At the end of the volume are extracts from the notes of Sir Joshua Reynolds. They are extremely interesting, both from their examples of success, and warnings by failure. We cannot help reflecting, on reading these notes, upon the great importance of such a work as Mr Eastlake's. Had Sir Joshua Reynolds been in possession of such a volume, how many of his pictures, now perished and perishing, would have been preserved for immortality! and how much better might even the best have been by the certainty of means which would have been within his reach! and we should not have had to regret, as we often do in looking at some of his best pictures, that somewhat heavy labouring after a brilliancy and a power not always compatible, and perhaps not then attainable, which shows that his mind was thoroughly imbued with a full sense of the excellency of the great masters, but that he wanted such a work as the learning, the research, and discriminating judgment of Mr Eastlake now offers for the study and practice of every professor of the art. To these notes are added some interesting remarks by our author upon the effects of the recipes with which the pictures were painted, as they are now visible in the works themselves.
This book could not have appeared at a more fit time. The English school is becoming of too great importance to waste any of its powers any longer in the perishing and weak materials of our various meguilps; and the German school may be arrested by it in their backward progress to the old, quaint, dry method which the old masters themselves quitted as soon as the improvements of the Van Eycks, and the modifications of those improvements by their successors, established upon a basis for immortality painting in oil.
We must forbear, lest our readers may be wearied with the name of varnish, and may think we resemble that unfortunate painter, who, bewildering his wits upon the subject, became deranged, and varnished his clothes with turpentine varnish, and went in this state shining through the streets.
There appears to be something pedantical in criticising a popular proverb—something vexatious in calling in question the sort of ancestral wisdom it is supposed to contain—in disputing a truth, which has been formalised and accepted by the general assent and perpetual iteration, at all hours of the day, by all sorts of talkers. Besides, who knows not that a proverb is not a logical statement? It is always a one-sided view of the matter, so that the most opposite of proverbs may be equally true; it gains its currency, and its very force and pungency, by a bold exclusion at once of all that qualification, and exception, and limitation, which your exact thinkers require. We will not, therefore, enter into any profane or captious dispute of one of the most current of the whole family of proverbs, that which assigns so great a value to thepremier pas, to the first step, in any enterprise or career of life, so that this once accomplished, all the rest is easy, all the rest is done,ce n'est que le premier pas qui conte. We will not criticise, nor qualify, nor except; only this wewillsay, that many a first step has been made that led nowhere,—to nothing; that a multitude of professional and other aspirants would allow, if they reflected on it a moment, that they had, all their lives long, at certain intervals, been making first steps, and never made any other. More glory, doubtless, is due to them for having overcome so many successive difficulties. Whilst, on the other hand, many who have advanced to eminence in their chosen career, would find it hard to distinguish, in that gradual progress which toil and talent had together commanded, any one first step, or stride, which set them going on their prosperous path, any step a jot more extraordinary than the rest, or that did more towards the completion of the journey than the first step one makes in walking from Edinburgh to Leith. They would have as much difficulty in describing thepremier paswhich started them on the road to fortune, as many a good Christian, well brought up from youth to manhood, would feel if called upon to answer a Whitfield or a Wesley, as to the precise day and hour of his conversion. The truth is, we apprehend, that in this popular proverb, two several matters are confused together under one name, thus giving to it a greater force than it should legitimately possess; thepremier pasnot only signifies that first step one takes on any of the high roads which conduct to wealth or honours, but under the same title is also included, we suspect, those startling turns and tricks of fortune, on which no human wit can calculate, and which raise a man suddenly into some new and unexpected position in the world. All kinds of fortunate starting points are mingled together in one view, and under one title; an thus, thefirst stepbecomes magnified into half the journey, as indeed it is sometimes the whole of it.
For instance—a Meinherr Tettenborn was passing the weary, half-employed hours at a merchant's desk, kicking his heels, probably, on one of those tall uneasy stools which, with strange mockery of disproportion, raise the lowest functionary to the highest footing, but which nevertheless contribute to preserve the due distinctions of society, by inflicting all possible discomfort on the elevated sitter. Perhaps there was some association of ideas between the military profession, and the equestrian position he occasionally found it convenient to assume; however that may be, Meinherr Tettenborn suddenly bethought him, that he would bestride a high-trotting horse instead of his tall black stool. He threw away the pen for the sword. At this time all Europe was up in arms against Napoleon; so that, although he entered the Service of the Emperor of Russia, he was still but enlisting in the common cause, in which his own Germany was more interested than may other country. He entered, as may be supposed, in the lowest rank of officers; and, as cornet, or with somesuch title, you may picture him at the head of a small troop of horse, despatched for forage or some ordinary service of the like kind. As he was thus conducting his little troop, he spied "something black" lying in a field by the side of the road. He cantered up to it. The something black was nothing less than a small park of artillery, sixteen guns, which the enemy had left behind them, perhaps in some false alarm, or for want of horses to draw them, but apparently for the very purpose of being captured by Meinherr Tettenborn. He ordered up his little troop, harnessed their horses to the guns, and rode back triumphant to the camp. The Emperor himself was present. News was speedily brought him of the capture of a park of artillery, and the illustrious victor was introduced. Many questions were not asked of the how, or the when, or the where; the guns happened to be particularly welcome; the Emperor took from his own neck the order of the Iron Cross, and suspended it round the neck of the fortunate young soldier, greeting him, at the same time, with the title of General Tettenborn! The general was a brave man, was equal to his new position, captured other guns in another manner, and rose, we will not venture to say how high in the Imperial service.
Now this very anecdote we have heard cited as an example, illustrating the proverb,ce n'est que le premier pas, &c. Yet this finding something black lying quietly in the green fields, which proved to be a park of artillery waiting to be captured, cannot certainly be set down amongst the early steps of a military career, is not known amongst the means or stages of promotion, but is manifestly one of those joyous caprices which Fortune occasionally indulges in, for the express purpose, we presume, that castle-building in the air may never go quite out of fashion.
In a very amusing collection of anecdotes, entitled,Fêtes et Souvenirs du Congrès Vienne, par le Comte A. de la Garde, there is a good story told of one of these capricious visitations of Fortune, which came,—where Fortune does not often play her more amiable tricks,—to a miserable poet, releasing him at once from poverty and his jaded muse. We regret to be obliged to tell the story from memory. We ought to have preserved the book, if only out of gratitude—for it was the most pleasant travelling companion, the best fellowship for a diligence or a steam-boat, we remember to have encountered. But the market price of the small paper-bound volumes (such was the shape in which it came to us) was so little—it being one of those editions which the journalists on the Continent often print to distribute gratis to the subscribers to their journal—that no pains were taken to preserve it. Very absurd! We print books so cheap, that the book loses half its value: it is bought and not read; or read once, and thrown aside, or destroyed.
Poor Dubois was one of that unhappy class, which we are given to understand is dying out of Europe, (we hope for the sake of suffering humanity that this is true); of that class, which we in England used to call Grub Street poets. Heflourishedat the time of the Empire, and had been flourishing during the whole of the eventful period that preceded the elevation of Napoleon. Poor Dubois had alternately applauded and satirised all parties, and written songs for all sentiments; but had extracted very little either of praise or pocket-money from any of the reigning powers, whether republican or imperial. He was quite in despair. Still young in years, but with worn-out rhymes, he was lamenting one day to his sister his melancholy and hopeless fate. This damsel was in the service of Pauline the sister of Napoleon. "Write me a sonnet," said she, "about Pauline, and about beauty, and let me try what I can do." A beautiful sonnet, and a sonnet about beauty, are two very different things. Dubois made nothing of his task, but did it out of hand: his sister took the sonnet with her.
