II.

Two hours upon the breezy parapet, beside the old Tartar walls, were all too little; but the droshkies waited in the river-street a quarter of a mile below us, our return to Moscow was ordered for the afternoon, there were amethysts and Persian silks yet to be bought, and so we sighed farewell to an enjoyment rare in Russia, and descended the steep footpath.

P. and I left the rest of the party at the booth of the handsome Bashkir, and set out upon a special mission to the Tartar camp. I had ascertained that the national beverage of Central Asia might be found there,--the genuine _koumiss_, or fermented milk of the mares of the Uralian steppes. Having drunk palm-wine in India, _sam-shoo_ China, _saki_ in Japan, _pulque_ in Mexico, _bouza_ in Egypt, mead in Scandinavia, ale in England, _bock-bier_ in Germany, _mastic_ in Greece, _calabogus_ in Newfoundland, and--soda-water in the United States, I desired to complete the bibulous cosmos, in which _koumiss_ was still lacking. My friend did not share my curiosity, but was ready for an adventure, which our search for mare's milk seemed to promise.

Beyond the mosques we found the Uzbeks and Kirghiz,--some in tents, some in rough shanties of boards. But they were without koumiss: they had had it, and showed us some empty kegs, in evidence of the fact. I fancied a gleam of diversion stole over their grave, swarthy faces, as they listened to our eager inquiries in broken Russian. Finally we came into an extemporized village, where some women, unveiled and ugly, advised us to apply to the traders in the khan, or caravansera. This was a great barn-like building, two stories high, with broken staircases and creaking floors. A corridor ran the whole length of the second floor, with some twenty or thirty doors opening into it from the separate rooms of the traders. We accosted the first Tartar whom we met; and he promised, with great readiness, to procure us what we wanted. He ushered us into his room, cleared away a pile of bags, saddles, camel-trappings, and other tokens of a nomadic life, and revealed a low divan covered with a ragged carpet. On a sack of barley sat his father, a blind graybeard, nearly eighty years old. On our way through the camp I had noticed that the Tartars saluted each other with the Arabic, "_Salaam aleikoom_!" and I therefore greeted the old man with the familiar words. He lifted his head: his face brightened, and he immediately answered, "_Aleikoom salaam_, my son!"

"Do you speak Arabic?" I asked.

"A little; I have forgotten it," said he. "But thine is a new voice. Of what tribe art thou?"

"A tribe far away, beyond Bagdad and Syria," I answered.

"It is the tribe of Damascus. I know it now, my son. I have heard the voice, many, many years ago."

The withered old face looked so bright, as some pleasant memory shone through it, that I did not undeceive the man. His son came in with a glass, pulled a keg from under a pile of coarse caftans, and drew out the wooden peg. A gray liquid, with an odor at once sour and pungent, spirted into the glass, which he presently handed to me, filled to the brim. In such cases no hesitation is permitted. I thought of home and family, set the glass to my lips, and emptied it before the flavor made itself clearly manifest to my palate.

"Well, what is it like?" asked my friend, who curiously awaited the result of the experiment.

"Peculiar," I answered, with preternatural calmness,--"peculiar, but not unpleasant."

The glass was filled a second time; and P., not to be behindhand, emptied it at a draught. Then he turned to me with tears (not of delight) in his eyes, swallowed nothing very hard two or three times, suppressed a convulsive shudder, and finally remarked, with the air of a martyr, "Very curious, indeed!"

"Will your Excellencies have some more?" said the friendly Tartar.

"Not before breakfast, if you please," I answered; "your koumiss is excellent, however, and we will take a bottle with us,"--which we did, in order to satisfy the possible curiosity of the ladies. I may here declare that the bottle was never emptied.

The taste was that of aged buttermilk mixed with ammonia. We could detect no flavor of alcohol, yet were conscious of a light exhilaration from the small quantity we drank. The beverage is said, indeed, to be very intoxicating. Some German physician has established a "koumiss-cure" at Piatigorsk, at the northern base of the Caucasus, and invites invalids of certain kinds to come and be healed by its agency. I do not expect to be one of the number.

There still remained a peculiar feature of the Fair, which I had not yet seen. This is the subterranean network of sewerage, which reproduces, in massive masonry, the streets on the surface. Without it, the annual city of two months would become uninhabitable. The peninsula between the two rivers being low and marshy,--frequently overflowed during the spring freshets,--pestilence would soon be bred from the immense concourse of people: hence a system of _cloacae_, almost rivalling those of ancient Rome. At each street-corner there are wells containing spiral staircases, by which one can descend to the spacious subterranean passages, and there walk for miles under arches of hewn stone, lighted and aired by shafts at regular intervals. In St. Petersburg you are told that more than half the cost of the city is under the surface of the earth; at Nijni-Novgorod the statement is certainly true. Peter the Great at one time designed establishing his capital here. Could he have foreseen the existence of railroads, he would certainly have done so. Nijni-Novgorod is now nearer to Berlin than the Russian frontier was fifty years ago. St. Petersburg is an accidental city; Nature and the destiny of the empire are both opposed to its existence; and a time will come when its long lines of palaces shall be deserted for some new capital, in a locality at once more southern and more central.

Another walk through the streets of the Fair enabled me to analyze the first confused impression, and separate the motley throng of life into its several elements. I shall not attempt, however, to catch and paint its ever-changing, fluctuating character. Our limited visit allowed us to see only the more central and crowded streets. Outside of these, for miles, extend suburbs of iron, of furs, wool, and other coarser products, brought together from the Ural, from the forests towards the Polar Ocean, and from the vast extent of Siberia. Here, from morning till night, the beloved _kvass_ flows in rivers, the strong stream of _shchi_ (cabbage-soup) sends up its perpetual incense, and the samovar of cheap tea is never empty. Here, although important interests are represented, the intercourse between buyers and sellers is less grave and methodical than in the bazaar. There are jokes, laughter, songs, and a constant play of that repartee in which even the serfs are masters. Here, too, jugglers and mountebanks of all sorts ply their trade; gypsies sing, dance, and tell fortunes; and other vocations, less respectable than these, flourish vigorously. For, whether the visitor be an Ostiak from the Polar Circle, an Uzbek from the Upper Oxus, a Crim-Tartar or Nogai, a Georgian from Tiflis, a Mongolian from the Land of Grass, a Persian from Ispahan, a Jew from Hamburg, a Frenchman from Lyons, a Tyrolese, Swiss, Bohemian, or an Anglo-Saxon from either side of the Atlantic, he meets his fellow-visitors to the Great Fair on the common ground, not of human brotherhood, but of human appetite; and all the manifold nationalities succumb to the same allurements. If the various forms of indulgence could be so used as to propagate ideas, the world would speedily be regenerated; but as things go, "cakes and ale" have more force than the loftiest ideas, the noblest theories of improvement; and the impartial observer will make this discovery as readily at Nijni-Novgorod as anywhere else.

Before taking leave of the Fair, let me give a word to the important subject of tea. It is a much-disputed question with the connoisseurs of that beverage which neither cheers nor inebriates, (though, I confess, it is more agreeable than koumiss,) whether the Russian "caravan tea" is really superior to that which is imported by sea. After much patient observation, combined with serious reflection, I incline to the opinion that the flavor of tea depends, not upon the method of transportation, but upon the price paid for the article. I have tasted bad caravan tea in Russia, and delicious tea in New York. In St. Petersburg you cannot procure a good article for less than three roubles ($2.25, _gold_) per pound; while the finer kinds bring twelve and even sixteen roubles. Whoever is willing to import at that price can no doubt procure tea of equal excellence. The fact is, that this land-transportation is slow, laborious, and expensive; hence the finer kinds of tea are always selected, a pound thereof costing no more for carriage than a pound of inferior quality; _whence_ the superior flavor of caravan tea. There is, however, one variety to be obtained in Russia which I have found nowhere else, not even in the Chinese sea-ports. It is called "imperial tea", and comes in elegant boxes of yellow silk emblazoned with the dragon of the Hang dynasty, at the rate of from six to twenty dollars a pound. It is yellow, and the decoction from it is almost colorless. A small pinch of it, added to ordinary black tea, gives an indescribably delicious flavor,--the very aroma of the tea-blossom; but one cup of it, unmixed, is said to deprive the drinker of sleep for three nights. We brought some home, and a dose thereof was administered to three unconscious guests during my absence; but I have not yet ascertained the effects which followed.

Monsieur D. brought our last delightful stroll through the glittering streets to an untimely end. The train for Moscow was to leave at three o'clock; and he had ordered an early dinner at the restaurant. By the time this was concluded, it was necessary to drive at once to the station, in order to secure places. We were almost too late; the train, long as it was, was crammed to overflowing; and although both station-master and conductor assisted us, the eager passengers disregarded their authority. With great difficulty, one compartment was cleared for the ladies; in the adjoining one four merchants, in long caftans, with sacks of watermelons as provision for the journey, took their places, and would not be ejected. A scene of confusion ensued, in which station-master, conductor, Monsieur D., my friend P., and the Russian merchants were curiously mixed; but when we saw the sacks of watermelons rolling out of the door, we knew the day was ours. In two minutes more we were in full possession; the doors were locked, and the struggling throngs beat against them in vain.

With a grateful farewell to our kind guide, whose rather severe duties for our sake were now over, we moved away from the station, past heaps of cotton-bales, past hills of drifting sand, and impassive groups of Persians, Tartars, and Bukharians, and slowly mounted the long grade to the level of the upland, leaving the Fair to hum and whirl in the hollow between the rivers, and the white walls and golden domes of Novgorod to grow dim on the crest of the receding hill.

The next morning, at sunrise, we were again in Moscow.

MY AUTUMN WALK.

On woodlands ruddy with autumn The amber sunshine lies; I look on the beauty round me, And tears come into my eyes.

For the wind that sweeps the meadows Blows out of the far South-west, Where our gallant men are fighting, And the gallant dead are at rest.

The golden-rod is leaning And the purple aster waves In a breeze from the land of battles, A breath from the land of graves.

Full fast the leaves are dropping Before that wandering breath; As fast, on the field of battle, Our brethren fall in death.

Beautiful over my pathway The forest spoils are shed; They are spotting the grassy hillocks With purple and gold and red.

Beautiful is the death-sleep Of those who bravely fight In their country's holy quarrel, And perish for the Right.

But who shall comfort the living, The light of whose homes is gone: The bride, that, early widowed, Lives broken-hearted on;

The matron, whose sons are lying In graves on a distant shore; The maiden, whose promised husband Comes back from the war no more?

I look on the peaceful dwellings Whose windows glimmer in sight, With croft and garden and orchard That bask in the mellow light;

And I know, that, when our couriers With news of victory come, They will bring a bitter message Of hopeless grief to some.

Again I turn to the woodlands, And shudder as I see The mock-grape's[B] blood-red banner Hung out on the cedar-tree;

And I think of days of slaughter, And the night-sky red with flames, On the Chattahoochee's meadows, And the wasted banks of the James.

Oh, for the fresh spring-season, When the groves are in their prime, And far away in the future Is the frosty autumn-time!

Oh, for that better season, When the pride of the foe shall yield, And the hosts of God and freedom March back from the well-won field;

And the matron shall clasp her first-born With tears of joy and pride; And the scarred and war-worn lover Shall claim his promised bride!

The leaves are swept from the branches; But the living buds are there, With folded flower and foliage, To sprout in a kinder air.

October, 1864.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] _Ampelopsis_, mock-grape. I have here literally translated the botanical name of the Virginia creeper,--an appellation too cumbrous for verse.

FIVE-SISTERS COURT AT CHRISTMAS-TIDE.

For a business street Every Lane certainly is very lazy. It sets out just to make a short passage between two thoroughfares, but, though forced first to walk straight by the warehouses that wall in its entrance, it soon begins to loiter, staring down back alleys, yawning into courts, plunging into stable-yards, and at length standing irresolute at three ways of getting to the end of its journey. It passes by artisans' shops, and keeps two or three masons' cellars and carpenters' lofts, as if its slovenly buildings needed perpetual repairs. It has not at all the air of once knowing better days. It began life hopelessly; and though the mayor and common council and board of aldermen, with ten righteous men, should daily march through it, the broom of official and private virtue could not sweep it clean of its slovenliness. But one of its idle turnings does suddenly end in a virtuous court: here Every Lane may come, when it indulges in vain aspirations for a more respectable character, and take refuge in the quiet demeanor of Every Court. The court is shaped like the letter T with an L to it. The upright beam connects it with Every Lane, and maintains a non-committal character, since its sides are blank walls; upon one side of the cross-beam are four houses, while a fifth occupies the diminutive L of the court, esconcing itself in a snug corner, as if ready to rush out at the cry of "All in! all in!" Gardens fill the unoccupied sides, toy-gardens, but large enough to raise all the flowers needed for this toy-court. The five houses, built exactly alike, are two and a half stories high, and have each a dormer-window, curtained with white dimity, so that they look like five elderly dames in caps; and the court has gotten the name of Five-Sisters Court, to the despair of Every Lane, which felt its sole chance for respectability slip away when the court came to disown its patronymic.

It was at dusk, the afternoon before Christmas, that a young man, Nicholas Judge by name, walking inquiringly down Every Lane, turned into Five-Sisters Court, and stood facing the five old ladies, apparently in some doubt as to which he should accost. There was a number on each door, but no name; and it was impossible to tell from the outside who or what sort of people lived in each. If one could only get round to the rear of the court, one might get some light, for the backs of houses are generally off their guard, and the Five Sisters who look alike in their dimity caps might possibly have more distinct characters when not dressed for company. Perhaps, after the caps are off, and the spectacles removed--But what outrageous sentiments are we drifting toward!

There was a cause for Nicholas Judge's hesitation. In one of those houses he had good reason to believe lived an aunt of his, the only relation left to him in the world, so far as he knew, and by so slender a thread was he held to her that he knew only her maiden name. Through the labyrinth of possible widowhoods, one of which at least was actual, and the changes in condition which many years would effect, he was to feel his way to the Fair Rosamond by this thread. Nicholas was a wise young man, as will no doubt appear when we come to know him better, and, though a fresh country youth, visiting the city for the first time, was not so indiscreet as to ask bluntly at each door, until he got satisfaction, "Does my Aunt Eunice live here?" As the doors in the court were all shut and equally dumb, he resolved to take the houses in order, and proposing to himself the strategy of asking for a drink of water, and so opening the way for further parley, he stood before the door of Number One.

He raised the knocker, (for there was no bell,) and tapped in a hesitating manner, as if he would take it all back in case of an egregious mistake. There was a shuffle in the entry; the door opened slowly, disclosing an old and tidy negro woman, who invited Nicholas in by a gesture, and saying, "You wish to see master?" led him on through a dark passage without waiting for an answer. "Certainly," he thought, "I want to see the master more than I want a drink of water: I will keep that device for the next house"; and, obeying the lead of the servant, he went up stairs, and was ushered into a room, where there was just enough dusky light to disclose tiers of books, a table covered with papers, and other indications of a student's abode.

Nicholas's eye had hardly become accustomed to the dim light, when there entered the scholar himself, the master whom he was to see: a small old man, erect, with white hair and smooth forehead, beneath which projected two beads of eyes, that seemed, from their advanced position, endeavoring to take in what lay round the corner of the head as well as objects directly in front. His long palm-leaved study-gown and tasselled velvet cap lent him a reverend appearance; and he bore in his hand what seemed a curiously shaped dipper, as if he were some wise man coming to slake a disciple's thirst with water from the fountain-head of knowledge.

"Has he guessed my pretended errand?" wondered Nicholas to himself, feeling a little ashamed of his innocent ruse, for he was not in the least thirsty; but the old man began at once to address him, after motioning him to a seat. He spoke abruptly, and with a restrained impatience of manner:--

"So you received my letter appointing this hour for an interview. Well, what do you expect me to do for you? You compliment me, in a loose sort of way, on my contributions to philological science, and tell me that you are engaged in the same inquiries with myself"--

"Sir," said Nicholas, in alarm,--"I ought to explain myself,--I"----

But the old gentleman gave no heed to the interruption, and continued:----

--"And that you have published an article on the Value of Words. You sent me the paper, but I didn't find anything in it. I have no great opinion of the efforts of young men in this direction. It contained commonplace generalities which I never heard questioned. You can't show the value of words by wasting them. I told you I should be plain. Now you want me to give you some hints, you say, as to the best method of pursuing philological researches. In a hasty moment I said you might come, though I don't usually allow visitors. You praise me for what I have accomplished in philology. Young man, that is because I have not given myself up to idle gadding and gossiping. Do you think, if I had been making calls, and receiving anybody who chose to force himself upon me, during the last forty years, that I should have been able to master the digamma, which you think my worthiest labor?"

"Sir," interrupted Nicholas again, thinking that the question, though it admitted no answer, might give him a chance to stand on his own legs once more, "I really must ask your pardon."

"The best method of pursuing philological researches!" continued the old scholar, deaf to Nicholas's remonstrance. "That is one of your foolish general questions, that show how little you know what you are about. But do as I have done. Work by yourself, and dig, dig. Give up your senseless gabbling in the magazines, get over your astonishment at finding that _coelum_ and _heaven_ contain the same idea etymologically, and that there was a large bread-bakery at Skolos, and make up your mind to believe nothing till you can't help it. You haven't begun to work yet. Wait till you have lived as I have, forty years in one house, with your library likely to turn you out of doors, and only an old black woman to speak to, before you begin to think of calling yourself a scholar. Eh?"

And at this point the old gentleman adjusted the dipper, which was merely an ear-trumpet,--though for a moment more mysterious to Nicholas, in its new capacity, than when he had regarded it as a unique specimen of a familiar household-implement,--and thrust the bowl toward the embarrassed youth. In fact, having said all that he intended to say to his unwelcome supposed disciple, he showed enough churlish grace to permit him to make such reply or defence as seemed best.

The old gentleman had pulled up so suddenly in his harangue, and called for an answer so authoritatively, and with such a singular flourish of his trumpet, that Nicholas, losing command of the studied explanation of his conduct, which a moment before had been at his tongue's end, caught at the last sentence spoken, and gained a perilous advantage by asking,--

"Have you, indeed, lived in this house forty years, Sir?"

"Eh! what?" said the old gentleman, impatiently, perceiving that he had spoken. "Here, speak into my trumpet. What is the use of a trumpet, if you don't speak into it?"

"Oh," thought Nicholas to himself, "I see, he is excessively deaf"; and bending over the trumpet, where he saw a sieve-like frame, as if all speech were to be strained as it entered, he collected his force, and repeated the question, with measured and sonorous utterance, "Sir, have you lived in this house forty years?"

