beautiful, when with impassioned dignity he exclaims, '' Rodrique, as-tu du coeur?'" ['' Rodrigo, have you a heart? ''] With more discernment, Don Manuel who has probably taken this historical fact as the foundation of his own story, with this difference, however, that in his recital he relies, not as the Cid upon physical indications, but after due investigation, as is shown in his narrative, places his reliance more upon the reasoning powers and mental development of, as in the case of Diego, the younger son. WHAT HAPPENED TO A KING WITH A MAN WHO CALLED HIMSELF AN ALCHEMIST. FROM COUNT LUCAXOR. One day Count Lucanor con\-ersed with Patronio in the following manner : — " Patronio, a man came and told me he possessed a secret which would enable me to acquire great riches and honor, but that to begin the work cer- tain sums of money would be required ; and this being furnished, he promised GIBRALTAR. I 25 to return me tenfold on my outlay. Now. since God has blessed you with a good understanding, tell me what you think most desirable to be done under such circumstances." " My lord," said Patronio, " in order that you may know how to act, having regard for your own interest, under such circumstances, I should like to inform you what happened to a king with a man who called himself an alchemist." The count desired him to relate it. " There was once," said he, " a man who, being a great adventurer, desired by some means or other to enrich himself, and rise out of the miserable situa- tion in which he then was. Knowing of a certain king who taxed his people heavily, and was very anxious to acquire a knowledge of alchemy, he procured a hundred doublas and filed them down, mixing the gold dust so procured with other metals, and from this alloy he made a hundred false coins, each weighing as much as a doubla. He then took a supply of these spurious coins, dressed himself as a quiet and respectable man, and went to the city where the king dwelt, and, entering the shop of a grocer, sold to him the whole of his counter- feits for about two or three doublas. The purchaser inquired the name and use of these coins, to which he replied, 'They are essential to the practice of alchemy, and are called iabardit." " Now, our adventurer continued to reside in this city for some time as a respectable and well-dressed man, and it became circulated as a secret that he knew the science of alcheni}-. When this news reached the king, he sent for him, and asked if he were an alchemist. " He, however, appeared as if anxious to conceal his knowledge, and replied that he was not, but ultimately admitted that he was, at the same time telling the king that no great outlay was required; but that if his ^lajesty desired it, he could furnish him with a little of the ingredients, and then show him all he knew of the science. This pleased the king very much, as it appeared, accord- ing to the alchemist's representation, that he would incur no risk. Our adven- turer now sends, in the king's name, for the things required, among them being the tabardit, which were easily procured at a cost of not more than three dineros, and when they were bought and melted down before the king, there was produced the weight of a doubla of fine gold. The king seeing that these materials which cost so little produced a doubla, was delighted, and told the alchemist that he considered him to be a most worthy man, giving him an order to make more. " Our adventurer replied, as if he had no more information to give. ' Sire, all that I know I have shown to you, and henceforth }-ou will be able to do it as well as myself. Nevertheless, should any of the ingredients be wanting, it will be 126 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. quite impossible to produce gold.' Saying this, he departed for his own house. " The king now procured some of the material himself, and made gold. He then doubled the quantity, and produced the weight of two doublas ; again doubling this quantity, he produced four doublas of gold; and so, in proportion, as he measured the weight of the ingredients, he produced an increase of gold. When the king saw that he could make any quantity of gold he desired, he ordered as much of the material to be brought him as would produce a hundred doublas. So the quantity was brought him as he desired,' with the exception of the tarbardit, which could not be got. The king, seeing that the tabardit was wanting, and that without it he could not make gold, sent for the alchemist and told him he was unable to make gold as he had been accustomed to do. " On this the alchemist begged to know if he had all the ingredients the same as hitherto. " The king replied, ' Yes, all except the tabardit.' " ' Then,' said the alchemist, ' although you have all the other things, yet, failing this one, you cannot, as I told you at first, e.xpect to make gold.' " The king then asked if he knew where to procure the tabardit, and he was answered in the affirmative ; the king then requested that he should procure for him a sufficient quantity to make as much gold as he might desire. " The alchemist now replied that any other person could obtain it as well as himself, and perhaps, better; but, if the king particularly wished it, he would return for some to his own country, where he could procure any amount. The king then counted, and found that, including all expenses, it would cost a large sum to procure this one ingredient ; but he furnished our adventurer with the sum required, and sent him on this service. " As soon as the alchemist had received the money, he went away in great haste, never to return. " When the king found that his alchemist remained away longer than he ought he sent his servants to his house to know if there had been any tidings of him, but they found none whatever; but at his house was left a small chest which was locked ; this they opened, and in it they found a paper on which was written, ' I know well there is no such thing in the world as tabardit, but be assured that 3'our Majesty has been deceived. When I came to )'ou and said that I could enrich you, you ought to have said to me, " First enrich th\-- self, and then I will believe thee." " Some days after this, some men were laughing and amusing themselves by writing the names and characters of their friends and acquaintances, saying, such and such were foolish, and of others in like manner, good and bad. GIBRALTAR. 1 29 Amongst those classed as imprudent was found the name of the king. When the king heard of it, he sent for the authors of this writing, and having assured them that no harm should come to them, demanded why they had placed his name among those of imprudent men. They then answered him, ' Because you have entrusted so much treasure to a stranger of whom you had not the least knowledge.' " The king replied that they were mistaken, for should the man return he would bring with him much gold. " ' Then,' said they, ' our opinion would lose nothing; for should he return, we will erase your name and insert his.' " And you. Count Lucanor, if }'ou do not wish to be considered a man of weak understanding, must not risk so much of your property for a thing that is uncertain ; otherwise you may have to repent sacrificing the certain for the uncertain." This advice pleased the count much, so he acted upon it, and found the result good. And Don Juan, seeing this to be a good example, ordered it to be written in this book with these following lines : — " To venture much of thy wealth refuse On the faith of a man who has nought to lose." This tale, so full of point and humor, is, as we see in the paper found in the alchemist's trunk, not without its bearing on the caution required in daily life to avoid impositions, as also the dangers to which cupidity exposes men who grasp at every delusive project to gratify their passion for gain. It maybe, also, that Don Manuel desired in his narrative to ridicule the follies of alchemy, to which his learned uncle, Alfonso XL, was much addicted, and the belief in which was so universal in the Middle Ages. CHAPTER VI. ALGERIA. — TUNIS. — THE HOLIEST PLACE IN AFRICA. CARAVAN TALES. LGIERS, crowned by the ancient fortress of the deys, five hundred feet high, has a romantic history of a thousand years, and is now the Paris of Africa, — a charming French city. The old town of Algiers is on high ground ; the new town is a coast habitation of government houses, squares, and gay streets, in which the Place Royale, with its shadows of orange and lime trees, invite a gay population, and where life flows at full tide under the hill of the mosques and old Moorish houses. In the lower town, Arabs, Moors, Jews, French, Spaniards, Ger- mans, and Englishmen gather on the charming promenades which are flanked by airy colonnades. The city has a hundred or more mosques, and is Orientally famous for its marabouts, or tombs of the saints. The street that leads up to the old fortress of the deys is called the casbah. The houses of the upper town are flat-roofed, and without windows, except iron gratings. The people of these ancient houses spend their evenings on the flat roofs, the bright stars above, the sea before, and the cool sea-breeze constantly blowing. In 1830, the long despotism of the deys came to an end in the Mahometan town, by the occupation of the French. The Turks withdrew in large numbers to Tunis. ALGIERS. 131 The French had an ambition to make Algiers beautiful, and the city began to change into gay bazaars, and to wear a Parisian appear- ance. It is a resort of wealth and fashion, the civilization of the East having arisen amid the vanishing crescents. The city has a population of some fifty thousand people. The country of Algeria is now a French colony, and the possession of it is said to have cost France the lives of 150,000 men. It has about TRAVELLING IN ALGERIA. 