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MEMOIR OF Wm. P. HAWES. TO THE MEMORY OF CYPRESS.
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To commemorate the talents, depict the character, and erlogise
the virtues of a departed friend, although a melancholy
task, must ever be, in some sort, pleasurable to a survivor;
and for the most part biographers have been so sensible of this
sad pleasure, that they have but too often departed from their
proper line of duty, and degenerated into mere panegyrists. So
far is this, however, from being in accordance with the views of
the writer, that he considers such adulatory notices equally
useless as regards the reputation of the dead, and discreditsble
to the motives of the living. It is, then, his intention merely to
lay before the public such brief facts, concerning the deceased,
as may suffice to render them acquainted with the individual
who ministered so often and so long to their amusement,
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under the fictitious name, J. Cypress, Jr., which has been
still retained in the title of these volumes.
William Post Hawes, the author of the fugitive pieces now
for the first time collected, was the son of Peter Hawes, Esq.,
a distinguished member of the New-York bar, and subsequently
secretary of the Washington Insurance Company in
this city. He was born on the 4th day of February, 1803, and,
at a very early age, commenced a course of study in all the
branches of a liberal education, in several—the first—schools
of the day. In due course of time he entered at Columbia
college, and on the 7th day of August, 1821,—when but 18
years of age—was admitted bachelor of arts, with all the
honors; and on the 7th day of August, 1824, master of arts in
the same institution, of the Philolexian society of which he
had been an honorary member during the greater part of his
terms.
Having determined on the honorable profession of the law,
as the career most congenial to his habits, he became a student
in the office of John Anthon, Esq., now a celebrated
member of the New-York bar, and was successively admitted
attorney in August, 1824, solicitor in March, 1826,
counsellor in the supreme court in May, 1828, and in the court
of chancery in May, 1830. It may not be superfluous here
to state that Mr. Hawes served in the militia of the state of
New-York, from the grade of ensign in January, 1825, through
all the successive ranks, to that of colonel of the 222d regiment
of infantry, in January, 1836.
From the commencement of his practice as a lawyer at the
age of 21, to his untimely end, he continued in that eminent
profession; in which he occupied by his talents, industry, and
kindly disposition, a highly honorable situation.
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In the year 1826 he contracted a matrimonial alliance with
Miss Priscilla Morris, by whom he had an interesting family,
to which he was ever bound by the kindliest and sweetest
ties, not of relationship alone, but of affectionate and earnest
solicitude. His premature death, the consequence of a severe
and sudden cold, neglected—he was engaged on Saturday
in the duties of his office, dead on the following Tuesday, and
actually buried before the writer of this brief memoir was
aware that he had a friend less in this world of care and disappointment—
robbed his young daughters and untimely widow
of their best earthly friend and only true protector.
The literary career of Mr. Hawes, which with a sensibility
characteristic of the man, he ever wished to keep out of sight,
commenced at a very early period, the first of his extant papers
bearing date of February, 1827, and consisting of a series
of articles published in the Gazette, on the then interesting
subject of the abduction and supposed murder of the
free mason Morgan.
From that period until the day of his death he continued to
write, at short and constant intervals, fugitive articles for various
periodicals and papers; the principal of which were the
American Monthly Magazine, the Mirror, the New-York Standard,
and afterwards, the New-York Times. Subsequently,
he became a regular contributor to the New-York Spirit of
the Times and Turf Register, both issued from the office of
those thorough sportsmen and most enterprising publishers,
the Messrs. Porter of this city.
With characteristic order and minuteness, all Mr. Hawes'
writings were found, after his death, regularly entered and corrected,
in a large blank book, kept by him for that purpose
from a very remote date, so that the duty, devolved on the editor,
has been merely that of selection and arrangement.
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Mr. Hawes was a moderate but a steady democrat; never
a leveller or disorganizing radical; and almost all his earlier
literary productions, whether in prose or verse, are of a political
character. These the editor has judged it best to suppress,
for several reasons, which he feels it here his duty to
lay before the public. First, they are generally of a partizan
character, and do not relate to any grand measures of political
principle, or such as possess any lasting interest. Second,
although clear, sound, and sometimes richly fraught with humor,
they are generally inferior to the others, both in character,
spirit, and the peculiar racy naivete, which is the most remarkable
attribute of his miscellaneous writings.
The papers, of which this little work is composed, were
published, with but the exception of one or two original posthumous
articles, either in the pages of the American Monthly,
and Turf Register, or in the columns of the Mirror, and the
Spirit of the Times. Farther than this it is not for the writer
to say; his own estimate of the writings, the character and
genius of his friend, has already been recorded in a paper entitled
“To the Memory of `Cypress”' published in the
Turf Register for May, 1841, which is appended to this memoir
as being the embodiment of first impressions, before the
writer had the least conception, that on him would fall the lot
to be the supervisor and collector of writings, which he so
sincerely and enthusiastically admires. The labor which he
has undertaken, he has undertaken as being indeed a labor of
love; he has brought to it the whole of his energies, the best
of his abilities; and though unused to sue for public favor, he
does so far deviate from his accustomed practice as to crave
this indulgence—that all the censure of the critics may fall
upon his head, while all the praise may be awarded, where it
is only due, to his departed friend. The profits of this little
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work, if there be any, will be a husband's and a father's legacy
to orphans and a widow. The following is the tribute of his
editor.
Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
Tam cari capitis?
Alas! for Cypress!—snatched from among us by a blow
so sudden, so untimely—cut off in the prime of his manhood,
in the full vigor and maturity of his rich intellect—Alas! for
Cypress! and yet more, alas! for all who loved him!—not
readily, or soon, shall they see his like again. It was but a
moment, and he was here, delighting all around him with his
quaint kindly humor!—a moment, and he was gone for ever—
gone from all but the memories of the many, many friends who
will long mourn his loss—long cherish the least—faintest—
memorial of one bound to their spirits and their hearts by ties
so crose and kindred!—one, of whom it may be truly said,
that never by deed, word, or thought, did he wrong any man!
The writer of this humble tribute long knew and truly prized
him; and never in a friendship, which had lasted years, and
which was interrupted only by the cold hand of death, never
did he hear one unkind or illiberal remark, one ungenerous
surmise, one taunt or sarcasm, fall from those lips which overflowed—
if ever mortal's did—with the outpourings of a generous,
warm heart—the genuine abundant milk of human kindness.
In his domestic relations, he was all that parents would
desire their sons to be; a kind friend, affectionate husband,
tender and anxious father, true-hearted, upright, honorable
man. In his profession, without having attained perhaps the
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highest eminence, he occupied a station highly respectable;
to which his classical education, his natural acuteness, and his
laborious habits, fully entitled him. It may be observed, too,
in this place, with great propriety, that in a profession the duties
of which it is difficult indeed to discharge, without incurring
the reproach of harshness from some party, without making
enemies of opponents—he was famous for his thoughtful
kindness, his conciliating mode of doing business, his hatred of
anything that savored in the least degree of tyranny or persecution.
It was, however, as an author that the talents of Cypress
were most brilliant, and most happily displayed. As a
writer in his own peculiar strain, he has assuredly no superior—
assuredly no equal! Perfectly original both in his
vein of thought, and in his style of writing, he stands entirely
alone in English literature, imitating no one, resembling no
one, nor to be imitated, as we think, by any. His productions
were all of a fugitive nature, all tinged with his peculiar quaint
drollery, with an air of naive simplicity; manifesting no slight
acquaintance both with men and books, great appreciation of
natural beauties, and considerable insight into the habits of
those denizens of wood, and wild, and water, concerning
which he would discourse so eloquently and so well. There
was a freshness in his manner, a raciness in his style of writing
and of thought, which could not fail to enchant all readers.—
Without being of a poetical temperament, there was yet
much of poetry in many of his descriptions, which, though
few and far between—for Cypress was in general a conversational
and discursive, more than a descriptive, writer—are of
a rare beauty and fidelity—in proof of which opinion, we
would refer his admirers to the description of the Sound and
the Connecticut Coast, as viewed by the Fisherman left on
the lonely rock, in “The Shark Story,” published originally
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in the second volume of the American Monthly Magazine, and
subsequently, if we are not mistaken, reprinted in “The Spirit
of the Times”—and secondly, to the picture of the Long
Island trout-stream, wherein Ned Locus saw the Mermaid;
written for the same work, and afterward transferred to the
pages of the Turf Register. There are many other similar
gems to be found among the writings of Cypress; but to these
two we never recur without the most intense pleasure—there
is an unpretending and unlabored vividness about them, worth
its weight in gold; and we are bold to say that they are equal
in this respect, as pen and ink paintings, to the best things of
the same kind in Willis; whose forte decidedly lies in such
description, and many of whose poetical pictures of the Mediterranean,
Bosphorus, and Egean, are quite unsurpassed by
anything in the English language. Cypress's Long Island
baymen are perfect, life-like, and actual Southsiders, not to
be mistaken for any other specimen of the genus homo to be
found on the face of the earth; and we have often wondered
that Mount, the painter of the Island men, has never given actual
forms and bodies to the ideal creatures of their laureat
historian. Some of the scenes in Raynor Rock's fishing hut,
with Peter Probasco, long John, and the rest of the clique,
would give him the fairest of fields for the exercise of his
graphic pencil.
Cypress was himself a sportsman, and we believe a good
one, in the Bays especially; he was not so good an upland,
as a fowl shot; but he loved all the various phases of field
sports, the hound, the pointer, gun, and rod, with that eager
warmth of affection which characterized his attachment to
everything he undertook in earnest. In principle and theory,
if not in practice, he was a perfect and complete sportsman;
he loved, and studied, and knew with a familiar knowledge,
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every bird, beast, and fish, which is a legitimate object of the
gunner's, hunter's, angler's, sport and skill—and whether on
the sandy knolls of Raccoon Beach, on the shrubbery fringed
marge of the Long Island trout-stream, or on the rock-ribbed
forest-cinctured sides of the Hudson Highlands, he was equally
at home, equally happy himself, and equally a source of instruction
and delight to others. He was emphatically a fair
sportsman, no slaughterer of hatching mothers, no butcher of
broods unfledged and tender, in season and out of season.
Witness his beautiful and really pathetic mournings over the
infant quail, deluded by the imitative cry of the parent bird,
and murdered by the Negro of Matowacs!—Witness, too, the
law for the preservation of game, which he was principally instrumental
in getting through the Legislature; and by the enforcement
of which only can quail be preserved from becoming,
like the pinnated grouse of Lond Island, extinct within
the space of a few years. The quail was his especial favorite—
his fond, familiar pet—and beautiful indeed, exquisitely
beautiful, is that paper—“Some Observations concerning
Quail”—written for the New-York Mirror, and lately republished
in the Turf Register. We have always considered it
his masterpiece, embodying all the beautiful peculiarities of
his peculiar style and fancy—wit, playfulness, description,
pathos, freshness, simplicity, rich, natural, racy vigor. There
is nothing so good in Elia Lamb's best things—whom perhaps
Cypress more resembled than any other English author—
nothing so good in Izaak Walton—arch favorite both of
Lamb and Cypress—nothing so good in any rural writer.
This was the paper which called forth the discussion maintained
for some time by the subject, and by the writer, of this
brief tribute to departed talent, against an anonymous contributor
to the Turf Register, under the signature of“H.”, from
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Marietta—a discussion which was commenced by an attack,
certainly—but we hope not intentionally—illiberal and unhandsome,
on the sportive and playful article alluded to above.
We are sorry to add—and we trust the author of that attack
will be sorry to learn—that poor Cypress was considerably
and deeply galled by the discourtesy of this assault, which not
only accused him of gross ignorance of ornithology, but reflected
on his Latinity, and called in question, as he fancied—
for his mind was no less sensitive than kind—his personal
veracity. With the exception, we believe, of one brief article
on the defensive, he wrote no more, in the few weeks he lived
after that attack; and it was observed by many of his friends,
that he was seen less often in the office of “The Spirit” afterward—
where he was often wont to commune with the kindred
souls, who thither did resort. But to quit an unpleasant topic,
which we have only touched on to illustrate the peculiar sensibility
of poor Cypress—he never attacked any one, he never
spoke a word in jest or earnest that could wound the humblest
feelings of the humblest individual; and when subjected to an
assault himself, at which most men would have laughed, he
winced, and felt the injury long after the first smart had passed
away. When Cypress commenced writing for the press, or
through what medium his earliest lucubrations were given to
the world, we cannot state with certainty. We knew him
and admired him first in the columns of the New York Mirror;
which contained, we are inclined to believe, his first,
and we are sure many of his ablest efforts. His “Fire-(Island-Ana,”
by most persons esteemed his chef d'œuvre, were written
expressly for the American Monthly Magazine; and it is
with a deep and heartfelt gratitude that the writer of these
lines remembers and records, that their appearance in that periodical
was owing to the personal kindness of the author to
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himself—a kindness the more valuable and the more appreciated,
because it displayed itself spontaneously and most efficiently,
at a time when sickness had incapacitated him from
the performance of editorial duties, and when the fortunes of
the Magazine were faltering, and its prospects dark and dubious.
Since that periodical passed into other hands, and became
extinct, Cypress published solely in the columns of “the
Spirit” and the pages of “the Register”—all that he published
there was republished in the English journals; and his name
was no less current abroad than in his own country. His
place can never be filled there!—the Editors—the readers
have to lament a common loss! His pen can never worthily
be wielded by another! Kindred souls he has left many to
deplore his premature and sudden doom—many who contribute
to those pages of which he was the brightest ornament—
but of these there is not one so daring as to brave comparison,
by imitation of what is in truth inimitable. His papers, left to
the care[1] of an associate and friend, able, and kind, and
thoughtful, will be inspected, and considered carefully, with a
view to their publication. His nearest friends can throw but
little light upon his modes and habits of composition, and know
but little as to the quantity of literary MSS which he has left
behind, or the degree of finish bestowed upon them. There
appears to be a general impression that he wrote very much
for one who published but a little. If so, the public may
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derive yet much gratification from the posthumous collection of
his reliques. From one, however, of his intimates, and one
likely to know, and apt to judge correctly, we have learned
that he was wont to compose rapid skeletons, and then to
elaborate at his leisure, putting in all the delicate lights, the
quaint conceits, the bright and humorous fancies at after
periods; and giving them the perfect finish by oft-repeated,
and oft-interrupted touches. If so it be—and so we fear it is—
little can be done—we had almost said nothing! for the
great charm of Cypress lay in that very finish—and of the
writings of all living writers we know of none so unapproachable
by imitators, so unsusceptible of completion by any editorial
labors, as those of our departed friend. Those, however,
will be called to the task of supervision who loved him
well, and who will spare, most assuredly, no toil in what will
be to them truly a labor of love—and if it shall be in their
power to give to the world a posthumous monument of their
dear comrade, reared by his own right hand, and shaped by
his own exquisite skill—rich will they deem, and ample, their
reward.
As it is, his memory is enshrined in their souls, and they
will mourn him as he would be mourned. Often on the still
waters of the bays, among the sedgy hassocks, while brant and
broadbill skate before the driving breeze, defying the shooter's
skill by their unrivalled speed, will thoughts of him be near
the sportsman's heart—haunting it as with a real presence—
often, when in the heat and hush of a summer noon we recline,
weary and worn with toil, on the mossed brink of some lone
well-head, deep in the emerald woodlands, qualifying our
Ferintosh or old Cognac with the pure ice-cold water, while
our setter crouches at our feet, and our gun, and game-bag,
plump with the birds he loved—his own dear scolopax, lie on
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the turf beside us, will the cup be quaffed in the solemn silence
of regret, while the tear steals down the cheek, to the memory
of him who cherished so those hours of sylvan rest, and knew
so sweetly to describe them. Green be the grass above him!
His very bones would pine beneath the weight of marbles—
he should lie in the shadow of some haunted grove, where
the whisper of the wind should wake wild music in the vocal
boughs, where some clear streamlet, rippling along its pebbly
bed, should make that melody beside his ashes, which his ear
loved so well while living, where the hum of the bee, and the
carol of the bird, and all the calm soft harmonies of nature
should sing the requiescat of the sportsman bard—In pace requiesoat!
eaf138v1.n1[1] It will be, of course, readily perceived that the writer of the above
tribute, on whom the grateful task of editing the works of his departed
friend has recently devolved, had no idea at the time when those words
were penned—words which alluded to one whom all who know will instantly
pronounce deserving of a yet higher eulogium, Dr. William Turner
of this city—that he should be in any wise concerned or consulted in the
work of revision.
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FIRE ISLAND ANA;
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CHAPTER I.
It was during an Indian-summer week of hearty, brown
October, that Oliver Paul, Ned Locus, and I, once made a
shooting party, and drove Ned's sorrel mares to Jim Smith's,
at Scio, and thence bent canvass for the Fire Islands, to try
the brant.
Before going on with my story, it may, perhaps, be dutiful
in me, and desirable on behalf of people who have never studied
geography, to specify the condition of the said Islands.
We will accomplish this cheerful office, straightway. In brief,
then, they made their first appearance in the country, after a
hard earthquake, some five or six hundred years ago, on the
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southern coast of Matowacs, latitude forty degrees and forty
minutes north; longitude, seventy-three degrees and one
minute west; near the occidental end of Raccoon beach.
They are two in number, and contain in the whole, at low
water, about fifty acres of marsh and mud, disposed with irregular
and careless grace, and scalloped into jutting points
and circling bays. The principal inhabitants are gulls, and
meadow-hens. The climate is saline and salubrious. The
chief products of the soil are, sedge-grass, birds' eggs, and
calms. Yet, not unknown to “human face divine,” nor ignorant
of the lofty enterprise, and gentle mercies, of trade, do
those points and bays lie profitless. For, there John Alibi salutes
the fading morning star, and the coming sun, with the heavy
vollies of his yet cherished flint lock muskets; and the tumbling
wild fowl, splashing into the midst of his stool, bleed out
their murdered lives, while he, reloading, counts the profits of
his eager shot, and sees, with his mind's eye, the gasping victims
already picked, and stalled in Fulton market. Hence,
live and flourish, all the little Alibis; and hence, the princess
widow, gentle mistress of the soil, rejoices in a welcome revenue.
Brother sportsmen, let me introduce to your judicious affection,
my friend and comrade, Oliver Paul.—Oliver. the
people. He is a plain unpretending tiller, and a lord, moreover,
of the land; a Quaker, you see—regular Hicksite—and
like all friends that I ever yet knew, he is sometimes wet and
sometimes dry. Still, he is semper idem—always the same—
and has been such for fifty years—in hot, and in cold—in total
abstinence, and in generous imbibition. As Oliver is
warm-hearted, I love him; as he is a good shot, I honor him;
and as he can pull a discreet oar, foretell, to a certainty,
where the wind is going to be on the morrow, and mark down
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a crippled bird more truly than any man in the republic, I always
get him to go with me upon my shooting expeditions.
Oliver has but few eccentric qualities. His religion is as the
religion of Hicksites “in general:” his philosophy is comprised
in the sententious apothegm, which is applied upon all
occasions and occurrences, “some pork will boil that way:”
his morals—; he is a bachelor, and though of a most unmatrimonial
composition, he is incessantly talking of taking a wife,
or, as he terms it, “flying in” with a woman. Though from
principle, and the rules of his creed, opposed to both national
and individual wars, yet, strike him, and he will not turn to
you his other cheek, for a repetition of the temptation. He
may not strike back, but—as they do at yearly meeting, when
friends cannot agree upon the choice of a clerk—he will most
certainly shove you, as he would say, “like rotten.” His most
characteristic trait is his superintendence of the morals and
manners of his neighbors. So bountiful is his benevolence,
that to protect the reputation of a friend, he scruples not to
unlace and scarify his own. Walk out with him, and meet a
ruddy-cheeked Rosina, with a coquettish eye, that puts the
very devil into you, “don't look, don't look, boys,” he'll cry,
and dig his elbows into your side to enforce obedience to the
precept, while he himself is staring into her face, until the
morning-tint vermilion of her virgin-blushes is lost in the scarlet—
and—and—confusion—and—somebody finish that;—and
then, he'll drain the last drop of liquor from the jug, for the
sole, charitable purpose of preserving his brother sportsman's
nerves steady. You know him now, and I have nothing more
to say, except to warn you, as a friend, if you should ever be
out with him in the bay, on a cold November day, on short
allowance, watch your fluids.
Ned Locus.—Ned is a young gentleman, who spends his
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money, and shoots, and fishes, and tells tough yarns for a living.
His uncle manages his estate, for although Ned is now
of age, yet he don't want to deprive the old man of the commissions;
and, besides, ever since Ned got his bachelor's diploma,
he has forgotten his Greek and Trigonometry, without
which, no man can be an executor. Ned, although not strictly
pious, delights not in things of this world. Mere terrestrial
axioms know no lodgement in his confidence. His meditations
and labors are in another sphere, an universe of his own
creation. And yet, he believes himself to be a plain, practical,
matter-of-fact man; one who has no fancy, who never
tells his dreams for truths, nor adds a single bird or fish in the
story of the sum total of his successes. There is no design,
upon his part, in the choice of his place of existence, or the
description of his sensations and actions. The fault, if any,
lies in his original composition; his father and mother are to
be blamed for it, not he. His eyes and ears are not as the
eyes and ears of other men, and, truly, so is not his tongue.
There is an investiture of unearthliness about every thing he
sees and hears. By day, and by night, he is contemplating a
constant mirage. He never admired a woman on account of
her having flesh, blood, bosom, lips, and such things; but,
while he gazed, he worshipped some fairy incarnation, that
enveloped and adorned her with unearthly grace, and hypercelestial
sweetnesses. Even in his reading he is an original.
He never gives to a fine passage in Shakespeare its ordinary
interpretation; but the brilliant light of the poet's thought, is
crooked, and thrown off, and sometimes made a caricature
rainbow of, by the refraction of his cloudy imagination. His
aunt sent him, one new-year's day, when he was at college,
an old copy of the Septuagint, which she had picked up at the
auction sale of the effects of a demised ecclesiastic. On
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receiving the present, he wrote upon the fly-leaf, what he considered
to be the apposite sentiments of Mark Antony—
“Let but the commons hear this testament,
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read;”—
That was Ned, all over. With such a constitution, it is quite
possible that he may seem, to those men who always want the
actual proof of a thing, chapter and verse, to be rather given
to romance. Ned hates such people. So do I. They are
without faith, earth-bound, and live by sense alone, grossly.
I am—I don't know what I am, exactly. I'm a distant relative
of Ned,—a blossom off one of the poor branches of the
family. I “expect” I'm a kind of a loafer. I'm Ned's friend,
and he's mine. I'm his moralist, and minister, and tiger, and
kind of tutor, and he lends me money. I certainly intend to
repay him; though I don't owe him much now, by the by, for
I have won all the bets we have made lately, as might naturally
be presumed—Ned always bets so wildly. We keep
along pretty square. Ned's a good fellow. If I only say,
“Ned, I'm rather short, to-day, how are you?” he'll give me
a draft on his uncle, for a cool hundred. We play picquet,
too, now and then, and cassino, and all-fours, a little. I can
beat him at those games. I keep my account at the Tea-water
Pump. I have thought of getting into some kind of business,—
I think I am calculated for it; but my affection for Ned will
not permit me to leave him. We were both “licked” by Joe
Nelson, the blind schoolmaster, and hectored by his twinheaded
understrapper; and we were classmates in old Columbia,
and put into practice the doctrines of forces, and action
and reaction at Robinson's, during intermission hours, and
were always together. So we ride about and take our comfort.
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There was one eminent qualification, which was possessed
by each of the trio above outlined, in monopoly without statute.
We could each cut down a leather-head, flying by a point of
marsh before a strong north-wester, sixty yards off, nineteen
times out of twenty. That is a fact; and there are not many
men beside us and John Verity, and Raynor Rock, who are
up to that performance. Uncle Ben Raynor could do it once,
and Dan thinks he can do it now; but, as Peter Probasco says,
“I have my doubts.” Multitudinous sportsmen may shoot
well, but none but a man of true genius can shoot splendidly.
Shooting, in its refinement and glory, is not an acquired art.
A man must be a born shot as much as he must be a born
poet. You may learn to wing-break a starved pigeon, sprung
out of a trap, fifteen or twenty yards off, but to stop a cock in
a thick brake, where you can see him only with the eye of
faith; or to kill a vigorous coot, cutting the keen air, at day-dreak,
at the rate of three miles a minute, requires an eye, and
a hand, and a heart, which science cannot manufacture. The
doctrine of Pliny, the naturalist, contained in his chapter on
black ducks, is correct beyond a question. “Legere et scribere,
est pœdagogi, sed optime collineare, est Dei.” Reading
and writing are inflicted by schoolmasters, but a crack shot is
the work of God. “Them's my sentiments,” as Peter again
says.
The same doctrine has been truly declared of angling. No
genuine piscator ever tabernacled at Fireplace, or Stump-pond,
who could not exhibit proofs of great natural delicacy, and
strength of apprehension—I mean of “things in general,” including
fish. But the “vis vivida animi,” the “os magna sonans,”
the “manus mentis,” the divine rapture of the seduction
of a trout, how few have known the apotheosis! The
creative power of genius can make a feather-fly live, and move,
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and have being; and a wisely-stricken fish gives up the ghost
in transports. That puts me in mind of a story of Ned Locus.
Ned swears that he once threw a fly so far, and delicately,
and suspendedly, that just as it was dropping upon the water,
after lying a moment in the scarcely-moving air, as though it
knew no law of gravity, it actually took life and wings, and
would have flown away, but that an old four-pounder, seeing
it start, sprang and jumped at it, full a foot out of his element,
and changed the course of the insect's travel, from the upper
air to the bottom of his throat. That is one of Ned's, and I
do not guarantee it; but such a thing might be. Insects are
called into being in a variety of mysterious ways, as all the
world knows; for instance, the animalculæ that appear in the
neighborhood of departed horses; and, as Ned says, if death
can create life, what is the reason a smart man can't? Good
fishermen are generally great lawyers; ecce signa, Patrick
Henry, and Daniel Webster. I have known this rule, however,
to have exceptions. But the true sportsman is always,
at least, a man of genius, and an honest man. I have either
read or heard some one say, and I am sure it is the fact, that
there never was an instance of a sincere lover of a dog, gun,
and rod, being sent to bridewell or penitentiary. Jails they
did whilom affect, before John Doe and Richard Roe were
banished from the state, and when an unhappy devil might be
held to bail to answer for his misfortunes; but although they
have experienced much affliction under the issue of “non assumpsit,”
never was there one who suffered judgment upon
the finding of a jury on the plea of “not guilty.” If I were
governor, and knew a case, I would exert the pardoning power
without making any inquiry. I should determine, without
waiting to hear a single fact, that the man was convicted by
means of perjury. There is a plain reason for all this. A
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genuine sportsman must possess a combination of virtues,
which will fill him so full that no room can be left for sin to
squeeze in. He must be an early riser—to be which is the
beginning of all virtue—ambitious, temperate, prudent, patient
of toil, fatigue, and disappointment, courageous, watchful, intent
upon his business, always ready, confident, cool, kind to
his dog, civil to the girls, and courteous to his brother sportsmen.
Hold up.
This discourse hath brought us in front of the fishing-hut of
Raynor Rock, near the lighthouse on the beach. Rest thee,
now, most weary reader,—for we have had a long sail, with a
head wind and a wet sheet,—while I rehearse the causes that
have brought Sir Raynor, and his crew of twenty picked boys,—
picked up along shore,—down to this desolate spot.
Streaked bass and wild fowl are the motives of their sojournment.
The former are sparkling in the surf, and making love
to, and eating up each other; the latter cluster in the inlets,
and stream above the breakers. The net carries into captivity
them of the sea; powder and shot superinduce widowhood
and orphanage upon the tenants of the air. Fulton Market,
and the cooks of the board of aldermen know the rest. Hence
arise wise ordinances and stomachs sleek; and Raynor and
the boys are glad in the silver music that rings in their presseddown
pockets. “Proba merx facile emptorem invenit.”
We arrived at Raynor's just about dark, and the boys had
all turned in, to get a good nap, before the tide served for drawing
the seine,—all but Raynor, who was half sitting, half lying
on the plentiful straw by the fire in the centre of the hut,
smoking his quiet pipe. We entered, and grasped the welcoming
hand of as clever a fellow—both Yankee and English
clever—as ever sat foot on Matowacs.
“Hullow! hullow! hullow! wake up, boys! wake up!
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Here's Mr. Cypress, and Ned Locus, and Oliver Paul!—By
gad, I'm glad to see ye.—How are ye! how are ye!”
How d'ye do! how d'ye do, fellows! Give us your fist,
Raynor. Peter, what the d—l brought you down here! Dan,
alive? how are ye, how are ye all?
At Raynor's call, the boys sprang up from their straw and
pea-jackets, upon which they had been snoring in their sleeping
places around the floor of the mansion, and rushed upon
us with unaffected gratulation. The story of the reception
can be briefly told. There were three of us, and twenty of
them, and we all and each jointly and severally said, “how
have you been? Pretty well, thank ye;” and shook hands.
Make the calculation yourself. While you are cyphering it
out, I'll stop and rest.
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CHAPTER II.
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“Peter. `I will promise you, I will sing another song in praise of angling,
to-morrow night; for we will not part till then; but fish to-morrow,
and sup together, and the next day every man leave fishing, and fall to his
business'
“Venator. `'Tis a match; and I will provide you with a song, or a
catch, or a merry tale against then, too, which shall give some addition of
mirth to the company; for we will be civil and merry as beggars.'
“Piscutor. `'Tis a match, my masters. Let's elen say grace, and turn
to the fire, drink the other cup to whet our whistles, and so sing away all
sad thoughts. Come, on, my masters, who begins? I think it is best to
draw cuts, and avoid contention.' ”
—Izaak Walton.
“Ex urbe ad mare huc prodimus pabulatum:
Pro exercitu gymnastico et palaestrico, hoc habemus,
Echinos, lepadas, ostreas, balanos captamus, conchas,
Marianam urticam, musculos, plagusias, striatas.”
Plautus—Rudens, Act I., Sce. I.
It is meet, and commendable in a veracious traveller, upon
his arrival in an undiscovered country, to note, and register
the appointments of his hostelry. Record we, therefore, circumspectly,
an inventory of our new tenement and comfortable
head-quarters. Oh, for a pen worthy of the grave, and
dangerous obligation! Hope, not, proud dweller in houses
with chimneys, for a vision of gorgeous brick and mortar, nor
the architectural glories of granite magnificence, nor the adornments
of pompous garniture. Ask not for needless chairs,
nor seek superfluous tables; no, nor the vanities of boarded
floorings. Simplicity and republican thrift constructed and
apparelled the edifice. Babylon nursed the young saplings,
which, lopped from their sprouty trunks, and into the sand-hills
driven deep, incline their leafless tops bending to meet
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each other at the culmen, where, through the ragged crater,
the beaten smoke struggles against the impetuous gales,
mounting from the central fire built beneath, upon the primeval
hearth of circling anchor-stones. Captain Dodd threshed the
oats out of the straw, which, now intertwined and closely
thatched between the unpeeled rafters, repels the whistling
storm with its thick envelopment. No unshut doors creak on
their unoiled hinges, letting in the cold air; nor windows
tempt the passing juvenal to throw stones. The spumal piscators
have ingress by a hole cut through the straw near the
ground, bending down upon their knees. The mansion glories
in two avenues of entrance. Eurus breathes upon the
one; sleepy Phœbus, going to bed, paints with doubtful purple
the other;—inlets beloved by baymen, safe avenues of
escape from the rough assaults of the puffy servants of æolus,
who are always cruising about the beach. Hail! hospitable
holes! A piece of stranded ship-timber furnishes a safe
street-door, secured by a laid up stone; the wind is shut out,
and the tired family sleep. “Exegi monumentum”[3]—I have
built the hut.
Contemplate, now, the household ornature. Enter, welcome
friend. Stoop, stoop—“Bend, stubborn knees.”† And
now recline upon this couch of wholesome straw, which carpets
the whole area of the domicil. The dying coals shed
but uncertain light upon the congregated groups of sleepers,
and dimly give to sight the motley equipage of the crew.
There they lie, “each in his narrow cell,”† or rather, each in
his little stramineous dormitory, which, once appropriated, is
sacred to the bones of its peculiar tenant. There sleeps, and
snores the worn-out bayman; “—structis
cantat avenis.Ӥ
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There, the safe proprietor deposits his pea-coat, private liquor,
and unusual blanket; confident in the honor of his comrades,
unless the weather should happen to be savage, when, doubtless,
he will watch diligently. No idle space remains, save
the brief circle around the fire place, which serves, in turn,
for parlor, dining-room, and kitchen. The tapestry hangings
are various, and picturesque. The subject of the illustration
is the blessed beauty of utility. Up against the sapling
uprights are fastened shelves, unconscious of the plane;
and rust-browned hooks, and nails, disclose their alternate
heads and points, where lie, or are suspended, or are thrust
into the straw, the luxuries and superfluities of the squad:—
“`Αρχιτ υοιδας”—
“Begin, ye nine, the sweet descriptive lay”—[4]
to wit; a jug of molasses; item, a black-edged, broken, pack
of playing cards; item, a love-feast hymn-book; item, six
inches by two of looking-glass—quicksilver half off; item, a
bunch of mackerel; item, an extra pair of party-colored pantaloons,
nineteen times mended in the seat; item, something
to take, by way of medicine, for thirsty members of the Temperance
society; item, the first two leaves of “the Swearer's
Prayer”—tract—rest used up; item, the American Songster;
item,—but the inventory will “stretch out to the crack of
doom;”—most imaginative reader, complete the catalogue
with guns, eel-spears, clam-rakes, powder-horns, and bread-baskets,
with their appurtenances, according to thy most fastidious
desires. There are all of these, and more, for thee to
choose from. Having resolved the difficulties of the selection,
wend back with me, a short way, to our landing place, and
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know a new friend with whom we ought to have tarried on
our way, and held a brief discourse.
We have crossed the bay, skirting by the Fire Islands, leaving
them a few hundred yards behind us to the north, and
have rested our prow upon the classical sands of Raccoon
Beach.
Upon our arrival here, we put in alongside of the new wharf
of the eximious Mr. Smith, a person of no little importance,
being a man under authority, having a wife over him, a keeper
of their majesties', the people's, lighthouse, adjoining his own
tenement, duly appointed and commissioned, a lawful voter, a
licensed vender of “spurrets and things accorden,” and the
only householder upon the island ridge. Mr. Smith had the
happiness, in early life, of being blest with parents of taste, in
matters of nomenclature, singularly coincident with that of my
own. His christian name was Jeremiah, too; and—perhaps,
because his surname was unusual, and difficult to pronounce—
his friends and visitors always gave him their greeting, by
the gentle and euphonious appellation of “Jerry.”
I always thought it was kind in Jerry to take out that license;
first upon his own account, because it brought him
company that could give him the news from the upland, now
and then, and the correct time of day, and a little odd change
occasionally; and secondly, upon the account of the aforesaid
company, because they could always rely upon getting something
to comfort the inner man, good, when they landed from
their long adventure across the bay. And in good sooth, these
are not few, nor melancholy visitors, who make their pilgrimages
to this romantic region. Pilgrimages? Aye; for here
is a shrine most generous and propitious, to the bayman, the
sportsman, the bather, and the beach-flolicker. How often
have those dark waters been sprinkled, as with rain, with the
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spent lead of the skulking shooter, and the clear air rent with
the oft echoed crack of his heated fowlingpiece! How often
has that winding beach drank the glad voice of the merry
maiden of Queens, as she welcomed to her bosom the mounting
swell of the ravenous ocean tide! How have rung the
blithe laugh, the half-stifled scream, the shriek, the prayer, the
confident voice, mingling and confused, with the splashing
plunge, and the breaking billows! Oh, days gone by! gone
by, alas! for ever! Shall I never wind my arm again around
the gentle waist of—Hold, hold, rash hand! Be comforted,
sorrowful heart! It is nothing, most discerning reader,—it is
nothing.—Let us hurry on with our legitimate raptures.
Then, again, old Neptune's sea-steeds never snuffed the
land-breeze from a more delicately pebbled strand; nor did
goddess nature ever paint a sheet of scenery more glorious,
than that which lies beneath, and above, and around you, when
gazing, in the quiet solitude of your eyry, in a summer's twilight,
from the topmost casement of that light-house. There,
from the south, comes the many-voiced ocean, sporting like a
mighty musician, running his wild notes upon the hollow-sounding
shore. Majestically, he lifts upon his billows, his
fleets of gallant ships, hailing the prayed-for land, and heaves
them aloft toward Heaven, as if vaunting the richness and
multitude of the gems that glow upon his restless bosom.
Near by, in the west, he has burst through, in some night of
rage, his ancient barrier, and rolls an impetuous current along
the Fire Island inlet. Beyond, lies the dismembered remainder
of the beach; and beach, and marsh, and breaker, and
blue shore, succeed, in turn, as far as eye can reach. Turn
to the north, and the quiet bay presents to you the contrast of
its transparent mirror. Stilly, and gently, it kisses the margin
of its beautiful islets, that glisten with green meadows, and
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wave with bending rushes, and are vocal with the music of
the dowitcher and plover. The wood-crowned hills of Matowacs
bound your vision. Matowacs! Garden of Columbia!
Paradise of sportsmen! Mother and nourisher of a noble race
of hardy freemen!
We have not time for any more glorification at present.
As the happy laureat of Blackhawk would say, “sufficient for
the day is the gammon thereof.” The reader understands
now, sufficiently, all the necessary topography. It may be
well, however, to add that Raynor Rock's fishing-hut was
about two hundred yards from our landing place, and an equal
distance from Jerry's domicil and the light-house. After securing
our boat, we unloaded her, and carried our oars, and
guns, and traps, to Jerry's, and took lodgings. This was for
form sake merely, knowing, as we did, that the most of our
time would be spent in the bay, or in Raynor's hut. Jerry
was not in a very amiable mood when we arrived, and we had
none of us, any especial commendation to tarry long, except,
perhaps, Oliver, who came rather reluctantly out of the kitchen,
where we found him, as usual, helping the help. However,
we soon got away, and started for Raynor's, bearing the always
easy burden of a jug of special stuff, which we knew
would not come amiss of a rainy night. A hop, a skip, and a
jump, a few times repeated, brought us to the welcome which
has already been recorded.
“Lay on more wood. Zoph, get a pail of water. What's
the news in York? When did you come down? Left your
things at Jerry's? Had supper? A'nt ye hungry? What'll
ye drink? Boys, get that ere bass—stir, stir. Sit down,
Oliver; sit down on this pea-jacket.”
We were soon comfortable around a blazing fire, and rattling
off the usual small-talk of old acquaintances. As a
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matter of course, supper was provided after the manner of fishermen.
As there was some simplicity and labor-saving about
this preparation, I will, in all benevolence, impart to the superintendents
of pot-hooks and trammels, and epicures in general,
the details thereof.
First, the fire being recalled to life upon the hearth of circling
stones, a temporary crane was formed by uniting above
the curling flame, the heads of three opposite crooked sticks,
whose sharpened ends were secured in the ground. Upon
this machine was hung the iron pot; it was the only one, and
so far as dimensions were concerned, it was perfectly qualified
for all its various vocations. This being filled from Jerry's
well, a noble bass, a captive of the last tide, was introduced
into the element. The lid was put on, the flame went
up, and in a little time a low bubbling grumbling noise was
heard, that Oliver said made him feel as though several families
had lately moved out of his ventricular tenements. The
bustling Zoph blew the kindling coals, with his lungs for a
bellows, bending down until his lips came in contact with the
very ashes.
“Studet maxime, ut olla ferveat, ut accuretur prandium,” said
I to Ned, quoting some old schoolboy slang,—I don't know
where I got it,—in an under tone, pointing to Zoph.
“No, I thank you,” replied Zoph, turning half round to me,
having caught the sound of the last word, and interpreting it
into an invitation—“I daresn't drink brandy on account o'
sprainen my foot.”
I accepted the offered credit without the slightest compunction
of conscience. Ned taught me that virtue. “Accipio”
is a fond, familiar word. It is a favorite maxim with Ned,
that a man so seldom gets an honest acknowledgment for what
he does do, that it is only a fair recompense to pick up a little
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reputation, when he can, for what he does not do.—But the
fish.—Well, fire and water did their duty, and the bass was
stretched upon a pewter platter, ready for the knife, and set
down in the midst of the company.
“Cooked, glorified and made beautiful, by the irresistible
genius of hickory wood,” cried Ned, making a theatrical
flourish, and clapping a quarter of a pound of his subject-matter
into his mouth, in the place of the last word that went out.
A general distribution of platters having taken place, and
two or three hunks of rye-bread being tumbled upon the straw,
with butter, and pepper, and salt according, our jack-knives
were soon in requisition, every man cutting and eating “on
his own hook,” and, in a very short time, a very audible sound
of mastication went around the fireplace, and up even into the
secret places of the roof. The fish was good, glorious; it was
so lately out the water. “Piscis nequam, nisi recens.”[5] That
old saw is as true now, as it was in the time of the oyster-loving
poet who created it. By-the-by, I take credit here for
being the first icthyologist that has ever used that sentiment
in its literal sense. Its author, and all his quoters, pedagogues
and all, have, I believe, invariably applied it in its metaphorical
capacity. It is set down in some one of my juvenile study
books, as being the Latin for “a new broom sweeps clean.”
There is not the slightest doubt on my mind, that the memory
of the quaint thought was most diligently flogged into me at
school, and that, for its present apt illustration of my sentiments
concerning fish, my sympathetic reader is indebted to
the vigor and good will of the right hand of some one, or more,
of those worthy people, whose delightful task it was, in former
times, to teach my young ideas how to shoot, and to thresh
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[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]
me. A good deal of Latin was instilled into me in that way,
but as it has leaked out principally, I generally try to make
myself intelligible in English. Ned and I are both fond of it,
though, and we talk our secrets in it a good deal; but what
we manufacture, does not always rise above the dignity of
hog-latin. Uncle Ben likes to hear us “jaw” in it, as he
terms it; he says he thinks “it's got such a sanction to it.”
Touching fish, Searson has a doublet, which that much-neglected,
and truly American poet, no doubt, thought good:—
“What pleasure have the seamen with fresh fish;
Pleasing to catch, but better in the dish.”[6]
The idea is simple, and the versification innocent; but I
question the morality of the sentiment. It is most distinctly
Epicurean.—But, supper.
“You needn't wash that ere pot,” said one of the crew,
whom I did not recognise, to Zoph, as he emptied the fish-water
out doors. “You know what was into it last.”
“It's as good as new,” replied Zoph, returning. “Hand
us that ere jug.”
The vessel referred to being replenished, now, jack-of-all-trades-like,
commenced the performance of the functions of a
tea-kettle, or rather of a chocolate cauldron. After pouring in
about a quart of molasses, the officiating cook opened his jack-knife,
and, bending over the pot, began to cut and scrape upon
a dusky-colored oblong cake, and he stuck to his task, until
the whole block had fallen in dust into the water. Then, the
mixture being stirred with the end of a broken eel-spear, the
process of blowing was repeated. As to what was to come
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out of this composition, I felt seriously uncertain. However,
the fire crackled, and we cracked our jokes, and the pot boiled
over, and then they took it off, and set it down again by the
hearth. They called it chocolate. As good democrats, they
had a perfect right to do so, and I impeach not the propriety
of the baptism. We drew ourselves around it upon our
haunches, and fixed our eyes upon the smoking liquid. While
I was deliberating how we should ever get the stuff to our
lips, one of the boys handed us each a pine stick, about a
yard long, to one end of which was fastened a shell of that capacious
clam, commonly known and described as the skimmaug.
