Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,Who never to himself hath said,This is my own, my native land!Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,As home his footsteps he hath turned,From wandering on a foreign strand!If such there breathe, go, mark him well;For him no minstrel raptures swell;High though his titles, proud his name,Boundless his wealth as wish can claim:Despite those titles, power, and pelf,The wretch, concentred all in self,Living, shall forfeit fair renown,And, doubly dying, shall go downTo the vile dust, from whence he sprung,Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,Who never to himself hath said,This is my own, my native land!Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,As home his footsteps he hath turned,From wandering on a foreign strand!If such there breathe, go, mark him well;For him no minstrel raptures swell;High though his titles, proud his name,Boundless his wealth as wish can claim:Despite those titles, power, and pelf,The wretch, concentred all in self,Living, shall forfeit fair renown,And, doubly dying, shall go downTo the vile dust, from whence he sprung,Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.
Scott: "The Lay of the Last Minstrel."
Far above us where a jayScreams his matins to the day,Capped with gold and amethyst,Like a vapour from the forgeOf a giant somewhere hid,Out of hearing of the clangOf his hammer, skirts of mistSlowly up the woody gorgeLift and hang.Softly as a cloud we go,Sky above and sky below,Down the river; and the dipOf the paddles scarcely breaks,With the little silvery dripOf the water as it shakesFrom the blades, the crystal deepOf the silence of the morn,Of the forest yet asleep;And the river reaches borneIn a mirror, purple gray,Sheer awayTo the misty line of light,Where the forest and the streamIn the shadow meet and plight,Like a dream.From amid a stretch of reeds,Where the lazy river sucksAll the water as it bleedsFrom a little curling creek,And the muskrats peer and sneakIn around the sunken wrecksOf a tree that swept the skiesLong ago,On a sudden seven ducksWith a splashy rustle rise,Stretching out their seven necks,One before, and two behind,And the others all arow,And as steady as the windWith a swivelling whistle go,Through the purple shadow led,Till we only hear their whirIn behind a rocky spur,Just ahead.
Far above us where a jayScreams his matins to the day,Capped with gold and amethyst,Like a vapour from the forgeOf a giant somewhere hid,Out of hearing of the clangOf his hammer, skirts of mistSlowly up the woody gorgeLift and hang.
Softly as a cloud we go,Sky above and sky below,Down the river; and the dipOf the paddles scarcely breaks,With the little silvery dripOf the water as it shakesFrom the blades, the crystal deepOf the silence of the morn,Of the forest yet asleep;And the river reaches borneIn a mirror, purple gray,Sheer awayTo the misty line of light,Where the forest and the streamIn the shadow meet and plight,Like a dream.
From amid a stretch of reeds,Where the lazy river sucksAll the water as it bleedsFrom a little curling creek,And the muskrats peer and sneakIn around the sunken wrecksOf a tree that swept the skiesLong ago,On a sudden seven ducksWith a splashy rustle rise,Stretching out their seven necks,One before, and two behind,And the others all arow,And as steady as the windWith a swivelling whistle go,Through the purple shadow led,Till we only hear their whirIn behind a rocky spur,Just ahead.
Archibald Lampman
I call, therefore, a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.
Milton: "On Education."
From upland slopes I see the cows file by,Lowing, great-chested, down the homeward trail,By dusking fields and meadows shining paleWith moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering high,A peevish night-hawk in the western skyBeats up into the lucent solitudes,Or drops with griding wing. The stilly woodsGrow dark and deep and gloom mysteriously.Cool night winds creep, and whisper in mine ear,The homely cricket gossips at my feet,From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear,Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogs break sweetIn full Pandean chorus. One by oneShine out the stars, and the great night comes on.
From upland slopes I see the cows file by,Lowing, great-chested, down the homeward trail,By dusking fields and meadows shining paleWith moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering high,A peevish night-hawk in the western skyBeats up into the lucent solitudes,Or drops with griding wing. The stilly woodsGrow dark and deep and gloom mysteriously.Cool night winds creep, and whisper in mine ear,The homely cricket gossips at my feet,From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear,Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogs break sweetIn full Pandean chorus. One by oneShine out the stars, and the great night comes on.
Archibald Lampman
For manners are not idle, but the fruitOf loyal nature and of noble mind.
For manners are not idle, but the fruitOf loyal nature and of noble mind.
