Chapter XXII: On Wings of Hope (1)

When Trelyon arrived late one evening at Penzance he was surprised to find his uncle's coachman awaiting him at the station: "What's the matter, Tobias? Is the old gentleman going to die? You don't mean to say you are here for me?"

"Yaäs, zor, I be," said the little old man with no great courtesy.

"Then he is going to die if he sends out his horse at this time o' night. Look here, Tobias: I'll put my portmanteau inside and come on the box to have a talk with you--you're such a jolly old card, you know--and you'll tell me all that's happened since I last enjoyed my uncle's bountiful hospitality."

This the young man did: and then the brown-faced, wiry and surly little person, having started his horse, proceeded to tell his story in a series of grumbling and disconnected sentences. He was not nearly so taciturn as he looked: "The maäster he went sün to bed to-night: 'twere Miss Juliott sent me to the station, without tellin' en. He's gettin' worse and worse, that's sure: if yü be for giving me half a crown, like, or any one that comes to the house, he finds it out and stops it out o' my wages: yes, he does, zor, the old fule!"

"Tobias, be a little more respectful to my uncle, if you please."

"Why, zor, yü knaw en well enough," said the man in the same surly fashion. "And I'll tell yü this, Maäster Harry, if yü be after dinner with en, and he has a bottle o' poort wine that he puts on the mantelpiece, and he says to yü to let that aloän, vor 'tis a medicine-zart o' wine, don't yü heed en, but have that wine. 'Tis the real old poort wine, zor, that yür vather gied en--the dahmned old pagan!"

The young man burst out laughing, instead of reprimanding Tobias, who maintained his sulky impassiveness of face.

"Why, zor, I be gardener now, too: yaäs I be, to save the wages. And he's gone clean mazed about that garden--yaäs, I think. Would yü believe this, Maäster Harry, that he killed every one o' the blessed strawberries last year with a lot o' wrack from the bache, because he said it wüd be as good for them as for the 'sparagus?"

"Well, but the old chap finds amusement in pottering about the garden--" said Master Harry.

"The old fule!" repeated Tobias, in an under tone.

"And the theory is sound about the seaweed and the strawberries; just as his old notion of getting a green rose by pouring sulphate of copper in at the roots."

"Yaäs, that were another pretty thing, Maäster Harry, and he had the tin labels all printed out in French, and he waited and waited, and there bain't a fairly güde rose left in the garden. And his violet glass for the cucumbers: he burned en up to once, although 'twere fine to hear'n talk about the sunlight and the rays and such nonsenses. He be a strange mahn, zor, and a dahmned close'n with his penny-pieces, Christian and all as he calls his-sen. There's Miss Juliott, zor, she's go-in' to get married, I suppose; and when she goes no one 'll dare spake to 'n. Be yü going to stop long this time, Maäster Harry?"

"Not at the Hollies, Tobias. I shall go down to the Queen's to-morrow: I've got rooms there."

"So much the better--so much the better," said the frank but inhospitable retainer; and presently the jogtrot old animal between the shafts was pulled up in front of a certain square old-fashioned building of gray stone which was prettily surrounded with trees. They had arrived at the Rev. Mr. Penaluna's house, and there was a young lady standing in the light of the hall, she having opened the door very softly as she heard the carriage drive up.

"So here you are, Harry; and you'll stay with us the whole fortnight, won't you? Come in to the dining-room--I have some supper ready for you. Papa's gone to bed, and he desired me to give you his excuses, and he hopes you'll make yourself quite at home, as you always do, Harry."

He did make himself quite at home, for, having kissed his cousin and flung his topcoat down in the hall, he went into the dining-room and took possession of an easy-chair.

"Sha'n't have any supper, Jue, thank you. You won't mind my lighting a cigar--somebody's been smoking here already. And what's the least poisonous claret you've got?"

"Well, I declare!" she said, but she got him the wine all the same, and watched him light his cigar: then she took the easy-chair opposite.

"Tell us about your young man, Jue," he said. "Girls always like to talk about that."

"Do they?" she said. "Not to boys."

"I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight. I am thinking of getting married."

"So I hear," she remarked quietly.

Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on getting his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather startled him. "What have you heard?" he said abruptly.

"Oh, nothing--the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, though she was watching him rather closely. "Are you going to stay with us for the next fortnight?"

"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's."

"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay with your relations when you came to Penzance."