For the satisfaction of the curious in the philosophy of language
I will here remark, that of the orthography and etymology
of this testaceous name, I must confess myself to be
most lamentably unadvised. I am inclined to believe, however,
that the word is aboriginal, and that skimmaugs were the
shell-fish which the Marsapeag Indians used to send, in olden
times,—before they were civilized out of their wigwams and
hunting-grounds, and before wine and whist had usurped the
dominion of water and grouse in the region of Lif Snedecor
and Ronconcommer Pond,—by way of tribute to their more
powerful red brethren of the continent. I am confirmed in
this opinion, by one of the papers of that highly valuable and
extensively accessible institution, the New-York Historical
Society, in which is communicated the interesting fact, that
the Delaware tribe, or Lenni Lenapes, who claimed Matowacs
as a colony, were an uncommonly piscivorous nation. I spoke
to Uncle Ben upon the subject once, and asked his opinion.
He told me that he “couldn't say for sarten, whether it was
Ingen or Dutch, but he reckoned he'd heerd his grandfather
say that the savages was high for fish,” and the old man added,
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[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
without intending to pun, “Yes, yes, them Delawares was
amazen clamorous people.”[7]
Upon the introduction of these wands, I was at a loss to
imagine to what desperate purpose they were to be applied,
and apprehended a musical festival, or an Indian war-dance.
But the active hands, and thirsty throats of my companions,
soon enlightened my urban ignorance. These were spoons,
veritable tea-spoons—spoons wherewith to sip our chocolate.
And rapidly were they thrust into that steaming pot, ladling
up and bringing back the dripping nectar of its contents. This
was an interesting spectacle to contemplate. In sooth, it was
expressly ante-diluvian. Forcibly was I reminded of that ancient
and sententious maxim, “fingers was made before forks;”
and of that other pleasant household phrase, “make a long
arm and help yourself.”
“Can't you make chocolate without having it so devilish
hot, boys?”
“The fire was made of split wood, sir; that's the reason.”
The explanation was perfectly satisfactory. I soon became
expert in the handling of my instrument, and the constantly
going and returning vehicles soon exhausted the receiver.
Supper was done. So is this instructive chapter.
eaf138v1.n2[2] Private Note to the Editors.—Good sirs: I cannot deny to you
the right to require a declaration of the identities of the place, and persons,
touching which I have heretofore told familiar anecdotes in your monthly;
since, you say, scandal is afloat, and the wrong men are pointed at. I give
you, therefore, herewith part of the andro-and-geo-graphy solicited. Should
you hear any thing more, please address me, through the post-office, to the
care of my uncle, Jeremish Cypress, porter of the Pearl-street Bank.
“Respectfully, J. C. Jr.”
eaf138v1.n3[3] Horace.
eaf138v1.dag1† Hamlet.
eaf138v1.dag2† Gray.
eaf138v1.sect1§ Ovid.
eaf138v1.n4[4] Theoc. I. Idyl. per Cobbett.
eaf138v1.n5[5] Plautus.
eaf138v1.n6[6] “Mount Vernon, by John Searson, a rural, romantic, and descriptive
poem, which it is hoped may please, with a copperplate likeness of the
General.”
eaf138v1.n7[7] Vide the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Lib., Vander Donk's MS.—Heckewelder,
do.—Mitchell's Conchology of Matowacs.—Silas Wood's History of Jerusalem,
S. p. 254.
-- 037 -- p138-056
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CHAPTER III. A SHARK STORY.
“Well, gentlemen,” said Locus, in reply to a unanimous
call for a story—the relics of supper having been removed, all
to the big stone medicine jug,—“I'll go ahead, if you say so.
Here's the story. It is true, upon my honor, from beginning to
end—every word of it. I once crossed over to Faulkner's island,
to fish for tautaugs, as the north side people call black fish,
on the reefs hard by, in the Long Island Sound. Tim Titus,—
who died of the dropsy, down at Shinnecock point, last
spring,—lived there then. Tim was a right good fellow, only
he drank rather too much.
“It was during the latter part of July; the sharks and the
dog-fish had just begun to spoil sport. When Tim told me
about the sharks, I resolved to go prepared to entertain these
aquatic savages with all becoming attention and regard, if there
should chance to be any interloping about our fishing ground.
So we rigged out a set of extra large hooks, and shipped some
rope-yarn and steel chain, an axe, a couple of clubs, and an
old harpoon, in addition to our ordinary equipments, and off
we started. We threw out our anchor at half ebb tide, and
took some thumping large fish;—two of them weighed thirteen
pounds—so you may judge. The reef where we lay, was
about half a mile from the island, and, perhaps, a mile from
the Connecticut shore. We floated there, very quietly, throwing
out and hauling in, until the breaking of my line, with a
sudden and severe jerk, informed us that the sea attorneys
were in waiting, down stairs; and we accordingly prepared
-- 038 --
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to give them a retainer. A salt pork cloak upon one of our
magnum hooks, forthwith engaged one of the gentlemen in
our service. We got him along side, and by dint of piercing,
and thrusting, and banging, we accomplished a most exciting
and merry murder. We had business enough of the kind to
keep us employed until near low water. By this time, the
sharks had all cleared out, and the black fish were biting
again; the rock began to make its appearance above the water,
and in a little while its hard bald head was entirely dry.
Tim now proposed to set me out upon the rock, while he
rowed ashore to get the jug, which, strange to say, we had
left at the house. I assented to this proposition; first, because
I began to feel the effects of the sun upon my tongue,
and needed something to take, by way of medicine; and secondly,
because the rock was a favorite spot for a rod and
reel, and famous for luck; so I took my traps, and a box of
bait, and jumped upon my new station. Tim made for the
island.
Not many men would willingly have been left upon a little
barren reef, that was covered by every flow of the tide, in the
midst of a waste of waters, at such a distance from the shore,
even with an assurance from a companion more to be depended
upon, than mine, to return immediately, and lie by to take him
off. But some how or other, the excitement of my sport was
so high, and the romance of the situation was so delightful,
that I thought of nothing else but the prosecution of my fun,
and the contemplation of the novelty and beauty of the scene.
It was a mild pleasant afternoon in harvest time. The sky
was clear and pure. The deep blue sound, heaving all around
me, was studded with craft of all descriptions and dimensions,
from the dipping sail boat, to the rolling merchantman,
sinking and rising like sea-birds sporting with their white
-- 039 --
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wings in the surge. The grain and grass, on the neighboring
farms, were gold and green, and gracefully they bent obeisance
to a gentle breathing southwester. Farther off, the high
upland, and the distant coast gave a dim relief to the prominent
features of the landscape, and seemed the rich but dusky
frame of a brilliant fairy picture. Then, how still it was! not
a sound could be heard, except the occasional rustling of my
own motion, and the water beating against the sides, or gurgling
in the fissures of the rock, or except now and then the
cry of a solitary saucy gull, who would come out of his way
in the firmamemt, to see what I was doing without a boat, all
alone, in the middle of the sound; and who would hover, and
cry, and chatter, and make two or three circling swoops and
dashes at me, and then, after having satisfied his curiosity,
glide away in search of some other fool to scream at.
I soon became half indolent, and quite indifferent about fishing;
so I stretched myself out, at full length, upon the rock,
and gave myself up to the luxury of looking, and thinking.
The divine exercise soon put me fast asleep. I dreamed
away a couple of hours, and longer might have dreamed, but
for a tired fish-hawk, who chose to make my head his resting
place, and who waked and started me to my feet.
“Where is Tim Titus?” I muttered to myself, as I strained
my eyes over the now darkened water. But none was near
me, to answer that interesting question, and nothing was to be
seen of either Tim or his boat. “He should have been here
long ere this,” thought I, “and he promised faithfully not to
stay long—could he have forgotten? or has he paid too much
devotion to the jug?”
I began to feel uneasy, for the tide was rising fast, and soon
would cover the top of the rock, and high water mark was at
least a foot above my head. I buttoned up my coat, for either
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the coming coolness of the evening, or else my growing apprehensions,
had set me trembling and chattering most painfully.
I braced my nerves, and set my teeth, and tried to
hum “begone dull care,” keeping time with my fists upon my
thighs. But what music! what melancholy merriment! I
started and shuddered at the doleful sound of my own voice.
I am not naturally a coward, but I should like to know the
man who would not, in such a situation, be alarmed. It is a
a cruel death to die, to be merely drowned, and to go through
the ordinary common places of suffocation, but to see your
death gradually rising to your eyes, to feel the water mounting,
inch by inch, upon your shivering sides, and to anticipate
the certainly coming, choking struggle for your last breath,
when, with the gurgling sound of an overflowing brook taking
a new direction, the cold brine pours into mouth, ears, and
nostrils, usurping the seat and avenues of health and life, and,
with gradual flow, stifling—smothering—suffocating!—It were
better to die a thousand common deaths.
This is one of the instances, in which, it must be admitted,
salt water is not a pleasant subject of contemplation. However,
the rock was not yet covered, and hope, blessed hope,
stuck faithfully by me. To beguile, if possible, the weary
time, I put on a bait, and threw out for a fish. I was sooner
successful than I could have wished to be, for hardly had my
line struck the water, before the hook was swallowed, and
my rod was bent with the dead hard pull of a twelve foot
shark. I let it run about fifty yards, and then reeled up.
He appeared not at all alarmed, and I could scarcely feel him
bear upon my fine hair line. He followed the pull gently,
and unresisting, came up to the rock, laid his nose upon its
side, and looked up into my face, not as if utterly unconcerned,
but with a sort of quizzical impudence, as though he
-- 041 --
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perfectly understood the precarious nature of my situation
The conduct of my captive renewed and increased my alarm.
And well it might; for the tide was now running over a corner
of the rock behind me, and a small stream rushed through
a cleft, or fissure, by my side, and formed a puddle at my
very feet. I broke my hook out of the monster's mouth, and
leaned upon my rod for support.
“Where is Tim Titus?”—I cried aloud—“Curse on the
drunken vagabond! will he never come?”
My ejaculations did no good. No Timothy appeared. It
became evident, that I must prepare for drowning, or for action.
The reef was completely covered, and the water was above the
soles of my feet. I was not much of a swimmer, and as to ever
reaching the Island, I could not even hope for that. However,
there was no alternative, and I tried to encourage myself,
by reflecting that necessity was the mother of invention
and that desperation will sometimes ensure success. Besides,
too, I considered and took comfort, from the thought that I
could wait for Tim, so long as I had a foothold, and then
commit myself to the uncertain strength of my arms, and legs,
for salvation. So I turned my bait box upside down, and
mounting upon that, endeavored to comfort my spirits, and to
be courageous, but submissive to my fate. I thought of death,
and what it might bring with it, and I tried to repent of the
multiplied iniquities of my almost wasted life; but I found
that that was no place for a sinner to settle his accounts.
Wretched soul! pray, I could not.
The water had now got above my ankles, when, to my
inexpressible joy, I saw a sloop bending down towards me,
with the evident intention of picking me up. No man can
imagine what were the sensations of gratitude which filled my
bosom at that moment.
-- 042 --
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When she got within a hundred yards of the reef, I sung
out to the man at the helm to luff up, and lie by, and lower
the boat; but to my amazement, I could get no reply, nor
notice of my request. I entreated them, for the love of heaven
to take me off, and I promised, I know not what rewards,
that were entirely beyond my power of bestowal. But the
brutal wretch of a Captain, muttering something to the effect
of “that he had'nt time to stop,” and giving me the kind and
sensible advice to pull of my coat, and swim ashore, put
the helm hard down, and away bore the sloop on the other
tack.
“Heartless villain!”—I shrieked out, in the torture of my
disappointment; “may God reward your inhumanity.” The
crew answered my prayer with a coarse, loud laugh, and the
cook asked me through a speaking trumpet, “If I was'nt
afraid of catching cold,”—The black rascal!
It was now time to strip; for my knees felt the cold tide,
and the wind, dying away, left a heavy swell, that swayed
and shook the box upon which I was mounted, so that I had
occasionally to stoop, and paddle with my hands, against the
water, in order to preserve my perpendicular. The setting
sun sent his almost horizontal streams of fire across the dark
waters, making them gloomy, and terrific, by the contrast of
his amber and purple glories.
Something glided by me in the water, and then made a
sudden halt. I looked upon the black mass, and, as my eye
ran along its dark outline, I saw, with horror, that it was a
shark; the identical monster, out of whose mouth I had just
broken my hook. He was fishing, now, for me, and was,
evidently, only waiting for the tide to rise high enough above
the rock, to glut at once his hunger and revenge. As the
water continued to mount above my knees, he seemed to
-- 043 --
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grow more hungry, and familiar. At last, he made a desperate
dash, and approaching within an inch of my legs,
turned upon his back, and opened his huge jaws for an attack.
With desperate strength, I thrust the end of my rod
violently at his mouth; and the brass head, ringing against
his teeth, threw him back into the deep current, and I lost
sight of him entirely. This, however, was but a momentary
repulse; for in the next minute, he was close behind my
back, and pulling at the skirts of my fustian coat, which hung
dipping into the water. I leaned forward hastily, and endeavored
to extricate myself from the dangerous grasp, but
the monster's teeth were too firmly set, and his immense
strength nearly drew me over. So, down flew my rod, and
off went my jacket, devoted peace-offerings to my voracious
visiter.
In an instant, the waves all around me were lashed into
froth and foam. No sooner was my poor old sporting friend
drawn under the surface, than it was fought for by at least
a dozen enormous combatants! The battle raged upon every
side. High, black fins rushed now here, now there, and long,
strong tails scattered sleet and froth, and the brine was thrown
up in jets, and eddied, and curled, and fell, and swelled, like
a whirlpool, in Hell-gate.
Of no long duration, however, was this fishy tourney. It
seemed soon to be discovered that the prize contended for,
contained nothing edible but cheese and crackers, and no flesh,
and as its mutilated fragments rose to the surface, the waves
subsided into their former smooth condition. Not till then
did I experience the real terrors of my situation. As I looked
around me, to see what had become of the robbers, I counted
one, two, three, yes, up to twelve, successively of the largest
sharks I ever saw, floating in a circle around me, like
-- 044 --
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divergent rays, all mathematically equi-distant from the rock, and
from each other; each perfectly motionless, and with his
gloating, fiery eye fixed full and fierce upon me. Basilisks
and rattle-snakes! how the fire of their steady eyes entered into
my heart! I was the centre of a circle, whose radii were
sharks! I was the unsprung, or rather unchewed game,
at which a pack of hunting sea-dogs was making a dead
point!
There was one old fellow, that kept within the circumference
of the circle. He seemed to be a sort of captain, or
leader of the band; or, rather, he acted as the coroner for
the other twelve of the inquisition, that were summoned to sit
on, and eat up my body. He glided around and about, and
every now and then would stop, and touch his nose against
some one of his comrades, and seem to consult, or to give instructions
as to the time and mode of operation. Occasionally,
he would skull himself up towards me, and examine the condition
of my flesh, and then again glide back, and rejoin the
troupe, and flap his tail, and have another confabulation. The
old rascal had, no doubt, been out into the highways and bye-ways,
and collected this company of his friends and kin-fish,
and invited them to supper. I must confess, that horribly as
I felt, I could not help but think of a tea party of demure old
maids, sitting in a solemn circle, with their skinny hands in
their laps, licking their expecting lips, while their hostess bustles
about in the important functions of her preparations. With
what an eye, have I seen such appurtenances of humanity
survey the location and adjustment of some especial condiment,
which is about to be submitted to criticism, and consumption.
My sensations began to be, now, most exquisite, indeed;
but I will not attempt to describe them. I was neither hot nor
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
cold, frightened nor composed; but I had a combination of all
kinds of feelings, and emotions. The present, past, future,
heaven, earth, my father and mother, a little girl I knew once,
and the sharks, were all confusedly mixed up together, and
swelled my crazy brain almost to bursting. I cried, and
laughed, and shouted, and screamed for Tim Titns. In a fit
of most wise madness, I opened my broad-bladed fishing
knife, and waved it around my head, with an air of defiance.
As the tide continued to rise, my extravagance of madness
mounted. At one time, I became persuaded that my tidewaiters
were reasonable beings, who might be talked into
mercy, and humanity, if a body could only hit upon the right
text. So, I bowed, and gesticulated, and threw out my hands,
and talked to them, as friends, and brothers, members of my
family, cousins, uncles, aunts, people waiting to have their
bills paid;—I scolded them as my servants; I abused them
as duns; I implored them as jurymen sitting on the question
of my life; I congratulated, and flattered them as my comrades
upon some glorious enterprize; I sung and ranted to them,
now as an actor in a play-house, and now as an elder at a
camp-meeting; in one moment, roaring
“On this cold flinty rock I will lay down my head,”—
and in the next, giving out to my attentive hearers for singing,
the hymn of Dr. Watts so admirably appropriated to the
occasion,
“On slippery rocks, I see them stand,
While fiery billows roll below.”
In the mean time, the water had got well up towards my
shoulders, and while I was shaking and vibrating upon my
uncertain foothold, I felt the cold nose of the captain of the
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
band, snubbing against my side. Desperately, and without
a definite object, I struck my knife at one of his eyes, and by
some singular fortune, cut it out clean from the socket.
The shark darted back, and halted. In an instant hope and
and reason came to my relief; and it occurred to me, that
if I could only blind the monster, I might yet escape. Accordingly,
I stood ready for the next attack. The loss of an
eye did not seem to affect him much, for, after shaking
his head, once or twice, he came up to me again, and when
he was about half an inch off, turned upon his back. This
was the critical moment. With a most unaccountable presence
of mind, I laid hold of his nose with my left hand,
and with my right, I scooped out his remaining organ of vision.
He opened his big mouth, and champed his long teeth at me,
in despair. But it was all over with him. I raised my right
foot and gave him a hard shove, and he glided off into deep
water, and went to the bottom.
Well, gentlemen, I suppose you'll think it a hard story, but
it is none the less a fact, that I served every remaining one
of those nineteen sharks in the same fashion. They all came
up to me, one by one, regularly, and in order; and I scooped
their eyes out, and gave them a shove, and they went off into
deep water, just like so many lambs. By the time I had
scooped out and blinded a couple of dozen of them, they began
to seem so scarce, that I thought I would swim for the
island, and fight the rest for fun, on the way; but just then,
Tim Titus hove in sight, and it had got to be almost dark, and
I concluded to get aboard, and rest myself.”
-- 047 -- p138-066
CHAPTER IV.
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
“What an infernal lie!” growled Daniel.
“'Have my doubts;” suggested the somnolent Peter Probasco,
with all the solemnity of a man who knows his situation;
at the same time shaking his head and spilling his
liquor.
“Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!” roared all the rest of the
boys together.
“Is he done?” asked Raynor Rock.
“How many shirks was there?” cried Long John, putting
in his unusual lingual oar.
“That story puts me in mind,” said Venus Raynor, “about
what I've heerd tell on Ebenezer Smith, at the time he went
down to the north pole on a walen' voyage.”
“Now look out for a screamer,” laughed out Raynor Rock,
refilling his pipe. “Stand by, Mr. Cypress, to let the sheet
go.”
“Is there any thing uncommon about that yarn, Venus?”
“Oncommon! well, I expect it's putty smart and uncommon
for a man to go to sea with a bear, all alone, on a bare
cake of ice. Captain Smith's woman used to say she couldn't
bear to think on't.”
“Tell us the whole of that, Venus,” said Ned;—“that is, if
it is true. Mine was—the whole of it,—although Peter has
his doubts.”
“I can't tell it as well as Zoph can, but I've no 'jections to
tell it my way, no how. So, here goes—that's great brandy,
Mr. Cypress.” There was a gurgling sound of “something-to-take,”
running.
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
“Well, they was down into Baffin's Bay, or some other o'
them cold Norwegen bays at the North, where the rain
freezes as it comes down, and stands up in the air, on winter
mornens, like great mountens o' ice, all in streaks. Well, the
schooner was layen at anchor, and all the hands was out into
the small boats, looken for wales;—all except the capting,
who said he wan't very well that day. Well, he was walken
up and down, on deck, smoken and thinken, I expect, mostly,
when all on a sudden he reckoned he see one o' them big
white bears—polar bears, you know—big as thunder—with
long teeth. He reckoned he see one on 'em sclumpen along
on a great cake o' ice, they lay on the leeward side of the bay,
up again the bank. The old cap. wanted to kill one o' them
varmints most wonderful, but he never lucked to get a chance.
Now tho', he thought, the time had come for him to walk into
one on 'em at least, and fix his mutton for him right. So
he run forrad and lay hold onto a small skiff, that was layen
near the forc'stal, and run her out, and launched her. Then
he tuk a drink, and—here's luck—and put in a stiff load of
powder, a couple of balls, and jumped in, and pulled away for
the ice.
“It wa'n't long fore he got 'cross the bay, for it was a
narrer piece o' water—not more than haaf a mile wide—and
then he got out on to the ice. It was a smart and large
cake, and the bear was 'way down to the tother end on't, by
the edge o' the water. So, he walked first strut along, and
then when he got putty cloast he walked 'round catecornedlike—
like's if he was driven for a plain plover—so that the
bear wouldn't think he was comin arter him, and he dragged
himself along on his hands and knees low down, mostly.
Well, the bear did'nt seem to mind him none, and he got up
within 'bout fifty yards on him, and then he looked so savage
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[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
and big,—the bear did,—that the captin stopped, and rested
on his knees, and put up his gun, and he was a goin to shoot.
But just then the bear turned round and snuffed up the captin,—
just as one of Lif's hounds snuffs up an old buck, Mr.
Cypress,—and begun to walk towards him, slowly like. He
come along, the captin said, clump, clump, very slow, and
made the ice bend and crack agin under him, so that the
water come up and putty much kivered it all over. Well,
there the captin was all the time squat on his knees, with
his gun pinted, waiten for the varment to come up, and his
knees and legs was most mighty cold by means of the water,
that the bear riz on the ice as I was mentionen. At last the
bear seemed to make up his mind to see how the captin
would taste, and so he left off walken slow, and started off on
a smart and swift trot, right towards the old man, with his
mouth wide open, roaren, and his tail sticken out stiff. The
captin kept still, looken out all the time putty sharp, I should
say, till the beast got within about ten yards on him, and then
he let him have it. He aimed right at the fleshy part of his
heart, but the bear dodged at the flash, and rared up, and the
balls went into his two hind legs, jist by the jynt, one into
each, and broke the thigh bones smack off, so that he went
right down aft, on the ice, thump, on his hind quarters,
with nothen standen but his fore legs and his head ris up, a
growlen at the captin. When the old man see him down,
and tryen to slide along the ice to get his revenge, likely,
thinks he to himself, thinks he, I might as well get up and
go and cut that ere creter's throat. So he tuk out his knife
and opened it. But when he started to get up, he found to
his extonishment, that he was fruz fast to the ice. Don't
laugh; it's a fact; there an't no doubt. The water, you
see, had been round him, a smart and long while, whilst he
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
was waiten for the bear, and it's wonderful cold in them regions,
as I was sayen, and you'll freeze in a minit if you don't
keep moven about smartly. So the captin he strained first
one leg, and then he strained tother, but he couldn't move
'em none. They was both fruz fast into the ice, about an inch
and a half deep, from knee to toe, tight as a Jarsey eyster
perryauger on a mud flat at low water. So he laid down his
gun, and looked at the bear, and doubled up his fists. `Come
on, you bloody varmint,' says the old man, as the bear swalloped
along on his hinder eend, comen at him. He kept getten
weaker, tho', and comen slower and slower all the time, so
that, at last, be didn't seem to move none; and directly, when
he'd got so near that the captin could jest give him a dig in
the nose by reachen forrard putty smart and far, the captin
see that the beast was fruz fast too, nor he couldn't move a
step further forrard no ways. Then the captin burst out a
laughen, and clapped his hands down on to his thighs, and
roared. The bear seemed to be most onmighty mad at the
old man's fun, and set up such a growlen that what should
come to pass, but the ice cracks, and breaks all around the
captin and the bear, down to the water's edge, and the wind
jist then a shiften, and comen off shore, away they floated on
a cake of ice about ten by six, off to sea, without the darned
a biscuit, or a quart o' liquor to stand 'em on the cruise!
There they sot, the bear and the captin, jest so near that
when they both reached forrads, they could jest about touch
noses, and nother one not able to move any part on him, only
excepten his upper part and fore paws.”
“By jolly! that was rather a critical predicament, Venus,”
cried Ned, buttoning his coat. “I should have thought that
the captain's nose and ears and hands would have been frozen
too.”
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
“That's quite naytr'l to suppose, sir, but you see the bear
kept him warm in the upper parts, by bein so cloast to him,
and breathen hard and hot on the old man whenever he
growled at him. Them polar bears is wonderful hardy animals,
and has a monstrous deal o' heat in 'em, by means of
their bein able to stand such cold climates, I expect. And
so the captin knowed this, and whenever he felt chilly, he
jest tuk his ramrod, and stirred up the old rascal, and made
him roar and squeal, and then the hot breath would come
pouren out all over the captin, and made the air quite moderut
and pleasant.”
“Well, go on, Venus. Take another horn first.”
“Well, there a'nt much more on't. Off they went to sea,
and sometimes the wind druv 'em nothe, and then agin it druv
'em southe, but they went southe mostly; and so it went on,
until they were out about three weeks. So at last one afternoon.”—
“But, Venus, stop; tell us in the name of wonder, how did
the captain contrive to support life all this time?”
“Why, sir, to be sure, it was a hard kind o' life to support,
but a hardy man will get used to almost”—
“No, no; what did he eat? what did he feed on?”
“O—O—I'd liked to've skipped that ere.—Why sir, I've
heerd different accounts as to that. Uncle Obe Verity told
me he reckoned the captin cut off one of the bear's paws,
when he lay stretched out asleep, one day, with his jack-knife,
and sucked that for fodder, and they say there's a smart
deal 'o nourishment in a white bear's foot. But if I may be
allowed to spend my 'pinion, I should say my old man's account
is the rightest, and that's—what's as follows. You see
after they'd been out three days abouts, they begun to grow
kind o'hungry, and then they got friendly, for misery loves
-- 052 --
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
company, you know; and the captin said the bear looked at him
several times, very sorrowful, as much as to say, `captin
what the devil shall we do?' Well one day they was sitten,
looken at each other, with the tears ready to burst out o' their
eyes, when all of a hurry, something come floppen up out o' the
water onto the ice. The captin looked and see it was a seal.
The bear's eyes kindled up as he looked at it, and then,
the captin said he giv him a wink to keep still. So there
they sot, still as starch, till the seal not thinken nothen o' them
no more nor if they were dead, walked right up between 'em.
Then slump! went down old whitey's nails, into the fishes flesh,
and the captin run his jack-knife into the tender loin. The
seal soon got his bitters, and the captin cut a big hunk off the
tail eend, and put it behind him, out o' the bear's reach, and
then he felt smart and comfortable, for he had stores enough
for a long cruise, though the bear couldn't say so much for
himself.
Well, the bear, by course, soon ran out o' provisions, and
had to put himself onto short allowance; and then he begun
to show his naytural temper. He first stretched himself out as
far as he could go, and tried to hook the captin's piece o' seal,
but when he found he could'nt reach that, he begun to blow
and yell. Then he'd rare up and roar, and try to get himself
clear from the ice. But mostly he rared up and roared,
and pounded his big paws and head upon the ice, till bye and
bye, (jest as the captin said he expected,) the ice cracked in
two agin, and split right through between the bear and the
captin, and there they was on two different pieces o' ice, the
captin and the bear! The old man said he raaly felt sorry
at parten company, and when the cake split and separate, he
cut off about a haaf o' pound o' seal and chucked it to the
bear. But either because it wa'nt enough for him, or else on
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
account o' his feelen bad at the captin's goen, the beast
would'nt touch it to eat it, and he laid it down, and growled
and moaned over it quite pitiful. Well, off they went, one
one way, and tother 'nother way, both feel'n pretty bad, I expect.
After a while the captin got smart and cold, and felt
mighty lonesome, and he said he raaly thought he'd a gi'n in
and died, if they had'nt pick'd him up that arternoon.”
“Who picked him up, Venus?”
“Who? a codfish craft off o' Newfoundland, I expect.
They did'nt know what to make o' him when they first see
him slingen up his hat for 'em. But they got out all their
boats, and took a small swivel and a couple o' muskets a board
and started off—expeoten it was the sea-sarpent, or an old
maremaid. They would'nt believe it was a man, until he'd
told 'em all about it, and then they did'nt hardly believe it
nuther, and they cut him out o' the ice and tuk him aboard
their vessel, and rubbed his legs with ile o' vitrol; but it was
a long time afore they come to.”
“Did'nt they hurt him badly in cutting him out, Venus?”
“No sir, I believe not; not so bad as one might s'pose;
for you see he'd been stuck in so long, that the circulaten on
his blood had kind o' rotted the ice that was right next to him,
and when they begun to cut, it crack'd off pretty smart and
easy, and he come out whole like a hard biled egg.”
“What became of the bear?”
“Ca'nt say as to that, what became o' him. He went off
to sea somewheres, I expect. I should like to know, myself,
how the varment got along, right well, for it was kind in him
to let the captin have the biggest haaf o' the seal, any how.
That's all boys. How many's asleep?”
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CHAPTER V.
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“Asleep!” cried Ned. “It would be difficult for any sensible
person to fall asleep during a recital of such original and
thrilling interest. The Argonautic expedition, the perilous
navigation of Æneas, the bold adventure of the New England
pilgrims”—
“Have my doubts,” snorted Peter, interrupting Ned's laudation,
in a voice not so articulate, but that the utterance
might have been acknowledged for the profound expression
of the sentiments of a gentleman in the land of dreams. Peter's
drowsiness had finally prevailed not only over his sense
of hearing but also over his sense of imbibition. I picked up
his cannikin, and solemnly shook my own head in place of his,
as he pronounced the oracular judgment. “Have my doubts,
mostly, mister, I say,” he grumbled again, and then the veteran
gray battallion that stood marshalled upon his chin, erect,
and John of Gaunt-like, or rather like the ragged columns of
the Giant's Causeway, bristled up to meet the descent of his
overhanging, ultra-Wellington nose. There was a noise as
of a muttered voice of trumpets. And then it gradually died
away, and there was a deep, deep peace. To use Peter's
own classical language, he was “shut up.”
“Asleep? Not a man, Venus,” said Oliver Paul. “If
thee tells us such yarns as that, we won't go to sleep all night.
But thee must not ask us to believe them.”
“Well, every man must believe for himself,” replied Venus,
“I expect. I admit it's likely the captin must have stretched
a leetle about the length o' time he was out, I should say.
But it's easy to make a mistake about the number of days in
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them latitudes, you know; 'cause I've heerd say the sun
shines there several days together on a stretch, sometimes,
without goen down none; and then agin it's as dark as pitch
for a hull month, and no moon nother. Some people reckons
the sun can't rise there, no how, winter mornens, on account
it's bein so darn'd cold. How is it about that Mr. Cypress?
You're college larnt, I expect.”
“It's a long answer to that question, Venus. Since Captain
Symmes returned from his penetration into the north
pole, there has been a vast addition to our stores of knowledge
of the character and habits of the sun. Professor Saltonstall
contends, and proves, to my satisfaction, at the least,
that the god of day is a living animal, the Behemoth of the
Scriptures. But I'll tell you all about that some other, better
opportunity;—the next time we're stooling snipe together, in
Pine Creek. Let's have another story, now. Zoph, can't
you get up something? What was that Venus said about
mermaids? Were there ever any mermaids about here?”
“Can't say—Can't say,” answered Zoph, with a hesitating,
inquiring sort of deliberation; “can't say, for my part; but
I've heerd folks tell there used to be lots on 'em.”
“Sarten, sarten, no doubt;” continued Daniel, with better
confidence. “I know, that in th' time o' my gr't gr'ndf'th'r
they used to be pr'tty considerabl' plenty. Th' old man had
a smart tussel with a he merm'd—a merman, I sh'd say—one
day.”
“Let's have that, Dannel;” cried two or three voices at
once.
“Let's have a drink, first;” interposed Dan's copartner in
the eel trade,—who probably knew the necessity of soaking
the story—at the same time uncorking the jug. “Here,
Dannel, hand the tumbler over to Mr. Paul.”
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“Don't drink—don't drink, boys,” advised the virtuous
Oliver, as usual. “Well, if you will,”—resting the jug upon
his knee with his right hand, and bringing its avenue of discharge
into no merely suspicious juxtaposition to the tumbler
in his left—“if you will, you will. Some pork will boil that
way.”
“It's goen to be a dry story, I expect, Mr. Paul. My throat
feels 'mazen dusty a'ready.”
A general drought prevailed, and the watering-pot performed
its interesting and refreshing functions.
At last, the ground being put in order, Dan prepared to sow
the crop. So he hummed and hawed, and threw out his cud,
and drew his sleeve across his chin, and began his work after
this wise.—Dan, it will be perceived, is a special economist
of vowels, and uses no more words than are precisely necessary
to “express his sentiments.”
“Why, y' see, th' old man was one o' th' first settlers that
come down from M'sschus'tts, and he tuk a small farm on
shears down to Fort-neck, and he'd every thing fixed accorden.
The most of his time, hows'm'ver, he spent in the bay, clammen
and sich like. He was putty tol'r'bl' smart with a gun, too,
and he was the first man that made wooden stools for
ducks. So he was out bright and arely one morn'n—he'd
laid out all night, likely—and he'd his stool sot out on th'
n'r-east side o' a hassck off Wanza's Flat;—(the place tuk its
name from gr't gr'ndfth'r;)—th' wind bein from th' so'-west
princip'ly; and he lay in his skiff in the hassck, putty well
hid, for't was in th' fall o' th' year, and the sedge was smart
and high. Well, jest arter day 'd fairly broke, and the faawl
begun to stir, he reckoned he heer'd a kind o' splashen in the
water, like geese pick'n and wash'n themselves. So he
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peeked through the grass, softly, to see where the flock was;
but, 'stead o' geese, he see a queer looken old feller waden
'long on the edge o' th' flat, jest by th' channel, benden low
down, with a bow and arr in his hands, all fixed, ready to
shoot, and his eye upon gr't gr'ndf'th'r's stool. `That feller
thinks my stool's faawl,' says the old man to himself, softly,
'cause he 'xpected the fell'r was an Ingen, and there wa'n't
no tellen whether he was friendly or not, in them times. So
he sot still and watched. The bow and arr kept goen, on, and
to rights it stopped. Then the feller what had it, ris up, and
pulled string, and let slip. Slap went the arr, strut into one
o' gr't gr'ndf'th'r's broadbills, and stuck fast, shaken. The old
man sniggled as he see th' other feller pull, and then jump and
splash thro' th' water to pick up his game, but he said nothen.
Well, the merm'n,—as it turned out to be,—got to th' stool,
and he seemed most won'rf'll s'prized th' birds didn't get up
and fly, and then he tuk up the b'rdb'll, and pulled out his arr,
and turned the stool ov'r and ov'r, and smelt it, and grinned,
and seemed quite uneasy to make out what 'twas. Then he
tuk up nother one, and he turned 'em putty much all ov'r, and
tore their anchors loose.
“Gr't gr'ndf'th'r wa'n't a bit skeered, and he did'n't like
this much, but he didn't want to git into a passion with an
Ingen, for they're full o' fight, and he loved peace; and besides
he didn't want to take no dis'dvantage on 'im, and he'd
two guns loaded in th' skiff, and th' other feller hadn't only a
bow and arr, and the old man hoped he'd clear out soon. It
wa'n't to be, hows'mver, that the old man shouldn't get int' a
scrape; for what's the feller with the bow and arr do, arter
consideren and smellen a smart and long spell, but pick up
the whole stool,—every one on 'em,—and sling 'em ov'r's
shoulder, and begin to make tracks! Gr't gr'ndf'th'r couldn't
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stand that ere. So he sung out to him, putty loud and sharp,
to lay down them stools, and he shoved the skiff out the hassck,
and then he see plain enough it was a merm'n. Then the
old man was a little started, I expect. Hows'mver, he shoved
right up to him, and got his old muskets ready. Well, the
merm'n turned round, and sich another looken mortal man gr't
gr'ndf'th'r said he never did see. He'd big bushy hair all ov'r
'im, and big whiskers, and his eyes was green and small's a
mushrat's, and where the flesh was, he was ruther scaly-like.
He hadn't stitch clothes ont' 'm, but the water was up to's
waist, and kivered 'im up so that gr't gr'ndf'th'r couldn't see
the biggist part on 'im. Soon's the old man got done jawen,
the merm'n he begun to talk out the darndest talk you ever
heerd. I disremember 'xactly, but I b'lieve 'twas somethin
like `norgus porgus carry-Yorkus,' and all sich stuff. Ephr'm
Salem, the schoolmaster, used to reckon 'twas Lating, and
meant somethin 'bout takin load o' porgees down to York;
other some said 'twas Dutch; but I can't say. Well, the old
man let him talk his talk out, and then he tuk his turn. Says
the old man says he, `it ant respect'ble, 'tant honest, mister
merm'n, to hook other people's property. Them's my stool,'
says he. `Ye lie,' says the merm'n,—speakin so gr't gr'ndf'th'r
could hear 'im plain enough when he cum to the pint;—
`ye lie,' says he, `I jest now shot 'em.'
“`Shot 'em, you b.....,' says the old man, gittin mad;
`shot 'em? them's wooden stools what I made myself and anchored
'em here last night.'
“`That's 'nother,' says the merm'n; `ye blackguard, they're
only dead ducks spetrerfried and turned into white oak. I'm
seen 'em here, and knowed they was cotched fast into the eel
grass, a smart and long while; good mornen, my old cock, I
must be goen.'
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“`Lay them stool down,' says gr't gr'ndf'th'r, `lay them
stool down, or, by golly, I'll put a charge o' shot into ye.'
“`Shoot away, my man,' says the merm'n sneerin-like, and
he turns off to clear out. So, the old man, sein his stool
walked off in that ere way, cotched up one o' his guns, and,
by jings, he let split right into the merm'n's back, and marked
him from his shoulders down, thick as mustard-seed, with
about three ounces of No. 3,—what the old man put in for
brant the night afore. The old thief was putty well riddled, I
expect. He jumped up out th' water 'bout a yard high, and
squealed out 's if he was killed. But he wa'n't tho', for arter
rubbin his back a little while, he turned round, and says he
`now I s'pose you've done it, don't you?' quite sharp and
saucy; `I wanted a little lead into me for ballast; what's the
costs, squire?'
“`Lay down them ere stool,' says the old man, `lay down
them ere stool.' I wont,' says the merm'n. `If ye don't,'
says gr't gr'ndf'th'r, `I'll give ye t'other gun, and that's loaded
with double B; may be ye wont like that quite so well,
prehaps.'
“`Fire away and be d—d,' says the merm'n, and the
old man giv it to him, sure enough. This time he planted it
right int' his face and eyes, and the blood run out all white
like milk. The merm'n hollored, and yawked, and swore,
and rubbed, and he let the stool drop, and he seemed to be
putty much blinded and done up, and gr't gr'ndf 'th'r thought
he was spoke for. Hows'm'ver he thought it was best to
load up and be ready in case o' the merm'n's gittin well, and
comin at 'im 'gen. But just as he tuk up his horn to prime,
the merm'n div and vanished. `What's the how, now?' says
gr't gr'ndf'th'r, and he got up onto the gunnels o' the boat, to
watch for squalls; and he stood there teteren on a larboard
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and starboard straddle, looken out putty sharp, for he reckoned
there was somethin comin. There wa'n't no mistake
'bout that, for t'rights the old man felt the skiff shaken under
'im, and he see right off that the merm'n was down below,
tryen t'upset 'im, and git 'im int' the water. That ruther
started the old man, for he knowed if he once got int' th' water,
he'd stand no kind o' chance with a merm'n, which is jest the
same as an otter, 'xcept the sense, you know. So he jumped
down to his oars, to pull for the hassck. That wouldn't answer
much, tho,' for th' oars hadn't touched water, 'fore the
merm'n broke 'em smack off, and the old man had to pull the
sprit out the sail, and take to shoven. The moment he struck
bottom, he heerd a kind o' grunten laugh under th' skiff, and
somebody drew the sprit down, deep int' th' mud, so that th'
old man couldn't pull it out; at the same time th' merm'n tilted
th' skiff over smart and far, so that her keel was most out o'
water, and th' old man was taken strut off both 's feet, and
highsted up int' th' air, high and dry, holden onto the eend o'
th' sprit; and the skiff shot away, and left 'im, twenty yards
off, or twenty-five I sh'd say, mostly. The sprit was putty
stiff, I expect, tho' it bent smartly; but gr't gr'ndf'th'r hung
on't, like death to a dead nigger, his feet bein bout three foot
from the water's edge when he held up his knees.”
“Dan,” said I, (taking advantage of a moment's pause,
during which he experienced imbibition,) was the old gentleman
on your father's or your mother's side?”
“Have my doubts he don't know nuther,”—again muttered
the sleeping skeptic, whose tympanum readily acknowledged
the interruption of a voice foreign to the story,—“but his
father was a smart man, and I knowed him.”
“Gravius anhelata! Good night, Peter.”
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“Mr. Cypress,” said Dan, with a face full of sincere
anxiety, “would I tell you any thing I did not believe?”
“No, Dan, never; no, no; go on, go on. I only asked
for information.”
“Well, where was I?—Yes—yes—Well, there th' old
man hung, ont' th' top th' sprit, not taken much comfort, I
sh'd say. Then, up, by course, pops the merm'n, and begins
to make all kinds o' fun th' old man, and gives 'im all sorts o'
saace, whilst he stood in the water clost by th' sprit, washen
off the blood and pick'n the shots out his face. Gr't gr'ndf'th'r
wouldn't answ'r 'im back tho', 'cause he knowed it wa'n't
no use, but he kept wishen some boat would come along, and
give 'im a hand, and he 'xpected there must be somebody or
'nother out that day. Meantime, tho', he tho't 'twas best to
let th' merm'n see he wa'n't 'fraid on 'im none, so he tuk out
his tinder-box and pipe, and struck a light, and set up
smoken, quite at ease. Well, there he hung and smoked, putty
much all of three hours, till he got consid'r'ble tired, I sh'd
say, and the merm'n looked 's good 's new, only 'xcepten the
holes in 's face, which was all thick together like th' holes in
the black banks, where the fiddlers come out on. `Wont you
walk down, sir?' says the merm'n, arter a while, to gr't gr'ndf'th'r,
quite p'lite; `I sh'd be quite happy to shake hands wi'
ye, and make it up.'
“Gr't gr'ndf'th'r wouldn't say a word.
“`Wont ye answer, d—n ye?' says the cunnen devil,
gritt'n's teeth; and he walks up to the sprit, and lays hold, and
shakes it hard, jist as ye'd shake a young pear-tree. `Drop
off, drop off,' says he, shaken 'er all his might.