2,505,000 inhabitants, including some 250.000 Europeans. Behind Algeria lies the desert of Sahara. Algeria at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present, became a terror to all Christian nations by its corsairs or sea- robbers. The American flag having been insulted, the best ships of the navy were sent to the Mediterranean. The fleet attacked the Algerian pirates on the 20th of June, 18 15, and compelled the Dey to respect American shipping. The contest is called the Algerian War. 132 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. CONSULAR COURTS AND THEIR POWER. While in Algeria Mr. Van der Palm and Percy visited Tunis. While there a very curious case came to Percy's notice. An Ameri- can sailor was brought before the consul, accused of the crime of murder on the sea. " He will be tried before the consul," said his father. " Do consuls try cases t " asked Percy. " Yes, on the coasts of the Mediterranean in several port cities." " Like the old Roman consuls ? " "Yes, their power resembles that of old Roman officers." " How much power do the consuls of such places reall}^ have.f*" Mr. Van der Palm again quoted the consular instructions, with ^vhich he was familiar, after his long service. " Consuls have exclusive jurisdiction over crimes and offences committed by citizens of the United States in Borneo, China, Corea, Japan, Madagascar, and Siam. In Morocco, Tripoli, and Tunis, the consuls are empowered to assist in the trials of citizens of the United States accused of murder or assault. In Persia, citizens of the United States committing offences are to be tried and judged in the same manner as are the subjects or citizens of the most favored nation. Americans committing offences in Turkey should be tried by their minister or consul, and are to be punished according to their offence, following in this respect the usage observed toward other Franks ; but, in consequence of a disagreement as to the true text of the treaty, consuls in the Ottoman Dominions are instructed to take the directions of the minister of the United States at Constantinople in all cases before assuming to exercise jurisdiction over criminal offences. " In China and Japan the judicial authority of the consuls of the United States will be considered as extending over all persons, duly shipped and enrolled upon the articles of any merchant vessel of the United States, whatever be the nationality of such person. And all offences which would be justiciable by the consular courts of the United States, where the persons so offending are native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States employed in the merchant service thereof are equall}' justiciable by the same consular courts in the case of seamen of foreign nationality. THE HOLIEST PLACE IN AFRICA. oo " Seamen serving on board public vessels of the United States, who have committed offences on shore in Japan and China, are held to be subject to the jurisdiction of the consuls of the United States in those countries. What became of this particular case, Percy never learned, as he left Algeria in a few days for Tunis. The incident gave him a clear view of the workings of these little vice-republics, called consular offices. KAIRWAN. At Algeria, Percy began the study of French. But here the reader may ask " How came this ancient country in Northern Africa under the French rule t " The answer may be brief : — Through a slight offered to a consul. In the reign of that power- ful monarch, Louis Philippe, the Dey, a pasha of the Turkish school, owed the French government a considerable sum of money. The creditors asked the French consul to demand payment. The proud old Dey in indignation poked his fan spitefully at the consul, or some like movement, and the French government collected the wdiole coun- try in payment of the debts. The Turks fled on the arrival of the French army, and since that date, deys and like rulers have been very polite to consuls. There is a railway that runs from Algiers to Tunis ; and an ancient road from Tunis leads the traveller to Kairwan, the so-called " Holiest spot in Africa." Mr. Van der Palm wished to visit Kairwan, and the tvvo started for Tunis, and thence made their way to the holy Moslem city in a caravan. The city is fabled to contain five hundred mosques. The real number is less than a hundred, unless the shrines or marabouts are to be so regarded. Kairwan is one of the strangest sights of the world, and the legend of its founding is very queer. The great mosque of Kairwan is the history of the city. Accord- ing to the legend, when the founder of Kairwan was at a loss to know 134 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. where to lay the corner-stone of the mosque he heard a voice from heaven which gave him directions. The country was full of wild beasts at the time, and these all gathered themselves together, and in honor of the Prophet (Mahomet) marched away in a miraculous army, to the wonder of the faithful. With a consul from Tunis, Mr. Van der Palm and Percy entered this wonderful mosque. Over the walls of the prayer-chamber, the consul translated the following inscription from Arabic. " Cursed is he who shall count these pillars, for verily he shall lose his sight." The pillars are the products of the spoils of Africa. There were two most splendid ones very near together, and it is claimed that if one squeeze through these, he may enter Paradise. Percy passed through, but his father and the fat consul were unable to secure the Mahometan promise. " Fat people do not go to paradise," said the consul. Percy's eyes roamed about the forest of pillars. His mind seemed engaged in some mathematical calculation. "Well, my son, how many pillars are there?'' asked his father, as the three travellers put on their shoes at the door. "Just one hundred and ninety-four," was the prompt reply. " But your eyes ? " " They smart ! " " So do mine," answered his father. But nothing worse than this happened to Percy. Perhaps he did not count the pillars correctly. It is claimed that there are two hun- dred and ninety-six. r1 1 AN ALGERIAN ANTELOPE-HUNTER. CARAVA.X STORIES. I 37 THE WIND-RIDER. (from folklore and legends, RUSSIAN AND POLISH.) A MAGICIAN was once upon a time much put out with a young countryman ; and being in a great rage, he went to the man's hut and stuck a new sharp knife under the threshold. While he did so he cursed the man, saying, — " May this fellow ride for seven years on the fleet storm-wind, until he has gone all around the world." Now, when the peasant went into the meadows in order to carry the hay, there came suddenly a gust of wind. It quickly scattered the hay, and then seized the peasant. He endeavored in vain to resist ; in vain he sought to cling to the hedges and trees with his hands. Do what he would, the invisible power hurried him forwards. He flew on the wings of the wind like a wild pigeon, and his feet no more touched the ground. At length the sun set, and the poor fellow looked with hungry eyes upon the smoke which curled up from the chimney in his village. He could almost touch them with his feet, but he called and screamed in vain, and all his wailing and complaints were useless. No one heard his lamentation, no one saw his tears. So he went on for three months, and what with thirst and hunger he was dried up and almost a skeleton. He had gone over a good deal of ground by that time, but the wind most often carried him over his native village. He wept when he saw the hut in which dwelt his sweetheart. He could see her busied about the house. Sometimes she would bring out some dinner in a basket. Then he would stretch out his dried-up hands to her, and vainly call her name. His voice would die away; and the girl, not hearing him, would not look up. He fled on. The magician came to the door of his hut, and seeing the man, cried to him, mockingly, — " You have to ride for seven years yet, flying over this village. You shall go on suffering, and shall not die." " O my father," said the man, " if I ev^er offended you, forgive me ! Look ! my lips are quite hard ; my face, my hands, look at them ! I am nothing but bone. Have pity upon me." The magician muttered a few words, and the man stopped in his course. He stayed in one place, but did not yet stand on the ground. " Well, you ask me to pity you," said the magician. " And what do you mean to give me if I put a stop to your torment? " 138 ZIGZAG JOURXEYS OX THE MEDITERRANEAN. " All you wish," said the peasant, and he clasped his hands, and knelt down in the air. " Will you give me your sweetheart," asked the magician, " so that I may have her for my wife? If you will give her up, you shall come to earth again." The man thought for a moment, and said to himself, " If I once get on the earth again, I may see if I cannot do something." So he said to the magi- cian, " Indeed, you ask me to make a great sacrifice, but if it must be so, it must." The magician then blew at him, and the man came to the ground. He was very pleased to find the earth once more under his feet, and to have escaped from the power of the wind. Off" he hurried to his hut, and at the threshold he met his sweetheart. She cried aloud with amazement when she saw the long- lost peasant whom she had so long lamented and wept for. With his skinny hands the man put her gently aside, and went into the house, where he found the farmer who had employed him, sitting down, and said to him as he commenced to weep, — " I can no longer stay in your service, and I cannot marry your daughter. I love her very much, — as much as the apple of my eye, — but I cannot marry her." The old farmer wondered to see him ; and when he saw his white pinched face and the traces of his suffering, he asked him why he did not wish for the hand of his daughter. The man told him all about his ride in the air, and the bargain he had made with the magician. When the farmer had listened to it all, he told the poor fellow to keep a good heart, and putting some money in his pocket, went out to consult a sorceress. Toward evening he returned v^ery merry, and taking the peasant aside, said to him, — " To-morrow morning before day, go to the witch, and you will find all will be well." The wearied peasant, who had not slept for three months, went to bed, but he woke before it was day, and went off