The Innocents Abroad .......................................................................................................................................1

Mark Twain ..............................................................................................................................................1

THIS book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it were a record of a solemn scientific expedition, it would have

about it that gravity, that profundity, and that impressive incomprehensibility which are so proper to works of

that kind, and withal so attractive. Yet notwithstanding it is only a record of a picnic, it has a purpose, which

is to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his

own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him. I make small pretense of

showing anyone how he ought to look at objects of interest beyond the sea other books do that, and

I offer no apologies for any departures from the usual style of travelwriting that may be charged against me

for I think I have seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, whether wisely

In this volume I have used portions of letters which I wrote for the Daily Alta California, of San Francisco,

the proprietors of that journal having waived their rights and given me the necessary permission. I have also

inserted portions of several letters written for the New York Tribune and the New York Herald.

FOR months the great pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers

everywhere in America and discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the way of excursions its

like had not been thought of before, and it compelled that interest which attractive novelties always

command. It was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of freighting an ungainly

steam ferryboat with youth and beauty and pies and doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to

disembark upon a grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer day's laborious frolicking under

the impression that it was fun, were to sail away in a great steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing,

and take a royal holiday beyond the broad ocean in many a strange clime and in many a land renowned in

history! They were to sail for months over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean; they were to

scamper about the decks by day, filling the ship with shouts and laughter or read novels and poetry in the

shade of the smokestacks, or watch for the jellyfish and the nautilus over the side, and the shark, the whale,

and other strange monsters of the deep; and at night they were to dance in the open air, on the upper deck, in

the midst of a ballroom that stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bending heavens and

lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and the magnificent moondance, and promenade, and smoke, and

sing, and make love, and search the skies for constellations that never associate with the "Big Dipper" they

were so tired of; and they were to see the ships of twenty navies the customs and costumes of twenty

curious peoples the great cities of half a world they were to hobnob with nobility and hold friendly

converse with kings and princes, grand moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires! It was a brave

conception; it was the offspring of a most ingenious brain. It was well advertised, but it hardly needed it: the

bold originality, the extraordinary character, the seductive nature, and the vastness of the enterprise provoked

comment everywhere and advertised it in every household in the land. Who could read the program of the

excursion without longing to make one of the party? I will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. As a

The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming season, and begs to submit to you the

A firstclass steamer, to be under his own command, and capable of accommodating at least one hundred and

fifty cabin passengers, will be selected, in which will be taken a select company, numbering not more than

threefourths of the ship's capacity. There is good reason to believe that this company can be easily made up

The steamer will be provided with every necessary comfort, including library and musical instruments.

Leaving New York about June 1st, a middle and pleasant route will be taken across the Atlantic, and passing

through the group of Azores, St. Michael will be reached in about ten days. A day or two will be spent here,

enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these islands, and the voyage continued, and Gibraltar reached in three

A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful subterraneous fortifications, permission to visit

From Gibraltar, running along the coasts of Spain and France, Marseilles will be reached in three days. Here

ample time will be given not only to look over the city, which was founded six hundred years before the

Christian era, and its artificial port, the finest of the kind in the Mediterranean, but to visit Paris during the

Great Exhibition; and the beautiful city of Lyons, lying intermediate, from the heights of which, on a clear

day, Mont Blanc and the Alps can be distinctly seen. Passengers who may wish to extend the time at Paris

From Marseilles to Genoa is a run of one night. The excursionists will have an opportunity to look over this,

the "magnificent city of palaces," and visit the birthplace of Columbus, twelve miles off, over a beautiful road

built by Napoleon I. From this point, excursions may be made to Milan, Lakes Como and Maggiore, or to

Milan, Verona (famous for its extraordinary fortifications), Padua, and Venice. Or, if passengers desire to

visit Parma (famous for Correggio's frescoes) and Bologna, they can by rail go on to Florence, and rejoin the

steamer at Leghorn, thus spending about three weeks amid the cities most famous for art in Italy.

From Genoa the run to Leghorn will be made along the coast in one night, and time appropriated to this point

in which to visit Florence, its palaces and galleries; Pisa, its cathedral and "Leaning Tower," and Lucca and

its baths, and Roman amphitheater; Florence, the most remote, being distant by rail about sixty miles.

From Leghorn to Naples (calling at Civita Vecchia to land any who may prefer to go to Rome from that

point), the distance will be made in about thirtysix hours; the route will lay along the coast of Italy, close by

Caprera, Elba, and Corsica. Arrangements have been made to take on board at Leghorn a pilot for Caprera,

Rome [by rail], Herculaneum, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Vergil's tomb, and possibly the ruins of Paestum can be

The next point of interest will be Palermo, the most beautiful city of Sicily, which will be reached in one

night from Naples. A day will be spent here, and leaving in the evening, the course will be taken towards

Skirting along the north coast of Sicily, passing through the group of Aeolian Isles, in sight of Stromboli and

Vulcania, both active volcanoes, through the Straits of Messina, with "Scylla" on the one hand and

"Charybdis" on the other, along the east coast of Sicily, and in sight of Mount Etna, along the south coast of

Italy, the west and south coast of Greece, in sight of ancient Crete, up Athens Gulf, and into the Piraeus,

Athens will be reached in two and a half or three days. After tarrying here awhile, the Bay of Salamis will be

crossed, and a day given to Corinth, whence the voyage will be continued to Constantinople, passing on the

way through the Grecian Archipelago, the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the mouth of the Golden

After leaving Constantinople, the way will be taken out through the beautiful Bosphorus, across the Black

Sea to Sebastopol and Balaklava, a run of about twentyfour hours. Here it is proposed to remain two days,

visiting the harbors, fortifications, and battlefields of the Crimea; thence back through the Bosphorus,

touching at Constantinople to take in any who may have preferred to remain there; down through the Sea of

Marmora and the Dardanelles, along the coasts of ancient Troy and Lydia in Asia, to Smyrna, which will be

reached in two or two and a half days from Constantinople. A sufficient stay will be made here to give

From Smyrna towards the Holy Land the course will lay through the Grecian Archipelago, close by the Isle

of Patmos, along the coast of Asia, ancient Pamphylia, and the Isle of Cyprus. Beirut will be reached in three

days. At Beirut time will be given to visit Damascus; after which the steamer will proceed to Joppa.

From Joppa, Jerusalem, the River Jordan, the Sea of Tiberias, Nazareth, Bethany, Bethlehem, and other

points of interest in the Holy Land can be visited, and here those who may have preferred to make the journey

from Beirut through the country, passing through Damascus, Galilee, Capernaum, Samaria, and by the River

Leaving Joppa, the next point of interest to visit will be Alexandria, which will be reached in twentyfour

hours. The ruins of Caesar's Palace, Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's Needle, the Catacombs, and ruins of ancient

Alexandria will be found worth the visit. The journey to Cairo, one hundred and thirty miles by rail, can be

made in a few hours, and from which can be visited the site of ancient Memphis, Joseph's Granaries, and the

From Alexandria the route will be taken homeward, calling at Malta, Cagliari (in Sardinia), and Palma (in

Majorca), all magnificent harbors, with charming scenery, and abounding in fruits.

A day or two will be spent at each place, and leaving Parma in the evening, Valencia in Spain will be reached

From Valencia, the homeward course will be continued, skirting along the coast of Spain. Alicant,

Carthagena, Palos, and Malaga will be passed but a mile or two distant, and Gibraltar reached in about

A stay of one day will be made here, and the voyage continued to Madeira, which will be reached in about

three days. Captain Marryatt writes: "I do not know a spot on the globe which so much astonishes and

delights upon first arrival as Madeira." A stay of one or two days will be made here, which, if time permits,

may be extended, and passing on through the islands, and probably in sight of the Peak of Teneriffe, a

southern track will be taken, and the Atlantic crossed within the latitudes of the northeast trade winds, where

A call will be made at Bermuda, which lies directly in this route homeward, and will be reached in about ten

days from Madeira, and after spending a short time with our friends the Bermudians, the final departure will

Already, applications have been received from parties in Europe wishing to join the Excursion there.

The ship will at all times be a home, where the excursionists, if sick, will be surrounded by kind friends, and

Should contagious sickness exist in any of the ports named in the program, such ports will be passed, and

The price of passage is fixed at $1,250, currency, for each adult passenger. Choice of rooms and of seats at

the tables apportioned in the order in which passages are engaged; and no passage considered engaged until

Passengers can remain on board of the steamer, at all ports, if they desire, without additional expense, and all

All passages must be paid for when taken, in order that the most perfect arrangements be made for starting at

Applications for passage must be approved by the committee before tickets are issued, and can be made to the

Articles of interest or curiosity, procured by the passengers during the voyage, may be brought home in the

Five dollars per day, in gold, it is believed, will be a fair calculation to make for all traveling expenses

onshore and at the various points where passengers may wish to leave the steamer for days at a time.

The trip can be extended, and the route changed, by unanimous vote of the passengers.

Committee on Selecting Steamer CAPT. W. W. S* * * *, Surveyor for Board of Underwriters

C. W. C******, Consulting Engineer for U.S. and Canada J. T. H*****, Esq. C. C. DUNCAN

P.S. The very beautiful and substantial sidewheel steamship "Quaker City" has been chartered for the

occasion, and will leave New York June 8th. Letters have been issued by the government commending the

What was there lacking about that program to make it perfectly irresistible? Nothing that any finite mind

could discover. Paris, England, Scotland, Switzerland, Italy Garibaldi! The Grecian Archipelago!

Vesuvius! Constantinople! Smyrna! The Holy Land! Egypt and "our friends the Bermudians"! People in

Europe desiring to join the excursion contagious sickness to be avoided boating at the expense of the

ship physician on board the circuit of the globe to be made if the passengers unanimously desired it

the company to be rigidly selected by a pitiless "Committee on Applications" the vessel to be as rigidly

selected by as pitiless a "Committee on Selecting Steamer." Human nature could not withstand these

bewildering temptations. I hurried to the treasurer's office and deposited my ten percent. I rejoiced to know

that a few vacant staterooms were still left. I did avoid a critical personal examination into my character by

that bowelless committee, but I referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the community

Shortly a supplementary program was issued which set forth that the Plymouth Collection of Hymns would

I was provided with a receipt and duly and officially accepted as an excursionist. There was happiness in that

This supplementary program also instructed the excursionists to provide themselves with light musical

instruments for amusement in the ship, with saddles for Syrian travel, green spectacles and umbrellas, veils

for Egypt, and substantial clothing to use in rough pilgrimizing in the Holy Land. Furthermore, it was

suggested that although the ship's library would afford a fair amount of reading matter, it would still be well

if each passenger would provide himself with a few guidebooks, a Bible, and some standard works of travel.

A list was appended, which consisted chiefly of books relating to the Holy Land, since the Holy Land was

Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was to have accompanied the expedition, but urgent duties obliged him to

give up the idea. There were other passengers who could have been spared better and would have been spared

more willingly. Lieutenant General Sherman was to have been of the party also, but the Indian war compelled

his presence on the plains. A popular actress had entered her name on the ship's books, but something

interfered and she couldn't go. The "Drummer Boy of the Potomac" deserted, and lo, we had never a celebrity

However, we were to have a "battery of guns" from the Navy Department (as per advertisement) to be used in

answering royal salutes; and the document furnished by the Secretary of the Navy, which was to make

"General Sherman and party" welcome guests in the courts and camps of the old world, was still left to us,

though both document and battery, I think, were shorn of somewhat of their original august proportions.

However, had not we the seductive program still, with its Paris, its Constantinople, Smyrna, Jerusalem,

OCCASIONALLY, during the following month, I dropped in at 117 Wall Street to inquire how the repairing

and refurnishing of the vessel was coming on, how additions to the passenger list were averaging, how many

people the committee were decreeing not "select" every day and banishing in sorrow and tribulation. I was

glad to know that we were to have a little printing press on board and issue a daily newspaper of our own. I

was glad to learn that our piano, our parlor organ, and our melodeon were to be the best instruments of the

kind that could be had in the market. I was proud to observe that among our excursionists were three

ministers of the gospel, eight doctors, sixteen or eighteen ladies, several military and naval chieftains with

sounding titles, an ample crop of "Professors" of various kinds, and a gentleman who had

thundering after his name in one awful blast! I had carefully prepared myself to take rather a back seat in that

ship because of the uncommonly select material that would alone be permitted to pass through the camel's

eye of that committee on credentials; I had schooled myself to expect an imposing array of military and naval

heroes and to have to set that back seat still further back in consequence of it maybe; but I state frankly that I

I fell under that titular avalanche a torn and blighted thing. I said that if that potentate must go over in our

ship, why, I supposed he must but that to my thinking, when the United States considered it necessary to

send a dignitary of that tonnage across the ocean, it would be in better taste, and safer, to take him apart and

Ah, if I had only known then that he was only a common mortal, and that his mission had nothing more

overpowering about it than the collecting of seeds and uncommon yams and extraordinary cabbages and

peculiar bullfrogs for that poor, useless, innocent, mildewed old fossil the Smithsonian Institute, I would have

During that memorable month I basked in the happiness of being for once in my life drifting with the tide of a

great popular movement. Everybody was going to Europe I, too, was going to Europe. Everybody was

going to the famous Paris Exposition I, too, was going to the Paris Exposition. The steamship lines were

carrying Americans out of the various ports of the country at the rate of four or five thousand a week in the

aggregate. If I met a dozen individuals during that month who were not going to Europe shortly, I have no

distinct remembrance of it now. I walked about the city a good deal with a young Mr. Blucher, who was

booked for the excursion. He was confiding, goodnatured, unsophisticated, companionable; but he was not a

man to set the river on fire. He had the most extraordinary notions about this European exodus and came at

last to consider the whole nation as packing up for emigration to France. We stepped into a store on

Broadway one day, where he bought a handkerchief, and when the man could not make change, Mr. B. said:

My comrade took his purchase and walked out of the store without a word walked out with an injured

look upon his countenance. Up the street apiece he broke silence and said impressively: "It was a lie that

In the fullness of time the ship was ready to receive her passengers. I was introduced to the young gentleman

who was to be my roommate, and found him to be intelligent, cheerful of spirit, unselfish, full of generous

impulses, patient, considerate, and wonderfully goodnatured. Not any passenger that sailed in the Quaker

City will withhold his endorsement of what I have just said. We selected a stateroom forward of the wheel, on

the starboard side, "below decks." It bad two berths in it, a dismal deadlight, a sink with a washbowl in it,

and a long, sumptuously cushioned locker, which was to do service as a sofa partly and partly as a

hiding place for our things. Notwithstanding all this furniture, there was still room to turn around in, but not

to swing a cat in, at least with entire security to the cat. However, the room was large, for a ship's stateroom,

A little after noon on that distinguished Saturday I reached the ship and went on board. All was bustle and

confusion. [I have seen that remark before somewhere.] The pier was crowded with carriages and men;

passengers were arriving and hurrying on board; the vessel's decks were encumbered with trunks and valises;

groups of excursionists, arrayed in unattractive traveling costumes, were moping about in a drizzling rain and

looking as droopy and woebegone as so many molting chickens. The gallant flag was up, but it was under the

spell, too, and hung limp and disheartened by the mast. Altogether, it was the bluest, bluest spectacle! It was

a pleasure excursion there was no gainsaying that, because the program said so it was so nominated in

Finally, above the banging, and rumbling, and shouting, and hissing of steam rang the order to "cast off!"

a sudden rush to the gangways a scampering ashore of visitorsa revolution of the wheels, and we were

off the picnic was begun! Two very mild cheers went up from the dripping crowd on the pier; we

answered them gently from the slippery decks; the flag made an effort to wave, and failed; the "battery of

We steamed down to the foot of the harbor and came to anchor. It was still raining. And not only raining, but

storming. "Outside" we could see, ourselves, that there was a tremendous sea on. We must lie still, in the

calm harbor, till the storm should abate. Our passengers hailed from fifteen states; only a few of them had

ever been to sea before; manifestly it would not do to pit them against a fullblown tempest until they had got

their sealegs on. Toward evening the two steam tugs that had accompanied us with a rollicking

champagneparty of young New Yorkers on board who wished to bid farewell to one of our number in due

and ancient form departed, and we were alone on the deep. On deep five fathoms, and anchored fast to the

bottom. And out in the solemn rain, at that. This was pleasuring with a vengeance.

It was an appropriate relief when the gong sounded for prayer meeting. The first Saturday night of any other

pleasure excursion might have been devoted to whist and dancing; but I submit it to the unprejudiced mind if

it would have been in good taste for us to engage in such frivolities, considering what we had gone through

and the frame of mind we were in. We would have shone at a wake, but not at anything more festive.

However, there is always a cheering influence about the sea; and in my berth that night, rocked by the

measured swell of the waves and lulled by the murmur of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly out of all

consciousness of the dreary experiences of the day and damaging premonitions of the future.

ALL day Sunday at anchor. The storm had gone down a great deal, but the sea had not. It was still piling its

frothy hills high in air "outside," as we could plainly see with the glasses. We could not properly begin a

pleasure excursion on Sunday; we could not offer untried stomachs to so pitiless a sea as that. We must lie

still till Monday. And we did. But we had repetitions of church and prayermeetings; and so, of course, we

I was up early that Sabbath morning and was early to breakfast. I felt a perfectly natural desire to have a

good, long, unprejudiced look at the passengers at a time when they should be free from selfconsciousness

which is at breakfast, when such a moment occurs in the lives of human beings at all.

I was greatly surprised to see so many elderly people I might almost say, so many venerable people. A

glance at the long lines of heads was apt to make one think it was all gray. But it was not. There was a

tolerably fair sprinkling of young folks, and another fair sprinkling of gentlemen and ladies who were

The next morning we weighed anchor and went to sea. It was a great happiness to get away after this

dragging, dispiriting delay. I thought there never was such gladness in the air before, such brightness in the

sun, such beauty in the sea. I was satisfied with the picnic then and with all its belongings. All my malicious

instincts were dead within me; and as America faded out of sight, I think a spirit of charity rose up in their

place that was as boundless, for the time being, as the broad ocean that was heaving its billows about us. I

wished to express my feelings I wished to lift up my voice and sing; but I did not know anything to sing,

and so I was obliged to give up the idea. It was no loss to the ship, though, perhaps.

It was breezy and pleasant, but the sea was still very rough. One could not promenade without risking his

neck; at one moment the bowsprit was taking a deadly aim at the sun in midheaven, and at the next it was

trying to harpoon a shark in the bottom of the ocean. What a weird sensation it is to feel the stem of a ship

sinking swiftly from under you and see the bow climbing high away among the clouds! One's safest course

that day was to clasp a railing and hang on; walking was too precarious a pastime.

By some happy fortune I was not seasick. That was a thing to be proud of. I had not always escaped

before. If there is one thing in the world that will make a man peculiarly and insufferably selfconceited, it is

to have his stomach behave itself, the first day it sea, when nearly all his comrades are seasick. Soon a

venerable fossil, shawled to the chin and bandaged like a mummy, appeared at the door of the after

He put his hand on his stomach and said, "Oh, my!" and then staggered away and fell over the coop of a

Presently another old gentleman was projected from the same door with great violence. I said:

In a little while another veteran was discharged abruptly from the same door, clawing at the air for a saving

I thought so. I anticipated him, anyhow. I stayed there and was bombarded with old gentlemen for an hour,

I went away then in a thoughtful mood. I said, this is a good pleasure excursion. I like it. The passengers are

not garrulous, but still they are sociable. I like those old people, but somehow they all seem to have the "Oh,

I knew what was the matter with them. They were seasick. And I was glad of it. We all like to see people

seasick when we are not, ourselves. Playing whist by the cabin lamps when it is storming outside is pleasant;

walking the quarterdeck in the moonlight is pleasant; smoking in the breezy foretop is pleasant when one is

not afraid to go up there; but these are all feeble and commonplace compared with the joy of seeing people

I picked up a good deal of information during the afternoon. At one time I was climbing up the quarterdeck

when the vessel's stem was in the sky; I was smoking a cigar and feeling passably comfortable. Somebody

"Come, now, that won't answer. Read the sign up there NO SMOKING ABAFT THE WHEEL!"

It was Captain Duncan, chief of the expedition. I went forward, of course. I saw a long spyglass lying on a

desk in one of the upperdeck staterooms back of the pilothouse and reached after it there was a ship in

I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of something better to do, fell to carving a railing with my knife.

"Now, say my friend don't you know any better than to be whittling the ship all to pieces that way?

In the course of time I brought up on the starboard side of the pilothouse and found a sextant lying on a

bench. Now, I said, they "take the sun" through this thing; I should think I might see that vessel through it. I

had hardly got it to my eye when someone touched me on the shoulder and said deprecatingly:

"I'll have to get you to give that to me, Sir. If there's anything you'd like to know about taking the sun, I'd as

soon tell you as not but I don't like to trust anybody with that instrument. If you want any figuring done

"Well. This goes clear away ahead of anything I ever heard of before. Do you now I ask you as a man and

a brother do you think I could venture to throw a rock here in any given direction without hitting a captain

"Well, sir, I don't know I think likely you'd fetch the captain of the watch may be, because he's astanding

I went below meditating and a little downhearted. I thought, if five cooks can spoil a broth, what may not

WE plowed along bravely for a week or more, and without any conflict of jurisdiction among the captains

worth mentioning. The passengers soon learned to accommodate themselves to their new circumstances, and

life in the ship became nearly as systematically monotonous as the routine of a barrack. I do not mean that it

was dull, for it was not entirely so by any means but there was a good deal of sameness about it. As is

always the fashion at sea, the passengers shortly began to pick up sailor terms a sign that they were

beginning to feel at home. Halfpast six was no longer halfpast six to these pilgrims from New England, the

South, and the Mississippi Valley, it was "seven bells"; eight, twelve, and four o'clock were "eight bells"; the

captain did not take the longitude at nine o'clock, but at "two bells." They spoke glibly of the "after cabin,"

At seven bells the first gong rang; at eight there was breakfast, for such as were not too seasick to eat it. After

that all the well people walked arminarm up and down the long promenade deck, enjoying the fine summer

mornings, and the seasick ones crawled out and propped themselves up in the lee of the paddleboxes and ate

their dismal tea and toast, and looked wretched. From eleven o'clock until luncheon, and from luncheon until

dinner at six in the evening, the employments and amusements were various. Some reading was done, and

much smoking and sewing, though not by the same parties; there were the monsters of the deep to be looked

after and wondered at; strange ships had to be scrutinized through operaglasses, and sage decisions arrived

at concerning them; and more than that, everybody took a personal interest in seeing that the flag was run up

and politely dipped three times in response to the salutes of those strangers; in the smoking room there were

always parties of gentlemen playing euchre, draughts and dominoes, especially dominoes, that delightfully

harmless game; and down on the main deck, "for'rard" for'rard of the chickencoops and the cattle we

had what was called "horse billiards." Horse billiards is a fine game. It affords good, active exercise, hilarity,

and consuming excitement. It is a mixture of "hopscotch" and shuffleboard played with a crutch. A large

hopscotch diagram is marked out on the deck with chalk, and each compartment numbered. You stand off

three or four steps, with some broad wooden disks before you on the deck, and these you send forward with a

vigorous thrust of a long crutch. If a disk stops on a chalk line, it does not count anything. If it stops in

division No. 7, it counts 7; in 5, it counts 5, and so on. The game is 100, and four can play at a time. That

game would be very simple played on a stationary floor, but with us, to play it well required science. We had

to allow for the reeling of the ship to the right or the left. Very often one made calculations for a heel to the

right and the ship did not go that way. The consequence was that that disk missed the whole hopscotch plan a

yard or two, and then there was humiliation on one side and laughter on the other.

When it rained the passengers had to stay in the house, of course or at least the cabins and amuse

themselves with games, reading, looking out of the windows at the very familiar billows, and talking gossip.

By 7 o'clock in the evening, dinner was about over; an hour's promenade on the upper deck followed; then the

gong sounded and a large majority of the party repaired to the after cabin (upper), a handsome saloon fifty or

sixty feet long, for prayers. The unregenerated called this saloon the "Synagogue." The devotions consisted

only of two hymns from the Plymouth Collection and a short prayer, and seldom occupied more than fifteen

minutes. The hymns were accompanied by parlororgan music when the sea was smooth enough to allow a

After prayers the Synagogue shortly took the semblance of a writing school. The like of that picture was

never seen in a ship before. Behind the long dining tables on either side of the saloon, and scattered from one

end to the other of the latter, some twenty or thirty gentlemen and ladies sat them down under the swaying

lamps and for two or three hours wrote diligently in their journals. Alas! that journals so voluminously begun

should come to so lame and impotent a conclusion as most of them did! I doubt if there is a single pilgrim of

all that host but can show a hundred fair pages of journal concerning the first twenty days' voyaging in the

Quaker City, and I am morally certain that not ten of the party can show twenty pages of journal for the

succeeding twenty thousand miles of voyaging! At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man

to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that

imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But

if he only lives twentyone days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck,

endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination may hope to venture upon so

tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat.

One of our favorite youths, Jack, a splendid young fellow with a head full of good sense, and a pair of legs

that were a wonder to look upon in the way of length and straightness and slimness, used to report progress

"Oh, I'm coming along bully!" (he was a little given to slang in his happier moods.) "I wrote ten pages in my

journal last night and you know I wrote nine the night before and twelve the night before that. Why, it's

"Oh, everything. Latitude and longitude, noon every day; and how many miles we made last twentyfour

hours; and all the domino games I beat and horse billiards; and whales and sharks and porpoises; and the text

of the sermon Sundays (because that'll tell at home, you know); and the ships we saluted and what nation they

were; and which way the wind was, and whether there was a heavy sea, and what sail we carried, though we

don't ever carry any, principally, going against a head wind always wonder what is the reason of that?

and how many lies Moult has told Oh, every thing! I've got everything down. My father told me to keep

that journal. Father wouldn't take a thousand dollars for it when I get it done."

"Yes, it will be worth at least as much as a thousand dollars when you get it done. May be more."

But it shortly became a most lamentable "slouch of a journal." One night in Paris, after a hard day's toil in

"Now I'll go and stroll around the cafes awhile, Jack, and give you a chance to write up your journal, old

"Well, no, you needn't mind. I think I won't run that journal anymore. It is awful tedious. Do you know I

reckon I'm as much as four thousand pages behind hand. I haven't got any France in it at all. First I thought

I'd leave France out and start fresh. But that wouldn't do, would it? The governor would say, 'Hello, here

didn't see anything in France? That cat wouldn't fight, you know. First I thought I'd copy France out of the

guidebook, like old Badger in the for'rard cabin, who's writing a book, but there's more than three hundred

pages of it. Oh, I don't think a journal's any use do you? They're only a bother, ain't they?"

"Yes, a journal that is incomplete isn't of much use, but a journal properly kept is worth a thousand dollars

His experience was only the experience of the majority of that industrious night school in the cabin. If you

wish to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person, pledge him to keep a journal a

A good many expedients were resorted to to keep the excursionists amused and satisfied. A club was formed,

of all the passengers, which met in the writing school after prayers and read aloud about the countries we

Several times the photographer of the expedition brought out his transparent pictures and gave us a handsome

magiclantern exhibition. His views were nearly all of foreign scenes, but there were one or two home

pictures among them. He advertised that he would "open his performance in the after cabin at 'two bells' (nine

P.M.) and show the passengers where they shall eventually arrive" which was all very well, but by a

funny accident the first picture that flamed out upon the canvas was a view of Greenwood Cemetery!

On several starlight nights we danced on the upper deck, under the awnings, and made something of a

ballroom display of brilliancy by hanging a number of ship's lanterns to the stanchions. Our music consisted

of the wellmixed strains of a melodeon which was a little asthmatic and apt to catch its breath where it

ought to come out strong, a clarinet which was a little unreliable on the high keys and rather melancholy on

the low ones, and a disreputable accordion that had a leak somewhere and breathed louder than it squawked

a more elegant term does not occur to me just now. However, the dancing was infinitely worse than the

music. When the ship rolled to starboard the whole platoon of dancers came charging down to starboard with

it, and brought up in mass at the rail; and when it rolled to port they went floundering down to port with the

same unanimity of sentiment. Waltzers spun around precariously for a matter of fifteen seconds and then

went scurrying down to the rail as if they meant to go overboard. The Virginia reel, as performed on board

the Quaker City, had more genuine reel about it than any reel I ever saw before, and was as full of interest to

the spectator as it was full of desperate chances and hairbreadth escapes to the participant. We gave up

We celebrated a lady's birthday anniversary with toasts, speeches, a poem, and so forth. We also had a mock

trial. No ship ever went to sea that hadn't a mock trial on board. The purser was accused of stealing an

overcoat from stateroom No. 10. A judge was appointed; also clerks, a crier of the court, constables, sheriffs;

counsel for the State and for the defendant; witnesses were subpoenaed, and a jury empaneled after much

challenging. The witnesses were stupid and unreliable and contradictory, as witnesses always are. The

counsel were eloquent, argumentative, and vindictively abusive of each other, as was characteristic and

proper. The case was at last submitted and duly finished by the judge with an absurd decision and a ridiculous

The acting of charades was tried on several evenings by the young gentlemen and ladies, in the cabins, and

An attempt was made to organize a debating club, but it was a failure. There was no oratorical talent in the

We all enjoyed ourselves I think I can safely say that, but it was in a rather quiet way. We very, very

seldom played the piano; we played the flute and the clarinet together, and made good music, too, what there

was of it, but we always played the same old tune; it was a very pretty tune how well I remember it I

wonder when I shall ever get rid of it. We never played either the melodeon or the organ except at devotions

but I am too fast: young Albert did know part of a tune something about "O SomethingOrOther How

Sweet It Is to Know That He's His What'shisName" (I do not remember the exact title of it, but it was very

plaintive and full of sentiment); Albert played that pretty much all the time until we contracted with him to

restrain himself. But nobody ever sang by moonlight on the upper deck, and the congregational singing at

church and prayers was not of a superior order of architecture. I put up with it as long as I could and then

joined in and tried to improve it, but this encouraged young George to join in too, and that made a failure of

it; because George's voice was just "turning," and when he was singing a dismal sort of bass it was apt to fly

off the handle and startle everybody with a most discordant cackle on the upper notes. George didn't know

"Come, now, George, don't improvise. It looks too egotistical. It will provoke remark. Just stick to

'Coronation,' like the others. It is a good tune you can't improve it any, just offhand, in this way."

"Why, I'm not trying to improve it and I am singing like the others just as it is in the notes."

And he honestly thought he was, too; and so he had no one to blame but himself when his voice caught on the

There were those among the unregenerated who attributed the unceasing headwinds to our distressing

choirmusic. There were those who said openly that it was taking chances enough to have such ghastly music

going on, even when it was at its best; and that to exaggerate the crime by letting George help was simply

flying in the face of Providence. These said that the choir would keep up their lacerating attempts at melody

There were even grumblers at the prayers. The executive officer said the pilgrims had no charity:

"There they are, down there every night at. eight bells, praying for fair winds when they know as well as I

do that this is the only ship going east this time of the year, but there's a thousand coming west what's a

fair wind for us is a head wind to them the Almighty's blowing a fair wind for a thousand vessels, and this

tribe wants him to turn it clear around so as to accommodate one and she a steamship at that! It ain't good

sense, it ain't good reason, it ain't good Christianity, it ain't common human charity. Avast with such

TAKING it "by and large," as the sailors say, we had a pleasant ten days' run from New York to the Azores

islands not a fast run, for the distance is only twentyfour hundred miles, but a right pleasant one in the

main. True, we had head winds all the time, and several stormy experiences which sent fifty percent of the

passengers to bed sick and made the ship look dismal and deserted stormy experiences that all will

remember who weathered them on the tumbling deck and caught the vast sheets of spray that every now and

then sprang high in air from the weather bow and swept the ship like a thundershower; but for the most part

we had balmy summer weather and nights that were even finer than the days. We had the phenomenon of a

full moon located just in the same spot in the heavens at the same hour every night. The reason of this

singular conduct on the part of the moon did not occur to us at first, but it did afterward when we reflected

that we were gaining about twenty minutes every day because we were going east so fast we gained just

about enough every day to keep along with the moon. It was becoming an old moon to the friends we had left

behind us, but to us Joshuas it stood still in the same place and remained always the same.

Young Mr. Blucher, who is from the Far West and is on his first voyage, was a good deal worried by the

constantly changing "ship time." He was proud of his new watch at first and used to drag it out promptly

when eight bells struck at noon, but he came to look after a while as if he were losing confidence in it. Seven

"Why, this watch. I bought her out in Illinois gave $150 for her and I thought she was good. And, by

George, she is good onshore, but somehow she don't keep up her lick here on the water gets seasick may

be. She skips; she runs along regular enough till halfpast eleven, and then, all of a sudden, she lets down.

I've set that old regulator up faster and faster, till I've shoved it clear around, but it don't do any good; she just

distances every watch in the ship, and clatters along in a way that's astonishing till it is noon, but them eight

bells always gets in about ten minutes ahead of her anyway. I don't know what to do with her now. She's

doing all she can she's going her best gait, but it won't save her. Now, don't you know, there ain't a watch

in the ship that's making better time than she is, but what does it signify? When you hear them eight bells

The ship was gaining a full hour every three days, and this fellow was trying to make his watch go fast

enough to keep up to her. But, as he had said, he had pushed the regulator up as far as it would go, and the

watch was "on its best gait," and so nothing was left him but to fold his hands and see the ship beat the race.

We sent him to the captain, and he explained to him the mystery of "ship time" and set his troubled mind at

rest. This young man asked a great many questions about seasickness before we left, and wanted to know

what its characteristics were and how he was to tell when he had it. He found out.

We saw the usual sharks, blackfish, porpoises, of course, and by and by large schools of Portuguese

menofwar were added to the regular list of sea wonders. Some of them were white and some of a brilliant

carmine color. The nautilus is nothing but a transparent web of jelly that spreads itself to catch the wind, and

has fleshylooking strings a foot or two long dangling from it to keep it steady in the water. It is an

accomplished sailor and has good sailor judgment. It reefs its sail when a storm threatens or the wind blows

pretty hard, and furls it entirely and goes down when a gale blows. Ordinarily it keeps its sail wet and in good

sailing order by turning over and dipping it in the water for a moment. Seamen say the nautilus is only found

At three o'clock on the morning of the twentyfirst of June, we were awakened and notified that the Azores

islands were in sight. I said I did not take any interest in islands at three o'clock in the morning. But another

persecutor came, and then another and another, and finally believing that the general enthusiasm would

permit no one to slumber in peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck. It was five and a half o'clock now, and

a raw, blustering morning. The passengers were huddled about the smokestacks and fortified behind

ventilators, and all were wrapped in wintry costumes and looking sleepy and unhappy in the pitiless gale and

The island in sight was Flores. It seemed only a mountain of mud standing up out of the dull mists of the sea.

But as we bore down upon it the sun came out and made it a beautiful picture a mass of green farms and

meadows that swelled up to a height of fifteen hundred feet and mingled its upper outlines with the clouds. It

was ribbed with sharp, steep ridges and cloven with narrow canyons, and here and there on the heights, rocky

upheavals shaped themselves into mimic battlements and castles; and out of rifted clouds came broad shafts

of sunlight, that painted summit, and slope and glen, with bands of fire, and left belts of somber shade

We skirted around twothirds of the island, four miles from shore, and all the opera glasses in the ship were

called into requisition to settle disputes as to whether mossy spots on the uplands were groves of trees or

groves of weeds, or whether the white villages down by the sea were really villages or only the clustering

tombstones of cemeteries. Finally we stood to sea and bore away for San Miguel, and Flores shortly became a

dome of mud again and sank down among the mists, and disappeared. But to many a seasick passenger it was

good to see the green hills again, and all were more cheerful after this episode than anybody could have

But we had to change our purpose about San Miguel, for a storm came up about noon that so tossed and

pitched the vessel that common sense dictated a run for shelter. Therefore we steered for the nearest island of

the group Fayal (the people there pronounce it Fyall, and put the accent on the first syllable). We

anchored in the open roadstead of Horta, half a mile from the shore. The town has eight thousand to ten

thousand inhabitants. Its snowwhite houses nestle cosily in a sea of fresh green vegetation, and no village

could look prettier or more attractive. It sits in the lap of an amphitheater of hills which are three hundred to

seven hundred feet high, and carefully cultivated clear to their summits not a foot of soil left idle. Every

farm and every acre is cut up into little square inclosures by stone walls, whose duty it is to protect the

growing products from the destructive gales that blow there. These hundreds of green squares, marked by

The islands belong to Portugal, and everything in Fayal has Portuguese characteristics about it. But more of

that anon. A swarm of swarthy, noisy, lying, shouldershrugging, gesticulating Portuguese boatmen, with

brass rings in their ears and fraud in their hearts, climbed the ship's sides, and various parties of us contracted

with them to take us ashore at so much a head, silver coin of any country. We landed under the walls of a

little fort, armed with batteries of twelveand thirtytwopounders, which Horta considered a most

formidable institution, but if we were ever to get after it with one of our turreted monitors, they would have to

move it out in the country if they wanted it where they could go and find it again when they needed it. The

group on the pier was a rusty one men and women, and boys and girls, all ragged and barefoot, uncombed

and unclean, and by instinct, education, and profession beggars. They trooped after us, and never more while

we tarried in Fayal did we get rid of them. We walked up the middle of the principal street, and these vermin

surrounded us on all sides and glared upon us; and every moment excited couples shot ahead of the

procession to get a good look back, just as village boys do when they accompany the elephant on his

advertising trip from street to street. It was very flattering to me to be part of the material for such a sensation.

Here and there in the doorways we saw women with fashionable Portuguese hoods on. This hood is of thick

blue cloth, attached to a cloak of the same stuff, and is a marvel of ugliness. It stands up high and spreads far

abroad, and is unfathomably deep. It fits like a circus tent, and a woman's head is hidden away in it like the

man's who prompts the singers from his tin shed in the stage of an opera. There is no particle of trimming

about this monstrous capote, as they call it it is just a plain, ugly deadblue mass of sail, and a woman

can't go within eight points of the wind with one of them on; she has to go before the wind or not at all. The

general style of the capote is the same in all the islands, and will remain so for the next ten thousand years,

but each island shapes its capotes just enough differently from the others to enable an observer to tell at a

The Portuguese pennies, or reis (pronounced rays), are prodigious. It takes one thousand reis to make a dollar,

and all financial estimates are made in reis. We did not know this until after we had found it out through

Blucher. Blucher said he was so happy and so grateful to be on solid land once more that he wanted to give a

feast said he had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand banquet. He invited nine of

us, and we ate an excellent dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst of the jollity produced by good cigars,

good wine, and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance

fell. He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not deceived him and then read the items

"'TOTAL, TWENTYONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED REIS!' The suffering Moses! There ain't

money enough in the ship to pay that bill! Go leave me to my misery, boys, I am a ruined community."

I think it was the blankestlooking party I ever saw. Nobody could say a word. It was as if every soul had

been stricken dumb. Wine glasses descended slowly to the table, their contents untasted. Cigars dropped

unnoticed from nerveless fingers. Each man sought his neighbor's eye, but found in it no ray of hope, no

encouragement. At last the fearful silence was broken. The shadow of a desperate resolve settled upon

"Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I'll never, never stand it. Here's a hundred and fifty dollars, Sir,

Our spirits rose and the landlord's fell at least we thought so; he was confused, at any rate,

notwithstanding he had not understood a word that had been said. He glanced from the little pile of gold

pieces to Blucher several times and then went out. He must have visited an American, for when he returned,

he brought back his bill translated into a language that a Christian could understand thus:

Happiness reigned once more in Blucher's dinner party. More refreshments were ordered.

I THINK the Azores must be very little known in America. Out of our whole ship's company there was not a

solitary individual who knew anything whatever about them. Some of the party, well read concerning most

other lands, had no other information about the Azores than that they were a group of nine or ten small

islands far out in the Atlantic, something more than halfway between New York and Gibraltar. That was all.

The community is eminently Portuguese that is to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy. There is

a civil governor, appointed by the King of Portugal, and also a military governor, who can assume supreme

control and suspend the civil government at his pleasure. The islands contain a population of about 200,000,

almost entirely Portuguese. Everything is staid and settled, for the country was one hundred years old when

Columbus discovered America. The principal crop is corn, and they raise it and grind it just as their

greatgreatgreatgrandfathers did. They plow with a board slightly shod with iron; their trifling little

harrows are drawn by men and women; small windmills grind the corn, ten bushels a day, and there is one

assistant superintendent to feed the mill and a general superintendent to stand by and keep him from going to

sleep. When the wind changes they hitch on some donkeys and actually turn the whole upper half of the mill

around until the sails are in proper position, instead of fixing the concern so that the sails could be moved

instead of the mill. Oxen tread the wheat from the ear, after the fashion prevalent in the time of Methuselah.

There is not a wheelbarrow in the land they carry everything on their heads, or on donkeys, or in a

wickerbodied cart, whose wheels are solid blocks of wood and whose axles turn with the wheel. There is not

a modern plow in the islands or a threshing machine. All attempts to introduce them have failed. The good

Catholic Portuguese crossed himself and prayed God to shield him from all blasphemous desire to know

more than his father did before him. The climate is mild; they never have snow or ice, and I saw no chimneys

in the town. The donkeys and the men, women, and children of a family all eat and sleep in the same room,

and are unclean, are ravaged by vermin, and are truly happy. The people lie, and cheat the stranger, and are

desperately ignorant, and have hardly any reverence for their dead. The latter trait shows how little better they

are than the donkeys they eat and sleep with. The only welldressed Portuguese in the camp are the half a

dozen welltodo families, the Jesuit priests, and the soldiers of the little garrison. The wages of a laborer are

twenty to twentyfour cents a day, and those of a good mechanic about twice as much. They count it in reis

at a thousand to the dollar, and this makes them rich and contented. Fine grapes used to grow in the islands,

and an excellent wine was made and exported. But a disease killed all the vines fifteen years ago, and since

that time no wine has been made. The islands being wholly of volcanic origin, the soil is necessarily very

rich. Nearly every foot of ground is under cultivation, and two or three crops a year of each article are

produced, but nothing is exported save a few oranges chiefly to England. Nobody comes here, and nobody

goes away. News is a thing unknown in Fayal. A thirst for it is a passion equally unknown. A Portuguese of

average intelligence inquired if our civil war was over. Because, he said, somebody had told him it was or

at least it ran in his mind that somebody had told him something like that! And when a passenger gave an

officer of the garrison copies of the Tribune, the Herald, and Times, he was surprised to find later news in

them from Lisbon than he had just received by the little monthly steamer. He was told that it came by cable.

He said he knew they had tried to lay a cable ten years ago, but it had been in his mind somehow that they

It is in communities like this that Jesuit humbuggery flourishes. We visited a Jesuit cathedral nearly two

hundred years old and found in it a piece of the veritable cross upon which our Saviour was crucified. It was

polished and hard, and in as excellent a state of preservation as if the dread tragedy on Calvary had occurred

yesterday instead of eighteen centuries ago. But these confiding people believe in that piece of wood

In a chapel of the cathedral is an altar with facings of solid silver at least they call it so, and I think myself

it would go a couple of hundred to the ton (to speak after the fashion of the silver miners) and before it is

kept forever burning a small lamp. A devout lady who died, left money and contracted for unlimited masses

for the repose of her soul, and also stipulated that this lamp should be kept lighted always, day and night. She

did all this before she died, you understand. It is a very small lamp and a very dim one, and it could not work

The great altar of the cathedral and also three or four minor ones are a perfect mass of gilt gimcracks and

gingerbread. And they have a swarm of rusty, dusty, battered apostles standing around the filagree work,

some on one leg and some with one eye out but a gamey look in the other, and some with two or three fingers

gone, and some with not enough nose left to blow all of them crippled and discouraged, and fitter subjects

The walls of the chancel are of porcelain, all pictured over with figures of almost life size, very elegantly

wrought and dressed in the fanciful costumes of two centuries ago. The design was a history of something or

somebody, but none of us were learned enough to read the story. The old father, reposing under a stone close

As we came down through the town we encountered a squad of little donkeys ready saddled for use. The

saddles were peculiar, to say the least. They consisted of a sort of sawbuck with a small mattress on it, and

this furniture covered about half the donkey. There were no stirrups, but really such supports were not needed

to use such a saddle was the next thing to riding a dinner table there was ample support clear out to

one's knee joints. A pack of ragged Portuguese muleteers crowded around us, offering their beasts at half a

dollar an hour more rascality to the stranger, for the market price is sixteen cents. Half a dozen of us

mounted the ungainly affairs and submitted to the indignity of making a ridiculous spectacle of ourselves

We started. It was not a trot, a gallop, or a canter, but a stampede, and made up of all possible or conceivable

gaits. No spurs were necessary. There was a muleteer to every donkey and a dozen volunteers beside, and

they banged the donkeys with their goad sticks, and pricked them with their spikes, and shouted something

that sounded like "Sekkiyah!" and kept up a din and a racket that was worse than Bedlam itself. These

rascals were all on foot, but no matter, they were always up to time they can outrun and outlast a donkey.

Altogether, ours was a lively and a picturesque procession, and drew crowded audiences to the balconies

Blucher could do nothing at all with his donkey. The beast scampered zigzag across the road and the others

ran into him; he scraped Blucher against carts and the corners of houses; the road was fenced in with high

stone walls, and the donkey gave him a polishing first on one side and then on the other, but never once took

the middle; he finally came to the house he was born in and darted into the parlor, scraping Blucher off at the

doorway. After remounting, Blucher said to the muleteer, "Now, that's enough, you know; you go slow

hereafter." But the fellow knew no English and did not understand, so he simply said, "Sekkiyah!" and the

donkey was off again like a shot. He turned a comer suddenly, and Blucher went over his head. And, to speak

truly, every mule stumbled over the two, and the whole cavalcade was piled up in a heap. No harm done. A

fall from one of those donkeys is of little more consequence than rolling off a sofa. The donkeys all stood still

after the catastrophe and waited for their dismembered saddles to be patched up and put on by the noisy

muleteers. Blucher was pretty angry and wanted to swear, but every time he opened his mouth his animal did

It was fun, scurrying around the breezy hills and through the beautiful canyons. There was that rare thing,

novelty, about it; it was a fresh, new, exhilarating sensation, this donkey riding, and worth a hundred worn

The roads were a wonder, and well they might be. Here was an island with only a handful of people in it

25,000 and yet such fine roads do not exist in the United States outside of Central Park. Everywhere you

go, in any direction, you find either a hard, smooth, level thoroughfare, just sprinkled with black lava sand,

and bordered with little gutters neatly paved with small smooth pebbles, or compactly paved ones like

Broadway. They talk much of the Russ pavement in New York, and call it a new invention yet here they

have been using it in this remote little isle of the sea for two hundred years! Every street in Horta is

handsomely paved with the heavy Russ blocks, and the surface is neat and true as a floor not marred by

holes like Broadway. And every road is fenced in by tall, solid lava walls, which will last a thousand years in

this land where frost is unknown. They are very thick, and are often plastered and whitewashed and capped

with projecting slabs of cut stone. Trees from gardens above hang their swaying tendrils down, and contrast

their bright green with the whitewash or the black lava of the walls and make them beautiful. The trees and

vines stretch across these narrow roadways sometimes and so shut out the sun that you seem to be riding

through a tunnel. The pavements, the roads, and the bridges are all government work.

The bridges are of a single span a single arch of cut stone, without a support, and paved on top with

flags of lava and ornamental pebblework. Everywhere are walls, walls, walls, and all of them tasteful and

handsome and eternally substantial; and everywhere are those marvelous pavements, so neat, so smooth,

and so indestructible. And if ever roads and streets and the outsides of houses were perfectly free from any

sign or semblance of dirt, or dust, or mud, or uncleanliness of any kind, it is Horta, it is Fayal. The lower

classes of the people, in their persons and their domiciles, are not clean but there it stops the town and

We arrived home again finally, after a tenmile excursion, and the irrepressible muleteers scampered at our

heels through the main street, goading the donkeys, shouting the everlasting "Sekkiyah," and singing "John

When we were dismounted and it came to settling, the shouting and jawing and swearing and quarreling

among the muleteers and with us was nearly deafening. One fellow would demand a dollar an hour for the

use of his donkey; another claimed half a dollar for pricking him up, another a quarter for helping in that

service, and about fourteen guides presented bills for showing us the way through the town and its environs;

and every vagrant of them was more vociferous, and more vehement and more frantic in gesture than his

The mountains on some of the islands are very high. We sailed along the shore of the island of Pico, under a

stately green pyramid that rose up with one unbroken sweep from our very feet to an altitude of 7,613 feet,

We got plenty of fresh oranges, lemons, figs, apricots, etc., in these Azores, of course. But I will desist. I am

We are on our way to Gibraltar, and shall reach there five or six days out from the Azores.

A WEEK of buffeting a tempestuous and relentless sea; a week of seasickness and deserted cabins; of lonely

quarterdecks drenched with spray spray so ambitious that it even coated the smokestacks thick with a

white crust of salt to their very tops; a week of shivering in the shelter of the lifeboats and deckhouses by day

and blowing suffocating "clouds" and boisterously performing at dominoes in the smoking room at night.

And the last night of the seven was the stormiest of all. There was no thunder, no noise but the pounding

bows of the ship, the keen whistling of the gale through the cordage, and the rush of the seething waters. But

the vessel climbed aloft as if she would climb to heaven then paused an instant that seemed a century and

plunged headlong down again, as from a precipice. The sheeted sprays drenched the decks like rain. The

blackness of darkness was everywhere. At long intervals a flash of lightning clove it with a quivering line of

fire that revealed a heaving world of water where was nothing before, kindled the dusky cordage to glittering

Fear drove many on deck that were used to avoiding the night winds and the spray. Some thought the vessel

could not live through the night, and it seemed less dreadful to stand out in the midst of the wild tempest and

see the peril that threatened than to be shut up in the sepulchral cabins, under the dim lamps, and imagine the

horrors that were abroad on the ocean. And once out once where they could see the ship struggling in the

strong grasp of the storm once where they could hear the shriek of the winds and face the driving spray

and look out upon the majestic picture the lightnings disclosed, they were prisoners to a fierce fascination

they could not resist, and so remained. It was a wild night and a very, very long one.

Everybody was sent scampering to the deck at seven o'clock this lovely morning of the thirtieth of June with

the glad news that land was in sight! It was a rare thing and a joyful, to see all the ship's family abroad once

more, albeit the happiness that sat upon every countenance could only partly conceal the ravages which that

long siege of storms had wrought there. But dull eyes soon sparkled with pleasure, pallid cheeks flushed

again, and frames weakened by sickness gathered new life from the quickening influences of the bright, fresh

morning. Yea, and from a still more potent influence: the worn castaways were to see the blessed land again!

Within the hour we were fairly within the Straits of Gibraltar, the tall yellowsplotched hills of Africa on our

right, with their bases veiled in a blue haze and their summits swathed in clouds the same being according

to Scripture, which says that "clouds and darkness are over the land." The words were spoken of this

particular portion of Africa, I believe. On our left were the graniteribbed domes of old Spain. The strait is

At short intervals along the Spanish shore were quaintlooking old stone towers Moorish, we thought

but learned better afterwards. In former times the Morocco rascals used to coast along the Spanish Main in

their boats till a safe opportunity seemed to present itself, and then dart in and capture a Spanish village and

carry off all the pretty women they could find. It was a pleasant business, and was very popular. The

Spaniards built these watchtowers on the hills to enable them to keep a sharper lookout on the Moroccan

The picture on the other hand was very beautiful to eyes weary of the changeless sea, and by and by the ship's

grew wonderfully cheerful. But while we stood admiring the cloudcapped peaks and the lowlands robed in

misty gloom a finer picture burst upon us and chained every eye like a magnet a stately ship, with canvas

piled on canvas till she was one towering mass of bellying sail! She came speeding over the sea like a great

bird. Africa and Spain were forgotten. All homage was for the beautiful stranger. While everybody gazed she

swept superbly by and flung the Stars and Stripes to the breeze! Quicker than thought, hats and handkerchiefs

flashed in the air, and a cheer went up! She was beautiful before she was radiant now. Many a one on our

decks knew then for the first time how tame a sight his country's flag is at home compared to what it is in a

foreign land. To see it is to see a vision of home itself and all its idols, and feel a thrill that would stir a very

We were approaching the famed Pillars of Hercules, and already the African one, "Ape's Hill," a grand old

mountain with summit streaked with granite ledges, was in sight. The other, the great Rock of Gibraltar, was

yet to come. The ancients considered the Pillars of Hercules the head of navigation and the end of the world.

The information the ancients didn't have was very voluminous. Even the prophets wrote book after book and

epistle after epistle, yet never once hinted at the existence of a great continent on our side of the water; yet

In a few moments a lonely and enormous mass of rock, standing seemingly in the center of the wide strait and

apparently washed on all sides by the sea, swung magnificently into view, and we needed no tedious traveled

parrot to tell us it was Gibraltar. There could not be two rocks like that in one kingdom.

The Rock of Gibraltar is about a mile and a half long, I should say, by 1,400 to 1,500 feet high, and a quarter

of a mile wide at its base. One side and one end of it come about as straight up out of the sea as the side of a

house, the other end is irregular and the other side is a steep slant which an army would find very difficult to

climb. At the foot of this slant is the walled town of Gibraltar or rather the town occupies part of the slant.

Everywhere on hillside, in the precipice, by the sea, on the heights everywhere you choose to look,

Gibraltar is clad with masonry and bristling with guns. It makes a striking and lively picture from whatsoever

point you contemplate it. It is pushed out into the sea on the end of a flat, narrow strip of land, and is

suggestive of a "gob" of mud on the end of a shingle. A few hundred yards of this flat ground at its base

belongs to the English, and then, extending across the strip from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, a distance

of a quarter of a mile, comes the "Neutral Ground," a space two or three hundred yards wide, which is free to

"Are you going through Spain to Paris?" That question was bandied about the ship day and night from Fayal

to Gibraltar, and I thought I never could get so tired of hearing any one combination of words again or more

tired of answering, "I don't know." At the last moment six or seven had sufficient decision of character to

make up their minds to go, and did go, and I felt a sense of relief at once it was forever too late now and I

could make up my mind at my leisure not to go. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as

But behold how annoyances repeat themselves. We had no sooner gotten rid of the Spain distress than the

Gibraltar guides started another a tiresome repetition of a legend that had nothing very astonishing about

it, even in the first place: "That high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair; it is because one of the queens of

Spain placed her chair there when the French and Spanish troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she

would never move from the spot till the English flag was lowered from the fortresses. If the English hadn't

been gallant enough to lower the flag for a few hours one day, she'd have had to break her oath or die up

We rode on asses and mules up the steep, narrow streets and entered the subterranean galleries the English

have blasted out in the rock. These galleries are like spacious railway tunnels, and at short intervals in them

great guns frown out upon sea and town through portholes five or six hundred feet above the ocean. There is

a mile or so of this subterranean work, and it must have cost a vast deal of money and labor. The gallery guns

command the peninsula and the harbors of both oceans, but they might as well not be there, I should think,

for an army could hardly climb the perpendicular wall of the rock anyhow. Those lofty portholes afford

superb views of the sea, though. At one place, where a jutting crag was hollowed out into a great chamber

whose furniture was huge cannon and whose windows were portholes, a glimpse was caught of a hill not far

"That high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair; it is because a queen of Spain placed her chair there once

when the French and Spanish troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would never move from the spot

till the English flag was lowered from the fortresses. If the English hadn't been gallant enough to lower the

flag for a few hours one day, she'd have had to break her oath or die up there."

On the topmost pinnacle of Gibraltar we halted a good while, and no doubt the mules were tired. They had a

right to be. The military road was good, but rather steep, and there was a good deal of it. The view from the

narrow ledge was magnificent; from it vessels seeming like the tiniest little toy boats were turned into noble

ships by the telescopes, and other vessels that were fifty miles away and even sixty, they said, and invisible to

the naked eye, could be clearly distinguished through those same telescopes. Below, on one side, we looked

down upon an endless mass of batteries and on the other straight down to the sea.

While I was resting ever so comfortably on a rampart, and cooling my baking head in the delicious breeze, an

"Sir, I am a helpless orphan in a foreign land. Have pity on me. Don't now don't inflict that most

There I had used strong language after promising I would never do so again; but the provocation was

more than human nature could bear. If you had been bored so, when you had the noble panorama of Spain

and Africa and the blue Mediterranean spread abroad at your feet, and wanted to gaze and enjoy and surfeit

yourself in its beauty in silence, you might have even burst into stronger language than I did.

Gibraltar has stood several protracted sieges, one of them of nearly four years' duration (it failed), and the

English only captured it by stratagem. The wonder is that anybody should ever dream of trying so impossible

The Moors held the place twelve hundred years ago, and a staunch old castle of theirs of that date still frowns

from the middle of the town, with mossgrown battlements and sides well scarred by shots fired in battles

and sieges that are forgotten now. A secret chamber in the rock behind it was discovered some time ago,

which contained a sword of exquisite workmanship, and some quaint old armor of a fashion that antiquaries

are not acquainted with, though it is supposed to be Roman. Roman armor and Roman relics of various kinds

have been found in a cave in the sea extremity of Gibraltar; history says Rome held this part of the country

In that cave also are found human bones, crusted with a very thick, stony coating, and wise men have

ventured to say that those men not only lived before the flood, but as much as ten thousand years before it. It

may be true it looks reasonable enough but as long as those parties can't vote anymore, the matter can

be of no great public interest. In this cave likewise are found skeletons and fossils of animals that exist in

every part of Africa, yet within memory and tradition have never existed in any portion of Spain save this

lone peak of Gibraltar! So the theory is that the channel between Gibraltar and Africa was once dry land, and

that the low, neutral neck between Gibraltar and the Spanish hills behind it was once ocean, and of course

that these African animals, being over at Gibraltar (after rock, perhaps there is plenty there), got closed

out when the great change occurred. The hills in Africa, across the channel, are full of apes, and there are

now and always have been apes on the rock of Gibraltar but not elsewhere in Spain! The subject is an

There is an English garrison at Gibraltar of 6,000 or 7,000 men, and so uniforms of flaming red are plenty;

and red and blue, and undress costumes of snowy white, and also the queer uniform of the barekneed

Highlander; and one sees softeyed Spanish girls from San Roque, and veiled Moorish beauties (I suppose

they are beauties) from Tarifa, and turbaned, sashed, and trousered Moorish merchants from Fez, and

longrobed, barelegged, ragged Muhammadan vagabonds from Tetu�n and Tangier, some brown, some

yellow and some as black as virgin ink and Jews from all around, in gabardine, skullcap, and slippers, just

as they are in pictures and theaters, and just as they were three thousand years ago, no doubt. You can easily

understand that a tribe (somehow our pilgrims suggest that expression, because they march in a straggling

procession through these foreign places with such an Indianlike air of complacency and independence about

them) like ours, made up from fifteen or sixteen states of the Union, found enough to stare at in this shifting

Speaking of our pilgrims reminds me that we have one or two people among us who are sometimes an

annoyance. However, I do not count the Oracle in that list. I will explain that the Oracle is an innocent old ass

who eats for four and looks wiser than the whole Academy of France would have any right to look, and never

uses a onesyllable word when he can think of a longer one, and never by any possible chance knows the

meaning of any long word he uses or ever gets it in the right place; yet he will serenely venture an opinion on

the most abstruse subject and back it up complacently with quotations from authors who never existed, and

finally when cornered will slide to the other side of the question, say he has been there all the time, and come

back at you with your own spoken arguments, only with the big words all tangled, and play them in your very

teeth as original with himself. He reads a chapter in the guidebooks, mixes the facts all up, with his bad

memory, and then goes off to inflict the whole mess on somebody as wisdom which has been festering in his

brain for years and which he gathered in college from erudite authors who are dead now and out of print. This

"Do you see that there hill out there on that African coast? It's one of them Pillows of Herkewls, I should say

"The ultimate one that is a good word but the pillars are not both on the same side of the strait." (I saw

"Well, it ain't for you to say, nor for me. Some authors states it that way, and some states it different. Old

Gibbons don't say nothing about it just shirks it complete Gibbons always done that when he got stuck

but there is Rolampton, what does he say? Why, be says that they was both on the same side, and

"Oh, that will do that's enough. If you have got your hand in for inventing authors and testimony, I have

We don't mind the Oracle. We rather like him. We can tolerate the Oracle very easily, but we have a poet and

a goodnatured enterprising idiot on board, and they do distress the company. The one gives copies of his

verses to consuls, commanders, hotel keepers, Arabs, Dutch to anybody, in fact, who will submit to a

grievous infliction most kindly meant. His poetry is all very well on shipboard, notwithstanding when he

wrote an "Ode to the Ocean in a Storm" in one half hour, and an "Apostrophe to the Rooster in the Waist of

the Ship" in the next, the transition was considered to be rather abrupt; but when he sends an invoice of

rhymes to the Governor of Fayal and another to the commander in chief and other dignitaries in Gibraltar

with the compliments of the Laureate of the Ship, it is not popular with the passengers.

The other personage I have mentioned is young and green, and not bright, not learned, and not wise. He will

be, though, someday if he recollects the answers to all his questions. He is known about the ship as the

"Interrogation Point," and this by constant use has become shortened to "Interrogation." He has distinguished

himself twice already. In Fayal they pointed out a hill and told him it was 800 feet high and 1,100 feet long.

And they told him there was a tunnel 2,000 feet long and 1,000 feet high running through the hill, from end to

end. He believed it. He repeated it to everybody, discussed it, and read it from his notes. Finally, he took a

"Well, yes, it is a little remarkable singular tunnel altogether stands up out of the top of the hill about

Here in Gibraltar he comers these educated British officers and badgers them with braggadocio about

America and the wonders she can perform! He told one of them a couple of our gunboats could come here

At this present moment half a dozen of us are taking a private pleasure excursion of our own devising. We

form rather more than half the list of white passengers on board a small steamer bound for the venerable

Moorish town of Tangier, Africa. Nothing could be more absolutely certain than that we are enjoying

ourselves. One can not do otherwise who speeds over these sparkling waters and breathes the soft atmosphere

We even steamed recklessly by the frowning fortress of Malabat (a stronghold of the Emperor of Morocco)

without a twinge of fear. The whole garrison turned out under arms and assumed a threatening attitude yet

still we did not fear. The entire garrison marched and countermarched within the rampart, in full view

I suppose we really do not know what fear is. I inquired the name of the garrison of the fortress of Malabat,

and they said it was Mehemet Ali Ben Sancom. I said it would be a good idea to get some more garrisons to

help him; but they said no, he had nothing to do but hold the place, and he was competent to do that, had

done it two years already. That was evidence which one could not well refute. There is nothing like

Every now and then my glove purchase in Gibraltar last night intrudes itself upon me. Dan and the ship's

surgeon and I had been up to the great square, listening to the music of the fine military bands and

contemplating English and Spanish female loveliness and fashion, and at nine o'clock were on our way to the

theater, when we met the General, the Judge, the Commodore, the Colonel, and the Commissioner of the

United States of America to Europe, Asia, and Africa, who had been to the Club House to register their

several titles and impoverish the bill of fare; and they told us to go over to the little variety store near the Hall

of Justice and buy some kid gloves. They said they were elegant and very moderate in price. It seemed a

stylish thing to go to the theater in kid gloves, and we acted upon the hint. A very handsome young lady in

the store offered me a pair of blue gloves. I did not want blue, but she said they would look very pretty on a

hand like mine. The remark touched me tenderly. I glanced furtively at my hand, and somehow it did seem

rather a comely member. I tried a glove on my left and blushed a little. Manifestly the size was too small for

"Ah! I see you are accustomed to wearing kid gloves but some gentlemen are so awkward about putting

It was the last compliment I had expected. I only understand putting on the buckskin article perfectly. I made

another effort and tore the glove from the base of the thumb into the palm of the hand and tried to hide the

rent. She kept up her compliments, and I kept up my determination to deserve them or die:

"Ah, you have had experience! [A rip down the back of the hand.] They are just right for you your hand is

very small if they tear you need not pay for them. [A rent across the middle.] I can always tell when a

gentleman understands putting on kid gloves. There is a grace about it that only comes with long practice."

The whole afterguard of the glove "fetched away," as the sailors say, the fabric parted across the knuckles,

I was too much flattered to make an exposure and throw the merchandise on the angel's hands. I was hot,

vexed, confused, but still happy; but I hated the other boys for taking such an absorbing interest in the

proceedings. I wished they were in Jericho. I felt exquisitely mean when I said cheerfully:

"This one does very well; it fits elegantly. I like a glove that fits. No, never mind, ma'am, never mind; I'll put

It was warm. It was the warmest place I ever was in. I paid the bill, and as I passed out with a fascinating bow

I thought I detected a light in the woman's eye that was gently ironical; and when I looked back from the

street, and she was laughing all to herself about something or other, I said to myself with withering sarcasm,

"Oh, certainly; you know how to put on kid gloves, don't you? A selfcomplacent ass, ready to be flattered

out of your senses by every petticoat that chooses to take the trouble to do it!"

"But it is always easy to tell when a gentleman is used to putting on kid gloves."

"Ah, yes; there is a grace about it that only comes with long, very long practice."

"Yes, indeed, I've noticed that when a man hauls on a kid glove like he was dragging a cat out of an ash hole

"Boys, enough of a thing's enough! You think you are very smart, I suppose, but I don't. And if you go and

tell any of those old gossips in the ship about this thing, I'll never forgive you for it; that's all."

They let me alone then for the time being. We always let each other alone in time to prevent ill feeling from

spoiling a joke. But they had bought gloves, too, as I did. We threw all the purchases away together this

morning. They were coarse, unsubstantial, freckled all over with broad yellow splotches, and could neither

stand wear nor public exhibition. We had entertained an angel unawares, but we did not take her in. She did

Tangier! A tribe of stalwart Moors are wading into the sea to carry us ashore on their backs from the small

THIS is royal! Let those who went up through Spain make the best of it these dominions of the Emperor

of Morocco suit our little party well enough. We have had enough of Spain at Gibraltar for the present.

Tangier is the spot we have been longing for all the time. Elsewhere we have found foreignlooking things

and foreignlooking people, but always with things and people intermixed that we were familiar with before,

and so the novelty of the situation lost a deal of its force. We wanted something thoroughly and

uncompromisingly foreign foreign from top to bottom foreign from center to circumference foreign

inside and outside and all around nothing anywhere about it to dilute its foreignness nothing to remind

us of any other people or any other land under the sun. And lo! In Tangier we have found it. Here is not the

slightest thing that ever we have seen save in pictures and we always mistrusted the pictures before. We

cannot anymore. The pictures used to seem exaggerations they seemed too weird and fanciful for reality.

But behold, they were not wild enough they were not fanciful enough they have not told half the story.

Tangier is a foreign land if ever there was one, and the true spirit of it can never be found in any book save

The Arabian Nights. Here are no white men visible, yet swarms of humanity are all about us. Here is a

packed and jammed city enclosed in a massive stone wall which is more than a thousand years old. All the

houses nearly are oneand twostory, made of thick walls of stone, plastered outside, square as a drygoods

box, flat as a floor on top, no cornices, whitewashed all over a crowded city of snowy tombs! And the

doors are arched with the peculiar arch we see in Moorish pictures; the floors are laid in varicolored diamond

flags; in tesselated, manycolored porcelain squares wrought in the furnaces of Fez; in red tiles and broad

bricks that time cannot wear; there is no furniture in the rooms (of Jewish dwellings) save divans what

there is in Moorish ones no man may know; within their sacred walls no Christian dog can enter. And the

streets are oriental some of them three feet wide, some six, but only two that are over a dozen; a man can

blockade the most of them by extending his body across them. Isn't it an oriental picture?

There are stalwart Bedouins of the desert here, and stately Moors proud of a history that goes back to the

night of time; and Jews whose fathers fled hither centuries upon centuries ago; and swarthy Riffians from the

mountains born cut throats and original, genuine Negroes as black as Moses; and howling dervishes

and a hundred breeds of Arabs all sorts and descriptions of people that are foreign and curious to look

And their dresses are strange beyond all description. Here is a bronzed Moor in a prodigious white turban,

curiously embroidered jacket, gold and crimson sash, of many folds, wrapped round and round his waist,

trousers that only come a little below his knee and yet have twenty yards of stuff in them, ornamented

scimitar, bare shins, stockingless feet, yellow slippers, and gun of preposterous length a mere soldier! I

thought he was the Emperor at least. And here are aged Moors with flowing white beards and long white

robes with vast cowls; and Bedouins with long, cowled, striped cloaks; and Negroes and Riffians with heads

cleanshaven except a kinky scalp lock back of the ear or, rather, upon the after corner of the skull; and all

sorts of barbarians in all sorts of weird costumes, and all more or less ragged. And here are Moorish women

who are enveloped from head to foot in coarse white robes, and whose sex can only be determined by the fact

that they only leave one eye visible and never look at men of their own race, or are looked at by them in

public. Here are five thousand Jews in blue gabardines, sashes about their waists, slippers upon their feet,

little skullcaps upon the backs of their heads, hair combed down on the forehead, and cut straight across the

middle of it from side to side the selfsame fashion their Tangier ancestors have worn for I don't know how

many bewildering centuries. Their feet and ankles are bare. Their noses are all hooked, and hooked alike.

They all resemble each other so much that one could almost believe they were of one family. Their women

are plump and pretty, and do smile upon a Christian in a way which is in the last degree comforting.

What a funny old town it is! It seems like profanation to laugh and jest and bandy the frivolous chat of our

day amid its hoary relics. Only the stately phraseology and the measured speech of the sons of the Prophet are

suited to a venerable antiquity like this. Here is a crumbling wall that was old when Columbus discovered

America; was old when Peter the Hermit roused the knightly men of the Middle Ages to arm for the first

Crusade; was old when Charlemagne and his paladins beleaguered enchanted castles and battled with giants

and genii in the fabled days of the olden time; was old when Christ and his disciples walked the earth; stood

where it stands today when the lips of Memnon were vocal and men bought and sold in the streets of ancient

The Phoenicians, the Carthagenians, the English, Moors, Romans, all have battled for Tangier all have

won it and lost it. Here is a ragged, orientallooking Negro from some desert place in interior Africa, filling

his goatskin with water from a stained and battered fountain built by the Romans twelve hundred years ago.

Yonder is a ruined arch of a bridge built by Julius Caesar nineteen hundred years ago. Men who had seen the

Near it are the ruins of a dockyard where Caesar repaired his ships and loaded them with grain when he

Here, under the quiet stars, these old streets seem thronged with the phantoms of forgotten ages. My eyes are

resting upon a spot where stood a monument which was seen and described by Roman historians less than

CANAAN BY THE JEWISH ROBBER, JOSHUA." Joshua drove them out, and they came here. Not many

leagues from here is a tribe of Jews whose ancestors fled thither after an unsuccessful revolt against King

David, and these their descendants are still under a ban and keep to themselves.

Tangier has been mentioned in history for three thousand years. And it was a town, though a queer one, when

Hercules, clad in his lion skin, landed here, four thousand years ago. In these streets he met Anitus, the king

of the country, and brained him with his club, which was the fashion among gentlemen in those days. The

people of Tangier (called Tingis then) lived in the rudest possible huts and dressed in skins and carried clubs,

and were as savage as the wild beasts they were constantly obliged to war with. But they were a gentlemanly

race and did no work. They lived on the natural products of the land. Their king's country residence was at

the famous Garden of Hesperides, seventy miles down the coast from here. The garden, with its golden

apples (oranges), is gone now no vestige of it remains. Antiquarians concede that such a personage as

Hercules did exist in ancient times and agree that he was an enterprising and energetic man, but decline to

Down here at Cape Spartel is the celebrated cave of Hercules, where that hero took refuge when he was

vanquished and driven out of the Tangier country. It is full of inscriptions in the dead languages, which fact

makes me think Hercules could not have traveled much, else he would not have kept a journal.

Five days' journey from here say two hundred miles are the ruins of an ancient city, of whose history

there is neither record nor tradition. And yet its arches, its columns, and its statues proclaim it to have been

The general size of a store in Tangier is about that of an ordinary shower bath in a civilized land. The

Muhammadan merchant, tinman, shoemaker, or vendor of trifles sits crosslegged on the floor and reaches

after any article you may want to buy. You can rent a whole block of these pigeonholes for fifty dollars a

month. The market people crowd the marketplace with their baskets of figs, dates, melons, apricots, etc., and

among them file trains of laden asses, not much larger, if any, than a Newfoundland dog. The scene is lively,

is picturesque, and smells like a police court. The Jewish moneychangers have their dens close at hand, and

all day long are counting bronze coins and transferring them from one bushel basket to another. They don't

coin much money nowadays, I think. I saw none but what was dated four or five hundred years back, and was

badly worn and battered. These coins are not very valuable. Jack went out to get a napoleon changed, so as to

have money suited to the general cheapness of things, and came back and said he bad "swamped the bank,

had bought eleven quarts of coin, and the head of the firm had gone on the street to negotiate for the balance

of the change." I bought nearly half a pint of their money for a shilling myself. I am not proud on account of

The Moors have some small silver coins and also some silver slugs worth a dollar each. The latter are

exceedingly scarce so much so that when poor ragged Arabs see one they beg to be allowed to kiss it.

They have also a small gold coin worth two dollars. And that reminds me of something. When Morocco is in

a state of war, Arab couriers carry letters through the country and charge a liberal postage. Every now and

then they fall into the hands of marauding bands and get robbed. Therefore, warned by experience, as soon as

they have collected two dollars' worth of money they exchange it for one of those little gold pieces, and when

robbers come upon them, swallow it. The stratagem was good while it was unsuspected, but after that the

marauders simply gave the sagacious United States mail an emetic and sat down to wait.

The Emperor of Morocco is a soulless despot, and the great officers under him are despots on a smaller scale.

There is no regular system of taxation, but when the Emperor or the Bashaw want money, they levy on some

rich man, and he has to furnish the cash or go to prison. Therefore, few men in Morocco dare to be rich. It is

too dangerous a luxury. Vanity occasionally leads a man to display wealth, but sooner or later the Emperor

trumps up a charge against him any sort of one will do and confiscates his property. Of course, there

are many rich men in the empire, but their money is buried, and they dress in rags and counterfeit poverty.

Every now and then the Emperor imprisons a man who is suspected of the crime of being rich, and makes

things so uncomfortable for him that he is forced to discover where he has hidden his money.

Moors and Jews sometimes place themselves under the protection of the foreign consuls, and then they can

ABOUT the first adventure we had yesterday afternoon, after landing here, came near finishing that heedless

Blucher. We had just mounted some mules and asses and started out under the guardianship of the stately, the

princely, the magnificent Hadji Muhammad Lamarty (may his tribe increase!) when we came upon a fine

Moorish mosque, with tall tower, rich with checkerwork of manycolored porcelain, and every part and

portion of the edifice adorned with the quaint architecture of the Alhambra, and Blucher started to ride into

the open doorway. A startling "Hihi!" from our camp followers and a loud "Halt!" from an English

gentleman in the party checked the adventurer, and then we were informed that so dire a profanation is it for a

Christian dog to set foot upon the sacred threshold of a Moorish mosque that no amount of purification can

ever make it fit for the faithful to pray in again. Had Blucher succeeded in entering the place, he would no

doubt have been chased through the town and stoned; and the time has been, and not many years ago, either,

when a Christian would have been most ruthlessly slaughtered if captured in a mosque. We caught a glimpse

of the handsome tessellated pavements within and of the devotees performing their ablutions at the fountains,

but even that we took that glimpse was a thing not relished by the Moorish bystanders.

Some years ago the clock in the tower of the mosque got out of order. The Moors of Tangier have so

degenerated that it has been long since there was an artificer among them capable of curing so delicate a

patient as a debilitated clock. The great men of the city met in solemn conclave to consider how the difficulty

was to be met. They discussed the matter thoroughly but arrived at no solution. Finally, a patriarch arose and

"Oh, children of the Prophet, it is known unto you that a Portuguee dog of a Christian clock mender pollutes

the city of Tangier with his presence. Ye know, also, that when mosques are builded, asses bear the stones

and the cement, and cross the sacred threshold. Now, therefore, send the Christian dog on all fours, and

And in that way it was done. Therefore, if Blucher ever sees the inside of a mosque, he will have to cast aside

his humanity and go in his natural character. We visited the jail and found Moorish prisoners making mats

and baskets. (This thing of utilizing crime savors of civilization.) Murder is punished with death. A short time

ago three murderers were taken beyond the city walls and shot. Moorish guns are not good, and neither are

Moorish marksmen. In this instance they set up the poor criminals at long range, like so many targets, and

practiced on them kept them hopping about and dodging bullets for half an hour before they managed to

When a man steals cattle, they cut off his right hand and left leg and nail them up in the marketplace as a

warning to everybody. Their surgery is not artistic. They slice around the bone a little, then break off the

limb. Sometimes the patient gets well; but, as a general thing, he don't. However, the Moorish heart is stout.

The Moors were always brave. These criminals undergo the fearful operation without a wince, without a

tremor of any kind, without a groan! No amount of suffering can bring down the pride of a Moor or make

Here, marriage is contracted by the parents of the parties to it. There are no valentines, no stolen interviews,

no riding out, no courting in dim parlors, no lovers' quarrels and reconciliations no nothing that is proper

to approaching matrimony. The young man takes the girl his father selects for him, marries her, and after that

she is unveiled, and he sees her for the first time. If after due acquaintance she suits him, he retains her; but if

he suspects her purity, he bundles her back to her father; if he finds her diseased, the same; or if, after just and

reasonable time is allowed her, she neglects to bear children, back she goes to the home of her childhood.

Muhammadans here who can afford it keep a good many wives on hand. They are called wives, though I

believe the Koran only allows four genuine wives the rest are concubines. The Emperor of Morocco don't

know how many wives he has, but thinks he has five hundred. However, that is near enough a dozen or

I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several Moorish women (for they are only human, and will expose

their faces for the admiration of a Christian dog when no male Moor is by), and I am full of veneration for the

They carry their children at their backs, in a sack, like other savages the world over.

Many of the Negroes are held in slavery by the Moors. But the moment a female slave becomes her master's

concubine her bonds are broken, and as soon as a male slave can read the first chapter of the Koran (which

They have three Sundays a week in Tangier. The Muhammadans' comes on Friday, the Jews' on Saturday,

and that of the Christian Consuls on Sunday. The Jews are the most radical. The Moor goes to his mosque

about noon on his Sabbath, as on any other day, removes his shoes at the door, performs his ablutions, makes

his salaams, pressing his forehead to the pavement time and again, says his prayers, and goes back to his

But the Jew shuts up shop; will not touch copper or bronze money at all; soils his fingers with nothing

meaner than silver and gold; attends the synagogue devoutly; will not cook or have anything to do with fire;

The Moor who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca is entitled to high distinction. Men call him Hadji, and he is

thenceforward a great personage. Hundreds of Moors come to Tangier every year and embark for Mecca.

They go part of the way in English steamers, and the ten or twelve dollars they pay for passage is about all

the trip costs. They take with them a quantity of food, and when the commissary department fails they

"skirmish," as Jack terms it in his sinful, slangy way. From the time they leave till they get home again, they

never wash, either on land or sea. They are usually gone from five to seven months, and as they do not

change their clothes during all that time, they are totally unfit for the drawing room when they get back.

Many of them have to rake and scrape a long time to gather together the ten dollars their steamer passage

costs, and when one of them gets back he is a bankrupt forever after. Few Moors can ever build up their

fortunes again in one short lifetime after so reckless an outlay. In order to confine the dignity of Hadji to

gentlemen of patrician blood and possessions, the Emperor decreed that no man should make the pilgrimage

save bloated aristocrats who were worth a hundred dollars in specie. But behold how iniquity can circumvent

the law! For a consideration, the Jewish moneychanger lends the pilgrim one hundred dollars long enough

for him to swear himself through, and then receives it back before the ship sails out of the harbor!

Spain is the only nation the Moors fear. The reason is that Spain sends her heaviest ships of war and her

loudest guns to astonish these Muslims, while America and other nations send only a little contemptible tub

of a gunboat occasionally. The Moors, like other savages, learn by what they see, not what they hear or read.

We have great fleets in the Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African ports. The Moors have a small

opinion of England, France, and America, and put their representatives to a deal of redtape circumlocution

before they grant them their common rights, let alone a favor. But the moment the Spanish minister makes a

Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, about a disputed piece of property opposite Gibraltar, and

captured the city of Tetouan. She compromised on an augmentation of her territory, twenty million dollars'

indemnity in money, and peace. And then she gave up the city. But she never gave it up until the Spanish

soldiers had eaten up all the cats. They would not compromise as long as the cats held out. Spaniards are very

fond of cats. On the contrary, the Moors reverence cats as something sacred. So the Spaniards touched them

on a tender point that time. Their unfeline conduct in eating up all the Tetouan cats aroused a hatred toward

them in the breasts of the Moors, to which even the driving them out of Spain was tame and passionless.

Moors and Spaniards are foes forever now. France had a minister here once who embittered the nation

against him in the most innocent way. He killed a couple of battalions of cats (Tangier is full of them) and

made a parlor carpet out of their hides. He made his carpet in circles first a circle of old gray tomcats, with

their tails all pointing toward the center; then a circle of yellow cats; next a circle of black cats and a circle of

white ones; then a circle of all sorts of cats; and, finally, a centerpiece of assorted kittens. It was very

When we went to call on our American Consul General today I noticed that all possible games for parlor

amusement seemed to be represented on his center tables. I thought that hinted at lonesomeness. The idea was

correct. His is the only American family in Tangier. There are many foreign consuls in this place, but much

visiting is not indulged in. Tangier is clear out of the world, and what is the use of visiting when people have

nothing on earth to talk about? There is none. So each consul's family stays at home chiefly and amuses itself

as best it can. Tangier is full of interest for one day, but after that it is a weary prison. The Consul General has

been here five years, and has got enough of it to do him for a century, and is going home shortly. His family

seize upon their letters and papers when the mail arrives, read them over and over again for two days or three,

talk them over and over again for two or three more till they wear them out, and after that for days together

they eat and drink and sleep, and ride out over the same old road, and see the same old tiresome things that

even decades of centuries have scarcely changed, and say never a single word! They have literally nothing

whatever to talk about. The arrival of an American manofwar is a godsend to them. "O Solitude, where are

the charms which sages have seen in thy face?" It is the completest exile that I can conceive of. I would

seriously recommend to the government of the United States that when a man commits a crime so heinous

that the law provides no adequate punishment for it, they make him Consul General to Tangier.

I am glad to have seen Tangier the secondoldest town in the world. But I am ready to bid it goodbye, I

We shall go hence to Gibraltar this evening or in the morning, and doubtless the Quaker City will sail from

WE passed the Fourth of July on board the Quaker City, in midocean. It was in all respects a characteristic

Mediterranean day faultlessly beautiful. A cloudless sky; a refreshing summer wind; a radiant sunshine

that glinted cheerily from dancing wavelets instead of crested mountains of water; a sea beneath us that was

so wonderfully blue, so richly, brilliantly blue, that it overcame the dullest sensibilities with the spell of its

They even have fine sunsets on the Mediterranean a thing that is certainly rare in most quarters of the

globe. The evening we sailed away from Gibraltar, that hardfeatured rock was swimming in a creamy mist

so rich, so soft, so enchantingly vague and dreamy, that even the Oracle, that serene, that inspired, that

He said: "Well, that's gorgis, ain't it! They don't have none of them things in our parts, do they? I consider

that them effects is on account of the superior refragability, as you may say, of the sun's diramic combination

"Oh, yes, it's all very well to say go to bed when a man makes an argument which another man can't answer.

Dan don't never stand any chance in an argument with me. And he knows it, too. What should you say,

"Now, Doctor, don't you come bothering around me with that dictionary bosh. I don't do you any harm, do I?

"He's gone, too. Well, them fellows have all tackled the old Oracle, as they say, but the old man's most too

"'Pears that he can't qualify, neither. Well, I didn't expect nothing out of him. I never see one of them poets

yet that knowed anything. He'll go down now and grind out about four reams of the awfullest slush about that

old rock and give it to a consul, or a pilot, or a nigger, or anybody he comes across first which he can impose

on. Pity but somebody'd take that poor old lunatic and dig all that poetry rubbage out of him. Why can't a

man put his intellect onto things that's some value? Gibbons, and Hippocratus, and Sarcophagus, and all them

"Doctor," I said, "you are going to invent authorities now and I'll leave you, too. I always enjoy your

conversation, notwithstanding the luxuriance of your syllables, when the philosophy you offer rests on your

own responsibility; but when you begin to soar when you begin to support it with the evidence of

That was the way to flatter the doctor. He considered it a sort of acknowledgment on my part of a fear to

argue with him. He was always persecuting the passengers with abstruse propositions framed in language that

no man could understand, and they endured the exquisite torture a minute or two and then abandoned the

field. A triumph like this, over half a dozen antagonists was sufficient for one day; from that time forward he

would patrol the decks beaming blandly upon all comers, and so tranquilly, blissfully happy!

But I digress. The thunder of our two brave cannon announced the Fourth of July, at daylight, to all who were

awake. But many of us got our information at a later hour, from the almanac. All the flags were sent aloft

except half a dozen that were needed to decorate portions of the ship below, and in a short time the vessel

assumed a holiday appearance. During the morning, meetings were held and all manner of committees set to

work on the celebration ceremonies. In the afternoon the ship's company assembled aft, on deck, under the

awnings; the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and the consumptive clarinet crippled "The StarSpangled

Banner," the choir chased it to cover, and George came in with a peculiarly lacerating screech on the final

We carried out the corpse on three cheers (that joke was not intentional and I do not endorse it), and then the

President, throned behind a cable locker with a national flag spread over it, announced the "Reader," who

rose up and read that same old Declaration of Independence which we have all listened to so often without

paying any attention to what it said; and after that the President piped the Orator of the Day to quarters and he

made that same old speech about our national greatness which we so religiously believe and so fervently

applaud. Now came the choir into court again, with the complaining instruments, and assaulted "Hail

Columbia"; and when victory hung wavering in the scale, George returned with his dreadful wildgoose stop

turned on and the choir won, of course. A minister pronounced the benediction, and the patriotic little

gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July was safe, as far as the Mediterranean was concerned.

At dinner in the evening, a wellwritten original poem was recited with spirit by one of the ship's captains,

and thirteen regular toasts were washed down with several baskets of champagne. The speeches were bad

execrable almost without exception. In fact, without any exception but one. Captain Duncan made a good

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: May we all live to a green old age and be prosperous and happy.

The festivities, so to speak, closed with another of those miraculous balls on the promenade deck. We were

not used to dancing on an even keel, though, and it was only a questionable success. But take it all together, it

Toward nightfall the next evening, we steamed into the great artificial harbor of this noble city of Marseilles,

and saw the dying sunlight gild its clustering spires and ramparts, and flood its leagues of environing verdure

with a mellow radiance that touched with an added charm the white villas that flecked the landscape far and

There were no stages out, and we could not get on the pier from the ship. It was annoying. We were full of

enthusiasm we wanted to see France! Just at nightfall our party of three contracted with a waterman for

the privilege of using his boat as a bridge its stern was at our companion ladder and its bow touched the

pier. We got in and the fellow backed out into the harbor. I told him in French that all we wanted was to walk

over his thwarts and step ashore, and asked him what he went away out there for. He said he could not

understand me. I repeated. Still he could not understand. He appeared to be very ignorant of French. The

doctor tried him, but he could not understand the doctor. I asked this boatman to explain his conduct, which

We reasoned calmly with Dan that it was useless to speak to this foreigner in English that he had better let

us conduct this business in the French language and not let the stranger see how uncultivated he was.

"Well, go on, go on," he said, "don't mind me. I don't wish to interfere. Only, if you go on telling him in your

kind of French, he never will find out where we want to go to. That is what I think about it."

We rebuked him severely for this remark and said we never knew an ignorant person yet but was prejudiced.

"There now, Dan, he says he is going to allez to the douain. Means he is going to the hotel. Oh, certainly

This was a crusher, as Jack would say. It silenced further criticism from the disaffected member. We coasted

past the sharp bows of a navy of great steamships and stopped at last at a government building on a stone

pier. It was easy to remember then that the douain was the customhouse and not the hotel. We did not

mention it, however. With winning French politeness the officers merely opened and closed our satchels,

declined to examine our passports, and sent us on our way. We stopped at the first caf� we came to and

entered. An old woman seated us at a table and waited for orders. The doctor said:

The dame looked perplexed. The doctor said again, with elaborate distinctness of articulation:

"Doctor, there is a flaw in your pronunciation somewhere. Let me try her. Madame, avezvous du vin? It isn't

boeuf horseradish, sauerkraut, hog and hominy anything, anything in the world that can stay a

"Bless you, why didn't you speak English before? I don't know anything about your plagued French!"

The humiliating taunts of the disaffected member spoiled the supper, and we dispatched it in angry silence

and got away as soon as we could. Here we were in beautiful France in a vast stone house of quaint

architecture surrounded by all manner of curiously worded French signs stared at by strangely habited,

bearded French people everything gradually and surely forcing upon us the coveted consciousness that at

last, and beyond all question, we were in beautiful France and absorbing its nature to the forgetfulness of

everything else, and coming to feel the happy romance of the thing in all its enchanting delightfulness and

to think of this skinny veteran intruding with her vile English, at such a moment, to blow the fair vision to the

We set out to find the centre of the city, inquiring the direction every now and then. We never did succeed in

making anybody understand just exactly what we wanted, and neither did we ever succeed in comprehending

just exactly what they said in reply, but then they always pointed they always did that and we bowed

politely and said, "Merci, monsieur," and so it was a blighting triumph over the disaffected member anyway.

"Oh, it don't matter what he said we understood him. These are educated people not like that absurd

"Well, I wish they were educated enough to tell a man a direction that goes some where for we've been

going around in a circle for an hour. I've passed this same old drugstore seven times."

We said it was a low, disreputable falsehood (but we knew it was not). It was plain that it would not do to

pass that drugstore again, though we might go on asking directions, but we must cease from following

A long walk through smooth, asphaltumpaved streets bordered by blocks of vast new mercantile houses of

creamcolored stone every house and every block precisely like all the other houses and all the other blocks

for a mile, and all brilliantly lighted brought us at last to the principal thoroughfare. On every hand were

bright colors, flashing constellations of gas burners, gaily dressed men and women thronging the sidewalks

hurry, life, activity, cheerfulness, conversation, and laughter everywhere! We found the Grand Hotel du

Louvre et de la Paix, and wrote down who we were, where we were born, what our occupations were, the

place we came from last, whether we were married or single, how we liked it, how old we were, where we

were bound for and when we expected to get there, and a great deal of information of similar importance

all for the benefit of the landlord and the secret police. We hired a guide and began the business of

sightseeing immediately. That first night on French soil was a stirring one. I cannot think of half the places

we went to or what we particularly saw; we had no disposition to examine carefully into anything at all

we only wanted to glance and go to move, keep moving! The spirit of the country was upon us. We sat

down, finally, at a late hour, in the great Casino, and called for unstinted champagne. It is so easy to be

bloated aristocrats where it costs nothing of consequence! There were about five hundred people in that

dazzling place, I suppose, though the walls being papered entirely with mirrors, so to speak, one could not

really tell but that there were a hundred thousand. Young, daintily dressed exquisites and young, stylishly

dressed women, and also old gentlemen and old ladies, sat in couples and groups about innumerable

marbletopped tables and ate fancy suppers, drank wine, and kept up a chattering din of conversation that

was dazing to the senses. There was a stage at the far end and a large orchestra; and every now and then

actors and actresses in preposterous comic dresses came out and sang the most extravagantly funny songs, to

judge by their absurd actions; but that audience merely suspended its chatter, stared cynically, and never once

smiled, never once applauded! I had always thought that Frenchmen were ready to laugh at any thing.

WE are getting foreignized rapidly and with facility. We are getting reconciled to halls and bedchambers with

unhomelike stone floors and no carpets floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness that is

death to sentimental musing. We are getting used to tidy, noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and

hover about your back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them;

thankful for a gratuity without regard to the amount; and always polite never otherwise than polite. That is

the strangest curiosity yet a really polite hotel waiter who isn't an idiot. We are getting used to driving

right into the central court of the hotel, in the midst of a fragrant circle of vines and flowers, and in the midst

also of parties of gentlemen sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking. We are getting used to ice frozen

by artificial process in ordinary bottles the only kind of ice they have here. We are getting used to all these

things, but we are not getting used to carrying our own soap. We are sufficiently civilized to carry our own

combs and toothbrushes, but this thing of having to ring for soap every time we wash is new to us and not

pleasant at all. We think of it just after we get our heads and faces thoroughly wet or just when we think we

have been in the bathtub long enough, and then, of course, an annoying delay follows. These Marseillaises

make Marseillaise hymns and Marseilles vests and Marseilles soap for all the world, but they never sing their

We have learned to go through the lingering routine of the table d'hote with patience, with serenity, with

satisfaction. We take soup, then wait a few minutes for the fish; a few minutes more and the plates are

changed, and the roast beef comes; another change and we take peas; change again and take lentils; change

and take snail patties (I prefer grasshoppers); change and take roast chicken and salad; then strawberry pie

and ice cream; then green figs, pears, oranges, green almonds, etc.; finally coffee. Wine with every course, of

course, being in France. With such a cargo on board, digestion is a slow process, and we must sit long in the

cool chambers and smoke and read French newspapers, which have a strange fashion of telling a perfectly

straight story till you get to the "nub" of it, and then a word drops in that no man can translate, and that story

is ruined. An embankment fell on some Frenchmen yesterday, and the papers are full of it today but

whether those sufferers were killed, or crippled, or bruised, or only scared is more than I can possibly make

We were troubled a little at dinner today by the conduct of an American, who talked very loudly and coarsely

and laughed boisterously where all others were so quiet and well behaved. He ordered wine with a royal

flourish and said: "I never dine without wine, sir" (which was a pitiful falsehood), and looked around upon

the company to bask in the admiration he expected to find in their faces. All these airs in a land where they

would as soon expect to leave the soup out of the bill of fare as the wine! in a land where wine is nearly as

common among all ranks as water! This fellow said: "I am a freeborn sovereign, sir, an American, sir, and I

want everybody to know it!" He did not mention that he was a lineal descendant of Balaam's ass, but

We have driven in the Prado that superb avenue bordered with patrician mansions and noble shade trees

and have visited the ch�teau Boarely and its curious museum. They showed us a miniature cemetery there

a copy of the first graveyard that was ever in Marseilles, no doubt. The delicate little skeletons were lying

in broken vaults and had their household gods and kitchen utensils with them. The original of this cemetery

was dug up in the principal street of the city a few years ago. It had remained there, only twelve feet

underground, for a matter of twentyfive hundred years or thereabouts. Romulus was here before he built

Rome, and thought something of founding a city on this spot, but gave up the idea. He may have been

personally acquainted with some of these Phoenicians whose skeletons we have been examining.

In the great Zoological Gardens we found specimens of all the animals the world produces, I think, including

a dromedary, a monkey ornamented with tufts of brilliant blue and carmine hair a very gorgeous monkey

he was a hippopotamus from the Nile, and a sort of tall, longlegged bird with a beak like a powder horn

and closefitting wings like the tails of a dress coat. This fellow stood up with his eyes shut and his shoulders

stooped forward a little, and looked as if he had his hands under his coat tails. Such tranquil stupidity, such

supernatural gravity, such selfrighteousness, and such ineffable selfcomplacency as were in the

countenance and attitude of that graybodied, darkwinged, baldheaded, and preposterously uncomely bird!

He was so ungainly, so pimply about the head, so scaly about the legs, yet so serene, so unspeakably

satisfied! He was the most comicallooking creature that can be imagined. It was good to hear Dan and the

doctor laugh such natural and such enjoyable laughter had not been heard among our excursionists since

our ship sailed away from America. This bird was a godsend to us, and I should be an ingrate if I forgot to

make honorable mention of him in these pages. Ours was a pleasure excursion; therefore we stayed with that

bird an hour and made the most of him. We stirred him up occasionally, but he only unclosed an eye and

slowly closed it again, abating no jot of his stately piety of demeanor or his tremendous seriousness. He only

seemed to say, "Defile not Heaven's anointed with unsanctified hands." We did not know his name, and so we

The boon companion of the colossal elephant was a common cat! This cat had a fashion of climbing up the

elephant's hind legs and roosting on his back. She would sit up there, with her paws curved under her breast,

and sleep in the sun half the afternoon. It used to annoy the elephant at first, and he would reach up and take

her down, but she would go aft and climb up again. She persisted until she finally conquered the elephant's

prejudices, and now they are inseparable friends. The cat plays about her comrade's forefeet or his trunk

often, until dogs approach, and then she goes aloft out of danger. The elephant has annihilated several dogs

We hired a sailboat and a guide and made an excursion to one of the small islands in the harbor to visit the

Castle d'If. This ancient fortress has a melancholy history. It has been used as a prison for political offenders

for two or three hundred years, and its dungeon walls are scarred with the rudely carved names of many and

many a captive who fretted his life away here and left no record of himself but these sad epitaphs wrought

with his own hands. How thick the names were! And their longdeparted owners seemed to throng the

gloomy cells and corridors with their phantom shapes. We loitered through dungeon after dungeon, away

down into the living rock below the level of the sea, it seemed. Names everywhere! some plebeian, some

noble, some even princely. Plebeian, prince, and noble had one solicitude in common they would not be

forgotten! They could suffer solitude, inactivity, and the horrors of a silence that no sound ever disturbed, but

they could not bear the thought of being utterly forgotten by the world. Hence the carved names. In one cell,

where a little light penetrated, a man had lived twentyseven years without seeing the face of a human being

lived in filth and wretchedness, with no companionship but his own thoughts, and they were sorrowful

enough and hopeless enough, no doubt. Whatever his jailers considered that he needed was conveyed to his

cell by night through a wicket. This man carved the walls of his prison house from floor to roof with all

manner of figures of men and animals grouped in intricate designs. He had toiled there year after year, at his

selfappointed task, while infants grew to boyhood to vigorous youth idled through school and college

acquired a profession claimed man's mature estate married and looked back to infancy as to a thing

of some vague, ancient time, almost. But who shall tell how many ages it seemed to this prisoner? With the

one, time flew sometimes; with the other, never it crawled always. To the one, nights spent in dancing had

seemed made of minutes instead of hours; to the other, those selfsame nights had been like all other nights of

dungeon life and seemed made of slow, dragging weeks instead of hours and minutes.

