Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

On the 20th of May, Napoleon, for the first time in his life, relinquished an enterprise unaccomplished. An incessant fire was kept up in the trenches till the last moment, while the baggage, the sick, and the field artillery were silently defiling to the rear, so that the Turks had no suspicion that the besiegers were about to abandon their works. Napoleon left three thousand of his troops, slain or dead of the plague, buried in the sands of Acre. He had accomplished the ostensible and avowed object of his expedition. He had utterly destroyed the vast assemblages formed in Syria for the invasion of Egypt, and had rendered the enemy, in that quarter, incapable of acting against him. Acre had been overwhelmed by his fire, and was now reduced to a heap of ruins. Those vague and brilliant dreams of conquest in the East, which he secretly cherished, had not been revealed to the soldiers. They simply knew that they had triumphantly accomplished the object announced to them, in the destruction of the great Turkish army. Elated with the pride of conquerors, they prepared to return, with the utmost celerity, to encounter another army, assembled at Rhodes, which was soon to be landed, by the hostile fleet, upon some part of the shores of Egypt. Thus, while Napoleon was frustrated in the accomplishment of his undivulged but most majestic plans, he still appeared to the world an invincible conqueror.

There were, in the hospitals, twelve hundred sick and wounded. These were to be conveyed on horses and on litters. Napoleon relinquished his own horse for the wounded, and toiled along through the burning sands with the humblest soldiers on foot. The Druses and other tribes, hostile to the Porte, were in a state of great dismay when they learned that the French were retiring. They knew that they must encounter terrible vengeance at the hands of Achmet the Butcher. The victory of the allies riveted upon them anew their chains, and a wail, which would have caused the ear of Christendom to tingle, ascended from terrified villages, as fathers and mothers and children cowered beneath the storm of vengeance which fell upon them, from the hands of the merciless Turk. But England was too far away for the shrieks to be heard in her pious dwellings.

At Jaffa, among the multitude of the sick, there were seven found near to death. They were dying of the plague, and could not be removed. Napoleon himself fearlessly went into the plague hospital, passed through all its wards, and spoke words of sympathy and encouragement to the sufferers. The eyes of the dying were turned to him, and followed his steps, with indescribable affection, as he passed from cot to cot. The seven who were in such a condition that their removal was impossible, Napoleon for some time contemplated with most tender solicitude. He could not endure the thought of leaving them to be taken by the Turks; for the Turks tortured to death every prisoner who fell into their hands. He at last suggested to the physician the expediency of administering to them an opium pill, which would expedite, by a few hours, their death, and thus save them from the hands of their cruel foe. The physician gave the highly admired reply, “My profession is to cure, not to kill.” Napoleon reflected a moment in silence, and said no more upon the subject, but left a rear-guard of five hundred men to protect them, until the last should have expired. For this suggestion Napoleon has been most severely censured. However much it may indicate mistaken views of Christian duty, it certainly does not indicate a cruel disposition. It was his tenderness of heart, and his love for his soldiers, which led to the proposal. An unfeeling monster would not have troubled himself about these few valueless and dying men; but, without a thought, would have left them to their fate. In reference to the severity with which this transaction has been condemned, Napoleon remarked at St. Helena, “I do not think that it would have been a crime had opium been administered to them. On the contrary, I think it would have been a virtue. To leave a few unfortunate men, who could not recover, in order that they might be massacred by the Turks with the most dreadful tortures, as was their custom, would, I think, have been cruelty. A general ought to act with his soldiers, as he would wish should be done to himself. Now would not any man, under similar circumstances, who had his senses, have preferred dying easily, a few hours sooner, rather than expire under the tortures of those barbarians? If my own son, and I believe I love my son as well as any father does his child, were in a similar situation with these men, I would advise it to be done. And if so situated myself, I would insist upon it, if I had sense enough and strength enough to demand it. However, affairs were not so pressing as to prevent me from leaving a party to take care of them, which was done. If I had thought such a measure as that of giving opium necessary, I would have called a council of war, have stated the necessity of it, and have published it in the order of the day. It should have been no secret. Do you think, if I had been capable of secretly poisoning my soldiers, as doing a necessary action secretly would give it the appearance of a crime, or of such barbarities as driving my carriage over the dead, and the still bleeding bodies of the wounded, that my troops would have fought for me with an enthusiasm and affection without a parallel? No, no! I never should have done so a second time. Some would have shot me in passing. Even some of the wounded, who had sufficient strength left to pull a trigger, would have dispatched me. I never committed a crime in all my political career. At my last hour I can assert that. Had I done so, I should not have been here now. I should have dispatched the Bourbons. It only rested with me to give my consent, and they would have ceased to live. I have, however, often thought since on this point of morals, and, I believe, if thoroughly considered, it is always better to suffer a man to terminate his destiny, be it what it may. I judged so afterward in the case of my friend Duroc, who, when his bowels were falling out before my eyes, repeatedly cried to me to have him put out of his misery. I said to him ‘I pity you, my friend, but there is no remedy, it is necessary to suffer to the last.’ ”

