The Underground World: A mirror of life below the surface (part 4 of 5)

The Underground World: A mirror of life below the surface (part 4 of 5)

Although the tunnel was constructed with such a decline that at every three hundred and thirty feet, it inclined almost nine and one-half feet, the top of the tunnel approached, at the middle of the river, the bed, by three meters. Till now, every thing had gone on very well, although the obstacles and dangers for the laborers increased the more they approached the bed of the stream. Brunel did not lose his courage, and the increasing danger more than once imperiled his life. With the purpose of examining the bed of the Thames, himself, he went down into the deep with a diving-bell, on the 22d of April, 1827, which bold undertaking he repeated for several days. He found, at several points, the reason why the water trickled through, and, consequently, he sunk there several baskets and bags with clay and lime.

[Sidenote: A FATAL ACCIDENT.]

He purposely dropped several tools, shovels and a hammer, and when the laborers, a few days afterwards, digged out in the tunnel some watery substance, they found every one of the tools. So these tools had worked through the sand and mud beds of twenty-nine feet of the Thames, and to the depth of the tunnel; a very bad indication of the loose substance of the soil. However, the labor was continually pushed forward, when, unfortunately, several large vessels, which had drifted down with the stream, threw their anchors exactly over the tunnel. The consequence was such a violent rush of the water of the Thames, that the engines could not master it longer. All efforts were in vain. The laborers saved themselves, the tunnel was filled, within a quarter of an hour, with water and some thousand tons of sand and mud. This happened on the 18th of May, 1827. Brunel did not lose his courage. Again he went down, in his diving-bell, to the hole which had been made, and, to his great joy, he saw that the masonry had not been harmed, and his shield stood on the same spot where the laborers had left it. He commenced, at once, to repair the damage. With sixty thousand hundredweights of clay, let down in baskets, he filled the hole, and pumped the tunnel dry with several engines. A month after the disaster, the work went on again. This accident, however, seemed to be the beginning of a series of misfortunes, which threatened the continuation of the tunnel. The laborers had lost their courage, by the last disaster, which had almost proved fatal to them. One cry of alarm followed another, when masses of combustible gas filled the interior, and, at the least carelessness with the lamps, exploded, and filled the whole empty space with flames and such a terrible stench that the laborers swooned. However, up to the 12th of January, 1828, they had advanced fifty-three feet farther, when the flood broke, for a second time, through the ceiling. This unfortunate incident was paid for by the lives of six laborers. The son of Brunel was, at that time, in the tunnel; he crept forward, blindly, in the space, which was blacker than night, then the current of water took him up, but, happily, it forced him up into the shaft. This second hole was at a distance of six hundred and twenty-seven feet from the entrance. Again, Brunel went down to the bottom of the river; the tunnel was pumped dry, and it was proved that the masonry had not been damaged.

[Sidenote: OPENING OF THE TUNNEL.]

Now the means for continuing the work commenced to give out, and it was interrupted for seven years. At last, the government supplied the means for its completion. The work commenced anew, but it proceeded very slowly; the bed of the river proved to be so soaked through that a new bed had to be formed; the shield, which, till now, had been used, was damaged, and had to be replaced by another. Three times, again, the water forced its way through the ceiling. However, the work went on, amid the uninterrupted struggles with the obstacles of the soil and the elements, and on the 13th of August, 1841, Isambert Brunel had the satisfaction to walk through the whole length of the tunnel, after continuous struggles and labor of sixteen years! After the entrance and exit of the tunnel had been constructed, the tunnel was opened, with great festivities, for the general traffic.

The gigantic labor took three million five hundred thousand dollars. Everybody passing through it has to pay one penny.

Brunel, the able architect, was made a baronet, by the queen. He died in 1849.

The tunnel, in the beginning, paid so little that those who held bonds were obliged to pay for a part of the repairs, but, in 1865, the tunnel was bought by the East London railroad company, for two hundred thousand pounds, and at the present time, forty railroad-trains are going up and down under the water of the Thames, and effect the communication between Wapping and Rotherhithe, where the great Commercial and West India-docks are found, which are the greatest in the world, and which have room for four hundred and fifty West Indiamen.

[Sidenote: UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.]

The underground railroad in London is the most remarkable one on the globe, as its rails are laid almost entirely in tunnels. It was opened in January, 1863, and was built by the civil engineers, J. Fowler and Mason Johnson, with the purpose of connecting the four most important railroad stations on the north side of the Thames. It commences at the last station of the Great Western road, and terminates in the City. The road has six or seven halts, and is laid above the ground only, where the lots lying in the line of the road, and the buildings on them, could be cheaply purchased; for the greatest part, however, the road is underground, and leads through tunnels, which are lighted by gas. The stations have platforms of a length of two hundred and five feet, and a breadth of ten feet.

The road follows, with its double track, the direction of the streets; it curves, however, considerably, to such an extent, even, that in a distance of four English miles, mostly underground, it makes a curve, the diameter of which is six hundred and twenty-seven feet. The tunnels, constructed with an elliptic section, are about twenty-nine and one-half feet wide, and sixteen feet high. The walls are all twelve inches thick, and built of brick with hydraulic lime, on account of the moisture. The greatest ascent of the road is one foot per hundred, and the greatest depth under the surface of the earth, fifty-six feet. Good light and sufficient ventilation is not wanting, and the new locomotives, which consume their own steam and smoke, prove to be a perfect success. The stations of Baker street and Gower street, have a peculiar system of illumination. Fourteen enormous windows open on both sides of the immense, dark vaults. The daylight, which they allow to enter, falls on a perpendicular wall of white, polished tiles, and is reflected through the windows proper, sidewise in the halls. Nevertheless, the light is only feeble, gloomy, and vague. The real sun of London underground is gas. Even the passenger cars are provided with it. From six o’clock in the morning, till after midnight, a train goes up and down every twenty minutes, and the charges are less than those of the omnibuses. The road has cost about one million one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds, for the construction proved to be a very difficult one, as well on account of the water-works, gas-works, etc., which of course had to be avoided, and which often suddenly presented themselves as obstacles, but also on account of the unstable nature of the soil, which necessitated very expensive constructions.

Lately, the underground railroad has been extended, and the new Aldgate station has been opened to the public.

[Sidenote: REMARKABLE ENGINEERING WORKS.]

Although this extension amounts to only half a mile in length, it has involved great expense, because of the remarkable engineering works that were required; for example, the walls of some of the immense tea warehouses of the St. Catharine Dock Company, eighty-six feet high, and four feet thick, had to be “underpinned,” and deeper foundations put in for them; but this work was successfully carried out without the slightest injury to the buildings. In spite of all obstacles, the diversion of nine great sewers, and the construction of a large sewer, five feet by three feet, beneath the rails along the whole length of the line, the works have been promptly completed. The excavations were just outside where the old City walls stood, and a few Roman relics were found. Outside the new station, twenty feet below the surface, was discovered an immense deposit of bullocks’ horns, cartloads of which were removed and sold. No other bones were with them, and how they came there in such numbers is a mystery.

There are plenty of openings for ventilation along the new line. Aldgate station is the lightest and airiest station along the line. The glass roof extends half the length of the platform; the other half length is covered by narrower roofs, supported on wooden pillars rising from the platforms themselves. The front of the station is in High street, Aldgate, a door or two from the old church of St. Botolph, and opposite to the Minories.

Entering the station-building on High street, the visitor passes by easy steps down the landing, thence by the stairs to whichever platform he desires to reach. The situation of the terminus is most convenient, and will bring the company a large amount of business. Within a short distance, are the London and the St. Catharine’s docks, Fenchurch and Leadenhall streets, the Commercial road, and the densely populated neighborhoods of Whitechapel and Towerhill. Thus the eastern extremity of the City, and the best business parts of the East End, will be brought within a few minutes’ journey of Holborn and the West End of London, the Great Northern, Great Western, Midland, and Chatham & Dover Railways. The increase in the fares to Aldgate will be only a penny per ticket. All the trains of the Metropolitan Railway Company will run through to the new station, except the Great Western mainline trains, which are few in number. A marble tablet in the Aldgate station records the fact that this extension of the Metropolitan Railway was commenced on March 1, 1876, and gives the names of Sir Edward Watkin, chairman of the company, and his fellow-directors; the general manager, Mr. Myles Fenton; Mr. Brady, the engineer; and Messrs. Lucas and Aird, contractors.

[Sidenote: RAPID-TRANSIT RAILWAY SYSTEM.]

During Sir Edward Watkin’s visit to New York, a few months ago, he gave some very interesting particulars concerning the operation of the rapid-transit railway system of London.

The London underground railroad companies, he said, already had about sixteen miles of road in operation, and in a few months they would have twenty miles of completed road. They were negotiating for a still further extension of their routes, and would in time burrow under the whole city of London. These roads had proved to be a greater convenience to the poorer classes than to wealthy persons. The average fare collected was five cents, and the rate per mile was reduced, by a system of commutation, to one penny. These roads carried seventy million passengers a year. Heavy locomotives were used, and one thousand trains per day, each having a carrying capacity for one thousand persons, were run over them. The rate of speed was very great. The cost was five million dollars per mile, of which about four-fifths was due to damages to real estate caused by cutting through blocks of buildings and tunneling under houses. In some places the roads ran under graveyards without disturbing the graves and the vaults above.

This enormous cost for land would be wholly saved in New York, because here the railway lines would be longitudinal with and run directly under the main streets, without invading private property. But in London, owing to the formation of the city, the underground roads pass athwart the streets and cut through private property in all directions. The citizens of London have ascertained, by practical experience, that the underground system is the best, have invested in it upward of eighty millions of dollars, and are annually increasing the investment and extending the works.

Sir Edmund said that ninety-three per cent. of the passengers on the London underground roads traveled only short distances, and only seven per cent. of them were carried to the end of the various routes.

[Sidenote: OVERCROWDING THE CARS.]

The underground line is admirably managed, the only objection to it being the overcrowding of the carriages. A London man once said to us: “I can very seldom get a seat in a train, when I travel on it, not because I am so big, but because the other fellows take up all the room. This overcrowding is a great inconvenience to ladies, who use the railroad quite as much as the other sex. It serves them in their calling or on shopping expeditions, in lieu of cabs or omnibuses. The last report of the underground railroad presented to the shareholders shows that the number of passengers carried, during the last half year, was twenty-six million two hundred thousand, which seems an enormous number, nearly fifty-two million five hundred thousand per year. One would suppose that with such patronage the road must pay.

[Sidenote: RAILROAD UNDER WATER.]

The most remarkable feature of this new work is the fact that a considerable portion of the line is built under water. The commerce of the world may be said to float and navigate directly over a part of the roof of the tunnel, which extends southeasterly, from the Liverpool street station of the Great Eastern Railway, passing directly under the warehouses and water-basin of the London-docks, thence under the embankment, across and under the Thames river, to the New Cross station of the Southeastern Railway, thus connecting all the roads named, and also the London & Brighton and South London lines. At Shadwell and Whitechapel, magnificent stations, each four hundred and fifty feet in length, have been erected. The total cost of this new line, which is a little less than six miles in length, has been three million two hundred thousand pounds, or sixteen millions of dollars. Of the advantageous nature of this line to the public, the London papers say there is no doubt. That portion of the line under the Thames passes through the old Thames tunnel, built by the celebrated engineer, M. I. Brunel. This work, of which I spoke before, never proved of much value to the public until brought into use several years ago as a railway tunnel.

XLVI.

DUNGEONS.

LIFE IN THEM.—ANCIENT DUNGEONS.—THE PRISON OF ST. PAUL.—THE DUCAL PALACE.—“SOTTO PIOMBI.”—THE POZZI.—SHUT UP IN THE DARK CELLS.—A NIGHT OF HORROR.—A GUIDE’S BLUNDER.—DUNGEONS OF ST. PETERSBURG.—PETER THE GREAT TORTURING HIS SON.—A PRINCESS DROWNED IN PRISON.

A great many people have at some time in their lives been in dungeons; some of their own accord, and others much against their wills. Those who have gone there voluntarily rarely stay long, as their visits are made out of curiosity; and curiosity in regard to dungeons is very speedily satisfied. I have been in a fair number of dungeons, but I generally made my way out of them with very little delay. They are not very agreeable places of residence; and if one of them were assigned to me as a spot to dwell in, I should get out at the earliest moment, when it was in my power to do so.

A dungeon is an old-fashioned institution, but it is not altogether out of date. If the history of all the dungeons in the world could be written, there would be many startling tales narrated, and many volumes could be made concerning what has transpired within them.

In the days of the ancient Romans, every emperor of good and respectable standing kept a private dungeon for his own use; and he had a good many public ones lying round loose for his friends to occupy. Some emperors kept their dungeons well stocked at all times, with an assorted lot of humanity. They were not particular as to age or sex, as long as they could have their dungeons liberally patronized. Nero did a fine business in the dungeon line, and successfully rivalled many of his competitors. He displayed great ingenuity in starving his prisoners, and occasionally in putting them to death; and so did others of the Roman rulers. Nero was a festive old fraud, and did not mind putting his friends to a good deal of trouble in order to amuse himself. I have elsewhere alluded to his fine array of gridirons, toasting-forks, racks, and thumb-screws with which he used to get up exhibitions of a very select character.

[Sidenote: IN THE PRISON OF ST. PAUL.]

Many of the old dungeons are now closed, partly for want of business, and partly for the reason that their present proprietors have a delicate regard for the reputation of their ancestors, and do not wish any prominence given to these old prisons. Other dungeons are kept open to visitors, but nobody is confined in them. One of the most celebrated dungeons of Rome, for instance, is that in which St. Paul was involuntarily lodged during a part of his stay in Rome. There are two dungeons, one below the other: the upper one is not altogether uncomfortable, though its space is rather restricted, and does not afford much room for exercise.

When I visited this place the guide pointed out several of its peculiar features: one of them is an impression of a human face in the solid rock, at the side of the staircase; and he related, with great solemnity, that while St. Paul was being led down the stairs his keeper pushed him, and pressed his face against the stone. An ordinary face, he explained, would have been injured by the operation, but a miracle was performed, in the instantaneous softening of the rock, so as to receive the visage of the apostle without injury. The impression thus made remains to this day.

Another curious feature is the spring of water from which St. Paul baptized one of his jailers. It is related that one of the jailers became converted, and desired Paul to baptize him. No water was at hand for the purpose; but a miracle was performed, by the opening of the rock in the floor of the dungeon and the appearance of a spring of water. This spring remains at this day, and contains water apparently fresh and sweet. The keeper of the place dipped a quantity of the water from the spring, and offered it to our party for drinking.

We were about to drink, when the guide who accompanied us shook his head, and intimated that the liquid was not good. We did not taste it; and therefore I cannot speak positively as to its character. A picture has been painted, and is preserved in the room above, showing the miraculous opening of the floor, the water rising like a fountain from the rock, and the apostle engaged in the act of baptizing the jailer, who is kneeling before him.

In the middle ages every owner of a feudal castle had a dungeon about his premises, though it was not always under ground. Sometimes it was hewn out of the solid rock which formed the foundation of the edifice, and sometimes it was in a high tower placed at one corner, where the occupant could look out and enjoy the scenery, though he was debarred from any practical knowledge of it other than what he could obtain through his eyes. Many a person has lived and suffered for years, shut up in a high tower where he could look out on the world around him with the consciousness that he was never more to enjoy his liberty.

[Sidenote: “SOTTO PIOMBI.”]

The Ducal Palace of Venice was well provided in the dungeon line. There were prisons under the roof of the palace which were known amongst the Italians as the “Sotto Piombi,” or “Under the Leads.” They were so named from their position, directly under the roof. They were hot as ovens in summer, and as cold as refrigerators in winter, and they were connected with the room where the famous Council of Ten used to sit. From these prisons persons accused of crimes against the republic were taken before the Council, whose members sat with their faces covered with masks, and their bodies wrapped in cloaks and mantles, so that it was utterly impossible to identify them. To be dragged before the Council was equivalent to a sentence of death; and generally the trial of an offender would be very brief.

Any one could make an accusation against a person, who would be speedily arrested and taken to trial. He never knew who were his accusers; and very often he did not know what testimony was to be given against him.

[Sidenote: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.]

From the Council Chamber he was generally taken to execution, though not always; in either case he was led across the famous Ponte di Sospiri, or Bridge of Sighs; and according to tradition the bridge received its name because prisoners, weeping and sighing, were led across it for execution, or were taken from the prison for trial before the Council of Ten.

Byron has written,—

“I stood in Venice by the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on either hand.”

Between the Ducal Palace and the prison proper of Venice there is a narrow canal. The bridge is elevated far above the water, and has two passages, each about four feet in width. In regard to these passages traditions differ: one tradition is, that the two were designed, one for noble prisoners, and one for plebeians, while another says that they were used indifferently, patrician or plebeian being allowed either passage without regard to the rank or position he held. The reader can accept whichever explanation suits him best.

Down beneath the palace was a real dungeon: it could never have been an inviting place, and it is very far from being so at this day. No effort is made to keep it in fine condition: it is not carpeted; its walls are not painted, neither are they frescoed. I remember on my first visit that, after we had wandered through the palace, our guide descended a series of stairways, and finally brought us to a place below the level of the water which surrounds Venice. “Here,” said he, “are the dungeons; and here is where many state prisoners, who offended the laws of Venice, passed the portion of their lives immediately preceding their deaths. You can enter them, gentlemen, and see how you would like them.”

[Sidenote: IMPRISONED IN THE LOWEST DEPTH.]

Torches were lighted, and we told the guide that we preferred to follow him. On we went, where not a ray of light from the outer world could reach us. Had our torches been extinguished we should have been in darkness as deep as that of the lowest and most elaborate mine in the world. It did not require a vivid imagination to roll back the centuries, and bring before us the thousands and thousands of men who had lain there, day after day, without hope, until led to trial, and thence to execution. What a world of mystery lies concealed in these prisons! Here is the cell where Marino Faliero was confined; and here is the cell where Jacopo Foscari passed the days preceding his execution; and here is the cell where dozens of men of noble birth and gentle rearing were kept day after day, till they died of starvation and for want of fresh air. The cells are little boxes, some of them not more than six or eight feet square, and not high enough to allow a tall man to stand erect. One cell is only four feet high; and it was said that a healthy man confined in this cell generally died on the sixth day, owing to the dampness and impurity of the air he was compelled to breathe.

To have a practical realization for a few moments of the horrors of imprisonment, we entered one of these cells, and told the guide to take away the torches and not to return for five minutes, whether we called him or not. He went away; the air had been chilly, damp, and disagreeable; and it seemed ten times more so as the light disappeared. The darkness was of the intensest blackness; we could not distinguish anything. With our faces turned towards the door of the cell it seemed the same; the finger held an inch before the eye was no more visible than if it had been cut off and buried a hundred feet deep in the earth.

One minute was quite enough of this sort of thing, and we were inclined to shout for the guide, when we remembered that we had told him to get out of hearing, and not to return even if we called.

I almost expected the ghost of one of the departed occupants to rise before me, and add to the discomfort of the occasion. A ghost is bad enough anywhere; but I always prefer to encounter him above ground, and where there is, at least, enough light to enable me to see him. Had one of those gentlemen made his appearance, it would have been necessary for him to bring a lantern, or rub his unearthly limbs with phosphorus, to enable us to see him.

But no ghost made his appearance, possibly for the reason that the body in the flesh had had quite enough of that place, and had no wish to send his shadow back again. The five minutes’ absence of the guide seemed at least an hour, and when he returned we welcomed him with all the enthusiasm with which we would have welcomed a brother from whom we had been separated a dozen years. We told him that we thought he had been away much longer than the time stipulated, but he assured us he had not.

On narrating this incident afterwards to a party of gentlemen in Paris, I was told of a similar experience, only a great deal more so, of a couple of travellers, one an Englishman and the other an American, who tried the experiment which we did. It seems that the men wished for a little taste of imprisonment, and sent away their guide for half an hour.

It happened to be near the close of the day. Their guide was a stupid fellow, and thought he would improve his thirty minutes by retiring to a Trattoria to indulge in a bottle of cheap wine. So he came out of the palace and crossed the Piazzetta San Marco to a restaurant near the corner of the piazza. He took his wine, indulged himself for about twenty minutes, and then started on his return. He had not observed the hour of his departure from the palace, and when he returned to the entrance he found it closed. It was the time for closing, and the persons in charge of the premises had shut the doors and gone away.

[Sidenote: SHUT UP ALL NIGHT.]

Here was a predicament. He had left the two gentlemen down in the dungeon in total darkness, where he could not reach them, and where their shouts could not be heard. He tried to obtain an entrance to the palace, and to explain the matter, but the porters were obstinate, and did not believe his story. Italians are very suspicious, and the custodian of the palace suspected that he wished to get inside in order to steal something; so they turned him away, and he walked off sorrowing.

It was during the time Venice was under the rule of Austria. The Austrian officers were never inclined to show any favors to the Italians, and consequently the appeals of the guide to those in charge of the city were of no avail. So, finally, with Italian resignation to what could not be very well helped, he went home, wrapped himself in the bosom of his family, and slept the sleep of the innocent and conscientious.

[Sidenote: MAKING A NIGHT OF IT.]

Meantime the two travellers were having a good time of it down below. They stood it for a while very well, but the half hour appeared to them three or four times what it really was. Very soon the thing ceased to be a joke. They were well aware that the time might seem long to them, but they thought it was stretching itself out altogether too much for comfort. They were in a cell where they could not walk around, and where there was no chance to kill time by turning summersaults or playing leap-frog. They stood a while and talked; then they stood a while and swore; and then they had another period of standing still and shouting. The facilities for standing still were unlimited, but those for doing anything else were very much restricted.

They shouted themselves hoarse, and obtained no response. The result of their swearing was pretty nearly the same. They began to grow hungry and thirsty, but there was nothing to eat, and there were no materials at hand for quenching their thirst. The half hour extended to an hour, and then to two hours, and then they concluded to sit down and wait for the fellow to come back. They had no means of knowing how time was passing, as their watches were not of that peculiar kind that strikes the hours, and tells you how you are getting along.

They listened and listened, and finally they heard sounds; but they were not welcome ones, as they were caused by the rats that ran about the place. The rats seemed to have a fondness for the dungeon. They did not make much noise, and could only be heard when the strangers were perfectly still; but there they were in goodly numbers, and their presence was not consoling to the travellers.

From hungry and thirsty they began to grow sleepy, but the facilities for sleeping were not good. The furniture of these prisons was never elaborate, even in the days of the glory of Venice. The rulers of that city never thought of providing their prisons with upholstered sofas, and four-post bedsteads. The furniture generally consisted of a bundle or two of straw, and possibly a chain. Sometimes a stool was added, but it was a luxury which every prisoner did not possess. There was neither straw nor sofa in the cell at the time these unhappy travellers were shut up there, and consequently, if they wished to sleep, they must lie down on the bare floor of stone and hard earth, at the risk of taking cold and spoiling their store clothes.

[Sidenote: RATS AND THEIR FAMILIARITIES.]

They compromised the matter by sitting down in the corners and taking occasional winks of sleep. Their slumbers were not of long duration, and were interrupted by the rats running over them, and making themselves remarkably free, considering that they had never been introduced.

Hour after hour passed away. One of the men said, “it seemed as if we were shut up a full month; and,” said he, “I suppose if I had been alone it would have seemed to me about six months.”

Finally, in the morning, as soon as the palace was opened, the guide returned with his torches, and rescued the prisoners from their confinement. He tried to make them believe that he had only been gone about half an hour, and he almost convinced them of the truth of his averment, by proceeding to show them, in a very mechanical way, the other curiosities of the place, and to tell them it would soon be sunset, when he would go home and prepare to show them the way to the theatre in the evening. He told them, “I suppose, gentlemans, it seemed to you as if you were there a good many hours. It always seem so to gentlemans; they say so always.”

The travellers admitted that it did seem as if they had been there a good many hours; and as they came up stairs, saw the sun rising, and saw the movements of the people indicating that it was morning, they perceived how they had been treated. Without heeding the request of the guide to be paid for his trouble, they kicked him from the door of the Ducal Palace half away across the piazzetta, and left him to go home without any fee for his day’s services, and with the impression of an English and an American boot painfully evident on his person.

[Sidenote: DUNGEON ON THE BANKS OF THE NEVA.]

On the banks of the Neva, in St. Petersburg, there are some famous dungeons in which prisoners of state have been confined. Peter the Great ordered one of his sons imprisoned there, and treated him with great severity. Peter was a hard-hearted monarch, and with his love for Russia, he was as ready to visit punishment upon the members of his own family as upon any one else. The Empress Catherine is also said to have shut up some of her relatives in these prisons; but her cruelty never quite came up to that of Peter, who is said to have caused his son to be put to torture in his own presence, and to have stood calmly by and witnessed his dying agonies. But then she was a woman, and a good deal must be allowed to her in the way of womanly feelings.

A pleasant feature of these dungeons at St. Petersburg is that they are located under the level of the river. St. Petersburg was built originally on a marsh. There is not a hill in the whole city, and the level of the street is only a few feet above the banks of the Neva at high-water mark. Once or twice in a century, the city is inundated, and in such cases the prisoners in these underground cells are quietly drowned; at any rate, such has been their fate on two or three occasions. It is true they might have been saved, had the officers in charge of the prison been willing to open the doors, and allow them to leave their cells; but no one thought of an inundation, and as the prison-keepers had strict orders to keep the prisoners in their cells, unless otherwise commanded by their superiors, and as the superiors were away at the time of the flood, the poor victims were drowned like rats in cages.

There is a thrilling story about one of these dungeons, or rather about one of the prisoners confined there.

A Russian adventuress, said to be a princess, of great beauty and accomplishments, about the year 1822, was in the south of Europe, and claimed a relationship to the emperor’s family. Some persons at this day insist that her claim was well founded, while others say that it was purely fictitious. At any rate she made a great stir, and created so much trouble to the emperor and the Russian government, that an attempt was made to bring her back to the empire, where she could be properly dealt with.

[Sidenote: A PRINCESS DECOYED.]

Various traps were set, and various plans were laid, but none of them were successful, until one day—I think it was at Genoa or Leghorn—she was invited to visit some ships lying at anchor in the harbor. A party had been made up, and every one, including the princess, whose name I do not now recall, had partaken liberally of champagne.

A Russian officer in civilian dress was of the party, and adroitly managed to induce her to go on board a Russian ship of war then in the harbor. The instant she touched the deck the anchor was lifted, and she was invited below. The rest of the party were put ashore, and the ship sailed for Cronstadt.

She was kept in close confinement during the voyage, and on her arrival at St. Petersburg was consigned to one of the dungeons. There she was kept a close prisoner in the hands of the government to which she owed allegiance, and which she had deeply offended. While she was still in this dungeon there came the great inundation of 1824. The prison where she was kept was flooded, and the unhappy princess was drowned.

I heard the story of her unhappy fate while in St. Petersburg, and afterwards in Paris. It was recalled to me in the latter city by a painting in the Russian department of the great Exposition of 1867. The most attractive picture in the Russian collection was the one which represented her death. It was not a large picture, but fearfully realistic in its character.

[Sidenote: DROWNED IN A CELL.]

It showed the interior of her cell, and the torrent of water flowing in through a small grated window near its roof. It was pouring in like a miniature cascade. It had covered the floor up to the very edge of the rude pallet which formed her bed. Its sheep-skin covering was hanging over its edge; rats by the dozen were climbing up this coverlet and crouching around the unhappy woman, who knelt on the couch, her hands clasped, and her face turned upward. There was a dim light in the cell, just enough to render the scene as gloomy as possible. The attitude and features indicated agony and despair at the nearness of a horrible death, from which there was little hope of relief.

XLVII.

ANIMALS UNDER GROUND.

HORSES IN MINES.—EFFECT OF AN EVEN TEMPERATURE ON HORSES AND MULES.—EFFECT OF DEPRIVATION OF LIGHT.—WALKING IN DARKNESS.—RATS IN MINES.—A MONKEY IN A SILVER MINE.—THE CONSTERNATION HE CREATED.—WHAT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE.—HIS UNHAPPY FATE.—A MONKEY AT SEA.—HIS PRANKS.—DEMOCRATIC HABITS.—HOW HE LOST HIS LIFE.—HIS LAST PERFORMANCE.—DOGS IN MINES, AND THE EFFECT OF UNDERGROUND CONFINEMENT.—JOY AT REACHING DAYLIGHT AGAIN.—TWO DOGS AT SEA, AND WHAT THEY DID.—A DOG SAILOR, AND WHAT HE DID.—HIS UNHAPPY END.

As a general thing, miners do not devote much of their time under ground to the care of pet animals. The horses and mules that are kept below are not regarded as pets, but as a part of the working force, and are required to do their whole duty. They are cared for just as well as animals of their kind in similar occupations above ground. Their stables are comfortable, and from their location the beasts can hardly be expected to suffer from cold, though they may sometimes find the heat rather severe. In many localities horses and mules that have been kept a long time under ground, in an unvarying temperature of seventy degrees or more, lose their hair, or a large portion of it. They never suffer from rain or snow, because there can be no storms hundreds or thousands of feet under ground; and they need no protection against cold where there is no cold. Sometimes they become blinded from constant deprivation of the light of day. They very soon learn to walk along certain ways and levels in complete darkness, though they manifest a decided preference for light rather than for its opposite.

The presence of rats in mines has been referred to elsewhere. In some mines they are rarely or never seen, while in others they are numerous. The facilities for good living for rats are not abundant, and they certainly have small encouragement to stay in the levels and tunnels, when they might do much better, and live much happier, above ground. Generally they have no means of exit, as they cannot easily go out of the shaft; and the shaft is the only means of egress.

[Sidenote: A MONKEY IN A MINE.]

I once heard an amusing story of the consternation created in a mine by the introduction of a monkey. Somebody connected with the place had in a mysterious way become proprietor of a monkey, and one day he took the beast with him into the mine. The monkey made no objection to going there; but after reaching the tunnel where the men were at work, he became alarmed, and ran about very uncomfortably. He went from one place to another, attracted by the light, and in hopes of finding a friend. Many of the men had never seen a creature of his kind before; some thought it was the devil, as they could not imagine what else it could be, and some thought it an enormously overgrown rat.

One of the men was lying on his side, digging away at the base of a vein of coal. The monkey thought he recognized in this man a friend, or somebody who ought to be a friend, and went for him. The man knew nothing about the presence of the beast until the latter scrambled upon him and looked full in his face. The miner gave a scream, and fainted. Such a face had never before been turned towards his own, and his alarm was not at all surprising. The monkey left him, and then sprang among a group of men who were loading a car of coal. They stopped work, and shouted to their comrades that the devil was in the mine. In fact, within fifteen minutes that single animal had created an alarm among the men that was not quelled for two or three hours. The beast finally ran to the shaft, made a leap into the darkness, went down four hundred feet or more, and struck upon a pile of coal. As a monkey, he was not of much consequence after that.

Digressions are permissible in a popular work of this kind, and I take the liberty of giving a story of a monkey, which was told me quite recently by an eye-witness of his pranks.

[Sidenote: PRANKS OF A MONKEY AT SEA.]

“I was sailing as an ordinary seaman at one time on an American man-of-war. There were about five hundred men on board, and sometimes there was very little for us to do. Out in the East Indies, at one of the ports where we touched, we picked up a lot of monkeys. They belonged to the officers, but somehow the monkeys preferred to associate with the men. They had the free run of the whole ship, and did pretty much as they liked. They used to steal everything they could lay their hands on, and for a month or two the sailors had very little to do except playing with them.

“When we got out to sea, nearly all of the brutes died. We sailed up north in the Pacific Ocean, and it got rather cold. One monkey had brains enough to hunt out a warm place, and went down into the engine-room, where he used to sit and look at the stokers stirring up the fires. He would sit there, and make faces at them; and one of the officers said that the monkey, if he had any idea of a future state of existence, must imagine that he was in a sort of purgatory, and that the stokers stirring up the fire were keeping it hot for roasting a lot of fellows who were expected to arrive. He managed to live until we got back into the tropics again, and then he came out of his hiding-place, and used to go round among us as sociable as ever.

[Sidenote: A LIVELY CHASE.]

“He wasn’t an aristocrat, that monkey, and didn’t seem to have any high notions about society. One hour he would be in the cabin with the captain, and the next thing you would hear of him, he would be in the galley, making friends with the nigger cook. One day he took the cook’s cap, carried it into the cabin, and put it on the captain’s head. The captain did not like that sort of familiarity, and he ousted the beast from his cabin. He was constantly kicking up a row everywhere, but he was such an amusing duck that everybody liked him.

“When we were lying in the harbor of Nagasaki, we opened our gun-ports, just as we always did when at anchor. One of the favorite jumping-places of the monkey was to go from the end of a yard down to the port on the starboard bow, and whenever they were chasing him, he would be sure to make in that direction. One day we got up steam, and prepared to leave; and of course our ports were then triced up. Just as we were starting, the monkey was full of play, and made for his favorite jump. He did not stop to see that the port was closed, and that in the place where he jumped there was nothing for him to light on; so down he went into the water. We threw a rope over the side of the ship, and he caught hold, and climbed up. He was always mighty careful after that about his jumping-place.

“Occasionally, when we were lying idle, and everybody was tired, the officers would get up a purse of five dollars, and then pipe the men to catch the monkey. The monkey would start up the rigging, and the men would go for him; and the first man that got him would have the money. You see, there would be over four hundred men in the rigging. The monkey could jump and run much better than they could, but they were so thick that almost everywhere he went he was in danger of lighting on a man. He seemed to enjoy the fun just as much as anybody else, and he would make a lively race all over the rigging. Sometimes he would go clear up to the main truck, and sit on the top. It was rather tough work to get him there, and it was no use climbing for him, because before a man could get hold of him he would be sure to jump somewhere else. So we had a rule, that when he got there, we tried to shake or frighten him off in some way; and if he was caught in that jump, the catch did not count.

“We had lots of fun that way. The officers would stay on the deck, and see the fun; and the men would do their best to catch the beast, as they knew that somebody would make five dollars out of the job. Every few days we had a race of this kind, but there came a time when we had the last one. The rule always had been that the monkey should not be hurt, but should be caught uninjured, and brought down.

“One day the captain had his charts out, spread over the table in the cabin—his very best charts, and things that were pretty important. He was studying them, and marking off his ship’s course, and left them a few minutes, to go into his state-room. That infernal monkey was around, and as soon as the captain was gone, he jumped on the table, dipped his paw into the inkstand, and began marking out a course on the chart to suit himself. He daubed that chart all over with ink, and when the captain came out of his state-room, and found what had been done, he was about the maddest man you ever saw. He made a grab for the monkey, but of course the monkey got away. He struck out for the deck, and shinned up into the rigging.

“The captain came out without his cap, and was perfectly white with rage. We saw that something had happened, but what it was we did not know. We were steaming slowly along, and the men were scattered all about the deck.

“‘Pipe all hands to catch the monkey!’ said the captain. ‘Ten dollars for anybody that gets him, dead or alive!’

“We knew there was business then, and we went for the monkey; and the monkey knew there was business too. He understood there was no time for fooling. I fancied that that monkey knew it was a race for life or death, and he never tried so hard before to keep out of our way. Every man who could be spared from the management of the ship was sent into the rigging. We chased him from mainmast to mizzenmast, and from bowsprit back to the stern. He went into all parts of the rigging, and had several narrow escapes.

[Sidenote: SITTING ON A STEAM-PIPE.]

“We were closing in on him, and had him in very tight quarters, when, all of a sudden, he played a trick which he had never tried before. He jumped to the top of the smoke-stack, and then to the steam-pipe, and there he sat. The smoke-stack was too hot for him, but the steam-pipe was cool and comfortable. Our ship, you know, was a low-pressure one, and we only used the steam-pipe when we let off steam, or had an excess of it.

“Of course nobody could shin up that steam-pipe, and there sat the monkey for at least a minute. While we were all wondering what to do, one of the boys went to the pipe, and pulled the string of the fog-whistle.

“Well, sir, there was a jet of steam, and that unfortunate monkey was blown up about twenty feet into the air, and came down on the deck, stone dead, with every hair singed off him. He looked just as if he had been through the barber’s hands, and was preparing to go to church. The boy picked him up, carried him to the captain, and got his ten dollars. We did not have any more monkeys on the ship after that.”

[Sidenote: UNHAPPINESS OF DOGS.]

Pet dogs are sometimes kept in mines, but they soon lose their activity, and appear so unhappy that the miners, out of pity for them, take them to the open air again. I once saw a dog that had been kept a fortnight in a silver mine, without once seeing daylight. I happened to be at the entrance when he was brought to the surface, and never did I see a dog manifest more joy than did this one. As soon as he was placed on the ground, saw daylight, and snuffed the clear, open air, he ran about, jumping first upon one and then upon another of the miners, and seemed to thank them for his release from prison. He kept this up for a quarter of an hour, and then he darted about in wide circles, running at the very top of his speed, and paying no heed to anybody. He ran in this way until fairly exhausted, and then came up to his master, and lay down at his feet. His master then endeavored to coax him into the cage, to descend the shaft again, but the dog would not move. As his master stepped into the cage, he tried to call him down, but the dog turned, and ran away. He had had quite enough of underground life.

I have seen dogs that had been kept a long time on shipboard act in just the same way when going on land. Sailing once from San Francisco, across the Pacific Ocean, we picked up, just before our departure, two small dogs—one a Skye terrier, and the other a black and tan. For the first few days they were not in love with sea life, but before we had been a week on our voyage, they were accustomed to it, and wandered around the ship at will. They made friends with everybody. The black and tan had the run of the main cabin, but the Skye lived forward with the men. The two dogs played together a great deal. The black and tan would go forward, and apparently invite the Skye aft. He would come, and they would play about the deck; but he never ventured into the cabin. He appeared to know his place, and kept it very carefully.

Twenty-four hours before we sighted land, when it was more than a hundred and fifty miles away, those dogs began to sniff the air uneasily, and rather wistfully indicated that they knew we were approaching shore, and that they wanted to get upon it. But when we entered harbor, they did not manifest any particular wish for the land; and though they looked around the deck, and off towards the shore, they showed no desire to seek it.

It was morning when we came to anchor, and we immediately made our official visits, and returned to the ship about noon. Opposite our anchoring-place there was a partially wooded point, which, we thought, would give us a pleasant promenade; and so, in the afternoon, four of us went ashore, taking the dogs with us.

[Sidenote: TAKING THE DOGS ASHORE.]

They were reluctant to get into the boat, and the sailors were obliged to carry them down the gangway stairs to the boat, and put them ashore when we touched land. But as soon as they had touched it, and realized that they were on solid earth, they began to caper and run about in the most extravagant way. I think that before we had walked a mile those dogs had run at least ten miles, and had examined, in their canine way, every bush, and tree, and shrub in the region. Several dogs of ten times their size were wandering about, but these little brutes gave chase to them as readily as though the strangers had been rats. When they came back to our landing-place, they did not want to enter the boat, and we had to carry them in.

After that, whenever a boat went ashore, there was no occasion to invite the dogs or urge them to go. The very first instant they saw any preparations for leaving the ship, they would descend the gangway, and enter the boat; and if driven back, they would look wistfully over the side, and sometimes fairly howl with sorrow. On two or three occasions, when we allowed them to descend to the foot of the gangway stairs, and pushed off without them, they jumped into the water, and followed us.

[Sidenote: A QUADRUPEDAL MARINER.]

I may still further digress, and say, that on one occasion we had at sea with us a dog evidently born to a marine life. He was really attached to that ship, and apparently never cared to go ashore. If taken on shore by the captain or one of the officers, he would quite likely get lost; but he always knew enough to make his way back to the landing. If the ship was tied to the dock, he could select her from dozens of others. He never made a mistake, and never went aboard the wrong craft. At sea he would stand his watch as regularly as any one of the officers. When the starboard watch was called, he roused himself up, and went on deck. Sometimes, when he would be lying asleep, a call would be made for all hands, and he would be the first on deck. The rest of the crew, when called out, were generally obliged to put on some article of dress—at any rate, a hat, and possibly a coat; but Charley, as the dog was called, had no toilet to make, and consequently he would be the first at his post.

If he saw a man pulling at a line, he would seize it, and pull also; and sometimes, when there was no chance for him to pull at the line, he would seize the rear man by the seat of his trousers, and pull away for dear life. The men didn’t like this sort of thing, as sometimes he included a little flesh in the folds of the trousers; and Charley got a good many threshings in consequence. But he was so anxious to do something, that within fifteen minutes after he was threshed, if he saw a line of men hauling in a rope which he could not get hold of, in would go his teeth into the trousers of the rear man,—and he had long and strong teeth too.

Every dog has his day, and Charley had his. As before stated, he could pick out his own craft among dozens of ships. If she was anchored from the shore, he would come down to the water’s edge, give a look around, and discover the ship. Then he would strike boldly into the water, and swim towards her. Somebody would see him, and a rope would be lowered, with a noose at the end. Charley would put his fore paws in the noose, seize the rope with his teeth, and be drawn on deck.

[Sidenote: CHARLEY’S FATE.]

One day, when the ship was at anchor in the Bay of Panama, Charley started to swim out, as usual. The bay was full of sharks, and just as he had reached the side of the ship, and was putting his paws through the noose lowered to receive him, there was a swirl of the water. The head and belly of a large shark were visible for a moment, and with a single yelp of pain and terror, Charley was dragged under the water, and never seen again.

XLVIII.

OUT OF PRISON.

WONDERFUL ESCAPE FROM A FRENCH PRISON.—PLANS OF ESCAPE.—A LONG LABOR.—TUNNELLING THROUGH A WALL.—INGENUITY OF A SAILOR.—LUCKY ACCIDENTS.—DISCOURAGING EVENTS.—HOW SUCCESS WAS ATTAINED.—ELUDING THE GUARDS.—REACHING A PLACE OF SAFETY.

Among the most remarkable efforts of prisoners to escape from their confinement was that of some French Communists, who were sentenced to incarceration upon their failure to establish their government in France, after the downfall of Louis Napoleon in the disaster at Sedan. The story, as told by one of them, is of the most thrilling character.

We were political prisoners—three hundred of us—in the fortress of Port Louis, a part of that line of fortifications which was built by Sully to defend the French coast from Brest to La Rochelle. At high tide the fortress is entirely surrounded by the sea, and communicates with the land only by a bridge. Round its circuit runs a rampart on which the casemates abut. The entrance is opposite the bridge—that is to say, facing the peninsula on which stands the little town of Port Louis. On the left are the offices of the prison authorities and the residence of the governor; on the right, the quarters of the soldiers. In the centre of the fortress are barracks, forming a square, and having an inner court; and it is here that the prisoners are confined. The soldiers are strictly forbidden to speak to the prisoners. Their duty consists in mounting guard on the terrace running along above the casemates. A road, known as the Round Road, goes round the citadel, and separates the casemates from the buildings in which the prisoners are confined. The ground floor, occupied by the prisoners, is divided into twenty dormitories, of unequal size, containing from seven to thirty prisoners each.

[Sidenote: PULLING NAILS WITH FINGERS.]

The dormitories are lighted by windows looking out on one side on the Round Road, and on the other side on the inner court; and these windows are protected by strong iron bars. Having observed that the floor boards were badly joined, the idea occurred to us of working out with our finger-nails the nails by which they were fastened; and having done this, we discovered under our room large excavations without any outlet, which had doubtless been formed for ventilation. On lifting two of the floor boards under my bed, we were able to descend into this cellar; and then, after working holes in the walls separating the different compartments, we reached the foundation wall abutting on the Round Road. Immediately the working party had descended into the cellar, the floor boards were replaced, and were only lifted again when it was necessary for those below to remount. The only tools we had were large nails or spikes, which had been used in fixing the stand for the arms, these quarters having formerly been occupied by soldiers. We had worked out these nails with our hands; and to do so had cost us several days’ labor and no little laceration of fingers. We then conceived the idea of excavating a tunnel to run from the cellar to the sea. We found that we were just on a level with the Round Road; but this road served as a thoroughfare for wagons loaded with powder, and for all the vehicles bringing provisions and other stores into the citadel. It was therefore necessary, before excavating the tunnel, to sink a vertical shaft about thirteen feet in depth, in order that the superincumbent weight of the wagons passing might not cause the road to fall in.

[Sidenote: UNDER THE ROUND ROAD.]

Digging with the nails, we loosened the earth, which we then scooped up in a tin plate which we had been able to conceal. When we had in this manner filled a dinner napkin, we formed a sort of chain, and passed from hand to hand the napkin full of earth, which was deposited in the farthest of the underground compartments and well trampled down, so that it might occupy as small a space as possible. There were only six of us to carry on this work, for the numberless difficulties which stood in the way of our escape had discouraged the others. We followed to the last the same method of disposing of the earth and the stones, which we worked out one by one after incredible efforts. Having finished this shaft of thirteen feet in depth, we commenced the horizontal tunnel. We had in the first place to pass under the Round Road, which is twenty-two or twenty-three feet in width. As the earth was much easier of excavation than stone, we excavated our gallery with a downward slope, in order that we might be able to pass underneath the foundation wall of the casement facing our dormitory. Thanks to this slope, we succeeded so well that for a space of about forty-six feet—that is to say, until we reached the wall of the rampart—we had only to work through earth. This tunnel was just large enough for one man to creep along in it. We therefore took our turns at the excavations, lying flat on our faces. Unforeseen accidents occurred to increase the difficulties, already great, which we had to surmount. The part of the tunnel passing under the Round Road, notwithstanding the depth below the surface at which it was excavated, and notwithstanding the care we took to construct it arch-shaped, so that it might be better able to support the heavy weights passing above, threatened entirely to fall in. Heavy rains had loosened the soil, and pretty large masses of earth fell every day. It was necessary that this part of the tunnel should be propped up. How could it be done? One of our number, who had been a sailor, and who was a resolute and enterprising man, as sailors usually are, conceived the idea of supporting the earth by packing against the sides of the tunnel the stones which we had removed from the walls. This was done; and the downfall from above being thereby effectually prevented, we were able to continue our labors. A second accident, which seemed at first much more serious, then occurred, threw us into a fever of anxiety, and delayed the accomplishment of our project. When our tunnel had attained a length of about thirty-three feet, we could not get our light to burn. We thought this phenomenon was caused by want of air, and this is what we did to remedy the defect. While one of our number was kept constantly at work excavating, another, standing in the shaft at the entrance of the tunnel, and making a sort of fan of his jacket, forced a strong current of air into the tunnel. However, after some few days, when the length of the passage had been increased by a little more than a yard, there was no longer any need of our improvised ventilator, as the light burned of itself. There doubtless occurred in this part of the earth some gas which prevented our light from burning; and this gas, having little by little become dispersed, the phenomenon ceased.

[Sidenote: REACHING THE RAMPART.]

At length, after being distracted by doubts and fears, after the innumerable difficulties which every day for three months we had encountered,—difficulties which we should never have overcome but by dint of sheer energy, and thanks to that incredible patience with which prisoners only are endowed,—we reached the wall of the rampart. A few more days of labor and suffering and we shall be free. Free! The reader will understand what courage and hope that word must have given us to induce us to undertake and enable us to accomplish a work which, under any other circumstances, would have appeared to us as simple madness. Alas! it was at the very moment when we seemed to be approaching the end of our fatigues that the obstacles became most difficult to surmount. Some of our number seemed ready to abandon the task which for more than three months we had been prosecuting. All our labor was going to be thrown away. Again it was the energy of the sailor which saved us, and gradually revived the hopes of his weaker brethren. The wall of the rampart which we had still to pierce, and which is, of course, intended to resist cannon-shot, seemed to us proof against anything. It is constructed of enormous blocks of granite, jammed tightly together by smaller stones driven in like wedges, and the whole is united into one solid mass by means of Roman cement, which has become as hard as the stone itself. We endeavored with the nails—the only tools we had, and which we had put in wooden handles—to loosen the joints of the stones. With another piece of wood we had made a mallet, and to get the wood necessary for these purposes we had broken up the musket-stand and the barrack-shelves.

[Sidenote: IMPROVISING TOOLS.]

[Sidenote: A DISCOURAGING SITUATION.]

But the only result of our efforts was to blunt our implements. What could we do to supply our lack of tools? Our first thought was to take away a bar from one of our bedsteads, which were of iron; and this we did. This bar which we took was two feet in length and about as large round as a man’s thumb. After using one of the ends of this bar against the stone, we tried what use we could make of it as a lever. But the stones were too hard and too heavy, and our iron bar bent like a switch. What could we do now? We were not disposed to abandon at the last moment a project which had cost us so much toil; and yet we had many times emerged from our tunnel with the skin rubbed off our hands, and our faces as red as fire, having hardly succeeded, after long days of fatiguing labor, in working out a stone about as big as one’s fist. At length the bright thought occurred to one of us of making the very things which had been intended to secure our confinement contribute towards our escape. We determined to remove one of the iron bars which guarded the window. These bars were five feet and a half in length, and an inch and a half thick. But, in order that the warders might not perceive that one of them had been taken away, we first of all made an imitation bar of a piece of wood, cut from one of the broad shelves, and which we colored with ink and blacking. When this was finished and dry, we succeeded in unfastening with nails one of the bars of the window. We watched for a moment when the sentinel on the rampart opposite our window had his back towards us, and little by little loosened the stones in which the bar was set. When this was done, taking advantage of one very lucky moment, we gave the bar a wrench, got it out, and instantly replaced it by the imitation bar of wood. We then took the precaution of stopping up with bread crumbs—which we kneaded so as to look like mortar—the hole made in loosening the bar, and afterwards threw a handful of dust over the whole, that the different shades of color might not betray our device. This bar of iron became in our hands a formidable weapon. Without it we must inevitably have lost all the fruit of our labors. When we were in possession of this formidable tool, as we had now to attack stone, it was impossible for us to continue to work lying flat on our faces, as we had done when it was a simple question of burrowing in the earth. It was absolutely necessary that we should have complete control over all our movements. We were obliged, therefore, before resuming our attack on the wall, to enlarge this part of our tunnel, and to excavate in front of the wall a little chamber high enough for two men to work there on their knees, and large enough for us to use the iron bar to advantage. Of this bar we made, as occasion required, a crowbar or a ram. Then, and not till then, did we make any real impression on the wall. The scraps of information which we had been able to gather from the unguarded talk of the warders had given us a false idea with respect to the thickness of this rampart. We thought it was only about six or six and a half feet thick, whereas in reality it was more than sixteen feet. When, therefore, after indescribable labor, we had worked away the stone bit by bit, and made our hole six feet and a half in depth, we were disconcerted to see no sign that we were approaching the end of our labors. Far from being discouraged by this, however, we redoubled our efforts, and our astonishment increased as the hole became deeper. Still we worked on. The hole became ten feet deep; then twelve feet; then fourteen feet; and it was not until we had dug sixteen and a half feet into the wall, that the man who happened just then to be at work giving a heavy blow to the stone, pierced it, and after being dazzled for a moment by the sudden entry of the light, saw the sea stretching out in front of him. He immediately stopped up the aperture, and came to impart the welcome news to his comrades. We took counsel together, and decided that our escape should be attempted that very night.

[Sidenote: ROUTINE OF THE PRISON.]

And here I must interrupt the course of my narrative for a moment in order to give the reader a few necessary explanations. “How was it,” he will say, “that the officials did not perceive the destruction of the wood-work which you had been obliged to break up to make the handles of your tools, and the bar of wood with which you had replaced the iron bar of the window?” To this question I have a very simple answer to give. The officials of the prison had very little to do with us. The warders never came into our rooms except morning and evening, when they came to call the muster-roll. These visits were made at fixed hours, and I need hardly say that we were always sure to be present when they were made. We took good care, too, to work only in the daytime, for in the silence of night the dull blows struck underground would have been audible above. The warders went from room to room, calling over the muster-roll, and having seen that all the prisoners were in their places, immediately retired without troubling themselves about what might be going on. Besides, no détenu wishing to retain the good opinion of his comrades ever spoke to the warders; and these latter, finding themselves thus isolated, sought no intercourse with the prisoners. Again, détention being an essentially political punishment, we were not subjected to hard labor, and within the court, as well as in our rooms, were absolutely free. Another question which the reader will have asked is this: “How did you manage to keep your secret unknown during these four months?” Again his curiosity shall be satisfied. There was no secret, and there could not have been any. It was impossible for us to descend into our cellar and tunnel, or to remount to the surface, without being seen by those of our fellow-prisoners who happened to be in our dormitory. The dormitories being open all day long, the prisoners passed freely from one room to another, and by degrees they had all come to know of our resolution. The majority dissuaded us, and endeavored to point out all the difficulties which stood in our way. Our project seemed to them an absolutely impossible one. They thought that, our work having lasted so long, the officials had got scent of it, and were letting us go on, because they intended to have soldiers stationed ready to shoot us when we attempted to make our escape. We allowed our comrades to talk thus, and only asked one thing of them—that they would not betray our project. This they all promised, and, as the reader will see, they kept their word. I must, however, add that we had deceived them as to the time of our departure. When they inquired as to the condition of our work, we carefully guarded ourselves from revealing the stage at which we had arrived. Several times I gave them to understand that our work would not be finished before the end of January; and on the very day when everything was finished, we had given no sign of our approaching departure until we were about to set out. We had nothing more to do but to enlarge the hole we had made in the day, and to get out through that aperture.

[Sidenote: DECEIVING THE GUARDS.]

The rampart which we had pierced is on the left of the citadel, and therefore faces seaward. When the tide is low the sea retires and leaves the rocks dry for a distance of sixty or seventy feet around. On the night of our escape the evening muster-roll was called as usual, and we were shut up in our dormitories. Almost immediately two of our number went down to complete the enlargement of the hole, and this labor occupied them two hours. On their return we informed our companions that the moment for our escape had arrived. Their emotion was certainly greater than ours. Before setting out we took the precaution of placing in our beds our bolsters, made to look as much as possible like a man’s body, and with our night-caps stuck at the top. We also spread our prison clothes on our beds, as we were in the habit of doing every evening. Our object in adopting these precautions was to deceive the warder when he came in the morning to call over the muster-roll. The stratagem succeeded, and the officials did not know of our flight until six o’clock the next evening. This was very fortunate for us, as otherwise we should not have been able to get away any great distance from the citadel, and we should infallibly have been retaken. It was the 14th of November, at nine o’clock in the evening; the tide was out, and the rocks at the foot of the rampart were left bare. We had been able to find out the times of the tides in the almanac at the canteen. Our precautions had been all carefully taken, and, thanks to the depth of the shaft we had sunk at the entrance of the tunnel, and to the slope given to the tunnel itself, the hole which we had made in the wall of the rampart was only ten feet above the rocks.

[Sidenote: OUT IN THE OPEN AIR.]

One after another we crept through the tunnel, and then getting through the hole in the wall, we were able, while still clinging with our hands to the wall of the rampart, to reach with a drop the rocks beneath. Then, following all the bends of the wall, and keeping as near to it as possible, we passed around to the land side of the fortress. In like manner we passed along over the beach, keeping as near as possible to the little town, situated about one thousand yards from the fortress; and thus at length, after creeping silently between the huts of the coast-guardsmen, we reached the dry land opposite a little village called Loe Malo. The tide was now coming in. It had been our intention to divide, as soon as we were clear of the fortress, into two groups of three men each, only six prisoners having ventured to escape. We, however, marched on together, and without resting during the remainder of the night, in order, as quickly as possible, to put as much distance as we could between us and the fortress. Our object was to reach some little port of Brittany, and then endeavor to take ship for England. When we were brought to the citadel the authorities had caused us to be minutely searched, and had not left any money in our possession. I had, however, succeeded in concealing a small sum by carefully sewing it into the lining of my coat. This money was of the greatest service to us, as it enabled us on the following morning to take the railway, and thus in a few hours to put a considerable distance between us and the citadel.