It was not long before she had an opportunity, in her capacity offemme de chambre, of speaking to Pauline about her brother the poet. Sheproduced her sonnet about beauty. Pauline did not exactly read it; no one but the writer, and a few afflicted friends, and those heroic souls who do things to say they have done them, ever do read sonnets; but she glanced her eye down the rhymes, and saw her own name in harmonious connexion with some very sweet epithets. Therefore she asked what she could do for the poet—what it was he wanted? Alas! every thing! was the prompt and candid reply,—some little post, some modest appointment.
Now it happened that Fouché at that time was doing his best to conciliate the fair Pauline, who with or without reason, had shown a little humour against the minister of police. He had frequently entreated her to make use of his power in favour of any of her friends. "Well," said the good-natured Pauline, "this Fouché is always plaguing me to ask for something; give me a desk."
A lady's pen upon the smooth vellum—you know how fleetly it runs, and what pretty exaggeration of phrase must necessarily flow from it. The style, the very elegance of the note, demands it. Dubois was in an instant, and most charmingly converted into a man of neglected genius and unmerited distress. What was the happy turn of expression is lost to us for ever: but as Fouché read the note, he understood that there was a man of talent to be assisted, and, what was still more to the purpose, an opportunity of showing his gallantry to Pauline.
The next day the minister rode forth in state accompanied by four mountedgens-d'armes. Following the address which had been given him, he found himself in one of the least inviting parts of Paris, far better known to his own myrmidons of police than to himself. But, arrived before the enormous pile of building, which was said to enclose our poet amidst its swarm of tenants, he made vain inquiries for Monsieur Dubois. At last an old crone came to his assistance: she remembered him; she had washed for him, and had never been paid. If you do not wish to be forgotten by all the world, take care there is some one living to whom you are in debt.
Meanwhile Dubois, from his aërial habitation, had heard his own name pronounced, and looking out at window caught sight of thegens-d'armes. For which of his satires or libels he was to undergo the honour of prosecution, he could not divine; but that his poetical effusions were at last to bring him into hapless notoriety, was the only conclusion he could arrive at. That he was still perfectly safe, inasmuch as write what he would nobody read, was the last idea likely to suggest itself to the poet. He would have rushed down stairs, but steps were heard ascending. So much furniture as a cupboard may stand for, the bare walls of his solitary room did not display. There was nothing for it but to leap into what he called his bed, and hide beneath the blankets, always presuming they were long enough to cover both extremities at once. The minister, undeterred by the difficulties of the ascent, and animated by his gallantry towards Pauline, continued to mount, and at length entered the poet's retreat. Great are the eccentricities of genius, and lamentable the resources of pride and poverty, thought Fouché, as he gently drew the blankets down, and discovered the dismayed Dubois. Some conciliatory words soon relieved him of his terror. The awful visit of the minister of police had terminated—could it be credited!—in an invitation to breakfast with him next morning.
Judge if he failed in his appointment; judge if he was not surprised beyond all measure of astonishment, when the minister politely asked him whether he would accept so trifling a post as that of Commissaire-général of Police of the Isle of Elba, with we know not how many hundreds of francs per annum, with half-a-year's salary in advance, and all travelling expenses paid. The little condition was added that he must quit Paris directly, for the post had been too long vacant, and there were reasons which demanded his immediate presence at Elba. How he contrived to accept with any gravity, without abroad grin upon his face, can never be known. He would certainly have bounded to the ceiling; but by good fortune, or happy instinct, he had convulsively clasped his chair with both hands, and so anchored himself to the ground.
Off he started the very next day, happier than Sancho Panza, to the government of his island; for his post virtually constituted him the governor of Elba. Nor was the stream of his good fortune half exhausted. For immediately on his arrival he was appealed to for a decision, between two rich and rival capitalists, both desirous of undertaking to work certain mines lately discovered in the island. One offered him a large share in the future profits; the other a large sum of ready money. Our governor decided for the ready money.
When a gallant man renders a service, he does not run and proclaim it immediately. Fouché allowed a few days to transpire before he waited on Pauline. He then alluded to the appointment he had made; he hoped she was content with the manner in which he had provided for her client, Dubois.
"Dubois! Dubois!" said the lady, "I know of no Dubois."
The whole affair had entirely escaped her memory. Fouché assisted in recalling it.
"Oh, true!" she said, "the brother of my chambermaid; well, did you give him any little employment? What did you make of him?"
Fouché saw his error, bit his lips, and let the subject pass.
That very evening a messenger was despatched to recall Dubois—and home he came; but "with money in both pockets"—a little capital of solid francs. Poet as he was, the man had sense; he did not spend, but invested it, and the revenue enabled him to assume the life and bearing of a gentleman. We leave him prospering, and to prosper.
It is said, that Fouché did all he could to keep this story secret. But Pauline discovered the truth, and was malicious enough to disclose it to Napoleon, who more than once jested his minister on his governor of Elba.
There is a sort ofpremier pasknown, we believe, amongst gamesters—at least trusted to very implicitly, we remember, amongst schoolboy gamesters—that which commences a run of good luck. When the cards, or the dice, have been cruelly against us, if the tideonceturn, it will flow steadily for some time in its new and happier direction. In the palace of a certain Russian prince, whose name of course it is impossible to remember, for it is one of those names you do not think of attempting to pronounce even to yourself—youlookat it merely, and use it as the Chinese their more learned combinations of characters, where they pass at once from the visible sign to the idea, without any intermediate oral stage. In the palace of this prince, you are surprised to see in the most splendid of its splendid suite of apartments, suspended behind a glass case—a set of harness!—common harness for a couple of coach horses, such as you may see in any gentleman's stable. Of course, it attracts more attention than all the pictures, and statues, and marble tables with their porphyry vases and gold clocks.
"The thing you know is neither rich nor rare,But wonder how the devil it got there!"
You inquire, and are told the following story.
The Prince of ———— was one night led into deep and desperate play. He had staked estate after estate, and lost them; he had staked his plate, his pictures, his jewels, the furniture of his house, and lost them; his mansion itself, and lost it. The luck would not turn. His carriage and horses had been long waiting for him at the door, he staked them and lost! He had nothing more; he threw up the window, and leant out of it in utter despair. There stood his carriage and horses, the subject of his last wager. He had now nothing left. Yes! There was theharness! Nothing had been said of the harness. The carriage and the horses were lost, but not the harness. His opponent agreed to this interpretation of the wager. They played for the harness. He won! They played for the carriage and horses,—he won. They played for the palace, for the plate, the pictures, the furniture,—he won. They played forestate after estate,—he still won. He won all back again, and rose from that table the same rich man he had sat down to it. Had he not good reason to suspend that harness in his very best saloon?
There is such a thing as afirst stepmost fortunatelyadverse, in whose failure there is salvation. There are some well-known instances where wealthy young noblemen have been rescued from the pernicious habit of gaming by a first loss, which, though it partly crippled them, sent them back from what might otherwise have proved the road to utter ruin. When a man would tamper with any species of vice, a happy misadventure, thoroughly disgusting him with his experiment, is the most precious lesson he can receive. In the collection of anecdotes we have before alluded to, there was one of this kind which struck us very forcibly. It is all admirable instance of thebiter bit; but here the young man who wished to benibblingat roguery, (who in this instance happens also to be a Russian nobleman,) got so excellent and so salutary a lesson, that we almost forgive the old and consummate rogue who gave it.