Tennyson
Some two miles above the port of Dartmouth, once among the most important harbours in England, on a projecting angle of land which runs out into the river at the head of one of its most beautiful reaches, there has stood for some centuries the Manor House of Greenaway. The water runs deep all the way to it from the sea, and the largest vessels may ride with safety within a stone's throw of the windows. In the latter half of the sixteenth century there must have met, in the hall of this mansion, a party as remarkable as could have been found anywhere in England. Humfrey and Adrian Gilbert, with their half-brother, Walter Raleigh, here, when little boys, played at sailors in the reaches of Long Stream, in the summer evenings doubtless rowing down with the tide to the port, and wondering at the quaint figure-heads and carved prows of the ships which thronged it; or climbing on board, and listening, with hearts beating, to the mariners' tales of the new earth beyond the sunset. And here in later life, matured men, whose boyish dreams had become heroic action, they used again to meet in the intervals of quiet, and the rock is shown underneath thehouse where Raleigh smoked the first tobacco. Another remarkable man could not fail to have made a fourth at these meetings. A sailor-boy of Sandwich, the adjoining parish, John Davis, showed early a genius which could not have escaped the eye of such neighbours, and in the atmosphere of Greenaway he learned to be as noble as the Gilberts, and as tender and delicate as Raleigh.
In 1585 John Davis left Dartmouth on his first voyage into the Polar Seas; and twice subsequently he went again, venturing in small, ill-equipped vessels of thirty or forty tons into the most dangerous seas. These voyages were as remarkable for their success as for the daring with which they were accomplished, and Davis' epitaph is written on the map of the world, where his name still remains to commemorate his discoveries. Brave as he was, he is distinguished by a peculiar and exquisite sweetness of nature, which, from many little facts of his life, seems to have affected every one with whom he came in contact in a remarkable degree. We find men, for the love of Master Davis, leaving their firesides to sail with him, without other hope or motion; we find silver bullets cast to shoot him in a mutiny; the hard, rude naturesof the mutineers being awed by something in his carriage which was not like that of a common man. He has written the account of one of his northern voyages himself; and there is an imaginative beauty in it, and a rich delicacy of expression, which is called out in him by the first sight of strange lands and things and people.
We have only space to tell something of the conclusion of his voyage north. In latitude sixty-three degrees, he fell in with a barrier of ice, which he coasted for thirteen days without finding an opening. The very sight of an iceberg was new to all his crew; and the ropes and shrouds, though it was midsummer, becoming compassed with ice,—
"The people began to fall sick and faint-hearted—whereupon, very orderly, and with good discretion, they entreated me to regard the safety of mine own life, as well as the preservation of theirs; and that I should not, through over-boldness, leave their widows and fatherless children to give me bitter curses.
"Whereupon, seeking counsel of God, it pleased His Divine Majesty to move my heart to prosecute that which I hope shall be to His glory and to the contentation of every Christian mind."
He had two vessels—one of some burden, the other a pinnace of thirty tons. The result of the counsel which he had sought was, that he made over his own large vessel to such as wished to return, and himself, "thinking it better to die with honour than to return with infamy," went on with such volunteers as would follow him, in a poor leaky cutter, up the sea now in commemoration of that adventure called Davis' Strait. He ascended four degrees north of the furthest known point, among storms and icebergs, when the long days and twilight nights alone saved him from being destroyed, and, coasting back along the American shore, he discovered Hudson Strait, supposed then to be the long desired entrance into the Pacific. This exploit drew the attention of Walsingham, and by him Davis was presented to Burleigh, "who was also pleased to show him great encouragement." If either these statesmen or Elizabeth had been twenty years younger, his name would have filled a larger space in history than a small corner of the map of the world; but, if he was employed at all in the last years of the century, novates sacerhas been found to celebrate his work, and no clew is left to guide us. He disappears; a cloud falls over him. He is knownto have commanded trading vessels in the Eastern seas, and to have returned five times from India. But the details are all lost, and accident has only parted the clouds for a moment to show us the mournful setting with which he, too, went down upon the sea.
In taking out Sir Edward Michellthorne to India, in 1604, he fell in with a crew of Japanese, whose ship had been burnt, drifting at sea, without provisions, in a leaky junk. He supposed them to be pirates, but he did not choose to leave them to so wretched a death, and took them on board; and in a few hours, watching their opportunity, they murdered him.
