Chapter 4

THE RECOGNITION.

Upon a divan in the splendid armoury of the pacha's palace at Bosnia-Serai, the young Turk Ibrahim was seated in deep thought, the day after his return home. On the walls around him were displayed weapons and military accoutrements of every kind. Damascus sabres richly inlaid, and many with jeweled hilts, embroidered banners, golden stirrups, casques of embossed silver, burnished armour and coats-of-mail, were arranged in picturesque and fanciful devices. As the young Moslem gazed around him, and beheld these trophies of victories won by Turkish viziers and pachas in their wars against Austria and Venice, his martial and fearless spirit rose high, and he reproached himself with weakness and pusillanimity for having abandoned the pursuit of her he loved. Bitterly did he now regret his precipitation in leaving Venice the morning after the Battle of the Bridge, and while under the influence of the shock he had received, in beholding the hideous features of an old woman where he had expected to find the blooming countenance of Strasolda. His love for the Uzcoque maiden, as he had seen her when his captive, and again in the cavern on the coast by Segna, returned in full force. He was already planning a journey to Venice, when he was interrupted in his meditations by the noise of a horse's hoofs dashing full speed into the court of the palace. In another minute an attendant summoned him to the presence of the pacha, and there he heard the news just received, of the wild outbreak of the Uzcoques. The Martellossi and other troops were ordered to proceed immediately to the frontier, in order to protect Turkish Dalmatia from the pirates; and Ibrahim, at his urgent request, was appointed to a command in the expedition.

With joyful alacrity did the young Turk arm and hurry to horse; and then, putting himself at the head of a troop of light cavalry, sped onwards in the direction of the country where he hoped to gain tidings of Strasolda. Having received strict orders to content himself with protecting the Turkish frontier, and above all not to infringe on Archducal territory, Ibrahim, on arriving at the boundary of the pachalic, left his troop in charge of the second in command, and with a handful of men entered Venetian Dalmatia, with the intention of obtaining information concerning the Uzcoques, and more especially concerning her he loved. He was assisted in his enquiries by the good understanding existing between Venice and the Porte; and he soon learned that, after the burning of Pesca, the pirates had suddenly ceased their excesses and returned to Segna, taking the Proveditore with them. They had not gone, however, either to the castle or the town; but fearful lest the Archduke should interfere, and make them give up their illustrious prisoners, had betaken themselves to the mountains, in the numerous caverns and lurking-places of which they were able to conceal their captives. From every mouth did the eager enquirer hear praises of the female who accompanied the Uzcoques. None spoke of her but in terms of love and gratitude. As regarded her appearance accounts were at variance, some representing her as young and beautiful, while others compassionated her frightful ugliness; and, more than ever perplexed by this conflicting testimony, Ibrahim pursued his march and his enquiries, still hoping by perseverance to arrive at a solution of the enigma.

While the young Turk was thus employed, the Proveditore and his son were conveyed by their captors from one place of security to another, passing one night in the depths of some ravine, the next amongst the crags and clefts of the mountains, but always moving about in the daytime, and never sleeping twice in the same place. Since the evening of the revel at Pesca they had not again beheld the mysterious old woman, although they had more than once heard her clear and silvery voice near the place allotted to them for confinement and repose. In certain attentions and comforts, intended as alleviations of their unpleasant position, female care and thought were also visible; but all their efforts were vain to obtain a sight of the friendly being who thus hovered around them.

It was on a beautiful evening some fourteen days after their capture, that the Proveditore and his son lay upon the bank of the only river that waters the rocky vicinity of Segna, wearied by a long and rapid march. There was an unusual degree of bustle observable amongst the Uzcoques, and numerous messengers had been passing to and from the castle of Segna, which was at no great distance from the spot where they had now halted. From the various indications of some extraordinary occurrence, the two Venetians began to hope that the crisis of their fate was approaching, and that they should at last know in what manner their captors meant to dispose of them. Nor were they wrong in their expectations. Suddenly the mysterious old woman stood before them, her partially veiled features bearing their wonted hideous aspect, and her eyes, usually so brilliant, dimmed with tears.

"You are free," said she in an agitated voice to the Proveditore and his son. "Our people will escort you to Fiume in all safety, and there you will find galleys of the republic to convey you back to Venice."

At the sight of the old woman's unearthly countenance, Antonio covered his face with his hands; the Proveditore rose from the ground deeply moved.

"Singular being!" he exclaimed, "by this mildness and mercy you punish me more effectually than by the bloodiest revenge you could have taken for my cruel treatment of you."

"You owe me no thanks," was the reply; "thank rather the holy Virgin, who sent the youth beside you to be your guardian angel, and who delivered you into the hands of the Uzcoques at a time when they had need of a hostage. Surely it was by the special intervention of Heaven that the murderer of the wife was sent to serve as ransom for the captive husband. But the atonement has come too late, the noble Dansowich was basely ensnared into an act of violence, and his life paid the forfeit of his wrath--he died upon the rack. And now the wily counsellors at Gradiska compel us to release you."

She paused, interrupted by a flood of tears. After a short silence, broken only by her sobs, she became more composed, and the Proveditore again addressed her.

"But what," said he, "could have driven Dansowich to an act of violence, which he must have known would entail a severe punishment? Surely his wife's safety and the lapse of years might have enabled him to forgive, if not to forget, the unsuccessful attempt upon her life."

"His wife's safety!" exclaimed the old woman. "Have the trials and fatigues of the last few days turned your brain? Alas! too surely was the rope fixed round her neck; and had you not carried off her remains how could you have possessed her portrait, and by the devilish stratagem of showing it to the bereaved husband, have driven him to the act which cost him his life?"

"Gracious Heaven! what hideous jest is this?" exclaimed Marcello. "Do I not see you living and standing before me; and think you I could ever forget your features, or the look you gave me when hanging from the tree? You were cut down and saved after our departure; and but a few weeks have elapsed since my son painted your likeness, after conveying you across the canal in his gondola."

The old woman stood for a few moments as though petrified by what she had just heard. At last she passed her hand slowly across her face, as if to convince herself of her identity.

"And she you murdered resembled _me_?" she exclaimed in a trembling voice. "It was of _me_ that the portrait was taken, and by _him_!" she continued, pointing to Antonio with a gesture of horror and contempt. "_My_ picture was it, that was held before Dansowich, and by _you_, the murderer of his wife? Holy Virgin!" she exclaimed, as the truth seemed to flash upon her, "how has my faith in thee misled me! I beheld in this youth one sent by Heaven to aid me; but now I see that he was prompted by the powers of darkness to steal my portrait, and thus become the instrument of destruction to the best and noblest of our race."

"Forgive and spare us!" exclaimed Antonio, conscience-stricken as he remembered the admonitions of Contarini. "'Tis true, I was the instrument, but most unwittingly. How could I know so sad an end would follow?"

"'Tis not my wont to seek revenge," replied the old woman; "nor do I forget that you saved my life from the fury of the Venetians."

Antonio essayed to speak, but had not courage to correct the error into which she had been led by his strong resemblance to the gallant stranger.

"But," she continued, "'tis time you should have full proof that the features you painted were not those of the wife of Dansowich."

With these words she threw back her veil, unfastened some small hooks concealed in her abundant tresses, and took off a mask of thin and untanned lambskin, wrinkled and stained with yellow and purple streaks by exposure to sun and storm. This mask, closely fitted to features regular and prominent, and strongly resembling those of her unfortunate mother, whose large, dark, and very brilliant eyes she had also inherited, will explain the misconception of the Proveditore as well as that of Dansowich, who had never seen his daughter in a disguise worn only at Venice or other places of peril, and while away from her father and his protection.

While the beautiful but still tearful Uzcoque maid stood thus revealed before the astonished senator, and his enraptured and speechless son, the approaching footfall of a horse at full speed was heard, and in an instant there darted round the angle of a cliff the martial figure of a Turk, mounted upon a large and powerful steed, of that noble race bred in the deserts eastward of the Caspian. The tall and graceful person of the stranger was attired in a close riding-dress of scarlet cloth, from the open breast of which gleamed a light coat-of-mail. A twisted turban bound with chains of glittering steel defended and adorned his head. A crooked cimeter suspended from his belt was his only weapon. His countenance bore a striking resemblance to that of Antonio, and had the same sweet and graceful expression about the mouth and chin; but the more ample and commanding forehead, the well opened flashing eyes, the more prominent and masculine nose, the clear, rich, olive complexion and soldierly bearing, proclaimed him to be of a widely different and higher nature. Riding close up to the side of Strasolda, he reined in his steed with a force and suddenness that threw him on his haunches; but speedily recovering his balance, the noble animal stood pawing the earth and lashing his sides with his long tail, like some untamed and kingly creature of the desert; his veins starting out in sharp relief, his broad chest and beautiful limbs spotted with foam, and his long mane, that would have swept the ground, streaming like a banner in the sea-breeze.

For a moment the startled Strasolda gazed alternately, and in wild and mute amazement, at Antonio and the stranger; but all doubt and hesitation were dispersed in an instant by the well-remembered and impassioned tones, the martial bearing and Moslem garb of Ibrahim, whose captive she had been before she saw him in the cavern.

Leaping from his saddle and circling her slender waist with his arm, he addressed her in those accents of truth and passion which go at once to the heart--

"Heroic daughter of Dansowich! thou art the bright star of my destiny, the light of my soul! Thou must be mine! Come, then, to my heart and home! Gladden with thy love the life of Ibrahim, and he will give thee truth unfailing and love without end."

Strasolda did not long hesitate. Already prepossessed in favour of the young and noble-minded Moslem; her allegiance to the Christian powers and faith weakened by the treachery of Austria; her people degraded into robbers; a soldier's daughter, and keenly alive to the splendours of martial gallantry and glory; an orphan, too, and desolate--can it be wondered at if she surrendered, at once and for ever, to this generous and impassioned lover all the sympathies of her affectionate nature? She spoke not; but, as she leaned half-fainting on his arm, her eloquent looks said that which made Ibrahim's pulses thrill with grateful rapture. Pressing her fondly to his bosom, he placed her on the back of his faithful steed, and vaulted into the saddle. Snorting as the vapour flew from his red nostrils, and neighing with mad delight, the impatient animal threw out his iron hoofs into the air, flew round the angle of the cliff, and joined erelong a dozen mounted spearmen. Then, bending their headlong course towards the far east, in a few seconds all had disappeared.

During this scene, which passed almost with the speed of thought, the Proveditore, who was seated on a ledge of the cliff, had gazed anxiously and wildly at the youthful stranger. He knew him in an instant, and would have singled him out amidst thousands; but was so overwhelmed by a rushing tide of strong and heartrending emotions, that he could neither rise nor speak, and remained, long after the Turk had disappeared, with out-stretched arms and straining eye-balls.

"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed the bewildered Antonio, half suspecting the truth, "who was that daring youth?"

After a pause, and in tones broken and inarticulate, his father answered--"Thy twin brother, Antonio! When a child he was stolen from me by some Turks in Candia; and those who stole have given him their own daring and heroic nature, for they are great and rising, while Venice and her sons are falling and degenerate. Oh Ercole! my dear and long-lost son--seen but a moment and then lost for ever!" ejaculated the bereaved father, as, refusing all comfort, he folded his cloak over his face and wept bitterly.

* * * * *

NOTE.--Shortly after these events, Venice, urged at last beyond all endurance, took up arms against Austria on account of the protection afforded by the latter power to the Uzcoques. The pirate vessels were burned, Segna besieged and taken, the Uzcoques slain or dispersed. The quarrel between Austria and the republic was put an end to by the mediation of Spain shortly before the breaking out of the Thirty Years' War.

"Ces misérables," says a distinguished French writer, speaking of the Uzcoques, "fûrent bien plus criminels par la faute des puissances, que par l'instinct de leur propre nature. Les Vénétiens les aigrirent; l'église Romaine préféra de les persécuter au devoir de les éclaircir; la maison d'Autriche en fit les instruments de sa politique, et quand le philosophe examine leur histoire il ne voit pas que les Uscoques soient les seuls criminels."

* * * * *

THE SLAVE-TRADE.[2]

[2] Fifty Days on board a Slave vessel, in 1843. By the Rev. PASCOE GRENFELL HILL, Chaplain of H.M.S. Cleopatra.

The extraordinary change which took place in the public mind in the beginning of the century on the subject of the slave-trade, unquestionably justified the determination of Government to abolish a traffic contradictory to every principle of Christianity. It had taken twenty years to obtain this victory of justice. But we must exonerate the mind of England from the charge of abetting this guilty traffic in human misery. The nation had been almost wholly ignorant of its nature. Of course, that Africans were shipped for the West Indies was known; that, as slaves, they were liable to the severities of labour, or the temper of masters, was also known; but in a country like England, where every man is occupied with the concerns of public or private life, and where the struggle for competence, if not for existence, is often of the most trying order, great evils may occur in the distant dependencies of the crown without receiving general notice from the nation. It seems to have been one of the singular results of the war with America, that the calamities of the slave-trade should have been originally brought to the knowledge of the people. The loss of our colonies on the mainland, naturally directed public attention to the increased importance of the West Indian colonies. A large proportion of our supplies for the war had been drawn from those islands; they had become the station of powerful fleets during the latter portion of the war; large garrisons were placed in them; the intercourse became enlarged from a merely commercial connexion with our ports, to a governmental connection with the empire; and the whole machinery of the West Indian social system was brought before the eye of England.

The result was the exposure of the cruelties which slavery entails, and the growing resolution to clear the country of the stigma, and the benevolent desire to relieve a race of beings, who, however differing in colour and clime from ourselves, were sons of the same common blood, and objects of the same Divine mercy. The exertions of Wilberforce, and the intelligent and benevolent men whom he associated with himself in this great cause, were at last successful; and he gained for the British the noblest triumph ever gained for a nation over its own habits, its selfishness, its pride, and its popular opinion.

But the manner in which this great redemption of national character was effected, did less honour to the wisdom of the cabinet than to the benevolence of the people. Fox, probably sincere, but certainly headlong, rushed into emancipation as he had rushed into every measure that bore the name of popularity. Impatient of the delay which might take the honour of this crowning act out of the hands of his party--and unquestionably, in any shape, it was an honour to any party--he hurried it forward without securing the concert, or compelling the acquiescence, of any one of the European kingdoms engaged in the slave-trade. It is true that England was then at war with them all; but there was thus only the stronger opportunity of pronouncing the national resolve, never to tolerate the commerce in slaves, and never to receive any country into our protection by which that most infamous of all trades was tolerated. The opportunity was amply given for establishing the principle, in the necessity which every kingdom in succession felt for the aid of England, and the abolition ought to have been the first article of the treaty. But the occasion was thrown away.

The parliamentary regulations, which had largely provided for the comfort of the slaves on the passage from Africa, and their protection in the British colonies, could not be extended to the new and tremendous traffic which was engaged in by all the commercial states of Europe and the West. The closing of the British mart of slavery flooded the African shore with desperate dealers in the flesh and blood of man; whose only object was profit, and who regarded the miseries of the African only as they affected his sale. The ships which, by the British regulations, had been suffered to carry only a number limited to their accommodation, were now crowded with wretches, stowed in spaces that scarcely allowed them to breathe. The cheapness of the living cargo, produced by the withdrawal of the British from the slave coast, excited the activity, almost the fury, of the trade; and probably 100,000 miserable beings were thus annually dragged from their own country, to undergo the labour of brutes, and die the death of brutes in the Western World.

Another source of evil was added to the original crime. The colonial possessions of Spain had been broken up into republics, and those were all slave-dealers. The great colony of Portugal, Brazil, had rushed into this frightful commerce with the feverish avidity of avarice set free from all its old restrictions. North America, coquetting with philanthropy, and nominally abjuring the principle of slavery, suffered herself to undergo the corruption of the practice for the temptation of the lucre, and the Atlantic was covered with slave-ships.

But rash, ill considered, and unfortunate as was the precipitate measure of Fox, we shall never but rejoice at the abolition of the slave-trade by our country. If England had stood alone for ever in that abolition, it would be a national glory. To have cast that commerce from her at all apparent loss, was the noblest of national gains; and it may be only when higher knowledge shall be given to man, of the causes which have protected the empire through the struggles of war and the trials of peace, that we may know the full virtue of that most national and magnanimous achievement of charity to man.

It is only in the spirit of this principle that the legislature has followed up those early exertions, by the purchase of the final freedom of the slave, by the astonishing donative of twenty millions sterling, the largest sum ever given for the purposes of humanity. It is only in the same spirit that our cabinet continues to press upon the commercial states the right of search, a right which we solicit on the simple ground of humanity; and which, though it cannot be our duty to enforce at the hazard of hostility, must never be abandoned where we can succeed by the representations of reason, justice, and religion.

The curious and succinct narrative to which we now advert, gives the experience of a short voyage on board of one of those slave ships. And the miseries witnessed by its writer, whose detail seems as accurate as it is simple, more than justify the zeal of our foreign secretary in labouring to effect the total extinction of this death-dealing trade.

H.M.S. the Cleopatra, of twenty-six guns, commanded by Captain Wyvill, arriving at Rio Janeiro in September 1842, the reverend writer took the opportunity of being transferred from the Malabar, as chaplain. In the beginning of September the Cleopatra left the Mauritius, to proceed to the Mozambique Channel, off Madagascar, her appointed station, to watch the slave-traders. After various cruises along the coast, and as far as Algoa Bay, they at last captured a slaver.

_April 12._--At daybreak the look-out at the topmast-head perceived a vessel on the lee quarter, at such a distance as to be scarcely visible; but her locality being pronounced "very suspicious," the order was given to bear up for her. The breeze falling, the boats were ordered out, and in a few minutes the barge and the first gig were pulling away in the direction of the stranger. So variable, however, is the weather at this season, that before the boats had rowed a mile from the ship, a thick haze surrounded the ship, and the chase was lost sight of. The rain fell in torrents, and the ship was going seven knots through the water. On the clearing up of the fog, the chase was again visible. The sun broke forth, and the rakish-looking brigantine appeared to have carried on all sail during the squall. They could see, under her sails, the low black hull pitching up and down; and, approaching within range, one of the forecastle guns was cleared away for a bow-chaser. The British ensign had been for some time flying at the peak. It was at length answered by the green and yellow Brazilian flag. At length, after a variety of dexterous manoeuvres to escape, and from fifteen to twenty shots fired after her, she shortened sail and lay to. Dark naked forms passing across the deck, removed any remaining doubt as to her character, and showed that she had her slave cargo on board. An officer was sent to take possession, and the British ensign displaced the Brazilian. The scene on board was a sufficiently strange one; the deck was crowded with negroes to the number of 450, in almost riotous confusion, having risen but a little while before against the crew. The meagre, famished-looking throng, having broken through all control, had seized every thing for which they had a fancy in the vessel; some with handfuls of the powdered roots of the cassava, others with large pieces of pork and beef, having broken open the casks, and others with fowls, which they had torn from the coops. Many were busily dipping rags, fastened with bits of string, into the water-casks to act as sponges, and had got at the contents of a cask of Brazilian rum, which they greatly enjoyed. However, they exhibited the wildest joy, mingled with the clank of the iron, as they were knocking off their fetters on every side. From the moment the first ball had been fired, they had been actively employed in thus freeing themselves. The crew found but thirty thus shackled in pairs, but many more pairs of shackles were found below. There could not be a moment's doubt as to the light in which they viewed their captors, now become their liberators. They rushed towards them in crowds, and rubbed their feet and hands caressingly, even rolling themselves on the deck before them; and, when they saw the crew of the vessel rather unceremoniously sent over the side into the boat which was to take them prisoners to the frigate, they set up a long universal shout of triumph and delight. The actual number of the negroes now on board, amounted to 447. Of those 180 were men, few, however, exceeding twenty years of age; 45 women; 213 boys. The name of the prize was the Progresso, last from Brazil, and bound to Rio Janeiro. The crew were seventeen; three Spaniards, and the rest Brazilians. The vessel was of about 140 tons; the length of the slave-deck, 37 feet; its mean breadth, 21½ feet; its height, 3½ feet--a horrible space to contain between four and five hundred human beings. How they could even breathe is scarcely conceivable. The captain and one of the crew were said to have been drowned in the surf at the embarkation of the negroes. Two Spaniards, and a Portuguese cook, were sent back into the prize.

As the writer understood Spanish, and as some one was wanting to interpret between the English crew and those managers of the negroes, he proposed to go on board with them to their place of destination, the Cape of Good Hope. The English crew were a lieutenant, three petty officers, and nine seamen. It had been the captain's first intention to take a hundred of the negroes on board the frigate, which would probably have prevented the fearful calamities that followed; but an unfortunate impression prevailed, that some of them were infected with the small-pox. In the same evening the Progresso set sail. For the first few hours all went on well--the breeze was light, the weather warm, and the negroes were sleeping on the deck; their slender supple limbs entwined in a surprisingly small compass, resembling in the moonlight confused piles of arms and legs, rather than distinct human forms. But about an hour after midnight, the sky began to gather clouds, a haze overspread the horizon to windward, and a squall approached. The hands, having to shorten sail, suddenly found the negroes in the way, and the order was given to send them all below.

There seems to have been some dreadful mismanagement to cause the horrid scene that followed. Why _all_ the negroes should have been driven down together; or why, when the vessel was put to rights, they should not have been allowed to return to the deck; or why, when driven down, the hatches should have been forced upon them--are matters which we cannot comprehend; but nothing could be more unfortunate than the consequence of those rash measures. We state the event in the words of the narrative:--

"The night being intensely hot and close, 400 wretched beings crammed into a hold twelve yards in length, seven in breadth, and only three and a half feet in height, speedily began to make an effort to re-issue to the open air; being thrust back, and striving the more to get out, the _after hatch_ was forced down upon them. Over the other hatchway, in the fore part of the vessel, a wooden grating was fastened. A scene of agony followed those most unfortunate measures, unequaled by any thing that we have heard of since the Black Hole of Calcutta. To this _sole inlet_ for the air, the suffocating heat of the hold, and perhaps panic from the strangeness of their situation, made them press. They crowded to the grating, and, clinging to it for air, completely barred its entrance. They strove to force their way through apertures in length fourteen inches, and barely six inches in breadth, and in some instances succeeded. The cries, the heat, I may say without exaggeration, 'the smoke of their torment,' which ascended, can be compared to nothing earthly. One of the Spaniards gave warning that the consequence would be many deaths--_manana habra muchos muertos_."

If this statement with its consequences be true, we cannot conceive how the conduct of those persons by whom it was brought about can be passed over without enquiry. There seems to have been nothing in the shape of _necessity_ for its palliation. There was no storm, the vessel was in no danger of foundering unless the hatches were fastened down. That the negroes might have lumbered the deck for the first few minutes of preparing to meet the squall is probable; but why, when they were palpably suffocating, they should still have been kept down, is one of the most unaccountable circumstances we ever remember. We must hope that while we are nationally incurring an enormous expenditure to extinguish this most guilty and detestable traffic, such scenes will be guarded against for ever, by the strictest orders to the captors of the slave-traders. It would have been infinitely better for the wretched cargo if they had been carried to their original destination, and sent to toil in the fields of Brazil.

The Spaniard's prediction was true. Next morning no less than fifty-four crushed and mangled corpses were lifted up from the slave deck, and thrown overboard. We shall avoid disgusting our readers with mentioning the state in which their struggles had left those trampled and strangled beings. On the survivors being released from their torrid dungeon, they drank their allowance of water, somewhat more than half a pint to each, with inconceivable eagerness. A heavy shower having freshened the air, in the evening most of the negroes went below of their own accord, the hatchways having been left open to allow them air. But a short time, however, had elapsed, when they began tumultuously to reascend; and some of the persons on deck, fearful of their crowding it too much, repelled them, and they were trampled back, screaming and writhing in a confused mass. The hatch was about to be forced down upon them; and had not the lieutenant in charge left positive orders to the contrary, the catastrophe of last night would have been re-enacted. On explaining to the Spaniard that it was desired he should dispose those who came on deck in proper places, he set himself to the task with great alacrity; and he showed with much satisfaction how soon and how quietly they might be arranged out of the way of the ropes, covered with long rugs provided for the purpose. "To-morrow," said he, "there will be no deaths, except perhaps among some of those who are sick already." On the next day there was but one dead, but three were reported dying from the sufferings of the first night. They now saw the Cleopatra once more, and the alarm of small-pox having been found groundless, the captain took on board fifty of the boys.

To our surprise, the provisions on board the slaver were ample for the negroes, consisting of Monte Video dried beef, small beans, rice, and cassava flour. The cabin stores were profuse; lockers filled with ale and porter, barrels of wine, liqueurs of various sorts, cases of English pickles, raisins, &c. &c.; and its list of medicines amounted to almost the whole _Materia Medica_. On questioning the Spaniards as to the probability of extinguishing the slave-trade, their reply was, that though in the creeks of Brazil it might be difficult, yet it had grown a desperate adventure. Four vessels had been already taken on the east coast of Africa this year; but the venture is so lucrative, that the profits of a fifth which escaped, would probably more than compensate the loss of the four.

On the east coast negroes are paid for in money or coarse cottons, at the rate of eighteen dollars for men, and twelve for boys. At Rio Janeiro their value may be estimated at £52 for men, £41, 10s. for women, and £31 for boys. Thus, on a cargo of 500, at the mean price the profit will exceed £19,000--

Cost price of 500, average fifteen dollars, or £3 5s. each, £1,625 Selling price at Rio Janeiro, average £41 10s., £20,730

While these enormous profits continue, it must be a matter of extreme difficulty to suppress the trade, especially while the principals, captains, and crews, have perfect impunity. At present, all that they suffer is the loss of their cargo. But if enactments were made, by which heavy fines and imprisonment were to be inflicted on the merchants to whom the expedition could be traced, and corporal punishment and transportation for life for the crews, and for the captains service as common sailors on board our frigates, we should soon find the ardour for the traffic diminished.

