Duringmy blindness I was hospitably housed in Eaten Place by Mr. Whitbread, the head of the renowned firm. After my recovery I had the good fortune to meet there Lady Morgan, the once famous authoress of the ‘Wild Irish Girl.’ She still bore traces of her former comeliness, and had probably lost little of her sparkling vivacity. She was known to like the company of young people, as she said they made her feel young; so, being the youngest of the party, I had the honour of sitting next her at dinner. When I recall her conversation and her pleasing manners, I can well understand the homage paid both abroad and at home to the bright genius of the Irish actor’s daughter.
We talked a good deal about Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb. This arose out of my saying I had been reading ‘Glenarvon,’ in which Lady Caroline gives Byron’s letters to herself as Glenarvon’s letters to the heroine. Lady Morgan had been the confidante of Lady Caroline, had seen many of Byron’s letters, and possessed many of her friend’s—full of details of the extraordinary intercourse which had existed between the two.
Lady Morgan evidently did not believe (in spite of Lady Caroline’s mad passion for the poet) that the liaison ever reached the ultimate stage contemplated by her lover. This opinion was strengthened by Lady Caroline’s undoubted attachment to her husband—William Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne—who seems to have submitted to his wife’s vagaries with his habitual stoicism and good humour.
Both Byron and Lady Caroline had violent tempers, and were always quarrelling. This led to the final rupture, when, according to my informant, the poet’s conduct was outrageous. He sent her some insulting lines, which Lady Morgan quoted. The only one I remember is:
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!
Among other amusing anecdotes she told was one of Disraeli. She had met him (I forget where), soon after his first success as the youthful author of ‘Vivian Grey.’ He was naturally made much of, but rather in the Bohemian world than by such queens of society as Lady Holland or Lady Jersey. ‘And faith!’ she added, with the piquante accent which excitement evoked, ‘he took the full shine out of his janius. And how do ye think he was dressed? In a black velvet jacket and suit to match, with a red sash round his waist, in which was stuck a dagger with a richly jew’lled sheath and handle.’
The only analogous instance of self-confidence that I can call to mind was Garibaldi’s costume at a huge reception at Stafford House. Theéliteof society was there, in diamonds, ribbons, and stars, to meet him. Garibaldi’s uppermost and outermost garment was a red flannel shirt, nothing more nor less.
The crowd jostled and swayed around him. To get out of the way of it, I retreated to the deserted picture gallery. The only person there was one who interested me more than the scarlet patriot, Bulwer-Lytton the First. He was sauntering to and fro with his hands behind his back, looking dingy in his black satin scarf, and dejected. Was he envying the Italian hero the obsequious reverence paid to his miner’s shirt? (Nine tenths of the men, and still more of the women there, knew nothing of the wearer, or his cause, beyond that.) Was he thinking of similar honours which had been lavished upon himself whenhisstar was in the zenith? Was he muttering to himself the usual consolation of the ‘have-beens’—vanitas vanitatum? Or what new fiction, what old love, was flitting through that versatile and fantastic brain? Poor Bulwer! He had written the best novel, the best play, and had made the most eloquent parliamentary oration of any man of his day. But, like another celebrated statesman who has lately passed away, he strutted his hour and will soon be forgotten—‘Quand on broute sa gloire en herbe de son vivant, on ne la récolte pas en épis après sa mort.’ The ‘Masses,’ so courted by the one, however blatant, are not the arbiters of immortal fame.
To go back a few years before I met Lady Morgan: when my mother was living at 18 Arlington Street, Sydney Smith used to be a constant visitor there. One day he called just as we were going to lunch. He had been very ill, and would not eat anything. My mother suggested the wing of a chicken.
‘My dear lady,’ said he, ‘it was only yesterday that my doctor positively refused my request for the wing of a butterfly.’
Another time when he was making a call I came to the door before it was opened. When the footman answered the bell, ‘Is Lady Leicester at home?’ he asked.
‘No, sir,’ was the answer.
‘That’s a good job,’ he exclaimed, but with a heartiness that fairly took Jeames’ breath away.
As Sydney’s face was perfectly impassive, I never felt quite sure whether this was for the benefit of myself or of the astounded footman; or whether it was the genuine expression of an absent mind. He was a great friend of my mother’s, and of Mr. Ellice’s, but his fits of abstraction were notorious.
He himself records the fact. ‘I knocked at a door in London, asked, “Is Mrs. B— at home?” “Yes, sir; pray what name shall I say?” I looked at the man’s face astonished. What name? what name? aye, that is the question. What is my name? I had no more idea who I was than if I had never existed. I did not know whether I was a dissenter or a layman. I felt as dull as Sternhold and Hopkins. At last, to my great relief, it flashed across me that I was Sydney Smith.’
In the summer of the year 1848 Napier and I stayed a couple of nights with Captain Marryat at Langham, near Blakeney. He used constantly to come over to Holkham to watch our cricket matches. His house was a glorified cottage, very comfortable and prettily decorated. The dining and sitting-rooms were hung with the original water-colour drawings—mostly by Stanfield, I think—which illustrated his minor works. Trophies from all parts of the world garnished the walls. The only inmates beside us two were his son, a strange, but clever young man with considerable artistic abilities, and his talented daughter, Miss Florence, since so well known to novel readers.
Often as I had spoken to Marryat, I never could quite make him out. Now that I was his guest his habitual reserve disappeared, and despite his failing health he was geniality itself. Even this I did not fully understand at first. At the dinner-table his amusement seemed, I won’t say to make a ‘butt’ of me—his banter was too good-natured for that—but he treated me as Dr. Primrose treated his son after the bushel-of-green-spectacles bargain. He invented the most wonderful stories, and told them with imperturbable sedateness. Finding a credulous listener in me, he drew all the more freely upon his invention. When, however, he gravely asserted that Jonas was not the only man who had spent three days and three nights in a whale’s belly, but that he himself had caught a whale with a man inside it who had lived there for more than a year on blubber, which, he declared, was better than turtle soup, it was impossible to resist the fooling, and not forget that one was the Moses of the extravaganza.
In the evening he proposed that his son and daughter and I should act a charade. Napier was the audience, and Marryat himself the orchestra—that is, he played on his fiddle such tunes as a ship’s fiddler or piper plays to the heaving of the anchor, or for hoisting in cargo. Everyone was in romping spirits, and notwithstanding the cheery Captain’s signs of fatigue and worn looks, which he evidently strove to conceal, the evening had all the freshness and spirit of an impromptu pleasure.
When I left, Marryat gave me his violin, with some sad words about his not being likely to play upon it more. Perhaps he knew better than we how prophetically he was speaking. Barely three weeks afterwards I learnt that the humorous creator of ‘Midshipman Easy’ would never make us laugh again.
In 1846 Lord John Russell succeeded Sir Robert Peel as premier. At the General Election, a brother of mine was the Liberal candidate for the seat in East Norfolk. He was returned; but was threatened with defeat through an occurrence in which I was innocently involved.
