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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #63533 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63533)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature,
-Science, and Art, No. 750, May 11, 1878, by Various
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 750, May 11, 1878
-
-Author: Various
-
-Editor: William Chambers
- Robert Chambers
-
-Release Date: October 23, 2020 [EBook #63533]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL LITERATURE, MAY 11, 1878 ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
-
-OF
-
-POPULAR
-
-LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
-
-Fourth Series
-
-CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.
-
-NO. 750. SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1878. PRICE 1½_d._]
-
-
-
-
-A VOYAGE IN THE _SUNBEAM_.
-
-
-We have not for a long time perused a more lively and interesting book
-than that written by Mrs Brassey, purporting to be an account of her
-voyage round the world, in the yacht named the _Sunbeam_. The lady was
-accompanied by her husband, Mr Thomas Brassey, M.P., also her children
-and a few private friends. The yacht, a handsomely fitted up and
-commodious vessel, possessed three masts, and had a powerful sailing
-capacity, but was provided with a screw and steam-power, to be used as
-occasion required.
-
-Though laying no claim to literary skill, Mrs Brassey writes pleasingly
-in the form of a diary; and she may be complimented on her untiring
-energy in bearing fatigue, and the good taste with which she describes
-the multiplicity of scenes and circumstances calling for observation.
-Mr Brassey, usually called Tom in the narrative, was his own navigator,
-which infers no small degree of nautical knowledge; and we are led to
-believe that this was not his first expedition with the _Sunbeam_.
-He was, of course, assisted by a sailing-master, a boatswain, and
-engineer, besides a crew of at least twenty able-bodied seamen; the
-full compliment being made up by a steward and stewardess, cooks,
-nurse, lady’s-maid, and other domestics.
-
-One can fancy the pleasurable excitement in preparing for a year’s
-voyage of this kind, the arrangements to be made, the articles to be
-taken; the hopes probably predominating over the fears, the farewells
-on going on board. It is the fate of few to have so splendid a chance
-of making a tour of the globe, carrying from clime to clime not a few
-of the comforts of home—an elegant saloon for daily resort, a library
-of seven hundred volumes for amusing reading, nicely fitted-up cabins,
-baths, a first-rate cuisine and larder, everything else to make life
-pass away agreeably; letters of introduction, abundant means, liberty
-to sail where and when you like. What more could anybody desire? Such
-is yacht-life. It was brought to perfection in the _Sunbeam_. Looking
-to the elegant form of the vessel, and the large quantity of sail she
-carried, we can form an idea of her great speed when running before a
-favourable wind. The only drawback, it can be supposed, was the small
-draught of water, about nine feet, wherefore in rough weather there
-must have been a considerable tumbling about. However, that is what
-will be expected in yachting, which differs materially from performing
-a voyage in large sea-going ships.
-
-The _Sunbeam_, sailing from the Thames, set out on the 1st July 1876,
-and steering westward by the Isle of Wight, suffered some rough weather
-in getting into the Atlantic. On the 13th there was a cry of a ‘sail
-on the port-beam;’ but on investigation it proved to be an abandoned
-vessel tossed about on the ocean, with masts gone, and the sea washing
-over the half-broken-up deck. This unfortunate derelict was visited; it
-had been laden with wine, of which several casks were carried away, and
-then it was left to its fate; though, had time permitted to take the
-hulk into port, a considerable salvage might have been realised. The
-party were beginning to settle down. At meals there was much pleasant
-talk; Mrs Brassey read and wrote a good deal, and learned Spanish; one
-of the gentlemen taught the children, and the commissariat department
-was satisfactory. The land first reached was Madeira. At Funchal, the
-vessel dropped anchor; and with jaunting about to see the island,
-there was a stay of several days. Many friends came on board before
-departure, and ‘all admired the yacht very much, particularly the
-various cosy corners in the deck-house.’
-
-On the 20th July, off for the Canary Islands; and these being reached,
-there was an expedition on horseback to the Peak of Teneriffe.
-Tremendous as was the ascent of a mountain which rises eleven thousand
-four hundred and sixty-six feet above the level of the sea, Mrs
-Brassey did not shrink from the undertaking. She, however, did not
-attempt to climb the cone of five hundred and thirty feet, composed
-as it is of hot ashes, into which the feet sink at every step, while
-sulphurous vapours pour from the various fissures. View from the summit
-magnificent. Of the picturesque scenery drawings and photographs were
-taken. Teneriffe being exhausted, off went the _Sunbeam_, still holding
-in a southerly direction by the Cape de Verde Islands.
-
-Rio de Janeiro, on the coast of South America, was reached on the 18th
-August. A graphic account is given of excursions in Brazil. The eye
-everywhere was struck with the brilliant colours of the humming-birds,
-flowers, and butterflies. Palm, orange, lemon, and citron trees were
-among the common objects of vegetation. A variation in the general
-amusement consisted of a voyage up the River Plate and a journey on
-the Pampas. Splendid country, and well farmed, but under what an
-infliction—the locusts. Of these terrible creatures Mrs Brassey heard a
-good deal, and she longed to see them, and her wish was gratified. She
-says: ‘In the course of our ride we saw in the distant sky what looked
-very much like a heavy purple thunder-cloud, but which the experienced
-pronounced to be a swarm of locusts. It seemed impossible; but as we
-proceeded they met us, first singly, and then in gradually increasing
-numbers, until each step became positively painful, owing to the smart
-blows we received from them on our heads, faces, and hands.... As the
-locusts passed between us and the sun they completely obscured the
-light; a little later, with the sun’s rays shining directly on their
-wings, they looked like a golden cloud, such as one sometimes sees in
-the transformation scene in a pantomime.’ We pass over much that is
-described in the Argentine Republic, as of little or no interest in
-this country.
-
-The _Sunbeam_ set off in its course southwards on September 28th.
-While lying down to rest after breakfast, Mrs Brassey was summoned to
-come on deck to see a ship which had signalled being on fire. A boat
-being despatched to discover the condition of affairs, the vessel was
-found to be the _Monkshaven_, sixty days out from Swansea, bound for
-Valparaiso with a cargo of smelting-coal, which had taken fire by the
-spontaneous ignition of gases. As it was evident that the unfortunate
-ship could not be saved, prompt assistance was given in bringing the
-crew on board the _Sunbeam_. ‘The poor fellows,’ says Mrs Brassey,
-‘were almost wild with joy at getting alongside another ship, after all
-the hardships they had gone through, and in their excitement they threw
-overboard many things which they might as well have kept, as they had
-taken the trouble to bring them. Our boat made three trips altogether;
-and by half-past six we had them all safe on board, with most of their
-effects, and the ship’s chronometers, charts, and papers.... While we
-were at dinner the ship was blazing like a tar-barrel.’ The last time
-the _Monkshaven_ was seen, she was burned down nearly to the water’s
-edge. From the information given respecting the ill-fated ship, it
-was learned that a large American steamer had passed quite close to
-her, and disregarding signals of distress, had steamed away southward,
-leaving all on board to their fate. The kind attention shewn by Mr
-Brassey comes strongly out in contrast with such heartless conduct. The
-unexpected addition of the crew of the _Monkshaven_ to those on board
-the _Sunbeam_ proved a trial on the commissariat, but the difficulty
-was overcome. The inconvenience was fortunately for only a few days.
-The _Ilimani_, one of the Pacific Company’s mail-steamers, came in
-sight on the route for England, and to this vessel the crew of the
-_Monkshaven_ were consigned. Besides affording this relief, ‘the
-captain of the _Ilimani_ kindly gave us half a bullock, killed this
-morning, a dozen live ducks and chickens, and the latest newspapers.’
-
-On the 6th October, the _Sunbeam_ was off the coast of Patagonia;
-the rugged mountains of Tierra del Fuego rose on the sky, and now
-the yacht shaped its course for the Straits of Magellan. To get
-through these tortuous narrows is reckoned one of the clever feats in
-navigation. There are many sunken rocks to be avoided, and the natives
-scattered about the coast are not to be relied on. The scenery, which
-is described as singularly picturesque, is well represented in some
-beautiful illustrations.
-
-The narrow channels were got through on the 12th October; the sun
-pierced through the clouds, and the broad Pacific was in view. What a
-triumph in navigation to have piloted ‘the yacht through the Straits,
-for it would do credit, not only to any amateur, but to a professional
-seaman.’ Sails were hoisted; and now begins what we deem to be the
-most amusing part of the work; for after touching at Valparaiso, the
-voyaging was among the groups of islands which, dotting the Pacific,
-lie basking in the profuse beauty of the tropics. Valparaiso, the most
-important trading town of Chili, left some agreeable impressions.
-Several English gentlemen were solicitous that the party should stay
-for a few days; and there were excursions in the neighbourhood. An
-emporium of Panama hats was visited. These hats are a curiosity, and
-are worn by almost everybody on the coast. They are made of ‘a special
-kind of grass, split very fine,’ and are sold at an extraordinary
-price; fifty to sixty guineas being not an unusual price for a single
-hat, though some are sold at a cheaper rate. Their recommendation is
-that they are light, pliable, and so enduring that they will almost
-last for ever. Very wonderful hats, as Mrs Brassey thinks, but gravely
-adds, that where ‘so many hats are lost overboard, they would prove
-rather an unprofitable investment.’ Some curious details are given
-respecting the abundance of eggs, which are offered in profusion at
-meals. Eggs on all occasions are the order of the day, and poultry in
-superlative abundance. Valparaiso, in short, is the paradise of eggs.
-It is stated that there are good shops, but everything is ‘frightfully
-dear.’ We can at all events say that there is a considerable import of
-English books and periodicals.
-
-The route adopted from Valparaiso was westward to the Society Islands,
-lying in nearly the twentieth degree of south latitude. They may be
-said to be at the very middle of the Pacific, and out of the way of
-general navigation. It was a charming sail, but rather slow work; and
-looking to the great stretch of ocean to be traversed, there were
-qualms of feeling as to how provisions and water would last—fear that
-there will have to be a dependence on potted meats; and talking of
-these meats, we are assured that none at all equal those of American
-preparation. Slipping on at the rate of five miles an hour under sail,
-but sometimes accelerated by a breeze, the _Sunbeam_ went onward night
-and day with nothing to look at but the ocean and sky. Much time
-was spent in reading, and there was some amusement in noticing the
-paroquets, monkeys, and other pet animals that had been domesticated
-on board. On Sundays, as was customary throughout, all hands were
-summoned for Divine service, just as at home in England. The length
-of the service depended on the weather. When circumstances permitted,
-Mr Brassey read a sermon in addition to the usual prayers. One likes
-to read of these continued acknowledgments of Divine care by a whole
-ship’s company, amidst the perils of the deep.
-
-The Society Islands were reached on the 26th November. For the very
-interesting account of these islands we must refer to what is described
-by Mrs Brassey. But for the rise of coral reefs, these islands would
-scarcely have an existence. This is one of the wonders of nature. Our
-authoress is at a loss to describe the beauty of the scene. ‘Submarine
-coral forests of every colour, studded with sea-flowers, anemones,
-and echinidæ, of a brilliancy only to be seen in dreamland; shoals
-of the brightest and swiftest fish darting and flashing in and out;
-shells, every one of which was fit to hold the place of honour in
-a conchologist’s collection, moving slowly along with their living
-inmates: this is what we saw when we looked down from the side of the
-boat into the depths below.’ On landing at one of the islands, the
-party were hospitably received by the natives. Piles of cocoa-nuts,
-fish, and fowls were laid down as presents at their feet. From the
-cocoa-nuts they were refreshed by a drink of cool milk offered for
-their acceptance. For these gifts there was a proper requital. Mrs
-Brassey says: ‘The women were gentle and kind, and were delighted with
-some beads, looking-glasses, and knives I gave them; in return for
-which they brought us quantities of beautiful shells.’ At the island
-of Tahiti there was a similar exchange of courtesies. Papiette is
-described as quite a town, with a market affording an immense choice of
-articles for sale.
-
-The pleasures of a tropical clime are unfortunately apt to be marred
-by certain torments. During the rainy season, water falls in solid
-masses which no temporary shelter can withstand; that, however, is
-nothing in comparison with the invasion of insects. A small party which
-set out in an American wagon for a drive of two days round Tahiti,
-passed the night at an inn where the insect pest was experienced in
-an unmistakable way. The rooms were swarming with cockroaches ‘about
-three inches long’, which climbed the walls and were seen in every
-crevice. ‘Then there were the mosquitoes, who hummed and buzzed about
-us, and with whom, alas! we were doomed to have a closer acquaintance.
-Our bed was fitted with the very thickest calico mosquito curtains,
-impervious to the air, but not to the venomous little insects, who
-found their way through every tiny opening in spite of all our efforts
-to exclude them.... Amidst suffocating heat, in the moonlight, were
-seen columns of nasty brown cockroaches ascending the bed-posts,
-crawling along the top of the curtains, dropping with a thud on the
-bed, and then descending over the side to the ground.’ Being unable
-to stand it any longer, Mrs Brassey rose, emptied her slippers of the
-cockroaches, seized on her garments, and fled to the garden; whence,
-however, she was driven back by torrents of rain. Such is a picture of
-certain inconveniences in these tropical islands. Prodigious beauty of
-vegetation, flowers magnificent, all seemingly a kind of paradise—but
-the plague of insects.
-
-Making a run northwards, the _Sunbeam_ reached Hawaii, one of the
-Sandwich Islands, on the 22d December. Here was the same profusion
-and beauty of flowers. The women and girls are described as being
-gaily decorated with wreaths and garlands, and wearing a dress of
-a very simple yet not inelegant fashion, consisting of ‘a coloured
-long-sleeved loose gown reaching to the feet’—no tying at the waist,
-all flowing and free, with no restraint in walking or sitting down.
-Our space does not permit us to follow the movements of the party in
-their excursions through interesting scenery. Hawaii, like all the
-other islands in the group, is of volcanic origin. Kilauea, which is
-still raging, is reckoned to be the largest volcano in the world, for
-its crater is nine miles in circumference. This extraordinary volcano,
-situated at the top of a mountain six thousand feet above the level
-of the sea, was visited by Mrs Brassey, although the journey to it is
-fatiguing, and the approach to it is attended with some peril. There
-happens to be a comfortable inn near the brink of the crater, at which
-travellers are accommodated and are furnished with guides to conduct
-them with safety to points of interest.
-
-According to Mrs Brassey’s account, the scene was horribly grand. ‘We
-were standing on the extreme edge of a precipice, overhanging a lake
-of molten fire, a hundred feet below us, and nearly a mile across.
-Dashing against the cliffs on the opposite side, with a noise like the
-roar of a stormy ocean, waves of blood-red, fiery, liquid lava hurled
-their billows upon an iron-bound headland, and then rushed up the face
-of the cliffs to toss their gory spray high in the air. The restless
-heaving lake boiled and bubbled, never remaining the same for two
-minutes together.... There was an island on one side of the lake, which
-the fiery waves seemed to attack unceasingly with relentless fury, as
-if bent on hurling it from its base. On the other side was a large
-cavern, into which the burning mass rushed with a loud roar, breaking
-down in its impetuous headlong career the gigantic stalactites that
-overhung the mouth of the cave, and flinging up the liquid material for
-the formation of new ones. It was all terribly grand, magnificently
-sublime; but no words could adequately describe such a scene.’
-
-Perhaps the specimens now presented will incline readers to undertake a
-thorough perusal of this unique and interesting work, which (published
-by Longman) we doubt not will be found at all the libraries. The
-route homewards of the _Sunbeam_ from Hawaii was by way of Japan, the
-China Sea, the Straits of Malacca, Ceylon, the Bay of Bengal, the Red
-Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Mediterranean, about all which there are
-many amusing details. As regards the traffic on the Suez Canal, the
-gratifying fact is mentioned, that on the day the _Sunbeam_ entered the
-Canal, the sum of six thousand pounds was taken as dues at the Suez
-office alone. The climate of the Mediterranean, which we are in the
-habit of extolling as beneficial to invalids from northern countries,
-suited badly, as we are told, with the delicate constitution of the
-pet animals brought from the South Pacific and other warm regions.
-Although tended with great care, several pined and died, from the
-effects of acute bronchitis or other ailments, after passing Malta. All
-these victims to a change of climate ‘were placed together in a neat
-little box, and committed to the deep at sunset, a few tears being shed
-over the departed pets, especially by the children.’
-
-Mrs Brassey with her family and friends reached home—a palatial mansion
-on the south coast of England, near Hastings—on the morning of the
-27th May 1877. In the whole voyage round the world, no hitch nor any
-misadventure had occurred. We can imagine that the expedition will
-have left an agreeable topic of conversation for life, and that its
-surprising success will inspire others equally qualified to follow the
-brilliant example offered by ‘A Voyage in the _Sunbeam_.’
-
-
-
-
-HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.—AT THE PHEASANTRY.
-
-‘I have letters to write—one to the Lord-lieutenant in particular, on
-county business,’ said the Earl, smiling, and addressing himself to
-Captain Denzil; ‘otherwise I daresay that I too should have been able
-to find something worth the showing you out of doors. As it is, you
-young people must go without me.’
-
-Jasper, who had a lazy man’s horror of improved implements, Dutch
-dairies, new patent draining-tiles, and cattle-food, and who knew
-the Earl’s passion for farming, felt inwardly grateful to the
-Lord-lieutenant for detaining his noble host within doors. The Countess
-had not the slightest intention of accompanying her guests in their
-visit to the pheasantry. Except in a carriage, or in dry weather among
-the well-rolled paths of the rose-garden, Lady Wolverhampton scarcely
-ever left the house. Her age, though she looked younger, was within
-a year or two of that of her lord, and he was by far the stronger of
-the two. Indeed it was mainly due to her declining health and growing
-incapacity for exertion that the High Tor family had for this year
-foregone what most persons of their rank regard less as a pleasure than
-as a duty, the passing of at least a portion of the season in London.
-
-The party from Carbery Chase had been very cordially received. People
-can afford yet to cultivate the old-fashioned quality of cordiality in
-rural retirement, where it answers to detect hidden merits and to see
-in the best light the things and persons in the midst of which and whom
-our lives have to be passed.
-
-‘I am glad,’ said the Countess, ‘that Captain Denzil was able to come
-over with you to-day, my dears.’
-
-With Sir Sykes’s two daughters the mistress of High Tor was on
-sufficiently familiar terms; but their brother’s character was not
-quite so much esteemed by the De Vere family as were theirs. Still, in
-the country, a young man and an elder son is _per se_ a being of some
-importance, and to Jasper, with his arm yet in the black silken sling,
-there attached somewhat of romance, on account of his late accident
-and the adventurous way in which he had incurred it. He had not been
-expected, and his presence at High Tor was taken as a compliment.
-
-Scarcely had the Ladies Maud and Gladys De Vere had time to don the
-pretty hats that so well set off the comeliness of the one and the
-bright beauty of the other, before their brother came into the room.
-Lord Harrogate had a riding-whip in his hand, and a long ride over
-the purple moorlands in prospect; but he was easily induced to defer
-it, and to make one of the party, that presently sauntered across the
-park towards a sunny sandy nook, screened from cold north winds by
-a friendly belt of fir and pine, where the new pheasantry had been
-established.
-
-Near to the place where a footpath led to a sequestered dell, the
-new governess Miss Gray and her pupil met the group of advancing
-sight-seers. Ethel would have passed on with a quiet graceful bow of
-recognition; but Lady Alice had no notion of being thus shelved.
-
-‘You are going to look at the pheasants,’ she said; ‘and we have just
-seen them. They seem rather frightened, but so very pretty!’
-
-The words which young Lady Alice had employed when speaking of the
-exotic birds would have been singularly appropriate to Ethel Gray. The
-new governess looked timid and something more than pretty during the
-general hand-shaking and interchange of civil conventional phrases
-which now ensued. Jasper, whose acquaintance with Ethel was of the
-slightest, had contented himself with lifting his hat; but he had
-stared at her beautiful face with as cool a steadiness of gaze as
-though she had been a picture or a statue. Why Lord Harrogate should
-have resented this, it would have been no easy matter for his lordship
-to explain; but there was scorn, and anger too, in the glance which he
-shot at unconscious Jasper; while it was not without some embarrassment
-that he addressed a word or two of polite commonplace to Miss Gray.
-Then the governess and her pupil pursued their way to the house, and
-the rest of the party strolled on towards the pheasantry.
-
-‘How handsome she is!’ exclaimed honest Lucy Denzil, looking back after
-the angular form of Lady Alice, and the graceful figure that contrasted
-so strongly with the bony awkwardness of the school-girl; and Lady Maud
-echoed the praise, and Lady Gladys smiled approval. The Earl’s second
-daughter was, as has been said, very lovely, and her golden hair and
-blue eyes had produced the usual effect of fascinating for the time
-being Jasper’s fickle fancy. It is quite possible to be very hard and
-at the same time very weak where women are concerned; and Captain
-Denzil, wary man of the world as he boasted himself to be, and selfish
-as he certainly was, could not at the moment resist the spell of the
-enchantress.
-
-‘Cripple as I am,’ said Jasper, glancing at his injured arm, ‘you see
-that I could not resist the temptation to come when you asked me.’
-
-‘They are not my pheasants; they are Maud’s, you know,’ returned Lady
-Gladys, as though wilfully misunderstanding him.
-
-‘Fortunate birds!—that is if you condescend to take an interest in
-them,’ said the captain, nonchalant as ever, but contriving to throw
-into his tone and look a something of suppressed tenderness, that
-was not perhaps wholly feigned. Ruth Willis saw the look, although
-she was not near enough to overhear the words, and her eyes flashed
-and her white teeth closed sharply, almost savagely, on her pouting
-lip. She felt the mortification which an angler might feel did he see
-the half-hooked salmon, the silvery patriarch of the pool, desert
-his bait, and leap provokingly at the artificial fly of some rival
-disciple of Piscator. She could not forget how, an hour or two ago,
-the heir of Carbery had deigned to devote to her service those very
-tricks of manner—in her anger she mentally called them so—which now
-before her very eyes he was practising for the benefit of another. She
-did not care for him; but he piqued her, by the very effrontery of his
-fickleness, into attaching to him a value which in calmer moments she
-would never have set on one so intrinsically base as Jasper Denzil.
-
-In spite of world-old experience and sage aphorisms, each sex remains
-to some extent a standing problem to the other. So Ruth Willis,
-nettled, baffled, wrathful, still did not fathom the depths of Jasper’s
-worthless nature one half so clearly as she would have done had her
-keen powers of observation been exercised at the expense of a woman.
-She even felt angry with Lady Gladys, though most unreasonably, for the
-proud beauty wore her most glacial armour of chilling haughtiness when
-she perceived that Jasper was disposed to pay her what is popularly
-known as ‘marked attentions.’
-
-The innocent pheasants, the ostensible end and object of this
-expedition, were duly inspected, and lavishly fed with the millet and
-barley, the chopped eggs and crushed maize, which young pheasants
-love. They were fair enough to look upon, these shy pretty captives,
-still timorous and bewildered by their close confinement in the
-darksome baskets wherein they had been crammed by the irreverent
-poultry-merchant who had consigned them to High Tor; and not yet quite
-at home in their new abode, which had been so freshly decorated for
-their reception that the paint on the wood and the lacquer on the wires
-were barely dry. Golden pheasants there were, and white or silver
-pheasants, and pencilled pheasants, worthy descendants of a feathered
-ancestry that had pecked and strutted in the gardens of coral-buttoned
-mandarins, in far-off China.