[Sidenote: FREEDOM AT LAST.]

After marching all night, however, through a drenching rain, if we had presented ourselves at the railway station as we then were, our appearance would have excited suspicion. We had taken the precaution of bringing with us from the prison shirts, brushes, blacking, and, in short, everything necessary to our toilet. In a place of concealment we carefully brushed up and dressed ourselves to the best of our ability; and when, at daylight, we presented ourselves at the railway station, we were clean and tidy, and appeared to have come from some place very near. I had brought a book away with me from the prison, and this I carried under my arm to give myself the look of a traveller. On our way to the railway station we saw three gendarmes running towards us, gun in hand. Without faltering we walked coolly on, and the gendarmes, as we came up, politely stepped aside to let us pass. We took the train for a small port in Brittany, and in the evening succeeded in getting on board an English vessel. We were saved!

XLIX.

THE GAMBLING HELLS OF GERMANY.[5]

THE FOUR GREAT SPAS.—DESCRIPTION OF BADEN, HOMBURG, WIESBADEN, AND EMS.—ROULETTE AND ROUGE-ET-NOIR.—SPLENDOR OF THE SALOONS.—THE PERSONS WHO FREQUENT THEM.—PROFITS AND PECULIARITIES OF THE DIRECTION.—THE PHILOSOPHY OF GAMBLING.—WHY PLAYERS LOSE.—STRANGE SUPERSTITION OF BETTORS.—THE INVALIDS.—DROLL SCENES AT THE PUMP-ROOM.—THE MAN WITH A SNAKE IN HIS STOMACH.—THE ROBUST HYPOCHONDRIAC.

The best known and the most popular of all the fashionable and gambling watering-places in Europe are Baden-Baden, Homburg, Wiesbaden, and Ems.

[5] The gambling spas of Germany, but not those of other countries, have been closed since Chapters XLIX. and L. were written; but the chapters have been left in their original form, as the present is a better tense for description than the past.

The first, a town of some seven thousand inhabitants, is delightfully situated in a valley of the Black Forest, on a small stream known as the Oehlbach, eighteen miles from Carlsruhe, in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Homburg von der Hohe, having a population of about five thousand, is the capital of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg, and may be considered a suburb of Frankfort on the Maine, as it is only nine miles from that city. Wiesbaden, fourteen miles west of Frankfort, contains nearly twenty-five thousand people, and is the capital of the Duchy of Nassau. This pleasant city is on the Salzbach, an affluent of the Rhine, and at the foot of the delightful Taunus Mountains, its situation and climate being almost identical with those of Homburg. Ems, often called Bad-Ems, is a hamlet on the Lahn, fifteen miles north of Wiesbaden. It is also in Nassau; is shut in by hills, has a pleasant terrace along the river, and is surrounded by delightful scenery.

[Sidenote: COSMOPOLITANISM OF THE BATHS.]

Though all these spas, or baths, as they are styled, are in Germany, they are visited during the season, extending from May to October, by invalids and pleasure-seekers from every civilized country. July and August are the most fashionable months, and then the springs are frequented by French, Spaniards, Dutch, English, and Americans, as well as Germans. The principal patrons, independent of the home population, are from France, England, and our own country, albeit almost every nationality under the sun is represented at those centres of folly and dissipation. I have seen Turks and Armenians at Baden, Greeks and Persians at Homburg, Egyptians and East Indians at Wiesbaden, and Mongols and Arabians at Ems.

Baden (it is called Baden-Baden to distinguish it from other places of the same name) is the most fashionable of the four resorts, and cannot be surpassed for the beauty of its scenery. The picturesque heights rising above the valley, the ruins of the old castle overlooking it, the magnificent views, the pleasant drives, handsome villas, and charming walks in the neighborhood, with the agreeable and varied society, render it remarkably inviting. The number of strangers annually flocking to Baden is from fifty to sixty thousand, and these, especially in midsummer, crowd the hotels and countless boarding-houses to overflowing.

Homburg within the past ten years has also become very fashionable, and counts its summer visitors by the tens of thousands. It lacks the pictorial quality of Baden, but its atmosphere is reputed to be extremely salubrious, and its society is delightful, of course. Being so near Frankfort, many persons, particularly those in delicate health, reside there all the year round, and many of the Frankforters have their residences at the springs.

Wiesbaden, even more than Homburg, is the home of the denizens of the old German capital, and by reason of its larger population, has greater attractions than the rival watering-place. A large number of retired bankers and merchants from various parts of the Continent have villas at Wiesbaden, and every year the number increases.

[Sidenote: QUALITY OF THE VISITORS.]

Ems has had, and still has, the reputation of being patronized extensively by crowned heads and the nobility; but the prosperous and pleasure-loving generally are hieing to the banks of the Lahn more and more every season, and making its society more agreeable and democratic at the same time. The annual attendance is much less than at any of the other three springs, but they who go to Ems claim that the quality of its visitors more than compensates for any want of quantity.

The four German spas are on the whole very much alike, barring topical features. They each claim great antiquity in regard to the fame of their waters, holding, and upon good grounds, that the old Romans found vast benefit in the healing virtues of the baths. For generations they were frequented only by invalids, but of late years gayety and enjoyment have been the object of the majority of their patrons. The gambling, it must be confessed, has been, and is still, the chief attraction; not so much because all the visitors wish to play themselves, but they like to see others play, and to be part of the great variety of people whom the tables draw to the different spas. Since the gambling has ceased, as it did last year (1872), the German watering-places have lost much of their allurement, and the thousands who used to go there will be represented by hundreds merely. What is considered wickedness has unquestionably its spice and charm for the average mind, and a certain departure from the customary and conventional creates a species of magnetism.

The games at the baths are roulette and rouge-et-noir, frequently called trente-et-quarante. The smallest stake allowed at roulette is a florin (about fifty cents) and at rouge-et-noir two florins. The largest bet that can be made at the former is four thousand florins, and the largest bet that can be made at the latter game is five thousand six hundred florins. The capital at the roulette table is thirty thousand francs (six thousand dollars), and at rouge-et-noir one hundred and fifty thousand francs (thirty thousand dollars). When this sum is won by any of the bettors, the bank is declared broken, and the table is closed for the day, but is re-opened on the day following for all to test still further their good or ill luck. Newspaper correspondents are constantly writing about the breaking of the bank at Baden or Homburg, depending, as many such writers do, upon their imagination for their facts. The truth is, the bank is very seldom broken,—sometimes not more than once or twice during the whole season,—and when it is, it almost invariably wins back from the fortunate player all, and much more than he has gained.

[Sidenote: SPLENDOR OF THE SALOONS.]

The gambling saloons are in large and splendid buildings, beautifully frescoed and gilded in the interior, and luxuriously furnished. They are called the Conversationshaus, the Cursaal or Curhaus, containing, in addition to the gambling tables, spacious apartments for reading, dining, dancing, and lounging. The tables are thronged during the height of the season by elegantly dressed men and women of divers nationalities. They are presided over by the banker,—so he is styled,—who receives and pays out the money, and keeps general watch over the game, and by several croupiers, who with a little rake, draw in or push out the stakes as they are won or lost by the bank. During July and August, the gaming saloons, in which there are generally six or eight roulette or rouge-et-noir tables, present a brilliant spectacle. Anybody may enter, if he be respectably dressed and well-mannered, though he must leave his cane or umbrella with the lackeys in the vestibule, remove his hat, and refrain from speaking above a whisper. Why the Goddess of Chance should be entitled to the homage of silence may seem singular; but when it is remembered that all gamesters, while engaged at play, are exceedingly nervous, and therefore morbidly sensitive, it is plain enough why the strictest order and quiet should be carefully preserved.

[Sidenote: ALL KINDS OF WOMEN.]

The spectacle, I have said, is brilliant; and indeed it is. The saloons are adorned like palaces; immense mirrors, in deep gilt frames, are upon the walls; rich silk and lace curtains depend from the windows; gorgeous chandeliers diffuse their radiance; velvet sofas invite to rest, and the clink of gold tempts to hazard. About the tables are gathered young and lovely women, richly dressed, from the cities of the old world and the new, and men in fashionable attire, representing various ranks, professions, and callings. There are dowager duchesses from England, pretty countesses from France, fleshy baronesses from Germany, delicate maidens from America, lorettes from Paris, adventuresses from Naples, danseuses from Petersburg, and actresses from Vienna. Spanish grandees stand shoulder to shoulder with French communists, who fought like tigers for the possession of the French capital; Calabrian bandits, who have retired, independent, from the trade of throat-cutting, are in close contact with honest Holland burghers; Russian princes hand their stakes to professional blacklegs recently arrived from London; Swiss statesmen exchange nods with bankrupt gamesters; and Belgian chevaliers of industry smile, as they win, upon Teutonic philanthropists risking a few napoleons, simply for lack of something better to do.

The air of the players is entirely genteel, and their manners completely negative and subdued. Whether they are lucky or unlucky, would seem to make no difference to them; they give no outward sign; their faces are usually immovable, unless high breeding, as it is commonly understood, prompts them to look cheerful when they lose, and melancholy when they win.

The slightest disturbance is very rare in the saloons. I have been in them, day after day, without noticing the least departure from order, or the smallest violation of conventional courtesy. Occasionally, some undisciplined man manifests his nervousness and excitement outwardly, when, if the stony stare or facial disapproval of those about him does not chill him back to conventional bearing, the lackeys, always in attendance, induce him to carry his demonstrations into the open air.

The impression obtained from the saloons by a new comer is, that all the habitués are amiable, insouciant, comfortable, and prosperous. He would never suspect that, behind all this fair comedy, lurks the sombre spirit of tragedy; that the serenest faces mask an aching mind, and that the softest smiles hide, but do not help, a breaking heart. Nowhere under the sun is social masquerading more skilful and complete than in the German temples of chance. Everything is so smooth, so decorous, so delicate, so nicely adjusted, that one who seeks for inner contrasts must seem like a cynic and an iconoclast. To him who can believe in appearances, Wiesbaden and Ems are the most satisfactory places of sojourn. They express the essence of formal conventionality, and the rounded relation between unexceptionable raiment and unexceptionable manners. They point to the promised land of adaptation, and predict the millennium of mode.

There have ever been, and there ever will be, any number of persons foolish enough to think they can break the bank, if they will only watch the game closely, and profit by the favor of fortune. It is this delusion which sends, year after year, so many victims to the Conversationshaus and Cursaal, and keeps up the faith of the victims, even after they have been ruined again and again.

[Sidenote: THE DIRECTION.]

The gaming saloons are governed and regulated by a stock company, under the name of the Direction, which is the closest of close corporations. It is eminently impersonal too, nobody knowing the names of, or, indeed anything about, its members. Of course, its stock, like that of some of our gas companies and banks in New York, is not to be had, and is never quoted. The directors pay a license to the petty governments under which the tables are kept, and which are largely sustained thereby. The license varies materially. At Baden it is about seventy-five thousand dollars a year, and the Direction, in addition thereto, pays all the expenses of the Conversationshaus, whatever is required for the preservation and improvement of the adjoining grounds and gardens, and makes many other outlays, which must increase the total sum to fully one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. At Homburg the license is some fifty thousand dollars, and, moreover, the Direction of the Cursaal lights the little town, keeps it in good condition, supports its hospital and other charitable institutions. At Ems and Wiesbaden, the government tax—for that is what the license really is—is about sixty thousand dollars for the former, and forty thousand dollars for the latter place.

[Sidenote: CAPITAL OF THE BANKS.]

The capital of the Direction is set down at from two million to one million five hundred thousand dollars, though I seriously question if much more than one tenth of the sum has ever been paid in. The tables usually clear from two hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred thousand dollars annually; the profits being larger, of course, at Baden than at Ems, and varying with the season, and the luck of the bank. Not long ago, the Homburg bank was broken five times during the year, and yet the Direction, even then, declared a dividend, it is said, of nearly twenty-five per cent. on their capital. The income from the stocks of the German gambling companies is reputed to be enormous, and I have met men in many foreign countries who were credited by rumor with owning such shares. They had no visible means of support, and still they lived luxuriously, even prodigally, merely because they had had the good fortune to secure a small amount of stock in the Cursaal or Curhaus.

The limitations and the percentage at roulette and rouge-et-noir are seldom taken sufficiently into account by the galerie, as the bettors are named. Those, in the long run, will beat anybody and everybody, whatever run of luck they may have now and then. The games are based on an ultimate certainty, almost mathematical, in favor of the bank, and the prevalent notion that the players can have any permanent advantage is simply absurd. The chances on the side of the bank are so many, that, in a given time, it must inevitably win, and win largely. All the systems by which the galerie expect to triumph are utterly false and deceptious. They have done more, by a certain speciousness, to lead men to their ruin, than anything connected with the passion for hazard. They invariably fail, because of the limitations in bets, and the percentage in favor of the tables; but the advocate of the system very seldom reckons upon these great drawbacks. This class of men believe that will happen which they wish to have happen, and are therefore incapable of clear perception of anything opposed to their theories and desires.

[Sidenote: THE ODDS AGAINST BETTORS.]

The one adverse fact, above any other, to bettors generally is, that they very seldom, if ever, play as recklessly when they are winning as when they are losing. The reason is that, in the latter circumstances, they are endeavoring to win back their stakes, and are consequently in more or less desperate mood; while in the former case they are satisfied with what comes to them, and not tempted constantly to augment their bets for the sake of getting even. Irrational and ridiculous as it appears, there certainly seems to be such a thing as a run of luck, good or ill. We have all experienced this many times, albeit we may express the phrase in other words. On certain days things go wrong with us, and on certain other days they flow smoothly and prosperously, though we are wholly unconscious, on any of the days, of doing aught except our best to accomplish desired results. Sitting down to a game of whist in the evening, we find we cannot get a good hand, shuffle or change the cards as we may. The next evening, or the next morning, high cards and trumps come to us at every deal, as if some good genius had arranged the deal for us. What is this but a run of luck? In gambling, as every gambler knows, men are constantly having such runs. Whatever card or color you lay your stake on is almost sure to win to-day, and to-morrow almost as sure to lose. When you are fortunate, you make your ventures with at least a moderate degree of prudence. When you are unfortunate, your only thought is to get back the money you have parted with, and you keep doubling your stakes in the hope of achieving your purpose, instead of quitting the table, as you ought, when you plainly discover that fate is against you; or, in other words, that some mysterious and incomprehensible influence thwarts your every purpose.

[Sidenote: SUPERSTITION OF GAMBLERS.]

Such inexplicable agencies or influences render gamesters superstitious. Having seen the tribe in almost every part of the world, I have always found them more or less tinctured with superstition. No amount of facts or arguments will drive it out of them, for by long indulgence it has grown to be next to an instinct. They have implicit faith in luck of every kind—in lucky days, lucky circumstances, lucky persons, lucky influences. Sometimes they will not bet themselves, but will ask others to bet for them. Something occurs in the morning which they interpret as a warning, and for the remainder of the twenty-four hours they will not touch a card or lay a wager. At the German baths this peculiarity is frequently observed. A man in luck is pestered to bet for others, and is offered a percentage if he will do so. This or that person is regarded as unlucky, and a patron of the green cloth will not stand on the same side of the table with him. A passing cloud, a chance-dropped phrase, a change of position, or any one of a thousand nothings, will induce a professional gamester to make, or prevent him from making, risks, concerning which he has ordinarily no prejudice. The folly of play is much surpassed by the folly of players, who become so permeated with fancies, theories, and fanaticisms, that on the subject they are specially interested in they are positively monomaniacs. I have talked with old habitués of Homburg and Wiesbaden respecting chances, coincidences, and systems, until I have discovered that long attendance on and close watching of the treacherous tables had absolutely turned their brains. They thought they were the shrewdest and most sagacious of mortals, and pitied me supremely, because I happened to have a little common sense in regard to roulette and rouge-et-noir, and because I would not believe that mere chance should be treated as if it were a positive science.

No one can form any adequate conception of the mental vagaries, bordering upon lunacy, of professional gamesters, until he has spent several seasons at the German spas, and become intimately acquainted with the men and women composing the galerie. Their entire conduct is regulated by a desire to obtain luck. They strive to propitiate fortune, as if it were, as the ancients believed, a personal agency, subject to unaccountable whims and caprices. Many of their acts of charity are done not so much from benevolence as from a notion that it will influence favorably the issues of the games to which they are so wedded. This is true not only of gamesters abroad, but of gamesters everywhere. As a rule, they are far from intellectual, and hence superstition meets with little resisting power when it has once begun to encroach upon their understanding.

[Sidenote: DIFFERENT MOTIVES FOR PLAY.]

There are not only different classes of players, but players from different motives. The object of the majority is merely mercenary: they frequent the tables only to win money; they make hazard a business, foolishly hoping to reduce it to something like a rule. Other habitués of the springs bet for excitement, as they drink wine and seek adventures. They are not avaricious. When they win largely, they spend freely; and at the end of every season, whatever their success, they are much behind the game. The members of the third order are sufferers from ennui, and regard roulette and rouge-et-noir simply as a pastime. They have formed the habit of playing, and cannot break it. Their stakes are small, generally; but they are devoted to the tables, sitting there from eleven in the morning to eleven at night,—the fixed time for the perilous sport,—and frequently do not win twenty florins a week. A number of persons play because it is the fashion, though they do not continue it long, for the same reason. The game proves so magnetic that they either feel it a duty to abandon it altogether, or they are drawn into it, and are very soon too weak to resist its fascinations.

Very many, who have begun in the spirit of imitation, have grown to be confirmed gamblers. One of the most infatuated players I have ever known was a Spaniard, who went to Homburg to get rid of the rheumatism, and who, after three seasons of abstinence, put down a single napoleon, simply because he did not wish to seem odd. The risking of that little coin has since cost him a small fortune; and if he were to live a thousand years,—as he told me himself,—he could not be near rouge-et-noir without taking part in it.

[Sidenote: DIVERS NATIONALITIES AS GAMESTERS.]

America, or rather the United States, is more puritanic than other countries. Gambling is regarded here quite differently from what it is in Europe. Even our transpontine cousins, the English, are much more addicted than we to play. They never have social whist parties without betting at least enough to create an interest. The Germans, unless in prosperous circumstances, are preserved from the habit of gambling by their constitutional economy and thrift. The Latin nations have a natural fondness for whatever turns upon chance. Of these people, the Spaniards enjoy gambling most, and the French least, while the Italians are but little behind the Spaniards in this particular. It is safe to say that all three, hearing the spinning of the roulette wheel, and the clinking of coin at rouge-et-noir, could not long be kept from the seductive tables. The Russians—those who travel, at least—love the green cloth, and figure prominently among its devotees. Most of them have money, and are such ardent pleasure-seekers, at the same time possessed of something like an American vanity for spending and making display, that they rarely fail to participate in any dissipation which offers.

[Sidenote: VIRTUES OF THE WATERS.]

It must not be supposed that all the frequenters of the spas indulge in play; for many of them go there for recreation, and merely look at the games. Then, as I have remarked, thousands visit the springs for the benefit of the waters. That they have medical virtues cannot be well questioned, after one is told, as I have been told, of extraordinary cures by those who have been sufferers. Ordinarily, a casual visitor, who rises late, sees very little of the invalids; but if he has a liking for early morning air, and bends his steps towards the pump-room (Trinkhalle), he will encounter men and women afflicted with every variety of disease. He will observe them also on their way to and from the baths,—young and old, dark and fair, rich and poor, handsome and homely, cultivated and coarse, graceful and awkward,—all in quest of the invaluable boon, which we never appreciate until it has slipped away. There is something melancholy, as well as grotesque, in the moving panorama of the distempered. They walk with canes and crutches, are carried in invalid chairs or wagons, and look so wan and rueful that I have often felt prompted to apostrophize health as the sum of all blessings. There are young and fair women, fragile from their birth, for whom there is not an atom of hope, and who yet believe they may find some miraculous cure in the baths for lack of constitution, and for inherited disease. The bon vivant, peevish and irritable from the gout, limps along, and the overworked man of brains, paralyzed on one side, is wheeled over the pavement by the stupid lackey, unconscious that he is the possessor of nerves or a stomach. The dyspeptic—of course an American—glowers on everybody as he passes, but appears to hate no one as much as himself. After having fancied himself cursed with every disease, and after consulting physicians of the highest grade on both sides of the Atlantic, he has come to Ems to test the virtue of the baths. They have done him no good, for he will not be prudent either in his diet or his habits; and he will go home with his mind made up that all medicinal springs are humbugs. He is unaware that the cause of his ailment is dyspepsia, and that it has gotten into his mind. On Monday, he thinks he has consumption; on Tuesday, he fancies it is liver complaint; on Wednesday, he is sure his kidneys are deranged; on Thursday, no one can convince him that he is not suffering from enlargement of the heart; on Friday, he declares he has the marasmus; on Saturday, he swears nothing was the matter with him originally, but that the infernal physicians have poisoned him; and on Sunday, he contemplates suicide as a means of relief. The poor man is the victim of bad cooking, for which our country is famous, and his excessive haste in eating. If he had been born in France, and taken his meals at the Paris restaurants, he would be to-day one of the most contented, instead of the most miserable of men. Talk as we may, digestion is the foundation of human happiness, and will keep us on good terms with ourselves when an unsullied conscience and troops of friends are of no avail.

[Sidenote: HYPOCHONDRIACS.]

Hypochondriacs are to be met at the celebrated baths, of course; for wherever there are disordered bodies there are disordered minds. No human creature is so ill as he or she who imagines an illness, since the subtlest art of healing cannot reach the shadows of emptiness. I remember an Englishman at Homburg, one of the most robust of fellows, who, after quitting college, had begun reading medical works only to convince himself that he had some deep-seated disease. His belief stimulated his appetite for information. He pored over all the pathological treatises he could find, and every week fancied that he had some new ailment. He travelled everywhere, swallowed entire drug stores, visited every watering-place in civilization. He had been nearly twenty years in pursuit of the health he had never lost, when I made his acquaintance at the Quatre Saisons. Happening to touch on the subject of hygiene, I set him off upon countless theories, and upon the bitterest denunciation of physicians. He informed me confidentially that he had a serpent in his stomach, and that he felt it every day gnawing his vitals. He felt sure that he had swallowed it in an embryo state, years before, in India, and that he would never be well until the reptile was by some means expelled. He was a man of ruddy complexion, and of nearly two hundred pounds avoirdupois, which induced me to tell him that serpents must agree with him, and that, if he could swallow four or five more, he would live a thousand years. He assured me he could not be mistaken, and that he had hope that the water of a certain spring would insure his recovery. After tasting of that particular spring, I expressed my conviction that no well-regulated snake would endure being deluged by such an obnoxious liquid day after day, and that his frequent draughts, without any result, proved conclusively that the reptile was in his mind, and not in his stomach. This style of bantering seemed to please him, and when I made it clear to him that I was not a professional physician, he was willing to follow my advice. I urged him to give up doctors and medicines of every sort; to take a great deal of exercise, and to cease thinking of himself as a valetudinarian. He promised to follow my prescription for six months, and the ensuing winter I met him again in Naples, a radically changed man. He had cleared his brain of all its cobwebs, and thanked me heartily for the sagacious course I had recommended. “I am delighted to know,” he added, “that you are not a physician, for if you were, you couldn’t help being a fool.”

[Sidenote: STOUT WOMEN.]

The stout women on the shady side of life who visit the springs under the impression that they are ailing are extremely amusing. They must know they are shams; but they imagine that it is genteel and attractive to be delicate; and so, notwithstanding their excellent appetite and liberal proportions, they insist they are going into decline, when their chief danger is from apoplexy. They will entertain you by the hour with their lack of appetite, their loss of sleep, and their extreme fragility. You may credit their story unless you happen to see them at dinner, or hear them sleeping audibly on the sofa soon after, or find them performing social duties which would tire out Samson.

L.

GAMING AND GAMESTERS ABROAD.

FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC SUMMER RESORTS.—THE ADVANTAGE OF THE FORMER.—MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS.—A TRIO OF CELEBRATED GAMESTERS.—THEIR EXTRAORDINARY HISTORY.—TRAGIC FATE OF A YOUNG RUSSIAN OFFICER.—TEMPTATION, DESPAIR, AND SUICIDE OF A BEAUTIFUL ENGLISH GIRL.—A LUCKY BANKER’S CLERK.—A HUNGARIAN HANGING HIMSELF FOR A WARNING.—ECCENTRICITIES OF CROUPIERS.—A CALM-BLOODED HOLLANDER.—THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.—ROSE-STREWN ROADS TO RUIN.

For mere recreation and pleasure the foreign watering-places have great advantages over those at home. Saratoga cannot be compared to Baden any more than Long Branch to Biarritz. The promenades and promenaders beyond the sea have far more pleasantness and variety; the scenery is more picturesque, and the general comfort and satisfaction immeasurably greater. There is much less of that desire of one to outdo the other, much less feverish unrest, much less ambition and anxiety for display. Each person lives according to his or her means; has no heart-burnings or envy on account of people in more fortunate circumstances. The gardens of the spas are delightful, and when the bands play, as they do at stated intervals, and the fountains flash in the sunbeams or the moonlight, and the gay throng passes to and fro, and easy prattle is interspersed with merriment and laughter, all the externals for enjoyment are furnished. The promenades, like the gaming saloons, are as a gay masquerade. On them and in them are men and women of every grade, and they all mingle together, though without recognition, as a well-dressed and well-bred democracy. Balls and concerts are given every week; and these, with dining, and wining, and driving, and flirting, and the countless follies and jollities of fashionable life, make the season pass swiftly in one round of delicate dissipation and refined revelry. Such extremes and excesses as we have are not observable there. The social tone is more elegant, although a fairer outside may conceal darker and deeper deeps. To an observer and student of human nature, the German spas are certainly more attractive and retentive than our own summer resorts. They do not weary you after a few days, or weeks at most, but draw you back to them year after year with a freshness of flavor and the spice of a new zest.

[Sidenote: MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS.]

This continuity of charm is shown by the large number of regular habitués which each of the four springs has. I have met at Baden and Wiesbaden elderly couples who had been coming there since their early marriage, and who regarded the places and the play as indispensable to their contentment. You see there, season after season, mysterious characters that you never see anywhere else,—men apparently wealthy, with fine manners and a grand air, who, for aught you know to the contrary, may be pirates or highwaymen. Eccentric women flock there, too, about whom there are endless rumors, but no authentic information. They may be duchesses or demi-mondists, actresses or adventuresses, leaders of the ton or ladies of the sidewalk. So long as they conduct themselves properly, no one cares to inquire who they are or whence they come. The atmosphere of the Taunus and the Black Forest is free, and not a taint of Puritanism is in it. They whose position is fixed are so much assured thereof that they do not fear any passing wind which may blow between them and their nobility.

[Sidenote: REMARKABLE ADVENTURESSES.]

One of the oldest known frequenters of Homburg is the Countess Kisselef, the former wife of the Russian minister to Rome. She has never missed a season for forty years, and recently she has been a permanent resident of the little capital. She must be seventy now; is so broken in health, and infirm of body, that she is forced to hobble about with a cane and a crutch. Age and debility have not, however, lessened her passion for roulette, the only game she plays. Her passion for it is ineradicable, and the story is, that her husband long ago separated from her because she would not give up gambling, to which she devoted the greater part of her income. Having married her, it is said, for her fortune,—originally several millions of roubles,—he was angry that she should risk at the tables what he wished to use for himself. Her losses are reported to have been immense,—I have heard them estimated at a million and a half of dollars,—and yet she has quite enough left to enable her to bet freely in the Cursaal. Her gray hair, aquiline nose, sharp chin, and large and crippled figure are familiar to everybody. She is usually one of the first persons seated at the table, and some minutes before eleven o’clock you may see her helped into the room by the lackeys, or some of her own servants. She occupies a particular chair, and she is always in it, except when she goes to dinner and to sleep; taking no rest even on Sunday, when the game is generally more animated than on any other day.

The countess is very much attached to Homburg, where she has put up many handsome buildings, opened several new streets, and in many ways contributed to its improvement. Exceedingly homely as she is now,—she reminds me of a feminine grenadier wounded in different campaigns,—she is reputed to have been beautiful once, and to have been a fascinating and dangerous coquette. Such tales are told of nearly all women known in society who are noticeably ugly and obese. I can’t believe that the Countess Kisselef could ever have been charming. I should sooner expect her to break the bank at Homburg ten times a day in her present old age, than think it possible for her to have broken a masculine heart in all the freshness of her youth. A woman of her form and feature might be formidable as a foe, but never perilous as a friend. The aged countess has had her obituary written several times, but she was still alive, and still watching the ivory ball, the last season, and will be, I am sure, for many seasons to come. [The gambling tables were closed last year because the license expired with 1872, and the countess can hardly survive. Roulette has so long been her sustenance that she must perish if deprived of it for many seasons.]

[Sidenote: A FORTUNATE WOMAN.]

The Princess Suvarroff, also a Russian, is one of the notabilities of Baden. Her career, if report be true, must have been eventful. A native of Siberia, she went to St. Petersburg while very young, and her father occupying a high position in the army, she was received into the best society, and, by her beauty, grace, and accomplishments, soon became the centre of a large and admiring circle. She had lovers by the dozen; and although many men of rank sued for her hand, she refused every offer, declaring she preferred freedom to the highest title and the largest income. At last the Czar, wishing to perpetuate the name of Suvarroff, then dependent on a single scion,—the prince of that name,—urgently requested that she should take the prince for a husband. The imperial request is equivalent to a command, and the charming flirt, unwilling to forfeit the favor of the court, consented, even with the knowledge that her husband would be her husband only in name. She has since had several children; and though their paternity is not easily traceable, they are called Suvarroffs, and the object of the Czar is therefore attained. The princess has had, and still has, all the liberty she could desire. She goes where she chooses, and does what she likes. Baden is her favorite resort, and rouge-et-noir her favorite pastime. She has been remarkably successful in her ventures, being one of the very few players who have won more than they have lost. Her reputation for luck has long been established, and the consequence is, she is perpetually asked to place the money of others upon the green cloth, which she often does, as she is extremely good-natured and obliging. Considerably over forty now, she is still handsome, and her ease and grace of manner, with her richness of attire, indifference to conventionality, and brilliancy of conversation, render her noticeable at all times and in all places.

[Sidenote: A NOTED GAMESTER.]

Señor Garcia, one of the most renowned of Continental gamesters, and one of the lions of the spas, died very recently in Geneva, bankrupt in hope and fortune. He was born at Saragossa, of a good Spanish family, and inherited large wealth at his maturity. This he wasted in dissipation, materially assisted by his fondness for trente-et-quarante. He afterwards inherited some twenty thousand francs by the death of a relative in France, and, with this as a stake, he won nearly two millions of dollars. For several years he lived luxuriously, driving the finest of horses, wearing the rarest of diamonds, giving the superbest of dinners. His turnouts were conspicuous in all the capitals of Europe, and, though he spent money like Fortunatus, there seemed to be no end to his wealth. No one in this generation has broken the bank of Baden so often, and tailleurs at rouge-et-noir really feared him, so unprecedented had been his successes. His luck deserted him at last, and he lost in the Conversationshaus the last florin he had been able to borrow.

He then went to Monaco, and became a waiter at a fashionable restaurant; but whenever he had a few francs in his purse, he laid them on the table which had swallowed up his riches. His lofty air in the restaurant at Monaco first directed my attention to him, and caused the remark that he had the manners of a prince in the person of a servant. Informed of his antecedents, I no longer wondered that his appearance was above his station. He was a great favorite of the patrons of the establishment where he was employed, and the gratuities bestowed upon him were large and frequent. He received them, I remember, as if it were a condescension on his part, and as if the givers ought to be eternally grateful to him for his generous acceptance. He made numerous efforts to propitiate the goddess who had deserted him, but she was as obdurate as a woman whose vanity had been wounded. After various shifts, he breathed his last in miserable lodgings, leaving behind him but twenty sous as a mournful memento of his dangerous vice and his once splendid fortune. The close of his career conveys its own moral. He died as most gamesters die, whatever may have been their occasional prosperity—baffled in his desires, robbed of his gains, derided by destiny.

Garcia had more philosophy than many gamesters have. They who lose everything, after having been for a certain time successful, are often so deeply distressed by their changed condition that they commit suicide.

Self-destruction is something the virtuous Direction has a holy horror of, for it clearly illustrates the natural result of gambling, and has a tendency to discourage timid persons from betting liberally. The Direction doesn’t care a maravedi, of course, how many men hang or women poison themselves, after being ruined at roulette or rouge-et-noir, if they will only be obliging enough to die privately, instead of in the face of the public. Every once in a while, some man, whose last stake the croupier has raked in, steps into the beautiful gardens in the rear of the gambling saloons, and blows out his brains, because he believes that an empty purse is more to be dreaded than an occupied coffin.

[Sidenote: AN ILL-STARRED RUSSIAN.]

Two or three years ago, a young Russian officer, a member of a highly influential family, came to Wiesbaden to spend the summer. He had never touched a card,—indeed, he did not know one from another,—and was enjoying himself very well with the pleasant acquaintances he had made there, when an Italian lady, who had been unlucky, asked him, one day, in the Cursaal, to bet a few napoleons for her. She had faith, inasmuch as he was entirely unfamiliar with gambling of any sort, that he might turn the tide of her fortune. He was too gallant to refuse, and, as it happened, he won for her in less than half an hour two hundred napoleons, without understanding a single rule of the game. He then asked her if she was satisfied, and she replied in the affirmative. He quitted the saloon, determined never to play on his own account. He misunderstood himself. He passed a feverish and restless night, and in the morning he was drawn irresistibly to the tables. If he could have such good fortune for another, why should he not have it for himself? He was haunted at once by visions of wealth, and he no longer had the power to resist the tempter.

The young officer took his place at the table, and did not rise from his chair until eleven o’clock that night—the regular hour of closing. He was then ahead of the game nearly one thousand dollars, and the demon of avarice was fully aroused in his soul. Another feverish and restless night, and again the morning found him at his post. For several days he played with varying success, and at the end of a fortnight he had lost all he had, and had drawn the last franc from his bankers in Paris. He then borrowed a considerable sum from his friends at Baden, and that went with the rest. Excitement, and the unusual quantity of wine he had drank, had maddened him. His sole thought and desire was to get more money for play.

In a moment of weakness and frenzy, he forged the name of a wealthy cousin in Moscow upon a bank in St. Petersburg, and asked an acquaintance, to whom he had brought letters of introduction, to cash it for accommodation. The request was granted as soon as made. The Russian hurried to the Conversationshaus, confident that he would win enough to take up the draft, which he had expressed a desire that his friend would hold for a day or two, as he might in the meantime receive a remittance from his father.

The fates were hostile. When the officer laid his wager on black, the red won; and when he trusted the red, the black triumphed.

[Sidenote: PAYING THE DEBT OF NATURE.]

In three hours the entire amount of the draft had melted away. Ruin stared him in the face,—not only financial ruin, but ruin to his good name, his honor, his self-esteem, which he had prized more than life itself. Hopeful as he had been, he had prepared himself for such a desperate emergency. He had a small Deringer pistol in his pocket, and rising from the table, and stepping back two or three paces, he put it closely to his heart, and pulled the trigger.

[Sidenote: SUICIDE FROM REMORSE.]

The galerie, intent on the game, did not notice his movement and the first intimation it had of anything unusual was the report of the weapon and the heavy fall of the officer on the floor. The ruined gamester gasped twice or thrice, and his life went out with the blood that crimsoned his bosom.

The players—some of them, at least—were startled for a moment; several of the ladies shrieked, and one, an American, swooned. The tailleur and the croupiers looked on unmoved, and expressed some surprise that the young man had not been polite enough to step into the garden before shooting himself. The tailleur announced that the game would be suspended for half an hour. In that time the body was removed, the blood washed away, and the eternal Faites votre jeu, messieurs; le jeu est fait; rien ne va plus, was croaked out once more; the cards were laid, and the coin pushed over, or raked in by the solemnly silent croupier.

Women, with the retiring modesty that belongs to their sex, seldom make an exhibition of themselves, even when they are the heroines of their own tragedy.

At Ems, recently, a young English lady of family became engaged to a gentleman in her own grade of life, who could not bear the idea of women gambling. She had been at the baths for several seasons with her father; had frequently staked money at the tables, and had formed a strong attachment thereto. Her father was aware that she played sometimes for amusement, but never suspected how much of a fascination the game had for her. Unknown to him, she had pawned her jewels to obtain money to hazard at rouge-et-noir.

After her engagement, her lover told her how much he was shocked to see any members of her sex degrade themselves by gaming, and added that, much as he cherished her, he would rather behold her dead than receiving a fortune from the hands of a croupier. Deeply impressed by the earnestness of his words, she resolved never again to take any part in the dangerous excitement. For weeks she adhered to her resolution; but, one evening, while strolling through the Curhaus, she so far forgot herself as to venture a napoleon, and, winning that, to venture and to lose twenty more. For three days she continued to bet secretly, and at the end of the time felt convinced the passion was too strong to be surrendered. Such self-knowledge was terrible indeed, and so deep was her mental distress that she determined to live no longer. Purchasing a vial of laudanum, she went to her own room, and writing a letter to her affianced husband, in which she made a full confession of what she had done, and of the unendurable misery her conduct had caused her, she swallowed the poison, and was found, the next morning, dead in her bed. Her affianced lover was overwhelmed with sorrow, and protested that he should never more know an hour’s peace.

This proved to be only masculine hyperbole; for he was married two years after, and appeared, judging by outward signs, one of the most contented and self-satisfied of men.

[Sidenote: LOVE BRINGS LUCK.]

All this perilous wooing of fortune does not always lead to tragedy. A young man, residing in Frankfort, who had only his salary as a banker’s clerk to live upon, fell in love with a prosperous merchant’s daughter, and his attachment was fully reciprocated. The rich papa, as commonly happens, was unwilling to have a poor son-in-law, and so refused his consent point blank to the union. Entreaties were vain; his daughter’s tears moved him not a whit. He informed the young man that he would give him three years to achieve pecuniary independence in, and if he did not succeed, he must, at the end of that period, abandon all hope of the girl’s hand. In America fortunes are suddenly made; but in Germany, where everything runs in grooves, there is hardly a possibility of earning much money, unaided by capital or powerful influence. For twenty-four months Romeo struggled for his prize, but struggled in vain. He had succeeded in saving only about five hundred dollars; and, knowing this would be considered a contemptible sum by the merchant, he felt that he would be forced to give up all claim to the woman he adored.

Falling asleep, one night, with this subject upon his mind, he dreamed of going to Homburg and increasing his little store tenfold. On awakening, he considered his dream prophetic. He visited Homburg, placed his all upon “color” again and again, and each time “color” won. His five hundred dollars he increased to ten thousand; returned to Frankfort; procured papa’s consent; married the girl, and, as the story goes, has never since been known to risk a florin on a game of chance. So even gambling, great evil as it is, sometimes does good, though instances like this are extremely rare.

A Hungarian merchant from Pesth came to a melancholy end at Baden, a few years ago. He had been to London on business, and on his way home thought he would spend some days at the baths, where a number of his friends were staying. He had scarcely arrived there when he began at rouge-et-noir with a few florins, not having the least intention of playing largely. Like hundreds of others before him, he was drawn into the dangerous rapids before he was well aware of it. He lost not only the money he had with him, but drew on his own firm, obtained advances on his letters of credit, and at the end of a week was absolutely ruined. He had a wife and six children at home, and had not the moral courage to apprise them that they were beggars, to make a resolution never to play more, and commence life anew. Wishing, however, that his fate might be a warning to others, he went late at night to the promenade in front of the Conversationshaus, and when the little town was quiet and asleep, he placed a large placard upon his breast and hanged himself before the main entrance to the beautiful building. The placard, written in French, ran thus:—

[Sidenote: A WARNING THAT WAS LOST.]

“Here am I, a Victim of Gambling! Take Warning by me, and never Enter this Hell! The Man who Plays Damns his Soul Forever! Don’t Deceive Yourself! Bet Once, and You are Lost! The Doors of this Saloon are the Gates of Death.”

[Sidenote: FAIR WITHOUT, HIDEOUS WITHIN.]

The bathers and water-drinkers, sallying forth early, were shocked to see the unfortunate gentleman suspended by the neck, and to read what he had so truthfully written. The Direction, indignant at what they considered a breach of etiquette, lost no time in removing the corpse, which furnished such a sad commentary on their perfidious entertainment. Before breakfast everybody knew of the tragedy, and it had such an effect upon the patrons of the bank that the tables, for two or three days, were very thinly attended. The Direction felt sorely troubled respecting the unpleasant circumstance, as they termed it, and industriously circulated the report that there was no truth in the story of the Hungarian suicide; that he had really left for Basle the day previous to his reported self-destruction; that the figure found hanging was merely an effigy placed there by some mischievous jesters, against whom legal proceedings would be begun forthwith. Strangely enough, this invention was believed. The players returned in full force, and the warning of the Hungarian was lost, as a thousand other warnings have been lost before.

If the private history of the four gaming places could be learned, with all the evils resulting from them, the record would be ghastly and hideous indeed. It is only now and then that an intimation of the great injury they do comes to the surface; and if any considerable part of it were known, the springs would be avoided like lazar-houses. A stoical pride is generally practised by the habitués who have suffered financially; and I have observed many men, and not a few women, turn away from the tables with a forced smile, when I knew that they were undergoing excruciating torture.

Losing money which one cannot afford to lose brings with it a train of social, mental, and moral ills that cannot be fully estimated. Could a thousandth part of the woes wrought by the demon of chance be depicted on those frescoed and gilded walls, they would equal the torments ascribed by gloomy priests to the doomed and damned in the fiery pit.

The outside of the temples of fortune is dazzlingly attractive; but, passing beyond the portals, and lifting the purple veil, such anguish and agony are apparent as may well appall the stoutest heart.

Some men are so methodical and cool-blooded that they are proof against the seductions of roulette and rouge-et-noir. They can make up their mind beforehand as to how much they will lose, and never risk another florin. These, however, are exceptions to human nature, and no ordinary mortal can hope to imitate them with any prospect of success.

[Sidenote: A CALM-BLOODED BANKER.]

A sturdy Dutch banker from Amsterdam is in the habit of visiting one of the spas every season, and always bets within a certain limit. Four thousand florins is the sum he feels able to lose annually, and this being gone, nothing prompts him to risk any more. Sometimes he loses this in a few days, sometimes not for weeks, sometimes not at all. Whatever he may gain does not count, as he feels privileged to do as he chooses with his winnings, but having parted at the tables with four thousand florins less than he had on his arrival, he is bidden in vain to make his game. He told me once that he fancied he was a good deal ahead of the tables, but having made an exact calculation, he found that in ten years all he had won was fifteen florins.

The croupiers are a singular class. Nearly all of them have, some time or other, belonged to the galerie, and, as may be imagined from their position, have wrecked themselves on the uncertain sea of hazard.

[Sidenote: ANTECEDENTS OF CROUPIERS.]

The last season I was at Homburg, six of the croupiers there had histories. One of them was the son of a coffee planter of Brazil. He had fallen into some serious trouble in Rio Janeiro, and had gone to Lisbon, where he led such a prodigal life, and drew on his father so frequently, that the old gentleman refused to honor his drafts further. The young scapegrace then went to Italy, served in the Papal army, afterwards became a sailor, travelled all through the Orient, earned considerable money by trading, went back to the Continent, visited Baden, arrayed himself against the tables, was rendered penniless, and in his desperate strait was appointed croupier.

A second of this fraternity had been a Malay pirate, it was whispered, and also a monk in Palermo; then a valet de place, and finally a brother of the rake.

The third informed me he had been a Greek priest, but, having been suspected of conspiring against the Emperor of Russia, he was sent to Siberia, whence he escaped and entered upon his present calling.

A fourth, a Hebrew, once kept a pawnbroking shop in Chatham Street, and was sentenced to Sing Sing on a charge of forgery, served two years, inherited some money left him by an uncle in Prague, became a victim to play, and at last had the satisfaction of getting on the right side of the table.

The fifth croupier, a Frenchman, had emigrated to California in 1849, and, as a member of the sporting fraternity, narrowly escaped hanging by a mob, some years after. Floating from point to point, he stranded at Baden, and will doubtless die there.

The sixth began his career as a reporter on a Berlin journal; served in the Prussian army; studied law, medicine, and theology, but could never practise anything save gambling. “I always lose,” he said to me; “and having no more money to risk, I have the satisfaction now of seeing other persons make as great fools of themselves as I have made myself.”

Hundreds of chapters might be written on the gambling hells of Germany, for the subject is inexhaustible. But each and all of them, if truthful, would show that the spas, like the Dead Sea apples, are attractive to the sight, but ashes and bitterness within. The players are handsome maskers. They laugh, and dance, and seem happy; but when the masks and dominos are removed, the bodies are leprous, their touch contagion, their soft caress a lingering and loathsome death.

LI.

SUBTERRANEAN DWELLINGS.

EARLIEST HABITATIONS.—UNDERGROUND HOUSES.—A DWELLING ON THE AMERICAN PLAINS.—HOW AN EARTH HOUSE IS MADE.—RESULT OF A NIGHT IN IT.—ARCTIC DWELLINGS.—A MANSION IN KAMCHATKA.—ITS ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES.—A CHIMNEY AND DOORWAY IN COMMON.—THE AUTHOR’S EXPERIENCE.—A LIVE DOG IN A STEW-KETTLE.—THE STORY OF GAMOOT.—HOW HE ENTERTAINED HIS FRIENDS.—FISH-OIL PUNCH AND A CANDLE BREAKFAST.—HOW HE LEARNED ENGLISH.—NEW MODE OF BOXING THE COMPASS.—GAMOOT’S MELANCHOLY FATE.

The climate of the Garden of Eden was of such a temperature, and the customs of Adam and Eve, before their famous fruit-gathering excursion, were of such a primitive character, that no dwellings were needed. It is not known that the weather ever compelled Adam and Eve to seek shelter, and they had no prying neighbors to disturb them; but, after the abandonment of the garden, it became necessary for them and their followers to have places of shelter. The first habitations were, probably, holes in the ground. The historians generally agree that the primitive habitations of the savage partake more or less of a subterranean character. At the present day there are many tribes of people that live wholly or partially under ground. Dwellings thus made are easy of construction, especially in regions where timber is not abundant, and the facilities for working in stone do not abound.

In the far west, between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, there are many underground, or partly underground, dwellings, inhabited, not by savages, but by white men. Dwellings of this sort are not particularly dry, but they are generally cool, and, if one does not mind a little dampness, they are quite comfortable. My first experience with one of these habitations was not entirely agreeable. I had been travelling for several days, and sleeping at night under the shelter of a wagon. My bed was airy, and the only protection the wagon gave me was to keep away the dew, and prevent wandering mules and oxen from running over me. My health was excellent, and I was beginning to consider a house a superfluity.

We found a party of men living in one of these houses, where there was no wood for a long distance, or but very little of it, and they had dug out a place under ground, covered it with a roof consisting of poles, bushes, and turf, and were making themselves comfortable. They urged me to share their hospitality, and I did so, abandoning my wagon for the shelter of their roof. In the morning I awoke with one of the worst colds I ever had in my life, and for several days I had a very disagreeable and intimate acquaintance with a sore throat.

[Sidenote: A MANSION IN KAMCHATKA.]

In the northern part of America and Asia the dwellings of the aboriginals are constructed partly under ground. A hole is dug in the earth four or five feet deep, and a rude roof of poles and earth is placed over it. The Greenlanders and the Esquimaux generally enter their dwellings by a long passage-way, so low that one must creep on his hands and knees, and it is so narrow that a stranger cannot easily turn round in it. In Kamchatka the natives have a similar dwelling. Some tribes enter their houses at the side by a passage-way, somewhat like the entrance to an Esquimaux dwelling. Other tribes enter through the centre of the roof, going down through a hole which serves for a chimney.

[Sidenote: GOING DOWN A CHIMNEY.]

After an experience of both kinds of entrances, I greatly prefer the Esquimaux’. In North-eastern Siberia it was my fortune to be thrown among the Koraks, a people whose dwellings have only one place to serve as a door and chimney. The fire is directly beneath this hole. It is generally burning in winter with considerable briskness, and almost always has a pot of reindeer meat over it. When you accept the hospitality of a Korak, you descend into this hole by means of a pole with notches in its side, on which you must cling with feet and hands. A blast of hot, blinding smoke rises in your face, and, as you descend, it grows hotter and hotter. By the time you are within two feet of the bottom, you can scarcely breathe. When you think you are nearing the bottom, you must jump from the pole, and you are just as likely to jump into the fire as you are to jump from it. At my first experience I did not jump fairly into the fire, but so close to it that my feet came very near being singed.

Every Korak habitation supports a large number of dogs, which are used for draught purposes. The dogs are not admitted to the private quarters of the family, but are compelled to stay outside. They content themselves with hanging round the hole in the roof, and look down in the inside, sniffing the venison that is below. Occasionally they get to fighting near the hole, and one of them drops through. Sometimes he drops into the fire, and sometimes into the pot of meat, and makes a commotion. He yells a good deal in either case. If he has fallen into the fire, he is taken by the neck and swung up again through the chimney. If he falls into the stew-pot, he is taken out, howling all the while like a congress of chimpanzees, the broth is squeezed out of his shaggy hide, so that it shall not be lost, and then he is thrown up into the open air. The natives do not appear to have any pity for the dog, and the fact that he has been soused in the dinner pot does not in the least affect their appetites. They swallow the stewed venison with just the same relish as they would if it contained no dog’s hairs to thicken the mess and get between their teeth.

[Sidenote: INCONVENIENCES OF ARCTIC NIGHTS.]

In these northern regions the weather is exceedingly cold. On the coast of the Arctic Ocean, far inside the polar circle, the sun frequently forgets itself, and for days and weeks in summer behaves like a masculine chicken, and never sets. In winter it also forgets itself, and not only sets, but stays set for a longer time than the most respectable hen that was ever known. It would be inconvenient to publish a daily newspaper there, for the reason that some of the days are not more than fifteen minutes long, while others are three or four months. And the same is the case with the nights, which are sometimes stretched out to an inconvenient length. They would be jolly for courtships and for evening parties; but it would not be advisable, in the middle of one of the best of those nights, to sing “We won’t go home till morning,” and then fall to drinking hot punches and things every ten minutes, “till daylight doth appear.”

Those long nights are a great delusion to a man who thinks it will be capital sport to lie abed until late in the morning. If he goes to bed with a determination to make a night of it, he finds that he does not sleep straight through, but has to get up a good many times before morning to have his hair dressed, and to get on the outside of that edible conglomerate known as hash. If he should try to get through the night without eating or drinking, the probabilities are that he would furnish a job for a hyperborean undertaker in consequence of early starvation; but it would be equally inconvenient to attempt to stay out of bed all day, as a great many people insist upon doing in this part of the world. A nap would be necessary after breakfast and after dinner, at all events, and I shrewdly suspect that the most of us, if we lived there, would have many breakfasts and dinners between sunrise and sunset.

It would delight John B. Gough or Father Mathew to have an old toper go away up north in summer, and take only one drink a day; and if he took it in the shape of an appetizer before breakfast, it would give him a splendid appetite by the time he sat down to his toast and steak, provided the day was laid out for only one allowance of breakfast, dinner, and supper.

[Sidenote: GAMOOT AT HOME.]

In describing life in this region of ice, and snow, and underground dwellings, I propose to do it by narrating the adventures of a mythical native, whom I will call Gamoot. He owned a brown stone front, about latitude seventy-five degrees north, longitude two hundred and fifty degrees east, where his nearest neighbor was a polar bear, and he looked out of his bay window upon a cheerful scene of icebergs, and all that sort of thing. His brown stone front was made of ice, built over a hole in the ground, and looked like one of the piles of hay that the farmers make in the field, before they drive round with the cart. The front door was a slab of ice, and, when you had rung the bell and sent up your card, you dropped on your hands and knees, and went in. The hall was twenty feet long, and about two feet high and wide; it made a couple of turns, and one of them was a sharp angle, like the corner of a dry goods box. You went inside the house, and had to twist yourself round the corner of the hall, like a big steamboat going up the Red River. You had to work your way along very much as an eel goes through a water-pipe. Gamoot did not ventilate his hall very well, and if you were a new comer, it was quite possible for you to imagine that you had mistaken the entrance, and gone into the sewer instead of the fashionable doorway.

It was inconvenient sometimes, when you were about mid-way of the hall, creeping along ever so nice, and just doubling the sharp corner,—it was inconvenient, I say, to meet one of Gamoot’s big dogs on his way out. Gamoot’s dogs were an independent lot of pups, with appetites like mill-hoppers, and teeth like cross-cut saws. When they made up their minds to go out, they generally went, and if anybody was in the way, it was healthier for him to go ashore than to stay there. Gamoot used to apologize for his dogs, and say that their conduct was owing to their breeding, as they were half wolf and the rest ugliness. I used to wish that they had been of a different breed.

But if you happened to get into Gamoot’s house without being interviewed by his dogs, you were sure to be interviewed by the whole family as soon as you reached the parlor. The grand salon was about twenty feet across, and was high enough to allow Gamoot to lie down, which he did very often. The only way you could stand erect was by sitting down on the floor, and standing in sections. By sitting down you could hold your head and body in a perpendicular position, or by lying on your back you could stick up your feet and legs. The latter position was considered ungraceful, and was not generally practised by visitors. The house was ventilated through the hall, which was always kept closed. The atmosphere was about as thick as an invalid’s gruel, and sometimes it became so tough and hard that visitors used to break off pieces of it to carry away as souvenirs. Gamoot had a pan which he used to fill with fish-oil, and then put a wick in it. This pan served as chandelier, furnace, and everything of the sort. Sometimes the children fell into it, but it did not burn them, though they soaked up a frightful lot of grease.

[Sidenote: HYPERBOREAN ETIQUETTE.]

Sometimes, when Gamoot had company that he wanted to get rid of, he used to take a bottle out of doors, and fill it with fresh air. He would then return, and hold it to the nose of each visitor. He would then point to the cheerful hall-way; the two movements were understood to mean that there was more of the same sort outside, and that the visitors had better be sniffing it. The gentle hint was generally understood, and the visitor, after looking to see that the dogs were all inside, and not likely to be met in the hall, politely bade Gamoot adieu, kissed Mrs. Gamoot, the children, and the dogs, and departed.

Gamoot was as hospitable as a Dutch uncle. He used to keep a barrel of fish-oil and a box of candles on draught in one corner of his study and smoking-room. Whenever you called, he would mix you a fish-oil punch; and O, such a punch! It is enough to make one’s mouth oil to think of it! Then he would hand you a candle, just as your Boston entertainer would hand you a cracker; and he not only handed you a candle, but he took one himself. It was a pleasure to see him, with a tin glass of oil punch in one hand and a candle in the other, and as fast as he took a sip at the candle, he took a bite at the punch; and it was not the polite thing to refuse either one or the other. Gamoot used to resent a refusal, and he had a pleasant way of taking you by the back of the neck, and squeezing you till your mouth opened. Then he would drive the candle down your throat with a mallet that he kept for the purpose, and he would pour the punch after it with a funnel. Knowing his playful eccentricities, it was always better to take your punch and candle without making a fuss.

