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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8589-h.zip b/8589-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..89c06c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/8589-h.zip diff --git a/8589-h/8589-h.htm b/8589-h/8589-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e2c11d --- /dev/null +++ b/8589-h/8589-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3621 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>Roughing It, Part 8</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>ROUGHING IT, By Mark Twain, Part 8 </h2> +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Roughing It, Part 8., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Roughing It, Part 8. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 3, 2004 [EBook #8589] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 8. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<br> +<hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + +<center><img alt="cover.jpg (90K)" src="images/cover.jpg" height="1071" width="733"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="spine.jpg (54K)" src="images/spine.jpg" height="1071" width="307"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<h1>ROUGHING IT, Part 8</h1> +<br><br> +<h2>By Mark Twain</h2> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="frontispiece1.jpg (168K)" src="images/frontispiece1.jpg" height="643" width="903"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="frontispiece2"></a> +<center><img alt="frontispiece2.jpg (184K)" src="images/frontispiece2.jpg" height="1020" width="600"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="titlepage.jpg (95K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" height="1064" width="705"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="dedication.jpg (18K)" src="images/dedication.jpg" height="273" width="425"></center> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>PREFATORY.</h2> </center> +<br> +<p>This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a +pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a +record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its +object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle +hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. +Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning +an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about +which no books have been written by persons who were on the +ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their +own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmination of the +silver-mining fever in Nevada—a curious episode, in some +respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has occurred +in the land; and the only one, indeed, that is likely to occur in +it.</p> + +<p>Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of +information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it +could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me +naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. +Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could +retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the +sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. +Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the +reader, not justification.</p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>CONTENTS.</h2></center> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + +<p><a href="#ch71">CHAPTER LXXI.</a> Kealakekua Bay—Death of Captain Cook—His +Monument—Its Construction—On Board the Schooner</p> + +<p><a href="#ch72">CHAPTER LXXII.</a> Young Kanakas in New England—A Temple Built by +Ghosts—Female Bathers—I Stood Guard—Women and Whiskey—A Fight +for Religion—Arrival of Missionaries</p> + +<p><a href="#ch73">CHAPTER LXXIII.</a> Native Canoes—Surf Bathing—A Sanctuary—How +Built—The Queen's Rock—Curiosities—Petrified Lava</p> + +<p><a href="#ch74">CHAPTER LXXIV.</a> Visit to the Volcano—The Crater—Pillar of +Fire—Magnificent Spectacle—A Lake of Fire</p> + +<p><a href="#ch75">CHAPTER LXXV.</a> The North Lake—Fountains of Fire—Streams of +Burning Lava—Tidal Waves</p> + +<p><a href="#ch76">CHAPTER LXXVI.</a> A Reminiscence—Another Horse Story—My Ride +with the Retired Milk Horse- -A Picnicing Excursion—Dead Volcano +of Holeakala—Comparison with Vesuvius—An Inside View</p> + +<p><a href="#ch77">CHAPTER LXXVII.</a> A Curious Character—A Series of Stories—Sad +Fate of a Liar—Evidence of Insanity</p> + +<p><a href="#ch78">CHAPTER LXXVIII.</a> Return to San Francisco—Ship +Amusements—Preparing for Lecturing—Valuable Assistance +Secured—My First Attempt—The Audience Carried—"All's Well +that Ends Well."</p> + +<p><a href="#ch79">CHAPTER LXXIX.</a> Highwaymen—A Predicament—A Huge +Joke—Farewell to California—At Home Again—Great Changes. +Moral.</p> + +<p><a href="#APPENDIX">APPENDIX. A.</a>—Brief Sketch of Mormon History B.—The Mountain +Meadows Massacre C.—Concerning a Frightful Assassination that +was never Consummated</p> + +</blockquote></blockquote> +<br><br><br><br> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + +272. <a href="#514">KEALAKEKUA BAY AND COOK'S MONUMENT</a><br> +273. <a href="#518">THE GHOSTLY BUILDERS</a><br> +274. <a href="#519">ON GUARD</a><br> +275. <a href="#521">BREAKING THE TABU</a><br> +276. <a href="#525">SURF BATHING</a><br> +277. <a href="#526">SURF BATHING A FAILURE</a><br> +278. <a href="#527">CITY OF REFUGE</a><br> +279. <a href="#529">THE QUEEN'S ROCK</a><br> +280. <a href="#531">TAIL-PIECE</a><br> +281. <a href="#533">THE PILLAR OF FIRE</a><br> +282. <a href="#535">THE CRATER</a><br> +283. <a href="#539">BROKE THROUGH</a><br> +284. <a href="#540">FIRE FOUNTAINS</a><br> +285. <a href="#542">LAVA STREAM</a><br> +286. <a href="#543">A TIDAL WAVE</a><br> +287. <a href="#545">TRIP ON THE MILKY WAY</a><br> +288. <a href="#547">A VIEW IN THE TAO VALLEY</a><br> +289. <a href="#549">MAGNIFICENT SPORT</a><br> +290. <a href="#553">ELEVEN MILES TO SEE</a><br> +291. <a href="#554">CHASED BY A STORM</a><br> +292. <a href="#555">LEAVING WORK</a><br> +293. <a href="#557">TAIL-PIECE</a><br> +294. <a href="#559">OUR AMUSEMENTS</a><br> +295. <a href="#561">SEVERE CASE OF STAGE FRIGHT</a><br> +296. <a href="#562">MY THREE PARQUETTE ALLIES</a><br> +297. <a href="#562">SAWYER IN THE CIRCLE</a><br> +298. <a href="#567">A PREDICAMENT</a><br> +299. <a href="#569">THE BEST OF THE JOKE</a><br> +300. <a href="#570">THE END</a><br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br> + + + + +<a name="ch71"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXI.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>At four o'clock in the afternoon we were winding down a +mountain of dreary and desolate lava to the sea, and closing our +pleasant land journey. This lava is the accumulation of ages; one +torrent of fire after another has rolled down here in old times, +and built up the island structure higher and higher. Underneath, +it is honey-combed with caves; it would be of no use to dig wells +in such a place; they would not hold water—you would not find +any for them to hold, for that matter. Consequently, the planters +depend upon cisterns.</p> + +<p>The last lava flow occurred here so long ago that there are +none now living who witnessed it. In one place it enclosed and +burned down a grove of cocoa-nut trees, and the holes in the lava +where the trunks stood are still visible; their sides retain the +impression of the bark; the trees fell upon the burning river, +and becoming partly submerged, left in it the perfect counterpart +of every knot and branch and leaf, and even nut, for curiosity +seekers of a long distant day to gaze upon and wonder at.</p> + +<p>There were doubtless plenty of Kanaka sentinels on guard +hereabouts at that time, but they did not leave casts of their +figures in the lava as the Roman sentinels at Herculaneum and +Pompeii did. It is a pity it is so, because such things are so +interesting; but so it is. They probably went away. They went +away early, perhaps. However, they had their merits; the Romans +exhibited the higher pluck, but the Kanakas showed the sounder +judgment.</p> + +<p>Shortly we came in sight of that spot whose history is so +familiar to every school-boy in the wide world—Kealakekua +Bay—the place where Captain Cook, the great circumnavigator, was +killed by the natives, nearly a hundred years ago. The setting +sun was flaming upon it, a Summer shower was falling, and it was +spanned by two magnificent rainbows. Two men who were in advance +of us rode through one of these and for a moment their garments +shone with a more than regal splendor. Why did not Captain Cook +have taste enough to call his great discovery the Rainbow +Islands? These charming spectacles are present to you at every +turn; they are common in all the islands; they are visible every +day, and frequently at night also—not the silvery bow we see +once in an age in the States, by moonlight, but barred with all +bright and beautiful colors, like the children of the sun and +rain. I saw one of them a few nights ago. What the sailors call +"raindogs"—little patches of rainbow—are often seen drifting +about the heavens in these latitudes, like stained cathedral +windows.</p> + +<p>Kealakekua Bay is a little curve like the last kink of a +snail-shell, winding deep into the land, seemingly not more than +a mile wide from shore to shore. It is bounded on one side—where +the murder was done—by a little flat plain, on which stands a +cocoanut grove and some ruined houses; a steep wall of lava, a +thousand feet high at the upper end and three or four hundred at +the lower, comes down from the mountain and bounds the inner +extremity of it. From this wall the place takes its name, +Kealakekua, which in the native tongue signifies "The Pathway of +the Gods." They say, (and still believe, in spite of their +liberal education in Christianity), that the great god Lono, who +used to live upon the hillside, always traveled that causeway +when urgent business connected with heavenly affairs called him +down to the seashore in a hurry.</p> + +<p>As the red sun looked across the placid ocean through the +tall, clean stems of the cocoanut trees, like a blooming whiskey +bloat through the bars of a city prison, I went and stood in the +edge of the water on the flat rock pressed by Captain Cook's feet +when the blow was dealt which took away his life, and tried to +picture in my mind the doomed man struggling in the midst of the +multitude of exasperated savages—the men in the ship crowding to +the vessel's side and gazing in anxious dismay toward the +shore—the—but I discovered that I could not do it.</p> + +<a name="514"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="514.jpg (93K)" src="images/514.jpg" height="501" width="605"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>It was growing dark, the rain began to fall, we could see that +the distant Boomerang was helplessly becalmed at sea, and so I +adjourned to the cheerless little box of a warehouse and sat down +to smoke and think, and wish the ship would make the land—for we +had not eaten much for ten hours and were viciously hungry.</p> + +<p>Plain unvarnished history takes the romance out of Captain +Cook's assassination, and renders a deliberate verdict of +justifiable homicide. Wherever he went among the islands, he was +cordially received and welcomed by the inhabitants, and his ships +lavishly supplied with all manner of food. He returned these +kindnesses with insult and ill- treatment. Perceiving that the +people took him for the long vanished and lamented god Lono, he +encouraged them in the delusion for the sake of the limitless +power it gave him; but during the famous disturbance at this +spot, and while he and his comrades were surrounded by fifteen +thousand maddened savages, he received a hurt and betrayed his +earthly origin with a groan. It was his death-warrant. Instantly +a shout went up: "He groans!—he is not a god!" So they closed in +upon him and dispatched him.</p> + +<p>His flesh was stripped from the bones and burned (except nine +pounds of it which were sent on board the ships). The heart was +hung up in a native hut, where it was found and eaten by three +children, who mistook it for the heart of a dog. One of these +children grew to be a very old man, and died in Honolulu a few +years ago. Some of Cook's bones were recovered and consigned to +the deep by the officers of the ships.</p> + +<p>Small blame should attach to the natives for the killing of +Cook. They treated him well. In return, he abused them. He and +his men inflicted bodily injury upon many of them at different +times, and killed at least three of them before they offered any +proportionate retaliation.</p> + +<p>Near the shore we found "Cook's Monument"—only a cocoanut +stump, four feet high and about a foot in diameter at the butt. +It had lava boulders piled around its base to hold it up and keep +it in its place, and it was entirely sheathed over, from top to +bottom, with rough, discolored sheets of copper, such as ships' +bottoms are coppered with. Each sheet had a rude inscription +scratched upon it—with a nail, apparently—and in every case the +execution was wretched. Most of these merely recorded the visits +of British naval commanders to the spot, but one of them bore +this legend:</p> + +<p>"Near this spot fell CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, The Distinguished +Circumnavigator, Who Discovered these Islands A. D. 1778."</p> + +<p>After Cook's murder, his second in command, on board the ship, +opened fire upon the swarms of natives on the beach, and one of +his cannon balls cut this cocoanut tree short off and left this +monumental stump standing. It looked sad and lonely enough to us, +out there in the rainy twilight. But there is no other monument +to Captain Cook. True, up on the mountain side we had passed by a +large inclosure like an ample hog-pen, built of lava blocks, +which marks the spot where Cook's flesh was stripped from his +bones and burned; but this is not properly a monument since it +was erected by the natives themselves, and less to do honor to +the circumnavigator than for the sake of convenience in roasting +him. A thing like a guide-board was elevated above this pen on a +tall pole, and formerly there was an inscription upon it +describing the memorable occurrence that had there taken place; +but the sun and the wind have long ago so defaced it as to render +it illegible.</p> + +<p>Toward midnight a fine breeze sprang up and the schooner soon +worked herself into the bay and cast anchor. The boat came ashore +for us, and in a little while the clouds and the rain were all +gone. The moon was beaming tranquilly down on land and sea, and +we two were stretched upon the deck sleeping the refreshing sleep +and dreaming the happy dreams that are only vouchsafed to the +weary and the innocent.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch72"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>In the breezy morning we went ashore and visited the ruined +temple of the last god Lono. The high chief cook of this +temple—the priest who presided over it and roasted the human +sacrifices—was uncle to Obookia, and at one time that youth was +an apprentice-priest under him. Obookia was a young native of +fine mind, who, together with three other native boys, was taken +to New England by the captain of a whaleship during the reign of +Kamehameha I, and they were the means of attracting the attention +of the religious world to their country. This resulted in the +sending of missionaries there. And this Obookia was the very same +sensitive savage who sat down on the church steps and wept +because his people did not have the Bible. That incident has been +very elaborately painted in many a charming Sunday School +book—aye, and told so plaintively and so tenderly that I have +cried over it in Sunday School myself, on general principles, +although at a time when I did not know much and could not +understand why the people of the Sandwich Islands needed to worry +so much about it as long as they did not know there was a Bible +at all.</p> + +<p>Obookia was converted and educated, and was to have returned +to his native land with the first missionaries, had he lived. The +other native youths made the voyage, and two of them did good +service, but the third, William Kanui, fell from grace afterward, +for a time, and when the gold excitement broke out in California +he journeyed thither and went to mining, although he was fifty +years old. He succeeded pretty well, but the failure of Page, +Bacon & Co. relieved him of six thousand dollars, and then, to +all intents and purposes, he was a bankrupt in his old age and he +resumed service in the pulpit again. He died in Honolulu in +1864.</p> + +<p>Quite a broad tract of land near the temple, extending from +the sea to the mountain top, was sacred to the god Lono in olden +times—so sacred that if a common native set his sacrilegious +foot upon it it was judicious for him to make his will, because +his time had come. He might go around it by water, but he could +not cross it. It was well sprinkled with pagan temples and +stocked with awkward, homely idols carved out of logs of wood. +There was a temple devoted to prayers for rain—and with fine +sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on the mountain side +that if you prayed there twenty-four times a day for rain you +would be likely to get it every time. You would seldom get to +your Amen before you would have to hoist your umbrella.</p> + +<a name="518"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="518.jpg (54K)" src="images/518.jpg" height="397" width="479"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>And there was a large temple near at hand which was built in a +single night, in the midst of storm and thunder and rain, by the +ghastly hands of dead men! Tradition says that by the weird glare +of the lightning a noiseless multitude of phantoms were seen at +their strange labor far up the mountain side at dead of +night—flitting hither and thither and bearing great lava-blocks +clasped in their nerveless fingers—appearing and disappearing as +the pallid lustre fell upon their forms and faded away again. +Even to this day, it is said, the natives hold this dread +structure in awe and reverence, and will not pass by it in the +night.</p> + +<a name="519"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="519.jpg (43K)" src="images/519.jpg" height="338" width="468"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>At noon I observed a bevy of nude native young ladies bathing +in the sea, and went and sat down on their clothes to keep them +from being stolen. I begged them to come out, for the sea was +rising and I was satisfied that they were running some risk. But +they were not afraid, and presently went on with their sport. +They were finished swimmers and divers, and enjoyed themselves to +the last degree.</p> + +<p>They swam races, splashed and ducked and tumbled each other +about, and filled the air with their laughter. It is said that +the first thing an Islander learns is how to swim; learning to +walk being a matter of smaller consequence, comes afterward. One +hears tales of native men and women swimming ashore from vessels +many miles at sea—more miles, indeed, than I dare vouch for or +even mention. And they tell of a native diver who went down in +thirty or forty-foot waters and brought up an anvil! I think he +swallowed the anvil afterward, if my memory serves me. However I +will not urge this point.</p> + +<p>I have spoken, several times, of the god Lono—I may as well +furnish two or three sentences concerning him.</p> + +<p>The idol the natives worshipped for him was a slender, +unornamented staff twelve feet long. Tradition says he was a +favorite god on the Island of Hawaii—a great king who had been +deified for meritorious services—just our own fashion of +rewarding heroes, with the difference that we would have made him +a Postmaster instead of a god, no doubt. In an angry moment he +slew his wife, a goddess named Kaikilani Aiii. Remorse of +conscience drove him mad, and tradition presents us the singular +spectacle of a god traveling "on the shoulder;" for in his +gnawing grief he wandered about from place to place boxing and +wrestling with all whom he met. Of course this pastime soon lost +its novelty, inasmuch as it must necessarily have been the case +that when so powerful a deity sent a frail human opponent "to +grass" he never came back any more. Therefore, he instituted +games called makahiki, and ordered that they should be held in +his honor, and then sailed for foreign lands on a three-cornered +raft, stating that he would return some day—and that was the +last of Lono. He was never seen any more; his raft got swamped, +perhaps. But the people always expected his return, and thus they +were easily led to accept Captain Cook as the restored god.</p> + +<p>Some of the old natives believed Cook was Lono to the day of +their death; but many did not, for they could not understand how +he could die if he was a god.</p> + +<p>Only a mile or so from Kealakekua Bay is a spot of historic +interest—the place where the last battle was fought for +idolatry. Of course we visited it, and came away as wise as most +people do who go and gaze upon such mementoes of the past when in +an unreflective mood.</p> + +<p>While the first missionaries were on their way around the +Horn, the idolatrous customs which had obtained in the island, as +far back as tradition reached were suddenly broken up. Old +Kamehameha I., was dead, and his son, Liholiho, the new King was +a free liver, a roystering, dissolute fellow, and hated the +restraints of the ancient tabu. His assistant in the Government, +Kaahumanu, the Queen dowager, was proud and high-spirited, and +hated the tabu because it restricted the privileges of her sex +and degraded all women very nearly to the level of brutes. So the +case stood. Liholiho had half a mind to put his foot down, +Kaahumahu had a whole mind to badger him into doing it, and +whiskey did the rest. It was probably the rest. It was probably +the first time whiskey ever prominently figured as an aid to +civilization. Liholiho came up to Kailua as drunk as a piper, and +attended a great feast; the determined Queen spurred his drunken +courage up to a reckless pitch, and then, while all the multitude +stared in blank dismay, he moved deliberately forward and sat +down with the women!</p> + +<p>They saw him eat from the same vessel with them, and were +appalled! Terrible moments drifted slowly by, and still the King +ate, still he lived, still the lightnings of the insulted gods +were withheld! Then conviction came like a revelation—the +superstitions of a hundred generations passed from before the +people like a cloud, and a shout went up, "the tabu is broken! +the tabu is broken!"</p> + +<a name="521"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="521.jpg (100K)" src="images/521.jpg" height="500" width="623"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Thus did King Liholiho and his dreadful whiskey preach the +first sermon and prepare the way for the new gospel that was +speeding southward over the waves of the Atlantic.</p> + +<p>The tabu broken and destruction failing to follow the awful +sacrilege, the people, with that childlike precipitancy which has +always characterized them, jumped to the conclusion that their +gods were a weak and wretched swindle, just as they formerly +jumped to the conclusion that Captain Cook was no god, merely +because he groaned, and promptly killed him without stopping to +inquire whether a god might not groan as well as a man if it +suited his convenience to do it; and satisfied that the idols +were powerless to protect themselves they went to work at once +and pulled them down—hacked them to pieces—applied the +torch—annihilated them!</p> + +<p>The pagan priests were furious. And well they might be; they +had held the fattest offices in the land, and now they were +beggared; they had been great—they had stood above the +chiefs—and now they were vagabonds. They raised a revolt; they +scared a number of people into joining their standard, and +Bekuokalani, an ambitious offshoot of royalty, was easily +persuaded to become their leader.</p> + +<p>In the first skirmish the idolaters triumphed over the royal +army sent against them, and full of confidence they resolved to +march upon Kailua. The King sent an envoy to try and conciliate +them, and came very near being an envoy short by the operation; +the savages not only refused to listen to him, but wanted to kill +him. So the King sent his men forth under Major General Kalaimoku +and the two host met a Kuamoo. The battle was long and +fierce—men and women fighting side by side, as was the +custom—and when the day was done the rebels were flying in every +direction in hopeless panic, and idolatry and the tabu were dead +in the land!</p> + +<p>The royalists marched gayly home to Kailua glorifying the new +dispensation. "There is no power in the gods," said they; "they +are a vanity and a lie. The army with idols was weak; the army +without idols was strong and victorious!"</p> + +<p>The nation was without a religion.</p> + +<p>The missionary ship arrived in safety shortly afterward, timed +by providential exactness to meet the emergency, and the Gospel +was planted as in a virgin soil.</p> + +<a name="523"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="523.jpg (57K)" src="images/523.jpg" height="411" width="566"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch73"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXIII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>At noon, we hired a Kanaka to take us down to the ancient +ruins at Honaunan in his canoe—price two dollars—reasonable +enough, for a sea voyage of eight miles, counting both ways.</p> + +<p>The native canoe is an irresponsible looking contrivance. I +cannot think of anything to liken it to but a boy's sled runner +hollowed out, and that does not quite convey the correct idea. It +is about fifteen feet long, high and pointed at both ends, is a +foot and a half or two feet deep, and so narrow that if you +wedged a fat man into it you might not get him out again. It sits +on top of the water like a duck, but it has an outrigger and does +not upset easily, if you keep still. This outrigger is formed of +two long bent sticks like plow handles, which project from one +side, and to their outer ends is bound a curved beam composed of +an extremely light wood, which skims along the surface of the +water and thus saves you from an upset on that side, while the +outrigger's weight is not so easily lifted as to make an upset on +the other side a thing to be greatly feared. Still, until one +gets used to sitting perched upon this knifeblade, he is apt to +reason within himself that it would be more comfortable if there +were just an outrigger or so on the other side also. I had the +bow seat, and Billings sat amidships and faced the Kanaka, who +occupied the stern of the craft and did the paddling. With the +first stroke the trim shell of a thing shot out from the shore +like an arrow. There was not much to see. While we were on the +shallow water of the reef, it was pastime to look down into the +limpid depths at the large bunches of branching coral—the unique +shrubbery of the sea. We lost that, though, when we got out into +the dead blue water of the deep. But we had the picture of the +surf, then, dashing angrily against the crag- bound shore and +sending a foaming spray high into the air.</p> + +<p>There was interest in this beetling border, too, for it was +honey-combed with quaint caves and arches and tunnels, and had a +rude semblance of the dilapidated architecture of ruined keeps +and castles rising out of the restless sea. When this novelty +ceased to be a novelty, we turned our eyes shoreward and gazed at +the long mountain with its rich green forests stretching up into +the curtaining clouds, and at the specks of houses in the +rearward distance and the diminished schooner riding sleepily at +anchor. And when these grew tiresome we dashed boldly into the +midst of a school of huge, beastly porpoises engaged at their +eternal game of arching over a wave and disappearing, and then +doing it over again and keeping it up—always circling over, in +that way, like so many well- submerged wheels. But the porpoises +wheeled themselves away, and then we were thrown upon our own +resources. It did not take many minutes to discover that the sun +was blazing like a bonfire, and that the weather was of a melting +temperature. It had a drowsing effect, too. + +<p> + +<a name="525"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="525.jpg (87K)" src="images/525.jpg" height="446" width="582"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p> + +In one place we came +upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all +ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of +surf-bathing. Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred yards +out to sea, (taking a short board with him), then face the shore +and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at +the right moment he would fling his board upon its foamy crest +and himself upon the board, and here he would come whizzing by +like a bombshell! It did not seem that a lightning express train +could shoot along at a more hair-lifting speed. I tried +surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of it. I got +the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed +the connection myself.—The board struck the shore in three +quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom +about the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me. +None but natives ever master the art of surf-bathing +thoroughly.</p> + +<a name="526"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="526.jpg (33K)" src="images/526.jpg" height="334" width="325"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>At the end of an hour, we had made the four miles, and landed +on a level point of land, upon which was a wide extent of old +ruins, with many a tall cocoanut tree growing among them. Here +was the ancient City of Refuge—a vast inclosure, whose stone +walls were twenty feet thick at the base, and fifteen feet high; +an oblong square, a thousand and forty feet one way and a +fraction under seven hundred the other. Within this inclosure, in +early times, has been three rude temples; each two hundred and +ten feet long by one hundred wide, and thirteen high.</p> + +<p>In those days, if a man killed another anywhere on the island +the relatives were privileged to take the murderer's life; and +then a chase for life and liberty began—the outlawed criminal +flying through pathless forests and over mountain and plain, with +his hopes fixed upon the protecting walls of the City of Refuge, +and the avenger of blood following hotly after him!</p> + +<p>Sometimes the race was kept up to the very gates of the +temple, and the panting pair sped through long files of excited +natives, who watched the contest with flashing eye and dilated +nostril, encouraging the hunted refugee with sharp, inspiriting +ejaculations, and sending up a ringing shout of exultation when +the saving gates closed upon him and the cheated pursuer sank +exhausted at the threshold. But sometimes the flying criminal +fell under the hand of the avenger at the very door, when one +more brave stride, one more brief second of time would have +brought his feet upon the sacred ground and barred him against +all harm. Where did these isolated pagans get this idea of a City +of Refuge—this ancient Oriental custom?</p> + +<a name="527"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="527.jpg (73K)" src="images/527.jpg" height="400" width="574"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>This old sanctuary was sacred to all—even to rebels in arms +and invading armies. Once within its walls, and confession made +to the priest and absolution obtained, the wretch with a price +upon his head could go forth without fear and without danger—he +was tabu, and to harm him was death. The routed rebels in the +lost battle for idolatry fled to this place to claim sanctuary, +and many were thus saved.</p> + +<p>Close to the corner of the great inclosure is a round +structure of stone, some six or eight feet high, with a level top +about ten or twelve in diameter. This was the place of execution. +A high palisade of cocoanut piles shut out the cruel scenes from +the vulgar multitude. Here criminals were killed, the flesh +stripped from the bones and burned, and the bones secreted in +holes in the body of the structure. If the man had been guilty of +a high crime, the entire corpse was burned.</p> + +<p>The walls of the temple are a study. The same food for +speculation that is offered the visitor to the Pyramids of Egypt +he will find here—the mystery of how they were constructed by a +people unacquainted with science and mechanics. The natives have +no invention of their own for hoisting heavy weights, they had no +beasts of burden, and they have never even shown any knowledge of +the properties of the lever. Yet some of the lava blocks quarried +out, brought over rough, broken ground, and built into this wall, +six or seven feet from the ground, are of prodigious size and +would weigh tons. How did they transport and how raise them?</p> + +<p>Both the inner and outer surfaces of the walls present a +smooth front and are very creditable specimens of masonry. The +blocks are of all manner of shapes and sizes, but yet are fitted +together with the neatest exactness. The gradual narrowing of the +wall from the base upward is accurately preserved.</p> + +<p>No cement was used, but the edifice is firm and compact and is +capable of resisting storm and decay for centuries. Who built +this temple, and how was it built, and when, are mysteries that +may never be unraveled. Outside of these ancient walls lies a +sort of coffin-shaped stone eleven feet four inches long and +three feet square at the small end (it would weigh a few thousand +pounds), which the high chief who held sway over this district +many centuries ago brought thither on his shoulder one day to use +as a lounge! This circumstance is established by the most +reliable traditions. He used to lie down on it, in his indolent +way, and keep an eye on his subjects at work for him and see that +there was no "soldiering" done. And no doubt there was not any +done to speak of, because he was a man of that sort of build that +incites to attention to business on the part of an employee.</p> + +<p>He was fourteen or fifteen feet high. When he stretched +himself at full length on his lounge, his legs hung down over the +end, and when he snored he woke the dead. These facts are all +attested by irrefragable tradition.</p> + +<a name="529"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="529.jpg (86K)" src="images/529.jpg" height="498" width="598"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>On the other side of the temple is a monstrous seven-ton rock, +eleven feet long, seven feet wide and three feet thick. It is +raised a foot or a foot and a half above the ground, and rests +upon half a dozen little stony pedestals. The same old +fourteen-footer brought it down from the mountain, merely for fun +(he had his own notions about fun), and propped it up as we find +it now and as others may find it a century hence, for it would +take a score of horses to budge it from its position. They say +that fifty or sixty years ago the proud Queen Kaahumanu used to +fly to this rock for safety, whenever she had been making trouble +with her fierce husband, and hide under it until his wrath was +appeased. But these Kanakas will lie, and this statement is one +of their ablest efforts—for Kaahumanu was six feet high—she was +bulky—she was built like an ox—and she could no more have +squeezed herself under that rock than she could have passed +between the cylinders of a sugar mill. What could she gain by it, +even if she succeeded? To be chased and abused by a savage +husband could not be otherwise than humiliating to her high +spirit, yet it could never make her feel so flat as an hour's +repose under that rock would.</p> + +<p>We walked a mile over a raised macadamized road of uniform +width; a road paved with flat stones and exhibiting in its every +detail a considerable degree of engineering skill. Some say that +that wise old pagan, Kamehameha I planned and built it, but +others say it was built so long before his time that the +knowledge of who constructed it has passed out of the traditions. +In either case, however, as the handiwork of an untaught and +degraded race it is a thing of pleasing interest. The stones are +worn and smooth, and pushed apart in places, so that the road has +the exact appearance of those ancient paved highways leading out +of Rome which one sees in pictures.</p> + +<p>The object of our tramp was to visit a great natural curiosity +at the base of the foothills—a congealed cascade of lava. Some +old forgotten volcanic eruption sent its broad river of fire down +the mountain side here, and it poured down in a great torrent +from an overhanging bluff some fifty feet high to the ground +below. The flaming torrent cooled in the winds from the sea, and +remains there to-day, all seamed, and frothed and rippled a +petrified Niagara. It is very picturesque, and withal so natural +that one might almost imagine it still flowed. A smaller stream +trickled over the cliff and built up an isolated pyramid about +thirty feet high, which has the semblance of a mass of large +gnarled and knotted vines and roots and stems intricately twisted +and woven together.