The largest landowner in this division of the county, next to my brother Leicester, was Lord Hastings—great-grandfather of the present lord. On the occasion I am referring to, he was a guest at Holkham, where a large party was then assembled. Leicester was particularly anxious to be civil to his powerful neighbour; and desired the members of his family to show him every attention. The little lord was an exceedingly punctilious man: as scrupulously dapper in manner as he was in dress. Nothing could be more courteous, more smiling, than his habitual demeanour; but his bite was worse than his bark, and nobody knew which candidate his agents had instructions to support in the coming contest. It was quite on the cards that the secret order would turn the scales.
One evening after dinner, when the ladies had left us, the men were drawn together and settled down to their wine. It was before the days of cigarettes, and claret was plentifully imbibed. I happened to be seated next to Lord Hastings on his left; on the other side of him was Spencer Lyttelton, uncle of our Colonial Secretary. Spencer Lyttelton was a notable character. He had much of the talents and amiability of his distinguished family; but he was eccentric, exceedingly comic, and dangerously addicted to practical jokes. One of these he now played upon the spruce and vigilant little potentate whom it was our special aim to win.
As the decanters circulated from right to left, Spencer filled himself a bumper, and passed the bottles on. Lord Hastings followed suit. I, unfortunately, was speaking to Lyttelton behind Lord Hastings’s back, and as he turned and pushed the wine to me, the incorrigible joker, catching sight of the handkerchief sticking out of my lord’s coat-tail, quick as thought drew it open and emptied his full glass into the gaping pocket. A few minutes later Lord Hastings, who took snuff, discovered what had happened. He held the dripping cloth up for inspection, and with perfect urbanity deposited it on his dessert plate.
Leicester looked furious, but said nothing till we joined the ladies. He first spoke to Hastings, and then to me. What passed between the two I do not know. To me, he said: ‘Hastings tells me it was you who poured the claret into his pocket. This will lose the election. After to-morrow, I shall want your room.’ Of course, the culprit confessed; and my brother got the support we hoped for. Thus it was that the political interests of several thousands of electors depended on a glass of wine.
IHADcompleted my second year at the University, when, in October 1848, just as I was about to return to Cambridge after the long vacation, an old friend—William Grey, the youngest of the ex-Prime-Minister’s sons—called on me at my London lodgings. He was attached to the Vienna Embassy, where his uncle, Lord Ponsonby, was then ambassador. Shortly before this there had been serious insurrections both in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin.
Many may still be living who remember how Louis Philippe fled to England; how the infection spread over this country; how 25,000 Chartists met on Kennington Common; how the upper and middle classes of London were enrolled as special constables, with the future Emperor of the French amongst them; how the promptitude of the Iron Duke saved London, at least, from the fate of the French and Austrian capitals.
This, however, was not till the following spring. Up to October, no overt defiance of the Austrian Government had yet asserted itself; but the imminence of an outbreak was the anxious thought of the hour. The hot heads of Germany, France, and England were more than meditating—they were threatening, and preparing for, a European revolution. Bloody battles were to be fought; kings and emperors were to be dethroned and decapitated; mobs were to take the place of parliaments; the leaders of the ‘people’—i.e.the stump orators—were to rule the world; property was to be divided and subdivided down to the shirt on a man’s—a rich man’s—back; and every ‘po’r’ man was to have his own, and—somebody else’s. This was the divine law of Nature, according to the gospels of Saint Jean Jacques and Mr. Feargus O’Connor. We were all naked under our clothes, which clearly proved our equality. This was the simple, the beautiful programme; once carried out, peace, fraternal and eternal peace, would reign—till it ended, and the earthly Paradise would be an accomplished fact.
I was an ultra-Radical—a younger-son Radical—in those days. I was quite ready to share with my elder brother; I had no prejudice in favour of my superiors; I had often dreamed of becoming a leader of the ‘people’—a stump orator,i.e.—with the handsome emoluments of ministerial office.
William Grey came to say good-bye. He was suddenly recalled in consequence of the insurrection. ‘It is a most critical state of affairs,’ he said. ‘A revolution may break out all over the Continent at any moment. There’s no saying where it may end. We are on the eve of a new epoch in the history of Europe. I wouldn’t miss it on any account.’
‘Most interesting! most interesting!’ I exclaimed. ‘How I wish I were going with you!’
‘Come,’ said he, with engaging brevity.
‘How can I? I’m just going back to Cambridge.’
‘You are of age, aren’t you?’
I nodded.
‘And your own master? Come; you’ll never have such a chance again.’
‘When do you start?’
‘To-morrow morning early.’
‘But it is too late to get a passport.’
‘Not a bit of it. I have to go to the Foreign Office for my despatches. Dine with me to-night at my mother’s—nobody else—and I’ll bring your passport in my pocket.’
‘So be it, then. Billy Whistle [the irreverend nickname we undergraduates gave the Master of Trinity] will rusticate me to a certainty. It can’t be helped. The cause is sacred. I’ll meet you at Lady Grey’s to-night.’
We reached our destination at daylight on October 9. We had already heard, while changing carriages at Breslau station, that the revolution had broken out at Vienna, that the rails were torn up, the Bahn-hof burnt, the military defeated and driven from the town. William Grey’s official papers, aided by his fluent German, enabled us to pass the barriers, and find our way into the city. He went straight to the Embassy, and sent me on to the ‘Erzherzog Carl’ in the Kärnthner Thor Strasse, at that time the best hotel in Vienna. It being still nearly dark, candles were burning in every window by order of the insurgents.
The preceding day had been an eventful one. The proletariats, headed by the students, had sacked the arsenal, the troops having made but slight resistance. They then marched to the War Office and demanded the person of the War Minister, Count Latour, who was most unpopular on account of his known appeal to Jellachich, the Ban of Croatia, to assist, if required, in putting down the disturbances. Some sharp fighting here took place. The rioters defeated the small body of soldiers on the spot, captured two guns, and took possession of the building. The unfortunate minister was found in one of the upper garrets of the palace. The ruffians dragged him from his place of concealment, and barbarously murdered him. They then flung his body from the window, and in a few minutes it was hanging from a lamp-post above the heads of the infuriated and yelling mob.
In 1848 the inner city of Vienna was enclosed within a broad and lofty bastion, fosse, and glacis. These were levelled in 1857. As soon as the troops were expelled, cannon were placed on the Bastei so as to command the approaches from without. The tunnelled gateways were built up, and barricades erected across every principal thoroughfare. Immediately after these events Ferdinand I. abdicated in favour of the present Emperor Francis Joseph, who retired with the Court to Schöbrunn. Foreigners at once took flight, and the hotels were emptied. The only person left in the ‘Archduke Charles’ beside myself was Mr. Bowen, afterwards Sir George, Governor of New Zealand, with whom I was glad to fraternise.
