CHAPTER III.
Duels.—Judicial Combats.—Existing Code of Honour.—Appeal to Arms.—Discussion on Duelling.—Mount Peril.—Noxious Vapours.—The Cavern.
The visit of the travellers to Mount Peril, in the state of Bath, was preceded, and in some measure probably caused, by a conversation casually occurring on the subject of duels; and the notes taken of this, it may be as well first to lay before the reader.
Much inquiry and mutual communication appear to have taken place, as was to be expected, between the Southlanders and their guests respecting the institutions and manners of their respective countries; and among others the subject of duelling, as prevailing among the Europeans and Americans, happened one day to be introduced in a mixed company. A large proportion of the younger persons present expressed their astonishment that a peoplepretending to civilization should fight out their disputes “like the savages.” This expression, as appears from several of the notices already recorded, was perpetually in their mouths; and some added, that the savages in their code of honour had the advantage of the Europeans. The New-Hollanders in these parts have, it seems, in respect of their duels, similar customs to those that have been observed by our settlers.
It has long been known that the aborigines of New South Wales leave all quarrels between individuals to be settled by a solemn judicial combat, the community interfering no farther than to see fair play. But their notions of fair play differ considerably from ours. If it, indeed, does not appear clearly which is the party aggrieved, they fight it out, man to man; the tribe being present as bystanders, while the combatants engage with spears or waddies (wooden swords) till thesatisfactionis complete. But if one of the parties is adjudged to have the preponderance of justice on his side, he is allowed to bring a friend with him, as an auxiliary; and in very flagrant cases,even two or more, according to the character of the offence to be avenged.
In all cases, the offending party, however clear his guilt may be, is allowed to fight for his life; but in some cases, of course, against such odds as render it next to impossible he should escape. This, the Southlanders observed, was a degree better than the European duels, in which the regulations of our code of honour require the parties, however palpably one of them may be in the wrong, to meet on equal terms, or with an inequality only in favour of the one who may chance to be the better shot or swordsman.
Others of the company entered more fully into the discussion of the general grounds on which duelling is to be reprobated, being cordially joined in their censure by Mr. Jones, who urged the objections, with which every one is familiar, against the wickedness of taking away a fellow-creature’s life, and exposing one’s own, in revenge for a trifling affront—the absurdity of calling it a satisfaction to stand to be shot at, and other such topics, which it is unnecessary to enlarge on, as they may be read innumerous essays and tales, and heard at every tea-table.
The Messrs. Smith, on the other hand (naval men, as has been already mentioned) took the other side, and endeavoured to vindicate the existing code of honour. They urged that it is needless and nugatory to go about to prove that a duel is a bad thing, and that to censure the laws of honour on that ground is as unfair as to censure the law of the land on the ground that imprisonment and hanging are evils, these being the penalties denounced against a violation of the laws.
The requisition to expose one’s life in a duel is, in like manner, the penalty denounced against a violation of the rules established in the society of gentlemen. The law of honour, they said, does not enjoin men to seek a duel as a desirable thing, but, on the contrary, to act in such a manner as to preclude all occasion for an appeal to arms; and that the penalty which any system of rules holds out against the violation of them should be regarded as something to be carefully avoided: this, so far frombeing an objection to the system, is essential to its maintenance. As for the unfairness of putting the injured and injuring party on a level,thatthey did not deny; but contended that it was an unavoidable evil, as in the case of war between two independent states. That every war is an evil,—that in every war one party must be in the wrong, and very often both: all this is universally admitted, but all this does not answer the practical question, whether, on the ground that war is an evil, a state should submit, and proclaim itself ready to submit, to any extent of encroachment and aggression from foreign nations without resistance. “If you go to war,” it might be urged, “with those who have wronged you, you put yourself on equal terms with the wrong-doer, and are likely to suffer as much or more than the offending party.” “Very true,” it might be answered, “but we cannot help that; if we could, we would make all the evil of the war fall on the nation that has injured us; but as it is, we must do the best we can to deter our neighbours from injuring us: having no commonsuperior to appeal to, we have no alternative but to fight for our rights, or to be insulted and oppressed with impunity.”
When it was urged in reply, that, though nations have not, individuals have, a common authority to appeal to—that of the community to which they belong, this was roundly denied; and it was contended that the appeal to single combat does not take place in cases when the law of the land provides adequate redress, but in those only where it either cannot or will not afford any, or any but such as would be a mere mockery to the feelings of the sufferer. A man, they urge, does not challenge any one for robbing him of his purse, or for firing his barn, but for injuries of quite a different description, far more grievous to one moving in a certain circle of society, but which the law either refuses to take cognizance of at all, or for which it provides such redress as would aggravate the evil by rendering the sufferer ridiculous. Now a man resigns to the community his natural right of personal self-defence on the implied condition that the community shall protect him; and in cases,therefore, where it either cannot, or will not, fulfil this condition, his original natural right remains unimpaired. Thus, when a man is suddenly assaulted by a robber, he is free to defend his person and property as well as he can; and on the same principle, when the injury is of such a character as the law will not, or cannot, defend him from, he is left to guard his own honour with his own hand.