"I just told you so," said the old man, not unnaturally starting back. "And if you were going to ask me such an unnecessary question at all," he added, testily, "you needn't have roared it out at me. I could have heard that without my trumpet. Yes, I've lived here forty years, and so has black Maria, who opened the door for you; and I say again that I have accomplished what I have by uninterrupted study. I haven't gone about, bowing to every he, she, and it. I never knew who lived in any of the other houses in the court till to-day, when a woman came and asked me to go out for the evening to her house; and just because it was Christmas-eve, I was foolish enough to be wheedled by her into saying I would go. Miss ---- Miss ----, I can't remember her name now. I shall have to ask Maria. There, you haven't got much satisfaction out of me; but do you mind what I said to you, and it will be worth more than if I had told you what books to read. Eh?" And he invited Nicholas once more to drop his words into the trumpet.

"Good afternoon," said Nicholas, hesitatingly,--"thank you,"--at a loss what pertinent reply to make, and in despair of clearing himself from the tangle in which he had become involved. It was plain, too, that he should get no satisfaction here, at least upon the search in which he was engaged. But the reply seemed quite satisfactory to the old gentleman, who cheerfully relinquished him to black Maria, who, in turn, passed him out of the house.

Left to himself, and rid of his personal embarrassment, he began to feel uncomfortably guilty, as he considered the confusion which he had entailed upon the real philological disciple, and would fain comfort himself with the hope that he had acted as a sort of lightning-rod to conduct the old scholar's bolts, and so had secured some immunity for the one at whom the bolts were really shot. But his own situation demanded his attention; and leaving the to-be unhappy young man and the to-be perplexed old gentleman to settle the difficulty over the mediating ear-trumpet, he addressed himself again to his task, and proposed to take another survey of the court, with the vague hope that his aunt might show herself with such unmistakable signs of relationship as to bring his researches to an immediate and triumphant close.

Just as he was turning away from the front of Number One, buttoning his overcoat with an air of self-abstraction, he was suddenly and unaccountably attacked in the chest with such violence as almost to throw him off his feet. At the next moment his ears were assailed by a profusion of apologetic explanations from a young man, who made out to tell him, that, coming out of his house with the intention of calling next door, he had leaped over the snow that lay between, and, not seeing the gentleman, had, most unintentionally, plunged headlong into him. He hoped he had not hurt him; he begged a thousand pardons; it was very careless in him; and then, perfect peace having succeeded this violent attack, the new-comer politely asked,--

"Can you tell me whether Doctor Chocker is at home, and disengaged? I perceive that you have just left his house."

"Do you mean the deaf old gentleman in Number One?" asked Nicholas.

"I was not aware that he was deaf," said his companion.

"And I did not know that his name was Doctor Chocker," said Nicholas, smiling. "But may I ask," said he, with a sudden thought, and blushing so hard that even the wintry red of his cheeks was outshone, "if you were just going to see him?"

"I had an appointment to see him at this hour; and that is the reason why I asked you if he was disengaged."

"He--he is not engaged, I believe," said Nicholas, stammering and blushing harder than ever; "but a word with you, Sir. I must--really--it was wholly unintentional--but unless I am mistaken, the old gentleman thought I was you."

"Thought you were I?" said the other, screwing his eyebrows into a question, and letting his nose stand for an exclamation-point. "But come, it is cold here,--will you do me the honor to come up to my room? At any rate, I should like to hear something about the old fellow." And he turned towards the next house.

"What--!" said Nicholas, "do you live in Number Two?"

"Yes, I have rooms here," said his companion, jumping back over the snow. "You seem surprised."

"It is extraordinary," muttered Nicholas to himself, as he entered the house and followed his new acquaintance up stairs.

Their entrance seemed to create some confusion; for there was an indistinct sound as of a tumultuous retreat in every direction, a scuttling up and down stairs, and a whisking of dresses round corners, with still more indistinct and distant sound of suppressed chattering and a voice berating.

"It is extremely provoking," said the young man, when they had entered his room and the door was shut; "but the people in this house seem to do nothing but watch my movements. You heard that banging about? Well, I seldom come in or go out, especially with a friend, but that just such a stampede takes place in the passage-ways and staircase. I have no idea who lives in the house, except a Mrs. Crimp, a very worthy woman, no doubt, but with too many children, I should guess. I only lodge here; and as I send my money down every month with the bill which I find on my table, I never see Mrs. Crimp. Now I don't see why they should be so curious about me. I'm sure I am very contented in my ignorance of the whole household. It's a little annoying, though, when I bring any one into the house. Will you excuse me a moment, while I ring for more coal?"

While he disappeared for this purpose, seeming to keep the bell in some other part of the house, Nicholas took a hasty glance round the room, and, opening a book on the table, read on the fly-leaf, _Paul Le Clear_, a name which he tagged for convenience to the occupant of the room until he should find one more authentic. The room corresponded to that in which he had met Doctor Chocker, but the cheerful gleam of an open fire gave a brighter aspect to the interior. Here also were books; but while at the Doctor's the walls, tables, and even floor seemed bursting with the crowd that had found lodging there, so that he had made his way to a chair by a sort of footpath through a field of folios, here there was the nicest order and an evident attempt at artistic arrangement. Nor were books alone the possessors of the walls; for a few pictures and busts had places, and two or three ingenious cupboards excited curiosity. The room, in short, showed plainly the presence of a cultivated mind; and Nicholas, who, though unfamiliar with city-life, had received a capital intellectual training at the hands of a scholarly, but anchoret father, was delighted at the signs of culture in his new acquaintance.

Mr. Le Clear reentered the room, followed presently by the coal-scuttle in the hands of a small servant, and, remembering the occasion which had brought them together, invited Nicholas to finish the explanation which he had begun below. He, set at ease by the agreeable surroundings, opened his heart wide, and, for the sake of explicitness in his narration, proposed to begin back at the very beginning.

"By all means begin at the beginning," said Mr. Le Clear, rubbing his hands in expectant pleasure; "but before you begin, my good Sir, let me suggest that we take a cup of tea together. I must take mine early to-night, as I am to spend the evening out, and there's something to tell you, Sir, when you are through,"--as if meeting his burst of confidence with a corresponding one,--"though it's a small matter, probably, compared with yours, but it has amused me. I can't make a great show on the table," he added, with an elegant humility, when Nicholas accepted his invitation; "but I like to take my tea in my room, though I go out for dinner."

So saying, he brought from the cupboard a little table-cloth, and, bustling about, deposited on a tea-tray, one by one, various members of a tea-set, which had evidently been plucked from a tea-plant in China, since the forms and figures were all suggested by the flowery kingdom. The lids of the vessels were shaped like tea-leaves; and miniature China men and women picked their way about among the letters of the Chinese alphabet, as if they were playing at word-puzzles. Nicholas admired the service to its owner's content, establishing thus a new bond of sympathy between them; and both were soon seated near the table, sipping the tea with demure little spoons, that approached the meagreness of Chinese chop-sticks, and decorating white bread with brown marmalade.

"Now," said the host, "since you share my salt, I ought to be introduced to you, an office which I will perform without ceremony. My name is Paul Le Clear," which Nicholas and we had already guessed correctly.

"And mine," said Nicholas, "is Nicholas,--Nicholas Judge."

"Very well, Mr. Judge; now let us have the story," said Paul, extending himself in an easy attitude; "and begin at the beginning."

"The story begins with my birth," said Nicholas, with a reckless ingenuousness which was a large part of his host's entertainment.

But it is unnecessary to recount in detail what Paul heard, beginning at that epoch, twenty-two years back. Enough to say in brief what Nicholas elaborated: that his mother had died at his birth, in a country home at the foot of a mountain; that in that home he had lived, with his father for almost solitary friend and teacher, until, his father dying, he had come to the city to live; that he had but just reached the place, and had made it his first object to find his mother's only sister, with whom, indeed, his father had kept up no acquaintance, and for finding whom he had but a slight clue, even if she were then living. Nicholas brought his narrative in regular order down to the point where Paul had so unexpectedly accosted him, stopping there, since subsequent facts were fully known to both.

"And now," he concluded, warming with his subject, "I am in search of my aunt. What sort of woman she will prove to be I cannot tell; but if there is any virtue in sisterly blood, surely my Aunt Eunice cannot be without some of that noble nature which belonged to my mother, as I have heard her described, and as her miniature bids me believe in. How many times of late, in my solitariness, have I pictured to myself this one kinswoman receiving me for her sister's sake, and willing to befriend me for my own! True, I am strong, and able, I think, to make my way in the world unaided. It is not such help as would ease my necessary struggle that I ask, but the sympathy which only blood-relationship can bring. So I build great hopes on my success in the search; and I have chosen this evening as a fit time for the happy recognition. I cannot doubt that we shall keep our Christmas together. Do you know of any one, Mr. Le Clear, living in this court, who might prove to be my aunt?"

"Upon my soul," said that gentleman, who had been sucking the juice of Nicholas's narrative, and had now reached the skin, "you have come to the last person likely to be able to tell you. It was only to-day that I learned by a correspondence with Doctor Chocker, whom all the world knows, that he was living just next door to me. Who lives on the other side I can't tell. Mrs. Crimp lives here; but she receipts her bills, Temperance A. Crimp; so there's no chance for a Eunice there. As for the other three houses, I know nothing, except just this: and here I come to my story, which is very short, and nothing like so entertaining as yours. Yesterday I was called upon by a jiggoty little woman,--I say jiggoty, because that expresses exactly my meaning,--a jiggoty little woman, who announced herself as Miss Pix, living in Number Five, and who brought an invitation in person to me to come to a small party at her house this Christmas-eve; and as she was jiggoty, I thought I would amuse myself by going. But she is _Miss_ Pix; and your aunt, according to your showing, should be _Mrs._"

"That must be where the old gentleman, Doctor Chocker, is going," said Nicholas, who had forgotten to mention that part of the Doctor's remarks, and now did so.

"Really, that is entertaining!" cried Paul. "I certainly shall go, if it's for nothing else than to see Miss Pix and Doctor Chocker together."

"Pardon my ignorance, Mr. Le Clear," said Nicholas, with a smile; "but what do you mean by jiggoty?"

"I mean," said Paul, "to express a certain effervescence of manner, as if one were corked against one's will, ending in a sudden pop of the cork and a general overflowing. I invented the word after seeing Miss Pix. She is an odd person; but I shouldn't wish to be so concerned about my neighbors as she appears to be. My philosophy of life," he continued, standing now before the fire, and receiving its entire radiation upon the superficies of his back, "is to extract sunshine from cucumbers. Think of living forty years, like Doctor Chocker, on the husks of the digamma! I am obliged to him for his advice, but I sha'n't follow it. Here are my books and prints; out of doors are people and Nature: I propose to extract sunshine from all these cucumbers. The world was made for us, and not we for the world. When I go to Miss Pix's this evening,--and, by the way, it's 'most time to go,--I presume I shall find one or two ripe cucumbers. Christmas, too, is a capital season for this chemical experiment. I find people are more off their guard, and offer special advantages for a curious observer and experimenter. Here is my room; you see how I live; and when I have no visitor at tea, I wind up my little musical box. You have no idea what a pretty picture I make, sitting in my chair, the tea-table by me, the fire in the grate, and the musical box for a cricket on the hearth"; and Mr. Le Clear laughed good-humoredly.

Nicholas laughed, too. He had been smiling throughout the young philosopher's discourse; but he was conscious of a little feeling of uneasiness, as if he were being subjected to the cucumber-extract process. He had intended at first to deliver the scheme of life which he had adopted, but, on the whole, determined to postpone it. He rose to go, and shook hands with Paul, who wished him all success in finding his aunt; as for himself, he thought he got along better without aunts. The two went down stairs to the door, causing very much the same dispersion of the tribes as before; and Nicholas once more stood in Five-Sisters Court, while Paul Le Clear returned to his charming bower, to be tickled with the recollection of the adventure, and to prepare for Miss Pix's party.

"On the whole, I think I won't disturb Doctor Chocker's mind by clearing it up," said he to himself. "It might, too, bring on a repetition of the fulmination against my paper which the young Judge seemed so to enjoy relating. An innocent youth, certainly! I wonder if he expected me to give him my autobiography."

Nicholas Judge confessed to himself a slight degree of despondency, as he looked at the remaining two houses in the court, since Miss Pix's would have to be counted out, and reflected that his chances of success were dwindling. His recent conversation had left upon his mind, for some reason which he hardly stopped now to explain, a disagreeable impression; and he felt a trifle wearied of this very dubious enterprise. What likelihood was there, if his aunt had lived here a long time past, as he assumed in his calculations, that she would have failed to make herself known in some way to Doctor Chocker? since the vision which he had of this worthy lady was that of a kind-hearted and most neighborly soul. But he reflected that city life must differ greatly from that in the country, even more than he had conceded with all his _a priori_ reasonings; and he decided to draw no hasty inferences, but to proceed in the Baconian method by calling at Number Three. He was rather out of conceit with his strategy of thirst, which had so fallen below the actual modes of effecting an entrance, and now resolved to march boldly up with the irresistible engine of straight-forward inquiry,--as straight-forward, at least, as the circumstances would permit. He knocked at the door. After a little delay, enlivened for him by the interchange of voices within the house, apparently at opposite extremities, a light approached, and the door was opened, disclosing a large and florid-faced man, in his shirt-sleeves, holding a small and sleepy lamp in his hand. Nicholas moved at once upon the enemy's works.

"Will you have the goodness to tell me, Sir, if a lady named Miss Eunice Brown lives here?"--that being his aunt's maiden name, and possibly good on demand thirty years after date. The reply came, after a moment's deliberation, as if the man wished to gain time for an excursion into some unexplored region of the house,--

"Well, Sir, I won't say positively that she doesn't; and yet I can say, that, in one sense of the word, Miss Eunice Brown does not live here. Will you walk in, and we will talk further about it."

Nicholas entered, though somewhat wondering how they were to settle Miss Brown's residence there by the most protracted conversation. The man in shirt-sleeves showed him into a sitting-room, and setting the lamp upon the top of a corner what-not, where it twinkled like a distant star, he gave Nicholas a seat, and took one opposite to him, first shutting the door behind them.

"Will you give me your name, Sir?" said he.

Nicholas hesitated, not quite liking to part with it to one who might misuse it.

"I have no objection," said his companion, in a sonorous voice, "to giving my name to any one that asks it. My name is Soprian Manlius."

"And mine," said Nicholas, not to be outdone in generosity, "is Nicholas Judge."

"Very well, Mr. Judge. Now we understand each other, I think. I asked your name as a guaranty of good faith. Anonymous contributions cannot be received, et cetera,--as they say at the head of newspapers. And that's my rule of business, Sir. People come to me to ask the character of a girl, and I ask their names. If they don't want to give them, I say, 'Very well; I can't intrust the girl's character to people without name.' And it brings them out, Sir, it brings them out," said Mr. Manlius, leaning back, and taking a distant view of his masterly diplomacy.

"Do people come to you to inquire after persons' characters?" asked Nicholas, somewhat surprised at happening upon such an oracle.

"Well, in a general way, no," said Mr. Manlius, smiling; "though I won't say but that they would succeed as well here as in most places. In a particular way, yes. I keep an intelligence-office. Here is my card, Sir,"--pulling one out of his waistcoat-pocket, and presenting it to Nicholas; "and you will see by the phraseology employed, that I have unrivalled means for securing the most valuable help from all parts of the world. Mr. Judge," he whispered, leaning forward, and holding up his forefinger to enforce strict secrecy, "I keep a paid agent in Nova Scotia." And once more Mr. Manlius retreated in his chair, to get the whole effect of the announcement upon his visitor.

The internal economy of an office for obtaining and furnishing intelligence might have been further revealed to Nicholas; but at this moment a voice was heard on the outside of the door, calling, "S'prian! S'prian! we're 'most ready."

"Coming, Caroline," replied Mr. Manlius, and, recalled to the object for which his visitor was there, he turned to Nicholas, and resumed,--

"Well, Mr. Judge, about Miss Eunice Brown, whether she lives here or not. Are you personally acquainted with Miss Brown?"

"No, Sir," said Nicholas, frankly. "I will tell you plainly my predicament. Miss Eunice Brown was my mother's sister; but after my mother's death, which took place at my birth, there was no intercourse with her on the part of our family, which consisted of my father and myself. My father, I ought to say, had no unfriendliness toward her, but his habits of life were those of a solitary student; and therefore he took no pains to keep up the acquaintance. He heard of her marriage, and the subsequent death of her husband; rumor reached him of a second marriage, but he never heard the name of the man she married in either case. My father lately died; but before his death he advised me to seek this aunt, if possible, since she was my only living near relation; and he told me that he had heard of her living in this court many years ago. So I have come here with faint hope of tracing her."

Mr. Manlius listened attentively to this explanation; and then solemnly walking to the door, he called in a deep voice, as if he would have the summons start from the very bottom of the house for thoroughness,--"Caroline!"

The call was answered immediately by the appearance of Mrs. Manlius, in a red dress, that put everything else in the room in the background.

"Caroline," said he, more impressively than would seem necessary, and pointing to Nicholas, "this is Mr. Nicholas Judge. Mr. Judge, you see my wife."

"But, my dear," said Mrs. Manlius, nervously, as soon as she had bowed, discovering the feeble lamp, which was saving its light by burning very dimly, "that lamp will be off the what-not in a moment. How could you put it right on the edge?" And she took it down from its pinnacle, and placed it firmly on the middle of a table, at a distance from anything inflammable. "Mr. Manlius is so absent-minded, Sir," said she, turning to Nicholas.

"Caroline," said her husband, "this will be a memorable day in the history of our family. Eunice has found a dear sister's son."

"Where?" she asked, turning for explanation to Nicholas, who at Mr. Manlius's words felt his heart beat quicker.

Then Mr. Manlius, in as few words as his dignity and the occasion would deem suitable, stated the case to his wife, who looked admiringly upon Mr. Manlius's oratory, and interestingly upon Nicholas.

"Shall I call Eunice down, S'prian?" said she, when her husband concluded, and conveying some mysterious information to him by means of private signals.

"We have here," said Mr. Manlius, now turning the hose of his eloquence toward Nicholas, and playing upon him, "we have here a dear friend, who has abode in our house for many years. She came to us when she was in trouble, and here has she found a resting-place for the soles of her feet. Sir," with a darksome glance, "her relations had forgotten her."