These humble pages do not aspire to the dignity of History; but a few words as to what took place are needful for the writer’s purposes. The garrison in Vienna had been comparatively small; and as the National Guard had joined the students and proletariats, it was deemed advisable by the Government to await the arrival of reinforcements under Prince Windischgrätz, who, together with a strong body of Servians and Croats under Jellachich, might overawe the insurgents; or, if not, recapture the city without unnecessary bloodshed. The rebels were buoyed up by hopes of support from the Hungarians under Kossuth. But in this they were disappointed. In less than three weeks from the day of the outbreak the city was beleaguered. Fighting began outside the town on the 24th. On the 25th the soldiers occupied the Wieden and Nussdorf suburbs. Next day the Gemeinderath (Municipal Council) sent aParlementärto treat with Windischgrätz. The terms were rejected, and the city was taken by storm on October 30.
A few days before the bombardment, the Austrian commander gave the usual notice to the Ambassadors to quit the town. This they accordingly did. Before leaving, Lord Ponsonby kindly sent his private secretary, Mr. George Samuel, to warn me and invite me to join him at Schönbrunn. I politely elected to stay and take my chance. After the attack on the suburbs began I had reason to regret the decision. The hotels were entered by patrols, and all efficient waiterskommandiere’dto work at the barricades, or carry arms. On the fourth day I settled to change sides. The constant banging of big guns, and rattle of musketry, with the impossibility of getting either air or exercise without the risk of being indefinitely deprived of both, was becoming less amusing than I had counted on. I was already provided with aPassierschein, which franked me inside the town, and up to the insurgents’ outposts. The difficulty was how to cross the neutral ground and the two opposing lines. Broad daylight was the safest time for the purpose; the officious sentry is not then so apt to shoot his friend. With much stalking and dodging I made a bolt; and, notwithstanding violent gesticulations and threats, got myself safely seized and hurried before the nearest commanding officer.
He happened to be a general or a colonel. He was a fierce looking, stout old gentleman with a very red face, all the redder for his huge white moustache and well-filled white uniform. He began by fuming and blustering as if about to order me to summary execution. He spoke so fast, it was not easy to follow him. Probably my amateur German was as puzzling to him. ThePassierschein, which I produced, was not in my favour; unfortunately I had forgotten my Foreign Office passport. What further added to his suspicion was his inability to comprehend why I had not availed myself of the notice, duly given to all foreigners, to leave the city before active hostilities began. How anyone, who had the choice, could be fool enough to stay and be shelled or bayoneted, was (from his point of view) no proof of respectability. I assured him he was mistaken if he thought I had a predilection for either of these alternatives.
‘It was just because I desired to avoid both that I had sought, not without risk, the protection I was so sure of finding at the hands of a great and gallant soldier.’
‘Dummes Zeug! dummes Zeug!’ (stuff o’ nonsense), he puffed. But a peppery man’s good humour is often as near the surface as his bad. I detected a pleasant sparkle in his eye.
‘Pardon me, Excellenz,’ said I, ‘my presence here is the best proof of my sincerity.’
‘That,’ said he sharply, ‘is what every rascal might plead when caught with a rebel’s pass in his pocket. Geleitsbriefe für Schurken sind Steckbriefe für die Gerechtigkeit.’ (Safe-conduct passes for knaves are writs of capias to honest men.)
I answered: ‘But an English gentleman is not a knave; and no one knows the difference better than your Excellenz.’ The term ‘Schurken’ (knaves) had stirred my fire; and though I made a deferential bow, I looked as indignant as I felt.
‘Well, well,’ he said pacifically, ‘you may go about your business. Butsehen Sie, young man, take my advice, don’t satisfy your curiosity at the cost of a broken head. Dazu gehören Kerle die eigens geschaffen sind.’ As much as to say: ‘Leave halters to those who are born to be hanged.’ Indeed, the old fellow looked as if he had enjoyed life too well to appreciate parting with it gratuitously.
I had nothing with me save the clothes on my back. When I should again have access to the ‘Erzherzcg Carl’ was impossible to surmise. The only decent inn I knew of outside the walls was the ‘Golden Lámm,’ on the suburb side of the Donau Canal, close to the Ferdinand bridge which faces the Rothen Thurm Thor. Here I entered, and found it occupied by a company of Nassaujägers. A barricade was thrown up across the street leading to the bridge. Behind it were two guns. One end of the barricade abutted on the ‘Golden Lámm.’ With the exception of the soldiers, the inn seemed to be deserted; and I wanted both food and lodging. The upper floor was full ofjägers. The front windows over-looked the Bastei. These were now blocked with mattresses, to protect the men from bullets. The distance from the ramparts was not more than 150 yards, and woe to the student or the fat grocer, in his National Guard uniform, who showed his head above the walls. While I was in the attics a gun above the city gate fired at the battery below. I ran down a few minutes later to see the result. One artilleryman had been killed. He was already laid under the gun-carriage, his head covered with a cloak.
The storming took place a day or two afterwards. One of the principal points of resistance had been at the bottom of the Jägerzeile. The insurgents had a battery of several guns here; and the handsome houses at the corners facing the Prater had been loop-holed and filled with students. I walked round the town after all was over, and was especially impressed with the horrors I witnessed. The beautiful houses, with their gorgeous furniture, were a mass of smoking ruins. Not a soul was to be seen, not even a prowling thief. I picked my way into one or two of them without hindrance. Here and there were a heap of bodies, some burnt to cinders, some with their clothes still smouldering. The smell of the roasted flesh was a disgusting association for a long time to come. But the whole was sickening to look at, and still more so, if possible, to reflect upon; for this was the price which so often has been, so often will be, paid for the alluring dream of liberty, and for the pursuit of that mischievous will-o’-the-wisp—jealous Equality.
Viennain the early part of the last century was looked upon as the gayest capital in Europe. Even the frightful convulsion it had passed through only checked for a while its chronic pursuit of pleasure. The cynical philosopher might be tempted to contrast this not infrequent accessory of paternal rule with the purity and contentment so fondly expected from a democracy—or shall we say a demagoguey? The cherished hopes of the so-called patriots had been crushed; and many were the worse for the struggle. But the majority naturally subsided into their customary vocations—beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, music, dancing, and play-going.
The Vienna of 1848 was the Vienna described by Madame de Staël in 1810: ‘Dans ce pays, l’on traite les plaisirs comme les devoirs. . . . Vous verrez des hommes et des femmes exécuter gravement, l’un vis-à-vis de l’autre, les pas d’un menuet dont ils sont imposé l’amusement, . . . comme s’il [the couple] dansait pour l’acquit de sa conscience.’
Every theatre and place of amusement was soon re-opened. There was an excellent opera; Strauss—the original—presided over weekly balls and concerts. For my part, being extremely fond of music, I worked industriously at the violin, also at German. My German master, Herr Mauthner by name, was a little hump-backed Jew, who seemed to know every man and woman (especially woman) worth knowing in Vienna. Through him I made the acquaintance of several families of the middle class,—amongst them that of a veteran musician who had been Beethoven’s favourite flute-player. As my veneration for Beethoven was unbounded, I listened with awe to every trifling incident relating to the great master. I fear the conviction left on my mind was that my idol, though transcendent amongst musicians, was a bear amongst men. Pride (according to his ancient associate) was his strong point. This he vindicated by excessive rudeness to everyone whose social position was above his own. Even those that did him a good turn were suspected of patronising. Condescension was a prerogative confined to himself. In this respect, to be sure, there was nothing singular.