"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well your father doesn't care to have any one stay with you--it's too much bother. You'll have quite enough of me while I am in Penzance."

"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent indifference. "I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma had already come here."

"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary fierceness.

"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper about it, but people will talk, you know; and they say that your attentions to that young lady are rather marked, considering that she is engaged to be married; and you have induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall I go on?"

"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome his anger. "You're quite right--people do talk, but they wouldn't talk so much if other people didn't carry tales. Why, it isn't like you, Jue! I thought you were another sort. And about this girl, of all girls in the world!"

He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her if she could condemn him.

Miss Juliott was touched: "Sit down, Harry: I have wanted to talk to you, and I don't mean to heed any gossip. Sit down, please--you frighten me by walking up and down like that. Now, I'm going to talk common sense to you, for I should like to be your friend; and your mother is so easily led away by any sort of sentiment that she isn't likely to have seen with my eyes. Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne--"

"No, hold hard a bit, Jue," he said imperatively. "You may talk till the millennium, but just keep off her, I warn you."

"Will you hear me out, you silly boy? Suppose that Miss Rosewarne is everything that you believe her to be. I'm going to grant that, because I'm going to ask you a question. You can't have such an opinion of any girl, and be constantly in her society, and go following her about like this, without falling in love with her. Now, in that case would you propose to marry her?"

"I marry her!" he said, his face becoming suddenly pale for a moment. "Jue, you are mad! I am not fit to marry a girl like that. You don't know her. Why--"

"Let all that alone, Harry: when a man is in love with a woman he always thinks he's good enough for her; and whether he does or not he tries to get her for a wife. Don't let us discuss your comparative merits: one might even put in a word for you. But suppose you drifted into being in love with her--and I consider that quite probable--and suppose you forgot, as I know you would forget, the difference in your social position, how would you like to go and ask her to break her promise to the gentleman to whom she is engaged?"

Master Harry laughed aloud in a somewhat nervous fashion: "Him? Look here, Jue: leave me out of it--I haven't the cheek to talk of myself in that connection--but if there was a decent sort of fellow whom that girl really took a liking to, do you think he would let that elderly and elegant swell out in Jamaica stand in his way? He would be no such fool, I can tell you. He would consider the girl first of all. He would say to himself, 'I mean to make this girl happy; if any one interferes, let him look out!' Why, Jue, you don't suppose any man would be frightened by that sort of thing?"

Miss Juliott did not seem quite convinced by this burst of scornful oratory. She continued quietly, "You forget something, Harry. Your heroic young man might find it easy to do something wild--to fight with that gentleman in the West Indies, or murder him, or anything like that, just as you see in a story--but perhaps Miss Rosewarne might have something to say."

"I meant if she cared for him," Trelyon said, looking down.

"Granting that also, do you think it likely your hot-headed gentleman would be able to get a young lady to disgrace herself by breaking her plighted word and deceiving a man who went away trusting in her? You say she has a very tender conscience--that she is so anxious to consult every one's happiness before her own, and all that. Probably it is true. I say nothing against her. But to bring the matter back to yourself--for I believe you're hot-headed enough to do anything--what would you think of her if you or anybody else persuaded her to do such a treacherous thing?"

"She is not capable of treachery," he said somewhat stiffly. "If you've got no more cheerful things to talk about, you'd better go to bed, Jue. I shall finish my cigar by myself."

"Very well, then, Harry. You know your room. Will you put out the lamp when you have lit your candle?"

So she went, and the young man was left alone in no very enviable frame of mind. He sat and smoked while the clock on the mantelpiece swung its gilded boy and struck the hours and half hours with unheeded regularity. He lit a second cigar, and a third; he forgot the wine. It seemed to him that he was looking on all the roads of life that lay before him, and they were lit up by as strange and new a light as that which was beginning to shine over the world outside. New fancies seemed to awake with the new dawn. For himself to ask Wenna Rosewarne to be his wife! Could he but win the tender and shy regard of her eyes he would fall at her feet and bathe them with his tears. And if this wonderful thing were possible--if she could put her hand in his and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live together--what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and he knew that across the gray plain of waters the dawn was breaking, and that over the sleeping world another day was rising that seemed to him the first day of a new and tremulous life, full of joy and courage and hope.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO.

