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diff --git a/old/resof10.txt b/old/resof10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9406bd5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/resof10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5197 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Real Soldiers of Fortune +by Richard Harding Davis + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + +Prepared by David Reed haradda@aol.com or davidr@inconnect.com + + +Real Soldiers of Fortune +by Richard Harding Davis + +MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY RONALD +DOUGLAS MACIVER + +ANY sunny afternoon, on Fifth Avenue, or at night in the _table +d'hote_ restaurants of University Place, you may meet the soldier +of fortune who of all his brothers in arms now living is the most +remarkable. You may have noticed him; a stiffly erect, +distinguished-looking man, with gray hair, an imperial of the +fashion of Louis Napoleon, fierce blue eyes, and across his +forehead a sabre cut. + +This is Henry Ronald Douglas MacIver, for some time in India an +ensign in the Sepoy mutiny; in Italy, lieutenant under Garibaldi; in +Spain, captain under Don Carlos; in our Civil War, major in the +Confederate army; in Mexico, lieutenant-colonel under the +Emperor Maximilian; colonel under Napoleon III, inspector of +cavalry for the Khedive of Egypt, and chief of cavalry and general +of brigade of the army of King Milan of Servia. These are only a +few of his military titles. In 1884 was published a book giving the +story of his life up to that year. It was called "Under Fourteen +Flags." If to-day General MacIver were to reprint the book, it +would be called "Under Eighteen Flags." + +MacIver was born on Christmas Day, 1841, at sea, a league off the +shore of Virginia. His mother was Miss Anna Douglas of that +State; Ronald MacIver, his father, was a Scot, a Rossshire +gentleman, a younger son of the chief of the Clan MacIver. Until +he was ten years old young MacIver played in Virginia at the home +of his father. Then, in order that he might be educated, he was +shipped to Edinburgh to an uncle, General Donald Graham. After +five years his uncle obtained for him a commission as ensign in the +Honorable East India Company, and at sixteen, when other boys +are preparing for college, MacIver was in the Indian Mutiny, +fighting, not for a flag, nor a country, but as one fights a wild +animal, for his life. He was wounded in the arm, and, with a +sword, cut over the head. As a safeguard against the sun the boy +had placed inside his helmet a wet towel. This saved him to fight +another day, but even with that protection the sword sank through +the helmet, the towel, and into the skull. To-day you can see the +scar. He was left in the road for dead, and even after his wounds +had healed, was six weeks in the hospital. + +This tough handling at the very start might have satisfied some +men, but in the very next war MacIver was a volunteer and wore +the red shirt of Garibaldi. He remained at the front throughout that +campaign, and until within a few years there has been no campaign +of consequence in which he has not taken part. He served in the +Ten Years' War in Cuba, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Crete, in +Greece, twice in Spain in Carlist revolutions, in Bosnia, and for +four years in our Civil War under Generals Jackson and Stuart +around Richmond. In this great war he was four times wounded. + +It was after the surrender of the Confederate army, that, with other +Southern officers, he served under Maximilian in Mexico; in +Egypt, and in France. Whenever in any part of the world there was +fighting, or the rumor of fighting, the procedure of the general +invariably was the same. He would order himself to instantly +depart for the front, and on arriving there would offer to organize a +foreign legion. The command of this organization always was +given to him. But the foreign legion was merely the entering +wedge. He would soon show that he was fitted for a better +command than a band of undisciplined volunteers, and would +receive a commission in the regular army. In almost every +command in which he served that is the manner in which +promotion came. Sometimes he saw but little fighting, sometimes +he should have died several deaths, each of a nature more +unpleasant than the others. For in war the obvious danger of a +bullet is but a three hundred to one shot, while in the pack against +the combatant the jokers are innumerable. And in the career of the +general the unforeseen adventures are the most interesting. A man +who in eighteen campaigns has played his part would seem to have +earned exemption from any other risks, but often it was outside the +battle-field that MacIver encountered the greatest danger. He +fought several duels, in two of which he killed his adversary; +several attempts were made to assassinate him, and while on his +way to Mexico he was captured by hostile Indians. On returning +from an expedition in Cuba he was cast adrift in an open boat and +for days was without food. + +Long before I met General MacIver I had read his book and had +heard of him from many men who had met him in many different +lands while engaged in as many different undertakings. Several of +the older war correspondents knew him intimately; Bennett +Burleigh of the _Telegraph_ was his friend, and E. F. Knight of the +_Times_ was one of those who volunteered for a filibustering +expedition which MacIver organized against New Guinea. The +late Colonel Ochiltree of Texas told me tales of MacIver's bravery, +when as young men they were fellow officers in the Southern +army, and Stephen Bonsal had met him when MacIver was United +States Consul at Denia in Spain. When MacIver arrived at this +post, the ex-consul refused to vacate the Consulate, and MacIver +wished to settle the difficulty with duelling pistols. As Denia is a +small place, the inhabitants feared for their safety, and Bonsal, +who was our _charge d'affaires_ then, was sent from Madrid to +adjust matters. Without bloodshed he got rid of the ex-consul, and +later MacIver so endeared himself to the Denians that they begged +the State Department to retain him in that place for the remainder +of his life. + +Before General MacIver was appointed to a high position at the St. +Louis Fair, I saw much of him in New York. His room was in a +side street in an old-fashioned boarding-house, and overlooked his +neighbor's back yard and a typical New York City sumac tree; but +when the general talked one forgot he was within a block of the +Elevated, and roamed over all the world. On his bed he would +spread out wonderful parchments, with strange, heathenish +inscriptions, with great seals, with faded ribbons. These were +signed by Sultans, Secretaries of War, Emperors, filibusters. They +were military commissions, titles of nobility, brevets for +decorations, instructions and commands from superior officers. +Translated the phrases ran: "Imposing special confidence in," "we +appoint," or "create," or "declare," or "In recognition of services +rendered to our person," or "country," or "cause," or "For bravery +on the field of battle we bestow the Cross----" + +As must a soldier, the general travels "light," and all his worldly +possessions were crowded ready for mobilization into a small +compass. He had his sword, his field blanket, his trunk, and the tin +despatch boxes that held his papers. From these, like a conjurer, he +would draw souvenirs of all the world. From the embrace of faded +letters, he would unfold old photographs, daguerrotypes, and +miniatures of fair women and adventurous men: women who now +are queens in exile, men who, lifted on waves of absinthe, still, +across a _cafe_ table, tell how they will win back a crown. + +Once in a written document the general did me the honor to +appoint me his literary executor, but as he is young, and as healthy +as myself, it never may be my lot to perform such an unwelcome +duty. And to-day all one can write of him is what the world can +read in "Under Fourteen Flags," and some of the "foot-notes to +history" which I have copied from his scrap-book. This scrap-book +is a wonderful volume, but owing to "political" and other reasons, +for the present, of the many clippings from newspapers it contains +there are only a few I am at liberty to print. And from them it is +difficult to make a choice. To sketch in a few thousand words a +career that had developed under Eighteen Flags is in its very +wealth embarrassing. + +Here is one story, as told by the scrap-book, of an expedition that +failed. That it failed was due to a British Cabinet Minister; for had +Lord Derby possessed the imagination of the Soldier of Fortune, +his Majesty's dominions might now be the richer by many +thousands of square miles and many thousands of black subjects. + +On October 29, 1883, the following appeared in the London +_Standard_: "The New Guinea Exploration and Colonization +Company is already chartered, and the first expedition expects to +leave before Christmas." "The prospectus states settlers intending +to join the first party must contribute one hundred pounds toward +the company. This subscription will include all expenses for +passage money. Six months' provisions will be provided, together +with tents and arms for protection. Each subscriber of one hundred +pounds is to obtain a certificate entitling him to one thousand +acres." + +The view of the colonization scheme taken by the _Times_ of +London, of the same date, is less complaisant. "The latest +commercial sensation is a proposed company for the seizure of +New Guinea. Certain adventurous gentlemen are looking out for +one hundred others who have money and a taste for buccaneering. +When the company has been completed, its share-holders are to +place themselves under military regulations, sail in a body for New +Guinea, and without asking anybody's leave, seize upon the island +and at once, in some unspecified way, proceed to realize large +profits. If the idea does not suggest comparisons with the large +designs of Sir Francis Drake, it is at least not unworthy of Captain +Kidd." + +When we remember the manner in which some of the colonies of +Great Britain were acquired, the _Times_ seems almost +squeamish. + +In a Melbourne paper, June, 1884, is the following paragraph: + +"Toward the latter part of 1883 the Government of Queensland +planted the flag of Great Britain on the shores of New Guinea. +When the news reached England it created a sensation. The Earl of +Derby, Secretary for the Colonies, refused, however, to sanction +the annexation of New Guinea, and in so doing acted contrary to +the sincere wish of every right-thinking Anglo-Saxon under the +Southern Cross. + +"While the subsequent correspondence between the Home and +Queensland governments was going on, Brigadier-General H. R. +MacIver originated and organized the New Guinea Exploration +and Colonization Company in London, with a view to establishing +settlements on the island. The company, presided over by General +Beresford of the British Army, and having an eminently +representative and influential board of directors, had a capital of +two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and placed the supreme +command of the expedition in the hands of General MacIver. +Notwithstanding the character of the gentlemen composing the +board of directors, and the truly peaceful nature of the expedition, +his Lordship informed General MacIver that in the event of the +latter's attempting to land on New Guinea, instructions would be +sent to the officer in command of her Majesty's fleet in the +Western Pacific to fire upon the company's vessel. This meant that +the expedition would be dealt with as a filibustering one. + +In _Judy_, September 21, 1887, appears: + +"We all recollect the treatment received by Brigadier-General +MacI. in the action he took with respect to the annexation of New +Guinea. The General, who is a sort of Pizarro, with a dash of +D'Artagnan, was treated in a most scurvy manner by Lord Derby. +Had MacIver not been thwarted in his enterprise, the whole of +New Guinea would now have been under the British flag, and we +should not be cheek-by-jowl with the Germans, as we are in too +many places." + +_Society_, September 3, 1887, says: + +"The New Guinea expedition proved abortive, owing to the +blundering shortsightedness of the then Government, for which +Lord Derby was chiefly responsible, but what little foothold we +possess in New Guinea, is certainly due to General MacIver's +gallant effort." + +Copy of statement made by J. Rintoul Mitchell, June 2, 1887: + +"About the latter end of the year 1883, when I was editor-in-chief +of the _Englishman_ in Calcutta, I was told by Captain de Deaux, +assistant secretary in the Foreign Office of the Indian Government, +that he had received a telegram from Lord Derby to the effect that +if General MacIver ventured to land upon the coast of New Guinea +it would become the duty of Lord Ripon, Viceroy, to use the naval +forces at his command for the purpose of deporting General MacI. +Sir Aucland Calvin can certify to this, as it was discussed in the +Viceregal Council." + +Just after our Civil War MacIver was interested in another +expedition which also failed. Its members called themselves the +Knights of Arabia, and their object was to colonize an island much +nearer to our shores than New Guinea. MacIver, saying that his +oath prevented, would never tell me which island this was, but the +reader can choose from among Cuba, Haiti, and the Hawaiian +group. To have taken Cuba, the "colonizers" would have had to +fight not only Spain, but the Cubans themselves, on whose side +they were soon fighting in the Ten Years' War; so Cuba may be +eliminated. And as the expedition was to sail from the Atlantic +side, and not from San Francisco, the island would appear to be the +Black Republic. From the records of the times it would seem that +the greater number of the Knights of Arabia were veterans of the +Confederate army, and there is no question but that they intended +to subjugate the blacks of Haiti and form a republic for white men +in which slavery would be recognized. As one of the leaders of this +filibustering expedition, MacIver was arrested by General Phil +Sheridan and for a short time cast into jail. + +This chafed the general's spirit, but he argued philosophically that +imprisonment for filibustering, while irksome, brought with it no +reproach. And, indeed, sometimes the only difference between a +filibuster and a government lies in the fact that the government +fights the gun-boats of only the enemy while a filibuster must +dodge the boats of the enemy and those of his own countrymen. +When the United States went to war with Spain there were many +men in jail as filibusters, for doing that which at the time the +country secretly approved, and later imitated. And because they +attempted exactly the same thing for which Dr. Jameson was +imprisoned in Holloway Jail, two hundred thousand of his +countrymen are now wearing medals. + +The by-laws of the Knights of Arabia leave but little doubt as to its +object. + +By-law No. II reads: + +"We, as Knights of Arabia, pledge ourselves to aid, comfort, and +protect all Knights of Arabia, especially those who are wounded in +obtaining our grand object. + +"III--Great care must be taken that no unbeliever or outsider shall +gain any insight into the mysteries or secrets of the Order. + +"IV--The candidate will have to pay one hundred dollars cash to +the Captain of the Company, and the candidate will receive from +the Secretary a Knight of Arabia bond for one hundred dollars in +gold, with ten per cent interest, payable ninety days after the +recognition of (The Republic of----) by the United States, or any +government. + +"V--All Knights of Arabia will be entitled to one hundred acres of +land, location of said land to be drawn for by lottery. The products +are coffee, sugar, tobacco, and cotton." + +A local correspondent of the New York _Herald_ writes of the +arrest of MacIver as follows: + +"When MacIver will be tried is at present unknown, as his case has +assumed a complicated aspect. He claims British protection as a +subject of her British Majesty, and the English Consul has +forwarded a statement of his case to Sir Frederick Bruce at +Washington, accompanied by a copy of the by-laws. General +Sheridan also has forwarded a statement to the Secretary of War, +accompanied not only by the by-laws, but very important +documents, including letters from Jefferson Davis, Benjamin, the +Secretary of State of the Confederate States, and other personages +prominent in the Rebellion, showing that MacIver enjoyed the +highest confidence of the Confederacy." + +As to the last statement, an open letter I found in his scrap-book is +an excellent proof. It is as follows: "To officers and members of all +camps of United Confederate Veterans: It affords me the greatest +pleasure to say that the bearer of this letter, General Henry Ronald +MacIver, was an officer of great gallantry in the Confederate +Army, serving on the staff at various times of General Stonewall +Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, and E. Kirby Smith, and that his official +record is one of which any man may be proud. + +"Respectfully, MARCUS J. WRIGHT, +"_Agent for the Collection of Confederate Records_. + +"War Records office, War Department, Washington, July 8, 1895." + +At the close of the war duels between officers of the two armies +were not infrequent. In the scrap-book there is the account of one +of these affairs sent from Vicksburg to a Northern paper by a +correspondent who was an eye-witness of the event. It tells how +Major MacIver, accompanied by Major Gillespie, met, just outside +of Vicksburg, Captain Tomlin of Vermont, of the United States +Artillery Volunteers. The duel was with swords. MacIver ran +Tomlin through the body. The correspondent writes: + +"The Confederate officer wiped his sword on his handkerchief. In +a few seconds Captain Tomlin expired. One of Major MacIver's +seconds called to him: 'He is dead; you must go. These gentlemen +will look after the body of their friend.' A negro boy brought up the +horses, but before mounting MacIver said to Captain Tomlin's +seconds: 'My friends are in haste for me to go. Is there anything I +can do? I hope you consider that this matter has been settled +honorably?' + +"There being no reply, the Confederates rode away." + +In a newspaper of to-day so matter-of-fact an acceptance of an +event so tragic would make strange reading. + +From the South MacIver crossed through Texas to join the Royalist +army under the Emperor Maximilian. It was while making his way, +with other Confederate officers, from Galveston to El Paso, that +MacIver was captured by the Indians. He was not ill-treated by +them, but for three months was a prisoner, until one night, the +Indians having camped near the Rio Grande, he escaped into +Mexico. There he offered his sword to the Royalist commander, +General Mejia, who placed him on his staff, and showed him some +few skirmishes. At Monterey MacIver saw big fighting, and for his +share in it received the title of Count, and the order of Guadaloupe. +In June, contrary to all rules of civilized war, Maximilian was +executed and the empire was at an end. MacIver escaped to the +coast, and from Tampico took a sailing vessel to Rio de Janeiro. +Two months later he was wearing the uniform of another emperor, +Dom Pedro, and, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, was in +command of the Foreign Legion of the armies of Brazil and +Argentina, which at that time as allies were fighting against +Paraguay. + +MacIver soon recruited seven hundred men, but only half of these +ever reached the front. In Buenos Ayres cholera broke out and +thirty thousand people died, among the number about half the +Legion. MacIver was among those who suffered, and before he +recovered was six weeks in hospital. During that period, under a +junior officer, the Foreign Legion was sent to the front, where it +was disbanded. + +On his return to Glasgow, MacIver foregathered with an old friend, +Bennett Burleigh, whom he had known when Burleigh was a +lieutenant in the navy of the Confederate States. Although today +known as a distinguished war correspondent, in those days +Burleigh was something of a soldier of fortune himself, and was +organizing an expedition to assist the Cretan insurgents against the +Turks. Between the two men it was arranged that MacIver should +precede the expedition to Crete and prepare for its arrival. The +Cretans received him gladly, and from the provisional government +he received a commission in which he was given "full power to +make war on land and sea against the enemies of Crete, and +particularly against the Sultan of Turkey and the Turkish forces, +and to burn, destroy, or capture any vessel bearing the Turkish +flag." + +This permission to destroy the Turkish navy single-handed strikes +one as more than generous, for the Cretans had no navy, and +before one could begin the destruction of a Turkish gun-boat it was +first necessary to catch it and tie it to a wharf. + +At the close of the Cretan insurrection MacIver crossed to Athens +and served against the brigands in Kisissia on the borders of +Albania and Thessaly as volunteer aide to Colonel Corroneus, who +had been commander-in-chief of the Cretans against the Turks. +MacIver spent three months potting at brigands, and for his +services in the mountains was recommended for the highest Greek +decoration. + +From Greece it was only a step to New York, and almost +immediately MacIver appears as one of the Goicouria-Christo +expedition to Cuba, of which Goicouria was commander-in-chief, +and two famous American officers, Brigadier-General Samuel C. +Williams was a general and Colonel Wright Schumburg was chief +of staff. + +In the scrap-book I find "General Order No. 11 of the Liberal Army +of the Republic of Cuba, issued at Cedar Keys, October 3, 1869." +In it Colonel MacIver is spoken of as in charge of officers not +attached to any organized corps of the division. And again: + +"General Order No. V, Expeditionary Division, Republic of Cuba, +on board _Lilian_," announces that the place to which the +expedition is bound has been changed, and that General Wright +Schumburg, who now is in command, orders "all officers not +otherwise commissioned to join Colonel MacIver's 'Corps of +Officers.'" + +The _Lilian_ ran out of coal, and to obtain firewood put in at +Cedar Keys. For two weeks the patriots cut wood and drilled upon +the beach, when they were captured by a British gun-boat and +taken to Nassau. There they were set at liberty, but their arms, +boat, and stores were confiscated. + +In a sailing vessel MacIver finally reached Cuba, and under +Goicouria, who had made a successful landing, saw some "help +yourself" fighting. Goicouria's force was finally scattered, and +MacIver escaped from the Spanish soldiery only by putting to sea +in an open boat, in which he endeavored to make Jamaica. + +On the third day out he was picked up by a steamer and again +landed at Nassau, from which place he returned to New York. + +At that time in this city there was a very interesting man named +Thaddeus P. Mott, who had been an officer in our army and later +had entered the service of Ismail Pasha. By the Khedive he had +been appointed a general of division and had received permission +to reorganize the Egyptian army. + +His object in coming to New York was to engage officers for that +service. He came at an opportune moment. At that time the city +was filled with men who, in the Rebellion, on one side or the +other, had held command, and many of these, unfitted by four +years of soldiering for any other calling, readily accepted the +commissions which Mott had authority to offer. New York was not +large enough to keep MacIver and Mott long apart, and they soon +came to an understanding. The agreement drawn up between them +is a curious document. It is written in a neat hand on sheets of +foolscap tied together like a Commencement-day address, with +blue ribbon. In it MacIver agrees to serve as colonel of cavalry in +the service of the Khedive. With a few legal phrases omitted, the +document reads as follows: + +"Agreement entered into this 24th day of March, 1870, between +the Government of his Royal Highness and the Khedive of Egypt, +represented by General Thaddeus P. Mott of the first part, and H. +R. H. MacIver of New York City. + +"The party of the second part, being desirous of entering into the +service of party of the first part, in the military capacity of a +colonel of cavalry, promises to serve and obey party of the first +part faithfully and truly in his military capacity during the space of +five years from this date; that the party of the second part waives +all claims of protection usually afforded to Americans by consular +and diplomatic agents of the United States, and expressly obligates +himself to be subject to the orders of the party of the first part, and +to make, wage, and vigorously prosecute war against any and all +the enemies of party of the first part; that the party of the second +part will not under any event be governed, controlled by, or submit +to, any order, law, mandate, or proclamation issued by the +Government of the United States of America, forbidding party of +the second part to serve party of the first part to make war +according to any of the provisions herein contained, _it being, +however, distinctly understood_ that nothing herein contained +shall be construed as obligating party of the second part to bear +arms or wage war against the United States of America. + +"Party of the first part promises to furnish party of the second part +with horses, rations, and pay him for his services the same salary +now paid to colonels of cavalry in United States army, and will +furnish him quarters suitable to his rank in army. Also promises, in +the case of illness caused by climate, that said party may resign his +office and shall receive his expenses to America and two months' +pay; that he receives one-fifth of his regular pay during his active +service, together with all expenses of every nature attending such +enterprise." + +It also stipulates as to what sums shall be paid his family or +children in case of his death. + +To this MacIver signs this oath: + +"In the presence of the ever-living God, I swear that I will in all +things honestly, faithfully, and truly keep, observe, and perform +the obligations and promises above enumerated, and endeavor to +conform to the wishes and desires of the Government of his Royal +Highness, the Khedive of Egypt, in all things connected with the +furtherance of his prosperity, and the maintenance of his throne." + +On arriving at Cairo, MacIver was appointed inspector-general of +cavalry, and furnished with a uniform, of which this is a +description: "It consisted of a blue tunic with gold spangles, +embroidered in gold up the sleeves and front, neat-fitting red +trousers, and high patent-leather boots, while the inevitable fez +completed the gay costume." + +The climate of Cairo did not agree with MacIver, and, in spite of +his "gay costume," after six months he left the Egyptian service. +His honorable discharge was signed by Stone Bey, who, in the +favor of the Khedive, had supplanted General Mott. + +It is a curious fact that, in spite of his ill health, immediately after +leaving Cairo, MacIver was sufficiently recovered to at once +plunge into the Franco-Prussian War. At the battle of Orleans, +while on the staff of General Chanzy, he was wounded. In this war +his rank was that of a colonel of cavalry of the auxiliary army. + +His next venture was in the Carlist uprising of 1873, when he +formed a Carlist League, and on several occasions acted as bearer +of important messages from the "King," as Don Carlos was called, +to the sympathizers with his cause in France and England. + +MacIver was promised, if he carried out successfully a certain +mission upon which he was sent, and if Don Carlos became king, +that he would be made a marquis. As Don Carlos is still a +pretender, MacIver is still a general. +Although in disposing of his sword MacIver never allowed his +personal predilections to weigh with him, he always treated +himself to a hearty dislike of the Turks, and we next find him +fighting against them in Herzegovina with the Montenegrins. And +when the Servians declared war against the same people, MacIver +returned to London to organize a cavalry brigade to fight with the +Servian army. + +Of this brigade and of the rapid rise of MacIver to highest rank and +honors in Servia, the scrap-book is most eloquent. The cavalry +brigade was to be called the Knights of the Red Cross. + +In a letter to the editor of the _Hour_, the general himself speaks +of it in the following terms: + +"It may be interesting to many of your readers to learn that a select +corps of gentlemen is at present in course of organization under +the above title with the mission of proceeding to the Levant to take +measures in case of emergency for the defense of the Christian +population, and more especially of British subjects who are to a +great extent unprovided with adequate means of protection from +the religious furies of the Mussulmans. The lives of Christian +women and children are in hourly peril from fanatical hordes. The +Knights will be carefully chosen and kept within strict military +control, and will be under command of a practical soldier with +large experience of the Eastern countries. Templars and all other +crusaders are invited to give aid and sympathy." + +Apparently MacIver was not successful in enlisting many Knights, +for a war correspondent at the capital of Servia, waiting for the +war to begin, writes as follows: + +"A Scotch soldier of fortune, Henry MacIver, a colonel by rank, +has arrived at Belgrade with a small contingent of military +adventurers. Five weeks ago I met him in Fleet Street, London, and +had some talk about his 'expedition.' He had received a +commission from the Prince of Servia to organize and command +an independent cavalry brigade, and he then was busily enrolling +his volunteers into a body styled 'The Knights of the Red Cross.' I +am afraid some of his bold crusaders have earned more distinction +for their attacks on Fleet Street bars than they are likely to earn on +Servian battle-fields, but then I must not anticipate history." + +Another paper tells that at the end of the first week of his service +as a Servian officer, MacIver had enlisted ninety men, but that they +were scattered about the town, many without shelter and rations: + +"He assembled his men on the Rialto, and in spite of official +expostulation, the men were marched up to the Minister's four +abreast--and they marched fairly well, making a good show. The +War Minister was taken by storm, and at once granted everything. +It has raised the English colonel's popularity with his men to fever +heat." + +This from the _Times_, London: + +"Our Belgrade correspondent telegraphs last night: + +"'There is here at present a gentleman named MacIver. He came +from England to offer himself and his sword to the Servians. The +Servian Minister of War gave him a colonel's commission. This +morning I saw him drilling about one hundred and fifty remarkably +fine-looking fellows, all clad in a good serviceable cavalry +uniform, and he has horses."' + +Later we find that: + +"Colonel MacIver's Legion of Cavalry, organizing here, now +numbers over two hundred men." + +And again: + +"Prince Nica, a Roumanian cousin of the Princess Natalie of +Servia, has joined Colonel MacIver's cavalry corps." + +Later, in the _Court Journal_, October 28, 1876, we read: + +"Colonel MacIver, who a few years ago was very well known in +military circles in Dublin, now is making his mark with the +Servian army. In the war against the Turks, he commands about +one thousand Russo-Servian cavalry." + +He was next to receive the following honors: + +"Colonel MacIver has been appointed commander of the cavalry of +the Servian armies on the Morava and Timok, and has received the +Cross of the Takovo Order from General Tchemaieff for gallant +conduct in the field, and the gold medal for valor." + +Later we learn from the _Daily News_: + +"Mr. Lewis Farley, Secretary of the 'League in Aid of Christians of +Turkey,' has received the following letter, dated Belgrade, October +10, 1876: + +"'DEAR SIR: In reference to the embroidered banner so kindly +worked by an English lady and