At the house of the old flutist we played family quartets,—he, the father, taking the first violin part on his flute, I the second, the son the ’cello, and his daughter the piano. It was an atmosphere of music that we all inhaled; and my happiness on these occasions would have been unalloyed, had not the young lady—a damsel of six-and-forty—insisted on poisoning me (out of compliment to my English tastes) with a bitter decoction she was pleased to call tea. This delicate attention, I must say, proved an effectual souvenir till we met again—I dreaded it.
Now and then I dined at the Embassy. One night I met there Prince Paul Esterhazy, so distinguished by his diamonds when Austrian Ambassador at the coronation of Queen Victoria. He talked to me of the Holkham sheep-shearing gatherings, at which from 200 to 300 guests sat down to dinner every day, including crowned heads, and celebrities from both sides of the Atlantic. He had twice assisted at these in my father’s time. He also spoke of the shooting; and promised, if I would visit him in Hungary, he would show me as good sport as had ever seen in Norfolk. He invited Mr. Magenis—the Secretary of Legation—to accompany me.
The following week we two hired abritzcka, and posted to Eisenstadt. The lordly grandeur of this last of the feudal princes manifested itself soon after we crossed the Hungarian frontier. The first sign of it was the livery and badge worn by the postillions. Posting houses, horses and roads, were all the property of His Transparency.
Eisenstadt itself, though not his principal seat, is a large palace—three sides of a triangle. One wing is the residence, that opposite the barrack, (he had his own troops,) and the connecting base part museum and part concert-hall. This last was sanctified by the spirit of Joseph Haydn, for so many years Kapellmeister to the Esterhazy family. The conductor’s stand and his spinet remained intact. Even the stools and desks in the orchestra (so the Prince assured me) were ancient. The very dust was sacred. Sitting alone in the dim space, one could fancy the great little man still there, in his snuff-coloured coat and ruffles, half buried (as on state occasions) in his ‘allonge perücke.’ A tap of his magic wand starts into life his quaint old-fashioned band, and the powder flies from their wigs. Soft, distant, ghostly harmonies of the Surprise Symphony float among the rafters; and now, as in a dream, we are listening to—nay, beholding—the glorious process of Creation; till suddenly the mighty chord is struck, and we are startled from our trance by the burst of myriad voices echoing the command and its fulfilment, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’
Only a family party was assembled in the house. A Baron something, and a Graf something—both relations,—and the son, afterwards Ambassador at St. Petersburg during the Crimean War. The latter was married to Lady Sarah Villiers, who was also there. It is amusing to think that the beautiful daughter of the proud Lady Jersey should be looked upon by the Austrians as somewhat of amésalliancefor one of the chiefs of their nobility. Certain it is that the young Princess was received by them, till they knew her, with more condescension than enthusiasm.
An air of feudal magnificence pervaded the palace: spacious reception-rooms hung with armour and trophies of the chase; numbers of domestics in epauletted and belaced, but ill-fitting, liveries; the prodigal supply and nationality of the comestibles—wild boar with marmalade, venison and game of all sorts with excellent ‘Eingemachtes’ and ‘Mehlspeisen’ galore—a feast for a Gamache or a Gargantua. But then, all save three, remember, were Germans—and Germans! Noteworthy was the delicious Château Y’quem, of which the Prince declared he had a monopoly—meaning the best, I presume. After dinner the son, his brother-in-law, and I, smoked our meerschaums and played pools ofécartéin the young Prince’s room. Magenis, who was much our senior, had his rubber downstairs with the elders.
The life was pleasant enough, but there was one little medieval peculiarity which almost made one look for retainers in goat-skins and rushes on the floor,—there was not a bath (except the Princess’s) in the palace! It was with difficulty that my English servant foraged a tub from the kitchen or the laundry. As to other sanitary arrangements, they were what they doubtless had been in the days of Almos and his son, the mighty Arped. In keeping with these venerable customs, I had a sentry at the door of my apartments; to protect me, belike, from the ghosts of predatory barons and marauders.
During the week we had two days’ shooting; one in the coverts, quite equal to anything of the kind in England, the other at wild boar. For the latter, a tract of the Carpathian Mountains had been driven for some days before into a wood of about a hundred acres. At certain points there were sheltered stands, raised four or five feet from the ground, so that the sportsmen had a commanding view of the broad alley or clearing in front of him, across which the stags or boar were driven by an army of beaters.
I had my own double-barrelled rifle; but besides this, a man with a rack on his back bearing three rifles of the prince’s, a loader, and aFörster, with a hunting knife or short sword to despatch the wounded quarry. Out of the first rush of pigs that went by I knocked over two; and, in my keenness, jumped out of the stand with theFörsterwho ran to finish them off. I was immediately collared and brought back; and as far as I could make out, was taken for a lunatic, or at least for a ‘duffer,’ for my rash attempt to approach unarmed a wounded tusker. When we all met at the end of the day, the bag of the five guns was forty-five wild boars. The biggest—and he was a monster—fell to the rifle of the Prince, as was of course intended.
The old man took me home in his carriage. It was a beautiful drive. One’s idea of an English park—even such a park as Windsor’s—dwindled into that of a pleasure ground, when compared with the boundless territory we drove through. To be sure, it was no more a park than is the New Forest; but it had all the character of the best English scenery—miles of fine turf, dotted with clumps of splendid trees, and gigantic oaks standing alone in their majesty. Now and then a herd of red deer were startled in some sequestered glade; but no cattle, no sheep, no sign of domestic care. Struck with the charm of this primeval wilderness, I made some remark about the richness of the pasture, and wondered there were no sheep to be seen. ‘There,’ said the old man, with a touch of pride, as he pointed to the blue range of the Carpathians; ‘that is my farm. I will tell you. All the celebrities of the day who were interested in farming used to meet at Holkham for what was called the sheep-shearing. I once told your father I had more shepherds on my farm than there were sheep on his.’
It waswith a sorry heart that I bade farewell to my Vienna friends, my musical comrades, the Legation hospitalities, and my faithful little Israelite. But the colt frisks over the pasture from sheer superfluity of energy; and between one’s second and third decades instinctive restlessness—spontaneous movement—is the law of one’s being. ’Tis then that ‘Hope builds as fast as knowledge can destroy.’ The enjoyment we abandon is never so sweet as that we seek. ‘Pleasure never is at home.’ Happiness means action for its own sake, change, incessant change.
I sought and found it in Bavaria, Bohemia, Russia, all over Germany, and dropped anchor one day in Cracow; a week afterwards in Warsaw. These were out-of-the-way places then; there were no tourists in those days; I did not meet a single compatriot either in the Polish or Russian town.