The voyage was slow from the frequent calms. By the 20th of April they had advanced only to the tropic, 350 miles. From day to day the sick among the negroes were dropping off. A large shark followed the ship, which they conceived might have gorged some of the corpses. He was caught, but the stomach was empty. When brought on the deck, he exhibited the usual and remarkable tenacity of life. Though his tail was chopped, and even his entrails taken out, in neither of which operations it exhibited any sign of sensation, yet no sooner was a bucket of salt water poured on it to wash the deck, than it began to flounder about and bite on all sides.

Symptoms of fever now began to appear on board, and the Portuguese cook died.

_April 29_.--A storm, the lightning intolerably vivid, flash succeeding flash with scarcely a sensible intermission; blue, red, and of a still more dazzling white, which made the eye shrink, lighting up every object on deck as clearly as at mid-day. All the winds of heaven seemed let loose, as it blew alternately from every point of the compass. The screams of distress from the sick and weak in the hold, were heard through the roar of the tempest. From the rolling and creaking, one might fancy every thing going asunder. The woman's shed on deck had been washed down, and the planks which formed its roof falling in a heap, a woman was found dead under the ruin.

_May 1_.--In this hemisphere, marking the approach of the cold weather, the naked negroes began to shiver, and their teeth to chatter.

_May 3_.--Another storm, with severe cold. Seven negroes were found dead this morning. The wretched beings had begun now to steal water and brandy from the hold. "None can tell," says the writer, "save he who has tried, the pangs of thirst which may excite them in that heated hold, many of them fevered by mortal disease. Their daily allowance of water is about a half pint in the morning, and the same quantity in the evening." This passage now became all storms. A heavy squall came on _May 8_, which continued next day a strong gale. The first object which met the eye in the morning, was three negroes dead on the deck.

_May 11_.--Another storm, heavier than any of the preceding ones. Towards evening the report of the helmsman was the gratifying one, that the heart of the gale was broke; yet a yellow haze overspread the setting sun, and it continued to blow as wildly as ever. Squalls rapidly succeeding each other mingled sea and air in one sheet of spray, blinding the eyes of the helmsman; waves towering high above us, tossing up the foam from their crests towards the sky, threatened to engulf the vessel at every moment. When the squalls, breaking heavily on the vessel, caused her to heel over, and the negroes to tumble one against each other in the hold, the shrieks of the sufferers through the darkness of the night, rising above the noise of the winds and waves, seemed of all horrors in this unhappy vessel the saddest. Dysentery now attacked the crew, and the boatswain's mate died. We pass over the melancholy details of this miserable voyage, in which disgusts and distresses of every kind seemed to threaten all on board with death, every day bringing its mortality. At last on Sunday, May 28th, the welcome sight of Cape Agulhas cheered them at the distance of ten miles. The weather was now fine, but the mortality continued, the fatal cases averaging four a-day. On the 1st of June eight were found dead in the morning; and, when the morning mist had cleared away, they found themselves within three miles of Simon's Bay. As soon as the Progresso anchored, the superintendent of the naval hospital came on board, and the writer descended with him for the last time to the slave hold. Accustomed as he had been to scenes of suffering, he was unable to endure a sight, surpassing all he could have conceived, he said, of human misery, and made a hasty retreat. The numbers who had died within the fifty days were 163. Even this was not all; for, on returning to the vessel next day, six corpses were added to the eight of the preceding day, and the fourteen were piled on deck for interment on the shore. A hundred of the healthiest negroes were landed at the pier to proceed in waggons to Cape Town; but though rescued from a state of extreme misery, the change seemed to excite anxiety and apprehension. Each of the men had received on landing a new warm jacket and trousers, and the women had each a new white blanket in addition to an under dress, and they were placed snugly in waggons; yet their countenances resembled those of condemned victims. Of the whole of the original cargo, not far short of one half had died. To what causes this horrible mortality must be imputed, it is not our purpose to decide; but that it did not arise from the original tendency of the negroes to sickness seems evident--the fact being, that of the fifty who were taken on board the frigate, but one had died at sea and one on shore. Within a few days the liberated negroes had acquired a more cheerful look, their first conception having been that they were to be devoured by the people of the country, and they were reluctant to eat, fearing that it was intended to fatten them for the purpose. However, the negroes in the colonies soon freed them from this apprehension.

We shall be rejoiced if the publicity given to this little but intelligent pamphlet by our means, may assist in drawing the attention of the influential classes to the subject. We fully believe that, if we were to look for the deepest misery that was ever inflicted in this world, and the greatest mass of it, we should find it in the slave-trade. It is the misery, not as in civilized life, of scattered individuals, but of multitudes, and a misery comprehending every other; sudden separation from every tie of the human heart, parent, child, spouse, and country; the misery of bodily affliction, disease, famine, storms, shipwreck, and ultimately slavery, with all its wretchedness of toil and tyranny for life. We certainly do not think it our duty to go to war for the object of teaching humanity to other nations. We must no attempt to heal the calamity of the African by the greatest of all calamities and crimes--an unnecessary war. But England has only to persevere sincerely and steadily, however calmly, and she will, by the blessing of that supreme Disposer of the ways of men, who desires the happiness of all his creatures, succeed in the extinction of a traffic which has brought a curse, and brings it at this hour, and will bring it deeper still, upon every nation which insults the laws of humanity and the dictates of religion, by dealing in the flesh and blood of man.

* * * * *

MOSLEM HISTORIES OF SPAIN.[3]--THE ARABS OF CORDOVA.

[3] The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain. By AHMED IBN MOHAMMED AL-MAKKARI of Telemsan. Translated and illustrated with Critical Notes by Pascual de Gayangos, late Professor of Arabic in the Athenæum of Madrid.--Printed for the Oriental Translation Fund. 2 vols. 4to. 1840-43.

"The second day was that when Martel broke The Mussulmen, delivering France opprest, And in one mighty conflict, from the yoke Of unbelieving Mecca saved the West." SOUTHEY.

The Arab domination in Spain is the grand romance of European history. The splendid but mysterious fabric of Asiatic power and science is seen for age after age, like the fairy castle of St John, exalted far above the rugged plain of Frank semi-barbarism--till the spell is at last broken by the iron prowess of Christian chivalry; and the glittering edifice vanishes from the land as though it had never been, leaving, like the fabled structure of the poet, only a wreath of laurel to bind the brows of the victor. Yet though replete with gorgeous materials both for history and fiction, and stored not only with the recondite lore of Asia and Egypt, but with the borrowed treasures of ancient Greece, (long known to Christendom only by versions through an Arabic medium,) the language and literature of this marvellous people, and even their history, except so far as it related to their never-ceasing warfare with their Christian foes, remained, up to the middle of the last century, a sealed book to their Spanish successors. Coming into possession, like the Israelites of old, "of a land for which they did not labour, of cities which they built not, of vineyards and olive-yards which they planted not," the Spaniards not merely contemned, but persecuted with the fiercest bigotry, all that was left in the peninsula of the genius and learning of their predecessors. Eighty thousand volumes were publicly burned in one fatal _auto-da-fé_ at Granada by order of Cardinal Ximenes, in whom the literature of his own language yet found a munificent patron; and so meritorious, did the deed appear in the eyes of his contemporaries, that the number has been magnified to an incredible amount by his biographers, in their zeal for the renown of their hero! So complete was the destruction or deportation[4] of the seventy public libraries, which, a century and a half before the subjugation of the Moors, were open in different cities of Spain, that the valuable collection now in the Escurial owes its origin to the accidental capture, early in the seventeenth century, of three ships laden with books belonging to Muley Zidan, emperor of Morocco--and even of this casual prize so little was the value appreciated, that it was not till more than a hundred years later, and after three-fourths of the books had been consumed by fire in 1671, that the learned and diligent Casiri was commissioned to make a catalogue of the remainder. The result was the well-known _Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis_, which appeared in 1760-70; and which, in the words of the present learned translator, "though hasty and superficial, and containing frequent unaccountable blunders, must, with all its imperfections, ever be valuable as affording palpable proof of the literary cultivation of the Spanish Arabs, and as containing the first glimpses of historical truth." Up to this time the only authority on Spanish history purporting to be drawn from Mohammedan sources, was the work of a Morisco named Miguel de Luna, written by command of the Inquisition; which was first printed at Granada in 1592, and has passed through many editions. Its value may be estimated from its placing the Mohammedan conquest of Spain in the time of Yakub Al-mansor, the actual date of whose reign was from A.D. 1184 to 1199; insomuch that Señor de Gayangos suggests, as a possible explanation of its glaring inaccuracies, that it was the writer's intention to hoax his employers. Casiri had, however, opened the door for further researches; and he was followed in the same path by Don Faustino de Borbon, whose works, valuable rather from the erudition which they display than from their judgment or critical acumen, have now become extremely scarce--and next by Don Antonio José Condé, one of the most zealous and laborious, if not the most accurate, of Spanish orientalists. His "History of the Domination of the Arabs and Moors in Spain," has been generally regarded as of high authority, and is in truth the first work on the subject drawn wholly from Arab sources; but it receives summary condemnation from Señor de Gayangos, for "the uncouth arrangement of the materials, the entire want of critical or explanatory notes, the unaccountable neglect to cite authorities, the numerous repetitions, blunders, and contradictions." These charges are certainly not without foundation; but they are in some measure accounted for by the trouble and penury in which the author's last years were spent, and the unfinished state in which the work was left at his death in 1820.

[4] The Almoravide and Almohade princes, who ruled both in Spain and Africa, often inserted a clause in their treaties with the Christians for the restoration of the libraries captured in the towns taken from the Moslems; and Ibn Khaldun mentions, that Yakob Al-mansor destined a college at Fez for the reception of the books thus recovered.

An authentic and comprehensive view of the Arab period, as described by their own writers, was therefore still a desideratum in European literature, which the publication before us may be considered as the first step towards supplying. The work of Al-Makkari, which has been taken as a text-book, is not so much an original history as a collection of extracts, sometimes abridged, and sometimes transcribed in full, from more ancient historians; and frequently giving two or three versions of the same event from different authorities--so that, though it can claim but little merit as a composition, it is of extreme value as a repository of fragments of authors in many cases now lost; and further, as the only "uninterrupted narrative of the conquests, wars, and settlements of the Spanish Moslems, from their first invasion of the Peninsula to their final expulsion." In the arrangement of his materials, the translator has departed considerably, and with advantage, from the original; giving the historical books in the form of a continuous narrative, and omitting several sections relating to matters of little interest--while the deficiencies and omissions of the author are supplied by an appendix, containing, in addition to a valuable body of original notes, copious extracts from numerous unpublished Arabic MSS. relating to Spain, which afford ample proof of the extent and diligence of his researches among the Oriental treasures of Paris and London. To those in the Escurial, however, he was denied access during his labours--an almost incredible measure of illiberality, which, if he be correct in ascribing it to his known intention of publishing in England, "ill suits a country" (as he justly remarks in the preface) "which has lately seen its archives and monastic libraries reduced to cinders, and scattered or sold in foreign markets, without the least struggle to rescue or secure them."

Ahmed Al-Makkari, the author or compiler of the present work, derived his surname from a village near Telemsan called Makkarah, where his family had been established since the conquest of Africa by the Arabs. He was born at Telemsan some time in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and educated by his uncle, who held the office of Mufti in that city; but having quitted his native country in 1618 on a pilgrimage to Mekka, he married and settled in Cairo. During a visit to Damascus in 1628, he was received with high distinction by Ahmed Ibn Shahin Effendi, the director of the college of Jakmak in that city, and a distinguished patron of literature; at whose suggestion (he tells us) he undertook this work. His original purpose had been only to write the life of Abu Abdullah Lisanuddin, a celebrated historian and minister in Granada, better known to Oriental scholars as Ibnu'l-Khattib; but having completed this, the thought struck him of adding, as a second part, an historical account of the Moslems of Spain. He had formerly written an extensive and elaborate work on this subject, composed (to use his own words) "in such an elevated and pleasing style, that had it been publicly delivered by the common crier, it would have made even the stones deaf:--but, alas! the whole of this we had left in Maghreb (Morocco) with the rest of our library.... However, we have done our best to make the present work as useful and complete as possible." It was probably the last literary undertaking of his life; since he was on the point of quitting Cairo to fix his residence in Damascus, when he died of a fever in the second Jomada of A.H. 1041, (Jan. 1632,) leaving a high reputation as a traditionist and doctor of the Moslem law.

The introductory chapter gives a sketch of the various nations which inhabited _Andalus_ or Spain before the Arab conquest, prefaced by extracts from numerous writers eulogistic of a country "whose excellences" (as Al-Makkari himself declares) "are such and so many that they cannot easily be contained in a book ... so that one of their wise men, who knew that the country had been called the bird's tail, owing to the supposed resemblance of the earth to a bird with extended wings, remarked that that bird was the peacock, the principal beauty of which was in the tail." These panegyrics are not in all cases exactly consistent; for while the famous geographer, Obeydullah Al-Bekri, "compares his native country to Syria for purity of air and water, to China for mines and precious stones, &c. &c., and to Al-Ahwaz (a district in Persia) _for the magnitude of its snakes_"--the Sheikh Ahmed Al-Razi (better known as the historian Razis) praises its comparative freedom from wild beasts and reptiles. The name _Andalus_ is derived by some authors from a great grandson of Noah so named, who settled there soon after the deluge; but Al-Makkari rather inclines, with Ibn Khaldun and other writers, to deduce it from the _Andalosh,_ (Vandals,) "a tribe of barbarians," who appear to be considered as the earliest inhabitants; but who, having incurred the divine wrath by their wickedness and idolatry, were all cut off by a terrible drought, which left the land for a hundred years an uninhabited desert. A colony then arrived from Africa, under a chief named Batrikus, eleven generations of whose descendants reigned for one hundred and fifty-seven years; after which they were all annihilated by the "barbarians of Rome, who invaded and conquered the country; and it was after their king Ishban, son of Titus, that Andalus was called Ishbaniah," (Hispania.) As Ishban is just after said to have "plundered and demolished Ilia, which is the same as Al-Kods the illustrious," (Jerusalem,) it is obvious that the name must be a corruption of Vespasian, who is thus made the son instead of the father of Titus. We are told that authors differ whether it was on this occasion, or at the former capture of Jerusalem by Bokht-Nasser, (Nebuchadnezzar,) at which a king of Spain named Berian was also present, that the table constructed by the genii for Solomon, and which Tarik afterwards found at Toledo, was transported to Spain--and Al-Makkari professes himself, as well he may, unable to reconcile the different accounts. Fifty-five kings descended from Ishban, whose race was dispossessed ("about the time of the Messiah, on whom be peace!") by a people called Bishtilikat, (Visigoths?) under a king called Talubush, (Ataulphus?) whom Al-Makkari holds to have been the same people as the "barbarians of Rome," though "there are not wanting authors who make the Goths and the Bishtilikat only one nation." After holding possession during the reigns of twenty-seven monarchs, they were in turn subdued by the Goths, whose royal residence was "Toleyalah, (Toledo,) though Isbiliah (Seville) continued to be the abode of the sciences." The Gothic kings are said to have been thirty-six;--but the only one particularized by name is "Khoshandinus, (Constantine,) who not only embraced Christianity himself, but called on his subjects to do the same, and is held by the Christians as the greatest king they ever had.... Several kings of his posterity reigned after him, till Andalus was finally subdued by the Arabs, by whose means God was pleased to make manifest the superiority of Islam over every other religion."

With the Arab, conquest the authentic history commences; and the accounts given from the Moslem writers of this memorable event, which first gave the followers of the Prophet a footing in Europe, differ in no material point from the eloquent narrative of Gibbon. Al-Makkari, however, does not fail to inform us, that predictions had been rife from long past ages, which foretold the invasion and conquest of the country by a fierce people from Africa; and potent were the spells and talismans constructed to ward off the danger, "by the _Greek_ kings who reigned in old times." Several of these are described with due solemnity; and among them we find the tale of the visit paid by Roderic[5] to the magic tower at Toledo, which has been rendered familiar by the pages of Scott and Southey. We shall not here recapitulate the well-known incidents of the wrongs and revenge of Count Yllan, or Julian, the first landing of Tarif at Tarifa, the second expedition sent by Musa under Tarik Ibn Zeyad, and the death or disappearance of the Gothic king on the fatal day of Guadalete.[6] So complete was the discomfiture of the Christians, that the kingdom fell, without a second blow, before the victors of a single field; and was overrun with such rapidity, that from the inability of the conquerors to garrison the cities which surrendered, they were entrusted for the time to the guard of the Jews!--a singular circumstance, which, when coupled with the statement that many of the Berbers (of whom the invading army was almost wholly composed) were recent converts from Judaism,[7] would apparently imply that the conquest was facilitated by a previous correspondence. The subjugation of the country was completed by the arrival of Musa himself, who reduced Seville and the other towns which still held out, and is even said to have crossed the Pyrenees and sacked Narbonne;[8] but this is not mentioned by any Christian writer, and is referred by the translator to his invasion of Catalonia, which the Arabs considered as part of "the land of the Franks." After the first fury of conquest had subsided, the Christians who remained in their homes were permitted to live unmolested, on payment of the capitation-tax; but peculiar privileges were accorded to the Jews, and the hold of the Moslems on the country was strengthened by the vast influx of settlers, not only from Africa, but from Syria and Arabia, who were attracted by the reports of the riches and fertility of the new province. Nearly all the tribes of Arabia are enumerated by Al-Makkari as represented in Spain; and the feuds of the two great divisions, the Beni-Modhar[9] or race of Adnan, and the Beni-Kahttan or Arabs of Yemen, gave rise to most of the civil wars which subsequently desolated Andalus.

[5] He is called by the Arabic writers Ludherik--a name afterwards applied as a general designation to the kings of Castile.

[6] The translator adduces strong grounds for believing that the battle was fought, not as usually held, in the plain of Xeres, on the south bank of the Guadalete, but "nearer the sea-shore, and not far from the town of Medina-Sidonia."

[7] This is not mentioned by the authors from whom Al-Makkari has drawn his materials, but is stated by Professor de Gayangos on the authority of Ibn Khaldun.

[8] A story is here told of Musa's reaching some colossal ruins, and a monument inscribed with Arabic characters pointing out that place as the term of his conquests--a legend which perhaps gave the hint for one of the tales in the Thousand and One Nights, in which he is sent on an expedition to the city of Brass on the shores of the Western Ocean.--See Lane's translation, chap. 21.

[9] Condé, and the writers who have followed him, constantly speak of the Beni-Modhar as Egyptian--an error owing to the neglect or omission of the point which in Arabic orthography distinguishes _Modhar_ from _Missr_, (Egypt.)

The spoil of the vanquished kingdom was immense--the accumulation of long years of luxury and freedom from foreign invasion in a country which, both from the fertility of the soil and the abundance of the precious metals, was then probably the richest in Europe. Whatever degree of credit we may attach to the famous table of Solomon, "said by some to be of pure gold, and by others green emerald," and the gems and ornaments of which are described with full Oriental luxuriance, every account referring to the booty acquired in the principal cities, gives ample evidence of the riches and splendour of the Visigoths. "The plunder found at Toledo[10] was beyond calculation. It was common for the lowest men in the army to find magnificent gold chains, and long strings of pearls and rubies. Among other precious objects were found 170 diadems of the purest red gold, set with every sort of precious stone; several measures full of emeralds, rubies, and other gems; and an immense number of gold and silver vases. Such was the eagerness for plunder, and the ignorance of some, especially the Berbers, that when two or more of this nation fell upon an article which they could not conveniently divide, they would cut it in pieces, whatever the material might be, and share it among them." Some of the victorious army seized some ships in the eastern ports, and set sail for their homes with their plunder; but they were speedily overtaken by a tremendous storm, and all perished in the waves--a manifest token, we are given to understand, of the Divine vengeance for the abandonment of the _holy_ warfare under the banners of Islam.

[10] Burkhardt (Travels in Arabia, i. 303) says, that all the golden ornaments which the Khalif Walid gave to the mosque at Mekka, "were sent from Toledo in Spain, and carried upon mules through Africa and Arabia."

Musa was on his march into Galicia to crush the last embers of national resistance, when his progress was checked by a peremptory summons from the Khalif, to answer at Damascus the charges forwarded against him by Tarik, whom he had unjustly disgraced and punished. Being convicted of falsehood, on the production by Tarik of the missing foot of the table of Solomon, the merit of finding which had been claimed by Musa, he was tortured and deprived of his riches; and the head of his gallant son Abdulaziz, whom he had left in command in Spain, was shown to him in public by the Khalif Soliman, the successor of Walid, with the cruel demand if he knew whose it was. "I do," was the father's reply: "it is the head of one who fasted and prayed; may the curse of Allah fall on it if he who slew him is a better man than he!" But though Musa was thus arrested in the last stage of his conquering career, so complete was the prostration of the Christians, that the viceroys who succeeded Abdulaziz, overlooking or disregarding this yet unsubdued corner of Spain, at once poured their forces across the Pyrenees, seeking new fields of conquest and glory in the countries of the Franks. But the antagonists whom they here encountered, unlike the luxurious Goths of Spain, still preserved the barbarian valour which they had brought from their German forests. And As-Samh, (the Zama of the Christian writers,) the first Saracen general who obtained a footing in France, "fell a martyr to the faith," with nearly his whole army, in a battle with Eudo, Duke of Aquitaine, before Toulouse, May 10, A.D. 721. But the fiery zeal of the Moslems was only stimulated by this reverse. In the course of the ten following years, their dominion was established as far as the Rhone and Garonne; till, in 732, the torrent of invasion, headed by the _Wali_ Abdurrahman, burst into the heart of the country; and the battle, decisive of the destinies of France, and perhaps of Europe, was fought between Tours and Poitiers, in October of that year, (Ramadhan, A.H. 114.) Few details are given by the Arab writers of the seven days' conflict, in which the ranks of the Moslems were shattered by the iron arm of Charles Martel; "and the army of Abdurrahman was cut to pieces at a spot called _Balatt-ush-Shohadá_, (the Pavement of the Martyrs,) he himself being in the number of the slain." Some confusion here appears, as the same epithet had been applied to the former battle near Toulouse; but this "disastrous day" of Tours virtually extinguished the schemes of Arab conquest in France, though it was not till many years later that they were completely dislodged from Narbonne, and their other acquisitions between the Garrone and the Pyrenees.

Meanwhile the Christian remnant, left unmolested in the Asturian and Galician mountains, gradually recovered courage: and in 717-18, "a despicable barbarian," (as he is termed by Ibn Hayyan, a writer often cited by Al-Makkari,) "named Belay, (Pelayo or Pelagius,) rose in Galicia; and from that moment the Christians began to resist the Moslems, and to defend their wives and daughters; for till then they had not shown the least inclination to do so." "Would to God," piously subjoins Al-Makkari, "that the Moslems had then extinguished at once the sparkles of a fire destined to consume their whole dominion in those parts! But they said--'What are thirty barbarians, perched on a rock? they must inevitably die!'" The spark, which contained the germ of the future independence of Spain, was thus suffered to remain and spread, while the swords of the Moslems were occupied in France; and its growth was further favoured by the anarchy and civil dissensions which broke out among the conquerors. While the leaders of the different Arab factions contested, sword in hand, the viceroyalty of Spain, the Berbers (whose conversion to Islam was apparently yet but imperfect) rose in furious revolt both in Spain and Africa, and were only overpowered by a fresh army sent by the Khalif Hisham from Syria. But the arrival of these reinforcements added new fuel to the old feuds of the Beni-Modhar, and the Yemenis or Beni-Kahttan; and a desperate civil war raged till 746, when the Khalif's lieutenant, the Emir Abu'l-Khattar, who supported the Yemenis, was killed in a pitched battle fought near Cordova. The leader of the victorious tribe, Yusuf Al-Fehri,[11] now assumed supreme power, which he exercised nearly ten years as an independent ruler, without reference to the court of Damascus. The state of affairs in the East, indeed, left little leisure to the Umeyyan khalifs to attend to the regulation of a remote province. Their throne was already tottering before the arms and intrigues of the Abbasides, whose black banners, under the guidance of the formidable Abu-Moslem, were even now bearing down from Khorassan upon Syria. The unpopular cause of the Beni-Umeyyah, who were detested for the murder of the grandsons of the Prophet under the second of their line, was lost in a single battle; and the death of Merwan, the last khalif of the race, was followed by the unsparing proscription of the whole family. "Every where they were seized and put to death without mercy; and few escaped the search made by the emissaries of As-Seffah, (_the bloodshedder_, the surname of the first Abbaside khalif,) in every province of the empire."

[11] The tribe of Fehr hold a conspicuous place in the Spanish annals, and one of them was the leader of the last attempt to shake off the yoke of Castile, after the capture of Granada.