forwarded by the League to +Colonel MacIver, I have great pleasure in conveying to you the +following particulars. On Sunday morning, the flag having been +previously consecrated by the archbishop, was conducted by a +guard of honor to the palace, and Colonel MacIver, in the presence +of Prince Milan and a numerous suite, in the name and on behalf +of yourself and the fair donor, delivered it into the hands of the +Princess Natalie. The gallant Colonel wore upon this occasion his +full uniform as brigade commander and chief of cavalry of the +Servian army, and bore upon his breast the 'Gold Cross of Takovo' +which he received after the battles of the 28th and 30th of +September, in recognition of the heroism and bravery he displayed +upon these eventful days. The beauty of the decoration was +enhanced by the circumstances of its bestowal, for on the evening +of the battle of the 30th, General Tchernaieff approached Colonel +MacIver, and, unclasping the cross from his own breast, placed it +upon that of the Colonel. + +"'(Signed.) HUGH JACKSON, +"'_Member of Council of the League_." + +In Servia and in the Servian army MacIver reached what as yet is +the highest point of his career, and of his life the happiest period. + +He was _general de brigade_, which is not what we know as a +brigade general, but is one who commands a division, a +major-general. He was a great favorite both at the palace and with +the people, the pay was good, fighting plentiful, and Belgrade gay +and amusing. Of all the places he has visited and the countries he +has served, it is of this Balkan kingdom that the general seems to +speak most fondly and with the greatest feeling. Of Queen Natalie +he was and is a most loyal and chivalric admirer, and was ever +ready, when he found any one who did not as greatly respect the +lady, to offer him the choice of swords or pistols. Even for Milan +he finds an extenuating word. + +After Servia the general raised more foreign legions, planned +further expeditions; in Central America reorganized the small +armies of the small republics, served as United States Consul, and +offered his sword to President McKinley for use against Spain. But +with Servia the most active portion of the life of the general +ceased, and the rest has been a repetition of what went before. At +present his time is divided between New York and Virginia, where +he has been offered an executive position in the approaching +Jamestown Exposition. Both North and South he has many friends, +many admirers. But his life is, and, from the nature of his +profession, must always be, a lonely one. + +While other men remain planted in one spot, gathering about them +a home, sons and daughters, an income for old age, MacIver is a +rolling stone, a piece of floating sea-weed; as the present King of +England called him fondly, "that vagabond soldier." + +To a man who has lived in the saddle and upon transports, +"neighbor" conveys nothing, and even "comrade" too often means +one who is no longer living. + +With the exception of the United States, of which he now is a +naturalized citizen, the general has fought for nearly every country +in the world, but if any of those for which he lost his health and +blood, and for which he risked his life, remembers him, it makes +no sign. And the general is too proud to ask to be remembered. +To-day there is no more interesting figure than this man who in +years is still young enough to lead an army corps, and who, for +forty years, has been selling his sword and risking his life for +presidents, pretenders, charlatans, and emperors. + +He finds some mighty changes: Cuba, which he fought to free, is +free; men of the South, with whom for four years he fought +shoulder to shoulder, are now wearing the blue; the empire of +Mexico, for which he fought, is a republic; the empire of France, +for which he fought, is a republic; the empire of Brazil, for which +he fought is a republic; the dynasty in Servia, to which he owes his +greatest honors, has been wiped out by murder. From none of the +eighteen countries he has served has he a pension, berth, or billet, +and at sixty he finds himself at home in every land, but with a +home in none. + +Still he has his sword, his blanket, and in the event of war, to +obtain a commission he has only to open his tin boxes and show +the commissions already won. Indeed, any day, in a new uniform, +and under the Nineteenth Flag, the general may again be winning +fresh victories and honors. + +And so, this brief sketch of him is left unfinished. We will mark +it--_To be continued_. + +BARON JAMES HARDEN-HICKEY + +THIS is an attempt to tell the story of Baron Harden-Hickey, the +Man Who Made Himself King, the man who was born after his +time. + +If the reader, knowing something of the strange career of +Harden-Hickey, wonders why one writes of him appreciatively +rather than in amusement, he is asked not to judge Harden-Hickey +as one judges a contemporary. + +Harden-Hickey, in our day, was as incongruous a figure as was the +American at the Court of King Arthur; he was as unhappily out of +the picture as would be Cyrano de Bergerac on the floor of the +Board of Trade. Judged, as at the time he was judged, by writers of +comic paragraphs, by presidents of railroads, by amateur +"statesmen" at Washington, Harden-Hickey was a joke. To the +vacant mind of the village idiot, Rip Van Winkle returning to +Falling Water also was a joke. The people of our day had not the +time to understand Harden-Hickey; they thought him a charlatan, +half a dangerous adventurer and half a fool; and Harden-Hickey +certainly did not under stand them. His last words, addressed to his +wife, showed this. They were: "I would rather die a gentleman than +live a blackguard like your father." + +As a matter of fact, his father-in-law, although living under the +disadvantage of being a Standard Oil magnate, neither was, nor is, +a blackguard, and his son-in-law had been treated by him +generously and with patience. But for the duellist and soldier of +fortune it was impossible to sympathize with a man who took no +greater risk in life than to ride on one of his own railroads, and of +the views the two men held of each other, that of John H. Flagler +was probably the fairer and the more kindly. + +Harden-Hickey was one of the most picturesque, gallant, and +pathetic adventurers of our day; but Flagler also deserves our +sympathy. + +For an unimaginative and hard-working Standard Oil king to have +a D'Artagnan thrust upon him as a son-in-law must be trying. + +James A. Harden-Hickey, James the First of Trinidad, Baron of the +Holy Roman Empire, was born on December 8, 1854. As to the +date all historians agree; as to where the important event took +place they differ. That he was born in France his friends are +positive, but at the time of his death in El Paso the San Francisco +papers claimed him as a native of California. All agree that his +ancestors were Catholics and Royalists who left Ireland with the +Stuarts when they sought refuge in France. The version which +seems to be the most probable is that he was born in San +Francisco, where as one of the early settlers, his father, E. C. +Hickey, was well known, and that early in his life, in order to +educate him, the mother took him to Europe. + +There he was educated at the Jesuit College at Namur, then at +Leipsic, and later entered the Military College of St. Cyr. + +James the First was one of those boys who never had the +misfortune to grow up. To the moment of his death, in all he +planned you can trace the effects of his early teachings and +environment; the influences of the great Church that nursed him, +and of the city of Paris, in which he lived. Under the Second +Empire, Paris was at her maddest, baddest, and best. To-day under +the republic, without a court, with a society kept in funds by the +self-expatriated wives and daughters of our business men, she +lacks the reasons for which Baron Haussmann bedecked her and +made her beautiful. The good Loubet, the worthy Fallieres, except +that they furnish the cartoonist with subjects for ridicule, do not +add to the gayety of Paris. But when Harden-Hickey was a boy, +Paris was never so carelessly gay, so brilliant, never so +overcharged with life, color, and adventure. + +In those days "the Emperor sat in his box that night," and in the +box opposite sat Cora Pearl; veterans of the campaign of Italy, of +Mexico, from the desert fights of Algiers, sipped sugar and water +in front of Tortoni's, the Cafe Durand, the Cafe Riche; the +sidewalks rang with their sabres, the boulevards were filled with +the colors of the gorgeous uniforms; all night of each night the +Place Vendome shone with the carriage lamps of the visiting +pashas from Egypt, of nabobs from India, of _rastaquoueres_ from +the sister empire of Brazil; the state carriages, with the outriders +and postilions in the green and gold of the Empress, swept through +the Champs Elysees, and at the Bal Bulier, and at Mabile the +students and "grisettes" introduced the cancan. The men of those +days were Hugo, Thiers, Dumas, Daudet, Alfred de Musset; the +magnificent blackguard, the Duc de Morny, and the great, simple +Canrobert, the captain of barricades, who became a marshal of +France. + +Over all was the mushroom Emperor, his anterooms crowded with +the titled charlatans of Europe, his court radiant with countesses +created overnight. And it was the Emperor, with his love of +theatrical display, of gorgeous ceremonies; with his restless +reaching after military glory, the weary, cynical adventurer, that +the boy at St. Cyr took as his model. + +Royalist as was Harden-Hickey by birth and tradition, and Royalist +as he always remained, it was the court at the Tuileries that filled +his imagination. The Bourbons, whom he served, hoped some day +for a court; at the Tuileries there was a court, glittering before his +physical eyes. The Bourbons were pleasant old gentlemen, who +later willingly supported him, and for whom always he was equally +willing to fight, either with his sword or his pen. But to the last, in +his mind, he carried pictures of the Second Empire as he, as a boy, +had known it. + +Can you not imagine the future James the First, barelegged, in a +black-belted smock, halting with his nurse, or his priest, to gaze up +in awestruck delight at the great, red-breeched Zouaves lounging +on guard at the Tuileries? + +"When I grow up," said little James to himself, not knowing that +he never would grow up, "I shall have Zouaves for _my_ palace +guard." + +And twenty years later, when he laid down the laws for his little +kingdom, you find that the officers of his court must wear the +mustache, "_a la_ Louis Napoleon," and that the Zouave uniform +will be worn by the Palace Guards. + +In 1883, while he still was at the War College, his father died, and +when he graduated, which he did with honors, he found himself his +own master. His assets were a small income, a perfect knowledge +of the French language, and the reputation of being one of the most +expert swordsman in Paris. He chose not to enter the army, and +instead became a journalist, novelist, duellist, an _habitue_ of the +Latin Quarter and the boulevards. + +As a novelist the titles of his books suggest their quality. Among +them are: "Un Amour Vendeen," "Lettres d'un Yankee," "Un +Amour dans le Monde," "Memoires d'un Gommeux," +"Merveilleuses Aventures de Nabuchodonosor, Nosebreaker." + +Of the Catholic Church he wrote seriously, apparently with deep +conviction, with high enthusiasm. In her service as a defender of +the faith he issued essays, pamphlets, "broadsides." The opponents +of the Church in Paris he attacked relentlessly. + +As a reward for his championship he received the title of baron. + +In 1878, while only twenty-four, he married the Countess de +Saint-Pery, by whom he had two children, a boy and a girl, and +three years later he started _Triboulet_. It was this paper that made +him famous to "all Paris." + +It was a Royalist sheet, subsidized by the Count de Chambord and +published in the interest of the Bourbons. Until 1888 +Harden-Hickey was its editor, and even by his enemies it must be +said that he served his employers with zeal. During the seven years +in which the paper amused Paris and annoyed the republican +government, as its editor Harden-Hickey was involved in forty-two +lawsuits, for different editorial indiscretions, fined three hundred +thousand francs, and was a principal in countless duels. + +To his brother editors his standing interrogation was: "Would you +prefer to meet me upon the editorial page, or in the Bois de +Boulogne?" Among those who met him in the Bois were Aurelien +Scholl, H. Lavenbryon, M. Taine, M. de Cyon, Philippe Du Bois, +Jean Moreas. + +In 1888, either because, his patron the Count de Chambord having +died, there was no more money to pay the fines, or because the +patience of the government was exhausted, _Triboulet_ ceased to +exist, and Harden-Hickey, claiming the paper had been suppressed +and he himself exiled, crossed to London. + +From there he embarked upon a voyage around the world, which +lasted two years, and in the course of which he discovered the +island kingdom of which he was to be the first and last king. +Previous to his departure, having been divorced from the Countess +de Saint-Pery, he placed his boy and girl in the care of a +fellow-journalist and very dear friend, the Count de la Boissiere, of +whom later we shall hear more. + +Harden-Hickey started around the world on the _Astoria_, a British +merchant vessel bound for India by way of Cape Horn, Captain +Jackson commanding. + +When off the coast of Brazil the ship touched at the uninhabited +island of Trinidad. Historians of James the First say that it was +through stress of weather that the _Astoria_ was driven to seek +refuge there, but as, for six months of the year, to make a landing +on the island is almost impossible, and as at any time, under stress +of weather, Trinidad would be a place to avoid, it is more likely +Jackson put in to replenish his water-casks, or to obtain a supply of +turtle meat. + +Or it may have been that, having told Harden-Hickey of the +derelict island, the latter persuaded the captain to allow him to +land and explore it. Of this, at least, we are certain, a boat was sent +ashore, Harden-Hickey went ashore in it, and before he left the +island, as a piece of no man's land, belonging to no country, he +claimed it in his own name, and upon the beach raised a flag of his +own design. + +The island of Trinidad claimed by Harden-Hickey must not be +confused with the larger Trinidad belonging to Great Britain and +lying off Venezuela. + +The English Trinidad is a smiling, peaceful spot of great tropical +beauty; it is one of the fairest places in the West Indies. At every +hour of the year the harbor of Port of Spain holds open its arms to +vessels of every draught. A governor in a pith helmet, a cricket +club, a bishop in gaiters, and a botanical garden go to make it a +prosperous and contented colony. But the little derelict Trinidad, +in latitude 20 degrees 30 minutes south, and longitude 29 degrees +22 minutes west, seven hundred miles from the coast of Brazil, is +but a spot upon the ocean. On most maps it is not even a spot. +Except by birds, turtles, and hideous land-crabs, it is uninhabited; +and against the advances of man its shores are fortified with cruel +ridges of coral, jagged limestone rocks, and a tremendous towering +surf which, even in a dead calm, beats many feet high against the +coast. + +In 1698 Dr. Halley visited the island, and says he found nothing +living but doves and land-crabs. "Saw many green turtles in sea, +but by reason of the great surf, could catch none." + +After Halley's visit, in 1700 the island was settled by a few +Portuguese from Brazil. The ruins of their stone huts are still in +evidence. But Amaro Delano, who called in 1803, makes no +mention of the Portuguese; and when, in 1822, Commodore Owen +visited Trinidad, he found nothing living there save cormorants, +petrels, gannets, man-of-war birds, and "turtles weighing from five +hundred to seven hundred pounds." + +In 1889 E. F. Knight, who in the Japanese-Russian War +represented the London _Morning Post_, visited Trinidad in his +yacht in search of buried treasure. + +Alexander Dalrymple, in his book entitled "Collection of Voages, +chiefly in the Southern Atlantick Ocean, 1775," tells how, in 1700, +he "took possession of the island in his Majesty's name as knowing +it to be granted by the King's letter patent, leaving a Union Jack +flying." + +So it appears that before Harden-Hickey seized the island it +already had been claimed by Great Britain, and later, on account of +the Portuguese settlement, by Brazil. The answer Harden-Hickey +made to these claims was that the English never settled in +Trinidad, and that the Portuguese abandoned it, and, therefore, +their claims lapsed. In his "prospectus" of his island, +Harden-Hickey himself describes it thus: + +"Trinidad is about five miles long and three miles wide. In spite of +its rugged and uninviting appearance, the inland plateaus are rich +with luxuriant vegetation. + +"Prominent among this is a peculiar species of bean, which is not +only edible, but extremely palatable. The surrounding seas swarm +with fish, which as yet are wholly unsuspicious of the hook. +Dolphins, rock-cod, pigfish, and blackfish may be caught as +quickly as they can be hauled out. I look to the sea birds and the +turtles to afford our principal source of revenue. Trinidad is the +breeding-place of almost the entire feathery population of the +South Atlantic Ocean. The exportation of guano alone should +make my little country prosperous. Turtles visit the island to +deposit eggs, and at certain seasons the beach is literally alive with +them. The only drawback to my projected kingdom is the fact that +it has no good harbor and can be approached only when the sea is +calm." + +As a matter of fact sometimes months pass before it is possible to +effect a landing. + +Another asset of the island held out by the prospectus was its great +store of buried treasure. Before Harden-Hickey seized the island, +this treasure had made it known. This is the legend. In 1821 a great +store of gold and silver plate plundered from Peruvian churches +had been concealed on the islands by pirates near Sugar Loaf Hill, +on the shore of what is known as the Southwest Bay. Much of this +plate came from the cathedral at Lima, having been carried from +there during the war of independence when the Spanish residents +fled the country. In their eagerness to escape they put to sea in any +ship that offered, and these unarmed and unseaworthy vessels fell +an easy prey to pirates. One of these pirates on his death-bed, in +gratitude to his former captain, told him the secret of the treasure. +In 1892 this captain was still living, in Newcastle, England, and +although his story bears a family resemblance to every other story +of buried treasure, there were added to the tale of the pirate some +corroborative details. These, in twelve years, induced five different +expeditions to visit the island. The two most important were that +of E. F. Knight and one from the Tyne in the bark _Aurea_. + +In his "Cruise of the _Alerte_," Knight gives a full description of +the island, and of his attempt to find the treasure. In this, a +landslide having covered the place where it was buried, he was +unsuccessful. + +But Knight's book is the only source of accurate information +concerning Trinidad, and in writing his prospectus it is evident that +Harden-Hickey was forced to borrow from it freely. Knight +himself says that the most minute and accurate description of +Trinidad is to be found in the "Frank Mildmay" of Captain +Marryat. He found it so easy to identify each spot mentioned in the +novel that he believes the author of "Midshipman Easy" himself +touched there. + +After seizing Trinidad, Harden-Hickey rounded the Cape and made +north to Japan, China, and India. In India he became interested in +Buddhism, and remained for over a year questioning the priests of +that religion and studying its tenets and history. + +On his return to Paris, in 1890, he met Miss Annie Harper Flagler, +daughter of John H. Flagler. A year later, on St. Patrick's Day, +1891, at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, Miss Flagler +became the Baroness Harden-Hickey. The Rev. John Hall married +them. + +For the next two years Harden-Hickey lived in New York, but so +quietly that, except that he lived quietly, it is difficult to find out +anything concerning him. The man who, a few years before, had +delighted Paris with his daily feuilletons, with his duels, with his +forty-two lawsuits, who had been the master of revels in the Latin +Quarter, in New York lived almost as a recluse, writing a book on +Buddhism. While he was in New York I was a reporter on the +_Evening Sun_, but I cannot recall ever having read his name in +the newspapers of that day, and I heard of him only twice; once as +giving an exhibition of his water-colors at the American Art +Galleries, and again as the author of a book I found in a store in +Twenty-second Street, just east of Broadway, then the home of the +Truth Seeker Publishing Company. + +It was a grewsome compilation and had just appeared in print. It +was called "Euthanasia, or the Ethics of Suicide." This book was +an apology or plea for self-destruction. In it the baron laid down +those occasions when he considered suicide pardonable, and when +obligatory. To support his arguments and to show that suicide was +a noble act, he quoted Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare, and even +misquoted the Bible. He gave a list of poisons, and the amount of +each necessary to kill a human being. To show how one can depart +from life with the least pain, he illustrated the text with most +unpleasant pictures, drawn by himself. + +The book showed how far Harden-Hickey had strayed from the +teachings of the Jesuit College at Namur, and of the Church that +had made him "noble." + +All of these two years had not been spent only in New York. +Harden-Hickey made excursions to California, to Mexico, and to +Texas, and in each of these places bought cattle ranches and +mines. The money to pay for these investments came from his +father-in-law. But not directly. Whenever he wanted money he +asked his wife, or De la Boissiere, who was a friend also of +Flagler, to obtain it for him. + +His attitude toward his father-in-law is difficult to explain. It is not +apparent that Flagler ever did anything which could justly offend +him; indeed, he always seems to have spoken of his son-in-law +with tolerance, and often with awe, as one would speak of a clever, +wayward child. But Harden-Hickey chose to regard Flagler as his +enemy, as a sordid man of business who could not understand the +feelings and aspirations of a genius and a gentleman. + +Before Harden-Hickey married, the misunderstanding between his +wife's father and himself began. Because he thought +Harden-Hickey was marrying his daughter for her money, Flagler +opposed the union. Consequently, Harden-Hickey married Miss +Flagler without "settlements," and for the first few years supported +her without aid from her father. But his wife had been accustomed +to a manner of living beyond the means of the soldier of fortune, +and soon his income, and then even his capital, was exhausted. +From her mother the baroness inherited a fortune. This was in the +hands of her father as executor. When his own money was gone, +Harden-Hickey endeavored to have the money belonging to his +wife placed to her credit, or to his. To this, it is said, Flagler, on +the ground that Harden-Hickey was not a man of business, while +he was, objected, and urged that he was, and that if it remained in +his hands the money would be better invested and better expended. +It was the refusal of Flagler to intrust Harden-Hickey with the care +of his wife's money that caused the breach between them. + +As I have said, you cannot judge Harden-Hickey as you would a +contemporary. With the people among whom he was thrown, his +ideas were entirely out of joint. He should have lived in the days of +"The Three Musketeers." People who looked upon him as working +for his own hand entirely misunderstood him. He was absolutely +honest, and as absolutely without a sense of humor. To him, to pay +taxes, to pay grocers' bills, to depend for protection upon a +policeman, was intolerable. He lived in a world of his own +imagining. And one day, in order to make his imaginings real, and +to escape from his father-in-law's unromantic world of Standard +Oil and Florida hotels, in a proclamation to the powers he +announced himself as King James the First of the Principality of +Trinidad. + +The proclamation failed to create a world crisis. Several of the +powers recognized his principality and his title; but, as a rule, +people laughed, wondered, and forgot. That the daughter of John +Flagler was to rule the new principality gave it a "news interest," +and for a few Sundays in the supplements she was hailed as the +"American Queen." + +When upon the subject of the new kingdom Flagler himself was +interviewed, he showed an open mind. + +"My son-in-law is a very determined man," he said; "he will carry +out any scheme in which he is interested. Had he consulted me +about this, I would have been glad to have aided him with money +or advice. My son-in-law is an extremely well-read, refined, +well-bred man. He does not court publicity. While he was staying +in my house he spent nearly all the time in the library translating +an Indian book on Buddhism. My daughter has no ambition to be a +queen or anything else than what she is--an American girl. But my +son-in-law means to carry on this Trinidad scheme, and--he will." + +From his father-in-law, at least, Harden-Hickey could not complain +that he had met with lack of sympathy. + +The rest of America was amused; and after less than nine days, +indifferent. But Harden-Hickey, though unobtrusively, none the +less earnestly continued to play the part of king. His friend De la +Boissiere he appointed his Minister of Foreign Affairs, and +established in a Chancellery at 217 West Thirty-sixth Street, New +York, and from there was issued a sort of circular, or prospectus, +written by the king, and signed by "Le Grand Chancelier, +Secretaire d'Etat pour les Affaires Etrangeres, M. le Comte de la +Boissiere." + +The document, written in French, announced that the new state +would be governed by a military dictatorship, that the royal +standard was a yellow triangle on a red ground, and that the arms +of the principality were "d'Or chape de Gueules." It pointed out +naively that those who first settled on the island would be naturally +the oldest inhabitants, and hence would form the aristocracy. But +only those who at home enjoyed social position and some private +fortune would be admitted into this select circle. + +For itself the state reserved a monopoly of the guano, of the turtles, +and of the buried treasure. And both to discover the treasure and to +encourage settlers to dig and so cultivate the soil, a percentage of +the treasure was promised to the one who found it. + +Any one purchasing ten $200 bonds was entitled to a free passage +to the island, and after a year, should he so desire it, a return trip. +The hard work was to be performed by Chinese coolies, the +aristocracy existing beautifully, and, according to the prospectus, +to enjoy _"vie d'un genre tout nouveau, et la recherche de +sensations nouvelles."_ + +To reward his subjects for prominence in literature, the arts, and +the sciences, his Majesty established an order of chivalry. The +official document creating this order reads: + + +"We, James, Prince of Trinidad, have resolved to commemorate +our accession to the throne of Trinidad by the institution of an +Order of Chivalry, destined to reward literature, industry, science, +and the human virtues, and by these presents have established and +do institute, with cross and crown, the Order of the Insignia of the +Cross of Trinidad, of which we and our heirs and successors shall +be the sovereigns. + +"Given in our Chancellery the Eighth of the month of December, +one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, and of our reign, the +First Year. + +"JAMES." + +There were four grades: Chevalier, Commander, Grand Officer, +and Grand Cross; and the name of each member of the order was +inscribed in "The Book of Gold." A pension of one thousand francs +was given to a Chevalier, of two thousand francs to a Commander, +and of three thousand francs to a Grand Officer. Those of the grade +of Grand Cross were content with a plaque of eight +diamond-studded rays, with, in the centre, set in red enamel, the +arms of Trinidad. The ribbon was red and yellow. + +A rule of the order read: "The costume shall be identical with that +of the Chamberlains of the Court of Trinidad, save the buttons, +which shall bear the impress of the Crown of the Order." + +For himself, King James commissioned a firm of jewelers to +construct a royal crown. In design it was similar to the one which +surmounted the cross of Trinidad. It is shown in the photograph of +the insignia. Also, the king issued a set of postage-stamps on +which was a picture of the island. They were of various colors and +denominations, and among stamp-collectors enjoyed a certain sale. + +To-day, as I found when I tried to procure one to use in this book, +they are worth many times their face value. + +For some time the affairs of the new kingdom progressed +favorably. In San Francisco, King James, in person, engaged four +hundred coolies and fitted out a schooner which he sent to +Trinidad, where it made regular trips between his principality and +Brazil; an agent was established on the island, and the construction +of docks, wharves, and houses was begun, while at the chancellery +in West Thirty-sixth Street, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was +ready to furnish would-be settlers with information. + +And then, out of a smiling sky, a sudden and unexpected blow was +struck at the independence of the little kingdom. It was a blow +from which it never recovered. + +In July of 1895, while constructing a cable to Brazil, Great Britain +found the Island of Trinidad lying in the direct line she wished to +follow, and, as a cable station, seized it. Objection to this was +made by Brazil, and at Bahia a mob with stones pelted the sign of +the English Consul-General. + +By right of Halley's discovery, England claimed the island; as a +derelict from the main land, Brazil also claimed it. Between the +rivals, the world saw a chance for war, and the fact that the island +really belonged to our King James for a moment was forgotten. + +But the Minister of Foreign Affairs was at his post. With +promptitude and vigor he acted. He addressed a circular note to all +the powers of Europe, and to our State Department a protest. It +read as follows: + + +"GRANDE CHANCELLERIE DE LA PRINCIPAUTE DE +TRINIDAD, +27 WEST THIRTY-SIXTH STREET, +NEW YORK CITY, U. S. A., + +"NEW YORK, _July_ 30, 1895. + +_"To His Excellency Mr. the Secretary of State of +the Republic of the United States of North +America, Washington, D. C.:_ + +"EXCELLENCY.