In Rome, 1851; a cold, dreary day in December--one of those days in which a man's ambition seems to desert him entirely, leaving only its grinning skeleton to mock him. Depressing as was the weather to a man who had cheerfulness as a companion by which to repel its blustering attacks, and raise his mind above the despondency it was calculated to produce, how much more so to one whose hope had gone out as a flickering lamp in a sudden gust of wind, and the sharp steel of whose ambition had turned to pierce his own heart!

Such a man, on the day mentioned, was walking along the Via San Basilio. He was small in stature, poorly clad, and so thin, and even cadaverous, that the casual observer might have been under apprehension lest a gust of wind a little stronger than the average might blow him entirely away; yet his air and manner were proud and haughty, and what little evidences of feeling peered through the signs of dissipation too apparent on his naturally attractive face were those of genuine refinement. He was accompanied by a cicerone, or servant, as villainous-looking a fellow as one often meets, even in Italy, where an evil expression is so often seen stamped on handsome features.

Along the Via San Basilio the two men walked until they stood opposite the door of No. 51. Sacred ground this, and historical as well. Art had her votaries here, as the tourist of to-day will find she still has, at whose shrines pilgrims from afar and from near worshiped, and grew better and stronger for their ministrations. Crawford, then at the acme of his fame, had his constantly-thronged studio in the immediate vicinity, while those at No. 51 embraced, among others, that of Tenerani, the famous Italian sculptor, whose work is always in such fine dramatic taste, although he never sacrifices his love and deep feeling of reverence for Nature, combining that with the most delightful charms of Greek art. Among this artist's most noted works will be remembered his "Descent from the Cross," which tourists visiting the Torlonia chapel in the Lateran never gaze upon without a thrill. The house was owned and also occupied by Bienaimé, a French sculptor who afterward became famous.

In the immediate vicinity stands the famous Palazzo Barberini, begun by Urban VIII. (Maffeo Barberini), who sat in the pontifical chair from 1623 to 1644, and finished by Bernini in 1640. This palace contains many paintings of historical interest by Raphael, Titian, Guido, Claude and others. The one by the first-mentioned artist is a Fornarina, and bears the autograph of the painter on the armlet. But the picture that attracts the most attention here is one of world-wide reputation, copies, engravings and photographs of which are everywhere to be met with--Guido's Beatrice Cenci. A great divergence of opinion, as is well known, exists in regard to the portrait. It bears the pillar and crown of the Colonnas, to which family it probably belonged. According to the family tradition, it was taken on the night before her execution. Other accounts state that it was painted by Guido from memory after he had seen her on the scaffold. Judging from the position in which the poor girl's head is represented, one would more readily give credence to the latter story, and think the artist's memory had preserved her look and position as she turned her head for a last look at the brutal, bellowing crowd behind.

In the piazza of the palace is a very beautiful fountain, utilized by one of the oldest Roman statues, representing a faun blowing water from a conch-shell.

But we must return to the Via San Basilio, and the two wayfarers we left standing in front of No. 51. After gazing a moment at the number to assure themselves that they were right, they entered, and knocked at the first door, which was opened by the occupant of the apartment. He was an artist and a man of very marked characteristics. Seven years later Hawthorne wrote as follows of him: "He is a plain, homely Yankee, quite unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy. He talks ungrammatically; walks with a strange, awkward gait and stooping shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque, but wins one's confidence by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we see an artist so entirely free from affectation in his aspect and deportment. His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian scenery, and were most beautiful and true. One of them, a moonlight picture, was really magical--the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw a light even beyond the limits of the picture; and yet his sunrises and sunsets, and noontides too, were nowise inferior to this, although their excellence required somewhat longer study to be fully appreciated."

After this introduction by our sweet and quaint romancer, the reader will hardly need be told that the two strangers stood in the presence of America's now illustrious artist, George L. Brown. But one seeing him then, as he stood almost scowling at the two strangers, would hardly have idealized him into the artist whose pencil has done so much of late years to give American art a distinctive name through his poetical delineations of the rare, sun-tinted atmosphere that hovers over Italian landscapes. However, our apology for him must be that the day was raw and blustering, and that he had no sooner caught sight of the men through his window, as they hesitatingly entered the door, than his suspicions were aroused.

The Italian acted as spokesman, and inquired if there were any rooms to let in the building. Brown, thinking this the easiest way of ridding himself of the visitors, went in search of the landlord, who came, and after a moment's conversation the whole party entered the studio, much to its owner's displeasure.