The first Congress of Vienna had collected together all manner of Jew and Gentile—all who could in any way contribute to pleasure, which seemed the great object of the assembly; for balls, fêtes, concerts, parties of every description were following in endless succession, till one fine morning news came that the lion was loose again. Napoleon had broke from Elba—and every one scampered to his own home. Amongst the rest was a clever Jew and a rich, who, being very magnificently apparelled, and having that to lend which many desired to borrow, had found no difficulty in edging himself amongst the grandees of the society. This man wore upon his finger a superb diamond ring. The Count of —— was struck with admiration at it, and as a matter of pure curiosity, inquired what might be the value of so magnificent a stone. The Hebrew gentleman, with the most charming candour in the world, confessed it wasnota stone—it was merely an imitation. A real diamond of the same magnitude, he said, would indeed be of great value, but this, although a very clever imitation, and as such highly prized by himself, was nothing better than paste. The Count requested to look at it closer, to take it in his hand and examine it; he flattered himself that he knew something of precious stones; he protested that it was a real diamond. The Hebrew smiled a courteous denial. The Count grew interested in the question, and asked permission to show it to a friend. This was granted without hesitation, and the Count carried the ring to a jeweller, whose opinion upon such a matter he knew must be decisive. Was it a diamond or not? Itwasa diamond, said the jeweller, and of the very purest water. Had he any doubt of it? None at all. Would he purchase it? Why—humph—he could not pretend to give the full value for such a stone—it might lie on his hands for some time—he would give 80,000 rubles for it. You will give 80,000 rubles for this ring? I will, said the jeweller. At that moment, the spirit of covetousness and of trickery entered into the soul of the young nobleman. Back he went to his Hebrew acquaintance, whom he found seated at the whist table. Restoring him the ring, he said that he was more persuaded than ever that it was a real diamond, and that he would give him 50,000 rubles for it on the spot. (A pretty profit, he thought, of 30,000 rubles.) The Jew, quietly replacing the ring on his finger, protested he would by no means rob the gentleman, as he knew that it wasnota diamond. The Count urged the matter. At length, after much insistance on the one part, and reluctance on the other, the proprietor of the ring appealed to his partners in the game of whist. "You see, gentleman," said he, "how it is—the Count is so confident in his connoisseurship that he insists upon giving me 50,000 rubles for my ring, which I declare to be paste." "And I declare it to be a diamond," said the Count, "and, taking all risk upon myself, will give you 50,000 rubles for it." The bargain was concluded, and the ring and the money changed hands.
The Count flew to the jeweller. "Here is the ring—let me have the 80,000 rubles." "For this! Pooh! itis paste—not worth so many sous—worth nothing."
Th Jew hadtworings exactly alike, with the little difference, that in the one was a real stone, in the other an imitation. By dexterously changing the one for the other, he had contrived to give this beneficial lesson to the young, nobleman, which, it is to be hoped, prevented him, for ever after, from entering the list with sharpers, or trying by unworthy means to over-reach his neighbours.
But to return to what is more generally alluded to as thepremier pas—that first success which starts the aspirant on his road to fortune or to fame. It is the barrister and the physician who, amongst all professional men, have most frequently to record some happy chance or adventure that came to the aid of their skill, knowledge, and industry; and of the first brief, or of the first patient, the history is not unfrequently told with singular delight. The story we have to tell, and to which the above remarks and anecdotes may be considered by the reader, if he will, as a sort of preamble, regards thefirst patientof one who, commencing under great difficulties, rose ultimately to the head of his profession. It belongs to both those classes which, we observed in the commencement, are often mingled indiscriminately together. It has in it something of the marvellous, and yet afforded but a fair opening to genuine talent; it was a first step which the fairies presided over, and yet it was a step on the firm earth, and the first of a series which only true genius and worth could have completed. We are fortunate here in having the words before us of the French author from whom we quote, and we have but to render the anecdote—biography, or romance, whichever it may be—in whatever of the lively style of M. Felix Tournachon our pen can catch, or, under the necessity we are to abridge, we can hope to transfer to our pages.
...He was not then the great doctor that you know him now. At that time he was neither officer of the Legion of Honour, nor professor of the Faculty of Paris. Hardly was he known to some few companions of his studies. The horses that drew his carriage were not then born; the pole of his landau was flourishing green in the forest.
He had obtained his title of physician, and lived in a poor garret—as one says—as if there were any garrets that are rich; and to accomplish this miserable result, to have his painted bed-stead, his table of sham mahogany, two chairs wretchedly stuffed, and his books—what efforts had it not cost him!
He was so poor!
Have you ever known any of these indefatigable young students, born in the humblest ranks, who spend upon their arid labour their ten, their twenty best years of life, without a thought or a care for the pleasures of their age or the passing day?—youthful stoics who march with firm step, and alone, towards an end which, alas! all do not attain!
You have wept at that old drama, that old eternal scene which is recounted every day—yet not so old, it is renewed also every day:—the bare chamber, no better than a loft—the truckle-bed—the broken pitcher—the heap of straw—the sentimental lithographist will not forget the guttering candle stuck into the neck of a bottle. Thus much for the accessories, then for the persons of the scene; a workman, the father who expects to die in the hospital—his four children—always four—who have not broken their fast that day—and the mother is lying-in with her fifth—and it is winter, for these poor people choose winter always for their lying-in.
Oh! all this is very true and piteous—I weep with you at the cry of those suffering children—at the sobs of their mother. Yet there is another poverty which you know not, which it is never intended that you should know. A silent poverty that goes dressed in its black coat, polished, itis true, where polish should not come, and with a slaty hue—produced by the frequent application of ink to its threadbare surface. It is a courageous poverty which resists all aid—even from that fictitious fund, a debt—which dresses itself as you would dress, if your coat were ten years old—which invites no sympathy—which may be seen in the sombre evening stopping a moment before the baker's shop, or the wired windows of the money-changer, but passing on again without a sigh heard. Oh, this poverty in a black coat! And then it enters into its cold and solitary chamber, without even the sad consolation of weeping with another. No Lady Bountiful comes here. In the picture just now described, she would be seen in the background, entering in at the door, her servant behind loaded with raiment and provisions. What should she here? What brings you here, madam? Who could have sent you here? We are rich! If we were poor should we not sell these books?—all these books are ours; madam, we want nothing. Carry your amiable charity elsewhere.
Our young doctor had installed himself in the fifth floor of that historic street,La Cloître-Saint-Mery,—a quarter of the town, poor, disinherited, sad as himself. Where else, indeed, could he have carried his mutilated furniture,—which in other quarters would have only excited distrust? There was he waiting for fortune—not, be it understood, in his bed, but following science laboriously, uninterruptedly. His life was so retired—so modest—so silent, that hardly was he known in the house. On the day of his arrival, he had said to the porter, or rather porteress, "Madam, I am a doctor—if any one should want me." This was all the publicity of the new doctor—his sole announcement, his only advertisement. As his fellow lodgers could gather nothing of him to gratify or excite curiosity—as his unfrequented door was always strictly closed, they soon ceased to concern themselves about him. His name even was forgotten; they simply called himthe doctor—and with this title our readers also must be contented, unless their own ingenuity should enable them to discover another.