--I have the honor to recall to your memory: + +"1. That in the course of the month of September, 1893, Baron +Harden-Hickey officially notified all the Powers of his taking +possession of the uninhabited island of Trinidad; and + +"2. That in course of January, 1894, he renewed to all these Powers +the official notification of the said taking of possession, and +informed them at the same time that from that date the land would +be known as 'Principality of Trinidad'; that he took the title of +'Prince of Trinidad,' and would reign under the name of James I. + +"In consequence of these official notifications several Powers have +recognized the new Principality and its Prince, and at all events +none thought it necessary at that epoch to raise objections or +formulate opposition. + +"The press of the entire world has, on the other hand, often +acquainted readers with these facts, thus giving to them all +possible publicity. In consequence of the accomplishment of these +various formalities, and as the law of nations prescribes that +'derelict' territories belong to whoever will take possession of +them, and as the island of Trinidad, which has been abandoned for +years, certainly belongs to the aforesaid category, his Serene +Highness Prince James I was authorized to regard his rights on the +said island as perfectly valid and indisputable. + +"Nevertheless, your Excellency knows that recently, in spite of all +the legitimate rights of my august sovereign, an English war-ship +has disembarked at Trinidad a detachment of armed troops and +taken possession of the island in the name of England. + +"Following this assumption of territory, the Brazilian Government, +invoking a right of ancient Portuguese occupation (long ago +outlawed), has notified the English Government to surrender the +island to Brazil. + +"I beg of your Excellency to ask of the Government of the United +States of North America to recognize the Principality of Trinidad +as an independent State, and to come to an understanding with the +other American Powers in order to guarantee its neutrality. + +"Thus the Government of the United States of North America will +once more accord its powerful assistance to the cause of right and +of justice, misunderstood by England and Brazil, put an end to a +situation which threatens to disturb the peace, re-establish concord +between two great States ready to appeal to arms, and affirm itself, +moreover, as the faithful interpreter of the Monroe Doctrine. + +"In the expectation of your reply please accept, Excellency, the +expression of my elevated consideration. + +"The Grand Chancellor, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, + +"COMTE DE LA BOISSIERE." + +At that time Richard Olney was Secretary of State, and in his +treatment of the protest, and of the gentleman who wrote it, he +fully upheld the reputation he made while in office of lack of good +manners. Saying he was unable to read the handwriting in which +the protest was written, he disposed of it in a way that would +suggest itself naturally to a statesman and a gentleman. As a +"crank" letter he turned it over to the Washington correspondents. +You can imagine what they did with it. + +The day following the reporters in New York swept down upon the +chancellery and upon the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was the +"silly season" in August, there was no real news in town, and the +troubles of De la Boissiere were allowed much space. + +They laughed at him and at his king, at his chancellery, at his +broken English, at his "grave and courtly manners," even at his +clothes. But in spite of the ridicule, between the lines you could +read that to the man himself it all was terribly real. + +I had first heard of the island of Trinidad from two men I knew +who spent three months on it searching for the treasure, and when +Harden-Hickey proclaimed himself lord of the island, through the +papers I had carefully followed his fortunes. So, partly out of +curiosity and partly out of sympathy, I called at the chancellery. + +I found it in a brownstone house, in a dirty neighborhood just west +of Seventh Avenue, and of where now stands the York Hotel. +Three weeks ago I revisited it and found it unchanged. At the time +of my first visit, on the jamb of the front door was pasted a piece +of paper on which was written in the handwriting of De la +Boissiere: "Chancellerie de la Principaute de Trinidad." + +The chancellery was not exactly in its proper setting. On its +door-step children of the tenements were playing dolls with +clothes-pins; in the street a huckster in raucous tones was offering +wilted cabbages to women in wrappers leaning from the fire +escapes; the smells and the heat of New York in midsummer rose +from the asphalt. It was a far cry to the wave-swept island off the +coast of Brazil. + +De la Boissiere received me with distrust. The morning papers had +made him man-shy; but, after a few "Your Excellencies" and a +respectful inquiry regarding "His Royal Highness," his confidence +revived. In the situation he saw nothing humorous, not even in an +announcement on the wall which read: "Sailings to Trinidad." Of +these there were _two_; on March 1, and on October 1. On the +table were many copies of the royal proclamation, the +postage-stamps of the new government, the thousand-franc bonds, +and, in pasteboard boxes, the gold and red enamelled crosses of +the Order of Trinidad. + +He talked to me frankly and fondly of Prince James. Indeed, I +never met any man who knew Harden-Hickey well who did not +speak of him with aggressive loyalty. If at his eccentricities they +smiled, it was with the smile of affection. It was easy to see De la +Boissiere regarded him not only with the affection of a friend, but +with the devotion of a true subject. In his manner he himself was +courteous, gentle, and so distinguished that I felt as though I were +enjoying, on intimate terms, an audience with one of the +prime-ministers of Europe. + +And he, on his part, after the ridicule of the morning papers, to +have any one with outward seriousness accept his high office and +his king, was, I believe, not ungrateful. + +I told him I wished to visit Trinidad, and in that I was quite +serious. The story of an island filled with buried treasure, and +governed by a king, whose native subjects were turtles and +seagulls, promised to make interesting writing. + +The count was greatly pleased. I believe in me he saw his first +bona-fide settler, and when I rose to go he even lifted one of the +crosses of Trinidad and, before my envious eyes, regarded it +uncertainly. + +Perhaps, had he known that of all decorations it was the one I most +desired; had I only then and there booked my passage, or sworn +allegiance to King James, who knows but that to-day I might be a +chevalier, with my name in the "Book of Gold"? But instead of +bending the knee, I reached for my hat; the count replaced the +cross in its pasteboard box, and for me the psychological moment +had passed. + +Others, more deserving of the honor, were more fortunate. Among +my fellow-reporters who, like myself, came to scoff, and remained +to pray, was Henri Pene du Bois, for some time, until his recent +death, the brilliant critic of art and music of the _American_. Then +he was on the _Times_, and Henry N. Cary, now of the _Morning +Telegraph_, was his managing editor. + +When Du Bois reported to Cary on his assignment, he said: "There +is nothing funny in that story. It's pathetic. Both those men are in +earnest. They are convinced they are being robbed of their rights. +Their only fault is that they have imagination, and that the rest of +us lack it. That's the way it struck me, and that's the way the story +ought to be written." + +"Write it that way," said Cary. + +So, of all the New York papers, the _Times_, for a brief period, +became the official organ of the Government of James the First, +and in time Cary and Du Bois were created Chevaliers of the +Order of Trinidad, and entitled to wear uniforms "Similar to those +of the Chamberlains of the Court, save that the buttons bear the +impress of the Royal Crown." + +The attack made by Great Britain and Brazil upon the +independence of the principality, while it left Harden-Hickey in +the position of a king in exile, brought him at once another crown, +which, by those who offered it to him, was described as of +incomparably greater value than that of Trinidad. + +In the first instance the man had sought the throne; in this case the +throne sought the man. + +In 1893 in San Francisco, Ralston J. Markowe, a lawyer and a +one-time officer of artillery in the United States army, gained +renown as one of the Morrow filibustering expedition which +attempted to overthrow the Dole government in the Hawaiian Isles +and restore to the throne Queen Liliuokalani. In San Francisco +Markowe was nicknamed the "Prince of Honolulu," as it was +understood, should Liliuokalani regain her crown, he would be +rewarded with some high office. But in the star of Liliuokalani, +Markowe apparently lost faith, and thought he saw in +Harden-Hickey timber more suitable for king-making. +Accordingly, twenty-four days after the "protest" was sent to our +State Department, Markowe switched his allegiance to +Harden-Hickey, and to him addressed the following letter: + +"SAN FRANCISCO, August 26, 1895. + +BARON HARDEN-HICKEY, LOS ANGELES, CAL.: + +"Monseigneur--Your favor of August 16 has been received. + +"1. I am the duly authorized agent of the Royalist party in so far as +it is possible for any one to occupy that position under existing +circumstances. With the Queen in prison and absolutely cut off +from all communication with her friends, it is out of the question +for me to carry anything like formal credentials. + +"2. Alienating any part of the territory cannot give rise to any +constitutional questions, for the reason that the constitutions, like +the land tenures, are in a state of such utter confusion that only a +strong hand can unravel them, and the restoration will result in the +establishment of a strong military government. If I go down with +the expedition I have organized I shall be in full control of the +situation and in a position to carry out all my contracts. + +"3. It is the island of Kauai on which I propose to establish you as +an independent sovereign. + +"4. My plan is to successively occupy all the islands, leaving the +capital to the last. When the others have fallen, the capital, being +cut off from all its resources, will be easily taken, and may very +likely fall without effort. I don't expect in any case to have to +fortify myself or to take the defensive, or to have to issue a call to +arms, as I shall have an overwhelming force to join me at once, in +addition to those who go with me, who by themselves will be +sufficient to carry everything before them without active +cooperation from the people there. + +"5. The Government forces consist of about 160 men and boys, +with very imperfect military training, and of whom about forty are +officers. They are organized as infantry. There are also about 600 +citizens enrolled as a reserve guard, who may be called upon in +case of an emergency, and about 150 police. We can fully rely +upon the assistance of all the police and from one-quarter to +one-half of the other troops. And of the remainder many will under +no circumstances engage in a sharp fight in defense of the present +government. There are now on the island plenty of men and arms +to accomplish our purpose, and if my expedition does not get off +very soon the people there will be organized to do the work +without other assistance from here than the direction of a few +leaders, of which they stand more in need than anything else. + +"6. The tonnage of the vessel is 146. She at present has berth-room +for twenty men, but bunks can be arranged in the hold for 256 +more, with provision for ample ventilation. She has one complete +set of sails and two extra spars. The remaining information in +regard to her I will have to obtain and send you to-morrow. I think +it must be clear to you that the opportunity now offered you will be +of incomparably greater value at once than Trinidad would ever +be. Still hoping that I may have an interview with you at an early +date, respectfully yours, + +"RALSTON J. MARKOWE." + +What Harden-Hickey thought of this is not known, but as two +weeks before he received it he had written Markowe, asking him +by what authority he represented the Royalists of Honolulu, it +seems evident that when the crown of Hawaii was first proffered +him he did not at once spurn it. + +He now was in the peculiar position of being a deposed king of an +island in the South Atlantic, which had been taken from him, and +king-elect of an island in the Pacific, which was his if he could +take it. + +This was in August of 1895. For the two years following, +Harden-Hickey was a soldier of misfortunes. Having lost his island +kingdom, he could no longer occupy himself with plans for its +improvement. It had been his toy. They had taken it from him, and +the loss and the ridicule which followed hurt him bitterly. + +And for the lands he really owned in Mexico and California, and +which, if he were to live in comfort, it was necessary he should +sell, he could find no purchaser; and, moreover, having quarrelled +with his father-in-law, he had cut off his former supply of money. +The need of it pinched him cruelly. + +The advertised cause of this quarrel was sufficiently characteristic +to be the real one. Moved by the attack of Great Britain upon his +principality, Harden-Hickey decided upon reprisals. It must be +remembered that always he was more Irish than French. On paper +he organized an invasion of England from Ireland, the home of his +ancestors. It was because Flagler refused to give him money for +this adventure that he broke with him. His friends say this was the +real reason of the quarrel, which was a quarrel on the side of +Harden-Hickey alone. + +And there were other, more intimate troubles. While not separated +from his wife, he now was seldom in her company. When the +Baroness was in Paris, Harden-Hickey was in San Francisco; when +she returned to San Francisco, he was in Mexico. The fault seems +to have been his. He was greatly admired by pretty women. His +daughter by his first wife, now a very beautiful girl of sixteen, +spent much time with her stepmother; and when not on his father's +ranch in Mexico, his son also, for months together, was at her side. +The husband approved of this, but he himself saw his wife +infrequently. Nevertheless, early in the spring of 1898, the +Baroness leased a house in Brockton Square, in Riverside, Cal., +where it was understood by herself and by her friends her husband +would join her. At that time in Mexico he was trying to dispose of +a large tract of land. Had he been able to sell it, the money for a +time would have kept one even of his extravagances contentedly +rich. At least, he would have been independent of his wife and of +her father. Up to February of 1898 his obtaining this money +seemed probable. + +Early in that month the last prospective purchaser decided not to +buy. + +There is no doubt that had Harden-Hickey then turned to his +father-in-law, that gentleman, as he had done before, would have +opened an account for him. + +But the Prince of Trinidad felt he could no longer beg, even for the +money belonging to his wife, from the man he had insulted. He +could no longer ask his wife to intercede for him. He was without +money of his own, with out the means of obtaining it; from his +wife he had ceased to expect even sympathy, and from the world +he knew, the fact that he was a self-made king caused him always +to be pointed out with ridicule as a charlatan, as a jest. + +The soldier of varying fortunes, the duellist and dreamer, the +devout Catholic and devout Buddhist, saw the forty-third year of +his life only as the meeting-place of many fiascos. + +His mind was tormented with imaginary wrongs, imaginary slights, +imaginary failures. + +This young man, who could paint pictures, write books, organize +colonies oversea, and with a sword pick the buttons from a +waistcoat, forgot the twenty good years still before him; forgot that +men loved him for the mistakes he had made; that in parts of the +great city of Paris his name was still spoken fondly, still was +famous and familiar. + +In his book on the "Ethics of Suicide," for certain hard places in +life he had laid down an inevitable rule of conduct. + +As he saw it he had come to one of those hard places, and he +would not ask of others what he himself would not perform. + +From Mexico he set out for California, but not to the house his +wife had prepared for him. + +Instead, on February 9, 1898, at El Paso, he left the train and +registered at a hotel. + +At 7.30 in the evening he went to his room, and when, on the +following morning, they kicked in the door, they found him +stretched rigidly upon the bed, like one lying in state, with, near +his hand, a half-emptied bottle of poison. + +On a chair was pinned this letter to his wife: + +"My DEAREST,--No news from you, although you have had +plenty of time to write. Harvey has written me that he has no one +in view at present to buy my land. Well, I shall have tasted the cup +of bitterness to the very dregs, but I do not complain. Good-by. I +forgive you your conduct toward me and trust you will be able to +forgive yourself. I prefer to be a dead gentleman to a living +blackguard like your father." + + +And when they searched his open trunk for something that might +identify the body on the bed, they found the crown of Trinidad. + +You can imagine it: the mean hotel bedroom, the military figure +with its white face and mustache, "_a la_ Louis Napoleon," at rest +upon the pillow, the startled drummers and chambermaids peering +in from the hall, and the landlord, or coroner, or doctor, with a +bewildered countenance, lifting to view the royal crown of gilt and +velvet. + +The other actors in this, as Harold Frederic called it, "Opera +Bouffe Monarchy," are still living. + +The Baroness Harden-Hickey makes her home in this country. + +The Count de la Boissiere, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, is still a +leader of the French colony in New York, and a prosperous +commission merchant with a suite of offices on Fifty-fourth Street. +By the will of Harden-Hickey he is executor of his estate, guardian +of his children, and what, for the purpose of this article, is of more +importance, in his hands lies the future of the kingdom of +Trinidad. When Harden-Hickey killed himself the title to the +island was in dispute. Should young Harden-Hickey wish to claim +it, it still would be in dispute. Meanwhile, by the will of the First +James, De la Boissiere is appointed perpetual regent, a sort of +"receiver," and executor of the principality. + +To him has been left a royal decree signed and sealed, but blank. +In the will the power to fill in this blank with a statement showing +the final disposition of the island has been bestowed upon De la +Boissiere. + +So, some day, he may proclaim the accession of a new king, and +give a new lease of life to the kingdom of which Harden-Hickey +dreamed. + +But unless his son, or wife, or daughter should assert his or her +rights, which is not likely to happen, so ends the dynasty of James +the First of Trinidad, Baron of the Holy Roman Empire. + +To the wise ones in America he was a fool, and they laughed at +him; to the wiser ones, he was a clever rascal who had evolved a +new real-estate scheme and was out to rob the people--and they +respected him. To my mind, of them all, Harden-Hickey was the +wisest. + +Granted one could be serious, what could be more delightful than +to be your own king on your own island? + +The comic paragraphers, the business men of "hard, common +sense," the captains of industry who laughed at him and his +national resources of buried treasure, turtles' eggs, and guano, with +his body-guard of Zouaves and his Grand Cross of Trinidad, +certainly possessed many things that Harden-Hickey lacked. But +they in turn lacked the things that made him happy; the power to +"make believe," the love of romance, the touch of adventure that +plucked him by the sleeve. + +When, as boys, we used to say: "Let's pretend we're pirates," as a +man, Harden-Hickey begged: "Let's pretend I'm a king." + +But the trouble was, the other boys had grown up and would not +pretend. + +For some reason his end always reminds me of the closing line of +Pinero's play, when the adventuress, Mrs. Tanqueray, kills herself, +and her virtuous stepchild says: "If we had only been kinder!" + +WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL + +IN the strict sense of the phrase, a soldier of fortune is a man who +for pay, or for the love of adventure, fights under the flag of any +country. + +In the bigger sense he is the kind of man who in any walk of life +makes his own fortune, who, when he sees it coming, leaps to +meet it, and turns it to his advantage. + +Than Winston Spencer Churchill to-day there are few young +men--and he is a very young man--who have met more varying +fortunes, and none who has more frequently bent them to his own +advancement. To him it has been indifferent whether, at the +moment, the fortune seemed good or evil, in the end always it was +good. + +As a boy officer, when other subalterns were playing polo, and at +the Gaiety Theatre attending night school, he ran away to Cuba +and fought with the Spaniards. For such a breach of military +discipline, any other officer would have been court-martialled. +Even his friends feared that by his foolishness his career in the +army was at an end. Instead, his escapade was made a question in +the House of Commons, and the fact brought him such publicity +that the _Daily Graphic_ paid him handsomely to write on the +Cuban Revolution, and the Spanish Government rewarded him +with the Order of Military Merit. + +At the very outbreak of the Boer war he was taken prisoner. It +seemed a climax of misfortune. With his brother officers he had +hoped in that campaign to acquit himself with credit, and that he +should lie inactive in Pretoria appeared a terrible calamity. To the +others who, through many heart-breaking months, suffered +imprisonment, it continued to be a calamity. But within six weeks +of his capture Churchill escaped, and, after many adventures, +rejoined his own army to find that the calamity had made him a +hero. + +When after the battle of Omdurman, in his book on "The River +War," he attacked Lord Kitchener, those who did not like him, and +they were many, said: "That's the end of Winston in the army. He'll +never get another chance to criticise K. of K." + +But only two years later the chance came, when, no longer a +subaltern, but as a member of the House of Commons, he +patronized Kitchener by defending him from the attacks of others. + +Later, when his assaults upon the leaders of his own party closed to +him, even in his own constituency, the Conservative debating +clubs, again his ill-wishers said: "This _is_ the end. He has +ridiculed those who sit in high places. He has offended his cousin +and patron, the Duke of Marlborough. Without political friends, +without the influence and money of the Marlborough family he is a +political nonentity." That was eighteen months ago. To-day, at the +age of thirty-two, he is one of the leaders of the Government party, +Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and with the Liberals the most +popular young man in public life. + +Only last Christmas, at a banquet, Sir Edward Grey, the new +Foreign Secretary, said of him: "Mr. Winston Churchill has +achieved distinction in at least five different careers--as a soldier, a +war correspondent, a lecturer, an author, and last, but not least, as +a politician. I have understated it even now, for he has achieved +two careers as a politician--one on each side of the House. His first +career on the Government side was a really distinguished career. I +trust the second will be even more distinguished--and more +prolonged. The remarkable thing is that he has done all this when, +unless appearances very much belie him, he has not reached the +age of sixty-four, which is the minimum age at which the +politician ceases to be young." + +Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born thirty-two years ago, +in November, 1874. By birth he is half-American. His father was +Lord Randolph Churchill, and his mother was Jennie Jerome, of +New York. On the father's side he is the grandchild of the seventh +Duke of Marlborough, on the distaff side, of Leonard Jerome. + +To a student of heredity it would be interesting to try and discover +from which of these ancestors Churchill drew those qualities +which in him are most prominent, and which have led to his +success. + +What he owes to his father and mother it is difficult to +overestimate, almost as difficult as to overestimate what he has +accomplished by his own efforts. + +He was not a child born a full-grown genius of commonplace +parents. Rather his fate threatened that he should always be known +as the son of his father. And certainly it was asking much of a boy +that he should live up to a father who was one of the most +conspicuous, clever, and erratic statesmen of the later Victorian +era, and a mother who is as brilliant as she is beautiful. + +For at no time was the American wife content to be merely +ornamental. Throughout the political career of her husband she +was his helpmate, and as an officer of the Primrose League, as an +editor of the _Anglo-Saxon Review_, as, for many hot, weary +months in Durban Harbor, the head of the hospital ship _Maine_, +she has shown an acute mind and real executive power. At the +polls many votes that would not respond to the arguments of the +husband, and later of the son, were gained over to the cause by the +charm and wit of the American woman. + +In his earlier days, if one can have days any earlier than those he +now enjoys, Churchill was entirely influenced by two things: the +tremendous admiration he felt for his father, which filled him with +ambition to follow in his orbit, and the camaraderie of his mother, +who treated him less like a mother than a sister and companion. + +Indeed, Churchill was always so precocious that I cannot recall the +time when he was young enough to be Lady Randolph's son; +certainly, I cannot recall the time when she was old enough to be +his mother. + +When first I knew him he had passed through Harrow and +Sandhurst and was a second lieutenant in the Queen's Own +Hussars. He was just of age, but appeared much younger. + +He was below medium height, a slight, delicate-looking boy; +although, as a matter of fact, extremely strong, with blue eyes, +many freckles, and hair which threatened to be a decided red, but +which now has lost its fierceness. When he spoke it was with a +lisp, which also has changed, and which now appears to be merely +an intentional hesitation. + +His manner of speaking was nervous, eager, explosive. He used +many gestures, some of which were strongly reminiscent of his +father, of whom he, unlike most English lads, who shy at +mentioning a distinguished parent, constantly spoke. + +He even copied his father in his little tricks of manner. Standing +with hands shoved under the frock-coat and one resting on each +hip as though squeezing in the waist line; when seated, resting the +elbows on the arms of the chair and nervously locking and +unclasping fingers, are tricks common to both. + +He then had and still has a most embarrassing habit of asking +many questions; embarrassing, sometimes, because the questions +are so frank, and sometimes because they lay bare the wide +expanse of one's own ignorance. + +At that time, although in his twenty-first year, this lad twice had +been made a question in the House of Commons. + +That in itself had rendered him conspicuous. When you consider +out of Great Britain's four hundred million subjects how many live, +die, and are buried without at any age having drawn down upon +themselves the anger of the House of Commons, to have done so +twice, before one has passed his twenty-first year, seems to +promise a lurid future. + +The first time Churchill disturbed the august assemblage in which +so soon he was to become a leader was when he "ragged" a brother +subaltern named Bruce and cut up his saddle and accoutrements. +The second time was when he ran away to Cuba to fight with the +Spaniards. + +After this campaign, on the first night of his arrival in London, he +made his maiden speech. He delivered it in a place of less dignity +than the House of Commons, but one, throughout Great Britain +and her colonies, as widely known and as well supported. This was +the Empire Music Hall. + +At the time Mrs. Ormiston Chant had raised objections to the +presence in the Music Hall of certain young women, and had +threatened, unless they ceased to frequent its promenade, to have +the license of the Music Hall revoked. As a compromise, the +management ceased selling liquor, and on the night Churchill +visited the place the bar in the promenade was barricaded with +scantling and linen sheets. With the thirst of tropical Cuba still +upon him, Churchill asked for a drink, which was denied him, and +the crusade, which in his absence had been progressing fiercely, +was explained. Any one else would have taken no for his answer, +and have sought elsewhere for his drink. Not so Churchill. What +he did is interesting, because it was so extremely characteristic. +Now he would not do it; then he was twenty-one. + +He scrambled to the velvet-covered top of the railing which +divides the auditorium from the promenade, and made a speech. It +was a plea in behalf of his "Sisters, the Ladies of the Empire +Promenade." + +"Where," he asked of the ladies themselves and of their escorts +crowded below him in the promenade, "does the Englishman in +London always find a welcome? Where does he first go when, +battle-scarred and travel-worn, he reaches home? Who is always +there to greet him with a smile, and join him in a drink? Who is +ever faithful, ever true--the Ladies of the Empire Promenade." + +The laughter and cheers that greeted this, and the tears of the +ladies themselves, naturally brought the performance on the stage +to a stop, and the vast audience turned in the seats and boxes. + +They saw a little red-haired boy in evening clothes, balancing +himself on the rail of the balcony, and around him a great crowd, +cheering, shouting, and bidding him "Go on!" + +Churchill turned with delight to the larger audience, and repeated +his appeal. The house shook with laughter and applause. + +The commissionaires and police tried to reach him and a +good-tempered but very determined mob of well-dressed +gentlemen and cheering girls fought them back. In triumph +Churchill ended his speech by begging his hearers to give "fair +play" to the women, and to follow him in a charge upon the +barricades. + +The charge was instantly made, the barricades were torn down, +and the terrified management ordered that drink be served to its +victorious patrons. + +Shortly after striking this blow for the liberty of others, Churchill +organized a dinner which illustrated the direction in which at that +age his mind was working, and showed that his ambition was +already abnormal. The dinner was given to those of his friends and +acquaintances who "were under twenty-one years of age, and who +in twenty years would control the destinies of the British Empire." + +As one over the age limit, or because he did not consider me an +empire-controlling force, on this great occasion, I was permitted to +be present. But except that the number of incipient empire-builders +was very great, that they were very happy, and that save the host +himself none of them took his idea seriously, I would not call it an +evening of historical interest. But the fact is interesting that of all +the boys present, as yet, the host seems to be the only one who to +any conspicuous extent is disturbing the destinies of Great Britain. +However, the others can reply that ten of the twenty years have not +yet passed. + +When he was twenty-three Churchill obtained leave of absence +from his regiment, and as there was no other way open to him to +see fighting, as a correspondent he joined the Malakand Field +Force in India. + +It may be truthfully said that by his presence in that frontier war he +made it and himself famous. His book on that campaign is his best +piece of war reporting. To the civilian reader it has all the delight +of one of Kipling's Indian stories, and to writers on military +subjects it is a model. But it is a model very few can follow, and +which Churchill himself was unable to follow, for the reason that +only once is it given a man to be twenty-three years of age. + +The picturesque hand-to-hand fighting, the night attacks, the +charges up precipitous hills, the retreats made carrying the +wounded under constant fire, which he witnessed and in which he +bore his part, he never again can see with the same fresh and +enthusiastic eyes. Then it was absolutely new, and the charm of the +book and the value of the book are that with the intolerance of +youth he attacks in the service evils that older men prefer to let lie, +and that with the ingenuousness of youth he tells of things which +to the veteran have become unimportant, or which through usage +he is no longer even able to see. + +In his three later war books, the wonder of it, the horror of it, the +quick admiration for brave deeds and daring men, give place, in +"The River War," to the critical point of view of the military +expert, and in his two books on the Boer war to the rapid +impressions of the journalist. In these latter books he tells you of +battles he has seen, in the first one he made you see