Among the few survivors of the general doom, was a youth named Abdurrahman Ibn Muawiyah, a grandson of the Khalif Hisham. In his infancy his granduncle Moslemah, the leader of the first Saracen host sent against Constantinople, had indicated him, from certain marks, as the destined restorer of the fallen fortunes of his race; and he was preserved, by a timely warning from a client of his house, from the fatal banquet, in which ninety of the Beni-Umeyyah were treacherously massacred. Yet so hot was the pursuit, that his younger brother was taken and slain before his eyes, while swimming the Euphrates with him in their flight. But Abdurrahman, after numberless perils and adventures, at length reached Africa, which was ruled by the _wali_ or viceroy Abdurrahman Ibn Habib, the father of Yusuf Al-Fehri, who had been a personal retainer of his family. But he soon found that he had erred in trusting to the faith of Ibn Habib; and, after narrowly escaping the search made for him by the emissaries of the governor, lay concealed for several years, a fugitive and outlaw, among the tribes of Northern Africa. In this extremity, he at length cast his eyes on Spain, where the Abbasides had never been recognized, and where his own clansmen of the Koreysh, with their _maulis_, (freedmen or clients,) were numerous and powerful. The overtures of the royal adventurer were eagerly listened to by the Yemenis, who burned to revenge their late defeat on the Beni-Modhar; and Abdurrahman, landing at Al-muñecar in the autumn of 755, found himself instantly at the head of 700 horse, and was speedily joined by the chieftain of the Yemenis, who admitted him into Seville. During the march the want of a banner was remarked, "and a long spear was produced, on the point of which a turban was to be placed; but as it would have been necessary to incline the head of the spear, which was supposed to be of extremely bad omen, it was held erect between two olive trees, and a man, ascending one of them, was enabled to fasten the turban to the spear without lowering it.... With this same banner did Abdurrahman, and his son Hisham, vanquish their enemies whenever they met them; and in such veneration was it held, that whenever the turban by long use decayed, it was not removed, but a new one placed over it. In this manner it was preserved till the days of Abdurrahman II.; some say till the days of his son Mohammed, when the turban on the spear being decayed, the vizirs of that monarch, seeing nothing under it but a few rags twisted round the spear, gave orders for their removal, and the whole was thrown away.... 'From that time,' remarks the judicious historian Ibn Hayyan, 'the empire of the Beni-Umeyyah began visibly to decline.'"

Under the auspices of this novel _oriflamme_ the Umeyyan prince and his followers advanced upon Cordova, whither Yusuf Al-Fehri, who had been engaged in suppressing an insurrection in the _Thagher_, (Aragon,) had hastened to oppose them at the head of the Beni-Modhar. Exchanging for a mule the fiery courser which the jealous whispers of his adherents had remarked as designed to secure his escape in case of defeat, Abdurrahman led his troops to the attack; and his victory established on the throne of Spain a new dynasty of the Beni-Umeyyah, "who thus regained in the west the supremacy which they had lost in the east." Those of the fallen family who had escaped the general massacre, flocked to the court of their fortunate kinsman, "to all of whom he gave pensions, commands, and governments, by which means his empire was strengthened;"--and the robes and turbans of the monarch and the princes were always white, the colour assumed by the house of Umeyyah, in opposition to the black livery of their rivals. Though Abdurrahman never assumed the title of commander of the faithful, he suppressed the _khotbah_ or public prayers in the name of the Abbasides; and when Al-Ala, the _wali_ of Africa, invaded Spain in order to re-establish the supremacy of the eastern khalif, the head of his unsuccessful general, thrown before the tent of Al-mansor at Mekka, conveyed to him the first tidings of the destruction of the armament by the "hawk of the Koreysh," as he was wont to term Abdurrahman. In the elation of triumph from this success, he is even said to have contemplated marching through Africa to attack Al-mansor in the east; but this design was frustrated by the continual rebellions of the Arab tribes, whom all his address and prudence was unable to keep in order; and "while the Moslems were revolting against their sovereign, the Christians of Galicia gathered strength, took possession of the towns and fortresses on the frontier, and expelled their inhabitants." We find him at length obliged, in order to maintain his authority, to have recourse to the system, which in the next century became universal in the east, of entrusting the defence of his throne and person, not to the native levies of his kingdom, but to a standing army of purchased slaves or _Mamlukes_. "He began to cease all communication with the chiefs of the Arabian tribes, whom he found animated with a strong hatred against him, and to surround himself with slaves and people entirely devoted to him; for which end he engaged followers and took clients from every province of his empire, and sent over to Africa to enlist Berbers. 'Thus,' says Ibn Hayyan, 'Abdurrahman collected an army of slaves and Berbers, amounting to upwards of 40,000 men, by means of whom he always remained victorious, in every contest with the Arabian tribes of Andalus.'"

The sciences and fine arts, which had been almost banished from Spain since the conquest, returned in the train of the new dynasty; and literature was encouraged by the example of Abdurrahman, who was himself a poet of no mean merit. His affectionate remembrance of his Syrian home, led him to introduce into his new kingdom the flowers and fruits of the east;--and the palm-tree, which was the parent of all those of its kind in Spain, and to which he addressed the well-known lines, lamenting their common fate as exiles from their fatherland, was planted by himself in the gardens of the Rissáfah, a country palace built on the model of one near Damascus, in which the first years of his life had been spent. In architectural magnificence he rivaled or surpassed the former princes of his race, the monuments of whose grandeur still exist in the mosque of the Beni-Umeyyah at Damascus, and other edifices adorning the cities of Syria. The palaces and aqueducts which he constructed in Cordova, testified his zeal for the splendour, as well as his care for the salubrity, of his capital;--and after expending the sum of 80,000 golden _dinars_ (the produce of the royal fifth of all spoil taken in war) in the erection of the stately mosque which bears his name, he bequeathed the completion of the structure, at his death, A.D. 788, to his younger son Hisham, whom he nominated as his successor, to the exclusion of the elder brother Soliman. Al-Makkari devotes an entire chapter to the wonders of this celebrated temple, which was finished A.D. 794, nine years after its commencement, and received additions from almost every successive sovereign of the house of Umeyyah. In its present state, as the cathedral of Cordova, it still covers more ground than any church in Christendom; but the inner roof, with its elaborate carving, the _mihrab_, or shrine, of minute inlaid work of ivory, gems, and precious woods, and containing a copy of the Koran which had belonged to the Khalif Othman--the embossed plates of gold and silver which encrusted the doors, and the apples of the same metals which surmounted the dome--have long since disappeared; and the thousand (or, as some say, thirteen hundred) columns of polished marble which it once boasted, have been grievously reduced in number, to make room for the shrines and chapels of Christian saints. The unequal length and proportions of those which remain, their irregular grouping, and the want of height in the roof which they support, indicate a far lower grade of architectural taste than that which we find in the aerial palaces of Granada; but all the Arabic writers who have described it, concur in considering it one of the wonders of the world; and it ranked, in the estimation of the Spanish Moslems, as inferior in point of sanctity to none but the Kaaba, and the mosque of Omar at Jerusalem.

The mood of the Beni-Umeyyah, who appear in their eastern reign only as gloomy and execrated tyrants, had been chastened by their misfortunes; and the virtues of Abdurrahman _Ad-dakhel_ (_the enterer or conqueror_, as he is generally termed by historians) were emulated by his descendants. As an illustration of the character of his son Hisham, it is related by Al-Makkari, that on hearing that the people of Cordova said, that his only motive in restoring the great bridge over the Guadalquivir was to pass over it himself when he went out hunting, he bound himself by a solemn vow never to cross it again as long as he lived; but the reign of this beneficent prince lasted only eight years. His immediate successors, Al-hakem I., and Abdurrahman II., were almost constantly engaged in warfare, either against their own rebellious relatives and revolted subjects,[12] or against the Christians of Galicia, who, by the middle of the ninth century, had advanced their frontier to the Douro and repeatedly repulsed the armies sent against them from Cordova; but we find no mention in the writers cited by Al-Makkari, either of the annual tribute of a hundred virgins, popularly said to have been exacted by the Moslems, or of the great victory in 846, by which King Ramiro redeemed his country from this degrading badge of vassalage.[13] So widely extended was the martial renown of the Umeyyan sovereigns, that in 839 a suppliant embassy was received by Abdurrahman II. from the Greek Emperor _Tufilus_, (Theophilus,) then hard pressed by the arms of the Abbaside khalif Al-mutassem, to solicit his aid against their common enemy; and, though Abdurrahman declined to embark in this distant and hazardous enterprise, a friendly intercourse long continued to be kept up between the courts of Cordova and Constantinople. The military establishment was fully organized, and placed on a formidable footing. Besides the troops quartered in the provinces and receiving regular pay, the _haras_ or royal guard of Mamlukes, whose commander was one of the principal officers of the court, was augmented to 5000 horse and 1000 foot, all Christians or foreigners by birth, who occupied barracks close to the royal palace, and constantly mounted guard at the gates. The coast was also defended by a powerful fleet of armed vessels, of which each of the seaports fitted out its proportion, against the hostile attacks of the Abbaside lieutenauts of Africa, and the predatory descents of the _Majus_[14] or Northmen; who, after laying waste with fire and sword the French and English coasts, had extended their ravages into the southern seas even to the Straits of Gibraltar. Lisbon and Seville were sacked by them in 844; and their piratical fleets continued for many years to carry pillage and bloodshed along the shores of the Peninsula.

[12] It was by a body of exiles under Abu Hafss Omar, the Apochapsus of the Greeks, (incorrectly called Abu _Caab_ by Gibbon,) driven from Cordova after one of these insurrections, that Crete was conquered in 823.

[13] In this battle, according to the veracious Spanish chroniclers, Santiago first appeared on his white horse in the mêlée, fighting for the Christians.--See the "Maiden Tribute," in Lockhart's _Spanish Ballads_.

[14] _Majus_--Magians or fire worshippers, is the term invariably applied to these fierce Pagans by the Arabic historians, apparently by a negative induction from their being neither Moslems, Jews, nor Christians.

The simplicity which the first Abdurrahman had uniformly preserved in his dress and habits of life, was soon exchanged by his successors for royal magnificence, rivaling that of the Abbaside court at Bagdad. It was Abdurrahman II. who, in a love quarrel with a beautiful inmate of his harem, caused the door of her chamber to be blocked up with bags of silver coin, to be removed on her relenting--"and she threw herself on her knees and kissed his feet; but," naïvely adds the Arab historian, "the money she kept, and no portion of it ever returned to the treasury." The same prince testified his esteem for the fine arts, by riding forth in state from his capital, to welcome the arrival of Zaryab, a far-famed musician, whom the jealousy of a rival had driven from Bagdad, and who founded in Spain a famous school of music; and in his convivial habits, and the freedom which he allowed to the companions of his festive hours, his character accords with that assigned in the _Thousand and One Nights_, though not in the page of history, to Haroon-Al-Rasheed. He died in 852, leaving the crown to his son Mohammed, whose reign, as well as those of his two sons Almundhir and Abdullah, who filled the throne in succession, is but briefly noticed by Al-Makkari, though Señor de Gayangos has supplied some valuable additional matter in his notes. The never-ceasing contest with the Christians was waged year by year; and the Princes of Oviedo, though often defeated in the plain and driven back into their mountains, when the forces of Andalus were gathered against them; yet surely, though slowly, gained ground against the provincial _walis_ or viceroys. At the death of "Ordhun Ibn Adefunsh," (Ordoño I.) in 866, their territory extended from the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay to Salamanca; and the Moslem power was diverted by the rising strength of Navarre, where the Basques had shaken off the divided allegiance paid alternately to the court of Cordova and the Carlovingian rulers of France, and conferred on Garcia-Ramirez, in 857, an independent regal title. But these distant hostilities, as yet, little affected the tranquillity of the seat of government, which was more nearly interested in the frequent revolts of the provinces under its rule,[15] and particularly by the rebellion of the _Muwallads_, (or descendants of Christian converts to Islam;) which, though the information extant respecting it is somewhat scanty, would appear to have been little less than a struggle between the two races for the dominion of Spain. One of the Muwallad chiefs, named Omar Ibn Hafssun,[16] maintained for years a sort of semi-independence in the Alpuxarras. Al-mundhir fell in a skirmish against him in 888, only two years after his accession; and the insurrection, after continuing through the whole reign of Abdullah, was only finally suppressed under Abdurrahman III.

[15] No fewer than twenty-seven insurgent leaders, in the reign of Abdullah alone, are enumerated in the translator's notes from Ibn Hayyan.

[16] The epithet of _kelb_, "dog," frequently applied to this leader, has led Condé into the strange error of creating for him a son, whom he calls _Kalib_ Ibun Hafssun. The term _Muwallad_ is said to be the origin of _mulatto_.

The system of government under these princes, appears to have remained in nearly the same form as it had been fixed by Abdurrahman I. The monarch nominated, during his lifetime, one of his sons as his successor; and the _wali-al-ahd_, or crown-prince, thus selected, received the oaths of allegiance of the dignitaries of the state, and was admitted to a share in the administration--a wise regulation, which prevented the recurrence of the civil wars arising from the ambition of princes of the blood, which had distracted the reigns of Al-hakem I. and Abdurrahman II. The council of the sovereign was composed of the _vizirs_ or ministers of the different departments, the _katibs_ or secretaries, and the chiefs of the law; the _walis_ of the six great provinces into which Abdurrahman I. divided his empire,[17] as well as the municipal chiefs of the principal cities were also summoned on emergencies:--while the prime minister, or highest officer of the state, in whom, as in the Turkish _Vizir-Azem_,[18] the supreme direction of both civil and military affairs was vested, was designated the _Hajib_ or chamberlain. Of the four orthodox[19] sects of the Soonis, the one which predominated in Spain, as it does to the present day in Barbary and Africa, was that of Malik Ibn Ans, whose doctrines were introduced in the reign of Al-hakem I., by doctors who had received instruction from the lips of the Imam Malik himself at Mekka; and was formally established by that prince throughout his dominions. The judicial offices were filled, as in other Moslem countries, by Kadis, whose decisions were regulated by the precepts of the Koran: but we find no mention (even before the assumption of the titles of Imam and Khalif by Abdurrahman III.) of any supreme ecclesiastical chief like the Sheikh-al-Islam or Mufti of the Ottomans;--though there were chief justices analogous to the Turkish Kadileskers, who bore the title of _Kadi-'l-jamah_.

[17] We do not find this division mentioned by the authors cited by Al-Makkari; but it is stated by Condé, and appears to have prevailed as long as the kingdom retained its unity. The six provincial capitals were Saragossa, Toledo, Merida, Valencia, Murcia, and Granada. Shortly before the arrival of Abdurrahman, Yusuf Al-Fehri had organized _five_ great governments, one of which comprised Narbonne and the Trans-Pyrenean conquests.

[18] Under the Arab dynasties of the east, the _vizir_ was exclusively an officer _of the pen_: and Makrizi expressly mentions that Bedr-al-Jemali, who became vizir to the Fatimite khalif Al-Mostanssor in 1074, was the first in whom _the sword and the pen_ were united.

[19] See Sale's Koran. Preliminary Discourse. Sect. 8.

The royal revenue was derived from a variety of sources. The principal were, a land-tax amounting to one-tenth of the produce of the soil and the mines, the capitation-tax paid by the Jews and Christians, and the fifth of the spoil taken from the enemy--an enormously productive item in a time of constant warfare--besides a duty of two and a half per cent on all exports and imports. These were the legitimate dues of the crown, sanctioned by the Koran; but the splendid court maintained by the later sovereigns of Cordova, their lavish expenditure in building, and their large military and naval establishments, often compelled them to have recourse to irregular methods of raising money, by forced loans and by duties laid on different articles of food, in direct violation of the Moslem law. The amount raised by all these means varied greatly at different periods. Under Abdurrahman II., the whole direct revenue is said not to have exceeded 1,000,000 of gold _din[=a]rs_:--but the royal fifths, and other extraordinary sources of income, appear not to have been included in this estimate:--and a century later, under the third and greatest prince of that name, we are told, on the authority of the biographer Ibn Khallekan, that "the revenues of Andalus amounted to 5,480,000 gold _din[=a]rs_, collected from taxes," (it is elsewhere said from the _land_-tax:) besides 765,000 derived from markets--exclusive also of the royal fifth of the spoil, and the capitation-tax levied on Christians and Jews living in the Moslem dominions, the amount of which is said to have equaled all the rest. An annual sum of equal amount, reckoning the _din[=a]r_ at ten shillings, had never in the history of the world been raised in a territory of the same extent, and probably equaled the united incomes of all the Christian princes in Europe--if we except the revenue of the Greek Emperor, it certainly far exceeded them. "Of this vast income," Ibn Khallekan continues, "one-third was appropriated to the payment of the army, another third was deposited in the royal coffers to cover the expenses of the household, and the remainder was spent yearly in the construction of Az-zahra and such other buildings as were erected under his reign." This tripartite allotment of the revenue is alluded to under several reigns: the expenses of administration and the salaries of the civil functionaries were included under the second head; and the third portion was, in ordinary case, reserved "to repel invasions and meet emergencies."

The prince under whom the vast revenue thus stated is said to have been collected, ascended the throne on the death of his grandfather Abdullah, in the 300th year of the Hejra, and the 912th of the Christian era:--and his reign, of more than fifty lunar years, saw the power and splendour of the Umeyyan dynasty attain its zenith. For some years after his accession, he headed his armies in person against the Christians and the partizans of Ibn Hafssun, who still continued in arms: but the severe defeat which he received in 939 at Simaneas, near Zamora, (called by Moslem writers the battle of Al-handik,) from Ramiro II. of Leon, disgusted him with active warfare; and he deputed the command of his armies to his generals and the princes of the blood, who, in annual campaigns, so effectually kept the Christians within their limits, that little territorial acquisition was made by them during his reign; while the voluntary adhesion of the Berber tribes, after the overthrow of the Edrisite dynasty in 941 by the arms of the Fatimite khalifs, gave him almost unresisted possession of great part of Fez and Morocco. The defeat of Al-handik, and the treason and execution in 950, of his elder son Abdullah, (whom disappointment at being postponed to his younger brother in the succession, had led to conspire against his father's life,) were almost the only clouds which dimmed the continual sunshine of his prosperity--and his grandeur was enhanced in the eyes of his subjects, by the assumption of the highest prerogatives of Islam. Hitherto the princes of his line had contented themselves with the style of _Amirs of the Moslems,_ and _Beni-Kholaifah_ or "sons of the Khalifs;" but in 929, "seeing the state of weakness and degradation to which the khalifate of the Beni-Abbas at Bagdad had been reduced," he no longer hesitated to adopt the titles of Imam and Khalif, with the appellation of An-nasir Ledinillah, (defender of the religion of God,) under which he is generally mentioned by historians.

The writers from whom Al-Makkari has drawn his materials, exhaust their powers of language in panegyrics on the unrivaled magnificence of the court of Abdurrahman; which was thronged both by men of letters whom the distracted state of the East had driven thither for refuge, and by ambassadors, not only from the princes of Islam, but from "Hoto the king of the Alaman," (Otho the Great of Germany,) the king of France, and numerous other Christian potentates. The reception of these missions was usually signalized by a gorgeous display of the pomp of the court--and the ceremonial on the arrival in 949 of the envoys of Constantine VII. of Constantinople, is described at length from Ibn Hayyan. "The vaulted hall in his palace of Az-zahra, which he had fixed upon as the place where he would receive their credentials, was beautifully decorated, and a throne glittering with gold and sparkling with gems raised in the midst. To the right of the throne stood five of the khalif's sons, to the left three others, one being absent from illness. Next to them were the vizirs, each at his post on the right or left of the throne. Then came the hajibs or chamberlains, the sons of the vizirs, the freed slaves of the khalif, and the wakils or officers of his household. The court of the palace had been strewn with the richest carpets; and silken awnings of the most gorgeous description had every where been thrown over the doors and arches. Presently the ambassadors entered the hall, and were struck with awe at the magnificence displayed, and the power of the Sultan before whom they stood. They advanced a few steps, and presented the letter of their master, Constantine son of Leo, Lord of Constantinah the Great, (Constantinople.) It was written on sky-blue paper, and the characters were of gold. Within the letter was an enclosure, the ground of which was also sky-blue like the first, but the characters were of silver: it was likewise written in Greek, and contained a list of the presents which the Lord of Constantinah sent to the Khalif. On the letter was a seal of gold of the weight of four mithkals, on one side of which was a likeness of the Messiah, and on the other those of the King Constantine and his son. The letter was enclosed in a bag of silver cloth, over which was a case of gold, with a portrait of King Constantine admirably executed on stained glass. All this was enclosed in a case covered with cloth of silk and gold tissue. On the first line of the _Inwan_ or introduction was written, 'Constantine and Romanin, (Romanus,) believers in the Messiah, kings of the Greeks;' and in the next, 'To the great and exalted in dignity and power, as he most deserves, the noble in descent, Abdurrahman the khalif, who rules over the Arabs of Andalus: may God preserve his life!'" The conclusion of this splendid ceremony was, however, less imposing than the commencement; for a learned _Faquih_, who had been appointed to harangue the envoys in a set speech, was so overawed by the grandeur around him, that "his tongue clove to his mouth, he could not aticulate a single word, and fell senseless to the ground" Nor did his successor, "who was reputed to be a prince in rhetoric, and an ocean of language," fare much better; for though he began fluently, "all of a sudden he stopped for want of a word which did not occur to him, and thus put an end to his peroration." In this awkward dilemma, the reputation of the Andalusian rhetoricians was saved by Mundhir Ibn Said, who not only poured forth a torrent of impromptu eloquence, but delivered a long ex-tempore poem, "which to this day stands unequalled; and Abdurrahman was so pleased, that he appointed him preacher and Imam to the great mosque; and some time after, the office of Kadi-'l-jamah, or supreme judge, being vacant, he named him to that high post, and made him besides reader of the Khoran to the mosque of Az-zahra."

The palace of Az-zahra, where the eyes of the Greeks were dazzled by this costly pageant, is one of the familiar names of the romance of Spanish history:--it is known to all the world how Abdurrahman, to gratify the capricious fancy of a beautiful and beloved mistress, expended millions, and tasked the labour of thousands, in erecting on the plain beyond Cordova a fairy palace and city which might bear her name and be her own. And like a fairy fabric did Az-zahra vanish; for so utterly was it destroyed, during the wars and civil tumults attending the fall of the race which raised it, that at the present day not a stone can be found, not a vestige even of the foundations traced, to show where it once stood; and all that we know of this "wondrous freak of magnificence" is drawn from the glowing accounts of contemporary writers, who saw it during the brief period of its glory. It is principally from Ibn Hayyan that Al-Makkari has copied the details of this marvellous structure, with its "15,000 doors, counting each flap or fold as one," all covered either with plates of iron, or sheets of polished brass; and its 4000 columns, great and small, 140 of which were presented by the Emperor of Constantinople, and 1013, mostly of green and rose-coloured marble, were brought from various parts of Africa. Among the principal ornaments were two fountains brought from Constantinople, "the larger of gilt bronze, beautifully carved with basso-relieve representing human figures,"--the smaller surrounded by twelve figures, made of red gold in the arsenal of Cordova: they were all ornamented with jewels, and the water poured out of their mouths. The famous fountain of quicksilver, which could be set in motion at pleasure, was placed in the _Kasr-al-Kholaifa_, or hall of the khalifs, "the roof and walls of which were of gold, and solid but transparent blocks of marble of various colours: on each side were eight doors fixed on arches of ivory and ebony, ornamented with gold and precious stones, and resting on pillars of variegated marble and transparent crystal:--and in the centre was fixed the unique pearl presented to An-nassir by the Greek Emperor." The mosque and baths attached to the palace were on a corresponding scale of magnificence: and the number of inmates, male and female, is said to have been not less than 20,000. The expenses of the establishment must have consumed the revenues of a kingdom, if we are to believe the statement, that 12,000 loaves of bread were daily allowed to feed the fish in the ponds! "But all this and more is recorded by orators and poets who have exhausted the mines of eloquence in the description," --says Al-Makkari, who, after enlarging upon "the running streams, the luxuriant gardens, the stately buildings for the accommodation of the guards and high functionaries--the throngs of soldiers, pages, eunuchs, and slaves, attired in robes of silk and brocade, moving to and fro through its broad streets--and the crowds of judges, katibs, theologians, and poets, walking with becoming gravity through the spacious halls and ample courts of the palace,"--concludes with a burst of pious enthusiasm. "Praise be to God who allowed those contemptible creatures (mankind) to build such palaces, and to inhabit them as a recompense in this world, that the faithful might be stimulated to the path of virtue, by reflecting that the pleasures enjoyed by their owners were still very far from giving even a remote idea of those reserved for the true believers in paradise!"

"Abdurrahman," as Al-Makkari sums up his character, "has been described as the mildest and most enlightened of sovereigns. His meekness, generosity, and love of justice, became proverbial: none of his ancestors surpased him in courage, zeal for religion, and other virtues which constitute an able and beloved monarch. He was fond of science, and the patron of the learned, with whom he loved to converse.... We should never finish, were we to transcribe the innumerable anecdotes respecting him which are scattered like loose pearls over the writings of the Andalusian poets and historians,"--but as the "pearls" selected possess but little novelty in the illustration of the kingly virtues which they commemorate, we prefer to quote once more the oft-repeated legacy to posterity, in which this "Soliman of the West," as he was called by his contemporaries, confessed that, like his eastern prototype, he had found all his grandeur "but vanity and vexation of spirit."--"After his death a paper was found in his on handwriting, in which were noted those days he had spent in happiness and without any cause of sorrow, and they were found to amount to fourteen. O, man of understanding! consider and observe the small portion of happiness the world affords, even in the most enviable position! The khalif An-nasir, whose prosperity in mundane affairs became proverbial, had only fourteen days of undisturbed enjoyment during a reign of fifty years, seven months, and three days. Praise be given to him, the Lord of eternal glory and everlasting empire! There is no God but he!"