It may be inferred that Gamoot was an uncivilized savage; but he was not. He had met white men who visited the polar regions in pursuit of whales. He had learned from these aristocrats something of the language and customs of civilization. He had no knowledge of sacred history; but, to judge from the style of his speech, he was well versed in profane history. He knew most of the parts of speech in the English language that are addressed to disobedient sailors by their captains and first and second mates; and on one occasion a shipwrecked mariner offered to educate Gamoot in English for his board and lodging. Gamoot accepted, and they went to work.

“I will teach the bloody Injin to box the compass,” said the mariner to himself.

“Come here, blame your eyes!” said the mariner to Gamoot; only he used another word, which I do not exactly recall, in place of “blame.”

[Sidenote: NEW WAY OF BOXING THE COMPASS.]

The mariner had saved a compass, and as Gamoot stood over it, Jack placed his finger on the “points,” and named them over. But instead of giving their names as they are known to nautical sailors, he applied an oath to each of them; and he varied the oaths, so that by the time the compass was boxed, he had uttered a lot of profanity that would make an Arkansas stage-driver break his heart for joy.

Gamoot was a good scholar, and learned his lesson well. He used to repeat it to visitors, and was as proud of it as a poodle dog is of the ribbons in his ears. He always gave great delight to the strangers, especially if they happened to be chaplains of whale-ships, or missionaries on the hunt for converts. To enter his house, take an oil punch and an appetizing candle, and hear his melodious voice box the compass in the way he had been taught, was a delight that few persons ever enjoyed.

[Sidenote: TRAGIC FATE OF GAMOOT.]

But one day, when the bark Susan Maria touched near Gamoot’s mansion for salt, water, and provisions, the hospitable gentleman went to the beach to welcome the crew, and look out for a chance to steal something. By accident he picked up an oar, and was walking off with it, for fear it might be lost. One of the sailors addressed Gamoot in language much like boxing the compass, and the innocent aboriginal supposed the briny navigator was repeating his lesson. The first mate, who had charge of the boat, repeated the address, and added something which implied that the dog-star presided at the birth of Gamoot. This phrase was also familiar to the native, and he paid no attention to it.

The mate then proceeded to give Gamoot a gentle hint, which he did by throwing a harpoon through him. The point of the instrument entered between the brown-skinned gentleman’s shoulders, and came out in front of his heart, after dividing that organ into unequal parts. The boat-steerer then gave an additional hint by throwing a bomb-lance, which exploded in Gamoot’s head, and interfered seriously with future repetitions of his lesson in navigation.

Gamoot subsequently died of his injuries. His romantic career has passed into poesy, and the story of his house, his punches, his candles, his linguistic researches, and his unfortunate harpooning is sung wherever he was known.

LII.

BRIGANDAGE AS A FINE ART.

HIGHWAY ROBBERY IN MODERN TIMES.—THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW CONTRASTED.—HABITS OF RUSSIAN ROBBERS.—PIOUS THIEVES.—PRAYERS FOR SUCCESS.—ROAD AGENTS.—CRUELTIES OF ITALIAN BRIGANDS.—TORTURE AND RANSOM OF PRISONERS.—SPANISH BRIGANDS.—ADVENTURE ON A SPANISH ROAD.—AN AMERICAN PRINCE AND AN ENGLISH DUCHESS.—AN EXCITING RACE.—A DUCHESS IN UNDRESS.

Brigandage is rapidly becoming a thing of the past in most parts of Europe, thanks to the introduction of railways, and the gradual abolition of the mail coach and diligence. In France it occurs so rarely as to cause general comment whenever an instance is reported; and in Prussia and Austria one can travel, with little danger of highway robbery, from one end of the country to the other. Russia, which has few railways, has more cases of brigandage than its western neighbors, though the government always deals very severely with robbers when it catches them. Travellers in the eastern and southern parts of the Muscovite empire frequently encounter robbers on their route, and give up their purses with as good grace as they can muster. There is a law in Russia that forbids one to fire upon robbers, unless they outnumber him three to one; but as a man who is attacked can usually make conscientious oath that he thought his assailants very numerous, he is generally excused for any violation of the statute in such cases made and provided.

The land to which most of the Russian convicts are banished, Siberia, is, curiously enough, less dangerous for a traveller than the European possessions of the czar. In a land journey of five thousand miles, in Northern Asia, I was never disturbed by footpads, and suffered no apprehension. Had my tour been in midsummer, there would have been less security; but as it occurred in winter, when the thermometer frequently reached forty degrees below zero, the circumstances were not favorable to lying in wait for several hours, when the prospect was good that the highwayman would freeze to death before he could find some one on whom to try his skill.

[Sidenote: HOLDING PRISONERS FOR RANSOM.]

Of all European countries, Italy is the one at present whose sculpture, begging, painting, and highway robbery have attained the highest stage of perfection. In the southern part of the kingdom robberies are of frequent occurrence, and the mountains are full of bands, that have a regular organization for plundering travellers. Sometimes the scoundrels add murder to robbery, and they have a pleasant way of holding men for ransom. If the ransom money does not come as promptly as they desire, they detach a prisoner’s ear, and send it as a gentle hint for his friends to hurry up. If the ransom is still delayed, the other ear follows, then a finger, and so on, until the unfortunate traveller is about as much his former self as Hamlet without Hamlet.

The Italian brigands are a pious lot of thieves, and when they set out on a marauding expedition, they generally offer up prayers for a successful result. Russian robbers are equally devout. There is a story of a Muscovite highwayman, who one day killed a traveller, and, while rifling his pockets, discovered a cake containing meat. Though very hungry, he could not eat the cake, as the church fast then prevailing forbade the use of meat. The King of Italy has made very earnest efforts to suppress brigandage in his dominions; but he has not succeeded, partly on account of the pope declining to coöperate with him as fully as he desires, and partly owing to the fondness of the inhabitants for a wild life. The Ex-King of Naples, who resided in Rome until quite recently, was well known to be in league with the brigands, whom he hoped at some time to make the nucleus of an army in case he should deem it prudent to endeavor to regain his throne. Men who had been plundered on the roads of Southern Italy told me that they afterwards met their robbers on the Corso, or in the Piazza di Spagna, and saw them enter and leave the house of Ex-King Ferdinand.

[Sidenote: ROAD AGENTS IN CALIFORNIA.]

The most prosperous parts of the United States, in the matter of brigandage, as elsewhere stated, are the new states and territories west of the Missouri River. In Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and California, highway robberies are frequent; and it is sometimes the custom for the stage companies to supply passengers with rifles for their protection. But the robbers generally take the opportunity to approach when least expected, and in many cases they do not trouble the passengers, but content themselves with the treasure in charge of the express messenger. Generally the messenger shows fight, if the driver does not, and in some instances the robbers have paid dearly for their attempt. They are well armed, and the passengers usually find it best to submit, and hand over their money without grumbling. The Californians speak of these robbers as “road agents,” and I was much amused at the name the first time I heard it. I was starting from Stockton for Mariposa, and some one suggested, as I mounted to the outside of the coach, that the road agents might trouble us. I innocently asked if we were obliged to pay the tolls on the road, and suggested that the duty belonged to the company. There was a general laugh at my expense, as a fellow-passenger explained to me what a road agent was.

Spain can boast a fair allowance of brigands, though not as many as she could twenty years ago, on account of the construction of railways along the principal routes of travel. Probably the present troubles will leave the country in a very disordered condition, and for years to come there will be many men seeking their living by plundering others. The Spanish robbers are no less cruel than their Italian brethren, and they regard human life as of very little consequence. They do not hesitate to kill their victims when they think they will endanger their safety by leaving them alive. Mexico, Cuba, and the South American countries in general, copy the customs of the people who colonized them, and especially in Mexico robbery is considered one of the fine arts. Many wealthy people are not exempt from the suspicion of having acquired their property by foul means; and not unfrequently some of the high officers of the government are known to connive at the exploits of Mexican Jack Sheppards and Claude Duvals.

[Sidenote: ADVENTURE WITH SPANISH BRIGANDS.]

A few years ago a gentleman of my acquaintance had a curious adventure in Spain, which I will endeavor to relate in his own words. “I was travelling with my wife,” said he, “and we had a long ride before us to Grenada. I found that two diligences were to start the next day, one of them quite new, and the other an old one. I engaged the coupé of the new diligence, paid for it, and was told to be ready at six o’clock the next morning. When I went there, I found that an English woman and her servant had installed themselves in our place, which they preferred to the old carriage, in which they had chartered the coupé. I protested; but the woman cut me short with, ‘I am the Duchess of ——, and shall retain this carriage.’

“‘Ah,’ I replied, bowing low, ‘but I am the Prince Thomas of America, and my other titles are Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Salt Lake. We are all princes in America; and, madam, my wife is the Countess of Michigan, Illinois, and Kentucky.’

“But the woman repeated her title, and refused to move. She did not care for an American prince; and I was about to call the officials to eject her, when my wife said, in her hearing, ‘If she is so unlady-like as to act in this way, we will leave her to herself, and ride in the old diligence.’

“The new vehicle moved off, bearing the English duchess, and we followed ten minutes later in the old one. About two miles from the starting-point, we passed the new carriage with a broken pole, and the driver and conductor were endeavoring to get another from a neighboring farm-house. As we passed them, I shouted to our postilion that I would give him a real for every mile he kept ahead of the other carriage, and a dollar for every hour he arrived in advance of his usual time.

“He accepted the offer, and urged the horses to their best speed. Every time we changed, I distributed a few reals to the men about the stable; and I heard the postilion hint to them to make the changes as fast as possible, but to be in no hurry in supplying the other diligence. We went at a killing pace, and every time when we halted, the postilion said, ‘You will owe me a great deal of money for this; you will owe me a great deal of money.’

“I found on calculation that I should owe him a very liberal gratuity, and assured him that I would pay everything I owed. As we passed through a certain wood, I observed that he watched the road-side very closely, and soon after repeated his remark about my indebtedness to him. I could not understand what he meant, but was wiser afterwards.

[Sidenote: ENGAGING AN ENTIRE HOTEL.]

“We reached Grenada more than three hours ahead of time. There was then but one decent hotel in the place; and I knew that my duchess would be certain to go there, as it was not only the best hotel, but the point of arrival and departure of the diligence. The house was nearly full, and I engaged all the vacant rooms, paid a part of the money for them, and took a receipt. Two or three Spanish travellers arrived in the next hour, and I gave up some of my rooms to them, but enjoined the landlord under no circumstances to admit the duchess, or I would prosecute him for a violation of the contract.

“We dined, and took our ease in our room, and, after dinner was over, we watched for the other diligence, which was somewhat overdue.

“When it arrived, it was three hours behind the regular time, or six hours later than ourselves. The delay in consequence of the pole giving way had been more than an hour; but this was the least important mishap of the journey.

“The diligence had been robbed, and the brigands had done their work most thoroughly. They had an understanding with the drivers, whom they never disturbed, and expected the diligence at the wood where my postilion looked around so anxiously. The rapid rate at which I was travelling in the old carriage took us past the haunts of the robbers an hour before we were expected, and thus I unwittingly saved myself from being plundered. It turned out that the frequent remark of the postilion, that I should owe him a great deal of money, referred to this little business of robbing more than to the fast driving. By following my desires in the matter of speed, he had saved me from an encounter with the brigands, who would have relieved me of all my spare cash, and of everything else of any value to them.

“As soon as I found how the matter stood, I sent for the fellow, who had been all the time loitering about the court-yard, and asked him how much he thought I owed him. He replied with the utmost dignity, though he could not suppress a smile, that he thought ten dollars, in addition to what I had given him, would be satisfactory. I paid with alacrity, and should have been equally satisfied had he asked five or ten times as much.

[Sidenote: ROBBING A DUCHESS.]

[Sidenote: COURTESY AND AN APOLOGY.]

“The Duchess of —— had been robbed about as much as she could be. The brigands were, no doubt, indignant that our diligence had escaped them, and determined to make complete work of the one they captured. They took her trunks from the carriage, and rifled them of everything they contained. They compelled my lady to hand over all her money and jewelry, and even stripped her of her travelling-dress, leaving her to finish her journey in her under-clothing. They offered her no indignities, and were as polite as could be expected under the circumstances. Not relishing the idea of arriving at the hotel dressed as she was, she had cut away the plush lining of the carriage, and hung it around her waist as a sort of skirt of a decidedly gaudy pattern. She was the most woe-begone picture I ever looked upon, and my heart relented when I saw into what a plight she had fallen. I had fully determined not to allow her to stop at the hotel; but when she arrived in utter destitution, I told the landlord to tell her that all the rooms had been taken by the American prince, who was only too happy to accommodate an English duchess. She apologized for her rudeness in the morning, though she could not rid herself of her haughty demeanor.

“My wife supplied her with clothing enough to save her from inconvenience until she could communicate with the English consul. That gentleman did all in his power to aid his countrywoman, and, although he ran the risk of losing the money, he cashed her draft upon her bankers in Madrid. We left town before she did; and I think she never after set up her privilege of rank to take possession of places that did not belong to her. I have always felt obliged to her for driving me into the old diligence, rousing my indignation, and leading me to be prodigal of my money in securing the highest speed, and thus escaping robbery.”

LIII.

MINERAL RESOURCES OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND.

COLONIAL EXHIBITS AT THE PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL—WONDERFUL MINERAL WEALTH OF THE ANTIPODES—CURIOUS FEATURES OF THE GOLD FIELDS—HOW A PARTY OF CALIFORNIANS WERE DECEIVED—DISCOVERIES OF GOLD AND HOW THEY WERE MADE—TROUBLES WITH THE MINERS—AN INSURRECTION AND ITS RESULT—FIELD OF THE AUSTRALIAN MINES—COAL, IRON, AND OTHER MINERALS—THE RESOURCES OF NEW ZEALAND—ITS GOLD YIELD—GEOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES—AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER WEALTH—VICISSITUDES OF MINING LIFE—PLANS FOR ENCOURAGING IMMIGRATION.

At the International Exhibition held at Philadelphia in 1876, the Australian colonies attracted much attention by reason of their exhibits. All the products of the continent were displayed, and there was an interesting array which embraced a wide variety. Vegetable products were those from grains and grasses up to sections of trees and specimens of limbs and bark; and a fine exhibit of minerals was displayed. In the center of the space occupied by each of the colonies, there was something of great interest to the gold hunter; it was a monumental record of the gold taken out from the time of the discovery of the precious metal in Australia, down to the year of the Exhibition. In one case, it was a tall obelisk covered with gold leaf; its cubic contents were equal to that of the gold taken out of the earth in the colony, that presented it. Another of the colonies had a similar monument, but gave it the shape of an oblong block, and a third put it in the form of a gilded pillar. One of the colonies had plaster casts of the most famous nuggets it had produced; they were gilded so as to present a wonderfully deceptive appearance, and as they lay in their cases, they attracted large crowds, including many persons, who supposed they were gazing upon the genuine lumps of the precious metal.

[Sidenote: RESOURCES OF AUSTRALIA.]

Down to the date of the discovery of gold, Australia was almost a terra incognita, and the chief knowledge which the outer world possessed of it was as a place of exile for English convicts. It was known to have excellent qualities as a grazing country, and attracted emigration among those who wished to follow farming and sheep and cattle raising. It had long been known to possess iron and other minerals, but none of them were supposed to be of great value. Indeed, a geological survey of Victoria and New South Wales, less than fifty years ago, was fruitless in its results, and the engineers who were engaged upon it reported that the country must rely for its wealth upon its agricultural facilities alone.

It would be useless to attempt a classification of the districts in which gold has been found, as new deposits are opened up every year, and no man can determine with precision the limit of the auriferous territory. The deposits are unlike those of most other countries, so much so, that old miners of California who go to Australia, find that their previously acquired knowledge is of comparatively little use. Quartz and pipe-clay are generally associated with gold in the Australian diggings; the quartz is found in all sizes and shapes, from minute pebbles worn and smooth by many centuries of attrition, up to huge masses weighing many tons, and cropping out from the surface in fantastic forms.

Gold is also found intermixed with sandstone, iron-stone, and white and blue clay. In fact, it is found in many conditions, unknown in California and elsewhere, and this state of things has given rise to some curious incidents.

During the first years of the golden age in Australia, many miners went thither from California. They looked at the ground with practical and critical eyes, and some of them declared that the whole story of rich deposits in places where they were said to exist, must be wholly false, as gold “could not” be found there, according to their knowledge of mining matters. A party of them went one day on a prospecting tour up a small valley, and returned in disgust. No gold was or could be there.

[Sidenote: A JOKE AND WHAT CAME OF IT.]

While they were at supper in their tent, three or four freshly arrived gold hunters came up and innocently inquired their way to a good place to dig. As a joke, the Californians told them that they had that day visited a valley which was very rich, and would make a handsome return to anybody who worked it.

Bright and early next morning, the strangers, who were novices in gold digging, were on their way to the new mines. They found nobody there, somewhat to their surprise, and hesitated for fear they were in the wrong place. One of the Californians followed them stealthily, and finally saw them begin work. Then he returned to his companions, and all had a good laugh over the “sell” upon the new comers.

The latter worked diligently, and in almost complete ignorance of mining rules. The first two days they found nothing, but on the third day, they struck a rich lead and were happy.

The Californians had forgotten the sell upon the strangers, when, a couple of weeks after the perpetration of the joke, one of the latter came around and asked why they were not at work in the place which they said was so rich. The Californians laughed, and one of them said:

“You hain’t been working there all this time, have you?”

“Of course we have,” was the reply.

“Well, now, give it up,” said California, “the joke’s gone far enough.”

“Joke, what joke?” the stranger asked.

“Why, we sent you up there just for a joke, because you were greenhorns. There ain’t no gold there, nor never was.”

“Well, if that’s so, the joke is on you,” was the reply, and the miner told of the good luck of his party.

The Californians devoted a few minutes to unincumbered profanity, and then went and staked out claims near those of the strangers. Thus they indirectly made something out of their practical joke. Thus was discovered one of the richest fields in the Bathurst district.

Profitable diggings are scattered all over the country, but are chiefly in New South Wales and Victoria. The gold was at first found in small lumps in the surface earth, but this was soon exhausted. Then deep excavations were made, and though the deposits were not so numerous, the lumps were found to be larger. At Ballarat, near Geelong, where the most valuable lumps were found, the shafts were sunk sometimes to a depth of more than a hundred feet. Masses of pure gold weighing many pounds were brought to light—one of them weighed no less than one hundred and thirty six pounds, and was valued at more than thirty thousand dollars.

Previous to the gold discovery, copper ore of great richness was found in South Australia, not far from Adelaide. Other deposits of copper have been found, and there are many fine veins of tin, lead, and silver. In fact, the mineral wealth of Australia is by no means fully known, and the opportunities for making fortunes are very far from exhaustion.

[Sidenote: VAST BEDS OF COAL.]

Coal exists in many localities, especially on the eastern coast, where it is found associated with beds of sandstone. The seams are large and of great extent; the coal is of good quality and easily mined; it has proved to be a source of great wealth to those engaged in putting it upon the market. By facilitating steam communication, it has done much toward the development of the colonies, especially that of Victoria.

The history of the gold discovery in Australia is no less romantic than the account of the finding of the treasure deposits in California.

The first discoverer of gold in Australia is believed to have been the Rev. W. B. Clarke, of Sydney, who, in 1841, found gold in the mountainous regions to the west of the Vale of Clwyd, in New South Wales; in 1844, he exhibited a specimen of gold in quartz to the then Governor, Sir George Gipps, and others. But the subject was not followed up, “as much from considerations of the penal character of the colony, as from general ignorance of the value of such an indication.” Mr. E. H. Hargreaves returned to Sydney from California in 1850, for the express purpose, as he states, of searching for gold; and on the 12th of February, 1851, he succeeded in finding gold at Summer Hill Creek, in New South Wales. This discovery afterwards led to gold being found in other places in that colony, and to the discovery of the gold-fields of Victoria.

[Sidenote: SEPARATION OF VICTORIA FROM NEW SOUTH WALES.]

Previous to this time, however, the colony of Victoria was a dependency of New South Wales, and a strong feeling had gained ground that it suffered in consequence. Complaints were made that the expenditure of Government moneys in the district was not equal to the amount of revenue yielded by the taxes levied and lands sold within its borders. The distance from the capital was also found to operate injuriously to the interests of the colonists, and a cry was raised for separation. The demand was, as a matter of course, resisted by New South Wales, but as the agitation was carried on with increased activity, it was at last yielded to by the Home authorities. The vessel bearing the intelligence arrived on the 11th of November 1850. The news soon spread, and great was the satisfaction of the colonists. Rejoicings were kept up in Melbourne for five consecutive days, on three of which not even a newspaper was published, and on the night of one the city was illuminated. Before, however, the separation could be legally accomplished, it was necessary that an act should be passed in New South Wales, to settle details in connection with the establishment of a Legislature in the new colony, and that sundry other observances should be gone through. The requisite forms were at length given effect to: on the 1st of July 1851, a day which has ever since been scrupulously observed as a public holiday, it was publicly announced that the Port Philip district of New South Wales had been made a separate colony, to be called Victoria, after the name of the Queen of England.

In little more than a month after the establishment of Victoria as an independent colony, it became generally known that rich deposits of gold existed within its borders. Two years and a half previously a lump of gold had been exhibited in the shop of a jeweler at Melbourne, named Brentani, which it was said had been found in the locality of the Pyrenees Ranges by a shepherd named Chapman. This created some little excitement at the time, but as the man could never point out the place where he had found the specimen, and indeed soon deserted a small searching party he had undertaken to guide to the spot, it was readily supposed he was an impostor, and had obtained the gold by melting some articles of jewelry he had stolen, and so the belief in the existence of a goldfield gradually grew weaker. The discovery of gold, however, in New South Wales, by Hargreaves, in February 1851, caused numbers to emigrate to that colony. This being considered detrimental to the interests of Victoria, a public meeting was held in Melbourne on the 9th of June, at which a “gold-discovery committee” was appointed, which was authorized to offer rewards to any that should discover gold in remunerative quantities within the colony.

The following is a short statement of the order in which the Select Committee appointed by the Legislative Council to consider claims for rewards for gold discoveries in Victoria, placed the various claimants in their report dated 10th of March 1854:

[Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE GOLD DISCOVERY.]

The Hon. W. Campbell discovered gold in March 1850, at Clunes; concealed the fact at the time from the apprehension that its announcement might prove injurious to the squatter on whose run the discovery was made, but mentioned it in a letter to a friend on the 10th of June, and afterwards on the 5th of July 1851, which friend, at Mr. Campbell’s request, reported the matter to the gold-discovery committee on the 8th of July. Mr. L. J. Michel, and six others, discovered gold in the Yarra Ranges, at Anderson’s Creek, which they communicated to the gold-discovery committee on the 5th of July. Mr. James Esmond, a California digger, and three others, obtained gold in the quartz rocks of the Pyrenees, and made the discovery public on the 5th of July. Dr. George Bruhn, a German physician, found indications of gold in quartz “two miles from Parker’s station,” in April 1851, and forwarded specimens to the gold committee on the 30th of June. Mr. Thomas Hiscock found gold at Buninyong on the 8th of August, and communicated the fact to the editor of the Geelong Advertiser on the 10th of the same month. This discovery led to that of the Ballarat gold-fields. Mr. C. T. Peters, a hut-keeper at Barker’s Creek, and three others, found gold at Specimen Gully on the 20th of July; worked secretly to the 1st of September, then published the account. This led to the discovery of the numerous gold-fields about Mount Alexander, and afterwards to those of Bendigo.

The deposits were found to be richer and to extend over a wider area than any which had been discovered in New South Wales. Their fame soon spread to the adjacent colonies, and thousands hastened to the spot, desirous of participating in the newly found treasures. When the news reached home, crowds of emigrants from the United Kingdom hurried to these shores. Inhabitants of other European countries quickly joined in the rush. Americans from the Atlantic States were not long in following. Stalwart Californians left their own gold-yielding rocks and placers, to try their fortunes at the southern Eldorado. Last of all, swarms of Chinese arrived, eager to unite in the general scramble for wealth.

[Sidenote: TROUBLES ABOUT MINING LICENSES.]

The payment for a license to dig for gold was first fixed at £1 10s. per month, and this was afterwards reduced to £1 10s. per quarter. The license fee was not seriously objected to in the early days of the gold-fields, when gold was found in large quantities by almost all who sought it, but in the course of a year or two, the number of gold diggers had increased so enormously that many were unsuccessful, and the license fee even in its reduced state became a heavy burden. The mode of collecting the tax by means of armed troopers, who surrounded parties of miners at work, and arrested all without licenses, was very obnoxious, and led to resistance.

Towards the end of the first year of the gold discovery, the Government determined to raise the license fee to £3 per month, and actually issued a proclamation, dated 1st December 1851, stating that on and after the 1st of January 1852 such amount would be charged. This was met by strong protests on the part of the diggers, which resulted in the proclamation being rescinded on the 13th of December 1851. No licenses therefore were ever issued at the increased rate.

Public meetings were held on some of the gold-fields to protest against this state of things, but as little notice was taken of them by the government, the discontent continued. It finally culminated in an outbreak at Ballarat, near the end of 1854, when the diggers erected a stockade known as the Eureka, and defied the authorities. All the troops that could be mustered were sent to Ballarat and on the 2d of December, the stockade was taken by storm. The riot was quelled with some bloodshed on both sides, and a government commission was appointed to investigate the matter. None of the prisoners were ever convicted, and the result of the affair was that the oppressive tax upon the miners was removed.

[Sidenote: INCREASE OF POPULATION.]

The effect of the gold discovery upon the population of Australia may be seen by a few figures from the returns of the last census in 1871. On the 2d of April of that year, the number of inhabitants in Victoria was 731,528. Ten years previously it was 540,322. The increase during this interval was therefore 191,206, or 35.39 per cent. In 1851, which was the year of the discovery of gold, the population amounted to 77,345. The increase in the twenty years between that period and 1871 was therefore 654,183, or at the rate of 846 per cent.

Like all gold mining countries, Australia has attracted a great many adventurers in search of wealth. Nearly every country on the earth was represented in the emigration, and many of the representatives were not calculated to reflect credit upon the lands of their birth. Probably the accumulation of all kinds of races and nationalities in California was fully equaled by that in Australia, and particularly at Melbourne. At one time murders were so common in that city that a correspondent writing from thence, said it was the “bourne whence no traveler returns.”

It is a remarkable fact that, both in 1873 and 1874, more persons born in the United States, in proportion to their numbers in the population, were arrested in the colony of Victoria, than those of any other nationality. The chief causes of arrest were, as in the case of citizens of most other countries, drunkenness and disorderly conduct; still, there were a not inconsiderable number of arrests for more serious offenses, and the proportion committed for trial was much greater than that of persons born in any other country. The number of Americans settled in Victoria is but small, and it is not impossible that it is to a certain extent made up of those who, in consequence of their misdeeds, found it desirable to absent themselves from the country of their birth, and that they conduct themselves no better there than they did at home. In the year under review, next to Americans, the Irish, in proportion to their numbers, contributed the largest number to the arrested; and next to them, the French. In 1873, more of the last-mentioned fell into the hands of the police than those of any other country, except the United States. In 1874, Frenchmen were next to Americans in the numbers committed for trial. The remark applied to the latter, with reference to the probable reason for their leaving their own country, will perhaps also be applicable to them. Although the proportion of Irish committed for trial was greater than that of either English, Welsh, Scotch, or Victorians, it was less than that of persons of any of the other nationalities.

[Sidenote: TOTAL GOLD YIELD OF AUSTRALIA.]

The whole quantity of gold taken out in Victoria alone, from the discovery down to the year previous to the exhibition at Philadelphia, was nearly forty-four and a half million ounces, representing a value of not far from nine hundred millions of dollars. Truly, Australia has been of no ordinary importance as a land of gold. Probably her total mineral wealth of every kind thus far taken from the earth and turned to practical use, would not fall short of two thousand millions of dollars!

As in California and elsewhere, the early form of working and surface diggings has given place to quartz mining. Of the yield, set forth in the most recent statistics, it is estimated that sixty per cent. of the gold came from quartz reefs, and forty per cent. from alluvial workings. In the previous year, it was estimated that fifty-seven per cent. was obtained from quartz reefs, and forty-three per cent. from alluvial workings.

According to estimates made by the mining surveyors and registrars, the number of quartz reefs proved to be auriferous is 3,398. The Secretary for Mines points out that these cannot in every case be distinct reefs, as parts of the same reef, in some localities, are held to be distinct ones, and named accordingly; and, moreover, as the reefs are further explored, it is frequently found that what were supposed to be separate reefs are in reality not distinct.

From information obtained by the same officers respecting the amount of gold obtained from a considerable proportion of the quartz crushed, the average yield per ton is estimated to have been 11 dwts. 10.55 grs. in 1873, and 11 dwts. 20.51 grs. in 1874.

Gold-mining in Australia, instead of being, as formerly, practiced by the individual miner, is now almost entirely in the hands of companies. In a single year, the dividends paid by these companies exceeded ten millions of dollars.

Following are some of the most famous Australian nuggets whose fac-similes were exhibited at Philadelphia:

[Sidenote: FAMOUS NUGGETS.]

The “Beauty” Nnugget weighed 242 ozs. It was discovered at a depth of nine feet from the surface, in Kangaroo Gully, Bendigo, in the year 1858. The gold was 22.2-7/8 carats fine.

The “Platypus” nugget weighed 377 ozs. 6 dwts. It was found in Robinson Crusoe Gully, Bendigo, in a pillar of earth of a deserted claim. The claim was situated in shallow alluvium, and the nugget was discovered in March, 1861. The gold was 22.1-1/8 carats fine.

The “Viscount Canterbury” nugget was found in John’s Paddock, Berlin Diggings, at a depth of fifteen feet from the surface, on the 31st of May, 1870. It weighed 1,105 ozs. The gold was 23.3 carats fine.

The “Schlemn” nugget was found at Dunolly on the 11th of July, 1872, at a depth of three feet beneath the surface. It weighed 538 ozs., and is estimated to contain 60 ozs. of quartz.

Nugget [not named] found in Broomfield’s Gully, Creswick, on the 8th of August, 1872. It weighed 24 ozs. 3 dwts., and was got at a depth of one hundred feet below the surface.

The “Kum Tow” nugget weighed 718 ozs. 5 dwts. It was found on the 17th of April, 1871, in Catto’s Paddock, Berlin Diggings, at a depth of twelve feet six inches below the surface. It was found by a party of Chinamen. The gold was 23.3 carats fine.

The “Viscountess Canterbury” nugget was found on the 3d of October, 1870, at Berlin. It was discovered at six feet six inches beneath the surface, and weighed 884 ozs. 10 dwts. The gold was 23.2-5/8 carats fine.

Many other nuggets were shown. The last on the list was the “Welcome,” found on the 11th of June 1858, at one hundred and eighty feet below the surface, at Bakery Hill, Ballarat. It weighed 2,195 ounces!

It was long doubted, by able geologists, whether there were any rock formations in Australia that would yield diamonds; and even after discoveries of them had been made, doubts continued to be expressed about the truthfulness of the reports. For several years past the original discoveries have received confirmation by the undoubted subsequent unearthing of this interesting gem. They occur along with tin-sand and titaniferous ore, close by, if not actually in, decomposed granite; that is to say in rubbish, of which feldspar, mica, quartz, and iron form no inconsiderable proportion.

Lying below the present granitic rocks, and stretching for several miles, sometimes near the surface, and seldom two hundred feet below it, is a gravelly formation, consisting of the materials usually found in what, in Brazil, is called “Cascalho” and “Itacolumite” of the coarser kind. This may be observed quite commonly on the spoil heaps of the gold diggers. No diamonds have hitherto, however, been found in precisely this formation; but their allies, the pale blue topaz, many shades of corundum, both crystallized and amorphous, angular and water-worn, yellow and white pebbles of crystalline quartz, frequently of large size, zircons, &c., are quite common.

[Sidenote: DIAMONDS AND OTHER GEMS.]

The largest diamond yet found did not exceed four carats in weight, but was a fine stone.

Blue and green sapphires, spinels, topazes, and other gems are found occasionally, and there is a general belief among geologists that rich deposits of them may yet be discovered. Some authorities estimate the diamond-producing area of New South Wales at five hundred square miles. By the same estimate the coal fields are placed at 24,000 square miles, iron at 1,400, gold at 13,000, tin at 6,000, and copper at 3,000. Mineral lands are now leased at five shillings annual rental per acre.

[Sidenote: RESOURCES OF NEW ZEALAND.]

From an American point of view, Australia and New Zealand are associated, although they are distinct colonies, and are a long distance apart. New Zealand, discovered and named in 1642, by a Dutch navigator, TASMAN, who also discovered and named Tasmania in the same year, consists of two large and one very small island, lying 1,200 miles south-eastward of Australia, between 34° and 48° south latitude, being about antipodal to Great Britain. Its length of coast line is 3,000 miles, its shape being long and narrow; its area is about that of the State of Oregon. It is of volcanic origin, ribbed with mountains, and is better watered than Australia in respect to both lakes and rivers. Its temperature is lower than that of corresponding latitudes in Europe, and higher than that of corresponding latitudes in America, but the climate is more salubrious than in Great Britain, although very changeful in temperature and moisture.

In minerals, it is nearly as rich as any of the colonies, the gold yield having been $9,937,125 in 1873, and the total exported to July 1, 1875, $151,407,045. Copper, silver, tin, iron, and coal have also been found. Nearly everything grown in Great Britain flourishes there, together with the fern in tree form thirty feet high, a wild flax, nearly equal to manila for rope-making, an excellent variety of valuable building and ship-building woods, and an abundance of the fruits of both semi-tropical and temperate countries. The population has risen thus from 26,707 by the original census of 1851: 1858, 59,413; 1861, 99,022; 1864, 172,518; 1867, 218,668; 1871, 256,260; 1874, 299,514; and of 1875, 375,876; all these figures exclusive of aborigines and Chinese, it thus appearing to be equaled only by Victoria and New South Wales, of the Australian colonies.

In respect to emigration, it compares favorably with Victoria, its excess of immigrants over emigrants having been 38,106 and 25,270 in 1874 and 1875 respectively, against 3,367 and 2,698 for Victoria in those years. It has 550 miles of railroad, and 7,065 of telegraph wire; Victoria has 586 and 4,981 miles respectively; New South Wales, 437 and 8,014. Its number of sheep was 11,704,853 in 1874, having multiplied about two and a half times in ten years. The land under cultivation two years ago was 1,788,797 acres—an increase of 285,445 during the previous twelve months. Small as this total is—less than three per cent. of the whole—the proportion of cultivated land in New South Wales was less than one and one-half per cent., and in all Australia less than one-fourth per cent. at the same time. Taking as the assumed habitable portion the strip 250 miles wide along three sides of the Australian coast, 758,000 square miles in extent, that piece, nearly equaling in size the twenty-six States of this Union lying east of the Mississippi, would contain, if the island population were distributed over it, about three persons to the square mile, against three and one-half in New Zealand, eighty-three in New York, one hundred and fifty-eight in Massachusetts, three hundred and seventy-two in England, and four hundred and ten in Belgium. But the reader should remember that as these colonies are all pastoral, the area tilled is a very different matter from the area occupied. The principal endowment of Australia at present, besides mineral resources, being the vast areas of rich native grasses and the peculiar fitness of soil and climate which “make bad fleeces good and good better,” the colonist has become a herdsman.

It does not appear that New Zealand is behind her larger neighbors, a thousand miles distant, in any material respect. The colonies all invite immigration, and some of them have latterly taken energetic measures to secure it. They offer bounties to settlers, reduced passage rates, and other inducements, and have been quite successful both in England and America.

[Sidenote: RICH MINERAL DEPOSITS.]

The mineral resources of New Zealand are quite as varied as those of Australia. The rocks contain copper, iron, silver, gold, tin, and other metals, and there are extensive beds of coal of excellent quality. The processes employed in working the mines are almost identically the same as in Australia, so that an extended description is unnecessary. The great majority of the miners in New Zealand came originally from Australia, and their proportion of good and bad luck has been much like that in the latter country.

LIV.

UNDERGROUND IN SAN FRANCISCO.

CHINESE OPIUM DENS.—PISCO.—EXPERIMENTS IN LIQUORS.—SATURDAY NIGHT AMONG THE CHINESE.—COCOMONGO.—MURDERER’S ALLEY.—CHINESE MUSIC.—THE THEATRE.—BETEL AND ITS USE.—THE BARBARY COAST.—CHEAP LODGING-HOUSES.—A DYING VICTIM.—A DEN OF THIEVES.—“THE SHRIMP.”—UNDER THE STREET.—A REPULSIVE SPECTACLE.—OPIUM SMOKING.—ITS EFFECTS.—SAMSHOO.—ITS PREPARATION AND QUALITIES.—INTRODUCTION TO AN OPIUM DEN.—THE OCCUPANTS.—EXPERIMENT ON A SMOKER.—HOW TO SMOKE.—TRYING THE DRUG.—MESCAL.—GOING HOME.—TRYING A SEWER.—A COUNTRYMAN’S DRINK.

Underground life, of a peculiar and picturesque character, can be seen in San Francisco, in the parts of the city where the Chinese most do congregate. Soon after my arrival there, two of my friends, whom I will call the Doctor and the Colonel, invited me to a nocturnal visit to the Celestials. I accepted with alacrity, and, dressed in my poorest and oldest clothes, met my friends at the appointed hour in the Alta office. Macrellish and Woodward gave us their benediction, and we set out on our journey.

“The best thing we can do,” said the doctor, “is to lay in a stock of some powerful disinfectant, or neutralizer, before we start; the stench in some of those underground China kennels is something frightful.” I suggested carbolic acid. “Not strong enough!” said the doctor, shaking his head, doubtfully. The colonel forced two long streams of smoke from his cigarito through his nostrils, stroked his long mustache thoughtfully, and suggested,—

“Pisco?”

“What is Pisco?” I demanded.

“That settles it, my friend; you have a new experience before you, and we will fall back on Pisco!” said the colonel.

[Sidenote: EXPERIENCE WITH PISCO.]

“You will be in luck if you don’t fall back on the sidewalk after you have drank it!” growled the doctor.

The colonel took my arm, and as we went down towards Montgomery Street, proceeded, in a confidential manner, to enlighten me on the subject of Pisco. It is really pure, unadulterated brandy, distilled in Peru, from the grape known as Italia, or La Rosa del Peru, and takes its name from the port of Pisco in which it is shipped. It is perfectly colorless, quite fragrant, very seductive, terribly strong, and has a flavor somewhat resembling that of Scotch whiskey, but much more delicate, with a marked fruity taste. It comes in earthen jars, broad at the top, and tapering down to a point, holding about five gallons each. We had some hot, with a bit of lemon and a dash of nutmeg in it, at a marble-paved and splendidly-decorated saloon, near the corner of California and Montgomery Streets. The first glass satisfied me that San Francisco was, and is, a nice place to visit, and that the doctor and the colonel were good fellows to travel with. The second glass was sufficient, and I felt that I could face small-pox, all the fevers known to the faculty, and the Asiatic Cholera, combined, if need be.

The colonel rolled me a cigarito, and insisted on my smoking it. I did my best, choked myself with the fine tobacco, let the paper wrapper unroll, burned my fingers, and failed ignominiously. I was glad to see that, while he pitied me, he did not wholly despise me. These Californians have an appreciably large share of liberality in their composition, and will pardon your ignorance on almost any given specialty of their state, provided you don’t claim that you have something very nearly as good “at the East.” That assumption they cannot, and will not, tolerate on the part of anybody, and I don’t so much blame them, after all.

It was Saturday evening, and the streets were crowded, Montgomery and Kearney Streets swarming, as you may say, with people, well dressed, sociable, orderly, and satisfied with themselves and the rest of mankind. Suddenly the colonel remembered that the wine called Cocomongo, from the vineyard of that name, near San Bernardino, Southern California, was one of the specialties of a saloon which we were passing at the moment, and we went in and had some.

[Sidenote: COCOMONGO.]

It was a warm, fruity wine, of a dark-amber hue, very strong, and withal palatable, which I did not find to be the case with all the California wines that I tasted. We went up Washington Street to Murderer’s Alley, and turned down it, towards Jackson Street. “There is where the French woman was murdered in the night, within ten feet of where hundreds of people were coming and going all the time; and her murderer, after robbing the place, coolly washed his hands and face of the blood, and walked away. He was never discovered. Here, right where we stand, is where the Chinaman cut his runaway mistress open with a sword. I saw him hanged for it. And there is where the police shot—” I thanked my kind friend for this cheerful information, but suggested that it might be well to keep a little of it back for another time. It was not well to exhaust all the pleasant things of life at one sitting. The subject was obligingly changed.

I am satisfied that the name of the alley is well deserved and appropriate. Swarms of Chinese women, with almond eyes, baby faces, painted red and white in the most lavish manner, lips touched with vermilion, hair black and glossy, with a purplish tinge, like the wing of a raven, and clad in blue satin coats and pants, trotted along the alley, their curious wooden-soled, silk and bullion-embroidered shoes rattling like the hoofs of a flock of sheep as they went. Others tapped upon the window panes, to attract our attention as we passed. Before one house we saw “joss-sticks” burning, and the white cloth festooned over the door, and hanging down on either side, told that death was there. We heard the beating of gongs, the squeaking of one-stringed Chinese fiddles, the sharp notes of the kettle-drum and other discordant instruments, making music inside, and, as we passed, a woman, clad in blue and white, threw a bunch of lighted fire-crackers upon the doorstep, where they went off like a running fire of musketry, much to the edification of a gang of little pig-tailed, almond eyed boys,—“demi-Johns,” I think the doctor called them,—who were gathered around, chattering like so many magpies all the time, in their, to me, uncouth jargon. The Chinese is an ancient language, beyond a doubt; and I don’t see why it has not worn smoother by use in the hundred centuries or more since the “Central Flowery Empire” became “known and feared among the nations.”

[Sidenote: A CHINESE THEATRE.—BETEL NUT.]

On Jackson Street we stopped a few moments in front of the Chinese Theatre, listening to the unearthly din of gongs, which from time to time announced the change of scene, in a never-ending historical drama, and looking about for a special policeman to take us into an opium den. While we stood there, the colonel called our attention to one of the specialties of the fruit stall, at the entrance of the theatre. Among the dozen nameless prepared delicacies calculated to tickle the Celestial palate, and catch the Mongolian eye, was a row of little conical packages, of about one ounce weight each. These were composed of an outer wrapper of some kind of a queer leaf—I could not make out its exact character, but it was apparently that of a tree not native to America—enclosing two or three narrow slices of fresh cocoa-nut, a few thin slices of some fruit or nut resembling in appearance a fresh nutmeg, and about a teaspoonful of a pink-colored paste. A small bowl, filled with this pink paste, stood beside the packages, ready for use, and some of the nuts ready sliced, but not done up in packages, lay near it. The doctor explained that these packages were chewed by the Chinamen as some Caucasians chew tobacco. The chewing produces a lavish flow of saliva, and the chewer has the appearance of having his mouth full of blood, as if from bronchial hemorrhage.

The small nut was the famous “betel” (pronounced be-tel), and the principal ingredient of the paste was quick-lime. The betel is now raised in California. The colonel said he had always made it a rule to drink the peculiar drinks, and eat the peculiar delicacies, of every country he visited, and he had tried chewing the betel. It only made his gums sore, loosened his teeth a little, and gave him the heartburn. He could conscientiously recommend it as an experiment eminently worthy to be made by anybody in the interest of science, and thought I should try it by all means. I asked him if he had ever attacked a ready-made sausage in a cheap restaurant. He was forced to admit that his faith in human nature, broad and liberal as it is, had never made him equal to the attempt. I told him that in that case he was only a dabbler in the wide field of science, and until he had entered deeper, he was unfit to give advice to others on the subject.

I declined the prepared betel, lime, cocoa-nut and leaf, but took a bit of the sliced betel plain, and chewed it. It had a slightly astringent effect on the mouth, and though without any very strongly perceptible flavor, soon produced a slight choking sensation in the throat, and a rather strongly marked palpitation of the heart. I don’t think I like betel. It is evidently an “acquired taste,” as the Englishman remarked about wild turkey, when a party of western practical jokers played off buzzard on him for the noblest bird of the American forest.

[Sidenote: “THE BARBARY COAST.”]

They said that the officers had all gone over upon the “Barbary Coast”—another of San Francisco specialties—as there had been a shooting scrape over there. We went on through Dupont Street, to that part of Pacific Street known as the Barbary Coast. The locality is the favorite resort of the dregs of the population of the Golden City—thieves, robbers, prostitutes, and loafers of the very lowest class, and of every color and nationality represented on the earth, Africa, Asia, all Spanish America, the West Indies, the islands of the Pacific, all Europe and North America, having each contributed its quota to make up the mass of vice, crime, and utter rottenness which surges up and down that horrible “coast.” It well deserves its name.

We met the officers coming back with their prisoner, a drunken loafer from Australia, who was making night hideous with his yells as they hustled him along towards the calaboose, followed by a motley crowd, whose aimless curiosity led them to rush along pell-mell in their wake.

One of the specials, whom my companion familiarly addressed as “Shrimp,”—probably on account of his elephantine proportions,—consented to come back and pilot us to our destination as soon as the party reached the calaboose. Meantime we went into a Spanish cigar shop, bearing the high-sounding and pœtical name “La Flor de la Mariposa,” literally “The Flower of the Butterfly,” and bought some villanous cigars, the colonel and the proprietor becoming involved in an animated dispute in Spanish over the revolt against the Juarez government in Mexico.

Out on the street once more, the colonel wanted us to go through the dens on the “coast.” He would take us to the “Bull Run,” the “Cock of the Walk,” the “Roaring Gimlet,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” and a few similar resorts, and convince me that we had nothing like them in New York. Rather than make the visit, I conceded all he claimed as to the superior and in fact unapproachable depravity of this part of San Francisco; and we retraced our steps to Jackson Street, where, in the heart of the Chinese quarter of the town, we found our officer, and set about the work of investigation, for which we had started out in the early part of the evening.

[Sidenote: A DANGEROUS LOCALITY.]

“Better go down and see how some of these people live, before you go to see how they die,” said the officer, leading the way into a dark passage running from the streets into the centre of the block. We stumbled along the passage for some fifty feet or more, and came to a rickety, dirty stairway, which we descended, feeling our way along step by step, until we stood in a court-yard surrounded with high brick buildings on all sides. We could see nothing round us for the moment; but the stench was almost overpowering, and the chattering, which was going on in all directions, convinced us that we were in a locality literally swarming with the lowest class of the Mongolian population. The officer struck a match against the wall, and with it lighted a piece of candle, which he drew from his pocket. Immediately curious faces peeped out at us from behind old gunny-sacks, which took the place of windows and doors in the low basement walls, and a dozen or two dirty, dilapidated, demoralized looking Celestials came out from different corners, and stood with their hands in their pockets, regarding us with evident suspicion as unauthorized intruders.

[Sidenote: A DEN OF THIEVES.]

“This is a regular den of thieves. Not a single one of these fellows works at any honest trade for a living. They are the bummers and outcasts of Chinadom,” said the officer. “Here, Sam Yap, you dirty rascal, have you robbed anybody’s hen-roost yet to-night?—I suppose not, though; they don’t generally get out at that kind of business until along just before morning, when the streets are almost deserted, and they can move about without much danger of being overhauled and searched. All these fellows are on it, but this one is the worst in the deck. I have had him up at least twenty times, and the next time I am going to vag him. Yes, I am, you bloody old chicken murderer!” said he, holding the candle up to his face that we might all get a good look at him. It must be admitted that it was not a prepossessing face.

He then went to one of the openings in the wall, and pulling back the screen of old bagging, showed us a party of ten or a dozen such fellows gathered around a low table of rough boards, playing dominoes for “copper cash,” as the brass coin of China, the value of which is one tenth of a cent of our money, is commonly designated. They stopped a moment, and looked up suspiciously at us, and then at a sign from the officer, whom they appeared to recognize, went on with the game. They played it rapidly, with all sorts of exclamations and facial contortions for accompaniments. The dominoes are the same as ours, but they play the game quite differently. I don’t know exactly how it is done, but they seemed to win and lose rapidly. In the centre of the court there was a small brick building, which seemed to be the receptacle of all the filth from the neighborhood. It did not seem to have any connection with the street sewer, or if it had any, it was choked up, for the planking around was literally floating in the foul liquid from it, which oozed up between the cracks at every step as we walked over it, giving off a stench, which, in any other city of Christendom would breed a pestilence in twenty-four hours.

[Sidenote: IN A CHINESE HOUSE.]

Behind this, near the opposite wall, we stumbled upon a bundle of filthy rags, which turned partially over as the foot of our guide came in contact with it. The officer held down his candle, and on examination we found that within the rags there was a human being, a man in the last stage of consumption, induced, no doubt, by opium smoking. He could not or would not answer our questions, and his glazed vacant eyes showed that death was close at hand to claim him. He was lying on the wet, dirty boards, without even a blanket under him, and had undoubtedly been placed there to die, having no friends, and belonging to neither of the “Six Companies” with which all prosperous or even partially respectable Chinese in California are connected. The officer turned his head over, and called our attention to the fact that his queue had been cut off, which showed that he had been convicted of theft at some time, and was thenceforward debarred from respectable Chinese society, doomed to associate only with the pariahs of his race.

We had seen enough, more than enough, in fact, of this neighborhood, and our guide led us out to the street by the way we came.

The Shrimp said that there was another place just above, on the same street, which he wanted us to visit before we went into a first-class opium house. We went with him to a large four-story building, which appeared to be divided into apartments of the smallest dimensions, in which the Chinese swarmed like bees in a hive. He said that there were over six hundred persons, all of the poorer class, sleeping in this single building every night. In front of the building was a narrow opening in the sidewalk, with a stairway just sufficiently wide to allow one person at a time to descend into the subterranean regions below. Down this he dived like a rat into his hole, calling out to us to follow and look sharp for our heads. The caution was not unnecessary, as I soon found to my cost. At the bottom of the stairs he lighted his candle again, and passing through a low opening in the wall, showed us the way under the street.

[Sidenote: A HORRIBLE DEN.]

Here, congregated in total darkness, were some twenty of the poorest class of Chinese stowed away for the night. Some were lying on piles of old rags, evidently picked up by the chiffonniers in their daily rounds, and put aside for this purpose, as having no commercial value, and of no use otherwise. Some were lying on rude benches knocked together from pieces of dry goods boxes, and one, who evidently held a higher position than his fellows, probably a man who had at some time drawn a twenty dollar prize in a lottery, or had a run of luck at the game of “Tan,” was stowed away in a bunk in a kind of alcove formed by an arch in the wall, before which was hanging an old tattered chintz curtain. He had an old blanket over him, and was doubtless looked upon with envy and hatred as a “bloated aristocrat” by his less fortunate fellow-citizens. We could hear the ceaseless tramp of the crowd on the sidewalk, and from time to time the rattling of the carriage wheels over the rough cobbles above our heads.

The atmosphere was that of a charnel-house, thick with noisome exhalations from the foul and rotting rags, and the fouler persons, of the denizens of this worse than Black Hole of Calcutta. Water dripped from the roof constantly, and the walls were covered with mould and great patches of thick, oozy slime. What a place for a human being to sleep in and die in! In the five minutes we were there our clothes became clammy from the foul moisture. What must be the condition, physical and mental, of that poor wretch stretched in the rags in yonder muddy corner?

[Sidenote: AMONG THE OPIUM SMOKERS.]

“And the wheels go over my head, And my bones are shaken with pain, For into a shallow grave they are thrust, Only a yard beneath the street; And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat, Beat into my scalp and my brain, With never an end to the stream of passing feet.

* * * * *

“O, me! why have they not buried me deep enough? Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough, Me, that was never a quiet sleeper? May be still I am but half dead; Then I cannot be wholly dumb; I will cry to the steps above my head, And somebody, surely, some kind heart, will come, To bury me, bury me, Deeper, ever so little deeper.”

I wonder if there was ever a Tennyson of Celestial literature, and if he ever read anything like the above, and recalled it to mind, as he lay cowering and grovelling through the long hours of the dreary night, in the depths of this living tomb!

Out on the street once more, and we lost our guide, who was called off by a loud whistling for aid, from some other officer over on the Barbary Coast. My companions fell in with a Chinese merchant with whom they were acquainted, and we went with him to his store on Dupont Street. He gave us some scalding hot black tea in little China cups, and offered to help us in any way he could. O, yes, of course he was acquainted with the location of many “opium houses;” the Chinese quarter is full of them! Opium smoking is the great curse of China, and four fifths of the Chinese in San Francisco indulge in it to a greater or less extent. Some use it merely as a sedative, and in moderate quantities. Others use it as commonly as American tobacco chewers use the nicotian weed, consuming a dollar and a quarter’s worth every day, and being more or less under the influence of it all the time. The poorer class of opium smokers patronize the opium lodging-houses, where they frequently sleep all night, paying fifteen cents for a few grains of prepared opium and a raised couch to lie on, while inhaling the smoke and sleeping off its effects.

[Sidenote: EFFECT AND EXTENT OF OPIUM SMOKING.]

Perhaps a quarter of the whole number of opium smokers use it to the extent of producing stupefaction habitually; these are all old smokers. The habit grows upon one steadily, and it soon becomes a terrible tyrant. When once the habit has become fixed upon a man, there is no possibility of its being thrown off. He daily requires more and more of the drug, while his strength slowly fails him; his appetite for ordinary food disappears; he becomes lean and attenuated; his brain becomes so affected, that it refuses to act unless the stimulant is furnished, and sooner or later consumption sets in, and the victim dies by inches, as it were, sometimes suffering horribly, while at others he is hardly conscious of suffering at all.

The importation of opium into the Pacific states amounts to millions annually, and the great bulk of it is consumed in smoking by the Chinamen. The women never smoke it; are not allowed to visit the opium houses, in fact. The wealthier Chinamen have accommodations for opium smoking in the upper or back rooms of the buildings which they occupy as stores and dwellings, and do not associate with the common herd who patronize the public opium dens. One Chinese friend thought it a very bad thing, this opium smoking, but admitted that he occasionally took a whiff at it himself, when he felt unsettled, and wanted to quiet his nerves for a night’s sleep.

[Sidenote: DRINKING SAMSHOO.]

While we were talking, the colonel suggested that I was a stranger, and had never tasted “Samshoo.” Our merchant friend at once took down a curious looking black bottle,—something like those that Curacoa comes in, wound with some kind of straw string from top to bottom, and having a label in white and vermilion, with Chinese characters,—drew the cork, and poured out a quantity of a dark-brown liquor, something like arrack in appearance, into a little china bowl, which he passed to me, assuring me that it was a very superior article, and pressing me to drink it.

I tasted it, and found it not very strong, but with a curious flavor, something between old Madeira wine and bottled ale, with a marked unpleasant smell, as of decaying vegetable matter. What is it made from? “Licey!” was his prompt response. The doctor explained that it was distilled from rice—mainly the cold rice and refuse from the restaurants, he said—flavored and colored with dried peas, or some similar fruit, and strengthened and enriched with a fine old nutty taste by the addition of a piece of fat roasted pork before bottling. The Chinese consider this a great luxury, and have their private stocks of it, which they regard with as much pride as is felt by a fine old English gentleman for his cellar of “old crusted port; vintage of 1803.” A little of it satisfied me. I think the taste for it must be an acquired one.