Sir Robert Wilson recorded, that the merciless and blood-thirsty monster Napoleon, poisoned at Jaffa five hundred and eighty of his sick and wounded soldiers, merely to relieve himself of the encumbrance of taking care of them. The statement was circulated, and believed throughout Europe and America. And thousands still judge of Napoleon through the influence of such assertions. Sir Robert was afterward convinced of his error, and became the friend of Napoleon. When some one was speaking, in terms of indignation, of the author of the atrocious libel, Napoleon replied, “You know but little of men and of the passions by which they are actuated. What leads you to imagine that Sir Robert is not a man of enthusiasm and of violent passions, who wrote what he then believed to be true? He may have been misinformed and deceived, and may now be sorry for it. He may be as sincere now in wishing us well as he formerly was in seeking to injure us.” Again he said, “The fact is that I not only never committed any crime, but I never even thought of doing so. I have always marched with the opinions of five or six millions of men. In spite of all the libels, I have no fear whatever respecting my fame. Posterity will do me justice. The truth will be known, and the good which I have done will be compared with the faults which I have committed. I am not uneasy as to the result.”

Baron Larrey was the chief of the medical staff. “Larrey,” said Napoleon to O’Meara, “was the most honest man, and the best friend to the soldier whom I ever knew. Indefatigable in his exertions for the wounded, he was seen on the field of battle, immediately after an action, accompanied by a train of young surgeons, endeavoring to discover if any signs of life remained in the bodies. He scarcely allowed a moment of repose to his assistants, and kept them ever at their posts. He tormented the generals, and disturbed them out of their beds at night, whenever he wanted accommodations or assistance for the sick or wounded. They were all afraid of him, as they knew that if his wishes were not complied with, he would immediately come and make a complaint to me.” Larrey, on his return to Europe, published a medical work, which he dedicated to Napoleon as a tribute due to him for the care which he always took of the sick and wounded soldiers. Assulini, another eminent physician, records, “Napoleon, great in every emergence, braved on several occasions the danger of contagion. I have seen him in the hospitals at Jaffa, inspecting the wards, and talking familiarly with the soldiers attacked by the plague. This heroic example allayed the fears of the army, cheered the spirits of the sick, and encouraged the hospital attendants, whom the progress of the disease and the fear of contagion had considerably alarmed.”

The march over the burning desert was long and painful, and many of the sick and wounded perished. The sufferings of the army were inconceivable. Twelve hundred persons, faint with disease, or agonized with broken bones or ghastly wounds, were borne along, over the rough and weary way, on horseback. Many were so exhausted with debility and pain that they were tied to the saddles, and were thus hurried onward, with limbs freshly amputated and with bones shivered to splinters. The path of the army was marked by the bodies of the dead, which were dropped by the way-side. There were not horses enough for the sick and the wounded, though Napoleon and all his generals marched on foot. The artillery pieces were left among the sand hills, that the horses might be used for the relief of the sufferers. Many of the wounded were necessarily abandoned to perish by the way-side. Many who could not obtain a horse, knowing the horrible death by torture which awaited them, should they fall into the hands of the Turks, hobbled along with bleeding wounds in intolerable agony. With most affecting earnestness, though unavailingly, they implored their comrades to help them. Misery destroys humanity. Each one thought only of himself. Seldom have the demoralizing influences and the horrors of war been more signally displayed than in this march of twenty-five days. Napoleon was deeply moved by the spectacle of misery around him. One day as he was toiling along through the sands, at the head of a column, with the blazing sun of Syria pouring down upon his unprotected head, with the sick, the wounded, and the dying, all around him, he saw an officer, in perfect health, riding on horseback, refusing to surrender his saddle to the sick. The indignation of Napoleon was so aroused, that by one blow from the hilt of his sword he laid the officer prostrate upon the earth, and then helped a wounded soldier into his saddle. The deed was greeted with a shout of acclamation from the ranks. The “recording angel in heaven’s chancery” will blot out the record of such violence with a tear.

The historian has no right to draw the vail over the revolting horrors of war. Though he may wish to preserve his pages from the repulsive recital, justice to humanity demands that the barbarism, the crime, and the cruelty of war should be faithfully portrayed. The soldiers refused to render the slightest assistance to the sick or the wounded. They feared that every one who was not well was attacked by the plague. These poor dying sufferers were not only objects of horror, but also of derision. The soldiers burst into immoderate fits of laughter in looking upon the convulsive efforts which the dying made to rise from the sands upon which they had fallen. “He has made up his account,” said one. “He will not get on far,” said another. And when the exhausted wretch fell to rise no more, they exclaimed, with perfect indifference, “His lodging is secured.” The troops were harassed upon their march by hordes of mounted Arabs, ever prowling around them. To protect themselves from assault, and to avenge attacks, they fired villages, and burned the fields of grain, and with bestial fury pursued shrieking maids and matrons. Such deeds almost invariably attend the progress of an army, for an army is ever the resort and the congenial home of the moral dregs of creation. Napoleon must at times have been horror-stricken in contemplating the infernal instrumentality which he was using for the accomplishment of his purposes. The only excuse which can be offered for him is, that it was then as now, the prevalent conviction of the world that war, with all its inevitable abominations, is a necessary evil. The soldiers were glad to be fired upon from a house, for it furnished them with an excuse for rushing in, and perpetrating deeds of atrocious violence in its secret chambers.

