Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 130, vol. III, June 26, 1886
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 130, vol. III, June 26, 1886" ***
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 130, VOL. III, JUNE 26,
1886 ***



[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 130.—VOL. III.      SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1886.      PRICE 1½_d._]



BLOCKADES AND BLOCKADE-RUNNERS.


For three-quarters of a century, England differed from the other great
maritime states of Europe as to the way in which blockade should be
defined. To begin with, it may be enough to explain that a territory
is said to be blockaded when access to or egress from its seaports
is prevented by the naval forces of another state. When a state, for
purposes of its own, fiscal or hygienic, declares that certain of its
own ports shall be closed against foreign vessels, that decree must be
respected by other states to whose notice it is duly brought, provided
that those ports are really under the control of the executive of that
state. But that is not a blockade; it is a mere closure of ports,
which any government, in virtue of its inherent sovereignty within the
borders of its own territory, is quite entitled to announce. Blockade
is essentially a war measure. When the President of the United States,
in April 1861, proclaimed that a forcible blockade of the Southern
States would be forthwith instituted, England and France immediately
declared their neutrality, and although that meant that they recognised
the Confederates as belligerents, and not as rebels, their action was
unobjectionable, because, whenever the Northern States issued that
proclamation, they by implication admitted that they were engaged
in war, and not merely in the suppression of a rebellion. In recent
times, however, recourse has been had to what has been termed ‘pacific
blockade;’ thus, the coasts of Greece were blockaded in 1827 by the
English, French, and Russian squadrons, although all three powers
professed to be at peace with Turkey (under whose dominion Greece then
was); and from 1845 to 1848, France and England prevented access to
La Plata, although no war was declared. To admit such procedure as
legitimate would simply mean that one state might put in force against
another measures destructive of the trade of neutral countries, and yet
expect those countries to view the whole operations as pacific. This
objection might not apply to that pacific blockade which we have this
year seen put in force against Greece, for we know that every vessel
flying the flag of any other state than Greece has been unmolested.
But the liberty allowed to other nations did nothing to mitigate the
coercion applied to Greek trading-vessels, and had the object of
the blockaders been merely to divert to their own merchantmen the
carrying trade of the Archipelago, they could scarcely have devised
a measure better fitted to attain that end. Lord Palmerston at least
had a decided opinion as to how far such action was in accordance
with law: his own words are: ‘The French and English blockade of the
Plata has been from first to last illegal.’ In truth, pacific blockade
is a contradiction in terms. In practice, it is enforced by the same
methods as blockade between belligerents; and a recent Dutch writer has
well pointed out that the sole reason why it has not yet met with the
unanimous disapproval of European powers is that hitherto it has been
levelled against only the weakest states.

It had from time out of mind been reckoned a perfectly regular
proceeding to declare a port or a territory under blockade, and to
affix penalties to the violation of that declaration, although, in
point of fact, not a single vessel should be present to enforce its
observance. But gradually this tenet met with less toleration; and in
1780, when America and France were combined against England, the three
great powers of the North, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, entered into a
league known as the ‘Armed Neutrality,’ with the object of evading the
severe but ancient method of dealing with neutral commerce which Great
Britain adopted. One of the articles which this confederacy agreed
upon was: ‘A port is blockaded only when evident danger attends the
attempt to run into it’—a principle which boldly denied the right of
any power to close by a mere edict a single hostile port. But Britain
doggedly persisted in the exercise of a right which had undoubtedly the
sanction of custom; and the maritime powers of Europe were to wrangle
and recriminate through still darker years before agreement could
be reached. On the 21st of November 1806, Napoleon promulgated the
famous Berlin Decree, which announced that every port in Great Britain
was blockaded; and by an Order in Council, issued a year afterwards,
the British government declared France and all the states which owned
her supremacy to be subject to the same embargo. However far short
the English performance might fall of their announced intention,
the egregious pretentiousness of the French decree will be apparent
enough to any one who remembers Macaulay’s saying of the Emperor: ‘The
narrowest strait was to his power what it was of old believed that a
running stream was to the sorceries of a witch.’ Yet, both governments
were only carrying to its logical issue the old doctrine which neither
had renounced—that a valid blockade might be constituted by mere
notification. It was only in 1856 that, with the express purpose
of removing as far as possible the uncertainty which hung over the
rules of naval war, the great powers concurred in the Declaration of
Paris, which has been called ‘a sort of doctrinal annex’ to the treaty
of that year. Important as has been the operation of all the rules
contained in that Declaration, the only one which concerns us here is
the fourth: ‘Blockades in order to be binding must be effective—that
is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access
to the coast of the enemy.’ This being practically an adoption of the
principle for which the neutrals of 1780 had so strenuously contended,
was an argumentative victory for them; but it was far more; it was a
triumph for those thinkers who have always maintained that all law must
rest upon a basis of fact, that except in so far as law declares the
relation which ought to subsist between facts which a previous analysis
has ascertained, it is useless, and even mischievous.

The first fifteen years of the present century were marked by all that
turbulence which had characterised the closing years of that which
went before, and there were not wanting in both periods instances of
blockades perseveringly prosecuted and gallantly resisted. In the
beginning of 1800, for example, Genoa was the only city in Italy held
by the French; the Austrian troops invested it by land, and English
war-ships blocked the passage seaward. The beleaguered Genoese saw
the usual incidents of an old-fashioned blockade. From time to time,
one of the light privateers which lay behind the little island of
Capraja, north-east of Corsica, would succeed in eluding all the
vigilance of Admiral Keith’s squadron, and carry in provisions enough
to prolong for a while the desperate resistance of Massena’s garrison;
and now the blockaders would retaliate by ‘cutting out’ a galley from
beneath the very guns of the harbour. One day a gale might drive the
jealous sentinels to sea; but on the next, they were back at their
old stations, there to wait with patience until pestilence and famine
should bring the city to its doom. Sixty years later and in another
hemisphere, the maritime world was to see how far the new appliances of
elaborate science had altered the modes in which blockades were to be
enforced and evaded.

On the 27th of April 1861, President Lincoln issued a proclamation in
which the following announcement appeared: ‘A competent force will
be posted so as to prevent the entrance and exit of vessels from the
ports’ of the Southern States. ‘If, therefore, with a view to violate
such blockade, any vessel shall attempt to leave any of said ports,
she will be duly warned; and if she shall again attempt to enter
or leave a blockaded port, she will be captured.’ All Europe was
prepared to watch and to deride this attempt to lock up a coast-line
of thirty-five hundred miles against the intrusion of traders, whose
appetite for gain would be whetted to the keenest by artificially
raised prices. Already, indeed, the scheme had been ridiculed as a
‘material impossibility’ by European statesmen, who pointed to the fact
that not one of all the blockades established during the preceding
seventy-five years had succeeded in excluding trade even where the
coast to be watched was comparatively limited. But as a set-off against
the long and broken stretch of coast which lay open to the operations
of the blockade-runners, there were difficulties in their way which
were at the outset of the struggle too lightly esteemed. Almost the
whole extent of the seaboard was protected by a treacherous fringe of
long low islands, scarcely rising above the surface of the water; the
channels between and behind these were winding and intricate; and when
these obstacles were passed, there still remained the crucial bar to
imperil the entrance to every harbour.

The conditions of the impending conflict were new, and sagacious men
foresaw that under them the risk of neutral powers being entangled in
disputes with the belligerents was immensely increased. The agency of
steam was to be employed for the first time to enforce a blockade on a
gigantic scale. It was plain that a blockading squadron was no longer
liable to be blown off the port it was watching by continued gales; but
it was not so easy to say how far this new motive-power would alter the
chances of the blockade-runners. The naval strength of the Northern
States was at the beginning of the war so puny that the blockade when
first instituted was little better than one of those ‘paper blockades’
which the voice of international law had condemned at Paris seven years
before; for many months, indeed, the trade of the Confederacy with
Europe was but little affected. It was in view of this that the _New
York Tribune_ urged Lincoln’s government to economise their sea-force,
and close entrance channels by means of sunken hulks. This plan was
adopted at Charleston, and carried out under the superintendence of
an officer whose aim was ‘to establish a combination of artificial
interruptions and irregularities resembling on a small scale those of
Hell-gate,’ that rock which so long impeded the navigation to New York
harbour, and which was removed only a few months ago.

In Europe, both military critics and Chambers of Commerce protested
against this barbarous method of making good a blockade; but the
stone-laden whale-ships sunk at Charleston did no permanent damage
to the port, for before the war closed, the hulks broke up, and the
harbour was filled with floating timber. But it was quickly felt that
only an adequate fleet could render the blockade effective, and in
response to the ceaseless activity of the dockyards, the northern
war-ships multiplied with marvellous rapidity. The blockade grew
strict. Gradually, the pressure of diminished imports began to tell
on the resources of the Southern States; iron, liquors, machinery,
articles of domestic use, medicinal drugs and appliances of all kinds
became scarce. In Richmond, a yard of ordinary calico which was
formerly sold for twelve and a half cents, brought thirty dollars; a
pair of French gloves was worth one hundred and fifty dollars; and the
price of salt had risen to a dollar a pound. The export trade, too,
was being slowly strangled; immense stores of cotton and tobacco lay
waiting shipment at every port. A bale of cotton worth forty dollars at
Charleston would have brought two hundred at New York; and some idea
of the price it might have yielded at Liverpool may be obtained from a
consideration of the fact that half a million of English cotton-workers
were subsisting only upon charity.

But the war sent trade into new channels. Nassau, the capital of
New Providence, one of the Bahamas group, became one huge depôt for
the goods which sought a market in the forbidden ports. Articles of
household economy and of field equipment lay piled in heterogeneous
masses on her wharfs, the cotton which had escaped the grasp of
the Federals lay in her warehouses for reshipment to Europe; her
coal-stores overflowed with the mineral which was to feed the greedy
furnaces of the blockade-runners lying at anchor in the bay, and the
patois of every seafaring people in Europe could be daily heard upon
her quays. Hardly less numerous and varied were the groups of sailors,
merchants, adventurers, and spies, who discussed the fortunes of the
war upon the white-glancing terraces of Hamilton in the Bermudas.