-
-The curious thing was, that except by their mistress Lady Maud and the
-elder of the two Denzil girls, who was a kindred spirit, the pheasants
-were scarcely looked at with regardful eyes. Is it not always so? At
-launch or military review or polo-match, or when a princely trowel
-of pure gold condescendingly applies a dab of sublime mortar to a
-glorified foundation-stone of some new building, how very, very few of
-the nominal spectators concentrate their thoughts and their vision on
-the show, which the reporters will presently describe with such graphic
-power! Private affairs, hopes, fears, interests, are all of them petty
-magnets sufficient to neutralise the great avowed attraction of the
-hour.
-
-There was Ruth Willis, her whole attention stealthily concentrating
-itself upon Captain Denzil at the side of the Earl’s second daughter;
-there was Jasper, vainly trying to thaw the ice of Lady Gladys’
-disdain; and Lord Harrogate, whose thoughts seemed at times to wander
-away from the present scene and company. Add to these Blanche Denzil,
-sorrowfully conscious that Lord Harrogate himself, in whose eyes she
-would have given much to find favour, was thinking of anything rather
-than of her preference for him, and it will be seen that the real
-amateurs of fancy pheasants were but in a narrow minority.
-
-A good girl who loves a man worthy of her esteem, yet who is
-constrained by maiden modesty and the rules of good-breeding to hide
-away the sentiment as though it were a sin, deserves more pity than
-often falls to her lot. It is never Leap-year for her. She cannot
-be the first to speak. And if there be one point upon which men are
-exceptionally blind, it is to the perception that their merits may
-be highly appreciated by some young lady to whom they never give a
-thought when absent from her. Poor Blanche had trouble enough now and
-then to keep down the rising tears that welled up to her eyes as she
-noted twenty signs of the painful fact that Lord Harrogate regarded her
-with that amicable indifference which cannot readily ripen, as dislike
-sometimes can, into love. But Blanche was too gentle to grow bitter
-over a disappointment, as did Ruth Willis, although for her too the
-pleasure of the day was damped and dulled.
-
-The visitors from Carbery would not, on getting back to the broad
-gravelled drive where the basket-carriage awaited them, re-enter the
-house. They had taken leave of the Earl and Countess, and declined all
-hospitable proffers of luncheon beforehand. There was some kissing
-among the girls and a good deal of hand-shaking, and then the ‘double
-basket’ again received its living load, and ‘good-bye’ was said, and
-off dashed the mettled Exmoor ponies under Lucy Denzil’s guidance.
-
-Two of the party from the Chase carried back with them to Carbery
-hearts that were heavier than when they had first set out for the
-projected visit to the pheasantry at High Tor. Sir Sykes’s ward, so
-talkative two hours ago, had become sullenly mute. Ruth Willis was
-smarting under her defeat, for she had measured herself with Lady
-Gladys, and could not but acknowledge to herself that her own elfish
-piquancy was quite thrown into the shade by the superior charms of the
-Earl’s daughter. Blanche was sad and thoughtful. Jasper, twisting his
-well-waxed moustache, seemed unaware, in the preoccupation of his own
-mind, that Ruth was resentful and Blanche melancholy, while Miss Denzil
-frankly wondered why conversation languished as it did. Excellent Lucy
-had had no by-play to distract her attention from the object of the
-expedition; she had seen the birds and chatted with her friend, and
-was mildly gratified with her outing. Nevertheless it was but a silent
-party that the Exmoor ponies whisked back along the well-kept road that
-led to Carbery Chase.
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.—THE NEW BROOM.
-
-‘Clever enough, and too clever! It’s your look-out, sir, of course,
-and not mine; but I can’t help thinking that to give my friend Mr
-Wilkins an estate to manage is uncommonly like turning a fox into a
-poultry-yard to take care of the chickens.’
-
-Such was Jasper Denzil’s remonstrance with his father, on hearing the
-baronet’s announcement of his intention to transfer the reins of local
-government to the willing hands of the City solicitor, _vice_ Pounce
-and Pontifex superseded. Privately, Sir Sykes was of much the same
-opinion as his son; but as he was merely seeking to put a good face on
-what he felt to be really a surrender to a demand imperiously urged,
-he shook his head, saying: ‘You are prejudiced against this person,
-Jasper, and perhaps not unnaturally so. His manners, I admit, are not
-prepossessing, and his moral code has probably been shaped in a rough
-school of ethics; but I consider him to be one of those men whom it is
-pleasanter to have for a friend than for an enemy.’
-
-Jasper’s expressive upper lip wore a curl of disgust. It was to him
-very disagreeable that Mr Wilkins, who had got the better of him, as
-he resentfully felt, in many an encounter of wits, should be often
-at Carbery, and right-hand man to its owner. He resolved on one more
-attempt to dislodge the intruder.
-
-‘I would not, were I you, sir,’ said he, ‘either trust Wilkins a
-yard farther than I could see him, or be guided by his advice as to
-the management of the estate. You yourself heard the fellow say, at
-luncheon to-day, that he should not know turnips when he saw them
-unless there were boiled mutton in the middle of them. Wilkins only
-meant to raise a laugh when he hashed up that old joke against the
-Cockney sportsmen who ride to hounds, but he was nearer the truth than
-he was aware of.’
-
-‘Ah, well,’ returned the baronet blandly, ‘I daresay his agricultural
-knowledge is after all pretty much on a par with that of Messrs Pounce
-and Pontifex.’
-
-And then Jasper shrugged up his shoulders and was silent, for he
-perceived that it was hopeless to deprecate a foregone conclusion. For
-good or for ill, Sir Sykes had made up his mind to convert Mr Wilkins
-into a grand-vizier over the broad acres that lay within the circuit of
-his wide-stretching ring-fence.
-
-Enoch Wilkins, gentleman, had on that morning reached Carbery Chase,
-and was in a fair way of earning for himself any rather than golden
-opinions from its inmates. Mr Wilkins, as he often and not untruly
-boasted, knew the world, that is to say he had a minute and almost
-microscopic acquaintance with one or two sections of the shady side
-of it. He understood turf-men, as a smart prison-governor understands
-convicts, and knew the natural history of the fast-living and
-embarrassed young officer as well as some lecturer on entomology knows
-the ways of beetle and butterfly. In a lower social grade, he was
-deeply versed in the arcana of Loan Societies, and could apply the
-thumbscrew of the County Court in nicely calculated proportions to a
-struggling debtor. Of what he called swell society Mr Wilkins had but
-a limited experience. He had shared, as the purveyors of welcome cash
-often do share, in the costly banquets given at Greenwich or Richmond
-hotels by wild young gentlemen of blood and fashion. He had even, at
-the instance of some needy man about town who curried favour with any
-dispenser of ready-money, received a card which entitled him, now and
-again, to be crushed and jostled and trodden upon by distinguished
-company at the maddening ‘At Home’ of some berouged and bewigged old
-peeress.
-
-There was, as Mr Wilkins felt with some inward misgivings, a difference
-between forming part of a mob at Macbeth House or at the Baratarian
-Embassy, and mixing on intimate terms with such a family as were the
-Denzils. Yet, as the French idiomatically twist the phrase, he paid it
-off with audacity, being greasily familiar with Sir Sykes; on terms of
-brotherly frankness where Jasper was concerned; and for the benefit of
-the young ladies, assuming the character of the facetious and agreeable
-rattle, as he conceived incumbent on a regular Londoner and a bachelor
-to boot, when on a visit in the country.
-
-Blanche and Lucy Denzil scarcely knew whether to let amusement or
-dislike predominate in their minds as Mr Wilkins rattled on, pouring
-out miscellaneous anecdotes and jokes that, if worn threadbare in the
-metropolis, would, he was convinced, retain enough of their original
-gloss and sparkle to pass muster in the country. That the man was
-coarse, pushing, and unscrupulous, was evident even to critics so
-lenient as the baronet’s daughters; while Sir Sykes, behind his urbane
-smile, suffered martyrdom from his new agent’s deportment.
-
-There was one member of the family circle at Carbery whom Mr Wilkins
-eyed with quite an exceptional interest. He rarely addressed himself in
-conversation to the Indian orphan, Sir Sykes’s ward, but he watched her
-narrowly, and the more he saw of her the harder he found it to adhere
-to his original hypothesis as regarded the young lady whom Richard
-Hold, master mariner, had recommended to his good offices.
-
-‘If that demure manner and those downcast eyes do not belong to as
-sly a puss as ever lived, write me down a greenhorn!’ was the mental
-reflection of Enoch Wilkins, of St Nicholas Poultney, in the City of
-London, gentleman. ‘That she sets her cap at the captain, Sir Sykes
-Denzil’s hopeful heir, I take for granted. Her communicative friend,
-the pirate fellow, implied as much. The Lancer does not seem, however,
-disposed to come forward in a satisfactory style, and play Philemon to
-her Baucis.’
-
-And it was a fact that since the morning which had witnessed the drive
-to High Tor and the visit to the pheasantry, the snares of Miss Ruth
-Willis had been vainly set for the capture of that bird of dubious
-feather, Jasper Denzil.
-
-Why Jasper, who had so much to gain by the match on which his father’s
-mind was inexplicably bent, should hang back and prove recalcitrant,
-it was hard to say. His was not an independent soul. He was free from
-any trammels of a too scrupulous delicacy, and would have fingered any
-money got through the grimiest channels, without fear of soiling those
-white useless hands of his, the manliest work of which had hitherto
-been to grasp a bridle-rein. Yet Jasper had been very remiss of late in
-his attentions towards Ruth Willis, and apparently indifferent to the
-bribe of an income and establishment to be earned by marrying her.
-
-‘Now look here, Sir Sykes!’ said the lawyer after dinner, as he edged
-his chair nearer to that of his host, refilled his glass, and assumed
-a tone of waggish confidence—‘look here, Sir Sykes! You want brushing
-up down here at Carbery, you do indeed; ay and a little fresh air let
-in upon you. In an old estate like this, and under such management as
-those of Pounce and Proser—beg his pardon; I mean Pontifex; ha, ha,
-ha!’—pursued Mr Wilkins, having his laugh out, without so much as a
-sympathetic titter from Jasper or a smile from Sir Sykes—‘in an estate
-of this kind matters are apt to stagnate, and all sorts of abuses and
-jobs to grow up, like the green duckweed on the surface of a pool. Your
-head-gamekeeper now, Sir Sykes, I never saw him, but I’m sure that he’s
-a rogue.’
-
-‘Leathers is an old servant,’ answered Sir Sykes coldly; ‘I have had no
-reason to think ill of him.’
-
-‘I’ll go bail that he’s a rogue, for all that,’ returned the unabashed
-lawyer, holding up his glass to the light, to admire the ruby claret
-before he swallowed it. ‘The head-keeper of an easy-going, moneyed
-gent of your standing—excuse me, Sir Sykes—must be a saint, if he’s
-not a sinner. Think of the temptations! Why, the rabbits alone must
-be a cool two hundred a year to the man; and then the pheasants, and
-the black-mail from the tenants for keeping the ground-game within
-reasonable numbers, and the percentage on watchers’ wages. I’ll get
-you a contract with a London poulterer, Sir Sykes, that shall stand
-you in something handsome, provide you with a keeper twice as useful
-as Leathers, and insure your having a hot corner for your friends at
-battue-time. I’m a new broom, and sweep clean.’
-
-‘You promise well, at anyrate!’ said Jasper with a languid sneer.
-
-‘And did you ever know me not ready to implement when I had once
-promised?’ briskly retorted the solicitor. ‘I merely mention the
-gamekeeper to shew that all’s fish that comes to my net, and that I am
-not above attending to such minor fry as a fellow in velveteen with a
-dog-whistle at his button-hole. We must go on commercial principles,
-Sir Sykes, if we want to manage an estate so as to make it pay,
-nowadays. All that feudal nonsense of an affectionate tenantry and a
-liberal lord of the manor is about as dead as Queen Anne. You should
-get a new steward as well as a new gamekeeper, Sir Sykes.’
-
-The baronet stirred restlessly in his chair. He did not at all like
-this. Carbery, and the fair estate that went with it, had never yet
-been administered on commercial principles, especially when applied
-by so sweeping a reformer as Mr Wilkins of St Nicholas Poultney. ‘Mr
-Cornish keeps his accounts very correctly,’ he said in a hesitating
-tone. ‘Old Lord Harrogate gave him the stewardship, which his father
-had had before him, and his tenure of it has satisfied me.’
-
-‘Because you can afford, or fancy you can, to be robbed right and
-left,’ said the lawyer, gulping down his wine. ‘It is your plausible
-hereditary steward, that has fattened and battened on the plunder of
-successive generations, who sucks the very marrow out of the land.
-Don’t tell _me_! I’ll overhaul Mr Cornish’s accounts in a way he’s
-little used to. But first you must introduce me to the farmers, Sir
-Sykes, and give me time to worm out of them what they pay, in kind
-or money, by way of fines, good-will, premium, and so forth, for the
-honour of tilling your under-rented acres. I’ll raise your rent-roll,
-never fear me, but not with a native chawbacon for prime-minister.’
-
-‘So the steward must be flung overboard, it seems, as well as poor old
-Leathers the keeper,’ observed Jasper, half amused, but half annoyed.
-
-‘And I’ve got another peg to fit into the vacant hole,’ said the
-lawyer, again addressing himself to the claret. ‘With your permission,
-Sir Sykes, to-morrow we’ll wire for him to run down from London
-for your approval. A sharp fellow is Abrahams. You won’t mind his
-persuasion? Jew as he is, he’s thoroughly at home in a farmhouse,
-counts every sheaf of wheat in the barn, and every house-lamb in the
-kitchen on frosty days, and wheedles out of the women what the husbands
-are too dogged to tell.—This is delicious claret, but no one except
-myself seems to drink it. Suppose we join the ladies?’
-
-‘What has the governor done,’ groaned Jasper, as he lit his cigar, ‘to
-be under the thumb of such a man as this?’
-
-
-
-
-WORK IN THE LONDON DOCKS.
-
-
-In the metropolis there is always to be found a vast amount of ‘labour
-unattached,’ recruited from men in nearly every rank of life. To
-form an idea of the surplusage in the labour market, advertise for a
-‘light-porter,’ and you will have at least two hundred applications
-before eleven o’clock the next day. If you desire a clerk at a salary
-of, say, twenty shillings a week, half a thousand eager candidates
-will apply for the vacancy. While if you have anything of a superior
-sort to offer, such as the secretaryship of a charitable institution,
-or hospital, suitable to the talents of retired military officers
-and others, probably a thousand competitors will offer themselves to
-your discrimination. Of course many people will be surprised that
-such numbers should prefer living in semi-idleness, hunting after
-any opportunity that offers, rather than exert themselves to obtain
-employment in less crowded localities; but then in London there is
-the great magnet of the ‘lucky chance’ constantly before their eyes.
-If one obtains a situation at a pound a week, there are constantly
-opportunities of bettering one’s self, especially in large firms, who
-carefully select and promote their men according to capability and
-merit. Then, again, a man may be starving in a garret, poorly dressed,
-existing somehow by borrowing a shilling or two occasionally when you
-meet him in the street; but in a month or two may be in a good position
-in an insurance company or an actuary’s office. But as bread must be
-obtained somehow until the golden opportunity offers itself, a number
-of men who have seen better days are compelled by sheer necessity to
-fly to that paradise of the destitute, the Docks.
-
-The great Dock Companies in London, fully aware of the superabundance
-of labour always in the market, do not employ, permanently, one-third
-of the men they require, since they are usually able to procure at
-least twice as many hands as they need at a moment’s notice. Indeed
-so great is the competition for even Dock employment, that unless you
-are known to one of the foremen, or in some way furnished with an
-introduction to one of the Company’s officials, you stand a very poor
-chance of obtaining work, save occasionally, when a sudden pressure
-of business comes on and they are glad to accept any one that offers.
-Sometimes a huge ship comes in requiring to be discharged in a few
-days; and everybody who can work may, by offering himself, obtain
-employment for a brief period; but, the time of pressure over, he will
-present himself at the Dock-gates day after day in vain. The Company’s
-foremen of course give the preference to their regular hands, and the
-stranger who has helped them in their time of need is passed over. So
-the best thing you can do if you desire employment at the Docks is to
-obtain a letter of recommendation from some broker or merchant who does
-business with the Company, and according to the influence he possesses
-so will your work be regulated. It will require great influence to
-enable you to be placed on the ‘permanent’ or ‘extra-permanent’ staff;
-and the utmost you can hope for is to obtain employment by the day so
-long as any ships are at work, with the prospect of losing a few days
-now and then when things are dull.
-
-The clock has struck a quarter past seven in the morning, and already
-may be seen clustered round the Dock-gates small groups of men, with
-hands invariably in their pockets and short pipes in their mouths,
-discussing the prospect of work for the day, and the only chance they
-have of obtaining a meal of food and a night’s lodging. These are the
-‘chance’ or ‘odd-time’ men, who if they are not taken on the first
-thing, loiter about the entrance all day, waiting a ‘call’ from one of
-the foremen; sometimes making two, four, or five hours, as the case
-may be. Of all this class of men, it may be truly said that they are
-waiters upon Providence, for they are usually the last selected; and
-as to their garments (their sole earthly possession), very few of them
-could obtain a shilling for all they wear from head to foot. Indeed
-so dilapidated are some of their shoes, that it is no uncommon thing
-for them to be paid off after an hour’s work or so, because their feet
-will not retain a footing upon a slippery floor. It also occurs at
-times that they come in to work so famished that they sink exhausted
-after a little exertion, though in this case the foremen who employ
-them are generally kind-hearted enough to advance a few pence to obtain
-a little food to enable them to hold out the day. As the clock nears
-the half-hour (7.30 A.M.) the regular ‘outsiders’ come up. These men
-are in better condition than the others; but there is a seedy, ragged
-appearance about most of them, which tells the unmistakable tale that
-their chief earnings go to the public-house. And now there is a stir. A
-small wicket in the gate is open, and a foreman comes out, and calling
-out the names of the men he requires, they pass in. These are engaged
-by the half-hour, and are liable to be dismissed as soon as their work
-is completed, let the time be what it may. Usually they remain at work
-the whole day; but, should any unforeseen occurrence—such as stoppage
-of a ship’s discharge on account of weather, or a break-down in some of
-the machinery for removing cargo—prevent them labouring, the word is
-passed to ‘wash up,’ and they are paid off at once, perhaps an hour or
-two after they have been engaged.
-
-After this crew come the Company’s ‘recommended’ men, persons who
-through the influence of some merchant obtain employment. With them
-also arrive the ‘extra-permanent’ men; and these two classes always
-have a preference when any work is going on. They are engaged by the
-day and paid by the day; and each man on entering receives a numbered
-ticket about the size of a railway ticket, which will entitle him to
-receive his wages in rotation at the pay-box in the afternoon. The pay
-for all alike is fivepence per hour; but the highest class of all,
-the ‘permanent’ men, receive twenty shillings per week all the year
-round, be the hours long or short, and are always certain of their
-money whether the Company can find work for them or not. In the months
-of November, December, January, and February, the work is from nine to
-four, and the remainder of the year from eight to four, with extra pay
-for overtime to all alike when any is to be made. Thus it will be seen
-that with pretty constant employment a fair living is to be made at the
-Docks; but in addition, many men make something extra in the evenings,
-either as ‘supers’ at one of the theatres, chairmen at those convivial
-meetings known as ‘Free-and-Easies,’ or in some other capacity. In
-short, at the Docks, as elsewhere, it is only the idle and disreputable
-class that starves; for the Company’s officials naturally select the
-best men first, and only employ the ‘duffers’ when they cannot possibly
-do without them.
-
-At a few minutes before eight we are all at our posts; men are on board
-ship commencing to roll out the bales of merchandise from the ‘hold;’
-the ponderous hydraulic ‘ram’ swings out from the warehouse, and three
-or four bales are hooked on and hoisted ashore. It is (we will say) a
-large Australian wool ship; and as soon as the bales are landed, they
-are pounced upon by a man with stencil-plate and brush, who with nimble
-fingers marks the name of the ship on each. Then an individual with
-stentorian lungs (probably a broken-down auctioneer) shouts out to the
-check clerk at the table the mark on each particular bale, and this is
-recorded in a book called a ‘tally-sheet.’ Next, a couple of muscular
-men attack with axes the iron bands with which the bales are clamped,
-and sever them, so that the wool expands to nearly double its size; for
-it is all pressed by hydraulic machinery previous to being stowed in
-the ship, in order to economise space. The bales thus released are now
-trotted off by active truckmen to the scales, where they are weighed,
-marked, and sorted in different piles according to their mark. All this
-is done in less time than it takes to read about it, amid a storm of
-shouts, execrations, commands, and other noises in every conceivable
-variety.
-
-Let us take a walk round the Docks and warehouses and inspect the vast
-piles of merchandise lying about in every direction. Yonder is a ship
-discharging brandy, with a vigilant Custom-house officer watching
-every cask as it comes ashore. In another place they are emptying
-on the floor hogshead after hogshead of coffee, to be weighed for
-duty. That sedate-looking man with a needle in his hand sewing up
-rice-bags has been a schoolmaster, and can write excellent hexameters.
-A little farther on, a solicitor, unfortunately struck off the rolls,
-is wheeling a truck; and farther on a once prosperous merchant is
-assisting to push along a hogshead of sugar. The conclusion one arrives
-at, after making the round of the Docks, is, that nearly everything we
-eat and drink is manipulated first by the dirty classes, who shovel
-our necessaries about at their pleasure, and tread over them as if
-they were so much dirt. See those dingy men with garments tattered
-and patched stooping and working on those sloppy floors. They are
-scraping up the molasses which has filtered out from the sugar-casks,
-and putting it into tubs. This will be all sent away to the
-sugar-boilers’, and converted into cheap sugar, and go to localities
-where it will be bought by housekeepers who study economy in the
-kitchen. This sort of sugar always has a lumpy clear appearance, with
-a slight clammy taste in the mouth, and can be detected with a little
-practice at a glance. It is usually sold alone, but is often mixed with
-better sugar, in order to make that half-penny difference in the pound
-so tempting to certain housewives.
-
-We are warned that it is noon by the tinkling of a bell, which resounds
-all over the Dock; and at the first stroke everything is dropped out
-of hand immediately, and to the cry of ‘Bell ho!’ every one rushes out
-of the warehouses for dinner. A few of the more provident have brought
-some in their pockets; but the majority go straight to the old man or
-old woman who is permitted by the Company to supply them with bread,
-cheese, beer, soup, and pudding, all of an indifferent sort; and if
-they have any money, buy something to eat; and if they have none, try
-and borrow a penny or two from somebody else; or cajole the refreshment
-caterer into giving them credit until four o’clock. Very few of them
-have knives wherewith to cut their food decently; they gnaw it anyhow;
-in fact their chief rule seems to be to buy nothing that they are not
-absolutely compelled to buy, for fear the vendor should cheat them;
-and if some of them could observe this rule so far as the beer-shop
-is concerned, they would make their fortunes, many of them possessing
-talents, as experts in ‘tasting,’ of no common order.
-
-Their meal finished, some now creep on board ship to smoke, a thing
-they are not allowed to do in the warehouses; others of a larcenous
-disposition, prowl about the cook’s galley to appropriate anything
-they can, such as meat, knives, brushes, in short any small portable
-articles, which they either devour, or else sell at any price to
-somebody else. At twenty minutes past twelve the bell again summons
-them to work, and each man crawls slowly back to his post, the
-majority of cheeks indicating apparently the existence of gum-boil to
-the uninitiated, but which abnormal appearance is due solely to the
-companionable ‘quid’ of tobacco.