One night our doctor heard unaccustomed noises in the house, doors slamming, people walking to and fro. Presently some one knocked at his door—verily athisdoor. What was it? Was the patient come at last—that first patient, so anxiously expected? He was dressed in an instant.
"The Countess is dying!" some one cried through the door. "Come, directly!"
He was at her bedside in a minute.
The Countess! Such was the title given in derision to precisely the poorest and most miserable old woman in the house. She had been at one period of her life in the service of a noble family asfemme-de-chambre; and as a woman who had seen something of the great world, she held unqualified strangers at a certain distance, and, to use a common phrase, kept herself to herself. This had procured her the ill-will and ill-opinion of several other old crones inhabiting the same house, who made her the subject of their perpetual scandal. Without doubt, she had poisoned her last master, and could not look a Christian in the face; or at very least she had robbed him. Did you ask for proofs? She had a treasure stitched into a mattress. But she was nearly dying with hunger? Yes—the niggard! She starved herself, she could not spend her treasure.
Monstrous inventions! The poverty of the Countess, as they called her in mockery, was complete. Niggard she was, and had good reason to be so, in order to subsist on the little annuity she had contrived, in the days of her service, to scrape together. For the rest, as we have no wish to disguise the truth, the Countess was by no means an amiable person—bitter and selfish, hostile to all the world, as venomous as her detractors, and without pity for others, as those so often are who have suffered much themselves.
She was now stretched motionless on her bed. The old crones had come about her less from humanity than to discover the secrets of herden, the access to which she had hitherto strictly defended. She held in her left hand a small packet wrapped upin half a pocket-handkerchief, which she clutched convulsively. It was thetreasure, they all exclaimed.
Her case was a grave one—a congestion of the brain. The doctor bled her, and then wrote his prescription—his first! The bleeding brought the Countess to herself. When she heard him tell one of the bystanders to go to the chemist and get the potion,—
"Potion!" she exclaimed, laying hold of the paper, "I want no potion—I am not ill. Do you think I have money to pay for your drugs? Go away!—all of you—go!"
She crumpled the prescription in her hand, and was about to throw it on the floor, when something in the paper apparently arrested her. She read the prescription, and, turning to the doctor with a manner quite changed and subdued, asked how much it would cost? She then opened the little packet she had held till then so jealously in her hand. All the old crones stretched forward. A few franc-pieces and some great sous were all thetreasureit contained.
That first client, so long looked for, was come at last. Our doctor had his patient—that first patient whom one pets and caresses, to whom one is nurse as well as physician. No uncertain diagnosticsthere—no retarded visits, no hasty prescriptions. If this one die, it is verily his fault. He devoted himself, body and soul, to the old woman. Certainly the fees would not be very brilliant, nor would the cure spread his reputation very widely. He thought not of this—but save her he must! He absolutely loved this unamiable Countess. He assembled theban et arrière-banof science, and armed himselfcap-à-piein knowledge for her defence.
The object of all this solicitude received his attentions, however, with an increasing ill-humour, for each fresh medicine made a fresh demand upon her purse. "How long will this last?" she said one day; "I must go out—I have no more money—I must go out this very day."
"Do not disturb yourself," began the Doctor.
"Not disturb myself!" she interrupted; "easy to say! Instead of giving me these drinks and draughts, give me something that will put a little strength into me—for I must go out."
"Listen to me! remain tranquil a few days"—She turned round from him with impatience.
"To leave your chamber now would be to expose your life. Give me but four days; and if you have no more money, I will charge myself with the medicines."
"You!" cried the Countess, looking up with astonishment.
"And why not me?" said the young Doctor. "You shall return it to me some time—when you will."
"You! who have not often a dinner for yourself!"
"Who says that?" asked the Doctor, blushing involuntarily.
"All the house says it."
"Miserable stuff!" he replied; "will you accept what I offer? If I promise, you may be sure I can perform."
The old woman looked at him with surprise, and at length consented to accept his offer and take his remedies.
The young Doctor hastened to his chamber, shut fast the door, and looked round him, with his arms folded—"What is there here," said he, "that I can sell?"
What he found to sell I do not know. Enough that he supplied the Countess with a sum sufficient to procure her the necessary medicines, and to relieve her from care as to the wants of life for some short time. The case proceeded favourably.
At night, as he was returning from one of those solitary walks in which he was accustomed to exhale his sadness, and also to gather fresh resolution for the struggle he had undertaken with destiny, and was slowly mounting the long, dark, dilapidated staircase that led up to that fifth floor on which he resided, he stumbled over some obstacle, and, on looking closer, found it was the body of a woman lying outstretched upon the stairs. It was the Countess. In spite of solicitations and her own promise, she had gone out; but her strength had failed her. She had fallen, and now lay insensible.
Our young Doctor, braving all malicious interpretations, carried her to his own room, which was the nearest place of refuge, and there, by the aidof some cordials he administered, restored her to her senses. She opened her eyes, looked around her, and understanding in whose room she was, she said, with a scrutinising air, "You are miserably lodged here." It was the only observation his amiable patient made, and she repeated it several times—"You must be miserably off." Even when she had returned to her own room, and he had left her for the night, she still said nothing but—"You are miserably lodged!"
The next morning, when the Doctor visited his patient—and you may be sure his visit was an early one—to his surprise, she was on foot, with sleeves tucked up, sweeping, dusting, andputting to rightsher little abode. He was astonished. The shock which she had received the day before, instead of injuring her, had apparently aided in her restoration. She was quite gay.
"You are resolved to kill yourself, then?" said the Doctor.
"I was never better in my life," she answered.
"Do not be too confident," was his reply. "You must keep your room two or three days; and this time," he added, with a smile, "I shall keep guard over you myself."
The Countess consented with a most childlike docility. She would do what he pleased; only yesterday she was obliged to go out—it was absolutely necessary. There was so much gentleness in her altered manner, that the Doctor was disposed to regard this as an alarming symptom in her case.
However, it, was not so. Her health, day by day, improved, and the relation between the patient and her medical attendant became more amicable. She proposed, by way of some return, to assist him in his bachelor housekeeping. It would give her no trouble. An hour in the morning, when he was at his lectures, some of which he still followed; and then she could cook, and she could mend. These offers the young Doctor declined with a sort of alarm. Who but himself could readjust those habiliments, whose strong and whose weak points he so very well knew? What needle could, on this ground, be half so skilful as his own? And cooking! Cooking with him! Cook what?Onwhat?Inwhat? It was in vain that the Countess insisted; he would hear of no such thing. He kept his poverty veiled—it was his sacred territory.
Some few days after the Countess's health might be said to be quite re-established, our young Doctor, on entering his room, was surprised to see a letter lying on his table. Correspondence, for the mere sake of letter-writing, he had quite foregone as a pure waste of time; and he had no relatives who interested themselves in his fate, or who could have any thing to communicate. Nevertheless, there the letter was, addressed duly to himself. He looked at it with an uncomfortable foreboding, assured that it must bring him some new care, or report some strange disaster.
He sat down, and tore open the envelope. He bounded from his seat again with surprise—the letter enclosed fifteen notes of the Bank of France! It is no fairy tale, but simple history; fifteen good notes of one thousand francs each.