The cicerone did most of the talking, though now and then the other made a remark or two in broken Italian. But this was only for the first few moments. He soon became oblivious of all save art, of which one could see at a glance he was passionately fond. One of Mr. Brown's pictures--a large one he was then engaged on--particularly attracted his attention. He drew closer and closer to the canvas, examining it with a minuteness that showed the connoisseur, and finally remarked: "It is very fine in color, sir, and the atmosphere is delicious. Why have I not heard of you before?" examining the corner of the canvas for the artist's name, but speaking in a tone and with an air that gave Brown the impression he was indulging in the random flattery so current in studios. So, ignoring the question, he asked with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "Are you an artist?"

"I paint a little," was the reply, with an air of modesty which Brown mistook for the bashful half-assertion of some daubing amateur.

Just then the cicerone came forward and announced that the bargain was completed and the room ready for occupancy.

"I shall be happy--no, _happy_ is not a good word for me--I shall be glad to see you in my studio when I have moved in, and perhaps you may see some things to please you."

So saying, the stranger departed, leaving Brown not a whit better impressed with him than at first.

The next morning the two called again, when the gentleman made an examination of the room selected the day before, having met Mr. Brown in the hall-way and invited him in. On entering, the new occupant took from his pocket a piece of chalk and a compass and made a number of circles and figures on the floor to determine when the sun would shine in the room. Brown watched him with a certain degree of curiosity and amusement, and finally, concluding he was half crazy, returned to his own studio.

The next day the cicerone called alone to see about some repairs, when Brown hailed him: "_Buono giorno. Che è questo_?" ("Good-day. Who is that?")

"_Non sapete_?" ("Don't you know?"), was the Italian's response. "Why, that is the celebrated Brullof."

Brown started as though shot. First there flashed through his brain the remembrance of how cavalierly he had treated the distinguished artist, and then a quick panorama of his recent history, which had been the gossip of studios and art-circles for some time back. "I must go to him," he said, "and apologize for not treating him with more deference."

"_Non, signore_," was the cicerone's response. "Never mind: let it rest. He is a man of the world, and pays little heed to such things. Besides, he is so overwhelmed with his private griefs that he has probably noticed no slight."

However, when the great Russian artist took possession of his studio his American brother of the pencil made his apology, and received this response; "Don't waste words on so trivial a matter. Do I not court the contempt of a world that I despise to my heart's core? Say no more about it. Run in and see me when agreeable; and if you have no better callers than such a plaything of fate as I, maybe you will not refuse me occasional admittance."

The Russian artist now shunned notoriety as he had formerly courted it. Little is known of his history beyond mere rumor, and that only in artistic circles. He was born at St. Petersburg in 1799 or 1800, and gave himself to the study of art at an early age, becoming an especial proficient in color and composition. One of his most widely-known works is "The Last Days of Pompeii," which created great enthusiasm a quarter of a century ago. This, however, was painted during his career of dissipation, and its vivid coloring seemed to have been drawn from a soul morbid with secret woes and craving a nepenthe which never came.

The young artist was petted and idolized by the wealth and nobility of St. Petersburg, where he married a beautiful woman, and became court-painter to the czar Nicholas about the year 1830. For some years no couple lived more happily, and no artist swayed a greater multitude of fashion and wealth than he; but scandal began to whisper that the czar was as fond of the handsome, brilliant wife of the young court-painter as the cultivated people of St. Petersburg were of the husband's marvelously colored works; and when at last the fact became known to Brullof that the monarch who had honored him through an intelligent appreciation of art had dishonored him through a guilty passion for his wife, he left St. Petersburg, swore never again to set foot on Russian soil or be recognized as a Russian subject, and, plunging headlong into a wild career of dissipation, was thenceforth a wanderer up and down the continent of Europe.

It was when this career had borne its inevitable fruit, and he was but a mere wreck of the polished gentleman of a few years previous, that Brullof came to the Via San Basilio, where, as soon as the fact became known, visitors began to call. Among the first were the Russian ambassador and suite, who were driven up in a splendid carriage, with liveried attendants; but after the burly Italian had announced to his master who was in waiting, the door was closed, and with no message in return the representatives of the mightiest empire on the globe were left to withdraw with the best grace they could muster for the occasion. Similar scenes were repeated often during the entire Roman season. He saw but few of his callers--Russians, never.

The Russian and the American artists became quite intimate during the few months they were thrown together, and Mr. Brown has acknowledged that he owes much of the success of his later efforts to hints received from the self-exiled, dying Russian.