-
-By this time a number of vans are in the yard waiting to take away
-goods, and the foremen are pretty nearly sure to want some extra hands
-to assist. Consequently out they go to the gates, and select as many
-as they require from the forest of palms held up before them. In this
-way work goes on until a few minutes before four, when all parties
-knock off, unless the ship should have to work an hour or two longer.
-At the pay-box the men arrange themselves in numerical order, and are
-paid with great celerity by the cashier, the exact amount due to each
-man being handed to him as he passes the window. At the exit gate are
-stationed two of the Company’s constables, who search any one they have
-cause to suspect, for in spite of the utmost vigilance and the aid of
-a large staff of police, pilfering is constantly going on within the
-Docks, and it requires great watchfulness to prevent the men taking
-anything out. As it is, things are occasionally smuggled out, though,
-when an offender is convicted, he usually meets with a severe penalty.
-
-The London and St Katherine’s Docks (now amalgamated under one
-Company) cover an area of about forty-five acres, and have nearly
-as much warehouse accommodation as all the other Dock companies
-put together. The capital embarked in them, inclusive of loans and
-debentures, may be stated at about eight millions sterling, and the
-employés of all classes about three thousand daily. The annual imports
-into these Docks are seldom less than seventy millions, the exports
-being also considerable. With all this enormous trade and this vast
-amount of business, things are managed with great, though of course not
-perfect accuracy; every man knows his place, and there are seldom any
-mistakes but such as will occur at times from unavoidable hurry and
-confusion.
-
-
-
-
-PRETTY MRS OGILVIE.
-
-
-All the women are jealous of her; there is no doubt about that. The
-first time she appears in church with crisp mauve muslins floating
-about her and a dainty mauve erection on her head, which presumably
-she calls a bonnet, I know at once how it will be. And of course the
-other sex will range themselves on her side to a man; that is also
-beyond question. As she rises from her knees and takes her little
-lavender-gloved hands from her face and looks about her for a moment
-with a sweet shy glance, she is simply bewitching; and I doubt if any
-male creature in our musty little church pays proper attention to the
-responses for ten minutes afterwards. A new face is a great rarity with
-us, and _such_ a new face one might not see more than once in a decade,
-so let us hope we may be forgiven.
-
-As I gaze at the delicate profile before me, the coils of golden hair,
-the complexion like the inside of a sea-shell, the slender milk-white
-throat, and the long dark eyelashes, which droop modestly over the
-glorious gray eyes, shall I own that I steal a glance of disapproval
-at Mary Anne, my Mary Anne, the partner of my joys and sorrows for
-twenty years, and the mother of my six children? Mary Anne’s figure is
-somewhat overblown, her hair is tinged with gray, and the complexion of
-her good-humoured face is slightly rubicund. But she has been a good
-wife to me; and I feel, with a twinge of compunction, that I have no
-right to be critical, as I think of a shining spot on the top of my
-own head, and of a little box I received from the dentist only a month
-ago, carefully secured from observation. But as we emerge from church
-I draw myself up and try to look my best as we pass the trailing mauve
-robes. Jack, one of our six, stumbles over the train; which gives
-me an opportunity of raising my hat and apologising for the brat’s
-awkwardness; and I am rewarded with a sweet smile and an upward glance
-out of the great gray eyes which is simply intoxicating.
-
-‘We must call on Mrs Ogilvie at once,’ I observe to Mary Anne as we
-proceed across the fields on our homeward walk. ‘It is my duty as her
-landlord to find out if she is comfortable. She is a ladylike person,’
-I continue, diplomatically forbearing to allude to the obvious beauty;
-‘and I daresay, my dear, you will find her an agreeable neighbour.’
-
-‘Ladylike!’ cries my wife, with a ring of indignation in her voice. ‘I
-don’t call it ladylike to come to a quiet country church dressed as if
-she were going to a flower-show. Besides, she is painted. A colour
-like that can’t be natural. But you men are all alike—always taken with
-a little outside show and glitter.’
-
-‘But my dear,’ I remonstrate, ‘perhaps she did not know how very
-countrified and bucolic our congregation is; and I really do think it
-will be very unneighbourly if we don’t call. It must be very dull for
-her to know no one.’ I ignore the remark about the paint, but in my
-heart I give the assertion an emphatic contradiction.
-
-Mrs Ogilvie has rented a small cottage which I own in the west-country
-village in which I am the principal doctor. She is the wife of a
-naval officer who is away in the Flying Squadron, and has settled in
-our sleepy little hamlet to live quietly during his absence. All her
-references have been quite unexceptionable, and indeed she is slightly
-known to our Squire, as is also her absent husband. ‘A splendid fellow
-he is,’ Mr Dillon tells me, ‘stands six feet in his stockings, and is
-as handsome as Apollo; indeed I don’t believe that for good looks you
-could find such another couple in England.’
-
-The following day Mary Anne, with but little persuasion, agrees to
-accompany me to the cottage to call on Mrs Ogilvie. The door is opened
-by a neat maid-servant. She is at home; and we are ushered into the
-drawing-room, which we almost fail to recognise, so changed is it.
-Bright fresh hangings are in the windows, a handsome piano stands open,
-books and periodicals lie on the tables in profusion, and flowers are
-everywhere. ‘Evidently a woman of refinement and cultivated tastes,’ I
-think to myself; ‘the beauty is more than skin deep.’
-
-Presently Mrs Ogilvie comes in, looking if possible even lovelier than
-she did the day before. She is in a simple white dress, with here and
-there a knot of blue ribbon about it; and she has a bit of blue also
-in her golden hair. Her manner is as charming as her looks, and as she
-thanks my wife with pleasant cordial words for being the first of her
-neighbours to take compassion on her loneliness, I can see that my Mary
-Anne, whose heart is as large as her figure, basely deserts the female
-faction and goes over to the enemy. Mrs Ogilvie is very young, still
-quite a girl, though she has been married three years she tells us.
-
-‘It is dreadful that Frank should have to go away,’ she says, and
-the tears well up in her large gray eyes; ‘that is the worst of the
-service. But I suppose no woman ought to interfere with her husband’s
-career. I am going to live here as quietly as possible until he
-returns. See; here is his photograph,’ she continues, lifting a case
-from the table and handing it to Mary Anne. ‘Is he not handsome?’
-
-He is most undeniably so, if the likeness speaks truth, and we both say
-so; Mary Anne, with the privilege of her sex and age, adding a word as
-to the beauty of the pair.
-
-‘O yes,’ replies Mrs Ogilvie without the smallest embarrassment: ‘we
-are always called the “handsome couple.”’
-
-I suppose something of my astonishment expresses itself in my
-countenance, for she smiles, and says: ‘I am afraid you think me very
-vain; but I cannot help knowing that I am good-looking, any more than
-I can help being aware that my eyes are gray, not black, and that my
-hair is golden. It is a gift from God, like any talent; a valuable one
-too, I think it; and I own that I am proud of it, for my dear Frank’s
-sake, who admires it so much.’
-
-Yes, this is Mrs Ogilvie’s peculiarity, as we afterwards discover—an
-intense and quite open admiration of her own beauty. And indeed
-there is something so simple and naïve about it, that we do not find
-it displeasing when we get accustomed to it. She always speaks of
-herself as if she were a third person, and honestly appreciates her
-lovely face, as if it were some rare picture, as indeed it is, of Dame
-Nature’s own painting. She is equally ready to admit the good looks of
-other women, and has not a trace of jealousy in her composition. But
-often you will hear her say, in describing some one else: ‘She has a
-lovely complexion—something in the style of mine, but not so clear.’
-Or, ‘She has a beautiful head of hair, but not so sunny as mine;’ &c.
-&c. At first, every one is astonished at this idiosyncrasy of hers,
-but in a little while we all come to laugh at it; there is something
-original and amusing about it; and in all other ways she is _so_
-charming.
-
-My wife, with whom she speedily becomes intimate, tells me that she is
-sure she values her beauty more for her husband’s sake than her own.
-‘She evidently adores him,’ says Mary Anne; ‘and he seems to think so
-much of her sweet looks. She says he fell in love with her at first
-sight, before he ever spoke to her.’
-
-But Mrs Ogilvie has many more attractions than are to be found in her
-face. She is a highly educated woman, a first-rate musician and a
-pleasant and intelligent companion; and more than all, she has a sweet
-loving disposition, and a true heart at the core of all her little
-vanities. She is very good to the poor in our village, and often when
-I am on my rounds, I meet her coming out of some cottage with an empty
-basket in her hand, which was full when she entered it.
-
-In a quiet little neighbourhood like ours, such a woman cannot fail to
-be an acquisition, and every one hastens to call on her, and many are
-the dinners and croquet parties which are inaugurated in her honour.
-To the former she will not go; she does not wish to go out in the
-evening during her husband’s absence—much to my wife’s satisfaction,
-who approves of women being ‘keepers at home’—and it is only seldom
-that she can be induced to grace one of the croquet parties with her
-presence.
-
-But when she does, she eclipses every one else. She always dresses
-in the most exquisite taste, as if anxious that the setting should
-be worthy of the jewel—the beauty which she prizes so highly. She is
-always sweet and gracious, and vanquishes the men by her loveliness,
-the women in spite of it. But she is in no sense of the word a
-coquette; and the only admirer she favours is our Jack, aged fourteen,
-who is head-over-ears in love with her, and is ready at any moment to
-forego cricket for the honour of escorting Mrs Ogilvie through the
-village, and the privilege of carrying her basket. So the quiet weeks
-and months glide by, linking us daily more closely together.
-
-She has been settled at the cottage rather more than two years and
-is beginning to count the weeks to her husband’s return. _We_ do not
-number them quite so eagerly, for when he comes he will take her away
-from us, and we shall miss her sorely. It is summer again, a hot damp
-summer; it has been a very sickly season, and my hands are full.
-
-‘I shall have to get a partner, my dear,’ I say to my wife as I prepare
-to go out. ‘If this goes on I shall have more to do than I can manage.
-There is a nasty fever about which I don’t like the look of; and if we
-don’t have a change for the better in this muggy weather, there is no
-saying what it may turn to.’
-
-‘I am glad all the boys are at school,’ observes Mary Anne, ‘and I
-think I will let the girls accept their aunt’s invitation and go to her
-for a month.’
-
-‘It would be a very good plan, and I should be glad if you would go
-too. A little change would do you good.’
-
-‘And pray who is to look after you?’ asks my wife reproachfully. ‘Who
-is to see that you take your meals properly, and don’t rush off to see
-your patients, leaving your dinner untasted on the table?’
-
-Mentally I confess that I should probably be poorly off without my Mary
-Anne; but it is a bad plan to encourage vanity in one’s wife, so I say:
-‘Oh, I should do very well by myself;’ and with a parting nod betake
-myself to my daily duty.
-
-In the village I meet Mrs Ogilvie, basket in hand. She doesn’t look
-well, and I say so.
-
-‘You have no business out in the heat of the day,’ I tell her. ‘You are
-not a Hercules, and you will only be knocking yourself up. What will
-your husband say, if he does not find you looking your best when he
-comes back?’
-
-A shade passes over her face. ‘Ah! he would not be pleased,’ she says
-rather gravely; ‘he always likes to see me look my _very_ best and
-prettiest.’
-
-‘Well then, as your doctor, I must forbid your doing any more
-cottage-visiting just at present. You are not looking strong, and going
-into those close houses is not good for you. I will come and see you on
-my way back.’
-
-Which I do. I find there is nothing the matter with her; she is only a
-little languid. Perhaps the weather has affected her; perhaps she is
-wearying for her husband; and I prescribe a tonic, which I think will
-soon set her to rights. I do not remain long with her, for I have an
-unspoken anxiety, and I am in a hurry to get home.
-
-‘You had better send the children away to-morrow morning, Mary Anne,’
-I say as soon as I get in. ‘Mrs Black is very ill, and I am afraid—I
-cannot quite tell yet, but I am afraid—she is going to have small-pox.
-Of course I shall have her removed at once, if I am right; but it may
-prove not to be an isolated case, and it will be as well to get the
-children out of the way. I shall try and persuade every one in the
-village to be vaccinated to-morrow.’
-
-‘You will be clever if you manage that,’ says my wife. ‘I am afraid
-some of the people are very prejudiced against it. You know when
-the children and I were revaccinated three years ago, you could not
-persuade any of the villagers to be done at the same time.’
-
-On the following day we despatch the children early to their aunt’s,
-under the care of an old servant; and as soon as I have seen them off,
-I go down to Mrs Black’s. To my consternation I find Mrs Ogilvie just
-leaving the house.
-
-‘I have been disobedient, you see,’ she says gaily; ‘but I promised
-to bring Mrs Black something early this morning; and she seemed so ill
-yesterday that I did not like to disappoint her. But I am not going to
-transgress orders again—for Frank’s sake,’ she adds softly.
-
-I give an internal groan. Heaven grant she may not have transgressed
-them once too often! And I hasten into the cottage, to find my worst
-fears confirmed. Mrs Black has small-pox quite unmistakably.
-
-For some hours I am occupied in making arrangements for her removal
-to the infirmary, and in vaccinating such of my poorer patients as I
-can frighten or coerce into allowing me to do so; and it is afternoon
-before I am able to go and look after Mrs Ogilvie.
-
-She seems rather astonished when I inform her what my errand is—that
-I want to vaccinate her (for of course I do not wish to frighten her
-by telling her about Mrs Black); but she submits readily enough when I
-say that I have heard of a case of small-pox in a neighbouring village
-(which I have), and think it would be a wise precautionary measure.
-
-‘It is very good of you,’ she says in her pretty gracious way as she
-bares her white arm. ‘I have never been vaccinated since I was a baby,
-so I suppose it will be desirable.’
-
-Desirable? I should think so indeed! And I send up a prayer as I
-perform the operation that I may not be too late.
-
-I am so busy for the next few days that I am unable to go down to the
-cottage. One or two more cases of small-pox appear in the village, and
-I am anxious and hard-worked; but Mary Anne tells me that Mrs Ogilvie
-has heard of Mrs Black’s removal and is dreadfully nervous about
-herself. ‘I hope she will not frighten herself into it,’ adds my wife.
-
-‘If she hadn’t contracted it before I vaccinated her, I think she is
-pretty safe,’ I reply; ‘but there is just the chance that she may have
-had the poison in her previously.’
-
-Almost as I speak a message comes from Mrs Ogilvie, who ‘wishes to see
-me professionally.’ My heart sinks as I seize my hat and follow the
-messenger; and with too good reason. I find her suffering from the
-first symptoms of small-pox; and in twenty-four hours it has declared
-itself unequivocally and threatens to be a bad case. I try to keep the
-nature of her illness from her, but in vain. She questions me closely,
-and when she discovers the truth, gives way to a burst of despair which
-is painful to witness. ‘I shall be marked; I shall be hideous!’ she
-exclaims, sobbing bitterly. ‘Poor Frank, how he will hate me!’
-
-In vain I try to comfort her, to convince her that in not one out of
-a hundred cases does the disease leave dreadful traces behind it; she
-refuses to be consoled. And soon she is too ill to be reasoned with,
-or indeed to know much of her own state. She is an orphan, and has no
-near relatives for whom we can send, so Mary Anne installs herself
-in the sick-room as head-nurse; and as I see her bending lovingly
-over the poor disfigured face, and ministering with tender hands to
-the ceaseless wants of the invalid, my wife is in my eyes beautiful
-exceedingly; so does the shadow of a good deed cast a glory around the
-most homely countenance.
-
-For some time Mrs Ogilvie’s life is in great danger; but her youth and
-good constitution prevail against the grim destroyer, and at length I
-am able to pronounce all peril past.
-
-But alas, alas! all my hopes, all my care, all my poor skill have been
-in vain; and the beauty which we have all admired so much, and which
-has been so precious to our poor patient, is a thing of the past. She
-is marked—slightly it is true; but the pure complexion is thick and
-muddy, the once bright eyes are heavy and dull, and the golden hair is
-thin and lustreless. We keep it from her as long as we can, but she
-soon discovers it in our sorrowful looks; and her horror, her agony,
-almost threaten to unseat her reason. My wife is with her night and
-day, watching her like a mother, using every argument she can think of
-to console her, and above all, counselling with gentle words submission
-to the will of God. But her misery, after the first shock, is not so
-much for herself as for the possible effect the loss of her beauty may
-have on her husband, who is now daily expected. His ship has been at
-sea, so we have been unable to write to him; and only on his arrival
-in Plymouth Sound will he hear of his poor young wife’s illness and
-disfigurement. Before her sickness she had been counting the hours;
-now she sees every day go past with a shudder, feeling that she is
-brought twenty-four hours nearer to the dread trial. At length his
-vessel arrives, and I receive a telegram telling me when we may expect
-him, and begging me to break the news gently to his wife. She receives
-it with a flood of bitter tears and sobs, crying out that he will hate
-and loathe her, and that she is about to lose all the happiness of her
-life. My wife weeps with her; and I am conscious of a choking sensation
-in my throat as we take leave of her half an hour before Mr Ogilvie is
-expected, and pray God to bless and sustain her.
-
-We are sitting in rather melancholy mood after dinner, talking of the
-poor young husband and wife, when Mr Ogilvie is announced, and I hasten
-to the door to meet him.
-
-‘She will not see me!’ he says impetuously, coming in without any
-formal greeting. ‘She has shut herself into her room, and calls to me
-with hysterical tears that she is too dreadful to look upon, that I
-shall cease to love her as soon as I behold her, and that she cannot
-face it.’ And the strong man falls into a chair with a sob.
-
-‘It is not so bad as that,’ I begin.
-
-‘I don’t care how bad it is,’ he cries; ‘she need not doubt my love.
-My poor darling will always be the same to me whether she has lost her
-beauty or not.’
-
-Whereupon I extend my hand to him and shake his heartily; and I know my
-wife has great difficulty in restraining herself from enveloping him in
-her motherly arms and embracing him.
-
-‘We must resort to stratagem,’ I say. ‘I will go down to the cottage
-at once, and you follow me in ten minutes with my wife. I will try and
-coax Mrs Ogilvie to come out and speak to me, and you must steal upon
-her unawares.’
-
-Mrs Ogilvie at first refuses to see or speak to me; but I go up to her
-door and am mean enough to remind her of my wife’s devotion to her and
-entreat her, for her sake, to come down to me.
-
-‘Where is Frank?’ she asks.
-
-‘I left him at home with Mary Anne,’ I reply, feeling that I am worthy
-of being a diplomatist at the court of St Petersburg, as she opens the
-door and descends the stairs. I take her out into the garden and begin
-to reprove her for her conduct, with assumed anger. She listens with
-eyes blinded by tears. I, on the look-out for it, hear the latch of the
-garden gate click; but she, absorbed in her sorrow, does not notice
-it. I look up and see Frank Ogilvie’s eyes fixed hungrily on his wife.
-Her changed appearance must be an awful shock to him; but he bears it
-bravely; and in a moment he has sprung forward, clasped her in his
-arms, and the poor scarred face is hidden on his true and loving heart!
-
-Then Mary Anne and I turn silently away, and leave him to teach her
-that there are things more valuable, of far higher worth than any mere
-beauty of face or form.
-
- * * * * *
-
-After all, we do not lose her, for Mr Ogilvie coming into some money,
-leaves the navy and purchases a small estate in our neighbourhood,
-on which they still reside. Mrs Ogilvie is no longer young, and has
-a family of lads and lasses around her, who inherit much of their
-mother’s loveliness. But one of the first things she teaches them is
-not to set a fictitious value on it; ‘for,’ she says, ‘I thought too
-much of mine, and God took it from me.’ No one ever hears her regret
-the loss of her beauty; ‘for through that trial,’ she tells my wife, ‘I
-learned to know the true value of my Frank’s heart.’
-
-She simply worships her husband, and is in all respects a happy woman.
-Indeed, seeing the sweet smiles which adorn her face and the loving
-light which dwells in her eyes, I am sometimes tempted to call her as
-of yore—Pretty Mrs Ogilvie.
-
-
-
-
-BURNABY’S RIDE IN TURKEY.
-
-
-In his volume of travels in Turkey, Captain Burnaby has given such a
-large variety of amusing particulars, that it is eminently worthy of
-perusal. The following are a few rough notes:
-
-Radford, the captain’s English servant, was one of the veritable
-descendants of Uncle Toby’s Corporal Trim; men—for there are a large
-family of them—to whom the word duty means obeying the word of command,
-no matter what form it may happen to take, be it to cook a dinner or
-storm a trench. At Constantinople another servant was required and
-engaged—one Osman, a Mohammedan, a very smart fellow, in every sense of
-the word. Picturesque in dress, tall and fine-looking into the bargain,
-and fully alive to the worth of the Effendi’s gold, to which he helped
-himself unsparingly, without hurt to his conscience or hinderance to
-his prayers. The devotions of this worthy proving a fruitful source
-of misery to the captain, he came to the conclusion that religious
-servants are a mistake, especially in the East.
-
-At Constantinople there was some little delay occasioned by having
-horses to buy and friends to see, and then there were the cafés, which
-are always amusing more or less; for the proprietors find that good
-voices and pretty girls are sure attractions, whether for Giaour or
-Turk. But the poor girls have a hard time of it. By birth they are
-chiefly Hungarian and Italian. They act as waitresses mostly, and are
-compelled by the Turks who frequent the cafés to sweeten, by tasting,
-all that they order. The violence thus done to their digestive organs
-may be imagined. One Italian girl bemoaned her lot, saying: ‘It is
-such a mixture. I have a pain sometimes (pointing to the bodice of her
-dress). I wish to cry; but I have to run about and smile, wait upon
-visitors and drink with them. It is a dreadful life! Oh, if I could
-only return to Florence!’
-
-Captain Burnaby found the Turkish women’s faces ‘sadly wanting in
-expression;’ at least those he had an opportunity of seeing, for
-the women all go veiled. Still their veils are of very thin muslin,
-and man’s curiosity is penetrating. But this noticeable lack of
-expression is not to be wondered at, when we hear that they are wholly
-uncultivated in mind—only one in a thousand among them can read or
-write. They amuse themselves in gossip and eating.
-
-The Ride was not at all times agreeable. It was not pleasant, for
-instance, having to cross wooden bridges without parapets, and to see
-the river below through holes in the wooden planks beneath the horse’s
-feet; or to wade up to the horse’s girths through lanes of water. But
-such is the fortune of travelling in the unknown.
-
-At the village of Nahilan the caimacan or governor was hospitable, and
-soon the whole population was in attendance to see and talk with the
-traveller. He was given the seat of honour on a rug near the fire. The
-caimacan in a fur-lined dressing-gown came next, the rest of the party
-in order not according to rank, but according to their possessions—the
-man who owned one hundred cows being seated next the governor.
-Conversation at first did not get on any better there than at home.
-But some one made a plunge, and the state of the roads was discussed.
-This opened the way to politics and the prospect of English help, about
-which the Turks were eager and anxious to learn. The war was the one
-topic of interest among them, as well it might be. The scenery in the
-neighbourhood was lovely, and Captain Burnaby wished that he had been
-born a painter, to have caught the impression of the beauty around
-him, and have fixed it for ever on canvas. He has painted at least one
-little sketch successfully in words: ‘A succession of hills, each one
-loftier than its fellow, broke upon us as we climbed the steep (leading
-towards Angora). They were of all forms, shades, and colours, ash gray,
-blue, vermilion, robed in imperial purple, and dotted with patches of
-vegetation. Our road wound amidst these chameleon-like heights, whose
-silvery rivulets streamed down the sides of the many-coloured hills.’