to the witch. He found her sitting beside the hearth boiling herbs over a fire. She told him to stand by her, and, suddenly, although it was a calm day, such a storm of wind arose that the hut shook again. The sorceress then took the peasant outside into the yard and told him to look up. He lifted up his eyes, and — oh, wonder ! — saw the evil magician whirling round and round in the air. CARAVAN STORIES. I 39 "There is your enemy," said the woman; " he will trouble you no more. If you would like to see him at your wedding, I will tell you what to do; but he must sufifer the torment that he meant to put you to." The peasant was delighted, and ran back, to the house ; and a month later he was married. While the wedding-folk were dancing, the peasant went out into the yard, looked up, and saw right over the hut the magician, turning round and round. Then the peasant took a new knife, and throwing it with all his force, stuck it in the magician's foot. He fell at once to the ground, and the knife held him to the earth so that he could only stand at the window and see how merry the peasant and his friends were. The next day he had disappeared, but he was afterwards seen flying in the air over a lake. Before him and behind him were flocks of ravens and crows ; and these, with their hoarse cries heralded the wicked magician's endless ride on the wind. THE LEGEND OF THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE OF SHEDDAD. THE SON OF 'A'D. A Tale of the Moorish Quarters of Eastern Coast Cities. It is related that 'Abd Allah, the son of Aboo Kilabeh, went forth to seek a camel that had run away, and while he was proceeding over the deserts of El-Yeman and the district of Seba, he chanced to arrive at a vast city encom- passed by enormous fortifications, around the circuit of which were pavilions rising high into the sky. So when he approached it he imagined that there must be inhabitants within it, of whom he might inquire for his camel ; and accordingly he advanced, but on coming to it he found that it was desolate, without any one to cheer its solitude. " I alighted," says he, " from my she-camel, and tied up her foot ; and then, composing my mind, entered the city. On approaching the fortifications I found that they had two enormous gates, the like of which, for size and height, have never been seen elsewhere in the world, set with a variety of jewels and jacinths, white and red, and yellow and green ; and when I beheld this. I was struck with the utmost wonder at it, and the sight astonished me. I entered the fortifications in a state of terror and with a wandering mind, and saw them to be of the same large extent as the city, and to comprise elevated pavilions, every one of these containing loft}' chambers, and all of them constructed of gold and silver, and adorned with rubies and chrysolites and pearls and \-arious- 140 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN colored jewels. The folding-doors of these pavilions were like those of the fortifications in beauty, and the floors were overlaid with large pearls, and with balls like hazel-nuts, composed of musk and ambergris and saffron. And when I came into the midst of the city, I saw not in it a created being of the sons of Adam; and I almost died of terror. I then looked down from the summits of the lofty chambers and pavilions, and saw rivers running beneath them ; and in the great thoroughfare-streets of the city were fruit-bearing trees and tall palm-trees. And the construction of the city was of alternate bricks of gold and silver; so I said within myself, no doubt this is the paradise promised in the world to come. " I carried away of the jewels, which were as its gravel, and the musk that was as its dust, as much as 1 could bear, and returned to my district, where I acquainted the people with the occurrence. And the news reached Moawiyeh, the son of Aboo Sufyan (who was then caliph), in the Hejaz ; so he wrote to his lieutenant in San 'a of El-Yemen, saying, ' Summon that man, and inquire of him the truth of the matter ! ' His lieutenant therefore caused me to be brought, and demanded of me an account of my adventure, and of what had befallen me ; and I informed him of what I had seen. He then sent me to Mo'awiyeh, and I acquainted him also with that which I had seen, but he disbelieved it ; so I produced to him some of those pearls and the little balls of ambergris and musk and saffron. The latter retained somewhat of their sweet scent ; but the pearls had become yellow and discoloured. " At the sight of these Mo'awiyeh wondered, and he sent and caused Kaab el-Ahbar to be brought before him, and said to him, ' O Kaab el-Ahbar, I have called thee on account of a matter of which I desire to know the truth, and I hope that thou mayest be able to certify me of it.' " * And what is it, O Prince of the Faithful? ' asked Kaab el-Ahbar. " Mo'awiyeh said, ' Hast thou any knowledge of the existence of a city con- structed of gold and silver, the pillars whereof are of chrysolite and ruby, and the gravel of which is of pearls, and of balls like hazel-nuts, composed of musk and ambergris and saff"ron ? ' " He answered, ' Yes, O Prince of the Faithful ! It is Irem Zat-el-'Emad, the like of which hath never been constructed in the regions of the earth ; and Sheddad, the son of 'A'd the Greater, built it.' " 'Relate to us,' said Mo'awiyeh, ' somewhat of its history.' " And Kaab el-Ahbar replied thus: — " ' 'A 'd the Greater had two sons, Shedeed and Sheddad ; and when their father perished they reigned conjointly over the countries after him, and there was no one of the kings of the earth who was not subject to them. And She- AN ALGERIAN HEAUTV. CARAVAN STORIES. 1 43 deed the son of 'A'd died, so his brother Sheddad ruled alone over the earth after him. He was fond of reading the ancient books; and when he met with the description of the world to come, and of paradise, with its pavilions and lofty chambers, and its trees and fruits, and of the other things in paradise, his heart enticed him to construct its like on the earth, after this manner which hath been above mentioned. He had under his authority a hundred thousand kino-s, under each of whom were a hundred thousand valiant chieftains ; and under each of these were a hundred thousand soldiers. And he summoned them all before him, and said to them, " I find in the ancient books and his- tories the description of the paradise that is in the other world, and I desire to make its like upon the earth. Depart ye therefore to the most pleasant and most spacious vacant tract in the earth, and build for me in it a city of gold and silver, and spread, as its gravel, chrysolites and rubies and pearls, and as the supports of the vaulted roofs of that city make columns of chr\'solite and fill it with pavilions, and over the pavilions construct lofty chambers, and beneath them plant, in the by-streets and great thoroughfare streets, varieties of trees bearing different kinds of ripe fruits, and make rivers to run beneath them in channels of gold and silver.' " To this they all replied, ' How can we accomplish that which thou hast described to us, and how can we procure the chrysolites and rubies and pearls that thou hast mentioned? ' " But he said, ' Know ye not that the kings of the world are obedient to me and under my authority, and that no one who is in it disobeyeth my command? ' " They answered, * Yes, we know that.' " ' Depart then,' said he, ' to the mines of chrysolite and ruby, and to the places where pearls are found, and gold and silver, and take forth and collect their contents from the earth, and spare no exertions. Take also for me, from the hands of mine, such of those things as ye find, and spare none, nor let any escape you ; and beware of disobedience ! ' " He then wrote a letter to each of the kings in the regions of the earth, commanding them to collect all the articles of the kinds above mentioned that their subjects possessed, and to repair to the mines in which these things were found, and extract the precious stones that they contained, even from the beds of the seas. And they collected the things that he required in the space of twenty years; after which he sent forth the geometricians and sages, and laborers and artificers, from all the countries and regions, and they dispersed themselves through the deserts and wastes, and tracts and districts, until they came to a desert wherein was a vast open plain, clear from hills and mountains. 144 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. and in it were springs gushing forth, and rivers running. So they said, ' This is the kind of place which the king commanded us to seek, and called us to find.' " They then busied themselves in building the city according to the directions of the King Sheddad, king of the whole earth, in its length and breath ; and they made through it the channels for the rivers, and laid the foundations conformably with the prescribed extent. The kings of the various districts of the earth sent thither the jewels and stones, and large and small pearls, and carnelian and pure gold, upon camels over the deserts and wastes, and sent great ships with them over the seas ; and a quantity of those things, such as cannot be described, nor calculated, nor defined, was brought to the work- men, who laboured in the construction of this city three hundred years. And when they had finished it, they came to the king and acquainted him with the completion; and he said to them, 'Depart, and make around it impregnable fortifications of great height, and construct around the circuit of the fortifica- tions a thousand pavilions, each with a thousand pillars beneath it, in order that there ma)' be in each pavilion a vizier.' " So they went immediately, and did this in twenty years ; after which they presented, themselves before Sheddad, and informed him of the accomplish- ment of his desire. " He therefore ordered his viziers, who were a thousand in number, and his chief officers, and such of his troops and others as he confided in, to make themselves ready for departure, and to prepare themselves for removal to Irem Zat-el-'Emad, in attendance upon the king of the world, Sheddad, the son of 'A'd. And they passed twenty years in equipping themselves. Then Sheddad proceeded with his troops, rejoiced at the accomplishment of his desire, until there remained between him and Irem Zat-el-'Emad one day's journey, when God sent down upon him and upon the obstinate infidels who accompained him a loud cry from the heaven of His power, and it destroyed them all by the vehemence of its sound. Neither Sheddad nor any of those who were with him arrived at the city, or came in sight of it, and God obliter- ated the traces of the road that led to it; but the city remaineth as it was in its place until the hour of the judgment ! ' " At this narrative, related by Kaab el-Ahbar, Mo'awiyeh wondered, and he said to him, * Can any one of mankind arrive at that city? * " ' Yes,' answered Kaab el-Ahbar; ' a man of the companions of Mahomet (upon whom be blessing and peace!), in appearance like this man who is sitting here, without any doubt.' Esh-Shaabee also saith, ' It is related, on the authority of the learned men of Hemyer, in El-Yemen, that when Sheddad CARAVAA- STORIES. 