At Warsaw I had an adventure not unlike that which befell me at Vienna. The whole of Europe, remember, was in a state of political ferment. Poland was at least as ready to rise against its oppressor then as now; and the police was proportionately strict and arbitrary. An army corps was encamped on the right bank of the Vistula, ready for expected emergencies. Under these circumstances, passports, as may be supposed, were carefully inspected; except in those of British subjects, the person of the bearer was described—his height, the colour of his hair (if he had any), or any mark that distinguished him.
In my passport, after my name, was added ‘et son domestique.’ The inspector who examined it at the frontier pointed to this, and, in indifferent German, asked me where that individual was. I replied that I had sent him with my baggage to Dresden, to await my arrival there. A consultation thereupon took place with another official, in a language I did not understand; and to my dismay I was informed that I was—in custody. The small portmanteau I had with me, together with my despatch-box, was seized; the latter contained a quantity of letters and my journal. Money only was I permitted to retain.
Quite by the way, but adding greatly to my discomfort, was the fact that since leaving Prague, where I had relinquished everything I could dispense with, I had had much night travelling amongst native passengers, who so valued cleanliness that they economised it with religious care. By the time I reached Warsaw, I may say, without metonymy, that I was itching (all over) for a bath and a change of linen. My irritation, indeed, was at its height. But there was no appeal; and on my arrival I was haled before the authorities.
Again, their head was a general officer, though not the least like my portly friend at Vienna. His business was to sit in judgment upon delinquents such as I. He was a spare, austere man, surrounded by a sharp-looking aide-de-camp, several clerks in uniform, and two or three men in mufti, whom I took to be detectives. The inspector who arrested me was present with my open despatch-box and journal. The journal he handed to the aide, who began at once to look it through while his chief was disposing of another case.
To be suspected and dragged before this tribunal was, for the time being (as I afterwards learnt) almost tantamount to condemnation. As soon as the General had sentenced my predecessor, I was accosted as a self-convicted criminal. Fortunately he spoke French like a Frenchman; and, as it presently appeared, a few words of English.
‘What country do you belong to?’ he asked, as if the question was but a matter of form, put for decency’s sake—a mere prelude to committal.
‘England, of course; you can see that by my passport.’ I was determined to fence him with his own weapons. Indeed, in those innocent days of my youth, I enjoyed a genuine British contempt for foreigners—in the lump—which, after all, is about as impartial a sentiment as its converse, that one’s own country is always in the wrong.
‘Where did you get it?’ (with a face of stone).
Prisoner(naïvely): ‘Where did I get it? I do not follow you.’ (Don’t forget, please, that said prisoner’s apparel was unvaleted, his hands unwashed, his linen unchanged, his hair unkempt, and his face unshaven).
General(stonily): ‘“Where did you get it?” was my question.’
Prisoner(quietly): ‘From Lord Palmerston.’
General(glancing at that Minister’s signature): ‘It says here, “et son domestique”—you have no domestique.’
Prisoner(calmly): ‘Pardon me, I have a domestic.’
General(with severity), ‘Where is he?’
Prisoner: ‘At Dresden by this time, I hope.’
General(receiving journal from aide-de-camp, who points to a certain page): ‘You state here you were caught by the Austrians in a pretended escape from the Viennese insurgents; and add, “They evidently took me for a spy” [returning journal to aide]. What is your explanation of this?’
Prisoner(shrugging shoulders disdainfully): ‘In the first place, the word “pretended” is not in my journal. In the second, although of course it does not follow, if one takes another person for a man of sagacity or a gentleman—it does not follow that he is either—still, when—’
General(with signs of impatience): ‘I have here aPassierschein, found amongst your papers and signed by the rebels. They would not have given you this, had you not been on friendly terms with them. You will be detained until I have further particulars.’
Prisoner(angrily): ‘I will assist you, through Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul, with whom I claim the right to communicate. I beg to inform you that I am neither a spy nor a socialist, but the son of an English peer’ (heaven help the relevancy!). ‘An Englishman has yet to learn that Lord Palmerston’s signature is to be set at naught and treated with contumacy.’
The General beckoned to the inspector to put an end to the proceedings. But the aide, who had been studying the journal, again placed it in his chief’s hands. A colloquy ensued, in which I overheard the name of Lord Ponsonby. The enemy seemed to waver, so I charged with a renewed request to see the English Consul. A pause; then some remarks in Russian from the aide; then theGeneral(in suaver tones): ‘The English Consul, I find, is absent on a month’s leave. If what you state is true, you acted unadvisedly in not having your passport altered andreviséwhen you parted with your servant. How long do you wish to remain here?’
Said I, ‘Vous avez bien raison, Monsieur. Je suis évidemment dans mon tort. Ma visite à Varsovie était une aberration. As to my stay, je suis déjà tout ce qu’il y a de plus ennuyé. I have seen enough of Warsaw to last for the rest of my days.’
Eventually my portmanteau and despatch-box were restored to me; and I took up my quarters in the filthiest inn (there was no better, I believe) that it was ever my misfortune to lodge at. It was ancient, dark, dirty, and dismal. My sitting-room (I had a cupboard besides to sleep in) had but one window, looking into a gloomy courtyard. The furniture consisted of two wooden chairs and a spavined horsehair sofa. The ceiling was low and lamp-blacked; the stained paper fell in strips from the sweating walls; fortunately there was no carpet; but if anything could have added to the occupier’s depression it was the sight of his own distorted features in a shattered glass, which seemed to watch him like a detective and take notes of his movements—a real Russian mirror.
But the resources of one-and-twenty are not easily daunted, even by the presence of thecimex lectulariusor thepulex irritans. I inquired for alaquais de place,—some human being to consort with was the most pressing of immediate wants. As luck would have it, the very article was in the dreary courtyard, lurking spider-like for the innocent traveller just arrived. Elective affinity brought us at once to friendly intercourse. He was of the Hebrew race, as the larger half of the Warsaw population still are. He was a typical Jew (all Jews are typical), though all are not so thin as was Beninsky. His eyes were sunk in sockets deepened by the sharpness of his bird-of-prey beak; a single corkscrew ringlet dropped tearfully down each cheek; and his one front tooth seemed sometimes in his upper, sometimes in his lower jaw. His skull-cap and his gabardine might have been heirlooms from the Patriarch Jacob; and his poor hands seemed made for clawing. But there was a humble and contrite spirit in his sad eyes. The history of his race was written in them; but it was modern history that one read in their hopeless and appealing look.
His cringing manner and his soft voice (we conversed in German) touched my heart. I have always had a liking for the Jews. Who shall reckon how much some of us owe them! They have always interested me as a peculiar people—admitting sometimes, as in poor Beninsky’s case, of purifying, no doubt; yet, if occasionally zealous (and who is not?) of interested works—cent. per cent. works, often—yes, more often than we Christians—zealous of good works, of open-handed, large-hearted munificence, of charity in its democratic and noblest sense. Shame upon the nations which despise and persecute them for faults which they, the persecutors, have begotten! Shame on those who have extorted both their money and their teeth! I think if I were a Jew I should chuckle to see my shekels furnish all the wars in which Christians cut one another’s Christian weasands.