</p> + +<p>We passed in behind the cascade and the pyramid, and found the +bluff pierced by several cavernous tunnels, whose crooked courses +we followed a long distance.</p> + +<p>Two of these winding tunnels stand as proof of Nature's mining +abilities. Their floors are level, they are seven feet wide, and +their roofs are gently arched. Their height is not uniform, +however. We passed through one a hundred feet long, which leads +through a spur of the hill and opens out well up in the sheer +wall of a precipice whose foot rests in the waves of the sea. It +is a commodious tunnel, except that there are occasional places +in it where one must stoop to pass under. The roof is lava, of +course, and is thickly studded with little lava-pointed icicles +an inch long, which hardened as they dripped. They project as +closely together as the iron teeth of a corn-sheller, and if one +will stand up straight and walk any distance there, he can get +his hair combed free of charge.</p> + +<a name="531"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="531.jpg (55K)" src="images/531.jpg" height="350" width="494"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch74"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXIV.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>We got back to the schooner in good time, and then sailed down +to Kau, where we disembarked and took final leave of the vessel. +Next day we bought horses and bent our way over the summer-clad +mountain-terraces, toward the great volcano of Kilauea +(Ke-low-way-ah). We made nearly a two days' journey of it, but +that was on account of laziness. Toward sunset on the second day, +we reached an elevation of some four thousand feet above sea +level, and as we picked our careful way through billowy wastes of +lava long generations ago stricken dead and cold in the climax of +its tossing fury, we began to come upon signs of the near +presence of the volcano—signs in the nature of ragged fissures +that discharged jets of sulphurous vapor into the air, hot from +the molten ocean down in the bowels of the mountain.</p> + +<p>Shortly the crater came into view. I have seen Vesuvius since, +but it was a mere toy, a child's volcano, a soup-kettle, compared +to this. Mount Vesuvius is a shapely cone thirty-six hundred feet +high; its crater an inverted cone only three hundred feet deep, +and not more than a thousand feet in diameter, if as much as +that; its fires meagre, modest, and docile.—But here was a vast, +perpendicular, walled cellar, nine hundred feet deep in some +places, thirteen hundred in others, level- floored, and ten miles +in circumference! Here was a yawning pit upon whose floor the +armies of Russia could camp, and have room to spare.</p> + +<p>Perched upon the edge of the crater, at the opposite end from +where we stood, was a small look-out house—say three miles away. +It assisted us, by comparison, to comprehend and appreciate the +great depth of the basin—it looked like a tiny martin-box +clinging at the eaves of a cathedral. After some little time +spent in resting and looking and ciphering, we hurried on to the +hotel.</p> + +<p>By the path it is half a mile from the Volcano House to the +lookout- house. After a hearty supper we waited until it was +thoroughly dark and then started to the crater. The first glance +in that direction revealed a scene of wild beauty. There was a +heavy fog over the crater and it was splendidly illuminated by +the glare from the fires below. The illumination was two miles +wide and a mile high, perhaps; and if you ever, on a dark night +and at a distance beheld the light from thirty or forty blocks of +distant buildings all on fire at once, reflected strongly against +over-hanging clouds, you can form a fair idea of what this looked +like.</p> + +<a name="533"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="533.jpg (37K)" src="images/533.jpg" height="475" width="314"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>A colossal column of cloud towered to a great height in the +air immediately above the crater, and the outer swell of every +one of its vast folds was dyed with a rich crimson luster, which +was subdued to a pale rose tint in the depressions between. It +glowed like a muffled torch and stretched upward to a dizzy +height toward the zenith. I thought it just possible that its +like had not been seen since the children of Israel wandered on +their long march through the desert so many centuries ago over a +path illuminated by the mysterious "pillar of fire." And I was +sure that I now had a vivid conception of what the majestic +"pillar of fire" was like, which almost amounted to a +revelation.</p> + +<p>Arrived at the little thatched lookout house, we rested our +elbows on the railing in front and looked abroad over the wide +crater and down over the sheer precipice at the seething fires +beneath us. The view was a startling improvement on my daylight +experience. I turned to see the effect on the balance of the +company and found the reddest-faced set of men I almost ever saw. +In the strong light every countenance glowed like red-hot iron, +every shoulder was suffused with crimson and shaded rearward into +dingy, shapeless obscurity! The place below looked like the +infernal regions and these men like half-cooled devils just come +up on a furlough.</p> + +<p>I turned my eyes upon the volcano again. The "cellar" was +tolerably well lighted up. For a mile and a half in front of us +and half a mile on either side, the floor of the abyss was +magnificently illuminated; beyond these limits the mists hung +down their gauzy curtains and cast a deceptive gloom over all +that made the twinkling fires in the remote corners of the crater +seem countless leagues removed—made them seem like the +camp-fires of a great army far away. Here was room for the +imagination to work! You could imagine those lights the width of +a continent away—and that hidden under the intervening darkness +were hills, and winding rivers, and weary wastes of plain and +desert—and even then the tremendous vista stretched on, and on, +and on!—to the fires and far beyond! You could not compass +it—it was the idea of eternity made tangible—and the longest +end of it made visible to the naked eye!</p> + +<a name="535"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="535.jpg (125K)" src="images/535.jpg" height="693" width="569"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The greater part of the vast floor of the desert under us was +as black as ink, and apparently smooth and level; but over a mile +square of it was ringed and streaked and striped with a thousand +branching streams of liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire! It +looked like a colossal railroad map of the State of Massachusetts +done in chain lightning on a midnight sky. Imagine it—imagine a +coal-black sky shivered into a tangled net- work of angry +fire!</p> + +<p>Here and there were gleaming holes a hundred feet in diameter, +broken in the dark crust, and in them the melted lava—the color +a dazzling white just tinged with yellow—was boiling and surging +furiously; and from these holes branched numberless bright +torrents in many directions, like the spokes of a wheel, and kept +a tolerably straight course for a while and then swept round in +huge rainbow curves, or made a long succession of sharp +worm-fence angles, which looked precisely like the fiercest +jagged lightning. These streams met other streams, and they +mingled with and crossed and recrossed each other in every +conceivable direction, like skate tracks on a popular skating +ground. Sometimes streams twenty or thirty feet wide flowed from +the holes to some distance without dividing—and through the +opera-glasses we could see that they ran down small, steep hills +and were genuine cataracts of fire, white at their source, but +soon cooling and turning to the richest red, grained with +alternate lines of black and gold. Every now and then masses of +the dark crust broke away and floated slowly down these streams +like rafts down a river. Occasionally the molten lava flowing +under the superincumbent crust broke through—split a dazzling +streak, from five hundred to a thousand feet long, like a sudden +flash of lightning, and then acre after acre of the cold lava +parted into fragments, turned up edgewise like cakes of ice when +a great river breaks up, plunged downward and were swallowed in +the crimson cauldron. Then the wide expanse of the "thaw" +maintained a ruddy glow for a while, but shortly cooled and +became black and level again. During a "thaw," every dismembered +cake was marked by a glittering white border which was superbly +shaded inward by aurora borealis rays, which were a flaming +yellow where they joined the white border, and from thence toward +their points tapered into glowing crimson, then into a rich, pale +carmine, and finally into a faint blush that held its own a +moment and then dimmed and turned black. Some of the streams +preferred to mingle together in a tangle of fantastic circles, +and then they looked something like the confusion of ropes one +sees on a ship's deck when she has just taken in sail and dropped +anchor—provided one can imagine those ropes on fire.</p> + +<p>Through the glasses, the little fountains scattered about +looked very beautiful. They boiled, and coughed, and spluttered, +and discharged sprays of stringy red fire—of about the +consistency of mush, for instance—from ten to fifteen feet into +the air, along with a shower of brilliant white sparks—a quaint +and unnatural mingling of gouts of blood and snow-flakes!</p> + +<p>We had circles and serpents and streaks of lightning all +twined and wreathed and tied together, without a break throughout +an area more than a mile square (that amount of ground was +covered, though it was not strictly "square"), and it was with a +feeling of placid exultation that we reflected that many years +had elapsed since any visitor had seen such a splendid +display—since any visitor had seen anything more than the now +snubbed and insignificant "North" and "South" lakes in action. We +had been reading old files of Hawaiian newspapers and the "Record +Book" at the Volcano House, and were posted.</p> + +<p>I could see the North Lake lying out on the black floor away +off in the outer edge of our panorama, and knitted to it by a +web-work of lava streams. In its individual capacity it looked +very little more respectable than a schoolhouse on fire. True, it +was about nine hundred feet long and two or three hundred wide, +but then, under the present circumstances, it necessarily +appeared rather insignificant, and besides it was so distant from +us.</p> + +<p>I forgot to say that the noise made by the bubbling lava is +not great, heard as we heard it from our lofty perch. It makes +three distinct sounds—a rushing, a hissing, and a coughing or +puffing sound; and if you stand on the brink and close your eyes +it is no trick at all to imagine that you are sweeping down a +river on a large low-pressure steamer, and that you hear the +hissing of the steam about her boilers, the puffing from her +escape-pipes and the churning rush of the water abaft her wheels. +The smell of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to a +sinner.</p> + +<p>We left the lookout house at ten o'clock in a half cooked +condition, because of the heat from Pele's furnaces, and wrapping +up in blankets, for the night was cold, we returned to our +Hotel.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch75"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXV.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>The next night was appointed for a visit to the bottom of the +crater, for we desired to traverse its floor and see the "North +Lake" (of fire) which lay two miles away, toward the further +wall. After dark half a dozen of us set out, with lanterns and +native guides, and climbed down a crazy, thousand-foot pathway in +a crevice fractured in the crater wall, and reached the bottom in +safety.</p> + +<p>The irruption of the previous evening had spent its force and +the floor looked black and cold; but when we ran out upon it we +found it hot yet, to the feet, and it was likewise riven with +crevices which revealed the underlying fires gleaming +vindictively. A neighboring cauldron was threatening to overflow, +and this added to the dubiousness of the situation. So the native +guides refused to continue the venture, and then every body +deserted except a stranger named Marlette. He said he had been in +the crater a dozen times in daylight and believed he could find +his way through it at night. He thought that a run of three +hundred yards would carry us over the hottest part of the floor +and leave us our shoe-soles. His pluck gave me back-bone. We took +one lantern and instructed the guides to hang the other to the +roof of the look-out house to serve as a beacon for us in case we +got lost, and then the party started back up the precipice and +Marlette and I made our run. We skipped over the hot floor and +over the red crevices with brisk dispatch and reached the cold +lava safe but with pretty warm feet. Then we took things +leisurely and comfortably, jumping tolerably wide and probably +bottomless chasms, and threading our way through picturesque lava +upheavals with considerable confidence. When we got fairly away +from the cauldrons of boiling fire, we seemed to be in a gloomy +desert, and a suffocatingly dark one, surrounded by dim walls +that seemed to tower to the sky. The only cheerful objects were +the glinting stars high overhead.</p> + +<p>By and by Marlette shouted "Stop!" I never stopped quicker in +my life. I asked what the matter was. He said we were out of the +path. He said we must not try to go on till we found it again, +for we were surrounded with beds of rotten lava through which we +could easily break and plunge down a thousand feet. I thought +eight hundred would answer for me, and was about to say so when +Marlette partly proved his statement by accidentally crushing +through and disappearing to his arm-pits.</p> + +<a name="539"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="539.jpg (43K)" src="images/539.jpg" height="334" width="478"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>He got out and we hunted for the path with the lantern. He +said there was only one path and that it was but vaguely defined. +We could not find it. The lava surface was all alike in the +lantern light. But he was an ingenious man. He said it was not +the lantern that had informed him that we were out of the path, +but his feet. He had noticed a crisp grinding of fine +lava-needles under his feet, and some instinct reminded him that +in the path these were all worn away. So he put the lantern +behind him, and began to search with his boots instead of his +eyes. It was good sagacity. The first time his foot touched a +surface that did not grind under it he announced that the trail +was found again; and after that we kept up a sharp listening for +the rasping sound and it always warned us in time.</p> + +<p>It was a long tramp, but an exciting one. We reached the North +Lake between ten and eleven o'clock, and sat down on a huge +overhanging lava- shelf, tired but satisfied. The spectacle +presented was worth coming double the distance to see. Under us, +and stretching away before us, was a heaving sea of molten fire +of seemingly limitless extent. The glare from it was so blinding +that it was some time before we could bear to look upon it +steadily.</p> + +<p>It was like gazing at the sun at noon-day, except that the +glare was not quite so white. At unequal distances all around the +shores of the lake were nearly white-hot chimneys or hollow drums +of lava, four or five feet high, and up through them were +bursting gorgeous sprays of lava-gouts and gem spangles, some +white, some red and some golden—a ceaseless bombardment, and one +that fascinated the eye with its unapproachable splendor. The +mere distant jets, sparkling up through an intervening gossamer +veil of vapor, seemed miles away; and the further the curving +ranks of fiery fountains receded, the more fairy-like and +beautiful they appeared.</p> + +<a name="540"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="540.jpg (78K)" src="images/540.jpg" height="454" width="574"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Now and then the surging bosom of the lake under our noses +would calm down ominously and seem to be gathering strength for +an enterprise; and then all of a sudden a red dome of lava of the +bulk of an ordinary dwelling would heave itself aloft like an +escaping balloon, then burst asunder, and out of its heart would +flit a pale-green film of vapor, and float upward and vanish in +the darkness—a released soul soaring homeward from captivity +with the damned, no doubt. The crashing plunge of the ruined dome +into the lake again would send a world of seething billows +lashing against the shores and shaking the foundations of our +perch. By and by, a loosened mass of the hanging shelf we sat on +tumbled into the lake, jarring the surroundings like an +earthquake and delivering a suggestion that may have been +intended for a hint, and may not. We did not wait to see.</p> + +<p>We got lost again on our way back, and were more than an hour +hunting for the path. We were where we could see the beacon +lantern at the look-out house at the time, but thought it was a +star and paid no attention to it. We reached the hotel at two +o'clock in the morning pretty well fagged out.</p> + +<p>Kilauea never overflows its vast crater, but bursts a passage +for its lava through the mountain side when relief is necessary, +and then the destruction is fearful. About 1840 it rent its +overburdened stomach and sent a broad river of fire careering +down to the sea, which swept away forests, huts, plantations and +every thing else that lay in its path. The stream was five miles +broad, in places, and two hundred feet deep, and the distance it +traveled was forty miles. It tore up and bore away acre-patches +of land on its bosom like rafts—rocks, trees and all intact. At +night the red glare was visible a hundred miles at sea; and at a +distance of forty miles fine print could be read at midnight. The +atmosphere was poisoned with sulphurous vapors and choked with +falling ashes, pumice stones and cinders; countless columns of +smoke rose up and blended together in a tumbled canopy that hid +the heavens and glowed with a ruddy flush reflected from the +fires below; here and there jets of lava sprung hundreds of feet +into the air and burst into rocket-sprays that returned to earth +in a crimson rain; and all the while the laboring mountain shook +with Nature's great palsy and voiced its distress in moanings and +the muffled booming of subterranean thunders.</p> + +<a name="542"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="542.jpg (103K)" src="images/542.jpg" height="444" width="734"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Fishes were killed for twenty miles along the shore, where the +lava entered the sea. The earthquakes caused some loss of human +life, and a prodigious tidal wave swept inland, carrying every +thing before it and drowning a number of natives. The devastation +consummated along the route traversed by the river of lava was +complete and incalculable. Only a Pompeii and a Herculaneum were +needed at the foot of Kilauea to make the story of the irruption +immortal.</p> + +<a name="543"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="543.jpg (113K)" src="images/543.jpg" height="480" width="729"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch76"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXVI.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>We rode horseback all around the island of Hawaii (the crooked +road making the distance two hundred miles), and enjoyed the +journey very much. We were more than a week making the trip, +because our Kanaka horses would not go by a house or a hut +without stopping—whip and spur could not alter their minds about +it, and so we finally found that it economized time to let them +have their way. Upon inquiry the mystery was explained: the +natives are such thorough-going gossips that they never pass a +house without stopping to swap news, and consequently their +horses learn to regard that sort of thing as an essential part of +the whole duty of man, and his salvation not to be compassed +without it. However, at a former crisis of my life I had once +taken an aristocratic young lady out driving, behind a horse that +had just retired from a long and honorable career as the moving +impulse of a milk wagon, and so this present experience awoke a +reminiscent sadness in me in place of the exasperation more +natural to the occasion. I remembered how helpless I was that +day, and how humiliated; how ashamed I was of having intimated to +the girl that I had always owned the horse and was accustomed to +grandeur; how hard I tried to appear easy, and even vivacious, +under suffering that was consuming my vitals; how placidly and +maliciously the girl smiled, and kept on smiling, while my hot +blushes baked themselves into a permanent blood-pudding in my +face; how the horse ambled from one side of the street to the +other and waited complacently before every third house two +minutes and a quarter while I belabored his back and reviled him +in my heart; how I tried to keep him from turning corners and +failed; how I moved heaven and earth to get him out of town, and +did not succeed; how he traversed the entire settlement and +delivered imaginary milk at a hundred and sixty-two different +domiciles, and how he finally brought up at a dairy depot and +refused to budge further, thus rounding and completing the +revealment of what the plebeian service of his life had been; +how, in eloquent silence, I walked the girl home, and how, when I +took leave of her, her parting remark scorched my soul and +appeared to blister me all over: she said that my horse was a +fine, capable animal, and I must have taken great comfort in him +in my time—but that if I would take along some milk-tickets next +time, and appear to deliver them at the various halting places, +it might expedite his movements a little. There was a coolness +between us after that.</p> + +<a name="545"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="545.jpg (90K)" src="images/545.jpg" height="493" width="616"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>In one place in the island of Hawaii, we saw a laced and +ruffled cataract of limpid water leaping from a sheer precipice +fifteen hundred feet high; but that sort of scenery finds its +stanchest ally in the arithmetic rather than in spectacular +effect. If one desires to be so stirred by a poem of Nature +wrought in the happily commingled graces of picturesque rocks, +glimpsed distances, foliage, color, shifting lights and shadows, +and failing water, that the tears almost come into his eyes so +potent is the charm exerted, he need not go away from America to +enjoy such an experience. The Rainbow Fall, in Watkins Glen +(N.Y.), on the Erie railway, is an example. It would recede into +pitiable insignificance if the callous tourist drew on arithmetic +on it; but left to compete for the honors simply on scenic grace +and beauty—the grand, the august and the sublime being barred +the contest—it could challenge the old world and the new to +produce its peer.</p> + +<p>In one locality, on our journey, we saw some horses that had +been born and reared on top of the mountains, above the range of +running water, and consequently they had never drank that fluid +in their lives, but had been always accustomed to quenching their +thirst by eating dew-laden or shower-wetted leaves. And now it +was destructively funny to see them sniff suspiciously at a pail +of water, and then put in their noses and try to take a bite out +of the fluid, as if it were a solid. Finding it liquid, they +would snatch away their heads and fall to trembling, snorting and +showing other evidences of fright. When they became convinced at +last that the water was friendly and harmless, they thrust in +their noses up to their eyes, brought out a mouthful of water, +and proceeded to chew it complacently. We saw a man coax, kick +and spur one of them five or ten minutes before he could make it +cross a running stream. It spread its nostrils, distended its +eyes and trembled all over, just as horses customarily do in the +presence of a serpent—and for aught I know it thought the +crawling stream was a serpent.</p> + +<p>In due course of time our journey came to an end at Kawaehae +(usually pronounced To-a-hi—and before we find fault with this +elaborate orthographical method of arriving at such an +unostentatious result, let us lop off the ugh from our word +"though"). I made this horseback trip on a mule. I paid ten +dollars for him at Kau (Kah-oo), added four to get him shod, rode +him two hundred miles, and then sold him for fifteen dollars. I +mark the circumstance with a white stone (in the absence of +chalk—for I never saw a white stone that a body could mark +anything with, though out of respect for the ancients I have +tried it often enough); for up to that day and date it was the +first strictly commercial transaction I had ever entered into, +and come out winner. We returned to Honolulu, and from thence +sailed to the island of Maui, and spent several weeks there very +pleasantly. I still remember, with a sense of indolent luxury, a +picnicing excursion up a romantic gorge there, called the Iao +Valley. The trail lay along the edge of a brawling stream in the +bottom of the gorge—a shady route, for it was well roofed with +the verdant domes of forest trees. Through openings in the +foliage we glimpsed picturesque scenery that revealed ceaseless +changes and new charms with every step of our progress. +Perpendicular walls from one to three thousand feet high guarded +the way, and were sumptuously plumed with varied foliage, in +places, and in places swathed in waving ferns. Passing shreds of +cloud trailed their shadows across these shining fronts, mottling +them with blots; billowy masses of white vapor hid the turreted +summits, and far above the vapor swelled a background of gleaming +green crags and cones that came and went, through the veiling +mists, like islands drifting in a fog; sometimes the cloudy +curtain descended till half the canon wall was hidden, then +shredded gradually away till only airy glimpses of the ferny +front appeared through it—then swept aloft and left it glorified +in the sun again. Now and then, as our position changed, rocky +bastions swung out from the wall, a mimic ruin of castellated +ramparts and crumbling towers clothed with mosses and hung with +garlands of swaying vines, and as we moved on they swung back +again and hid themselves once more in the foliage. Presently a +verdure-clad needle of stone, a thousand feet high, stepped out +from behind a corner, and mounted guard over the mysteries of the +valley. It seemed to me that if Captain Cook needed a monument, +here was one ready made—therefore, why not put up his sign here, +and sell out the venerable cocoanut stump?</p> + +<a name="547"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="547.jpg (192K)" src="images/547.jpg" height="907" width="586"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>But the chief pride of Maui is her dead volcano of +Haleakala—which means, translated, "the house of the sun." We +climbed a thousand feet up the side of this isolated colossus one +afternoon; then camped, and next day climbed the remaining nine +thousand feet, and anchored on the summit, where we built a fire +and froze and roasted by turns, all night. With the first pallor +of dawn we got up and saw things that were new to us. Mounted on +a commanding pinnacle, we watched Nature work her silent wonders. +The sea was spread abroad on every hand, its tumbled surface +seeming only wrinkled and dimpled in the distance. A broad valley +below appeared like an ample checker-board, its velvety green +sugar plantations alternating with dun squares of barrenness and +groves of trees diminished to mossy tufts. Beyond the valley were +mountains picturesquely grouped together; but bear in mind, we +fancied that we were looking up at these things—not down. We +seemed to sit in the bottom of a symmetrical bowl ten thousand +feet deep, with the valley and the skirting sea lifted away into +the sky above us! It was curious; and not only curious, but +aggravating; for it was having our trouble all for nothing, to +climb ten thousand feet toward heaven and then have to look up at +our scenery. However, we had to be content with it and make the +best of it; for, all we could do we could not coax our landscape +down out of the clouds. Formerly, when I had read an article in +which Poe treated of this singular fraud perpetrated upon the eye +by isolated great altitudes, I had looked upon the matter as an +invention of his own fancy.</p> + +<p>I have spoken of the outside view—but we had an inside one, +too. That was the yawning dead crater, into which we now and then +tumbled rocks, half as large as a barrel, from our perch, and saw +them go careering down the almost perpendicular sides, bounding +three hundred feet at a jump; kicking up cast-clouds wherever +they struck; diminishing to our view as they sped farther into +distance; growing invisible, finally, and only betraying their +course by faint little puffs of dust; and coming to a halt at +last in the bottom of the abyss, two thousand five hundred feet +down from where they started! It was magnificent sport. We wore +ourselves out at it.</p> + +<a name="549"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="549.jpg (138K)" src="images/549.jpg" height="791" width="589"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The crater of Vesuvius, as I have before remarked, is a modest +pit about a thousand feet deep and three thousand in +circumference; that of Kilauea is somewhat deeper, and ten miles +in circumference. But what are either of them compared to the +vacant stomach of Haleakala? I will not offer any figures of my +own, but give official ones—those of Commander Wilkes, U.S.N., +who surveyed it and testifies that it is twenty-seven miles in +circumference! If it had a level bottom it would make a fine site +for a city like London. It must have afforded a spectacle worth +contemplating in the old days when its furnaces gave full rein to +their anger.</p> + +<p>Presently vagrant white clouds came drifting along, high over +the sea and the valley; then they came in couples and groups; +then in imposing squadrons; gradually joining their forces, they +banked themselves solidly together, a thousand feet under us, and +totally shut out land and ocean—not a vestige of anything was +left in view but just a little of the rim of the crater, circling +away from the pinnacle whereon we sat (for a ghostly procession +of wanderers from the filmy hosts without had drifted through a +chasm in the crater wall and filed round and round, and gathered +and sunk and blended together till the abyss was stored to the +brim with a fleecy fog). Thus banked, motion ceased, and silence +reigned. Clear to the horizon, league on league, the snowy floor +stretched without a break—not level, but in rounded folds, with +shallow creases between, and with here and there stately piles of +vapory architecture lifting themselves aloft out of the common +plain—some near at hand, some in the middle distances, and +others relieving the monotony of the remote solitudes. There was +little conversation, for the impressive scene overawed speech. I +felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left +pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished +world.</p> + +<p>While the hush yet brooded, the messengers of the coming +resurrection appeared in the East. A growing warmth suffused the +horizon, and soon the sun emerged and looked out over the +cloud-waste, flinging bars of ruddy light across it, staining its +folds and billow-caps with blushes, purpling the shaded troughs +between, and glorifying the massy vapor- palaces and cathedrals +with a wasteful splendor of all blendings and combinations of +rich coloring.</p> + +<p>It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think +the memory of it will remain with me always.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch77"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXVII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>I stumbled upon one curious character in the Island of Mani. +He became a sore annoyance to me in the course of time. My first +glimpse of him was in a sort of public room in the town of +Lahaina. He occupied a chair at the opposite side of the +apartment, and sat eyeing our party with interest for some +minutes, and listening as critically to what we were saying as if +he fancied we were talking to him and expecting him to reply. I +thought it very sociable in a stranger. Presently, in the course +of conversation, I made a statement bearing upon the subject +under discussion—and I made it with due modesty, for there was +nothing extraordinary about it, and it was only put forth in +illustration of a point at issue. I had barely finished when this +person spoke out with rapid utterance and feverish anxiety:</p> + +<p>"Oh, that was certainly remarkable, after a fashion, but you +ought to have seen my chimney—you ought to have seen my chimney, +sir! Smoke! I wish I may hang if—Mr. Jones, you remember that +chimney—you must remember that chimney! No, no—I recollect, +now, you warn't living on this side of the island then. But I am +telling you nothing but the truth, and I wish I may never draw +another breath if that chimney didn't smoke so that the smoke +actually got caked in it and I had to dig it out with a pickaxe! +You may smile, gentlemen, but the High Sheriff's got a hunk of it +which I dug out before his eyes, and so it's perfectly easy for +you to go and examine for yourselves."</p> + +<p>The interruption broke up the conversation, which had already +begun to lag, and we presently hired some natives and an +out-rigger canoe or two, and went out to overlook a grand +surf-bathing contest.</p> + +<p>Two weeks after this, while talking in a company, I looked up +and detected this same man boring through and through me with his +intense eye, and noted again his twitching muscles and his +feverish anxiety to speak. The moment I paused, he said:</p> + +<p>"Beg your pardon, sir, beg your pardon, but it can only be +considered remarkable when brought into strong outline by +isolation. Sir, contrasted with a circumstance which occurred in +my own experience, it instantly becomes commonplace. No, not +that—for I will not speak so discourteously of any experience in +the career of a stranger and a gentleman—but I am obliged to say +that you could not, and you would not ever again refer to this +tree as a large one, if you could behold, as I have, the great +Yakmatack tree, in the island of Ounaska, sea of Kamtchatka—a +tree, sir, not one inch less than four hundred and fifteen feet +in solid diameter!—and I wish I may die in a minute if it isn't +so! Oh, you needn't look so questioning, gentlemen; here's old +Cap Saltmarsh can say whether I know what I'm talking about or +not. I showed him the tree."</p> + +<p>Captain Saltmarsh—"Come, now, cat your anchor, lad—you're +heaving too taut. You promised to show me that stunner, and I +walked more than eleven mile with you through the cussedest +jungle I ever see, a hunting for it; but the tree you showed me +finally warn't as big around as a beer cask, and you know that +your own self, Markiss."</p> + +<a name="553"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="553.jpg (48K)" src="images/553.jpg" height="430" width="431"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"Hear the man talk! Of course the tree was reduced that way, +but didn't I explain it? Answer me, didn't I? Didn't I say I +wished you could have seen it when I first saw it? When you got +up on your ear and called me names, and said I had brought you +eleven miles to look at a sapling, didn't I explain to you that +all the whale-ships in the North Seas had been wooding off of it +for more than twenty-seven years? And did you s'pose the tree +could last for-ever, con-found it? I don't see why you want to +keep back things that way, and try to injure a person that's +never done you any harm."</p> + +<p>Somehow this man's presence made me uncomfortable, and I was +glad when a native arrived at that moment to say that Muckawow, +the most companionable and luxurious among the rude war-chiefs of +the Islands, desired us to come over and help him enjoy a +missionary whom he had found trespassing on his grounds.</p> + +<p>I think it was about ten days afterward that, as I finished a +statement I was making for the instruction of a group of friends +and acquaintances, and which made no pretence of being +extraordinary, a familiar voice chimed instantly in on the heels +of my last word, and said:</p> + +<p>"But, my dear sir, there was nothing remarkable about that +horse, or the circumstance either—nothing in the world! I mean +no sort of offence when I say it, sir, but you really do not know +anything whatever about speed. Bless your heart, if you could +only have seen my mare Margaretta; there was a beast!—there was +lightning for you! Trot! Trot is no name for it—she flew! How +she could whirl a buggy along! I started her out once, +sir—Colonel Bilgewater, you recollect that animal perfectly +well—I started her out about thirty or thirty-five yards ahead +of the awfullest storm I ever saw in my life, and it chased us +upwards of eighteen miles! It did, by the everlasting hills! And +I'm telling you nothing but the unvarnished truth when I say that +not one single drop of rain fell on me—not a single drop, sir! +And I swear to it! But my dog was a-swimming behind the wagon all +the way!"