Those infected by the plague accompanied the army at some distance from the main body. Their encampment was always separated from the bivouacs of the troops, and was with terror avoided by those soldiers who, without the tremor of a nerve, could storm a battery. Napoleon, however, always pitched his tent by their side. Every night he visited them to see if their wants were attended to. And every morning he was present, with parental kindness, to see them file off at the moment of departure. Such tenderness, at the hands of one who was filling the world with his renown, won the hearts of the soldiers. He merited their love. Even to the present day the scarred and mutilated victims of these wars, still lingering in the Hotel des Invalides at Paris, will flame with enthusiastic admiration at the very mention of the name of Napoleon. There is no man, living or dead, who at the present moment is the object of such enthusiastic love as Napoleon Bonaparte. And they who knew him the best love him the most.

One day, on their return, an Arab tribe came to meet him, to show their respect and to offer their services as guides. The son of the chief of the tribe, a little boy about twelve years of age, was mounted on a dromedary, riding by the side of Napoleon, and chatting with great familiarity. “Sultan Kebir,” said the young Arab to Napoleon, “I could give you good advice, now that you are returning to Cairo.” “Well! speak, my friend,” said Napoleon; “if your advice is good I will follow it.” “I will tell you what I would do, were I in your place,” the young chief rejoined. “As soon as I got to Cairo, I would send for the richest slave-merchant in the market, and I would choose twenty of the prettiest women for myself. I would then send for the richest jewelers, and would make them give me up a good share of their stock. I would then do the same with all the other merchants. For what is the use of reigning, or being powerful, if not to acquire riches?” “But, my friend,” replied Napoleon, “suppose it were more noble to preserve these things for others?” The young barbarian was quite perplexed in endeavoring to comprehend ambition so lofty, intellectual, and refined. “He was, however,” said Napoleon, “very promising for an Arab. He was lively and courageous, and led his troops with dignity and order. He is perhaps destined one day or other, to carry his advice into execution in the market-place of Cairo.”

At length Napoleon arrived at Cairo, after an absence of three months. With great pomp and triumph he entered the city. He found, on his return to Egypt, that deep discontent pervaded the army. The soldiers had now been absent from France for a year. For six months they had heard no news whatever from home, as not a single French vessel had been able to cross the Mediterranean. Napoleon, finding his plans frustrated for establishing an empire which should overshadow all the East, began to turn his thoughts again to France. He knew, however, that there was another Turkish army collected at Rhodes, prepared, in co-operation with the fleets of Russia and England, to make a descent on Egypt. He could not think of leaving the army until that formidable foe was disposed of. He knew not when or where the landing would be attempted, and could only wait.

One evening, in July, he was walking with a friend in the environs of Cairo, beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, when an Arab horseman was seen, enveloped in a cloud of dust, rapidly approaching him over the desert. He brought dispatches from Alexandria, informing Napoleon that a powerful fleet had appeared in the Bay of Aboukir, that eighteen thousand Turks had landed, fierce and fearless soldiers, each armed with musket, pistol, and sabre; that their artillery was numerous, and well served by British officers; that the combined English, Russian, and Turkish fleets supported the armament in the bay; that Mourad Bey, with a numerous body of Mameluke cavalry, was crossing the desert from Upper Egypt to join the invaders; that the village of Aboukir had been taken by the Turks, the garrison cut to pieces, and the citadel compelled to capitulate. Thus the storm burst upon Egypt.

Napoleon immediately retired to his tent, where he remained till 3 o’clock the next morning, dictating orders for the instant advance of the troops; and for the conduct of those who were to remain in Cairo, and at the other military stations. At 4 o’clock in the morning he was on horseback, and the army in full march. The French troops were necessarily so scattered—some in Upper Egypt, eight hundred miles above Cairo, some upon the borders of the desert to prevent incursions from Syria, some at Alexandria—that Napoleon could take with him but eight thousand men. By night and by day, through smothering dust and burning sands, and beneath the rays of an almost blistering sun, his troops, hungry and thirsty, with iron sinews, almost rushed along, accomplishing one of those extraordinary marches which filled the world with wonder. In seven days he reached the Bay of Aboukir.

It was the hour of midnight, on the 25th of July, 1799, when Napoleon, with six thousand men, arrived within sight of the strongly intrenched camp of the Turks. They had thrown up intrenchments among the sand-hills on the shore of the bay. He ascended an eminence and carefully examined the position of his sleeping foes. By the bright moonlight he saw the vast fleet of the allies riding at anchor in the offing, and his practiced eye could count the mighty host, of infantry and artillery and horsemen, slumbering before him. He knew that the Turks were awaiting the arrival of the formidable Mameluke cavalry from Egypt, and for still greater reinforcements, of men and munitions of war, from Acre, and other parts of Syria. Kleber, with a division of two thousand of the army, had not yet arrived. Napoleon resolved immediately to attack his foes, though they were eighteen thousand strong. It was indeed an unequal conflict. These janizaries were the most fierce, merciless, and indomitable of men; and their energies were directed by English officers and by French engineers. Just one year before, Napoleon with his army had landed upon that beach. Where the allied fleet now rode so proudly, the French fleet had been utterly destroyed. The bosom of Napoleon burned with the desire to avenge this disaster. As Napoleon stood silently contemplating the scene, Murat by his side, he foresaw the long results depending upon the issue of the conflict. Utter defeat would be to him utter ruin. A partial victory would but prolong the conflict, and render it impossible for him, without dishonor, to abandon Egypt and return to France. The entire destruction of his foes would enable him, with the renown of an invincible conqueror, to leave the army in safety and embark for Paris, where he doubted not that, in the tumult of the unsettled times, avenues of glory would be opened before him. So strongly was he impressed with the great destinies for which he believed himself to be created, that, turning to Murat, he said, “This battle will decide the fate of the world.” The distinguished cavalry commander, unable to appreciate the grandeur of Napoleon’s thoughts, replied, “At least of this army. But every French soldier feels now that he must conquer or die. And be assured, if ever infantry were charged to the teeth by cavalry, the Turks shall be to-morrow so charged by mine.”