Some months afterwards I drank some samshoo, in Northern China, that was far worse than that furnished to me in San Francisco. It was served hot, in small glasses about as large as a thimble. It burned like nitric acid; and I half believed that I had swallowed a torch-light procession with all its lamps trimmed and blazing. I was dining with a Chinese official, and the etiquette of the occasion required me to swallow the vile stuff. By the time I had disposed of a gill or so, my head felt like the paddle-box of a steamer, and my throat was as raw as a freshly cut beefsteak. No more samshoo for me, if you please.

Our new-found friend gave us a card, on which he wrote some characters in Chinese by way of an introduction, and pointed out the entrance to an opium house on the other side of the street. We went over and found the establishment located on the second story adjoining a Chinese restaurant. The proprietor of the house, or “gentlemanly clerk,” looked at our card, and at once offered us the hospitalities of the place.

It was, of course, a very poor place, but he would do the best he could for us. There were half a dozen small rooms on the one floor, divided by rough partitions. We entered one of them, and found three raised platforms or beds, with bamboo framework; and in place of our usual mattress, a flat surface of braided cane, like one of our cane-seated chairs, on which to sleep. This is the usual bed of the Chinaman. He does not fancy spring mattresses, curled hair, or feathers to repose upon, and instead of stripping himself and crawling under a pile of woollen blankets, as we do, he lies down in his ordinary clothing, and rarely has anything else over him, unless it is a single blanket when the weather is unusually cool, or the room is open and subject to drafts. He does not destroy his lustrous black hair by burying his head in a hot feather or curled hair pillow, as we do, but has a block of wood or a cylindrical pillow, of braided cane open at both ends for ventilation, which he places just under the top of his neck. This keeps him from becoming bald-headed, and is uncomfortable enough to make him an early riser; but like all other systems, it has its disadvantages. In time it throws his neck out of line, giving it a permanent forward bend, not graceful in itself, and rather unpleasant for an outside barbarian to look upon. When he travels he usually carries his favorite pillow with him, and at his death his head rests upon it in his coffin.

[Sidenote: OPIUM SMOKERS IN BED.]

Two of the beds in this room were occupied when we came in, the other was vacant. On one a Chinese was stretched at full length upon his back, in utter unconsciousness; his eyes were wide open, but apparently receiving no impression from the objects before them, and there was a vacant, meaningless smile upon his sallow countenance. His opium pipe or stick lay on the couch beside him, having fallen from his hand, and near his head stood the small, nut-oil lamp, with a glass cover like an inverted tumbler with a hole in the bottom, the tiny taper burning low in the socket.

The other Chinese, who was well dressed, and probably a merchant or manufacturer of the second class, was just preparing to indulge in his nightly dissipation. He did not appear to relish our intrusion, but said nothing, and went on with his smoking. Each guest who pays his fifteen cents receives from the clerk in attendance a small oyster or clam shell, on which there is a little dab of prepared opium, in a semi-fluid condition, resembling, in appearance, thick treacle or partially dissolved “stick licorice,” such as we used to buy with our odd pennies at the grocery store at the corner, in the happy days of youth, when we had a terrible cold, and obtained permission to remain at home from school and indulge in the luxury of medicine of our own choice. A slender bamboo stick about three feet in length, hollow down nearly to the largest end, where a little tunnel-shaped brass bowl is inserted, which is the usual opium pipe, a bit of wire about a foot in length, and a nut-oil lamp such as I have described, are also given him, and his “outfit” is complete.

The man who was about to indulge in the luxury stretched himself at full length on the couch, turned on his left side, placed the end of the wire in the opium, twirled it around so as to take up a mass about the size of an ordinary garden pea, formed the mass with his finger into a ball, held the end of the bamboo pipe to his mouth, placed the brass bowl at the other end against the flame of the lamp, slipped the ball of opium off the wire dexterously into the bowl, and as it burned he inhaled the smoke slowly into his lungs, allowing it to escape in little jets at long intervals from his nostrils.

[Sidenote: DREAMS CAUSED BY OPIUM.]

By the time he had taken the third or fourth whiff he was evidently affected. His eyes began to grow dull, his breathing was slow and heavy, and his grasp on the pipe relaxed little by little. In two or three minutes his muscles appeared to relax, his head fell back, and he was in a condition half sleep, half stupor. The doctor explained that the effect of this first smoke would wear off in half an hour or so, when the man would repeat the dose once or twice, and finally become wholly insensible for several hours. We spoke to him, but he did not answer, and it was hard to tell whether he was really unconscious of our presence or merely indifferent to it. It is asserted that the opium smoker sees nothing of what is going on around him, but revels in the most blissful creations of the imagination, his soul sailing away, as it were, from the dull and common-place surroundings of his body, to walk hand in hand with the “black-eyed girls in green” through the fair gardens, among the palm groves, by the banks of the rivers of Paradise. I said as much: the colonel characteristically denounced this practical version of the matter as “all blamed stuff, rot, and humbug. It makes them drunk, just simply blind, stupid drunk, and nothing else!” He had tried it and knew. The doctor said one dose would not produce any serious effects, and against my better judgment I permitted them to persuade me into making the experiment.

The landlord started off to bring my allowance of opium, lamp, pipe, etc., and the colonel improved the opportunity to illustrate his theory that the opium smoker is not absolutely insensible to pain, like the patient who inhales chloroform, but simply too drunk to resent the imposition which produces it. Tearing off a little slip of cane from the edge of one of the couches, he went up to the wholly insensible customer on the couch, and inserting it in his nostril twirled it swiftly around. A sharp sneeze and a convulsive winking of the dull eyes followed, but no other movement was made by the sleeper. “There, you see now that I am right! If he had taken chloroform he would not even sneeze; his nerves would be utterly incapable of receiving a sensation.”

[Sidenote: WAKING THE WRONG PASSENGER.]

Turning to the other customer, who now lay like a log on his couch, he drew his penknife, opened it, then, changing his mind, put it back, and taking a pin from his vest, inserted it quickly in the calf of his victim’s leg. The other leg, which was hanging half over the side of the couch, straightened out with a quick, convulsive movement, and the toe of the heavy felt and wooden-soled shoe on the foot came in contact with the colonel’s shin with a vicious energy, which sent him dancing back to the doorway with a remark which did not sound like a blessing, just as the proprietor came in with the opium and its accessories. “Why the —— don’t you make your customers take their boots off when they go to bed?” the colonel demanded savagely of the smiling and obsequious master of the house, as he rubbed his shin and cast a glance of hatred at the recumbent form of the lodger who had proved such a poor subject for experiments. “Me no shabbee!” was the non-committal reply.

I lay down on the bed and placed myself in the orthodox position, the doctor resting himself at my head, and the colonel rolling a cigarito and settling down on the edge of the couch at my feet. The host prepared the opium, placed it in the pipe, presented the end of the stick to my lips, and told me, after his own fashion, to pull away. I pulled, and began choking and coughing. The first experiment was a dead failure; the next was more nearly a success, and I felt my head rapidly assuming the dimensions of a sugar-barrel while my body and legs appeared to be shrinking proportionately, all their bulk being drawn up towards and into my head. I felt as I imagine drowning people feel, and gasped convulsively for breath. I could not recognize anything around me for a moment, and then I saw the dark eyes and long mustachios of the colonel coming out of a cloud of smoke and making directly for me at lightning speed, like a hairy comet flying through the air. The idea flashed through my brain that he was about to burn a match under my nose, or commit some similar atrocity by way of an experiment “in the interest of science,” and as one struggling in a horrible nightmare I sprang off the bed, staggering around without being able to feel my feet under me, and groping blindly about for something to seize in order to steady myself.

[Sidenote: EXPERIENCE OF A NOVICE.]

There was a low, dull humming in my ears, a giddiness in my head, and a general sense of faintness and nausea pervading my entire system. “For God’s sake, take me out of this!” I cried, at last; and some time after I realized that I was being walked up and down the sidewalk, the doctor and the colonel supporting me on either side. My head was getting clearer, but I felt deadly ill. The faint, sickening odor of the opium fumes clung around me and oppressed me, and I said as much at last, as I leaned heavily against a lamp-post.

The colonel with his usual enthusiasm exclaimed, “O, yes, I see it; you want a good strong stimulant of some kind to help you get rid of it. Now, I know a Mexican over on the corner of Vallejo Street, who has got some double refined Mescal, which will dissolve a gun-flint in half an hour; one good drink of that will set you all right.”

“Not if I know myself aright!” I remarked, emphatically. “You are the most hospitable people I have ever fallen in with. Your good intentions are unbounded, and your kindness I never can forget, but I don’t want any Mescal to-night. I have made a sufficient number of new acquaintances for one evening. Pisco, Cocomongo, Betel, Samshoo, and Opium, are all very fine in their way, but the new things are crowding each other a little too fast. We will omit the Mescal on this occasion; I want to go home!”

They called a hack, and we rode back to the Occidental in silence. This was my first experience in a San Francisco opium den.

It will also be my last!

Next morning the colonel called on me and said he had forgotten something—an opium den worse than the one we had seen.

“How’s that?” I asked.

[Sidenote: LIVING IN A SEWER.]

“Why,” said the colonel, “it is an opium den of a very romantic character. Some years ago the line of Jackson Street was changed by the city authorities, and it became necessary to build new sewers. The old sewer was given up, and in the new arrangements it was under some of the buildings occupied by the Chinese. They took possession of it, and hollowed out galleries on either side. The enterprising proprietors converted it into an opium palace, at the popular admission fee of two cents. The accommodations and odors are a hundred-fold worse than those of the place where we were last night. For two cents you can get smells enough to last you a lifetime. Do you want to go?”

I concluded that I wanted nothing more in the opium line, and declined to go. I may have been too fastidious, but I had not then travelled as much as I have in later years, and novices, you know, are inclined to be particular.

A sewer, whether abandoned or not, has few charms. At St. Louis there are, or were when I was last there, some of the smaller sewers that are so broken at their mouths, near the river’s edge, as to present the appearance of natural springs where the water oozes up through the sand. One day a gentleman was standing near one of these sewer mouths, when two countrymen came strolling along the bank, one of them thirty feet ahead of the other. As the foremost of the twain spied the water slowly pouring from the earth, he shouted to his friend,—

“Hullo, Jim; here’s another spring!”

“Well, Gaul darn it,” answered the other, “if tain’t no better water than the last we found I don’t want none of it.”

LV.

GOLD AND ITS USES.

ANTIQUITY OF GOLD.—ITS WORSHIP.—ANCIENT GOLD MINES.—KING SOLOMON.—GOLD IN AMERICA.—STORY OF A HUNTER.—THE SHEPHERD AND THE CHILD.—HOW PIZARRO EUCHRED THE PERUVIAN KING.—SUTTER’S FORT AND SAW-MILL.—MARSHALL’S DISCOVERY IN THE MILL-RACE.—ROMANCE AND REALITY.—SPREADING THE NEWS.—NAVIGATION UNDER DISADVANTAGES.—THE GOLD EXCITEMENT.—THE PAN AND ROCKER.—THE AUTHOR AS A GOLD MINER.—HOW HE WORKED THE ROCKER.—HARRY AND HIS TIN DIPPER.—DISAPPOINTMENT AND DINNER.—VICISSITUDES OF GOLD MINING.

The most valuable metal generally known is gold, and it is likewise one of the most ancient. It is found in various parts of the globe, and is sufficiently scarce, and sufficiently hard to obtain, to make it precious. No doubt there is enough of it in the composition of this globe, if it could be easily obtained, to make it a very common metal. An Irishman once said, speaking of the gold mines of California, that there was sufficient of the precious metal there, but it was terribly mixed up with dirt. If it were not for this mixing with dirt, and the difficulty of separating it, all of us might have gold enough and to spare, though it is quite possible that it might be of no more value than tin or brass.

The peculiarity of gold is, that it is never obtained entirely pure. Silver is always alloyed with it, but in no definite proportions. One of the purest specimens ever obtained gave, when analyzed, ninety-eight hundredths of gold, while the remaining two hundredths were about equally divided between silver and copper. Sometimes gold is found alloyed with silver in about equal proportions.

[Sidenote: GOLD IN ANCIENT TIMES.]

Gold is frequently referred to in the Scriptures, both in the Old Testament and in the New; in one of the earliest books of the Old Testament many applications of gold are described similar to those of the present day. It was beaten into plates, drawn into wires, and even woven with threads of linen for priestly robes. It was fashioned into breastplates, wrought into chains, and used as a setting for precious stones.

Sometimes it was made into gods and idols, and in some parts of the world it is worshipped as an idol up to the present day. A great many men and women in this nineteenth century worship gold more earnestly and more devotedly than they worship anything else.

The ancients, when they wrought their gold into idols, evidently had a keen perception of human nature.

An idol of iron or of wood may be of little account; but let one be made of gold, especially of solid gold, and with diamonds for eyes, and the whole world will fall down and worship it.

Where the ancients obtained their gold is not positively known, but it is supposed that it was brought from Africa or the East Indies, for the reason that the fleet of Solomon, in addition to gold, brought back ivory, spices, precious stones, ebony, peacocks, apes, and sandal wood. The cargoes of King Solomon were evidently of a widely assorted character, and doubtless found a good market. Gold mines were evidently worked in the desert of Gobi in the early days, and along the Ural Mountains there are now found the traces of ancient mining operations supposed to date back to the time of King Solomon.

In the time of the Romans gold was not so abundant, and in the middle ages the production was very small. At the date of the discovery of America, it was estimated that the whole amount of gold and silver in the old world was about one hundred and seventy millions of dollars, and that the supply obtained each year did not exceed the loss by wear and other forms of destruction.

[Sidenote: THE RICHEST GOLD MINES.]

To enumerate all the gold mines of the world would require much more space than I have at my disposal. Nearly all parts of Europe contain deposits of the precious metal, though in many places where the ground is known to be auriferous the deposits are too poor to pay the expenses of working. The richest gold mines of Europe are in Russia, particularly along the Ural Mountains. The eastern slope of the Ural Mountains is more productive than the western, and the richest portion of Northern Asia, so far as gold is concerned, is in Eastern Siberia. Gold mining in that region, although not productive, is comparatively in its infancy, and great results may be looked for before many years. Until quite recently all mines in Russia were owned by the government, and were operated by officers in the interest of the crown. The result was, that there was very little enterprise displayed in mining operations. The officer in charge of a mining district would be unwilling to take any active steps, or run great risks in the explorations in the interest of the gold mines, as he would know that if he failed to return a profit to the government he would very likely lose his place. Consequently nearly all the mining operations were conducted on a sure basis.

Some years ago the Russian government changed its policy, and began throwing open its mining works to private enterprise, exacting from the miners a liberal percentage of the gross amount of gold and silver which they had obtained. The result was, that under the stimulus of the enterprise,—in which private organizations will always excel the government,—the mining interest in Russia increased rapidly, and the government now obtains from its percentage a much larger annual revenue than it had obtained before from the gold.

The discoveries of gold in America date from a very early period. There were large quantities of gold and silver in the hands of the Peruvians and the Aztecs at the time of the famous expedition of Pizarro and Cortes. A story is told of one of the captured kings of Peru, who, in order to secure his ransom, agreed to bring together in two months gold and silver enough to fill his room. This would have been a sufficiently great undertaking had he been confined in an ordinary prison cell; but his captor, with an eye to business, had put him in a large apartment, suited to his royal state. The room is said to have been twenty-two feet long, seventeen feet wide, and nine feet high. Such was the richness of Peru in the precious metals, that the old king had no doubt of his ability to meet his contract; and he did fill the room in the time. When his work was finished, and the metal was melted, it was found that he had collected over fifteen millions of dollars—a very handsome sum to pay for his liberty, which he did not get after all.

[Sidenote: DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN AMERICA.]

From the time of the discovery in America until 1520, there was more gold than silver exported to Europe; but about that time Mexico was conquered, and large quantities of silver were obtained. In the first three hundred years succeeding the discovery of America, the receipts of American gold were estimated at three and a half times the production of the old world, and those of silver at twelve times the amount of this metal produced outside of America. Gold was dug in America many hundreds of years ago. In some portions of Georgia the ruins of ancient huts and utensils were uncovered a few years ago in working some of the mines, and they are supposed to have belonged to a race of men now extinct, though it is contended by some persons that these gold works belonged to the period of Ferdinand de Soto. In the early part of this century gold mines were successfully worked in the Carolinas, Georgia, and other states; but latterly the yield from these mines has greatly declined, and the returns of gold are quite small.

The discoveries of gold in California in 1848, and in Australia three years later, are events in the history of the human race of more importance than the discoveries of Mexico and Peru in the days of Cortes and Pizarro. These discoveries have given a new impetus to the migratory population of the whole world, built up large cities and regions where before there was only a wilderness, carried civilization and commerce where they were never known before, brought together strange people of all nations, mingling them in harmony side by side, and have done more, perhaps, in the cause of universal peace and good will among all nations than any other discoveries of the present day.

In California, more than in any other part of America, people of all nations are assembled. In the streets of San Francisco one may see the synagogue, the church, and the pagoda. Christian and pagan, Jew and gentile, are mingled in the crowds that pass along the streets, and they are found laboring side by side to obtain the chief end of a large part of human existence—the possession of wealth.

[Sidenote: ROMANTIC STORIES.]

The discovery of gold in California, like many discoveries of gold and silver elsewhere, was not the work of science. It very often happens that those find who do not seek. A shepherd, a poor laborer, and even children are chosen by Nature to reveal to the world the treasures which she holds beneath the surface. It was not Columbus, nor Cortes, nor Pizarro who discovered the silver of South America, but an Indian hunter. The most famous silver mines of Peru were found in the same way. One day a shepherd, leading his flock to feed on the slopes of the Andes, lighted some bushes to prepare his frugal meal. A pebble heated by the flame attracted his attention through its brightness, which reflected the rays of the sun. He found the stone massive and heavy, and finally carried it to the mint at Lima, where it was tested, and proved to be silver. The poor shepherd through his discovery became a millionaire.

A hunter, climbing the rocks in search of game, pulled up a bush, and found pieces of silver imbedded in the earth which the roots retained. A child, playing one day in the valley near the cottage of a poor peasant in Russia, picked up a shining pebble, and brought it home. The pebble was found to be very heavy, and on examination proved to be of gold. Investigations followed this discovery, and an extensive gold field was opened.

The discovery of gold in California was accidental. Captain Sutter, who had seen many vicissitudes and adventures in Europe and the wilds of America, arrived in California in 1839; and two years later he obtained a grant of land, and built a fort, which soon became the refuge for people coming into the country. The pioneers of California all bear testimony to the generosity of Captain Sutter at the time when his fort was the capital, and he was king of the American colony in the valley of the Sacramento. The legislature of California a few years ago recognized his claims to the generosity of the people of the Pacific coast by granting him a small pension for the remainder of his life.

[Sidenote: SHINING PARTICLES IN A MILL-RACE.]

Captain Sutter erected a saw-mill on the south fork of the American River, at a place now called Coloma. On the 19th day of January, 1848, James W. Marshall, while engaged in digging a race for the saw-mill, found some pieces of yellow metal, which he and the half dozen men working with him at the mill supposed to be gold. He was confident of the importance of the discovery, but he knew nothing of chemistry or gold mining, and therefore could not prove the nature of the metal, or know how to obtain it in paying quantities. Every day he examined the mill-race to look for the metal; every man at the mill thought Marshall was very wild, and so paid little attention to him. The swift current of the mill-race washed away much of the earth, and by this means particles of gold were left behind.

In a little while Marshall had quite a collection of specimens, and his associates began to think that possibly there might be a gold mine there after all. About the middle of February, one of the party employed at the mill went to San Francisco, and took these specimens with him. He was introduced to a gold miner from Georgia, who was immediately satisfied of the character of the metal, and knew that the diggings must be rich. This miner, Humphrey by name, determined to go at once to the mill, and examine the digging.

He arrived there on the 7th of March, and found work going on at the mill just as if there was no gold within a thousand miles. The next day he took a pan and spade, and washed some of the dirt from the bottom of the mill-race; and in a few hours he pronounced the mine the richest he had ever seen or known in Georgia. He then made a rocker, and went to work washing for gold, and every day he obtained an ounce or two of metal. The men at the mill made rockers for themselves, and all were soon busy in searching for gold. Everything else was abandoned.

The rumor of the discovery did not spread rapidly. In the middle of March the owner of a large ranche at the head of the Sacramento valley visited Sutter’s fort, heard of the mining at Coloma, and went to see it. He said that if similarity of formation could be taken as proof, there must be gold on his ranche. So, after ascertaining the mode of washing, he posted off, and in a few weeks was at work on the bars of Clear Creek, nearly two hundred miles from Coloma. A few days later, another man visited the mill, and the result was, that in less than a month, he had a party of Indians washing gold on Feather River, twenty-five miles from Coloma. Thus the gold mines were opened almost simultaneously at distant points.

The first printed notice of the discovery of gold was given in a newspaper published in San Francisco, on the 15th of March. On the 29th of May, the same paper announced that its publication would be suspended, and said,—

[Sidenote: THE RUSH FOR THE MINES.]

“The whole country, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the sea-shore to the base of the Sierra Nevada, resounds with the sordid cry of, Gold! gold! gold!—while the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of picks, and shovels, and the means of transportation to the spot where a man obtained one hundred and twenty dollars’ worth of the real stuff in one day’s washing, and the average for all concerned was twenty dollars per diem.”

The towns and villages were deserted. Farmers left their fields, and the crews of ships at anchor in San Francisco Bay deserted; soldiers left their posts; herdsmen abandoned their charges, and everybody made the quickest possible speed to the mines. Merchants of San Francisco found their clerks leaving their counters, and in many instances, after struggling against fate, finding themselves alone, without assistance and unable to obtain any, they closed their shops, and followed the example of their subordinates.

[Sidenote: HOW A SHIP WAS DESERTED.]

It is related that one day a ship came into port, having taken a pilot outside the entrance to the bay. The pilot, in the hearing of some of the crew, told the captain of the wonderful discovery, and, as he afterwards acknowledged, exaggerated the real state of affairs very considerably. The ship came to anchor about sunset, and was to be moved to her dock the next morning. When the captain went on deck to wait the arrival of his pilot, he found nobody on board. The sailors had heard the story of wonderful fortunes to be obtained in the mines, and they had stolen a boat, and gone ashore. The first and second mates had followed the example of the men, leaving the captain to his solitary ship. The pilot came off, as agreed. He was a conservative old grandfather, who did not believe in making money; otherwise there would have been no pilot at all. He told the captain that it was useless to try to get the ship to the dock, or do anything with her; and the latter, after thinking the matter over, concluded it would be best to leave the craft at anchor, put her in charge of a keeper, if such a man could possibly be found, and make a journey to the mines himself.

The first specimen of gold sent from California to New York was forwarded to the editor of the New York Herald, the paper which was first on the Atlantic coast to announce the discovery. The first rumors were received with incredulity and ridicule, but very soon the specimens of the precious metal coming in considerable quantities, and the enthusiastic letters of officers of the army and men of good repute, changed the current of feeling, and an almost unparalleled excitement began. It spread through Europe and Asia, and the thirst for gold was universal. In 1847 the population of California altogether was not fifteen thousand; in 1849 the great rush began, and it was estimated that, during the six months from the 1st of July, 1849, to the 1st of January, 1850, ninety thousand persons arrived in California from Mexico, Chili, Peru, the Sandwich Islands, United States, and Europe. Of this ninety thousand, such were the hardships they had to endure, and the privations to which they were subjected, one fifth of the entire number perished by disease within six months succeeding their arrival.

Before 1850 the population of California had risen to one hundred thousand, and it has been increasing ever since. Its population ten years later was estimated at about seven hundred thousand.

It is a curious fact that most of the rich placer diggings in California were discovered within three or four years of the discovery at Sutter’s mill-race. Some rich deposits have been found since that time, but none of them of any great importance. The placer fields of California to-day are pretty nearly worked out, and the most extensive mining of that state is now prosecuted by machinery.

[Sidenote: WASHING WITH THE ROCKER.]

The earlier diggings were in the valleys or streams or in gulches, opening into the valleys. The washings were first conducted with a sheet iron pan, held in the hands of the miner, who could wash only a few quarts of earth at a time. An improvement upon the pan was the rocker, a box arranged so that it could be rocked like a cradle, with no board at one end, with a few slats nailed across the bottom to catch the gold, and having a piece of sheet iron on the top pierced with holes a quarter of an inch in diameter. Earth was thrown upon this iron, and water was poured on. The cradle was set upon a slight incline, so that the stones rolled off at the end, while the water, with the earth, sand, and gold, was carried through. The gold caught upon the riffles, while the lighter substances were washed away. Nuggets, or large pieces of gold that would not pass through the holes, were sometimes thrown out with the stone and lost; but the danger of such an occurrence was not very great, principally for the reason that nuggets were not alarmingly abundant.

Two men were required to work a rocker. It was placed by the side of a stream, and one man grasping its handle with one hand, flourished a dipper in the other. His companion brought the auriferous earth to the machine, and threw it upon the iron. Man number one would then throw a quantity of water upon the earth, and agitate the machine as rapidly as possible. The earth and water would become mixed, and pass through the holes, and the stone would roll away from the end of the cradle. It was necessary to keep the water running pretty briskly on the top of the machine, and likewise to keep it well supplied with earth. By the end of the day’s working at this business, the two men would be delightfully wearied and ready to engage in almost any other honorable and profitable pursuit, especially a profitable one.

[Sidenote: THE AUTHOR’S FIRST GOLD MINING.]

My first experience with a rocker was not of an agreeable character. Accompanied by a friend, I went to a locality where it was reported that a miner a few days before had obtained eight hundred dollars in a single day. We were willing to begin at that rate, though we were confident we should make a thousand a day before the end of the week. We carried our tools to the spot, and having placed our rocker, began work. I worked the machine, and Harry, as I will call my friend, supplied it with earth. I placed the machine by the side of the stream where I could easily dip out the water, and told Harry to begin.

For about an hour the machine did very lively work. Whenever I lagged, Harry would remind me of the eight hundred dollar man. Then I would give an extra flourish to the tin dipper, and pile on an extra quart of water. I kept Harry busy bringing earth, and he kept me busy washing it away. At the end of an hour or so we thought we would see how things were getting on.

I raised the lid, examined the riffles, and not a particle of gold was to be seen. The result was not encouraging, and I told Harry we had better move a little way down the stream, and try it again. We did so.

This time Harry took the rocker, and I went into the shovelling business. We made things lively for another hour. Harry was sure we were right this time, as the earth was of a different color, and the water, as it ran from the machine, was so yellow, that it certainly must be tinged with gold. What we most feared was to lose the big nuggets that might roll out from the rocker, and so we examined every stone with all the care of a geological student; but somehow there was not a nugget among the whole lot, and after a while we thought the nugget business was played out.

When we had been in this new place an hour, we concluded to adjourn for dinner. Harry wanted to look into the rocker, but I told him our appetites might be better if we waited until after dinner for the examination. Our dinner was a very plain one, consisting of a piece of bread that might have been sold for a brick, and a slice of pork that had probably come down from the Silurian period.

We were temperate in drinking; that is to say, we drank nothing but water, and it may be proper to add, that we had nothing but water to drink. During the meal we consoled and congratulated ourselves upon being in the eight hundred dollar region. We had counted in the morning upon making at least that sum, but now we were willing to put up with four or five hundred. Our air castles were reasonably gorgeous, though somehow the pains in our backs and legs, diminished their brilliancy.

When our meal was finished, we raised the lid and began examining the rocker. This time there was something in the riffles, and we exulted. Close examination, however, showed that there was nothing there except black sand, a few small pebbles, and three or four particles of gold, each about as large as a pin’s head. We changed our base of operations, and moved again to a new spot.

[Sidenote: DISAPPOINTMENT AND DISGUST.]

I do not think either of us was ever harder worked and more weary than at the end of that day. We had pains enough all over our bodies to set up a window market, and if we did not sleep well that night, it was not for lack of weariness. We were a trifle disgusted to find that in our verdancy we had been washing what the miners call “strippings,” that is, the surface earth which lies above the pay dirt. We might as well have washed the sweepings of Broadway, and hope to obtain gold. We learned something by experience, as a great many others have done. “Working the rocker,” we concluded, was too severe for lazy men, and we speedily gave it up.

LVI.

GOLD MINING.

VARIOUS WAYS OF MINING GOLD.—SLUICING AND HYDRAULIC MINING.—ACCIDENT TO A MINER.—A NARROW ESCAPE.—POWER OF WATER IN HYDRAULIC MINING.—EFFECT ON RIVERS AND BAYS.—A SCENE OF DESOLATION.—QUARTZ MINING.—QUICKSILVER AND ITS AMALGAM.—STOCK OPERATIONS.—THE MARIPOSA MINES.—THE AUTHOR’S VISIT.—HAYWARD’S MINE.—MANIPULATION OF MARIPOSA.—FUNNY STORY OF A SEA CAPTAIN.—HOW HE SUPERINTENDED A MINE.—HIS MANAGEMENT OF A MILL.—ACCIDENTS ON PURPOSE, AND HASTY FLIGHT.

Underground work in gold mining does not properly begin with the surface washings. It is true the earth is torn out, and large excavations are made; but they are all done by the light of day, and where the open air circulates through them. As heretofore stated, the primitive form of gold-digging is with the pan and the rocker. After the rocker, there are several forms of sluicing, or washing away of the earth. The ordinary construction of a sluice is a long box, with a current of water running through it. The earth is thrown into the sluice, washed towards its lower end, and carried away by the water. The stones, of various sizes, are thrown out with a shovel or fork; the gold and black sand fall by their weight, and are caught in the riffles, or cleats, nailed across the bottom of the sluice. Earth which will not pay for working with the pan or rocker can be made profitable in this mode of operation, for the reason that one man or two men can wash with the sluice many times the quantity of earth that they could work with the primitive process.

Another form of sluice, known as “Long Tom,” is generally elevated upon posts, a foot or two above the ground. At its upper end there is a covering of sheet iron, very much like that which covers the rocker. Another system of surface mining is that which is known as hydraulic mining, and by means of it, earth that will not pay for washing in any other way can be worked to advantage. By this process the miners will tear down large banks and hills, and wash them entirely away. The process was invented in 1852, by Edward Mattison, a native of Connecticut, and introduced by him to great advantage. The water is conducted through iron tubes, terminating in a flexible hose with a nozzle like that of a fire engine. The “head” of the water must be many feet higher than the place where it emerges from the hose, so as to give an enormous pressure.

Equipped in this way the miner washes away the base of the bank. In a little while the upper part falls, and as the gravelly ground is composed of pebbles, and is naturally rather loosely consolidated, large masses of the hill come down with a violent crash. The greatest danger to life in this kind of mining is in the falls of the earth.

[Sidenote: INVENTION OF HYDRAULIC MINING.]

I was once at a place near Grass Valley, California, where they were at work by means of hydraulic mining. A large cavity had been cut away under the base of the hill with the streams of water. Every moment the hill was expected to fall, but somehow it seemed to retain its position. One of the men incautiously ventured near it, and just as he had done so, the earth fell, and the man was partially buried beneath it. He screamed loudly with pain. His companions rushed forward to relieve him, when another mass of earth fell, partially burying two of those who had come to his rescue. Other men went to their assistance, and in a little while the three were extricated.

The first man had his leg broken, and one foot badly crushed. The other two were severely bruised, and the foot of one of them was permanently injured. It frequently happens that in this way men are killed or injured partially through want of caution, and partially owing to the dangers inseparably connected with hydraulic mining.

The force of water thrown in this way, with an enormous pressure, is almost wonderful. The solid earth is cut and torn away, and sometimes stones weighing several pounds are tossed into the air. The particles of earth fly in all directions. The water rebounds sometimes, and in a little while the men who manage the hose are thoroughly drenched. On a level surface a stream of water directed upon the solid earth at an angle of twelve or thirteen degrees, will cut a trench or furrow with the rapidity of a plough. When the earth falls, the largest blocks are broken up with the pick or with the streams of water, and the débris is thrown into a large channel, or flume, at the basis of the hill where the work is going on. The flume has riffles at its bottom, and many turnings, so that the gold may be saved. The stream of water carries away the earth, and leaves the gold behind.

[Sidenote: DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM.]

There is no system of mining more destructive than this. Hills are cut away, and sometimes, for many acres, the rock is laid bare. The whole scene is one of desolation. The earth that is washed down fills the channels of rivers, and is sometimes carried a long distance. Before California was opened for gold mining, the water of her streams was perfectly clear; but since the beginning of mining the streams have lost their pellucid character, and the discolored water extends to the Bay of San Francisco, and sometimes out to sea. The lower part of the Sacramento River has been partially filled up, and there are parts of the great bay which are now much shallower than of old.

As the surface diggings of California showed signs of exhaustion, attention was given to mining in quartz rock. In the ledges of the mountain-sides veins were discovered rich in gold, and pieces of the rock taken from these veins gave promise of profitable working.

The man with pick, and pan, and rocker required but little capital for the prosecution of his enterprise; but mining in the quartz rock requires money to conduct it. Shafts must be sunk, and levels must be driven; the ore must be raised to the surface, the rock must be pulverized, and the gold extracted; and the machinery to accomplish this is more or less elaborate, and always costly. The mines are worked in the same way as other underground mines. The shafts, the levels, the tunnels, are the same; but after the ore is raised, there is a great expense attending its reduction. The rock must be broken, and placed in pulverizing machines, and after it is crushed, whether by rollers or stamps, the gold must be separated.

[Sidenote: CATCHING GOLD WITH QUICKSILVER.]

The water which carries away the gold is made to flow where it comes in contact with quicksilver placed along a series of riffles. In many instances blankets are spread, over which the water flows; and as the gold comes in contact with the rough surface of these blankets, it is caught and held.

Some of the gold miners in California invented a table of amalgamated copper, on which quicksilver was spread, and the ore coming in contact with it was stopped.

There are other inventions for the same purpose. In one the pulverized ore is agitated in a bath of quicksilver, and in another an inclined trough is divided into compartments filled with quicksilver, in which a series of forks have an oscillating movement, to bring the sands in contact with the fluid metal as they flow through the troughs. Sometimes sheep-skins are used inside of blankets, so that the golden fleece can be considered an affair of modern times, as well as of the earliest days of ship-building.

In working the placer mines by the hydraulic process, the miner can manage with profit the dirt which contains only a millionth part of gold.

In the quartz mining, the proportion of gold ought naturally to be greater, since it is necessary to execute all the work, which is partly done at the placers by nature; that is, to dig, transport, pulverize, enrich the ore, and finally amalgamate it.

In California the quartz ores of least hardness cannot be worked profitably when they yield less than five dollars’ worth of gold to the ton, or about one hundred thousandth proportion. Quicksilver is mainly employed in the auriferous quartz ores. When the gold of the placer is very fine, and invisible to the eye, or the work is done by means of long channels, riffles filled with quicksilver are placed in the bed of the stream, which detain all the gold in its passage, no matter how small the particles. The scales of gold which come in contact with this fluid are instantly caught up, and no process has yet been invented which can supersede that of quicksilver.

[Sidenote: SUGAR CANDY OF A GOLD MINE.]

The amalgam obtained in this way is generally liquid, but it is allowed to take up sufficient gold to give it the consistency of paste. It is passed through a chamois-skin folded into a bag, and twisted like a piece of wet linen. The quicksilver, being separated from the gold, passes through the pores of the skin in the form of silver drops, and is caught in a basin beneath. The gold must now be separated from the paste, and the amalgam left behind resembles a ball of tin. Quicksilver dissolves gold just as water dissolves sugar, but the quicksilver can be driven away in vapor, and the gold will remain. The amalgam can be made to give up its gold in the same way that a solution of sugar and water can be made to yield sugar candy. In this way gold may be considered the sugar candy of the miner.

The balls of amalgam are placed in an iron retort, which is heated in a furnace. At a high temperature the quicksilver boils, and ascends in the form of vapor towards the neck of the apparatus. The neck of the retort opens into a tub of water, which condenses the vaporized quicksilver, and causes it to fall to the bottom.

When the operation is concluded, the quicksilver is at the bottom of the tub, and the ball of gold is in the retort. With the quicksilver driven out, the gold has a porous and spongy appearance. It is remelted in crucibles, and then cast into bars. If the operation is properly conducted, hardly any of the quicksilver will be lost. I have known instances where miners have used a quantity of quicksilver twenty or thirty times over, with hardly any appreciable diminution of its weight.

A great many quartz mines have been opened in California, Colorado, and other portions of America. Some of them have returned much less money to their stockholders than to the men who organized the companies. During the height of the mining fever, it was comparatively easy to organize a company, where a man had any reasonable supposition that a mine existed. All through California quartz mines were opened, but those which have paid a profit to the operators could almost be counted on the fingers’ ends. The most profitable centre of quartz mining is in the vicinity of Grass Valley, a short distance from the line of the Central Pacific Railway. Most of the mines opened there have been profitable, though there are some which never made any money.

The richest and most famous of the Californian quartz mines is the one known as Hayward’s. Its early history was one of disaster, but for several years it has been paying a steady and handsome profit to its owner. I remember, on my arrival in San Francisco, a resident of that city told me of Hayward’s case.

“Hayward,” said he, “used to have a hard time of it, but now he takes things easy. He spends most of his time in San Francisco, and once in every fortnight he goes up to the mill, and orders them to ‘clean up.’ They clean up; the gold is retorted, and he brings it down here. He has a clear income of ten or twelve thousand dollars a week from the mine, and appears to enjoy himself.”

[Sidenote: STORY OF MARIPOSA.]

Probably the most famous mines of California, and those which have swallowed up the most money, are the Mariposa. Mariposa is a Spanish word, meaning “butterfly;” and there never was a more gaudy butterfly, to catch the eye of a speculating public, than the Mariposa of California. General Fremont obtained a grant of land on which the mines are located, and he organized a stock company, which was expected to return an enormous revenue; somehow the golden promise did not turn out brilliantly, and those who invested became heavy losers.

Mariposa went down, and carried with it a great many confiding men. By and by it came up again, and a new speculation was started. More money was invested, with pretty nearly the same result as before; and so it has gone on up to the present time; and once in a while there is a speculation in Mariposa. Somebody wins a great deal of money, and somebody loses a great deal.

[Sidenote: VISITING THE MARIPOSA MINE.]

My only visit to the Mariposa mines convinced me that they are good things to make money out of, provided they could be operated to a great profit. There were five large mines on the Mariposa grant. Only one of them was at work, and at this one the superintendent politely refused to allow us an opportunity for inspection. He said they were taking out a fair amount of gold, but he thought their amalgamating process was not perfect; and consequently the shareholders could not expect a large dividend. It is possible he would have granted us permission to descend into the mine; but as two men had been killed recently in one of the tunnels, and a man, not long before, had fallen down the shaft, we concluded it was altogether too good a place for accidents, and one that we did not care to inspect.

[Sidenote: A SEA CAPTAIN AS A MINER.]

The ways of the quartz miners—that is to say, of the owners of the mines—are something wonderful. Thousands of mines have been managed by men no more competent to superintend mining than to construct a new solar system. Some years ago I made the acquaintance of a sea captain who had retired from the service, and concluded to go into business. He had begun life as a cabin boy, having run away to sea. He next sailed before the mast, and had gone through all the grades, until he was qualified to be master of a ship. He had a brother-in-law who was a director in a mining company, and the directors, in their infinite wisdom, concluded that this retired sea captain, whose sands of life had not altogether run out, would make an excellent mining superintendent, as he was good for nothing else.

On what reasoning they based their determination I do not know. He had never seen a mine in all his life, and could not tell the difference between a piece of granite and a fragment of gold-bearing quartz. I met him one day, and he told me he was to start on the following morning for the scene of operations, where he would take charge of a mine. I lost sight of him for several months, but one day met him on Broadway, looking as if he had just been sentenced to the penitentiary. I asked how his mining speculation was getting along, and he begged me not to talk about it.

“I told them,” said he, “that I did not know anything about mining; but they shipped me out there, and told me to manage the craft the best way I could, and they knew I would get along all right. When I got there, a shaft had been made twenty or thirty feet down, and the mill was nearly completed. I was determined not to let on to the men there that I did not know all about the business, and when the man in charge of the works came to me, I told him to go ahead,—that he was doing everything all right. I hurried the mill up, and, as it was approaching completion, I went to the mouth of the shaft, looked at several heaps of rocks, pointed out one, and told them to crush that first. I saw the fellows sticking their quids in their larboard jaws, and supposed that it indicated that I knew what I was about.

“We went to work, and run the mill for a week, and the foreman asked me if he had not better clean up. I told him I did not think the mill looked very dirty, and guessed I would not clean up for a while. Fact is, I did not know what cleaning up meant. I visited a neighboring mine, got acquainted with the superintendent, who knew just about as much of the business as I did, and precious little more; but from him I found out what it was to ‘clean up.’

“I thought I would let the mill run another week, and so I did. Then we cleaned up, and there was not a particle of gold to be found. I told the foreman he had not arranged things properly; that the quicksilver ought to be on the other side of the riffle, so as to catch the gold when it fell over. I bought blankets, and sheep-skins, and everything else, but could not accomplish anything.

“I used to go down in the mine occasionally, and somehow, every time I went there, there was always an accident—not a serious one, to be sure; but they would dump me out of the bucket, or run against me, or turn a hose on me by accident, or do something. I was getting into trouble every day, but it never happened in such a way that I could accuse anybody. The country was not fit for a dog to live in, and I soon got tired of it.

“The company got tired of it too, and I kept writing such discouraging letters, and, besides, the sheriff came on me, and seized everything; so that they finally told me to come home. I left the place suddenly, took the stage coach, and started east.

“I had a back seat in the coach, and right in front of me were two men who were talking about the mines. They spoke of various things that did not interest me much, but finally one of them referred to the Ready Return Mine, which was the one I had been running.

[Sidenote: TRICKS ON A GREENHORN.]

“One of these fellows laughed, and said, ‘I wish we had gone to see the Ready Return Mine. Jim Jackson says it is the funniest thing alive. There is a sailor there, superintendent of the mine, who does not know any more about mining than you do about the Ten Commandments. He came out there, pretended to be very wise, and set the boys to crushing wall rock—nothing but the meanest wall rock—with not an ounce of gold in a thousand tons of it. Well, they let him keep on, as there was not any gold there any way; and I reckon he has about spent all the company’s money, and will have to bust pretty soon. They have a good deal of fun with him, and play all sorts of tricks on him. I wish we had gone there, and seen the fellow. When the mine busts completely, they are going to lower him down the shaft, under some pretext, then haul up the bucket, and let him stay a day or two, to teach him something about mining.’

“When I heard this,” said my aquatic friend, “I made up my mind that I had had enough of that business; and then I knew how those fellows had been gagging me. You won’t catch me at a gold mine again.”

LVII.

COPPER AND COPPER MINES.

ANTIQUITY OF COPPER.—USE OF IT AMONG THE ANCIENTS.—OLDEST COINS.—THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES.—COPPER MINES OF ENGLAND AND OTHER COUNTRIES.—NATIVE COPPER.—HOW IT IS WORKED.—OVERTHROWING A MASS.—A LUMP WEIGHING EIGHT HUNDRED TONS.—MALACHITE.

One of the first metals known to man was copper. It is related in Scripture that Tubal Cain was “an instructor of every artificer in brass and in iron.” In the book of Job we read that “copper is molten out of the stone.” It is recorded in Egyptian history that the Emperor Cheops worked a copper mine in Sinai. The ancient Egyptians were familiar with copper, and the Syrians, Phœnicians, and also the Greeks and Romans, used a great deal of it in the manufacture of monuments and statues of bronze. The Colossus of Rhodes, after lying in the sand for nine hundred years, is said to have required nearly a thousand camels to convey its pieces away. The ancients seem to have worked copper mines very extensively, and their facilities for making large castings were quite equal to those of modern times.

Copper was known in America to the races that inhabited this continent before the Indians had any knowledge of it, as appears from the various utensils of copper found in the ancient mounds of the Western country and the extensive mining works along the shores of Lake Superior. The Mexicans and Peruvians had many tools of copper, and it is a curious fact that these tools are almost identical in composition with the tools found at Thebes and other points along the Nile. A chisel found in a silver mine in Peru contained ninety-four per cent. copper, five per cent. tin, and one per cent. iron.

Copper was used for money at a very early period. Some coins are in existence supposed to be twenty-five hundred years old. They contain from sixty to seventy-five per cent. of copper, and the residue is made up of tin, lead, and zinc.

[Sidenote: EXTENT OF COPPER MINES.]

The mines which supply the copper of commerce are situated in almost all parts of the world. Many of them are worked by English companies, and made tributary to the great smelting establishments at Swansea, in Wales. It is easier to carry ores to the localities where coal is mined, than it is to carry the coal to the copper mines. The great value of many copper ores admits of their transportation from the interior of countries to the sea-coast, and their shipment thence by sea to the place where they can be reduced with the greatest economy.

In America there are many smelting works on various parts of the coast, and at some interior points, but none of them are as extensive as the English ones.

Many copper mines are worked on the Andes, particularly in Chili and Peru. Central America and Mexico contain many mines, some of them of great value. Copper deposits are scattered throughout the United States, all the way from New England to California, though comparatively few of them are valuable. There are copper mines of great value and world-wide celebrity in Cornwall, England. Other parts of the British Isles produce this metal. There are valuable copper mines in Germany, Sweden, and Norway, and the mines of the Ural Mountains of Russia are among the richest on the globe. In 1830 the copper production of Great Britain was more than half the entire copper production of the world. Copper mining in other parts of the world was not extensively prosecuted; but subsequently the industry increased so rapidly that twenty-five years later the amount of copper produced in Great Britain, though not less in quantity, was only one fourth of that of the entire globe.

Occasionally circumstances give a great impetus to copper mining. For instance, in 1866, the war between Chili and Spain cut off the copper supply from the former country, and gave a great impetus to copper mining elsewhere. In California several copper mines were opened, and were making an enormous profit for their owners, when suddenly the war between Spain and Chili came to an end, the Chilian mines were opened again, and the copper mines of California diminished greatly in value.

Copper is found in various forms; sometimes in sulphurets or oxides, and crystallized in various ways. In some parts of the world it is found in a pure state.

[Sidenote: A HOLE IN THE GROUND.]

Copper mines are very much like other mines, and do not require a special description. They may be tersely set down as holes in the ground; and one hole in the ground, so far as light and darkness go, is very much like another. I remember that on one occasion, while travelling in a distant part of the world, I endeavored to urge a friend to accompany me to visit a curious cave. He shook his head doubtfully, and said, “O, it’s nothing but a hole in the ground; what’s the use of going there?” A few days later, I had arranged an excursion into a silver mine, and urged him to join me. He declined, with the remark, “What’s the use of going into it? it’s nothing but a hole in the ground.” Again, when a mining excursion was in progress, he declined to be of the party because the place was in a hole in the ground, and he did not wish to get beneath the surface of the earth until he was dead.

It may be said of a copper mine, as of a coal mine, an iron mine, or anything else of the sort, “it’s nothing but a hole in the ground;” but if you should ask, as my friend did, “What’s the use of going there?” I think in many instances the owners could point to fine houses and heavy bank accounts, to show you, beyond a doubt, that there is a good deal of use in visiting the mine, or, at all events, in owning it.

[Sidenote: HEAVY DIVIDENDS IN COPPER STOCK.]

Copper mines, some of them at least, are very good things to own, while others are very good to let alone. Many a speculator has come to grief by dabbling in copper stocks, while many another speculator has made a great deal of money by it. Copper mining is very much like a lottery; there are prizes, and very valuable ones, and there are also a great number of blanks. In Cornwall, the Great Consolidated Mines, as they are called, made a profit in twenty years of three millions of dollars, and their product in one year was half a million dollars. In the next eight years the dividends dwindled down to a very small figure, owing to the expense of working, and for six years afterwards no dividend was declared; then, immediately after, rich deposits were found, and enormous dividends paid. An idea of the extent of these mines may be formed when it is known that the aggregate length of the underground workings is more than seventy miles.

One company in Cornwall paid in five dollars on each share, and its stock consisted of one thousand shares. In the first three months of regular working the amount cleared was seventy-five thousand dollars. In the following year it cleared one hundred thousand dollars. Five years later the dividends amounted to seventeen hundred dollars a share, and each share was worth two thousand dollars. This was a very fair profit on an investment of five dollars.

In another mine the shares originally cost twenty-five dollars each, and a few years later they were worth five thousand one hundred and seventy-five dollars a share.

One copper mine in Australia was opened in 1845. The whole amount of capital paid in was sixty thousand dollars, and the dividends up to March, 1850, were nine hundred thousand dollars. None of the dividends were less than fifty per cent. on the capital, and some were at the rate of two hundred per cent. Half a million dollars remained undivided, so that in five years the total profits amounted to nineteen times the whole amount of capital invested.

The copper region of Lake Superior contains almost the only mines that produce this metal profitably worked in the United States. The existence of masses of native copper had been known for a long time, but nothing was done towards mining in that region until the Indian title was extinguished, in 1842. Immediately after this the country was rapidly taken up by adventurers from the Eastern States, and mining operations were begun. The state geologist, Dr. Houghton, had examined the country, and located the productive region on the range of the Trap Hills commencing on the south coast of Keweenaw Point. From Keweenaw Point the Trap Hills run in two or three parallel ranges, extending westward more than one hundred miles. There are other trap formations presenting some mineral indications, but most of the profitable mines are in this narrow belt. A great many mines have been opened, but comparatively few of them have been found profitable.

[Sidenote: HOW COPPER ORES ARE FOUND.]

Copper ores are found in various conditions, but there are no mines in the world where there is so much of it in the native state as in the Lake Superior region. The largest masses stand upon their edges in the vein. Sometimes they are many yards in length and several feet in breadth, and their thickness varies from an inch to more than a yard. Silver is associated with copper, sometimes in occasional lumps unattached to the copper, though generally the two metals are in contact, as if the silver had been deposited with the copper, without forming an alloy with it. I believe no alloy of the two metals is ever found there, and consequently they can never have been in a fused condition in contact. The lumps of silver vary in weight from a few grains to several pounds.

Masses of copper of great size have been found. One was discovered several years ago containing at least five hundred tons, and other masses are said to have contained more than eight hundred tons.

[Sidenote: BLASTING COPPER MASSES.]

The work of cutting out one of these masses sometimes occupies several weeks or months. The mass fills the entire vein, so that the rock must be removed on one side; the mass is thus left as a wall, its upper edge extending into the roof and its lower edge into the floor. When the side is laid bare, the mass is attacked at one end by introducing charges of powder, and as fast as room is obtained, and cracks are opened between the copper and the rock, the size of these charges is increased. The usual form of blasting under such circumstances is by what is known as the “sand blast.”

Powder is poured loosely into the openings in large quantities, and is then covered with dry sand. It is lighted by means of a safety fuse, which gives the men time to escape. The first blast will be in a small cavity, and as the cavities are enlarged more powder is introduced, until sometimes several hundred pounds are spread in the crevice and fired at once. In several instances one thousand pounds of powder have been burned at a single blast. When the mass has been thrown down in this way, the work of cutting it so that it can be removed begins.

Two miners strike in turn upon a long steel chisel held by a third, and thus gradually cut a groove across the copper. This work is repeated until the mass is cut through, and sometimes it requires an entire month to make a single cut. The mass is reduced into pieces weighing five or six tons each, which can be hoisted up the shaft, and it will then be cut into little morsels weighing not more than two or three tons each, so that it can be easily handled.

To give an idea of the extent of this kind of work, it may be stated that some years ago a mass of copper was uncovered on which nearly three thousand pounds of powder were expended before it was thrown over so that it could be cut. When it was thrown over it was forty-five feet long, and its greatest thickness was eight feet. Several months were required for cutting it up so that it could be removed, and it was estimated from its measurement to weigh more than five hundred tons. This mass copper usually yields more than ninety per cent. of pure metal.

The copper mines of Lake Superior are generally very profitable, where they pay at all, but investments in them should be made with great caution. Many copper companies have been organized, and the stock has been put upon the market and sold, when the mine had no existence except in the brain of its originator.

[Sidenote: MALACHITE AND ITS USES.]

A very valuable substance found in copper mines is that known as malachite. Specimens of it are found in the Lake Superior district, in Australia, and sometimes in England. The greatest quantities of it—in fact the only quantities of any importance in the whole world—are in the Ural Mountains, in Russia. In the mine of Tagilsk, a pretty town of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, situated in the Ural Mountains, there is a valuable copper mine which produces immense quantities of malachite.

Malachite is a protocarbonate of copper, and by analysis yields seventy-one per cent. of protoxide of copper. It is distinguished for its beautiful green color, variegated in many ways, its fine texture, and its ability to receive high polish. It is used for jewelry, and is converted into tables, vases, and many articles of great beauty.

In the mine of Tagilsk, about thirty years ago, an enormous mass of malachite was discovered, and several years were required to remove it. If it could have been taken out in its natural state, it would have been the greatest curiosity of the known world. The whole weight of this mass was estimated at seven hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Sir Roderick Murchison examined this mass before it was touched by the wedge or hammer, and his description is quite interesting. He says,—

“The copper ground that we have been describing having been excavated by shafts, an enormous mass of malachite was detected at the depth of two hundred and eighty feet. These strings of green copper ore occurring at intervals were followed downward, when, increasing with width and value, they were found to terminate at the base of the present mine in an immense irregularly shaped mass of solid malachite. When we examined this mass, much of the surrounding matrix had been removed, and it presented an appearance of having been cast in a depression of the stone. We are disposed to view it as having resulted from copper solutions emanating from all the porous, loose, surrounding mass, and which, trickling through it to the lowest cavity in the subjacent rock, have in a series of ages produced this wonderful subterranean incrustation.”

[Sidenote: SPLENDOR OF MALACHITE COLUMNS.]

In the great Exhibition of 1851, and in the Paris Exposition of 1867, wonderful specimens of this curious production of nature were exhibited. There were large doors of solid malachite, polished to the smoothness of mirrors, and the material was exhibited cut in various shapes. It is used for the manufacture of vases of all sizes, and is frequently worn as jewelry. In the Paris Exposition one piece was exhibited nearly ten feet in length. It was in its rough state, with the exception of one side, where it was highly polished.

In some of the Russian churches, particularly in the Church of St. Isaacs, at St. Petersburg, there are pillars twenty, thirty, and fifty feet in height, apparently of solid malachite. I say apparently, for the reason that the pillars are really of granite, and have been veneered with malachite. Some years ago, a vase was sent as a present by the Emperor of Russia to His Holiness the Pope, and has since been on exhibition in the Vatican. The vase is large enough to enable His Holiness to use it, if he so desired, as a bath-tub, or an aquarium. To the untaught spectator it is apparently of pure malachite, but a close observer will discover the lines where its fragments, or more properly the fragments of its veneering, are joined, for the vase is of stone covered with malachite, just as the pillars in St. Isaacs Church are covered. It is very pretty and very valuable, and visitors often remain long around it to study its beauty.

The annual production of copper is about eighty thousand tons. Of this, Great Britain and Chili produce about one fourth each, Russia produces one eighth, and America about one tenth. The rest of the production is shared by various parts of South America, by Cuba, by Sweden and Norway, Australia, and various parts of Europe. Asia produces about one twentieth of the full amount, but from Africa and Southern Europe only a small quantity is obtained.

LVIII.