</p> + +<a name="554"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="554.jpg (76K)" src="images/554.jpg" height="408" width="601"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>For a week or two I stayed mostly within doors, for I seemed +to meet this person everywhere, and he had become utterly hateful +to me. But one evening I dropped in on Captain Perkins and his +friends, and we had a sociable time. About ten o'clock I chanced +to be talking about a merchant friend of mine, and without really +intending it, the remark slipped out that he was a little mean +and parsimonious about paying his workmen. Instantly, through the +steam of a hot whiskey punch on the opposite side of the room, a +remembered voice shot—and for a moment I trembled on the +imminent verge of profanity:</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear sir, really you expose yourself when you parade +that as a surprising circumstance. Bless your heart and hide, you +are ignorant of the very A B C of meanness! ignorant as the +unborn babe! ignorant as unborn twins! You don't know anything +about it! It is pitiable to see you, sir, a well-spoken and +prepossessing stranger, making such an enormous pow-wow here +about a subject concerning which your ignorance is perfectly +humiliating! Look me in the eye, if you please; look me in the +eye. John James Godfrey was the son of poor but honest parents in +the State of Mississippi—boyhood friend of mine—bosom comrade +in later years. Heaven rest his noble spirit, he is gone from us +now. John James Godfrey was hired by the Hayblossom Mining +Company in California to do some blasting for them—the +"Incorporated Company of Mean Men," the boys used to call it.</p> + +<p>"Well, one day he drilled a hole about four feet deep and put +in an awful blast of powder, and was standing over it ramming it +down with an iron crowbar about nine foot long, when the cussed +thing struck a spark and fired the powder, and scat! away John +Godfrey whizzed like a skyrocket, him and his crowbar! Well, sir, +he kept on going up in the air higher and higher, till he didn't +look any bigger than a boy—and he kept going on up higher and +higher, till he didn't look any bigger than a doll—and he kept +on going up higher and higher, till he didn't look any bigger +than a little small bee—and then he went out of sight! Presently +he came in sight again, looking like a little small bee—and he +came along down further and further, till he looked as big as a +doll again—and down further and further, till he was as big as a +boy again—and further and further, till he was a full-sized man +once more; and then him and his crowbar came a wh-izzing down and +lit right exactly in the same old tracks and went to r-ramming +down, and r-ramming down, and r-ramming down again, just the same +as if nothing had happened! Now do you know, that poor cuss +warn't gone only sixteen minutes, and yet that Incorporated +Company of Mean Men DOCKED HIM FOR THE LOST TIME!"</p> + +<a name="555"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="555.jpg (42K)" src="images/555.jpg" height="492" width="295"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>I said I had the headache, and so excused myself and went +home. And on my diary I entered "another night spoiled" by this +offensive loafer. And a fervent curse was set down with it to +keep the item company. And the very next day I packed up, out of +all patience, and left the Island.</p> + +<p>Almost from the very beginning, I regarded that man as a +liar.</p> + +<p>The line of points represents an interval of years. At the end +of which time the opinion hazarded in that last sentence came to +be gratifyingly and remarkably endorsed, and by wholly +disinterested persons. The man Markiss was found one morning +hanging to a beam of his own bedroom (the doors and windows +securely fastened on the inside), dead; and on his breast was +pinned a paper in his own handwriting begging his friends to +suspect no innocent person of having any thing to do with his +death, for that it was the work of his own hands entirely. Yet +the jury brought in the astounding verdict that deceased came to +his death "by the hands of some person or persons unknown!" They +explained that the perfectly undeviating consistency of Markiss's +character for thirty years towered aloft as colossal and +indestructible testimony, that whatever statement he chose to +make was entitled to instant and unquestioning acceptance as a +lie. And they furthermore stated their belief that he was not +dead, and instanced the strong circumstantial evidence of his own +word that he was dead—and beseeched the coroner to delay the +funeral as long as possible, which was done. And so in the +tropical climate of Lahaina the coffin stood open for seven days, +and then even the loyal jury gave him up. But they sat on him +again, and changed their verdict to "suicide induced by mental +aberration"—because, said they, with penetration, "he said he +was dead, and he was dead; and would he have told the truth if he +had been in his right mind? No, sir."</p> + +<a name="557"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="557.jpg (26K)" src="images/557.jpg" height="585" width="213"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch78"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXIII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>After half a year's luxurious vagrancy in the islands, I took +shipping in a sailing vessel, and regretfully returned to San +Francisco—a voyage in every way delightful, but without an +incident: unless lying two long weeks in a dead calm, eighteen +hundred miles from the nearest land, may rank as an incident. +Schools of whales grew so tame that day after day they played +about the ship among the porpoises and the sharks without the +least apparent fear of us, and we pelted them with empty bottles +for lack of better sport. Twenty-four hours afterward these +bottles would be still lying on the glassy water under our noses, +showing that the ship had not moved out of her place in all that +time. The calm was absolutely breathless, and the surface of the +sea absolutely without a wrinkle. For a whole day and part of a +night we lay so close to another ship that had drifted to our +vicinity, that we carried on conversations with her passengers, +introduced each other by name, and became pretty intimately +acquainted with people we had never heard of before, and have +never heard of since. This was the only vessel we saw during the +whole lonely voyage. +</p> + + +<a name="559"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="559.jpg (91K)" src="images/559.jpg" height="543" width="593"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +We had fifteen passengers, and to show how +hard pressed they were at last for occupation and amusement, I +will mention that the gentlemen gave a good part of their time +every day, during the calm, to trying to sit on an empty +champagne bottle (lying on its side), and thread a needle without +touching their heels to the deck, or falling over; and the ladies +sat in the shade of the mainsail, and watched the enterprise with +absorbing interest. We were at sea five Sundays; and yet, but for +the almanac, we never would have known but that all the other +days were Sundays too.</p> + +<p>I was home again, in San Francisco, without means and without +employment. I tortured my brain for a saving scheme of some kind, +and at last a public lecture occurred to me! I sat down and wrote +one, in a fever of hopeful anticipation. I showed it to several +friends, but they all shook their heads. They said nobody would +come to hear me, and I would make a humiliating failure of +it.</p> + +<p>They said that as I had never spoken in public, I would break +down in the delivery, anyhow. I was disconsolate now. But at last +an editor slapped me on the back and told me to "go ahead." He +said, "Take the largest house in town, and charge a dollar a +ticket." The audacity of the proposition was charming; it seemed +fraught with practical worldly wisdom, however. The proprietor of +the several theatres endorsed the advice, and said I might have +his handsome new opera-house at half price—fifty dollars. In +sheer desperation I took it—on credit, for sufficient reasons. +In three days I did a hundred and fifty dollars' worth of +printing and advertising, and was the most distressed and +frightened creature on the Pacific coast. I could not sleep—who +could, under such circumstances? For other people there was +facetiousness in the last line of my posters, but to me it was +plaintive with a pang when I wrote it:</p> + +<p>"Doors open at 7 1/2. The trouble will begin at 8."</p> + +<p>That line has done good service since. Showmen have borrowed +it frequently. I have even seen it appended to a newspaper +advertisement reminding school pupils in vacation what time next +term would begin. As those three days of suspense dragged by, I +grew more and more unhappy. I had sold two hundred tickets among +my personal friends, but I feared they might not come. My +lecture, which had seemed "humorous" to me, at first, grew +steadily more and more dreary, till not a vestige of fun seemed +left, and I grieved that I could not bring a coffin on the stage +and turn the thing into a funeral. I was so panic-stricken, at +last, that I went to three old friends, giants in stature, +cordial by nature, and stormy-voiced, and said:</p> + +<p>"This thing is going to be a failure; the jokes in it are so +dim that nobody will ever see them; I would like to have you sit +in the parquette, and help me through."</p> + +<p>They said they would. Then I went to the wife of a popular +citizen, and said that if she was willing to do me a very great +kindness, I would be glad if she and her husband would sit +prominently in the left-hand stage- box, where the whole house +could see them. I explained that I should need help, and would +turn toward her and smile, as a signal, when I had been delivered +of an obscure joke—"and then," I added, "don't wait to +investigate, but respond!"</p> + +<p>She promised. Down the street I met a man I never had seen +before. He had been drinking, and was beaming with smiles and +good nature. He said:</p> + +<p>"My name's Sawyer. You don't know me, but that don't matter. I +haven't got a cent, but if you knew how bad I wanted to laugh, +you'd give me a ticket. Come, now, what do you say?"</p> + +<p>"Is your laugh hung on a hair-trigger?—that is, is it +critical, or can you get it off easy?"</p> + +<p>My drawling infirmity of speech so affected him that he +laughed a specimen or two that struck me as being about the +article I wanted, and I gave him a ticket, and appointed him to +sit in the second circle, in the centre, and be responsible for +that division of the house. I gave him minute instructions about +how to detect indistinct jokes, and then went away, and left him +chuckling placidly over the novelty of the idea.</p> + +<p>I ate nothing on the last of the three eventful days—I only +suffered. I had advertised that on this third day the box-office +would be opened for the sale of reserved seats. I crept down to +the theater at four in the afternoon to see if any sales had been +made. The ticket seller was gone, the box-office was locked up. I +had to swallow suddenly, or my heart would have got out. "No +sales," I said to myself; "I might have known it." I thought of +suicide, pretended illness, flight. I thought of these things in +earnest, for I was very miserable and scared. But of course I had +to drive them away, and prepare to meet my fate. I could not wait +for half-past seven—I wanted to face the horror, and end +it—the feeling of many a man doomed to hang, no doubt. I went down +back streets at six o'clock, and entered the theatre by the back +door. I stumbled my way in the dark among the ranks of canvas +scenery, and stood on the stage. The house was gloomy and silent, +and its emptiness depressing. I went into the dark among the +scenes again, and for an hour and a half gave myself up to the +horrors, wholly unconscious of everything else. Then I heard a +murmur; it rose higher and higher, and ended in a crash, mingled +with cheers. It made my hair raise, it was so close to me, and so +loud.</p> + +<p>There was a pause, and then another; presently came a third, +and before I well knew what I was about, I was in the middle of +the stage, staring at a sea of faces, bewildered by the fierce +glare of the lights, and quaking in every limb with a terror that +seemed like to take my life away. The house was full, aisles and +all!</p> + +<a name="561"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="561.jpg (45K)" src="images/561.jpg" height="580" width="330"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The tumult in my heart and brain and legs continued a full +minute before I could gain any command over myself. Then I +recognized the charity and the friendliness in the faces before +me, and little by little my fright melted away, and I began to +talk Within three or four minutes I was comfortable, and even +content. My three chief allies, with three auxiliaries, were on +hand, in the parquette, all sitting together, all armed with +bludgeons, and all ready to make an onslaught upon the feeblest +joke that might show its head. And whenever a joke did fall, +their bludgeons came down and their faces seemed to split from +ear to ear.</p> + +<a name="562"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="562.jpg (153K)" src="images/562.jpg" height="883" width="615"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Sawyer, whose hearty countenance was seen looming redly in the +centre of the second circle, took it up, and the house was +carried handsomely. Inferior jokes never fared so royally before. +Presently I delivered a bit of serious matter with impressive +unction (it was my pet), and the audience listened with an +absorbed hush that gratified me more than any applause; and as I +dropped the last word of the clause, I happened to turn and catch +Mrs.—'s intent and waiting eye; my conversation with her flashed +upon me, and in spite of all I could do I smiled. She took it for +the signal, and promptly delivered a mellow laugh that touched +off the whole audience; and the explosion that followed was the +triumph of the evening. I thought that that honest man Sawyer +would choke himself; and as for the bludgeons, they performed +like pile-drivers. But my poor little morsel of pathos was +ruined. It was taken in good faith as an intentional joke, and +the prize one of the entertainment, and I wisely let it go at +that.</p> + +<p>All the papers were kind in the morning; my appetite returned; +I had a abundance of money. All's well that ends well.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch79"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LXXIX.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>I launched out as a lecturer, now, with great boldness. I had +the field all to myself, for public lectures were almost an +unknown commodity in the Pacific market. They are not so rare, +now, I suppose. I took an old personal friend along to play agent +for me, and for two or three weeks we roamed through Nevada and +California and had a very cheerful time of it. Two days before I +lectured in Virginia City, two stagecoaches were robbed within +two miles of the town. The daring act was committed just at dawn, +by six masked men, who sprang up alongside the coaches, presented +revolvers at the heads of the drivers and passengers, and +commanded a general dismount. Everybody climbed down, and the +robbers took their watches and every cent they had. Then they +took gunpowder and blew up the express specie boxes and got their +contents. The leader of the robbers was a small, quick-spoken +man, and the fame of his vigorous manner and his intrepidity was +in everybody's mouth when we arrived.</p> + +<p>The night after instructing Virginia, I walked over the +desolate "divide" and down to Gold Hill, and lectured there. The +lecture done, I stopped to talk with a friend, and did not start +back till eleven. The "divide" was high, unoccupied ground, +between the towns, the scene of twenty midnight murders and a +hundred robberies. As we climbed up and stepped out on this +eminence, the Gold Hill lights dropped out of sight at our backs, +and the night closed down gloomy and dismal. A sharp wind swept +the place, too, and chilled our perspiring bodies through.</p> + +<p>"I tell you I don't like this place at night," said Mike the +agent.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't speak so loud," I said. "You needn't remind +anybody that we are here."</p> + +<p>Just then a dim figure approached me from the direction of +Virginia—a man, evidently. He came straight at me, and I stepped +aside to let him pass; he stepped in the way and confronted me +again. Then I saw that he had a mask on and was holding something +in my face—I heard a click-click and recognized a revolver in +dim outline. I pushed the barrel aside with my hand and said:</p> + +<p>"Don't!"</p> + +<p>He ejaculated sharply:</p> + +<p>"Your watch! Your money!"</p> + +<p>I said:</p> + +<p>"You can have them with pleasure—but take the pistol away +from my face, please. It makes me shiver."</p> + +<p>"No remarks! Hand out your money!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly—I—"</p> + +<p>"Put up your hands! Don't you go for a weapon! Put 'em up! +Higher!"</p> + +<p>I held them above my head.</p> + +<p>A pause. Then:</p> + +<p>"Are you going to hand out your money or not?"</p> + +<p>I dropped my hands to my pockets and said:</p> + +<p>Certainly! I—"</p> + +<p>"Put up your hands! Do you want your head blown off? +Higher!"</p> + +<p>I put them above my head again.</p> + +<p>Another pause.</p> + +<p>Are you going to hand out your money or not? Ah-ah—again? Put +up your hands! By George, you want the head shot off you awful +bad!"</p> + +<p>"Well, friend, I'm trying my best to please you. You tell me +to give up my money, and when I reach for it you tell me to put +up my hands. If you would only—. Oh, now—don't! All six of you +at me! That other man will get away while.—Now please take some +of those revolvers out of my face—do, if you please! Every time +one of them clicks, my liver comes up into my throat! If you have +a mother—any of you—or if any of you have ever had a mother—or +a—grandmother—or a—"</p> + +<p>"Cheese it! Will you give up your money, or have we got to—. +There—there—none of that! Put up your hands!"</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen—I know you are gentlemen by your—"</p> + +<p>"Silence! If you want to be facetious, young man, there are +times and places more fitting. This is a serious business."</p> + +<p>"You prick the marrow of my opinion. The funerals I have +attended in my time were comedies compared to it. Now I +think—"</p> + +<p>"Curse your palaver! Your money!—your money!—your money! +Hold!—put up your hands!"</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, listen to reason. You see how I am situated—now +don't put those pistols so close—I smell the powder.</p> + +<p>"You see how I am situated. If I had four hands—so that I +could hold up two and—"</p> + +<p>"Throttle him! Gag him! Kill him!"</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, don't! Nobody's watching the other fellow. Why +don't some of you—. Ouch! Take it away, please!</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, you see that I've got to hold up my hands; and so +I can't take out my money—but if you'll be so kind as to take it +out for me, I will do as much for you some—"</p> + +<p>"Search him Beauregard—and stop his jaw with a bullet, quick, +if he wags it again. Help Beauregard, Stonewall."</p> + +<p>Then three of them, with the small, spry leader, adjourned to +Mike and fell to searching him. I was so excited that my lawless +fancy tortured me to ask my two men all manner of facetious +questions about their rebel brother-generals of the South, but, +considering the order they had received, it was but common +prudence to keep still. When everything had been taken from +me,—watch, money, and a multitude of trifles of small value,—I +supposed I was free, and forthwith put my cold hands into my +empty pockets and began an inoffensive jig to warm my feet and +stir up some latent courage—but instantly all pistols were at my +head, and the order came again:</p> + +<a name="567"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="567.jpg (72K)" src="images/567.jpg" height="417" width="603"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>They stood Mike up alongside of me, with strict orders to keep +his hands above his head, too, and then the chief highwayman +said:</p> + +<p>"Beauregard, hide behind that boulder; Phil Sheridan, you hide +behind that other one; Stonewall Jackson, put yourself behind +that sage-bush there. Keep your pistols bearing on these fellows, +and if they take down their hands within ten minutes, or move a +single peg, let them have it!"</p> + +<p>Then three disappeared in the gloom toward the several +ambushes, and the other three disappeared down the road toward +Virginia.</p> + +<p>It was depressingly still, and miserably cold. Now this whole +thing was a practical joke, and the robbers were personal friends +of ours in disguise, and twenty more lay hidden within ten feet +of us during the whole operation, listening. Mike knew all this, +and was in the joke, but I suspected nothing of it. To me it was +most uncomfortably genuine. When we had stood there in the middle +of the road five minutes, like a couple of idiots, with our hands +aloft, freezing to death by inches, Mike's interest in the joke +began to wane. He said:</p> + +<p>"The time's up, now, aint it?"</p> + +<p>"No, you keep still. Do you want to take any chances with +these bloody savages?"</p> + +<p>Presently Mike said:</p> + +<p>"Now the time's up, anyway. I'm freezing."</p> + +<p>"Well freeze. Better freeze than carry your brains home in a +basket. Maybe the time is up, but how do we know?—got no watch +to tell by. I mean to give them good measure. I calculate to +stand here fifteen minutes or die. Don't you move."</p> + +<p>So, without knowing it, I was making one joker very sick of +his contract. When we took our arms down at last, they were +aching with cold and fatigue, and when we went sneaking off, the +dread I was in that the time might not yet be up and that we +would feel bullets in a moment, was not sufficient to draw all my +attention from the misery that racked my stiffened body.</p> + +<p>The joke of these highwayman friends of ours was mainly a joke +upon themselves; for they had waited for me on the cold hill-top +two full hours before I came, and there was very little fun in +that; they were so chilled that it took them a couple of weeks to +get warm again. Moreover, I never had a thought that they would +kill me to get money which it was so perfectly easy to get +without any such folly, and so they did not really frighten me +bad enough to make their enjoyment worth the trouble they had +taken. I was only afraid that their weapons would go off +accidentally. Their very numbers inspired me with confidence that +no blood would be intentionally spilled. They were not smart; +they ought to have sent only one highwayman, with a +double-barrelled shot gun, if they desired to see the author of +this volume climb a tree.</p> + +<p>However, I suppose that in the long run I got the largest +share of the joke at last; and in a shape not foreseen by the +highwaymen; for the chilly exposure on the "divide" while I was +in a perspiration gave me a cold which developed itself into a +troublesome disease and kept my hands idle some three months, +besides costing me quite a sum in doctor's bills. Since then I +play no practical jokes on people and generally lose my temper +when one is played upon me.</p> + +<a name="569"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="569.jpg (39K)" src="images/569.jpg" height="357" width="353"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>When I returned to San Francisco I projected a pleasure +journey to Japan and thence westward around the world; but a +desire to see home again changed my mind, and I took a berth in +the steamship, bade good-bye to the friendliest land and livest, +heartiest community on our continent, and came by the way of the +Isthmus to New York—a trip that was not much of a pic-nic +excursion, for the cholera broke out among us on the passage and +we buried two or three bodies at sea every day. I found home a +dreary place after my long absence; for half the children I had +known were now wearing whiskers or waterfalls, and few of the +grown people I had been acquainted with remained at their +hearthstones prosperous and happy—some of them had wandered to +other scenes, some were in jail, and the rest had been hanged. +These changes touched me deeply, and I went away and joined the +famous Quaker City European Excursion and carried my tears to +foreign lands.</p> + +<p>Thus, after seven years of vicissitudes, ended a "pleasure +trip" to the silver mines of Nevada which had originally been +intended to occupy only three months. However, I usually miss my +calculations further than that.</p> + +<p>MORAL.</p> + +<p>If the reader thinks he is done, now, and that this book has +no moral to it, he is in error. The moral of it is this: If you +are of any account, stay at home and make your way by faithful +diligence; but if you are "no account," go away from home, and +then you will have to work, whether you want to or not. Thus you +become a blessing to your friends by ceasing to be a nuisance to +them—if the people you go among suffer by the operation.</p> + +<a name="570"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="570.jpg (75K)" src="images/570.jpg" height="614" width="596"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + + +<br><br> +<a name="APPENDIX"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>APPENDIX.</h2> +</center> +<br> + +<p>APPENDIX. A.</p> + +<p>BRIEF SKETCH OF MORMON HISTORY.</p> + +<p>Mormonism is only about forty years old, but its career has +been full of stir and adventure from the beginning, and is likely +to remain so to the end. Its adherents have been hunted and +hounded from one end of the country to the other, and the result +is that for years they have hated all "Gentiles" indiscriminately +and with all their might. Joseph Smith, the finder of the Book of +Mormon and founder of the religion, was driven from State to +State with his mysterious copperplates and the miraculous stones +he read their inscriptions with. Finally he instituted his +"church" in Ohio and Brigham Young joined it. The neighbors began +to persecute, and apostasy commenced. Brigham held to the faith +and worked hard. He arrested desertion. He did more—he added +converts in the midst of the trouble. He rose in favor and +importance with the brethren. He was made one of the Twelve +Apostles of the Church. He shortly fought his way to a higher +post and a more powerful—President of the Twelve. The neighbors +rose up and drove the Mormons out of Ohio, and they settled in +Missouri. Brigham went with them. The Missourians drove them out +and they retreated to Nauvoo, Illinois. They prospered there, and +built a temple which made some pretensions to architectural grace +and achieved some celebrity in a section of country where a brick +court-house with a tin dome and a cupola on it was contemplated +with reverential awe. But the Mormons were badgered and harried +again by their neighbors. All the proclamations Joseph Smith +could issue denouncing polygamy and repudiating it as utterly +anti-Mormon were of no avail; the people of the neighborhood, on +both sides of the Mississippi, claimed that polygamy was +practised by the Mormons, and not only polygamy but a little of +everything that was bad. Brigham returned from a mission to +England, where he had established a Mormon newspaper, and he +brought back with him several hundred converts to his preaching. +His influence among the brethren augmented with every move he +made. Finally Nauvoo was invaded by the Missouri and Illinois +Gentiles, and Joseph Smith killed. A Mormon named Rigdon assumed +the Presidency of the Mormon church and government, in Smith's +place, and even tried his hand at a prophecy or two. But a +greater than he was at hand. Brigham seized the advantage of the +hour and without other authority than superior brain and nerve +and will, hurled Rigdon from his high place and occupied it +himself. He did more. He launched an elaborate curse at Rigdon +and his disciples; and he pronounced Rigdon's "prophecies" +emanations from the devil, and ended by "handing the false +prophet over to the buffetings of Satan for a thousand +years"—probably the longest term ever inflicted in Illinois. The +people recognized their master. They straightway elected Brigham +Young President, by a prodigious majority, and have never +faltered in their devotion to him from that day to this. Brigham +had forecast—a quality which no other prominent Mormon has +probably ever possessed. He recognized that it was better to move +to the wilderness than be moved. By his command the people +gathered together their meagre effects, turned their backs upon +their homes, and their faces toward the wilderness, and on a +bitter night in February filed in sorrowful procession across the +frozen Mississippi, lighted on their way by the glare from their +burning temple, whose sacred furniture their own hands had fired! +They camped, several days afterward, on the western verge of +Iowa, and poverty, want, hunger, cold, sickness, grief and +persecution did their work, and many succumbed and died—martyrs, +fair and true, whatever else they might have been. Two years the +remnant remained there, while Brigham and a small party crossed +the country and founded Great Salt Lake City, purposely choosing +a land which was outside the ownership and jurisdiction of the +hated American nation. Note that. This was in 1847. Brigham moved +his people there and got them settled just in time to see +disaster fall again. For the war closed and Mexico ceded +Brigham's refuge to the enemy—the United States! In 1849 the +Mormons organized a "free and independent" government and erected +the "State of Deseret," with Brigham Young as its head. But the +very next year Congress deliberately snubbed it and created the +"Territory of Utah" out of the same accumulation of mountains, +sage-brush, alkali and general desolation,—but made Brigham +Governor of it. Then for years the enormous migration across the +plains to California poured through the land of the Mormons and +yet the church remained staunch and true to its lord and master. +Neither hunger, thirst, poverty, grief, hatred, contempt, nor +persecution could drive the Mormons from their faith or their +allegiance; and even the thirst for gold, which gleaned the +flower of the youth and strength of many nations was not able to +entice them! That was the final test. An experiment that could +survive that was an experiment with some substance to it +somewhere.</p> + +<p>Great Salt Lake City throve finely, and so did Utah. One of +the last things which Brigham Young had done before leaving Iowa, +was to appear in the pulpit dressed to personate the worshipped +and lamented prophet Smith, and confer the prophetic succession, +with all its dignities, emoluments and authorities, upon +"President Brigham Young!" The people accepted the pious fraud +with the maddest enthusiasm, and Brigham's power was sealed and +secured for all time. Within five years afterward he openly added +polygamy to the tenets of the church by authority of a +"revelation" which he pretended had been received nine years +before by Joseph Smith, albeit Joseph is amply on record as +denouncing polygamy to the day of his death.</p> + +<p>Now was Brigham become a second Andrew Johnson in the small +beginning and steady progress of his official grandeur. He had +served successively as a disciple in the ranks; home missionary; +foreign missionary; editor and publisher; Apostle; President of +the Board of Apostles; President of all Mormondom, civil and +ecclesiastical; successor to the great Joseph by the will of +heaven; "prophet," "seer," "revelator." There was but one dignity +higher which he could aspire to, and he reached out modestly and +took that—he proclaimed himself a God!</p> + +<p>He claims that he is to have a heaven of his own hereafter, +and that he will be its God, and his wives and children its +goddesses, princes and princesses. Into it all faithful Mormons +will be admitted, with their families, and will take rank and +consequence according to the number of their wives and children. +If a disciple dies before he has had time to accumulate enough +wives and children to enable him to be respectable in the next +world any friend can marry a few wives and raise a few children +for him after he is dead, and they are duly credited to his +account and his heavenly status advanced accordingly.</p> + +<p>Let it be borne in mind that the majority of the Mormons have +always been ignorant, simple, of an inferior order of intellect, +unacquainted with the world and its ways; and let it be borne in +mind that the wives of these Mormons are necessarily after the +same pattern and their children likely to be fit representatives +of such a conjunction; and then let it be remembered that for +forty years these creatures have been driven, driven, driven, +relentlessly! and mobbed, beaten, and shot down; cursed, +despised, expatriated; banished to a remote desert, whither they +journeyed gaunt with famine and disease, disturbing the ancient +solitudes with their lamentations and marking the long way with +graves of their dead—and all because they were simply trying to +live and worship God in the way which they believed with all +their hearts and souls to be the true one. Let all these things +be borne in mind, and then it will not be hard to account for the +deathless hatred which the Mormons bear our people and our +government.</p> + +<p>That hatred has "fed fat its ancient grudge" ever since Mormon +Utah developed into a self-supporting realm and the church waxed +rich and strong. Brigham as Territorial Governor made it plain +that Mormondom was for the Mormons. The United States tried to +rectify all that by appointing territorial officers from New +England and other anti-Mormon localities, but Brigham prepared to +make their entrance into his dominions difficult. Three thousand +United States troops had to go across the plains and put these +gentlemen in office. And after they were in office they were as +helpless as so many stone images. They made laws which nobody +minded and which could not be executed. The federal judges opened +court in a land filled with crime and violence and sat as holiday +spectacles for insolent crowds to gape at—for there was nothing +to try, nothing to do nothing on the dockets! And if a Gentile +brought a suit, the Mormon jury would do just as it pleased about +bringing in a verdict, and when the judgment of the court was +rendered no Mormon cared for it and no officer could execute it. +Our Presidents shipped one cargo of officials after another to +Utah, but the result was always the same—they sat in a blight +for awhile they fairly feasted on scowls and insults day by day, +they saw every attempt to do their official duties find its +reward in darker and darker looks, and in secret threats and +warnings of a more and more dismal nature—and at last they +either succumbed and became despised tools and toys of the +Mormons, or got scared and discomforted beyond all endurance and +left the Territory. If a brave officer kept on courageously till +his pluck was proven, some pliant Buchanan or Pierce would remove +him and appoint a stick in his place. In 1857 General Harney came +very near being appointed Governor of Utah. And so it came very +near being Harney governor and Cradlebaugh judge!—two men who +never had any idea of fear further than the sort of murky +comprehension of it which they were enabled to gather from the +dictionary. Simply (if for nothing else) for the variety they +would have made in a rather monotonous history of Federal +servility and helplessness, it is a pity they were not fated to +hold office together in Utah.</p> + +<p>Up to the date of our visit to Utah, such had been the +Territorial record. The Territorial government established there +had been a hopeless failure, and Brigham Young was the only real +power in the land. He was an absolute monarch—a monarch who +defied our President—a monarch who laughed at our armies when +they camped about his capital—a monarch who received without +emotion the news that the august Congress of the United States +had enacted a solemn law against polygamy, and then went forth +calmly and married twenty-five or thirty more wives.</p> + +<p>B. THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE.</p> + +<p>The persecutions which the Mormons suffered so long—and which +they consider they still suffer in not being allowed to govern +themselves—they have endeavored and are still endeavoring to +repay. The now almost forgotten "Mountain Meadows massacre" was +their work. It was very famous in its day. The whole United +States rang with its horrors. A few items will refresh the +reader's memory. A great emigrant train from Missouri and +Arkansas passed through Salt Lake City and a few disaffected +Mormons joined it for the sake of the strong protection it +afforded for their escape. In that matter lay sufficient cause +for hot retaliation by the Mormon chiefs. Besides, these one +hundred and forty-five or one hundred and fifty unsuspecting +emigrants being in part from Arkansas, where a noted Mormon +missionary had lately been killed, and in part from Missouri, a +State remembered with execrations as a bitter persecutor of the +saints when they were few and poor and friendless, here were +substantial additional grounds for lack of love for these +wayfarers. And finally, this train was rich, very rich in cattle, +horses, mules and other property—and how could the Mormons +consistently keep up their coveted resemblance to the Israelitish +tribes and not seize the "spoil" of an enemy when the Lord had so +manifestly "delivered it into their hand?"</p> + +<p>Wherefore, according to Mrs. C. V. Waite's entertaining book, +"The Mormon Prophet," it transpired that—</p> + +<p>"A 'revelation' from Brigham Young, as Great Grand Archee or +God, was dispatched to President J. C. Haight, Bishop Higbee and +J. D. Lee (adopted son of Brigham), commanding them to raise all +the forces they could muster and trust, follow those cursed +Gentiles (so read the revelation), attack them disguised as +Indians, and with the arrows of the Almighty make a clean sweep +of them, and leave none to tell the tale; and if they needed any +assistance they were commanded to hire the Indians as their +allies, promising them a share of the booty. They were to be +neither slothful nor negligent in their duty, and to be punctual +in sending the teams back to him before winter set in, for this +was the mandate of Almighty God."</p> + +<p>The command of the "revelation" was faithfully obeyed. A large +party of Mormons, painted and tricked out as Indians, overtook +the train of emigrant wagons some three hundred miles south of +Salt Lake City, and made an attack. But the emigrants threw up +earthworks, made fortresses of their wagons and defended +themselves gallantly and successfully for five days! Your +Missouri or Arkansas gentleman is not much afraid of the sort of +scurvy apologies for "Indians" which the southern part of Utah +affords. He would stand up and fight five hundred of them.</p> + +<p>At the end of the five days the Mormons tried military +strategy. They retired to the upper end of the "Meadows," resumed +civilized apparel, washed off their paint, and then, heavily +armed, drove down in wagons to the beleaguered emigrants, bearing +a flag of truce! When the emigrants saw white men coming they +threw down their guns and welcomed them with cheer after cheer! +And, all unconscious of the poetry of it, no doubt, they lifted a +little child aloft, dressed in white, in answer to the flag of +truce!</p> + +<p>The leaders of the timely white "deliverers" were President +Haight and Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. +Cradlebaugh, who served a term as a Federal Judge in Utah and +afterward was sent to Congress from Nevada, tells in a speech +delivered in Congress how these leaders next proceeded:</p> + +<p>"They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and +represented them as being very mad. They also proposed to +intercede and settle the matter with the Indians. After several +hours parley they, having (apparently) visited the Indians, gave +the ultimatum of the savages; which was, that the emigrants +should march out of their camp, leaving everything behind them, +even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon bishops that they +would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the +settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being +desirous of saving the lives of their families. The Mormons +retired, and subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed +men. The emigrants were marched out, the women and children in +front and the men behind, the Mormon guard being in the rear. +When they had marched in this way about a mile, at a given signal +the slaughter commenced. The men were almost all shot down at the +first fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who fled to the +desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty miles before they +were overtaken and slaughtered. The women and children ran on, +two or three hundred yards further, when they were overtaken and +with the aid of the Indians they were slaughtered. Seventeen +individuals only, of all the emigrant party, were spared, and +they were little children, the eldest of them being only seven +years old. Thus, on the 10th day of September, 1857, was +consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly and bloody murders +known in our history."</p> + +<p>The number of persons butchered by the Mormons on this +occasion was one hundred and twenty.</p> + +<p>With unheard-of temerity Judge Cradlebaugh opened his court +and proceeded to make Mormondom answer for the massacre. And what +a spectacle it must have been to see this grim veteran, solitary +and alone in his pride and his pluck, glowering down on his +Mormon jury and Mormon auditory, deriding them by turns, and by +turns "breathing threatenings and slaughter!"</p> + +<p>An editorial in the Territorial Enterprise of that day says of +him and of the occasion:</p> + +<p>"He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a +Jackson; but the jury failed to indict, or even report on the +charges, while threats of violence were heard in every quarter, +and an attack on the U.S. troops intimated, if he persisted in +his course.</p> + +<p>"Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were +discharged with a scathing rebuke from the judge. And then, +sitting as a committing magistrate, he commenced his task alone. +He examined witnesses, made arrests in every quarter, and created +a consternation in the camps of the saints greater than any they +had ever witnessed before, since Mormondom was born. At last +accounts terrified elders and bishops were decamping to save +their necks; and developments of the most starling character were +being made, implicating the highest Church dignitaries in the +many murders and robberies committed upon the Gentiles during the +past eight years."</p> + +<p>Had Harney been Governor, Cradlebaugh would have been +supported in his work, and the absolute proofs adduced by him of +Mormon guilt in this massacre and in a number of previous +murders, would have conferred gratuitous coffins upon certain +citizens, together with occasion to use them. But Cumming was the +Federal Governor, and he, under a curious pretense of +impartiality, sought to screen the Mormons from the demands of +justice. On one occasion he even went so far as to publish his +protest against the use of the U.S. troops in aid of +Cradlebaugh's proceedings.</p> + +<p>Mrs. C. V. Waite closes her interesting detail of the great +massacre with the following remark and accompanying summary of +the testimony—and the summary is concise, accurate and +reliable:</p> + +<p>"For the benefit of those who may still be disposed to doubt +the guilt of Young and his Mormons in this transaction, the +testimony is here collated and circumstances given which go not +merely to implicate but to fasten conviction upon them by +'confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ:'</p> + +<p>"1. The evidence of Mormons themselves, engaged in the affair, +as shown by the statements of Judge Cradlebaugh and Deputy U.S. +Marshall Rodgers.</p> + +<p>"2. The failure of Brigham Young to embody any account of it +in his Report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Also his +failure to make any allusion to it whatever from the pulpit, +until several years after the occurrence</p> + +<p>"3. The flight to the mountains of men high in authority in +the Mormon Church and State, when this affair was brought to the +ordeal of a judicial investigation.</p> + +<p>"4. The failure of the Deseret News, the Church organ, and the +only paper then published in the Territory, to notice the +massacre until several months afterward, and then only to deny +that Mormons were engaged in it.</p> + +<p>"5. The testimony of the children saved from the massacre.</p> + +<p>"6. The children and the property of the emigrants found in +possession of the Mormons, and that possession traced back to the +very day after the massacre.</p> + +<p>"7. The statements of Indians in the neighborhood of the scene +of the massacre: these statements are shown, not only by +Cradlebaugh and Rodgers, but by a number of military officers, +and by J. Forney, who was, in 1859, Superintendent of Indian +Affairs for the Territory. To all these were such statements +freely and frequently made by the Indians.</p> + +<p>"8. The testimony of R. P. Campbell, Capt. 2d Dragoons, who +was sent in the Spring of 1859 to Santa Clara, to protect +travelers on the road to California and to inquire into Indian +depredations."</p> + +<p>C. CONCERNING A FRIGHTFUL ASSASSINATION THAT WAS NEVER +CONSUMMATED</p> + +<p>If ever there was a harmless man, it is Conrad Wiegand, of +Gold Hill, Nevada. If ever there was a gentle spirit that thought +itself unfired gunpowder and latent ruin, it is Conrad Wiegand. +If ever there was an oyster that fancied itself a whale; or a +jack-o'lantern, confined to a swamp, that fancied itself a planet +with a billion-mile orbit; or a summer zephyr that deemed itself +a hurricane, it is Conrad Wiegand. Therefore, what wonder is it +that when he says a thing, he thinks the world listens; that when +he does a thing the world stands still to look; and that when he +suffers, there is a convulsion of nature? When I met Conrad, he +was "Superintendent of the Gold Hill Assay Office"—and he was +not only its Superintendent, but its entire force. And he was a +street preacher, too, with a mongrel religion of his own +invention, whereby he expected to regenerate the universe. This +was years ago. Here latterly he has entered journalism; and his +journalism is what it might be expected to be: colossal to ear, +but pigmy to the eye. It is extravagant grandiloquence confined +to a newspaper about the size of a double letter sheet. He +doubtless edits, sets the type, and prints his paper, all alone; +but he delights to speak of the concern as if it occupies a block +and employs a thousand men.</p> + +<p>[Something less than two years ago, Conrad assailed several +people mercilessly in his little "People's Tribune," and got +himself into trouble. Straightway he airs the affair in the +"Territorial Enterprise," in a communication over his own +signature, and I propose to reproduce it here, in all its native +simplicity and more than human candor. Long as it is, it is well +worth reading, for it is the richest specimen of journalistic +literature the history of America can furnish, perhaps:]</p> + +<p>From the Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 20, 1870.</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<h4>SEEMING PLOT FOR ASSASSINATION MISCARRIED.</h4> + +<p>TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENTERPRISE: Months ago, when Mr. Sutro +incidentally exposed mining management on the Comstock, and among +others roused me to protest against its continuance, in great +kindness you warned me that any attempt by publications, by +public meetings and by legislative action, aimed at the +correction of chronic mining evils in Storey County, must entail +upon me (a) business ruin, (b) the burden of all its costs, (c) +personal violence, and if my purpose were persisted in, then (d) +assassination, and after all nothing would be effected.</p> + +<p>YOUR PROPHECY FULFILLING. In large part at least your +prophecies have been fulfilled, for (a) assaying, which was well +attended to in the Gold Hill Assay Office (of which I am +superintendent), in consequence of my publications, has been +taken elsewhere, so the President of one of the companies assures +me. With no reason assigned, other work has been taken away. With +but one or two important exceptions, our assay business now +consists simply of the gleanings of the vicinity. (b) Though my +own personal donations to the People's Tribune Association have +already exceeded $1,500, outside of our own numbers we have +received (in money) less than $300 as contributions and +subscriptions for the journal. (c) On Thursday last, on the main +street in Gold Hill, near noon, with neither warning nor cause +assigned, by a powerful blow I was felled to the ground, and +while down I was kicked by a man who it would seem had been led +to believe that I had spoken derogatorily of him. By whom he was +so induced to believe I am as yet unable to say. On Saturday last +I was again assailed and beaten by a man who first informed me +why he did so, and who persisted in making his assault even after +the erroneous impression under which he also was at first +laboring had been clearly and repeatedly pointed out. This same +man, after failing through intimidation to elicit from me the +names of our editorial contributors, against giving which he knew +me to be pledged, beat himself weary upon me with a raw hide, I +not resisting, and then pantingly threatened me with permanent +disfiguring mayhem, if ever again I should introduce his name +into print, and who but a few minutes before his attack upon me +assured me that the only reason I was "permitted" to reach home +alive on Wednesday evening last (at which time the PEOPLE'S +TRIBUNE was issued) was, that he deems me only half-witted, and +be it remembered the very next morning I was knocked down and +kicked by a man who seemed to be prepared for flight. [He sees +doom impending:]</p> + +<p>WHEN WILL THE CIRCLE JOIN? How long before the whole of your +prophecy will be fulfilled I cannot say, but under the shadow of +so much fulfillment in so short a time, and with such threats +from a man who is one of the most prominent exponents of the San +Francisco mining-ring staring me and this whole community +defiantly in the face and pointing to a completion of your +augury, do you blame me for feeling that this communication is +the last I shall ever write for the Press, especially when a +sense alike of personal self- respect, of duty to this +money-oppressed and fear-ridden community, and of American fealty +to the spirit of true Liberty all command me, and each more +loudly than love of life itself, to declare the name of that +prominent man to be JOHN B. WINTERS, President of the Yellow +Jacket Company, a political aspirant and a military General? The +name of his partially duped accomplice and abettor in this last +marvelous assault, is no other than PHILIP LYNCH, Editor and +Proprietor of the Gold Hill News.</p> + +<p>Despite the insult and wrong heaped upon me by John B. +Winters, on Saturday afternoon, only a glimpse of which I shall +be able to afford your readers, so much do I deplore clinching +(by publicity) a serious mistake of any one, man or woman, +committed under natural and not self- wrought passion, in view of +his great apparent excitement at the time and in view of the +almost perfect privacy of the assault, I am far from sure that I +should not have given him space for repentance before exposing +him, were it not that he himself has so far exposed the matter as +to make it the common talk of the town that he has horsewhipped +me. That fact having been made public, all the facts in +connection need to be also, or silence on my part would seem more +than singular, and with many would be proof either that I was +conscious of some unworthy aim in publishing the article, or else +that my "non-combatant" principles are but a convenient cloak +alike of physical and moral cowardice. I therefore shall try to +present a graphic but truthful picture of this whole affair, but +shall forbear all comments, presuming that the editors of our own +journal, if others do not, will speak freely and fittingly upon +this subject in our next number, whether I shall then be dead or +living, for my death will not stop, though it may suspend, the +publication of the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. [The "non-combatant" sticks +to principle, but takes along a friend or two of a conveniently +different stripe:]</p> + +<p>THE TRAP SET. On Saturday morning John B. Winters sent verbal +word to the Gold Hill Assay Office that he desired to see me at +the Yellow Jacket office. Though such a request struck me as +decidedly cool in view of his own recent discourtesies to me +there alike as a publisher and as a stockholder in the Yellow +Jacket mine, and though it seemed to me more like a summons than +the courteous request by one gentleman to another for a favor, +hoping that some conference with Sharon looking to the betterment +of mining matters in Nevada might arise from it, I felt strongly +inclined to overlook what possibly was simply an oversight in +courtesy. But as then it had only been two days since I had been +bruised and beaten under a hasty and false apprehension of facts, +my caution was somewhat aroused. Moreover I remembered +sensitively his contemptuousness of manner to me at my last +interview in his office. I therefore felt it needful, if I went +at all, to go accompanied by a friend whom he would not dare to +treat with incivility, and whose presence with me might secure +exemption from insult. Accordingly I asked a neighbor to +accompany me.</p> + +<p>THE TRAP ALMOST DETECTED. Although I was not then aware of +this fact, it would seem that previous to my request this same +neighbor had heard Dr. Zabriskie state publicly in a saloon, that +Mr. Winters had told him he had decided either to kill or to +horsewhip me, but had not finally decided on which. My neighbor, +therefore, felt unwilling to go down with me until he had first +called on Mr. Winters alone. He therefore paid him a visit. From +that interview he assured me that he gathered the impression that +he did not believe I would have any difficulty with Mr. Winters, +and that he (Winters) would call on me at four o'clock in my own +office.</p> + +<p>MY OWN PRECAUTIONS. As Sheriff Cummings was in Gold Hill that +afternoon, and as I desired to converse with him about the +previous assault, I invited him to my office, and he came. +Although a half hour had passed beyond four o'clock, Mr. Winters +had not called, and we both of us began preparing to go home. +Just then, Philip Lynch, Publisher of the Gold Hill News, came in +and said, blandly and cheerily, as if bringing good news:</p> + +<p>"Hello, John B. Winters wants to see you."</p> + +<p>I replied, "Indeed! Why he sent me word that he would call on +me here this afternoon at four o'clock!"</p> + +<p>"O, well, it don't do to be too ceremonious just now, he's in +my office, and that will do as well—come on in, Winters wants to +consult with you alone. He's got something to say to you."</p> + +<p>Though slightly uneasy at this change of programme, yet +believing that in an editor's house I ought to be safe, and +anyhow that I would be within hail of the street, I hurriedly, +and but partially whispered my dim apprehensions to Mr. Cummings, +and asked him if he would not keep near enough to hear my voice +in case I should call. He consented to do so while waiting for +some other parties, and to come in if he heard my voice or +thought I had need of protection.</p> + +<p>On reaching the editorial part of the News office, which +viewed from the street is dark, I did not see Mr. Winters, and +again my misgivings arose. Had I paused long enough to consider +the case, I should have invited Sheriff Cummings in, but as Lynch +went down stairs, he said: "This way, Wiegand—it's best to be +private," or some such remark.</p> + +<p>[I do not desire to strain the reader's fancy, hurtfully, and +yet it would be a favor to me if he would try to fancy this lamb +in battle, or the duelling ground or at the head of a vigilance +committee—M. T.:]</p> + +<p>I followed, and without Mr. Cummings, and without arms, which +I never do or will carry, unless as a soldier in war, or unless I +should yet come to feel I must fight a duel, or to join and aid +in the ranks of a necessary Vigilance Committee. But by following +I made a fatal mistake. Following was entering a trap, and +whatever animal suffers itself to be caught should expect the +common fate of a caged rat, as I fear events to come will +prove.</p> + +<p>Traps commonly are not set for benevolence. [His body-guard is +shut out:]</p> + +<p>THE TRAP INSIDE. I followed Lynch down stairs. At their foot a +door to the left opened into a small room. From that room another +door opened into yet another room, and once entered I found +myself inveigled into what many will ever henceforth regard as a +private subterranean Gold Hill den, admirably adapted in proper +hands to the purposes of murder, raw or disguised, for from it, +with both or even one door closed, when too late, I saw that I +could not be heard by Sheriff Cummings, and from it, BY VIOLENCE +AND BY FORCE, I was prevented from making a peaceable exit, when +I thought I saw the studious object of this "consultation" was no +other than to compass my killing, in the presence of Philip Lynch +as a witness, as soon as by insult a proverbially excitable man +should be exasperated to the point of assailing Mr. Winters, so +that Mr. Lynch, by his conscience and by his well known +tenderness of heart toward the rich and potent would be compelled +to testify that he saw Gen. John B. Winters kill Conrad Wiegand +in "self-defence." But I am going too fast.</p> + +<p>OUR HOST. Mr. Lynch was present during the most of the time +(say a little short of an hour), but three times he left the +room. His testimony, therefore, would be available only as to the +bulk of what transpired. On entering this carpeted den I was +invited to a seat near one corner of the room. Mr. Lynch took a +seat near the window. J. B. Winters sat (at first) near the door, +and began his remarks essentially as follows:</p> + +<p>"I have come here to exact of you a retraction, in black and +white, of those damnably false charges which you have preferred +against me in that-—infamous lying sheet of yours, and you must +declare yourself their author, that you published them knowing +them to be false, and that your motives were malicious."</p> + +<p>"Hold, Mr. Winters. Your language is insulting and your demand +an enormity. I trust I was not invited here either to be insulted +or coerced. I supposed myself here by invitation of Mr. Lynch, at +your request."</p> + +<p>"Nor did I come here to insult you. I have already told you +that I am here for a very different purpose."</p> + +<p>"Yet your language has been offensive, and even now shows +strong excitement. If insult is repeated I shall either leave the +room or call in Sheriff Cummings, whom I just left standing and +waiting for me outside the door."</p> + +<p>"No, you won't, sir. You may just as well understand it at +once as not. Here you are my man, and I'll tell you why! Months +ago you put your property out of your hands, boasting that you +did so to escape losing it on prosecution for libel."</p> + +<p>"It is true that I did convert all my immovable property into +personal property, such as I could trust safely to others, and +chiefly to escape ruin through possible libel suits."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir. Having placed yourself beyond the pale of the +law, may God help your soul if you DON'T make precisely such a +retraction as I have demanded. I've got you now, and by—before +you can get out of this room you've got to both write and sign +precisely the retraction I have demanded, and before you go, +anyhow—you—-low-lived—lying—-, I'll teach you what personal +responsibility is outside of the law; and, by—, Sheriff Cummings +and all the friends you've got in the world besides, can't save +you, you—-, etc.! No, sir. I'm alone now, and I'm prepared to be +shot down just here and now rather than be villified by you as I +have been, and suffer you to escape me after publishing those +charges, not only here where I am known and universally +respected, but where I am not personally known and may be +injured."</p> + +<p>I confess this speech, with its terrible and but too plainly +implied threat of killing me if I did not sign the paper he +demanded, terrified me, especially as I saw he was working +himself up to the highest possible pitch of passion, and instinct +told me that any reply other than one of seeming concession to +his demands would only be fuel to a raging fire, so I +replied:</p> + +<p>"Well, if I've got to sign—," and then I paused some time. +Resuming, I said, "But, Mr. Winters, you are greatly excited. +Besides, I see you are laboring under a total misapprehension. It +is your duty not to inflame but to calm yourself. I am prepared +to show you, if you will only point out the article that you +allude to, that you regard as 'charges' what no calm and logical +mind has any right to regard as such. Show me the charges, and I +will try, at all events; and if it becomes plain that no charges +have been preferred, then plainly there can be nothing to +retract, and no one could rightly urge you to demand a +retraction. You should beware of making so serious a mistake, for +however honest a man may be, every one is liable to misapprehend. +Besides you assume that I am the author of some certain article +which you have not pointed out. It is hasty to do so."</p> + +<p>He then pointed to some numbered paragraphs in a TRIBUNE +article, headed "What's the Matter with Yellow Jacket?" saying +"That's what I refer to."</p> + +<p>To gain time for general reflection and resolution, I took up +the paper and looked it over for awhile, he remaining silent, and +as I hoped, cooling. I then resumed saying, "As I supposed. I do +not admit having written that article, nor have you any right to +assume so important a point, and then base important action upon +your assumption. You might deeply regret it afterwards. In my +published Address to the People, I notified the world that no +information as to the authorship of any article would be given +without the consent of the writer. I therefore cannot honorably +tell you who wrote that article, nor can you exact it."</p> + +<p>"If you are not the author, then I do demand to know who +is?"</p> + +<p>"I must decline to say."</p> + +<p>"Then, by—, I brand you as its author, and shall treat you +accordingly."</p> + +<p>"Passing that point, the most important misapprehension which +I notice is, that you regard them as 'charges' at all, when their +context, both at their beginning and end, show they are not. +These words introduce them: 'Such an investigation [just before +indicated], we think MIGHT result in showing some of the +following points.' Then follow eleven specifications, and the +succeeding paragraph shows that the suggested investigation +'might EXONERATE those who are generally believed guilty.' You +see, therefore, the context proves they are not preferred as +charges, and this you seem to have overlooked."</p> + +<p>While making those comments, Mr. Winters frequently +interrupted me in such a way as to convince me that he was +resolved not to consider candidly the thoughts contained in my +words. He insisted upon it that they were charges, and "By—," he +would make me take them back as charges, and he referred the +question to Philip Lynch, to whom I then appealed as a literary +man, as a logician, and as an editor, calling his attention +especially to the introductory paragraph just before quoted. He +replied, "if they are not charges, they certainly are +insinuations," whereupon Mr. Winters renewed his demands for +retraction precisely such as he had before named, except that he +would allow me to state who did write the article if I did not +myself, and this time shaking his fist in my face with more +cursings and epithets.</p> + +<p>When he threatened me with his clenched fist, instinctively I +tried to rise from my chair, but Winters then forcibly thrust me +down, as he did every other time (at least seven or eight), when +under similar imminent danger of bruising by his fist (or for +aught I could know worse than that after the first stunning +blow), which he could easily and safely to himself have dealt me +so long as he kept me down and stood over me.</p> + +<p>This fact it was, which more than anything else, convinced me +that by plan and plot I was purposely made powerless in Mr. +Winters' hands, and that he did not mean to allow me that +advantage of being afoot, which he possessed. Moreover, I then +became convinced, that Philip Lynch (and for what reason I +wondered) would do absolutely nothing to protect me in his own +house. I realized then the situation thoroughly. I had found it +equally vain to protest or argue, and I would make no unmanly +appeal for pity, still less apologize. Yet my life had been by +the plainest possible implication threatened. I was a weak man. I +was unarmed. I was helplessly down, and Winters was afoot and +probably armed. Lynch was the only "witness." The statements +demanded, if given and not explained, would utterly sink me in my +own self-respect, in my family's eyes, and in the eyes of the +community. On the other hand, should I give the author's name how +could I ever expect that confidence of the People which I should +no longer deserve, and how much dearer to me and to my family was +my life than the life of the real author to his friends. Yet life +seemed dear and each minute that remained seemed precious if not +solemn. I sincerely trust that neither you nor any of your +readers, and especially none with families, may ever be placed in +such seeming direct proximity to death while obliged to decide +the one question I was compelled to, viz.: What should I do—I, a +man of family, and not as Mr. Winters is, "alone." [The reader is +requested not to skip the following.—M. T.:]</p> + +<p>STRATEGY AND MESMERISM. To gain time for further reflection, +and hoping that by a seeming acquiescence I might regain my +personal liberty, at least till I could give an alarm, or take +advantage of some momentary inadvertence of Winters, and then +without a cowardly flight escape, I resolved to write a certain +kind of retraction, but previously had inwardly decided:</p> + +<p>First.—That I would studiously avoid every action which might +be construed into the drawing of a weapon, even by a +self-infuriated man, no matter what amount of insult might be +heaped upon me, for it seemed to me that this great excess of +compound profanity, foulness and epithet must be more than a mere +indulgence, and therefore must have some object. "Surely in vain +the net is spread in the sight of any bird." Therefore, as before +without thought, I thereafter by intent kept my hands away from +my pockets, and generally in sight and spread upon my knees.</p> + +<p>Second.—I resolved to make no motion with my arms or hands +which could possibly be construed into aggression.</p> + +<p>Third.—I resolved completely to govern my outward manner and +suppress indignation. To do this, I must govern my spirit. To do +that, by force of imagination I was obliged like actors on the +boards to resolve myself into an unnatural mental state and see +all things through the eyes of an assumed character.</p> + +<p>Fourth.—I resolved to try on Winters, silently, and +unconsciously to himself a mesmeric power which I possess over +certain kinds of people, and which at times I have found to work +even in the dark over the lower animals.</p> + +<p>Does any one smile at these last counts? God save you from +ever being obliged to beat in a game of chess, whose stake is +your life, you having but four poor pawns and pieces and your +adversary with his full force unshorn. But if you are, provided +you have any strength with breadth of will, do not despair. +Though mesmeric power may not save you, it may help you; try it +at all events. In this instance I was conscious of power coming +into me, and by a law of nature, I know Winters was +correspondingly weakened. If I could have gained more time I am +sure he would not even have struck me.</p> + +<p>It takes time both to form such resolutions and to recite +them. That time, however, I gained while thinking of my +retraction, which I first wrote in pencil, altering it from time +to time till I got it to suit me, my aim being to make it look +like a concession to demands, while in fact it should tersely +speak the truth into Mr. Winters' mind. When it was finished, I +copied it in ink, and if correctly copied from my first draft it +should read as follows. In copying I do not think I made any +material change.</p> + +<p>COPY. To Philip Lynch, Editor of the Gold Hill News: I learn +that Gen. John B. Winters believes the following (pasted on) +clipping from the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE of January to contain distinct +charges of mine against him personally, and that as such he +desires me to retract them unqualifiedly.</p> + +<p>In compliance with his request, permit me to say that, +although Mr. Winters and I see this matter differently, in view +of his strong feelings in the premises, I hereby declare that I +do not know those "charges" (if such they are) to be true, and I +hope that a critical examination would altogether disprove them. +CONRAD WIEGAND. Gold Hill, January 15, 1870.</p> + +<p>I then read what I had written and handed it to Mr. Lynch, +whereupon Mr. Winters said:</p> + +<p>"That's not satisfactory, and it won't do;" and then +addressing himself to Mr. Lynch, he further said: "How does it +strike you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I confess I don't see that it retracts anything."</p> + +<p>"Nor do I," said Winters; "in fact, I regard it as adding +insult to injury. Mr. Wiegand you've got to do better than that. +You are not the man who can pull wool over my eyes."</p> + +<p>"That, sir, is the only retraction I can write."</p> + +<p>"No it isn't, sir, and if you so much as say so again you do +it at your peril, for I'll thrash you to within an inch of your +life, and, by—, sir, I don't pledge myself to spare you even +that inch either. I want you to understand I have asked you for a +very different paper, and that paper you've got to sign."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Winters, I assure you that I do not wish to irritate you, +but, at the same time, it is utterly impossible for me to write +any other paper than that which I have written. If you are +resolved to compel me to sign something, Philip Lynch's hand must +write at your dictation, and if, when written, I can sign it I +will do so, but such a document as you say you must have from me, +I never can sign. I mean what I say."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, what's to be done must be done quickly, for I've +been here long enough already. I'll put the thing in another +shape (and then pointing to the paper); don't you know those +charges to be false?"</p> + +<p>"I do not."</p> + +<p>"Do you know them to be true?"</p> + +<p>"Of my own personal knowledge I do not."</p> + +<p>"Why then did you print them?"</p> + +<p>"Because rightly considered in their connection they are not +charges, but pertinent and useful suggestions in answer to the +queries of a correspondent who stated facts which are +inexplicable."</p> + +<p>"Don't you know that I know they are false?"</p> + +<p>"If you do, the proper course is simply to deny them and court +an investigation."</p> + +<p>"And do YOU claim the right to make ME come out and deny +anything you may choose to write and print?"</p> + +<p>To that question I think I made no reply, and he then further +said:</p> + +<p>"Come, now, we've talked about the matter long enough. I want +your final answer—did you write that article or not?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot in honor tell you who wrote it."</p> + +<p>"Did you not see it before it was printed?"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly, sir."</p> + +<p>"And did you deem it a fit thing to publish?"</p> + +<p>"Most assuredly, sir, or I would never have consented to its +appearance. Of its authorship I can say nothing whatever, but for +its publication I assume full, sole and personal +responsibility."</p> + +<p>"And do you then retract it or not?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Winters, if my refusal to sign such a paper as you have +demanded must entail upon me all that your language in this room +fairly implies, then I ask a few minutes for prayer."</p> + +<p>"Prayer!—-you, this is not your hour for prayer—your time to +pray was when you were writing those—lying charges. Will you +sign or not?"</p> + +<p>"You already have my answer."</p> + +<p>"What! do you still refuse?"</p> + +<p>"I do, sir."</p> + +<p>"Take that, then," and to my amazement and inexpressible +relief he drew only a rawhide instead of what I expected—a +bludgeon or pistol. With it, as he spoke, he struck at my left +ear downwards, as if to tear it off, and afterwards on the side +of the head. As he moved away to get a better chance for a more +effective shot, for the first time I gained a chance under peril +to rise, and I did so pitying him from the very bottom of my +soul, to think that one so naturally capable of true dignity, +power and nobility could, by the temptations of this State, and +by unfortunate associations and aspirations, be so deeply debased +as to find in such brutality anything which he could call +satisfaction—but the great hope for us all is in progress and +growth, and John B. Winters, I trust, will yet be able to +comprehend my feelings.</p> + +<p>He continued to beat me with all his great force, until +absolutely weary, exhausted and panting for breath. I still +adhered to my purpose of non- aggressive defence, and made no +other use of my arms than to defend my head and face from further +disfigurement. The mere pain arising from the blows he inflicted +upon my person was of course transient, and my clothing to some +extent deadened its severity, as it now hides all remaining +traces.