Inside the envelope was written:—"This treasure belongs to you as your property. Use it without scruple. The hand that transmits it does but accomplish a legitimate restitution. May the gifts of Fortune conduct you to the Temple of Happiness!" There was no signature.
"Why, it is a dream, a hallucination. Am I growing light-headed?" said the Doctor. But no—it was no dream; there they were—before him—on the little table—those, fifteen miraculous pieces of paper. He turned his head away from them; but when he looked again, there they were—in the same place—in the same order—motionless. I leave you to guess his agitation and his many mingled emotions. From whom could this godsend have come? He read and reread, and turned the letter in every direction. He racked his brain to no purpose to discover his anonymous benefactor. He knew, and was known to, scarcely any one. He strode about his chamber—as well as he could stride in it—inventing the wildest suppositions, which were rejected as soon as made. Suddenly he stopped—struck his forehead as a new thought occurred to him—"Bah!" hecried; "absurd!—impossible!—and yet——"
In a moment he was at the door of the Countess. He paused a moment before he knocked. There was from the landing-place a window at right angles to that of the old woman's apartment and if her window-curtain happened to be drawn aside, which, however, was rarely the case, it was easy to see from it into her room. On the present occasion, not only was the curtain drawn aside, but her window was open, and the Doctor could see this fairy, accused of lavishing banknotes of a thousand francs, kneeling before a wretched stove, striving with her feeble breath to rekindle a few bits of charcoal, on which there stood some indescribable culinary vessel, containing an odious sort of porridge, at once her dinner and her breakfast!
The Doctor shook his head—it could not be the Countess. Yet, completely to satisfy himself, he entered. She gave him her ordinary welcome, neither more nor less—talked, as usual, of her former masters, of the dreadful price of bread, and the wicked scandal of her neighbours. But what most completely set all suspicion at rest was the manner in which she spoke of the debt which she owed him. "I cannot yet repay you what you advanced for my medicines," she said, with all the natural embarrassment of an honest debtor speaking to a creditor. "You will be wanting it, perhaps. Now don't be angry at what I say—one is always in want of one's little money. In a few days I will try and give you at least something on account."
"No," said the Doctor, when he was alone: "I can make nothing of it. Away with all guesses!" He resolved to profit by the good fortune, be the giver whom it might. And he hoped so to manage matters, that if, at a future day, an opportunity for its restoration should occur, he should be able to avail himself of it.
He was soon installed in a more convenient apartment, better furnished, and supplied, above all, with a more abundant library. The young Doctor was radiant with hope. Yet he did not quit his old quarter of the town. It need not be said that he took formal leave of his first patient the Countess.
From this time every thing prospered with him. As it generally happens, the first difficulty conquered, every thing succeeded to his wish. It is the first turn of the wheel which costs so much; once out of the rut, and the carriage rolls. By degrees a little circle of clients was formed, which augmented necessarily every day. His name began to spread. Even from his old residence, where he led so solitary a life, the reputation had followed him of a severe and laborious student, and the cure of the Countess was a known proof of his skill.
Like the generality of the profession, he now divided his day into two portions; the morning he devoted to his visits, the afternoon to the reception of his patients. Returning to his home one day a little before the accustomed hour, he perceived a crowd of persons collected in the street through which he was passing. Perhaps some accident had happened, and his presence might be useful. He made his way, therefore, through the crowd. Yet he nowhere discovered any object which could have collected it. He was merely surrounded on every side by groups engaged in earnest yet subdued conversation. The greater part were women, and both men and women were generally of a mature age, and of that sort of physiognomy which one can only describe asodd—faces ready made for the pencil of the caricaturist. The Doctor, who had no idle time, was about to make his escape, when a general movement took place in the crowd, and he found himself borne along irresistibly with the rest through a large door, which it seemed had just opened, into a spacious hall or amphitheatre. At the upper end was a stage; on the stage a large, strangely-fashioned wheel was placed; and by the side of the wheel stood a little child, dressed in a sky-blue tunic, with a red girdle round its waist, its hair curled and lying upon its shoulders, and a bandage across its eyes. The wheel and the child formed together a sort of mythological representation of Fortune. They were drawing the lottery.
After amusing himself for some time with the novelty of the spectacle, the Doctor began to make serious efforts to extricate himself. As he wasthreading his way through the crowd, and looking this way and that to detect the easiest mode of egress, he saw, underneath a small gallery at the side of the amphitheatre, in a place which seemed to be reserved for the more favoured or more constant worshippers in that temple of Fortune, a face, the last he should have expected to find there. It was no other than the Countess. She was seated there with all the gravity in the world, inclining with a courteous attention to an old man with gray hairs and smooth brown coat, who was very deferentially addressing her.
Having disengaged himself from the throng, and returned to his own house, this appearance of the Countess recurred very forcibly to his mind. "After all," thought he, "itwasthe Countess!—it was none but she who sent those notes." The enigma was solved. He had made his fortune in the lottery, and without knowing it. He determined to visit his old patient the next morning.
That very evening, however, he was waited on by the same old gentleman in brown coat and gray hairs, who was seen speaking to her at the lottery. He came with a rueful face, requesting him to visit immediately Madame ——, giving the Countess her right name, which it is now too late in our story to introduce. Whatever may have been the case at some previous time, the wheel of Fortune had that day bitterly disappointed her hopes. She had been carried home insensible. The Doctor hastened to her. It was too late. She had been again attacked by a congestion of the brain, which this time had proved fatal.
There appeared no hopes of a complete solution of the enigma.
"Ah!" said the same old gentleman, as he stood moralising by his side, "the same luck never comestwice—she should have tried other numbers."
The Doctor saw immediately that the old gentleman had been in the confidence of the deceased. He questioned him. There was a look of significance, which betrayed plainly thathe knew all. He was in fact one of those who earn their subsistence by writing letters for those who are deficient in the skill of penmanship or epistolary composition. He had writtenthe very letter itself; to his pen was owing that sort ofcopy-bookphrase, "May the gifts of Fortune conduct to the Temple of Happiness!" The Doctor had in truth, as he often said when alluding to the subject, made his fortune in the lottery.
We wish we could leave the story here, and let the reader suppose that gratitude alone had induced the old woman to act so generous a part. But the whole truth should be honestly told. There was a mixture of superstition in the case. It washis numberthat had won the prize, and she considered it, as expressed in the letter which accompanied the notes, in the light of his property. In all countries where a lottery has been long established, the strangest superstitions grow up concerning what are called lucky numbers. In Italy, where this manner of increasing the public revenue is still resorted to, not only is any number which has presented itself under peculiar circumstances sure to be propitious, but there is a well-known book, of acknowledged authority we believe, containing a list of words, with a special number attached to each word, by the aid of which you can convert into a lucky number any extraordinary event which has occurred to you. Let any thing happen of public or private interest—let any thing have been dreamt, or even talked of that was at all surprising, you have only to look in this dictionary for the word which may be supposed to contain the essence of the matter; as, for instance, fire, death, birth—and the number that is opposite that word will assuredly win your fortune. When the Countess first saw the prescription of the young Doctor, she was going to throw it angrily on the floor; but her eye was suddenly riveted by thenumbersin it—the numbers of the grains andozs.in the cabalistic writing—and she felt assured that in these lucky numbers her fortune was made. The first stake she played she played forhim; and, singularly enough, she won! But, as the old gentleman in the brown coat observed, the virtue of the prescription was exhausted. She should have sought for numbers from some other quarter; the second trial she made ended in a severe loss, and was the immediate occasion of her death.