"I must say"----interrupted Nicholas; but Mr. Manlius waved him back, and continued:--

"But she found true kinsfolk in the friends of her early days. We have cared for her tenderly, and now at last we have our reward in consigning her to the willing hands of a young scion of her house. She was Eunice Brown; she had a sister who married a Judge, as I have often heard her say; and she herself married Mr. Archibald Starkey, who is now no more. Caroline, I will call Eunice"; and Mr. Manlius went heavily out of the room.

Nicholas was very much agitated, and Mrs. Manlius very much excited, over this sudden turn of affairs.

"Eunice has lived with us fifteen years, come February; and she has been one of the family, coming in and going out like the rest of us. I found her on the doorstep one night, and wasn't going to bring her in at first, because, you see, I didn't know what she might be; when, lo and behold! she looked up, and said I, 'Eunice Brown!' 'Yes,' said she, and said she was cold and hungry; and I brought her in, and told Mr. Manlius, and he came and talked with her, and said he, 'Caroline, there is character in that woman'; for, Mr. Judge, Mr. Manlius can read character in a person wonderfully; he has a real gift that way; and, indeed, he needs it in his profession; and, as I tell him, he was born an intelligence-officer."

Thus, and with more in the same strain, did Mrs. Manlius give vent to her feelings, though hardly in the ear of Nicholas, who paced the room in restless expectation of his aunt's approach. He heard enough to give a turn to his thoughts; and it was with unaffected sorrow that he reflected how the lonely woman had been dependent upon the charity, as it seemed, of others. He saw in her now no longer merely the motherly aunt who was to welcome him, but one whom he should care for, and take under his protection. He heard steps in the entry, and easily detected the ponderous tread of Mr. Manlius, who now opened the door, and reappeared in more careful toilet, since he was furbished and smoothed by the addition of proper touches, until he had quite the air of a man of society. He entered the room with great pomp and ceremony all by himself, and met Nicholas's disappointed look by saying, slowly,--

"Mrs. Starkey, your beloved aunt, will appear presently"; and throwing a look about the room, as if he would call the attention of all the people in the dress-circle, boxes, and amphitheatre, he continued--"I have intimated to your aunt the nature of your relationship, and I need not say that she is quite agitated at the prospective meeting. She is a woman"----

But Mr. Manlius's flow was suddenly turned off by the appearance of Mrs. Starkey herself. The introduction, too, which, as manager of this little scene, he had rehearsed to himself, was rendered unnecessary by the prompt action of Nicholas, who hastened forward, with tumultuous feelings, to greet his aunt. His honest nature had no sceptical reserve; and he saluted her affectionately, before the light of the feeble lamp, which seemed to have husbanded all its strength for this critical moment, could disclose to him anything of the personal appearance of his relative. At this moment the twinkling light, like a star at dawn, went out; and Mrs. Manlius, rushing off, reappeared with an astral, which turned the somewhat gloomy aspect of affairs into cheerful light. Perhaps it was symbolic of a sunrise upon the world which enclosed Nicholas and his aunt. Nicholas looked at Mrs. Starkey, who was indeed flurried, and saw a pinched and meagre woman, the flower of whose youth had long ago been pressed in the book of ill-fortune until it was colorless and scentless. She found words presently, even before Nicholas did; and sitting down with him in the encouraging presence of the Manlii, she uttered her thoughts in an incoherent way:--

"Dear, dear! who would have said it? When Miss Pix came to invite us all to her party, and said, 'Mrs. Starkey, I'm sure I hope you will come,' I thought it might be too much for such a quiet body as I be. But that was nothing to this. Why, if here I haven't got a real nephew; and, to be sure, it's a great while since I saw your mother, but, I declare, you do look just like her, and a Judge's son you are, too. Did they say you looked like your father, Nickey? I was asking Caroline if she thought my bombazine would do, after all; and now I do think I ought to wear my India silk, and put on my pearl necklace, for I don't want my Nicky to be ashamed of me. You'll go with us, won't you, nephew, to Miss Pix's? I expect it's going to be a grand party; and I'll go round and introduce you to all the great people; and how did you leave your father, Nicholas?"

"Why, aunt, did not Mr. Manlius tell you that he was dead?" said Nicholas. "Her memory's a little short," whispered Mrs. Manlius; but, hardly interrupted by this little answer and whisper, Mrs. Starkey was again plunging headlong into a current of words, and struggling among the eddies of various subjects. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Manlius, having, as managers, set the little piece on the stage in good condition, were carrying on a private undertoned conversation, which resulted in Mrs. Manlius asking, in an engaging manner,--

"Eunice, dear, would you prefer to stay at home this evening with your nephew? Because we will excuse you to Miss Pix, who would hardly expect you."

Mrs. Starkey was in the midst of a voluble description of some private jewelry which she intended to show the astonished Nicholas; but she caught the last words, and veered round to Mrs. Manlius, saying,--

"Indeed, she expects me; and she expects Nicholas, too. She will be very much gratified to see him, and I have no doubt she will give another party for him; and if she does, I mean to invite my friend the alderman to go. I shouldn't wonder if he was to be there to-night; and now I think of it, it must be time to be going. Caroline, have you got your things on?"

Mrs. Starkey spoke with a determination that suffered no opposition, so that Nicholas and Mr. Manlius were left alone for a moment, while the two women should wrap themselves up.

"Your aunt is unduly excited, Mr. Judge," said the intelligence-officer; "and it was for that reason that I advised she should not go. She has hardly been herself the last day or two. Our neighbor, Miss Pix,--a woman whose character is somewhat unsettled; no fixed principles. Sir, I fear," shaking his head regretfully; "too erratic, controlled by impulse, possessing an inquisitive temperament," telling off upon a separate finger each count in the charges against Miss Pix's character, and reserving for the thumb the final overwhelming accusation,--"Sir, she has not learned the great French economical principle of Lassy Fair." Miss Pix being thus stricken down, he helped her up again with an apology. "But her advantages have no doubt been few. She has not studied political economy; and how can she hope to walk unerringly?"--and Mr. Manlius gazed at an imaginary Miss Pix wandering without compass or guide over the desert of life. "She makes a party to-night. And why? Because it is Christmas-eve. That is a small foundation, Mr. Judge, on which to erect the structure of social intercourse. Society, Sir, should be founded on principles, not accidents. Because my house is accidentally contiguous to two others, shall I consider myself, and shall Mrs. Manlius consider herself, as necessarily bound by the ligaments of Nature--by the ligaments of Nature, Mr. Judge,--to the dwellers in those houses? No, Sir. I don't know who lives in this court beside Miss Pix. Nature brought your aunt and Mrs. Manlius together, and Nature brought you and your aunt together. We will go, however, to Miss Pix's. It will gratify her. But your aunt is excited about the, for her, unusual occasion. And now she has seen you. I feared this interview might overcome her. She is frail; but she is fair, Sir, if I may say so. She has character; very few have as much,--and I have seen many women. Did you ever happen to see Martha Jewmer, Mr. Judge?"

Nicholas could not remember that he had.

"Well, Sir, that woman has been in my office twelve times. I got a place for her each time. And why? Because she has character"; and Mr. Manlius leaned back to get a full view of character. Before he had satisfied himself enough to continue his reminiscences, his wife and Mrs. Starkey returned, bundled up as if they were going on a long sleigh-ride.

"We're ready, S'prian," said Mrs. Manlius. "Eunice thinks she will go still,"--which was evident from the manner in which Mrs. Starkey had gathered about her a quantity of ill-assorted wrappers, out of the folds of which she delivered herself to each and all in a rapid and disjointed manner; and the party proceeded out of the house, Mrs. Manlius first shutting and opening various doors, according to some intricate system of ventilation and heating.

Nicholas gave his arm to his aunt, and, though anxious to speak of many things, could hardly slip a word into the crevices of her conversation; nor then did his questions or answers bring much satisfactory response. He was confused with various thoughts, unable to explain the random talk of his companion, and yet getting such glimpses of the dreary life she had led as made him resolve to give her a home that should admit more sunshine into her daily experience.

They were not kept waiting long at Miss Pix's door, for a ruddy German girl opened it at their summons; and once inside, Miss Pix herself came forward with beaming face to give them a Christmas-eve greeting. Mr. Manlius had intended making the official announcement of the arrival of the new nephew, but was no match for the ready Mrs. Starkey, who at once seized upon their hostess, and shook her warmly by the hand, pouring out a confused and not over-accurate account of her good-fortune, mixing in various details of her personal affairs. Miss Pix, however, made out the main fact, and turned to Nicholas, welcoming him with both hands, and in the same breath congratulating Mrs. Starkey, showing such honest, whole-souled delight that Nicholas for a moment let loose in his mind a half-wish that Miss Pix had proved to be his aunt, so much more nearly did she approach his ideal. The whole party stood basking for a moment in Miss Pix's Christmas greeting, then extricated themselves from their wrappers with the help of their bustling hostess, and were ushered into her little parlor, where they proved to be the first arrivals. It was almost like sitting down in an arbor: for walls and ceilings were quite put out of sight by the evergreen dressing; the candlesticks and picture-frames seemed to have budded; and even the poker had laid aside its constitutional stiffness, and unbent itself in a miraculous spiral of creeping vine. Mr. Manlius looked about him with the air of a connoisseur, and complimented Miss Pix.

"A very pretty room, Miss Pix,--a very pretty room! Quite emblematical!" And he cocked his head at some new point.

"Oh, I can't have my Christmas without greens!" said Miss Pix. "Christmas and greens, you know, is the best dish in the world. Isn't it, Mrs. Starkey?"

But Mrs. Starkey had no need of a question; for she had already started on her career as a member of the party, and was galloping over a boundless field of observation.

There was just then another ring; and Miss Pix started for the door, in her eagerness to greet her visitors, but recollected in season the tribute which she must pay to the by-laws of society, and hovered about the parlor-door till Gretchen could negotiate between the two parties. Gretchen's pleased exclamation in her native tongue at once indicated the nature of the arrival; and Miss Pix, whispering loudly to Mrs. Manlius, "My musical friends," again rushed forward, and received her friends almost noisily; for when they went stamping about the entry to shake off the snow from their feet against the inhospitable world outside, she also, in the excess of her sympathetic delight, caught herself stamping her little foot. There was a hurly-burly, and then they all entered the parlor in a procession, preceded by Miss Pix, who announced them severally to her guests as Mr. Pfeiffer, Mr. Pfeffendorf, Mr. Schmauker, and Mr. Windgraff. Everybody bowed at once, and rose to the surface, hopelessly ignorant of the name and condition of all the rest, except his or her immediate friends. The four musical gentlemen especially entirely lost their names in the confusion; and as they looked very much alike, it was hazardous to address them, except upon general and public grounds.

Mrs. Starkey was the most bewildered, and also the most bent upon setting herself right,--a task which promised to occupy the entire evening. "Which is the fifer?" she asked Nicholas; but he could not tell her, and she appealed in vain to the others. Perhaps it was as well, since it served as an unfailing resource with her through the evening. When nothing else occupied her attention, she would fix her eyes upon one of the four, and walk round till she found some one disengaged enough to label him, if possible; and as the gentlemen had much in common, while Mrs. Starkey's memory was confused, there was always room for more light.

Miss Pix meanwhile had disentangled Nicholas from Mrs. Starkey, and, as one newly arrived in the court, was recounting to him the origin of her party.

"You see, Mr. Judge, I have only lived here a few weeks. I had to leave my old house; and I took a great liking to this little court, and especially to this little house in it. 'What a delightful little snuggery!' thought I. 'Here one can be right by the main streets, and yet be quiet all day and evening.' And that's what I want; because, you see, I have scholars to come and take music-lessons of me. 'And then,' I thought to myself, 'I can have four neighbors right in the same yard, you may say.' Well, here I came; but--do you believe it?--hardly anybody even looked out of the window when the furniture-carts came up, and I couldn't tell who lived in any house. Why, I was here three weeks, and nobody came to see me. I might have been sick, and nobody would have known it." Here little Miss Pix shook her head ruefully at the vision of herself sick and alone. "I've seen what that is," she added, with a mysterious look. "'Well, now,' I said to myself, 'I can't live like this. It isn't Christian. I don't believe but the people in the court could get along with me, if they knew me.' Well, they didn't come, and they didn't come; so I got tired, and one day I went round and saw them all,--no, I didn't see the old gentleman in Number One that time. Will you believe it? not a soul knew anybody else in any house but their own! I was amazed, and I said to myself, 'Betsey Pix, you've got a mission'; and, Mr. Judge, I went on that mission. I made up my mind to ask all the people in the court, who could possibly come, to have a Christmas-eve gathering in my house. I got them all, except the Crimps, in Number Two, who would not, do what I could. Then I asked four of my friends to come and bring their instruments; for there's nothing like music to melt people together. But, oh, Mr. Judge, not one house knows that another house in the court is to be here; and, oh, Mr. Judge, I've got such a secret!" And here Miss Pix's cork flew to the ceiling, in the manner hinted at by Mr. Paul Le Clear; while Nicholas felt himself to have known Miss Pix from birth, and to be, in a special manner, her prime-minister on this evening.

It was not long before there was another ring, and Mr. Le Clear appeared, who received the jiggoty Miss Pix's welcome in a smiling and well-bred manner, and suffered himself to be introduced to the various persons present, when all seized the new opportunity to discover the names of the musical gentlemen, and fasten them to the right owners. Paul laughed when he saw Nicholas, and spoke to him as an old acquaintance. Miss Pix was suddenly in great alarm, and, beckoning away Nicholas, whispered, "Don't for the world tell him where the others live." Like the prime-minister with a state-secret, Nicholas went back to Paul, and spent the next few minutes in the trying task of answering leading questions with misleading answers.

"I see," said the acute Mr. Le Clear to himself; "the aunt is that marplotty dame who has turned our young Judge into a prisoner at the bar"; and he entered into conversation with Mrs. Starkey with great alacrity, finding her a very ripe cucumber. Mr. Manlius, who was talking, in easy words of two syllables, to the musical gentlemen, overheard some of Mrs. Starkey's revelations to Mr. Le Clear, and, watching his opportunity, got Paul into a corner, where he favored him with some confidences respecting the lady.

"You may have thought, Sir," said he, in a whisper, "that Mrs. Starkey is--is,"--and he filled out the sentence with an expressive gesture toward his own well-balanced head.

"Not at all," said Paul, politely.

"She is periodically affected," continued Mr. Manlius, "with what I may perhaps call excessive and ill-balanced volubility. Mrs. Starkey, Sir, is a quiet person, rarely speaking; but once in five or six weeks,--the periods do not return with exact regularity,--she is subject to some hidden influence, which looses her tongue, as it were. I think she is under the influence now, and her words are not likely to--to correspond exactly with existing facts. You will not be surprised, then, at her words. They are only words, words. At other times she is a woman of action. She has a wonderful character, Sir."

"Quite a phenomenon, indeed, I should say," said Paul, ready to return to so interesting a person, but politely suffering Mr. Manlius to flow on, which he did uninterruptedly.

Doctor Chocker was the last to come. Miss Pix knew his infirmity, and contented herself with mute, but expressive signs, until the old gentleman could adjust his trumpet and receive her hearty congratulations. He jerked out a response, which Miss Pix received with as much delight as if he had flowed freely, like Mr. Manlius, who was now playing upon Mr. Le Clear an analysis of Nicholas's character, which he had read with unerring accuracy, as Mrs. Manlius testified by her continued, unreserved agreement. Indeed, the finding of his aunt by Nicholas in so unexpected a manner was the grand topic of the evening; and the four musical gentlemen, hearing the story in turn from each of the others, were now engaged in a sort of diatessaron, in which the four accounts were made to harmonize with considerable difficulty: Mr. Schmauker insisting upon his view, that Nicholas had arrived wet and hungry, was found on the doorstep, and dragged in by Mrs. Starkey; while Mr. Pfeffendorf and Mr. Pfeiffer substituted Mrs. Manlius for Mrs. Starkey; and Mr. Windgraff proposed an entirely new reading.

Dr. Chocker's entrance created a lull; and the introduction, performed in a general way by the hostess, brought little information to the rest, who were hoping to revise their list of names,--and very little to the Doctor, who looked about inquisitively, as Miss Pix dropped the company in a heap into his ear-trumpet. His eye lighted on Nicholas, and he went forward to meet him, to the astonishment of the company, who looked upon Nicholas as belonging exclusively to them. A new theory was at once broached by Mr. Windgraff to his companions, that Dr. Chocker had brought about the recognition; but it lost credit as the Doctor began to question Nicholas, in an abrupt way, upon his presence there.

"Didn't know I should meet you again, young man," said he. "But you don't take my advice, eh? or you wouldn't have been here. But I'm setting you a pretty example! This isn't the way to study the value of words, eh, Mr.--Mr.--Le Clear?"

The real Mr. Le Clear and his fiction looked at each other, and by a rapid interchange of glances signified their inability to extricate themselves from the snarl, except by a dangerous cut, which Nicholas had not the courage at the moment to give. The rest of the company were mystified; and Mr. Manlius, pocketing the character which he had just been giving, free of charge, to his new acquaintance, turned to his wife, and whispered awfully, "An impostor, Caroline!" Mrs. Manlius looked anxiously and frightened back to him; but he again whispered, "Wait for further developments, Caroline!" and she sank into a state of terrified curiosity. Fortunately, Mrs. Starkey was at the moment confiding much that was irrelevant to Mr. Le Clear the actual, who did not call her attention to the words. The four musical gentlemen were divided upon the accuracy of their hearing.

Miss Pix, who had been bustling about, unconscious of the mystery, now created a diversion by saying, somewhat flurried by the silence that followed her first words,--

"Our musical friends have brought a pleasant little surprise for us; but, Mr. Pfeiffer, won't you explain the Children's Symphony to the performers?"

Everybody at once made a note of Mr. Pfeiffer, and put a private mark on him for future reference; while he good-humoredly, and with embarrassing English, explained that Miss Pix had proposed that the company should produce Haydn's Children's Symphony, in which the principal parts were sustained by four stringed instruments, which he and his friends would play; while children's toy-instruments, which the other three were now busily taking out of a box, would be distributed among the rest of the company; and Miss Pix would act as leader, designating to each his or her part, and time of playing.