In the fulness of years and glory, Abdurrahman died of a paralytic stroke at Az-zahra, on the second or third of Ramadhan, A.H. 350, (Oct. 961,) and was succeeded, according to his previous nomination, by his son Al-hakem II., who assumed on this occasion the title of Al-mustanser-billah, (one who implores God's assistance.) This prince has been characterized, by one of the ablest of recent historians,[20] as "one of those rare beings, who have employed the awful engine of despotism in promoting the happiness and intelligence of his species;" and who rivaled, "in his elegant tastes, appetite for knowledge, and munificent patronage, the best of the Medici:"--nor is this high praise undeserved. Though he more than once headed his armies in person, with success, against the Christians and Northmen, and maintained on public occasions the state and magnificence which had been introduced by his father, the toils of war and the pomp of royalty were alike alien to his inclinations, which had been directed from his earliest years to pursuits of literature and science. The library which he amassed is said by some writers to have amounted to the almost incredible number of 400,000 volumes: and such was his ardour in the collection of books, that even in Persia and other remote regions, the munificence which he exercised through agents employed for the purpose, secured him copies of forthcoming works even before their appearance in their own country. "He made Andalus a great market for the literary productions of every clime ... so that rich men in Cordova, however illiterate they might be, rewarded writers and poets with the greatest munificence, and spared neither trouble nor expense in forming libraries." Nor were these treasures of literature idly accumulated, at least by Al-hakem himself; for so vast and various was his reading, that there was scarcely one of his books (as we are assured by the historian Ibn'ul-Abbar) which was not enriched with remarks and annotations from his pen. "In the knowledge especially of history, biography, and genealogy, he was surpassed by no living author of his days: and he wrote a voluminous history of Andalus, in which was displayed such sound criticism, that whatever he related, as borrowed from more ancient sources, might be implicitly relied upon."

[20] Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, i. 351.

The reign of Al-hakem was the Augustan age of Andalusian literature; and besides the numerous learned men whom the fame of his father's and his own liberality, with the security of their rule, had attracted to Spain from other regions of Islam, we find in the pages of Al-Makkari an extensive list of native authors, principally in the departments of poetry, history, and philology, who are said to be "a few only of the most eminent who flourished during this reign"--but none of their names, however noted in their own day, are known in modern Europe. Nor was the gentler sex, as is usually the case in the lands of Islam, excluded from the general taste for letters; and one of our author's chapters is almost entirely filled with a catalogue of the poetesses who adorned Andalus at this and other periods of its history. One of these, Mariam or Mary, the daughter of Abu-Yakub Al-ansari, who rose into celebrity in the latter years of Al-hakem, appears to have been one of the earliest _bas-bleus_ on record. Independent of her poetical talents, she gave lectures at her residence at Seville "in rhetoric and literature; which, united to her piety, virtue, and amiable disposition, gained her the affection of her sex, and procured her many pupils: she lived to old age, and died after the 400th year of the Hejra," (A.D. 1010.) The favourite study of the Moslems, the divinity and law of the Koran, was cultivated with especial zeal under a monarch who was himself a rigid observer of its ordinances; and various anecdotes are related by Al-Makkari of the extraordinary deference paid by Al-hakem to the eminent theologians who frequented his court. The Khalif himself "attended public worship every Friday, and distributed alms to the poor; he laid out large sums in the construction of mosques, hospitals, and colleges for youth;[21] and being himself very strict in the observance of his religious duties, he enforced the precepts of the _Sunnah_ (tradition) throughout his dominions." With this view, severe edicts were directed against the use of wine, which had become prevalent among the Andalusian Moslems; and Al-hakem was with difficulty restrained, by representations of the ruin which would be thus brought on the cultivators, from ordering the destruction of all the vines in his dominions. But the reign of this excellent and enlightened prince lasted only fifteen years; and at his death, (Sept. 976,) which was caused by the same malady that had proved fatal to his father, the glory of the house of Umeyyah expired.

[21] Eighty free schools are said by other authorities to have existed or been founded during this reign in Cordova; the number of dwelling-houses in which at the same time, great and small, is stated at 200,000.

The evils of a minority had never yet been experienced in the succession of the Umeyyan princes, all of whom had ascended the throne at a mature age, and with some experience of administration from their previous recognition as heir. But Hisham II., (surnamed Al-muyyed-billah, the assisted by God,) the only son of Al-hakem, was but nine years old at the time of his father's decease; and for some time the government was directed in his name by the Hajib, Jafar Al-Mushafi; but the influence of the queen-mother erelong succeeded in displacing this faithful minister, in favour of Mohammed Ibn Abu Amir, who then held the post of _sahib-ush-shortah_, or captain of the guard. This remarkable personage (better known in history by his surname of Al-mansur) was the son of a religious devotee, and his condition in early life was so humble, that he supported himself as a public letter-writer in the streets of Cordova; but an accident having introduced him into the palace, he so skilfully wound his way among the intigues of the court, as to attain the highest place next the throne. But even this dignity was far from satisfying his ambition. Under various pretexts he destroyed or drove into exile, within a few years, all the princes of the blood, and others whose influence or station might have endangered the success of his projects, and concentrated in his own hands all the powers of the state; while the khalif, secluded from public view within his palace, was as completely a puppet in the hands of his all-powerful minister, as the khalifs of Bagdad at the same period in those of the _Emirs-al-Omrah_. Secure of the support of the soldiery, whose affections he had gained by his liberality, Al-mansur so little affected to disguise his assumption of supremacy, that he ordered his own name to be struck on the coin, and repeated in the public prayers, along with that of Hisham, thus arrogating to himself a share in the two most inalienable prerogatives of sovereignty. His robes were made of a peculiar fashion and stuff appropriated to royalty; he received embassies seated on the throne, and declared peace and war in his own name. To such utter helplessness was the khalif reduced,[22] that he was unable even to oppose the removal of the royal treasure fiom Cordova to a fortified palace which Al-mansur had built for his residence, not far from Az-zahra, and had named, as if in mockery, Az-zahirah;--and the Hajib was at one time obliged to quiet the murmurs of the populace, who doubted whether their sovereign was still in existence, by leading him in procession through the streets of the capital; "and the eyes of the people feasted on what had been so long concealed from them."

[22] Some historians even speak of this period as the "dynasty of the Amirites," from Al-mansur's father, Abn Amir.

But this daring usurpation was in part redeemed by qualities in the usurper worthy of a king. Though the bigotry of Al-masur led him to order the destruction of those volumes in the library of Al-hakem which treated of philosophy and the abstruse sciences, on the ground that such studies tended to irreligion, he was yet liberal to the learned men who visited his court at Az-zahirah, where he resided in royal splendour during the intervals of his campaigns; and he endeared hinself to the people, by his generosity, his rigid justice, and the strict control which he enforced over his subordinate officers. But it was on his fervent zeal for the cause of Islam, and his martial exploits against the Christians, (whence his surname of _Al-mansur_, or _the Victorious_, was derived,) that his fame and popularity chiefly rested. The martial spirit of the Spanish Moslems appears, from various anecdotes related by Al-Makkari, to have suffered great deterioration from the progress of luxury and decay of discipline; but the armies led by Al-mansur were mainly recruited from the fiery tribes of Barbary, and strengthened by numerous Christian slaves or Mamlukes, trained to serve their captors in arms against their own countrymen. With forces thus constituted, did Al-mansur, in whom once more shone forth the spirit of the Arab conquerors of past times, invade the Christian territories in each spring and autumn for twenty-six successive years, carrying the Moslem arms in triumph even to the shores of the "Green Sea," (Atlantic Ocean,) and into regions which Tarik and Musa had never reached. Astorga and Leon, in spite of the efforts of Bermudo II. to save his capital, were taken and razed to the ground in 983. Barcelona only escaped the same fate in the following year by submission and tribute; but the crowning glory of Al-mansur's achievements in the _al-jahid_ or holy war, was the capture, in 997, Santiago, the shrine and sepulchre of the patron saint of Spain. "No Moslem general had ever penetrated as far as that city, which is in an inaccessible position in the most remote part of Galicia, and is a sanctuary regarded by the Christians with veneration equal to that which the Moslems entertain for the Kaaba,"--but Al-mansur, supplied with provisions from a fleet which accompanied his march along the coast of Portugal, forced his way through the Galician defiles, and occupied the holy city without opposition--all the inhabitants having fled, according to Ibn Hayyan, with the exception of an old monk who tended the tomb. The city and cathedral were leveled with the ground; the shrine alone was left untouched in the midst of the ruins, from the belief of the Moslems that St James was the brother of the Messiah--and the church-bells were conveyed on the shoulders of the captives to Cordova, where they were suspended as lamps in the great mosque, to commemorate the triumph of Islam in the principal seat of Christian worship and pilgrimage.

Such was the depression produced among the Christians by these repeated disasters, that, if we may believe Al-Makkari, "one of Al-mansur's soldiers having left his banner fixed in the earth on a mountain before a Christian town, the garrison dared not come out for several days after the retreat of the Moslem army, not knowing what troops might be behind it." The pressing sense of common danger, at length extinguished ("for the first time perhaps," as Conde remarks) the feuds of the Christian princes; and in the spring of 1002 the united forces of the Count of Castile, Sancho the Great of Navarre, and the King of Leon, confronted the Moslem host at Kalat-an-nosor,[23] (the Castle of the Eagles,) on the frontiers of Old Castile. The mighty conflict which ensued is very briefly dismissed by Al-Makkari--"Al-mansur attacked and defeated them with great loss"--but a far different account is given by the Christian chroniclers, who represent the Moslems as only saved from a total overthrow by the approach of night. It seems, in truth, to have been nearly a drawn battle, with immense carnage on both sides; but the advantage was decidedly with the Christians, who retained possession of the field; while Al-mansur, weakened by the loss of great numbers of his best men and officers, abandoned his camp, and retreated the next day across the Douro. In all his fifty-two campaigns he is said never before to have been defeated; and the chagrin occasioned by this severe reverse, joined to a malady under which he was previously suffering, ended his life shortly after[24] at Medinah-Selim, (Medinaceli.) He was buried by his sons in the same place; the dust which had adhered to his garments in his campaigns against the Christians, and which had been carefully preserved for the purpose, being placed in the tomb with the corpse--a practice not unusual at the funeral of a celebrated warrior. "This enlightened and never-vanquished Hajib"--says Al-Makkali, with whom Al-mansur is a favourite hero--"used continually to ask God to permit him to die in his service and in war against the infidels, and thus his desire was granted;... and after his death, the Mohammedan empire in Andalus began to show visible signs of decay."

[23] The precise locality of this famous battle is not very clearly ascertained; but Condé places it betveen Soria and Medinaceli.

[24] The battle is placed by the Christian writers in 998; but the death of Al-mansur, which both Christians and Moslems agree in stating to have taken place within a very short time, is said by the latter to have been A.M. 392, A.D. 1002.

Al-mansur had a worthy successor in his son Abdul-malek, who at once received the appointment of Hajib from the passive Khalif:--but on his death in 1008, the post was assumed by his brother Abdurrahman, popularly known as Shanjul, a Berber word signifying _madman_--a surname which he had earned by his habits of low vice and intemperance. Scarcely had he entered upon office, when, not contented with exercising sovereign authority, like his father and brother, under an appearance of delegation from the Khalif, he persuaded or compelled the feeble Hisham, who had no male issue, to appoint him _Wali-al-ahd,_ or heir-presumptive--the deed of nomination is given at length by Al-Makkari, and is a curious specimen of a state-paper. But this transfer was viewed with deep indignation by the people of Cordova, who were warmly attached to the line of their ancient princes; and their discontent being fomented by the members of the Umeyyan family, they rose in furious revolt during the absence of the Hajib on the Galician frontiers, deposed Hisham, and raised to the throne Mohammed-Al-muhdi, a great-grandson of Abdurrahman III. Abdurrahman, returning in haste to quell the insurrection, found himself deserted by his army, and was put to death with most of his family and principal adherents; and the power of the Amirites vanished in a day like the remembrance of dream. But the sceptre which had thus been struck from their grasp, found no other hand strong enough to seize it; and from the first deposition of Hisham II. in 1009, to the final dissolution of the monarchy on the abdication of Hisham III. in 1031, the whole of Moslem Spain presented a frightful scene of anarchy and civil war. Besides the imbecile Hisham, who was at least once released and restored to the throne, and was personated by more than one pretender, the royal title was assumed, within twenty years by not fewer than six princes of the house of Umeyyah, and by three of a rival race--a branch of the Edrisites called Beni-Hammud, who endeavoured in the general confusion to assert their claims as descendants of the Khalif Ali. The aid of the Christians was called in by more than one faction; and Cordova was stormed and sacked after a long siege in 1013, by the African troops who followed the standard of Soliman Ab-muhdi, one of the Umeyyan competitors. The palaces of Az-zahra and Az-zahirah were utterly destroyed; the remains of Hakem's library, with the treasures amassed by former sovereigns, were either plundered or dispersed; nor did the ancient capital of Audalus, no more the seat of the Khalifate, ever recover its former grandeur. The provincial _walis_, many of whom owed their appointments to the Hajibs of the house of Amir, and were disaffected to the Beni-Umeyyah, every where threw off their allegiance and assumed independence, till only the districts in its immediate vicinity remained attached to Cordova, which was still considered the seat of the Mohammedan empire. The last Umeyyan prince who ruled there was a grandson of the great Abdurrahman, named Hisham Al-Mutadd; whom the inhabitants, after expelling the troops of the Beni-Hammud in 1027, invited to ascend the throne of his ancestors. "He was a mild and enlightened prince and possessed many brilliant qualities; but notwithstanding this, the volatile and degenerate citizens of Cordova grew discontented with him, and he was deposed by the army in 422, (A.D. 1031.) He left the capital and retired to Lerida, where he died in 428, (A.D. 1036.) He was the last member of that illustrious dynasty which had ruled over Andalus and a great portion of Africa for two hundred and eighty-four years, counting from the accession of Abdurrahman I., surnamed Ab-dakhel, in 138, (A.D. 756.) There is no God but God! He is the Almighty!"

The fall of the Umeyyan khalifate closes the first of the two brilliant periods which illustrate the Arab history of Spain. The uninterrupted hereditary succession for ten generations, and the long average duration of the reign of each monarch, from the arrival in Spain of Abdurrahman I. in 756, to the death or disappearance of Hisham II. in 1009, are without a parallel it any other Moslem dynasty, with the single exception of the Ottoman line; and though, on pursuing the comparison, the Umeyyan princes cannot vie with the last-named race in extent of conquest and splendour of martial achievement, they far surpass not only the Ottomans, but almost every sovereign family in the annals of Islam, in the cultivation of kingly virtues and arts of peace, and the refinement and love of literature, which they introduced and fostered in their dominions. During the greater part of their rule, the court of Cordova was the most polished and enlightened in Europe removed equally from the martial rudeness of those of the Frank monarchs, and the punctilious attention to forms and jealous etiquette, within which the Grcek emperors studiously intrenched themselves. The useful arts, and in particular the science of agriculture, necessary for the support of a dense population, were cultivated to an extent of which no other country afforded an example; and the commerce which filled the ports of Spain, from all parts of Europe and the East, was the natural result of the industry of her people. In how great a degree the personal character of the Umeyyan sovereigns contributed to this state of political and social prosperity, is best proved by the rapid disruption and fall of the monarchy, when it passed into the feeble hands of Hisham II., and by the history of the two following centuries of anarchy, civil war, and foreign domination. But the sun of Andalusian glory, which had attained its meridian splendour under the Khalifs of Cordova, once more emerged before the close of its course from the clouds and darkness which surrounded it;--and its setting rays shone, with concentrated lustre, over the kingdom of GRANADA.

* * * * *

TWO NIGHTS IN SOUTHERN MEXICO.

A FRAGMENT FROM THE JOURNAL OF AN AMERICAN TRAVELLER.

"A capital place this for our bivouac!" cried I, swinging myself off my mule, and stretching my arms and legs, which were stiffened by a long ride.

It _was_ a fairish place, to all appearances--a snug ravine, well shaded by mahogany-trees, the ground covered with the luxuriant vegetation of that tropical region, a little stream bubbling and leaping and dashing down one of the high rocks that flanked the hollow, and rippling away through the tall fern towards the rear of the spot where we had halted, at the distance of a hundred yards from which the ground was low and shelving.

"A capital place this for our bivouac!"

My companion nodded. As to our lazy Mexican _arrieros_ and servants, they said nothing, but began making arrangements for passing the night. Curse the fellows! If they had seen us preparing to lie down in a swamp, cheek by jowl with an alligator, I believe they would not have offered a word of remonstrance. Those Mexican half-breeds, half Indian half Spaniard, with sometimes a dash of the Negro, are themselves so little pervious to the dangers and evils of their soil and climate, that they never seem to remember that Yankee flesh and blood may be rather more susceptible; that niguas[25] and musquittoes, and _vomito prieto_, as they call their infernal fever, are no trifles to encounter; without mentioning the snakes, and scorpions, and alligators, and other creatures of the kind, which infest their strange, wild, unnatural, and yet beautiful country.

[25] The nigua is a small but very dangerous insect which fixes itself in the feet, bores holes in the skin, and lays its eggs there. These, if not extracted, (which extraction by the by is a most painful operation) cause first an intolerable itching, and subsequently sores and ulcers of a sufficiently serious nature to entail the loss of the feet.

I had come to Mexico in company with Jonathan Rowley, a youth of Virginian raising, six and twenty years of age, six feet two in his stockings, with the limbs of a Hercules and shoulders like the side of a house. It was towards the close of 1824; and the recent emancipation of Mexico from the Spanish yoke, and its self-formation into a republic, had given it a new and strong interest to us Americans. We had been told much, too, of the beauty of the country--but in this we were at first rather disappointed; and we reached the capital without having seen any thing, except some parts of the province of Vera Cruz, that could justify the extravagant encomiums we had heard bestowed in the States upon the splendid scenery of Mexico. We had not, however, to go far southward from the chief city, before the character of the country altered, and became such as to satisfy our most sanguine expectations. Forests of palms, of oranges, citrons, and bananas, filled the valleys: the marshes and low grounds were crowded with mahogany-trees, and with immense fern plants, in height equal to trees. All nature was on a gigantic scale--the mountains of an enormous height, the face of the country seamed and split by _barrancas_ or ravines, hundreds, ay, thousands of feet deep, and filled with the most abundant and varied vegetation. The sky, too, was of the deep glowing blue of the tropics, the sort of blue which seems varnished or clouded with gold. But this ardent climate and teeming soil are not without their disadvantages. Vermin and reptiles of all kinds, and the deadly fever of these latitudes, render the low lands uninhabitable for eight months out of the twelve. At the same time there are large districts which are comparatively free from these plagues--perfect gardens of Eden, of such extreme beauty that the mere act of living and breathing amongst their enchanting scenes, becomes a positive and real enjoyment. The heart seems to leap with delight, and the soul to be elevated, by the contemplation of those regions of fairy-like magnificence.

The most celebrated among these favoured provinces is the valley of Oaxaca, in which two mountainous districts, the Mistecca and Tzapoteca, bear off the palm of beauty. It was through this immense valley, nearly three hundred leagues in length, and surrounded by the highest mountains in Mexico, that we were now journeying. The kind attention of our chargé-d'affaires at the Mexican capital, had procured us every possible facility in travelling through a country, of which the soil was at that time rarely trodden by any but native feet. We had numerous letters to the alcaldes and authorities of the towns and villages which are sparingly sprinkled over the southern provinces of Mexico; we were to have escorts when necessary; every assistance, protection, and facility, were to be afforded us. But as neither the authorities nor his excellency, Uncle Sam's envoy, could make inns and houses where none existed, it followed that we were often obliged to sleep _à la belle étoile_, with the sky for a covering. And a right splendid roof it was to our bedchamber, that tropical sky, with its constellations, all new to us northerns, and every star magnified by the effect of the atmosphere to an incredible size. Mars and Saturn, Venus and Jupiter, had all disappeared; the great and little Bear were still to be seen; in the far distance the ship Argo and the glowing Centaur; and, beautiful above all, the glorious sign of Christianity the colossal Southern Cross, in all its brightness and sublimity, glittering in silvery magnificence out of its setting of dark blue crystal.

We were travelling with a state and a degree of luxury that would have excited the contempt of our backwoodsmen; but in a strange country we thought it best to do as the natives did; and accordingly, instead of mounting our horses and setting forth alone, with our rifles slung over our shoulders, and a few handfuls of parched corn and dried flesh in our hunting pouches, we journeyed Mexican fashion, with a whole string of mules, a _topith_ or guide, a couple of _arrieros_ or muleteers, a cook, and one or two other attendants. While the latter were slinging our hammocks to the lowermost branches of a tree--for in that part of Mexico it is not very safe to sleep upon the ground, on account of the snakes and vermin--our _cocinero_ lit a fire against the rock, and in a very few minutes an iguana which we had shot that day was spitted and roasting before it. It looked strange to see this hideous creature, in shape between a lizard and a dragon, twisting and turning in the light of the fire; and its disgusting appearance might have taken away some people's appetites; but we knew by experience that there is no better eating than a roasted iguana. We made a hearty meal off this one, concluding it with a pull at the rum flask, and then clambered into our hammocks; the Mexicans stretched themselves on the ground with their heads upon the saddles of the mules, and both masters and men were soon asleep.

It was somewhere about midnight when I was awakened by an indescribable sensation of oppression from the surrounding atmosphere. The air seemed to be no longer air, but some poisonous exhalation that had suddenly arisen and enveloped us. From the rear of the ravine in which we lay, billows of dark mephitic mist were rolling forward, surrounding us with their baleful influence. It was the _vomito prieto_, the fever itself, embodied in the shape of a fog. At the same moment, and while I was gasping for breath, a sort of cloud seemed to settle upon me, and a thousand stings, like redhot needles, were run into my hands, face, neck--into every part of my limbs and body that was not triply guarded by clothing. I instinctively stretched forth my hands and closed them, clutching by the action hundreds of enormous musquittoes, whose droning, singing noise how almost deafened me. The air was literally filled by a dense swarm of these insects; and the agony caused by their repeated and venomous stings was indescribable. It was a perfect plague of Egypt.

Rowley, whose hammock was slung some ten yards from mine, soon gave tongue: I heard him kicking and plunging, spluttering and swearing, with a vigour and energy that would have been ludicrous under any other circumstances; but matters were just then too serious for a laugh. With the torture, for such it was, of the musquitto bites, and the effect of the insidious and poisonous vapours that were each moment thickening around me, I was already in a high state of fever, alternately glowing with heat and shivering with cold, my tongue parched, my eyelids throbbing, my brain seemingly on fire.

There was a heavy thump upon the ground. It was Rowley jumping out of his hammock. "Damnation" roared he, "Where are we? On the earth, or under the earth?--We must be--we are--in their Mexican purgatory. We are, or there's no snakes in Virginny. Hallo, arrieros! Pablo! Matteo!"

At that moment a scream--but a scream of such terror and anguish as I never heard before or since--a scream as of women in their hour of agony and extreme peril, sounded within a few paces of us. I sprang out of my hammock; and as I did so, two white and graceful female figures darted or rather flew by me, shrieking--and oh! in what heart-rending tones--for "_Socorro! Socorro! Por Dios_! Help! Help!" Close upon the heels of the fugitives, bounding and leaping along with enormous strides and springs, came three or four dark objects which resembled nothing earthly. The human form they certainly possessed; but so hideous and horrible, so unnatural and spectre-like was their aspect, that their sudden encounter in that gloomy ravine, and in the almost darkness that surrounded us, might well have shaken the strongest nerves. We stood for a second, Rowley and myself, paralysed with astonishment at these strange appearances; but another piercing scream restored to us our presence of mind. One of the women had either tripped or fallen from fatigue, and she lay a white heap, upon the ground. The drapery of the other was in the clutch of one of the spectres, or devils, or whatever they were, when Rowley, with a cry of horror, rushed forward and struck a furious blow at the monster with his _machetto_. At the same time, and almost without knowing how, I found myself engaged with another of the creatures. But the contest was no equal one. In vain did we stab and strike with our machettos; our antagonists were covered and defended with a hard bristly hide, which our knives, although keen and pointed, had great difficulty in penetrating; and on the other hand we found ourselves clutched in long sinewy arms, terminating in hands and fingers, of which the nails were as sharp and strong as an eagle's talons. I felt these horrible claws strike into my shoulders as the creature seized me, and, drawing me towards him, pressed me as in the hug of a bear; while his hideous half man half brute visage was grinning and snarling at me, and his long keen white teeth were snapping and gnashing within six inches of my face.

"God of heaven! This is horrible! Rowley! Help me!"

But Rowley, in spite of his gigantic strength, was powerless as an infant in the grasp of these terrible opponents. He was within a few paces of me, struggling with two of them, and making superhuman efforts to regain possession of his knife, which had dropped or been wrenched from his hand. And all this time, where were our arrieros? Were they attacked likewise? Why didn't they come and help us? All this time!--pshaw! it was no time: it all passed in the space of a few seconds, in the circumference of a few yards, and in the feeble glimmering light of the stars, and of the smouldering embers of our fire, which was at some distance from us.

"Ha! That has told!" A stab, dealt with all the energy of despair, had entered my antagonist's side. But I was like to pay dearly for it. Uttering a deafening yell of pain and fury, the monster clasped me closer to his foul and loathsome body; his sharp claws, dug deeper into my back, seemed to tear up my flesh: the agony was insupportable--my eyes began to swim, and my senses to leave me. Just then--Crack! crack! Two--four--a dozen musket and pistol shots, followed by such a chorus of yellings and howlings and unearthly laughter! The creature that held me seemed startled--relaxed his grasp slightly. At that moment a dark arm was passed before my face, there was a blinding flash, a yell, and I fell to the ground released from the clutch of my opponent. I remember nothing more. Overcome by pain, fatigue, terror, and the noxious vapors of that vile ravine, my senses abandoned me, and I swooned away.