As the fool dieth, so dieth the wise, and there is no difference; it was the chance of the sea, and the ill reward of a humane action—a melancholy end for such a man—like the end of a warrior, not dying Epaminondas-like on the field of victory, but cut off in some poor brawl or ambuscade. But so it was with all these men. They were cut off in the flower of their days, and few of them laid their bones in the sepulchres of their fathers. They knew the service which they had chosen, and they did not ask the wages for which they had not laboured. Life with them was no summerholiday, but a holy sacrifice offered up to duty, and what their Master sent was welcome. Beautiful is old age—beautiful is the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich, glorious summer. In the old man, Nature has fulfilled her work; she loads him with her blessings; she fills him with the fruits of a well-spent life; and, surrounded by his children and his children's children, she rocks him softly away to a grave, to which he is followed with blessings. God forbid we should not call it beautiful. It is beautiful, but not the most beautiful. There is another life, hard, rough, and thorny, trodden with bleeding feet and aching brow; the life of which the cross is the symbol; a battle which no peace follows, this side the grave; which the grave gapes to finish, before the victory is won; and—strange that it should be so—this is the highest life of man. Look back along the great names of history; there is none whose life has been other than this. They to whom it has been given to do the really highest work in this earth—whoever they are, Jew or Gentile, Pagan or Christian, warriors, legislators, philosophers, priests, poets, kings, slaves—one and all, their fate has been the same—the same bitter cup has been given them to drink. And so it was withthe servants of England in the sixteenth century. Their life was a long battle, either with the elements or with men; and it was enough for them to fulfil their work, and to pass away in the hour when God had nothing more to bid them do.
Froude: "Short Studies on Great Subjects."
"My strength is failing fast,"Said the sea-king to his men;"I shall never sail the seasAs a conqueror again.But while yet a drop remainsOf the life-blood in my veins,Raise, O raise me from the bed;Put the crown upon my head;Put my good sword in my hand,And so lead me to the strand,Where my ship at anchor ridesSteadily;If I cannot end my lifeIn the crimsoned battle-strife,Let me die as I have lived,On the sea."They have raised King Balder up,Put his crown upon his head;They have sheathed his limbs in mail,And the purple o'er him spread;And amid the greeting rudeOf a gathering multitude,Borne him slowly to the shore—All the energy of yoreFrom his dim eyes flashing forth—Old sea-lion of the north—As he looked upon his shipRiding free,And on his forehead paleFelt the cold, refreshing gale,And heard the welcome soundOf the sea.They have borne him to the shipWith a slow and solemn tread;They have placed him on the deckWith his crown upon his head,Where he sat as on a throne;And have left him there alone,With his anchor ready weighedAnd his snowy sails displayedTo the favouring wind, once moreBlowing freshly from the shore;And have bidden him farewellTenderly,Saying, "King of mighty men,We shall meet thee yet again,In Valhalla, with the monarchsOf the sea."Underneath him in the holdThey have placed the lighted brand;And the fire was burning slowAs the vessel from the land,Like a stag-hound from the slips,Darted forth from out the ships.There was music in her sailAs it swelled before the gale,And a dashing at her prowAs it cleft the waves below,And the good ship sped along,Scudding free;As on many a battle mornIn her time she had been borne,To struggle and to conquerOn the sea.And the king, with sudden strength,Started up and paced the deck,With his good sword for his staffAnd his robe around his neck:Once alone, he raised his handTo the people on the land;And with shout and joyous cryOnce again they made reply,Till the loud, exulting cheerSounded faintly on his ear;For the gale was o'er him blowingFresh and free;And ere yet an hour had passed,He was driven before the blast,And a storm was on his pathOn the sea."So blow, ye tempests, blow,And my spirit shall not quail:I have fought with many a foe,I have weathered many a gale;And in this hour of death,Ere I yield my fleeting breath—Ere the fire now burning slowShall come rushing from below,And this worn and wasted frameBe devoted to the flame—I will raise my voice in triumph,Singing free;—To the great All-Father's homeI am driving through the foam,I am sailing to Valhalla,O'er the sea."So blow, ye stormy winds—And, ye flames, ascend on high;—In the easy, idle bedLet the slave and coward die!But give me the driving keel,Clang of shields and flashing steel;Happy, happy, thus I'd yield,On the deck or in the field,My last breath, shouting: 'OnTo victory.'But since this has been denied,They shall say that I have diedWithout flinching, like a monarchOf the sea."And Balder spoke no more,And no sound escaped his lip;—Neither recked he of the roar,The destruction of his ship,Nor the fleet sparks mounting high,Nor the glare upon the sky;Scarcely heard the billows dash,Nor the burning timber crash:Scarcely felt the scorching heatThat was gathering at his feet,Nor the fierce flames mounting o'er himGreedily.But the life was in him yet,And the courage to forgetAll his pain, in his triumphOn the sea.Once alone a cry arose,Half of anguish, half of pride,As he sprang upon his feetWith the flames on every side."I am coming!" said the king,"Where the swords and bucklers ring—Where the warrior lives againWith the souls of mighty men—I am coming, great All-Father,Unto Thee!Unto Odin, unto Thor,And the strong, true hearts of yore—I am coming to Valhalla,O'er the sea."