"Mr. Brown," he said on one occasion, while examining the picture on the artist's easel, "no one since Claude has painted atmosphere as you do. But you must follow Calamé's example, and make drawing more of a study. Draw from Nature, and do it faithfully, and with your atmosphere I will back you against the world. That is bad," pointing to the huge limb of a tree in the foreground: "it bulges both ways, you see. Now, Nature is never so. Look at my arm," speaking with increased animation, and suddenly throwing off his coat and rolling up his shirt-sleeve. "When you see a convexity, you will see concavity opposite. Just so in Nature, especially in the trunks and limbs of trees."

This criticism made such an impression on Brown that it decided him to go into more laborious work, and was the foundation of his habit of getting up at daybreak and going out to sketch rocks, trees and cattle, until he stands where he now does as a draughtsman.

The painting which Brullof had first admired, and which had induced him to compare Brown to Claude in atmospheric effects, was a view of the Pontine Marshes, painted for Crawford the sculptor, and now in possession, of his widow, Mrs. Terry, at Rome.

During this entire season the penuriousness exhibited by Brullof is one of the hardest phases of his character to explain. Though he was worth at least half a million of dollars, his meals were generally of the scantiest kind, purchased by the Italian cicerone, and cooked and eaten in his room. Yet a kindness would touch the hidden springs of his generosity as the staff of Moses did the rock of Horeb.

Toward the close of the Roman season, Brullof, growing more and more moody, and becoming still more of a recluse, painted his last picture, which showed how diseased and morbid his mind had become. He called it "The End of All Things," and made it sensational to the verge of that flexible characteristic. It represented popes and emperors tumbling headlong into a terrible abyss, while the world's benefactors were ascending in a sort of theatrical transformation-scene. A representation of Christ holding a cross aloft was given, and winged angels were hovering here and there, much in the same manner as _coryphées_ and lesser auxiliaries of the ballet. A capital portrait of George Washington was painted in the mass of rubbish, perhaps as a compliment to Brown. In contradistinction to the portrait of Washington were seen prominently those of the czar Nicholas and the emperor Napoleon; the former put in on account of the artist's own private wrong, and the latter because at that time, just after the _coup d'ètat_, he was the execration of the liberty-loving world.

In the spring the Russian artist gave up his studio, and went down to some baths possessing a local reputation situated on the road to Florence, where he died very suddenly. Much mystery overhangs his last days, and absolutely no knowledge exists as to what became of his vast property. His cicerone robbed him of his gold watch and all his personal effects and disappeared. His remains lie buried in the Protestant burying-ground outside the walls of Rome, near the Porto di Sebastiano. His tomb is near that of Shelley and Keats, and the monument erected to his memory is very simple, his head being sculptured upon it in _alto relievo_, and on the opposite side an artist's palette and brushes.

EARL MARBLE.

A CHRISTMAS HYMN.

The air was still o'er Bethlehem's plain,
As if the great Night held its breath,
When Life Eternal came to reign
Over a world of Death.

The pagan at his midnight board
Let fall his brimming cup of gold:
He felt the presence of his Lord
Before His birth was told.

The temples trembled to their base,
The idols shuddered as in pain:
A priesthood in its power of place
Knelt to its gods in vain.

All Nature felt a thrill divine
When burst that meteor on the night,
Which, pointing to the Saviour's shrine,
Proclaimed the new-born light--

Light to the shepherds! and the star
Gilded their silent midnight fold--
Light to the Wise Men from afar,
Bearing their gifts of gold--

Light to a realm of Sin and Grief--
Light to a world in all its needs--
The Light of life--a new belief
Rising o'er fallen creeds--

Light on a tangled path of thorns,
Though leading to a martyr's throne--
Light to guide till Christ returns
In glory to His own.

There still it shines, while far abroad
The Christmas choir sings now, as then,
"Glory, glory unto God!
Peace and good-will to men!"

ROME, Christmas, 1871.

T. BUCHANAN READ.

THE PARSEES.