When consciousness returned, I found myself lying upon some blankets, under a sort of arbour of foliage and flowers. It was broad day; the sun shone brightly, the blossoms smelled sweet, the gay-plumaged hummingbirds were darting and shooting about in the sunbeams like so many animated fragments of a prism. A Mexican Indian, standing beside my couch, and whose face was unknown to me, held out a cocoa-nutshell containing some liquid, which I eagerly seized, and drank off the contents. The draught (it was a mixture of citron juice and water) revived me greatly; and raising myself on my elbow, although with much pain and difficulty, I looked around, and beheld a scene of bustle and life which to me was quite unintelligible. Upon the shelving hillside on which I was lying, a sort of encampment was established. A number of mules and horses were wandering about at liberty, or fastened to trees and bushes, and eating the forage that had been collected and laid before them. Some were provided with handsome and commodious saddles, while others had pack-saddles, intended apparently for the conveyance of numerous sacks, cases, and wallets, that were scattered about on the ground. Several muskets and rifles were leaning here and there against the trees; and a dozen or fifteen men were occupied in various ways--some filling up saddle-bags or fastening luggage on the mules, others lying on the ground smoking, one party surrounding a fire at which cooking was going on. At a short distance from my bed was another similarly composed couch, occupied by a man muffled up in blankets, and having his back turned towards me, so that I was unable to obtain a view of his features.

"What is all this? Where am I? Where is Rowley--our guide--where are they all?"

"_Non entiendo_," answered my brown-visaged Ganymede, shaking his head, and with a good-humoured smile.

"_Adonde estamos?_"

"_In el valle de Chihuatan, in el gran valle de Oaxaca y Guatimala; diez leguas de Tarifa_. In the valley of Chihuatan; ten leagues from Tarifa."

The figure lying on the bed near me now made a movement, and turned round. What could it be? Its face was like a lump of raw flesh streaked and stained with blood. No features were distinguishable.

"Who are you? What are you?" cried I.

"Rowley," it answered: "Rowley I was, at least, if those devils haven't changed me."

"Then changed you they have," cried I, with a wild laugh. "Good God! have they scalped him alive, or what? That is not Rowley."

The Mexican, who had gone to give some drink to the creature claiming to be Rowley, now opened a valise that lay on the ground a short distance off, and took out a small looking-glass, which he brought and held before my face. It was then only that I began to call to mind all that had occurred, and understood how it was that the mask of human flesh lying near me might indeed be Rowley. He was, if any thing, less altered than myself. My eyes were almost closed; my lips, nose, and whole face swollen to an immense size, and perfectly unrecognisable. I involuntarily recoiled in dismay and disgust at my own appearance. The horrible night passed in the ravine, the foul and suffocating vapours, the furious attack of the musquittoes--the bites of which, and the consequent fever and inflammation, had thus disfigured us--all recurred to our memory. But the women, the fight with the monsters--beasts--Indians--whatever they were, that was still incomprehensible. It was no dream: my back and shoulders were still smarting from the wounds that had been inflicted on them by the claws of those creatures, and I now felt that various parts of my limbs and body were swathed in wet bandages. I was mustering my Spanish to ask the Mexican who still stood by me for an explanation of all this, when I suddenly became aware of a great bustle in the encampment, and saw every body crowding to meet a number of persons who just then emerged from the high fern, and amongst whom I recognized our arrieros and servants. The new-comers were grouped around something which they seemed to be dragging along the ground; several women--for the most part young and graceful creatures, their slender supple forms muffled in the flowing picturesque _reboxos_ and _frazadas_--preceded the party, looking back occasionally with an expression of mingled horror and triumph; all with rosaries in their hands, the beads of which ran rapidly through their fingers, while they occasionally kissed the cross, or made the sign on their breasts or in the air.

"_Un Zambo muerto! Un Zambo Muerto!_" shouted they as they drew near.

"_Han matado un Zambo!_ They have killed a Zambo!" repeated my attendant in a tone of exultation.

The party came close up to where Rowley and I were lying; the women stood aside, jumping and laughing, and crossing themselves, and crying out "_Un Zambo! Un Zambo Muerto!_" the group opened, and we saw, lying dead upon the ground, one of our horrible antagonists of the preceding night.

"Good God, what is that?" cried Rowley and I, with one breath. "_Un demonio!_ a devil!"

"_Perdonen vos, Senores--Un Zambo mono--muy terribles los Zambos._ Terrible monkeys these Zambos."

"Monkeys!" cried I.

"Monkeys!" repeated poor Rowley, raising himself up into a sitting posture by the help of his hands. "Monkeys--apes--by Jove! We've been fighting with monkeys, and it's they who have mauled us in this way. Well, Jonathan Rowley, think of your coming from old Virginny to Mexico to be whipped by a monkey. It's gone goose with _your_ character. You can never show your face in the States again. Whipped by an ape!--an ape, with a tail and a hairy--O Lord! Whipped by a monkey!"

And the ludicrousness of the notion overcoming his mortification, and the pain of his wounds and bites, he sank back upon the bed of blankets and banana leaves, laughing as well as his swollen face and sausage-looking lips would allow him.

It was as much as I could do to persuade myself, that the carcass lying before me had never been inhabited by a human soul. It was humiliating to behold the close affinity between this huge ape and our own species. Had it not been for the tail, I could have fancied I saw the dead body of some prairie hunter dressed in skins. It was exactly like a powerful, well-grown man; and even the expression of the face had more of bad human passions than of animal instinct. The feet and thighs were those of a muscular man: the legs rather too curved and calfless, though I have seen Negroes who had scarcely better ones; the tendons of the hands stood out like whipcords; the nails were as long as a tiger's claws. No wonder that we had been overmatched in our struggle with the brutes. No man could have withstood them. The arms of this one were like packets of cordage, all muscle, nerve, and sinew; and the hands were clasped together with such force, that the efforts of eight or ten Mexicans and Indians were insufficient to disunite them.

Whatever remained to be cleared up in our night's adventures was now soon explained. Our guide, through ignorance or thoughtlessness, had allowed us to take up our bivouac within a very unsafe distance of one of the most pestiferous swamps in the whole province. Shortly after we had fallen asleep, a party of Mexican travellers had arrived, and established themselves within a few hundred yards of us, but on a rising ground, where they avoided the mephitic vapours and the musquittoes which had so tortured Rowley and myself. In the night two of the women, having ventured a short distance from the encampment, were surprised by the zambos, or huge man-apes, common in some parts of Southern Mexico; and finding themselves cut off from their friends, had fled they knew not whither, fortunately for them taking the direction of our bivouac. Their screams, our shouts, and the yellings and diabolical laughter of the zambos, had brought the Mexicans to our assistance. The monkeys showed no fight after the first volley; several of then must have been wounded, but only the one now lying before us had remained upon the field.

The Mexicans we had fallen amongst were on the Tzapoteca, principally cochineal gatherers, and kinder-hearted people there could not well be. They seemed to think they never could do enough for us; the women especially, and more particularly the two whom we had endeavoured to rescue from the power of the apes. These latter certainly had cause to be grateful. It made us shudder to think of their fate had they not met with us. It was the delay caused by our attacking the brutes that had given the Mexicans time to come up.

Every attention was shown to us. We were fanned with palm leaves, refreshed with cooling drinks, our wounds carefully dressed and bandaged, our heated, irritated, musquitto-bitten limbs and faces washed with balsam and the juice of herbs: more tender and careful nurses it would be impossible to find. We soon began to feel better, and were able to sit up and look about us; carefully avoiding, however, to look at each other, for we could not get reconciled to the horrible appearance of our swollen, bloody, and disgusting features. From our position on the rising ground, we had a full view over the frightful swamp at the entrance of which all our misfortunes had happened. There it lay, steaming like a great kettle; endless mists rising from it, out of which appeared here and there the crown of some mighty tree towering above the banks of vapour. To the left, cliffs and crags were to be seen which had the appearance of being baseless, and of swimming on the top of the mist. The vultures and carrion-birds circled screaming above the huge caldron, or perched on the tops of the tall palms, which looked like enormous umbrellas, or like the roofs of Chinese summer-houses. Out of the swamp itself proceeded the yellings, snarlings, and growlings of the alligators, bull-frogs, and myriads of unclean beasts that it harboured.

The air was unusually sultry and oppressive: from time to time the rolling of distant thunder was audible. We could hear the Mexicans consulting amongst themselves as to the propriety of continuing their journey, to which our suffering state seemed to be the chief obstacle. From what we could collect of their discourse, they were unwilling to leave us in this dangerous district, and in our helpless condition, with a guide and attendants who were either untrustworthy or totally incompetent to lead us aright. Yet there seemed to be some pressing necessity for continuing the march; and presently some of the older Mexicans, who appeared to have the direction of the caravan, came up to us and enquired how we felt, and if we thought we were able to travel; adding, that from the signs on the earth and in the air, they feared a storm, and that the nearest habitation or shelter was at many leagues' distance. Thanks to the remedies that had been applied, our sufferings were much diminished. We felt weak and hungry, and telling the Mexicans we should be ready to proceed in half an hour, we desired our servants to get us something to eat. But our new friends forestalled them, and brought us a large piece of iguana, with roasted bananas, and cocoa-nutshell cups full of coffee, to all of which Rowley and I applied ourselves with much gusto. Meanwhile our muleteers and the Tzapotecans were busy packing their beasts and making ready for the start.

We had not eaten a dozen mouthfuls when we say a man running down the hill with a branch in each hand. As soon as he appeared, a number of the Mexicans left their occupations and hurried to meet him.

"_Siete horas!_" shouted the man. "Seven hours, and no more!"

"No more than seven hours!" echoed the Tzapotecans, in tones of the wildest terror and alarm. "_La Santissima nos guarde!_ It will take more than ten to reach the village."

"What's all that about?" said I with my mouth full, to Rowley.

"Don't know--some of their Indian tricks, I suppose."

"_Que es esto_?" asked I carelessly. "What's the matter?"

"_Que es esto_!" repeated an old Tzapotecan, with long grey hair curling from under his _sombrero_, and a withered but finely marked countenance. "_Las aguas! El ouracan!_ In seven hours the deluge and the hurricane!"

"_Vamos, por la Santissima!_ For the blessed Virgin's sake let us be gone!" cried a dozen of the Mexicans, pushing two green boughs into our very faces.

"What are those branches?"

"From the tempest-tree--the prophet of the storm," was the reply.

And Tzapotecans and women, arrieros and servants, ran about in the utmost terror and confusion, with cries of "_Vamos, paso redoblado_! Off with us, or we are all lost, man and beast," and saddling, packing, and scrambling on their mules. And before Rowley and I knew where we were, they tore us away from our iguana and coffee, and hoisted and pushed us into our saddles. Such a scene of bustle and desperate hurry I never beheld. The place where the encampment had been was alive with men and women, horses and mules, shouting, shrieking and talking, neighing and kicking; but with all the confusion there was little time lost, and in less than three minutes from the first alarm being given, we were scampering away over stock and stone, in a long, wild, irregular sort of train.

The rapidity and excitement of our ride seemed to have the effect of calming our various sufferings, or of making us forget them; and we soon thought no more of the fever, or of stings or musquitto bites. It was a ride for life or death, and our horses stepped out as if they knew how much depended on their exertions.

In the hurry and confusion we had been mounted on horses instead of our our own mules; and splendid animals they were. I doubt if our Virginians could beat them, and that is saying a great deal. There was no effort or straining in their movements; it seemed mere play to them to surmount the numerous difficulties we encountered on our road. Over mountain and valley, swamp and barranca, always the same steady surefootedness--crawling like cats over the soft places, gliding like snakes up the steep rocky ascents, and stretching out with prodigious energy when the ground was favourable; yet with such easy action that we scarcely felt the motion. We should have sat in the roomy Spanish saddles as comfortably as in arm-chairs, had it not been for the numerous obstacles in our path, which was strewed with fallen trees and masses of rock. We were obliged to be perpetually stooping and bowing our heads to avoid the creeping plants that swung and twined and twisted across the track, intermingled often with huge thorns as long as a man's arm. These latter stuck out from the trees on which they grew like so many brown bayonets; and a man who had run up against one of them, would have been transfixed by it as surely as though it had been of steel. We pushed on, however, in Indian file, following the two guides, who kept at the head of the party, and making our way through places where a wild-cat would have difficulty in passing; through thickets of mangroves, mimosas, and tall fern, and cactuses with their thorny leaves full twenty feet long; the path turning and winding all the while. Now and then a momentary improvement in the nature of the ground enabled us to catch a glimpse of the whole column of march. We were struck by its picturesque appearance, the guides in front acting as pioneers, and looking out on all sides as cautiously and anxiously as though they had been soldiers expecting an ambuscade; the graceful forms of the women bowing and bending over their horses' manes, and often leaving fragments of their mantillas and rebozas on the branches and thorns of the labyrinth through which we were struggling. But it was no time to indulge in contemplation of the picturesque, and of this we were constantly made aware by the anxious vociferations of the Mexicans. "_Vamos! Por Dios, vamos!_" cried they, if the slightest symptom of flagging became visible in the movements of any one of the party; and at the words, our horses, as though gifted with understanding, pushed forward with renewed vigour and alacrity.

On we went--up hill and down, in the depths of the valley and over the soft fetid swamp. That valley of Oaxaca has just as much right to be called a valley as our Alleghanies would have to be called bottoms. In the States we should call it a chain of mountains. Out of it rise at every step hills a good two thousand feet above the level of the valley, and four or five thousand above that of the sea; but these are lost sight of, and become flat ground by the force of comparison; that is, when compared with the gigantic mountains that surround the valley on all sides like a frame. And what a splendid frame they do compose, those colossal mountains, in their rich variety of form and colouring! here shining out like molten gold, there changing to a dark bronze; covered lower down with various shades of green, and with the crimson and purple, and violet and bright yellow, and azure and dazzling white, of the millions of paulinias and convolvoluses and other flowering plants, from amongst which rise the stately palm-trees, full a hundred feet high, their majestic green turbans towering like sultans' heads above the luxuriance of the surrounding flower and vegetable world. Then the mahogany-trees, the chicozapotes, and again in the barrancas the candelabra-like cactuses, and higher up the knotted and majestic live oak. An incessant change of plants, trees, and climate. We had been five hours in the saddle, and had already changed our climate three times; passed from the temperate zone, the _tierra templada_, into the torrid heat of the _tierra muy caliente_. It was in the latter temperature that we found ourselves at the expiration of the above-named time, dripping with perspiration, roasting and stewing in the heat. We were surrounded by a new world of plants and animals. The borax and mangroves and fern were here as lofty as forest-trees, whilst the trees themselves shot up like church steeples. In the thickets around us were numbers of black tigers--we saw dozens of those cowardly sneaking beasts--iguanas full three feet long, squirrels double the size of any we had ever seen, and panthers, and wild pigs, and jackals, and apes and monkeys of every tribe and description, who threatened and grinned and chattered at us from the branches of the trees. But what is that yonder to the right, that stands out so white against the dark blue sky and the bronze-coloured rocks? A town--Quidricovi, d'ye call it?

We had now ridden a good five or six leagues, and begun to think we had escaped the _aguas_ or deluge, of which the prospect had so terrified our friends the Tzapotecans. Rowley calculated, as he went puffing and grumbling along, that it wouldn't do any harm to let our beasts draw breath for a minute or two. The scrambling and constant change of pace rendered necessary by the nature of the road, or rather track, that we followed, was certainly dreadfully fatiguing both to man and beast. As for conversation it was out of the question. We had plenty to do to avoid getting our necks broken, or our teeth knocked out, as we struggled along, up and down barrancas, through marshes and thickets, over rocks and fallen trees, and through mimosas and bushes laced and twined together with thorns and creeping plants--all of which would have been beautiful in a picture, but was most infernally unpoetical in reality.

"_Vamos! Por la Santissima Madre, vamos!_" yelled our guides, and the cry was taken up by the Mexicans, in a shrill wild tone that jarred strangely upon our ears, and made the horses start and strain forward. Hurra! on we go, through thorns and bushes, which scratch and flog us, and tear our clothes to rags. We shall be naked if this lasts long. It is a regular race. In front the two guides, stooping, nodding, bowing, crouching down, first to one side, then to the other, like a couple of mandarins or Indian idols--behind them a Tzapotecan in his picturesque capa, then the women, then more Tzapotecans. There is little thought about precedence or ceremony; and Rowley and I, having been in the least hurry to start, find ourselves bringing up the rear of the whole column.

"_Vamos! Por la Santissima! Las aguas, las aguas!_" is again yelled by twenty voices. Hang the fools! Can't they be quiet with their eternal _vamos_? We can have barely two leagues more to go to reach the _rancho_, or village, they were talking of, and appearances are not as yet very alarming. It is getting rather thick to be sure; but that's nothing, only the exhalations from the swamp, for we are again approaching one of those cursed swamps, and can hear the music of the alligators and bullfrogs. There they are, the beauties; a couple of them are taking a peep at us, sticking their elegant heads and long delicate snouts out of the slime and mud. The neighbourhood is none of the best; but luckily the path is firm and good, carefully made, evidently by Indian hands. None but Indians could live and labour and travel habitually, in such a pestilential atmosphere. Thank God! we are out of it at last. Again on firm forest ground, amidst the magnificent monotony of the eternal palms and mahogany-trees. But--see there!

A new and surpassingly beautiful landscape burst suddenly upon our view, seeming to dance in the transparent atmosphere. On either side mountains, those on the left in deep shadow, those on the right standing forth like colossal figures of light, in a beauty and splendour that seemed really supernatural, every tree, every branch shining in its own vivid and glorious colouring. There lay the valley in its tropical luxuriance and beauty, one sheet of bloom and blossom up to the topmost crown of the palm-trees, that shot up, some of them, a hundred and fifty and a hundred and eighty feet high. Thousands and millions of convolvoluses, paulinias, bignonias, dendrobiums, climbing from the fern to the tree trunks, from the trunks to the branches and summits of the trees, and thence again falling gracefully down, and catching and clinging to the mangroves and blocks of granite. It burst upon us like a scene of enchantment, as we emerged from the darkness of the forest into the dazzling light and colouring of that glorious valley.

"_Misericordia, misericordia! Audi nos peccadores! Misericordia, las aquas!_" suddenly screamed and exclaimed the Mexicans in various intonations of terror and despair. We looked around us. What can be the matter? We see nothing. Nothing, except that from just behind those two mountains, which project like mighty promontories into the valley, a cloud is beginning to rise. "What is it? What is wrong?" A dozen voices answered us--

"_Por la Santa Virgen_, for the holy Virgin's sake, on, on! _No hay tiempo para hablar_. We have still two leagues to go, and in one hour comes the flood."

And they recommenced their howling, yelling chorus of "_Misericordia! Audi nos peccadores!_" and "_Santissima Virgen_, and _Todos santos y angeles!_"

"Are the fellows mad?" shouted Rowley, "What if the water does come? It won't swallow you. A ducking more or less is no such great matter. You are not made of sugar or salt. Many's the drenching I've had in the States, and none the worse for it. Yet our rains are no child's play neither."

On looking round us, however, we were involuntarily struck with the sudden change in the appearance of the heavens. The usual golden black blue colour of the sky was gone, and had been replaced by a dull gloomy grey. The quality of the air appeared also to have changed; it was neither very warm nor very cold, but it had lost its lightness and elasticity, and seemed to oppress and weigh us down. Presently we saw the dark cloud rise gradually from behind the hills, completely clearing their summits, and then sweeping along until it hung over the valley, in form and appearance like some monstrous night-moth, resting the tips of its enormous wings on the mountains on either side. To our right we still saw the roofs and walls of Quidricovi, apparently at a very short distance.

"Why not go to Quidricovi?" shouted I to the guides, "we cannot be far off."

"More than five leagues," answered the men, shaking their heads and looking up anxiously at the huge moth, which was still creeping and crawling on, each moment darker and more threatening. It was like some frightful monster, or the fabled Kraken, working itself along by its claws, which were struck deep into the mountain-wall on either side of its line of progress, and casting its hideous shadow over hill and dale, forest and valley, clothing them in gloom and darkness. To our right hand and behind us, the mountains were still of a glowing golden red, lighted up by the sun, but to the left and in our front all was black and dark. With the same glance we beheld the deepest gloom and the brightest day, meeting each other but not mingling. It was a strange and ominous sight.

Ominous enough; and the brute creation seem to feel it so as well as ourselves. The chattering parrots, the hopping, gibbering, quarrelsome apes, all the birds and beasts, scream and cry and flutter and spring about, as though seeking a refuge from some impending danger. Even our horses begin to tremble and groan--refuse to go on, start and snort. The whole animal world is in commotion, as if seized with an overwhelming panic. The forest is teeming with inhabitants. Whence come they, all these living things? On every side is heard the howling and snarling of beasts, the frightened cries and chirpings of birds. The vultures and turkey-buzzards, that a few minutes before were circling high in the air, are now screaming amidst the branches of the mahogany-trees; every creature that has life is running, scampering, flying--apes and tigers, birds and creeping things.

"_Vamos, por la Santissima!_ On! or we are all lost."

And we ride, we rush along--neither masses of rock, nor fallen trees, nor thorns and brambles, check our wild career. Over every thing we go, leaping, scrambling, plunging, riding like desperate men, flying from a danger of which the nature is not clearly defined, but which we feel to be great and imminent. It is a frightful terror-striking foe, that huge night-moth, which comes ever nearer, growing each moment bigger and blacker. Looking behind us, we catch one last glimpse of the red and bloodshot sun, which the next instant disappears behind the edge of the mighty cloud.

Still we push on. Hosts of tigers, and monkeys both large and small, and squirrels and jackals, come close up to us as if seeking shelter, and then finding none, retreat howling into the forest. There is not a breath of air stirring, yet all nature--plants and trees, men and beasts--seem to quiver and tremble with apprehension. Our horses pant and groan as they bound along with dilated nostrils and glaring eyes, trembling in every limb, sweating at every pore, half wild with terror; giving springs and leaps that more resemble those of a hunted tiger than of a horse.

The prayer and exclamations of the terrified Mexicans, continued without intermission, whispered and shrieked and groaned in every variety of intonation. The earthy hue of intense terror was upon every countenance. For some moments a death-like stillness, an unnatural calm, reigned around us: it was as though the elements were holding in their breath, and collecting their energies for some mighty outbreak. Then came a low indistinct moaning sound, that seemed to issue from the bowels of the earth. The warning was significant.

"Halt! stop" shouted we to the guides. "Stop! and let us seek shelter from the storm."

"On! for God's sake, on! or we are lost," was the reply.

Thank Heaven! the path is getting wider--we come to a descent--they are leading us out of the forest. If the storm had come on while we were among the trees, we might be crushed to death by the falling branches. We are close to a barranca.

"_Alerto! Alerto!_" shrieked the Mexicans. "_Madre de Dios! Dios! Dios!"_

And well might they call to God for help in that awful moment. The gigantic night-moth gaped and shot forth tongues of fire--a ghastly white flame, that contrasted strangely and horribly with the dense black cloud from which it issued. There was a peal of thunder that seemed to shake the earth, then a pause during which nothing was heard but the panting of our horses as they dashed across the barranca, and began straining up the steep side of a knoll or hillock. The cloud again opened: for a second every thing was lighted up. Another thunder clap, and then, as though the gates of its prison had been suddenly burst open, the tempest came forth in its might and fury, breaking, crushing, and sweeping away all that opposed it. The trees of the forest staggered and tottered for a moment, as if making an effort to bear up against the storm; but it was in vain: the next instant, with a report like that of ten thousand cannon, whole acres of mighty trees were snapped off, their branches shivered, their roots torn up; it was no longer a forest but a chaos; an ocean of boughs and tree-trunks, that were tossed about like the waves of the sea, or thrown into the air like straws. The atmosphere was darkened with dust, and leaves, and branches.

"God be merciful to us! Rowley! where are ye?--No answer. What is become of them all?"

A second blast more furious than the first. Can the mountains resist it? will they stand? By the Almighty! they do not. The earth trembles; the hillock, on the leeside of which we are, rocks and shakes; and the air grows thick and suffocating--full of dust and saltpetre and sulphur. We are like to choke. All around is dark as night. We can see nothing, hear nothing but the howling of the hurricane, and the thunder and rattle of falling trees and shivered branches.

Suddenly the hurricane ceases, and all is hushed; but so suddenly that the charge is startling and unnatural. No sound is audible save the creaking and moaning of the trees with which the ground is cumbered. It is like a sudden pause in a battle, when the roar of the cannon and clang of charging squadrons cease, and nought is heard but the groaning of the wounded, the agonized sobs and gasps of the dying.