And who has not a tenderness for the ‘beautiful and well-favoured’ Rachels, and the ‘tender-eyed’ Leahs, and the tricksy little Zilpahs, and the Rebekahs, from the wife of Isaac of Gerar to the daughter of Isaac of York? Who would not love to sit with Jessica where moonlight sleeps, and watch the patines of bright gold reflected in her heavenly orbs? I once knew a Jessica, a Polish Jessica, who—but that was in Vienna, more than half a century ago.
Beninsky’s orbs brightened visibly when I bade him break his fast at my high tea. I ordered everything they had in the house I think,—a cold PomeranianGänsebrust, a garlickyWurst, andgeräucherte Lachs. I had a packet of my own Fortnum and Mason’s Souchong; and when the stove gave out its glow, and the samovar its music, Beninsky’s gratitude and his hunger passed the limits of restraint. Late into the night we smoked our meerschaums.
When I spoke of the Russians, he got up nervously to see the door was shut, and whispered with bated breath. What a relief it was to him to meet a man to whom he could pour out his griefs, his double griefs, as Pole and Israelite. Before we parted I made him put the remains of the sausage (!) and the goose-breast under his petticoats. I bade him come to me in the morning and show me all that was worth seeing in Warsaw. When he left, with tears in his eyes, I was consoled to think that for one night at any rate he and hisGänsebrustand sausage would rest peacefully in Abraham’s bosom. What Abraham would say to the sausage I did not ask; nor perhaps did my poor Beninsky.
Theremainder of the year ’49 has left me nothing to tell. For me, it was the inane life of that draff of Society—the young man-about-town: the tailor’s, the haberdasher’s, the bootmaker’s, and trinket-maker’s, young man; the dancing and ‘hell’-frequenting young man; the young man of the ‘Cider Cellars’ and Piccadilly saloons; the valiant dove-slayer, the park-lounger, the young lady’s young man—who puts his hat into mourning, and turns up his trousers because—because the other young man does ditto, ditto.
I had a share in the Guards’ omnibus box at Covent Garden, with the privilege attached of going behind the scenes. Ah! that was a real pleasure. To listen night after night to Grisi and Mario, Alboni and Lablache, Viardot and Ronconi, Persiani and Tamburini,—and Jenny Lind too, though she was at the other house. And what an orchestra was Costa’s—with Sainton leader, and Lindley and old Dragonetti, who together but alone, accompanied therecitativewith their harmonious chords on ’cello and double-bass. Is singing a lost art? Or is that but atemporis actiquestion? We who heard those now silent voices fancy there are none to match them nowadays. Certainly there are no dancers like Taglioni, and Cerito, and Fanny Elsler, and Carlotta Grisi.
After the opera and the ball, one finished the night at Vauxhall or Ranelagh; then as gay, and exactly the same, as they were when Miss Becky Sharpe and fat Jos supped there only five-and-thirty years before.
Except at the Opera, and the Philharmonic, and Exeter Hall, one rarely heard good music. Monsieur Jullien, that prince of musical mountebanks—the ‘Prince of Waterloo,’ as John Ella called him, was the first to popularise classical music at his promenade concerts, by tentatively introducing a single movement of a symphony here and there in the programme of his quadrilles and waltzes and music-hall songs.
Mr. Ella, too, furthered the movement with his Musical Union and quartett parties at Willis’s Rooms, where Sainton and Cooper led alternately, and the incomparable Piatti and Hill made up the four. Here Ernst, Sivori, Vieuxtemps, and Bottesini, and Mesdames Schumann, Dulcken, Arabella Goddard, and all the famous virtuosi played their solos.
Great was the stimulus thus given by Ella’s energy and enthusiasm. As a proof of what he had to contend with, and what he triumphed over, Hallé’s ‘Life’ may be quoted, where it says: ‘When Mr. Ella asked me [this was in 1848] what I wished to play, and heard that it was one of Beethoven’s pianoforte sonatas, he exclaimed “Impossible!” and endeavoured to demonstrate that they were not works to be played in public.’ What seven-league boots the world has stridden in within the memory of living men!
John Ella himself led the second violins in Costa’s band, and had begun life (so I have been told) as a pastry-cook. I knew both him and the wonderful little Frenchman ‘at home.’ According to both, in their different ways, Beethoven and Mozart would have been lost to fame but for their heroic efforts to save them.
I used occasionally to play with Ella at the house of a lady who gave musical parties. He was always attuned to the highest pitch,—most good-natured, but most excitable where music was to the fore. We were rehearsing a quintett, the pianoforte part of which was played by the young lady of the house—a very pretty girl, and not a bad musician, but nervous to the point of hysteria. Ella himself was in a hypercritical state; nothing would go smoothly; and the piano was always (according to him) the peccant instrument. Again and again he made us restart the movement. There were a good many friends of the family invited to this last rehearsal, which made it worse for the poor girl, who was obviously on the brink of a breakdown. Presently Ella again jumped off his chair, and shouted: ‘Not E flat! There’s no E flat there; E natural! E natural! I never in my life knew a young lady so prolific of flats as you.’ There was a pause, then a giggle, then an explosion; and then the poor girl, bursting into tears, rushed out of the room.
It was at Ella’s house that I first heard Joachim, then about sixteen, I suppose. He had not yet performed in London. All the musical celebrities were present to hear the youthful prodigy. Two quartetts were played, Ernst leading one and Joachim the other. After it was over, everyone was enraptured, but no one more so than Ernst, who unhesitatingly predicted the fame which the great artist has so eminently achieved.
One more amusing little story belongs to my experiences of these days. Having two brothers and a brother-in-law in the Guards, I used to dine often at the Tower, or the Bank, or St. James’s. At the Bank of England there is always at night an officer’s guard. There is no mess, as the officer is alone. But the Bank provides dinner for two, in case the officer should invite a friend. On the occasion I speak of, my brother-in-law, Sir Archibald Macdonald, was on duty. The soup and fish were excellent, but we were young and hungry, and the usual leg of mutton was always a dish to be looked forward to.
When its cover was removed by the waiter we looked in vain; there was plenty of gravy, but no mutton. Our surprise was even greater than our dismay, for the waiter swore ‘So ’elp his gawd’ that he saw the cook put the leg on the dish, and that he himself put the cover on the leg. ‘And what did you do with it then?’ questioned my host. ‘Nothing, S’Archibald. Brought it straight in ’ere.’ ‘Do you mean to tell me it was never out of your hands between this and the kitchen?’ ‘Never, but for the moment I put it down outside the door to change the plates.’ ‘And was there nobody in the passage?’ ‘Not a soul, except the sentry.’ ‘I see,’ said my host, who was a quick-witted man. ‘Send the sergeant here.’ The sergeant came. The facts were related, and the order given to parade the entire guard, sentry included, in the passage.