Hanging in my study is a noteworthy portrait, generally the first object observed by those who enter. It is an exquisite painting on glass, the work of Làng Quà, the best artist China has produced in our day, and it delineates the form and features of a singularly handsome young man. But it is the quaint Parsee garb that first attracts attention; and the weird romance that attaches to the history of the Fire-worshipers gives this work of art its real value, rather than its lines of beauty or the celebrity of the painter's name. This delicately-featured portrait _may_ depict the countenance of Musaljee Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the first-born son and heir of the late Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, baronet, of Bombay, India. That he really sat for this portrait I cannot, however, positively assert, since I obtained the painting from an English officer, who bought it of the artist, but had "forgotten the strange, outlandish name of the Indian nabob," as he said. It is certainly the portrait of a _Parsee_--true to the life in features and garb, and it bears a striking resemblance to the young Musaljee when about eighteen years of age. He was not then a personage of any great celebrity, though the worthy son of a most remarkable sire, the latter long known and honored in Europe for his liberal and enlightened charities, and especially for his munificent donations, that saved the lives of thousands of British subjects, during the terrible famines that occurred in India between the years 1840 and 1846. It was in grateful recognition of this noble philanthropy that Queen Victoria conferred upon him the honor of a baronetcy, sending out a nobleman to act as her proxy in the presentation of a sword which had been handled by more than one British monarch. Sir Jamsetjee was the first East Indian who ever received a title from a European sovereign. During the terrible famines alluded to he not only distributed daily from his own palace a plentiful supply of food to all who came, but he made also large donations of provisions to the English governor of Bombay for the supply of his starving troops. When, subsequently, pestilence followed in the footsteps of famine, this true-hearted philanthropist, overstepping all prejudices of creed and clan, built and endowed at his own expense a free hospital for the sick of all nations and religions. Temporary bamboo cottages at first received the sick till there was time for the erection of the present elegant structure, which is built in the Gothic style, and is capable of accommodating some six or eight hundred patients, besides nurses and attendants. The physicians have been from the beginning of the enterprise all English, as are many of the nurses, and the supplies in every department are the very best the country can furnish. Since the death of the noble founder, the son, who inherits his name and title, has continued to foster with loving devotion the institution which stands as a lasting monument of the fame and virtues of his illustrious sire. The conception of such a charity tells not only of a generous heart, but of far-reaching intelligence, while the energy and perseverance of both father and son in carrying on, year after year, so vast a system of benefactions, challenge our warmest admiration.

The name of the late Sir Jamsetjee stood for more than a score of years at the very head of the list of merchant-princes and ship-owners in Bombay, where he was born, and where his ancestors for many generations resided. He came of an old and wealthy family, who trace their genealogy back to the Parsee exodus of the eighth century; and it is said that the "sacred fire" has never once during all that time burned out upon their altar. Sir Jamsetjee himself, though probably faithful in the observance of the actual requirements of his creed, was assuredly less strict than the majority, and being a man of large intellect, cultivated mind and great independence of character, he did not hesitate to borrow from other nations any customs, institutions or inventions that might tend to the improvement of his own people. His stately mansion was built and furnished in European style; his children, even his daughters, were carefully educated in foreign as well as native lore; and his own associations were with refined and cultivated people, without any regard to their nation or creed. It was while visiting at his house, in familiar intercourse with his family, and with other Parsees of similar position, that I gleaned many items of interest concerning the history and practices of the Fire-worshipers. Other facts were added from time to time during several years of frequent association with these singular people, in whose glorious though unsuccessful struggles for home and liberty it is impossible not to feel an interest.