The report of a pistol is heard; then another, a third, hundreds, thousands of them. It is the flood, _las aguas_; the shots are drops of rain; but such drops! each as big as a hen's egg. They strike with the force of enormous hailstones--stunning and blinding us. The next moment there is no distinction of drops, the windows of heaven are opened; it is no longer rain nor flood, but a sea, a cataract, a Niagara. The hillock on which I am standing, undermined by the waters, gives way and crumbles under me; in ten seconds' time I find myself in the barranca, which is converted into a river, off my horse, which is gone I know not whither. The only person I see near me is Rowley, also dismounted and struggling against the stream, which is already up to our waists, and sweeps along with it huge branches and entire trees, that threaten each moment to carry us away with them, or to crush us against the rocks. We avoid these dangers, God knows how, make violent efforts to stem the torrent and gain the side of the barranca; although, even should we succeed, it is so steep that we can scarcely hope to climb it without assistance. And whence is that assistance to come? Of the Mexicans we see or hear nothing. They are doubtless all drowned or dashed to pieces. They were higher up on the hillock than we were, must consequently have been swept down with more force, and were probably carried away by the torrent. Nor can we hope for a better fate. Wearied by our ride, weakened by the fever and sufferings of the preceding night, we are in no condition to strive much longer with the furious elements. For one step that we gain, we lose two. The waters rise; already they are nearly up to our armpits. It is in vain to resist any longer. Our fate is sealed.

"Rowley, all is over--let us die like men. God have mercy on our souls!"

Rowley was a few paces higher up the barranca. He made me no answer, but looked at me with a calm, cold, and yet somewhat regretful smile upon his countenance. Then all at once he ceased the efforts he was making to resist the stream and gain the bank, folded his arms on his breast and gave a look up and around him as though to bid farewell to the world he was about to leave. The current was sweeping him rapidly down towards me, when suddenly a wild hurra burst from his lips, and he recommenced his struggles against the waters, striving violently to retain a footing on the slippery, uneven bed of the stream.

"_Tenga! Tenga!_" screamed a dozen voices, that seemed to proceed from spirits of the air; and at the same moment something whistled about my ears and struck me a smart blow across the face. With the instinct of a drowning man, I clutched the _lasso_ that had been thrown to me. Rowley was at my elbow and seized it also. It was immediately drawn tight, and by its aid we gained the bank, and began ascending the side of the barranca, composed of rugged, declivitous rocks, affording but scanty foot-hold. God grant the lasso may prove tough! The strain on it is fearful. Rowley is a good fifteen stone, and I am no feather; and in some parts of our perilous ascent the rocks are almost as perpendicular and smooth as a wall of masonry, and we are obliged to cling with our whole weight to the lasso, which seems to stretch, and crack, and grow visibly thinner. Nothing but a strip of twisted cow-hide between us and a frightful agonizing death on the sharp rocks and in the foaming waters below. But the lasso holds good, and now the chief peril is past: we get some sort of footing--a point of rock, or a tree-root to clutch at. Another strain up this rugged slope of granite, another pull at the lasso; a leap, a last violent effort, and--_Viva_!--we are seized under the arms, dragged up, held upon our feet for a moment, and then--we sink exhausted to the ground in the midst of the Tzapotecans, mules, arrieros, guides, and women, who are sheltered from the storm in a sort of natural cavern. At the moment at which the hillock had given way under Rowley and myself, who were a short distance in rear of the party, the Mexicans had succeeded in attaining firm footing on a broad rocky ledge, a shelf of the precipice that flanked the barranca. Upon this ledge, which gradually widened into a platform, they found themselves in safety under some projecting crags that sheltered them completely from the tempest. Thence they looked down upon the barranca, where they descried Rowley and myself struggling for our lives in the roaring torrent; and thence, by knotting several lassos together, they were able to give us the opportune aid which had rescued us from our desperate situation. But whether this aid had come soon enough to save our lives was still a question, or at least for some time appeared to be so. The life seemed driven out of our bodies by all we had gone through: we were unable to move a finger, and lay helpless and motionless, with only a glimmering indistinct perception, not amounting to consciousness, of what was going on around us. Fatigue, the fever, the immersion in cold water when reeking with perspiration, the sufferings of all kinds we had endured in the course of the last twenty hours, had completely exhausted and broken us down.

The storm did not last long in its violence, but swept onwards, leaving a broad track of desolation behind it. The Mexicans recommenced their journey, with the exception of four or five who remained with us and our arrieros and servants. The village to which we were proceeding was not above a league off; but even that short distance Rowley and myself were in no condition to accomplish. The kind-hearted Tzapotecans made us swallow cordials, stripped off our drenched and tattered garments, and wrapped us in an abundance of blankets. We fell into a deep sleep, which lasted all that evening and the greater part of the night, and so much refreshed us that about an hour before daybreak we were able to resume our march--at a slow pace, it is true, and suffering grievously in every part of our bruised and wounded limbs and bodies, at each jolt or rough motion of the mules on which we were clinging, rather than sitting.

Our path lay over hill and dale, perpetually rising and falling. We soon got out of the district or zone that had been swept by the preceding day's hurricane, and after nearly an hour's ride, we paused on the crest of a steep descent, at the foot of which, as our guides informed us, lay the land of promise, the long looked-for _rancho_. While the muleteers were seeing to the girths of their beasts, and giving the due equilibrium to the baggage, before commencing the downward march, Rowley and I sat upon our mules, wrapped in large Mexican _capas_, gazing at the morning-star as it sank down and grew gradually paler and fainter. Suddenly the eastern sky began to brighten, and a brilliant beam appeared in the west, a point of light no bigger than a star--but yet not a star; it was of a far rosier hue. The next moment a second sparkling spot appeared, near to the first, which now swelled out into a sort of fiery tongue, that seemed to lick round the silvery summit of the snow-clad mountain. As we gazed, five--ten--twenty hill tops were tinged with the same rose-coloured glow; in another moment they became like fiery banners spread out against the heavens, while sparkling tongues and rays of golden light flashed and flamed round them, springing like meteors from one mountain summit to another, lighting them up like a succession of beacons. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed since the distant pinnacles of the mountains had appeared to us as huge phantom-like figures of a silvery white, dimly marked out upon a dark star-spangled ground; now the whole immense chain blazed like volcanoes covered with glowing lava, rising out of the darkness that still lingered on their flanks and bases, visible and wonderful witnesses to the omnipotence of _him_ who said, "Let there be light, and there was light."

Above, all was broad day, flaming sunlight; below, all black night. Here and there streams of light burst through clefts and openings in the mountains, and then ensued an extraordinary kind of conflict. The shades of darkness seemed to live and move, to struggle against the bright beams that fell amongst them and broke their masses, forcing them down the wooded heights, tearing them asunder and dispersing them like tissues of cobwebs; so that successively, and as if by a stroke of enchantment, there appeared, first the deep indigo blue of the tamarinds and chicozapotes, then the bright green of the sugar-canes, lower down the darker green of the nopal-trees, lower still the white and green and gold and bright yellow of the orange and citron groves, and lowest of all, the stately fan-palms, and date-palms, and bananas; all glittering with millions of dewdrops, that covered them like a ganze veil embroidered with diamonds and rubies. And still in the very next valley all was utter darkness.

We sat silent and motionless, gazing at this scene of enchantment.

Presently the sun rose higher, and a flood of light illumined the whole valley, which lay some few hundred feet below us--a perfect garden, such as no northern imagination could picture forth; a garden of sugar-canes, cotton, and nopal-trees, intermixed with thickets of pomegranate and strawberry-trees, and groves of orange, fig, and lemon, giants of their kind, shooting up to a far greater height than the oak attains in the States--every tree a perfect hothouse, a pyramid of flowers, covered with bloom and blossom to its topmost spray. All was light, and freshness, and beauty; every object seemed to dance and rejoice in the clear elastic golden atmosphere. It was an earthly paradise, fresh from the hand of its Creator, and at first we could discover no sign of man or his works. Presently, however, we discerned the village lying almost at our feet, the small stone houses overgrown with flowers and embedded in trees; so that scarcely a square foot of roof or wall was to be seen. Even the church was concealed in a garland of orange-trees, and had lianas and star-flowered creepers climbing over and dangling on it, up as high as the slender cross that surmounted its square white tower. As we gazed, the first sign of life appeared in the village. A puff of blue smoke rose curling and spiral from a chimney, and the matin bell rang out its summons to prayer. Our Mexicans fell on their knees and crossed themselves, repeating their Ave-marias. We involuntarily took off our hats, and whispered a thanksgiving to the God who had been with us in the hour of peril, and was now so visible to us in his works.

The Mexicans rose from their knees.

"_Vamos! Senores,_" said one of them, laying his hand on the bridle of my mule. "To the _rancho_, to breakfast."

We rode slowly down into the valley.

* * * * *

THE BRITISH FLEET[26].

[26] Memoirs of Admiral Earl St Vincent. By T.S. TUCKER. 2 vols.

Were the question proposed to us, What is the most extraordinary, complete, and effective instance of skill, contrivance, science, and power, ever combined by man? we should unhesitatingly answer, an English line-of-battle ship. Take the model of a 120 gun ship--large as it may be for a floating body, its space is not great. For example, it is not half the ordinary size of a nobleman's mansion; yet that ship carries a thousand men with convenience, and lodges them day and night, with sufficient room for the necessary distinctions of obedience and command--has separate apartments for the admiral and the captain, for the different ranks of officers, and even for the different ranks of seamen--separate portions below decks for the sleeping of the crew, the dining of the officers, and the receptacle for the sick and wounded. Those thousand men are to be fed three times a-day, and provisions for four months are to be stowed. One hundred and twenty cannon, some of them of the heaviest metal, are to be carried; and room is to be found for all the weight of shot and quantities of powder, with other missiles, rockets, and signal fires, necessary for service. Besides this, room is to be provided for the stowage of fresh rigging, sails, ropes, cables, and yards, to replace those lost by accident, battle, or wear and tear. Besides this, too, there is to be a provision for the hospital. So far for the mere necessaries of the ship. Then we are to regard the science; for nothing can be more essential than the skill and the instruments of the navigator, as nothing can be more fatal than a scientific error, a false calculation, or a remission of vigilance. We shall do no more than allude to the habits of command essential to keep a thousand of these rough and daring spirits in order, and that, too, an order of the most implicit, steady, and active kind; nor to their knowledge of tactics, and conduct in battle. The true definition of the line-of-battle ship being, a floating regiment of artillery in a barrack, which, at the beat of a drum, may be turned into a field of battle, or, at the command of government, may be sent flying on the wings of the wind round the world. We think that we have thus established our proposition. If not, let any thing else be shown which exhibits the same quantity of power _packed_ within the same space; and that power, too, increasing daily by new contrivances of stowage and building, by new models of guns, and new inventions in machinery. England is at this moment building two hundred steam-ships, with guns of a calibre to which all the past were trifling, with room for a regiment of land troops besides their crews, and with the known power of defying wind and wave, and throwing an army in full equipment for the field, within a few days, on any coast of Europe.

It is remarkable that the use of the navy, as a great branch of the military power of England, had been scarcely contemplated until the last century. Though the sea-coast of England, the largest of any European state, and the national habits of an insular country, might have pointed out this direction for the national energies from the earliest period, yet England was a kingdom for five hundred years before she seems to have thought of the use of ships as an instrument of public power. In the long war with France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ships were almost wholly mercantile; and, when employed in wars, were chiefly employed as transports to throw our troops on the French soil. It was the reign of Elizabeth, that true birth of the progress of England, that first developed the powers of an armed navy. The Spanish invasion forced the country to meet the Armada by means like its own; and the triumph, though won by a higher agency, and due to the winds and waves, or rather to the Supreme Providence which watched over the land of Protestantism, awoke the nation to the true faculty of defence; and from that period alone could the burden of the fine national song be realized, and Britain was to "rule the main." The expeditions against the Spanish West Indies, and the new ardour of discovery in regions where brilliant fable lent its aid to rational curiosity, carried on the process of naval power. The war against Holland, under Charles II., though disastrous and impolitic, showed at least that the fleet of England was the true arm of its strength; and the humiliation of the only rival of her commerce at once taught her where the sinews of war lay, and by what means the foundations of naval empire were to be laid. But it was not until the close of the last century that the truth came before the nation in its full form. The American war--a war of skirmishes--had its direct effect, perhaps its providential purpose, in compelling England to prepare for the tremendous collision which was so soon to follow, and which was to be the final security of the Continent itself. It was then, for the first time, that the nation was driven to the use of a navy on a great scale. The war, lying on the western shore of an ocean, made the use of naval armaments necessary to every operation. The treacherous hostility of the French cabinet, and the unfortunate subserviency of Spain to that treachery, made corresponding energy on the part of England a matter of public demand; and when France and Spain sent out fleets of a magnitude till then unknown, England was urged to follow their example. The defeats of the combined navies excited the nation to still more vigorous efforts; and the war closed with so full a demonstration of the matchless importance of a great navy to England, that the public feeling was fixed on giving it the largest contribution of the national confidence.

The time was at hand when the trial was to involve every interest of England and mankind. The first grand struggle of revolutionary France with England was to be on the seas; and the generation of naval officers who had been reared in the American war, then rising into vigour, trained by its experience, and stimulated by its example, gallantly maintained the honour of their country. A succession of sanguinary battles followed, each on the largest scale, and each closing in British victory; until the republic, in despair, abandoned the fatal element, and tied her fortunes in the easier conflicts of the land. The accession of Napoleon renewed the struggle for naval supremacy, until one vast blow extinguished his hopes and his navy at Trafalgar. Peace now exists, and long may it exist! but France is rapidly renewing her navy, taking every opportunity of exercising its strength, and especially patronising the policy of founding those colonies which it idly imagines to be the source of British opulence. But whether the wisdom of Louis Philippe limits the protection of French trade to the benefits which commerce may confer on his vast kingdom, or looks forward to the support which a mercantile navy may give to a warlike one, we must not sleep on our posts. The life of any individual is brief on a national scale; and his successor, whether regent or republican, may be as hot-headed, rash, and ambitious, as this great monarch has shown himself rational, prudent, and peaceful. We must prepare for all chances; and our true preparation must be, a fleet that may defy all.

It is a remarkable instance of the slowness with which science advances, that almost the whole scientific portion of seamanship has grown up since the middle of the seventeenth century, though America had been reached in 1492, and India in 1496; and thus the world had been nearly rounded before what would now be regarded as the ordinary knowledge of a navigator had been acquired. England has the honour of making the first advances. It was an Englishman, Norwood, who made the first measurement of a degree between London and York, and fixed it at 122,399 English yards. The attention of the world thus once awakened, Huygens and Cassini applied themselves to ascertain the figure of the earth. The first experiments of the French _savans_ were in contradiction to Newton's theory of the flattening of the poles; but the controversy was the means of exciting new interest. The eyes of the scientific world were turned more intently on the subject. New experiments were made, which corrected the old; and finally, on the measurement of the arc in Peru, and in the north, truth and Newton triumphed, and the equatorial diameter was found to exceed the polar by a two hundred and fourth part of the whole. This was perhaps the finest problem ever solved by science; the most perplexing in its early state--exhibiting for a while the strongest contradiction of experiment and theory, occupying in a greater degree the attention of philosophers than any before or since, and finally established with a certainty which every subsequent observation has only tended to confirm. And this triumph belonged to an Englishman.

The investigation by measurements has since been largely adopted. In 1787, joint commissions were issued by England and France to connect the Greenwich and Parisian observations. Arcs of the meridian have since been measured across the whole breadth of France and Spain, and also near the Arctic circle, and in the Indian peninsula.

In navigation, the grand point for the sailor is to ascertain his latitude and longitude; in other words, to know where he is. The discovery of the latitude is easily effected by the quadrant, but the longitude is the difficulty. Any means which ascertained the hour at Greenwich, at the instant of making a celestial observation in any other part, would answer the difficulty; for the difference in quarters of an hour would give the difference of the degrees. But clocks could not be used on shipboard, and the best watches failed to keep the time. In the reign of Anne, Parliament offered a reward of L. 5000, perhaps not far from the value of twice the sum in the present day, for a watch within a certain degree of accuracy. Harrison, a watchmaker, sent in a watch which came within the limits, losing but two minutes in a voyage to the West Indies; yet even this was an error of thirty miles.

But, though chronometers have since been considerably improved, there are difficulties in their preservation in good order which have made it expedient to apply to other means; and the lunar tables of Mayer of Gottingen, formed in 1755, and subsequently improved by Dr Maskelyne and others, have brought the error within seven miles and a half.

Improvements of a very important order have also taken place in the mariner's compass; the variation of the needle has been reduced to rules, and some anomalies arising from the metallic attraction of the ship itself, have been corrected by Professor Barlow's experiments. The use of the marine barometer and thermometer have also largely assisted to give notice of tempests; and some ingenious theories have been lately formed, which, promising to give a knowledge of the origin and nature of tempests, are obviously not unlikely to assist the navigator in stemming their violence, or escaping them altogether.

The construction of ships for both the merchant and the public service has undergone striking improvements within this century. Round sterns, for the defence of a vessel engaged with several opponents at once; compartments in the hold, for security against leaks; iron tanks for water, containing twice the quantity, and keeping it free from the impurities of casks; a better general stowage; provisions prepared so as to remain almost fresh during an East Indian voyage; every means of preserving health, suggested by science, and succeeding to the most remarkable degree; a more intelligent system of shipbuilding, and a constant series of experiments on the shape, stowage, and sailing of ships, are among the beneficial changes of later times. But the one great change--steam--will probably swallow up all the rest, and form a new era in shipbuilding, in navigation, in the power and nature of a navy, and in the comfort, safety, and protection of the crews in actual engagement. The use of steam is still so palpably in its infancy, yet that infancy is so gigantic, that it is equally difficult to say what it may yet become, and to limit its progress. It will have the one obvious advantage to mankind in general, of making the question of war turn more than ever on the financial and mechanical resources of a people; and thus increasing the necessity for commercial opulence and intellectual exertion. It may expose nations more to each other's attacks; but it will render hostility more dreaded, because more dangerous. On the whole, like the use of gunpowder, which made a Tartar war impossible, and which rapidly tended to civilize Europe, steam appears to be intended as a further step in the same high process, in which force is to be put down by intelligence, and success, even in war, is to depend on the industry of peace; thus, in fact, providing a perpetual restriction on the belligerent propensities of nations, and urging the uncivilized, by necessity, to own the superiority, and follow the example of the civilized, by knowledge, habit, and principle.

It is not to be forgotten, even in this general and brief view of the values of the British fleet, that it has, within these few years, assumed a new character as an instrument of war. The Syrian campaign, the shortest, and, beyond all comparison, the most brilliant on record, if we are to estimate military distinction, not only by the gallantry of the conflict, but by the results of the victory--this campaign, which at once finished the war in Syria, gave peace to Turkey, reduced Egypt to obedience, rescued the sultan from Russian influence, and Egypt from French; or rather rescued all Europe from the collision of England, France, and Russia; and even, by the evidence of our naval capabilities, taught American faction the wisdom of avoiding hostilities--this grand operation was effected by a small portion of the British navy, well commanded, directed to the right point, and acting with national energy. The three hours' cannonade of Acre, the most effective achievement in the annals of war, exhibited a new use of a ship's broadside; for, though ships' guns had often battered forts before, it was the first instance of a _fleet_ employed in attack, and fully overpowering all opposition. The attack on Algiers was the only exploit of a similar kind; but its success was limited, and the result was so far disastrous, that it at once fixed the eye of France on the invasion of Algiers, and disabled and disheartened the native government from vigorous resistance. The victory of the fleet at Acre will also have the effect of changing the whole system of defence in fortresses and cities exposed to the sea.

But a still further advance in the employment of fleets as an instrument of hostilities, has since occurred in the Chinese war--their simultaneous operation with troops. In former assaults of fortresses, the troops and ships attacked the same line of defence, and the consequence was the waste of force. From the moment when the troops approached the land, the fire of the ships necessarily ceased, and the fleet then remained spectators of the assault. But in this war, while the troops attacked on the land side, the fleet ran up to the sea batteries, and both attacks went on together--of course dividing the attention of the enemy, thus having a double chance of success, and employing both arms of the service in full energy. This masterly combination the Duke of Wellington, the highest military authority in Europe, pronounced to be a new principle in war; and even this is, perhaps, only the beginning of a system of combination which will lead to new victories, if war should ever unhappily return.

We now revert to the history of a naval hero.

John Jervis, the second son of Swynfen Jervis, Esq., was born on the 20th of January 1735. He was descended, on both the paternal and maternal side, from families which had figured in the olden times of England. The family of Jervis possessed estates in Staffordshire as far back as the reign of Edward III. The family of Swynfen was also long established in Worcestershire. John Swynfen was a public character during the troubled times of Charles I. and Cromwell, and until a late period in the reign of Charles II. He had been originally a strong Parliamentarian; but, thinking that the party went too far, he was turned out of parliament for tardiness by the Protector. But his original politics adhered to him still; for, even after the restoration, he was joined with Hampden, the grandson of the celebrated patriot, in drawing up the Bill of Exclusion. Among his ancestors by the mother's side was Sir John Turton, a judge in the Court of King's Bench, married to a daughter of the brave Colonel Samuel Moore, who made the memorable defence of Hopton Castle in the Civil War.

But no man less regarded ancestry than the subject of the present pages, who, in writing with reference to his pedigree, observed, in his usual frank and straightforward language--"They were all highly respectable; but, _et genus et proavos_, nearly all the Latin I now recollect, always struck my ear as the sound maxim for officers and statesmen."

His first school was at Burton-upon-Trent, where a slight incident seemed to designate his future politics and fortitude. In 1745, when the Pretender marched into the heart of the kingdom, without being joined by his friends or opposed by his enemies, as Gibbon antithetically observed, all the boys at the school, excepting young Jervis and Dick Meux, (afterwards the eminent brewer,) wore plaid ribands sent to them from home, and they pelted their two constitutional playmates, calling them Whigs.

His father designed young Jervis for the law; but, in 1747, removing to Greenwich on being appointed Counsel to the Admiralty and Auditor to the Hospital, naval sights were too near not to prove a strong temptation to the mind of an animated and vigorous boy. His parents were still strongly for the adoption of his father's profession; but there was another authority on the subject, the family coachman, one Pinkhorne, who, saying that it was a shame to go into a profession where all were rogues, determined the future hero; and, before the year was over, he ran away, to commence life as a sailor. He was reclaimed, however, by his family, and was regularly entered in the navy, in January 1748, on board the Gloucester, fifty guns, Commodore Townshend--twenty pounds being all that was given to him by his father for his equipment. The Gloucester sailed for the West Indies; and thus, at the age of thirteen, young Jervis began the world. It appears that the rigid economy of his father, combined with the singular good sense of this mere child, urged him to every means of acquiring the knowledge of his profession. The monotonous life of a guard-ship already seemed to him a waste of time, while the expenses on shore must have been ruinous to his slender finances. He therefore volunteered into whatever ship was going to sea. He thus writes to his sister from on board the Sphinx, 1753:--"There are many entertainments and public assemblies here, but they are rather above my sphere, many inconveniences and expenses attending them; so that my chief employ, when from my duty, is reading, studying navigation, and perusing my own letters, of which I have almost enough to make an octavo volume."

At length, however, his twenty pounds were exhausted; and, at the end of three years, he drew for twenty pounds more. It is vexatious to say that his bill was dishonoured; and he never received another shilling from any one. It is scarcely possible to conceive that so harsh a measure could have been the result of intention; but it subjected this extraordinary boy to the severest privations. To take up the dishonoured bill, he was obliged to effect his discharge from one ship into another, so as to obtain his pay tickets, which he sold at forty per cent discount. His remaining six years on the station were spent in the exercise of a severe economy, and the endurance even of severe suffering. He was compelled to sell all his bedding, and sleep on the bare deck. He had no other resource than, generally, to make and mend, and always to wash, his own clothes. He never afforded himself any fresh meat; and even the fruit and vegetables, which are so necessary and so cheap, he could obtain only by barter from the negroes, for the small share of provisions which he could subduct from his own allowance. True as all this doubtless is, it reflects more severely on the captain and officers of his own ship, than even upon his parents. The latter, on the other side of the Atlantic, might have no knowledge of his difficulties; but that those who saw his sufferings from day to day could have allowed them to continue, argues a degree of negligence and inhumanity, of which we hope that no present instance occurs in our navy, and which at any period would appear incomprehensible. In 1754, young Jervis returned to England, and passed his examination for lieutenant with great credit.

The commencement of the war with France was, like the commencement of English wars in general, disastrous. We seldom make due preparation. Fleets inferior to the enemy in equipment and number, are sent out on the emergency; detachments of troops are sent where armies should have gone; and thus victory itself is without effect. Thus for a year or two we continue blundering if not beaten, and angry with our generals and admirals for failing to do impossibilities. At last the nation becomes fairly roused; the success of the enemy makes exertion necessary; their insolence inflames the popular indignation; a great effort is made; a triumph is obtained, and a peace follows, which might have been accomplished half a dozen years before, at a tenth part of the expense in blood and treasure which it cost to consummate the war. Our troops under Braddock, a brave fool, were beaten by the French and Indians in America. Our Mediterranean fleet was baffled under the unfortunate command of Byng. Minorca was taken before our eyes, and the naval and military stars of England seem to have gone down together. Yet this era of national dishonour and public disgust was followed by the three years of Chatham's administration, a period of triumph that equaled the campaigns of Marlborough at the commencement of the century, and was scarcely eclipsed even by the splendours that followed its close.