145 and those who were with him were destroyed by the loud cry, his son Sheddad the Less reigned after him ; for his father, Sheddad the Greater, had left him as successor to his kingdom, in the land of Hadramot and Seba, on his depar- ture with the troops who accompanied him to Irem Zat-el-'Emad. And as soon as the news reached him of the death of his father, on the way before his arrival at the city of Irem, he gave orders to carry his father's body from those desert tracts to Hadramot, and to excavate the sepulchre for him in a cavern. " And when they had done this, he placed his body in it, upon a couch of gold, and covered the corpse with seventy robes, interwoven with gold and adorned with precious jewels ; and he placed at his head a tablet of gold, whereon were inscribed these verses : — "'Be admonished, O thou who art deceived by a prolonged life ! I am Sheddad, the son of "A'd, the lord of a strong fortress. The lord of power and might, and of excessive valor. The inhabitants of the earth obeyed me, fearing my severity and threats ; And I held the East and West under a strong dominion. And a preacher of the true religion invited us to the right way; But we opposed him, and said. Is there no refuge from it? And a loud cry assaulted us from a tract of the distant horizon ; Whereupon we fell down like corn in the midst of a plain at harvest ; And now, beneath the earth, we await the threatened day.' " Eth-Tha'alibee also saith, ' It happened that two men entered this cavern, and found at its upper end some steps, and having descended these, they found an excavation, the length whereof was a hundred cubits and its breadth forty cubits, and its height a hundred cubits. And in the midst of this excavation was a couch of gold, upon which was a man of enormous bulk, occupying its whole length and breadth, covered with ornaments and with robes interwoven with gold and silver; and at his head was a tablet of gold, whereon was an inscription. And they took that tablet, and carried away from the place as much as they could of bars of gold and silver and other things.' " 10 CHAPTER VII. MARSEILLES. |ARSEILLES is the French port of the world. The winding ways of its harbor are something of a zigzag journey. It is said that there are but three safe ports on the Mediterranean : " Carthagena, Jtme, and JulyT To these safe ports may perhaps be added Marseilles. The city is very ancient, and its modern history is associated with patriotism. It was the soldiers from Marseilles who first voiced that great trumpet tone of liberty, " The Marseilles Hymn." Percy learned many things in the consular offices at Marseilles which gave him clear views of marine law in case of injustice at sea. He became a pupil here of a French consular clerk, and was now in full training as a consular p7ipil. He saw here for the first time marriages performed in the presence of consuls, and the dead bodies and the effects of those dying while travelling cared for by the consuls of the parts of the world to which the deceased belonged. There came a case before the American consulate in which a sailor claimed that he had been defrauded by his captain at sea. What would the consul ? While the case was pending, Percy went to his father to have him explain consular jurisdictions in cases of the ill-usage of sailors. " The ship is the consul's territory," said his father. " So you may see how wide his power is, and how closely his office resembles that of the consuls of old Roman republican days. In cases of abusive PUBLIC GARDEN, MARSEILLES. MARSEILLES. 1 49 treatment it is the sailor's right and privilege to see the consul ab soon as he comes to port. No captain has a right to forbid him from laying his case before the consul. The law runs like this : — " 'The right of the seaman to lay his complaint before the consular officer in a foreign port is one of great importance to him, and is carefuUy protected by the courts. When a seaman files a hbel in a court of admirahy and mari- time jurisdiction, alleging that the master had maltreated him while in the service of the ship, and his allegations are proved, the court decrees damages in accordance with the facts. And if it appears that the master denied the seaman liberty to lay his complaints before the consular officer in a foreign port, such denial is an aggravation of his offence and enhances the amount of the decree. And in particular instances, by act of Congress, a penalty is imposed upon a master who refuses his crew^ the right to lay their complaints before the consul. " ' The consular officer is regarded as the adviser and counsel of the seamen, and it is enjoined upon him to see that the latter is unrestricted in the privilege to submit his complaint. If there is reason to believe that a seaman is restrained in any way from appearing at the consulate, in order to pre\'ent his application to the consular officer, the latter will not wait for the complaint, but will at once proceed on board or take the proper steps to secure his appearance before him. The investigation of these cases is often tedious, the evidence is apt to be con- flicting, and the consular officer will require the use of all his good judgment, forbearance, discretion, and good temper.' " A volume of stories might be written on the consular mails. Letters to sailors are directed in the care of the consuls ; these letters, when uncalled for, are kept one year, then sent to Washington. It is with an anxious face that the sailor usually asks the consul for letters. The memories of mothers, fathers, wives, children, sweet- hearts, of old roof-trees, or some holy and tender memories rush in upon the mind of the inquirer, " Are there anywhere for me } " asked a sailor of the English consul at Marseilles. " Your name t " " Henry Moore." 150 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. " No — notliing — none." " The world is nothing to me, or I am nothing to the world. I am one of the none. 1 sail." While at Marseilles, there came to the American consul some poor travellers for letters, but there were none. Their means were exiiausted and the consul is not allowed to furnish money to travellers at the government charge, whatever may be their condition. It was found on inquiry that the people were from the Canadian maritime provinces, and so their case was referred to the English consul. He could do nothing for them officially, but it was resolved to give a concert for them in the English quarters, and to sing the songs and read the poems of the sea. A call was made for amateur singers, and Percy responded. " What will vou o^ive us ? " asked the English consul. " Two poems that relate to the hardships of the sea," was the answer. The concert was successful. It brought the travellers money enough to take them third class to London. One of Percy's selections for reading w^as as follows : — THE Cx^STAWAY. [Edwin, the half brother of Athelstan, King of the Saxons, was the rightful heir to the throne. On the accession of Athelstan he was a mere boy, and his claim caused much dissension among the nobles. Athelstan wished to get rid of him without committing palpable murder, and at last, in a moment of passion, ordered that he should be pushed out to sea in a leaky boat without oars. The rest of the story is told in the poem.] The Saxon monarch from his throne Looked through the light pavilion Upon the level sea, that shone Beneath the sky vermihon. " Go, bring the captive boy ! " he said. They brought him, bound and bleeding, With moistened cheek and bended head, And lips for mercy pleading. Then said a chief of high renown, The monarch on him frowning, MARSEILLES. " To whom in right belongs the crown The sun himself is crowning." And Edwin, there on bending knee, The sun shone brightly over ; While Athelstan gazed on the sea, — The foaming sea of Dover. The twilight sunshine dimmed ; and far The moon, her disk uplifting, Came goddess-like, her silver car Along the waters drifting. And as on high she moved and shone The great pavilion over, Athelstan, from his shadowed throne, Looked on the sea of Dover. "Go, take the boy!" at last he cried. Half from the order shrinking; "And when outgoes the evening tide, And low the moon is sinking, Put him in yonder boat hard by Upon the ocean border, And loose it ! He shall live or die, As God himself shall order ! " Next morn a hundred an.xious eyes Were strained the waters over, As rose the sun in stormless skies Upon the sea of Dover. There lightly, near the troubled land. The boat was seaward drifting. And beckoned there a little hand, In vain for help uplifting. Far, far to sea it drifts, it drifts, All, all that summer morning; And, lo ! a sudden cloud uplifts Its shadow like a warning. Far, far to sea, the wind-swept waves Grow dark and deep and dreary; And hard the rocks the ocean laves Where stand the watchers weary. To him no more the nobles fair The tribute due will render. Nor sunset leave upon his hair Her coronet of splendor. 