As to the evils resulting from duels, they observed that it is most unfair not to take into account—though to calculate would be impossible—the immense amount of evils prevented, and which there is reason to suppose would take place but for the apprehension of a duel. The insolence, the falsehood, the slander, the base and the overbearing conduct, which are daily kept in check in many thousands of persons by the recollection that there is such a thing as being “called out” for such behaviour, is what no one can compute with any approach to accuracy; these being preventive and negative effects, and therefore incapable of being calculated, and liable to be underrated.
Some idea, however, they added, may be formed of these effects of the laws of honour by looking to the conduct of those classes of persons who are exempted from them. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for instance, who are cried up as exempt from this Gothic barbarism, were accustomed, as we see from the specimens of their orators that have come down to us, publicly to revile each other in the grossest language. The Mahometans also, of all ranks, appear to be, with few exceptions, very much what Europeans would characterize by the term “blackguards;” and the same description seems very applicable to the people of the Celestial empire, from the haughty mandarin downwards.
In Europe, again, said these gentlemen, we see that those among the higher classes—viz. ladies and clergymen, (it is to be presumed the Messrs. Smith had met with unfavourable specimens of these, and were rashly judging from such specimens,)—who are exempt from this law, are apt to avail themselves of that exemption by indulging themselves in the use of such language, and in such violation oftruth and of decorum in their attacks on opponents as a layman would be deterred from by the apprehension of personal danger; so that, on the whole, it was contended that the evil of the lives lost in duels—an extremely small number—may be reckoned a cheap price paid by society for the advantages of civilized and well-regulated manners. And, after all, it was added, even that evil is not to be laid to the charge of the law of honour as a necessary accompaniment, since, if all persons adhered constantly to the rules of good society, there would never be occasion for a duel; in the same manner as there would never be occasion, if all men would comply with the law of the land, for any of the penalties of the law to be actually inflicted.
An old gentleman named Christopher Adamson, of the State of Bath, who was present at this discussion, now came forward to declare his conviction that these arguments, though not without plausibility, were entirely unsound, and his confidence that he should be able to establish this to the satisfaction of the whole party; but he proposed to defer giving his reasonstill they should have viewed a spot in his neighbourhood, curious and interesting on many accounts, and closely and historically connected with the subject under discussion.
This was the celebrated Mount Peril (already alluded to), in the immediate vicinity of the city of Bath. The invitation was accepted; and the travellers shortly after set out on their excursion to visit this mountain. It plainly appears to be an extinct volcano. The settlers found it regarded with superstitious awe by the natives, who had among them a tradition of smoke having been seen at times to issue from it, and who regarded it as the habitation of certain malignant deities, of a similar character to the Pèlè venerated in the island of Hawaii (Owhyhee). The medicinal warm springs flowing from the foot of it gave occasion to the fixing of the city of Bath (thence so named) in the neighbourhood. It is one of the oldest states, the warm baths having early acquired such repute as to be highly attractive.
The circumstance which gave rise to the appellation of Mount Peril was the existence of certain caverns and fissures on one of its sides,emitting at times noxious vapours, which had more than once proved fatal to those who had incautiously ventured too near them. These were reputed by the natives to be the abode of evil spirits, destructive to such as approached them: and in the etymological sense of the word spirit (spiritus, blast) this might be said to be literally true; for our travellers soon ascertained that the danger arose from a deleterious gas, the same that in coalpits is called the choke-damp, found also in the celebrated “Grotto del Cane” in Italy, named and long celebrated for the cruel experiments practised on dogs for the gratification of travellers. This gas, now well known to every smatterer in chemistry as the carbonic acid gas, so poisonous when received into the lungs, issues forth, it should seem, in irregular blasts from these caverns, so as to render them more dangerous of approach at some times than at others; so that many persons have passed with impunity spots which have at different times affected others with alarming or even fatal suffocation.
The cavern which the travellers inspectedthe most closely is situated at the foot of a perpendicular cliff, about fifty feet in height, from the top of which the mouth may be seen very distinctly and with perfect safety; the gas being, as is well known, so much heavier than common air that there is no danger of its rising even near so high as the top of the cliff. The visitors tried the experiment of letting down by a rope, with a chain at the lower end of it, a little iron grating brought for the purpose, containing (as a humane substitute for a living dog) splinters of dry wood set on fire, which being lowered when in a full blaze into the cavern’s mouth, were suddenly and completely extinguished. This cavern was easily accessible from below, as it opened a kind of terrace of nearly level ground, called “the Ordeal Path;” but though many persons had passed it with impunity, it was considered too hazardous an experiment to be wantonly risked.