Blockade-running had now become a business speculation. But the great
bulk of the trade was in very few hands, for the risks were great, and
the capital involved was large. The initial cost of a blockade-runner
was heavy; the officers were highly paid; a pilot well acquainted
with the port to be attempted often demanded one thousand pounds for
his services; and besides all this, it is to be remembered that on
a fair calculation not above one trip in four was successful. It is
computed that in three years there were built or despatched from the
Clyde no less than one hundred and eleven swift steamers specially
designed for the adventurous trade with the Confederate ports. Almost
any day in August 1864, one of these vessels might have been seen
cruising about at the Tail of the Bank, preparing to try her speed
against the swiftest passenger steamers of the river. The _Douglas_
was in those days the fastest boat on the Mersey; but one of the new
blockade-runners, named the _Colonel Lamb_, easily beat her, attaining
on the trial a speed of sixteen and three-quarter knots (or about
nineteen miles) per hour. A careful observer might almost have guessed
the character of the enterprise for which a blockade-runner was
designed by a scrutiny of her build. Two taper masts and a couple of
short smoke-stacks were all that appeared above the deck; her object
was to glide in the darkness past her watchers, and the tall spars of a
heavily-rigged ship would have been too conspicuous a mark for eager
eyes. Her hull was painted white, for experience showed that on dark
nights or in thick weather that colour most easily escaped observation.
Although she had considerable stowage-room, her draught was light, and
she was propelled by paddle or side wheels, in order that she might
turn readily in narrow or shallow waters. To aid their war-vessels
in capturing and destroying light-heeled cruisers such as this, the
Federal government built twenty-three small gunboats. They, too, drew
but little water, and rarely exceeded five hundred tons burden. For
armament they carried one eleven-inch pivot-gun and three howitzers—two
of twenty-four pounds, and one of twenty pounds—well-chosen weapons
for the work they had to do. Their weak point was their rate of speed,
which did not amount to more than nine or ten knots an hour. So
deficient were they in this respect, that a blockade-runner has been
known to run out, get damaged, and sail round a gunboat into port again.

There was so much in blockade-running that was attractive to the
adventurous, that we are hardly surprised to learn that officers of our
navy engaged in the work, wholly forgetful of the neutral position to
which their country’s policy bound them. The remonstrances, however,
which were made to our government on that subject, and the Gazette
Order which they elicited, would probably prevent those who had an
official status from taking their capture so phlegmatically as the
youth who took his passage out in a blockade-runner with the intention
of enjoying a tour through the Southern States, and who, when the
vessel was captured, wrote home saying that he would now explore the
Northern States, ‘which would do quite as well.’ One can well imagine
the tiptoe of expectation to which every one on board would rise as the
Bermudas sank into the distance, and the time drew near which was to
decide the fortune of their enterprise. How warily they lie off until
the evening favours their approach, and then, with every light but the
engine-fires extinguished, speed quietly but rapidly past the large
looming hulls of the outer blockaders. But they have yet to run the
gantlet of the inner cordon of gunboats, and now comes the real crisis
of their venture. Shall they steam with cunning effrontery slowly
and ostentatiously close past a gunboat? The plan offers a chance of
success, for some of their watchers have once been blockade-runners
themselves, and in the darkness the similarity of build might deceive.
No; they perceive what seems to be a practicable gap in the line, and
driving their engines to their utmost pitch, they rest their fate upon
their speed. Yet they are detected: there goes a heavy swivel gun; the
alarm is raised, and now a perfect fusillade rages round the intruder.
But everything is against good practice; only one shot takes effect
in her hull, that going clean through the bow; and with little other
damage, the daring vessel steams into Wilmington with a valuable cargo
of liquors, leather, and iron.

Blockade-running soon became almost as much an art as a trade, and
there were some grumblers in this country who made it a ground of
complaint that no English officers had been sent to observe the
new development in this branch of naval warfare. The most ingenious
expedients were resorted to on both sides. A system of signalling by
means of blue lights and rockets was in many cases established between
the forts and their friends in the offing. The steamer _Hansa_ ran into
Wilmington while Fort Fisher was being bombarded, and prevented pursuit
by boldly sailing close past the powder-ship, which shortly afterwards
blew up. Occasionally, a furious cannonade was begun from some adjacent
fort, so as to draw off the blockading squadron, and leave the entrance
free, if only for a few hours. The blockaders had their tricks too.
Sometimes heavy smoke was seen rising as from a ship on fire; but when
the blockade-runner steered to render help, she found out too late that
the supposed burning vessel was a Federal cruiser, which had resorted
to this device in order to bring the swifter craft within range of her
guns. One dark rainy night the _Petrel_ ran out of Charleston, and
shortly afterwards fell in with what appeared to be a large merchant
vessel. Hoping to crown a successful run with the capture of a valuable
prize, she gave chase, and fired a shot to bring the stranger to. The
reply was a single broadside, so well directed that there was no need
for another. The supposed merchantman was the frigate _St Lawrence_. A
favourite ruse of the privateer _Jeff Davis_ was to hoist the French
flag of distress, and when a ship bore down in response to this appeal,
she would, under pretence of handing in a letter, send aboard a boat’s
crew armed to the teeth.

But of all the remarkable incidents of this remarkable blockade there
was none more noteworthy than the voyage of the British ship _Emily St
Pierre_. The story rivals the inventions of a sea-romancer. This vessel
left Calcutta with orders to make the coast of South Carolina and see
if the blockade of Charleston was still in force. Now, although this
was a proceeding not in any way illegal, she was nevertheless captured
by a Federal warship; a prize crew of two officers and thirteen men
was put on board; and her own crew, with the exception of the master,
the cook, and the steward, was taken out of her. Thus manned, she was
being steered for a northern port, when her deposed captain persuaded
his cook and steward to assist him in making one effort to regain
possession of the ship. They caught the mate asleep in his berth,
ironed and gagged him; the prize-master they found on deck, and
treated similarly; three seamen who had the watch on deck were asked
to go down into the scuttle—a storeroom near the helm—for a coil of
rigging. The captain gave them this order as if he had accepted the
inevitable, and was aiding the captors to navigate the ship. As soon as
the three leaped down, the hatch was closed, and they were prisoners.
The remainder of the prize crew, who were in the forecastle, were shut
down and liberated one by one; but those who would give no promise of
help to their new master were confined beside the unfortunates in the
scuttle. Three, indeed, consented, but only one of them was a sailor;
and with this crew of five, a vessel of eight hundred and eighty-four
tons was brought to Liverpool through thirty days of bad weather. It
is only a fitting conclusion to such a tale of daring to record that
the intrepid seaman who conceived and carried out the enterprise was a
native of the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, which had already numbered
among her sons the renowned Paul Jones.



IN ALL SHADES.


CHAPTER XXXII.

‘This is awkward, Tom, awfully awkward,’ Mr Theodore Dupuy said to
his nephew as they rode homeward. ‘We must manage somehow to get rid
of this man as early as possible. Of course, we can’t keep him in the
house any longer with your cousin Nora, now that we know he’s really
nothing more—baronet or no baronet—than a common mulatto. But at the
same time, you see, we can’t get rid of him anyhow by any possibility
before the dinner to-morrow evening. I’ve asked several of the best
people in Trinidad especially to meet him, and I don’t want to go and
stultify myself openly before the eyes of the whole island. What the
dickens can we do about it?’

‘If you’d taken my advice, Uncle Theodore,’ Tom Dupuy answered
sullenly, in spite of his triumph, ‘you’d have got rid of him long ago.
As it is, you’ll have to keep him on now till after Tuesday, and then
we must manage somehow to dismiss him politely.’

They rode on without another word till they reached the house; there,
they found Nora and Harry had arrived before them, and had gone in to
dress for dinner. Mr Dupuy followed their example; but Tom, who had
made up his mind suddenly to stop, loitered about on the lawn under
the big star-apple tree, waiting in the cool till the young Englishman
should make his appearance.

Meanwhile, Nora, in her own dressing-room, attended by Rosina Fleming
and Aunt Clemmy, was thinking over the afternoon’s ride very much
to her own satisfaction. Mr Noel was really after all a very nice
fellow: if he hadn’t been so dreadfully dark—but there, he was really
just one shade too dusky in the face ever to please a West Indian
fancy. And yet, he was certainly very much in love with her! The very
persistence with which he avoided reopening the subject, while he
went on paying her such very marked attention, showed in itself how
thoroughly in earnest he was. ‘He’ll propose to me again to-morrow—I’m
quite sure he will,’ Nora thought to herself, as Rosina fastened up
her hair with a sprig of plumbago and a little delicate spray of wild
maiden-hair. ‘He was almost going to propose to me as we came along by
the mountain-cabbages this afternoon, only I saw him hesitating, and I
turned the current of the conversation. I wonder why I turned it? I’m
sure I don’t know why. I wonder whether it was because I didn’t know
whether I should answer “Yes” or “No,” if he were really to ask me? I
think one ought to decide in one’s own mind beforehand what one’s going
to say in such a case, especially when a man has asked one already.
He’s awfully nice. I wish he was just a shade or two lighter. I believe
Tom really fancies—he’s so dark—it isn’t quite right with him.’

Isaac Pourtalès, lounging about that minute, watching for Rosina, whom
he had come to talk with, saw Nora flit for a second past the open
window of the passage, in her light and gauze-like evening dress, with
open neck in front, and the flowers twined in her pretty hair; and he
said to himself as he glanced up at her: ‘De word ob de Lard say right,
“Take captive de women!”’

At the same moment, Tom Dupuy, strolling idly on the lawn in the
thickening twilight, caught sight of Pourtalès, and beckoned him
towards him with an imperious finger. ‘Come here,’ he said; ‘I want to
talk with you, you nigger there.—You’re Isaac Pourtalès, aren’t you?—I
thought so. Then come and tell me all you know about this confounded
cousin of yours—this man Noel.’