The skill and talent of young Jervis had already given him distinction among the rising officers of the feet. He had become a favourite with Admiral Saunders, was taken with him from ship to ship; and when the admiral was recalled from the Mediterranean to take the command of the naval force destined to co-operate in the attack on Quebec, by the heroic and lamented General Wolfe, young Jervis was selected to be first lieutenant of the Prince, which bore the admiral's flag. On the passage out, the general and his aide-de-camp, Captain, afterwards the well-known Colonel Barré, were guests on board the Prince, and of course Jervis had the advantage of their intelligent society. In February 1759, the fleet sailed from England, and in June proceeded from Louisburg to the St Lawrence. Lieutenant Jervis was now appointed to the command of the Porcupine sloop; and on the general requesting a naval force to escort his transports past Quebec, the Porcupine was ordered by the admiral to lead. The service was one of extreme difficulty; for the attempt to sound the channel the day before had failed, though it was made by the master of the fleet, Cook, afterwards the celebrated navigator. The winds suddenly falling calm, prevented the Porcupine from reaching her station. A heavy fire was instantly opened upon her from every gun that could be brought to bear, and the army were in terror of her being destroyed, for the general was on board. But Jervis's skill was equal to his gallantry; he hoisted out his boats, cheered his men through the fire, and brought his ship to her station.

A little incident occurred on the night before the memorable engagement, which even at this distance of time is of painful interest, but which shows the confidence reposed in the young naval officer by the hero of Quebec. After the orders for the assault next day were given, Wolfe requested a private interview with him; and saying that he had the strongest presentiment of falling on the field, yet that he should fall in victory, he took from his bosom the miniature of a young lady to whom he was attached, gave it to Jervis, desiring that, if the foreboding came to pass, he should return it to her on his arrival in England. Wolfe's gallant fate and brilliant victory are known: the picture was delivered to Miss Lowther.

After the capture of Quebec, Jervis was dispatched to England; and was appointed to the Scorpion, to carry out important despatches to General Amherst. On this occasion, he gave an instance of that remarkable promptitude which characterised him throughout his whole career. The Scorpion was in such a crazy state that she had nearly foundered between Spithead and Plymouth. On reaching the latter port, and representing at once the condition of the vessel and the importance of the despatches, the port-admiral instantly ordered him to proceed to sea in the Albany, a sloop in the Sound. But the Albany had been a long time in commission; her people claimed arrears of pay; and by no means relishing a voyage across the Atlantic in such weather, they absolutely refused to heave the anchor. Their young commander first tried remonstrance, but in vain; he then took a more effectual means--he ordered his boat's crew, whom he had brought from the Scorpion, to take their hatchets and cut the cables, and then go aloft to loosen the foresail. Perceiving the kind of man with whom they had to do, the crew submitted, and the Albany instantly proceeded to sea: the ringleaders were punished; and the service was performed. The Albany made New York in twenty-four days.

In October 1761, Commander Jervis was made Post, into the Gosport of 60 guns. Among his midshipmen was the afterwards Admiral Lord Keith. In 1762, peace was made. The Gosport was paid off next year, and Captain Jervis did not serve again until 1769, when he commanded the Alarm of 32 guns for the next three years.

A striking incident occurred during the cruise of this vessel in the Mediterranean, exhibiting not only the spirit of her captain, but the historic recollections by which that spirit was sustained. One Sunday afternoon, the day after her arrival at Genoa, two Turkish slaves, in enjoyment of the holiday's rest from labour, sauntered from their galley near the mole. Seeing the Alarm's boat, they jumped into her, wrapped themselves in the British colours, and exclaimed, "We are free!" The Genoese officer on duty, however, ordered them to be dragged out, which was done, though one of them tore away in his struggle a piece of the boat's pendant. On the circumstance reaching the captain's ears he was indignant, and demanded instant reparation. To use his own language:--"I required," said he, "of the Doge and Senate, that both the slaves should be brought on board, with the part of the torn pendant which the slave carried off with him; the officer of the guard punished; and an apology made on the quarterdeck of the Alarm, under the king's colours, for the outrage offered to the British nation."

On the following Tuesday this was complied with in all the particulars; but, unhappily, the government at home did not exhibit the spirit of their gallant officer abroad; and in a letter which he addressed to his brother he says:--"_I had an opportunity of carrying the British flag, in relation to two Turkish slaves, as high as Blake had ever done_, for which I am publicly censured; though I hope we have too much virtue left, for me not to be justified in private."

The result, however, of this transaction was, that for many years afterwards, in the Barbary states, if a slave could but touch the British colours, which all our men-of-war's boats carry in foreign ports, he could of right demand his release. This, however, was counteracted as far as possible by the renewed vigilance of the Moors, who kept all their slaves out of sight while a British flag flew in the harbour. The allusion to the famous Blake shows with what studies the young officer fed his mind, and in how high a spirit he was prepared to adopt them.

Another instance of his skill and intrepidity soon followed. In March 1770, the frigate, after a tempestuous cruise, came to anchor at Marseilles. An equinoctial gale came on, and after two days of desperate exertion, and throwing many of the guns overboard, the frigate was driven from her anchors, stranded on a reef of rocks, and the crew in such peril that they were saved only by the most extraordinary exertions, and the assistance of the people on shore. The port officer, M. de Peltier, exhibited great kindness and activity, and the ship was rapidly repaired, but with such an exact economy, that its complete refit, with the expense of the crew for three months, amounted only to £1415.

The first act of this excellent son was to write to his father:--"Do not be alarmed, my dear sir, at the newspaper accounts which you will hear of the Alarm. The interposition of Divine Providence has miraculously preserved her. The same Providence will, I hope, give long life to my dear father, mother, and brother."

In July he wrote to his sister from Mahon, after the repairs of the vessel:--"The Alarm is the completest thing I ever saw on the water, insomuch that I forgot she was the other day, in the opinion of most beholders, her own officers and crew not excepted, a miserable sunken wreck. Such is the reward of perseverance. Happily for my reputation, my health at that period happened to be equal to the task, or I had been lost for ever, instead of receiving continual marks of public and private approbation of my conduct; but this is _entre nous_. I never speak or write on the subject except to those I most love. You will easily believe Barrington to be one; his goodness to me is romantic."

It is gratifying to state, that the English Admiralty, on the young captain's warm representation of the French superintendent, M. de Peltier's hospitality and kindness, sent a handsome piece of plate in public acknowledgment to that officer; and, as if to make the compliment perfect in all its parts, as it arrived before the frigate had left the station, the captain had the indulgence of presenting it in person; thus making, as his letter to his father mentioned, "the family of Pleville de Peltier happy beyond description."

The frigate was soon after paid off, and as there was no probability of his being speedily employed, he applied himself to gain every species of knowledge connected with his profession. We strongly doubt whether the example of this rising officer is not even more important when we regard him in peace than in the activity and daring of war. There is no want of courage and conduct in the British fleet; but life on shore offers too many temptations to indolence, to be always turned to the use of which it is capable. Captain Jervis, on the contrary, appears always to have regarded life on shore preparatory to life afloat, and to be constantly employed in laying up knowledge for those emergencies which so often occur in the bold and perilous life of the sailor. There is often something like a predictive spirit in the early career of great men, which urges them to make provision for greatness; and remote as is the condition of a captain of a smart frigate from the commander of fleets, yet the captain of the Alarm, though the least ostentatious of men, seems always to have had a glance towards the highest duties of the British admiral. "Time," says Franklin, "is the stuff that life is made of;" and as France is the antagonist with which the power of England naturally expects to struggle, his first object was to acquire all possible knowledge of the naval means of France. The primary step was to acquire a knowledge of the language. Accordingly, he went to France, and placed himself in a _pension_. There he applied himself so closely to the study of the language, that his health became out of order, and his family requested him to return. But this he declined, and in his answer said that he had adopted this pursuit on the best view a military man in his situation could form. "For it will always," said he, "be useful to have a general idea of this prevalent language, and a knowledge of the country with which we have so long contended, and which must ever be our rival in arms and commerce."

Having accomplished his object of acquiring sufficient fluency in speaking French, his next excursion was to St Petersburg. He and Captain Barrington went in a merchant vessel, and reached Cronstadt. While at sea, Captain Jervis kept a regular log. During the voyage, all the headlands are described, all the soundings noted, and every opportunity to test and correct the charts adopted. As an example, he remarks on the castle of Cronenburg, which guards the entrance into the Sound, that it may be overlooked by a line-of-battle ship, which may anchor in good ground as near the beach as she pleases. He remarks the two channels leading to Copenhagen, puts all the lighthouses down on his own chart, and lays down all the approaches to St Petersburg accurately; "because," said he, "I find all the charts are incorrect, and it may be useful." And he actually did find it useful; for when he was at the head of the Admiralty, this knowledge enabled him, while his colleagues hesitated, to give his orders confidently to Sir Charles Pole, in command of the Baltic fleet. His sojourn at St Petersburg was but brief; but it was at a time of remarkable excitement. The Empress Catharine was at the height of her splendour, a legislator and a conqueror, and surrounded by a court exhibiting all the daring and dashing characters of her vast empire. His description of this celebrated woman's character on one public occasion, shows the exactness with which he observed every thing:--"When she entered the cathedral, Catharine mingled her salutations to the saints and the people, showing at once her compliance with religious ceremonials, and her attentions to her servants and the foreign ambassadors. But she showed no devotion, in which she was not singular, old people and Cossack officers excepted. During the sermon she took occasion to smile and nod to those whom she meant to gratify; and surely no sovereign ever possessed the power of pleasing all within her eye to the degree she did. She was dressed in the Guards' uniform, which was a scarlet pelisse, and a green silk robe lapelled from top to bottom. Her hair was combed neatly, and boxed _en militaire_, with a small cap, and an ornament of diamonds in front; a blue riband, and the order of St Andrew on her right shoulder."

He speaks of the empress excelling in that inclination of the body which the Russian ladies substitute for the curtsy, and which he justly regards as very becoming, the empress adding dignity and grace. He describes Orloff as an herculean figure, finely proportioned, with a cheerful eye, and, for a Russian, a good complexion: Potemkin as having stature and shoulders, but being ill limbed and of a most forbidding countenance. His examination of the Russian dockyards, naval armament, and general style of shipbuilding, was most exact; and he records in his notes his having seen, in the naval arsenals of Norway, sheds to cover ships on the stocks--an important arrangement, which was afterwards claimed as an invention at home.

After inspecting the harbours of Sweden and Norway, the travellers returned by Holland, where they made similar investigations. In the following year they renewed their tour of inspection, and traversed the western parts of France. And this active pursuit of knowledge was carried on without any pecuniary assistance beyond his half-pay. He had hitherto made no prize-money. "To be sure," he said in after days, "we sometimes did fare rather roughly; but what signifies that now? my object was attained."

His character was now high, but it is to be presumed that he had some powerful interest; for on his return he was appointed to two line-of-battle ships in succession, the Kent, 74, and the Foudroyant, 84, a French prize, and reckoned the finest two-decker in the navy.

From this period a new scene opened before him, and his career became a part of the naval history of England. In 1778 he joined the Channel fleet, and his ship was placed by the celebrated Keppel as one of his seconds in the order of battle, and immediately astern of the admiral's ship, the Victory, on the 27th of July, in the drawn battle off Ushant with the French fleet commanded by D'Orvilliers. The people of England are not content with drawn battles, and the result of this action produced a general uproar. Keppel threw the blame on the tardiness of Sir Hugh Palliser, the second in command. Palliser retorted, and the result was a court-martial on the commander of the fleet; which, however, ended in a triumphant acquittal. It was not generally known that Keppel's defence, which was admired as a model of intelligence, and even of eloquence, was drawn up by Captain Jervis. The transaction, though so long passed away, is not yet beyond discussion; and there is still some interest in knowing the opinion of so powerful a mind on the general subject. It was thus given in a private letter to his friend Jackson:--"I do not agree that we were outwitted. The French, I am convinced, never would have fought us if they had not been surprised into it by a sudden flow of wind; and when they formed their inimitable line after our brush, it was merely to cover their intention of flight."

He then gives one of those comprehensive maxims which already show the experienced "admiral:"--"I have often told you that two fleets of equal force can never produce decisive events, unless they are equally determined to fight it out, or the commander-in-chief of one of them misconducts his line." We have then an instance of that manly feeling which is one of the truest characteristics of greatness, and yet which has been deficient in some very remarkable men.

"I perceive," says he, "it is the fashion of people to puff themselves. For my part, I forbade my officers to write by the frigate that carried the despatches. I did not write a syllable myself, except touching my health; nor shall I, but to state the intrepidity of the officers and people under my command, (through the most infernal fire I ever saw or heard,) to Lord Sandwich," (first lord of the Admiralty.) But one cannot feel the merit of this self-denial without a glance at his actual hazards and services during the battle.

"In justice to the Foudroyant," he thus ends his letter, "I must observe to you, that though she received the fire of seventeen sail, and had the Bretagne, Ville de Paris, and a seventy-four on her at the same time, and appeared more disabled in her masts and rigging than any other ship, she was the first in the line of battle, and truly fitter for business, in essentials, (because her people were cool,) than when she began. _Keep this to yourself_, unless you hear too much said in praise of others.

"J.J."

The national wrath was poured on Sir Hugh Palliser, Keppel's second in command, whose tardiness in obeying signals was charged as the cause of the French escape; so strong had already become the national assurance that a British fleet could go forth only to victory. But the succession of courts-martial cleared up nothing except the characters of the two admirals. Palliser was enabled to show that his ship had suffered so much from the enemy's fire as to be at least (plausibly) unfit for close action, and the whole dispute on land closed, like the naval conflict, in a drawn battle. Jervis was the chief witness for Keppel, as serving next his ship; and his testimony was of the highest order to the gallantry, skill, and perseverance of the admiral. But Palliser was acknowledged to be brave; and it is evident from Jervis's personal opinion, that when it was once the object of the enemy's commander to get away, it was next to impossible to have prevented his escape.

But these were trying times for the British navy: it was scarcely acquainted with its own strength; the nation, disgusted with the nature of the American war, refused its sympathy; without that sympathy ministers could do nothing effectual, and never can do any thing effectual. The character of the cabinet was feebleness, the spirit of the metropolis was faction; the king, though one of the best of men, was singularly unpopular; and the war became a system of feeble defence against arrogant and increasing hostilities. France, powerful as she was, became more powerful by the national exultation--the frenzied rejoicing in the success of American revolt--and the revived hope of European supremacy in a nation which had been broken down since the days of Marlborough; a crush which had been felt in every sinew of France for a hundred angry years. Spain, always strong, but unable to use her strength, had now given it in to the training of discipline; and the combined fleets presented a display of force, which, in the haughty language of the Tuileries, was formed to sweep the seas.

The threat was put in rapid and unexpected execution. The combined fleet moved up the Channel; and to the surprise, the sorrow, and the indignation of England, the British fleet, under Sir Charles Hardy, was seen making, what could only be called "a dignified retreat." The Foudroyant, on that melancholy occasion, had been astern of the Victory, the admiral's ship. If Jervis had been admiral, he would have tried the fate of battle--and he would have done right. No result of a battle could have been so painful to the national feelings, or so injurious in its effects on the feelings of Europe, as that retreat. If the whole British fleet on that occasion had perished, its gallantry would have only raised a new spirit of worth and power in the nation; and England has resources that, when once fully called into exertion, are absolutely unconquerable. But that was a dishonour; and even now we can echo the feelings of the brave and high-minded young officer, who was condemned to share in the disgrace. He writes to his sister, as if to relieve the fulness of his heart at the moment--"I am in the most humbled state of mind I ever experienced, from the retreat we have made before the combined fleets all _yesterday_ and _this morning_." The Admiralty ultimately gave the retreating admiral an official certificate of good behaviour, "their high approbation of Sir Charles Hardy's wise and prudent conduct;" but "gallant and bold conduct" would have been a better testimonial. The truth seems to be, that the Admiralty, blamable themselves in sending him to sea with an inadequate force, and scarcely expecting to escape if they had suffered him to lie under the charge, were glad to avail themselves of his personal character as a man of known bravery; and thus quash a process which must finally have brought them before the tribunal. But let naval officers remember, that the officer who fights is the officer of the nation. Nelson's maxim is unanswerable--"The captain cannot be mistaken who lays his ship alongside the enemy."

This, too, was a period of cabinet revolutions. No favouritism can sustain a ministry which has become disgustful to the nation. Lord North, though ingenious, dexterous, and long enough in possession of power to have filled all its offices with his dependents, was driven from the premiership with such a storm of national contempt, that he could scarcely be sheltered by the curtains of the throne. Lord Rockingham, a dull minister, was transformed into a brilliant one by his contrast with the national weariness of Lord North; and it fell to the lot of Captain Jervis to give the country the first omen of returning victory. France had already combined Holland in her alliance, and the French minister, already made insolent by his triumph in the Channel, had determined on a blow in a quarter where English interests were most vulnerable, and where the assault was least expected. A squadron of French line-of-battle ships, convoying a fleet of transports, were prepared for an expedition to the East Indies.

The preparations for the combined movement were on an immense scale. The fleets of France, Spain, and Holland were again to sweep the Channel; and while the attention of the British fleets was thus engrossed, the Eastern expedition was to sail from Brest. The Admiralty, in order to counteract, or at least delay, this formidable movement, immediately dispatched Admiral Barrington, with twelve sail of the line, to cruise in the bay of Biscay. On the 18th of April the French expedition sailed, and on the 20th, when Admiral Barrington had reached a few leagues beyond Ushant, the Artois frigate signaled a hostile fleet, but could not discover their flag or numbers. The signal being made for a general chase, the Foudroyant, Jervis's ship, soon left the rest of the fleet behind; and before night she had so much gained upon the enemy as to ascertain that they were six French ships of war, with eighteen sail of convoy. The whole of the British fleet, being several leagues astern, was now lost sight of, and did not come up till the following day. In the mean time Jervis was left alone. At ten at night, the French ships of war separating, Jervis, selecting the largest for pursuit, prepared to attack: at twelve, he had approached near enough to see that the chase was a ship of the line. The Foudroyant's superior manoeuvring enabled her to commence the engagement by a raking fire. Its effect was so powerful, that the enemy was thrown into extreme disorder, and was carried by boarding, after an action of only three quarters of an hour. The prize was the Pégase, seventy-four. The loss of life on board the enemy was great; but by an extraordinary piece of good fortune, on board the Foudroyant not a man was killed, Captain Jervis and five seamen being the only wounded.

To the gallantry which produced this striking success, the young officer added extreme delicacy with respect to his prisoners. He would not allow the first boat to be sent on board the prize, until he had given written orders for the particular preservation of every thing in the shape of property belonging to the French officers, adding at the bottom of his memorandum,--"For though I have the highest opinion of my officers, we must not be suspected of designs to plunder."

The result of the action was, that sixteen transports out of twenty were taken, according to the letter of young Ricketts, the captain's nephew. It must be owned, that brave as the French are, their admiral made but a bad figure in this business: why the sight of one vessel should have been sufficient to disperse a fleet of six men-of-war, and of course ruin an expedition which must thus be left without convoy, is not easily to be accounted for; or why, when the admiral saw that his pursuer was but a single ship, he should not have turned upon him and crushed him, it is equally difficult to say. It only shows that his court wanted common sense as much as he wanted discretion. The expedition was destroyed, and the Foudroyant had the whole honour of the victory.

An action between single ships of this force is rare at any period, and nothing could be nearer a match in point of equipment then the two ships. The Foudroyant had the larger tonnage, and carried three more guns on her broadside; but the Pégase threw a greater weight of shot, had a more numerous crew, and a large proportion of soldiers on board. The English ship, however, had the incomparable advantage of a crew which had sailed together for six years, and been disciplined by such an officer as Jervis.

The ministry and the king were equally rejoiced at this return of the naval distinctions of the country, and the immediate consequence was, the conferring of a baronetcy and the order of the Bath upon the gallant officer. Congratulations of all kinds were poured upon him by the ministry, his admiral, and his brother officers. The admiral writes, in speaking of the squadron's cruise, "but the Pégase is every thing, and does the highest honour to Jervis."

Another instance of his decision, and, as in all probability will be thought, of the clearness of his judgment, was shortly after given in the memorable relief of Gibraltar. As it was likely that the combined fleets of France and Spain would oppose the passage of the British, Lord Howe, at an early period, called the flag-officers and captains on board the Victory, and proposed to them the question--Whether, considering the superiority of the enemy's numbers, it might not be advisable to fight the battle at night, when British discipline might counterbalance the numerical superiority? All the officers junior to Jervis gave their opinion for the night attack, but he dissented. "Expressing his regret that he must offer an opinion, not only contrary to that of his brother officers, but also, as he feared, to that of his commander-in-chief, he was convinced that battle in the day would be greatly preferable. In the first place, because it would give an opportunity for the display of his lordship's tactics, and afford the means of taking prompt advantage of any mistake of the enemy, change of the wind, or any other favourable circumstance; while in the mêlée of a battle at night, there must always be greater risk of separation, and of ships receiving the fire of their friends as well as their foes." It is obvious to every comprehension, that a night action must preclude all manoeuvring, and prevent the greater skill of the tactician from having any advantage over the blunderer who turns his ships into mere batteries. The only officer who coincided with Jervis was Admiral Barrington, who gave as an additional and a just argument for the attack by day, that it would give an opportunity of ascertaining the conduct of the respective captains in action. On those opinions Lord Howe made no comment; but it is presumed that he ultimately agreed with them, from his conduct in the celebrated action of the 1st of June 1794, when he had the enemy's fleet directly to leeward of him from the night before.

In the relief of Gibraltar, the Foudroyant had the honour to be the ship which was dispatched from the fleet to escort the victuallers into the harbour, which was accomplished amid the acclamations of the garrison. It had been expected that Lord Howe would have attacked the combined fleets, and the nation of course looked forward to a victory; but they were disappointed. The fact is, that Lord Howe, though a brave man, and what is generally regarded as a good officer, was of a different class of mind from the Jervises and Nelsons. He did his duty, but he did no more. The men who were yet to give a character to the navy did more than their duty, suffered no opportunity of distinction to escape them, relied on the invincibility of British prowess when it was boldly directed, and by that reliance rendered it invincible.

There was a kindness and generosity of nature in this future "thunderbolt of war," which shows how compatible the gentler feelings are with the gallant daring, and comprehensive talent of the great commander. Having happened to receive the Duc de Chabelais on board his ship when at Cadiz, the politeness of his reception caused the Sardinian prince to exhibit his gratitude in some handsome presents to the officers. One of Jervis's letters mentions, that the prince had given to each of the lieutenants a handsome gold box; to the lieutenant of marines and five of the midshipmen gold watches; and to the other officers and ship's company, a princely sum of money.

"I pride myself," he adds, "exceedingly in the presents being so diffused; on all former occasions they have centred in the captain." In another letter he says,--"I was twenty-four hours in the bay of Marseilles about a fortnight ago, just time to receive the warm embraces of a man to whose bravery and friendship I had some months before been indebted for my reputation, the preservation of the people under my command, and of the Alarm. You would have felt infinite pleasure at the scene of our interview." In a letter to the under-secretary of the Admiralty, he says,--"My dear Jackson, you must allow me to interest your humanity in favour of poor Spicer, who, overwhelmed with dropsy, asthma, and a large family, and with nothing but his pay to support him under those afflictions, is appointed to the ---- under a mean man, and very likely to go to the East Indies. The letter which he writes to the Board, desiring to be excused from his appointment, is dictated by me."

He then mentions a contingency, "in which case I shall write for Spicer to be first lieutenant of the Foudroyant, with intention to nurse him, and keep him clear of all expense." Shortly after the Foudroyant was paid off, Sir John Jervis was united to a lady to whom he had long been attached, the daughter of Sir Thomas Parker, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Every man in England, as he rises into distinction, necessarily becomes a politician. It was the misfortune of Sir John Jervis, and it was his only misfortune, that he was a politician before he had risen into distinction. Having had the ill luck to profess himself a Whig, at a period when he could scarcely have known the nature of the connexion, he unhappily adhered to it long after Whiggism had ceased to possess either public utility or national respect. But his Whiggism was unconscious Toryism after all: it was what even his biographer is forced to call it, Whig Royalism, or pretty nearly what Blake's Republicanism was--a determination to raise his country to the highest eminence to which his talents and bravery could contribute, without regarding by whom the government was administered. At the general election of 1784, he sat for Yarmouth.

In 1787, Sir John Jervis was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. At the general election in 1790, he was returned for Wycombe, and shared in parliament the successive defeats of his party; until, in 1793, he was called to a nobler field, in which, unembarrassed by party, and undegraded by Whiggism, his talents took their natural direction in the cause of his country. It is now scarcely necessary to remark upon the narrow system of enterprise with which England began the great revolutionary war; nor can it now be doubted that, if the energies of the country had been directed to meet the enemy in Europe, measureless misfortunes might have been averted. If the succession of fleets and armies which were wasted upon the conquest of the French West Indies, had been employed in the protection of the feebler European states, there can be no question that the progress of the French armies would have been signally retarded, if invasion had not been thrown back over the French frontier. For instance, it would have been utterly impossible for Napoleon, in 1796, to have marched triumphantly throughout Italy with the British fleet covering the coast, commanding all the harbours, and ready to throw in troops in aid of the insurrections in his rear.

But it was the policy of the time to pacify the merchants, whose bugbear was a negro insurrection in the West Indies; and whether the genius or the fears of Pitt gave way to the impression, the consequence was equally lamentable--the mighty power of England was wasted on the capture of sugar islands, which we did not want, which we could not cultivate, and which cost the lives, by disease and climate, of ten times the number of gallant men who might have saved Europe. At the close of 1793, a grand expedition against the French Caribbee islands was resolved upon by the British cabinet; and it is a remarkable instance of both the reputation of Sir John Jervis and the impartiality of the great minister, that a Whig member of parliament should have been chosen to command the naval part of the expedition.

The expedition consisted of twenty-two ships of war and six thousand troops, the troops divided into three brigades, of which one was commanded by the late Duke of Kent. Sir John Jervis hoisted his flag as vice-admiral of the blue on the 3d of October.