“Then th' old man made up his mind he'd got to come;
so he watches 'is chance, and gives a spring, and jumps, so
as to strike th' merm'n's shoulder, and from that he jumps
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agin, a long stretch, towards the hassck, where the water
was shallerer.
“The merm'n was arter 'im strut, and cotched 'im up in
no time, and then they clinched. That ere fight I sh'ld like
to seen, may be I don't think. It was hip and thigh, and toss
up for the best, for putty much an hour 'bouts; sometimes the
merm'n bein' ahead, and sometimes gr't gr'ndf'th'r, dependen
mostly on th' depth th' water; for when th' old man could
keep's ground in shaller water, he could lick the merm'n to
thunder; but the merm'n was leetle the activest in deep
water. Well, it couldn't be 'xpected but what they sh'ld both
get pr'tty smart and tired, and I reckon they was both willen
to 'cknowledge beat. Th' old man was jist goen to, when
the merm'n sings out, `Mister, let's stop and rest.'
“ `Done,' says gr't gr'ndf'th'r, glad enough; and they stopped
short, and went to th' hassck, and sot down on the sedge
grass, both breathen like a porpus.
“Arter they'd sot there a little while, and got breath, th'
old man sung out he was ready, but the merm'n said he wa'n't,
and he reck'n'd he felt putty smart and bad. So th' old man
thought 'twould be a good time to go arter's skiff. `You
ought n't t've shoved my boat away, any how,' says he;
`how shall I get back t' hum t'-night?'
“ `That's true,' said the merm'n, quite reason'bl'; `if y'll
promise to come right back, and finish this ere fight, I'll let
ye go and swim arter it.'
“ `I will,' says th' old man, `honor bright;' and off he
swum. When he got off 'bout two rod, he looked back at
th' merm'n, and he thought he seemed to be 'mazen pale and
sick. `Make haste back,' sings out the merm'n. `Ay, ay,'
says th' old man, and he struck away.
The tide had drifted th' skiff a smart ways off, and she lay
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putty much down t' th' beach, on a bar; and 'twas quite a
spell 'fore the old man could get to the hassck. But when
he arriv, there wa'nt a hair of a merm'n to b' seen, only in
the place where he'd sot there was a big heap o' white
jelly, like a stingen quarll. Gr't gr'ndf'th'r kicked it over
w' his foot, and it made a thin squeak, like a swaller high
up over-head, and he reckoned it giv' 'im a kind o' lect'ral
shock. So he sot to work and picked up his tools, which
was scattered putty much all over the bay, and he cleared out
t' hum. That's the last he seen o' that merm'n.”
“Surely, surely. Walloped him into nothen, I expect,”
said Venus. “I give in arter that, Dannel.”
“Have my doubts, agen!” sung out Peter, waking up from
the straw, where his universally incredulous judgment had
been for some time past taking unquiet and sonorous repose.
“Have my doubts, mister, I say.”
“You're drunk, old vulture-nose;” cried Ned, authoritatively.
“Shut up; I'm satisfied that the story is true. What object
could the old man have had in telling a lie? Besides, every
body knows that mermaids were plenty here once. Wasn't
Jerry Smith's wife a mermaid? Didn't I see one myself,
once, in Brick-house brook, when I was trouting?”
“Likely, likely;” quoth Oliver. “Tell us about that
Eddy. When was it? I never heard thee mention it before.”
“Yes, you have, Oliver, fifty times! but, as it is a short
story, and I should like to resolve Peter's doubts, for once,
I'll tell again.—Don't interrupt me, now.—It was one April
morning, in that year when you and I had the great flight of
geese, Raynor. I went up through the woods, and struck
into the brook about two miles above the turnpike, and started
to wade it down to the road. You know how wild the
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country is there, and how wantonly the brook runs, bending, and
winding, and coquetting with the wintergreen and cranberry
vines, that fringe its banks; how it is constantly changing its
depth and strength, and color, sometimes dashing on, in a
narrow current not more than three or four feet in width, and
curling darkly and swiftly around the old stumps, that are rotting
by its edges, and then, at a little distance off, spreading
free, and flowing smooth, to the breadth of twenty yards;
while all the way it is overarched, and in some places nearly
hidden by the intertwined hazel, and alders, and scrub oaks.
It is just the stream that I should think would captivate a
water nymph's fancy; it is so solitary, and quiet, and romantic.
You hear no noise while you are fishing, save of your
own splashing footsteps, or the brushed-by, crackling bushes,—
scarcely even the rushing of the wind,—so deep and thick
is the envelopement of the woods; and in wading half a mile,
and basketing thirty fish, you might think you were alone in
the world, if you did not now and then startle a thirsty fawn,
or a brooding wood-duck. Well, I was coming down through
a broad, shallow, beautifully gravelled bottom, where the
water was not more than half-way up to my knees, and was
just beginning to take more stealthy steps, so as to make the
least possible noise, (for I was approaching a favorite hole,)
when suddenly I heard what seemed to be the voice of a
young girl of fifteen or sixteen burst out a singing ahead of
me, just around the next bend of the brook.
“I was half frightened to death, for I thought it must be
some poor mad creature that had escaped from her confinement;
and in fact I had heard that Ellen—what's her name?
I forget—had been rather flighty ever since young Jones left
off paying attentions to her. However, there was no backing
out for me, now; vestigia nulla retrorsum, in the case of a
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woman, Cypress. I was in the scrape; revocare gradum
was out of the question. So I went ahead softly, and when
I got to the bend, I put my left eye around the bushes, and
looked. By all the little fishes, it was a lovely sight! She
was sitting upon a hemlock log that had fallen across the
brook, with her naked feet and legs hanging in the water.
There she sat, paddling, and splashing, and combing her long,
beautiful, floating hair, and singing. I was entranced, petrified.
She would sing a little ballad, and then she'd stop and
wring her hands, and cry. Then she'd laugh, and flirt about
her long hair. Then again she would look sorrowful, and
sigh as though her heart would break, and sing her song
over again. Presently she bent down to the stream, and began
to talk earnestly to somebody. I leaned forward to take
a look at the stranger, and to whom do you think she was
talking? It was a trout, a brook trout, an old fellow that
I have no doubt would have weighed full three pounds. He
was floating on the top of the water, and dimpling, and
springing up about her, as though he, too, felt and acknowledged
the heavenly influence of her beauty. She bent her
long fingers, and tickled him upon his back, and under his
side, and he absolutely jumped through her hands, backwards
and forwards, as if in a delirium of frolic.—It was
by her hands that I knew she was a mermaid. They were
bluey and webbed, though not much more than a black-breasted
plover's feet. There was nothing positively icthyal in
their formation.—After a while she commenced singing,
again. This was a new tune, and most exquisitely sweet.
I took out my pencil and wrote down the words of the song,
on a blank leaf for memoranda, in my fishing book. Shall
I repeat them?” “Do it,” we all cried out with earnestness.
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“I'll try,” said Ned, sighing. “I wish I could sing them.
They ran somewhat in this way:—
“ `Down in the deep
Dark holes I keep,
And there, in the noontide, I float and sleep;
By the hemlock log,
And the springing bog,
And the arching alders I lie incog.
The angler's fly
Comes dancing by,
But never a moment it cheats my eye:
For the hermit trout
Is not such a lout
As to be by a wading boy pulled out.
King of the brook,
No fisher's hook
Fills me with dread of the sweaty cook;
But here I lie,
And laugh, as they try;
Shall I bite at their bait? No, no, not I.
But when the streams,
With moonlight beams,
Sparkle, all silver, and starlight gleams,
Then, then look out
For the hermit trout;
For he springs and dimples the shallows about,
While the tired angler dreams.'
“The words are not much. But O! how exquisite was
that music; Cypress, it was like the mellow tone of a soft
harp!”
“Jewsharp,—ha-a?” accorded long John; that's a nice
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[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]
kind o' music. I'm told they have 'em large down to York,
and use 'em in meeten. How'st?”
“Yes, 'tis so, John, they do. But let me get through with
my story. After the syren had finished her tune, she began
playing with her companion again. Thinks I to myself, `old
speckled skin, I should like to have you in my basket; such
a reverend old monarch of the brook is not to be caught every
day in the year, What say you for a fresh worm this morning?
' So I shortened my rod, and run it behind me, and let
the dobber fall upon the water, and float down with the hook
to the log where the old fellow and the mermaid was disporting.
His love for the lady did not spoil his appetite. He
bagged my worm, and then sprung at my float, and cut. I
jerked back, and pulled in, and then he broke water and
flunced. The mermaid saw that he was in trouble, and
dashed at my line, broke it short off, and then took up the
trout, and began to disengage the hook from his gills. I had
no idea of losing my hook and my trout, besides one of Lentner's
best leaders,—that cost me half a dollar,—for any woman,
fishy or fleshy, however good a voice she might have. So I
broke cover, and came out. The moment she caught a
glimpse of me, she screamed and dropped the trout, and ran.
Did you every see a deer flash through a thicket? She was
gone in an instant—
“ `Gone, like the lightning, which o'er head
Suddenly shines, and ere we've said
Look! look! how beautiful! 'tis fled.'
Compelled by an irresistible impulse, I pursued. Down the
brook, and through the brake, we went, leaping, and stooping,
and turning, and swimming, and splashing, and I, at least a
half a dozen times, stumbling and falling. It was but at intervals,
as the brook made its longest bends, that I could catch
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a glimpse of the fugitive nymph, and the last time I put my
eager eye upon her, she had stopped and was looking back,
with both her hands crossed upon her bosom, panting and apparently
exhausted. But as I again broke upon her sight, she
started and fled. With fresh ardor I pressed on, calling to
her, and beseeching her to stop. I pleaded, promised, threatened,
and called the gods to witness that my intentions were
honorable, and that I would go and ask her mother first, if she
did not live too far off. In the desperation of my entreaties I
talked a little Latin to her, that came into my head, apropos,
and which was once used by another gentleman,[8] in a similar
case of Parthian courtship;—Parthian!—Yes, that is a correct
word, for O! what arrows did the beauty of the flying nymph
shoot into my soul! Telling her that she might depend upon
my honor, and all that, I continued—
“ `At bene si noris, pigeat fugisse; morasque
Ipsa tuas damnes, et me retinere labores'—
that is to say, boys, according to Bishop Heber's translation,
“ `If you knew me, dear girl, I'm sure you'd not fly me;
Hold on half an hour, if you doubt, love, and try me.'
But, alas! the assurance and the prayer added fresh pinions
to her wings. She flew, and despairingly I followed, tearing
my hands and face with the merciless brambles that beset my
way, until, at last, a sudden turn brought me plump up against
the bridge upon the turnpike, in the open fields, and the mermaid
was nowhere to be seen. I got up on the railing of the
bridge, and sat there weary, wet, and sad. I had lost my fish,
left my rod a mile off, and been played the fool with by a mongrel
woman. Hook, fish, leader, heart, and mermaid, were
all lost to me forever. `Give me some drink, Titinius,' or
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Daniel, which I take to be the correct English translation. I
feel melancholy and mad to think of it even now.”
eaf138v1.n8[8] Polyphem. to Gal. Ov. Met. 13, 808.
CHAPTER VI.
“Scythia est quo mittimur, inquam:
Roma relinquenda est: utraque justa mora est.”
Ovid's Tristia, 3d El.
“Did Captain Symmes tell you that himself, sir?” inquired
Raynor.
“He did,” replied Ned, “and I have not the slightest doubt
of the accuracy of his statement. I think I shall publish the
account for the benefit of science. Those discoveries concerning
the causes and sources of magnetism, and electricity,
and galvanism, are really astonishing.”
“It is strange,” said I, like a good, solemn, tiger.
“Yes,” responded Ned, with graver gravity, “truth is
strange, stranger than fiction.”
“Can't ye give us some more th' tic'lars, Mr. Locus?”
asked Dan. “Tell us what's the reason 'bout them spots in
the sun, and the bony fish all failen last summer. That's what
I want to know.”
“No, Dan; I'd rather give you what I know of my own
knowledge. Boys, did I ever tell you about my journey to
the Lanjan Empire?”
“I never heard you”—“Lan what?”—“Go it!”—“Now
for a yarn,” and several other interjectional questions and
-- 070 --
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answers broke, simultaneously, from the lips of the attentive audience.
“That's a very interesting country,” simpered the tiger.
“Won't you take a drink before you start, Mr. Locus?”
“Thank you, thank you, Cypress.—Well, boys—hem!”—
and Ned got under way as follows:—
“I had always from my earliest boyhood, a vehement desire
to travel and see the world; and whatever other of my
studies may have been slighted, I certainly was not neglectful
of my geography and hydrography. Books of travel, of
any sort of respectability and authenticity, I devoured; from
Sinbad the Sailor, down to the modernest, pert, self-sufficient
affectations of our own expressly deputed readers of guide-books,
and retailers of family gossip. Still, however, I was
unsatisfied. I longed to be an actor, not a mere looker on; a
doer, not a reader of exploits. In this particular taste, my
revered father chose to differ from me, by the distance of
several continents. While I sighed for locomotion, and the
transmutation of the precious metals into foreign novelties, the
dearest care of that respected person was,
“ `T' increase his store,
And keep his only son, myself, at home.'
“If, in the glow of my imagination, I spoke of Columbia,
river, Central Africa, Chinese Tartary, Ultima Thule, or any
other, reasonable, and desirable region for exploration, the old
man would shake his head, and tell me that he was responsible
for my future standing in society; and that he could not
permit me to go abroad until my habits were formed. `Besides,
my son,' he would add, `travelling costs money, and your
education is not yet complete, and exchange is up, and stocks
are down, and you're rather irregular, and—and you had
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better wait.' Wait, therefore, I had to, until I had finished my
collegiate experiences, and pocketed my alma mater's certificate,
that my habits were formed, and that I was a youth distinguished
for my learning, brains, and good behavior, and all
that; or, as Cypress would say, until the `hoc tibi trado' of
jubilee commencement-day was poured into my ear, and with
all becoming and appropriate solemnity, I was consecrated an
A. B. My passion for cosmopolitism burned, now, fiercer
than ever. I petitioned, and sulked, and flattered, and fretted,
and moved earth and heaven, or tried to,
“ `And Heaven,—at last,—granted what my sire denied.'
For it pleased heaven to put it into the heads of the navy department,
to appoint my uncle, Captain Marinus Locus, Commodore
of a relief-squadron that was to go out to the Mediterranean;
and about a year after my graduation, the flag-ship
Winnipissiago dropped her anchor at the place of rendezvous
off the Battery, having on board my excellent, excellent
uncle:—
“ `My uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules.'
He was a jolly old cock, liberal, free-hearted, hated trade, and
grace before meals, and thought he was a strict disciplinarian
aboard ship, he liked an adventure on shore as well as any
body, provided only he was sure of not being found out. He
was a great admirer of the morality of Lycurgus, inculcated
in his precepts for the education of boys, and his darling
maxim was, that there was no such thing as abstract sin, and
that the iniquity of iniquity consisted in the bad example.
“During the time of his waiting for the rest of the squadron,
he was often at my father's house, and I had frequent opportunities
for the enjoyment of his conversation. It is not to
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be wondered that my heart grew to him, and that I became
unhappy with desire of a situation aboard his frigate. As propitious
fortune would have it, he took an equal fancy for me,
and noting the violence of my marine propensity, he interceded
with my father, and offered to give me a birth, and a share at
mess, during his cruise, and offered me all possible facilities
for seeing the country, without putting me or mine to any expense,
except for the necessary outfit. As this course of
travel would not require much disbursement, and as my habits
were by this time quite confirmed, the kind old gentleman was
persuaded to let me go.
“`Well, Ned,' said he, one morning, after breakfast, and a
tear stood in his eye, `I've traded you off. You may go with
your uncle. He has been begging, and hammering me, for a
fortnight, and last night he offered me a quarter cask of Juno,
and said he would take good care of you, and watch over your
behavior aud so forth, and so I told him he might have you.
There, the secret is broken.'
“`So is my heart,' said my mother, sobbing.
“`So is his coffee-cup,' chuckled the old gentleman, pointing
to the fragments, which my surprise and delight had
strewn upon the floor.
“`Remember now, my son,' continued the old gentleman,
and then he read me a lecture containing the essence of all
that Solomon ever said to Rehoboam, with the addition of a
digest of the more modern maxims of parental wisdom, down
to the date of the discourse. It was a precious mixture. I
took it with all becoming meekness, and in the agitation and
affliction produced by the notification that I `soon should be
on the boundless ocean, far, far from the tender watchfulness
of parental kindness,' I stuck my fingers into my mouth, and
then applied their watery ends to my eyes;—not anticipating
-- 073 --
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the dialogue, I was unprovided with an onion. The old gentleman
at last got through, finishing with an injunction that
really made me cry, because I did not dare to laugh.
“`Not least of all,' said he, `be thankful for being born in
a country, where you, though only a private citizen, and one
possessed of no peculiar merit, may accomplish your travels
as a passenger on board a public ship. It doesn't cost any
thing. Uncle Sam pays the whole shot; and you can go to
Dan, and Beersheba, and all the other cities up the Mediterranean,
and write your travels, and I shall not be out of pocket
a penny. I shan't have to advance you a cent. That's what
I look at.'
“Sponge! thought I, a little startled, but I prudently kept
my peace.
“The rest of the discourse,—the parting,—the sailing,—
the deep, deep sea,—whales,—water-spouts,—Cape St. Vincent,—
hurricane,—chicken-coop, and two men overboard,—
Gibraltar,—duel between two midshipmen,—monks of Palermo,—
Mount ætna,—earthquake of Catania,—Dromio of Syracuse,—
Cape Matapan,—Bozzaris,—Greek pirates,—Colossus
of Rhodes,—Smyrna,—and so forth, I pass over. Suffice
it to say, that we finally arrived in the Levant, and cast our
cable in the neighborhood of Cyprus.”
“Cypress? Cypress?” asked Venus Raynor. “What,
any relation to our Mr. Cypress here?”
“No, no; near the island of Cyprus. Cyprus! beautiful
isle! In what glorious majesty stood thy old Olympus. How
fragrantly from thy hills came down the odor of thy orangegroves
and grape-vines, mingling with the wind-borne scent
of thy hyacinths, and anemonies! Land of generous wine,
and glowing beauty! Birthplace of Venus!”—
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“Hullow, Ned! hullow! what's thee up to now?” cried
Oliver.
“It's a lie,” pronounced master Peter. “Venus was born
at Raynor South. I knowed his father. Have my doubts
it's a lie.”
“That's what the family Bible says,” muttered the namesake
of the goddess, getting a little angry.
“Don't bother me, you fool,” said Ned, snappishly, and
putting his hand over Peter's mouth. “I did nt mean this he
Venus; no, but her, the queen of beauty, the mother of love,
Paphia,—Cytherea,—Aphrodite,—emerging from old ocean's
wave—”
“`Emersam ex undis Venerem,' as Stephanus Forcatulus
hath it, Ned,” I took the liberty of suggesting; fearing that
he would tire out the boys with his raptures. “I thought it
was Cythera, where the zephyrs carried the foam-born goddess.
You had better go on with the story. How far is it
to the Lanjan Empire?”
“Pardon, pardon, boys, for rearing up, and caracoling, in
this irregular fashion. No, Cypress, Cyprus. Only Hesiod
says Cythera. And you, certainly, won't put his `theogony'
in competition with the judicious Tully's `de natura Deorum.'—
I will try, now, to be less episodical. But whenever I
think of Cyprus, my bosom swells with the same feelings that
half overwhelmed me when first I breathed the air from its
beautiful shore; and my heart jumps within my body just as
my legs did upon the upper deck of the Winnipissiago, when
young Bob Shelley, a midshipman, for whom I had formed
the fondest friendship, was relieved from his watch, and came
up where I was listlessly lounging.
“`We'll go ashore to-night, Bob,' said I, rubbing my hands
between my knees, `and taste some Cyprian—'
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“`No; nor wine nor women,' interrupted Bob, despondingly.
`The old man has given orders that not a soul quit
ship to-night. All shore-boats are to be prohihited from approaching
within thirty yards.'
“`Why, the d—d old tyrant! what's in the wind now?'
“`Can't say;—should'nt be surprised if we were off to
the coast of Africa before morning: you now his way.'
“`Well, well; I'll go ashore;—yes,' said I, at that moment
catching the eye of a Greek fisherman who was sculling
upon the edge of the tabooed distance, and who seemed to
understand our conversation and wishes; `I'll be cursed if I
don't go ashore. Dare you go along? When is your next
watch; Can't you steal two or three hours.'
“`I may. I—may. But we must wait until night; we
would be observed now. It will soon be dark.'
“As Bob spoke, we observed the skiff of the fisherman
glide swiftly towards the ship, and her minute figure was
soon lost under the shade of our giant stem. The tongue is
not the only maker of assignations. My eyes met those of
Palinurus once more, and we had a perfect understanding
upon the subject of our wished-for visit to the shore.
“Night came, and we found our wily Cypriot under the
fore-chains; and we were soon at a miniature little city, built
upon a promontory, that jutted out towards the ship, and
which seemed to welcome our approach by the louder swelling
strains of various music, and happy-hearted laughter.
That night—that night!—I cannot tell the incidents of that
night now.—No—never—never. We got back safely, however,
and, as good fortune would have it, undiscovered, and
unsuspected. Not having been found out, I went to my hammock
with a quiet conscience, as indeed, with such a consolation,
after what had happened, I was bound to do, aboard
-- 076 --
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the commodore's ship. The next morning, however, changed
the face of affairs; the non-intercourse regulation was repealed,
and free trade and sailors' rights let the crew ashore,
and a dark-browed Frank, the keeper of the cassino, where
we danced the night before, aboard. The old man was in
his cabin. Bob ran up into the main-top, and I turned into
my nest. Bob was on the sick-list at his next watch. I myself
was exceedingly disposed to be under the weather, and
out of the way of recognition, and identification by the sorrowful
host of `the three spears.' But the next morning the ship
stood away for the opposite coast of Africa, and we happily
recovered. I got well just in time to see the devil in the old
man's eyes, as I walked up towards him, in obedience to his
summons.
“`Sick! nephew, ha?' he began, half frowning, half sneering.
I felt sick at heart, indeed. But when he asked me
what had made me sick, and I replied that I attributed it to
eating too many Cyprian oranges, he shut his eyes half up,
and glimmering at me, sidewise, he turned slowly upon his
heel, rapped the rattan in his hand hard upon his leg, and
walked away. I saw it was all over.
“About six bells A. M., the officers, with myself, were all
called aft.
“`Gentlemen,' said the old man, looking black and dignified
as an incipient thunder-squall, `I regret that any individual
under my command should disgrace the national flag, by
riot, and violence in a foreign port; but much more do I regret
that any officer of the Winnipissiago should so far forget
his duty to his country, and his commander, as to break the
order of the day.' Then he ripped out a few appropriate
juramenta-juramentorum—that is, whoppers, boys. After letting
off steam, he went ahead again.
-- 077 --
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“`My good friend, Kapitanos Antistratikos, the American
consul for Famagusta, and keeper of a highly respectable
cassino there, informs me that two persons from the Winnipissiago——
but no matter; that will be for charges and
specifications. Here; who'—pulling a handkerchief out of
his pocket—`owns this piece of documentary evidence? Mr.
Shelley, will you do me the favor to read the name of the
happy proprietor?'
“With what a savage sneer the old man put the question!
I quailed and trembled. I knew that Bob had lost his
handkerchief in the scuffle, and faint, very faint was the hope
that his ingenuity could excuse us. As to the offence itself,
that was nothing, in reality, in the old man's judgment, compared
with the sin of our leaving our tracks behind us, so that
we were sure of being detected.
“`Guilty sir,' said Bob, touching his hat. He knew
that there was no humbugging the old man. `The document
is my own.'
“`Enough. A court-martial will no doubt give due honor
to your unofficer-like conduct. Consider yourself arrested—
that is all, gentlemen. Pipe down.'
“`Mr. Locus,'—and the old man bowed to me with an ineffably
increased suaviter in modo,—`your tongue need not
confess that you were Mr. Shelley's companion. Your buttermilk
face has saved that member the trouble. You will
quit the ship at the first land we make. That ought in my
opinion, to be the rule in Shelley's case. So much for your
comfort.—I promised your father to take good care of you;
I shall keep my word, for I shall shortly leave you in Grand
Cairo.—D—n you, sir, do you laugh?—that's no pun. I
never made a pun in my life.'
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“`Is our friendship, then, sir,' said I, `forever annihilated?
'
“`Exactly, nephew. It ends at the mouth of the Nile,
where we shall shortly drop both you and our anchor. I have
only one word of advice to give you; it is, look out for
the crocodiles, and don't eat too many oranges. Good morning.
'
“I could have burst into tears, but Bob came running up to
me, and grasping my hand, cried, `Bear it like a man. They'll
cashier me, and I'll get permission to quit the ship with you;
we'll travel together and seek our fortunes.' Generous
fellow!
“Bob was correct in his anticipations; he was found
guilty, and sentenced to be cashiered. His petition to the old
man to be allowed to accompany me was readily granted,
and about dusk, that evening, we were landed on the coast
of Africa, near the western mouth of the Nile, a few miles
from Rosetta, and about eighty miles north-west from Grand
Cairo. We slept that night at the hovel of a Jew, and early
in the morning started upon our journey. We had nothing
to encumber us but the clothes upon our backs, our fowlingpieces,
and Bob's favorite fiddle. The last article we brought
along, as the means of earning our livelihood until we could
get into some regular employment. Our pistols and dirks we
had of course secured, together with a few pieces of gold.
With these appointments we started for the great city of the
Nile.
“Not being much used to walking, we progressed only
thirty miles the first day, and at the setting of the sun, rested
under a sycamore tree, to dispose of our frugal meal of dates.
Our repast was here suddenly interrupted by the appearance
of three marauding Bedouins, who dashed in upon us on their
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beautiful Arabs, cutting and slashing at us with their sparkling
cimeters. We very coolly cut two of them down in a
flash, with the first shot from our pistols. The third fellow
turned his horse and dashed his rowels into his bloody flanks.
But we gave him, each, the other barrel, and tumbled him off,
with one bullet in the elbow of his sword arm, and the other
in the small of his back. We then helped ourselves to a few
miscellaneous articles, that could have been of no further service
to them, and buried their bodies in the sand. After this
we had no further interruption until we arrived at Cairo,
which we reached, on the second following night.
“Our appearance here did not excite any very especial
wonder. There were people of all colors, and countries, and
religions, and habits, crowding along the narrow, dirty streets,
seeking their business or their pleasures. The dogs seemed
to be the most numerous and important part of the population,
and we had little trouble from any of the rest of the inhabitants.
So having sought out a caravansary, or boarding-house,
we sallied out and commenced our vocation of street-minstrelsy.
It was the most taking and profitable occupation
that we could have chosen. I led the air, and Bob warbled
bass, accompanying the melody with his cremona. `Cease
rude Boreas,' `Begone dull care,' `Ye sons of freedom,'
`Barbara Allen,' and several others of the most distinguished
Christian pieces of profane music we absolutely coined into
gold. The Cairoites were delighted with the novelty of
the entertainment, and we became most decided favorites.
Turks, Copts, Mamelukes, Jews, and Syrian Christians, voted
us stars, invited us to their entertainments, and vied with
each other in their unbounded hospitality.
“Wake up Peter, Cypress. Dan, take this tumbler.
“Well, boys, to be brief, in the course of three months we
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made money enough to buy fifty camels, one hundred Guinea
slaves, a few Mograbian dancing-girls, and a goodly quantity
of cotton, coffee, and other merchandize of the country, and
joining another caravan, off we started across the desert, to
the seaport of Suez, at the north end of the Red Sea. By
the by, what a pity it is that the Egyptians do not cut a canal
from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. It is a dead level
all the way;—not a lock necessary. Bob and I sent in proposals
to the governor, to construct one within two years;
but his higness shook his head, and said that if Allah had
intended that there should be a water-communication from
Suez to the Levant, he would have made it himself. But of
that in another place. I intend to apply to our legislature
for an act of incorporation for a railroad. Keep it quiet, boys.
Say nothing.
“Our arrival at Suez created no little excitement. Our
fame had preceded us across the desert, and the swarthy disciples
of the Prophet of the east, grinned upon us, and fed us
and felt us, just as would the very Christian populace of New
York grin at, and feed, and feel King Blackhawk, and the
Prophet of the west. It was soon, however, our fortune to
be monopolized by good society. The sister of the governor,
Julia Kleokatrinka, a widow, got us. She was the lady
B—of the place, and a most magnificent woman she
was. She was decidedly the best dressed lady that I
have seen in all my travels. Beautiful, witty, learned,
accomplished, and, above all, so generous in every respect.
It was on account of her peculiar excellences, that she
had obtained a special license to be different in deportment
and behavior, from all the other ladies of rank in
Suez, and to expose herself to the gaze of men, and give
entertainments, and all that sort of thing. All the other
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women of Suez are strictly guarded in their seraglios, as they
should be. I took to her exceedingly. She loved and petted
me so, I could'nt help it. She used to call me her `hi ghi
giaour,' which means, boys, pet infidel poet. Her conversaziones
were delightful. She had around her, constantly, a brilliant
coterie, of poets and romancers. One day, I met at her
palace, at dinner, a cordon composed of Almanzor, the geometrician;
Allittle, the poet; Ali Kroker, the satirist; Ali
Gator, the magnificent son of Julia—the Suez Pelham;
Selim Israel, a writer of books which no body would read;
a Mr. Smith, an Englishman; a Persian mufti; an Iceland
count; a Patagonian priest, and several other persons of distinguished
merit and virtue. The divine Julia never looked
so well. She was dressed in Turkish pantaletts, made of
the ever-changing plumage of the throat feathers of the
African nightingale, woven and embroidered into a thin cloth
of silver. Over these she wore a chemise of pea-green Persian
silk, which hung loosely from the extreme tip of her
alabaster shoulders, and fell just below her knees. The rest of
her simple drapery consisted of a Tibetian shawl, which she
gracefully disposed about her person, so as to answer the
purpose of robe, or stole, or cloak, as her coquettish caprice
might desire. Around her neck sported a young tame
boa constrictor, and in her lap slumbered a Siberian puppydog,
which was presented to her by the emperor of Russia.
Her conversation was uncommonly piquant. I was in capital
spirits.
“`Will you be so generously disinterested,' said the charming
Julia, `as to eschew chewing until you can hand me that
salt?'
“`Most unequivocally, bright moon of my soul,' I readily
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replied; `Allah forbid, that through my neglect, a lady's meat
should go unsalted.'
“Then we all had a hearty laugh. I turned to Ali Gator,
who was leaning against a pile of scarlet satin ottomans, while
the rays of the setting sun fell full upon his beautifully embroidered
waistcoat,—”
“Stop, Ned, stop,” said I, looking around, and listening to
the chorus of heavy breathings that had, for some time past,
been swelling upon my ear. “Raynor—softly—Dan—louder—
Peter—with vehemence—Smith—Oliver—Zoph:—You
have, by gad; you've put them all to sleep. I'm glad of it.
It serves you right. Of what interest is it to these people to
know what twaddle was talked at Julia Kleokatrinka's dinner-table?
And what right have you to betray the privacies of a
hospitable board, into which you may have been, perhaps unworthily,
adopted. Shame! shame! It is a just judgment
upon you.”
“It only shows their want of taste,” replied Ned, coolly.
“Bring up your camels!” sung out Venus, as he turned
over on his side in an uneasy dream about the last thing he
heard before he went to sleep. “Bring up your camels!”
“So I say,” I continued. “Get out of the city, Ned, some
how or other. If you can't do better, take a balloon. Let's
wake the boys up, and then do you travel on. Bring up your
camels! Bring up your camels!”
I roared this out so loud, as to bring every man upon his feet.
“I was asleep,” said Raynor, looking as though he wanted
to make an apology.
“Some pork will boil that way,” philosophized the Hicksite.
“I was dreaming of the my-grab—somethen—dancen-gals.
What did you do with 'em. Mr. Locus,” asked Venus, rubbing
his eyes. “Were they pretty? I should like to try 'em on
-- 083 -- p138-102
[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
the double-shuffle, heel-and-toe, a small touch. Go it!
Hey!”
“I'm done,” said Ned, sulkily, crossing his arms.
“No, no; not by some thousands of miles,” cried I.
“We've got to get to the Lanjan Empire yet.”—I knew Ned
wanted to spin it out.
“It's my 'pinion he'll never reach there to-night,” yawned
Long John. “The wind don't seem to suit, no haaw. What's
your sentiments, Peter?”
“I have my doubts.”
CHAPTER VII.
“If any man woulde blame me, eyther for takynge such a matter in
hande, or els for writing it in the Englysh tongue, this answer I maye
make hym, that what the best of the realme thinke it honeste for them to use,
I, one of the meanest sorte, ought not to suppose it vile for me to write;
and though to have written it in an other tonge, had bene both more profitable
for my study, and also more honest for my name, yet I can thinke
my labor wel bestowed, yf wt a litle hynderaunce of my profyt and name,
may come any fourtherance to the pleasure or commoditie of the gentlemen
and yeomen of England, for whose sake I took this matter in hande.”
Roger Ascham.
Even thus, apologised the venerable preceptor of England's
virgin queen, when he gave to “all gentlemen and yeomen of
England, pleasaunte for theyr pastyme to rede, and profitable
for theyr use to folow,” that precious birth of “Toxophilus,
the schole of shootinge conteyned in two bookes.” Glorious
old Roger! my master—my father—my friend—my patron
saint! Thy pupil and worshipper is redeemed from the guilt
of “idlenesse and levitie,” by the gracious authority of thy
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precept and example. Roger, be with me! Rogere, ut mihi
faveas, adjutorque sis, rogo, obsecro!
On the evening succeeding the night when Ned's travels
met with the ignominious punctuation which has been set
forth in the foregoing chapter, we were all assembled around the
cheerful fire, relating our sports and various adventures of the
day. Ned was in good humor with himself and every body
else, for his sport had been eminently triumphant. Oliver and
I had killed only some twenty coot, and a beach fox; while
he and one of the boys brought in fifty-four brant, seven geese,
five widgeons, three oldwives, a cormorant, and a white owl.
Ned gave us a full account of his captivity and sufferings
among the Pawnee Picks, and Daniel rehearsed, with much
grace and unction, his yarns about pirates Halstead, Conklin,
and Jones. Fatigue and sleep at last succeeded in making
us yawn, and as I had engaged Bill Luff to go with me to
“the middle ground” next morning, early, to lie in a battery, I
proposed that we should “shut up shop,” and go to bed.
“Won't the tide sarve for Mr. Locus to reach to the Lanjan
Empire to-night?” asked Long John of me, stretching out
his immense isthmus of neck, and putting on a most ludicrously
quizzical character of phiz. “I reckon 'ts high water
naaw, and his ship can scratch over the bars, likely, 'bout this
time.”
“It's my 'pinion he rather smashed her last night,” said
Dan; “I shouldn't be 'sprised if Mr. Cypress was to say he
see small piece o' th' wrack himself.”
“Let him keel her up and get the water out o' her, and set
her afloat agen.”
“It's no use. She's got a smart hole into her, and she's
pretty much water-logged, I sh'd say.”
“Let 'im take out some th' cargo, and she'll go. He'd only
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got too much freight into her, that's all; and she was loaded
ruther bad, 'corden to my notion.”
“You're right, John,” said I. “Good. Ned, take out Julia
Kleokatrinka and you'll float.”
“Take out all the women, Neddy, and thee can steer thy
vessel with better success,” advised our model of modesty,
Oliver.
“No, no. Leave in the dancen gals,” cried Venus. “Gals
never spiled a sailen party yet, I know it.”
“Well boys, make up your minds,” said Ned, “whether you
want me to start or not. You don't, to be sure, deserve to
have a single sentence more of that journey, and I declare to
you, I would not go on with the recital of my various and singular
adventures upon the voyage, but that I want to tell you
a short yarn about our minister for Africa, and a certain
American gentleman, that is, one who called himself such, but
who was most unworthy of the name,—a great man, in his
own opinion, with whom I met at Gondar, the capital of
Abyssinia.”
“Julius Cæsar!” pleaded I; “Ned, where the devil are you
travelling?”
“Travelling? Where I actually went; down the Red Sea,
through the Straits of Babelmandel, and so around, by Ceylon
and the Straits of Malacca, to the Lanjan Empire, stopping on
the road, now and then, to have a fight or a frolic.”
“Prepare for grief, boys,” said I, in deep despondence,
tumbling back upon the straw. “You've got into a scrape by
urging your last petition. He'll talk to the end of next week.
Good night.”
“No, my sweet boy, you don't escape in that way,” replied
Ned, pulling me up with a grip which I was fain to obey;
“you have contributed more than any one else to fit out this
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expedition, and I swear you shall have your share of the proceeds.”
“Don't trouble yourself about the returns now. I'll settle
with you, as ship's husband and supercargo, when you get
back. Good bye. A pleasant voyage to you.”
“No, no. Come back; come back. A press-gang has
got hold of you. You must go with me.”
“Don't ship me, Ned; I'm not an able seaman. I can
neither reef nor steer.”
“Make him steward's mate, Mr. Locus,” said Dan with a
malicious grin. “He can bile coffee, and mix liquor for you,
when your throat gits hoarse callen to th' crew.”
“I'll do it, Dan. Cypress, you are hereby appointed steward's
mate of the felucca `Shiras Suez.' Look to your duty.
There is your pay in advance, and here—filling my champagne
glass—is money to furnish supplies to Mecca.”
Resistance was in vain. I was duly installed. “Now,
Ned, what do you want?”
“A very light duty, Cypress. Your ears, and occasional
tongue. I know my course, but I forget the name of the
man whom I want to glorify. What is it?”
“How, in the name of all the Mahometan saints, should I
know?”
“Repeat me those lines of Anacreon which we used to
sing and mumble in school, when we were `making believe'
study.”
“How can that help you? Do you mean `' ”
“Yes; yes. That is it—
`
'—
I wish to sing of Cadmus. I want to tell you, boys, about
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Mr. Agamemnon Hermanus Spinosus Cadmus. Did you ever
know him, Cypress?”
“O, perfectly well,” replied I, thinking to bother Ned.
“He was a descendant of Longoboos, one of the sons of
Atreus, whose name, by the by, I perceive, is omitted in
Charles Anthon's last, otherwise unexceptionable, edition of
Lempriere. He was a regularly born boy, novertheless, and
he possessed a decidedly more dignified disposition and deportment
than his brothers Menelaus, and Agamemnon.”
“Many laws? d—n him,” cried Venus. “He was in
favor of plenty of banks, and legislaten, I 'spose.”
“Historians differ upon that point, Venus. He was a
brave fellow, at all events. Lactantius records, in his `de ira
divina,' that Menelaus and Agamemnon, instead of being kings,
were most distinct democrats; men who had rather eat a
plain republican bowl of bread and milk with an honest farmer,
than to be clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and sit within
the blessed sound of the divine action of royal grinders. The
other youth, on the contrary, he says, was against universal
suffrage, and in favor of the doctrine that no man can love
his country, or feel an interest in her welfare, unless he has
got plenty of money.”
“D—n him! then, 'stead o' t'other fellow,” interposed
the republican critic again.
“His practice,” I continued, not taking notice of the interruption,
“followed out his principles. He contrived to get
appointed a Colonel in the militia, and then started to travel
in foreign parts. He drove into Corinth a coach and six,
with outriders, spending his money, all the way, with the
profusion of a prince. Lais was at this time in the full blow
of her glory. Cadmus bought off Alcibiades for a hundred
thousand drachms, and set her up in the most magnificent
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style. It was in reference to him that Diogenes, the Cynic,
perpetrated that jealous snarl, `non cuivis homini contingit
adire Corinthum.' ”
“Mr. Locus,” said Dan, “I'm 'feard the steward's mate's
taken command o' th' ship, and he's sarven out his darned
Latin 'stead o' th' regler ship's allowance.”
“Cypress, I've been thinking you might as well tell the
story yourself. You seem to know all about it.”
“No, no. I beg pardon, Ned. Go on, go on. I was only
helping hoist sail, and throw off.”
“Well, boys, now stop this deviltry, and I'll start. Where
did I leave off, last night?”
“You stopped when you got 'sleep in Julia Kle—cre—kle—
cre—”
“Kleokatrinka's lap,” finished I.
“No, that was the Siberian puppy dog,” said Ned.
“What's the odds what country the puppy belonged to?”
inquired Raynor, chuckling, and who knew that a fair hit was
always welcome, come when, and come upon whom, it might.
“It must have been yourself, Ned,” said I. “You like to
take your comfort—
`.'[9]
-- 089 --
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“Raynor,” sung out Ned, getting a little vexed, “I wish
you would fine that young gentlemen. What was the punishment
we determined to inflict upon him the next time he
quoted Heathen languages wrongly, or inappositely?”
“A basket of Champagne. Shall I have to send one of
the boys across to Islip, or Jim Smith's, to-morrow morning?”
“Yes, either for him or me, for I make a complaint against
him. Summon the Court of Dover, strait off. Crier! Peter!
call the Court!”
“It will take too long, Ned,” said I. “I'll leave it to
Venus and Peter. They shall be the court with full powers.
Each man state his case, and we'll be bound by their
judgment.”
“Done,” answered Ned. “We'll waive the installation and
ceremony of opening.—Gentlemen of the Court, we were
talking of dogs; and I say that to make a quotation about
cats, and apply it to the more noble canine tribe, is supremely
inappropriate, not to say highly ridiculous.”
“That stands to reason,—seems to me,” said Venus.
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“Now, your Honors, the culprit whom I have charged, has
bored us with a pretended illustration of his weak wit, from
a dissolute pagan named Theocritus—I remember him well,
for I was compelled, once on a season, to be familiar with
him;—and he has substituted the effeminacy of lazy cats, for
the sensibly drowsiness of high-spirited, hard-working pointers.
`' means `cats.' ”
“I should think it meant `gals' ” cried out one of the boys.
“Mr. Cypress, you're safe. You'll have Venus on your
side.”
“Order, order in the Court,” cried the crier Judge.
“May it please your honors, that is the whole of my case,
and I will conclude by expressing the most exalted confidence
in the wisdom, discrimination, learning, and sense of
justice of this most reverend and respectable tribunal.”
Alexander Africanus Maximus, President of “the Universal
Court of Dover of the whole world,”—surnamed Aleck
Niger, from his successful exploration of the sources of that
black-region river, as well as of divers other more mixed fluids,—
could not have made a better speech, even if he had had the
immortal George, George the First in the republic, to prompt
him. But I did not despair. I happened to know that it
was not always rowing straight ahead that wins a race, or
that talking sense and truth always gains a cause. Judges
and Juries, in spite of their affectation of stern, solemn unfluctuating
purpose, are like the tides. They have their currents,
and eddies, and under-currents. There is a moon in law and
morals, as well as a moon in physics. I blame not the tides,
nor do I condemn the courts.—“I tax not you, ye elements,
with injustice.”—They are both, I trust, insensible to,
and innocent of, the influence which makes them swell and
fall. But, as Peter once said, in one of his happy moments,
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“the tides owns the moon, and men 's judges, and judges is
men, and they know who can give 'em a lift best.” I had
been told, moreover, that many a cause was determined upon
some incidental or collateral point, that had nothing to do, in
realty, with the merits of the case.