The sentry was interrogated first. ‘No, he had not seen nobody in the passage.’ ‘No one had touched the dish?’ ‘Nobody as ever he seed.’ Then came the orders: ‘Attention. Ground arms. Take off your bear-skins.’ And the truth—i.e., the missing leg—was at once revealed; the sentry had popped it into his shako. For long after that day, when the guard either for the Tower or Bank marched through the streets, the little blackguard boys used to run beside it and cry, ‘Who stole the leg o’ mutton?’
Probablythe most important historical event of the year ’49 was the discovery of gold in California, or rather, the great Western Exodus in pursuit of it. A restless desire possessed me to see something of America, especially of the Far West. I had an hereditary love of sport, and had read and heard wonderful tales of bison, and grisly bears, and wapitis. No books had so fascinated me, when a boy, as the ‘Deer-slayer,’ the ‘Pathfinder,’ and the beloved ‘Last of the Mohicans.’ Here then was a new field for adventure. I would go to California, and hunt my way across the continent. Ruxton’s ‘Life in the Far West’ inspired a belief in self-reliance and independence only rivalled by Robinson Crusoe. If I could not find a companion, I would go alone. Little did I dream of the fortune which was in store for me, or how nearly I missed carrying out the scheme so wildly contemplated, or indeed, any scheme at all.
The only friend I could meet with both willing and able to join me was the last Lord Durham. He could not undertake to go to California; but he had been to New York during his father’s reign in Canada, and liked the idea of revisiting the States. He proposed that we should spend the winter in the West Indies, and after some buffalo-shooting on the plains, return to England in the autumn.
The notion of the West Indies gave rise to an off-shoot. Both Durham and I were members of the old Garrick, then but a small club in Covent Garden. Amongst our mutual friends was Andrew Arcedeckne—pronounced Archdeacon—a character to whom attaches a peculiar literary interest, of which anon. Arcedeckne—Archy, as he was commonly called—was about a couple of years older than we were. He was the owner of Glevering Hall, Suffolk, and nephew of Lord Huntingfield. These particulars, as well as those of his person, are note-worthy, as it will soon appear.
Archy—‘Merry Andrew,’ as I used to call him,—owned one of the finest estates in Jamaica—Golden Grove. When he heard of our intended trip, he at once volunteered to go with us. He had never seen Golden Grove, but had often wished to visit it. Thus it came to pass that we three secured our cabins in one of the West India mailers, and left England in December 1849.
To return to our little Suffolk squire. The description of his figure, as before said, is all-important, though the world is familiar with it, as drawn by the pencil of a master caricaturist. Arcedeckne was about five feet three inches, round as a cask, with a small singularly round face and head, closely cropped hair, and large soft eyes,—in a word, so like a seal, that he was as often called ‘Phoca’ as Archy.
Do you recognise the portrait? Do you need the help of ‘Glevering Hall’ (how curious the suggestion!). And would you not like to hear him talk? Here is a specimen in his best manner. Surely it must have been taken down by a shorthand writer, or a phonograph:
Mr. Harry Foker loquitur: ‘He inquired for Rincer and the cold in his nose, told Mrs. Rincer a riddle, asked Miss Rincer when she would be prepared to marry him, and paid his compliments to Miss Brett, another young lady in the bar, all in a minute of time, and with a liveliness and facetiousness which set all these young ladies in a giggle. “Have a drop, Pen: it’s recommended by the faculty, &c. Give the young one a glass, R., and score it up to yours truly.”’
I fancy the great man who recorded these words was more afraid of Mr. HarryPhocathan of any other man in the Garrick Club—possibly for the reason that honest Harry was not the least bit afraid of him. The shy, the proud, the sensitive satirist would steal quietly into the room, avoiding notice as though he wished himself invisible. Phoca would be warming his back at the fire, and calling for a glass of ‘Foker’s own.’ Seeing the giant enter, he would advance a step or two, with a couple of extended fingers, and exclaim, quite affably, ‘Ha! Mr. Thackry! litary cove! Glad to see you, sir. How’s Major Dobbings?’ and likely enough would turn to the waiter, and bid him, ‘Give this gent a glass of the same, and score it up to yours truly!’ We have his biographer’s word for it, that he would have winked at the Duke of Wellington, with just as little scruple.
Yes, Andrew Arcedeckne was the original of Harry Foker; and, from the cut of his clothes to his family connection, and to the comicality, the simplicity, the sweetness of temper (though hardly doing justice to the loveableness of the little man), the famous caricature fits him to a T.
The night before we left London we had a convivial dinner at the Garrick—we three travellers, with Albert Smith, his brother, and John Leech. It was a merry party, to which all contributed good fellowship and innocent jokes. The latest arrival at the Zoo was the first hippopotamus that had reached England,—a present from the Khedive. Someone wondered how it had been caught. I suggested a trout-fly; which so tickled John Leech’s fancy that he promised to draw it for next week’s ‘Punch.’ Albert Smith went with us to Southampton to see us off.
On our way to Jamaica we stopped a night at Barbadoes to coal. Here I had the honour of making the acquaintance of the renowned Caroline Lee!—Miss Car’line, as the negroes called her. She was so pleased at the assurance that her friend Mr. Peter Simple had spread her fame all the world over, that she made us a bowl of the most delicious iced sangaree; and speedily got up a ‘dignity ball’ for our entertainment. She was rather too much of an armful to dance with herself, but there was no lack of dark beauties, (not a white woman or white man except ourselves in the room.) We danced pretty nearly from daylight to daylight. The blending of rigid propriety, of the severest ‘dignity,’ with the sudden guffaw and outburst of wildest spirits and comic humour, is beyond description, and is only to be met with amongst these ebullient children of the sun.
On our arrival at Golden Grove, there was a great turn-out of the natives to welcome their young lord and ‘massa.’ Archy was touched and amused by their frantic loyalty. But their mode of exhibiting it was not so entirely to his taste. Not only the young, but the old women wanted to hug him. ‘Eigh! Dat you, Massa? Dat you, sar? Me no believe him. Out o’ de way, you trash! Eigh! me too much pleased like devil.’ The one constant and spontaneous ejaculation was, ‘Yah! Massa too muchy handsome! Garamighty! Buckra berry fat!’ The latter attribute was the source of genuine admiration; but the object of it hardly appreciated its recognition, and waved off his subjects with a mixture of impatience and alarm.
We had scarcely been a week at Golden Grove, when my two companions and Durham’s servant were down with yellow fever. Being ‘salted,’ perhaps, I escaped scot-free, so helped Archy’s valet and Mr. Forbes, his factor, to nurse and to carry out professional orders. As we were thirty miles from Kingston the doctor could only come every other day. The responsibility, therefore, of attending three patients smitten with so deadly a disease was no light matter. The factor seemed to think discretion the better part of valour, and that Jamaica rum was the best specific for keeping his up. All physicians wereSangradosin those days, and when the Kingston doctor decided upon bleeding, the hysterical state of the darky girls (we had no men in the bungalow except Durham’s and Archy’s servants) rendered them worse than useless. It fell to me, therefore, to hold the basin while Archy’s man was attending to his master.