them. + +For his services with the Malakand Field Force he received the +campaign medal with clasp, and, "in despatches," +Brigadier-General Jeffreys praises "the courage and resolution of +Lieutenant W. L. S. Churchill, Fourth Hussars, with the force as +correspondent of the _Pioneer_." + +From the operations around Malakand, he at once joined Sir +William Lockhart as orderly officer, and with the Tirah Expedition +went through that campaign. + +For this his Indian medal gained a second clasp. + +This was in the early part of 1898. In spite of the time taken up as +an officer and as a correspondent, he finished his book on the +Malakand Expedition and then, as it was evident Kitchener would +soon attack Khartum, he jumped across to Egypt and again as a +correspondent took part in the advance upon that city. + +Thus, in one year, he had seen service in three campaigns. + +On the day of the battle his luck followed him. Kitchener had +attached him to the Twenty-first Lancers, and it will be +remembered the event of the battle was the charge made by that +squadron. It was no canter, no easy "pig-sticking"; it was a fight to +get in and a fight to get out, with frenzied followers of the Khalifa +hanging to the bridle reins, hacking at the horses' hamstrings, and +slashing and firing point-blank at the troopers. Churchill was in +that charge. He received the medal with clasp. + +Then he returned home and wrote "The River War." This book is +the last word on the campaigns up the Nile. From the death of +Gordon in Khartum to the capture of the city by Kitchener, it tells +the story of the many gallant fights, the wearying failures, the +many expeditions into the hot, boundless desert, the long, slow +progress toward the final winning of the Sudan. + +The book made a distinct sensation. It was a work that one would +expect from a lieutenant-general, when, after years of service in +Egypt, he laid down his sword to pen the story of his life's work. +From a Second Lieutenant, who had been on the Nile hardly long +enough to gain the desert tan, it was a revelation. As a contribution +to military history it was so valuable that for the author it made +many admirers, but on account of his criticisms of his superior +officers it gained him even more enemies. + +This is a specimen of the kind of thing that caused the retired army +officer to sit up and choke with apoplexy: + +"General Kitchener, who never spares himself, cares little for +others. He treated all men like machines, from the private soldiers, +whose salutes he disdained, to the superior officers, whom he +rigidly controlled. The comrade who had served with him and +under him for many years, in peace and peril, was flung aside as +soon as he ceased to be of use. The wounded Egyptian and even +the wounded British soldier did not excite his interest." + +When in the service clubs they read that, the veterans asked each +other their favorite question of what is the army coming to, and to +their own satisfaction answered it by pointing out that when a +lieutenant of twenty-four can reprimand the commanding general +the army is going to the dogs. + +To the newspapers, hundreds of them, over their own signatures, +on the service club stationery, wrote violent, furious letters, and +the newspapers themselves, besides the ordinary reviews, gave to +the book editorial praise and editorial condemnation. + +Equally disgusted were the younger officers of the service. They +nicknamed his book "A Subaltern's Advice to Generals," and +called Churchill himself a "Medal Snatcher." A medal snatcher is +an officer who, whenever there is a rumor of war, leaves his men +to the care of any one, and through influence in high places and for +the sake of the campaign medal has himself attached to the +expeditionary force. But Churchill never was a medal hunter. The +routine of barrack life irked him, and in foreign parts he served his +country far better than by remaining at home and inspecting +awkward squads and attending guard mount. Indeed, the War +Office could cover with medals the man who wrote "The Story of +the Malakand Field Force" and "The River War" and still be in his +debt. + +In October, 1898, a month after the battle of Omdurman, Churchill +made his debut as a political speaker at minor meetings in Dover +and Rotherhithe. History does not record that these first speeches +set fire to the Channel. During the winter he finished and +published his "River War," and in the August of the following +summer, 1899, at a by-election, offered himself as Member of +Parliament for Oldham. + +In the _Daily Telegraph_ his letters from the three campaigns in +India and Egypt had made his name known, and there was a +general desire to hear him and to see him. In one who had attacked +Kitchener of Khartum, the men of Oldham expected to find a +stalwart veteran, bearded, and with a voice of command. When +they were introduced to a small red-haired boy with a lisp, they +refused to take him seriously. In England youth is an unpardonable +thing. Lately, Curzon, Churchill, Edward Grey, Hugh Cecil, and +others have made it less reprehensible. But, in spite of a vigorous +campaign, in which Lady Randolph took an active part, Oldham +decided it was not ready to accept young Churchill for a member. +Later he was Oldham's only claim to fame. + +A week after he was defeated he sailed for South Africa, where +war with the Boers was imminent. He had resigned from his +regiment and went south as war correspondent for the _Morning +Post_. + +Later in the war he held a commission as Lieutenant in the South +African Light Horse, a regiment of irregular cavalry, and on the +staffs of different generals acted as galloper and aide-de-camp. To +this combination of duties, which was in direct violation of a rule +of the War Office, his brother officers and his fellow +correspondents objected; but, as in each of his other campaigns he +had played this dual role, the press censors considered it a +traditional privilege, and winked at it. As a matter of record, +Churchill's soldiering never seemed to interfere with his writing, +nor, in a fight, did his duty to his paper ever prevent him from +mixing in as a belligerent. + +War was declared October 9th, and only a month later, while +scouting in the armored train along the railroad line between +Pietermaritzburg and Colenso, the cars were derailed and +Churchill was taken prisoner. + +The train was made up of three flat cars, two armored cars, and +between them the engine, with three cars coupled to the +cow-catcher and two to the tender. + +On the outward trip the Boers did not show themselves, but as +soon as the English passed Frere station they rolled a rock on the +track at a point where it was hidden by a curve. On the return trip, +as the English approached this curve the Boers opened fire with +artillery and pompoms. The engineer, in his eagerness to escape, +rounded the curve at full speed, and, as the Boers had expected, hit +the rock. The three forward cars were derailed, and one of them +was thrown across the track, thus preventing the escape of the +engine and the two rear cars. From these Captain Haldane, who +was in command, with a detachment of the Dublins, kept up a +steady fire on the enemy, while Churchill worked to clear the +track. To assist him he had a company of Natal volunteers, and +those who had not run away of the train hands and break-down +crew. + +"We were not long left in the comparative safety of a railroad +accident," Churchill writes to his paper. "The Boers' guns, swiftly +changing their position, reopened fire from a distance of thirteen +hundred yards before any one had got out of the stage of +exclamations. The tapping rifle-fire spread along the hills, until it +encircled the wreckage on three sides, and from some high ground +on the opposite side of the line a third field-gun came into action." + +For Boer marksmen with Mausers and pompoms, a wrecked +railroad train at thirteen hundred yards was as easy a bull's-eye as +the hands of the first baseman to the pitcher, and while the engine +butted and snorted and the men with their bare bands tore at the +massive beams of the freight-car, the bullets and shells beat about +them. + +"I have had in the last four years many strange and varied +experiences," continues young Churchill, "but nothing was so +thrilling as this; to wait and struggle among these clanging, +rending iron boxes, with the repeated explosions of the shells, the +noise of the projectiles striking the cars, the hiss as they passed in +the air, the grunting and puffing of the engine--poor, tortured +thing, hammered by at least a dozen shells, any one of which, by +penetrating the boiler, might have made an end of all--the +expectation of destruction as a matter of course, the realization of +powerlessness--all this for seventy minutes by the clock, with only +four inches of twisted iron between danger, captivity, and shame +on one side--and freedom on the other." + +The "protected" train had proved a deathtrap, and by the time the +line was clear every fourth man was killed or wounded. Only the +engine, with the more severely wounded heaped in the cab and +clinging to its cow-catcher and foot-rails, made good its escape. +Among those left behind, a Tommy, without authority, raised a +handkerchief on his rifle, and the Boers instantly ceased firing and +came galloping forward to accept surrender. There was a general +stampede to escape. Seeing that Lieutenant Franklin was gallantly +trying to hold his men, Churchill, who was safe on the engine, +jumped from it and ran to his assistance. Of what followed, this is +his own account: + +"Scarcely had the locomotive left me than I found myself alone in +a shallow cutting, and none of our soldiers, who had all +surrendered, to be seen. Then suddenly there appeared on the line +at the end of the cutting two men not in uniform. 'Plate-layers,' I +said to myself, and then, with a surge of realization, 'Boers.' My +mind retains a momentary impression of these tall figures, full of +animated movement, clad in dark flapping clothes, with slouch, +storm-driven hats, posing their rifles hardly a hundred yards away. +I turned and ran between the rails of the track, and the only +thought I achieved was this: 'Boer marksmanship.' + +"Two bullets passed, both within a foot, one on either side. I flung +myself against the banks of the cutting. But they gave no cover. +Another glance at the figures; one was now kneeling to aim. Again +I darted forward. Again two soft kisses sucked in the air, but +nothing struck me. I must get out of the cutting--that damnable +corridor. I scrambled up the bank. The earth sprang up beside me, +and a bullet touched my hand, but outside the cutting was a tiny +depression. I crouched in this, struggling to get my wind. On the +other side of the railway a horseman galloped up, shouting to me +and waving his hand. He was scarcely forty yards off. With a rifle I +could have killed him easily. I knew nothing of the white flag, and +the bullets had made me savage. I reached down for my Mauser +pistol. I had left it in the cab of the engine. Between me and the +horseman there was a wire fence. Should I continue to fly? The +idea of another shot at such a short range decided me. Death stood +before me, grim and sullen; Death without his light-hearted +companion, Chance. So I held up my hand, and like Mr. Jorrock's +foxes, cried 'Capivy!' Then I was herded with the other prisoners in +a miserable group, and about the same time I noticed that my hand +was bleeding, and it began to pour with rain. + +"Two days before I had written to an officer at home: 'There has +been a great deal too much surrendering in this war, and I hope +people who do so will not be encouraged.'" + +With other officers, Churchill was imprisoned in the State Model +Schools, situated in the heart of Pretoria. It was distinctly +characteristic that on the very day of his arrival he began to plan to +escape. + +Toward this end his first step was to lose his campaign hat, which +he recognized was too obviously the hat of an English officer. The +burgher to whom he gave money to purchase him another +innocently brought him a Boer sombrero. + +Before his chance to escape came a month elapsed, and the +opportunity that then offered was less an opportunity to escape +than to get himself shot. + +The State Model Schools were surrounded by the children's +playgrounds, penned in by a high wall, and at night, while they +were used as a prison, brilliantly lighted by electric lights. After +many nights of observation, Churchill discovered that while the +sentries were pacing their beats there was a moment when to them +a certain portion of the wall was in darkness. This was due to +cross-shadows cast by the electric lights. On the other side of this +wall there was a private house set in a garden filled with bushes. +Beyond this was the open street. + +To scale the wall was not difficult; the real danger lay in the fact +that at no time were the sentries farther away than fifteen yards, +and the chance of being shot by one or both of them was excellent. +To a brother officer Churchill confided his purpose, and together +they agreed that some night when the sentries had turned from the +dark spot on the wall they would scale it and drop among the +bushes in the garden. After they reached the garden, should they +reach it alive, what they were to do they did not know. How they +were to proceed through the streets and out of the city, how they +were to pass unchallenged under its many electric lights and before +the illuminated shop windows, how to dodge patrols, and how to +find their way through two hundred and eighty miles of a South +African wilderness, through an utterly unfamiliar, unfriendly, and +sparsely settled country into Portuguese territory and the coast, +they left to chance. But with luck they hoped to cover the distance +in a fortnight, begging corn at the Kaffir kraals, sleeping by day, +and marching under cover of the darkness. + +They agreed to make the attempt on the 11th of December, but on +that night the sentries did not move from the only part of the wall +that was in shadow. On the night following, at the last moment, +something delayed Churchill's companion, and he essayed the +adventure alone. He writes: "Tuesday, the 12th! Anything was +better than further suspense. Again night came. Again the dinner +bell sounded. Choosing my opportunity, I strolled across the +quadrangle and secreted myself in one of the offices. Through a +chink I watched the sentries. For half an hour they remained stolid +and obstructive. Then suddenly one turned and walked up to his +comrade and they began to talk. Their backs were turned. + +I darted out of my hiding-place and ran to the wall, seized the top +with my hands and drew myself up. Twice I let myself down again +in sickly hesitation, and then with a third resolve scrambled up. +The top was flat. Lying on it, I had one parting glimpse of the +sentries, still talking, still with their backs turned, but, I repeat, +still fifteen yards away. Then I lowered myself into the adjoining +garden and crouched among the shrubs. I was free. The first step +had been taken, and it was irrevocable." + +Churchill discovered that the house into the garden of which he +had so unceremoniously introduced himself was brilliantly lighted, +and that the owner was giving a party. At one time two of the +guests walked into the garden and stood, smoking and chatting, in +the path within a few yards of him. + +Thinking his companion might yet join him, for an hour he +crouched in the bushes, until from the other side of the wall he +heard the voices of his friend and of another officer. + +"It's all up!" his friend whispered. Churchill coughed tentatively. +The two voices drew nearer. To confuse the sentries, should they +be listening, the one officer talked nonsense, laughed loudly, and +quoted Latin phrases, while the other, in a low and distinct voice, +said: " I cannot get out. The sentry suspects. It's all up. Can you get +back again?" + +To go back was impossible. Churchill now felt that in any case he +was sure to be recaptured, and decided he would, as he expresses +it, at least have a run for his money. + +"I shall go on alone," he whispered. + +He heard the footsteps of his two friends move away from him +across the play yard. At the same moment he stepped boldly out +into the garden and, passing the open windows of the house, +walked down the gravel path to the street. Not five yards from the +gate stood a sentry. Most of those guarding the school-house knew +him by sight, but Churchill did not turn his head, and whether the +sentry recognized him or not, he could not tell. + +For a hundred feet he walked as though on ice, inwardly shrinking +as he waited for the sharp challenge, and the rattle of the Mauser +thrown to the "Ready." His nerves were leaping, his heart in his +throat, his spine of water. And then, as he continued to advance, +and still no tumult pursued him, he quickened his pace and turned +into one of the main streets of Pretoria. The sidewalks were +crowded with burghers, but no one noticed him. This was due +probably to the fact that the Boers wore no distinctive uniform, +and that with them in their commandoes were many English +Colonials who wore khaki riding breeches, and many Americans, +French, Germans, and Russians, in every fashion of semi-uniform. + +If observed, Churchill was mistaken for one of these, and the very +openness of his movements saved him from suspicion. + +Straight through the town he walked until he reached the suburbs, +the open veldt, and a railroad track. As he had no map or compass +he knew this must be his only guide, but he knew also that two +railroads left Pretoria, the one along which he had been captured, +to Pietermaritzburg, and the other, the one leading to the coast and +freedom. Which of the two this one was he had no idea, but he +took his chance, and a hundred yards beyond a station waited for +the first outgoing train. About midnight, a freight stopped at the +station, and after it had left it and before it had again gathered +headway, Churchill swung himself up upon it, and stretched out +upon a pile of coal. Throughout the night the train continued +steadily toward the east, and so told him that it was the one he +wanted, and that he was on his way to the neutral territory of +Portugal. + +Fearing the daylight, just before the sun rose, as the train was +pulling up a steep grade, he leaped off into some bushes. All that +day he lay hidden, and the next night he walked. He made but little +headway. As all stations and bridges were guarded, he had to make +long detours, and the tropical moonlight prevented him from +crossing in the open. In this way, sleeping by day, walking by +night, begging food from the Kaffirs, five days passed. + +Meanwhile, his absence had been at once discovered, and, by the +Boers, every effort was being made to retake him. Telegrams +giving his description were sent along both railways, three +thousand photographs of him were distributed, each car of every +train was searched, and in different parts of the Transvaal men +who resembled him were being arrested. It was said he had +escaped dressed as a woman; in the uniform of a Transvaal +policeman whom he had bribed; that he had never left Pretoria, +and that in the disguise of a waiter he was concealed in the house +of a British sympathizer. On the strength of this rumor the houses +of all suspected persons were searched. + +In the Volksstem it was pointed out as a significant fact that a +week before his escape Churchill had drawn from the library Mill's +"Essay on Liberty." + +In England and over all British South Africa the escape created as +much interest as it did in Pretoria. Because the attempt showed +pluck, and because he had outwitted the enemy, Churchill for the +time became a sort of popular hero, and to his countrymen his +escape gave as much pleasure as it was a cause of chagrin to the +Boers. + +But as days passed and nothing was heard of him, it was feared he +had lost himself in the Machadodorp Mountains, or had +succumbed to starvation, or, in the jungle toward the coast, to +fever, and congratulations gave way to anxiety. + +The anxiety was justified, for at this time Churchill was in a very +bad way. During the month in prison he had obtained but little +exercise. The lack of food and of water, the cold by night and the +terrific heat by day, the long stumbling marches in the darkness, +the mental effect upon an extremely nervous, high-strung +organization of being hunted, and of having to hide from his +fellow men, had worn him down to a condition almost of collapse. + +Even though it were neutral soil, in so exhausted a state he dared +not venture into the swamps and waste places of the Portuguese +territory; and, sick at heart as well as sick in body, he saw no +choice left him save to give himself up. + +But before doing so he carefully prepared a tale which, although +most improbable, he hoped might still conceal his identity and aid +him to escape by train across the border. + +One night after days of wandering he found himself on the +outskirts of a little village near the boundary line of the Transvaal +and Portuguese territory. Utterly unable to proceed further, he +crawled to the nearest zinc-roofed shack, and, fully prepared to +surrender, knocked at the door. It was opened by a rough-looking, +bearded giant, the first white man to whom in many days Churchill +had dared address himself. + +To him, without hope, he feebly stammered forth the speech he +had rehearsed. The man listened with every outward mark of +disbelief. At Churchill himself he stared with open suspicion. +Suddenly he seized the boy by the shoulder, drew him inside the +hut, and barred the door. + +"You needn't lie to me," he said. "You are Winston Churchill, and +I--am the only Englishman in this village." + +The rest of the adventure was comparatively easy. The next night +his friend in need, an engineer named Howard, smuggled Churchill + Into a freight-car, and hid him under sacks of some soft +merchandise. + +At Komatie-Poort, the station on the border, for eighteen hours the +car in which Churchill lay concealed was left in the sun on a +siding, and before it again started it was searched, but the man who +was conducting the search lifted only the top layer of sacks, and a +few minutes later Churchill heard the hollow roar of the car as it +passed over the bridge, and knew that he was across the border. + +Even then he took no chances, and for two days more lay hidden at +the bottom of the car. + +When at last he arrived in Lorenzo Marques he at once sought out +the English Consul, who, after first mistaking him for a stoker +from one of the ships in the harbor, gave him a drink, a bath, and a +dinner. + +As good luck would have it, the _Induna_ was leaving that night +for Durban, and, escorted by a body-guard of English residents +armed with revolvers, and who were taking no chances of his +recapture by the Boer agents, he was placed safely on board. Two +days later he arrived at Durban, where he was received by the +Mayor, the populace, and a brass band playing: "Britons Never, +Never, Never shall be Slaves!" + +For the next month Churchill was bombarded by letters and +telegrams from every part of the globe, some invited him to +command filibustering expeditions, others sent him woollen +comforters, some forwarded photographs of himself to be signed, +others photographs of themselves, possibly to be admired, others +sent poems, and some bottles of whiskey. + +One admirer wrote: "My congratulations on your wonderful and +glorious deeds, which will send such a thrill of pride and +enthusiasm through Great Britain and the United States of +America, that the Anglo-Saxon race will be irresistible." + +Lest so large an order as making the Anglo-Saxon race irresistible +might turn the head of a subaltern, an antiseptic cablegram was +also sent him, from London, reading: + +"Best friends here hope you won't go making further ass of +yourself. + +"McNEILL." + +One day in camp we counted up the price per word of this +cablegram, and Churchill was delighted to find that it must have +cost the man who sent it five pounds. + +On the day of his arrival in Durban, with the cheers still in the air, +Churchill took the first train to "the front," then at Colenso. +Another man might have lingered. After a month's imprisonment +and the hardships of the escape, he might have been excused for +delaying twenty-four hours to taste the sweets of popularity and the +flesh-pots of the Queen Hotel. But if the reader has followed this +brief biography he will know that to have done so would have been +out of the part. This characteristic of Churchill's to get on to the +next thing explains his success. He has no time to waste on +postmortems, he takes none to rest on his laurels. + +As a war correspondent and officer he continued with Buller until +the relief of Ladysmith, and with Roberts until the fall of Pretoria. +He was in many actions, in all the big engagements, and came out +of the war with another medal and clasps for six battles. + +On his return to London he spent the summer finishing his second +book on the war, and in October at the general election as a +"khaki" candidate, as those were called who favored the war, again +stood for Oldham. This time, with his war record to help him, he +wrested from the Liberals one of Oldham's two seats. He had been +defeated by thirteen hundred votes; he was elected by a majority of +two hundred and twenty-seven. + +The few months that intervened between his election and the +opening of the new Parliament were snatched by Churchill for a +lecturing tour at home, and in the United States and Canada. His +subject was the war and his escape from Pretoria. + +When he came to this country half of the people here were in +sympathy with the Boers, and did not care to listen to what they +supposed would be a strictly British version of the war. His +manager, without asking permission of those whose names he +advertised, organized for Churchill's first appearance in various +cities, different reception committees. + +Some of those whose names, without their consent, were used for +these committees, wrote indignantly to the papers, saying that +while for Churchill, personally, they held every respect, they +objected to being used to advertise an anti-Boer demonstration. + +While this was no fault of Churchill's, who, until he reached this +country knew nothing of it, it was neither for him nor for the +success of his tour the best kind of advance work. + +During the fighting to relieve Ladysmith, with General Buller's +force, Churchill and I had again been together, and later when I +joined the Boer army, at the Zand River Battle, the army with +which he was a correspondent had chased the army with which I +was a correspondent, forty miles. I had been one of those who +refused to act on his reception committee, and he had come to this +country with a commission from twenty brother officers to shoot +me on sight. But in his lecture he was using the photographs I had +taken of the scene of his escape, and which I had sent him from +Pretoria as a souvenir, and when he arrived I was at the hotel to +welcome him, and that same evening three hours after midnight he +came, in a blizzard, pounding at our door for food and drink. What +is a little thing like a war between friends? + +During his "tour," except of hotels, parlor-cars, and "Lyceums," he +saw very little of this country or of its people, and they saw very +little of him. On the trip, which lasted about two months, he +cleared ten thousand dollars. This, to a young man almost entirely +dependent for an income upon his newspaper work and the sale of +his books, nearly repaid him for the two months of "one night +stands." On his return to London he took his seat in the new +Parliament. + +It was a coincidence that he entered Parliament at the same age as +did his father. With two other members, one born six days earlier +than himself, he enjoyed the distinction of being among the three +youngest members of the new House. + +The fact did not seem to appall him. In the House it is a tradition +that young and ambitious members sit "below" the gangway; the +more modest and less assured are content to place themselves +"above" it, at a point farthest removed from the leaders. + +On the day he was sworn in there was much curiosity to see where +Churchill would elect to sit. In his own mind there was apparently +no doubt. After he had taken the oath, signed his name, and shaken +the hand of the Speaker, without hesitation he seated himself on +the bench next to the Ministry. Ten minutes later, so a newspaper +of the day describes it, he had cocked his hat over his eyes, shoved +his hands into his trousers pockets, and was lolling back eying the +veterans of the House with critical disapproval. + +His maiden speech was delivered in May, 1901, in reply to David +Lloyd George, who had attacked the conduct of British soldiers in +South Africa. Churchill defended them, and in a manner that from +all sides gained him honest admiration. In the course of the debate +he produced and read a strangely apropos letter which, fifteen +years before, had been written by his father to Lord Salisbury. His +adroit use of this filled H. W. Massingham, the editor of the _Daily +News_, with enthusiasm. Nothing in parliamentary tactics, he +declared, since Mr. Gladstone died, had been so clever. He +proclaimed that Churchill would be Premier. John Dillon, the +Nationalist leader, said he never before had seen a young man, by +means of his maiden effort, spring into the front rank of +parliamentary speakers. He promised that the Irish members would +ungrudgingly testify to his ability and honesty of purpose. Among +others to at once recognize the rising star was T. P. O'Connor, +himself for many years of the parliamentary firmament one of the +brightest stars. In _M. A. P._ he wrote: "I am inclined to think that +the dash of American blood which he has from his mother has +been an improvement on the original stock, and that Mr. Winston +Churchill may turn out to be a stronger and abler politician than +his father." + +It was all a part of Churchill's "luck" that when he entered +Parliament the subject in debate was the conduct of the war. + +Even in those first days of his career in the House, in debates +where angels feared to tread, he did not hesitate to rush in, but this +subject was one on which he spoke with knowledge. Over the +older men who were forced to quote from hearsay or from what +they had read, Churchill had the tremendous advantage of being +able to protest: "You only read of that. I was there. I saw it." + +In the House he became at once one of the conspicuous and +picturesque figures, one dear to the heart of the caricaturist, and +one from the strangers' gallery most frequently pointed out. He was +called "the spoiled child of the House," and there were several +distinguished gentlemen who regretted they were forced to spare +the rod. Broderick, the Secretary for War, was one of these. Of him +and of his recruits in South Africa, Churchill spoke with the awful +frankness of the _enfant terrible_. And although he addressed them +more with sorrow than with anger, to Balfour and Chamberlain he +daily administered advice and reproof, while mere generals and +field-marshals, like Kitchener and Roberts, blushing under new +titles, were held up for public reproof and briefly but severely +chastened. Nor, when he saw Lord Salisbury going astray, did he +hesitate in his duty to the country, but took the Prime Minister by +the hand and gently instructed him in the way he should go. + +This did not tend to make him popular, but in spite of his +unpopularity, in his speeches against national extravagancies he +made so good a fight that he forced the Government, unwillingly, +to appoint a committee to investigate the need of economy. For a +beginner this was a distinct triumph. + +With Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord Percy, Ian Malcolm, and other clever +young men, he formed inside the Conservative Party a little group +that in its obstructive and independent methods was not unlike the +Fourth Party of his father. From its leader and its filibustering, +guerilla-like tactics the men who composed it were nicknamed the +"Hughligans." The Hughligans were the most active critics of the +Ministry and of all in their own party, and as members of the Free +Food League they bitterly attacked the fiscal proposals of