Isaac Pourtalès, nothing loth, poured forth at once in Tom Dupuy’s
listening ear the whole story, so far as he knew it, of Lady Noel’s
antecedents in Barbadoes. While the two men, the white and the brown,
were still conversing under the shade of the star-apple tree, Nora, who
had come down to the drawing-room meanwhile, strolled out for a minute,
beguiled by the cool air, on to the smoothly kept lawn in front of the
drawing-room window. Tom saw her, and beckoned her to him with his
finger, exactly as he had beckoned the tall mulatto. Nora gazed at the
beckoning hand with the intensest disdain, and then turned away, as if
perfectly unconscious of his ungainly gesture, to examine the tuberoses
and great bell-shaped brugmansias of the garden border.

Tom walked up to her angrily and rudely. ‘Didn’t you see me calling
you, miss?’ he said in his harsh drawl, with no pretence of unnecessary
politeness. ‘Didn’t you see I wanted to speak to you?’

‘I saw you making signs to somebody with your hand, as if you took me
for a servant,’ Nora answered coldly; ‘and not having been accustomed
in England to be called in that way, I thought you must have made a
mistake as to whom you were dealing with.’

Tom started and muttered an ugly oath. ‘In England,’ he repeated. ‘Oh,
ah, in England. West Indian gentlemen, it seems, aren’t good enough
for you, miss, since this fellow Noel has come out to make up to you.
I suppose you don’t happen to know that he’s a West Indian too, and a
precious queer sort of one into the bargain? I know you mean to marry
him, miss; but all I can tell you is, your father and I are not going
to permit it.’

‘I don’t wish to marry him,’ Nora answered, flushing fiery red all over
(‘Him is pretty for true when him blush like dat,’ Isaac Pourtalès said
to himself from the shade of the star-apple tree). ‘But if I did, I
wouldn’t listen to anything _you_ might choose to say against him, Tom
Dupuy; so that’s plain speaking enough for you.’

Tom sneered. ‘O no,’ he said; ‘I always knew you’d end by marrying a
woolly-headed mulatto; and this man’s one, I don’t mind telling you.
He’s a brown man born; his mother, though she _is_ Lady Noel—fine sort
of a Lady, indeed—is nothing better than a Barbadoes brown girl; and
he’s own cousin to Isaac Pourtalès over yonder! He is, I swear to
you.—Isaac, come here, sir!’

Nora gave a little suppressed scream of surprise and horror as the tall
mulatto, in his ragged shirt, leering horribly, emerged unexpectedly,
like a black spectre, from the shadows opposite.

‘Isaac,’ the young planter said with a malicious smile, ‘who is this
young man, I want to know, that calls himself _Mister_ Noel?’

Isaac Pourtalès touched his slouching hat awkwardly as he answered,
under his breath, with an ugly scowl: ‘Him me own cousin, sah, an’ me
mudder cousin. Him an’ me mudder is fam’ly long ago in ole Barbadoes.’

‘There you are, Nora!’ Tom Dupuy cried out to her triumphantly. ‘You
see what sort of person your fine English friend has turned out to be.’

‘Tom Dupuy,’ Nora cried in her wrath—but in her own heart she knew it
wasn’t true—‘if you tell me this, trying to set me against Mr Noel,
you’ve failed in your purpose, sir: what you say has no effect upon me.
I do not care for him; you are quite mistaken about that; but if I did,
I don’t mind telling you, your wicked scheming would only make me like
him all the better. Tom Dupuy, no real gentleman would ever try so to
undermine another man’s position.’

At that moment, Harry Noel, just descending to the drawing-room,
strolled out to meet them on the lawn, quite unconscious of this little
family altercation. Nora glanced hastily from Tom Dupuy, in his planter
coat and high riding-boots, to Harry Noel, looking so tall and handsome
in his evening dress, and couldn’t help noticing in her own mind which
of the two was the truest gentleman. ‘Mr Noel,’ she said, accepting his
half-proffered arm with a natural and instinctively gracious movement,
‘will you take me in to dinner? I see it’s ready.’

Tom Dupuy, crest-fallen and astonished, followed after, and muttered to
himself with deeper conviction than ever that he always knew that girl
Nora would end in the longrun by marrying a confounded woolly-headed
mulatto.

(_To be continued._)



THE ASCENT OF CLOUDY MOUNTAIN, NEW GUINEA.

BY CAPTAIN CYPRIAN BRIDGE, R.N.


The Rev. James Chalmers—known all along the southern coast of New
Guinea, throughout the original British protectorate in fact, as
‘Ta-ma-té’—will always be held responsible for the first ascent
of Cloudy Mountain. Taking advantage of the presence of Commodore
Erskine’s squadron at South Cape, he instilled into the minds of some
of the officers a desire to get to the summit. With the persuasive
eloquence of which his many friends know him to be a master, he
expatiated on the honourable nature of the enterprise, dwelling on the
fact that no white man had as yet attempted it. It is not wonderful
that he excited considerable enthusiasm; nor is it, perhaps, wonderful
that, as the climate is a moist one and as the warm tropical season
was well advanced, some of the enthusiasm had greatly decreased
when the day for starting arrived. It was interesting to observe
how many pressing engagements happened to prevent some of the more
eager aspirants for alpine honours from attempting Cloudy Mountain,
when the expedition was definitely determined on. One had arrears of
correspondence to make up; another had promised to join a friend in
a shooting excursion; whilst a third wisely took into consideration
the fact of his being no longer young. It would have been well for at
least one of the party that afterwards made the ascent if he also had
remembered that the middle age is not the best time of life at which to
try climbing almost precipitous elevations through trackless forests in
the atmosphere of a hothouse.

On Friday, the 21st of November, the union-jack had been hoisted, and
the British protectorate over the southern coast of New Guinea had been
proclaimed with imposing ceremonies on Stacey Island, South Cape. Time,
which is usually deficient when naval officers visit places from which
interesting excursions can be made, did not allow of the start for
the summit of the mountain being deferred till the following day. It
was compulsory to get away as soon as possible after the ceremony. Mr
Chalmers, whom no exertion can tire, made arrangements for collecting a
body of native carriers. He advised each excursionist to take a change
of clothes, a blanket, and enough food for twenty-four hours. By about
eleven A.M. there were assembled at the village of Hanod, at the head
of Bertha Lagoon, the following: Captain C. Bridge; Lieutenants R.
N. Ommanney and M. Thomson; R. Millist, captain’s steward, of H.M.S.
_Espiègle_; Commander W. H. Henderson; Lieutenant T. C. Fenton; Mr
Glaysher, engineer; Mr T. W. Stirling, midshipman; four blue-jackets,
and one R.M. artilleryman of H.M.S. _Nelson_; Lieutenant John L. Marx,
commanding H.M.S. _Swinger_; Sub-lieutenant A. Pearson, of H.M.S.
_Dart_; and Mr Stuart of Sydney, New South Wales.

The tribes inhabiting the country about South Cape are of the dark
race, and were cannibals, until their recent renunciation of the
practice, under the influence of the missionaries. They are a much
merrier and more talkative people than the non-cannibal light-coloured
race, which dwells farther to the westward. The work of selecting
carriers proceeded with much vociferation; the carriers themselves,
their friends, and all the ladies of the village—in this part of New
Guinea the influence of woman is great—considering it necessary to
address lengthy speeches in a loud tone to the white strangers. That
not one of these understood a sentence of what was being said to them,
by no means discouraged the eloquence of the villagers. ‘Ta-ma-té’s’
extraordinary faculty of influencing the natives in a cheery way soon
introduced order into what looked very much like hopeless confusion.
With the aid of the teacher Biga, who could speak both the Motu and
the South Cape languages, he chose a sufficient number of carriers,
appointed as guide an elderly native who professed to have been to
the top of the mountain, and set about distributing the loads to be
carried. The wages agreed upon were a small ‘trade’ knife and three
sticks of tobacco, value in all about eightpence per man. Some biscuit
and a little extra tobacco were given afterwards, to keep up the
spirits of the party during the journey.

Though not much troubled with clothes, our new friends were, at all
events relatively to the western tribes, decently clad. The women wear
a becoming petticoat of leaves and fibre, coming down to the knee.
They often put on several of these garments one above the other, the
effect being much the same as that of a capacious crinoline. In New
Guinea, the women are tattooed from forehead to ankles, occasionally
in very elaborate patterns. The name Papua given to New Guinea is said
to mean ‘woolly-headed,’ and the appellation has been well bestowed.
The men of both races ‘tease’ their hair out into a prodigious mop. So
do the girls. Married women cut theirs short. The bushy wig which many
of the natives of this region seem to be wearing decidedly improves
their appearance. When their hair is cut short, the similarity of their
features to those of African negroes becomes more obvious. They are
not tall; but they have well-shaped limbs, and many of them are sturdy
fellows. The usual weight for a native carrier is twenty-five pounds.
But, as the number of travellers likely to ascend Cloudy Mountain had
greatly fallen off, we found ourselves with more carriers than we could
supply loads for. The result was that some at all events had very light
burdens. One man, for instance, carried an empty tin case for specimens
of plants; another, a few sheets of blotting-paper between two thin
pieces of board provided for the same purpose.

When officers land in the South Sea Islands, nicety of dress is not
much attended to. A helmet or straw-hat, a shirt, a pair of flannel
trousers, and boots or shoes more remarkable for utility than elegance,
are found quite sufficient. In a moist hot climate, the less clothing
the better; and in countries in which there are no roads, not many
paths, and where, as a rule, progress is only possible through thick
forest and over muddy ground, the fewer garments worn, the fewer there
are to be cleaned at the end of an excursion.

For the first half-hour after leaving the village on Bertha Lagoon, the
way ran across a mangrove swamp of soft mud, interspersed with pools
of black-looking water, and studded with the peculiar and aggravating
knobs that the roots of the mangrove bush delight to form. It was worth
while to note the care with which most of the excursionists began to
pick their way; some even evinced a desire not to wet their boots.
To keep the nether garments clean was clearly in general considered
an object worth trying for. But after a few rapid and involuntary
descents from slippery logs, seductively resembling bridges, placed
across the most forbidding sloughs, a determination to push on straight
and discontinue efforts to circumvent puddles, became universally
apparent. When the swamp had been left behind some distance, our
carriers, who belonged to a humorous race, kindly informed us, through
the interpreters—their faces beaming with delight as the information
was imparted—that they could have taken us by a route which would
have avoided it altogether. This statement was proved to be true on
our return, as some of the party escaped traversing the swamp a
second time by taking a path which led to the westward of it, and
others descended in canoes the lower part of a river that discharges
itself into the lagoon. When asked why they had not let us know of
the existence of a more agreeable road, our native friends made the
unanswerable reply, that none of our party had suggested to them any
wish to avoid the mangroves.