The first gray of the morning was just appearing in the East, when the Turkish army was aroused by the tramp of the French columns, and by a shower of bomb-shells falling in the midst of their intrenchments. One of the most terrible battles recorded in history then ensued. The awful genius of Napoleon never shone forth more fearfully than on that bloody day. He stood upon a gentle eminence, calm, silent, unperturbed, pitiless, and guided, with resistless skill, the carnage. The onslaught of the French was like that of wolves. The Turks were driven like deer before them. Every man remembered that in that bay the proud fleet of France had perished. Every man felt that the kings of Europe had banded for the destruction of the French Republic. Every man exulted in the thought that there were but six thousand French Republicans to hurl themselves upon England, Russia, and Turkey combined, nearly twenty thousand strong. The Turks, perplexed and confounded by the skill and fury of the assault, were driven in upon each other in horrible confusion. The French, trained to load and fire with a rapidity which seemed miraculous, poured in upon them a perfect hurricane of bullets, balls, and shells. They were torn to pieces, mown down, bayoneted, and trampled under iron hoofs. In utter consternation, thousands of them plunged into the sea, horsemen and footmen, and struggled in the waves, in the insane attempt to swim to the ships, three miles distant from the shore. With terrible calmness of energy Napoleon opened upon the drowning host the tornado of his batteries, and the water was swept with grape-shot as by a hail-storm. The Turks were on the point of a peninsula. Escape by land was impossible. They would not ask for quarter. The silent and proud spirit of Napoleon was inflamed with the resolve to achieve a victory which should reclaim the name of Aboukir to the arms of France. Murat redeemed his pledge. Plunging with his cavalry into the densest throng of the enemy, he spurred his fiery steed, reckless of peril, to the very centre of the Turkish camp, where stood Mustapha Pacha, surrounded by his staff. The proud Turk had barely time to discharge a pistol at his audacious foe, which slightly wounded Murat, ere the dripping sabre of the French general severed half of his hand from the wrist. Thus wounded, the leader of the Turkish army was immediately captured, and sent in triumph to Napoleon. As Napoleon received his illustrious prisoner, magnanimously desiring to soothe the bitterness of his utter discomfiture, he courteously said, “I will take care to inform the Sultan of the courage you have displayed in this battle, though it has been your misfortune to lose it.” “Thou mayst save thyself that trouble,” the proud Turk haughtily replied. “My master knows me better than thou canst.”

Before 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the whole Turkish army was destroyed. Hardly an individual escaped. About two thousand prisoners were taken in the fort. All the rest perished, either drowned in the sea, or slain upon the land. Sir Sydney Smith, who had chosen the position occupied by the Turkish army, with the utmost difficulty avoided capture. In the midst of the terrible scene of tumult and death, the Commodore succeeded in getting on board a boat, and was rowed to his ships. More than twelve thousand corpses of the turbaned Turks were floating in the bay of Aboukir, beneath whose crimsoned waves, but a few months before, almost an equal number of the French had sunk in death. Such utter destruction of an army is perhaps unexampled in the annals of war. If God frowned upon France in the naval battle of Aboukir, He as signally frowned upon her foes in this terrific conflict on the land.

The cloudless sun descended peacefully, in the evening, beneath the blue waves of the Mediterranean. Napoleon stood at the door of his tent, calmly contemplating the scene, from whence all his foes had thus suddenly and utterly vanished. Just then Kleber arrived, with his division of two thousand men, for whom Napoleon had not waited. The distinguished soldier, who had long been an ardent admirer of Napoleon, was overwhelmed with amazement in contemplating the magnitude of the victory. In his enthusiasm he threw his arms around the neck of his adored chieftain, exclaiming, “Let me embrace you, my General, you are great as the universe.”

Egypt was now quiet. Not a foe remained to be encountered. No immediate attack, from any quarter, was to be feared. Nothing remained to be done but to carry on the routine of the administration of the infant colony. These duties required no especial genius, and could be very creditably performed by any respectable governor.

It was, however, but a barren victory which Napoleon had obtained, at such an enormous expenditure of suffering and of life. It was in vain for the isolated army, cut off, by the destruction of its fleet, from all intercourse with Europe, to think of the invasion of India. The French troops had exactly “caught the Tartar.” Egypt was of no possible avail as a colony, with the Mediterranean crowded with hostile English, and Russian, and Turkish cruisers. For the same reason, it was impossible for the army to leave those shores and return to France. Thus the victorious French, in the midst of all their triumphs, found that they had built up for themselves prison walls from which, though they could repel their enemies, there was no escape. The sovereignty of Egypt alone was too petty an affair to satisfy the boundless ambition of Napoleon. Destiny, he thought, deciding against an Empire in the East, was only guiding him back to an Empire in the West.