"My strength is failing fast,"Said the sea-king to his men;"I shall never sail the seasAs a conqueror again.But while yet a drop remainsOf the life-blood in my veins,Raise, O raise me from the bed;Put the crown upon my head;Put my good sword in my hand,And so lead me to the strand,Where my ship at anchor ridesSteadily;If I cannot end my lifeIn the crimsoned battle-strife,Let me die as I have lived,On the sea."
They have raised King Balder up,Put his crown upon his head;They have sheathed his limbs in mail,And the purple o'er him spread;And amid the greeting rudeOf a gathering multitude,Borne him slowly to the shore—All the energy of yoreFrom his dim eyes flashing forth—Old sea-lion of the north—As he looked upon his shipRiding free,And on his forehead paleFelt the cold, refreshing gale,And heard the welcome soundOf the sea.
They have borne him to the shipWith a slow and solemn tread;They have placed him on the deckWith his crown upon his head,Where he sat as on a throne;And have left him there alone,With his anchor ready weighedAnd his snowy sails displayedTo the favouring wind, once moreBlowing freshly from the shore;And have bidden him farewellTenderly,Saying, "King of mighty men,We shall meet thee yet again,In Valhalla, with the monarchsOf the sea."
Underneath him in the holdThey have placed the lighted brand;And the fire was burning slowAs the vessel from the land,Like a stag-hound from the slips,Darted forth from out the ships.There was music in her sailAs it swelled before the gale,And a dashing at her prowAs it cleft the waves below,And the good ship sped along,Scudding free;As on many a battle mornIn her time she had been borne,To struggle and to conquerOn the sea.
And the king, with sudden strength,Started up and paced the deck,With his good sword for his staffAnd his robe around his neck:Once alone, he raised his handTo the people on the land;And with shout and joyous cryOnce again they made reply,Till the loud, exulting cheerSounded faintly on his ear;For the gale was o'er him blowingFresh and free;And ere yet an hour had passed,He was driven before the blast,And a storm was on his pathOn the sea.
"So blow, ye tempests, blow,And my spirit shall not quail:I have fought with many a foe,I have weathered many a gale;And in this hour of death,Ere I yield my fleeting breath—Ere the fire now burning slowShall come rushing from below,And this worn and wasted frameBe devoted to the flame—I will raise my voice in triumph,Singing free;—To the great All-Father's homeI am driving through the foam,I am sailing to Valhalla,O'er the sea.
"So blow, ye stormy winds—And, ye flames, ascend on high;—In the easy, idle bedLet the slave and coward die!But give me the driving keel,Clang of shields and flashing steel;Happy, happy, thus I'd yield,On the deck or in the field,My last breath, shouting: 'OnTo victory.'But since this has been denied,They shall say that I have diedWithout flinching, like a monarchOf the sea."
And Balder spoke no more,And no sound escaped his lip;—Neither recked he of the roar,The destruction of his ship,Nor the fleet sparks mounting high,Nor the glare upon the sky;Scarcely heard the billows dash,Nor the burning timber crash:Scarcely felt the scorching heatThat was gathering at his feet,Nor the fierce flames mounting o'er himGreedily.But the life was in him yet,And the courage to forgetAll his pain, in his triumphOn the sea.
Once alone a cry arose,Half of anguish, half of pride,As he sprang upon his feetWith the flames on every side."I am coming!" said the king,"Where the swords and bucklers ring—Where the warrior lives againWith the souls of mighty men—I am coming, great All-Father,Unto Thee!Unto Odin, unto Thor,And the strong, true hearts of yore—I am coming to Valhalla,O'er the sea."