“May it please the Court,” I began; “or may it displease
the Court, just as their omnipotence pleases.” There I was
one point ahead of Ned, in the Court of Dover; for that court
always respects an impudent compliment, “I am accused of
making an irreverend abduction from the discourses of a most
exemplary fisherman.”
“Fisherman!” cried both the judges simultaneously.
“Was he a fisherman?”
“Most distinctly may it please the Court,” I replied.
“That alters the case; brother Venus, don't you think
so?” said Judge Peter, turning to his learned coadjutor.
“It makes a smart deal o' difference, I sh'd say,” responded
the worthy associate. “But 'spose he only fished for flounders
and eels, and sich; would'nt it make no odds?”
“Have my doubts, brother.”
“It is false,” cried Ned, hard to be restrained. “Theocritus
never—”
“Silence—silence,” thundered the Judges. “The court never
doubts when it's indifferent. Mr. Locus, you're fined drinks
all 'round, and a paper o' tobacco, for disrespect to the joined-issued
tribunals o' your country. Proceed, Mr. Cypress.”
“Your honors will perceive that my accuser has other objects
in view than the mere unjust persecution of my humble
self. But I will not refer to them. The whole case may
be thus succinctly and successfully defended. I am charged
with making an in-apposite quotation, contrary to the statutes
of the Beach. I spoke of cats. Now, your Honors, are not
-- 092 --
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
cats four-legged animals? I appeal to the Court's own sense
of justice and physical fitness.—”
“He talks like a book, brother Peter.”
“Then here,”—holding up the fox I had shot, and who
was my junior counsel on the argument,—“has not this fox
four legs?”
“An't one of them fore legs shot off?” asked Judge Peter,
dubitans.
“No, your Honor, it is only a little crippled. Now we all
know, and there needs no argument to prove, that a dog runs
on four feet; and so a cat is like a fox, and a dog is like a
fox, and things that are equal to the same are equal to one
another; and so a cat is a dog, and a dog is a cat; and so,
your Honors, I trust I have established my defence, and that
I have not misused words, and that Mr. Locus must pay for
the champagne.”
“Them's my sentiments, brother Venus. Things what's
like is sartenly like, and them what's the same must be the
same, nor they can't be no otherwise, as I can fix it.”
“I coincide with the last speaker,” pronounced Venus.
“Peter, who is chief Justice?”
“I am. No; you be. Go ahead. Stick it on.”
“Respected fellow-citizens, and criminals in general; the
judgment o' this expiscious court is that the fines agin Mr.
Locus, already expounded, stands good, and he pays the champagne.
As for th' rest o' th' company,—extracten the judges,
who is not liable to human frailty,—they'll pay a small glass
to each o' the judges a piece when they get 'shore, on 'count
not making disturbance, so as to give the Court a chance to
show the magnitude o' its justice and the power thereof; and
the defendant will stand over 'till the next meeten o' th' court.
Zoph, be crier. Crier, 'journ the court.”
eaf138v1.n9[9] Theoc. In idyl. entit. “Syracusian ladies dressing to go to a blow
out.”—Proverbium est quo utitur Proxinoe de ancilla Eunoe, Gorgonem
alloquens. [Eunoe was doubtless an Irish damsel. Spelt, more correctly,
“You-know her.”—Noah Webster.] Doctissimus Toupius sic
optime reddit: the cat likes fish, but is afraid to wel her feet. “Quod salsum,”
inquit,—it was no joke for Ned, in this instance, and the translation
is, in my opinion, absurd—et ad Eunoam referendum, hominem mollem,
delicatulam, otio atque inertiæ deditam. [Epist. ad Warb. p. 33—plura
vide in notas in Theoc] Mihi quidem, Hercle, non fit verisimile. Ratione
multo magis prœdita Thomae Little explicatio videtur—
“Turn to me, love, the morning rays
Are beaming o'er thy beauteous face;”
Et, ut poetice illustrat scholiastes eximius Doctor Drake,
“The heart that riots in passion's dream
But feasts on his own decay,
As the snow wreath welcomes the sun's warm beam,
And smiles as it melts away.”
[Fitzius Viridis Halleck comment.]“These explications like us not,” say the Committee “on Greek mysteries”
of the Historical Society, in their last semi-annual report, “we
own, most experienced and judicious gentlemen, members component of
our body, who are cognizant of the nature of cats, and likewise of the best
places for taking comfort. The judgment of your committee after much
practice and comparison of notes, is, that the poet simply intended to say
that cats love to sleep `in pleasant places,' and that the most bucolical
Syracusian had none other, covert or concealed phantasy.” [N. Y. Hist.
Soc. mem Cur. 1832.]—“De hac re dubito.” [Peter.] “Judge ye.”
[Excusseris diabolus.]
-- 093 -- p138-112
CHAPTER VIII. ONE MORE FOR THE LAST.
[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]
“Candida vitæ
Gaudia nescit
Ah! miser! ille
Qui requievit
Littore nunquam
Mollis arenæ
Pone reclinis”—
Metastatio.
“Discretas insula rumpit aquas!”
The islands came in sight again, and ho! land! and Raynor
Rock!
Glad enough was I to hear our bow grind the sand near
Raynor's hut, on the evening succeeding our court's last
night's entertainments. Ned Locus had come in, and Peter
Probasco was smoking his usual short pipe, and the boys had
some fresh fish and “things accorden.” Zoph and I had had
a hard pull, and we were bay-salted and shivering, but not so
tired as to prevent us from bringing up a good bunch of brant.—
More of them, and a few of the black ducks, and sheldrakes,
and that goose, anon.
“That's a lie, mister, that story you told t'other night. Have
my doubts it's all a lie. I've said it.”—Such was Peter's judgment.—
“Mr. Locus, you dreamt that sometime or other.”
“Stick it out, Ned,” said I, “why the fellow is trying to
get angry!” and Ned actually had worked himself into such a
state of feeling, that between the excitement of the story, and
the soft impeachment of its veracity, and his liquor going down
the wrong way, his face was suffused, and seven or eight
-- 094 --
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globules of eye-water ran a race for the goal of his pea-jacket
upper button.
“My friend,” he at last rejoined, “you're mighty civil.
Quite complimentary, forsooth. Do you suppose that I could
undertake to coin a story so minute, and particular, and specific—
so coherent and consistent in all its parts, so supported
by internal and circumstantial evidence—”
“So ingeniously stolen from Ovid,” interrupted I.
“ `Et tu brute,' Cypress!”
“I make no doubt it's all true, mostly,” said Daniel. “I've
been by the bridge and seen the place where Mr. Locus sot,
when he come out.”
“Well, gentlemen, what's the unbelievable part of the story?
You don't deny the brook, or doubt its being inhabited by mermaids,
do you? Then why shouldn't I be as likely as any
body to see one?”
“Festina lente,” cried I.
“Not so fast, I pray thee,” said the quiet Oliver. “I admit
the brook, but I deny thy eyesight. Thy water-nymph
lived but in thy brain, she is the offspring of thy dreams only—
none but pagan priests and poets, and dreamy boys, and
quaker sea-captains, have seen the creature of fancy, called a
mermaid.”
“Why, Oliver! you infidel! Do you deny the Oceanides,
the Nereides and Naiades, the Limnades and Potamides—”
“No such families in the island, d—d if there is,” cried
Peter.
“Have you never heard of Galatea and Amphitrite, Melita,
and Leucothoe, and Thetis, Calypso, and glorious Arethusa—?”
Peter.—“Never heerd of such people before.”
Oliver.—“Vile incarnations—the false deities of the old
-- 095 --
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
heathen poets. Too much antiquity hath made thee mad,
Ned, or rather, too much deviltry hath made thee a quiz.”
“He don't quiz me,” said Daniel, with a compression of
his lips that said “I know too much.” “I don't know 'bout
carnations and deities, or old poets, and I reckon I don't believe
iniquity ever made Mr. Ned Locus mad, but what I know I
know. Sam Biles is my wife's cousin's aunt's sister's brother-in-law,
and he's been a sealer. Sam knows. Seals is nothen
but nigger mermaids, as Silas said last night, or night afore.
Sam told me he see 'em often together, and the mermaids
licked 'em and kicked 'em 'bout jist as they was amind to.
They caught one one day, but she played the devil among the
sailors, and the captain chucked her overboard.—Shaa! why
Jim Smith see a mermaid once down to Gilgoa inlet, riden a
sea-horse—don't you b'lieve it—ask Jim.”
“Ah! Daniel, Daniel,” said Ned, “they're a set of unbelievers—
don't try to persuade them.”
“Shut up. Shut up, boys. Change the subject. Here;
will you smoke?” said Raynor, producing some short stub
pipes, and an old segar box stuffed with tobacco.
It has always been our rule that “when we are at Rome,
we must do as the Romans do.” So, it is to be recorded, that
we committed, or rather submitted to, that sin. We smoked.
Puff. “What luck on the whole”—puff—“boys”—puff—
puff—“this fall?”—puff—puff—puff—; and so on. We will
not smoke thee, reader. We got fairly into conversation,
now, and different speakers sustained the dialogue, half a
dozen speaking at once, sometimes, so that I cannot put down
a tithe of what was said.
“Middlen, sir, middlen. We've got some. We come
'cross a good school of drums this afternoon. How is times
down to York?”
-- 096 --
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
“O, so so. There's nothing new or strange. People are
fighting, as usual, about politics, like fools, and calling each
other names, which, if rightly applied, ought to be ropes to hang
them. Is the bass fishing good, this season?”
“Moderate, moderate. How does the old general stand
his hand?”
“Bravely, bravely. They've tried to make him out a tyrant,
usurper, cut-throat, fool, and every thing else that is stupid,
and base; but `it's no use.' Do you kill many coot?”
“Coots is scace. I see a smart bunch, jest at sundown,
up into Poor-man's harbor. Do you think the Jackson men
will get it next 'lection?”
“No doubt; no doubt; not the least doubt. The farmers
of the north, and west, are men of sense and spirit, and there's
no mistake about the farmers of Queens, and Suffolk, as you
yourself well know. But they are doing their d—dest in
New-York. They are trying to buy the Irish, and have made
such golden overtures to our leading paper as will require uncommon
virtue to resist. You must remember to go and vote,
boys, for the old man. Every vote counts. He's the hero of
New-Orleans, you know—protector of beauty and booty—can
you ever forget the time when—”
“You don't catch me voten, I reckon,” interrupted long
John, bending his crane-like neck, so as to bring his head at
right angles with his body. “I never voted but onest, and
that was last fall, and I reckon I did a smart deal o' harm
then. Mr. Locus fetched me up. It rained a little, and he
ris an umberell over my head, as we sot in the wagon, and I
an't got over that, neither. Now I expect that umberell must
have given me a kind o' chill, or somethen, for I an't been
right ever sence.”
“It wa'n't the umberell,” cried out one of the group; “it
-- 097 --
[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]
was on 'count o' your voten the wrong ticket, to 'blige Mr.
Locus—that's the how—and it made you feel bad—and you
knowed it.”
“What, John! What, John! are you serious?” continued
I. “Do you really intend to sacrifice your inestimable right
of suffrage? The right for which your fathers fought, and
bled, and died? Reflect. Consider. It is the glorious privilage,
as well as the religious duty of every freeman, to go to
the ballot box. Liberty, the liberty of an American citizen—”
“Stop it. Stop it,” roared out Ned Locus. “No politics,
Cypress. What's the use? You'll only set me a-going, and
I can talk as fast you, and we'll like enough get angry.”
“We may as well let it alone,” said the quiet Oliver. “There
are no converts to be made in Suffolk, not even if Daniel
Webster was to come and talk to it. We'll beat thee next
fall even if he should.”
It will readily be perceived that at the date of this dialogue,
I was what is called at Tammany Hall, “a consistent democrat.”
Ned has always thought it a pity. But he does not
on that account, shut me out from his heart, and treat me as
if he thought I wore a caput supinum, as some mad zealots
have, in the rage of their disappointment, sometimes ferociously
advised him to do. Ned and Oliver both belonged to
the party that thought the constitution was in danger, and that
the country was doomed to utter ruin, unless the dynasty of a
certain very respectable financial institution was perpetuated.
“I'll bet you the expenses of the trip, on that,” replied
Ned to Oliver's vaunt.
“I never bet, Neddy. It's against our rules. But it's got
to be done. Don't get mad. It's no use.” And then he
wound up with his everlasting saw about the boiling of pork.
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[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]
“D—n your easy impudence. We'll have five thousand
majority in the city alone.”
“Order! order!” cried Raynor. “Gentlemen, have the
goodness to come to order, for a song from Venus Raynor,
Esquire,—one of his own composing—that song, Venus, you
made about the people that were drowned down to Oyster
pond point.”
The usual apologies and excuses were soon disposed of,
and then Venus opened his mouth and sang a most pathetic
ditty, to which we all listened with sincere delight, for it was
sung with the pathos, tenderness, and grace of nature. I was
enraptured with it, and, next day, got Venus to go to the lighthouse
and write it out for me. The following is a copy verbatim
et literatim;—
“Come all ye Good people of evry degree
come listen awhil with attention to me
a sorowful story i am going to relate
a mournful disaster that hapenned of late
O Oyster-pond tremble at that awful stroke
remember the voice that gehovah has spoke
to teach us we are mortals exposed to dath
and subgect each moment to yield up our breath
on monday the 12th of december so cold
in the year 18 hundred as i have been told
the winds blowing high and the rains beating down
when a vessle arived at Oyster-Pond town
their anchors being cast thir ships tore away
all hands for the shore were preparring straitway
down into the boat soon they did repair
and on to the shore was praing to steer
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[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]
But mark their hard fortune it is mournful indeed
yet no one can hinder what god has decread
the council of heaven on that fatal day
by death in an instant calld numbers away
A number of men in their halth and their prime
called out of this world in an instant of time
the boat turning plundge them all into the deep
and 5 out of 7 in death fell asleep.
the sorrowaful tidings was caried straitway
to friends and relations without more delay
but o their lamentins no launge can express
more point out of joy great grief and distress
the widows are bereaved in sorrow to mourn
the loss of their husbands no more to return
besides a great number of orphans we hear
lameting the loss of their parents so dear
Also a young damsel a making great mourn
for the untimely death of her lover that gone
for the day of their nuptials apointed had been
and the land of sweet wedlock those lovers to join.
Alas all their lamentings are all but in vain
their husbands are drowned they can't come again
o friends and relations lament not to late
the council of heaven has sealded their fate
their bodies when found were all conveyed home
on the sabbath day following prepared for the tomb
their bodies in their coffin being all laid a side
in Oyster.Pond meeting house ally so wide
“Bravo!”—“Well sung, Venus;”—“Encore!”—“That's
a damnation nice song;”—and several other critical eulogiums
where wreathed around the head of the beach troubadour.
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“Now, Raynor,” said I, “we've had nothing out of you,
yet. Since Venus has given us a wrecking song, suppose
you give us a wrecking story—a true one. Tell us about
your saving the life of Captain Nathan Holdredge.”
“No, no,” protested Raynor; it's late now, and soon as
the moon gets up. we've got to go into the surf;—and you
know all about it.”—
“Tell it. Go ahead; or I'll summon a court of Dover and
have you fined.”
“Don't do that. Here goes then for THE WAY THE OLD
MAN SAVED CAPTAIN HOLDREDGE;” and the intrepid veteran
went on as follows; I took it from his own mouth, and the
whole story is his without embellishment, or addition. If I
could only give his voice—his eye—his hand—his attitude—
I should be happy:—
“It was eighteen years ago. The lighthouse war'nt built.
I was fishing off agin Bellport, twenty miles east of here. I
got up on the 17th day of October, early. The first thing I see,
was a ship on the beach. I went over to her, and it appeared
as if they wanted no assistance; the wind was
blowing at the east, and it was stormy—rain storm—it was
between break of day and sunrise. I was going to return
back again to the hut where we staid, and they beckoned,
and hollowed to us to stay;—then they let down their jolly
boat under the stern;—the captain, second mate, and one sailor
came ashore in her. When they came ashore, I knew the
captain. It was Captain Holdredge.—After being there a
little while, the captain invited me to go on board with him
and take something to drink with him—some brandy;—and
he would send a demijohn on shore for the rest of the crew,—
my crew. I discovered that there was much agin difficulty
in goin to the ship, as there was coming from her. The
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wind was off shore, and sea breaking on;—then I told him,
if you will let me and one of my men and him go aboard, I
would go—he wanted to take the two sailors, and they insisted
upon going, and he was a' mind they should too,—but
if them two sailors is a going to go, I sha'nt go. These sailors
seemed to be rather affronted at my opinion, and seemed to
think that they could go as well and long as me or any
other man.
“Then I told him I choosed not to go. Then Hol dredge
said, stay where we was, and he and the men would go and
get a demijohn of brandy, and bring it ashore. They then
started for the ship. She lay in the surf. The surf was pretty
big. The vessel lay about one hundred yards from the dry
land. It was this same Raccoon beach. The wind was east.
The ship's name was the “Savannah.” She was a packet
ship. She had five passengers. She was from Savannah,
loaded with cotton—four hundred bales, as I was told.
“When they got off against the ship, they was about twenty
yards to the west of her. The current carried them there;—
then, heading up east to the ship, brought them right broadside
to the sea;—the second sea capsized them—turned the
two sailors out, and pitched the captain underneath. The
two sailors came immediately ashore by the help of the sea;—
and the jolly boat kept, to all appearance, about the same
distance from the beach, and worked westward. I endeavored
to try to get to her, for I knew the captain was under her.
I endeavored to get to her all I could. The sea broke over
my head and knocked me down two or three times—I still
endeavored to assist him at some rate or other—I got so that
I touched the jolly boat—I just put my hand on her, and
whether it was my touching of her or not, she took a
pretty rank heave of the sea, and she turned down on one
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side pretty smartly, and the captain came out on the side
opposite from me. I discovered that he was alive and
apparently made some effort to help himself—but the current
of the sea carried him along faster than I could travel, and
in one moment he appeared to give up all, and roll along the
sea. Then I thought to myself it was no way to get him.
So I then thought to myself there was no way to save him,
but to return to the beach, and run about one hundred yards of the
west of him. All the while I was running, I kept my eye on
him. I kept watch of him—when I came to a sea poose—
I went in to the east of it—went out into the ocean as far as
he was standing and bracing against the sea—breaking over
my head—and just afore he got to me, there come a large
sea and seemed to hide him—buried him all up—and as
he about come abreast of me, I discovered him, and catched
him by the collar of his coat—I then sung out for assistance
to some of the rest of my crew who was on the beach—It
was about forty yards from the dry sand. One man run in. I
gave him left hand—I had hold of Holdredge with my right
hand. More of the crew came in and took hold of hands,
and it made a smart and long trail of it. I should think there
was as much as eight of us—and so we drawed him up on
the beach.—Some of the crew said he was stone dead, when
we got him out. I discovered that he was not dead by his
stirring one of his arms. I turned him round on the beach
where it shelved, and got his head the lowest, and then rolled
him backwards and forwards on his face, till he discharged
considerable water out of his mouth, and some blood out
of his nose. I suppose this blood from his nose, was from
the jams he got under the jolly boat. All the time I discovered
he was coming to. I told the crew, that owing to
the cold storm, he never would come to, unless we got him
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by the fire. Myself and three others took him in our arms,
and carried him about a quarter of a mile to our fishing hut—
blowen and rainen all the time from the east—got him to the
hut—built on a good fire—and prepared a little warm chocolate,
and got a little of it down him, and he come to fast.
In about three quarters of an hour he spoke. The first word
he spoke, he asked, “where's the ship?” I told him the ship
was safe on shore.
“Well, I don't know how—he recreuted and began to talk.
He had a mind to go to her. It was'nt worth while to go
to her. The passengers and crew had all come away. They
come away in my fish boat—after I got Holdredge to the
hut, the men all went to the surf. I staid with Holdredge
watching till next morning, when his nat'ral senses seemed
to come again. Next morning he took full charge of the ship,
as much as ever, and would employ no commissioners.—He
employed about twenty hands himself, at two dollars per
day, and took charge of the vessel himself. Unloaded—got
all cargo out—sent it down by lighters—would'nt employ any
wreckmasters—vessel went to pieces—his crew worked upon
the rigging, and took it off.
“Got ashore. He was in sight of the highlands at sundown,
going then S. E. I was by and heard him make his protest—
he turned in about twelve o'clock, and gave up to the mate,
and told him to keep that course till two o'clook, and then tack
ship, and stand in for the land, until they got into thirteen
fathom water—and then call him, if he wa'nt up before. He
waked, and found the ship had a different motion, and jumped
out of his berth, and looked out of the companion-way, and
saw the breakers under her lee—he giv orders to tack ship
immediately, but before she got about, she struck!—she paid
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off contrary, and got on to the beach—spread and tacked
every sail to get her off, but to no purpose.
“Menia, was the first mate.
“Walford, second mate—Walford was one of the men who
came ashore, and was upset, and was rolled ashore by the
waves.
“About the second day, word came on from Patchogue.
that his wife was there, and wanted him to come ashore
very much, if he was alive. He then went ashore to see
her. When he come there, she said she was very glad to see
him, looking as he was; for she had understood, at New
York, that he was cast away, and that Raynor Smith had fell
afoul of him, and beat him almost to death, and he told her—
so he telled me himself,—to cast that off, for it was all false,
for Raynor Smith was his protector, and the only one that
saved his life, and said to her, if it hadn't been for him, you
wouldn't never seen me more.”—
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CONTROVERSY CONCERNING THE GENERA AND DISTINCTIONS OF QUAIL AND PARTRIDGE;
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BY
J. CYPRESS, Jr., H. OF MARIETTA, AND
FRANK FORESTER.
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BY J. CYPRESS, JR.
October has arrived, and has entered into the kingdom
prepared for him by his summery brethren, departed. A kingdom,
truly, within a republic, but mild, magnificent, pro bono
publico, and full of good fruits; so that not a democrat, after
the strictest sect of St. Tammany, but bows the knee. Hail!
O King! His accomplished artists are preparing royal palaces
among the woods and fields, and on the hill-sides, painting the
mountains and arching the streams with glories copied from
the latest fashion of rainbows. His keen morning winds and
cool evening moons, assiduous servants, are dropping diamonds
upon the fading grass and tree-tops, and are driving in the
feathery tenants of his marshes, bays, and brakes. Thrice
happy land and water lord! See how they streak the early
sky, piercing the heavy clouds with the accurate wedge of
their marshalled cohorts, shouting pœans as they go—and how
they plunge into well-remembered waters, with an exalting
sound, drinking in rest and hearty breakfasts! These be seges
of herons, herds of cranes, droppings of sheldrakes, springs of
teals, trips of wigeons, coverts of cootes, gaggles of geese,
sutes of mallards, and badelynges of ducks; all of which the
profane and uninitiated, miserable herd, call flocks of fowl, not
knowing discrimination! Meadow and upland are made harmonious
and beautiful with congregations of plovers, flights
of doves, walks of snipes, exaltations of larks, coveys of partridges,
and bevies of quail.[10] For all these vouchsafed com
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forts may we be duly grateful! But chiefly, thou sun-burned,
frost-browned monarch, do we thank thee that thou especially
bringest to igorous maturity and swift strength, our own bird
of our heart, our family chicken, tetrao coturnix.
The quail is peculiarly a domestic bird, and is attached to
his birthplace, and the home of his forefathers. The various
members of the anatic families educate their children in the
cool summer of the far north, and bathe their warm bosoms in
July, in the iced-water of Hudson's Bay; but when Boreas
scatters the rushes where they builded their bedchambers,
they desert their fatherland, and fly to disport in the sunny
waters of the south. They are cosmopolites entirely, seeking
their fortunes with the sun. So, too, heavy-eyed, wise Master
Scolopax fixeth his place of abode, not among the hearths
and altars where his infancy was nurtured, but he goeth a
skaaping where best he may run his long bill into the mud,
tracking the warm brookside of juxta-capricornical latitudes.
The songsters of the woodland, when their customary crops
of insects and berries are cut off in the fall, gather themselves
together to renew their loves, and get married in more genial
climates. Even black-gowned Mr. Corvus,—otherwise called
Jim Crow,—in autumnal fasts contemplateth Australian carcases.
Presently, the groves so vocal, and the sky so full,
shall be silent and barren. The “melancholy days” will soon
be here. Only thou, dear Bob White—not of the Manhattan—
wilt remain. Thy cousin, tetrao umbellus,[11] will be not far off,
it is true; but he is mountainous and precipitous, and lives in
solitary places, courting rocky glens and craggy gorges, misandronist.
Where the secure deer crops the young mosses
of the mountain stream, and the bear steals wild honey, there
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drums the ruffed strutter on his ancient hemlock log. Ice
cools not his blood, nor the deep snow-drift, whence he,
startled, whirrs impetuous to the solemn pines, and his hiding
places of laurel and tangled rhododendron, laughing at cheated
dogs and wearied sportsmen. A bird to set traps for. Unfamiliar,
rough, rugged hermit. Dry meat. I like him not.
The quail is the bird for me. He is no rover, no emigrant.
He stays at home, and is identified with the soil. Where the
farmer works, he lives, and loves and whistles.[12] In budding
spring time, and in scorching summer—in bounteous autumn,
and in barren winter, his voice is heard from the same bushy
hedge fence, and from his customary cedars. Cupidity and
cruelty may drive him to the woods, and to seek more quiet
seats; but be merciful and kind to him, and he will visit your
barn-yard, and sing for you upon the boughs of the apple-tree
by your gate-way. But when warm May first woos the young
flowers to open and receive her breath, then begin the loves,
and jealousies, and duels of the heroes of the bevy. Duels,
too often, alas! bloody and fatal! for there liveth not an individual
of the gallinaceous order, braver, bolder, more enduring
than a cock quail, fighting for his ladye-love. Arms, too, he
wieldeth, such as give no vain blows, rightly used. His
mandible serves for other purposes than mere biting of
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grass-hoppers and picking up Indian corn. While the dire affray
rages, Miss Quailina looketh on, from her safe perch on a
limb, above the combatants, impartial spectatress, holding her
love under her left wing, patiently; and when the vanquished
craven finally bites the dust, descends and rewards the conquering
hero with her heart and hand.
Now begin the cares and responsibilities of wedded life.
Away fly the happy pair to seek some grassy tussock, where,
safe from the eye of the hawk, and the nose of the fox, they
may rear their expected brood in peace, provident, and not
doubting that their espousals will be blessed with a numerous
offspring. Oats harvest arrives, and the fields are waving
with yellow grain. Now, be wary, oh kind-hearted cradler,
and tread not into those pure white eggs ready to burst with
life! Soon there is a peeping sound heard, and lo! a proud
mother walketh magnificently in the midst of her children,
scratching and picking, and teaching them how to swallow.
Happy she, if she may be permitted to bring them up to maturity,
and uncompelled to renew her joys in another nest.
The assiduities of a mother have a beauty and a sacredness
about them that command respect and reverence in all animal
nature, human or inhuman—what a lie does that word carry—
except, perhaps, in monsters, insects, and fish. I never
yet heard of the parental tenderness of a trout, eating up his
little baby, nor of the filial gratitude of a spider, nipping the
life out of his gray-headed father, and usurping his web. But
if you would see the purest, the sincerest, the most affecting
piety of a parent's love, startle a young family of quails, and
watch the conduct of the mother. She will not leave you.
No, not she. But she will fall at your feet, uttering a noise
which none but a distressed mother can make, and she will
run, and flutter, and seem to try to be caught, and cheat your
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outstretched hand, and affect to be wing-broken, and wounded,
and yet have just strength to tumble along, until she has drawn
you, fatigued, a safe distance from her threatened children,
and the young hopes of her heart; and then will she mount,
whirring with glad strength, and away through the maze of
trees you have not seen before, like a close-shot bullet, fly to
her skulking infants. Listen now. Do you hear those three
half-plaintive notes, quickly and clearly poured out? She is
calling the boys and girls together. She sings not now “Bob
White!” nor “ah! Bob White!” That is her husband's lovecall,
or his trumpet-blast of defiance. But she calls sweetly
and softly for her lost children. Hear them “peep! peep!
peep!” at the welcome voice of their mother's love! They
are coming together. Soon the whole family will meet again.
It is a foul sin to disturb them; but retread your devious way,
and let her hear your coming footsteps, breaking down the
briars, as you renew the danger. She is quiet. Not a word
is passed between the fearful fugitives. Now, if you have the
heart to do it, lie low, keep still, and imitate the call of the
hen-quail. O, mother! mother! how your heart would die
if you could witness the deception! The little ones raise up
their trembling heads, and catch comfort and imagined safety
from the sound. “Peep! peep!” they come to you, straining
their little eyes, and clustering together, and answering, seem
to say, “Where is she! Mother! mother! we are here!”
I knew an Ethiopian once—he lives yet in a hovel, on the
brush plains of Matowacs—who called a whole bevy together
in that way. He first shot the parent bird; and when the
murderous villain had ranged them in close company, while
they were looking over each other's necks, and mingling their
doubts, and hopes, and distresses, in a little circle, he levelled
his cursed musket at their unhappy breasts, and butchered—
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“What! all my pretty ones! Did you say all?” He did;
and he lives yet! O, let me not meet that nigger six miles
north of Patchogue, in a place where the scrub oaks cover
with cavernous gloom a sudden precipice, at whose bottom
lies a deep lake, unknown but to the Kwaaek, and the lost
deer-hunter. For my soul's sake, let me not encounter him
in the grim ravines of the Callicoon, in Sullivan, where the
everlasting darkness of the hemlock forests would sanctify
virtuous murder!
My farther reflections on this subject, I will keep, for the
present, to myself.
The poor quail has to contend with many enemies. Not
only with Sir Reynard, who has a constitutional right to levy
tribute upon his race, and his several doubtfully-connected,
half-starved, brother quadrupedal thieves of the greenwood;
not only with the winged pirates of the sky, skimming and
sweeping up and down the waving billows of the yellow field,
with the quietness and speed of a sudden sun-ray; not only
with the horse-hair nooses of school-boy truants, and the figure-y
4 box-traps of vagabond hen-roost pilferers; not only
with the coarse cupidity of the market-man, who kills all to-day,
and cares not for to-morrow; not only with the mean,
falsely called, sportsman, who shoots in season and out of
season, and kills for numbers, and not for exercise, skill's
sake, and honor; but alas! alas! too often with the bleak and
heartless elements themselves! Who does not remember the
horrid snows of thirty-six, which filled all the valleys, and
raised rival mountains alongside of mountains! Then died the
race. The angry clouds at nightfall began to pour out their
wind and sleet, but the quail heart had not yet known to fear
the skies. Each fated bevy, calling in its straggling supper-hunters,
tracked its secure path to the bottom of its favorite
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cedar-bush; and there, upon the yet warm bed of oak leaves,
and thick matted spear grass, composed their chilled limbs in
the usual circle, and went to sleep. To sleep? ay, to sleep
forever! No morning came to them. No opportunity had they
to regret unsaid prayers. A late morning came to the world
above, and a cold sun shone on their shroud—their beautiful
shroud of snow! Almost “seven fathoms deep!” buried in
their winding-sheet! No resurrection for ye, poor birds!
Did they think it never would be light? Yes, they fell asleep
there in their beds, and died of too much covering! The
spring came, and the early ploughman dug up a furrow near
their wasted corses. There they lay, side by side, as they
committed themselves to sleep, undivided in death, as they
were beautiful and without reproach in life!
Beethoven must have written his exquisite song of the
“Quail,” after a hard winter. I never heard Catalani sing it,
but I will be sworn it is a solemn anthem.
The quail receives in many countries the most studious and
devout protection. In China they domesticate him, and train
him for the cock-pit. In some states on the continent of Europe
they almost worship him. The German has a beautiful
superstition, that his note expresses the words, “Furchten
Gott.”[13] England is too damp and smoky for him. He cannot
acclimate. The lord, who, by the assistance of his game-keeper,
has an oath made that he killed a quail, is gazetted
through the three kingdoms.
The quail is our bird—our own American bird. Shall
we not protect him and his household? If all the powers of
destruction are let loose to play upon him, how shall he be
saved? Even now, his fate seems to be inevitable, like the
Indians. But a few years since, he was a proud nation—a
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green bay tree, If we look not sharply, we soon may say,
“seges est, ubi Troja fuit.” That he is not now utterly annihilated,
and flying in the Elysian fields, with his relative,
tetrao cupido,[14] is owing to the good hearts of a very small
few of his former fellow-citizens, who snatched him from the
snow-bank, and housed, and fed him during the winter, and
gave him to liberty in the spring, and to some other few, who
sent to his people at the south, and renewed his presence in
the faces of his brethren. Even some of these, representatives
of a ruined nation, have been sacrificed in brutal moments,
to adorn the recking cellars of reckless paunch-providers,
and to furnish August—very August—suppers for raw
counter-jumpers, who have heard of his glory.
A few words, by way of application of the subject. The
legislature of the state of New-York, considering all the dangers
and necessities of one of the most worthy families of the
state, have, in no wretched spirit of monopoly, but in the true
spirit of “equal protection to all,” enacted a statue for his
preservation, and have taken the dear bird under their sheltering
wing. No man, nor boy, nor fool, may kill a quail except
between the twenty-fifth of October and the fifth of January,
nor compass, nor procure his death, nor have his murdered
corpse in his possession, out of the specified period, in
either of the humane counties of York, Kings, Queens, or
Westchester! O, Suffolk! how art thou disgraced, not being
named! Fiat lex! Tom Tucker and Jem Valentine, chief
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advocates, immortalized themselves! The partridge, too, and
Master Scolopax, in his season, have their passports. Beware
of the heavy penalty.
Finally, this matter recommendeth itself to the serious
attention of all transgressors. The sin hath already stung
divers poachers, and accessories, before and after the fact.
It hath been distinctly proved before a justice of the peace,
that eight times five make forty dollars. Just judgment!
Dear feed! Worse than sour grapes! The Marine Court
hath visited other transgressions with swift judgment. Even
men who have received presents of game from places where
it was lawfully killed, and where it might have been virtuously
manducated, have been sorely mulcted. They have
learned, too late, the awful fate of Hercules. They have
discovered, after they have been impregnated with the poison,
that they must know the giver before they accept a shirt.
They study Ovid, now, and have learned by heart—
“Dona det illa viro, mandat, capit inscius hero,”
and the whole of that chief case in point. Penitent sinners,
I weep for them! Doubt it, and touch the forbidden fruit if
ye dare, and say, “tell that to the marines!”
Lastly—true sportsmen ought to examine themselves, and
take care that they have no disposition for blood in the skirts
of their shooting-jackets, except in the allowed days of October,
November, and December. If the honorable and the
true-hearted submit to temptation, what can we expect from
the—other people.
To conclude; we are all called upon to be careful, and keep
our fore-finger on the trigger of our watchfulness. May I
not remind my fair readers that many a quail dies for them,
and that intempestive collineation hath been too often
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perpetrated for their dear sakes. Restrain, O, ye Helens! and
Joans! the ardor of your sacrificing worshippers. Let them
not kill too many. Six, now-a-days, are a sportsman's fortune.
Remember them of the base Jews, who gathered more quail than
were sufficient for immediate consumption, disobeying Moses,
and then rejected the rotting victims, and sighed for the flesh-pots
of Egyptian leeks and onions. And do thou, best Mary!
ever, when thou dippest a minute breast-piece, almost, into
the fading bubble of the sherry at my dexter, playfully, as
thou art wont, be sure thou ask me—“Love, was this bird
killed in season?”
eaf138v1.n10[10] Stow. Strippe. Hakewell.
eaf138v1.n11[11] The ruffed grouse, or partridge.
eaf138v1.n12[12] I am not unaware that Audubon describes the quail as migratory at the
west, and that he says the shores of the Ohio, in the fall, are covered with
“flocks.” Nor am I ignorant that Wilson says he has heard that the bird
is migratory in Nova Scotia. It may be so; but our quails are better
brought up. Nevertheless, I do not care to believe everything that students
of Linnæus and Buffon say, who talk of flocks of partridges, and mean
bevies of quail. By-the-by, what is the reason that the whole race of ornithologists
call the partidge tetrao, which is latin for a bustard and a wild
turkey. It is not the less to be admired that they call the quail perdix
Virginiana. If they had supped with Horace and Catullus, and all that
set, as Colonel Hawker and I have done— in the spirit—they would have
found out that the true title was coturnix.—Vide Hawker on Shooting.
eaf138v1.n13[13] “Fear God.” Let poachers think of this when they whistle.
eaf138v1.n14[14] The pinnated grouse, or heath-hen, formerly, alas! found on Long-Island;
but,—perhaps leading the way, for the quail,—now utterly extinct.
Doctor Samuel L. Mitchill foretold his annihilation in 1810. The
following is an extract from a letter of his to Wilson, which I doubt not
the old man wrote with tears in his eyes; “Their numbers are gradually
diminishing; and assailed as they are on all sides, almost without cessation,
their scarcity may be viewed as foreboding their eventual extermination.”
Oh! prophecy too sadly true!
Marietta, Pa., Nov. 13, 1840.
Mr. Editor; You of course know the importance of
truth—though you are an editor—and will therefore wish to
see any errors corrected which may have crept into your
pages; I accordingly make a few remarks upon the very good
article on “Quail” in your October number.
The writer proves himself entirely ignorant of ornithology,
by his blunders in nomenclature. Thus, he is writing about
the Perdix virginiana—Virginian partridge—and not about
the Perdix coturnix—European quail.—The first is a true
partridge, belonging to the same subgenus with the European
partridge, viz., Ortyx; whilst the quail belongs to the
subgenus Coturnix. In Pennsylvania and Southward, and in
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English books, our bird is called—and correctly—partidge.
To judge from Mr. C.'s remarks upon Coturnix, he believes
the same species to inhabit on both sides of the Atlantic,
which is not the fact. Both these birds differ again, from
the genus Tetrao, to two species of which he refers by their
proper names, viz., T. umbellus—ruffed, grouse—and T.
cupido—pinnated grouse. Though Mr. C. does “not care to
believe every thing the students of Linnæus and Buffon say,”
I think with all his Latin acquirements, he would have some
difficulty in determining to what birds now known to us, certain
names were applied by the Romans; for a reference to
a dictionary will not decide the question, so that there is
nothing gained by finding fault at this point. Mr. C., however,
has not even consulted his dictionary honestly, or mine
is a different edition, and contains the following definitions;
Tetrao, grouse; Perdix, partridge; Coturnix, quail; and
Otis, bustard; and naturalists do not use any of these in a
different sense. That the first is Latin for turkey may be
doubted, as the Romans would have been under the necessity
of visiting America to make their acquaintance.
Wilson, the pioneer of American Ornithology, committed
many errors in nomenclature which were then unavoidable;
but these have been corrected, long since, by Bonaparte, who
wrote a continuation of Wilson's work; so that there is no
excuse for the blunders of any one who writes on this—or
any other—subject, without first making himself acquainted
with it. Mr. C. alludes to Audubon, but I am certain he has
never consulted his works, or Bonaparte's or those of any
modern author since the time of Wilson, or he would not
have made the unwhiskered assertion that “the whole race
of ornithologists call the partridge tetrao. Possibly by partridge
he means grouse. This errour—as the New York
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Mirrour would say—reminds me of a somewhat similar, but
more aggravated case; that of an upstart who considered the
vernacular—and proper—name of our noble buttonwood tree
vulgar (!) and knowing no other English name—as plane
tree—called it a sycamore!! He might with equal propriety
have called it a cherry-tree. It is an excellent thing to
“call things by their right names.”
To insure an insertion in a sporting magazine, I must admit
that this letter is witten in sport, and the admission, I
hope, will prevent your correspondent from taking offence
and forcing me to take the field, for the liberty I have taken
with his very well written article.
H.
To the Editor of the “American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine”—
With no slight interest, dear Editor, have I, at various
times, and through the medium of most incongruous and oddly
chosen pages, perused the various lucubrations, on sundry
sporting matters, of our friend Cypress. Nor has it not been
most apparent to me, that our said friend doth entertain strange
fancies, most heretical, unauthorized, and wild, concerning
the nomenclature, whether in the vernacular or in the learned
tongues, of the winged game of the United States; nor
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heretofore has this opinion been concealed from the delinquent.
It is not, therefore, to uphold J. Cypress, Jr., that I address
you now, but rather—while admitting all his errors, as pointed
out in your December number, under the head of Corrigenda,—
to add my mite of information on the subject, and to show
that in some cases his corrector is perhaps scarcely less erroneous.
The errors of Cypress are for the most part contained in a
note, wherein he erroneously and somewhat flippantly attacks
the Latin nomenclatures of the birds, which we usually designate
game, of the gallinaceous order. His attack, though
somewhat desultory, is directed principally to two points—in
both of which we humbly think he errs. First, he objects to
the statement of Audubon and Wilson that the quail is migratory,
and to the use of the word “flocks,” in speaking of this
migratory habit. Secondly, he insinuates an objection to the
use of the word “partridge,” as applied to the American quail.
And thirdly, he charges all these faults to the score of the
whole race of ornithologists, who, he says, have given the
name Tetrao, “which means a bustard or wild turkey,” to the
partridge, and who have called the American quail perdix virginiana,
whereas they would have found, under certain contingencies,
that the true appellation is coturnix.
Now in all this, except in his condemning the southern application
of the word “partridge” to the American quail, he is
clearly wrong.
For as to the word “Flocks,” it is correctly used—and the
word “bevies,” which he would substitute, would in the sense
of the context be manifestly incorrect. A bevy of quail is,
so many as are hatched of one pair in the course of one season,
remaining under the guardianship of the old birds, and
unmixed with any other bevy. When two or three bevies join
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together—as is not uncommonly the case late in the season,
particularly in wild and windy weather—the united bevies constitute
a “flock!” The same habit is observed in the English
partidge, Tetrao Scoticus; and in the Red Grouse of the British
isles Tetrao Scoticus; and in both of these the habit of so joining
covies or broods is properly termed packing; and the united
covies designated as packs. The man who would call three
hundred brace of moorfowl on the wing together, which glorious
sight I have seen both in Cumberland and Fifeshire, a
covey, would be voted a tailor on a very large scale, indeed—
and I think the wight who should apply the term bevy to a
similar or larger company of quail—and they do migrate unquestionably
in larger bodies than that—would have some difficulty
in avoiding the same inculpatory title.
With regard to his Latinity, Cypress is yet more widely
out—“Tetrao” does not mean, nor ever did, either bustard or
wild turkey—the ornithological and classical name for the
bustard being “otis,” as your correspondent H. has justly remarked—
while that for the wild turkey would by analogy, be
“meleagris fera,” or “sylvestris,”—the word meleagris being
the term adapted to the turkey from some unknown bird—probably
the guinea fowl—mentioned by classical writers.