151 152 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. Night o'er the sobbing billows crept, And stilled their wild commotion ; But ere the morn young Edwin slept Beneath the foaming ocean. And once, when summers four had rolled The solemn convent over, Old Whitesand"s shaded peaks of gold, And silvered peaks of Dover, The minstrels playing sweet and low, A tender strain awaking, Athelstans tears were seen to flow As though his heart was breaking. " Four times to yonder convent lone The birds have crossed the seas, And wandering airs of gentle tone Have breathed 'mid blooming trees. Four times on 3-onder convent towers The snows have fallen deep Since maidens strewed the place with flowers Where Edwin's ashes sleep. " I sit and muse beside the sea When hangs the moon above ; The silvered tide comes back to me, But not a brother's love. A vanished life still haunts my dreams When minstrel harps attune, And on the shadowy convent gleams The solitary moon. " ' Gone ! Gone ! ' it murmurs in the wood, It sobs amid the seas; And lonely hours and solitude Are terrible to me. I call my minstrels, and they sing. But when the strains depart, I feel I am a crown! ess king. Discrowned of joy at heart. "The years will come, the years will go, But never at my door The fair-haired boy I used to meet Will smile upon me more ; MARSEILLES. 1 53 But memory long will hear the fall Of steps at eventide, And in each saddened hour recall The year when Edwin died. " I cleave the serried walls of shields, The nobles' standards true •, I strew with dead the Northern fields. The Scottish chiefs subdue; Yet when the moon — a silver sun — Rolls o'er the Tweed and Dee, The evening song for victory won Returns no joy to me. " Oh, I would give a crown to view The face of heaven again. And walk the fruited earth anew. Unstained 'mid stainless men. The years will come, the years will go, The birds wall cross the sea. But calm delights that others know Will ne'er return to me."' THE CONSULAR PRISONER. At the English consulate at Marseilles Percy heard many curious stories told. Among them there was one that was so remarkable as to long haunt his memory. " What is the strangest incident that ever happened in your con- sular experience ? " asked an English consular clerk of an old English consul, who was smoking leisurely in the office. " It was the escape of a consular prisoner named Wombut or Wombetta. They called him Wombat. " I shall never forget that night. I can see the scene now. Wombetta was accused of robbery, and I had detained him under guard in the consular office. The ship's crew to which he belonged were still at the dock, waiting to sail. The ship, the " Victoria," had received her papers. " I was sitting alone in my private room, reading, when there suddenly came a loud knocking at the door. 154 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. " ' Come in,' I said. " A stout man entered wearing a great cloak. " ' Please, your honor, may I see Wombat before we sail ? ' " ' Have you any particular business with him ? ' " ' Yes, your honor.' " ' Cannot you leave the matter with me } ' " ' No, your honor ; it is confidential. It is only a word with him.' . " The guard stood outside of the door. I was in an easy, good- humored mood, and somewhat preoccupied, and I said to the guard : " ' Let him pass.' " The man in the cloak passed in and closed the door. I heard some strange movements, when I was suddenly brought to my feet by the report of a pistol. " The guard threw open the door, and a stranger sight never met my eyes. The man in the great cloak apparently stood before me with Wombat on his shoulders. I saw Wombat's boots projecting forward, so ; his hat tilted back, so ; and the stranger's cloak was thrown, or seemed to be thrown, over his body. " There came a mufifiied voice from this strange figure. " ' I 've shot him ; let me carry him into the air.' " I thought it was the voice of the stranger. " The guard opened his mouth, and stood like one petrified. " The fiofure moved out of the room. I saw Wombat's boots dis- tinctly, and I did not dream that they were not on his legs. I saw Wombat's old felt hat, and I thought it was on the head of the dying man. "' Hold!' said I. " ' Let go into the air ! ' said the figure in an awful voice. " I lost my senses, and opened the door. " What followed was marvellous indeed. I would never trust my own eyes again. " The cloak fell, and beside it a pair of boots. The figure all MARSEILLES. 155 dropped to pieces and out of it emerged a man, hatless and bootless, who ran down the street crying ' Murder! ' " I started to follow him, and the guard to follow me, when a second man came fiying out of the guard room into the court, leaped over a fence and was lost in the darkness. I looked before me and behind me. So did the guard. ' What ! ' said I. ' Wha-a-at ! ' said he. ' Were there tln^ee of them ? ' said I. ' Heaven defend us ! ' said he. " ' What has happened } ' asked I. " ' Heaven only knows,' said he. " ' Wliere is the prisoner } " asked I. " ' You let hini escape,' said he. Which .? ' asked I. " ' You may ask your own eyes,' said he. " ' He has escaped !' said I. " ' Where 1 ' said he. " ' Who } ' said I. " ' You will never see any of them again,' said he. ' Ah, but and he was a slick one ! ' ' Which .?' asked I. ' All three of them ! ' said he. ' How many were there } ' asked I. ' Three — two — one,' said he. " I accepted the report. The ship sailed that night, and I never saw Wombat or any of them again ! " yiuiiiiiwiiiimiiiiiiiiiii^ CHAPTER VIII. CONSULAR PETS AND PARROTS. VERY consul's office has a pet, and that pet is com- monly a parrot," said Percy to his father one day at Marseilles. " No, not every consul's office. I seldom kept pets when I was a consul. But what you say is, in a sense, true." "Are consuls, as a class, lovers of natural history?" " I do not know that they are when they are first appointed. But as a rule they come to be so. The pets and parrots that one finds in many consular offices are usually gifts from the people of the coun- tries in which the consuls reside. A generous consul makes many friends among the people of his foster country, and these are likely to make him presents of any curious animals or birds in which he may show an interest. Many consuls lead a kind of bachelor life, and pets are company ; so consuls come to be not only story-tellers but amateur naturalists. They may be presented with guinea pigs, mar- mosets, curious dogs, brilliant macaws, cockatoos, and parrots that can say odd things, or sing snatches of patriotic songs. In the East he may even be offered a camel or an elephant ; in South America, a boa. " The consuls' offices at Gibraltar were full of little animals and stransre birds. Here thev are museums of natural historv; one finds in them all sorts of things. I think consular offices are among the most interesting places in the world. CONSULAR PETS AXD PARROTS. 1 57 " Let me tell you of some of the strange pets that I have known to be given to con.-^uls ; I doubt that you ever so much as heard of many of them : — "■A chimpanzee, a chinchilla, a chrysochloris capenses, a didelphys, a dormouse, an edensate, an echidna, ferrets, foxes, flying squirrels, guinea pigs, martens, lemmings, lynex, a gacchus, a lemur, a maki, otters, pebas, porcupines, sables, a silky tamarine, wombats, turtles, shells, cjueer fishes, and birds of many kinds and voices." " They would fill a story book," said Percy. " 1 can form no idea of many of them. I have noticed that consuls like to tell stories of their pets.'' " Especially of their parrots," said Mr. Van der Palm. " Almost every consul has had some wonderful parrot." " That said strange things } " said Percy. "Yes, like the parrots of the old sailors from the Spanish main." " Did you have your parrot story when you were a consul .•* " " Yes, although it was not about one of my own parrots, but one that lived in an old New-England town in the days of the whalers. I once related it to a story-writer, and he published it in verse, with some good pictures. You shall see it." THE PARROT FROM THE SPANISH MAIN; OR. THE OLD RED SETTLE BY THE FIRE. Ox Dorchester Bay the hills were blue. And the Milton meadows were green and red ; There the bobolinks toppled at morn in the dew, And high in the air the ospreys flew. And the killdees screamed, and the lone sea-mew, In the dusky eves o'er-head. There were violets blue in the frosts of spring. And gentians blue in the frosts of fall. There the church bells rung with a mellow tone ; And the Quaker meeting-house, shy and lone, Hid in the by-ways walled with stone, Where rang no bell at all. There the farmers corn fields turned to "old. 158 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. 'A'\mi And the blue-jays laughed his cribs to see; And his heart and hearth were never cold, When the north winds came, and they stories told On the old red settle by the fire. In the old Thanksgiving Days. Tliat old red settle each night was brought Before the winter hearth. Ah me ! 'T was there my youthful mind was taught My A B ABS and the Rule of Three. What wondrous things that settle knew! Were ever elsewhere such stories told Since the caliphs' halls of airy gold ? Of the Northmen's bark of the silver wing That, dragon-headed, came into the bay A thousand years ago, one day. From the moonless fiords of Norroway, And brought the bride of a king; Of Francis Drake and his golden ship, Of Captain Kidd and his bloody whip. And Mrs. Dunstan's awful fate, And Peter Rugg, and Nix's mate ; Of the Judge's Cave ; of the witches that flew Through the hole in the sky where the rain came through. CONSULAR PETS AND PARROTS. 