The proposal created considerable confusion in the company, especially when the penny-trumpet, drum, cuckoo, night-owl, quail, rattle, and whistle were exhibited, and gleefully tried by the four musical friends. Mr. Manlius eyed the penny-trumpet which was offered him with a doubtful air, but concluded to sacrifice his dignity for the good of the company. Mrs. Manlius received her cuckoo nervously, as if it would break forth in spite of her, and looked askance at Nicholas to see if he would dare to take the night-owl into his perjured hands. He did take it with great good-humor, and, at Miss Pix's request, undertook to persuade Doctor Chocker to blow the whistle. He had first to give a digest of Mr. Pfeiffer's speech into the ear-trumpet, and, it is feared, would have failed to bring the Doctor round without Miss Pix, who came up at the critical moment, and told him that she knew he must have known how when he was a boy, accompanied with such persuasive frolicking that the Doctor at once signified his consent and his proficiency by blowing a blast into Nicholas's ear, whom he regarded as a special enemy on good terms with him, to the great merriment of all.

The signal was given, and the company looked at Miss Pix, awaiting their turn with anxious solicitude. The symphony passed off quite well, though Mr. Le Clear, who managed the drum, was the only one who kept perfect time. Mrs. Starkey, who held the rattle aloft, sprung it at the first sound of the music, and continued to spring it in spite of the expostulations and laughter of the others. Mrs. Manlius, unable to follow Miss Pix's excited gestures, turned to her husband, and uttered the cuckoo's doleful note whenever he blew his trumpet, which he did deliberately at regular intervals. The effect, however, was admirable; and as the entire company was in the orchestra, the mutual satisfaction was perfect, and the piece was encored vociferously, to the delight of little Miss Pix, who enjoyed without limit the melting of her company, which was now going on rapidly. It continued even when the music had stopped, and Gretchen, very red, but intensely interested, brought in some coffee and cakes, which she distributed under Miss Pix's direction. Nicholas shared the good lady's pleasure, and addressed himself to his aunt with increased attention, taking good care to avoid Doctor Chocker, who submitted more graciously than would be supposed to a steady play from Mr. Manlius' hose. Mr. Pfeiffer and his three musical friends made themselves merry with Mrs. Manlius and Miss Pix, while Mr. Le Clear walked about performing chemical experiments upon the whole company.

And now Miss Pix, who had been all the while glowing more and more with sunshine in her face, again addressed the company, and said:--

"I think the best thing should be kept till toward the end; and I've got a scheme that I want you all to help me in. We're all neighbors here,"--and she looked round upon the company with a smile that grew broader, while they all looked surprised, and began to smile back in ignorant sympathy, except Doctor Chocker, who did not hear a word, and refused to smile till he knew what it was for. "Yes, we are all neighbors. Doctor Chocker lives in Number Two; Mr. and Mrs. Manlius, Mrs. Starkey, and Mr. Judge are from Number Three; my musical friends live within easy call; and I live in Number Five."

Here she looked round again triumphantly, and found them all properly astonished, and apparently very contented, except Doctor Chocker, who was immovable. Nicholas expressed the most marked surprise, as became so hypocritical a prime-minister, causing Mr. Manlius to make a private note of some unrevealed perjury.

"Now," said Miss Pix, pausing and arresting the profound attention of all, "now, who lives at Number Four?"

If she expected an answer, it was plainly not locked up in the breast of any one before her. But she did not expect an answer; she was determined to give that herself, and she continued:--

"There is a most excellent woman there, Mrs. Blake, whom I should have liked very much to introduce to you to-night, especially as it is her birthday. Isn't she fortunate to have been born on Christmas-eve? Well, I didn't ask her, because she is not able to leave her room. There she has sat, or lain, for fifteen years! She's a confirmed invalid; but she can see her friends. And now for my little scheme. I want to give her a surprise-party from all her neighbors, and I want to give it now. It's all right. Gretchen has seen her maid, and Mrs. Blake knows just enough to be willing to have me bring a few friends."

Miss Pix looked about, with a little anxiety peeping out of her good-souled, eager face. But the company was so melted down that she could now mould it at pleasure, and no opposition was made. Mr. Manlius volunteered to enlighten Doctor Chocker; but he made so long a preamble that the old scholar turned, with considerable impatience, to Miss Pix, who soon put him in good-humor, and secured his cooperation, though not without his indulging in some sinful and unneighborly remarks to Nicholas.

It proved unnecessary to go into the court, for these two housed happened to have a connection, which Miss Pix made use of, the door having been left open all the evening, that Mrs. Blake might catch some whiffs of the entertainment. Gretchen appeared in the doorway, bearing on a salver a great cake, made with her own hands, having Mrs. Blake's initials, in colored letters, on the frosting, and the whole surrounded by fifty little wax tapers, indicating her age, which all counted, and all counted differently, giving opportunity to the four musical friends to enter upon a fresh and lively discussion. The party was marshalled by Miss Pix in the order of houses, while she herself squeezed past them all on the staircase, to usher them into Mrs. Blake's presence.

Mrs. Blake was sitting in her reclining-chair as Miss Pix entered with her retinue. The room was in perfect order, and had about it such an air of neatness and purity that one felt one's self in a haven of rest upon crossing the threshold. The invalid sat quiet and at ease, looking forth upon the scene before her as if so safely moored that no troubling of the elements could ever reach her. Here had she lived, year after year, almost alone with herself, though now the big-souled little music-teacher was her constant visitor; but the entrance of all her neighbors seemed in no wise to agitate her placid demeanor. She greeted Miss Pix with a pleased smile; and all being now in the room, the bustling little woman, at the very zenith of her sunny course, took her stand and said,--

"This is my company, dear Mrs. Blake. These are all neighbors of ours, living in the court, or close by. We have been having a right merry time, and now we can't break up without bringing you our good wishes,--our Christmas good wishes, and our birthday good wishes," said Miss Pix, with a little oratorical flourish, which brought Gretchen to the front with her illuminated cake, which she positively could not have held another moment, so heavy had it grown, even for her stout arms.

Mrs. Blake laughed gently, and with a delighted look examined the great cake, with her initials, and did not need to count the wax tapers. It was placed on a stand, and she said,--

"Now I should like to entertain my guests, and, if you will let me, I will give you each a piece of my cake,--for it all belongs to me, after Miss Pix's graceful presentation; and if Miss Pix will be so good, I will ask her to make me personally acquainted with each of you."

So a knife was brought, and Mrs. Blake cut a generous piece, when Doctor Chocker was introduced, with great gesticulation on the part of Miss Pix.

"I am glad to see you, Doctor Chocker," said Mrs. Blake, distinctly, but quietly, into his trumpet. "Do you let your patients eat cake? Try this, and see if it isn't good for me."

"If I were a doctor of medicine," said he, jerkily, "I should bring my patients to see you"; at which Miss Pix nodded to him most vehemently, and the Doctor wagged his ear-trumpet in delight at the retort which he thought he had made.

Mr. Le Clear was introduced, and took his cake gracefully, saying, "I hope another year will see you at a Christmas-party of Miss Pix's"; but Mrs. Blake smiled, and said, "This is my little lot of earth, and I am sure there is a patch of stars above."

Mr. Manlius and wife came up together, he somewhat lumbering, as if Mrs. Blake's character were too much for his discernment, and Mrs. Manlius not quite sure of herself when her husband seemed embarrassed.

"This is really too funny," said Mrs. Blake, merrily; "as if I were a very benevolent person, doling out my charity of cake on Christmas-eve. Do, Mr. Manlius, take a large piece; and I am sure your wife will take some home to the children."

"What wonderful insight!" said Mr. Manlius, turning about to Nicholas, and drawing in his breath. "We have children,--two. That woman has a deep character, Mr. Judge."

"Mrs. Starkey, also of Number Three," said the mistress of ceremonies; "and Mr. Nicholas Judge, arrived only this evening."

"Nicholas Judge!" said Mrs. Blake, losing the color which the excitement had brought, and dropping the knife.

"My nephew," explained Mrs. Starkey. "Just came this evening, and found me at home. Never saw him before. Must tell you all about it." And she was plunging with alacrity into the delightful subject, with all its variations.

Mrs. Blake looked at Nicholas, while the color came and went in her cheeks.

"Stop!" said she, decisively, to Mrs. Starkey, and half rising, she leaned forward to Nicholas, and said rapidly, with an energy which seemed to be summoned from every part of her system,--

"Are you the son of Alice Brown?"

"Yes, yes," said Nicholas, tumultuously; "and you,--you are her sister. Here, take this miniature"; and he snatched one from his breast. "Is not this she? It is my mother. You are my Aunt Eunice," he exclaimed, as she sank back in her chair exhausted, but reaching out her arms to him.

"That young man is a base impostor!" said Mr. Manlius aloud, with his hand in his waistcoat; while Mrs. Manlius looked on deprecatingly, but as if too, too aware of the sad fact. "I said so to my wife in private,--I read it in his face,--and now I declare it publicly. That man is a base impostor!"

"Dear, dear, I don't understand it at all!" said the unfortunate Mrs. Starkey. "I thought, to be sure, that Nicholas was my nephew. Never saw him before, but he said he was; and now, now, I don't know what I shall do!" and the poor lady, suddenly bereft of her fortune, began to wipe her moist eyes; "but perhaps," she added, with a bright, though transient gleam of hope, "we are both aunts to him."

"That cannot be," said Nicholas, kindly, who left his aunt to set the company right, if possible. "My dear friend," he said, taking Mrs. Starkey's hand, "it has been a mistake, brought on by my heedlessness. I knew only that my aunt's name had been Eunice Brown. It chanced that yours was the same name. I happened to come upon you first in my search, and did not dream it possible that there could be two in the same court. Everything seemed to tally; and I was too pleased at finding the only relation I had in the wide world to ask many questions. But when I saw that my aunt knew who I was, and I saw my mother's features in hers, I perceived my mistake at once. We will remain friends, though,--shall we not?"

Mrs. Starkey was too much bewildered to refuse any compromise; but Mr. Manlius stepped forward, having his claim as a private officer of justice.

"I must still demand an explanation, Sir, how it is that in this mixed assembly the learned Doctor Chocker addresses you as Mr. Le Clear, and you do not decline the title"; and Mr. Manlius looked, as if for a witness, to Doctor Chocker, who was eating his cake with great solemnity, holding his ear-trumpet in hopes of catching an occasional word.

"That would require too long an explanation," said Nicholas, smiling; "but you shall have it some time in private. Mr. Le Clear himself will no doubt tell you"; which Mr. Le Clear, an amused spectator of the scene, cheerfully promised to do.

The company had been so stirred up by this revelation, that they came near retreating at once to Miss Pix's to talk it over, to the dismay of the four musical gentlemen, who had not yet been presented, and especially who had not yet got any cake. Miss Pix, though in a transport of joy, had an eye for everything, and, discovering this, insisted on presenting them in a body to Mrs. Blake, in consideration of her fatigue. They bowed simultaneously, and stood before her like bashful schoolboys; while Nicholas assumed the knife in behalf of his aunt, distributing with equal liberality, when they retired in high glee over the new version of his history, which Mr. Windgraff, for the sake of displaying his acumen, stoutly declared to be spurious. Gretchen also was served with a monstrous slice; and then the company bade good-bye to the aunt and nephew, who began anew their glad recognition.

It was a noisy set of people who left Miss Pix's house. That little lady stood in the doorway, and sent off each with such a merry blessing that it lasted long after the doors of the other houses were closed. Even the forlorn Mrs. Starkey seemed to go back almost as happy as when she had issued forth in the evening with her newly found nephew. The sudden gleam of hope which his unlooked-for coming had let in upon a toilsome and thankless life--for we know more about her position in Mr. Manlius's household than we have been at liberty to disclose--had, indeed, gone out in darkness; but the Christmas merriment, and the kindness which for one evening had flowed around her, had so fertilized one little spot in her life, that, however dreary her pilgrimage, nothing could destroy the bright oasis. It gave hope of others, too, no less verdant; and with this hope uppermost in her confused brain the lonely widow entered the land of Christmas dreams. Let us hope, too, that the pachydermatous Mr. Manlius felt the puncture of her disappointment, and that Miss Pix's genial warmth had made him cast off a little the cloak of selfishness in which he had wrapped himself; for what else could have made him say to his echoing wife that night, "Caroline, suppose we let Eunice take the children to the panorama to-morrow. It's a quarter more; but she was rather disappointed about that young fellow"? The learned Doctor Chocker, who had, in all his days, never found a place to compare with his crowded study for satisfaction to his soul, for the first time now, as he entered it, admitted to himself that Miss Pix's arbor-like parlor and Mrs. Blake's simple room had something that his lacked; and in the frozen little bedroom where he nightly shivered, in rigid obedience to some fancied laws of health, the old man was aware of some kindly influence thawing away the chill frost-work which he had suffered to sheathe his heart. Nor did Mr. Le Clear toast his slippered feet before his cheery fire without an uncomfortable misgiving that his philosophy hardly compassed the sphere of life.

Christmas-eve in the court was over. Strange things had happened; and, for one night at least, the Five Sisters had acted as one family. Little Miss Pix, reviewing the evening, as she dropped off to sleep, could not help rubbing her hands together, and emitting little chuckles. Such a delightful evening as she had had! and meaning to surprise others, she had herself been taken into a better surprise still; and here, recollecting the happy union of the lone, but not lonely, Mrs. Blake with a child of her old age, as it were, Miss Pix must laugh aloud just as the midnight clock was sounding. Bless her neighborly soul, she has ushered in Christmas-day with her laugh of good-will toward men. The whole hymn of the angels is in her heart; and with it let her sleep till the glorious sunshine awakes her.

ICE AND ESQUIMAUX.

CHAPTER II.

THE ICE IN ITS GLORY.

_June 17._--On this anniversary of the Battle of Bunker's Hill we sailed from Sleupe Harbor. Little Mecatina, with its blue perspective and billowy surface, lifted itself up astern under flooding sunshine to tell us that this relentless coast could have a glory of its own; but we looked at it with dreamy, forgetful eyes, thinking of the dear land, now all tossed into wild surge and crimson spray of war, which, how far soever away, is ever present to the hearts of her true children.

Next day we dropped into the harbor of Caribou Island, a mission-station, and left again on the 20th, after a quiet Sunday,--Bradford having gone with others to church, and come back much moved by the bronze-faced earnestness, and rough-voiced, deep-chested hymning of the fisherman congregation. Far ahead we saw the strait full of ice. Not that the ice itself could be seen; but the peculiar, blue-white, vertical striae, which stuccoed the sky far along the horizon, told experienced eyes that ice was there. Away to the right towered the long heights of Newfoundland, intensely blue, save where, over large spaces, they shone white with snow. They surprised us by their great elevation, and by the sharp and straight escarpments with which they descended. Here and there was a gorge cut through as with a saw. We then took all this in good faith, on the fair testimony of our eyes. But experience brought instruction,--as it will in superficial matters, whether in deeper ones or no. In truth, this appearance was chiefly a mirage caused by ice.

For, of all solemn prank-players, of all mystifiers and magicians, ice is the greatest. Coming out of its silent and sovereign dreamland in the North, it brings its wand, and goes wizard-working down the coast. A spell is about it; enchantment is upon it like a garment; weirdness and illusion are the breath of its nostrils. Above it, along the horizon, is a strange columned wall, an airy Giant's Causeway, pale blue, paling through ethereal gray into snow. Islands quit the sea, and become islands in the sky, sky-foam and spray seen along their bases. Hills shoot out from their summits airy capes and headlands, or assume upon their crowns a wide, smooth table, as if for the service of genii. Ships sail, bergs float, in the heavens. Here a vast obelisk of ice shoots aloft, half mountain high; you gaze at it amazed, ecstatic,--calculating the time it will take to come up with it,--whistling, if you are still capable of that levity, for a wind. But now it begins to waver, to dance slowly, to shoot up minarets and take them back, to put forth arms which change into wands, wave and disappear; and ere your wonder has found a voice, it rolls itself together like a scroll, drops nearly to the ocean-level, and is but a gigantic ice-floe after all!

The day fell calm; a calm evening came; the sea lay in soft, shining undulation, not urgent enough to exasperate the drooping sails. The ship rose and declined like a sleeper's pulse. We were all under a spell. Soon the moon, then at her full, came up, elongating herself laterally into an oval, whose breadth was not more than three fifths its length; her shine on the water likewise stretching along the horizon, sweet and fair like childhood, not a ray touching the shadowed water between. Presently, as if she discerned and did not disdain us,--wiser than "positive philosophers" in her estimate of man,--she gathered together her spreading shine, and threw it down toward us in a glade of scarcely more than her own breadth, of even width, and sharply defined at the sides. It was a regular roadway on the water, intensest gold verging upon orange, edged with an exquisite, delicate tint of scarlet, running straight and firm as a Roman road all the way from the meeting-place of sky and sea to the ship. Or rather, not quite to the ship; for, when near at hand, it broke off into golden globes, which, under the influence of the light swell, came towards us by softly sudden leaps, deepening and deepening as they came, till at the last leap they disappeared, more shining than ever, far down in the liquid, lucent heart of the sea. It was impossible to feel that these had faded, so triumphant was their close. Rather, one felt that they had been elected to a more glorious office,--had gone, perhaps, to light some hall of Thetis, or some divine, spotless revel of sea-nymphs.

I had gone below, when, at about ten o'clock, there was a hail from the deck.

"Come up and see a crack in the water!"

"A what?"

"A crack in the water!"

"Not joking?"

"No, indeed; come and see."

Up quickly! this is the day of wonders! It was a line of brilliant phosphorescence, exceedingly brilliant, about two inches wide, perfectly sharp at the edges, which extended along the side of the ship, and ahead and astern out of sight. "Crack in the water" is the seaman's name for it. I have been a full year on the water, but never saw it save this once, and had never heard of it before.

At half past eleven, the Parson and I went on deck, and read ordinary print as rapidly as by daylight. It took some ten seconds to get accustomed to the light, being fresh from the glare of the kerosene lamp; but afterwards we read aloud to each other with entire ease and fluency.

At a quarter past two, Captain Handy, a man made of fine material, with an eye for the beautiful as well as for right-whales, broke my sleep with a gentle touch, and whispered, "Come on deck, and see what a morning it is." What a morning, indeed! Thanks, old comrade! Call me next time, when there is such to see; and if I am too weak to get out of my berth, take me up in those strong arms, across that broad, billow-like chest of yours, and bear me to the deck!