Charles Mackay
Reading enables us to see with the keenest eyes, to hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time.
Lowell
I am the owner of great estates. Many of them lie in the west, but the greater part in Spain.
You may see my western possessions any evening at sunset when their spires and battlements flash against the horizon. But my finest castles are in Spain. It is a country famously romantic, and my castles are all of perfect proportions and appropriately set in the most picturesque situations.
I have never been in Spain myself, but I have naturally conversed much with travellers to that country; although, I must allow, without deriving from them much substantial information about my property there.
The wisest of them told me that there were more holders of real estate in Spain than in any other region he had ever heard of, and they are all great proprietors.
Every one of them possesses a multitude of the stateliest castles. It is remarkable that none of the proprietors have ever been to Spain to take possession and report to the rest of us the state of our property there, and it is not easy for me to say how I know so much about my castles in Spain.
The sun always shines upon them. They stand lofty and fair in a luminous, golden atmosphere, a little hazy and dreamy, perhaps, like the Indian summer, but in which no gales blow and there are no tempests.
All the sublime mountains and beautiful valleys and soft landscapes that I have not yet seen are to be found in the grounds.
I have often wondered how I should reach my castles. I have inquired very particularly, but nobody seemed to know the way. It occurred to me that Bourne, the millionaire, must have ascertained the safest and most expeditious route to Spain; so I stole a few minutes one afternoon and went into his office.
He was sitting at his desk, writing rapidly, and surrounded by files of papers and patterns, specimens, boxes,—everything that covers the tables of a great merchant.
"A moment, please, Mr. Bourne." He looked up hastily, and wished me good-morning, which courtesy I attributed to Spanish sympathy.
"What is it, sir?" he asked blandly, but with wrinkled brow.
"Mr. Bourne, have you any castles in Spain?" said I, without preface. He looked at me for a few moments, without speaking and withoutseeming to see me. His brow gradually smoothed, and his eyes apparently looking into the street were really, I have no doubt, feasting upon the Spanish landscape.
"Too many, too many," said he, at length, musingly, shaking his head and without addressing me.
He feared, I thought, that he had too much impracticable property elsewhere to own so much in Spain: so I asked:—
"Will you tell me what you consider the shortest and safest route thither, Mr. Bourne? for, of course, a man who drives such an immense trade with all parts of the world will know all that I have come to inquire."
"My dear sir," answered he, wearily, "I have been trying all my life to discover it; but none of my ships have ever been there—none of my captains have any report to make.
"They bring me, as they brought my father, gold-dust from Guinea, ivory, pearls, and precious stones from every part of the earth; but not a fruit, not a solitary flower, from one of my castles in Spain.
"I have sent clerks, agents, and travellers of all kinds, philosophers, pleasure hunters, and invalids, in all sorts of ships, to all sorts ofplaces, but none of them ever saw or heard of my castles, except a young poet, and he died in a madhouse."
"Mr. Bourne, will you take five thousand at ninety-seven?" hastily demanded a man whom, as he entered, I recognized as a broker. "We'll make a splendid thing of it."
Bourne nodded assent, and the broker disappeared.
"Happy man!" muttered the merchant, as the broker went out; "he has no castles in Spain."
"I am sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Bourne," said I, retiring.
"I'm glad you came," returned he; "but, I assure you, had I known the route you hoped to ascertain from me I should have sailed years and years ago. People sail for the Northwest Passage, which is nothing when you have found it. Why don't the English Admiralty fit out expeditions to discover all our castles in Spain?"
Yet I dream my dreams and attend to my castles in Spain. I have so much property there that I could not in conscience neglect it.
All the years of my youth and hopes of my manhood are stored away, like precious stones, in the vaults; and I know that I shall findeverything elegant, beautiful, and convenient when I come into possession.
As the years go by, I am not conscious that my interest diminishes.
Shall I tell a secret? Shall I confess that sometimes when I have been sitting reading to my Prue "Cymbeline," perhaps, or a "Canterbury Tale," I have seemed to see clearly before me the broad highway to my castles in Spain, and, as she looked up from her work and smiled in sympathy, I have even fancied that I was already there?
George William Curtis: "Prue and I."(Adapted)
When I was a beggarly boyAnd lived in a cellar damp,I had not a friend or a toy,But I had Aladdin's lamp;When I could not sleep for cold,I had fire enough in my brain,And builded with roofs of goldMy beautiful castles in Spain!Since then I have toiled day and night,I have money and power good store,But I'd give all my lamps of silver brightFor the one that is mine no more;Take, Fortune, whatever you choose,You gave, and may snatch again;I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose,For I own no more castles in Spain!