One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses upon his walls, and brief prose sentences brief, but full

of pathos. These spoke not of himself and his hard estate, but only of the shrine where his spirit fled the

prison to worship of home and the idols that were templed there. He never lived to see them.

The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some bedchambers at home are wide fifteen feet. We saw the

damp, dismal cells in which two of Dumas' heroes passed their confinement heroes of "Monte Cristo." It

was here that the brave Abb� wrote a book with his own blood, with a pen made of a piece of iron hoop, and

by the light of a lamp made out of shreds of cloth soaked in grease obtained from his food; and then dug

through the thick wall with some trifling instrument which he wrought himself out of a stray piece of iron or

table cutlery and freed Dant�s from his chains. It was a pity that so many weeks of dreary labor should have

They showed us the noisome cell where the celebrated "Iron Mask" that illstarred brother of a

hardhearted king of France was confined for a season before he was sent to hide the strange mystery of his

life from the curious in the dungeons of Ste. Marguerite. The place had a far greater interest for us than it

could have had if we had known beyond all question who the Iron Mask was, and what his history had been,

and why this most unusual punishment had been meted out to him. Mystery! That was the charm. That

speechless tongue, those prisoned features, that heart so freighted with unspoken troubles, and that breast so

oppressed with its piteous secret had been here. These dank walls had known the man whose dolorous story is

WE have come five hundred miles by rail through the heart of France. What a bewitching land it is! What a

garden! Surely the leagues of bright green lawns are swept and brushed and watered every day and their

grasses trimmed by the barber. Surely the hedges are shaped and measured and their symmetry preserved by

the most architectural of gardeners. Surely the long straight rows of stately poplars that divide the beautiful

landscape like the squares of a checkerboard are set with line and plummet, and their uniform height

determined with a spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, pure white turnpikes are jackplaned and

sandpapered every day. How else are these marvels of symmetry, cleanliness, and order attained? It is

wonderful. There are no unsightly stone walls and never a fence of any kind. There is no dirt, no decay, no

rubbish anywhere nothing that even hints at untidiness nothing that ever suggests neglect. All is

We had such glimpses of the Rhone gliding along between its grassy banks; of cosy cottages buried in

flowers and shrubbery; of quaint old redtiled villages with mossy medieval cathedrals looming out of their

midst; of wooded hills with ivygrown towers and turrets of feudal castles projecting above the foliage; such

And it is a pleasant land. No word describes it so felicitously as that one. They say there is no word for

"home" in the French language. Well, considering that they have the article itself in such an attractive aspect,

they ought to manage to get along without the word. Let us not waste too much pity on "homeless" France. I

have observed that Frenchmen abroad seldom wholly give up the idea of going back to France some time or

We are not infatuated with these French railway cars, though. We took firstclass passage, not because we

wished to attract attention by doing a thing which is uncommon in Europe but because we could make our

journey quicker by so doing. It is hard to make railroading pleasant in any country. It is too tedious.

Stagecoaching is infinitely more delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts and mountains of the West

in a stagecoach, from the Missouri line to California, and since then all my pleasure trips must be measured to

that rare holiday frolic. Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle and clatter, by night and by day, and

never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest! The first seven hundred miles a level continent, its grassy

carpet greener and softer and smoother than any sea and figured with designs fitted to its magnitude the

shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer scenes, and no disposition inspired by them but to

lie at full length on the mail sacks in the grateful breeze and dreamily smoke the pipe of peace what other,

where all was repose and contentment? In cool mornings, before the sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime

of city toiling and moiling to perch in the foretop with the driver and see the six mustangs scamper under the

sharp snapping of the whip that never touched them; to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no lords

but us; to cleave the wind with uncovered head and feel the sluggish pulses rousing to the spirit of a speed

that pretended to the resistless rush of a typhoon! Then thirteen hundred miles of desert solitudes; of limitless

panoramas of bewildering perspective; of mimic cities, of pinnacled cathedrals, of massive fortresses,

counterfeited in the eternal rocks and splendid with the crimson and gold of the setting sun; of dizzy altitudes

among fogwreathed peaks and nevermelting snows, where thunders and lightnings and tempests warred

magnificently at our feet and the storm clouds above swung their shredded banners in our very faces! But I

forgot. I am in elegant France now, and not scurrying through the great South Pass and the Wind River

Mountains, among antelopes and buffaloes and painted Indians on the warpath. It is not meet that I should

make too disparaging comparisons between humdrum travel on a railway and that royal summer flight across

a continent in a stagecoach. I meant in the beginning to say that railway journeying is tedious and tiresome,

and so it is though at the time I was thinking particularly of a dismal fiftyhour pilgrimage between New

York and St. Louis. Of course our trip through France was not really tedious because all its scenes and

The cars are built in compartments that hold eight persons each. Each compartment is partially subdivided,

and so there are two tolerably distinct parties of four in it. Four face the other four. The seats and backs are

thickly padded and cushioned and are very comfortable; you can smoke if you wish; there are no bothersome

peddlers; you are saved the infliction of a multitude of disagreeable fellow passengers. So far, so well. But

then the conductor locks you in when the train starts; there is no water to drink in the car; there is no heating

apparatus for night travel; if a drunken rowdy should get in, you could not remove a matter of twenty seats

from him or enter another car; but above all, if you are worn out and must sleep, you must sit up and do it in

naps, with cramped legs and in a torturing misery that leaves you withered and lifeless the next day for

behold they have not that culmination of all charity and human kindness, a sleeping car, in all France. I prefer

In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They make no mistakes. Every third man wears a uniform, and

whether he be a marshal of the empire or a brakeman, he is ready and perfectly willing to answer all your

questions with tireless politeness, ready to tell you which car to take, yea, and ready to go and put you into it

to make sure that you shall not go astray. You cannot pass into the waiting room of the depot till you have

secured your ticket, and you cannot pass from its only exit till the train is at its threshold to receive you. Once

on board, the train will not start till your ticket has been examined till every passenger's ticket has been

inspected. This is chiefly for your own good. If by any possibility you have managed to take the wrong train,

you will be handed over to a polite official who will take you whither you belong and bestow you with many

an affable bow. Your ticket will be inspected every now and then along the route, and when it is time to

change cars you will know it. You are in the hands of officials who zealously study your welfare and your

interest, instead of turning their talents to the invention of new methods of discommoding and snubbing you,

as is very often the main employment of that exceedingly selfsatisfied monarch, the railroad conductor of

But the happiest regulation in French railway government is thirty minutes to dinner! No fiveminute

boltings of flabby rolls, muddy coffee, questionable eggs, guttapercha beef, and pies whose conception and

execution are a dark and bloody mystery to all save the cook that created them! No, we sat calmly down it

was in old Dijon, which is so easy to spell and so impossible to pronounce except when you civilize it and

call it Demijohn and poured out rich Burgundian wines and munched calmly through a long table d'h�te

bill of fare, snail patties, delicious fruits and all, then paid the trifle it cost and stepped happily aboard the

train again, without once cursing the railroad company. A rare experience and one to be treasured forever.

They say they do not have accidents on these French roads, and I think it must be true. If I remember rightly,

we passed high above wagon roads or through tunnels under them, but never crossed them on their own level.

About every quarter of a mile, it seemed to me, a man came out and held up a club till the train went by, to

signify that everything was safe ahead. Switches were changed a mile in advance by pulling a wire rope that

passed along the ground by the rail, from station to station. Signals for the day and signals for the night gave

No, they have no railroad accidents to speak of in France. But why? Because when one occurs, somebody has

to hang for it! 12.1 Not hang, maybe, but be punished at least with such vigor of emphasis as to make

negligence a thing to be shuddered at by railroad officials for many a day thereafter. "No blame attached to

the officers" that lying and disasterbreeding verdict so common to our softhearted juries is seldom

rendered in France. If the trouble occurred in the conductor's department, that officer must suffer if his

subordinate cannot be proven guilty; if in the engineer's department and the case be similar, the engineer must

The Old Travelers those delightful parrots who have "been here before" and know more about the country

than Louis Napoleon knows now or ever will know tell us these things, and we believe them because they

are pleasant things to believe and because they are plausible and savor of the rigid subjection to law and order

But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie. We can tell them the moment

we see them. They always throw out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded

every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle valves, and how they do

brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand

aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their

cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you know anything. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions;

they laugh unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand the statements of your traveled

aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities; they deride your most trusted authors and demolish the fair

images they have set up for your willing worship with the pitiless ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast! But still I

love the Old Travelers. I love them for their witless platitudes, for their supernatural ability to bore, for their

delightful asinine vanity, for their luxuriant fertility of imagination, for their startling, their brilliant, their

By Lyons and the Saone (where we saw the lady of Lyons and thought little of her comeliness), by Villa

Franca, Tonnere, venerable Sens, Melun, Fontainebleau, and scores of other beautiful cities, we swept,

always noting the absence of hog wallows, broken fences, cow lots, unpainted houses, and mud, and always

noting, as well, the presence of cleanliness, grace, taste in adorning and beautifying, even to the disposition of

a tree or the turning of a hedge, the marvel of roads in perfect repair, void of ruts and guiltless of even an

inequality of surface we bowled along, hour after hour, that brilliant summer day, and as nightfall

approached we entered a wilderness of odorous flowers and shrubbery, sped through it, and then, excited,

delighted, and half persuaded that we were only the sport of a beautiful dream, lo, we stood in magnificent

What excellent order they kept about that vast depot! There was no frantic crowding and jostling, no shouting

and swearing, and no swaggering intrusion of services by rowdy hackmen. These latter gentry stood outside

stood quietly by their long line of vehicles and said never a word. A kind of hackman general seemed to

have the whole matter of transportation in his hands. He politely received the passengers and ushered them to

the kind of conveyance they wanted, and told the driver where to deliver them. There was no "talking back,"

no dissatisfaction about overcharging, no grumbling about anything. In a little while we were speeding

through the streets of Paris and delightfully recognizing certain names and places with which books had long

ago made us familiar. It was like meeting an old friend when we read Rue de Rivoli on the street corner; we

knew the genuine vast palace of the Louvre as well as we knew its picture; when we passed by the Column of

July we needed no one to tell us what it was or to remind us that on its site once stood the grim Bastille, that

grave of human hopes and happiness, that dismal prison house within whose dungeons so many young faces

put on the wrinkles of age, so many proud spirits grew humble, so many brave hearts broke.

We secured rooms at the hotel, or rather, we had three beds put into one room, so that we might be together,

and then we went out to a restaurant, just after lamplighting, and ate a comfortable, satisfactory, lingering

dinner. It was a pleasure to eat where everything was so tidy, the food so well cooked, the waiters so polite,

and the coming and departing company so moustached, so frisky, so affable, so fearfully and wonderfully

Frenchy! All the surroundings were gay and enlivening. Two hundred people sat at little tables on the

sidewalk, sipping wine and coffee; the streets were thronged with light vehicles and with joyous

pleasureseekers; there was music in the air, life and action all about us, and a conflagration of gaslight

After dinner we felt like seeing such Parisian specialties as we might see without distressing exertion, and so

we sauntered through the brilliant streets and looked at the dainty trifles in variety stores and jewelry shops.

Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with

questions framed in the incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and while they writhed we impaled

them, we peppered them, we scarified them, with their own vile verbs and participles.

We noticed that in the jewelry stores they had some of the articles marked "gold" and some labeled

"imitation." We wondered at this extravagance of honesty and inquired into the matter. We were informed

that inasmuch as most people are not able to tell false gold from the genuine article, the government compels

jewelers to have their gold work assayed and stamped officially according to its fineness and their imitation

work duly labeled with the sign of its falsity. They told us the jewelers would not dare to violate this law, and

that whatever a stranger bought in one of their stores might be depended upon as being strictly what it was

Then we hunted for a barbershop. From earliest infancy it had been a cherished ambition of mine to be

shaved some day in a palatial barbershop in Paris. I wished to recline at full length in a cushioned invalid

chair, with pictures about me and sumptuous furniture; with frescoed walls and gilded arches above me and

vistas of Corinthian columns stretching far before me; with perfumes of Araby to intoxicate my senses and

the slumbrous drone of distant noises to soothe me to sleep. At the end of an hour I would wake up

regretfully and find my face as smooth and as soft as an infant's. Departing, I would lift my hands above that

So we searched high and low, for a matter of two hours, but never a barbershop could we see. We saw only

wigmaking establishments, with shocks of dead and repulsive hair bound upon the heads of painted waxen

brigands who stared out from glass boxes upon the passerby with their stony eyes and scared him with the

ghostly white of their countenances. We shunned these signs for a time, but finally we concluded that the

wigmakers must of necessity be the barbers as well, since we could find no single legitimate representative

I said I wanted to be shaved. The barber inquired where my room was. I said never mind where my room

was, I wanted to be shaved there, on the spot. The doctor said he would be shaved also. Then there was an

excitement among those two barbers! There was a wild consultation, and afterwards a hurrying to and fro and

a feverish gathering up of razors from obscure places and a ransacking for soap. Next they took us into a little

mean, shabby back room; they got two ordinary sittingroom chairs and placed us in them with our coats on.

I sat bolt upright, silent, sad, and solemn. One of the wigmaking villains lathered my face for ten terrible

minutes and finished by plastering a mass of suds into my mouth. I expelled the nasty stuff with a strong

English expletive and said, "Foreigner, beware!" Then this outlaw strapped his razor on his boot, hovered

over me ominously for six fearful seconds, and then swooped down upon me like the genius of destruction.

The first rake of his razor loosened the very hide from my face and lifted me out of the chair. I stormed and

raved, and the other boys enjoyed it. Their beards are not strong and thick. Let us draw the curtain over this

harrowing scene. Suffice it that I submitted and went through with the cruel infliction of a shave by a French

barber; tears of exquisite agony coursed down my cheeks now and then, but I survived. Then the incipient

assassin held a basin of water under my chin and slopped its contents over my face, and into my bosom, and

down the back of my neck, with a mean pretense of washing away the soap and blood. He dried my features

with a towel and was going to comb my hair, but I asked to be excused. I said, with withering irony, that it

I went away from there with my handkerchief about my face, and never, never, never desired to dream of

palatial Parisian barbershops anymore. The truth is, as I believe I have since found out, that they have no

barber shops worthy of the name in Paris and no barbers, either, for that matter. The impostor who does

duty as a barber brings his pans and napkins and implements of torture to your residence and deliberately

skins you in your private apartments. Ah, I have suffered, suffered, suffered, here in Paris, but never mind

the time is coming when I shall have a dark and bloody revenge. Someday a Parisian barber will come to my

room to skin me, and from that day forth that barber will never be heard of more.

At eleven o'clock we alighted upon a sign which manifestly referred to billiards. Joy! We had played billiards

in the Azores with balls that were not round and on an ancient table that was very little smoother than a brick

pavement one of those wretched old things with dead cushions, and with patches in the faded cloth and

invisible obstructions that made the balls describe the most astonishing and unsuspected angles and perform

feats in the way of unlookedfor and almost impossible "scratches" that were perfectly bewildering. We had

played at Gibraltar with balls the size of a walnut, on a table like a public square and in both instances we

achieved far more aggravation than amusement. We expected to fare better here, but we were mistaken. The

cushions were a good deal higher than the balls, and as the balls had a fashion of always stopping under the

cushions, we accomplished very little in the way of caroms. The cushions were hard and unelastic, and the

cues were so crooked that in making a shot you had to allow for the curve or you would infallibly put the

"English" on the wrong side of the hall. Dan was to mark while the doctor and I played. At the end of an hour

neither of us had made a count, and so Dan was tired of keeping tally with nothing to tally, and we were

heated and angry and disgusted. We paid the heavy bill about six cents and said we would call around

We adjourned to one of those pretty caf�s and took supper and tested the wines of the country, as we had

been instructed to do, and found them harmless and unexciting. They might have been exciting, however, if

To close our first day in Paris cheerfully and pleasantly, we now sought our grand room in the Grand Hotel

No gas to read by nothing but dismal candles. It was a shame. We tried to map out excursions for the

morrow; we puzzled over French "guides to Paris"; we talked disjointedly in a vain endeavor to make head or

tail of the wild chaos of the day's sights and experiences; we subsided to indolent smoking; we gaped and

yawned and stretched then feebly wondered if we were really and truly in renowned Paris, and drifted

12.1 They go on the principle that it is better that one innocent man should suffer than five hundred. Note:

12.2: page 117: Running header reads: "Gastly Experience" Footnote: "Joke by the Doctor"

THE next morning we were up and dressed at ten o'clock. We went to the commissionaire of the hotel I

don't know what a commissionaire is, but that is the man we went to and told him we wanted a guide. He

said the national Exposition had drawn such multitudes of Englishmen and Americans to Paris that it would

be next to impossible to find a good guide unemployed. He said he usually kept a dozen or two on hand, but

he only had three now. He called them. One looked so like a very pirate that we let him go at once. The next

one spoke with a simpering precision of pronunciation that was irritating and said:

"If ze zhentlemans will to me make ze grande honneur to me rattain in hees serveece, I shall show to him

every sing zat is magnifique to look upon in ze beautiful Parree. I speaky ze Angleesh pairfaitemaw."

He would have done well to have stopped there, because he had that much by heart and said it right off

without making a mistake. But his selfcomplacency seduced him into attempting a flight into regions of

unexplored English, and the reckless experiment was his ruin. Within ten seconds he was so tangled up in a

maze of mutilated verbs and torn and bleeding forms of speech that no human ingenuity could ever have

gotten him out of it with credit. It was plain enough that he could not "speaky" the English quite as

The third man captured us. He was plainly dressed, but he had a noticeable air of neatness about him. He

wore a high silk hat which was a little old, but had been carefully brushed. He wore secondhand kid gloves,

in good repair, and carried a small rattan cane with a curved handle a female leg of ivory. He stepped

as gently and as daintily as a cat crossing a muddy street; and oh, he was urbanity; he was quiet, unobtrusive

selfpossession; he was deference itself! He spoke softly and guardedly; and when he was about to make a

statement on his sole responsibility or offer a suggestion, he weighed it by drachms and scruples first, with

the crook of his little stick placed meditatively to his teeth. His opening speech was perfect. It was perfect in

construction, in phraseology, in grammar, in emphasis, in pronunciation everything. He spoke little and

guardedly after that. We were charmed. We were more than charmed we were overjoyed. We hired him at

once. We never even asked him his price. This man our lackey, our servant, our unquestioning slave

though he was was still a gentleman we could see that while of the other two one was coarse and

awkward and the other was a born pirate. We asked our man Friday's name. He drew from his pocketbook a

That was an "aside" from Dan. The atrocious name grated harshly on my ear, too. The most of us can learn to

forgive, and even to like, a countenance that strikes us unpleasantly at first, but few of us, I fancy, become

reconciled to a jarring name so easily. I was almost sorry we had hired this man, his name was so unbearable.

However, no matter. We were impatient to start. Billfinger stepped to the door to call a carriage, and then the

"Well, the guide goes with the barbershop, with the billiardtable, with the gasless room, and may be with

many another pretty romance of Paris. I expected to have a guide named Henri de Montmorency, or Armand

de la Chartreuse, or something that would sound grand in letters to the villagers at home, but to think of a

Frenchman by the name of Billfinger! Oh! This is absurd, you know. This will never do. We can't say

Billfinger; it is nauseating. Name him over again; what had we better call him? Alexis du Caulaincourt?"

That was practical, unromantic good sense. Without debate, we expunged Billfinger as Billfinger, and called

The carriage an open barouche was ready. Ferguson mounted beside the driver, and we whirled away

to breakfast. As was proper, Mr. Ferguson stood by to transmit our orders and answer questions. By and by,

he mentioned casually the artful adventurer that he would go and get his breakfast as soon as we had

finished ours. He knew we could not get along without him and that we would not want to loiter about and

wait for him. We asked him to sit down and eat with us. He begged, with many a bow, to be excused. It was

not proper, he said; he would sit at another table. We ordered him peremptorily to sit down with us.

As long as we had that fellow after that, he was always hungry; he was always thirsty. He came early; he

stayed late; he could not pass a restaurant; he looked with a lecherous eye upon every wineshop. Suggestions

to stop, excuses to eat and to drink, were forever on his lips. We tried all we could to fill him so full that he

would have no room to spare for a fortnight, but it was a failure. He did not hold enough to smother the

He had another "discrepancy" about him. He was always wanting us to buy things. On the shallowest

pretenses he would inveigle us into shirt stores, boot stores, tailor shops, glove shops anywhere under the

broad sweep of the heavens that there seemed a chance of our buying anything. Anyone could have guessed

that the shopkeepers paid him a percentage on the sales, but in our blessed innocence we didn't until this

feature of his conduct grew unbearably prominent. One day Dan happened to mention that he thought of

buying three or four silk dress patterns for presents. Ferguson's hungry eye was upon him in an instant. In the

"What did you come here for? We told you to take us to the palace of the Louvre."

"You are not required to 'suppose' things for the party, Ferguson. We do not wish to tax your energies too

much. We will bear some of the burden and heat of the day ourselves. We will endeavor to do such

Within fifteen minutes the carriage halted again, and before another silk store. The doctor said:

"Ah, the palace of the Louvre beautiful, beautiful edifice! Does the Emperor Napoleon live here now,

"Ah, Doctor! You do jest; zis is not ze palace; we come there directly. But since we pass right by zis store,

"Ah! I see, I see. I meant to have told you that we did not wish to purchase any silks today, but in my

absentmindedness I forgot it. I also meant to tell you we wished to go directly to the Louvre, but I forgot

that also. However, we will go there now. Pardon my seeming carelessness, Ferguson. Drive on."

Within the half hour we stopped again in front of another silk store. We were angry; but the doctor was

"At last! How imposing the Louvre is, and yet how small! How exquisitely fashioned! How charmingly

"Ferguson, how heedless I am. I fully intended to tell you that we did not wish to buy any silks today, and I

also intended to tell you that we yearned to go immediately to the palace of the Louvre, but enjoying the

happiness of seeing you devour four breakfasts this morning has so filled me with pleasurable emotions that I

neglect the commonest interests of the time. However, we will proceed now to the Louvre, Ferguson."

"But, doctor," (excitedly,) "it will take not a minute not but one small minute! Ze gentleman need not to

buy if he not wish to but only look at ze silk look at ze beautiful fabric. [Then pleadingly.] Sair just

Dan said, "Confound the idiot! I don't want to see any silks today, and I won't look at them. Drive on."

And the doctor: "We need no silks now, Ferguson. Our hearts yearn for the Louvre. Let us journey on let

"But doctor! It is only one moment one leetle moment. And ze time will be save entirely save!

Because zere is nothing to see now it is too late. It want ten minute to four and ze Louvre close at four

The treacherous miscreant! After four breakfasts and a gallon of champagne, to serve us such a scurvy trick.

We got no sight of the countless treasures of art in the Louvre galleries that day, and our only poor little

satisfaction was in the reflection that Ferguson sold not a solitary silk dress pattern.

I am writing this chapter partly for the satisfaction of abusing that accomplished knave Billfinger, and partly

to show whosoever shall read this how Americans fare at the hands of the Paris guides and what sort of

people Paris guides are. It need not be supposed that we were a stupider or an easier prey than our

countrymen generally are, for we were not. The guides deceive and defraud every American who goes to

Paris for the first time and sees its sights alone or in company with others as little experienced as himself. I

shall visit Paris again someday, and then let the guides beware! I shall go in my war paint I shall carry my

I think we have lost but little time in Paris. We have gone to bed every night tired out. Of course we visited

the renowned International Exposition. All the world did that. We went there on our third day in Paris and

we stayed there nearly two hours. That was our first and last visit. To tell the truth, we saw at a glance that

one would have to spend weeks yea, even months in that monstrous establishment to get an intelligible

idea of it. It was a wonderful show, but the moving masses of people of all nations we saw there were a still

more wonderful show. I discovered that if I were to stay there a month, I should still find myself looking at

the people instead of the inanimate objects on exhibition. I got a little interested in some curious old

tapestries of the thirteenth century, but a party of Arabs came by, and their dusky faces and quaint costumes

called my attention away at once. I watched a silver swan, which had a living grace about his movements and

a living intelligence in his eyes watched him swimming about as comfortably and as unconcernedly as if

he had been born in a morass instead of a jeweler's shop watched him seize a silver fish from under the

water and hold up his head and go through all the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it but

the moment it disappeared down his throat some tattooed South Sea Islanders approached and I yielded to

their attractions. Presently I found a revolving pistol several hundred years old which looked strangely like a

modern Colt, but just then I heard that the Empress of the French was in another part of the building, and

hastened away to see what she might look like. We heard martial music we saw an unusual number of

soldiers walking hurriedly about there was a general movement among the people. We inquired what it

was all about and learned that the Emperor of the French and the Sultan of Turkey were about to review

twentyfive thousand troops at the Arc de l'Etoile. We immediately departed. I had a greater anxiety to see

We drove away and took up a position in an open space opposite the American minister's house. A speculator

bridged a couple of barrels with a board and we hired standing places on it. Presently there was a sound of

distant music; in another minute a pillar of dust came moving slowly toward us; a moment more and then,

with colors flying and a grand crash of military music, a gallant array of cavalrymen emerged from the dust

and came down the street on a gentle trot. After them came a long line of artillery; then more cavalry, in

splendid uniforms; and then their imperial majesties Napoleon III and Abdul Aziz. The vast concourse of

people swung their hats and shouted the windows and housetops in the wide vicinity burst into a

snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs, and the wavers of the same mingled their cheers with those of the

But the two central figures claimed all my attention. Was ever such a contrast set up before a multitude till

then? Napoleon in military uniform a longbodied, shortlegged man, fiercely moustached, old, wrinkled,

with eyes half closed, and such a deep, crafty, scheming expression about them! Napoleon, bowing ever

so gently to the loud plaudits, and watching everything and everybody with his cat eyes from under his

depressed hat brim, as if to discover any sign that those cheers were not heartfelt and cordial.

Abdul Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman empire clad in dark green European clothes, almost without

ornament or insignia of rank; a red Turkish fez on his head; a short, stout, dark man, blackbearded,

blackeyed, stupid, unprepossessing a man whose whole appearance somehow suggested that if he only

had a cleaver in his hand and a white apron on, one would not be at all surprised to hear him say: "A mutton

Napoleon III, the representative of the highest modern civilization, progress, and refinement; AbdulAziz,

the representative of a people by nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, superstitious

and a government whose Three Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, Blood. Here in brilliant Paris, under this

NAPOLEON III., Emperor of France! Surrounded by shouting thousands, by military pomp, by the splendors

of his capital city, and companioned by kings and princes this is the man who was sneered at and reviled

and called Bastard yet who was dreaming of a crown and an empire all the while; who was driven into

exile but carried his dreams with him; who associated with the common herd in America and ran foot

races for a wager but still sat upon a throne in fancy; who braved every danger to go to his dying mother

and grieved that she could not be spared to see him cast aside his plebeian vestments for the purple of

royalty; who kept his faithful watch and walked his weary beat a common policeman of London but

dreamed the while of a coming night when he should tread the longdrawn corridors of the Tuileries; who

made the miserable fiasco of Strasbourg; saw his poor, shabby eagle, forgetful of its lesson, refuse to perch

upon his shoulder; delivered his carefully prepared, sententious burst of eloquence upon unsympathetic ears;

found himself a prisoner, the butt of small wits, a mark for the pitiless ridicule of all the world yet went on

dreaming of coronations and splendid pageants as before; who lay a forgotten captive in the dungeons of

Ham and still schemed and planned and pondered over future glory and future power; President of France

at last! a coup d'etat, and surrounded by applauding armies, welcomed by the thunders of cannon, he mounts

a throne and waves before an astounded world the sceptre of a mighty empire! Who talks of the marvels of

fiction? Who speaks of the wonders of romance? Who prates of the tame achievements of Aladdin and the

ABDULAZIZ, Sultan of Turkey, Lord of the Ottoman Empire! Born to a throne; weak, stupid, ignorant,

almost, as his meanest slave; chief of a vast royalty, yet the puppet of his Premier and the obedient child of a

tyrannical mother; a man who sits upon a throne the beck of whose finger moves navies and armies

who holds in his hands the power of life and death over millions yet who sleeps, sleeps, eats, eats, idles

with his eight hundred concubines, and when he is surfeited with eating and sleeping and idling, and would

rouse up and take the reins of government and threaten to be a sultan, is charmed from his purpose by wary

Fuad Pacha with a pretty plan for a new palace or a new ship charmed away with a new toy, like any other

restless child; a man who sees his people robbed and oppressed by soulless taxgatherers, but speaks no word

to save them; who believes in gnomes and genii and the wild fables of The Arabian Nights, but has small

regard for the mighty magicians of today, and is nervous in the presence of their mysterious railroads and

steamboats and telegraphs; who would see undone in Egypt all that great Mehemet Ali achieved, and would

prefer rather to forget than emulate him; a man who found his great empire a blot upon the earth a

degraded, povertystricken, miserable, infamous agglomeration of ignorance, crime, and brutality and

will idle away the allotted days of his trivial life and then pass to the dust and the worms and leave it so!

Napoleon has augmented the commercial prosperity of France in ten years to such a degree that figures can

hardly compute it. He has rebuilt Paris and has partly rebuilt every city in the state. He condemns a whole

street at a time, assesses the damages, pays them, and rebuilds superbly. Then speculators buy up the ground

and sell, but the original owner is given the first choice by the government at a stated price before the

speculator is permitted to purchase. But above all things, he has taken the sole control of the empire of France

into his hands and made it a tolerably free land for people who will not attempt to go too far in meddling

with government affairs. No country offers greater security to life and property than France, and one has all

the freedom he wants, but no license no license to interfere with anybody or make anyone uncomfortable.

As for the Sultan, one could set a trap any where and catch a dozen abler men in a night.

The bands struck up, and the brilliant adventurer, Napoleon III., the genius of Energy, Persistence, Enterprise;

and the feeble AbdulAziz, the genius of Ignorance, Bigotry, and Indolence, prepared for the Forward

We saw the splendid review, we saw the whitemoustached old Crimean soldier, Canrobert, Marshal of

WE went to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We had heard of it before. It surprises me sometimes to think

how much we do know and how intelligent we are. We recognized the brown old Gothic pile in a moment; it

was like the pictures. We stood at a little distance and changed from one point of observation to another and

gazed long at its lofty square towers and its rich front, clustered thick with stony, mutilated saints who had

been looking calmly down from their perches for ages. The Patriarch of Jerusalem stood under them in the

old days of chivalry and romance, and preached the third Crusade, more than six hundred years ago; and

since that day they have stood there and looked quietly down upon the most thrilling scenes, the grandest

pageants, the most extraordinary spectacles that have grieved or delighted Paris. These battered and

brokennosed old fellows saw many and many a cavalcade of mailclad knights come marching home from

Holy Land; they heard the bells above them toll the signal for the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, and they saw

the slaughter that followed; later they saw the Reign of Terror, the carnage of the Revolution, the overthrow

of a king, the coronation of two Napoleons, the christening of the young prince that lords it over a regiment

of servants in the Tuileries today and they may possibly continue to stand there until they see the

Napoleon dynasty swept away and the banners of a great republic floating above its ruins. I wish these old

They say that a pagan temple stood where Notre Dame now stands, in the old Roman days, eighteen or

twenty centuries ago remains of it are still preserved in Paris; and that a Christian church took its place

about A.D. 300; another took the place of that in A.D. 500; and that the foundations of the present cathedral

were laid about A.D. 1100. The ground ought to be measurably sacred by this time, one would think. One

portion of this noble old edifice is suggestive of the quaint fashions of ancient times. It was built by Jean

SansPeur, Duke of Burgundy, to set his conscience at rest he had assassinated the Duke of Orleans.

Alas! Those good old times are gone when a murderer could wipe the stain from his name and soothe his

troubles to sleep simply by getting out his bricks and mortar and building an addition to a church.

The portals of the great western front are bisected by square pillars. They took the central one away in 1852,

on the occasion of thanksgivings for the reinstitution of the presidential power but precious soon they had

We loitered through the grand aisles for an hour or two, staring up at the rich stainedglass windows

embellished with blue and yellow and crimson saints and martyrs, and trying to admire the numberless great

pictures in the chapels, and then we were admitted to the sacristy and shown the magnificent robes which the

Pope wore when he crowned Napoleon I; a wagonload of solid gold and silver utensils used in the great

public processions and ceremonies of the church; some nails of the true cross, a fragment of the cross itself, a

part of the crown of thorns. We had already seen a large piece of the true cross in a church in the Azores, but

no nails. They showed us likewise the bloody robe which that archbishop of Paris wore who exposed his

sacred person and braved the wrath of the insurgents of 1848, to mount the barricades and hold aloft the olive

branch of peace in the hope of stopping the slaughter. His noble effort cost him his life. He was shot dead.

They showed us a cast of his face taken after death, the bullet that killed him, and the two vertebrae in which

it lodged. These people have a somewhat singular taste in the matter of relics. Ferguson told us that the silver

cross which the good archbishop wore at his girdle was seized and thrown into the Seine, where it lay

embedded in the mud for fifteen years, and then an angel appeared to a priest and told him where to dive for

it; he did dive for it and got it, and now it is there on exhibition at Notre Dame, to be inspected by anybody

Next we went to visit the Morgue, that horrible receptacle for the dead who die mysteriously and leave the

manner of their taking off a dismal secret. We stood before a grating and looked through into a room which

was hung all about with the clothing of dead men; coarse blouses, watersoaked; the delicate garments of

women and children; patrician vestments, hacked and stabbed and stained with red; a hat that was crushed

and bloody. On a slanting stone lay a drowned man, naked, swollen, purple; clasping the fragment of a

broken bush with a grip which death had so petrified that human strength could not unloose it mute

witness of the last despairing effort to save the life that was doomed beyond all help. A stream of water

trickled ceaselessly over the hideous face. We knew that the body and the clothing were there for

identification by friends, but still we wondered if anybody could love that repulsive object or grieve for its

loss. We grew meditative and wondered if, some forty years ago, when the mother of that ghastly thing was

dandling it upon her knee, and kissing it and petting it and displaying it with satisfied pride to the passersby,

a prophetic vision of this dread ending ever flitted through her brain. I half feared that the mother, or the wife

or a brother of the dead man might come while we stood there, but nothing of the kind occurred. Men and

women came, and some looked eagerly in and pressed their faces against the bars; others glanced carelessly

at the body and turned away with a disappointed look people, I thought, who live upon strong excitements

and who attend the exhibitions of the Morgue regularly, just as other people go to see theatrical spectacles

every night. When one of these looked in and passed on, I could not help thinking

"Now this don't afford you any satisfaction a party with his head shot off is what you need."

One night we went to the celebrated Jardin Mabille, but only staid a little while. We wanted to see some of

this kind of Paris life, however, and therefore the next night we went to a similar place of entertainment in a

great garden in the suburb of Asni�res. We went to the railroad depot, toward evening, and Ferguson got

tickets for a secondclass carriage. Such a perfect jam of people I have not often seen but there was no

noise, no disorder, no rowdyism. Some of the women and young girls that entered the train we knew to be of

The girls and women in our carriage behaved themselves modestly and becomingly all the way out, except

that they smoked. When we arrived at the garden in Asni�res, we paid a franc or two admission and entered a

place which had flower beds in it, and grass plots, and long, curving rows of ornamental shrubbery, with here

and there a secluded bower convenient for eating ice cream in. We moved along the sinuous gravel walks,

with the great concourse of girls and young men, and suddenly a domed and filigreed white temple, starred

over and over and over again with brilliant gas jets, burst upon us like a fallen sun. Nearby was a large,

handsome house with its ample front illuminated in the same way, and above its roof floated the

Ferguson said an American a New Yorker kept the place, and was carrying on quite a stirring

Crowds composed of both sexes and nearly all ages were frisking about the garden or sitting in the open air in

front of the flagstaff and the temple, drinking wine and coffee or smoking. The dancing had not begun yet.

Ferguson said there was to be an exhibition. The famous Blondin was going to perform on a tightrope in

another part of the garden. We went thither. Here the light was dim, and the masses of people were pretty

closely packed together. And now I made a mistake which any donkey might make, but a sensible man never.

I committed an error which I find myself repeating every day of my life. Standing right before a young lady, I

"I thank you more for the evident sincerity of the compliment, sir, than for the extraordinary publicity you

We took a walk, but my spirits were very, very sadly dampened. I did not feel right comfortable for some

time afterward. Why will people be so stupid as to suppose themselves the only foreigners among a crowd of

But Blondin came out shortly. He appeared on a stretched cable, far away above the sea of tossing hats and

handkerchiefs, and in the glare of the hundreds of rockets that whizzed heavenward by him he looked like a

wee insect. He balanced his pole and walked the length of his rope two or three hundred feet; he came

back and got a man and carried him across; he returned to the center and danced a jig; next he performed

some gymnastic and balancing feats too perilous to afford a pleasant spectacle; and he finished by fastening

to his person a thousand Roman candies, Catherine wheels, serpents and rockets of all manner of brilliant

colors, setting them on fire all at once and walking and waltzing across his rope again in a blinding blaze of

glory that lit up the garden and the people's faces like a great conflagration at midnight.

The dance had begun, and we adjourned to the temple. Within it was a drinking saloon, and all around it was

a broad circular platform for the dancers. I backed up against the wall of the temple, and waited. Twenty sets

formed, the music struck up, and then I placed my hands before my face for very shame. But I looked

through my fingers. They were dancing the renowned "Cancan." A handsome girl in the set before me

tripped forward lightly to meet the opposite gentleman, tripped back again, grasped her dresses vigorously on

both sides with her hands, raised them pretty high, danced an extraordinary jig that had more activity and

exposure about it than any jig I ever saw before, and then, drawing her clothes still higher, she advanced gaily

to the center and launched a vicious kick full at her visavis that must infallibly have removed his nose if he

That is the cancan. The idea of it is to dance as wildly, as noisily, as furiously as you can; expose yourself as

much as possible if you are a woman; and kick as high as you can, no matter which sex you belong to. There

is no word of exaggeration in this. Any of the staid, respectable, aged people who were there that night can

testify to the truth of that statement. There were a good many such people present. I suppose French morality

I moved aside and took a general view of the cancan. Shouts, laughter, furious music, a bewildering chaos

of darting and intermingling forms, stormy jerking and snatching of gay dresses, bobbing beads, flying arms,

lightning flashes of whitestockinged calves and dainty slippers in the air, and then a grand final rush, riot, a

terrific hubbub, and a wild stampede! Heavens! Nothing like it has been seen on earth since trembling Tam

O'Shanter saw the devil and the witches at their orgies that stormy night in "Alloway's auld haunted kirk."

We visited the Louvre, at a time when we had no silk purchases in view, and looked at its miles of paintings

by the old masters. Some of them were beautiful, but at the same time they carried such evidences about them

of the cringing spirit of those great men that we found small pleasure in examining them. Their nauseous

adulation of princely patrons was more prominent to me and chained my attention more surely than the

charms of color and expression which are claimed to be in the pictures. Gratitude for kindnesses is well, but it

seems to me that some of those artists carried it so far that it ceased to be gratitude and became worship. If

there is a plausible excuse for the worship of men, then by all means let us forgive Rubens and his brethren.

But I will drop the subject, lest I say something about the old masters that might as well be left unsaid.

Of course we drove in the Bois de Boulogne, that limitless park, with its forests, its lakes, its cascades, and its

broad avenues. There were thousands upon thousands of vehicles abroad, and the scene was full of life and

gaiety. There were very common hacks, with father and mother and all the children in them; conspicuous

little open carriages with celebrated ladies of questionable reputation in them; there were Dukes and

Duchesses abroad, with gorgeous footmen perched behind, and equally gorgeous outriders perched on each

of the six horses; there were blue and silver, and green and gold, and pink and black, and all sorts and

descriptions of stunning and startling liveries out, and I almost yearned to be a flunkey myself, for the sake of

But presently the Emperor came along and he outshone them all. He was preceded by a bodyguard of

gentlemen on horseback in showy uniforms, his carriagehorses (there appeared to be somewhere in the

remote neighborhood of a thousand of them,) were bestridden by gallantlooking fellows, also in stylish

uniforms, and after the carriage followed another detachment of bodyguards. Everybody got out of the way;

everybody bowed to the Emperor and his friend the Sultan; and they went by on a swinging trot and

I will not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I can not do it. It is simply a beautiful, cultivated, endless,

wonderful wilderness. It is an enchanting place. It is in Paris now, one may say, but a crumbling old cross in

one portion of it reminds one that it was not always so. The cross marks the spot where a celebrated

troubadour was waylaid and murdered in the fourteenth century. It was in this park that that fellow with an

unpronounceable name made the attempt upon the Russian Czar's life last spring with a pistol. The bullet

struck a tree. Ferguson showed us the place. Now in America that interesting tree would be chopped down or

forgotten within the next five years, but it will be treasured here. The guides will point it out to visitors for

the next eight hundred years, and when it decays and falls down they will put up another there and go on with

ONE of our pleasantest visits was to P�re la Chaise, the national buryingground of France, the honored

restingplace of some of her greatest and best children, the last home of scores of illustrious men and women

who were born to no titles, but achieved fame by their own energy and their own genius. It is a solemn city of

winding streets and of miniature marble temples and mansions of the dead gleaming white from out a

wilderness of foliage and fresh flowers. Not every city is so well peopled as this, or has so ample an area

within its walls. Few palaces exist in any city that are so exquisite in design, so rich in art, so costly in

We had stood in the ancient church of St. Denis, where the marble effigies of thirty generations of kings and

queens lay stretched at length upon the tombs, and the sensations invoked were startling and novel; the

curious armor, the obsolete costumes, the placid faces, the hands placed palm to palm in eloquent

supplication it was a vision of gray antiquity. It seemed curious enough to be standing face to face, as it

were, with old Dagobert I., and Clovis and Charlemagne, those vague, colossal heroes, those shadows, those

myths of a thousand years ago! I touched their dustcovered faces with my finger, but Dagobert was deader

than the sixteen centuries that have passed over him, Clovis slept well after his labor for Christ, and old

Charlemagne went on dreaming of his paladins, of bloody Roncesvalles, and gave no heed to me.

The great names of P�re la Chaise impress one, too, but differently. There the suggestion brought constantly

to his mind is, that this place is sacred to a nobler royalty the royalty of heart and brain. Every faculty of

mind, every noble trait of human nature, every high occupation which men engage in, seems represented by a

famous name. The effect is a curious medley. Davoust and Massena, who wrought in many a battle tragedy,

are here, and so also is Rachel, of equal renown in mimic tragedy on the stage. The Abb� Sicard sleeps here

the first great teacher of the deaf and dumb a man whose heart went out to every unfortunate, and

whose life was given to kindly offices in their service; and not far off, in repose and peace at last, lies

Marshal Ney, whose stormy spirit knew no music like the bugle call to arms. The man who originated public

gaslighting, and that other benefactor who introduced the cultivation of the potato and thus blessed millions

of his starving countrymen, lie with the Prince of Masserano, and with exiled queens and princes of Further

India. GayLussac the chemist, Laplace the astronomer, Larrey the surgeon, de S�ze the advocate, are here,

and with them are Talma, Bellini, Rubini; de Balzac, Beaumarchais, Beranger; Moli�re and Lafontaine, and

scores of other men whose names and whose worthy labors are as familiar in the remote byplaces of

civilization as are the historic deeds of the kings and princes that sleep in the marble vaults of St. Denis.

But among the thousands and thousands of tombs in P�re la Chaise, there is one that no man, no woman, no

youth of either sex, ever passes by without stopping to examine. Every visitor has a sort of indistinct idea of

the history of its dead and comprehends that homage is due there, but not one in twenty thousand clearly

remembers the story of that tomb and its romantic occupants. This is the grave of Abelard and Heloise a

grave which has been more revered, more widely known, more written and sung about and wept over, for

seven hundred years, than any other in Christendom save only that of the Saviour. All visitors linger

pensively about it; all young people capture and carry away keepsakes and mementoes of it; all Parisian

youths and maidens who are disappointed in love come there to bail out when they are full of tears; yea,

many stricken lovers make pilgrimages to this shrine from distant provinces to weep and wail and "grit" their

teeth over their heavy sorrows, and to purchase the sympathies of the chastened spirits of that tomb with

Go when you will, you find somebody snuffling over that tomb. Go when you will, you find it furnished with

those bouquets and immortelles. Go when you will, you find a graveltrain from Marseilles arriving to

supply the deficiencies caused by mementocabbaging vandals whose affections have miscarried.

Yet who really knows the story of Abelard and Heloise? Precious few people. The names are perfectly

familiar to every body, and that is about all. With infinite pains I have acquired a knowledge of that history,

and I propose to narrate it here, partly for the honest information of the public and partly to show that public

that they have been wasting a good deal of marketable sentiment very unnecessarily.

Heloise was born seven hundred and sixtysix years ago. She may have had parents. There is no telling. She

lived with her uncle Fulbert, a canon of the cathedral of Paris. I do not know what a canon of a cathedral is,

but that is what he was. He was nothing more than a sort of a mountain howitzer, likely, because they had no

heavy artillery in those days. Suffice it, then, that Heloise lived with her uncle the howitzer and was happy.

She spent the most of her childhood in the convent of Argenteuil never heard of Argenteuil before, but

suppose there was really such a place. She then returned to her uncle, the old gun, or son of a gun, as the case

may be, and he taught her to write and speak Latin, which was the language of literature and polite society at

Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already made himself widely famous as a rhetorician, came to

found a school of rhetoric in Paris. The originality of his principles, his eloquence, and his great physical

strength and beauty created a profound sensation. He saw Heloise, and was captivated by her blooming

youth, her beauty, and her charming disposition. He wrote to her; she answered. He wrote again; she

answered again. He was now in love. He longed to know her to speak to her face to face.

His school was near Fulbert's house. He asked Fulbert to allow him to call. The good old swivel saw here a

rare opportunity: his niece, whom he so much loved, would absorb knowledge from this man, and it would

Fulbert's first name is not mentioned by any author, which is unfortunate. However, George W. Fulbert will

answer for him as well as any other. We will let him go at that. He asked Abelard to teach her.

Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity. He came often and staid long. A letter of his shows in its very

first sentence that he came under that friendly roof like a coldhearted villain as he was, with the deliberate

"I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert; I was as much surprised as if he had placed a

lamb in the power of a hungry wolf. Heloise and I, under pretext of study, gave ourselves up wholly to love,

and the solitude that love seeks our studies procured for us. Books were open before us, but we spoke oftener

of love than philosophy, and kisses came more readily from our lips than words."

And so, exulting over an honorable confidence which to his degraded instinct was a ludicrous "simplicity,"

this unmanly Abelard seduced the niece of the man whose guest he was. Paris found it out. Fulbert was told

of it told often but refused to believe it. He could not comprehend how a man could be so depraved as

to use the sacred protection and security of hospitality as a means for the commission of such a crime as that.

But when he heard the rowdies in the streets singing the lovesongs of Abelard to Heloise, the case was too

plain lovesongs come not properly within the teachings of rhetoric and philosophy.

He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard returned secretly and carried Heloise away to Palais, in Brittany,

his native country. Here, shortly afterward, she bore a son, who, from his rare beauty, was surnamed

Astrolabe William G. The girl's flight enraged Fulbert, and he longed for vengeance, but feared to strike

lest retaliation visit Heloise for he still loved her tenderly. At length Abelard offered to marry Heloise

but on a shameful condition: that the marriage should be kept secret from the world, to the end that (while her

good name remained a wreck, as before,) his priestly reputation might be kept untarnished. It was like that

miscreant. Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. He would see the parties married, and then violate the

confidence of the man who had taught him that trick; he would divulge the secret and so remove somewhat of

the obloquy that attached to his niece's fame. But the niece suspected his scheme. She refused the marriage at

first; she said Fulbert would betray the secret to save her, and besides, she did not wish to drag down a lover

who was so gifted, so honored by the world, and who had such a splendid career before him. It was noble,

selfsacrificing love, and characteristic of the puresouled Heloise, but it was not good sense.

But she was overruled, and the private marriage took place. Now for Fulbert! The heart so wounded should

be healed at last; the proud spirit so tortured should find rest again; the humbled head should be lifted up once

more. He proclaimed the marriage in the high places of the city and rejoiced that dishonor had departed from

his house. But lo! Abelard denied the marriage! Heloise denied it! The people, knowing the former

circumstances, might have believed Fulbert had only Abelard denied it, but when the person chiefly

interested the girl herself denied it, they laughed, despairing Fulbert to scorn.

The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was spiked again. The last hope of repairing the wrong that had been

done his house was gone. What next? Human nature suggested revenge. He compassed it. The historian says:

"Ruffians, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and inflicted upon him a terrible and nameless

I am seeking the last resting place of those "ruffians." When I find it I shall shed some tears on it, and stack

up some bouquets and immortelles, and cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember that howsoever

blotted by crime their lives may have been, these ruffians did one just deed, at any rate, albeit it was not

Heloise entered a convent and gave goodbye to the world and its pleasures for all time. For twelve years she

never heard of Abelard never even heard his name mentioned. She had become prioress of Argenteuil and

led a life of complete seclusion. She happened one day to see a letter written by him, in which he narrated his

own history. She cried over it and wrote him. He answered, addressing her as his "sister in Christ." They

continued to correspond, she in the unweighed language of unwavering affection, he in the chilly phraseology

of the polished rhetorician. She poured out her heart in passionate, disjointed sentences; he replied with

finished essays, divided deliberately into heads and subheads, premises and argument. She showered upon

him the tenderest epithets that love could devise, he addressed her from the North Pole of his frozen heart as

On account of her too easy government of her nuns, some disreputable irregularities were discovered among

them, and the Abbot of St. Denis broke up her establishment. Abelard was the official head of the monastery

of St. Gildas de Ruys, at that time, and when he heard of her homeless condition a sentiment of pity was

aroused in his breast (it is a wonder the unfamiliar emotion did not blow his head off,) and he placed her and

her troop in the little oratory of the Paraclete, a religious establishment which he had founded. She had many

privations and sufferings to undergo at first, but her worth and her gentle disposition won influential friends

for her, and she built up a wealthy and flourishing nunnery. She became a great favorite with the heads of the

church, and also the people, though she seldom appeared in public. She rapidly advanced in esteem, in good

report, and in usefulness, and Abelard as rapidly lost ground. The Pope so honored her that he made her the

head of her order. Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking as the first debater of his time, became

timid, irresolute, and distrustful of his powers. He only needed a great misfortune to topple him from the high

position he held in the world of intellectual excellence, and it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet the

subtle St. Bernard in debate and crush him, he stood up in the presence of a royal and illustrious assemblage,

and when his antagonist had finished he looked about him and stammered a commencement; but his courage

failed him, the cunning of his tongue was gone: with his speech unspoken, he trembled and sat down, a

He died a nobody, and was buried at Cluny, A.D., 1144. They removed his body to the Paraclete afterward,

and when Heloise died, twenty years later, they buried her with him, in accordance with her last wish. He

died at the ripe age of 64, and she at 63. After the bodies had remained entombed three hundred years, they

were removed once more. They were removed again in 1800, and finally, seventeen years afterward, they

were taken up and transferred to P�re la Chaise, where they will remain in peace and quiet until it comes time

History is silent concerning the last acts of the mountain howitzer. Let the world say what it will about him, I,

at least, shall always respect the memory and sorrow for the abused trust and the broken heart and the

Such is the story of Abelard and Heloise. Such is the history that Lamartine has shed such cataracts of tears

over. But that man never could come within the influence of a subject in the least pathetic without

overflowing his banks. He ought to be dammed or leveed, I should more properly say. Such is the history

not as it is usually told, but as it is when stripped of the nauseous sentimentality that would enshrine for

our loving worship a dastardly seducer like Pierre Abelard. I have not a word to say against the misused,

faithful girl, and would not withhold from her grave a single one of those simple tributes which blighted

youths and maidens offer to her memory, but I am sorry enough that I have not time and opportunity to write

four or five volumes of my opinion of her friend the founder of the Parachute, or the Paraclete, or whatever it

The tons of sentiment I have wasted on that unprincipled humbug in my ignorance! I shall throttle down my

emotions hereafter, about this sort of people, until I have read them up and know whether they are entitled to

any tearful attentions or not. I wish I had my immortelles back, now, and that bunch of radishes.

In Paris we often saw in shop windows the sign "English Spoken Here," just as one sees in the windows at

home the sign "Ici on parle francaise." We always invaded these places at once and invariably received

the information, framed in faultless French, that the clerk who did the English for the establishment had just

gone to dinner and would be back in an hour would Monsieur buy something? We wondered why those

parties happened to take their dinners at such erratic and extraordinary hours, for we never called at a time

when an exemplary Christian would be in the least likely to be abroad on such an errand. The truth was, it

was a base fraud a snare to trap the unwary chaff to catch fledglings with. They had no

Englishmurdering clerk. They trusted to the sign to inveigle foreigners into their lairs, and trusted to their

We ferreted out another French imposition a frequent sign to this effect: "ALL MANNER OF

AMERICAN DRINKS ARTISTICALLY PREPARED HERE." We procured the services of a gentleman

experienced in the nomenclature of the American bar, and moved upon the works of one of these impostors.

"Que voulez les messieurs?" I do not know what "Que voulez les messieurs?" means, but such was his

The Frenchman began to back away, suspicious of the ominous vigor of the last order began to back

The General followed him up and gained a complete victory. The uneducated foreigner could not even

furnish a Santa Cruz Punch, an EyeOpener, a StoneFence, or an Earthquake. It was plain that he was a

An acquaintance of mine said the other day that he was doubtless the only American visitor to the Exposition

who had had the high honor of being escorted by the Emperor's bodyguard. I said with unobtrusive frankness

that I was astonished that such a longlegged, lanternjawed, unprepossessinglooking specter as he should

be singled out for a distinction like that, and asked how it came about. He said he had attended a great

military review in the Champ de Mars some time ago, and while the multitude about him was growing

thicker and thicker every moment he observed an open space inside the railing. He left his carriage and went

into it. He was the only person there, and so he had plenty of room, and the situation being central, he could

see all the preparations going on about the field. By and by there was a sound of music, and soon the Emperor

of the French and the Emperor of Austria, escorted by the famous Cent Gardes, entered the enclosure. They

seemed not to observe him, but directly, in response to a sign from the commander of the guard, a young

lieutenant came toward him with a file of his men following, halted, raised his hand, and gave the military

salute, and then said in a low voice that he was sorry to have to disturb a stranger and a gentleman, but the

place was sacred to royalty. Then this New Jersey phantom rose up and bowed and begged pardon, then with

the officer beside him, the file of men marching behind him, and with every mark of respect, he was escorted

to his carriage by the imperial Cent Gardes! The officer saluted again and fell back, the New Jersey sprite

bowed in return and had presence of mind enough to pretend that he had simply called on a matter of private

business with those emperors, and so waved them an adieu and drove from the field!

Imagine a poor Frenchman ignorantly intruding upon a public rostrum sacred to some sixpenny dignitary in

America. The police would scare him to death first with a storm of their elegant blasphemy, and then pull him

to pieces getting him away from there. We are measurably superior to the French in some things, but they are

Enough of Paris for the present. We have done our whole duty by it. We have seen the Tuileries, the

Napoleon Column, the Madeleine, that wonder of wonders the tomb of Napoleon, all the great churches and

museums, libraries, imperial palaces, and sculpture and picture galleries, the Pantheon, Jardin des Plantes, the

opera, the circus, the legislative body, the billiard rooms, the barbers, the grisettes

Ah, the grisettes! I had almost forgotten. They are another romantic fraud. They were (if you let the books of

travel tell it) always so beautiful so neat and trim, so graceful so naive and trusting so gentle, so

winning so faithful to their shop duties, so irresistible to buyers in their prattling importunity so

devoted to their povertystricken students of the Latin Quarter so lighthearted and happy on their Sunday

He comprehended at last that I wanted to see a grisette. Then he showed me dozens of them. They were like

nearly all the Frenchwomen I ever saw homely. They had large hands, large feet, large mouths; they had

pug noses as a general thing, and moustaches that not even good breeding could overlook; they combed their

hair straight back without parting; they were illshaped, they were not winning, they were not graceful; I

knew by their looks that they ate garlic and onions; and lastly and finally, to my thinking it would be base

Aroint thee, wench! I sorrow for the vagabond student of the Latin Quarter now, even more than formerly I

We have seen every thing, and tomorrow we go to Versailles. We shall see Paris only for a little while as we

come back to take up our line of march for the ship, and so I may as well bid the beautiful city a regretful

farewell. We shall travel many thousands of miles after we leave here and visit many great cities, but we shall

Some of our party have gone to England, intending to take a roundabout course and rejoin the vessel at

Leghorn or Naples several weeks hence. We came near going to Geneva, but have concluded to return to

I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I am sincerely proud to be able to make and glad, as well,

that my comrades cordially endorse it, to wit: by far the handsomest women we have seen in France were

I feel now like a man who has redeemed a failing reputation and shed luster upon a dimmed escutcheon, by a

VERSAILLES! It is wonderfully beautiful! You gaze and stare and try to understand that it is real, that it is

on the earth, that it is not the Garden of Eden but your brain grows giddy, stupefied by the world of beauty

around you, and you half believe you are the dupe of an exquisite dream. The scene thrills one like military

music! A noble palace, stretching its ornamented front, block upon block away, till it seemed that it would

never end; a grand promenade before it, whereon the armies of an empire might parade; all about it rainbows

of flowers, and colossal statues that were almost numberless and yet seemed only scattered over the ample

space; broad flights of stone steps leading down from the promenade to lower grounds of the park

stairways that whole regiments might stand to arms upon and have room to spare; vast fountains whose great

bronze effigies discharged rivers of sparkling water into the air and mingled a hundred curving jets together

in forms of matchless beauty; wide grasscarpeted avenues that branched hither and thither in every direction

and wandered to seemingly interminable distances, walled all the way on either side with compact ranks of

leafy trees whose branches met above and formed arches as faultless and as symmetrical as ever were carved

in stone; and here and there were glimpses of sylvan lakes with miniature ships glassed in their surfaces. And

every where on the palace steps, and the great promenade, around the fountains, among the trees, and far

under the arches of the endless avenues hundreds and hundreds of people in gay costumes walked or ran

or danced, and gave to the fairy picture the life and animation which was all of perfection it could have

It was worth a pilgrimage to see. Everything is on so gigantic a scale. Nothing is small nothing is cheap.

The statues are all large; the palace is grand; the park covers a fairsized county; the avenues are

interminable. All the distances and all the dimensions about Versailles are vast. I used to think the pictures

exaggerated these distances and these dimensions beyond all reason, and that they made Versailles more

beautiful than it was possible for any place in the world to be. I know now that the pictures never came up to

the subject in any respect, and that no painter could represent Versailles on canvas as beautiful as it is in

reality. I used to abuse Louis XIV for spending two hundred millions of dollars in creating this marvelous

park, when bread was so scarce with some of his subjects; but I have forgiven him now. He took a tract of

land sixty miles in circumference and set to work to make this park and build this palace and a road to it from

Paris. He kept 36,000 men employed daily on it, and the labor was so unhealthy that they used to die and be

hauled off by cartloads every night. The wife of a nobleman of the time speaks of this as an "inconvenience,"

but naively remarks that "it does not seem worthy of attention in the happy state of tranquillity we now

I always thought ill of people at home who trimmed their shrubbery into pyramids and squares and spires and

all manner of unnatural shapes, and when I saw the same thing being practiced in this great park I began to

feel dissatisfied. But I soon saw the idea of the thing and the wisdom of it. They seek the general effect. We

distort a dozen sickly trees into unaccustomed shapes in a little yard no bigger than a dining room, and then

surely they look absurd enough. But here they take two hundred thousand tall forest trees and set them in a

double row; allow no sign of leaf or branch to grow on the trunk lower down than six feet above the ground;

from that point the boughs begin to project, and very gradually they extend outward further and further till

they meet overhead, and a faultless tunnel of foliage is formed. The arch is mathematically precise. The effect

is then very fine. They make trees take fifty different shapes, and so these quaint effects are infinitely varied

and picturesque. The trees in no two avenues are shaped alike, and consequently the eye is not fatigued with

anything in the nature of monotonous uniformity. I will drop this subject now, leaving it to others to

determine how these people manage to make endless ranks of lofty forest trees grow to just a certain

thickness of trunk (say a foot and twothirds); how they make them spring to precisely the same height for

miles; how they make them grow so close together; how they compel one huge limb to spring from the same

identical spot on each tree and form the main sweep of the arch; and how all these things are kept exactly in

the same condition and in the same exquisite shapeliness and symmetry month after month and year after

We walked through the great hall of sculpture and the one hundred and fifty galleries of paintings in the

palace of Versailles, and felt that to be in such a place was useless unless one had a whole year at his

disposal. These pictures are all battle scenes, and only one solitary little canvas among them all treats of

anything but great French victories. We wandered, also, through the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon,

those monuments of royal prodigality, and with histories so mournful filled, as it is, with souvenirs of

Napoleon the First, and three dead kings and as many queens. In one sumptuous bed they had all slept in

succession, but no one occupies it now. In a large dining room stood the table at which Louis XIV and his

mistress Madame Maintenon, and after them Louis XV, and Pompadour, had sat at their meals naked and

unattended for the table stood upon a trapdoor, which descended with it to regions below when it was

necessary to replenish its dishes. In a room of the Petit Trianon stood the furniture, just as poor Marie

Antoinette left it when the mob came and dragged her and the King to Paris, never to return. Near at hand, in

the stables, were prodigious carriages that showed no color but gold carriages used by former kings of

France on state occasions, and never used now save when a kingly head is to be crowned or an imperial infant

christened. And with them were some curious sleighs, whose bodies were shaped like lions, swans, tigers,

etc. vehicles that had once been handsome with pictured designs and fine workmanship, but were dusty

and decaying now. They had their history. When Louis XIV had finished the Grand Trianon, he told

Maintenon he had created a Paradise for her, and asked if she could think of anything now to wish for. He

said he wished the Trianon to be perfection nothing less. She said she could think of but one thing it

was summer, and it was balmy France yet she would like well to sleigh ride in the leafy avenues of

Versailles! The next morning found miles and miles of grassy avenues spread thick with snowy salt and

sugar, and a procession of those quaint sleighs waiting to receive the chief concubine of the gaiest and most

From sumptuous Versailles, with its palaces, its statues, its gardens, and its fountains, we journeyed back to

Paris and sought its antipodes the Faubourg St. Antoine. Little, narrow streets; dirty children blockading

them; greasy, slovenly women capturing and spanking them; filthy dens on first floors, with rag stores in

them (the heaviest business in the Faubourg is the chiffonier's); other filthy dens where whole suits of second

and thirdhand clothing are sold at prices that would ruin any proprietor who did not steal his stock; still

other filthy dens where they sold groceries sold them by the halfpennyworth five dollars would buy

the man out, goodwill and all. Up these little crooked streets they will murder a man for seven dollars and

dump the body in the Seine. And up some other of these streets most of them, I should say live

All through this Faubourg St. Antoine, misery, poverty, vice, and crime go hand in hand, and the evidences of

it stare one in the face from every side. Here the people live who begin the revolutions. Whenever there is

anything of that kind to be done, they are always ready. They take as much genuine pleasure in building a

barricade as they do in cutting a throat or shoving a friend into the Seine. It is these savagelooking ruffians

who storm the splendid halls of the Tuileries occasionally, and swarm into Versailles when a king is to be

But they will build no more barricades, they will break no more soldiers' heads with pavingstones. Louis

Napoleon has taken care of all that. He is annihilating the crooked streets and building in their stead noble

boulevards as straight as an arrow avenues which a cannon ball could traverse from end to end without

meeting an obstruction more irresistible than the flesh and bones of men boulevards whose stately edifices

will never afford refuges and plotting places for starving, discontented revolution breeders. Five of these

great thoroughfares radiate from one ample centre a centre which is exceedingly well adapted to the

accommodation of heavy artillery. The mobs used to riot there, but they must seek another rallyingplace in

future. And this ingenious Napoleon paves the streets of his great cities with a smooth, compact composition

of asphaltum and sand. No more barricades of flagstones no more assaulting his Majesty's troops with

cobbles. I cannot feel friendly toward my quondam fellowAmerican, Napoleon III., especially at this

time,16.1 when in fancy I see his credulous victim, Maximilian, lying stark and stiff in Mexico, and his

maniac widow watching eagerly from her French asylum for the form that will never come but I do

WE had a pleasant journey of it seaward again. We found that for the three past nights our ship had been in a

state of war. The first night the sailors of a British ship, being happy with grog, came down on the pier and

challenged our sailors to a free fight. They accepted with alacrity, repaired to the pier, and gained their

share of a drawn battle. Several bruised and bloody members of both parties were carried off by the police

and imprisoned until the following morning. The next night the British boys came again to renew the fight,

but our men had had strict orders to remain on board and out of sight. They did so, and the besieging party

grew noisy and more and more abusive as the fact became apparent (to them) that our men were afraid to

come out. They went away finally with a closing burst of ridicule and offensive epithets. The third night they

came again and were more obstreperous than ever. They swaggered up and down the almost deserted pier,

and hurled curses, obscenity, and stinging sarcasms at our crew. It was more than human nature could bear.

The executive officer ordered our men ashore with instructions not to fight. They charged the British and

gained a brilliant victory. I probably would not have mentioned this war had it ended differently. But I travel

to learn, and I still remember that they picture no French defeats in the battlegalleries of Versailles.

It was like home to us to step on board the comfortable ship again and smoke and lounge about her breezy

decks. And yet it was not altogether like home, either, because so many members of the family were away.

We missed some pleasant faces which we would rather have found at dinner, and at night there were gaps in

the euchreparties which could not be satisfactorily filled. "Moult." was in England, Jack in Switzerland,

Charley in Spain. Blucher was gone, none could tell where. But we were at sea again, and we had the stars

In due time the shores of Italy were sighted, and as we stood gazing from the decks, early in the bright

summer morning, the stately city of Genoa rose up out of the sea and flung back the sunlight from her

Here we rest for the present or rather, here we have been trying to rest, for some little time, but we run

I would like to remain here. I had rather not go any further. There may be prettier women in Europe, but I

doubt it. The population of Genoa is 120,000; twothirds of these are women, I think, and at least twothirds

of the women are beautiful. They are as dressy and as tasteful and as graceful as they could possibly be

without being angels. However, angels are not very dressy, I believe. At least the angels in pictures are not

they wear nothing but wings. But these Genoese women do look so charming. Most of the young

demoiselles are robed in a cloud of white from head to foot, though many trick themselves out more

elaborately. Ninetenths of them wear nothing on their heads but a filmy sort of veil, which falls down their

backs like a white mist. They are very fair, and many of them have blue eyes, but black and dreamy dark

The ladies and gentlemen of Genoa have a pleasant fashion of promenading in a large park on the top of a hill

in the center of the city, from six till nine in the evening, and then eating ices in a neighboring garden an hour

or two longer. We went to the park on Sunday evening. Two thousand persons were present, chiefly young

ladies and gentlemen. The gentlemen were dressed in the very latest Paris fashions, and the robes of the

ladies glinted among the trees like so many snowflakes. The multitude moved round and round the park in a

great procession. The bands played, and so did the fountains; the moon and the gas lamps lit up the scene, and

altogether it was a brilliant and an animated picture. I scanned every female face that passed, and it seemed to

me that all were handsome. I never saw such a freshet of loveliness before. I did not see how a man of only

ordinary decision of character could marry here, because before he could get his mind made up he would fall

Never smoke any Italian tobacco. Never do it on any account. It makes me shudder to think what it must be

made of. You cannot throw an old cigar "stub" down anywhere, but some vagabond will pounce upon it on

the instant. I like to smoke a good deal, but it wounds my sensibilities to see one of these stubhunters

watching me out of the corners of his hungry eyes and calculating how long my cigar will be likely to last. It

reminded me too painfully of that San Francisco undertaker who used to go to sickbeds with his watch in

his hand and time the corpse. One of these stubhunters followed us all over the park last night, and we never

had a smoke that was worth anything. We were always moved to appease him with the stub before the cigar

was half gone, because he looked so viciously anxious. He regarded us as his own legitimate prey, by right of

discovery, I think, because he drove off several other professionals who wanted to take stock in us.

Now, they surely must chew up those old stubs, and dry and sell them for smokingtobacco. Therefore, give

"The Superb" and the "City of Palaces" are names which Genoa has held for centuries. She is full of palaces,

certainly, and the palaces are sumptuous inside, but they are very rusty without and make no pretensions to

architectural magnificence. "Genoa the Superb" would be a felicitous title if it referred to the women.

We have visited several of the palaces immense thickwalled piles, with great stone staircases, tesselated

marble pavements on the floors, (sometimes they make a mosaic work, of intricate designs, wrought in

pebbles or little fragments of marble laid in cement,) and grand salons hung with pictures by Rubens, Guido,

Titian, Paul Veronese, and so on, and portraits of heads of the family, in plumed helmets and gallant coats of

mail, and patrician ladies in stunning costumes of centuries ago. But, of course, the folks were all out in the

country for the summer, and might not have known enough to ask us to dinner if they had been at home, and

so all the grand empty salons, with their resounding pavements, their grim pictures of dead ancestors, and

tattered banners with the dust of bygone centuries upon them, seemed to brood solemnly of death and the

grave, and our spirits ebbed away, and our cheerfulness passed from us. We never went up to the eleventh

story. We always began to suspect ghosts. There was always an undertakerlooking servant along, too, who

handed us a program, pointed to the picture that began the list of the salon he was in, and then stood stiff and

stark and unsmiling in his petrified livery till we were ready to move on to the next chamber, whereupon he

marched sadly ahead and took up another malignantly respectful position as before. I wasted so much time

praying that the roof would fall in on these dispiriting flunkies that I had but little left to bestow upon palace

And besides, as in Paris, we had a guide. Perdition catch all the guides. This one said he was the most gifted

linguist in Genoa, as far as English was concerned, and that only two persons in the city beside himself could

talk the language at all. He showed us the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, and after we had reflected in

silent awe before it for fifteen minutes, he said it was not the birthplace of Columbus, but of Columbus'

grandmother! When we demanded an explanation of his conduct he only shrugged his shoulders and

answered in barbarous Italian. I shall speak further of this guide in a future chapter. All the information we

I have not been to church so often in a long time as I have in the last few weeks. The people in these old lands

seem to make churches their specialty. Especially does this seem to be the case with the citizens of Genoa. I

think there is a church every three or four hundred yards all over town. The streets are sprinkled from end to

end with shovelhatted, longrobed, wellfed priests, and the church bells by dozens are pealing all the day

long, nearly. Every now and then one comes across a friar of orders gray, with shaven head, long, coarse

robe, rope girdle and beads, and with feet cased in sandals or entirely bare. These worthies suffer in the flesh

and do penance all their lives, I suppose, but they look like consummate faminebreeders. They are all fat

The old Cathedral of San Lorenzo is about as notable a building as we have found in Genoa. It is vast, and

has colonnades of noble pillars, and a great organ, and the customary pomp of gilded moldings, pictures,

frescoed ceilings, and so forth. I cannot describe it, of course it would require a good many pages to do

that. But it is a curious place. They said that half of it from the front door halfway down to the altar

was a Jewish synagogue before the Saviour was born, and that no alteration had been made in it since that

time. We doubted the statement, but did it reluctantly. We would much rather have believed it. The place

The main point of interest about the cathedral is the little Chapel of St. John the Baptist. They only allow

women to enter it on one day in the year, on account of the animosity they still cherish against the sex

because of the murder of the Saint to gratify a caprice of Herodias. In this Chapel is a marble chest, in which,

they told us, were the ashes of St. John; and around it was wound a chain, which, they said, had confined him

when he was in prison. We did not desire to disbelieve these statements, and yet we could not feel certain that

they were correct partly because we could have broken that chain, and so could St. John, and partly

because we had seen St. John's ashes before, in another church. We could not bring ourselves to think St.

They also showed us a portrait of the Madonna which was painted by St. Luke, and it did not look half as old

and smoky as some of the pictures by Rubens. We could not help admiring the Apostle's modesty in never

But isn't this relic matter a little overdone? We find a piece of the true cross in every old church we go into,

and some of the nails that held it together. I would not like to be positive, but I think we have seen as much as

a keg of these nails. Then there is the crown of thorns; they have part of one in Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, and

part of one also in Notre Dame. And as for bones of St. Denis, I feel certain we have seen enough of them to

I only meant to write about the churches, but I keep wandering from the subject. I could say that the Church

of the Annunciation is a wilderness of beautiful columns, of statues, gilded moldings, and pictures almost

countless, but that would give no one an entirely perfect idea of the thing, and so where is the use? One

family built the whole edifice, and have got money left. There is where the mystery lies. We had an idea at

These people here live in the heaviest, highest, broadest, darkest, solidest houses one can imagine. Each one

might "laugh a siege to scorn." A hundred feet front and a hundred high is about the style, and you go up

three flights of stairs before you begin to come upon signs of occupancy. Everything is stone, and stone of the

heaviest floors, stairways, mantels, benches everything. The walls are four to five feet thick. The

streets generally are four or five to eight feet wide and as crooked as a corkscrew. You go along one of these

gloomy cracks, and look up and behold the sky like a mere ribbon of light, far above your head, where the

tops of the tall houses on either side of the street bend almost together. You feel as if you were at the bottom

of some tremendous abyss, with all the world far above you. You wind in and out and here and there, in the

most mysterious way, and have no more idea of the points of the compass than if you were a blind man. You

can never persuade yourself that these are actually streets, and the frowning, dingy, monstrous houses

dwellings, till you see one of these beautiful, prettily dressed women emerge from them see her emerge

from a dark, drearylooking den that looks dungeon all over, from the ground away halfway up to heaven.

And then you wonder that such a charming moth could come from such a forbidding shell as that. The streets

are wisely made narrow and the houses heavy and thick and stony, in order that the people may be cool in

this roasting climate. And they are cool, and stay so. And while I think of it the men wear hats and have

very dark complexions, but the women wear no headgear but a flimsy veil like a gossamer's web, and yet are

The huge palaces of Genoa are each supposed to be occupied by one family, but they could accommodate a

hundred, I should think. They are relics of the grandeur of Genoa's palmy days the days when she was a

great commercial and maritime power several centuries ago. These houses, solid marble palaces though they

be, are in many cases of a dull pinkish color, outside, and from pavement to eaves are pictured with Genoese

battle scenes, with monstrous Jupiters and Cupids, and with familiar illustrations from Grecian mythology.

Where the paint has yielded to age and exposure and is peeling off in flakes and patches, the effect is not

happy. A noseless Cupid or a Jupiter with an eye out or a Venus with a flyblister on her breast, are not

attractive features in a picture. Some of these painted walls reminded me somewhat of the tall van, plastered

with fanciful bills and posters, that follows the bandwagon of a circus about a country village. I have not read

or heard that the outsides of the houses of any other European city are frescoed in this way.

I can not conceive of such a thing as Genoa in ruins. Such massive arches, such ponderous substructions as

support these towering broadwinged edifices, we have seldom seen before; and surely the great blocks of

stone of which these edifices are built can never decay; walls that are as thick as an ordinary American

The republics of Genoa and Pisa were very powerful in the Middle Ages. Their ships filled the

Mediterranean, and they carried on an extensive commerce with Constantinople and Syria. Their warehouses

were the great distributing depots from whence the costly merchandise of the East was sent abroad over

Europe. They were warlike little nations and defied, in those days, governments that overshadow them now

as mountains overshadow molehills. The Saracens captured and pillaged Genoa nine hundred years ago, but

during the following century Genoa and Pisa entered into an offensive and defensive alliance and besieged

the Saracen colonies in Sardinia and the Balearic Isles with an obstinacy that maintained its pristine vigor and

held to its purpose for forty long years. They were victorious at last and divided their conquests equably

among their great patrician families. Descendants of some of those proud families still inhabit the palaces of

Genoa, and trace in their own features a resemblance to the grim knights whose portraits hang in their stately

halls, and to pictured beauties with pouting lips and merry eyes whose originals have been dust and ashes for

The hotel we live in belonged to one of those great orders of knights of the Cross in the times of the

Crusades, and its mailed sentinels once kept watch and ward in its massive turrets and woke the echoes of

But Genoa's greatness has degenerated into an unostentatious commerce in velvets and silver filagreework.

They say that each European town has its specialty. These filagree things are Genoa's specialty. Her smiths

take silver ingots and work them up into all manner of graceful and beautiful forms. They make bunches of

flowers, from flakes and wires of silver, that counterfeit the delicate creations the frost weaves upon a

windowpane; and we were shown a miniature silver temple whose fluted columns, whose Corinthian capitals

and rich entablatures, whose spire, statues, bells, and ornate lavishness of sculpture were wrought in polished

silver, and with such matchless art that every detail was a fascinating study and the finished edifice a wonder

We are ready to move again, though we are not really tired yet of the narrow passages of this old marble

cave. Cave is a good word when speaking of Genoa under the stars. When we have been prowling at

midnight through the gloomy crevices they call streets, where no footfalls but ours were echoing, where only

ourselves were abroad, and lights appeared only at long intervals and at a distance, and mysteriously

disappeared again, and the houses at our elbows seemed to stretch upward farther than ever toward the

heavens, the memory of a cave I used to know at home was always in my mind, with its lofty passages, its

silence and solitude, its shrouding gloom, its sepulchral echoes, its flitting lights, and more than all, its

sudden revelations of branching crevices and corridors where we least expected them.

We are not tired of the endless processions of cheerful, chattering gossipers that throng these courts and

streets all day long, either; nor of the coarserobed monks; nor of the "Asti" wines, which that old doctor

(whom we call the Oracle,) with customary felicity in the matter of getting everything wrong, misterms

Our last sight was the cemetery (a burial place intended to accommodate 60,000 bodies,) and we shall

continue to remember it after we shall have forgotten the palaces. It is a vast marble collonaded corridor

extending around a great unoccupied square of ground; its broad floor is marble, and on every slab is an

inscription for every slab covers a corpse. On either side, as one walks down the middle of the passage,

are monuments, tombs, and sculptured figures that are exquisitely wrought and are full of grace and beauty.

They are new and snowy; every outline is perfect, every feature guiltless of mutilation, flaw, or blemish; and

therefore, to us these farreaching ranks of bewitching forms are a hundred fold more lovely than the

damaged and dingy statuary they have saved from the wreck of ancient art and set up in the galleries of Paris

Well provided with cigars and other necessaries of life, we are now ready to take the cars for Milan.

ALL day long we sped through a mountainous country whose peaks were bright with sunshine, whose

hillsides were dotted with pretty villas sitting in the midst of gardens and shrubbery, and whose deep ravines

were cool and shady and looked ever so inviting from where we and the birds were winging our flight

We had plenty of chilly tunnels wherein to check our perspiration, though. We timed one of them. We were

twenty minutes passing through it, going at the rate of thirty to thirtyfive miles an hour.

Toward dusk we drew near Milan and caught glimpses of the city and the blue mountain peaks beyond. But

we were not caring for these things they did not interest us in the least. We were in a fever of impatience;

we were dying to see the renowned cathedral! We watched in this direction and that all around

everywhere. We needed no one to point it out we did not wish any one to point it out we would

At last, a forest of graceful needles, shimmering in the amber sunlight, rose slowly above the pygmy

housetops, as one sometimes sees, in the far horizon, a gilded and pinnacled mass of cloud lift itself above the

Half of that night, and all of the next day, this architectural autocrat was our sole object of interest.

What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of

solid weight, and yet it seems in the soft moonlight only a fairy delusion of frostwork that might vanish with

a breath! How sharply its pinnacled angles and its wilderness of spires were cut against the sky, and how

richly their shadows fell upon its snowy roof! It was a vision! a miracle! an anthem sung in stone, a

Howsoever you look at the great cathedral, it is noble, it is beautiful! Wherever you stand in Milan or within

seven miles of Milan, it is visible and when it is visible, no other object can chain your whole attention.

Leave your eyes unfettered by your will but a single instant and they will surely turn to seek it. It is the first

thing you look for when you rise in the morning, and the last your lingering gaze rests upon at night. Surely it

At nine o'clock in the morning we went and stood before this marble colossus. The central one of its five

great doors is bordered with a basrelief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so

ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures and the figures are so numerous

and the design so complex that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest. On the great steeple

surmounting the myriad of spires inside of the spires over the doors, the windows in nooks and

corners every where that a niche or a perch can be found about the enormous building, from summit to

base, there is a marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself! Raphael, Angelo, Canova giants like

these gave birth to the designs, and their own pupils carved them. Every face is eloquent with expression, and

every attitude is full of grace. Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring

high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond. In their midst the central steeple towers

We wished to go aloft. The sacristan showed us a marble stairway (of course it was marble, and of the purest

and whitest there is no other stone, no brick, no wood, among its building materials) and told us to go up

one hundred and eightytwo steps and stop till he came. It was not necessary to say stop we should have

done that any how. We were tired by the time we got there. This was the roof. Here, springing from its broad

marble flagstones, were the long files of spires, looking very tall close at hand, but diminishing in the

distance like the pipes of an organ. We could see now that the statue on the top of each was the size of a large

man, though they all looked like dolls from the street. We could see, also, that from the inside of each and

every one of these hollow spires, from sixteen to thirtyone beautiful marble statues looked out upon the

From the eaves to the comb of the roof stretched in endless succession great curved marble beams, like the

foreandaft braces of a steamboat, and along each beam from end to end stood up a row of richly carved

flowers and fruits each separate and distinct in kind, and over 15,000 species represented. At a little

distance these rows seem to close together like the ties of a railroad track, and then the mingling together of

the buds and blossoms of this marble garden forms a picture that is very charming to the eye.

We descended and entered. Within the church, long rows of fluted columns, like huge monuments, divided

the building into broad aisles, and on the figured pavement fell many a soft blush from the painted windows

above. I knew the church was very large, but I could not fully appreciate its great size until I noticed that the

men standing far down by the altar looked like boys, and seemed to glide, rather than walk. We loitered about

gazing aloft at the monster windows all aglow with brilliantly colored scenes in the lives of the Saviour and

his followers. Some of these pictures are mosaics, and so artistically are their thousand particles of tinted

glass or stone put together that the work has all the smoothness and finish of a painting. We counted sixty

panes of glass in one window, and each pane was adorned with one of these master achievements of genius

The guide showed us a coffeecolored piece of sculpture which he said was considered to have come from

the hand of Phidias, since it was not possible that any other artist, of any epoch, could have copied nature

with such faultless accuracy. The figure was that of a man without a skin; with every vein, artery, muscle,

every fiber and tendon and tissue of the human frame represented in minute detail. It looked natural, because

somehow it looked as if it were in pain. A skinned man would be likely to look that way unless his attention

were occupied with some other matter. It was a hideous thing, and yet there was a fascination about it some

where. I am very sorry I saw it, because I shall always see it now. I shall dream of it sometimes. I shall dream

that it is resting its corded arms on the bed's head and looking down on me with its dead eyes; I shall dream

that it is stretched between the sheets with me and touching me with its exposed muscles and its stringy cold

It is hard to forget repulsive things. I remember yet how I ran off from school once, when I was a boy, and

then, pretty late at night, concluded to climb into the window of my father's office and sleep on a lounge,

because I had a delicacy about going home and getting thrashed. As I lay on the lounge and my eyes grew

accustomed to the darkness, I fancied I could see a long, dusky, shapeless thing stretched upon the floor. A

cold shiver went through me. I turned my face to the wall. That did not answer. I was afraid that that thing

would creep over and seize me in the dark. I turned back and stared at it for minutes and minutes they

seemed hours. It appeared to me that the lagging moonlight never, never would get to it. I turned to the wall

and counted twenty, to pass the feverish time away. I looked the pale square was nearer. I turned again

and counted fifty it was almost touching it. With desperate will I turned again and counted one hundred,

and faced about, all in a tremble. A white human hand lay in the moonlight! Such an awful sinking at the

heart such a sudden gasp for breath! I felt I cannot tell what I felt. When I recovered strength enough, I

faced the wall again. But no boy could have remained so with that mysterious hand behind him. I counted

again and looked the most of a naked arm was exposed. I put my hands over my eyes and counted till I

could stand it no longer, and then the pallid face of a man was there, with the corners of the mouth drawn

down, and the eyes fixed and glassy in death! I raised to a sitting posture and glowered on that corpse till the

light crept down the bare breastline by line inch by inch past the nipple and then it disclosed a

I went away from there. I do not say that I went away in any sort of a hurry, but I simply went that is

sufficient. I went out at the window, and I carried the sash along with me. I did not need the sash, but it was

handier to take it than it was to leave it, and so I took it. I was not scared, but I was considerably agitated.

When I reached home, they whipped me, but I enjoyed it. It seemed perfectly delightful. That man had been

stabbed near the office that afternoon, and they carried him in there to doctor him, but he only lived an hour. I

Now we will descend into the crypt, under the grand altar of Milan Cathedral, and receive an impressive

sermon from lips that have been silent and hands that have been gestureless for three hundred years.

The priest stopped in a small dungeon and held up his candle. This was the last restingplace of a good man,

a warmhearted, unselfish man; a man whose whole life was given to succoring the poor, encouraging the

fainthearted, visiting the sick; in relieving distress, whenever and wherever he found it. His heart, his hand,

and his purse were always open. With his story in one's mind he can almost see his benignant countenance

moving calmly among the haggard faces of Milan in the days when the plague swept the city, brave where all

others were cowards, full of compassion where pity had been crushed out of all other breasts by the instinct

of selfpreservation gone mad with terror, cheering all, praying with all, helping all, with hand and brain and

purse, at a time when parents forsook their children, the friend deserted the friend, and the brother turned

This was good St. Charles Borrom�o, Bishop of Milan. The people idolized him; princes lavished uncounted

treasures upon him. We stood in his tomb. Near by was the sarcophagus, lighted by the dripping candles. The

walls were faced with basreliefs representing scenes in his life done in massive silver. The priest put on a

short white lace garment over his black robe, crossed himself, bowed reverently, and began to turn a windlass

slowly. The sarcophagus separated in two parts, lengthwise, and the lower part sank down and disclosed a

coffin of rock crystal as clear as the atmosphere. Within lay the body, robed in costly habiliments covered

with gold embroidery and starred with scintillating gems. The decaying head was black with age, the dry skin

was drawn tight to the bones, the eyes were gone, there was a hole in the temple and another in the cheek, and

the skinny lips were parted as in a ghastly smile! Over this dreadful face, its dust and decay and its mocking

grin, hung a crown sown thick with flashing brilliants; and upon the breast lay crosses and croziers of solid

How poor, and cheap, and trivial these gewgaws seemed in presence of the solemnity, the grandeur, the

awful majesty of Death! Think of Milton, Shakspeare, Washington, standing before a reverent world tricked

out in the glass beads, the brass earrings and tin trumpery of the savages of the plains!

Dead Bartolom�o preached his pregnant sermon, and its burden was: You that worship the vanities of earth

you that long for worldly honor, worldly wealth, worldly fame behold their worth!

To us it seemed that so good a man, so kind a heart, so simple a nature, deserved rest and peace in a grave

sacred from the intrusion of prying eyes, and believed that he himself would have preferred to have it so, but

As we came out upon the floor of the church again, another priest volunteered to show us the treasures of the

church. What, more? The furniture of the narrow chamber of death we had just visited weighed six millions

of francs in ounces and carats alone, without a penny thrown into the account for the costly workmanship

bestowed upon them! But we followed into a large room filled with tall wooden presses like wardrobes. He

threw them open, and behold, the cargoes of "crude bullion" of the assay offices of Nevada faded out of my

memory. There were Virgins and bishops there, above their natural size, made of solid silver, each worth, by

weight, from eight hundred thousand to two millions of francs, and bearing gemmed books in their hands

worth eighty thousand; there were basreliefs that weighed six hundred pounds, carved in solid silver;

croziers and crosses, and candlesticks six and eight feet high, all of virgin gold, and brilliant with precious

stones; and beside these were all manner of cups and vases, and such things, rich in proportion. It was an

Aladdin's palace. The treasures here, by simple weight, without counting workmanship, were valued at fifty

millions of francs! If I could get the custody of them for a while, I fear me the market price of silver bishops

would advance shortly, on account of their exceeding scarcity in the Cathedral of Milan.

The priests showed us two of St. Paul's fingers, and one of St. Peter's; a bone of Judas Iscariot, (it was black,)

and also bones of all the other disciples; a handkerchief in which the Saviour had left the impression of his

face. Among the most precious of the relics were a stone from the Holy Sepulchre, part of the crown of

thorns, (they have a whole one at Notre Dame,) a fragment of the purple robe worn by the Saviour, a nail

from the Cross, and a picture of the Virgin and Child painted by the veritable hand of St. Luke. This is the

second of St. Luke's Virgins we have seen. Once a year all these holy relics are carried in procession through

I like to revel in the dryest details of the great cathedral. The building is five hundred feet long by one

hundred and eighty wide, and the principal steeple is in the neighborhood of four hundred feet high. It has

7,148 marble statues, and will have upwards of three thousand more when it is finished. In addition it has one

thousand five hundred basreliefs. It has one hundred and thirtysix spires twentyone more are to be

added. Each spire is surmounted by a statue six and a half feet high. Every thing about the church is marble,

and all from the same quarry; it was bequeathed to the Archbishopric for this purpose centuries ago. So

nothing but the mere workmanship costs; still that is expensive the bill foots up six hundred and

eightyfour millions of francs thus far (considerably over a hundred millions of dollars,) and it is estimated

that it will take a hundred and twenty years yet to finish the cathedral. It looks complete, but is far from being

so. We saw a new statue put in its niche yesterday, alongside of one which had been standing these four

hundred years, they said. There are four staircases leading up to the main steeple, each of which cost a

hundred thousand dollars, with the four hundred and eight statues which adorn them. Marco Compioni was

the architect who designed the wonderful structure more than five hundred years ago, and it took him

fortysix years to work out the plan and get it ready to hand over to the builders. He is dead now. The

building was begun a little less than five hundred years ago, and the third generation hence will not see it

The building looks best by moonlight, because the older portions of it, being stained with age, contrast

unpleasantly with the newer and whiter portions. It seems somewhat too broad for its height, but may be

They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand how it can be

We bid it goodbye, now possibly for all time. How surely, in some future day, when the memory of it

shall have lost its vividness, shall we half believe we have seen it in a wonderful dream, but never with

That was what the guide asked when we were looking up at the bronze horses on the Arch of Peace. It meant,

do you wish to go up there? I give it as a specimen of guideEnglish. These are the people that make life a

burthen to the tourist. Their tongues are never still. They talk forever and forever, and that is the kind of

billingsgate they use. Inspiration itself could hardly comprehend them. If they would only show you a

masterpiece of art, or a venerable tomb, or a prisonhouse, or a battlefield, hallowed by touching memories

or historical reminiscences, or grand traditions, and then step aside and hold still for ten minutes and let you

think, it would not be so bad. But they interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their

tiresome cackling. Sometimes when I have been standing before some cherished old idol of mine that I

remembered years and years ago in pictures in the geography at school, I have thought I would give a whole

world if the human parrot at my side would suddenly perish where he stood and leave me to gaze, and

No, we did not "wis zo haut can be." We wished to go to La Scala, the largest theater in the world, I think

they call it. We did so. It was a large place. Seven separate and distinct masses of humanity six great

We wished to go to the Ambrosian Library, and we did that also. We saw a manuscript of Virgil, with

annotations in the handwriting of Petrarch, the gentleman who loved another man's Laura, and lavished upon

her all through life a love which was a clear waste of the raw material. It was sound sentiment, but bad

judgment. It brought both parties fame, and created a fountain of commiseration for them in sentimental

breasts that is running yet. But who says a word in behalf of poor Mr. Laura? (I do not know his other name.)

Who glorifies him? Who bedews him with tears? Who writes poetry about him? Nobody. How do you

suppose he liked the state of things that has given the world so much pleasure? How did he enjoy having

another man following his wife every where and making her name a familiar word in every

garlicexterminating mouth in Italy with his sonnets to her preempted eyebrows? They got fame and

sympathy he got neither. This is a peculiarly felicitous instance of what is called poetical justice. It is all

very fine; but it does not chime with my notions of right. It is too onesided too ungenerous. Let the

world go on fretting about Laura and Petrarch if it will; but as for me, my tears and my lamentations shall be

We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia Borgia, a lady for whom I have always entertained the highest

respect, on account of her rare histrionic capabilities, her opulence in solid gold goblets made of gilded wood,

her high distinction as an operatic screamer, and the facility with which she could order a sextuple funeral

and get the corpses ready for it. We saw one single coarse yellow hair from Lucrezia's head, likewise. It

awoke emotions, but we still live. In this same library we saw some drawings by Michael Angelo (these

Italians call him Mickel Angelo,) and Leonardo da Vinci. (They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy;

foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.) We reserve our opinion of these sketches.

In another building they showed us a fresco representing some lions and other beasts drawing chariots; and

they seemed to project so far from the wall that we took them to be sculptures. The artist had shrewdly

heightened the delusion by painting dust on the creatures' backs, as if it had fallen there naturally and

Elsewhere we saw a huge Roman amphitheatre, with its stone seats still in good preservation. Modernized, it

is now the scene of more peaceful recreations than the exhibition of a party of wild beasts with Christians for

dinner. Part of the time, the Milanese use it for a race track, and at other seasons they flood it with water and

have spirited yachting regattas there. The guide told us these things, and he would hardly try so hazardous an

experiment as the telling of a falsehood, when it is all he can do to speak the truth in English without getting

In another place we were shown a sort of summer arbor, with a fence before it. We said that was nothing. We

looked again, and saw, through the arbor, an endless stretch of garden, and shrubbery, and grassy lawn. We

were perfectly willing to go in there and rest, but it could not be done. It was only another delusion a

painting by some ingenious artist with little charity in his heart for tired folk. The deception was perfect. No

one could have imagined the park was not real. We even thought we smelled the flowers at first.

We got a carriage at twilight and drove in the shaded avenues with the other nobility, and after dinner we

took wine and ices in a fine garden with the great public. The music was excellent, the flowers and shrubbery

were pleasant to the eye, the scene was vivacious, everybody was genteel and wellbehaved, and the ladies

We adjourned to a caf� and played billiards an hour, and I made six or seven points by the doctor pocketing

his ball, and he made as many by my pocketing my ball. We came near making a carom sometimes, but not

the one we were trying to make. The table was of the usual European style cushions dead and twice as

high as the balls; the cues in bad repair. The natives play only a sort of pool on them. We have never seen any

body playing the French threeball game yet, and I doubt if there is any such game known in France, or that

there lives any man mad enough to try to play it on one of these European tables. We bad to stop playing

finally because Dan got to sleeping fifteen minutes between the counts and paying no attention to his

Afterward we walked up and down one of the most popular streets for some time, enjoying other people's

comfort and wishing we could export some of it to our restless, driving, vitalityconsuming marts at home.

Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in Europe comfort. In America, we hurry which is

well; but when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we

even carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our

racked bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early or

drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of life which they call a man's prime in Europe. When an acre of

ground has produced long and well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season; we take no man clear across the

continent in the same coach he started in the coach is stabled somewhere on the plains and its heated

machinery allowed to cool for a few days; when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold an edge, the

barber lays it away for a few weeks, and the edge comes back of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care

upon inanimate objects, but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might

be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges!

I do envy these Europeans the comfort they take. When the work of the day is done, they forget it. Some of

them go, with wife and children, to a beer hall and sit quietly and genteelly drinking a mug or two of ale and

listening to music; others walk the streets, others drive in the avenues; others assemble in the great

ornamental squares in the early evening to enjoy the sight and the fragrance of flowers and to hear the

military bands play no European city being without its fine military music at eventide; and yet others of

the populace sit in the open air in front of the refreshment houses and eat ices and drink mild beverages that

could not harm a child. They go to bed moderately early, and sleep well. They are always quiet, always

orderly, always cheerful, comfortable, and appreciative of life and its manifold blessings. One never sees a

drunken man among them. The change that has come over our little party is surprising. Day by day we lose

some of our restlessness and absorb some of the spirit of quietude and ease that is in the tranquil atmosphere

about us and in the demeanor of the people. We grow wise apace. We begin to comprehend what life is for.

We have had a bath in Milan, in a public bathhouse. They were going to put all three of us in one bathtub,

but we objected. Each of us had an Italian farm on his back. We could have felt affluent if we had been

officially surveyed and fenced in. We chose to have three bathtubs, and large ones tubs suited to the

dignity of aristocrats who had real estate, and brought it with them. After we were stripped and had taken the

first chilly dash, we discovered that haunting atrocity that has embittered our lives in so many cities and

villages of Italy and France there was no soap. I called. A woman answered, and I barely had time to

throw myself against the door she would have been in, in another second. I said:

"Beware, woman! Go away from here go away, now, or it will be the worse for you. I am an unprotected

"Soap, you know soap. That is what I want soap. Soap, soap; sope, soap; soup, soap.

Hurry up! I don't know how you Irish spell it, but I want it. Spell it to suit yourself, but fetch it. I'm freezing."

"Dan, how often have we told you that these foreigners cannot understand English? Why will you not depend

upon us? Why will you not tell us what you want, and let us ask for it in the language of the country? It

would save us a great deal of the humiliation your reprehensible ignorance causes us. I will address this

person in his mother tongue: 'Here, cospetto! corpo di Bacco! Sacramento! Solferino! Soap, you son of a

gun!' Dan, if you would let ustalk for you, you would never expose your ignorant vulgarity."