For ten months Napoleon had now received no certain intelligence respecting Europe. Sir Sydney Smith, either in the exercise of the spirit of gentlemanly courtesy, or enjoying a malicious pleasure in communicating to his victor tidings of disaster upon disaster falling upon France, sent to him a file of newspapers full of the most humiliating intelligence. The hostile fleet, leaving its whole army of eighteen thousand men, buried in the sands, or beneath the waves, weighed anchor and disappeared.

Napoleon spent the whole night, with intense interest, examining those papers. He learned that France was in a state of indescribable confusion; that the imbecile government of the Directory, resorting to the most absurd measures, was despised and disregarded; that plots and counter-plots, conspiracies and assassinations filled the land. He learned, to his astonishment, that France was again involved in war with monarchical Europe; that the Austrians had invaded Italy anew, and driven the French over the Alps; and that the banded armies of the European kings were crowding upon the frontiers of the distracted republic. “Ah!” he exclaimed to Bourrienne, “my forebodings have not deceived me. The fools have lost Italy. All the fruit of our victories has disappeared. I must leave Egypt. We must return to France immediately, and, if possible, repair these disasters, and save France from destruction.”

It was a signal peculiarity in the mind of Napoleon that his decisions appeared to be instinctive rather than deliberative. With the rapidity of the lightning’s flash his mind contemplated all the considerations upon each side of a question, and instantaneously came to the result. These judgments, apparently so hasty, combined all the wisdom which others obtain by the slow and painful process of weeks of deliberation and uncertainty. Thus in the midst of the innumerable combinations of the field of battle, he never suffered from a moment of perplexity; he never hesitated between this plan and that plan, but instantaneously, and without the slightest misgivings, decided upon that very course, to which the most slow and mature deliberation would have guided him. This instinctive promptness of correct decision was one great secret of his mighty power. It pertained alike to every subject with which the human mind could be conversant. The promptness of his decision was only equaled by the energy of his execution. He therefore accomplished in hours that which would have engrossed the energies of other minds for days.

Thus, in the present case, he decided, upon the moment, to return to France. The details of his return, as to the disposition to be made of the army, the manner in which he would attempt to evade the British cruisers, and the individuals he would take with him, were all immediately settled in his mind. He called Bourrienne, Berthier, and Gantheaume before him, and informed them of his decision, enjoining upon them the most perfect secrecy, lest intelligence of his preparations should be communicated to the allied fleet. He ordered Gantheaume immediately to get ready for sea two frigates from the harbor of Alexandria, and two small vessels, with provisions for four hundred men for two months. Napoleon then returned with the army to Cairo. He arrived there on the 10th of August, and again, as a resistless conqueror, entered the city. He prevented any suspicion of his projected departure, from arising among the soldiers, by planning an expedition to explore Upper Egypt.

One morning he announced his intention of going down the Nile, to spend a few days in examining the Delta. He took with him a small retinue, and striking across the desert, proceeded with the utmost celerity to Alexandria, where they arrived on the 22d of August. Concealed by the shades of the evening of the same day, he left the town, with eight selected companions, and escorted by a few of his faithful guards. Silently and rapidly they rode to a solitary part of the bay, the party wondering what this movement could mean. Here they discovered, dimly in the distance, two frigates riding at anchor, and some fishing-boats near the shore, apparently waiting to receive them. Then Napoleon announced to his companions that their destination was France. The joy of the company was inconceivable. The horses were left upon the beach, to find their way back to Alexandria. The victorious fugitives crowded into the boats, and were rowed out, in the dim and silent night, to the frigates. The sails were immediately spread, and before the light of morning dawned, the low and sandy outline of the Egyptian shore had disappeared beneath the horizon of the sea.

GREAT OBJECTS ATTAINED BY LITTLE THINGS.