Mr. +Chamberlain. When Balfour made Chamberlain's fight for fair +trade, or for what virtually was protection, a measure of the +Conservatives, the lines of party began to break, and men were no +longer Conservatives or Liberals, but Protectionists or Free +Traders. + +Against this Churchill daily protested, against Chamberlain, +against his plan, against that plan being adopted by the Tory Party. +By tradition, by inheritance, by instinct, Churchill was a Tory. + +"I am a Tory," he said, "and I have as much right in the party as has +anybody else, certainly as much as certain people from +Birmingham. They can't turn us out, and we, the Tory Free +Traders, have as much right to dictate the policy of the +Conservative Party as have any reactionary Fair Traders." In 1904 +the Conservative Party already recognized Churchill as one +working outside the breastworks. Just before the Easter vacation of +that year, when he rose to speak a remarkable demonstration was +made against him by his Unionist colleagues, all of them rising +and leaving the House. + +To the Liberals who remained to hear him he stated that if to his +constituents his opinions were obnoxious, he was ready to resign +his seat. It then was evident he would go over to the Liberal Party. +Some thought he foresaw which way the tidal wave was coming, +and to being slapped down on the beach and buried in the sand, he +preferred to be swept forward on its crest. Others believed he left +the Conservatives because he could not honestly stomach the taxed +food offered by Mr. Chamberlain. + +In any event, if he were to be blamed for changing from one party +to the other, he was only following the distinguished example set +him by Gladstone, Disraeli, Harcourt, and his own father. + +It was at the time of this change that he was called "the best hated +man in England," but the Liberals welcomed him gladly, and the +National Liberal Club paid him the rare compliment of giving in +his honor a banquet. There were present two hundred members. +Up to that time this dinner was the most marked testimony to his +importance in the political world. It was about then, a year since, +that he prophesied: "Within nine months there will come such a +tide and deluge as will sweep through England and Scotland, and +completely wash out and effect a much-needed spring cleaning in +Downing Street." + +When the deluge came, at Manchester, Mr. Balfour was defeated, +and Churchill was victorious, and when the new Government was +formed the tidal wave landed Churchill in the office of +Under-Secretary for the Colonies. + +While this is being written the English papers say that within a +month he again will be promoted. For this young man of thirty the +only promotion remaining is a position in the Cabinet, in which +august body men of fifty are considered young. + +His is a picturesque career. Of any man of his few years speaking +our language, his career is probably the most picturesque. And that +he is half an American gives all of us an excuse to pretend we +share in his successes. + +CAPTAIN PHILO NORTON McGIFFIN + +IN the Chinese-Japanese War the battle of the Yalu was the first +battle fought between warships of modern make, and, except on +paper, neither the men who made them nor the men who fought +them knew what the ships could do, or what they might not do. For +years every naval power had been building these new engines of +war, and in the battle which was to test them the whole world was +interested. But in this battle Americans had a special interest, a +human, family interest, for the reason that one of the Chinese +squadron, which was matched against some of the same vessels of +Japan which lately swept those of Russia from the sea, was +commanded by a young graduate of the American Naval Academy. +This young man, who, at the time of the battle of the Yalu, was +thirty-three years old, was Captain Philo Norton McGiffin. So it +appears that five years before our fleet sailed to victory in Manila +Bay another graduate of Annapolis, and one twenty years younger +than in 1898 was Admiral Dewey, had commanded in action a +modern battleship, which, in tonnage, in armament, and in the +number of the ships' company, far outclassed Dewey's _Olympia_. + +McGiffin, who was born on December 13, 1860, came of fighting +stock. Back in Scotland the family is descended from the Clan +MacGregor and the Clan MacAlpine. + +"These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true, +And, Saxon--I am Roderick Dhu." + +McGiffin's great-grandfather, born in Scotland, emigrated to this +country and settled in "Little Washington," near Pittsburg, Pa. In +the Revolutionary War he was a soldier. Other relatives fought in +the War of 1812, one of them holding a commission as major. +McGiffin's own father was Colonel Norton McGiffin, who served +in the Mexican War, and in the Civil War was Lieutenant-Colonel +of the Eighty-fifth Pennsylvania Volunteers. So McGiffin inherited +his love for arms. + +In Washington he went to the high school and at the Washington +Jefferson College had passed through his freshman year. But the +honors that might accrue to him if he continued to live on in the +quiet and pretty old town of Washington did not tempt him. To +escape into the world he wrote his Congressman, begging him to +obtain for him an appointment to Annapolis. The Congressman +liked the letter, and wrote Colonel McGiffin to ask if the +application of his son had his approval. Colonel McGiffin was +willing, and in 1877 his son received his commission as cadet +midshipman. I knew McGiffin only as a boy with whom in +vacation time I went coon hunting in the woods outside of +Washington. For his age he was a very tall boy, and in his +midshipman undress uniform, to my youthful eyes, appeared a +most bold and adventurous spirit. + +At Annapolis his record seems to show he was pretty much like +other boys. According to his classmates, with all of whom I find he +was very popular, he stood high in the practical studies, such as +seamanship, gunnery, navigation, and steam engineering, but in all +else he was near the foot of the class, and in whatever escapade +was risky and reckless he was always one of the leaders. To him +discipline was extremely irksome. He could maintain it among +others, but when it applied to himself it bored him. On the floor of +the Academy building on which was his room there was a pyramid +of cannon balls--relics of the War of 1812. They stood at the head +of the stairs, and one warm night, when he could not sleep, he +decided that no one else should do so, and, one by one, rolled the +cannon balls down the stairs. They tore away the banisters and +bumped through the wooden steps and leaped off into the lower +halls. For any one who might think of ascending to discover the +motive power back of the bombardment they were extremely +dangerous. But an officer approached McGiffin in the rear, and, +having been caught in the act, he was sent to the prison ship. There +he made good friends with his jailer, an old man-of-warsman +named "Mike." He will be remembered by many naval officers +who as midshipmen served on the _Santee_. McGiffin so won over +Mike that when he left the ship he carried with him six charges of +gunpowder. These he loaded into the six big guns captured in the +Mexican War, which lay on the grass in the centre of the Academy +grounds, and at midnight on the eve of July 1st he fired a salute. It +aroused the entire garrison, and for a week the empty window +frames kept the glaziers busy. + +About 1878 or 1879 there was a famine in Ireland. The people of +New York City contributed provisions for the sufferers, and to +carry the supplies to Ireland the Government authorized the use of +the old _Constellation_. At the time the voyage was to begin each +cadet was instructed to consider himself as having been placed in +command of the _Constellation_ and to write a report on the +preparations made for the voyage, on the loading of the vessel, and +on the distribution of the stores. This exercise was intended for the +instruction of the cadets; first in the matter of seamanship and +navigation, and second in making official reports. At that time it +was a very difficult operation to get a gun out of the port of a +vessel where the gun was on a covered deck. To do this the +necessary tackles had to be rigged from the yard-arm and the yard +and mast properly braced and stayed, and then the lower block of +the tackle carried in through the gun port, which, of course, gave +the fall a very bad reeve. The first part of McGiffin's report dealt +with a new method of dismounting the guns and carrying them +through the gun ports, and so admirable was his plan, so simple +and ingenious, that it was used whenever it became necessary to +dismount a gun from one of the old sailing ships. Having, +however, offered this piece of good work, McGiffin's report +proceeded to tell of the division of the ship into compartments that +were filled with a miscellaneous assortment of stores, which +included the old "fifteen puzzles," at that particular time very +popular. The report terminated with a description of the joy of the +famished Irish as they received the puzzle-boxes. At another time +the cadets were required to write a report telling of the suppression +of the insurrection on the Isthmus of Panama. McGiffin won great +praise for the military arrangements and disposition of his men, +but, in the same report, he went on to describe how he armed them +with a new gun known as Baines's Rhetoric and told of the havoc +he wrought in the enemy's ranks when he fired these guns loaded +with similes and metaphors and hyperboles. + +Of course, after each exhibition of this sort he was sent to the +_Santee_ and given an opportunity to meditate. + +On another occasion, when one of the instructors lectured to the +cadets, he required them to submit a written statement embodying +all that they could recall of what had been said at the lecture. One +of the rules concerning this report provided that there should be no +erasures or interlineations, but that when mistakes were made the +objectionable or incorrect expressions should be included within +parentheses; and that the matter so enclosed within parentheses +would not be considered a part of the report. McGiffin wrote an +excellent _resume_ of the lecture, but he interspersed through it in +parentheses such words as "applause," "cheers," "cat-calls," and +"groans," and as these words were enclosed within parentheses he +insisted that they did not count, and made a very fair plea that he +ought not to be punished for words which slipped in by mistake, +and which he had officially obliterated by what he called oblivion +marks. + +He was not always on mischief bent. On one occasion, when the +house of a professor caught fire, McGiffin ran into the flames and +carried out two children, for which act he was commended by the +Secretary of the Navy. + +It was an act of Congress that determined that the career of +McGiffin should be that of a soldier of fortune. This was a most +unjust act, which provided that only as many midshipmen should +receive commissions as on the warships there were actual +vacancies. In those days, in 1884, our navy was very small. To-day +there is hardly a ship having her full complement of officers, and +the difficulty is not to get rid of those we have educated, but to get +officers to educate. To the many boys who, on the promise that +they would be officers of the navy, had worked for four years at +the Academy and served two years at sea, the act was most unfair. +Out of a class of about ninety, only the first twelve were given +commissions and the remaining eighty turned adrift upon the +uncertain seas of civil life. As a sop, each was given one thousand +dollars. + +McGiffin was not one of the chosen twelve. In the final +examinations on the list he was well toward the tail. But without +having studied many things, and without remembering the greater +part of them, no one graduates from Annapolis, even last on the +list; and with his one thousand dollars in cash, McGiffin had also +this six years of education at what was then the best naval college +in the world. This was his only asset--his education--and as in his +own country it was impossible to dispose of it, for possible +purchasers he looked abroad. + +At that time the Tong King war was on between France and China, +and he decided, before it grew rusty, to offer his knowledge to the +followers of the Yellow Dragon. In those days that was a hazard of +new fortunes that meant much more than it does now. To-day the +East is as near as San Francisco; the Japanese-Russian War, our +occupation of the Philippines, the part played by our troops in the +Boxer trouble, have made the affairs of China part of the daily +reading of every one. Now, one can step into a brass bed at +Forty-second Street and in four days at the Coast get into another +brass bed, and in twelve more be spinning down the Bund of +Yokohama in a rickshaw. People go to Japan for the winter months +as they used to go to Cairo. + +But in 1885 it was no such light undertaking, certainly not for a +young man who had been brought up in the quiet atmosphere of an +inland town, where generations of his family and other families +had lived and intermarried, content with their surroundings. + +With very few of his thousand dollars left him, McGiffin arrived in +February, 1885, in San Francisco. From there his letters to his +family give one the picture of a healthy, warm-hearted youth, +chiefly anxious lest his mother and sister should "worry." In our +country nearly every family knows that domestic tragedy when the +son and heir "breaks home ties," and starts out to earn a living; and +if all the world loves a lover, it at least sympathizes with the boy +who is "looking for a job." The boy who is looking for the job may +not think so, but each of those who has passed through the same +hard place gives him, if nothing else, his good wishes. McGiffin's +letters at this period gain for him from those who have had the +privilege to read them the warmest good feeling. + +They are filled with the same cheery optimism, the same slurring +over of his troubles, the same homely jokes, the same assurances +that he is feeling "bully," and that it all will come out right, that +every boy, when he starts out in the world, sends back to his +mother. + +"I am in first-rate health and spirits, so I don't want you to fuss +about me. I am big enough and ugly enough to scratch along +somehow, and I will not starve." + +To his mother he proudly sends his name written in Chinese +characters, as he had been taught to write it by the Chinese +Consul-General in San Francisco, and a pen-picture of two +elephants. "I am going to bring you home _two_ of these," he +writes, not knowing that in the strange and wonderful country to +which he is going elephants are as infrequent as they are in +Pittsburg. + +He reached China in April, and from Nagasaki on his way to +Shanghai the steamer that carried him was chased by two French +gunboats. But, apparently much to his disappointment, she soon +ran out of range of their guns. Though he did not know it then, +with the enemy he had travelled so far to fight this was his first +and last hostile meeting; for already peace was in the air. + +Of that and of how, in spite of peace, he obtained the "job" he +wanted, he must tell you himself in a letter home: + +TIEN-TSIN, CHINA, April 13, 1885. + +"MY DEAR MOTHER--I have not felt much in the humor for +writing, for I did not know what was going to happen. I spent a +good deal of money coming out, and when I got here, I knew, +unless something turned up, I was a gone coon. We got off Taku +forts Sunday evening and the next morning we went inside; the +channel is very narrow and sown with torpedoes. We struck +one--an electric one--in coming up, but it didn't go off. We were +until 10.30 P.M. in coming up to Tien-Tsin--thirty miles in a +straight line, but nearly seventy by the river, which is only about +one hundred feet wide--and we grounded ten times. + +"Well--at last we moored and went ashore. Brace Girdle, an +engineer, and I went to the hotel, and the first thing we heard +was--that _peace was declared!_ I went back on board ship, and I +didn't sleep much--I never was so blue in my life. I knew if they +didn't want me that I might as well give up the ghost, for I could +never get away from China. Well--I worried around all night +without sleep, and in the morning I felt as if I had been drawn +through a knot-hole. I must have lost ten pounds. I went around +about 10 A.M. and gave my letters to Pethick, an American U. S. +Vice-Consul and interpreter to Li Hung Chang. He said he would +fix them for me. Then I went back to the ship, and as our captain +was going up to see Li Hung Chang, I went along out of +desperation. We got in, and after a while were taken in through +corridor after corridor of the Viceroy's palace until we got into the +great Li, when we sat down and had tea and tobacco and talked +through an interpreter. When it came my turn he asked: 'Why did +you come to China?' I said: 'To enter the Chinese service for the +war.' 'How do you expect to enter?' 'I expect _you_ to give me a +commission!' 'I have no place to offer you.' 'I think you have--I +have come all the way from America to get it.' 'What would you +like?' 'I would like to get the new torpedo-boat and go down the +Yang-tse-Kiang to the blockading squadron.' 'Will you do that?' 'Of +course.' + +"He thought a little and said: 'I will see what can be done. Will you +take $100 a month for a start?' I said: 'That depends.' (Of course I +would take it.) Well, after parley, he said he would put me on the +flagship, and if I did well he would promote me. Then he looked at +me and said: 'How old are you ?' When I told him I was +twenty-four I thought he would faint--for in China a man is a +_boy_ until he is over thirty. He said I would _never_ do--I was a +child. I could not know anything at all. I could not convince him, +but at last he compromised--I was to pass an examination at the +Arsenal at the Naval College, in all branches, and if they passed +me I would have a show. So we parted. I reported for examination +next day, but was put off--same the next day. But to-day I was told +to come, and sat down to a stock of foolscap, and had a pretty stiff +exam. I am only just through. I had seamanship, gunnery, +navigation, nautical astronomy, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, +conic sections, curve tracing, differential and integral calculus. I +had only three questions out of five to answer in each branch, but +in the first three I answered all five. After that I only had time for +three, but at the end he said I need not finish, he was perfectly +satisfied. I had done remarkably well, and he would report to the +Viceroy to-morrow. He examined my first +papers--seamanship--said I was _perfect_ in it, so I will get +_along_, you need not fear. I told the Consul--he was very well +pleased--he is a nice man. + +"I feel pretty well now--have had dinner and am smoking a good +Manila cheroot. I wrote hard all day, wrote fifteen sheets of +foolscap and made about a dozen drawings--got pretty tired. + +"I have had a hard scramble for the service and only got in by the +skin of my teeth. I guess I will go to bed--I will sleep well +to-night--Thursday. + +"I did not hear from the Naval Secretary, Tuesday, so yesterday +morning I went up to the Admiralty and sent in my card. He came +out and received me very well--said I had passed a 'very splendid +examination'; had been recommended very strongly to the Viceroy, +who was very much pleased; that the Director of the Naval College +over at the Arsenal had wanted me and would I go over at once? I +_would_. It was about five miles. We (a friend, who is a great rider +here) went on steeplechase ponies--we were ferried across the Pei +Ho in a small scow and then had a long ride. There _is_ a path--but +Pritchard insisted on taking all the ditches, and as my pony jumped +like a cat, it wasn't nice at first, but I didn't squeal and kept my seat +and got the swing of it at last and rather liked it. I think I will keep +a horse here--you can hire one and a servant together for $7 a +month; that is $5.60 of our money, and pony and man found in +everything. + +"Well--at last we got to the Arsenal--a place about four miles +around, fortified, where all sorts of arms--cartridges, shot and +shell, engines, and _everything_--are made. The Naval College is +inside surrounded by a moat and wall. I thought to myself, if the +cadet here is like to the thing I used to be at the U. S. N. A. _that_ +won't keep him in. I went through a lot of yards till I was ushered +into a room finished in black ebony and was greeted very warmly +by the Director. We took seats on a raised platform--Chinese style +and pretty soon an interpreter came, one of the Chinese professors, +who was educated abroad, and we talked and drank tea. He said I +had done well, that he had the authority of the Viceroy to take me +there as 'Professor' of seamanship and gunnery; in addition I might +be required to teach navigation or nautical astronomy, or drill the +cadets in infantry, artillery, and fencing. For this I was to receive +what would be in our money $1,800 per annum, as near as we can +compare it, paid in gold each month. Besides, I will have a house +furnished for my use, and it is their intention, as soon as I _show_ +that I _know_ something, to considerably increase my pay. They +asked the Viceroy to give me 130 T per month (about $186) and +house, but the Viceroy said I was _but a boy_; that I had seen no +years and had only come here a week ago with no one to vouch for +me, and that I might turn out an impostor. But he would risk 100 T +on me anyhow, and as soon as I was reported favorably on by the +college I would be raised--the agreement is to be for three years. +For a few months I am to command a training ship--an ironclad +that is in dry dock at present, until a captain in the English Navy +comes out, who has been sent for to command her. + +"_So Here I am_--twenty-four years old and captain of a +man-of-war--a better one than any in our own navy--only for a +short time, of course, but I would be a pretty long time before I +would command one at home. Well--I accepted and will enter on +my duties in a week, as soon as my house is put in order. I saw +it--it has a long veranda, very broad; with flower garden, apricot +trees, etc., just covered with blossoms; a wide hall on the front, a +room about 18x15, with a 13-foot ceiling; then back another rather +larger, with a cupola skylight in the centre, where I am going to +put a shelf with flowers. The Government is to furnish the house +with bed, tables, chairs, sideboards, lounges, stove for kitchen. I +have grates (American) in the room, but I don't need them. We +have snow, and a good deal of ice in winter, but the thermometer +never gets below zero. I have to supply my own crockery. I will +have two servants and cook; I will only get one and the cook +first--they only cost $4 to $5.50 per month, and their board +amounts to very little. I can get along, don't you think so? Now I +want you to get Jim to pack up all my professional works on +gunnery, surveying, seamanship, mathematics, astronomy, algebra, +geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, calculus, mechanics, and +_every_ book of that description I own, including those +paperbound 'Naval Institute' papers, and put them in a box, +together with any photos, etc., you think I would like--I have none +of you or Pa or the family (including Carrie)--and send to me. + +"I just got in in time--didn't I? Another week would have been too +late. My funds were getting low; I would not have had _anything_ +before long. The U. S. Consul, General Bromley, is much pleased. +The interpreter says it was all in the way I did with the Viceroy in +the interview. + +"I will have a chance to go to Peking and later to a tiger hunt in +Mongolia, but for the present I am going to study, work, and +_stroke_ these mandarins till I get a raise. I am the only instructor +in both seamanship and gunnery, and I must know _everything_, +both practically and theoretically. But it will be good for me and +the only thing is, that if I were put back into the Navy I would be +in a dilemma. I think I will get my 'influence' to work, and I want +you people at home to look out, and in case I _am_--if it were +represented to the Sec. that my position here was giving me an +immense lot of practical knowledge professionally--more than I +could get on a ship at sea--I think he would give me two years' +leave on half or quarter pay. Or, I would be willing to do without +pay--only to be kept on the register in my rank. + +"I will write more about this. Love to all." + + +It is characteristic of McGiffin that in the very same letter in which +he announces he has entered foreign service he plans to return to +that of his own country. This hope never left him. You find the +same homesickness for the quarterdeck of an American +man-of-war all through his later letters. At one time a bill to +reinstate the midshipmen who had been cheated of their +commissions was introduced into Congress. Of this McGiffin +writes frequently as "our bill." "It may pass," he writes, "but I am +tired hoping. I have hoped so long. And if it should," he adds +anxiously, "there may be a time limit set in which a man must +rejoin, or lose his chance, so do not fail to let me know as quickly +as you can." But the bill did not pass, and McGiffin never returned +to the navy that had cut him adrift. He settled down at Tien-Tsin +and taught the young cadets how to shoot. Almost all of those who +in the Chinese-Japanese War served as officers were his pupils. As +the navy grew, he grew with it, and his position increased in +importance. More Mexican dollars per month, more servants, +larger houses, and buttons of various honorable colors were given +him, and, in return, he established for China a modem naval +college patterned after our own. In those days throughout China +and Japan you could find many of these foreign advisers. Now, in +Japan, the Hon. W. H. Dennison of the Foreign Office, one of our +own people, is the only foreigner with whom the Japanese have +not parted, and in China there are none. Of all of those who have +gone none served his employers more faithfully than did McGiffin. +At a time when every official robbed the people and the +Government, and when "squeeze" or "graft" was recognized as a +perquisite, McGiffin's hands were clean. The shells purchased for +the Government by him were not loaded with black sand, nor were +the rifles fitted with barrels of iron pipe. Once a year he celebrated +the Thanksgiving Day of his own country by inviting to a great +dinner all the Chinese naval officers who had been at least in part +educated in America. It was a great occasion, and to enjoy it +officers used to come from as far as Port Arthur, Shanghai, and +Hong-Kong. So fully did some of them appreciate the efforts of +their host that previous to his annual dinner, for twenty-four hours, +they delicately starved themselves. + +During ten years McGiffin served as naval constructor and +professor of gunnery and seamanship, and on board ships at sea +gave practical demonstrations in the handling of the new cruisers. +In 1894 he applied for leave, which was granted, but before he had +sailed for home war with Japan was declared and he withdrew his +application. He was placed as second in command on board the +_Chen Yuen_, a seven-thousand-ton battleship, a sister ship to the +_Ting Yuen_, the flagship of Admiral Ting Ju Chang. On the +memorable 17th of September, 1894, the battle of the Yalu was +fought, and so badly were the Chinese vessels hammered that the +Chinese navy, for the time being, was wiped out of existence. + +From the start the advantage was with the Japanese fleet. In heavy +guns the Chinese were the better armed, but in quick-firing guns +the Japanese were vastly superior, and while the Chinese +battleships _Ting Yuen_ and _Chen Yuen_, each of 7,430 tons, +were superior to any of the Japanese warships, the three largest of +which were each of 4,277 tons, the gross tonnage of the Japanese +fleet was 36,000 to 21,000 of the Chinese. During the progress of +the battle the ships engaged on each side numbered an even dozen, +but at the very start, before a decisive shot was fired by either +contestant, the _Tsi Yuen_, 2,355 tons, and _Kwan Chiae_, 1,300 +tons, ran away, and before they had time to get into the game the +_Chao Yung_ and _Yang Wei_ were in flames and had fled to the +nearest land. So the battle was fought by eight Chinese ships +against twelve of the Japanese. Of the Chinese vessels, the +flagship, commanded by Admiral Ting, and her sister ship, which +immediately after the beginning of the fight was for four hours +commanded by McGiffin, were the two chief aggressors, and in +consequence received the fire of the entire Japanese squadron. +Toward the end of the fight, which without interruption lasted for +five long hours, the Japanese did not even consider the four +smaller ships of the enemy, but, sailing around the two ironclads in +a circle, fired only at them. The Japanese themselves testified that +these two ships never lost their +formation, and that when her sister ironclad was closely pressed +the _Chen Yuen_, by her movements and gun practice, protected +the _Ting Yuen_, and, in fact, while she could not prevent the +heavy loss the fleet encountered, preserved it from annihilation. +During the fight this ship was almost continuously on fire, and was +struck by every kind of projectile, from the thirteen-inch Canet +shells to a rifle bullet, four hundred times. McGiffin himself was +so badly wounded, so beaten about by concussions, so burned, and +so bruised by steel splinters, that his health and eyesight were +forever wrecked. But he brought the _Chen Yuen_ safely into Port +Arthur and the remnants of the fleet with her. + +On account of his lack of health he resigned from the Chinese +service and returned to America. For two years he lived in New +York City, suffering in body without cessation the most exquisite +torture. During that time his letters to his family show only +tremendous courage. On the splintered, gaping deck of the _Chen +Yuen_, with the fires below it, and the shells bursting upon it, he +had shown to his Chinese crew the courage of the white man who +knew he was responsible for them and for the honor of their +country. But far greater and more difficult was the courage he +showed while alone in the dark sick-room, and in the private wards +of the hospitals. + +In the letters he dictates from there he still is concerned only lest +those at home shall "worry"; he reassures them with falsehoods, +jokes at their fears; of the people he can see from the window of +the hospital tells them foolish stories; for a little boy who has been +kind he asks them to send him his Chinese postage stamps; he +plans a trip he will take with them when he is stronger, knowing he +never will be stronger. The doctors had urged upon him a certain +operation, and of it to a friend he wrote: "I know that I will have to +have a piece about three inches square cut out of my skull, and this +nerve cut off near the middle of the brain, as well as my eye taken +out (for a couple of hours only, provided it is not mislaid, and can +be found). Doctor ------ and his crowd show a bad memory for +failures. As a result of this operation others have told me--I forget +the percentage of deaths, which does not matter, but--that a large +percentage have become insane. And some lost their sight." + +While threatened with insanity and complete blindness, and hourly +from his wounds suffering a pain drugs could not master, he +dictated for the _Century Magazine_ the only complete account of +the battle of the Yalu. In a letter to Mr. Richard Watson Gilder he +writes: "...my eyes are troubling me. I cannot see even what I am +writing now, and am getting the article under difficulties. I yet +hope to place it in your hands by the 21st, still, if my eyes grow +worse------" + +"Still, if my eyes grow worse------" + +The unfinished sentence was grimly prophetic. + +Unknown to his attendants at the hospital, among the papers in his +despatch-box he had secreted his service revolver. On the morning +of the 11th of February, 1897, he asked for this box, and on some +pretext sent the nurse from the room. When the report of the pistol +brought them running to his bedside, they