It was dead calm,--no, _live_ calm, rather; for never was calm so vivid. The swell had fallen; but the sea breathes and lives even in its sleep. Dawn was already blushing, "celestial rosy red, love's proper hue," in the--_east_, I was about to say, but _north_ would be truer. The centre of its roseate arch was not more than a point (by compass) east of north. The lofty shore rose clear, dark, and sharp against the morning red; the sea was white,--white as purity, and still as peace; the moon hung opposite, clothed and half hidden in a glorified mist; a schooner lay moveless, dark-sailed, transformed into a symbol of solitude and silence, beneath. I thought of the world's myriad sleepers, and would fain have played Captain Handy to them all. But Nature is infinitely rich, and can afford to draw costly curtains about the slumber of her darling. For, without man, she were a mother ever in anguish of travail, and ever wanting a child to nurse with entire joy at her breast. Sleep on, man, while, with shadows and stars, with dying and dawning of day, not forgetting sombreness of cloud and passion of storm, the eternal mother dignifies your slumber, and waits till her _two_ suns arise and shine together!

Morning,--ice, worlds of it, the wide straits all full! A light wind had been fanning us for the last two or three hours; and now the ice lay fair in view, just ahead. We had not calculated upon meeting it here. At Port Mulgrave they told us that the last of it had passed through with a rush about a week before. Bradford was delighted, and quickly got out his photographic sickle to reap this unexpected harvest: for the wise man had brought along with him a fine apparatus and a skilful photographer. In an hour or two the schooner was up with it, and finding it tolerably open, while the wind was a zephyr, and the sea smooth as a pond, we entered into its midst. Water-fowl--puffins, murres, duck, and the like--hung about it, furnishing preliminary employment to those of our number who sought sport or specimens. It was a delightsome day, the whole of it: atmosphere rare, pure, perfect; sun-splendor in deluge; land, a cloud of blue and snow on one side, and a tossed and lofty paradise of glowing gray, purple, or brown, on the other. The day would have been hot but for being tempered by the ice. This seasoned its shining warmth with a crisp, exhilarating quality, making the sunshine and summer mildness like iced sherry or Madeira. It is unlike anything known in more southern climates. There are days in March that would resemble it, could you take out of them the damp, the laxness of nerve, and the spring melancholy. There are days in October that come nearer; but these differ by their delicious half-languors, while, by their gorgeousness of autumn foliage, and their relation to the oldening year, they are made quite unlike in spirit. This day warmed like summer and braced like winter.

Once fairly taken into the bosom of the ice-field, we had eyes for little else. Its forms were a surprise, so varied and so beautiful. I had supposed that field-ice was made up of flat cakes,--and _cake_ of all kinds is among the flattest things I know! But here if was, simulating all shapes, even those of animated creatures, with the art of a mocking bird,--and simulating all in a material pure as amber, though more varied in color. One saw about him cliffs, basaltic columns, frozen down, arabesques, fretted traceries, sculptured urns, arches supporting broad tables or sloping roofs, lifted pinnacles, boulders, honey-combs, slanting strata of rock, gigantic birds, mastodons, maned lions, couching or rampant,--a fantasy of forms, and, between all, the shining, shining sea. In sunshine, these shapes were of a glistening white flecked with stars, where at points the white was lost in the glisten; in half shadow the color was gray, in full shadow aerial purple; while, wherever the upper portions projected over the sea, and took its reflection, they often did, the color was an infinite, emerald intensity of green; beneath all which, under water, was a base or shore of dead emerald, a green paled with chalk. Blue was not this day seen, perhaps because this was shore-ice rather than floe,--made, not like the floes, of frozen sea, but of compacted and saturated snow.

Just before evening came, when the courteous breeze folded its light fans fell asleep, we left this field behind, and, seeing all clear ahead, supposed the whole had been passed. In truth, as had soon to learn, this twenty-mile strip of shore-ice was but the advance-guard of an immeasurable field or army of floe. For there came down the northern coast, in this summer of 1864, more than a thousand miles' length, with a breadth of about a hundred miles, of floe-ice in a field almost unbroken! More than a thousand miles, by accurate computation! The courtesy of the Westerner--who, having told of seeing a flock of pigeons nine miles long, so dense as to darken the sun at noonday, and meeting objections from a skeptical Yankee, magnanimously offered, as a personal favor, to "take out a quarter of a mile from the thinnest part"--cannot be imitated here. I must still say _more_ than a thousand miles,--and this, too, the second run of ice!

Captain Linklater, master of the Moravian supply-ship, a man of acute observation and some science, had, as he afterwards told me at Hopedale, measured the rate of travel of the ice, and found it to be twenty-seven miles a day. Our passengers were sure they saw it going at the rate of three or four miles an hour. Captain Handy, looking with experienced eye, pronounced this estimate excessive, and said it went from one to one and a half miles an hour,--twenty-four to thirty-six miles a day. Captain Linklater, however, had not trusted the question to his judgment, but established the rate by accurate scientific observation. Now we were headed off by the ice and driven into as harbor on the 22d of June; we left Hopedale and began our return on the 4th of August; and between these two periods the ice never ceased running. The Moravian ship, which entered the harbor of Hopedale half a mile ahead of us, on the 31st of July, pushed through it, and found it eighty-five miles wide. Toward the last it was more scattered, and at times could not be seen from the coast. But it was there; and on the day before our departure from Hopedale, August 3, this cheering intelligence arrived:--"The ice is pressing in upon the islands outside, and an easterly wind would block us in!"

What becomes of this ice? Had one lain in wait for it two hundred miles farther south, it is doubtful if he would have seen of it even a vestige. It cannot melt away so quickly: a day amidst it satisfies any one of so much. Whither does it go?

Put that question to a sealer or fisherman, and he will answer, "_It sinks._"

"But," replies that cheerful and confident gentleman, Mr. Current Impression, "ice doesn't sink; ice floats." Grave Science, too, says the same.

I believe that Ignorance is right for once. You are becalmed in the midst of floating ice. The current bears you and it together; but next morning the ice has vanished! You rub your eyes, but the fact is one not to be rubbed out; the ice was, and isn't, there! No evidence exists that it can fly, like riches; therefore I think it sinks. I have seen it, too, not indeed in the very act of sinking, but so water-logged as barely to keep its nose out. A block four cubic feet in dimension lay at a subsequent time beside the ship, and there was not a portion bigger than a child's fist above water. Watching it, again, when it has been tolerably well sweltered, you will see air-bubbles incessantly escaping. Evidently, the air which it contains is giving place to water. Now it is this air, I judge, which keeps it afloat; and when the process of displacement has sufficiently gone on, what can it do but drown, as men do under the circumstances? This reasoning may be wrong; but the fact remains. The reasoning is chiefly a guess; yet, till otherwise informed, I shall say, the ice-_lungs_ get full of water, and it goes down.

But we have wandered while the light waned, and now return. It was a gentle evening. That "day, so cool, so calm, so bright," died sweetly, as such a day should. The moon rose, not a globe, but a tall cone of silver,--silver that _blushed_; ice-magic again. But she recovered herself, and reigned in her true shape, queen of the slumber-courts; and the world slept, and we with it; and in our cabin the sleep-talk was quieted to ripples of murmur.

_June 22._--Rush! Rush! The water was racing past the ship's side, close to my ear, as I awoke early. On deck: the strait ahead was packed from shore to shore with ice, like a boy's brain with fancies; and before a jolly gale we were skimming into the harbor of Belles Amours. Five days here: tedious. The main matters here were a sand-beach, a girl who read and loved Wordsworth, a wood-thrush, a seal-race, a "killer's" head, and a cascade.

Item, sand-beach, with green grass, looking like a meadow, beyond. Not intrinsically much of an affair. The beach, on close inspection, proved soft and dirty, the grass sedge, the meadow a bog. In the distance, however, and as a variety in this unswarded cliff-coast, it was sweet, I laugh now to think how sweet, to the eyes.

Item, girl. There was one house in the harbor; not another within three miles. Here dwelt a family who spoke English,--not a patois, but English,--rare in Labrador as politicians in heaven. The French Canadians found in Southern Labrador speak a kind of skim-milk French, with a little sour-milk English; the Newfoundland Labradorians say "Him's good for he," and in general use a very "scaly" lingo, learned from cod-fish, one would think. Here was a mother, acceptable to Lindley Murray, who had instructed her children. One of these--S----, our best social explorer, found her out--owned and read a volume of Plato, and had sent to L'anse du Loup, twenty-four miles, to borrow a copy of Wordsworth. This was her delight. She had copied considerable portions of it with her own hand, and could repeat from memory many and many a page.

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

But Heaven has its own economies; and perhaps floral "sweetness" is quite as little wasted upon the desert as upon Beacon Street or Fifth Avenue.

Item, a bird. We were seeking trout,--only to obtain a minnow tricked in trout-marks. The boat crept slowly up a deep, solemn cove, over which, on either side, hung craggy and precipitous hills; while at its head was a slope covered with Liliputian forest, through which came down a broad brook in a series of snowy terraces. It was a superb day, bright and bracing,--just bracing enough to set the nerves without urging them, and exalt one to a sense of vigorous repose. The oars lingered, yet not lazily, on the way; there seemed time enough for anything. At length we came, calm, wealthy in leisure, silently cheerful, to a bit of pleasant yellow beach between rocks. And just as our feet were touching the tawny sands,--

"The sweetest throat of Solitude Unbarred her silver gates, and slowly hymned To the great heart of Silence, till it beat Response with all its echoes: for from out That far, immortal orient, wherein His soul abides 'mid morning skies and dews, A wood-thrush, angel of the tree-top heaven, Poured clear his pure soprano through the place, Deepening the stillness with diviner calm, That gave to Silence all her inmost heart In melody."

It was a regal welcome. What is like the note of the wood-thrush?--so full of royalty and psalm and sabbath! Regal in reserve, however, no less than utterance, the sovereign songster gave a welcome only, and then was silent; while a fine piping warbler caught up the theme, and discoursed upon it with liberal eloquence. The place to hear the song of the wood-thrush is wherever you can attain to that enjoyment by walking five or ten miles; the place so to hear it that the hearing shall be, by sober estimation, among the memorable events of your life, is at the head of a solemn, sunny cove, on three yards of tawny beach, in the harbor of Belles Amours, Labrador.

Item, seal-race. The male seals fight with fury in the season of their rude loves. Two of these had had a battle; the vanquished was fleeing, the victor after him. They were bounding from the water like dolphins. For some time I thought them such, though I have seen dolphins by thousands. It was a surprise to see these leisurely and luxurious animals spattering the water in such an ecstasy of amative rage.

Item, "killer." This is a savage cetacean, probably the same with the "thrasher," about fifteen feet in length, blunt-nosed, strong of jaw, with cruel teeth. On its back is a fin beginning about two thirds the way from tip to tail, running close to the latter, and then sloping away to a point, like the jib of a ship. In the largest this is some five feet long on the back, and eight or ten feet in height,--so large, that, when the creature is swimming on the surface, a strong side-wind will sometimes blow it over. It is a blue-fish on a big scale, or a Semmes in the sea, hungry as famine, fierce as plague, dainty as a Roman epicure, yet omnivorous as time. The seal is its South-Down mutton, the tongue of the whale its venison; for whenever its numbers are sufficient, it will attack this huge cetacean, and torture him till he submits and gives a horrible feast to their greed. Captain Handy had seen thirty or forty of them at this business. They fly with inconceivable fury at their victim, aiming chiefly at the lip, tearing great mouthfuls away, which they instantly reject while darting for another. The bleeding and bellowing monster goes down like a boulder from a cliff, shoots up like a shell from a mortar, beats the sea about him all into crimsoned spray with his tail; but plunge, leap, foam as he may, the finny pirates flesh their teeth in him still, still are fresh in pursuit, until at length, to end one torment by submitting to another, the helpless giant opens his mouth, and permits these sea-devils to devour the quivering morsel they covet. A big morsel; for the tongue of the full-sized right-whale weighs a ton and a half, and yields a ton of oil. The killer is sometimes confounded with the grampus. The latter is considerably larger, has a longer and slenderer jaw, less round at the muzzle, smaller teeth, and "isn't so clean a made fish"; for, in nautical parlance, cetaceans are still fish. Killers frequently try to rob whalers of their prize, and sometimes actually succeed in carrying it down, despite the lances and other weapons with which their attack is so strenuously resisted.

Item, cascade. A snowy, broken stripe down a mountain-side; taken to be snow till the ear better informed the eye. Fine; but you need not go there to see.

_June 26._--Off to Henley Harbor, sixty-five miles, at the head of the Strait of Belle Isle. Belle Isle itself--sandstone, rich, the Professor said, in ancient fossils--lay in view. The anchor went down in deep water, close beside the notable Castle Island.

There were some considerable floes in the harbor, the largest one aground in a passage between the two islands by which it is formed. And now came the blue of pure floe-ice! There is nothing else like it on this earth, but the sapphire gem in its perfection; and this is removed from the comparison by its inferiority in magnitude. This incomparable hue appears wherever deep shadow is interposed between the eye and any intense, shining white. The floe in question contained two caverns excavated by the sea, both of which were partially open toward the ship. And out of these shone, shone on us, the cerulean and sapphire glory! Beyond this were the deep blue waters of York Bay; farther away, grouped and pushing down, headland behind headland, into the bay, rose the purple gneiss hills, broad and rounded, and flecked with party-colored moss; while nearer glowed this immortal blue eye, like the bliss of eternity looking into time!

Next day we rowed close to this: I hardly know how we dared! Heavens! such blue! It grew, as we looked into the ice-cavern, deeper, intenser, more luminous, more awful in beauty, the farther inward, till in the depths it became not only a shrine to worship at, but a presence to bow and be silent before! It is said that angels sing and move in joy before the Eternal; but there I learned that silence is their only voice, and stillness their ecstatic motion!

Meanwhile the portals of this sapphire sanctuary were of a warm rose hue, rich and delicate,--looking like the blush of mortal beauty at its nearness to the heavenly.

Bradford is all right in painting the intensest blue possible,--due care, of course, being taken not to extend it uniformly over large surfaces. If he can secure any suggestion of the subtilty and luminousness,--if he can! As I come back, and utter a word, he says that the only way will be to glaze over a white ground. It had already struck me, that, as this is the method by which Nature obtains such effects, it must be the method for Art also. He is on the right track. And how the gentle soul works!

But while outward Nature here assumed aspects of beauty so surpassing, man, as if to lend her the emphasis of contrast, appeared in the sorriest shape. I name him here, that I may vindicate his claim to remembrance, even when he is a blot upon the beauty around him. I will not forget him, even though I can think of him only with shame. To remember, however, is here enough. We will go back to Nature,--though she, too, can suckle "killers."

On the evening before our departure,--for we remained several days, and had a snow-storm meanwhile,--there was a glorious going down of the sun over the hills beyond York Bay, with a tender golden mist filling all the western heavens, and tinting air and water between. So Nature renewed her charm. And with that sun setting on Henley Harbor, we leave for the present the miserable, magnificent place.

_June 30._--Iceberg! An iceberg! The real thing at last! We left Henley at ten A. M., and were soon coming up with a noble berg. Its aspect, on our near approach, was that of a vast roof rising at one end, beside which, and about half its height, was the upper third of an enormous cylinder. Passing to the west, along one side of this roof, we beheld a vast cavernous depression, making a concave line in its ridge, and then dipping deep, beyond view, into the berg. The sharp upper rim of this depression came between us and the sky, with the bright shine of the forenoon sun beyond, and showed a skirt or fringe of infinitely delicate luminous green, whose contrast with the rich marble-white of the general structure was beautiful exceedingly. With the exception of this, and of a narrow blue seam, looking like lapis-lazuli, which ran diagonally from summit to base, the broad surface of this side had the look of snow-white marble lace or fretwork. Passing thence to the north face, we came apparently upon the part at which the berg separated from its parent glacier. Here was a new effect, and one of great beauty. In material it resembled the finest statuary marble,--but rather the crystalline marbles of Vermont, with their brilliant half-sparkle, than the dead polish of the Parian; while the form and character of this facade suggested some fascinating, supernatural consent of chance and art, of fracture with sculpturesque and architectural design.

"He works in rings, in magic rings, of chance,"--

the subtlest thing ever said of Turner,--might have been spoken even more truly of the workman who wrought this. The apparent fineness of material cannot be overstated, so soft and powerful. "A porcelain fracture," said Ph----,--well. Yet such porcelain! It were the despair of China. On the eastern, or cylinder side, there was next the water a strip of intensely polished surface, surmounted by an elaborate level cornice, and above this the marble lace again.

The schooner soon tacked, and returned. As again we pass the cathedral cliff on the north, and join the western side with this in one view, we are somewhat prepared by familiarity to mingle its majesty and beauty, and take from them a single impression. The long Cyclopean wall and vast Gothic roof of the side, including many an arched, rounded, and waving line, emphasized by straight lines of blue seam, are set off against the strange shining traceries of the facade; while the union of flower-like softness and eternal strength, the fretted silver of surface, the combination of peak and cave, the fringe of blazing emerald on the ridge, the glancing, flashing lights contrasting with twilight blues and purples of deep shadow, and over all the stainless azure, and beneath and around all a sea of beryl strown with sun-dust,--these associate to engrave on the soul an impression which even death and the tomb, I would fain believe, will be powerless to efface. And if Art study hard and labor long and vehemently aspire to publish the truth of this, she does well. Her task is worthy, but is not easy: I think a greater, of the kind, has never been attempted. The height of this berg was determined by instruments--but with a conjecture only of the distance--to be one hundred and eighteen feet. Captain Brown, however, who went aloft, and thence formed a judgment, pronounced it not less than one hundred and fifty feet. One naturally inclines to the more moderate computation. But, as subsequent experience showed me that judgments of distance in such cases are almost always below the mark, I am of opinion that here, as sometimes in politics and religion, seeming moderation may be less accurate than seeming excess.

And, by the way, Noble's descriptions of icebergs, which, in the absence of personal observation, might seem excessive, are of real value. Finding a copy of his book on board, I read it with pleasure, having first fully made my own notes,--and refer to him any reader who may have appetite for more after concluding this chapter.

Early this evening we entered between bold cliffs into Square Island Harbor, latitude about 53 deg.. It is a deep and deeply sheltered dog's hole,--dogs and dirt could make it such,--but overhung by purple hills, which proved, on subsequent inspection, to be largely composed of an impure labradorite. Labradorite, the reader may know, is a crystallized feldspar, with traces of other minerals. In its pure state it is opalescent, exhibiting vivid gleams of blue, green, gold, and copper-color, and, more rarely, of rose,--and is then, and deservedly, reckoned a precious stone. The general character of the rock here is sienitic; but, besides this peculiar quality of feldspar, the hornblende appears as actinolite, (ray-stone,) so called from the form of its crystallization; while the quartz element is faintly present, or appears in separate masses. The purple of the hills is due not only to the labradorite, which has that as a stable color, but also to a purple lichen, which clothes much of the rock on this coast. I found also fine masses of mica imbedded in quartz, edge upwards, and so compact that its lamination was not perceptible. Indeed, I did not, with my novice eyes, immediately recognize it, for it appeared a handsome copper-colored rock, projecting slightly from the quartz, as if more enduring.