When I was a beggarly boyAnd lived in a cellar damp,I had not a friend or a toy,But I had Aladdin's lamp;When I could not sleep for cold,I had fire enough in my brain,And builded with roofs of goldMy beautiful castles in Spain!
Since then I have toiled day and night,I have money and power good store,But I'd give all my lamps of silver brightFor the one that is mine no more;Take, Fortune, whatever you choose,You gave, and may snatch again;I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose,For I own no more castles in Spain!
Lowell
Francis Drake was born near Tavistock in the year 1545. He served his time as an apprentice in a Channel coaster, and his master, who had been struck with his character, left the vessel to him in his will when he died. He was then twenty-one. His kinsman, John Hawkins, was fitting out his third expedition to the Spanish Main, and young Drake, with a party of his Kentish friends, went to Plymouth and joined him. In 1572 "he made himself whole with the Spaniards" by seizing a convoy of bullion at Panama, and on that occasion, having seen the South Pacific from the mountains, "he fell on his knees and prayed God that he might one day navigate those waters," which no English keel as yet had furrowed.
The time and the opportunity had come. He was now in the prime of his strength, thirty-two years old, of middle height, with crisp brown hair, a broad high forehead; gray, steady eyes, unusually long; small ears tight to the head; the mouth and chin slightly concealed by the moustache and beard, but hard, inflexible, and fierce. His dress, as he appears in his portrait, is a loose, dark, seaman's shirt, belted at the waist. About his neck is a plaited cord with a ring attached to it, in which, as if the attitude was familiar, one of his fingers is slung, displaying a small, delicate, but long and sinewy hand. When at sea he wore a scarlet cap with a gold band, and was exacting in the respect with which he required to be treated by his crew.
Such was Francis Drake when he stood on the deck of the Pelican in Plymouth harbour, in November, 1577. The squadron, with which he was preparing to sail into a chartless ocean and invade the dominions of the King of Spain, consisted of his own ship, of a hundred and twenty tons, the size of the smallest class of our modern Channel schooners, two barques of fifty and thirty tons each, a second ship as it was called, the Elizabeth, of eighty tons, not larger than a common revenue cutter, and a pinnace,hardly more than a boat, intended to be burnt if it could not bear the seas. These vessels, with a hundred and sixty-four men, composed the force. The object of the expedition was kept as far as possible secret. On the fifteenth of November the expedition sailed from Plymouth Sound. The vessels struck across the Atlantic and made the coast of South America on the fifth of April in latitude thirty-three degrees South.
The perils of the voyage were now about to commence. No Englishman had as yet passed Magellan's Strait. Cape Horn was unknown. Tierra del Fuego was supposed to be part of a solid continent which stretched unbroken to the Antarctic pole. A single narrow channel was the only access to the Pacific then believed to exist. There were no charts, no records of past experiences. It was known that Magellan had gone through, but that was all. It was the wildest and coldest season of the year, and the vessels in which the attempt was to be made were mere cockle-shells. They were taken on shore, overhauled and scoured, the rigging looked to, and the sails new bent.
On the seventeenth of August, answering to the February of the northern hemisphere, all wasonce more in order. Drake sailed from Port St. Julian, and on the twentieth entered the Strait and felt his way between the walls of mountain "in extreme cold with frost and cold continually." To relieve the crews, who were tried by continual boat work and heaving the lead in front of the ships, they were allowed occasional halts at the islands, where they amused and provisioned themselves with killing infinite seals and penguins. Everything which they saw, birds, beasts, trees, climate, country, were strange, wild, and wonderful. After three weeks' toil and anxiety, they had accomplished the passage and found themselves in the open Pacific. But they found also that it was no peaceful ocean into which they had entered, but the stormiest they had ever encountered. Their vessels were now reduced to three; the pinnace had been left behind at Port St. Julian, and there remained only the Pelican, the Elizabeth, and the thirty-ton cutter. Instantly that they emerged out of the Strait, they were caught in a gale which swept them six hundred miles to the south-west. For six weeks they were battered to and fro, in bitter cold and winds which seemed as if they blew in these latitudes for ever. The cutter went down in the fearful seas,carrying her crew with her. The Elizabeth and the Pelican were separated. The bravest sailor might well have been daunted at such a commencement, and Winter, recovering the opening again and, believing Drake to be lost, called a council in his cabin and proposed to return to England. They had agreed to meet, if they were parted, on the coast in the latitude of Valparaiso. The men, with better heart than their commander, desired to keep the appointment. But those terrible weeks had sickened Winter. He overruled the opinions of the rest, re-entered the Strait, and reached England in the following June.