Even this fluent discharge of Italian did not bring the soap at once, but there was a good reason for it. There

was not such an article about the establishment. It is my belief that there never had been. They had to send far

up town, and to several different places before they finally got it, so they said. We had to wait twenty or thirty

minutes. The same thing had occurred the evening before, at the hotel. I think I have divined the reason for

this state of things at last. The English know how to travel comfortably, and they carry soap with them; other

At every hotel we stop at we always have to send out for soap, at the last moment, when we are grooming

ourselves for dinner, and they put it in the bill along with the candles and other nonsense. In Marseilles they

make half the fancy toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical

idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel, just as they have acquired an uncertain notion

of clean shirts, and the peculiarities of the gorilla, and other curious matters. This reminds me of poor

PARIS, le 7 Juillet. Monsieur le Landlord Sir: Pourquoi don't you mettez some savon in your

bedchambers? Estce que vous pensez I will steal it? La nuit pass�e you charged me pour deux chandelles

when I only had one; hier vous avez charged me avec glace when I had none at all; tout les jours you are

coming some fresh game or other on me, mais vous ne pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice. Savon

is a necessary de la vie to any body but a Frenchman, et je l'aurai hors de cet h�tel or make trouble. You hear

I remonstrated against the sending of this note, because it was so mixed up that the landlord would never be

able to make head or tail of it; but Blucher said he guessed the old man could read the French of it and

Blucher's French is bad enough, but it is not much worse than the English one finds in advertisements all over

Italy every day. For instance, observe the printed card of the hotel we shall probably stop at on the shores of

"This hotel which the best it is in Italy and most superb, is handsome locate on the best situation of the lake,

with the most splendid view near the Villas Melzy, to the King of Belgian, and Serbelloni. This hotel have

recently enlarge, do offer all commodities on moderate price, at the strangers gentlemen who whish spend the

How is that, for a specimen? In the hotel is a handsome little chapel where an English clergyman is employed

to preach to such of the guests of the house as hail from England and America, and this fact is also set forth in

barbarous English in the same advertisement. Wouldn't you have supposed that the adventurous linguist who

framed the card would have known enough to submit it to that clergyman before he sent it to the printer?

Here in Milan, in an ancient tumbledown ruin of a church, is the mournful wreck of the most celebrated

painting in the world "The Last Supper," by Leonardo da Vinci. We are not infallible judges of pictures,

but of course we went there to see this wonderful painting, once so beautiful, always so worshipped by

masters in art, and forever to be famous in song and story. And the first thing that occurred was the infliction

"Bartholomew (that is the first figure on the left hand side at the spectator,) uncertain and doubtful about

what he thinks to have heard, and upon which he wants to be assured by himself at Christ and by no others."

Good, isn't it? And then Peter is described as "argumenting in a threatening and angrily condition at Judas

This paragraph recalls the picture. "The Last Supper" is painted on the dilapidated wall of what was a little

chapel attached to the main church in ancient times, I suppose. It is battered and scarred in every direction,

and stained and discolored by time, and Napoleon's horses kicked the legs off most the disciples when they

(the horses, not the disciples,) were stabled there more than half a century ago.

I recognized the old picture in a moment the Saviour with bowed head seated at the centre of a long,

rough table with scattering fruits and dishes upon it, and six disciples on either side in their long robes,

talking to each other the picture from which all engravings and all copies have been made for three

centuries. Perhaps no living man has ever known an attempt to paint the Lord's Supper differently. The world

seems to have become settled in the belief, long ago, that it is not possible for human genius to outdo this

creation of da Vinci's. I suppose painters will go on copying it as long as any of the original is left visible to

the eye. There were a dozen easels in the room, and as many artists transferring the great picture to their

canvases. Fifty proofs of steel engravings and lithographs were scattered around, too. And as usual, I could

not help noticing how superior the copies were to the original, that is, to my inexperienced eye. Wherever you

find a Raphael, a Rubens, a Michelangelo, a Carracci, or a da Vinci (and we see them every day,) you find

artists copying them, and the copies are always the handsomest. Maybe the originals were handsome when

This picture is about thirty feet long, and ten or twelve high, I should think, and the figures are at least life

The colors are dimmed with age; the countenances are scaled and marred, and nearly all expression is gone

from them; the hair is a dead blur upon the wall, and there is no life in the eyes. Only the attitudes are certain.

People come here from all parts of the world, and glorify this masterpiece. They stand entranced before it

with bated breath and parted lips, and when they speak, it is only in the catchy ejaculations of rapture:

I only envy these people; I envy them their honest admiration, if it be honest their delight, if they feel

delight. I harbor no animosity toward any of them. But at the same time the thought will intrude itself upon

me, How can they see what is not visible? What would you think of a man who looked at some decayed,

blind, toothless, pockmarked Cleopatra, and said: "What matchless beauty! What soul! What expression!"

What would you think of a man who gazed upon a dingy, foggy sunset, and said: "What sublimity! What

feeling! What richness of coloring!" What would you think of a man who stared in ecstasy upon a desert of

You would think that those men had an astonishing talent for seeing things that had already passed away. It

was what I thought when I stood before "The Last Supper" and heard men apostrophizing wonders, and

beauties and perfections which had faded out of the picture and gone, a hundred years before they were born.

We can imagine the beauty that was once in an aged face; we can imagine the forest if we see the stumps; but

we can not absolutely see these things when they are not there. I am willing to believe that the eye of the

practiced artist can rest upon the Last Supper and renew a lustre where only a hint of it is left, supply a tint

that has faded away, restore an expression that is gone; patch, and color, and add, to the dull canvas until at

last its figures shall stand before him aglow with the life, the feeling, the freshness, yea, with all the noble

beauty that was theirs when first they came from the hand of the master. But I can not work this miracle. Can

After reading so much about it, I am satisfied that the Last Supper was a very miracle of art once. But it was

It vexes me to hear people talk so glibly of "feeling," "expression," "tone," and those other easily acquired

and inexpensive technicalities of art that make such a fine show in conversations concerning pictures. There

is not one man in seventyfive hundred that can tell what a pictured face is intended to express. There is not

one man in five hundred that can go into a courtroom and be sure that he will not mistake some harmless

innocent of a juryman for the blackhearted assassin on trial. Yet such people talk of "character" and

presume to interpret "expression" in pictures. There is an old story that Matthews, the actor, was once lauding

the ability of the human face to express the passions and emotions hidden in the breast. He said the

countenance could disclose what was passing in the heart plainer than the tongue could.

Expression! People coolly pretend to read it who would think themselves presumptuous if they pretended to

interpret the hieroglyphics on the obelisks of Luxor yet they are fully as competent to do the one thing as

the other. I have heard two very intelligent critics speak of Murillo's Immaculate Conception (now in the

"Oh, the Virgin's face is full of the ecstasy of a joy that is complete that leaves nothing more to be desired

"Ah, that wonderful face is so humble, so pleading it says as plainly as words could say it: 'I fear; I

The reader can see the picture in any drawingroom; it can be easily recognized: the Virgin (the only young

and really beautiful Virgin that was ever painted by one of the old masters, some of us think,) stands in the

crescent of the new moon, with a multitude of cherubs hovering about her, and more coming; her hands are

crossed upon her breast, and upon her uplifted countenance falls a glory out of the heavens. The reader may

amuse himself, if he chooses, in trying to determine which of these gentlemen read the Virgin's "expression"

Any one who is acquainted with the old masters will comprehend how much "The Last Supper" is damaged

when I say that the spectator can not really tell, now, whether the disciples are Hebrews or Italians. These

ancient painters never succeeded in denationalizing themselves. The Italian artists painted Italian Virgins, the

Dutch painted Dutch Virgins, the Virgins of the French painters were Frenchwomen none of them ever

put into the face of the Madonna that indescribable something which proclaims the Jewess, whether you find

her in New York, in Constantinople, in Paris, Jerusalem, or in the empire of Morocco. I saw in the Sandwich

Islands, once, a picture copied by a talented German artist from an engraving in one of the American

illustrated papers. It was an allegory, representing Mr. Davis in the act of signing a secession act or some

such document. Over him hovered the ghost of Washington in warning attitude, and in the background a

troop of shadowy soldiers in Continental uniform were limping with shoeless, bandaged feet through a

driving snowstorm. Valley Forge was suggested, of course. The copy seemed accurate, and yet there was a

discrepancy somewhere. After a long examination I discovered what it was the shadowy soldiers were all

Germans! Jeff Davis was a German! even the hovering ghost was a German ghost! The artist had

unconsciously worked his nationality into the picture. To tell the truth, I am getting a little perplexed about

John the Baptist and his portraits. In France I finally grew reconciled to him as a Frenchman; here he is

unquestionably an Italian. What next? Can it be possible that the painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard in

We took an open barouche and drove two miles out of Milan to "see ze echo," as the guide expressed it. The

road was smooth, it was bordered by trees, fields, and grassy meadows, and the soft air was filled with the

odor of flowers. Troops of picturesque peasant girls, coming from work, hooted at us, shouted at us, made all

manner of game of us, and entirely delighted me. My longcherished judgment was confirmed. I always did

think those frowsy, romantic, unwashed peasant girls I had read so much about in poetry were a glaring fraud.

We distressed ourselves very little about the astonishing echo the guide talked so much about. We were

growing accustomed to encomiums on wonders that too often proved no wonders at all. And so we were most

happily disappointed to find in the sequel that the guide had even failed to rise to the magnitude of his

We arrived at a tumbledown old rookery called the Palazzo Simonetti a massive hewnstone affair

occupied by a family of ragged Italians. A goodlooking young girl conducted us to a window on the second

floor which looked out on a court walled on three sides by tall buildings. She put her head out at the window

and shouted. The echo answered more times than we could count. She took a speaking trumpet and through it

convulsion of the jolliest laughter that could be imagined. It was so joyful so long continued so

perfectly cordial and hearty, that every body was forced to join in. There was no resisting it.

Then the girl took a gun and fired it. We stood ready to count the astonishing clatter of reverberations. We

could not say one, two, three, fast enough, but we could dot our notebooks with our pencil points almost

rapidly enough to take down a sort of shorthand report of the result. My page revealed the following

I set down fiftytwo distinct repetitions, and then the echo got the advantage of me. The doctor set down

sixtyfour, and thenceforth the echo moved too fast for him, also. After the separate concussions could no

longer be noted, the reverberations dwindled to a wild, longsustained clatter of sounds such as a watchman's

rattle produces. It is likely that this is the most remarkable echo in the world.

The doctor, in jest, offered to kiss the young girl, and was taken a little aback when she said he might for a

franc! The commonest gallantry compelled him to stand by his offer, and so he paid the franc and took the

kiss. She was a philosopher. She said a franc was a good thing to have, and she did not care any thing for one

paltry kiss, because she had a million left. Then our comrade, always a shrewd businessman, offered to take

WE left Milan by rail. The Cathedral six or seven miles behind us; vast, dreamy, bluish, snowclad

mountains twenty miles in front of us, these were the accented points in the scenery. The more immediate

scenery consisted of fields and farmhouses outside the car and a monsterheaded dwarf and a moustached

woman inside it. These latter were not showpeople. Alas, deformity and female beards are too common in

We passed through a range of wild, picturesque hills, steep, wooded, coneshaped, with rugged crags

projecting here and there, and with dwellings and ruinous castles perched away up toward the drifting clouds.

We lunched at the curious old town of Como, at the foot of the lake, and then took the small steamer and had

When we walked ashore, a party of policemen (people whose cocked hats and showy uniforms would shame

the finest uniform in the military service of the United States,) put us into a little stone cell and locked us in.

We had the whole passenger list for company, but their room would have been preferable, for there was no

light, there were no windows, no ventilation. It was close and hot. We were much crowded. It was the Black

Hole of Calcutta on a small scale. Presently a smoke rose about our feet a smoke that smelled of all the

We were there five minutes, and when we got out it was hard to tell which of us carried the vilest fragrance.

These miserable outcasts called that "fumigating" us, and the term was a tame one indeed. They fumigated us

to guard themselves against the cholera, though we hailed from no infected port. We had left the cholera far

behind us all the time. However, they must keep epidemics away somehow or other, and fumigation is

cheaper than soap. They must either wash themselves or fumigate other people. Some of the lower classes

had rather die than wash, but the fumigation of strangers causes them no pangs. They need no fumigation

themselves. Their habits make it unnecessary. They carry their preventive with them; they sweat and

fumigate all the day long. I trust I am a humble and a consistent Christian. I try to do what is right. I know it

is my duty to "pray for them that despitefully use me;" and therefore, hard as it is, I shall still try to pray for

Our hotel sits at the water's edge at least its front garden does and we walk among the shrubbery and

smoke at twilight; we look afar off at Switzerland and the Alps, and feel an indolent willingness to look no

closer; we go down the steps and swim in the lake; we take a shapely little boat and sail abroad among the

reflections of the stars; lie on the thwarts and listen to the distant laughter, the singing, the soft melody of

flutes and guitars that comes floating across the water from pleasuring gondolas; we close the evening with

exasperating billiards on one of those same old execrable tables. A midnight luncheon in our ample

bedchamber; a final smoke in its contracted veranda facing the water, the gardens, and the mountains; a

summing up of the day's events. Then to bed, with drowsy brains harassed with a mad panorama that mixes

up pictures of France, of Italy, of the ship, of the ocean, of home, in grotesque and bewildering disorder. Then

a melting away of familiar faces, of cities, and of tossing waves, into a great calm of forgetfulness and peace.

I did not like it yesterday. I thought Lake Tahoe was much finer. I have to confess now, however, that my

judgment erred somewhat, though not extravagantly. I always had an idea that Como was a vast basin of

water, like Tahoe, shut in by great mountains. Well, the border of huge mountains is here, but the lake itself is

not a basin. It is as crooked as any brook, and only from onequarter to twothirds as wide as the

Mississippi. There is not a yard of low ground on either side of it nothing but endless chains of mountains

that spring abruptly from the water's edge and tower to altitudes varying from a thousand to two thousand

feet. Their craggy sides are clothed with vegetation, and white specks of houses peep out from the luxuriant

foliage everywhere; they are even perched upon jutting and picturesque pinnacles a thousand feet above your

Again, for miles along the shores, handsome country seats, surrounded by gardens and groves, sit fairly in the

water, sometimes in nooks carved by Nature out of the vinehung precipices, and with no ingress or egress

save by boats. Some have great broad stone staircases leading down to the water, with heavy stone

balustrades ornamented with statuary and fancifully adorned with creeping vines and brightcolored flowers

for all the world like a drop curtain in a theatre, and lacking nothing but longwaisted, highheeled

women and plumed gallants in silken tights coming down to go serenading in the splendid gondola in

A great feature of Como's attractiveness is the multitude of pretty houses and gardens that cluster upon its

shores and on its mountain sides. They look so snug and so homelike, and at eventide when every thing

seems to slumber, and the music of the vesper bells comes stealing over the water, one almost believes that

nowhere else than on the lake of Como can there be found such a paradise of tranquil repose.

From my window here in Bellaggio, I have a view of the other side of the lake now, which is as beautiful as a

picture. A scarred and wrinkled precipice rises to a height of eighteen hundred feet; on a tiny bench half way

up its vast wall, sits a little snowflake of a church, no bigger than a martinbox, apparently; skirting the base

of the cliff are a hundred orange groves and gardens, flecked with glimpses of the white dwellings that are

buried in them; in front, three or four gondolas lie idle upon the water and in the burnished mirror of the

lake, mountain, chapel, houses, groves and boats are counterfeited so brightly and so clearly that one scarce

The surroundings of this picture are fine. A mile away, a groveplumed promontory juts far into the lake and

glasses its palace in the blue depths; in midstream a boat is cutting the shining surface and leaving a long

track behind, like a ray of light; the mountains beyond are veiled in a dreamy purple haze; far in the opposite

direction a tumbled mass of domes and verdant slopes and valleys bars the lake, and here indeed does

distance lend enchantment to the view for on this broad canvas, sun and clouds and the richest of

atmospheres have blended a thousand tints together, and over its surface the filmy lights and shadows drift,

hour after hour, and glorify it with a beauty that seems reflected out of Heaven itself. Beyond all question,

Last night the scenery was striking and picturesque. On the other side crags and trees and snowy houses were

reflected in the lake with a wonderful distinctness, and streams of light from many a distant window shot far

abroad over the still waters. On this side, near at hand, great mansions, white with moonlight, glared out from

the midst of masses of foliage that lay black and shapeless in the shadows that fell from the cliff above

and down in the margin of the lake every feature of the weird vision was faithfully repeated.

Today we have idled through a wonder of a garden attached to a ducal estate but enough of description is

enough, I judge. I suspect that this was the same place the gardener's son deceived the Lady of Lyons with,

but I do not know. You may have heard of the passage somewhere: "A deep vale, Shut out by Alpine hills

from the rude world, Near a clear lake margined by fruits of gold And whispering myrtles: Glassing softest

skies, cloudless, Save with rare and roseate shadows; A palace, lifting to eternal heaven its marbled walls,

That is all very well, except the "clear" part of the lake. It certainly is clearer than a great many lakes, but

how dull its waters are compared with the wonderful transparence of Lake Tahoe! I speak of the north shore

of Tahoe, where one can count the scales on a trout at a depth of a hundred and eighty feet. I have tried to get

this statement off at par here, but with no success; so I have been obliged to negotiate it at fifty percent

discount. At this rate I find some takers; perhaps the reader will receive it on the same terms ninety feet

instead of one hundred and eighty. But let it be remembered that those are forced terms Sheriff's sale

prices. As far as I am privately concerned, I abate not a jot of the original assertion that in those strangely

magnifying waters one may count the scales on a trout (a trout of the large kind,) at a depth of a hundred and

eighty feet may see every pebble on the bottom might even count a paper of draypins. People talk of

the transparent waters of the Mexican Bay of Acapulco, but in my own experience I know they cannot

compare with those I am speaking of. I have fished for trout, in Tahoe, and at a measured depth of

eightyfour feet I have seen them put their noses to the bait and I could see their gills open and shut. I could

As I go back in spirit and recall that noble sea, reposing among the snowpeaks six thousand feet above the

ocean, the conviction comes strong upon me again that Como would only seem a bedizened little courtier in

Sorrow and misfortune overtake the legislature that still from year to year permits Tahoe to retain its

unmusical cognomen! Tahoe! It suggests no crystal waters, no picturesque shores, no sublimity. Tahoe for a

sea in the clouds: a sea that has character and asserts it in solemn calms at times, at times in savage storms; a

sea whose royal seclusion is guarded by a cordon of sentinel peaks that lift their frosty fronts nine thousand

feet above the level world; a sea whose every aspect is impressive, whose belongings are all beautiful, whose

Tahoe means grasshoppers. It means grasshopper soup. It is Indian, and suggestive of Indians. They say it is

Piute possibly it is Digger. I am satisfied it was named by the Diggers those degraded savages who

roast their dead relatives, then mix the human grease and ashes of bones with tar, and "gaum" it thick all over

their heads and foreheads and ears, and go caterwauling about the hills and call it mourning. These are the

People say that Tahoe means "Silver Lake" "Limpid Water" "Falling Leaf." Bosh. It means

grasshopper soup, the favorite dish of the Digger tribe, and of the Piutes as well. It isn't worth while, in

these practical times, for people to talk about Indian poetry there never was any in them except in the

Fenimore Cooper Indians. But they are an extinct tribe that never existed. I know the Noble Red Man. I have

camped with the Indians; I have been on the warpath with them, taken part in the chase with them for

grasshoppers; helped them steal cattle; I have roamed with them, scalped them, had them for breakfast. I

But I am growing unreliable. I will return to my comparison of the lakes. Como is a little deeper than Tahoe,

if people here tell the truth. They say it is eighteen hundred feet deep at this point, but it does not look a dead

enough blue for that. Tahoe is one thousand five hundred and twentyfive feet deep in the centre, by the state

geologist's measurement. They say the great peak opposite this town is five thousand feet high: but I feel sure

that three thousand feet of that statement is a good honest lie. The lake is a mile wide, here, and maintains

about that width from this point to its northern extremity which is distant sixteen miles: from here to its

southern extremity say fifteen miles it is not over half a mile wide in any place, I should think. Its

snowclad mountains one hears so much about are only seen occasionally, and then in the distance, the Alps.

Tahoe is from ten to eighteen miles wide, and its mountains shut it in like a wall. Their summits are never

free from snow the year round. One thing about it is very strange: it never has even a skim of ice upon its

surface, although lakes in the same range of mountains, lying in a lower and warmer temperature, freeze over

It is cheerful to meet a shipmate in these outoftheway places and compare notes with him. We have

found one of ours here an old soldier of the war, who is seeking bloodless adventures and rest from his

20.1 Colonel J. HERON FOSTER, editor of a Pittsburgh journal, and a most estimable gentleman. As these

sheets are being prepared for the press I am pained to learn of his decease shortly after his return home

WE voyaged by steamer down the Lago di Lecco, through wild mountain scenery, and by hamlets and villas,

and disembarked at the town of Lecco. They said it was two hours, by carriage to the ancient city of

Bergamo, and that we would arrive there in good season for the railway train. We got an open barouche and a

wild, boisterous driver, and set out. It was delightful. We had a fast team and a perfectly smooth road. There

were towering cliffs on our left, and the pretty Lago di Lecco on our right, and every now and then it rained

on us. Just before starting, the driver picked up, in the street, a stump of a cigar an inch long, and put it in his

mouth. When he had carried it thus about an hour, I thought it would be only Christian charity to give him a

light. I handed him my cigar, which I had just lit, and he put it in his mouth and returned his stump to his

pocket! I never saw a more sociable man. At least I never saw a man who was more sociable on a short

We saw interior Italy, now. The houses were of solid stone, and not often in good repair. The peasants and

their children were idle, as a general thing, and the donkeys and chickens made themselves at home in

drawingroom and bedchamber and were not molested. The drivers of each and every one of the

slowmoving marketcarts we met were stretched in the sun upon their merchandise, sound a sleep. Every

three or four hundred yards, it seemed to me, we came upon the shrine of some saint or other a rude

picture of him built into a huge cross or a stone pillar by the roadside. Some of the pictures of the

Saviour were curiosities in their way. They represented him stretched upon the cross, his countenance

distorted with agony. From the wounds of the crown of thorns; from the pierced side; from the mutilated

hands and feet; from the scourged body from every handbreadth of his person streams of blood were

flowing! Such a gory, ghastly spectacle would frighten the children out of their senses, I should think. There

were some unique auxiliaries to the painting which added to its spirited effect. These were genuine wooden

and iron implements, and were prominently disposed round about the figure: a bundle of nails; the hammer to

drive them; the sponge; the reed that supported it; the cup of vinegar; the ladder for the ascent of the cross;

the spear that pierced the Saviour's side. The crown of thorns was made of real thorns, and was nailed to the

sacred head. In some Italian churchpaintings, even by the old masters, the Saviour and the Virgin wear

silver or gilded crowns that are fastened to the pictured head with nails. The effect is as grotesque as it is

Here and there, on the fronts of roadside inns, we found huge, coarse frescoes of suffering martyrs like those

in the shrines. It could not have diminished their sufferings any to be so uncouthly represented. We were in

the heart and home of priest craft of a happy, cheerful, contented ignorance, superstition, degradation,

poverty, indolence, and everlasting unaspiring worthlessness. And we said fervently, It suits these people

precisely; let them enjoy it, along with the other animals, and Heaven forbid that they be molested. We feel

We passed through the strangest, funniest, undreamptof old towns, wedded to the customs and steeped in

the dreams of the elder ages, and perfectly unaware that the world turns round! And perfectly indifferent, too,

as to whether it turns around or stands still. They have nothing to do but eat and sleep and sleep and eat, and

toil a little when they can get a friend to stand by and keep them awake. They are not paid for thinking

they are not paid to fret about the world's concerns. They were were not respectable people they were not

worthy people they were not learned and wise and brilliant people but in their breasts, all their stupid

lives long, resteth a peace that passeth understanding! How can men, calling themselves men, consent to be

We whisked by many a gray old medieval castle, clad thick with ivy that swung its green banners down from

towers and turrets where once some old Crusader's flag had floated. The driver pointed to one of these

"Do you see that great iron hook that projects from the wall just under the highest window in the ruined

"Well," he said; "there is a legend connected with that iron hook. Nearly seven hundred years ago, that castle

"He had no other name. The name I have spoken was all the name he had. He was the son of "

"Poor but honest parents that is all right never mind the particulars go on with the legend."

Well, then, all the world, at that time, was in a wild excitement about the Holy Sepulchre. All the great feudal

lords in Europe were pledging their lands and pawning their plate to fit out menatarms so that they might

join the grand armies of Christendom and win renown in the Holy Wars. The Count Luigi raised money, like

the rest, and one mild September morning, armed with battleax, portcullis and thundering culverin, he rode

through the greaves and bucklers of his donjonkeep with as gallant a troop of Christian bandits as ever

stepped in Italy. He had his sword, Excalibur, with him. His beautiful countess and her young daughter

waved him a tearful adieu from the batteringrams and buttresses of the fortress, and he galloped away with a

He made a raid on a neighboring baron and completed his outfit with the booty secured. He then razed the

castle to the ground, massacred the family and moved on. They were hardy fellows in the grand old days of

Count Luigi grew high in fame in Holy Land. He plunged into the carnage of a hundred battles, but his good

Excalibur always brought him out alive, albeit often sorely wounded. His face became browned by exposure

to the Syrian sun in long marches; he suffered hunger and thirst; he pined in prisons, he languished in

loathsome plaguehospitals. And many and many a time he thought of his loved ones at home, and wondered

if all was well with them. But his heart said, Peace, is not thy brother watching over thy household?

Fortytwo years waxed and waned; the good fight was won; Godfrey reigned in Jerusalem the Christian

Twilight was approaching. Fifty harlequins, in flowing robes, approached this castle wearily, for they were on

foot, and the dust upon their garments betokened that they had traveled far. They overtook a peasant, and

asked him if it were likely they could get food and a hospitable bed there, for love of Christian charity, and if

perchance, a moral parlor entertainment might meet with generous countenance "for," said they, "this

"Marry," quoth the peasant, "an' it please your worships, ye had better journey many a good rood hence with

"How now, sirrah!" exclaimed the chief monk, "explain thy ribald speech, or by'r Lady it shall go hard with

"Peace, good mountebank, I did but utter the truth that was in my heart. San Paolo be my witness that did ye

but find the stout Count Leonardo in his cups, sheer from the castle's topmost battlements would he hurl ye

"Aye, none other, please your worship. In his day, the poor rejoiced in plenty and the rich he did oppress;

taxes were not known, the fathers of the church waxed fat upon his bounty; travelers went and came, with

none to interfere; and whosoever would, might tarry in his halls in cordial welcome, and eat his bread and

drink his wine, withal. But woe is me! some two and forty years agone the good count rode hence to fight for

Holy Cross, and many a year hath flown since word or token have we had of him. Men say his bones lie

"Now! God 'a mercy, the cruel Leonardo lords it in the castle. He wrings taxes from the poor; he robs all

travelers that journey by his gates; he spends his days in feuds and murders, and his nights in revel and

debauch; he roasts the fathers of the church upon his kitchen spits, and enjoyeth the same, calling it pastime.

These thirty years Luigi's countess hath not been seen by any he in all this land, and many whisper that she

pines in the dungeons of the castle for that she will not wed with Leonardo, saying her dear lord still liveth

and that she will die ere she prove false to him. They whisper likewise that her daughter is a prisoner as well.

Nay, good jugglers, seek ye refreshment other wheres. 'Twere better that ye perished in a Christian way than

But heedless of the peasant's warning, the players moved straightway toward the castle.

Word was brought to Count Leonardo that a company of mountebanks besought his hospitality.

"'Tis well. Dispose of them in the customary manner. Yet stay! I have need of them. Let them come hither.

"The day's results are meagre, good my lord. An abbot and a dozen beggarly friars is all we have."

"Hell and furies! Is the estate going to seed? Send hither the mountebanks. Afterward, broil them with the

The robed and closecowled harlequins entered. The grim Leonardo sate in state at the head of his council

board. Ranged up and down the hall on either hand stood near a hundred menatarms.

"Ha, villains!" quoth the count, "What can ye do to earn the hospitality ye crave."

"Dread lord and mighty, crowded audiences have greeted our humble efforts with rapturous applause. Among

our body count we the versatile and talented Ugolino; the justly celebrated Rodolpho; the gifted and

"Good my lord, in acrobatic feats, in practice with the dumbbells, in balancing and ground and lofty

tumbling are we versed and sith your highness asketh me, I venture here to publish that in the truly

"Gag him! throttle him! Body of Bacchus! am I a dog that I am to be assailed with polysyllabled blasphemy

like to this? But hold! Lucretia, Isabel, stand forth! Sirrah, behold this dame, this weeping wench. The first I

marry, within the hour; the other shall dry her tears or feed the vultures. Thou and thy vagabonds shall crown

"O, save me!" she cried; "save me from a fate far worse than death! Behold these sad eyes, these sunken

cheeks, this withered frame! See thou the wreck this fiend hath made, and let thy heart be moved with pity!

Look upon this damosel; note her wasted form, her halting step, her bloomless cheeks where youth should

blush and happiness exult in smiles! Hear us and have compassion. This monster was my husband's brother.

He who should have been our shield against all harm, hath kept us shut within the noisome caverns of his

donjonkeep for lo these thirty years. And for what crime? None other than that I would not belie my troth,

root out my strong love for him who marches with the legions of the cross in Holy Land, (for O, he is not

"Ha!ha!ha!" shouted the brutal Leonardo. "Priest, to thy work!" and he dragged the weeping dame from

her refuge. "Say, once for all, will you be mine? for by my halidome, that breath that uttereth thy refusal

Quicker than thought, quicker than the lightning's flash, fifty monkish habits disappeared, and fifty knights in

splendid armor stood revealed! fifty falchions gleamed in air above the menatarms, and brighter, fiercer

than them all, flamed Excalibur aloft, and cleaving downward struck the brutal Leonardo's weapon from his

Count Luigi bound his usurping brother hand and foot. The practiced knights from Palestine made holyday

sport of carving the awkward menatarms into chops and steaks. The victory was complete. Happiness

We reached the quaint old fortified city of Bergamo, the renowned in history, some threequarters of an hour

before the train was ready to start. The place has thirty or forty thousand inhabitants and is remarkable for

being the birthplace of harlequin. When we discovered that, that legend of our driver took to itself a new

Rested and refreshed, we took the rail happy and contented. I shall not tarry to speak of the handsome Lago

di Gardi; its stately castle that holds in its stony bosom the secrets of an age so remote that even tradition

goeth not back to it; the imposing mountain scenery that ennobles the landscape thereabouts; nor yet of

ancient Padua or haughty Verona; nor of their Montagues and Capulets, their famous balconies and tombs of

Juliet and Romeo et al., but hurry straight to the ancient city of the sea, the widowed bride of the Adriatic. It

was a long, long ride. But toward evening, as we sat silent and hardly conscious of where we were

subdued into that meditative calm that comes so surely after a conversational storm some one shouted

And sure enough, afloat on the placid sea a league away, lay a great city, with its towers and domes and

THIS Venice, which was a haughty, invincible, magnificent Republic for nearly fourteen hundred years;

whose armies compelled the world's applause whenever and wherever they battled; whose navies well nigh

held dominion of the seas, and whose merchant fleets whitened the remotest oceans with their sails and

loaded these piers with the products of every clime, is fallen a prey to poverty, neglect and melancholy decay.

Six hundred years ago, Venice was the Autocrat of Commerce; her mart was the great commercial centre, the

distributinghouse from whence the enormous trade of the Orient was spread abroad over the Western world.

Today her piers are deserted, her warehouses are empty, her merchant fleets are vanished, her armies and

her navies are but memories. Her glory is departed, and with her crumbling grandeur of wharves and palaces

about her she sits among her stagnant lagoons, forlorn and beggared, forgotten of the world. She that in her

palmy days commanded the commerce of a hemisphere and made the weal or woe of nations with a beck of

her puissant finger, is become the humblest among the peoples of the earth, a peddler of glass beads for

The venerable Mother of the Republics is scarce a fit subject for flippant speech or the idle gossipping of

tourists. It seems a sort of sacrilege to disturb the glamour of old romance that pictures her to us softly from

afar off as through a tinted mist, and curtains her ruin and her desolation from our view. One ought, indeed,

to turn away from her rags, her poverty and her humiliation, and think of her only as she was when she sunk

the fleets of Charlemagne; when she humbled Frederick Barbarossa or waved her victorious banners above

We reached Venice at eight in the evening, and entered a hearse belonging to the Grand Hotel d'Europe. At

any rate, it was more like a hearse than any thing else, though to speak by the card, it was a gondola. And this

was the storied gondola of Venice! the fairy boat in which the princely cavaliers of the olden time were

wont to cleave the waters of the moonlit canals and look the eloquence of love into the soft eyes of patrician

beauties, while the gay gondolier in silken doublet touched his guitar and sang as only gondoliers can sing!

This the famed gondola and this the gorgeous gondolier! the one an inky, rusty old canoe with a sable

hearsebody clapped on to the middle of it, and the other a mangy, barefooted guttersnipe with a portion of

his raiment on exhibition which should have been sacred from public scrutiny. Presently, as he turned a

corner and shot his hearse into a dismal ditch between two long rows of towering, untenanted buildings, the

gay gondolier began to sing, true to the traditions of his race. I stood it a little while. Then I said:

"Now, here, Roderigo Gonzales Michael Angelo, I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, but I am not going to have

my feelings lacerated by any such caterwauling as that. If that goes on, one of us has got to take water. It is

enough that my cherished dreams of Venice have been blighted forever as to the romantic gondola and the

gorgeous gondolier; this system of destruction shall go no farther; I will accept the hearse, under protest, and

you may fly your flag of truce in peace, but here I register a dark and bloody oath that you shan't sing.

I began to feel that the old Venice of song and story had departed forever. But I was too hasty. In a few

minutes we swept gracefully out into the Grand Canal, and under the mellow moonlight the Venice of poetry

and romance stood revealed. Right from the water's edge rose long lines of stately palaces of marble;

gondolas were gliding swiftly hither and thither and disappearing suddenly through unsuspected gates and

alleys; ponderous stone bridges threw their shadows athwart the glittering waves. There was life and motion

everywhere, and yet everywhere there was a hush, a stealthy sort of stillness, that was suggestive of secret

enterprises of bravoes and of lovers; and clad half in moonbeams and half in mysterious shadows, the grim

old mansions of the Republic seemed to have an expression about them of having an eye out for just such

enterprises as these at that same moment. Music came floating over the waters Venice was complete.

It was a beautiful picture very soft and dreamy and beautiful. But what was this Venice to compare with

the Venice of midnight? Nothing. There was a f�te a grand f�te in honor of some saint who had been

instrumental in checking the cholera three hundred years ago, and all Venice was abroad on the water. It was

no common affair, for the Venetians did not know how soon they might need the saint's services again, now

that the cholera was spreading every where. So in one vast space say a third of a mile wide and two miles

long were collected two thousand gondolas, and every one of them had from two to ten, twenty and even

thirty colored lanterns suspended about it, and from four to a dozen occupants. Just as far as the eye could

reach, these painted lights were massed together like a vast garden of manycolored flowers, except that

these blossoms were never still; they were ceaselessly gliding in and out, and mingling together, and seducing

you into bewildering attempts to follow their mazy evolutions. Here and there a strong red, green, or blue

glare from a rocket that was struggling to get away, splendidly illuminated all the boats around it. Every

gondola that swam by us, with its crescents and pyramids and circles of colored lamps hung aloft, and

lighting up the faces of the young and the sweetscented and lovely below, was a picture; and the reflections

of those lights, so long, so slender, so numberless, so manycolored and so distorted and wrinkled by the

waves, was a picture likewise, and one that was enchantingly beautiful. Many and many a party of young

ladies and gentlemen had their state gondolas handsomely decorated, and ate supper on board, bringing their

swallowtailed, whitecravatted varlets to wait upon them, and having their tables tricked out as if for a

bridal supper. They had brought along the costly globe lamps from their drawingrooms, and the lace and

silken curtains from the same places, I suppose. And they had also brought pianos and guitars, and they

played and sang operas, while the plebeian paperlanterned gondolas from the suburbs and the back alleys

There was music every where chorusses, string bands, brass bands, flutes, every thing. I was so

surrounded, walled in, with music, magnificence and loveliness, that I became inspired with the spirit of the

scene, and sang one tune myself. However, when I observed that the other gondolas had sailed away, and my

The f�te was magnificent. They kept it up the whole night long, and I never enjoyed myself better than I did

What a funny old city this Queen of the Adriatic is! Narrow streets, vast, gloomy marble palaces, black with

the corroding damps of centuries, and all partly submerged; no dry land visible any where, and no sidewalks

worth mentioning; if you want to go to church, to the theatre, or to the restaurant, you must call a gondola. It

For a day or two the place looked so like an overflowed Arkansas town, because of its currentless waters

laving the very doorsteps of all the houses, and the cluster of boats made fast under the windows, or

skimming in and out of the alleys and byways, that I could not get rid of the impression that there was

nothing the matter here but a spring freshet, and that the river would fall in a few weeks and leave a dirty

In the glare of day, there is little poetry about Venice, but under the charitable moon her stained palaces are

white again, their battered sculptures are hidden in shadows, and the old city seems crowned once more with

the grandeur that was hers five hundred years ago. It is easy, then, in fancy, to people these silent canals with

plumed gallants and fair ladies with Shylocks in gaberdine and sandals, venturing loans upon the rich

argosies of Venetian commerce with Othellos and Desdemonas, with Iagos and Roderigos with noble

fleets and victorious legions returning from the wars. In the treacherous sunlight we see Venice decayed,

forlorn, povertystricken, and commerceless forgotten and utterly insignificant. But in the moonlight, her

fourteen centuries of greatness fling their glories about her, and once more is she the princeliest among the

"There is a glorious city in the sea; The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, Ebbing and flowing; and the

saltsea weed Clings to the marble of her palaces. No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, Lead to her gates!

The path lies o'er the sea, Invisible: and from the land we went, to a floating city steering in, And gliding

up her streets, as in a dream, So smoothly, silently by many a dome, Mosquelike, and many a stately

By many a pile, in more than Eastern pride, Of old the residence of merchant kings; The fronts of some, tho'

time had shatter'd them, Still glowing with the richest hues of art, As tho' the wealth within them had run

What would one naturally wish to see first in Venice? The Bridge of Sighs, of course and next the Church

and the Great Square of St. Mark, the Bronze Horses, and the famous Lion of St. Mark.

We intended to go to the Bridge of Sighs, but happened into the Ducal Palace first a building which

necessarily figures largely in Venetian poetry and tradition. In the Senate Chamber of the ancient Republic

we wearied our eyes with staring at acres of historical paintings by Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, but nothing

struck us forcibly except the one thing that strikes all strangers forcibly a black square in the midst of a

gallery of portraits. In one long row, around the great hall, were painted the portraits of the Doges of Venice

(venerable fellows, with flowing white beards, for of the three hundred Senators eligible to the office, the

oldest was usually chosen Doge,) and each had its complimentary inscription attached till you came to the

place that should have had Marino Faliero's picture in it, and that was blank and black blank, except that it

bore a terse inscription, saying that the conspirator had died for his crime. It seemed cruel to keep that pitiless

inscription still staring from the walls after the unhappy wretch had been in his grave five hundred years.

At the head of the Giant's Staircase, where Marino Faliero was beheaded, and where the Doges were crowned

in ancient times, two small slits in the stone wall were pointed out two harmless, insignificant orifices that

would never attract a stranger's attention yet these were the terrible Lions' Mouths! The heads were gone

(knocked off by the French during their occupation of Venice,) but these were the throats, down which went

the anonymous accusation, thrust in secretly at dead of night by an enemy, that doomed many an innocent

man to walk the Bridge of Sighs and descend into the dungeon which none entered and hoped to see the sun

again. This was in the old days when the Patricians alone governed Venice the common herd had no vote

and no voice. There were one thousand five hundred Patricians; from these, three hundred Senators were

chosen; from the Senators a Doge and a Council of Ten were selected, and by secret ballot the Ten chose

from their own number a Council of Three. All these were Government spies, then, and every spy was under

surveillance himself men spoke in whispers in Venice, and no man trusted his neighbor not always his

own brother. No man knew who the Council of Three were not even the Senate, not even the Doge; the

members of that dread tribunal met at night in a chamber to themselves, masked, and robed from head to foot

in scarlet cloaks, and did not even know each other, unless by voice. It was their duty to judge heinous

political crimes, and from their sentence there was no appeal. A nod to the executioner was sufficient. The

doomed man was marched down a hall and out at a doorway into the covered Bridge of Sighs, through it

and into the dungeon and unto his death. At no time in his transit was he visible to any save his conductor. If

a man had an enemy in those old days, the cleverest thing he could do was to slip a note for the Council of

Three into the Lion's mouth, saying "This man is plotting against the Government." If the awful Three found

no proof, ten to one they would drown him anyhow, because he was a deep rascal, since his plots were

unsolvable. Masked judges and masked executioners, with unlimited power, and no appeal from their

judgements, in that hard, cruel age, were not likely to be lenient with men they suspected yet could not

We walked through the hall of the Council of Ten, and presently entered the infernal den of the Council of

The table around which they had sat was there still, and likewise the stations where the masked inquisitors

and executioners formerly stood, frozen, upright and silent, till they received a bloody order, and then,

without a word, moved off like the inexorable machines they were, to carry it out. The frescoes on the walls

were startlingly suited to the place. In all the other saloons, the halls, the great state chambers of the palace,

the walls and ceilings were bright with gilding, rich with elaborate carving, and resplendent with gallant

pictures of Venetian victories in war, and Venetian display in foreign courts, and hallowed with portraits of

the Virgin, the Saviour of men, and the holy saints that preached the Gospel of Peace upon earth but here,

in dismal contrast, were none but pictures of death and dreadful suffering! not a living figure but was

writhing in torture, not a dead one but was smeared with blood, gashed with wounds, and distorted with the

From the palace to the gloomy prison is but a step one might almost jump across the narrow canal that

intervenes. The ponderous stone Bridge of Sighs crosses it at the second story a bridge that is a covered

tunnel you can not be seen when you walk in it. It is partitioned lengthwise, and through one compartment

walked such as bore light sentences in ancient times, and through the other marched sadly the wretches whom

the Three had doomed to lingering misery and utter oblivion in the dungeons, or to sudden and mysterious

death. Down below the level of the water, by the light of smoking torches, we were shown the damp,

thickwalled cells where many a proud patrician's life was eaten away by the longdrawn miseries of solitary

imprisonment without light, air, books; naked, unshaven, uncombed, covered with vermin; his useless

tongue forgetting its office, with none to speak to; the days and nights of his life no longer marked, but

merged into one eternal eventless night; far away from all cheerful sounds, buried in the silence of a tomb;

forgotten by his helpless friends, and his fate a dark mystery to them forever; losing his own memory at last,

and knowing no more who he was or how he came there; devouring the loaf of bread and drinking the water

that were thrust into the cell by unseen hands, and troubling his worn spirit no more with hopes and fears and

doubts and longings to be free; ceasing to scratch vain prayers and complainings on walls where none, not

even himself, could see them, and resigning himself to hopeless apathy, driveling childishness, lunacy! Many

and many a sorrowful story like this these stony walls could tell if they could but speak.

In a little narrow corridor, near by, they showed us where many a prisoner, after lying in the dungeons until

he was forgotten by all save his persecutors, was brought by masked executioners and garroted, or sewed up

in a sack, passed through a little window to a boat, at dead of night, and taken to some remote spot and

They used to show to visitors the implements of torture wherewith the Three were wont to worm secrets out

of the accused villainous machines for crushing thumbs; the stocks where a prisoner sat immovable while

water fell drop by drop upon his head till the torture was more than humanity could bear; and a devilish

contrivance of steel, which inclosed a prisoner's head like a shell, and crushed it slowly by means of a screw.

It bore the stains of blood that had trickled through its joints long ago, and on one side it had a projection

whereon the torturer rested his elbow comfortably and bent down his ear to catch the moanings of the sufferer

Of course we went to see the venerable relic of the ancient glory of Venice, with its pavements worn and

broken by the passing feet of a thousand years of plebeians and patricians The Cathedral of St. Mark. It is

built entirely of precious marbles, brought from the Orient nothing in its composition is domestic. Its

hoary traditions make it an object of absorbing interest to even the most careless stranger, and thus far it had

interest for me; but no further. I could not go into ecstacies over its coarse mosaics, its unlovely Byzantine

architecture, or its five hundred curious interior columns from as many distant quarries. Every thing was

worn out every block of stone was smooth and almost shapeless with the polishing hands and shoulders of

loungers who devoutly idled here in bygone centuries and have died and gone to the dev no, simply died,

Under the altar repose the ashes of St. Mark and Matthew, Luke and John, too, for all I know. Venice

reveres those relics above all things earthly. For fourteen hundred years St. Mark has been her patron saint.

Every thing about the city seems to be named after him or so named as to refer to him in some way so

named, or some purchase rigged in some way to scrape a sort of hurrahing acquaintance with him. That

seems to be the idea. To be on good terms with St. Mark, seems to be the very summit of Venetian ambition.

They say St. Mark had a tame lion, and used to travel with him and every where that St. Mark went, the

lion was sure to go. It was his protector, his friend, his librarian. And so the Winged Lion of St. Mark, with

the open Bible under his paw, is a favorite emblem in the grand old city. It casts its shadow from the most

ancient pillar in Venice, in the Grand Square of St. Mark, upon the throngs of free citizens below, and has so

done for many a long century. The winged lion is found every where and doubtless here, where the

St. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt. He was martyred, I think. However, that has nothing to do with my

legend. About the founding of the city of Venice say four hundred and fifty years after Christ (for

Venice is much younger than any other Italian city,) a priest dreamed that an angel told him that until the

remains of St. Mark were brought to Venice, the city could never rise to high distinction among the nations;

that the body must be captured, brought to the city, and a magnificent church built over it; and that if ever the

Venetians allowed the Saint to be removed from his new restingplace, in that day Venice would perish from

off the face of the the earth. The priest proclaimed his dream, and forthwith Venice set about procuring the

corpse of St. Mark. One expedition after another tried and failed, but the project was never abandoned during

four hundred years. At last it was secured by stratagem, in the year eight hundred and something. The

commander of a Venetian expedition disguised himself, stole the bones, separated them, and packed them in

vessels filled with lard. The religion of Mahomet causes its devotees to abhor anything that is in the nature of

pork, and so when the Christian was stopped by the officers at the gates of the city, they only glanced once

into his precious baskets, then turned up their noses at the unholy lard, and let him go. The bones were buried

in the vaults of the grand cathedral, which had been waiting long years to receive them, and thus the safety

and the greatness of Venice were secured. And to this day there be those in Venice who believe that if those

holy ashes were stolen away, the ancient city would vanish like a dream, and its foundations be buried

THE Venetian gondola is as free and graceful, in its gliding movement, as a serpent. It is twenty or thirty feet

long, and is narrow and deep, like a canoe; its sharp bow and stern sweep upward from the water like the

The bow is ornamented with a steel comb with a battleax attachment which threatens to cut passing boats in

two occasionally, but never does. The gondola is painted black because in the zenith of Venetian

magnificence the gondolas became too gorgeous altogether, and the Senate decreed that all such display must

cease, and a solemn, unembellished black be substituted. If the truth were known, it would doubtless appear

that rich plebeians grew too prominent in their affectation of patrician show on the Grand Canal, and required

a wholesome snubbing. Reverence for the hallowed Past and its traditions keeps the dismal fashion in force

now that the compulsion exists no longer. So let it remain. It is the color of mourning. Venice mourns. The

stern of the boat is decked over and the gondolier stands there. He uses a single oar a long blade, of

course, for he stands nearly erect. A wooden peg, a foot and a half high, with two slight crooks or curves in

one side of it and one in the other, projects above the starboard gunwale. Against that peg the gondolier takes

a purchase with his oar, changing it at intervals to the other side of the peg or dropping it into another of the

crooks, as the steering of the craft may demand and how in the world he can back and fill, shoot straight

ahead, or flirt suddenly around a corner, and make the oar stay in those insignificant notches, is a problem to

me and a never diminishing matter of interest. I am afraid I study the gondolier's marvelous skill more than I

do the sculptured palaces we glide among. He cuts a corner so closely, now and then, or misses another

gondola by such an imperceptible hairbreadth that I feel myself "scrooching," as the children say, just as one

does when a buggy wheel grazes his elbow. But he makes all his calculations with the nicest precision, and

goes darting in and out among a Broadway confusion of busy craft with the easy confidence of the educated

Sometimes we go flying down the great canals at such a gait that we can get only the merest glimpses into

front doors, and again, in obscure alleys in the suburbs, we put on a solemnity suited to the silence, the

mildew, the stagnant waters, the clinging weeds, the deserted houses and the general lifelessness of the place,

The gondolier is a picturesque rascal for all he wears no satin harness, no plumed bonnet, no silken tights. His

attitude is stately; he is lithe and supple; all his movements are full of grace. When his long canoe, and his

fine figure, towering from its high perch on the stern, are cut against the evening sky, they make a picture that

We sit in the cushioned carriagebody of a cabin, with the curtains drawn, and smoke, or read, or look out

upon the passing boats, the houses, the bridges, the people, and enjoy ourselves much more than we could in

a buggy jolting over our cobblestone pavements at home. This is the gentlest, pleasantest locomotion we

But it seems queer ever so queer to see a boat doing duty as a private carriage. We see business men

come to the front door, step into a gondola, instead of a street car, and go off down town to the

We see visiting young ladies stand on the stoop, and laugh, and kiss goodbye, and flirt their fans and say

"Come soon now do you've been just as mean as ever you can be mother's dying to see you and

we've moved into the new house, O such a love of a place! so convenient to the post office and the church,

and the Young Men's Christian Association; and we do have such fishing, and such carrying on, and such

swimmingmatches in the back yard Oh, you must come no distance at all, and if you go down

through by St. Mark's and the Bridge of Sighs, and cut through the alley and come up by the church of Santa

Maria dei Frari, and into the Grand Canal, there isn't a bit of current now do come, Sally Maria

bybye!" and then the little humbug trips down the steps, jumps into the gondola, says, under her breath,

"Disagreeable old thing, I hope she won't!" goes skimming away, round the corner; and the other girl slams

the street door and says, "Well, that infliction's over, any way, but I suppose I've got to go and see her

tiresome stuckup thing!" Human nature appears to be just the same, all over the world. We see the diffident

young man, mild of moustache, affluent of hair, indigent of brain, elegant of costume, drive up to her father's

mansion, tell his hackman to bail out and wait, start fearfully up the steps and meet "the old gentleman" right

on the threshold! hear him ask what street the new British Bank is in as if that were what he came for

and then bounce into his boat and skurry away with his coward heart in his boots! see him come

sneaking around the corner again, directly, with a crack of the curtain open toward the old gentleman's

disappearing gondola, and out scampers his Susan with a flock of little Italian endearments fluttering from

her lips, and goes to drive with him in the watery avenues down toward the Rialto.

We see the ladies go out shopping, in the most natural way, and flit from street to street and from store to

store, just in the good old fashion, except that they leave the gondola, instead of a private carriage, waiting at

the curbstone a couple of hours for them, waiting while they make the nice young clerks pull down tons

and tons of silks and velvets and moire antiques and those things; and then they buy a paper of pins and go

paddling away to confer the rest of their disastrous patronage on some other firm. And they always have their

purchases sent home just in the good old way. Human nature is very much the same all over the world; and it

is so like my dear native home to see a Venetian lady go into a store and buy ten cents' worth of blue ribbon

and have it sent home in a scow. Ah, it is these little touches of nature that move one to tears in these faroff

We see little girls and boys go out in gondolas with their nurses, for an airing. We see staid families, with

prayerbook and beads, enter the gondola dressed in their Sunday best, and float away to church. And at

midnight we see the theatre break up and discharge its swarm of hilarious youth and beauty; we hear the cries

of the hackmangondoliers, and behold the struggling crowd jump aboard, and the black multitude of boats

go skimming down the moonlit avenues; we see them separate here and there, and disappear up divergent

streets; we hear the faint sounds of laughter and of shouted farewells floating up out of the distance; and then,

the strange pageant being gone, we have lonely stretches of glittering water of stately buildings of

blotting shadows of weird stone faces creeping into the moonlight of deserted bridges of

motionless boats at anchor. And over all broods that mysterious stillness, that stealthy quiet, that befits so

We have been pretty much every where in our gondola. We have bought beads and photographs in the stores,

and wax matches in the Great Square of St. Mark. The last remark suggests a digression. Every body goes to

this vast square in the evening. The military bands play in the centre of it and countless couples of ladies and

gentlemen promenade up and down on either side, and platoons of them are constantly drifting away toward

the old Cathedral, and by the venerable column with the Winged Lion of St . Mark on its top, and out to

where the boats lie moored; and other platoons are as constantly arriving from the gondolas and joining the

great throng. Between the promenaders and the sidewalks are seated hundreds and hundreds of people at

small tables, smoking and taking granita, (a first cousin to icecream;) on the sidewalks are more employing

themselves in the same way. The shops in the first floor of the tall rows of buildings that wall in three sides of

the square are brilliantly lighted, the air is filled with music and merry voices, and altogether the scene is as

bright and spirited and full of cheerfulness as any man could desire. We enjoy it thoroughly. Very many of

the young women are exceedingly pretty and dress with rare good taste. We are gradually and laboriously

learning the illmanners of staring them unflinchingly in the face not because such conduct is agreeable to

us, but because it is the custom of the country and they say the girls like it. We wish to learn all the curious,

outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can "show off" and astonish people when we get

home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't

shake off. All our passengers are paying strict attention to this thing, with the end in view which I have

mentioned. The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes

abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is

not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand

of fellowship and call him brother. I shall always delight to meet an ass after my own heart when I shall have

On this subject let me remark that there are Americans abroad in Italy who have actually forgotten their

mother tongue in three months forgot it in France. They can not even write their address in English in a

hotel register. I append these evidences, which I copied verbatim from the register of a hotel in a certain

"John P. Whitcomb, Etats Unis. "Wm. L. Ainsworth, travailleur (he meant traveler, I suppose,) Etats Unis.

"George P. Morton et fils, d'Amerique. "Lloyd B. Williams, et trois amis, ville de Boston, Amerique. "J.

Ellsworth Baker, tout de suite de France, place de naissance Amerique, destination la Grand Bretagne."

I love this sort of people. A lady passenger of ours tells of a fellowcitizen of hers who spent eight weeks in

Paris and then returned home and addressed his dearest old bosom friend Herbert as Mr. "Erbare!" He

apologized, though, and said, "'Pon my soul it is aggravating, but I cahn't help it I have got so used to

speaking nothing but French, my dear Erbare damme there it goes again! got so used to French

pronunciation that I cahn't get rid of it it is positively annoying, I assure you." This entertaining idiot,

whose name was Gordon, allowed himself to be hailed three times in the street before he paid any attention,

and then begged a thousand pardons and said he had grown so accustomed to hearing himself addressed as

M'sieu Gorrdong," with a roll to the r, that he had forgotten the legitimate sound of his name! He wore a

rose in his buttonhole; he gave the French salutation two flips of the hand in front of the face; he called

Paris Pairree in ordinary English conversation; he carried envelopes bearing foreign postmarks protruding

from his breastpocket; he cultivated a moustache and imperial, and did what else he could to suggest to the

beholder his pet fancy that he resembled Louis Napoleon and in a spirit of thankfulness which is entirely

unaccountable, considering the slim foundation there was for it, he praised his Maker that he was as he was,

and went on enjoying his little life just the same as if he really had been deliberately designed and erected by

Think of our Whitcombs, and our Ainsworths and our Williamses writing themselves down in dilapidated

French in foreign hotel registers! We laugh at Englishmen, when we are at home, for sticking so sturdily to

their national ways and customs, but we look back upon it from abroad very forgivingly. It is not pleasant to

see an American thrusting his nationality forward obtrusively in a foreign land, but Oh, it is pitiable to see

him making of himself a thing that is neither male nor female, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl a poor,

Among a long list of churches, art galleries, and such things, visited by us in Venice, I shall mention only one

the church of Santa Maria dei Frari. It is about five hundred years old, I believe, and stands on twelve

hundred thousand piles. In it lie the body of Canova and the heart of Titian, under magnificent monuments.

Titian died at the age of almost one hundred years. A plague which swept away fifty thousand lives was

raging at the time, and there is notable evidence of the reverence in which the great painter was held, in the

fact that to him alone the state permitted a public funeral in all that season of terror and death.

In this church, also, is a monument to the doge Foscari, whose name a once resident of Venice, Lord Byron,

The monument to the doge Giovanni Pesaro, in this church, is a curiosity in the way of mortuary adornment.

It is eighty feet high and is fronted like some fantastic pagan temple. Against it stand four colossal Nubians,

as black as night, dressed in white marble garments. The black legs are bare, and through rents in sleeves and

breeches, the skin, of shiny black marble, shows. The artist was as ingenious as his funeral designs were

absurd. There are two bronze skeletons bearing scrolls, and two great dragons uphold the sarcophagus. On

In the conventual buildings attached to this church are the state archives of Venice. We did not see them, but

they are said to number millions of documents. "They are the records of centuries of the most watchful,

observant and suspicious government that ever existed in which every thing was written down and

nothing spoken out." They fill nearly three hundred rooms. Among them are manuscripts from the archives of

nearly two thousand families, monasteries and convents. The secret history of Venice for a thousand years is

here its plots, its hidden trials, its assassinations, its commissions of hireling spies and masked bravoes

Yes, I think we have seen all of Venice. We have seen, in these old churches, a profusion of costly and

elaborate sepulchre ornamentation such as we never dreampt of before. We have stood in the dim religious

light of these hoary sanctuaries, in the midst of long ranks of dusty monuments and effigies of the great dead

of Venice, until we seemed drifting back, back, back, into the solemn past, and looking upon the scenes and

mingling with the peoples of a remote antiquity. We have been in a halfwaking sort of dream all the time. I

do not know how else to describe the feeling. A part of our being has remained still in the nineteenth century,

while another part of it has seemed in some unaccountable way walking among the phantoms of the tenth.

We have seen famous pictures until our eyes are weary with looking at them and refuse to find interest in

them any longer. And what wonder, when there are twelve hundred pictures by Palma the Younger in Venice

and fifteen hundred by Tintoretto? And behold there are Titians and the works of other artists in proportion.

We have seen Titian's celebrated Cain and Abel, his David and Goliah, his Abraham's Sacrifice. We have

seen Tintoretto's monster picture, which is seventyfour feet long and I do not know how many feet high, and

thought it a very commodious picture. We have seen pictures of martyrs enough, and saints enough, to

regenerate the world. I ought not to confess it, but still, since one has no opportunity in America to acquire a

critical judgment in art, and since I could not hope to become educated in it in Europe in a few short weeks, I

may therefore as well acknowledge with such apologies as may be due, that to me it seemed that when I had

seen one of these martyrs I had seen them all. They all have a marked family resemblance to each other, they

dress alike, in coarse monkish robes and sandals, they are all bald headed, they all stand in about the same

attitude, and without exception they are gazing heavenward with countenances which the Ainsworths, the

Mortons and the Williamses, et fils, inform me are full of "expression." To me there is nothing tangible about

these imaginary portraits, nothing that I can grasp and take a living interest in. If great Titian had only been

gifted with prophecy, and had skipped a martyr, and gone over to England and painted a portrait of

Shakspeare, even as a youth, which we could all have confidence in now, the world down to the latest

generations would have forgiven him the lost martyr in the rescued seer. I think posterity could have spared

one more martyr for the sake of a great historical picture of Titian's time and painted by his brush such as

Columbus returning in chains from the discovery of a world, for instance. The old masters did paint some

Venetian historical pictures, and these we did not tire of looking at, notwithstanding representations of the

formal introduction of defunct doges to the Virgin Mary in regions beyond the clouds clashed rather harshly

But humble as we are, and unpretending, in the matter of art, our researches among the painted monks and

martyrs have not been wholly in vain. We have striven hard to learn. We have had some success. We have

mastered some things, possibly of trifling import in the eyes of the learned, but to us they give pleasure, and

we take as much pride in our little acquirements as do others who have learned far more, and we love to

display them full as well. When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking tranquilly up to heaven,

we know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen, looking tranquilly up to heaven,

trying to think of a word, we know that that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a rock, looking

tranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, and without other baggage, we know that that is St.

Jerome. Because we know that he always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When we see a party

looking tranquilly up to heaven, unconscious that his body is shot through and through with arrows, we know

that that is St. Sebastian. When we see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but having no

trademark, we always ask who those parties are. We do this because we humbly wish to learn. We have

seen thirteen thousand St. Jeromes, and twentytwo thousand St. Marks, and sixteen thousand St. Matthews,

and sixty thousand St. Sebastians, and four millions of assorted monks, undesignated, and we feel encouraged

to believe that when we have seen some more of these various pictures, and had a larger experience, we shall

begin to take an absorbing interest in them like our cultivated countrymen from Amerique.

Now it does give me real pain to speak in this almost unappreciative way of the old masters and their martyrs,

because good friends of mine in the ship friends who do thoroughly and conscientiously appreciate them

and are in every way competent to discriminate between good pictures and inferior ones have urged me

for my own sake not to make public the fact that I lack this appreciation and this critical discrimination

myself. I believe that what I have written and may still write about pictures will give them pain, and I am

honestly sorry for it. I even promised that I would hide my uncouth sentiments in my own breast. But alas! I

never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my

physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which

enables me to make promises, that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I

grieve not. I like no halfway things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of

mere ordinary capacity. I certainly meant to keep that promise, but I find I can not do it. It is impossible to

travel through Italy without speaking of pictures, and can I see them through others' eyes?

If I did not so delight in the grand pictures that are spread before me every day of my life by that monarch of

all the old masters, Nature, I should come to believe, sometimes, that I had in me no appreciation of the

It seems to me that whenever I glory to think that for once I have discovered an ancient painting that is

beautiful and worthy of all praise, the pleasure it gives me is an infallible proof that it is not a beautiful

picture and not in any wise worthy of commendation. This very thing has occurred more times than I can

mention, in Venice. In every single instance the guide has crushed out my swelling enthusiasm with the

I did not know what in the mischief the Renaissance was, and so always I had to simply say,

I could not bear to be ignorant before a cultivated negro, the offspring of a South Carolina slave. But it

occurred too often for even my selfcomplacency, did that exasperating "It is nothing it is of the

"Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with

We learned, then, that Renaissance was not a man; that renaissance was a term used to signify what was at

best but an imperfect rejuvenation of art. The guide said that after Titian's time and the time of the other great

names we had grown so familiar with, high art declined; then it partially rose again an inferior sort of

painters sprang up, and these shabby pictures were the work of their hands. Then I said, in my heat, that I

"wished to goodness high art had declined five hundred years sooner." The Renaissance pictures suit me very

well, though sooth to say its school were too much given to painting real men and did not indulge enough in

The guide I have spoken of is the only one we have had yet who knew any thing. He was born in South

Carolina, of slave parents. They came to Venice while he was an infant. He has grown up here. He is well

educated. He reads, writes, and speaks English, Italian, Spanish, and French, with perfect facility; is a

worshipper of art and thoroughly conversant with it; knows the history of Venice by heart and never tires of

talking of her illustrious career. He dresses better than any of us, I think, and is daintily polite. Negroes are

deemed as good as white people, in Venice, and so this man feels no desire to go back to his native land. His

I have had another shave. I was writing in our front room this afternoon and trying hard to keep my attention

on my work and refrain from looking out upon the canal. I was resisting the soft influences of the climate as

well as I could, and endeavoring to overcome the desire to be indolent and happy. The boys sent for a barber.

They asked me if I would be shaved. I reminded them of my tortures in Genoa, Milan, Como; of my

declaration that I would suffer no more on Italian soil. I said "Not any for me, if you please."

My rough beard wee distressing me beyond measure. The barber was rolling up his apparatus. The temptation

I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes. The barber soaped my face, and then took his razor and gave me a

rake that well nigh threw me into convulsions. I jumped out of the chair: Dan and the doctor were both

They said that the misery of this shave had gone so far beyond any thing they had ever experienced before,

that they could not bear the idea of losing such a chance of hearing a cordial opinion from me on the subject.

It was shameful. But there was no help for it. The skinning was begun and had to be finished. The tears

flowed with every rake, and so did the fervent execrations. The barber grew confused, and brought blood

every time. I think the boys enjoyed it better than any thing they have seen or heard since they left home.

We have seen the Campanile, and Byron's house and Balbi's the geographer, and the palaces of all the ancient

dukes and doges of Venice, and we have seen their effeminate descendants airing their nobility in fashionable

French attire in the Grand Square of St. Mark, and eating ices and drinking cheap wines, instead of wearing

gallant coats of mail and destroying fleets and armies as their great ancestors did in the days of Venetian

glory. We have seen no bravoes with poisoned stilettos, no masks, no wild carnival; but we have seen the

ancient pride of Venice, the grim Bronze Horses that figure in a thousand legends. Venice may well cherish

them, for they are the only horses she ever had. It is said there are hundreds of people in this curious city who

And so, having satisfied ourselves, we depart tomorrow, and leave the venerable Queen of the Republics to

summon her vanished ships, and marshal her shadowy armies, and know again in dreams the pride of her old

SOME of the Quaker City's passengers had arrived in Venice from Switzerland and other lands before we left

there, and others were expected every day. We heard of no casualties among them, and no sickness.

We were a little fatigued with sight seeing, and so we rattled through a good deal of country by rail without

caring to stop. I took few notes. I find no mention of Bologna in my memorandum book, except that we

arrived there in good season, but saw none of the sausages for which the place is so justly celebrated.

Florence pleased us for a while. I think we appreciated the great figure of David in the grand square, and the

sculptured group they call the Rape of the Sabines. We wandered through the endless collections of paintings

and statues of the Pitti and Ufizzi galleries, of course. I make that statement in selfdefense; there let it stop. I

could not rest under the imputation that I visited Florence and did not traverse its weary miles of picture

galleries. We tried indolently to recollect something about the Guelphs and Ghibelines and the other

historical cutthroats whose quarrels and assassinations make up so large a share of Florentine history, but

the subject was not attractive. We had been robbed of all the fine mountain scenery on our little journey by a

system of railroading that had three miles of tunnel to a hundred yards of daylight, and we were not inclined

to be sociable with Florence. We had seen the spot, outside the city somewhere, where these people had

allowed the bones of Galileo to rest in unconsecrated ground for an age because his great discovery that the

world turned around was regarded as a damning heresy by the church; and we know that long after the world

had accepted his theory and raised h is name high in the list of its great men, they had still let him rot there.

That we had lived to see his dust in honored sepulture in the church of Santa Croce we owed to a society of

literati, and not to Florence or her rulers. We saw Dant�'s tomb in that church, also, but we were glad to know

that his body was not in it; that the ungrateful city that had exiled him and persecuted him would give much

to have it there, but need not hope to ever secure that high honor to herself. Medicis are good enough for

Florence. Let her plant Medicis and build grand monuments over them to testify how gratefully she was wont

Magnanimous Florence! Her jewelry marts are filled with artists in mosaic. Florentine mosaics are the

choicest in all the world. Florence loves to have that said. Florence is proud of it. Florence would foster this

specialty of hers. She is grateful to the artists that bring to her this high credit and fill her coffers with foreign

money, and so she encourages them with pensions. With pensions! Think of the lavishness of it. She knows

that people who piece together the beautiful trifles die early, because the labor is so confining, and so

exhausting to hand and brain, and so she has decreed that all these people who reach the age of sixty shall

have a pension after that! I have not heard that any of them have called for their dividends yet. One man did

fight along till he was sixty, and started after his pension, but it appeared that there had been a mistake of a

These artists will take particles of stone or glass no larger than a mustard seed, and piece them together on a

sleeve button or a shirt stud, so smoothly and with such nice adjustment of the delicate shades of color the

pieces bear, as to form a pigmy rose with stem, thorn, leaves, petals complete, and all as softly and as

truthfully tinted as though Nature had builded it herself. They will counterfeit a fly, or a hightoned bug, or

the ruined Coliseum, within the cramped circle of a breastpin, and do it so deftly and so neatly that any man

I saw a little table in the great mosaic school in Florence a little trifle of a centre table whose top was

made of some sort of precious polished stone, and in the stone was inlaid the figure of a flute, with

bellmouth and a mazy complication of keys. No painting in the world could have been softer or richer; no

shading out of one tint into another could have been more perfect; no work of art of any kind could have been

more faultless than this flute, and yet to count the multitude of little fragments of stone of which they swore it

was formed would bankrupt any man's arithmetic! I do not think one could have seen where two particles

joined each other with eyes of ordinary shrewdness. Certainly we could detect no such blemish. This

tabletop cost the labor of one man for ten long years, so they said, and it was for sale for thirtyfive

We went to the Church of Santa Croce, from time to time, in Florence, to weep over the tombs of Michael

Angelo, Raphael and Machiavelli, (I suppose they are buried there, but it may be that they reside elsewhere

and rent their tombs to other parties such being the fashion in Italy,) and between times we used to go and

stand on the bridges and admire the Arno. It is popular to admire the Arno. It is a great historical creek with

four feet in the channel and some scows floating around. It would be a very plausible river if they would

pump some water into it. They all call it a river, and they honestly think it is a river, do these dark and bloody

Florentines. They even help out the delusion by building bridges over it. I do not see why they are too good

How the fatigues and annoyances of travel fill one with bitter prejudices sometimes! I might enter Florence

under happier auspices a month hence and find it all beautiful, all attractive. But I do not care to think of it

now, at all, nor of its roomy shops filled to the ceiling with snowy marble and alabaster copies of all the

celebrated sculptures in Europe copies so enchanting to the eye that I wonder how they can really be

shaped like the dingy petrified nightmares they are the portraits of. I got lost in Florence at nine o'clock, one

night, and staid lost in that labyrinth of narrow streets and long rows of vast buildings that look all alike, until

toward three o'clock in the morning. It was a pleasant night and at first there were a good many people

abroad, and there were cheerful lights about. Later, I grew accustomed to prowling about mysterious drifts

and tunnels and astonishing and interesting myself with coming around corners expecting to find the hotel

staring me in the face, and not finding it doing any thing of the kind. Later still, I felt tired. I soon felt

remarkably tired. But there was no one abroad, now not even a policeman. I walked till I was out of all

patience, and very hot and thirsty. At last, somewhere after one o'clock, I came unexpectedly to one of the

city gates. I knew then that I was very far from the hotel. The soldiers thought I wanted to leave the city, and

It was all the Italian I knew, and I was not certain whether that was Italian or French. The soldiers looked

stupidly at each other and at me, and shook their heads and took me into custody. I said I wanted to go home.

They did not understand me. They took me into the guardhouse and searched me, but they found no sedition

on me. They found a small piece of soap (we carry soap with us, now,) and I made them a present of it,

seeing that they regarded it as a curiosity. I continued to say Hotel d'Europe, and they continued to shake

their heads, until at last a young soldier nodding in the corner roused up and said something. He said he knew

where the hotel was, I suppose, for the officer of the guard sent him away with me. We walked a hundred or a

hundred and fifty miles, it appeared to me, and then he got lost. He turned this way and that, and finally gave

it up and signified that he was going to spend the remainder of the morning trying to find the city gate again.

At that moment it struck me that there was something familiar about the house over the way. It was the hotel!

It was a happy thing for me that there happened to be a soldier there that knew even as much as he did; for

they say that the policy of the government is to change the soldiery from one place to another constantly and

from country to city, so that they can not become acquainted with the people and grow lax in their duties and

enter into plots and conspiracies with friends. My experiences of Florence were chiefly unpleasant. I will

At Pisa we climbed up to the top of the strangest structure the world has any knowledge of the Leaning

Tower. As every one knows, it is in the neighborhood of one hundred and eighty feet high and I beg to

observe that one hundred and eighty feet reach to about the hight of four ordinary threestory buildings piled

one on top of the other, and is a very considerable altitude for a tower of uniform thickness to aspire to, even

when it stands upright yet this one leans more than thirteen feet out of the perpendicular. It is seven

hundred years old, but neither history or tradition say whether it was built as it is, purposely, or whether one

of its sides has settled. There is no record that it ever stood straight up. It is built of marble. It is an airy and a

beautiful structure, and each of its eight stories is encircled by fluted columns, some of marble and some of

granite, with Corinthian capitals that were handsome when they were new. It is a bell tower, and in its top

hangs a chime of ancient bells. The winding staircase within is dark, but one always knows which side of the

tower he is on because of his naturally gravitating from one side to the other of the staircase with the rise or

dip of the tower. Some of the stone steps are footworn only on one end; others only on the other end; others

only in the middle. To look down into the tower from the top is like looking down into a tilted well. A rope

that hangs from the centre of the top touches the wall before it reaches the bottom. Standing on the summit,

one does not feel altogether comfortable when he looks down from the high side; but to crawl on your breast

to the verge on the lower side and try to stretch your neck out far enough to see the base of the tower, makes

your flesh creep, and convinces you for a single moment in spite of all your philosophy, that the building is

falling. You handle yourself very carefully, all the time, under the silly impression that if it is not falling,

your trifling weight will start it unless you are particular not to "bear down" on it.

The Duomo, close at hand, is one of the finest cathedrals in Europe. It is eight hundred years old. Its grandeur

has outlived the high commercial prosperity and the political importance that made it a necessity, or rather a

possibility. Surrounded by poverty, decay and ruin, it conveys to us a more tangible impression of the former

The Baptistery, which is a few years older than the Leaning Tower, is a stately rotunda, of huge dimensions,

and was a costly structure. In it hangs the lamp whose measured swing suggested to Galileo the pendulum. It

looked an insignificant thing to have conferred upon the world of science and mechanics such a mighty

extension of their dominions as it has. Pondering, in its suggestive presence, I seemed to see a crazy universe

of swinging disks, the toiling children of this sedate parent. He appeared to have an intelligent expression

about him of knowing that he was not a lamp at all; that he was a Pendulum; a pendulum disguised, for

prodigious and inscrutable purposes of his own deep devising, and not a common pendulum either, but the

This Baptistery is endowed with the most pleasing echo of all the echoes we have read of. The guide sounded

two sonorous notes, about half an octave apart; the echo answered with the most enchanting, the most

melodious, the richest blending of sweet sounds that one can imagine. It was like a longdrawn chord of a

church organ, infinitely softened by distance. I may be extravagant in this matter, but if this be the case my

ear is to blame not my pen. I am describing a memory and one that will remain long with me.

The peculiar devotional spirit of the olden time, which placed a higher confidence in outward forms of

worship than in the watchful guarding of the heart against sinful thoughts and the hands against sinful deeds,

and which believed in the protecting virtues of inanimate objects made holy by contact with holy things, is

illustrated in a striking manner in one of the cemeteries of Pisa. The tombs are set in soil brought in ships

from the Holy Land ages ago. To be buried in such ground was regarded b y the ancient Pisans as being more

potent for salvation than many masses purchased of the church and the vowing of many candles to the Virgin.

Pisa is believed to be about three thousand years old. It was one of the twelve great cities of ancient Etruria,

that commonwealth which has left so many monuments in testimony of its extraordinary advancement, and

so little history of itself that is tangible and comprehensible. A Pisan antiquarian gave me an ancient tearjug

which he averred was full four thousand years old. It was found among the ruins of one of the oldest of the

Etruscan cities. He said it came from a tomb, and was used by some bereaved family in that remote age when

even the Pyramids of Egypt were young, Damascus a village, Abraham a prattling infant and ancient Troy not

yet dreampt of, to receive the tears wept for some lost idol of a household. It spoke to us in a language of its

own; and with a pathos more tender than any words might bring, its mute eloquence swept down the long roll

of the centuries with its tale of a vacant chair, a familiar footstep missed from the threshold, a pleasant voice

gone from the chorus, a vanished form! a tale which is always so new to us, so startling, so terrible, so

benumbing to the senses, and behold how threadbare and old it is! No shrewdlyworded history could have

brought the myths and shadows of that old dreamy age before us clothed with human flesh and warmed with

human sympathies so vividly as did this poor little unsentient vessel of pottery.

Pisa was a republic in the middle ages, with a government of her own, armies and navies of her own and a

great commerce. She was a warlike power, and inscribed upon her banners many a brilliant fight with

Genoese and Turks. It is said that the city once numbered a population of four hundred thousand; but her

sceptre has passed from her grasp, now, her ships and her armies are gone, her commerce is dead. Her

battleflags bear the mold and the dust of centuries, her marts are deserted, she has shrunk en far within her

crumbling walls, and her great population has diminished to twenty thousand souls. She has but one thing left

We reached Leghorn in time to see all we wished to see of it long before the city gates were closed for the

We felt as though we had been away from home an age. We never entirely appreciated, before, what a very

pleasant den our stateroom is; nor how jolly it is to sit at dinner in one's own seat in one's own cabin, and

hold familiar conversation with friends in one's own language. Oh, the rare happiness of comprehending

every single word that is said, and knowing that every word one says in return will be understood as well! We

would talk ourselves to death, now, only there are only about ten passengers out of the sixtyfive to talk to.

The others are wandering, we hardly know where. We shall not go ashore in Leghorn. We are surfeited with

Italian cities for the present, and much prefer to walk the familiar quarterdeck and view this one from a

The stupid magnates of this Leghorn government can not understand that so large a steamer as ours could

cross the broad Atlantic with no other purpose than to indulge a party of ladies and gentlemen in a pleasure

excursion. It looks too improbable. It is suspicious, they think. Something more important must be hidden

behind it all. They can not understand it, and they scorn the evidence of the ship's papers. They have decided

at last that we are a battalion of incendiary, bloodthirsty Garibaldians in disguise! And in all seriousness

they have set a gunboat to watch the vessel night and day, with orders to close down on any revolutionary

movement in a twinkling! Police boats are on patrol duty about us all the time, and it is as much as a sailor's

liberty is worth to show himself in a red shirt. These policemen follow the executive officer's boat from shore

to ship and from ship to shore and watch his dark maneuvres with a vigilant eye. They will arrest him yet

unless he assumes an expression of countenance that shall have less of carnage, insurrection and sedition in it.

A visit paid in a friendly way to General Garibaldi yesterday (by cordial invitation,) by some of our

passengers, has gone far to confirm the dread suspicions the government harbors toward us. It is thought the

friendly visit was only the cloak of a bloody conspiracy. These people draw near and watch us when we bathe

in the sea from the ship's side. Do they think we are communing with a reserve force of rascals at the bottom?

It is said that we shall probably be quarantined at Naples. Two or three of us prefer not to run this risk.

Therefore, when we are rested, we propose to go in a French steamer to Civita and from thence to Rome, and

by rail to Naples. They do not quarantine the cars, no matter where they got their passengers from.

THERE are a good many things about this Italy which I do not understand and more especially I can not

understand how a bankrupt Government can have such palatial railroad depots and such marvels of turnpikes.

Why, these latter are as hard as adamant, as straight as a line, as smooth as a floor, and as white as snow.

When it is too dark to see any other object, one can still see the white turnpikes of France and Italy; and they

are clean enough to eat from, without a tablecloth. And yet no tolls are charged.

As for the railways we have none like them. The cars slide as smoothly along as if they were on runners.

The depots are vast palaces of cut marble, with stately colonnades of the same royal stone traversing them

from end to end, and with ample walls and ceilings richly decorated with frescoes. The lofty gateways are

graced with statues, and the broad floors are all laid in polished flags of marble.

These things win me more than Italy's hundred galleries of priceless art treasures, because I can understand

the one and am not competent to appreciate the other. In the turnpikes, the railways, the depots, and the new

boulevards of uniform houses in Florence and other cities here, I see the genius of Louis Napoleon, or rather,

I see the works of that statesman imitated. But Louis has taken care that in France there shall be a foundation

for these improvements money. He has always the wherewithal to back up his projects; they strengthen

France and never weaken her. Her material prosperity is genuine. But here the case is different. This country

is bankrupt. There is no real foundation for these great works. The prosperity they would seem to indicate is a

pretence. There is no money in the treasury, and so they enfeeble her instead of strengthening. Italy has

achieved the dearest wish of her heart and become an independent State and in so doing she has drawn an

elephant in the political lottery. She has nothing to feed it on. Inexperienced in government, she plunged into

all manner of useless expenditure, and swamped her treasury almost in a day. She squandered millions of

francs on a navy which she did not need, and the first time she took her new toy into action she got it knocked

But it is an illwind that blows nobody good. A year ago, when Italy saw utter ruin staring her in the face and

her greenbacks hardly worth the paper they were printed on, her Parliament ventured upon a coup de main

that would have appalled the stoutest of her statesmen under less desperate circumstances. They, in a manner,

confiscated the domains of the Church! This in priestridden Italy! This in a land which has groped in the

midnight of priestly superstition for sixteen hundred years! It was a rare good fortune for Italy, the stress of

They do not call it confiscating the church property. That would sound too harshly yet. But it amounts to that.

There are thousands of churches in Italy, each with untold millions of treasures stored away in its closets, and

each with its battalion of priests to be supported. And then there are the estates of the Church league on

league of the richest lands and the noblest forests in all Italy all yielding immense revenues to the Church,

and none paying a cent in taxes to the State. In some great districts the Church owns all the property

lands, watercourses, woods, mills and factories. They buy, they sell, they manufacture, and since they pay no

Well, the Government has seized all this in effect, and will yet seize it in rigid and unpoetical reality, no

doubt. Something must be done to feed a starving treasury, and there is no other resource in all Italy none

but the riches of the Church. So the Government intends to take to itself a great portion of the revenues

arising from priestly farms, factories, etc., and also intends to take possession of the churches and carry them

on, after its own fashion and upon its own responsibility. In a few instances it will leave the establishments of

great pet churches undisturbed, but in all others only a handful of priests will be retained to preach and pray,

Pray glance at some of these churches and their embellishments, and see whether the Government is doing a

righteous thing or not. In Venice, today, a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, there are twelve hundred

priests. Heaven only knows how many there were before the Parliament reduced their numbers. There was

the great Jesuit Church. Under the old regime it required sixty priests to engineer it the Government does

it with five, now, and the others are discharged from service. All about that church wretchedness and poverty

abound. At its door a dozen hats and bonnets were doffed to us, as many heads were humbly bowed, and as

many hands extended, appealing for pennies appealing with foreign words we could not understand, but

appealing mutely, with sad eyes, and sunken cheeks, and ragged raiment, that no words were needed to

translate. Then we passed within the great doors, and it seemed that the riches of the world were before us!

Huge columns carved out of single masses of marble, and inlaid from top to bottom with a hundred intricate

figures wrought in costly verde antique; pulpits of the same rich materials, whose draperies hung down in

many a pictured fold, the stony fabric counterfeiting the delicate work of the loom; the grand altar brilliant

with polished facings and balustrades of oriental agate, jasper, verde antique, and other precious stones,

whose names, even, we seldom hear and slabs of priceless lapis lazuli lavished every where as recklessly

as if the church had owned a quarry of it. In the midst of all this magnificence, the solid gold and silver

furniture of the altar seemed cheap and trivial. Even the floors and ceilings cost a princely fortune.

Now, where is the use of allowing all those riches to lie idle, while half of that community hardly know, from

day to day, how they are going to keep body and soul together? And, where is the wisdom in permitting

hundreds upon hundreds of millions of francs to be locked up in the useless trumpery of churches all over

Italy, and the people ground to death with taxation to uphold a perishing Government?

As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, and all her

industry to the building up of a vast array of wonderful church edifices, and starving half her citizens to

accomplish it. She is today one vast museum of magnificence and misery. All the churches in an ordinary

American city put together could hardly buy the jeweled frippery in one of her hundred cathedrals. And for

every beggar in America, Italy can show a hundred and rags and vermin to match. It is the wretchedest,

Look at the grand Duomo of Florence a vast pile that has been sapping the purses of her citizens for five

hundred years, and is not nearly finished yet. Like all other men, I fell down and worshipped it, but when the

filthy beggars swarmed around me the contrast was too striking, too suggestive, and I said, "O, sons of classic

Italy, is the spirit of enterprise, of selfreliance, of noble endeavor, utterly dead within ye? Curse your

And now that my temper is up, I may as well go on and abuse every body I can think of. They have a grand

mausoleum in Florence, which they built to bury our Lord and Saviour and the Medici family in. It sounds

blasphemous, but it is true, and here they act blasphemy. The dead and damned Medicis who cruelly

tyrannized over Florence and were her curse for over two hundred years, are salted away in a circle of costly

vaults, and in their midst the Holy Sepulchre was to have been set up. The expedition sent to Jerusalem to

seize it got into trouble and could not accomplish the burglary, and so the centre of the mausoleum is vacant

now. They say the entire mausoleum was intended for the Holy Sepulchre, and was only turned into a family

burying place after the Jerusalem expedition failed but you will excuse me. Some of those Medicis would

have smuggled themselves in sure. What they had not the effrontery to do, was not worth doing. Why,

they had their trivial, forgotten exploits on land and sea pictured out in grand frescoes (as did also the ancient

Doges of Venice) with the Saviour and the Virgin throwing bouquets to them out of the clouds, and the Deity

himself applauding from his throne in Heaven! And who painted these things? Why, Titian, Tintoretto, Paul

Andrea del Sarto glorified his princes in pictures that must save them for ever from the oblivion they merited,

and they let him starve. Served him right. Raphael pictured such infernal villains as Catherine and Marie de

Medicis seated in heaven and conversing familiarly with the Virgin Mary and the angels, (to say nothing of

higher personages,) and yet my friends abuse me because I am a little prejudiced against the old masters

because I fail sometimes to see the beauty that is in their productions . I can not help but see it, now and then,

but I keep on protesting against the groveling spirit that could persuade those masters to prostitute their noble

talents to the adulation of such monsters as the French, Venetian and Florentine Princes of two an d three

I am told that the old masters had to do these shameful things for bread, the princes and potentates being the

only patrons of art. If a grandly gifted man may drag his pride and his manhood in the dirt for bread rather

than starve with the nobility that is in him untainted, the excuse is a valid one. It would excuse theft in

But somehow, I can not keep that Medici mausoleum out of my memory. It is as large as a church; its

pavement is rich enough for the pavement of a King's palace; its great dome is gorgeous with frescoes; its

walls are made of what? Marble? plaster? wood? paper? No. Red porphyry verde antique

jasper oriental agate alabaster motherofpearl chalcedony red coral lapis lazuli! All the

vast walls are made wholly of these precious stones, worked in, and in and in together in elaborate pattern s

and figures, and polished till they glow like great mirrors with the pictured splendors reflected from the dome

overhead. And before a statue of one of those dead Medicis reposes a crown that blazes with diamonds and

emeralds enough to buy a shipoftheline, almost. These are the things the Government has its evil eye

upon, and a happy thing it will be for Italy when they melt away in the public treasury.

And now . However, another beggar approaches. I will go out and destroy him, and then come back and

Having eaten the friendless orphan having driven away his comrades having grown calm and

reflective at length I now feel in a kindlier mood. I feel that after talking so freely about the priests and the

churches, justice demands that if I know any thing good about either I ought to say it. I have heard of many

things that redound to the credit of the priesthood, but the most notable matter that occurs to me now is the

devotion one of the mendicant orders showed during the prevalence of the cholera last year. I speak of the

Dominican friars men who wear a coarse, heavy brown robe and a cowl, in this hot climate, and go

barefoot. They live on alms altogether, I believe. They must unquestionably love their religion, to suffer so

much for it. When the cholera was raging in Naples; when the people were dying by hundreds and hundreds

every day; when every concern for the public welfare was swallowed up in selfish private interest, and every

citizen made the taking care of himself his sole object, these men banded themselves together and went about

nursing the sick and burying the dead. Their noble efforts cost many of them their lives. They laid them down

cheerfully, and well they might. Creeds mathematically precise, and hairsplitting niceties of doctrine, are

absolutely necessary for the salvation of some kinds of souls, but surely the charity, the purity, the

unselfishness that are in the hearts of men like these would save their souls though they were bankrupt in the

One of these fat barefooted rascals came here to Civita Vecchia with us in the little French steamer. There

were only half a dozen of us in the cabin. He belonged in the steerage. He was the life of the ship, the

bloodyminded son of the Inquisition! He and the leader of the marine band of a French manofwar played

on the piano and sang opera turn about; they sang duets together; they rigged impromptu theatrical costumes

and gave us extravagant farces and pantomimes. We got along firstrate with the friar, and were excessively

conversational, albeit he could not understand what we said, and certainly he never uttered a word that we

This Civita Vecchia is the finest nest of dirt, vermin and ignorance we have found yet, except that African

perdition they call Tangier, which is just like it. The people here live in alleys two yards wide, which have a

smell about them which is peculiar but not entertaining. It is well the alleys are not wider, because they hold

as much smell now as a person can stand, and of course, if they were wider they would hold more, and then

the people would die. These alleys are paved with stone, and carpeted with deceased cats, and decayed rags,

and decomposed vegetabletops, and remnants of old boots, all soaked with dishwater, and the people sit

around on stools and enjoy it. They are indolent, as a general thing, and yet have few pastimes. They work

two or three hours at a time, but not hard, and then they knock off and catch flies. This does not require any

talent, because they only have to grab if they do not get the one they are after, they get another. It is all the

same to them. They have no partialities. Whichever one they get is the one they want.

They have other kinds of insects, but it does not make them arrogant. They are very quiet, unpretending

people. They have more of these kind of things than other communities, but they do not boast.

They are very uncleanly these people in face, in person and dress. When they see any body with a

clean shirt on, it arouses their scorn. The women wash clothes, half the day, at the public tanks in the streets,

but they are probably somebody else's. Or may be they keep one set to wear and another to wash; because

they never put on any that have ever been washed. When they get done washing, they sit in the alleys and

nurse their cubs. They nurse one ashcat at a time, and the others scratch their backs against the doorpost

All this country belongs to the Papal States. They do not appear to have any schools here, and only one

billiard table. Their education is at a very low stage. One portion of the men go into the military, another into

They keep up the passport system here, but so they do in Turkey. This shows that the Papal States are as far

advanced as Turkey. This fact will be alone sufficient to silence the tongues of malignant calumniators. I had

to get my passport vised for Rome in Florence, and then they would not let me come ashore here until a

policeman had examined it on the wharf and sent me a permit. They did not even dare to let me take my

passport in my hands for twelve hours, I looked so formidable. They judged it best to let me cool down. They

thought I wanted to take the town, likely. Little did they know me. I wouldn't have it. They examined my

baggage at the depot. They took one of my ablest jokes and read it over carefully twice and then read it

backwards. But it was too deep for them. They passed it around, and every body speculated on it awhile, but

It was no common joke. At length a veteran officer spelled it over deliberately and shook his head three or

four times and said that in his opinion it was seditious. That was the first time I felt alarmed. I immediately

said I would explain the document, and they crowded around. And so I explained and explained and

explained, and they took notes of all I said, but the more I explained the more they could not understand it,

and when they desisted at last, I could not even understand it myself. They said they believed it was an

incendiary document, leveled at the government. I declared solemnly that it was not, but they only shook

their heads and would not be satisfied. Then they consulted a good while; and finally they confiscated it. I

was very sorry for this, because I had worked a long time on that joke, and took a good deal of pride in it, and

now I suppose I shall never see it any more. I suppose it will be sent up and filed away among the criminal

archives of Rome, and will always be regarded as a mysterious infernal machine which would have blown up

like a mine and scattered the good Pope all around, but for a miraculous providential interference. And I

suppose that all the time I am in Rome the police will dog me about from place to place because they think I

It is fearfully hot in Civita Vecchia. The streets are made very narrow and the houses built very solid and

heavy and high, as a protection against the heat. This is the first Italian town I have seen which does not

appear to have a patron saint. I suppose no saint but the one that went up in the chariot of fire could stand the

There is nothing here to see. They have not even a cathedral, with eleven tons of solid silver archbishops in

the back room; and they do not show you any moldy buildings that are seven thousand years old; nor any

smokedried old firescreens which are chef d'oeuvres of Reubens or Simpson, or Titian or Ferguson, or any

of those parties; and they haven't any bottled fragments of saints, and not even a nail from the true cross. We

WHAT is it that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that

which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others

have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin

atmosphere. To give birth to an idea to discover a great thought an intellectual nugget, right under the

dust of a field that many a brain plow had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge,

to find the way to make the lightnings carry your messages. To be the first that is the idea. To do

something, say something, see something, before any body else these are the things that confer a pleasure

compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Morse,

with his first message, brought by his servant, the lightning; Fulton, in that longdrawn century of suspense,

when he placed his hand upon the throttlevalve and lo, the steamboat moved; Jenner, when his patient with

the cow's virus in his blood, walked through the smallpox hospitals unscathed; Howe, when the idea shot

through his brain that for a hundred and twenty generations the eye had been bored through the wrong end of

the needle; the nameless lord of art who laid down his chisel in some old age that is forgotten, now, and

gloated upon the finished Laocoon; Daguerre, when he commanded the sun, riding in the zenith, to print the

landscape upon his insignifi cant silvered plate, and he obeyed; Columbus, in the Pinta's shrouds, when he

swung his hat above a fabled sea and gazed abroad upon an unknown world! These are the men who have

really lived who have actually comprehended what pleasure is who have crowded long lifetimes of

What is there in Rome for me to see that others have not seen before me? What is there for me to touch that

others have not touched? What is there for me to feel, to learn, to hear, to know, that shall thrill me before it

pass to others? What can I discover? Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. One charm of travel dies here. But if I

were only a Roman! If, added to my own I could be gifted with modern Roman sloth, modern Roman

superstition, and modern Roman boundlessness of ignorance, what bewildering worlds of unsuspected

wonders I would discover! Ah, if I were only a habitant of the Campagna five and twenty miles from Rome!

I would go to America, and see, and learn, and return to the Campagna and stand before my countrymen an

"I saw there a country which has no overshadowing Mother Church, and yet the people survive. I saw a

government which never was protected by foreign soldiers at a cost greater than that required to carry on the

government itself. I saw common men and common women who could read; I even saw small children of

common country people reading from books; if I dared think you would believe it, I would say they could

write, also. In the cities I saw people drinking a delicious beverage made of chalk and water, but never once

saw goats driven through their Broadway or their Pennsylvania Avenue or their Montgomery street and

milked at the doors of the houses. I saw real glass windows in the houses of even the commonest people.

Some of the houses are not of stone, nor yet of bricks; I solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses there

will take fire and burn, sometimes actually burn entirely down, and not leave a single vestige behind. I

could state that for a truth, upon my deathbed. And as a proof that the circumstance is not rare, I aver that

they have a thing which they call a fireengine, which vomits forth great streams of water, and is kept always

in readiness, by night and by day, to rush to houses that are burning. You would think one engine would be

sufficient, but some great cities have a hundred; they keep men hired, and pay them by the month to do

nothing but put out fires. For a certain sum of money other men will insure that your house shall not burn

down; and if it burns they will pay you for it. There are hundreds and thousands of schools, and any body

may go and learn to be wise, like a priest. In that singular country if a rich man dies a sinner, he is damned;

he can not buy salvation with money for masses. There is really not much use in being rich, there. Not much

use as far as the other world is concerned, but much, very much use, as concerns this; because there, if a man

be rich, he is very greatly honored, and can become a legislator, a governor, a general, a senator, no matter

how ignorant an ass he is just as in our beloved Italy the nobles hold all the great places, even though

sometimes they are born noble idiots. There, if a man be rich, they give him costly presents, they ask him to

feasts, they invite him to drink complicated beverages; but if he be poor and in debt, they require him to do

that which they term to "settle." The women put on a different dress almost every day; the dress is usually

fine, but absurd in shape; the very shape and fashion of it changes twice in a hundred years; and did I but

covet to be called an extravagant falsifier, I would say it changed even oftener. Hair does not grow upon the

American women's heads; it is made for them by cunning workmen in the shops, and is curled and frizzled

into scandalous and ungodly forms. Some persons wear eyes of glass which they see through with facility

perhaps, else they would not use them; and in the mouths of some are teeth made by the sacrilegious hand of

man. The dress of the men is laughably grotesque. They carry no musket in ordinary life, nor no

longpointed pole; they wear no wide greenlined cloak; they wear no peaked black felt hat, no leathern

gaiters reaching to the knee, no goatskin breeches with the hair side out, no hobnailed shoes, no prodigious

spurs. They wear a conical hat termed a "nailkag;" a coat of saddest black; a shirt which s hows dirt so

easily that it has to be changed every month, and is very troublesome; things called pantaloons, which are

held up by shoulder straps, and on their feet they wear boots which are ridiculous in pattern and can stand no

wear. Yet dressed in this fantastic garb, these people laughed at my costume. In that country, books are so

common that it is really no curiosity to see one. Newspapers also. They have a great machine which prints

"I saw common men, there men who were neither priests nor princes who yet absolutely owned the

land they tilled. It was not rented from the church, nor from the nobles. I am ready to take my oath of this. In

that country you might fall from a third story window three several times, and not mash either a soldier or a

priest. The scarcity of such people is astonishing. In the cities you will see a dozen civilians for every

soldier, and as many for every priest or preacher. Jews, there, are treated just like human beings, instead of

dogs. They can work at any business they please; they can sell brand new goods if they want to; they can

keep drugstores; they can practice medicine among Christians; they can even shake hands with Christians if

they choose; they can associate with them, just the same as one human being does with another human being;

they don't have to stay shut up in one corner of the towns; they can live in any part of a town they like best; it

is said they even have the privilege of buying land and houses, and owning them themselves, though I doubt

that, myself; they never have had to run races naked through the public streets, against jackasses, to please the

people in carnival time; there they never have been driven by the soldiers into a church every Sunday for

hundreds of years to hear themselves and their religion especially and particularly cursed; at this very day, in

that curious country, a Jew is allowed to vote , hold office, yea, get up on a rostrum in the public street and

express his opinion of the government if the government don't suit him! Ah, it is wonderful. The common

people there know a great deal; they even have the effrontery to complain if they are not properly governed,

and to take hold and help conduct the government themselves; if they had laws like ours, which give one

dollar of every three a crop produces to the government for taxes, they would have that law altered: instead of

paying thirtythree dollars in taxes, out of every one hundred they receive, they complain if they have to pay

seven. They are curious people. They do not know when they are well off. Mendicant priests do not prowl

among them with baskets begging for the church and eating up their substance. One hardly ever sees a

minister of the gospel going around there in his bare feet, with a basket, begging for subsistence. In that

country the preachers are not like our mendicant orders of friars they have two or three suits of clothing,

and they wash sometimes. In that land are mountains far higher than the Alban mountains; the vast Roman

Campagna, a hundred miles long and full forty broad, is really small compared to the United States of

America; the Tiber, that celebrated river of ours, which stretches its mighty course almost two hundred miles,

and which a lad can scarcely throw a stone across at Rome, is not so long, nor yet so wide, as the American

Mississippi nor yet the Ohio, nor even the Hudson. In America the people are absolutely wiser and know

much more than their grandfathers did. They do not plow with a sharpened stick, nor yet with a

threecornered block of wood that merely scratches the top of the ground. We do that because our fathers

did, three thousand years ago, I suppose. But those people have no holy reverence for their ancestors. They

plow with a plow that is a sharp, curved blade of iron, and it cuts into the earth full five inches. And this is

not all. They cut their grain with a horrid machine that mows down whole fields in a day. If I dared, I would

say that sometimes they use a blasphemous plow that works by fire and vapor and tears up an acre of ground

in a single hour but but I see by your looks that you do not believe the things I am telling you. Alas,

Of course we have been to the monster Church of St. Peter, frequently. I knew its dimensions. I knew it was a

prodigious structure. I knew it was just about the length of the capitol at Washington say seven hundred

and thirty feet. I knew it was three hundred and sixtyfour feet wide, and consequently wider than the capitol.