To what bird the word Tetrao in Latin, in Greek,
was originally applied, it is not easy now to discover; it was,
however, of the gallinaceous order, and obtained its name
from four wattles, which it is described as having possessed,
bare of feathers. This word Tetrao has been applied—and,
as it seems to me, very judiciously—to gallinaceous game in
general, from the great Capercali of Northern, down to the
minute quail of Southern Europe, by Linnæus. The generic
differences are expressed by the second noun attached, as
Tetrao perdix—the English partridge—Tetrao Rufus, the red
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legged partridge—Tetrao coturnix, the quail, &c., &c., ad infinitum.
So that Cypress is, in fact, entirely in error with regard
to the alleged misapplication of both terms; and is clearly
wrong in his Latinity. If, moreover, there be an error in the
name perdix virginiana, it is attributable, not to the whole race
of naturalists, but merely to those naturalists who have created
a new name for a new bird.
Now in my humble opinion, Corrector is no less in error—
as I shall endeavor to show—in his corrigenda. “Thus”—
he says—“he—Cypress—is writing about the perdix Virginiana,
Virginian partridge, and not about the Perdix Coturnix,
European quail. The first is a true partridge, belonging to
the same subgenus with the European, viz. ortyx; whilst the
quail belongs to the subgenus coturnix. In Pennsylvania and
southward, and in English books, our bird is called—and correctly—
partridge.”
Now the gist of all this amounts to a simple assertion that
the American bird belongs to a different genus from the English
quail, and is a partridge. Now this I am satisfied is an
error. From what book your correspondent H. draws his
nomenclature I have not been able to discover; but from
whatsoever, it is not a distinct, or, in my opinion, correct
one. In no book that I have or can refer to, is the European
partridge—English partridge?—classed as ortyx—nor the
quail as Perdix—but both are generally classed as Tetrao, with
the definitions perdix and coturnix. Such is the nomenclature
of Linnæus, Buffon, and Bewick—the last decidedly the
best British ornithologist. The subgeneric nomenclatures alluded
to by your correspondent H. have no foundation in classical
propriety, ortyx being merely the Greek——and coturnix
the Latin for Quail. So that as an appellation intended
to convey a distinction, the new term ortyx, as opposed to co
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turnix, is absurdly ill chosen—being a distinction without a
difference!—With regard to habits, the American bird is infinitely
more similar to the quail than to the partridge; whether
English or red-legged. The partridge is a bolder bird,
stronger, and freer of wing, less apt to skulk, or run before
dogs—and never perching, even on rails, much less on trees
or bushes—and rarely flying to any woody covert. The European
quail skulks, and runs, almost precisely as its American
congener, flies, immediately on its being roused, to the
nearest brake or thicket, and is with great difficulty flushed a
second time; it likewise occasionally, though not often
perches on low shrubs. It is, moreover, migratory, which
the partridge is not, and which the American quail most certainly
is, as I can testify from my own observation; while in
size, general appearance, character of plumage, and cry, it is
much more nearly connected with the English quail, than with
any partridge existing.
In my opinion, therefore—and I am satisfied that facts will
bear out my opinion—the Perdix Virginiana is not a true
partridge—and is not correctly termed a partridge in Pennsylvania
and southward—any more than the ruffed grouse—Tetrao
umbellus—is correctly termed a pheasant in the same regions.
The English books, to which your correspondent refers,
are probably books of travels, using the term in describing
the bird which the authors have heard applied to it here—
for we are aware of no English ornithological work of authority
describing the birds of America. As to whether the
nomenclature Perdix virginiana be correctly deduced or not,
is a different question; and bears nothing on the point at issue.
I should rather prefer myself to designate it as Tetrao
coturnix; varietas Virginiana; or more simply Tetrao Virginianus;
but so that it is made evident what bird is meant,
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and to what genus, and species, and order, it belongs, the mere
name matters little.
Of the Partridge there are but two varieties in Europe—or,
as far as known, in Africa—the grey, or English, and the red-legged;
and both these are by Linnæus styled Tetrao—the
one perdix, the other rufus. The term ortyx is not used by
him, and is—as I have shown above—an absurd term to use
in opposition to coturnix, as distinguishing partridge from
quail.
The truth is, that in the common phraseology of this country
the nomenclature of game has been sadly confused; by
the fact that the original settlers named the birds they found
here, after fancied similitudes to the birds they remembered
at home; and that their errors have been handed down from
age to age, till they are now almost ineradicable. Hence the
quail is called a partridge in the South—while no less erroneously
the ruffed grouse is termed a partridge in the Eastern
and Middle, and a pheasant in the Southern States; and will
so be termed till the world's end by all but book-read ornithologists,
students of Buffon and Linnæus, at whom J. Cypress,
Jr.—commend me to him when you meet—sneers so unmercifully
and, me judice, unwisely.
Thine to command,
Frank Forester.
To the Editor of the “American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine.”—
My Dear Turf: I perceive that some, doubtless, very
clever gentleman has been doing the amiable for me, in the
Irish fashion, in the sod you have just cut out and registered.
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He is pleased to assure you that the unpretending author of a
few observations concerning quail, copied by your Magazine
from a publication made some years since, “proves himself
entirely ignorant of ornithology, by his bluuders in nomenclature.”
He sneers at “all his Latin acquirements,” and charges
that “he has not even consulted his dictionary honestly.”
But, worse and worse, he insists that although Mr. C. alludes
to Audubon, yet that he—the aforesaid clever gentleman—is
certain that Mr. C. “has never consulted his works, nor Bonaparte's
nor those of any modern author since the time of Wilson,
or he would not have made the unwhiskered! assertion that the
whole race of ornithologists call the partridge `TETRAO.' ” Then
follows some fun about the New-York Mirror, which I do not
understand. General Morris can take care of himself. Perhaps
he had better order out one of his regiments, and plant
a park of artillery before his office, for his better defence.
Though, on second thought, the admission made in the last
paragraph of the “Corrigenda” we are referring to, that the
“article is written in sport,” may induce composure and confidence
among the office imps, and there will be no necessity
for extra Cannon.
But as to myself. Permit me to defend variously. I desire
to take issue on part of the charges against me. I want
to confess in part, and let part go by default; or give a cognovit
for the amount of damages. I admit that my assertion
was “unwhiskered.” I admit it with grief. I ask leave to
amend—as the lawyers say—“on payment of costs;” and I
will presently re-present the assertion full “whiskered,” if
my learned commentator will have it so, with the mature hair
of judgment of ornithologists who, now, have no more books
to sell.
Next as to my “utter ignorance of ornithology,” and my
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“blunders in nomenclature,” I plead not guilty. I, at the
same time, admit that I am no professed bird-philosopher, nor
herald of the honors, orders, distinctions, and relationships of
the feathered race, But I have long known many of them, intimately,
and loved them with the love of a sportsman, and a
lover of nature; and have read the history of them and their
kin in many books, and have talked to them, and heard them
talk, and I know what names to call them, and if I “blunder,”
I know where to go to get corrected; and if I hear some
other devotee—even though he be a master—miscall them,
I have assurance enough, when I can prove it, to point out
his kakology. I am no carpenter, yet I live in a house. I
have written no book, yet I have read some, and consulted
many. Shall I be enjoined from the expression of my opinion
as to the construction of either, because I have not builded
nor written? I shall insist, on this head, under my forthcoming
proofs, that I am not “utterly ignorant,” &c., but, at
the very furthest, only very considerably “ignorant.”
Next, as to the insinuation about my “Latin acquirements,”
which, I suppose, of course is intended to signify want of
them; if it will do Mr. H. any good, he may take judgment
against me by default.
Touching the last grave charge, that I have not “consulted”
either Audubon or Bonaparte, I am bound to take
issue; for this accusation, if true, involves me in the crime of
a falsehood—a falsehood that could have been concocted only
by the most barefaced affectation of knowledge, and the most
extraordinary good luck of a rambling fancy. I will consider
this matter further, presently; when I will also endeavor to
prove that I have consulted my “dictionary honestly.” Mean
time, I will persist in declaring that although the hard necessities
of impecuniosity have denied to me the delight of
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enshrining Audubon among my household divinities—he being
a dear God,—yet I have “consulted” him, where I have consulted
Pliny, Linnæus, Buffon, and other gentlemen, whose
company Mr. “H.” need not stick up his nose at, in a place
which it is not necessary Mr. H. should know. Nevertheless,
my good Turf, if your etymological-fact-hunting correspondent,
who delicately intimates to you, that you “of course
know the importance of truth—although you are an Editor,”—
has the control of any extra copies of Mr. Audubon, not immediately
called for, and will leave a set for me at your office, I
will promise to study as well as “consult” him, and will give
up, or lease, grant, bargain, sell, assign, transfer, and set over
to him, all my right and title to call Quail “Coturnix,” to
have and to hold to him and his heirs forever.
But let us look into the case, and the evidence of my alleged
guilt. In the spirit of a modest sportsman, who does
not pretend to talk to Princes of bird craft, I wrote some time
since, some humble, melancholy, “Observations Concerning
Quail,” not to exalt my reputation as a naturalist, but to plead
to the sympathies of the true sportsman, and to notify the
poachers of the terrors of the new law most mercifully passed
by our Legislature, for the protection and salvation of my
sweetheart's favorite bird. I was indiscreet enough to add
to my discourse a note in the following words, to wit:
I am not unaware that Audubon describes the quail as migratory at the
West, and that he says the shores of the Ohio, in the Fall, are covered
with “flocks.” Nor am I ignorant that Wilson says he has heard that the
bird is migratory in Nova Scotia. It may be so; but our quails are better
brought up. Nevertheless, I do not care to believe everything that students
of Linnæus and Buffon say, who talk of flocks of partridges, and
mean bevies of quail. By-the-by, what is the reason that the whole race
of ornithologists call the partridge tetrao? which is latin for a bustard and
a wild turkey. It is not the less to be admired that they call the quail
perdix Virginiana. If they had supped with Horace and Catullus, and all
that set, as Colonel Hawker and I have done—in the spirit—they would
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have found out that the true title was colurnix.—[Vide Hawker on
Shooting.]
Hinc illœ lachrymœ! Hence the ululation of Mr. H., and
his “Corrigenda.”
Now let us dissect the note.
I. Cypress.—“I am not unaware that Audubon describes
the quail as migratory at the West, and that he says that the
shores of the Ohio, in the Fall, are covered with FLOCKS.
Flocks!
Mr. H.—commenting.—Mr. C. alludes to Audubon, but I
am certain he has never consulted his works.
Permit me to ask, then—if Mr. H. be correct,—how I
found out that Audubon called bevies of quail “flocks of
partridge.” Yet he does do so, and commits a high and
heavy sin. Even admitting that he may be right in calling
them “partridges,” he had no authority to speak of their
“greges,” but as “covies.” It is unpardonable in a naturalist
to talk of “flocks of partridges.” He does also say that the
quail is migratory at the West. Did I dream these two distinct
facts? Is this the way “Mr. H.” writes “in sport?”
Or must I, by silence submit to an imputation of pedantry
and falsehood? Or is it because I casually alluded to the
fault of Audubon—which he copied from Wilson—that his
friend writes so fiercely “in sport.”
II. My next sentence refers to the fact that Wilson said he
had heard the “Partridge or Quail,” as he calls it, was migratory
in Nova Scotia. Wilson is not to be blamed, for he
refers only to hearsay as to the travelling story; and for aught
I know, he is correct. Quails have different habits in different
countries. But Mr. H., doubtless, thinks him in error
because he calls the bird quail or partridge. Hence he gives
a fling at him, for “many errors,” all of which, he assures us,
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were long since corrected by Bonaparte, &c.—For Bonaparte,
read Audubon. Bonaparte was more distinguished for his
addenda than for his “Corrigenda” of his master's works.—
As to the attempt to make Wilson, of whom Audubon is evidently
a liberal borrower, responsible for all the errors of
previous nomenclators, I can but smile. I cannot be guilty
of assuming to defend that eloquent pioneer poet of the woods,
swamps, bays and fields, from a pirate shot. I would sooner
deliver a lecture to prove that the sun gave light and warmed
animal creation into existence and maturity.
III. Cypress.—“Nevertheless, I do not care to believe
every thing which the students of Linnæus and Buffon say,
who talk of `flocks of partridges' and mean `bevies of quail.' ”
Mr. H.—Though Mr. C. does not care to believe all that
the students of Linnæus and Buffon say, I think,” &c.
Mr. H.! Mr. H.! is that fair, “in sport,” or in earnest, to
tear my sentence apart, and smother my distinction between
those students of Linnæus and Buffon who do talk of “flocks
of partridges,” and those who do not? Nimrod, and all the
Dii Minores forbid! that I should be convicted of disrepect
to the true students of good masters. I only spoke of the
boys who forgot some part of their lesson, and, with confident
ability, trusted to their own manufacture, or to doubtful authority.
Need I answer a charge of “scandalum magnatum”
before it is proved?
IV. Cypress.—“By-the-by, what is the reason that the
whole race of ornithologists call the partridge “tetrao,” which
is Latin for a bustard and a wild turkey?”
Mr. H.—“Unwhiskered assertion.”—Again; “Mr. C.,
however, has not even consulted his dictionary, honestly, or
mine is a different edition, and contains the following definitions;
Tetrao, Grouse; Perdix, Partridge; Coturnix, Quail;
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and Otis, Bustard;” and “naturalists do not use any of them
in a different sense”
In answer to all this, I shall simply quote authorities. My
dictionaries certainly ARE of a different edition from those of
“Mr. H.” as he suggests.
There was, in old times, a man named Pliny, who, on account
of his knowing all the wonders and varieties of nature,
was called “the Naturalist.” He was almost next to Solomon,
the beginner of bird biographies.
This author, not unknown to fame, distinctly used the word
“tetrao” for a “bustard,” or bistard.[15] See him for the fact,
and Ainsworth, also, who, in the Dictionary line, has always
been considered a very respectable person. If the two last
named people don't know what is Latin for a “bustard,” I am
at a loss to know who does.
Ainsworth, moreover, calls “Otis” a sort of owl, quoting in
illustration the remarkable phrase “Quas Hispania aves tardos
appellat,” from Pliny aforesaid—“aves tardos”—slow
birds! Now we very well know that the owl is a slow bird,
and that the Bustard is a brisk one. In proof of the latter
fact read from any author who lives where the Bustard runs,
how difficult a bird he is to get a shot at.—It is no more than
fair to admit, however, that Ainsworth also calls the Bustard
“Buteo.” That, nevertheless, is only a synonyme.—
Again; Kenrick, in his substantial well-reputed dictionary
of 1783, defines Bustard—F. bistardo—Wild Turkey.
The learned Dr. Adam Littleton, in his quarto Latin Dictionary
of 1723, defines a bustard Otis—tarda—TETRAO!—
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bustardus—asio. In another place he distinctly translates
“Tetrao” a bustard, or bistardo.
Dr. Johnson also renders “Bustard” Turkey, quoting old
Hakewill.[16]
I trust, therefore, that I am not entirely without authority
for my intimation that “Tetrao” is one of the synonymical
words for “wild turkey or bustard.” I shall not pretend to
show that the old Romans ever knew the wild turkey, though
it is hard to tell what “Gallus Africanus—avis turcica vel
Afra” was—called, also, by Ainsworth, gallus Numidianus,—
which those splendid epicures used to send for to Africa.
It cost Pennant, in his British Zoology, some pains to prove
that the Romans knew not Turkey. It is enough for me to
know upon the authority of a shrewd writer in Rees, that
turkeys were brought into England by the way of Spain,
from Mexico and Yucatan, so early as the year 1524, since
which time the whole race of modern ornithologists have
written. They did not begin to publish their studies, and
proposed divisions, until about the middle of the eighteenth
century. The application of the Latin word Tetrao to Turkey
may have been made immediately upon the introduction
of the bird to the Eastorn Continent, and so have justified the
subsequent lexicographers whom I have quoted, in their
definitions. It does not amount to much to refer to the fact,
that the prevailing impression is, that the old Romans fed not
on turkey, for with the same sort of triumph I might refer to the
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fact that there is no evidence of their knowledge of any sort
of grouse, unless, indeed, partridge, and quail are to be referred
to that genus, and for these they had distinct names,
viz. Perdix and Coturnix. Linnæus, in 1740 or thereabouts,
does so refer to them, and in the mention of the quail in what
he esteems its proper place, calls our quail Tetrao Virginianus.
He, however, finds another species in Maryland, adjoining,—
which is, nevertheless, precisely the same bird,—
and ushers it to the world under the title of Tetrao Marilandus.
But this reference to Quail again reminds me that I am
trespassing upon your pages, and that the subject is a dry
one. I come now to a conclusion.
V.—“It is not the less to be admired that they call the
quail Perdix Virginiana,” says Cypress, finally, in his
note.
And so they do. Latham begins the nomenclature, leaving
out the Tetrao of Linnæus, and substituting perdix. Yes, Mr.
Turf, that is the fact, according to those learned cognoscents.
We leap out with our dogs, and do some moderate work
among a few bevies, as we call them, of what we also call
Quail, but when we come home, we are told that the quail
does not live in this country—that we have only tumbled
Virginian partridges—Perdix Virginiana! So says Mr.
Audubon. What then? Have we no quail in this country?
Suppose we shoot in Maryland, is our game, then, the Virginian
Partridge! Latham says no; they are the Maryland
Partridge? What shall we call our bird in New York, Jersey,
and the New England States? Perdix Neo-Eboracensis?
Perdix Nova-Cæsariensis? Perdix Nova-Brittanicus!—
A fico for these affectations. Why do not ornithologists
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agree upon standard names to put at the head of their genus?[17]
And what is more natural than that they should, in a case
like this, take the long, well-settled, and established word
Coturnix for the name of the genus of the tribe, and then let
the different species come in with their tributes of honor and
respect? Yet Latham, Audubon, and others, have utterly
stricken Coturnix from existence, so far as the country is concerned.
But enough. I forbear. I had not aspired to pull down,
or even to amend the system as established, but have merely
made a passing comment upon it, in one or two particulars.
The strictures of Mr. H. have compelled me to defend
myself from the charge of entire ignorance, want of honesty,
and constructive falsehood. Having thus the opportunity
before me, I will assure Mr. H. that there is no authority of
modern date, however potential, that will induce us sportsmen
and farmers of the North to give up the name of “quail.”
When our New England forefathers first arrived in this
country, some of them wrote back the most glowing accounts
of their new home, and among other game enumerated
“Quailes,” appearing to observe no difference between
those they found here and those they had left behind in England.
† Quails all over the world belong to the same genus.
The quail of Cuba, which I have seen on its native island, is a
bright various plumage-colored bird, painted as it were, with
almost all the colors of the rainbow. But this is only his
style of dress in the West Indian seas. The partridge—all
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animals there are gorgeously apparrelled. Still he is Coturnix.
Such is his every day Spanish name. The same is
the case with Perdix. Permit me, then, to stand by the
universal coturnix.—Good morning.
J. C., Jr.
eaf138v1.n15[15] Mr. Hawes is in error here.—Pliny uses the word Tetrao for Grouse;
Ainsworth the lexicographer who was no ornithologist, confounded the
bustard with the grouse, practically knowing neither.—Editor's note.
eaf138v1.n16[16] Otis, , is the Latin and Greek word for Bustard—see Xenophon's
Anabasis. The bustard, though swift on foot, is absurdly slow on
the wing. The rendering Butco, bustard, is another ridiculous blunder,
of the lexicographer, Butco, is latin for Buzzard, a species of hawk or kite.
Dr. Johnson's rendering of bustard—wild turkey—is another absurd lexicographer's
blunder, the birds being no more alike or congeners, than the
owl and game cock. The Latin for Turkey is Mcleagris—Editor's note.
eaf138v1.n17[17] The confusion and uncertainty produced by the affectation and vanity
of ornithologists appear well illustrated even in the Rev. Gilbert White
in his History of Selbourne. He speaks of “the little American partridge,
the Ortix borealis of Naturalists,” Pray, what is that? Ortyx is Latin
for a plantain.
eaf138v1.dag3† Vide Hazard's State Papers.
The communications of Messrs. Forester and Cypress Jr.,
have recalled my attention to the nomenclature of the partridges;
and as their views do not appear to me to be correct,
and as I have myself committed an error, I think a few farther
remarks may not be amiss, premising that I had the use
of a good library at hand when I penned the former article,
and can make no reference except to my own on this occasion.
On account of their being standard modern works, I
shall make use of the following, and the synonymes therein
cited;—
1. Jardine's Natural History of Game Birds.—
Edinburgh: 1834.
2. Jenyn's Manual of British Vertebrate Animals.[18]—
Cambridge and London: 1835.
3. Audubon's Synopsis of the Birds of North America.—
Edinburgh: 1839.
4. Nuttall's Ornithology of the United States and Canada.—
Boston: 1840.
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Linnæus, although a great naturalist, and the father of zoological
nomenclature, had a very imperfect conception of what
constitutes a genus. Thus, besides including the brown,
black, and white bears in the genus Ursus, he named our
raccoon Ursus lotor although it is not a bear. It is now called
Procyon lotor a new generic name being given to it, to which
the old specific name has been added. The genus Tetrao of
Linnæus is restricted to the grouse, and a more recent division
separates the ptarmigans under the name Lagopus, generally
considered a subgenus of the former. I will take the fox as
an illustration of a subgenus. The Linnæan genus Canis includes
the foxes, the European species being the Canis vulpes.
But the foxes are not considered to differ sufficiently from the
dogs to entitle them to a distinct generic appellation; hence
they are placed in the subgenus Vulpes, being distinguished
by the pointed muzzle, bushy tail, and especially by having a
long narrow pupil, which in the dogs, is circular. Now if
we call the foxes Vulpes, we cannot call the European species
Vulpes vulpes, but must invent a new specific name, hence this
animal is termed Vulpes vulgaris but it is a rule that no specific
name can be changed unless a change like this occurs. Linn
æus named the only North American bird of the partridge
family Tetrao Virginianus; when the genus Perdix was instituted,
it became Perdix Virginianus, and now that a more minute—
or subgeneric—distinction is thought necessary, it becomes
an Ortyx. Those who do not admit the last division
continue to call the genus Perdix; and it would be just as absurd
to call a raccoon and a badger Ursus as this bird Tetrao.
If it is proper for those ornithologists who do not admit the
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subgenera Perdix, Ortyx, Coturnix, and Lophortix—Californian
partridges with plumed heads,—to name all these Perdix,
it is certainly not improper to term the Ortyges partridges, for
although the quail of Europe may be considered a kind of partridge,
no partridge or Ortyx can be considered a kind of
quail. Mr. Forester is right, and I am wrong, with respect
to the subgenus of the European partridges, which belong to
the subgenus Perdix, or partridge proper; whence the parttridge,
quail, and American bird, belong to three[19] distinct subgenera,
our bird being as far removed as ever from any species
of quail, of which there are many. Mr. Forester objects
to the term Ortyx, but it cannot be changed, as being the first
proposed for the section to which it is attached; and it was
chosen because it was easier to adopt, than to invent a new
name. The Turkey genus is called by a Latin name for the
same reason.
“The English books” to which I referred in part, are those
whose titles stand above. Jardine calls our bird “The Virginian
quail or partridge,—following Wilson, of whose work
he edited an English edition,—whilst Jenyn terms it “Virginian
partridge.” Latham makes three species of it, viz:
“the Virginian, Maryland, and Mexican partridge,” the last
being the young, according to Nuttall. Shaw calls it “Northern
Colin,” this term meaning “a bird of the partridge kind.”—
[Webster.] Were the bird a quail, Shaw would have said
so, being well acquainted with the quails. It is also the
“American partridge or quail” of Nuttall.
I inferred that Mr. Cypress Jr. had not read the modern
authors on our ornithology, because he says the partridge is
called Tetrao, and I think my inference a fair one.
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However, as the gentleman takes issue on this point, I explain
the matter by supposing that he means grouse—Tetrao—when
he writes “partridge.” Audubon, in his Synopsis, calls the
ruffed grouse “Partridge Pheasant,” although he refers to it
as being described under the name of ruffed grouse in his
fifth volume, the name given it by Wilson, Nuttall, Richardson,
Swainson, and Jardine. I could not “dream” that a
writer could have consulted any of these authorities, and afterwards
term a grouse “partridge.”
Mr. C. has fully succeeded in placing his errors in definition
upon certain lexicographers, but these gentry know as
little as any of us to what particular animals, plants, or minerals,
the ancients attached certain names. You might puzzle
a bishop, by showing him a mineral, and requesting to know
whether it is the — of the Bible. Cuvier has done
more, perhaps, than any lexicographer, to clear up the confusion
existing in the definition of these names. He first informed
us, for instance to what bird now known the name
Ibis was applied. Birds must be known before they can be
named, and lexicographers are not famous for their acquaintance
with this subject. Natural history Latin may be bad
enough, but depend upon it, Mr. Cypress, “Law Latin” is
equally defective.
The “errors of Wilson” are those of nomenclature, and
they were unavoidable, as I have already remarked. I made
no allusion to his vulgar names, having referred to his systematic
nomenclature alone, wherein he occasionally adds a
new name to a species which had been named previously.
It was not Audubon, but Bonaparte, who rectified these errors;
and we are indebted to him moreover, for a continuation
of Wilson in four volumes, containing the most elaborately
finished plates of birds ever engraved. Mr. C. must
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not infer that I undervalue the labors of Wilson, because I
make a casual allusion to his errors. As an observer, as an
ornithologist, he stands much above his successors, and we
owe him our gratitude for his labors in clearing the subject of
the rubbish with which it was encumbered. Wilson is the
last man at whom I would presume to “fling a pirate shot,”
and I recently read with the greatest pleasure, the refutation
of a charge of plagiarism preferred against him by Mons. Audubon.
I may add that I felt this stroke of Mr. C. much more
than any other in the same article.
Cypress Jr. alludes to the Maryland partridge of Latham,
and wishes to know whether the bird might not be called
Perdix Noveboracensis if found in New York? By no means.
Latham thought he was describing different species, it being
a rather common occurrence for an ornithologist to mistake a
female, or young, or birds in different plumage, for distinct species.
In such cases the earliest name must stand, and the later
and incorrect ones are cancelled the moment it is discovered
that the supposed new species has—or have—no existence.
“Latham, Audubon, and others, have wholly stricken Coturnix
from existence, so far as this country is concerned,”
because not a single species is found here, as I have endeavored
to show. Jardine—who elevates Ortyx and Cortunix
to the rank of genera—says—
“The genus Ortyx was formed by Stevens, the continuator of Shaw's
General Zoology, for the reception of the thick and strong-billed partridges
of the new world.” “The Quails, forming the genus Coturnix of moderns,
are at first sight so similar to the partridges, that they are not to be
distinguished without a knowledge of their habits, and examination of their
forms. In the bill and legs there are slight modifications, but the form of
the wing is quite different, the first three quills being longest [and the third
and fourth in Ortyx: Nutt.] and a rounded wing of less power is the consequence.
It may be recollected that, though the partridges were said to
migrate in some countries, the migration is comparatively very partial,
and often only from one part of a continent to another; on the other hand,
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almost all the quails migrate to a certain distance, and hence perform
lengthened journeys, often across the seas. In their habits they also show
considerable difference, as they never perch.”
Our bird does perch, however; ergo, it is not a quail.
Taking English names as the standard, we certainly make
ourselves ridiculous in applying them to our birds. Thus we
call vultures, buzzard and crow; a thrush, robin—the English
blackbird is a thrush;—a buzzard, hawk; and more locally,
a grouse, partridge; an ortyx, quail; and a perch, salmon!
Should a State Legislature make it penal to kill, “pheasants,
partridges, and quails,” I would not hesitate to incur a
suit, as I could prove that these families are not in America.
For my own part I like this confusion, and should like to see
it ten times greater, as it would tend to throw the vulgar names
into disrepute. I go so far as to erase the English names from
the plates of my works of natural history. I believe I have
stated all the facts of the case, and leave it with the reader to
decide with what propriety he has hitherto applied certain
English names to the Ortyx Virginiana and Tetrao Umbellus.
H.
eaf138v1.n18[18] Mr. Forester asserts that Bewick is “decidedly the best British ornithologist.”
Bewick's is certainly a good book, but there are better works
devoted exclusively to British birds; as those of Selby, Yarrel, and Macgillivray,
the two last beautifully illustrated with woodcuts. Sir Wm.
Jardine's work on the same subject is not all published.
eaf138v1.n19[19] Originally printed those in the Turf
Register. See p. 141.
PERDIX—COTURNIX—ORTYX.
To the Editor of the “American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine”—
Dear Editor:—Having read with some interest a communication
headed “All in the wrong,” from your correspondent
H., of Marietta, I presume,—such at least was the date
of his article, published in your December number—but not
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perceiving that he has shown that I am either all, or at all, in
the wrong, I wish to have one last word in the question.
You will of course remember that this controversy arose
from the fact of H. having put forth an article, entitled “Corrigenda,”
in your December number, containing strictures on
a very beautifully written, sportive, and humorous paper in
your number for October—“Some Observations Concerning
Quail”—by J. Cypress, Jr. This paper was evidently written
as a jeu d'esprit, laying no pretension to ornithological research,
or superior wisdom—but was clearly the production
of the leisure moments of a sportsman, scholar, and gentleman—
wherein, inter alia, he laughed at ornithologists for calling
“bevies of quail, flocks of partridge.”
On this paper—my object is briefly to place before your
readers the disjecta membra of the whole discussion—on this
paper H. discourses thus;—
“The writer proves himself entirely ignorant of ornithology, by his blunders
in nomenclature. Thus he is writing about the Perdix Virginiana
—
Virginian Partridge,—and not about the Perdix Coturnix—European
quail.—The first is a true partridge belonging to the same genus with the
European partridge, viz., ortyx; whilst the quail belongs to the subgenus
coturnix. In Pennsylvania and Southward, and in English books, our bird
is called—and correctly—partridge.”
In reply to this, I—Frank Forester—observed in your January
number, as follows, immediately after quoting the above
extract;—
“Now the gist of all this amounts to a single assertion that the American
bird belongs to a different genus from the English Quail, and is a partridge.
Now this I am satisfied is an error.”
I proceed to state that “as I can testify from my own observation,
the American bird is, in size, general appearance,
character of plumage, and cry, much more nearly connected
with the English quail than with any partridge existing.”
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Thirdly I said—“and I am satisfied that facts will bear out
my opinion—that the Perdix Virginiana is not a true partridge
—
and is not correctly termed a partridge in Pennsylvania, any
more than the ruffed grouse—Tetrao umbellus—is correctly
termed a pheasant in the same regions.”
Lastly I said “that the term ortyx is an absurd term to use
in opposition to coturnix, as distinguishing partridge from
quail”—because ortyx——is the Greek, and Coturnix the
Latin, name for the European quail.”
Now though in his article in your February number H.
says that their—i. e. mine and Cypress's—views do not appear
to him correct, I wish to point out to you that so far from
confuting one of my positions, he has confirmed them all; and
entirely changed his own ground.
In his first December paper he asserts—“that the American
bird, Perdix virginiana, is a true partridge, belonging to
the same subgenus with the European partridge, viz., ortyx.”
To this I responded not that the American bird is a quail—
But “that it is not a true partridge—nor of the same subgenus
with the European partridge—and farther that the word ortyx
would be an absurd term as distinctive between partridge and
quail.”
Now hear H. in his present paper—February No. p. 111—
“Mr. Forester is right and I am wrong with regard to the
subgenus of the European partridges, which belong to the subgenus
perdix, or partridge proper!!”
Again he says—“Linnæus named the only North American
bird of the family Tetrao; when the genus perdix was instituted
it became Perdix virginianus!, and now that a more
minute—or subgeneric—distinction is thought necessary, it
becomes an ortyx!”
Ergo! by his own showing, the American bird is not, as
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he asserted, and I denied, of the same subgenus with the European
partridge; nor a perdix—which he defines Partridge
proper! and I defined true partridge!—at all.
So far, then, H. has left his position, and come over to
mine!
In the next place I asserted that ortyx— in Greek—
was an absurd word to use as a distinctive term between the
quail and partridge. H. having asserted that the European
partridge and American quail—so called commonly—are ortyges;
and the European quail a coturnix!
And the reason which I gave was, that the words and
coturnix are the same term, meaning the same thing in two
languages.
H. now admits that the new word ortyx is a term invented
not to distinguish the quail from the partridge, but to distinguish
the European Quail from a nameless American bird,
which is neither quail nor partridge! In this sense Frank
Forester never objected to the term; and every part of his
first position is carried out—excepting the remark that the
American bird is more nearly connected with the European
quail than with any partridge existing; and on this point I
will say a few words anon.
H., then, has come over to my statements. First—that the
American bird is not of the same subgenus with the European
partridge, nor is a proper partridge at all!
Secondly, that the European partridge is not an ortyx; and
Thirdly, that the term ortyx has not been applied as a distinction
between quail and partridge; but between quail and a
bird hitherto nameless, and indeed seemingly so still in the
vernacular.
Hear what he says!—“Whence the partridge, quail, and
American bird belong to three”—misprinted those—“distinct
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subgenera, our bird being as far removed as ever from any
species of quail, of which there are several!”
Here, then, I might close my article; for I never asserted
that the American bird was a quail—and all that I did assert—
viz., that he was not a partridge—is granted. Therefore,
none of my views before stated were incorrect, nor was I all
in the wrong, or wrong at all.
Now, however, we will go a little farther, and see what
ORTYX virginianus is, and what we must call him—and whether
he is more closely allied to Partridge or to Quail.
And first—Why did the Naturalists, who formed the subdivision
of the genus, call him ortyx——the Greek for
quail? If they had only wished to make a distinction showing
him equally far from quail and partridge, they would not
have merely rested contented with calling him quail, in a
varied language or dialect.
In my humble opinion the very choice of the name shows
that the discriminating Naturalist—who discovered the small
points of distinction “between the quail and thick strong-billed
partridges of the new world,” which he admits to be “so similar,
that they are not to be distinguished without a knowledge
of their habits and an examination of their forms”—considered
the distinction between the American bird and the quail, less
than the distinction between the same bird and the partridge.
It will of course be seen at once that the writer quoted
above—Sir William Jardine—means that the quail and American
bird are “so similar as not to be distinguished without a
knowledge of their habits, and an examination of their forms”—
and not the European quail and European partridge! For
it is obvious that—the European Grey partridge being thirteen
inches long, and the European Red-legged partridge the same
length, but heavier and stronger, while the European quail
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does not exceed seven inches and a half—the similarity of
which he speaks is not between these birds, which a blind
man might distinguish by their weight and size!
Sir William Jardine shows what these slight distinctions
are—“In the bill and legs”—he says—“there are slight modifications;
but the form of the wing is quite different—the first
three quills being longest—in the quail,—while in the partridges
the third is longest, and the third and fourth in the ortyx.”
Well may he say the distinction is small!—a slight modification
in the legs and bill, and the fact that the three first
quills of the quail are longest, and the third and fourth in the
American bird or ortyx!
The plumage of both species of European Partridge is utterly
different either from that of the European Quail or the
American bird. Each of the European partridges is nearly
double the size of either of the others; while the Quail and
American bird are very nearly of a size—the American a little
the larger!—and very similar in their general appearance
and plumage.
In habits, particularly in their fierce pugnacity, the Quail
and American bird resemble each other much. The European
Quail certainly is—and many writers state on good
authority—and I fully believe the fact—that the American
bird is likewise—migratory!
The English quail does not perch, to the same extent
with the American bird;—though he does take to bushy
covert—which the Grey partridge never does—but this one
fact is not enough, surely, to make the difference greater, in
spite of the distinctions of size, weight and feather. The
bird called in this country, incorrectly—for I am well aware
there is a small distinction—the English Snipe, occasionally
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perches—I have seen it do so, on two occasions, at Pine
Brook, in New Jersey—on rails, bushes, and even on tall willow
trees; and I can prove the fact by the testimony of eye
witnesses, if it be doubted!—yet no one would say, Ergo it
is not a snipe!—at least I think not; though I am certain a
man who should assert in Europe that he had seen snipe
alight in trees would be laughed at and disbelieved, as the
bird there never does so!
That the American bird is, ornithologically and strictly
speaking, a quail, I never asserted.
I denied that it was a partridge, as H. did assert, and has
now yielded.
I did assert, and still do so, that it is more closely connected
with the English quail than with any partridge existing.
Its size—its weight—its plumage—its habits—and last,
not least, its new ornithological name ortyx—Greek quail—
prove that it is so—and that it is so in the opinion, and on
the data of the very ornithologists, who have divided it from
the subgenus coturnix, on account of distinctions which they
admit to be so small as to be undistinguishable, except on minute
examination.
I doubt not that the birds are well divided. It is very obvious
that the European partridge—a bird twice as big as
either quail or ortyx—is rightly separated from them!—and
I doubt not that there are distinctions justifying the ornithologist
in separating the European from the American Quail—
although they are invisible to a common eye! But in the
meantime what shall we call the bird? Not partridge, for it is
not one clearly and confessedly!—I think best to stick to Quail
as the Naturalists themselves half call him so still!—people
would surely laugh at us if we called them ortyges, and I
think very justly!
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As to the Ruffed Grouse—Tetrao Umbellus—I never, either
in conversation or in black and white, called it a partridge;
unless to people who knew it only by that name—and I ever
have esteemed it equally incorrect and unsportsmanlike to
do so.
I have now made an end of my paper, and I think your
correspondent H. will admit, after reading it, and after—if he
will—comparing the three articles—that Frank Forester is
not all in the wrong. If you care to show your correspondents
in general how very like the plumage of the English
Quail is to that of the American bird, I send you a drawing,
made by myself many years ago, from one I shot myself;
my notes give, length, 7 1-4 inches—width from wing to
wing, 9 1-2—weight 6 1-10 oz. If you choose, have it done
on wood—but take care of it, and do not let it be besmirched,
as I value it,
Believe me yours ever at command,
Frank Forester.
P.S. A correspondent—“Alpha”—in the February number
“On the Get of Medoc,” seems to think I spoke of quail
as in flocks of three hundred. It was the British Red Grouse
of which I spoke? which, by the way, I think a greater bird,
both to shoot and eat, than the American rotyx. The English
Quail, though it generally lays but six or seven eggs, is
sometimes seen in bevies of fifteen. In France, the same bird
precisely lays fifteen to twenty eggs.—Bewick and Buffon.P.S. No. 2. At this late moment I seize the opportunity
of correcting a misstatement—arising, as usual, from a want
of care in reading what I wrote—by a correspondent —N.—
of yours in last week's “Spirit.” He charges me with error
for saying the partridge never perches!—assuming that I
mean either the Tetrao Umbellus, Pseudo American pheasant
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and partridge—or else the Perdix virginiana, or American
Quail. I did not mean, or indeed write either!—but the
European Partridge; a bird utterly different from either. I
see, however, that he also asserts on his own eye-witness,
that the quail does migrate in flocks of five hundred to one
thousand. This I never doubted—it however, makes another
point for my side!
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BEAR.
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-- 149 -- p138-168
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“Bear with me.”—Mark Anthony's Speech over the dead body of
Cæsar.
The moon uprising from the distant east, as yet not full disclosed,
nor clothed with clouds, kindles with silver fire, a wild
wide wood-lake. Trees stand around in rude rough majesty—
stern witnesses of her glory. They own their faded beauty,
they mourn their lost leaves frozen, they feel that Winter's
come, and that's “verbum” to their “sap.” The stars still shine.
But such shining! They shine just as office holders, who
know that in a very little time they are to be extinguished by
a dispensation from a greater light. The clouds in the distance
look as though they had some lightning in them;—
solemn—phalanxial. The old trees have had rough times.
Those near by are all troubled with the rheumatism, or have
been cut down by convulsions. Some stumps, to be sure,
show that the barbarous pioneer had never heard that exquisite
ballad of “Woodman spare that tree.” But nearly
all blighted—blasted. Only the pyramid pine, and fragrant
fir,—Heavenly ever-greens,—Christ-mass greens for
us poor sinners,—flutter, and bend to the tempest, and bear
upon their boughs the cherishing comfort of snow. At the
south-east corner of the lake, is built, with the artifice
which nature sometimes indulges in, a hiding place, or
“stand,” arranged out of old logs and fallen trees, within
the which you see two hunters—hunters!—Heaven help
them! who lie ensconced to shoot some timid, thirsty, doe, who
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may come down in the peace of night to take a drink out of
the spring at the edge of the lake, which cold cannot freeze;—
or at the crumbling ice which her hoof may break in.
But who is he that cometh from the barren forest, with
slow and solemn tramp, bending the crackling ice, with his
majestic feet? Hath Sir Bruin made an appointment with
the cold Diana, to meet him at this secluded trysting spot?
If he have, he is a true and trusted lover, for she casts the
first beam of her eye upon the lake just as her bear-knight
emerges from the swamp to drink the new silver light of her
eye that glitters upon the treeshade-sprinkled ice. But no.
That cannot be; the ardor of a lover is not in his eye;—his
pace is thoughtful and philosophical;—he is, rather, thinking
of his hungry cubs, left sulky and hopeful at home in their
rock-cave in the hill side, and is contemplating the flesh
of calves and lambs. Now, he is astronomical, and pious,
and casteth his eyes toward Heaven, and marvelleth at the
purity of his noble ancestors sitting clothed with brilliant garments
in the constellations of Ursa Major, and Minor. He
almost repents some unnecessary abstractions of the neighboring
farmers' little children. Is that a tear in his eye? Happy
engraver? if thou hast clearly globuled that chrystal evidence
of sorrow for guilt? Now, his head falls beneath his breast;
you would think it was in submission to some decree of suffering
depression, and that he feels he is unforgiven. Doomed
wretch! Never to be exalted to a place among the bears in
the stars! But look at his eye. It is dry, keen, fierce, savage,
voracious. He sees beneath him a salmon trout half benumbed,
and he raises his “huge paw” to pound the ice to
accomplish the water tenant's stunnation, when he will break
a hole through the “thick-ribbed” frost, and fish him out.
A good piscator, and a hearty feeder is that same bear, he
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suddenly starts, and his eye shoots fire toward the south-east.
What is that scent which, borne on a new change of the
wind, strikes his far-judging nose? Is that a fawn at the
boiling spring? or a small girl that has lost her way? Snuff,
snuff. No; the smell is too strong. That is the odor of full
grown hunters—two legged members of his own profession,
but bitter enemies to his particular guild. See him stand
still, now, and muse, and survey. How would a piece of
man-flesh taste?—Good. How would a leaden bullet feel
in the bowels? Rather indigestible fodder. He reasons;
he deliberates. He remembers his Kamtskadale cousins, and
waits to see if the hunters will approach “to conciliate his
friendship.”[20] But is it a man? It might be an unmanageable
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[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]
colt, that has tumbled his master, and ran away, with the
sweat from his rider's corduroys reeking upon his unsaddled
back—or a stray porker acorn-ing. He is in doubt. He
looks around and reconnoitres. He discovers, up the lake,
at the north, a truant boy, who has seen him, skating away
homeward, fast as his iron volitaters will glide leeward. It
was not his trail that he nosed, for that juvenal is with the
wind. Does Sir Bruin detect those lurkers at the stand with
guns? Will he make a demonstration against them? Will
they bring their artillery to bear upon him? How many
balls will he take patiently? Will he hug either one of
those gentlemen, with the ardor of a bridegroom? What
will he weigh when dressed? What frolicsome country
maiden will be first wrapped in his skin, upon a sleighride?