Durham, who had nerves of steel, bore his lot with the grim stoicism which marked his character. But at one time the doctor considered his state so serious that he thought his lordship’s family should be informed of it. Accordingly I wrote to the last Lord Grey, his uncle and guardian, stating that there was little hope of his recovery. Poor Phoca was at once tragic and comic. His medicine had to be administered every, two hours. Each time, he begged and prayed in lacrymose tones to be let off. It was doing him no good. He might as well be allowed to die in peace. If we would only spare him the beastliness this once, on his honour he would take it next time ‘like a man.’ We were inexorable, of course, and treated him exactly as one treats a child.
At last the crisis was over. Wonderful to relate, all three began to recover. During their convalescence, I amused myself by shooting alligators in the mangrove swamps at Holland Bay, which was within half an hour’s ride of the bungalow. It was curious sport. The great saurians would lie motionless in the pools amidst the snake-like tangle of mangrove roots. They would float with just their eyes and noses out of water, but so still that, without a glass, (which I had not,) it was difficult to distinguish their heads from the countless roots and rotten logs around them. If one fired by mistake, the sport was spoiled for an hour to come.
I used to sit watching patiently for one of them to show itself, or for something to disturb the glassy surface of the dark waters. Overhead the foliage was so dense that the heat was not oppressive. All Nature seemed asleep. The deathlike stillness was rarely broken by the faintest sound,—though unseen life, amidst the heat and moisture, was teeming everywhere; life feeding upon life. For what purpose? To what end? Is this a primary law of Nature? Does cannibalism prevail in Mars? Sometimes a mocking-bird would pipe its weird notes, deepening silence by the contrast. But besides pestilent mosquitos, the only living things in sight were humming-birds of every hue, some no bigger than a butterfly, fluttering over the blossoms of the orchids, or darting from flower to flower like flashes of prismatic rays.
I killed several alligators; but one day, while stalking what seemed to be an unusual monster, narrowly escaped an accident. Under the excitement, my eye was so intently fixed upon the object, that I rather felt than saw my way. Presently over I went, just managed to save my rifle, and, to my amazement, found I had set my foot on a sleeping reptile. Fortunately the brute was as much astonished as I was, and plunged with a splash into the adjacent pool.
A Cambridge friend, Mr. Walter Shirley, owned an estate at Trelawny, on the other side of Jamaica; while the invalids were recovering, I paid him a visit; and was initiated into the mysteries of cane-growing and sugar-making. As the great split between the Northern and Southern States on the question of slavery was pending, the life, condition, and treatment of the negro was of the greatest interest. Mr. Shirley was a gentleman of exceptional ability, and full of valuable information on these subjects. He passed me on to other plantations; and I made the complete round of the island before returning to my comrades at Golden Grove. A few weeks afterwards I stayed with a Spanish gentleman, the Marquis d’Iznaga, who owned six large sugar plantations in Cuba; and rode with his son from Casilda to Cienfuegos, from which port I got a steamer to the Havana. The ride afforded abundant opportunities of comparing the slave with the free negro. But, as I have written on the subject elsewhere, I will pass to matters more entertaining.
Onmy arrival at the Havana I found that Durham, who was still an invalid, had taken up his quarters at Mr. Crauford’s, the Consul-General. Phoca, who was nearly well again, was at the hotel, the only one in the town. And who should I meet there but my old Cambridge ally, Fred, the last Lord Calthorpe. This event was a fruitful one,—it determined the plans of both of us for a year or more to come.
Fred—as I shall henceforth call him—had just returned from a hunting expedition in Texas, with another sportsman whom he had accidentally met there. This gentleman ultimately became of even more importance to me than my old friend. I purposely abstain from giving either his name or his profession, for reasons which will become obvious enough by-and-by; the outward man may be described. He stood well over six feet in his socks; his frame and limbs were those of a gladiator; he could crush a horseshoe in one hand; he had a small head with a bull-neck, purely Grecian features, thick curly hair with crisp beard and silky moustache. He so closely resembled a marble Hercules that (as he must have a name) we will call him Samson.
Before Fred stumbled upon him, he had spent a winter camping out in the snows of Canada, bear and elk shooting. He was six years or so older than either of us—i.e.about eight-and-twenty.
As to Fred Calthorpe, it would be difficult to find a more ‘manly’ man. He was unacquainted with fear. Yet his courage, though sometimes reckless, was by no means of the brute kind. He did not run risks unless he thought the gain would compensate them; and no one was more capable of weighing consequences than he. His temper was admirable, his spirits excellent; and for any enterprise where danger and hardship were to be encountered few men could have been better qualified. By the end of a week these two had agreed to accompany me across the Rocky Mountains.
Before leaving the Havana, I witnessed an event which, though disgusting in itself, gives rise to serious reflections. Every thoughtful reader is conversant enough with them; if, therefore, he should find them out of place or trite, apology is needless, as he will pass them by without the asking.
The circumstance referred to is a public execution. Mr. Sydney Smith, the vice-consul, informed me that a criminal was to be garrotted on the following morning; and asked me whether I cared to look over the prison and see the man in his cell that afternoon. We went together. The poor wretch bore the stamp of innate brutality. His crime was the most revolting that a human being is capable of—the violation and murder of a mere child. When we were first admitted he was sullen, merely glaring at us; but, hearing the warder describe his crime, he became furiously abusive, and worked himself into such a passion that, had he not been chained to the wall, he would certainly have attacked us.
At half-past six next morning I went with Mr. Smith to the Campo del Marte, the principal square. The crowd had already assembled, and the tops of the houses were thronged with spectators. The women, dressed as if for a bull-fight or a ball, occupied the front seats. By squeezing and pushing we contrived to get within eight or nine yards of the machine, where I had not long been before the procession was seen moving up the Passeo. A few mounted troops were in front to clear the road; behind them came the Host, with a number of priests and the prisoner on foot, dressed in white; a large guard brought up the rear. The soldiers formed an open square. The executioner, the culprit, and one priest ascended the steps of the platform.
The garrotte is a short stout post, at the top of which is an iron crook, just wide enough to admit the neck of a man seated in a chair beneath it. Through the post, parallel with the crook, is the loop of a rope, whose ends are fastened to a bar held by the executioner. The loop, being round the throat of the victim, is so powerfully tightened from behind by half a turn of the bar, that an extra twist would sever a man’s head from his body.
The murderer showed no signs of fear; he quietly seated himself, but got up again to adjust the chair and make himself comfortable! The executioner then arranged the rope round his neck, tied his legs and his arms, and retired behind the post. At a word or a look from the priest the wrench was turned. For a single instant the limbs of the victim were convulsed, and all was over.
No exclamation, no whisper of horror escaped from the lookers on. Such a scene was too familiar to excite any feeling but morbid curiosity; and, had the execution taken place at the usual spot instead of in the town, few would have given themselves the trouble to attend it.
It is impossible to see or even to think of what is here described without gravely meditating on its suggestions. Is capital punishment justifiable? This is the question I purpose to consider in the following chapter.