I knew that the cross on the top of the dome of the church was four hundred and thirtyeight feet above the

ground, and therefore about a hundred or may be a hundred and twentyfive feet higher than the dome of the

capitol. Thus I had one gauge. I wished to come as near forming a correct idea of how it was going to

look, as possible; I had a curiosity to see how much I would err. I erred considerably. St. Peter's did not look

nearly so large as the capitol, and certainly not a twentieth part as beautiful, from the outside.

When we reached the door, and stood fairly within the church, it was impossible to comprehend that it was a

very large building. I had to cipher a comprehension of it. I had to ransack my memory for some more

similes. St. Peter's is bulky. Its height and size would represent two of the Washington capitol set one on top

of the other if the capitol were wider; or two blocks or two blocks and a half of ordinary buildings set one

on top of the other. St. Peter's was that large, but it could and would not look so. The trouble was that every

thing in it and about it was on such a scale of uniform vastness that there were no contrasts to judge by

none but the people, and I had not noticed them. They were insects. The statues of children holding vases of

holy water were immense, according to the tables of figures, but so was every thing else around them. The

mosaic pictures in the dome were huge, and were made of thousands and thousands of cubes of glass as large

as the end of my little finger, but those pictures looked smooth, and gaudy of color, and in good proportion to

the dome. Evidently they would not answer to measure by. Away down toward the far end of the church (I

thought it was really clear at the far end, but discovered afterward that it was in the centre, under the dome,)

stood the thing they call the baldacchino a great bronze pyramidal framework like that which upholds a

mosquito bar. It only looked like a considerably magnified bedstead nothing more. Yet I knew it was a

good deal more than half as high as Niagara Falls. It was overshadowed by a dome so mighty that its own

height was snubbed. The four great square piers or pillars that stand equidistant from each other in the

church, and support the roof, I could not work up to their real dimensions by any method of comparison. I

knew that the faces of each were about the width of a very large dwellinghouse front, (fifty or sixty feet,)

and that they were twice as high as an ordinary threestory dwelling, but still they looked small. I tried all the

different ways I could think of to compel myself to understand how large St. Peter's was, but with small

success. The mosaic portrait of an Apostle who was writing with a pen six feet long seemed only an ordinary

But the people attracted my attention after a while. To stand in the door of St. Peter's and look at men down

toward its further extremity, two blocks away, has a diminishing effect on them; surrounded by the

prodigious pictures and statues, and lost in the vast spaces, they look very much smaller than they would if

they stood two blocks away in the open air. I "averaged" a man as he passed me and watched him as he

drifted far down by the baldacchino and beyond watched him dwindle to an insignificant schoolboy, and

then, in the midst of the silent throng of human pigmies gliding about him, I lost him. The church had lately

been decorated, on the occasion of a great ceremony in honor of St. Peter, and men were engaged, now, in

removing the flowers and gilt paper from the walls and pillars. As no ladders could reach the great heights,

the men swung themselves down from balustrades and the capitals of pilasters by ropes, to do this work. The

upper gallery which encircles the inner sweep of the dome is two hundred and forty feet above the floor of

the church very few steeples in America could reach up to it. Visitors always go up there to look down

into the church because one gets the best idea of some of the heights and distances from that point. While we

stood on the floor one of the workmen swung loose from that gallery at the end of a long rope. I had not

supposed, before, that a man could look so much like a spider. He was insignificant in size, and his rope

seemed only a thread. Seeing that he took up so little space, I could believe the story, then, that ten thousand

troops went to St. Pete r's, once, to hear mass, and their commanding officer came afterward, and not finding

them, supposed they had not yet arrived. But they were in the church, nevertheless they were in one of the

transepts. Nearly fifty thousand persons assembled in St. Peter's to hear the publishing of the dogma of the

Immaculate Conception. It is estimated that the floor of the church affords standing room for for a large

number of people; I have forgotten the exact figures. But it is no matter it is near enough.

They have twelve small pillars, in St. Peter's, which came from Solomon's Temple. They have, also which

was far more interesting to me a piece of the true cross, and some nails, and a part of the crown of thorns.

Of course we ascended to the summit of the dome, and of course we also went up into the gilt copper ball

which is above it. There was room there for a dozen persons, with a little crowding, and it was as close

and hot as an oven. Some of those people who are so fond of writing their names in prominent places had

been there before us a million or two, I should think. From the dome of St. Peter's one can see every

notable object in Rome, from the Castle of St. Angelo to the Coliseum. He can discern the seven hills upon

which Rome is built. He can see the Tiber, and the locality of the bridge which Horatius kept "in the brave

days of old" when Lars Porsena attempted to cross it with his invading host. He can see the spot where the

Horatii and the Curatii fought their famous battle. He can see the broad green Campagna, stretching away

toward the mountains, with its scattered arches and broken aqueducts of the olden time, so picturesque in

their gray ruin, and so daintily festooned with vines. He can see the Alban Mountains, the Appenines, the

Sabine Hills, and the blue Mediterranean. He can see a panorama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the

eye, and more illustrious in history than any other in Europe. About his feet is spread the remnant of a city

that once had a population of four million souls; and among its massed edifices stand the ruins of temples,

columns, and triumphal arches that knew the C�sars, and the noonday of Roman splendor; and close by

them, in unimpaired strength, is a drain of arched and heavy masonry that belonged to that older city which

stood here before Romulus and Remus were born or Rome thought of. The Appian Way is here yet, and

looking much as it did, perhaps, when the triumphal processions of the Emperors moved over it in other days

bringing fettered princes from the confines of the earth. We can not see the long array of chariots and

mailclad men laden with the spoils of conquest, but we can imagine the pageant, after a fashion. We look

out upon many objects of interest from the dome of St. Peter's; and last of all, almost at our feet, our eyes rest

upon the building which was once the Inquisition. How times changed, between the older ages and the new!

Some seventeen or eighteen centuries ago, the ignorant men of Rome were wont to put Christians in the arena

of the Coliseum yonder, and turn the wild beasts in upon them for a show. It was for a lesson as well. It was

to teach the people to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers of Christ were teaching. The beasts tore

the victims limb from limb and made poor mangled corpses of them in the twinkling of an eye. But when the

Christians came into power, when the holy Mother Church became mistress of the barbarians, she taught

them the error of their ways by no such means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisition and pointed to

the Blessed Redeemer, who was so gentle and so merciful toward all men, and they urged the barbarians to

love him; and they did all they could to persuade them to love and honor him first by twisting their

thumbs out of joint with a screw; then by nipping their flesh with pincers redhot ones, because they are

the most comfortable in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a little, and finally by roasting them in

public. They always convinced those barbarians. The true religion, properly administered, as the good Mother

Church used to administer it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully persuasive, also. There is a great

difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is

the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened, civilized people. It is a great pity the playful

I prefer not to describe St. Peter's. It has been done before. The ashes of Peter, the disciple of the Saviour,

repose in a crypt under the baldacchino. We stood reverently in that place; so did we also in the Mamertine

Prison, where he was confined, where he converted the soldiers, and where tradition says he caused a spring

of water to flow in order that he might baptize them. But when they showed us the print of Peter's face in the

hard stone of the prison wall and said he made that by falling up against it, we doubted. And when, also, the

monk at the church of San Sebastian showed us a pavingstone with two great footprints in it and said that

Peter's feet made those, we lacked confidence again. Such things do not impress one. The monk s aid that

angels came and liberated Peter from prison by night, and he started away from Rome by the Appian Way.

The Saviour met him and told him to go back, which he did. Peter left those footprints in the stone upon

which he stood at the time. It was not stated how it was ever discovered whose footprints they were, seeing

the interview occurred secretly and at night. The print of the face in the prison was that of a man of common

size; the footprints were those of a man ten or twelve feet high. The discrepancy confirmed our unbelief.

We necessarily visited the Forum, where C�sar was assassinated, and also the Tarpeian Rock. We saw the

Dying Gladiator at the Capitol, and I think that even we appreciated that wonder of art; as much, perhaps, as

we did that fearful story wrought in marble, in the Vatican the Laocoon. And then the Coliseum.

Every body knows the picture of the Coliseum; every body recognizes at once that "looped and windowed"

bandbox with a side bitten out. Being rather isolated, it shows to better advantage than any other of the

monuments of ancient Rome. Even the beautiful Pantheon, whose pagan altars uphold the cross, now, and

whose Venus, tricked out in consecrated gimcracks, does reluctant duty as a Virgin Mary today, is built

about with shabby houses and its stateliness sadly marred. But the monarch of all European ruins, the

Coliseum, maintains that reserve and that royal seclusion which is proper to majesty. Weeds and flowers

spring from its massy arches and its circling seats, and vines hang their fringes from its lofty walls. An

impressive silence broods over the monstrous structure where such multitudes of men and women were wont

to assemble in other days. The butterflies have taken the places of the queens of fashion and beauty of

eighteen centuries ago, and the lizards sun themselves in the sacred seat of the Emperor. More vividly than all

the written histories, the Coliseum tells the story of Rome's grandeur and Rome's decay. It is the worthiest

type of both that exists. Moving about the Rome of today, we might find it hard to believe in her old

magnificence and her millions of population; but with this stubborn evidence before us that she was obliged

to have a theatre with sitting room for eighty thousand persons and standing room for twenty thousand more,

to accommodate such of her citizens as required amusement, we find belief less difficult. The Coliseum is

over one thousand six hundred feet long, seven hundred and fifty wide, and one hundred and sixtyfive high.

In America we make convicts useful at the same time that we punish them for their crimes. We farm them out

and compel them to earn money for the State by making barrels and building roads. Thus we combine

business with retribution, and all things are lovely. But in ancient Rome they combined religious duty with

pleasure. Since it was necessary that the new sect called Christians should be exterminated, the people judged

it wise to make this work profitable to the State at the same time, and entertaining to the public. In addition to

the gladiatorial combats and other shows, they sometimes threw members of the hated sect into the arena of

the Coliseum and turned wild beasts in upon them. It is estimated that seventy thousand Christians suffered

martyrdom in this place. This has made the Coliseum holy ground, in the eyes of the followers of the Saviour.

And well it might; for if the chain that bound a saint, and the footprints a saint has left upon a stone he

chanced to stand upon, be holy, surely the spot where a man gave up his life for his faith is holy.

Seventeen or eighteen centuries ago this Coliseum was the theatre of Rome, and Rome was mistress of the

world. Splendid pageants were exhibited here, in presence of the Emperor, the great ministers of State, the

nobles, and vast audiences of citizens of smaller consequence. Gladiators fought with gladiators and at times

with warrior prisoners from many a distant land. It was the theatre of Rome of the world and the man

of fashion who could not let fall in a casual and unintentional manner something about "my private box at the

Coliseum" could not move in the first circles. When the clothingstore merchant wished to consume the

corner grocery man with envy, he bought secured seats in the front row and let the thing be known. When the

irresistible dry goods clerk wished to blight and destroy, according to his native instinct, he got himself up

regardless of expense and took some other fellow's young lady to the Coliseum, and then accented the affront

by cramming her with ice cream between the acts, or by approaching the cage and stirring up the martyrs

with his whalebone cane for her edification. The Roman swell was in his true element only when he stood up

against a pillar and fingered his moustache unconscious of the ladies; when he viewed the bloody combats

through an operaglass two inches long; when he excited the envy of provincials by criticisms which showed

that he had been to the Coliseum many and many a time and was long ago over the novelty of it; when he

"He a star! handles his sword like an apprentice brigand! he'll do for the country, may be, but he don't answer

Glad was the contraband that had a seat in the pit at the Saturday matinee, and happy the Roman streetboy

For me was reserved the high honor of discovering among the rubbish of the ruined Coliseum the only

playbill of that establishment now extant. There was a suggestive smell of mintdrops about it still, a corner

of it had evidently been chewed, and on the margin, in choice Latin, these words were written in a delicate

"Meet me on the Tarpeian Rock tomorrow evening, dear, at sharp seven. Mother will be absent on a visit to

Ah, where is that lucky youth today, and where the little hand that wrote those dainty lines? Dust and ashes

The management beg leave to offer to the public an entertainment surpassing in magnificence any thing that

has heretofore been attempted on any stage. No expense has been spared to make the opening season one

which shall be worthy the generous patronage which the management feel sure will crown their efforts. The

management beg leave to state that they have succeeded in securing the services of a

between two young and promising amateurs and a celebrated Parthian gladiator who has just arrived a

between the renowned Valerian (with one hand tied behind him,) and two gigantic savages from Britain.

After which the renowned Valerian (if he survive,) will fight with the broadsword,

A long series of brilliant engagements will follow, in which the finest talent of the Empire will take part

will engage four tiger whelps in combat, armed with no other weapon than his little spear!

In which thirteen African Lions and twentytwo Barbarian Prisoners will war with each other until all are

An efficient police force will be on hand to preserve order and keep the wild beasts from leaping the railings

It was as singular as it was gratifying that I was also so fortunate as to find among the rubbish of the arena, a

stained and mutilated copy of the Roman Daily BattleAx, containing a critique upon this very performance.

It comes to hand too late by many centuries to rank as news, and therefore I translate and publish it simply to

show how very little the general style and phraseology of dramatic criticism has altered in the ages that have

dragged their slow length along since the carriers laid this one damp and fresh before their Roman patrons:

"THE OPENING SEASON. COLISEUM. Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, quite a

respectable number of the rank and fashion of the city assembled last night to witness the debut upon

metropolitan boards of the young tragedian who has of late been winning such golden opinions in the

amphitheatres of the provinces. Some sixty thousand persons were present, and but for the fact that the streets

were almost impassable, it is fair to presume that the house would have been full. His august Majesty, the

Emperor Aurelius, occupied the imperial box, and was the cynosure of all eyes. Many illustrious nobles and

generals of the Empire graced the occasion with their presence, and not the least among them was the young

patrician lieutenant whose laurels, won in the ranks of the "Thundering Legion," are still so green upon his

"The late repairs and decorations add both to the comeliness and the comfort of the Coliseum. The new

cushions are a great improvement upon the hard marble seats we have been so long accustomed to. The

present management deserve well of the public. They have restored to the Coliseum the gilding, the rich

upholstery and the uniform magnificence which old Coliseum frequenters tell us Rome was so proud of fifty

"The opening scene last night the broadsword combat between two young amateurs and a famous Parthian

gladiator who was sent here a prisoner was very fine. The elder of the two young gentlemen handled his

weapon with a grace that marked the possession of extraordinary talent. His feint of thrusting, followed

instantly by a happily delivered blow which unhelmeted the Parthian, was received with hearty applause. He

was not thoroughly up in the backhanded stroke, but it was very gratifying to his numerous friends to know

that, in time, practice would have overcome this defect. However, he was killed. His sisters, who were

present, expressed considerable regret. His mother left the Coliseum. The other youth maintained the contest

with such spirit as to call forth enthusiastic bursts of applause. When at last he fell a corpse, his aged mother

ran screaming, with hair disheveled and tears streaming from her eyes, and swooned away just as her hands

were clutching at the railings of the arena. She was promptly removed by the police. Under the circumstances

the woman's conduct was pardonable, perhaps, but we suggest that such exhibitions interfere with the

decorum which should be preserved during the performances, and are highly improper in the presence of the

Emperor. The Parthian prisoner fought bravely and well; and well he might, for he was fighting for both life

and liberty. His wife and children were there to nerve his arm with their love, and to remind him of the old

home he should see again if h e conquered. When his second assailant fell, the woman clasped her children to

her breast and wept for joy. But it was only a transient happiness. The captive staggered toward her and she

saw that the liberty he had earned was earned too late. He was wounded unto death. Thus the first act closed

in a manner which was entirely satisfactory. The manager was called before the curtain and returned his

thanks for the honor done him, in a speech which was replete with wit and humor, and closed by hoping that

his humble efforts to afford cheerful and instructive entertainment would continue to meet with the

"The star now appeared, and was received with vociferous applause and the simultaneous waving of sixty

thousand handkerchiefs. Marcus Marcellus Valerian (stage name his real name is Smith,) is a splendid

specimen of physical development, and an artist of rare merit. His management of the battleax is wonderful.

His gayety and his playfulness are irresistible, in his comic parts, and yet they are inferior to his sublime

conceptions in the grave realm of tragedy. When his ax was describing fiery circles about the heads of the

bewildered barbarians, in exact time with his springing body and his prancing legs, the audience gave way to

uncontrollable bursts of laughter; but when the back of his weapon broke the skull of one and almost in the

same instant its edge clove the other's body in twain, the howl of enthusiastic applause that shook the

building, was the acknowledgment of a critical assemblage that he was a master of the noblest department of

his profession. If he has a fault, (and we are sorry to even intimate that he has,) it is that of glancing at the

audience, in the midst of the most exciting moments of the performance, as if seeking admiration. The

pausing in a fight to bow when bouquets are thrown to him is also in bad taste. In the great lefthanded

combat he appeared to be looking at the audience half the time, instead of carving his adversaries; and when

he had slain all the sophomores and was dallying with the freshman. he stooped and snatched a bouquet as it

fell, and offered it to his adversary at a time when a blow was descending which promised favorably to be his

deathwarrant. Such levity is proper enough in the provinces, we make no doubt, but it ill suits the dignity of

the metropolis. We trust our young friend will take these remarks in good part, for we mean them solely for

his benefit. All who know us are aware that although we are at times justly severe upon tigers and martyrs,

"The Infant Prodigy performed wonders. He overcame his four tiger whelps with ease, and with no other hurt

than the loss of a portion of his scalp. The General Slaughter was rendered with a faithfulness to details

"Upon the whole, last night's performances shed honor not only upon the management but upon the city that

encourages and sustains such wholesome and instructive entertainments. We would simply suggest that the

practice of vulgar young boys in the gallery of shying peanuts and paper pellets at the tigers, and saying

"Hiyi!" and manifesting approbation or dissatisfaction by such observations as "Bully for the lion!" "Go it,

Gladdy!" "Boots!" "Speech!" "Take a walk round the block!" and so on, are extremely reprehensible, when

the Emperor is present, and ought to be stopped by the police. Several times last night, when the

supernumeraries entered the arena to drag out the bodies, the young ruffians in the gallery shouted, "Supe!

supe!" and also, "Oh, what a coat!" and "Why don't you pad them shanks?" and made use of various other

"A matinee for the little folks is promised for this afternoon, on which occasion several martyrs will be eaten

by the tigers. The regular performance will continue every night till further notice. Material change of

I have been a dramatic critic myself, in my time, and I was often surprised to notice how much more I knew

about Hamlet than Forrest did; and it gratifies me to observe, now, how much better my brethren of ancient

SO far, good. If any man has a right to feel proud of himself, and satisfied, surely it is I. For I have written

about the Coliseum, and the gladiators, the martyrs, and the lions, and yet have never once used the phrase

"butchered to make a Roman holiday." I am the only free white man of mature age, who has accomplished

Butchered to make a Roman holiday sounds well for the first seventeen or eighteen hundred thousand times

one sees it in print, but after that it begins to grow tiresome. I find it in all the books concerning Rome and

here latterly it reminds me of Judge Oliver. Oliver was a young lawyer, fresh from the schools, who had gone

out to the deserts of Nevada to begin life. He found that country, and our ways of life, there, in those early

days, different from life in New England or Paris. But he put on a woollen shirt and strapped a navy revolver

to his person, took to the bacon and beans of the country, and determined to do in Nevada as Nevada did.

Oliver accepted the situation so completely that although he must have sorrowed over many of his trials, he

never complained that is, he never complained but once. He, two others, and myself, started to the new

silver mines in the Humboldt mountains he to be Probate Judge of Humboldt county, and we to mine. The

distance was two hundred miles. It was dead of winter. We bought a twohorse wagon and put eighteen

hundred pounds of bacon, flour, beans, blastingpowder, picks and shovels in it; we bought two

sorrylooking Mexican "plugs," with the hair turned the wrong way and more corners on their bodies than

there are on the mosque of Omar; we hitched up and started. It was a dreadful trip. But Oliver did not

complain. The horses dragged the wagon two miles from town and then gave out. Then we three pushed the

wagon seven miles, and Oliver moved ahead and pulled the horses after him by the bits. We complained, but

Oliver did not. The ground was frozen, and it froze our backs while we slept; the wind swept across our faces

and froze our noses. Oliver did not complain. Five days of pushing the wagon by day and freezing by night

brought us to the bad part of the journey the Forty Mile Desert, or the Great American Desert, if you

please. Still, this mildestmannered man that ever was, had not complained. We started across at eight in the

morning, pushing through sand that had no bottom; toiling all day long by the wrecks of a thousand wagons,

the skeletons of ten thousand oxen; by wagontires enough to hoop the Washington Monument to the top,

and oxchains enough to girdle Long Island; by human graves; with our throats parched always, with thirst;

lips bleeding from the alkali dust; hungry, perspiring, and very, very weary so weary that when we

dropped in the sand every fifty yards to rest the horses, we could hardly keep from going to sleep no

complaints from Oliver: none the next morning at three o'clock, when we got across, tired to death.

Awakened two or three nights afterward at midnight, in a narrow canon, by the snow falling on our faces, and

appalled at the imminent danger of being "snowed in," we harnessed up and pushed on till eight in the

morning, passed the "Divide" and knew we were saved. No complaints. Fifteen days of hardship and fatigue

brought us to the end of the two hundred miles, and the Judge had not complained. We wondered if any thing

could exasperate him. We built a Humboldt house. It is done in this way. You dig a square in the steep base

of the mountain, and set up two uprights and top them with two joists. Then you stretch a great sheet of

"cotton domestic" from the point where the joists join the hillside down over the joists to the ground; this

makes the roof and the front of the mansion; the sides and back are the dirt walls your digging has left. A

chimney is easily made by turning up one corner of the roof. Oliver was sitting alone in this dismal den, one

night, by a sagebrush fire, writing poetry; he was very fond of digging poetry out of himself or blasting it

out when it came hard. He heard an animal's footsteps close to the roof; a stone or two and some dirt came

through and fell by him. He grew uneasy and said "Hi! clear out from there, can't you!" from time to

time. But by and by he fell asleep where he sat, and pretty soon a mule fell down the chimney! The fire flew

in every direction, and Oliver went over backwards. About ten nights after that, he recovered confidence

enough to go to writing poetry again. Again he dozed off to sleep, and again a mule fell down the chimney.

This time, about half of that side of the house came in with the mule. Struggling to get up, the mule kicked

the candle out and smashed most of the kitchen furniture, and raised considerable dust. These violent

awakenings must have been annoying to Oliver, but he never complained. He moved to a mansion on the

opposite side of the canon, because he had noticed the mules did not go there. One night about eight o'clock

he was endeavoring to finish his poem, when a stone rolled in then a hoof appeared below the canvas

then part of a cow the after part. He leaned back in dread, and shouted "Hooy! hooy! get out of this!" and

the cow struggled manfully lost ground steadily dirt and dust streamed down, and before Oliver could

get well away, the entire cow crashed through on to the table and made a shapeless wreck of every thing!

Then he resigned his judgeship and left Humboldt county. "Butchered to make a Roman holyday" has grown

In this connection I wish to say one word about Michael Angelo Buonarotti. I used to worship the mighty

genius of Michael Angelo that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture great in

every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast for luncheon for dinner

for tea for supper for between meals. I like a change, occasionally. In Genoa, he designed every thing;

in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice,

Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In Florence, he painted every thing,

designed every thing, nearly, and what he did not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and

they showed us the stone. In Pisa he designed every thing but the old shottower, and they would have

attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn

and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But, here here it is frightful. He designed St. Peter's;

he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope's soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican,

the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the

Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima the

eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it! Dan

said the other day to the guide, "Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the

I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday

But we have taken it out of this guide. He has marched us through miles of pictures and sculpture in the vast

corridors of the Vatican; and through miles of pictures and sculpture in twenty other palaces; he has shown us

the great picture in the Sistine Chapel, and frescoes enough to frescoe the heavens pretty much all done by

Michael Angelo. So with him we have played that game which has vanquished so many guides for us

imbecility and idiotic questions. These creatures never suspect they have no idea of a sarcasm.

He grows so tired of that unceasing question sometimes, that he dreads to show us any thing at all. The

wretch has tried all the ways he can think of to make us comprehend that Michael Angelo is only responsible

for the creation of a part of the world, but somehow he has not succeeded yet. Relief for overtasked eyes and

brain from study and sightseeing is necessary, or we shall become idiotic sure enough. Therefore this guide

must continue to suffer. If he does not enjoy it, so much the worse for him. We do.

In this place I may as well jot down a chapter concerning those necessary nuisances, European guides. Many

a man has wished in his heart he could do without his guide; but knowing he could not, has wished he could

get some amusement out of him as a remuneration for the affliction of his society. We accomplished this

latter matter, and if our experience can be made useful to others they are welcome to it.

Guides know about enough English to tangle every thing up so that a man can make neither head or tail of it.

They know their story by heart the history of every statue, painting, cathedral or other wonder they show

you. They know it and tell it as a parrot would and if you interrupt, and throw them off the track, they

have to go back and begin over again. All their lives long, they are employed in showing strange things to

foreigners and listening to their bursts of admiration. It is human nature to take delight in exciting admiration.

It is what prompts children to say "smart" things, and do absurd ones, and in other ways "show off" when

company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling

bit of news. Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is, every day, to show to

strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies of admiration! He gets so that he could not by any

possibility live in a soberer atmosphere. After we discovered this, we never went into ecstacies any more

we never admired any thing we never showed any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the

presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had found their weak point. We have made

good use of it ever since. We have made some of those people savage, at times, but we have never lost our

The doctor asks the questions, generally, because he can keep his countenance, and look more like an

inspired idiot, and throw more imbecility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes natural

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because Americans so much wonder, and

deal so much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he

had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation full of impatience. He said:

"Come wis me, genteelmen! come! I show you ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo! write it

He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the

stained and aged document was spread before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped

"What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting Christopher Colombo! write it himself!"

We looked indifferent unconcerned. The doctor examined the document very deliberately, during a

"He write it himself! Christopher Colombo! He's own handwriting, write by himself!"

"Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that."

"I don't care who it is! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you musn't think you can impose on us because

we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one more venture. He had something

"Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, O, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo!

He brought us before the beautiful bust for it was beautiful and sprang back and struck an attitude:

"Ah, look, genteelmen! beautiful, grand, bust Christopher Colombo! beautiful bust, beautiful

"Discover America. No that statement will hardly wash. We are just from America ourselves. We heard

"Ah, I see, I see happy combination very happy combination, indeed. Is is this the first time this

That joke was lost on the foreigner guides can not master the subtleties of the American joke.

We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vatican,

again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came very near expressing interest, sometimes even

admiration it was very hard to keep from it. We succeeded though. Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican

museums. The guide was bewildered nonplussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up

extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest

in any thing. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last a royal Egyptian

mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his

"Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy mummy. How calm he

"Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this! Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers

and trying to learn! Trying to impose your vile secondhand carcasses on us! thunder and lightning, I've a

notion to to if you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out! or by George we'll brain you!"

We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. However, he has paid us back, partly, without

knowing it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored as well as he could to

describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He finished with the casual remark that

we were lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing for a

There is one remark (already mentioned,) which never yet has failed to disgust these guides. We use it

always, when we can think of nothing else to say. After they have exhausted their enthusiasm pointing out to

us and praising the beauties of some ancient bronze image or brokenlegged statue, we look at it stupidly and

in silence for five, ten, fifteen minutes as long as we can hold out, in fact and then ask:

That conquers the serenest of them. It is not what they are looking for especially a new guide. Our Roman

Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, longsuffering subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part

with him. We have enjoyed his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with

We have been in the catacombs. It was like going down into a very deep cellar, only it was a cellar which had

no end to it. The narrow passages are roughly hewn in the rock, and on each hand as you pass along, the

hollowed shelves are carved out, from three to fourteen deep; each held a corpse once. There are names, and

Christian symbols, and prayers, or sentences expressive of Christian hopes, carved upon nearly every

sarcophagus. The dates belong away back in the dawn of the Christian era, of course. Here, in these holes in

the ground, the first Christians sometimes burrowed to escape persecution. They crawled out at night to get

food, but remained under cover in the day time. The priest told us that St. Sebastian lived under ground for

some time while he was being hunted; he went out one day, and the soldiery discovered and shot him to death

with arrows. Five or six of the early Popes those who reigned about sixteen hundred years ago held

their papal courts and advised with their clergy in the bowels of the earth. During seventeen years from A.

D. 235 to A. D. 252 the Popes did not appear above ground. Four were raised to the great office during

that period. Four years apiece, or thereabouts. It is very suggestive of the unhealthiness of underground

graveyards as places of residence. One Pope afterward spent his entire pontificate in the catacombs eight

years. Another was discovered in them and murdered in the episcopal chair. There was no satisfaction in

being a Pope in those days. There were too many annoyances. There are one hundred and sixty catacombs

under Rome, each with its maze of narrow passages crossing and recrossing each other and each passage

walled to the top with scooped graves its entire length. A careful estimate makes the length of the passages of

all the catacombs combined foot up nine hundred miles, and their graves number seven millions. We did not

go through all the passages of all the catacombs. We were very anxious to do it, and made the necessary

arrangements, but our too limited time obliged us to give up the idea. So we only groped through the dismal

labyrinth of St. Callixtus, under the Church of St. Sebastian. In the various catacombs are small chapels

rudely hewn in the stones, and here the early Christians often held their religious services by dim, ghostly

lights. Think of mass and a sermon away down in those tangled caverns under ground!

In the catacombs were buried St. Cecilia, St. Agnes, and several other of the most celebrated of the saints. In

the catacomb of St. Callixtus, St. Bridget used to remain long hours in holy contemplation, and St. Charles

Borromeo was wont to spend whole nights in prayer there. It was also the scene of a very marvelous thing.

"Here the heart of St. Philip Neri was so inflamed with divine love as to burst his ribs."

I find that grave statement in a book published in New York in 1808, and written by "Rev. William H.

Neligan, LL.D., M. A., Trinity College, Dublin; Member of the Archaeological Society of Great Britain."

Therefore, I believe it. Otherwise, I could not. Under other circumstances I should have felt a curiosity to

This author puts my credulity on its mettle every now and then. He tells of one St. Joseph Calasanctius whose

house in Rome he visited; he visited only the house the priest has been dead two hundred years. He says

"His tongue and his heart, which were found after nearly a century to be whole, when the body was

disinterred before his canonization, are still preserved in a glass case, and after two centuries the heart is still

whole. When the French troops came to Rome, and when Pius VII. was carried away prisoner, blood dropped

To read that in a book written by a monk far back in the Middle Ages, would surprise no one; it would sound

natural and proper; but when it is seriously stated in the middle of the nineteenth century, by a man of

finished education, an LL.D., M. A., and an Archaeological magnate, it sounds strangely enough. Still, I

would gladly change my unbelief for Neligan's faith, and let him make the conditions as hard as he pleased.

The old gentleman's undoubting, unquestioning simplicity has a rare freshness about it in these

matteroffact railroading and telegraphing days. Hear him, concerning the church of Ara Coeli:

"In the roof of the church, directly above the high altar, is engraved, 'Regina Coeli laetare Alleluia." In the

sixth century Rome was visited by a fearful pestilence. Gregory the Great urged the people to do penance,

and a general procession was formed. It was to proceed from Ara Coeli to St. Peter's. As it passed before the

mole of Adrian, now the Castle of St. Angelo, the sound of heavenly voices was heard singing (it was Easter

morn,) Regina Coeli, laetare! alleluia! quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia! resurrexit sicut dixit; alleluia!"

The Pontiff, carrying in his hands the portrait of the Virgin, (which is over the high altar and is said to have

been painted by St. Luke,) answered, with the astonished people, 'Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia!' At the same

time an angel was seen to put up a sword in a scabbard, and the pestilence ceased on the same day. There are

four circumstances which confirm 27.1this miracle: the annual procession which takes place in the western

church on the feast of St Mark; the statue of St. Michael, placed on the mole of Adrian, which has since that

time been called the Castle of St. Angelo; the antiphon Regina Coeli which the Catholic church sings during

FROM the sanguinary sports of the Holy Inquisition; the slaughter of the Coliseum; and the dismal tombs of

the Catacombs, I naturally pass to the picturesque horrors of the Capuchin Convent. We stopped a moment in

a small chapel in the church to admire a picture of St. Michael vanquishing Satan a picture which is so

beautiful that I can not but think it belongs to the reviled "Renaissance," notwithstanding I believe they told

us one of the ancient old masters painted it and then we descended into the vast vault underneath.

Here was a spectacle for sensitive nerves! Evidently the old masters had been at work in this place. There

were six divisions in the apartment, and each division was ornamented with a style of decoration peculiar to

itself and these decorations we re in every instance formed of human bones! There were shapely arches,

built wholly of thigh bones; there were startling pyramids, built wholly of grinning skulls; there were quaint

architectural structures of various kinds, built of shin bones and the bones of the arm; on the wall were

elaborate frescoes, whose curving vines were made of knotted human vertebr�; whose delicate tendrils were

made of sinews and tendons; whose flowers were formed of kneecaps and toenails. Every lasting portion

of the human frame was represented in these intricate designs (they were by Michael Angelo, I think,) and

there was a careful finish about the work, and an attention to details that betrayed the artist's love of his labors

as well as his schooled ability. I asked the goodnatured monk who accompanied us, who did this? And he

said, "We did it" meaning himself and his brethren up stairs. I could see that the old friar took a high pride

in his curious show. We made him talkative by exhibiting an interest we never betrayed to guides.

"Their different parts are well separated skulls in one room, legs in another, ribs in another there would

be stirring times here for a while if the last trump should blow. Some of the brethren might get hold of the

wrong leg, in the confusion, and the wrong skull, and find themselves limping, and looking through eyes that

were wider apart or closer together than they were used to. You can not tell any of these parties apart, I

He put his finger on a skull. "This was Brother Anselmo dead three hundred years a good man."

He touched another. "This was Brother Alexander dead two hundred and eighty years. This was Brother

Then he took a skull and held it in his hand, and looked reflectively upon it, after the manner of the

"This," he said, "was Brother Thomas. He was a young prince, the scion of a proud house that traced its

lineage back to the grand old days of Rome well nigh two thousand years ago. He loved beneath his estate.

His family persecuted him; persecuted the girl, as well. They drove her from Rome; he followed; he sought

her far and wide; he found no trace of her. He came back and offered his broken heart at our altar and his

weary life to the service of God. But look you. Shortly his father died, and likewise his mother. The girl

returned, rejoicing. She sought every where for him whose eyes had used to look tenderly into hers out of this

poor skull, but she could not find him. At last, in this coarse garb we wear, she recognized him in the street.

He knew her. It was too late. He fell where he stood. They took him up and brought him here. He never spoke

afterward. Within the week he died. You can see the color of his hair faded, somewhat by this thin

shred that clings still to the temple. "This," [taking up a thigh bone,] "was his. The veins of this leaf in the

decorations over your head, were his fingerjoints, a hundred and fifty years ago."

This businesslike way of illustrating a touching story of the heart by laying the several fragments of the

lover before us and naming them, was as grotesque a performance, and as ghastly, as any I ever witnessed. I

hardly knew whether to smile or shudder. There are nerves and muscles in our frames whose functions and

whose methods of working it seems a sort of sacrilege to describe by cold physiological names and surgical

technicalities, and the monk's talk suggested to me something of this kind. Fancy a surgeon, with his nippers

lifting tendons, muscles and such things into view, out of the complex machinery of a corpse, and observing,

"Now this little nerve quivers the vibration is imparted to this muscle from here it is passed to this

fibrous substance; here its ingredients are separated by the chemical action of the blood one part goes to

the heart and thrills it with what is popularly termed emotion, another part follows this nerve to the brain and

communicates intelligence of a startling character the third part glides along this passage and touches the

spring connected with the fluid receptacles that lie in the rear of the eye. Thus, by this simple and beautiful

process, the party is informed that his mother is dead, and he weeps." Horrible!

I asked the monk if all the brethren up stairs expected to be put in this place when they died. He answered

See what one can accustom himself to. The reflection that he must some day be taken apart like an engine

or a clock, or like a house whose owner is gone, and worked up into arches and pyramids and hideous

frescoes, did not distress this monk in the least. I thought he even looked as if he were thinking, with

complacent vanity, that his own skull would look well on top of the heap and his own ribs add a charm to the

Here and there, in ornamental alcoves, stretched upon beds of bones, lay dead and driedup monks, with lank

frames dressed in the black robes one sees ordinarily upon priests. We examined one closely. The skinny

hands were clasped upon the breast; two lustreless tufts of hair stuck to the skull; the skin was brown and

sunken; it stretched tightly over the cheek bones and made them stand out sharply; the crisp dead eyes were

deep in the sockets; the nostrils were painfully prominent, the end of the nose being gone; the lips had

shriveled away from the yellow teeth: and brought down to us through the circling years, and petrified there,

It was the jolliest laugh, but yet the most dreadful, that one can imagine. Surely, I thought, it must have been

a most extraordinary joke this veteran produced with his latest breath, that he has not got done laughing at it

yet. At this moment I saw that the old instinct was strong upon the boys, and I said we had better hurry to St.

It makes me dizzy, to think of the Vatican of its wilderness of statues, paintings, and curiosities of every

description and every age. The "old masters" (especially in sculpture,) fairly swarm, there. I can not write

about the Vatican. I think I shall never remember any thing I saw there distinctly but the mummies, and the

Transfiguration, by Raphael, and some other things it is not necessary to mention now. I shall remember the

Transfiguration partly because it was placed in a room almost by its elf; partly because it is acknowledged by

all to be the first oil painting in the world; and partly because it was wonderfully beautiful. The colors are

fresh and rich, the "expression," I am told, is fine, the "feeling" is lively, the "tone" is good, the "depth" is

profound, and the width is about four and a half feet, I should judge. It is a picture that really holds one's

attention; its beauty is fascinating. It is fine enough to be a Renaissance. A remark I made a while ago

suggests a thought and a hope. Is it not possible that the reason I find such charms in this picture is

because it is out of the crazy chaos of the galleries? If some of the others were set apart, might not they be

beautiful? If this were set in the midst of the tempest of pictures one finds in the vast galleries of the Roman

palaces, would I think it so handsome? If, up to this time, I had seen only one "old master" in each palace,

instead of acres and acres of walls and ceilings fairly papered with them, might I not have a more civilized

opinion of the old master s than I have now? I think so. When I was a schoolboy and was to have a new

knife, I could not make up my mind as to which was the prettiest in the showcase, and I did not think any of

them were particularly pretty; and so I chose with a heavy heart. But when I looked at my purchase, at home,

where no glittering blades came into competition with it, I was astonished to see how handsome it was. To

this day my new hats look better out of the shop than they did in it with other new hats. It begins to dawn

upon me, now, that possibly, what I have been taking for uniform ugliness in the galleries may be uniform

beauty after all. I honestly hope it is, to others, but certainly it is not to me. Perhaps the reason I used to enjoy

going to the Academy of Fine Arts in New York was because there were but a few hundred paintings in it,

and it did not surfeit me to go through the list. I suppose the Academy was bacon and beans in the

FortyMile Desert, and a European gallery is a state dinner of thirteen courses. One leaves no sign after him

of the one dish, but the thirteen frighten away his appetite and give him no satisfaction.

There is one thing I am certain of, though. With all the Michael Angelos, the Raphaels, the Guidos and the

other old masters, the sublime history of Rome remains unpainted! They painted Virgins enough, and popes

enough and saintly scarecrows enough, to people Paradise, almost, and these things are all they did paint.

"Nero fiddling o'er burning Rome," the assassination of C�sar, the stirring spectacle of a hundred thousand

people bending forward with rapt interest, in the coliseum, to see two skillful gladiators hacking away each

others' lives, a tiger springing upon a kneeling martyr these and a thousand other matters which we read of

with a living interest, must be sought for only in books not among the rubbish left by the old masters

They did paint, and they did carve in marble, one historical scene, and one only, (of any great historical

consequence.) And what was it and why did they choose it, particularly? It was the Rape of the Sabines, and

I like to look at statues, however, and I like to look at pictures, also even of monks looking up in sacred

ecstacy, and monks looking down in meditation, and monks skirmishing for something to eat and

therefore I drop ill nature to thank the papal government for so jealously guarding and so industriously

gathering up these things; and for permitting me, a stranger and not an entirely friendly one, to roam at will

and unmolested among them, charging me nothing, and only requiring that I shall behave myself simply as

well as I ought to behave in any other man's house. I thank the Holy Father right heartily, and I wish him long

The Popes have long been the patrons and preservers of art, just as our new, practical Republic is the

encourager and upholder of mechanics. In their Vatican is stored up all that is curious and beautiful in art; in

our Patent Office is hoarded all that is curious or useful in mechanics. When a man invents a new style of

horsecollar or discovers a new and superior method of telegraphing, our government issues a patent to him

that is worth a fortune; when a man digs up an ancient statue in the Campagna, the Pope gives him a fortune

in gold coin. We can make something of a guess at a man's character by the style of nose he carries on his

face. The Vatican and the Patent Office are governmental noses, and they bear a deal of character about them.

The guide showed us a colossal statue of Jupiter, in the Vatican, which he said looked so damaged and rusty

so like the God of the Vagabonds because it had but recently been dug up in the Campagna. He asked

how much we supposed this Jupiter was worth? I replied, with intelligent promptness, that he was probably

worth about four dollars may be four and a half. "A hundred thousand dollars!" Ferguson said. Ferguson

said, further, that the Pope permits no ancient work of this kind to leave his dominions. He appoints a

commission to examine discoveries like this and report upon the value; then the Pope pays the discoverer

onehalf of that assessed value and takes the statue. He said this Jupiter was dug from a field which had just

been bought for thirtysix thousand dollars, so the first crop was a good one for the new farmer. I do not

know whether Ferguson always tells the truth or not, but I suppose he does. I know that an exorbitant export

duty is exacted upon all pictures painted by the old masters, in order to discourage the sale of those in the

private collections. I am satisfied, also, that genuine old masters hardly exist at all, in America, because the

cheapest and most insignificant of them are valued at the price of a fine farm. I proposed to buy a small trifle

of a Raphael, myself, but the price of it was eighty thousand dollars, the export duty would have made it

considerably over a hundred, and so I studied on it awhile and concluded not to take it.

"Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth TO MEN OF GOOD WILL!" It is not good scripture, but it is

This is in letters of gold around the apsis of a mosaic group at the side of the scala santa, church of St. John

Lateran, the Mother and Mistress of all the Catholic churches of the world. The group represents the Saviour,

St. Peter, Pope Leo, St. Silvester, Constantine and Charlemagne. Peter is giving the pallium to the Pope, and

a standard to Charlemagne. The Saviour is giving the keys to St. Silvester, and a standard to Constantine. No

prayer is offered to the Saviour, who seems to be of little importance any where in Rome; but an inscription

below says, "Blessed Peter, give life to Pope Leo and victory to king Charles." It does not say, "Intercede for

us, through the Saviour, with the Father, for this boon," but "Blessed Peter, give it us."

In all seriousness without meaning to be frivolous without meaning to be irreverent, and more than all,

without meaning to be blasphemous, I state as my simple deduction from the things I have seen and the

I may be wrong in this my judgment errs often, just as is the case with other men's but it is my

Just here I will mention something that seems curious to me. There are no "Christ's Churches" in Rome, and

no "Churches of the Holy Ghost," that I can discover. There are some four hundred churches, but about a

fourth of them seem to be named for t he Madonna and St. Peter. There are so many named for Mary that

they have to be distinguished by all sorts of affixes, if I understand the matter rightly. Then we have churches

of St. Louis; St. Augustine; St. Agnes; St. Calixtus; St. Lorenzo in Lucina; St. Lorenzo in Damaso; St.

Cecilia; St. Athanasius; St. Philip Neri; St. Catherine, St. Dominico, and a multitude of lesser saints whose

names are not familiar in the world and away down, clear out of the list of the churches, comes a couple

of hospitals: one of them is named for the Saviour and the other for the Holy Ghost!

Day after day and night after night we have wandered among the crumbling wonders of Rome; day after day

and night after night we have fed upon the dust and decay of fiveandtwenty centuries have brooded

over them by day and dreampt of them by night till sometimes we seemed moldering away ourselves, and

growing defaced and cornerless, and liable at any moment to fall a prey to some antiquary and be patched in

the legs, and "restored" with an unseemly nose, and labeled wrong and dated wrong, and set up in the Vatican

for poets to drivel about and vandals to scribble their names on forever and forevermore.

But the surest way to stop writing about Rome is to stop. I wished to write a real "guidebook" chapter on

this fascinating city, but I could not do it, because I have felt all the time like a boy in a candyshop there

was every thing to choose from, and yet no choice. I have drifted along hopelessly for a hundred pages of

manuscript without knowing where to commence. I will not commence at all. Our passports have been

THE ship is lying here in the harbor of Naples quarantined. She has been here several days and will

remain several more. We that came by rail from Rome have escaped this misfortune. Of course no one is

allowed to go on board the ship, or come ashore from her. She is a prison, now. The passengers probably

spend the long, blazing days looking out from under the awnings at Vesuvius and the beautiful city and in

swearing. Think of ten days of this sort of pastime! We go out every day in a boat and request them to

come ashore. It soothes them. We lie ten steps from the ship and tell them how splendid the city is; and how

much better the hotel fare is here than any where else in Europe; and how cool it is; and what frozen

continents of ice cream there are; and what a time we are having cavorting about the country and sailing to

I shall remember our trip to Vesuvius for many a day partly because of its sightseeing experiences, but

chiefly on account of the fatigue of the journey. Two or three of us had been resting ourselves among the

tranquil and beautiful scenery of the island of Ischia, eighteen miles out in the harbor, for two days; we called

it "resting," but I do not remember now what the resting consisted of, for when we got back to Naples we had

not slept for fortyeight hours. We were just about to go to bed early in the evening, and catch up on some of

the sleep we had lost, when we heard of this Vesuvius expedition. There was to be eight of us in the party,

and we were to leave Naples at midnight. We laid in some provisions for the trip, engaged carriages to take

us to Annunciation, and then moved about the city, to keep awake, till twelve. We got away punctually, and

in the course of an hour and a half arrived at the town of Annunciation. Annunciation is the very last place

under the sun. In other towns in Italy the people lie around quietly and wait for you to ask them a question or

do some overt act that can be charged for but in Annunciation they have lost even that fragment of

delicacy; they seize a lady's shawl from a chair and hand it to her and charge a penny; they open a carriage

door, and charge for it shut it when you get out, and charge for it; they help you to take off a duster

two cents; brush your clothes and make them worse than they were before two cents; smile upon you

two cents; bow, with a lickspittle smirk, hat in hand two cents; they volunteer all information, such as

that the mules will arrive presently two cents warm day, sir two cents take you four hours to

make the ascent two cents. And so they go. They crowd you infest you swarm about you, and

sweat and smell offensively, and look sneaking and mean, and obsequious. There is no office too degrading

to find out any thing about the upper classes by my own observation, but from what I hear said about them I

judge that what they lack in one or two of the bad traits the canaille have, they make up in one or two others

I said I knew nothing against the upper classes by personal observation. I must recall it! I had forgotten. What

I saw their bravest and their fairest do last night, the lowest multitude that could be scraped up out of the

purlieus of Christendom would blush to do, I think. They assembled by hundreds, and even thousands, in the

great Theatre of San Carlo, to do what? Why, simply, to make fun of an old woman to deride, to hiss,

to jeer at an actress they once worshipped, but whose beauty is faded now and whose voice has lost its former

richness. Every body spoke of the rare sport there was to be. They said the theatre would be crammed,

because Frezzolini was going to sing. It was said she could not sing well, now, but then the people liked to

see her, anyhow. And so we went. And every time the woman sang they hissed and laughed the whole

magnificent house and as soon as she left the stage they called her on again with applause. Once or twice

she was encored five and six times in succession, and received with hisses when she appeared, and

discharged with hisses and laughter when she had finished then instantly encored and insulted again! And

how the highborn knaves enjoyed it! Whitekidded gentlemen and ladies laughed till the tears came, and

clapped their hands in very ecstacy when that unhappy old woman would come meekly out for the sixth time,

with uncomplaining patience, to meet a storm of hisses! It was the cruelest exhibition the most wanton,

the most unfeeling. The singer would have conquered an audience of American rowdies by her brave,

unflinching tranquillity (for she answered encore after encore, and smiled and bowed pleasantly, and sang the

best she possibly could, and went bowing off, through all the jeers and hisses, without ever losing

countenance or temper:) and surely in any other land than Italy her sex and her helplessness must have been

an ample protection to her she could have needed no other. Think what a multitude of small souls were

crowded into that theatre last night. If the manager could have filled his theatre with Neapolitan souls alone,

without the bodies, he could not have cleared less than ninety millions of dollars. What traits of character

must a man have to enable him to help three thousand miscreants to hiss, and jeer, and laugh at one friendless

old woman, and shamefully humiliate her? He must have all the vile, mean traits there are. My observation

persuades me (I do not like to venture beyond my own personal observation,) that the upper classes of Naples

possess those traits of character. Otherwise they may be very good people; I can not say.

In this city of Naples, they believe in and support one of the wretchedest of all the religious impostures one

can find in Italy the miraculous liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. Twice a year the priests

assemble all the people at the Cathedral, and get out this vial of clotted blood and let them see it slowly

dissolve and become liquid and every day for eight days, this dismal farce is repeated, while the priests go

among the crowd and collect money for the exhibition. The first day, the blood liquefies in fortyseven

minutes the church is crammed, then, and time must be allowed the collectors to get around: after that it

liquefies a little quicker and a little quicker, every day, as the houses grow smaller, till on the eighth day, with

And here, also, they used to have a grand procession, of priests, citizens, soldiers, sailors, and the high

dignitaries of the City Government, once a year, to shave the head of a madeup Madonna a stuffed and

painted image, like a milliner's dummy whose hair miraculously grew and restored itself every twelve

months. They still kept up this shaving procession as late as four or five years ago. It was a source of great

profit to the church that possessed the remarkable effigy, and the ceremony of the public barbering of her was

always carried out with the greatest possible eclat and display the more the better, because the more

excitement there was about it the larger the crowds it drew and the heavier the revenues it produced but at

last a day came when the Pope and his servants were unpopular in Naples, and the City Government stopped

There we have two specimens of these Neapolitans two of the silliest possible frauds, which half the

population religiously and faithfully believed, and the other half either believed also or else said nothing

about, and thus lent themselves to the support of the imposture. I am very well satisfied to think the whole

population believed in those poor, cheap miracles a people who want two cents every time they bow to

These Neapolitans always ask four times as much money as they intend to take, but if you give them what

they first demand, they feel ashamed of themselves for aiming so low, and immediately ask more. When

money is to be paid and received, there is always some vehement jawing and gesticulating about it. One can

not buy and pay for two cents' worth of clams without trouble and a quarrel. One "course," in a twohorse

carriage, costs a franc that is law but the hackman always demands more, on some pretence or other,

and if he gets it he makes a new demand. It is said that a stranger took a onehorse carriage for a course

tariff, half a franc. He gave the man five francs, by way of experiment. He demanded more, and received

another franc. Again he demanded more, and got a franc demanded more, and it was refused. He grew

vehement was again refused, and became noisy. The stranger said, "Well, give me the seven francs again,

and I will see what I can do" and when he got them, he handed the hackman half a franc, and he

immediately asked for two cents to buy a drink with. It may be thought that I am prejudiced. Perhaps I am. I

Well, as I was saying, we got our mules and horses, after an hour and a half of bargaining with the population

of Annunciation, and started sleepily up the mountain, with a vagrant at each mule's tail who pretended to be

driving the brute along, but was really holding on and getting himself dragged up instead. I made slow

headway at first, but I began to get dissatisfied at the idea of paying my minion five francs to hold my mule

back by the tail and keep him from going up the hill, and so I discharged him. I got along faster then.

We had one magnificent picture of Naples from a high point on the mountain side. We saw nothing but the

gas lamps, of course twothirds of a circle, skirting the great Bay a necklace of diamonds glinting up

through the darkness from the remote distance less brilliant than the stars overhead, but more softly, richly

beautiful and over all the great city the lights crossed and recrossed each other in many and many a

sparkling line and curve. And back of the town, far around and abroad over the miles of level campagna,

were scattered rows, and circles, and clusters of lights, all glowing like so many gems, and marking where a

score of villages were sleeping. About this time, the fellow who was hanging on to the tail of the horse in

front of me and practicing all sorts of unnecessary cruelty upon the animal, got kicked some fourteen rods,

and this incident, together with the fairy spectacle of the lights far in the distance, made me serenely happy,

This subject will be excellent matter for a chapter, and tomorrow or next day I will write it.

"SEE Naples and die." Well, I do not know that one would necessarily die after merely seeing it, but to

attempt to live there might turn out a little differently. To see Naples as we saw it in the early dawn from far

up on the side of Vesuvius, is to see a picture of wonderful beauty. At that distance its dingy buildings looked

white and so, rank on rank of balconies, windows and roofs, they piled themselves up from the blue ocean

till the colossal castle of St. Elmo topped the grand white pyramid and gave the picture symmetry, emphasis

and completeness. And when its lilies turned to roses when it blushed under the sun's first kiss it was

beautiful beyond all description. One might well say, then, "See Naples and die." The frame of the picture

was charming, itself. In front, the smooth sea a vast mosaic of many colors; the lofty islands swimming in

a dreamy haze in the distance; at our end of the city the stately double peak of Vesuvius, and its strong black

ribs and seams of lava stretching down to the limitless level campagna a green carpet that enchants the

eye and leads it on and on, past clusters of trees, and isolated houses, and snowy villages, until it shreds out in

a fringe of mist and general vagueness far away. It is from the Hermitage, there on the side of Vesuvius, that

But do not go within the walls and look at it in detail. That takes away some of the romance of the thing. The

people are filthy in their habits, and this makes filthy streets and breeds disagreeable sights and smells. There

never was a community so prejudiced against the cholera as these Neapolitans are. But they have good reason

to be. The cholera generally vanquishes a Neapolitan when it seizes him, because, you understand, before the

doctor can dig through the dirt and get at the disease the man dies. The upper classes take a seabath every

The streets are generally about wide enough for one wagon, and how they do swarm with people! It is

Broadway repeated in every street, in every court, in every alley! Such masses, such throngs, such multitudes

of hurrying, bustling, struggling humanity! We never saw the like of it, hardly even in New York, I think.

There are seldom any sidewalks, and when there are, they are not often wide enough to pass a man on

without caroming on him. So everybody walks in the street and where the street is wide enough, carriages

are forever dashing along. Why a thousand people are not run over and crippled every day is a mystery that

no man can solve. But if there is an eighth wonder in the world, it must be the dwellinghouses of Naples. I

honestly believe a good majority of them are a hundred feet high! And the solid brick walls are seven feet

through. You go up nine flights of stairs before you get to the "first" floor. No, not nine, but there or

thereabouts. There is a little birdcage of an iron railing in front of every window clear away up, up, up,

among the eternal clouds, where the roof is, and there is always somebody looking out of every window

people of ordinary size looking out from the first floor, people a shade smaller from the second, people that

look a little smaller yet from the third and from thence upward they grow smaller and smaller by a

regularly graduated diminution, till the folks in the topmost windows seem more like birds in an uncommonly

tall martinbox than any thing else. The perspective of one of these narrow cracks of streets, with its rows of

tall houses stretching away till they come together in the distance like railway tracks; its clotheslines

crossing over at all altitudes and waving their bannered raggedness over the swarms of people below; and the

whitedressed women perched in balcony railings all the way from the pavement up to the heavens a

Naples, with its immediate suburbs, contains six hundred and twentyfive thousand inhabitants, but I am

satisfied it covers no more ground than an American city of one hundred and fifty thousand. It reaches up into

the air infinitely higher than three American cities, though, and there is where the secret of it lies. I will

observe here, in passing, that the contrasts between opulence and poverty, and magnificence and misery, are

more frequent and more striking in Naples than in Paris even. One must go to the Bois de Boulogne to see

fashionable dressing, splendid equipages and stunning liveries, and to the Faubourg St. Antoine to see vice,

misery, hunger, rags, dirt but in the thoroughfares of Naples these things are all mixed together. Naked

boys of nine years and the fancydressed children of luxury; shreds and tatters, and brilliant uniforms;

jackasscarts and statecarriages; beggars, Princes and Bishops, jostle each other in every street. At six

o'clock every evening, all Naples turns out to drive on the Riviere di Chiaja, (whatever that may mean;) and

for two hours one may stand there and see the motliest and the worst mixed procession go by that ever eyes

beheld. Princes (there are more Princes than policemen in Naples the city is infested with them)

Princes who live up seven flights of stairs and don't own any principalities, will keep a carriage and go

hungry; and clerks, mechanics, milliners and strumpets will go without their dinners and squander the money

on a hackride in the Chiaja; the ragtag and rubbish of the city stack themselves up, to the number of twenty

or thirty, on a rickety little gocart hauled by a donkey not much bigger than a cat, and they drive in the

Chiaja; Dukes and bankers, in sumptuous carriages and with gorgeous drivers and footmen, turn out, also,

and so the furious procession goes. For two hours rank and wealth, and obscurity and poverty clatter along

side by side in the wild procession, and then go home serene, happy, covered with glory!

I was looking at a magnificent marble staircase in the King's palace, the other day, which, it was said, cost

five million francs, and I suppose it did cost half a million, may be. I felt as if it must be a fine thing to live in

a country where there was such comfort and such luxury as this. And then I stepped out musing, and almost

walked over a vagabond who was eating his dinner on the curbstone a piece of bread and a bunch of

grapes. When I found that this mustang was clerking in a fruit establishment (he had the establishment along

with him in a basket,) at two cents a day, and that he had no palace at home where he lived, I lost some of my

This naturally suggests to me a thought about wages here. Lieutenants in the army get about a dollar a day,

and common soldiers a couple of cents. I only know one clerk he gets four dollars a month. Printers get

six dollars and a half a month, but I have heard of a foreman who gets thirteen. To be growing suddenly and

violently rich, as this man is, naturally makes him a bloated aristocrat. The airs he puts on are insufferable.

And, speaking of wages, reminds me of prices of merchandise. In Paris you pay twelve dollars a dozen for

Jouvin's best kid gloves; gloves of about as good quality sell here at three or four dollars a dozen. You pay

five and six dollars apiece for fine linen shirts in Paris; here and in Leghorn you pay two and a half. In

Marseilles you pay forty dollars for a firstclass dress coat made by a good tailor, but in Leghorn you can get

a full dress suit for the same money. Here you get handsome business suits at from ten to twenty dollars, and

in Leghorn you can get an overcoat for fifteen dollars that would cost you seventy in New York. Fine kid

boots are worth eight dollars in Marseilles and four dollars here. Lyons velvets rank higher in America than

those of Genoa. Yet the bulk of Lyons velvets you buy in the States are made in Genoa and imported into

Lyons, where they receive the Lyons stamp and are then exported to America. You can buy enough velvet in

Genoa for twentyfive dollars to make a five hundred dollar cloak in New York so the ladies tell me. Of

And thus the wonderful Blue Grotto is suggested to me. It is situated on the Island of Capri, twentytwo

miles from Naples. We chartered a little steamer and went out there. Of course, the police boarded us and put

us through a health examination, and inquired into our politics, before they would let us land. The airs these

little insect Governments put on are in the last degree ridiculous. They even put a policeman on board of our

boat to keep an eye on us as long as we were in the Capri dominions. They thought we wanted to steal the

grotto, I suppose. It was worth stealing. The entrance to the cave is four feet high and four feet wide, and is in

the face of a lofty perpendicular cliff the seawall. You enter in small boats and a tight squeeze it is,

too. You can not go in at all when the tide is up. Once within, you find yourself in an arched cavern about one

hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred and twenty wide, and about seventy high. How deep it is no man

knows. It goes down to the bottom of the ocean. The waters of this placid subterranean lake are the brightest,

loveliest blue that can be imagined. They are as transparent as plate glass, and their coloring would shame the

richest sky that ever bent over Italy. No tint could be more ravishing, no lustre more superb. Throw a stone

into the water, and the myriad of tiny bubbles that are created flash out a brilliant glare like blue theatrical

fires. Dip an oar, and its blade turns to splendid frosted silver, tinted with blue. Let a man jump in, and

Then we went to Ischia, but I had already been to that island and tired myself to death "resting" a couple of

days and studying human villainy, with the landlord of the Grande Sentinelle for a model. So we went to

Procida, and from thence to Pozzuoli, where St. Paul landed after he sailed from Samos. I landed at precisely

the same spot where St. Paul landed, and so did Dan and the others. It was a remarkable coincidence. St. Paul

Nero's Baths, the ruins of Bai�, the Temple of Serapis; Cum�, where the Cum�n Sybil interpreted the

oracles, the Lake Agnano, with its ancient submerged city still visible far down in its depths these and a

hundred other points of interest we examined with critical imbecility, but the Grotto of the Dog claimed our

chief attention, because we had heard and read so much about it. Every body has written about the Grotto del

Cane and its poisonous vapors, from Pliny down to Smith, and every tourist has held a dog over its floor by

the legs to test the capabilities of the place. The dog dies in a minute and a half a chicken instantly. As a

general thing, strangers who crawl in there to sleep do not get up until they are called. And then they don't

either. The stranger that ventures to sleep there takes a permanent contract. I longed to see this grotto. I

resolved to take a dog and hold him myself'; suffocate him a little, and time him; suffocate him some more

and then finish him. We reached the grotto at about three in the afternoon, and proceeded at once to make the

At the Hermitage we were about fifteen or eighteen hundred feet above the sea, and thus far a portion of the

ascent had been pretty abrupt. For the next two miles the road was a mixture sometimes the ascent was

abrupt and sometimes it was not: but one characteristic it possessed all the time, without failure without

modification it was all uncompromisingly and unspeakably infamous. It was a rough, narrow trail, and led

over an old lava flow a black ocean which was tumbled into a thousand fantastic shapes a wild chaos

of ruin, desolation, and barrenness a wilderness of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature

mountains rent asunder of gnarled and knotted, wrinkled and twisted masses of blackness that mimicked

branching roots, great vines, trunks of trees, all interlaced and mingled together: and all these weird shapes,

all this turbulent panorama, all this stormy, farstretching waste of blackness, with its thrilling suggestiveness

of life, of action, of boiling, surging, furious motion, was petrified! all stricken dead and cold in the

instant of its maddest rioting! fettered, paralyzed, and left to glower at heaven in impotent rage for

Finally we stood in a level, narrow valley (a valley that had been created by the terrific march of some old

time irruption) and on either hand towered the two steep peaks of Vesuvius. The one we had to climb the

one that contains the active volcano seemed about eight hundred or one thousand feet high, and looked

almost too straightupanddown for any man to climb, and certainly no mule could climb it with a man on

his back. Four of these native pirates will carry you to the top in a sedan chair, if you wish it, but suppose

they were to slip and let you fall, is it likely that you would ever stop rolling? Not this side of eternity,

perhaps. We left the mules, sharpened our fingernails, and began the ascent I have been writing about so

long, at twenty minutes to six in the morning. The path led straight up a rugged sweep of loose chunks of

pumicestone, and for about every two steps forward we took, we slid back one. It was so excessively steep

that we had to stop, every fifty or sixty steps, and rest a moment. To see our comrades, we had to look very

nearly straight up at those above us, and very nearly straight down at those below. We stood on the summit at

What we saw there was simply a circular crater a circular ditch, if you please about two hundred feet

deep, and four or five hundred feet wide, whose inner wall was about half a mile in circumference. In the

centre of the great circus ring thus formed, was a torn and ragged upheaval a hundred feet high, all snowed

over with a sulphur crust of many and many a brilliant and beautiful color, and the ditch inclosed this like the

moat of a castle, or surrounded it as a little river does a little island, if the simile is better. The sulphur coating

of that island was gaudy in the extreme all mingled together in the richest confusion were red, blue,

brown, black, yellow, white I do not know that there was a color, or shade of a color, or combination of

colors, unrepresented and when the sun burst through the morning mists and fired this tinted

The crater itself the ditch was not so variegated in coloring, but yet, in its softness, richness, and

unpretentious elegance, it was more charming, more fascinating to the eye. There was nothing "loud" about

its wellbred and wellcreased look. Beautiful? One could stand and look down upon it for a week without

getting tired of it. It had the semblance of a pleasant meadow, whose slender grasses and whose velvety

mosses were frosted with a shining dust, and tinted with palest green that deepened gradually to the darkest

hue of the orange leaf, and deepened yet again into gravest brown, then faded into orange, then into brightest

gold, and culminated in the delicate pink of a newblown rose. Where portions of the meadow had sunk, and

where other portions had been broken up like an icefloe, the cavernous openings of the one, and the ragged

upturned edges exposed by the other, were hung with a lacework of softtinted crystals of sulphur that

changed their deformities into quaint shapes and figures that were full of grace and beauty.

The walls of the ditch were brilliant with yellow banks of sulphur and with lava and pumicestone of many

colors. No fire was visible any where, but gusts of sulphurous steam issued silently and invisibly from a

thousand little cracks and fissures in the crater, and were wafted to our noses with every breeze. But so long

as we kept our nostrils buried in our handkerchiefs, there was small danger of suffocation.

Some of the boys thrust long slips of paper down into holes and set them on fire, and so achieved the glory of

lighting their cigars by the flames of Vesuvius, and others cooked eggs over fissures in the rocks and were

The view from the summit would have been superb but for the fact that the sun could only pierce the mists at

long intervals. Thus the glimpses we had of the grand panorama below were only fitful and unsatisfactory.

The descent of the mountain was a labor of only four minutes. Instead of stalking down the rugged path we

ascended, we chose one which was bedded kneedeep in loose ashes, and ploughed our way with prodigious

strides that would almost have shamed the performance of him of the sevenleague boots.

The Vesuvius of today is a very poor affair compared to the mighty volcano of Kilauea, in the Sandwich

It is said that during one of the grand eruptions of Vesuvius it discharged massy rocks weighing many tons a

thousand feet into the air, its vast jets of smoke and steam ascended thirty miles toward the firmament, and

clouds of its ashes were wafted abroad and fell upon the decks of ships seven hundred and fifty miles at sea! I

will take the ashes at a moderate discount, if any one will take the thirty miles of smoke, but I do not feel able

THEY pronounce it Pompaye. I always had an idea that you went down into Pompeii with torches, by the

way of damp, dark stairways, just as you do in silver mines, and traversed gloomy tunnels with lava overhead

and something on either hand like dilapidated prisons gouged out of the solid earth, that faintly resembled

houses. But you do nothing the kind. Fully onehalf of the buried city, perhaps, is completely exhumed and

thrown open freely to the light of day; and there stand the long rows of solidlybuilt brick houses (roofless)

just as they stood eighteen hundred years ago, hot with the flaming sun; and there lie their floors,

cleanswept, and not a bright fragment tarnished or waiting of the labored mosaics that pictured them with

the beasts, and birds, and flowers which we copy in perishable carpets today; and here are the Venuses, and

Bacchuses, and Adonises, making love and getting drunk in manyhued frescoes on the walls of saloon and

bedchamber; and there are the narrow streets and narrower sidewalks, paved with flags of good hard lava,

the one deeply rutted with the chariotwheels, and the other with the passing feet of the Pompeiians of

bygone centuries; and there are the bakeshops, the temples, the halls of justice, the baths, the theatres

all cleanscraped and neat, and suggesting nothing of the nature of a silver mine away down in the bowels of

the earth. The broken pillars lying about, the doorless doorways and the crumbled tops of the wilderness of

walls, were wonderfully suggestive of the "burnt district" in one of our cities, and if there had been any

charred timbers, shattered windows, heaps of debris, and general blackness and smokiness about the place,

the resemblance would have been perfect. But no the sun shines as brightly down on old Pompeii today

as it did when Christ was born in Bethlehem, and its streets are cleaner a hundred times than ever Pompeiian

saw them in her prime. I know whereof I speak for in the great, chief thoroughfares (Merchant street and

the Street of Fortune) have I not seen with my own eyes how for two hundred years at least the pavements

were not repaired! bow ruts five and even ten inches deep were worn into the thick flagstones by the

chariotwheels of generations of swindled taxpayers? And do I not know by these signs that Street

Commissioners of Pompeii never attended to their business, and that if they never mended the pavements

they never cleaned them? And, besides, is it not the inborn nature of Street Commissioners to avoid their duty

whenever they get a chance? I wish I knew the name of the last one that held office in Pompeii so that I could

give him a blast. I speak with feeling on this subject, because I caught my foot in one of those ruts, and the

sadness that came over me when I saw the first poor skeleton, with ashes and lava sticking to it, was

No Pompeii is no longer a buried city. It is a city of hundreds and hundreds of roofless houses, and a

tangled maze of streets where one could easily get lost, without a guide, and have to sleep in some ghostly

palace that had known no living tenant since that awful November night of eighteen centuries ago.

We passed through the gate which faces the Mediterranean, (called the "Marine Gate,") and by the rusty,

broken image of Minerva, still keeping tireless watch and ward over the possessions it was powerless to save,

and went up a long street and stood in the broad court of the Forum of Justice. The floor was level and clean,

and up and down either side was a noble colonnade of broken pillars, with their beautiful Ionic and

Corinthian columns scattered about them. At the upper end were the vacant seats of the Judges, and behind

them we descended into a dungeon where the ashes and cinders had found two prisoners chained on that

memorable November night, and tortured them to death. How they must have tugged at the pitiless fetters as

Then we lounged through many and many a sumptuous private mansion which we could not have entered

without a formal invitation in incomprehensible Latin, in the olden time, when the owners lived there and

we probably wouldn't have got it. These people built their houses a good deal alike. The floors were laid in

fanciful figures wrought in mosaics of manycolored marbles. At the threshold your eyes fall upon a Latin

sentence of welcome, sometimes, or a picture of a dog, with the legend "Beware of the Dog," and sometimes

a picture of a bear or a faun with no inscription at all. Then you enter a sort of vestibule, where they used to

keep the hatrack, I suppose; next a room with a large marble basin in the midst and the pipes of a fountain;

on either side are bedrooms; beyond the fountain is a receptionroom, then a little garden, diningroom, and

so forth and so on. The floors were all mosaic, the walls were stuccoed, or frescoed, or ornamented with

basreliefs, and here and there were statues, large and small, and little fishpools, and cascades of sparkling

water that sprang from secret places in the colonnade of handsome pillars that surrounded the court, and kept

the flowerbeds fresh and the air cool. Those Pompeiians were very luxurious in their tastes and habits. The

most exquisite bronzes we have seen in Europe, came from the exhumed cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii,

and also the finest cameos and the most delicate engravings on precious stones; their pictures, eighteen or

nineteen centuries old, are often much more pleasing than the celebrated rubbish of the old masters of three

centuries ago. They were well up in art. From the creation of these works of the first, clear up to the eleventh

century, art seems hardly to have existed at all at least no remnants of it are left and it was curious to

see how far (in some things, at any rate,) these old time pagans excelled the remote generations of masters

that came after them. The pride of the world in sculptures seem to be the Laocoon and the Dying Gladiator, in

Rome. They are as old as Pompeii, were dug from the earth like Pompeii; but their exact age or who made

them can only be conjectured. But worn, and cracked, without a history, and with the blemishing stains of

numberless centuries upon them, they still mutely mock at all efforts to rival their perfections.

It was a quaint and curious pastime, wandering through this old silent city of the dead lounging through

utterly deserted streets where thousands and thousands of human beings once bought and sold, and walked

and rode, and made the place resound with the noise and confusion of traffic and pleasure. They were not

lazy. They hurried in those days. We had evidence of that. There was a temple on one corner, and it was a

shorter cut to go between the columns of that temple from one street to the other than to go around and

behold that pathway had been worn deep into the heavy flagstone floor of the building by generations of

timesaving feet! They would not go around when it was quicker to go through. We do that way in our cities.

Every where, you see things that make you wonder how old these old houses were before the night of

destruction came things, too, which bring back those long dead inhabitants and place the living before

your eyes. For instance: The steps (two feet thick lava blocks) that lead up out of the school, and the same

kind of steps that lead up into the dress circle of the principal theatre, are almost worn through! For ages the

boys hurried out of that school, and for ages their parents hurried into that theatre, and the nervous feet that

have been dust and ashes for eighteen centuries have left their record for us to read today. I imagined I

could see crowds of gentlemen and ladies thronging into the theatre, with tickets for secured seats in their

hands, and on the wall, I read the imaginary placard, in infamous grammar, "POSITIVELY NO FREE LIST,

EXCEPT MEMBERS OF THE PRESS!" Hanging about the doorway (I fancied,) were slouchy Pompeiian

streetboys uttering slang and profanity, and keeping a wary eye out for checks. I entered the theatre, and sat

down in one of the long rows of stone benches in the dress circle, and looked at the place for the orchestra,

and the ruined stage, and around at the wide sweep of empty boxes, and thought to myself, "This house won't

pay." I tried to imagine the music in full blast, the leader of the orchestra beating time, and the "versatile"

SoandSo (who had "just returned from a most successful tour in the provinces to play his last and farewell

engagement of positively six nights only, in Pompeii, previous to his departure for Herculaneum,") charging

around the stage and piling the agony mountains high but I could not do it with such a "house" as that;

those empty benches tied my fancy down to dull reality. I said, these people that ought to be here have been

dead, and still, and moldering to dust for ages and ages, and will never care for the trifles and follies of life

any more for ever "Owing to circumstances, etc., etc., there will not be any performance tonight." Close

And so I turned away and went through shop after shop and store after store, far down the long street of the

merchants, and called for the wares of Rome and the East, but the tradesmen were gone, the marts were

silent, and nothing was left but the broken jars all set in cement of cinders and ashes: the wine and the oil that

In a bakeshop was a mill for grinding the grain, and the furnaces for baking the bread: and they say that

here, in the same furnaces, the exhumers of Pompeii found nice, well baked loaves which the baker had not

found time to remove from the ovens the last time he left his shop, because circumstances compelled him to

In one house (the only building in Pompeii which no woman is now allowed to enter,) were the small rooms

and short beds of solid masonry, just as they were in the old times, and on the walls were pictures which

looked almost as fresh as if they were painted yesterday, but which no pen could have the hardihood to

describe; and here and there were Latin inscriptions obscene scintillations of wit, scratched by hands that

possibly were uplifted to Heaven for succor in the midst of a driving storm of fire before the night was done.

In one of the principal streets was a ponderous stone tank, and a waterspout that supplied it, and where the

tired, heated toilers from the Campagna used to rest their right hands when they bent over to put their lips to

the spout, the thick stone was worn down to a broad groove an inch or two deep. Think of the countless

thousands of hands that had pressed that spot in the ages that are gone, to so reduce a stone that is as hard as

They had a great public bulletin board in Pompeii a place where announcements for gladiatorial combats,

elections, and such things, were posted not on perishable paper, but carved in enduring stone. One lady,

who, I take it, was rich and well brought up, advertised a dwelling or so to rent, with baths and all the modern

improvements, and several hundred shops, stipulating that the dwellings should not be put to immoral

purposes. You can find out who lived in many a house in Pompeii by the carved stone doorplates affixed to

them: and in the same way you can tell who they were that occupy the tombs. Every where around are things

that reveal to you something of the customs and history of this forgotten people. But what would a volcano

leave of an American city, if it once rained its cinders on it? Hardly a sign or a symbol to tell its story.

In one of these long Pompeiian halls the skeleton of a man was found, with ten pieces of gold in one hand and

a large key in the other. He had seized his money and started toward the door, but the fiery tempest caught

him at the very threshold, and he sank down and died. One more minute of precious time would have saved

him. I saw the skeletons of a man, a woman, and two young girls. The woman had her hands spread wide

apart, as if in mortal terror, and I imagined I could still trace upon her shapeless face something of the

expression of wild despair that distorted it when the heavens rained fire in these streets, so many ages ago.

The girls and the man lay with their faces upon their arms, as if they had tried to shield them from the

enveloping cinders. In one apartment eighteen skeletons were found, all in sitting postures, and blackened

places on the walls still mark their shapes and show their attitudes, like shadows. One of them, a woman, still

wore upon her skeleton throat a necklace, with her name engraved upon it JULIE DI DIOMEDE.

But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of a

Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome,

and full of the stern courage which had given to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect

and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer.

We never read of Pompeii but we think of that soldier; we can not write of Pompeii without the natural

impulse to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. Let us remember that he was a soldier not a

policeman and so, praise him. Being a soldier, he staid, because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly.

Had he been a policeman he would have staid, also because he would have been asleep.

There are not half a dozen flights of stairs in Pompeii, and no other evidences that the houses were more than

one story high. The people did not live in the clouds, as do the Venetians, the Genoese and Neapolitans of

We came out from under the solemn mysteries of this city of the Venerable Past this city which perished,

with all its old ways and its quaint old fashions about it, remote centuries ago, when the Disciples were

preaching the new religion, which is as old as the hills to us now and went dreaming among the trees that

grow over acres and acres of its still buried streets and squares, till a shrill whistle and the cry of "All aboard

last train for Naples!" woke me up and reminded me that I belonged in the nineteenth century, and was

not a dusty mummy, caked with ashes and cinders, eighteen hundred years old. The transition was startling.

The idea of a railroad train actually running to old dead Pompeii, and whistling irreverently, and calling for

passengers in the most bustling and businesslike way, was as strange a thing as one could imagine, and as

Compare the cheerful life and the sunshine of this day with the horrors the younger Pliny saw here, the 9th of

November, A.D. 79, when he was so bravely striving to remove his mother out of reach of harm, while she

begged him, with all a mother's unselfishness, to leave her to perish and save himself.

'By this time the murky darkness had so increased that one might have believed himself abroad in a black and

moonless night, or in a chamber where all the lights had been extinguished. On every hand was heard the

complaints of women, the wailing of children, and the cries of men. One called his father, another his son,

and another his wife, and only by their voices could they know each other. Many in their despair begged that

"Some implored the gods to succor them, and some believed that this night was the last, the eternal night

"Even so it seemed to me and I consoled myself for the coming death with the reflection: BEHOLD, THE

After browsing among the stately ruins of Rome, of Bai�, of Pompeii, and after glancing down the long

marble ranks of battered and nameless imperial heads that stretch down the corridors of the Vatican, one

thing strikes me with a force it never had before: the unsubstantial, unlasting character of fame. Men lived

long lives, in the olden time, and struggled feverishly through them, toiling like slaves, in oratory, in

generalship, or in literature, and then laid them down and died, happy in the possession of an enduring history

and a deathless name. Well, twenty little centuries flutter away, and what is left of these things? A crazy

inscription on a block of stone, which snuffy antiquaries bother over and tangle up and make nothing out of

but a bare name (which they spell wrong) no history, no tradition, no poetry nothing that can give it

even a passing interest. What may be left of General Grant's great name forty centuries hence? This in the

"URIAH S. (or Z.) GRAUNT popular poet of ancient times in the Aztec provinces of the United States of

British America. Some authors say flourished about A. D. 742; but the learned Ahah Foofoo states that he

was a cotemporary of Scharkspyre, the English poet, and flourished about A. D. 1328, some three centuries

after the Trojan war instead of before it. He wrote 'Rock me to Sleep, Mother.'"

HOME, again! For the first time, in many weeks, the ship's entire family met and shook hands on the

quarterdeck. They had gathered from many points of the compass and from many lands, but not one was

missing; there was no tale of sickness or death among the flock to dampen the pleasure of the reunion. Once

more there was a full audience on deck to listen to the sailors' chorus as they got the anchor up, and to wave

an adieu to the land as we sped away from Naples. The seats were full at dinner again, the domino parties

were complete, and the life and bustle on the upper deck in the fine moonlight at night was like old times

old times that had been gone weeks only, but yet they were weeks so crowded with incident, adventure and

excitement, that they seemed almost like years. There was no lack of cheerfulness on board the Quaker City.

At seven in the evening, with the western horizon all golden from the sunken sun, and specked with distant

ships, the full moon sailing high over head, the dark blue of the sea under foot, and a strange sort of twilight

affected by all these different lights and colors around us and about us, we sighted superb Stromboli. With

what majesty the monarch held his lonely state above the level sea! Distance clothed him in a purple gloom,

and added a veil of shimmering mist that so softened his rugged features that we seemed to see him through a

a web of silver gauze. His torch was out; his fires were smoldering; a tall column of smoke that rose up and

lost itself in the growing moonlight was all the sign he gave that he was a living Autocrat of the Sea and not

At two in the morning we swept through the Straits of Messina, and so bright was the moonlight that Italy on

the one hand and Sicily on the other seemed almost as distinctly visible as though we looked at them from the

middle of a street we were traversing. The city of Messina, milkwhite, and starred and spangled all over

with gaslights, was a fairy spectacle. A great party of us were on deck smoking and making a noise, and

waiting to see famous Scylla and Charybdis. And presently the Oracle stepped out with his eternal spyglass

and squared himself on the deck like another Colossus of Rhodes. It was a surprise to see him abroad at such

an hour. Nobody supposed he cared anything about an old fable like that of Scylla and Charybdis. One of the

" Hello, doctor, what are you doing up here at this time of night ? What do you want to see this place for?"

" What do I want to see this place for? Young man, little do you know me, or you wouldn't ask such a

"It ain't mentioned in the Bible! this place ain't well now, what place is this, since you know so much

And he closed up his glass and went below. The above is the ship story. Its plausibility is marred a little by

the fact that the Oracle was not a biblical student, and did not spend much of his time instructing himself

about Scriptural localities. They say the Oracle complains, in this hot weather, lately, that the only

beverage in the ship that is passable, is the butter. He did not mean butter, of course, but inasmuch as that

article remains in a melted state now since we are out of ice, it is fair to give him the credit of getting one

long word in the right place, anyhow, for once in his life. He said, in Rome, that the Pope was a

We spent one pleasant day skirting along the Isles of Greece. They are very mountainous. Their prevailing

tints are gray and brown, approaching to red. Little white villages surrounded by trees, nestle in the valleys or

We had one fine sunset a rich carmine flush that suffused the western sky and cast a ruddy glow far over

the sea. Fine sunsets seem to be rare in this part of the world or at least, striking ones. They are soft,

sensuous, lovely they are exquisite refined, effeminate, but we have seen no sunsets here yet like the

gorgeous conflagrations that flame in the track of the sinking sun in our high northern latitudes.

But what were sunsets to us, with the wild excitement upon us of approaching the most renowned of cities!

What cared we for outward visions, when Agamemnon, Achilles, and a thousand other heroes of the great

Past were marching in ghostly procession through our fancies? What were sunsets to us, who were about to

live and breathe and walk in actual Athens; yea, and go far down into the dead centuries and bid in person for

the slaves, Diogenes and Plato, in the public marketplace, or gossip with the neighbors about the siege of

We arrived, and entered the ancient harbor of the Pir�us at last. We dropped anchor within half a mile of the

village. Away off, across the undulating Plain of Attica, could be seen a little squaretopped hill with a

something on it, which our glasses soon discovered to be the ruined edifices of the citadel of the Athenians,

and most prominent among them loomed the venerable Parthenon. So exquisitely clear and pure is this

wonderful atmosphere that every column of the noble structure was discernible through the telescope, and

even the smaller ruins about it assumed some semblance of shape. This at a distance of five or six miles. In

the valley, near the Acropolis, (the squaretopped hill before spoken of,) Athens itself could be vaguely made

out with an ordinary lorgnette. Every body was anxious to get ashore and visit these classic localities as

quickly as possible. No land we had yet seen had aroused such universal interest among the passengers.

But bad news came. The commandant of the Pir�us came in his boat, and said we must either depart or else

get outside the harbor and remain imprisoned in our ship, under rigid quarantine, for eleven days! So we took

up the anchor and moved outside, to lie a dozen hours or so, taking in supplies, and then sail for

Constantinople. It was the bitterest disappointment we had yet experienced. To lie a whole day in sight of the

Acropolis, and yet be obliged to go away without visiting Athens! Disappointment was hardly a strong

All hands were on deck, all the afternoon, with books and maps and glasses, trying to determine which

"narrow rocky ridge" was the Areopagus, which sloping hill the Pnyx, which elevation the Museum Hill, and

so on. And we got things confused. Discussion became heated, and party spirit ran high. Church members

were gazing with emotion upon a hill which they said was the one St. Paul preached from, and another

faction claimed that that hill was Hymettus, and another that it was Pentelicon! After all the trouble, we could

be certain of only one thing the squaretopped hill was the Acropolis, and the grand ruin that crowned it

We inquired of every body who came near the ship, whether there were guards in the Pir�us, whether they

were strict, what the chances were of capture should any of us slip ashore, and in case any of us made the

venture and were caught, what would be probably done to us? The answers were discouraging: There was a

strong guard or police force; the Pir�us was a small town, and any stranger seen in it would surely attract

attention capture would be certain. The commandant said the punishment would be "heavy;" when asked

"how heavy?" he said it would be "very severe" that was all we could get out of him.

At eleven o'clock at night, when most of the ship's company were abed, four of us stole softly ashore in a

small boat, a clouded moon favoring the enterprise, and started two and two, and far apart, over a low hill,

intending to go clear around the Pir�us, out of the range of its police. Picking our way so stealthily over that

rocky, nettlegrown eminence, made me feel a good deal as if I were on my way somewhere to steal

something. My immediate comrade and I talked in an undertone about quarantine laws and their penalties,

but we found nothing cheering in the subject. I was posted. Only a few days before, I was talking with our

captain, and he mentioned the case of a man who swam ashore from a quarantined ship somewhere, and got

imprisoned six months for it; and when he was in Genoa a few years ago, a captain of a quarantined ship

went in his boat to a departing ship, which was already outside of the harbor, and put a letter on board to be

taken to his family, and the authorities imprisoned him three months for it, and then conducted him and his

ship fairly to sea, and warned him never to show himself in that port again while he lived. This kind of

conversation did no good, further than to give a sort of dismal interest to our quarantinebreaking expedition,

and so we dropped it. We made the entire circuit of the town without seeing any body but one man, who

stared at us curiously, but said nothing, and a dozen persons asleep on the ground before their doors, whom

we walked among and never woke but we woke up dogs enough, in all conscience we always had one

or two barking at our heels, and several times we had as many as ten and twelve at once. They made such a

preposterous din that persons aboard our ship said they could tell how we were progressing for a long time,

and where we were, by the barking of the dogs. The clouded moon still favored us. When we had made the

whole circuit, and were passing among the houses on the further side of the town, the moon came out

splendidly, but we no longer feared the light. As we approached a well, near a house, to get a drink, the

owner merely glanced at us and went within. He left the quiet, slumbering town at our mercy. I record it here

Seeing no road, we took a tall hill to the left of the distant Acropolis for a mark, and steered straight for it

over all obstructions, and over a little rougher piece of country than exists any where else outside of the State

of Nevada, perhaps. Part of the way it was covered with small, loose stones we trod on six at a time, and

they all rolled. Another part of it was dry, loose, newlyploughed ground. Still another part of it was a long

stretch of low grapevines, which were tanglesome and troublesome, and which we took to be brambles. The

Attic Plain, barring the grapevines, was a barren, desolate, unpoetical waste I wonder what it was in

In the neighborhood of one o'clock in the morning, when we were heated with fast walking and parched with

thirst, Denny exclaimed, "Why, these weeds are grapevines!" and in five minutes we had a score of bunches

of large, white, delicious grapes, and were reaching down for more when a dark shape rose mysteriously up

In ten minutes more we struck into a beautiful road, and unlike some others we had stumbled upon at

intervals, it led in the right direction. We followed it. It was broad, and smooth, and white handsome and

in perfect repair, and shaded on both sides for a mile or so with single ranks of trees, and also with luxuriant

vineyards. Twice we entered and stole grapes, and the second time somebody shouted at us from some

invisible place. Whereupon we left again. We speculated in grapes no more on that side of Athens.

Shortly we came upon an ancient stone aqueduct, built upon arches, and from that time forth we had ruins all

about us we were approaching our journey's end. We could not see the Acropolis now or the high hill,

either, and I wanted to follow the road till we were abreast of them, but the others overruled me, and we

toiled laboriously up the stony hill immediately in our front and from its summit saw another climbed

it and saw another! It was an hour of exhausting work. Soon we came upon a row of open graves, cut in the

solid rock (for a while one of them served Socrates for a prison) we passed around the shoulder of the

hill, and the citadel, in all its ruined magnificence, burst upon us! We hurried across the ravine and up a

winding road, and stood on the old Acropolis, with the prodigious walls of the citadel towering above our

heads. We did not stop to inspect their massive blocks of marble, or measure their height, or guess at their

extraordinary thickness, but passed at once through a great arched passage like a railway tunnel, and went

straight to the gate that leads to the ancient temples. It was locked! So, after all, it seemed that we were not to

see the great Parthenon face to face. We sat down and held a council of war. Result: the gate was only a

flimsy structure of wood we would break it down. It seemed like desecration, but then we had traveled far,

and our necessities were urgent. We could not hunt up guides and keepers we must be on the ship before

daylight. So we argued. This was all very fine, but when we came to break the gate, we could not do it. We

moved around an angle of the wall and found a low bastion eight feet high without ten or twelve

within. Denny prepared to scale it, and we got ready to follow. By dint of hard scrambling he finally

straddled the top, but some loose stones crumbled away and fell with a crash into the court within. There was

instantly a banging of doors and a shout. Denny dropped from the wall in a twinkling, and we retreated in

disorder to the gate. Xerxes took that mighty citadel four hundred and eighty years before Christ, when his

five millions of soldiers and campfollowers followed him to Greece, and if we four Americans could have

The garrison had turned out four Greeks. We clamored at the gate, and they admitted us. [Bribery and

We crossed a large court, entered a great door, and stood upon a pavement of purest white marble, deeply

worn by footprints. Before us, in the flooding moonlight, rose the noblest ruins we had ever looked upon

the Propyl�; a small Temple of Minerva; the Temple of Hercules, and the grand Parthenon. [We got these

names from the Greek guide, who didn't seem to know more than seven men ought to know.] These edifices

were all built of the whitest Pentelic marble, but have a pinkish stain upon them now. Where any part is

broken, however, the fracture looks like fine loaf sugar. Six caryatides, or marble women, clad in flowing

robes, support the portico of the Temple of Hercules, but the porticos and colonnades of the other structures

are formed of massive Doric and Ionic pillars, whose flutings and capitals are still measurably perfect,

notwithstanding the centuries that have gone over them and the sieges they have suffered. The Parthenon,

originally, was two hundred and twentysix feet long, one hundred wide, and seventy high, and had two rows

of great columns, eight in each, at either end, and single rows of seventeen each down the sides, and was one

Most of the Parthenon's imposing columns are still standing, but the roof is gone. It was a perfect building

two hundred and fifty years ago, when a shell dropped into the Venetian magazine stored here, and the

explosion which followed wrecked and unroofed it. I remember but little about the Parthenon, and I have put

in one or two facts and figures for the use of other people with short memories. Got them from the

As we wandered thoughtfully down the marblepaved length of this stately temple, the scene about us was

strangely impressive. Here and there, in lavish profusion, were gleaming white statues of men and women,

propped against blocks of marble, some of them armless, some without legs, others headless but all

looking mournful in the moonlight, and startlingly human! They rose up and confronted the midnight intruder

on every side they stared at him with stony eyes from unlookedfor nooks and recesses; they peered at

him over fragmentary heaps far down the desolate corridors; they barred his way in the midst of the broad

forum, and solemnly pointed with handless arms the way from the sacred fane; and through the roofless

temple the moon looked down, and banded the floor and darkened the scattered fragments and broken statues

What a world of ruined sculpture was about us! Set up in rows stacked up in piles scattered broadcast

over the wide area of the Acropolis were hundreds of crippled statues of all sizes and of the most exquisite

workmanship; and vast fragments of marble that once belonged to the entablatures, covered with basreliefs

representing battles and sieges, ships of war with three and four tiers of oars, pageants and processions

every thing one could think of. History says that the temples of the Acropolis were filled with the noblest

works of Praxiteles and Phidias, and of many a great master in sculpture besides and surely these elegant

We walked out into the grassgrown, fragmentstrewn court beyond the Parthenon. It startled us, every now

and then, to see a stony white face stare suddenly up at us out of the grass with its dead eyes. The place

seemed alive with ghosts. I half expected to see the Athenian heroes of twenty centuries ago glide out of the

shadows and steal into the old temple they knew so well and regarded with such boundless pride.

The full moon wag riding high in the cloudless heavens, now. We sauntered carelessly and unthinkingly to

the edge of the lofty battlements of the citadel, and looked down a vision! And such a vision! Athens by

moonlight! The prophet that thought the splendors of the New Jerusalem were revealed to him, surely saw

this instead! It lay in the level plain right under our feet all spread abroad like a picture and we looked

down upon it as we might have looked from a balloon. We saw no semblance of a street, but every house,

every window, every clinging vine, every projection was as distinct and sharply marked as if the time were

noonday; and yet there was no glare, no glitter, nothing harsh or repulsive the noiseless city was flooded

with the mellowest light that ever streamed from the moon, and seemed like some living creature wrapped in

peaceful slumber. On its further side was a little temple, whose delicate pillars and ornate front glowed with a

rich lustre that chained the eye like a spell; and nearer by, the palace of the king reared its creamy walls out of

the midst of a great garden of shrubbery that was flecked all over with a random shower of amber lights a

spray of golden sparks that lost their brightness in the glory of the moon, and glinted softly upon the sea of

dark foliage like the pallid stars of the milkyway. Overhead the stately columns, majestic still in their ruin

under foot the dreaming city in the distance the silver sea not on the broad earth is there an other

As we turned and moved again through the temple, I wished that the illustrious men who had sat in it in the

remote ages could visit it again and reveal themselves to our curious eyes Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes,

Socrates, Phocion, Pythagoras, Euclid, Pindar, Xenophon, Herodotus, Praxiteles and Phidias, Zeuxis the

painter. What a constellation of celebrated names! But more than all, I wished that old Diogenes, groping so

patiently with his lantern, searching so zealously for one solitary honest man in all the world, might meander

along and stumble on our party. I ought not to say it, may be, but still I suppose he would have put out his

We left the Parthenon to keep its watch over old Athens, as it had kept it for twentythree hundred years, and

went and stood outside the walls of the citadel. In the distance was the ancient, but still almost perfect Temple

of Theseus, and close by, looking to the west, was the Bema, from whence Demosthenes thundered his

philippics and fired the wavering patriotism of his countrymen. To the right was Mars Hill, where the

Areopagus sat in ancient times. and where St. Paul defined his position, and below was the marketplace

where he "disputed daily" with the gossiploving Athenians. We climbed the stone steps St. Paul ascended,

and stood in the squarecut place he stood in, and tried to recollect the Bible account of the matter but for

"Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given

up to idolatry. "Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the

"And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine whereof

"Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too

superstitious; "For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: To THE

UNKNOWN GOD. Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." Acts, ch. xvii."

It occurred to us, after a while, that if we wanted to get home before daylight betrayed us, we had better be

moving. So we hurried away. When far on our road, we had a parting view of the Parthenon, with the

moonlight streaming through its open colonnades and touching its capitals with silver. As it looked then,

As we marched along, we began to get over our fears, and ceased to care much about quarantine scouts or

any body else. We grew bold and reckless; and once, in a sudden burst of courage, I even threw a stone at a

dog. It was a pleasant reflection, though, that I did not hit him, because his master might just possibly have

been a policeman. Inspired by this happy failure, my valor became utterly uncontrollable, and at intervals I

absolutely whistled, though on a moderate key. But boldness breeds boldness, and shortly I plunged into a

Vineyard, in the full light of the moon, and captured a gallon of superb grapes, not even minding the presence

of a peasant who rode by on a mule. Denny and Birch followed my example. Now I had grapes enough for a

dozen, but then Jackson was all swollen up with courage, too, and he was obliged to enter a vineyard

presently. The first bunch he seized brought trouble. A frowsy, bearded brigand sprang into the road with a

shout, and flourished a musket in the light of the moon! We sidled toward the Pir�us not running you

understand, but only advancing with celerity. The brigand shouted again, but still we advanced. It was getting

late, and we had no time to fool away on every ass that wanted to drivel Greek platitudes to us. We would

just as soon have talked with him as not if we had not been in a hurry. Presently Denny said, "Those fellows

We turned, and, sure enough, there they were three fantastic pirates armed with guns. We slackened our

pace to let them come up, and in the meantime I got out my cargo of grapes and dropped them firmly but

reluctantly into the shadows by the wayside. But I was not afraid. I only felt that it was not right to steal

grapes. And all the more so when the owner was around and not only around, but with his friends around

also. The villains came up and searched a bundle Dr. Birch had in his hand, and scowled upon him when they

found it had nothing in it but some holy rocks from Mars Hill, and these were not contraband. They evidently

suspected him of playing some wretched fraud upon them, and seemed half inclined to scalp the party. But

finally they dismissed us with a warning, couched in excellent Greek, I suppose, and dropped tranquilly in

our wake. When they had gone three hundred yards they stopped, and we went on rejoiced. But behold,

another armed rascal came out of the shadows and took their place, and followed us two hundred yards. Then

he delivered us over to another miscreant, who emerged from some mysterious place, and he in turn to

another! For a mile and a half our rear was guarded all the while by armed men. I never traveled in so much

It was a good while after that before we ventured to steal any more grapes, and when we did we stirred up

another troublesome brigand, and then we ceased all further speculation in that line. I suppose that fellow that

rode by on the mule posted all the sentinels, from Athens to the Pir�us, about us.