</p> + +<p>When I supposed he was through, taking the butt end of his +weapon and shaking it in my face, he warned me, if I correctly +understood him, of more yet to come, and furthermore said, if +ever I again dared introduce his name to print, in either my own +or any other public journal, he would cut off my left ear (and I +do not think he was jesting) and send me home to my family a +visibly mutilated man, to be a standing warning to all low-lived +puppies who seek to blackmail gentlemen and to injure their good +names. And when he did so operate, he informed me that his +implement would not be a whip but a knife.</p> + +<p>When he had said this, unaccompanied by Mr. Lynch, as I +remember it, he left the room, for I sat down by Mr. Lynch, +exclaiming: "The man is mad—he is utterly mad—this step is his +ruin—it is a mistake—it would be ungenerous in me, despite of +all the ill usage I have here received, to expose him, at least +until he has had an opportunity to reflect upon the matter. I +shall be in no haste."</p> + +<p>"Winters is very mad just now," replied Mr. Lynch, "but when +he is himself he is one of the finest men I ever met. In fact, he +told me the reason he did not meet you upstairs was to spare you +the humiliation of a beating in the sight of others."</p> + +<p>I submit that that unguarded remark of Philip Lynch convicts +him of having been privy in advance to Mr. Winters' intentions +whatever they may have been, or at least to his meaning to make +an assault upon me, but I leave to others to determine how much +censure an editor deserves for inveigling a weak, non-combatant +man, also a publisher, to a pen of his own to be horsewhipped, if +no worse, for the simple printing of what is verbally in the +mouth of nine out of ten men, and women too, upon the street.</p> + +<p>While writing this account two theories have occurred to me as +possibly true respecting this most remarkable assault: First—The +aim may have been simply to extort from me such admissions as in +the hands of money and influence would have sent me to the +Penitentiary for libel. This, however, seems unlikely, because +any statements elicited by fear or force could not be evidence in +law or could be so explained as to have no force. The statements +wanted so badly must have been desired for some other purpose. +Second—The other theory has so dark and wilfully murderous a +look that I shrink from writing it, yet as in all probability my +death at the earliest practicable moment has already been +decreed, I feel I should do all I can before my hour arrives, at +least to show others how to break up that aristocratic rule and +combination which has robbed all Nevada of true freedom, if not +of manhood itself. Although I do not prefer this hypothesis as a +"charge," I feel that as an American citizen I still have a right +both to think and to speak my thoughts even in the land of Sharon +and Winters, and as much so respecting the theory of a brutal +assault (especially when I have been its subject) as respecting +any other apparent enormity. I give the matter simply as a +suggestion which may explain to the proper authorities and to the +people whom they should represent, a well ascertained but +notwithstanding a darkly mysterious fact. The scheme of the +assault may have been:</p> + +<p>First—To terrify me by making me conscious of my own +helplessness after making actual though not legal threats against +my life.</p> + +<p>Second—To imply that I could save my life only by writing or +signing certain specific statements which if not subsequently +explained would eternally have branded me as infamous and would +have consigned my family to shame and want, and to the dreadful +compassion and patronage of the rich.</p> + +<p>Third—To blow my brains out the moment I had signed, thereby +preventing me from making any subsequent explanation such as +could remove the infamy.</p> + +<p>Fourth—Philip Lynch to be compelled to testify that I was +killed by John B. Winters in self-defence, for the conviction of +Winters would bring him in as an accomplice. If that was the +programme in John B. Winters' mind nothing saved my life but my +persistent refusal to sign, when that refusal seemed clearly to +me to be the choice of death.</p> + +<p>The remarkable assertion made to me by Mr. Winters, that pity +only spared my life on Wednesday evening last, almost compels me +to believe that at first he could not have intended me to leave +that room alive; and why I was allowed to, unless through +mesmeric or some other invisible influence, I cannot divine. The +more I reflect upon this matter, the more probable as true does +this horrible interpretation become.</p> + +<p>The narration of these things I might have spared both to Mr. +Winters and to the public had he himself observed silence, but as +he has both verbally spoken and suffered a thoroughly garbled +statement of facts to appear in the Gold Hill News I feel it due +to myself no less than to this community, and to the entire +independent press of America and Great Britain, to give a true +account of what even the Gold Hill News has pronounced a +disgraceful affair, and which it deeply regrets because of some +alleged telegraphic mistake in the account of it. [Who received +the erroneous telegrams?]</p> + +<p>Though he may not deem it prudent to take my life just now, +the publication of this article I feel sure must compel Gen. +Winters (with his peculiar views about his right to exemption +from criticism by me) to resolve on my violent death, though it +may take years to compass it. Notwithstanding I bear him no ill +will; and if W. C. Ralston and William Sharon, and other members +of the San Francisco mining and milling Ring feel that he above +all other men in this State and California is the most fitting +man to supervise and control Yellow Jacket matters, until I am +able to vote more than half their stock I presume he will be +retained to grace his present post.</p> + +<p>Meantime, I cordially invite all who know of any sort of +important villainy which only can be cured by exposure (and who +would expose it if they felt sure they would not be betrayed +under bullying threats), to communicate with the PEOPLE'S +TRIBUNE; for until I am murdered, so long as I can raise the +means to publish, I propose to continue my efforts at least to +revive the liberties of the State, to curb oppression, and to +benefit man's world and God's earth. <br><br>CONRAD WIEGAND.</p> + +<br><br> +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>[It does seem a pity that the Sheriff was shut out, since the +good sense of a general of militia and of a prominent editor +failed to teach them that the merited castigation of this weak, +half-witted child was a thing that ought to have been done in the +street, where the poor thing could have a chance to run. When a +journalist maligns a citizen, or attacks his good name on hearsay +evidence, he deserves to be thrashed for it, even if he is a +"non-combatant" weakling; but a generous adversary would at least +allow such a lamb the use of his legs at such a time.—M. T.]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +</blockquote></blockquote> + + +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing It, Part 8. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 8. *** + +***** This file should be named 8589-h.htm or 8589-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/8/8589/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + + +Title: Roughing It, Part 8. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 3, 2004 [EBook #8589] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 8. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + ROUGHING IT + + by Mark Twain + + 1880 + + Part 8. + + + + +CHAPTER LXXI. + +At four o'clock in the afternoon we were winding down a mountain of +dreary and desolate lava to the sea, and closing our pleasant land +journey. This lava is the accumulation of ages; one torrent of fire +after another has rolled down here in old times, and built up the island +structure higher and higher. Underneath, it is honey-combed with caves; +it would be of no use to dig wells in such a place; they would not hold +water--you would not find any for them to hold, for that matter. +Consequently, the planters depend upon cisterns. + +The last lava flow occurred here so long ago that there are none now +living who witnessed it. In one place it enclosed and burned down a +grove of cocoa-nut trees, and the holes in the lava where the trunks +stood are still visible; their sides retain the impression of the bark; +the trees fell upon the burning river, and becoming partly submerged, +left in it the perfect counterpart of every knot and branch and leaf, +and even nut, for curiosity seekers of a long distant day to gaze upon +and wonder at. + +There were doubtless plenty of Kanaka sentinels on guard hereabouts at +that time, but they did not leave casts of their figures in the lava as +the Roman sentinels at Herculaneum and Pompeii did. It is a pity it is +so, because such things are so interesting; but so it is. They probably +went away. They went away early, perhaps. However, they had their +merits; the Romans exhibited the higher pluck, but the Kanakas showed the +sounder judgment. + +Shortly we came in sight of that spot whose history is so familiar to +every school-boy in the wide world--Kealakekua Bay--the place where +Captain Cook, the great circumnavigator, was killed by the natives, +nearly a hundred years ago. The setting sun was flaming upon it, a +Summer shower was falling, and it was spanned by two magnificent +rainbows. Two men who were in advance of us rode through one of these +and for a moment their garments shone with a more than regal splendor. +Why did not Captain Cook have taste enough to call his great discovery +the Rainbow Islands? These charming spectacles are present to you at +every turn; they are common in all the islands; they are visible every +day, and frequently at night also--not the silvery bow we see once in an +age in the States, by moonlight, but barred with all bright and beautiful +colors, like the children of the sun and rain. I saw one of them a few +nights ago. What the sailors call "raindogs"--little patches of rainbow +--are often seen drifting about the heavens in these latitudes, like +stained cathedral windows. + +Kealakekua Bay is a little curve like the last kink of a snail-shell, +winding deep into the land, seemingly not more than a mile wide from +shore to shore. It is bounded on one side--where the murder was done--by +a little flat plain, on which stands a cocoanut grove and some ruined +houses; a steep wall of lava, a thousand feet high at the upper end and +three or four hundred at the lower, comes down from the mountain and +bounds the inner extremity of it. From this wall the place takes its +name, Kealakekua, which in the native tongue signifies "The Pathway of +the Gods." They say, (and still believe, in spite of their liberal +education in Christianity), that the great god Lono, who used to live +upon the hillside, always traveled that causeway when urgent business +connected with heavenly affairs called him down to the seashore in a +hurry. + +As the red sun looked across the placid ocean through the tall, clean +stems of the cocoanut trees, like a blooming whiskey bloat through the +bars of a city prison, I went and stood in the edge of the water on the +flat rock pressed by Captain Cook's feet when the blow was dealt which +took away his life, and tried to picture in my mind the doomed man +struggling in the midst of the multitude of exasperated savages--the men +in the ship crowding to the vessel's side and gazing in anxious dismay +toward the shore--the--but I discovered that I could not do it. + +It was growing dark, the rain began to fall, we could see that the +distant Boomerang was helplessly becalmed at sea, and so I adjourned to +the cheerless little box of a warehouse and sat down to smoke and think, +and wish the ship would make the land--for we had not eaten much for ten +hours and were viciously hungry. + +Plain unvarnished history takes the romance out of Captain Cook's +assassination, and renders a deliberate verdict of justifiable homicide. +Wherever he went among the islands, he was cordially received and +welcomed by the inhabitants, and his ships lavishly supplied with all +manner of food. He returned these kindnesses with insult and +ill-treatment. Perceiving that the people took him for the long vanished +and lamented god Lono, he encouraged them in the delusion for the sake of +the limitless power it gave him; but during the famous disturbance at +this spot, and while he and his comrades were surrounded by fifteen +thousand maddened savages, he received a hurt and betrayed his earthly +origin with a groan. It was his death-warrant. Instantly a shout went +up: "He groans!--he is not a god!" So they closed in upon him and +dispatched him. + +His flesh was stripped from the bones and burned (except nine pounds of +it which were sent on board the ships). The heart was hung up in a +native hut, where it was found and eaten by three children, who mistook +it for the heart of a dog. One of these children grew to be a very old +man, and died in Honolulu a few years ago. Some of Cook's bones were +recovered and consigned to the deep by the officers of the ships. + +Small blame should attach to the natives for the killing of Cook. +They treated him well. In return, he abused them. He and his men +inflicted bodily injury upon many of them at different times, and killed +at least three of them before they offered any proportionate retaliation. + +Near the shore we found "Cook's Monument"--only a cocoanut stump, four +feet high and about a foot in diameter at the butt. It had lava boulders +piled around its base to hold it up and keep it in its place, and it was +entirely sheathed over, from top to bottom, with rough, discolored sheets +of copper, such as ships' bottoms are coppered with. Each sheet had a +rude inscription scratched upon it--with a nail, apparently--and in every +case the execution was wretched. Most of these merely recorded the +visits of British naval commanders to the spot, but one of them bore this +legend: + + "Near this spot fell + CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, + The Distinguished Circumnavigator, + Who Discovered these Islands + A. D. 1778." + +After Cook's murder, his second in command, on board the ship, opened +fire upon the swarms of natives on the beach, and one of his cannon balls +cut this cocoanut tree short off and left this monumental stump standing. +It looked sad and lonely enough to us, out there in the rainy twilight. +But there is no other monument to Captain Cook. True, up on the mountain +side we had passed by a large inclosure like an ample hog-pen, built of +lava blocks, which marks the spot where Cook's flesh was stripped from +his bones and burned; but this is not properly a monument since it was +erected by the natives themselves, and less to do honor to the +circumnavigator than for the sake of convenience in roasting him. +A thing like a guide-board was elevated above this pen on a tall pole, +and formerly there was an inscription upon it describing the memorable +occurrence that had there taken place; but the sun and the wind have long +ago so defaced it as to render it illegible. + +Toward midnight a fine breeze sprang up and the schooner soon worked +herself into the bay and cast anchor. The boat came ashore for us, and +in a little while the clouds and the rain were all gone. The moon was +beaming tranquilly down on land and sea, and we two were stretched upon +the deck sleeping the refreshing sleep and dreaming the happy dreams that +are only vouchsafed to the weary and the innocent. + + + + +CHAPTER LXXII. + +In the breezy morning we went ashore and visited the ruined temple of the +last god Lono. The high chief cook of this temple--the priest who +presided over it and roasted the human sacrifices--was uncle to Obookia, +and at one time that youth was an apprentice-priest under him. Obookia +was a young native of fine mind, who, together with three other native +boys, was taken to New England by the captain of a whaleship during the +reign of Kamehameha I, and they were the means of attracting the +attention of the religious world to their country. This resulted in the +sending of missionaries there. And this Obookia was the very same +sensitive savage who sat down on the church steps and wept because his +people did not have the Bible. That incident has been very elaborately +painted in many a charming Sunday School book--aye, and told so +plaintively and so tenderly that I have cried over it in Sunday School +myself, on general principles, although at a time when I did not know +much and could not understand why the people of the Sandwich Islands +needed to worry so much about it as long as they did not know there was a +Bible at all. + +Obookia was converted and educated, and was to have returned to his +native land with the first missionaries, had he lived. The other native +youths made the voyage, and two of them did good service, but the third, +William Kanui, fell from grace afterward, for a time, and when the gold +excitement broke out in California he journeyed thither and went to +mining, although he was fifty years old. He succeeded pretty well, but +the failure of Page, Bacon & Co. relieved him of six thousand dollars, +and then, to all intents and purposes, he was a bankrupt in his old age +and he resumed service in the pulpit again. He died in Honolulu in 1864. + +Quite a broad tract of land near the temple, extending from the sea to +the mountain top, was sacred to the god Lono in olden times--so sacred +that if a common native set his sacrilegious foot upon it it was +judicious for him to make his will, because his time had come. He might +go around it by water, but he could not cross it. It was well sprinkled +with pagan temples and stocked with awkward, homely idols carved out of +logs of wood. There was a temple devoted to prayers for rain--and with +fine sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on the mountain side +that if you prayed there twenty-four times a day for rain you would be +likely to get it every time. You would seldom get to your Amen before +you would have to hoist your umbrella. + +And there was a large temple near at hand which was built in a single +night, in the midst of storm and thunder and rain, by the ghastly hands +of dead men! Tradition says that by the weird glare of the lightning a +noiseless multitude of phantoms were seen at their strange labor far up +the mountain side at dead of night--flitting hither and thither and +bearing great lava-blocks clasped in their nerveless fingers--appearing +and disappearing as the pallid lustre fell upon their forms and faded +away again. Even to this day, it is said, the natives hold this dread +structure in awe and reverence, and will not pass by it in the night. + +At noon I observed a bevy of nude native young ladies bathing in the sea, +and went and sat down on their clothes to keep them from being stolen. +I begged them to come out, for the sea was rising and I was satisfied +that they were running some risk. But they were not afraid, and +presently went on with their sport. They were finished swimmers and +divers, and enjoyed themselves to the last degree. + +They swam races, splashed and ducked and tumbled each other about, and +filled the air with their laughter. It is said that the first thing an +Islander learns is how to swim; learning to walk being a matter of +smaller consequence, comes afterward. One hears tales of native men and +women swimming ashore from vessels many miles at sea--more miles, indeed, +than I dare vouch for or even mention. And they tell of a native diver +who went down in thirty or forty-foot waters and brought up an anvil! +I think he swallowed the anvil afterward, if my memory serves me. +However I will not urge this point. + +I have spoken, several times, of the god Lono--I may as well furnish two +or three sentences concerning him. + +The idol the natives worshipped for him was a slender, unornamented staff +twelve feet long. Tradition says he was a favorite god on the Island of +Hawaii--a great king who had been deified for meritorious services--just +our own fashion of rewarding heroes, with the difference that we would +have made him a Postmaster instead of a god, no doubt. In an angry +moment he slew his wife, a goddess named Kaikilani Aiii. Remorse of +conscience drove him mad, and tradition presents us the singular +spectacle of a god traveling "on the shoulder;" for in his gnawing grief +he wandered about from place to place boxing and wrestling with all whom +he met. Of course this pastime soon lost its novelty, inasmuch as it +must necessarily have been the case that when so powerful a deity sent a +frail human opponent "to grass" he never came back any more. Therefore, +he instituted games called makahiki, and ordered that they should be held +in his honor, and then sailed for foreign lands on a three-cornered raft, +stating that he would return some day--and that was the last of Lono. +He was never seen any more; his raft got swamped, perhaps. But the +people always expected his return, and thus they were easily led to +accept Captain Cook as the restored god. + +Some of the old natives believed Cook was Lono to the day of their death; +but many did not, for they could not understand how he could die if he +was a god. + +Only a mile or so from Kealakekua Bay is a spot of historic interest--the +place where the last battle was fought for idolatry. Of course we +visited it, and came away as wise as most people do who go and gaze upon +such mementoes of the past when in an unreflective mood. + +While the first missionaries were on their way around the Horn, the +idolatrous customs which had obtained in the island, as far back as +tradition reached were suddenly broken up. Old Kamehameha I., was dead, +and his son, Liholiho, the new King was a free liver, a roystering, +dissolute fellow, and hated the restraints of the ancient tabu. His +assistant in the Government, Kaahumanu, the Queen dowager, was proud and +high-spirited, and hated the tabu because it restricted the privileges of +her sex and degraded all women very nearly to the level of brutes. +So the case stood. Liholiho had half a mind to put his foot down, +Kaahumahu had a whole mind to badger him into doing it, and whiskey did +the rest. It was probably the rest. It was probably the first time +whiskey ever prominently figured as an aid to civilization. Liholiho +came up to Kailua as drunk as a piper, and attended a great feast; the +determined Queen spurred his drunken courage up to a reckless pitch, and +then, while all the multitude stared in blank dismay, he moved +deliberately forward and sat down with the women! + +They saw him eat from the same vessel with them, and were appalled! +Terrible moments drifted slowly by, and still the King ate, still he +lived, still the lightnings of the insulted gods were withheld! +Then conviction came like a revelation--the superstitions of a hundred +generations passed from before the people like a cloud, and a shout went +up, "the tabu is broken! the tabu is broken!" + +Thus did King Liholiho and his dreadful whiskey preach the first sermon +and prepare the way for the new gospel that was speeding southward over +the waves of the Atlantic. + +The tabu broken and destruction failing to follow the awful sacrilege, +the people, with that childlike precipitancy which has always +characterized them, jumped to the conclusion that their gods were a weak +and wretched swindle, just as they formerly jumped to the conclusion that +Captain Cook was no god, merely because he groaned, and promptly killed +him without stopping to inquire whether a god might not groan as well as +a man if it suited his convenience to do it; and satisfied that the idols +were powerless to protect themselves they went to work at once and pulled +them down--hacked them to pieces--applied the torch--annihilated them! + +The pagan priests were furious. And well they might be; they had held +the fattest offices in the land, and now they were beggared; they had +been great--they had stood above the chiefs--and now they were vagabonds. +They raised a revolt; they scared a number of people into joining their +standard, and Bekuokalani, an ambitious offshoot of royalty, was easily +persuaded to become their leader. + +In the first skirmish the idolaters triumphed over the royal army sent +against them, and full of confidence they resolved to march upon Kailua. +The King sent an envoy to try and conciliate them, and came very near +being an envoy short by the operation; the savages not only refused to +listen to him, but wanted to kill him. So the King sent his men forth +under Major General Kalaimoku and the two host met a Kuamoo. The battle +was long and fierce--men and women fighting side by side, as was the +custom--and when the day was done the rebels were flying in every +direction in hopeless panic, and idolatry and the tabu were dead in the +land! + +The royalists marched gayly home to Kailua glorifying the new +dispensation. "There is no power in the gods," said they; "they are a +vanity and a lie. The army with idols was weak; the army without idols +was strong and victorious!" + +The nation was without a religion. + +The missionary ship arrived in safety shortly afterward, timed by +providential exactness to meet the emergency, and the Gospel was planted +as in a virgin soil. + + + + +CHAPTER LXXIII. + +At noon, we hired a Kanaka to take us down to the ancient ruins at +Honaunan in his canoe--price two dollars--reasonable enough, for a sea +voyage of eight miles, counting both ways. + +The native canoe is an irresponsible looking contrivance. I cannot think +of anything to liken it to but a boy's sled runner hollowed out, and that +does not quite convey the correct idea. It is about fifteen feet long, +high and pointed at both ends, is a foot and a half or two feet deep, and +so narrow that if you wedged a fat man into it you might not get him out +again. It sits on top of the water like a duck, but it has an outrigger +and does not upset easily, if you keep still. This outrigger is formed +of two long bent sticks like plow handles, which project from one side, +and to their outer ends is bound a curved beam composed of an extremely +light wood, which skims along the surface of the water and thus saves you +from an upset on that side, while the outrigger's weight is not so easily +lifted as to make an upset on the other side a thing to be greatly +feared. Still, until one gets used to sitting perched upon this +knifeblade, he is apt to reason within himself that it would be more +comfortable if there were just an outrigger or so on the other side also. +I had the bow seat, and Billings sat amidships and faced the Kanaka, who +occupied the stern of the craft and did the paddling. With the first +stroke the trim shell of a thing shot out from the shore like an arrow. +There was not much to see. While we were on the shallow water of the +reef, it was pastime to look down into the limpid depths at the large +bunches of branching coral--the unique shrubbery of the sea. We lost +that, though, when we got out into the dead blue water of the deep. +But we had the picture of the surf, then, dashing angrily against the +crag-bound shore and sending a foaming spray high into the air. + +There was interest in this beetling border, too, for it was honey-combed +with quaint caves and arches and tunnels, and had a rude semblance of the +dilapidated architecture of ruined keeps and castles rising out of the +restless sea. When this novelty ceased to be a novelty, we turned our +eyes shoreward and gazed at the long mountain with its rich green forests +stretching up into the curtaining clouds, and at the specks of houses in +the rearward distance and the diminished schooner riding sleepily at +anchor. And when these grew tiresome we dashed boldly into the midst of +a school of huge, beastly porpoises engaged at their eternal game of +arching over a wave and disappearing, and then doing it over again and +keeping it up--always circling over, in that way, like so many +well-submerged wheels. But the porpoises wheeled themselves away, and +then we were thrown upon our own resources. It did not take many minutes +to discover that the sun was blazing like a bonfire, and that the weather +was of a melting temperature. It had a drowsing effect, too. In one +place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and +all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing. +Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred yards out to sea, (taking +a short board with him), then face the shore and wait for a particularly +prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he would fling his +board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board, and here he would +come whizzing by like a bombshell! It did not seem that a lightning +express train could shoot along at a more hair-lifting speed. I tried +surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of it. I got the +board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the +connection myself.--The board struck the shore in three quarters of a +second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, +with a couple of barrels of water in me. None but natives ever master +the art of surf-bathing thoroughly. + +At the end of an hour, we had made the four miles, and landed on a level +point of land, upon which was a wide extent of old ruins, with many a +tall cocoanut tree growing among them. Here was the ancient City of +Refuge--a vast inclosure, whose stone walls were twenty feet thick at the +base, and fifteen feet high; an oblong square, a thousand and forty feet +one way and a fraction under seven hundred the other. Within this +inclosure, in early times, has been three rude temples; each two hundred +and ten feet long by one hundred wide, and thirteen high. + +In those days, if a man killed another anywhere on the island the +relatives were privileged to take the murderer's life; and then a chase +for life and liberty began--the outlawed criminal flying through pathless +forests and over mountain and plain, with his hopes fixed upon the +protecting walls of the City of Refuge, and the avenger of blood +following hotly after him! + +Sometimes the race was kept up to the very gates of the temple, and the +panting pair sped through long files of excited natives, who watched the +contest with flashing eye and dilated nostril, encouraging the hunted +refugee with sharp, inspiriting ejaculations, and sending up a ringing +shout of exultation when the saving gates closed upon him and the cheated +pursuer sank exhausted at the threshold. But sometimes the flying +criminal fell under the hand of the avenger at the very door, when one +more brave stride, one more brief second of time would have brought his +feet upon the sacred ground and barred him against all harm. Where did +these isolated pagans get this idea of a City of Refuge--this ancient +Oriental custom? + +This old sanctuary was sacred to all--even to rebels in arms and invading +armies. Once within its walls, and confession made to the priest and +absolution obtained, the wretch with a price upon his head could go forth +without fear and without danger--he was tabu, and to harm him was death. +The routed rebels in the lost battle for idolatry fled to this place to +claim sanctuary, and many were thus saved. + +Close to the corner of the great inclosure is a round structure of stone, +some six or eight feet high, with a level top about ten or twelve in +diameter. This was the place of execution. A high palisade of cocoanut +piles shut out the cruel scenes from the vulgar multitude. Here +criminals were killed, the flesh stripped from the bones and burned, and +the bones secreted in holes in the body of the structure. If the man had +been guilty of a high crime, the entire corpse was burned. + +The walls of the temple are a study. The same food for speculation that +is offered the visitor to the Pyramids of Egypt he will find here--the +mystery of how they were constructed by a people unacquainted with +science and mechanics. The natives have no invention of their own for +hoisting heavy weights, they had no beasts of burden, and they have never +even shown any knowledge of the properties of the lever. Yet some of the +lava blocks quarried out, brought over rough, broken ground, and built +into this wall, six or seven feet from the ground, are of prodigious size +and would weigh tons. How did they transport and how raise them? + +Both the inner and outer surfaces of the walls present a smooth front and +are very creditable specimens of masonry. The blocks are of all manner +of shapes and sizes, but yet are fitted together with the neatest +exactness. The gradual narrowing of the wall from the base upward is +accurately preserved. + +No cement was used, but the edifice is firm and compact and is capable of +resisting storm and decay for centuries. Who built this temple, and how +was it built, and when, are mysteries that may never be unraveled. +Outside of these ancient walls lies a sort of coffin-shaped stone eleven +feet four inches long and three feet square at the small end (it would +weigh a few thousand pounds), which the high chief who held sway over +this district many centuries ago brought thither on his shoulder one day +to use as a lounge! This circumstance is established by the most +reliable traditions. He used to lie down on it, in his indolent way, and +keep an eye on his subjects at work for him and see that there was no +"soldiering" done. And no doubt there was not any done to speak of, +because he was a man of that sort of build that incites to attention to +business on the part of an employee. + +He was fourteen or fifteen feet high. When he stretched himself at full +length on his lounge, his legs hung down over the end, and when he snored +he woke the dead. These facts are all attested by irrefragable +tradition. + +On the other side of the temple is a monstrous seven-ton rock, eleven +feet long, seven feet wide and three feet thick. It is raised a foot or +a foot and a half above the ground, and rests upon half a dozen little +stony pedestals. The same old fourteen-footer brought it down from the +mountain, merely for fun (he had his own notions about fun), and propped +it up as we find it now and as others may find it a century hence, for it +would take a score of horses to budge it from its position. They say +that fifty or sixty years ago the proud Queen Kaahumanu used to fly to +this rock for safety, whenever she had been making trouble with her +fierce husband, and hide under it until his wrath was appeased. But +these Kanakas will lie, and this statement is one of their ablest +efforts--for Kaahumanu was six feet high--she was bulky--she was built +like an ox--and she could no more have squeezed herself under that rock +than she could have passed between the cylinders of a sugar mill. What +could she gain by it, even if she succeeded? To be chased and abused by +a savage husband could not be otherwise than humiliating to her high +spirit, yet it could never make her feel so flat as an hour's repose +under that rock would. + +We walked a mile over a raised macadamized road of uniform width; a road +paved with flat stones and exhibiting in its every detail a considerable +degree of engineering skill. Some say that that wise old pagan, +Kamehameha I planned and built it, but others say it was built so long +before his time that the knowledge of who constructed it has passed out +of the traditions. In either case, however, as the handiwork of an +untaught and degraded race it is a thing of pleasing interest. The +stones are worn and smooth, and pushed apart in places, so that the road +has the exact appearance of those ancient paved highways leading out of +Rome which one sees in pictures. + +The object of our tramp was to visit a great natural curiosity at the +base of the foothills--a congealed cascade of lava. Some old forgotten +volcanic eruption sent its broad river of fire down the mountain side +here, and it poured down in a great torrent from an overhanging bluff +some fifty feet high to the ground below. The flaming torrent cooled in +the winds from the sea, and remains there to-day, all seamed, and frothed +and rippled a petrified Niagara. It is very picturesque, and withal so +natural that one might almost imagine it still flowed. A smaller stream +trickled over the cliff and built up an isolated pyramid about thirty +feet high, which has the semblance of a mass of large gnarled and knotted +vines and roots and stems intricately twisted and woven together. + +We passed in behind the cascade and the pyramid, and found the bluff +pierced by several cavernous tunnels, whose crooked courses we followed a +long distance. + +Two of these winding tunnels stand as proof of Nature's mining abilities. +Their floors are level, they are seven feet wide, and their roofs are +gently arched. Their height is not uniform, however. We passed through +one a hundred feet long, which leads through a spur of the hill and opens +out well up in the sheer wall of a precipice whose foot rests in the +waves of the sea. It is a commodious tunnel, except that there are +occasional places in it where one must stoop to pass under. The roof is +lava, of course, and is thickly studded with little lava-pointed icicles +an inch long, which hardened as they dripped. They project as closely +together as the iron teeth of a corn-sheller, and if one will stand up +straight and walk any distance there, he can get his hair combed free of +charge. + + + + +CHAPTER LXXIV. + +We got back to the schooner in good time, and then sailed down to Kau, +where we disembarked and took final leave of the vessel. Next day we +bought horses and bent our way over the summer-clad mountain-terraces, +toward the great volcano of Kilauea (Ke-low-way-ah). We made nearly a +two days' journey of it, but that was on account of laziness. Toward +sunset on the second day, we reached an elevation of some four thousand +feet above sea level, and as we picked our careful way through billowy +wastes of lava long generations ago stricken dead and cold in the climax +of its tossing fury, we began to come upon signs of the near presence of +the volcano--signs in the nature of ragged fissures that discharged jets +of sulphurous vapor into the air, hot from the molten ocean down in the +bowels of the mountain. + +Shortly the crater came into view. I have seen Vesuvius since, but it +was a mere toy, a child's volcano, a soup-kettle, compared to this. +Mount Vesuvius is a shapely cone thirty-six hundred feet high; its crater +an inverted cone only three hundred feet deep, and not more than a +thousand feet in diameter, if as much as that; its fires meagre, modest, +and docile.