For an hour we had now to move along through a well-timbered country,
occasionally passing small cultivated patches, where yams, bananas,
and taro were grown. The path in most places was not difficult; but
it lost itself from time to time in a stream of clear water, whose
frequent rapids showed that we had begun to ascend. Repeated wadings
had at all events the advantage of removing all traces of our passage
across the swamp. The scenery was highly picturesque, especially at
some of the reaches of the little river. The pebbly banks were crowned
with a rich vegetation; the number and variety of the trees and
shrubs—amongst which the wild plantain, palms of various kinds, and the
pandanus were conspicuous—were at least as great as in most tropical
lands. Glimpses of lofty wooded heights were frequently obtained. A
few tuneful birds were heard, and we saw some azure-hued kingfishers.
But, as a rule, particularly as the lower country was left, the music
of the woods was monopolised by screeching white cockatoos. The scene
was greatly enlivened by the number and beauty of the butterflies which
flitted amongst the bushes. One of our party had provided himself with
a net; and, though occasional bad shots at some peculiarly nimble
_lepidoptera_ were made, his ‘bag’ turned out a very good one. On a
broad stretch of gravel and pebbles by the side of the water, towards
one o’clock, a halt was made for luncheon. The spot was fairly shady,
and the heat, considering our position, was not excessive. A biscuit or
two was handed to the carriers, and—what delighted them still more—a
few small fragments of tobacco. The New Guinea fashion of smoking is
peculiar. The pipe is a bamboo tube about two feet long and two inches
in diameter, with one end closed. Near this end, a small hole like
the mouth-hole of a flute is made, and in it a piece of leaf, twisted
into a pointed cup or ‘horn’ containing a little tobacco, is inserted.
Applying a light to the tobacco, the smoker sucks vigorously at the
open end of the tube; when this is filled with smoke, he puts his lips
to the small hole and takes several ‘draws,’ after which the tobacco
has to be replenished and the pipe relighted. Politeness flourishes
throughout the south-western Pacific Isles; even the naked cannibals
of New Britain exhibit to friends that true courtesy which consists
in doing as one would be done by. The New Guinean who lights the
pipe, when he has filled it with smoke, usually hands it to some one
else to have the first whiff. On the present occasion, the pipe was
offered first to the white man, to whom, so long as he behaves to them
becomingly, Pacific Island natives are almost invariably polite.

The lateness of our start rendered any but a short halt impossible, so
the repast was a hasty one. The increasing steepness showed that we
had begun the ascent in earnest. A path there certainly was, but, as
a rule, it was not easily discerned amid the thick growth of tropical
shrubs. As far as the density of the forest would allow us to examine
the country to any distance, we appeared to be mounting the ridge of
a spur of the main mountain mass. A deep valley lay on either hand,
at the bottom of which we could hear the rumbling of a stream. The
number of cockatoos increased as we got higher, and some were shot for
culinary purposes subsequently. We saw some handsome pigeons, and at
least one small flight of the large beaked bird called toucan, though
probably it differs from the South American bird to which that name
rightly belongs. Ignorance of ornithology made some of us doubt if
it were the hornbill or _buceros_, one of which we heard afterwards
overhead puffing like a locomotive, on our way down. The profusion of
ferns, palms, orchids, and flowering shrubs was striking. The ascent
was really a climb, as the hands had to be used nearly as much as the
feet. At one or two points, the face of a steep water-worn rock had
to be scaled. Frequent short halts became absolutely necessary; and
the head of our long and straggling line of white men and carriers
usually resumed the work of ascending as the rear reached the point at
which the former had rested. When the afternoon had well advanced—the
only watch in the company having been broken at a specially stiff
bit of climbing, the exact time could not be told—we had reached a
comparatively open space, which our guide declared to be the summit.
The impossibility of this being so was demonstrated by the appearance
of the true summit, of which a temporary break in the clouds usually
hiding it, now permitted a glimpse. Our guide thereupon asserted that
it was the only summit which he knew; that no native of the country had
ever attempted to mount higher; and that, anyhow, no path was to be
found farther on. These assertions were probably true. The correctness
at least of the last was soon established beyond the chance of doubt;
subsequent progress disclosed the fact that the path, which for the
last hour had been scarcely visible by the naked eye, ceased altogether.

When the rear of the line came up, these questions were being debated:
Should arrangements be made for camping for the night on the spot then
occupied? or should a further attempt to reach the summit be made?
Lieutenant Fenton and Mr Stirling settled the matter as far as they
were concerned by pushing on with the determination of crowning the
mountain by themselves, if no one else cared to follow them. ‘Ta-ma-té’
reviewed the situation in a short and fitting address, which closed
with a reminder that not even a native, it was now proved, had ever got
to the top. This was enough to prevent any flagging of the enthusiasm
necessary to carry the travellers higher. Even the oldest member of
the party, who had already begun to doubt the wisdom of joining in
such an enterprise by one who had years ago qualified as a member of
the ‘senior’ United Service Club, unhesitatingly gave his vote for a
continuance of the ascent and for the conquest of the virgin height.

It had been held that the previous part of the journey had afforded
instances of some rather pretty climbing. It was child’s play to
what followed. Path there was none; the vegetation became if possible
denser; and the only practicable line of advance ran along the edge
of a ridge nearly as ‘sharp and perilous’ as the bridge leading
to the Mohammedan Paradise. This ridge was so steep that, thickly
clothed as it was with trees, shrubs, and creepers, it was frequently
impossible to advance without pulling one’s self up by one’s hands.
In selecting something to lay hold of to effect this, great care had
to be exercised. The ‘lawyer’ palm, which sends out trailing shoots
admirably adapted to the purpose of tripping up the unwary, is studded
with thorns in the very part where it is most natural for a climber
requiring its aid to seize it. In the most difficult places, there
flourished an especially exasperating variety of pandanus. This tree
has many uses, and in this instance it seemed to have been purposely
placed just where it might best help the ascending traveller. The
pyramid of stalks or aërial roots, which unite several feet above
the surface of the soil to form the trunk, always looked so inviting
to those in want of a ‘lift,’ that no experience was sufficient to
prevent repeated recourse to its assistance. Unhappily, each stalk
of a diameter convenient for grasping by the hand was studded with
sharp prickles, almost invariably hidden by a coating of deliciously
soft moss. It was not until the weight of the body was thrown on the
hand encircling one of these deceptive stalks, that the situation was
fully realised. In the absence of a path, it was of some advantage to
keep amongst the rearward members of the party. A few persons in front
quickly made a trail, which was not very often lost, particularly when
the leaders had had the forethought to break branches off adjacent
shrubs, so that the fractures served as guideposts to those following.
The great steepness of the sides of the spur on the ridge of which was
the line of advance, rendered it most desirable not to stray from the
path, as serious injury, if not complete destruction, would in such
case have been inevitable. Sometimes a climber dislodged a stone that
went crashing amongst the thick growth with which the precipitous sides
were covered, downwards for hundreds of feet, till the noise of its
fall died away in the distance.

Clouds were collecting about the mountain, and the sun was about to
set, when at length the whole party stood upon the summit. There was
a comparatively level space, perhaps thirty feet square, thickly
overgrown with trees and shrubs. The moist heat on the way up had been
great enough to render every one’s clothes dripping wet, even had
not occasional thick mists drenched our scanty garments. It was so
late, that no time was to be lost in making arrangements for spending
the night on the top of the mountain. Tomahawks were brought into
requisition, and several trees were felled and laid one on another
along two sides of a small square, thus forming a low wall, under
shelter of which a bivouac might be formed. Many showers had fallen on
the higher parts of the mountain during the day, and so general was the
humidity that it was difficult to light a fire. When this was at length
accomplished, a meal was prepared, and soon despatched. The kindling
of a fire incited the native carriers to do the same on every available
spot, amongst others at a point dead to windward of the bivouac, to the
grievous annoyance of the travellers’ eyes, till a more suitable place
was substituted.

With leaves and twigs plentifully strewed under the lee of the felled
logs, the white men had managed to get themselves ‘littered down’ for
the night. The small rain which had been falling nearly ever since
the summit had been reached, turned into sharp showers, and showed
symptoms of continuing. The supply of water was found to be very
short, as, trusting to the statements of the natives before it was
ascertained that their knowledge of the country did not extend beyond
the termination of the path, it was thought unnecessary to carry a
large supply to the end of the journey, where, it was anticipated,
it would be found in abundance. The prospect for the night was not
cheering. Those who had brought a change of clothing now put it on in
place of the dripping garments hitherto worn, and rolling themselves
in their blankets, lay down to sleep, or to try to sleep. Many things
conspired to prevent slumber. It was soon discovered that some of the
party had no blanket. Mr Chalmers at once set himself to rectify this,
and did so in characteristic fashion. He borrowed a knife, and, cutting
his own blanket in two, insisted upon its being accepted by a companion
who had none. It is related of one of the several Saints Martin—on
board men-of-war, we cannot be expected to be very familiar with the
hagiology, so it will be well not to attempt to specify which of them
it was—that seeing a beggar in want of a cloak, he gave him his own.
Now, seriously, without in the least desiring to disparage the charity
of the saint, it may be pointed out that beggars are usually met with
in the streets of towns, and that to give away a cloak therein is at
the best not more meritorious than giving to a companion half of your
only blanket at the beginning of a rainy night on the summit of a
distant mountain. But this was not all. It was decided that the best
protection against rain would be the erection of some sort of tent.
‘Ta-ma-té’ was soon employed in helping to construct this shelter, and
in spite of all opposition, persisted in contributing the remaining
portion of his blanket to form the roof.