-
-But we must leave this pretty scene to describe the night’s lodging
-at the next halt, which gives us an insight into Turkish beds and
-bedrooms. No bedsteads are used. ‘One or two mattresses are laid on the
-floor; the _yorgan_, a silk quilt lined with linen and stuffed with
-feathers, taking the place of sheets and blankets. These yorgans are
-heirlooms in a Turkish family, and are handed down from father to son.
-It is a mark of high respect when a host gives you his wedding yorgan
-to sleep under. Captain Burnaby found the honour a trying one, as many
-generations of fleas shared it with him. Osman grew eloquent on the
-subject of yorgans. He had one so beautiful that neither his wife nor
-himself liked to use it.
-
-Hearing that he was married, Captain Burnaby questioned him about his
-wife. Did he love her? Was she pretty? To which Osman replied: ‘She is
-a good cook. She makes soup. Effendi, I could not afford to marry a
-good-looking girl. There was one in our village—such a pretty one, with
-eyes like a hare and plump as a turkey—but she could not cook, and her
-father wanted too much for her. For my present wife I gave only ten
-liras (or Turkish pounds); but she did not weigh more than one hundred
-pounds. She was very cheap. Her eyes are not quite straight, but she
-can cook. Looks don’t last; but cooking is an art that the Prophet
-himself did not despise.’
-
-At every place a cordial reception awaited the traveller. The Turks
-are not ungrateful; and English help during the Crimean War is still
-remembered. At Angora, a town of importance, there was an English
-vice-consul, a married man, living in a house furnished with every
-English comfort. He is the only Englishman, or rather Scotchman,
-in the place. A Turkish gentleman gave a dinner-party in honour of
-the traveller. These Turkish dinner-parties are compared to Turkish
-music, and declared to consist of a series of surprises. ‘In music the
-leader of an orchestra goes from andante to a racing pace without any
-crescendo whatever. The cook in the same manner gives first a dish as
-sweet as honey, and then astonishes our stomach with a sauce as acid as
-vinegar. Now we are eating fish, another instant blanc-mange. And so on
-throughout the feast were the startling contrasts continued. Servants
-were abundant and pressing. Each guest ate with his fingers, helping
-himself according to his rank or social status.’ When dinner was over
-the host rose, not forgetting to say his grace: ‘Praise be to God.’
-A servant then poured water over the hands of each, according to his
-rank, for precedence is duly observed in the veriest trifle; and then
-they all adjourned to another room to smoke and drink coffee.
-
-Nothing can exceed the hospitality and generosity of the Turk. Admire
-what belongs to him, and he begs you to accept it, be it a book, a
-horse, or a servant. Talking of servants, it was amusing to hear Osman
-railing at the man in charge of the pack-horse for allowing the horse
-that carried the valuables, in the form of groceries and cartridges,
-to lie down in a river, thus injuring the contents of his pack. The
-Eastern method of abuse is to attack a man’s female relatives—a point
-on which all Easterns are most sensitive—in language the reverse of
-choice.
-
-In Anatolia and in most parts of Asia Minor, every man is his own
-architect and builder, on the following simple principles. When old
-enough to marry, a man chooses a bit of oblong ground, on the side of
-a hill if he can, and digs out the earth to the depth of several feet.
-‘Hewing down some trees, he cuts six posts, each about ten feet high,
-and drives them three feet into the ground, three posts being on one
-side of the oblong, three on the other. Cross-beams are fastened to
-the top of these uprights, and branches of trees, plastered with clay,
-cover all.’ The doorway is of rude construction. In the interior, a
-wooden railing divides the room into two, one-half of which is occupied
-by the animals, the other by the family. A hole in the ceiling is the
-only mode of ventilation, and in cold weather this is stopped up. The
-‘family’ often consists of twelve in number, and at night they lie
-huddled on the floor, which in poorer houses is covered with coarse
-rugs of camels’ hair, and Persian rugs among the wealthier. The close
-proximity to livestock invites a third and irrepressible population
-of fleas in most of these houses. The misery of a night spent with
-legions of these insects must be felt to be thoroughly understood
-and appreciated. They formed the chief discomfort of the travellers,
-whose English skins were not case-hardened to the assaults of the
-lively banqueteers. When sickness overtook them (as it did when they
-had advanced far on their journey) and sleep became imperative, the
-misery of our travellers grew serious. To be ravaged by fever as well
-as by fleas would at once try the strongest. At last in one village a
-hint was given that if the Effendi’s skin were attacked, no bucksheesh
-would follow. Instantly the host had a remedy at hand. He had a cart
-in his yard; and the Effendi at last had the comfort of a few hours of
-undisturbed slumber.
-
-At various places the Armenian churches were visited. It is the custom
-among the Armenians, as among the Jews, to separate the women from the
-men during divine service. The Armenians take the further precaution
-of hiding the women behind a screened lattice-work. Great pity was
-expressed for our English clergymen when it was found they used no such
-precaution in their churches, and it was remarked: ‘They must find it
-difficult to keep the attention of their flock, if the ladies are as
-pretty as they are said to be.’ In the Armenian churches, however,
-the precaution is used to keep the women devotional; but such is the
-power of attraction, that in many places Captain Burnaby noticed that
-the lattice had been broken away! The interior of an Armenian church
-resembles a mosque, and is carpeted with thick Persian rugs. As the
-Armenian Christians worship pictures, the walls are hung with several
-in gaudy frames. The service is ritualistic in the extreme, and politic
-to temporal no less than spiritual rulers; for on the occasion of
-Captain Burnaby’s attendance, the service opened with two songs sung by
-the choir—one in honour of the Queen of England, out of compliment to
-the visitor present; the other for the Sultan. Some of their traditions
-are curious. One is, that a prince of theirs, a leper, living at the
-same time as Christ, heard of his miracles, and wrote a letter to the
-Saviour, inviting him to come and take up his abode in Armenia and cure
-him of his disease. The Lord is supposed to have replied: ‘After I have
-gone, I will send one of my disciples to cure thy malady and give life
-to thee and thine.’ With the letter, Christ is supposed to have sent at
-the same time a handkerchief which had received the image of his face
-by being pressed to it; and it is this tradition which they adduce to
-justify their adoration of pictures.
-
-The Turk’s religion is a compound of faith and fatalism, sprinkled
-occasionally with due precaution. Here is an instance of their
-fatalism. When Captain Burnaby was at Kars, the streets were in such a
-filthy condition, owing to the sewage of the town being thrown in front
-of the buildings, that the hospitals were full of typhoid, and cholera
-was anticipated; and yet neither soldiers nor inhabitants would stir a
-finger to remove the source of their miseries out of the streets; the
-soldiers declaring that they were not scavengers, and the inhabitants
-making some other excuse. When warned of the consequences, each took
-refuge in kismet or fate. Allah was great and able to perform miracles.
-If Allah saw fit, there would be no cholera—although their streets were
-reeking with the seeds of disease.
-
-In most of the towns, excitement prevailed in organising battalions for
-the seat of war. The Turks are essentially a warlike nation, and fight
-for their country without a murmur, in the face of such disadvantages
-as bad food and long arrears of pay.
-
-We have not before spoken of a new travelling companion who took
-Osman’s place—one Mohammed by name, who was as faithful as the Prophet
-himself. Osman turned out a very bad bargain. His fidelity to the
-Effendi’s purse became at last greater even than his love of prayer;
-and his keen eye after an exorbitant percentage was worthy of a London
-usurer. Remonstrance was in vain. At last he was dismissed, having been
-caught thieving, and Mohammed reigned in his stead, to the comfort of
-all parties. He was a soldier and a mountaineer, brave and hardy on
-land, but a coward at sea. He loved his lord the Effendi, and dearly
-loved his ‘brother’ Radford’s cooking. His ‘brother’s’ opinion of
-him at parting was characteristic: ‘That Mohammed was not such a bad
-chap after all, sir. Them Turks have stomachs, and like filling them
-they do; but they have something in their hearts as well.’ And so
-Mohammed shewed—for in illness he was a kind nurse, and faithful to his
-‘lord’s’ interests throughout. On one occasion, Mohammed complained
-of rheumatism, and Radford applied a mustard paper. What a sensation
-it created among the Kurd villagers—some of whom were spectators
-of course—when they heard that the wet paper had produced the fire
-under which Mohammed lay writhing and groaning. It was a miracle; and
-forthwith the Effendi was hailed everywhere as a _hakim_ or doctor, and
-his fame spread from place to place on the road. A Persian asked, and
-even admitted him into his harem, to prescribe for his pretty wife, to
-whom he gave small doses of quinine. Another time a Kurd asked him to
-cure his toothache; but mustard papers were powerless here; so Radford
-was called in consultation, and said it ought to come out. But there
-were no instruments at hand, and the operation had to be declined.
-‘Give me something for my stomach then,’ asked the Kurd. Three pills
-were then handed to him, which he chewed deliberately, declaring, when
-he had finished them, his tooth was better!
-
-At one place, after passing over a narrow wooden bridge that spanned
-the Euphrates—only forty yards wide at this point—the travellers
-crossed the Hasta Dagh (mountain); presently they came to a glacier,
-the frozen surface of which extended a hundred yards, the decline
-being steeper than the roof of an average English house. ‘Should it be
-taken?’ was the question asked with much consternation, and decided
-in the affirmative. The guide rode his horse to the glacier. The
-poor animal trembled when it reached the brink; but a reminder from
-Mohammed’s whip hastened the poor brute’s decision, and he stretched
-his forelegs over the declivity, almost touching the slippery surface
-with his girth. Another crack from Mohammed, and horse and guide were
-whirling down the glacier, and only pulled up at last by finding
-themselves buried in a snowdrift six feet deep. When his turn came,
-Captain Burnaby describes the sensation as if he were ‘waltzing madly
-down the slippery surface.’ To witness the descent of the others was
-something fearful; though not so dangerous as it appeared. When Radford
-emerged from his snowy burial, he exclaimed: ‘I never thought as how
-a horse could skate before. It was more than sliding, that it was; a
-cutting a figure of eight all down the roof of a house.’
-
-Our travellers at last reached Batoum, where they parted from Mohammed,
-and where we must part from them, not without sincere regret. After
-this, they took ship across the Black Sea to Constantinople, and all
-adventures were over. We shall not quickly forget the two thousand
-miles of ground so graphically described, and over a portion of which
-we have travelled with them in the saddle. Nor will the reader of
-Captain Burnaby’s volume of travels throughout the land of the Osmanli,
-easily forget the scenes and incidents and people so graphically
-depicted. We omit with regret many good stories we should like to have
-told; but space is inexorable. To those who are inclined to echo this
-regret, we can only say: ‘Do as we have done, and take the ride with
-Burnaby for yourselves.’
-
-
-
-
-WEDDING EXTRAVAGANCES.
-
-
-The following sensible observations on the wastefulness which often
-takes place on marriage occasions, are from the pen of Camilla
-Crosland—our old and esteemed contributor originally known as Camilla
-Toulmin. They appear in _Social Notes_, a weekly periodical not unlike
-our own, edited by Mr S. C. Hall, and which has our best wishes for its
-success.
-
-‘How many people there are who in fine clothes and with smiling faces
-“assist” at a modern wedding, yet in their heart of hearts think the
-profuse outlay and the general festive arrangements usual on the
-occasion a piece of tiresome folly! Few, however, like to make a dead
-set against time-honoured customs, unless strong personal feelings or
-personal interests are concerned.
-
-‘Marriage may certainly lay claim to being the most important event
-in life, and as such there must ever be solemnity associated with it.
-In fact our Prayer-book speaks of the solemnisation of matrimony. Of
-course it is right that there should be a certain publicity attached
-to every marriage ceremony, and probably in this fact originated the
-custom of inviting friends to be present on the occasion, till by
-degrees wedding-parties have become more and more crowded, and now it
-is a common thing for a vast assembly to congregate at them. Of course
-where there is great wealth, and people love this sort of display, and
-bride and bridegroom have nerve for it, and are, moreover, happy in
-possessing “troops of friends,” there is no reason why money should
-not circulate—the confectioner revel in _chefs-d’œuvre_, the florist
-realise a week’s ordinary income in bouquets, and the milliner make her
-mint of money by rich toilets. But a vice of the English middle class
-is to ape the rank above it; and I confess it has often to me seemed
-pitiable to know at what a cost of after self-denial a showy wedding
-has taken place.
-
-‘It is desirable that when two young people, suitable in age,
-character, station, are warmly attached, they should be married as
-soon as prudence permits. Let us take, for instance, the case of
-an accomplished but portionless young lady, the eldest of several
-daughters, who has been accustomed to utilise her talents in the home
-circle. She has been engaged, say four years, to a gentleman in a
-government office with a slowly rising salary. He is about thirty, she
-five or six and twenty. He has saved enough money to furnish a pretty
-little suburban dwelling, and she will be provided by her father with a
-modest _trousseau_, and they think it now high time to “settle.” Their
-income, even including a fatherly allowance for pin-money, will be
-considerably less than five hundred pounds per annum, and they, being
-good arithmeticians, know they must live quietly, visit and entertain
-only in a homely, friendly manner, and neither go to nor give formal
-parties. Of what use is the costly white silk bridal dress, which in
-all human probability will never in its original state be worn again?
-It will, of course, be laid up carefully, and looked at occasionally
-with tender sentimental interest; but by-and-by, in a year or two, it
-will seem old-fashioned, and most probably be picked to pieces and
-dyed some serviceable colour. Then there were probably at least four
-bride’s-maids, each to be presented with a jewelled _souvenir_ by the
-not too affluent bridegroom, and the costly wedding-breakfast to be
-provided by the father. One mischief of the thing being that the whole
-arrangement becomes a precedent, so that the next sister who marries
-would seem slighted if she were to have a less stylish wedding.
-
-‘Perhaps the costly entertainment—which is often a great trial to the
-feelings of the parties most chiefly concerned—can only be given by
-dipping into a very slender capital, or by relinquishing the autumn
-seaside holiday. The worst of the matter is that the class a little
-below the one I have attempted to describe, imitates the bad example in
-its own way and to its own detriment.’
-
-Mrs Crosland, in conclusion, mentions a case in which persons of
-respectable standing consulted economy and common sense in their
-marriage arrangements. ‘Due arrangements having been quietly made,
-the young lady one morning, dressed in ordinary attire, escorted by
-her father to “give her away,” and accompanied by a younger sister to
-serve as bride’s-maid, walked to the parish church, where the expectant
-bridegroom was ready to receive them. There the ceremony was performed,
-the little party returning to partake of the family luncheon before the
-wedded pair started on their tour. Was not this an example worthy under
-many circumstances to be followed?’
-
-
-
-
-CANINE CUNNING.
-
-
-The following is from a correspondent: ‘A near neighbour of mine has
-a large mongrel dog, a terrible nuisance to all passing the house,
-which unfortunately stands near the highway. The brute has the nasty
-habit of rushing out and attacking every passing vehicle. Complaints
-were loud and numerous; and at length the owner hit upon a plan which
-he thought would effectually cure his dog. He attached a small log of
-wood or a “clog” by a chain to his collar. This answered admirably;
-for no sooner did the dog start in pursuit of anything than the clog
-not only checked his speed but generally rolled him over into the
-bargain. Now this would not do. Doggie was evidently puzzled, and
-reflected upon the position; and if he did not possess reasoning
-powers, he certainly shewed something very like them, for he quickly
-overcame the difficulty, and to the surprise of all, was soon at his
-old work, nearly as bad as ever. And this is how he managed. No longer
-did he attempt to drag the clog on the ground and allow it to check
-and upset him, but before starting he caught it up in his mouth, ran
-before the passing horse, dropped it, and commenced the attack; and
-when distanced, would again seize the clog in his mouth, and resume his
-position ahead, and thus became as great a pest as ever. Even on his
-ordinary travels about he is now seen carrying his clog in his mouth,
-instead of letting it drag on the ground between his legs.’
-
-
-LOST DOGS.
-
-Few facts will better illustrate the vast scale on which almost
-everything presents itself in the English metropolis, even so humble a
-subject as that of poor dogs that have temporarily lost their masters,
-than one mentioned in the Annual Report of the Chief Commissioner of
-Police. He informs us that nearly nineteen thousand (more than 18,800)
-stray dogs were taken charge of by the police in the metropolis during
-the year 1876! A little romance might be mixed up with the story of
-most of these homeless wanderers, if we could but know it: how Carlo or
-Boxer was distressed at losing his protector. The animals were either
-taken for a while to the Dogs’ Home at Battersea, or were otherwise
-provided for.
-
-
-
-
-IN MEMORIAM.
-
-(M. A. W.—POETESS. ÆTAT 25.)
-
-
- O Noble heart! so gentle, kind;
- Thy life, like a brief summer wind,
- Hath passed away,
- And left me here on earth to mourn
- Thine early flight to that sweet bourne
- Where angels stay.
-
- There may my soul from slumber ’wake
- When heaven and earth their concord break,
- And Time is o’er;
- When Christ, in his enthroned array,
- Proclaims aloud his Advent Day
- From shore to shore!
-
- There may we meet at last and find
- (Mind, heart, and soul for aye entwined)
- Eternal rest;
- There tread together Eden’s bowers—
- The land of life and light and flowers—
- With souls as blest.
-
- Brief was thy sojourn here, sweet girl;
- And life, with all its glittering whirl,
- Soon passed thee by;
- Leaving the flower to droop unseen,
- The world rolled on, not heeding e’en
- Thy dying cry.
-
- In that dark hour, thy fleeting soul,
- Regardless of Death’s stern control,
- Broke forth in song;
- And as the falt’ring numbers came,
- By angels fair thy hallowed fame
- Was borne along.
-
- O well-beloved! enseamed in light,
- If thou canst gaze upon my night
- Of lonely grief:
- Behold me now, and mark the tears
- That still must flow through future years
- Without relief.
-
- Yet the dread tomb which steals away
- From brightest gem its purest ray—
- The Life sublime!
- Must know we can its power defy,
- For thou art safe beyond the sky,
- And for all time.
-
- Yea; thou art safe with that great God
- Who rules Creation with a rod
- Of love and light;
- The Being of a glorious mien,
- Whose majesty is Grand, Serene,
- And Infinite!
-
- Oh, better far thou shouldst be there,
- Removed from this world’s doubt and care—
- A gloomy train;
- Full-veiled in peerless robes of light,
- Enthroned where comes nor storm, nor night,
- Nor grief, nor pain.
-
- And could I gaze above and see
- The glow of immortality
- That veils thy soul,
- And feel thy holy presence near,
- To guard me from ungodly fear,
- And its control:
-
- Then should I bless the hidden blow
- That laid my darling’s bosom low
- Within the grave;
- And own that Love’s immortal Hand
- Did guide the swift unerring brand
- Which struck to save.
-
- J. A. E.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The Conductors of CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL beg to direct the attention of
-CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice:
-
-_1st._ All communications should be addressed to the ‘Editor, 339
- High Street, Edinburgh.’
-
-_2d._ To insure the return of papers that may prove ineligible,
- postage-stamps should in every case accompany them.
-
-_3d._ MANUSCRIPTS should bear the author’s full _Christian_ name,
- surname, and address, legibly written.
-
-_4th._ MS. should be written on one side of the leaf only.
-
-_5th._ Poetical offerings should be accompanied by an envelope,
- stamped and directed.
-
-_Unless Contributors comply with the above rules, the Editor cannot
-undertake to return ineligible papers._
-
- * * * * *
-
-Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
-and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
-
- * * * * *
-
-_All Rights Reserved._
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular
-Literature, Science, and Art,, by Various
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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature,
-Science, and Art, No. 750, May 11, 1878, by Various
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 750, May 11, 1878
-
-Author: Various
-
-Editor: William Chambers
- Robert Chambers
-
-Release Date: October 23, 2020 [EBook #63533]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL LITERATURE, MAY 11, 1878 ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
-
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-</pre>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289"></a>{289}</span></p>
-
-<h1>CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL<br />
-OF<br />
-POPULAR<br />
-LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.</h1>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" >CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='center'>
-
-<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
-
-<a href="#A_VOYAGE_IN_THE_SUNBEAM">A VOYAGE IN THE <i>SUNBEAM</i>.</a><br />
-<a href="#HELENA_LADY_HARROGATE">HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.</a><br />
-<a href="#WORK_IN_THE_LONDON_DOCKS">WORK IN THE LONDON DOCKS.</a><br />
-<a href="#PRETTY_MRS_OGILVIE">PRETTY MRS OGILVIE.</a><br />
-<a href="#BURNABYS_RIDE_IN_TURKEY">BURNABY’S RIDE IN TURKEY.</a><br />
-<a href="#WEDDING_EXTRAVAGANCES">WEDDING EXTRAVAGANCES.</a><br />
-<a href="#CANINE_CUNNING">CANINE CUNNING.</a><br />
-<a href="#IN_MEMORIAM">IN MEMORIAM.</a><br />
-
-<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
-
-</p>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<div class="figcenter" id="header" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
- <img class="w100" src="images/header.png" alt="Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science,
-and Art. Fourth Series. Conducted by William and Robert Chambers." />
-</div>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-<div class="center">
-<div class="header">
-<p class="floatl"><span class="smcap">No. 750.</span></p>
-<p class="floatr"><span class="smcap">Price</span> 1½<em>d.</em></p>
-<p class="floatc">SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1878.</p>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_VOYAGE_IN_THE_SUNBEAM">A VOYAGE IN THE <i>SUNBEAM</i>.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have not for a long time perused a more
-lively and interesting book than that written by
-Mrs Brassey, purporting to be an account of her
-voyage round the world, in the yacht named the
-<i>Sunbeam</i>. The lady was accompanied by her
-husband, Mr Thomas Brassey, M.P., also her
-children and a few private friends. The yacht,
-a handsomely fitted up and commodious vessel,
-possessed three masts, and had a powerful sailing
-capacity, but was provided with a screw and steam-power,
-to be used as occasion required.</p>
-
-<p>Though laying no claim to literary skill, Mrs
-Brassey writes pleasingly in the form of a diary;
-and she may be complimented on her untiring
-energy in bearing fatigue, and the good taste with
-which she describes the multiplicity of scenes and
-circumstances calling for observation. Mr Brassey,
-usually called Tom in the narrative, was his own
-navigator, which infers no small degree of nautical
-knowledge; and we are led to believe that this
-was not his first expedition with the <i>Sunbeam</i>.
-He was, of course, assisted by a sailing-master,
-a boatswain, and engineer, besides a crew of at
-least twenty able-bodied seamen; the full compliment
-being made up by a steward and stewardess,
-cooks, nurse, lady’s-maid, and other domestics.</p>
-
-<p>One can fancy the pleasurable excitement in
-preparing for a year’s voyage of this kind,
-the arrangements to be made, the articles to be
-taken; the hopes probably predominating over
-the fears, the farewells on going on board. It
-is the fate of few to have so splendid a chance
-of making a tour of the globe, carrying from
-clime to clime not a few of the comforts of home—an
-elegant saloon for daily resort, a library
-of seven hundred volumes for amusing reading,
-nicely fitted-up cabins, baths, a first-rate cuisine
-and larder, everything else to make life pass away
-agreeably; letters of introduction, abundant means,
-liberty to sail where and when you like. What
-more could anybody desire? Such is yacht-life.
-It was brought to perfection in the <i>Sunbeam</i>.