Next day there was trouting, with a little, and but a little, better than the usual minnow result.

And on the next, the floe-ice poured in and packed the harbor like a box of sardines. The scene became utterly Arctic,--rock above, and ice below. Rock, ice, and three imprisoned ships; which last, in their helpless isolation, gave less the sense of companionship than of a triple solitude. And when next day, Sunday, the third day of July, I walked ashore on the ice with a hundred feet of water beneath, summer seemed a worn-out tradition, and one felt that the frozen North had gone out over the world as to a lawful inheritance.

But the new Czar reigned in beauty, if also in terror. Yard-wide spaces of emerald, amethyst, sapphire, yellow-green beryl, and rose-tinted crystal, grew as familiar to the eye as paving-blocks to the dwellers in cities. The shadows of the ice were also of a violet purple, so ethereal that it required a painter's eye at once to see it, though it was unmistakably there; and to represent it will task the finest painter's hand. Then the spaces of water between the floes, if not too large, appeared uniformly in deep wine-color,--an effect for which one must have more science than I to account. It is attributed to contrast; but if thus illusive, it is at least an illusion not to be looked out of countenance. No local color could assert itself more firmly. One marvellous morning, too, a dense, but translucent, mist hovered closely, beneath strong sunshine, over the ice, lending to its innumerable fantastic forms a new, weird, witching, indescribable, real-unreal strangeness, as if the ice and the ships it inclosed and we ourselves were all but embodied dreams, half come to consciousness, and rubbing our surprised moon-eyes to gaze upon each other. The power of this mist to multiply distance was not the least part of its witchery. A schooner ten rods off looked as far away as Cadmus and Abraham.

P---- was made happy by finding here a grasshopper, which subsequently proved, however, a prize indeed,--but not quite so much of a prize as he hoped, being probably the young of a species previously known as Alpine, rather than an adult identical with one found on the summit of Mount Washington.

During the latter part of our duress here we were driven below by raw, incessant rain, and the confinement became irksome. At length, during the day and night of July 14th, the ice finally made off with itself, and the next morning the schooner followed suit. The ice, however, had not done with us. It lingered near the land, while farther out it was seen in solid mass, making witch-work, as usual, on the northern and eastern sky; and we were soon dodging through the more open portion, still dense enough, close to the coast. It was dangerous business. A pretty breeze blew; and with anything of a wind our antelope of a schooner took to her heels with speed. Lightly built,--not, like vessels designed for this coast, double-planked and perhaps iron-prowed,--she would easily have been staved by a shock upon this adamantine ice. The mate stood at the bow, shouting, "Luff! Bear away! Hard up! Hard down!" And his voice wanting strength and his articulation distinctness, I was fain, at the pinch of the game, to come to his aid, and trumpet his orders after him with my best stentorship. The old pilot had taken the helm; but his nerves were unequal to his work; and a younger man was sent to take his place. Once or twice the ship struck smaller masses of ice, but at so sharp an angle as to push them and herself mutually aside, and slide past without a crash. But a wind from the land was steadily urging the floe-field away, and at length the sea before us lay clear.

At ten A. M., we drew up to a majestic berg, and "came to,"--that is, brought the schooner close by the wind. The berg was one of the noblest. Picture to yourself two most immense Gothic churches without transepts, each with a tower in front. Place these side by side, but at a remove equal to about half their length. Build up now the space between the two towers, extending this connection back so that it shall embrace the front third or half of the churches, leaving an open _green_ court in the rear, and you have a general conception of this piece of Northern architecture. The rear of each church, however, instead of ascending vertically, sloped at an angle of about ten degrees, and, instead of having sharp corners, was exquisitely rounded. Elsewhere also were many rounded and waving lines, where the image of a church would suggest straightness. Nevertheless, you are to cling with force to that image in shaping to your mind's eye a picture of this astonishing cathedral.

Since seeing the former berg, we had heard many tales of the danger of approaching them. The Newfoundlanders and natives have of them a mortal terror,--never going, if it can be avoided, nearer than half a mile, and then always on the leeward side. "They kill the wind," said these people, so that one in passing to windward is liable to be becalmed, and to drift down upon them,--to drift upon them, because there is always a tide setting in toward them. They chill the water, it descends, and other flows in to assume its place. These fears were not wholly groundless. Icebergs sometimes burst their hearts suddenly, with an awful explosion, going into a thousand pieces. After they begin to disintegrate, moreover, immense masses from time to time crush down from above or surge up from beneath; and on all such occasions, proximity to them is obviously not without its perils. "The Colonel," brave, and a Greenland voyager, was more nervous about them than anybody else. He declared, apparently on good authority, that the vibration imparted to the sea by a ship's motion, or even that communicated to the air by the human voice, would not unfrequently give these irritable monsters the hint required for a burst of ill-temper,--and averred also that our schooner, at the distance of three hundred yards, would be rolled over, like a child's play-boat, by the wave which an exploding or over-setting iceberg would cause. And it might, indeed, be supposed, that, did one of those prodigious creations take a notion to disport its billions of tons in a somersault, it would raise no trivial commotion.

At a distance, these considerations weighed with me. I heard them respectfully, was convinced, and silently resolved not to urge, indeed, so far as I properly might, to discourage, nearness of approach. But here all these convictions vanished away. I knew that some icebergs were treacherous, but they were others, not this! There it stood in such majesty and magnificence of marble strength, that all question of its soundness was shamed out of me,--or rather, would have been shamed, had it arisen. This was not sentiment,--it was judgment,--_my_ judgment,--perhaps erroneous, yet a judgment formed from the facts as I saw them. Therefore I determined to launch the light skiff which Ph---- and I had bought at Sleupe Harbor, and row up to the berg, perhaps lay my hand upon it.

As the skiff went over the gunwale, the Parson cried,--

"Shall I go with you?"

"Yes, indeed, if you wish."

He seated himself in the stern; I assumed the oars, (I row cross-handed, with long oars, and among amateur oarsmen am a little vain of my skill) and pulled away. It was a longer pull than I had thought,--suggesting that our judgment of distances had been insufficient, and that the previous berg was higher than our measurement had made it.

Our approach was to rear of the berg,--that is, to the court or little bay before mentioned. The temptation to enter was great, but I dared not; for the long, deep ocean-swell over which the skiff skimmed like a duck, not only without danger, but without the smallest perturbation, broke in and out here with such force that I knew the boat would instantly be swept out of my possession. The Parson, however, always reckless of peril in his enthusiasm, and less experienced, cried,--

"In! in! Push the boat in!"

"No, the swell is too heavy; it will not do."

"Fie upon the swell! Never mind what will do! In!"

I sympathized too much with him to answer otherwise than by laying my weight upon the oars, and pushing silently past. The water in this bit of bay was some six or eight feet deep, and the ice beneath it--for the berg was all solid below--showed in perfection that crystalline tawny green which belongs to it under such circumstances. I pulled around the curving rear of the eastern church, with its surface of marble lace, such as we had seen before, gazing upward and upward at the towering awfulness and magnificence of edifice, myself frozen in admiration. The Parson, under high excitement, rained his hortative oratory upon me.

"Nearer! Nearer! Let's touch it! Let's lay our hands upon it! Don't be faint-hearted now. It's now or never!"

I heard him as one under the influence of chloroform hears his attendants. He exhorted a stone. His words only seemed to beat and flutter faintly against me, like storm-driven birds against a cliff at night. My brain was only in my eyeballs; and the arms that worked mechanically at the oars belonged rather to the boat than to me.

Saturated at last, if not satiated, with seeing, I glanced at the water-level, and said,--

"But see how the surge is heaving against it!"

But now it was I that spoke to stone, though not to a silent one.

"Hang the surge! I'm here for an iceberg, not to be balked by a bit of surf! It's not enough to see; I must have my hand on it! I wish to touch the veritable North Pole!"

It was pleasant to see the ever-genial Parson so peremptory; and I lingered half wilfully, not unwilling to mingle the relieving flavor of this pleasure with the more awful delight of other impressions: said, however, at length,--

"I intend to go up to it, when I have found a suitable place."

"Place! What better place do you desire than this?"

I could but smile and pull on.

Caution was not unnecessary. The sea rose and fell a number of feet beside the berg, beating heavily against it with boom and hiss; and I knew well, that, if our boat struck fairly, especially if it struck sidewise, it would be whirled over and over in two seconds. Besides, where we then were, there was a cut of a foot or more into the berg at the water-level,--or rather, it was excavated below, with this projection above; and had the skiff caught under that, we would drown. I had come there not to drown, nor to run any risk, but to get some more intimate acquaintance with an iceberg. Rowing along, therefore, despite the Parson's moving hortatives, I at length found a spot where this projection did not appear. Turning now the skiff head on, I drove it swiftly toward the berg; then, when its headway was sufficient, shipped the oars quickly, slipped into the bow, and, reaching forth my hand and striking the berg, sent the boat in the same instant back with all my force, not suffering it to touch.

"Now me! Now me!" shouted the Parson, brow hot, and eyes blazing. "You're going to give me a chance, too? I would not miss it for a kingdom!"

"Yes; wait, wait."

I took the oars, got sea-room, then turned its stern, where the Parson sat, toward the iceberg, and backed gently in.

"Put your hand behind you; reach out as far as you can; sit in the middle; keep cool, cool; don't turn your body."

"Cool, oh, yes! I'm cool as November," he said, with a face misty as a hot July morning with evaporating dew. As his hand struck the ice, I bent the oars, and we shot safely away.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" he shouted, making the little boat rock and tremble,--"hurrah! This, now, is the 'adventurous travel' we were promised. Now I am content, if we get no more."

"Cool; you'll have us over."

"Pooh! Who's cooler?"

We went leisurely around this glacial cathedral. The current set with force about it, running against us on the eastern side. At the front we found the "cornice" again, about twenty feet up, sloping to the water, and dipping beneath it on either side; below it, a crystal surface; above, marble fretwork. This cornice indicates a former sea-level, showing that the berg has risen or changed position. This must have taken place, probably, by the detachment of masses; so an occurrence of this kind was not wholly out of question, after all. There is always, however,--so I suspect,--some preliminary warning, some audible crack or visible vibration. I had kept in mind the possibility of such changes, and at the slightest intimation should have darted away,--a movement favored by the lightness of the skiff, and the extreme ease with which, under the advantage of a beautiful model, she was rowed.

A sense of awe, almost of fear, crept over me now that the adventure was over, and I looked up to the mighty towers of the facade with a somewhat humbled eye; and so, pulling slowly and respectfully along the western side, made away, solemn and satisfied, to the ship.

I expected a storm of criticism on our return, but found calm. The boat was hoisted in silently, and I hurried below, to lie down and enjoy the very peculiar entertainment which vigorous rowing was sure to afford me.

Released after a half-hour's toasting on the gridiron, I went on deck and found the Parson surrounded by a cloud of censure. The words "boyish foolhardiness," catching my ear, flushed me with some anger,--to which emotion I am not, perhaps, of all men least liable. So I stumped a little stiffly to the group, and said,--

"I don't feel myself altogether a boy, and foolhardiness is not my forte."

"Well, success is wisdom," said the Colonel, placably. "You have succeeded, and now have criticism at a disadvantage, I own."

Another, however,--not a braver man on board,--stood to his guns.

"Experienced men say that it is dangerous; I hear to them till I have experience myself."

"Right, if so it stands in your mind. You judge thus: you follow your judgment. I judge partly so, and partly otherwise, and I follow my judgment. Mere experience is but a purblind wisdom, after all. When I do not at all see my own way, I follow that, still aware of its imperfections; where eyes are of service, I use them, learning from experience caution, not submission. The real danger in this case was that of being dashed against the berg; with coolness and some skill" (was there a little emphasis on this word _skill_?) "that danger could be disarmed. For any other danger I was ready, but did not fear it. 'Boyish?' The boyish thing, I take it, is always to be a pendant upon other people's alarms. I prefer rather to be kite than its tail only."

"Well, each of us _does_ follow his own judgment," replied Candor; "you act as you think; I think you are wrong. If it were shooting a Polar bear now,--there's pleasure in that, and it were worth the while to run some risk."

We had tried for a bear together. I seized my advantage.

"It is a pleasure to you to shoot a bear. So to me also. But I would rather get into intimacy with an iceberg than freight the ship with bears."

He smiled an end to the colloquy. As I went below, Captain Handy, the Arctic whaler, met me with,--

"I would as lief as not spend a week on that berg! I have made fast to such, and lain for days. All depends on the character of the berg. If it's rotting, look out! If it's sound as that one, you may go to sleep on it."

I hastened up to proclaim my new ally. "You heed experience; hear Captain Handy." And I launched his bolt at the head of Censure, and saw it duck, if no more.

We saw after this, going and returning, many bergs, hundreds in all. With one of the finest, a little more broken and varied than those previously described, we came up at a little past noon, and the schooner stood off and on while Bradford went in the boat to sketch it in color,--Captain Handy's steady and skilful hand upon the sculling-oar. Bradford worked at it like a beaver all the afternoon, and then directed the schooner to lie to through the night, that he might resume his task in the morning,--coveting especially the effects of early light The ardent man was off before three o'clock. Nature was kind to him; he sketched the berg under a dawn of amber and scarlet, followed by floods on floods of morning gold; and returned to breakfast, after five hours' work, half in rapture and half in despair. The colors, above all, the purples, were inconceivable, he said, and there was no use trying to render them. I reminded him of Ruskin's brave words:--"He that is not appalled by his tasks will do nothing great." But his was an April despair, after all, with rifted clouds and spring sunshine pouring through.

Another memorable one was seen outside while we were in harbor, storm-bound. A vast arch went through the very heart of it, while each end rose to a pinnacle,--the arch blue, blue! We were going out to it; but, during the second night of storm, its strength broke, and beneath blinding snow there remained only a mad dance of waves over the wreck of its majesty.

There was another, curiously striped with diagonal dirt-bands, whose fellowship, however, the greens and purples did not disdain.

Another had the shape of three immense towers, seeming to _stand on the water_, more than a hundred feet of sea rolling between. The tallest tower could not be much less than two hundred feet in height; the others slightly, just perceptibly, lower. This was seen in rain, and the purples here were more crystalline and shining than any others which I observed.

These towers were seen on our last day among the bergs. In my memory they are monumental. They stand there, a purple trinity, to commemorate the terrors and glories that I shall behold no more.

KALLUNDBORG CHURCH.

"Tie stille, barn min! Imorgen kommer Fin, Fa'er din, Og gi'er dig Esbern Snares oeine og hjerte at lege med!"

_Zealand Rhyme._

"Build at Kallundborg by the sea A church as stately as church may be, And there shalt thou wed my daughter fair," Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare.

And the Baron laughed. But Esbern said, "Though I lose my soul, I will Helva wed!" And off he strode, in his pride of will, To the Troll who dwelt in Ulshoi hill.

"Build, O Troll, a church for me At Kallundborg by the mighty sea; Build it stately, and build it fair, Build it quickly," said Esbern Snare.

But the sly Dwarf said, "No work is wrought By Trolls of the Hills, O man, for nought. What wilt thou give for thy church so fair?" "Set thy own price," quoth Esbern Snare.

"When Kallundborg church is builded well, Thou must the name of its builder tell, Or thy heart and thy eyes must be my boon." "Build," said Esbern, "and build it soon."

By night and by day the Troll wrought on; He hewed the timbers, he piled the stone; But day by day, as the walls rose fair, Darker and sadder grew Esbern Snare.

He listened by night, he watched by day, He sought and thought, but he dared not pray; In vain he called on the Elle-maids shy, And the Neck and the Nis gave no reply.

Of his evil bargain far and wide A rumor ran through the country-side; And Helva of Nesvek, young and fair, Prayed for the soul of Esbern Snare.

And now the church was wellnigh done; One pillar it lacked, and one alone; And the grim Troll muttered, "Fool thou art! To-morrow gives me thy eyes and heart!"

By Kallundborg in black despair, Through wood and meadow, walked Esbern Snare, Till, worn and weary, the strong man sank Under the birches on Ulshoi bank.

At his last day's work he heard the Troll Hammer and delve in the quarry's hole; Before him the church stood large and fair: "I have builded my tomb," said Esbern Snare.

And he closed his eyes the sight to hide, When he heard a light step at his side: "O Esbern Snare!" a sweet voice said, "Would I might die now in thy stead!"

With a grasp by love and by fear made strong, He held her fast, and he held her long; With the beating heart of a bird afeard, She hid her face in his flame-red beard.

"O love!" he cried, "let me look to-day In thine eyes ere mine are plucked away; Let me hold thee close, let me feel thy heart Ere mine by the Troll is torn apart!

"I sinned, O Helva, for love of thee! Pray that the Lord Christ pardon me!" But fast as she prayed, and faster still, Hammered the Troll in Ulshoi hill.

He knew, as he wrought, that a loving heart Was somehow baffling his evil art; For more than spell of Elf or Troll Is a maiden's prayer for her lover's soul.

And Esbern listened, and caught the sound Of a Troll-wife singing underground: "To-morrow comes Fine, father thine: Lie still and hush thee, baby mine!

"Lie still, my darling! next sunrise Thou'lt play with Esbern Snare's heart and eyes!" "Ho! ho!" quoth Esbern, "is that your game? Thanks to the Troll-wife, I know his name!"

The Troll he heard him, and hurried on To Kallundborg church with the lacking stone. "Too late, Gaffer Fine!" cried Esbern Snare; And Troll and pillar vanished in air!

That night the harvesters heard the sound Of a woman sobbing underground, And the voice of the Hill-Troll loud with blame Of the careless singer who told his name.

Of the Troll of the Church they sing the rune By the Northern Sea in the harvest moon; And the fishers of Zealand hear him still Scolding his wife in Ulshoi hill.

And seaward over its groves of birch Still looks the tower of Kallundborg church, Where, first at its altar, a wedded pair, Stood Helva of Nesvek and Esbern Snare!

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK IN MEXICO.

And first, let it be on record that his name is GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, and not CRUICKSHANK. The good old man is seventy years of age, if not more, (the earliest drawing I have seen of his bears the date of 1799, and he could scarcely have begun to limn in his long-clothes,) yet, with a persistence of perversity wellnigh astonishing,--although his name has been before the public for considerably more than half a century,--although he has published nothing anonymously, but has appended his familiar signature in full to the minutest scratchings of his etching-needle,--although he has been the conductor of two magazines, and of late years has been one of the foremost agitators and platform-orators in the English temperance movement,--the vast majority of his countrymen have always spelt his surname "Cruickshank," and will continue so to spell it, I suppose, even should he live as long as Cornaro. I hope he may, I am sure, with or without the additional _c_ for his age and his country can ill spare him.