Contenting himself with as much of a companion’s blanket as could
be spared to him, he made himself, as he protested, extremely
comfortable; and that all might be as merry as possible, started a
musical entertainment by favouring the company with _Auld Langsyne_.
His jollity was contagious. There was a succession of songs. When these
had been concluded with a ‘fore-bitter’ of formidable length on the
death of Lord Nelson by a seaman of H.M.S. _Nelson_ gifted with a fine
voice, the natives were invited to take up the singing. They complied
without much hesitation. They sang in a low and rather plaintive tone,
with a curious deep _tremolo_ uttered from time to time in unison. At
length, as some began to grow sleepy, Mr Chalmers asked for silence, so
that the teacher Biga might be able to conduct the evening devotions.
This he did in an extempore prayer, attentively followed by the
natives, and, if not understood, at all events reverently listened to,
by the white men. To one at least of the latter, sleep was impossible.
Fatigue must be indeed overwhelming which will enable one to slumber
when, in the midst of the only available sleeping-place, a point of
rock is so situated that it almost forces a passage between the ribs.
Luckily, there were no mosquitoes or other voracious insects. But
there was an unpleasant many-legged black slug four or five inches
long which evinced an unconquerable predilection for crawling over the
naked human body. It was far from pleasant to find this animal just
effecting a passage between the neckband of the shirt and the skin,
or trying to coil itself round the ear of the side which happened to
be uppermost. A careful member of our party, before lying down, had
stretched a line between two trees, and on it had hung his wet clothes.
Looking about him in the night, he discovered that the clothes had
disappeared, and his announcement of this discovery elicited from a
companion the intelligence that the natives were wearing them. This
statement, so to speak, brought down the house. The natives heartily
joined in the hilarious applause with which it was received. The
same reception was extended to occasional ejaculations from other
companions of the bivouac, such as, ‘By Jove! there’s a native with
my shirt on!’ Subsequent reflections convinced the owners that it was
fortunate that the temporary borrowing of their clothes by their native
friends had been looked upon as part of the fun of the excursion. Had
any one been so ill-conditioned as to maltreat or scold the merry,
intelligent carriers, they would, almost to a certainty, have stolen
away in the night, and have left the white men to get themselves and
their things home as best they could. One native gentleman displayed
so much ingenuity in the mode of wearing one of the more unmentionable
garments, which he somehow or other succeeded in converting into a kind
of sleeved waistcoat, that the appreciative owner made him a present of
it. The new possessor had a proper pride in this acquisition, and wore
it in his village after the descent; indeed, he had the honour of being
introduced to the commodore whilst clad in it.

‘Ta-ma-té,’ who, with universal assent, had established a genial
despotism over the bivouac, issued a decree that every one should
make a joke, and that the joke adjudged the best should be sent to a
newspaper for publication. Either this was trying the loyalty of his
contented subjects too severely, or the labour of incubating jokes
was too great for wearied mountaineers, for, after one or two feeble
endeavours to comply with his edict, a general silence fell upon the
company.

In the morning, after a not absolutely perfect night’s rest, deficiency
of water rendered abstaining from even an attempt at breakfast
compulsory. There was little, therefore, to delay the ceremony of
hoisting the union-jack—providently brought for the purpose by
Lieutenant Fenton—upon the newly crowned summit. A suitable tree was
cut down and lopped; the flag was secured to it; and a hole having been
dug in which to insert it, the flagstaff was reared amidst a very good
imitation of three cheers from the natives, and the real thing from
the white men. The descent then began; and much of it was effected by
a different route from that of the ascent. Orchids, ferns, and other
plants were collected on the way. Sore hands, barked shins, added to
want of sleep and to a long fast, made the descent seem to some even
more fatiguing than the climb of the day before. The interval before
water was reached appeared excessive, and before a halt could be made
for breakfast, interminable. By two P.M. the travellers were back on
board their ships, proud of the distinction of being the first to
ascend a mountain summit in Eastern New Guinea.



TREASURE TROVE.


A STORY IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAP. IV.

Upon Jasper Rodley’s entrance into the house, Bertha had retired to
her own room, pleading that she was suffering from the excitement,
the fatigue, and the exposure she had undergone; but she could hear
a conversation kept up in the dining-room until a late hour, and
instinctively felt that Rodley had not come again without a reason.
To her surprise, the next morning she found that both her father and
his visitor were already downstairs, Jasper Rodley looking out of the
window and whistling to himself, the captain with evident agitation
marked on his movements and face.

‘Bertha,’ he said, without even giving her the usual morning greeting,
‘Mr Rodley has come here especially to say that from information he has
received, it will be necessary for you at once to decide what course
you intend to adopt. There is a chance, he says, that the great evil
hanging over our heads may be averted, but it depends upon your answer.’

‘Mr Rodley must give me until this evening to think over the matter.
I am going into Saint Quinians, if possible to see Harry—that is, Mr
Symonds, for even Mr Rodley will admit that plighted troths are not to
be broken in this abrupt manner. I shall be home before dark.’

‘Then I will see you on your road,’ said Rodley, ‘as I am going into
the town.’

‘You need not trouble,’ said Bertha. ‘The road is quite familiar to me,
and I have no fear of being molested.’ Then, without waiting to hear
whether Jasper Rodley objected or not to the arrangement, she left the
house.

In exactly an hour’s time, she walked into the town. At the old gate
she was confronted by rather a pretty girl, who laid a hand gently on
her arm, and said: ‘You are Miss West, I believe?’

Bertha replied in the affirmative.

‘You are in an unhappy and terrible position, and you have very little
time to spare, I think?’ added the girl.

Bertha looked at her wonderingly, for she could not recall ever having
seen her before.

‘I mean,’ explained the girl, who observed that Bertha was surprised at
this acquaintance on the part of a stranger with her affairs—‘I mean
with regard to that man, Jasper Rodley.—Yes, I know all about it; and I
want, not only to be your friend, but to see that evil-doing meets with
its just reward.’

The girl was poorly dressed; but her accent and mode of expression
were those of an educated woman, and, moreover, she had such a thin,
sorrow-lined face, that Bertha felt she could trust her.

‘Let me be with you to-day,’ continued the girl, ‘and you may thank me
for it some day. I have long wanted to see you, and have waited here
for you often. Never mind who I am—that you shall find out later.’

‘Very well,’ said Bertha, who naturally clung to the friendship of one
of her own sex. ‘I am going to see Mr Symonds—my betrothed.’

‘The gentleman who was obliged to leave Faraday’s Bank, four years ago;
yes, I remember,’ said the girl.

They crossed the market-place together, and were soon at Harry Symonds’
lodgings. The servant, in reply to Bertha’s inquiries, said that the
young man was so far recovered as to be able to sit up, but that the
doctor had ordered him to keep perfectly quiet and to be free from all
excitement. So Bertha wrote him a note describing all that had taken
place, and begging for an immediate answer. In the course of twenty
minutes, the servant handed her a piece of paper, on which was scrawled
as follows:

    MY DEAREST LOVE—This is written with my left hand, as my right is
    yet in a sling. I wish I could say all that I want to; but as every
    moment is of value to you, I will simply keep to business. Take a
    postchaise home; get the money out of the cavern, and send it here.
    John Sargent the fisherman is to be trusted; let him come back with
    it in the postchaise. I will return it to the bank, making up out
    of my savings whatever difference there is from the original amount
    stolen. Lose no time, my darling, and God bless you!—Ever your
    affectionate

        HARRY.

Bertha and the girl hurried away; and just as they entered the _Dolphin
Inn_ to order the chaise, they espied Jasper Rodley entering the town
watchhouse, the local headquarters of the civil force which in those
days performed, or rather was supposed to perform, the duties of our
modern constabulary.

‘Miss West,’ said the girl, ‘I had better remain in the town for the
present. At what hour to-day is Jasper Rodley coming to your house?’

‘I said I would be home by dark. He will be there before then, to
receive my final answer.’

‘Very well, then; I will be there about that time,’ continued the girl.

‘Will you not even tell me your name?’ asked Bertha.

‘Yes. My name is Patience Crowell. Till to-night, good-bye. Keep up
your spirits; all will end well.’

In a few minutes the postchaise was ready, and in order to escape the
notice of Jasper Rodley, was driven round to the town gate, where
Bertha jumped in. She stopped at John Sargent’s cottage, and mentioned
her errand.

‘Why,’ said the old fisherman, ‘I’m too glad to do anythin’ for Master
Symonds. He saved my life once at Saint Quinians’ jetty, and I’ve never
had no chance of doin’ suthin’ for him in return like.—Come along,
miss; if it’s to the end of the world, come along!’

As Jasper Rodley might pass by at any moment, Bertha thought it best to
keep the chaise out of sight, whilst she and the fisherman, provided
with a large net-basket, proceeded to the cliffs. In half an hour’s
time the bags of coin were safely stowed away in the postchaise; John
Sargent jumped in, the chaise rattled off; and Bertha, with a light
heart and a heightened colour, returned home.

The captain was stumping up and down the little gravelled space in his
garden, which from the presence there of half-a-dozen old cannon and
a flagstaff, he delighted to call the Battery. When he beheld Bertha,
he welcomed her with a sad smile, and putting her arm in his, said:
‘Bertha, lass, I’ve been thinking over this business ever since you
went away this morning, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more
I’ve called myself a mean, cowardly, selfish old fool.’

‘Why, father?’

‘Because, look here. I’ve been telling you to make yourself miserable
for life by marrying a man you despise and dislike, just so that I may
get off the punishment that’s due to me. I’m an old man, and in the
ordinary course of things, I can’t have many years before me. You’re a
girl with all your life before you, and yet I’m wicked enough to tell
you to give up all your long life so that my few years shouldn’t be
disturbed.’

‘But father’—— began Bertha.

‘Let me speak!’ interposed the old man. ‘I’ve been doing a wicked thing
all these four years; but I know what’s right. When this man asks you
to be his wife to-night, you say “No;” mind, you say “No.” If you
don’t, I will; and you won’t marry without my permission.’

‘Dear father, you leave it to me. I do not promise anything except that
by no act of mine shall one hair of your head be touched.—Let us talk
of other things, for Jasper Rodley will be here soon.’

So they walked up and down until the sun began to sink behind the hills
inland and the air grew chilly. They had scarcely got into the house,
when Jasper Rodley appeared. He bowed formally to Bertha, and offered
his hand to the captain, which was declined. ‘Miss West,’ he said,
‘I think I have given you fair time for decision. I have not been so
exacting as circumstances justified.’