-Looking to the elegant form of the vessel, and
-the large quantity of sail she carried, we can
-form an idea of her great speed when running
-before a favourable wind. The only drawback,
-it can be supposed, was the small draught of
-water, about nine feet, wherefore in rough weather
-there must have been a considerable tumbling
-about. However, that is what will be expected
-in yachting, which differs materially from performing
-a voyage in large sea-going ships.</p>
-
-<p>The <i>Sunbeam</i>, sailing from the Thames, set out
-on the 1st July 1876, and steering westward by
-the Isle of Wight, suffered some rough weather
-in getting into the Atlantic. On the 13th there
-was a cry of a ‘sail on the port-beam;’ but on
-investigation it proved to be an abandoned vessel
-tossed about on the ocean, with masts gone, and
-the sea washing over the half-broken-up deck.
-This unfortunate derelict was visited; it had been
-laden with wine, of which several casks were carried
-away, and then it was left to its fate; though,
-had time permitted to take the hulk into port,
-a considerable salvage might have been realised.
-The party were beginning to settle down. At
-meals there was much pleasant talk; Mrs Brassey
-read and wrote a good deal, and learned Spanish;
-one of the gentlemen taught the children, and the
-commissariat department was satisfactory. The
-land first reached was Madeira. At Funchal, the
-vessel dropped anchor; and with jaunting about to
-see the island, there was a stay of several days.
-Many friends came on board before departure, and
-‘all admired the yacht very much, particularly
-the various cosy corners in the deck-house.’</p>
-
-<p>On the 20th July, off for the Canary Islands;
-and these being reached, there was an expedition
-on horseback to the Peak of Teneriffe. Tremendous
-as was the ascent of a mountain which
-rises eleven thousand four hundred and sixty-six
-feet above the level of the sea, Mrs Brassey did not
-shrink from the undertaking. She, however, did
-not attempt to climb the cone of five hundred and
-thirty feet, composed as it is of hot ashes, into
-which the feet sink at every step, while sulphurous
-vapours pour from the various fissures. View
-from the summit magnificent. Of the picturesque<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290"></a>{290}</span>
-scenery drawings and photographs were taken.
-Teneriffe being exhausted, off went the <i>Sunbeam</i>,
-still holding in a southerly direction by the Cape de
-Verde Islands.</p>
-
-<p>Rio de Janeiro, on the coast of South America,
-was reached on the 18th August. A graphic
-account is given of excursions in Brazil. The eye
-everywhere was struck with the brilliant colours
-of the humming-birds, flowers, and butterflies.
-Palm, orange, lemon, and citron trees were among
-the common objects of vegetation. A variation
-in the general amusement consisted of a voyage
-up the River Plate and a journey on the Pampas.
-Splendid country, and well farmed, but under
-what an infliction—the locusts. Of these terrible
-creatures Mrs Brassey heard a good deal, and she
-longed to see them, and her wish was gratified.
-She says: ‘In the course of our ride we saw in the
-distant sky what looked very much like a heavy
-purple thunder-cloud, but which the experienced
-pronounced to be a swarm of locusts. It seemed
-impossible; but as we proceeded they met us,
-first singly, and then in gradually increasing
-numbers, until each step became positively painful,
-owing to the smart blows we received from
-them on our heads, faces, and hands.... As the
-locusts passed between us and the sun they completely
-obscured the light; a little later, with the
-sun’s rays shining directly on their wings, they
-looked like a golden cloud, such as one sometimes
-sees in the transformation scene in a pantomime.’
-We pass over much that is described in the
-Argentine Republic, as of little or no interest in
-this country.</p>
-
-<p>The <i>Sunbeam</i> set off in its course southwards on
-September 28th. While lying down to rest after
-breakfast, Mrs Brassey was summoned to come on
-deck to see a ship which had signalled being on
-fire. A boat being despatched to discover the
-condition of affairs, the vessel was found to be
-the <i>Monkshaven</i>, sixty days out from Swansea,
-bound for Valparaiso with a cargo of smelting-coal,
-which had taken fire by the spontaneous ignition of
-gases. As it was evident that the unfortunate ship
-could not be saved, prompt assistance was given
-in bringing the crew on board the <i>Sunbeam</i>. ‘The
-poor fellows,’ says Mrs Brassey, ‘were almost wild
-with joy at getting alongside another ship, after
-all the hardships they had gone through, and in
-their excitement they threw overboard many things
-which they might as well have kept, as they had
-taken the trouble to bring them. Our boat made
-three trips altogether; and by half-past six we had
-them all safe on board, with most of their effects,
-and the ship’s chronometers, charts, and papers....
-While we were at dinner the ship was blazing like
-a tar-barrel.’ The last time the <i>Monkshaven</i> was
-seen, she was burned down nearly to the water’s
-edge. From the information given respecting the
-ill-fated ship, it was learned that a large American
-steamer had passed quite close to her, and disregarding
-signals of distress, had steamed away
-southward, leaving all on board to their fate.
-The kind attention shewn by Mr Brassey comes
-strongly out in contrast with such heartless conduct.
-The unexpected addition of the crew of
-the <i>Monkshaven</i> to those on board the <i>Sunbeam</i>
-proved a trial on the commissariat, but the difficulty
-was overcome. The inconvenience was
-fortunately for only a few days. The <i>Ilimani</i>,
-one of the Pacific Company’s mail-steamers, came
-in sight on the route for England, and to this
-vessel the crew of the <i>Monkshaven</i> were consigned.
-Besides affording this relief, ‘the captain of the
-<i>Ilimani</i> kindly gave us half a bullock, killed
-this morning, a dozen live ducks and chickens,
-and the latest newspapers.’</p>
-
-<p>On the 6th October, the <i>Sunbeam</i> was off the
-coast of Patagonia; the rugged mountains of Tierra
-del Fuego rose on the sky, and now the yacht
-shaped its course for the Straits of Magellan. To
-get through these tortuous narrows is reckoned
-one of the clever feats in navigation. There
-are many sunken rocks to be avoided, and the
-natives scattered about the coast are not to be
-relied on. The scenery, which is described as
-singularly picturesque, is well represented in some
-beautiful illustrations.</p>
-
-<p>The narrow channels were got through on the
-12th October; the sun pierced through the clouds,
-and the broad Pacific was in view. What a
-triumph in navigation to have piloted ‘the yacht
-through the Straits, for it would do credit, not
-only to any amateur, but to a professional seaman.’
-Sails were hoisted; and now begins what we deem
-to be the most amusing part of the work; for
-after touching at Valparaiso, the voyaging was
-among the groups of islands which, dotting the
-Pacific, lie basking in the profuse beauty of the
-tropics. Valparaiso, the most important trading
-town of Chili, left some agreeable impressions.
-Several English gentlemen were solicitous that
-the party should stay for a few days; and there
-were excursions in the neighbourhood. An emporium
-of Panama hats was visited. These hats
-are a curiosity, and are worn by almost everybody
-on the coast. They are made of ‘a special kind of
-grass, split very fine,’ and are sold at an extraordinary
-price; fifty to sixty guineas being not an
-unusual price for a single hat, though some are
-sold at a cheaper rate. Their recommendation
-is that they are light, pliable, and so enduring
-that they will almost last for ever. Very wonderful
-hats, as Mrs Brassey thinks, but gravely
-adds, that where ‘so many hats are lost overboard,
-they would prove rather an unprofitable
-investment.’ Some curious details are given respecting
-the abundance of eggs, which are offered
-in profusion at meals. Eggs on all occasions
-are the order of the day, and poultry in superlative
-abundance. Valparaiso, in short, is the
-paradise of eggs. It is stated that there are good
-shops, but everything is ‘frightfully dear.’ We
-can at all events say that there is a considerable
-import of English books and periodicals.</p>
-
-<p>The route adopted from Valparaiso was westward
-to the Society Islands, lying in nearly the
-twentieth degree of south latitude. They may
-be said to be at the very middle of the Pacific, and
-out of the way of general navigation. It was a
-charming sail, but rather slow work; and looking
-to the great stretch of ocean to be traversed, there
-were qualms of feeling as to how provisions and
-water would last—fear that there will have to
-be a dependence on potted meats; and talking
-of these meats, we are assured that none at
-all equal those of American preparation. Slipping
-on at the rate of five miles an hour under
-sail, but sometimes accelerated by a breeze, the
-<i>Sunbeam</i> went onward night and day with nothing
-to look at but the ocean and sky. Much time
-was spent in reading, and there was some amusement<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291"></a>{291}</span>
-in noticing the paroquets, monkeys, and
-other pet animals that had been domesticated on
-board. On Sundays, as was customary throughout,
-all hands were summoned for Divine service,
-just as at home in England. The length of the
-service depended on the weather. When circumstances
-permitted, Mr Brassey read a sermon in
-addition to the usual prayers. One likes to read
-of these continued acknowledgments of Divine care
-by a whole ship’s company, amidst the perils of
-the deep.</p>
-
-<p>The Society Islands were reached on the 26th
-November. For the very interesting account of
-these islands we must refer to what is described
-by Mrs Brassey. But for the rise of coral reefs,
-these islands would scarcely have an existence.
-This is one of the wonders of nature. Our authoress
-is at a loss to describe the beauty of the scene.
-‘Submarine coral forests of every colour, studded
-with sea-flowers, anemones, and echinidæ, of a
-brilliancy only to be seen in dreamland; shoals
-of the brightest and swiftest fish darting and
-flashing in and out; shells, every one of which
-was fit to hold the place of honour in a conchologist’s
-collection, moving slowly along with their
-living inmates: this is what we saw when we
-looked down from the side of the boat into the
-depths below.’ On landing at one of the islands,
-the party were hospitably received by the natives.
-Piles of cocoa-nuts, fish, and fowls were laid
-down as presents at their feet. From the cocoa-nuts
-they were refreshed by a drink of cool milk
-offered for their acceptance. For these gifts there
-was a proper requital. Mrs Brassey says: ‘The
-women were gentle and kind, and were delighted
-with some beads, looking-glasses, and knives I
-gave them; in return for which they brought us
-quantities of beautiful shells.’ At the island of
-Tahiti there was a similar exchange of courtesies.
-Papiette is described as quite a town, with a
-market affording an immense choice of articles
-for sale.</p>
-
-<p>The pleasures of a tropical clime are unfortunately
-apt to be marred by certain torments. During
-the rainy season, water falls in solid masses
-which no temporary shelter can withstand; that,
-however, is nothing in comparison with the invasion
-of insects. A small party which set out in an
-American wagon for a drive of two days round
-Tahiti, passed the night at an inn where the insect
-pest was experienced in an unmistakable way.
-The rooms were swarming with cockroaches ‘about
-three inches long’, which climbed the walls and
-were seen in every crevice. ‘Then there were the
-mosquitoes, who hummed and buzzed about us,
-and with whom, alas! we were doomed to have
-a closer acquaintance. Our bed was fitted with
-the very thickest calico mosquito curtains, impervious
-to the air, but not to the venomous
-little insects, who found their way through every
-tiny opening in spite of all our efforts to exclude
-them.... Amidst suffocating heat, in the moonlight,
-were seen columns of nasty brown cockroaches
-ascending the bed-posts, crawling along
-the top of the curtains, dropping with a thud
-on the bed, and then descending over the side
-to the ground.’ Being unable to stand it any
-longer, Mrs Brassey rose, emptied her slippers
-of the cockroaches, seized on her garments, and
-fled to the garden; whence, however, she was
-driven back by torrents of rain. Such is a picture
-of certain inconveniences in these tropical islands.
-Prodigious beauty of vegetation, flowers magnificent,
-all seemingly a kind of paradise—but the
-plague of insects.</p>
-
-<p>Making a run northwards, the <i>Sunbeam</i> reached
-Hawaii, one of the Sandwich Islands, on the
-22d December. Here was the same profusion
-and beauty of flowers. The women and girls
-are described as being gaily decorated with
-wreaths and garlands, and wearing a dress of a
-very simple yet not inelegant fashion, consisting
-of ‘a coloured long-sleeved loose gown reaching to
-the feet’—no tying at the waist, all flowing and
-free, with no restraint in walking or sitting
-down. Our space does not permit us to follow
-the movements of the party in their excursions
-through interesting scenery. Hawaii, like
-all the other islands in the group, is of volcanic
-origin. Kilauea, which is still raging, is reckoned
-to be the largest volcano in the world, for its
-crater is nine miles in circumference. This extraordinary
-volcano, situated at the top of a
-mountain six thousand feet above the level of
-the sea, was visited by Mrs Brassey, although the
-journey to it is fatiguing, and the approach to it
-is attended with some peril. There happens to
-be a comfortable inn near the brink of the crater,
-at which travellers are accommodated and are
-furnished with guides to conduct them with
-safety to points of interest.</p>
-
-<p>According to Mrs Brassey’s account, the scene
-was horribly grand. ‘We were standing on the
-extreme edge of a precipice, overhanging a lake
-of molten fire, a hundred feet below us, and nearly
-a mile across. Dashing against the cliffs on the
-opposite side, with a noise like the roar of a
-stormy ocean, waves of blood-red, fiery, liquid
-lava hurled their billows upon an iron-bound headland,
-and then rushed up the face of the cliffs
-to toss their gory spray high in the air. The
-restless heaving lake boiled and bubbled, never
-remaining the same for two minutes together....
-There was an island on one side of the lake, which
-the fiery waves seemed to attack unceasingly with
-relentless fury, as if bent on hurling it from its
-base. On the other side was a large cavern, into
-which the burning mass rushed with a loud roar,
-breaking down in its impetuous headlong career
-the gigantic stalactites that overhung the mouth
-of the cave, and flinging up the liquid material
-for the formation of new ones. It was all terribly
-grand, magnificently sublime; but no words could
-adequately describe such a scene.’</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the specimens now presented will
-incline readers to undertake a thorough perusal
-of this unique and interesting work, which (published
-by Longman) we doubt not will be found
-at all the libraries. The route homewards of the
-<i>Sunbeam</i> from Hawaii was by way of Japan, the
-China Sea, the Straits of Malacca, Ceylon, the
-Bay of Bengal, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, and
-the Mediterranean, about all which there are many
-amusing details. As regards the traffic on the
-Suez Canal, the gratifying fact is mentioned, that
-on the day the <i>Sunbeam</i> entered the Canal, the
-sum of six thousand pounds was taken as dues
-at the Suez office alone. The climate of the
-Mediterranean, which we are in the habit of extolling
-as beneficial to invalids from northern
-countries, suited badly, as we are told, with the
-delicate constitution of the pet animals brought<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292"></a>{292}</span>
-from the South Pacific and other warm regions.
-Although tended with great care, several pined
-and died, from the effects of acute bronchitis or
-other ailments, after passing Malta. All these
-victims to a change of climate ‘were placed together
-in a neat little box, and committed to the
-deep at sunset, a few tears being shed over the
-departed pets, especially by the children.’</p>
-
-<p>Mrs Brassey with her family and friends reached
-home—a palatial mansion on the south coast of
-England, near Hastings—on the morning of the
-27th May 1877. In the whole voyage round the
-world, no hitch nor any misadventure had occurred.
-We can imagine that the expedition will
-have left an agreeable topic of conversation for
-life, and that its surprising success will inspire
-others equally qualified to follow the brilliant
-example offered by ‘A Voyage in the <i>Sunbeam</i>.’</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="HELENA_LADY_HARROGATE">HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<h3>CHAPTER XXV.—AT THE PHEASANTRY.</h3>
-
-<p>‘<span class="smcap">I have</span> letters to write—one to the Lord-lieutenant
-in particular, on county business,’ said the
-Earl, smiling, and addressing himself to Captain
-Denzil; ‘otherwise I daresay that I too should
-have been able to find something worth the showing
-you out of doors. As it is, you young people
-must go without me.’</p>
-
-<p>Jasper, who had a lazy man’s horror of improved
-implements, Dutch dairies, new patent draining-tiles,
-and cattle-food, and who knew the Earl’s
-passion for farming, felt inwardly grateful to the
-Lord-lieutenant for detaining his noble host
-within doors. The Countess had not the slightest
-intention of accompanying her guests in their visit
-to the pheasantry. Except in a carriage, or in dry
-weather among the well-rolled paths of the rose-garden,
-Lady Wolverhampton scarcely ever left
-the house. Her age, though she looked younger,
-was within a year or two of that of her lord, and
-he was by far the stronger of the two. Indeed it
-was mainly due to her declining health and growing
-incapacity for exertion that the High Tor
-family had for this year foregone what most
-persons of their rank regard less as a pleasure
-than as a duty, the passing of at least a portion
-of the season in London.</p>
-
-<p>The party from Carbery Chase had been very
-cordially received. People can afford yet to cultivate
-the old-fashioned quality of cordiality in rural
-retirement, where it answers to detect hidden
-merits and to see in the best light the things and
-persons in the midst of which and whom our lives
-have to be passed.</p>
-
-<p>‘I am glad,’ said the Countess, ‘that Captain
-Denzil was able to come over with you to-day,
-my dears.’</p>
-
-<p>With Sir Sykes’s two daughters the mistress of
-High Tor was on sufficiently familiar terms; but
-their brother’s character was not quite so much
-esteemed by the De Vere family as were theirs.
-Still, in the country, a young man and an elder
-son is <i>per se</i> a being of some importance, and to
-Jasper, with his arm yet in the black silken sling,
-there attached somewhat of romance, on account of
-his late accident and the adventurous way in
-which he had incurred it. He had not been
-expected, and his presence at High Tor was taken
-as a compliment.</p>
-
-<p>Scarcely had the Ladies Maud and Gladys De
-Vere had time to don the pretty hats that so well
-set off the comeliness of the one and the bright
-beauty of the other, before their brother came
-into the room. Lord Harrogate had a riding-whip
-in his hand, and a long ride over the purple
-moorlands in prospect; but he was easily induced
-to defer it, and to make one of the party, that
-presently sauntered across the park towards a
-sunny sandy nook, screened from cold north winds
-by a friendly belt of fir and pine, where the new
-pheasantry had been established.</p>
-
-<p>Near to the place where a footpath led to a
-sequestered dell, the new governess Miss Gray and
-her pupil met the group of advancing sight-seers.
-Ethel would have passed on with a quiet graceful
-bow of recognition; but Lady Alice had no notion
-of being thus shelved.</p>
-
-<p>‘You are going to look at the pheasants,’ she
-said; ‘and we have just seen them. They seem
-rather frightened, but so very pretty!’</p>
-
-<p>The words which young Lady Alice had employed
-when speaking of the exotic birds would
-have been singularly appropriate to Ethel Gray.
-The new governess looked timid and something
-more than pretty during the general hand-shaking
-and interchange of civil conventional phrases
-which now ensued. Jasper, whose acquaintance
-with Ethel was of the slightest, had contented
-himself with lifting his hat; but he had stared
-at her beautiful face with as cool a steadiness
-of gaze as though she had been a picture or a
-statue. Why Lord Harrogate should have resented
-this, it would have been no easy matter for his
-lordship to explain; but there was scorn, and anger
-too, in the glance which he shot at unconscious
-Jasper; while it was not without some embarrassment
-that he addressed a word or two of polite
-commonplace to Miss Gray. Then the governess
-and her pupil pursued their way to the house,
-and the rest of the party strolled on towards the
-pheasantry.</p>
-
-<p>‘How handsome she is!’ exclaimed honest Lucy
-Denzil, looking back after the angular form of
-Lady Alice, and the graceful figure that contrasted
-so strongly with the bony awkwardness of the
-school-girl; and Lady Maud echoed the praise, and
-Lady Gladys smiled approval. The Earl’s second
-daughter was, as has been said, very lovely, and
-her golden hair and blue eyes had produced the
-usual effect of fascinating for the time being
-Jasper’s fickle fancy. It is quite possible to be
-very hard and at the same time very weak where
-women are concerned; and Captain Denzil, wary
-man of the world as he boasted himself to be,
-and selfish as he certainly was, could not at the
-moment resist the spell of the enchantress.</p>
-
-<p>‘Cripple as I am,’ said Jasper, glancing at his
-injured arm, ‘you see that I could not resist the
-temptation to come when you asked me.’</p>
-
-<p>‘They are not my pheasants; they are Maud’s,
-you know,’ returned Lady Gladys, as though wilfully
-misunderstanding him.</p>
-
-<p>‘Fortunate birds!—that is if you condescend to
-take an interest in them,’ said the captain, nonchalant
-as ever, but contriving to throw into his
-tone and look a something of suppressed tenderness,
-that was not perhaps wholly feigned. Ruth
-Willis saw the look, although she was not near
-enough to overhear the words, and her eyes
-flashed and her white teeth closed sharply, almost<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293"></a>{293}</span>
-savagely, on her pouting lip. She felt the mortification
-which an angler might feel did he see the
-half-hooked salmon, the silvery patriarch of the
-pool, desert his bait, and leap provokingly at the
-artificial fly of some rival disciple of Piscator.
-She could not forget how, an hour or two ago,
-the heir of Carbery had deigned to devote to her
-service those very tricks of manner—in her anger
-she mentally called them so—which now before
-her very eyes he was practising for the benefit
-of another. She did not care for him; but he
-piqued her, by the very effrontery of his fickleness,
-into attaching to him a value which in calmer
-moments she would never have set on one so
-intrinsically base as Jasper Denzil.</p>
-
-<p>In spite of world-old experience and sage aphorisms,
-each sex remains to some extent a standing
-problem to the other. So Ruth Willis, nettled,
-baffled, wrathful, still did not fathom the depths
-of Jasper’s worthless nature one half so clearly as
-she would have done had her keen powers of
-observation been exercised at the expense of a
-woman. She even felt angry with Lady Gladys,
-though most unreasonably, for the proud beauty
-wore her most glacial armour of chilling haughtiness
-when she perceived that Jasper was disposed
-to pay her what is popularly known as ‘marked
-attentions.’</p>
-
-<p>The innocent pheasants, the ostensible end and
-object of this expedition, were duly inspected,
-and lavishly fed with the millet and barley, the
-chopped eggs and crushed maize, which young
-pheasants love. They were fair enough to look
-upon, these shy pretty captives, still timorous and
-bewildered by their close confinement in the darksome
-baskets wherein they had been crammed by
-the irreverent poultry-merchant who had consigned
-them to High Tor; and not yet quite at home in
-their new abode, which had been so freshly decorated
-for their reception that the paint on the
-wood and the lacquer on the wires were barely
-dry. Golden pheasants there were, and white or
-silver pheasants, and pencilled pheasants, worthy
-descendants of a feathered ancestry that had pecked
-and strutted in the gardens of coral-buttoned
-mandarins, in far-off China.</p>
-
-<p>The curious thing was, that except by their
-mistress Lady Maud and the elder of the two
-Denzil girls, who was a kindred spirit, the pheasants
-were scarcely looked at with regardful eyes.
-Is it not always so? At launch or military
-review or polo-match, or when a princely trowel
-of pure gold condescendingly applies a dab of
-sublime mortar to a glorified foundation-stone of
-some new building, how very, very few of the
-nominal spectators concentrate their thoughts and
-their vision on the show, which the reporters
-will presently describe with such graphic power!