As a race, the Parsees are intelligent, active and energetic. With business capacities far above the average, they are usually successful in amassing wealth, while they are extremely benevolent in dispensing their gains for both public and private charities. For private benefactions they have, however, little call among themselves, since a Parsee pauper would be an unheard-of anomaly. Their style of living is princely but peculiar. In the reception-rooms of the wealthy--and most of the Parsees in the city of Bombay are wealthy--one finds a rather quaint mingling of Oriental luxury and European elegance--brightly-tinted Persian carpets placed in Eastern fashion over divans strewn with embroidered cushions and jewel-studded pillows, among which recline, with genuine Oriental indolence, some of the members of the family; while in another part of the same room half a dozen more may be grouped about a table of marble and rosewood, occupying velvet chairs that have traveled unmistakably from London or Paris. French mirrors and Italian statuettes may have for their _vis-à-vis_ the exquisite mosaics, the massive gold vases and the costly bijouterie of the Orient, strewn so profusely around as to startle unaccustomed eyes; and a genuine Meissonier will be just as likely to be placed side by side with a Persian houri as anywhere else. The Parsees drive the finest Arab steeds, but on their equipages there is a more lavish display of ornament than we should deem quite in accordance with good taste. The same is true in regard to personal decoration. They wear immense quantities of costly jewelry, and nearly all their garments are of silk, generally richly embroidered in gold, and often with the addition of precious stones. Even little children wear only silk, infants from the very first being wrapped in long, loose robes of plain white silk that are gradually displaced by others more elaborate and costly; while the toilette of a Parsee lady in full evening-dress is often of the value of a hundred thousand rupees (or forty-five thousand dollars). The female costume consists of silk or cotton skirts gathered full round the waist, and long, loose robes of silk, lace or muslin, all more or less decorated according to the wealth of the wearer. The dress of the men is composed of trousers and shirts of white or colored silk and long caftans of muslin, with the addition of a fanciful little scarf fringed at the ends, and worn jauntily across one shoulder and under the other arm. Their caps are made of pasteboard covered with gay-colored silk, embroidered and studded with precious stones or pearls. The form of a Parsee's shirt is a matter of vital importance, both in regard to respectability and religion. It must have five seams, neither more nor less, and be made to lap on the breast exactly in a certain way. Both sexes wear around the body a double string, which they loosen when at prayer, and which a Parsee is never, under any circumstances, permitted to dispense with. No engagement or business transaction is legally binding if by any chance this talismanic cord was left off by either party when the contract was made. The cord is first placed on children when they have completed their ninth year, and this serves to mark the most important epoch of their lives. Before the investiture the eating of food with Christians or heathen does not defile the juvenile Parsee, and girls may even go about in public with their fathers; but after the bestowal of the sacred cord the girls must be kept in seclusion and the boys eat only with their own people.

Only the most liberal Parsees will permit those of other creeds to eat under the same roof with themselves, and even these never eat at the table with their guests. The table is first covered for the visitors, and they are waited on with the utmost assiduity, often by the members of the family in addition to the servants. When the guests leave the board not only is the cloth changed, but the table itself is washed before being recovered: salts, castors and other similar articles are all emptied and washed, and the table newly laid in every particular. Small flat cakes are distributed round the board to do service as plates, and the various dishes arranged in the centre within reach of all. The family then wash hands and faces and the father says a short prayer, after which all take their seats and the meal begins. Neither knives nor forks are used, but the meat is torn from the bones with the fingers only, and with the left hand each one dips, from time to time, bread, meat or vegetables into the broth or gravy as he wishes, and then tosses it into his mouth, without allowing his fingers to touch his lips. This requires some dexterity, and children are not permitted at the family board till they have learned thus to acquit themselves. If, however, the fingers of any one, child or adult, should chance to come in contact with the lips, though ever so slightly, he is required to leave the table instantly and perform his ablutions over again, or else to take the dish from which he was eating to himself, and touch no other during the meal. In drinking they exercise the same caution, adroitly throwing the liquid into the mouth or throat without touching the lips with the cup or glass. The left hand is the one with which food is always taken; and the reason assigned is, that the right, having of necessity to perform most labor, is more frequently brought in contact with things unclean.

I once made a voyage with an American lady and gentleman in a Bombay ship that was owned and commanded by a wealthy Parsee merchant, though the real sailing-master and mate were Englishmen. Our party ate at one table, and the Parsee nabob had his own in solitary state. I was then quite a youthful wife, and, as my husband was not of the party, the Parsee supposed me unmarried, and overwhelmed me with the most gallant attentions, among which were frequent invitations to our party to dine in his cabin. But, though he would stand at my side all the time I was eating, fill my cup or glass with his own hands, and urge me to partake of certain dishes that were favorites of his own, nothing could induce him to eat or drink in our presence, even after we had left the table. And I learned afterward that the costly service of rare china, silver and glass from which we had eaten and drunk at his table, though carefully laid aside, was never again used by the owner. One evening, as we sat on the upper deck inhaling the balmy air, he invited me to smoke. Of course I declined, and when he insisted I told him that it was contrary to the customs of good society in our country for ladies to use tobacco in any form. He laughed heartily, and said, "Did you suppose I would ask a lady to pollute her fragrant breath and dewy lips with so foul a thing as vile tobacco? Taste and see." He brought his splendid hookah, which I found filled with the "fragrant spices of Araby" perfumed with attar of roses, while a long slender tube rested in a vessel of rose-water at my feet; and the fumes were certainly as agreeable as harmless. But this, my first experiment in smoking, cost my Parsee friend three hundred dollars, the estimated value of his gold-mounted hookah, with its complicated array of tubes and vessels of the same precious metal, none of which he durst ever use again.