THE CATACOMBS OF ROME.

THEIR AGE AND EXTENT.—THE SEVEN HILLS HONEYCOMBED.—HOW THE CATACOMBS WERE MADE.—THEIR USES.—THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS.—IMMENSE BURIAL VAULTS.—MILLIONS OF PERSONS BURIED.—RESORTS OF ROBBERS.—STRANGE ADVENTURES.—VISITING THE CHURCH OF THE CAPUCHINS.—FANCY OF AN IRREVERENT AMERICAN.—DOWN THE CATACOMBS.—STORY OF THE GUIDE.—STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF TWO AMERICANS.

Many cities of the old world can boast of catacombs. Those of Paris are famous in their way for the large number of skeletons which have been deposited in them. The catacombs in and near other cities have the same peculiarity, and the walls are frescoed and festooned with bones which are placed so as to form fantastic shapes, reflecting much credit upon the persons who arranged them.

The catacombs of Rome are quite interesting, partly from their character and partly from the associations connected with them. Many of them are of great antiquity, and can be traced back nearly to the time when the city was founded. The rock on which Rome is built was of volcanic origin. It is a soft, yellow stone, generally known as tufa, and can be quarried very easily. The workmen shaped their shafts pretty much as they pleased, the stone in many places being so soft that it could be cut with an axe. Some of them are more ancient even than the city which Romulus and Remus founded, and they are so extensive that the original seven hills on which Rome stands were perforated and honey-combed by enormous passages and galleries, in which one might easily be lost. As the building of the city progressed, the quarries were extended, some of them several miles away from the banks of the Tiber. During the time of the prosperity of Rome these quarries were opened in every direction, and were steadily worked until the city began to decline, and the materials of the old buildings were used for the construction of new ones.

[Sidenote: DESTROYING THE COLISEUM.]

For a good many hundred years Rome has had very little occasion to open new quarries, as the old stone inside the city is quite sufficient for most of the building purposes of the present day. For several centuries some of the great works constructed by the emperors were torn down to furnish building material. A great part of the Coliseum was removed in this way. Thousands of tons of stone were carried off, but the work was so vast that, in spite of all the efforts of man to destroy it, it remains to-day a gigantic monument of the greatness and glory of Rome.

Beneath the modern city of Rome there are many underground passages which are not generally classed with the catacombs. The most interesting of the catacombs, those which furnished homes and hiding-places for the early Christians, are outside the walls of the modern city, and are visited annually by a great many persons. It is not clear for what purpose these places were used after their abandonment as quarries, but it is generally believed they were the resort of robbers and other persons who were escaping from or avoiding justice. At the present time a close watch is kept over them, to prevent their occupation by brigands or other violators of the law. Only a few years ago a band of robbers had their headquarters in one of the catacombs, and carried on their depredations for several months before their place of concealment was discovered.

During the time of the persecution of the Christians, beginning with that under Nero, and followed by those of several other emperors, down to the last persecution, a great many persons who could not be safe anywhere else crowded into the catacombs. Some of them lived there for years, while many others spent the greater part of their time there, and only went to the surface at night. Many of the workmen around the quarries were very early converted to Christianity, and it is supposed that they greatly aided their fellow-Christians in finding secure places of retreat.

[Sidenote: EXPLORING THE CATACOMBS.]

Very little attention was paid to the catacombs until nearly fourteen hundred years after the beginning of the Christian era. By that time the catacombs had ceased to be the abode of Christians, as it was no longer necessary for them to conceal themselves. Outlaws and assassins were gathered in large numbers in the catacombs, and it required very vigorous efforts on the part of the authorities to drive them out. The entrances to many of these places were closed altogether, and have remained closed ever since, so that there are numerous under-passages below and around the city of Rome which have not been visited for thousands of years, and their locality even is not known.

In 1535 the pope ordered some of the catacombs to be explored, and directed that they should be cleared and lighted. A great interest was awakened in subterranean Rome, and Father Bosio devoted about thirty years of his life to the exploration of the catacombs. He opened the way into some of the places which had been blocked up and closed for centuries, and he made drawings and descriptions of some of the most remarkable sculptures, paintings, monuments, and other things which he found there. Several books have been published concerning the catacombs, and anything like a full description of them would require thousands of pages.

During some of the explorations many valuable articles were carried away, until it was found that there was danger of the catacombs being entirely despoiled. Pope Clement VIII. took the catacombs under his especial protection, and forbade any one to enter or leave them without permission, or take away any article whatever, under penalty of excommunication. Since that time the catacombs have been regarded with great veneration as being the hiding-place of the early Christians, who adhered to their religious convictions through years of the severest persecution.

[Sidenote: CHURCH OF THE CAPUCHINS.]

Every visitor to Rome makes, or is expected to make, a journey through the catacombs. Very soon after my arrival in the Eternal City I started to make this tour. Our party went first, as a preparation for visiting the catacombs, to one of the churches (the Church of the Capuchins), which is in charge of about twenty-four monks. Underneath the church is the place where the monks after their death are buried. The earth in which they are placed came originally from Jerusalem, and the monks consider it a great honor to be planted there. This number of monks—not the same ones, by any means—have been in charge of the church for several centuries. Whenever any of them dies, he is buried with a good deal of ceremony; and, in order to find a place for him, the bones of one of his predecessors are dug up. The space is sufficiently large for burying forty or fifty persons, so that when one of the number has been placed under ground he is not likely to be disturbed for ten or twenty years. His bones, when removed from the earth, are placed with those of his predecessors. They are not piled up in heaps, as one might naturally suppose, but are fastened to the walls and ceilings of the little rooms that cover the cemetery.

Some of the walls are entirely covered with these bones. As you look at the walls a little distance away, you would think they were frescoed; but a near approach shows you that, instead of being fresco, it is alto-relievo. For example, one wall will have in its centre a skull, and around it will be a select assortment of the bones of the forearm. Then sections of the back-bone, fragments of fingers, toes, and all the bones familiar to the student of anatomy, will be arranged in artistic order, so that the wall forms an interesting picture. Sometimes the bones are arranged in the shape of wheels, and some of them are formed into wheels and stars.

One of the peculiar things connected with the visit to this spot is, that you are shown through the place by one of the monks, who stands complacently by, calling your attention to the bones of his predecessor, and regarding with calm satisfaction the prominent positions which they occupy. He knows very well that one of these days he will go into the earth which his lantern illuminates, and a few years later his bones will form a part of the mural ornaments. He contemplates death with satisfaction, as he knows he will be buried in a conspicuous resting-place, where people can call upon and admire him. The monk that guided us through the burial-ground was enthusiastic rather than otherwise, and seemed to look forward with delight to the time when he should form a part of an alto-relievo.

[Sidenote: IRREVERENT COMMENTS.]

An irreverent member of our party proposed asking the monk if he did not think there would be a good deal of confusion at the day of judgment, when Gabriel’s trumpet sounds, and the bones undertake to sort themselves out and get together. He suggested that the arms, and legs, and fingers, and toes, and back-bone joints would be a good deal mixed up, and that fragments of a dozen monks might be collected together and present themselves as one individual. He said the head of Brother Ignatius, the body of Brother Francis, and the arm of Brother Peter might be mixed up with the legs of Brother Simon, and an arm, or leg, or a rib of somebody else. We reproved him soundly for his levity, and told him he had better go.

Some of the catacombs are entered beneath the churches, while others are entered in the open ground. The first one we went to after leaving the church was at the right of the Appian Way, a little distance outside the city. There was a party inside when we reached there, and the guide who took us in charge said that the rules forbade two parties going down at the same time, and that we could not descend until the other returned; so we loitered around for a little time, until our predecessors came out. We found ourselves in the middle of a field, part of it cultivated and part of it in rich, luxuriant grass. To all external appearances the ground beneath was perfectly solid, and we almost began to think we had come to the wrong place.

The guide preceded us to a little hollow or excavation, down which there was a flight of steps. We stood around this until we saw some heads emerge from the ground two or three hundred yards away; then the guide descended the steps, and we followed him. He unlocked a door and allowed us to enter; then he locked the door after us, and we found ourselves standing in a place where there was very little light, and it was evident that we must have candles before proceeding farther.

[Sidenote: ENTERING THE CATACOMBS.]

He produced the candles, and each of us produced a franc. Another carriage-load had joined us, so that our party consisted of seven or eight persons. The harvest for the guide was a very good one, and certainly allowed him no occasion to complain. When we had lighted our candles he told us to follow him, and we descended another flight of steps, and then struck off through a narrow gallery about six or seven feet high—narrow in some places, and in others enlarged to a width of ten or twenty feet.

As we went along, the guide explained to us the character of the place, its mode of construction, and the uses to which it had been put. He explained that the catacombs were originally quarries; that we were then in the second gallery from the surface, and that there were three similar galleries below us. He could take us through all of them if we wished to go, but the journey would be rather monotonous, as the objects to be seen in all were very much alike. This mode of working in galleries one above the other is not peculiar to the Roman catacombs, though it is more noticeable there than in any other locality. Imagine a hotel, half a mile square and five stories high, placed under ground, and you can form a very good idea of the arrangement of this catacomb.

[Sidenote: FOLLOWING THE GUIDE.]

All along the galleries there are little niches, called loculi, cut in the sides one above the other, just large enough to contain a single body. From nearly all these loculi the skeletons have been removed, but there is now and then a skeleton or so visible, and adding interest to the place. It is said that millions of bodies were buried in these catacombs during the time they were used for cemeteries. Those that have not been explored are still full of skeletons, and would furnish relics enough to equip several thousand new churches. Here and there the guide pointed out small rooms or chambers in the tufa, where some of the Christians lived. There are inscriptions of a religious character scratched upon the walls of many of them, some being legible, while others are only partly so. Beneath many of the loculi there are inscriptions showing who are resting there, and at the entrance to one of the chambers, in which a dozen skeletons are leading a very quiet life, there is an elaborate door-plate set in mosaic.

The places where some of those who have since been canonized dwelt in their lifetime and were buried after death, were pointed out. Some of them were quite interesting, and several were ornamented with considerable care. Sometimes there were mosaics and marble monuments of considerable size; and at one spot a life-sized statue cut from the tufa rock, and evincing considerable skill on the part of its designer, was shown to us.

We followed our guide in single file. Some of our party were rather inattentive to his directions. Among them was a pair of lovers, who seemed much more interested in saying sweet things to each other than in looking at the curiosities of the place. Several times they lagged behind, and the rest of us were obliged to halt and wait for them to come up. Their dilatoriness caused the rest of the party at times to become separated, and as they showed a disposition to wander off in the side-galleries and corridors, we were apprehensive of losing some of them. Sure enough, when we reached our journey’s end one of our number was missing.

[Sidenote: A PAIR OF LOST LOVERS.]

Our guide left us and went back, and he was gone ten or fifteen minutes before he found the missing individual. When he brought him forward and we were united, the latter said that he thought we turned a certain corner while he was examining the grave and bones of an early Christian. He followed and could hear our voices, but was surprised to find that, in following us, he seemed to get no nearer. He thought a minute or two, and then concluded that he was lost. He said his hair began to stand on end, and he was considerably relieved when he heard the voice of our guide shouting to him, and answered. The guide had some difficulty in finding him, as he had turned into a side-gallery and thence into another gallery; and had he gone a little farther, it might have taken some time to trace him out. I am entirely convinced that the next time he visits a catacomb he will take good care to keep within hearing distance, and seeing distance too, of the guide.

The guide told us that it was not unusual for people to be lost there, and he said that whenever they took a large party inside the catacombs they always counted them carefully both on entering and departing. “People,” he said, “will stop and look at things while the rest of the party is moving on; and if we have a large number, they are quite likely to get lost. The galleries run in all directions, and in some places there are holes from a gallery to the one above or below. Unless a person is careful, and is aware of their locality, he may fall down one of these holes, and be severely injured, or perhaps killed.” After he had told us of the danger of getting lost, he said,—

“I once took two Americans into one of the catacombs, along with a party of a dozen or more. They had been drinking somewhat, and were not very sober. We had quite a long journey through the galleries, as it was late in the day, and I knew that no other party would be allowed to enter. We spent some time in the place, and then we went out, and I was so busy talking when we came out that I forgot to count the party. I locked the door and went home, supposing all was right.

“In two or three hours the driver of a carriage came to wake me, and said he had been all that time trying to find me. I asked what he wanted. He said he took two American gentlemen to go into the catacombs, and they had gone there; they had not come back to the carriage yet, and he was beginning to get alarmed about his pay. He did not think they would run away and cheat him, but he could not tell what had become of them.

“Just then I happened to think that I did not count the party when they came out, and quite likely the crowd might have been two men short; so I went and found the custodian of the place, and got permission to go into the catacombs. The rules forbid us to go into the catacombs between sunset and sunrise, unless we have a good reason; and I thought my excuse was good enough at that time. I was afraid that those Americans might be shut up there in the dark, as their candles were not very long, and unless they burned them singly, were not good for more than three hours.

“From the time I shut up the place until I got there again and unlocked the place, it was nearly five hours. The Americans are a strange people, as I found when I went down there.

“I expected to find these men, if I found them at all, half dead with fright, and wandering about or trembling in the darkness; but they were nothing of the sort. When I got down into the place and walked along one of the galleries, I heard somebody singing. He would sing a little while, and then he would whistle. I could hear a rattling of bones and a sound as if somebody was dancing.

[Sidenote: DANCING WITH A SKELETON.]

“Well, gentlemen, as sure as I am a guide, when I came in sight of those men they were in a place where the gallery widened out into a sort of chamber, and there were some skeletons which had been tied together with wires and thongs. The chamber was about ten feet square, and these skeletons were in the niches in the side. Those fellows were there. One of them was sitting on the edge of a niche, and making music by singing or whistling. He kept time with a couple of leg-bones which he had in his hands. The other was hugging a skeleton as if it had been a queen of the ballet. I stood still five or ten minutes to see what they would do.

“When the fellow that was waltzing got tired, he seated his skeleton in the corner, bowed to it as if it had been a young lady, patted it on the cheek, and sat down. Then the other one got up and picked up the same skeleton; the one who had just been dancing made the music, and the scene was repeated.

“I shouted to them; they looked a little surprised, and answered me.

[Sidenote: MAKING A NIGHT OF IT.]

“They said their candles were nearly out. As soon as they found that they were lost they concluded they must stay there all night; so they stopped right where they were, entered the chamber, and made themselves as comfortable as possible. The accommodations were not very good, but one of them said, ‘Now that we are in for the night, I guess we will stay it out.’

“They gave me some money, sent me out for a couple of bottles of wine and something to eat, and told me to come again in the morning. They sent money enough to pay the driver. I bought a dozen candles, took them their overcoats from the carriage, so that they could use them in case they wanted to lie down on the ground, and they had a merry time of it all night.

“They promised not to disturb anything, and I knew they were gentlemen, and would keep their word. They did not sleep any, but kept carousing all night. They were ready to come out when I went there in the morning; and though they said they had plenty of fun, I don’t believe they would care to stay over night in the catacombs again.”

In some of the catacombs many persons of distinction have been buried. The place where the Christian martyrs were concealed has been regarded with such veneration that a great many people have considered it a high honor to be buried there. Sometimes people who had died in France, Spain, and other distant countries, were brought to Rome to find a sepulchre in the catacombs; and sometimes their funeral ceremonies were conducted with great pomp. Among the noted men buried in the catacombs were the Popes Leo I., Gregory the Great, Gregory II. and III., Leo IX.; also the Emperors Honorius, Valentinian, and Otho II. In most of the places now opened to visitors there are no graves of persons of distinction, though there are several of the second and third class.

[Sidenote: INTO DAYLIGHT AGAIN.]

The place where we emerged from the catacombs was some distance from where we descended into the earth. It was in the same field, and through an excavation which promised as little as the one by which we descended. The light of the Roman sun seemed much brighter than when we left it, and it was some minutes before our eyes were accustomed to its dazzling rays.

LIX.

THE PARISIAN RAG-PICKERS.

THEIR NUMBER AND EQUIPMENT.—THEIR KEEN-SIGHTEDNESS AND SKILL.—THE PLEASURE OF THE BOTTLE.—SEEKING COMFORT UNDER DIFFICULTIES.—UNWHOLESOME MAGAZINES.—WHERE AND HOW THE CHIFFONNIERS LIVE.—DISMAL AND NOISOME ABODES.—A SOUP LOTTERY.—QUAINT SCENES IN CHEAP BOOK-SHOPS.—TASTING ROAST CAT AND STEWED PUPPY.—ROMANCE IN DIRT-HEAPS.—A HIDEOUS HAG ONCE A FAMOUS BEAUTY.—PENITENCE AND REFORMATION THROUGH FIRE.

Everybody who has been in Paris—and who has not?—remembers the rag-pickers, or chiffonniers, as they are styled, who frequent the streets after nightfall, searching the city through for the means of subsistence. One sees them so much, and in every quarter of the French capital, that he imagines there must be several thousand of them. The entire number, however, does not exceed six hundred, one half of whom are women and children. Though rag-pickers in name, they are something more in fact, since they gather up every article of the most trifling value—old corks, fragments of bone or glass, coal or wood, scraps of paper, ends of cigars, and all sorts of rubbish that can be sold for the fraction of a sou.

Everything is organized and licensed in Paris, the chiffonniers not excepted. After once entering on their calling, they usually remain in it for life. Many of them begin as children in their ninth or tenth year, and continue, while their limbs will bear them about, and their eyesight is good enough to detect the objects of their quest. They are usually so soiled and begrimed that it is hard to distinguish the young from the old, unless they be small children, and even these have the look of premature age.

[Sidenote: ROUTES OF CHIFFONNIERS.]

They set out on their rounds between nine and ten o’clock in the evening, with a large willow basket strapped to their back, carrying in one hand a stick about a yard long, terminating in a hook, and in the other hand a lantern fastened to a piece of wire, so that they can swing it over the ground, and discover if there be anything they want. They pay particular attention to the little heaps of rubbish, made by the citizens before their doors, from the miscellaneous refuse of the household. After these have been raked by the rag-pickers, they are carried away by the scavengers’ carts. The pickers-up of unconsidered trifles never waste any time or space. They understand the exact distance from one point to another, always moving in straight lines, and taking in everything at a glance. Their vision is like that of hawks. They very rarely miss anything, or confound one object with another. They know bone from wood, and coal from glass, though it be half buried in the mire, and transfer every desirable fragment to their basket by means of their hooks with unerring accuracy, and by a single curve movement. It is astonishing how quickly and thoroughly they can hunt through one of the little dirt-piles. After quitting it, it is as valueless as the notes of a western wildcat bank, or a second-hand tombstone.

They never encroach upon each other’s domain, for they have their particular districts marked out, and generally visit them unaccompanied, darting about in silence, without the least indirectness, dawdling, or delay. They are certainly among the most industrious and indefatigable of laborers, if not the tidiest and most fastidious. They go forth in all sorts of weather, night after night, month after month, and year after year; patient, plodding, never discouraged while there is the slightest chance of finding a bit of leather or scrap of paper in the entire capital. So dexterous are they by long practice in the use of their hook, that they very seldom employ their fingers.

The night-wandering gypsies have the highest expectations from the gutters, where they are often delighted by securing a prize that yields them a whole centime,—one fifth of a cent,—and when they discover what will sell for a sou, they deem themselves blessed. There, cigar stumps, remnants of shoes, and broken bottles, are sometimes found, and are enough to cheer the heart of the rag-picker for weeks after fortune has ceased to smile upon his nocturnal gleaning. At long intervals a whole bottle dawns upon his vision, and he is as much rejoiced as an American would be if he should stumble upon a treasure of gold buried in his cellar.

[Sidenote: DELIGHTED WITH A BOTTLE.]

The pleasures of the bottle have a new interpretation with the chiffonniers of Paris. The phrase has a literal, not a figurative meaning with them, and I have heard them speak of finding half a dozen bottles in one week, as Ponce de Leon might have spoken of discovering the fountain of eternal youth.

I remember to have bound one of the guild to me in eternal gratitude by presenting him with a few empty wine bottles, as he passed my lodgings one stormy night. He regarded me as a gentleman of munificent income; he went away, I am persuaded, with a semi-conviction that I owned the Bank of France.

One would hardly think that the poor devils of the hook and basket would attempt to have any comfort in this life. But they do; for they are French, and must have dissipation and distraction, however humble and homely it be. After midnight, they visit the cheap wine-shops, where they can purchase as much wine as they want for two or three sous. They smoke their pipes there, and have very pleasant chats, manifesting a gayety in their rags and dirt that only a Gaul can feel. They even get mildly tipsy sometimes, but usually start off with their baskets before daylight, make another round, and then sell their collection to the rag and refuse merchants who are their regular customers. The contents of their baskets, holding some two bushels, will bring from twenty cents to one dollar in our money, the average rate being from forty to fifty cents.

The merchants have large magazines in the quarters frequented by the chiffonniers, and employ scores of men and women to assort and arrange their unwholesome purchases. The air of the magazines is vitiated and poisoned by the exhalations from mouldy leather, greasy rags, filthy bones, and repulsive rubbish generally. How those whose duty it is to attend to this obnoxious business escape contagion is by no means clear. It may be they are so defiled and encrusted with dirt themselves, that they cannot receive any harm from what they handle, though if they were neat in habit, or if their pores were open, they could not fail to be made sick unto death by breathing such tainted air. They are advanced in years, or infirm in body, having belonged, most of them, to the rag-picking profession when they were younger, and in sounder health. They prefer the more active, open-air duties, but are forced by circumstances and their condition into this lower grade of offensive industry. For twelve hours of labor a day, they are paid about thirty cents, and on this, in some unaccountable way, they contrive to keep their wretched bodies and souls together.

[Sidenote: HOMES OF THE RAG-PICKERS.]

I ceased to wonder how the rag-pickers lived when I discovered where and under what surroundings they lived. Live indeed? Theirs is a satire upon life. It does not deserve the name of subsistence, or even vegetation, for subsistence and vegetation are at least natural and salutary. Few strangers in Paris ever see such miserable quarters as are the damp, dreary, and ill-ventilated cellars of the Quartier Mouffetard, in the neighborhood of the old Barrière des Deux Moulins, in which the chiffonniers reside. In those narrow and dismal streets, reminding me of the streets in the old Spanish towns, the sunshine is shut out, and the fresh breeze of heaven is unknown. In those vile dens, the unfortunate toilers herd together, frequently sleeping ten or twelve in a small apartment, regardless of age or sex, paying three or four sous a night for their detestable lodgings. Some of the aged and less impoverished couples pretend to keep house; but it is after so sorry a fashion that their homes would be unwelcome to a respectable beast.

The majority of the rag-pickers sleep where they can, and take their meals in the dismal cook-shops, eating whatever is given them, and asking no questions. Worthless dogs that have come to tragic ends are there served up for beef, and cats, whose nocturnal serenade has been suddenly brought to a close by the hurling of an unappreciative brick, are placed upon a rude table and labelled as mutton. Customers who work hard, and earn but three or four dollars a week, are not fastidious. Whatever satisfies the cravings of hunger is pronounced good, and where very little is charged, very little must be expected.

I busied myself one day in investigating the quarters of the chiffonniers, because I always feel an interest in the human family in its least favorable conditions; but what I saw did not induce me to repeat the experiment.

[Sidenote: HASARD DE LA FOURCHETTE.]

One of the cook-shops that I entered had a very remarkable way of feeding its patrons, combining the excitement of chance with practical advantage. The proprietor of the place purchases from the restaurants such scraps and fragments as are left upon the tables and in the kitchen, puts them in a large pot full of water, and submits them to a long boiling. The result, quite a savory soup, is placed on a table, and anybody, by paying two sous, has the privilege of thrusting a long iron fork into the kettle, and of eating whatever he can bring up from the bottom. Sometimes the handler of the fork is rewarded with a very tolerable piece of beef, mutton, chicken, goose-liver, or some genuine delicacy that may have been ordered at a fashionable restaurant in the Boulevards. Even if the fork come up without the hoped-for prize, the adventurer is entitled to a plate of the soup, relished none the less because the eater has had the boldness to risk his sous for something more substantial. This culinary game is called the fortune of the fork (hasard de la fourchette), and is much enjoyed by the chiffonniers. I felt a curious interest in it myself, though I lacked the relish of hunger, and consequently the personal sympathy properly belonging to the entertainment.

The rag-pickers gathered about the table on which the large kettle stood, watching with eager eyes the fellow who handled the fork, and made a dash for the invisible morsel he so craved. When he brought up nothing, he showed no disappointment, but laughed with the throng; and when he was lucky enough to lift upon the tines what is called in Paris a bonne bouche, they applauded him with hands and voice, as if he had obtained a grand victory. The rude and dingy cook-shop, with the soiled and tattered rag-pickers in the centre, and the burly proprietor in the background, made a picture which Doré would have been pleased to draw.

[Sidenote: WINNING A WAGER.]

The soup had an appetizing odor, and I could not doubt that what appealed so much to one sense must be grateful to another. I told my companion, a young New Yorker, that I thought of tasting it; whereupon he offered to bet me the price of a dinner at the Café Anglais that I durst not obey my thought. I called at once for a plate of the potage, and really found it excellent, twenty times better than much that I have eaten in first-class hotels at home. The effort of my friend to thwart my humor by talking to me of broiled horse, roast cat, boiled parrot, and stewed puppy, had no effect. I finished the soup with satisfaction, and at the dinner which I had won expressed my regret that the Julienne we had there was not so good as the mysterious mixture in the Quartier Mouffetard.

[Sidenote: HONESTY OF CHIFFONNIERS.]

The chiffonniers are reputed to be extremely honest. As evidence of this, they are very seldom arrested for any violation of law, and, according to the French code, the finder of any article of value is considered guilty of larceny unless he makes some effort to restore the property. In a great and luxurious city like Paris, many such articles must necessarily be lost, and they are very likely to fall into the possession of the rag-pickers. The representatives of this order are constantly discovering objects which they must feel a strong temptation to keep. Still, they do not yield to the temptation, but deposit what they find with the commissioner of police, who gives a receipt, and takes the name and address of the finder. The thing found is carried to the Prefecture, where it is held, with many other articles, for twelve months; and if, during that time, no one claims it, it is returned to the finder on the presentation of the receipt. In no other city can you feel half so certain of regaining what you have mislaid, or left, or dropped in some public place. I have known of watches and pocket-books (with something in them, too) restored, time and again. I have even recovered lost umbrellas, without the least trouble, and have been handed small pieces of money which I had left upon the tables of restaurants, several days after I had dined there.

Every week a list of articles found and deposited at the Prefecture of Police is published in the official journal, some of which, one would imagine, could not be very readily lost. Among the articles the most frequent are bank notes, porte-monnaies, watches, jewelry, rings of keys, lorgnettes, canes, shawls, gloves, &c. But it is somewhat singular to note, as I have noted, in the list, casks of wine, barrels of brandy, sets of false teeth, wigs, baskets of newly-washed linen, petticoats, hats, and even babies, who have been accidentally left in omnibuses, railway cars, or the public parks, by absent-minded nurses or self-absorbed mothers.

The great majority of the rag-pickers are, as would necessarily be inferred, ignorant, and of the humblest origin. Some of them, however, are persons of education, who have fallen from their natural position through defect of their own, or adversity of circumstances.

I recollect a rag-picker—he must have been nearly fifty years of age—who passed nightly along the Grands Boulevards, and who, when not surveying the ground with his lantern, walked erect, and with military precision. I was told that he had been well born, was of an old and influential family, and had served with distinction in the army in Algiers. Cashiered for some irregular conduct, his family disowned him, and he began a course of dissipation, which soon left him without friends, money, or self-respect. He came to this country in the hope of being able to reform; but his habits of intemperance adhered to him, and after numerous disreputable experiences, and after several arrests on charges of stealing, he returned to Paris.

He could get no employment there of the kind he wanted, and after trying divers methods of obtaining a livelihood, he settled down, socially and mentally, into a rag-picker. Oddly enough, in this position he became industrious and moderately abstemious. Two years ago he was accounted one of the most energetic of his tribe, and often earned, with his lantern and his rake, fifty or sixty francs a week, which is much above the average. Having reached the lowest level, he seemed quite satisfied; and they who had talked with him said he never murmured at fortune, and very rarely referred to his antecedents. His health and strength were so well preserved, that he had continued in his grubbing occupation twelve or fifteen years longer than is customary with his class. This appears to be one of the few instances in which as men descend socially they rise morally.

[Sidenote: LA BELLE D’ENFER.]

Among the trilleuses,—the old women who arrange and assort the contents of the chiffonniers’ baskets for the rag-merchants,—I recall, just before the Franco-German war, one of the ugliest hags it has ever been my fortune to see; and my observation of hags has been extensive, varied, and profound. One of Rembrandt’s ancient females was youthful and beautiful to her, who attracted me, somewhat after an inverted fashion, by her positive hideousness. Seeing her one day in the Cité Doré, I inquired of a gendarme respecting her. He expressed his surprise that I did not recognize her, adding, “Everybody knows her. She is called the Belle of the Bottomless Pit (Belle d’Enfer).” He then gave me her history; and thus it ran:—

[Sidenote: A ROMANTIC STORY.]

She was nearly seventy; forty years before, had been one of the handsomest and most courted of the lorettes of Paris. Everybody admired her lovely face and exquisite figure. Her fame as a beauty had extended to all the capitals of Europe. She had any number of wealthy lovers, and not a few young noblemen of high rank in her train. She lived like a queen. Her horses, and carriages, and toilets were the envy of the most fashionable ladies; and when the name of Annette Gariteau was mentioned, as it constantly was, eulogies on her charms were upon every lip.

On retiring one night, her bed-curtains caught fire, and she was dreadfully burned. Not a single trace of her beauty was left, but in its stead a frightfully disfigured face, and a shrivelled and crippled form. For some weeks it was thought she could not live; and when she did recover, she was so disgusted with herself, she tried to commit suicide by drowning, by poison, and by charcoal. They all failed, and she then fancied it was the wish of Heaven she should atone for her past errors by living until nature summoned her. Since then she has been very pious, never neglecting her religious duties in the smallest particular. She became a rag-picker because she considered that the humblest of callings, and because she thought that in it she would best serve her purpose of penitence, and render her reformation clear as noonday in the eyes of all who had known her in her pride of iniquity.

That was a queer story, and would hardly have been plausible, or probable, except when told of a French woman. I heard it repeated several times afterwards, and have no reason to doubt its correctness. The tale made a deep impression on me; and now, whenever I see some deformed and miserable creature, I try to forget her deformity and misery by fancying that she may be another Annette Gariteau.

LX.

BRIGANDAGE AND PIRACY.

RELATIONS OF THE STEAM ENGINE TO HONESTY.—PIRACY AND STEAMSHIPS.—HOW THE SLAVE TRADE WAS BROKEN UP.—STORIES OF BRIGANDS.—EXPLOITS OF SPANISH ROBBERS.—“ROAD AGENTS” IN CALIFORNIA.—AN ADVENTURE WITH HIGHWAYMEN.—AN ARMED STAGE COACH.—THE HAUNTS OF THE ROBBERS.—STORY OF A PLUNDERED PASSENGER.—“PUT UP YOUR HANDS.”—AN EXCITING INCIDENT.—BROAD-HORNS AND KEEL-BOATS.—MIKE FINK AND THE CLERGYMAN.—PIRACY ON THE MISSISSIPPI.—A FIGHT WITH RIVER PIRATES.—A CAPTAIN AND CREW MURDERED.—VISIT TO A ROBBERS’ CAVE.

The invention of the steam engine, while it has done a good deal for honest labor and honest enterprise, has done just as much towards breaking up dishonest enterprises and occupations. Before steamships came into fashion, the broad ocean and its adjacent waters were in many places the cruising grounds of pirates. They had sailing vessels built very long and low, with large spars, and, in proportion to the size of their hulk, with an immense spread of canvas. In a light wind or a heavy breeze, they could outsail the deeply and richly laden merchant ships, whose breadth of beam was great in proportion to their length, in order that they might carry heavy cargoes. These pirate vessels either sailed on the open ocean, in the track of merchant ships, or were concealed along the coast, whence they could dart out, and, after securing their prey, could sail back to their safe retreats. It was impossible to avoid them, impossible to escape them in a fair race, and, from the great number of men they carried, generally impossible to contend against them. Ships of war, like merchant ships, depended upon the wind for their propulsion, and were rarely able to sail as rapidly as the pirate craft. The invention of the steam engine was followed by the construction of the steamship; and when the steamship was armed with guns, she could run down and destroy these pirate cruisers.

[Sidenote: ONE EFFECT OF STEAM.]

Piracy in the West Indies and other regions, as well as on the open sea, came to an end when steamers were brought into general use as ships of war. At the present day, piracy prevails only in those portions of the far east where the steamer is in comparatively little use.

The slave trade received its death blow within the past twenty years, when England and the United States, with other nations interested in its suppression, substituted war steamers for sailing ships along the coast of Africa. From the ports of the west coast of Africa, where the slave ships were laden, it was comparatively easy to escape under cover of a dark night; and, once fairly at sea, the slavers could bid defiance to their pursuers. With the wind, all had the same chance, and the slavers were generally so constructed and equipped as to be able to outsail their pursuers; but it became otherwise when the latter availed themselves of steam.

On land, in past times, brigandage flourished, and was profitable until the railway came into general use. A stage coach or a carriage with a private traveller, on a lonely road, might be robbed with comparative ease; but when the stage coach or the private carriage was exchanged for the railway train, robbery was not so easy. Enterprising brigands in Spain and other countries occasionally try their hands at robbing railway trains, but such exploits are rare. Safety in every way, whether against accidents or human malice, is rendered much greater by the use of steam. At the present day the countries most affected with brigandage are those where railways are comparatively scarce. Until within the past few years, California had no railway lines, and she was the most profitable field in all the United States for the exploits of robbers. Californians facetiously call highwaymen “road agents,” and I have heard sometimes that the Californians are proud of their existence.

[Sidenote: AN ADVENTURE IN CALIFORNIA.]

I remember some years ago taking a stage coach in the Golden State over a route infested with robbers. I had heard vague rumors of exciting scenes along the road, and we had no great objection to a small encounter with these artists of the revolver. As we started from the station near the infested region, the agents of the stage company furnished every man with a rifle, and told us to keep a sharp lookout for the road agents. About half of us were accustomed to fire-arms, but the other half evidently knew as much about the handling of a rifle as a horse knows about geometrical surveying. I was fearful at starting that, if we came to a fight, the accidents among us by the careless handling of our rifles would have caused more mortality and inflicted more wounds than the fire-arms of the robbers.

There were several points on the road where the robbers were looked for, and when we approached one of them, the driver would call our attention to the fact. Then everybody would move about in his seat, and straighten himself like a rooster ready for crowing; and some of the more timid ones would start as though they had suddenly dropped upon a chestnut bur. Our rifles were held in all sorts of ways, and with the barrels sticking out in different directions, the coach bore a faint resemblance to an enormous porcupine. Each of the dangerous places we passed without accident, and at the next station we left our rifles, and were thankful that the great peril was over.

I afterwards learned that the robbers had fully determined to attack us that day, but one of the party had gone on a drunk, and deranged their plan. Before that time I had regretted the habit of intemperance among the Californians, but when I heard of this occurrence, I was thankful that the principles of Father Mathew did not prevail among them. With all due regard to John B. Gough and the cause he has advocated, I have no objection to every robber in the world getting blind drunk every morning, and remaining so for forty-eight hours at least.

Robberies on that route were of quite frequent occurrence. Since that time the railway has taken the place of the stage line, and the robbers are heard of no more,—all honor to James Watt and George Stephenson!

One of my fellow-passengers of that day had been over the route many times, and had been engaged in several fights. He entertained us with pleasing accounts—that is to say, the accounts were very interesting, but just at that time they were not calculated to be cheering.

[Sidenote: STORY OF A TRAVELLER.]

“About a month ago,” said he, “I was riding along this very road, and in this very coach, and just about this place; it may be half a mile or so ahead from here.” Here a dyspeptic individual at the corner of the coach gave a groan, and muttered something which sounded like a wish that he was at home.

“It was just about daylight, when all at once the horses stopped.” Here the coach came to a sudden halt, and every one of us fully expected that the robbers had taken our horses by the bridles; but the voice of the driver reassured us, as he said he had stopped to hitch up a trace.

“When they stopped the coach,” continued the traveller, “I was just rubbing my eyes, and wondering how much longer it would take us to get through. All at once, I heard some one yell out to the driver, ‘Sit still there, and hold up your hands!’ And just about that time, an ugly-looking revolver came through the curtains of the coach, and a fellow with a mask on stuck his head partly through. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ said this robber, ‘just step out here on the ground, and don’t go putting your hands around your pockets. If you do, you will get shot.’ His manners were so fascinating that we could not resist. It was not very light, but as he held that pistol under my nose, I could almost swear that I could look down to the bottom of the barrel, and see the bullet resting there. We stepped out, one by one, and as we did so, there were two other fellows with masks on waiting to receive us.

[Sidenote: “PUT UP YOUR HANDS.”]

“‘Put up your hands,’ said the first robber to each of us, as we stepped out of the coach. ‘Put up your hands, or you will get a bullet through you!’

“I would rather put up my hands at any time without having a bullet through me, and I put them up at once. They stood us up in a row, with each fellow sticking his hands up in the air, like a class of school-boys ready to answer questions. Then, when they got us all out, two of them stood guard, and a third went through us. He went through us first for our pistols, and took every one, and laid them in a pile on the ground, right between the two robbers, and in such a way that we could not get at them without being shot.

“They then went through us for watches and money, and they made a very good haul. I did not have much—only just enough for my expenses; and when I told them so, and they saw it, they told me I had better keep it.

“There was one passenger, though, who had twelve hundred dollars in coin. They took the whole lot, but generously gave him twenty dollars to pay his expenses. ‘Nothing mean about us,’ said one of the robbers, as he handed back the twenty-dollar gold piece. ‘We don’t want to be rough with any of you, but we must make our living.’

“When they had cleaned us out, they let us go back into the stage. They told us to keep still, or the first man that moved would get his head shot off. One of the fellows stood by the door of the coach, to see that we obeyed orders. He was not going to have any fluking.

“Then they made the driver and express messenger hand down the express box. The box was heavy, as it had a considerable amount of money in it. The messenger was reluctant to give up the money, but they finally persuaded him to do so, by cocking a pistol so as he could hear it, and putting the muzzle of it into his ear. The driver was obliged to sit still, with his reins down and his hands up. The whole operation did not take ten minutes, and when we were through, and ready to start, we were a comical picture. All of us inside were holding up our hands; the messenger had his hands up in the air, and the driver was holding one hand in the air, and taking the reins in the other from one of the robbers. The fellows stood there, with their pistols ready to shoot, and told us to go ahead; and you bet we did go ahead.”

[Sidenote: EARLY NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI.]

In the early days of navigation on the Mississippi and its tributaries, before the construction of steamboats, there was a great deal of piracy. Before the steamboat was invented, the navigation of the great river was conducted with rafts and keel-boats. The raft was built on the upper waters, freighted with produce, and floated down to New Orleans, where both the raft and its cargo were sold. It floated with the current. It would descend, but it could not be made to ascend. The keel-boat was of better construction, and after floating down the river with its cargo, it was loaded to ascend it.

A long time was required for this upward voyage. The current of the Mississippi is very strong, running in many places four or five miles an hour. Sails are of very little use, as the river is crooked, and the wind is rarely strong. The keel-boats were propelled in two ways—first, by “setting-poles;” and, secondly, by “cordelling.” In propulsion by means of setting-poles, long poles are used, and set or fixed temporarily in the bed of the river. There is a plank on which men can walk along the edge of the boat. The man with his setting-pole goes to the bow of the boat, fixes the pole, and then walks slowly aft. In this way the boat is moved under his feet, and propelled up stream.

Cordelling is a system of towing. The men walk along the banks of the river, and tow the boat by main strength against the stream.

The advantages of steam over this old process of propulsion may be well illustrated upon the Ohio River, between Cincinnati and Louisville. The distance is about one hundred and fifty miles. In 1794 keel-boats made regular trips between the two cities, carrying freight and passengers. For the round trip they required four weeks. A steamboat now leaves Cincinnati at noon, and lands its passengers in Louisville the next morning. By noon she is ready to return again, and makes the round trip, with plenty of time in port, every two days.

The boatmen of the Mississippi in the olden time were a peculiar class. Rough, hardy, uncouth fellows they were; ready at any time for an adventure, generally delighting in a fight, and able to perform a great deal of hard work. They were prompt at fairs, races, and all other assemblages along the river banks; and when they landed in a town, and concluded to clean it out, they generally did so. The inhabitants being powerless, the boatmen had it all their own way.

The West is full of stories about these boatmen and their peculiar lives. One of the most famous of the class was Mike Fink, whose history has been made the theme of a popular story. A story is told of a clergyman from the east travelling down the Ohio River, some years ago, who was anxious to learn something about Mike Fink. Somebody told him that the pilot of the boat on which he was travelling had been acquainted with Mike. The clergyman approached him, and said,—

[Sidenote: MIKE FINK AND THE CLERGYMAN.]

“Do you know anything about Mike Fink?”

“Yes,” said the pilot; “knew him like a brother.”

“Can you tell me some peculiar incident of his life?” asked the clergyman.

“Well, I don’t know,” replied the pilot, hesitatingly. “Yes, I can. He ate a buffalo robe once.”

“Ate a buffalo robe!” said the clergyman, astonished.

“Certainly, a buffalo robe, with the hair on,” replied the pilot.

“Well, what did he do that for?”

“Why, you see,” said the pilot, resting a moment, to shift his quid of tobacco, “you see, Mike drank so much whiskey that he destroyed the coating of his stomach, and the doctor told him that before he could get well, he would need a new coat for it. Mike thought the thing over, and said, when he had a new coat for his stomach, he would have one that would stand the whiskey; and he made up his mind that a buffalo robe with the hair on it was just the thing, and so he sat down, and swallowed it. He could drink any amount of whiskey after that, and never so much as wink. Fact, now, as true as you are standing here.”

The clergyman turned away, satisfied.

Besides such adventures as fighting with each other, and with the inhabitants along the river, these men had conflicts with robbers. There were many gangs of robbers living along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and they had places of resort known only to themselves. Some of the limestone cliffs abound in caves, and here the robbers generally had their concealment. They watched for the boats ascending and descending the river, sometimes fired upon them from the bank, and sometimes came out in skiffs to capture them. Many a boat, while quietly anchored for the night, has thus been attacked, and its crew murdered, and thrown into the river. The boat would then be drawn to the spot most convenient for the robbers, plundered of its contents, and set on fire; or it might be manned by a portion of the gang, taken to New Orleans, and sold.

Such an occurrence was not unfrequent, as a rapid passage down the river would enable them to sell the boat, and return again to their place of concealment, before the officers of the law could go in pursuit.

[Sidenote: THE DAYS OF THE FLAT-BOATMEN.]

There are many interesting stories in the robber history of the great valley. One was told to me, some years ago, by an old steamboat-man, who had worked in his younger days on board of keel-boats and “broad-horns,” as the flat-boats were generally termed, and are now to the present day. I give the story, as nearly as I can remember it, in his own words.

“There used to be a famous place for robbers on the lower part of the Ohio, down below Paducah. Many a boat has been captured there, and the men on board of it were never heard of afterwards. They were a desperate lot of fellows. These robbers did not mind killing a man any more than you would mind killing a rat. I shipped on board a broad-horn once, from Louisville, going to New Orleans. We had a load of pork and corn, and the captain of the broad-horn owned about half the boat and her cargo. We got along very well without any trouble until we got down to the place where these robbers were, and just there we ran on a sand-bar. It was a ticklish place. There we were stuck; the river was falling, and if it left us on the bar, we would have to stay there until the next rise—that is, if we did not die in the mean time. We worked away all the afternoon, and all night, but to no purpose. One after another, we had dropped off, and gone to sleep.

[Sidenote: FIGHT WITH RIVER PIRATES.]

“We were about a quarter of a mile from the shore, but the current was not very strong. Towards morning, when I was on watch, I heard some men on shore. A little while afterwards, I heard the sound of oars, and saw a boat coming out of a little creek just above us. By the sound of their oars I knew that the boat was coming towards us, and I waked everybody. The captain got out his own rifle and every rifle and pistol that was in the float, and prepared to make fight. When the boat got within fifty or sixty yards, and we could just see it through the mist, our captain yelled out to them to stop.

“‘Want to come aboard,’ said a voice from the boat. ‘We want to buy some pork and corn. We are camped here, and have got short of provisions.’

“‘Haven’t anything,’ said the captain; ‘not a thing. We have not a pound of pork or corn on board.’

“‘What have you, then?’ came from the boat.

“‘We are taking a load of stone down to New Orleans, to sell—limestone, first-rate limestone; you don’t want any of it.’

“The boat kept coming on, and somebody in it said, ‘Come to think of it, now, we do want some limestone, and we will come and see how it looks.’

“The captain saw that we were in for a fight, as the fellows were determined to rob us. He brought his rifle up to his shoulder, but before he fired, he said once more,—

“‘Now, I tell you, STOP!’

“The boat did not stop, but kept straight in our direction. The current swung it a little down stream, or they would have been on board of us before we could have done much against them; but luckily their stern swung around, and they had to turn a little against the current. The captain fired, and brought down one of the fellows in the boat. There were six or eight of them, and only five of us. I had a rifle, and I fired, and brought down another.

“The captain’s man fell into the bottom of the boat, but the one I shot threw up his hands, and tumbled backward, so that he went overboard. They began firing, but did not hit any of us—except one ball, which clipped a corner of the captain’s ear.

“By this time they appeared to have had enough of it, and, besides, our shooting deranged their rowing. We were reloading, and before they could get up to the boat, we would have another round of shots for them. They turned down stream, and that was the last we saw of them.

“In the morning we carried a line ashore, and tied it to a tree; and with this line we managed to pull ourselves off. It was tough work, that, and it was noon before we got away. We floated on down the river, and got to New Orleans all right. We sold out our load, and came home.

[Sidenote: ANOTHER BATTLE.]

“The next year I went down again with the same captain, on another broad-horn. When we got to this place where we had been aground, we gave the sand-bar a wide berth, and avoided it; but we had another fight with the robbers one night, when we were anchored. They came upon us suddenly, when all but two of us were asleep. They got possession of the boat. They killed the captain, and sent me overboard. What they did with the other men I never knew, but I suppose they killed them.

“The whole fight did not last three minutes, from the time they first sprang aboard until I was in the river, and floating away on the water. I must have gone down the stream three or four miles, keeping my head above water; and at last I came to the shore, right under a rocky cliff.

“I climbed up, and squeezed the water out of my clothes. By this time it was morning. I looked around, and saw, a little way off, a curious looking hole in the rock, and something like a path leading up to it. I went up this path and into the rock.

“A fire was burning close by the entrance, and I thought somebody must live there. It never occurred to me that the place might be a robbers’ cave. I shouted, and nobody came out. Then I picked up a brand out of the fire, and waved it until it blazed, so as to light me into the rock.

[Sidenote: IN A ROBBERS’ CAVE.]

“After going about twenty feet along a narrow passage, I found myself in a sort of room, thirty or forty feet square. It looked partly natural and partly as if it had been dug out of a rock. There were piles of stuff where the men slept, and there were goods of various sorts lying around; but nobody was there. There was a bag of silver dollars which my eye happened to rest upon, and I picked it up. I then thought that I had got into the cave of the robbers, and that it was the same crew that was in the boat. I went out of that place quick, and it was well I did so.

“When I got outside, I could see the boat coming, not half a mile away, and those fellows on board. If I had staid fifteen minutes more, they would have caught me.

“There was no way of escaping up the face of the cliff without their seeing me, so I crawled down to the water, and slipped in again. I could swim well, and thought the best thing to do would be to float down the river a few miles farther, and then get ashore wherever I saw a house or a boat.

“I tried to keep the dollars, but they were too heavy—they weighted me down, and I very soon dropped them, consoling myself with the recollection that the robbers never would get them again. I floated half a dozen miles down the stream, saw a house, and went ashore. Next day a flat-boat came along with one hand short, and I shipped on her to New Orleans. After that I had two or three fights with the river pirates, but they never bothered me much.”

LXI.

BURIED TREASURES.

CAPTAIN KIDD.—HIS HISTORY.—HOW HE MADE HIS FORTUNE.—HIS MELANCHOLY FATE.—JOINT STOCK IN THE ADVENTURE GALLEY.—SEARCHING FOR TREASURES.—STORIES OF THE SEA-COAST.—TRADITIONS.—ADVENTURES OF A TREASURE-HUNTER.—BILL SANBORN, AND WHAT HE DID.—JIM FOLLETT’S DOG.—A PRACTICAL JOKER.—A MESSAGE FROM THE SANDS OF THE SEA.—BILL SANBORN’S DREAM.—FINDING THE CHEST.—A SUPERNATURAL VISITOR.

A nautical ballad, with which many persons are familiar, narrates the adventures of the celebrated Captain Kidd. It is composed in the autobiographical form, and its first line runs as follows:—

“My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed.”

[Sidenote: THE STORY OF CAPTAIN KIDD.]

Evidently the distinguished pirate travelled, like many other robbers, under an alias; and it is interesting to know that his name was Robert Kidd as he sailed, for he certainly was not Robert, but William, Kidd when on shore and away from his marine wanderings. It is to be noted that he draws particular attention to his alias, by repeating the words as I sailed; obviously wishing to state his case plainly, and guard against any imputation that he called himself Robert when on shore, or when his ship was at anchor or becalmed. It must have been very inconvenient for the man of tender conscience to change his name from William to Robert whenever his ship was in motion, and from Robert to William again when from any cause she stopped. It made things lively for him if he ever got into one of those peculiar squalls of the Mozambique Channel, where for two or three days you have a puff of wind one minute and a dead calm the next, so that your sails are alternately filling and flapping, and flapping and filling, about as fast as you can count. But, throwing speculation aside, it is sufficient to say that William Kidd was born about the middle of the seventeenth century, and followed the seas from his youth. About 1695 he was known as one of the boldest ship-masters sailing out of New York, and he became so famous that he attracted the favorable attention of the colonial government.

About the close of the century in which our hero was born, the depredations of pirates upon British commerce were so extensive that it was determined to send out privateers to attack the freebooters. The owners of these privateers were reimbursed for their outlay by the sale of the goods and ships captured from the pirates, and they calculated that they could make a great deal of money, provided they had a fair catch. One company, in which several noblemen were shareholders, asked the governor of New York to recommend a suitable person to command a privateer; and in consequence of his recommendation, Kidd received a commission, signed by the king, and addressed to “the trusty and well-beloved Captain Kidd, commander of the ship Adventure Galley.”

The vessel thus put in charge of the enterprising William (not Robert) carried thirty guns, was a fast sailer, and had a plentiful supply of provisions, and a crew of about one hundred men. She sailed from Plymouth, England, in April, 1696, and cruised off the American coast for several months. She occasionally entered New York and Boston, where the crew was recruited until it included more than a hundred and fifty men. With this increased force Kidd finally sailed for the East Indies and the east coast of Africa. While on the voyage, he concluded that it would be much more profitable to turn pirate—at least so the story goes; and finding that his crew were not averse to the project, he became a freebooter of the most enterprising character. He captured many ships, and after filling the Adventure Galley with gold and diamonds, and all that kind of portable property, he returned, in 1698, to New York. According to tradition, he buried a large part of his treasure on various parts of Long Island, Staten Island, and the banks of the Hudson River, and then boldly sailed into Boston harbor, under the impression that his royal commission would save him from any charge of piracy. But, unluckily for him, the Earl of Bellamont, governor of Massachusetts and New York, was a stockholder in the Adventure Galley, and was disappointed at the failure to declare a dividend. He had heard of Kidd’s indiscretions, and this knowledge, added to the chagrin naturally attending the failure of the enterprise as a financial speculation, caused him to arrest the gallant captain, and send him to London for trial.

[Sidenote: HE MURDERED WILLIAM MOORE.]

At this day there are many persons who believe Kidd was innocent of the charge of piracy, and they unhesitatingly say that he did nothing more than carry out his orders. On his trial, which was most unfairly conducted, the charge of piracy was abandoned, as it was found impossible to prove it, and he was arraigned for killing one of his crew,—William Moore,—in consequence of the mutinous conduct of the latter. It was shown on the trial that Moore addressed insulting language to his commander, and was knocked down by Kidd. The blow which was delivered with a bucket, proved fatal, and the decision of the court was against the prisoner, on the ground that a bucket was not a proper weapon with which the commander of a ship should enforce discipline. Had he prodded him with a sword, or perforated him with a pistol, he might have been acquitted; but this assault with a bucket was too much. Times have changed since then. At the present day we have the spectacle of the successful defence of murderers, on the ground that the weapons they used were not murderous. I may instance the case of Foster, a conductor on a street railway in New York, who killed Mr. Putnam with a “car-hook.” One of the strongest points made in his favor was, that a car-hook is not a murderous weapon. Had Kidd been tried in New York subsequent to 1870, he would have escaped the notoriety he obtained.

There was an interesting performance at Execution Dock, in London, on the 24th day of May, 1701. William Kidd and the executioner performed a duet, which resulted in the death of the former, after an acrobatic exercise of some fifteen or twenty minutes at the end of a rope. As a warning to the rising generation, and for the amusement of the elders, the ruins of the ex-pirate were left in chains at the end of a gibbet, where they swung in the wind for several years. Pious fathers used to take their sons to look at the pleasing spectacle, and counsel them never to turn pirate, and come to such a rope’s end as befell the once well-beloved Kidd. Evidently the warning was effectual, as none of the London youths of that period were able to secure the command of an Adventure Galley, and sail to the Indian Seas. The suppression of piracy as a joint stock operation became unpopular, as it was not found to be profitable.

[Sidenote: AS HE SAILED.]

Many of the incidents narrated in the touching poem, “My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed,” are altogether apocryphal. According to history, Kidd left seven hundred and thirty-eight ounces of gold, eight hundred and forty-seven ounces of silver, and several bags of silver ornaments and precious stones. These were secured by the Earl of Bellamont, but whether they were ever handled by the unfortunate shareholders of the enterprise is not known. The probability is, however, that they were all required for the expenses of the arrest and trial of the pirate.

According to popular belief, the quantity above named was only a small fraction of the wealth acquired by Kidd; and down to the present time people have been searching localities on the New England coast and along the Hudson River, in the hope of finding some of Kidd’s abandoned wealth. Tradition has been exhausted, and the chief reliance has been, especially of late years, upon dreams and the revelations of spirits. Almost every year somebody dreams of a locality where Kidd’s treasures have been found, and he frequently gets wrought up to such a degree that he sets about digging for a fortune. Thousands of dollars have been expended in these researches, and they have invariably resulted in nothing. It is safe to say that nobody has yet found a dollar buried by Captain Kidd, and it is equally safe to predict that nobody ever will find one. The writer of this knew, in his boyhood days, of several enterprises of this sort, and though he never dug for Kidd’s treasures, he was acquainted with several persons who had been in the business. Some had abandoned it in disgust, and some still clung to the hope that they would one day be successful. They were waiting for dreams and revelations that should indicate the precise spot where they could dig for the iron-bound chest, which invariably contained the wealth they sought. An oaken chest, with hoops of iron, was somewhere concealed, that should one day be theirs.