But George Cruikshank in Mexico! What on earth can the most stay-at-home of British artists have to do with that out-of-the-way old curiosity-shop of the American continent? One might fancy him now--but that it is growing late--in the United States. He might be invited to attend a Total Abstinence Convention. He might run Mr. J.B. Gough hard on his favorite stump. He might be tempted, perchance, to cross the ocean in the evening of his days, to note down, with his inimitable and still unfaltering pencil, some of the humors of Yankee-land. I am certain, that, were George Cruikshank or Dicky Doyle to come this way and give a pictorial history of a tour through the States, somewhat after the immortal Brown, Jones, and Robinson pattern, the Americans would be in a better temper with their brothers in Old England than after reading some long spun-out book of travels by brainless Cockneys or cynical dyspeptics. The laugh awakened by a droll picture hurts nobody. It is that ugly letter-press which smarts and rankles, and festers at last into a gangrene of hatred. The Patriarch of Uz wished that his enemy had written a book. He could have added ten thousand fold to the venom of the aspiration, had he likewise expressed a wish that the book had been printed.

You will be pleased to understand, then, that the name of the gentleman who serves as text for this essay is Cruikshank, and not Cruickshank. There is an old Scottish family, I believe, of that ilk, which spells its name with a _c_ before the _k_. Perhaps the admirers of our George wished to give something like an aristocratic smack to his patronymic, and so interpolated the objectionable consonant. There is no Cruikshank to be found in the "Court Guide," but Cruickshanks abound. As for our artist, he is a burgess among burgesses,--a man of the people _par excellence_, and an Englishman above all. His travels have been of the most limited nature. Once, in the course of his long life, and with what intent you shall presently hear, he went to France, as Hogarth did; but France didn't please him, and he came home again, like Hogarth, with all convenient speed,--fortunately, without being clapped up in jail for sketching the gates of Calais. I believe that he has not crossed the Straits of Dover since George IV. was king. I have heard, on good authority, that he protested strongly, while in foreign parts, against the manner in which the French ate new-laid eggs, and against the custom, then common among the peasantry, of wearing wooden shoes. I am afraid even, that, were George hard pressed, he would own to a dim persuasion that _all_ Frenchmen wear wooden shoes; also pigtails; likewise cocked hats. He does not say so in society; but those who have his private ear assert that his faith or his delusion goes even farther than this, and that he believes that all Frenchmen eat frogs,--that nine tenths of the population earn their living as dancing-masters, and that the late Napoleon Buonaparte (George Cruikshank always spells the Corsican Ogre's name with a _u_) was first cousin to Apollyon, and was not, upon occasion, averse to the consumption of human flesh,---babies of British extraction preferred. Can you show me an oak that ever took so strong a root as prejudice?

Not that George Cruikshank belongs in any way to the species known as "Fossil Tories." He is rather a fossil Liberal. He was a Whig Radical, and more, when the slightest suspicion of Radicalism exposed an Englishman to contumely, to obloquy, to poverty, to fines, to stripes, to gyves, and to the jail. He was quite as advanced a politician as William Cobbett, and a great deal honester as a man. He was the fast friend of William Hone, who, for his famous "Political Catechism,"--a lampoon on the borough-mongers and their bloated king,--was tried three times on three successive days, before the cruel Ellenborough, but as many times acquitted. George Cruikshank inveighed ardently, earnestly, and at last successfully, with pencil and with etching-point, against the atrocious blood-thirstiness of the penal laws,--the laws that strung up from six to a dozen unfortunates on a gallows in front of Newgate every Monday morning, often for no direr offence than passing a counterfeit one-pound note. When the good old Tories wore top-boots and buckskins, George Cruikshank was conspicuous for a white hat and Hessians,--the distinguishing outward signs of ultra-liberalism. He was, of course, a Parliamentary Reformer in the year '30; and he has been a social reformer, and a most useful one, ever since. Still is there something about this brave old English worthy that approaches the fossil type. His droll dislike to the French--a hearty, good-humored disfavor, differing widely from the polished malevolence of Mr. John Leech, who never missed an opportunity to represent the airy Gaul as something repulsive, degraded, and ungentlemanly--I have already noticed. Then George Cruikshank has never been able to surmount a vague notion that steamboats and steam-engines are, generically speaking, a humbug, and that the old English sailing craft and the old English stage-coach are, after all, the only modes of conveyance worthy the patronage of Britons. Against exaggerated hoop-skirts he has all along set his face, and seldom, if ever, condescends to delineate a lady in crinoline. His beau-ideal of female beauty is comprised in an hour-glass waist, a skirt that fits close to the form, a sandalled shoe, and very long ringlets; whereas tight lacing, narrow skirts, sandalled shoes, and ringlets have been banished from the English _modes_ any time these fifteen years. Those among George's critics, too, who are sticklers for exactitude in the "abstract and brief chronicle of the time" complain that his dandies always wear straps to their tight pantaloons in lieu of pegtops; that their vests are too short and their coat-collars too high; that they wear bell-crowned hats, and carry gold-knobbed canes with long tassels; and that they are dressed, in short, after the fashion of the year one, when Brummell or Pea-Green Haynes commanded the _ton_. It is obvious that the works of an artist who has refused to be indoctrinated with the perpetual changes of a capricious code of dress would never be very popular with the readers of "Punch,"--a periodical which, pictorially, owes its very existence to the readiness and skill displayed by its draughtsmen in shooting folly as it flies and catching the manners living as they rise, and pillorying the madness of the moment. Were George Cruikshank called upon, for instance, to depict a lady fording a puddle on a rainy day, and were he averse (for he is the modestest of artists) to displaying too much of her ankle, he would assuredly make manifest, beneath her upraised skirts, some antediluvian pantalet, bordered by a pre-Adamite frill. But the keen-eyed Mr. Leech would be guilty of no such anachronism. He would discover that the mysterious garments in question were ofttimes encircled by open-worked embroidery. _He would find out that the ladies sometimes wore Knickerbockers._ And this is what the ladies like. Exaggerate their follies as much as you please; but woe be to you, if you wrongfully accuse them! You may sneer at, you may censure, you may castigate them for what they really do, but beware of reprehending them for that which they have never done. Even Sir John Falstaff revolted at the imputation of having kissed the keeper's daughter. A sermon against crinoline, be it ever so fulminating, finds ever an attentive and smiling congregation; but venture to preach against coal-scuttle bonnets--until the ladies have really taken to wearing them--and your hearers would pull down the pulpit and hang the preacher.

Thus, although foreigners may express wonder that a designer, who for so many years has been in the front rank of English humorous artists, should never have contributed to the pages of our leading humorous periodical, astonishment may be abated, when the real state of the case, as I have endeavored to put it, is known. George Cruikshank is at once too good for, and not quite up to the mark of "Punch." His best works have always been his etchings on steel and copper; and wonderful examples of chalcographic brilliance and skill those etchings are,--many of them surpassing Callot, and not a few of them (notably the illustrations to Ainsworth's "Tower of London") rivalling Rembrandt. From the nature of these engravings, it would be impossible to print them at a machine-press for a weekly issue of fifty or sixty thousand copies. George has drawn much on wood, and his wondrous wood-cuts--xylographs, if you wish a more pretentious word--to "Three Courses and a Dessert," "The Odd Volume," "The Gentleman in Black," Grimm's "Fairy Tales," "Philosophy in Sport," and "The Table-Book," will be long remembered, and are now highly prized by amateurs; but his minute and delicate pencil-drawings have taxed the energies of the very best engravers of whom England can boast,--of Vizetelly, of Landells, of Jackson, of Thompson, and of Thurston. George Cruikshank would never suffer his drawings on wood to be slashed and chopped about by hasty or incompetent gravers; and although the ateliers of "Punch" are supplied with a first-rate staff of wood-cutters, very great haste and very little care must often be apparent in the weekly pabulum of cuts; nor should such an appearance excite surprise, when the exigencies of a weekly publication are remembered. The "Punch" artists, indeed, draw with a special reference to that which they know their engravers can or cannot do. Mr. Tenniel's cartoons are put on wood precisely as they are meant to be cut, in broad, firm, sweeping lines, and the wood-engraver has only to scoop out the white interstices between the network of lines; whereas Mr. Leech dashed in a bold pen-and-ink-like sketch and trusted to the xylographer, who knew his style well and of old, to produce an engraving, _tant bien que mal_, but as bold and as dashing as the original. The secession, for reasons theological, from "Punch" of Mr. Richard Doyle, an event which took place some fifteen years since, (how quickly time passes, to be sure!) was very bitterly regretted by his literary and artistic comrades; and the young man who calmly gave up something like a thousand pounds a year for conscience' sake lost nothing, but gained rather in the respect and admiration of society. But the wood-engravers must have held high carousal over the defection of Mr. Doyle. To cut one of his drawings was a crucial experiment. His hand was not sure in its touch; he always drew six lines instead of one; and in the portrait of a lady from his pencil, the agonized engraver had to hunt through a Cretan labyrinth of faces before he found the particular countenance which Mr. Doyle wished to be engraved.

I have strayed away, perhaps unpardonably, from George Cruikshank. To those whose only ludicrous prophet is "Punch" he may be comparatively little known. But in the great world of pictorial art, both in England and on the Continent, he worthily holds an illustrious place. His name is a household word with his countrymen; and whenever a young hopeful displays ever so crude an aptitude for caricaturing his schoolmaster, or giving with slate and pencil the facetious side of his grandmother's cap and spectacles, he is voted by the unanimous suffrage of fireside critics to be a "regular Cruikshank." In this connection I have heard him sometimes called "Crookshanks," which is taking, I apprehend, even a grosser liberty with his name than in the case of the additional _c_,--"Crookshanks" having seemingly a reference, and not a complimentary one, to George's legs.

This admirable artist and good man was the son of old Isaac Cruikshank, in his day a famous engraver of lottery-tickets, securities in which the British public are now no longer by law permitted to invest, but which, fifty years since, made as constant a demand on the engraver's art as, in our time and in America, is made by the thousand and one joint-stock banks whose pictorial promises-to-pay fill, or should properly fill, our pocket-books. The abilities of Isaac were not entirely devoted to the lottery; and I have at home, from his hand, a very rare and curious etching of the execution of Louis XVI., with an explanatory diagram beneath of the working of the guillotine. George Cruikshank's earliest pencil-drawings are dated, as I have remarked, before the present century drew breath; but he must have begun to gain reputation as a caricaturist upon copper towards the end of the career of Napoleon I.,--the "Boney" to whom he has adhered with such constant, albeit jocular, animosity. He was the natural successor of James Gillray, the renowned delineator of "Farmer George and Little Nap," and "Pitt and Boney at Dinner," and hundreds of political cartoons, eagerly bought in their day, but now to be found only in old print-shops. Gillray was a man of vast, but misapplied talents. Although he etched caricatures for a livelihood, his drawing was splendid,--wellnigh Michel-Angelesque,--but always careless and _outre_. He was continually betting crown-bowls of punch that he would design, etch, and bite in so many plates within a given time, and, with the assistance of a private bowl, he almost always won his bets; but the punch was too much for him in the long run. He went mad and died miserably. George Cruikshank was never his pupil; nor did he ever attain the freedom and mastery of outline which the crazy old reprobate, who made the fortune of Mr. Humphries, the St. James's Street print-seller, undeniably possessed; but his handling was grounded upon Gillray's style; and from early and attentive study of his works he must have acquired that boldness of treatment, that rotundity of light and shade, and that general "fatness," or _morbidezza_, of touch, which make the works of Gillray and Cruikshank stand out from the coarse scrawls of Rowlandson, and the bald and meagre scratches of Sir Charles Bunbury. Unless I am much mistaken, one of the first works that brought George into notice was an etching published in 1815, having reference to the exile of the detested Corsican to St. Helena. But it was in 1821 that he first made a decided mark. For William Hone--a man who was in perpetual opposition to the powers that were--he drew on wood a remarkable series of illustrations to the scurrilous, but perhaps not undeserved, satires against King George IV., called, "The Political House that Jack Built," "The Green Bag," "A Slap at Slop," and the like,--all of them having direct and most caustic reference to the scandalous prosecution instituted against a woman of whom it is difficult to say whether she was bad or mad or both, but who was assuredly most miserable,--the unhappy Caroline of Brunswick. George Cruikshank's sketch of the outraged husband, the finest and stoutest gentleman in Europe, being lowered by means of a crane into a pair of white kid pantaloons suspended between the posts of his bed, was inimitably droll, and clearly disloyal. But disloyalty was fashionable in the year '21.

For twenty years afterwards the history of the artist's career is but the history of his works, of his innumerable illustrations to books, and the sketchbooks, comic panoramas, and humorous cartoons he published on his own account. Besides, I am not writing a life of George Cruikshank, and all this time I have been keeping him on the threshold of the city of Mexico. Let it suffice to say, briefly, that in 1841 came a stand-point in his life, through the establishment of a monthly magazine entitled "George Cruikshank's Omnibus." Of this he was the sole illustrator. The literary editor was Laman Blanchard; and in the "Omnibus," William Makepeace Thackeray, then a gaunt young man, not much over thirty, and quite unknown to fame,--although he had published "Yellowplush" in "Fraser,"--wrote his quaint and touching ballad of "The King of Brentford's Testament." The "Omnibus" did not run long, nor was its running very prosperous. George Cruikshank seemed for a while wearied with the calling of a caricaturist; and the large etchings on steel, with which between '40 and '45 he illustrated Ainsworth's gory romances, indicated a power of grouping, a knowledge of composition, a familiarity with mediaeval costume, and a command over chiaroscuro, which astonished and delighted those who had been accustomed to regard him only as a funny fellow,--one of infinite whim, to be sure, but still a jester of jests, and nothing more. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case might be,--for the rumor ran that George intended to abandon caricaturing altogether, and to set up in earnest as an historical painter,--there came from beyond the sea, to assist in illustrating "Windsor Castle," a Frenchman named Tony Johannot. Who but he, in fact, was the famous master of the grotesque who illustrated "Don Quixote" and the "Diable Boiteux" of Le Sage? To his dismay, George Cruikshank found a competitor as eccentric as himself, as skilful a manipulator _rem acu_, the etching-point, and who drew incomparably better than he, George Cruikshank, did. He gave up the mediaeval in disgust; but he must have hugged himself with the thought that he had already illustrated Charles Dickens's "Oliver Twist," and that the Frenchman, powerful as he was, could never hope to come near him in that terrific etching of "Fagin in the Condemned Cell."

Again nearly twenty years have passed, and George Cruikshank still waves his Ithuriel's spear of well-ground steel, and still dabbles in aquafortis. An old, old man, he is still strong and hale. If you ask him a reason for his thus rivalling Fontenelle in his patriarchal greenness, for his being able at threescore and ten to paint pictures, (witness that colossal oil-painting of the "Triumph of Bacchus,") to make speeches, and to march at the head of his company as a captain of volunteers, he will give you at once the why and because. He is the most zealous, the most conscientious, and the most invulnerable of total abstainers. There were days when he took tobacco: witness that portrait of himself, smoking a very long meerschaum pipe in "Love's Triumph," etched about 1845. There were times when he heard the chimes at midnight, and partook of that "richt gude willie waucht" which tipsy Scotchmen, when they have formed in a ring, standing upon chairs, each with one foot on the table, hiccoughingly declare that we are bound to take for the sake of "auld lang syne." But George Cruikshank has done with willie wauchts as with bird's-eye and Killikinick. For many years he has neither drunk nor smoked. He is more than a confessor, he is an apostle of temperance. His strange, wild, grand performances, "The Bottle" and "The Drunkard's Children,"--the first quite Hogarthian in its force and pungency,--fell like thunderbolts among the gin-shops. I am afraid that George Cruikshank would not be a very welcome guest at Felix Booth's distillery, or at Barclay and Perkins's brewery. For, it must be granted, the sage is a little intolerant. "No peace with the Fiery Moloch!" "_Ecrasons l'infame!_" These are his mottoes. He would deprive the poor man of the scantiest drop of beer. You begin with a sip of "the right stuff," he teaches us in "The Bottle," and you end by swigging a gallon of vitriol, jumping on your wife, and dying in Bedlam of _delirium tremens_. I have not heard his opinions concerning cider, or root-beer, or effervescing sarsaparilla, or ginger-pop; but I imagine that each and every one of those reputed harmless beverages would enter into his _Index Expurgatorius_. "Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop [of alcohol] to drink." 'Tis thus he would quote Coleridge. He is as furious against tobacco as ever was King James in his "Counterblast." He is of the mind of the old divine, that "he who plays with the Devil's rattles will soon learn to draw his sword." In his pious rage against intemperance, and with a view to the instruction of the rising generation, he has even published teetotal versions of "Cinderella" and "Jack the Giant-Killer,"--a proceeding which Charles Dickens indignantly reprobated in an article in "Household Words," called "Frauds upon the Fairies." Nearly the last time I met George Cruikshank in London was at a dinner given in honor of Washington's birthday. He had just been gazetted captain of his rifle company, and was good enough to ask me if I knew any genteel young men, of strictly temperance principles, who would like commissions in his corps. I replied, that, so far as principles were concerned, I could recommend him five hundred postulants; but that, as regarded practice, most of the young men of my acquaintance, who had manifested an ambition for a military career, drank hard.