Every field on that long route was watched by an armed sentinel, some of whom had fallen asleep, no doubt,

but were on hand, nevertheless. This shows what sort of a country modern Attica is a community of

questionable characters. These men were not there to guard their possessions against strangers, but against

each other; for strangers seldom visit Athens and the Pir�us, and when they do, they go in daylight, and can

buy all the grapes they want for a trifle. The modern inhabitants are confiscators and falsifiers of high repute,

Just as the earliest tinges of the dawn flushed the eastern sky and turned the pillared Parthenon to a broken

harp hung in the pearly horizon, we closed our thirteenth mile of weary, roundabout marching, and emerged

upon the seashore abreast the ships, with our usual escort of fifteen hundred Pir�an dogs howling at our

heels. We hailed a boat that was two or three hundred yards from shore, and discovered in a moment that it

was a policeboat on the lookout for any quarantinebreakers that might chance to be abroad. So we dodged

we were used to that by this time and when the scouts reached the spot we had so lately occupied, we

were absent. They cruised along the shore, but in the wrong direction, and shortly our own boat issued from

the gloom and took us aboard. They had heard our signal on the ship. We rowed noiselessly away, and before

Four more of our passengers were anxious to visit Athens, and started half an hour after we returned; but they

had not been ashore five minutes till the police discovered and chased them so hotly that they barely escaped

We set sail for Constantinople today, but some of us little care for that. We have seen all there was to see in

the old city that had its birth sixteen hundred years before Christ was born, and was an old town before the

foundations of Troy were laid and saw it in its most attractive aspect. Wherefore, why should we worry ?

Two other passengers ran the blockade successfully last night. So we learned this morning. They slipped

away so quietly that they were not missed from the ship for several hours. They had the hardihood to march

into the Pir�us in the early dusk and hire a carriage. They ran some danger of adding two or three months'

imprisonment to the other novelties of their Holy Land Pleasure Excursion. I admire "cheek." 32.1 But they

From Athens all through the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, we saw little but forbidding seawalls and

barren hills, sometimes surmounted by three or four graceful columns of some ancient temple, lonely and

deserted a fitting symbol of the desolation that has come upon all Greece in these latter ages. We saw no

ploughed fields, very few villages, no trees or grass or vegetation of any kind, scarcely, and hardly ever an

isolated house. Greece is a bleak, unsmiling desert, without agriculture, manufactures or commerce,

apparently. What supports its povertystricken people or its Government, is a mystery.

I suppose that ancient Greece and modern Greece compared, furnish the most extravagant contrast to be

found in history. George I., an infant of eighteen, and a scraggy nest of foreign office holders, sit in the places

of Themistocles, Pericles, and the illustrious scholars and generals of the Golden Age of Greece. The fleets

that were the wonder of the world when the Parthenon was new, are a beggarly handful of fishingsmacks

now, and the manly people that performed such miracles of valor at Marathon are only a tribe of

unconsidered slaves today. The classic Illyssus has gone dry, and so have all the sources of Grecian wealth

and greatness. The nation numbers only eight hundred thousand souls, and there is poverty and misery and

mendacity enough among them to furnish forty millions and be liberal about it. Under King Otho the

revenues of the State were five millions of dollars raised from a tax of onetenth of all the agricultural

products of the land (which tenth the farmer had to bring to the royal granaries on packmules any distance

not exceeding six leagues) and from extravagant taxes on trade and commerce. Out of that five millions the

small tyrant tried to keep an army of ten thousand men, pay all the hundreds of useless Grand Equerries in

Waiting, First Grooms of the Bedchamber, Lord High Chancellors of the Exploded Exchequer, and all the

other absurdities which these puppykingdoms indulge in, in imitation of the great monarchies; and in

addition he set about building a white marble palace to cost about five millions itself. The result was, simply:

ten into five goes no times and none over. All these things could not be done with five millions, and Otho fell

The Greek throne, with its unpromising adjuncts of a ragged population of ingenious rascals who were out of

employment eight months in the year because there was little for them to borrow and less to confiscate, and a

waste of barren hills and weedgrown deserts, went begging for a good while. It was offered to one of

Victoria's sons, and afterwards to various other younger sons of royalty who had no thrones and were out of

business, but they all had the charity to decline the dreary honor, and veneration enough for Greece's ancient

greatness to refuse to mock her sorrowful rags and dirt with a tinsel throne in this day of her humiliation

till they came to this young Danish George, and he took it. He has finished the splendid palace I saw in the

radiant moonlight the other night, and is doing many other things for the salvation of Greece, they say.

We sailed through the barren Archipelago, and into the narrow channel they sometimes call the Dardanelles

and sometimes the Hellespont. This part of the country is rich in historic reminiscences, and poor as Sahara in

every thing else. For instance, as we approached the Dardanelles, we coasted along the Plains of Troy and

past the mouth of the Scamander; we saw where Troy had stood (in the distance,) and where it does not stand

now a city that perished when the world was young. The poor Trojans are all dead, now. They were born

too late to see Noah's ark, and died too soon to see our menagerie. We saw where Agamemnon's fleets

rendezvoused, and away inland a mountain which the map said was Mount Ida. Within the Hellespont we

saw where the original first shoddy contract mentioned in history was carried out, and the "parties of the

second part " gently rebuked by Xerxes. I speak of the famous bridge of boats which Xerxes ordered to be

built over the narrowest part of the Hellespont (where it is only two or three miles wide.) A moderate gale

destroyed the flimsy structure, and the King, thinking that to publicly rebuke the contractors might have a

good effect on the next set, called them out before the army and had them beheaded. In the next ten minutes

he let a new contract for the bridge. It has been observed by ancient writers that the second bridge was a very

good bridge. Xerxes crossed his host of five millions of men on it, and if it had not been purposely destroyed,

it would probably have been there yet. If our Government would rebuke some of our shoddy contractors

occasionally, it might work much good. In the Hellespont we saw where Leander and Lord Byron swam

across, the one to see her upon whom his soul's affections were fixed with a devotion that only death could

impair, and the other merely for a flyer, as Jack says. We had two noted tombs near us, too. On one shore

We had water batteries and forts on both sides of the Hellespont, flying the crimson flag of Turkey, with its

white crescent, and occasionally a village, and sometimes a train of camels; we had all these to look at till we

entered the broad sea of Marmora, and then the land soon fading from view, we resumed euchre and whist

We dropped anchor in the mouth of the Golden Horn at daylight in the morning. Only three or four of us

were up to see the great Ottoman capital. The passengers do not turn out at unseasonable hours, as they used

to, to get the earliest possible glimpse of strange foreign cities. They are well over that. If we were lying in

sight of the Pyramids of Egypt, they would not come on deck until after breakfast, nowadays.

The Golden Horn is a narrow arm of the sea, which branches from the Bosporus (a sort of broad river which

connects the Marmora and Black Seas,) and, curving around, divides the city in the middle. Galata and Pera

are on one side of the Bosporus, and the Golden Horn; Stamboul (ancient Byzantium) is upon the other. On

the other bank of the Bosporus is Scutari and other suburbs of Constantinople. This great city contains a

million inhabitants, but so narrow are its streets, and so crowded together are its houses, that it does not cover

much more than half as much ground as New York City. Seen from the anchorage or from a mile or so up the

Bosporus, it is by far the handsomest city we have seen. Its dense array of houses swells upward from the

water's edge, and spreads over the domes of many hills; and the gardens that peep out here and there, the

great globes of the mosques, and the countless minarets that meet the eye every where, invest the metropolis

with the quaint Oriental aspect one dreams of when he reads books of eastern travel. Constantinople makes a

But its attractiveness begins and ends with its picturesqueness. From the time one starts ashore till he gets

back again, he execrates it. The boat he goes in is admirably miscalculated for the service it is built for. It is

handsomely and neatly fitted up, but no man could handle it well in the turbulent currents that sweep down

the Bosporus from the Black Sea, and few men could row it satisfactorily even in still water. It is a long, light

canoe (caique,) large at one end and tapering to a knife blade at the other. They make that long sharp end the

bow, and you can imagine how these boiling currents spin it about. It has two oars, and sometimes four, and

no rudder. You start to go to a given point and you run in fifty different directions before you get there. First

one oar is backing water, and then the other; it is seldom that both are going ahead at once. This kind of

boating is calculated to drive an impatient man mad in a week. The boatmen are the awkwardest, the

Ashore, it was well, it was an eternal circus. People were thicker than bees, in those narrow streets, and

the men were dressed in all the outrageous, outlandish, idolatrous, extravagant, thunderandlightning

costumes that ever a tailor with the delirium tremens and seven devils could conceive of. There was no freak

in dress too crazy to be indulged in; no absurdity too absurd to be tolerated; no frenzy in ragged diabolism too

fantastic to be attempted. No two men were dressed alike. It was a wild masquerade of all imaginable

costumes every struggling throng in every street was a dissolving view of stunning contrasts. Some

patriarchs wore awful turbans, but the grand mass of the infidel horde wore the fiery red skullcap they call a

fez. All the remainder of the raiment they indulged in was utterly indescribable.

The shops here are mere coops, mere boxes, bathrooms, closets any thing you please to call them on

the first floor. The Turks sit crosslegged in them, and work and trade and smoke long pipes, and smell like

like Turks. That covers the ground. Crowding the narrow streets in front of them are beggars, who beg

forever, yet never collect any thing; and wonderful cripples, distorted out of all semblance of humanity,

almost; vagabonds driving laden asses; porters carrying drygoods boxes as large as cottages on their backs;

peddlers of grapes, hot corn, pumpkin seeds, and a hundred other things, yelling like fiends; and sleeping

happily, comfortably, serenely, among the hurrying feet, are the famed dogs of Constantinople; drifting

noiselessly about are squads of Turkish women, draped from chin to feet in flowing robes, and with snowy

veils bound about their heads, that disclose only the eyes and a vague, shadowy notion of their features. Seen

moving about, far away in the dim, arched aisles of the Great Bazaar, they look as the shrouded dead must

have looked when they walked forth from their graves amid the storms and thunders and earthquakes that

burst upon Calvary that awful night of the Crucifixion. A street in Constantinople is a picture which one

And then there was the gooserancher a fellow who drove a hundred geese before him about the city, and

tried to sell them. He had a pole ten feet long, with a crook in the end of it, and occasionally a goose would

branch out from the flock and make a lively break around the corner, with wings half lifted and neck

stretched to its utmost. Did the goosemerchant get excited? No. He took his pole and reached after that

goose with unspeakable sang froid took a hitch round his neck, and "yanked" him back to his place in the

flock without an effort. He steered his geese with that stick as easily as another man would steer a yawl. A

few hours afterward we saw him sitting on a stone at a corner, in the midst of the turmoil, sound asleep in the

sun, with his geese squatting around him, or dodging out of the way of asses and men. We came by again,

within the hour, and he was taking account of stock, to see whether any of his flock had strayed or been

stolen. The way he did it was unique. He put the end of his stick within six or eight inches of a stone wall,

and made the geese march in single file between it and the wall. He counted them as they went by. There was

If you want dwarfs I mean just a few dwarfs for a curiosity go to Genoa. If you wish to buy them by

the gross, for retail, go to Milan. There are plenty of dwarfs all over Italy, but it did seem to me that in Milan

the crop was luxuriant. If you would see a fair average style of assorted cripples, go to Naples, or travel

through the Roman States. But if you would see the very heart and home of cripples and human monsters,

both, go straight to Constantinople. A beggar in Naples who can show a foot which has all run into one

horrible toe, with one shapeless nail on it, has a fortune but such an exhibition as that would not provoke

any notice in Constantinople. The man would starve. Who would pay any attention to attractions like his

among the rare monsters that throng the bridges of the Golden Horn and display their deformities in the

gutters of Stamboul? O, wretched impostor! How could he stand against the threelegged woman, and the

man with his eye in his cheek? How would he blush in presence of the man with fingers on his elbow? Where

would he hide himself when the dwarf with seven fingers on each hand, no upper lip, and his underjaw

gone, came down in his majesty? Bismillah! The cripples of Europe are a delusion and a fraud. The truly

That threelegged woman lay on the bridge, with her stock in trade so disposed as to command the most

striking effect one natural leg, and two long, slender, twisted ones with feet on them like somebody else's

forearm. Then there was a man further along who had no eyes, and whose face was the color of a flyblown

beefsteak, and wrinkled and twisted like a lavaflow and verily so tumbled and distorted were his features

that no man could tell the wart that served him for a nose from hischeekbones. In Stamboul was a man with

a prodigious head, anuncommonly long body, legs eight inches long and feet like snowshoes.He traveled on

those feet and his hands, and was as swaybacked as ifthe Colossus of Rhodes had been riding him. Ah, a

beggar has to haveexceedingly good points to make a living in Constantinople. Abluefaced man, who had

nothing to offer except that he had been blownup in a mine, would be regarded as a rank impostor, and a

mere damagedsoldier on crutches would never make a cent. It would pay him to get apiece of his head taken

The Mosque of St. Sophia is the chief lion of Constantinople. You must get a firman and hurry there the first

thing. We did that. We did not get a firman, but we took along four or five francs apiece, which is much the

I do not think much of the Mosque of St. Sophia. I suppose I lack appreciation. We will let it go at that. It is

the rustiest old barn in heathendom. I believe all the interest that attaches to it comes from the fact that it was

built for a Christian church and then turned into a mosque, without much alteration, by the Mohammedan

conquerors of the land. They made me take off my boots and walk into the place in my stockingfeet. I

caught cold, and got myself so stuck up with a complication of gums, slime and general corruption, that I

wore out more than two thousand pair of bootjacks getting my boots off that night, and even then some

St. Sophia is a colossal church, thirteen or fourteen hundred years old, and unsightly enough to be very, very

much older. Its immense dome is said to be more wonderful than St. Peter's, but its dirt is much more

wonderful than its dome, though they never mention it. The church has a hundred and seventy pillars in it,

each a single piece, and all of costly marbles of various kinds, but they came from ancient temples at

Baalbec, Heliopolis, Athens and Ephesus, and are battered, ugly and repulsive. They were a thousand years

old when this church was new, and then the contrast must have been ghastly if Justinian's architects did

not trim them any. The inside of the dome is figured all over with a monstrous inscription in Turkish

characters, wrought in gold mosaic, that looks as glaring as a circus bill; the pavements and the marble

balustrades are all battered and dirty; the perspective is marred every where by a web of ropes that depend

from the dizzy height of the dome, and suspend countless dingy, coarse oil lamps, and ostricheggs, six or

seven feet above the floor. Squatting and sitting in groups, here and there and far and near, were ragged Turks

reading books, hearing sermons, or receiving lessons like children. and in fifty places were more of the same

sort bowing and straightening up, bowing again and getting down to kiss the earth, muttering prayers the

while, and keeping up their gymnastics till they ought to have been tired, if they were not.

Every where was dirt, and dust, and dinginess, and gloom; every where were signs of a hoary antiquity, but

with nothing touching or beautiful about it; every where were those groups of fantastic pagans; overhead the

gaudy mosaics and the web of lampropes nowhere was there any thing to win one's love or challenge his

The people who go into ecstacies over St. Sophia must surely get them out of the guidebook (where every

church is spoken of as being "considered by good judges to be the most marvelous structure, in many

respects, that the world has ever seen.") Or else they are those old connoisseurs from the wilds of New Jersey

who laboriously learn the difference between a fresco and a fireplug and from that day forward feel

privileged to void their critical bathos on painting, sculpture and architecture forever more.

We visited the Dancing Dervishes. There were twentyone of them. They wore a long, lightcolored loose

robe that hung to their heels. Each in his turn went up to the priest (they were all within a large circular

railing) and bowed profoundly and then went spinning away deliriously and took his appointed place in the

circle, and continued to spin. When all had spun themselves to their places, they were about five or six feet

apart and so situated, the entire circle of spinning pagans spun itself three separate times around the room.

It took twentyfive minutes to do it. They spun on the left foot, and kept themselves going by passing the

right rapidly before it and digging it against the waxed floor. Some of them made incredible " time." Most of

them spun around forty times in a minute, and one artist averaged about sixtyone times a minute, and kept it

up during the whole twentyfive. His robe filled with air and stood out all around him like a balloon.

They made no noise of any kind, and most of them tilted their heads back and closed their eyes, entranced

with a sort of devotional ecstacy. There was a rude kind of music, part of the time, but the musicians were not

visible. None but spinners were allowed within the circle. A man had to either spin or stay outside. It was

about as barbarous an exhibition as we have witnessed yet. Then sick persons came and lay down, and beside

them women laid their sick children (one a babe at the breast,) and the patriarch of the Dervishes walked

upon their bodies. He was supposed to cure their diseases by trampling upon their breasts or backs or

standing on the back of their necks. This is well enough for a people who think all their affairs are made or

marred by viewless spirits of the air by giants, gnomes, and genii and who still believe, to this day, all

the wild tales in the Arabian Nights. Even so an intelligent missionary tells me.

We visited the Thousand and One Columns. I do not know what it was originally intended for, but they said it

was built for a reservoir. It is situated in the centre of Constantinople. You go down a flight of stone steps in

the middle of a barren place, and there you are. You are forty feet under ground, and in the midst of a perfect

wilderness of tall, slender, granite columns, of Byzantine architecture. Stand where you would, or change

your position as often as you pleased, you were always a centre from which radiated a dozen long archways

and colonnades that lost themselves in distance and the sombre twilight of the place. This old driedup

reservoir is occupied by a few ghostly silkspinners now, and one of them showed me a cross cut high up in

one of the pillars. I suppose he meant me to understand that the institution was there before the Turkish

occupation, and I thought he made a remark to that effect; but he must have had an impediment in his speech,

We took off our shoes and went into the marble mausoleum of the Sultan Mahmoud, the neatest piece of

architecture, inside, that I have seen lately. Mahmoud's tomb was covered with a black velvet pall, which was

elaborately embroidered with silver; it stood within a fancy silver railing; at the sides and corners were silver

candlesticks that would weigh more than a hundred pounds, and they supported candles as large as a man's

leg; on the top of the sarcophagus was a fez, with a handsome diamond ornament upon it, which an attendant

said cost a hundred thousand pounds, and lied like a Turk when he said it. Mahmoud's whole family were

We went to the great Bazaar in Stamboul, of course, and I shall not describe it further than to say it is a

monstrous hive of little shops thousands, I should say all under one roof, and cut up into innumerable

little blocks by narrow streets which are arched overhead. One street is devoted to a particular kind of

merchandise, another to another, and so on. When you wish to buy a pair of shoes you have the swing of the

whole street you do not have to walk yourself down hunting stores in different localities. It is the same

with silks, antiquities, shawls, etc. The place is crowded with people all the time, and as the gaycolored

Eastern fabrics are lavishly displayed before every shop, the great Bazaar of Stamboul is one of the sights that

are worth seeing. It is full of life, and stir, and business, dirt, beggars, asses, yelling peddlers, porters,

dervishes, highborn Turkish female shoppers, Greeks, and weirdlooking and weirdly dressed

Mohammedans from the mountains and the far provinces and the only solitary thing one does not smell

MOSQUES are plenty, churches are plenty, graveyards are plenty, but morals and whiskey are scarce. The

Koran does not permit Mohammedans to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral. They

say the Sultan has eight hundred wives. This almost amounts to bigamy. It makes our cheeks burn with

shame to see such a thing permitted here in Turkey. We do not mind it so much in Salt Lake, however.

Circassian and Georgian girls are still sold in Constantinople by their parents, but not publicly. The great

slave marts we have all read so much about where tender young girls were stripped for inspection, and

criticised and discussed just as if they were horses at an agricultural fair no longer exist. The exhibition

and the sales are private now. Stocks are up, just at present, partly because of a brisk demand created by the

recent return of the Sultan's suite from the courts of Europe; partly on account of an unusual abundance of

breadstuffs, which leaves holders untortured by hunger and enables them to hold back for high prices; and

partly because buyers are too weak to bear the market, while sellers are amply prepared to bull it. Under these

circumstances, if the American metropolitan newspapers were published here in Constantinople, their next

"Best brands Circassians, crop of 1850, �200; 1852, �250; 1854, �300. Best brands Georgian, none in market;

second quality, 1851, �180. Nineteen fair to middling Wallachian girls offered at �130 @ 150, but no takers;

"Sales of one lot Circassians, prime to good, 1852 to 1854, at �240 @ 242 1/2, buyer 30; one fortyniner

damaged at �23, seller ten, no deposit. Several Georgians, fancy brands, 1852, changed hands to fill

orders. The Georgians now on hand are mostly last year's crop, which was unusually poor. The new crop is a

little backward, but will be coming in shortly. As regards its quantity and quality, the accounts are most

encouraging. In this connection we can safely say, also, that the new crop of Circassians is looking extremely

well. His Majesty the Sultan has already sent in large orders for his new harem, which will be finished within

a fortnight, and this has naturally strengthened the market and given Circassian stock a strong upward

tendency. Taking advantage of the inflated market, many of our shrewdest operators are selling short. There

"Eunuchs None offering; however, large cargoes are expected from Egypt today." I think the above would

be about the style of the commercial report. Prices are pretty high now, and holders firm; but, two or three

years ago, parents in a starving condition brought their young daughters down here and sold them for even

twenty and thirty dollars, when they could do no better, simply to save themselves and the girls from dying of

want. It is sad to think of so distressing a thing as this, and I for one am sincerely glad the prices are up again.

Commercial morals, especially, are bad. There is no gainsaying that. Greek, Turkish and Armenian morals

consist only in attending church regularly on the appointed Sabbaths, and in breaking the ten commandments

all the balance of the week. It comes natural to them to lie and cheat in the first place, and then they go on

and improve on nature until they arrive at perfection. In recommending his son to a merchant as a valuable

salesman, a father does not say he is a nice, moral, upright boy, and goes to Sunday School and is honest, but

he says, "This boy is worth his weight in broad pieces of a hundred for behold, he will cheat whomsoever

hath dealings with him, and from the Euxine to the waters of Marmora there abideth not so gifted a liar!"

How is that for a recommendation? The Missionaries tell me that they hear encomiums like that passed upon

people every day. They say of a person they admire, "Ah, he is a charming swindler, and a most exquisite

Every body lies and cheats every body who is in business, at any rate. Even foreigners soon have to come

down to the custom of the country, and they do not buy and sell long in Constantinople till they lie and cheat

like a Greek. I say like a Greek, because the Greeks are called the worst transgressors in this line. Several

Americans long resident in Constantinople contend that most Turks are pretty trustworthy, but few claim that

the Greeks have any virtues that a man can discover at least without a fire assay.

I am half willing to believe that the celebrated dogs of Constantinople have been misrepresented

slandered. I have always been led to suppose that they were so thick in the streets that they blocked the way;

that they moved about in organized companies, platoons and regiments, and took what they wanted by

determined and ferocious assault; and that at night they drowned all other sounds with their terrible howlings.

I find them every where, but not in strong force. The most I have found together has been about ten or

twenty. And night or day a fair proportion of them were sound asleep. Those that were not asleep always

looked as if they wanted to be. I never saw such utterly wretched, starving, sadvisaged, brokenhearted

looking curs in my life. It seemed a grim satire to accuse such brutes as these of taking things by force of

arms. They hardly seemed to have strength enough or ambition enough to walk across the street I do not

know that I have seen one walk that far yet. They are mangy and bruised and mutilated, and often you see one

with the hair singed off him in such wide and well defined tracts that he looks like a map of the new

Territories. They are the sorriest beasts that breathe the most abject the most pitiful. In their faces is a

settled expression of melancholy, an air of hopeless despondency. The hairless patches on a scalded dog are

preferred by the fleas of Constantinople to a wider range on a healthier dog; and the exposed places suit the

fleas exactly. I saw a dog of this kind start to nibble at a flea a fly attracted his attention, and he made a

snatch at him; the flea called for him once more, and that forever unsettled him; he looked sadly at his

fleapasture, then sadly looked at his bald spot. Then he heaved a sigh and dropped his head resignedly upon

The dogs sleep in the streets, all over the city. From one end of the street to the other, I suppose they will

average about eight or ten to a block. Sometimes, of course, there are fifteen or twenty to a block. They do

not belong to any body, and they seem to have no close personal friendships among each other. But they

district the city themselves, and the dogs of each district, whether it be half a block in extent, or ten blocks,

have to remain within its bounds. Woe to a dog if he crosses the line! His neighbors would snatch the balance

They sleep in the streets these days. They are my compass my guide. When I see the dogs sleep placidly

on, while men, sheep, geese, and all moving things turn out and go around them, I know I am not in the great

street where the hotel is, and must go further. In the Grand Rue the dogs have a sort of air of being on the

lookout an air born of being obliged to get out of the way of many carriages every day and that

expression one recognizes in a moment. It does not exist upon the face of any dog without the confines of that

street. All others sleep placidly and keep no watch. They would not move, though the Sultan himself passed

In one narrow street (but none of them are wide) I saw three dogs lying coiled up, about a foot or two apart.

End to end they lay, and so they just bridged the street neatly, from gutter to gutter. A drove of a hundred

sheep came along. They stepped right over the dogs, the rear crowding the front, impatient to get on. The

dogs looked lazily up, flinched a little when the impatient feet of the sheep touched their raw backs

sighed, and lay peacefully down again. No talk could be plainer than that. So some of the sheep jumped over

them and others scrambled between, occasionally chipping a leg with their sharp hoofs, and when the whole

flock had made the trip, the dogs sneezed a little, in the cloud of dust, but never budged their bodies an inch. I

thought I was lazy, but I am a steamengine compared to a Constantinople dog. But was not that a singular

These dogs are the scavengers of the city. That is their official position, and a hard one it is. However, it is

their protection. But for their usefulness in partially cleansing these terrible streets, they would not be

tolerated long. They eat any thing and every thing that comes in their way, from melon rinds and spoiled

grapes up through all the grades and species of dirt and refuse to their own dead friends and relatives and

yet they are always lean, always hungry, always despondent. The people are loath to kill them do not kill

them, in fact. The Turks have an innate antipathy to taking the life of any dumb animal, it is said. But they do

worse. They hang and kick and stone and scald these wretched creatures to the very verge of death, and then

Once a Sultan proposed to kill off all the dogs here, and did begin the work but the populace raised such a

howl of horror about it that the massacre was stayed. After a while, he proposed to remove them all to an

island in the Sea of Marmora. No objection was offered, and a shipload or so was taken away. But when it

came to be known that somehow or other the dogs never got to the island, but always fell overboard in the

night and perished, another howl was raised and the transportation scheme was dropped.

So the dogs remain in peaceable possession of the streets. I do not say that they do not howl at night, nor that

they do not attack people who have not a red fez on their heads. I only say that it would be mean for me to

accuse them of these unseemly things who have not seen them do them with my own eyes or heard them with

I was a little surprised to see Turks and Greeks playing newsboy right here in the mysterious land where the

giants and genii of the Arabian Nights once dwelt where winged horses and hydraheaded dragons

guarded enchanted castles where Princes and Princesses flew through the air on carpets that obeyed a

mystic talisman where cities whose houses were made of precious stones sprang up in a night under the

hand of the magician, and where busy marts were suddenly stricken with a spell and each citizen lay or sat, or

stood with weapon raised or foot advanced, just as he was, speechless and motionless, till time had told a

It was curious to see newsboys selling papers in so dreamy a land as that. And, to say truly, it is

comparatively a new thing here. The selling of newspapers had its birth in Constantinople about a year ago,

There is one paper published here in the English language The Levant Herald and there are generally a

number of Greek and a few French papers rising and falling, struggling up and falling again. Newspapers are

not popular with the Sultan's Government. They do not understand journalism. The proverb says, "The

unknown is always great." To the court, the newspaper is a mysterious and rascally institution. They know

what a pestilence is, because they have one occasionally that thins the people out at the rate of two thousand a

day, and they regard a newspaper as a mild form of pestilence. When it goes astray, they suppress it

pounce upon it without warning, and throttle it. When it don't go astray for a long time, they get suspicious

and throttle it anyhow, because they think it is hatching deviltry. Imagine the Grand Vizier in solemn council

with the magnates of the realm, spelling his way through the hated newspaper, and finally delivering his

profound decision: "This thing means mischief it is too darkly, too suspiciously inoffensive suppress

it! Warn the publisher that we can not have this sort of thing: put the editor in prison!"

The newspaper business has its inconveniences in Constantinople. Two Greek papers and one French one

were suppressed here within a few days of each other. No victories of the Cretans are allowed to be printed.

From time to time the Grand Vizier sends a notice to the various editors that the Cretan insurrection is

entirely suppressed, and although that editor knows better, he still has to print the notice. The Levant Herald

is too fond of speaking praisefully of Americans to be popular with the Sultan, who does not relish our

sympathy with the Cretans, and therefore that paper has to be particularly circumspect in order to keep out of

trouble. Once the editor, forgetting the official notice in his paper that the Cretans were crushed out, printed a

letter of a very different tenor, from the American Consul in Crete, and was fined two hundred and fifty

dollars for it. Shortly he printed another from the same source and was imprisoned three months for his pains.

I think I could get the assistant editorship of the Levant Herald, but I am going to try to worry along without

To suppress a paper here involves the ruin of the publisher, almost. But in Naples I think they speculate on

misfortunes of that kind. Papers are suppressed there every day, and spring up the next day under a new

name. During the ten days or a fortnight we staid there one paper was murdered and resurrected twice. The

newsboys are smart there, just as they are elsewhere. They take advantage of popular weaknesses. When they

find they are not likely to sell out, they approach a citizen mysteriously, and say in a low voice "Last

copy, sir: double price; paper just been suppressed!" The man buys it, of course, and finds nothing in it. They

do say I do not vouch for it but they do say that men sometimes print a vast edition of a paper, with a

ferociously seditious article in it, distribute it quickly among the newsboys, and clear out till the

Government's indignation cools. It pays well. Confiscation don't amount to any thing. The type and presses

There is only one English newspaper in Naples. It has seventy subscribers. The publisher is getting rich very

I never shall want another Turkish lunch. The cooking apparatus was in the little lunch room, near the bazaar,

and it was all open to the street. The cook was slovenly, and so was the table, and it had no cloth on it. The

fellow took a mass of sausage meat and coated it round a wire and laid it on a charcoal fire to cook. When it

was done, he laid it aside and a dog walked sadly in and nipped it. He smelt it first, and probably recognized

the remains of a friend. The cook took it away from him and laid it before us. Jack said, "I pass" he plays

euchre sometimes and we all passed in turn. Then the cook baked a broad, flat, wheaten cake, greased it

well with the sausage, and started towards us with it. It dropped in the dirt, and he picked it up and polished it

on his breeches, and laid it before u s. Jack said, "I pass." We all passed. He put some eggs in a frying pan,

and stood pensively prying slabs of meat from between his teeth with a fork. Then he used the fork to turn the

eggs with and brought them along. Jack said "Pass again." All followed suit. We did not know what to do,

and so we ordered a new ration of sausage. The cook got out his wire, apportioned a proper amount of

sausagemeat, spat it on his hands and fell to work! This time, with one accord, we all passed out. We paid

and left . That is all I learned about Turkish lunches. A Turkish lunch is good, no doubt, but it has its little

When I think how I have been swindled by books of Oriental travel, I want a tourist for breakfast. For years

and years I have dreamed of the wonders of the Turkish bath; for years and years I have promised myself that

I would yet enjoy one. Many and many a time, in fancy, I have lain in the marble bath, and breathed the

slumbrous fragrance of Eastern spices that filled the air; then passed through a weird and complicated system

of pulling and hauling, and drenching and scrubbing, by a gang of naked savages who loomed vast and

vaguely through the steaming mists, like demons; then rested for a while on a divan fit for a king; then passed

through another complex ordeal, and one more fearful than the first; and, finally, swathed in soft fabrics, been

conveyed to a princely saloon and laid on a bed of eider down, where eunuchs, gorgeous of costume, fanned

me while I drowsed and dreamed, or contentedly gazed at the rich hangings of the apartment, the soft carpets,

the sumptuous furniture, the pictures, and drank delicious coffee, smoked the soothing narghili, and dropped,

at the last, into tranquil repose, lulled by sensuous odors from unseen censers, by the gentle influence of the

narghili's Persian tobacco, and by the music of fountains that counterfeited the pattering of summer rain.

That was the picture, just as I got it from incendiary books of travel. It was a poor, miserable imposture. The

reality is no more like it than the Five Points are like the Garden of Eden. They received me in a great court,

paved with marble slabs; around it were broad galleries, one above another, carpeted with seedy matting,

railed with unpainted balustrades, and furnished with huge rickety chairs, cushioned with rusty old

mattresses, indented with impressions left by the forms of nine successive generations of men who had

reposed upon them. The place was vast, naked, dreary; its court a barn, its galleries stalls for human horses.

The cadaverous, half nude varlets that served in the establishment had nothing of poetry in their appearance,

nothing of romance, nothing of Oriental splendor. They shed no entrancing odors just the contrary. Their

hungry eyes and their lank forms continually suggested one glaring, unsentimental fact they wanted what

I went into one of the racks and undressed. An unclean starveling wrapped a gaudy tablecloth about his

loins, and hung a white rag over my shoulders. If I had had a tub then, it would have come natural to me to

take in washing. I was then conducted down stairs into the wet, slippery court, and the first things that

attracted my attention were my heels. My fall excited no comment. They expected it, no doubt. It belonged in

the list of softening, sensuous influences peculiar to this home of Eastern luxury. It was softening enough,

certainly, but its application was not happy. They now gave me a pair of wooden clogs benches in

miniature, with leather straps over them to confine my feet (which they would have done, only I do not wear

No. 13s.) These things dangled uncomfortably by the straps when I lifted up my feet, and came down in

awkward and unexpected places when I put them on the floor again, and sometimes turned sideways and

wrenched my ankles out of joint. However, it was all Oriental luxury, and I did what I could to enjoy it.

They put me in another part of the barn and laid me on a stuffy sort of pallet, which was not made of cloth of

gold, or Persian shawls, but was merely the unpretending sort of thing I have seen in the negro quarters of

Arkansas. There was nothing whatever in this dim marble prison but five more of these biers. It was a very

solemn place. I expected that the spiced odors of Araby were going to steal over my senses now, but they did

not. A coppercolored skeleton, with a rag around him, brought me a glass decanter of water, with a lighted

tobacco pipe in the top of it, and a pliant stem a yard long, with a brass mouthpiece to it.

It was the famous "narghili" of the East the thing the Grand Turk smokes in the pictures. This began to

look like luxury. I took one blast at it, and it was sufficient; the smoke went in a great volume down into my

stomach, my lungs, even into the uttermost parts of my frame. I exploded one mighty cough, and it was as if

Vesuvius had let go. For the next five minutes I smoked at every pore, like a frame house that is on fire on the

inside. Not any more narghili for me. The smoke had a vile taste, and the taste of a thousand infidel tongues

that remained on that brass mouthpiece was viler still. I was getting discouraged. Whenever, hereafter, I see

the crosslegged Grand Turk smoking his narghili, in pretended bliss, on the outside of a paper of

This prison was filled with hot air. When I had got warmed up sufficiently to prepare me for a still warmer

temperature, they took me where it was into a marble room, wet, slippery and steamy, and laid me out on

a raised platform in the centre. It was very warm. Presently my man sat me down by a tank of hot water,

drenched me well, gloved his hand with a coarse mitten, and began to polish me all over with it. I began to

smell disgreeably. Note: correct spelling should be: disagreeably The more he polished the worse I smelt. It

"I perceive that I am pretty far gone. It is plain that I ought to be buried without any unnecessary delay.

Perhaps you had better go after my friends at once, because the weather is warm, and I can not 'keep' long."'

He went on scrubbing, and paid no attention. I soon saw that he was reducing my size. He bore hard on his

mitten, and from under it rolled little cylinders, like maccaroni. It could not be dirt, for it was too white. He

"It is a tedious process. It will take hours to trim me to the size you want me; I will wait; go and borrow a

After a while he brought a basin, some soap, and something that seemed to be the tail of a horse. He made up

a prodigious quantity of soapsuds, deluged me with them from head to foot, without warning me to shut my

eyes, and then swabbed me viciously with the horsetail. Then he left me there, a snowy statue of lather, and

went away. When I got tired of waiting I went and hunted him up. He was propped against the wall, in

another room, asleep. I woke him. He was not disconcerted. He took me back and flooded me with hot water,

then turbaned my head, swathed me with dry tablecloths, and conducted me to a latticed chickencoop in

one of the galleries, and pointed to one of those Arkansas beds. I mounted it, and vaguely expected the odors

The blank, unornamented coop had nothing about it of that oriental voluptuousness one reads of so much. It

was more suggestive of the county hospital than any thing else. The skinny servitor brought a narghili, and I

got him to take it out again without wasting any time about it. Then he brought the worldrenowned Turkish

coffee that poets have sung so rapturously for many generations, and I seized upon it as the last hope that was

left of my old dreams of Eastern luxury. It was another fraud. Of all the unchristian beverages that ever

passed my lips, Turkish coffee is the worst. The cup is small, it is smeared with grounds; the coffee is black,

thick, unsavory of smell, and execrable in taste. The bottom of the cup has a muddy sediment in it half an

inch deep. This goes down your throat, and portions of it lodge by the way, and produce a tickling

Here endeth my experience of the celebrated Turkish bath, and here also endeth my dream of the bliss the

mortal revels in who passes through it. It is a malignant swindle. The man who enjoys it is qualified to enjoy

any thing that is repulsive to sight or sense, and he that can invest it with a charm of poetry is able to do the

same with any thing else in the world that is tedious, and wretched, and dismal, and nasty.

WE left a dozen passengers in Constantinople, and sailed through the beautiful Bosporus and far up into the

Black Sea. We left them in the clutches of the celebrated Turkish guide, "FARAWAY MOSES," who will

seduce them into buying a shipload of ottar of roses, splendid Turkish vestments, and ail manner of curious

things they can never have any use for. Murray's invaluable guidebooks have mentioned Faraway Moses'

name, and he is a made man. He rejoices daily in the fact that he is a recognized celebrity. However, we can

not alter our established customs to please the whims of guides; we can not show partialities this late in the

day. Therefore, ignoring this fellow's brilliant fame, and ignoring the fanciful name he takes such pride in, we

called him Ferguson, just as we had done with all other guides. It has kept him in a state of smothered

exasperation all the time. Yet we meant him no harm. After he has gotten himself up regardless of expense, in

showy, baggy trowsers, yellow, pointed slippers, fiery fez, silken jacket of blue, voluminous waistsash of

fancy Persian stuff filled with a battery of silvermounted horsepistols, and has strapped on his terrible

scimetar, he considers it an unspeakable humiliation to be called Ferguson. It can not be helped. All guides

Sebastopol is probably the worst battered town in Russia or any where else. But we ought to be pleased with

it, nevertheless, for we have been in no country yet where we have been so kindly received, and where we felt

that to be Americans was a sufficient vis� for our passports. The moment the anchor was down, the Governor

of the town immediately dispatched an officer on board to inquire if he could be of any assistance to us, and

to invite us to make ourselves at home in Sebastopol! If you know Russia, you know that this was a wild

stretch of hospitality. They are usually so suspicious of strangers that they worry them excessively with the

delays and aggravations incident to a complicated passport system. Had we come from any other country we

could not have had permission to enter Sebastopol and leave again under three days but as it was, we were

at liberty to go and come when and where we pleased. Every body in Constantinople warned us to be very

careful about our passports, see that they were strictly en regle, and never to mislay them for a moment: and

they told us of numerous instances of Englishmen and others who were delayed days, weeks, and even

months, in Sebastopol, on account of trifling informalities in their passports, and for which they were not to

blame. I had lost my passport, and was traveling under my roommate's, who stayed behind in

Constantinople to await our return. To read the description of him in that passport and then look at me, any

man could see that I was no more like him than I am like Hercules. So I went into the harbor of Sebastopol

with fear and trembling full of a vague, horrible apprehension that I was going to be found out and

hanged. But all that time my true passport had been floating gallantly overhead and behold it was only our

We have had a great many Russian and English gentlemen and ladies on board today, and the time has

passed cheerfully away. They were all happyspirited people, and I never heard our mother tongue sound so

pleasantly as it did when it fell from those English lips in this faroff land. I talked to the Russians a good

deal, just to be friendly, and they talked to me from the same motive; I am sure that both enjoyed the

conversation, but never a word of it either of us understood. I did most of my talking to those English people

We have gone whithersoever we chose, today, and have met with nothing but the kindest attentions.

Several of the officers of the Government have suggested that we take the ship to a little wateringplace

thirty miles from here, and pay the Emperor of Russia a visit. He is rusticating there. These officers said they

would take it upon themselves to insure us a cordial reception. They said if we would go, they would not only

telegraph the Emperor, but send a special courier overland to announce our coming. Our time is so short,

though, and more especially our coal is so nearly out, that we judged it best to forego the rare pleasure of

Ruined Pompeii is in good condition compared to Sebastopol. Here, you may look in whatsoever direction

you please, and your eye encounters scarcely any thing but ruin, ruin, ruin! fragments of houses, crumbled

walls, torn and ragged hills, devastation every where! It is as if a mighty earthquake had spent all its terrible

forces upon this one little spot. For eighteen long months the storms of war beat upon the helpless town, and

left it at last the saddest wreck that ever the sun has looked upon. Not one solitary house escaped unscathed

not one remained habitable, even. Such utter and complete ruin one could hardly conceive of. The houses

had all been solid, dressed stone structures; most of them were ploughed through and through by cannon balls

unroofed and sliced down from eaves to foundation and now a row of them, half a mile long, looks

merely like an endless procession of battered chimneys. No semblance of a house remains in such as these.

Some of the larger buildings had corners knocked off; pillars cut in two; cornices smashed; holes driven

straight through the walls. Many of these holes are as round and as cleanly cut as if they had been made with

an auger. Others are half pierced through, and the clean impression is there in the rock, as smooth and as

shapely as if it were done in putty. Here and there a ball still sticks in a wall, and from it iron tears trickle

The battlefields were pretty close together. The Malakoff tower is on a hill which is right in the edge of the

town. The Redan was within rifleshot of the Malakoff; Inkerman was a mile away; and Balaklava removed

but an hour's ride. The French trenches, by which they approached and invested the Malakoff were carried so

close under its sloping sides that one might have stood by the Russian guns and tossed a stone into them.

Repeatedly, during three terrible days, they swarmed up the little Malakoff hill, and were beaten back with

terrible slaughter. Finally, they captured the place, and drove the Russians out, who then tried to retreat into

the town, but the English had taken the Redan, and shut them off with a wall of flame; there was nothing for

them to do but go back and retake the Malakoff or die under its guns. They did go back; they took the

Malakoff and retook it two or three times, but their desperate valor could not avail, and they had to give up at

These fearful fields, where such tempests of death used to rage, are peaceful enough now; no sound is heard,

hardly a living thing moves about them, they are lonely and silent their desolation is complete.

There was nothing else to do, and so every body went to hunting relics. They have stocked the ship with

them. They brought them from the Malakoff, from the Redan, Inkerman, Balaklava every where. They

have brought cannon balls, broken ramrods, fragments of shell iron enough to freight a sloop. Some have

even brought bones brought them laboriously from great distances, and were grieved to hear the surgeon

pronounce them only bones of mules and oxen. I knew Blucher would not lose an opportunity like this. He

brought a sack full on board and was going for another. I prevailed upon him not to go. He has already turned

his stateroom into a museum of worthless trumpery, which he has gathered up in his travels. He is labeling

his trophies, now. I picked up one a while ago, and found it marked "Fragment of a Russian General." I

carried it out to get a better light upon it it was nothing but a couple of teeth and part of the jawbone of a

"Fragment of a Russian General! This is absurd. Are you never going to learn any sense?"

This person gathers mementoes with a perfect recklessness, nowadays; mixes them all up together, and

then serenely labels them without any regard to truth, propriety, or even plausibility. I have found him

breaking a stone in two, and labeling half of it "Chunk busted from the pulpit of Demosthenes," and the other

half "Darnick from the Tomb of Abelard and Heloise." I have known him to gather up a handful of pebbles

by the roadside, and bring them on board ship and label them as coming from twenty celebrated localities five

hundred miles apart. I remonstrate against these outrages upon reason and truth, of course, but it does no

Ever since we three or four fortunate ones made the midnight trip to Athens, it has afforded him genuine

satisfaction to give every body in the ship a pebble from the Marshill where St. Paul preached. He got all

those pebbles on the sea shore, abreast the ship, but professes to have gathered them from one of our party.

However, it is not of any use for me to expose the deception it affords him pleasure, and does no harm to

any body. He says he never expects to run out of mementoes of St. Paul as long as he is in reach of a

sandbank. Well, he is no worse than others. I notice that all travelers supply deficiencies in their collections

in the same way. I shall never have any confidence in such things again while I live.

WE have got so far east, now a hundred and fiftyfive degrees of longitude from San Francisco that

my watch can not "keep the hang" of the time any more. It has grown discouraged, and stopped. I think it did

a wise thing. The difference in time between Sebastopol and the Pacific coast is enormous. When it is six

o'clock in the morning here, it is somewhere about week before last in California. We are excusable for

getting a little tangled as to time. These distractions and distresses about the time have worried me so much

that I was afraid my mind was so much affected that I never would have any appreciation of time again; but

when I noticed how handy I was yet about comprehending when it was dinnertime, a blessed tranquillity

Odessa is about twenty hours' run from Sebastopol, and is the most northerly port in the Black Sea. We came

here to get coal, principally. The city has a population of one hundred and thirtythree thousand, and is

growing faster than any other small city out of America. It is a free port, and is the great grain mart of this

particular part of the world. Its roadstead is full of ships. Engineers are at work, now, turning the open

roadstead into a spacious artificial harbor. It is to be almost inclosed by massive stone piers, one of which

I have not felt so much at home for a long time as I did when I "raised the hill" and stood in Odessa for the

first time. It looked just like an American city; fine, broad streets, and straight as well; low houses, (two or

three stories,) wide, neat, and free from any quaintness of architectural ornamentation; locust trees bordering

the sidewalks (they call them acacias;) a stirring, businesslook about the streets and the stores; fast walkers;

a familiar new look about the houses and every thing; yea, and a driving and smothering cloud of dust that

was so like a message from our own dear native land that we could hardly refrain from shedding a few

grateful tears and execrations in the old timehonored American way. Look up the street or down the street,

this way or that way, we saw only America! There was not one thing to remind us that we were in Russia. We

walked for some little distance, reveling in this home vision, and then we came upon a church and a

hackdriver, and presto! the illusion vanished! The church had a slenderspired dome that rounded inward at

its base, and looked like a turnip turned upside down, and the hackman seemed to be dressed in a long

petticoat with out any hoops. These things were essentially foreign, and so were the carriages but every

We were only to stay here a day and a night and take in coal; we consulted the guidebooks and were

rejoiced to know that there were no sights in Odessa to see; and so we had one good, untrammeled holyday

on our hands, with nothing to do but idle about the city and enjoy ourselves. We sauntered through the

markets and criticised the fearful and wonderful costumes from the back country; examined the populace as

far as eyes could do it; and closed the entertainment with an icecream debauch. We do not get icecream

every where, and so, when we do, we are apt to dissipate to excess. We never cared any thing about

icecream at home, but we look upon it with a sort of idolatry now that it is so scarce in these redhot

We only found two pieces of statuary, and this was another blessing. One was a bronze image of the Duc de

Richelieu, grandnephew of the splendid Cardinal. It stood in a spacious, handsome promenade, overlooking

the sea, and from its base a vast flight of stone steps led down to the harbor two hundred of them, fifty

feet long, and a wide landing at the bottom of every twenty. It is a noble staircase, and from a distance the

people toiling up it looked like insects. I mention this statue and this stairway because they have their story.

Richelieu founded Odessa watched over it with paternal care labored with a fertile brain and a wise

understanding for its best interests spent his fortune freely to the same end endowed it with a sound

prosperity, and one which will yet make it one of the great cities of the Old World built this noble

stairway with money from his own private purse and . Well, the people for whom he had done so

much, let him walk down these same steps, one day, unattended, old, poor, without a second coat to his back;

and when, years afterwards, he died in Sebastopol in poverty and neglect, they called a meeting, subscribed

liberally, and immediately erected this tasteful monument to his memory, and named a great street after him.

It reminds me of what Robert Burns' mother said when they erected a stately monument to his memory: "Ah,

The people of Odessa have warmly recommended us to go and call on the Emperor, as did the

Sebastopolians. They have telegraphed his Majesty, and he has signified his willingness to grant us an

audience. So we are getting up the anchors and preparing to sail to his wateringplace. What a scratching

around there will be, now! what a holding of important meetings and appointing of solemn committees!

and what a furbishing up of clawhammer coats and white silk neckties! As this fearful ordeal we are about

to pass through pictures itself to my fancy in all its dread sublimity, I begin to feel my fierce desire to

converse with a genuine Emperor cooling down and passing away. What am I to do with my hands? What am

WE anchored here at Yalta, Russia, two or three days ago. To me the place was a vision of the Sierras. The

tall, gray mountains that back it, their sides bristling with pines cloven with ravines here and there a

hoary rock towering into view long, straight streaks sweeping down from the summit to the sea, marking

the passage of some avalanche of former times all these were as like what one sees in the Sierras as if the

one were a portrait of the other. The little village of Yalta nestles at the foot of an amphitheatre which slopes

backward and upward to the wall of hills, and looks as if it might have sunk quietly down to its present

position from a higher elevation. This depression is covered with the great parks and gardens of noblemen,

and through the mass of green foliage the bright colors of their palaces bud out here and there like flowers. It

We had the United States Consul on board the Odessa Consul. We assembled in the cabin and

commanded him to tell us what we must do to be saved, and tell us quickly. He made a speech. The first

thing he said fell like a blight on every hopeful spirit: he had never seen a court reception. (Three groans for

the Consul.) But he said he had seen receptions at the Governor-General's in Odessa, and had often listened to

people's experiences of receptions at the Russian and other courts, and believed he knew very well what sort

of ordeal we were about to essay. (Hope budded again.) He said we were many; the summer-palace was small

a mere mansion; doubtless we should be received in summer fashion in the garden; we would stand in

a row, all the gentlemen in swallow-tail coats, white kids, and white neck-ties, and the ladies in light-colored

silks, or something of that kind; at the proper moment 12 meridian the Emperor, attended by his suite

arrayed in splendid uniforms, would appear and walk slowly along the line, bowing to some, and saying two

or three words to others. At the moment his Majesty appeared, a universal, delighted, enthusiastic smile ought

to break out like a rash among the passengers a smile of love, of gratification, of admiration and with

one accord, the party must begin to bow not obsequiously, but respectfully, and with dignity; at the end of

fifteen minutes the Emperor would go in the house, and we could run along home again. We felt immensely

relieved. It seemed, in a manner, easy. There was not a man in the party but believed that with a little practice

he could stand in a row, especially if there were others along; there was not a man but believed he could bow

without tripping on his coat tail and breaking his neck; in a word, we came to believe we were equal to any

item in the performance except that complicated smile. The Consul also said we ought to draft a little address

to the Emperor, and present it to one of his aides-de-camp, who would forward it to him at the proper time.

Therefore, five gentlemen were appointed to prepare the document, and the fifty others went sadly smiling

about the ship practicing. During the next twelve hours we had the general appearance, somehow, of

being at a funeral, where every body was sorry the death had occurred, but glad it was over where every

A committee went ashore to wait on his Excellency the Governor-General, and learn our fate. At the end of

three hours of boding suspense, they came back and said the Emperor would receive us at noon the next day

would send carriages for us would hear the address in person. The Grand Duke Michael had sent to

invite us to his palace also. Any man could see that there was an intention here to show that Russia's

friendship for America was so genuine as to render even her private citizens objects worthy of kindly

At the appointed hour we drove out three miles, and assembled in the handsome garden in front of the

We formed a circle under the trees before the door, for there was no one room in the house able to

accommodate our three. score persons comfortably, and in a few minutes the imperial family came out

bowing and smiling, and stood in our midst. A number of great dignitaries of the Empire, in undress unit

forms, came with them. With every bow, his Majesty said a word of welcome. I copy these speeches. There is

character in them Russian character which is politeness itself, and the genuine article. The French are

polite, but it is often mere ceremonious politeness. A Russian imbues his polite things with a heartiness, both

of phrase and expression, that compels belief in their sincerity. As I was saying, the Czar punctuated his

" Good morning I am glad to see you I am gratified I am delighted I am happy to receive you!"

All took off their hats, and the Consul inflicted the address on him. He bore it with unflinching fortitude; then

took the rusty-looking document and handed it to some great officer or other, to be filed away among the

archives of Russia in the stove. He thanked us for the address, and said he was very much pleased to see

us, especially as such friendly relations existed between Russia and the United States. The Empress said the

Americans were favorites in Russia, and she hoped the Russians were similarly regarded in America. These

were all the speeches that were made, and I recommend them to parties who present policemen with gold

watches, as models of brevity and point. After this the Empress went and talked sociably (for an Empress)

with various ladies around the circle; several gentlemen entered into a disjointed general conversation with

the Emperor; the Dukes and Princes, Admirals and Maids of Honor dropped into freeand-easy chat with

first one and then another of our party, and whoever chose stepped forward and spoke with the modest little

Grand Duchess Marie, the Czar's daughter. She is fourteen years old, light-haired, blue-eyed, unassuming and

The Emperor wore a cap, frock coat and pantaloons, all of some kind of plain white drilling cotton or

linen and sported no jewelry or any insignia whatever of rank. No costume could be less ostentatious. He is

very tall and spare, and a determined-looking man, though a very pleasant-looking one nevertheless. It is easy

to see that he is kind and affectionate There is something very noble in his expression when his cap is off.

There is none of that cunning in his eye that all of us noticed in Louis Napoleon's.

The Empress and the little Grand Duchess wore simple suits of foulard (or foulard silk, I don't know which is

proper,) with a small blue spot in it; the dresses were trimmed with blue; both ladies wore broad blue sashes

about their waists; linen collars and clerical ties of muslin; low-crowned straw-hats trimmed with blue velvet;

parasols and flesh-colored gloves The Grand Duchess had no heels on her shoes. I do not know this of my

own knowledge, but one of our ladies told me so. I was not looking at her shoes. I was glad to observe that

she wore her own hair, plaited in thick braids against the back of her head, instead of the uncomely thing they

call a waterfall, which is about as much like a waterfall as a canvas-covered ham is Like a cataract. Taking

the kind expression that is in the Emperor's face and the gentleness that is in his young daughter's into

consideration, I wondered if it would not tax the Czar's firmness to the utmost to condemn a supplicating

wretch to misery in the wastes of Siberia if she pleaded for him. Every time their eyes met, I saw more and

more what a tremendous power that weak, diffident school-girl could wield if she chose to do it. Many and

many a time she might rule the Autocrat of Russia, whose lightest word is law to seventy millions of human

beings She was only a girl, and she looked like a thousand others I have seen, but never a girl provoked such

a novel and peculiar interest in me before. A strange, new sensation is a rare thing in this hum-drum life, and

I had it here. There was nothing stale or worn out about the thoughts and feelings the situation and the

circumstances created. It seemed strange stranger than I can tell to think that the central figure in the

cluster of men and women, chatting here under the trees like the most ordinary individual in the land, was a

man who could open his lips and ships would fly through the waves, locomotives would speed over the

plains, couriers would hurry from village to village, a hundred telegraphs would flash the word to the four

corners of an Empire that stretches its vast proportions over a seventh part of the habitable globe, and a

countless multitude of men would spring to do his bidding. I had a sort of vague desire to examine his hands

and see if they were of flesh and blood, like other men's. Here was a man who could do this wonderful thing,

and yet if I chose I could knock him down. The case was plain, but it seemed preposterous, nevertheless

as preposterous as trying to knock down a mountain or wipe out a continent. If this man sprained his ankle, a

million miles of telegraph would carry the news over mountains valleys uninhabited deserts under

the trackless sea and ten thousand newspapers would prate of it; if he were grievously ill, all the nations

would know it before the sun rose again; if he dropped lifeless where he stood, his fall might shake the

thrones of half a world ! If I could have stolen his coat, I would have done it. When I meet a man like that, I

As a general thing, we have been shown through palaces by some plush-legged filagreed flunkey or other,

who charged a franc for it; but after talking with the company half an hour, the Emperor of Russia and his

family conducted us all through their mansion themselves. They made no charge. They seemed to take a real

We spent half an hour idling through the palace, admiring the cosy apartments and the rich but eminently

home-like appointments of the place, and then the Imperial family bade our party a kind good-bye, and

An invitation was extended to us to visit the palace of the eldest son, the Crown Prince of Russia, which was

near at hand. The young man was absent, but the Dukes and Countesses and Princes went over the premises

with us as leisurely as was the case at the Emperor's, and conversation continued as lively as ever.

It was a little after one o'clock, now. We drove to the Grand Duke Michael's, a mile away, in response to his

We arrived in twenty minutes from the Emperor's. It is a lovely place. The beautiful palace nestles among the

grand old groves of the park, the park sits in the lap of the picturesque crags and hills, and both look out upon

the breezy ocean. In the park are rustic seats, here and there, in secluded nooks that are dark with shade; there

are rivulets of crystal water; there are lakelets, with inviting, grassy banks; there are glimpses of sparkling

cascades through openings in the wilderness of foliage; there are streams of clear water gushing from mimic

knots on the trunks of forest trees; there are miniature marble temples perched upon gray old crags; there are

airy lookouts whence one may gaze upon a broad expanse of landscape and ocean. The palace is modeled

after the choicest forms of Grecian architecture, and its wide colonnades surround a central court that is

banked with rare flowers that fill the place with their fragrance, and in their midst springs a fountain that

cools the summer air, and may possibly breed mosquitoes, but I do not think it does.

The Grand Duke and his Duchess came out, and the presentation ceremonies were as simple as they had been

at the Emperor's. In a few minutes, conversation was under way, as before. The Empress appeared in the

verandah, and the little Grand Duchess came out into the crowd. They had beaten us there. In a few minutes,

the Emperor came himself on horseback. It was very pleasant. You can appreciate it if you have ever visited

royalty and felt occasionally that possibly you might be wearing out your welcome though as a general

thing, I believe, royalty is not scrupulous about discharging you when it is done with you.

The Grand Duke is the third brother of the Emperor, is about thirty-seven years old, perhaps, and is the

princeliest figure in Russia. He is even taller than the Czar, as straight as an Indian, and bears himself like one

of those gorgeous knights we read about in romances of the Crusades. He looks like a great-hearted fellow

who would pitch an enemy into the river in a moment, and then jump in and risk his life fishing him out

again. The stories they tell of him show him to be of a brave and generous nature. He must have been

desirous of proving that Americans were welcome guests in the imperial palaces of Russia, because he rode

all the way to Yalta and escorted our procession to the Emperor�s himself, and kept his aids scurrying about,

clearing the road and offering assistance wherever it could be needed. We were rather familiar with him then,

because we did not know who he was. We recognized him now, and appreciated the friendly spirit that

prompted him to do us a favor that any other Grand Duke in the world would have doubtless declined to do.

He had plenty of servitors whom he could have sent, but he chose to attend to the matter himself.

The Grand Duke was dressed in the handsome and showy uniform of a Cossack officer. The Grand Duchess

had on a white alpaca robe, with the seams and gores trimmed with black barb lace, and a little gray hat with

a feather of the same color. She is young, rather pretty modest and unpretending, and full of winning

Our party walked all through the house, and then the nobility escorted them all over the grounds, and finally

brought them back to the palace about half-past two o'clock to breakfast. They called it breakfast, but we

would have called it luncheon. It consisted of two kinds of wine; tea, bread, cheese, and cold meats, and was

served on the centre-tables in the reception room and the verandahs anywhere that was convenient; there

was no ceremony. It was a sort of picnic. I had heard before that we were to breakfast there, but Blucher said

he believed Baker's boy had suggested it to his Imperial Highness. I think not though it would be like him.

Baker's boy is the famine-breeder of the ship. He is always hungry. They say he goes about the state-rooms

when the passengers are out, and eats up all the soap. And they say he eats oakum. They say he will eat any

thing he can get between meals, but he prefers oakum. He does not like oakum for dinner, but he likes it for a

lunch, at odd hours, or any thing that way. It makes him very disagreeable, because it makes his breath bad,

and keeps his teeth all stuck up with tar. Baker's boy may have suggested the breakfast, but I hope he did not.

It went off well, anyhow. The illustrious host moved about from place to place, and helped to destroy the

provisions and keep the conversation lively, and the Grand Duchess talked with the verandah parties and such

The Grand Duke's tea was delicious. They give one a lemon to squeeze into it, or iced milk, if he prefers it.

The former is best. This tea is brought overland from China. It injures the article to transport it by sea.

When it was time to go, we bade our distinguished hosts good-bye, and they retired happy and contented to

We had spent the best part of half a day in the home of royalty, and had been as cheerful and comfortable all

the time as we could have been in the ship. I would as soon have thought of being cheerful in Abraham's

bosom as in the palace of an Emperor. I supposed that Emperors were terrible people. I thought they never

did any thing but wear magnificent crowns and red velvet dressing-gowns with dabs of wool sewed on them

in spots, and sit on thrones and scowl at the flunkies and the people in the parquette, and order Dukes and

Duchesses off to execution. I find, however, that when one is so fortunate as to get behind the scenes and see

them at home and in the privacy of their firesides, they are strangely like common mortals. They are

pleasanter to look upon then than they are in their theatrical aspect. It seems to come as natural to them to

dress and act like other people as it is to put a friend's cedar pencil in your pocket when you are done using it.

But I can never have any confidence in the tinsel kings of the theatre after this. It will be a great loss. I used

to take such a thrilling pleasure in them. But, hereafter, I will turn me sadly away and say;

When they swagger around the stage in jeweled crowns and splendid robes, I shall feel bound to observe that

all the Emperors that ever I was personally acquainted with wore the commonest sort of clothes, and did not

swagger. And when they come on the stage attended by a vast bodyguard of supes in helmets and tin

breastplates, it will be my duty as well as my pleasure to inform the ignorant that no crowned head of my

Possibly it may be thought that our party tarried too long, or did other improper things, but such was not the

case. The company felt that they were occupying an unusually responsible position they were representing

the people of America, not the Government and therefore they were careful to do their best to perform

On the other hand, the Imperial families, no doubt, considered that in entertaining us they were more

especially entertaining the people of America than they could by showering attentions on a whole platoon of

ministers plenipotentiary and therefore they gave to the event its fullest significance, as an expression of good

will and friendly feeling toward the entire country. We took the kindnesses we received as attentions thus

directed, of course, and not to ourselves as a party. That we felt a personal pride in being received as the

representatives of a nation, we do not deny; that we felt a national pride in the warm cordiality of that

Our poet has been rigidly suppressed, from the time we let go the anchor. When it was announced that we

were going to visit the Emperor of Russia, the fountains of his great deep were broken up, and he rained

ineffable bosh for four-andtwenty hours. Our original anxiety as to what we were going to do with

ourselves, was suddenly transformed into anxiety about what we were going to do with our poet. The

problem was solved at last. Two alternatives were offered him he must either swear a dreadful oath that he

would not issue a line of his poetry while he was in the Czar's dominions, or else remain under guard on

board the ship until we were safe at Constantinople again. He fought the dilemma long, but yielded at last. It

was a great deliverance. Perhaps the savage reader would like a specimen of his style. I do not mean this term

to be offensive. I only use it because " the gentle reader" has been used so often that any change from it can

"Save us and sanctify us, and finally, then, See good provisions we enjoy while we journey to Jerusalem. For

so man proposes, which it is most true And time will wait for none, nor for us too."

The sea has been unusually rough all day. However, we have had a lively time of it, anyhow. We have had

quite a run of visitors. The Governor-General came, and we received him with a salute of nine guns. He

brought his family with him. I observed that carpets were spread from the pier-head to his carriage for him to

walk on, though I have seen him walk there without any carpet when he was not on business. I thought may

be he had what the accidental insurance people might call an extra-hazardous polish ("policy" joke, but not

above mediocrity,) on his boots, and wished to protect them, but I examined and could not see that they were

blacked any better than usual. It may have been that he had forgotten his carpet, before, but he did not have it

with him, anyhow. He was an exceedingly pleasant old gentleman; we all liked him, especially Blucher.

When he went away, Blucher invited him to come again and fetch his carpet along.

Prince Dolgorouki and a Grand Admiral or two, whom we had seen yesterday at the reception, came on board

also. I was a little distant with these parties, at first, because when I have been visiting Emperors I do not like

to be too familiar with people I only know by reputation, and whose moral characters and standing in society

I can not be thoroughly acquainted with. I judged it best to be a little offish, at first. I said to myself, Princes

and Counts and Grand Admirals are very well, but they are not Emperors, and one can not be too particular

Baron Wrangel came, also. He used to be Russian Ambassador at Washington. I told him I had an uncle who

fell down a shaft and broke himself in two, as much as a year before that. That was a falsehood, but then I

was not going to let any man eclipse me on surprising adventures, merely for the want of a little invention.

The Baron is a fine man, and is said to stand high in the Emperor's confidence and esteem.

Baron Ungern-Sternberg, a boisterous, whole-souled old nobleman, came with the rest. He is a man of

progress and enterprise a representative man of the age. He is the Chief Director of the railway system of

Russia a sort of railroad king. In his line he is making things move along in this country He has traveled

extensively in America. He says he has tried convict labor on his railroads, and with perfect success. He says

the convict" work well, and are quiet and peaceable. He observed that he employs nearly ten thousand of

them now. This appeared to be another call on my resources. I was equal to the emergency. I said we had

eighty thousand convicts employed on the railways in America all of them under sentence of death for

We had General Todtleben (the famous defender of Sebastopol, during the siege,) and many inferior army

and also navy officers, and a number of unofficial Russian ladies and gentlemen. Naturally, a champagne

luncheon was in order, and was accomplished without loss of life. Toasts and jokes were discharged freely,

but no speeches were made save one thanking the Emperor and the Grand Duke, through the

GovernorGeneral, for our hospitable reception, and one by the Governor-General in reply, in which he

WE returned to Constantinople, and after a day or two spent in exhausting marches about the city and

voyages up the Golden Horn in caiques, we steamed away again. We passed through the Sea of Marmora and

the Dardanelles, and steered for a new land a new one to us, at least Asia. We had as yet only acquired

a bowing acquaintance with it, through pleasure excursions to Scutari and the regions round about.

We passed between Lemnos and Mytilene, and saw them as we had seen Elba and the Balearic Isles mere

bulky shapes, with the softening mists of distance upon them whales in a fog, as it were. Then we held our

At all hours of the day and night the sailors in the forecastle amused themselves and aggravated us by

burlesquing our visit to royalty. The opening paragraph of our Address to the Emperor was framed as

"We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply for recreation and unostentatiously, as

becomes our unofficial state and, therefore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting ourselves before

your Majesty, save the desire of offering our grateful acknowledgments to the lord of a realm, which, through

good and through evil report, has been the steadfast friend of the land we love so well."

The third cook, crowned with a resplendent tin basin and wrapped royally in a tablecloth mottled with

greasespots and coffee stains, and bearing a sceptre that looked strangely like a belayingpin, walked upon

a dilapidated carpet and perched himself on the capstan, careless of the flying spray; his tarred and

weatherbeaten Chamberlains, Dukes and Lord High Admirals surrounded him, arrayed in all the pomp that

spare tarpaulins and remnants of old sails could furnish. Then the visiting "watch below," transformed into

graceless ladies and uncouth pilgrims, by rude travesties upon waterfalls, hoopskirts, white kid gloves and

swallowtail coats, moved solemnly up the companion way, and bowing low, began a system of complicated

and extraordinary smiling which few monarchs could look upon and live. Then the mock consul, a

slushplastered decksweep, drew out a soiled fragment of paper and proceeded to read, laboriously

"We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply for recreation, and unostentatiously, as

becomes our unofficial state and therefore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting ourselves before

"Save the desire of offering our grateful acknowledgments to the lord of a realm which "

The Emperor " Oh, d n the Address! read it to the police. Chamberlain, take these people over to

my brother, the Grand Duke's, and give them a square meal. Adieu! I am happy I am gratified I am

delighted I am bored. Adieu, adieu vamos the ranch! The First Groom of the Palace will proceed to

The farce then closed, to be repeated again with every change of the watches, and embellished with new and

At all times of the day and night the phraseology of that tiresome address fell upon our ears. Grimy sailors

came down out of the foretop placidly announcing themselves as "a handful of private citizens of America,

traveling simply for recreation and unostentatiously," etc.; the coal passers moved to their duties in the

profound depths of the ship, explaining the blackness of their faces and their uncouthness of dress, with the

reminder that they were "a handful of private citizens, traveling simply for recreation," etc., and when the cry

rang through the vessel at midnight: "EIGHT BELLS! LARBOARD WATCH, TURN OUT!" the

larboard watch came gaping and stretching out of their den, with the everlasting formula: "Aye aye, sir! We

are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply for recreation, and unostentatiously, as becomes

As I was a member of the committee, and helped to frame the Address, these sarcasms came home to me. I

never heard a sailor proclaiming himself as a handful of American citizens traveling for recreation, but I

wished he might trip and fall overboar d, and so reduce his handful by one individual, at least. I never was so

tired of any one phrase as the sailors made me of the opening sentence of the Address to the Emperor of

This seaport of Smyrna, our first notable acquaintance in Asia, is a closely packed city of one hundred and

thirty thousand inhabitants, and, like Constantinople, it has no outskirts. It is as closely packed at its outer

edges as it is in the centre, and then the habitations leave suddenly off and the plain beyond seems houseless.

It is just like any other Oriental city. That is to say, its Moslem houses are heavy and dark, and as comfortless

as so many tombs; its streets are crooked, rudely and roughly paved, and as narrow as an ordinary staircase;

the streets uniformly carry a man to any other place than the one he wants to go to, and surprise him by

landing him in the most unexpected localities; business is chiefly carried on in great covered bazaars, celled

like a honeycomb with innumerable shops no larger than a common closet, and the whole hive cut up into a

maze of alleys about wide enough to accommodate a laden camel, and well calculated to confuse a stranger

and eventually lose him; every where there is dirt, every where there are fleas, every where there are lean,

brokenhearted dogs; every alley is thronged with people; wherever you look, your eye rests upon a wild

masquerade of extravagant costumes; the workshops are all open to the streets, and the workmen visible; all

manner of sounds assail the ear, and over them all rings out the muezzin's cry from some tall minaret, calling

the faithful vagabonds to prayer; and superior to the call to prayer, the noises in the streets, the interest of the

costumes superior to every thing, and claiming the bulk of attention first, last, and all the time is a

combination of Mohammedan stenches, to which the smell of even a Chinese quarter would be as pleasant as

the roasting odors of the fatted calf to the nostrils of the returning Prodigal. Such is Oriental luxury such is

Oriental splendor! We read about it all our days, but we comprehend it not until we see it. Smyrna is a very

old city. Its name occurs several times in the Bible, one or two of the disciples of Christ visited it, and here

was located one of the original seven apocalyptic churches spoken of in Revelations. These churches were

symbolized in the Scriptures as candlesticks, and on certain conditions there was a sort of implied promise

that Smyrna should be endowed with a "crown of life." She was to "be faithful unto death" those were the

terms. She has not kept up her faith straight along, but the pilgrims that wander hither consider that she has

come near enough to it to save her, and so they point to the fact that Smyrna today wears her crown of life,

and is a great city, with a great commerce and full of energy, while the cities wherein were located the other

six churches, and to which no crown of life was promised, have vanished from the earth. So Smyrna really

still possesses her crown of life, in a business point of view. Her career, for eighteen centuries, has been a

chequered one, and she has been under the rule of princes of many creeds, yet there has been no season

during all that time, as far as we know, (and during such seasons as she was inhabited at all,) that she has

been without her little community of Christians "faithful unto death." Hers was the only church against which

With Ephesus, forty miles from here, where was located another of the seven churches, the case was

different. The "candlestick" has been removed from Ephesus. Her light has been put out. Pilgrims, always

prone to find prophecies in the Bible, and often where none exist, speak cheerfully and complacently of poor,

ruined Ephesus as the victim of prophecy. And yet there is no sentence that promises, without due

"Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come

unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."

That is all; the other verses are singularly complimentary to Ephesus. The threat is qualified. There is no

history to show that she did not repent. But the cruelest habit the modern prophecysavans have, is that one

of coolly and arbitrarily fitting the prophetic shirt on to the wrong man. They do it without regard to rhyme or

reason. Both the cases I have just mentioned are instances in point. Those "prophecies" are distinctly leveled

at the "churches of Ephesus, Smyrna," etc., and yet the pilgrims invariably make them refer to the cities

instead. No crown of life is promised to the town of Smyrna and its commerce, but to the handful of

Christians who formed its "church." If they were "faithful unto death," they have t heir crown now but no

amount of faithfulness and legal shrewdness combined could legitimately drag the city into a participation in

the promises of the prophecy. The stately language of the Bible refers to a crown of life whose lustre will

reflect the daybeams of the endless ages of eternity, not the butterfly existence of a city built by men's

hands, which must pass to dust with the builders and be forgotten even in the mere handful of centuries

The fashion of delving out fulfillments of prophecy where that prophecy consists of mere "ifs," trenches upon

the absurd. Suppose, a thousand years from now, a malarious swamp builds itself up in the shallow harbor of

Smyrna, or something else kills the town; and suppose, also, that within that time the swamp that has filled

the renowned harbor of Ephesus and rendered her ancient site deadly and uninhabitable today, becomes

hard and healthy ground; suppose the natural consequence ensues, to wit: that Smyrna becomes a melancholy

ruin, and Ephesus is rebuilt. What would the prophecysavans say? They would coolly skip over our age of

the world, and say: "Smyrna was not faithful unto death, and so her crown of life was denied her; Ephesus

repented, and lo! her candle stick was not removed. Behold these evidences! How wonderful is prophecy!"

Smyrna has been utterly destroyed six times. If her crown of life had been an insurance policy, she would

have had an opportunity to collect on it the first time she fell. But she holds it on sufferance and by a

complimentary construction of language which does not refer to her. Six different times, however, I suppose

some infatuated prophecyenthusiast blundered along and said, to the infinite disgust of Smyrna and the

Smyrniotes: "In sooth, here is astounding fulfillment of prophecy! Smyrna hath not been faithful unto death,

and behold her crown of life is vanished from her head. Verily, these things be astonishing!"

Such things have a bad influence. They provoke worldly men into using light conversation concerning sacred

subjects. Thickheaded commentators upon the Bible, and stupid preachers and teachers, work more damage

to religion than sensible, coolbrained clergymen can fight away again, toil as they may. It is not good

judgment to fit a crown of life upon a city which has been destroyed six times. That other class of wiseacres

who twist prophecy in such a manner as to make it promise the destruction and desolation of the same city,

use judgment just as bad, since the city is in a very flourishing condition now, unhappily for them. These

A portion of the city is pretty exclusively Turkish; the Jews have a quarter to themselves; the Franks another

quarter; so, also, with the Armenians. The Armenians, of course, are Christians. Their houses are large, clean,

airy, handsomely paved with black and white squares of marble, and in the centre of many of them is a square

court, which has in it a luxuriant flowergarden and a sparkling fountain; the doors of all the rooms open on

this. A very wide hall leads to the street door, and in this the women sit, the most of the day. In the cool of the

evening they dress up in their best raiment and show themselves at the door. They are all comely of

countenance, and exceedingly neat and cleanly; they look as if they were just out of a bandbox. Some of the

young ladies many of them, I may say are even very beautiful; they average a shade better than

American girls which treasonable words I pray may be forgiven me. They are very sociable, and will

smile back when a stranger smiles at them, bow back when he bows, and talk back if he speaks to them. No

introduction is required. An hour's chat at the door with a pretty girl one never saw before, is easily obtained,

and is very pleasant. I have tried it. I could not talk anything but English, and the girl knew nothing but

Greek, or Armenian, or some such barbarous tongue, but we got along very well. I find that in cases like

these, the fact that you can not comprehend each other isn't much of a drawback. In that Russia n town of

Yalta I danced an astonishing sort of dance an hour long, and one I had not heard of before, with a very pretty

girl, and we talked incessantly, and laughed exhaustingly, and neither one ever knew what the other was

driving at. But it was splendid. There were twenty people in the set, and the dance was very lively and

complicated. It was complicated enough without me with me it was more so. I threw in a figure now and

then that surprised those Russians. But I have never ceased to think of that girl. I have written to her, but I can

not direct the epistle because her name is one of those ninejointed Russian affairs, and there are not letters

enough in our alphabet to hold out. I am not reckless enough to try to pronounce it when I am awake, but I

make a stagger at it in my dreams, and get up with the lockjaw in the morning. I am fading. I do not take my

meals now, with any sort of regularity. Her dear name haunts me still in my dreams. It is awful on teeth. It

never comes out of my mouth but it fetches an old snag along with it. And then the lockjaw closes down and

Coming through the Dardanelles, we saw camel trains on shore with the glasses, but we were never close to

one till we got to Smyrna. These camels are very much larger than the scrawny specimens one sees in the

menagerie. They stride along these streets, in single file, a dozen in a train, with heavy loads on their backs,

and a fancylooking negro in Turkish costume, or an Arab, preceding them on a little donkey and completely

overshadowed and rendered insignificant by the huge beasts. To see a camel train laden with the spices of

Arabia and the rare fabrics of Persia come marching through the narrow alleys of the bazaar, among porters

with their burdens, moneychangers, lampmerchants, Alnaschars in the glassware business, portly

crosslegged Turks smoking the famous narghili; and the crowds drifting to and fro in the fanciful costumes

of the East, is a genuine revelation of the Orient. The picture lacks nothing. It casts you back at once into

your forgotten boyhood, and again you dream over the wonders of the Arabian Nights; again your

companions are princes, your lord is the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid, and your servants are terrific giants and

genii that come with smoke and lightning and thunder, and go as a storm goes when they depart!

WE inquired, and learned that the lions of Smyrna consisted of the ruins of the ancient citadel, whose broken

and prodigious battlements frown upon the city from a lofty hill just in the edge of the town the Mount

Pagus of Scripture, they call it; the site of that one of the Seven Apocalyptic Churches of Asia which was

located here in the first century of the Christian era; and the grave and the place of martyrdom of the

venerable Polycarp, who suffered in Smyrna for his religion some eighteen hundred years ago.

We took little donkeys and started. We saw Polycarp's tomb, and then hurried on.

The "Seven Churches" thus they abbreviate it came next on the list. We rode there about a mile and

a half in the sweltering sun and visited a little Greek church which they said was built upon the ancient

site; and we paid a small fee, and the holy attendant gave each of us a little wax candle as a remembrancer of

the place, and I put mine in my hat and the sun melted it and the grease all ran down the back of my neck;

and so now I have not any thing left but the wick, and it is a sorry and a wiltedlooking wick at that.

Several of us argued as well as we could that the "church" mentioned in the Bible meant a party of Christians,

and not a building; that the Bible spoke of them as being very poor so poor, I thought, and so subject to

persecution (as per Polycarp's martyrdom) that in the first place they probably could not have afforded a

church edifice, and in the second would not have dared to build it in the open light of day if they could; and

finally, that if they had had the privilege of building it, common judgment would have suggested that they

build it somewhere near the town. But the elders of the ship's family ruled us down and scouted our

evidences. However, retribution came to them afterward. They found that they had been led astray and had

Riding through the town, we could see marks of the six Smyrnas that have existed here and been burned up

by fire or knocked down by earthquakes. The hills and the rocks are rent asunder in places, excavations

expose great blocks of buildingstone that have lain buried for ages, and all the mean houses and walls of

modern Smyrna along the way are spotted white with broken pillars, capitals and fragments of sculptured

marble that once adorned the lordly palaces that were the glory of the city in the olden time.

The ascent of the hill of the citadel is very steep, and we proceeded rather slowly. But there were matters of

interest about us. In one place, five hundred feet above the sea, the perpendicular bank on the upper side of

the road was ten or fifteen feet high, and the cut exposed three veins of oyster shells, just as we have seen

quartz veins exposed in the cutting of a road in Nevada or Montana. The veins were about eighteen inches

thick and two or three feet apart, and they slanted along downward for a distance of thirty feet or more, and

then disappeared where the cut joined the road. Heaven only knows how far a man might trace them by

"stripping." They were clean, nice oyster shells, large, and just like any other oyster shells. They were thickly

massed together, and none were scattered above or below the veins. Each one was a welldefined lead by

"We, the undersigned, claim five claims of two hundred feet each, (and one for discovery,) on this ledge or

lode of oystershells, with all its dips, spurs, angles, variations and sinuosities, and fifty feet on each side of

They were such perfectly naturallooking leads that I could hardly keep from "taking them up." Among the

oystershells were mixed many fragments of ancient, broken crockery ware. Now how did those masses of

oystershells get there? I can not determine. Broken crockery and oystershells are suggestive of restaurants

but then they could have had no such places away up there on that mountain side in our time, because

nobody has lived up there. A restaurant would not pay in such a stony, forbidding, desolate place. And

besides, there were no champagne corks among the shells. If there ever was a restaurant there, it must have

been in Smyrna's palmy days, when the hills were covered with palaces. I could believe in one restaurant, on

those terms; but then how about the three? Did they have restaurants there at three different periods of the

world? because there are two or three feet of solid earth between the oyster leads. Evidently, the restaurant

The hill might have been the bottom of the sea, once, and been lifted up, with its oysterbeds, by an

earthquake but, then, how about the crockery? And moreover, how about three oyster beds, one above

That theory will not do. It is just possible that this hill is Mount Ararat, and that Noah's Ark rested here, and

he ate oysters and threw the shells overboard. But that will not do, either. There are the three layers again and

the solid earth between and, besides, there were only eight in Noah's family, and they could not have eaten

all these oysters in the two or three months they staid on top of that mountain. The beasts however, it is

simply absurd to suppose he did not know any more than to feed the beasts on oyster suppers.

It is painful it is even humiliating but I am reduced at last to one slender theory: that the oysters

climbed up there of their own accord. But what object could they have had in view? what did they want

up there? What could any oyster want to climb a hill for? To climb a hill must necessarily be fatiguing and

annoying exercise for an oyster. The most natural conclusion would be that the oysters climbed up there to

look at the scenery. Yet when one comes to reflect upon the nature of an oyster, it seems plain that he does

not care for scenery. An oyster has no taste for such things; he cares nothing for the beautiful. An oyster is of

a retiring disposition, and not lively not even cheerful above the average, and never enterprising. But

above all, an oyster does not take any interest in scenery he scorns it. What have I arrived at now? Simply

at the point I started from, namely, those oyster shells are there, in regular layers, five hundred feet above the

sea, and no man knows how they got there. I have hunted up the guidebooks, and the gist of what they say is

Twentyfive years ago, a multitude of people in America put on their ascension robes, took a tearful leave of

their friends, and made ready to fly up into heaven at the first blast of the trumpet. But the angel did not blow

it. Miller's resurrection day was a failure. The Millerites were disgusted. I did not suspect that there were

Millers in Asia Minor, but a gentleman tells me that they had it all set for the world to come to an end in

Smyrna one day about three years ago. There was much buzzing and preparation for a long time previously,

and it culminated in a wild excitement at the appointed time. A vast number of the populace ascended the

citadel hill early in the morning, to get out of the way of the general destruction, and many of the infatuated

closed up their shops and retired from all earthly business. But the strange part of it was that about three in

the afternoon, while this gentleman and his friends were at dinner in the hotel, a terrific storm of rain,

accompanied by thunder and lightning, broke forth and continued with dire fury for two or three hours. It was

a thing unprecedented in Smyrna at that time of the year, and scared some of the most skeptical. The streets

ran rivers and the hotel floor was flooded with water. The dinner had to be suspended. When the storm

finished and left every body drenched through and through, and melancholy and halfdrowned, the

ascensionists came down from the mountain as dry as so many charitysermons! They had been looking

down upon the fearful storm going on below, and really believed that their proposed destruction of the world

A railway here in Asia in the dreamy realm of the Orient in the fabled land of the Arabian Nights is

a strange thing to think of. And yet they have one already, and are building another. The present one is well

built and well conducted, by an English Company, but is not doing an immense amount of business. The first

year it carried a good many passengers, but its freight list only comprised eight hundred pounds of figs!

It runs almost to the very gates of Ephesus a town great in all ages of the world a city familiar to

readers of the Bible, and one which was as old as the very hills when the disciples of Christ preached in its

streets. It dates back to the shadowy ages of tradition, and was the birthplace of gods renowned in Grecian

mythology. The idea of a locomotive tearing through such a place as this, and waking the phantoms of its old

days of romance out of their dreams of dead and gone centuries, is curious enough.

THIS has been a stirring day. The Superintendent of the railway put a train at our disposal, and did us the

further kindness of accompanying us to Ephesus and giving to us his watchful care. We brought sixty

scarcely perceptible donkeys in the freight cars, for we had much ground to go over. We have seen some of

the most grotesque costumes, along the line of the railroad, that can be imagined. I am glad that no possible

combination of words could describe them, for I might then be foolish enough to attempt it.

At ancient Ayassalook, in the midst of a forbidding desert, we came upon long lines of ruined aqueducts, and

other remnants of architectural grandeur, that told us plainly enough we were nearing what had been a

metropolis, once. We left the train and mounted the donkeys, along with our invited guests pleasant young

The little donkeys had saddles upon them which were made very high in order that the rider's feet might not

drag the ground. The preventative did not work well in the cases of our tallest pilgrims, however. There were

no bridles nothing but a single rope, tied to the bit. It was purely ornamental, for the donkey cared nothing

for it. If he were drifting to starboard, you might put your helm down hard the other way, if it were any

satisfaction to you to do it, but he would continue to drift to starboard all the same. There was only one

process which could be depended on, and it was to get down and lift his rear around until his head pointed in

the right direction, or take him under your arm and carry him to a part of the road which he could not get out

of without climbing. The sun flamed down as hot as a furnace, and neckscarfs, veils and umbrellas seemed

hardly any protection; they served only to make the long procession look more than ever fantastic for be it

known the ladies were all riding astride because they could not stay on the shapeless saddles sidewise, the

men were perspiring and out of temper, their feet were banging against the rocks, the donkeys were capering

in every direction but the right one and being belabored with clubs for it, and every Dow and then a broad

umbrella would suddenly go down out of the cavalcade, announcing to all that one more pilgrim had bitten

the dust. It was a wilder picture than those solitudes had seen for many a day. No donkeys ever existed that

were as hard to navigate as these, I think, or that had so many vile, exasperating instincts. Occasionally

signally we grew so tired and breathless with fighting them that we had to desist, and immediately the

donkey would come down to a deliberate walk. This, with the fatigue, and the sun, would put a man asleep;

and soon as the man was asleep, the donkey would lie down. My donkey shall never see his boyhood's home

again. He has lain down once too often. We all stood in the vast theatre of ancient Epllesus, the

stonebenched amphitheatre I mean and had our picture taken. We looked as proper there as we would

look any where, I suppose. We do not embellish the general desolation of a desert much. We add what

dignity we can to a stately ruin with our green umbrellas and jackasses, but it is little. However, we mean

On a high, steep hill, toward the sea, is a gray ruin of ponderous blocks of marble, wherein, tradition says, St.

Paul was imprisoned eighteen centuries ago. From these old walls you have the finest view of the desolate

scene where once stood Ephesus, the proudest city of ancient times, and whose Temple of Diana was so

noble in design, and so exquisite of workmanship, that it ranked high in the list of the Seven Wonders of the

Behind you is the sea; in front is a level green valley, (a marsh, in fact,) extending far away among the

mountains; to the right of the front view is the old citadel of Ayassalook, on a high hill; the ruined Mosque of

the Sultan Selim stands near it in the plain, (this is built over the grave of St. John, and was formerly

Christian Church ;) further toward you is the hill of Pion, around whose front is clustered all that remains of

the ruins of Ephesus that still stand; divided from it by a narrow valley is the long, rocky, rugged mountain of

Coressus. The scene is a pretty one, and yet desolate for in that wide plain no man can live, and in it is no

human habitation. But for the crumbling arches and monstrous piers and broken walls that rise from the foot

of the hill of Pion, one could not believe that in this place once stood a city whose renown is older than

tradition itself. It is incredible to reflect that things as familiar all over the world today as household words,

belong in the history and in the shadowy legends of this silent, mournful solitude. We speak of Apollo and of

Diana they were born here; of the metamorphosis of Syrinx into a reed it was done here; of the great

god Pan he dwelt in the caves of this hill of Coressus; of the Amazons this was their best prized home;

of Bacchus and Hercules both fought the warlike women here; of the Cyclops they laid the ponderous

marble blocks of some of the ruins yonder; of Homer this was one of his many birthplaces; of Cirmon of

Athens; of Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesilaus they visited here; so did Alexander the Great; so did Hannibal

and Antiochus, Scipio, Lucullus and Sylla; Brutus, Cassius, Pompey, Cicero, and Augustus; Antony was a

judge in this place, and left his seat in the open court, while the advocates were speaking, to run after

Cleopatra, who passed the door; from this city these two sailed on pleasure excursions, in galleys with silver

oars and perfumed sails, and with companies of beautiful girls to serve them, and actors and musicians to

amuse them; in days that seem almost modern, so remote are they from the early history of this city, Paul the

Apostle preached the new religion here, and so did John, and here it is supposed the former was pitted against

wild beasts, for in 1 Corinthians, xv. 32 he says: "If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at

Ephesus," when many men still lived who had seen the Christ; here Mary Magdalen died, and here the Virgin

Mary ended her days with John, albeit Rome has since judged it best to locate her grave elsewhere; six or

seven hundred years ago almost yesterday, as it were troops of mailclad Crusaders thronged the

streets; and to come down to trifles, we speak of meandering streams, and find a new interest in a common

word when we discover that the crooked river Meander, in yonder valley, gave it to our dictionary. It makes

me feel as old as these dreary hills to look down upon these mosshung ruins, this historic desolation. One

may read the Scriptures and believe, but he can not go and stand yonder in the ruined theatre and in

imagination people it again with the vanished multitudes who mobbed Paul's comrades there and shouted,

with one voice, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" The idea of a shout in such a solitude as this almost makes

It was a wonderful city, this Ephesus. Go where you will about these broad plains, you find the most

exquisitely sculptured marble fragments scattered thick among the dust and weeds; and protruding from the

ground, or lying prone upon it, are beautiful fluted columns of porphyry and all precious marbles; and at

every step you find elegantly carved capitals and massive bases, and polished tablets engraved with Greek

inscriptions. It is a world of precious relics, a wilderness of marred and mutilated gems. And yet what are

these things to the wonders that lie buried here under the ground ? At Constantinople, at Pisa, in the cities of

Spain, are great mosques and cathedrals, whose grandest columns came from the temples and palaces of

Ephesus, and yet one has only to scratch the ground here to match them. We shall never know what

The finest piece of sculpture we have yet seen and the one that impressed us most, (for we do not know much

about art and can not easily work up ourselves into ecstacies over it,) is one that lies in this old theatre of

Ephesus which St. Paul's riot has made so celebrated. It is only the headless body of a man, clad in a coat of

mail, with a Medusa head upon the breastplate, but we feel persuaded that such dignity and such majesty

What builders they were, these men of antiquity! The massive arches of some of these ruins rest upon piers

that are fifteen feet square and built entirely of solid blocks of marble, some of which are as large as a

Saratoga trunk, and some the size of a boardinghouse sofa. They are not shells or shafts of stone filled

inside with rubbish, but the whole pier is a mass of solid masonry. Vast arches, that may have been the gates

of the city, are built in the same way. They have braved the storms and sieges of three thousand years, and

have been shaken by many an earthquake, but still they stand. When they dig alongside of them, they find

ranges of ponderous masonry that are as perfect in every detail as they were the day those old Cyclopian

In the Mount of Pion, yonder, is the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. Once upon a time, about fifteen hundred

years ago, seven young men lived near each other in Ephesus, who belonged to the despised sect of the

Christians. It came to pass that the good King Maximilianus, (I am telling this story for nice little boys and

girls,) it came to pass, I say, that the good King Maximilianus fell to persecuting the Christians, and as time

rolled on he made it very warm for them. So the seven young men said one to the other, let us get up and

travel. And they got up and traveled. They tarried not to bid their fathers and mothers goodbye, or any

friend they knew. They only took certain moneys which their parents had, and garments that belonged unto

their friends, whereby they might remember them when far away; and they took also the dog Ketmehr, which

was the property of their neighbor Malchus, because the beast did run his head into a noose which one of the

young men was carrying carelessly, and they had not time to release him; and they took also certain chickens

that seemed lonely in the neighboring coops, and likewise some bottles of curious liquors that stood near the

grocer's window; and then they departed from the city. Byandby they came to a marvelous cave in the Hill

of Pion and entered into it and feasted, and presently they hurried on again. But they forgot the bottles of

curious liquors, and left them behind. They traveled in many lands, and had many strange adventures. They

were virtuous young men, and lost no opportunity that fell in their way to make their livelihood. Their motto

was in these words, namely, "Procrastination is the thief of time." And so, whenever they did come upon a

man who was alone, they said, Behold, this person hath the wherewithal let us go through him. And they

went through him. At the end of five years they had waxed tired of travel and adventure, and longed to revisit

their old home again and hear the voices and see the faces that were dear unto their youth. Therefore they

went through such parties as fell in their way where they sojourned at that time, and journeyed back toward

Ephesus again. For the good King Maximilianus was become converted unto the new faith, and the Christians

rejoiced because they were no longer persecuted. One day as the sun went down, they came to the cave in the

Mount of Pion, and they said, each to his fellow, Let us sleep here, and go and feast and make merry with our

friends when the morning cometh. And each of the seven lifted up his voice and said, It is a whiz. So they

went in, and lo, where they had put them, there lay the bottles of strange liquors, and they judged that age had

not impaired their excellence. Wherein the wanderers were right, and the heads of the same were level. So

each of the young men drank six bottles, and behold they felt very tired, then, and lay down and slept

When they awoke, one of them, Johannes surnamed Smithianus said, We are naked. And it was so.

Their raiment was all gone, and the money which they had gotten from a stranger whom they had proceeded

through as they approached the city, was lying upon the ground, corroded and rusted and defaced. Likewise

the dog Ketmehr was gone, and nothing save the brass that was upon his collar remained. They wondered

much at these things. But they took the money, and they wrapped about their bodies some leaves, and came

up to the top of the hill. Then were they perplexed. The wonderful temple of Diana was gone; many grand

edifices they had never seen before stood in the city; men in strange garbs moved about the streets, and every

Johannes said, It hardly seems like Ephesus. Yet here is the great gymnasium; here is the mighty theatre,

wherein I have seen seventy thousand men assembled; here is the Agora; there is the font where the sainted

John the Baptist immersed the converts; yonder is the prison of the good St. Paul, where we all did use to go

to touch the ancient chains that bound him and be cured of our distempers; I see the tomb of the disciple

Luke, and afar off is the church wherein repose the ashes of the holy John, where the Christians of Ephesus

go twice a year to gather the dust from the tomb, which is able to make bodies whole again that are corrupted

by disease, and cleanse the soul from sin; but see how the wharves encroach upon the sea, and what

multitudes of ships are anchored in the bay; see, also, how the city hath stretched abroad, far over the valley

behind Pion, and even unto the walls of Ayassalook; and lo, all the hills are white with palaces and ribbed

And wondering at what their eyes had seen, they went down into the city and purchased garments and clothed

themselves. And when they would have passed on, the merchant bit the coins which they had given him, with

his teeth, and turned them about and looked curiously upon them, and cast them upon his counter, and

listened if they rang; and then he said, These be bogus. And they said, Depart thou to Hades, and went their

way. When they were come to their houses, they recognized them, albeit they seemed old and mean; and they

rejoiced, and were glad. They ran to the doors, and knocked, and strangers opened, and looked inquiringly

upon them. And they said, with great excitement, while their hearts beat high, and the color in their faces

came and went, Where is my father? Where is my mother? Where are Dionysius and Serapion, and Pericles,

and Decius? And the strangers that opened said, We know not these. The Seven said, How, you know them

not? How long have ye dwelt here, and whither are they gone that dwelt here before ye ? And the strangers

said, Ye play upon us with a jest, young men; we and our fathers have sojourned under these roofs these six

generations; the names ye utter rot upon the tombs, and they that bore them have run their brief race, have

laughed and sung, have borne the sorrows and the weariness that were allotted them, and are at rest; for

ninescore years the summers have come and gone, and the autumn leaves have fallen, since the roses faded

Then the seven young men turned them away from their homes, and the strangers shut the doors upon them.

The wanderers marveled greatly, and looked into the faces of all they met, as hoping to find one that they

knew; but all were strange, and passed them by and spake no friendly word. They were sore distressed and

sad. Presently they spake unto a citizen and said, Who is King in Ephesus ? And the citizen answered and

said, Whence come ye that ye know not that great Laertius reigns in Ephesus ? They looked one at the other,

greatly perplexed, and presently asked again, Where, then, is the good King Maximilianus ? The citizen

moved him apart, as one who is afraid, and said, Verily these men be mad, and dream dreams, else would

they know that the King whereof they speak is dead above two hundred years agone.

Then the scales fell from the eyes of the Seven, and one said, Alas, that we drank of the curious liquors. They

have made us weary, and in dreamless sleep these two long centuries have we lain. Our homes are desolate,

our friends are dead. Behold, the jig is up let us die. And that same day went they forth and laid them

down and died. And in that selfsame day, likewise, the Sevenup did cease in Ephesus, for that the Seven

that were up were down again, and departed and dead withal. And the names that be upon their tombs, even

unto this time, are Johannes Smithianus, Trumps, Gift, High, and Low, Jack, and The Game. And with the

sleepers lie also the bottles wherein were once the curious liquors: and upon them is writ, in ancient letters,

such words as these Dames of heathen gods of olden time, perchance: Rumpunch, Jinsling, Egnog.

Such is the story of the Seven Sleepers, (with slight variations,) and I know it is true, because I have seen the

Really, so firm a faith had the ancients this legend, that as late as eight or nine hundred years ago, learned

travelers held it in superstitious fear. Two of them record that they ventured into it, but ran quickly out again,

not daring to tarry lest they should fall asleep and outlive their great grandchildren a century or so. Even at

this day the ignorant denizens of the neighboring country prefer not to sleep in it.

