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diff --git a/8589.txt b/8589.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..75c17e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/8589.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2910 @@ +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: 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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