Who will be invited to dine upon his smoking haunch?
Reader, these are all questions which the publishers insist
upon my submitting to thee; wherefore to answer them I for
Bear.
Let no bandbox Adonis turn up his self-sufficient nose at
the foregoing ursine limnings. His father may have taught
him the unjust expression “rough as a bear,” when he swore
at his landlord for calling for his rent before a month after
quarter-day. The bear and his biography would be a splendid
subject for the illustration of devoted family virtues, and
of brave, bold, dashing chivalry, against enemies. His family
is ancient and respectable. His blood has been kept pure
and true. He is but a little lower than man, while he can
write or make his mark, better than any Congo-ese, or Bogtrotter.
As to reading, he is accomplished. He can find
“sermons in stones, and books in every thing.” The book
of nature is his summer food. He roams, and plucks the
autumnal fruits of knowledge. When winter's snows shut up
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the volume, he retires to his private study, in some huge hollow
oak, and there reflects and moralizes. The Indians of
our western prairies know him better than any of the professional
naturalists, and, I think, I have heard that they invite
them to their talks. Certain it is, the Blackfeet are reported
by travellers, to treat the Grizzly bear with profound respect,
and have often offered their most beautiful maidens for marriage
to them, with a view to improve the blood of the tribe
by a cross; but this story is not well authenticated. The
Grizzly bear, besides, is almost too violent in his affection.
His kisses munch. His pressure would take the breath out of
the body of every woman but one, whom I wot of. Although
he may be called, by curtesy, a gentleman, yet is he a
tyrant.
Ursus Maritimus, or the white bear, Arctician, is a specimen
of majesty. He rules the poles, and builds his castles
upon icebergs. His fields are snow-drifts, and his crops are
seals and sea-horses. The wind-lashed sea breeds for his
cubs their codfish, and throws upon his glacier furrows his
welcome crop of wounded whales. Hardy, fearless, enterprising,
he is monarch of the storm, king of the unknown
Symnsonia—president of Ultima Thule.
Our own black bear has no pretensions to nobility. He is
a republican, but a clever fellow. He is strong both in life
and death. He can strike, scratch, and hug, equally well with
his distant relatives; and when his guardian angel resigns
him to fate, Adonis makes his hair shine with his grease;
Podagrosus and Rheumaticus rub their feet with his fat flanks;
Epicurus deliciates in his tender loin; Amator wraps his mistress
in his skin, and envelopes her hands in a muff cut from
his hairy cold-defier; while, as with his own comforter,
gloves, and cap, he manages the breath-icicled steeds over
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the nivoseous and gelid road, she thinks and feels him bear all
over.
Bear is a very “interesting individual.” Great things
might be said of him. The publishers are not to blame for
putting in that picture. I think it speaks for itself, and needs
no illustration.
eaf138v1.n20[20] Black bears are so numerous in Kamtschatka, that
they are seen
roaming about the plains in troops, and must long
since have been exterminated,
if
they were not here more tame and gentle than in any other
part of
the world. In spring they descend from the mountains where they
have wintered, to the mouths of the rivers, for catching fish, which
swarm
in all the streams of that peninsula. If the fish are
plentiful, they eat
only the heads; and when they find nets laid
in any place, they dexterously
drag them out of the water, and empty them of the fish.
Towards
autumn, when the fish go up the rivers, they advance with them
gradually to the mountains. When a Kamtschadale espies a bear, he
endeavors to conciliate his friendship at a distance, accompanying his
gestures
by courteous words. Indeed
they are so familiar, that the women
and girls, when they are
gathering roots and herbs, or turf for fuel, are
never disturbed
in their employment, even in the midst of a whole drove of
bears;
and if one of these animals comes up to one of them, it is merely
to take something out of their hands. They have never been known
to
attack a man, except when they are roused from their sleep, and
they
seldom turn upon the marksman whether they are hit or
not. Notwithstanding
this
gentleness of the bear, its utility renders it a valuable object
of
prey. When the hunter and bear meet, the contest is generally
bloody,
but it generally terminates to the advantage of the artful
huntsman.
Armed with spears and clubs, the Kamtschadale goes in
quest of the
peaceful bear in his calm retreat, who, thinking only
of his defence, takes
the faggots brought by his pursuer, and
chokes with them the entrance
into his den. The mouth of the
cavern being closed, the hunter bores a
hole through the top, and
then with the greatest security, spears his defenceless
foe.—Tooke's View of Russia, vol. ii, p. 442.
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COLLINEOMANIA.
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“—En age, segnes
Rumpe moras, vocat ingenti clamore Cithæron
Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum,
Et vox assensu nemorum ingemminata remugit.”
Virg. Georg. 3.
“Hark away, hark away, hark away is the word to the sound of the horn,
And echo, blithe echo, while echo, blithe echo makes jovial the morn.”
Chorus to Bright Phœbus.
No; we will not look upon the hunters of Kentucky yet;
the mighty dead of other days claim first our admiring contemplation.
It will be good for us to look at their portraits in
Time's old diorama—to see them face to face through History's
faithful theodolite.
What an innumerable army! Patriarchs, sages, kings,
heroes, inspired, demigods, sacred, profane! Blessed is thy
memory, O son of Cush, and thy name glorious, captain of the
host, and father and beginner of all hunting! Of whom else
doth the historian bear record, that he “was a mighty hunter
before the Lord?”
Posterity hath not done justice to Nimrod. Even Josephus
barely mentions him, and we are left entirely in the dark as
to the character of his game and the weapons of his craft.
It is not vain, however, nor improper, as we hope, to speculate
upon a matter which, to hunters, is a subject of such
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thrilling interest. May we not, then, imagine and believe,
that the founder of Babel was one of the giants of those days,
and that his armory was fashioned in the workshop of that
skilful artificer, Tubal Cain, and that he hunted the mastodon
and magatherion? But let every man think for himself.—
We said that posterity had not done justice to Nimrod. We
ought to except from this censure those good poets Tickell
and Somerville. They have both glorified him in verse.
Their researches, whether of fact or fancy, are worthy of the
attention of the judicious antiquarian.[21]
It would argue gross ignorance, or else wilful malice, not
here to name the unfortunate Esau. He, too, was a “cunning
hunter, a man of the field.” Frequent, doubtless, were
the nights when the dutiful son, returning tired from the hunt,
comforted his kind old father's heart with a saddle of good
venison, the trophy of his trusty bow and quiver. But alas!
alas!—there are passages in the life of Esau upon which we
cannot bear to dwell—themes too high. Let us pass on.
Who cometh next? Truly, Samson, Milton's Samson Agonistes,
beyond challenge a keen hunter. This honorable reputation
he worthily acquired by his capture, adjunction and adignition
of the three hundred foxes, which he turned among
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his father-in-law's grain-stacks, to punish him for trading away
his wife when he was temporarily absent from the family-For
one man to catch three hundred foxes, upon one hunting
expedition, or even in the course of a whole season, it requires
not only great strength, but much ingenuity, earnest perseverance,
faithful patience, good love, and good luck. Samson
was an uncommon man.
We take occasion here to caution the scrupulous reader to
look not upon us as a Philistine. We desire to be understood
as making these references to the hunters of the by-gone days
of Palestine, with no sceptical levity, but with faithful reliance
upon recorded facts. We will further remark, that
great as was the performance last referred to, yet we believe
it may be accomplished by a man of extraordinary powers,
without the aid of any miraculous assistance. We esteem
that it was so accomplished, and that it was one of the ordinary
occurrences in the life of the hunter Samson. As such it is
our duty to record it here. As such, we celebrate the enterprise,
and enshrine it with its author in our gallery of hunters.
But let us look upon the profane and the mythological, and
then, peradventure, we may be permitted to moralize, without
restraint. The Heathen celebrated mighty hunters. Great
is his glory, who is vouched for by Diodorus and the almost
Christian Cicero. A poet's incarnation he may be, but people
seem to believe in him, and to recognize and to worship his
attributes. Do we ever say Samsonian? No; we always
call it a “Herculean” task. Son of Alcmena, fortunate were
the irregular nuptials of thy honored parents! Happy was
the earth, when thou wert delivered to deliver her of Hydras
and Chimæras. Happy was the sky which received thee
back to rule the seasons,—as some, not vain, imagine,—and
to quaff old nectar with thy father Jupiter.
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But we have no sympathy with people specially gifted.
Hence we contemplate the exploits of demigods with cold
wonder only, and not with the hearty enjoyment with which
we listen to the story of a sporting friend, who is like ourselves,
and from a knowledge of whose character we may
judge of the extent of the embellishments. Moreover, it is
hard to comprehend the glory of cutting off dragon's heads,
and doing such other deeds of desperate valor as the biographers
of Hercules have, with commendable particularity, set
down to stimulate our ambition. For one thing, however, we
love as well as admire the hunters of old times. They had
the true spirit of chivalry in them. Hunters were patriotic,
and generous, before printing and gunpowder were invented.
Now, we offer rewards to men to do themselves a pleasure,
and give bounties for dead wolves and crows.
Theseus, Castor, and Pollux. It is almost ludicrous to
think of one of these heroes sending in an affidavit, duly sworn
to according to law, and claiming from the overseers of the
town a ten dollar bill for shooting down a wild cat.
Nestor, Ulysses, Diomedes, swift-footed Achilles. Xenophon
tells us that these were all mighty hunters. But they were
statesmen, warriors, and benefactors, too. By Diana! When
we think of these, and of some glorious few other such ancient
megatherial earth-gods, who made for history and poetry a subject
and a beginning, our anger waxeth hot at the assurance of
the muskrat-catching poachers of modern times, who affect to
call themselves hunters. They are blasphemers. They take
the name in vain. Saint Saggitarius forefend that we should
shoot an undeserved arrow at the bear-hugging Colonel
Crockett! But our conscience pricks our judgment to pronounce
its denial that he can challenge any better claim to
the laurels of a hunter than a half-shrived ghost in purgatory
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can put forth to a fee-simple foot-hold among the stars. There
is no registry of the name of clown-hunter in any book of
heraldry that we wot of.
Multo majora canamus.—Is there any thing more glorious
in fact, or in fancy, than the impersonation of the chaste, virgin,
huntress goddess? Worthily was she mistress and queen
of the chase. We seem to see her now, her maidens all put
forth, bending from her firmamental throne, to whisper a kiss
upon the fair brow of Endymion, innocent youth, as he lies,
cold and tired, on the summit of old Latmos. Now a beam
from her eye falls upon the expecting boy; and now—a
cloud hides them from us, and our vision is gone! We confess,
that if we were to catch the moon in company with Endymion,
we should be apt to be revengeful, and furnish another
proof of the truth of the old maxim, that “three spoils company.”
There should be no eclipse, nor any other sort of fun
that night. We would punish the proud Dian for her cruel
treatment of the unwittingly offending Actæon. A hunter, he,
and a brave. Her worshipper. And yet, forsooth, because,
with no malice aforethought, and by mere accident, he happened
to stumble upon her one day in the woods when she
was not dressed for company, she must needs metamorphose
him into a stag, and set upon him his own rapacious dogs!
Out upon such savage prudery! Nephele, and Hyale, and
Rhenis, and Psecas, and Phiale, and all the rest of ye, heartless
nymphs! We have no patience with your affectation,
making your mistress to act like a very lunatic![22]
Unhappy Actæon! “Sic illum fata ferebant.” Bad luck
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was thine in truth. What a horrible host of blood-hounds he
had upon him! It makes one's blood to run cold, even only
to hear their names. Let us look into the excellent Mr. John
Clarke, and read a portion of his translation, for the benefit of
juvenile students.
“First Blackfoot, and the good-nosed Tracer, gave the signal
by a full-mouthed cry.”—Cry;—Every deer-hunter knows
what that cry is;—the deep, beautiful, musical, bay, that
breaks upon your extatic ear, bearing the knowledge of the discovered
game. “He now flies through places where before
he had often pursued. Alas! he flies from his own servants.
He would fain cry out, I am Actæon, know your master.
Words are wanting to his inclination; the air rings with the
cry. Black-hair made the first wound upon his back; Killdeer
the next; Rover stuck fast upon his shoulder. They
came out later than the rest, but their way was soon dispatched
by a short cut across the mountain. Whilst they hold their
master, the rest of the pack come in, and stick their teeth together
into his body. Now room is wanting for more wounds.
He groans and makes a noise, though not of a man, yet such
as a buck could not make, and fills the well-known mountains
with sad complaints; and as a suppliant upon bended knees,
and like one asking a favor, he turns about his silent countenance.
But his companions, ignorant of their wretched prey,
encourage the ravenous pack with their usual cries, and look
around, mean time, for Actæon; and call for him loudly, as if
he were absent, Actæon! Actæon! He turns his head at
the name, as they complain that he is not there to enjoy the
sight of the game presented to them. Glad would he be, indeed,
to be away; but he is there, against his will; and glad
would he be to see, and not feel, the cruel violence of his
dogs. They hang upon him, and thrusting their snouts into
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his body, tear to pieces their master, under the shape of a
false buck. And the rage of the quiver-bearing Diana is said
not to have been exhausted until his life was ended by many
wounds.”
Such was the awful consequence of looking upon a woman
without permission! How full is history of friendly beacons
to warn young men of danger!
We will hang up one more portrait in our gallery. Thine,
Adonis, thine; thou loved one of Cytherea. Thou, too, lost
thy life in the chase, but not ingloriously, and the gods made
provision for thee after thy demise. We must be excused, O
Adonis, from being sorrowful because of that wild boar's tooth
sending thy soul to the skies, for Venus wept for thee, and
Bion hath embalmed thee. Many bards have sung thy elegy.
Reader, knowest thou the flower Anemony? It thou be uninstructed,
seek some wise woman, and get understanding;
and know, and love, in that little budling, the metamorphosed
mortal parts of the tender-cheeked hunter Adonis.
There is a more modern antiquity, that boasteth excellent
hunters. Shall we see these worthies? We know a process—
a charm—we can hold communion with their ghosts!—We
have had such nights with the old hunters! Dost thou dare
to see them? We will warrant thee they are busy at some
sport. Behold now, we shut our earthly eyes. We speak
the spell that cannot be heard by mortal. Now it is all dim.
Now light slowly breaks, and lo! the Elysian fields. There,
down in a green valley, are met the ghosts of all the dead
hunters of the world. They are shooting at a target. Heard
you that whiz? See you not that arrow quivering in the
bull's eye? 'T was a well-aimed shot. It was Arthur drew
the string—immortal he of the round-table—not that modern
Arthur, who—we must give this lamp a turn or it will—there;
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that will do.—But our vision! alas! it is gone. So ever it
fares with the introduction of an unpleasant guest. One such
will banish a whole room full of good company. We could
get into a passion now, and curse—the Devil and his works.
We have a right to do that. It would be highly improper to
bless them, or to speak respectfully of them. But it is better
to be benevolent. We will curse no one, not even Scotch
George Thompson. May God, if it be possible, assoilsie even
him.—
Let us summon our hunting friends. Come hither, ye hunters
of ancient days, be present to our desires, and hold with
us sweet converse—
“Black spirits and—”
No, no; we want no black spirits. The colored gentlemen,
if any, will please to stay below—
“Brown spirits and white,
Blue spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
Ye that mingle may.”
Look where they come. A goodly company, Nature's aristocracy.
Substantial shadows—glorious! will they speak?
What music is this like the doubtful concord of clanging
armor, and waving plumes, and ringing steel, and neighing
steeds, and twanging bow-strings, and a harp touched by a
skilful minstrel! like
“High-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewelyn's lay.”
Who is this hoary headed bard? Gracious presence, suffer
us, as much as may be lawful, to worship thee! Thou art
old Cadwallo, whose tongue inexorable Edward made cold;
and thou hast sung in bower, and banquet hall, the praises of
brave hunters. Be, we pray thee, one of our household gods.
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—How they burn on our eyelids! changing, and mixing with
each other, and mingling with the air, and then standing out
more accurately developed. Apollo sustain us! Turks,
Tartars, Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Britons—What
gorgeous trappings have those hunters of the East! Genghiskhan
glittering with gold and burnished steel! He, who,
like that Mogul Vizir, Asaph ap Dowlah, hunted with several
battalions of infantry, encompassing roaring hecatombs, and
the tigers upon a thousand hills! What queen is that he
jostleth? Doth she not stand Boadicea, confessed, bearing a
mighty spear? And lo! a troop of high-born ladies, spurning
the earth with their eager palfreys, each equipped for to
ride a—
—“hawking by the river
With grey goshawke in hande.”
Delicate heroines—fawns chasing blood-hounds; tender-hearted
murderers, killing with your bright eyes more than
with your keen arrows! Hail! Gaston, Earl of Foix! gallant
gentleman! true knight! with thy army of dogs, six hundred!
Pass on.—Saint George! who with his good sword
Ascalon smote that gigantic dragon, having fifty feet between
his shoulders and tail, under the left wing, where no scales
were, and delivered his country. The Percy out of Northumberland!
and doughty Douglas!—good friends now. The
seven champions of Christendom!—Sir Bevis, Sir Tristam,
Sir Thopas! How stately are these old king hunters. Alfred
the great, wise and good;—solemn Athelstan;—Cnut,
the Dane;—Edward the Confessor;—of whom sayeth the
accurate Malmsbury, that although he was better fitted for the
cloister than the field, yet he took great delight to follow a
pack of swift hounds, and to cheer them with his voice;—
William the Norman, conqueror of men as well as beasts;—
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William Rufus, whose life ran out with the blood staining a
treacherous arrow. What a throng of them! Edward—all
the Edwards! Harry—all the Harrys! Even pedantic king
Jamie, believer in witchcraft, who hath written also of hunting
with hounds in Basilikon Doron;[23] giving it questionable precedency
over archery and falconry; unlike thee, venerable
Roger! schoolmaster and laureate of the school of shooting,
who hath written a book to illustrate the glory of the bow;
proving it to be the fountain of wisdom, health, wealth, and
virtue.† And, O delight! here be Robin Hood and little John,
Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudlesly!
Welcome, welcome, bold archers! Let us embrace ye, O
better than kings! ye original unsophisticated democrats!
How Tammany Hall would adore if it were only given her
to know ye!
That last imagination hath dashed down our cup of joy.
We can see no more beyond the sight of the flesh. We are
alone,
“The light that o'er our eye-beam flashed,
The power that bore our spirit up”
into the company of sainted hunters, is departed. Royalty,
and knight-errantry, and beauty, and valor have sunk into
eternal chaos.
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We are the friend and apologist of Robin Hood, outlaw
though he was. Hear how he may be forgiven;
“Lithe and lysten, gentylmen,
That be of frebore blode,
I shall you tell of a good yeman,
His name was Robyn Hode.”
What though he hunted in the royal forest, contrary to the
form of the statute in such case made and provided, entertaining
an hundred tall men upon haunches of the king's fat
bucks. Was not the charter unconstitutional? a rank monopoly
of the merry green-wood? Were not the game laws
tyrannical, cruel, unendurable by brave souls, heaven created
warriors, the freest hearts, the strongest arms—in all merry
England? What though he denied that property could be
held in fee simple, and that he pressed the doctrine of “equal
rights” with perhaps too earnest zeal; yet was he not gallant,
humane, magnanimous, and a sincere friend to the poor?
Hearken to the testimony of the anthentic Stow;—“He suffered
no woman to be oppressed, violated or otherwise molested;
poore men's goods he spared, abundantlie relieving
them with that which, by theft, he got from abbeys, and the
houses of rich carles; whom Major—the historian—blameth
for his rapine and theft, but of all theeves he affirmeth him to
be the prince, and the most gentle theefe.”
Well! he was a practical leveller; that seems to be his
offence. And is that unpardonable? Lo! even holy friars,
and other good men, divers, have taught that the rich are
merely trustees for the poor, and that goods and chattels are
only lent to them. Shall he be condemned who executes the
judgments of brotherly love and justice? God forbid. Robin,
we take thy hand before the whole world, and call thee a good
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fellow. Thou shalt have our vote for any office thou desires
in the shades.
Those other yeomen named with Robin and little John,
must not be lightly passed over. Modern times are shamed
by their strength and skill. William of Cloudlesley, with an
arrow from his bow, cleft a hazel rod in twain, at the distance
of four hundred yards; and with another arrow shot
an apple from his boy's head, at the distance of one hundred
and twenty-five yards! Is there any gentleman hunter extant
who will shoot against this performance? Bring up
your rifles, and your boys, good people. William and his
associates, we regret to admit, had some vague and indefinite
notions on the subject of other people's property; and it does
not appear that they were so discriminate as Robin Hood.
But then they all repented, and were pardoned by the king,
and were confessed by the bishop, and the king made William
a gentleman, and gave him eighteen pence a day to bear
his bow, and the queen gave him thirteen pence a day, and
made his wife her chief gentlewoman; and then these good
yeomen went forth and got cleansed with holy water,
“And after came and dwelled the kynge
And died good men all three.”
And so finally concludeth the legend;—
“Thus endeth the lives of these good yeomen,
God send them eternal blysse;
And all that with a hand-bowe shoteth,
That of heven may never mysse. Amen.”
Amen! amen! with all our heart. Three cheers for the
ghosts of Adam Bell & Co. Go it boys! hur—wait for the
word;—Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!
Much remains to be said of hunting. Many hunters remain
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unsung. We have only brief moments to commemorate that
exquisite fancy of the sport, fierce and gentle falconry.
We have a notion, that of all delights that ever it was given
to man to enjoy, this must have been the most delightful.—
Gentlemen of the cockpit, a fight in the air between a pigeon
hawk and a blue heron!—Bold was he, and cunning, who
first tamed the fiercest birds of prey, and taught them to sit
upon his fist, to fly at his command, to pursue, to strike, to return,
docile, faithful servants. Gentle, eager, and as humble,
and fond of the sport as our own good setters, Horatio.—Think
of the king of birds soaring to the third heaven, and then
hovering and swooping, and hovering and swooping, until, as it
were, he could get good sight, and then, with terrible certainty,
dashing down upon the devoted shoulders of an antlered
monarch of the scrub oaks, and tearing out his brains, at the
command of a master! Imagine you duck hawk,—falco
peregrinus—tamed, and thrown off, unhooded, from your fist,
mounting into upper air, and thence, with lightning speed,
striking out a wild gander from a flock of straining honkers,
and then, conscious, of his deserved reward, sailing back to
the bondage of his accustomed jesses! Why, people now-a-days
do not understand the virtue of birds. We are neophytes
in ornithology and ornithodynamics. We hardly know
“a hawk from a hand-saw.”
For ourselves, it is our delight to read and dream of the
goodly companies of noble knights and high-born dames of
olden time, riding out with princely attendance to fly their
hawks. We seem to hear their prancing steeds, and their
gentle
“Jennettes of Spain that ben so white,
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright,”
their happy voices, and the dogs beating the bushes by the
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stream-side. We see the bittern flushed; and then, falcon,
and marlyon, and gos-hawk, quick unhooded, and upsailing.
We hear the tinkling of their silver bells—we see the general
rush of the whole happy throng following the pursuit—our
breath is quick—up, up soars the bittern in lessening gyration
higher and yet higher, to keep, if, alas! he may, keep above
his unpitying pursuers, and avoid their fatal beaks. Vain
hope! that falcon hath o'ertopped him, and now he pounces,
and the poor victim feels death in his struck skull, and surrenders
his life among the stars!
Not always victorious is the falcon. There are vicissitudes
in the war. The hern hath a long, strong, straight, sharppointed
bill; and if the hawk be unwary, he will spit his
breast upon the dangerous spear thrown up to receive him,
and, pierced through and through with a fatal wound, die ingloriously.
We know a kindred bird, which baymen call “the
straight-up;” a biped something between the heron and the
quaack, that is competent to do good execution after this wise.—
We once ourselves, unhappy, received a fearful thrust in
our dexter, from a scoundrel whom we had wing-broken on a
salt marsh, which disabled us from pulling a trigger for a good
fortnight.—Somerville describes the performance to the life—
to the death;—
“Now like a wearied stag
That stands at bay, the hern provokes their rage,
Close by his languid wing, in downy plumes
Covers his fatal beak, and, cautious, hides
The well-dissembled fraud. The falcon darts
Like lightning from above, and in her breast
Receives the latent death; down plum she falls
Bounding from earth, and with her trickling gore
Defiles her guady plumage.”
Henry Inman! wilt thou not paint this picture? It is a
striking illustration of “catching a tartar.”
We are determined to become a faulkoner. We will build
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us a mew and an aërie, and we will speak to some country
friend to catch us a young hen-hawk, and a few butcher-birds,
and we will revive the science. We know a pleasant meadow,
where the curlew screams, and the straight-up flaps his
heavy wings, and the newly-paired seges of blue herons sit
solemn by the border of the interwinding rivulet, watching,
with hungry patience, what truant eel, or backsliding young
crab, leaving the safe channel, shall “coldly furnish forth
their marriage breakfast,” and dear Mary shall ride with us
to the green rushes, and—
Here Mary, leaning over our shoulder, shakes us gently by
the ear, and reminds us that we are impecunious, and points
to a passage in aristocratic, cross, old Burton, and reads to
us unwilling—we confess we hate the truth sometimes—as
follows; “Hunting and hawking are honest recreations, and
fit for some great men; but not for every base, inferior person.”
“That is not we, Mary dear. Docti Sumis; we are a
gentlemen bred, and educated, and”—
“Fiddle-de-dee; what are birth and education in a bank
note world? listen! listen! `who while they maintain their
faulkoner, and dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth runs away
with their hounds, and their fortunes fly away with their
hawks.' ”
Reader, farewell! We are melancholy.
eaf138v1.n21[21]
—“When Nimrod bold,
That mighty hunter, first made war on beasts,
And stained the woodland-green with purple dye;
New, and unpolished, was the huntsman's art;
No stated rule, his wanton will his guide—
With clubs, and stones, rude implements of war,
He armed his savage bands.”
Somerville.
When Nimrod first the lion's trophies wore,
The panther bound, and lanced the bristling boar,
He taught to turn the hare, to bay the deer,
And wheel the courser in his mad career.”
Tickell.
eaf138v1.n22[22]
“Sciut erant nudæ, viso, sua pectora Nymphæ
Percussere, viro, subitisque ulutatibus omne
Impleverunt nemus: circumfusæque Dianam
Coporibus texere suis.”
Ovid Met. lib. 3.
eaf138v1.n23[23] “I cannot omit here the hunting, namely, with running hounds, which
is the most honorable and noblest sort thereof, for it is a thievish sort of
hunting to shoot with guns and bows; and greyhound hunting is not so
martial a game. As for hawking, I condemn it not, but I must praise it
more sparingly.” Basilikon
Doron.
eaf138v1.dag4† “The fosterer up of shoting is labor, ye companion of vertue, the meynteyner
of honestie, the increaser of health and wealthinesse, which admytteth
nothing in a manner into his companye, that standeth not with vertue
and honestie, and therefore sayeth the oulde poet Epicharmus very pretelye
in Zenophon, that God selleth vertue, and all other good things to men for
labour.” Toxophilus, A.
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“Toxoph. Of the first finders out of shoting, diuers men diuerslye doo
wryte. Claudiane the poete sayth that nature gaue example of shotyng
first, by the Porpentine; whiche doth shote his prickes and will hitte any
thinge that fightes with it; whereby men learned afterwarde to immitate
the same in finding out both bow and shaftes. Plinie referreth it to Schythes
the sonne of Jupiter. Better and more noble wryters bringe shoting from
a more noble inuentour; as Plato, Calimachus, and Galene, from Apollo.
Yet longe afore those days do we reade in the bible of shotinge expreslye.
And also if we shall beleve Nicholas de Lyra, Lamech killed Cain
with a shafte. So this great continuaunce of shoting doth not a lytle praise
shotinge; nor that neither doth not a lytle set it oute, that it is referred to
the inuention of Apollo, for the which poynt shoting is highly praised of
Galene; where he sayth the mean craftes be first found out by men or
beastes, as meaning by a spider, and suche other; but high and comendable
sciences by goddes, as shotinge and musicke by Apollo. And thus
shotinge for the necessite of it used in Adam's days, for the noblenesse of
it referred to Apollo, hath not been onelie comended in all tunges and
writers, but also had in greate price, both in the best comune wealthes, in
warre time for the defence of their countrie, and of all degrees of men in
peace tyme, bothe for the honestie that is ioyned with it, and the profyte
that followeth of it.”
Roger Ascham.
We have heretofore reviewed the Brigades of ancient hunters,
as they tramped before us magnificently upon the parade
ground of history; from Captain General Nimrod, and stately
riding Queen Diana, down to those savage Loco Focos, Robin
Hood and Little John. Something now is due to the vanatical
artillery of later days. The hunter tribe is not extinct. Collineomania
rages yet. Human nature is still projectilitarian.
The same excellent love of destruction that moved the old
world to swing the catipult, and scatter javelins and arrows,
urges on this modern age of civilization and philanthropy, to
throw rockets, hot water, and cold lead.
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But our present business is not with human wars, and the
Peace Society. Whether the shooting of men be honest and
honorable, we leave to the determination of that fighting
school of the General Assembly, which shall prove itself to
be most meek and most forbearing.
Beasts, and birds, we have an unchallengeable right, and
oftentimes, unquestionable duty, to transfix. This birth-obligation
of every freeman, was first imposed by that never-to-be-too-much-prized
article in the constitution of human nature, which
gave to the lords of the creation, dominion over the fowls of
the air, and the fish of the sea. We have the authority from
Heaven, and the recommendation from Earth. “Kill and
eat,” was hieroglyphickied upon the shooting jacket of Esau.
Peter, the Apostle, saw it in his dream, as the tenth chapter
of Acts bears testimony. And now we are all shooters. To
be a Collineomaniac, is only to fulfil worthily, and with prudent
enthusiasm, a duty, which nature hath allowed, good example
hath approved, and honesty, skill, art, health, and happiness,
recommend.
To descend, from ancient fashions of contrived death, to
Joe Manton, Westley Richards, Miss Nancy Hawker, and
percussion caps—is it a fall, my countrymen, or not? That
thought suggests gunpowder. Talk of the invention of the
printing press, and all its attendant honors of light and knowledge!
it has not effected one tithe of the changes in the physical
condition of the world, which have been wrought by the
discovery of the virtue of combined nitre, sulphur, and granulated
charcoal. We fling no more javelins,—we thrust no
more spears,—unless it be into a porpoise or a whale, but we
kill our lions with four pounders from the back of a well-trained
elephant, our buffaloes with Kentucky rifles, and our
woodcock with the familiar pills of number Eight. That is a
pathetic discourse, which Cervantes reads in Don Quixotte of
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the death of Chivalrie in the elaborations of Rogers, Pigou
and company. But it is not all true. Strength, muscular excellence,
personal skill, and all honorable accomplishments
have not lost their recommendation utterly. It is true that
the tyrants of the land have been changed from stalworth
knights and grim barons, into bank directors, and obtainers of
other people's goods under peaceable pretences, for whom
it is not necessary to know any thing but arithmetic, and a
little criminal law; but the honest hunter's vocation and the
amateur's occasional indulgence, require all the virtues which
belonged to a lover of the sport in the olden time. A man
must sometimes stand up against a grizzly bear, and use his
shooting-knife, after he has put a dozen buck-shot into that
“interesting individual.” We have known a well-antlered
deer, who did not believe his time had come, to make good
fight in the last moment of his translation. Wing-tip a wild
gander, and what man-baby can pick him up? Then for endurance,
patience, steadiness of nerve, a good eye, and a well
disciplined heart;—no modification of saltpetre can manufacture
them. No; we do not believe that true chivalry is gone.
It will live until there is not a running buck or a flying bird.
When that time arrives, the millennium will be here, and we
shall want to shoot no more.
What good reason have we to doubt that ancient chivalry
knew gunpowder, or at least, the expansive force of marine
acid, and the oxymuriate of potash, or something else that had
the true grit and stuff? Every body has heard of the “Greek
fire.” But what was it? Salmoneus, king of Elis, manufactured
such capital thunder and lightning, that Jupiter became
jealous, and cut him down with an original thunderbolt.—For
the place of his residence in the infernal regions, see Lempriere's
directory.—Roger Bacon, in his treatise, “de secretis
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operibus artis et naturæ et de nullitate
,” speaks of the facility
of making thunder and coruscations in the air, and the ease of
taking cities thereby. He thinks that Gideon defeated the
Midianites, by a similar device.—See Judges, chapter vii.—
Polydore Virgil refers the detection of the grace of the subtle
mixture to a 'chemist, who accidentally put some of the sublime
composition into a mortar and covering it with a stone,
was thereby blown into the upper air, and on his dying descent,
bequeathed the mysterious cause of his exaltation to his
head apprentice. Some attribute the discovery to a monk of
Fribourgh. Others say that Swartz was the original patentee,
and that he sold his copy-right to the Venetians in 1340,
which,—it being war-time—made all Italy cry out against the
monstrous innovation as not fair-play. Another author says
it was used by the Moors in 1343, when besieged by Alphonso,
king of Castile. The bishop of Leon gives an account of
a sea-fight between the kings of Tunis and Seville, in which
those of Tunis, “threw out of certain tubes, thunderbolts of
iron.” We believe, earnestly, that the genuine old sporting
men knew the virtue of powder and shot, but kept it private.
Witness the cunning, lurking, alternative of “other pastimes
of the field” slyly hinted at, for those who knew, in the
“Basilikon Doron,” of the learned king James. Here are his
own words;
“It ever hath been of old antiquitie used in this realme of most noble fame,
for all lustye gentlemen to pass the delectable season of summer, after divers
manner, and sundry fashions of disports, as in hunting the rede and fallowe
deer, with houndes, greyhoundes, and with the bowe, also in hawking
with hawkes, and other pastimes of the field.”
Those were times, however, when only monopolists shot.
Westley Richards could not have sold a gun to a man. His
trade would have been confined to paper-title-gentlemen; and
he would have been compelled to contract “by His Majesty's
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authority.” Those were times, when our fathers,—pure-born—
freely-hating—proud—submitted to slavery, because not
shut out from hope; looking to the New America as the Canaan
of their liberty, where they might dare to keep their own
fire-arms, and shoot without fear of encroachment upon the
special monopolies of the Norman Game Law.[24] Thank God!
we have equal rights, in matters of venation, here. No punyfaced
spawn of a title, King or Queen, Duke or Squire, shall
tread down our grain, or riot in our meadows, by virtue of a
ribbon. We are all noblemen in Columbia, and he is the King
who is most eloquent to a bevy of quail getting up,—talking
with both barrels in quick succession. Our game laws go for
the protection of game, not for the benefit of corporations, individual
or collective. Every farmer is master, owner and
Sovereign of his own ground. No idle jackass, that is privileged
by law to wear a herald's device, at a Queen's coronation,
can send his game-keeper into our quiet woodland, to
kill birds for him, while he lies by, and luxuriates, and prepares
his oath as to the contents of his game bag. Alas! for
the slavery of the Welsh and Cornish;—shall we say, for
every county in Old England,—from which the people have
not had knowledge or power to come out Puritan;—but whose
language is a scoff, and whose daughters are a tribute to the
protection of Lord Melbourne!
We are off the road. Pull to the right.
Ten thousand blessings upon our republican institutions.
The question is not, “At whose preserve shall we stand envious
wishers?” but, “Boys, where shall we go?” Shall
Nova Cesarea, or Matowacs, ring with funeral vollies, over
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our ruffed grouse; or shall we sacrifice Guilford quail upon
the dangerously won graves of Goffe and Whalley, prayed
against in the British Episcopal prayer-book, as murderers of
Charles the first,—sweet saint!
Non sum qualis eram, we can all, nevertheless, say, in a
plural sense. The shooting is not as it has been. We must
fulfil our true duties of observance of the game-laws, enacted
for the benefit of all, or else be content, by and by, with the
pulling at tossed pennies, or turkeys tied up. Who would not
have rejoiced to have shot and died two hundred years ago,
if he could have been on the stand of John Megapolensis, junior,
minister, who testifies after this wise, in a letter copied
into Hackleyt's State papers, translated from the original and
beautiful Dutch?
“In the forests, is great plenty of Deer, which in Harvest time are as
fat as any Holland deer can be. I have had them with fat more than two
inches thick on the ribs, and likewise that they had no other than clear fat,
and could hardly be eaten. There are also many turkies, as large as in
Holland. The year before I came here, there were so many turkies and
deer that they came to the houses and hog-pens to feed, and were taken
by the Indians with so little trouble, that a Deer was sold for a knife, a loaf
of bread, or even for a tobacco-pipe, hut now we commonly give for a Deer
six or seven guilders. In the Forests, are also Partridges, Pheasants, and
Pidgeons, that fly in flocks of thousands, and sometimes 10, 20, 30, and
even 40 or 50, are killed at one shot; we have here, too, a great number
of several kinds of Fowl, Swan, Geese, Ducks, Widgeons. Teal, and Brant,
which are taken by thousands upon the river, in the spring of the year, and,
again, in the fall, fly away in flocks, so that in the morning and evening a
man may stand ready with his gun before the house, and shoot them as
they fly past.”
That thought is almost too much to think. Sweet is thy
memory dear Mr. Megapolensis! If it was given to you to
paint Heaven half so well as you adorned Earth, there could
not have been an unconverted sinner in the whole valley of the
Mohawk!
We have killed wild geese in our time; and we know what
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it is to bring down a glorious gaggle of honkers to our stool.
We have seen their sinewy wedge splitting the wind, as they
rushed to their illimitable and unknown domains at the North,
matched, married, and fierce for the indulgence of safe love,
where no poaching, egg-hunter knows to tread; yet half lingering,
wondering, doubting, pitying, willing to wait for the
wooden devices which we have anchored in the shallow feeding-grounds,
as a picture-gallery of their uncles, cousins, and
sweet-hearts.
Hawnk! Hawnk! we have roared out, and tore our gasping
throat, and low in our skulking boat, or close in our floating
battery, have we fallen, when the music of the flying march
of the anseric host thrilled upon our ear. Hawnk! Hawnk!
They come, they tear the yielding air, with pennon fierce and
strong; on clouds they leap, from deep to deep, the vaulted
air along—tear—air—strong—along—break forth my soul into
a song!—
They come, they tear the yielding air, with pennon fierce and strong,
On clouds they leap, from deep to deep, the vaulted dome along;
Heaven's light horse, in a column of attack upon the pole;
Were ever seen, on ocean green, or under the blue sky,
Such disciplined battalia as the cohort in your eye;—
Around her ancient axis, let old Terra proudly roll,
But the rushing flight that's in your sight, is what will wake your soul.
Hawnk! Honk! and forward to the Nor'ward, is the trumpet tone,
What goose can lag, or feather flag, or break the goodly cone,
Hawnk! onwards to the cool blue lakes, where lie our safe love bowers,
No stop, no drop of ocean brine, near stool, nor blue light tory,
Our travelling watchword is “our mates, our goslings, and our glory!”
Symsonia and Labrador for us are crowned with flowers,
And not a breast on wave shall rest, until that Heaven is ours,
Hawnk! Hawnk! E—e hawnk!
eaf138v1.n24[24] “However, upon the Norman conquest, a new doctrine took place,
and the right of pursuing and taking all beasts of chase, or venary, and
such other animals as were accounted game, was then held to belong to the
king or to such only as were authorized under him.”—Blackstone.
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White, in his “Natural History of Selbourne,” calls the
Woodcock “Scolopax,” simply. Latham dubs him “Scolopax
Rusticola.” Wilson christens him “Scolopax Minor.”
This is, probably, the true patronymic of the American bird,
as he is a “minor,”—a smaller animal than that described by
the ornithologists of the old world. If you go to Delmonico's,
to eat out of season, you will ask for “la Becasse,” and
be mistaken for a Frenchman, and get a private room, and so,
perhaps, avoid detection. Sportsmen, generally, among
themselves, talk of killing “cock;” but if they meet an old
woman in the woods, and want information where to beat,
they ask her if she “has seen any blind snipes.” A straggling
boy will pocket your sixpence, and send you up a rugged
mountain, on whose either side he will assure you there
are “plenty of wood-cocks,” and you will go and find, after a
weary travel, that you have had your tramp after red-headed
wood-peckers.
Seeing, therefore, that the nomenclature is uncertain, and
sometimes undignified, reducing a much valued visitor to the
caste of a common dunghill chanticleer; and, moreover, as
this is the age of reform of unworthy names, we propose to
introduce to our readers the excellent subject of this article
by his true title of “Scolopax minor.” Let him have honor
and welcome under that designation. He is cousin germain
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to “Scolopax Gallinago,,”—commonly called the “English”
snipe,—undeservedly, too,—for he is a native-born “Alleghanian,”—
and feeds on similar food,—though he uses less salt
than his aforesaid relative,—and speaks the same language
differing only a little, in dialect. Listen to the one in latter
August, in the corn fields, and to the other in decaying
Autumn, on his boggy meadows, and you will hear them speak
their true name, when you flush them. Only Sc. minor is
fainter in his utterance, and in breeding season, and in the
woods, utters other voices. But both have undoubtedly, derived
their family name from their cry,—their Scolopaxian
“good bye,” “I'm off.” Anatomize the word, and take
out the vowels, which, when a bird is in a hurry, he cannot
be expected to have time to put in. Try it. Sclpx! The
trail is out, but is not the body of the sound perfect?
We like the whole tribe of bipeds belonging to this ordo,
whether allied to the genus of long-billed Curlew, Heron,
Sandpiper, or any other created or manufactured species.
They are the only people who come to us with long bills,
whom we are particularly anxious to see. If any boy of theirs
comes to us and says, “here is your bill, Sir,”—kick him
out?—we do not. We are more likely to be kicked in our
own shoulder by the reaction of the hearty greeting with
which we welcome him. We make a point—if we are on
the upland, our dog does too,—to return the heaviest compliments
for the presentation, so that we sometimes overwhelm
our visitor with confusion and faintness, by the warmth and
pressure of our reception.
But as we have a right to pick our friends, so we have to
pick our birds;—our enemy would say—the first to the
pocket, the last to the bone. We would take issue on that
allegation, and set the case down for hearing, in Chancery,
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upon pleadings and proofs,—to be heard in 1841, and decided
in 1857. Decision doubtful. The distributor of justice might
have had a good pick at his dinner, or he might have a bad
pique against the complaining or defending sinner, and the
cause would have to run the gauntlet. Trust to luck. Luck
sometimes operates like a powerful argument. Kaimes over-looked
it in his book on Rhetoric. So did Blair. Collins
says nothing about it in his Ode on the passions. Maltheus
had a glimpse of the truth, but he was afraid to tell fully his
imperfect vision. His apocalypse is not revealed. Wait.
Meantime, we will pick Master Scolopax out from the company
of all the long-bills, and deliver him to sacrificial fire.
Mark! there's a bird! While we were rambling on, you,
dear reader, unconsciously and harmlessly—for he has no
fangs—trod upon a black snake; and we flushed a quail;
but October 25th was not yet, and he was safe. There, now,
is a cock—a woodcock,—Scolopax minor. See how splendidly,
cautiously, patronizingly, hungrily, Jim Crow stands!