WHEN I last made a memorandum, we were at Ephesus. We are in Syria, now, encamped in the mountains

of Lebanon. The interregnum has been long, both as to time and distance. We brought not a relic from

Ephesus! After gathering up fragments of sculptured marbles and breaking ornaments from the interior work

of the Mosques; and after bringing them at a cost of infinite trouble and fatigue, five miles on muleback to the

railway depot, a government officer compelled all who had such things to disgorge! He had an order from

Constantinople to look out for our party, and see that we carried nothing off. It was a wise, a just, and a

welldeserved rebuke, but it created a sensation. I never resist a temptation to plunder a stranger's premises

without feeling insufferably vain about it. This time I felt proud beyond expression. I was serene in the midst

of the scoldings that were heaped upon the Ottoman government for its affront offered to a pleasuring party

of entirely respectable gentlemen and ladies I said, "We that have free souls, it touches us not." The shoe not

only pinched our party, but it pinched hard; a principal sufferer discovered that the imperial order was

inclosed in an envelop bearing the seal of the British Embassy at Constantinople, and therefore must have

been inspired by the representative of the Queen. This was bad very bad. Coming solely from the

Ottomans, it might have signified only Ottoman hatred of Christians, and a vulgar ignorance as to genteel

methods of expressing it; but coming from the Christianized, educated, politic British legation, it simply

intimated that we were a sort of gentlemen and ladies who would bear watching! So the party regarded it, and

were incensed accordingly. The truth doubtless was, that the same precautions would have been taken against

any travelers, because the English Company who have acquired the right to excavate Ephesus, and have paid

a great sum for that right, need to be protected, and deserve to be. They can not afford to run the risk of

having their hospitality abused by travelers, especially since travelers are such notorious scorners of honest

We sailed from Smyrna, in the wildest spirit of expectancy, for the chief feature, the grand goal of the

expedition, was near at hand we were approaching the Holy Land ! Such a burrowing into the hold for

trunks that had lain buried for weeks, yes for months; such a hurrying to and fro above decks and below; such

a riotous system of packing and unpacking; such a littering up of the cabins with shirts and skirts, and

indescribable and unclassable odds and ends; such a making up of bundles, and setting apart of umbrellas,

green spectacles and thick veils; such a critical inspection of saddles and bridles that had never yet touched

horses; such a cleaning and loading of revolvers and examining of bowieknives; such a halfsoling of the

seats of pantaloons with serviceable buckskin; then such a poring over ancient maps; such a reading up of

Bibles and Palestine travels; such a marking out of routes; such exasperating efforts to divide up the company

into little bands of congenial spirits who might make the long and arduous Journey without quarreling; and

morning, noon and night, such massmeetings in the cabins, such speechmaking, such sage suggesting,

such worrying and quarreling, and such a general raising of the very mischief, was never seen in the ship

But it is all over now. We are cut up into parties of six or eight, and by this time are scattered far and wide.

Ours is the only one, however, that is venturing on what is called " the long trip " that is, out into Syria, by

Baalbec to Damascus, and thence down through the full length of Palestine. It would be a tedious, and also a

too risky journey, at this hot season of the year, for any but strong, healthy men, accustomed somewhat to

fatigue and rough life in the open air. The other parties will take shorter journeys.

For the last two months we have been in a worry about one portion of this Holy Land pilgrimage. I refer to

transportation service. We knew very well that Palestine was a country which did not do a large passenger

business, and every man we came across who knew any thing about it gave us to understand that not half of

our party would be able to get dragomen and animals. At Constantinople every body fell to telegraphing the

American Consuls at Alexandria and Beirout to give notice that we wanted dragomen and transportation. We

were desperate would take horses, jackasses, cameleopards, kangaroos any thing. At Smyrna, more

telegraphing was done, to the same end. Alsa fearing for the worst, we telegraphed for a large number of

As might have been expected, a notion got abroad in Syria and Egypt that the whole population of the

Province of America (the Turks consider us a trifling little province in some unvisited corner of the world,)

were coming to the Holy Land and so, when we got to Beirout yesterday, we found the place full of

dragomen and their outfits. We had all intended to go by diligence to Damascus, and switch off to Baalbec as

we went along because we expected to rejoin the ship, go to Mount Carmel, and take to the woods from

there. However, when our own private party of eight found that it was possible, and proper enough, to make

the "long trip," we adopted that programme. We have never been much trouble to a Consul before, but we

have been a fearful nuisance to our Consul at Beirout. I mention this because I can not help admiring his

patience, his industry, and his accommodating spirit. I mention it also, because I think some of our ship's

company did not give him as full credit for his excellent services as he deserved.

Well, out of our eight, three were selected to attend to all business connected with the expedition. The rest of

us had nothing to do but look at the beautiful city of Beirout, with its bright, new houses nestled among a

wilderness of green shrubbery spread abroad over an upland that sloped gently down to the sea; and also at

the mountains of Lebanon that environ it; and likewise to bathe in the transparent blue water that rolled its

billows about the ship (we did not know there were sharks there.) We had also to range up and down through

the town and look at the costumes. These are picturesque and fanciful, but not so varied as at Constantinople

and Smyrna; the women of Beirout add an agony in the two former cities the sex wear a thin veil which

one can see through (and they often expose their ancles, note: modern spelling is ankles ) but at Beirout they

cover their entire faces with darkcolored or black veils, so that they look like mummies, and then expose

their breasts to the public. A young gentleman (I believe he was a Greek,) volunteered to show us around the

city, and said it would afford him great pleasure, because he was studying English and wanted practice in that

language. When we had finished the rounds, however, he called for remuneration said he hoped the

gentlemen would give him a trifle in the way of a few piastres (equivalent to a few five cent pieces.) We did

so. The Consul was surprised when he heard it, and said he knew the young fellow's family very well, and

that they were an old and highly respectable family and worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Some

people, so situated, would have been ashamed of the berth he had with us and his manner of crawling into it.

At the appointed time our business committee reported, and said all things were in readdress that we were

to start today, with horses, pack animals, and tents, and go to Baalbec, Damascus, the Sea of Tiberias, and

thence southward by the way of the scene of Jacob's Dream and other notable Bible localities to Jerusalem

from thence probably to the Dead Sea, but possibly not and then strike for the ocean and rejoin the ship

three or four weeks hence at Joppa; terms, five dollars a day apiece, in gold, and every thing to be furnished

by the dragoman. They said we would lie as well as at a hotel. I had read something like that before, and did

not shame my judgment by believing a word of it. I said nothing, however, but packed up a blanket and a

shawl to sleep in, pipes and tobacco, two or three woollen shirts, a portfolio, a guidebook, and a Bible. I also

took along a towel and a cake of soap, to inspire respect in the Arabs, who would take me for a king in

We were to select our horses at 3 P.M. At that hour Abraham, the dragoman, marshaled them before us. With

all solemnity I set it down here, that those horses were the hardest lot I ever did come across, and their

accoutrements were in exquisite keeping with their style. One brute had an eye out; another had his tail sawed

off close, like a rabbit, and was proud of it; another had a bony ridge running from his neck to his tail, like

one of those ruined aqueducts one sees about Rome, and had a neck on him like a bowsprit; they all limped,

and had sore backs, and likewise raw places and old scales scattered about their persons like brass nails in a

hair trunk; their gaits were marvelous to contemplate, and replete with variety under way the procession

looked like a fleet in a storm. It was fearful. Blucher shook his head and said: "That dragon is going to get

himself into trouble fetching these old crates out of the hospital the way they are, unless he has got a permit."

I said nothing. The display was exactly according to the guidebook, and were we not traveling by the

guidebook ? I selected a certain horse because I thought I saw him shy, and I thought that a horse that had

At 6 o'clock P.M., we came to a halt here on the breezy summit of a shapely mountain overlooking the sea,

and the handsome valley where dwelt some of those enterprising Phoenicians of ancient times we read so

much about; all around us are what were once the dominions of Hiram, King of Tyre, who furnished timber

from the cedars of these Lebanon hills to build portions of King Solomon's Temple with.

Shortly after six, our pack train arrived. I had not seen it before, and a good right I had to be astonished. We

had nineteen serving men and twentysix pack mules! It was a perfect caravan. It looked like one, too, as it

wound among the rocks. I wondered what in the very mischief we wanted with such a vast turnout as that,

for eight men. I wondered awhile, but soon I began to long for a tin plate, and some bacon and beans. I had

camped out many and many a time before, and knew just what was coming. I went off, without waiting for

serving men, and unsaddled my horse, and washed such portions of his ribs and his spine as projected

through his hide, and when I came back, behold five stately circus tents were up tents that were brilliant,

within, with blue, and gold, and crimson, and all manner of splendid adornment! I was speechless. Then they

brought eight little iron bedsteads, and set them up in the tents; they put a soft mattress and pillows and good

blankets and two snowwhite sheets on each bed. Next, they rigged a table about the centrepole, and on it

placed pewter pitchers, basins, soap, and the whitest of towels one set for each man; they pointed to

pockets in the tent, and said we could put our small trifles in them for convenience, and if we needed pins or

such things, they were sticking every where. Then came the finishing touch they spread carpets on the

floor! I simply said, "If you call this camping out, all right but it isn't the style I am used to; my little

It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks. And soon

the bell a genuine, simonpure bell rang, and we were invited to " the saloon." I had thought before

that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing

but an eatingsaloon. Like the others, it was high enough for a family of giraffes to live in, and was very

handsome and clean and brightcolored within. It was a gem of a place. A table for eight, and eight canvas

chairs; a tablecloth and napkins whose whiteness and whose fineness laughed to scorn the things we were

used to in the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soupplates, dinnerplates every thing, in the

handsomest kind of style. It was wonderful! And they call this camping out. Those stately fellows in baggy

trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose,

potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better cooked than any we had

eaten for weeks, and the table made a finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and other

finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came

bowing in and apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable confusion of getting under way

They call this camping out. At this rate it is a glorious privilege to be a pilgrim to the Holy Land.

WE are camped near TemninelFoka a name which the boys have simplified a good deal, for the sake of

convenience in spelling. They call it Jacksonville. It sounds a little strangely, here in the Valley of Lebanon,

I slept very soundly last night, yet when the dragoman's bell rang at halfpast five this morning and the cry

went abroad of "Ten minutes to dress for breakfast!" I heard both. It surprised me, because I have not heard

the breakfast gong in the ship for a month, and whenever we have had occasion to fire a salute at daylight, I

have only found it out in the course of conversation afterward. However, camping out, even though it be in a

gorgeous tent, makes one fresh and lively in the morning especially if the air you are breathing is the cool,

I was dressed within the ten minutes, and came out. The saloon tent had been stripped of its sides, and had

nothing left but its roof; so when we sat down to table we could look out over a noble panorama of mountain,

sea and hazy valley. And sitting thus, the sun rose slowly up and suffused the picture with a world of rich

Hot mutton chops, fried chicken, omelettes, fried potatoes and coffee all excellent. This was the bill of

fare. It was sauced with a savage appetite purchased by hard riding the day before, and refreshing sleep in a

pure atmosphere. As I called for a second cup of coffee, I glanced over my shoulder, and behold our white

village was gone the splendid tents had vanished like magic! It was wonderful how quickly those Arabs

had "folded their tents;" and it was wonderful, also, how quickly they had gathered the thousand odds and

By halfpast six we were under way, and all the Syrian world seemed to be under way also. The road was

filled with mule trains and long processions of camels. This reminds me that we have been trying for some

time to think what a camel looks like, and now we have made it out. When he is down on all his knees, flat

on his breast to receive his load, he looks something like a goose swimming; and when he is upright he looks

like an ostrich with an extra set of legs. Camels are not beautiful, and their long under lip gives them an

exceedingly "gallus" 42.1 expression. They have immense, flat, forked cushions of feet, that make a track in

the dust like a pie with a slice cut out of it. They are not particular about their diet. They would eat a

tombstone if they could bite it. A thistle grows about here which has needles on it that would pierce through

leather, I think; if one touches you, you can find relief in nothing but profanity. The camels eat these. They

show by their actions that they enjoy them. I suppose it would be a real treat to a camel to have a keg of nails

While I am speaking of animals, I will mention that I have a horse now by the name of "Jericho." He is a

mare. I have seen remarkable horses before, but none so remarkable as this. I wanted a horse that could shy,

and this one fills the bill. I had an idea that shying indicated spirit. If I was correct, I have got the most

spirited horse on earth. He shies at every thing he comes across, with the utmost impartiality. He appears to

have a mortal dread of telegraph poles, especially; and it is fortunate that these are on both sides of the road,

because as it is now, I never fall off twice in succession on the same side. If I fell on the same side always, it

would get to be monotonous after a while. This creature has scared at every thing he has seen today, except

a haystack. He walked up to that with an intrepidity and a recklessness that were astonishing. And it would

fill any one with admiration to see how he preserves his selfpossession in the presence of a barley sack. This

He is not particularly fast, but I think he will get me through the Holy Land. He has only one fault. His tail

has been chopped off or else he has sat down on it too hard, some time or other, and he has to fight the flies

with his heels. This is all very well, but when he tries to kick a fly off the top of his head with his hind foot, it

is too much variety. He is going to get himself into trouble that way some day. He reaches around and bites

my legs too. I do not care particularly about that, only I do not like to see a horse too sociable.

I think the owner of this prize had a wrong opinion about him. He had an idea that he was one of those fiery,

untamed steeds, but he is not of that character. I know the Arab had this idea, because when he brought the

horse out for inspection in Beirout, he kept jerking at the bridle and shouting in Arabic, "Ho! will you? Do

you want to run away, you ferocious beast, and break your neck?" when all the time the horse was not doing

anything in the world, and only looked like he wanted to lean up against something and think. Whenever he

is not shying at things, or reaching after a fly, he wants to do that yet. How it would surprise his owner to

We have been in a historical section of country all day. At noon we camped three hours and took luncheon at

Mekseh, near the junction of the Lebanon Mountains and the Jebel el Kuneiyiseh, and looked down into the

immense, level, gardenlike Valley of Lebanon. Tonight we are camping near the same valley, and have a

very wide sweep of it in view. We can see the long, whalebacked ridge of Mount Hermon projecting above

the eastern hills. The "dews of Hermon" are falling upon us now, and the tents are almost soaked with them.

Over the way from us, and higher up the valley, we can discern, through the glasses, the faint outlines of the

wonderful ruins of Baalbec, the supposed BaalGad of Scripture. Joshua, and another person, were the two

spies who were sent into this land of Canaan by the children of Israel to report upon its character I mean

they were the spies who reported favorably. They took back with them some specimens of the grapes of this

country, and in the children's picturebooks they are always represented as bearing one monstrous bunch

swung to a pole between them, a respectable load for a packtrain. The Sundayschool books exaggerated it

a little. The grapes are most excellent to this day, but the bunches are not as large as those in the pictures. I

was surprised and hurt when I saw them, because those colossal bunches of grapes were one of my most

Joshua reported favorably, and the children of Israel journeyed on, with Moses at the head of the general

government, and Joshua in command of the army of six hundred thousand fighting men. Of women and

children and civilians there was a countless swarm. Of all that mighty host, none but the two faithful spies

ever lived to set their feet in the Promised Land. They and their descendants wandered forty years in the

desert, and then Moses, the gifted warrior, poet, statesman and philosopher, went up into Pisgah and met his

"* * * no man dug that sepulchre, And no man saw it e'er For the Sons of God upturned the sod And laid

Then Joshua began his terrible raid, and from Jericho clear to this BaalGad, he swept the land like the

Genius of Destruction. He slaughtered the people, laid waste their soil, and razed their cities to the ground.

He wasted thirtyone kings also. One may call it that, though really it can hardly be called wasting them,

because there were always plenty of kings in those days, and to spare. At any rate, he destroyed thirtyone

kings, and divided up their realms among his Israelites. He divided up this valley stretched out here before us,

and so it was once Jewish territory. The Jews have long since disappeared from it, however.

Back yonder, an hour's journey from here, we passed through an Arab village of stone drygoods boxes (they

look like that,) where Noah's tomb lies under lock and key. [Noah built the ark.] Over these old hills and

valleys the ark that contained all that was left of a vanished world once floated.

I make no apology for detailing the above information. It will be news to some of my readers, at any rate.

Noah's tomb is built of stone, and is covered with a long stone building. Bucksheesh let us in. The building

had to be long, because the grave of the honored old navigator is two hundred and ten feet long itself! It is

only about four feet high, though. He must have cast a shadow like a lightningrod. The proof that this is the

genuine spot where Noah was buried can only be doubted by uncommonly incredulous people. The evidence

is pretty straight. Shem, the son of Noah, was present at the burial, and showed the place to his descendants,

who transmitted the knowledge to their descendants, and the lineal descendants of these introduced

themselves to us today. It was pleasant to make the acquaintance of members of so respectable a family. It

was a thing to be proud of. It was the next thing to being acquainted with Noah himself.

Noah's memorable voyage will always possess a living interest for me, henceforward.

If ever an oppressed race existed, it is this one we see fettered around us under the inhuman tyranny of the

Ottoman Empire. I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little not much, but enough to make

it difficult to find the place again without a diviningrod or a divingbell. The Syrians are very poor, and yet

they are ground down by a system of taxation that would drive any other nation frantic. Last year their taxes

were heavy enough, in all conscience but this year they have been increased by the addition of taxes that

were forgiven them in times of famine in former years. On top of this the Government has levied a tax of

onetenth of the whole proceeds of the land. This is only half the story. The Pacha of a Pachalic does not

trouble himself with appointing taxcollectors. He figures up what all these taxes ought to amount to in a

certain district. Then he farms the collection out. He calls the rich men together, the highest bidder gets the

speculation, pays the Pacha on the spot, and then sells out to smaller fry, who sell in turn to a piratical horde

of still smaller fry. These latter compel the peasant to bring his little trifle of grain to the village, at his own

cost. It must be weighed, the various taxes set apart, and the remainder returned to the producer. But the

collector delays this duty day after day, while the producer's family are perishing for bread; at last the poor

wretch, who can not but understand the game, says, "Take a quarter take half take twothirds if you

These people are naturally goodhearted and intelligent, and with education and liberty, would be a happy

and contented race. They often appeal to the stranger to know if the great world will not some day come to

their relief and save them. The Sultan has been lavishing money like water in England and Paris, but his

This fashion of camping out bewilders me. We have bootjacks and a bathtub, now, and yet all the

WE had a tedious ride of about five hours, in the sun, across the Valley of Lebanon. It proved to be not quite

so much of a garden as it had seemed from the hillsides. It was a desert, weedgrown waste, littered thickly

with stones the size of a man's fist. Here and there the natives had scratched the ground and reared a sickly

crop of grain, but for the most part the valley was given up to a handful of shepherds, whose flocks were

doing what they honestly could to get a living, but the chances were against them. We saw rude piles of

stones standing near the roadside, at intervals, and recognized the custom of marking boundaries which

obtained in Jacob's time. There were no walls, no fences, no hedges nothing to secure a man's possessions

but these random heaps of stones. The Israelites held them sacred in the old patriarchal times, and these other

Arabs, their lineal descendants, do so likewise. An American, of ordinary intelligence, would soon widely

extend his property, at an outlay of mere manual labor, performed at night, under so loose a system of fencing

The plows these people use are simply a sharpened stick, such as Abraham plowed with, and they still

winnow their wheat as he did they pile it on the housetop, and then toss it by shovelfulls into the air

until the wind has blown all the chaff away. They never invent any thing, never learn any thing.

We had a fine race, of a mile, with an Arab perched on a camel. Some of the horses were fast, and made very

good time, but the camel scampered by them without any very great effort. The yelling and shouting, and

whipping and galloping, of all parties interested, made it an exhilarating, exciting, and particularly boisterous

At eleven o'clock, our eyes fell upon the walls and columns of Baalbec, a noble ruin whose history is a sealed

book. It has stood there for thousands of years, the wonder and admiration of travelers; but who built it, or

when it was built, are questions that may never be answered. One thing is very sure, though. Such grandeur of

design, and such grace of execution, as one sees in the temples of Baalbec, have not been equaled or even

approached in any work of men's hands that has been built within twenty centuries past.

The great Temple of the Sun, the Temple of Jupiter, and several smaller temples, are clustered together in the

midst of one of these miserable Syrian villages, and look strangely enough in such plebeian company. These

temples are built upon massive substructions that might support a world, almost; the materials used are

blocks of stone as large as an omnibus very few, if any of them, are smaller than a carpenter's tool chest

and these substructions are traversed by tunnels of masonry through which a train of cars might pass.

With such foundations as these, it is little wonder that Baalbec has lasted so long. The Temple of the Sun is

nearly three hundred feet long and one hundred and sixty feet wide. It had fiftyfour columns around it, but

only six are standing now the others lie broken at its base, a confused and picturesque heap. The six

columns are their bases, Corinthian capitals and entablature and six more shapely columns do not exist.

The columns and the entablature together are ninety feet high a prodigious altitude for shafts of stone to

reach, truly and yet one only thinks of their beauty and symmetry when looking at them; the pillars look

slender and delicate, the entablature, with its elaborate sculpture, looks like rich stuccowork. But when you

have gazed aloft till your eyes are weary, you glance at the great fragments of pillars among which you are

standing, and find that they are eight feet through; and with them lie beautiful capitals apparently as large as a

small cottage; and also single slabs of stone, superbly sculptured, that are four or five feet thick, and would

completely cover the floor of any ordinary parlor. You wonder where these monstrous things came from, and

it takes some little time to satisfy yourself that the airy and graceful fabric that towers above your head is

The Temple of Jupiter is a smaller ruin than the one I have been speaking of, and yet is immense. It is in a

tolerable state of preservation. One row of nine columns stands almost uninjured. They are sixtyfive feet

high and support a sort of porch or roof, which connects them with the roof of the building. This porchroof

is composed of tremendous slabs of stone, which are so finely sculptured on the under side that the work

looks like a fresco from below. One or two of these slabs had fallen, and again I wondered if the gigantic

masses of carved stone that lay about me were no larger than those above my head. Within the temple, the

ornamentation was elaborate and colossal. What a wonder of architectural beauty and grandeur this edifice

must have been when it was new! And what a noble picture it and its statelier companion, with the chaos of

I can not conceive how those immense blocks of stone were ever hauled from the quarries, or how they were

ever raised to the dizzy heights they occupy in the temples. And yet these sculptured blocks are trifles in size

compared with the roughhewn blocks that form the wide verandah or platform which surrounds the Great

Temple. One stretch of that platform, two hundred feet long, is composed of blocks of stone as large, and

some of them larger, than a streetcar. They surmount a wall about ten or twelve feet high. I thought those

were large rocks, but they sank into insignificance compared with those which formed another section of the

platform. These were three in number, and I thought that each of them was about as long as three street cars

placed end to end, though of course they are a third wider and a third higher than a street car. Perhaps two

railway freight cars of the largest pattern, placed end to end, might better represent their size. In combined

length these three stones stretch nearly two hundred feet; they are thirteen feet square; two of them are

sixtyfour feet long each, and the third is sixtynine. They are built into the massive wall some twenty feet

above the ground. They are there, but how they got there is the question. I have seen the hull of a steamboat

that was smaller than one of those stones. All these great walls are as exact and shapely as the flimsy things

we build of bricks in these days. A race of gods or of giants must have inhabited Baalbec many a century ago.

We went to the quarry from whence the stones of Baalbec were taken. It was about a quarter of a mile off,

and down hill. In a great pit lay the mate of the largest stone in the ruins. It lay there just as the giants of that

old forgotten time had left it when they were called hence just as they had left it, to remain for thousands

of years, an eloquent rebuke unto such as are prone to think slightingly of the men who lived before them.

This enormous block lies there, squared and ready for the builders' hands a solid mass fourteen feet by

seventeen, and but a few inches less than seventy feet long! Two buggies could be driven abreast of each

other, on its surface, from one end of it to the other, and leave room enough for a man or two to walk on

One might swear that all the John Smiths and George Wilkinsons, and all the other pitiful nobodies between

Kingdom Come and Baalbec would inscribe their poor little names upon the walls of Baalbec's magnificent

ruins, and would add the town, the county and the State they came from and swearing thus, be infallibly

correct. It is a pity some great ruin does not fall in and flatten out some of these reptiles, and scare their kind

out of ever giving their names to fame upon any walls or monuments again, forever.

Properly, with the sorry relics we bestrode, it was a three days' journey to Damascus. It was necessary that we

should do it in less than two. It was necessary because our three pilgrims would not travel on the Sabbath

day. We were all perfectly willing to keep the Sabbath day, but there are times when to keep the letter of a

sacred law whose spirit is righteous, becomes a sin, and this was a case in point. We pleaded for the tired,

illtreated horses, and tried to show that their faithful service deserved kindness in return, and their hard lot

compassion. But when did ever selfrighteousness know the sentiment of pity? What were a few long hours

added to the hardships of some overtaxed brutes when weighed against the peril of those human souls? It

was not the most promising party to travel with and hope to gain a higher veneration for religion through the

example of its devotees. We said the Saviour who pitied dumb beasts and taught that the ox must be rescued

from the mire even on the Sabbath day, would not have counseled a forced march like this. We said the "long

trip" was exhausting and therefore dangerous in the blistering heats of summer, even when the ordinary days'

stages were traversed, and if we persisted in this hard march, some of us might be stricken down with the

fevers of the country in consequence of it. Nothing could move the pilgrims. They must press on. Men might

die, horses might die, but they must enter upon holy soil next week, with no Sabbathbreaking stain upon

them. Thus they were willing to commit a sin against the spirit of religious law, in order that they might

preserve the letter of it. It was not worth while to tell them "the letter kills." I am talking now about personal

friends; men whom I like; men who are good citizens; who are honorable, upright, conscientious; but whose

idea of the Saviour's religion seems to me distorted. They lecture our shortcomings unsparingly, and every

night they call us together and read to us chapters from the Testament that are full of gentleness, of charity,

and of tender mercy; and then all the next day they stick to their saddles clear up to the summits of these

rugged mountains, and clear down again. Apply the Testament's gentleness, and charity, and tender mercy to

a toiling, worn and weary horse? Nonsense these are for God's human creatures, not His dumb ones.

What the pilgrims choose to do, respect for their almost sacred character demands that I should allow to pass

but I would so like to catch any other member of the party riding his horse up one of these exhausting hills

We have given the pilgrims a good many examples that might benefit them, but it is virtue thrown away.

They have never heard a cross word out of our lips toward each other but they have quarreled once or

twice. We love to hear them at it, after they have been lecturing us. The very first thing they did, coming

ashore at Beirout, was to quarrel in the boat. I have said I like them, and I do like them but every time

Not content with doubling the legitimate stages, they switched of�f the main road and went away out of the

way to visit an absurd fountain called Figia, because Baalam's ass had drank there once. So we journeyed on,

through the terrible hills and deserts and the roasting sun, and then far into the night, seeking the honored

pool of Baalam's ass, the patron saint of all pilgrims like us. I find no entry but this in my notebook:

"Rode today, altogether, thirteen hours, through deserts, partly, and partly over barren, unsightly hills, and

latterly through wild, rocky scenery, and camped at about eleven o'clock at night on the banks of a limpid

stream, near a Syrian village. Do not know its name do not wish to know it want to go to bed. Two

horses lame (mine and Jack's) and the others worn out. Jack and I walked three or four miles, over the hills,

Twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle, even in a Christian land and a Christian climate, and on a good horse,

is a tiresome journey; but in an oven like Syria, in a ragged spoon of a saddle that slips foreandaft, and

"thortships," and every way, and on a horse that is tired and lame, and yet must be whipped and spurred

with hardly a moment's cessation all day long, till the blood comes from his side, and your conscience hurts

you every time you strike if you are half a man, it is a journey to be remembered in bitterness of spirit and

THE next day was an outrage upon men and horses both. It was another thirteenhour stretch (including an

hour's "nooning.") It was over the barrenest chalkhills and through the baldest canons that even Syria can

show. The heat quivered in the air ever y where. In the canons we almost smothered in the baking

atmosphere. On high ground, the reflection from the chalkhills was blinding. It was cruel to urge the

crippled horses, but it had to be done in order to make Damascus Saturday night. We saw ancient tombs and

temples of fanciful architecture carved out of the solid rock high up in the face of precipices above our heads,

but we had neither time nor strength to climb up there and examine them. The terse language of my

Broke camp at 7 A.M., and made a ghastly trip through the Zeb Dana valley and the rough mountains

horses limping and that Arab screechowl that does most of the singing and carries the waterskins, always a

thousand miles ahead, of course, and no water to drink will he never die? Beautiful stream in a chasm,

lined thick with pomegranate, fig, olive and quince orchards, and nooned an hour at the celebrated Baalam's

Ass Fountain of Figia, second in size in Syria, and the coldest water out of Siberia guidebooks do not say

Baalam's ass ever drank there somebody been imposing on the pilgrims, may be. Bathed in it Jack and

I. Only a second icewater. It is the principal source of the Abana river only onehalf mile down to

where it joins. Beautiful place giant trees all around so shady and cool, if one could keep awake

vast stream gushes straight out from under the mountain in a torrent. Over it is a very ancient ruin, with no

known history supposed to have been for the worship of the deity of the fountain or Baalam's ass or

somebody. Wretched nest of human vermin about the fountain rags, dirt, sunken cheeks, pallor of

sickness, sores, projecting bones, dull, aching misery in their eyes and ravenous hunger speaking from every

eloquent fibre and muscle from head to foot. How they sprang upon a bone, how they crunched the bread we

gave them! Such as these to swarm about one and watch every bite he takes, with greedy looks, and s wallow

unconsciously every time he swallows, as if they half fancied the precious morsel went down their own

throats hurry up the caravan! I never shall enjoy a meal in this distressful country. To think of eating

three times every day under such circumstances for three weeks yet it is worse punishment than riding all

day in the sun. There are sixteen starving babies from one to six years old in the party, and their legs are no

larger than broom handles. Left the fountain at 1 P.M. (the fountain took us at least two hours out of our

way,) and reached Mahomet's lookout perch, over Damascus, in time to get a good long look before it was

necessary to move on. Tired? Ask of the winds that far away with fragments strewed the sea."

As the glare of day mellowed into twilight, we looked down upon a picture which is celebrated all over the

world. I think I have read about four hundred times that when Mahomet was a simple cameldriver he

reached this point and looked down upon Damascus for the first time, and then made a certain renowned

remark. He said man could enter only one paradise; he preferred to go to the one above. So he sat down there

and feasted his eyes upon the earthly paradise of Damascus, and then went away without entering its gates.

Damascus is beautiful from the mountain. It is beautiful even to foreigners accustomed to luxuriant

vegetation, and I can easily understand how unspeakably beautiful it must be to eyes that are only used to the

Godforsaken barrenness and desolation of Syria. I should think a Syrian would go wild with ecstacy when

From his high perch, one sees before him and below him, a wall of dreary mountains, shorn of vegetation,

glaring fiercely in the sun; it fences in a level desert of yellow sand, smooth as velvet and threaded far away

with fine lines that stand for roads, and dotted with creeping mites we know are cameltrains and journeying

men; right in the midst of the desert is spread a billowy expanse of green foliage; and nestling in its heart sits

the great white city, like an island of pearls and opals gleaming out of a sea of emeralds. This is the picture

you see spread far below you, with distance to soften it, the sun to glorify it , strong contrasts to heighten the

effects, and over it and about it a drowsing air of repose to spiritualize it and make it seem rather a beautiful

estray from the mysterious worlds we visit in dreams than a substantial tenant of our coarse, dull globe. And

when you think of the leagues of blighted, blasted, sandy, rocky, sunburnt, ugly, dreary, infamous country

you have ridden over to get here, you think it is the most beautiful, beautiful picture that ever human eyes

rested upon in all the broad universe! If I were to go to Damascus again, I would camp on Mahomet's hill

about a week, and then go away. There is no need to go inside the walls. The Prophet was wise without

There is an honored old tradition that the immense garden which Damascus stands in was the Garden of

Eden, and modern writers have gathered up many chapters of evidence tending to show that it really was the

Garden of Eden, and that the rivers Pharpar and Abana are the "two rivers" that watered Adam's Paradise. It

may be so, but it is not paradise now, and one would be as happy outside of it as he would be likely to be

within. It is so crooked and cramped and dirty that one can not realize that he is in the splendid city he saw

from the hilltop. The gardens are hidden by high mudwalls, and the paradise is become a very sink of

pollution and uncomeliness. Damascus has plenty of clear, pure water in it, though, and this is enough, of

itself, to make an Arab think it beautiful and blessed. Water is scarce in blistered Syria. We run railways by

our large cities in America; in Syria they curve the roads so as to make them run by the meagre little puddles

they call "fountains," and which are not found oftener on a journey than every four hours. But the "rivers" of

Pharpar and Abana of Scripture (mere creeks,) run through Damascus, and so every house and every garden

have their sparkling fountains and rivulets of water. With her forest of foliage and her abundance of water,

Damascus must be a wonder of wonders to the Bedouin from the deserts. Damascus is simply an oasis

that is what it is. For four thousand years its waters have not gone dry or its fertility failed. Now we can

understand why the city has existed so long. It could not die. So long as its waters remain to it away out there

in the midst of that howling desert, so long will Damascus live to bless the sight of the tired and thirsty

"Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of spring, blooming as thine own rosebud, and

Damascus dates back anterior to the days of Abraham, and is the oldest city in the world. It was founded by

Uz, the grandson of Noah. "The early history of Damascus is shrouded in the mists of a hoary antiquity."

Leave the matters written of in the first eleven chapters of the Old Testament out, and no recorded event has

occurred in the world but Damascus was in existence to receive the news of it. Go back as far as you will into

the vague past, there was always a Damascus. In the writings of every century for more than four thousand

years, its name has been mentioned and its praises sung. To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are

only flitting trifles of time. She measures time, not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has

seen rise, and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality. She saw the foundations of Baalbec,

and Thebes, and Ephesus laid; she saw these villages grow into mighty cities, and amaze the world with their

grandeur and she has lived to see them desolate, deserted, and given over to the owls and the bats. She

saw the Israelitish empire exalted, and she saw it annihilated. She saw Greece rise, and flourish two thousand

years, and die. In her old age she saw Rome built; she saw it overshadow the world with its power; she saw it

perish. The few hundreds of years of Genoese and Venetian might and splendor were, to grave old Damascus,

only a trifling scintillation hardly worth remembering. Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth,

and still she lives. She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, and will see the tombs of a

thousand more before she dies. Though another claims the name, old Damascus is by right the Eternal City.

We reached the city gates just at sundown. They do say that one can get into any walled city of Syria, after

night, for bucksheesh, except Damascus. But Damascus, with its four thousand years of respectability in the

world, has many old fogy notions. There are no street lamps there, and the law compels all who go abroad at

night to carry lanterns, just as was the case in old days, when heroes and heroines of the Arabian Nights

walked the streets of Damascus, or flew away toward Bagdad on enchanted carpets.

It was fairly dark a few minutes after we got within the wall, and we rode long distances through wonderfully

crooked streets, eight to ten feet wide, and shut in on either aide by the high mudwalls of the gardens. At

last we got to where lanterns could be seen flitting about here and there, and knew we were in the midst of the

curious old city. In a little narrow street, crowded with our packmules and with a swarm of uncouth Arabs,

we alighted, and through a kind of a hole in the wall entered the hotel. We stood in a great flagged court, with

flowers and citron trees about us, and a huge tank in the centre that was receiving the waters of many pipes.

We crossed the court and entered the rooms prepared to receive four of us. In a large marblepaved recess

between the two rooms was a tank of clear, cool water, which was kept running over all the time by the

streams that were pouring into it from half a dozen pipes. Nothing, in this scorching, desolate land could look

so refreshing as this pure water flashing in the lamplight; nothing could look so beautiful, nothing could

sound so delicious as this mimic rain to ears long unaccustomed to sounds of such a nature. Our rooms were

large, comfortably furnished, and even had their floors clothed with soft, cheerfultinted carpets. It was a

pleasant thing to see a carpet again, for if there is any thing drearier than the tomblike, stonepaved parlors

and bedrooms of Europe and Asia, I do not know what it is. They make one think of the grave all the time.

A very broad, gaily caparisoned divan, some twelve or fourteen feet long, extended across one side of each

room, and opposite were single beds with spring mattresses. There were great lookingglasses and

marbletop tables. All this luxury was as grateful to systems and senses worn out with an exhausting day's

travel, as it was unexpected for one can not tell what to expect in a Turkish city of even a quarter of a

I do not know, but I think they used that tank between the rooms to draw drinking water from; that did not

occur to me, however, until I had dipped my baking head far down into its cool depths. I thought of it then,

and superb as the bath was, I was sorry I had taken it, and was about to go and explain to the landlord. But a

finely curled and scented poodle dog frisked up and nipped the calf of my leg just then, and before I had time

to think, I had soused him to the bottom of the tank, and when I saw a servant coming with a pitcher I went

off and left the pup trying to climb out and not succeeding very well. Satisfied revenge was all I needed to

make me perfectly happy, and when I walked in to supper that first night in Damascus I was in that condition.

We lay on those divans a long time, after supper, smoking narghilies and longstemmed chibouks, and

talking about the dreadful ride of the day, and I knew then what I had sometimes known before that it is

In the morning we sent for donkeys. It is worthy of note that we had to send for these things. I said Damascus

was an old fossil, and she is. Any where else we would have been assailed by a clamorous army of

donkeydrivers, guides, peddlers and beggars but in Damascus they so hate the very sight of a foreign

Christian that they want no intercourse whatever with him; only a year or two ago, his person was not always

safe in Damascus streets. It is the most fanatical Mohammedan purgatory out of Arabia. Where you see one

green turban of a Hadji elsewhere (the honored sign that my lord has made the pilgrimage to Mecca,) I think

you will see a dozen in Damascus. The Damascenes are the ugliest, wickedest looking villains we have seen.

Al l the veiled women we had seen yet, nearly, left their eyes exposed, but numbers of these in Damascus

completely hid the face under a closedrawn black veil that made the woman look like a mummy. If ever we

caught an eye exposed it was quickly hidden from our contaminating Christian vision; the beggars actually

passed us by without demanding bucksheesh; the merchants in the bazaars did not hold up their goods and

cry out eagerly, "Hey, John!" or " Look this, Howajji!" On the contrary, they only scowled at us and said

The narrow streets swarmed like a hive with men and women in strange Oriental costumes, and our small

donkeys knocked them right and left as we plowed through them, urged on by the merciless donkeyboys.

These persecutors run after the animals, shouting and goading them for hours together; they keep the donkey

in a gallop always, yet never get tired themselves or fall behind. The donkeys fell down and spilt us over their

heads occasionally, but there was nothing for it but to mount and hurry on again. We were banged against

sharp corners, loaded porters, camels, and citizens generally; and we were so taken up with looking out for

collisions and casualties that we had no chance to look about us at all. We rode half through the city and

through the famous "street which is called Straight" without seeing any thing, hardly. Our bones were nearly

knocked out of joint, we were wild with excitement, and our sides ached with the jolting we had suffered. I

We were on our way to the reputed houses of Judas and Ananias. About eighteen or nineteen hundred years

ago, Saul, a native of Tarsus, was particularly bitter against the new sect called Christians, and he left

Jerusalem and started across the country on a furious crusade against them. He went forth "breathing

"And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from

heaven: "And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?'

"And when he knew that it was Jesus that spoke to him he trembled, and was astonished, and said, 'Lord,

He was told to arise and go into the ancient city and one would tell him what to do. In the meantime his

soldiers stood speechless and awestricken, for they heard the mysterious voice but saw no man. Saul rose up

and found that that fierce supernatural light had destroyed his sight, and he was blind, so "they led him by the

Paul lay three days, blind, in the house of Judas, and during that time he neither ate nor drank.

There came a voice to a citizen of Damascus, named Ananias, saying, "Arise, and go into the street which is

called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas, for one called Saul, of Tarsus; for behold, he prayeth."

Ananias did not wish to go at first, for he had heard of Saul before, and he had his doubts about that style of a

"chosen vessel" to preach the gospel of peace. However, in obedience to orders, he went into the "street

called Straight" (how he found his way into it, and after he did, how he ever found his way out of it again, are

mysteries only to be accounted for by the fact that he was acting under Divine inspiration.) He found Paul

and restored him, and ordained him a preacher; and from this old house we had hunted up in the street which

is miscalled Straight, he had started out on that bold missionary career which he prosecuted till his death. It

was not the house of the disciple who sold the Master for thirty pieces of silver. I make this explanation in

justice to Judas, who was a far different sort of man from the person just referred to. A very different style of

man, and lived in a very good house. It is a pity we do not know more about him.

I have given, in the above paragraphs, some more information for people who will not read Bible history until

they are defrauded into it by some such method as this. I hope that no friend of progress and education will

The street called Straight is straighter than a corkscrew, but not as straight as a rainbow. St. Luke is careful

not to commit himself; he does not say it is the street which is straight, but the "street which is called

Straight." It is a fine piece of irony; it is the only facetious remark in the Bible, I believe. We traversed the

street called Straight a good way, and then turned off and called at the reputed house of Ananias. There is

small question that a part of the original house is there still; it is an old room twelve or fifteen feet under

ground, and its masonry is evidently ancient. If Ananias did not live there in St. Paul's time, somebody else

did, which is just as well. I took a drink out of Ananias' well, and singularly enough, the water was just as

We went out toward the north end of the city to see the place where the disciples let Paul down over the

Damascus wall at dead of night for he preached Christ so fearlessly in Damascus that the people sought to

kill him, just as they would today for the same offense, and he had to escape and flee to Jerusalem.

Then we called at the tomb of Mahomet's children and at a tomb which purported to be that of St. George

who killed the dragon, and so on out to the hollow place under a rock where Paul hid during his flight till his

pursuers gave him up; and to the mausoleum of the five thousand Christians who were massacred in

Damascus in 1861 by the Turks. They say those narrow streets ran blood for several days, and that men,

women and children were butchered indiscriminately and left to rot by hundreds all through the Christian

quarter; they say, further, that the stench was dreadful. All the Christians who could get away fled from the

city, and the Mohammedans would not defile their hands by burying the "infidel dogs." The thirst for blood

extended to the high lands of Hermon and AntiLebanon, and in a short time twentyfive thousand more

Christians were massacred and their possessions laid waste. How they hate a Christian in Damascus! and

pretty much all over Turkeydom as well. And how they will pay for it w hen Russia turns her guns upon them

It is soothing to the heart to abuse England and France for interposing to save the Ottoman Empire from the

destruction it has so richly deserved for a thousand years. It hurts my vanity to see these pagans refuse to eat

of food that has been cooked for us; or to eat from a dish we have eaten from; or to drink from a goatskin

which we have polluted with our Christian lips, except by filtering the water through a rag which they put

over the mouth of it or through a sponge! I never disliked a Chinaman as I do these degraded Turks and

Arabs, and when Russia is ready to war with them again, I hope England and France will not find it good

In Damascus they think there are no such rivers in all the world as their little Abana and Pharpar. The

Damascenes have always thought that way. In 2 Kings, chapter v., Naaman boasts extravagantly about them.

That was three thousand years ago. He says: "Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all

the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?" But some of my readers have forgotten who

Naaman was, long ago. Naaman was the commander of the Syrian armies. He was the favorite of the king

and lived in great state. "He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper." Strangely enough, the house they

point out to you now as his, has been turned into a leper hospital, and the inmates expose their horrid

deformities and hold up their hands and beg for bucksheesh when a stranger enters.

One can not appreciate the horror of this disease until he looks upon it in all its ghastliness, in Naaman's

ancient dwelling in Damascus. Bones all twisted out of shape, great knots protruding from face and body,

THE last twentyfour hours we staid in Damascus I lay prostrate with a violent attack of cholera, or cholera

morbus, and therefore had a good chance and a good excuse to lie there on that wide divan and take an honest

rest. I had nothing to do but listen to the pattering of the fountains and take medicine and throw it up again. It

was dangerous recreation, but it was pleasanter than traveling in Syria. I had plenty of snow from Mount

Hermon, and as it would not stay on my stomach, there was nothing to interfere with my eating it there

was always room for more. I enjoyed myself very well. Syrian travel has its interesting features, like travel in

any other part of the world, and yet to break your leg or have the cholera adds a welcome variety to it.

We left Damascus at noon and rode across the plain a couple of hours, and then the party stopped a while in

the shade of some figtrees to give me a chance to rest. It was the hottest day we had seen yet the

sunflames shot down like the shafts of fire that stream out before a blowpipe the rays seemed to fall in

a steady deluge on the head and pass downward like rain from a roof. I imagined I could distinguish between

the floods of rays I thought I could tell when each flood struck my head, when it reached my shoulders,

and when the next one came. It was terrible. All the desert glared so fiercely that my eyes were swimming in

tears all the time. The boys had white umbrellas heavily lined with dark green. They were a priceless

blessing. I thanked fortune that I had one, too, notwithstanding it was packed up with the baggage and was

ten miles ahead. It is madness to travel in Syria without an umbrella. They told me in Beirout (these people

who always gorge you with advice) that it was madness to travel in Syria without an umbrella. It was on this

But, honestly, I think an umbrella is a nuisance any where when its business is to keep the sun off. No Arab

wears a brim to his fez, or uses an umbrella, or any thing to shade his eyes or his face, and he always looks

comfortable and proper in the sun. But of all the ridiculous sights I ever have seen, our party of eight is the

most so they do cut such an outlandish figure. They travel single file; they all wear the endless white rag

of Constantinople wrapped round and round their hats and dangling down their backs; they all wear thick

green spectacles, with sideglasses to them; they all hold white umbrellas, lined with green, over their heads;

without exception their stirrups are too short they are the very worst gang of horsemen on earth, their

animals to a horse trot fearfully hard and when they get strung out one after the other; glaring straight

ahead and breathless; bouncing high and out of turn, all along the line; knees well up and stiff, elbows

flapping like a rooster's that is going to crow, and the long file of umbrellas popping convulsively up and

down when one sees this outrageous picture exposed to the light of day, he is amazed that the gods don't

get out their thunderbolts and destroy them off the face of the earth! I do I wonder at it. I wouldn't let any

And when the sun drops below the horizon and the boys close their umbrellas and put them under their arms,

But may be you can not see the wild extravagance of my panorama. You could if you were here. Here, you

feel all the time just as if you were living about the year 1200 before Christ or back to the patriarchs or

forward to the New Era. The scenery of the Bible is about you the customs of the patriarchs are around

you the same people, in the same flowing robes, and in sandals, cross your path the same long trains of

stately camels go and come the same impressive religious solemnity and silence rest upon the desert and

the mountains that were upon them in the remote ages of antiquity, and behold, intruding upon a scene like

this, comes this fantastic mob of greenspectacled Yanks, with their flapping elbows and bobbing umbrellas!

It is Daniel in the lion's den with a green cotton umbrella under his arm, all over again.

My umbrella is with the baggage, and so are my green spectacles and there they shall stay. I will not use

them. I will show some respect for the eternal fitness of things. It will be bad enough to get sunstruck,

without looking ridiculous into the bargain. If I fall, let me fall bearing about me the semblance of a

Three or four hours out from Damascus we passed the spot where Saul was so abruptly converted, and from

this place we looked back over the scorching desert, and had our last glimpse of beautiful Damascus, decked

in its robes of shining green. After nightfall we reached our tents, just outside of the nasty Arab village of

Jonesborough. Of course the real name of the place is El something or other, but the boys still refuse to

recognize the Arab names or try to pronounce them. When I say that that village is of the usual style, I mean

to insinuate that all Syrian villages within fifty miles of Damascus are alike so much alike that it would

require more than human intelligence to tell wherein one differed from another. A Syrian village is a hive of

huts one story high (the height of a man,) and as square as a drygoods box; it is mudplastered all over, flat

roof and all, and generally whitewashed after a fashion. The same roof often extends over half the town,

covering many of the streets, which are generally about a yard wide. When you ride through one of these

villages at noonday, you first meet a melancholy dog, that looks up at you and silently begs that you won't

run over him, but he does not offer to get out of the way; next you meet a young boy without any clothes on,

and he holds out his hand and says "Bucksheesh!" he don't really expect a cent, but then he learned to say

that before he learned to say mother, and now he can not break himself of it; next you meet a woman with a

black veil drawn closely over her face, and her bust exposed; finally, you come to several soreeyed children

and children in all stages of mutilation and decay; and sitting humbly in the dust, and all fringed with filthy

rags, is a poor devil whose arms and legs are gnarled and twisted like grapevines. These are all the people

you are likely to see. The balance of the population are asleep within doors, or abroad tending goats in the

plains and on the hillsides. The village is built on some consumptive little watercourse, and about it is a

little freshlooking vegetation. Beyond this charmed circle, for miles on every side, stretches a weary desert

of sand and gravel, which produces a gray bunchy shrub like sagebrush. A Syrian village is the sorriest sight

I would not have gone into this dissertation upon Syrian villages but for the fact that Nimrod, the Mighty

Hunter of Scriptural notoriety, is buried in Jonesborough, and I wished the public to know about how he is

located. Like Homer, he is said to be buried in many other places, but this is the only true and genuine place

When the original tribes were dispersed, more than four thousand years ago, Nimrod and a large party

traveled three or four hundred miles, and settled where the great city of Babylon afterwards stood. Nimrod

built that city. He also began to build the famous Tower of Babel, but circumstances over which he had no

control put it out of his power to finish it. He ran it up eight stories high, however, and two of them still

stand, at this day a colossal mass of brickwork, rent down the centre by earthquakes, and seared and

vitrified by the lightnings of an angry God. But the vast ruin will still stand for ages, to shame the puny labors

of these modern generations of men. Its huge compartments are tenanted by owls and lions, and old Nimrod

lies neglected in this wretched village, far from the scene of his grand enterprise.

We left Jonesborough very early in the morning, and rode forever and forever and forever, it seemed to me,

over parched deserts and rocky hills, hungry, and with no water to drink. We had drained the goatskins dry

in a little while. At noon we halted before the wretched Arab town of El Yuba Dam, perched on the side of a

mountain, but the dragoman said if we applied there for water we would be attacked by the whole tribe, for

they did not love Christians. We had to journey on. Two hours later we reached the foot of a tall isolated

mountain, which is crowned by the crumbling castle of Banias, the stateliest ruin of that kind on earth, no

doubt. It is a thousand feet long and two hundred wide, all of the most symmetrical, and at the same time the

most ponderous masonry. The massive towers and bastions are more than thirty feet high, and have been

sixty. From the mountain's peak its broken turrets rise above the groves of ancient oaks and olives, and look

wonderfully picturesque. It is of such high antiquity that no man knows who built it or when it was built. It is

utterly inaccessible, except in one place, where a bridlepath winds upward among the solid rocks to the old

portcullis. The horses' hoofs have bored holes in these rocks to the depth of six inches during the hundreds

and hundreds of years that the castle was garrisoned. We wandered for three hours among the chambers and

crypts and dungeons of the fortress, and trod where the mailed heels of many a knightly Crusader had rang,

We wondered how such a solid mass of masonry could be affected even by an earthquake, and could not

understand what agency had made Banias a ruin; but we found the destroyer, after a while, and then our

wonder was increased tenfold. Seeds had fallen in crevices in the vast walls; the seeds had sprouted; the

tender, insignificant sprouts had hardened; they grew larger and larger, and by a steady, imperceptible

pressure forced the great stones apart, and now are bringing sure destruction upon a giant work that has even

mocked the earthquakes to scorn! Gnarled and twisted trees spring from the old walls every where, and

From these old towers we looked down upon a broad, farreaching green plain, glittering with the pools and

rivulets which are the sources of the sacred river Jordan. It was a grateful vision, after so much desert.

And as the evening drew near, we clambered down the mountain, through groves of the Biblical oaks of

Bashan, (for we were just stepping over the border and entering the longsought Holy Land,) and at its

extreme foot, toward the wide valley, we entered this little execrable village of Banias and camped in a great

grove of olive trees near a torrent of sparkling water whose banks are arrayed in figtrees, pomegranates and

oleanders in full leaf. Barring the proximity of the village, it is a sort of paradise.

The very first thing one feels like doing when he gets into camp, all burning up and dusty, is to hunt up a

bath. We followed the stream up to where it gushes out of the mountain side, three hundred yards from the

tents, and took a bath that was so icy that if I did not know this was the main source of the sacred river, I

would expect harm to come of it. It was bathing at noonday in the chilly source of the Abana, "River of

Damascus," that gave me the cholera, so Dr. B. said. However, it generally does give me the cholera to take a

The incorrigible pilgrims have come in with their pockets full of specimens broken from the ruins. I wish this

vandalism could be stopped. They broke off fragments from Noah's tomb; from the exquisite sculptures of

the temples of Baalbec; from the houses of Judas and Ananias, in Damascus; from the tomb of Nimrod the

Mighty Hunter in Jonesborough; from the worn Greek and Roman inscriptions set in the hoary walls of the

Castle of Banias; and now they have been hacking and chipping these old arches here that Jesus looked upon

The ruins here are not very interesting. There are the massive walls of a great square building that was once

the citadel; there are many ponderous old arches that are so smothered with debris that they barely project

above the ground; there are heavywalled sewers through which the crystal brook of which Jordan is born

still runs; in the hillside are the substructions of a costly marble temple that Herod the Great built here

patches of its handsome mosaic floors still remain; there is a quaint old stone bridge that was here before

Herod's time, may be; scattered every where, in the paths and in the woods, are Corinthian capitals, broken

porphyry pillars, and little fragments of sculpture; and up yonder in the precipice where the fountain gushes

out, are wellworn Greek inscriptions over niches in the rock where in ancient times the Greeks, and after

them the Romans, worshipped the sylvan god Pan. But trees and bushes grow above many of these ruins

now; the miserable huts of a little crew of filthy Arabs are perched upon the broken masonry of antiquity, the

whole place has a sleepy, stupid, rural look about it, and one can hardly bring himself to believe that a busy,

substantially built city once existed here, even two thousand years ago. The place was nevertheless the scene

of an event whose effects have added page after page and volume after volume to the world's history. For in

"Thou art Peter; and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall

be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." On those little

sentences have been built up the mighty edifice of the Church of Rome; in them lie the authority for the

imperial power of the Popes over temporal affairs, and their godlike power to curse a soul or wash it white

from sin. To sustain the position of "the only true Church," which Rome claims was thus conferred upon her,

she has fought and labored and struggled for many a century, and will continue to keep herself busy in the

same work to the end of time. The memorable words I have quoted give to this ruined city about all the

It seems curious enough to us to be standing on ground that was once actually pressed by the feet of the

Saviour. The situation is suggestive of a reality and a tangibility that seem at variance with the vagueness and

mystery and ghostliness that one naturally attaches to the character of a god. I can not comprehend yet that I

am sitting where a god has stood, and looking upon the brook and the mountains which that god looked upon,

and am surrounded by dusky men and women whose ancestors saw him, and even talked with him, face to

face, and carelessly, just as they would have done with any other stranger. I can not comprehend this; the

This morning, during breakfast, the usual assemblage of squalid humanity sat patiently without the charmed

circle of the camp and waited for such crumbs as pity might bestow upon their misery. There were old and

young, brownskinned and yellow. Some of the men were tall and stalwart, (for one hardly sees any where

such splendidlooking men as here in the East,) but all the women and children looked worn and sad, and

distressed with hunger. They reminded me much of Indians, did these people. They had but little clothing, but

such as they had was fanciful in character and fantastic in its arrangement. Any little absurd gewgaw or

gimcrack they had they disposed in such a way as to make it attract attention most readily. They sat in

silence, and with tireless patience watched our every motion with that vile, uncomplaining impoliteness

which is so truly Indian, and which makes a white man so nervous and uncomfortable and savage that he

These people about us had other peculiarities, which I have noticed in the noble red man, too: they were

The little children were in a pitiable condition they all had sore eyes, and were otherwise afflicted in

various ways. They say that hardly a native child in all the East is free from sore eyes, and that thousands of

them go blind of one eye or both every year. I think this must be so, for I see plenty of blind people every

day, and I do not remember seeing any children that hadn't sore eyes. And, would you suppose that an

American mother could sit for an hour, with her child in her arms, and let a hundred flies roost upon its eyes

all that time undisturbed? I see that every day. It makes my flesh creep. Yesterday we met a woman riding on

a little jackass, and she had a little child in her arms honestly, I thought the child had goggles on as we

approached, and I wondered how its mother could afford so much style. But when we drew near, we saw that

the goggles were nothing but a camp meeting of flies assembled around each of the child's eyes, and at the

same time there was a detachment prospecting its nose. The flies were happy, the child was contented, and so

As soon as the tribe found out that we had a doctor in our party, they began to flock in from all quarters. Dr.

B., in the charity of his nature, had taken a child from a woman who sat near by, and put some sort of a wash

upon its diseased eyes. That woman went off and started the whole nation, and it was a sight to see them

swarm! The lame, the halt, the blind, the leprous all the distempers that are bred of indolence, dirt, and

iniquity were represented in the Congress in ten minutes, and still they came! Every woman that had a

sick baby brought it along, and every woman that hadn't, borrowed one. What reverent and what worshiping

looks they bent upon that dread, mysterious power, the Doctor! They watched him take his phials out; they

watched him measure the particles of white powder; they watched him add drops of one precious liquid, and

drops of another; they lost not the slightest movement; their eyes were riveted upon him with a fascination

that nothing could distract. I believe they thought he was gifted like a god. When each individual got his

portion of medicine, his eyes were radiant with joy notwithstanding by nature they are a thankless and

impassive race and upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing on earth could prevent

Christ knew how to preach to these simple, superstitious, diseasetortured creatures: He healed the sick. They

flocked to our poor human doctor this morning when the fame of what he had done to the sick child went

abroad in the land, and they worshiped him with their eyes while they did not know as yet whether there was

virtue in his simples or not. The ancestors of these people precisely like them in color, dress, manners,

customs, simplicity flocked in vast multitudes after Christ, and when they saw Him make the afflicted

whole with a word, it is no wonder they worshiped Him. No wonder His deeds were the talk of the nation. No

wonder the multitude that followed Him was so great that at one time thirty miles from here they had

to let a sick man down through the roof because no approach could be made to the door; no wonder His

audiences were so great at Galilee that He had to preach from a ship removed a little distance from the shore;

no wonder that even in the desert places about Bethsaida, five thousand invaded His solitude, and He had to

feed them by a miracle or else see them suffer for their confiding faith and devotion; no wonder when there

was a great commotion in a city in those days, one neighbor explained it to another in words to this effect:

Well, as I was saying, the doctor distributed medicine as long as he had any to distribute, and his reputation is

mighty in Galilee this day. Among his patients was the child of the Shiek's daughter for even this poor,

ragged handful of sores and sin has its royal Shiek a poor old mummy that looked as if he would be more

at home in a poorhouse than in the Chief Magistracy of this tribe of hopeless, shirtless savages. The princess

I mean the Shiek's daughter was only thirteen or fourteen years old, and had a very sweet face and a

pretty one. She was the only Syrian female we have seen yet who was not so sinfully ugly that she couldn't

smile after ten o'clock Saturday night without breaking the Sabbath. Her child was a hard specimen, though

there wasn't enough of it to make a pie, and the poor little thing looked so pleadingly up at all who came

near it (as if it had an idea that now was its chance or never,) that we were filled with compassion which was

But this last new horse I have got is trying to break his neck over the tentropes, and I shall have to go out

and anchor him. Jericho and I have parted company. The new horse is not much to boast of, I think. One of

his hind legs bends the wrong way, and the other one is as straight and stiff as a tentpole. Most of his teeth

are gone, and he is as blind as bat. His nose has been broken at some time or other, and is arched like a

culvert now. His under lip hangs down like a camel's, and his ears are chopped off close to his head. I had

some trouble at first to find a name for him, but I finally concluded to call him Baalbec, because he is such a

magnificent ruin. I can not keep from talking about my horses, because I have a very long and tedious

journey before me, and they naturally occupy my thoughts about as much as matters of apparently much

We satisfied our pilgrims by making those hard rides from Baalbec to Damascus, but Dan's horse and Jack's

were so crippled we had to leave them behind and get fresh animals for them. The dragoman says Jack's

horse died. I swapped horses with Mohammed, the kinglylooking Egyptian who is our Ferguson's

lieutenant. By Ferguson I mean our dragoman Abraham, of course. I did not take this horse on account of his

personal appearance, but because I have not seen his back. I do not wish to see it. I have seen the backs of all

the other horses, and found most of them covered with dreadful saddleboils which I know have not been

washed or doctored for years. The idea of riding all day long over such ghastly inquisitions of torture is

sickening. My horse must be like the others, but I have at least the consolation of not knowing it to be so.

I hope that in future I may be spared any more sentimental praises of the Arab's idolatry of his horse. In

boyhood I longed to be an Arab of the desert and have a beautiful mare, and call her Selim or Benjamin or

Mohammed, and feed her with my own hands, and let her come into the tent, and teach her to caress me and

look fondly upon me with her great tender eyes; and I wished that a stranger might come at such a time and

offer me a hundred thousand dollars for her, so that I could do like the other Arabs hesitate, yearn for the

money, but overcome by my love for my mare, at last say, "Part with thee, my beautiful one! Never with my

life! Away, tempter, I scorn thy gold!" and then bound into the saddle and speed over the desert like the

But I recall those aspirations. If these Arabs be like the other Arabs, their love for their beautiful mares is a

fraud. These of my acquaintance have no love for their horses, no sentiment of pity for them, and no

knowledge of how to treat them or care for them. The Syrian saddleblanket is a quilted mattress two or three

inches thick. It is never removed from the horse, day or night. It gets full of dirt and hair, and becomes soaked

with sweat. It is bound to breed sores. These pirates never think of washing a horse's back. They do not

shelter the horses in the tents, either they must stay out and take the weather as it comes. Look at poor

cropped and dilapidated "Baalbec," and weep for the sentiment that has been wasted upon the Selims of

ABOUT an hour's ride over a rough, rocky road, half flooded with water, and through a forest of oaks of

From a little mound here in the plain issues a broad stream of limpid water and forms a large shallow pool,

and then rushes furiously onward, augmented in volume. This puddle is an important source of the Jordan. Its

banks, and those of the brook are respectably adorned with blooming oleanders, but the unutterable beauty of

the spot will not throw a wellbalanced man into convulsions, as the Syrian books of travel would lead one to

From the spot I am speaking of, a cannonball would carry beyond the confines of Holy Land and light upon

profane ground three miles away. We were only one little hour's travel within the borders of Holy Land

we had hardly begun to appreciate yet that we were standing upon any different sort of earth than that we had

always been used to, and see how the historic names began already to cluster! Dan Bashan Lake Huleh

the Sources of Jordan the Sea of Galilee. They were all in sight but the last, and it was not far away.

The little township of Bashan was once the kingdom so famous in Scripture for its bulls and its oaks. Lake

Huleh is the Biblical "Waters of Merom." Dan was the northern and Beersheba the southern limit of Palestine

hence the expression "from Dan to Beersheba." It is equivalent to our phrases "from Maine to Texas"

"from Baltimore to San Francisco." Our expression and that of the Israelites both mean the same great

distance. With their slow camels and asses, it was about a seven days' journey from Dan to Beersheba

say a hundred and fifty or sixty miles it was the entire length of their country, and was not to be

undertaken without great preparation and much ceremony. When the Prodigal traveled to " a far country," it

is not likely that he went more than eighty or ninety miles. Palestine is only from forty to sixty miles wide.

The State of Missouri could be split into three Palestines, and there would then be enough material left for

part of another possibly a whole one. From Baltimore to San Francisco is several thousand miles, but it

will be only a seven days' journey in the cars when I am two or three years older.46.1 If I live I shall

necessarily have to go across the continent every now and then in those cars, but one journey from Dan to

Beersheba will be sufficient, no doubt. It must be the most trying of the two. Therefore, if we chance to

discover that from Dan to Beersheba seemed a mighty stretch of country to the Israelites, let us not be airy

with them, but reflect that it was and is a mighty stretch when one can not traverse it by rail.

The small mound I have mentioned a while ago was once occupied by the Phenician city of Laish. A party of

in a free and easy way, worshiping gods of their own manufacture and stealing idols from their neighbors

whenever they wore their own out. Jeroboam set up a golden calf here to fascinate his people and keep them

from making dangerous trips to Jerusalem to worship, which might result in a return to their rightful

allegiance. With all respect for those ancient Israelites, I can not overlook the fact that they were not always

virtuous enough to withstand the seductions of a golden calf. Human nature has not changed much since then.

Some forty centuries ago the city of Sodom was pillaged by the Arab princes of Mesopotamia, and among

other prisoners they seized upon the patriarch Lot and brought him here on their way to their own

possessions. They brought him to Dan, and father Abraham, who was pursuing them, crept softly in at dead

of night, among the whispering oleanders and under the shadows of the stately oaks, and fell upon the

slumbering victors and startled them from their dreams with the clash of steel. He recaptured Lot and all the

We moved on. We were now in a green valley, five or six miles wide and fifteen long. The streams which are

called the sources of the Jordan flow through it to Lake Huleh, a shallow pond three miles in diameter, and

from the southern extremity of the Lake the concentrated Jordan flows out. The Lake is surrounded by a

broad marsh, grown with reeds. Between the marsh and the mountains which wall the valley is a respectable

strip of fertile land; at the end of the valley, toward Dan , as much as half the land is solid and fertile, and

watered by Jordan's sources. There is enough of it to make a farm. It almost warrants the enthusiasm of the

spies of that rabble of adventurers who captured Dan. They said: "We have seen the land, and behold it is

very good. * * * A place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth."

Their enthusiasm was at least warranted by the fact that they had never seen a country as good as this. There

was enough of it for the ample support of their six hundred men and their families, too.

When we got fairly down on the level part of the Danite farm, we came to places where we could actually run

We had been painfully clambering over interminable hills and rocks for days together, and when we suddenly

came upon this astonishing piece of rockless plain, every man drove the spurs into his horse and sped away

with a velocity he could surely enjoy to the utmost, but could never hope to comprehend in Syria.

Here were evidences of cultivation a rare sight in this country an acre or two of rich soil studded with

last season's dead cornstalks of the thickness of your thumb and very wide apart. But in such a land it was a

thrilling spectacle. Close to it was a stream, and on its banks a great herd of curiouslooking Syrian goats and

sheep were gratefully eating gravel. I do not state this as a petrified fact I only suppose they were eating

gravel, because there did not appear to be any thing else for them to eat. The shepherds that tended them were

the very pictures of Joseph and his brethren I have no doubt in the world. They were tall, muscular, and very

darkskinned Bedouins, with inky black beards. They had firm lips, unquailing eyes, and a kingly stateliness

of bearing. They wore the particolored half bonnet, half hood, with fringed ends falling upon their

shoulders, and the full, flowing robe barred with broad black stripes the dress one sees in all pictures of

the swarthy sons of the desert. These chaps would sell their younger brothers if they had a chance, I think.

They have the manners, the customs, the dress, the occupation and the loose principles of the ancient stock.

[They attacked our camp last night, and I bear them no good will.] They had with them the pigmy jackasses

one sees all over Syria and remembers in all pictures of the "Flight into Egypt," where Mary and the Young

Child are riding and Joseph is walking alongside, towering high above the little donkey's shoulders.

But really, here the man rides and carries the child, as a general thing, and the woman walks. The customs

have not changed since Joseph's time. We would not have in our houses a picture representing Joseph riding

and Mary walking; we would see profanation in it, but a Syrian Christian would not. I know that hereafter the

We could not stop to rest two or three hours out from our camp, of course, albeit the brook was beside us. So

we went on an hour longer. We saw water, then, but nowhere in all the waste around was there a foot of

shade, and we were scorching to death. "Like unto the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Nothing in

the Bible is more beautiful than that, and surely there is no place we have wandered to that is able to give it

Here you do not stop just when you please, but when you can. We found water, but no shade. We traveled on

and found a tree at last, but no water. We rested and lunched, and came on to this place, Ain Mellahah (the

boys call it Baldwinsville.) It was a very short day's run, but the dragoman does not want to go further, and

has invented a plausible lie about the country beyond this being infested by ferocious Arabs, who would

make sleeping in their midst a dangerous pastime. Well, they ought to be dangerous. They carry a rusty old

weatherbeaten flintlock gun, with a barrel that is longer than themselves; it has no sights on it, it will not

carry farther than a brickbat, and is not half so certain. And the great sash they wear in many a fold around

their waists has two or three absurd old horsepistols in it that are rusty from eternal disuse weapons that

would hang fire just about long enough for you to walk out of range, and then burst and blow the Arab's head

It used to make my blood run cold to read Wm. C. Grimes' hairbreadth escapes from Bedouins, but I think I

could read them now without a tremor. He never said he was attacked by Bedouins, I believe, or was ever

treated uncivilly, but then in about every other chapter he discovered them approaching, any how, and he had

a bloodcurdling fashion of working up the peril; and of wondering how his relations far away would feel

could they see their poor wandering boy, with his weary feet and his dim eyes, in such fearful danger; and of

thinking for the last time of the old homestead, and the dear old church, and the cow, and those things; and of

finally straightening his form to its utmost height in the saddle, drawing his trusty revolver, and then dashing

the spurs into "Mohammed" and sweeping down upon the ferocious enemy determined to sell his life as

dearly as possible. True the Bedouins never did any thing to him when he arrived, and never had any

intention of doing any thing to him in the first place, and wondered what in the mischief he was making all

that todo about; but still I could not divest myself of the idea, somehow, that a frightful peril had been

escaped through that man's daredevil bravery, and so I never could read about Wm. C. Grimes' Bedouins

and sleep comfortably afterward. But I believe the Bedouins to be a fraud, now. I have seen the monster, and

I can outrun him. I shall never be afraid of his daring to stand behind his own gun and discharge it.

About fifteen hundred years before Christ, this campground of ours by the Waters of Merom was the scene

of one of Joshua's exterminating battles. Jabin, King of Hazor, (up yonder above Dan,) called all the sheiks

about him together, with their hosts, to make ready for Israel's terrible General who was approaching.

"And when all these Kings were met together, they came and pitched together by the Waters of Merom, to

fight against Israel. "And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that

But Joshua fell upon them and utterly destroyed them, root and branch. That was his usual policy in war. He

never left any chance for newspaper controversies about who won the battle. He made this valley, so quiet

Somewhere in this part of the country I do not know exactly where Israel fought another bloody battle

a hundred years later. Deborah, the prophetess, told Barak to take ten thousand men and sally forth against

another King Jabin who had been doing something. Barak came down from Mount Tabor, twenty or

twentyfive miles from here, and gave battle to Jabin's forces, who were in command of Sisera. Barak won

the fight, and while he was making the victory complete by the usual method of exterminating the remnant of

the defeated host, Sisera fled away on foot, and when he was nearly exhausted by fatigue and thirst, one Jael,

a woman he seems to have been acquainted with, invited him to come into her tent and rest himself. The

weary soldier acceded readily enough, and Jael put him to bed. He said he was very thirsty, and asked his

generous preserver to get him a cup of water. She brought him some milk, and he drank of it gratefully and

lay down again, to forget in pleasant dreams his lost battle and his humbled pride. Presently when he was

asleep she came softly in with a hammer and drove a hideous tentpen down through his brain!

"For he was fast asleep and weary. So he died." Such is the touching language of the Bible. "The Song of

Deborah and Barak" praises Jael for the memorable service she had rendered, in an exultant strain:

"Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the

tent. "He asked for water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. "She put her hand

to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote

off his head when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. "At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay

Stirring scenes like these occur in this valley no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole

extent not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but

not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings.

I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I

will scatter you among the heathen, and I will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and

No man can stand here by deserted Ain Mellahah and say the prophecy has not been fulfilled.

In a verse from the Bible which I have quoted above, occurs the phrase "all these kings." It attracted my

attention in a moment, because it carries to my mind such a vastly different significance from what it always

did at home. I can see easily enough that if I wish to profit by this tour and come to a correct understanding of

the matters of interest connected with it, I must studiously and faithfully unlearn a great many things I have

somehow absorbed concerning Palestine. I must begin a system of reduction. Like my grapes which the spies

bore out of the Promised Land, I have got every thing in Palestine on too large a scale. Some of my ideas

were wild enough. The word Palestine always brought to my mind a vague suggestion of a country as large as

the United States. I do not know why, but such was the case. I suppose it was because I could not conceive of

a small country having so large a history. I think I was a little surprised to find that the grand Sultan of

Turkey was a man of only ordinary size. I must try to reduce my ideas of Palestine to a more reasonable

shape. One gets large impressions in boyhood, sometimes, which he has to fight against all his life. "All these

kings." When I used to read that in Sunday School, it suggested to me the several kings of such countries as

England, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, etc., arrayed in splendid robes ablaze with jewels, marching in

grave procession, with sceptres of gold in their hands and flashing crowns upon their heads. But here in Ain

Mellahah, after coming through Syria, and after giving serious study to the character and customs of the

country, the phrase "all these kings" loses its grandeur. It suggests only a parcel of petty chiefs illclad

and illconditioned savages much like our Indians, who lived in full sight of each other and whose

"kingdoms" were large when they were five miles square and contained two thousand souls. The combined

monarchies of the thirty "kings" destroyed by Joshua on one of his famous campaigns, only covered an area

about equal to four of our counties of ordinary size. The poor old sheik we saw at Cesarea Philippi with his

ragged band of a hundred followers, would have been called a "king " in those ancient times.

It is seven in the morning, and as we are in the country, the grass ought to be sparkling with dew, the flowers

enriching the air with their fragrance, and the birds singing in the trees. But alas, there is no dew here, nor

flowers, nor birds, nor trees. There is a plain and an unshaded lake, and beyond them some barren mountains.

The tents are tumbling, the Arabs are quarreling like dogs and cats, as usual, the campground is strewn with

packages and bundles, the labor of packing them upon the backs of the mules is progressing with great

activity, the horses are saddled, the umbrellas are out, and in ten minutes we shall mount and the long

procession will move again. The white city of the Mellahah, resurrected for a moment out of the dead

WE traversed some miles of desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds

a silent, mournful expanse, wherein we saw only three persons Arabs, with nothing on but a long coarse

shirt like the "towlinen" shirts which used to form the only summer garment of little negro boys on Southern

plantations. Shepherds they were, and they charmed their flocks with the traditional shepherd's pipe a reed

instrument that made music as exquisitely infernal as these same Arabs create when they sing.

In their pipes lingered no echo of the wonderful music the shepherd forefathers heard in the Plains of

Part of the ground we came over was not ground at all, but rocks creamcolored rocks, worn smooth, as if

by water; with seldom an edge or a corner on them, but scooped out, honeycombed, bored out with

eyeholes, and thus wrought into all manner of quaint shapes, among which the uncouth imitation of skulls

was frequent. Over this part of the route were occasional remains of an old Roman road like the Appian Way,

Gray lizards, those heirs of ruin, of sepulchres and desolation, glided in and out among the rocks or lay still

and sunned themselves. Where prosperity has reigned, and fallen; where glory has flamed, and gone out;

where beauty has dwelt, and passed away; where gladness was, and sorrow is; where the pomp of life has

been, and silence and death brood in its high places, there this reptile makes his home, and mocks at human

vanity. His coat is the color of ashes: and ashes are the symbol of hopes that have perished, of aspirations that

came to nought, of loves that are buried. If he could speak, he would say, Build temples: I will lord it in their

ruins; build palaces: I will inhabit them; erect empires: I will inherit them; bury your beautiful: I will watch

the worms at their work; and you, who stand here and moralize over me: I will crawl over your corpse at the

A few ants were in this desert place, but merely to spend the summer. They brought their provisions from Ain

Jack is not very well today, it is easy to see; but boy as he is, he is too much of a man to speak of it. He

exposed himself to the sun too much yesterday, but since it came of his earnest desire to learn, and to make

this journey as useful as the opportunities will allow, no one seeks to discourage him by faultfinding. We

missed him an hour from the camp, and then found him some distance away, by the edge of a brook, and with

no umbrella to protect him from the fierce sun. If he had been used to going without his umbrella, it would

have been well enough, of course; but he was not. He was just in the act of throwing a clod at a mudturtle

We asked him why, but he said it was no matter. We asked him why, once or twice, as we walked back to the

camp but he still said it was no matter. But late at night, when he was sitting in a thoughtful mood on the bed,

"Well, it don't matter; I don't mind it now, but I did not like it today, you know, because I don't tell any

thing that isn't so, and I don't think the Colonel ought to, either. But he did; he told us at prayers in the

Pilgrims' tent, last night, and he seemed as if he was reading it out of the Bible, too, about this country

flowing with milk and honey, and about the voice of the turtle being heard in the land. I thought that was

drawing it a little strong, about the turtles, any how, but I asked Mr. Church if it was so, and he said it was,

and what Mr. Church tells me, I believe. But I sat there and watched that turtle nearly an hour today, and I

almost burned up in the sun; but I never heard him sing. I believe I sweated a double handful of sweat I

know I did because it got in my eyes, and it was running down over my nose all the time; and you know

my pants are tighter than any body else's Paris foolishness and the buckskin seat of them got wet with

sweat, and then got dry again and began to draw up and pinch and tear loose it was awful but I never

heard him sing. Finally I said, This is a fraud that is what it is, it is a fraud and if I had had any sense I

might have known a cursed mudturtle couldn't sing. And then I said, I don't wish to be hard on this fellow,

and I will just give him ten minutes to commence; ten minutes and then if he don't, down goes his

building. But he didn't commence, you know. I had staid there all that time, thinking may be he might, pretty

soon, because he kept on raising his head up and letting it down, and drawing the skin over his eyes for a

minute and then opening them out again, as if he was trying to study up something to sing, but just as the ten

minutes were up and I was all beat out and blistered, he laid his blamed head down on a knot and went fast

"I should think so. I said, Well, if you won't sing, you shan't sleep, any way; and if you fellows had let me

alone I would have made him shin out of Galilee quicker than any turtle ever did yet. But it isn't any matter

About ten in the morning we halted at Joseph's Pit. This is a ruined Khan of the Middle Ages, in one of

whose side courts is a great walled and arched pit with water in it, and this pit, one tradition says, is the one

Joseph's brethren cast him into. A more authentic tradition, aided by the geography of the country, places the

pit in Dothan, some two days' journey from here. However, since there are many who believe in this present

It is hard to make a choice of the most beautiful passage in a book which is so gemmed with beautiful

passages as the Bible; but it is certain that not many things within its lids may take rank above the exquisite

story of Joseph. Who taught those ancient writers their simplicity of language, their felicity of expression,

their pathos, and above all, their faculty of sinking themselves entirely out of sight of the reader and making

the narrative stand out alone and seem to tell itself? Shakspeare is always present when one reads his book;

Macaulay is present when we follow the march of his stately sentences; but the Old Testament writers are

If the pit I have been speaking of is the right one, a scene transpired there, long ages ago, which is familiar to

us all in pictures. The sons of Jacob had been pasturing their flocks near there. Their father grew uneasy at

their long absence, and sent Joseph, his favorite, to see if any thing had gone wrong with them. He traveled

six or seven days' journey; he was only seventeen years old, and, boy like, he toiled through that long stretch

of the vilest, rockiest, dustiest country in Asia, arrayed in the pride of his heart, his beautiful clawhammer

coat of many colors. Joseph was the favorite, and that was one crime in the eyes of his brethren; he had

dreamed dreams, and interpreted them to foreshadow his elevation far above all his family in the far future,

and that was another; he was dressed well and had doubtless displayed the harmless vanity of youth in

keeping the fact prominently before his brothers. These were crimes his elders fretted over among themselves

and proposed to punish when the opportunity should offer. When they saw him coming up from the Sea of

Galilee, they recognized him and were glad. They said, "Lo, here is this dreamer let us kill him." But

Reuben pleaded for his life, and they spared it. But they seized the boy, and stripped the hated coat from his

back and pushed him into the pit. They intended to let him die there, but Reuben intended to liberate him

secretly. However, while Reuben was away for a little while, the brethren sold Joseph to some Ishmaelitish

merchants who were journeying towards Egypt. Such is the history of the pit. And the selfsame pit is there

in that place, even to this day; and there it will remain until the next detachment of imagebreakers and tomb

desecraters arrives from the Quaker City excursion, and they will infallibly dig it up and carry it away with

them. For behold in them is no reverence for the solemn monuments of the past, and whithersoever they go

Joseph became rich, distinguished, powerful as the Bible expresses it, "lord over all the land of Egypt."

Joseph was the real king, the strength, the brain of the monarchy, though Pharaoh held the title. Joseph is one

of the truly great men of the Old Testament. And he was the noblest and the manliest, save Esau. Why shall

we not say a good word for the princely Bedouin? The only crime that can be brought against him is that he

was unfortunate. Why must every body praise Joseph's greathearted generosity to his cruel brethren, without

stint of fervent language, and fling only a reluctant bone of praise to Esau for his still sublimer generosity to

the brother who had wronged him? Jacob took advantage of Esau's consuming hunger to rob him of his

birthright and the great honor and consideration that belonged to the position; by treachery and falsehood he

robbed him of his father's blessing; he made of him a stranger in his home, and a wanderer. Yet after twenty

years had passed away and Jacob met Esau and fell at his feet quaking with fear and begging piteously to be

spared the punishment he knew he deserved, what did that magnificent savage do? He fell upon his neck and

embraced him! When Jacob who was incapable of comprehending nobility of character still doubting,

still fearing, insisted upon "finding grace with my lord" by the bribe of a present of cattle, what did the

Esau found Jacob rich, beloved by wives and children, and traveling in state, with servants, herds of cattle

and trains of camels but he himself was still the uncourted outcast this brother had made him. After

thirteen years of romantic mystery, the brethren who had wronged Joseph, came, strangers in a strange land,

hungry and humble, to buy "a little food"; and being summoned to a palace, charged with crime, they beheld

in its owner their wronged brother; they were trembling beggars he, the lord of a mighty empire ! What

Joseph that ever lived would have thrown away such a chance to "show off?" Who stands first outcast

Esau forgiving Jacob in prosperity, or Joseph on a king's throne forgiving the ragged tremblers whose happy

Just before we came to Joseph's Pit, we had "raised" a hill, and there, a few miles before us, with not a tree or

a shrub to interrupt the view, lay a vision which millions of worshipers in the far lands of the earth would

Therefore we tarried only a short time at the pit. We rested the horses and ourselves, and felt for a few

minutes the blessed shade of the ancient buildings. We were out of water, but the two or three scowling

Arabs, with their long guns, who were idling about the place, said they had none and that there was none in

the vicinity. They knew there was a little brackish water in the pit, but they venerated a place made sacred by

their ancestor's imprisonment too much to be willing to see Christian dogs drink from it. But Ferguson tied

rags and handkerchiefs together till he made a rope long enough to lower a vessel to the bottom, and we

drank and then rode on; and in a short time we dismounted on those shores which the feet of the Saviour have

At noon we took a swim in the Sea of Galilee a blessed privilege in this roasting climate and then

lunched under a neglected old figtree at the fountain they call AinetTin, a hundred yards from ruined

Capernaum. Every rivulet that gurgles out of the rocks and sands of this part of the world is dubbed with the

title of "fountain," and people familiar with the Hudson, the great lakes and the Mississippi fall into transports

of admiration over them, and exhaust their powers of composition in writing their praises. If all the poetry

and nonsense that have been discharged upon the fountains and the bland scenery of this region were

During luncheon, the pilgrim enthusiasts of our party, who had been so lighthearted and so happy ever since

they touched holy ground that they did little but mutter incoherent rhapsodies, could scarcely eat, so anxious

were they to "take shipping" and sail in very person upon the waters that had borne the vessels of the

Apostles. Their anxiety grew and their excitement augmented with every fleeting moment, until my fears

were aroused and I began to have misgivings that in their present condition they might break recklessly loose

from all considerations of prudence and buy a whole fleet of ships to sail in instead of hiring a single one for

an hour, as quiet folk are wont to do. I trembled to think of the ruined purses this day's performances might

result in. I could not help reflecting bodingly upon the intemperate zeal with which middleaged men are apt

to surfeit themselves upon a seductive folly which they have tasted for the first time. And yet I did not feel

that I had a right to be surprised at the state of things which was giving me so much concern. These men had

been taught from infancy to revere, almost to worship, the holy places whereon their happy eyes were resting

now. For many and many a year this very picture had visited their thoughts by day and floated through their

dreams by night. To stand before it in the flesh to see it as they saw it now to sail upon the hallowed

sea, and kiss the holy soil that compassed it about: these were aspirations they had cherished while a

generation dragged its lagging seasons by and left its furrows in their faces and its frosts upon their hair. To

look upon this picture, and sail upon this sea, they had forsaken home and its idols and journeyed thousands

and thousands of miles, in weariness and tribulation. What wonder that the sordid lights of workday

prudence should pale before the glory of a hope like theirs in the full splendor of its fruition? Let them

In this frame of mind I followed, as fast as I could, the eager footsteps of the pilgrims, and stood upon the

shore of the lake, and swelled, with hat and voice, the frantic hail they sent after the "ship" that was speeding

by. It was a success. The toilers of the sea ran in and beached their barque. Joy sat upon every countenance.

"How much? ask him how much, Ferguson! how much to take us all eight of us, and you to

Bethsaida, yonder, and to the mouth of Jordan, and to the place where the swine ran down into the sea

quick! and we want to coast around every where every where! all day long! I could sail a year

in these waters! and tell him we'll stop at Magdala and finish at Tiberias! ask him how much? any

thing any thing whatever! tell him we don't care what the expense is!" [I said to myself, I knew how it

I never shall know how it was I shudder yet when I think how the place is given to miracles but in a

single instant of time, as it seemed to me, that ship was twenty paces from the shore, and speeding away like

a frightened thing! Eight crestfallen creatures stood upon the shore, and O, to think of it! this this after

all that overmastering ecstacy! Oh, shameful, shameful ending, after such unseemly boasting! It was too

much like "Ho! let me at him!" followed by a prudent "Two of you hold him one can hold me!"

Instantly there was wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp.The two Napoleons were offered more if

necessary andpilgrims and dragoman shouted themselves hoarse with pleadings to theretreating boatmen

to come back. But they sailed serenely away andpaid no further heed to pilgrims who had dreamed all their

lives ofsome day skimming over the sacred waters of Galilee and listening toits hallowed story in the

whisperings of its waves, and had journeyedcountless leagues to do it, and and then concluded that the

farewas too high. Impertinent Mohammedan Arabs, to think such things ofgentlemen of another faith!

Well, there was nothing to do but just submit and forego the privilege of voyaging on Genessaret, after

coming half around the globe to taste that pleasure. There was a time, when the Saviour taught here, that

boats were plenty among the fishermen of the coasts but boats and fishermen both are gone, now; and old

Josephus had a fleet of menofwar in these waters eighteen centuries ago a hundred and thirty bold

canoes but they, also, have passed away and left no sign. They battle here no more by sea, and the

commercial marine of Galilee numbers only two small ships, just of a pattern with the little skiffs the

disciples knew. One was lost to us for good the other was miles away and far out of hail. So we mounted

the horses and rode grimly on toward Magdala, cantering along in the edge of the water for want of the means

How the pilgrims abused each other! Each said it was the other's fault, and each in turn denied it. No word

was spoken by the sinners even the mildest sarcasm might have been dangerous at such a time. Sinners

that have been kept down and had examples held up to them, and suffered frequent lectures, and been so put

upon in a moral way and in the matter of going slow and being serious and bottling up slang, and so crowded

in regard to the matter of being proper and always and forever behaving, that their lives have become a

burden to them, would not lag behind pilgrims at such a time as this, and wink furtively, and be joyful, and

commit other such crimes because it would not occur to them to do it. Otherwise they would. But they did

do it, though and it did them a world of good to hear the pilgrims abuse each other, too. We took an

unworthy satisfaction in seeing them fall out, now and then, because it showed that they were only poor

So we all rode down to Magdala, while the gnashing of teeth waxed and waned by turns, and harsh words

Lest any man think I mean to be illnatured when I talk about our pilgrims as I have been talking, I wish to

say in all sincerity that I do not. I would not listen to lectures from men I did not like and could not respect;

and none of these can say I ever took their lectures unkindly, or was restive under the infliction, or failed to

try to profit by what they said to me. They are better men than I am; I can say that honestly; they are good

friends of mine, too and besides, if they did not wish to be stirred up occasionally in print, why in the

mischief did they travel with me? They knew me. They knew my liberal way that I like to give and take

when it is for me to give and other people to take. When one of them threatened to leave me in Damascus

when I had the cholera, he had no real idea of doing it I know his passionate nature and the good impulses

that underlie it. And did I not overhear Church, another pilgrim, say he did not care who went or who staid,

he would stand by me till I walked out of Damascus on my own feet or was carried out in a coffin, if it was a

year? And do I not include Church every time I abuse the pilgrims and would I be likely to speak

illnaturedly of him ? I wish to stir them up and make them healthy; that is all.

We had left Capernaum behind us. It was only a shapeless ruin. It bore no semblance to a town, and had

nothing about it to suggest that it had ever been a town. But all desolate and unpeopled as it was, it was

illustrious ground. From it sprang that tree of Christianity whose broad arms overshadow so many distant

lands today. After Christ was tempted of the devil in the desert, he came here and began his teachings; and

during the three or four years he lived afterward, this place was his home almost altogether. He began to heal

the sick, and his fame soon spread so widely that sufferers came from Syria and beyond Jordan, and even

from Jerusalem, several days' journey away, to be cured of their diseases. Here he healed the centurion's

servant and Peter's motherinlaw, and multitudes of the lame and the blind and persons possessed of devils;

and here, also, he raised Jairus's daughter from the dead. He went into a ship with his disciples, and when

they roused him from sleep in the midst of a storm, he quieted the winds and lulled the troubled sea to rest

with his voice. He passed over to the other side, a few miles away and relieved two men of devils, which

passed into some swine. After his return he called Matthew from the receipt of customs, performed some

cures, and created scandal by eating with publicans and sinners. Then he went healing and teaching through

Galilee, and even journeyed to Tyre and Sidon. He chose the twelve disciples, and sent them abroad to preach

the new gospel. He worked miracles in Bethsaida and Chorazin villages two or three miles from

Capernaum. It was near one of them that the miraculous draft of fishes is supposed to have been taken, and it

was in the desert places near the other that he fed the thousands by the miracles of the loaves and fishes. He

cursed them both, and Capernaum also, for not repenting, after all the great works he had done in their midst,

and prophesied against them. They are all in ruins, now which is gratifying to the pilgrims, for, as usual,

they fit the eternal words of gods to the evanescent things of this earth; Christ, it is more probable, referred to

the people, not their shabby villages of wigwams: he said it would be sad for them at "the day of judgment"

and what business have mudhovels at the Day of Judgment? It would not affect the prophecy in the least

it would neither prove it or disprove it if these towns were splendid cities now instead of the almost

vanished ruins they are. Christ visited Magdala, which is near by Capernaum, and he also visited Cesarea

Philippi. He went up to his old home at Nazareth, and saw his brothers Joses, and Judas, and James, and

Simon those persons who, being own brothers to Jesus Christ, one would expect to hear mentioned

sometimes, yet who ever saw their names in a newspaper or heard them from a pulpit? Who ever inquires

what manner of youths they were; and whether they slept with Jesus, played with him and romped about him;

quarreled with him concerning toys and trifles; struck him in anger, not suspecting what he was? Who ever

wonders what they thought when they saw him come back to Nazareth a celebrity, and looked long at his

unfamiliar face to make sure, and then said, "It is Jesus?" Who wonders what passed in their minds when they

saw this brother, (who was only a brother to them, however much he might be to others a mysterious stranger

who was a god and had stood face to face with God above the clouds,) doing strange miracles with crowds of

astonished people for witnesses? Who wonders if the brothers of Jesus asked him to come home with them,

and said his mother and his sisters were grieved at his long absence, and would be wild with delight to see his

face again ? Who ever gives a thought to the sisters of Jesus at all ? yet he had sisters; and memories of

them must have stolen into his mind often when he was illtreated among strangers; when he was homeless

and said he had not where to lay his head; when all deserted him, even Peter, and he stood alone among his

Christ did few miracles in Nazareth, and staid but a little while. The people said, "This the Son of God! Why,

his father is nothing but a carpenter. We know the family. We see them every day. Are not his brothers

named so and so, and his sisters so and so, and is not his mother the person they call Mary ? This is absurd."

Capernaum lies close to the edge of the little sea, in a small plain some five miles long and a mile or two

wide, which is mildly adorned with oleanders which look all the better contrasted with the bald hills and the

howling deserts which surround them, but they are not as deliriously beautiful as the books paint them. If one

One of the most astonishing things that have yet fallen under our observation is the exceedingly small portion

of the earth from which sprang the now flourishing plant of Christianity. The longest journey our Saviour

ever performed was from here to Jerusalem about one hundred to one hundred and twenty miles. The next

longest was from here to Sidon say about sixty or seventy miles. Instead of being wide apart as

American appreciation of distances would naturally suggest the places made most particularly celebrated

by the presence of Christ are nearly all right here in full view, and within cannonshot of Capernaum.

Leaving out two or three short journeys of the Saviour, he spent his life, preached his gospel, and performed

his miracles within a compass no larger than an ordinary county in the United States. It is as much as I can do

to comprehend this stupefying fact. How it wears a man out to have to read up a hundred pages of history

every two or three miles for verily the celebrated localities of Palestine occur that close together. How

MAGDALA is not a beautiful place. It is thoroughly Syrian, and that is to say that it is thoroughly ugly, and

cramped, squalid, uncomfortable, and filthy just the style of cities that have adorned the country since

Adam's time, as all writers have labored hard to prove, and have succeeded. The streets of Magdala are any

where from three to six feet wide, and reeking with uncleanliness. The houses are from five to seven feet

high, and all built upon one arbitrary plan the ungraceful form of a drygoods box. The sides are daubed

with a smooth white plaster, and tastefully frescoed aloft and alow with disks of cameldung placed there to

dry. This gives the edifice the romantic appearance of having been riddled with cannonballs, and imparts to

it a very warlike aspect. When the artist has arranged his materials with an eye to just proportion the small

and the large flakes in alternate rows, and separated by carefullyconsidered intervals I know of nothing

more cheerful to look upon than a spirited Syrian fresco. The flat, plastered roof is garnished by picturesque

stacks of fresco materials, which, having become thoroughly dried and cured, are placed there where it will

be convenient. It is used for fuel. There is no timber of any consequence in Palestine none at all to waste

upon fires and neither are there any mines of coal. If my description has been intelligible, you will

perceive, now, that a square, flatroofed hovel, neatly frescoed, with its walltops gallantly bastioned and

turreted with dried camelrefuse, gives to a landscape a feature that is exceedingly festive and picturesque,

especially if one is careful to remember to stick in a cat wherever, about the premises, there is room for a cat

to sit. There are no windows to a Syrian hut, and no chimneys. When I used to read that they let a bedridden

man down through the roof of a house in Capernaum to get him into the presence of the Saviour, I generally

had a threestory brick in my mind, and marveled that they did not break his neck with the strange

experiment. I perceive now, however, that they might have taken him by the heels and thrown him clear over

the house without discommoding him very much. Palestine is not changed any since those days, in manners,

As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. But the ring of the horses' hoofs roused the stupid

population, and they all came trooping out old men and old women, boys and girls, the blind, the crazy,

and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled and scanty raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, instinct and

education. How the vermintortured vagabonds did swarm! How they showed their scars and sores, and

piteously pointed to their maimed and crooked limbs, and begged with their pleading eyes for charity! We

had invoked a spirit we could not lay. They hung to the horses's tails, clung to their manes and the stirrups,

closed in on every aide in scorn of dangerous hoofs and out of their infidel throats, with one accord, burst

an agonizing and most infernal chorus: "Howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh!

As we paid the bucksheesh out to soreeyed children and brown, buxom girls with repulsively tattooed lips

and chins, we filed through the town and by many an exquisite fresco, till we came to a brambleinfested

inclosure and a Romanlooking ruin which had been the veritable dwelling of St. Mary Magdalene, the

friend and follower of Jesus. The guide believed it, and so did I. I could not well do otherwise, with the house

right there before my eyes as plain as day. The pilgrims took down portions of the front wall for specimens,

We are camped in this place, now, just within the city walls of Tiberias. We went into the town before

nightfall and looked at its people we cared nothing about its houses. Its people are best examined at a

distance. They are particularly uncomely Jews, Arabs, and negroes. Squalor and poverty are the pride of

Tiberias. The young women wear their dower strung upon a strong wire that curves downward from the top

of the head to the jaw Turkish silver coins which they have raked together or inherited. Most of these

maidens were not wealthy, but some few had been very kindly dealt with by fortune. I saw heiresses there

worth, in their own right worth, well, I suppose I might venture to say, as much as nine dollars and a half.

But such cases are rare. When you come across one of these, she naturally puts on airs. She will not ask for

bucksheesh. She will not even permit of undue familiarity. She assumes a crushing dignity and goes on

serenely practicing with her finetooth comb and quoting poetry just the same as if you were not present at

They say that the longnosed, lanky, dyspepticlooking bodysnatchers, with the indescribable hats on, and

a long curl dangling down in front of each ear, are the old, familiar, selfrighteous Pharisees we read of in the

Scriptures. Verily, they look it. Judging merely by their general style, and without other evidence, one might

From various authorities I have culled information concerning Tiberias. It was built by Herod Antipas, the

murderer of John the Baptist, and named after the Emperor Tiberius. It is believed that it stands upon the site

of what must have been, ages ago, a city of considerable architectural pretensions, judging by the fine

porphyry pillars that are scattered through Tiberias and down the lake shore southward. These were fluted,

once, and yet, although the stone is about as hard as iron, the flutings are almost worn away. These pillars are

small, and doubtless the edifices they adorned were distinguished more for elegance than grandeur. This

The Sanhedrim met here last, and for three hundred years Tiberias was the metropolis of the Jews in

Palestine. It is one of the four holy cities of the Israelites, and is to them what Mecca is to the Mohammedan

and Jerusalem to the Christian. It has been the abiding place of many learned and famous Jewish rabbins.