There is nothing, however small, in nature that has not its appropriate use—nothing, however insignificant it may appear to us, that has not some important mission to fulfill. The living dust that swarms in clusters about our cheese—the mildew casting its emerald tint over our preserves—the lichen and the moss wearing away the words of grief and honor engraved upon the tombs of our forefathers, have each their appropriate work, and are all important in the great economy of nature. The little moss which so effectually aroused the emotions of Mungo Park when far away from his friends and kin, and when his spirits were almost failing, may teach a moral lesson to us all, and serve to inspire us with some of that perseverance and energy to travel through life, that it did Mungo Park in his journey through the African desert. By the steady and long-continued efforts of this fragile little plant, high mountains have been leveled, which no human power could have brought from their towering heights. Adamantine rocks have been reduced to pebbles; cliffs have mouldered in heaps upon the shore; and castles and strongholds raised by the hand of man have proved weak and powerless under the ravages of this tiny agent, and become scenes of ruin and desolation—the habitations of the owl and the bat. Yet who, to look upon the lichen, would think it could do all this?—so modest that we might almost take it for a part of the ground upon which we tread. Can this, we exclaim, be a leveler of mountains and mausoleums! Contemplate its unobtrusive, humble course; endowed by nature with an organization capable of vegetating in the most unpropitious circumstances—requiring indeed little more than the mere moisture of the atmosphere to sustain it, the lichen sends forth its small filamentous roots and clings to the hard, dry rock with a most determined pertinacity. These little fibres, which can scarcely be discerned with the naked eye, find their way into the minute crevices of the stone; now, firmly attached, the rain-drops lodge upon their fronds or membranaceous scales on the surface, and filtering to their roots, moisten the space which they occupy, and the little plant is then enabled to work itself further into the rock; the dimensions of the aperture become enlarged, and the water runs in in greater quantities. This work, carried on by a legion ten thousand strong, soon pierces the stony cliff with innumerable fissures, which being filled with rain, the frost causes it to split, and large pieces roll down to the levels beneath, reduced to sand, or to become soil for the growth of a more exalted vegetation.—This, of course, is a work of time—of generations, perhaps, measured by the span of human life; but, undaunted, the mission of the humble lichen goes on and prospers. Is not this a lesson worth learning from the book of nature? Does it not contain much that we might profit by, and set us an example that we should do well to imitate? “Persevere, and despise not little things,” is the lesson we draw from it ourselves, and the poorest and humblest reader of this page will be able to accomplish great things, if he will take the precept to himself, engrave it upon his heart, or hold it constantly before him; depend upon it, you will gain more inspiration from these words than from half the wise sayings of the philosophers of old.

But nature is full of examples to stimulate us to perseverance, and beautiful illustrations of how much can be achieved by little things—trifles unheeded by the multitude. The worms that we tread in the dust beneath our feet, are the choicest friends of the husbandman. A tract of land rendered barren by the incrustation of stones upon its surface, becomes by their labors a rich and fertile plain; they loosen and throw up in nutritious mealy hillocks the hardest and most unprofitable soil—the stones disappear, and where all was sterility and worthlessness, is soon rich with a luxurious vegetation. We may call to mind, too, the worm upon the mulberry-tree, and its miles of fine-spun glistening silk; we may watch the process of its transformation till the choice fabric which its patient industry had produced is dyed by an infusion gained from another little insect (the Cochineal), and then, endowed with the glory of tint and softness of texture, it is cut into robes to deck the beauty of our English wives and daughters. Yet, those ignorant of their usefulness would despise these little laborers, as they do others equally valuable. The bee and the ant, again, are instances which we may all observe—but how few will spare five minutes to contemplate them. Yet, where is the man, sluggard though he be, who would not shake off his slothfulness on observing the patient industry and frugal economy of the little ant? or where is the drunkard and spendthrift who could watch the bee, so busy in garnering up a rich store for the coming winter—laboring while the sun shone, to sustain them when the frost and rain, and the flowerless plants shut out all means of gaining their daily bread; and not put his shoulder to the wheel, and think of old age, and the clouds that are gathering in the heavens? The worth of all the delicious sweets we have derived from the industry of the little bee, is nothing, when compared with the value of this moral which they teach us.

If we turn from the book of Nature and open the annals of discovery and science, many instances of the importance of little things will start up and crowd around us—of events which appear in the lowest degree insignificant, being the cause of vast and stupendous discoveries. “The smallest thing becomes respectable,” says Foster, “when regarded as the commencement of what has advanced or is advancing into magnificence. The first rude settlement of Romulus would have been an insignificant circumstance, and might justly have sunk into oblivion, if Rome had not at length commanded the world. The little rill near the source of one of the great American rivers is an interesting object to the traveler, who is apprised as he steps across it, or walks a few miles along its bank, that this is the stream which runs so far, and gradually swells into so immense a flood.” By the accidental mixing of a little nitre and potash, gunpowder was discovered. In ancient times, before the days of Pliny, some merchants traveling across a sandy desert, could find no rock at hand on which to kindle a fire to prepare their food; as a substitute, they took a block of alkali from among their heaps of merchandise, and lit a fire thereon. The merchants stared with surprise when they saw the huge block melting beneath the heat, and running down in a glistening stream as it mingled with the sand, and still more so, when they discovered into what a hard and shining substance it had been transformed. From this, says Pliny, originated the making of glass. The sunbeams dazzling on a crystal prism unfolded the whole theory of colors. A few rude types carved from a wooden block have been the means of revolutionizing nations, overthrowing dynasties, and rooting out the most hardened despotisms—of driving away a multitude of imps of superstition, which for ages had been the terror of the learned, and of spreading the light of truth and knowledge from the frontiers of civilization to the coasts of darkness and barbarism. “We must destroy the Press,” exclaimed the furious Wolsey, “or the Press will destroy us.” The battle was fought, the Press was triumphant, and Popery banished from the shores of Britain. The swinging of a lamp suspended from a ceiling led Galileo to search into the laws of oscillation of the pendulum; and by the fall of an apple the great Newton was led to unfold what had hitherto been deemed one of the secrets of the Deity—a mystery over which God had thrown a vail, which it would be presumption for man to lift or dare to pry beneath. Had Newton disregarded little things, and failed to profit by gentle hints, we should perhaps have thought so still, and our minds would not have been so filled with the glory of Him who made the heavens; but with these great truths revealed to our understandings, we exclaim from our hearts, “Manifold, O God! are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all.”