Bertha said nothing in reply, but sat in a chair by the window, and
looked out on the sea as if nothing unusual was taking place.

So Jasper Rodley continued: ‘I will speak then at once, and to the
point. Miss West, will you accept me for your husband?’

‘No, I will not,’ replied Bertha, in a low, firm voice.

Mr Rodley was evidently unprepared for this, and looked at her with
open mouth. ‘That is your final answer?’ he asked, after a pause. ‘You
are prepared to see your father, whom you love so dearly, taken from
here in custody to be brought up as a common felon?’

‘Yes. That is, Mr Rodley, if you can prove anything against him. Of
what do you accuse him?’

‘I accuse him of having lived during the past four years upon money
which was not his, but which was stolen from Faraday’s Bank in Saint
Quinians, which was taken off in a vessel called the _Fancy Lass_, the
said vessel being wrecked off this coast.’

‘Very well,’ continued Bertha. ‘What is your proof that he knows
anything about this money?’

‘One moment before I answer that. You refuse to marry me if I can bring
no proof. You will marry me if I do?’

‘Show me the proof first,’ answered Bertha.

‘You must follow me, then.’

‘Not alone.—Father, you must come with me.’

So the trio proceeded out into the dusk, and, conducted by Jasper
Rodley, followed the path leading to the cliffs. Bertha observed that
they were followed at a little distance by a man closely enveloped
in a long coat, and as they ascended the ledge of rock communicating
with the shore, noticed two other figures—those of a man and a
woman—watching them.

‘It’s a very nice little hiding-place,’ remarked Rodley, when they
arrived at the bushes—‘a very nice little hiding-place, and it seems
almost a pity to make it public property; but a proof is demanded,
and sentimental feelings must give way.’ He smiled as he said this,
and kicked the bush aside with his feet, thus uncovering the cavern
entrance. They entered the hole, which was now quite dark; but Rodley
had come prepared, and struck a light. He then rolled away the stone,
and without looking himself, gave Bertha the light and bade her satisfy
her doubts.

‘There is nothing here,’ she said.

‘Nothing!’ exclaimed Rodley, taking the light from her hand and
examining the cavity. ‘Why!—Gracious powers! no more there is! There
has been robbery! Some one has been here and has sacked the bank!’ His
face was positively ghastly in the weird light as he said this, and
under his breath he continued a fire of horrible execrations.

‘Well, Mr Rodley,’ said Bertha, smiling, ‘and the proof?’

Rodley did not answer, but moved as if to leave the cavern, when a
woman’s figure confronted him at the entrance, and a ringing voice
said: ‘Proof! No! He has no proof!’

Rodley staggered back with a cry of rage and surprise. ‘Patience!
Why—how have you got here? I left you at Yarmouth!—Ha! I see it all
now!’

‘Yes,’ cried the girl, ‘of course you do. I gave you fair warning, when
I found out that you were beginning to forsake me for another; but not
until after I had begged and entreated you, with tears in my eyes, to
remember the solemn protestations of love you had made me, and the
solemn troth which we had plighted together.’

‘Let me go!’ roared Rodley; ‘you’re mad!’

‘No, no—not so fast!’ cried the girl. She made a signal to some one
without, and a man entered.

‘Jasper Rodley,’ continued Patience, ‘this constable has a warrant for
your apprehension on the charge of having been concerned in the bank
robbery four years ago.—Yes, you may look fiercely at me. I swore that
the secret in my keeping should never be divulged. I loved you so
much, that I was ready even to marry a thief. But as you have broken
your faith with me, I consider myself free of all obligations.—Captain
West, it was this man who planned the robbery, who had the coin
conveyed to his boat, the _Fancy Lass_, and who alone was saved from
the wreck.’

Rodley made a desperate rush for the cave entrance; but the constable
held him fast, and took him off.

‘There, Miss West!’ cried the girl; ‘I have done my duty, and I have
satisfied my revenge. My mission is accomplished. Good-bye, and all
happiness be with you.’ And before Bertha could stop her, she had
disappeared.

Jasper Rodley was convicted on the charge of robbery, and received a
heavy sentence, which he did not live to fulfil. Harry Symonds paid in
to the bank the entire sum stolen, the authorities of which offered him
immediately the position of manager, which he declined. He and Bertha
were married shortly afterwards; but they could not induce the old
captain to move to the house they had taken, for he could not get over
the shame of the exposure, and declared that he was only fit for the
hermit life he had chosen; but no one outside the little circle ever
knew that he had been indirectly concerned in the robbery; and neither
Harry nor Bertha alluded to it after.

Of Patience Crowell, who had so opportunely appeared on the scene,
nothing was ever known.



THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.


Dr Gustav Jaeger, whose sanitary clothing reform made some little stir
a year or two back, seeks to apply the principle involved in his theory
to furniture. This theory teaches that cotton, linen, and other stuffs
of vegetable origin retain a power of absorbing those noxious animal
exhalations which as plants they digest. Dead fibre, or wood, will, he
maintains, act in the same manner, and will throw off the deleterious
matter, to the prejudice of living beings, whenever there is a change
of temperature. This, he holds, is the reason why a room which has been
shut up for some days has an unpleasant odour attaching to it, and
which is very apparent in German government offices, which are fitted
with innumerable shelves and pigeon-holes made of plain unpainted wood.
For sanitary reasons, therefore, the back and unseen parts of furniture
should be varnished, painted, or treated with some kind of composition,
to fill the pores of the wood; hence it is that so-called sanitary
furniture has in Germany become an article of commerce, and is likely
to find its way to this and other countries.

Such large quantities of ice are now made by various artificial
processes, that ice is no longer a luxury which can only be procured
by the rich, but is an article of commerce which can be purchased at a
very low price in all large towns in the kingdom. It is not generally
known that the artificial product is far purer than natural ice, but
such, according to M. Bischoff of Berlin, who has made a scientific
analysis of specimens, is the case.

All honest persons rejoice greatly when a notorious evil-doer is run
to earth, and much the same satisfaction is experienced when science
points with unerring finger to the source of disease, for then the
first step has been taken in its eradication. Many, therefore, will
rejoice when they read the recently issued Report of Mr W. H. Power,
the Inspector of the Local Government Board, concerning an epidemic
of scarlatina which occurred in London last year. The story is most
interesting, but too long to quote in full. Suffice it to say that the
disease in question has, after the most painstaking inquiries, been
traced to the milk given by certain cows which were affected with a
skin disease showing itself in the region of the teats and udders. We
know to our cost that certain diseases can be transferred from the
lower animals to man. ‘Woolsorters’ disease’ is traced to the same
germ which produces splenic fever in cattle and sheep, a malady which
has been so ably dealt with by M. Pasteur. The terrible glanders in
horses is transferable to man. Jenner was led to the splendid discovery
of vaccination from observing the effects of cowpox on milkmaids; and
now we have scarlatina traced directly to the cowhouse. Dr Klein, the
famous pathologist, has been engaged to report upon this new revelation
concerning milk, and we may reasonably hope that his researches will
bear fruitful results.

A new method of etching on glass has been devised. The ink is of a
waxy composition, and requires to be heated to render it fluid. It is
applied to the glass with a special form of pen, which can be kept in
a hot condition by a gas or electrical attachment. When the drawing is
complete, the plate is etched by fluoric acid, which of course only
attacks and dissolves those portions not covered by the protective ink.
The result is a drawing in raised lines, which can be made to furnish
an electrotype, or can, if required, be used direct as a block to print
from.

Springs in mid-ocean are not unknown, and, if we remember rightly,
there is more than one of the kind at which ships have endeavoured to
renew their stores of fresh water. But an ocean oil-well is certainly
a rarity. The captain of a British schooner reports that in March
last, while bound for New Orleans, his vessel passed over a submarine
spring of petroleum, which bubbled up all round the ship, and extended
over the surface of the sea for some hundred yards. It seems to be
a moot-point whether this phenomenon is a mere freak of nature, or
whether it is caused by the sunken cargo of some ill-fated oil-ship.
In the latter case, the gradual leakage of casks would account for the
strange appearance.

Inventors of gas apparatus should note that the municipal authorities
of Brussels have decided upon holding a competition, with a view to
ascertain the best means of using gas for heating and cooking purposes.
A large sum is to be offered in prizes to the successful competitors.
Apparatus for trial must be forwarded not later than September next,
and all particulars regarding the matter may be obtained from the chief
engineer, M. Wybauw, Rue de l’Etuve, Brussels.

In the island of Skye, large deposits of the very useful mineral
called diatomite have recently been found. Under the German name of
_kieselguhr_, this absorbent earth has been extensively used in the
manufacture of dynamite, which consists of nitro-glycerine rendered
more safe for handling by admixture with this porous body. It is
also used as a non-conducting compound for coating the exterior of
steam-pipes and boilers, as a siliceous glaze for pottery, for the
manufacture of silicate paints, and for many minor purposes. In this
particular deposit the varieties of diatoms are singularly few,
only sixteen species of these wonderful microscopic organisms being
represented. The deposit is estimated to yield a total of between one
and two hundred tons.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Dr A. B.
Griffiths read a most instructive paper on ‘The Effect of Ferrous
Sulphate in destroying the Spores of Parasitic Fungi.’ The value of
this salt—the common ‘green vitriol’ of commerce—as a plant-food has
long ago been established; but Dr Griffiths points out the important
antiseptic property it possesses in destroying certain low forms of
plant-life. As a preventive of potato disease, it is most effectual,
although the spores of that fungus possess such vitality that they
may be kept as dry dust for eight months without losing their power
for mischief. Dr Griffiths also notes that in damp warm weather, the
potato disease is actually encouraged by the use of potash manures.
He advocates the treatment of manure with a weak solution of the iron
salt before its application to the land. Wheat when treated with the
sulphate is rendered proof against mildew.