-Private affairs, hopes, fears, interests, are all of
-them petty magnets sufficient to neutralise the
-great avowed attraction of the hour.</p>
-
-<p>There was Ruth Willis, her whole attention
-stealthily concentrating itself upon Captain Denzil
-at the side of the Earl’s second daughter; there
-was Jasper, vainly trying to thaw the ice of
-Lady Gladys’ disdain; and Lord Harrogate, whose
-thoughts seemed at times to wander away from
-the present scene and company. Add to these
-Blanche Denzil, sorrowfully conscious that Lord
-Harrogate himself, in whose eyes she would have
-given much to find favour, was thinking of anything
-rather than of her preference for him, and
-it will be seen that the real amateurs of fancy
-pheasants were but in a narrow minority.</p>
-
-<p>A good girl who loves a man worthy of her
-esteem, yet who is constrained by maiden modesty
-and the rules of good-breeding to hide away the
-sentiment as though it were a sin, deserves more
-pity than often falls to her lot. It is never Leap-year
-for her. She cannot be the first to speak.
-And if there be one point upon which men are
-exceptionally blind, it is to the perception that
-their merits may be highly appreciated by some
-young lady to whom they never give a thought
-when absent from her. Poor Blanche had trouble
-enough now and then to keep down the rising
-tears that welled up to her eyes as she noted
-twenty signs of the painful fact that Lord Harrogate
-regarded her with that amicable indifference
-which cannot readily ripen, as dislike sometimes
-can, into love. But Blanche was too gentle to
-grow bitter over a disappointment, as did Ruth
-Willis, although for her too the pleasure of the
-day was damped and dulled.</p>
-
-<p>The visitors from Carbery would not, on getting
-back to the broad gravelled drive where the
-basket-carriage awaited them, re-enter the house.
-They had taken leave of the Earl and Countess,
-and declined all hospitable proffers of luncheon
-beforehand. There was some kissing among the
-girls and a good deal of hand-shaking, and then
-the ‘double basket’ again received its living load,
-and ‘good-bye’ was said, and off dashed the mettled
-Exmoor ponies under Lucy Denzil’s guidance.</p>
-
-<p>Two of the party from the Chase carried back
-with them to Carbery hearts that were heavier
-than when they had first set out for the projected
-visit to the pheasantry at High Tor. Sir Sykes’s
-ward, so talkative two hours ago, had become
-sullenly mute. Ruth Willis was smarting under
-her defeat, for she had measured herself with Lady
-Gladys, and could not but acknowledge to herself
-that her own elfish piquancy was quite thrown
-into the shade by the superior charms of the
-Earl’s daughter. Blanche was sad and thoughtful.
-Jasper, twisting his well-waxed moustache, seemed
-unaware, in the preoccupation of his own mind,
-that Ruth was resentful and Blanche melancholy,
-while Miss Denzil frankly wondered why conversation
-languished as it did. Excellent Lucy had
-had no by-play to distract her attention from the
-object of the expedition; she had seen the birds
-and chatted with her friend, and was mildly gratified
-with her outing. Nevertheless it was but a
-silent party that the Exmoor ponies whisked back
-along the well-kept road that led to Carbery
-Chase.</p>
-
-
-<h3>CHAPTER XXVI.—THE NEW BROOM.</h3>
-
-<p>‘Clever enough, and too clever! It’s your look-out,
-sir, of course, and not mine; but I can’t
-help thinking that to give my friend Mr Wilkins
-an estate to manage is uncommonly like turning
-a fox into a poultry-yard to take care of the
-chickens.’</p>
-
-<p>Such was Jasper Denzil’s remonstrance with
-his father, on hearing the baronet’s announcement
-of his intention to transfer the reins of local
-government to the willing hands of the City
-solicitor, <i>vice</i> Pounce and Pontifex superseded.
-Privately, Sir Sykes was of much the same<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294"></a>{294}</span>
-opinion as his son; but as he was merely seeking
-to put a good face on what he felt to be really
-a surrender to a demand imperiously urged, he
-shook his head, saying: ‘You are prejudiced
-against this person, Jasper, and perhaps not unnaturally
-so. His manners, I admit, are not prepossessing,
-and his moral code has probably been
-shaped in a rough school of ethics; but I consider
-him to be one of those men whom it is pleasanter
-to have for a friend than for an enemy.’</p>
-
-<p>Jasper’s expressive upper lip wore a curl of
-disgust. It was to him very disagreeable that
-Mr Wilkins, who had got the better of him, as
-he resentfully felt, in many an encounter of wits,
-should be often at Carbery, and right-hand man
-to its owner. He resolved on one more attempt
-to dislodge the intruder.</p>
-
-<p>‘I would not, were I you, sir,’ said he, ‘either
-trust Wilkins a yard farther than I could see him,
-or be guided by his advice as to the management
-of the estate. You yourself heard the fellow say,
-at luncheon to-day, that he should not know
-turnips when he saw them unless there were
-boiled mutton in the middle of them. Wilkins
-only meant to raise a laugh when he hashed up
-that old joke against the Cockney sportsmen who
-ride to hounds, but he was nearer the truth than
-he was aware of.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Ah, well,’ returned the baronet blandly, ‘I
-daresay his agricultural knowledge is after all
-pretty much on a par with that of Messrs Pounce
-and Pontifex.’</p>
-
-<p>And then Jasper shrugged up his shoulders and
-was silent, for he perceived that it was hopeless to
-deprecate a foregone conclusion. For good or for
-ill, Sir Sykes had made up his mind to convert
-Mr Wilkins into a grand-vizier over the broad
-acres that lay within the circuit of his wide-stretching
-ring-fence.</p>
-
-<p>Enoch Wilkins, gentleman, had on that morning
-reached Carbery Chase, and was in a fair way of
-earning for himself any rather than golden opinions
-from its inmates. Mr Wilkins, as he often and not
-untruly boasted, knew the world, that is to say he
-had a minute and almost microscopic acquaintance
-with one or two sections of the shady side of it.
-He understood turf-men, as a smart prison-governor
-understands convicts, and knew the natural history
-of the fast-living and embarrassed young officer as
-well as some lecturer on entomology knows the
-ways of beetle and butterfly. In a lower social
-grade, he was deeply versed in the arcana of Loan
-Societies, and could apply the thumbscrew of the
-County Court in nicely calculated proportions
-to a struggling debtor. Of what he called swell
-society Mr Wilkins had but a limited experience.
-He had shared, as the purveyors of welcome
-cash often do share, in the costly banquets
-given at Greenwich or Richmond hotels by wild
-young gentlemen of blood and fashion. He had
-even, at the instance of some needy man about
-town who curried favour with any dispenser of
-ready-money, received a card which entitled him,
-now and again, to be crushed and jostled and
-trodden upon by distinguished company at the
-maddening ‘At Home’ of some berouged and
-bewigged old peeress.</p>
-
-<p>There was, as Mr Wilkins felt with some inward
-misgivings, a difference between forming part of a
-mob at Macbeth House or at the Baratarian
-Embassy, and mixing on intimate terms with such
-a family as were the Denzils. Yet, as the French
-idiomatically twist the phrase, he paid it off with
-audacity, being greasily familiar with Sir Sykes;
-on terms of brotherly frankness where Jasper
-was concerned; and for the benefit of the young
-ladies, assuming the character of the facetious and
-agreeable rattle, as he conceived incumbent on a
-regular Londoner and a bachelor to boot, when on
-a visit in the country.</p>
-
-<p>Blanche and Lucy Denzil scarcely knew whether
-to let amusement or dislike predominate in their
-minds as Mr Wilkins rattled on, pouring out
-miscellaneous anecdotes and jokes that, if worn
-threadbare in the metropolis, would, he was convinced,
-retain enough of their original gloss and
-sparkle to pass muster in the country. That the
-man was coarse, pushing, and unscrupulous, was
-evident even to critics so lenient as the baronet’s
-daughters; while Sir Sykes, behind his urbane
-smile, suffered martyrdom from his new agent’s
-deportment.</p>
-
-<p>There was one member of the family circle at
-Carbery whom Mr Wilkins eyed with quite an
-exceptional interest. He rarely addressed himself
-in conversation to the Indian orphan, Sir Sykes’s
-ward, but he watched her narrowly, and the more
-he saw of her the harder he found it to adhere to
-his original hypothesis as regarded the young lady
-whom Richard Hold, master mariner, had recommended
-to his good offices.</p>
-
-<p>‘If that demure manner and those downcast
-eyes do not belong to as sly a puss as ever lived,
-write me down a greenhorn!’ was the mental
-reflection of Enoch Wilkins, of St Nicholas
-Poultney, in the City of London, gentleman. ‘That
-she sets her cap at the captain, Sir Sykes Denzil’s
-hopeful heir, I take for granted. Her communicative
-friend, the pirate fellow, implied as much.
-The Lancer does not seem, however, disposed to
-come forward in a satisfactory style, and play
-Philemon to her Baucis.’</p>
-
-<p>And it was a fact that since the morning which
-had witnessed the drive to High Tor and the visit
-to the pheasantry, the snares of Miss Ruth Willis
-had been vainly set for the capture of that bird of
-dubious feather, Jasper Denzil.</p>
-
-<p>Why Jasper, who had so much to gain by the
-match on which his father’s mind was inexplicably
-bent, should hang back and prove recalcitrant, it
-was hard to say. His was not an independent
-soul. He was free from any trammels of a too
-scrupulous delicacy, and would have fingered any
-money got through the grimiest channels, without
-fear of soiling those white useless hands of his,
-the manliest work of which had hitherto been to
-grasp a bridle-rein. Yet Jasper had been very
-remiss of late in his attentions towards Ruth
-Willis, and apparently indifferent to the bribe of
-an income and establishment to be earned by
-marrying her.</p>
-
-<p>‘Now look here, Sir Sykes!’ said the lawyer
-after dinner, as he edged his chair nearer to that
-of his host, refilled his glass, and assumed a tone
-of waggish confidence—‘look here, Sir Sykes! You
-want brushing up down here at Carbery, you do
-indeed; ay and a little fresh air let in upon you.
-In an old estate like this, and under such management
-as those of Pounce and Proser—beg his
-pardon; I mean Pontifex; ha, ha, ha!’—pursued
-Mr Wilkins, having his laugh out, without so
-much as a sympathetic titter from Jasper or a smile<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295"></a>{295}</span>
-from Sir Sykes—‘in an estate of this kind matters
-are apt to stagnate, and all sorts of abuses and jobs
-to grow up, like the green duckweed on the surface
-of a pool. Your head-gamekeeper now, Sir
-Sykes, I never saw him, but I’m sure that he’s a
-rogue.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Leathers is an old servant,’ answered Sir
-Sykes coldly; ‘I have had no reason to think ill
-of him.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I’ll go bail that he’s a rogue, for all that,’
-returned the unabashed lawyer, holding up his
-glass to the light, to admire the ruby claret before
-he swallowed it. ‘The head-keeper of an easy-going,
-moneyed gent of your standing—excuse me,
-Sir Sykes—must be a saint, if he’s not a sinner.
-Think of the temptations! Why, the rabbits
-alone must be a cool two hundred a year to the
-man; and then the pheasants, and the black-mail
-from the tenants for keeping the ground-game
-within reasonable numbers, and the percentage on
-watchers’ wages. I’ll get you a contract with a
-London poulterer, Sir Sykes, that shall stand you
-in something handsome, provide you with a keeper
-twice as useful as Leathers, and insure your
-having a hot corner for your friends at battue-time.
-I’m a new broom, and sweep clean.’</p>
-
-<p>‘You promise well, at anyrate!’ said Jasper
-with a languid sneer.</p>
-
-<p>‘And did you ever know me not ready to
-implement when I had once promised?’ briskly
-retorted the solicitor. ‘I merely mention the
-gamekeeper to shew that all’s fish that comes
-to my net, and that I am not above attending
-to such minor fry as a fellow in velveteen with
-a dog-whistle at his button-hole. We must go
-on commercial principles, Sir Sykes, if we want
-to manage an estate so as to make it pay, nowadays.
-All that feudal nonsense of an affectionate
-tenantry and a liberal lord of the manor is about
-as dead as Queen Anne. You should get a new
-steward as well as a new gamekeeper, Sir Sykes.’</p>
-
-<p>The baronet stirred restlessly in his chair. He
-did not at all like this. Carbery, and the fair
-estate that went with it, had never yet been
-administered on commercial principles, especially
-when applied by so sweeping a reformer as Mr
-Wilkins of St Nicholas Poultney. ‘Mr Cornish
-keeps his accounts very correctly,’ he said in a
-hesitating tone. ‘Old Lord Harrogate gave him
-the stewardship, which his father had had before
-him, and his tenure of it has satisfied me.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Because you can afford, or fancy you can, to be
-robbed right and left,’ said the lawyer, gulping
-down his wine. ‘It is your plausible hereditary
-steward, that has fattened and battened on the
-plunder of successive generations, who sucks the
-very marrow out of the land. Don’t tell <i>me</i>!
-I’ll overhaul Mr Cornish’s accounts in a way he’s
-little used to. But first you must introduce me to
-the farmers, Sir Sykes, and give me time to worm
-out of them what they pay, in kind or money, by
-way of fines, good-will, premium, and so forth, for
-the honour of tilling your under-rented acres. I’ll
-raise your rent-roll, never fear me, but not with a
-native chawbacon for prime-minister.’</p>
-
-<p>‘So the steward must be flung overboard, it
-seems, as well as poor old Leathers the keeper,’
-observed Jasper, half amused, but half annoyed.</p>
-
-<p>‘And I’ve got another peg to fit into the vacant
-hole,’ said the lawyer, again addressing himself
-to the claret. ‘With your permission, Sir Sykes,
-to-morrow we’ll wire for him to run down from
-London for your approval. A sharp fellow is
-Abrahams. You won’t mind his persuasion? Jew
-as he is, he’s thoroughly at home in a farmhouse,
-counts every sheaf of wheat in the barn, and every
-house-lamb in the kitchen on frosty days, and
-wheedles out of the women what the husbands are
-too dogged to tell.—This is delicious claret, but
-no one except myself seems to drink it. Suppose
-we join the ladies?’</p>
-
-<p>‘What has the governor done,’ groaned Jasper,
-as he lit his cigar, ‘to be under the thumb of
-such a man as this?’</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="WORK_IN_THE_LONDON_DOCKS">WORK IN THE LONDON DOCKS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the metropolis there is always to be found a
-vast amount of ‘labour unattached,’ recruited from
-men in nearly every rank of life. To form an idea
-of the surplusage in the labour market, advertise
-for a ‘light-porter,’ and you will have at least two
-hundred applications before eleven o’clock the next
-day. If you desire a clerk at a salary of, say,
-twenty shillings a week, half a thousand eager
-candidates will apply for the vacancy. While if
-you have anything of a superior sort to offer, such
-as the secretaryship of a charitable institution, or
-hospital, suitable to the talents of retired military
-officers and others, probably a thousand competitors
-will offer themselves to your discrimination. Of
-course many people will be surprised that such
-numbers should prefer living in semi-idleness,
-hunting after any opportunity that offers, rather
-than exert themselves to obtain employment in less
-crowded localities; but then in London there is
-the great magnet of the ‘lucky chance’ constantly
-before their eyes. If one obtains a situation at
-a pound a week, there are constantly opportunities
-of bettering one’s self, especially in large firms, who
-carefully select and promote their men according
-to capability and merit. Then, again, a man may
-be starving in a garret, poorly dressed, existing
-somehow by borrowing a shilling or two occasionally
-when you meet him in the street; but in a
-month or two may be in a good position in an
-insurance company or an actuary’s office. But as
-bread must be obtained somehow until the golden
-opportunity offers itself, a number of men who
-have seen better days are compelled by sheer
-necessity to fly to that paradise of the destitute,
-the Docks.</p>
-
-<p>The great Dock Companies in London, fully
-aware of the superabundance of labour always in
-the market, do not employ, permanently, one-third
-of the men they require, since they are usually
-able to procure at least twice as many hands as
-they need at a moment’s notice. Indeed so great
-is the competition for even Dock employment, that
-unless you are known to one of the foremen, or
-in some way furnished with an introduction to
-one of the Company’s officials, you stand a very
-poor chance of obtaining work, save occasionally,
-when a sudden pressure of business comes on and
-they are glad to accept any one that offers. Sometimes
-a huge ship comes in requiring to be discharged
-in a few days; and everybody who can
-work may, by offering himself, obtain employment
-for a brief period; but, the time of pressure over,
-he will present himself at the Dock-gates day after
-day in vain. The Company’s foremen of course
-give the preference to their regular hands, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296"></a>{296}</span>
-stranger who has helped them in their time of
-need is passed over. So the best thing you can
-do if you desire employment at the Docks is to
-obtain a letter of recommendation from some
-broker or merchant who does business with the
-Company, and according to the influence he possesses
-so will your work be regulated. It will
-require great influence to enable you to be placed
-on the ‘permanent’ or ‘extra-permanent’ staff; and
-the utmost you can hope for is to obtain employment
-by the day so long as any ships are at work,
-with the prospect of losing a few days now and
-then when things are dull.</p>
-
-<p>The clock has struck a quarter past seven in
-the morning, and already may be seen clustered
-round the Dock-gates small groups of men, with
-hands invariably in their pockets and short pipes
-in their mouths, discussing the prospect of work
-for the day, and the only chance they have of
-obtaining a meal of food and a night’s lodging.
-These are the ‘chance’ or ‘odd-time’ men, who
-if they are not taken on the first thing, loiter
-about the entrance all day, waiting a ‘call’ from
-one of the foremen; sometimes making two, four,
-or five hours, as the case may be. Of all this
-class of men, it may be truly said that they are
-waiters upon Providence, for they are usually the
-last selected; and as to their garments (their sole
-earthly possession), very few of them could obtain
-a shilling for all they wear from head to foot.
-Indeed so dilapidated are some of their shoes,
-that it is no uncommon thing for them to be paid
-off after an hour’s work or so, because their feet
-will not retain a footing upon a slippery floor.
-It also occurs at times that they come in to work
-so famished that they sink exhausted after a little
-exertion, though in this case the foremen who
-employ them are generally kind-hearted enough
-to advance a few pence to obtain a little food to
-enable them to hold out the day. As the clock nears
-the half-hour (7.30 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>) the regular ‘outsiders’
-come up. These men are in better condition than
-the others; but there is a seedy, ragged appearance
-about most of them, which tells the unmistakable
-tale that their chief earnings go to the
-public-house. And now there is a stir. A small
-wicket in the gate is open, and a foreman comes
-out, and calling out the names of the men he
-requires, they pass in. These are engaged by the
-half-hour, and are liable to be dismissed as soon
-as their work is completed, let the time be what
-it may. Usually they remain at work the whole
-day; but, should any unforeseen occurrence—such
-as stoppage of a ship’s discharge on account
-of weather, or a break-down in some of the
-machinery for removing cargo—prevent them
-labouring, the word is passed to ‘wash up,’ and
-they are paid off at once, perhaps an hour or two
-after they have been engaged.</p>
-
-<p>After this crew come the Company’s ‘recommended’
-men, persons who through the influence
-of some merchant obtain employment. With
-them also arrive the ‘extra-permanent’ men; and
-these two classes always have a preference when
-any work is going on. They are engaged by the
-day and paid by the day; and each man on entering
-receives a numbered ticket about the size of a
-railway ticket, which will entitle him to receive his
-wages in rotation at the pay-box in the afternoon.
-The pay for all alike is fivepence per hour; but
-the highest class of all, the ‘permanent’ men, receive
-twenty shillings per week all the year round, be
-the hours long or short, and are always certain
-of their money whether the Company can find
-work for them or not. In the months of November,
-December, January, and February, the
-work is from nine to four, and the remainder of
-the year from eight to four, with extra pay for
-overtime to all alike when any is to be made.
-Thus it will be seen that with pretty constant
-employment a fair living is to be made at the
-Docks; but in addition, many men make something
-extra in the evenings, either as ‘supers’ at
-one of the theatres, chairmen at those convivial
-meetings known as ‘Free-and-Easies,’ or in some
-other capacity. In short, at the Docks, as elsewhere,
-it is only the idle and disreputable class
-that starves; for the Company’s officials naturally
-select the best men first, and only employ the
-‘duffers’ when they cannot possibly do without
-them.</p>
-
-<p>At a few minutes before eight we are all at our
-posts; men are on board ship commencing to roll
-out the bales of merchandise from the ‘hold;’ the
-ponderous hydraulic ‘ram’ swings out from the
-warehouse, and three or four bales are hooked on
-and hoisted ashore. It is (we will say) a large
-Australian wool ship; and as soon as the bales
-are landed, they are pounced upon by a man
-with stencil-plate and brush, who with nimble
-fingers marks the name of the ship on each.
-Then an individual with stentorian lungs (probably
-a broken-down auctioneer) shouts out to the check
-clerk at the table the mark on each particular
-bale, and this is recorded in a book called a ‘tally-sheet.’
-Next, a couple of muscular men attack
-with axes the iron bands with which the bales
-are clamped, and sever them, so that the wool
-expands to nearly double its size; for it is all
-pressed by hydraulic machinery previous to being
-stowed in the ship, in order to economise space.
-The bales thus released are now trotted off by
-active truckmen to the scales, where they are
-weighed, marked, and sorted in different piles
-according to their mark. All this is done in less
-time than it takes to read about it, amid a storm
-of shouts, execrations, commands, and other noises
-in every conceivable variety.</p>
-
-<p>Let us take a walk round the Docks and warehouses
-and inspect the vast piles of merchandise
-lying about in every direction. Yonder is a ship
-discharging brandy, with a vigilant Custom-house
-officer watching every cask as it comes ashore.
-In another place they are emptying on the floor
-hogshead after hogshead of coffee, to be weighed
-for duty. That sedate-looking man with a needle
-in his hand sewing up rice-bags has been a schoolmaster,
-and can write excellent hexameters. A
-little farther on, a solicitor, unfortunately struck
-off the rolls, is wheeling a truck; and farther on
-a once prosperous merchant is assisting to push
-along a hogshead of sugar. The conclusion one
-arrives at, after making the round of the Docks, is,
-that nearly everything we eat and drink is manipulated
-first by the dirty classes, who shovel our
-necessaries about at their pleasure, and tread over
-them as if they were so much dirt. See those
-dingy men with garments tattered and patched
-stooping and working on those sloppy floors.
-They are scraping up the molasses which has
-filtered out from the sugar-casks, and putting it
-into tubs. This will be all sent away to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297"></a>{297}</span>
-sugar-boilers’, and converted into cheap sugar,
-and go to localities where it will be bought
-by housekeepers who study economy in the
-kitchen. This sort of sugar always has a
-lumpy clear appearance, with a slight clammy
-taste in the mouth, and can be detected with a
-little practice at a glance. It is usually sold alone,
-but is often mixed with better sugar, in order to
-make that half-penny difference in the pound so
-tempting to certain housewives.</p>
-
-<p>We are warned that it is noon by the tinkling
-of a bell, which resounds all over the Dock; and
-at the first stroke everything is dropped out of
-hand immediately, and to the cry of ‘Bell ho!’
-every one rushes out of the warehouses for dinner.
-A few of the more provident have brought some
-in their pockets; but the majority go straight to
-the old man or old woman who is permitted by
-the Company to supply them with bread, cheese,
-beer, soup, and pudding, all of an indifferent
-sort; and if they have any money, buy something
-to eat; and if they have none, try and borrow a
-penny or two from somebody else; or cajole the
-refreshment caterer into giving them credit until
-four o’clock. Very few of them have knives
-wherewith to cut their food decently; they gnaw
-it anyhow; in fact their chief rule seems to be to
-buy nothing that they are not absolutely compelled
-to buy, for fear the vendor should cheat
-them; and if some of them could observe this rule
-so far as the beer-shop is concerned, they would
-make their fortunes, many of them possessing
-talents, as experts in ‘tasting,’ of no common
-order.</p>
-
-<p>Their meal finished, some now creep on board
-ship to smoke, a thing they are not allowed to do in
-the warehouses; others of a larcenous disposition,
-prowl about the cook’s galley to appropriate anything
-they can, such as meat, knives, brushes, in
-short any small portable articles, which they either
-devour, or else sell at any price to somebody else.