One garrulous old fellow used to be full of mystery about the matter. His stories were a little incoherent, but I am confident that he firmly believed them, and thought he was telling the truth. He was as superstitious as an Arab, and believed in all sorts of ghosts, hobgoblins, and disembodied spirits in general. One day I happened to see him when he was bewailing his ill luck a night or two before. He had a violent cold, and had swallowed a prodigious quantity of rum and molasses to drive it away. When I asked how he caught it, he became very solemn, took another “dram,” as he called it, and then proceeded to a confidential talk.

“Now, boy,” said he, “I will tell you all about it; but you must first promise not to reveal my secret.”

Of course I made the required promise.

“This was the way of it,” he continued.

[Sidenote: DIGGING FOR KIDD’S MONEY.]

“One night last week, I dreamed that a spirit with a bright light in its hand came to me, and told me to follow. I followed, and it led me to a place about a hundred yards from the river, where it set down the light, and told me to dig. There was nothing to dig with, but as I looked at the ground, I saw a pick and shovel. I went to work with them, and when I struck the first blow, the spirit went away. I dug and dug, but without getting tired. It seemed that after I had been digging two or three hours, I struck a chest. I could hear the pick hitting on it; and by and by the point of it went through the oak, and I could hear the money rattling. Just then I waked, and found it was daylight.

“Next night I dreamed the same thing again, and then I knew there was something in it. The second time I dreamed it, I tried hard to remember where the place was; and the next day I went up and down the banks of the river, in hopes of seeing it. But I couldn’t find it, and what to do I didn’t know. It was a revelation, sure, but the revelation wasn’t clear enough, and I knew that something else was coming. Night before last it came.”

He spoke the last sentence very solemnly, and as he did so, he moved his hand towards a box that stood near his arm-chair. I thought he was about to open it, and show me some of the wealth of the great pirate; but he only produced a fresh bottle of rum, and took another drink. Smacking his lips, he continued.

“Night before last it came. I was out by the swamp after dark. I had been looking for the place, and was just then going home, and thinking I would try it again next morning. I was walking along, thinking, and had my head down, when, all at once, I stumbled over something that made me look up again. And there, not twenty feet away, was the light—just such as the spirit carried in my dream, only it wasn’t so bright.”

I was about to say, “Will o’ the wisp;” but I knew that if I did so, I should put an end to the story, and so I kept silence.

[Sidenote: GUIDED BY A SPIRIT.]

“I couldn’t see any spirit, but of course that didn’t make any difference, as I knew the light would take me to the spot. I didn’t say a word, you may believe, but I looked at the light; and it hung there, looking at me. It didn’t move for a minute, and then it began dancing along— not dancing, but sort of waving, like—and moving away from me. I followed it over bushes and logs, and through water up to my knees, and sometimes nearly to my waist, and never once took my eyes off of it. I must have gone half a mile or more, when I stepped into a hole, and fell flat in the water, down among the brambles. The pain was so sharp that I said something, and when I got to my feet again, the light was gone. And that is how I got this cold.”

I tried to explain that the light which he saw was nothing supernatural, but he would not listen to my “boy foolishness,” as he called it; and after a slight attempt to enlighten him, I gave it up. He recovered from his cold, but kept his dream of fortune constantly in mind. I believe he tried again to follow the mysterious light, and with the same result as before. But his faith was not shaken, and to his dying day he believed he should yet find the buried wealth of Captain Kidd.

[Sidenote: THE MYSTERIOUS CHEST.]

According to my recollection, every story told by this man, or any of his associates and neighbors, about seeking for buried treasures, was full of supernatural occurrences; and the failure to obtain the hidden wealth was always attributed to a failure to maintain silence. In this instance my friend attributed the disappearance of the light to his exclamation when he fell; had he remained speechless, the light, in his opinion, would have led him to fortune. Repeatedly I was told of instances where the coveted chest had been reached, and only a few more blows were required to open it. The air was full of unearthly noises, and the diggers were tossed and struck by invisible hands; but they heeded them not, and worked their best. But a blow heavier than the rest, or a sight of the chest, caused an exclamation; when, instantly, the chest disappeared, and the hole which had been dug by human agency, was filled by a supernatural one.

Along the coast of New England, from the end of Long Island to Portsmouth and Portland, there are numerous traditions and other stories of Kidd’s treasures. There are those who believe that some of the pirate’s wealth is hidden near Lynn and Salem; others locate it near Newburyport; and others, again, near Hampton, Portsmouth, and Kittery. On three occasions I have made summer cruises near these places, and whenever I sought one of these traditions, I generally found it. Places have been shown me where credulous persons have dug for gold and silver enough to make them the envy of all their neighbors; and there is one spot, near Lynn, where a man expended thousands of dollars, trying to make an entrance into a cave, where, as the spirits told him, treasure of an enormous value was concealed. His money gave out before the treasure was reached; and if it was there then, it remains there now, ready for any one who has money and inclination to prosecute the search.

A party of us, one afternoon, while loitering around Newburyport, fell in with an ancient inhabitant who was a firm believer in the existence of the wealth of Captain Kidd. He knew a great deal more than he would tell—or, at any rate, intimated as much to us when we endeavored to sound him. I will call him Bill Sanborn, as a cover for his real name, which I do not feel at liberty to print. He was a genius in his way, and when we had filled him with rum, and warmed the stiffened muscles of his time-worn frame, he was as talkative as a magpie. He wandered from his subject continually, and it was utterly impossible to tie him down to the main topic of his discourse. He had a son or a grandson—I forget which—keeping a groggery in Boston. The old man had recently been on a visit to the modern Athens, and evidently picked up considerable of the slang of the family bar-room, where he passed his leisure hours. His abilities in the absorption line were extensive, and I hardly dare to say how much he drank, and we paid for, before he was in a proper condition to tell about Captain Kidd. Finally we had him properly wound up, and after singing a few verses of the ancient ballad, with a tremendous emphasis on “as I sailed,” he began.

[Sidenote: BILL SANBORN’S STORY.]

“I might tell you a good deal about hunting for money, but I won’t go and do it, because it might be doing injustice to some folks that ain’t dead yet; and I don’t believe in that, anyhow. There was Jim Follett and me. We struck a big thing once, and if Jim could have kept his hash-trap shut, we might have had money enough to buy all the rum in America, and keep drunk for ten thousand years. Jim is a good fellow, and likes to have a good time. He’d like to have it on his own money; but he don’t have none of his own, and so he has to get other people’s, which does just as well. Jim and me are pretty much alike, but I’m more like him than he is like me. Jim’s gone off to Labrador fishing now, or he would be here with us to-day, and if he’d been sucking away at that bottle, he would have been blind drunk by this time, and couldn’t move from his chair no more than if he was an anchor.

[Sidenote: JIM FOLLETT’S DOG.]

“Jim and me used to sit around the store up there on the corner, when we hadn’t nothing to do. The storekeeper had a dog, a little ornery cross between one cur and another cur, that hadn’t no more real, genuine dog blood into him than a sea-turtle. He was a monstrous proud dog though, and used to sit up in a chair and look as serious as a country gal at another gal’s wedding. When he had eat a good dinner and was a digesting it, he was pretty good natured; but if he was hungry, or had been kicked, or another dog had licked him, he wouldn’t allow no familiarity, not even if ’twas the Emperor of China that spoke to him. He had a funny way, too, that if anybody fetched him round the tail, or sides, or back, he wouldn’t bite that feller, but he would bite the man that was nearest to his mouth. For instance, you and me might be a setting here, and Spot—that was what they called the dog—Spot might be laying down atween us, with his head towards me and his tail towards you. Now, if you put your foot down on Spot’s tail, that confounded dog would let me have it right in the leg, and the more you put your foot down, the more he’d let his teeth into me, until they met. Lots of the fellers has been chawed by Spot, and the fun of it was, that them which was worst chawed was the ones that hadn’t fetched him.

“They got a new parson here once, and one day, when Jim and me was in the store, the parson happened along, and come in too.

“‘Fine morning,’ says he to us and the storekeeper, and of course we said ‘fine morning’ to him. He was a meek sort of chap, with a face like a plateful of mashed turnips, and he talked as if he thought divine Providence was easy of hearing, and could understand him if he didn’t speak much above a whisper.

“The parson talked round a while, and finally he happened to see Spot, who was a setting up in a chair with his tail sticking out between the rounds, and looking as if he was just going to Sunday school, and was a saying his lesson over to hisself.

“‘Ah, fine dog that,’ says the parson to the storekeeper. ‘Pears to look very gentle, and very intelligent too.’

“The storekeeper just then had his back turned, and we didn’t say nothing. The parson patted Spot on the head, and said, ‘Good doggie, good doggie.’ Spot was getting ready for a growl, and began to peel his ivories like the ripping up of an old shoe. The parson didn’t notice it, and kept on patting him, and said he could always make friends with any dog that he met.

[Sidenote: HOW THE PARSON WAS BITTEN.]

“Jim was a sitting next to Spot, and reached out on the sly, and pinched the critter’s tail. Spot made one grab for the parson’s wrist, and hung on like a locomotive pulling a freight train. The parson jumped around, howling worse than a coyote, and his mouth was as narrow as a hole in a cast iron letter box. Bimeby the dog dropped off, and the parson went out of the door and off for home, as if he’d just had a call to marry a rich couple that couldn’t wait. Jim and me laughed, but the storekeeper was mad, because he was afraid he’d lost the parson’s custom. So he talked rough to us and drove us off, and we haven’t been there since.

“Jim and me was over to Hampton one time, and loafing around a week or so among the boys. There was a gal at Hampton, mighty smart gal she was, and used to sing in meeting Sundays until you’d think she’d lift the roof of the meeting-house. Some of the young fellers was trying to shine up to her, but she shook ’em all off, and went sweet on a galoot that was keeping school over in the next town. He used to come to see her every week, and he always come on horseback. The Hampton boy’s sort of hated him, because he was a cutting them out, and so they used to rig up jokes on him sometimes. They’d tie the door of the house where him and his gal was, and once they took a big box and put it up agin the door, so that when he walked out of the house he walked into the box, just as though it was a front porch. They hid his saddle once, and made him ride home bare-back; and the folks where he kept school said he didn’t sit down much for three or four days afterwards.

[Sidenote: A PRACTICAL JOKE.]

“The next night after we got there the feller come a courting, and the boys asked us to have some fun with them. The hoss was tied under a shed, and right down the road, about a hundred yards away, there was a big mud-puddle. It run clear across the road, and we could see that when the feller started for home he would have to go right through it. Jim looked the ground over, and told the boys to go and buy a hundred yards of strong clothes-line, and bring it to him.

“When they brought the clothes-line, Jim said to ’em, ‘Tie one end of the line to the post of the shed, and tie it strong.’

“When they had done it, Jim says again, ‘Now take the line and measure it right out to the middle of the mud-puddle.’

“They measured it, and found that the other end just went to the middle of the puddle. They brought the line back, and Jim coiled it up close to the post, and then tied the loose end to the crupper of the saddle. Meanwhile some of the rest of the boys had got an old cannon out into a field just behind the shed, and loaded it up with a good charge of powder. When everything was ready it was about a quarter to twelve, and we sat down to wait.

“The feller always started home at twelve o’clock, cause the gal’s mother wouldn’t let her sit up no longer. The old lady said he might stay as long as he liked, but Mary must go to bed. He didn’t see no fun in courting all alone to hisself, and so he never staid after that time. Well, just at twelve o’clock we saw the door open, and heard a smack like bustin a cigar box with a hammer. Then he said, ‘Good night, dearest,’ and he out to his hoss, unhitched the bridle, and jumped on without looking to see if things was all right. He hit the hoss a poke in the ribs, and the critter humped himself at a gallop straight towards the mud-puddle. The rope was unwinding easy and nice, and neither him nor the hoss didn’t know nothing about it.

“When they had got almost to the edge of the puddle, Jim touched off the gun with his cigar. It sounded like a clap of thunder, and the hoss made one jump, and just as he did so he got to the end of the rope. The saddle come off, and the feller with it, and the beast went on as if he was running on a bet of ten thousand dollars, and had put up all the money hisself.

[Sidenote: OUT OF THE MUD-PUDDLE.]

“As the feller tumbled off, he gave a yell that you might have heard fourteen thousand miles away. He thought a streak of lightning had struck the hoss, and that both of ’em was being swallowed up by an earthquake. The gal was standing in the door, and she gave a scream, and ran out and met the feller just as he got up out of the mud, and was making for the house. She got hold of him, and then she fainted, and went down into the ditch by the road-side, where there was a foot or so of water. She didn’t stay fainted long; it warn’t more than a minute before she was up again. Both of ’em thought it was a flash of lightning, until they got most up to the shed, and we could see them by the light shining out of the house. They was the sloppiest, muddiest looking pair that you ever set eyes on. The feller had on a claw-hammer coat, and the water was a dripping off the tails of it like the Falls of Niagara, and his white trousers was like an old map of Africa, covered all over with black ink for unexplored country. His hat was gone, and his hair was full of mud, and looked like a swab that hasn’t been wrung out after washing the floor of a bar-room. If you’ve ever seen a hen that’s been caught in a shower, and got under a cart to get dry, you’ll know how that gal looked with her clothes all sticking to her, and she all ready to drop down again as soon as she found a good place. She said she never knew such awful thunder and lightning; and just as he said, ‘Yes, dearest,’ they stumbled over the rope, and then they see what it was. He hauled the rope in, hand over hand, jest as you’d haul in a halibut; and when he got the saddle, and found it tied to the rope, they was about the maddest pair that ever was in Hampton. The gal belonged to the church, and therefore couldn’t swear, and the feller couldn’t swear cause the gal would hear him, but he said something that sounded mighty like it. They both went into the house, where everybody had got up on account of the noise. The feller staid there that night, but he never come there no more. He seemed kind of discouraged like, and thought there was too many difficulties about courting to make it pay.”

[Sidenote: STEALING A BABY.]

The old fellow paused here to take another drink, and then he went on with more anecdotes about Jim Follett and his practical jokes. It was rather odd, or at any rate appeared so to his hearers, that he did not see the least impropriety in giving severe pain and annoyance to those who had offended nobody, and the thought that there was the slightest injustice in practical joking seems never to have entered his head. One of Jim’s performances, greatly relished by old Bill, was of the most inhuman character. One day Jim was on the train from Boston, and was to stop at Newburyport. There were but few passengers in the car where he rode, and near him was a woman with a baby. She was going through to Portland, and before reaching Newburyport she placed the slumbering child on the seat before her, and while watching it, fell asleep herself. On reaching Newburyport, Jim, in a spirit of mischief, took the child from the train, left it in the station, and quietly walked away. The agony of the mother on awaking may be imagined. Luckily another passenger had witnessed Jim’s performance, and by a vigorous use of the telegraph, the mother and child were brought together a few hours later, after considerable suffering on the part of both.

Suddenly Bill recollected himself, and told us about the search for Captain Kidd’s buried treasures.

[Sidenote: THE MYSTERIOUS BOTTLE.]

“One day Jim was down setting some lobster traps, and he wanted something for bait. So he went ashore, and tried to dig clams in a little cove where there was a strip of sand in between the rocks. But there wasn’t a clam to be found; and while he was a setting down, and wondering what to do next, he thought he saw something odd in the hole he had just made. He went for it, and it turned out to be the neck of a bottle; he pulled it out, and there was one of the curiousest bottles you ever see. It looked as if it might have been the bottle that Methuselah used to carry when he was a young bummer and went off on jambarees over Sunday. ‘Now,’ says Jim, ‘I’ll take this bottle home and show it to Bill Sanborn;’ and sure enough, he did. We busted it and found it empty, and I ought to have said that if there had been anything into it Jim wouldn’t never have brought it home without opening it.

“No, it wasn’t empty neither. There was a piece of paper in it, a sort of dried-up, old parchment like, with some writing on it. The writing looked as if it was done in the dark by a blind man who couldn’t read and was drunk into the bargain. We fussed over it a long time, but couldn’t make nothing out of it, and after trying a dozen times, we laid it away and went to bed.

“I fell asleep, and pretty soon I dreamed that writing all out as plain as though it had been printed. I don’t remember what it was now, but it told that there was something a hundred and twenty-three yards north-north-east, half east, from a certain rock; and I dreamed the rock out so, that I thought I should know it. Then I waked and lit a candle, and tried the paper again, and found I could read it all straight.

“I waltzed Jim out of bed in no time, and we determined to start off at daybreak. I shan’t tell you exactly where we went, and I haven’t told you the correct distance and bearings, because I want to try it again some time. Anyhow, we went there, and after a good deal of hunting we found the rock, and found a cross like a big X cut into it. Then we measured off the distance, and took the bearings with a compass we had brought along for the purpose. It turned out that a hundred and twenty-three yards north-north-east, half east, from the rock carried us beyond high-water mark; and as the tide was jest coming in, we couldn’t do nothing. We drove a stake into the sand, though, and concluded to come back and work at night when the tide was out, so as to prevent anybody seeing us. We went and slept as much as we could, and when the night tide was going out, we come back with shovels and picks and pitched in.

“You never seen fellows dig as we did. We made the dirt fly, and we only stopped once in a while to take a drink. We kept our wits about us, and didn’t speak a word, as the old folks say if you speak when you are digging for money you won’t never find it.

“A little before midnight we were down about six feet, and had a hole large enough to bury one of those dog-house trunks the women take to Nahant. I struck the pick down, and it hit something that sounded hollow. Jim almost got his mouth open to say something, but I motioned him to keep still, and put the pick down again. There was the same hollow sound, and then we went at it for dear life. We dug away and tossed out the dirt, and bimeby I hit the chest with my shovel. When I did that I felt somebody push me first one way and then the other, but I couldn’t see nobody but Jim, and he wasn’t doing it. I slid around lively, digging all the time, and Jim, too; but it was enough to make your hair turn white to be struck as we were by ghosts, and to hear the air full of noises, but couldn’t see anybody making them. They cursed us and screamed at us, but we had expected something of the sort, and besides we was after a fortune. We got some of the dirt off the chest, as it seemed to be, and with it we got some bones of a man.

[Sidenote: THE GHOSTLY WATCHMAN.]

“How did they get there, do you suppose? I don’t know any more than you do; but I’ve heard tell that when those pirates buried money they left somebody to watch it. They couldn’t leave him there alive where nobody lived, and boarding-houses wasn’t to be found, and so they used to draw lots, and the feller that got the unlucky lot was just knocked in the head and laid on top of the chest before they filled up the hole. That skeleton belonged to the watchman, and it was him that knocked us around and made such noises in the air. If he ever wants anybody to say he did his duty, let him call on me and Jim—that’s all.

“We’d got out several pieces of the skeleton, and in five minutes more would have been in the chest. All at once Jim was took by the throat by one of them air ghosts, and at the same time a voice called out, ‘Leave or die.’

“Jim dropped his pick and yelled ‘murder’ as loud as he could.

[Sidenote: LOSING THE FORTUNE.]

“In less time than you could hold a red-hot nail in your eye without winking the chest sunk down out of sight and reach, the dirt rolled in on us; and if we hadn’t got out as quick as we could jump, it would have buried us. And the odd thing about it was, that the bones went in before the dirt did, and settled down jest as they were before we disturbed them. We had nothing more to do. Our fortune was gone, and it was all because Jim hadn’t put a big plaster over his mouth so as he couldn’t holler.”

Here Mr. Sanborn took another drain at the bottle, and suddenly relapsed into silence.

LXII.

OPERATIONS AT HELLGATE.

HELLGATE AND SANDY HOOK.—ENTRANCES TO NEW YORK HARBOR.—THE HELLEGAT AND ITS MEANING.—STORIES OF THE OLD VOYAGERS.—EDITORIAL JOKES.—MAILLEFERT’S OPERATIONS.—DEEPENING THE CHANNEL.—GENERAL NEWTON.—THE AUTHOR ON AN EXCURSION.—BLOWING UP COENTIES’ REEF.—HOW IT IS DONE—AN ACCIDENT WITH NITRO-GLYCERINE.—THE AUTHOR’S NARROW ESCAPE.—DIVER’S EXPERIENCE.—ASTONISHING THE FISHES.—RECEPTION AT HALLETT’S POINT.—GOING UNDER THE REEF.—THE MEN AT WORK.—AN INUNDATION.—HOW THE REEF IS TO BE REMOVED.—SURVEYING IN THE WATER.—A GRAND EXPLOSION.

From the Atlantic Ocean there are two entrances into the harbor of New York; one by way of Sandy Hook, and the other through Long Island Sound and the East River. For a steamer coming from Liverpool, the nearest entrance is through Long Island Sound. The Sandy Hook entrance is obstructed by sand bars; the channel is tortuous, and accidents are not uncommon. The entrance to Long Island Sound is broad and easy, but between the Sound and the East River there is a very dangerous passage, which extends, however, less than a mile. This dangerous passage is popularly known as Hellgate ; the early Dutch navigators gave the place its name. Tradition says that a Dutch skipper, named Adrian Blok, called it the Hellegat Rivière, after a small stream in Flanders, the place of his nativity. There is nothing sulphurous in the name, Hellegat, which is said, by one writer, to mean “Beautiful Pass;” somehow, the transposition of the word into Hellgate, has given it an infernal aspect.

The early historians of Manhattan and its vicinity described the Hellgate as a very dangerous place; one of the earliest writers speaks of it as follows: “which being a narrow passage, there runneth a violent stream both upon flood and ebb, and in the middle lyeth some islands of rocks, which the current sets so violently upon, that it threatens present shipwreck; and upon the flood is a large whirlpool, which continually sends forth a hideous roaring, enough to affright any stranger from passing that way, and to wait for some Charon to conduct him through, yet to those who are well acquainted, little or no danger; yet a place of great defence against any enemy coming in that way, which a small fortification would absolutely prevent.”

Washington Irving humorously says of it, “At low water it is as pacific a stream as you would wish to see. But as the tide rises it begins to fret; at half tide it roars with might and main, like a bull bellowing for more drink; but when the tide is full it relapses into quiet, and for a time sleeps as soundly as an alderman after dinner. In fact, it may be compared to a quarrelsome toper, who is a peaceable fellow enough when he has no liquor at all, or when he has a skinful, but who, when half-seas over, plays the very devil.”

[Sidenote: JOKES ABOUT HELLGATE.]

Occasionally, certain witty editors of New York and Boston engage in little wordy contests in regard to the improvement of Hellgate: a Boston editor will say the widening and deepening of Hellgate will improve the entrance to New York! An editor of Manhattan Island will respond that the widening and deepening of Hellgate improves the road to Boston. Neither seems inclined to admit the existence of as much immorality in his own city as in the abiding-place of the other.

The removal of the rocks that lie in this passage between East River and Long Island Sound has been a subject of great anxiety with merchants of New York, and it seems a little strange that from the time of the settlement of New York until less than thirty years ago, very little had been done towards this work.

[Sidenote: MAILLEFERT’S OPERATIONS.]

As late as 1845, the channel had not even been surveyed; and it was not until the Office of the Coast Survey was reorganized, in 1847, that a careful examination of this perilous channel was undertaken. The first survey was made under the supervision of Lieutenant (now Rear Admiral) Charles H. Davis, towards the close of 1847. He made his report in February of the following year, giving a careful description of the rocks and currents of Hellgate, and suggesting a plan for the removal of the most serious obstructions. Nothing was done until the following year, when a new survey was made. A map was published, and in March, 1851, steps were taken to remove certain small but dangerous rocks by the process of blasting. The engineer in charge of this work was a Frenchman named Maillefert; he proposed to remove the rocks by exploding charges of powder against them.

The plan dispensed altogether with the slow and difficult process of drilling; he exploded his powder directly upon the rock, on the theory that the pressure of the water above the gas formed by the burning powder, would offer sufficient resistance to throw considerable force against the rock. His first blast was made on Pot Rock, and removed about four feet from its highest point. The plan was successful as long as the rocks were in a state of projection; but after these projections had been removed, and the explosions were made against a solid flat surface, they failed almost completely.

After this French engineer ended his operations, new surveys were made, and it was found that the channel, though greatly improved, was far from complete or satisfactory. Other surveys followed, and various plans were proposed; but the breaking out of the war for a time put a stop to the labors. In 1866 Brevet Major General Newton was sent by the War Department to examine the obstructions of Hellgate, and to arrange for their removal. In the following year he made his report, giving estimates of the time and money required to make a safe and easy passage-way for ships of all sizes: he proposed to remove, by blasting, the obstructions known as Pot Rock, Frying Pan, Way’s Reef, Shell Drake, Heeltap Rock, Negro Point, Scaly Rock, Hallett’s Point, and certain other rocks of smaller size.

He estimated that the channel could be made an average depth of twenty-five feet below low-water mark; that the work could be completed in six years, at a cost of about six million dollars.

Another plan included the removal of these rocks and four others in ten years’ time, at a cost of nine millions of dollars; and he presented another plan, by which some of the middle rocks should remain as they were; and the most serious obstruction, known as Hallett’s Point, could be removed in three years, at a cost of three millions.

[Sidenote: DANGERS OF HALLETT’S POINT.]

Hallett’s Point is the most dangerous obstruction in Hellgate. From shore to shore the distance is about six hundred feet; the reef extends more than three hundred feet from one shore, so that the actual width of the channel is reduced to three hundred feet.

The water boils furiously over this reef, and turns a large part of the tide upon the Gridiron Rock, frequently throwing ships upon it. The process of drilling and blasting was considered too slow and ineffectual, and it was proposed to remove the rock by sinking a shaft upon the shore, undermining the entire reef, leaving pillars to support the rock until the work of undermining was all completed, when, by a single explosion, these pillars could be blown away, the whole reef would fall, and the dangerous obstructions to the commerce of New York would be removed.

One pleasant day, in 1871, I was one of a party to visit the scene of General Newton’s operations. Our party embarked on a small steamer at the Barge Office, and proceeded up the East River, stopping on the way to examine the operations in progress for the removal of what is known as Coenties’ Reef. This reef is about six hundred feet from Pier No. 8, on the East River, and lies directly in the busiest part of the harbor of New York, almost in the track of the ferry boats between New York and Brooklyn, and has always been considered very troublesome and dangerous. Attempts have been made at various times to remove this reef, but none of them were successful until the plan of General Newton was tried. The reef is about 250 feet long, and is 130 feet wide in its broadest part. We found a large scow anchored above the reef, and were politely taken on board. The scow is very broad and heavy, and is firmly anchored, so that ships or steamers that run against it can be very little damaged.

In two or three instances, vessels that have come in collision with the scow have retired considerably damaged, while the large and unwieldy craft, remains unharmed.

As we went on board we were taken to the centre of the scow, where there was a circular well about thirty feet across; and in this well there was a dome, which could be raised and lowered by means of machinery. At the top of the dome there was a “telescope,” twelve feet in diameter, that could be extended or shortened in order to accommodate itself to the condition of the tide. The plan of working was to anchor the scow over the place where the rock was to be drilled, and then to lower the dome until it touched the rock. As soon as one part of it struck the rock, rods were pushed out from the side of the dome to rest upon the reef, and perform the work of feet: they readily adapted themselves to the inequalities of the rock, and as soon as they were fastened in their place the dome was almost immovable.

[Sidenote: DRILLING UNDER WATER.]

Inside the dome there were places for lowering drills, and working them, by means of machinery. The drilling engines were run by steam, and the drills, nine in number, were operated simultaneously; the nine holes that they made were in a circle of about twenty feet in diameter. The drill penetrated the rock from six inches to two feet an hour, according to its hardness. When a round of holes was made, the scow was hauled off, the holes were filled with charges of nitro-glycerine in tin cans, and everything was made ready for a blast.

The work of blasting has to be done very rapidly, for the reason that a diver can only go down to arrange the charges at the period of slack water. Everything is made ready at the turn of the tide, and the very instant that the tide falls the holes are charged.

We were not in time to witness a blast; and on two other occasions, when I went to see an explosion, the performance did not come off; some slight accident had happened, so that the slack water period had passed before everything was ready.

When the round of holes has been charged, the diver goes down. The pump to supply him with air is kept at work; the charges are lowered into the water one after the other, and placed in the holes where they belong. When he has arranged everything, he gives a signal and is drawn above. The boats then back away from the reef sufficiently far to be out of the way of the explosion.

[Sidenote: NITRO-GLYCERINE EXPLOSIONS.]

The nine charges are fired simultaneously by means of electricity. The double wire, insulated with gutta-percha, extends into a small cartridge of powder, which is placed in the top of each charge of nitro-glycerine. The ends of the wire are brought quite near each other, and between them a small slip of platinum is soldered. The current of electricity, passing through the wires, heats this platinum to redness, and sets fire to the powder around it. The powder explodes, and its explosion sets fire to the nitro-glycerine. As the battery which furnishes the electricity is on board the boat, the current is thrown into each pair of wires simultaneously and thus the explosions occur at exactly the same moment.

A column of water shoots up into the air, the rock is torn and broken, and there is a general disturbance of the water all round it: ships and boats are warned, by means of a red flag, to keep at a safe distance. It generally happens that a good many fishes that have been swimming around the rock at the time of the explosion are killed, and rise to the surface; those that are not killed are very much astonished, and swim away with great rapidity.

The experience of a diver going down to arrange the charges is not highly agreeable. If he remains longer than the period of slack water, he finds the current so strong that it almost carries him off his feet; and it frequently becomes necessary for him to be drawn to the surface and abandon his work until the next turn of the tide. Should an explosion occur while he is below, it would be pretty certain to cause his death.

The substance which he handles is not the safest in the world, but the engineers seem to be agreed that it is much better in every way than gunpowder. They say that accidents which have occurred from the use of nitro-glycerine have been caused by careless or ignorant handling, and that many accidents to which powder is liable will not occur with nitro-glycerine.

General Newton explained to us that a few days before our visit a slight accident occurred, which would have proved fatal had they been using powder. At that time they were using fulminating caps instead of electricity; one of the fulminating caps was ignited, and set fire to the charge of powder: the case was broken and the nitro-glycerine was spilled about, but nothing serious happened. Had they been using gunpowder instead, the consequences would have been fatal.

[Sidenote: EFFECTS OF NITRO-GLYCERINE.]

In nearly all the modern blasting operations in the United States, in Europe, and in many other places, nitro-glycerine takes the place of powder; it is much more powerful in its effect, a single charge of it breaking and shattering a rock much more than gunpowder. It has the advantage, too, of extending its force completely to the bottom of the hole, whereas gunpowder very frequently acts only part way down the hole.

My individual experience of nitro-glycerine has not been of the most pleasing character. In 1866 I sailed from New York for San Francisco by way of Panama; when we reached Aspinwall we crossed the Isthmus to take the Pacific steamer at Panama. It was nearly sunset when we climbed up the gangway, and stood upon her deck; an hour later, the tug with our baggage, and with the express freight and mails, came out. I was standing near the gangway when the baggage and express matter came on board, and I think, though I will not be positive about it,—and some of my acquaintances say it is very unlikely,—that I assisted in taking a few of the boxes over the rail. Everything was stowed away, and about ten o’clock at night we steamed down the Bay of Panama, and were on our way to San Francisco. We reached the latter city in safety on a Saturday morning, and I was introduced to a very large number of gentlemen, and most hospitably entertained.

Two or three days later, I was walking up Montgomery Street, and met a friend on his way to lunch at a well-known Club House: I would have accepted his invitation to lunch, only it happened that I had just breakfasted; and, bidding him good morning, or good afternoon, I walked slowly towards the Occidental Hotel. I had been there but a very few minutes before I heard a loud report, which jarred the whole building, and set people flying through all the corridors to ascertain what was the matter. I went out, and walked up the street the way I had come. The office of Wells, Fargo, & Co’s Express was, if I remember correctly, two blocks away from the hotel. It turned out that the explosion which had jarred all that part of the city, was in the office of the Express Company.

[Sidenote: A HORRIBLE ACCIDENT.]

To tell the story briefly, seventeen persons were killed, among them some of my personal friends, and as many more had been wounded. The Club House, where I was very near taking my lunch, had been blown up, and several persons who were sitting at the lunch-table were among the injured.

Among the boxes which had been on the steamer with me from New York to San Francisco, had been passed over the rail of the steamer at Panama, and which I had assisted in handling, there were two cases of nitro-glycerine.

One of these cases had exploded at the express office, its contents not being known, and consequently it had not been carefully handled, and in exploding it had set fire to the other. The force was sufficiently strong to cause a marvellous deal of damage, in and around the express company’s building, to break hundreds, if not thousands, of panes of glass, some of them three or four hundred yards away; and all agreed that if those cases had blown up on our steamer we never would have been heard of afterwards.

“Suppose, now,” said one of my fellow-travellers,—“suppose, now, those cases had exploded when we were taking them in at Panama. Why, the steamer would have gone, one half to the bottom, and the other half up in the air, and some of us might have come down a thousand miles away.”

A week or two after this explosion at San Francisco, there was one quite like it at Aspinwall, doing an amount of damage equal to, if not greater than the explosion at San Francisco. Since that time I have had a wholesome fear of nitro-glycerine, and am always inclined to keep at a respectful distance from it. It may be a very good thing in its way, it may be entirely safe if properly handled, but I greatly prefer that it should not be in my way, and that somebody else should handle it.

[Sidenote: AT HALLETT’S POINT.]

From Coenties’ Reef we went to Hallett’s Point, and were landed under the supervision of the general in charge. We were delivered over to the hands of the superintendent, Mr. Reitheimer, who entertained us very pleasantly, and showed great politeness to the ladies and gentlemen of the party, especially to the ladies. He explained all about the works, and opened a mysterious case. In a very short time our heads were full of tunnels, drifts, headings, drills, champagne, nitro-glycerine, reefs, derricks, pale sherry, and all that sort of thing. He showed us his plans and specifications, and then induced us to step into a wooden box slung at the end of a derrick, and be lowered away into a pit of fifty or sixty feet in depth.

This pit formed a shaft which had been sunk on shore to begin the operations upon the reef. From the shaft a series of tunnels extended very much like one’s outstretched fingers. Between the tunnels there were smaller tunnels, running from one to the other, leaving pillars to support the rock and the water above. A strong dam had been built around the mouth of the pit to prevent the water from flooding it. The tunnels or headings, as they were technically called, had been designated by names instead of numbers. Most of the men working there were Cornish miners, and they seemed not fond of numerical designations. The superintendent originally called the central heading Number One, but it was changed to Farragut Heading. The others in order after it were Madison, Humphrey, Hoffman, Sherman, Jefferson, Grant, McClellan, Franklin, and Jackson.

[Sidenote: UNDER HELLGATE.]

At the center of the reef the highest tunnel was known as Grant Heading. Nine feet of rock was left to form a roof. The rock was not very hard, but full of seams and fissures, through which the water constantly dripped. The narrow seams were closed by blocking, and when a wide seam was struck it had to be closed outside.

In one case the miners came upon a horizontal seam, through which the water poured at the rate of six hundred gallons a minute, and before the flow could be stopped, the miners were standing in three or four feet of water. Bags of clay were kept in readiness on the edge of the coffer-dam, over each heading, so that, whenever a seam was found, it could be closed as quickly as possible.

A large number of men were employed in these headings, drilling holes in the rock, and preparing for the great blast to come. For a long time, hand drills only were used, but the work was greatly facilitated by the introduction of drills operated by means of compressed air.

It was not until September, 1876, that the rocks of the reef were completely “honey-combed.” The process left a roof of rock, supported by piers, which were so perforated as to secure their destruction by the blast. The quantities of explosive materials, finally decided upon by General Newton and his engineers, were estimated as follows:—Dynamite, 25,976 pounds; Vulcan powder, 14,244 pounds; Rend Rock, 9,061 pounds; Dynamite in Primers, 3,500 pounds. Dynamite is simply nitro-glycerine mixed with sand, and the Vulcan and Rend Rock are brands of strongest blasting powder. Connected with the explosive material in each of the sealed canisters was a copper wire, and all these wires were connected with the coil attached to twenty-three powerful electric batteries. Thus, the batteries were connected with each canister, and operated upon each, while each canister was connected with and operated upon all the others. To make all these connections, about twenty-three miles of wire was used. The excavations in the rock were filled with water. It required 47,561 cubic yards to fill them. The water was let in at the rate of 2,000 cubic yards per hour, completing the filling at eight o’clock, Saturday evening, September 23d. Three hundred feet from the rock, General Newton had constructed a bomb-proof building, twelve feet square, in which he placed the batteries. The metallic plates were not submerged in the acids till noon of the next day (Sunday), so that the electricity could not be generated till near the time of the explosion, which had been fixed at 2:50 p. m.

[Sidenote: THE GREAT EXPLOSION.]

Guard boats were stationed on the river to force a suspension of navigation, and the police took up a line along the river front to guard against a too near encroachment by sight-seers. At 2:25 p. m. the first signal gun was fired, and, ten minutes later, a second gun announced the near approach of the dreaded hour. The assembled multitude awaited with breathless interest the last and most important scene in the Hellgate drama. Men and women stood, watches in hand, counting the minutes and seconds, or gazing anxiously across the water to where the great upheaval was to take place. All waited in anxious suspense, and finally, at exactly the appointed time, the tiny finger of little Mary Newton, three years old, guided by the firm hand of her father, pressed the magic key, the shock came, away went Hallett’s Point reef, and the fears of the timid were found to have been totally groundless. The shock was merely a dull, deadened sound, as of distant thunder, and the upheaval was less than might naturally have been expected from firing such an amount of explosives. The water rose up like a wall of many geysers to a height of from sixty to seventy feet. It appeared snow-white, and formed of huge cones which had dome-like terminations. There was so much spray between these cones, however, that the appearance of the water was that of a wall from which great columns stood out in high relief. Suddenly there came out from the eastward a dark cloud of mingled stones and earth, in front of which were huge wooden fragments of the coffer-dam. The roof of the mine seemed to rise to the surface, and then slowly sink to the bed of the river. The water, after receding, was black and discolored, and, after seething and boiling for a few seconds, apparently resumed its natural state. The concussion was slight, and crowds of people remained, in the vain expectation of witnessing something which would be on a more magnificent scale.

It was feared that the blasted rocks would pile up around the sides of the excavation, and form a dangerous temporary obstruction. As a precaution, three massive spar buoys were held in readiness to mark the locality until the work of sounding was finished, and the position of the débris discovered. The United States steamer Cactus on the afternoon of Monday, the 25th, began the work of laying out the buoys. The first sounding was made at a distance of two hundred feet from shore, along an arc around Hallett’s Point and over the exploded mine. Tour after tour was made at greater distances from shore, and with the shaft deeper in the water. Not a rock or obstacle of any kind was encountered during the afternoon. In referring to the record of water found at the different soundings, the number of feet reported may be considered the amount of water at mean or average low tide. When the work of excavation began, the tide-gauge showed four feet of water over the average low water mark. The trial-shaft made the tour unhindered at a depth of sixteen feet, thus demonstrating a safe passage for vessels of such a draft at a point where the day before a giant rock protruded from the water. The last trial was made at three hundred and fifty feet out, and showed a depth of twenty-one feet at low water.

[Sidenote: GENERAL NEWTON’S TRIUMPH.]

General John Newton may be said to have achieved a victory greater than any in war. The 24th of September ought hereafter to be celebrated as the jubilee day of commerce, and the anniversary of the greatest triumph of engineering science in history. The seven years’ toil on Hallett’s Point Reef at Hellgate has culminated in a grand coup de maître, which was successful in every detail and in the full accomplishment of all the results expected, and all without a single disaster to human life. Begun upon a carefully matured plan—carried on with the quiet, painstaking persistence of science—the long labor of demolishing the great obstacle to navigation has at last been completed.

LXIII.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

THE STONE AGE.—PICTURE OF ADAM AND EVE.—HOW EVE CUT THE APPLE.—MINERS OF ANCIENT TIMES.—DISCOVERY OF STONE IMPLEMENTS.—THE INVENTION OF FIRE.—HOW GOLD WAS FOUND.—COPPER AND BRONZE.—THE BRONZE AGE.—IRON AND ITS USES.—MINERAL PRODUCTIONS OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.—QUICKSILVER IN SPAIN AND CALIFORNIA.—THE WEALTH OF NEVADA.—ROMANTIC STORY OF THE COMSTOCK LODE.—MINERAL FUTURE OF AMERICA.

The most extensively worked mineral substance at the present day is coal, yet it is the most recent of mineral discoveries. Iron, copper, tin, and nearly all the metals were dug from the earth, and used long before the value of mineral coal was known.

In the earliest days of mankind, tools for various uses were made of wood, bones, or stone. The first tools were undoubtedly of wood, but the material was so perishable in its nature that no specimens from those early days have come down to us. Stone, being a harder substance than wood, and much more durable in its character, rapidly took its place. The period when the human race was in its infancy has been properly classified as the “Age of Stone,” for the reason that man at that time was ignorant of the use of metal. Many implements from the stone age have come down to us, and are found in various parts of the world. In the copper mines on the shores of Lake Superior, many tools have been found which were used by a race long extinct, and of which we have no history.

In opening one of these mines, several years ago, more than a hundred stone axes and wedges were discovered near a large mass of native copper, which had been moved a short distance, and supported upon sticks of timber.

No implements other than those of stone were found, and all of these had been broken in an unsuccessful attempt to cut the mass of copper in two. In various parts of America, Europe, and Asia, stone implements from the early days of the human race are found, and at the present time there are many savage tribes belonging practically to the stone age.

In some islands of the Pacific the people have not yet emerged from what is to us a very remote period. Barbarism under some circumstances may almost be considered perpetual.

The history of the early days of mankind upon the earth is very largely a matter of conjecture: much of it comes from tradition, and much of it from calculation. The great antiquity of the human race is a recognized fact, and geologists have shown that the period of early barbarism may have extended over tens of thousands of years. Civilization, properly speaking, began only with the discovery of fire and metals.

[Sidenote: DISCOVERY OF FIRE.]

Some of the Greek mythologists say that Prometheus stole fire from heaven. The more prosaic fact is, that fire was first discovered by means of lightning, which set fire to the forests, and thus revealed to mankind a new element in nature. It is probable that our first parents in the garden of Eden had no knowledge whatever of this element, or of the metals, or even of implements of wood or stone. Consequently the enthusiastic artist of the middle age, who drew a picture of Adam and Eve standing in front of a fire to warm themselves, and represented Eve holding a knife in her hand, with which she was cutting slices from the fatal apple to give to the waiting Adam, was guilty of anachronism.

There are other conjectures of the discovery of fire, but they are purely conjectures. Fire may have been known from the earliest ages, through volcanic eruptions and streams of lava.

People who lived far away from volcanos may have discovered it from the spontaneous combustion of wood after hot and dry summers, or of masses of weeds and rubbish thrown together, and forming peculiar chemical combinations. It is possible that other people may have discovered fire by means of flint, or they may have obtained it by rubbing two pieces of dried wood against each other, according to the practice of the present day among many savage people.

At any rate, it is probable that the discovery of fire led to that of metals. Fires built against certain rocks may have calcined them, and caused the metals which they contained to be fused together. By some it is thought that the first metal discovered was gold, which existed in the sands of the streams, and would naturally attract attention by its shining appearance.

Even if gold were the earliest discovery, it exercised no great influence on the civilization of the human race; but it was otherwise with the discovery of the commoner metals. From the time these were known, the human race made rapid progress, and written history began with them.

The discovery of copper and tin preceded that of bronze, which is an alloy of these two metals. Copper may have been discovered in its natural state, or in combination with other substances, which could easily be removed by the action of fire. The metal was soft and easily fashioned, but there are many purposes which it could not be made to answer. The localities where this metal was first discovered are not positively known. Some contend that it came from India, while others give credit to that part of England known at the present time as Cornwall.

[Sidenote: THE AGE OF BRONZE.]

The alloy of copper and tin for the formation of bronze grew into very rapid use, and it was made of various degrees of hardness, according to the purpose for which it was intended. Wedges, knives, axes, saws, fish-hooks, ploughshares, picks, and a thousand other implements for the uses of peace or of war, were made of bronze. It could be melted and cast in moulds, or it could be hammered and fashioned at the will of the smith. With bronze the art of moulding began. Bronze was used for money. It was cast into utensils for kitchens, and parlors, and other apartments of dwellings. It was fashioned into statuary, and sometimes into statuary of a very vulgar character. Weapons were made of it, such as the heads of arrows, lances, and javelins, swords, shields, and helmets; while it was useful in peace, it was likewise useful in war. A French writer has said, “The art of killing one another will advance at the same time as all the other arts.”

Lead, silver, and quicksilver were discovered about the same time as copper. A long period may have elapsed after the discovery of bronze before that of iron. Doubtless this was in a great measure because bronze supplied all the requirements of the arts of peace as well as of war, and would naturally precede iron, because it was more readily and easily worked. The reduction of iron ore has always been a delicate process, and is attended with more or less difficulty. A strong current of air was required to give sufficient heat to melt the iron. It is quite likely that the first blast furnace was made from the hollow trunk of a tree containing a piston, moving up and down like that of an ordinary pump. This method is still in use among the Malays and the African negroes. While the Polynesians are still in the stone period, the Malays and negroes are just entering the first cycle of the iron period.

Some of the philosophers suggest that this is by the desire of the Ruler of the universe, in order to guide the civilized man of to-day in the study of the early history of his race.

[Sidenote: THE AGE OF IRON.]

For a long time iron was only used in its malleable form. The discovery of cast iron was not a prime necessity, since its place was well supplied by bronze. Historians tells us that cast iron was discovered about the time of the invention of gunpowder. It was used for making shot, and afterwards for making the guns by which the shot were projected. The English were the first to adopt them, and tried them against the French in the battle of Crécy, about the middle of the fourteenth century.

Step by step furnaces were constructed, and almost every decade witnessed some kind of improvements in their management. Then came the invention by which steel could be manufactured on a large scale. The rapid increase in the use of iron dates, as before stated, from the general use of mineral coal.

Pages could be covered with details of the uses of iron and steel. The production and consumption of these metals amount to millions of tons annually, yet the demand never exceeds the supply. They are fast replacing timber and stone for many uses, and they are substituted for bronze in ornamental castings. No tools or weapons can be made without them. They constitute parts of nearly all machinery; and turn where we will,—wherever civilized men are to be found,—we shall see iron and steel occupying prominent places.

[Sidenote: COUNTRIES THAT PRODUCE IRON.]

Deposits of metals are found in all parts of the globe. Great Britain is rich in lead, and tin, and iron, and in some localities gold has been discovered. She furnishes other countries with some of her metals, and those which she does not find in sufficient quantities for her own wants she brings from abroad. Many of the metallic ores of other countries are sent to England to be smelted and reduced. On the continent of Europe there are copper mines, silver mines, iron mines, and mines of nickel, zinc, and tin. Some of the deposits of metallic ores are very great. In one place in Swedish Lapland there is a hill rising out of the swampy ground, where there are veins of iron ore, some of them two hundred feet in thickness. Belgium, in proportion to her size, produces more iron than England. Along the valley of the Rhine and its tributaries there are rich deposits of the various metals, some of them of great extent. Russia is rich in mines; and as we go from European to Asiatic Russia, we find that the richness continues.

France has large supplies of iron, and on a small scale she possesses the other metals. In Spain there is great mineral wealth, and some of the mines of that country have been exploited for thousands of years. The most celebrated quicksilver mine in the world is that of Almaden, situated in Spain; and it has been continually worked for three thousand years. Until the discovery and working of the New Almaden quicksilver mine, in California, the famous mine of Spain controlled the quicksilver market of the globe. In Northern Italy there are many districts rich in metallic ores. Throughout Asia, from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean, there are mines of all the metals, some of them of great richness. Mining industry in that part of the world is still in its infancy, and great discoveries and great progress may be looked for within the next hundred years.

In Africa, as well as in Asia, there are rich mineral deposits, though comparatively little is known about them. The new world is not behind the old in its mineral wealth. Every known mineral substance is found here; and there are evidences that the mines were worked thousands of years before Columbus made his famous voyage across the Atlantic. Some of the largest metallic veins in the world are in America.

Mexico, Peru, and other Spanish settlements on this side of the globe are almost unparalleled in richness. California alone has furnished an immense amount of gold to the hard money circulation of the world, and is destined to furnish still more.

[Sidenote: SILVER IN AMERICA.]

Nevada and the territories lying around it have a wealth of silver unknown, and doubtless inexhaustible. The copper mines of Lake Superior have become famous throughout the world; and the iron mines of the great Mississippi valley and the Atlantic slope may yet supply the world with the most useful and most generally needed metals.

Probably the richest mines yet known are those situated on the famous Comstock lode, in Nevada.

From 1862 to 1865, including both these years, the mines on that lode yielded about forty-eight millions of dollars, and since that time the return has averaged more than twenty millions of dollars annually. The produce of silver from the Comstock vein is about one fourth of the entire amount furnished by all the silver mines in the world. It exceeds the aggregate produce of all European countries, and equals that of the entire western coast of South America.

A French engineer, who visited Nevada some years ago, wrote of it as follows:—

“Its extraordinary productiveness has made the Washoe region more famous for its mineral wealth than many places where silver ores have been found, and mined for centuries. It has attracted an enormous civilized population. It has built cities in the desert, and roads across high mountain ranges, accelerated the union by steam of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America, created a new branch of mining industry in the Pacific states, and given successful employment to large amounts of capital.”

The original mine of the Comstock vein is known as the Gould and Curry. It originally belonged to two men whose names it bears. Gould sold out his share for a pair of blankets and a bottle of whiskey. Curry disposed of his interest for a horse and two thousand dollars. One of the mines on the same vein was bought one day for two thousand dollars, and six weeks afterwards was sold for nine hundred thousand. Some of the most remarkable mining speculations ever known in the history of the world have occurred in Nevada.

A long story could be told of the various countries of the world, and of the productions for which they are famous; but it is hardly necessary in this place, and very likely would become tedious. Scarcely any part of the globe can be mentioned where some mineral of value is not found, and the various substances seem to be distributed in such a way as to develop intimate relations among the various members of the human family, and to draw nations nearer and nearer to each other.

[Sidenote: MINERAL EXCHANGES.]

England exchanges her iron and coal for the produce of other nations. Spain sends her quicksilver. Chili sends her copper. Mexico and Peru send their silver, and receive in return the articles which they need, and other nations can spare. Other countries send their minerals to distant markets, and receive in return the products of the countries where those markets exist. America, with her mines, is comparatively in a state of infancy; but the day will come—and it is not far distant—when she will be the great supplying centre of a large portion of the globe.

LXIV.

DIAMOND AND OTHER SWINDLES.

THE GREAT DIAMOND SWINDLE OF 1872.—HOW IT WAS ORGANIZED.—MAGNIFICENT PLANS OF THE SWINDLERS.—PLANTING A DIAMOND FIELD.—HOW THE FRAUD WAS EXPOSED.—A NEAT SWINDLE ATTEMPTED IN SAPPHIRES.—HOW IT WAS DISCOVERED.—A MYTHICAL COPPER MINE.—FATE OF THE SWINDLER.

The great diamond swindle of California will probably go down in history as one of the most magnificent frauds of this or any other age. There are some facts about the matter which have not yet been given to the public. When the operators first started their “plant,” they went to New York, and endeavored to enlist capitalists in that city. A friend of mine was thrown into contact with them, and from him I learned the points. They wanted half a million dollars for their claim. He looked at the diamonds, which appeared to be genuine, and he was allowed to apply the usual test of rubbing with steel files and with emery. They stood the test, and he offered to put ten thousand dollars into the scheme. Another friend (a friend of my friend) came forward, and as he had some money to spare, he was allowed to investigate the business; the twain were prepared with more files and emery, and they rubbed more of the diamonds.

The test was going on satisfactorily, when my friend, whom I will call Sharpley, happened to lay hold of a stone that yielded to the hard substances against which it was brought. Sharpley tried another side of it, and again it yielded. He was handling a piece of common crystal, and not a diamond, and his eyes were beginning to open. He became inquisitive enough for a son of Paul Pry, and the result of his questioning was, that he didn’t put his money into the speculation. Straightway he sought his friend, and actually found him arranging to draw the check that would have made him a twenty thousand dollar stockholder in the great diamond mine of Arizona.

[Sidenote: DISCOVERING A FRAUD.]

Sharpley talked to him like a Dutch uncle, and with some difficulty induced him to withhold the money for the present. I say with difficulty, for Sharpley’s friend had become as enthusiastic over the diamonds as a damsel of sixteen over her first beau, and was determined to go in anyhow. He half suspected that Sharpley wanted to keep others out so that he could get more stock for himself, and subsequently, when the stock was all taken, he upbraided Sharpley for keeping him out. He does not upbraid much now, but, on the contrary, quite the reverse. When the exposure came out, he thought how his twenty thousand dollars had been saved, and remembered that Sharpley had been the cause of its salvation. He sent a basket of the best champagne to Sharpley’s office, and it was while drinking a glass of the beverage that its recipient told me of his diamond experience.

“It was one of the best laid plants I ever saw,” said Sharpley, “and if it had not been for stumbling on that piece of crystal, I might have been taken in. They tried to explain to me that the crystal got in there by accident; but as they had previously told me that every stone in the collection had been examined by an expert, I knew there was a lie somewhere. They had a few rubies, which they claimed were found in the same locality, or near them. I looked at them, and was allowed to take one of them to a jeweller, who pronounced it genuine. That night I overhauled my encyclopædia, and studied up the character of diamonds and rubies.

“I found that the diamond consists of crystallized carbon, while the ruby, sapphire, and all that class of gems, are crystallized alumina. Next morning I went to one of the best geologists in New York, whom I happened to know well, and asked him if crystals of carbon and alumina could be found in the same locality.

[Sidenote: SCENE OF THE PLANT.]

“‘Most certainly not,’ was his reply. ‘Such a thing may be possible, but I doubt it very much.’

“‘What would you say,’ I asked, ‘if a man showed you a diamond and a ruby, and told you they were found side by side?’

“‘I should ask him if he knew the man that put them there; and if he insisted that they were natural deposits, I should change the topic of conversation for fear of saying something to wound his feelings.’

“I left the professor,” continued Sharpley, “and made up my mind to have nothing to do with the speculation, although I confess I was greatly puzzled. Apart from the statement of the geologist, and the discovery of the crystal which first caused my suspicions, everything appeared right enough. The parties were respectable, polite, intelligent, and wanted a good price for their property, or rather for half of it, as they only desired to obtain money to work their claim. They would not reveal the locality of the discovery, as it was upon unsurveyed ground, and they desired the passage of a bill by Congress to confirm their title to it. The mesa, or diamond-bearing ground, was minutely described, and was very much like the diamond-bearing localities of Brazil and India. Professor Janin, a scientist of repute, had been there, and staked his reputation on the genuineness of the discovery. He was sworn to secrecy, in order that there should be no jumping of the claim by the adventurous fellows who abound on the frontier, and to keep off everybody, in fact, until the proper title was secured, and the company was ready to go to work. Several persons who had investigated the matter as extensively as they could, were convinced of its correctness, and were ready to invest.

“Furthermore, the operators were anxious to get the claim to their land, and spent money to get it. General McClellan, Samuel Barlow, and others went into the operation, and you may be sure they don’t risk their money unless things appear pretty certain. McClellan, Barlow, and the rest, whom I will call the New York party for the sake of convenience, offered four hundred thousand dollars for the half interest, and had the money ready to put up. I surely expected the ‘planters’ would take this and clear out, as they would then make a handsome profit on the speculation. But they refused it, and, as they could get no more, they took up their bags of diamonds and went away. This again made the thing look genuine, and I was more puzzled than ever. I began to wish I had put in my money, and it was then that my friend, whose champagne I am drinking, blew me up for dissuading him from investing. I soothed him, and we determined to keep our mouths shut, and wait for what would turn up.