When the heart of the woolspinner of Genoa was sickening with “hope deferred,” and his men, who had long been straining their eyes in vain to catch a glimpse of land, were about to burst into open mutiny, and were shouting fearfully to their leader to steer the vessel back again, Columbus picked up a piece of wood which he found floating upon the waters. The shore must be nigh, he thought, from whence this branch has wafted, and the inference inspired the fainting hearts of his crew to persevere and gain the hoped-for land; had it not been for this trifling occurrence, Columbus would perhaps have returned to Spain an unsuccessful adventurer. But such trifles have often befriended genius. Accidentally observing a red-hot iron become elongated by passing between iron cylinders, suggested the improvements effected by Arkwright in the spinning machinery. A piece of thread and a few small beads were means sufficient in the hands of Ferguson, to ascertain the situation of the stars in the heavens. The discovery of Galvani was made by a trifling occurrence; a knife happened to be brought in contact with a dead frog which was lying upon the board of the chemist’s laboratory, the muscles of the reptile were observed to be severely convulsed—experiments soon unfolded the whole theory of Galvanism. The history of the gas-light is curious, and illustrates our subject. Dr. Clayton distilled some coal in a retort, and confining the vapor in a bladder, amused his friends by burning it as it issued from a pin-hole; little did the worthy doctor think to what purposes the principle of that experiment was capable of being applied. It was left for Murdoch to suggest its adoption as a means of illuminating our streets and adding to the splendor of our shops. Had Clayton not made known his humble experiment, we probably should still be depending on the mercy of a jovial watchman for a light to guide us through the dark thoroughfares of the city, or to the dim glimmer of an oil lamp to display the luxury of our merchandise.

These facts, which we have gleaned from the fields of nature and from the annals of science, may be useful to us all. If God has instilled the instinct of frugality into the ant, and told us, in his written word, to go learn her ways and be wise, think you he will be displeased to observe the same habits of economy in us, or deny us the favor of his countenance, because we use with care the talents he has intrusted to our keeping, or the wealth he has placed within our reach? Let not instances of the abuse of this feeling, which spendthrifts in derision will be sure to point out to you, deter you from saving, in times of plenty, a little for a time of need. Avarice is always despicable—the crime of the miser is greater than that of the spendthrift; both are extremes, both abuse the legitimate purposes of wealth. It is equally revolting to read of two avaricious souls, whose coffers could have disgorged ten times ten thousand guineas, growing angry over a penny, or fretting at the loss of a farthing rushlight; but it is a sight quite as sad and painful to observe the spendthrift squandering in the mire the last shilling of an ample fortune, and reducing his wife and children to beggary for ever. Save, then, a little, although the thoughtless and the gay may sneer. Throw nothing away, for there is nothing that is purely worthless; the refuse from your table is worth its price, and if you are not wanting it yourself, remember there are hundreds of your kind, your brethren by the laws of God, who are groaning under a poverty which it would help to mitigate, and pale with a hunger which it might help to satisfy. Where can you find your prescriptive right to squander that which would fill the belly of a hungry brother? A gentleman, some years ago, married the daughter of a public contractor, whose carts carried away the dust from our habitations; he was promised a portion with his bride, and on his nuptial day was referred to a large heap of dust and offal as the promised dowry. He little thought, as he received it with some reluctance, that it would put two thousand pounds into his pocket.

To achieve independence, then, you must practise an habitual frugality, and while enjoying the present, look forward to old age, and think now and then of the possibility of a rainy day. Do not fancy, because you can only save an occasional penny now, that you will never become the possessor of pounds. Small things increase by union. Recollect, too, the precepts and life of Franklin, and a thousand others who rose to wealth and honor by looking after little things: be resolute, persevere, and prosper. Do not wait for the assistance of others in your progress through life; you will grow hungry, depend upon it, if you look to the charity or kindness of friends for your daily bread. It is far more noble to gird up your loins, and meet the difficulties and troubles of human life with a dauntless courage. The wheel of fortune turns as swiftly as that of a mill, and the rich friend who has the power, you think, to help you to-day, may become poor tomorrow—many such instances of the mutability of fortune must occur to every reader. If he be rich, let him take the inference to himself. If he has plenty, let him save a little, lest the wheel should turn against him; and if he be poor and penniless, let him draw from such cases consolation and hope.

You are desirous of promotion in your worldly position—you are ambitious of rising from indigence to affluence?—resist, then, every temptation that may allure you to indolence or every fascination that may lead to prodigality. Think not that the path to wealth or knowledge is all sunshine and honey; look for it only by long years of vigorous and well-directed activity; let no opportunity pass for self-improvement. Keep your mind a total stranger to the _ennui_ of the slothful. The dove, recollect, did not return to Noah with the olive-branch till the second time of her going forth; why, then, should you despond at the failure of a first attempt? Persevere, and above all, despise not little things; for, you see, they sometimes lead to great matters in the end.

THE SUBLIME PORTE.