Splendidly,—for the reputation of his own nose and figure;
cautiously,—for his master's chance to see the bird rise;
patronizingly,—for the benefit of the unhappy victim, [even
as a carpenter landlord smiles upon a widow tenant of a single
room in his miserable structure, called a house, in the
eighth ward, paying weekly in advance one quarter of the value
of the whole tenement, when he distrains and sells the portrait
of her husband, and her last silver spoon, for the rent not yet
earned]; hungrily,—not with selfish, animal appetite—for a
good dog eats no birds—but with generous consideration for
your own teeth, after his careful lips have tasted the taste of
the feathers, which his full-crowded mouth will soon bring to
you unruffled.
That suggestion is for your imagination's sake, dear pupil;
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but you may make it fact if you can spare a thousand dollars,
and buy Jim. In the engraving antecedent, which we had
rather illustrate with powder and shot and wet boots, than
with pen and ink, is exhibited a variation of the exciting toil.
Scolopax is there heaven-bound. Doubly so; for there is
a messenger after him to bring him to—by him—an undesired
Paradise. He, may, unless he can fly faster than the
leaden missive which you see preparing to pursue him, suck
his julep by night-fall in another elysium than his own
sheltered wood-lake. The setters seem to be at fault, and
have, probably, flushed the fugitive. The distance, however,
is short, the sight is unobstructed, and the bird is doomed to
a deliberate death. Ye, who have not known the beatitude
of Scolopaxian collineation, look on with wonder and mute
admiration!
There are some unlucky people, who have never enjoyed
the acquaintance of Sc. minor. To them we say, cut him
not, unless with a delicate knife after he has been embalmed
upon a bed of toasted milk-biscuit, with his head resting upon
a minute slice of Floridan orange. He belongs to the best
society, and is worthy of your recognition. The books of
ornithological heraldry give him emblazonment. Take Wilson
for the authority of your introduction, and learn to know
him well. Read this advertisement of his quality, and mistake
him not:
“Ten inches and a half long, and sixteen inches in extent; bill a
brownish flesh color, black towards the tip, the apper mandible ending in
a slight nob, that projects about one tenth of an inch beyond the lower;
each grooved, and in length somewhat more than two inches and a half;
forehead, line over the eye, and whole lower parts, reddish tawny:
sides of the neck inclining to ash; between the eye and bill a slight streak
of dark brown; crown from the forepart of the eye backwards, black,
crossed by three narrow bands of brownish white; cheeks marked with a
bar of black, variegated with light brown; edges of the back, and of the
scapulars, pale bluish white; back and scapulars deep black, each feather
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tipped or marbled with light brown and bright ferruginous, with numerous
fine zig-zag lizes of black crossing the lighter parts; quills plain
dusky brown; tail black, each feather marked along the outer edge with
small spots of pale brown, and ending in narrow tips of a pale drab color
above, and silvery white below; lining of the wing bright rust; legs and
feet a pale reddish flesh color; eye very full and black, seated high, and
very far back in the head; weight five ounces and a half, sometimes
six.”
Why every feather of his head is counted and labelled.
Such is the honorable estimation in which Master Scolopax
hath been held among the aristocracy of ornithologists.
Sc. minor is a sort of citizen, although he only rusticates
and squats among our cedars, or in our deep swamps, as in a
summer country-seat. He could bring an action of trespass
and recover damages, for his frequent dispossession, if he
could only persuade the sheriff to summon a jury “de medietate
linguœ.” But that mercy is abolished by the Revised
Statutes, and he has to take his chance of escape from “forcible
entry and detainer,” with the rest of the unfortunate proprietors
who hold under doubtful titles. He arrives here from
the South during the month of February, or just so soon as
the thawing mud-puddles will yield to his hungry mandible,
and permit him to bore for the delicate larvæ beginning to
wake up from their winter's sleep. Love, nidification, and
good eating, are then his chief employment. At morning and
evening twilight he amuses himself with a spiral flutteration
above the tree-tops, murmuring an epithalamic song which
none but a snipe could compose,—“dulce modulamine mulcet,”—
while she, his mate, below, nourishes in the rude
oak-leaf nest, the young victims whom both parents so sedulously
prepare for your killing in next July. Fatal first! how
the weak-winged chickens tumble! The survivors, in the
succeeding month, seek securer and cooler waters further
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North. Approaching winter brings them back in clusters.
Then resound the woods with echoing volleys. October
heaps up slaughtered hecatombs. Alas? for the love of
blood! The month has come, and our Westley Richards is
ready!
We are almost too sentimental to be a good shot. Doubtless,
the fear of guiltiness of volucricide may account for many,
otherwise unpardonable, misses we have committed, when we
have nearly trod upon a bevy of quail; or when a sudden
partridge whirred like lightning over a neighboring thicket,
and our fluttering forefinger scattered too long lingering missives
among the innocent bushes. On the whole, although a
man must do his duty, “painful as it is,”—as a Judge would
say to a felon whom he is going to sentence to death,—yet it
would be better for a collineomaniac to think, now and then,
of the desolation he is bringing down upon happy nests; of
how many little broods he may cause to starve; of how many
robbed mates he will send, nubivagant, whistling and singing
tremulous love notes through the air, vainly searching and
calling for their lost spouses, never, never to return! To do
so, would have a powerful moral effect upon every sportsman.
It would increase the size of his organ of veneration, and diminish
the detestable bumps of destructiveness and acquisitiveness.
He would not kill more than were needful for his
family, a few immediate friends, and his own honor. He
would also augment his organ of pity in two ways; First, by
his forbearance, and regret for those doomed birds whom he
cannot help cut down; and, secondly, by his consideration
for other murderers who are to come after him next day, and
who, like him, have wives or sweethearts, and pride. In this
latter view of the matter, he would learn another noble lesson.
Pity is not only “akin to love,” but its sister or brother.—The
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sex, here, is probably masculine.—He would learn to “love
his neighbor as himself;” and not, like a grasping glutton, bag
all. By all our hopes! we hold that villain a dangerous citizen,
who heaps up mounds of unnecessary carcases, and brags
of the numbers he has slaughtered. We distrust his honesty,
and think of the potency of silver shot put into the hands of
country boys who watch by dusk at ponds. He would shoot
at a covey of partridges skulking by the side of an old log,
upon the ground! He is a cockney, and no true sportsman,
and should be condemned to set snares and shoot for market.
We are thinking now of the breeders and whistlers of our
own fields and woods; not of the travelling passengers who
merely dip into our waters, and marshes, on their way to the
northern springs, and on their return to tropical bayous and
hammocks, and who are cosmopolites, and no fellow-countrymen.
They are strangers and may be taken in. Shoot and
kill. Yet even for some of these we plead. Break not up
the feeding places of the Brant, nor dig a hole near the sanding
spot of the goose. Let them have some quiet water-lot,
free from taxes, where they may repose after a weary flight,
and do not rout them from every broad shallow and hidden
nook. If the passion for collineation rages, insatiable, get
Raynor Rock, or one of his boys, to row you out into the
breakers, and bang away at Scoter, Surf, and Velvet ducks,
whom Long Island baymen, unlawfully, call “Coot.” “Number
2,” and heavy loads, and a whiffing skiff, will soon lame
your shoulder, and gratity your ambition.
A sportsman is not proven by the numbers he produces, but
by the telling of his shots, and by his time. No true gentleman
ought to labor on the uplands, soaking his fustian with
day-light dew, and dragging weary legs through twilight mud.
There might be an honest match made, we admit, touching
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the number of Cock on a given day. But the event would
depend not only upon the skill, coolness, and good dog of the
performer, but upon the length and strength of legs, and all the
ordinary capacities of a foot-racer. He who walks three
miles, and kills eighteen birds out of twenty, in four hours,
and comes home before noon, is entitled to the palm in preference
to the painful toiler, who tramps all day and blunders
down fifty wingtips, missing at every other shot.
Nevertheless, we have been in the solemn woods all day,
and have dallied with solitary nature, until dusky evening
whispered in our ear, to skip and jump down the rough oxcart
precipices, called roads, and when sombre clouds and interwoven
branches of tall trees shut out even the light of the
flashing torch of the lightning, except when once it shivered,
ten yards before us, an enormous oak, to whose hypocritical
welcome of towery leaves we were hastening for protection
from the beginning hail storm, and when the thunderbolt that
burst upon the stricken giant, stunned our fearful ears, and
threw us trembling back upon a sharp rock which quivered in
its tottering tenancy of the edge of a deep ravine, and then
plunged down the precipice, leaving us clinging and climbing
with desperate strength upon the uncertain sand and crumbling
clay. Bear witness, ye mountains of Haverstraw! Did not
the storm scream, and the trees groan, and the cataracts of
mixed hail-stones and torrent rain-water sweep down the hill
side? Did we not imbibe a hot brandy sling when we arrived
at Job's, and put on a dry shirt and go to bed?—But,
were we beating for birds all day? No, no. Eleven o'clock,
A. M., found us, not weary but languid, by a leaping stream,
clear and pure as our Mary's eyes, and of a similar color; and
we took out our smitten prey, and smoothed their feathers
down, and arranged them in a row, and looked at them, and
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thought of death and graves, and then we dipped into the musical
water and lipped Castalian glories, and laved our hot
brow, and then fell into a cool resting-place upon some short
sweet grass by the side of a hazel bush, and took from our
pocket Thompson's “Seasons,” and read, and fell asleep,
dreaming of the beautiful Musidora. Musidora cost us a wet
jacket, and a heavy cold. Nothing but thunder could have
awakened us from that dream.
We seem to hear even now the murmuration of that rivulet,
and a woodcock getting up by its side. We are off. Reader,
farewell.
“Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?”
We wonder if the Poet ever got any answer to that question.
We will bet a bag of buckshot, that the water-fowl to
whom the interesting interrogatory was addressed, was out of
sight, and out of the sound of its echo, before the spoken sentimentality
ran up against a mark of interrogation. “Whither,”
aye, “whither” should a duck go, in the age of percussion
caps, batteries, and patent cartridges? Under what upper
cloud may “the fowler's eye” mark in “distant flight,” his
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“figure floating,” “vainly,” or without power to do him “wrong,”
or his fowler self, justice? The bird, which the bard apotheosised,
must have been either close by, or afar off. If he
was near, he could have been talked to, or shot at, according
to the taste of the spectator, and there would then have been
no gammon about “vainly the fowler's eye.” If he was too
far off, and only “painted on the crimson sky,” then neither
goose-shot nor poetical questions could have touched a feather
on his ear.
Let us pray to be forgiven by all just admirers of the
thoughtful music from which we have adopted the entablature
of our present madness, if we have seemed to borrow.—God
save the word! when could we repay!—steal—look at—
with any sort of levity,—the choice-culled flowers of phrase
that sculpture those sweet dreamings of Bryant. They are
mournful philosophy, reasoning grief, imagination with feet.—
Sense, heart, mind, flight. That brings us to the subject of
ducks.
Talk of “flights,” and you will remember straightway old
Drayton;—
“The duck and mallow first the falconer's only sport
Of river flights the chief,”—
Permit us, dear reader, to call your attention, for a few moments,
to the flight of the mallard, or shoveller—which, we
know not—in the precedent picture. If thou art blind, yet
hast shot heretofore, know that the engraving exhibits, water,
sky, bushes, hassocks, two ducks in trouble, a boat, one man
with a setting pole, and another with a gun, in the bow. If
thou BE blind, thou hast not lost much, for we do not hold the
picture dearly. Two very-gentle-men have come out, at three
hours after sunrise, to shove for crippled birds of any nation
or species, black or white, infidel or christian, grasseater or
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crabcannibal. They are of the class of people who take their
comfort while they shoot. Their clothes are accurate and
comely fits. The gentleman with the pole, shoves with his
coat on, buttoned up. Doubtless, they will knock over the
invalid who flutters in the rear. It will be a merciful certainty,
if the shooter stands firm, and holds right. The
wounded one winnows the air weakly. Those birds had
flown to the up-gushing fountains of the fresh meadows, and
the healing creek-greens, to cure their stricken pinions, and
sides sore with lead spent to sting them, in the lower bays;—
not killed, but feverish after a hard experimental blow, struck by
some patient point-shooter, who had begun to be tired of waiting
for a company to wheel up nearer to his stool. That
wooden parallelogram, called a scow, chiefest for a trout-pond
cannot accomplish an original death;—unless a spring of teal,
or a river broadhill, lie in close security behind some straggling
patch of rushes, in the direct track of the intended water
road. Yet let us not do injustice to the pretty picture. It
shows, how, in a quiet way, a lover of pure air and kaleidiscopical
colors, may float down an ebbing stream, through
channel-enclosing bushes, and sedges trespassing upon the
ancient but diminishing dominion of the river gods, and suddenly
startle from his falsely imagined safety, some unfortunate
speculator in water-weeds, who thought his weak or
shattered fortune would be made sound and fat by “going in.”
One of these ducks is clearly “lame.” The other looks as
though he was taking the benefit of the wild-fowl absent
debtor act.—[That act differs from the enactment of the human
New York Legislature, in one peculiar respect. In the one
case, if the fowl owes you any feathers, or flesh, and can get
out of your jurisdiction—or rather Collineodiction—he is safe;
and may grant, bargain, sell, devise, bequeath, and run away
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from, all and singular his right, title, principal and interest in
and to, and so forth, his temporary home and feeding spots.
In the other case, the Sheriff is apt to form a strong attachment
for the feeding places and singular chattels of the abscondant,
and hold on to them, against his assignee, with a
love “passing the love of women.”]—The gentlemen have
made a call upon him: but he is “out,”—out of reach.
Whither is thy flight, good fowl? Of what shell-bank wert thou
cashier? “Whither, midst falling due” notes, of which—
knowing thy business place, and full of trust,—we thought
we held the substance?—Thou art lost, gone, etherealized
silvered over with a cloudy dinner set, and wilt set thy table
in other waters!
“Yes, thou hast vanished, singing, from our sight!
So must this earth be lost to eyes of thine:
Around thee is illimitable light.
Thou lookest down, and all appears to shine
Bright as above! Thine is a glorious way,
Pavilioned all around with golden spreading day.”
How crippled fowl will Biddleize and Swartwoutize, and
make the fowlers who are after them d—n their eyes!
“The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven
In the broad day light,
Thou art unseen, and yet I hear thy shrill delight.”
No matter. There are ducks enough left, not so flighty, and
with whom we can, easier, talk, in plain sight. Who doubts
the assertion? If it be he who goes to Audubon's exhibition,
and judges from that heterogeneous mixture of fish, flesh, and
Indian sculls, what the glorious bays of Matowacs[25] can
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produce, in this present, existing November, of Anseric and
Anatic providence; or he who tries to assimilate or to reconcile
the classifications of the proudest ornitholigical grammarians—
Latham—Buffon—Bewick—Wilson—Audubon—
and all the rest,—into any sort of society, of which the members
may be identified by some possible nomenclature without
an alias, or without a doubt expressed as to their family
title;—men that call the American gander “Anas Canadiensis,”
instead of “Anser,” forgetting those Roman “hawnkers,”
worthy of a classic name, who saved the empire treasury from
the rapacious Gauls;—then, we pray thee, friend come with
us, and look at the streaming squadrons, crucking, quacking,
whistling and perutting in the Great South bay of Long Island.
The most accurate images,—and those of Audubon—
bird Prometheus—almost live, are faint copies of the rushing
glories of the bay. No one can paint like Goddess Nature.
Break thy pallet, tear thy canvas, thou mortal who dare presume.
Knowest thou Jim Smith?—James X. Smith,—called by
judicious distinction from some rascals, who, by paternal authority,
have stolen his name, James Xenophon Smith?—Illustrious
cognomen!—worthily won; as every angler well appreciates,
who has perused the map of his “Anabasis” to
Steph. Sweesy's pond, and has moralized over the stumps where
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Jim and we once pitched our tents, long, long before “Yorkers”
found out that trout floated there, and before Jim X. had
learned that he could make moneys out of frail travelling nature,
by building a good ice-house near “The Sportsman's
Hotel.” James X. Smith's biography is yet to be written!
He lives now, and we introduce him briefly. Ample provision
will, unquestionably, be made in his will, for his eulogist.
We name James X. as being the fortunate proprietor of one
of the chiefly selected stopping haunts, and sallying ports, of
all shooting visitors of Matowacs. You cannot mistake his
house, if you hold up at the sign-post at the corner of Jerusalem
lane and South turnpike. It is a pious neighborhood.
The name gives you a confidence in that truth. Babylon,
the mother of miscellaneous people, is nine miles farther
east.
But what changing panoramas of vocal regiments of air-climbers
will you not see shifting, with their living paintings,
all singing in their own particular crotchets, when you go out,
in the early morning, striking the sleeping inlets with your
oar, before the sun has waked up! Will you look into Wilson
for an enumeration, or gloat over Audubon? Yet neither
they, nor Bonaparte, have told the names—for they never
had their acquaintance,—of all their familiar varieties. Probably
the families have intermarried and crossed the breed,
since those authors wrote, and new baptisms are to be
sprinkled. Wilson was certainly never on Matowacs. He
shot his own acquired specimens, at Egg Harbor and Cape
May. The rest were sent to him, with an eel-spears-man's
description, which he translated.
We are not learned, nor critical, which latter we might be
without being instructed; but every bayman on Long Island,
to whom you would read the ill-arranged ordines, genera, and
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species of Wilson, translating the latin to him, and putting it into
honest South-side dialect, would say “Pshaw! he hasn't got
down one half the different kinds of broadbill,—let alone other
salt-water birds who hold their public meetings on our
marshes!” But even in Wilson, you find twenty-odd enumerations
of feather-floaters, who either strut by their own
domiciles, or occasionally, call in at the Squaw Islands, Linus
Island or Wanzas flat, and are ready for the reception of visitors,
who come in the shape of Youle's No. 3.
Let us take a skiff and put out and bless the abundance.
It is three o'clock, A. M. If thou art cold, and, last night,
slept too little—for reasons, which as a dear friend, loving
thy usual abstinence, and chastising thee by silence, rather
than by unnecessary recapitulation, we forbear to hint at, lie
down in the bottom of the boat, in the dry salt-meadow grass
which thy man will fix for thee, with thy head upon an air
cushion resting upon the bow-head, and sleep. Sleep! when
birds are swimming in the skiff's pathway, and ducks quack,
and brant cronk, and broadbill prut about thee? No; thy poler
or oarsman, even if he had not read Shakespeare, would soon
cry out “Sleep no more,”—or else, “Mister, I reckon there's
fowl ahead—close by—take them as they rise.”
Such a heart-stirrer and ambition-provoker, puts you on
your knees, and you will try to see through the dark. How
queer! we bend our bodies upon our knees when we pray to
be saved; and yet we often kneel, in the same way, to destroy
ducks! When are our prayers most earnest?—Don't
think of it. Knees have dangerous associating reflections.
But you will by-and-by arrive at some jutting point, or
thatchy island, where you may lie securely hid, wrapped up
in the warm envelopments of sedge-grass and your overall,
and wait for the peeping daylight to set the various tribes of
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ducks to their works of travel and diving. Happy wretches!
who have nothing to do but to fly, and to feed, and be loved,
and shot,—killed without notice, without lingering sickness,
or surgical torment. Yet they, many of them, have their ails
and aches; and the inexperienced amateur, shooting when
they fly in his eyes, and the old leather-head batterer straining
a broken musket at a distance immeasurable but by a fowl,
has planted many a shot-wound needlessly, by accident, in the
side of a straggler, or luck-loser of the flock.
But thou art at thy hiding-place now, and thy poler—polar
star of thy existence, if thou knowest not the road, and how
to pull, and he fall overboard,—is setting out his stools.
If thou be inexperienced, thou mayest look into all the dictionaries
that have ever been collated, and we hold the last—
Richardson's, the poorest, and a great humbug, yet it comes
nearer to our taste in its illustration of this word—and thou
wilt not learn what the sporting meaning of “stool,” is. To
save the trouble of distant reference and inquiry, we will therefore
certify and explain that “stools,” in shooting phraseology,
are graven images made in the likeness of geese, brant, and
ducks, before which the hassock-skulking adventurer bows
down and worships—not the graven images—but the providence
that permits the living squadrons at whom he shoots, to
be cheated by the false colors which he has hung out, to persuade
them to come in. How many—many—honorable villains,
might be indicted for obtaining ducks under “false pretences.”
The district attorney of Queen's might soon make
his fortune, if he would only do his duty. Stools, to talk plain
American, are wooden devices of the shape, size, and complexion
of the fowl you wish to subduce from the upper air.
Sculptor and painter are employed in their manufacture. Jim
X. Smith's boys unite and body forth the sister arts. Let
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them set out a congregation of stool for thee, and thou wilt for
ten minutes cry out “there's a bird,” fast as guns can be reloaded,
and shoot every stool to pieces. The old man, himself,
was not slow at sculpture. We remember one April day—
it was the first, and the old man wanted his revenge on us
for some innocent devil-play—when lying in Goose-Creek,
after sheldrakes, Jim suddenly got up, and wrapping his peacoat
around him, stepped from the boat to the marsh, and said,
“he believed he'd take a walk, and see if there wasn't any
black ducks sitting in that pond down there,”—somewhere.
He went. After a quarter of an hour's travel he returned, and
with all the solemnity of a regular cheater, observed that “he
reckoned he see a crippled faawl sittin down on the edge of
that are pint.” “I'll go after him,” exclaimed our companion,
who had in the mean time, with poor luck like our own, called
to give us a visit of condolence, in another skiff. “No, no;”
cried the excellent Jim X., “I want that fowl in our boat. I
found him first, and Mr. Cypress is entitled to the shot. You
can come along, and if he misses, you can kill after him.”
And so we went—slop, sink, stick, jump, through and over a
wet, soft meadow. At last we heard the welcome intelligence,—
“Stop, Mr. Cypress, there he is: don't you see him?—just
a leetle north-east of that bunch of bushes on the edge of the
bank?” We looked: there he was.
“Jim, that's a dead bird. He can't rise.”
“Yes he can; and if you don't shoot it sittin, he'll tumble
off into the water, and dive, and there'll be an end of him.
Shoot, shoot, and if he rises take him with the other barrel;
stand ready, Mr. B—.”
We shot, the bird sat and grinned at us.
“You've killed him—you've killed him,” cried Jim,—
“don't shoot your other barral.”
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It is no great grief to renew; but we had rather tell the
story ourselves; and it was April day, and it was James X.
So he went and picked up our game, one of his aforesaid stools,
which he had privately secreted under the folds of his great
coat, and carried out to help the solemnization of April-fool
day, in the South bay. We have not had our revenge yet.
James X. is wary, and moves out of the county on the last
day of March. But retribution is in pickle for him; and it
will be funny.
This simple incident in our biography illustrates the subject
of stools. They are miserably wooden pictures of bay
birds, whose distant view brings enchantment to the living
jaunters, when they dip in here, and who are apt to look at the
arrival-book of the public places of “entertainment for ducks,”
and stop where their friends are; and will, of course, call in
and say they're “happy to see them.” Alas! how many
credulous, ruined hearts, of human structure, have been
pierced, and stricken, bleeding, by a similar profession of
love, and good feeding-ground! The stools are anchored off,
some twenty or thirty yards, held safely by a brick or angular
stone, tied to a string attached to a nail driven in their middle,
and there they float, like independent slaves tied to their
desk or counter, bobbing up and down and looking “happy—
very happy,” but yet unable to take the wings of the morning,
or of the moonlight, and to fly away. The fresh flocks
just arriving, and not knowing where to go, following example,
as they imagine, whirl, with congratulatory clang, into
the expected welcome of their fancied neighbors, only to
be met by the rough, harsh, remorseless, bang, bang, with
which “the obtainer of ducks under false pretences,” lies
hiding to destroy them.
They used to have another device “down East,” called
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“machines,” Dannel Post, Ike Rose, and the Alibi's, were,
if not the inventors, at all events, the constant practisers and
mechanists, in the time of the prevailing architecture to which
we refer. Let no man flatter himself that that order of art
is beneath his notice. The genius of the structure itself sneers
at the Corinthian, speaks with cold respect to the Doric, and
calls itself the Colline-anatic. But those old batteries are
decaying; for the Legislature has enacted a law, forbidding
worship in such temples. General Jones, of Queen's, Senator
and nobleman, noble-man as a Republican could wish to
be, takes the responsibility of the constitutionality of the
imposed penalty. Fifty dollars for every bird shot out of a
battery? All honor to him if the law can be enforced.
Whether it be a law just and sustainable upon the ground of
“equal rights,” or the “sumptuary” prerogatives of law-making
power, we have not yet made up our conclusion.
Our judgment is only doubtfully retained, having been spoken
to on both sides, without an advanced fee from either; therefore,
we decline being anxious to precipitate an opinion.
We must confess, however, that, personally, we have lain
in those coffins, not dead, nor dying, but the cause of death
in many two-legged people with feathers on. But we have
always had doubts about the morality—the mor—what?—
what is morality, as applied to ducks? A duck's safety
lies in his wings and feet, not in acts of the Legislature. He
can spring yards enough, at a single leap, to cheat his enemies;
flies two miles in a minute, to overtake his friends;
and dive, and scramble, and hide, better than the cunningest
Seminole. Yet, perhaps, our ducks need protection. Perhaps
we ought to repair our house, and make things comfortable,
or the tenants will move away. There is a great deal
in that consideration. Years ago, the southern bays of
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Matowacs were brilliant with sparkling plumage, and bright eyes
of birds of every hue and shape. Now!—Look for the intended
progenitors of a “long line of descendants,” in the kitchens
of people who go to Fulton Market. The marshes which
were joyfully obstreperous, even in summer, are now silent.
The banquet halls of the feeding-flats are deserted. Instead
of taking board, or hiring a house and lot, and making themselves
comfortable, as in old times; the ducks, now, are
only travellers, who just stop and take a drink, where they see
the proper sort of bar. It is natural, and therefore excusable,
that they stop at those Hotels where they see the most people
congregated; for a congregation argues good patronage;
and good patronage argues good beverage.
This brings us back to the subject of machines. A machine,
or battery, is a wooden box of the necessary dimensions
to let a man lie down upon his back, just tightly fitting enough
to let him rise again.—It is not unlike that box which we
have all got to be shut up in, at the end of the chapter of our
lives.—It is fitted with wings of board horizontal, and so sustained
and nailed as to lie flat upon the water without sinking,
the top fringing, and the sides keeping you unwet by the
surrounding and over-floating tide, which gurgles around your
ears, and just does not come in, because the weight of stones
laid upon the wings, accurately adjusts the sinking depth of
the box. This receptacle for the body of the fowl slayer, is
anchored in some middle bay, where, in its shallow waters,
the birds have a “haunt,” and fly to feed upon the thick-growing
crops of Valisneria, and other goodly sea-wheat, far from any
point or plashy hassock, where, with their constant experience,
they might fear some skulker hid. The battery is
anchored. The wings, about five feet by seven, are covered
carefully with sand and carelessly scattered sea-leaves, and
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there is thus built an artificial sand-bar in the middle of the
wide, and to the credulous victim, seemingly safe, bay. You
get into this machine, and lie down and watch. Your man disposes
the stool-birds to your leeward, and sails away to stir
up flocks miles off, and drive them towards you, leaving you
in the waste of waters, where a little leak might sink and
anchor you at the bottom,—fun for ducks to dive and flop at,—
to lie, cheat, counterfeit, and kill. That is “shooting out
of a machine.” The now arrivers coming in from sea, see
the supposed happy family you have around you, afar off, and
set their willing wings, fatigued with long exertion, and
come, crucking musical “good mornings,” among your false
masques. Then, then!—as they swoop in thick company
before they settle,—you rise from under the water, like a
sudden demon, and scatter thunder and lightning and death
among the deceived and ruined unfortunates!
Plant these machines all along the southern coast of Matowacs,
from Gowanas bay to Montauck point, and can any
man wonder that James X.—who hasn't got any proper spot
to set out a battery,—should sometimes say that “ducks is
scace?”
Mercy on us; we came near expressing an opinion! But
we are not committed. And lo! we have prosed a long half
hour, almost, and have not said a word we intended to. Dear
reader, we will usurp no more. Talk, now, thyself.
eaf138v1.n25[25] For the best history of Matowacs, or, as it is generally called, “the
State of Long Island,” see the comprehensive, minute, and excellent book
of B. F. Thompson, Esq., lately published. No islander, or island-frequenter,
has his library complete without it. There is hardly an inhabiant
of the three counties, unless he be very insignificant, who cannot find
out in this accurate Register of things public and private, who his great-grandfather
was,—which is a great thing, now-a-days, to know,—or who of
the family were indicted for witchcraft, or whipped for theft or promoted
to the ermine; and where they lie, and what their epitaphs were. It is a
book meritorious in another respect; it not only comprises the annals of
private families, but of concurrent public actions. There is timber enough
in it to build twenty literary edifices. Friend try to get a copy of it. Buy,—
dont borrow.
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LEGENDS OF LONG ISLAND.
[figure description] Page 202.[end figure description]
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It was during the reign of Anne, of blessed memory, and
while the blue laws executed wholesome judgment upon Connecticut
sinners, that Jerry Smith sought quiet seats, and a
safe retreat, from the persecution that afflicted a man who had
kissed his cousin on a Sunday. Wethersfield lost, and the
wet sands received him. The people of the classic shores of
Jerusalem, and Babylon, and Oyster-bay south, wondered and
wondered what could have induced Jerry to go down to that
unpeopled, barren spot, to live.
Raccoon beach is a ridge of sand. It runs from its western
point, seven miles south of Babylon, where Uncle Sam
has lately built a light-house—thirty miles due east, averaging
three fourths of a mile in breadth. It is one of those insular
breast-works, which nature has thrown up, to protect that ancient
and respectable country, called Long Island, from the
incursions and ravages of the southern tempest. On its northerly
side lies a smooth, quiet bay; its southern border is
lashed by the ocean. A mere nutshell of a skiff may ride
securely in the bay, but wo betides the pennant that floats
over the foam of the inlet! The surface of the beach is diversified
by irregular hills. A gloomy forest of pines has
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grown up near its centre; and with this exception, scarce a
sign of vegetation appears. Myriads of quackes and crows
share their solemn roost upon the aforesaid trees, the descendants
of happy ancestors, who were rent-free, undisturbed
tenants of said gallinary, when Jerry's skiff touched the
strand.
Jerry Smith knew what he was about, when he put up his
Esquimeaux-like hut on the side of one of the beach hills.
To be sure, it was cold, and exposed and barren: and it was,
moreover, very unsociable to stay there all alone; but what
of that, if he could make himself, in two or three years,
as rich as old pirate Jones? And after all, he was not so
much alone, neither. For there was the bay full of eels,
and crabs, and clams, and the surf was sparkling with striped
bass, and the air and the water were vocal with the hawnking,
and crucking, and perutting, and screaming of geese, and brant,
and broadbills, and oldwives, and cormorants and hell-divers,
and all the other varieties of the anseric and anatic families.
At this early period, too, before too much civilization had unpeopled
the land of its rightful lords, the bays of Long Island
were frequented by that interesting class of amphibiotics, whom
mortals call mermaids. Of the existence of this order of
created handiwork, the old colonists had the most substantial
and satisfactory evidence. Their songs might be heard every
evening, upon the sea, falling and sinking with the setting
sun; and at night, in the storm, amid the strangling surges of
the breakers; or in the calm, when moonlight and the waves
were mixed up so that a body couldn't tell them apart, their
siren voices, taking the tone from the elements, filled the air
with rich and fearful music. But there was danger in listening
to them. People used to put their fingers into their ears,
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whenever they heard them; else they were sure to be enchanted,
or have some evil happen to them.
But it was not clamming, nor fishing, nor shooting, nor
hearing mermaids sing, that took Jerry to the beach. More
prudential and substantial objects were his aim. To tell the
truth, he had from early life, been troubled with a grievous
and most jejune impecuniosity; and having heard that his
grandfather who had been afflicted with the same distemper,
had been cured by the sea air, he now determined to turn his
exile to the like advantage. Jerry was in the right. It has
been, before, indirectly suggested, that at this early period,
there was no light-house on the beach. Is it then to be wondered,
that many a richly freighted ship, in the hard south-easters,
rested her devoted keel upon the Fire island sand-bars,
and was battered and dashed to pieces? What bales of
rich French silks and laces, and Irish linens, and casks of
liquors used to come ashore! Was any body to blame, if
Jerry picked them up? The goods were probably insured,
and the owners could get their money out of the insurance
office; and then, if the insurance people, or the wreck-master
did come to look for the wreck, it couldn't be expected that
Jerry would give up what belonged to no one, so far as he
knew, after he had had all the trouble and pains of stowing
it away. Besides, by removing the property out of sight, he
prevented all misunderstanding and dispute about salvage,
and the other perplexing questions, that always give so much
trouble, to the United States marshal, and the proctors in the
admiralty courts. Occasionally, too, Jerry could administer
comfort to some shipwrecked sailor, who had the good luck
to be rolled ashore of a dark night; and his hospitality was
generally well paid for, as was no more than right. Even if
the subject of his benevolence happened not to live to see
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another morning, still the charity was not withheld. The last
offices were sure to be discharged by Jerry; and then, if
there should happen to be a belt of doubloons around the waist
of the defunct, that would very naturally go towards paying
for the trouble of scratching a hole for the poor fellow in the
sand, and for the liquor he drank the night before.
In the performance of such charities and humanities, Jerry
contrived to pick up a very decent subsistence. He would
have been quickly rich, if he could only have readily sold his
jetsam and flotsam acquisitions. But Peet. Waters, the wreck-master,
was always snooping into his concerns. He suspected
that Jerry was active and painstaking for filthy lucre, merely,
and he was unable to comprehend the existence of any very
extensive disinterestedness in abandoning the warm upland,
for a bleak island in the sea. And no wonder; for Peet. was
one of those jealous mortals, who deny that any thing is virtuous,
which meets with its reward in this world, and who
look upon the chastenings of Providence in the shape of poverty,
and distress, as the only sure tokens of elect goodness.
Peet. was the man who spread the report about two sailors
coming ashore one dark night, with several kegs of dollars,
in a small boat, and how they put up at Jerry's, and were not
seen to go away; and how the boat was afterwards found
drawn up into Poor-man's harbor, half burned up. The story
about the false lights had the same origin. These scandals
distressed not Jerry much; for after all, nothing was proved
against him; and at all events, there was the stuff that could
buy the silence of fifty men like Peet.; and as to any loss of
reputation, Jerry knew very well that the best of his estimable
fellow citizens and neighbors were not overburdened with
scrupulosity. “Rem, quocunque modo, rem,” used to be as
good a maxim for people living along shore, as for hungry
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poets. The simplicity and beauty of the sentiment are even
yet very generally appreciated by the judicious republicans
who dwell upon the sea board. Salt air is a marvellous developer
of the organs of appetite and appropriation.
Years thus whistled over the point of the beach, and saw Jerry's
establishment increased to a snug double one-storied house,
with a spacious garret overhead, an out house, hog-pen, and
divers other appointments, or,—as Jerry called them,—“things
accorden,” indicating comfort and good living. That garret!
there was the hoard of things good and rich and rare; it was
a real museum of the seas! But no landsman ever got a sight
into it; except Jem Raynor, the captain of the sloop Intrepid,
that used to sail from the Widows creek at Islip, to Catherine
market, New York, every Saturday morning. Jem used to
carry on “quite a smart trade” with Jerry; and many a
goodly piece of broadcloath found its way into the slop-shops
in Cherry-street, that came from Raccon beach in the hold of
the Intrepid, covered over with clams.
But alas! as Jerry's worldly substance waxed, his satisfaction
with himself and his profession waned. He began to
feel that sense of loneliness, which makes a man pine, and be
unhappy in the midst of abundance: he had no object of sympathy
to share his thoughts with, and then, it was so seldom
that he could get any fresh meat. The intellectual and the
sensual man both began to wake up and rebel. Without
knowing what philosophy or morals meant, he pondered and
discussed the cui bono of his heaped up chattels, and dreamed
of luxuriations, of which, in former days, he had not even the
most abstract or indefinite idea. Instead of going to bed, he
sat up late at night, and smoked, and thought, and drank. His
rusty razor was now astonished by an occasional interview
with his beard; eels began to have a fishy taste, and the
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unhappy man was more than once startled by the strange sounds
of such words as wife, and beef-steak, as they involuntarily
escaped from his muttering lips.
But what was the use of all this, he often said to himself.
Could he persuade any one of the fair damsels of Queens
county to bear him company on that desolate spot? Who
would leave the endearments of home, and family, and friends,
to live with such a sea-otter as he? And if he were to move
away, what could he do with his things? Jerry sighed, and
was wretched.
In the midst of his tribulation, he was one evening returning
home from a long cruise by the surf-side. It was a mild,
moonlit night in autumn. The spray broke so brightly, that
he could almost hear it sparkle as it fell in small stars at his
feet. Presently, a low, indistict murmur chimed in with the
music of the rippling water. It was faint, and soft, at first,
“A stealing, timid, unpresuming sound,”
so that Jerry scarcely observed it; he did not distinguish it
as the singing of the mermaids, until the magic of the song
had begun to work upon him; his ears were unstopped—he
listened a little too long—a delicious tremor came gradually
over him—his heart was dissolved, and he sunk upon the
sand. Who can describe his feelings, as he lay there, a captive
bound by rapture and agony! Many were the fearful
stories that were told of these daughters of the sea; and
whether he was to be eaten up, or have his eye-balls pulled
out, to be strung upon the said ladies' pearl necklaces, who
could tell! It was evident that he was seen, and that he was
the victim of the spell. But O! what music! Jerry often
used to say that he had been to camp-meeting, once, at Mosquito
cove; but the singing there was “nothing to it.” At
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one time, it would come over him, trembling, and melancholy,
like the lamentation of the whippoorwill in the far distance;
then it would die away upon some painfully delicious chromatic
scale, and by and by reviving and increasing in volume,
and perfectness of harmony, swell into a full and glorious
chorus; then, as though by sudden magic, the performers
had changed the orchestra, it would hover over him,—sostenato,
as the Hempstead singing-master used to say,—and
rise and rise high up into the air, diminishing though distinct,
like the mellow, attenuated trill of the soaring dowitcher, in the
spring time, until sense and sound were lost; and the next
moment, after a rapid and almost insensible cadenza, it moved
far off upon the sea, maestoso, solemn and slow, like a distant
church organ. Jerry soon could see the forms of the sirens
indistinctly. They were sporting among the breakers, singing
and plunging down, and coming up through the foam of
the dashing waters. As they did not appear to notice him,
particularly, his apprehensions were somewhat quieted, and
he began to examine “what the creatures were.” There
were about fifteen or twenty of them. So far as he could tell,
they looked very much like young women “in general,” only
they had pink eyes and long green hair. They were modestly
dressed in long robes of sea weed, thrown over their
shoulder, bound at the waist by a brilliant belt of pearls, and
falling in graceful drapery a little below the knee. Jerry had
always heard they had the tail of a fish; but he could see
nothing of the kind; except that on their ankles they had a
kind of fins, or wings, such as people see in the picture of the
heathen called Mercury.
At length, the song and the sport ceased. The nymphs
joined hands, and skated away over the surface of the sea, all
but one—and what did she do, but with fairy fleetness spring
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to the beach, and seat herself at Jerry's feet! She laid her
hand upon the place where physiologists say a woman's heart
ought to be, and leaning forward, with an air of the most tender
affection, fixed her expressive eyes upon him, and bade
him “good evening,” in plain, christian English, and with a
sweet low voice.
This was a little too much for the poor man to bear. He
became—to use his own words—crazy as a sheldrake shot
through the head. Yet, not a word could he speak, nor a hand
could he move. Not so his new acquaintance. She, like
most of her sex, talked much, and fast, and well. She tried
to allay his fears, assuring him that she was no sea-monster,
that she came of a good family, and was well brought up, and
she would do him no harm, and all that.
Jerry listened, and considered her from head to foot, and
soon became familiar with the unusual sight and sound. Such
a voice, and such beautiful words, he had never heard before!
And the woman, or fish, herself, whatever she was—why—
she was well formed, and had a fair skin, and look but in her
eyes, and she seemed the gentlest and most amiable being in
the world. Alack! those eyes, those eyes! they were working
a dangerous work of fascination upon Jerry. They were
so deep, and clear, and good. It was like looking down into
a deep spring of water on a sultry day. Still he was speechless.
“Speak, man,” said the mermaid, “and don't be frightened
out of your wits.”
“Who—what are you?” at last stammered Jerry.
“Flesh and blood, like yourself, dear Jerry,” was the kind
response, “your friend, your true lover; yes, by Jupiter, I am
come to marry you.”
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“The dence you are!” said Jerry, drawing a hard breath.
“Do you suppose that I would marry a fish?”
“Do not call me names, Jeremiah—you will regret it when
you know me better. I am a sea nymph, to be sure; but I
bring you wealth, and honor, and respectable connections, and
a heart full of love.”
“I should like to know where your wealth is,” interrupted
Jerry, waxing bolder, “and, as for your connections, I suppose
they are seals and penguins.”
“Have I not the keys of the treasures of the deep?” replied
the mermaid, half mournfully, half indignantly. “Come,
I will lead you into my coral grove, and into our pleasant orchards
of pearls:
“The floor is of sand. like the mountain drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow”—
But you are incredulous: listen, and let me tell you who I
am.” Thus saying, she threw up her eyes to the blue sky,
and began to sing in a soft, plaintive voice, a little ballad of
her history. What the tune was and what the words were,
Jerry never could remember. That ballad did the business
for him, however. The outline of the story was, that she was
a daughter of the king of the ocean, the father of fifty fair
daughters. Galatæa was her name. The pebbly strand of
Sicily received the print of her youthful footstep, and the billowy
Egean laved her tender limbs. One Acis, a shepherd,
saw and loved her, with requiting affection; but one Polyphemus
pursued him, with revengeful malice. The sea threw
up the crushed limbs of Acis, and the blue skirt of Columbia
fell upon the fugitive nymph. Here, she had had no comfort
for her desolate heart, until her eyes fell upon the wrecker of
Raccoon beach.
This was all heathen Greek to Jerry, whose learning did
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not extend much beyond a “scapnet,” and an eelspear; and
he accordingly understood not a word that was sung, except
the name of Polyphemus, whom he took to be some namesake
of his fair cousin, for the violation of whose cheek he had suffered
exile. It smote upon his heart, with all his old hatred
of womankind.
“Polly Femis?” said he, “she was some poor devil, I'll warrant.
I had a cousin once named Poll, and I hate all upland
women for her sake. Yes, and I think I can—I will—I do
like you. Come, Galatæa, dry your tears—you shall be my
gal now, fish or flesh, by the living—.”
So saying, he took into his brawny grasp, the unresisting
little hand of the mermaid. It was a delicate, well formed,
soft hand as ever a man pressed; only it was bluey all over,
and a little cold, and webbed-like between the fingers. But
hearts, not fingers, ruled that hour. Forthwith was enacted
everything that is necessary and appropriate to the completion
of a sea-nymph's matrimonial contract. The many-voiced sea
sent up a newly concerted epithalamium; the servants of
æolus rolled a mellow strain along the hollow shore; and the
stars, blessed winkers at sudden and fierce love, distilled a
most classical essence upon the happy couple.
The next question was, where they were to go to get married.