[Sidenote: HOW THE NEW YORKERS WERE CAUGHT.]

“Well, to shorten up the story, the planters went to San Francisco and got Ralston, and the rest of them to go in. When the company was organized, the New York party began to regret not having taken the thing at half a million, and they felt so bad about it that they asked the Ralston crowd to let them in on the bed rock organization. They urged the time, money, and influence they had used to get the grant from the government, and begged so hard that Ralston’s party finally gave them a chance. They won’t tell how much they lost, but I think there were five of them stuck for about twenty thousand apiece. There were other small fry, but they were not of much account.

“Now, there is another thing that hasn’t come out yet, but I am sure it will one of these days. There is a rich deposit of diamonds on this continent of North America, and some of the stones which have been exhibited came from it. Some of the diamonds used in getting up this plant were bought in London, and came from Brazil and South Africa, but there were others that certainly came from no diamond fields yet known. At least that is what some of the experts say, and if all the parties interested in the purchase of the Arizona mines,—I do not mean those who sold, but those who bought the half interest from the swindlers,—if all these parties were catechized searchingly, I have reason to believe that some of them would or could tell something that would be quite as startling as the original story of diamonds in Arizona. They had already taken steps to secure this new locality before the Arizona swindle was exposed, and had it not been for the sudden death of a gentleman connected with the negotiations, the business would have been completed ere this. The negotiations were hindered by his death, and it may be months before they are completed; but you can certainly look for a revelation some time in 1873 of great interest concerning diamond fields of wonderful wealth.”

“Why,” I asked, “did not the Arizona swindlers get up their speculation on the real diamond fields of which you speak? They could have made more money, and avoided the stigma of dishonesty which they must bear as long as they live.”

[Sidenote: A RICH MESA SOMEWHERE.]

“Simply because the swindle was much the easier thing. The real fields are practically inaccessible, except to a large and well-armed party, and under the sanction of another government than our own. A concession to hold and work them must be obtained, and this would take a long time. I will say this and no more—that they are north of the Isthmus of Darien, and are not in the United States. You may guess about their locality as much as you like, but for the present I can say nothing more. You see it was much easier to get up an excitement about Arizona or Colorado, and turn it into money, than to wait and work on the genuine enterprise. Men are not generally inclined to dishonesty unless they can make something by it.”

So endeth what I have to say about the diamond swindle.

Some other transactions of a kindred sort have come to my knowledge, and they may properly be told in this connection. A few years ago I was interested in the study of crystallizations, and made some experiments in the laboratory of a chemical friend. We tried a long time to get up rubies and sapphires, and followed the processes of Ebelman and Gaudin as closely as possible. Artificial crystals of alumina have been produced, but they have always been so small as to require a microscope for their discovery, and any attempt to color them has failed. In the course of our experiment we came in contact with a scientific gentleman of considerable repute. He assisted us in some of our efforts, but we never succeeded in them, not even producing the smallest crystal. Finally, we gave up the enterprise, and turned our attention to something else.

Three or four months later I met this scientist, Professor Blank, in the corridor of the Astor House. He was delighted to see me, and said he had called two or three times on business of importance, which he could only explain at his rooms.

We made an appointment for that evening, and he went away.

I was on hand at the appointed hour, and, after carefully locking the door, the professor became confidential.

[Sidenote: COUNTERFEIT SAPPHIRES.]

“You remember your experiments to produce sapphires,” he said, “and you also remember that I took great interest in them. When you were disheartened and gave up, I did not abandon hope, and at last I have been rewarded. I have produced a perfect sapphire by following another process from yours. You used alumina and boracic acid; I have been using the same things, but have added another acid, and an oxide that gives the color to the stone at the same time that it facilitates the crystallization. Here is the result.”

As he spoke he opened a table drawer, and from a small box produced three beautiful stones. Apparently they were sapphires of correct shape, color, and density, and worth a great deal of money. They reflected the gas light, and for a short time I saw a fortune before me. When I had examined them thoroughly and placed them on the table, the professor continued: “Now, these are sapphires made in my laboratory—just as Nature has made them in hers. They are of the same material as the natural sapphire, and a man can sell them for genuine stones and not be guilty of any fraud.”

I assented to his proposition.

“Here is a fortune in my secret; but to make the secret available, it is necessary to proceed with great caution. The instant it is known or suspected that the stones are made by an artificial process, the market will be ruined. I have thought the whole thing over, and determined upon a plan. We will form a small company, the fewer men in it the better, and fit up a laboratory in connection with a tin shop, or something of the sort. The shop will be a blind to prevent suspicion, and the laboratory can be in the rear, where we will pretend to have a new process for soldering tin. When the stones are made, we can put them on the market slowly, and sell them just fast enough to prevent getting up a panic.”

[Sidenote: A MAGNIFICENT SCHEME.]

He went on with the details of his scheme, which was plausible enough, only it was a trifle too large. Had he been an adventurer, I should have suspected him at once; but here was a scientific gentleman, whose name was on the title page of a book that had been received as an authority, and, so far as I knew, his reputation was without blemish. I was captivated by the brilliancy of the enterprise, and readily consented to join him and bring the matter to the attention of some of my friends. He wanted about twenty thousand dollars for a share in the secret, and as capital wherewith to set up and stock his proposed laboratory. To wind up the evening and leave me fully convinced, he opened a crucible, which, he averred, he had that afternoon taken from the furnace and laid away to cool. From the black mass of slag at the bottom he extracted a couple of sapphires, smaller than the ones he had previously shown me, but as perfect in every way as the others. My mind was nearly but not quite made up. I asked the privilege of taking one of these latest sapphires, and also one of the others, to show to a friend whom I wished to join me in the speculation.

The professor consented, with the injunction that I must not reveal the secret of their manufacture, and that I should be very cautious about exciting the suspicion of any outsider as to their artificial character. “We must be very careful,” said he, “not to let the dealers know that the stones are not dug from the ground, like all others in the market. They are in every respect the same, but the question of demand and supply tells more readily on precious stones than on anything else that men deal in.”

[Sidenote: FINDING A CLUE.]

Next morning I jumped into an omnibus and rode down town. I went to a lapidary on John Street, with whom I had a slight acquaintance, and at once showed him my sapphires. He looked at them just an instant, and asked what I wanted to know about them. I asked what he called those stones.

“Well,” he replied, with a smile, “they are very good imitations of sapphires.”

“Imitations!”

“Yes, imitations; I ought to know, for I made them myself.”

A gigantic flea at that instant—a flea as large as an elephant—entered my right ear, and jumped about like a schoolboy exercising across a gutter. The lapidary continued, that he made the stones to order, and three others at the same time, about a month before, but declined to tell me for whom they were made. They were made of strass, a fine article of glass, consisting mainly of potash, oxide of lead, borax, and silex. Nearly all artificial gems are made of strass, and the colors are obtained by adding certain oxides while the substance is in a state of fusion. Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and amethysts, made of strass, may deceive a novice, and even be made so skilfully as to require a careful test before deciding on their character; but you can no more sell them for genuine to a regular dealer than you can make a butcher buy a poodle under the belief that it is a bull-dog.

I returned the gems to the professor that evening, with the brief explanation that my friend was averse to a speculation on account of a lack of funds, and that an unexpected development had rendered it impossible for me to invest. He did not press for an explanation, and we separated with mutual regrets.

Another time a man who had been for several years on the Pacific coast came to New York, and lived a month or two at my hotel, without any appearance of business. I formed an acquaintance with him one day at the table, and found that he was a good talker, and well informed on mining matters. Our acquaintance ran on a week or so, and one day he invited me to his room, and showed me some specimens of copper ore. They were of wonderful richness, and while I was looking at them he explained that he knew where there was a vein six feet wide and a half a mile long of just such ore. He said it in the most careless way imaginable, and remarked that he thought he had about as good a thing as there was going.

[Sidenote: A BOGUS COPPER MINE.]

I thought so, too; and after a few minutes’ conversation we separated. Nothing more was said for several days, when finally he asked if I knew anybody who would like to join him in working the mine and sharing the profits. There was more than he wanted for himself, and he would like to be relieved of the trouble of looking after it. The mine was on the Colorado River, in Lower California, and was a very easy one to work. I took some of his samples of ore, and showed them to a speculating friend, who said, “This is a wonderfully rich ore, and there is no end of money in it, if he is talking the truth. It is worth looking into, but we must be cautious.”

Ten of us formed a company, and agreed to pay him a hundred thousand dollars for a half interest in the mine, if it turned out as he represented. He described it minutely, over and over again, and his story appeared perfectly plausible. He was ready to go there with any of us, show us the property, and satisfy us that he had told the truth. We sent one of our number to California with him, and at San Francisco a couple of gentlemen, to whom we had written, joined the twain, and made a party of four to go to the copper mine. All the way he talked about the mine—from New York to San Francisco, and from the latter city to the Colorado River. Several copper mines had been opened in that region, and he spent a day escorting the party among the reduction works of these companies. Up the banks of the river he led them about twenty miles from the last of these mines, and then acknowledged that the whole thing was a deception, and that he had no mine to sell.

The two Californians proposed shooting him on the spot; but the New Yorker had a prejudice against shedding blood, and persuaded his friends to let the scoundrel escape. He did not return with them, and he never reappeared in New York; but he did turn up in San Francisco, where he sold for ten thousand dollars (and obtained the money for it), a quarter interest in a mine to which he had no more title than I have to a township in the moon. He was a plausible wretch, and could look you straight in the eye while telling a lie as big and as plump as the swelled head of an Irishman the morning after a wake.

[Sidenote: SHOT BY MISTAKE.]

I believe he was subsequently mistaken for a coyote, and shot by a miner whose claim he had been endeavoring to steal and sell. The miner regretted the mistake, or, at all events, said that he was sorry that somebody else had not made the mistake, and made it earlier.

LXV.

PERQUISITES.

CURIOSITIES OF COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS.—PAYING COMMISSIONS IN EUROPE.—FUNNY EXPERIENCES.—SPREAD OF THE CUSTOM IN AMERICA.—HOW CONTRACTS ARE OBTAINED AND PAID FOR.—COMMISSIONS TO TRADESMEN AND OTHERS.—CURIOUS FEATURES OF THE PIANO TRADE.

American travellers in Europe frequently express astonishment at the commission system which prevails there among all classes of people. From the moment you land on European soil till the moment you leave it, you are the subject, or rather the object, of commissioners of every possible variety. I do not refer to the parties who expect and require you to pay money for direct services, but to those who make money out of you in an indirect way. You step on the dock at Liverpool or Havre, and an officious porter takes you in charge, and hands you over to a cabman. You pay the porter for his services, and think that the money you give him is all he receives. Not a bit of it. The cabman gives the porter a commission on the money which you pay for your ride, and very often this commission is a heavy one. Instances have come to my knowledge wherein the porter or servant engaging a carriage was paid twenty-five per cent. of the fare; and I once looked from a doorway in Rome, and saw the cabman give my valet de place exactly half the money which the former had received from me; and I had paid him only a few cents above the regular tariff. The couriers, or travelling servants, receive a commission on the hotel bills of the tourists whom they accompany, and also a commission on nearly all their bills of whatever sort. If you make purchases in shops, it will very likely make a difference of five or ten per cent. in your bills whether you are accompanied by a courier or valet. Some of these fellows are constantly urging you to go to shops where you are likely to buy something, and very ingenious are the devices by which they wheedle you, or endeavor to wheedle you, into buying something. The shrewdest of them pretend to be your friends, and take your part with a great deal of vigor. I have in mind a valet that a party of us hired, one day, to show us the sights in the vicinity of Naples. We thought he was a capital fellow, as he was exceedingly earnest in his efforts to save us from the grasp of the swindlers. There were many sights to be seen, and consequently many fees to be paid; and he took especial care that we did not pay too much. A custodian would demand four francs for admitting the party to the special curiosity in his charge. “Two francs is the proper charge,” our conductor would say; and if the custodian persisted in his outrageous demand, our guardian would threaten to erect a dormer window on him. We, of course, would pay the two francs, and rejoice that we had not been defrauded. We learned, next day, that one franc would have been sufficient, and that the extra franc was divided between the custodian and our valet. He made a nice day’s work of it, as he received, in addition to his hire and commissions, a present of five francs from us for his fidelity. When we returned to the city, he took us to a coral store, but declined to enter, as he feared the proprietor would take advantage of us on account of his presence, and charge an extra sum, on pretence of expecting to pay commission. We learned afterwards that this was one of the tricks of the trade. It made us more willing to purchase, as it threw us off our guard; and no doubt the storekeeper and the valet had a laugh over the circumstance when the latter received his commission. For ways that are dark, and for tricks that are not in vain, commend me to a courier or a valet de place in Europe.

[Sidenote: TRICKS UPON EUROPEAN TRAVELLERS.]

[Sidenote: REGULATING SWINDLES.]

Sometimes this universal practice of giving commissions leads to funny experiences on the part of travellers. In 1867, the year of the Exposition, it was my fortune to be in Paris, and to see the capital in its gayest and most prosperous times. Every Parisian, in whatever business engaged, was counting upon making a fortune, or, at all events, upon laying a broad and solid foundation for it. Prices were exorbitant; trade was brisk, and money was plenty. For had not the foreigners come from all parts of the globe, with abundance of cash, which they were scattering as the farmer scatters the grain he sows? The police came to the relief of the much-defrauded public; but though they regulated the cabmen and other public personages, they could not regulate the shop-keepers. Merchants would coolly demand a hundred francs for an article worth no more than twenty, and when you taxed them with an attempt to swindle, they explained that they must live, and that rents were very high. One day I found a small spot of grease on my hat, and stepped into a hat store close by the Grand Hotel. The shopman examined the hat for at least a minute, and then sent for the foreman of the work-room. The latter came, and the twain held a solemn consultation, that resulted in a proposition to eradicate the obnoxious grease if they could have three days’ time, and at an expense of twelve francs. I declined, and walked out. The same afternoon, at a small hat store in the Latin Quarter, the stain was removed inside of ten minutes, by the use of a hot iron; and the whole work cost but half a franc.

[Sidenote: AN AMUSING EXPERIENCE.]

There were lots of Americans in Paris at that time, and the most of them did not know enough French to swear in, much less to make a purchase, or order a breakfast. They used to fall upon such of us as knew the language, and compel us to act the part of valets in accompanying them on shopping tours. Very soon we were utterly sick of this amusement, and used to invent all sorts of excuses to be rid of it. One day I had some fun that lasted me a week at least, and was a standing joke, which several of my friends enjoyed hugely. A gentleman and lady of my acquaintance induced me to accompany them to a shop on the Rue de la Paix, where I was to act as their interpreter in some projected purchases. I was the go-between in the transaction, and faithfully rendered the English of the patrons into the French of the shop-keeper, and vice versâ. The purchases amounted to nearly three hundred francs; the goods were wrapped, and the money was paid over. My friends were taking a final glance into the show-cases on one side of the shop, while I was looking at something on the other side, and holding, by accident, my open hand on the counter. The shopman slipped a twenty-franc piece into my hand. His action surprised me for an instant; but I speedily comprehended the situation, closed upon the coin, and then took a sly glance at it. “Dix francs encore,” I demanded, in a whisper, and shook my head. There was a look of expostulation on the face of the merchant; but I repeated my demand, and received the extra ten francs. We left the shop, and I kept the occurrence to myself until evening, when I narrated it, in the café of the Grand Hotel, to a little group which included the gentleman whom I had accompanied. He was boasting of the cheapness with which he bought his articles that day, and recommended the shop as the most honest one in Paris. Then I came out with my story, and produced the identical money received from the dealer in bijouterie. The champagne which was bought with those thirty francs proved to be a very good article, but somewhat high priced, though no more so than the like material which my patron was obliged to purchase as soon as my commission was expended. He did not hear the last of that affair for some time, nor did I.

The foregoing is a prologue to a few remarks—rather a long prologue, I admit—upon the fraud of this custom of giving commissions in America. How long it has existed here, I do not know. Quite likely the fellow who negotiated the sale of Manhattan Island for twenty-four dollars, in the days of Hendrick Hudson, received a commission for his services; and it may be that the ministers who surrounded Ferdinand and Isabella, and persuaded them to listen to the daring Genoese navigator, and favor his project for a new route to the Indies, received a commission from Columbus as soon as the money for equipping his fleet was secured from the king and queen. History records that the Mayflower was very poorly equipped when she sailed with the Pilgrims for Plymouth Rock, and that the contractors who furnished her did not comply either with the letter or spirit of their agreement. If the matter could be investigated, I have little doubt we should find that the contractors were obliged to pay a commission to somebody, and that they found it so heavy as to take away all their profits, and compel them to the dreadful alternatives of being dishonest or losing money by the operation. At any rate, this is frequently the case nowadays, and I have known a man to be pressed so sorely by the commission-seekers that he found a contract, originally supposed to be very fat, to turn out so lean as to be no better than a skeleton. Particularly is this so with matters connected with the city government in New York.

[Sidenote: STORY OF THE TAMMANY RING.]

In the days of the Ring, a man would seek, we will say, a contract for paving a certain number of streets. He would pay a member of the Board of Aldermen to introduce a resolution authorizing the said pavement. Then a committee would be appointed to investigate the matter, and the committee would need something to help support their families, and also to secure a favorable report. Next it would be necessary to interview a sufficient number of the members to make a majority, and then the resolution would go through. The same course would be followed with the Board of Assistant Aldermen before the resolution would become a law of the city, and enable the pavement to proceed. And when the work is finished, there is trouble about getting the money for it. First comes the inspector, who is to pronounce upon the work, and say whether the terms of the contract have been met. His salary is small, and his expenses are large. He is the head of a numerous family, and is required to contribute to the success of his political party; and such success requires money. A judicious salve of greenbacks spread over the contract enables him to see as he should see, and he reports favorably. Then come the Board of Audit, Supervisors, and the like. They may not all need money; but there are certain members and attachés who are poor, but dishonest, and are struggling manfully against the floods and storms of this wicked and weary world. Delays are dangerous and vexatious, and to secure expedition and favorable action, there is nothing so good as money. And then there is the work of getting the money after the payment has been ordered, and very often somebody in the financial department of the city and county of New York will demand and receive his commission. Then there are outside bills to persons of influence, and when one has been settled, another and another will make its appearance.

[Sidenote: UNDERCURRENTS OF CONTRACTS.]

I have made no fancy sketch. This is the history of many a contract—probably of most of the contracts—with the city government of New York in the past twenty-five years. And it is for this reason that such exorbitant prices are paid for paving, street cleaning, and all other city work; and it is for this reason that many contracts which appear exceedingly profitable on their face, really furnish little or no profit. I have known several men who had large contracts on which they actually lost money, and I have in mind one who was driven into bankruptcy by a contract out of which he expected to make a large amount of money. He had calculated upon a shave of fifty per cent., and made his terms accordingly. But his actual proceeds were only twenty-two per cent. of the face of the contract, and even for that amount he was compelled to wait so long that he could not meet his outstanding bills, and became a financial wreck. Other city governments may be bad, but I think none of them are equal to that which has its scene of operations on Manhattan Island. I leave out of the case altogether the forgeries and raised bills of the Ring operators, and consider only those contracts which may be classed as strictly legitimate.

[Sidenote: THE HOTEL-KEEPER AND ALDERMEN.]

There is a good little story which is told of a noted hotel-keeper, whose name I will not mention, though there are dozens of New Yorkers who can give it, and can vouch for the correctness of the narrative. Some years ago there was a foreign embassy here, and the city government showed many attentions to it. Our Boniface obtained from the Board of Aldermen an order for a grand dinner to the embassy, and a splendid affair it was. The bill was about three times what it should have been; but Boniface was a good fellow, and agreed to divide with the aldermen if they would put it through. They did so, and, what was more, they ordered the immediate payment of the money. It was paid; and Boniface sent word to the members who had befriended him to come to the hotel at a certain hour, next day, and he would do the handsome thing. They came promptly, every man of them, and were assembled in one of the parlors. Boniface was among them, with a greeting for everybody, and he poured out his wine in the most liberal manner. He was a good talker, and kept them amused with his wine and his stories for a full hour or more. But time was pressing, and some of them hinted that they had better end the business, and separate.

“Don’t go yet,” said Boniface; “take some more wine.”

They took it, and hinted that they came for the divide.

“Take some more wine, boys; I’m going to do the handsome thing.”

“But that divvy, Bonny,” urged one of the party. “We can’t stay longer, as we have a meeting this afternoon, and it is almost time for it.”

“Boys,” said the hotel-keeper, “I’ve just ordered a basket of this wine for each of you, and you will find it at your houses when you go home.”

“Hang the wine! We want that money, and that’s what we came for.”

“Now, boys,” said Bonny, seating himself in an arm-chair, and smiling till his mouth resembled the entrance to a railway tunnel, “I suppose you’d call me a d—d skunk, if I went back on you, and didn’t hand over a cent.”

“Of course we should,” said half a dozen, almost in unison; “but we don’t think you’d do that.”

“Well, that’s just about the size of it,” he replied. “I’ve got the money, and mean to keep it. You may have all the wine you want, but I’m not going to corrupt you with money, and you may call me what you d—n please. Have some more wine, boys; have some more wine.”

The boys were in no mood for drinking just then. They went away sorrowing, and they all cursed him in all the epithets known to the language. It is even said that they offered liberal premiums to anybody who would invent fresh forms of swearing, so that they could speak their minds fairly. Common profanity wouldn’t do.

[Sidenote: AN UNDERTAKING COMMISSION.]

Few persons have any idea of the extent of this commission business in ordinary affairs. I mean those unconnected with politics. It would be difficult to name any branch of business where commissions are not paid to somebody. Lawyers give commissions to those who send them clients; doctors pay those who recommend them to patients; grocers, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers pay commissions to those who send them patronage; tailors, milliners, haberdashers, confectioners, florists, bar-keepers, taverners—in fact, nearly all persons who buy, or sell, or fill orders, are obliged to pay commissions to somebody. Railway companies, steamship companies, and dozens of other corporations—reputed to be without souls—pay commissions, and will continue to pay them to the end of time. Even undertakers are not exempt. I know of two cases wherein they have paid for the business which came to them, and have heard of several others. One that was told me a few weeks ago was as follows: A woman in a fashionable boarding-house died suddenly, and her husband asked the landlady to send for an undertaker. She did so, and the job proved a good one, as the bereaved husband was possessed of considerable money, and wished to do the thing up in style. He told the undertaker to make the funeral a swell one, and not to stand on expense. The undertaker obeyed orders, and the affair was the envy of the remaining boarders in the house. A day or two after the payment of the bill, the landlady called at the coffin shop, and quietly hinted that a death in a house is a sad thing, especially in a boarding-house. The undertaker assented, and without further parley drew a check for fifty dollars, which consoled the unhappy matron, and turned her sorrow into delight. When another boarder dies she will not forget this slight testimonial of the undertaker’s respect and esteem.

[Sidenote: TAILORS AND THE BILLS THEY PAY.]

Many a nice young man about town is clothed free of expense by fashionable tailors who have an eye to business, and know it is to their advantage to keep the much viewed swells in fine garments. Grocers, butchers, bakers, and all men of their ilk, pay commissions to house servants much oftener than their employers imagine. The custom has become very general in New York in the past few years, and in some households the wages of the servants are the smallest part of their incomes. On New Year’s day the grocers send presents to the servants, generally a bottle of whiskey or gin to each cook or kitchen maid, and the result is, that, in a good many houses, the servants below stairs, on the first day of January, are quite as drunk as the majority of the visitors and entertainers in the parlors above. At the railway and steamboat landings, the hackmen frequently pay commissions to the policemen who allow them good places in the line, and do not press them to move on. Policemen, by the way, make a great many commissions—when their consciences are flexible—from gin-shops, gambling-houses, and other establishments which may as well be nameless, and in the same way hotel clerks and hackmen are enabled to add materially to their regular incomes. The hotel clerks come in for commissions on the tailors, and the same is the case with others who come in contact with strangers. For example, there is a tailor in New York who is understood to have friendly relations with one of the consulates,—I don’t mean with the consul, but with some of the subordinates. When a foreign traveller drops into this consulate, and says, “I want some clothes, you know, and I want to know, you know, where I can find a good tailor, you know,” some one is moved to say, “My dear fellow, you know, go to ——‘s; here’s his card; awful nice tailor, you know; will just suit you, my boy.” The traveller goes, and remarks to the tailor that they told him at the consulate that this was the place. Is it anybody’s business if somebody gets the handsome thing done for him?

[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION TO GAMBLERS.]

There is one trick in the business which has been adopted by many people, but the point of it is rarely seen by the victim. It is that of giving a letter of introduction by way of holding a tighter grip on the party to be skinned, and also of avoiding a dispute as to the validity of the claim for a commission. Jones, from the country, is stopping at the Bangup Hotel, and asks the clerk to direct him to a good, respectable gambling-house, or something of the sort, as he is a stranger in town, and doesn’t know the ropes. Clerk tells him, for instance, that Heenan’s or Morrissey’s is just what he wants, and draws from his pocket a card, on which is printed the name of the clerk of the Bangup. Then he writes on the back thereof, “This is my particular friend, Mr. Jones: treat him kindly; show him every attention, and charge it to me.” “Be sure and hand him this card,” the clerk enjoins; “otherwise he won’t know you, and won’t show you any more attention than anybody else.” Jones delivers the card, is treated politely, and often leaves a hundred dollars or so in the house, and is satisfied. So also is the clerk when he receives his share of the proceeds.

A few years ago there were two hotels, one in New York, and the other in a western city, which were run in a sort of half-way partnership. Suppose you were a patron of the New York concern, and were about going to the other city: mine host of Manhattan would say, “Let me give you a letter to my cousin,” and forthwith he wrote a warm letter, in which you were represented as a particular friend,—you will always find a “particular” in the letter,—one of the best of men, a gentleman in the true sense of that word, and one whose acquaintance would be an honor of which the President of the United States and the Emperor of Russia might be proud. You would be deserving the highest respect, and should receive the very best the house could afford.

[Sidenote: A MODEL LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.]

You took the letter,—I have seen several of them,—and went to the house named in it. I never knew anybody who received any special courtesy in consequence, but he generally found his bill from twenty to fifty per cent. higher than it would have been had he brought no introduction. The two hotels played that game a long time before travellers found them out, and it was astonishing how long it took to discover the trick. A friend of mine once arrived here from the hotel at the other end of the line. I met him at the dock, and urged him to go to the house where I lived. “No,” said he, “I have a letter from —— to his cousin here, and I am going to that hotel. Just look at that letter.” I read the document, which was one of the most fulsome things you ever saw, and would clearly entitle my friend to canonization. He went to the hotel, was politely received, crammed into a room under the eaves, and about as large as a cigar-box; could not get moved lower down, though they promised every hour that they would transfer him on the next; and after staying there four days, left in disgust, with the additional affront of a bill, in which there were all real and several erroneous extras at the highest possible or impossible rates. The real wording of that letter should have been,—

“This is one of our patrons; stick him in anywhere, and charge him all you can.”

[Sidenote: COMMISSIONS IN THE PIANO TRADE.]

I presume the business that pays more commissions than any other is that of making and selling pianos. In the first place each large establishment usually keeps a man to write its advertisements and look after its business relations with the press and advertising mediums generally. One manufacturer, a shrewd foreigner, is understood to employ one of the musical critics, who not only prepares pamphlets and advertisements, but devotes his criticisms as far as possible to the interest of his master. Then, most of the distinguished pianists who come here are each paid by some one of the manufacturers to toot for his piano. If you look at the programmes of these piano concerts and recitals, you will generally see a line announcing “The Muggins piano is exclusively used at this concert, and recommended by Herr Ivorypounder.” One pianist, now in this country, was brought here by a piano maker who guaranteed forty thousand dollars for a six months’ tour; and another foreign pianist, now here, has a similar guarantee of twenty thousand. It is safe to say that half the noted foreign pianists are imported by the piano makers, and that half the rest are engaged and subsidized by the makers soon after they get here. Then, most of the concert tours are backed by the piano men; and I know several instances in which they have been directly organized by them. They may lose money on the tour itself, but they make money out of the extra sales of pianos. Then they are obliged to pay commissions to music stores and to music teachers who recommend their wares and effect sales, and frequently to persons totally unconnected with musical matters, such as upholsterers, carpenters, and friends of the families where pianos are bought. I know an instance wherein a man who was paying attention to a young lady received two hundred and fifty dollars from a piano dealer for turning the attention of his loved one from the instrument of Stiggins to that of Wiggins. He accompanied her to the store, where she made her purchase; her papa sent his check next morning, and in the afternoon her dear Charles Augustus called for and obtained his commission. And he is not the only society man, by a long way, who makes something out of the piano dealers.

The daughter of a wealthy citizen not long ago wanted a piano, and the wealthy citizen told her to select one. The house was undergoing some repairs and alterations, and the carpenters and upholsterers were at work there. Maria was taking music lessons, and appealed to her teacher for advice; the latter recommended a Muggins, and in the course of a week or so the piano was bought and sent home. The teacher was suddenly called out of town, and did not visit Muggins until ten or twelve days after the purchase. When he asked for his commission, Muggins told him it was already paid.

“To whom?” was the question, with emphasis of astonishment.

“To Reps & Co., upholsterers.”

[Sidenote: TRICK OF REPS AND COMPANY.]

“What right had they to it?”

“They came here next day after the piano was sent home, and said they were upholstering the house, and were consulted about a piano. They recommended mine as specially adapted to the house, and said it was bought through their influence. I paid them the commission. Since then the carpenters have been here, and now you make the third applicant. I am sorry it has happened so, but take a check for fifty dollars, and whenever you influence another sale, let me know at once.”

The music teacher was badly sold, as it afterwards turned out that Reps & Co. did not know a word about the piano till they saw it in the house. Had he been as sharp as some others of his profession, he would have notified each of the piano makers, as soon as Maria broached the subject, that he was trying to sell his piano, and then, no matter whose make she selected, he would have obtained his honestly earned commission.

LXVI.

THE WIELICZKA SALT MINES.

THE GREAT WIELICZKA SALT MINES, THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD.—THEIR HISTORY.—EXTENT AND PRODUCT.—DESCENT INTO AND EXPLORATION OF THEM.—WHAT IS TO BE SEEN.—MINERS AT WORK BLINDFOLDED.—WONDERFUL CHAMBERS.—GLOOM CONVERTED INTO SPLENDOR.—BANQUETS IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH.—THE INFERNAL LAKE.—HUMAN DEMONS.—AWFUL APPARITIONS.—EXTRAORDINARY NARRATIVES.

The Wieliczka salt mines in Galicia, Austrian Poland, are probably the largest and most productive on the globe. They are generally called the Cracow mines, though they are ten miles from the ancient capital of Poland—perhaps because Wieliczka (pronounced Vyalitchka) is so much harder for the tongue to master. They are connected with the mines of Bohemia,—this town is some eighteen miles east of Wieliczka,—and extend over a space two miles long, and nearly one mile broad, with a depth varying from six hundred to eleven hundred feet. The time of their discovery is unknown; but it is held that salt was obtained from them in small quantities as early as the eighth century. That they were worked in the beginning of the twelfth century, when they belonged to Poland, there can be no manner of doubt. Less than two hundred years later, they had grown so productive, that Casimir the Great established rules respecting them. In 1656 they were ceded to Austria, and twenty-seven years after recovered by John Sobieski. Austria again obtained possession of them at the first dismemberment of Poland, and has held them from 1772 to the present time, except for the six years preceding 1815. They have been a great source of wealth to the empire, and from them the Polish monarchs have drawn their principal revenues. So important were they considered, that, at each royal election, the Polish nobles stipulated that the salt of Wieliczka should be furnished to them at cost. The mines have never yielded so abundantly as at present; the annual product being, I have understood, about six hundred thousand tons, which, at ten dollars a ton—the usual market rate—creates a revenue of some six million dollars. As many as fourteen or fifteen hundred men, and as many as six or seven hundred horses, are generally employed in extracting the salt, which is found in lenticular masses inclined at a high angle. The salt varies very much in purity. Some of it, called green salt, has six or seven per cent. of clay; another kind (spiza) is mixed with sand, and the third and best sort (szybik) lies at the lower levels in unadulterated and beautifully transparent crystals. The Bohemian mines employ six or seven hundred workmen, and yield from two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand tons of salt yearly. The figures I give, I obtained on the spot, and they may therefore be regarded as accurate.

[Sidenote: ENTERING A SALT MINE.]

A few years ago I made a special journey from Vienna, in order to go through the Wieliczka mines, in which I had felt a great interest ever since the geography of my boyish days had introduced me to their acquaintance. I had no trouble in procuring a ticket of admission at the Château of Wieliczka; and, well supplied with kreuzers for the workmen, I changed my clothes, and announced myself ready for the descent. There are ten or twelve shafts, but I asked to enter by the one the miners generally used. This is rather primitive,—material improvements having been made in some of the others,—or rather the means of descent are primitive. I was assigned to the charge of two miners, who were as stout, and hardy, and grim-looking as if they had toiled in the bowels of the earth—as no doubt they had—nearly all their lives. They were provided with torches, and they handed me one, at the same time showing me a place in the cap I had put on into which I could thrust the torch for convenience in carrying it. At the top of the shaft was a kind of windlass for letting us down, the construction of which I did not examine. A long vertical iron bar was in the centre of the shaft, and about this bar was a steel ring, to which iron baskets or chairs were fastened by chains.

[Sidenote: DESCENDING IN DARKNESS.]

In these we took our seats, our legs hanging down, while we held to the chains above. At a given signal, the steel ring slipped along the bar, and we went smoothly and steadily down. The sensation very closely resembled that of descending a well. The darkness of the pit, which the feeble light of our torches made still darker, and the flickering shadows lent a certain gloomy picturesqueness to our perpendicular journey.

I might describe the anxiety and apprehension which I felt lest the chains should break, or I should be thrown out of my narrow seat into the great blackness below; but, as I did not have any such feeling, and as I question seriously if men of nerve or experience have it either, I will not try to render myself the hero of an imaginary situation.

I had supposed we should go to the lowest depths of the mines, but we stopped when we had descended four or five hundred feet, and got out. I learned then that the mines were full of wooden bridges and staircases by which the different levels were reached, and that by these communication was kept up with distant quarters. Some of the other shafts, as I was informed, are much deeper, requiring to be on a level with the galleries where the excavations are working. I had been taken down that particular one in order that I might see the entire arrangement and construction of the mines.

[Sidenote: A TORTUOUS ROUTE.]

My guides were Poles; but I soon found that they spoke German, of which I had sufficient knowledge to ask ordinary questions, and understand the answers thereto. We set out on the second part of our journey, one of my conductors in front, and one behind; each of us carrying a torch in the left hand, at a forward point of elevation, so as to furnish as much light as possible. We threaded several passages which seemed to be veined with quartz, but which, on examination, I discovered to be the green salt. We went over bridges, down staircases, to the right and to the left, passing various chambers and avenues, until my head became completely turned, and I could not have retraced my way to save my soul. I observed, however, that our general course was downward; and finally we arrived at a large chamber, represented to be seven hundred feet below the surface. This chamber had been abandoned because all the salt in the stratum had been obtained; but it had been arranged like a chapel, containing an altar, several crosses, and some images of saints, all made of rock salt. When the light of the torches was reflected on these natural objects, the effect was superb. The crystals glittered like diamonds, and only a little imagination was needed to transform the rude vault into an apartment of Aladdin’s palace.

After I had sufficiently admired the chapel, we resumed our excursion over more bridges, down more steps, and through more passages, until we came to what the guides termed a river. It was not a very remarkable stream, reminding me, in its smallness, of the renowned Rubicon, or the Manzenares, when the latter does not happen to be altogether dry. Such as it was, however, we stepped into a rude little boat and crossed over, where we were soon on another bridge, and crawled down another staircase of the most rickety and tumble-down description.

I was surprised that we had met so few workmen, and mentioned my surprise to the stalwart fellows with me. They informed me that the part of the mine through which we had passed had been worked out, and that the miners had gone farther down, following the strata containing the salt. In half an hour or less, we encountered a number of miners hewing out a new passage. They were naked above the waist, and some of them wore the garb of southern savages, the high temperature rendering clothing uncomfortable, if not superfluous. They used picks and crowbars, and, in the beginning of their excavations, would lie down on their backs, and strike out the salt with their implements, covering their eyes with pieces of leather, to prevent injury from the falling fragments. It is not often that men can work well with their eyes blinded, but there they succeeded better without seeing than with seeing. As they increased the cavity to sufficient height, they stood up and labored in the regular way.

There was now no lack of miners, who were visible on every hand, delving hard, steadily, and silently. Their toil is excessively monotonous and severe. As most of them have done nothing else, and as they are densely ignorant, they are not tortured by brighter memories, nor haunted by pictures of the possible. Their earnings are miserably small—not more, I believe, on an average, than thirty to forty cents a day, and working about twelve hours out of the twenty-four. Out of these wages they usually have families to support; for it is as true in Austria as in every other land, that extreme poverty incites to marriage and prolific paternity.

[Sidenote: CROSSING UNDERGROUND RIVERS.]

The one so-called river which we had crossed was an introduction to a number of others, all of them small, and more like pools than streams. The two workmen generally pushed a little boat over with poles, though they sometimes used oars very much in the same fashion as the Lethe and the Styx in the Mammoth Cave are crossed. These pools or rivers are formed by percolations of water through the strata, and in them the miners have not unfrequently been drowned.

Our onward progress soon brought us to a large open space—it must have been a hundred feet high, and nearly two hundred in length and breadth—called the Chamber of Letow; and about half a mile farther is another of still greater dimensions, known as the Chamber of Michelawic. These chambers, which were excavations, were decked out in all the splendor of rock salt. There were chairs, candlesticks, chandeliers, statues, thrones, columns, and altars composed of the chief staple; and when lamps were lighted in the natural hall, the rays of light were reflected from thousands of points, and the whole interior shone in sparkling splendor. It recalled to my mind the Crystal Saloon, as it is styled, in the New Palace at Potsdam, when it is illuminated on some special occasion.

[Sidenote: A WONDERFUL SCENE.]

I had brought with me from Cracow some small fireworks, such as red lights, serpents, and Catharine wheels, for the purpose of burning them in the mines; and this was evidently one of the places for their use. I handed some of them to the guides, and in a few seconds the cavern, more than eight hundred feet under ground, was ablaze with different colors, and showers of radiance. To produce a greater effect, all the lights were extinguished, and then another pyrotechnic exhibition began. The result was marvellous. One would have imagined that the moon, and stars, and sun, had all burst through the earth, that divided us from the upper air, and were gleaming and flashing under our very eyes. The rock salt was as so many prisms, revealing all the lines of the rainbow, and coruscating like a vault studded with jewels.

Such glorious radiance I had never witnessed under ground, nor had I deemed such radiance possible there. The extraordinary contrast between the pitchy darkness and the magnificence of the illumination can hardly be expressed in words. It was as a sudden plunge from a Memphian night into a tropical noon, and the first effect was almost blinding. I have witnessed, in my time, numberless exhibitions of fireworks on a grand scale, but none of them furnished so splendid a spectacle as the few pieces burned in the depths of Wieliczka. So much for accessories. Rock salt has its æsthetic as well as material uses; and, confronted with common lamps and common fireworks, it assumes the beauties of Dreamland and the shining glories which theological rhapsodists have associated with the Celestial Kingdom.

The Chamber of Michelawic is consecrated, I was told, to St. Anthony, and I think the saint would show his much boasted power,—not to speak of his kindness,—if he would relieve the poor devils who so implicitly believe in him from their need of wasting toil in those dreary caverns. On the 3d of every July, grand mass is celebrated in the chamber,—then regarded as a chapel,—and is followed by a banquet, in which the principal officials of Cracow and the directors of the mines participate. At that date the workmen are given a partial holiday, and receive trifling sums of money, that are quite enough to render them happy, and to make them wish that every day of the year were the 3d of July.

[Sidenote: VISIT OF THE IMPERIAL FAMILY.]

Now and then some of the members of the imperial family of Austria make a visit to the mines, the superintendent being notified beforehand of the important event. Great preparations are then made. The main passages and different chambers of Wieliczka are brilliantly illuminated; the miners are relieved from work; festivals are held in the villages, and presents are given to the people in the name of the House of Hapsburg. One of these royal visits had been made a few weeks before mine, and many of the peasants were still speaking of it in terms approaching ecstasy. How merely relative is everything we give the name of pleasure to! The poor Poles and Austrians, relieved from twelve hours of their customary labor, and given a few unexpected kreuzers, are made happier than many men would be in the midst of material blessings, and surrounded by the answered wishes of their hearts.

One of the principal sights in the mines is the Infernal Lake, a body of water seven or eight hundred feet long, some four hundred broad, and fifty deep. Above and around it is a vast cavern, that might be the abode of the gnomes and goblins once supposed to inhabit the inner parts of the earth. The atmosphere of the place is oppressive, and its every suggestion superlatively dismal. It is infernal in seeming as well as in name; and if the Hahnemannic principle be true, that “like cures like,” melancholy spirits, after a visit there, would be converted to cheerfulness and content. The deep gloom of the vault at once prompted the benefit it would derive from fireworks; and so I sent a number of serpents whizzing through the thick air, and ignited blue and red lights, until I had wrought a perfect transformation. The scene was strikingly theatrical, only far more vivid and impressive than anything could be on the stage. If I had heard a chorus of imps, or had seen blue, yellow, and green devils, of the most improved spectacular pattern, dancing in horrid measures on empty space, I do not think I should have been surprised. Assuredly there could be no evil spirits anywhere if they were not there. Never could they find a more inviting region for the display of their malignity, or a more attractive rendezvous for the perfection of their schemes against the human kind.

A boat was ready for our embarkation upon the inky bosom of the lake, and we rowed out upon it with our gleaming torches, and our voices returning to us in the dreariest echoes. I was still thinking of the charms of the demons, when, of a sudden, the strongest and wildest sounds burst from the cavern. I strained my eyes, but in the thickness of the darkness I could descry no forms.

Groans, and shrieks, and horrid laughter rose, and reverberated through the vault, until—had I been the least superstitious—I should have become convinced that I had reached the Orthodox Tophet at last. The sounds were as weird as mysterious; but I concluded that it must be part of the exhibition, for which I was expected to pay at the usual rate, and I soon discovered that I was right.

[Sidenote: THE INFERNAL LAKE.]

It is the habit of the workmen, when strangers make a visit to the Infernal Lake, to go out in boats, distribute themselves at different points, and set up this diabolical yelling, that a proper impression may be made upon the visitors. That they acquitted themselves handsomely of their task I can testify; for a more discordant and abominable sound it has never been my fortune to hear.

The howls of the miners finally lessened in volume,—probably from exhaustion,—and I could distinguish, at the end of the wild refrain, the words “Gluck Auf! Gluck Auf!” (Welcome! Welcome!) There was something singularly sardonic in the idea of being welcomed to that dreary depth. Such a welcome the demons of the fabled Pit would extend, I should suppose, to the doomed and damned. The effect of the cheery words was more dispiriting than if they had been of evil omen.

While we were rowing grimly about on the lake, “Gluck Auf” assumed a fiery form in letters of flame, about a hundred feet in front of us. This seemed to be done by magic; but a little reflection taught me that lamps must have been hung in the shape of an arch over a narrow part of the cave, and that, while we were otherwise occupied, the workmen had lighted the lamps. The very moment the illumination was made, the harsh chorus began again, louder and more lugubrious than ever. I set off the last of my stock of fireworks, and amid the sulphurous blaze and the infernal din we floated back to the shore, when I was informed that the entertainment was over.

[Sidenote: CHORUS OF DEMONS.]

In a few minutes the chorus of demons appeared in the shape of hard-featured, muscular, ill-looking miners, asking for kreuzers, in consideration of the efficient aid they had lent to the depressing performance. As I have said, I was well supplied, and I could play the part of My Lord Bountiful with very little expense. Three or four kreuzers were enough to make the stolid faces of the miners brighten as if they had fallen into the possession of pecuniary independence. What they could purchase with such a trifle, I could not comprehend, for I felt that I should be no better off, in my own judgment, with fifty times the amount I had bestowed as gratuities upon the gnomes of Wieliczka.

My two guides denounced the begging unfortunates for their mercenary conduct in a vile Polish patois, which must have consisted chiefly of curses. I am sure they mentioned mercenary conduct, which must have been an ironical expression, since none of the wretches, in asking for trinkgeld, received, at the highest, more than four or five cents. The rebuke reminded me of the familiar instance of the parsimonious father who handed his boy a penny, accompanied by the precaution that he should not make a beast of himself, or of the over-thrifty husband, who, having been asked for a little money by his wife, wished to know what had become of the dollar and a half he had given her a month before.

[Sidenote: STOLIDITY OF THE MINERS.]

The majority of the miners are Poles, unable either to read or write, to whom labor in the mines has been an inheritance—their sole one, indeed. Many of them have never been five miles from home, nor do they expect to be. They are rooted to the spot by the necessity of toil and their narrow circumstances. Some of the workmen are Austrians, and they are usually more intelligent, or rather less ignorant, than the others. After a few years of service, they often leave Wieliczka, seek a larger field of labor and a better kind of employment. But the Poles, possessing a certain kind of stupid contentment, appear to have no ambition, and no future. I ascribe this partially to their loss of nationality, than which no greater calamity can befall a people. It robs them of their individuality, impairs their energy, and depreciates their self-esteem. They feel that they are deprived of what they have a right to enjoy, and that they are likely to be despised for a misfortune for which they are not directly responsible.

Nearly all the miners reveal in their features and expression the hard fate that has attended them. They have all the marks of undevelopment, all the traces of an animal and undisciplined nature. Mind, in the strict sense, is omitted in their composition. They are merely machines of flesh and blood, obeying physical instincts, and impelled by the law of self-preservation.

Years ago, the Austrian government used to condemn political prisoners to a term of service in the mines, sometimes extending through life; but of late this practice has been abandoned, and now all who work are regularly paid, and free to go or stay, as they like.

Going out of the mines, I followed almost the same course that I had coming in. Altogether I spent some six hours under ground, and might have spent weeks there, had I been inclined to exercise, since the combined length of its excavations and passages is said to exceed three hundred miles.

Accidents are uncommon in the mines, not averaging more than thirty a year, and few of these are fatal. They occur either from falls, or from being run over by the cars drawn to and fro by horses. These cars run on tracks from the place where the salt is dug out, to the mouth of the shaft, and thence the salt is drawn up by machinery to the surface of the earth. I had made my entrance through the parts that had been excavated and abandoned, that way having been selected to give me a clear idea of the progress of the work, and the gradual deepening of the mines. I observed afterwards, at the lower levels, where hundreds of men were actively employed, how the salt was thrown into the cars, and then carried by the railway to the principal shafts.

Wieliczka is impregnated with tales and traditions, natural and supernatural. Of the latter the peasants relate many, and believe them sincerely.

[Sidenote: THE MIRACULOUS SIGN.]

One of these is, that a miner, who had been sent to Cracow, found, on his return, an image of the Virgin, which, as the narrative runs, had been stolen by the devil from the cathedral of that city, and dropped by the wayside; St. Paul, or some other saint, having detected the theft, started in pursuit of the diabolical thief. A poor workman picked up the image, which was of wood, and knowing it to be sacred, carried it back to the church in the midst of a storm. When he had reached the edifice, summoned the priest, and given it into the holy man’s hands, the inanimate image suddenly shone with celestial light, sped through the air, and took its accustomed place at the altar. The awe-struck priest and peasant fell upon their knees in prayer, and when the latter arose, there was an illuminated cross on his forehead. By inspiration he understood that whenever this symbol was visible, it was to indicate good fortune; and going back to the mines, the cross proved to be very beneficial in pointing out the richest veins of salt. The man walked under ground, and whenever his forehead kindled with the divine token, it was a certain sign that the spot on which he stood would yield richly. He received handsome presents, and numerous sums of money from the government, and so excited the envy of his former fellow-workmen, that they entered his cabin one night, and knocked out his brains. His murderers disappeared mysteriously the next day, and it was supposed, in the Galician village, that they were carried off by demons.

The image in the cathedral was heard to wail at the time the crime was committed, which was probably intended as a warning, though it did not do any good to the victim, at least in this world, however much it may have benefited him in the next.

I cannot see the moral of this monkish story, unless it be that persons who find things should not return them. If the miner had taken the image home, and split into kindling-wood, he might have lived much longer, and died peaceably in bed at a ripe old age.

[Sidenote: STORY OF A POLISH REBEL.]

During one of the periodic Polish revolutions in Warsaw, a prominent nobleman, resident in the city, and the leader of the insurrection, had volunteered to proceed to St. Petersburg, and assassinate the czar. The government spies detected the plot before it was mature, and went to the dwelling of the Polish conspirator to arrest him. He had been apprised of the discovery, and knowing that he would instantly be executed, he had been wise enough to flee from the town. He was sought for everywhere, for the authorities considered him extremely dangerous, and felt confident, from his character, that the emperor would not be safe while the desperate noble lived. All the subtle detective machinery of Russia was set in motion to hunt up the fugitive Pole, but all to no purpose; and the emissaries of the government, after a year of unexampled activity, abandoned further effort. Potzoporousky, the name of the arch rebel, feeling that he would not be secure anywhere on the surface of the continent, conceived the happy idea of going below it. He proceeded in disguise to Wieliczka, claimed to be a native of Vienna, and was hired as a miner, at thirty kreuzers a day. He labored most faithfully, and was considered an excellent workman, strangely preferring, as was thought, to remain in the mines, even when he might have been enjoying the sunlight. Nobody ever dreamed of looking for Potzoporousky a thousand feet under ground; and there he remained for fifteen months. Then he applied for his last week’s pay, saying he had met with an injury that would prevent him from working for a little while, hurried to Vienna, thence to Constantinople, and finally to Smyrna. There he resumed his correspondence with some of the former conspirators, and had perfected a plan for a new revolution, when he was seized with cholera, and died.

[Sidenote: MURDER OF A SUPERINTENDENT.]

During the latter part of the eighteenth century, a scientist of Radour was implicated in a conspiracy to defraud the Russian government of several millions of roubles by means of forged army orders, and sentenced to ten years’ exile in Siberia. He asked, as a special favor, that he might be sent, instead, to Wieliczka, where, he affirmed, his scientific knowledge would be of use in separating the green salt from the clay, with which the directors of the mines were then having considerable trouble. Prompted by interest, the government granted his request, and, the fifth day after he had entered upon the service, he induced one of the superintendents to visit a new passage in process of excavation, crushed his skull with a lump of rock salt, put on his garments, and escaped. He had always been regarded as a purely intellectual man, absorbed in his studies, and his deliberate taking of another man’s life only shows how sweet liberty is to all of us, and of what desperate deeds we may be guilty to regain the freedom we have lost.

From 1825 to 1851, one of the most vigorous and enduring miners was Johann Gerbreitz, a German, who, in all that time, is said never to have missed a single day’s work. He was a great favorite, on account of his kindness of heart and uniform good temper, especially with the women of the village, who, whether young or old, manifested a great deal of fondness for him. When in his thirtieth year he married Elisa Dosbrinski, a cobbler’s daughter, regarded as one of the prettiest girls in the town. They lived together so very happily that they were considered a model pair. They were never known to have even those slight differences which are not uncommon to the most sympathetic and harmonious couples. They seemed wholly devoted to each other, and though Johann had been something of a flirt before he became a Benedick, nothing of the kind could be charged upon him afterwards. Everybody declared he was a manly and noble fellow, and that his serenity could not be ruffled.

In his fortieth year a fragment of rock fell upon him, and killed him instantly. His wife was wild with grief at her bereavement, and all her neighbors lamented, sorely too, because Johann was a loss to the village that could not be supplied. The children of Wieliczka had learned to look for his smile, and little acts of kindness,—he was a Rip Van Winkle of Austria, without Rip’s infirmities,—and literally cried for him when he appeared in the streets.

[Sidenote: HOW A WOMAN KEPT A SECRET.]

After the poor fellow’s corpse had been brought to the stricken home, it was discovered, to the amazement of the whole town, that Johann was a woman; and it is to be presumed that he had never been anything else. The secret of his sex had been most carefully preserved, and it would never have been thought, from any outward indication, that it had been shared even by his spouse. This is an excellent proof, if proof were wanting, that women can keep a secret, and that there are some things which even the busybodies of a village cannot find out. The story of the man-woman Johann Gerbreitz is still told at Wieliczka, along with many other curious histories, of which specimens have already been given.

Like the great capitals, the mining town of Galicia has its comedies and tragedies, its lyrics and its epics, perhaps trifling in themselves, but of wondrous moment in its too partial eyes.

LXVII.

EXPLOSIONS IN MINES.

THICKNESS OF COAL SEAMS.—STUPIDITY OF A TURKISH MINING SUPERINTENDENT.—THE RESULT.—BLASTING IN MINES.—HOW IT IS DONE.—TERRIBLE ACCIDENTS.—MINES ON FIRE.—SCENES OF DEVASTATION.—EFFECT OF SUBTERRANEAN FIRE.—EXPLOSIONS OF FIRE-DAMP.—HORRIBLE ACCIDENTS.—STORIES OF SURVIVORS.—LOSS OF LIFE.—SCENE IN A WELSH MINE.—EXPLOSIONS IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN MINES.—MODES OF RELIEF.—STORY OF TWO BROTHERS.—HOW THEY WERE SAVED.—THE SAFETY-LAMP.—ITS CONSTRUCTION.—THE FIRE-WALLS OF CHINA.—THE PENITENT AND CANNONEER.

After the shafts have been completed and the levels opened in the mines, the work may be said to be fairly under way. The seams of coal are of varied thickness. Sometimes, though rarely, there will be found a coal seam of thirty feet in depth, sometimes one of twenty, and so on down to two and three feet. A seam of three feet in thickness is considered a valuable discovery, and oftentimes the seams do not exceed twenty inches. In the deep coal seams the work is comparatively easy, as the space in the level can be hollowed out the full depth of the seam, and all that is necessary for supporting the roof is to leave a sufficient number of pillars standing.

There is a coal mine in Turkey where the seam is about ten feet thick. A superintendent, entirely ignorant of the business, was sent to take charge of the mine. On his first visit to the mine the men were below. He observed the pillars which were left to support the roof above. He gave one glance at them, and then turned to the workmen and said,—“Remove those blocks of coal instantly: this mine has not been worked properly.”

With that blind obedience peculiar to the Orientals, the men immediately knocked away the pillars, when down came the rock, killing half the men in the mine, and among them the stupid superintendent, who had ordered the removal of the supports.

[Sidenote: DANGERS IN A COAL SEAM.]

There are many dangers and difficulties to be encountered in opening a coal seam. The ordinary mode is to dig away the coal from the lower part of the seam, and allow the substance to fall down in large blocks. To perform this work the miner must lie on his side, frequently in a hot temperature, and in this position he digs away with his tools. It is not unusual for the coal to fall upon him, sometimes injuring him seriously, and sometimes killing him. In his work the miner is frequently stripped to his trousers and shoes, and sometimes he works entirely nude. The perspiration streams from his face and from his entire body, and he is unable to continue his labors for any extended period of time.

Sometimes the coal can be removed by means of tools, without the necessity of blasting, but very often it is necessary to employ the force of gunpowder. The rock is drilled, and then the charge must be placed in the hole. There is always more or less danger of premature ignition of a charge, and in consequence of such ignition, men are frequently killed.