The which, oddly enough, leads me at last to Mexico.--We had had, on the whole, rather a hard morning of it. The Don, who was my host in the _siempre leal y insigne ciudad de Mejico_,--and a most munificent and hospitable Don he was,--took me out one day in the month of March last to visit a _hacienda_ or farm which he possessed, called, if I remember aright, La Escalera. I repeat, we had a hard morning of it. We rose at six,--and in mountainous Mexico the ground at early morn, even during summer, is often covered with a frosty rime. I looked out of the window, and when I saw the leaves of the trees glistening with something which was _not_ dew, and Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl mantled with eternal snows in the distance, I shivered. A cup of chocolate, a _tortilla_ or thin griddle-cake of Indian meal, and a paper cigar, just to break your fast, and then to horse. To horse! Do you know what it is, being a poor horseman, to bestride a full-blood, full-bred white Arab, worth ever so many hundred _pesos de oro_, and, with his flowing mane and tail, and small, womanly, vixenish head, beautiful to look upon, but which in temper, like many other beauteous creatures I have known, is an incarnate fiend? The Arab they gave me had been the property of a French general. I vehemently suspect that he had been dismissed from the Imperial army for biting a _chef d'escadron_ through one of his jackboots, or kicking in three of the ribs of a _marechal des logis_. That was hard enough, to begin with. Then the streets of Mexico are execrably paved, and the roads leading out of the city are full of what in Ireland are termed "curiosities," to wit, holes; and my Arab had a habit, whenever he met an equine brother, and especially an equine sister, on the way, of screaming like a possessed Pythoness, and then of essaying to stand on his hind legs. However, with a Mexican saddle,--out of which you can scarcely fall, even though you had a mind to it,--and Mexican stirrups, and a pair of spurs nearly as big as Catharine-wheels, the Arab and I managed to reach the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, five miles out, and thence, over tolerably good roads, another five miles, to the Escalera. I wish they would make Mexican saddles of something else besides wood very thinly covered with leather. How devoutly did I long for the well-stuffed pig-skin of Hyde Park! We had an hour or two more hard work riding about the fields, when we reached the farm, watching the process of extracting _pulque_ from the _maguey_ or cactus,--and a very nasty process it is,--inspecting the granaries belonging to the _hacienda_, and dodging between the rows of Indian corn, which grows here to so prodigious a height as to rival the famous grain which is said to grow somewhere down South, and to attain such an altitude that a Comanche perched upon the head of a giraffe is invisible between the rows. About noon we had breakfast, and that was the hardest work of all. _Item_, we had mutton-chops, beefsteaks, veal cutlets, omelets, rice, hominy, fried tomatoes, and an infinity of Mexican hashes and stews seasoned with _chiles_ or red-pepper pods. _Item_, we had a huge _pavo_, a turkey,--a wild turkey; and then, for the first time, did I understand that the bird we Englishmen consume only at Christmas, and then declare to be tough and flavorless, is to be eaten to perfection only in the central regions of the American continent. The flesh of this _pavo_ was like softened ivory, and his fat like unto clotted cream. There were some pretty little tiny kickshaws in the way of pine-apples, musk-melons, bananas, papaws, and custard-apples, and many other tropical fruits whose names I have forgotten. I think, too, that we had some stewed _iguana_ or lizard; but I remember, that, after inflicting exemplary punishment on a bowl of sour cream, we wound up by an attack on an _albacor_, a young kid roasted whole, or rather baked in a lump of clay with wood-ashes heaped over him, and brought to table on a tea-tray! Shade of Gargantua, how we ate! I blessed that fiery Arab for giving me such an appetite. There was a good deal of smoking going on at odd times during breakfast; but nobody ventured beyond a _cigarro_ of paper and fine-cut before we attacked the _albacor_. When coffee was served, each man lighted a _puro_, one of the biggest of Cabana's Regalias; and serious and solemn puffing then set in. It was a memorable breakfast. The _Administrador_, or steward of the estate, had evidently done his best to entertain his patron the Don with becoming magnificence, nor were potables as dainty as the edibles wanting to furnish forth the feast. There was _pulque_ for those who chose to drink it. I never could stomach that fermented milk of human unkindness, which combines the odor of a dairy that has been turned into a grogshop with the flavor of rotten eggs. There was wine of Burgundy and wine of Bordeaux; there was Champagne: these three from the Don's cellar in Mexico, and the last cooled, not with vulgar ice, but with snow from the summit of Popocatepetl,--snow that had been there from the days of Montezuma and Guatimozin; while as _chasse_ and _pousse_ to the exquisitely flavored Mexican coffee, grown, ground, and roasted on the _hacienda_, we had some very ripe old French Cognac, (1804, I think, was the brand,) and some Peruvian _pisco_, a strong white cordial, somewhat resembling _kirsch-wasser_, and exceeding toothsome. We talked and laughed till we grew sleepy, (the edibles and potables had of course nothing to do with our somnolence,) and then, the farm-house of the _hacienda_ having seemingly as many rooms as the Vatican, each man hied him to a cool chamber, where he found a trundle-bed, or a hammock, or a sofa, and gravely laid himself out for an hour's _siesta_. Then the Administrador woke us all up, and gleefully presented us with an enormous bowl of sangaree, made of the remains of the Bordeaux and the brandy and the pisco, and plenty of ice,--ice this time,--and sugar, and limes, and slices of pineapple, Madam,--the which he had concocted during our slumber. We drained this,--one gets so thirsty after breakfast in Mexico,--and then to horse again for a twelve miles' ride back to the city. I omitted to mention two or three little circumstances which gave a zest and piquancy to the entertainment. When we arrived at the _hacienda_, although servitors were in plenty, each cavalier unsaddled and fed his own steed; and when we addressed ourselves to our _siesta_, every one who didn't find a double-barrelled gun at the head of his bed took care to place a loaded revolver under his pillow. For accidents will happen in the best-regulated families; and in Mexico you can never tell at what precise moment Cacus may be upon you.

Riding back to the _siempre leal y insigne ciudad_ at about three o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun was at its hottest, was no joke. Baking is not precisely the word, nor boiling, nay, nor frying; something which is a compound of all these might express the sensation I, for one, felt. Fortunately, the Don had insisted on my assuming the orthodox Mexican riding-costume: cool linen drawers, cut Turkish fashion; over these, and with just sufficient buttons in their respective holes to swear by, the leathern _chapareros_ or overalls; morocco slippers, to which were strapped the Catharine-wheel spurs; no vest; no neckerchief; a round jacket, with quarter doubloons for buttons; and a low-crowned felt hat, with an enormous brim, a brim which might have made a Quaker envious, and have stricken mortification to the soul of a Chinese mandarin. This brim kept the sun out of your eyes; and then, by way of hatband, there was a narrow, but thick turban or "pudding," which prevented the rays of Sol from piercing through your skull, and boiling your brains into batter. The fact of the whole of this costume, and the accoutrements of your horse to boot, being embroidered with silver and embellished with golden bosses, thus affording a thousand tangents for Phoebus to fly off from, rather detracted from the coolness of your array; but one must not expect perfection here below. In a stove-pipe hat, a shooting-coat, and riding-cords, I should have suffered much more from the heat. As it was, I confess, that, when I reached home, in the Calle San Francisco, Mexico, I was exceedingly thankful. I am not used to riding twenty-four miles in one day. I think I had a warm bath in the interval between doffing the _chapareros_ and donning the pantaloons of every-day life. I think I went to sleep on a sofa for about an hour, and, waking up, called for a cocktail as a restorative. Yes, Madam, there are cocktails in Mexico, and our Don's body-servant made them most scientifically. I think also that I declined, with thanks, the Don's customary invitation to a drive before dinner in the Paseo. Nor barouche, nor mail-phaeton, nay, nor soft-cushioned brougham delighted me. I felt very lazy and thoroughly knocked up.

The Don, however, went out for his drive, smiling at my woful plight. Is it only after hard riding that remorse succeeds enjoyment? I was left alone in his great caravansary of a mansion. I wandered from room to room, from corridor to corridor,--now glancing through the window-_jalousies_, and peeping at the _chinas_ in their _ribosos_, and the shovel-hatted priests in the street below creeping along on the shady side of the way,--now hanging over the gallery in the inner court-yard, listening to the horses stamping in their stables or rattling their tethers against the mangers, listening now to the English grooms as they whistled the familiar airs of home while they rubbed their charges down, and now to the sleepy, plaintive drone of the Indian servants loitering over their work in the kitchens. Then I wandered back again,--from drawing-room to dining-room, from bedchamber to boudoir. And at last I found that I had crossed a bridge over another court-yard, and gotten into another house, abutting on another street. The Don was still lord here, and I was free to ramble. More drawing-rooms, more bedchambers, more boudoirs, a chapel, and at last a library. Libraries are not plentiful in Mexico. Here, on many shelves, was a goodly store of standard literature in many languages. Here was Prescott's History of the Conquest, translated into choice Castilian, and Senor Ramirez his comments thereupon. Here was Don Lucas Alaman his History of Mexico, and works by Jesuit fathers innumerable. How ever did they get printed? Who ever bought, who ever read, those cloudy tomes in dog Latin? Here was Lord Kingsborough's vast work on Mexican Antiquities,--the work his Lordship is reported to have ruined himself in producing; and Macaulay, and Dickens, and Washington Irving, and the British Essayists, and the Waverley Novels, and Shakspeare, and Soyer's Cookery, and one little book of mine own writing: a very well-chosen library indeed.

What have we here? A fat, comely, gilt-lettered volume, bound in red morocco, and that might, externally, have passed for my grandmother's edition of Dr. Doddridge's Sermons. As I live, 't is a work illustrated by George Cruikshank,--a work hitherto unknown to me, albeit I fancied myself rich, even to millionnairism, in Cruikshankiana. It is a rare book, a precious book, a book that is not in the British Museum, a book for which collectors would gladly give more doubloons than I lost at _monte_ last night; for here the most moral people play _monte_. It is _un costumbre del pais_,--a custom of the country; and, woe is me! I lost a pile 'twixt midnight and cock-crow.

"Life in Paris; or the Rambles, Sprees, and Amours of Dick Wildfire, Squire Jenkins, and Captain O'Shuffleton, with the Whimsical Adventures of the Halibut Family, and Other Eccentric Characters in the French Metropolis. Embellished with Twenty-One Comic Vignettes and Twenty-One Colored Engravings of Scenes from Real Life, by George Cruikshank. London: Printed for John Cumberland. 1828." This "Life in Paris" was known to me by dim literary repute; but I had never seen, the actual volume before. Its publication was a disastrous failure. Emboldened by the prodigious success of "Life in London,"--the adventures in the Great Metropolis of Corinthian Tom and Jerry--Somebody--and Bob Logic, Esquire, written by Pierce Egan, once a notorious chronicler of the prize-ring, the compiler of a Slang Dictionary, and whose proficiency in _argot_ and flash-patter was honored by poetic celebration from Byron, Moore, and Christopher North, but whom I remember, when I was first climbing into public life, a decrepit, broken-down old man,--Mr. John Cumberland, of Ludgate Hill, (the publisher, by the way, of that series of the "Acting Drama" to which, over the initials of D--G, and the figure of a hand pointing, some of the most remarkable dramatic criticisms in the English language are appended,) thought, not unreasonably, that "Life in Paris" might attain a vogue as extensive as that achieved by "Life in London." I don't know who wrote the French "Life." Pierce Egan could scarcely have been the author; for he was then at the height of a vicious and ephemeral popularity; and any book, however trashy, with his name to it, would have been sure to sell. This "Life in Paris" was very probably the work of some obscure hack, who, when he was describing the "eccentric characters in the French metropolis," may not impossibly have been vegetating in the Rules of the King's Bench Prison. But crafty Mr. Cumberland, to insure the success of his enterprise, secured the services of George Cruikshank as illustrator. George had a brother Robert, who had caught something of his touch and manner, but nothing of his humorous genius, and who assisted him in illustrating "Life in London"; but "Life in Paris" was to be all his own; and he undertook a journey to France in order to study Gallic life and make sketches. The results were now before me in twenty-one small vignettes on wood, (of not much account,) and of as many large aquatint engravings, (George can aquatint as well as etch,) crowded with figures, and displaying the unmistakable and inimitable Cruikshankian _vim_ and point. There is Dick Wildfire being attired, with the aid of the _friseur_ and the tailor, and under the sneering inspection of Sam Sharp, his Yorkshire valet, according to the latest Parisian fashions. Next we have Dick and Captain O'Shuffleton (an Irish adventurer) "promenading in the Gardens of the Tuileries"; next, "real life" in the galleries of the Palais Royal; next, Dick, the Captain, Lady Halibut, and Lydia "enjoying a lounge on the Italian Boulevard." To these succeed a representation of a dinner at Very's; Dick and his companions "smashing the glim on a spree by lamplight"; Dick and the Captain "paying their respects to the Fair _Limonadiere_ at the Cafe des Mille Colonnes"; Dick introduced by the Captain to a _Rouge et Noir_ table; the same and his valet "_showing fight in a Caveau_"; "Life behind the Curtain of the Grand Opera, or Dick and the Squire larking with the _Figurantes_"; Dick and the Squire "enjoying the sport at the Combat of Animals, or Duck Lane of Paris"; Dick and Jenkins "in a Theatrical Pandemonium, or the Cafe de la Paix in all its glory"; "Life among the Dead, or the Halibut Family in the Catacombs"; "Life among the Connoisseurs," or Dick and his friends "in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre"; "a Frolic in the _Cafe d'Enfer_, or Infernal Cellar"; "Life on Tiptoe, or Dick quadrilling it in the Salons de Mars in the Champs Elysees"; the "_Entree_ to the Italian Opera"; the "Morning of the Fete of St. Louis"; the "Evening of the same, with Dick, Jenkins, and the Halibuts witnessing the _Canaille_ in all their glory"; and, finally, "Life in a Billiard-Room, or Dick and the Squire _au fait_ to the Parisian Sharpers."

I have said that these illustrations are full of point and drollery. They certainly lack that round, full touch so distinctive of George Cruikshank, and which he learned from Gillray; but such a touch can be given only when the shadows as well as the outlines of a plate are etched; and the intent of an aquatint engraving is, as the reader may or may not know, to produce the effect of a drawing in Indian ink.[C] Still there is much in these pictures to delight the Cruikshankian connoisseur,--infinite variety in physiognomy, wonderful minuteness and accuracy in detail, and here and there sparkles of the true Hogarthian satire.

But a banquet in which the plates only are good is but a Barmecide feast, after all. The letter-press to this "Life in Paris" is the vilest rubbish imaginable,--a farrago of St. Giles's slang, Tottenham Court Road doggerel, ignorance, lewdness, and downright dulness. Mr. John Cumberland, of Ludgate Hill, took, accordingly, very little by his motion. The "Life" fell almost stillborn from the press; and George Cruikshank must have regretted that he ever had anything to do with it. The major part of the impression must years ago have been used to line trunks, inwrap pies, and singe geese; but to our generation, and to those which are to come, this sorry volume will be more than a curiosity: it will be literarily and artistically an object of great and constantly increasing value. By the amateur of Cruikshankiana it will be prized for the reason that the celebrated Latin pamphlet proving that Edward VI. never had the toothache was prized, although the first and last leaves were wanting, by Theodore Hook's Tom Hill. It will be treasured for its scarcity. To the student of social history it will be of even greater value, as the record of a state of manners, both in England and France, which has wholly and forever passed away. The letter-press portraits, drawn by the hack author, of a party of English tourists are but foul and stupid libels; but their aquatint portraits, as bitten in by George Cruikshank, are, albeit exaggerated, true in many respects to Nature. In fact, we _were_ used, when George IV. was king, to send abroad these overdressed and under-bred clowns and Mohawks,--whelps of the squirarchy and hobbledehoys of the universities,--Squire Gawkies and Squire Westerns and Tony Lumpkins, Mrs. Malaprops and Lydia Languishes, by the hundred and the thousand. "The Fudge Family in Paris" and the letters of Mrs. Ramsbotham read nowadays like the most outrageous of caricatures; but they failed not to hit many a blot in the times which gave them birth. It was really reckoned fashionable in 1828 to make a visit to Paris the occasion for the coarsest of "sprees,"--to get tipsy at Very's,--to "smash the glims,"--to parade those infamous _Galeries de Bois_ in the Palais Royal which were the common haunt of abandoned women,--to beat the gendarmes, and, indeed, the first Frenchman who happened to turn up, merely on the ground that he _was_ a Frenchman. But France and the French have changed since then, as well as England and the English. Are these the only countries in the world whose people and whose manners have turned _volte-face_ within less than half a century? I declare that I read from beginning to end, the other day, a work called "Salmagundi," and that I could not recognize in one single page anything to remind me of the New York of the present day. Thus in the engravings to "Life in Paris" are there barely three which any modern Parisian would admit to possess any direct or truthful reference to Paris life as it is. People certainly continue to dine at Very's; but Englishmen no longer get tipsy there, no longer smash the plates or kick the waiters. In lieu of dusky billiard-rooms, the resort of duskier sharpers, there are magnificent saloons, containing five, ten, and sometimes twenty billiard-tables. The _Galeries de Bois_ have been knocked to pieces these thirty years. The public gaming-houses have been shut up. There are no longer any brutal dog-and-bear-baitings at the Barriere du Combat. There is no longer a _Belle Limonadiere_ at the Cafe des Mille Colonnes. _Belles Limonadieres_ (if I may be permitted to use one of the most inelegant, but the most expressive, of American colloquialisms) are "played out." The Catacombs have long since been shut to strangers. The _Caveau_ exists no more. Old reprobates scarcely remember the _Cafe d'Enfer_. The _Fete_ of St. Louis is as dead as Louis XVIII., as dead as the _Fetes_ of July, as the _Fetes_ of the Republic. There is but one national festival now,--and that is on the 15th of August, and in honor of St. Napoleon. There are no more "glims" to smash; the old oil _reverberes_ have been replaced by showy gas-lamps, and the _sergents de ville_ would make short work of any roisterers who attempted to take liberties with them. The old Paris of the Restoration and the Monarchy is dead; but the Thane of Cawdor--I mean George Cruikshank--lives, a prosperous gentleman.

I brought the book away with me from Mexico, all the way down to Vera Cruz, and so on to Cuba, and thence to New York; and it is in Boston with me now. But it is not mine. The Don did not even lend it to me. I had only his permission to take it from the library to my room, and turn it over there; but when I was coming away, that same body-servant, thinking it was my property, carefully packed it among the clothes in my portmanteau; and I did not discover his mistake and my temporary gain until I was off. I mention this in all candor; for I am conscious that there never was a book-collector yet who did not, at some period or other of his life, at least meditate the commission of a felony. But the Don is coming to the States this autumn, and I must show him that I have not been a fraudulent bailee. I shall have taken, at all events, my fill of pleasure from the book; and I hope that George Cruikshank will live to read what I have written; and God bless his honest old heart, anyhow!

FOOTNOTES:

[C] Aquatint engraving in England is all but a dead art. It is now employed only in portraits of race-horses, which are never sold uncolored, and in plates of the fashions. The present writer had the honor, twelve years since, of producing the last "great" work (so far as size was concerned) undertaken in England. It was a monster panorama, some sixty feet long, representing the funeral procession of the Duke of Wellington. It was published by the well-known house of Ackermann, in the Strand; and the writer regrets to say that the house went bankrupt very shortly afterwards.

LEAVES FROM AN OFFICER'S JOURNAL.