A ludicrous circumstance occurred in the instance of a favourite officer, Mr Bayntun, who had applied for permission to join Sir John. Bayntun received in answer the following decisive note: "Sir, your having thought fit to take to yourself a wife, you are to look for no further attention from your humble servant, J. JERVIS." It happened that Bayntun was a bachelor, and he instantly wrote an exculpatory letter, denying that he had been guilty of so formidable a charge. The mistake arose from a misdirection in two notes which the admiral had written on the same subject. He had left them to Lady Jervis to direct, and she had addressed them to the wrong persons. The consequence, however, was, that Bayntun received the appointment, and the married man the refusal. This inveteracy against married officers seems strange in one who had committed the same crime himself; yet he constantly persisted in calling officers who married moon-struck, and appears at all times to have regarded matrimony in the service as little short of personal ruin.

On the passage out, a curious circumstance occurred to the Zebra frigate, under command of the gallant Robert Faulknor. The Zebra, which had been separated from the rest of the squadron, saw one evening a ship on the horizon. All sail was made in chase, and the ship was discovered to be a twenty-eight gun frigate. All contrivances were adopted to induce her to show her colours, but without success. At length Faulknor, impatient of delay, and disregarding the disparity of force, closed upon her, and jumped on board at the head of his men. To his astonishment he found that she was a Dutch frigate, quietly pursuing her way; and as Holland was at peace with England, equally unexpecting and unprepared for an attack. This instance of apathy night have procured her a broadside; but luckily the affair finished with the shaking of hands.

On the 5th of February the expedition reached Martinique. On the 18th of March Fort Lewis was stormed, General Rochambeau capitulated, and Martinique was taken, St Lucie followed, the Saintes next fell, and the final conquest was Guadaloupe. Thus in three months the capture of the French islands was complete.

But an enemy more formidable than the sword was now to be encountered. The yellow fever began its ravages. The troops perished in such numbers, that the regiments were reduced to skeletons; and just at the moment when the disease was at its height, Victor Hughes was dispatched from France with an expedition. The islands fell one by one into his hands, and the campaign was utterly thrown away.

The romantic portion of the European campaigns now began. The French Directory, unpopular at home, wearied by the sanguinary successes of the Vendéan insurrection, and baffled in their invasion of Germany, were in a condition of the greatest perplexity, when a new wonder of war taught France again to conquer. Napoleon Bonaparte, since so memorable, but then known only as commanding a company of artillery at Toulon, and repelling the armed mob in Paris, was appointed to command the army on the Italian frontier. Even now, with all our knowledge of his genius, and the splendid experience of his successes, his sudden elevation, his daring offer of command, his plan of the Italian campaign, and his almost instantaneous victories, are legitimate matter of astonishment. In him we have the instance of a young man of twenty-six, who had never seen a campaign, who had never commanded a brigade, nor even a regiment, undertaking the command of an army, proposing the invasion of a country of eighteen millions, garrisoned by the army of one of the greatest military powers of Europe, which had nearly 300,000 soldiers in the field, and which was in the most intimate alliance with all the sovereigns of Italy. Yet, extravagant as all those conceptions seem, and improbable as those results certainly were, two campaigns saw every project realized--Italy conquered, the Tyrol, the great southern barrier of Austria, overpassed, and peace signed within a hundred miles of Vienna. The invasion of Italy first awoke the British ministry to the true direction of the vast naval powers of England. To save Italy if possible, was the primary object; the next was to prevent the superiority of the French fleet in the Mediterranean. A powerful fleet had been prepared in Toulon, for the purpose of aiding the French army in its invasion, and finally taking possession of all the ports and islands, until it should have realized the project of Louis XIV., of turning the Mediterranean into a French lake. It was determined to keep up a powerful British fleet to oppose this project, and Sir John Jervis was appointed to the command. Nothing could be a higher testimony to the opinion entertained of his talents, as his connexion with the Whigs was undisguised. But Pitt's feeling for the public service overcame all personal predilections, and this great officer was sent to take the command of the most extensive and important station to which a British admiral could be appointed. Lord Hood had previously declined it, on the singular plea of inadequacy of force; and Sir Charles Hotham having solicited his recall in consequence of declining health, the gallant Jervis was sent forth to establish the renown of his country and his own.

The fleet was a noble command. It consisted on the whole of about twenty-five sail of the line, two of them of a hundred guns, and five of ninety-eight; thirty-six frigates, and fifteen or sixteen sloops and other armed vessels.

Among the officers of the fleet were almost all the names which subsequently obtained distinction in the great naval victories-- Troubridge, Hallowell, Hood, Collingwood, &c., and first of the first, that star of the British seaman, Nelson. It is remarkable, and only a just tribute to the new admiral, that he, almost from his earliest intercourse with those gallant men, marked their merits, although hitherto they had found no opportunities of acquiring distinction--all were to come. Nelson, in writing to his wife, speaking of the admiral's notice of him, says, "Sir John Jervis was a perfect stranger to me, therefore I feel the more flattered." The admiral, in writing to the secretary of the Admiralty, says--"I am afraid of being thought a puffer, like many of my brethren, or I should before have dealt out to the Board the merits of Captain Troubridge, which are very uncommon."

The French fleet, of fifteen sail of the line, lay in Toulon, ready to convoy an army to plunge upon the Roman states. Sir John Jervis instantly proceeded to block up Toulon, keeping what is called the in-shore squadron looking into the harbour's mouth, while the main body cruised outside. The admiral at once employed Nelson on the brilliant service for which he was fitted, and sent him with a flying squadron of a ship of the line, three frigates, and two sloops, to scour the coast of Italy. The duties of the Mediterranean fleet, powerful as the armament was, were immense. Independently of the blockade of Toulon, and the necessity of continually watching the enemy's fleet, which might be brought out by the same wind which blew off the British, the admiral had the responsibility of protecting the Mediterranean convoys, of sustaining the British interests in the neutral courts, of assisting the allies on shore, of overawing the Barbary powers, which were then peculiarly restless and insolent, and of upholding the general supremacy of England, from Smyrna to Gibraltar.

The French campaign opened on the 9th of April 1797, and the Austrians were beaten on the following day at Montenotte, and in a campaign of a month Bonaparte reached Milan. The success of the enemy increased to an extraordinary degree the difficulties of the British admiral. The repairs of the fleet, the provisioning, and every other circumstance connected with the land, lay under increased impediments; but they were all gradually overcome by the vigilance and intelligence of the admiral.

A curious and characteristic circumstance occurred, soon after his taking the command. Nelson had captured a vessel carrying 152 Austrian grenadiers, who had been made prisoners by the French, and actually sold by their captors to the Spaniards, for the purpose of enlisting them in the Spanish army. His letter to Jackson, the secretary of legation at Turin, on this subject, spiritedly expresses his feelings:--

"SIR,--From a Swiss dealer in human flesh, the demand made upon me to deliver up 152 Austrian grenadiers, serving on board his Majesty's fleet under my command, is natural enough, but that a Spaniard, who is a noble creature, should join in such a demand, I must confess astonishes me; and I can only account for it by the Chevalier Caamano being ignorant that the persons in question were made prisoners of war in the last war with General Beaulieu, and are not deserters, and that they were most basely sold by the French commissaries to the vile crimps who recruit for the foreign regiments in the service of Spain. It is high time a stop should be put to this abominable traffic, a million times more disgraceful than the African slave-trade."

But other dangers now menaced the British supremacy in the Mediterranean. The victories of Bonaparte had terrified all the Italian states into neutrality or absolute submission; and the success of the Directory, and perhaps their bribes, influenced the miserably corrupt and feeble Spanish ministry, to make common cause with the conquering republic. Spain at last became openly hostile. This was a tremendous increase of hazards, because Spain had fifty-seven sail of the line, and a crowd of frigates. The difficulty of blockading Toulon was now increased by the failure of provisions. On the night of the 2d of November, the admiral sent for the master of the Victory, and told him that he now had not the least hope of being reinforced, and had made up his mind to push down to Gibraltar with all possible dispatch.

The passage became a stormy one, and it was with considerable difficulty that the fleet reached Gibraltar. Some of the transports were lost, a ship of the line went down, and several of the fleet were disabled.

The result of the French successes and the Austrian misfortunes, was an order for the fleet to leave the Mediterranean, and take up its station at the Tagus. The vivid spirit of Nelson was especially indignant at this change of scene. In one of his letters he says--"We are preparing to leave the Mediterranean, a measure which I cannot approve. They at home do not know what this fleet is capable of performing--any thing, and every thing. Of all the fleets I ever saw, I never saw one, in point of officers and men, equal to Sir John Jervis's, who is a commander able to lead them to glory." The admiral's merits were recognized by the government in a still more permanent manner; for, by a despatch from the Admiralty in February 1797, it was announced that the king had raised him to the dignity of the peerage.

The prospect now darkened round every quarter of the horizon. The power of Austria had given way; Spain and Holland were combined against our naval supremacy; Italy was lost; a French expedition threatened Ireland; there was a strong probability of the invasion of Portugal; and the junction of the French and Spanish fleets might endanger not merely the Tagus fleet, but expose the Channel fleet to an encounter with numbers so superior, as to leave the British shores open to invasion. The domestic difficulties, too, had their share. The necessity of suspending cash payments at the Bank had, if not thrown a damp upon the nation, at least given so formidable a ground for the fallacies and bitterness of the Opposition, as deeply to embarrass even the fortitude of the great minister. We can now see how slightly all these hazards eventually affected the real power of England; and we now feel how fully adequate the strength of this extraordinary and inexhaustible country was to resist all obstacles and turn the trial into triumph. But faction was busy, party predicted ruin, public men used every art to dispirit the nation and inflame the populace; and the result was, a state of public anxiety of which no former war had given the example.

It is incontestable that the list of the British navy at this period of the war exhibited some of the noblest specimens of English character--brave, intelligent, and indefatigable men, ready for any service, and equal for all; with all the intrepidity of heroes, possessing the highest science of their profession, and exhibiting at once that lion-heartedness, and that knowledge, which gave the British navy the command of the ocean. And yet, if we were to assign the highest place where all were high, we should probably assign it to Lord St Vincent as an admiral. Nelson certainly, as an executive officer, defies all competition; his three battles, Copenhagen, Aboukir, and Trafalgar, each of them a title to eminent distinction, place him as a conqueror at the head of all. But an admiral has other duties than those of the line of battle; and for a great naval administrator, first disciplining a fleet, then supplying it with all the means of victory, and finally leading it to victory--Lord St Vincent was perhaps the most complete example on record of all the combined qualities that make the British admiral. His profound tactics, his stern but salutary exactness of command, his incomparable judgment, and his cool and unhesitating intrepidity, form one of the very noblest models of high command. All those qualities were now to be called into full exertion.

The continental campaign had left Europe at the mercy of France. England was now the only enemy, and she was to be assailed, in the first instance, by a naval war. To prevent the junction of the Spanish and French fleets, the Tagus was the station fixed upon by Lord St Vincent. Ill luck seemed to frown upon the fleet. The Bombay Castle, a seventy-four, was lost going in; the St George, a ninety, grounded in coming out, and was obliged to be docked; still the admiral determined to keep the sea, though his fleet was reduced to eight sail of the line. The day before he left the Tagus, information was received that the enemy's fleets had both left the Mediterranean. The French had gone to Brest, the Spanish first to Toulon, then to Carthagena, and was now proceeding to join the French at Brest. A reinforcement of six sail of the line now fortunately joined the fleet off the Tagus; but at the same time information was received that the Spanish fleet of twenty-seven sail of the line, with fourteen frigates, had passed Cadiz, and could not be far distant. To prevent the junction of this immense force with the powerful fleet already prepared for a start in Brest, was of the utmost national importance; for, combined, they must sweep the Channel. The admiral instantly formed his plan, and sailed for Cape St Vincent.

The details of the magnificent encounter which followed, are among the best portions of the volumes. They are strikingly given, and will attract the notice, as they might form the model, of the future historian of this glorious period of our annals. We can now give only an outline.

On the announcement of the Spanish advance, the first object was to gain exact intelligence, and ships were stationed in all quarters on the look-out. But on the 13th Captain Foote, in the Niger frigate, joined, with the intelligence that he had kept sight of the enemy for three days. The admiral was now to have a new reinforcement, not in ships but in heroes; the Minerva frigate, bearing Nelson's broad pendant, from the Mediterranean, arrived, and Nelson shifted his pendant into the Captain. The Lively frigate, with Lord Garlies, also arrived from Corsica. The signal was made, "To keep close order, and prepare for battle." On that day, Lord Garlies, Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Captain Hallowell, with some other officers, dined on board the Victory. At breaking up, the toast was drunk, "Victory over the Dons, in the battle from which they cannot escape to-morrow!"

The "gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," can probably have but little conception of the price which men in high command pay for glory. No language can describe the anxieties which have often exercised the minds of those bold and prominent characters, of whom we now know little but of their laurels. The solemn responsibilities of their condition, the consciousness that a false step might be ruin, the feeling that the eye of their country was fixed upon them, the hope of renown, the dread of tarnishing all their past distinctions, must pass powerfully and painfully through the mind of men fitted for the struggles by which greatness is to be alone achieved.

"It is believed that Sir John Jervis did not go to bed that night, but sat up writing. It is certain that he executed his will." In the course of the first and second watches, the enemy's signal-guns were distinctly heard; and, as he noticed them sounding more and more audibly, Sir John made more earnest enquiries as to the compact order and situation of his own ships, as well as they could be made out in the darkness. Long before break of day, he walked the deck in more than even his usual silence. When the grey of the morning of the 14th enabled him to discern his fleet, his first remarks were high approbation of his captains, for "their admirably close order, and that he wished they were now well up with the enemy; for," added he thoughtfully, "a victory is very essential to England at this moment."

Now came on the day of decision. The morning was foggy; but as the mist cleared up, the Lively, and then the Niger, signaled "a strange fleet." The Bonne Citoyenne was next ordered to reconnoitre. Soon after, the Culloden's guns announced the enemy. At twenty minutes past ten the signal was made to six of the ships--"to chase." Sir John still walked the quarterdeck, and, as the enemy's numbers were counted, they were duly reported to him by the captain of the fleet.

"There are eight sail of the line, Sir John."

"Very well, sir."

"There are twenty sail of the line, Sir John."

"Very well, sir."

"There are twenty-five sail of the line, Sir John."

"Very well, sir."

"There are twenty-seven sail of the line, Sir John." This was accompanied by some remark on the great disparity of the two forces. Sir John's gallant answer now was:--

"Enough, sir--no more of that: the die is cast, and if there are fifty sail, I will go through them."

At forty minutes past ten the signal was made to form line of battle ahead and astern of the Victory, and to steer S.S.W. The fog was now cleared off, and the British fleet were seen admirably formed in the closest order; while the Spaniards were stretching in two straggling bodies across the horizon, leaving an open space between. The opportunity of dividing their fleet struck the admiral at once, and at half-past eleven the signal was made to pass through the enemy's line, and engage them to leeward. At twelve o'clock, as the Culloden was reaching close up to the enemy, the British fleet hoisted their colours, and the Culloden opened her fire. An extraordinary incident, even in those colossal battles, occurred to this fine ship. The course of the Culloden brought her directly on board one of the enemy's three-deckers. The first lieutenant, Griffiths, reported to her captain, Troubridge, that a collision was inevitable. "Can't help it, Griffiths--let the weakest fend off," was the hero's reply. The Culloden, still pushing on, fired two of her double-shotted broadsides into the Spaniard with such tremendous effect, that the three-decker went about, and the guns of her other side not being even cast loose, she did not fire a single shot, while the Culloden passed triumphantly through. Scarcely had she broken the enemy's line, than the commander-in-chief signaled the order to tack in succession. Troubridge's manoeuvre was so dashingly performed, that the admiral could not restrain his delight and admiration.

"Look, Jackson," he rapturously exclaimed, "look at Troubridge there! He tacks his ship to battle as if the eyes of all England were upon him; and would to God they were, for then they would see him to be what I know him."

The leeward division of the enemy, perceiving the fatal consequences of their disunited order of sailing, now endeavoured to retrieve the day, and to break through the British line. A vice-admiral, in a three-decker, led them, and was reaching up to the Victory just as she had come up to tack in her station. The vice-admiral stood on with great apparent determination till within pistol-shot, but there he stopped; and when the Victory could bring her guns to bear upon him, she thundered in two of her broadsides, sweeping the Spaniard's decks, and so terrified him, that when his sails filled, he ran clear out of the battle altogether. The Victory then tacked into her station, and the conflict raged with desperate fury. At this period of the battle, the Spanish commander-in-chief bore up with nine sail of the line to run round the British, and rejoin his leeward division. This was a formidable manoeuvre; but no sooner was it commenced, than his eye caught it "whose greatest wish it ever was to be the first to find, and foremost to fight, his enemy." Nelson, instead of waiting till his turn to tack should bring him into action, took it upon himself to depart from the prescribed mode of attack, and ordered his ship to be immediately wore. This masterly manoeuvre was completely successful, at once arresting the Spanish commander-in-chief, and carrying Nelson and Collingwood into the van and brunt of the battle. He now attacked the four-decker, the Santissima Trinidada, also engaged by the Culloden. The Captain's fore-topmast being now shot away, Nelson put his helm down, and let her come to the wind, that he might board the San Nicolas; Captain, afterwards Sir Edward Berry, then a passenger with Nelson, jumping into her mizen-chains, was the first in the enemy's ship; Nelson leading his boarders, and a party of the 69th regiment, immediately followed, and the colours were hauled down. While he was on the deck of the San Nicolas, the San Josef, disabled, fell on board. Nelson instantly seized the opportunity of boarding her from his prize; followed by Captain Berry, and Lieutenant Pierson of the 69th, he led the boarders, and jumped into the San Josef's main-chains. He was then informed that the ship had surrendered. Four line-of-battle ships had now been taken, and the Santissima Trinidada had also struck; but she subsequently made her escape, for now the Spanish leeward division, fourteen sail, having re-formed their line, bore down to support their commander-in-chief: to receive them, Sir John Jervis was obliged to form a line of battle on the starboard tack--the enemy immediately retired. Thus, at five in the evening, concluded the most brilliant battle that had ever till then been fought at sea.

Captain Calder was immediately sent off with the despatch, and arrived in London on the 3d of March. A battle gained over such a numerical superiority, for it was much more than two to one, when we take into our estimate the immense size of the enemy's ships, and their weight of metal, there being one four-decker of 130 guns, and six three-deckers of 112, of which two were taken; and further, the more interesting circumstance, that this great victory was gained on our part with only the loss of 73 killed and 227 wounded, the public feeling of exultation was unbounded; and when the minister on that very evening proposed that the vote of thanks should be taken on the following Monday, the House would hear of no delay, but insisted on recording its gratitude at the moment. The House of Peers gave a similar vote on the 8th; and the Commons and the Crown immediately proposed to settle upon the admiral a pension of three thousand a-year. A member of the House of Commons, on moving for an address to the Crown to confer some signal mark of favour on the admiral, was instantly replied to by the sonorous eloquence of the minister--"Can it be supposed," said he, "that the Crown can require to be prompted to pay the just tribute of approbation and honour to those who have eminently distinguished themselves by public services? On the part of his Majesty's ministers, I can safely affirm, that before the last splendid instance of the conduct of the gallant admiral, we have not been remiss in watching the uniform tenor of his professional career. We have witnessed the whole of his proceedings--such instances of perseverance, of diligence, and of exertion in the public service, as, though less brilliant and dazzling than the last exploit, are only less meritorious as they are put in competition with a single day, which has produced such incalculable benefit to the British empire."

The result was an earldom. The first lord of the Admiralty, Lord Spencer, having already written to Sir John the royal pleasure to promote him to a peerage, and the letter not having reached him previously to the battle, he thus had notice of the two steps in the peerage nearly at once.

Popular honours now flowed in upon him: London voted its freedom in a gold box, with swords to the admirals of the fleet and Nelson; vice-admirals Parker and Thompson were created baronets; Nelson received the red riband; the chief cities and towns of England and Ireland sent their freedoms and presents; and the king gave all the admirals and captains a gold medal.

We must now be brief in our observations on the services of this most distinguished person. We have next a narrative of the suppression of the memorable mutiny of 1798, whose purpose it was to have suffered the enemy's fleet to leave their harbours, to revolutionize the Mediterranean fleet, and, after putting the admirals and captains to death, proceed to every folly and frenzy that could be committed by men conscious of power, and equally conscious that forgiveness was impossible. The fleet under Lord St Vincent was on the point of corruption, when it was restored to discipline by the singular firmness of the admiral, who, by exhibiting his determination to punish all insubordination, extinguished this most alarming disaffection, and saved the naval name of the country.

On the resignation of Mr Pitt in 1801, and the appointment of Mr Addington as first lord of the treasury, a letter was written from the new minister to Lord St Vincent, offering him the appointment of first lord of the Admiralty. Having obtained an interview with the king, and explained the general tone of his political feelings, the king told him he very much wished to see him at the Admiralty, and to place the navy entirely in his hands. This was perhaps the only appointment of that singularly feeble administration which met with universal approval. There could be no question of the intelligence, high principle, or public services of the great admiral. Mr Addington came into power under circumstances which would have tried the talents of a man of first-rate ability. The war had exhausted the patience, though not the power, of the nation. All our allies had failed. The severity of the taxes was doubly felt, when the war had necessarily turned into a blockade on the Continent. We had thus all the exhaustion of hostilities without the excitement of triumph; and, to increase public anxieties, the failure of the harvest threatened a comparative famine. Wheat, which on an average of the preceding ten years had been 54s. a quarter, was now at 110s., then rose to 139s., and even reached as high as 180s. At one period the quartern loaf had risen to 1s. 10-1/2d. The popular cry now arose for peace. France, which with all her victories had been taught the precariousness of war, by the loss of Egypt and the capture of her army, was now also eager for peace. England had but two allies, Portugal and Turkey. At length the peace was made, and Lord St Vincent's attention was then drawn to an object which he had long in view, the reformation of the dockyards. This was indeed the Augean stable, and unexampled clamour arose from the multitude who had indolently fattened for years on the easy plunder of the public stores. However, the reform went on: perquisites were abolished, privileges taken away; and, rough as the operation was, nothing could be more salutary than its effect. The acuteness of the gallant old man at the head of the Admiralty could not be evaded, his vigour could not be defied, and his public spirit gave him an influence with the country, which enabled him to outlive faction and put down calumny. Yet this was evidently the most painful, and, to a certain extent, the most unsuccessful portion of his long career. Nominally a Whig, but practically a Tory--for his loyalty was unimpeachable and his honour without a stain--Lord St Vincent found himself in the condition of a man who presses reform on those with whom hitherto it has been only a watchword, and expects faction to act up to its professions.

The Addington treaty was soon discovered to be nothing more than a truce. Napoleon lived only in war; hostilities were essential to the government which he had formed for France; and his theory of government, false as it was, and his passion for excitement, whatever might be its price, made even the two years of peace so irksome to him, that he actually adopted a gross and foolish insult to the British ambassador as the means of compelling us to renew the conflict. The first result was, the return of Pitt to power; the next, the total ruin of the French navy at Trafalgar; the next, the bloody and ruinous war with Russia, expressly for the ruin of England through the ruin of her commerce; and finally the crash of Waterloo, which extinguished his diadem and his dominion together--a series of events, occurring within little more than ten years, of a more stupendous order than had hitherto affected the fate of any individual, or influenced the destinies of an European kingdom.

With the ministry of Mr Addington, Lord St Vincent retired from public life. He was now old, and the hardships of long service had partially exhausted his original vigour of frame. He retired to his seat, Rochetts in Essex, and there led the delightful life of a man who had gained opulence and distinction by pre-eminent services, and whose old age was surrounded by love, honour, and troops of friends. He appeared from time to time in the House of Lords, where, however, he spoke but seldom, but where he always spoke with dignity and effect.

In the month of March 1823, Lord St Vincent was seized with a general feeling of infirmity which portended his speedy dissolution. He had a violent and convulsive cough; yet his intellects were strongly turned upon public events, and he expressed an anxiety to know all that could be known of events in France, which was then disturbed; of the Spanish revolution, which then threatened to involve Europe; and even of the affairs of Greece. In the course of the evening of the 13th, while his physician and family were round him, his strength suddenly gave way, and at half past eight he died, at the age of eighty-eight, and was buried at Stone in Staffordshire. He was succeeded in the peerage by his nephew, who, however, inherits only the viscounty.

In our general notice of Lord St Vincent's career, we have adverted as little as possible to the opinions which his biographer had introduced from his own view of public affairs. We have no wish to make a peevish return to the writer of a work which has given us both information and pleasure. But it is necessary to caution Mr Tucker against giving trite and trifling opinions on subjects of which he evidently knows so little as of the Romish question, or the state of Ireland. Nothing is easier than to be at once solemn and superficial on such topics; and when a writer of this order flings his epithets of "bigoted, harsh, and impolitic," and the other stock phrases of party organs, he only enfeebles our respect for his authority in the immediate matters of his work, and rather lowers our respect for his faculties in all. The question of Popery in Ireland, is not a question of religion but of faction. Religious controversy on Romish doctrines has long ceased to exist. Romanism has no grounds on which a controversy can be sustained. It cannot appeal to the Scriptures, which it shuts up; and it will no longer be suffered to appeal to its mere childish pretence of infallibility. Its only ground in Ireland is party; and the present unhappy condition to which it has reduced Ireland, exhibits the natural consequences of indulgence to Popery, and the only means by which its spirit can be rendered consistent with the order of society.

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MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.