159 I would not be so scared again For all the apples they roasted there, Or all the logs that used to flare On the drying pumpkins and peppers red, And the Almanac of Fate that said "T would surely snow in March and blow. How could " Poor Richard " such wise things know ! The waves were blue on Dorchester Bay : The birds, the flowers, the shells, were blue ; Blue lay the grapes upon the walls : Blue smoked the chimneys on the Charles; And when the still nights longer grew, The fire upon the hearth burned blue. Then on the settle we all would sit, With Grandma in her gown of gray. And gaze on Grandpa's silhouette, The mourning piece, and sampler gay, — Rare works of art, they said, were they. And there, while Grandma's eyes grew wet, We 'd plan for the great Thanksgiving Day. " I wish they 'd all come back," said she, " And pass one hour again with me. And be just as they used to be. Ruth sleeps beneath the sod ; and Ben — " We never spoke of Ben, for he Was the one black sheep of the family. He owed a note that he could not pay. And they sued him, and he ran away And went to sea ; and wicked arts He learned, no doubt, in foreign parts. So Grandpa willed his lands to the others ; And they met each year, — four prosperous brothers, — And the family legends proudly told On the old red settle by the fire In the old Thankss:ivin£C Davs. Ben's parrot was there, — an awful bird ! " Hey, Betty Martin ! " in meeting he sung, To the shame and scandal of all who heard ; And the children laughed, because they were young; And Grandma, speaking not a word, Poor Polly hid in the gay valance That Ben had brought from the port of Nantes. She knew that the bird was true to Ben, And that only one other heart was true ; l6o ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. And her love for the bird with her sad years grew. And they both wished the boy would come home again. A wonder came, — town-meeting day, In the great March storm, and the Federals won ! Men went to the folkmote in the sleigh, And Grandpa went in his dashaway : And lieutenant-governor they made of John. (He was Grandpa Jarvis"s likeliest son.) Oh. then the old man powdered his wig And shod his cane, — there were grand times then, — And he rode to town in his Sunday gig On a Monday morning, and said with delight, To all that he met, to the left and right, That John had atoned for the shame of Ben. A grand Thanksgiving they planned that year, And John, in the turnpike coach, came down From the General Court in Boston town. What times were those ! You should have seen The roasted pig and the basted geese, The succotash and pumpkin bread, The great clam chowder with pepper red. COXSL'LAR PETS AM) PARROTS. i6l Tile apple-dumplings, bcninteous ones, With potato crusts I the pies, the buns. The cranberry-tarts and gingerbread, The quartered quince, the pickles green ! They herring-boned the chamber floors, And open set the parlor doors. r never knew a year like that I The harvest air was full of jays. The red woodpecker went rat-a-tat, And the Quaker smiled 'neath his Sunday hat. And they set the settle by the fire. Oh, those good Thanksgiving Days ! What know the birds ? 1 cannot tell. They once were augurs thought to be, — The prophets of the air and sea. Now, when that fall the neep-tides fell. And scallops came, and airs were mild, Poll}- would scream the name of Ben, Then listen strangely like a child. Was Ben's ship coming home again ? Thanksgiving came, — a perfect day On Milton Hilis and Dorchester Bav. The chimneys smoked that morning brown, The tables smoked that afternoon. And after church the sun went down. And rose above the sea the moon. The mighty meal was brought, and there Grandpa arose with silver hair. And spread his hands to offer prayer. Four brothers knelt there in a row. Grandchildren eight, and uncles three. The back-log set the room aglow. And all was still : the clock ticked slow. '' God of all mercies, thee we praise I " So, in a deep voice, Grandpa spoke. The sea upon the shingle broke. And made us think of other davs. " Thou makest thy sun to rise on all ; On all thou makest the rain to fall. Our mercies fail ; thine faileth not ; None of thy children are forgot." I heard a step : the gate latch fell. The bucket rattled at the well : Then some one passed the latticed pane, Then to the lattice came again. 1 1 1 62 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. And listened to the rolling prayer. 1 saw the parrot shake and stare. It seemed a spirit-haunted place. The face close to the window drew. The bird's neck long and longer grew, And burned her eyes; and then — oh, then — Who could of such a wonder dreamed ? She three times flapped her wings, and screamed, " Hey, Betty Martin, tiptoe fine ! Ho, Dandy Jim, o' Caroline ! Ho ! ho ! high-oh ! 'T is Ben ! "t is Ben ! Grandma, Grandma, 'tis Ben ! *t is Ben ! " Who ever saw a scene like that ? Right in the prayer a scene like that .? Grandpa forgot, and shouted, " Scat ! " And Deacon Brown, who 'd come from town. Rolled up his eyes in pious wonder ; And John said, " Hippographs and thunder ! " And the children hid the table under. But Grandma softly rose, and took The cage into the porch. And there — There came another mystery. A dark man met her from the sea. " Do you know Ben? " he whispered low. " He was my boy ; and who are you .'"' " Where'er the winds for me may blow, My heart is to my mother true, And I will always pray for you. Take that, and pay Ben's debts," said he. " My boat is waiting on the shore. God bless you all for evermore ! I 've longed that sight once more to see. I '11 go away, and thankful be You 've such a happy family. Ask father to give thanks for me."' Then he was gone, and Grandma old Came in, and brought a purse of gold. Lord ! how we stared ! The cat was scared. And ran and hid. And Grandpa said, " Where is that bird ? " They searched the shed, They searched the wood-house, searched the green, The well, the barn, the orchard ways, But Polly nevermore was seen. Then Grandma rose —her face was calm ; Her look uplifted was a psalm — CONSULAR PETS A AD PARROTS. And said, witli quivering' lip and chin, And one hand hfted, white and thin; " So near the grave we all are living, So near God"s doors, let 's be forgiving. The best of all our days of praise, God knows, are our forgiving days." 163 'T was strange, but Grandpa said, " Amen ! " And Silas the bass-viol strung, And gave a twang, and then we sung As if the gabled roof to raise : " Sweet is the work, my God. mv King, To praise thy name, give thanks, and sing. Oh, may my heart in tune be found, Like David's harp of solemn sound! " And these last lines a dozen times We turned around and turned around. Sweet are all homes where love has been, And only good lips utter praise : But such a psalm I never knew 164 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. In all the homes of Milton blue, AVhen 'mid the frosts the gentians grew, And set the settle by the fire, In the old Thanksgiving Days. On Dorchester Bay the hills are blue, But the purple swallows come no more To haunt the house that once I knew ; The mossy grave-stones on the shore. That sink into the violets' floor, Are all that 's left of that old home Whose virtues found so much to praise. There Grandma sleeps beneath the yews; Ben sleeps afar in Barbadoes. Yet Milton's hills are fair to see ; And Grandma's plea for charity Brings back life's sweetest thoughts to me, That come as came the gentians blue To frosty meadows by the bays When stood the settle by the fire. So near God's open doors we 're living, So near the heartache for forgiving, We offer up our best thanksgiving, And gain from Heaven our best desire, On our Forgiving Days. CHAPTER IX. VENICE. the sea : — ENICE, the Bride of the Sea! The traveller may hardly know when he arrives at Venice from the Adriatic. The city seems to float upon the sea. In the old days of the doges, she used to be wedded to it by yearly ceremonies. The city of the la- goons seems at a little distance to be rising from •• From out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanted wand." The Grand Canal is her principal water-street, over which hangs the great bridge of the Rialto. On a " hundred isles," if poetry were history, stands 'Venice, or rather, "sits in state." The streets are narrow alleys, paved with flag-stones and overhung with glowing balconies. Her bridges are airy structures of life and light. Her carriages are " water ponies," or gondolas ; and in other days these were painted black by law, and many of them to-day still follow the color of the days of romance and story. They are usually pro- pelled by a single gondolier. Four jDcrsons, as a rule, may ride in each. These sit in a little apartment of windows, blinds, and di\ans. The fare is about a shilling an hour for a passenger. The state entrance to Venice from the sea is the piazza of the church of St. Mark, with its piazette. Here rise the granite columns, each of a single block, one of which is crowned with the 1 66 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. winged lion of Saint Mark in bronze. Between these two columns criminals were executed in the dark days of the doges. The square of St. Mark is almost the only open ground in Venice. It is usually thronged with people. Napoleon is said to ha\e called it the most beautiful spot on earth. THE GREAT r.RIDGR OF RJAI.K). The famous church of St. Mark, which is the reputed tomb of the bones of Saint Mark, the writer of the second Gospel, gathered to itself every known form of beauty in the architecture of all lands. It is Byzantine, Roman, Greek, and Gothic, — a pantheon of art. It rose more than a thousand years ago, under the architects of Constantine. Over its doors stand the famous bronze horses of St. VENICE. 