A clever method of damascening metals by electrolysis is described
in a French technical journal. The process consists of two distinct
operations, and is based on the well-known fact, that when two copper
plates are hung in a bath of sulphate of copper and connected with
the opposite poles of a battery, a transfer of metal from one to the
other will take place. In the case before us, a copper plate is covered
with a thin layer of insulating material, as in the etching process,
and this is drawn upon with an etching needle so as to lay bare the
metal beneath. This is now submitted to the action of the electric
current, so that the metal is eaten away to a certain depth in the
exposed parts. The plate is next washed with acid, to remove all traces
of oxide of copper in the bitten-in lines, and is then transferred
to another bath by which metallic silver or nickel is deposited in
the etched parts, with the result that the sunk lines are ultimately
completely filled with the new metal. When the plate is relieved of
its waxy coating and is polished, it is impossible to say whether or
not the beautiful inlaid appearance has been produced by a mechanical
process or by skilled handiwork.

Two remarkable finds of old coins have lately occurred—one at
Milverton, a suburb of Leamington; and the other at Aberdeen. In
the first case, some labourers were digging foundations, when they
found a Roman amphora, which they immediately smashed to ascertain
its contents. It contained nearly three hundred coins in silver and
copper. These were of very early date, and in a state of excellent
preservation. The Aberdeen treasure trove came to light in excavating
Ross’s Court, one of the oldest parts of the city. Here the labourers
found a bronze urn filled with a large number of silver coins. These
coins also are well preserved. They are all English, and are mostly
of the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. Some of these coins are of
extreme rarity, and the discovery has great antiquarian interest.

The largest installation of the electric light, worked from a central
point, which this country has yet seen has been recently completed at
the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Railway. The lights, which
are equivalent to thirty thousand ordinary gas jets, are distributed
between the Paddington passenger and goods stations, the ‘Royal Oak,’
and Westbourne Park Stations, the terminus hotel, and all the various
offices, yards, and approaches to the railway Company’s premises. The
district covers no fewer than sixty-seven acres of ground, and is
one mile and a half long. The two Gordon dynamos which are used to
generate the current weigh forty-five tons each, and give sufficient
power to serve four thousand one hundred and fifteen Swan glow lamps,
each of twenty-five candle-power; ninety-eight arc lamps, each of
three thousand five hundred candle-power; and two of twelve thousand
candle-power each. The current is kept on day and night, except for a
few hours on Sunday morning, and each individual lamp is under separate
control by a switch, so that it can be turned off and on just like a
gas jet. Every detail has been well thought out, and the vast scheme
is a success in every way. We understand that the contractors, the
Telegraph Maintenance and Construction Company, have undertaken to
supply the light at the same price as would have been charged for gas
lamps giving the same light-value.

From a paper read by Mr C. Harding before the Royal Meteorological
Society on ‘The Severe Weather of the Past Winter,’ we learn that the
cold lately experienced has been of the most exceptional character.
The persistency with which frost continued for long periods was quite
remarkable. In south-west England, there was not a single week from
October to the end of March in which the temperature did not fall below
the freezing-point; and in one town in Hertfordshire, frost occurred on
the grass on seventy-three consecutive nights. Since the formation of
the London Skating Club, nearly sixty years ago, the past season has
been the only one in which skating has been possible in each of the
four months December to March. We therefore must note that we have just
passed through an unusually severe season.

Fresh fruit from the antipodes, of which two large consignments have
recently reached London, is now being daily sold to eager purchasers
in the Australian fruit-market at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition.
Grapes, apples, pears, and other fruits, in splendid condition, and
with their flavour unaltered by their long separation from their parent
stems, can now be conveyed by the shipload, packed in cool chambers,
in the same way that meat is imported from the same distant lands. The
success of the enterprise opens up a wide field of promise to those in
temperate lands who have been dazzled by the reports of travellers as
to the luscious nature of foreign fruits, which hitherto have been
quite out of reach of stay-at-home Britons. We seem to be fast coming
to the time when fairy tales will be considered tame and uninteresting,
from being so far eclipsed by current events.

A correspondent of the _Times_ notes a most important means of escape
from suffocation by smoke, a fatality by which many lives are lost
annually. He points out that if a handkerchief be placed beneath the
pillow on retiring to rest so as to be within easy reach of the hand,
it can, in case of an alarm of fire, be readily dipped in water and
tied over the mouth and nostrils. As an amateur fireman, he has gone
through the densest smoke protected in that manner, and he alleges
that such a respirator will enable its wearer to breathe freely in an
otherwise irrespirable atmosphere.

Professor Dewar lately exhibited at the Royal Institution, London, the
apparatus he employs for the production of solid oxygen. If we refer
to the physical text-books of only three or four years back, we find
oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen described as permanent gases, for no
one had ever produced either in any other form. At length all three
had to give way before scientific research, and they were by special
appliances reduced to the liquid state. Professor Dewar is the first
experimenter who has taken the further step of producing one of these
gases in a solid form. His method consists in allowing liquid oxygen
to expand into a partial vacuum, when the great absorption of heat
which accompanies the operation causes the liquid to assume a solid
state. It is said to resemble snow in appearance, with a temperature
greatly below the freezing-point of water. It is believed that a
means of producing such a degree of cold will be of great service to
experimental chemistry.

Mr W. Thomson, F.R.S.E., has devised a new process for determining the
calorific power of fuel by direct combustion in oxygen, which promises
to supersede, by reason of its greater accuracy, the methods hitherto
in use. The process consists in placing a gramme of the coal or fuel to
be tested in a platinum crucible covered with an inverted glass vessel.
The whole arrangement is placed under water in a suitable receptacle;
and the fuel, burnt in oxygen, burns away in a very few minutes, giving
off much heated gas, which escapes through the water. The temperature
of the water, compared with its temperature before the operation, gives
the data upon which the heating power of the coal can be calculated.
The question of heat-value in fuel is of course one of first importance
to railway Companies and other large consumers of coal. It is, too, in
a minor way of importance to householders, who often find, by painful
experience, the little heat-value of the fuel which has been shot into
their cellars. If coal-merchants were to furnish some guarantee based
on a scientific test as above described, they would find it to their
own profit, as well as to the advantage of their customers.

We do not hear very much in these days of mummy wheat and barley, but
many people firmly believe that the seeds of both plants found with
Egyptian mummies, and supposed to be three or four thousand years
old, will sprout if put in the ground. A few years ago, such wheat
was commonly sold as a curiosity; and we believe that many purchasers
succeeded in raising a small crop from it. Professor Bentley, who has
recently commenced a series of lectures on the Physiology of Plants,
asserts most emphatically that no grains which with certainty have been
identified as contemporaneous with the deposit of the mummified corpse,
have ever come to life. In cases where the so-called mummy wheat has
germinated, it has been introduced into the coffin shortly before, or
at the time of discovery of the body. Professor Bentley does not name a
limit to the time during which seeds retain their vitality, but he says
that very few will germinate after being three years old.

Dr Kosmann of Breslau has designed a safety cartridge for use in fiery
mines, but it has not yet passed the ordeal of practical employment. It
depends for its efficiency upon the sudden evolution of a large volume
of hydrogen gas, which is brought about by the action of dilute acid
upon finely divided zinc. The ‘cartridge’ consists of a glass cylinder
pinched into a narrow tube at the centre, so that interiorly it is
divided into two compartments. One of these contains the powdered zinc,
and the other the dilute acid, the passage between them being closed
by a rubber cork. The borehole into which it is inserted is first of
all made gas-tight by a lining of clay; then the cartridge is put in
position, with an iron rod in connection with it so placed that, when
struck with a hammer from the outside of the hole, it will drive in the
rubber cork, and so bring the acid into contact with the zinc. We shall
be interested to hear how the method answers in practice.



JACK, THE BUSHRANGER.

AN AUSTRALIAN REMINISCENCE.


Reading in your _Journal_ (writes a correspondent) an article headed,
‘A Bushranger Interviewed,’ recalls to my memory a strange incident
which occurred some years ago to my own brother, when on his way from
Sydney to the gold-fields, and for the accuracy of which I can vouch.

At the time of his arrival in Australia, the country was in a state
of panic: a reign of terror existed, caused by the daring outrages
committed on parties on the journey to and from the diggings. Robbery
with violence, escorts shot down, and large consignments of gold
carried off, were of daily occurrence. The bush was infested by a gang
of desperate bushrangers, whose leader, under the cognomen of ‘Jack,’
seemed to bear a charmed life. For years he had evaded all the efforts
made to capture him, though the military scoured the bush. No sooner
was an outrage perpetrated, than all trace of the perpetrators was
lost, as if the ground had swallowed them. He had a perfect knowledge
of the most secret movements of the parties he attacked. He seemed
ubiquitous, outrages occurring in such rapid succession and far apart.
Such an air of mystery hung about him, that a superstitious feeling
mingled with the moral terror he inspired. He was represented by some
persons who had seen him, as a fine powerful-looking man, with nothing
forbidding in his appearance.

Even the mad thirst for gold could not induce the bravest persons
to undertake the journey alone. The gold-seekers travelled in large
cavalcades, well armed, and determined to fight for their lives and
property; one of these parties my brother joined. He was a fine
handsome young fellow, all fun and love of adventure, and he soon
became a general favourite. The ‘track’—for there were no roads at that
time—ran for the greater distance through the bush, some parts of which
were so dense as scarcely to admit daylight. Every man was well armed.
My brother had brought with him a first-class revolver, purchased in
London. This he kept with other valuables carefully hidden on his
person, his other belongings being stowed away in one of the wagons.
When they bivouacked for the night, care was taken that it should be
in an open space, where a good look-out could be kept, to make sure
against a sudden surprise. The wagons were placed in the middle,
sentries posted, and scouts placed so that the flight of a bird or the
fall of a leaf could not pass unnoticed. All were on the _qui vive_.
For some days all went well, nothing unusual or alarming occurring.
They were then well into the bush, and consequently, if possible more
vigilant, believing that even a mouse could not intrude itself amongst
them.

One morning it was found that, during the night, they had been, spite
of all their vigilance, mysteriously and unaccountably joined by a
stranger, who stood in their midst as if one of themselves. No one
could imagine how or whence he came, and utter astonishment prevailed.
He was a fine portly man, from thirty-five to forty years of age, with
an open, prepossessing countenance and good address—one who, under
other circumstances, would have been looked upon as an acquisition to
the party. Not in the least taken aback or abashed by the scant welcome
he received or the undisguised surprise his presence created, he came
forward boldly, and told a most plausible story, to the effect that he
was a stranger making his way to the gold-fields, that, notwithstanding
the stories he had heard in Sydney of ‘Jack’ and his comrades, he had
ventured so far alone; but as he got farther into the bush he lost
heart, and determined to join the first party he met.