Another book of adventure in the island-studded Pacific. The vast tract of water that rolls its billows from Australia to America, from Japan to Peru, offers a wide field to the wanderer; and a library might be written, free from repetition and monotony, concerning the lands it washes, and the countless nations dwelling upon its shores. Nevertheless, we should have had more relish for this book had it reached us a few months earlier. Dr Coulter, who returned from ploughing the ocean so far back as 1836, would have done wisely to have published the record of his cruise somewhat sooner than in July 1847. A short half-year would have made all the difference, by giving him the start in point of time of a dangerous competitor, recently and laudatorily noticed in the pages of Maga. After the pungent and admirably written narrative of that accomplished able seaman, Herman Melville, few books of the same class but must appear flat and unprofitable. The order of things should have been reversed.Omoowould have found readers at any time, and although twenty publishers had combined with fifty authors to deluge the public with the Pacific Ocean during the five previous years. We are not quite so sure that Dr Coulter's book will be largely perused, treading thus closely upon the heels of Mr Melville. Not that the ground gone over is the same, or the book without interest. On reading the title-page we were assailed by an idea which we would gladly have seen realised on further perusal. One sometimes—rarely, it is true—meets with characters in works of fiction so skilfully drawn, so true to nature, so impregnated with an odour of reality, as to impress us with the conviction that they have actually lived, moved, and had being, and passed through the adventures set down for them by their creator. It is the case with many of the personages in Scott's novels. We should highly enjoy hearing any one assert, that there never existed such persons as Jeanie Deans and Edie Ochiltree; that Caleb Balderstone was an imaginary servitor, or Dugald Dalgetty the mythical man-at-arms of a poet's fancy. We would pitch the lie into the teeth of the incredulous idiot, and with a single tap on the sconce send him skirling and skeltering down the staircase. And, to pass from great things to small, we avouch that the gaunt and diverting man of medicine of whom frequent and honourable mention is made in the pages of Omoo, did inspire us with a notion of his reality, of which, up to the present time of writing, we have been unable wholly to divest ourselves. When we first took up Dr Coulter's narrative of adventure in America and the Southern Seas, it was with the hope, almost with the expectation, that the original Dr Longghost, encouraged by his former shipmate's example, had temporarily exchanged scalpel for goosequill, and indited an account of the dangers he had run since his affectionate parting with Typee on the pleasant shores of Tahiti. We were disappointed. To say nothing of diversity of dates, and other circumstances, rendering identity improbable, Longghost of the "Julia" would have written, we are well assured, a far quainter and more spicy book than that lately launched by Coulter of the "Stratford." It would have been of fuller flavour, and also more elegant, the result of the goblin mediciner's wild seafaring life, grafted on his old Lucullian reminiscences, on the shadowysouvenirof those happy days when he fed on salmis, and flirted with duchesses, long, long before hedreamed of cruising after whales, and sharing the filthy inconveniences of little Jule's detestable forecastle. It would have been, to the narrative of John Coulter, M.D., as ripe Falernian or racy hock, to ale of some strength but middling flavour, where there is no stint of malt, but which has been somewhat spoiled in the brew. We are quite certain that the tales of Caffrarian lion-hunts, with which Longghost cheered the dull watches of the night, and beguiled the Julia's mariners of their wonder, were of very different kidney to the pig-and-nigger-killing narratives of Mr Coulter. Of this, we repeat, we are morally certain; but as we like, unnecessary though it be, to have our convictions confirmed through the medium of our optics, we now summon Doctor Longghost to commence, the very instant this number of theMagazinereaches his hands—and reach them it assuredly will, though his present abode be in farthest Ind or frozen Greenland—a detailed andbona fidehistory of his Life and Adventures, from the day he chipped the shell up to that upon which he shall send to press the last sheet of his valuable autobiography. And we pledge ourselves to bestow upon his book what Aaron Bang calls an amber immortalisation, by embalming it in a review; treating him tenderly, as one we dearly cherish.
Neither pleasant recollections of Omoo, nor equally agreeable anticipations of Longghost's lucubrations, shall prevent our doing full justice to Coulter. Mr Melville made a charming book out of most slender materials. What had he to write about? Literally next to nothing. The fag-end of a cruise, and a few weeks' residence on an island, whose aspect, inhabitants, and all pertaining to it, had already been minutely and well described by Kotzebue and other voyagers. But he has found more to say that is worth reading, about what he saw in his very limited sphere of observation, than Dr Coulter has concerning his extensive voyages and travels "on the Western Coast of South America, and the interior of California, including a narrative of incidents at the Kingsmill Islands, New Ireland, New Britain, New Guinea, and other islands in the Pacific Ocean." And with respect to the manner of saying it, the Yankee has it hollow. Dr Coulter's style is careless, often feeble, and defaced by grammatical errors, so glaring that one marvels they escaped correction at the very printers' hands. It says much, therefore, for the fertility of the subject, for the novelty and curiosity of the scenes visited and incidents encountered by the adventurous doctor of medicine, that his book, although devoid of the graces of composition, is upon the whole both instructive and amusing.
To understand the desultory to-and-fro nature of Dr Coulter's cruise, it is necessary to read his preface, where he gives some general information concerning the singular and precarious commerce known as the Pacific Trade. This is carried on between the ports on the western coast of North and South America, the Pacific Islands, and the coasts of China, and is very lucrative, but often dangerous. The articles of trade and barter are exceedingly various. Europe contributes wines, brandy, hardware, and sundry manufactured goods; California sends deals, corn, and furs; the various islands furnish arrow-root, oil, pearls, dye-woods, tortoiseshell, &c. The ships engaged in the traffic, and which are of many sizes and countries, are usually owned, wholly or in part, by the captain or supercargo, and consequently, wholly unfettered in their course, they wander from port to port, according to the caprice of the hour, or the chances of an advantageous market. For protection against pirates, and against the attacks of the fierce and savage tribes with whom they frequently come in collision, they are well armed and manned. The precaution is no idle one, nor could it possibly be dispensed with. "Few of these trading vessels ever return with their cargoes to the coast of the Americas, China, the Sandwich Islands, or Australia, without having frequent fights with the savages, and there are some of them, who have reckless captains and crews on board, that never can end a tradingtransaction with the natives without a row."