167 Mark, once carried to Constantinople by Theodosius, once the spoil of France, but always a marvel of human art. The church is a forest of pillars, and marbles of all the East, of jasper, agate, and gems. Over all rises the campanile, a square tower three hundred feet high. Here Galileo made sure of his wonderful discoveries. The old ducal palace is the wonder tale of the East. Here was the Hall of the Council of Ten. Here are the portraits of the doges of forgotten glory. The palaces of Venice are built on piles. They are usually constructed of marble, and are four stories high. Venice has been called the paradise of the sea. It has for centuries been regarded as a most delightful place of resi- dence. The salt water and the movement of the tides keep it healthy. The port, or consular part of Venice, consists of islands of the shallows Merchant vessels move in sight of the old palace, and sometimes come into the Grand Canal. The harbor is protected by a mole, constructed of a peculiar stone resembling marble. The harbor of Venice is one of the most picturesque in the world. St. Mark's Place, Venice, has been a story-telling pleasure ground for a thousand years. Here people of all eastern nations PIGEONS OF ST. MARK'S. 1 68 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS OX THE M EDITERRAAEAN. congregate, and relate the marvels of their own lands, in the cool breezes of the sea. English and French people love to loiter here, and the Turk and Mahometan as well. It is a park common to all the ports of the Adriatic, VENETIAN GLASS. In Venice, Percy, for the first time, saw money paid for the relief of some American seamen who had been brought to the port on an Italian vessel. " How^ are consuls provided with money to meet such wants .-* " he asked his father one evening on St. Mark's Place. " By special appropriations by Congress. For example, among the latest provisions to meet the expenses of consulates, I may quote : — FOOT OK FLAGSTAFF IN FRONT -OF SAINT .MARKS, VFNU K. VENICE. 171 Relief and Protcctio7i of American Seamen. Relief and protection of American seamen in foreign countries, or so much thereof as may be necessary, fift}' thousand doUars. Foreign Hospitals at Panama. Annual contributions toward the support of foreign hospitals at Panama, to be paid by the Secretary of State upon the assurance that suffering sea- men and citizens of the United States will be admitted to the privileges of said hospitals, five hundred dollars. Publication of Consular ajtd Commercial Reports. Preparation, printing, publication, and distribution, by the Department of State, of the consular and other commercial reports, including circular letters to chambers of commerce, twenty thousand dollars. Contingent Expenses of United States Consulates. Expenses of providing all such stationery, blanks, record and other books, seals, presses, flags, signs, rent, postage, furniture, statistics, newspapers, freight (foreign and domestic), telegrams, advertising, messenger service, travelling expenses of consular clerks, Chinese writers, and such other miscellaneous expenses as the President may think necessary for the several consulates and commercial agencies in the transaction of their business, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Percy saw the manner of providing funds, which he might have learned from the consular book. He now, as a consular pupil, began to study the forms of consular book-keeping. TALES OF ORIENTALS AT VENICE. THE MAN WHO NEVER LAUGHED. There was a man, of those possessed of houses and riches, who had wealth and servants and slaves and other possessions ; and he departed from the world to receive the mercy of God (whose name be exalted!), lea\-ing a )-oung son. And when the son grew up, he took to eating and drinking, and the hearing of instruments of music and songs, and was liberal and gave gifts, and expended 172 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. the riches that his father had left to him until all the wealth had gone. He then took himself to the sale of the male black slaves, and the female slaves, and other possessions, and expended all that he had of his father's wealth and other things, and became so poor that he worked with the laborers. In this state he remained for a period of years. While he was sitting one da\' beneath a wall, waiting to see who would hire him, lo ! a man of comely countenance and apparel drew near to him and saluted him. So the youth said to him, " O uncle, hast thou known me before now? " The man answered him, " I have not known thee, O my son, at all ; but I see the traces of affluence upon thee, though thou art in this condition." The young man replied, " O uncle, what fate and destiny have ordained have come to pass. But hast thou, O uncle, O comely-faced, any business in which to employ me? " The man said to him, " O my son, I desire to employ thee in an easy business." The youth asked, "And what is it, O uncle?" And the man answered him, " I have with me ten sheykhs in one abode, and we have no one to perform our wants. Thou shalt receive from us, of food and clothing, what will suffice thee, and shalt serve us, and thou shalt receive of us thy portion of benefits and money. Perhaps, also, God will restore to thee thine affluence by our means." The youth therefore replied, " I hear and obey." The sheykh then said to him, " I have a condition to impose upon thee." " And what is thy condition, O uncle? " asked the youth. He answered him, " O my son, it is that thou keep our secret with respect to the things that thou shalt see us do ; and when thou seest us weep, that thou ask us not respecting the cause of our weeping." And the young man replied, " Well, O uncle." So the sheykh said to him, " O my son, come with us, relying on the bless- ing of God (whose name be exalted !)." And the young man followed the sheykh until the latter conducted him ta the bath ; after which he sent a man, who brought him a comely garment of linen, and he clad him with it, and went with him to his abode and his associ- ates. And when the young man entered, he found it to be a high mansion, with lofty angles, ample, with chambers facing one another, and saloons ; and in each saloon was a fountain of water, and birds were warbling over it, and there were windows overlooking, on every side, a beautiful garden within the mansion. The sheykh conducted him into one of the chambers, and he found it decorated with colored marbles, and its ceiling ornamented with blue and VEXICE. brilliant gold, and it was spread with carpets of silk ; and he found in it ten sheykhs sitting facing one another, wearing the garments of mourning, weeping and wailing. So the young man wondered at their case, and was about to ques- MASQUERAniNO IX VENICK. tion the sheykh who had brought him, but he remembered the condition, and therefore withheld his tongue. Then the shej'kh committed to the young man a chest containing thirty thousand pieces of gold, saying to him. " O my son. 174 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. expend upon us out of this chest, and upon thyseh", according to what is just, and be thou faithful, and take care of that wherewith I have intrusted thee." And the young man repHed, " I hear and obey." He continued to expend upon them for a period of days and nights, after which one of them died ; whereupon his companions took him, and washed him and shrouded him, and buried him in a garden behind the mansion. And death ceased not to take them one after another, until there remained only the sheykh who had hired the young man. So he remained with the young man in that mansion, and there was not with them a third, and they remained thus for a period of years. Then the sheykh fell sick; and when the young man despaired of his life, he addressed him with courtesy, and was grieved for him, and said to him, " O uncle, I have served you, and not failed in your service one hour for a period of twelve years, but have acted faithfully to you, and served you according to my power and ability." The sheykh replied, " Yes, O my son, thou hast served us until these sheykhs have been taken unto God, (to whom be ascribed might and glory!) and we must inevitably die." And the young man said, " O my master, thou art in a state of peril, and I desire of thee that thou inform me what hath been the cause of your weeping and the continuance of your wailing and your mourning and your sorrow." He replied, " O my son, thou hast no concern with that, and require me not to do what I am unable ; for I have begged God (whose name be exalted ! ) not to afflict any one with my affliction. Now, if thou desire to be safe from that into which we have fallen, open not that door," and he pointed to it with his hand, and cautioned him against it; " and if thou desire that what hath befallen us should befall thee, open it, and thou wilt know the cause of that which thou hast beheld in our conduct; but thou wilt repent, when repentance will not avail thee." Then the illness increased upon the sheykh, and he died ; and the young man washed him with his own hands, and shrouded him, and buried him by his companions. He remained in that place, possessing it and all the treasure; but notwith- standing this, he was uneasy, reflecting upon the conduct of the sheykhs. And while he was meditating one day upon the words of the sheykh and his charge to him not to open the door, it occurred to his mind that he might look at it. So he went in that direction, and searched until he saw an elegant door, over which the spider had woven its web, and upon it were four locks of steel. When he beheld it, he remembered how the sheykh had cautioned him, and t 5■^'^^5^^^^^^^?v, VENICE. l-J-J he departed from it. His soul desired him to open the door, and he restrained it during a period of seven days ; but on the eighth day his soul overcame him, and he said, " I must open that door, and see what will happen to me in conse- quence ; for nothing will repel what God (whose name be exalted \) decreeth and predestineth, and no event will happen but by His will." Accordingly he arose and opened the door, after he had broken the locks. And when he had opened the door he saw a narrow passage, along which he walked for the space of three hours ; and lo ! he came forth upon the bank of a great river. At this the young man wondered. And he walked along the bank, looking to the right and left ; and behold ! a great eagle descended from the sky, and taking up the young man with its talons, it flew with him, between heaven and earth, until it conveyed him to an island in the midst of the sea. There it threw him down, and departed from him. So the young man was perplexed