--But here was a vast, perpendicular, walled cellar, nine +hundred feet deep in some places, thirteen hundred in others, +level-floored, and ten miles in circumference! Here was a yawning pit +upon whose floor the armies of Russia could camp, and have room to spare. + +Perched upon the edge of the crater, at the opposite end from where we +stood, was a small look-out house--say three miles away. It assisted us, +by comparison, to comprehend and appreciate the great depth of the basin +--it looked like a tiny martin-box clinging at the eaves of a cathedral. +After some little time spent in resting and looking and ciphering, we +hurried on to the hotel. + +By the path it is half a mile from the Volcano House to the +lookout-house. After a hearty supper we waited until it was thoroughly +dark and then started to the crater. The first glance in that direction +revealed a scene of wild beauty. There was a heavy fog over the crater +and it was splendidly illuminated by the glare from the fires below. The +illumination was two miles wide and a mile high, perhaps; and if you +ever, on a dark night and at a distance beheld the light from thirty or +forty blocks of distant buildings all on fire at once, reflected strongly +against over-hanging clouds, you can form a fair idea of what this looked +like. + +A colossal column of cloud towered to a great height in the air +immediately above the crater, and the outer swell of every one of its +vast folds was dyed with a rich crimson luster, which was subdued to a +pale rose tint in the depressions between. It glowed like a muffled +torch and stretched upward to a dizzy height toward the zenith. I +thought it just possible that its like had not been seen since the +children of Israel wandered on their long march through the desert so +many centuries ago over a path illuminated by the mysterious "pillar of +fire." And I was sure that I now had a vivid conception of what the +majestic "pillar of fire" was like, which almost amounted to a +revelation. + +Arrived at the little thatched lookout house, we rested our elbows on the +railing in front and looked abroad over the wide crater and down over the +sheer precipice at the seething fires beneath us. The view was a +startling improvement on my daylight experience. I turned to see the +effect on the balance of the company and found the reddest-faced set of +men I almost ever saw. In the strong light every countenance glowed like +red-hot iron, every shoulder was suffused with crimson and shaded +rearward into dingy, shapeless obscurity! The place below looked like +the infernal regions and these men like half-cooled devils just come up +on a furlough. + +I turned my eyes upon the volcano again. The "cellar" was tolerably well +lighted up. For a mile and a half in front of us and half a mile on +either side, the floor of the abyss was magnificently illuminated; beyond +these limits the mists hung down their gauzy curtains and cast a +deceptive gloom over all that made the twinkling fires in the remote +corners of the crater seem countless leagues removed--made them seem like +the camp-fires of a great army far away. Here was room for the +imagination to work! You could imagine those lights the width of a +continent away--and that hidden under the intervening darkness were +hills, and winding rivers, and weary wastes of plain and desert--and even +then the tremendous vista stretched on, and on, and on!--to the fires and +far beyond! You could not compass it--it was the idea of eternity made +tangible--and the longest end of it made visible to the naked eye! + +The greater part of the vast floor of the desert under us was as black as +ink, and apparently smooth and level; but over a mile square of it was +ringed and streaked and striped with a thousand branching streams of +liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire! It looked like a colossal railroad +map of the State of Massachusetts done in chain lightning on a midnight +sky. Imagine it--imagine a coal-black sky shivered into a tangled +net-work of angry fire! + +Here and there were gleaming holes a hundred feet in diameter, broken in +the dark crust, and in them the melted lava--the color a dazzling white +just tinged with yellow--was boiling and surging furiously; and from +these holes branched numberless bright torrents in many directions, like +the spokes of a wheel, and kept a tolerably straight course for a while +and then swept round in huge rainbow curves, or made a long succession of +sharp worm-fence angles, which looked precisely like the fiercest jagged +lightning. These streams met other streams, and they mingled with and +crossed and recrossed each other in every conceivable direction, like +skate tracks on a popular skating ground. Sometimes streams twenty or +thirty feet wide flowed from the holes to some distance without dividing +--and through the opera-glasses we could see that they ran down small, +steep hills and were genuine cataracts of fire, white at their source, +but soon cooling and turning to the richest red, grained with alternate +lines of black and gold. Every now and then masses of the dark crust +broke away and floated slowly down these streams like rafts down a river. +Occasionally the molten lava flowing under the superincumbent crust broke +through--split a dazzling streak, from five hundred to a thousand feet +long, like a sudden flash of lightning, and then acre after acre of the +cold lava parted into fragments, turned up edgewise like cakes of ice +when a great river breaks up, plunged downward and were swallowed in the +crimson cauldron. Then the wide expanse of the "thaw" maintained a ruddy +glow for a while, but shortly cooled and became black and level again. +During a "thaw," every dismembered cake was marked by a glittering white +border which was superbly shaded inward by aurora borealis rays, which +were a flaming yellow where they joined the white border, and from thence +toward their points tapered into glowing crimson, then into a rich, pale +carmine, and finally into a faint blush that held its own a moment and +then dimmed and turned black. Some of the streams preferred to mingle +together in a tangle of fantastic circles, and then they looked something +like the confusion of ropes one sees on a ship's deck when she has just +taken in sail and dropped anchor--provided one can imagine those ropes on +fire. + +Through the glasses, the little fountains scattered about looked very +beautiful. They boiled, and coughed, and spluttered, and discharged +sprays of stringy red fire--of about the consistency of mush, for +instance--from ten to fifteen feet into the air, along with a shower of +brilliant white sparks--a quaint and unnatural mingling of gouts of blood +and snow-flakes! + +We had circles and serpents and streaks of lightning all twined and +wreathed and tied together, without a break throughout an area more than +a mile square (that amount of ground was covered, though it was not +strictly "square"), and it was with a feeling of placid exultation that +we reflected that many years had elapsed since any visitor had seen such +a splendid display--since any visitor had seen anything more than the now +snubbed and insignificant "North" and "South" lakes in action. We had +been reading old files of Hawaiian newspapers and the "Record Book" at +the Volcano House, and were posted. + +I could see the North Lake lying out on the black floor away off in the +outer edge of our panorama, and knitted to it by a web-work of lava +streams. In its individual capacity it looked very little more +respectable than a schoolhouse on fire. True, it was about nine hundred +feet long and two or three hundred wide, but then, under the present +circumstances, it necessarily appeared rather insignificant, and besides +it was so distant from us. + +I forgot to say that the noise made by the bubbling lava is not great, +heard as we heard it from our lofty perch. It makes three distinct +sounds--a rushing, a hissing, and a coughing or puffing sound; and if you +stand on the brink and close your eyes it is no trick at all to imagine +that you are sweeping down a river on a large low-pressure steamer, and +that you hear the hissing of the steam about her boilers, the puffing +from her escape-pipes and the churning rush of the water abaft her +wheels. The smell of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner. + +We left the lookout house at ten o'clock in a half cooked condition, +because of the heat from Pele's furnaces, and wrapping up in blankets, +for the night was cold, we returned to our Hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER LXXV. + +The next night was appointed for a visit to the bottom of the crater, for +we desired to traverse its floor and see the "North Lake" (of fire) which +lay two miles away, toward the further wall. After dark half a dozen of +us set out, with lanterns and native guides, and climbed down a crazy, +thousand-foot pathway in a crevice fractured in the crater wall, and +reached the bottom in safety. + +The irruption of the previous evening had spent its force and the floor +looked black and cold; but when we ran out upon it we found it hot yet, +to the feet, and it was likewise riven with crevices which revealed the +underlying fires gleaming vindictively. A neighboring cauldron was +threatening to overflow, and this added to the dubiousness of the +situation. So the native guides refused to continue the venture, and +then every body deserted except a stranger named Marlette. He said he +had been in the crater a dozen times in daylight and believed he could +find his way through it at night. He thought that a run of three hundred +yards would carry us over the hottest part of the floor and leave us our +shoe-soles. His pluck gave me back-bone. We took one lantern and +instructed the guides to hang the other to the roof of the look-out house +to serve as a beacon for us in case we got lost, and then the party +started back up the precipice and Marlette and I made our run. +We skipped over the hot floor and over the red crevices with brisk +dispatch and reached the cold lava safe but with pretty warm feet. Then +we took things leisurely and comfortably, jumping tolerably wide and +probably bottomless chasms, and threading our way through picturesque +lava upheavals with considerable confidence. When we got fairly away +from the cauldrons of boiling fire, we seemed to be in a gloomy desert, +and a suffocatingly dark one, surrounded by dim walls that seemed to +tower to the sky. The only cheerful objects were the glinting stars high +overhead. + +By and by Marlette shouted "Stop!" I never stopped quicker in my life. +I asked what the matter was. He said we were out of the path. He said +we must not try to go on till we found it again, for we were surrounded +with beds of rotten lava through which we could easily break and plunge +down a thousand feet. I thought eight hundred would answer for me, and +was about to say so when Marlette partly proved his statement by +accidentally crushing through and disappearing to his arm-pits. + +He got out and we hunted for the path with the lantern. He said there +was only one path and that it was but vaguely defined. We could not find +it. The lava surface was all alike in the lantern light. But he was an +ingenious man. He said it was not the lantern that had informed him that +we were out of the path, but his feet. He had noticed a crisp grinding +of fine lava-needles under his feet, and some instinct reminded him that +in the path these were all worn away. So he put the lantern behind him, +and began to search with his boots instead of his eyes. It was good +sagacity. The first time his foot touched a surface that did not grind +under it he announced that the trail was found again; and after that we +kept up a sharp listening for the rasping sound and it always warned us +in time. + +It was a long tramp, but an exciting one. We reached the North Lake +between ten and eleven o'clock, and sat down on a huge overhanging +lava-shelf, tired but satisfied. The spectacle presented was worth +coming double the distance to see. Under us, and stretching away before +us, was a heaving sea of molten fire of seemingly limitless extent. The +glare from it was so blinding that it was some time before we could bear +to look upon it steadily. + +It was like gazing at the sun at noon-day, except that the glare was not +quite so white. At unequal distances all around the shores of the lake +were nearly white-hot chimneys or hollow drums of lava, four or five feet +high, and up through them were bursting gorgeous sprays of lava-gouts and +gem spangles, some white, some red and some golden--a ceaseless +bombardment, and one that fascinated the eye with its unapproachable +splendor. The mere distant jets, sparkling up through an intervening +gossamer veil of vapor, seemed miles away; and the further the curving +ranks of fiery fountains receded, the more fairy-like and beautiful they +appeared. + +Now and then the surging bosom of the lake under our noses would calm +down ominously and seem to be gathering strength for an enterprise; and +then all of a sudden a red dome of lava of the bulk of an ordinary +dwelling would heave itself aloft like an escaping balloon, then burst +asunder, and out of its heart would flit a pale-green film of vapor, and +float upward and vanish in the darkness--a released soul soaring homeward +from captivity with the damned, no doubt. The crashing plunge of the +ruined dome into the lake again would send a world of seething billows +lashing against the shores and shaking the foundations of our perch. By +and by, a loosened mass of the hanging shelf we sat on tumbled into the +lake, jarring the surroundings like an earthquake and delivering a +suggestion that may have been intended for a hint, and may not. We did +not wait to see. + +We got lost again on our way back, and were more than an hour hunting for +the path. We were where we could see the beacon lantern at the look-out +house at the time, but thought it was a star and paid no attention to it. +We reached the hotel at two o'clock in the morning pretty well fagged +out. + +Kilauea never overflows its vast crater, but bursts a passage for its +lava through the mountain side when relief is necessary, and then the +destruction is fearful. About 1840 it rent its overburdened stomach and +sent a broad river of fire careering down to the sea, which swept away +forests, huts, plantations and every thing else that lay in its path. +The stream was five miles broad, in places, and two hundred feet deep, +and the distance it traveled was forty miles. It tore up and bore away +acre-patches of land on its bosom like rafts--rocks, trees and all +intact. At night the red glare was visible a hundred miles at sea; and +at a distance of forty miles fine print could be read at midnight. The +atmosphere was poisoned with sulphurous vapors and choked with falling +ashes, pumice stones and cinders; countless columns of smoke rose up and +blended together in a tumbled canopy that hid the heavens and glowed with +a ruddy flush reflected from the fires below; here and there jets of lava +sprung hundreds of feet into the air and burst into rocket-sprays that +returned to earth in a crimson rain; and all the while the laboring +mountain shook with Nature's great palsy and voiced its distress in +moanings and the muffled booming of subterranean thunders. + +Fishes were killed for twenty miles along the shore, where the lava +entered the sea. The earthquakes caused some loss of human life, and a +prodigious tidal wave swept inland, carrying every thing before it and +drowning a number of natives. The devastation consummated along the +route traversed by the river of lava was complete and incalculable. Only +a Pompeii and a Herculaneum were needed at the foot of Kilauea to make +the story of the irruption immortal. + + + + +CHAPTER LXXVI. + +We rode horseback all around the island of Hawaii (the crooked road +making the distance two hundred miles), and enjoyed the journey very +much. We were more than a week making the trip, because our Kanaka +horses would not go by a house or a hut without stopping--whip and spur +could not alter their minds about it, and so we finally found that it +economized time to let them have their way. Upon inquiry the mystery was +explained: the natives are such thorough-going gossips that they never +pass a house without stopping to swap news, and consequently their horses +learn to regard that sort of thing as an essential part of the whole duty +of man, and his salvation not to be compassed without it. However, at a +former crisis of my life I had once taken an aristocratic young lady out +driving, behind a horse that had just retired from a long and honorable +career as the moving impulse of a milk wagon, and so this present +experience awoke a reminiscent sadness in me in place of the exasperation +more natural to the occasion. I remembered how helpless I was that day, +and how humiliated; how ashamed I was of having intimated to the girl +that I had always owned the horse and was accustomed to grandeur; how +hard I tried to appear easy, and even vivacious, under suffering that was +consuming my vitals; how placidly and maliciously the girl smiled, and +kept on smiling, while my hot blushes baked themselves into a permanent +blood-pudding in my face; how the horse ambled from one side of the +street to the other and waited complacently before every third house two +minutes and a quarter while I belabored his back and reviled him in my +heart; how I tried to keep him from turning corners and failed; how I +moved heaven and earth to get him out of town, and did not succeed; how +he traversed the entire settlement and delivered imaginary milk at a +hundred and sixty-two different domiciles, and how he finally brought up +at a dairy depot and refused to budge further, thus rounding and +completing the revealment of what the plebeian service of his life had +been; how, in eloquent silence, I walked the girl home, and how, when I +took leave of her, her parting remark scorched my soul and appeared to +blister me all over: she said that my horse was a fine, capable animal, +and I must have taken great comfort in him in my time--but that if I +would take along some milk-tickets next time, and appear to deliver them +at the various halting places, it might expedite his movements a little. +There was a coolness between us after that. + +In one place in the island of Hawaii, we saw a laced and ruffled cataract +of limpid water leaping from a sheer precipice fifteen hundred feet high; +but that sort of scenery finds its stanchest ally in the arithmetic +rather than in spectacular effect. If one desires to be so stirred by a +poem of Nature wrought in the happily commingled graces of picturesque +rocks, glimpsed distances, foliage, color, shifting lights and shadows, +and failing water, that the tears almost come into his eyes so potent is +the charm exerted, he need not go away from America to enjoy such an +experience. The Rainbow Fall, in Watkins Glen (N.Y.), on the Erie +railway, is an example. It would recede into pitiable insignificance if +the callous tourist drew on arithmetic on it; but left to compete for the +honors simply on scenic grace and beauty--the grand, the august and the +sublime being barred the contest--it could challenge the old world and +the new to produce its peer. + +In one locality, on our journey, we saw some horses that had been born +and reared on top of the mountains, above the range of running water, and +consequently they had never drank that fluid in their lives, but had been +always accustomed to quenching their thirst by eating dew-laden or +shower-wetted leaves. And now it was destructively funny to see them +sniff suspiciously at a pail of water, and then put in their noses and +try to take a bite out of the fluid, as if it were a solid. Finding it +liquid, they would snatch away their heads and fall to trembling, +snorting and showing other evidences of fright. When they became +convinced at last that the water was friendly and harmless, they thrust +in their noses up to their eyes, brought out a mouthful of water, and +proceeded to chew it complacently. We saw a man coax, kick and spur one +of them five or ten minutes before he could make it cross a running +stream. It spread its nostrils, distended its eyes and trembled all +over, just as horses customarily do in the presence of a serpent--and for +aught I know it thought the crawling stream was a serpent. + +In due course of time our journey came to an end at Kawaehae (usually +pronounced To-a-hi--and before we find fault with this elaborate +orthographical method of arriving at such an unostentatious result, let +us lop off the ugh from our word "though"). I made this horseback trip +on a mule. I paid ten dollars for him at Kau (Kah-oo), added four to get +him shod, rode him two hundred miles, and then sold him for fifteen +dollars. I mark the circumstance with a white stone (in the absence of +chalk--for I never saw a white stone that a body could mark anything +with, though out of respect for the ancients I have tried it often +enough); for up to that day and date it was the first strictly commercial +transaction I had ever entered into, and come out winner. We returned to +Honolulu, and from thence sailed to the island of Maui, and spent several +weeks there very pleasantly. I still remember, with a sense of indolent +luxury, a picnicing excursion up a romantic gorge there, called the Iao +Valley. The trail lay along the edge of a brawling stream in the bottom +of the gorge--a shady route, for it was well roofed with the verdant +domes of forest trees. Through openings in the foliage we glimpsed +picturesque scenery that revealed ceaseless changes and new charms with +every step of our progress. Perpendicular walls from one to three +thousand feet high guarded the way, and were sumptuously plumed with +varied foliage, in places, and in places swathed in waving ferns. +Passing shreds of cloud trailed their shadows across these shining +fronts, mottling them with blots; billowy masses of white vapor hid the +turreted summits, and far above the vapor swelled a background of +gleaming green crags and cones that came and went, through the veiling +mists, like islands drifting in a fog; sometimes the cloudy curtain +descended till half the canon wall was hidden, then shredded gradually +away till only airy glimpses of the ferny front appeared through it--then +swept aloft and left it glorified in the sun again. Now and then, as our +position changed, rocky bastions swung out from the wall, a mimic ruin of +castellated ramparts and crumbling towers clothed with mosses and hung +with garlands of swaying vines, and as we moved on they swung back again +and hid themselves once more in the foliage. Presently a verdure-clad +needle of stone, a thousand feet high, stepped out from behind a corner, +and mounted guard over the mysteries of the valley. It seemed to me that +if Captain Cook needed a monument, here was one ready made--therefore, +why not put up his sign here, and sell out the venerable cocoanut stump? + +But the chief pride of Maui is her dead volcano of Haleakala--which +means, translated, "the house of the sun." We climbed a thousand feet up +the side of this isolated colossus one afternoon; then camped, and next +day climbed the remaining nine thousand feet, and anchored on the summit, +where we built a fire and froze and roasted by turns, all night. With +the first pallor of dawn we got up and saw things that were new to us. +Mounted on a commanding pinnacle, we watched Nature work her silent +wonders. The sea was spread abroad on every hand, its tumbled surface +seeming only wrinkled and dimpled in the distance. A broad valley below +appeared like an ample checker-board, its velvety green sugar plantations +alternating with dun squares of barrenness and groves of trees diminished +to mossy tufts. Beyond the valley were mountains picturesquely grouped +together; but bear in mind, we fancied that we were looking up at these +things--not down. We seemed to sit in the bottom of a symmetrical bowl +ten thousand feet deep, with the valley and the skirting sea lifted away +into the sky above us! It was curious; and not only curious, but +aggravating; for it was having our trouble all for nothing, to climb ten +thousand feet toward heaven and then have to look up at our scenery. +However, we had to be content with it and make the best of it; for, all +we could do we could not coax our landscape down out of the clouds. +Formerly, when I had read an article in which Poe treated of this +singular fraud perpetrated upon the eye by isolated great altitudes, +I had looked upon the matter as an invention of his own fancy. + +I have spoken of the outside view--but we had an inside one, too. That +was the yawning dead crater, into which we now and then tumbled rocks, +half as large as a barrel, from our perch, and saw them go careering down +the almost perpendicular sides, bounding three hundred feet at a jump; +kicking up cast-clouds wherever they struck; diminishing to our view as +they sped farther into distance; growing invisible, finally, and only +betraying their course by faint little puffs of dust; and coming to a +halt at last in the bottom of the abyss, two thousand five hundred feet +down from where they started! It was magnificent sport. We wore +ourselves out at it. + +The crater of Vesuvius, as I have before remarked, is a modest pit about +a thousand feet deep and three thousand in circumference; that of Kilauea +is somewhat deeper, and ten miles in circumference. But what are either +of them compared to the vacant stomach of Haleakala? I will not offer +any figures of my own, but give official ones--those of Commander Wilkes, +U.S.N., who surveyed it and testifies that it is twenty-seven miles in +circumference! If it had a level bottom it would make a fine site for a +city like London. It must have afforded a spectacle worth contemplating +in the old days when its furnaces gave full rein to their anger. + +Presently vagrant white clouds came drifting along, high over the sea and +the valley; then they came in couples and groups; then in imposing +squadrons; gradually joining their forces, they banked themselves solidly +together, a thousand feet under us, and totally shut out land and ocean +--not a vestige of anything was left in view but just a little of the rim +of the crater, circling away from the pinnacle whereon we sat (for a +ghostly procession of wanderers from the filmy hosts without had drifted +through a chasm in the crater wall and filed round and round, and +gathered and sunk and blended together till the abyss was stored to the +brim with a fleecy fog). Thus banked, motion ceased, and silence +reigned. Clear to the horizon, league on league, the snowy floor +stretched without a break--not level, but in rounded folds, with shallow +creases between, and with here and there stately piles of vapory +architecture lifting themselves aloft out of the common plain--some near +at hand, some in the middle distances, and others relieving the monotony +of the remote solitudes. There was little conversation, for the +impressive scene overawed speech. I felt like the Last Man, neglected of +the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a +vanished world. + +While the hush yet brooded, the messengers of the coming resurrection +appeared in the East. A growing warmth suffused the horizon, and soon +the sun emerged and looked out over the cloud-waste, flinging bars of +ruddy light across it, staining its folds and billow-caps with blushes, +purpling the shaded troughs between, and glorifying the massy +vapor-palaces and cathedrals with a wasteful splendor of all blendings +and combinations of rich coloring. + +It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think the memory +of it will remain with me always. + + + + +CHAPTER LXXVII. + +I stumbled upon one curious character in the Island of Mani. He became a +sore annoyance to me in the course of time. My first glimpse of him was +in a sort of public room in the town of Lahaina. He occupied a chair at +the opposite side of the apartment, and sat eyeing our party with +interest for some minutes, and listening as critically to what we were +saying as if he fancied we were talking to him and expecting him to +reply. I thought it very sociable in a stranger. Presently, in the +course of conversation, I made a statement bearing upon the subject under +discussion--and I made it with due modesty, for there was nothing +extraordinary about it, and it was only put forth in illustration of a +point at issue. I had barely finished when this person spoke out with +rapid utterance and feverish anxiety: + +"Oh, that was certainly remarkable, after a fashion, but you ought to +have seen my chimney--you ought to have seen my chimney, sir! Smoke! +I wish I may hang if--Mr. Jones, you remember that chimney--you must +remember that chimney! No, no--I recollect, now, you warn't living on +this side of the island then. But I am telling you nothing but the +truth, and I wish I may never draw another breath if that chimney didn't +smoke so that the smoke actually got caked in it and I had to dig it out +with a pickaxe! You may smile, gentlemen, but the High Sheriff's got a +hunk of it which I dug out before his eyes, and so it's perfectly easy +for you to go and examine for yourselves." + +The interruption broke up the conversation, which had already begun to +lag, and we presently hired some natives and an out-rigger canoe or two, +and went out to overlook a grand surf-bathing contest. + +Two weeks after this, while talking in a company, I looked up and +detected this same man boring through and through me with his intense +eye, and noted again his twitching muscles and his feverish anxiety to +speak. The moment I paused, he said: + +"Beg your pardon, sir, beg your pardon, but it can only be considered +remarkable when brought into strong outline by isolation. Sir, +contrasted with a circumstance which occurred in my own experience, it +instantly becomes commonplace. No, not that--for I will not speak so +discourteously of any experience in the career of a stranger and a +gentleman--but I am obliged to say that you could not, and you would not +ever again refer to this tree as a large one, if you could behold, as I +have, the great Yakmatack tree, in the island of Ounaska, sea of +Kamtchatka--a tree, sir, not one inch less than four hundred and fifteen +feet in solid diameter!--and I wish I may die in a minute if it isn't so! +Oh, you needn't look so questioning, gentlemen; here's old Cap Saltmarsh +can say whether I know what I'm talking about or not. I showed him the +tree." + +Captain Saltmarsh--"Come, now, cat your anchor, lad--you're heaving too +taut. You promised to show me that stunner, and I walked more than +eleven mile with you through the cussedest jungle I ever see, a hunting +for it; but the tree you showed me finally warn't as big around as a beer +cask, and you know that your own self, Markiss." + +"Hear the man talk! Of course the tree was reduced that way, but didn't +I explain it? Answer me, didn't I? Didn't I say I wished you could have +seen it when I first saw it? When you got up on your ear and called me +names, and said I had brought you eleven miles to look at a sapling, +didn't I explain to you that all the whale-ships in the North Seas had +been wooding off of it for more than twenty-seven years? And did you +s'pose the tree could last for-ever, con-found it? I don't see why you +want to keep back things that way, and try to injure a person that's +never done you any harm." + +Somehow this man's presence made me uncomfortable, and I was glad when a +native arrived at that moment to say that Muckawow, the most +companionable and luxurious among the rude war-chiefs of the Islands, +desired us to come over and help him enjoy a missionary whom he had found +trespassing on his grounds. + +I think it was about ten days afterward that, as I finished a statement I +was making for the instruction of a group of friends and acquaintances, +and which made no pretence of being extraordinary, a familiar voice +chimed instantly in on the heels of my last word, and said: + +"But, my dear sir, there was nothing remarkable about that horse, or the +circumstance either--nothing in the world! I mean no sort of offence +when I say it, sir, but you really do not know anything whatever about +speed. Bless your heart, if you could only have seen my mare Margaretta; +there was a beast!