Whether reckless or not, fighting appears to be an every-day sport with the warlike pearl-seekers of the Pacific—one which the meekest and most amiable navigators cannot avoid sharing in. We infer this compelled pugnacity from Dr Coulter's adventures when sailing in the Hound, a smart brigantine commanded by the gallant Captain Trainer. For although the doctor started as surgeon to the ship Stratford, and finally returned to England in her, he was long an absentee from her state room, and cruising on board the Hound. It happened thus. With a degree of thoughtlessness hardly pardonable in one of his profession, he made a practice of sleeping on deck, even when season and climate rendered such an exposed bed-place highly insalubrious. The consequence was a severe attack of rheumatism, and on making the coast of California he was fain to land, and take up his abode in a Roman Catholic Mission-house. The ship was ready for sea, bound to the far west for whales but the doctor was by no means in a like state of preparation, and the captain, seeing his crippled condition, urged him to remain on shore. Captain Lock was a sort of amateur medico, who prided himself on his Esculapian skill, and, although sorry to lose his surgeon's society, he evidently rather chuckled at the idea of having an opportunity to exercise his accomplishments. So Doctor Coulter allowed himself to be persuaded, and making an appointment to meet the Stratford,Deo volente, at Tahiti in the month of November, he remained under the care of the Spanishpadreat the Mission, much to his own satisfaction, but probably not quite so much to that of any unlucky mariner upon whose fractured limb or diseased body Captain Lock may subsequently have found it necessary to practise. And even the doctor, although the motion of the ship was agony to his aching bones, and the rough service she was proceeding on would hardly have suited one in his crippled state, must surely have experienced some regret in thus deserting the whaler, from whose decks he had witnessed so many gallant contests with the oleaginous monster of the deep. Whaling is indeed a glorious sport, as far superior to your salmon fishing and fox hunting, as those diversions are to bobbing for gudgeon and chasing rats with a terrier. And whilst the excitement it occasions must, we apprehend, be the strongest possible to be known, short of that of the battle-field, it has the advantage of being much less dangerous than it looks. The ideas suggested to a landsman by the description of an attack on a whale, are those of extreme peril to all engaged in it, a peril from which the chances against their escaping alive are at least ten to one. A few hardy fellows pull up to a creature that looks like a small island on the surface of the sea, and one sweep of whose tail or flukes is sufficient to knock their frail bark into splinters; they dash their harpoons into his huge flanks, and submit to be towed through the waves by the maddened monster at a rate that makes the water boil round their bows. Such is the power of the fish, that if he came in contact with a ship, during his headlong course, his weight and impetus would stave in her sides. Sometimes he runs straightforward; at others in circles, with irregular rapidity. Still the boat sticks to him, until the smart of his hurt subsiding, or through fatigue, he slackens his speed, enabling his enemies to approach and to pierce him with fresh wounds. At last, when the waters around are reddened with his blood, comes the death-flurry. "Stern all!" The boats stand clear, and the fish disappears in the cloud of spray that he, dashes up in his dying agonies. His flukes quiver, he plunges heavily, and all is over. Perhaps, and this frequently happens, in the course of the contest a boat has been cut in two, or so far damaged as to fill and sink. But the crew are seldom lost. They support themselves by aid of the oars, until their comrades pick them up. Whaling seamen are paid by shares in the profits of the voyage, which arrangement of course contributes to render them zealous and daring.
Such are the scenes describedin the early part of Dr Coulter's book, some of them with tolerable spirit. The whale captured, next comes the cutting in and boiling out of the blubber—the former a laborious and often a dangerous process, the latter, anything but an odoriferous one. The death of a whale is the signal for the arrival of a host of sharks—blue, brown, and shovel-nosed—all eager to make a meal off the defunct leviathan. "We were all day surrounded with sea-fowl of various kinds—haglets, peterels, &c.—picking up floating particles of blubber as it passed astern, and vast numbers of large blue sharks that kept continually plunging on the fish, and rendered it very unsafe for the man to go down and point the hook into the hole cut for it; indeed we were frequently obliged to jerk him up off the whale out of their way by the aid of the rope round him for that purpose." The carcass and head on board, the fires are lighted, the kettle boils, and the ship speeds merrily on her course—the crew reckoning their share of gain, and listening anxiously for the welcome sound of "There he blows!"—the look-out man's usual cry on sighting a whale.
When he left the Stratford, Dr Coulter bade adieu to the grand seasport of whale-catching, in which he had taken the passive part of a spectator. But his hand, if unskilled to hurl the harpoon, was familiar with rifle and fowling-piece. Both of these, with an ample supply of lead, powder, and shot, his kind friend, Captain Lock, left with him at the mission of Yerba Buena, literally Good Grass, a Californian town in the bay of St Francisco. And as soon as pure air, repose, and the use of the Temescal, or hot-air bath, had restored the doctor's health, he scoured his fire-arms and made ready for the chase. A looker-on at sea, on terra firma he proved himself a perfect Nimrod. From that day forward nothing that wore fur or feather could escape his sure eye and steady hand. From the quail to the swan, from the frightened squirrel to the formidable grisly bear, all birds and beasts felt his power, and fell before his unerring rifle. Nor had he long to wait for opportunities of distributing his bullets with fatal effect amongst foes whose form was human, although in customs and civilisation they were but one degree above the brutes of the forest. After some months' stay in California, taken up chiefly with hunting and fishing excursions, but of which the doctor, anxious to get to sea again, gives but a brief account, he began to consider how he should best reach his rendezvous at Tahiti. He had plenty of time before him; but the whaling season on the west coast of America being at an end, he could hardly expect a westward bound English or American ship to touch at St Francisco for a considerable time to come. He had some notion of proceeding by a coasting vessel to a more southerly port, when one morning a fine brigantine hove in sight under a cloud of snow-white sail, and came to an anchor in the bay. Upon going on board, he recognised all old acquaintance in the captain of the Hound, whom he had formerly met—the doctor has been a great rover—at a seaport in Chili. Captain Trainer was trading along the coast, buying furs; had come into port for fresh water and repairs; was off for a cruise in the Indian archipelago; and calculated on winding it up by a visit to the Society Islands. The prospect of variety and adventure held out by such a voyage exactly chimed in with the doctor's undecided and erratic mood, as its projected termination did with his promise to rejoin his ship at Tahiti; so, without more ado, he made terms with his friend Trainer, and took up a passenger's berth on board the Hound.
The schooner answering to this canine appellation was a rakish, fast-sailing craft of two hundred tons burden, fitted out expressly for the Pacific trade. She carried four small carronades and a long nine-pounder, a sufficiency of small arms, and a smart crew of sixteen hands. Boarding-nettings she had, too, ready to be triced up in case of need; and altogether she had no occasion to dread any enemy she was at all likely to meet. Her captain was an Englishman born, frank and fearless, and a thorough sailor. Dr Coulter represents him as a kind-hearted and humane man, desirous to trade fairly and amicably with the savages, and not,after the fashion of many desperado skippers in those latitudes, to clench his bargains by blows and bloodshed. This admitted, it must be confessed that the captain was unfortunate; for during the time Dr Coulter sailed with him, we find him continually at loggerheads with the natives. For the most part, however, the strife was brought on by the treachery and robber-like propensities of the latter, who, whilst trading with their European customers, seldom neglect an opportunity of boarding their ships and cutting their throats. As soon as a vessel comes to anchor they surround it with their canoes, and show great anxiety to get on board, especially the women, whom many vessels admit, but whom Captain Trainer managed to keep off by tabooing his ship. The vice and immorality prevalent in most of the Pacific Islands is carried to a frightful pitch, doubtless greatly encouraged by the example of the reckless and dissolute mariners. Any stimulus of that kind was unnecessary to barbarians originally cruel, treacherous, and licentious in a very high degree. Cannibalism is prevalent amongst them. At Drummond's Island, one of the Kingsmill group, the first land where the Hound made any stay after leaving St Francisco, Dr Coulter had abundant proof of this. Except upon the coast, where the disgust shown by Europeans had rendered them ashamed of it, or at least anxious to conceal it, the natives did not deny the practice. Some of the men wore necklaces composed of the bones of human feet and hands, which clattered at each motion of the body. And other human bones were to be seen in their houses. They eat only strangers and enemies taken in battle; and as the occasional cutting off of a boats' crew or straggling watering party from a European ship is insufficient to keep their larders supplied, they get up constant wars with the natives of other islands. Amongst themselves, too, they are very quarrelsome. Dr Coulter, when at Drummond's Island, was present at a grand council, where, after a certain amount of singing, stamping, and speech-making, the warriors came from words to blows, and one of them was killed by a spear-thrust. To satisfy the honour and appease the wrath of his followers and partisans, a peace-offering was necessary. It consisted of six fighting cocks, with which and with the corpse of their chief the warriors took their departure, perfectly satisfied. Cock-fighting is a sport to which most of the Pacific tribes are passionately addicted.