The most dangerous place for blasting operations is in the shaft. The men can only retire after the charge is lighted, and when this is done it is imperatively necessary that they should be drawn up with all speed.

One day, at a mine in Pennsylvania where a shaft was being sunk, the men had lighted the fuse and given the signal to be drawn up. Somehow, just as the bucket was started, some of the machinery gave way, and the men remained at the bottom of the shaft. The fuse was slowly but steadily burning, and there was no time to be lost. One of the men jumped from the bucket and cut off the fuse when it had burned to such a point that another moment would have rendered the explosion inevitable.

A safer way than using the ordinary fuse, is to fire the charges by means of electricity. This method, however, is not always practicable, owing to the expense and the difficulty of employing it in small operations.

Nitro-glycerine, which was invented in 1847, has been found to possess many advantages over gunpowder, and the day is not far distant when it will be used for all blasting operations on an extensive scale.

[Sidenote: UNDERGROUND FIRES.]

The firing of gunpowder and nitro-glycerine is not the only source of danger which threatens the miners by fire. There is frequently in coal mines a spontaneous combustion, produced by the heating of fragments of coal from the decomposition of iron pyrites in contact with moisture. When the small coal of certain mines is left in heaps within the mines, they speedily undergo this decomposition, especially in a moist atmosphere, which is accompanied by a great development of heat.

In such cases walls of clay are built up to shut off the fire. When these are constructed perfectly tight, and the atmosphere is carefully excluded, the fire goes out; but for some time the temperature in these parts of the mine will be very great, and the miners find much difficulty in working there. The work of building up the walls in such a case is very serious. The walls become very hot, and men are frequently rendered insensible. Sometimes carbonic acid gas has been used to extinguish fires created in this way. The portable apparatus known as the Fire Extinguisher has frequently been found very useful.

Sometimes, however, it is impossible to extinguish these fires; and in such cases the place is abandoned. In this country, and in England and Scotland, there are mines now burning which have been on fire for several, and some of them for many, years. One mine in Scotland took fire nearly forty years ago, and is still burning. The ground is black, baked, and scorched. The trees, and grass, and all kinds of vegetation have died, and there is a general appearance of sterility throughout the region.

[Sidenote: EFFECT OF UNDERGROUND FIRES.]

In several instances, where a fire cannot be extinguished by closing the mines, it has been found useful to flood the works. In France, about twenty years ago, an entire river was turned into a burning mine, and allowed to flow through it for nearly three months. A mine in Pennsylvania took fire, and was filled with water, remaining so filled for nearly half a year before the fire went out.

At Brulé, St. Etienne, there is a coal mine which has been on fire nearly two hundred years. Hot vapors are constantly arising; sulphur, alum, and other natural productions are deposited, and one might suppose that it was the burning of the accursed cities formerly consumed by the fires of heaven and earth. An irreverent American, who visited this region, said that it looked like hell with the fires going out.

In the western part of England there was formerly a coal mine on fire. Snow melted as soon as it touched the ground. The gardens were very beautiful and fertile, and produced three crops in a year. Many hot-house plants were cultivated, and an eternal spring prevailed. It was the same principle, on a grand scale, by which plants are grown in hot-houses by running pipes of hot water through the ground. The people of this region imported tropical plants at a heavy cost, and cultivated them in the open air; but one day the fire went out; the place gradually resumed its usual temperature, and the tropical plants died.

[Sidenote: EXPLOSIONS OF FIRE-DAMP.]

In many coal mines there is great danger from what the miners call “fire-damp”—an inflammable gas produced from the coal. It is identical with the streams of natural gas, which burn readily, and not unlike the coal gas artificially produced in cities. Certain kinds of coal throw off this fire-damp in considerable quantities. The gas is a combination of hydrogen and carbon. Sometimes its presence is not noticed until an explosion, but in such cases the explosions are not very dangerous. Those who have been accustomed to this explosive material have received a vivid experience of underground life. No meteor, however terrible it may be supposed to be, can be compared to an explosion of fire-damp. A thunderbolt, a hurricane, a typhoon, a cyclone, or a whirlwind, is not more terrible in its effects than a fire-damp explosion. Imagine a discharge of a hundred cannon loaded with canister shot, the simultaneous explosion of a number of powder magazines, or the bursting of the boilers of a steam engine, and the effect will not be more terrible than an explosion of fire-damp in a coal mine.

The moment the gas comes in contact with the flame of a lamp, its tremendous explosive force is revealed, and it penetrates into every quarter of the mine. In an explosion of this kind everything is shattered far and near. Horses, men, doors, machinery, and everything else lying in its course is overthrown, and sometimes heavy machinery at the top of the mine is blown away. Dense clouds of smoke, and frequently masses of coal, stone, and timber, are sent flying from the shaft high into the air. The very ground shakes as if moved by an earthquake, and the general appearance of the shaft is not unlike that of a volcano in a state of eruption. Streams of water are sent into the air, and not a pane of glass for a long distance around remains unbroken; and to these horrors must be added the great confusion and alarm of the people, the wailing of the women and children whose nearest friends have perished, and even then the terrible picture is incomplete.

The stories of these explosions would fill volumes. In one mine three hundred and sixty men at one time were killed, in another two hundred, in another one hundred, in another fifty, in another twenty, in another sixty, eighty, and so on, through mine after mine, till the deaths from fire-damp could be numbered by thousands. Not those alone who are in the wreck of the explosion are the victims.

At a Pennsylvania mine a few years ago, a dozen men were at work in one of the galleries, and heard an explosion in a portion of the mine some distance away. They rushed to the shaft, and attempted to escape. Before the bucket was lowered to remove them, the choke-damp, developed by the explosion, overtook them, and the whole party were suffocated. Hundreds of stories might be related of explosions in coal mines. One of them will be sufficient for the present.

[Sidenote: STORY OF AN EXPLOSION.]

At one time, in one of the English mines, forty men were at work. At the mouth of the shaft there were a dozen or twenty men, when suddenly there was a loud report, like an explosion. It was at first supposed to be the bursting of the boiler; but a moment’s observation showed that the fire-damp had become ignited. The masonry at the mouth of the mine, and all the machinery above it, were blown away. At the moment of the explosion, a tub filled with coal was being hoisted up. It was a hundred feet or more from the surface, and it was blown into the air as if it were a bullet fired from a gun. The fragments fell around the mouth of the shaft, injuring several of the men who were there.

When an explosion occurs, the miners, and all attached to the establishment who may be above ground at the time, are ready to go to the relief of their comrades. In the present instance a relief party was organized at once. A pulley was rigged over the mouth of the shaft, and two men entered a bucket to be lowered down. They had not descended fifty feet before their lights were extinguished, and very soon they made a signal to be drawn to the surface, both of them being in a condition bordering on suffocation. They were ill through the night, and one of them did not recover his strength for several days. A second attempt was made, and resulted in nearly the same way. The lights were extinguished, and the men drawn up in a suffocating condition. The galleries seemed to be full of choke-damp, and it was almost certain that no one could be alive in the mine. A hose was lowered, and pure air was pumped into the mine. This work lasted three or four hours, and then two others descended and succeeded in reaching the bodies of some of their companions; but in the attempt one of the rescuers fell dead, and the other was nearly suffocated.

More air was poured into the mine, and it was then twenty-four hours from the time of the explosion before the explorers thought it safe to enter. Every man who was below at the time of the explosion was killed. At the stables near the foot of the shaft a horrible scene was presented. According to the indications, three of the men were in the stables, taking care of the horses, at the moment of the explosion. The stables were thrown down, the men and horses were covered with the fallen debris, and death by suffocation seemed to have ensued in a very short time.

At the end of the gallery, where the explosion had taken place, the bodies of the men were found in some cases hardly scorched, while in others every particle of clothing had been burned away. In some instances the bodies were so baked that they could not be recognized.

[Sidenote: HEART-RENDING SCENES.]

Around the mouth of the pit the families of the miners were congregated. As each body was brought to the surface, there were shrieks and loud lamentations that could be heard for a long distance. A more terrible sight cannot be seen in the whole world, than at the mouth of a mine shaft after an accident of this kind.

A story is told of an explosion, in one of the Welsh mining districts, which caused the death of forty-seven men. Only two men that were below at the time escaped with their lives. These men were brothers. When the explosion was heard, one of the brothers rushed towards the other, who was a short distance away. A second explosion followed, more severe than the first, and threw the men down. Both were stunned, but they gradually recovered their senses, and were able to move. The air was thick and hot, and they could only move with great difficulty. The older brother had his can of tea, and bathed their faces with the liquid, so that they revived. Supporting each other, they tried to reach the entrance to the mine. They crawled on their hands and knees in the midst of darkness, over the bodies of their late companions, some of whom were still breathing, while the rest were silent and dead. After many narrow escapes, they reached the end of the gallery, near the shaft, and were saved.

[Sidenote: AN INGENIOUS APPARATUS.]

An apparatus has been invented by which a man can enter places filled with choke-damp, either to carry aid to suffering men after an explosion, or to make explorations. A bag, or case of leather, or metal, is carried on the back, into which air has been driven under a heavy pressure. A rubber tube extends from the bag, and is fastened to the mouth and nose. It is furnished with two valves, one opening inward, to carry the air to the lungs, and the other outward, to carry off the air after it has been breathed. For long journeys extra bags filled with air may be taken. Some of these reservoirs, made of sheet iron, will resist a pressure of thirty or forty atmospheres. Another apparatus, fastened to the back, like a soldier’s knapsack, has a kind of valve, placed above the reservoir, allowing the air to enter the lungs at the ordinary pressure only.

A similar apparatus is made by filling an air-tight goat-skin with air. The same kind of tubes are employed, and sufficient air can be carried to last the bearer fifteen or twenty minutes.

To guard against gas explosions, Sir Humphry Davy invented a safety lamp. He protected the flame with wire gauze, on the principle that flame cannot be made to pass through a tube, however short, unless it is driven through. The wire gauze is in fact a number of short tubes close together, and thus, while the explosive gas may pass through, the flame cannot do so.

An improved lamp of this class has a glass cylinder around the flame, with gauze at the top and below. The glass is protected by stout wires. A great many forms of these lamps are in use in mines, but all are constructed on the same principle. By the use of this safety lamp, many mines that had been abandoned were re-opened; and Sir Humphry Davy is regarded as one of the greatest benefactors of this age. His lamp might well be called, like Aladdin’s, the Wonderful Lamp.

Sometimes, when fire-damp is very abundant, and is steadily given out, it is utilized for lighting purposes; the gas is collected, and by means of a pump a jet of gas is poured from a tube and is ignited. One of these jets has been burning for more than twenty years in an English coal mine. In the same mine the gas was collected in pipes, and carried outside, where it was used to run a steam engine.

[Sidenote: CHINESE FIRE-WELLS.]

A French traveller has given a vivid description of the famous fire-wells of China. He says that where the air escapes it is very inflammable, and if a match is presented at the mouth of the shaft, the gas explodes like gunpowder, and forms a great column of fire twenty or thirty feet high.

He says the largest fire-wells are situated in the mountains about one hundred miles from Wutung. They are in a valley, where pits were sunk in the hope of finding salt water. The water was not found; but suddenly a column of gas rushed out, bringing masses of earth and stones. The noise was terrific, and was heard a long distance. The mouth of the pit was surrounded by a stone wall six or seven feet high. As soon as the fire reached the mouth of the well it caused a terrible explosion, something like an earthquake. The flame was several feet high, and the force was sufficient to throw down some of the stones composing the wall. Several men carried a large flat stone to the pit, and placed it over the mouth. It was immediately thrown into the air, and some of the men were badly injured.

Neither water, stone, nor earth would extinguish the fire. After two weeks of hard work a quantity of water was brought over the mountains from a small river, and a lake was formed. The water being suddenly turned into the well, the fire was extinguished.

In some mines it is the custom, where the accumulation of fire-damp is gradual, to light it every night, so that the works may be always accessible in the daytime. The man whose duty it is to light the fire-damp wraps himself in a thick blanket, covering his face with a mask, and with his head enveloped in a hood like a monk’s. The fire-damp is lighter than the atmosphere, and always rises to the upper part of the level. Consequently the man crawls upon the ground in order to put himself in the best position for breathing. In one hand he holds a long stick, with a lighted candle fixed at the end.

He pushes the stick to its full length, and creeps along, firing the gas; and as soon as he has fired it he changes his position, and walks upright, since the fire-damp is always followed by the choke-damp, which is heavier than air, and sinks to the bottom.

[Sidenote: THE PENITENT.]

In the French mine this man is called a penitent, on account of his dress resembling that worn by some of the orders of the Catholic church. His name sometimes would seem to be a cruel jest, as he is liable to be blown away by an explosion, and never return alive. In other mines he is called the cannoneer, and when the fire-damp kills him he is said to have died at his post.

LXVIII.

MYSTERIES OF THE GRAND JURY.

SITTING ON A GRAND JURY.—HOW IT IS COMPOSED.—PECULIARITIES OF MODERN JUSTICE.—HOW TO SELECT BLOCKHEADS.—A DISHONEST BAGGAGE-MAN.—CHARITY AND MERCY.—AN AFFECTING INCIDENT.—SAVING A YOUTHFUL OFFENDER.—A GENEROUS WOMAN.—CURIOUS PHASES OF HUMAN NATURE.—CELT AND AFRICAN.—STORIES OF THE DETECTIVES.—A GARRULOUS IRISH WOMAN.—FAMILY TROUBLES.—THE HORSE AND CART STORY.—HOW A PRETTY WOMAN CAPTURED THE JURY.

It was the fortune or misfortune of the writer to be called to sit on the grand jury of the Court of General Sessions in New York, in the latter part of the year 1871. Like most of my fellow-men, I had no great fondness for jury duty, and made efforts to be released. I was politely informed that there was no escape, and that I had better do cheerfully what I could not avoid. And so I did it. I sat on that jury, or rather in a cane-seated chair in the jury-room, for fifty-eight days, some of them pretty long ones. It was my first experience of the sort, and I learned more about criminal matters than I had ever known before. A man who sits a month or two on a grand jury can have a reasonable excuse for accepting the doctrine of the total depravity of the human race, or, at all events, of a considerable portion of it.

[Sidenote: GRAND AND PETIT JURIES.]

What is the difference between a grand jury and a petit jury? To many persons, and probably to most, this question would be an insoluble riddle. Everybody who knows anything worth mentioning is aware that a petit jury, in a criminal court, consists of twelve men, who are sworn to well and truly judge of the guilt or innocence of the accused tried before them. They are to weigh the evidence given in open court in presence of the accused, and when they agree upon a verdict, and are ready to return it, they stand and look upon the prisoner, who is instructed to stand and look upon them. To find a verdict, the twelve must be agreed; and thus it often happens that an obstinate man can “hang the jury,” and prevent the rendition of a verdict. Obstinacy may arise from various causes and motives, generally honest, but not always so. Sometimes the jury is equally divided in opinion—six men being of one mind, and six of another; sometimes a verdict is the result of a compromise, which includes a recommendation to mercy, or a verdict for a lower degree of criminality than is charged in the indictment. In civil suits, where a question of damages or compensation arises, the result is often obtained by taking the figures proposed by each man, adding them together, and dividing the amount by twelve. But in criminal cases no such system of average can be employed. Very often the persistence of a single juror will save an offender from immediate punishment, and allow him a new trial—which frequently means no new trial, but a discharge on his own recognizance. And sometimes the obstinate juror attributes to his comrades the inability to find a verdict. The story of a western juror is frequently used to point a moral or adorn a tale. “I was all right,” he says, “and we might have settled the thing straight off, if the other eleven hadn’t been the most pig-headed fellows you ever saw.”

[Sidenote: DEFECTS OF JURY TRIALS.]

One requirement of the practice in our courts is, that in a criminal case no member of a petit jury shall have formed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. In cases that have not acquired notoriety, this does not materially interfere with the selection of a jury; but in a case that has attracted general attention, like that of Foster, or the assassins of President Lincoln, several days may be spent in finding twelve men without opinions. The rule was adopted long ago, when there was no general diffusion of knowledge, and when there was no daily chronicle of events accessible to everybody. On a matter of great importance and general newspaper discussion, it is next to impossible in these days that an intelligent man should have no knowledge or opinion; to demand an opinionless jury in such a case is practically to demand a jury of blockheads. It may well be doubted whether, in this country of electric telegraphs and lightning presses, the old practice is the best. The object of trials by jury is to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. I think I utter the sentiment of most thinking men, in saying that for my part I would rather, if wrongfully accused of a crime, be tried before twelve honest, intelligent men, who believed me guilty, but whose opinion could be changed by evidence, than before twelve ignorant men who had formed no opinion about me. But if I were guilty, and desired, as most criminals desire, to escape justice, I should clamor for a jury of such of my fellow-men as could not entertain an idea without having it thrust into their heads with an auger. Many a scoundrel has evaded his just deserts by means of a jury of “twelve good men and true,” whose intellects were hardly equal to those of an educated horse.

But a grand jury encounters none of the difficulties that beset a petit jury. The law requires that it shall be composed of “intelligent citizens of good character,” who shall be qualified to serve as, and not exempt as, petit jurors. Their names are selected by lot, the same as employed for the selection of petit jurors, and each man selected is notified by the sheriff of the county. A grand jury is composed of sixteen as the minimum, and twenty-three as the maximum number. Twelve must concur to find a bill or to dismiss a complaint. No vote can be taken unless there are sixteen grand jurors present; whether there are sixteen or twenty-three present, or any number between the minimum and maximum, there must be, as before stated, twelve to concur in determining the ordering or rejection of an indictment. Other votes, such as for adjournment and the like, are taken by majorities, in the same way as in other deliberative bodies. The accused never appears before the grand jury, and only one witness can be called into the room at the same time. The district attorney may be present during an examination, and at the request of the foreman may conduct it, but he cannot be present when a vote is being taken.

[Sidenote: ORIGIN OF THE GRAND JURY.]

The grand jury is of Saxon origin, and its existence may be traced as far back as the tenth century. Its object is one of inquiry rather than of trial, and for this reason it is frequently called a “grand inquest.” Under the old practice the grand jury originated inquiry without the intervention of any public officer, and any citizen was at liberty to appear before it, state his own wrongs or the offences of others, or make complaints against public evils of any kind. It partook of the nature of a legislature or common council, to which any citizen may submit a petition. Any member of the grand jury who happened to know or learn of an infraction of the law could lay the matter before his associates for their action. I am informed by good legal authority that this is still the practice in England and in parts of the United States. But the practice of New York, so far as the city is concerned, has of late been for the grand jury to consider nothing that was not submitted to it by the district attorney, and for that official to submit nothing that had not reached him from a committing magistrate. There is both good and evil in the practice, and on the whole, much more evil than good. A great many offenders have gone unwhipped of justice in consequence of this system. Men who have just cause of complaint against other men high in power have sought in vain to bring their cases before a committing magistrate, for the reason that the latter was the friend or dependant of the accused, and would use his official position to protect him.

Several cases of this kind were brought to my notice while I was sitting on the grand jury. For example, a man one day came to me with a request that I would bring to the notice of the grand jury a certain case which he explained. I asked him why he did not go before a committing magistrate with it. “Why,” he replied, “because the committing magistrates are all friends of this man, and would do anything he wants. He can get any kind of ‘justice’ he desires, and nobody can do anything against him.” I am satisfied that his opinion of police magistrates in New York city was not altogether baseless, and, if I am not mistaken, other testimony could be found to the same effect. With the reputation or lack of it that belongs to our local judiciary, it is eminently necessary that all grand juries should be clothed with the power that makes them grand in quests, and enables them to investigate any charge of wrong-doing without waiting for its submission by a police magistrate. I am satisfied that there are many scoundrels whose career of wickedness would be materially curtailed if they knew there was full opportunity for their accusers to go before a grand jury and furnish the proper information for a criminal indictment.

[Sidenote: WHAT A GRAND JURY DOES.]

The testimony before a grand jury is of an ex parte character. Blackstone says, “They are only to hear evidence on behalf of the prosecution. For the finding of an indictment is only in the nature of an inquiry or accusation, which is afterwards to be tried and determined; and the grand jury are only to inquire upon their oaths whether there be sufficient cause to call upon the party to answer it. A grand jury, however, ought to be thoroughly persuaded of the truth of an indictment, so far as their evidence goes, and not to rest satisfied with remote probabilities—a doctrine that might be applied to very oppressive purposes.” The petit jury gives the accused the opportunity to sift the ex parte evidence on which he has been indicted, and of explaining or contradicting it. The general rule for the guidance of a grand jury is, that they must be as well satisfied of the guilt of the accused, in order to find an indictment, as they would be to convict as petit jurors in case none of the evidence before them was explained or contradicted. It often happens that complaints are presented of an avaricious or malicious nature, or with some other motive than the proper enforcement of the law. Such cases require careful inquiry and cautious action.

Early in the session of the grand jury of which I was an integral part, a complaint was made against a baggage agent of a steamboat company for taking money for extra baggage, and neglecting to pay it over to the authorized agent of the company. At its commencement the case appeared reasonably clear, but a suspicion arose that the complaint was malicious, and more evidence was called for. Each additional witness confirmed the suspicion, and it finally came out that the principal accuser had long desired the situation of the accused, and had been appointed to it after the removal of the latter. Here was a motive in which malice and avarice were evidently the principal elements, and when the matter was put to a vote the jury promptly dismissed the bill. The testimony of the complainant was not fully sustained by that of the other witnesses; and even had there been no display of malice, the evidence was not sufficient to secure conviction before a petit jury.

[Sidenote: SECRETS OF THE JURY ROOM.]

I wish to remark, en passant, that where I mention cases that were before us, without giving names and localities, I shall purposely, in most instances, change the story in such a way that the outside public cannot trace it, even with a careful research into the records of the police or other courts. My brother jurors will recognize each case described, but the veil of secrecy thrown around the grand jury room will not permit me to be rigidly precise. Great injustice might be done, in many instances, by a complete revelation, and therefore the reader must be left in the dark to a certain extent. He may look upon the cases I give him as exact parallels, and nothing more. When I say a man was charged with stealing a horse, you may know that he was charged with stealing something, but whether horse, cow, or cooking-stove, it is not necessary to explain in describing the work of the jury. And with this apology for harmless but very necessary fiction, I proceed.

It is not at all times proper to dismiss a complaint when caused by malice. One day a man came before us, who swore that another man had swindled a large establishment out of considerable money; he did not make the complaint on behalf of the parties defrauded, but in the interests of justice. His malice was evident; he made no attempt at concealing it; but he sustained his testimony with documentary evidence and the sworn statements of other witnesses. The jury doubted about the propriety of ordering an indictment under the circumstances; some of them argued, that had no quarrel occurred between the parties, the case would have slumbered, and therefore the complaint should be dismissed. There was such a divergence of opinion that the district attorney was called to tell us what to do. We explained, through our foreman, the nature of the case. The district attorney, who is at all times the legal adviser and instructor of the grand jury, listened, and then said, substantially,—

[Sidenote: A SYMPATHETIC COMPLAINANT.]

“Where you find that a complainant is acting through malicious motives, and there are no other witnesses, or, if any, that they do not substantiate the complaint, you had better dismiss it. But where the complaint, however maliciously made, is shown by other evidence than that of the complainant to be true, you must order an indictment.”

And consequently we ordered an indictment against the alleged swindler.

Not many days after we were convened, a case that touched the heart of every man in the room was brought before us. A young girl had been accused of theft; a few dollars in money had been stolen; it was found in her possession, and she had made partial confession. The complainant was a woman, and the accused had been in her employ. When the case was called, the woman entered the jury-room, and was sworn by the foreman. She took the chair assigned to witnesses, and the foreman questioned her.

“Did you lose some money?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When did you lose it?”

“On the first day of December?”

“Who took it?”

“The girl named in the complaint.”

“How do you know she took it?”

“I found it in her possession, and she confessed taking it.”

“That will do; you can go.”

But the woman kept her seat, and moved her hands uneasily. “You can go,” said the foreman again; but she did not start. A juror sitting near the door rose to show her out, and as he did so the woman said,—

[Sidenote: A PLEA FOR MERCY.]

“I do not wish to press the complaint. I want to withdraw it, and have the girl released.”

“Why so?” asked the foreman.

“Because,”—and her voice began to choke,—“because the girl is young, and I do not wish to ruin her. Somebody else urged her to steal the money, and I think she will do better in future. If I send her to prison she may become a professional thief, but if I give her a chance she will be a good girl. She is an orphan and has no friends, and I want to be her friend. I know she is guilty, but I want to be merciful, and I beg you to be merciful, gentlemen.”

Half her utterance was drowned with tears, which flowed rapidly down her face. The foreman told her to step outside and he would call her again in a few moments, and inform her of the result of her eloquent appeal. “Be merciful, gentlemen,” were her last words as she closed the door.

It was voted to dismiss the complaint; and when the foreman called her to the room, told her of the result of the vote, and commended her for her kindness of heart, her tears flowed afresh, and she thanked us through broken sobs. I know that in that room more eyes than hers were wet—eyes not accustomed to tears.

But soon a discussion arose as to the propriety of our action. When the grand jury was impanelled, the following oath was administered to the foreman:—

“You —— ——, as foreman of this grand inquest, shall diligently inquire, and true presentment make, of all such matters and things as shall be given you in charge; the counsel for the people of this state, your fellows, and your own, you shall keep secret; you shall present no one from envy, hatred, or malice; nor shall you leave any one unpresented through fear, favor, affection, or hope of reward; but you shall present all things truly as they come to your knowledge, according to your understanding. So help you God!”

[Sidenote: NATURE OF A JURYMAN’S OATH.]

And to the other members the following oath was administered:—

“The same oath which your foreman has taken on his part, you, and each of you, shall well and truly observe and keep on your part. So help you God!”

Some of the jurors thought we had no right, under our oath, to show favor, no matter how strong might be the appeal to our sympathies. Every man in the room wished to be lenient, but at the same time, above all other things, wished to do his duty. The discussion resulted in our sending for the district attorney and asking his advice.

[Sidenote: REFORMING YOUNG OFFENDERS.]

After hearing the case, he said there was a difference of opinion as to the power of a grand jury. “You can undoubtedly,” he continued, “exercise your discretion in certain cases, and act as you think is for the best interests of society. It is both right and proper that the grand jury, and also the district attorney, should be clothed with a discretionary power, as it frequently happens that they can do more good by exercising it than by following the strict letter of the law. I will give you an illustration: Some years ago, the case of a young man charged with embezzlement was placed in my hands to prosecute. His employer was determined to push the case; he was rather ugly about it, and there seemed no other course than to prosecute. The young man was out on bail, and came to me to beg to be let off. He said he was guilty, and should so plead; that he had an invalid sister, and with the utmost economy on his small salary he was unable to support himself. He knew that this was no excuse for his theft, but he took the money under great temptation, and did not realize the enormity of his offence until after he had committed it. ‘You can send me to the penitentiary,’ he said, ‘and nobody can blame you; but you will ruin me for life, and bring disgrace upon my parents and sister, who do not know that I am charged with crime. If I can be released and the matter hushed up, I will faithfully promise to do better in future, and I think this will be a life-long lesson to me.’ He pleaded so earnestly that I promised to do what I could for him. I sent for his accuser, and urged him to withdraw the charge. At first he refused, but I laid the case before him in such a light that he at last consented. And I then urged him to take the young man back and give him a new trial, and after much talk I succeeded. The complaint was withdrawn, the young man was restored to his position; in a little time his salary was increased; by and by the firm dissolved in consequence of the death of one of its members; the young man went to another house, proved himself worthy of confidence, and to-day he is a member of that house, and as honorable and upright as any business man in New York. He has never forgotten, and never will forget, that lesson. If he had gone to the penitentiary, his worst fears would have been realized. When an offender is young, the offence is a first one, and the offender appears penitent, it is entirely proper for you to exercise leniency by dismissing the complaint; and in the case now before you, gentlemen, you have been entirely right in your action.”

As the district attorney ended his remarks, there was a round of applause, in which I am very certain every member of the jury participated. Those who had been most doubtful of the propriety of our action were heartily glad that their doubts were not well founded.

During our session there were several cases in which the accusers wished to withdraw the complaints. Where the reason for the withdrawal was the youth and penitence of the accused, the request was generally granted. In one case a family quarrel had gone before a magistrate while the temper of all parties concerned was at fever-heat; passion had subsided in the time required to bring the case to the grand jury, and the complainant was anxious to make terms of peace with his antagonist. There was another pleasant little affair, in which a nose had been bitten off in a discussion that evidently had whiskey in it. The biter was the cousin of the bitten, and on account of the relationship the latter wished to be mild. His cousin was not a professional biter, and should he go to prison it would not restore the central ornament of the complainant’s face. The offender had promised not to do so again; and besides, he had not bitten off much of the nose, any way. The appeal was heard, and the complaint against the mordacious relative was dismissed. As he had been a month in prison, it is to be hoped that he took solemn warning, and will hereafter confine his dental exercise to the ordinary articles of diet.

[Sidenote: WITHDRAWING COMPLAINTS.]

In some instances the complainant wished to withdraw the charge, for the reason that he had already lost time in making the prosecution, and did not wish to lose more. Sometimes, in cases of robbery, the friends of the accused had offered to restore the stolen property on condition that there should be no prosecution, and very naturally the complainant was willing to make such a compromise. But it was out of his power to do so after having once made his complaint before the magistrate, and his appeal to the grand jury was generally of no avail. The well-being of society, in cases of professional thieves and the like, was held to be paramount to the desires of complainants, and if the testimony was clear there was no delay in ordering indictments. In one instance a man who had been robbed, in a house whose character was not at all doubtful, asked to withdraw the complaint because he had already lost too much time in following it. He did not think the accused was either young or penitent, but he could not afford the time he was devoting to the case. He had evidently been instructed what to do, as his testimony before the grand jury was quite different from that in his complaint sworn to before the magistrate. In his complaint he said he knew that the prisoner took the money, but when in our presence he was uncertain on the subject. He didn’t know, couldn’t tell, didn’t remember, was excited at the time, and so on, until we found that he was determined to say and know nothing. As there were no other witnesses, we were forced to dismiss the charge, though morally convinced of the guilt of the accused. The complainant had determined to have the case abandoned, and as the prejudices of the nineteenth century are opposed to the use of the rack and thumb-screws in the grand jury room, we had no means of compelling the witness to adhere to his original story. Mind you, he had not varied it so as to make him liable to the charge of perjury, in one case or the other; he had only substituted uncertainty for certainty.

Another instance of the withdrawal of a complaint through motives of kindness, was in the case of a woman who had lost a few articles from her room while her door was left open. The thieves were some young boys, whose parents were respectable; and as soon as the theft was traced to the culprits, the property was at once returned. “I don’t want to make felons of them,” said the woman; “I think they took the things out of a spirit of mischief, and that they will be good boys in future. The mother of one of them has talked to me about it, and I have promised to withdraw the charge.” Her appeal was earnest, and before its close it was eloquent. When she left the room it was voted to dismiss the case. The foreman then sent for her, told her that she had displayed much kindness of heart; that the jury appreciated her motives, and had complied with her request. Her thanks, like those of the woman mentioned heretofore, were given through tears, and she rushed outside to congratulate the anxious mother of the boy whom she had released.

[Sidenote: CURIOUS PHASES OF HUMAN NATURE.]

Many phases of human nature can be studied in the grand jury room. The hatred which the natives of green Erin bear towards our citizens of African descent is frequently seen where the accused is of negro blood, and the witness is of the race that boasts the Blarney Stone, and grows indignant at mention of Boyne water. Given such a case, and the chances are more than even that the witness will tell a story in which indictment is the primary, and truth the secondary consideration. If you have two or more witnesses of the loquacious nationality, and take the pains to question them closely, you will be likely to find a conspicuous inharmony in their testimony. They seem to consider themselves called to “swear agin’ the nagur,” and they generally do it. And it is possible that, with the case reversed,—an accused Celt and a testifying Ethiopian,—the evidence might be equally energetic. But, for some reason, we did not have a fair opportunity to settle this momentous question, and I must therefore leave it for the consideration of some grand jury of the future.

[Sidenote: THE DETECTIVE’S STORY.]

The detective officer shines brilliantly before the grand jury. There was, now and then, a man of this profession who was quiet and unpretending, but he formed an exception to the rule. The detective had generally done wonderful things in the discovery of crimes already committed, or in the prevention of crimes contemplated or progressing. Some detectives told their stories with admirable directness, while others were evidently desirous of giving condensed histories of their professional careers. “Did you arrest John Jones?” asks the foreman when a detective is called in. “Yes, sir,” is the reply. “Why did you arrest him?” “Because I heard he had robbed Brown’s store.” “Did you find anything in his possession?” “Yes, sir.” “What did you find?” “The articles named in the complaint.” “That will do, officer; you can go;” and the officer bows, and departs.

This is all that the jury wants to know from the officer in regard to the performance of John Jones, who is charged, on complaint of Brown, with burglary in the first degree. But the probabilities are two to one that when the foreman asks, “Did you arrest John Jones?” the officer will say, “I was walking along Broadway, and saw Brown, who looked as if he had been robbed. I went to his store, and saw the mark of a chisel near the lock, and asked Brown if he had lost anything. Brown told me he had, but did not know who had robbed him. I looked at the chisel-mark, and thought it was Jones’s work. Then I went down Canal Street, and saw Jones standing talking with two men, one of whom I remembered seeing seven years ago at the California State Prison, when I took the great stage-robber Smith up there for robbing the Petaluma mail, and frightening a lady passenger so that she died next week, and left two girls, three boys, and one husband, who felt so bad about it that he got married before the month was out. Jones looked so innocent that I knew he was guilty; and so I followed him all the afternoon, and arrested him when I saw him go into a house on the Bowery. I searched the house, and found Brown’s goods concealed where it was not likely anybody could find them; and there was a lot of other goods that I recognized as coming from a store on Broadway, that was robbed six weeks before.” And so he goes on, in a way calculated to impress his hearers with the belief that he is a man of genius, and perfectly at home among thieves. He knows all the movements of the gentry that one does not like to be intimate with, and when he finishes his narrative, you contemplate him (to use the language of a certain celebrated orator about another) as the East Indian contemplates his favorite idol: you know that he is ugly, but you feel that he is great. The story of a detective will frequently convey the idea that the movements and actions of professional thieves can be studied, like those of the robin or the beaver; and I have sometimes thought that the burglar and pickpocket should occupy places in natural history along with the birds, beasts, and reptiles that inhabit the earth and make things lively. One officer, who was a witness in several cases, was a favorite with the jury, for the reason that he always gave his testimony in the clearest and most direct manner. I doubt if he used a dozen superfluous words in any instance, and I could almost say that he did not use a dozen of them all together. His statements were short, sharp, and decisive; and it is my impression that he is far more efficient in the service than some of his professional brethren who would occupy fifteen minutes in telling a story that he could give in sixty seconds, and have time to spare.

[Sidenote: PECULIARITIES OF WITNESSES.]

[Sidenote: THE BRICK AND BROOMSTICK.]

It is amusing to note the difference in the manner of witnesses. There are some who cannot tell a direct story, no matter how strongly they are urged to do so; and there are others who could not be otherwise than brief. Some of this difference is due to nationality. German and Irish were generally more loquacious than American and English. But it was not all a matter of nationality, as there were instances of extreme discursiveness on the part of the last-mentioned, while some of the former were brief almost to taciturnity. And in regard to sex, I must aver that the more talkative of our witnesses belonged to the gentler half of humanity. A lady of Baxter Street was one day testifying about a debate between herself and a neighbor: a brick and a broomstick had been used in the fray, and the head of the witness had been slightly scarified by the corner of the brick. It was a simple affair,—words and blows, and only two or three blows, at that,—but the unhappy victim could not be induced to tell her story without narrating the whole history of the bellicose Bridget, whose hand had hurled the missile. Frequently the foreman stopped her narrative, and told her to cut it short; she would take breath in the pause, and then, with a preliminary “I’ll tell all about it, yer honor,” she would start again with the rapidity of a carrier-pigeon. We soon found it was of no use to attempt to restrain her, and so we listened as patiently as possible to the conclusion of her story. There was a sigh of relief around the jury-room when she retired, and I could not help thinking that the blow which she averred made her “sinseless and spacheless” for two hours was, to a great extent, justifiable.

Another garrulous witness was a German who had suffered robbery. He persisted in addressing the foreman as “shudge” and the rest of the assemblage as “gentlemens on the jury.” Twice, when interrupted and told to be brief, he complied by beginning his statement anew, with more minuteness of detail; and at last the foreman found his patience exhausted, and told the witness, “The jury has no time to listen to your stories.” “O shudge,” said the man, in a tone that evinced the most deeply wounded honor, “I don’t not come here to tells you stories; I tells you only the truth.” The polite foreman apologized for the unintentional affront, and compromised the matter by inducing the victim to answer a few questions, and leave his story to be told in court. His evidence was conclusive, and an indictment was promptly ordered against the party named in the complaint.

[Sidenote: FAMILY JARS IN COURT.]

Frequently there were cases that attested the worthlessness and depravity of certain members of the human race, and their despicable treatment of relatives and friends. It is an unpleasant spectacle to see wives giving evidence to send their husbands to prison, brothers testifying against their brothers, and sometimes (though none were called before us) fathers testifying against their sons. There was one instance wherein a man testified to a forgery of his signature, committed by a member of his family. He stated that it was a struggle between duty and a respect for the family name for him to come before the jury; “and I only determined to come here,” said he, “when I found all attempts to reform this man had failed. I have paid his debts repeatedly, have twice started him in business, and have several times paid checks on which he forged my signature, rather than expose him. I have tried to reason with him, and hoped he would do better; he shows no sign of repentance, and has told others that, out of regard to the family, I shall not dare to prosecute him. I feel that I should do wrong if I allowed him to run longer, and painful as it is, I must do my duty.”

Here was a man of sensibility compelled by the conduct of a near relative to appear in court as a prosecutor. It is to be hoped that the culprit will learn a wholesome lesson from his imprisonment; but if his nature is as depraved as represented, the probabilities are, that when he comes out from his term of involuntary labor, he will not be greatly improved.

One day a woman came to testify against her husband for striking her on the head with a piece of iron, which she produced from her pocket. The iron—a stove-hook—had been broken by the force of the blow, and yet the woman was there, with no evidence of having suffered more than a temporary stunning and bleeding. She began her story in a tone of firmness and determination, but gradually melted until her voice was choking and her eyes were tearful. “Do you want to press this complaint against your husband?” the foreman asked. “Yes, sir, I must,” she answered, after a pause. “We have been married ten years, and they have been ten years of quarrels. He beats me often; he drives me out at night; he starves me, and is all the time cruel. He takes the money I earn, and spends it, and I cannot live with him any longer. I have had him before the magistrate several times, and he promises to do better; but when he is let off, he is as bad as ever. He will not leave me, nor let me leave him, and we shall have no peace till he is in prison, or one of us is dead.”

[Sidenote: A SKILFUL FRAUD.]

One of the most artistic frauds that ever came to my knowledge was developed before the jury. A man had loaned some money, and taken the mortgage of a tract of land as security on the note. Before loaning it he submitted the title to his lawyer, who informed him that it was correct; and consequently the bargain was closed. The note fell due, and went to protest; the lawyer had, in the mean time, moved from the city, and the other parties were not to be found. The land which was mortgaged lay in New Jersey, and the holder of the note took the necessary steps to foreclose. A professional searcher of titles went to the township mentioned in the papers, and found that there was no such land in existence.

The whole document was purely a myth. The boundaries described could not be found, and had no existence any more than if they had been located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The grantor named in the original deed had been dead ten years at the time when the document was dated, and the whole business was a conspiracy, in which the lawyer had betrayed his client. One of the conspirators had turned state’s evidence, and came before us. His position was not particularly comfortable, and he grew restive under the questions showered upon him. Little by little the truth was drawn from him, and he practically confessed to having been the originator of the fraud, ten years ago. The papers were evidently prepared with care, and had an appearance of genuineness enough to deceive any man who was not suspicious of wrong, and had relied upon his lawyer to protect his rights.

A case that was at the same time amusing and saddening, was that of a woman, the widow of a laborer, whose horse and cart had been stolen. She was the complainant and principal witness against the thief, who was promptly indicted. She stated that she had recovered the cart, but had not been able to find the horse. The morning after the indictment had been ordered, we were surprised to see her waiting outside the grand jury room. A juror asked her what she wanted, and she replied that she came for her horse.

[Sidenote: “I WANT MY HORSE.”]

She was sent to the court-room, where, I believe, the thief was speedily tried and convicted. But day after day she came to the grand jury room, and patiently waited outside for the return of her horse. Each morning some one would explain to her that we could do nothing, and she would then go away. But the next morning she would be there as usual, and for nearly a month she continued her patient but hopeless watching. Sometimes she would come twice in the same day, and, when accosted, her answer was always the same, “I want my horse.” At first her visits were subjects of merriment, but it was very soon discovered that her mind could not be altogether clear; and our merriment was changed to pity, and our jests to words of sympathy for her loss.

Most of the witnesses were of the unattractive lot, and as their stories were much alike, the business became a little dull after the first week or two. Robberies and fights, and fights and robberies, were narrated until the atmosphere became charged with them. It was the same story, or the same stories with slight variation, and we used to wish for a little variety. And it was astonishing how the advent of a pretty woman used to refresh the wearied jurors, but they were not often allowed that luxury.

[Sidenote: A PRETTY WOMAN AS WITNESS.]

One afternoon we came to a case of robbery, and the name of the first witness had a feminine sound as the clerk read it. Jurors had been sitting, not quite at their ease, listening to the testimony of men and women whose stories were as devoid of sentiment as the certificate of a steamboat inspector, and whose forms and faces were as unattractive as a dredging machine. When the witness was called in this case, the jurors listlessly raised their eyebrows, and out of deference to their acquired habit, turned their eyes towards the door. She came; we saw; she conquered. She was pretty; she was finely attired; her demeanor was full of modesty, and, at the same time, of self-possession. As she walked forward to the foreman’s place, to be sworn, there was a general straightening of everybody around the room. Chairs were drawn nearer to the table, young jurors stroked their mustaches, and old ones passed their hands over their bald crowns, to be sure that no cobwebs lay there. Collars and neckties were examined, to ascertain if en règle, and when the lady walked to the witness chair, the double line of heads was as straight and attentive as though just from the discipline of a Russian drill-master. When the foreman questioned her, she answered in a voice as silvery as a chime of tea bells, and it seemed very unfortunate for all her listeners that her story was brief. Not a word that she spoke was lost to any of the forty ears that were inclined towards her, and when she turned upon us a pair of bewitching eyes (I forget their color), there could be no doubt that the unwashed and unlettered burglar against whom she complained deserved the severest penalty of the law. As she left the room, her silken dress rustling like the leaves of autumn in a gentle breeze, we regretted that she could not longer remain; and when the door closed, an impressible juror sitting near it moved a bill of indictment, which would have been carried without opposition, had there been no necessity for another witness to complete the chain of evidence. The officer who captured the thief and recovered the property was then called; but he was a commonplace fellow, and we only listened to his story in the cause of justice. Compared with the lady who preceded him, he was as a marine turtle to a gazelle, or as a mud-scow to a yacht, and we were heartily glad when he was through with his testimony. If burglars would be free, they should never be caught robbing a pretty woman who can go before a grand jury. That fellow received the heaviest sentence allowed by the law, as she went before the petit jury, and told her story under the eye of the judge.

LXIX.

BORROWING AND BORROWERS.

HOW THE BUSINESS IS PROSECUTED IN NEW YORK.—THE NUMBER OF BORROWERS.—THEIR DIVISIONS AND SUBDIVISIONS.—HOW THEY OPERATE.—THE STORIES THEY TELL.—THEIR ENERGY.—ABILITY TO READ CHARACTER.—SUFFERINGS OF THEIR VICTIMS.—FRAUDS UPON HORACE GREELEY.—DEVICES TO AVOID THESE SWINDLERS.—ANNUAL AMOUNT OF THEIR SWINDLES.—HOW A MAN CUTS HIS EYE TEETH.

Money is the motive power of the world. In executive capacity, it is an angel or devil. By it civilization must be measured, and all accomplishment wrought. A material blessing, it is the parent, too, of such an amount of spiritual comfort as may not be reckoned. Money will buy everything but health and affection; and, through its aid, the one is protected and the other provoked. No marvel that men worship money; it is the strongest of secular deities, the firmest of supporters, and the staunchest of friends. Nobody can live without it; it is life itself. Every one must and will have it in certain quantity, either by fair means or foul. Every community is composed of borrowers and lenders, and the former are always in stupendous majority. They who have most lend least; and, consequently, borrowers are brought to depend on the class widely removed from prosperity.

The number of men who subsist upon others by persistent fleecing can scarcely be estimated. They abound in this country, especially in New York, which may well be called the haven of the hard-up, and the blissful seat of the professional borrower. All roads lead to New York; all swindlers and adventurers journey thither in expectation of finding victims. Their anticipations are generally realized, and they bless the stars which have guided them to monetary Manhattan. They come by every boat and train, from every state and nation, with devices, plans, and pretexts for genteelly defrauding that colossal goose known as the Public.

Fortunes are so much more easily and quickly made here than in any other city, that the borrower, whatever his calling or his clime, is tempted to visit us because confident of his reward. Europeans often wonder at the carelessness of Americans in respect to money, and are astounded when told that, in this Western land, the chief requirements for procuring loans without security are falsehood and effrontery. They cannot understand how it is possible for hundreds and thousands of men to live by politely robbing others, and yet keep up an assumption of honesty and respectability. Aware that such things could not be in the old world capitals, they are surprised at the opposite order of affairs over here.

[Sidenote: THE METROPOLIS AS A FIELD FOR SWINDLERS.]

It would be extremely interesting to know the amount that this community is swindled out of annually, not only by its own citizens and people, but by foreigners of every grade. I venture to affirm, that there are almost always here from twenty to twenty-five thousand persons whose principal business it is to filch from the purse of whomsoever they can. Borrowing is their exclusive profession. They have reduced it to a science, and arranged it as an art. They have a certain genius for imposition, a dramatic power of misrepresentation, a fecundity of invention which would have inured to their great advantage in some honest calling. But of honesty they will have none; preferring to wheedle, falsify, and plunder by the niceties of manipulation and the subtleties of deception. These professional borrowers are of divers degrees and countless types, though their end is continuously and persistently the same.

The normal mind would suppose that borrowing is the hardest way to get money; that earnest and honest work of any kind would be much the easier of the two. But the mind of the professional borrower is abnormal. Having no clear conception of truth, justice, or advantage, it sees life at an extremely obtuse angle. It may have been healthful at first, but it becomes diseased by continued violation of integrity, and finally ceases to have cognizance of its own operations.

Money is often called, and generally seems to be, a vulgar commodity, which generous souls ought to be above considering. The mere possession of money may not be, and indeed it very rarely is, either refining or ennobling; but to be without it, begets unhappiness, opens the door to temptation, provokes a tendency to disesteem, if not to degradation. Nothing is so demoralizing as to be under material obligations that cannot be discharged; and when these obligations are voluntarily and continually assumed, he who assumes them grows to be, ere long, a sycophant and a slave.

[Sidenote: BEWARE OF DEBTS.]

“Beware of debts!” is an excellent motto for secular guidance, and its conscientious follower will, in the long run, thank his stars for its adoption. To owe is to be owned, to surrender individuality, to lose independence, to forfeit self-respect. The debtor soon parts with his sensibility, and waxes callous. His course winds downward; at every turn he is forced to do greater violence to his natural self and the cause of truth. Eventually, he becomes a worse offender than those the laws punish; for he is an enemy to society whom society has no power to confine.

[Sidenote: THE CLASSES OF BORROWERS.]

The metropolis is infested with so many and such different borrowers, and they are so much a part of the community, that they may be divided and subdivided into classes.

The first class is composed of those who, being in business, draw largely on the future at a venture, but with the expectation of paying in due season. They are usually hopeful, even sanguine, though less prudent and conscientious than they should be, and more considerate of themselves than of others. These men turn their confidence and audacity to profit, provided fortune favors them; but if she be adverse, they go down, and drag their lenders with them. They rise again, however, in new fashions for borrowing, and once more challenge circumstances to do their behest. If they win at last, they boast of their energy, perseverance, and courage, and despise men who have been more conscientious and less lucky.

The second class have legitimate callings, but substitute credit for capital. They borrow largely without concerning themselves in regard to liquidation. They are not positively, though they may be considered negatively, dishonest. They will pay if they can conveniently; but if they cannot, they refuse to fret, resigning their financial burdens to those compelled to bear them. They have the support of an easy selfishness, and when their creditors complain, they invite them to be patient, and wait for the day of judgment.

The third class shift from one occupation to another, and in every shifting are liable to deterioration. Half the time they are out of business, but they are always going into something new that promises admirably. They dwell in to-morrow, and defer the fulfilment of all their engagements to that uncertain fragment of time. They borrow right and left, careless of whom, never reckoning the amount they have taken or the covenant they have made. They will pay if they are dunned; but if not, they will scatter their obligations with their breath. After a certain range of experience in effecting private loans, they learn that many persons would rather suffer loss than ask for a return of money, and they take advantage of this sensibility. They fortify their want of principle by affirming that a debt is not due until demanded, and they always pretend to forget what it would be unpleasant to remember. They are poor in performance. They invariably want extensions, and regard to-day as if it were non-existent. Catch them with a full purse, and represent your right to a part of its contents, and you may count upon payment long deferred.

The fourth class are constitutionally dishonorable—the impersonation of selfishness. They have no intention of paying, even at the time of borrowing, and never will pay so long as they can avoid it. They talk a good deal of their integrity, for the express purpose of imposing upon their hearers. They consider every man a potential creditor, and try to influence him to that end. They are good for what they pay cash for. Their word ranks with their bond, and both are worthless. They can be depended upon to meet their obligations only when compulsion is employed.

The fifth class are still worse; for they not only regard borrowing as a virtue, but they deem payment a vice. To defraud anybody seems to give them a positive pleasure, and they never felicitate themselves so much as after a successful swindle. They are earnestly opposed to discharging any and every obligation, however sacred the circumstances under which it is contracted. They are among the very few of their kind who would rather throw away money than pay a debt with it; and a creditor whom they have been obliged to satisfy, they reckon ever after as an enemy. By some perversion of understanding and derangement of morals, they have come to believe that the world’s goods belong to the most ingenious swindlers, and that they are entitled to such distinction. This class seldom have any position, commercial or otherwise, but prey upon the public without mercy.

[Sidenote: THE MOST PROFESSIONAL OF BORROWERS.]

[Sidenote: ENERGY OF THE CLASS.]

The sixth class, so far as known, have never done anything but borrow. They are the most professional of professionals. Their only idea of property is to get whatever they can without an equivalent. Work is hateful to them, and fraud delightful. They struggle hard for the reward of dishonesty, and receive it with a feeling akin to enthusiasm. They have never had the slightest credit; and how they contrive to dupe their fellows, year after year, is one of the mysteries of humanity. Physiognomy and manners proclaim against them; and yet they accomplish such results through dishonesty as upright men would vainly strive for by honorable means. Continual practice renders them perfect in the art of cozening. They are able to espy a loan in a face as a banker is to detect alloy in coin. They appear to have an intuitive knowledge of the contents of an unseen pocket-book, and of its owner’s special weakness, which they proceed at once to play upon; they can get money out of a hunks, and have been known to raise the wind in the dead calm of a millionaire.

These principal classes include subdivisions too numerous and diverse to mention. Borrowers change their grade as they advance in meanness and recklessness. They may begin in the first rank and fall to the lowest. They will do this year what they would not have done last. They are always liable to sink, even below the level they occupy. They require a broad field for operations, because the proper victims cannot be gathered twice by the same hand. They droop their crest as they accumulate infamy, and exercise more and more hypocrisy and deeper and bolder falsehood as their career continues.

Borrowers roam the island of Manhattan from morning to midnight, invading every place and penetrating every corner. They can no more be shut out than the Atlantic Ocean; they are all-pervading, persistent, and resistless. They will climb to the apex of Grace Church, or walk to High Bridge in a driving storm, for the sake of a trivial loan, when they could not be hired to do honest work for ten dollars an hour. They never know dejection; if they did, they would be philanthropic enough to make a case for the coroner. They rob the credulous and cajole the weak with a zest and cheerfulness which can only spring from a serene consciousness of doing evil. While the good suffer and the deserving starve, they enjoy themselves and grow round with plenty.

Professional borrowers have a knowledge of human nature equal to Shakspeare or Cervantes; and in physiognomy they laugh Lavater to scorn. They often ask loans without getting accommodation; but this does not prove their insight at fault,—only their love for experiment. The demands they make upon the unwilling are tentative efforts to be treasured up as warning in the future. They would never go to the wrong man were not the right one absent. They cannot always have things as they want, and so they take them as they must. The merest novice makes no approaches to the Astors, or Stewarts, or Vanderbilts; their reputation has gone before them, and he can discover at a glance that not a single dollar can be torn from their financial souls. Such an absolute incapacity for procuring money gleams from every lineament of the rich, that the rudest savage would recognize it on instinct.

If borrowers preyed upon the prosperous, they would do little harm; but, unfortunately, they find their victims among those who have not locked up their hearts and thrown away the key. The man who lends is primarily a good fellow; and that he should be driven into scepticism and cynicism by deliberate swindles, is deplorable indeed. Such shattering of faith is a sin against the race; and if a professional borrower did not aspire to total depravity, he would hesitate before committing it. But he stops at nothing, except it be the vision of a debt discharged, or the ghost of an unredeemed due-bill.

[Sidenote: THE FEAR THEY INSPIRE.]

Hundreds of our citizens, strange as it may appear, are in perpetual dread of borrowers. They are aware that their countenances and their hearts are against them, and that, resolve as they will, they are in danger of being wheedled. They are angry with themselves whenever they succumb to the blandishments they have suffered so much by; and still, when assailed by a direct petition for a loan, they yield without protest.

Plausible swindlers seem to keep in memory every over-amiable man who will open his purse for the telling of a piteous tale or specious story. They are ever on the trail of such a member of the tender-hearted tribe, and they inevitably run him down. Go where he may, they invariably find him out, and, with wheedling tongue, lick up his substance.

[Sidenote: HORACE GREELEY AS A VICTIM.]

The kind and gentle Horace Greeley was, until the last day of his life, the victim of impecunious cheats. He was opposed, on principle, to giving them a penny; and yet, in practice, he was a perpetual purveyor to their imaginary needs. For many years, I doubt if any energetic applicant for a loan ever left the presence of the great journalist without carrying his point. During the last twenty-five years of his life, Mr. Greeley must have lent to entirely irresponsible persons, without the slightest expectation of getting anything back, not far from fifty thousand dollars. Every week he would berate himself for his encouragement of such “confounded loafers,” as he styled them, and express his determination to reform his loose and lavish habit. But with the new week would be resumed the open-handed generosity, from the impossibility of saying “no” even to the most transparent impostor.

While entering the Tribune office, the editor would often notice a borrower lying in wait, and tell him beforehand there was no use of asking for money; that he could not get another penny under any circumstances. The cozener, however, knowing his man, would follow him into the sanctum, and in less than a minute Mr. Greeley would be seen opening his pocket-book, and be heard to say, “Now, take that, and don’t come here any more; for I’m going to turn over a new leaf.”

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us