--there was lightning for you! Trot! Trot is no name +for it--she flew! How she could whirl a buggy along! I started her out +once, sir--Colonel Bilgewater, you recollect that animal perfectly well +--I started her out about thirty or thirty-five yards ahead of the +awfullest storm I ever saw in my life, and it chased us upwards of +eighteen miles! It did, by the everlasting hills! And I'm telling you +nothing but the unvarnished truth when I say that not one single drop of +rain fell on me--not a single drop, sir! And I swear to it! But my dog +was a-swimming behind the wagon all the way!" + +For a week or two I stayed mostly within doors, for I seemed to meet this +person everywhere, and he had become utterly hateful to me. But one +evening I dropped in on Captain Perkins and his friends, and we had a +sociable time. About ten o'clock I chanced to be talking about a +merchant friend of mine, and without really intending it, the remark +slipped out that he was a little mean and parsimonious about paying his +workmen. Instantly, through the steam of a hot whiskey punch on the +opposite side of the room, a remembered voice shot--and for a moment I +trembled on the imminent verge of profanity: + +"Oh, my dear sir, really you expose yourself when you parade that as a +surprising circumstance. Bless your heart and hide, you are ignorant of +the very A B C of meanness! ignorant as the unborn babe! ignorant as +unborn twins! You don't know anything about it! It is pitiable to see +you, sir, a well-spoken and prepossessing stranger, making such an +enormous pow-wow here about a subject concerning which your ignorance is +perfectly humiliating! Look me in the eye, if you please; look me in the +eye. John James Godfrey was the son of poor but honest parents in the +State of Mississippi--boyhood friend of mine--bosom comrade in later +years. Heaven rest his noble spirit, he is gone from us now. John James +Godfrey was hired by the Hayblossom Mining Company in California to do +some blasting for them--the "Incorporated Company of Mean Men," the boys +used to call it. + +"Well, one day he drilled a hole about four feet deep and put in an awful +blast of powder, and was standing over it ramming it down with an iron +crowbar about nine foot long, when the cussed thing struck a spark and +fired the powder, and scat! away John Godfrey whizzed like a skyrocket, +him and his crowbar! Well, sir, he kept on going up in the air higher +and higher, till he didn't look any bigger than a boy--and he kept going +on up higher and higher, till he didn't look any bigger than a doll--and +he kept on going up higher and higher, till he didn't look any bigger +than a little small bee--and then he went out of sight! Presently he +came in sight again, looking like a little small bee--and he came along +down further and further, till he looked as big as a doll again--and down +further and further, till he was as big as a boy again--and further and +further, till he was a full-sized man once more; and then him and his +crowbar came a wh-izzing down and lit right exactly in the same old +tracks and went to r-ramming down, and r-ramming down, and r-ramming down +again, just the same as if nothing had happened! Now do you know, that +poor cuss warn't gone only sixteen minutes, and yet that Incorporated +Company of Mean Men DOCKED HIM FOR THE LOST TIME!" + +I said I had the headache, and so excused myself and went home. And on +my diary I entered "another night spoiled" by this offensive loafer. +And a fervent curse was set down with it to keep the item company. And +the very next day I packed up, out of all patience, and left the Island. + +Almost from the very beginning, I regarded that man as a liar. + +The line of points represents an interval of years. At the end of which +time the opinion hazarded in that last sentence came to be gratifyingly +and remarkably endorsed, and by wholly disinterested persons. The man +Markiss was found one morning hanging to a beam of his own bedroom (the +doors and windows securely fastened on the inside), dead; and on his +breast was pinned a paper in his own handwriting begging his friends to +suspect no innocent person of having any thing to do with his death, for +that it was the work of his own hands entirely. Yet the jury brought in +the astounding verdict that deceased came to his death "by the hands of +some person or persons unknown!" They explained that the perfectly +undeviating consistency of Markiss's character for thirty years towered +aloft as colossal and indestructible testimony, that whatever statement +he chose to make was entitled to instant and unquestioning acceptance as +a lie. And they furthermore stated their belief that he was not dead, +and instanced the strong circumstantial evidence of his own word that he +was dead--and beseeched the coroner to delay the funeral as long as +possible, which was done. And so in the tropical climate of Lahaina the +coffin stood open for seven days, and then even the loyal jury gave him +up. But they sat on him again, and changed their verdict to "suicide +induced by mental aberration"--because, said they, with penetration, "he +said he was dead, and he was dead; and would he have told the truth if he +had been in his right mind? No, sir." + + + + +CHAPTER LXXVIII. + +After half a year's luxurious vagrancy in the islands, I took shipping in +a sailing vessel, and regretfully returned to San Francisco--a voyage in +every way delightful, but without an incident: unless lying two long +weeks in a dead calm, eighteen hundred miles from the nearest land, may +rank as an incident. Schools of whales grew so tame that day after day +they played about the ship among the porpoises and the sharks without the +least apparent fear of us, and we pelted them with empty bottles for lack +of better sport. Twenty-four hours afterward these bottles would be +still lying on the glassy water under our noses, showing that the ship +had not moved out of her place in all that time. The calm was absolutely +breathless, and the surface of the sea absolutely without a wrinkle. +For a whole day and part of a night we lay so close to another ship that +had drifted to our vicinity, that we carried on conversations with her +passengers, introduced each other by name, and became pretty intimately +acquainted with people we had never heard of before, and have never heard +of since. This was the only vessel we saw during the whole lonely +voyage. We had fifteen passengers, and to show how hard pressed they +were at last for occupation and amusement, I will mention that the +gentlemen gave a good part of their time every day, during the calm, to +trying to sit on an empty champagne bottle (lying on its side), and +thread a needle without touching their heels to the deck, or falling +over; and the ladies sat in the shade of the mainsail, and watched the +enterprise with absorbing interest. We were at sea five Sundays; and +yet, but for the almanac, we never would have known but that all the +other days were Sundays too. + +I was home again, in San Francisco, without means and without employment. +I tortured my brain for a saving scheme of some kind, and at last a +public lecture occurred to me! I sat down and wrote one, in a fever of +hopeful anticipation. I showed it to several friends, but they all shook +their heads. They said nobody would come to hear me, and I would make a +humiliating failure of it. + +They said that as I had never spoken in public, I would break down in the +delivery, anyhow. I was disconsolate now. But at last an editor slapped +me on the back and told me to "go ahead." He said, "Take the largest +house in town, and charge a dollar a ticket." The audacity of the +proposition was charming; it seemed fraught with practical worldly +wisdom, however. The proprietor of the several theatres endorsed the +advice, and said I might have his handsome new opera-house at half price +--fifty dollars. In sheer desperation I took it--on credit, for +sufficient reasons. In three days I did a hundred and fifty dollars' +worth of printing and advertising, and was the most distressed and +frightened creature on the Pacific coast. I could not sleep--who could, +under such circumstances? For other people there was facetiousness in +the last line of my posters, but to me it was plaintive with a pang when +I wrote it: + + "Doors open at 7 1/2. The trouble will begin at 8." + +That line has done good service since. Showmen have borrowed it +frequently. I have even seen it appended to a newspaper advertisement +reminding school pupils in vacation what time next term would begin. As +those three days of suspense dragged by, I grew more and more unhappy. +I had sold two hundred tickets among my personal friends, but I feared +they might not come. My lecture, which had seemed "humorous" to me, at +first, grew steadily more and more dreary, till not a vestige of fun +seemed left, and I grieved that I could not bring a coffin on the stage +and turn the thing into a funeral. I was so panic-stricken, at last, +that I went to three old friends, giants in stature, cordial by nature, +and stormy-voiced, and said: + +"This thing is going to be a failure; the jokes in it are so dim that +nobody will ever see them; I would like to have you sit in the parquette, +and help me through." + +They said they would. Then I went to the wife of a popular citizen, and +said that if she was willing to do me a very great kindness, I would be +glad if she and her husband would sit prominently in the left-hand +stage-box, where the whole house could see them. I explained that I +should need help, and would turn toward her and smile, as a signal, when +I had been delivered of an obscure joke--"and then," I added, "don't wait +to investigate, but respond!" + +She promised. Down the street I met a man I never had seen before. He +had been drinking, and was beaming with smiles and good nature. He said: + +"My name's Sawyer. You don't know me, but that don't matter. I haven't +got a cent, but if you knew how bad I wanted to laugh, you'd give me a +ticket. Come, now, what do you say?" + +"Is your laugh hung on a hair-trigger?--that is, is it critical, or can +you get it off easy?" + +My drawling infirmity of speech so affected him that he laughed a +specimen or two that struck me as being about the article I wanted, and I +gave him a ticket, and appointed him to sit in the second circle, in the +centre, and be responsible for that division of the house. I gave him +minute instructions about how to detect indistinct jokes, and then went +away, and left him chuckling placidly over the novelty of the idea. + +I ate nothing on the last of the three eventful days--I only suffered. +I had advertised that on this third day the box-office would be opened +for the sale of reserved seats. I crept down to the theater at four in +the afternoon to see if any sales had been made. The ticket seller was +gone, the box-office was locked up. I had to swallow suddenly, or my +heart would have got out. "No sales," I said to myself; "I might have +known it." I thought of suicide, pretended illness, flight. I thought +of these things in earnest, for I was very miserable and scared. But of +course I had to drive them away, and prepare to meet my fate. I could +not wait for half-past seven--I wanted to face the horror, and end it +--the feeling of many a man doomed to hang, no doubt. I went down back +streets at six o'clock, and entered the theatre by the back door. +I stumbled my way in the dark among the ranks of canvas scenery, and +stood on the stage. The house was gloomy and silent, and its emptiness +depressing. I went into the dark among the scenes again, and for an hour +and a half gave myself up to the horrors, wholly unconscious of +everything else. Then I heard a murmur; it rose higher and higher, and +ended in a crash, mingled with cheers. It made my hair raise, it was so +close to me, and so loud. + +There was a pause, and then another; presently came a third, and before I +well knew what I was about, I was in the middle of the stage, staring at +a sea of faces, bewildered by the fierce glare of the lights, and quaking +in every limb with a terror that seemed like to take my life away. The +house was full, aisles and all! + +The tumult in my heart and brain and legs continued a full minute before +I could gain any command over myself. Then I recognized the charity and +the friendliness in the faces before me, and little by little my fright +melted away, and I began to talk Within three or four minutes I was +comfortable, and even content. My three chief allies, with three +auxiliaries, were on hand, in the parquette, all sitting together, all +armed with bludgeons, and all ready to make an onslaught upon the +feeblest joke that might show its head. And whenever a joke did fall, +their bludgeons came down and their faces seemed to split from ear to +ear. + +Sawyer, whose hearty countenance was seen looming redly in the centre of +the second circle, took it up, and the house was carried handsomely. +Inferior jokes never fared so royally before. Presently I delivered a +bit of serious matter with impressive unction (it was my pet), and the +audience listened with an absorbed hush that gratified me more than any +applause; and as I dropped the last word of the clause, I happened to +turn and catch Mrs.--'s intent and waiting eye; my conversation with her +flashed upon me, and in spite of all I could do I smiled. She took it +for the signal, and promptly delivered a mellow laugh that touched off +the whole audience; and the explosion that followed was the triumph of +the evening. I thought that that honest man Sawyer would choke himself; +and as for the bludgeons, they performed like pile-drivers. But my poor +little morsel of pathos was ruined. It was taken in good faith as an +intentional joke, and the prize one of the entertainment, and I wisely +let it go at that. + +All the papers were kind in the morning; my appetite returned; I had a +abundance of money. All's well that ends well. + + + + +CHAPTER LXXIX. + +I launched out as a lecturer, now, with great boldness. I had the field +all to myself, for public lectures were almost an unknown commodity in +the Pacific market. They are not so rare, now, I suppose. I took an old +personal friend along to play agent for me, and for two or three weeks we +roamed through Nevada and California and had a very cheerful time of it. +Two days before I lectured in Virginia City, two stagecoaches were robbed +within two miles of the town. The daring act was committed just at dawn, +by six masked men, who sprang up alongside the coaches, presented +revolvers at the heads of the drivers and passengers, and commanded a +general dismount. Everybody climbed down, and the robbers took their +watches and every cent they had. Then they took gunpowder and blew up +the express specie boxes and got their contents. The leader of the +robbers was a small, quick-spoken man, and the fame of his vigorous +manner and his intrepidity was in everybody's mouth when we arrived. + +The night after instructing Virginia, I walked over the desolate "divide" +and down to Gold Hill, and lectured there. The lecture done, I stopped +to talk with a friend, and did not start back till eleven. The "divide" +was high, unoccupied ground, between the towns, the scene of twenty +midnight murders and a hundred robberies. As we climbed up and stepped +out on this eminence, the Gold Hill lights dropped out of sight at our +backs, and the night closed down gloomy and dismal. A sharp wind swept +the place, too, and chilled our perspiring bodies through. + +"I tell you I don't like this place at night," said Mike the agent. + +"Well, don't speak so loud," I said. "You needn't remind anybody that we +are here." + +Just then a dim figure approached me from the direction of Virginia--a +man, evidently. He came straight at me, and I stepped aside to let him +pass; he stepped in the way and confronted me again. Then I saw that he +had a mask on and was holding something in my face--I heard a click-click +and recognized a revolver in dim outline. I pushed the barrel aside with +my hand and said: + +"Don't!" + +He ejaculated sharply: + +"Your watch! Your money!" + +I said: + +"You can have them with pleasure--but take the pistol away from my face, +please. It makes me shiver." + +"No remarks! Hand out your money!" + +"Certainly--I--" + +"Put up your hands! Don't you go for a weapon! Put 'em up! Higher!" + +I held them above my head. + +A pause. Then: + +"Are you going to hand out your money or not?" + +I dropped my hands to my pockets and said: + +Certainly! I--" + +"Put up your hands! Do you want your head blown off? Higher!" + +I put them above my head again. + +Another pause. + +Are you going to hand out your money or not? Ah-ah--again? Put up your +hands! By George, you want the head shot off you awful bad!" + +"Well, friend, I'm trying my best to please you. You tell me to give up +my money, and when I reach for it you tell me to put up my hands. If you +would only--. Oh, now--don't! All six of you at me! That other man +will get away while.--Now please take some of those revolvers out of my +face--do, if you please! Every time one of them clicks, my liver comes +up into my throat! If you have a mother--any of you--or if any of you +have ever had a mother--or a--grandmother--or a--" + +"Cheese it! Will you give up your money, or have we got to--. There +--there--none of that! Put up your hands!" + +"Gentlemen--I know you are gentlemen by your--" + +"Silence! If you want to be facetious, young man, there are times and +places more fitting. This is a serious business." + +"You prick the marrow of my opinion. The funerals I have attended in my +time were comedies compared to it. Now I think--" + +"Curse your palaver! Your money!--your money!--your money! Hold!--put +up your hands!" + +"Gentlemen, listen to reason. You see how I am situated--now don't put +those pistols so close--I smell the powder. + +"You see how I am situated. If I had four hands--so that I could hold up +two and--" + +"Throttle him! Gag him! Kill him!" + +"Gentlemen, don't! Nobody's watching the other fellow. Why don't some +of you--. Ouch! Take it away, please! + +"Gentlemen, you see that I've got to hold up my hands; and so I can't take +out my money--but if you'll be so kind as to take it out for me, I will +do as much for you some--" + +"Search him Beauregard--and stop his jaw with a bullet, quick, if he wags +it again. Help Beauregard, Stonewall." + +Then three of them, with the small, spry leader, adjourned to Mike and +fell to searching him. I was so excited that my lawless fancy tortured +me to ask my two men all manner of facetious questions about their rebel +brother-generals of the South, but, considering the order they had +received, it was but common prudence to keep still. When everything had +been taken from me,--watch, money, and a multitude of trifles of small +value,--I supposed I was free, and forthwith put my cold hands into my +empty pockets and began an inoffensive jig to warm my feet and stir up +some latent courage--but instantly all pistols were at my head, and the +order came again: + +They stood Mike up alongside of me, with strict orders to keep his hands +above his head, too, and then the chief highwayman said: + +"Beauregard, hide behind that boulder; Phil Sheridan, you hide behind +that other one; Stonewall Jackson, put yourself behind that sage-bush +there. Keep your pistols bearing on these fellows, and if they take down +their hands within ten minutes, or move a single peg, let them have it!" + +Then three disappeared in the gloom toward the several ambushes, and the +other three disappeared down the road toward Virginia. + +It was depressingly still, and miserably cold. Now this whole thing was +a practical joke, and the robbers were personal friends of ours in +disguise, and twenty more lay hidden within ten feet of us during the +whole operation, listening. Mike knew all this, and was in the joke, but +I suspected nothing of it. To me it was most uncomfortably genuine. +When we had stood there in the middle of the road five minutes, like a +couple of idiots, with our hands aloft, freezing to death by inches, +Mike's interest in the joke began to wane. He said: + +"The time's up, now, aint it?" + +"No, you keep still. Do you want to take any chances with these bloody +savages?" + +Presently Mike said: + +"Now the time's up, anyway. I'm freezing." + +"Well freeze. Better freeze than carry your brains home in a basket. +Maybe the time is up, but how do we know?--got no watch to tell by. +I mean to give them good measure. I calculate to stand here fifteen +minutes or die. Don't you move." + +So, without knowing it, I was making one joker very sick of his contract. +When we took our arms down at last, they were aching with cold and +fatigue, and when we went sneaking off, the dread I was in that the time +might not yet be up and that we would feel bullets in a moment, was not +sufficient to draw all my attention from the misery that racked my +stiffened body. + +The joke of these highwayman friends of ours was mainly a joke upon +themselves; for they had waited for me on the cold hill-top two full +hours before I came, and there was very little fun in that; they were so +chilled that it took them a couple of weeks to get warm again. Moreover, +I never had a thought that they would kill me to get money which it was +so perfectly easy to get without any such folly, and so they did not +really frighten me bad enough to make their enjoyment worth the trouble +they had taken. I was only afraid that their weapons would go off +accidentally. Their very numbers inspired me with confidence that no +blood would be intentionally spilled. They were not smart; they ought to +have sent only one highwayman, with a double-barrelled shot gun, if they +desired to see the author of this volume climb a tree. + +However, I suppose that in the long run I got the largest share of the +joke at last; and in a shape not foreseen by the highwaymen; for the +chilly exposure on the "divide" while I was in a perspiration gave me a +cold which developed itself into a troublesome disease and kept my hands +idle some three months, besides costing me quite a sum in doctor's bills. +Since then I play no practical jokes on people and generally lose my +temper when one is played upon me. + +When I returned to San Francisco I projected a pleasure journey to Japan +and thence westward around the world; but a desire to see home again +changed my mind, and I took a berth in the steamship, bade good-bye to +the friendliest land and livest, heartiest community on our continent, +and came by the way of the Isthmus to New York--a trip that was not much +of a pic-nic excursion, for the cholera broke out among us on the passage +and we buried two or three bodies at sea every day. I found home a +dreary place after my long absence; for half the children I had known +were now wearing whiskers or waterfalls, and few of the grown people I +had been acquainted with remained at their hearthstones prosperous and +happy--some of them had wandered to other scenes, some were in jail, and +the rest had been hanged. These changes touched me deeply, and I went +away and joined the famous Quaker City European Excursion and carried my +tears to foreign lands. + +Thus, after seven years of vicissitudes, ended a "pleasure trip" to the +silver mines of Nevada which had originally been intended to occupy only +three months. However, I usually miss my calculations further than that. + + +MORAL. + +If the reader thinks he is done, now, and that this book has no moral to +it, he is in error. The moral of it is this: If you are of any account, +stay at home and make your way by faithful diligence; but if you are "no +account," go away from home, and then you will have to work, whether you +want to or not. Thus you become a blessing to your friends by ceasing to +be a nuisance to them--if the people you go among suffer by the +operation. + + + + +APPENDIX. A. + +BRIEF SKETCH OF MORMON HISTORY. + +Mormonism is only about forty years old, but its career has been full of +stir and adventure from the beginning, and is likely to remain so to the +end. Its adherents have been hunted and hounded from one end of the +country to the other, and the result is that for years they have hated +all "Gentiles" indiscriminately and with all their might. Joseph Smith, +the finder of the Book of Mormon and founder of the religion, was driven +from State to State with his mysterious copperplates and the miraculous +stones he read their inscriptions with. Finally he instituted his +"church" in Ohio and Brigham Young joined it. The neighbors began to +persecute, and apostasy commenced. Brigham held to the faith and worked +hard. He arrested desertion. He did more--he added converts in the +midst of the trouble. He rose in favor and importance with the brethren. +He was made one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church. He shortly fought +his way to a higher post and a more powerful--President of the Twelve. +The neighbors rose up and drove the Mormons out of Ohio, and they settled +in Missouri. Brigham went with them. The Missourians drove them out and +they retreated to Nauvoo, Illinois. They prospered there, and built a +temple which made some pretensions to architectural grace and achieved +some celebrity in a section of country where a brick court-house with a +tin dome and a cupola on it was contemplated with reverential awe. +But the Mormons were badgered and harried again by their neighbors. +All the proclamations Joseph Smith could issue denouncing polygamy and +repudiating it as utterly anti-Mormon were of no avail; the people of the +neighborhood, on both sides of the Mississippi, claimed that polygamy was +practised by the Mormons, and not only polygamy but a little of +everything that was bad. Brigham returned from a mission to England, +where he had established a Mormon newspaper, and he brought back with him +several hundred converts to his preaching. His influence among the +brethren augmented with every move he made. Finally Nauvoo was invaded +by the Missouri and Illinois Gentiles, and Joseph Smith killed. A Mormon +named Rigdon assumed the Presidency of the Mormon church and government, +in Smith's place, and even tried his hand at a prophecy or two. But a +greater than he was at hand. Brigham seized the advantage of the hour +and without other authority than superior brain and nerve and will, +hurled Rigdon from his high place and occupied it himself. He did more. +He launched an elaborate curse at Rigdon and his disciples; and he +pronounced Rigdon's "prophecies" emanations from the devil, and ended by +"handing the false prophet over to the buffetings of Satan for a thousand +years"--probably the longest term ever inflicted in Illinois. The people +recognized their master. They straightway elected Brigham Young +President, by a prodigious majority, and have never faltered in their +devotion to him from that day to this. Brigham had forecast--a quality +which no other prominent Mormon has probably ever possessed. +He recognized that it was better to move to the wilderness than be moved. +By his command the people gathered together their meagre effects, turned +their backs upon their homes, and their faces toward the wilderness, and +on a bitter night in February filed in sorrowful procession across the +frozen Mississippi, lighted on their way by the glare from their burning +temple, whose sacred furniture their own hands had fired! They camped, +several days afterward, on the western verge of Iowa, and poverty, want, +hunger, cold, sickness, grief and persecution did their work, and many +succumbed and died--martyrs, fair and true, whatever else they might have +been. Two years the remnant remained there, while Brigham and a small +party crossed the country and founded Great Salt Lake City, purposely +choosing a land which was outside the ownership and jurisdiction of the +hated American nation. Note that. This was in 1847. Brigham moved his +people there and got them settled just in time to see disaster fall +again. For the war closed and Mexico ceded Brigham's refuge to the +enemy--the United States! In 1849 the Mormons organized a "free and +independent" government and erected the "State of Deseret," with Brigham +Young as its head. But the very next year Congress deliberately snubbed +it and created the "Territory of Utah" out of the same accumulation of +mountains, sage-brush, alkali and general desolation,--but made Brigham +Governor of it. Then for years the enormous migration across the plains +to California poured through the land of the Mormons and yet the church +remained staunch and true to its lord and master. Neither hunger, +thirst, poverty, grief, hatred, contempt, nor persecution could drive the +Mormons from their faith or their allegiance; and even the thirst for +gold, which gleaned the flower of the youth and strength of many nations +was not able to entice them! That was the final test. An experiment +that could survive that was an experiment with some substance to it +somewhere. + +Great Salt Lake City throve finely, and so did Utah. One of the last +things which Brigham Young had done before leaving Iowa, was to appear in +the pulpit dressed to personate the worshipped and lamented prophet +Smith, and confer the prophetic succession, with all its dignities, +emoluments and authorities, upon "President Brigham Young!" The people +accepted the pious fraud with the maddest enthusiasm, and Brigham's power +was sealed and secured for all time. Within five years afterward he +openly added polygamy to the tenets of the church by authority of a +"revelation" which he pretended had been received nine years before by +Joseph Smith, albeit Joseph is amply on record as denouncing polygamy to +the day of his death. + +Now was Brigham become a second Andrew Johnson in the small beginning and +steady progress of his official grandeur. He had served successively as +a disciple in the ranks; home missionary; foreign missionary; editor and +publisher; Apostle; President of the Board of Apostles; President of all +Mormondom, civil and ecclesiastical; successor to the great Joseph by the +will of heaven; "prophet," "seer," "revelator." There was but one +dignity higher which he could aspire to, and he reached out modestly and +took that--he proclaimed himself a God! + +He claims that he is to have a heaven of his own hereafter, and that he +will be its God, and his wives and children its goddesses, princes and +princesses. Into it all faithful Mormons will be admitted, with their +families, and will take rank and consequence according to the number of +their wives and children. If a disciple dies before he has had time to +accumulate enough wives and children to enable him to be respectable in +the next world any friend can marry a few wives and raise a few children +for him after he is dead, and they are duly credited to his account and +his heavenly status advanced accordingly. + +Let it be borne in mind that the majority of the Mormons have always been +ignorant, simple, of an inferior order of intellect, unacquainted with +the world and its ways; and let it be borne in mind that the wives of +these Mormons are necessarily after the same pattern and their children +likely to be fit representatives of such a conjunction; and then let it +be remembered that for forty years these creatures have been driven, +driven, driven, relentlessly! and mobbed, beaten, and shot down; cursed, +despised, expatriated; banished to a remote desert, whither they +journeyed gaunt with famine and disease, disturbing the ancient solitudes +with their lamentations and marking the long way with graves of their +dead--and all because they were simply trying to live and worship God in +the way which they believed with all their hearts and souls to be the +true one. Let all these things be borne in mind, and then it will not be +hard to account for the deathless hatred which the Mormons bear our +people and our government. + +That hatred has "fed fat its ancient grudge" ever since Mormon Utah +developed into a self-supporting realm and the church waxed rich and +strong. Brigham as Territorial Governor made it plain that Mormondom was +for the Mormons. The United States tried to rectify all that by +appointing territorial officers from New England and other anti-Mormon +localities, but Brigham prepared to make their entrance into his +dominions difficult. Three thousand United States troops had to go +across the plains and put these gentlemen in office. And after they were +in office they were as helpless as so many stone images. They made laws +which nobody minded and which could not be executed. The federal judges +opened court in a land filled with crime and violence and sat as holiday +spectacles for insolent crowds to gape at--for there was nothing to try, +nothing to do nothing on the dockets! And if a Gentile brought a suit, +the Mormon jury would do just as it pleased about bringing in a verdict, +and when the judgment of the court was rendered no Mormon cared for it +and no officer could execute it. Our Presidents shipped one cargo of +officials after another to Utah, but the result was always the same--they +sat in a blight for awhile they fairly feasted on scowls and insults day +by day, they saw every attempt to do their official duties find its +reward in darker and darker looks, and in secret threats and warnings of +a more and more dismal nature--and at last they either succumbed and +became despised tools and toys of the Mormons, or got scared and +discomforted beyond all endurance and left the Territory. If a brave +officer kept on courageously till his pluck was proven, some pliant +Buchanan or Pierce would remove him and appoint a stick in his place. +In 1857 General Harney came very near being appointed Governor of Utah. +And so it came very near being Harney governor and Cradlebaugh judge! +--two men who never had any idea of fear further than the sort of murky +comprehension of it which they were enabled to gather from the +dictionary. Simply (if for nothing else) for the variety they would have +made in a rather monotonous history of Federal servility and +helplessness, it is a pity they were not fated to hold office together in +Utah. + +Up to the date of our visit to Utah, such had been the Territorial +record. The Territorial government established there had been a hopeless +failure, and Brigham Young was the only real power in the land. He was +an absolute monarch--a monarch who defied our President--a monarch who +laughed at our armies when they camped about his capital--a monarch who +received without emotion the news that the august Congress of the United +States had enacted a solemn law against polygamy, and then went forth +calmly and married twenty-five or thirty more wives. + + + + +B. +THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE. + +The persecutions which the Mormons suffered so long--and which they +consider they still suffer in not being allowed to govern themselves +--they have endeavored and are still endeavoring to repay. The now almost +forgotten "Mountain Meadows massacre" was their work. It was very famous +in its day. The whole United States rang with its horrors. A few items +will refresh the reader's memory. A great emigrant train from Missouri +and Arkansas passed through Salt Lake City and a few disaffected Mormons +joined it for the sake of the strong protection it afforded for their +escape. In that matter lay sufficient cause for hot retaliation by the +Mormon chiefs. Besides, these one hundred and forty-five or one hundred +and fifty unsuspecting emigrants being in part from Arkansas, where a +noted Mormon missionary had lately been killed, and in part from +Missouri, a State remembered with execrations as a bitter persecutor of +the saints when they were few and poor and friendless, here were +substantial additional grounds for lack of love for these wayfarers. +And finally, this train was rich, very rich in cattle, horses, mules and +other property--and how could the Mormons consistently keep up their +coveted resemblance to the Israelitish tribes and not seize the "spoil" +of an enemy when the Lord had so manifestly "delivered it into their +hand?" + +Wherefore, according to Mrs. C. V. Waite's entertaining book, "The Mormon +Prophet," it transpired that-- + +"A 'revelation' from Brigham Young, as Great Grand Archee or God, was +dispatched to President J. C. Haight, Bishop Higbee and J. D. Lee +(adopted son of Brigham), commanding them to raise all the forces they +could muster and trust, follow those cursed Gentiles (so read the +revelation), attack them disguised as Indians, and with the arrows of the +Almighty make a clean sweep of them, and leave none to tell the tale; and +if they needed any assistance they were commanded to hire the Indians as +their allies, promising them a share of the booty. They were to be +neither slothful nor negligent in their duty, and to be punctual in +sending the teams back to him before winter set in, for this was the +mandate of Almighty God." + +The command of the "revelation" was faithfully obeyed. A large party of +Mormons, painted and tricked out as Indians, overtook the train of +emigrant wagons some three hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, and +made an attack. But the emigrants threw up earthworks, made fortresses +of their wagons and defended themselves gallantly and successfully for +five days! Your Missouri or Arkansas gentleman is not much afraid of the +sort of scurvy apologies for "Indians" which the southern part of Utah +affords. He would stand up and fight five hundred of them. + +At the end of the five days the Mormons tried military strategy. They +retired to the upper end of the "Meadows," resumed civilized apparel, +washed off their paint, and then, heavily armed, drove down in wagons to +the beleaguered emigrants, bearing a flag of truce! When the emigrants +saw white men coming they threw down their guns and welcomed them with +cheer after cheer! And, all unconscious of the poetry of it, no doubt, +they lifted a little child aloft, dressed in white, in answer to the flag +of truce! + +The leaders of the timely white "deliverers" were President Haight and +Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served a +term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from +Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next +proceeded: + +"They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented +them as being very mad. They also proposed to intercede and settle the +matter with the Indians. After several hours parley they, having +(apparently) visited the Indians, gave the ultimatum of the savages; +which was, that the emigrants should march out of their camp, leaving +everything behind them, even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon +bishops that they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the +settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being desirous of +saving the lives of their families. The Mormons retired, and +subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed men. The emigrants were +marched out, the women and children in front and the men behind, the +Mormon guard being in the rear. When they had marched in this way about +a mile, at a given signal the slaughter commenced. The men were almost +all shot down at the first fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who +fled to the desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty miles before +they were overtaken and slaughtered. The women and children ran on, two +or three hundred yards further, when they were overtaken and with the aid +of the Indians they were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of all +the emigrant party, were spared, and they were little children, the +eldest of them being only seven years old. Thus, on the 10th day of +September, 1857, was consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly and +bloody murders known in our history." + +The number of persons butchered by the Mormons on this occasion was one +hundred and twenty. + +With unheard-of temerity Judge Cradlebaugh opened his court and proceeded +to make Mormondom answer for the massacre. And what a spectacle it must +have been to see this grim veteran, solitary and alone in his pride and +his pluck, glowering down on his Mormon jury and Mormon auditory, +deriding them by turns, and by turns "breathing threatenings and +slaughter!" + +An editorial in the Territorial Enterprise of that day says of him and of +the occasion: + +"He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a Jackson; +but the jury failed to indict, or even report on the charges, while +threats of violence were heard in every quarter, and an attack on the +U.S. troops intimated, if he persisted in his course. + +"Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were discharged +with a scathing rebuke from the judge. And then, sitting as a committing +magistrate, he commenced his task alone. He examined witnesses, made +arrests in every quarter, and created a consternation in the camps of the +saints greater than any they had ever witnessed before, since Mormondom +was born. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops were decamping +to save their necks; and developments of the most starling character were +being made, implicating the highest Church dignitaries in the many +murders and robberies committed upon the Gentiles during the past eight +years." + +Had Harney been Governor, Cradlebaugh would have been supported in his +work, and the absolute proofs adduced by him of Mormon guilt in this +massacre and in a number of previous murders, would have conferred +gratuitous coffins upon certain citizens, together with occasion to use +them. But Cumming was the Federal Governor, and he, under a curious +pretense of impartiality, sought to screen the Mormons from the demands +of justice. On one occasion he even went so far as to publish his +protest against the use of the U.S. troops in aid of Cradlebaugh's +proceedings. + +Mrs. C. V. Waite closes her interesting detail of the great massacre with +the following remark and accompanying summary of the testimony--and the +summary is concise, accurate and reliable: + +"For the benefit of those who may still be disposed to doubt the guilt of +Young and his Mormons in this transaction, the testimony is here collated +and circumstances given which go not merely to implicate but to fasten +conviction upon them by 'confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ:' + +"1. The evidence of Mormons themselves, engaged in the affair, as shown +by the statements of Judge Cradlebaugh and Deputy U.S. Marshall Rodgers. + +"2. The failure of Brigham Young to embody any account of it in his +Report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Also his failure to make any +allusion to it whatever from the pulpit, until several years after the +occurrence + +"3. The flight to the mountains of men high in authority in the Mormon +Church and State, when this affair was brought to the ordeal of a +judicial investigation. + +"4. The failure of the Deseret News, the Church organ, and the only +paper then published in the Territory, to notice the massacre until +several months afterward, and then only to deny that Mormons were engaged +in it. + +"5. The testimony of the children saved from the massacre. + +"6. The children and the property of the emigrants found in possession +of the Mormons, and that possession traced back to the very day after the +massacre. + +"7. The statements of Indians in the neighborhood of the scene of the +massacre: these statements are shown, not only by Cradlebaugh and +Rodgers, but by a number of military officers, and by J. Forney, who was, +in 1859, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. To all +these were such statements freely and frequently made by the Indians. + +"8. The testimony of R. P. Campbell, Capt. 2d Dragoons, who was sent in +the Spring of 1859 to Santa Clara, to protect travelers on the road to +California and to inquire into Indian depredations." + + + + +C. +CONCERNING A FRIGHTFUL ASSASSINATION THAT WAS NEVER CONSUMMATED + +If ever there was a harmless man, it is Conrad Wiegand, of Gold Hill, +Nevada. If ever there was a gentle spirit that thought itself unfired +gunpowder and latent ruin, it is Conrad Wiegand. If ever there was an +oyster that fancied itself a whale; or a jack-o'lantern, confined to a +swamp, that fancied itself a planet with a billion-mile orbit; or a +summer zephyr that deemed itself a hurricane, it is Conrad Wiegand. +Therefore, what wonder is it that when he says a thing, he thinks the +world listens; that when he does a thing the world stands still to look; +and that when he suffers, there is a convulsion of nature? When I met +Conrad, he was "Superintendent of the Gold Hill Assay Office"--and he was +not only its Superintendent, but its entire force. And he was a street +preacher, too, with a mongrel religion of his own invention, whereby he +expected to regenerate the universe. This was years ago. Here latterly +he has entered journalism; and his journalism is what it might be +expected to be: colossal to ear, but pigmy to the eye. It is extravagant +grandiloquence confined to a newspaper about the size of a double letter +sheet. He doubtless edits, sets the type, and prints his paper, all +alone; but he delights to speak of the concern as if it occupies a block +and employs a thousand men. + +[Something less than two years ago, Conrad assailed several people +mercilessly in his little "People's Tribune," and got himself into +trouble. Straightway he airs the affair in the "Territorial Enterprise," +in a communication over his own signature, and I propose to reproduce it +here, in all its native simplicity and more than human candor. Long as +it is, it is well worth reading, for it is the richest specimen of +journalistic literature the history of America can furnish, perhaps:] + +From the Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 20, 1870. + +SEEMING PLOT FOR ASSASSINATION MISCARRIED. + +TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENTERPRISE: Months ago, when Mr. Sutro incidentally +exposed mining management on the Comstock, and among others roused me to +protest against its continuance, in great kindness you warned me that any +attempt by publications, by public meetings and by legislative action, +aimed at the correction of chronic mining evils in Storey County, must +entail upon me (a) business ruin, (b) the burden of all its costs, (c) +personal violence, and if my purpose were persisted in, then (d) +assassination, and after all nothing would be effected. + +YOUR PROPHECY FULFILLING. +In large part at least your prophecies have been fulfilled, for (a) +assaying, which was well attended to in the Gold Hill Assay Office (of +which I am superintendent), in consequence of my publications, has been +taken elsewhere, so the President of one of the companies assures me. +With no reason assigned, other work has been taken away. With but one or +two important exceptions, our assay business now consists simply of the +gleanings of the vicinity. (b) Though my own personal donations to the +People's Tribune Association have already exceeded $1,500, outside of our +own numbers we have received (in money) less than $300 as contributions +and subscriptions for the journal. (c) On Thursday last, on the main +street in Gold Hill, near noon, with neither warning nor cause assigned, +by a powerful blow I was felled to the ground, and while down I was +kicked by a man who it would seem had been led to believe that I had +spoken derogatorily of him. By whom he was so induced to believe I am as +yet unable to say. On Saturday last I was again assailed and beaten by a +man who first informed me why he did so, and who persisted in making his +assault even after the erroneous impression under which he also was at +first laboring had been clearly and repeatedly pointed out. This same +man, after failing through intimidation to elicit from me the names of +our editorial contributors, against giving which he knew me to be +pledged, beat himself weary upon me with a raw hide, I not resisting, and +then pantingly threatened me with permanent disfiguring mayhem, if ever +again I should introduce his name into print, and who but a few minutes +before his attack upon me assured me that the only reason I was +"permitted" to reach home alive on Wednesday evening last (at which time +the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE was issued) was, that he deems me only half-witted, +and be it remembered the very next morning I was knocked down and kicked +by a man who seemed to be prepared for flight. + +[He sees doom impending:] + +WHEN WILL THE CIRCLE JOIN? +How long before the whole of your prophecy will be fulfilled I cannot +say, but under the shadow of so much fulfillment in so short a time, and +with such threats from a man who is one of the most prominent exponents +of the San Francisco mining-ring staring me and this whole community +defiantly in the face and pointing to a completion of your augury, do you +blame me for feeling that this communication is the last I shall ever +write for the Press, especially when a sense alike of personal +self-respect, of duty to this money-oppressed and fear-ridden community, +and of American fealty to the spirit of true Liberty all command me, and +each more loudly than love of life itself, to declare the name of that +prominent man to be JOHN B. WINTERS, President of the Yellow Jacket +Company, a political aspirant and a military General? The name of his +partially duped accomplice and abettor in this last marvelous assault, is +no other than PHILIP LYNCH, Editor and Proprietor of the Gold Hill News. + +Despite the insult and wrong heaped upon me by John B. Winters, on +Saturday afternoon, only a glimpse of which I shall be able to afford +your readers, so much do I deplore clinching (by publicity) a serious +mistake of any one, man or woman, committed under natural and not +self-wrought passion, in view of his great apparent excitement at the +time and in view of the almost perfect privacy of the assault, I am far +from sure that I should not have given him space for repentance before +exposing him, were it not that he himself has so far exposed the matter +as to make it the common talk of the town that he has horsewhipped me. +That fact having been made public, all the facts in connection need to be +also, or silence on my part would seem more than singular, and with many +would be proof either that I was conscious of some unworthy aim in +publishing the article, or else that my "non-combatant" principles are +but a convenient cloak alike of physical and moral cowardice. I +therefore shall try to present a graphic but truthful picture of this +whole affair, but shall forbear all comments, presuming that the editors +of our own journal, if others do not, will speak freely and fittingly +upon this subject in our next number, whether I shall then be dead or +living, for my death will not stop, though it may suspend, the +publication of the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. [The "non-combatant" sticks to +principle, but takes along a friend or two of a conveniently different +stripe:] + +THE TRAP SET. +On Saturday morning John B. Winters sent verbal word to the Gold Hill +Assay Office that he desired to see me at the Yellow Jacket office. +Though such a request struck me as decidedly cool in view of his own +recent discourtesies to me there alike as a publisher and as a +stockholder in the Yellow Jacket mine, and though it seemed to me more +like a summons than the courteous request by one gentleman to another for +a favor, hoping that some conference with Sharon looking to the +betterment of mining matters in Nevada might arise from it, I felt +strongly inclined to overlook what possibly was simply an oversight in +courtesy. But as then it had only been two days since I had been bruised +and beaten under a hasty and false apprehension of facts, my caution was +somewhat aroused. Moreover I remembered sensitively his contemptuousness +of manner to me at my last interview in his office. I therefore felt it +needful, if I went at all, to go accompanied by a friend whom he would +not dare to treat with incivility, and whose presence with me might +secure exemption from insult. Accordingly I asked a neighbor to +accompany me. + +THE TRAP ALMOST DETECTED. +Although I was not then aware of this fact, it would seem that previous +to my request this same neighbor had heard Dr. Zabriskie state publicly +in a saloon, that Mr. Winters had told him he had decided either to kill +or to horsewhip me, but had not finally decided on which. My neighbor, +therefore, felt unwilling to go down with me until he had first called on +Mr. Winters alone. He therefore paid him a visit. From that interview +he assured me that he gathered the impression that he did not believe I +would have any difficulty with Mr. Winters, and that he (Winters) would +call on me at four o'clock in my own office. + +MY OWN PRECAUTIONS. +As Sheriff Cummings was in Gold Hill that afternoon, and as I desired to +converse with him about the previous assault, I invited him to my office, +and he came. Although a half hour had passed beyond four o'clock, Mr. +Winters had not called, and we both of us began preparing to go home. +Just then, Philip Lynch, Publisher of the Gold Hill News, came in and +said, blandly and cheerily, as if bringing good news: + +"Hello, John B. Winters wants to see you." + +I replied, "Indeed! Why he sent me word that he would call on me here +this afternoon at four o'clock!" + +"O, well, it don't do to be too ceremonious just now, he's in my office, +and that will do as well--come on in, Winters wants to consult with you +alone. He's got something to say to you." + +Though slightly uneasy at this change of programme, yet believing that in +an editor's house I ought to be safe, and anyhow that I would be within +hail of the street, I hurriedly, and but partially whispered my dim +apprehensions to Mr. Cummings, and asked him if he would not keep near +enough to hear my voice in case I should call. He consented to do so +while waiting for some other parties, and to come in if he heard my voice +or thought I had need of protection. + +On reaching the editorial part of the News office, which viewed from the +street is dark, I did not see Mr. Winters, and again my misgivings arose. +Had I paused long enough to consider the case, I should have invited +Sheriff Cummings in, but as Lynch went down stairs, he said: "This way, +Wiegand--it's best to be private," or some such remark. + +[I do not desire to strain the reader's fancy, hurtfully, and yet it +would be a favor to me if he would try to fancy this lamb in battle, or +the duelling ground or at the head of a vigilance committee--M. T.:] + +I followed, and without Mr. Cummings, and without arms, which I never do +or will carry, unless as a soldier in war, or unless I should yet come to +feel I must fight a duel, or to join and aid in the ranks of a necessary +Vigilance Committee. But by following I made a fatal mistake. Following +was entering a trap, and whatever animal suffers itself to be caught +should expect the common fate of a caged rat, as I fear events to come +will prove. + +Traps commonly are not set for benevolence. +[His body-guard is shut out:] + +THE TRAP INSIDE. +I followed Lynch down stairs. At their foot a door to the left opened +into a small room. From that room another door opened into yet another +room, and once entered I found myself inveigled into what many will ever +henceforth regard as a private subterranean Gold Hill den, admirably +adapted in proper hands to the purposes of murder, raw or disguised, for +from it, with both or even one door closed, when too late, I saw that I +could not be heard by Sheriff Cummings, and from it, BY VIOLENCE AND BY +FORCE, I was prevented from making a peaceable exit, when I thought I saw +the studious object of this "consultation" was no other than to compass +my killing, in the presence of Philip Lynch as a witness, as soon as by +insult a proverbially excitable man should be exasperated to the point of +assailing Mr. Winters, so that Mr. Lynch, by his conscience and by his +well known tenderness of heart toward the rich and potent would be +compelled to testify that he saw Gen. John B. Winters kill Conrad Wiegand +in "self-defence." But I am going too fast. + +OUR HOST. +Mr. Lynch was present during the most of the time (say a little short of +an hour), but three times he left the room. His testimony, therefore, +would be available only as to the bulk of what transpired. On entering +this carpeted den I was invited to a seat near one corner of the room. +Mr. Lynch took a seat near the window. J. B. Winters sat (at first) near +the door, and began his remarks essentially as follows: + +"I have come here to exact of you a retraction, in black and white, of +those damnably false charges which you have preferred against me in +that---infamous lying sheet of yours, and you must declare yourself their +author, that you published them knowing them to be false, and that your +motives were malicious." + +"Hold, Mr. Winters. Your language is insulting and your demand an +enormity. I trust I was not invited here either to be insulted or +coerced. I supposed myself here by invitation of Mr. Lynch, at your +request." + +"Nor did I come here to insult you. I have already told you that I am +here for a very different purpose." + +"Yet your language has been offensive, and even now shows strong +excitement. If insult is repeated I shall either leave the room or call +in Sheriff Cummings, whom I just left standing and waiting for me outside +the door." + +"No, you won't, sir. You may just as well understand it at once as not. +Here you are my man, and I'll tell you why! Months ago you put your +property out of your hands, boasting that you did so to escape losing it +on prosecution for libel." + +"It is true that I did convert all my immovable property into personal +property, such as I could trust safely to others, and chiefly to escape +ruin through possible libel suits." + +"Very good, sir. Having placed yourself beyond the pale of the law, may +God help your soul if you DON'T make precisely such a retraction as I +have demanded. I've got you now, and by--before you can get out of this +room you've got to both write and sign precisely the retraction I have +demanded, and before you go, anyhow--you---low-lived--lying---, I'll +teach you what personal responsibility is outside of the law; and, by--, +Sheriff Cummings and all the friends you've got in the world besides, +can't save you, you---, etc.! No, sir. I'm alone now, and I'm prepared +to be shot down just here and now rather than be villified by you as I +have been, and suffer you to escape me after publishing those charges, +not only here where I am known and universally respected, but where I am +not personally known and may be injured." + +I confess this speech, with its terrible and but too plainly implied +threat of killing me if I did not sign the paper he demanded, terrified +me, especially as I saw he was working himself up to the highest possible +pitch of passion, and instinct told me that any reply other than one of +seeming concession to his demands would only be fuel to a raging fire, +so I replied: + +"Well, if I've got to sign--," and then I paused some time. Resuming, +I said, "But, Mr. Winters, you are greatly excited. Besides, I see you +are laboring under a total misapprehension. It is your duty not to +inflame but to calm yourself. I am prepared to show you, if you will +only point out the article that you allude to, that you regard as +'charges' what no calm and logical mind has any right to regard as such. +Show me the charges, and I will try, at all events; and if it becomes +plain that no charges have been preferred, then plainly there can be +nothing to retract, and no one could rightly urge you to demand a +retraction. You should beware of making so serious a mistake, for +however honest a man may be, every one is liable to misapprehend. +Besides you assume that I am the author of some certain article which you +have not pointed out. It is hasty to do so." + +He then pointed to some numbered paragraphs in a TRIBUNE article, headed +"What's the Matter with Yellow Jacket?" saying "That's what I refer to." + +To gain time for general reflection and resolution, I took up the paper +and looked it over for awhile, he remaining silent, and as I hoped, +cooling. I then resumed saying, "As I supposed. I do not admit having +written that article, nor have you any right to assume so important a +point, and then base important action upon your assumption. You might +deeply regret it afterwards. In my published Address to the People, I +notified the world that no information as to the authorship of any +article would be given without the consent of the writer. I therefore +cannot honorably tell you who wrote that article, nor can you exact it." + +"If you are not the author, then I do demand to know who is?" + +"I must decline to say." + +"Then, by--, I brand you as its author, and shall treat you accordingly." + +"Passing that point, the most important misapprehension which I notice +is, that you regard them as 'charges' at all, when their context, both at +their beginning and end, show they are not. These words introduce them: +'Such an investigation [just before indicated], we think MIGHT result in +showing some of the following points.' Then follow eleven specifications, +and the succeeding paragraph shows that the suggested investigation +'might EXONERATE those who are generally believed guilty.' You see, +therefore, the context proves they are not preferred as charges, and this +you seem to have overlooked." + +While making those comments, Mr. Winters frequently interrupted me in +such a way as to convince me that he was resolved not to consider +candidly the thoughts contained in my words. He insisted upon it that +they were charges, and "By--," he would make me take them back as +charges, and he referred the question to Philip Lynch, to whom I then +appealed as a literary man, as a logician, and as an editor, calling his +attention especially to the introductory paragraph just before quoted. +He replied, "if they are not charges, they certainly are insinuations," +whereupon Mr. Winters renewed his demands for retraction precisely such +as he had before named, except that he would allow me to state who did +write the article if I did not myself, and this time shaking his fist in +my face with more cursings and epithets. + +When he threatened me with his clenched fist, instinctively I tried to +rise from my chair, but Winters then forcibly thrust me down, as he did +every other time (at least seven or eight), when under similar imminent +danger of bruising by his fist (or for aught I could know worse than that +after the first stunning blow), which he could easily and safely to +himself have dealt me so long as he kept me down and stood over me. + +This fact it was, which more than anything else, convinced me that by +plan and plot I was purposely made powerless in Mr. Winters' hands, and +that he did not mean to allow me that advantage of being afoot, which he +possessed. Moreover, I then became convinced, that Philip Lynch (and for +what reason I wondered) would do absolutely nothing to protect me in his +own house. I realized then the situation thoroughly. I had found it +equally vain to protest or argue, and I would make no unmanly appeal for +pity, still less apologize. Yet my life had been by the plainest +possible implication threatened. I was a weak man. I was unarmed. I +was helplessly down, and Winters was afoot and probably armed. Lynch was +the only "witness." The statements demanded, if given and not explained, +would utterly sink me in my own self-respect, in my family's eyes, and in +the eyes of the community. On the other hand, should I give the author's +name how could I ever expect that confidence of the People which I should +no longer deserve, and how much dearer to me and to my family was my life +than the life of the real author to his friends. Yet life seemed dear +and each minute that remained seemed precious if not solemn. I sincerely +trust that neither you nor any of your readers, and especially none with +families, may ever be placed in such seeming direct proximity to death +while obliged to decide the one question I was compelled to, viz.: What +should I do--I, a man of family, and not as Mr. Winters is, "alone." +[The reader is requested not to skip the following.--M. T.:] + +STRATEGY AND MESMERISM. +To gain time for further reflection, and hoping that by a seeming +acquiescence I might regain my personal liberty, at least till I could +give an alarm, or take advantage of some momentary inadvertence of +Winters, and then without a cowardly flight escape, I resolved to write a +certain kind of retraction, but previously had inwardly decided: + +First.--That I would studiously avoid every action which might be +construed into the drawing of a weapon, even by a self-infuriated man, no +matter what amount of insult might be heaped upon me, for it seemed to me +that this great excess of compound profanity, foulness and epithet must +be more than a mere indulgence, and therefore must have some object. +"Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird." Therefore, +as before without thought, I thereafter by intent kept my hands away from +my pockets, and generally in sight and spread upon my knees. + +Second.--I resolved to make no motion with my arms or hands which could +possibly be construed into aggression. + +Third.--I resolved completely to govern my outward manner and suppress +indignation. To do this, I must govern my spirit. To do that, by force +of imagination I was obliged like actors on the boards to resolve myself +into an unnatural mental state and see all things through the eyes of an +assumed character. + +Fourth.--I resolved to try on Winters, silently, and unconsciously to +himself a mesmeric power which I possess over certain kinds of people, +and which at times I have found to work even in the dark over the lower +animals. + +Does any one smile at these last counts? God save you from ever being +obliged to beat in a game of chess, whose stake is your life, you having +but four poor pawns and pieces and your adversary with his full force +unshorn. But if you are, provided you have any strength with breadth of +will, do not despair. Though mesmeric power may not save you, it may +help you; try it at all events. In this instance I was conscious of +power coming into me, and by a law of nature, I know Winters was +correspondingly weakened. If I could have gained more time I am sure he +would not even have struck me. + +It takes time both to form such resolutions and to recite them. That +time, however, I gained while thinking of my retraction, which I first +wrote in pencil, altering it from time to time till I got it to suit me, +my aim being to make it look like a concession to demands, while in fact +it should tersely speak the truth into Mr. Winters' mind. When it was +finished, I copied it in ink, and if correctly copied from my first draft +it should read as follows. In copying I do not think I made any material +change. + +COPY. +To Philip Lynch, Editor of the Gold Hill News: I learn that Gen. John B. +Winters believes the following (pasted on) clipping from the PEOPLE'S +TRIBUNE of January to contain distinct charges of mine against him +personally, and that as such he desires me to retract them unqualifiedly. + +In compliance with his request, permit me to say that, although Mr. +Winters and I see this matter differently, in view of his strong feelings +in the premises, I hereby declare that I do not know those "charges" (if +such they are) to be true, and I hope that a critical examination would +altogether disprove them. + CONRAD WIEGAND. + Gold Hill, January 15, 1870. + + +I then read what I had written and handed it to Mr. Lynch, whereupon Mr. +Winters said: + +"That's not satisfactory, and it won't do;" and then addressing himself +to Mr. Lynch, he further said: "How does it strike you?" + +"Well, I confess I don't see that it retracts anything." + +"Nor do I," said Winters; "in fact, I regard it as adding insult to +injury. Mr. Wiegand you've got to do better than that. You are not the +man who can pull wool over my eyes." + +"That, sir, is the only retraction I can write." + +"No it isn't, sir, and if you so much as say so again you do it at your +peril, for I'll thrash you to within an inch of your life, and, by--, +sir, I don't pledge myself to spare you even that inch either. I want +you to understand I have asked you for a very different paper, and that +paper you've got to sign." + +"Mr. Winters, I assure you that I do not wish to irritate you, but, at +the same time, it is utterly impossible for me to write any other paper +than that which I have written. If you are resolved to compel me to sign +something, Philip Lynch's hand must write at your dictation, and if, when +written, I can sign it I will do so, but such a document as you say you +must have from me, I never can sign. I mean what I say." + +"Well, sir, what's to be done must be done quickly, for I've been here +long enough already. I'll put the thing in another shape (and then +pointing to the paper); don't you know those charges to be false?" + +"I do not." + +"Do you know them to be true?" + +"Of my own personal knowledge I do not." + +"Why then did you print them?" + +"Because rightly considered in their connection they are not charges, but +pertinent and useful suggestions in answer to the queries of a +correspondent who stated facts which are inexplicable." + +"Don't you know that I know they are false?" + +"If you do, the proper course is simply to deny them and court an +investigation." + +"And do YOU claim the right to make ME come out and deny anything you may +choose to write and print?" + +To that question I think I made no reply, and he then further said: + +"Come, now, we've talked about the matter long enough. I want your final +answer--did you write that article or not?" + +"I cannot in honor tell you who wrote it." + +"Did you not see it before it was printed?" + +"Most certainly, sir." + +"And did you deem it a fit thing to publish?" + +"Most assuredly, sir, or I would never have consented to its appearance. +Of its authorship I can say nothing whatever, but for its publication I +assume full, sole and personal responsibility." + +"And do you then retract it or not?" + +"Mr. Winters, if my refusal to sign such a paper as you have demanded +must entail upon me all that your language in this room fairly implies, +then I ask a few minutes for prayer." + +"Prayer!---you, this is not your hour for prayer--your time to pray was +when you were writing those--lying charges. Will you sign or not?" + +"You already have my answer." + +"What! do you still refuse?" + +"I do, sir." + +"Take that, then," and to my amazement and inexpressible relief he drew +only a rawhide instead of what I expected--a bludgeon or pistol. With +it, as he spoke, he struck at my left ear downwards, as if to tear it +off, and afterwards on the side of the head. As he moved away to get a +better chance for a more effective shot, for the first time I gained a +chance under peril to rise, and I did so pitying him from the very bottom +of my soul, to think that one so naturally capable of true dignity, power +and nobility could, by the temptations of this State, and by unfortunate +associations and aspirations, be so deeply debased as to find in such +brutality anything which he could call satisfaction--but the great hope +for us all is in progress and growth, and John B. Winters, I trust, will +yet be able to comprehend my feelings. + +He continued to beat me with all his great force, until absolutely weary, +exhausted and panting for breath. I still adhered to my purpose of +non-aggressive defence, and made no other use of my arms than to defend +my head and face from further disfigurement. The mere pain arising from +the blows he inflicted upon my person was of course transient, and my +clothing to some extent deadened its severity, as it now hides all +remaining traces. + +When I supposed he was through, taking the butt end of his weapon and +shaking it in my face, he warned me, if I correctly understood him, of +more yet to come, and furthermore said, if ever I again dared introduce +his name to print, in either my own or any other public journal, he would +cut off my left ear (and I do not think he was jesting) and send me home +to my family a visibly mutilated man, to be a standing warning to all +low-lived puppies who seek to blackmail gentlemen and to injure their +good names. And when he did so operate, he informed me that his +implement would not be a whip but a knife. + +When he had said this, unaccompanied by Mr. Lynch, as I remember it, he +left the room, for I sat down by Mr. Lynch, exclaiming: "The man is mad +--he is utterly mad--this step is his ruin--it is a mistake--it would be +ungenerous in me, despite of all the ill usage I have here received, to +expose him, at least until he has had an opportunity to reflect upon the +matter. I shall be in no haste." + +"Winters is very mad just now," replied Mr. Lynch, "but when he is +himself he is one of the finest men I ever met. In fact, he told me the +reason he did not meet you upstairs was to spare you the humiliation of a +beating in the sight of others." + +I submit that that unguarded remark of Philip Lynch convicts him of +having been privy in advance to Mr. Winters' intentions whatever they may +have been, or at least to his meaning to make an assault upon me, but I +leave to others to determine how much censure an editor deserves for +inveigling a weak, non-combatant man, also a publisher, to a pen of his +own to be horsewhipped, if no worse, for the simple printing of what is +verbally in the mouth of nine out of ten men, and women too, upon the +street. + +While writing this account two theories have occurred to me as possibly +true respecting this most remarkable assault: +First--The aim may have been simply to extort from me such admissions as +in the hands of money and influence would have sent me to the +Penitentiary for libel. This, however, seems unlikely, because any +statements elicited by fear or force could not be evidence in law or +could be so explained as to have no force. The statements wanted so +badly must have been desired for some other purpose. +Second--The other theory has so dark and wilfully murderous a look that I +shrink from writing it, yet as in all probability my death at the +earliest practicable moment has already been decreed, I feel I should do +all I can before my hour arrives, at least to show others how to break up +that aristocratic rule and combination which has robbed all Nevada of +true freedom, if not of manhood itself. Although I do not prefer this +hypothesis as a "charge," I feel that as an American citizen I still have +a right both to think and to speak my thoughts even in the land of Sharon +and Winters, and as much so respecting the theory of a brutal assault +(especially when I have been its subject) as respecting any other +apparent enormity. I give the matter simply as a suggestion which may +explain to the proper authorities and to the people whom they should +represent, a well ascertained but notwithstanding a darkly mysterious +fact. The scheme of the assault may have been: + +First--To terrify me by making me conscious of my own helplessness after +making actual though not legal threats against my life. + +Second--To imply that I could save my life only by writing or signing +certain specific statements which if not subsequently explained would +eternally have branded me as infamous and would have consigned my family +to shame and want, and to the dreadful compassion and patronage of the +rich. + +Third--To blow my brains out the moment I had signed, thereby preventing +me from making any subsequent explanation such as could remove the +infamy. + +Fourth--Philip Lynch to be compelled to testify that I was killed by John +B. Winters in self-defence, for the conviction of Winters would bring +him in as an accomplice. If that was the programme in John B. Winters' +mind nothing saved my life but my persistent refusal to sign, when that +refusal seemed clearly to me to be the choice of death. + +The remarkable assertion made to me by Mr. Winters, that pity only spared +my life on Wednesday evening last, almost compels me to believe that at +first he could not have intended me to leave that room alive; and why I +was allowed to, unless through mesmeric or some other invisible +influence, I cannot divine. The more I reflect upon this matter, the +more probable as true does this horrible interpretation become. + +The narration of these things I might have spared both to Mr. Winters and +to the public had he himself observed silence, but as he has both +verbally spoken and suffered a thoroughly garbled statement of facts to +appear in the Gold Hill News I feel it due to myself no less than to this +community, and to the entire independent press of America and Great +Britain, to give a true account of what even the Gold Hill News has +pronounced a disgraceful affair, and which it deeply regrets because of +some alleged telegraphic mistake in the account of it. [Who received the +erroneous telegrams?] + +Though he may not deem it prudent to take my life just now, the +publication of this article I feel sure must compel Gen. Winters (with +his peculiar views about his right to exemption from criticism by me) to +resolve on my violent death, though it may take years to compass it. +Notwithstanding I bear him no ill will; and if W. C. Ralston and William +Sharon, and other members of the San Francisco mining and milling Ring +feel that he above all other men in this State and California is the most +fitting man to supervise and control Yellow Jacket matters, until I am +able to vote more than half their stock I presume he will be retained to +grace his present post. + +Meantime, I cordially invite all who know of any sort of important +villainy which only can be cured by exposure (and who would expose it if +they felt sure they would not be betrayed under bullying threats), to +communicate with the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE; for until I am murdered, so long +as I can raise the means to publish, I propose to continue my efforts at +least to revive the liberties of the State, to curb oppression, and to +benefit man's world and God's earth. + + CONRAD WIEGAND. + + +[It does seem a pity that the Sheriff was shut out, since the good sense +of a general of militia and of a prominent editor failed to teach them +that the merited castigation of this weak, half-witted child was a thing +that ought to have been done in the street, where the poor thing could +have a chance to run. When a journalist maligns a citizen, or attacks +his good name on hearsay evidence, he deserves to be thrashed for it, +even if he is a "non-combatant" weakling; but a generous adversary would +at least allow such a lamb the use of his legs at such a time.--M. T.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing It, Part 8. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 8. *** + +***** This file should be named 8589.txt or 8589.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/8/8589/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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