It looked strange that he had no luggage of any kind, not even
provisions, or anything to indicate that he was bound for a long
journey. He made no attempt to account for his mysterious appearance,
entered into the arrangements of the cavalcade, and made himself quite
at home. Every man amongst them, with the exception of my brother,
believed that no one but ‘Jack’ himself could have so taken them by
surprise, the general belief being, that it could only be from personal
experience the terrible bushranger derived the perfect knowledge he
displayed when making his raids.

The party agreed that the wisest course would be to await the progress
of events, watch his every movement, and let him see that they were
prepared to sell their lives dearly, if driven to do so.

The stranger seemed to have an unlimited supply of money, and to
be generous about it, paying his way freely. He took at once to my
brother, and the liking was mutual; in diggers’ parlance, they became
mates, chummed, walked, and smoked together. My brother found him a
well-informed, agreeable companion, a vast improvement on their rough
associates; and he seemed thoroughly to enjoy the society of the jovial
young Irish gentleman. A sincere friendship sprung up between them,
notwithstanding the disparity in years.

The other members of the party became very anxious, fearing the man
would take advantage of my brother’s unsuspicious, trusting nature
to obtain information that would be useful to him when forming his
plans for the attack which was hourly expected, in fact looked upon as
imminent. Nor were their fears allayed when, after a little, he would
leave the beaten track and walk into the bush, remaining away for
hours, and returning at the most unexpected times and places; showing a
thorough knowledge of the bush and all its intricacies and short-cuts,
quite inconsistent with the story he had told on joining.

One thing struck my brother as strange, but without exciting any
suspicion on his part. When walking together, he would suddenly stand,
become quite excited, and say: ‘Oh, it was here such an outrage
occurred.’ ‘It was on the spot on which we are standing that the escort
was shot down and a large consignment of gold carried off. They did
fight like demons.’ He seemed to take the greatest pleasure in giving
minute details of the different outrages as they had occurred, and
always spoke as if he had been an eye-witness. But so thorough was my
brother’s belief in his new friend, that even this did not shake his
faith.

When within a few days of the journey’s end, the stranger suddenly
and quite unexpectedly declared his intention of parting company.
He offered no explanation as to his reason for doing so, though all
through he had seemed anxious to impress it on them that he intended to
go the entire way to the diggings with them. No questions were asked.

After a general and hearty leave-taking, which, however, did not
inspire much confidence, as they were still within range of a possible
attack, he asked my brother to take a last walk with him, and led the
way into the bush farther than he had ever brought him before, and a
long distance from the beaten track. The first words the stranger said
were: ‘Mate, don’t you carry a revolver?’

The answer was: ‘Yes, and a first-class one. Not such as is got out
here. I brought it from home.’

‘Show it to me,’ said the stranger; ‘I love a real good weapon;’ and
without the slightest hesitation, my brother handed him the revolver,
which he examined carefully, and saw that the chambers were loaded. He
remarked that it was the ‘prettiest weapon’ he had handled for a long
time.

He walked a few steps in advance, and turning round suddenly, he
presented the revolver at my brother’s head, calling out in a
commanding tone, ‘Stand!’ his countenance so changed as scarcely to be
recognised.

At last my brother felt that he stood face to face with the terrible
bushranger, but did not lose his presence of mind.

For a moment there was a profound silence, first broken by the stranger
saying: ‘Is there anything on earth to prevent my blowing out your
brains with your own weapon, placed in my hands of your own free-will?
The wild bush round us, I know its every twist and turn. The man is not
living who could track my footsteps through its depths, where I alone
am lord and master. Speak, man! What is there to prevent me?’

With a throbbing heart and a quickened pulse my brother answered:
‘Nothing but your sense of honour.’

The man’s face brightened, and his voice resumed its friendly tone, and
handing back the revolver, he said; ‘We stand now on equal footing. You
hold my life in your hands, as I held yours a moment ago. Yes, boy; and
your own fortune too. But I trust you, as you trusted me. I would not
hurt a hair of your head, and I have spared others for your sake. How,
you will never know; but they owe you a deep debt of gratitude. You are
a noble-hearted fellow; and through the rest of my stormy life, I will
look back with pleasure on the time we have passed together. But, mate,
you are the greatest fool I ever met. I brought you here to-day to give
you a lesson, which I hope you will bear in mind. You are going amongst
a rough, lawless crew; never, as long as you live, trust any man as you
have trusted me to-day. Where you are bound for, your revolver will be
your only true friend; never let it out of your own keeping, to friend
or foe. You are far too trusting. There was not a man but yourself
amongst those from whom I have just parted who did not believe from the
moment I joined that I was Jack the bushranger. Well, mate, I am not
going to tell you who or what I am, or how or why I came amongst you;
but of this rest assured, that you have no truer friend. You will never
know what I have done for your sake.—Now, mate, good-bye for ever. We
will never meet again in this world, and it is best for you it should
be so.’ Then leading him back to the track by which he could rejoin his
party, he wrung my brother’s hand, turned and walked quickly into the
bush, leaving no doubt upon my brother’s mind that the friend he had so
loved and trusted was indeed the dreaded bushranger.

They never did meet again. My brother came home to die; and unless my
memory deceives me, Jack was shot dead in a skirmish with the military.



THE BIRDS AT SOUTH KENSINGTON.


South Kensington has of late years been so inseparably identified with
Art, that it will seem natural to the readers of this article for Art
to form its subject; but it will probably surprise the frequenters of
these buildings to be asked to bend their steps towards the Natural
History Department—which one naturally supposes devoted to scientific
objects—to examine works of art quite equal in their way to any to be
found in the building devoted ostensibly to that purpose.

Many must have been struck by the artistic and natural grouping of the
birds, with their nests and young, in imitation of the surroundings
they frequent while living. How much more one is impressed with the
beauty of the creatures, when one sees them arranged in the positions
they assume in a state of nature, than when placed in the old-fashioned
style, mounted on boards or badly imitated stumps of trees! Justly,
this admirable grouping calls forth exclamations of delight from the
beholder; yet there is a fact connected with this artistic grouping
that is as well worthy of the admiration of the visitor as the
scientific facts here intended to be represented.

The surrounding of each of these nests is a work of art in itself,
constructed, with the most painstaking regard to accuracy of detail, by
a lady, whose name, though not appearing in this _connection_, is not
unknown to fame. The sods—if the bird be a ground-builder—are dug up
with the nest and surroundings as they are found, and are submitted at
once for the modeller to copy the various weeds and flowers exactly as
they grow. The sods are then dried and cleaned, and the modeller fixes
into them the flowers and weeds she has constructed, and paints up the
grass, to restore it to its original colour. They are then deposited in
the places they are destined to occupy in the Museum.

The material employed for making these artificial flowers and weeds
has been called by the inventor, who is also the modeller, the ‘New
Kensington Art Material.’ Boughs of trees, the minutest flowers and
weeds, even the hair-like filaments that many flower-stems possess
as a protection against the ravages of insects, are copied with such
scrupulous accuracy as to defy detection by ordinary means; and
the union between the real wood and its artificial representation
is concealed with the same regard to reality. The secret of the
manufacture of the material is strictly preserved.

At the International Exhibition of 1851, Mrs Mogridge—then Miss
Mintorn—in conjunction with others of her family, took the first prize
for models of wax-flowers; notably a model of ‘Victoria Regia’ lilies,
taken from the first to bloom in England, by permission of Her Grace
the Duchess of Northumberland. Of late years, Mrs Mogridge has used the
new Art Material in place of wax, on account of its superior strength,
and indestructibility, it being unaffected by heat, the great enemy
to all work in wax. Moreover, it admits of more perfect colouring; no
shade being unattainable in this composition, and permitting of the
most brilliant effects of pigmentation.

It is adaptable to all artistic decorations on account of its greater
strength; and flowers made in it can be mixed with living foliage so
as to be a perfect deception, when the real flowers are unattainable.
It may be interesting to notice that naturalists will find a ready
means of enhancing the value of their collections, not only of birds,
as before noticed, but of insects. Lord Walsingham, we are told, has
a large collection of butterflies and moths which are mounted in this
way, surrounded by the smallest weeds and plants on which they feed.

Botanical specimens for all purposes, particularly in schools, &c.,
where botany is taught, may be made of this material with advantage,
as the natural specimens are so easily destroyed with handling. Its
value for designs for china-painting, where the choice flowers, such as
orchids, &c., cannot be procured in their natural state, will be easily
appreciated; and models made of it are, in fact, already used by the
artists at the Royal Porcelain Works at Worcester for this purpose, as
all the detail is faithfully carried out, from the flower of the common
nettle to the large oak-bough.



THE LINDSAY’S BRIDAL.

    [The first marriage of Colin, Earl of Lindsay and Balcarres, to
    Maurizia de Nassau, took place in extreme youth, at the court of
    James II., under the circumstances and with the result narrated.]


              In blithe London Town
              Ne’er such bridal was known
    As this of Earl Colin the Lindsay so gay:
              O’er the Border, in sooth,
              Never came bonnier youth,
    And the king’s self shall give the fair lady away.

              The bridemaids and bride
              Are here in their pride,
    But why ere the rite this long pause and delay?
              ’Tis for Colin they wait—
              The ‘Light Lindsay’ is late:
    The bridegroom forgetteth his own marriage-day!

              The envoy was meet,
              And the bridegroom is fleet,
    He stands at the altar in bridal array:
              But what lacks he now?
              Why this cloud on his brow?—
    The ring that should make her his countess for aye!

              Oh, a ring’s easy found
              ’Mid the guests standing round!
    And a borrowed ring served on that strange marriage-day:
              But when spoke was the oath
              That united them both,
    She looked on the ring, and she fainted away.

              ’Twas a ring with a tomb
              And a legend of gloom,
    And she wist that to death she was wedded that day.
              They cheered her amain;
              But, alas, ’twas in vain!
    And she drooped and she died ere a year was away.

            JETTY VOGEL.


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*** End of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 130, vol. III, June 26, 1886" ***