found the pain-driven +body at peace, and the tired eyes dark forever. + +In the article in the _Century_ on the battle of the Yalu, he had +said: + +"Chief among those who have died for their country is Admiral +Ting Ju Chang, a gallant soldier and true gentleman. Betrayed by +his countrymen, fighting against odds, almost his last official act +was to stipulate for the lives of his officers and men. His own he +scorned to save, well knowing that his ungrateful country would +prove less merciful than his honorable foe. Bitter, indeed, must +have been the reflections of the old, wounded hero, in that +midnight hour, as he drank the poisoned cup that was to give him +rest." + +And bitter indeed must have been the reflections of the young +wounded American, robbed, by the parsimony of his country, of +the right he had earned to serve it, and who was driven out to give +his best years and his life for a strange people under a strange flag. + +GENERAL WILLIAM WALKER, +THE KING OF THE FILIBUSTERS + +IT is safe to say that to members of the younger generation the +name of William Walker conveys absolutely nothing. To them, as +a name, "William Walker" awakens no pride of race or country. It +certainly does not suggest poetry and adventure. To obtain a place +in even this group of Soldiers of Fortune, William Walker, the +most distinguished of all American Soldiers of Fortune, the one +who but for his own countrymen would have single-handed +attained the most far-reaching results, had to wait his turn behind +adventurers of other lands and boy officers of his own. And yet +had this man with the plain name, the name that to-day means +nothing, accomplished what he adventured, he would on this +continent have solved the problem of slavery, have established an +empire in Mexico and in Central America, and, incidentally, have +brought us into war with all of Europe. That is all he would have +accomplished. + +In the days of gold in San Francisco among the "Forty-niners" +William Walker was one of the most famous, most picturesque +and popular figures. Jack Oakhurst, gambler; Colonel Starbottle, +duellist; Yuba Bill, stage-coach driver, were his contemporaries. +Bret Harte was one of his keenest admirers, and in two of his +stories, thinly disguised under a more appealing name, Walker is +the hero. When, later, Walker came to New York City, in his +honor Broadway from the Battery to Madison Square was +bedecked with flags and arches. "It was roses, roses all the way." +The house-tops rocked and swayed. + +In New Orleans, where in a box at the opera he made his first +appearance, for ten minutes the performance came to a pause, +while the audience stood to salute him. + +This happened less than fifty years ago, and there are men who as +boys were out with "Walker of Nicaragua," and who are still active +in the public life of San Francisco and New York. + +Walker was born in 1824, in Nashville, Tenn. He was the oldest +son of a Scotch banker, a man of a deeply religious mind, and +interested in a business which certainly is removed, as far as +possible, from the profession of arms. Indeed, few men better than +William Walker illustrate the fact that great generals are born, not +trained. Everything in Walker's birth, family tradition, and +education pointed to his becoming a member of one of the +"learned" professions. It was the wish of his father that he should +be a minister of the Presbyterian Church, and as a child he was +trained with that end in view. He himself preferred to study +medicine, and after graduating at the University of Tennessee, at +Edinburgh he followed a course of lectures, and for two years +travelled in Europe, visiting many of the great hospitals. + +Then having thoroughly equipped himself to practise as a +physician, after a brief return to his native city, and as short a stay +in Philadelphia, he took down his shingle forever, and proceeded +to New Orleans to study law. In two years he was admitted to the +bar of Louisiana. But because clients were few, or because the red +tape of the law chafed his spirit, within a year, as already he had +abandoned the Church and Medicine, he abandoned his law +practice and became an editorial writer on the New Orleans +_Crescent_. A year later the restlessness which had rebelled +against the grave professions led him to the gold fields of +California, and San Francisco. There, in 1852, at the age of only +twenty-eight, as editor of the San Francisco _Herald_, Walker +began his real life which so soon was to end in both disaster and +glory. + +Up to his twenty-eighth year, except in his restlessness, nothing in +his life foreshadowed what was to follow. Nothing pointed to him +as a man for whom thousands of other men, from every capital of +the world, would give up their lives. + +Negatively, by abandoning three separate callings, and in making it +plain that a professional career did not appeal to him, Walker had +thrown a certain sidelight on his character; but actively he never +had given any hint that under the thoughtful brow of the young +doctor and lawyer there was a mind evolving schemes of empire, +and an ambition limited only by the two great oceans. + +Walker's first adventure was undoubtedly inspired by and in +imitation of one which at the time of his arrival in San Francisco +had just been brought to a disastrous end. This was the De +Boulbon expedition into Mexico. The Count Gaston Raoulx de +Raousset-Boulbon was a young French nobleman and Soldier of +Fortune, a _chasseur d'Afrique_, a duellist, journalist, dreamer, +who came to California to dig gold. Baron Harden-Hickey, who +was born in San Francisco a few years after Boulbon at the age of +thirty was shot in Mexico, also was inspired to dreams of conquest +by this same gentleman adventurer. + +Boulbon was a young man of large ideas. In the rapid growth of +California he saw a threat to Mexico and proposed to that +government, as a "buffer" state between the two republics, to form +a French colony in the Mexican State of Sonora. Sonora is that part +of Mexico which directly joins on the south with our State of +Arizona. The President of Mexico gave Boulbon permission to +attempt this, and in 1852 he landed at Guaymas in the Gulf of +California with two hundred and sixty well-armed Frenchmen. The +ostensible excuse of Boulbon for thus invading foreign soil was his +contract with the President under which his "emigrants" were hired +to protect other foreigners working in the "Restauradora" mines +from the attacks of Apache Indians from our own Arizona. But +there is evidence that back of Boulbon was the French +Government, and that he was attempting, in his small way, what +later was attempted by Maximilian, backed by a French army corps +and Louis Napoleon, to establish in Mexico an empire under +French protection. For both the filibuster and the emperor the end +was the same; to be shot by the fusillade against a church wall. + +In 1852, two years before Boulbon's death, which was the finale to +his second filibustering expedition into Sonora, he wrote to a +friend in Paris: "Europeans are disturbed by the growth of the +United States. And rightly so. Unless she be dismembered; unless +a powerful rival be built up beside her (_i .e._, France in Mexico), +America will become, through her commerce, her trade, her +population, her geographical position upon two oceans, the +inevitable mistress of the world. In ten years Europe dare not fire a +shot without her permission. As I write fifty Americans prepare to +sail for Mexico and go perhaps to victory. _Voila les Etats-Unis_." + +These fifty Americans who, in the eyes of Boulbon, threatened the +peace of Europe, were led by the ex-doctor, ex-lawyer, ex-editor, +William Walker, _aged twenty-eight years_. Walker had attempted +but had failed to obtain from the Mexican Government such a +contract as the one it had granted De Boulbon. He accordingly +sailed without it, announcing that, whether the Mexican +Government asked him to do so or not, he would see that the +women and children on the border of Mexico and Arizona were +protected from massacre by the Indians. It will be remembered that +when Dr. Jameson raided the Transvaal he also went to protect +"women and children" from massacre by the Boers. Walker's +explanation of his expedition, in his own words, is as follows. He +writes in the third person: "What Walker saw and heard satisfied +him that a comparatively small body of Americans might gain a +position on the Sonora frontier and protect the families on the +border from the Indians, and such an act would be one of humanity +whether or not sanctioned by the Mexican Government. The +condition of the upper part of Sonora was at that time, and still is +[he was writing eight years later, in 1860], a disgrace to the +civilization of the continent...and the people of the United States +were more immediately responsible before the world for the +Apache outrages. Northern Sonora was in fact, more under the +dominion of the Apaches than under the laws of Mexico, and the +contributions of the Indians were collected with greater regularity +and certainty than the dues of the tax-gatherers. The state of this +region furnished the best defence for any American aiming to +settle there without the formal consent of Mexico; and, although +political changes would certainly have followed the establishment +of a colony, they might be justified by the plea that any social +organization, no matter how secured, is preferable to that in which +individuals and families are altogether at the mercy of savages." + +While at the time of Jameson's raid the women and children in +danger of massacre from the Boers were as many as there are +snakes in Ireland, at the time of Walker's raid the women and +children were in danger from the Indians, who as enemies, as +Walker soon discovered, were as cruel and as greatly to be feared +as he had described them. + +But it was not to save women and children that Walker sought to +conquer the State of Sonora. At the time of his expedition the great +question of slavery was acute; and if in the States next to be +admitted to the Union slavery was to be prohibited, the time had +come, so it seemed to this statesman of twenty-eight years, when +the South must extend her boundaries, and for her slaves find an +outlet in fresh territory. Sonora already joined Arizona. By +conquest her territory could easily be extended to meet Texas. As a +matter of fact, strategically the spot selected by William Walker +for the purpose for which he desired it was almost perfect. +Throughout his brief career one must remember that the spring of +all his acts was this dream of an empire where slavery would be +recognized. His mother was a slave-holder. In Tennessee he had +been born and bred surrounded by slaves. His youth and manhood +had been spent in Nashville and New Orleans. He believed as +honestly, as fanatically in the right to hold slaves as did his father +in the faith of the Covenanters. To-day one reads his arguments in +favor of slavery with the most curious interest. His appeal to the +humanity of his reader, to his heart, to his sense of justice, to his +fear of God, and to his belief in the Holy Bible not to abolish +slavery, but to continue it, to this generation is as amusing as the +topsy-turvyisms of Gilbert or Shaw. But to the young man himself +slavery was a sacred institution, intended for the betterment of +mankind, a God-given benefit to the black man and a God-given +right of his white master. + +White brothers in the South, with perhaps less exalted motives, +contributed funds to fit out Walker's expedition, and in October, +1852, with forty-five men, he landed at Cape St. Lucas, at the +extreme point of Lower California. Lower California, it must be +remembered, in spite of its name, is not a part of our California, +but then was, and still is, a part of Mexico. The fact that he was at +last upon the soil of the enemy caused Walker to throw off all +pretence; and instead of hastening to protect women and children, +he sailed a few miles farther up the coast to La Paz. With his +forty-five followers he raided the town, made the Governor a +prisoner, and established a republic with himself as President. In a +proclamation he declared the people free of the tyranny of Mexico. +They had no desire to be free, but Walker was determined, and, +whether they liked it or not, they woke up to find themselves an +independent republic. A few weeks later, although he had not yet +set foot there, Walker annexed on paper the State of Sonora, and to +both States gave the name of the Republic of Sonora. + +As soon as word of this reached San Francisco, his friends busied +themselves in his behalf, and the danger-loving and adventurous of +all lands were enlisted as "emigrants" and shipped to him in the +bark _Anita_. + +Two months later, in November, 1852, three hundred of these +joined Walker. They were as desperate a band of scoundrels as +ever robbed a sluice, stoned a Chinaman, or shot a "Greaser." +When they found that to command them there was only a boy, they +plotted to blow up the magazine in which the powder was stored, +rob the camp, and march north, supporting themselves by looting +the ranches. Walker learned of their plot, tried the ringleaders by +court-martial, and shot them. With a force as absolutely +undisciplined as was his, the act required the most complete +personal courage. That was a quality the men with him could fully +appreciate. They saw they had as a leader one who could fight, and +one who would punish. The majority did not want a leader who +would punish so when Walker called upon those who would +follow him to Sonora to show their hands, only the original +forty-five and about forty of the later recruits remained with him. +With less than one hundred men he started to march up the +Peninsula through Lower California, and so around the Gulf to +Sonora. + +From the very start the filibusters were overwhelmed with disaster. +The Mexicans, with Indian allies, skulked on the flanks and rear. +Men who in the almost daily encounters were killed fell into the +hands of the Indians, and their bodies were mutilated. Stragglers +and deserters were run to earth and tortured. Those of the +filibusters who were wounded died from lack of medical care. The +only instruments they possessed with which to extract the +arrow-heads were probes made from ramrods filed to a point. +Their only food was the cattle they killed on the march. The army +was barefoot, the Cabinet in rags, the President of Sonora wore +one boot and one shoe. + +Unable to proceed farther, Walker fell back upon San Vincente, +where he had left the arms and ammunition of the deserters and a +rear-guard of eighteen men. He found not one of these to welcome +him. A dozen had deserted, and the Mexicans had surprised the +rest, lassoing them and torturing them until they died. Walker now +had but thirty-five men. To wait for further re-enforcements from +San Francisco, even were he sure that re-enforcements would +come, was impossible. He determined by forced marches to fight +his way to the boundary line of California. Between him and safety +were the Mexican soldiers holding the passes, and the Indians +hiding on his flanks. When within three miles of the boundary line, +at San Diego, Colonel Melendrez, who commanded the Mexican +forces, sent in a flag of truce, and offered, if they would surrender, +a safe-conduct to all of the survivors of the expedition except the +chief. But the men who for one year had fought and starved for +Walker, would not, within three miles of home, abandon him. + +Melendrez then begged the commander of the United States troops +to order Walker to surrender. Major McKinstry, who was in +command of the United States Army Post at San Diego, refused. +For him to cross the line would be a violation of neutral territory. +On Mexican soil he would neither embarrass the ex-President of +Sonora nor aid him; but he saw to it that if the filibusters reached +American soil, no Mexican or Indian should follow them. + +Accordingly, on the imaginary boundary he drew up his troop, and +like an impartial umpire awaited the result. Hidden behind rocks +and cactus, across the hot, glaring plain, the filibusters could see +the American flag, and the gay, fluttering guidons of the cavalry. +The sight gave them heart for one last desperate spurt. Melendrez +also appreciated that for the final attack the moment had come. As +he charged, Walker, apparently routed, fled, but concealed in the +rocks behind him he had stationed a rear-guard of a dozen men. As +Melendrez rode into this ambush the dozen riflemen emptied as +many saddles, and the Mexicans and Indians stampeded. A half +hour later, footsore and famished, the little band that had set forth +to found an empire of slaves, staggered across the line and +surrendered to the forces of the United States. + +Of this expedition James Jeffrey Roche says, in his "Byways of +War," which is of all books published about Walker the most +intensely and fascinatingly interesting and complete: "Years +afterward the peon herdsman or prowling Cocupa Indian in the +mountain by-paths stumbled over the bleaching skeleton of some +nameless one whose resting-place was marked by no cross or +cairn, but the Colts revolver resting beside his bones spoke his +country and his occupation--the only relic of the would-be +conquistadores of the nineteenth century." + +Under parole to report to General Wood, commanding the +Department of the Pacific, the filibusters were sent by sailing +vessel to San Francisco, where their leader was tried for violating +the neutrality laws of the United States, and acquitted. + +Walker's first expedition had ended in failure, but for him it had +been an opportunity of tremendous experience, as active service is +the best of all military academies, and for the kind of warfare he +was to wage, the best preparation. Nor was it inglorious, for his +fellow survivors, contrary to the usual practice, instead of in +bar-rooms placing the blame for failure upon their leader, stood +ready to fight one and all who doubted his ability or his courage. +Later, after five years, many of these same men, though ten to +twenty years his senior, followed him to death, and never +questioned his judgment nor his right to command. + +At this time in Nicaragua there was the usual revolution. On the +south the sister republic of Costa Rica was taking sides, on the +north Honduras was landing arms and men. There was no law, no +government. A dozen political parties, a dozen commanding +generals, and not one strong man. + +In the editorial rooms of the San Francisco _Herald_, Walker, +searching the map for new worlds to conquer, rested his finger +upon Nicaragua. + +In its confusion of authority he saw an opportunity to make +himself a power, and in its tropical wealth and beauty, in the +laziness and incompetence of its inhabitants, he beheld a greater, +fairer, more kind Sonora. On the Pacific side from San Francisco +he could re-enforce his army with men and arms; on the Caribbean +side from New Orleans he could, when the moment arrived, people +his empire with slaves. + +The two parties at war in Nicaragua were the Legitimists and the +Democrats. Why they were at war it is not necessary to know. +Probably Walker did not know; it is not likely that they themselves +knew. But from the leader of the Democrats Walker obtained a +contract to bring to Nicaragua three hundred Americans, who were + each to receive several hundred acres of land, and who were +described as "colonists liable to military duty." This contract +Walker submitted to the Attorney-General of the State and to +General Wood, who once before had acquitted him of +filibustering; and neither of these Federal officers saw anything +which seemed to give them the right to interfere. But the rest of +San Francisco was less credulous, and the "colonists" who joined +Walker had a very distinct idea that they were not going to +Nicaragua to plant coffee or to pick bananas. + +In May, 1855, just a year after Walker and his thirty-three +followers had surrendered to the United States troops at San +Diego, with fifty new recruits and seven veterans of the former +expedition he sailed from San Francisco in the brig _Vesta_, and +in five weeks, after a weary and stormy voyage, landed at Realejo. +There he was met by representatives of the Provisional Director of +the Democrats, who received the Californians warmly. + +Walker was commissioned a colonel, Achilles Kewen, who had +been fighting under Lopez in Cuba, a lieutenant-colonel, and +Timothy Crocker, who had served under Walker in the Sonora +expedition, a major. The corps was organized as an independent +command and was named "La Falange Americana." At this time +the enemy held the route to the Caribbean, and Walker's first +orders were to dislodge him. + +Accordingly, a week after landing with his fifty-seven Americans +and one hundred and fifty native troops, Walker sailed in the +_Vesta_ for Brito, from which port he marched upon Rivas, a city +of eleven thousand people and garrisoned by some twelve hundred +of the enemy. + +The first fight ended in a complete and disastrous fiasco. The +native troops ran away, and the Americans surrounded by six +hundred of the Legitimists' soldiers, after defending themselves for +three hours behind some adobe huts, charged the enemy and +escaped into the jungle. Their loss was heavy, and among the +killed were the two men upon whom Walker chiefly depended: +Kewen and Crocker. The Legitimists placed the bodies of the dead +and wounded who were still living on a pile of logs and burned +them. After a painful night march, Walker, the next day, reached +San Juan on the coast, and, finding a Costa Rican schooner in port, +seized it for his use. At this moment, although Walker's men were +defeated, bleeding, and in open flight, two "gringos " picked up on +the beach of San Juan, "the Texan Harry McLeod and the Irishman +Peter Burns," asked to be permitted to join him. + +"It was encouraging," Walker writes, "for the soldiers to find that +some besides themselves did not regard their fortunes as altogether +desperate, and small as was this addition to their number it gave +increased moral as well as material strength to the command." + +Sometimes in reading history it would appear as though for +success the first requisite must be an utter lack of humor, and +inability to look upon what one is attempting except with absolute +seriousness. With forty men Walker was planning to conquer and +rule Nicaragua, a country with a population of two hundred and +fifty thousand souls and as large as the combined area of +Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and +Connecticut. And yet, even seven years later, he records without a +smile that two beach-combers gave his army "moral and material +strength." And it is most characteristic of the man that at the +moment he was rejoicing over this addition to his forces, to +maintain discipline two Americans who had set fire to the houses +of the enemy he ordered to be shot. A weaker man would have +repudiated the two Americans, who, in fact, were not members of +the Phalanx, and trusted that their crimes would not be charged +against him. But the success of Walker lay greatly in his stern +discipline. He tried the men, and they confessed to their guilt. One +got away; and, as it might appear that Walker had connived at his +escape, to the second man was shown no mercy. When one reads +how severe was Walker in his punishments, and how frequently +the death penalty was invoked by him against his own few +followers, the wonder grows that these men, as independent and as +unaccustomed to restraint as were those who first joined him, +submitted to his leadership. One can explain it only by the +personal quality of Walker himself. + +Among these reckless, fearless outlaws, who, despising their allies, +believed and proved that with his rifle one American could +account for a dozen Nicaraguans, Walker was the one man who +did not boast or drink or gamble, who did not even swear, who +never looked at a woman, and who, in money matters, was +scrupulously honest and unself-seeking. In a fight, his followers +knew that for them he would risk being shot just as unconcernedly +as to maintain his authority he would shoot one of them. + +Treachery, cowardice, looting, any indignity to women, he +punished with death; but to the wounded, either of his own or of +the enemy's forces, he was as gentle as a nursing sister and the +brave and able he rewarded with instant promotion and higher pay. +In no one trait was he a demagogue. One can find no effort on his +part to ingratiate himself with his men. Among the officers of his +staff there were no favorites. He messed alone, and at all times +kept to himself. He spoke little, and then with utter lack of +self-consciousness. In the face of injustice, perjury, or physical +danger, he was always calm, firm, dispassionate. But it is said that +on those infrequent occasions when his anger asserted itself, the +steady steel-gray eyes flashed so menacingly that those who faced +them would as soon look down the barrel of his Colt. + +The impression one gets of him gathered from his recorded acts, +from his own writings, from the writings of those who fought with +him, is of a silent, student-like young man believing religiously in +his "star of destiny"; but, in all matters that did not concern +himself, possessed of a grim sense of fun. The sayings of his men +that in his history of the war he records, show a distinct +appreciation of the Bret Harte school of humor. As, for instance, +when he tells how he wished to make one of them a drummer boy +and the Californian drawled: "No, thanks, colonel; I never seen a +picture of a battle yet that the first thing in it wasn't a dead +drummer boy with a busted drum." + +In Walker the personal vanity which is so characteristic of the +soldier of fortune was utterly lacking. In a land where a captain +bedecks himself like a field-marshal, Walker wore his trousers +stuffed in his boots, a civilian's blue frock-coat, and the slouch hat +of the period, with, for his only ornament, the red ribbon of the +Democrats. The authority he wielded did not depend upon braid or +buttons, and only when going into battle did he wear his sword. In +appearance he was slightly built, rather below the medium height, +smooth shaven, and with deep-set gray eyes. These eyes +apparently, as they gave him his nickname, were his most marked +feature. + +His followers called him, and later, when he was thirty-two years +old, he was known all over the United States as the "Gray-Eyed +Man of Destiny." + +From the first Walker recognized that in order to establish himself +in Nicaragua he must keep in touch with all possible recruits +arriving from San Francisco and New York, and that to do this he +must hold the line of transit from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific. +At this time the sea routes to the gold-fields were three: by sailing +vessel around the Cape, one over the Isthmus of Panama, and one, +which was the shortest, across Nicaragua. By a charter from the +Government of Nicaragua, the right to transport passengers across +this isthmus was controlled by the Accessory Transit Company, of +which the first Cornelius Vanderbilt was president. His company +owned a line of ocean steamers both on the Pacific side and on the +Atlantic side. Passengers _en route_ from New York to the +gold-fields were landed by these latter steamers at Greytown on +the west coast of Nicaragua, and sent by boats of light draught up +the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua. There they were met by +larger lake steamers and conveyed across the lake to Virgin Bay. +From that point, in carriages and on mule back, they were carried +twelve miles overland to the port of San Juan del Sud on the +Pacific Coast, where they boarded the company's steamers to San +Francisco. + +During the year of Walker's occupation the number of passengers +crossing Nicaragua was an average of about two thousand a +month. + +It was to control this route that immediately after his first defeat +Walker returned to San Juan del Sud, and in a smart skirmish +defeated the enemy and secured possession of Virgin Bay, the +halting place for the passengers going east or west. In this fight +Walker was outnumbered five to one, but his losses were only +three natives killed and a few Americans wounded. The +Legitimists lost sixty killed and a hundred wounded. This +proportion of losses shows how fatally effective was the rifle and +revolver fire of the Californians. Indeed, so wonderful was it that +when some years ago I visited the towns and cities captured by the +filibusters, I found that the marksmanship of Walker's Phalanx was +still a tradition. Indeed, thanks to the filibusters, to-day in any part +of Central America a man from the States, if in trouble, has only to +show his gun. No native will wait for him to fire it. + +After the fight at Virgin Bay, Walker received from California fifty +recruits--a very welcome addition to his force, and as he now +commanded about one hundred and twenty Americans, three +hundred Nicaraguans, under a friendly native, General Valle, and +two brass cannon, he decided to again attack Rivas. Rivas is on the +lake just above Virgin Bay; still further up is Granada, which was +the head-quarters of the Legitimists. + +Fearing Walker's attack upon Rivas, the Legitimist troops were +hurried south from Granada to that city, leaving Granada but +slightly protected. + +Through intercepted letters Walker learned of this and determined +to strike at Granada. By night, in one of the lake steamers, he +skirted the shore, and just before daybreak, with fires banked and +all lights out, drew up to a point near the city. The day previous the +Legitimists had gained a victory, and, as good luck or Walker's +"destiny" would have it, the night before Granada had been +celebrating the event. Much joyous dancing and much drinking of +aguardiente had buried the inhabitants in a drugged slumber. The +garrison slept, the sentries slept, the city slept. But when the +convent bells called for early mass, the air was shaken with sharp +reports that to the ears of the Legitimists were unfamiliar and +disquieting. They were not the loud explosions of their own +muskets nor of the smooth bores of the Democrats. The sounds +were sharp and cruel like the crack of a whip. The sentries flying +from their posts disclosed the terrifying truth. "The Filibusteros!" +they cried. Following them at a gallop came Walker and Valle and +behind them the men of the awful Phalanx, whom already the +natives had learned to fear: the bearded giants in red flannel shirts +who at Rivas on foot had charged the artillery with revolvers, who +at Virgin Bay when wounded had drawn from their boots glittering +bowie knives and hurled them like arrows, who at all times shot +with the accuracy of the hawk falling upon a squawking hen. + +There was a brief terrified stand in the Plaza, and then a complete +rout. As was their custom, the native Democrats began at once to +loot the city. But Walker put his sword into the first one of these +he met, and ordered the Americans to arrest all others found +stealing, and to return the goods already stolen. Over a hundred +political prisoners in the cartel were released by Walker, and the +ball and chain to which each was fastened stricken off. More than +two-thirds of them at once enlisted under Walker's banner. + +He now was in a position to dictate to the enemy his own terms of +peace, but a fatal blunder on the part of Parker H. French, a +lieutenant of Walker's, postponed peace for several weeks, and led +to unfortunate reprisals. French had made an unauthorized and +unsuccessful assault on San Carlos at the eastern end of the lake, +and the Legitimists retaliated at Virgin Bay by killing half a dozen +peaceful passengers, and at San Carlos by firing at a transit +steamer. For this the excuse of the Legitimists was, that now that +Walker was using the lake steamers as transports it was impossible +for them to know whether the boats were occupied by his men or +neutral passengers. As he could not reach the guilty ones, Walker +held responsible for their acts their secretary of state, who at the +taking of Granada was among the prisoners. He was tried by +court-martial and shot, "a victim of the new interpretation of the +principles of constitutional government." While this act of +Walker's was certainly stretching the theory of responsibility to the +breaking point, its immediate effect was to bring about a hasty +surrender and a meeting between the generals of the two political +parties. Thus, four months after Walker and his fifty-seven +followers landed in Nicaragua, a suspension of hostilities was +arranged, and the side for which the Americans had fought was in +power. Walker was made commander-in-chief of an army of +twelve hundred men with salary of six thousand dollars a year. A +man named Rivas was appointed temporary president. + +To Walker this pause in the fight was most welcome. It gave him +an opportunity to enlist recruits and to organize his men for the +better accomplishment of what was the real object of his going to +Nicaragua. He now had under him a remarkable force, one of the +most effective known to military history. For although six months +had not yet passed, the organization he now commanded was as +unlike the Phalanx of the fifty-eight adventurers who were driven +back at Rivas, as were Falstaff's followers from the regiment of +picked men commanded by Colonel Roosevelt. Instead of the +undisciplined and lawless now being in the majority, the ranks +were filled with the pick of the California mining camps, with +veterans of the Mexican War, with young Southerners of birth and +spirit, and with soldiers of fortune from all of the great armies of +Europe. + +In the Civil War, which so soon followed, and later in the service +of the Khedive of Egypt, were several of Walker's officers, and for +years after his death there was no war in which one of the men +trained by him in the jungles of Nicaragua did not distinguish +himself. In his memoirs, the Englishman, General Charles Frederic +Henningsen, writes that though he had taken part in some of the +greatest battles of the Civil War he would pit a thousand men of +Walker's command against any five thousand Confederate or +Union soldiers. And General Henningsen was one who spoke with +authority. Before he joined Walker he had served in Spain under +Don Carlos, in Hungary under Kossuth, and in Bulgaria. + +Of Walker's men, a regiment of which he commanded, he writes: +"I often have seen them march with a broken or compound +fractured arm in splints, and using the other to fire the rifle or +revolver. Those with a fractured thigh or wounds which rendered +them incapable of removal, shot themselves. Such men do not turn +up in the average of everyday life, nor do I ever expect to see their +like again. All military science failed on a suddenly given field +before such assailants, who came at a run to close with their +revolvers and who thought little of charging a gun battery, pistol in +hand." + +Another graduate of Walker's army was Captain Fred Townsend +Ward, a native of Salem, Mass., who after the death of Walker +organized and led the ever victorious army that put down the +Tai-Ping rebellion, and performed the many feats of martial glory +for which Chinese Gordon received the credit. In Shanghai, to the +memory of the filibuster, there are to-day two temples in his honor. + +Joaquin Miller, the poet, miner, and soldier, who but recently was +a picturesque figure on the hotel porch at Saratoga Springs, was +one of the young Californians who was "out with Walker," and +who later in his career by his verse helped to preserve the name of +his beloved commander. I. C. Jamison, living to-day in Guthrie, +Oklahoma, was a captain under Walker. When war again came, as +it did within four months, these were the men who made Walker +President of Nicaragua. + +During the four months in all but title he had been president, and +as such he was recognized and feared. It was against him, not +Rivas, that in February, 1856, the neighboring republic of Costa +Rica declared war. For three months this war continued with +varying fortunes until the Costa Ricans were driven across the +border. + +In June of the same year Rivas called a general election for +president, announcing himself as the candidate of the Democrats. +Two other Democrats also presented themselves, Salazar and +Ferrer. The Legitimists, recognizing in their former enemy the real +ruler of the country, nominated Walker. By an overwhelming +majority he was elected, receiving 15,835 votes to 867 cast for +Rivas. Salazar received 2,087; Ferrer, 4,447. + +Walker now was the legal as well as the actual ruler of the country, +and at no time in its history, as during Walker's administration, +was Nicaragua governed so justly, so wisely, and so well. But in +his success the neighboring republics saw a menace to their own +independence. To the four other republics of Central America the +five-pointed blood-red star on the flag of the filibusters bore a +sinister motto: "Five or None." The meaning was only too +unpleasantly obvious. At once, Costa Rica on the south, and +Guatemala, Salvador, and Honduras from the north, with the +malcontents of Nicaragua, declared war against the foreign +invader. Again Walker was in the field with opposed to him +21,000 of the allies. The strength of his own force varied. On his +election as president the backbone of his army was a magnificently +trained body of veterans to the number of 2,000. This was later +increased to 3,500, but it is doubtful if at any one time it ever +exceeded that number. His muster and hospital rolls show that +during his entire occupation of Nicaragua there were enlisted, at +one time or another, under his banner 10,000 men. While in his +service, of this number, by hostile shots or fever, 5,000 died. + +To describe the battles with the allies would be interminable and +wearying. In every particular they are much alike: the long silent +night march, the rush at daybreak, the fight to gain strategic +positions either of the barracks, or of the Cathedral in the Plaza, +the hand-to-hand fighting from behind barricades and adobe walls. +The out-come of these fights sometimes varied, but the final result +was never in doubt, and had no outside influences intervened, in +time each republic in Central America would have come under the +five-pointed star. + +In Costa Rica there is a marble statue showing that republic +represented as a young woman with her foot upon the neck of +Walker. Some night a truth-loving American will place a can of +dynamite at the foot of that statue, and walk hurriedly away. +Unaided, neither Costa Rica nor any other Central American +republic could have driven Walker from her soil. His downfall +came through his own people, and through an act of his which +provoked them. + +When Walker was elected president he found that the Accessory +Transit Company had not lived up to the terms of its concession +with the Nicaraguan Government. His efforts to hold it to the +terms of its concession led to his overthrow. By its charter the +Transit Company agreed to pay to Nicaragua ten thousand dollars +annually and ten per cent. of the net profits; but the company, +whose history the United States Minister, Squire, characterized as +"an infamous career of deception and fraud," manipulated its +books in such a fashion as to show that there never were any +profits. Doubting this, Walker sent a commission to New York to +investigate. The commission discovered the fraud and demanded +in back payments two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. When +the company refused to pay this, as security for the debt Walker +seized its steamers, wharves, and storehouses, revoked its charter, +and gave a new charter to two of its directors, Morgan and +Garrison, who, in San Francisco, were working against Vanderbilt. +In doing this, while he was legally in the right, he committed a +fatal error. He had made a powerful enemy of Vanderbilt, and he +had shut off his only lines of communication with the United +States. For, enraged at the presumption of the filibuster president, +Vanderbilt withdrew his ocean steamers, thus leaving Walker +without men or ammunition, and as isolated as though upon a +deserted island. He possessed Vanderbilt's boats upon the San Juan +River and Nicaragua Lake, but they were of use to him only +locally. + +His position was that of a man holding the centre span of a bridge +of which every span on either side of him has been destroyed. + +Vanderbilt did not rest at withdrawing his steamers, but by +supporting the Costa Ricans with money and men, carried the war +into Central America. From Washington he fought Walker through +Secretary of State Marcy, who proved a willing tool. + +Spencer and Webster, and the other soldiers of fortune employed +by Vanderbilt, closed the route on the Caribbean side, and the +man-of-war _St. Marys_, commanded by Captain Davis, was +ordered to San Juan on the Pacific side. The instructions given to +Captain Davis were to aid the allies in forcing Walker out of +Nicaragua. Walker claims that these orders were given to Marcy +by Vanderbilt and by Marcy to Commodore Mervin, who was +Marcy's personal friend and who issued them to Davis. Davis +claims that he acted only in the interest of humanity to save +Walker in spite of himself. In any event, the result was the same. +Walker, his force cut down by hostile shot and fever and desertion, +took refuge in Rivas, where he was besieged by the allied armies. +There was no bread in the city. The men were living on horse and +mule meat. There was no salt. The hospital was filled with +wounded and those stricken with fever. + +Captain Davis, in the name of humanity, demanded Walker's +surrender to the United States. Walker told him he would not +surrender, but that if the time came when he found he must fly, he +would do so in his own little schooner of war, the _Granada_, +which constituted his entire navy, and in her, as a free man, take +his forces where he pleased. Then Davis informed Walker that the +force Walker had sent to recapture the Greytown route had been +defeated by the janizaries of Vanderbilt; that the steamers from +San Francisco, on which Walker now counted to bring him +re-enforcements, had also been taken off the line, and finally that it +was his "unalterable and deliberate intention" to seize the +_Granada_. On this point his orders left him no choice. The +_Granada_ was the last means of transportation still left to Walker. +He had hoped to make a sortie and on board her to escape from the +country. But with his ship taken from him and no longer able to +sustain the siege of the allies, he surrendered to the forces of the +United States. In the agreement drawn up by him and Davis, +Walker provided for the care, by Davis, of the sick and wounded, +for the protection after his departure of the natives who had fought +with him, and for the transportation of himself and officers to the +United States. + +On his arrival in New York he received a welcome such as later +was extended to Kossuth, and, in our own day, to Admiral Dewey. +The city was decorated with flags and arches; and banquets, fetes, +and public meetings were everywhere held in his honor. Walker +received these demonstrations modestly, and on every public +occasion announced his determination to return to the country of +which he was the president, and from which by force he had been +driven. At Washington, where he went to present his claims, he +received scant encouragement. His protest against Captain Davis +was referred to Congress, where it was allowed to die. + +Within a month Walker organized an expedition with which to +regain his rights in Nicaragua, and as, in his new constitution for +that country, he had annulled the old law abolishing slavery, +among the slave-holders of the South he found enough money and +recruits to enable him to at once leave the United States. With one +hundred and fifty men he sailed from New Orleans and landed at +San del Norte on the Caribbean side. While he formed a camp on +the harbor of San Juan, one of his officers, with fifty men, +proceeded up the river and, capturing the town of Castillo Viejo +and four of the Transit steamers, was in a fair way to obtain +possession of the entire route. At this moment upon the scene +arrived the United States frigate _Wabash_ and Hiram Paulding, +who landed a force of three hundred and fifty blue-jackets with +howitzers, and turned the guns of his frigate upon the camp of the +President of Nicaragua. Captain Engel, who presented the terms of +surrender to Walker, said to him: "General, I am sorry to see you +here. A man like you is worthy to command better men." To which +Walker replied grimly: "If I had a third the number you have +brought against me, I would show you which of us two commands +the better men." + +For the third time in his history Walker surrendered to the armed +forces of his own country. + +On his arrival in the United States, in fulfilment of his parole to +Paulding, Walker at once presented himself at Washington a +prisoner of war. But President Buchanan, although Paulding had +acted exactly as Davis had done, refused to support him, and in a +message to Congress declared that that officer had committed a +grave error and established an unsafe precedent. + +On the strength of this Walker demanded of the United States +Government indemnity for his losses, and that it should furnish +him and his followers transportation even to the very camp from +which its representatives had torn him. This demand, as Walker +foresaw, was not considered seriously, and with a force of about +one hundred men, among whom were many of his veterans, he +again set sail from New Orleans. Owing to the fact that, to prevent +his return, there now were on each side of the Isthmus both +American and British men-of-war, Walker, with the idea of +reaching Nicaragua by land, stopped off at Honduras. In his war +with the allies the Honduranians had been as savage in their +attacks upon his men as even the Costa Ricans, and finding his old +enemies now engaged in a local revolution, on landing, Walker +declared for the weaker side and captured the important seaport of +Trujillo. He no sooner had taken it than the British warship +_Icarus_ anchored in the harbor, and her commanding officer, +Captain Salmon, notified Walker that the British Government held +a mortgage on the revenues of the port, and that to protect the +interests of his Government he intended to take the town. Walker +answered that he had made Trujillo a free port, and that Great +Britain's claims no longer existed. + +The British officer replied that if Walker surrendered himself and +his men he would carry them as prisoners to the United States, and +that if he did not, he would bombard the town. At this moment +General Alvarez, with seven hundred Honduranians, from the land +side surrounded Trujillo, and prepared to attack. Against such odds +by sea and land Walker was helpless, and he determined to fly. +That night, with seventy men, he left the town and proceeded +down the coast toward Nicaragua. The _Icarus_, having taken on +board Alvarez, started in pursuit. The President of Nicaragua was +found in a little Indian fishing village, and Salmon sent in his +shore-boats and demanded his surrender. On leaving Trujillo, +Walker had been forced to abandon all his ammunition save thirty +rounds a man, and all of his food supplies excepting two barrels of +bread. On the coast of this continent there is no spot more +unhealthy than Honduras, and when the Englishmen entered the +fishing village they found Walker's seventy men lying in the palm +huts helpless with fever, and with no stomach to fight British +blue-jackets with whom they had no quarrel. Walker inquired of +Salmon if he were asking him to surrender to the British or to the +Honduranian forces, and twice Salmon assured him, "distinctly +and specifically," that he was surrendering to the forces of her +Majesty. With this understanding Walker and his men laid down +their arms and were conveyed to the _Icarus_. But on arriving at +Trujillo, in spite of their protests and demands for trial by a British +tribunal, Salmon turned over his prisoners to the Honduranian +general. What excuse for this is now given by his descendants in +the Salmon family I do not know. + +Probably it is a subject they avoid, and, in history, Salmon's +version has never been given, which for him, perhaps, is an +injustice. But the fact remains that he turned over his white +brothers to the mercies of half-Indian, half-negro, savages, who +were not allies of Great Britain, and in whose quarrels she had no +interest. And Salmon did this, knowing there could be but one end. +If he did not know it, his stupidity equalled what now appears to +be heartless indifference. So far as to secure pardon for all except +the leader and one faithful follower, Colonel Rudler of the famous +Phalanx, Salmon did use his authority, and he offered, if Walker +would ask as an American citizen, to intercede for him. But +Walker, with a distinct sense of loyalty to the country he had +conquered, and whose people had honored him with their votes, +refused to accept life from the country of his birth, the country that +had injured and repudiated him. + +Even in his extremity, abandoned and alone on a strip of glaring +coral and noisome swamp land, surrounded only by his enemies, +he remained true to his ideal. + +At thirty-seven life is very sweet, many things still seem possible, +and before him, could his life be spared, Walker beheld greater +conquests, more power, a new South controlling a Nicaragua +canal, a network of busy railroads, great squadrons of merchant +vessels, himself emperor of Central America. On the gunboat the +gold-braided youth had but to raise his hand, and Walker again +would be a free man. But the gold-braided one would render this +service only on the condition that Walker would appeal to him as +an American; it was not enough that Walker was a human being. +The condition Walker could not grant. + +"The President of Nicaragua," he said, "is a citizen of Nicaragua." + +They led him out at sunrise to a level piece of sand along the +beach, and as the priest held the crucifix in front of him he spoke +to his executioners in Spanish, simply and gravely: "I die a Roman +Catholic. In making war upon you at the invitation of the people of +Ruatan I was wrong. Of your people I ask pardon. I accept my +punishment with resignation. I would like to think my death will +be for the good of society." + +From a distance of twenty feet three soldiers fired at him, but, +although each shot took effect, Walker was not dead. So, a +sergeant stooped, and with a pistol killed the man who would have +made him one of an empire of slaves. + +Had Walker lived four years longer to exhibit upon the great board +of the Civil War his ability as a general, he would, I believe, to-day +be ranked as one of America's greatest fighting men. + +And because the people of his own day destroyed him is no reason +that we should withhold from this American, the greatest of all +filibusters, the recognition of his genius. + +MAJOR BURNHAM, CHIEF OF SCOUTS + +AMONG the Soldiers of Fortune whose stories have been told in +this book were men who are no longer living, men who, to the +United States, are strangers, and men who were of interest chiefly +because in what they attempted they failed. + +The subject of this article is none of these. His adventures are as +remarkable as any that ever led a small boy to dig behind the barn +for buried treasure, or stalk Indians in the orchard. But entirely +apart from his adventures he obtains our interest because in what +he has attempted he has not failed, because he is one of our own +people, one of the earliest and best types of American, and +because, so far from being dead and buried, he is at this moment +very much alive, and engaged in Mexico in searching for a buried +city. For exercise, he is alternately chasing, or being chased by, +Yaqui Indians. + +In his home in Pasadena, Cal., where sometimes he rests quietly +for almost a week at a time, the neighbors know him as "Fred" +Burnham. In England the newspapers crowned him "The King of +Scouts." Later, when he won an official title, they called him +"Major Frederick Russell Burnham, D. S. O." + +Some men are born scouts, others by training become scouts. From +his father Burnham inherited his instinct for wood-craft, and to this +instinct, which in him is as keen as in a wild deer or a mountain +lion, he has added, in the jungle and on the prairie and mountain +ranges, years of the hardest, most relentless schooling. In those +years he has trained himself to endure the most appalling fatigues, +hunger, thirst, and wounds; has subdued the brain to infinite +patience, has learned to force every nerve in his body to absolute +obedience, to still even the beating of his heart. Indeed, than +Burnham no man of my acquaintance to my knowledge has +devoted himself to his life's work more earnestly, more honestly, +and with such single-mindedness of purpose. To him scouting is as +exact a study as is the piano to Paderewski, with the result that +to-day what the Pole is to other pianists, the American is to all +other "trackers," woodmen, and scouts. He reads "the face of +Nature" as you read your morning paper. To him a movement of +his horse's ears is as plain a warning as the "Go SLOW" of an +automobile sign; and he so saves from ambush an entire troop. In +the glitter of a piece of quartz in the firelight he discovers King +Solomon's mines. Like the horned cattle, he can tell by the smell of +it in the air the near presence of water, and where, glaring in the +sun, you can see only a bare kopje, he distinguishes the muzzle of +a pompom, the crown of a Boer sombrero, the levelled barrel of a +Mauser. He is the Sherlock Holmes of all out-of-doors. + +Besides being a scout, he is soldier, hunter, mining expert, and +explorer. Within the last ten years the educated instinct that as a +younger man taught him to follow the trail of an Indian, or the +"spoor" of the Kaffir and the trek wagon, now leads him as a +mining expert to the hiding-places of copper, silver, and gold, and, +as he advises, great and wealthy syndicates buy or refuse tracts of +land in Africa and Mexico as large as the State of New York. As +an explorer in the last few years in the course of his expeditions +into undiscovered lands, he has added to this little world many +thousands of square miles. + +Personally, Burnham is as unlike the scout of fiction, and of the +Wild West Show, as it is possible for a man to be. He possesses no +flowing locks, his talk is not of "greasers," "grizzly b'ars," or +"pesky redskins." In fact, because he is more widely and more +thoroughly informed, he is much better educated than many who +have passed through one of the "Big Three" universities, and his +English is as conventional as though he had been brought up on the +borders of Boston Common, rather than on the borders of +civilization. + +In appearance he is slight, muscular, bronzed; with a finely formed +square jaw, and remarkable light blue eyes. These eyes apparently +never leave yours, but in reality they see everything behind you +and about you, above and below you. They tell of him that one +day, while out with a patrol on the veldt, he said he had lost the +trail and, dismounting, began moving about on his hands and +knees, nosing the ground like a bloodhound, and pointing out a +trail that led back over the way the force had just marched. When +the commanding officer rode up, Burnham said: + +"Don't raise your head, sit. On that kopje to the right there is a +commando of Boers." + +"When did you see them?" asked the officer. + +"I see them now," Burnham answered. + +"But I thought you were looking for a lost trail?" + +"That's what the Boers on the kopje think," said Burnham. + +In his eyes, possibly, owing to the uses to which they have been +trained, the pupils, as in the eyes of animals that see in the dark, +are extremely small. Even in the photographs that accompany this +article this feature of his eyes is obvious, and that he can see in the +dark the Kaffirs of South Africa firmly believe. In manner he is +quiet, courteous, talking slowly but well, and, while without any of +that shyness that comes from self-consciousness, extremely +modest. Indeed, there could be no better proof of his modesty than +the difficulties I have encountered in gathering material for this +article, which I have been five years in collecting. And even now, +as he reads it by his camp-fire, I can see him squirm with +embarrassment. + +Burnham's father was a pioneer missionary in a frontier hamlet +called Tivoli on the edge of the Indian reserve of Minnesota. He +was a stern, severely religious man, born in Kentucky, but +educated in New York, where he graduated from the Union +Theological Seminary. He was wonderfully skilled in wood-craft. +Burnham's mother was a Miss Rebecca Russell of a well-known +family in Iowa. She was a woman of great courage, which, in those +days on that skirmish line of civilization, was a very necessary +virtue; and she was possessed of a most gentle and sweet +disposition. That was her gift to her son Fred, who was born on +May 11, 1861. + +His education as a child consisted in memorizing many verses of +the Bible, the "Three R's," and wood-craft. His childhood was +strenuous. In his mother's arms he saw the burning of the town of +New Ulm, which was the funeral pyre for the women and children +of that place when they were massacred by Red Cloud and his +braves. + +On another occasion Fred's mother fled for her life from the +Indians, carrying the boy with her. He was a husky lad, and +knowing that if she tried to carry him farther they both would be +overtaken, she hid him under a shock of corn. There, the next +morning, the Indians having been driven off, she found her son +sleeping as soundly as a night watchman. In these Indian wars, and +the Civil War which followed, of the families of Burnham and +Russell, twenty-two of the men were killed. There is no question +that Burnham comes of fighting stock. + +In 1870, when Fred was nine years old, his father moved to Los +Angeles, Cal., where two years later he died; and for a time for +both mother and boy there was poverty, hard and grinding. To +relieve this young Burnham acted as a mounted messenger. Often +he was in the saddle from twelve to fifteen hours, and even in a +land where every one rode well, he gained local fame as a hard +rider. In a few years a kind uncle offered to Mrs. Burnham and a +younger brother a home in the East, but at the last moment Fred +refused to go with them, and chose to make his own way. He was +then thirteen years old, and he had determined to be a scout. + +At that particular age many boys have set forth determined to be +scouts, and are generally brought home the next morning by a +policeman. But Burnham, having turned his back on the cities, did +not repent. He wandered over Mexico, Arizona, California. He met +Indians, bandits, prospectors, hunters of all kinds of big game; and +finally a scout who, under General Taylor, had served in the +Mexican War. This man took a liking to the boy; and his influence +upon him was marked and for his good. He was an educated man, +and had carried into the wilderness a few books. In the cabin of +this man Burnham read "The Conquest of Mexico and Peru" by +Prescott, the lives of Hannibal and Cyrus the Great, of Livingstone +the explorer, which first set his thoughts toward Africa, and many +technical works on the strategy and tactics of war. He had no +experience of military operations on a large scale, but, with the aid +of the veteran of the Mexican War, with corn-cobs in the sand in +front of the cabin door, he constructed forts and made trenches, +redoubts, and traverses. In Burnham's life this seems to have been +a very happy period. The big game he hunted and killed he sold for +a few dollars to the men of Nadean's freight outfits, which in those +days hauled bullion from Cerro Gordo for the man who is now +Senator Jones of Nevada. + +At nineteen Burnham decided that there were things in this world +he should know that could not be gleaned from the earth, trees, +and sky; and with the few dollars he had saved he came East. The +visit apparently was not a success. The atmosphere of the town in +which he went to school was strictly Puritanical, and the +townspeople much given to religious discussion. The son of the +pioneer missionary found himself unable to subscribe to the +formulas which to the others seemed so essential, and he returned +to the West with the most bitter feelings, which lasted until he was +twenty-one. + +"It seems strange now," he once said to me, "but in those times +religious questions were as much a part of our daily life as to-day +are automobiles, the Standard Oil, and the insurance scandals, and +when I went West I was in an unhappy, doubting frame of mind. +The trouble was I had no moral anchors; the old ones father had +given me were gone, and the time for acquiring new ones had not +arrived." This bitterness of heart, or this disappointment, or +whatever the state of mind was that the dogmas of the New +England town had inspired in the boy from the prairie, made him +reckless. For the life he was to lead this was not a handicap. Even +as a lad, in a land-grant war in California, he had been under +gunfire, and for the next fifteen years he led a life of danger and of +daring; and studied in a school of experience than which, for a +scout, if his life be spared, there can be none better. Burnham +came out of it a quiet, manly, gentleman. In those fifteen years he +roved the West from the Great Divide to Mexico. He fought the +Apache Indians for the possession of waterholes, he guarded +bullion on stage-coaches, for days rode in pursuit of Mexican +bandits and American horse thieves, took part in county-seat +fights, in rustler wars, in cattle wars; he was cowboy, miner, +deputy-sheriff, and in time throughout the the name of "Fred" +Burnham became significant and familiar. + +During this period Burnham was true to his boyhood ideal of +becoming a scout. It was not enough that by merely living the life +around him he was being educated for it. He daily practised and +rehearsed those things which some day might mean to himself and +others the difference between life and death. To improve his sense +of smell he gave up smoking, of which he was extremely fond, nor, +for the same reason, does he to this day use tobacco. He +accustomed himself also to go with little sleep, and to subsist on +the least possible quantity of food. As a deputy-sheriff this +educated faculty of not requiring sleep aided him in many +important captures. Sometimes he would not strike the trail of the +bandit or "bad man" until the other had several days the start of +him. But the end was the same; for, while the murderer snatched a +few hours' rest by the trail, Burnham, awake and in the saddle, +would be closing up the miles between them. + +That he is a good marksman goes without telling. At the age of +eight his father gave him a rifle of his own, and at twelve, with +either a "gun" or a Winchester, he was an expert. He taught +himself to use a weapon either in his left or right hand and to +shoot, Indian fashion, hanging by one leg from his pony and using +it as a cover, and to turn in the saddle and shoot behind him. I once +asked him if he really could shoot to the rear with a galloping +horse under him and hit a man. + +"Well," he said, "maybe not to hit him, but I can come near enough +to him to make him decide my pony's so much faster than his that +it really isn't worth while to follow me." + +Besides perfecting himself in what he tolerantly calls "tricks" of +horsemanship and marksmanship, he studied the signs of the trail, +forest and prairie, as a sailing-master studies the waves and clouds. +The knowledge he gathers from inanimate objects and dumb +animals seems little less than miraculous. And when you ask him +how he knows these things he always gives you a reason founded +on some fact or habit of nature that shows him to be a naturalist, +mineralogist, geologist, and botanist, and not merely a seventh son +of a seventh son. + +In South Africa he would say to the officers: "There are a dozen +Boers five miles ahead of us riding Basuto ponies at a trot, and +leading five others. If we hurry we should be able to sight them in +an hour." At first the officers would smile, but not after a +half-hour's gallop, when they would see ahead of them a dozen +Boers leading five ponies. In the early days of Salem, Burnham +would have been burned as a witch. + +When twenty-three years of age he married Miss Blanche Blick, of +Iowa. They had known each other from childhood, and her +brothers-in-law have been Burnham's aids and companions in +every part of