They lie buried here, and near them lie also twentyfive thousand of their faith who traveled far to be near

them while they lived and lie with them when they died. The great Rabbi Ben Israel spent three years here in

The celebrated Sea of Galilee is not so large a sea as Lake Tahoe48.1 by a good deal it is just about

twothirds as large. And when we come to speak of beauty, this sea is no more to be compared to Tahoe than

a meridian of longitude is to a rainbow. The dim waters of this pool can not suggest the limpid brilliancy of

Tahoe; these low, shaven, yellow hillocks of rocks and sand, so devoid of perspective, can not suggest the

grand peaks that compass Tahoe like a wall, and whose ribbed and chasmed fronts are clad with stately pines

that seem to grow small and smaller as they climb, till one might fancy them reduced to weeds and shrubs far

upward, where they join the everlasting snows. Silence and solitude brood over Tahoe; and silence and

solitude brood also over this lake of Genessaret. But the solitude of the one is as cheerful and fascinating as

In the early morning one watches the silent battle of dawn and darkness upon the waters of Tahoe with a

placid interest; but when the shadows sulk away and one by one the hidden beauties of the shore unfold

themselves in the full splendor of noon; when the still surface is belted like a rainbow with broad bars of blue

and green and white, half the distance from circumference to centre; when, in the lazy summer afternoon, he

lies in a boat, far out to where the dead blue of the deep water begins, and smokes the pipe of peace and idly

winks at the distant crags and patches of snow from under his capbrim; when the boat drifts shoreward to

the white water, and he lolls over the gunwale and gazes by the hour down through the crystal depths and

notes the colors of the pebbles and reviews the finny armies gliding in procession a hundred feet below; when

at night he sees moon and stars, mountain ridges feathered with pines, jutting white capes, bold promontories,

grand sweeps of rugged scenery topped with bald, glimmering peaks, all magnificently pictured in the

polished mirror of the lake, in richest, softest detail, the tranquil interest that was born with the morning

deepens and deepens, by sure degrees, till it culminates at last in resistless fascination!

It is solitude, for birds and squirrels on the shore and fishes in the water are all the creatures that are near to

make it otherwise, but it is not the sort of solitude to make one dreary. Come to Galilee for that. If these

unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness, that never, never, never do shake the glare from their

harsh outlines, and fade and faint into vague perspective; that melancholy ruin of Capernaum; this stupid

village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal plumes of palms; yonder desolate declivity where the

swine of the miracle ran down into the sea, and doubtless thought it was better to swallow a devil or two and

get drowned into the bargain than have to live longer in such a place; this cloudless, blistering sky; this

solemn, sailless, tintless lake, reposing within its rim of yellow hills and low, steep banks, and looking just as

expressionless and unpoetical (when we leave its sublime history out of the question,) as any metropolitan

reservoir in Christendom if these things are not food for rock me to sleep, mother, none exist, I think.

But I should not offer the evidence for the prosecution and leave the defense unheard. Wm. C. Grimes

"We had taken ship to go over to the other side. The sea was not more than six miles wide. Of the beauty of

the scene, however, I can not say enough, nor can I imagine where those travelers carried their eyes who have

described the scenery of the lake as tame or uninteresting. The first great characteristic of it is

the deep basin in which it lies. This is from three to four hundred feet deep on all sides except at the lower

end, and the sharp slope of the banks, which are all of the richest green, is broken and diversified by the

w�dys and watercourses which work their way down through the sides of the basin, forming dark chasms or

light sunny valleys. Near Tiberias these banks are rocky, and ancient sepulchres open in them, with their

doors toward the water. They selected grand spots, as did the Egyptians of old, for burial places, as if they

designed that when the voice of God should reach the sleepers, they should walk forth and open their eyes on

scenes of glorious beauty. On the east, the wild and desolate mountains contrast finely with the deep blue

lake; and toward the north, sublime and majestic, Hermon looks down on the sea, lifting his white crown to

heaven with the pride of a hill that has seen the departing footsteps of a hundred generations. On the

northeast shore of the sea was a single tree, and this is the only tree of any size visible from the water of the

lake, except a few lonely palms in the city of Tiberias, and by its solitary position attracts more attention than

would a forest. The whole appearance of the scene is precisely what we would expect and desire the scenery

of Genessaret to be, grand beauty, but quiet calm. The very mountains are calm."

It is an ingeniously written description, and well calculated to deceive. But if the paint and the ribbons and

So stripped, there remains a lake six miles wide and neutral in color; with steep green banks, unrelieved by

shrubbery; at one end bare, unsightly rocks, with (almost invisible) holes in them of no consequence to the

picture; eastward, "wild and desolate mountains;" (low, desolate hills, he should have said;) in the north, a

mountain called Hermon, with snow on it; peculiarity of the picture, "calmness;" its prominent feature, one

I claim the right to correct misstatements, and have so corrected the color of the water in the above

recapitulation. The waters of Genessaret are of an exceedingly mild blue, even from a high elevation and a

distance of five miles. Close at hand (the witness was sailing on the lake,) it is hardly proper to call them blue

at all, much less "deep" blue. I wish to state, also, not as a correction, but as matter of opinion, that Mount

Hermon is not a striking or picturesque mountain by any means, being too near the height of its immediate

neighbors to be so. That is all. I do not object to the witness dragging a mountain fortyfive miles to help the

scenery under consideration, because it is entirely proper to do it, and besides, the picture needs it.

"A beautiful sea lies unbosomed among the Galilean hills, in the midst of that land once possessed by

Zebulon and Naphtali, Asher and Dan. The azure of the sky penetrates the depths of the lake, and the waters

are sweet and cool. On the west, stretch broad fertile plains; on the north the rocky shores rise step by step

until in the far distance tower the snowy heights of Hermon; on the east through a misty veil are seen the high

plains of Perea, which stretch away in rugged mountains leading the mind by varied paths toward Jerusalem

the Holy. Flowers bloom in this terrestrial paradise, once beautiful and verdant with waving trees; singing

birds enchant the ear; the turtledove soothes with its soft note; the crested lark sends up its song toward

heaven, and the grave and stately stork inspires the mind with thought, and leads it on to meditation and

repose. Life here was once idyllic, charming; here were once no rich, no poor, no high, no low. It was a world

This is not an ingenious picture. It is the worst I ever saw. It describes in elaborate detail what it terms a

"terrestrial paradise," and closes with the startling information that this paradise is "a scene of desolation and

I have given two fair, average specimens of the character of the testimony offered by the majority of the

writers who visit this region. One says, "Of the beauty of the scene I can not say enough," and then proceeds

to cover up with a woof of glittering sentences a thing which, when stripped for inspection, proves to be only

an unobtrusive basin of water, some mountainous desolation, and one tree. The other, after a conscientious

effort to build a terrestrial paradise out of the same materials, with the addition of a "grave and stately stork,"

Nearly every book concerning Galilee and its lake describes the scenery as beautiful. No not always so

straightforward as that. Sometimes the impression intentionally conveyed is that it is beautiful, at the same

time that the author is careful not to say that it is, in plain Saxon. But a careful analysis of these descriptions

will show that the materials of which they are formed are not individually beautiful and can not be wrought

into combinations that are beautiful. The veneration and the affection which some of these men felt for the

scenes they were speaking of, heated their fancies and biased their judgment; but the pleasant falsities they

wrote were full of honest sincerity, at any rate. Others wrote as they did, because they feared it would be

unpopular to write otherwise. Others were hypocrites and deliberately meant to deceive. Any of them would

say in a moment, if asked, that it was always right and always best to tell the truth. They would say that, at

But why should not the truth be spoken of this region? Is the truth harmful? Has it ever needed to hide its

face? God made the Sea of Galilee and its surroundings as they are. Is it the province of Mr. Grimes to

I am sure, from the tenor of books I have read, that many who have visited this land in years gone by, were

Presbyterians, and came seeking evidences in support of their particular creed; they found a Presbyterian

Palestine, and they had already made up their minds to find no other, though possibly they did not know it,

being blinded by their zeal. Others were Baptists, seeking Baptist evidences and a Baptist Palestine. Others

were Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, seeking evidences indorsing their several creeds, and a Catholic, a

Methodist, an Episcopalian Palestine. Honest as these men's intentions may have been, they were full of

partialities and prejudices, they entered the country with their verdicts already prepared, and they could no

more write dispassionately and impartially about it than they could about their own wives and children. Our

pilgrims have brought their verdicts with them. They have shown it in their conversation ever since we left

Beirout. I can almost tell, in set phrase, what they will say when they see Tabor, Nazareth, Jericho and

Jerusalem because I have the books they will "smouch" their ideas from. These authors write pictures and

frame rhapsodies, and lesser men follow and see with the author's eyes instead of their own, and speak with

his tongue. What the pilgrims said at Cesarea Philippi surprised me with its wisdom. I found it afterwards in

Robinson. What they said when Genessaret burst upon their vision, charmed me with its grace. I find it in Mr.

Thompson's "Land and the Book." They have spoken often, in happily worded language which never varied,

of how they mean to lay their weary heads upon a stone at Bethel, as Jacob did, and close their dim eyes, and

dream, perchance, of angels descending out of heaven on a ladder. It was very pretty. But I have recognized

the weary head and the dim eyes, finally. They borrowed the idea and the words and the construction

and the punctuation from Grimes. The pilgrims will tell of Palestine, when they get home, not as it

appeared to them, but as it appeared to Thompson and Robinson and Grimes with the tints varied to suit

Pilgrims, sinners and Arabs are all abed, now, and the camp is still. Labor in loneliness is irksome. Since I

made my last few notes, I have been sitting outside the tent for half an hour. Night is the time to see Galilee.

Genessaret under these lustrous stars has nothing repulsive about it. Genessaret with the glittering reflections

of the constellations flecking its surface, almost makes me regret that I ever saw the rude glare of the day

upon it. Its history and its associations are its chiefest charm, in any eyes, and the spells they weave are feeble

in the searching light of the sun. Then, we scarcely feel the fetters. Our thoughts wander constantly to the

practical concerns of life, and refuse to dwell upon things that seem vague and unreal. But when the day is

done, even the most unimpressible must yield to the dreamy influences of this tranquil starlight. The old

traditions of the place steal upon his memory and haunt his reveries, and then his fancy clothes all sights and

sounds with the supernatural. In the lapping of the waves upon the beach, he hears the dip of ghostly oars; in

the secret noises of the night he hears spirit voices; in the soft sweep of the breeze, the rush of invisible

wings. Phantom ships are on the sea, the dead of twenty centuries come forth from the tombs, and in the

In the starlight, Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the heavens, and is a theatre meet for

great events; meet for the birth of a religion able to save a world; and meet for the stately Figure appointed to

stand upon its stage and proclaim its high decrees. But in the sunlight, one says: Is it for the deeds which

were done and the words which were spoken in this little acre of rocks and sand eighteen centuries gone, that

the bells are ringing today in the remote islands of the sea and far and wide over continents that clasp the

One can comprehend it only when night has hidden all incongruities and created a theatre proper for so grand

48.1 I measure all lakes by Tahoe, partly because I am far more familiar with it than with any other, and

partly because I have such a high admiration for it and such a world of pleasant recollections of it, that it is

WE took another swim in the Sea of Galilee at twilight yesterday, and another at sunrise this morning. We

have not sailed, but three swims are equal to a sail, are they not? There were plenty of fish visible in the

water, but we have no outside aids in this pilgrimage but "Tent Life in the Holy Land," "The Land and the

Book," and other literature of like description no fishingtackle. There were no fish to be had in the

village of Tiberias. True, we saw two or three vagabonds mending their nets, but never trying to catch any

We did not go to the ancient warm baths two miles below Tiberias. I had no desire in the world to go there.

This seemed a little strange, and prompted me to try to discover what the cause of this unreasonable

indifference was. It turned out to be simply because Pliny mentions them. I have conceived a sort of

unwarrantable unfriendliness toward Pliny and St. Paul, because it seems as if I can never ferret out a place

that I can have to myself. It always and eternally transpires that St. Paul has been to that place, and Pliny has

In the early morning we mounted and started. And then a weird apparition marched forth at the head of the

procession a pirate, I thought, if ever a pirate dwelt upon land. It was a tall Arab, as swarthy as an Indian;

youngsay thirty years of age. On his head he had closely bound a gorgeous yellow and red striped silk scarf,

whose ends, lavishly fringed with tassels, hung down between his shoulders and dallied with the wind. From

his neck to his knees, in ample folds, a robe swept down that was a very starspangled banner of curved and

sinuous bars of black and white. Out of his back, somewhere, apparently, the long stem of a chibouk

projected, and reached far above his right shoulder. Athwart his back, diagonally, and extending high above

his left shoulder, was an Arab gum of Saladin's time, that was splendid with silver plating from stock clear up

to the end of its measureless stretch of barrel. About his waist was bound many and many a yard of

elaborately figured but sadly tarnished stuff that came from sumptuous Persia, and among the baggy folds in

front the sunbeams glinted from a formidable battery of old brassmounted horsepistols and the gilded hilts

of bloodthirsty knives. There were holsters for more pistols appended to the wonderful stack of longhaired

goatskins and Persian carpets, which the man had been taught to regard in the light of a saddle; and down

among the pendulous rank of vast tassels that swung from that saddle, and clanging against the iron shovel of

a stirrup that propped the warrior's knees up toward his chin, was a crooked, silverclad scimitar of such

awful dimensions and such implacable expression that no man might hope to look upon it and not shudder.

The fringed and bedizened prince whose privilege it is to ride the pony and lead the elephant into a country

village is poor and naked compared to this chaos of paraphernalia, and the happy vanity of the one is the very

poverty of satisfaction compared to the majestic serenity, the overwhelming complacency of the other.

"Our guard! From Galilee to the birthplace of the Savior, the country is infested with fierce Bedouins, whose

sole happiness it is, in this life, to cut and stab and mangle and murder unoffending Christians. Allah be with

"Then hire a regiment! Would you send us out among these desperate hordes, with no salvation in our utmost

The dragoman laughednot at the facetiousness of the simile, for verily, that guide or that courier or that

dragoman never yet lived upon earth who had in him the faintest appreciation of a joke, even though that joke

were so broad and so ponderous that if it fell on him it would flatten him out like a postage stampthe

dragoman laughed, and then, emboldened by some thought that was in his brain, no doubt, proceeded to

In straits like these, when a man laughs, it is encouraging when he winks, it is positively reassuring. He

finally intimated that one guard would be sufficient to protect us, but that that one was an absolute necessity.

It was because of the moral weight his awful panoply would have with the Bedouins. Then I said we didn't

want any guard at all. If one fantastic vagabond could protect eight armed Christians and a pack of Arab

servants from all harm, surely that detachment could protect themselves. He shook his head doubtfully. Then

I said, just think of how it looks think of how it would read, to selfreliant Americans, that we went

sneaking through this deserted wilderness under the protection of this masquerading Arab, who would break

his neck getting out of the country if a man that was a man ever started after him. It was a mean, low,

degrading position. Why were we ever told to bring navy revolvers with us if we had to be protected at last

by this infamous starspangled scum of the desert? These appeals were vainthe dragoman only smiled and

I rode to the front and struck up an acquaintance with King Solomoninallhisglory, and got him to show

me his lingering eternity of a gun. It had a rusty dint lock; it was ringed and barred and plated with silver

from end to end, but it was as desperately out of the perpendicular as are the billiard cues of '49 that one finds

yet in service in the ancient mining camps of California. The muzzle was eaten by the rust of centuries into a

ragged filigreework, like the end of a burntout stovepipe. I shut one eye and peered within it was

flaked with iron rust like an old steamboat boiler. I borrowed the ponderous pistols and snapped them. They

were rusty inside, too had not been loaded for a generation. I went back, full of encouragement, and

reported to the guide, and asked him to discharge this dismantled fortress. It came out, then. This fellow was

a retainer of the Sheik of Tiberias. He was a source of Government revenue. He was to the Empire of Tiberias

what the customs are to America. The Sheik imposed guards upon travelers and charged them for it. It is a

lucrative source of emolument, and sometimes brings into the national treasury as much as thirtyfive or

I knew the warrior's secret now; I knew the hollow vanity of his rusty trumpery, and despised his asinine

complacency. I told on him, and with reckless daring the cavalcade straight ahead into the perilous solitudes

of the desert, and scorned his frantic warnings of the mutilation and death that hovered about them on every

Arrived at an elevation of twelve hundred feet above the lake, (I ought to mention that the lake lies six

hundred feet below the level of the Mediterraneanno traveler ever neglects to flourish that fragment of news

in his letters,) as bald and unthrilling a panorama as any land can afford, perhaps, was spread out before us.

Yet it was so crowded with historical interest, that if all the pages that have been written about it were spread

upon its surface, they would flag it from horizon to horizon like a pavement. Among the localities comprised

in this view, were Mount Hermon; the hills that border Cesarea Philippi, Dan, the Sources of the Jordan and

the Waters of Merom; Tiberias; the Sea of Galilee; Joseph's Pit; Capernaum; Bethsaida; the supposed scenes

of the Sermon on the Mount, the feeding of the multitudes and the miraculous draught of fishes; the declivity

down which the swine ran to the sea; the entrance and the exit of the Jordan; Safed, "the city set upon a hill,"

one of the four holy cities of the Jews, and the place where they believe the real Messiah will appear when he

comes to redeem the world; part of the battlefield of Hattin, where the knightly Crusaders fought their last

fight, and in a blaze of glory passed from the stage and ended their splendid career forever; Mount Tabor, the

traditional scene of the Lord's Transfiguration. And down toward the southeast lay a landscape that suggested

"The Ephraimites, not being called upon to share in the rich spoils of the Ammonitish war, assembled a

mighty host to fight against Jeptha, Judge of Israel; who, being apprised of their approach, gathered together

the men of Israel and gave them battle and put them to flight. To make his victory the more secure, he

stationed guards at the different fords and passages of the Jordan, with instructions to let none pass who could

not say Shibboleth. The Ephraimites, being of a different tribe, could not frame to pronounce the word right,

but called it Sibboleth, which proved them enemies and cost them their lives; wherefore, forty and two

thousand fell at the different fords and passages of the Jordan that day." We jogged along peacefully over the

great caravan route from Damascus to Jerusalem and Egypt, past Lubia and other Syrian hamlets, perched, in

the unvarying style, upon the summit of steep mounds and hills, and fenced round about with giant cactuses,

(the sign of worthless land,) with prickly pears upon them like hams, and came at last to the battlefield of

It is a grand, irregular plateau, and looks as if it might have been created for a battlefield. Here the peerless

Saladin met the Christian host some seven hundred years ago, and broke their power in Palestine for all time

to come. There had long been a truce between the opposing forces, but according to the GuideBook,

Raynauld of Chatillon, Lord of Kerak, broke it by plundering a Damascus caravan, and refusing to give up

either the merchants or their goods when Saladin demanded them. This conduct of an insolent petty chieftain

stung the Sultan to the quick, and he swore that he would slaughter Raynauld with his own hand, no matter

how, or when, or where he found him. Both armies prepared for war. Under the weak King of Jerusalem was

the very flower of the Christian chivalry. He foolishly compelled them to undergo a long, exhausting march,

in the scorching sun, and then, without water or other refreshment, ordered them to encamp in this open plain.

The splendidly mounted masses of Moslem soldiers swept round the north end of Genessaret, burning and

destroying as they came, and pitched their camp in front of the opposing lines. At dawn the terrific fight

began. Surrounded on all sides by the Sultan's swarming battalions, the Christian Knights fought on without a

hope for their lives. They fought with desperate valor, but to no purpose; the odds of heat and numbers, and

consuming thirst, were too great against them. Towards the middle of the day the bravest of their band cut

their way through the Moslem ranks and gained the summit of a little hill, and there, hour after hour, they

closed around the banner of the Cross, and beat back the charging squadrons of the enemy.

But the doom of the Christian power was sealed. Sunset found Salad in Lord of Palestine, the Christian

chivalry strewn in heaps upon the field, and the King of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of the Templars, and

Raynauld of Chatillon, captives in the Sultan's tent. Salad in treated two of the prisoners with princely

courtesy, and ordered refreshments to be set before them. When the King handed an iced Sherbet to

Chatillon, the Sultan said," It is thou that givest it to him, not I." He remembered his oath, and slaughtered the

It was hard to realize that this silent plain had once resounded with martial music and trembled to the tramp

of armed men. It was hard to people this solitude with rushing columns of cavalry, and stir its torpid pulses

with the shouts of victors, the shrieks of the wounded, and the flash of banner and steel above the surging

billows of war. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action.

We reached Tabor safely, and considerably in advance of that old ironclad swindle of a guard. We never

saw a human being on the whole route, much less lawless hordes of Bedouins. Tabor stands solitary and

alone, a giant sentinel above the Plain of Esdraelon. It rises some fourteen hundred feet above the

surrounding level, a green, wooden cone, symmetrical and full of grace a prominent landmark, and one

that is exceedingly pleasant to eyes surfeited with the repulsive monotony of desert Syria. We climbed the

steep path to its summit, through breezy glades of thorn and oak. The view presented from its highest peak

was almost beautiful. Below, was the broad, level plain of Esdraelon, checkered with fields like a

chessboard, and full as smooth and level, seemingly; dotted about its borders with white, compact villages,

and faintly penciled, far and near, with the curving lines of roads and trails. When it is robed in the fresh

verdure of spring, it must form a charming picture, even by itself. Skirting its southern border rises "Little

Hermon," over whose summit a glimpse of Gilboa is caught. Nain, famous for the raising of the widow's son,

and Endor, as famous for the performances of her witch are in view. To the eastward lies the Valley of the

Jordan and beyond it the mountains of Gilead. Westward is Mount Carmel. Hermon in the north the

tablelands of Bashan Safed, the holy city, gleaming white upon a tall spur of the mountains of Lebanon

a steelblue corner of the Sea of Galilee saddlepeaked Hattin, traditional "Mount of Beatitudes" and

mute witness brave fights of the Crusading host for Holy Cross these fill up the picture.

To glance at the salient features of this landscape through the picturesque framework of a ragged and ruined

stone window arch of the time of Christ, thus hiding from sight all that is unattractive, is to secure to

yourself a pleasure worth climbing the mountain to enjoy. One must stand on his head to get the best effect in

a fine sunset, and set a landscape in a bold, strong framework that is very close at hand, to bring out all its

beauty. One learns this latter truth never more to forget it, in that mimic land of enchantment, the wonderful

garden of my lord the Count Pallavicini, near Genoa. You go wandering for hours among hills and wooded

glens, artfully contrived to leave the impression that Nature shaped them and not man; following winding

paths and coming suddenly upon leaping cascades and rustic bridges; finding sylvan lakes where you

expected them not; loitering through battered medi�val castles in miniature that seem hoary with age and yet

were built a dozen years ago; meditating over ancient crumbling tombs, whose marble columns were marred

and broken purposely by the modern artist that made them; stumbling unawares upon toy palaces, wrought of

rare and costly materials, and again upon a peasant's hut, whose dilapidated furniture would never suggest

that it was made so to order; sweeping round and round in the midst of a forest on an enchanted wooden

horse that is moved by some invisible agency; traversing Roman roads and passing under majestic triumphal

arches; resting in quaint bowers where unseen spirits discharge jets of water on you from every possible

direction, and where even the flowers you touch assail you with a shower; boating on a subterranean lake

among caverns and arches royally draped with clustering stalactites, and passing out into open day upon

another lake, which is bordered with sloping banks of grass and gay with patrician barges that swim at anchor

in the shadow of a miniature marble temple that rises out of the clear water and glasses its white statues, its

rich capitals and fluted columns in the tranquil depths. So, from marvel to marvel you have drifted on,

thinking all the time that the one last seen must be the chiefest. And, verily, the chiefest wonder is reserved

until the last, but you do not see it until you step ashore, and passing through a wilderness of rare flowers,

collected from every corner of the earth, you stand at the door of one more mimic temple. Right in this place

the artist taxed his genius to the utmost, and fairly opened the gates of fairy land. You look through an

unpretending pane of glass, stained yellow - the first thing you see is a mass of quivering foliage, ten short

steps before you, in the midst of which is a ragged opening like a gatewaya thing that is common enough in

nature, and not apt to excite suspicions of a deep human designand above the bottom of the gateway,

project, in the most careless way! a few broad tropic leaves and brilliant flowers. All of a sudden, through this

bright, bold gateway, you catch a glimpse of the faintest, softest, richest picture that ever graced the dream of

a dying Saint, since John saw the New Jerusalem glimmering above the clouds of Heaven. A broad sweep of

sea, flecked with careening sails; a sharp, jutting cape, and a lofty lighthouse on it; a sloping lawn behind it;

beyond, a portion of the old "city of palaces," with its parks and hills and stately mansions; beyond these, a

prodigious mountain, with its strong outlines sharply cut against ocean and sky; and over all, vagrant shreds

and flakes of cloud, floating in a sea of gold. The ocean is gold, the city is gold, the meadow, the mountain,

the sky every thing is goldenrich, and mellow, and dreamy as a vision of Paradise. No artist could put

upon canvas, its entrancing beauty, and yet, without the yellow glass, and the carefully contrived accident of

a framework that cast it into enchanted distance and shut out from it all unattractive features, it was not a

picture to fall into ecstacies over. Such is life, and the trail of the serpent is over us all.

There is nothing for it now but to come back to old Tabor, though the subject is tiresome enough, and I can

not stick to it for wandering off to scenes that are pleasanter to remember. I think I will skip, any how. There

is nothing about Tabor (except we concede that it was the scene of the Transfiguration,) but some gray old

ruins, stacked up there in all ages of the world from the days of stout Gideon and parties that flourished thirty

centuries ago to the fresh yesterday of Crusading times. It has its Greek Convent, and the coffee there is

good, but never a splinter of the true cross or bone of a hallowed saint to arrest the idle thoughts of worldlings

and turn them into graver channels. Catholic church is nothing to me that has no relics.

The plain of Esdraelon "the battlefield of the nations" only sets one to dreaming of Joshua, and

Benhadad, and Saul, and Gideon; Tamerlane, Tancred, Coeur de Lion, and Saladin; the warrior Kings of

Persia, Egypt's heroes, and Napoleon for they all fought here. If the magic of the moonlight could

summon from the graves of forgotten centuries and many lands the countless myriads that have battled on

this wide, farreaching floor, and array them in the thousand strange Costumes of their hundred nationalities,

and send the vast host sweeping down the plain, splendid with plumes and banners and glittering lances, I

could stay here an age to see the phantom pageant. But the magic of the moonlight is a vanity and a fraud;

Down at the foot of Tabor, and just at the edge of the storied Plain of Esdraelon, is the insignificant village of

We descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a hilly, rocky road to Nazareth distant

two hours. All distances in the East are measured by hours, not miles. A good horse will walk three miles an

hour over nearly any kind of a road; therefore, an hour, here, always stands for three miles. This method of

computation is bothersome and annoying; and until one gets thoroughly accustomed to it, it carries no

intelligence to his mind until he has stopped and translated the pagan hours into Christian miles, just as

people do with the spoken words of a foreign language they are acquainted with, but not familiarly enough to

catch the meaning in a moment. Distances traveled by human feet are also estimated by hours and minutes,

though I do not know what the base of the calculation is. In Constantinople you ask, "How far is it to the

Consulate?" and they answer, "About ten minutes." "How far is it to the Lloyds' Agency?" "Quarter of an

hour." "How far is it to the lower bridge?" "Four minutes." I can not be positive about it, but I think that

there, when a man orders a pair of pantaloons, he says he wants them a quarter of a minute in the legs and

Two hours from Tabor to Nazareth and as it was an uncommonly narrow, crooked trail, we necessarily

met all the camel trains and jackass caravans between Jericho and Jacksonville in that particular place and

nowhere else. The donkeys do not matter so much, because they are so small that you can jump your horse

over them if he is an animal of spirit, but a camel is not jumpable. A camel is as tall as any ordinary

dwelling-house in Syria which is to say a camel is from one to two, and sometimes nearly three feet taller

than a goodsized man. In this part of the country his load is oftenest in the shape of colossal sacks one on

each side. He and his cargo take up as much room as a carriage. Think of meeting this style of obstruction in

a narrow trail. The camel would not turn out for a king. He stalks serenely along, bringing his cushioned stilts

forward with the long, regular swing of a pendulum, and whatever is in the way must get out of the way

peaceably, or be wiped out forcibly by the bulky sacks. It was a tiresome ride to us, and perfectly exhausting

to the horses. We were compelled to jump over upwards of eighteen hundred donkeys, and only one person in

the party was unseated less than sixty times by the camels. This seems like a powerful statement, but the poet

has said, "Things are not what they seem." I can not think of any thing, now, more certain to make one

shudder, than to have a soft-footed camel sneak up behind him and touch him on the ear with its cold, flabby

under-lip. A camel did this for one of the boys, who was drooping over his saddle in a brown study. He

glanced up and saw the majestic apparition hovering above him, and made frantic efforts to get out of the

way, but the camel reached out and bit him on the shoulder before he accomplished it. This was the only

At Nazareth we camped in an olive grove near the Virgin Mary's fountain, and that wonderful Arab "guard"

came to collect some bucksheesh for his "services" in following us from Tiberias and warding off invisible

dangers with the terrors of his armament. The dragoman had paid his master, but that counted as nothing

if you hire a man to sneeze for you, here, and another man chooses to help him, you have got to pay both.

They do nothing whatever without pay. How it must have surprised these people to hear the way of salvation

offered to them "without money and without price." If the manners, the people or the customs of this country

have changed since the Saviour's time, the figures and metaphors of the Bible are not the evidences to prove

We entered the great Latin Convent which is built over the traditional dwelling-place of the Holy Family. We

went down a flight of fifteen steps below the ground level, and stood in a small chapel tricked out with

tapestry hangings, silver lamps, and oil paintings. A spot marked by a cross, in the marble floor, under the

altar, was exhibited as the place made forever holy by the feet of the Virgin when she stood up to receive the

message of the angel. So simple, so unpretending a locality, to be the scene of so mighty an event ! The very

scene of the Annunciation an event which has been commemorated by splendid shrines and august

temples all over the civilized world, and one which the princes of art have made it their loftiest ambition to

picture worthily on their canvas; a spot whose history is familiar to the very children of every house, and city,

and obscure hamlet of the furthest lands of Christendom; a spot which myriads of men would toil across the

breadth of a world to see, would consider it a priceless privilege to look upon. It was easy to think these

thoughts. But it was not easy to bring myself up to the magnitude of the situation. I could sit off several

thousand miles and imagine the angel appearing, with shadowy wings and lustrous countenance, and note the

glory that streamed downward upon the Virgin's head while the message from the Throne of God fell upon

her ears any one can do that, beyond the ocean, but few can do it here. I saw the little recess from which

the angel stepped, but could not fill its void. The angels that I know are creatures of unstable fancy they

will not fit in niches of substantial stone. Imagination labors best in distant fields. I doubt if any man can

stand in the Grotto of the Annunciation and people with the phantom images of his mind its too tangible

They showed us a broken granite pillar, depending from the roof, which they said was hacked in two by the

Moslem conquerors of Nazareth, in the vain hope of pulling down the sanctuary. But the pillar remained

miraculously suspended in the air, and, unsupported itself, supported then and still supports the roof. By

dividing this statement up among eight, it was found not difficult to believe it.

These gifted Latin monks never do any thing by halves. If they were to show you the Brazen Serpent that was

elevated in the wilderness, you could depend upon it that they had on hand the pole it was elevated on also,

and even the hole it stood in. They have got the "Grotto" of the Annunciation here; and just as convenient to

it as one's throat is to his mouth, they have also the Virgin's Kitchen, and even her sitting-room, where she

and Joseph watched the infant Saviour play with Hebrew toys eighteen hundred years ago. All under one

roof, and all clean, spacious, comfortable "grottoes." It seems curious that personages intimately connected

with the Holy Family always lived in grottoes in Nazareth, in Bethlehem, in imperial Ephesus and yet

nobody else in their day and generation thought of doing any thing of the kind. If they ever did, their grottoes

are all gone, and I suppose we ought to wonder at the peculiar marvel of the preservation of these I speak of

When the Virgin fled from Herod's wrath, she hid in a grotto in Bethlehem, and the same is there to this day.

The slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem was done in a grotto; the Saviour was born in a grotto both

are shown to pilgrims yet. It is exceedingly strange that these tremendous events all happened in grottoes

and exceedingly fortunate, likewise, because the strongest houses must crumble to ruin in time, but a grotto in

the diving rock will last forever. It is an imposture this grotto stuff but it is one that all men ought to

thank the Catholics for. Wherever they ferret out a lost locality made holy by some Scriptural event, they

straightway build a massive almost imperishable church there, and preserve the memory of that

locality for the gratification of future generations. If it had been left to Protestants to do this most worthy

work, we would not even know where Jerusalem is to-day, and the man who could go and put his finger on

Nazareth would be too wise for this world. The world owes the Catholics its good will even for the happy

rascality of hewing out these bogus grottoes in the rock; for it is infinitely more satisfactory to look at a

grotto, where people have faithfully believed for centuries that the Virgin once lived, than to have to imagine

a dwelling-place for her somewhere, any where, nowhere, loose and at large all over this town of Nazareth.

There is too large a scope of country. The imagination can not work. There is no one particular spot to chain

your eye, rivet your interest, and make you think. The memory of the Pilgrims can not perish while Plymouth

Rock remains to us. The old monks are wise. They know how to drive a stake through a pleasant tradition

We visited the places where Jesus worked for fifteen years as a carpenter, and where he attempted to teach in

the synagogue and was driven out by a mob. Catholic chapels stand upon these sites and protect the little

fragments of the ancient walls which remain. Our pilgrims broke off specimens. We visited, also, a new

chapel, in the midst of the town, which is built around a boulder some twelve feet long by four feet thick; the

priests discovered, a few years ago, that the disciples had sat upon this rock to rest, once, when they had

walked up from Capernaum. They hastened to preserve the relic. Relics are very good property. Travelers are

expected to pay for seeing them, and they do it cheerfully. We like the idea. One's conscience can never be

the worse for the knowledge that he has paid his way like a man. Our pilgrims would have liked very well to

get out their lampblack and stencil-plates and paint their names on that rock, together with the names of the

villages they hail from in America, but the priests permit nothing of that kind. To speak the strict truth,

however, our party seldom offend in that way, though we have men in the ship who never lose an opportunity

to do it. Our pilgrims' chief sin is their lust for "specimens." I suppose that by this time they know the

dimensions of that rock to an inch, and its weight to a ton; and I do not hesitate to charge that they will go

This "Fountain of the Virgin" is the one which tradition says Mary used to get water from, twenty times a

day, when she was a girl, and bear it away in a jar upon her head. The water streams through faucets in the

face of a wall of ancient masonry which stands removed from the houses of the village. The young girls of

Nazareth still collect about it by the dozen and keep up a riotous laughter and sky-larking. The Nazarene girls

are homely. Some of them have large, lustrous eyes, but none of them have pretty faces. These girls wear a

single garment, usually, and it is loose, shapeless, of undecided color ; it is generally out of repair, too. They

wear, from crown to jaw, curious strings of old coins, after the manner of the belles of Tiberias, and brass

jewelry upon their wrists and in their ears. They wear no shoes and stockings. They are the most human girls

we have found in the country yet, and the best natured. But there is no question that these picturesque

A pilgrim the "Enthusiast" said: "See that tall, graceful girl! look at the Madonnalike beauty of her

Another pilgrim came along presently and said: "Observe that tall, graceful girl; what queenly Madonnalike

I said: "She is not tall, she is short; she is not beautiful, she is homely; she is graceful enough, I grant, but she

The third and last pilgrim moved by, before long, and he said: "Ah, what a tall, graceful girl! what

The verdicts were all in. It was time, now, to look up the authorities for all these opinions. I found this

"After we were in the saddle, we rode down to the spring to have a last look at the women of Nazareth, who

were, as a class, much the prettiest that we had seen in the East. As we approached the crowd a tall girl of

nineteen advanced toward Miriam and offered her a cup of water. Her movement was graceful and queenly.

We exclaimed on the spot at the Madonnalike beauty of her countenance. Whitely was suddenly thirsty, and

begged for water, and drank it slowly, with his eyes over the top of the cup, fixed on her large black eyes,

which gazed on him quite as curiously as he on her. Then Moreright wanted water. She gave it to him and he

managed to spill it so as to ask for another cup, and by the time she came to me she saw through the

operation; her eyes were full of fun as she looked at me. I laughed outright, and she joined me in as gay a

shout as ever country maiden in old Orange county. I wished for a picture of her. A Madonna, whose face

was a portrait of that beautiful Nazareth girl, would be a 'thing of beauty' and 'a joy forever.'"

That is the kind of gruel which has been served out from Palestine for ages. Commend me to Fennimore

Cooper to find beauty in the Indians, and to Grimes to find it in the Arabs. Arab men are often fine looking,

but Arab women are not. We can all believe that the Virgin Mary was beautiful; it is not natural to think

otherwise; but does it follow that it is our duty to find beauty in these present women of Nazareth?

I love to quote from Grimes, because he is so dramatic. And because he is so romantic. And because he

seems to care but little whether he tells the truth or not, so he scares the reader or excites his envy or his

He went through this peaceful land with one hand forever on his revolver, and the other on his

pockethandkerchief. Always, when he was not on the point of crying over a holy place, he was on the point

of killing an Arab. More surprising things happened to him in Palestine than ever happened to any traveler

At Beitin, where nobody had interfered with him, he crept out of his tent at dead of night and shot at what he

took to be an Arab lying on a rock, some distance away, planning evil. The ball killed a wolf. Just before he

"Was it imagination, or did I see a moving object on the surface of the rock? If it were a man, why did he not

now drop me ? He had a beautiful shot as I stood out in my black boornoose against the white tent. I had the

Riding toward Genessaret, they saw two Bedouins, and "we looked to our pistols and loosened them quietly

In Samaria, he charged up a hill, in the face of a volley of stones; he fired into the crowd of men who threw

"I never lost an opportunity of impressing the Arabs with the perfection of American and English weapons,

and the danger of attacking any one of the armed Franks. I think the lesson of that ball not lost."

At Beitin he gave his whole band of Arab muleteers a piece of his mind, and then

"I contented myself with a solemn assurance that if there occurred another instance of disobedience to orders

I would thrash the responsible party as he never dreamed of being thrashed, and if I could not find who was

responsible, I would whip them all, from first to last, whether there was a governor at hand to do it or I had to

He rode down the perpendicular path in the rocks, from the Castle of Banias to the oak grove, at a flying

gallop, his horse striding "thirty feet" at every bound. I stand prepared to bring thirty reliable witnesses to

prove that Putnam's famous feat at Horseneck was insignificant compared to this.

Behold him always theatrical looking at Jerusalem this time, by an oversight, with his hand off his

"I stood in the road, my hand on my horse's neck, and with my dim eyes sought to trace the outlines of the

holy places which I had long before fixed in my mind, but the fast-flowing tears forbade my succeeding.

There were our Mohammedan servants, a Latin monk, two Armenians and a Jew in our cortege, and all alike

If Latin monks and Arabs cried, I know to a moral certainty that the horses cried also, and so the picture is

But when necessity demanded, he could be firm as adamant. In the Lebanon Valley an Arab youth a

Christian; he is particular to explain that Mohammedans do not steal robbed him of a paltry ten dollars'

worth of powder and shot. He convicted him before a sheik and looked on while he was punished by the

"He (Mousa) was on his back in a twinkling, howling, shouting, screaming, but he was carried out to the

piazza before the door, where we could see the operation, and laid face down. One man sat on his back and

one on his legs, the latter holding up his feet, while a third laid on the bare soles a rhinoceroshide

koorbash50.1 that whizzed through the air at every stroke. Poor Moreright was in agony, and Nama and

Nama the Second (mother and sister of Mousa,) were on their faces begging and wailing, now embracing my

knees and now Whitely's, while the brother, outside, made the air ring with cries louder than Mousa's. Even

Yusef came and asked me on his knees to relent, and last of all, Betuni the rascal had lost a feedbag in

their house and had been loudest in his denunciations that morning besought the Howajji to have mercy

But not he! The punishment was "suspended," at the fifteenth blow to hear the confession. Then Grimes and

his party rode away, and left the entire Christian family to be fined and as severely punished as the

"As I mounted, Yusef once more begged me to interfere and have mercy on them, but I looked around at the

dark faces of the crowd, and I couldn't find one drop of pity in my heart for them."

He closes his picture with a rollicking burst of humor which contrasts finely with the grief of the mother and

"Then once more I bowed my head. It is no shame to have wept in Palestine. I wept, when I saw Jerusalem, I

wept when I lay in the starlight at Bethlehem. I wept on the blessed shores of Galilee. My hand was no less

firm on the rein, my anger did not tremble on the trigger of my pistol when I rode with it in my right hand

along the shore of the blue sea" (weeping.) "My eye was not dimmed by those tears nor my heart in aught

weakened. Let him who would sneer at my emotion close this volume here, for he will find little to his taste

I am aware that this is a pretty voluminous notice of Mr. Grimes' book. However, it is proper and legitimate

to speak of it, for "Nomadic Life in Palestine" is a representative book the representative of a class of

Palestine books and a criticism upon it will serve for a criticism upon them all. And since I am treating it

in the comprehensive capacity of a representative book, I have taken the liberty of giving to both book and

50.1 "A Koorbash is Arabic for cowhide, the cow being a rhinoceros. It is the most cruel whip known to

fame. Heavy as lead, and flexible as Indiarubber, usually about forty inches long and tapering gradually

from an inch in diameter to a point, it administers a blow which leaves its mark for time." Scow Life in

NAZARETH is wonderfully interesting because the town has an air about it of being precisely as Jesus left it,

and one finds himself saying, all the time, "The boy Jesus has stood in this doorway has played in that

street has touched these stones with his hands has rambled over these chalky hills." Whoever shall

write the boyhood of Jesus ingeniously will make a book which will possess a vivid interest for young and

old alike. I judge so from the greater interest we found in Nazareth than any of our speculations upon

Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee gave rise to. It was not possible, standing by the Sea of Galilee, to frame

more than a vague, faraway idea of the majestic Personage who walked upon the crested waves as if they

had been solid earth, and who touched the dead and they rose up and spoke. I read among my notes, now,

with a new interest, some sentences from an edition of 1621 of the Apocryphal New Testament. [Extract.]

"Christ, kissed by a bride made dumb by sorcerers, cures her. A leprous girl cured by the water in which the

infant Christ was washed, and becomes the servant of Joseph and Mary. The leprous son of a Prince cured in

"A young man who had been bewitched and turned into a mule, miraculously cured by the infant Savior

being put on his back, and is married to the girl who had been cured of leprosy. Whereupon the bystanders

"Chapter 16. Christ miraculously widens or contracts gates, milkpails, sieves or boxes, not properly made

by Joseph, he not being skillful at his carpenter's trade. The King of Jerusalem gives Joseph an order for a

throne. Joseph works on it for two years and makes it two spans too short. The King being angry with him,

Jesus comforts him commands him to pull one side of the throne while he pulls the other, and brings it to

"Chapter 19. Jesus, charged with throwing a boy from the roof of a house, miraculously causes the dead boy

to speak and acquit him; fetches water for his mother, breaks the pitcher and miraculously gathers the water

"Sent to a schoolmaster, refuses to tell his letters, and the schoolmaster going to whip him, his hand withers."

Further on in this quaint volume of rejected gospels is an epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, which was

used in the churches and considered genuine fourteen or fifteen hundred years ago. In it this account of the

"1. Let us consider that wonderful type of the resurrection, which is seen in the Eastern countries, that is to

say, in Arabia. "2. There is a certain bird called a phoenix. Of this there is never but one at a time, and that

lives five hundred years. And when the time of its dissolution draws near, that it must die, it makes itself a

nest of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, into which, when its time is fulfilled, it enters and dies. "3.

But its flesh, putrefying, breeds a certain worm, which, being nourished by the juice of the dead bird, brings

forth feathers; and when it is grown to a perfect state, it takes up the nest in which the bones of its parent lie,

and carries it from Arabia into Egypt, to a city called Heliopolis: "4. And flying in open day in the sight of all

men, lays it upon the altar of the sun, and so returns from whence it came. "5. The priests then search into the

records of the time, and find that it returned precisely at the end of five hundred years."

Business is business, and there is nothing like punctuality, especially in a phoenix.

The few chapters relating to the infancy of the Saviour contain many things which seem frivolous and not

worth preserving. A large part of the remaining portions of the book read like good Scripture, however. There

is one verse that ought not to have been rejected, because it so evidently prophetically refers to the general

"199. They carry themselves high, and as prudent men; and though they are fools, yet would seem to be

I have set these extracts down, as I found them. Everywhere among the cathedrals of France and Italy, one

finds traditions of personages that do not figure in the Bible, and of miracles that are not mentioned in its

pages. But they are all in this Apocryphal New Testament, and though they have been ruled out of our

modern Bible, it is claimed that they were accepted gospel twelve or fifteen centuries ago, and ranked as high

in credit as any. One needs to read this book before he visits those venerable cathedrals, with their treasures

They imposed another pirate upon us at Nazareth another invincible Arab guard. We took our last look at

the city, clinging like a whitewashed wasp's nest to the hillside, and at eight o'clock in the morning departed.

We dismounted and drove the horses down a bridlepath which I think was fully as crooked as a corkscrew,

which I know to be as steep as the downward sweep of a rainbow, and which I believe to be the worst piece

of road in the geography, except one in the Sandwich Islands, which I remember painfully, and possibly one

or two mountain trails in the Sierra Nevadas. Often, in this narrow path the horse had to poise himself nicely

on a rude stone step and then drop his forefeet over the edge and down something more than half his own

height. This brought his nose near the ground, while his tail pointed up toward the sky somewhere, and gave

him the appearance of preparing to stand on his head. A horse cannot look dignified in this position. We

accomplished the long descent at last, and trotted across the great Plain of Esdraelon.

Some of us will be shot before we finish this pilgrimage. The pilgrims read "Nomadic Life" and keep

themselves in a constant state of Quixotic heroism. They have their hands on their pistols all the time, and

every now and then, when you least expect it, they snatch them out and take aim at Bedouins who are not

visible, and draw their knives and make savage passes at other Bedouins who do not exist. I am in deadly

peril always, for these spasms are sudden and irregular, and of course I cannot tell when to be getting out of

the way. If I am accidentally murdered, some time, during one of these romantic frenzies of the pilgrims, Mr.

Grimes must be rigidly held to answer as an accessory before the fact. If the pilgrims would take deliberate

aim and shoot at a man, it would be all right and proper because that man would not be in any danger; but

these random assaults are what I object to. I do not wish to see any more places like Esdraelon, where the

ground is level and people can gallop. It puts melodramatic nonsense into the pilgrims' heads. All at once,

when one is jogging along stupidly in the sun, and thinking about something ever so far away, here they

come, at a stormy gallop, spurring and whooping at those ridgy old sorebacked plugs till their heels fly

higher than their heads, and as they whiz by, out comes a little potatogum of a revolver, there is a startling

little pop, and a small pellet goes singing through the air. Now that I have begun this pilgrimage, I intend to

go through with it, though sooth to say, nothing but the most desperate valor has kept me to my purpose up to

the present time. I do not mind Bedouins, I am not afraid of them; because neither Bedouins nor ordinary

Arabs have shown any disposition to harm us, but I do feel afraid of my own comrades.

Arriving at the furthest verge of the Plain, we rode a little way up a hill and found ourselves at Endor, famous

for its witch. Her descendants are there yet. They were the wildest horde of halfnaked savages we have

found thus far. They swarmed out of mud beehives; out of hovels of the drygoods box pattern; out of

gaping caves under shelving rocks; out of crevices in the earth. In five minutes the dead solitude and silence

of the place were no more, and a begging, screeching, shouting mob were struggling about the horses' feet

and blocking the way. ''Bucksheesh! bucksheesh ! bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh !" It was Magdala over

again, only here the glare from the infidel eyes was fierce and full of hate. The population numbers two

hundred and fifty, and more than half the citizens live in caves in the rock. Dirt, degradation and savagery are

Endor's specialty. We say no more about Magdala and Deburieh now. Endor heads the list. It is worse than

any Indian campoodie. The hill is barren, rocky, and forbidding. No sprig of grass is visible, and only one

tree. This is a figtree, which maintains a precarious footing among the rocks at the mouth of the dismal

cavern once occupied by the veritable Witch of Endor. In this cavern, tradition says, Saul, the king, sat at

midnight, and stared and trembled, while the earth shook, the thunders crashed among the hills, and out of the

midst of fire and smoke the spirit of the dead prophet rose up and confronted him. Saul had crept to this place

in the darkness, while his army slept, to learn what fate awaited him in the morrow's battle. He went away a

A spring trickles out of the rock in the gloomy recesses of the cavern, and we were thirsty. The citizens of

Endor objected to our going in there. They do not mind dirt; they do not mind rags; they do not mind vermin;

they do not mind barbarous ignorance and savagery; they do not mind a reasonable degree of starvation, but

they do like to be pure and holy before their god, whoever he may be, and therefore they shudder and grow

almost pale at the idea of Christian lips polluting a spring whose waters must descend into their sanctified

gullets. We had no wanton desire to wound even their feelings or trample upon their prejudices, but we were

out of water, thus early in the day, and were burning up with thirst. It was at this time, and under these

circumstances, that I framed an aphorism which has already become celebrated. I said: "Necessity knows no

We got away from the noisy wretches, finally, dropping them in squads and couples as we filed over the hills

the aged first, the infants next, the young girls further on; the strong men ran beside us a mile, and only

In an hour, we reached Nain, where Christ raised the widow's son to life. Nain is Magdala on a small scale. It

has no population of any consequence. Within a hundred yards of it is the original graveyard, for aught I

know; the tombstones lie flat on the ground, which is Jewish fashion in Syria. I believe the Moslems do not

allow them to have upright tombstones. A Moslem grave is usually roughly plastered over and whitewashed,

and has at one end an upright projection which is shaped into exceedingly rude attempts at ornamentation. In

the cities, there is often no appearance of a grave at all; a tall, slender marble tombstone, elaborately lettred,

gilded and painted, marks the burial place, and this is surmounted by a turban, so carved and shaped as to

They showed a fragment of ancient wall which they said was one side of the gate out of which the widow's

"Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his

mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. "And when the Lord saw her, he

had compassion on her, and said, Weep not. "And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood

still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise. "And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And

he delivered him to his mother. "And there came a fear on all. And they glorified God, saying, That a great

A little mosque stands upon the spot which tradition says was occupied by the widow's dwelling. Two or

three aged Arabs sat about its door. We entered, and the pilgrims broke specimens from the foundation walls,

though they had to touch, and even step, upon the "praying carpets" to do it. It was almost the same as

breaking pieces from the hearts of those old Arabs. To step rudely upon the sacred praying mats, with booted

feet a thing not done by any Arab was to inflict pain upon men who had not offended us in any way.

Suppose a party of armed foreigners were to enter a village church in America and break ornaments from the

altar railings for curiosities, and climb up and walk upon the Bible and the pulpit cushions? However, the

cases are different. One is the profanation of a temple of our faith the other only the profanation of a

We descended to the Plain again, and halted a moment at a well of Abraham's time, no doubt. It was in a

desert place. It was walled three feet above ground with squared and heavy blocks of stone, after the manner

of Bible pictures. Around it some camels stood, and others knelt. There was a group of sober little donkeys

with naked, dusky children clambering about them, or sitting astride their rumps, or pulling their tails.

Tawny, blackeyed, barefooted maids, arrayed in rags and adorned with brazen armlets and pinchbeck

earrings, were poising waterjars upon their heads, or drawing water from the well. A flock of sheep stood

by, waiting for the shepherds to fill the hollowed stones with water, so that they might drink stones which,

like those that walled the well, were worn smooth and deeply creased by the chafing chins of a hundred

generations of thirsty animals. Picturesque Arabs sat upon the ground, in groups, and solemnly smoked their

longstemmed chibouks. Other Arabs were filling black hogskins with water skins which, well filled,

and distended with water till the short legs projected painfully out of the proper line, looked like the corpses

of hogs bloated by drowning. Here was a grand Oriental picture which I had worshiped a thousand times in

soft, rich steel engravings! But in the engraving there was no desolation; no dirt; no rags; no fleas; no ugly

features; no sore eyes; no feasting flies; no besotted ignorance in the countenances; no raw places on the

donkeys' backs; no disagreeable jabbering in unknown tongues; no stench of camels; no suggestion that a

couple of tons of powder placed under the party and touched off would heighten the effect and give to the

scene a genuine interest and a charm which it would always be pleasant to recall, even though a man lived a

thousand years. Oriental scenes look best in steel engravings. I cannot be imposed upon any more by that

picture of the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon. I shall say to myself, You look fine, Madam but your feet

Presently a wild Arab in charge of a camel train recognized an old friend in Ferguson, and they ran and fell

upon each other's necks and kissed each other's grimy, bearded faces upon both cheeks. It explained instantly

a something which had always seemed to me only a farfetched Oriental figure of speech. I refer to the

circumstance of Christ's rebuking a Pharisee, or some such character, and reminding him that from him he

had received no "kiss of welcome." It did not seem reasonable to me that men should kiss each other, but I

am aware, now, that they did. There was reason in it, too. The custom was natural and proper; because people

must kiss, and a man would not be likely to kiss one of the women of this country of his own free will and

accord. One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any

We journeyed around the base of the mountain "Little Hermon," past the old Crusaders' castle of El

Fuleh, and arrived at Shunem. This was another Magdala, to a fraction, frescoes and all. Here, tradition says,

the prophet Samuel was born, and here the Shunamite woman built a little house upon the city wall for the

accommodation of the prophet Elisha. Elisha asked her what she expected in return. It was a perfectly natural

question, for these people are and were in the habit of proffering favors and services and then expecting and

begging for pay. Elisha knew them well. He could not comprehend that any body should build for him that

humble little chamber for the mere sake of old friendship, and with no selfish motive whatever. It used to

seem a very impolite, not to say a rude, question, for Elisha to ask the woman, but it does not seem so to me

now. The woman said she expected nothing Then for her goodness and her unselfishness, he rejoiced her

heart with the news that she should bear a son. It was a high reward but she would not have thanked him

for a daughter daughters have always been unpopular here. The son was born, grew, waxed strong, died.

We found here a grove of lemon trees cool, shady, hung with fruit. One is apt to overestimate beauty

when it is rare, but to me this grove seemed very beautiful. It was beautiful. I do not overestimate it. I must

always remember Shunem gratefully, as a place which gave to us this leafy shelter after our long, hot ride.

We lunched, rested, chatted, smoked our pipes an hour, and then mounted and moved on.

As we trotted across the Plain of Jezreel, we met half a dozen Digger Indians (Bedouins) with very long

spears in their hands, cavorting around on old crowbait horses, and spearing imaginary enemies; whooping,

and fluttering their rags in the wind, and carrying on in every respect like a pack of hopeless lunatics. At last,

here were the "wild, free sons of the desert, speeding over the plain like the wind, on their beautiful Arabian

mares" we had read so much about and longed so much to see! Here were the "picturesque costumes!" This

was the "gallant spectacle!" Tatterdemalion vagrants cheap braggadocio "Arabian mares" spined and

necked like the ichthyosaurus in the museum, and humped and cornered like a dromedary! To glance at the

genuine son of the desert is to take the romance out of him forever to behold his steed is to long in charity

Presently we came to a ruinous old town on a hill, the same being the ancient Jezreel.

Ahab, King of Samaria, (this was a very vast kingdom, for those days, and was very nearly half as large as

Rhode Island) dwelt in the city of Jezreel, which was his capital. Near him lived a man by the name of

Naboth, who had a vineyard. The King asked him for it, and when he would not give it, offered to buy it. But

Naboth refused to sell it. In those days it was considered a sort of crime to part with one's inheritance at any

price and even if a man did part with it, it reverted to himself or his heirs again at the next jubilee year. So

this spoiled child of a King went and lay down on the bed with his face to the wall, and grieved sorely. The

Queen, a notorious character in those days, and whose name is a byword and a reproach even in these, came

in and asked him wherefore he sorrowed, and he told her. Jezebel said she could secure the vineyard; and she

went forth and forged letters to the nobles and wise men, in the King's name, and ordered them to proclaim a

fast and set Naboth on high before the people, and suborn two witnesses to swear that he had blasphemed.

They did it, and the people stoned the accused by the city wall, and he died. Then Jezebel came and told the

King, and said, Behold, Naboth is no more rise up and seize the vineyard. So Ahab seized the vineyard,

and went into it to possess it. But the Prophet Elijah came to him there and read his fate to him, and the fate

of Jezebel; and said that in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs should also lick his blood

and he said, likewise, the dogs should eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. In the course of time, the King

was killed in battle, and when his chariot wheels were washed in the pool of Samaria, the dogs licked the

blood. In after years, Jehu, who was King of Israel, marched down against Jezreel, by order of one of the

Prophets, and administered one of those convincing rebukes so common among the people of those days: he

killed many kings and their subjects, and as he came along he saw Jezebel, painted and finely dressed,

looking out of a window, and ordered that she be thrown down to him. A servant did it, and Jehu's horse

trampled her under foot. Then Jehu went in and sat down to dinner; and presently he said, Go and bury this

cursed woman, for she is a King's daughter. The spirit of charity came upon him too late, however, for the

prophecy had already been fulfilled the dogs had eaten her, and they "found no more of her than the skull,

Ahab, the late King, had left a helpless family behind him, and Jehu killed seventy of the orphan sons. Then

he killed all the relatives, and teachers, and servants and friends of the family, and rested from his labors,

until he was come near to Samaria, where he met fortytwo persons and asked them who they were; they said

they were brothers of the King of Judah. He killed them. When he got to Samaria, he said he would show his

zeal for the Lord; so he gathered all the priests and people together that worshiped Baal, pretending that he

was going to adopt that worship and offer up a great sacrifice; and when they were all shut up where they

could not defend themselves, he caused every person of them to be killed. Then Jehu, the good missionary,

We went back to the valley, and rode to the Fountain of Ain Jelud. They call it the Fountain of Jezreel,

usually. It is a pond about one hundred feet square and four feet deep, with a stream of water trickling into it

from under an overhanging ledge of rocks. It is in the midst of a great solitude. Here Gideon pitched his camp

in the old times; behind Shunem lay the "Midianites, the Amalekites, and the Children of the East," who were

"as grasshoppers for multitude; both they and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seaside

for multitude." Which means that there were one hundred and thirtyfive thousand men, and that they had

Gideon, with only three hundred men, surprised them in the night, and stood by and looked on while they

We camped at Jenin before night, and got up and started again at one o'clock in the morning. Somewhere

towards daylight we passed the locality where the best authenticated tradition locates the pit into which

Joseph's brethren threw him, and about noon, after passing over a succession of mountain tops, clad with

groves of fig and olive trees, with the Mediterranean in sight some forty miles away, and going by many

ancient Biblical cities whose inhabitants glowered savagely upon our Christian procession, and were

seemingly inclined to practice on it with stones, we came to the singularly terraced and unlovely hills that

We climbed a high hill to visit the city of Samaria, where the woman may have hailed from who conversed

with Christ at Jacob's Well, and from whence, no doubt, came also the celebrated Good Samaritan. Herod the

Great is said to have made a magnificent city of this place, and a great number of coarse 1imestone columns,

twenty feet high and two feet through, that are almost guiltless of architectural grace of shape and ornament,

are pointed out by many authors as evidence of the fact. They would not have been considered handsome in

The inhabitants of this camp are particularly vicious, and stoned two parties of our pilgrims a day or two ago

who brought about the difficulty by showing their revolvers when they did not intend to use them a thing

which is deemed bad judgment in the Far West, and ought certainly to be so considered any where. In the

new Territories, when a man puts his hand on a weapon, he knows that he must use it; he must use it instantly

or expect to be shot down where he stands. Those pilgrims had been reading Grimes.

There was nothing for us to do in Samaria but buy handfuls of old Roman coins at a franc a dozen, and look

at a dilapidated church of the Crusaders and a vault in it which once contained the body of John the Baptist.

Samaria stood a disastrous siege, once, in the days of Elisha, at the hands of the King of Syria. Provisions

reached such a figure that "an ass' head was sold for eighty pieces of silver and the fourth part of a cab of

An incident recorded of that heavy time will give one a very good idea of the distress that prevailed within

these crumbling walls. As the King was walking upon the battlements one day, "a woman cried out, saying,

Help, my lord, O King ! And the King said, What aileth thee? and she answered, This woman said unto me,

Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son, and did

eat him; and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son that we may eat him; and she hath hid her son."

The prophet Elisha declared that within four and twenty hours the prices of food should go down to nothing,

almost, and it was so. The Syrian army broke camp and fled, for some cause or other, the famine was relieved

from without, and many a shoddy speculator in dove's dung and ass's meat was ruined.

We were glad to leave this hot and dusty old village and hurry on. At two o'clock we stopped to lunch and

rest at ancient Shechem, between the historic Mounts of Gerizim and Ebal, where in the old times the books

of the law, the curses and the blessings, were read from the heights to the Jewish multitudes below.

THE narrow canon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, is under high cultivation, and the soil is

exceedingly black and fertile. It is well watered, and its affluent vegetation gains effect by contrast with the

barren hills that tower on either side. One of these hills is the ancient Mount of Blessings and the other the

Mount of Curses and wise men who seek for fulfillments of prophecy think they find here a wonder of this

kind to wit, that the Mount of Blessings is strangely fertile and its mate as strangely unproductive. We

could not see that there was really much difference between them in this respect, however.

Shechem is distinguished as one of the residences of the patriarch Jacob, and as the seat of those tribes that

cut themselves loose from their brethren of Israel and propagated doctrines not in conformity with those of

the original Jewish creed. For thousands of years this clan have dwelt in Shechem under strict tabu, and

having little commerce or fellowship with their fellow men of any religion or nationality. For generations

they have not numbered more than one or two hundred, but they still adhere to their ancient faith and

maintain their ancient rites and ceremonies. Talk of family and old descent ! Princes and nobles pride

themselves upon lineages they can trace back some hundreds of years. What is this trifle to this handful of old

first families of Shechem who can name their fathers straight back without a flaw for thousands straight

back to a period so remote that men reared in a country where the days of two hundred years ago are called

"ancient" times grow dazed and bewildered when they try to comprehend it! Here is respectability for you

here is "family" here is high descent worth talking about. This sad, proud remnant of a once mighty

community still hold themselves aloof from all the world; they still live as their fathers lived, labor as their

fathers labored, think as they did, feel as they did, worship in the same place, in sight of the same landmarks,

and in the same quaint, patriarchal way their ancestors did more than thirty centuries ago. I found myself

gazing at any straggling scion of this strange race with a riveted fascination, just as one would stare at a living

mastodon, or a megatherium that had moved in the grey dawn of creation and seen the wonders of that

Carefully preserved among the sacred archives of this curious community is a MSS. copy of the ancient

Jewish law, which is said to be the oldest document on earth. It is written on vellum, and is some four or five

thousand years old. Nothing but bucksheesh can purchase a sight. Its fame is somewhat dimmed in these

latter days, because of the doubts so many authors of Palestine travels have felt themselves privileged to cast

upon it. Speaking of this MSS. reminds me that I procured from the high-priest of this ancient Samaritan

community, at great expense, a secret document of still higher antiquity and far more extraordinary interest,

Joshua gave his dying injunction to the children of Israel at Shechem, and buried a valuable treasure secretly

under an oak tree there about the same time. The superstitious Samaritans have always been afraid to hunt for

About a mile and a half from Shechem we halted at the base of Mount Ebal before a little square area,

inclosed by a high stone wall, neatly whitewashed. Across one end of this inclosure is a tomb built after the

manner of the Moslems. It is the tomb of Joseph. No truth is better authenticated than this.

When Joseph was dying he prophesied that exodus of the Israelites from Egypt which occurred four hundred

years afterwards. At the same time he exacted of his people an oath that when they journeyed to the land of

Canaan they would bear his bones with them and bury them in the ancient inheritance of his fathers. The oath

"And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a

parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of

silver." Few tombs on earth command the veneration of so many races and men of divers creeds as this of

Joseph. "Samaritan and Jew, Moslem and Christian alike, revere it, and honor it with their visits. The tomb of

Joseph, the dutiful son, the affectionate, forgiving brother, the virtuous man, the wise Prince and ruler. Egypt

In this same "parcel of ground" which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor for a hundred pieces of silver, is

Jacob's celebrated well. It is cut in the solid rock, and is nine feet square and ninety feet deep. The name of

this unpretending hole in the ground, which one might pass by and take no notice of, is as familiar as

household words to even the children and the peasants of many a far-off country. It is more famous than the

It was by this well that Jesus sat and talked with a woman of that strange, antiquated Samaritan community I

have been speaking of, and told her of the mysterious water of life. As descendants of old English nobles still

cherish in the traditions of their houses how that this king or that king tarried a day with some favored

ancestor three hundred years ago, no doubt the descendants of the woman of Samaria, living there in

Shechem, still refer with pardonable vanity to this conversation of their ancestor, held some little time gone

by, with the Messiah of the Christians. It is not likely that they undervalue a distinction such as this.

Samaritan nature is human nature, and human nature remembers contact with the illustrious, always.

For an offense done to the family honor, the sons of Jacob exterminated all Shechem once.

We left Jacob's Well and traveled till eight in the evening, but rather slowly, for we had been in the saddle

nineteen hours, and the horses were cruelly tired. We got so far ahead of the tents that we had to camp in an

Arab village, and sleep on the ground. We could have slept in the largest of the houses; but there were some

little drawbacks: it was populous with vermin, it had a dirt floor, it was in no respect cleanly, and there was a

family of goats in the only bedroom, and two donkeys in the parlor. Outside there were no inconveniences,

except that the dusky, ragged, earnest-eyed villagers of both sexes and all ages grouped themselves on their

haunches all around us, and discussed us and criticised us with noisy tongues till midnight. We did not mind

the noise, being tired, but, doubtless, the reader is aware that it is almost an impossible thing to go to sleep

when you know that people are looking at you. We went to bed at ten, and got up again at two and started

once more. Thus are people persecuted by dragomen, whose sole ambition in life is to get ahead of each

About daylight we passed Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant rested three hundred years, and at whose

gates good old Eli fell down and "brake his neck" when the messenger, riding hard from the battle, told him

of the defeat of his people, the death of his sons, and, more than all, the capture of Israel's pride, her hope, her

refuge, the ancient Ark her forefathers brought with them out of Egypt. It is little wonder that under

circumstances like these he fell down and brake his neck. But Shiloh had no charms for us. We were so cold

that there was no comfort but in motion, and so drowsy we could hardly sit upon the horses.

After a while we came to a shapeless mass of ruins, which still bears the name of Bethel. It was here that

Jacob lay down and had that superb vision of angels flitting up and down a ladder that reached from the

clouds to earth, and caught glimpses of their blessed home through the open gates of Heaven

The pilgrims took what was left of the hallowed ruin, and we pressed on toward the goal of our crusade,

The further we went the hotter the sun got, and the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape

became. There could not have been more fragments of stone strewn broadcast over this part of the world, if

every ten square feet of the land had been occupied by a separate and distinct stonecutter's establishment for

an age. There was hardly a tree or a shrub any where. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a

worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that

which bounds the approaches to Jerusalem. The only difference between the roads and the surrounding

country, perhaps, is that there are rather more rocks in the roads than in the surrounding country.

We passed Ramah, and Beroth, and on the right saw the tomb of the prophet Samuel, perched high upon a

commanding eminence. Still no Jerusalem came in sight. We hurried on impatiently. We halted a moment at

the ancient Fountain of Beira, but its stones, worn deeply by the chins of thirsty animals that are dead and

gone centuries ago, had no interest for us we longed to see Jerusalem. We spurred up hill after hill, and

usually began to stretch our necks minutes before we got to the top but disappointment always followed:

At last, away in the middle of the day, ancient bite of wall and crumbling arches began to line the way we

toiled up one more hill, and every pilgrim and every sinner swung his hat on high! Jerusalem !

Perched on its eternal hills, white and domed and solid, massed together and hooped with high gray walls, the

venerable city gleamed in the sun. So small! Why, it was no larger than an American village of four thousand

inhabitants, and no larger than an ordinary Syrian city of thirty thousand. Jerusalem numbers only fourteen

We dismounted and looked, without speaking a dozen sentences, across the wide intervening valley for an

hour or more; and noted those prominent features of the city that pictures make familiar to all men from their

school days till their death. We could recognize the Tower of Hippicus, the Mosque of Omar, the Damascus

Gate, the Mount of Olives, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Tower of David, and the Garden of

Gethsemane--and dating from these landmarks could tell very nearly the localities of many others we were

I record it here as a notable but not discreditable fact that not even our pilgrims wept. I think there was no

individual in the party whose brain was not teeming with thoughts and images and memories invoked by the

grand history of the venerable city that lay before us, but still among them all was no "voice of them that

There was no call for tears. Tears would have been out of place. The thoughts Jerusalem suggests are full of

poetry, sublimity, and more than all, dignity. Such thoughts do not find their appropriate expression in the

Just after noon we entered these narrow, crooked streets, by the ancient and the famed Damascus Gate, and

now for several hours I have been trying to comprehend that I am actually in the illustrious old city where

Solomon dwelt, where Abraham held converse with the Deity, and where walls still stand that witnessed the

A FAST walker could go outside the walls of Jerusalem and walk entirely around the city in an hour. I do not

know how else to make one understand how small it is. The appearance of the city is peculiar. It is as knobby

with countless little domes as a prison door is with boltheads. Every house has from one to half a dozen of

these white plastered domes of stone, broad and low, sitting in the centre of, or in a cluster upon, the flat roof.

Wherefore, when one looks down from an eminence, upon the compact mass of houses (so closely crowded

together, in fact, that there is no appearance of streets at all, and so the city looks solid,) he sees the knobbiest

town in the world, except Constantinople. It looks as if it might be roofed, from centre to circumference, with

inverted saucers. The monotony of the view is interrupted only by the great Mosque of Omar, the Tower of

The houses are generally two stories high, built strongly of masonry, whitewashed or plastered outside, and

have a cage of wooden latticework projecting in front of every window. To reproduce a Jerusalem street, it

would only be necessary to upend a chickencoop and hang it before each window in an alley of American

The streets are roughly and badly paved with stone, and are tolerably crooked enough so to make each

street appear to close together constantly and come to an end about a hundred yards ahead of a pilgrim as

long as he chooses to walk in it. Projecting from the top of the lower story of many of the houses is a very

narrow porchroof or shed, without supports from below; and I have several times seen cats jump across the

street from one shed to the other when they were out calling. The cats could have jumped double the distance

without extraordinary exertion. I mention these things to give an idea of how narrow the streets are. Since a

cat can jump across them without the least inconvenience, it is hardly necessary to state that such streets are

The population of Jerusalem is composed [Emendation: in the book, "composed" was printed as "compose",

with an extra space following. This seemed like an obvious printer's error, so it was changed to "composed"

in the electronic text.] of Moslems, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek

Catholics, and a handful of Protestants. One hundred of the latter sect are all that dwell now in this birthplace

of Christianity. The nice shades of nationality comprised in the above list, and the languages spoken by them,

are altogether too numerous to mention. It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth

must be represented among the fourteen thousand souls that dwell in Jerusalem. Rags, wretchedness, poverty

and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the

crescentflag itself, abound. Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every hand, and they

know but one word of but one language apparently the eternal "bucksheesh." To see the numbers of

maimed, malformed and diseased humanity that throng the holy places and obstruct the gates, one might

suppose that the ancient days had come again, and that the angel of the Lord was expected to descend at any

moment to stir the waters of Bethesda. Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire to

One naturally goes first to the Holy Sepulchre. It is right in the city, near the western gate; it and the place of

the Crucifixion, and, in fact, every other place intimately connected with that tremendous event, are

ingeniously massed together and covered by one roof the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Entering the building, through the midst of the usual assemblage of beggars, one sees on his left a few

Turkish guards for Christians of different sects will not only quarrel, but fight, also, in this sacred place, if

allowed to do it. Before you is a marble slab, which covers the Stone of Unction, whereon the Saviour's body

was laid to prepare it for burial. It was found necessary to conceal the real stone in this way in order to save it

from destruction. Pilgrims were too much given to chipping off pieces of it to carry home. Near by is a

circular railing which marks the spot where the Virgin stood when the Lord's body was anointed.

Entering the great Rotunda, we stand before the most sacred locality in Christendom the grave of Jesus. It

is in the centre of the church, and immediately under the great dome. It is inclosed in a sort of little temple of

yellow and white stone, of fanciful design. Within the little temple is a portion of the very stone which was

rolled away from the door of the Sepulchre, and on which the angel was sitting when Mary came thither "at

early dawn." Stooping low, we enter the vault the Sepulchre itself. It is only about six feet by seven, and

the stone couch on which the dead Saviour lay extends from end to end of the apartment and occupies half its

width. It is covered with a marble slab which has been much worn by the lips of pilgrims. This slab serves as

an altar, now. Over it hang some fifty gold and silver lamps, which are kept always burning, and the place is

All sects of Christians (except Protestants,) have chapels under the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

and each must keep to itself and not venture upon another's ground. It has been proven conclusively that they

can not worship together around the grave of the Saviour of the World in peace. The chapel of the Syrians is

not handsome; that of the Copts is the humblest of them all. It is nothing but a dismal cavern, roughly hewn

in the living rock of the Hill of Calvary. In one side of it two ancient tombs are hewn, which are claimed to be

As we moved among the great piers and pillars of another part of the church, we came upon a party of

blackrobed, animallooking Italian monks, with candles in their hands, who were chanting something in

Latin, and going through some kind of religious performance around a disk of white marble let into the floor.

It was there that the risen Saviour appeared to Mary Magdalen in the likeness of a gardener. Near by was a

similar stone, shaped like a star here the Magdalen herself stood, at the same time. Monks were

performing in this place also. They perform everywhere all over the vast building, and at all hours. Their

candles are always flitting about in the gloom, and making the dim old church more dismal than there is any

We were shown the place where our Lord appeared to His mother after the Resurrection. Here, also, a marble

slab marks the place where St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, found the crosses about three

hundred years after the Crucifixion. According to the legend, this great discovery elicited extravagant

demonstrations of joy. But they were of short duration. The question intruded itself: "Which bore the blessed

Saviour, and which the thieves?" To be in doubt, in so mighty a matter as this to be uncertain which one

to adore was a grievous misfortune. It turned the public joy to sorrow. But when lived there a holy priest

who could not set to simple a trouble as this at rest? One of these soon hit upon a plan that would be a certain

test. A noble lady lay very ill in Jerusalem. The wise priests ordered that the three crosses be taken to her

bedside one at a time. It was done. When her eyes fell upon the first one, she uttered a scream that was heard

beyond the Damascus Gate, and even upon the Mount of Olives, it was said, and then fell back in a deadly

swoon. They recovered her and brought the second cross. Instantly she went into fearful convulsions, and it

was with the greatest difficulty that six strong men could hold her. They were afraid, now, to bring in the

third cross. They began to fear that possibly they had fallen upon the wrong crosses, and that the true cross

was not with this number at all. However, as the woman seemed likely to die with the convulsions that were

tearing her, they concluded that the third could do no more than put her out of her misery with a happy

dispatch. So they brought it, and behold, a miracle! The woman sprang from her bed, smiling and joyful, and

perfectly restored to health. When we listen to evidence like this, we cannot but believe. We would be

ashamed to doubt, and properly, too. Even the very part of Jerusalem where this all occurred is there yet. So

The priests tried to show us, through a small screen, a fragment of the genuine Pillar of Flagellation, to which

Christ was bound when they scourged him. But we could not see it, because it was dark inside the screen.

However, a baton is kept here, which the pilgrim thrusts through a hole in the screen, and then he no longer

doubts that the true Pillar of Flagellation is in there. He can not have any excuse to doubt it, for he can feel it

Not far from here was a niche where they used to preserve a piece of the True Cross, but it is gone, now. This

piece of the cross was discovered in the sixteenth century. The Latin priests say it was stolen away, long ago,

by priests of another sect. That seems like a hard statement to make, but we know very well that it was stolen,

because we have seen it ourselves in several of the cathedrals of Italy and France.

But the relic that touched us most was the plain old sword of that stout Crusader, Godfrey of Bulloigne

King Godfrey of Jerusalem. No blade in Christendom wields such enchantment as this no blade of all that

rust in the ancestral halls of Europe is able to invoke such visions of romance in the brain of him who looks

upon it none that can prate of such chivalric deeds or tell such brave tales of the warrior days of old. It

stirs within a man every memory of the Holy Wars that has been sleeping in his brain for years, and peoples

his thoughts with mailclad images, with marching armies, with battles and with sieges. It speaks to him of

Baldwin, and Tancred, the princely Saladin, and great Richard of the Lion Heart. It was with just such blades

as these that these splendid heroes of romance used to segregate a man, so to speak, and leave the half of him

to fall one way and the other half the other. This very sword has cloven hundreds of Saracen Knights from

crown to chin in those old times when Godfrey wielded it. It was enchanted, then, by a genius that was under

the command of King Solomon. When danger approached its master's tent it always struck the shield and

clanged out a fierce alarm upon the startled ear of night. In times of doubt, or in fog or darkness, if it were

drawn from its sheath it would point instantly toward the foe, and thus reveal the way and it would also

attempt to start after them of its own accord. A Christian could not be so disguised that it would not know

him and refuse to hurt him nor a Moslem so disguised that it would not leap from its scabbard and take his

life. These statements are all well authenticated in many legends that are among the most trustworthy legends

the good old Catholic monks preserve. I can never forget old Godfrey's sword, now. I tried it on a Moslem,

and clove him in twain like a doughnut. The spirit of Grimes was upon me, and if I had had a graveyard I

would have destroyed all the infidels in Jerusalem. I wiped the blood off the old sword and handed it back to

the priest I did not want the fresh gore to obliterate those sacred spots that crimsoned its brightness one

day six hundred years ago and thus gave Godfrey warning that before the sun went down his journey of life

Still moving through the gloom of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre we came to a small chapel, hewn out of

the rock a place which has been known as "The Prison of Our Lord" for many centuries. Tradition says

that here the Saviour was confined just previously to the crucifixion. Under an altar by the door was a pair of

stone stocks for human legs. These things are called the "Bonds of Christ," and the use they were once put to

The Greek Chapel is the most roomy, the richest and the showiest chapel in the Church of the Holy

Sepulchre. Its altar, like that of all the Greek churches, is a lofty screen that extends clear across the chapel,

and is gorgeous with gilding and pictures. The numerous lamps that hang before it are of gold and silver, and

But the feature of the place is a short column that rises from the middle of the marble pavement of the chapel,

and marks the exact centre of the earth. The most reliable traditions tell us that this was known to be the

earth's centre, ages ago, and that when Christ was upon earth he set all doubts upon the subject at rest forever,

by stating with his own lips that the tradition was correct. Remember, He said that that particular column

stood upon the centre of the world. If the centre of the world changes, the column changes its position

accordingly. This column has moved three different times of its own accord. This is because, in great

convulsions of nature, at three different times, masses of the earth whole ranges of mountains, probably

have flown off into space, thus lessening the diameter of the earth, and changing the exact locality of its

centre by a point or two. This is a very curious and interesting circumstance, and is a withering rebuke to

those philosophers who would make us believe that it is not possible for any portion of the earth to fly off

To satisfy himself that this spot was really the centre of the earth, a sceptic once paid well for the privilege of

ascending to the dome of the church to see if the sun gave him a shadow at noon. He came down perfectly

convinced. The day was very cloudy and the sun threw no shadows at all; but the man was satisfied that if the

sun had come out and made shadows it could not have made any for him. Proofs like these are not to be set

aside by the idle tongues of cavilers. To such as are not bigoted, and are willing to be convinced, they carry a

If even greater proofs than those I have mentioned are wanted, to satisfy the headstrong and the foolish that

this is the genuine centre of the earth, they are here. The greatest of them lies in the fact that from under this

very column was taken the dust from which Adam was made. This can surely be regarded in the light of a

settler. It is not likely that the original first man would have been made from an inferior quality of earth when

it was entirely convenient to get first quality from the world's centre. This will strike any reflecting mind

forcibly. That Adam was formed of dirt procured in this very spot is amply proven by the fact that in six

thousand years no man has ever been able to prove that the dirt was not procured here whereof he was made.

It is a singular circumstance that right under the roof of this same great church, and not far away from that

illustrious column, Adam himself, the father of the human race, lies buried. There is no question that he is

actually buried in the grave which is pointed out as his there can be none because it has never yet been

The tomb of Adam! How touching it was, here in a land of strangers, far away from home, and friends, and

all who cared for me, thus to discover the grave of a blood relation. True, a distant one, but still a relation.

The unerring instinct of nature thrilled its recognition. The fountain of my filial affection was stirred to its

profoundest depths, and I gave way to tumultuous emotion. I leaned upon a pillar and burst into tears. I deem

it no shame to have wept over the grave of my poor dead relative. Let him who would sneer at my emotion

close this volume here, for he will find little to his taste in my journeyings through Holy Land. Noble old man

he did not live to see me he did not live to see his child. And I I alas, I did not live to see him.

Weighed down by sorrow and disappointment, he died before I was born six thousand brief summers

before I was born. But let us try to bear it with fortitude. Let us trust that he is better off where he is. Let us

The next place the guide took us to in the holy church was an altar dedicated to the Roman soldier who was

of the military guard that attended at the Crucifixion to keep order, and who when the vail of the Temple

was rent in the awful darkness that followed; when the rock of Golgotha was split asunder by an earthquake;

when the artillery of heaven thundered, and in the baleful glare of the lightnings the shrouded dead flitted

about the streets of Jerusalem shook with fear and said, "Surely this was the Son of God!" Where this altar

stands now, that Roman soldier stood then, in full view of the crucified Saviour in full sight and hearing

of all the marvels that were transpiring far and wide about the circumference of the Hill of Calvary. And in

this selfsame spot the priests of the Temple beheaded him for those blasphemous words he had spoken.

In this altar they used to keep one of the most curious relics that human eyes ever looked upon a thing that

had power to fascinate the beholder in some mysterious way and keep him gazing for hours together. It was

nothing less than the copper plate Pilate put upon the Saviour's cross, and upon which he wrote, "THIS IS

THE KING OF THE JEWS." I think St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, found this wonderful memento

when she was here in the third century. She traveled all over Palestine, and was always fortunate. Whenever

the good old enthusiast found a thing mentioned in her Bible, Old or New, she would go and search for that

thing, and never stop until she found it. If it was Adam, she would find Adam; if it was the Ark, she would

find the Ark; if it was Goliath, or Joshua, she would find them. She found the inscription here that I was

speaking of, I think. She found it in this very spot, close to where the martyred Roman soldier stood. That

copper plate is in one of the churches in Rome, now. Any one can see it there. The inscription is very distinct.

We passed along a few steps and saw the altar built over the very spot where the good Catholic priests say the

Then we went down into a cavern which cavilers say was once a cistern. It is a chapel, now, however the

Chapel of St. Helena. It is fiftyone feet long by fortythree wide. In it is a marble chair which Helena used

to sit in while she superintended her workmen when they were digging and delving for the True Cross. In this

place is an altar dedicated to St. Dimas, the penitent thief. A new bronze statue is here a statue of St.

Helena. It reminded us of poor Maximilian, so lately shot. He presented it to this chapel when he was about to

From the cistern we descended twelve steps into a large roughlyshaped grotto, carved wholly out of the

living rock. Helena blasted it out when she was searching for the true Cross. She had a laborious piece of

work, here, but it was richly rewarded. Out of this place she got the crown of thorns, the nails of the cross, the

true Cross itself, and the cross of the penitent thief. When she thought she had found every thing and was

about to stop, she was told in a dream to continue a day longer. It was very fortunate. She did so, and found

The walls and roof of this grotto still weep bitter tears in memory of the event that transpired on Calvary, and

devout pilgrims groan and sob when these sad tears fall upon them from the dripping rock. The monks call

this apartment the "Chapel of the Invention of the Cross" a name which is unfortunate, because it leads the

ignorant to imagine that a tacit acknowledgment is thus made that the tradition that Helena found the true

Cross here is a fiction an invention. It is a happiness to know, however, that intelligent people do not

Priests of any of the chapels and denominations in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre can visit this sacred

grotto to weep and pray and worship the gentle Redeemer. Two different congregations are not allowed to

Still marching through the venerable Church of the Holy Sepulchre, among chanting priests in coarse long

robes and sandals; pilgrims of all colors and many nationalities, in all sorts of strange costumes; under dusky

arches and by dingy piers and columns; through a sombre cathedral gloom freighted with smoke and incense,

and faintly starred with scores of candles that appeared suddenly and as suddenly disappeared, or drifted

mysteriously hither and thither about the distant aisles like ghostly jacko'lanterns we came at last to a

small chapel which is called the "Chapel of the Mocking." Under the altar was a fragment of a marble

column; this was the seat Christ sat on when he was reviled, and mockingly made King, crowned with a

crown of thorns and sceptred with a reed. It was here that they blindfolded him and struck him, and said in

derision, "Prophesy who it is that smote thee." The tradition that this is the identical spot of the mocking is a

very ancient one. The guide said that Saewulf was the first to mention it. I do not know Saewulf, but still, I

They showed us where the great Godfrey and his brother Baldwin, the first Christian Kings of Jerusalem,

once lay buried by that sacred sepulchre they had fought so long and so valiantly to wrest from the hands of

the infidel. But the niches that had contained the ashes of these renowned crusaders were empty. Even the

coverings of their tombs were gone destroyed by devout members of the Greek Church, because Godfrey

and Baldwin were Latin princes, and had been reared in a Christian faith whose creed differed in some

We passed on, and halted before the tomb of Melchisedek! You will remember Melchisedek, no doubt; he

was the King who came out and levied a tribute on Abraham the time that he pursued Lot's captors to Dan,

and took all their property from them. That was about four thousand years ago, and Melchisedek died shortly

When one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Sepulchre itself is the first thing he desires to see, and

really is almost the first thing he does see. The next thing he has a strong yearning to see is the spot where the

Saviour was crucified. But this they exhibit last. It is the crowning glory of the place. One is grave and

thoughtful when he stands in the little Tomb of the Saviour he could not well be otherwise in such a place

but he has not the slightest possible belief that ever the Lord lay there, and so the interest he feels in the

spot is very, very greatly marred by that reflection. He looks at the place where Mary stood, in another part of

the church, and where John stood, and Mary Magdalen; where the mob derided the Lord; where the angel sat;

where the crown of thorns was found, and the true Cross; where the risen Saviour appeared he looks at all

these places with interest, but with the same conviction he felt in the case of the Sepulchre, that there is

nothing genuine about them, and that they are imaginary holy places created by the monks. But the place of

the Crucifixion affects him differently. He fully believes that he is looking upon the very spot where the

Savior gave up his life. He remembers that Christ was very celebrated, long before he came to Jerusalem; he

knows that his fame was so great that crowds followed him all the time; he is aware that his entry into the city

produced a stirring sensation, and that his reception was a kind of ovation; he can not overlook the fact that

when he was crucified there were very many in Jerusalem who believed that he was the true Son of God. To

publicly execute such a personage was sufficient in itself to make the locality of the execution a memorable

place for ages; added to this, the storm, the darkness, the earthquake, the rending of the vail of the Temple,

and the untimely waking of the dead, were events calculated to fix the execution and the scene of it in the

memory of even the most thoughtless witness. Fathers would tell their sons about the strange affair, and point

out the spot; the sons would transmit the story to their children, and thus a period of three hundred years

would easily be spanned53.1 at which time Helena came and built a church upon Calvary to

commemorate the death and burial of the Lord and preserve the sacred place in the memories of men; since

that time there has always been a church there. It is not possible that there can be any mistake about the

locality of the Crucifixion. Not half a dozen persons knew where they buried the Saviour, perhaps, and a

burial is not a startling event, any how; therefore, we can be pardoned for unbelief in the Sepulchre, but not in

the place of the Crucifixion. Five hundred years hence there will be no vestige of Bunker Hill Monument left,

but America will still know where the battle was fought and where Warren fell. The crucifixion of Christ was

too notable an event in Jerusalem, and the Hill of Calvary made too celebrated by it, to be forgotten in the

short space of three hundred years. I climbed the stairway in the church which brings one to the top of the

small inclosed pinnacle of rock, and looked upon the place where the true cross once stood, with a far more

absorbing interest than I had ever felt in any thing earthly before. I could not believe that the

three holes in the top of the rock were the actual ones the crosses stood in, but I felt satisfied that those

crosses had stood so near the place now occupied by them, that the few feet of possible difference were a

When one stands where the Saviour was crucified, he finds it all he can do to keep it strictly before his mind

that Christ was not crucified in a Catholic Church. He must remind himself every now and then that the great

event transpired in the open air, and not in a gloomy, candlelighted cell in a little corner of a vast church,

upstairs a small cell all bejeweled and bespangled with flashy ornamentation, in execrable taste.

Under a marble altar like a table, is a circular hole in the marble floor, corresponding with the one just under

it in which the true Cross stood. The first thing every one does is to kneel down and take a candle and

examine this hole. He does this strange prospecting with an amount of gravity that can never be estimated or

appreciated by a man who has not seen the operation. Then he holds his candle before a richly engraved

picture of the Saviour, done on a messy slab of gold, and wonderfully rayed and starred with diamonds,

which hangs above the hole within the altar, and his solemnity changes to lively admiration. He rises and

faces the finely wrought figures of the Saviour and the malefactors uplifted upon their crosses behind the

altar, and bright with a metallic lustre of many colors. He turns next to the figures close to them of the Virgin

and Mary Magdalen; next to the rift in the living rock made by the earthquake at the time of the Crucifixion,

and an extension of which he had seen before in the wall of one of the grottoes below; he looks next at the

showcase with a figure of the Virgin in it, and is amazed at the princely fortune in precious gems and

jewelry that hangs so thickly about the form as to hide it like a garment almost. All about the apartment the

gaudy trappings of the Greek Church offend the eye and keep the mind on the rack to remember that this is

the Place of the Crucifixion Golgotha the Mount of Calvary. And the last thing he looks at is that

which was also the first the place where the true Cross stood. That will chain him to the spot and compel

him to look once more, and once again, after he has satisfied all curiosity and lost all interest concerning the

And so I close my chapter on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the most sacred locality on earth to

millions and millions of men, and women, and children, the noble and the humble, bond and free. In its

history from the first, and in its tremendous associations, it is the most illustrious edifice in Christendom.

With all its claptrap sideshows and unseemly impostures of every kind, it is still grand, reverend,

venerable for a god died there; for fifteen hundred years its shrines have been wet with the tears of

pilgrims from the earth's remotest confines; for more than two hundred, the most gallant knights that ever

wielded sword wasted their lives away in a struggle to seize it and hold it sacred from infidel pollution. Even

in our own day a war, that cost millions of treasure and rivers of blood, was fought because two rival nations

claimed the sole right to put a new dome upon it. History is full of this old Church of the Holy Sepulchre

full of blood that was shed because of the respect and the veneration in which men held the last restingplace

53.1 The thought is Mr. Prime's, not mine, and is full of good sense. I borrowed it from his "Tent Life."

WE were standing in a narrow street, by the Tower of Antonio. "On these stones that are crumbling away,"

the guide said, "the Saviour sat and rested before taking up the cross. This is the beginning of the Sorrowful

Way, or the Way of Grief." The party took note of the sacred spot, and moved on. We passed under the "Ecce

Homo Arch," and saw the very window from which Pilate's wife warned her husband to have nothing to do

with the persecution of the Just Man. This window is in an excellent state of preservation, considering its

great age. They showed us where Jesus rested the second time, and where the mob refused to give him up,

and said, "Let his blood be upon our heads, and upon our children's children forever." The French Catholics

are building a church on this spot, and with their usual veneration for historical relics, are incorporating into

the new such scraps of ancient walls as they have found there. Further on, we saw the spot where the fainting

Saviour fell under the weight of his cross. A great granite column of some ancient temple lay there at the

time, and the heavy cross struck it such a blow that it broke in two in the middle. Such was the guide's story

We crossed a street, and came presently to the former residence of St. Veronica. When the Saviour passed

there, she came out, full of womanly compassion, and spoke pitying words to him, undaunted by the hootings

and the threatenings of the mob, and wiped the perspiration from his face with her handkerchief. We had

heard so much of St. Veronica, and seen her picture by so many masters, that it was like meeting an old

friend unexpectedly to come upon her ancient home in Jerusalem. The strangest thing about the incident that

has made her name so famous, is, that when she wiped the perspiration away, the print of the Saviour's face

remained upon the handkerchief, a perfect portrait, and so remains unto this day. We knew this, because we

saw this handkerchief in a cathedral in Paris, in another in Spain, and in two others in Italy. In the Milan

cathedral it costs five francs to see it, and at St. Peter's, at Rome, it is almost impossible to see it at any price.

At the next corner we saw a deep indention in the hard stone masonry of the corner of a house, but might

have gone heedlessly by it but that the guide said it was made by the elbow of the Saviour, who stumbled

here and fell. Presently we came to just such another indention in a stone wall. The guide said the Saviour fell

There were other places where the Lord fell, and others where he rested; but one of the most curious

landmarks of ancient history we found on this morning walk through the crooked lanes that lead toward

Calvary, was a certain stone built into a house a stone that was so seamed and scarred that it bore a sort of

grotesque resemblance to the human face. The projections that answered for cheeks were worn smooth by the

passionate kisses of generations of pilgrims from distant lands. We asked "Why ?" The guide said it was

because this was one of "the very stones of Jerusalem " that Christ mentioned when he was reproved for

permitting the people to cry "Hosannah !" when he made his memorable entry into the city upon an ass. One

of the pilgrims said, "But there is no evidence that the stones did cry out Christ said that if the people

stopped from shouting Hosannah, the very stones would do it." The guide was perfectly serene. He said,

calmly, "This is one of the stones that would have cried out. "It was of little use to try to shake this fellow's

And so we came at last to another wonder, of deep and abiding interest the veritable house where the

unhappy wretch once lived who has been celebrated in song and story for more than eighteen hundred years

as the Wandering Jew. On the memorable day of the Crucifixion he stood in this old doorway with his arms

akimbo, looking out upon the struggling mob that was approaching, and when the weary Saviour would have

sat down and rested him a moment, pushed him rudely away and said, "Move on!" The Lord said, "Move on,

thou, likewise," and the command has never been revoked from that day to this. All men know how that the

miscreant upon whose head that just curse fell has roamed up and down the wide world, for ages and ages,

seeking rest and never finding it courting death but always in vain longing to stop, in city, in

wilderness, in desert solitudes, yet hearing always that relentless warning to march march on! They say

do these hoary traditions that when Titus sacked Jerusalem and slaughtered eleven hundred thousand

Jews in her streets and by-ways, the Wandering Jew was seen always in the thickest of the fight, and that

when battle-axes gleamed in the air, he bowed his head beneath them; when swords flashed their deadly

lightnings, he sprang in their way; he bared his breast to whizzing javelins, to hissing arrows, to any and to

every weapon that promised death and forgetfulness, and rest. But it was useless he walked forth out of

the carnage without a wound. And it is said that five hundred years afterward he followed Mahomet when he

carried destruction to the cities of Arabia, and then turned against him, hoping in this way to win the death of

a traitor. His calculations were wrong again. No quarter was given to any living creature but one, and that

was the only one of all the host that did not want it. He sought death five hundred years later, in the wars of

the Crusades, and offered himself to famine and pestilence at Ascalon. He escaped again he could not die.

These repeated annoyances could have at last but one effect they shook his confidence. Since then the

Wandering Jew has carried on a kind of desultory toying with the most promising of the aids and implements

of destruction, but with small hope, as a general thing. He has speculated some in cholera and railroads, and

has taken almost a lively interest in infernal machines and patent medicines. He is old, now, and grave, as

becomes an age like his; he indulges in no light amusements save that he goes sometimes to executions, and

There is one thing he can not avoid; go where he will about the world, he must never fail to report in

Jerusalem every fiftieth year. Only a year or two ago he was here for the thirty-seventh time since Jesus was

crucified on Calvary. They say that many old people, who are here now, saw him then, and had seen him

before. He looks always the same old, and withered, and hollow-eyed, and listless, save that there is about

him something which seems to suggest that he is looking for some one, expecting some one the friends of

his youth, perhaps. But the most of them are dead, now. He always pokes about the old streets looking

lonesome, making his mark on a wall here and there, and eyeing the oldest buildings with a sort of friendly

half interest; and he sheds a few tears at the threshold of his ancient dwelling, and bitter, bitter tears they are.

Then he collects his rent and leaves again. He has been seen standing near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

on many a starlight night, for he has cherished an idea for many centuries that if he could only enter there, he

could rest. But when he approaches, the doors slam to with a crash, the earth trembles, and all the lights in

Jerusalem burn a ghastly blue! He does this every fifty years, just the same. It is hopeless, but then it is hard

to break habits one has been eighteen hundred years accustomed to. The old tourist is far away on his

wanderings, now. How he must smile to see a pack of blockheads like us, galloping about the world, and

looking wise, and imagining we are finding out a good deal about it! He must have a consuming contempt for

the ignorant, complacent asses that go skurrying about the world in these railroading days and call it

When the guide pointed out where the Wandering Jew had left his familiar mark upon a wall, I was filled

All I have revealed about the Wandering Jew can be amply proven by reference to our guide.

The mighty Mosque of Omar, and the paved court around it, occupy a fourth part of Jerusalem. They are

upon Mount Moriah, where King Solomon's Temple stood. This Mosque is the holiest place the

Mohammedan knows, outside of Mecca. Up to within a year or two past, no Christian could gain admission

to it or its court for love or money. But the prohibition has been removed, and we entered freely for

I need not speak of the wonderful beauty and the exquisite grace and symmetry that have made this Mosque

so celebrated because I did not see them. One can not see such things at an instant glance one

frequently only finds out how really beautiful a really beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance

with her; and the rule applies to Niagara Falls, to majestic mountains and to mosques especially to

The great feature of the Mosque of Omar is the prodigious rock in the centre of its rotunda. It was upon this

rock that Abraham came so near offering up his son Isaac this, at least, is authentic--it is very much more

to be relied on than most of the traditions, at any rate. On this rock, also, the angel stood and threatened

Jerusalem, and David persuaded him to spare the city. Mahomet was well acquainted with this stone. From it

he ascended to heaven. The stone tried to follow him, and if the angel Gabriel had not happened by the

merest good luck to be there to seize it, it would have done it. Very few people have a grip like Gabriel

the prints of his monstrous fingers, two inches deep, are to be seen in that rock today.