Drake, meanwhile, had found shelter among the islands of Tierra del Fuego. At length spring brought fair winds and smooth seas, and running up the coast and looking about for her consort, the Pelican or Golden Hind—for she had both names—fell in with an Indian fisherman, who informed Drake that in the harbour of Valparaiso, already a small Spanish settlement, there lay a great galleon which had come from Peru. Galleons were the fruit that he was in search of. He sailed in, and the Spanish seamen, who had never yet seen a stranger in those waters, ran up their flags, beat their drums, and prepared abanquet for their supposed countrymen. The Pelican shot up alongside. The English sailors leaped on board, and one "Thomas Moore," a lad from Plymouth, began the play with knocking down the first man that he met, saluting him in Spanish as he fell, and crying out "Down, dog." The Spaniards, overwhelmed with surprise, began to cross and bless themselves. One sprang overboard and swam ashore; the rest were bound and stowed away under the hatches while the ship was rifled. The beginning was not a bad one. Wedges of gold were found weighing four hundred pounds, besides miscellaneous plunder. The settlement, which was visited next, was less productive, for the inhabitants had fled, taking their valuables with them.
At Arica, the port of Potosi, fifty-seven blocks of precious metal were added to the store; and from thence they made haste to Lima, where the largest booty was looked for. They found that they had just missed it. Twelve ships lay at anchor in the port without arms, without crews, and with their sails on shore. In all of these they discovered but a few chests of reals and some bales of silk and linen. A thirteenth, called by the seamen the Cacafuego, butchristened in her baptism "Our Lady of the Conception," had sailed for the Isthmus a few days before, taking with her all the bullion which the mines had yielded for the season. She had been literally ballasted with silver, and carried also several precious boxes of gold and jewels.
Not a moment was lost. The cables of the ships at Lima were cut, and they were left to drive on shore to prevent pursuit; and then away sped the Pelican due north, with every stitch of her canvas spread. A gold chain was promised to the first man who caught sight of the Cacafuego. A sail was seen the second day of the chase: it was not the vessel which they were in pursuit of, but the prize was worth the having. They took eighty pounds' weight of gold in wedges, the purest which they yet had seen.
For eight hundred miles the Pelican flew on. At length, one degree to the north of the line, off Quito, and close to the shore, a look-out on the mast-head cried out that he saw the chase and claimed the promised chain; she was recognized by the peculiarities in her sails, of which they had received exact information at Lima. There lay the Cacafuego; if they could take her their work would be done, and theymight go home in triumph. She was several miles ahead of them; if she guessed their character, she would run in under the land, and they might lose her. It was afternoon: several hours remained of daylight, and Drake did not wish to come up with her till dark.
The Pelican sailed two feet to the Cacafuego's one, and dreading that her speed might rouse suspicion, he filled his empty wine casks with water and trailed them astern. The chase meanwhile unsuspecting, and glad of company on a lonely voyage, slackened sail and waited for her slow pursuer. The sun sank low, and at last set into the ocean, and then, when both ships had become invisible from the land, the casks were hoisted in, the Pelican was restored to her speed, and shooting up within a cable's length of the Cacafuego, hailed to her to run into the wind. The Spanish commander, not understanding the meaning of such an order, paid no attention to it. The next moment the corsair opened her ports, fired a broadside, and brought his main-mast about his ears. His decks were cleared by a shower of arrows, with one of which he was himself wounded. In a few minutes more he was a prisoner, and his ship and all that it contained was in the hands of theEnglish. The wreck was cut away, the ship cleared, and her head turned to the sea; by daybreak even the line of the Andes had become invisible, and at leisure, in the open ocean, the work of rifling began. The full value of the plunder taken in this ship was never actually confessed. It remained a secret between Drake and the Queen. In a schedule afterwards published, he acknowledged to have found in the Cacafuego alone twenty-six tons of silver bullion, thirteen chests of coined silver, and almost a hundredweight of gold. But this was only so much as the Spaniards could prove to have been on board.