Africa and the West. Neither at the time of their +marriage nor since did Mrs. Burnham "lay a hand on the bridle +rein," as is witnessed by the fact that for nine years after his +marriage Burnham continued his career as sheriff, scout, mining +prospector. And in 1893, when Burnham and his brother-in-law, +Ingram, started for South Africa, Mrs. Burnham went with them, +and in every part of South Africa shared her husband's life of travel +and danger. + +In making this move across the sea, Burnham's original idea was to +look for gold in the territory owned by the German East African +Company. But as in Rhodesia the first Matabele uprising had +broken out, he continued on down the coast, and volunteered for +that campaign. This was the real beginning of his fortunes. The +"war" was not unlike the Indian fighting of his early days, and +although the country was new to him, with the kind of warfare +then being waged between the Kaffirs under King Lobengula and +the white settlers of the British South Africa Company, the +chartered company of Cecil Rhodes, he was intimately familiar. + +It does not take big men long to recognize other big men, and +Burnham's remarkable work as a scout at once brought him to the +notice of Rhodes and Dr. Jameson, who was personally conducting +the campaign. The war was their own private war, and to them, at +such a crisis in the history of their settlement, a man like Burnham +was invaluable. + +The chief incident of this campaign, the fame of which rang over +all Great Britain and her colonies, was the gallant but hopeless +stand made by Major Alan Wilson and his patrol of thirty-four +men. It was Burnham's attempt to save these men that made him +known from Buluwayo to Cape Town. + +King Lobengula and his warriors were halted on one bank of the +Shangani River, and on the other Major Forbes, with a picked +force of three hundred men, was coming up in pursuit. Although at +the moment he did not know it, he also was being pursued by a +force of Matabeles, who were gradually surrounding him. At +nightfall Major Wilson and a patrol of twelve men, with Burnham +and his brother-in-law, Ingram, acting as scouts, were ordered to +make a dash into the camp of Lobengula and, if possible, in the +confusion of their sudden attack, and under cover of a terrific +thunder-storm that was raging, bring him back a prisoner. + +With the king in their hands the white men believed the rebellion +would collapse. To the number of three thousand the Matabeles +were sleeping in a succession of camps, through which the +fourteen men rode at a gallop. But in the darkness it was difficult +to distinguish the trek wagon of the king, and by the time they +found his laager the Matabeles from the other camps through +which they had ridden had given the alarm. Through the +underbrush from every side the enemy, armed with assegai and +elephant guns, charged toward them and spread out to cut off their +retreat. + +At a distance of about seven hundred yards from the camps there +was a giant ant-hill, and the patrol rode toward it. By the aid of the +lightning flashes they made their way through a dripping wood and +over soil which the rain had turned into thick black mud. When the +party drew rein at the ant-hill it was found that of the fourteen +three were missing. As the official scout of the patrol and the only +one who could see in the dark, Wilson ordered Burnham back to +find them. Burnham said he could do so only by feeling the +hoof-prints in the mud and that he would like some one with him +to lead his pony. Wilson said he would lead it. With his fingers +Burnham followed the trail of the eleven horses to where, at right +angles, the hoof-prints of the three others separated from it, and so +came upon the three men. Still, with nothing but the mud of the +jungle to guide him, he brought them back to their comrades. It +was this feat that established his reputation among British, Boers, +and black men in South Africa. + +Throughout the night the men of the patrol lay in the mud holding +the reins of their horses. In the jungle about them, they could hear +the enemy splashing through the mud, and the swishing sound of +the branches as they swept back into place. It was still raining. Just +before the dawn there came the sounds of voices and the welcome +clatter of accoutrements. The men of the patrol, believing the +column had joined them, sprang up rejoicing, but it was only a +second patrol, under Captain Borrow, who had been sent forward +with twenty men as re-enforcements. They had come in time to +share in a glorious immortality. No sooner had these men joined +than the Kaffirs began the attack; and the white men at once +learned that they were trapped in a complete circle of the enemy. +Hidden by the trees, the Kaffirs fired point-blank, and in a very +little time half of Wilson's force was killed or wounded. As the +horses were shot down the men used them for breastworks. There +was no other shelter. Wilson called Burnham to him and told him +he must try and get through the lines of the enemy to Forbes. + +"Tell him to come up at once," he said; "we are nearly finished." +He detailed a trooper named Gooding and Ingram to accompany +Burnham. "One of you may get through," he said. Gooding was but +lately out from London, and knew nothing of scouting, so +Burnham and Ingram warned him, whether he saw the reason for it +or not, to act exactly as they did. The three men had barely left the +others before the enemy sprang at them with their spears. In five +minutes they were being fired at from every bush. Then followed a +remarkable ride, in which Burnham called to his aid all he had +learned in thirty years of border warfare. As the enemy rushed +after them, the three doubled on their tracks, rode in triple loops, +hid in dongas to breathe their horses; and to scatter their pursuers, +separated, joined again, and again separated. The enemy followed +them to the very bank of the river, where, finding the "drift" +covered with the swollen waters, they were forced to swim. They +reached the other bank only to find Forbes hotly engaged with +another force of the Matabeles. + +"I have been sent for re-enforcements," Burnham said to Forbes, +"but I believe we are the only survivors of that party." Forbes +himself was too hard pressed to give help to Wilson, and Burnham, +his errand over, took his place in the column, and began firing +upon the new enemy. + +Six weeks later the bodies of Wilson's patrol were found lying in a +circle. Each of them had been shot many times. A son of +Lobengula, who witnessed their extermination, and who in +Buluwayo had often heard the Englishmen sing their national +anthem, told how the five men who were the last to die stood up +and, swinging their hats defiantly, sang "God Save the Queen." +The incident will long be recorded in song and story; and in +London was reproduced in two theatres, in each of which the man +who played "Burnham, the American Scout," as he rode off for +re-enforcements, was as loudly cheered by those in the audience as +by those on the stage. + +Hensman, in his "History of Rhodesia," says: "One hardly knows +which to most admire, the men who went on this dangerous +errand, through brush swarming with natives, or those who +remained behind battling against overwhelming odds." + +For his help in this war the Chartered Company presented +Burnham with the campaign medal, a gold watch engraved with +words of appreciation; and at the suggestion of Cecil Rhodes gave +him, Ingram, and the Hon. Maurice Clifford, jointly, a tract of land +of three hundred square acres. + +After this campaign Burnham led an expedition of ten white men +and seventy Kaffirs north of the Zambesi River to explore +Barotzeland and other regions to the north of Mashonaland, and to +establish the boundaries of the concession given him, Ingram, and +Clifford. + +In order to protect Burnham on the march the Chartered Company +signed a treaty with the native king of the country through which +he wished to travel, by which the king gave him permission to pass +freely and guaranteed him against attack. + +But Latea, the son of the king, refused to recognize the treaty and +sent his young men in great numbers to surround Burnham's camp. +Burnham had been instructed to avoid a fight, and was torn +between his desire to obey the Chartered Company and to prevent +a massacre. He decided to make it a sacrifice either of himself or +of Latea. As soon as night fell, with only three companions and a +missionary to act as a witness of what occurred, he slipped through +the lines of Latea's men, and, kicking down the fence around the +prince's hut, suddenly appeared before him and covered him with +his rifle. + +"Is it peace or war?" Burnham asked. "I have the king your father's +guarantee of protection, but your men surround us. I have told my +people if they hear shots to open fire. We may all be killed, but +you will be the first to die." + +The missionary also spoke urging Latea to abide by the treaty. +Burnham says the prince seemed much more impressed by the +arguments of the missionary than by the fact that he still was +covered by Burnham's rifle. Whichever argument moved him, he +called off his warriors. On this expedition Burnham discovered the +ruins of great granite structures fifteen feet wide, and made +entirely without mortar. They were of a period dating before the +Phoenicians. He also sought out the ruins described to him by F. C. +Selous, the famous hunter, and by Rider Haggard as King +Solomon's Mines. Much to the delight of Mr. Haggard, he brought +back for him from the mines of his imagination real gold +ornaments and a real gold bar. + +On this same expedition, which lasted five months, Burnham +endured one of the severest hardships of his life. Alone with ten +Kaffir boys, he started on a week's journey across the dried-up +basin of what once had been a great lake. Water was carried in +goat-skins on the heads of the bearers. The boys, finding the bags +an unwieldy burden, and believing, with the happy optimism of +their race, that Burnham's warnings were needless, and that at a +stream they soon could refill the bags, emptied the water on the +ground. + +The tortures that followed this wanton waste were terrible. Five of +the boys died, and after several days, when Burnham found water +in abundance, the tongues of the others were so swollen that their +jaws could not meet. + +On this trip Burnham passed through a region ravaged by the +"sleeping sickness," where his nostrils were never free from the +stench of dead bodies, where in some of the villages, as he +expressed it, "the hyenas were mangy with overeating, and the +buzzards so gorged they could not move out of our way." From this +expedition he brought back many ornaments of gold manufactured +before the Christian era, and made several valuable maps of +hitherto uncharted regions. It was in recognition of the information +gathered by him on this trip that he was elected a Fellow of the +Royal Geographical Society. + +He returned to Rhodesia in time to take part in the second +Matabele rebellion. This was in 1896. By now Burnham was a +very prominent member of the "vortrekers" and pioneers at +Buluwayo, and Sir Frederick Carrington, who was in command of +the forces, attached him to his staff. This second outbreak was a +more serious uprising than the one of 1893, and as it was evident +the forces of the Chartered Company could not handle it, imperial +troops were sent to assist them. But with even their aid the war +dragged on until it threatened to last to the rainy season, when the +troops must have gone into winter quarters. Had they done so, the +cost of keeping them would have fallen on the Chartered +Company, already a sufferer in pocket from the ravages of the +rinderpest and the expenses of the investigation which followed +the Jameson raid. + +Accordingly, Carrington looked about for some measure by which +he could bring the war to an immediate end. + +It was suggested to him by a young Colonial, named Armstrong, +the Commissioner of the district, that this could be done by +destroying the "god," or high priest, Umlimo, who was the chief +inspiration of the rebellion. + +This high priest had incited the rebels to a general massacre of +women and children, and had given them confidence by promising +to strike the white soldiers blind and to turn their bullets into +water. Armstrong had discovered the secret hiding-place of +Umlimo, and Carrington ordered Burnham to penetrate the +enemy's lines, find the god, capture him, and if that were not +possible to destroy him. + +The adventure was a most desperate one. Umlimo was secreted in +a cave on the top of a huge kopje. At the base of this was a village +where were gathered two regiments, of a thousand men each, of +his fighting men. + +For miles around this village the country was patrolled by roving +bands of the enemy. + +Against a white man reaching the cave and returning, the chances +were a hundred to one, and the difficulties of the journey are +illustrated by the fact that Burnham and Armstrong were unable to +move faster than at the rate of a mile an hour. In making the last +mile they consumed three hours. When they reached the base of +the kopje in which Umlimo was hiding, they concealed their +ponies in a clump of bushes, and on hands and knees began the +ascent. + +Directly below them lay the village, so close that they could smell +the odors of cooking from the huts, and hear, rising drowsily on +the hot, noonday air, voices of the warriors. For minutes at a time +they lay as motionless as the granite bowlders around or squirmed +and crawled over loose stones which a miss of hand or knee would +have dislodged and sent clattering into the village. After an hour of +this tortuous climbing the cave suddenly opened before them, and +they beheld Umlimo. Burnham recognized that to take him alive +from his stronghold was an impossibility, and that even they +themselves would leave the place was equally doubtful. So, +obeying orders, he fired, killing the man who had boasted he +would turn the bullets of his enemies into water. The echo of the +shot aroused the village as would a stone hurled into an ant-heap. +In an instant the veldt below was black with running men, and as, +concealment being no longer possible, the white men rose to fly a +great shout of anger told them they were discovered. At the same +moment two women, returning from a stream where they had gone +for water, saw the ponies, and ran screaming to give the alarm. +The race that followed lasted two hours, for so quickly did the +Kaffirs spread out on every side that it was impossible for +Burnham to gain ground in any one direction, and he was forced to +dodge, turn, and double. At one time the white men were driven +back to the very kopje from which the race had started. + +But in the end they evaded assegai and gunfire, and in safety +reached Buluwayo. This exploit was one of the chief factors in +bringing the war to a close. The Matabeles, finding their leader +was only a mortal like themselves, and so could not, as he had +promised, bring miracles to their aid, lost heart, and when Cecil +Rhodes in person made overtures of peace, his terms were +accepted. During the hard days of the siege, when rations were few +and bad, Burnham's little girl, who had been the first white child +born in Buluwayo, died of fever and lack of proper food. This with +other causes led him to leave Rhodesia and return to California. It +is possible he then thought he had forever turned his back on South +Africa, but, though he himself had departed, the impression he had +made there remained behind him. + +Burnham did not rest long in California. In Alaska the hunt for +gold had just begun, and, the old restlessness seizing him, he left +Pasadena and her blue skies, tropical plants, and trolley-car strikes +for the new raw land of the Klondike. With Burnham it has always +been the place that is being made, not the place in being, that +attracts. He has helped to make straight the ways of several great +communities--Arizona, California, Rhodesia, Alaska, and Uganda. +As he once said: "It is the constructive side of frontier life that +most appeals to me, the building up of a country, where you see +the persistent drive and force of the white man; when the place is +finally settled I don't seem to enjoy it very long." + +In Alaska he did much prospecting, and, with a sled and only two +dogs, for twenty-four days made one long fight against snow and +ice, covering six hundred miles. In mining in Alaska he succeeded +well, but against the country he holds a constant grudge, because it +kept him out of the fight with Spain. When war was declared he +was in the wilds and knew nothing of it, and though on his return +to civilization he telegraphed Colonel Roosevelt volunteering for +the Rough Riders, and at once started south, by the time he had +reached Seattle the war was over. + +Several times has he spoken to me of how bitterly he regretted +missing this chance to officially fight for his country. That he had +twice served with English forces made him the more keen to show +his loyalty to his own people. + +That he would have been given a commission in the Rough Riders +seems evident from the opinion President Roosevelt has publicly +expressed of him. + +"I know Burnham," the President wrote in 1901. "He is a scout and +a hunter of courage and ability, a man totally without fear, a sure +shot, and a fighter. He is the ideal scout, and when enlisted in the +military service of any country he is bound to be of the greatest +benefit." + +The truth of this Burnham was soon to prove. + +In 1899 he had returned to the Klondike, and in January of 1900 +had been six months in Skagway. In that same month Lord Roberts +sailed for Cape Town to take command of the army, and with him +on his staff was Burnham's former commander, Sir Frederick, now +Lord, Carrington. One night as the ship was in the Bay of Biscay, +Carrington was talking of Burnham and giving instances of his +marvellous powers as a "tracker." + +"He is the best scout we ever had in South Africa!" Carrington +declared. + +"Then why don't we get him back there?" said Roberts. + +What followed is well known. + +From Gibraltar a cable was sent to Skagway, offering Burnham the +position, created especially for him, of chief of scouts of the +British army in the field. + +Probably never before in the history of wars has one nation paid so +pleasant a tribute to the abilities of a man of another nation. + +The sequel is interesting. The cablegram reached Skagway by the +steamer _City of Seattle_. The purser left it at the post-office, and +until two hours and a half before the steamer was listed to start on +her return trip, there it lay. Then Burnham, in asking for his mail, +received it. In two hours and a half he had his family, himself, and +his belongings on board the steamer, and had started on his +half-around-the-world journey from Alaska to Cape Town. + +A Skagway paper of January 5, 1900, published the day after +Burnham sailed, throws a side light on his character. After telling +of his hasty departure the day before, and of the high compliment +that had been paid to "a prominent Skagwayan," it adds: "Although +Mr. Burnham has lived in Skagway since last August, and has been +North for many months, he has said little of his past, and few have +known that he is the man famous over the world as 'the American +scout' of the Matabele wars." + +Many a man who went to the Klondike did not, for reasons best +known to himself, talk about his past. But it is characteristic of +Burnham that, though he lived there two years, his associates did +not know, until the British Government snatched him from among +them, that he had not always been a prospector like themselves. + +I was on the same ship that carried Burnham the latter half of his +journey, from Southampton to Cape Town, and every night for +seventeen nights was one of a group of men who shot questions at +him. And it was interesting to see a fellow-countryman one had +heard praised so highly so completely make good. It was not as +though he had a credulous audience of commercial tourists. +Among the officers who each evening gathered around him were +Colonel Gallilet of the Egyptian cavalry, Captain Frazer +commanding the Scotch Gillies, Captain Mackie of Lord Roberts's +staff, each of whom was later killed in action; Colonel Sir Charles +Hunter of the Royal Rifles, Major Bagot, Major Lord Dudley, and +Captain Lord Valentia. Each of these had either held command in +border fights in India or the Sudan or had hunted big game, and the +questions each asked were the outcome of his own experience and +observation. + +Not for a single evening could a faker have submitted to the +midnight examination through which they put Burnham and not +have exposed his ignorance. They wanted to know what difference +there is in a column of dust raised by cavalry and by trek wagons, +how to tell whether a horse that has passed was going at a trot or a +gallop, the way to throw a diamond hitch, how to make a fire +without at the same time making a target of yourself, +how--why--what--and how? + +And what made us most admire Burnham was that when he did not +know he at once said so. + +Within two nights he had us so absolutely at his mercy that we +would have followed him anywhere; anything he chose to tell us, +we would have accepted. We were ready to believe in flying foxes, +flying squirrels, that wild turkeys dance quadrilles--even that you +must never sleep in the moonlight. Had he demanded: "Do you +believe in vampires?" we would have shouted "Yes." To ask that a +scout should on an ocean steamer prove his ability was certainly +placing him under a severe handicap. + +As one of the British officers said: "It's about as fair a game as +though we planted the captain of this ship in the Sahara Desert, +and told him to prove he could run a ten-thousand-ton liner." + +Burnham continued with Lord Roberts to the fall of Pretoria, when +he was invalided home. + +During the advance north he was a hundred times inside the Boer +laagers, keeping Headquarters Staff daily informed of the enemy's +movements; was twice captured and twice escaped. + +He was first captured while trying to warn the British from the +fatal drift at Thaba'nchu. When reconnoitring alone in the morning +mist he came upon the Boers hiding on the banks of the river, +toward which the English were even then advancing. The Boers +were moving all about him, and cut him off from his own side. He +had to choose between abandoning the English to the trap or +signalling to them, and so exposing himself to capture. With the +red kerchief the scouts carried for that purpose he wigwagged to +the approaching soldiers to turn back, that the enemy were +awaiting them. But the column, which was without an advance +guard, paid no attention to his signals and plodded steadily on into +the ambush, while Burnham was at once made prisoner. In the +fight that followed he pretended to receive a wound in the knee +and bound it so elaborately that not even a surgeon would have +disturbed the carefully arranged bandages. Limping heavily and +groaning with pain, he was placed in a trek wagon with the officers +who really were wounded, and who, in consequence, were not +closely guarded. Burnham told them who he was and, as he +intended to escape, offered to take back to head-quarters their +names or any messages they might wish to send to their people. As +twenty yards behind the wagon in which they lay was a mounted +guard, the officers told him escape was impossible. He proved +otherwise. The trek wagon was drawn by sixteen oxen and driven +by a Kaffir boy. Later in the evening, but while it still was +moonlight, the boy descended from his seat and ran forward to +belabor the first spans of oxen. This was the opportunity for which +Burnham had been waiting. + +Slipping quickly over the driver's seat, he dropped between the two +"wheelers" to the disselboom, or tongue, of the trek wagon. From +this he lowered himself and fell between the legs of the oxen on +his back in the road. In an instant the body of the wagon had +passed over him, and while the dust still hung above the trail he +rolled rapidly over into the ditch at the side of the road and lay +motionless. + +It was four days before he was able to re-enter the British lines, +during which time he had been lying in the open veldt, and had +subsisted on one biscuit and two handfuls of "mealies," or what we +call Indian corn. + +Another time when out scouting he and his Kaffir boy while on +foot were "jumped" by a Boer commando and forced to hide in +two great ant-hills. The Boers went into camp on every side of +them, and for two days, unknown to themselves, held Burnham a +prisoner. Only at night did he and the Cape boy dare to crawl out +to breathe fresh air and to eat the food tablets they carried in their +pockets. On five occasions was Burnham sent into the Boer lines +with dynamite cartridges to blow up the railroad over which the +enemy was receiving supplies and ammunition. One of these +expeditions nearly ended his life. + +On June 2, 1901, while trying by night to blow up the line between +Pretoria and Delagoa Bay, he was surrounded by a party of Boers +and could save himself only by instant flight. He threw himself +Indian fashion along the back of his pony, and had all but got away +when a bullet caught the horse and, without even faltering in its +stride, it crashed to the ground dead, crushing Burnham beneath it +and knocking him senseless. He continued unconscious for +twenty-four hours, and when he came to, both friends and foes had +departed. Bent upon carrying out his orders, although suffering the +most acute agony, he crept back to the railroad and destroyed it. +Knowing the explosion would soon bring the Boers, on his hands +and knees he crept to an empty kraal, where for two days and +nights he lay insensible. At the end of that time he appreciated that +he was sinking and that unless he found aid he would die. + +Accordingly, still on his hands and knees, he set forth toward the +sound of distant firing. He was indifferent as to whether it came +from the enemy or his own people, but, as it chanced, he was +picked up by a patrol of General Dickson's Brigade, who carried +him to Pretoria. There the surgeons discovered that in his fall he +had torn apart the muscles of the stomach and burst a blood-vessel. +That his life was saved, so they informed him, was due only to the +fact that for three days he had been without food. Had he +attempted to digest the least particle of the "staff of life " he would +have surely died. His injuries were so serious that he was ordered +home. + +On leaving the army he was given such hearty thanks and generous +rewards as no other American ever received from the British War +Office. He was promoted to the rank of major, presented with a +large sum of money, and from Lord Roberts received a personal +letter of thanks and appreciation. + +In part the Field-Marshal wrote: "I doubt if any other man in the +force could have successfully carried out the thrilling enterprises +in which from time to time you have been engaged, demanding as +they did the training of a lifetime, combined with exceptional +courage, caution, and powers of endurance." On his arrival in +England he was commanded to dine with the Queen and spend the +night at Osborne, and a few months later, after her death, King +Edward created him a member of the Distinguished Service Order, +and personally presented him with the South African medal with +five bars, and the cross of the D. S. 0. While recovering his health +Burnham, with Mrs. Burnham, was "passed on" by friends he had +made in the army from country house to country house; he was +made the guest of honor at city banquets, with the Duke of Rutland +rode after the Belvoir hounds, and in Scotland made mild +excursions after grouse. But after six months of convalescence he +was off again, this time to the hinterland of Ashanti, on the west +coast of Africa, where he went in the interests of a syndicate to +investigate a concession for working gold mines. + +With his brother-in-law, J. C. Blick, he marched and rowed twelve +hundred miles, and explored the Volta River, at that date so little +visited that in one day's journey they counted eleven +hippopotamuses. In July, 1901, he returned from Ashanti, and a +few months later an unknown but enthusiastic admirer asked in the +House of Commons if it were true Major Burnham had applied for +the post of Instructor of Scouts at Aldershot. There is no such post, +and Burnham had not applied for any other post. To the Timer he +wrote: "I never have thought myself competent to teach Britons +how to fight, or to act as an instructor with officers who have +fought in every corner of the world. The question asked in +Parliament was entirely without my knowledge, and I deeply regret +that it was asked." A few months later, with Mrs. Burnham and his +younger son, Bruce, he journeyed to East Africa as director of the +East African Syndicate. + +During his stay there the _African Review_ said of him: "Should +East Africa ever become a possession for England to be proud of, +she will owe much of her prosperity to the brave little band that +has faced hardships and dangers in discovering her hidden +resources. Major Burnham has chosen men from England, Ireland, +the United States, and South Africa for sterling qualities, and they +have justified his choice. Not the least like a hero is the retiring, +diffident little major himself, though a finer man for a friend or a +better man to serve under would not be found in the five +continents." + +Burnham explored a tract of land larger than Germany, penetrating +a thousand miles through a country, never before visited by white +men, to the borders of the Congo Basin. With him he had twenty +white men and five hundred natives. The most interesting result of +the expedition was the discovery of a lake forty-nine miles square, +composed almost entirely of pure carbonate of soda, forming a +snowlike crust so thick that on it the men could cross the lake. + +It is the largest, and when the railroad is built--the Uganda +Railroad is now only eighty-eight miles distant--it will be the most +valuable deposit of carbonate of soda ever found. + +A year ago, in the interests of John Hays Hammond, the +distinguished mining engineer of South Africa and this country, +Burnham went to Sonora, Mexico, to find a buried city and to open +up mines of copper and silver. + +Besides seeking for mines, Hammond and Burnham, with Gardner +Williams, another American who also made his fortune in South +Africa, are working together on a scheme to import to this country +at their own expense many species of South African deer. + +The South African deer is a hardy animal and can live where the +American deer cannot, and the idea in importing him is to prevent +big game in this country from passing away. They have asked +Congress to set aside for these animals a portion of the forest +reserve. Already Congress has voted toward the plan $15,000, and +President Roosevelt is one of its most enthusiastic supporters. + +We cannot leave Burnham in better hands than those of Hammond +and Gardner Williams. Than these three men the United States has +not sent to British Africa any Americans of whom she has better +reason to be proud. Such men abroad do for those at home untold +good. They are the real ambassadors of their country. + +The last I learned of Burnham is told in the snapshot of him which +accompanies this article, and which shows him, barefoot, in the +Yaqui River, where he has gone, perhaps, to conceal his trail from +the Indians. It came a month ago in a letter which said briefly that +when the picture was snapped the expedition was "trying to cool +off." There his narrative ended. Promising as it does adventures +still to come, it seems a good place in which to leave him. + +Meanwhile, you may think of Mrs. Burnham after a year in +Mexico keeping the house open for her husband's return to +Pasadena, and of their first son, Roderick, studying woodcraft with +his father, forestry with Gifford Pinchot, and playing right guard +on the freshman team at the University of California. + +But Burnham himself we will leave "cooling off " in the Yaqui +River, maybe, with Indians hunting for him along the banks. And +we need not worry about him. We know they will not catch him. + +End + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Real Soldiers of Fortune +by Richard Harding Davis + |