This rock, large as it is, is suspended in the air. It does not touch any thing at all. The guide said so. This is

very wonderful. In the place on it where Mahomet stood, he left his foot-prints in the solid stone. I should

judge that he wore about eighteens. But what I was going to say, when I spoke of the rock being suspended,

was, that in the floor of the cavern under it they showed us a slab which they said covered a hole which was a

thing of extraordinary interest to all Mohammedans, because that hole leads down to perdition, and every

soul that is transferred from thence to Heaven must pass up through this orifice. Mahomet stands there and

lifts them out by the hair. All Mohammedans shave their heads, but they are careful to leave a lock of hair for

the Prophet to take hold of. Our guide observed that a good Mohammedan would consider himself doomed to

stay with the damned forever if he were to lose his scalp-lock and die before it grew again. The most of them

that I have seen ought to stay with the damned, any how, without reference to how they were barbered.

For several ages no woman has been allowed to enter the cavern where that important hole is. The reason is

that one of the sex was once caught there blabbing every thing she knew about what was going on above

ground, to the rapscallions in the infernal regions down below. She carried her gossiping to such an extreme

that nothing could be kept private nothing could be done or said on earth but every body in perdition knew

all about it before the sun went down. It was about time to suppress this woman's telegraph, and it was

The inside of the great mosque is very showy with variegated marble walls and with windows and

inscriptions of elaborate mosaic. The Turks have their sacred relics, like the Catholics. The guide showed us

the veritable armor worn by the great soninlaw and successor of Mahomet, and also the buckler of

Mahomet's uncle. The great iron railing which surrounds the rock was ornamented in one place with a

thousand rags tied to its open work. These are to remind Mahomet not to forget the worshipers who placed

them there. It is considered the next best thing to tying threads around his finger by way of reminders.

Just outside the mosque is a miniature temple, which marks the spot where David and Goliah used to sit and

Every where about the Mosque of Omar are portions of pillars, curiously wrought altars, and fragments of

elegantly carved marble precious remains of Solomon's Temple. These have been dug from all depths in

the soil and rubbish of Mount Moriah, and the Moslems have always shown a disposition to preserve them

with the utmost care. At that portion of the ancient wall of Solomon's Temple which is called the Jew's Place

of Wailing, and where the Hebrews assemble every Friday to kiss the venerated stones and weep over the

fallen greatness of Zion, any one can see a part of the unquestioned and undisputed Temple of Solomon, the

same consisting of three or four stones lying one upon the other, each of which is about twice as long as a

sevenoctave piano, and about as thick as such a piano is high. But, as I have remarked before, it is only a

year or two ago that the ancient edict prohibiting Christian rubbish like ourselves to enter the Mosque of

Omar and see the costly marbles that once adorned the inner Temple was annulled. The designs wrought

upon these fragments are all quaint and peculiar, and so the charm of novelty is added to the deep interest

they naturally inspire. One meets with these venerable scraps at every turn, especially in the neighboring

Mosque el Aksa, into whose inner walls a very large number of them are carefully built for preservation.

These pieces of stone, stained and dusty with age, dimly hint at a grandeur we have all been taught to regard

as the princeliest ever seen on earth; and they call up pictures of a pageant that is familiar to all imaginations

camels laden with spices and treasure beautiful slaves, presents for Solomon's harem a long

cavalcade of richly caparisoned beasts and warriors and Sheba's Queen in the van of this vision of

"Oriental magnificence." These elegant fragments bear a richer interest than the solemn vastness of the stones

Down in the hollow ground, underneath the olives and the orange-trees that flourish in the court of the great

Mosque, is a wilderness of pillars remains of the ancient Temple; they supported it. There are ponderous

archways down there, also, over which the destroying "plough" of prophecy passed harmless. It is pleasant to

know we are disappointed, in that we never dreamed we might see portions of the actual Temple of Solomon,

and yet experience no shadow of suspicion that they were a monkish humbug and a fraud.

We are surfeited with sights. Nothing has any fascination for us, now, but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

We have been there every day, and have not grown tired of it; but we are weary of every thing else. The

sights are too many. They swarm about you at every step; no single foot of ground in all Jerusalem or within

its neighborhood seems to be without a stirring and important history of its own. It is a very relief to steal a

walk of a hundred yards without a guide along to talk unceasingly about every stone you step upon and drag

It seems hardly real when I find myself leaning for a moment on a ruined wall and looking listlessly down

into the historic pool of Bethesda. I did not think such things could be so crowded together as to diminish

their interest. But in serious truth, we have been drifting about, for several days, using our eyes and our ears

more from a sense of duty than any higher and worthier reason. And too often we have been glad when it was

Our pilgrims compress too much into one day. One can gorge sights to repletion as well as sweetmeats. Since

we breakfasted, this morning, we have seen enough to have furnished us food for a year's reflection if we

could have seen the various objects in comfort and looked upon them deliberately. We visited the pool of

Hezekiah, where David saw Uriah's wife coming from the bath and fell in love with her.

We went out of the city by the Jaffa gate, and of course were told many things about its Tower of Hippicus.

We rode across the Valley of Hinnom, between two of the Pools of Gihon, and by an aqueduct built by

Solomon, which still conveys water to the city. We ascended the Hill of Evil Counsel, where Judas received

his thirty pieces of silver, and we also lingered a moment under the tree a venerable tradition says he hanged

We descended to the canon again, and then the guide began to give name and history to every bank and

boulder we came to: "This was the Field of Blood; these cuttings in the rocks were shrines and temples of

Moloch; here they sacrificed children; yonder is the Zion Gate; the Tyropean Valley, the Hill of Ophel; here

is the junction of the Valley of Jehoshaphat on your right is the Well of Job." We turned up Jehoshaphat.

The recital went on. "This is the Mount of Olives; this is the Hill of Offense; the nest of huts is the Village of

Siloam; here, yonder, every where, is the King's Garden; under this great tree Zacharias, the high priest, was

murdered; yonder is Mount Moriah and the Temple wall; the tomb of Absalom; the tomb of St. James; the

tomb of Zacharias; beyond, are the Garden of Gethsemane and the tomb of the Virgin Mary; here is the Pool

We said we would dismount, and quench our thirst, and rest. We were burning up with the heat. We were

failing under the accumulated fatigue of days and days of ceaseless marching. All were willing.

The Pool is a deep, walled ditch, through which a clear stream of water runs, that comes from under

Jerusalem somewhere, and passing through the Fountain of the Virgin, or being supplied from it, reaches this

place by way of a tunnel of heavy masonry. The famous pool looked exactly as it looked in Solomon's time,

no doubt, and the same dusky, Oriental women, came down in their old Oriental way, and carried off jars of

the water on their heads, just as they did three thousand years ago, and just as they will do fifty thousand

We went away from there and stopped at the Fountain of the Virgin. But the water was not good, and there

was no comfort or peace any where, on account of the regiment of boys and girls and beggars that persecuted

us all the time for bucksheesh. The guide wanted us to give them some money, and we did it; but when he

went on to say that they were starving to death we could not but feel that we had done a great sin in throwing

obstacles in the way of such a desirable consummation, and so we tried to collect it back, but it could not be

We entered the Garden of Gethsemane, and we visited the Tomb of the Virgin, both of which we had seen

before. It is not meet that I should speak of them now. A more fitting time will come.

I can not speak now of the Mount of Olives or its view of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea and the mountains of

Moab; nor of the Damascus Gate or the tree that was planted by King Godfrey of Jerusalem. One ought to

feel pleasantly when he talks of these things. I can not say any thing about the stone column that projects over

Jehoshaphat from the Temple wall like a cannon, except that the Moslems believe Mahomet will sit astride of

it when he comes to judge the world. It is a pity he could not judge it from some roost of his own in Mecca,

without trespassing on our holy ground. Close by is the Golden Gate, in the Temple wall a gate that was

an elegant piece of sculpture in the time of the Temple, and is even so yet. From it, in ancient times, the

Jewish High Priest turned loose the scapegoat and let him flee to the wilderness and bear away his

twelve-month load of the sins of the people. If they were to turn one loose now, he would not get as far as the

Garden of Gethsemane, till these miserable vagabonds here would gobble him up, 54.2 sins and all. They

wouldn't care. Mutton-chops and sin is good enough living for them. The Moslems watch the Golden Gate

with a jealous eye, and an anxious one, for they have an honored tradition that when it falls, Islamism will fall

and with it the Ottoman Empire. It did not grieve me any to notice that the old gate was getting a little shaky.

We have full comfort in one reflection, however. Our experiences in Europe have taught us that in time this

fatigue will be forgotten; the heat will be forgotten; the thirst, the tiresome volubility of the guide, the

persecutions of the beggars and then, all that will be left will be pleasant memories of Jerusalem,

memories we shall call up with always increasing interest as the years go by, memories which some day will

become all beautiful when the last annoyance that incumbers them shall have faded out of our minds never

again to return. School-boy days are no happier than the days of after life, but we look back upon them

regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments at school, and how we grieved when our marbles were

lost and our kites destroyed because we have forgotten all the sorrows and privations of that canonized

epoch and remember only its orchard robberies, its wooden sword pageants and its fishing holydays. We are

satisfied. We can wait. Our reward will come. To us, Jerusalem and to-day's experiences will be an enchanted

54.1 A pilgrim informs me that it was not David and Goliah, but David and Saul. I stick to my own statement

WE cast up the account. It footed up pretty fairly. There was nothing more at Jerusalem to be seen, except the

traditional houses of Dives and Lazarus of the parable, the Tombs of the Kings, and those of the Judges; the

spot where they stoned one of the disciples to death, and beheaded another; the room and the table made

celebrated by the Last Supper; the figtree that Jesus withered; a number of historical places about

Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives, and fifteen or twenty others in different portions of the city itself.

We were approaching the end. Human nature asserted itself, now. Overwork and consequent exhaustion

began to have their natural effect. They began to master the energies and dull the ardor of the party. Perfectly

secure now, against failing to accomplish any detail of the pilgrimage, they felt like drawing in advance upon

the holiday soon to be placed to their credit. They grew a little lazy. They were late to breakfast and sat long

at dinner. Thirty or forty pilgrims had arrived from the ship, by the short routes, and much swapping of

gossip had to be indulged in. And in hot afternoons, they showed a strong disposition to lie on the cool divans

in the hotel and smoke and talk about pleasant experiences of a month or so gone by for even thus early

do episodes of travel which were sometimes annoying, sometimes exasperating and full as often of no

consequence at all when they transpired, begin to rise above the dead level of monotonous reminiscences and

become shapely landmarks in one's memory. The fog whistle, smothered among a million of trifling sounds,

is not noticed a block away, in the city, but the sailor hears it far at sea, whither none of those thousands of

trifling sounds can reach. When one is in Rome, all the domes are alike; but when he has gone away twelve

miles, the city fades utterly from sight and leaves St. Peter's swelling above the level plain like an anchored

balloon. When one is traveling in Europe, the daily incidents seem all alike; but when he has placed them all

two months and two thousand miles behind him, those that were worthy of being remembered are prominent,

and those that were really insignificant have vanished. This disposition to smoke, and idle and talk, was not

well. It was plain that it must not be allowed to gain ground. A diversion must be tried, or demoralization

would ensue. The Jordan, Jericho and the Dead Sea were suggested. The remainder of Jerusalem must be left

unvisited, for a little while. The journey was approved at once. New life stirred in every pulse. In the saddle

abroad on the plains sleeping in beds bounded only by the horizon: fancy was at work with these

things in a moment. It was painful to note how readily these townbred men had taken to the free life of

the camp and the desert The nomadic instinct is a human instinct; it was born with Adam and transmitted

through the patriarchs, and after thirty centuries of steady effort, civilization has not educated it entirely out

of us yet. It has a charm which, once tasted, a man will yearn to taste again. The nomadic instinct can not be

At nine in the morning the caravan was before the hotel door and we were at breakfast. There was a

commotion about the place. Rumors of war and bloodshed were flying every where. The lawless Bedouins in

the Valley of the Jordan and the deserts down by the Dead Sea were up in arms, and were going to destroy all

comers. They had had a battle with a troop of Turkish cavalry and defeated them; several men killed. They

had shut up the inhabitants of a village and a Turkish garrison in an old fort near Jericho, and were besieging

them. They had marched upon a camp of our excursionists by the Jordan, and the pilgrims only saved their

lives by stealing away and flying to Jerusalem under whip and spur in the darkness of the night. Another of

our parties had been fired on from an ambush and then attacked in the open day. Shots were fired on both

sides. Fortunately there was no bloodshed. We spoke with the very pilgrim who had fired one of the shots,

and learned from his own lips how, in this imminent deadly peril, only the cool courage of the pilgrims, their

strength of numbers and imposing display of war material, had saved them from utter destruction. It was

reported that the Consul had requested that no more of our pilgrims should go to the Jordan while this state of

things lasted; and further, that he was unwilling that any more should go, at least without an unusually strong

military guard. Here was trouble. But with the horses at the door and every body aware of what they were

there for, what would you have done? Acknowledged that you were afraid, and backed shamefully out?

Hardly. It would not be human nature, where there were so many women. You would have done as we did:

said you were not afraid of a million Bedouins and made your will and proposed quietly to yourself to

I think we must all have determined upon the same line of tactics, for it did seem as if we never would get to

Jericho. I had a notoriously slow horse, but somehow I could not keep him in the rear, to save my neck. He

was forever turning up in the lead. In such cases I trembled a little, and got down to fix my saddle. But it was

not of any use. The others all got down to fix their saddles, too. I never saw such a time with saddles. It was

the first time any of them had got out of order in three weeks, and now they had all broken down at once. I

tried walking, for exercise I had not had enough in Jerusalem searching for holy places. But it was a

failure. The whole mob were suffering for exercise, and it was not fifteen minutes till they were all on foot

This was all after we got beyond Bethany. We stopped at the village of Bethany, an hour out from Jerusalem.

They showed us the tomb of Lazarus. I had rather live in it than in any house in the town. And they showed

us also a large "Fountain of Lazarus," and in the centre of the village the ancient dwelling of Lazarus. Lazarus

appears to have been a man of property. The legends of the Sunday Schools do him great injustice; they give

one the impression that he was poor. It is because they get him confused with that Lazarus who had no merit

but his virtue, and virtue never has been as respectable as money. The house of Lazarus is a threestory

edifice, of stone masonry, but the accumulated rubbish of ages has buried all of it but the upper story. We

took candles and descended to the dismal celllike chambers where Jesus sat at meat with Martha and Mary,

and conversed with them about their brother. We could not but look upon these old dingy apartments with a

We had had a glimpse, from a mountain top, of the Dead Sea, lying like a blue shield in the plain of the

Jordan, and now we were marching down a close, flaming, rugged, desolate defile, where no living creature

could enjoy life, except, perhaps, a salamander. It was such a dreary, repulsive, horrible solitude! It was the

"wilderness" where John preached, with camel's hair about his loins raiment enough but he never

could have got his locusts and wild honey here. We were moping along down through this dreadful place,

every man in the rear. Our guards two gorgeous young Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols

Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a mudturtle. My first impulse was to dash forward

and destroy the Bedouins. My second was to dash to the rear to see if there were any coming in that direction.

I acted on the latter impulse. So did all the others. If any Bedouins had approached us, then, from that point of

the compass, they would have paid dearly for their rashness. We all remarked that, afterwards. There would

have been scenes of riot and bloodshed there that no pen could describe. I know that, because each man told

what he would have done, individually; and such a medley of strange and unheardof inventions of cruelty

you could not conceive of. One man said he had calmly made up his mind to perish where he stood, if need

be, but never yield an inch; he was going to wait, with deadly patience, till he could count the stripes upon the

first Bedouin's jacket, and then count them and let him have it. Another was going to sit still till the first lance

reached within an inch of his breast, and then dodge it and seize it. I forbear to tell what he was going to do to

that Bedouin that owned it. It makes my blood run cold to think of it. Another was going to scalp such

Bedouins as fell to his share, and take his baldheaded sons of the desert home with him alive for trophies.

But the wildeyed pilgrim rhapsodist was silent. His orbs gleamed with a deadly light, but his lips moved

not. Anxiety grew, and he was questioned. If he had got a Bedouin, what would he have done with him

shot him? He smiled a smile of grim contempt and shook his head. Would he have stabbed him? Another

shake. Would he have quartered him flayed him? More shakes. Oh! horror what would he have done?

Such was the awful sentence that thundered from his lips. What was grammar to a desperado like that ? I was

glad in my heart that I had been spared these scenes of malignant carnage. No Bedouins attacked our terrible

rear. And none attacked the front. The newcomers were only a reinforcement of cadaverous Arabs, in shirts

and bare legs, sent far ahead of us to brandish rusty guns, and shout and brag, and carry on like lunatics, and

thus scare away all bands of marauding Bedouins that might lurk about our path. What a shame it is that

armed white Christians must travel under guard of vermin like this as a protection against the prowling

vagabonds of the desert those sanguinary outlaws who are always going to do something desperate, but

never do it. I may as well mention here that on our whole trip we saw no Bedouins, and had no more use for

an Arab guard than we could have had for patent leather boots and white kid gloves. The Bedouins that

attacked the other parties of pilgrims so fiercely were provided for the occasion by the Arab guards of those

parties, and shipped from Jerusalem for temporary service as Bedouins. They met together in full view of the

pilgrims, after the battle, and took lunch, divided the bucksheesh extorted in the season of danger, and then

accompanied the cavalcade home to the city! The nuisance of an Arab guard is one which is created by the

Sheiks and the Bedouins together, for mutual profit, it is said, and no doubt there is a good deal of truth in it.

We visited the fountain the prophet Elisha sweetened (it is sweet yet,) where he remained some time and was

Ancient Jericho is not very picturesque as a ruin. When Joshua marched around it seven times, some three

thousand years ago, and blew it down with his trumpet, he did the work so well and so completely that he

hardly left enough of the city to cast a shadow. The curse pronounced against the rebuilding of it, has never

been removed. One King, holding the curse in light estimation, made the attempt, but was stricken sorely for

his presumption. Its site will always remain unoccupied; and yet it is one of the very best locations for a town

At two in the morning they routed us out of bed another piece of unwarranted cruelty another stupid

effort of our dragoman to get ahead of a rival. It was not two hours to the Jordan. However, we were dressed

and under way before any one thought of looking to see what time it was, and so we drowsed on through the

chill night air and dreamed of camp fires, warm beds, and other comfortable things.

There was no conversation. People do not talk when they are cold, and wretched, and sleepy. We nodded in

the saddle, at times, and woke up with a start to find that the procession had disappeared in the gloom. Then

there was energy and attention to business until its dusky outlines came in sight again. Occasionally the order

was passed in a low voice down the line: "Close up close up! Bedouins lurk here, every where!" What an

We reached the famous river before four o'clock, and the night was so black that we could have ridden into it

without seeing it. Some of us were in an unhappy frame of mind. We waited and waited for daylight, but it

did not come. Finally we went away in the dark and slept an hour on the ground, in the bushes, and caught

cold. It was a costly nap, on that account, but otherwise it was a paying investment because it brought

unconsciousness of the dreary minutes and put us in a somewhat fitter mood for a first glimpse of the sacred

With the first suspicion of dawn, every pilgrim took off his clothes and waded into the dark torrent, singing

"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, And cast a wistful eye To Canaan's fair and happy land, Where my

But they did not sing long. The water was so fearfully cold that they were obliged to stop singing and

scamper out again. Then they stood on the bank shivering, and so chagrined and so grieved, that they merited

holiest compassion. Because another dream, another cherished hope, had failed. They had promised

themselves all along that they would cross the Jordan where the Israelites crossed it when they entered

Canaan from their long pilgrimage in the desert. They would cross where the twelve stones were placed in

memory of that great event. While they did it they would picture to themselves that vast army of pilgrims

marching through the cloven waters, bearing the hallowed ark of the covenant and shouting hosannahs, and

singing songs of thanksgiving and praise. Each had promised himself that he would be the first to cross. They

were at the goal of their hopes at last, but the current was too swift, the water was too cold!

It was then that Jack did them a service. With that engaging recklessness of consequences which is natural to

youth, and so proper and so seemly, as well, he went and led the way across the Jordan, and all was happiness

again. Every individual waded over, then, and stood upon the further bank. The water was not quite breast

deep, any where. If it had been more, we could hardly have accomplished the feat, for the strong current

would have swept us down the stream, and we would have been exhausted and drowned before reaching a

place where we could make a landing. The main object compassed, the drooping, miserable party sat down to

wait for the sun again, for all wanted to see the water as well as feel it. But it was too cold a pastime. Some

cans were filled from the holy river, some canes cut from its banks, and then we mounted and rode reluctantly

away to keep from freezing to death. So we saw the Jordan very dimly. The thickets of bushes that bordered

its banks threw their shadows across its shallow, turbulent waters ("stormy," the hymn makes them, which is

rather a complimentary stretch of fancy,) and we could not judge of the width of the stream by the eye. We

knew by our wading experience, however, that many streets in America are double as wide as the Jordan.

Daylight came, soon after we got under way, and in the course of an hour or two we reached the Dead Sea.

Nothing grows in the flat, burning desert around it but weeds and the Dead Sea apple the poets say is

beautiful to the eye, but crumbles to ashes and dust when you break it. Such as we found were not handsome,

but they were bitter to the taste. They yielded no dust. It was because they were not ripe, perhaps.

The desert and the barren hills gleam painfully in the sun, around the Dead Sea, and there is no pleasant thing

or living creature upon it or about its borders to cheer the eye. It is a scorching, arid, repulsive solitude. A

silence broods over the scene that is depressing to the spirits. It makes one think of funerals and death.

The Dead Sea is small. Its waters are very clear, and it has a pebbly bottom and is shallow for some distance

out from the shores. It yields quantities of asphaltum; fragments of it lie all about its banks; this stuff gives

All our reading had taught us to expect that the first plunge into the Dead Sea would be attended with

distressing results our bodies would feel as if they were suddenly pierced by millions of redhot needles;

the dreadful smarting would continue for hours; we might even look to be blistered from head to foot, and

suffer miserably for many days. We were disappointed. Our eight sprang in at the same time that another

party of pilgrims did, and nobody screamed once. None of them ever did complain of any thing more than a

slight pricking sensation in places where their skin was abraded, and then only for a short time. My face

smarted for a couple of hours, but it was partly because I got it badly sunburned while I was bathing, and

No, the water did not blister us; it did not cover us with a slimy ooze and confer upon us an atrocious

fragrance; it was not very slimy; and I could not discover that we smelt really any worse than we have always

smelt since we have been in Palestine. It was only a different kind of smell, but not conspicuous on that

account, because we have a great deal of variety in that respect. We didn't smell, there on the Jordan, the

same as we do in Jerusalem; and we don't smell in Jerusalem just as we did in Nazareth, or Tiberias, or

Cesarea Philippi, or any of those other ruinous ancient towns in Galilee. No, we change all the time, and

It was a funny bath. We could not sink. One could stretch himself at full length on his back, with his arms on

his breast, and all of his body above a line drawn from the corner of his jaw past the middle of his side, the

middle of his leg and through his ancle bone, would remain out of water. He could lift his head clear out, if he

chose. No position can be retained long; you lose your balance and whirl over, first on your back and then on

your face, and so on. You can lie comfortably, on your back, with your head out, and your legs out from your

knees down, by steadying yourself with your hands. You can sit, with your knees drawn up to your chin and

your arms clasped around them, but you are bound to turn over presently, because you are topheavy in that

position. You can stand up straight in water that is over your head, and from the middle of your breast

upward you will not be wet. But you can not remain so. The water will soon float your feet to the surface.

You can not swim on your back and make any progress of any consequence, because your feet stick away

above the surface, and there is nothing to propel yourself with but your heels. If you swim on your face, you

kick up the water like a sternwheel boat. You make no headway. A horse is so topheavy that he can neither

swim nor stand up in the Dead Sea. He turns over on his side at once. Some of us bathed for more than an

hour, and then came out coated with salt till we shone like icicles. We scrubbed it off with a coarse towel and

rode off with a splendid brandnew smell, though it was one which was not any more disagreeable than those

we have been for several weeks enjoying. It was the variegated villainy and novelty of it that charmed us. Salt

crystals glitter in the sun about the shores of the lake. In places they coat the ground like a brilliant crust of

When I was a boy I somehow got the impression that the river Jordan was four thousand miles long and

thirtyfive miles wide. It is only ninety miles long, and so crooked that a man does not know which side of it

he is on half the time. In going ninety miles it does not get over more than fifty miles of ground. It is not any

wider than Broadway in New York. There is the Sea of Galilee and this Dead Sea neither of them twenty

miles long or thirteen wide. And yet when I was in Sunday School I thought they were sixty thousand miles

Travel and experience mar the grandest pictures and rob us of the most cherished traditions of our boyhood.

Well, let them go. I have already seen the Empire of King Solomon diminish to the size of the State of

We looked every where, as we passed along, but never saw grain or crystal of Lot's wife. It was a great

disappointment. For many and many a year we had known her sad story, and taken that interest in her which

misfortune always inspires. But she was gone. Her picturesque form no longer looms above the desert of the

I can not describe the hideous afternoon's ride from the Dead Sea to Mars Saba. It oppresses me yet, to think

of it. The sun so pelted us that the tears ran down our cheeks once or twice. The ghastly, treeless, grassless,

breathless canons smothered us as if we had been in an oven. The sun had positive weight to it, I think. Not a

man could sit erect under it. All drooped low in the saddles. John preached in this "Wilderness!" It must have

been exhausting work. What a very heaven the messy towers and ramparts of vast Mars Saba looked to us

We staid at this great convent all night, guests of the hospitable priests. Mars Saba, perched upon a crag, a

human nest stock high up against a perpendicular mountain wall, is a world of grand masonry that rises,

terrace upon terrace away above your head, like the terraced and retreating colonnades one sees in fanciful

pictures of Belshazzar's Feast and the palaces of the ancient Pharaohs. No other human dwelling is near. It

was founded many ages ago by a holy recluse who lived at first in a cave in the rock a cave which is

inclosed in the convent walls, now, and was reverently shown to us by the priests. This recluse, by his

rigorous torturing of his flesh, his diet of bread and water, his utter withdrawal from all society and from the

vanities of the world, and his constant prayer and saintly contemplation of a skull, inspired an emulation that

brought about him many disciples. The precipice on the opposite side of the canyon is well perforated with

the small holes they dug in the rock to live in. The present occupants of Mars Saba, about seventy in number,

are all hermits. They wear a coarse robe, an ugly, brimless stovepipe of a hat, and go without shoes. They

eat nothing whatever but bread and salt; they drink nothing but water. As long as they live they can never go

outside the walls, or look upon a woman for no woman is permitted to enter Mars Saba, upon any pretext

Some of those men have been shut up there for thirty years. In all that dreary time they have not heard the

laughter of a child or the blessed voice of a woman; they have seen no human tears, no human smiles; they

have known no human joys, no wholesome human sorrows. In their hearts are no memories of the past, in

their brains no dreams of the future. All that is lovable, beautiful, worthy, they have put far away from them;

against all things that are pleasant to look upon, and all sounds that are music to the ear, they have barred

their massive doors and reared their relentless walls of stone forever. They have banished the tender grace of

life and left only the sapped and skinny mockery. Their lips are lips that never kiss and never sing; their

hearts are hearts that never hate and never love; their breasts are breasts that never swell with the sentiment,

I set down these first thoughts because they are natural not because they are just or because it is right to

set them down. It is easy for bookmakers to say "I thought so and so as I looked upon such and such a

scene" when the truth is, they thought all those fine things afterwards. One's first thought is not likely to

be strictly accurate, yet it is no crime to think it and none to write it down, subject to modification by later

experience. These hermits are dead men, in several respects, but not in all; and it is not proper, that, thinking

ill of them at first, I should go on doing so, or, speaking ill of them I should reiterate the words and stick to

them. No, they treated us too kindly for that. There is something human about them somewhere. They knew

we were foreigners and Protestants, and not likely to feel admiration or much friendliness toward them. But

their large charity was above considering such things. They simply saw in us men who were hungry, and

thirsty, and tired, and that was sufficient. They opened their doors and gave us welcome. They asked no

questions, and they made no selfrighteous display of their hospipitality. They fished for no compliments.

They moved quietly about, setting the table for us, making the beds, and bringing water to wash in, and paid

no heed when we said it was wrong for them to do that when we had men whose business it was to perform

such offices. We fared most comfortably, and sat late at dinner. We walked all over the building with the

hermits afterward, and then sat on the lofty battlements and smoked while we enjoyed the cool air, the wild

scenery and the sunset. One or two chose cosy bedrooms to sleep in, but the nomadic instinct prompted the

rest to sleep on the broad divan that extended around the great hall, because it seemed like sleeping out of

When we got up to breakfast in the morning, we were new men. For all this hospitality no strict charge was

made. We could give something if we chose; we need give nothing, if we were poor or if we were stingy. The

pauper and the miser are as free as any in the Catholic Convents of Palestine. I have been educated to enmity

toward every thing that is Catholic, and sometimes, in consequence of this, I find it much easier to discover

Catholic faults than Catholic merits. But there is one thing I feel no disposition to overlook, and no

disposition to forget: and that is, the honest gratitude I and all pilgrims owe, to the Convent Fathers in

Palestine. Their doors are always open, and there is always a welcome for any worthy man who comes,

whether he comes in rags or clad in purple. The Catholic Convents are a priceless blessing to the poor. A

pilgrim without money, whether he be a Protestant or a Catholic, can travel the length and breadth of

Palestine, and in the midst of her desert wastes find wholesome food and a clean bed every night, in these

buildings. Pilgrims in better circumstances are often stricken down by the sun and the fevers of the country,

and then their saving refuge is the Convent. Without these hospitable retreats, travel in Palestine would be a

pleasure which none but the strongest men could dare to undertake. Our party, pilgrims and all, will always

be ready and always willing, to touch glasses and drink health, prosperity and long life to the Convent Fathers

So, rested and refreshed, we fell into line and filed away over the barren mountains of Judea, and along rocky

ridges and through sterile gorges, where eternal silence and solitude reigned. Even the scattering groups of

armed shepherds we met the afternoon before, tending their flocks of longhaired goats, were wanting here.

We saw but two living creatures. They were gazelles, of "softeyed" notoriety. They looked like very young

kids, but they annihilated distance like an express train. I have not seen animals that moved faster, unless I

At nine or ten in the morning we reached the Plain of the Shepherds, and stood in a walled garden of olives

where the shepherds were watching their flocks by night, eighteen centuries ago, when the multitude of

angels brought them the tidings that the Saviour was born. A quarter of a mile away was Bethlehem of Judea,

The Plain of the Shepherds is a desert, paved with loose stones, void of vegetation, glaring in the fierce sun.

Only the music of the angels it knew once could charm its shrubs and flowers to life again and restore its

In the huge Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, built fifteen hundred years ago by the inveterate St. Helena,

they took us below ground, and into a grotto cut in the living rock. This was the "manger" where Christ was

born. A silver star set in the floor bears a Latin inscription to that effect. It is polished with the kisses of many

generations of worshiping pilgrims. The grotto was tricked out in the usual tasteless style observable in all the

holy places of Palestine. As in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, envy and uncharitableness were apparent

here. The priests and the members of the Greek and Latin churches can not come by the same corridor to

kneel in the sacred birthplace of the Redeemer, but are compelled to approach and retire by different avenues,

I have no "meditations," suggested by this spot where the very first "Merry Christmas!" was uttered in all the

world, and from whence the friend of my childhood, Santa Claus, departed on his first journey, to gladden

and continue to gladden roaring firesides on wintry mornings in many a distant land forever and forever. I

touch, with reverent finger, the actual spot where the infant Jesus lay, but I think nothing.

You can not think in this place any more than you can in any other in Palestine that would be likely to inspire

reflection. Beggars, cripples and monks compass you about, and make you think only of bucksheesh when

you would rather think of something more in keeping with the character of the spot.

I was glad to get away, and glad when we had walked through the grottoes where Eusebius wrote, and Jerome

fasted, and Joseph prepared for the flight into Egypt, and the dozen other distinguished grottoes, and knew we

were done. The Church of the Nativity is almost as well packed with exceeding holy places as the Church of

the Holy Sepulchre itself. They even have in it a grotto wherein twenty thousand children were slaughtered

We went to the Milk Grotto, of course a cavern where Mary hid herself for a while before the flight into

Egypt. Its walls were black before she entered, but in suckling the Child, a drop of her milk fell upon the

floor and instantly changed the darkness of the walls to its own snowy hue. We took many little fragments of

stone from here, because it is well known in all the East that a barren woman hath need only to touch her lips

to one of these and her failing will depart from her. We took many specimens, to the end that we might confer

We got away from Bethlehem and its troops of beggars and relicpeddlers in the afternoon, and after

spending some little time at Rachel's tomb, hurried to Jerusalem as fast as possible. I never was so glad to get

home again before. I never have enjoyed rest as I have enjoyed it during these last few hours. The journey to

the Dead Sea, the Jordan and Bethlehem was short, but it was an exhausting one. Such roasting heat, such

oppressive solitude, and such dismal desolation can not surely exist elsewhere on earth. And such fatigue!

The commonest sagacity warns me that I ought to tell the customary pleasant lie, and say I tore myself

reluctantly away from every noted place in Palestine. Every body tells that, but with as little ostentation as I

may, I doubt the word of every he who tells it. I could take a dreadful oath that I have never heard any one of

our forty pilgrims say any thing of the sort, and they are as worthy and as sincerely devout as any that come

here. They will say it when they get home, fast enough, but why should they not? They do not wish to array

themselves against all the Lamartines and Grimeses in the world. It does not stand to reason that men are

reluctant to leave places where the very life is almost badgered out of them by importunate swarms of

beggars and peddlers who hang in strings to one's sleeves and coattails and shriek and shout in his ears and

horrify his vision with the ghastly sores and malformations they exhibit. One is glad to get away. I have heard

shameless people say they were glad to get away from Ladies' Festivals where they were importuned to buy

by bevies of lovely young ladies. Transform those houris into dusky hags and ragged savages, and replace

their rounded forms with shrunken and knotted distortions, their soft hands with scarred and hideous

deformities, and the persuasive music of their voices with the discordant din of a hated language, and then see

how much lingering reluctance to leave could be mustered. No, it is the neat thing to say you were reluctant,

and then append the profound thoughts that "struggled for utterance," in your brain; but it is the true thing to

say you were not reluctant, and found it impossible to think at all though in good sooth it is not

We do not think, in the holy places; we think in bed, afterwards, when the glare, and the noise, and the

confusion are gone, and in fancy we revisit alone, the solemn monuments of the past, and summon the

WE visited all the holy places about Jerusalem which we had left unvisited when we journeyed to the Jordan

and then, about three o'clock one afternoon, we fell into procession and marched out at the stately Damascus

gate, and the walls of Jerusalem shut us out forever. We paused on the summit of a distant hill and took a

final look and made a final farewell to the venerable city which had been such a good home to us.

For about four hours we traveled down hill constantly. We followed a narrow bridlepath which traversed the

beds of the mountain gorges, and when we could we got out of the way of the long trains of laden camels and

asses, and when we could not we suffered the misery of being mashed up against perpendicular walls of rock

and having our legs bruised by the passing freight. Jack was caught two or three times, and Dan and Moult as

often. One horse had a heavy fall on the slippery rocks, and the others had narrow escapes. However, this was

as good a road as we had found in Palestine, and possibly even the best, and so there was not much

Sometimes, in the glens, we came upon luxuriant orchards of figs, apricots, pomegranates, and such things,

but oftener the scenery was rugged, mountainous, verdureless and forbidding. Here and there, towers were

perched high up on acclivities which seemed almost inaccessible. This fashion is as old as Palestine itself and

We crossed the brook which furnished David the stone that killed Goliah, and no doubt we looked upon the

very ground whereon that noted battle was fought. We passed by a picturesque old gothic ruin whose stone

pavements had rung to the armed heels of many a valorous Crusader, and we rode through a piece of country

We staid all night with the good monks at the convent of Ramleh, and in the morning got up and galloped the

horses a good part of the distance from there to Jaffa, or Joppa, for the plain was as level as a floor and free

from stones, and besides this was our last march in Holy Land. These two or three hours finished, we and the

tired horses could have rest and sleep as long as we wanted it. This was the plain of which Joshua spoke

when he said, "Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon." As we drew near to

Jaffa, the boys spurred up the horses and indulged in the excitement of an actual race an experience we

We came finally to the noble grove of orangetrees in which the Oriental city of Jaffa lies buried; we passed

through the walls, and rode again down narrow streets and among swarms of animated rags, and saw other

sights and had other experiences we had long been familiar with. We dismounted, for the last time, and out in

the offing, riding at anchor, we saw the ship! I put an exclamation point there because we felt one when we

saw the vessel. The long pilgrimage was ended, and somehow we seemed to feel glad of it.

[For description of Jaffa, see Universal Gazetteer.] Simon the Tanner formerly lived here. We went to his

house. All the pilgrims visit Simon the Tanner's house. Peter saw the vision of the beasts let down in a sheet

when he lay upon the roof of Simon the Tanner's house. It was from Jaffa that Jonah sailed when he was told

to go and prophesy against Nineveh, and no doubt it was not far from the town that the whale threw him up

when he discovered that he had no ticket. Jonah was disobedient, and of a faultfinding, complaining

disposition, and deserves to be lightly spoken of, almost. The timbers used in the construction of Solomon's

Temple were floated to Jaffa in rafts, and the narrow opening in the reef through which they passed to the

shore is not an inch wider or a shade less dangerous to navigate than it was then. Such is the sleepy nature of

the population Palestine's only good seaport has now and always had. Jaffa has a history and a stirring one. It

will not be discovered any where in this book. If the reader will call at the circulating library and mention my

name, he will be furnished with books which will afford him the fullest information concerning Jaffa.

So ends the pilgrimage. We ought to be glad that we did not make it for the purpose of feasting our eyes upon

fascinating aspects of nature, for we should have been disappointed at least at this season of the year. A

"Monotonous and uninviting as much of the Holy Land will appear to persons accustomed to the almost

constant verdure of flowers, ample streams and varied surface of our own country, we must remember that its

aspect to the Israelites after the weary march of forty years through the desert must have been very different."

Which all of us will freely grant. But it truly is "monotonous and uninviting," and there is no sufficient reason

Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they

are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble

vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of

Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no

striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with the shadows of the clouds. Every

outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective distance works no enchantment here. It is

Small shreds and patches of it must be very beautiful in the full flush of spring, however, and all the more

beautiful by contrast with the farreaching desolation that surrounds them on every side. I would like much

to see the fringes of the Jordan in springtime, and Shechem, Esdraelon, Ajalon and the borders of Galilee

but even then these spots would seem mere toy gardens set at wide intervals in the waste of a limitless

Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and

fettered its energies. Where Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now floods

the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists over whose waveless surface the blistering air

hangs motionless and dead about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of cane,

and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. Nazareth

is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of

rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the accursed, lies a

moldering ruin, today, even as Joshua's miracle left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem and

Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once

knew the high honor of the Saviour's presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks

by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, good will to men, is untenanted by any living creature,

and unblessed by any feature that is pleasant to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in

history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer

there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was the pride and the

glory of Israel, is gone, and the Ottoman crescent is lifted above the spot where, on that most memorable day

in the annals of the world, they reared the Holy Cross. The noted Sea of Galilee, where Roman fleets once

rode at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed in their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees of

war and commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Magdala is the

home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round

about them where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice and ate the miraculous bread, sleep

in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.

Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a

Palestine is no more of this workday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition it is dreamland.

IT was worth a kingdom to be at sea again. It was a relief to drop all anxiety whatsoever all questions as

to where we should go; how long we should stay; whether it were worth while to go or not; all anxieties

about the condition of the horses; all such questions as "Shall we ever get to water?" "Shall we ever lunch?"

"Ferguson, how many more million miles have we got to creep under this awful sun before we camp?" It was

a relief to cast all these torturing little anxieties far away ropes of steel they were, and every one with a

separate and distinct strain on it and feel the temporary contentment that is born of the banishment of all

care and responsibility. We did not look at the compass: we did not care, now, where the ship went to, so that

she went out of sight of land as quickly as possible. When I travel again, I wish to go in a pleasure ship. No

amount of money could have purchased for us, in a strange vessel and among unfamiliar faces, the perfect

satisfaction and the sense of being at home again which we experienced when we stepped on board the

"Quaker City," our own ship after this wearisome pilgrimage. It is a something we have felt always

We took off our blue woollen shirts, our spurs, and heavy boots, our sanguinary revolvers and our

buckskinseated pantaloons, and got shaved and came out in Christian costume once more. All but Jack, who

changed all other articles of his dress, but clung to his traveling pantaloons. They still preserved their ample

buckskin seat intact; and so his short pea jacket and his long, thin legs assisted to make him a picturesque

object whenever he stood on the forecastle looking abroad upon the ocean over the bows. At such times his

"Jack, my boy, you are about to go among a brilliant company of gentlemen and ladies, who are refined and

cultivated, and thoroughly accomplished in the manners and customs of good society. Listen to their

conversation, study their habits of life, and learn. Be polite and obliging to all, and considerate towards every

one's opinions, failings and prejudices. Command the just respect of all your fellowvoyagers, even though

you fail to win their friendly regard. And Jack don't you ever dare, while you live, appear in public on

those decks in fair weather, in a costume unbecoming your mother's drawingroom!"

It would have been worth any price if the father of this hopeful youth could have stepped on board some time,

and seen him standing high on the forecastle, pea jacket, tasseled red fez, buckskin patch and all, placidly

After a pleasant voyage and a good rest, we drew near to Egypt and out of the mellowest of sunsets we saw

the domes and minarets of Alexandria rise into view. As soon as the anchor was down, Jack and I got a boat

and went ashore. It was night by this time, and the other passengers were content to remain at home and visit

ancient Egypt after breakfast. It was the way they did at Constantinople. They took a lively interest in new

countries, but their schoolboy impatience had worn off, and they had learned that it was wisdom to take

things easy and go along comfortably these old countries do not go away in the night; they stay till after

When we reached the pier we found an army of Egyptian boys with donkeys no larger than themselves,

waiting for passengers for donkeys are the omnibuses of Egypt. We preferred to walk, but we could not

have our own way. The boys crowded about us, clamored around us, and slewed their donkeys exactly across

our path, no matter which way we turned. They were goodnatured rascals, and so were the donkeys. We

mounted, and the boys ran behind us and kept the donkeys in a furious gallop, as is the fashion at Damascus.

I believe I would rather ride a donkey than any beast in the world. He goes briskly, he puts on no airs, he is

docile, though opinionated. Satan himself could not scare him, and he is convenient very convenient.

When you are tired riding you can rest your feet on the ground and let him gallop from under you.

We found the hotel and secured rooms, and were happy to know that the Prince of Wales had stopped there

once. They had it every where on signs. No other princes had stopped there since, till Jack and I came. We

went abroad through the town, then, and found it a city of huge commercial buildings, and broad, handsome

streets brilliant with gaslight. By night it was a sort of reminiscence of Paris. But finally Jack found an

icecream saloon, and that closed investigations for that evening. The weather was very hot, it had been

many a day since Jack had seen icecream, and so it was useless to talk of leaving the saloon till it shut up.

In the morning the lost tribes of America came ashore and infested the hotels and took possession of all the

donkeys and other open barouches that offered. They went in picturesque procession to the American

Consul's; to the great gardens; to Cleopatra's Needles; to Pompey's Pillar; to the palace of the Viceroy of

Egypt; to the Nile; to the superb groves of datepalms. One of our most inveterate relichunters had his

hammer with him, and tried to break a fragment off the upright Needle and could not do it; he tried the

prostrate one and failed; he borrowed a heavy sledge hammer from a mason and tried again. He tried

Pompey's Pillar, and this baffled him. Scattered all about the mighty monolith were sphinxes of noble

countenance, carved out of Egyptian granite as hard as blue steel, and whose shapely features the wear of five

thousand years had failed to mark or mar. The relichunter battered at these persistently, and sweated

profusely over his work. He might as well have attempted to deface the moon. They regarded him serenely

with the stately smile they had worn so long, and which seemed to say, "Peck away, poor insect; we were not

made to fear such as you; in tenscore dragging ages we have seen more of your kind than there are sands at

But I am forgetting the Jaffa Colonists. At Jaffa we had taken on board some forty members of a very

celebrated community. They were male and female; babies, young boys and young girls; young married

people, and some who had passed a shade beyond the prime of life. I refer to the "Adams Jaffa Colony."

Others had deserted before. We left in Jaffa Mr. Adams, his wife, and fifteen unfortunates who not only had

no money but did not know where to turn or whither to go. Such was the statement made to us. Our forty

were miserable enough in the first place, and they lay about the decks seasick all the voyage, which about

completed their misery, I take it. However, one or two young men remained upright, and by constant

persecution we wormed out of them some little information. They gave it reluctantly and in a very

fragmentary condition, for, having been shamefully humbugged by their prophet, they felt humiliated and

The colony was a complete fiasco. I have already said that such as could get away did so, from time to time.

The prophet Adams once an actor, then several other things, afterward a Mormon and a missionary,

always an adventurer remains at Jaffa with his handful of sorrowful subjects. The forty we brought away

with us were chiefly destitute, though not all of them. They wished to get to Egypt. What might become of

them then they did not know and probably did not care any thing to get away from hated Jaffa. They had

little to hope for. Because after many appeals to the sympathies of New England, made by strangers of

Boston, through the newspapers, and after the establishment of an office there for the reception of moneyed

contributions for the Jaffa colonists, One Dollar was subscribed. The consulgeneral for Egypt showed me

the newspaper paragraph which mentioned the circumstance and mentioned also the discontinuance of the

effort and the closing of the office. It was evident that practical New England was not sorry to be rid of such

visionaries and was not in the least inclined to hire any body to bring them back to her. Still, to get to Egypt,

was something, in the eyes of the unfortunate colonists, hopeless as the prospect seemed of ever getting

Thus circumstanced, they landed at Alexandria from our ship. One of our passengers, Mr. Moses S. Beach, of

the New York Sun, inquired of the consulgeneral what it would cost to send these people to their home in

Maine by the way of Liverpool, and he said fifteen hundred dollars in gold would do it. Mr. Beach gave his

check for the money and so the troubles of the Jaffa colonists were at an end.57.1

Alexandria was too much like a European city to be novel, and we soon tired of it. We took the cars and came

up here to ancient Cairo, which is an Oriental city and of the completest pattern. There is little about it to

disabuse one's mind of the error if he should take it into his head that he was in the heart of Arabia. Stately

camels and dromedaries, swarthy Egyptians, and likewise Turks and black Ethiopians, turbaned, sashed, and

blazing in a rich variety of Oriental costumes of all shades of flashy colors, are what one sees on every hand

crowding the narrow streets and the honeycombed bazaars. We are stopping at Shepherd's Hotel, which is the

worst on earth except the one I stopped at once in a small town in the United States. It is pleasant to read this

sketch in my notebook, now, and know that I can stand Shepherd's Hotel, sure, because I have been in one

I stopped at the Benton House. It used to be a good hotel, but that proves nothing I used to be a good boy,

for that matter. Both of us have lost character of late years. The Benton is not a good hotel. The Benton lacks

a very great deal of being a good hotel. Perdition is full of better hotels than the Benton.

It was late at night when I got there, and I told the clerk I would like plenty of lights, because I wanted to read

an hour or two. When I reached No. 15 with the porter (we came along a dim hall that was clad in ancient

carpeting, faded, worn out in many places, and patched with old scraps of oil cloth a hall that sank under

one's feet, and creaked dismally to every footstep,) he struck a light two inches of sallow, sorrowful,

consumptive tallow candle, that burned blue, and sputtered, and got discouraged and went out. The porter lit

it again, and I asked if that was all the light the clerk sent. He said, "Oh no, I've got another one here," and he

produced another couple of inches of tallow candle. I said, "Light them both I'll have to have one to see

the other by." He did it, but the result was drearier than darkness itself. He was a cheery, accommodating

rascal. He said he would go "somewheres" and steal a lamp. I abetted and encouraged him in his criminal

"Fifteen! why he's got a double lot of candles does the man want to illuminate the house? does he want

"Why what in the nation does why I never heard of such a thing? What on earth can he want with that

"Wants to read, does he? ain't satisfied with a thousand candles, but has to have a lamp! I do wonder

what the devil that fellow wants that lamp for? Take him another candle, and then if "

"But he wants the lamp says he'll burn the d d old house down if he don't get a lamp!" (a remark which

"I'd like to see him at it once. Well, you take it along but I swear it beats my time, though and see if

And he went off growling to himself and still wondering and wondering over the unaccountable conduct of

No. 15. The lamp was a good one, but it revealed some disagreeable things a bed in the suburbs of a

desert of room a bed that had hills and valleys in it, and you'd have to accommodate your body to the

impression left in it by the man that slept there last, before you could lie comfortably; a carpet that had seen

better days; a melancholy washstand in a remote corner, and a dejected pitcher on it sorrowing over a broken

nose; a lookingglass split across the centre, which chopped your head off at the chin and made you look like

some dreadful unfinished monster or other; the paper peeling in shreds from the walls.

I sighed and said: "This is charming; and now don't you think you could get me something to read?"

The porter said, "Oh, certainly; the old man's got dead loads of books;" and he was gone before I could tell

him what sort of literature I would rather have. And yet his countenance expressed the utmost confidence in

his ability to execute the commission with credit to himself. The old man made a descent on him.

"Fifteen, is it? He'll want a warmingpan, next he'll want a nurse! Take him every thing there is in the

house take him the barkeeper take him the baggagewagon take him a chambermaid! Confound

"Wants to read 'em, like enough; it ain't likely he wants to eat 'em, I don't reckon."

"Wants to read 'em wants to read 'em this time of night, the infernal lunatic! Well, he can't have them."

"But he says he's mor'ly bound to have 'em; he says he'll just go arairin' and achargin' through this house

and raise more well, there's no tellin' what he won't do if he don't get 'em; because he's drunk and crazy

and desperate, and nothing'll soothe him down but them cussed books." [I had not made any threats, and was

"Well, go on; but I will be around when he goes to rairing and charging, and the first rair he makes I'll make

him rair out of the window." And then the old gentleman went off, growling as before.

The genius of that porter was something wonderful. He put an armful of books on the bed and said "Good

night" as confidently as if he knew perfectly well that those books were exactly my style of reading matter.

And well he might. His selection covered the whole range of legitimate literature. It comprised "The Great

Consummation," by Rev. Dr. Cummings theology; "Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri" law;

"The Complete HorseDoctor" medicine; "The Toilers of the Sea," by Victor Hugo romance; "The

works of William Shakspeare" poetry. I shall never cease to admire the tact and the intelligence of that

But all the donkeys in Christendom, and most of the Egyptian boys, I think, are at the door, and there is some

noise going on, not to put it in stronger language. We are about starting to the illustrious Pyramids of

Egypt, and the donkeys for the voyage are under inspection. I will go and select one before the choice

57.1 It was an unselfish act of benevolence; it was done without any ostentation, and has never been

mentioned in any newspaper, I think. Therefore it is refreshing to learn now, several months after the above

narrative was written, that another man received all the credit of this rescue of the colonists. Such is life.

THE donkeys were all good, all handsome, all strong and in good condition, all fast and all willing to prove

it. They were the best we had found any where, and the most recherche. I do not know what recherche is, but

that is what these donkeys were, anyhow. Some were of a soft mousecolor, and the others were white,

black, and varicolored. Some were closeshaven, all over, except that a tuft like a paintbrush was left on

the end of the tail. Others were so shaven in fanciful landscape garden patterns, as to mark their bodies with

curving lines, which were bounded on one side by hair and on the other by the close plush left by the shears.

They had all been newly barbered, and were exceedingly stylish. Several of the white ones were barred like

zebras with rainbow stripes of blue and red and yellow paint. These were indescribably gorgeous. Dan and

Jack selected from this lot because they brought back Italian reminiscences of the "old masters." The saddles

were the high, stuffy, frogshaped things we had known in Ephesus and Smyrna. The donkeyboys were

lively young Egyptian rascals who could follow a donkey and keep him in a canter half a day without tiring.

We had plenty of spectators when we mounted, for the hotel was full of English people bound overland to

India and officers getting ready for the African campaign against the Abyssinian King Theodorus. We were

not a very large party, but as we charged through the streets of the great metropolis, we made noise for five

hundred, and displayed activity and created excitement in proportion. Nobody can steer a donkey, and some

collided with camels, dervishes, effendis, asses, beggars and every thing else that offered to the donkeys a

reasonable chance for a collision. When we turned into the broad avenue that leads out of the city toward Old

Cairo, there was plenty of room. The walls of stately datepalms that fenced the gardens and bordered the

way, threw their shadows down and made the air cool and bracing. We rose to the spirit of the time and the

race became a wild rout, a stampede, a terrific panic. I wish to live to enjoy it again.

Somewhere along this route we had a few startling exhibitions of Oriental simplicity. A girl apparently

thirteen years of age came along the great thoroughfare dressed like Eve before the fall. We would have

called her thirteen at home; but here girls who look thirteen are often not more than nine, in reality.

Occasionally we saw starknaked men of superb build, bathing, and making no attempt at concealment.

However, an hour's acquaintance with this cheerful custom reconciled the pilgrims to it, and then it ceased to

occasion remark. Thus easily do even the most startling novelties grow tame and spiritless to these

Arrived at Old Cairo, the campfollowers took up the donkeys and tumbled them bodily aboard a small boat

with a lateen sail, and we followed and got under way. The deck was closely packed with donkeys and men;

the two sailors had to climb over and under and through the wedged mass to work the sails, and the steersman

had to crowd four or five donkeys out of the way when he wished to swing his tiller and put his helm

harddown. But what were their troubles to us? We had nothing to do; nothing to do but enjoy the trip;

nothing to do but shove the donkeys off our corns and look at the charming scenery of the Nile.

On the island at our right was the machine they call the Nilometer, a stonecolumn whose business it is to

mark the rise of the river and prophecy whether it will reach only thirtytwo feet and produce a famine, or

whether it will properly flood the land at forty and produce plenty, or whether it will rise to fortythree and

bring death and destruction to flocks and crops but how it does all this they could not explain to us so that

we could understand. On the same island is still shown the spot where Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the

bulrushes. Near the spot we sailed from, the Holy Family dwelt when they sojourned in Egypt till Herod

should complete his slaughter of the innocents. The same tree they rested under when they first arrived, was

there a short time ago, but the Viceroy of Egypt sent it to the Empress Eugenie lately. He was just in time,

The Nile at this point is muddy, swift and turbid, and does not lack a great deal of being as wide as the

We scrambled up the steep bank at the shabby town of Ghizeh, mounted the donkeys again, and scampered

away. For four or five miles the route lay along a high embankment which they say is to be the bed of a

railway the Sultan means to build for no other reason than that when the Empress of the French comes to visit

him she can go to the Pyramids in comfort. This is true Oriental hospitality. I am very glad it is our privilege

At the distance of a few miles the Pyramids rising above the palms, looked very cleancut, very grand and

imposing, and very soft and filmy, as well. They swam in a rich haze that took from them all suggestions of

unfeeling stone, and made them seem only the airy nothings of a dream structures which might blossom

into tiers of vague arches, or ornate colonnades, may be, and change and change again, into all graceful forms

of architecture, while we looked, and then melt deliciously away and blend with the tremulous atmosphere.

At the end of the levee we left the mules and went in a sailboat across an arm of the Nile or an overflow, and

landed where the sands of the Great Sahara left their embankment, as straight as a wall, along the verge of the

alluvial plain of the river. A laborious walk in the flaming sun brought us to the foot of the great Pyramid of

Cheops. It was a fairy vision no longer. It was a corrugated, unsightly mountain of stone. Each of its

monstrous sides was a wide stairway which rose upward, step above step, narrowing as it went, till it tapered

to a point far aloft in the air. Insect men and women pilgrims from the Quaker City were creeping

about its dizzy perches, and one little black swarm were waving postage stamps from the airy summit

Of course we were besieged by a rabble of muscular Egyptians and Arabs who wanted the contract of

dragging us to the top all tourists are. Of course you could not hear your own voice for the din that was

around you. Of course the Sheiks said they were the only responsible parties; that all contracts must be made

with them, all moneys paid over to them, and none exacted from us by any but themselves alone. Of course

they contracted that the varlets who dragged us up should not mention bucksheesh once. For such is the usual

routine. Of course we contracted with them, paid them, were delivered into the hands of the draggers,

dragged up the Pyramids, and harried and bedeviled for bucksheesh from the foundation clear to the

summit. We paid it, too, for we were purposely spread very far apart over the vast side of the Pyramid. There

was no help near if we called, and the Herculeses who dragged us had a way of asking sweetly and

flatteringly for bucksheesh, which was seductive, and of looking fierce and threatening to throw us down the

Each step being full as high as a dinnertable; there being very, very many of the steps; an Arab having hold

of each of our arms and springing upward from step to step and snatching us with them, forcing us to lift our

feet as high as our breasts every time, and do it rapidly and keep it up till we were ready to faint, who shall

say it is not lively, exhilarating, lacerating, musclestraining, bonewrenching and perfectly excruciating and

exhausting pastime, climbing the Pyramids? I beseeched the varlets not to twist all my joints asunder; I

iterated, reiterated, even swore to them that I did not wish to beat any body to the top; did all I could to

convince them that if I got there the last of all I would feel blessed above men and grateful to them forever; I

begged them, prayed them, pleaded with them to let me stop and rest a moment only one little moment:

and they only answered with some more frightful springs, and an unenlisted volunteer behind opened a

bombardment of determined boosts with his head which threatened to batter my whole political economy to

Twice, for one minute, they let me rest while they extorted bucksheesh, and then continued their maniac

flight up the Pyramid. They wished to beat the other parties. It was nothing to them that I, a stranger, must be

sacrificed upon the altar of their unholy ambition. But in the midst of sorrow, joy blooms. Even in this dark

hour I had a sweet consolation. For I knew that except these Mohammedans repented they would go straight

to perdition some day. And they never repent they never forsake their paganism. This thought calmed me,

cheered me, and I sank down, limp and exhausted, upon the summit, but happy, so happy and serene within.

On the one hand, a mighty sea of yellow sand stretched away toward the ends of the earth, solemn, silent,

shorn of vegetation, its solitude uncheered by any forms of creature life; on the other, the Eden of Egypt was

spread below us a broad green floor, cloven by the sinuous river, dotted with villages, its vast distances

measured and marked by the diminishing stature of receding clusters of palms. It lay asleep in an enchanted

atmosphere. There was no sound, no motion. Above the dateplumes in the middle distance, swelled a domed

and pinnacled mass, glimmering through a tinted, exquisite mist; away toward the horizon a dozen shapely

pyramids watched over ruined Memphis: and at our feet the bland impassible Sphynx looked out upon the

picture from her throne in the sands as placidly and pensively as she had looked upon its like full fifty lagging

We suffered torture no pen can describe from the hungry appeals for bucksheesh that gleamed from Arab

eyes and poured incessantly from Arab lips. Why try to call up the traditions of vanished Egyptian grandeur;

why try to fancy Egypt following dead Rameses to his tomb in the Pyramid, or the long multitude of Israel

departing over the desert yonder? Why try to think at all? The thing was impossible. One must bring his

The traditional Arab proposed, in the traditional way, to run down Cheops, cross the eighth of a mile of sand

intervening between it and the tall pyramid of Cephron, ascend to Cephron's summit and return to us on the

top of Cheops all in nine minutes by the watch, and the whole service to be rendered for a single dollar. In

the first flush of irritation, I said let the Arab and his exploits go to the mischief. But stay. The upper third of

Cephron was coated with dressed marble, smooth as glass. A blessed thought entered my brain. He must

infallibly break his neck. Close the contract with dispatch, I said, and let him go. He started. We watched. He

went bounding down the vast broadside, spring after spring, like an ibex. He grew small and smaller till he

became a bobbing pigmy, away down toward the bottom then disappeared. We turned and peered over the

other side forty seconds eighty seconds a hundred happiness, he is dead already! two

minutes and a quarter "There he goes!" Too true it was too true. He was very small, now.

Gradually, but surely, he overcame the level ground. He began to spring and climb again. Up, up, up at

last he reached the smooth coating now for it. But he clung to it with toes and fingers, like a fly. He

crawled this way and that away to the right, slanting upward away to the left, still slanting upward

and stood at last, a black peg on the summit, and waved his pigmy scarf! Then he crept downward to the raw

steps again, then picked up his agile heels and flew. We lost him presently. But presently again we saw him

under us, mounting with undiminished energy. Shortly he bounded into our midst with a gallant warwhoop.

Time, eight minutes, fortyone seconds. He had won. His bones were intact. It was a failure. I reflected. I

said to myself, he is tired, and must grow dizzy. I will risk another dollar on him.

He started again. Made the trip again. Slipped on the smooth coating I almost had him. But an infamous

crevice saved him. He was with us once more perfectly sound. Time, eight minutes, fortysix seconds.

Worse and worse. He won again. Time, eight minutes, fortyeight seconds. I was out of all patience, now. I

was desperate. Money was no longer of any consequence. I said, "Sirrah, I will give you a hundred dollars

to jump off this pyramid head first. If you do not like the terms, name your bet. I scorn to stand on expenses

now. I will stay right here and risk money on you as long as Dan has got a cent."

I was in a fair way to win, now, for it was a dazzling opportunity for an Arab. He pondered a moment, and

would have done it, I think, but his mother arrived, then, and interfered. Her tears moved me I never can

look upon the tears of woman with indifference and I said I would give her a hundred to jump off, too.

But it was a failure. The Arabs are too highpriced in Egypt. They put on airs unbecoming to such savages.

We descended, hot and out of humor. The dragoman lit candles, and we all entered a hole near the base of the

pyramid, attended by a crazy rabble of Arabs who thrust their services upon us uninvited. They dragged us up

a long inclined chute, and dripped candlegrease all over us. This chute was not more than twice as wide and

high as a Saratoga trunk, and was walled, roofed and floored with solid blocks of Egyptian granite as wide as

a wardrobe, twice as thick and three times as long. We kept on climbing, through the oppressive gloom, till I

thought we ought to be nearing the top of the pyramid again, and then came to the "Queen's Chamber," and

shortly to the Chamber of the King. These large apartments were tombs. The walls were built of monstrous

masses of smoothed granite, neatly joined together. Some of them were nearly as large square as an ordinary

parlor. A great stone sarcophagus like a bathtub stood in the centre of the King's Chamber. Around it were

gathered a picturesque group of Arab savages and soiled and tattered pilgrims, who held their candles aloft in

the gloom while they chattered, and the winking blurs of light shed a dim glory down upon one of the

irrepressible mementoseekers who was pecking at the venerable sarcophagus with his sacrilegious hammer.

We struggled out to the open air and the bright sunshine, and for the space of thirty minutes received ragged

Arabs by couples, dozens and platoons, and paid them bucksheesh for services they swore and proved by

each other that they had rendered, but which we had not been aware of before and as each party was paid,

they dropped into the rear of the procession and in due time arrived again with a newlyinvented delinquent

We lunched in the shade of the pyramid, and in the midst of this encroaching and unwelcome company, and

then Dan and Jack and I started away for a walk. A howling swarm of beggars followed us surrounded us

almost headed us off. A sheik, in flowing white bournous and gaudy headgear, was with them. He

wanted more bucksheesh. But we had adopted a new code it was millions for defense, but not a cent for

bucksheesh. I asked him if he could persuade the others to depart if we paid him. He said yes for ten

He swung his long staff round his head and three Arabs bit the dust. He capered among the mob like a very

maniac. His blows fell like hail, and wherever one fell a subject went down. We had to hurry to the rescue

and tell him it was only necessary to damage them a little, he need not kill them. In two minutes we were

alone with the sheik, and remained so. The persuasive powers of this illiterate savage were remarkable.

Each side of the Pyramid of Cheops is about as long as the Capitol at Washington, or the Sultan's new palace

on the Bosporus, and is longer than the greatest depth of St. Peter's at Rome which is to say that each side

of Cheops extends seven hundred and some odd feet. It is about seventyfive feet higher than the cross on St.

Peter's. The first time I ever went down the Mississippi, I thought the highest bluff on the river between St.

Louis and New Orleans it was near Selma, Missouri was probably the highest mountain in the world.

It is four hundred and thirteen feet high. It still looms in my memory with undiminished grandeur. I can still

see the trees and bushes growing smaller and smaller as I followed them up its huge slant with my eye, till

they became a feathery fringe on the distant summit. This symmetrical Pyramid of Cheops this solid

mountain of stone reared by the patient hands of men this mighty tomb of a forgotten monarch dwarfs

my cherished mountain. For it is four hundred and eighty feet high. In still earlier years than those I have

been recalling, Holliday's Hill, in our town, was to me the noblest work of God. It appeared to pierce the

skies. It was nearly three hundred feet high. In those days I pondered the subject much, but I never could

understand why it did not swathe its summit with neverfailing clouds, and crown its majestic brow with

everlasting snows. I had heard that such was the custom of great mountains in other parts of the world. I

remembered how I worked with another boy, at odd afternoons stolen from study and paid for with stripes, to

undermine and start from its bed an immense boulder that rested upon the edge of that hilltop; I remembered

how, one Saturday afternoon, we gave three hours of honest effort to the task, and saw at last that our reward

was at hand; I remembered how we sat down, then, and wiped the perspiration away, and waited to let a

picnic party get out of the way in the road below and then we started the boulder. It was splendid. It went

crashing down the hillside, tearing up saplings, mowing bushes down like grass, ripping and crushing and

smashing every thing in its path eternally splintered and scattered a wood pile at the foot of the hill, and

then sprang from the high bank clear over a dray in the road the negro glanced up once and dodged

and the next second it made infinitesimal mincemeat of a frame coopershop, and the coopers swarmed out

like bees. Then we said it was perfectly magnificent, and left. Because the coopers were starting up the hill to

Still, that mountain, prodigious as it was, was nothing to the Pyramid of Cheops. I could conjure up no

comparison that would convey to my mind a satisfactory comprehension of the magnitude of a pile of

monstrous stones that covered thirteen acres of ground and stretched upward four hundred and eighty

After years of waiting, it was before me at last. The great face was so sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient.

There was a dignity not of earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as never any thing human

wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. If ever image of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking

toward the verge of the landscape, yet looking at nothing nothing but distance and vacancy. It was looking

over and beyond every thing of the present, and far into the past. It was gazing out over the ocean of Time

over lines of centurywaves which, further and further receding, closed nearer and nearer together, and

blended at last into one unbroken tide, away toward the horizon of remote antiquity. It was thinking of the

wars of departed ages; of the empires it had seen created and destroyed; of the nations whose birth it had

witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose annihilation it had noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and

death, the grandeur and decay, of five thousand slow revolving years. It was the type of an attribute of man

of a faculty of his heart and brain. It was MEMORY RETROSPECTION wrought into visible,

tangible form. All who know what pathos there is in memories of days that are accomplished and faces that

have vanished albeit only a trifling score of years gone by will have some appreciation of the pathos

that dwells in these grave eyes that look so steadfastly back upon the things they knew before History was

born before Tradition had being things that were, and forms that moved, in a vague era which even

Poetry and Romance scarce know of and passed one by one away and left the stony dreamer solitary in

The Sphynx is grand in its loneliness; it is imposing in its magnitude; it is impressive in the mystery that

hangs over its story. And there is that in the overshadowing majesty of this eternal figure of stone, with its

accusing memory of the deeds of all ages, which reveals to one something of what he shall feel when he shall

There are some things which, for the credit of America, should be left unsaid, perhaps; but these very things

happen sometimes to be the very things which, for the real benefit of Americans, ought to have prominent

notice. While we stood looking, a wart, or an excrescence of some kind, appeared on the jaw of the Sphynx.

We heard the familiar clink of a hammer, and understood the case at once. One of our well meaning reptiles

I mean relichunters had crawled up there and was trying to break a "specimen " from the face of this

the most majestic creation the hand of man has wrought. But the great image contemplated the dead ages as

calmly as ever, unconscious of the small insect that was fretting at its jaw. Egyptian granite that has defied

the storms and earthquakes of all time has nothing to fear from the tackhammers of ignorant excursionists

highwaymen like this specimen. He failed in his enterprise. We sent a sheik to arrest him if he had the

authority, or to warn him, if he had not, that by the laws of Egypt the crime he was attempting to commit was

The Sphynx: a hundred and twentyfive feet long, sixty feet high, and a hundred and two feet around the

head, if I remember rightly carved out of one solid block of stone harder than any iron. The block must

have been as large as the Fifth Avenue Hotel before the usual waste (by the necessities of sculpture) of a

fourth or a half of the original mass was begun. I only set down these figures and these remarks to suggest the

prodigious labor the carving of it so elegantly, so symmetrically, so faultlessly, must have cost. This species

of stone is so hard that figures cut in it remain sharp and unmarred after exposure to the weather for two or

three thousand years. Now did it take a hundred years of patient toil to carve the Sphynx? It seems probable.

Something interfered, and we did not visit the Red Sea and walk upon the sands of Arabia. I shall not

describe the great mosque of Mehemet Ali, whose entire inner walls are built of polished and glistening

alabaster; I shall not tell how the little birds have built their nests in the globes of the great chandeliers that

hang in the mosque, and how they fill the whole place with their music and are not afraid of any body

because their audacity is pardoned, their rights are respected, and nobody is allowed to interfere with them,

even though the mosque be thus doomed to go unlighted; I certainly shall not tell the hackneyed story of the

massacre of the Mamelukes, because I am glad the lawless rascals were massacred, and I do not wish to get

up any sympathy in their behalf; I shall not tell how that one solitary Mameluke jumped his horse a hundred

feet down from the battlements of the citadel and escaped, because I do not think much of that I could

have done it myself; I shall not tell of Joseph's well which he dug in the solid rock of the citadel hill and

which is still as good as new, nor how the same mules he bought to draw up the water (with an endless chain)

are still at it yet and are getting tired of it, too; I shall not tell about Joseph's granaries which he built to store

the grain in, what time the Egyptian brokers were "selling short," unwitting that there would be no corn in all

the land when it should be time for them to deliver; I shall not tell any thing about the strange, strange city of

Cairo, because it is only a repetition, a good deal intensified and exaggerated, of the Oriental cities I have

already spoken of; I shall not tell of the Great Caravan which leaves for Mecca every year, for I did not see it;

nor of the fashion the people have of prostrating themselves and so forming a long human pavement to be

ridden over by the chief of the expedition on its return, to the end that their salvation may be thus secured, for

I did not see that either; I shall not speak of the railway, for it is like any other railway I shall only say that

the fuel they use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton

or by the graveyard for that purpose, and that sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, "D

n these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent pass out a King;"58.1 I shall not tell of the groups of

mud cones stuck like wasps' nests upon a thousand mounds above high watermark the length and breadth of

Egypt villages of the lower classes; I shall not speak of the boundless sweep of level plain, green with

luxuriant grain, that gladdens the eye as far as it can pierce through the soft, rich atmosphere of Egypt; I shall

not speak of the vision of the Pyramids seen at a distance of five and twenty miles, for the picture is too

ethereal to be limned by an uninspired pen; I shall not tell of the crowds of dusky women who flocked to the

cars when they stopped a moment at a station, to sell us a drink of water or a ruddy, juicy pomegranate; I

shall not tell of the motley multitudes and wild costumes that graced a fair we found in full blast at another

barbarous station; I shall not tell how we feasted on fresh dates and enjoyed the pleasant landscape all

through the flying journey; nor how we thundered into Alexandria, at last, swarmed out of the cars, rowed

aboard the ship, left a comrade behind, (who was to return to Europe, thence home,) raised the anchor, and

turned our bows homeward finally and forever from the long voyage; nor how, as the mellow sun went down

upon the oldest land on earth, Jack and Moult assembled in solemn state in the smokingroom and mourned

over the lost comrade the whole night long, and would not be comforted. I shall not speak a word of any of

these things, or write a line. They shall be as a sealed book. I do not know what a sealed book is, because I

never saw one, but a sealed book is the expression to use in this connection, because it is popular.

We were glad to have seen the land which was the mother of civilization which taught Greece her letters,

and through Greece Rome, and through Rome the world; the land which could have humanized and civilized

the hapless children of Israel, but allowed them to depart out of her borders little better than savages. We

were glad to have seen that land which had an enlightened religion with future eternal rewards and

punishment in it, while even Israel's religion contained no promise of a hereafter. We were glad to have seen

that land which had glass three thousand years before England had it, and could paint upon it as none of us

can paint now; that land which knew, three thousand years ago, well nigh all of medicine and surgery which

science has discovered lately; which had all those curious surgical instruments which science has invented

recently; which had in high excellence a thousand luxuries and necessities of an advanced civilization which

we have gradually contrived and accumulated in modern times and claimed as things that were new under the

sun; that had paper untold centuries before we dreampt of it and waterfalls before our women thought of

them; that had a perfect system of common schools so long before we boasted of our achievements in that

direction that it seems forever and forever ago; that so embalmed the dead that flesh was made almost

immortal which we can not do; that built temples which mock at destroying time and smile grimly upon

our lauded little prodigies of architecture; that old land that knew all which we know now, perchance, and

more; that walked in the broad highway of civilization in the gray dawn of creation, ages and ages before we

were born; that left the impress of exalted, cultivated Mind upon the eternal front of the Sphynx to confound

all scoffers who, when all her other proofs had passed away, might seek to persuade the world that imperial

58.1 Stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am willing to believe it. I can believe any thing.

WE were at sea now, for a very long voyage we were to pass through the entire length of the Levant;

through the entire length of the Mediterranean proper, also, and then cross the full width of the Atlantic a

voyage of several weeks. We naturally settled down into a very slow, stayathome manner of life, and

resolved to be quiet, exemplary people, and roam no more for twenty or thirty days. No more, at least, than

from stem to stern of the ship. It was a very comfortable prospect, though, for we were tired and needed a

We were all lazy and satisfied, now, as the meager entries in my notebook (that sure index, to me, of my

condition,) prove. What a stupid thing a notebook gets to be at sea, any way. Please observe the style:

"Monday Beautiful day, but rained hard. The cattle purchased at Alexandria for beef ought to be shingled.

Or else fattened. The water stands in deep puddles in the depressions forward of their after shoulders. Also

here and there all over their backs. It is well they are not cows it would soak in and ruin the milk. The

poor devil eagle59.1 from Syria looks miserable and droopy in the rain, perched on the forward capstan. He

appears to have his own opinion of a sea voyage, and if it were put into language and the language solidified,

"Tuesday Somewhere in the neighborhood of the island of Malta. Can not stop there. Cholera. Weather

"Wednesday Weather still very savage. Storm blew two land birds to sea, and they came on board. A

hawk was blown off, also. He circled round and round the ship, wanting to light, but afraid of the people. He

was so tired, though, that he had to light, at last, or perish. He stopped in the foretop, repeatedly, and was as

often blown away by the wind. At last Harry caught him. Sea full of flyingfish. They rise in flocks of three

hundred and flash along above the tops of the waves a distance of two or three hundred feet, then fall and

"Thursday Anchored off Algiers, Africa. Beautiful city, beautiful green hilly landscape behind it. Staid

half a day and left. Not permitted to land, though we showed a clean bill of health. They were afraid of

"Friday Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening, promenading the deck. Afterwards, charades.

"Saturday Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening, promenading the decks. Afterwards,

"Sunday Morning service, four bells. Evening service, eight bells. Monotony till midnight.

"Monday Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening, promenading the decks. Afterward,

"No date Anchored off the picturesque city of Cagliari, Sardinia. Staid till midnight, but not permitted to

land by these infamous foreigners. They smell inodorously they do not wash they dare not risk

"Thursday Anchored off the beautiful cathedral city of Malaga, Spain. Went ashore in the captain's

boat not ashore, either, for they would not let us land. Quarantine. Shipped my newspaper

correspondence, which they took with tongs, dipped it in sea water, clipped it full of holes, and then

fumigated it with villainous vapors till it smelt like a Spaniard. Inquired about chances to run to blockade and

visit the Alhambra at Granada. Too risky they might hang a body. Set sail middle of afternoon. "And

so on, and so on, and so forth, for several days. Finally, anchored off Gibraltar, which looks familiar and

It reminds me of the journal I opened with the New Year, once, when I was a boy and a confiding and a

willing prey to those impossible schemes of reform which wellmeaning old maids and grandmothers set for

the feet of unwary youths at that season of the year setting oversized tasks for them, which, necessarily

failing, as infallibly weaken the boy's strength of will, diminish his confidence in himself and injure his

"Monday Got up, washed, went to bed. "Tuesday Got up, washed, went to bed. "Wednesday Got

up, washed, went to bed. "Thursday Got up, washed, went to bed. "Friday Got up, washed, went to

bed. "Next Friday Got up, washed, went to bed. "Friday fortnight Got up, washed, went to bed.

I stopped, then, discouraged. Startling events appeared to be too rare, in my career, to render a diary

necessary. I still reflect with pride, however, that even at that early age I washed when I got up. That journal

finished me. I never have had the nerve to keep one since. My loss of confidence in myself in that line was

The ship had to stay a week or more at Gibraltar to take in coal for the home voyage.

It would be very tiresome staying here, and so four of us ran the quarantine blockade and spent seven

delightful days in Seville, Cordova, Cadiz, and wandering through the pleasant rural scenery of Andalusia,

the garden of Old Spain. The experiences of that cheery week were too varied and numerous for a short

chapter and I have not room for a long one. Therefore I shall leave them all out.

TEN or eleven o'clock found us coming down to breakfast one morning in Cadiz. They told us the ship had

been lying at anchor in the harbor two or three hours. It was time for us to bestir ourselves. The ship could

wait only a little while because of the quarantine. We were soon on board, and within the hour the white city

and the pleasant shores of Spain sank down behind the waves and passed out of sight. We had seen no land

It had long ago been decided in a noisy public meeting in the main cabin that we could not go to Lisbon,

because we must surely be quarantined there. We did every thing by massmeeting, in the good old national

way, from swapping off one empire for another on the programme of the voyage down to complaining of the

cookery and the scarcity of napkins. I am reminded, now, of one of these complaints of the cookery made by

a passenger. The coffee had been steadily growing more and more execrable for the space of three weeks, till

at last it had ceased to be coffee altogether and had assumed the nature of mere discolored water so this

person said. He said it was so weak that it was transparent an inch in depth around the edge of the cup. As he

approached the table one morning he saw the transparent edge by means of his extraordinary vision long

before he got to his seat. He went back and complained in a highhanded way to Capt. Duncan. He said the

coffee was disgraceful. The Captain showed his. It seemed tolerably good. The incipient mutineer was more

outraged than ever, then, at what he denounced as the partiality shown the captain's table over the other tables

in the ship. He flourished back and got his cup and set it down triumphantly, and said:

The humbled mutineer smelt it, tasted it, and returned to his seat. He had made an egregious ass of himself

before the whole ship. He did it no more. After that he took things as they came. That was me.

The oldfashioned shiplife had returned, now that we were no longer in sight of land. For days and days it

continued just the same, one day being exactly like another, and, to me, every one of them pleasant. At last

we anchored in the open roadstead of Funchal, in the beautiful islands we call the Madeiras.

The mountains looked surpassingly lovely, clad as they were in living, green; ribbed with lava ridges; flecked

with white cottages; riven by deep chasms purple with shade; the great slopes dashed with sunshine and

mottled with shadows flung from the drifting squadrons of the sky, and the superb picture fitly crowned by

But we could not land. We staid all day and looked, we abused the man who invented quarantine, we held

half a dozen massmeetings and crammed them full of interrupted speeches, motions that fell stillborn,

amendments that came to nought and resolutions that died from sheer exhaustion in trying to get before the

We averaged four massmeetings a week for the voyage we seemed always in labor in this way, and yet

so often fallaciously that whenever at long intervals we were safely delivered of a resolution, it was cause for

Days passed and nights; and then the beautiful Bermudas rose out of the sea, we entered the tortuous

channel, steamed hither and thither among the bright summer islands, and rested at last under the flag of

England and were welcome. We were not a nightmare here, where were civilization and intelligence in place

of Spanish and Italian superstition, dirt and dread of cholera. A few days among the breezy groves, the flower

gardens, the coral caves, and the lovely vistas of blue water that went curving in and out, disappearing and

anon again appearing through jungle walls of brilliant foliage, restored the energies dulled by long drowsing

on the ocean, and fitted us for our final cruise our little run of a thousand miles to New York America

We bade goodbye to "our friends the Bermudians," as our programme hath it the majority of those we

were most intimate with were negroes and courted the great deep again. I said the majority. We knew

more negroes than white people, because we had a deal of washing to be done, but we made some most

excellent friends among the whites, whom it will be a pleasant duty to hold long in grateful remembrance.

We sailed, and from that hour all idling ceased. Such another system of overhauling, general littering of

cabins and packing of trunks we had not seen since we let go the anchor in the harbor of Beirout. Every body

was busy. Lists of all purchases had to be made out, and values attached, to facilitate matters at the

customhouse. Purchases bought by bulk in partnership had to be equitably divided, outstanding debts

canceled, accounts compared, and trunks, boxes and packages labeled. All day long the bustle and confusion

And now came our first accident. A passenger was running through a gangway, between decks, one stormy

night, when he caught his foot in the iron staple of a door that had been heedlessly left off a hatchway, and

the bones of his leg broke at the ancle. It was our first serious misfortune. We had traveled much more than

twenty thousand miles, by land and sea, in many trying climates, without a single hurt, without a serious case

of sickness and without a death among five and sixty passengers. Our good fortune had been wonderful. A

sailor had jumped overboard at Constantinople one night, and was seen no more, but it was suspected that his

object was to desert, and there was a slim chance, at least, that he reached the shore. But the passenger list

At last, one pleasant morning, we steamed up the harbor of New York, all on deck, all dressed in Christian

garb by special order, for there was a latent disposition in some quarters to come out as Turks and

amid a waving of handkerchiefs from welcoming friends, the glad pilgrims noted the shiver of the decks that

told that ship and pier had joined hands again and the long, strange cruise was over. Amen.

IN this place I will print an article which I wrote for the New York Herald the night we arrived. I do it partly

because my contract with my publishers makes it compulsory; partly because it is a proper, tolerably

accurate, and exhaustive summing up of the cruise of the ship and the performances of the pilgrims in foreign

lands; and partly because some of the passengers have abused me for writing it, and I wish the public to see

how thankless a task it is to put one's self to trouble to glorify unappreciative people. I was charged with

"rushing into print" with these compliments. I did not rush. I had written news letters to the Herald

sometimes, but yet when I visited the office that day I did not say any thing about writing a valedictory. I did

go to the Tribune office to see if such an article was wanted, because I belonged on the regular staff of that

paper and it was simply a duty to do it. The managing editor was absent, and so I thought no more about it.

At night when the Herald's request came for an article, I did not "rush." In fact, I demurred for a while,

because I did not feel like writing compliments then, and therefore was afraid to speak of the cruise lest I

might be betrayed into using other than complimentary language. However, I reflected that it would be a just

and righteous thing to go down and write a kind word for the Hadjis Hadjis are people who have made the

pilgrimage because parties not interested could not do it so feelingly as I, a fellowHadji, and so I penned

the valedictory. I have read it, and read it again; and if there is a sentence in it that is not fulsomely

complimentary to captain, ship and passengers, I can not find it. If it is not a chapter that any company might

be proud to have a body write about them, my judgment is fit for nothing. With these remarks I confidently

The steamer Quaker City has accomplished at last her extraordinary voyage and returned to her old pier at the

foot of Wall street. The expedition was a success in some respects, in some it was not. Originally it was

advertised as a "pleasure excursion." Well, perhaps, it was a pleasure excursion, but certainly it did not look

like one; certainly it did not act like one. Any body's and every body's notion of a pleasure excursion is that

the parties to it will of a necessity be young and giddy and somewhat boisterous. They will dance a good

deal, sing a good deal, make love, but sermonize very little. Any body's and every body's notion of a well

conducted funeral is that there must be a hearse and a corpse, and chief mourners and mourners by courtesy ,

many old people, much solemnity, no levity, and a prayer and a sermon withal. Threefourths of the Quaker

City's passengers were between forty and seventy years of age! There was a picnic crowd for you! It may be

supposed that the other fourth was composed of young girls. But it was not. It was chiefly composed of rusty

old bachelors and a child of six years. Let us average the ages of the Quaker City's pilgrims and set the figure

down as fifty years. Is any man insane enough to imagine that this picnic of patriarchs sang, made love,

danced, laughed, told anecdotes, dealt in ungodly levity? In my experience they sinned little in these matters.

No doubt it was presumed here at home that these frolicsome veterans laughed and sang and romped all day,

and day after day, and kept up a noisy excitement from one end of the ship to the other; and that they played

blindman's buff or danced quadrilles and waltzes on moonlight evenings on the quarterdeck; and that at

odd moments of unoccupied time they jotted a laconic item or two in the journals they opened on such an

elaborate plan when they left home, and then skurried off to their whist and euchre labors under the cabin

lamps. If these things were presumed, the presumption was at fault. The venerable excursionists were not gay

and frisky. They played no blindman's buff; they dealt not in whist; they shirked not the irksome journal, for

alas! most of them were even writing books. They never romped, they talked but little, they never sang, save

in the nightly prayermeeting. The pleasure ship was a synagogue, and the pleasure trip was a funeral

excursion without a corpse. (There is nothing exhilarating about a funeral excursion without a corpse.) A free,

hearty laugh was a sound that was not heard oftener than once in seven days about those decks or in those

cabins, and when it was heard it met with precious little sympathy. The excursionists danced, on three

separate evenings, long, long ago, (it seems an age.) quadrilles, of a single set, made up of three ladies and

five gentlemen, (the latter with handkerchiefs around their arms to signify their sex.) who timed their feet to

the solemn wheezing of a melodeon; but even this melancholy orgie was voted to be sinful, and dancing was

The pilgrims played dominoes when too much Josephus or Robinson's Holy Land Researches, or

bookwriting, made recreation necessary for dominoes is about as mild and sinless a game as any in the

world, perhaps, excepting always the ineffably insipid diversion they call croquet, which is a game where you

don't pocket any balls and don't carom on any thing of any consequence, and when you are done nobody has

to pay, and there are no refreshments to saw off, and, consequently, there isn't any satisfaction whatever

about it they played dominoes till they were rested, and then they blackguarded each other privately till

prayertime. When they were not seasick they were uncommonly prompt when the dinnergong sounded.

Such was our daily life on board the ship solemnity, decorum, dinner, dominoes, devotions, slander. It

was not lively enough for a pleasure trip; but if we had only had a corpse it would have made a noble funeral

excursion. It is all over now; but when I look back, the idea of these venerable fossils skipping forth on a six

months' picnic, seems exquisitely refreshing. The advertised title of the expedition "The Grand Holy Land

Pleasure Excursion" was a misnomer. "The Grand Holy Land Funeral Procession" would have been better

Wherever we went, in Europe, Asia, or Africa, we made a sensation, and, I suppose I may add, created a

famine. None of us had ever been any where before; we all hailed from the interior; travel was a wild novelty

to us, and we conducted ourselves i n accordance with the natural instincts that were in us, and trammeled

ourselves with no ceremonies, no conventionalities. We always took care to make it understood that we were

Americans Americans! When we found that a good many foreigners had hardly ever heard of America,

and that a good many more knew it only as a barbarous province away off somewhere, that had lately been at

war with somebody, we pitied the ignorance of the Old World, but abated no jot of our importance. Many and

many a simple community in the Eastern hemisphere will remember for years the incursion of the strange

horde in the year of our Lord 1867, that called themselves Americans, and seemed to imagine in some

unaccountable way that they had a right to be proud of it. We generally created a famine, partly because the

coffee on the Quaker City was unendurable, and sometimes the more substantial fare was not strictly first

class; and partly because one naturally tires of sitting long at the same board and eating from the same dishes.

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had

brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed

that we looked out for expenses, and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in

the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in

French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. One of our passengers

said to a shopkeeper, in reference to a proposed return to buy a pair of gloves, "Allong restay trankeel

may be ve coom Moonday;" and would you believe it, that shopkeeper, a born Frenchman, had to ask what it

was that had been said. Sometimes it seems to me, somehow, that there must be a difference between Parisian

The people stared at us every where, and we stared at them. We generally made them feel rather small, too,

before we got done with them, because we bore down on them with America's greatness until we crushed

them. And yet we took kindly to the manners and customs, and especially to the fashions of the various

people we visited. When we left the Azores, we wore awful capotes and used fine tooth combs

successfully. When we came back from Tangier, in Africa, we were topped with fezzes of the bloodies t hue,

hung with tassels like an Indian's scalplock. In France and Spain we attracted some attention in these

costumes. In Italy they naturally took us for distempered Garibaldians, and set a gunboat to look for any thing

significant in our changes of uniform. We made Rome howl. We could have made any place howl when we

had all our clothes on. We got no fresh raiment in Greece they had but little there of any kind. But at

Constantinople, how we turned out! Turbans, scimetars, fezzes, horsepistols, tunics, sashes, baggy trowsers,

yellow slippers Oh, we were gorgeous! The illustrious dogs of Constantinople barked their under jaws off,

and even then failed to do us justice. They are all dead by this time. They could not go through such a run of

And then we went to see the Emperor of Russia. We just called on him as comfortably as if we had known

him a century or so, and when we had finished our visit we variegated ourselves with selections from Russian

costumes and sailed away again more picturesque than ever. In Smyrna we picked up camel's hair shawls and

other dressy things from Persia; but in Palestine ah, in Palestine our splendid career ended. They didn't

wear any clothes there to speak of. We were satisfied, and stopped. We made no experiments. We did not try

their costume. But we astonished the natives of that country. We astonished them with such eccentricities of

dress as we could muster. We prowled through the Holy Land, from Cesarea Philippi to Jerusalem and the

Dead Sea, a weird procession of pilgrims, gotten up regardless of expense, solemn, gorgeous,

greenspectacled, drowsing under blue umbrellas, and astride of a sorrier lot of horses, camels and asses than

those that came out of Noah's ark, after eleven months of seasickness and short rations. If ever those children

of Israel in Palestine forget when Gideon's Band went through there from America, they ought to be cursed

once more and finished. It was the rarest spectacle that ever astounded mortal eyes, perhaps.

Well, we were at home in Palestine. It was easy to see that that was the grand feature of the expedition. We

had cared nothing much about Europe. We galloped through the Louvre, the Pitti, the Ufizzi, the Vatican

all the galleries and through the pictured and frescoed churches of Venice, Naples, and the cathedrals of

Spain; some of us said that certain of the great works of the old masters were glorious creations of genius,

(we found it out in the guidebook, though we got hold of the wrong picture sometimes,) and the others said

they were disgraceful old daubs. We examined modern and ancient statuary with a critical eye in Florence,

Rome, or any where we found it, and praised it if we saw fit, and if we didn't we said we preferred the

wooden Indians in front of the cigar stores of America. But the Holy Land brought out all our enthusiasm.

We fell into raptures by the barren shores of Galilee; we pondered at Tabor and at Nazareth; we exploded into

poetry over the questionable loveliness of Esdraelon; we meditated at Jezreel and Samaria over the

missionary zeal of Jehu; we rioted fairly rioted among the holy places of Jerusalem; we bathed in Jordan

and the Dead Sea, reckless whether our accidentinsurance policies were extrahazardous or not, and

brought away so many jugs of precious water from both places that all the country from Jericho to the

mountains of Moab will suffer from drouth this year, I think. Yet, the pilgrimage part of the excursion was its

pet feature there is no question about that. After dismal, smileless Palestine, beautiful Egypt had few

They wouldn't let us land at Malta quarantine; they would not let us land in Sardinia; nor at Algiers,

Africa; nor at Malaga, Spain, nor Cadiz, nor at the Madeira islands. So we got offended at all foreigners and

turned our backs upon them and cam e home. I suppose we only stopped at the Bermudas because they were

in the programme. We did not care any thing about any place at all. We wanted to go home. Homesickness

was abroad in the ship it was epidemic. If the authorities of New York had known how badly we had it,

The grand pilgrimage is over. Goodbye to it, and a pleasant memory to it, I am able to say in all kindness. I

bear no malice, no illwill toward any individual that was connected with it, either as passenger or officer.

Things I did not like at all yesterday I like very well today, now that I am at home, and always hereafter I

shall be able to poke fun at the whole gang if the spirit so moves me to do, without ever saying a malicious

word. The expedition accomplished all that its programme promised that it should accomplish, and we ought

I call that complimentary. It is complimentary; and yet I never have received a word of thanks for it from the

Hadjis; on the contrary I speak nothing but the serious truth when I say that many of them even took

exceptions to the article. In endeavoring to please them I slaved over that sketch for two hours, and had my

CONCLUSION. NEARLY one year has flown since this notable pilgrimage was ended; and as I sit here at

home in San Francisco thinking, I am moved to confess that day by day the mass of my memories of the

excursion have grown more and more pleasant as the disagreeable incidents of travel which encumbered them

flitted one by one out of my mind and now, if the Quaker City were weighing her anchor to sail away on

the very same cruise again, nothing could gratify me more than to be a passenger. With the same captain and

even the same pilgrims, the same sinners. I was on excellent terms with eight or nine of the excursionists

(they are my staunch friends yet,) and was even on speaking terms with the rest of the sixtyfive. I have been

at sea quite enough to know that that was a very good average. Because a long seavoyage not only brings

out all the mean traits one has, and exaggerates them, but raises up others which he never suspected he

possessed, and even creates new ones. A twelve months' voyage at sea would make of an ordinary man a very

miracle of meanness. On the other hand, if a man has good qualities, the spirit seldom moves him to exhibit

them on shipboard, at least with any sort of emphasis. Now I am satisfied that our pilgrims are pleasant old

people on shore; I am also satisfied that at sea on a second voyage they would be pleasanter, somewhat, than

they were on our grand excursion, and so I say without hesitation that I would be glad enough to sail with

them again. I could at least enjoy life with my handful of old friends. They could enjoy life with their cliques

And I will say, here, that I would rather travel with an excursion party of Methuselahs than have to be

changing ships and comrades constantly, as people do who travel in the ordinary way. Those latter are always

grieving over some other ship they have known and lost, and over other comrades whom diverging routes

have separated from them. They learn to love a ship just in time to change it for another, and they become

attached to a pleasant traveling companion only to lose him. They have that most dismal experience of being

in a strange vessel, among strange people who care nothing about them, and of undergoing the customary

bullying by strange officers and the insolence of strange servants, repeated over and over again within the

compass of every month. They have also that other misery of packing and unpacking trunks of running

the distressing gauntlet of customhouses of the anxieties attendant upon getting a mass of baggage from

point to point on land in safety. I had rasher sail with a whole brigade of patriarchs than suffer so. We never

packed our trunks but twice when we sailed from New York, and when we returned to it. Whenever we

made a land journey, we estimated how many days we should be gone and what amount of clothing w e

should need, figured it down to a mathematical nicety, packed a valise or two accordingly, and left the trunks

on board. We chose our comrades from among our old, tried friends, and started. We were never dependent

upon strangers for companionship. We often had occasion to pity Americans whom we found traveling

drearily among strangers with no friends to exchange pains and pleasures with. Whenever we were coming

back from a land journey, our eyes sought one thing in the distance first the ship and when we saw it

riding at anchor with the flag apeak, we felt as a returning wanderer feels when he sees his home. When we

stepped on board, our cares vanished, our troubles were at an end for the ship was home to us. We always

had the same familiar old stateroom to go to, and feel safe and at peace and comfortable again.

I have no fault to find with the manner in which our excursion was conducted. Its programme was faithfully

carried out a thing which surprised me, for great enterprises usually promise vastly more than they

perform. It would be well if such an excursion could be gotten up every year and the system regularly

inaugurated. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrowmindedness, and many of our people need it

sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by

The Excursion is ended, and has passed to its place among the things that were. But its varied scenes and its

manifold incidents will linger pleasantly in our memories for many a year to come. Always on the wing, as

we were, and merely pausing a moment to catch fitful glimpses of the wonders of half a world, we could not

hope to receive or retain vivid impressions of all it was our fortune to see. Yet our holyday flight has not been

in vain for above the confusion of vague recollections, certain o f its best prized pictures lift themselves

and will still continue perfect in tint and outline after their surroundings shall have faded away.

We shall remember something of pleasant France; and something also of Paris, though it flashed upon us a

splendid meteor, and was gone again, we hardly knew how or where. We shall remember, always, how we

saw majestic Gibraltar glorified with the rich coloring of a Spanish sunset and swimming in a sea of

rainbows. In fancy we shall see Milan again, and her stately Cathedral with its marble wilderness of graceful

spires. And Padua Verona Como, jeweled with stars; and patrician Venice, afloat on her stagnant flood

silent, desolate, haughty scornful of her humbled state wrapping herself in memories of her lost

fleets, of battle and triumph, and all the pageantry of a glory that is departed.

We can not forget Florence Naples nor the foretaste of heaven that is in the delicious atmosphere of

Greece and surely not Athens and the broken temples of the Acropolis. Surely not venerable Rome nor

the green plain that compasses her round about, contrasting its brightness with her gray decay nor the

ruined arches that stand apart in the plain and clothe their looped and windowed raggedness with vines. We

shall remember St. Peter's: not as one sees it when he walks the streets of Rome and fancies all her domes are

just alike, but a s he sees it leagues away, when every meaner edifice has faded out of sight and that one

dome looms superbly up in the flush of sunset, full of dignity and grace, strongly outlined as a mountain.

We shall remember Constantinople and the Bosporus the colossal magnificence of Baalbec the

Pyramids of Egypt the prodigious form, the benignant countenance of the Sphynx Oriental Smyrna

sacred Jerusalem Damascus, the "Pearl of the East," the pride of Syria, the fabled Garden of Eden, the

home of princes and genii of the Arabian Nights, the oldest metropolis on earth, the one city in all the world

that has kept its name and held its place and looked serenely on while the Kingdoms and Empires of four

thousand years have risen to life, enjoyed their little season of pride and pomp, and then vanished and been