In offering a few remarks upon the government of Turkey, which, by common accord, is known in Europe and the United States as “The Sublime Porte,” it is not intended to quote history, but rather to speak of it only in reference to the present period. It is nevertheless necessary to state that the Turks themselves call the Turkish Empire _Mémâliki-Othmanieh_, or the “Ottoman States” (kingdoms), in consequence of their having been founded by Othman, the great ancestor of the present reigning sovereign, Abd-ul-Mejid. They are no better pleased with the name of _Turk_ than the people of the United States are, generally, with that of _Yankee_: it bears with it a meaning signifying a gross and rude man—something indeed very much like our own definition of it, when we say any one is “no better than a Turk;” and they greatly prefer being known as Ottomans. They call their language the “Ottoman tongue”—_Othmanli dilee_—though some do speak of it as the _Turkish_.

As regards the title, “The Sublime Porte,” this has a different origin. In the earlier days of Ottoman rule, the reigning sovereign, as is still the case in some parts of the East, held courts of justice and levees at the entrance of his residence. The palace of the Sultan is always surrounded by a high wall, and not unfrequently defended by lofty towers and bastions. The chief entrance is an elevated portal, with some pretensions to magnificence and showy architecture. It is guarded by soldiers or door-keepers well armed; it may also contain some apartments for certain officers, or even for the Sultan himself; its covering or roof, projecting beyond the walls, offers an agreeable shade, and in its external alcoves are sofas more or less rich or gaudy. Numerous loiterers are usually found lingering about the portal, applicants for justice; and there, in former times, when the Ottomans were indeed _Turks_, scenes of injustice and cruelty were not unfrequently witnessed by the passer-by.

This lofty portal generally bears a distinct title. At Constantinople it has even grown into one which has given a name to the whole government of the Sultan. I am not aware, however, that the custom here alluded to was ever in force in that capital, though it certainly was in other parts of the empire of Othman. It is not improbable that it was usual with all the Sultans, who, at the head of their armies, seldom had any permanent fixed residence worthy of the name of _palace_. Mahomet the Second, who conquered Constantinople from the degenerate Greeks, may, for some time after his entrance into the city of Constantine—still called in all the official documents, such as “_Firmans_,” or “Royal Orders,” _Kostantinieh_—have held his courts of justice and transacted business at the elevated portal of his temporary residence. The term “Sublime Porte,” in Turkish, is _Deri Alieh_, or the elevated and lofty door; the Saxon word door being derived from the Persian _der_, or _dor_, in common use in the Ottoman language, which is a strange mixture of Tartar, Persian, and Arabic. The French, or rather the Franks, in their earlier intercourse with Turkey, translated the title literally “La Sublime Porte,” and this in English has been called, with similar inaccuracy, “The Sublime Porte.”

Long since, the Ottoman Sultans have ceased administering justice before their palaces, or indeed any where else, in person. The office is delegated to a deputy, who presides over the whole Ottoman government, with the title of Grand Vezir, or in Turkish, _Véziri Azam_, the Chief Vezir, whose official residence or place of business, once no doubt at the portal of his sovereign, is now in a splendid edifice in the midst of the capital. At Constantinople the Ottoman government is also called the “Sublime Government,” _Devleti Alieh_, a word closely bordering on that of superiority and pre-eminence claimed by the “Heavenly Government” of the empire of China. The Sultan, in speaking of his government, calls it “My Sublime Porte.” The Grand Vezir being an officer of the highest rank in the empire—a Pacha, of course, in fine, _the_ Pacha—his official residence is known in Constantinople as that of the Pacha, _Pacha Ka pousee_, _i.e._ the “Gate of the Pacha.” The chief entrance to the “seraglio” of the former Sultans, erected on the tongue of land where once stood the republican city of Byzantium, called the “Imperial Gate,” or the _Babi Humayoon_, is supposed by some to have given rise to the title of “The Sublime Porte;” but this is not correct. It may have once been used as a court of justice, certainly as a place where justice was wont to be executed, for not unfrequently criminals were decapitated there; and among others, the head of the brave but unfortunate Aâli Pacha, of Yanina in Albania, the friend of Lord Byron, was exposed there for some days previous to its interment beyond the walls of the city.

The title of _porte_, or door, is used in Constantinople to designate other departments of the government. The bureau of the Minister of War is called the _Seraskier Kapousee_, or the Gate of the _Serasker_ (head of the army); and those of the Ministers of Commerce and Police are called, the one _Tijaret Kapousee_, and the other _Zabtieh Kapousee_. These, however are sufficient, without mentioning any other facts, to explain the origin and nature of the title of the Ottoman government, known as “The Sublime Porte.”

The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire is known by his subjects under the title of _Sultân_, which word signifies a ruler; and generally as _Shevketlu Padischah Effendimiz_, “His Majesty the Emperor our Lord;” and all foreign governments now recognize him as an Emperor, and call him by the title of “Imperial Majesty.” The definition of the word _Padischah_ is supposed to be “Father of Kings,” and originally was _Peder Schah_, the first part of it (Peder) being the origin of our Saxon word _Fâder_, or father. In his own tongue he is called _Khan_, in Persian _Shah_, and in Arabic _Sultan_, all meaning, _in extensu_, the same, viz. King, Sovereign, or Prince. He reigns over one of the most extensive empires of the world, all possessed or acquired by inheritance from his ancestors, who obtained it by conquest.