at his case, not knowing whither to go ; but while he was sitting one day, lo ! the sail of a vessel appeared to him upon the sea, like the star in the sky ; wherefore the heart of the young man became intent upon the vessel, in the hope that his escape might be effected in it. He continued looking at it until it came near unto him; and when it arrived, he beheld a bark of ivory and ebony, the oars of which were of sandal-wood and aloes-wood, and the whole of it was encased with plates of brilliant gold. There were also in it ten damsels, virgins, like moons. When the damsels saw him, they landed to him from the bark, and kissed his hands, saying to him, "Thou art the king, the bridegroom." Then there advanced to him a damsel who was like the shining sun in the clear sky, having in her hand a kerchief of silk, in which were a royal robe, and a crown of gold set with varieties of jacinths. Having advanced to him, she clad him and crowned him ; after which the damsels carried him in their arms to the bark, and he found in it varieties of carpets of silk of divers colors. They then spread the sails, and proceeded over the depths of the sea. " Now when I proceeded with them," says the young man, " I felt sure that this was a dream, and knew not whither they were going with me. And when they came in sight of land, I beheld it filled with troops, the number of which none knew but God, (whose perfection be extolled, and whose name be exalted !) clad in coats of mail. They brought forward to me five marked horses, with saddles of gold, set with varieties of pearls and precious stones ; and I took a horse from among these and mounted it. The four others proceeded with me ; and when I mounted, the ensigns and banners were set up over my head, the drums and the cymbals were beaten, and the troops disposed themselves in two divisions, right and left. 12 178 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDIl ERRANEAN. " I wavered in opinion as to whether I were asleep or awake, and ceased not to advance, not beHeving in the reahty of my stately procession, but imaginincr that it was the result of confused dreams, until we came in sight of a verdant meadow, in which were palaces and gardens and trees and rivers and flowers, and birds proclaiming the perfection of God, the One, the Omnipotent. " And now there came forth an army from among those palaces and gardens, like the torrent when it poureth down, until it filled the meadow. When the troops drew near to me, they hailed, and lo ! a king advanced from among them, riding alone, preceded by some of his chief officers walking." The king, on approaching the young man, alighted from his courser ; and the young man, seeing him do so, alighted also ; and they saluted each other with the most courteous salutation. Then they mounted their horses again, and the king said to the young man, " Accompany us ; for thou art my guest." So the young man proceeded with him, and they conversed together, while the stately trains in orderly disposition went on before them to the palace of the king, when they alighted, and all of them entered, together with the king and the young man, the young man's hand being in the hand of the king, who thereupon seated him on the throne of gold, and seated himself beside him. When the king removed the litham from his face, lo ! this supposed king was a damsel, like the shining sun in the clear sky, a lady of beauty and loveliness, and elegance and perfection, and conceit, and amorous dissimulation. The young man beheld vast affluence and great prosperity, and wondered at the beauty and loveliness of the damsel. Then the damsel said to him, " Know, O king, that I am the queen of this land, and all these troops that thou hast seen, including every one, whether of cavalry or infantry, are women. There are not among them any men. The men among us, in this land, till and sow and reap, employing themselves in the cultivation of the land, and the building and the repairing of the towns, and in attending to the affairs of the people, by the pursuit of every kind of art and trade ; but as to the women, they are the governors and magistrates and soldiers." And the young man wondered at this extremely. And while they were thus conversing, the vizier entered ; and lo ! she was a gray-haired old woman, having a numerous retinue, of venerable and dignified appearance ; and the queen said to her, " Bring to us the kadee and the witnesses." So the old woman went for that purpose. And the queen turned towards the young man, conversing with him and cheering him, and dispelling his fear by kind words; and, addressing him cour- teously, she said to him, *' Art thou content for me to be thy wife? " LIBRARY OF ST. MARK'S, VENICE. VENICE. I 8 1 And thereupon he arose and kissed the ground before her ; but she forbade him, and he rephed, " O my mistress, I am less than the servants who serve thee." She then said to him, " Seest thou not these servants and soldiers, and wealth and treasures and hoards?" He answered her, " Yes." And she said to him, " All these are at thy disposal ; thou shalt make use of them, and give and bestow as seemeth fit to thee." Then she pointed to a closed door, and said to him, "All these things thou shalt dispose of: but this door thou shalt not open ; for if thou open it, thou wilt repent, when repentance will not avail thee." Her words were not ended when the vizier, with the kadee and the wit- nesses, entered ; and all of them were old women, with their hair spreading over their shoulders, and of venerable and dignified appearance. When they came before the queen, she ordered them to perform the ceremony of the marriage- contract. So they married her to the young man. And she prepared the banquets and collected the troops; and when they had eaten and drunk, the young man took her as his wife. And he resided with her seven years, passing the most delightful, comfortable, and agreeable life. But he meditated one day upon opening the door, and said, " Were it not that there are within it great treasures, better than what I have seen, she had not prohibited me from opening it." He then arose and opened the door, and lo ! within it was the bird that had carried him from the shore of the great river, and deposited him upon the island. When the bird beheld him, it said to him, " No welcome to a face that will never be happy ! " So when he saw^ it and heard its w-ords, he fled from it ; but it followed him and carried him off, and flew with him between heaven and earth for the space of an hour, and at length deposited him in the place from which it had carried him awa}-, after which it disappeared. He thereupon sat in the place, and, returning to his reason, he reflected upon what he had seen of affluence and glory and honor, and the riding of the troops before him, and commanding and forbidding; and he wept and wailed. He remained upon the shore of the great river, where that bird had put him, for the space of two months, wishing that he might return to his wife ; but while he was one night awake, mourning and meditating, some one spoke (and he heard his voice, but saw not his person), calling out, " How great were the l82 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. dclicrhts ! Far, far from thco is the return of what is passed ! And how many therefore will be the sighs ! " So when the young man heard it, he despaired of meeting again that queen, and of the return to him of the aliiuence in which he had been living. He then entered the mansions where the sheykhs resided, and knew that the)' had experienced the like of that which had hapijened unto him, and that this was the cause of their weeping and mourning; wherefore he excused them. Grief and anxiety came upon the young man, and he entered his chamber, and ceased not to weep and moan, relinquishing food and drink and pleasant scents and laughter, until he died ; and he was buried by the side of the sheykhs. THE DUCK THAT LAID GOLDEN EGGS, There lived once an old man and his wife. The man was called Abrosim, and his wife Fetinia. They were very poor and miserable, and had a son named Little Ivan, who was fifteen years old. One day old Abrosim brought a crust of bread home for his wife and son. He had scarcely begun to eat, however, when Krutschina (Sorrow) sprang up from behind the stove, seized the crust out of his hand, and ran away behind the stove again. The old man made a bow to Krutschina, and begged her to give him the crust back again, as he and his v.-i^'" had 'lodi;-;-; else to eat. " I will not give you th'. c/ust again," said Krutschina, " but instead of it I will give you a duck whv, • ia/s a gold egg every day." " Very well," said Abrosim, " I shall be supperless to-night. Do not deceive me, but tell me where I shall find the duck." " Early to-morrow morning," said Krutschina, " when you are up, go into town ; there you will see a duck in a pond, catch it, and carry it home." When Abrosim heard this, he lay down and went to sleep. The next morning he rose early, and went to the town, and was very much pleased to see the duck swimming about on a pond. He called it to him, carried it to his home, and gave it to his wife Fetinia. They were both delighted, and put the duck in a big basin, placing a sieve over it. In an 'hour's time they went to look at it, and discovered that the duck had laid a golden egg. Then they took the duck out, and let it walk a little on the floor, and the old man, taking the egg, set off to tow^i. There he sold the egg for a hundred roubles, took the money, and, going to the market, bought different kinds of vegetables and set off home. The next day the duck laid another egg like the first, which Abrosim sold A VENETIAN GARDEN. VEAICE. 185 in the same manner. So the duck went on hiying a golden egg every day, and the old man became in a short time very rich. He bought a large house, a great many shops, all kinds of wares, and set up in business. His wife Fetinia made a favorite of a young clerk in her husband's employ, and used to supply him with mone\'. One day wiien Abrosim was a\va\' fr