When the Kingsmill savages had got all they could out of Captain Trainer, and trade was over, and the ship about to depart, they came out in their true colours. Previously they had been amiable and affable enough, contenting themselves with small pilferings, and with robbing Dr Coulter, whose curiosity took him on shore, of his clothes, which they replaced with a fish-skin cap and a war-mat. They now showed hostile intentions—attacked a boat, killed one of the crew, and then made an open attack on the schooner with a whole fleet of armed canoes. A shower of grape played havoc amongst them, and sank or capsized several of their craft; but they still persevered in their advance, and clung to the vessel's sides and to the boarding-nettings until repelled by cutlass and pistol. Thus began and ended most of the quarrels with the natives, who, usually the aggressors, were invariably defeated, but not without hard fighting and some loss on the part of the assailed. Captain Trainer, however, was not always quite blameless in the provocation of quarrels, which always terminated in heavy loss to the misguided savages. At New Hanover a foolish jest, which his experience of the people he had to deal with ought to have prevented him from indulging in, was cause of much bloodshed, and nearly occasioned the loss of the vessel, and destruction of the crew. Trade had gone on merrily and amicably for several days, when Trainer expressed a desire for a remarkable necklace of shells and teeth worn by one of the chiefs. The wearer was willing, and a bargain struck. The necklace was tightly knotted, and the purchaser propose to cut it. By way of a joke, "instead of cutting the cord, which he held in one hand, he raised the knife in a threatening manner as if about to stab the man." Practical jokes are always foolish and in bad taste,—jeude mains, jeu de vilains, as the French proverb says;—and the results of this one were very serious. "The native took instant alarm, thought the captain was in earnest, made a spring clear of him, which broke his necklace, and plunged overboard. A few natives on deck at the time followed his example." A fierce fight, in which several of the schooner's crew were wounded, and a large number of the islanders killed, was the consequence of this thoughtless act. And scarcely had the assailants been repelled when the vessel was found to be on fire, ignited gun and pistol wadding having fallen through an open hatch amongst inflammable dunnage. By great exertion the flames were overcome, and the Hound sailed from the inlet where these unpleasant occurrences had taken place.
From Dr Coulter's account, the islands of the Pacific are the scene of continual acts of injustice, oppression, and insubordination. It constantly happens that seamen, seduced by the prospect of a sensual and idle life, and weary of hard work and uncertain pay on board traders and whalers, desert their ships and settle amongst the savages. Sometimes they are driven to this by ill-usage from their captains, often fierce and hard-hearted men. When a vessel becomes short-handed, it is a common practice to inveigle Indians on board; and if fair promises are insufficient to induce them to serve as sailors, to take them away by force. At Tacames, in Colombia, Dr Coulter fell in with a Californian who had served for some time on board an American ship. Jack, so his Yankee shipmates had christened him, had gone on board, in company with another of his tribe, to sell furs, and had not been allowed to go ashore again. His companion died of grief and ill-treatment on the coast of Japan, and Jack, when his services were no longer needed, was left at Tacames, two or three thousand miles from his native land. He belonged to a wandering tribe who lived by bartering furs for powder, tobacco, and other Indian necessaries, and, as an experienced and intrepid hunter, was invaluable to Dr Coulter. The account of their expeditions in the South American forests is highly interesting, and we are willing to believe unexaggerated, although some portions of the doctor's venatorial adventures and experiences, both in South America and elsewhere, do remind us a little of the marvels recorded in a diverting and apocryphal book put forth a few years ago by all ingenious nautical author. On the first day of their sortie, Jack and his employer, after passing unharmed through jungles peopled by gigantic monkeys of great boldness, who made various attempts to purloin their caps and guns, but did not otherwise molest them, reached a deep ravine, where the barking and howling of beasts were loud and incessant. Presently a wild horse dashed past them, pursued by a brace of tigers. The horse dropped from fatigue, the tigers sprang upon him, the ambushed hunters fired. The doctor's tiger was killed on the spot; "my shot, after passing through him, entered the horse's neck, and killed him also." Jack's aim had been less deadly; his beast was wounded, but still active and dangerous. Dr Coulter proposed giving him the contents of his second barrel, but the guide preferred to use his knife. The account of the hand-to-hand combat that ensued reminds us of those graphic records of bruising matches that occasionally grace the columns of the weekly newspapers. Pierce Egan himself could hardly recount the progress of a "mill" between the "Tipton Slasher and the Paddington Pet" in terser and more knowing style than that employed by John Coulter in narrating the set-to between Jack and the tiger. "Jack went boldly up to him; the infuriated animal grinned horridly and writhed rapidly about, throwing up a good deal of dust from the dry ground. One plunge of the knife—a roar; into him again—a hideous grin and a tumble about, some blood scattered on the ground; at him again—a miss stroke of the knife; try once more—both down and nearly covered with dust." Whereupon the bottle-holder felt strongly inclined to fire, but was deterred by fear of hitting his own man. "The tiger had now hold of either the Indian or his clothes, as both rolled together; yet the knife was busily at work. At last his arm was raised high up with the red dripping instrument; and after one moreangry plunge of it, the tiger turned on his back, his paws and whole frame quivering, and with an attempt at a ghastly grin he fell over on his side and died. Jack then stood up, covered with the animal's blood, and his first ejaculation was 'un diablo;' in English, 'one devil.'" A strong term, but scarcely misapplied to this plucky and hilarious tiger, whom we conclude, from his continual grinning, to have been a near relation of the laughing hyena. He died game, with a smile on his lips. Jack escaped punishment, barring "a faint bite on the shoulder, and a few tears of the paws on his arms," of which the hardy fellow made little account, but, after skinning the carrion, proceeded onward in triumph, through forests whose impervious foliage allowed no glimpse of the sky, where the sunbeams came with a mild green tint through the masses of impending leaves; down rivers fringed with lofty trees, whose branches were alive with parrots and kingfishers; where the monkey screamed, the tiger howled, and the disgusting alligator, coated with slime and mud, crawled lazily away at the paddle's splash. In this manner the brace of bold hunters reached the small town of Tolo; and whilst abiding there, intelligence came of one of those petty and partial revolutions so common in South American republics. A malcontent colonel and a few hundred men, unpaid by the needy government, were extorting their arrears by the strong hand from the towns upon the coast. They made a determined attack on Tolo, which had been hastily fortified, and was resolutely defended. The rebels were beaten off; and as they retreated, a party of cavalry came up, killed many, and made prisoners of the rest. Jack, whose shooting iron, as he styled his gun, had made itself heard with great effect during the siege, joined in pursuit, scrutinised the pockets of the fallen, and secured an amount of specie that filled his heart with joy. To complete his contentment, Dr Coulter interceded for him with the captain, who gave the poor fellow a free passage back to his own country.