-At twenty minutes past twelve the bell again
-summons them to work, and each man crawls
-slowly back to his post, the majority of cheeks
-indicating apparently the existence of gum-boil
-to the uninitiated, but which abnormal appearance
-is due solely to the companionable ‘quid’ of
-tobacco.</p>
-
-<p>By this time a number of vans are in the yard
-waiting to take away goods, and the foremen are
-pretty nearly sure to want some extra hands to
-assist. Consequently out they go to the gates, and
-select as many as they require from the forest of
-palms held up before them. In this way work
-goes on until a few minutes before four, when all
-parties knock off, unless the ship should have to
-work an hour or two longer. At the pay-box
-the men arrange themselves in numerical order,
-and are paid with great celerity by the cashier,
-the exact amount due to each man being handed
-to him as he passes the window. At the exit gate
-are stationed two of the Company’s constables, who
-search any one they have cause to suspect, for in
-spite of the utmost vigilance and the aid of a
-large staff of police, pilfering is constantly going
-on within the Docks, and it requires great watchfulness
-to prevent the men taking anything out.
-As it is, things are occasionally smuggled out,
-though, when an offender is convicted, he usually
-meets with a severe penalty.</p>
-
-<p>The London and St Katherine’s Docks (now
-amalgamated under one Company) cover an area
-of about forty-five acres, and have nearly as much
-warehouse accommodation as all the other Dock
-companies put together. The capital embarked in
-them, inclusive of loans and debentures, may be
-stated at about eight millions sterling, and the
-employés of all classes about three thousand
-daily. The annual imports into these Docks are
-seldom less than seventy millions, the exports
-being also considerable. With all this enormous
-trade and this vast amount of business, things
-are managed with great, though of course not
-perfect accuracy; every man knows his place,
-and there are seldom any mistakes but such as
-will occur at times from unavoidable hurry and
-confusion.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="PRETTY_MRS_OGILVIE">PRETTY MRS OGILVIE.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">All</span> the women are jealous of her; there is no
-doubt about that. The first time she appears in
-church with crisp mauve muslins floating about
-her and a dainty mauve erection on her head,
-which presumably she calls a bonnet, I know at
-once how it will be. And of course the other sex
-will range themselves on her side to a man; that is
-also beyond question. As she rises from her knees
-and takes her little lavender-gloved hands from
-her face and looks about her for a moment with a
-sweet shy glance, she is simply bewitching; and I
-doubt if any male creature in our musty little
-church pays proper attention to the responses for
-ten minutes afterwards. A new face is a great
-rarity with us, and <i>such</i> a new face one might not
-see more than once in a decade, so let us hope we
-may be forgiven.</p>
-
-<p>As I gaze at the delicate profile before me, the
-coils of golden hair, the complexion like the inside
-of a sea-shell, the slender milk-white throat, and
-the long dark eyelashes, which droop modestly
-over the glorious gray eyes, shall I own that I
-steal a glance of disapproval at Mary Anne, my
-Mary Anne, the partner of my joys and sorrows for
-twenty years, and the mother of my six children?
-Mary Anne’s figure is somewhat overblown, her
-hair is tinged with gray, and the complexion of
-her good-humoured face is slightly rubicund. But
-she has been a good wife to me; and I feel, with a
-twinge of compunction, that I have no right to be
-critical, as I think of a shining spot on the top of
-my own head, and of a little box I received from
-the dentist only a month ago, carefully secured
-from observation. But as we emerge from church
-I draw myself up and try to look my best as we
-pass the trailing mauve robes. Jack, one of our
-six, stumbles over the train; which gives me an
-opportunity of raising my hat and apologising for
-the brat’s awkwardness; and I am rewarded with a
-sweet smile and an upward glance out of the great
-gray eyes which is simply intoxicating.</p>
-
-<p>‘We must call on Mrs Ogilvie at once,’ I observe
-to Mary Anne as we proceed across the fields on
-our homeward walk. ‘It is my duty as her landlord
-to find out if she is comfortable. She is a ladylike
-person,’ I continue, diplomatically forbearing
-to allude to the obvious beauty; ‘and I daresay,
-my dear, you will find her an agreeable neighbour.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Ladylike!’ cries my wife, with a ring of indignation
-in her voice. ‘I don’t call it ladylike to
-come to a quiet country church dressed as if she<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298"></a>{298}</span>
-were going to a flower-show. Besides, she is
-painted. A colour like that can’t be natural. But
-you men are all alike—always taken with a little
-outside show and glitter.’</p>
-
-<p>‘But my dear,’ I remonstrate, ‘perhaps she did
-not know how very countrified and bucolic our
-congregation is; and I really do think it will be
-very unneighbourly if we don’t call. It must
-be very dull for her to know no one.’ I ignore
-the remark about the paint, but in my heart I
-give the assertion an emphatic contradiction.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs Ogilvie has rented a small cottage which
-I own in the west-country village in which I
-am the principal doctor. She is the wife of a
-naval officer who is away in the Flying Squadron,
-and has settled in our sleepy little hamlet to live
-quietly during his absence. All her references
-have been quite unexceptionable, and indeed
-she is slightly known to our Squire, as is also
-her absent husband. ‘A splendid fellow he
-is,’ Mr Dillon tells me, ‘stands six feet in his
-stockings, and is as handsome as Apollo; indeed
-I don’t believe that for good looks you could find
-such another couple in England.’</p>
-
-<p>The following day Mary Anne, with but little
-persuasion, agrees to accompany me to the cottage
-to call on Mrs Ogilvie. The door is opened by
-a neat maid-servant. She is at home; and we are
-ushered into the drawing-room, which we almost
-fail to recognise, so changed is it. Bright fresh
-hangings are in the windows, a handsome piano
-stands open, books and periodicals lie on the
-tables in profusion, and flowers are everywhere.
-‘Evidently a woman of refinement and cultivated
-tastes,’ I think to myself; ‘the beauty is more
-than skin deep.’</p>
-
-<p>Presently Mrs Ogilvie comes in, looking if possible
-even lovelier than she did the day before.
-She is in a simple white dress, with here and
-there a knot of blue ribbon about it; and she has
-a bit of blue also in her golden hair. Her manner
-is as charming as her looks, and as she thanks
-my wife with pleasant cordial words for being
-the first of her neighbours to take compassion
-on her loneliness, I can see that my Mary Anne,
-whose heart is as large as her figure, basely deserts
-the female faction and goes over to the enemy.
-Mrs Ogilvie is very young, still quite a girl,
-though she has been married three years she tells
-us.</p>
-
-<p>‘It is dreadful that Frank should have to go
-away,’ she says, and the tears well up in her large
-gray eyes; ‘that is the worst of the service. But
-I suppose no woman ought to interfere with her
-husband’s career. I am going to live here as
-quietly as possible until he returns. See; here
-is his photograph,’ she continues, lifting a case
-from the table and handing it to Mary Anne. ‘Is
-he not handsome?’</p>
-
-<p>He is most undeniably so, if the likeness speaks
-truth, and we both say so; Mary Anne, with the
-privilege of her sex and age, adding a word as
-to the beauty of the pair.</p>
-
-<p>‘O yes,’ replies Mrs Ogilvie without the smallest
-embarrassment: ‘we are always called the “handsome
-couple.”’</p>
-
-<p>I suppose something of my astonishment expresses
-itself in my countenance, for she smiles,
-and says: ‘I am afraid you think me very vain;
-but I cannot help knowing that I am good-looking,
-any more than I can help being aware that my
-eyes are gray, not black, and that my hair is
-golden. It is a gift from God, like any talent; a
-valuable one too, I think it; and I own that I am
-proud of it, for my dear Frank’s sake, who admires
-it so much.’</p>
-
-<p>Yes, this is Mrs Ogilvie’s peculiarity, as we
-afterwards discover—an intense and quite open
-admiration of her own beauty. And indeed there
-is something so simple and naïve about it, that we
-do not find it displeasing when we get accustomed
-to it. She always speaks of herself as if she were
-a third person, and honestly appreciates her lovely
-face, as if it were some rare picture, as indeed it is,
-of Dame Nature’s own painting. She is equally
-ready to admit the good looks of other women,
-and has not a trace of jealousy in her composition.
-But often you will hear her say, in describing
-some one else: ‘She has a lovely complexion—something
-in the style of mine, but not so clear.’
-Or, ‘She has a beautiful head of hair, but not so
-sunny as mine;’ &amp;c. &amp;c. At first, every one is
-astonished at this idiosyncrasy of hers, but in a
-little while we all come to laugh at it; there is
-something original and amusing about it; and in
-all other ways she is <i>so</i> charming.</p>
-
-<p>My wife, with whom she speedily becomes
-intimate, tells me that she is sure she values her
-beauty more for her husband’s sake than her own.
-‘She evidently adores him,’ says Mary Anne; ‘and
-he seems to think so much of her sweet looks.
-She says he fell in love with her at first sight,
-before he ever spoke to her.’</p>
-
-<p>But Mrs Ogilvie has many more attractions
-than are to be found in her face. She is a highly
-educated woman, a first-rate musician and a pleasant
-and intelligent companion; and more than all,
-she has a sweet loving disposition, and a true
-heart at the core of all her little vanities. She
-is very good to the poor in our village, and often
-when I am on my rounds, I meet her coming out
-of some cottage with an empty basket in her hand,
-which was full when she entered it.</p>
-
-<p>In a quiet little neighbourhood like ours, such
-a woman cannot fail to be an acquisition, and
-every one hastens to call on her, and many are the
-dinners and croquet parties which are inaugurated
-in her honour. To the former she will not go;
-she does not wish to go out in the evening during
-her husband’s absence—much to my wife’s satisfaction,
-who approves of women being ‘keepers at
-home’—and it is only seldom that she can be
-induced to grace one of the croquet parties with
-her presence.</p>
-
-<p>But when she does, she eclipses every one else.
-She always dresses in the most exquisite taste, as
-if anxious that the setting should be worthy of
-the jewel—the beauty which she prizes so highly.
-She is always sweet and gracious, and vanquishes
-the men by her loveliness, the women in spite of
-it. But she is in no sense of the word a coquette;
-and the only admirer she favours is our Jack, aged
-fourteen, who is head-over-ears in love with her,
-and is ready at any moment to forego cricket for
-the honour of escorting Mrs Ogilvie through the
-village, and the privilege of carrying her basket.
-So the quiet weeks and months glide by, linking
-us daily more closely together.</p>
-
-<p>She has been settled at the cottage rather more
-than two years and is beginning to count the weeks
-to her husband’s return. <i>We</i> do not number them
-quite so eagerly, for when he comes he will take<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299"></a>{299}</span>
-her away from us, and we shall miss her sorely.
-It is summer again, a hot damp summer; it has
-been a very sickly season, and my hands are full.</p>
-
-<p>‘I shall have to get a partner, my dear,’ I say to
-my wife as I prepare to go out. ‘If this goes on I
-shall have more to do than I can manage. There
-is a nasty fever about which I don’t like the look of;
-and if we don’t have a change for the better in this
-muggy weather, there is no saying what it may
-turn to.’</p>
-
-<p>‘I am glad all the boys are at school,’ observes
-Mary Anne, ‘and I think I will let the girls accept
-their aunt’s invitation and go to her for a
-month.’</p>
-
-<p>‘It would be a very good plan, and I should be
-glad if you would go too. A little change would
-do you good.’</p>
-
-<p>‘And pray who is to look after you?’ asks my
-wife reproachfully. ‘Who is to see that you take
-your meals properly, and don’t rush off to see your
-patients, leaving your dinner untasted on the
-table?’</p>
-
-<p>Mentally I confess that I should probably be
-poorly off without my Mary Anne; but it is a bad
-plan to encourage vanity in one’s wife, so I say:
-‘Oh, I should do very well by myself;’ and with a
-parting nod betake myself to my daily duty.</p>
-
-<p>In the village I meet Mrs Ogilvie, basket in
-hand. She doesn’t look well, and I say so.</p>
-
-<p>‘You have no business out in the heat of the
-day,’ I tell her. ‘You are not a Hercules, and you
-will only be knocking yourself up. What will
-your husband say, if he does not find you looking
-your best when he comes back?’</p>
-
-<p>A shade passes over her face. ‘Ah! he would
-not be pleased,’ she says rather gravely; ‘he always
-likes to see me look my <i>very</i> best and prettiest.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Well then, as your doctor, I must forbid your
-doing any more cottage-visiting just at present.
-You are not looking strong, and going into those
-close houses is not good for you. I will come and
-see you on my way back.’</p>
-
-<p>Which I do. I find there is nothing the matter
-with her; she is only a little languid. Perhaps the
-weather has affected her; perhaps she is wearying
-for her husband; and I prescribe a tonic, which I
-think will soon set her to rights. I do not remain
-long with her, for I have an unspoken anxiety, and
-I am in a hurry to get home.</p>
-
-<p>‘You had better send the children away to-morrow
-morning, Mary Anne,’ I say as soon as I
-get in. ‘Mrs Black is very ill, and I am afraid—I
-cannot quite tell yet, but I am afraid—she is
-going to have small-pox. Of course I shall have
-her removed at once, if I am right; but it may
-prove not to be an isolated case, and it will be
-as well to get the children out of the way. I
-shall try and persuade every one in the village to
-be vaccinated to-morrow.’</p>
-
-<p>‘You will be clever if you manage that,’ says
-my wife. ‘I am afraid some of the people are
-very prejudiced against it. You know when the
-children and I were revaccinated three years ago,
-you could not persuade any of the villagers to be
-done at the same time.’</p>
-
-<p>On the following day we despatch the children
-early to their aunt’s, under the care of an old
-servant; and as soon as I have seen them off, I
-go down to Mrs Black’s. To my consternation I
-find Mrs Ogilvie just leaving the house.</p>
-
-<p>‘I have been disobedient, you see,’ she says
-gaily; ‘but I promised to bring Mrs Black something
-early this morning; and she seemed so ill
-yesterday that I did not like to disappoint her.
-But I am not going to transgress orders again—for
-Frank’s sake,’ she adds softly.</p>
-
-<p>I give an internal groan. Heaven grant she
-may not have transgressed them once too often!
-And I hasten into the cottage, to find my worst
-fears confirmed. Mrs Black has small-pox quite
-unmistakably.</p>
-
-<p>For some hours I am occupied in making
-arrangements for her removal to the infirmary,
-and in vaccinating such of my poorer patients
-as I can frighten or coerce into allowing me to
-do so; and it is afternoon before I am able to
-go and look after Mrs Ogilvie.</p>
-
-<p>She seems rather astonished when I inform her
-what my errand is—that I want to vaccinate her
-(for of course I do not wish to frighten her by
-telling her about Mrs Black); but she submits
-readily enough when I say that I have heard of
-a case of small-pox in a neighbouring village
-(which I have), and think it would be a wise precautionary
-measure.</p>
-
-<p>‘It is very good of you,’ she says in her pretty
-gracious way as she bares her white arm. ‘I have
-never been vaccinated since I was a baby, so I
-suppose it will be desirable.’</p>
-
-<p>Desirable? I should think so indeed! And I
-send up a prayer as I perform the operation that
-I may not be too late.</p>
-
-<p>I am so busy for the next few days that I am
-unable to go down to the cottage. One or two
-more cases of small-pox appear in the village, and
-I am anxious and hard-worked; but Mary Anne
-tells me that Mrs Ogilvie has heard of Mrs Black’s
-removal and is dreadfully nervous about herself.
-‘I hope she will not frighten herself into it,’ adds
-my wife.</p>
-
-<p>‘If she hadn’t contracted it before I vaccinated
-her, I think she is pretty safe,’ I reply; ‘but there
-is just the chance that she may have had the
-poison in her previously.’</p>
-
-<p>Almost as I speak a message comes from Mrs
-Ogilvie, who ‘wishes to see me professionally.’
-My heart sinks as I seize my hat and follow the
-messenger; and with too good reason. I find her
-suffering from the first symptoms of small-pox;
-and in twenty-four hours it has declared itself
-unequivocally and threatens to be a bad case. I
-try to keep the nature of her illness from her, but
-in vain. She questions me closely, and when she
-discovers the truth, gives way to a burst of despair
-which is painful to witness. ‘I shall be marked;
-I shall be hideous!’ she exclaims, sobbing bitterly.
-‘Poor Frank, how he will hate me!’</p>
-
-<p>In vain I try to comfort her, to convince her that
-in not one out of a hundred cases does the disease
-leave dreadful traces behind it; she refuses to
-be consoled. And soon she is too ill to be reasoned
-with, or indeed to know much of her own state.
-She is an orphan, and has no near relatives for
-whom we can send, so Mary Anne installs herself
-in the sick-room as head-nurse; and as I see her
-bending lovingly over the poor disfigured face,
-and ministering with tender hands to the ceaseless
-wants of the invalid, my wife is in my eyes
-beautiful exceedingly; so does the shadow of a
-good deed cast a glory around the most homely
-countenance.</p>
-
-<p>For some time Mrs Ogilvie’s life is in great<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>{300}</span>
-danger; but her youth and good constitution prevail
-against the grim destroyer, and at length
-I am able to pronounce all peril past.</p>
-
-<p>But alas, alas! all my hopes, all my care,
-all my poor skill have been in vain; and the
-beauty which we have all admired so much, and
-which has been so precious to our poor patient,
-is a thing of the past. She is marked—slightly it
-is true; but the pure complexion is thick and
-muddy, the once bright eyes are heavy and dull,
-and the golden hair is thin and lustreless. We
-keep it from her as long as we can, but she soon
-discovers it in our sorrowful looks; and her horror,
-her agony, almost threaten to unseat her reason.
-My wife is with her night and day, watching her
-like a mother, using every argument she can think
-of to console her, and above all, counselling with
-gentle words submission to the will of God. But
-her misery, after the first shock, is not so much
-for herself as for the possible effect the loss of her
-beauty may have on her husband, who is now
-daily expected. His ship has been at sea, so we
-have been unable to write to him; and only on
-his arrival in Plymouth Sound will he hear of
-his poor young wife’s illness and disfigurement.
-Before her sickness she had been counting the
-hours; now she sees every day go past with a
-shudder, feeling that she is brought twenty-four
-hours nearer to the dread trial. At length his
-vessel arrives, and I receive a telegram telling me
-when we may expect him, and begging me to
-break the news gently to his wife. She receives
-it with a flood of bitter tears and sobs, crying out
-that he will hate and loathe her, and that she
-is about to lose all the happiness of her life. My
-wife weeps with her; and I am conscious of a choking
-sensation in my throat as we take leave of her
-half an hour before Mr Ogilvie is expected, and
-pray God to bless and sustain her.</p>
-
-<p>We are sitting in rather melancholy mood after
-dinner, talking of the poor young husband and
-wife, when Mr Ogilvie is announced, and I hasten
-to the door to meet him.</p>
-
-<p>‘She will not see me!’ he says impetuously,
-coming in without any formal greeting. ‘She has
-shut herself into her room, and calls to me with
-hysterical tears that she is too dreadful to look
-upon, that I shall cease to love her as soon as
-I behold her, and that she cannot face it.’ And
-the strong man falls into a chair with a sob.</p>
-
-<p>‘It is not so bad as that,’ I begin.</p>
-
-<p>‘I don’t care how bad it is,’ he cries; ‘she need
-not doubt my love. My poor darling will always
-be the same to me whether she has lost her beauty
-or not.’</p>
-
-<p>Whereupon I extend my hand to him and shake
-his heartily; and I know my wife has great difficulty
-in restraining herself from enveloping him
-in her motherly arms and embracing him.</p>
-
-<p>‘We must resort to stratagem,’ I say. ‘I will
-go down to the cottage at once, and you follow me
-in ten minutes with my wife. I will try and coax
-Mrs Ogilvie to come out and speak to me, and you
-must steal upon her unawares.’</p>
-
-<p>Mrs Ogilvie at first refuses to see or speak to me;
-but I go up to her door and am mean enough to
-remind her of my wife’s devotion to her and
-entreat her, for her sake, to come down to me.</p>
-
-<p>‘Where is Frank?’ she asks.</p>
-
-<p>‘I left him at home with Mary Anne,’ I reply,
-feeling that I am worthy of being a diplomatist at
-the court of St Petersburg, as she opens the door
-and descends the stairs. I take her out into the
-garden and begin to reprove her for her conduct,
-with assumed anger. She listens with eyes
-blinded by tears. I, on the look-out for it, hear
-the latch of the garden gate click; but she,
-absorbed in her sorrow, does not notice it. I look
-up and see Frank Ogilvie’s eyes fixed hungrily on
-his wife. Her changed appearance must be an
-awful shock to him; but he bears it bravely; and
-in a moment he has sprung forward, clasped her
-in his arms, and the poor scarred face is hidden on
-his true and loving heart!</p>
-
-<p>Then Mary Anne and I turn silently away, and
-leave him to teach her that there are things more
-valuable, of far higher worth than any mere beauty
-of face or form.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>After all, we do not lose her, for Mr Ogilvie
-coming into some money, leaves the navy and purchases
-a small estate in our neighbourhood, on
-which they still reside. Mrs Ogilvie is no longer
-young, and has a family of lads and lasses around
-her, who inherit much of their mother’s loveliness.
-But one of the first things she teaches them is not
-to set a fictitious value on it; ‘for,’ she says, ‘I
-thought too much of mine, and God took it from
-me.’ No one ever hears her regret the loss of her
-beauty; ‘for through that trial,’ she tells my wife,
-‘I learned to know the true value of my Frank’s
-heart.’</p>
-
-<p>She simply worships her husband, and is in all
-respects a happy woman. Indeed, seeing the sweet
-smiles which adorn her face and the loving light
-which dwells in her eyes, I am sometimes tempted
-to call her as of yore—Pretty Mrs Ogilvie.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="BURNABYS_RIDE_IN_TURKEY">BURNABY’S RIDE IN TURKEY.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>In his volume of travels in Turkey, Captain
-Burnaby has given such a large variety of
-amusing particulars, that it is eminently worthy
-of perusal. The following are a few rough notes:</p>
-
-<p>Radford, the captain’s English servant, was one of
-the veritable descendants of Uncle Toby’s Corporal
-Trim; men—for there are a large family of them—to
-whom the word duty means obeying the word
-of command, no matter what form it may happen
-to take, be it to cook a dinner or storm a trench.
-At Constantinople another servant was required
-and engaged—one Osman, a Mohammedan, a
-very smart fellow, in every sense of the word.
-Picturesque in dress, tall and fine-looking into the
-bargain, and fully alive to the worth of the
-Effendi’s gold, to which he helped himself unsparingly,
-without hurt to his conscience or hinderance
-to his prayers. The devotions of this
-worthy proving a fruitful source of misery to the
-captain, he came to the conclusion that religious
-servants are a mistake, especially in the East.</p>
-
-<p>At Constantinople there was some little delay
-occasioned by having horses to buy and friends to
-see, and then there were the cafés, which are
-always amusing more or less; for the proprietors
-find that good voices and pretty girls are
-sure attractions, whether for Giaour or Turk.
-But the poor girls have a hard time of it. By
-birth they are chiefly Hungarian and Italian.