Drake imagined, like most other English seamen, that there was a passage to the north corresponding to Magellan's Strait, of which Frobisher conceived that he had found the eastern entrance. He went on therefore at his leisure towards the coast of Mexico, intending to follow the shore till he found it. Another ship coming from China crossed him on his way loaded with silks and porcelain. He took the best of the freight with a golden falcon and a superb emerald. Then needing fresh water he touched at the Spanish settlement of Guatulco.
The work of plunder was nearly over. Again sailing north, the Pelican fell in with a Spanish nobleman who was going out as Governor to the Philippines. He was detained a few hours and relieved of his finery, and then, says one of the party: "Our general, thinking himself both in respect of his private injuries received from the Spaniards, as also their contempt and indignities offered to our country and prince in general, sufficiently satisfied and revenged, and supposing her Majesty would rest contented with this service, began to consider the best way for his country."
The first necessity was a complete repair of the Pelican's hull. Before the days of copper sheathing, the ships' bottoms grew foul with weed; the great barnacles formed in clusters and stopped their speed, and the sea-worms bored holes into the planking. Twenty thousand miles of unknown water lay between Drake and Plymouth Sound, and he was not a man to run idle risks. Running on till he had left the furthest Spanish station far to the south, he put into the Bay of Canoa in Lower California. There he laid his ship on shore, set up forge and workshop, and refitted her with a month's labour from stem to stern.
By the sixteenth of April, 1579, the Pelican was once more in order, and started on her northern course in search of the expected passage. She held on up the coast for eight hundred miles into latitude forty-three degrees North, but no signs appeared of an opening. Though it was summer the air grew colder, and the crew having been long in the tropics suffered from the change. Not caring to run risks in exploring with so precious a cargo, and finding by observation that the passage, if it existed, must be of enormous length, Drake resolved to go no further, and expecting, as proved to be the case, that the Spaniards would be on the look-out for him at Magellan's Strait, he determined on the alternative route by the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese had long traded with China. In the ship going to the Philippines he had found a Portuguese chart of the Indian Archipelago, and with the help of this and his own skill he trusted to find his way.
At the little island of Ternate, south of the Celebes, the ship was again docked and scraped. The crew were allowed another month's rest, when they feasted their eyes on the marvels of tropical life, then first revealed to them intheir luxuriance—vampires "as large as hens," crayfish a foot round, and fireflies lighting the midnight forest. Starting once more, they had now to feel their way among the rocks and shoals of the most dangerous waters in the world. They crept round Celebes among coral reefs and low islands scarcely visible above the water-line. The Malacca Straits formed the only route marked in the Portuguese chart, and between Drake and his apparent passage lay the Java Sea and the channel between Borneo and Sumatra. But it was not impossible that there might be some other opening, and the Pelican crawled in search of it along the Java coast. Here, if nowhere else, her small size and manageableness were in her favour. In spite of all the care that was taken, she was almost lost. One evening as the black tropical night was closing, a grating sound was heard under her keel: another moment she was hard and fast upon an invisible reef. The breeze was light and the water calm, or the world would have heard no more of Francis Drake and the Pelican. She lay immovable till morning; "we were out of all hope to escape danger," but with the daylight the position was seen not to be utterly desperate. "Our general, then asalways, showed himself most courageous, and of good confidence in the mercy and protection of God; and as he would not seem to perish wilfully, so he and we did our best endeavour to save ourselves, and in the end cleared ourselves of that danger."
The Pelican had no more adventures; and sweeping in clear fine weather close to the Cape of Good Hope, and touching for water at Sierra Leone, she sailed in triumph into Plymouth harbour in the beginning of October, having marked a furrow with her keel round the globe.
Froude: "History of England."(Adapted)
Who, if he rise to station of command,Rises by open means; and there will standOn honourable terms, or else retire,And in himself possess his own desire;Who comprehends his trust, and to the sameKeeps faithful with a singleness of aim;And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in waitFor wealth, or honours, or for worldly state:Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,Like showers of manna, if they come at all.
Who, if he rise to station of command,Rises by open means; and there will standOn honourable terms, or else retire,And in himself possess his own desire;Who comprehends his trust, and to the sameKeeps faithful with a singleness of aim;And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in waitFor wealth, or honours, or for worldly state:Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,Like showers of manna, if they come at all.
Wordsworth: "The Happy Warrior."