For although the nymph considered their then pledged
vows, in the court of Diana, and in the midst of the glorious
radiations from the very throne of the goddess, to be ceremonial
quite sufficient, yet Jerry had some New-England qualms,
about taking a wife without the sanction of a deacon, or a justice
of the peace. Upon this point Jerry was not a little uneasy.
“They'll take me up, perhaps,” thought he, “and send
me to the court-house.” The lady, however, dispelled his
anxiety, by yielding to his prejudices, assuring him that she
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could rig herself out, from the materiel in the garret, so that
not even he, much less the justice, would suspect her to be a
nereid.
To the house, then, they hastened, and the stores of the
garret were tumbled before Galatæa: Linen cambric, and
dimity, and velvet, and brocade, and lace, were soon in requisition.
It was matter of astonishment to the bridegroom, to
see with what nimble speed his bride plied her needle. He was
the happiest man alive. At length, he had the delight to see her
descend from the garret, dressed in such style! Nassau island
never saw a girl like her. And then,—says the transported
narrator of the legend,—she had on white kid gloves, and silk
shoes and stockings, and a real French velvetine hat, with
white wavy plumes: the bridegroom could scarcely believe
his senses.
By this time night began to grow gray, and infant day
showed his sandy hair in the east. The tide served, and off
the lovers started in Jerry's skiff, for the island, in search of
the squire. They landed at the head of the creek, below Lif
Snedicor's, at Islip, just as the people began to go to their
work. The appearance of the rugged fisherman, accompanied
by a lady of unparalleled beauty, bedizened out in such extravagant
apparel, excited no little wonderment. The little
children ran after them, and the women went out to consult
their neighbors about the meteoric visit. All sorts of speculation
were on foot as to the meaning of the apparition. One
old lady said she shouldn't be surprised if the queen of England
had been shipwrecked on the beach, and that Jerry was
showing her the way down to York. This idea took well.
It soon spread like wild-fire, and threw the whole county into
commotion. To see the queen was no trifling matter for the
colonists in those times. In a few hours foot passengers, and
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horsemen, and horsewomen, and carriages of all descriptions
thronged the roads from East Hampton to Babylon. All the
schools were let out and not a clam was caught in the bay
during that whole day.
The morning was far advanced before Jerry and his bride
were ushered after a weary walk, into the squire's parlor. A
boy was soon despatched after the representative of Hymen,
who happened then to be employed some miles off, on the
brush plains, a-carting wood. Jerry was, meanwhile, smitten
with sore apprehension, as he reconnoitered the door yard, and
saw the throngs of anxious faces peering in at the windows.
And why there should be so many unbidden guests, so many
unknown friends, to do him honor at his wedding, he could
not divine: unless, O horror! Galatæa's aquatic parentage
was suspected. The mystery was not dispelled by the conduct
and conversation of the squire, who at last arrived, and
who, advancing into the centre of the room, fell upon his
knees, and addressed Galatæa by the name of his “liege lady,”
or something of that kind, and welcomed her “majesty into
his poor house.” Having done this to his infinite satisfaction,
he arose, and invited Jerry to go into the kitchen and take
something to drink. Jerry signified to the squire that he was
mistaken in the persons.
“What, is not your majesty the queen?”
“Oh no, squire, what put that into your head?” replied the
bridgroom: “this is Mrs. Smith that is to be—we have come
here to be married—that's all.”
The squire's magisterial discrimination was sadly confused
by this declaration. He looked, first at one, then at the other,
and dwelt with no little admiration on the contrast presented
by the couple. “And who could the lady be? And how had
she ever consented to marry that rough”—but then he
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remembered what he had once heard a missionary minister say about
silk and scarlet, and he thought of the rumors about Jerry's
wealth—and this might be some town lady, who was no better
than she—but that could not be, for he glanced on her
face, and it was so modest and decorous, and her eyes—no,
they looked as though she drank a little, being pinkish, as before
mentioned.
His honor shook his head. However, he was satisfied it
was a match, and the why and wherefore were none of his
business, so long as he got his fee. So he put on his
gravity, and pulled out his book in which he kept the hymeneal
record. Having set down into the proper column, the
name, age, and occupation of Jerry, he turned to the bride.
“What is your name, ma'am?”
“Galatæa, sir.”
“Galatæa? That's a queer name. Galatæa what?”
“That is my whole name sir.”
“Ha? What ma'am? Oh yes, yes—Gally Teer.” And
he wrote it down. “Where do your parents reside, Miss
Teer?”
“Indeed, I do not know their present residence, sir,”
answered Galatæa, hesitatingly, while Jerry spoke up, and
asked the squire if it was necessary to know her whole seed,
breed, and genealogy.
“I thought as much,” said the squire, affecting to take no
notice of Jerry's impudent blustering. And now it occurred
to him, that here was a proper occasion to inflict wisdom and
authority. So with all the importance of a police justice, when
he has caught a big villain, he called to his son John to bring
him the vagrant book, and to tell the constable to clear the
people out of the door-yard.
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“How long is it since you left your parent's roof, young
woman?”
“I cannot tell, sir, exactly. It was about the time of the
first Punic war.”
“Punic war? I never heard of such a war as that;
Come no deception, miss; I know you better than you think
for”—poor Jerry trembled from head to foot—“what is your
father's name? We'll see about this matter.”
Galatæa now rose, with the blood of a goddess mantling
in her cheek. She saw the danger they had fallen into, but
she had a woman's wit to get out of it. She commended
and flattered her examiner, for his zealous vigilance, but besought
him not to condemn her by appearances. She told
him that she had lately been obliged to fly from her native
land, on account of some popular excitement against her
family, which, she said, had always furnished the rulers and
judges of the country. That on her voyage of expatriation
she had been shipwrecked upon Raccoon beach. That her
life had been saved by her betrothed, and she had determined
to give him herself and her treasures forever.
This was plausible, although, in the main, terribly destitute
of fact. She added, further, that her fortune was ample, and
that most of it was rescued from the wreck, and that she
intended to make a generous present to the magistrate who
should make her happy.
The good justice's heart was affected by this recital, and
particularly by the concluding part of it. He began to see
the case more clearly.
He assured her, that he had not intended to say any thing
unpleasant, and the ceremony should be finished with all
speed. First, however, he said it was his duty to write in
the book the christian names of her father and mother.
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This was a poser of a requisition; but Galatæa simply said
that the names of her parents were Nereus and Doris. So,
down it went into the book, “Gally Teer, daughter of
Nereus Teer and Doris Teer, spinster.”
The formality was now soon completed, and without further
trouble; although Jerry once told a particular friend of the
grandfather of the narrator of this legend, that the justice
looked “most almighty awful,” when Galatæa pulled off her
glove, and presented her hand for the investment of the wedding
ring. He must have noted, in that dangerous moment,
the submarine conformation of the lady's fingers. But on
that same afternoon, a keg of Hollands found its way into the
cellar under the bridal altar, and before many months the justice
built a new house.
Thus Providence rewards discreet and considerate magistrates.
The aforesaid narrator told me once, when I was a boy, that
“he had a drink out on to that 'ere same liquor, in his honor's
new house, several times, and that it was the best gin
he ever tasted.”
Of all the meannesses of which a man can be guilty,
none equals the treachery of a friend who blabs your secret,
provided, of course, he is well paid to keep it. Let not the
juxta-position of this axiom, and the precedent narrative,
lead any one to believe that the justice told Peet. Waters
that he believed Jerry's wife was a mermaid. Scandal is
an impalpable essence, and Hermes cannot seal it up. The
tongue may be dumb, and the ear may be deaf, and the
hand may be tied, yet does this entity extricate itself from
its supposed place of confinement, and insinuate itself into
other dwelling places, vainly believed to be surely fortified
against its admission. It is like the pressure of the mighty
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sea upon a closely sealed empty bottle. It passes out of
and into the eyes. The pores of the flesh, the touch of
the hand, the air, are all its sure and well regulated avenues
of travel. Mist, fog, and steam,—particularly of the
tea-kettle,—are the frequent vehicles of its portation.
The beginning of the third year after Jerry's marriage,
saw him the father of two as fine boys as a man could
wish to look on; and a happier couple than he and his
wife never existed. But suspicion was abroad, and dark
surmises threatened the family on the beach. In sorrowful
truth, it became pretty generally known, that Galatæa was
not, exactly after the order of women, although no one ventured
to call her, in so many words, a mermaid. She was
too good, and too human-like for that. Yet Peet. Waters
swore he heard her singing, one night, out in the breakers;
and that he believed that more than one vessel had
been lured on shore by the magic of her voice. Alas!
alas! malice and envy were working fearful sorrows for
the daughter of the sea.
One melancholy night, at the time when rumor was most
busy, and danger was most imminent, Galatæa came home
from the wide waters, where she had been disporting, pale
and in deep distress. She told her husband that she had
seen her father—that he had warned her of sudden peril,
and insisted that she, with her sisters, must leave the inhospitable
coast forever. Forever! Husband and wife!—
that tells the story of the scene that followed. But there
was a rosy-cheeked little fellow in the cradle—“Oh! my
boy!”—what else Galatæa said could hardly be understood—
a woman always talks so thick and unintelligibly, when
she is crying and kissing—and kissing her child, and bidding
it good-by, never to see it again. The morrow's sun
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lighted to the beach the virtuous Peter and a constable.
Galatæa had been indicted under the statute against
witches.
“Where is your wife?” was the first gruff sentence that
broke the still air of the morning.
The response of “gone, gone, and buried in the sea,”
added a mortified, if not a much grieved gentleman, to the
trio of mourners which the beach had already possesed.
Yes—Galatæa had torn herself away, and had departed
with her sisters in search of some more charitable clime.
Jerry could never be induced to tell the circumstances of
their separation. All that he ever related, was that, about
three o'clock in the morning, just as the moon was going
down, he was awakened by the mermaid music. Galatæa
sprang out of bed, burst into tears of bitter agony, and
saying, “they have come for me—farewell, farewell,” she
bounded into the surf. Jerry followed, with a breaking
heart, but was waved back by the mermaids, with an authority
and a spell which he could not resist. He then
stood upon the beach, watching their fading forms, as they
glided away to the southeast, singing a mournful dirge;
and he traced them until they came to where the sky and the
water met, when they seemed to open a door in the blue
firmament, and disappeared from his aching eyes,
Since that time, not a mermaid has been seen on the
south side of Long Island.
It was not long before Jerry left a spot full of such
painful associations. Within a few weeks he removed down
east, and laid the foundation of the ancient city of Smithtown.
His boys were the greatest sea-dogs in the country;
and to this day, not a man on Long Island can clam,
crab, jack, shoot, or draw a net for bony fish with the
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skill and success of those who have inherited the honorable
name of “Smith.”
Note.—The lover of classical proprieties, to whom the
interesting facts of this narrative are new, must not shake
his incredulous head, without making some inquiry into the
matter. That a sea-nymph should take a fancy to a fisherman,
is nothing new nor strange. All women whether of
the land or of the sea, will bestow their hearts upon whom
they please. As to the fact of mermaids having lived on
the coast, there is now no doubt whatever. Every man of literary
pretensions on Long Island, will confirm the well-attested
tradition. Moreover it is incontrovertibly shown,
by the laborious author of the “Parakalummata Hamerikana,”
that after the general spread of christianity throughout
Greece, the divinities of the air, earth and sea, all
abandoned their neglected shrines, and migrated to this
country. Every body knows, that the American Antiquarian
Society points to its demonstration, that the old fortifications
and other extensive works at the west, were constructed
by Vulcan and the cyclops, as the chef d'œuvre of
its learned labors. If anything farther be needed, reference
may be had to the very man, mentioned above as the particular
friend of the grandfather of the narrator of this
legend, and who is now living at Jerusalem, very old, but
very sensible. He is the same veracious chronicler who
tells the story well known all over the island, as “the
legend of Brickhouse Creek.”
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Whoever has paid a visit to the interesting country around
and about Jerusalem, has found a spot rich in legendary lore
and romantic story. I mean not the ancient city of the holy
land, but that modern Jerusalem, nigh unto Babylon, in the
southern part of Queens country, Long Island, which is commonly
distinguished and known as Jerusalem South. Here,
while that right good penman, Cornelius Van Tienhoven,
yet signed himself secretary of Niew Netherlands, ran the
division line between the domain of the Briton and the Hollander.
Here was the field of many a border skirmish, and
plundering foray; and the musket and the scalping-knife
gave frequent occupation to Dutchman, Indian and Yankee.
Here are still to be seen the remains of old Fort-Neck, where
Tackapuasha, the Marsapeague sachem, was constrained to
yield a sullen submission to the conquering arms of the new
settlers from Lynn, Massachusetts, under the command of
Deacon Tribulation Smith.[26] This was the place that was
wept over by the ministers of New-England, even as a mother
weepeth over her ailing infant, because the land was licentious,
and covered with a flood of manifold profaneness.† It
was the place afterwards designated by Governor Fletcher,
in his speech to the New-York Assembly, as a place needing
a schoolmaster and a minister, because he “didn't find any
provision had yet been made for propagating religion.Ӡ
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This, alas! is not all. It is grievous to add, that the
neighboring bays and inlets of the sea furnished sad temptations
to maritime speculations, which they who were so fortunate
as to have money enough of their own, affected to
esteem of rather equivocal morality, and which the pressure
of the times and the necessities of the people made in many
instances very persuasive, ay, almost irresistible.
Not that the Jerusalemites were absolutely all pirates.
That is a hard name, and one that carries with it the idea
of blood and robbery. But people must live; and if a man
has his crops all cut off or stolen, or if his house and barn
are burned down by the savages, he must, as a matter of
course, look out for some other means of livelihood; and certain
it is, that about these times, many worthy gentlemen invested
much property in divers small craft, yclept brigantines
and cutters, wherewith they scoured the sea, paying visits
unto other vessels, and carrying on a general trade, after a
very wholesale and extensive fashion. Goodly revenues are
said to have been derived from the business, and the names
of many great men and lords were enrollod on the books of
the concerns, as sleeping partners. The excellent historian
of New-York tells us, that Captain Kidd had for his associates
Lord Chancellor Somers, the duke of Shrewsbury, the earls
of Romney and Oxford, and other equally illustrious individuals.
[27] The fact speaks much for the honor of the trade; and
we should be careful how we indulge in harsh nomenclature
of gentlemen engaged in it, seeing that it met the sanction
and protection of the rulers of the land.
No place was better calculated for a depot and a sally-port,
than the bays of Matowacs, as Long Island was then properly
called. It was so easy to run out and run in; and pro
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visions, and equipments, and men, were so handy to be got,
and there were such good safe harbors, where you might lie
and keep a watch over the beach; so that if a French barque
from Martinique, or a Dutchman from Surinam, or, in short,
any vessel with which it might be desirable to have a little
trade, hove in sight, you could up sail, and be on the spot in
ten minutes. There are many relics, and many curious stories
of these expeditions. The historian before mentioned,
speaking of the said water merchants with rather too much
abruptness, says; “It is certain that the pirates were supplied
with provisions by the people of Long Island, who for
many years afterwards were so infatuated with a notion that
they buried great quantities of money along the coast, that
there is scarce a point of land on the island, without the marks
of their `auri sacra fames.' Some credulous people have
ruined themselves by these researches, and propagated a
thousand idle fables current to this day among our country
farmers.”[28]
One of the most distinguished of the brotherhood, whose
names have come down to posterity, was old Thomas Johnson,
otherwise, and more familiarly and commonly called, old
Colonel Tom. He was a man of unquestioned courage and
talent; and though every body knew that his clipper-built
little schooner carried a six pounder and a military chest, for
some other purpose than mere self-defence, yet there was
not the man who was more respected, and walked abroad
more boldly than that same Colonel Tom. He had the best
farm too, and lived in the best and the only brick-house in all
Queens county. This venerable edifice is still standing,
though much dilapidated, and is an object of awe to all the
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people in the neighborhood. The traveller cannot fail to be
struck with its reverend and crumbling ruins, as his eye first
falls upon it from the neighboring turnpike; and if he has
heard the story, he will experience a chilly sensation, and
draw a hard breath, while he looks at the circular, sashless
window, in the gable-end. That window has been left open
ever since the old colonel's death. His sons and grandsons
used to try all manner of means in their power to
close it up, so as to keep out the rain and snow in winter,
and to preserve, moreover, the credit of the mansion.
They put in sashes, and they boarded it up, and they bricked
it up, but all would not do; so soon as night came, their
work would be destroyed. A thunder shower was sure to
come up, and the window would be struck with lightning, and
the wood or brick burned up, or broken to pieces; and strange
sights would be seen, and awful voices heard, and bats, and
owls, and chimney-swallows be screaming and flapping
about. So they gave it up, concluding that as this window
looked into the colonel's bedroom, his ghost wanted it left
open for him to revisit the old tenement, without being
obliged to insinuate himself through a crack or a key-hole.
The location of the said domicil is romantic. A beautiful
little stream comes out of a grassy grove in its rear, and after
meandering pleasantly by its side, and more than half encircling
it, shoots away, and crossing the road under the cover
of a close thicket, a little distance off, gradually swells into
a goodly creek, and rolls on its waters to the bay. The
extraordinary material and uncommon grandeur of the colonel's
tenement, very properly gave to this stream the distinguishing
appellation of Brick-house creek. It is a quiet,
innocent looking piece of water, as ever dimpled; yet does no
market-man drive his eel-wagon across that creek, of a
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Saturday night, without accelerating the speed of his team, by a
brisk application of the whip; or without singing or whistling,
peradventure, a good loud stave. This is no impeachment
of the courage of eel merchants; for any man is justifiable
in keeping as far off from a burying-ground as possible;
and in fearful truth, when the passing hoof makes the
first heavy splash into this stream, of a dark night, it is ten
chances to one that the sleepy driver will see a dull, sulphureous
flame start up, a few hundred yards to his left,
from the spot where lie deposited the mortal remains of old
Colonel Tom. That spot is the place of all places for the
grave of a man who loved the water during his lifetime.
It is a little hillock, lying immediately on the edge of the
creek, which always keeps its sides cool and green, and, in
the spring tides, overflows its very summit. Sportsmen
know the place as a peculiar haunt of the largest trout.
Often have I felt the truth and force of old Izaak Walton's
doctrines about piety and running brooks, when kneeling on
that knoll, silent and almost breathless, I have thrown a
quivering May fly, “fine and far off,” below the last circle
that broke the watery mirror before me. And then, when I
had become weary of the excitement, or “the school was
broke up,” it was luxury to stretch myself out on the good
green grass, and lean my rod against one of the tombstones,
and decipher the almost obliterated epitaphs.
No man dare, no man can be irreverend here. Independently
of the associations and the stories about the place, the
very locality, the air, the ground, the water, make one sentimentally
and seriously disposed in spite of himself—excepting,
always, in mosquito time. In ancient days, if Jim
Smith and Daniel Wanza—who always killed more fish than
any two men in the county—spoke of trying Brickhouse creek,
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they always did it with a thoughtful, solemn visage, as though
they were talking of going to jail, or a funeral. And well they
might; for they were soaking their villainous ground-bait there
one afternoon, when a Yorker, who had been lashing the waters
with all manner of entomological excerpts from his fishing-book
for tedious hours, at last struck a glorious three-pounder.
“By heavens,” he ejaculated in the transports of
his delight, “I've got a good one.” But the words were no
sooner out of his mouth, than the fish was off his hook. The
ground heaved underneath them; a low, rumbling noise was
heard; a few drops of rain fell, and Daniel said he smelt sulphur
very plainly.
But Saturday night used to be the time to go down to the
creek to see sights. That was the time when the old pirate
was sure to have a frolic. There are many most credible people
who remember repeatedly seeing his little schooner dashing
across the bay with her full complement of men and arms,
sailing right into the eye of the wind; while every now and
then the crew's uplifted right hands showed each a brimming
goblet, and the air smelt of Jamaica spirits, and then rung with
a hoarse hurrah. Just at dawn the schooner would make up
Brick-house creek, and run into the grave yard and vanish.
When Jaac Spragg first went down to Hungry harbor to
live—this was a good many years ago—he used to laugh at all
these stories. His aunt Chastity often took him to task, and
told him he'd be sorry for his want of faith one day or other;
but Jaac stuck to his infidelity, and once he even went so far
as to say, that “he'd be hang'd if he wouldn't like to come
across this same Colonel Tom.” Ben Storer was standing by
and heard that speech, and offered Jaac to wager him a quart
of rum he wouldn't dare to go eeling the next Saturday night
alone, down in the bay below Brick-house creek.
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Jaac laughed, and took the bet at once. Saturday night
came, and his skiff, jack, and firewood were all ready.
Now, as the word “jack” is not to be found in any but icthyological
dictionaries, it shall be the glory, as it is the duty
of the faithful narrator of this authentic legend, here to explain
its signification, and to introduce it into good society.
“Jack” is an English abbreviation of the Latin “jaculum,”
which signifies anything that may be shot or thrown. This
is the definition given by the learned Varro, whose words—as
the scholar will remember—are “jaculum dicitur, quod ut jaciatur,
fit.” The Roman fishermen, in the time of Augustus,
applied the word precisely as do our modern piscators. Thus
Horace, in his ode to Grosphus, goes out of his way to pay himself
a compliment for his own skill with the eel-spear—
“—brevi fortes jaculamur ævo
Multa.”—
It consists of a series of sharp iron prongs or forks, barbed
and headed, united in a straight cross piece, and secured,
nailed, or otherwise fastened, upon a light wooden rod or pole,
fifteen or twenty feet long. It may be likened, above all things
else, to a three-pronged pitchfork, save that a pitchfork hath
no barb, and that the eel-spear is calculated to catch eels, and
the pitchfork to toss hay and sinners, which are not so slippery.
The distinction is very happily expressed by Quintilian,
in the word “abrupta”—“abrupta quædam jaculantur.”
This said jack, then, being thrust with vehement force at the
fishy victim, apprehends him in his muddy course, and brings
him, wounded and squirming, out of his element. Night is
the best time for this amusement, as you can then have the
benefit of the light of a good fire to stream upon the water, and
attract and dazzle your prey. The brightest fire is made by old
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pine knots, which you ignite in the bottom of your boat upon a
fire-place of large flat stones. The light, thus kindled, is called
a “jack-o'-lantern,” from the word “jaculantur,” above quoted,
expressive of the act of throwing the spear; and the word
thus originally formed, is now common to every schoolboy in
the country as the name of any wild fiery shoot or exhalation.
Midnight arrived, and found Jaac on the bow of his skiff,
faithfully shoving about the flats below Brick-house creek, as
unconcerned as though he had never heard of pirate Johnson,
or what is more, as if he had no rum at stake upon his night's
adventure. Jaac was always a bold, reckless fellow, and for
fear of accidents, and the night being cool, he had fortified his
inner man upon this occasion, with a spiritual coat of mail,
which made him courageous enough to face the d—l himself.
The time was come to try his pluck. A stranger made his
appearance through the murky shade, and paddling his old
shattered boat alongside of Jaac's skiff, presented in the glare
of the jack-light an object of fear and admiration. He was
tall, muscular, sun-browned, large-featured, and lank-jawed.
His eyes of piercing black were set far back under tremendous
arches of overhanging eye-brows. His long, strait, black
hair fell in every direction from under a naval chapeau-debras,
which was evidently much the worse for the wear. He
was booted to the thighs, and his body was wrapped in a pea-jacket,
tied about his waist with a piece of old rope. Around
his neck was hung a speaking-trumpet, and a pistol handle
peeped from either outside breast-pocket.
“Hilloa, mister, is that you?” He sung out in a familiar,
good-natured tone to Jaac, as he struck his oar into the mud,
and held on.
Now, any ordinary man would have been frightened out of
his wits, by this salutation. But Jaac, although he felt rather
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queer,—for it run in his head immediately that this might be
the old colonel,—answered the new-comer's question without
the least trepidation.
“Hilloa, yourself, stranger, I don't know you.” Conversation
at once commenced; conducted without reserve, and with
some shrewdness on the part of Jaac; but all that he was able
to get from the man with the cap, was, that he lived up the
creek, and had come down to catch a mess of eels. Jaac
knew that there was no living man like him that had his habitation
about those parts;—as for ghosts he began to have his
doubts. But he was nothing daunted. He talked to old Pea-jacket
like a catechism-book; and quite a familiarity began to
be established. After a while, the stranger yawned, and said he
believed it was time for him to go to work, so he asked Jaac
for a light to set his jack-a-lantern a-going. Jack handed him
a fire-brand, which the new comer stooping down, touched to
some fire-works in the centre of his boat; and immediately up
there started two long greenish shoots of flame, edged with
black streaks. It was enough to make the stoutest heart
quail; for the light was oppressive to the eyes, and there was
an almost choking smoke, and the fire-place was nothing else
than a human skull, and the two streams of flame came from
the eyeless sockets!
The old colonel—for it was evident now that it was he—
having got all ready, took up his jack, which had only one
prong—but that was very sharp, and with a long barb—and
began his sport. Jaac had not yet trembled a jot; but now it
made his hair stand on end, to see the old man catch eels.
When his arrow-like weapon struck the water, there was a
hissing sound, as though the iron was hot; and every eel that
was drawn out, winding and writhing on the fatal point,
screamed and cried as he came into the air, like a little child.
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The old man shook them off, however, and said nothing. He
seemed to be very expert, and presently there was such a
squalling and roaring in his boat that one would have thought
all the children in Erebus had paid a visit to the bay. The
noise at last seemed to disturb the colonel himself; for he
turned around all of a sudden, and swore at the slimy musicians
a loud big oath; when they immediately left off crying
and began whistling. Jaac used to say that he'd “take his
affidavit of the fact, that they whistled a leetle ahead of old
Caspar Van Sinderen's niggars; and they're the best whistlers
on Long Island, by all odds.” It set him a laughing, though,
and he was quaking, and trembling, and laughing all at the
same time, for half an hour, so that he lost all hopes of holding
himself together much longer; when a gun was heard
down among the breakers, in the direction of Gilgoa inlet.
“A ship on shore—by God!” exclaimed the old colonel;
and he threw down his jack, stamped out his light, kicked his
eels overboard, and paddled up towards Jaac. There was a
fierce and determined rigidness of the muscles of his face; his
teeth were set; his fists clenched; and his eye shot out a
terrible gleam, that made Jaac wither away before him. He
pulled alongside.
“Jaac,” said he; and then he stopped short; fixing his
keen, savage eyes upon the almost blinded vision of the poor
fisherman, and looking with intense gaze into his face, for
more than a minute as though he would read his very soul.
At length relaxing his features, as if satisfied with the investigation
he proceeded; “Jaac, I like you; you are a brave
man; and I will make your fortune.” He then went on and
told him that he was satisfied that there was a ship in the
breakers, and he proposed that they should row down and get
aboard, and kill the crew, and passengers, and secure the
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cargo. The proposition was so bluntly made, and so startling,
Jaac could make no reply. The old man seeing that he had
been too fast, sat down and began to reason about it.
Alas! alas! for human nature, that the god-like exercise of
the mind should make him a villain, who ignorant, had been
innocent! The wise man said truly, that “in much wisdom
is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth
sorrow.” It was the serpent's subtle reasoning, and poor
Eve's simple thinking that accomplished the first transgression.
Every thorough-bred felon is a skilful, although he be
an unsound logician. He can, at the least, find a reason or
an excuse for his conduct, which himself, who is the only
judge in the case, will readily determine to be good and sufficient.
Were there not always some “flattering unction” to
be laid to the souls of incipient transgressors, vice would have
few, perhaps no willing proselytes.
What said the old colonel to Jaac that could reconcile piracy
and murder to his conscience? Why, he took for his
text the speech made to Alexander by the Mediterranean pirate
brought in chains before him; and commented most Dale—
Owenistically upon natural rights, and abstract good, and
evil, and faith, and evidence, and property, and poverty, and
oppression; until Jaac's brains were all in a whirl.
“If all men are born free and equal,” argued the tempter,
“what right have those rich merchants to possess broadcloths,
and silks, and specie, while you have none? And if they
will not willingly give you your share, haven't you a right to
take it yourself? And if they resist you with force, haven't
you a right to kill them in self-defence? And what if the
law forbid you—what is the law? Is not that law against
the constitution of human nature, which takes a poor man's
share in the goods of this world, and gives it to the rich?
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And are not greater crimes perpetrated every day, according
to law, than offences are committed against law? And after
all, what does this `virtue' consist in, but in the not being
found out? Answer me that;”—concluded the old casuist,
with emphasis; and he stuck his fists into his sides, and threw
back his head with an air of triumph.
Jack scratched his consideration-cap, and though he did
not wholly relish the morals of his rapid instructor, yet he
could urge not a doubt nor a query upon the behalf of his forlorn
virtue. Was it cowardice, or was it principle that made
him hesitate?
“Come, take a horn,” pursued the cunning old seducer,
“and cheer your spirits up. You'll be none the worse for
a little steam this chilly night.”
Shall we stop here, and read a homily on temperance?
No, no, let every moral follow its own story.
Jaac took the proffered jug, and being really very thirsty
after his long excitement, he drank a good long drink, before
he tasted what kind of liquor it was. At last he stopped, and
shrieking out, as if in pain, he beseeched the colonel for some
water, for the old rascal had given him something raw, that
burned him just as though it were molten lead.
The colonel told him he never kept such stuff, but advised
him to cool his throat with a little of his own rum. Jaac did
so, and he always said that it was like so much cold water,
in comparison with the spiritual beverage to which his companion
had treated him.
It was not long before the co-operation of persuasion and
liquid fire had gained for Colonel Tom a willing coadjutor in
his projected expedition. Jaac's eyes began to swell, and
burn, and he felt a vigor in his arm, and a fierceness in his
heart, which he never knew before. He started up in his
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boat, and crying, “I'll go—I'll go—lead on,” he led the way
himself.
On they pulled towards the inlet, in grim and death-like
silence, while another, and yet another gun flashed upon the
sky in the south-east, and illuminated the way to the scene
of distress.
A half an hour's row brought them into full view of a
noble galleon, heaving and pitching, and beating her racked
and groaning sides upon a high sand-bank, about a quarter
of a mile from the beach. The wind was blowing a gale,
and the angry waves washed over her decks, and the cordage
creaked, and her white sails all standing fluttered and
veered, as if the crew were so frozen that they could not
pull a rope. Just as they turned the point of the inlet, her
jib was blown clean off, and fell into the water. Then up
rose a wild cry of terror from the wrecked wretches on board.
It was enough to melt a heart of stone.
Just then the moon gleamed out from behind a black cloud,
and discovered our two cut-throat friends. It was a gleam
of hope and joy to the perishing crew; “thank God! there's
help,” went up from many a happy heart.
“Bring us a rope from shore,” sung out the captain of the
ship; “we're going to pieces.”
The colonel, with all the coolness in the world, took up
his speaking-trumpet, and in a voice above the multitudinous
uproar of the elements, answered, “ay, ay, sir, we are coming.
Hold on.”
“Now, Jaac,” said he, bending over towards his pupil,
“take this cutlass, and when we get alongside, fasten your
skiff to the ship, follow me, and go to work. Kill them all—
every soul of them.”
Although Jaac was now possessed of the soul of a demon,
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yet he half repented of his undertaking. But it was of no use
at this late hour. His destiny controlled him—he had gone
too far to retreat.
“Where's the rope?” said the captain, leaning over the
ship's side, as they came up.
“Here it is,” answered the colonel, discharging a pistol
into his right eye, and leaping with a supernatural bound upon
the deck, Jaac followed at a slow pace, and found the colonel
cutting and slashing away, with great spirit and activity. The
passengers were all down in the cabin, at prayers, but the
crew were running about the deck, pursued by the old man,
and screaming for mercy and quarter. Some ran up the
shrouds, others sought the stern or the bowsprit, the long-boat
or the hen-coop, and three or four poor fellows made
their escape up to the cross-trees. But it was of no use.
The old man pursued, and cut them down every where, and
in every fashion; and at one time the men fell from the masthead
thick as hail. Jack stood still, not exactly in horror but
in amazement. The excitement of the tragedy was glorious,
but almost too acute for comfort. He was like a living dead
man. He could neither act nor speak. He felt within him
all the fire of a murderer; but he did'nt know how to begin.
perhaps, it was because he had never yet drawn blood. He
struggled hard, but could not move his hands. While laboring
in this distress, the colonel came running up to him, mad
enough to tear him to pieces, and asked him “what he was
standing there for, idle?”
Jaac started and looked round for a man to kill, but there
was not a living soul left on deck. So, being willing to do
all he could, he picked up a sailor, whom the colonel had cut
down with a sabre gash across his head, and who was not
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quite dead, and carried him to the ship's side and threw him
overboard.
“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted the old gentleman, taking off his
chapeau, and wiping on it the blood that was dripping from
his hands. “Well done for a new beginner. But come, my
boy, there's more work to do. Let's take a drink, and go
and attend to the women, in the cabin. We'll finish our frolic
there, and then see if there's any specie aboard. Drink, drink,
my boy, and hurry, for the ship will go apart soon.”
The mad potation was renewed, and Jaac raved for blood.
One blow with his foot threw the cabin-door off its hinges,
and one bound brought him into the room where the miserable
passengers, men, women, and children were huddled all
together. They were all upon their knees, and one old grey-headed
man was praying aloud, with great fervency. They
gave a terrible shriek, as Jaac and the colonel rushed in, and
crowded like cattle in a slaughter-yard, into a corner of the
cabin, offering no resistance against their murderers.
The colonel very quietly took a seat upon a sea-chest, and
stretching out his arms, gaped long and lazily, and complaining
of fatigue, told Jaac that he must kill these folks.
“Certainly, sir;” said Jaac, and he dashed at the crowd,
cutlass in hand. But some how or other, he couldn't either
strike straight, or else he couldn't get up close enough, or
else, fierce as he felt, he didn't, after all, want to draw blood;
for he kept thrusting and slashing for a long time, and he
didn't touch hide or hair.
“Go ahead, Jaac,” cried the colonel, sharply. “It's getting
late, and we've no time to spare.”
Jaac sprang at the bidding of that awful voice, and dropping
his cutlass, threw himself upon the grey-headed man above
mentioned, and pulling him out into the centre of the cabin,
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by the hair of his head, he took fair ground, and squared off
at him with his fists; then drawing back his sinewy arm,
until his knuckles were close to his chin, he hit him a smasher
of a blow, in the left cheek, and knocked him down.
“I'll stand by that lick,” said the old man chuckling. “He
won't rise again.” The grey-headed passenger was dead.
On rushed the initiated murderer. The spell was broken
that had tied his hands. He had shed blood, and was now
insatiate as his demoniac instructor. He swung aloft his
cutlass over the head of the next wretch who came in his
way, and who happened to be a pale young man, dressed in
black, with spectacles, and who looked like a doctor, or a
lawyer. But, just as the death-bringing weapon was descending
in its swift course, upon its devoted victim, a new figure
made his appearance in the scene, and brought salvation where
before there was not even hope. This was none other than
a large Newfoundland dog, who had before contented himself
with howling, but who, now that danger threatened his master
so imminently, seemed to acquire a new impulse. He
sprang at the breast of Jaac, and fixed his long, sharp teeth
deep into his flesh. The pain was severe, but Jaac dropped
his cutlass, and clasping his hands around his assailant's
neck, throttled him off, and strangled him with the ease that
he would have crushed a caterpillar. The beautiful animal
fell lifeless from his grasp.
The next person Jaac laid hold of was a young woman, of
about seventeen years of age. She was a beautiful creature,
and her long hair was all dishevelled, and her blue eyes
streamed with a flood of pearly drops, and she fell on the
floor, and clung to Jaac's knees, and looked up in his face
with such a piteous expression that a very d—I would have
spared her life.
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“Don't kill that girl, Jaac,” cried the colonel, “I want
her. Stab that old woman.”
“Want her, sir?” replied Jaac, with a hesitating look, at
the old reprobate.
“Want her, sir?” iterated the pirate in a voice of thunder.
“Ay, don't you see she is pretty? Ha! ha! ha!” and he
laughed that infernal laugh again.
“Oh! spare me, spare me,” cried the fair victim—“save me
from that worse than demon; or have pity, and strike your
knife into my heart. Is there no mercy for a helpless girl?
Have you a sister or a wife? think—oh! think of her!”
Jaac relaxed his grasp; a cold chill ran over him, the perspiration
stood upon his brow, and he was near fainting on
the spot. He had been married only about a year before,
and to a girl so like — it must, it must have been her sister.
He dropped his hands by his sides, and looked down
with a vacant gaze at the lovely petitioner. The appeal was
too much for him—he forgot his master, and saw and knew
nothing but the face before him, which, strange to say, became
every moment more and more painfully familiar. As
she urged her appeal more earnestly, and passionately, pleading
with a voice well accustomed to his ear, a mist seemed to
fall from his eyes—his virtue returned to him—he could not
weep, but he groaned aloud; could it be? that countenance!
those eyes! that voice! “oh save me, save me, my husband!”
shrieked the poor conscious girl, and Jaac in agony clasped
to his breast his own darling faithful wife.
The old colonel did not seem to relish much this discovery,
or the change of conduct on the part of Jaac. He cursed him
for a tender-hearted chicken, and commanded him, with a
savage voice, to “hand over the girl to him.”
“It's my wife, sir,” said Jaac, suppliantly.
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“What of that? you fool!” replied the colonel, advancing
towards the clinging couple.
Jaac had no idea of surrendering his young consort to the
gloating old rascal so readily; so he picked up his cutlass,
and made at him. He could strike, now, fair and hard, and
he gave good blows too; but they went through his antagonist
just as though he were a cloud. The colonel stood still,
laughing at him, in his fiendish fashion; and he let Jaac cut
him through and through, up and down, and crossways; still
there he stood, sound, and whole, and laughing.
Well at last he stopped short, and swore he wouldn't wait
any longer, and drawing a pistol from his pocket, he struck
Jaac with the stock a blow on the temples that sent him reeling
against the opposite lockers; at the same time he seized
the fainting girl, and bearing her utterly senseless, upon his
left arm, he hurried up the companion-way and disappeared.
Jaac was on his feet again in a twinkling, and in hot and
close pursuit. The spectre pirate was just shoving off from
the ship as he threw himself over her side, so that he was
only a few strokes of an oar behind. Then was rowed the
goodliest-boat race, and for the richest prize, too, that the
country has ever seen. The “Raynortown Standard,” in
giving an account of the contest remarked that the odds were
decidedly in favor of the colonel at the start, for he was not
only ahead, but he carried the least weight, being considerably
ethereal himself, and not weighing over a quarter of a
pound at the utmost, and having aboard, in addition, only Jaac's
wife and his fire skull, that together would not raise a ton;
while Jaac, on the contrary, was over a hundred and fifty
himself, and had at least twenty pounds of stone, besides his
eels, and a very heavy heart to pull with. This inequality
however, was somewhat compensated by the difference of the
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boats. The colonel's was broad and loggy, and looked for
all the world like Charon's old ferry-er, and leaked so badly
that Mrs. Spragg's frock got quite wet. But Jaac's was a
trim, clean, long, narrow, tight, beautiful skiff. She walked
over the top of the waves, flinging back their combing edges
like the foam from the neck of a gallant racer, or like the long
flowing hair of a country maiden, parted on her forehead, and
blown back by the wanton, dallying wind. She seemed to
live and feel the honor of the contest, and to anticipate the
glory of a victory. The husband fast gained upon the ravisher.
Two to one were freely bet by the sympathizing mermaids
that the pirate would be overtaken. The mermen, who
took the odds, had to interfere to prevent foul play, and to
keep the ladies from pushing Jaac along. Presently the
pirate shot ahead, and created an awful distance between
him and the despairing Jaac. When, joy! joy! in his eager
speed, he left the safe channel and ran hard upon a sand bar.
This good fortune brought up the lost distance of the skiff,
and Jaac could almost touch the pirate-craft with his oar,
when out jumped the old colonel, and, with superhuman force,
dragged her out of his reach across the bar, and launched her
into the opposite channel. This manœuvre threw the fisherman
completely off the course, and he was obliged to back
water, and go around the point of the bar. Now came the
time for the last desperate struggle. West island, and Wanza's
flat, and the Squaw islands, were all passed, and strait
before the panting oarsman lay the spectre-pirate's home.
There was the creek, glittering in the moon-beams, looking
so virtuous and so happy, and there was the little hillock soon
to swallow up—nay, nay, one struggle more—Jaac looked to
the east, but not a streak of light was yet to be seen. He
strained with a desperate exertion. In vain, in vain;—the
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pirate glided from him at tenfold speed, and a rescue was impossible.
Like a vapor the spectre-skiff swept around the
bend of the creek, and disappeared behind the high bank.
Jaac saw no more; a long piteous scream fell upon his ear,
and he became insensible of further suffering.
How long our adventurous friend lay in that condition, it is
impossible to tell. But the next afternoon, some of his neighbors
who knew of the bet, and felt anxious on account of his
not returning, went out to look for him. They found him in
the bottom of his boat, fast asleep, high and dry, on a mud flat
near Gin island. It seems that after he came to himself, he
fell asleep from mere exhaustion, and drifted with the tide to
the spot where he was discovered. When they waked him
up he was quite stupid, and had a very confused, misty sort
of imagination, as to where he was and what he had been
about. To such an extent does bodily exertion and mental
distress weaken and reduce poor mortals! When he was
told that his wife was very much distressed about him, and
was at home crying and wringing her hands, about the probable
consequences of his fool-hardiness, the poor man was
almost disposed to believe that he had been drunk or dreaming.
Like a prudent man, however, he said nothing, but
steered for his house as soon as possible, and went to bed.
The neighbors saw from Jaac's mysterious manner, that something
had been the matter, and the report soon got around that
Jaac had had an interview with old Colonel Tom.
The next day Jaac was more cool and collected, and he
remembered all the occurrences of that fearful night with
great accuracy and minuteness. He related the whole matter,
without any reserve or hesitation, declaring that he
thought it his duty to confess, and that he couldn't die happy
unless he unburdened his mind, and that if he must swing for
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it, he couldn't help it. The good people listened to his recital
with fear, and horror, and pity. Three justices met
and took his examination, but the thing never went any further.
Some say that the state's attorney entered a nolle prosequi
on the account of Jaac's wife swearing she was home
all that night, which made an alibi, and that's enough to kill
any indictment. Others, again wink their eye and look
knowing, and say that Jaac was under a high pressure of
steam that night. But this was a scandalous insinuation,
made, no doubt, by some of the friends of Ben Storer, who
lost the bet. On the whole it is a very mysterious affair.
There's a good deal to be said on both sides, as there is in
fact about every thing else. As for myself, sometimes, I believe
it, and then again I don't believe it, but I think I have
always believed the greatest part of it. But that's the end of
the legend.
END OF VOL. I.
eaf138v1.n26[26] S. Woods' Memoir of Long-Island.
eaf138v1.dag5† Minutes of Dedham General Assembly, 1642.
eaf138v1.dag6† Smith's History of New-York.
eaf138v1.n27[27] Smith, p. 151.
eaf138v1.n28[28] Smith, p. 152.
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Herbert, Henry William, 1807-1858 [1842], Sporting scenes and sundry sketches. Volume 1 (Gould, Banks & Co., New York) [word count] [eaf138v1].