-They act as waitresses mostly, and are compelled
-by the Turks who frequent the cafés to sweeten,
-by tasting, all that they order. The violence thus<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>{301}</span>
-done to their digestive organs may be imagined.
-One Italian girl bemoaned her lot, saying: ‘It is
-such a mixture. I have a pain sometimes (pointing
-to the bodice of her dress). I wish to cry; but I
-have to run about and smile, wait upon visitors
-and drink with them. It is a dreadful life! Oh,
-if I could only return to Florence!’</p>
-
-<p>Captain Burnaby found the Turkish women’s
-faces ‘sadly wanting in expression;’ at least those
-he had an opportunity of seeing, for the women all
-go veiled. Still their veils are of very thin muslin,
-and man’s curiosity is penetrating. But this
-noticeable lack of expression is not to be wondered
-at, when we hear that they are wholly uncultivated
-in mind—only one in a thousand among
-them can read or write. They amuse themselves
-in gossip and eating.</p>
-
-<p>The Ride was not at all times agreeable. It
-was not pleasant, for instance, having to cross
-wooden bridges without parapets, and to see the
-river below through holes in the wooden planks
-beneath the horse’s feet; or to wade up to the
-horse’s girths through lanes of water. But such
-is the fortune of travelling in the unknown.</p>
-
-<p>At the village of Nahilan the caimacan or
-governor was hospitable, and soon the whole
-population was in attendance to see and talk
-with the traveller. He was given the seat of
-honour on a rug near the fire. The caimacan
-in a fur-lined dressing-gown came next, the rest
-of the party in order not according to rank,
-but according to their possessions—the man who
-owned one hundred cows being seated next the
-governor. Conversation at first did not get on
-any better there than at home. But some one
-made a plunge, and the state of the roads was
-discussed. This opened the way to politics
-and the prospect of English help, about which
-the Turks were eager and anxious to learn. The
-war was the one topic of interest among them,
-as well it might be. The scenery in the neighbourhood
-was lovely, and Captain Burnaby wished
-that he had been born a painter, to have caught
-the impression of the beauty around him, and
-have fixed it for ever on canvas. He has painted
-at least one little sketch successfully in words:
-‘A succession of hills, each one loftier than its
-fellow, broke upon us as we climbed the steep
-(leading towards Angora). They were of all forms,
-shades, and colours, ash gray, blue, vermilion,
-robed in imperial purple, and dotted with patches
-of vegetation. Our road wound amidst these
-chameleon-like heights, whose silvery rivulets
-streamed down the sides of the many-coloured
-hills.’</p>
-
-<p>But we must leave this pretty scene to describe
-the night’s lodging at the next halt, which gives
-us an insight into Turkish beds and bedrooms.
-No bedsteads are used. ‘One or two mattresses
-are laid on the floor; the <i>yorgan</i>, a silk quilt
-lined with linen and stuffed with feathers, taking
-the place of sheets and blankets. These yorgans
-are heirlooms in a Turkish family, and are handed
-down from father to son. It is a mark of high
-respect when a host gives you his wedding yorgan
-to sleep under. Captain Burnaby found the
-honour a trying one, as many generations of fleas
-shared it with him. Osman grew eloquent on
-the subject of yorgans. He had one so beautiful
-that neither his wife nor himself liked to use it.</p>
-
-<p>Hearing that he was married, Captain Burnaby
-questioned him about his wife. Did he love her?
-Was she pretty? To which Osman replied: ‘She
-is a good cook. She makes soup. Effendi, I
-could not afford to marry a good-looking girl.
-There was one in our village—such a pretty one,
-with eyes like a hare and plump as a turkey—but
-she could not cook, and her father wanted too
-much for her. For my present wife I gave only
-ten liras (or Turkish pounds); but she did not
-weigh more than one hundred pounds. She was
-very cheap. Her eyes are not quite straight, but
-she can cook. Looks don’t last; but cooking is an
-art that the Prophet himself did not despise.’</p>
-
-<p>At every place a cordial reception awaited the
-traveller. The Turks are not ungrateful; and
-English help during the Crimean War is still
-remembered. At Angora, a town of importance,
-there was an English vice-consul, a married
-man, living in a house furnished with every
-English comfort. He is the only Englishman,
-or rather Scotchman, in the place. A Turkish
-gentleman gave a dinner-party in honour of the
-traveller. These Turkish dinner-parties are compared
-to Turkish music, and declared to consist
-of a series of surprises. ‘In music the leader of
-an orchestra goes from andante to a racing pace
-without any crescendo whatever. The cook in
-the same manner gives first a dish as sweet as
-honey, and then astonishes our stomach with a
-sauce as acid as vinegar. Now we are eating fish,
-another instant blanc-mange. And so on throughout
-the feast were the startling contrasts continued.
-Servants were abundant and pressing.
-Each guest ate with his fingers, helping himself
-according to his rank or social status.’ When
-dinner was over the host rose, not forgetting to
-say his grace: ‘Praise be to God.’ A servant then
-poured water over the hands of each, according to
-his rank, for precedence is duly observed in the
-veriest trifle; and then they all adjourned to
-another room to smoke and drink coffee.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing can exceed the hospitality and generosity
-of the Turk. Admire what belongs to him,
-and he begs you to accept it, be it a book, a horse,
-or a servant. Talking of servants, it was amusing
-to hear Osman railing at the man in charge of
-the pack-horse for allowing the horse that carried
-the valuables, in the form of groceries and cartridges,
-to lie down in a river, thus injuring the
-contents of his pack. The Eastern method of
-abuse is to attack a man’s female relatives—a
-point on which all Easterns are most sensitive—in
-language the reverse of choice.</p>
-
-<p>In Anatolia and in most parts of Asia Minor,
-every man is his own architect and builder,
-on the following simple principles. When old
-enough to marry, a man chooses a bit of oblong
-ground, on the side of a hill if he can, and
-digs out the earth to the depth of several
-feet. ‘Hewing down some trees, he cuts six
-posts, each about ten feet high, and drives them
-three feet into the ground, three posts being on
-one side of the oblong, three on the other. Cross-beams
-are fastened to the top of these uprights,
-and branches of trees, plastered with clay, cover
-all.’ The doorway is of rude construction. In
-the interior, a wooden railing divides the room into
-two, one-half of which is occupied by the animals,
-the other by the family. A hole in the ceiling is
-the only mode of ventilation, and in cold weather
-this is stopped up. The ‘family’ often consists of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302"></a>{302}</span>
-twelve in number, and at night they lie huddled
-on the floor, which in poorer houses is covered
-with coarse rugs of camels’ hair, and Persian rugs
-among the wealthier. The close proximity to livestock
-invites a third and irrepressible population
-of fleas in most of these houses. The misery of a
-night spent with legions of these insects must
-be felt to be thoroughly understood and appreciated.
-They formed the chief discomfort of the
-travellers, whose English skins were not case-hardened
-to the assaults of the lively banqueteers.
-When sickness overtook them (as it did when
-they had advanced far on their journey) and
-sleep became imperative, the misery of our
-travellers grew serious. To be ravaged by fever
-as well as by fleas would at once try the strongest.
-At last in one village a hint was given that if
-the Effendi’s skin were attacked, no bucksheesh
-would follow. Instantly the host had a remedy
-at hand. He had a cart in his yard; and the
-Effendi at last had the comfort of a few hours of
-undisturbed slumber.</p>
-
-<p>At various places the Armenian churches were
-visited. It is the custom among the Armenians, as
-among the Jews, to separate the women from the
-men during divine service. The Armenians take
-the further precaution of hiding the women behind
-a screened lattice-work. Great pity was expressed
-for our English clergymen when it was found they
-used no such precaution in their churches, and it
-was remarked: ‘They must find it difficult to keep
-the attention of their flock, if the ladies are as
-pretty as they are said to be.’ In the Armenian
-churches, however, the precaution is used to keep
-the women devotional; but such is the power of
-attraction, that in many places Captain Burnaby
-noticed that the lattice had been broken away!
-The interior of an Armenian church resembles a
-mosque, and is carpeted with thick Persian rugs.
-As the Armenian Christians worship pictures,
-the walls are hung with several in gaudy frames.
-The service is ritualistic in the extreme, and
-politic to temporal no less than spiritual rulers;
-for on the occasion of Captain Burnaby’s attendance,
-the service opened with two songs sung by
-the choir—one in honour of the Queen of England,
-out of compliment to the visitor present; the
-other for the Sultan. Some of their traditions are
-curious. One is, that a prince of theirs, a leper,
-living at the same time as Christ, heard of his
-miracles, and wrote a letter to the Saviour, inviting
-him to come and take up his abode in Armenia and
-cure him of his disease. The Lord is supposed to
-have replied: ‘After I have gone, I will send one
-of my disciples to cure thy malady and give life to
-thee and thine.’ With the letter, Christ is supposed
-to have sent at the same time a handkerchief which
-had received the image of his face by being pressed
-to it; and it is this tradition which they adduce
-to justify their adoration of pictures.</p>
-
-<p>The Turk’s religion is a compound of faith
-and fatalism, sprinkled occasionally with due precaution.
-Here is an instance of their fatalism.
-When Captain Burnaby was at Kars, the streets
-were in such a filthy condition, owing to the sewage
-of the town being thrown in front of the buildings,
-that the hospitals were full of typhoid, and cholera
-was anticipated; and yet neither soldiers nor
-inhabitants would stir a finger to remove the
-source of their miseries out of the streets; the
-soldiers declaring that they were not scavengers,
-and the inhabitants making some other excuse.
-When warned of the consequences, each took refuge
-in kismet or fate. Allah was great and able to
-perform miracles. If Allah saw fit, there would
-be no cholera—although their streets were reeking
-with the seeds of disease.</p>
-
-<p>In most of the towns, excitement prevailed in
-organising battalions for the seat of war. The
-Turks are essentially a warlike nation, and fight
-for their country without a murmur, in the face of
-such disadvantages as bad food and long arrears of
-pay.</p>
-
-<p>We have not before spoken of a new travelling
-companion who took Osman’s place—one Mohammed
-by name, who was as faithful as the Prophet
-himself. Osman turned out a very bad bargain.
-His fidelity to the Effendi’s purse became at last
-greater even than his love of prayer; and his
-keen eye after an exorbitant percentage was
-worthy of a London usurer. Remonstrance was
-in vain. At last he was dismissed, having been
-caught thieving, and Mohammed reigned in his
-stead, to the comfort of all parties. He was
-a soldier and a mountaineer, brave and hardy
-on land, but a coward at sea. He loved his lord
-the Effendi, and dearly loved his ‘brother’ Radford’s
-cooking. His ‘brother’s’ opinion of him
-at parting was characteristic: ‘That Mohammed
-was not such a bad chap after all, sir. Them
-Turks have stomachs, and like filling them they
-do; but they have something in their hearts as
-well.’ And so Mohammed shewed—for in illness
-he was a kind nurse, and faithful to his ‘lord’s’
-interests throughout. On one occasion, Mohammed
-complained of rheumatism, and Radford
-applied a mustard paper. What a sensation it
-created among the Kurd villagers—some of whom
-were spectators of course—when they heard that
-the wet paper had produced the fire under which
-Mohammed lay writhing and groaning. It was a
-miracle; and forthwith the Effendi was hailed
-everywhere as a <i>hakim</i> or doctor, and his fame
-spread from place to place on the road. A Persian
-asked, and even admitted him into his harem, to
-prescribe for his pretty wife, to whom he gave
-small doses of quinine. Another time a Kurd
-asked him to cure his toothache; but mustard
-papers were powerless here; so Radford was called
-in consultation, and said it ought to come out.
-But there were no instruments at hand, and the
-operation had to be declined. ‘Give me something
-for my stomach then,’ asked the Kurd.
-Three pills were then handed to him, which he
-chewed deliberately, declaring, when he had
-finished them, his tooth was better!</p>
-
-<p>At one place, after passing over a narrow wooden
-bridge that spanned the Euphrates—only forty
-yards wide at this point—the travellers crossed
-the Hasta Dagh (mountain); presently they came
-to a glacier, the frozen surface of which extended
-a hundred yards, the decline being steeper than
-the roof of an average English house. ‘Should it
-be taken?’ was the question asked with much
-consternation, and decided in the affirmative. The
-guide rode his horse to the glacier. The poor
-animal trembled when it reached the brink; but
-a reminder from Mohammed’s whip hastened the
-poor brute’s decision, and he stretched his forelegs
-over the declivity, almost touching the
-slippery surface with his girth. Another crack
-from Mohammed, and horse and guide were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303"></a>{303}</span>
-whirling down the glacier, and only pulled up
-at last by finding themselves buried in a snowdrift
-six feet deep. When his turn came, Captain
-Burnaby describes the sensation as if he were
-‘waltzing madly down the slippery surface.’ To
-witness the descent of the others was something
-fearful; though not so dangerous as it appeared.
-When Radford emerged from his snowy burial,
-he exclaimed: ‘I never thought as how a horse
-could skate before. It was more than sliding,
-that it was; a cutting a figure of eight all down
-the roof of a house.’</p>
-
-<p>Our travellers at last reached Batoum, where
-they parted from Mohammed, and where we must
-part from them, not without sincere regret. After
-this, they took ship across the Black Sea to Constantinople,
-and all adventures were over. We
-shall not quickly forget the two thousand miles of
-ground so graphically described, and over a portion
-of which we have travelled with them in the
-saddle. Nor will the reader of Captain Burnaby’s
-volume of travels throughout the land of the
-Osmanli, easily forget the scenes and incidents and
-people so graphically depicted. We omit with
-regret many good stories we should like to have
-told; but space is inexorable. To those who are
-inclined to echo this regret, we can only say: ‘Do
-as we have done, and take the ride with Burnaby
-for yourselves.’</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="WEDDING_EXTRAVAGANCES">WEDDING EXTRAVAGANCES.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> following sensible observations on the wastefulness
-which often takes place on marriage
-occasions, are from the pen of Camilla Crosland—our
-old and esteemed contributor originally
-known as Camilla Toulmin. They appear in
-<i>Social Notes</i>, a weekly periodical not unlike our
-own, edited by Mr S. C. Hall, and which has our
-best wishes for its success.</p>
-
-<p>‘How many people there are who in fine clothes
-and with smiling faces “assist” at a modern wedding,
-yet in their heart of hearts think the profuse
-outlay and the general festive arrangements usual
-on the occasion a piece of tiresome folly! Few,
-however, like to make a dead set against time-honoured
-customs, unless strong personal feelings
-or personal interests are concerned.</p>
-
-<p>‘Marriage may certainly lay claim to being the
-most important event in life, and as such there must
-ever be solemnity associated with it. In fact our
-Prayer-book speaks of the solemnisation of matrimony.
-Of course it is right that there should be
-a certain publicity attached to every marriage
-ceremony, and probably in this fact originated
-the custom of inviting friends to be present on
-the occasion, till by degrees wedding-parties have
-become more and more crowded, and now it is a
-common thing for a vast assembly to congregate
-at them. Of course where there is great wealth,
-and people love this sort of display, and bride and
-bridegroom have nerve for it, and are, moreover,
-happy in possessing “troops of friends,” there is no
-reason why money should not circulate—the confectioner
-revel in <i>chefs-d’œuvre</i>, the florist realise
-a week’s ordinary income in bouquets, and the
-milliner make her mint of money by rich toilets.
-But a vice of the English middle class is to ape
-the rank above it; and I confess it has often to
-me seemed pitiable to know at what a cost of
-after self-denial a showy wedding has taken place.</p>
-
-<p>‘It is desirable that when two young people,
-suitable in age, character, station, are warmly
-attached, they should be married as soon as prudence
-permits. Let us take, for instance, the case
-of an accomplished but portionless young lady, the
-eldest of several daughters, who has been accustomed
-to utilise her talents in the home circle.
-She has been engaged, say four years, to a gentleman
-in a government office with a slowly rising
-salary. He is about thirty, she five or six and
-twenty. He has saved enough money to furnish
-a pretty little suburban dwelling, and she will be
-provided by her father with a modest <i>trousseau</i>,
-and they think it now high time to “settle.” Their
-income, even including a fatherly allowance for
-pin-money, will be considerably less than five
-hundred pounds per annum, and they, being good
-arithmeticians, know they must live quietly, visit
-and entertain only in a homely, friendly manner,
-and neither go to nor give formal parties. Of
-what use is the costly white silk bridal dress,
-which in all human probability will never in its
-original state be worn again? It will, of course,
-be laid up carefully, and looked at occasionally
-with tender sentimental interest; but by-and-by,
-in a year or two, it will seem old-fashioned, and
-most probably be picked to pieces and dyed some
-serviceable colour. Then there were probably at
-least four bride’s-maids, each to be presented with
-a jewelled <i>souvenir</i> by the not too affluent bridegroom,
-and the costly wedding-breakfast to be
-provided by the father. One mischief of the thing
-being that the whole arrangement becomes a
-precedent, so that the next sister who marries
-would seem slighted if she were to have a less
-stylish wedding.</p>
-
-<p>‘Perhaps the costly entertainment—which is
-often a great trial to the feelings of the parties
-most chiefly concerned—can only be given by
-dipping into a very slender capital, or by relinquishing
-the autumn seaside holiday. The worst
-of the matter is that the class a little below the
-one I have attempted to describe, imitates the
-bad example in its own way and to its own
-detriment.’</p>
-
-<p>Mrs Crosland, in conclusion, mentions a case in
-which persons of respectable standing consulted
-economy and common sense in their marriage
-arrangements. ‘Due arrangements having been
-quietly made, the young lady one morning,
-dressed in ordinary attire, escorted by her father
-to “give her away,” and accompanied by a
-younger sister to serve as bride’s-maid, walked to
-the parish church, where the expectant bridegroom
-was ready to receive them. There the
-ceremony was performed, the little party returning
-to partake of the family luncheon before the
-wedded pair started on their tour. Was not this
-an example worthy under many circumstances to
-be followed?’</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak ph3" id="CANINE_CUNNING">CANINE CUNNING.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>The following is from a correspondent: ‘A
-near neighbour of mine has a large mongrel
-dog, a terrible nuisance to all passing the house,
-which unfortunately stands near the highway.
-The brute has the nasty habit of rushing out and
-attacking every passing vehicle. Complaints were
-loud and numerous; and at length the owner hit
-upon a plan which he thought would effectually<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304"></a>{304}</span>
-cure his dog. He attached a small log of wood or
-a “clog” by a chain to his collar. This answered
-admirably; for no sooner did the dog start in pursuit
-of anything than the clog not only checked
-his speed but generally rolled him over into the
-bargain. Now this would not do. Doggie was
-evidently puzzled, and reflected upon the position;
-and if he did not possess reasoning powers, he
-certainly shewed something very like them, for
-he quickly overcame the difficulty, and to the
-surprise of all, was soon at his old work, nearly
-as bad as ever. And this is how he managed.
-No longer did he attempt to drag the clog on
-the ground and allow it to check and upset him,
-but before starting he caught it up in his mouth,
-ran before the passing horse, dropped it, and
-commenced the attack; and when distanced, would
-again seize the clog in his mouth, and resume
-his position ahead, and thus became as great a
-pest as ever. Even on his ordinary travels about
-he is now seen carrying his clog in his mouth,
-instead of letting it drag on the ground between
-his legs.’</p>
-
-
-<h3 class="ph3">LOST DOGS.</h3>
-
-<p>Few facts will better illustrate the vast scale on
-which almost everything presents itself in the
-English metropolis, even so humble a subject as
-that of poor dogs that have temporarily lost their
-masters, than one mentioned in the Annual Report
-of the Chief Commissioner of Police. He informs
-us that nearly nineteen thousand (more than
-18,800) stray dogs were taken charge of by the
-police in the metropolis during the year 1876!
-A little romance might be mixed up with the story
-of most of these homeless wanderers, if we could
-but know it: how Carlo or Boxer was distressed
-at losing his protector. The animals were either
-taken for a while to the Dogs’ Home at Battersea,
-or were otherwise provided for.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="IN_MEMORIAM">IN MEMORIAM.</h2>
-
-<p class="ph3">(M. A. W.—POETESS. ÆTAT 25.)</p>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0"><span class="smcap">O Noble</span> heart! so gentle, kind;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thy life, like a brief summer wind,</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Hath passed away,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And left me here on earth to mourn</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Thine early flight to that sweet bourne</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Where angels stay.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">There may my soul from slumber ’wake</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When heaven and earth their concord break,</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">And Time is o’er;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">When Christ, in his enthroned array,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Proclaims aloud his Advent Day</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">From shore to shore!</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">There may we meet at last and find</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">(Mind, heart, and soul for aye entwined)</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Eternal rest;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">There tread together Eden’s bowers—</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The land of life and light and flowers—</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">With souls as blest.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Brief was thy sojourn here, sweet girl;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And life, with all its glittering whirl,</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Soon passed thee by;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Leaving the flower to droop unseen,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The world rolled on, not heeding e’en</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Thy dying cry.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">In that dark hour, thy fleeting soul,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Regardless of Death’s stern control,</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Broke forth in song;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And as the falt’ring numbers came,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">By angels fair thy hallowed fame</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Was borne along.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">O well-beloved! enseamed in light,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">If thou canst gaze upon my night</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Of lonely grief:</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Behold me now, and mark the tears</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That still must flow through future years</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Without relief.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Yet the dread tomb which steals away</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">From brightest gem its purest ray—</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">The Life sublime!</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Must know we can its power defy,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">For thou art safe beyond the sky,</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">And for all time.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Yea; thou art safe with that great God</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Who rules Creation with a rod</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Of love and light;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The Being of a glorious mien,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Whose majesty is Grand, Serene,</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">And Infinite!</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Oh, better far thou shouldst be there,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Removed from this world’s doubt and care—</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">A gloomy train;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Full-veiled in peerless robes of light,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Enthroned where comes nor storm, nor night,</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Nor grief, nor pain.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">And could I gaze above and see</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">The glow of immortality</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">That veils thy soul,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And feel thy holy presence near,</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">To guard me from ungodly fear,</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">And its control:</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse indent0">Then should I bless the hidden blow</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">That laid my darling’s bosom low</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Within the grave;</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">And own that Love’s immortal Hand</div>
- <div class="verse indent0">Did guide the swift unerring brand</div>
- <div class="verse indent12">Which struck to save.</div>
- </div>
- <div class="stanza">
- <div class="verse right">J. A. E.</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<p>The Conductors of <span class="smcap">Chambers’s Journal</span> beg to direct
-the attention of <span class="smcap">Contributors</span> to the following notice:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p><i>1st.</i> All communications should be addressed to the
-‘Editor, 339 High Street, Edinburgh.’</p>
-
-<p><i>2d.</i> To insure the return of papers that may prove
-ineligible, postage-stamps should in every case accompany
-them.</p>
-
-<p><i>3d.</i> <span class="smcap">Manuscripts</span> should bear the author’s full <i>Christian</i>
-name, surname, and address, legibly written.</p>
-
-<p><i>4th.</i> MS. should be written on one side of the leaf only.</p>
-
-<p><i>5th.</i> Poetical offerings should be accompanied by an
-envelope, stamped and directed.</p></div>
-
-<p><i>Unless Contributors comply with the above rules, the
-Editor cannot undertake to return ineligible papers.</i></p>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<p class="center">Printed and Published by <span class="smcap">W. &amp; R. Chambers</span>, 47 Paternoster
-Row, <span class="smcap">London</span>, and 339 High Street, <span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>.</p>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-<p class="center"><i>All Rights Reserved.</i></p>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular
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