As we sat chatting together in the bright moonlight our ears were suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music--wild, unearthly melody that seemed to rise from the very depths of the ocean just below our feet. At first it was only a soft trill or a subdued hum, as of a single voice: then followed what seemed a full chorus of voices of enchanting sweetness. Presently the melody died away in the distance, only, however, to burst forth anew after a brief interval. All the time we were being regaled with the music we could see nothing to enlighten us as to its source, and were inclined to pronounce it a trick played by our fun-loving sailing-master. He, however, denied all agency in the matter, but counseled us to "keep a close look-out on the lee bow" if we wanted to see a mermaid. We had noticed a sort of thrilling motion on the lower deck, not unlike the sensation produced by the charge of an electro-galvanic battery; and this, the Parsee captain gravely assured us, was the mermaids' dance, and their efforts to drag down our ship. "But I'll catch one of them yet--see if I don't," he said energetically as he caught up something from the deck and ran forward, and was presently, with two of the Lascars, leaning over the bow. Half an hour afterward he returned, and with a merry laugh laid in my lap two little brown fish, informing me that they were singing-fish, and that the music we had heard had been produced by shoals of these tiny vocalists then clinging to the bottom of our ship. Our Parsee friend told me that the Arabs and Persians always speak of the singing-fish as "tiny women of the sea;" but he had never heard our version of their long hair, and their twining it about hapless sailors to drag them down to their coral caverns beneath the ocean's wave. He showed me how to preserve the fish by drying in the sun after repeated anointings with an aromatic oil, which he gave me for the purpose; and I have still in my cabinet these two specimens as a reminder of the incident.

The manner in which the Parsees dispose of their dead seems to us too shocking to be tolerated by a people so gentle and refined. But they have grown familiar with a custom that, generation after generation, has been observed by their race till it has ceased to be repugnant. They call it "consigning the dead to the element of air." For this purpose they have roofless enclosures, the walls of which are twenty-five or thirty feet high, and within are three biers--one each for men, women and children. Upon these the bodies of the dead are laid, and fastened down with chains or iron bands. Presently birds of prey, so numerous within the tropics and always waiting to devour, pounce upon the corpse and quickly tear the flesh from the bones, while the skeleton remains intact. This is afterward deposited in a pit dug within the same enclosure, and which remains open till completely filled up with bones; after which another is dug, and when the enclosure can conveniently contain no more pits a new one is selected and prepared. None but priests and bearers of the dead may enter, or even look into, these walled cemeteries. The priests, by virtue of their holy office, are preserved from defilement, but the bearers are men set apart for this express purpose, and they are considered so unclean that they may not enter under the roof of any other Parsee or salute him on the street. If in passing a bearer do but touch one's clothes accidentally, he is subject to a heavy fine, while he who has been thus contaminated must bathe his entire person and burn every article of raiment he wore at the time of his defilement.

I was anxious to visit one of their temples, but this, Sir Jamsetjee assured me, was impossible, as none but the initiated are allowed even to approach the entrance, still less to get a glimpse of what is passing within. He, however, volunteered the information that, so far as the sanctuary itself was concerned, there was little to be seen, only naked walls, bare floors, and an altar upon which burns the sacred fire brought with the Parsees from Persia, and which, he said, had never been extinguished since it was kindled by Zoroaster from the sun four thousand years ago. Of the form of service I could not induce the baronet to speak, but I learned afterward from my ship-friend that the altar is enclosed by gratings, within which none but the priest may enter. He goes in every day to tend "the eternal fire," when he must remain for the space of an hour, repeating certain invocations, with a bundle of rods in his hand to repel any unclean spirits that should venture to approach the sacred fire. Meanwhile, the assembled multitudes prostrate themselves without and offer up their silent adoration. "Yet, after all," musingly said the Parsee, "the universe is the throne of the invisible God, of whom fire is but the emblem, and we worship Him most acceptably with our eyes fixed on the east when the sun rides forth at morning in his celestial chariot of fire." This form of worship those curious in such matters may see on any bright morning at Bombay, where whole crowds of Parsee men, women and children rush out at sunrise to greet the king of day and offer up their morning oblations. I was not surprised at the avowed preference of my Parsee friends for out-door worship, since it is well known that the ancient Persians not only permitted few temples to be erected to their gods, and held in abhorrence all painted and graven images, but they laid it to the charge of the Greeks, as a daring impiety, that "they shut up their gods in shrines and temples, like puppets in a cabinet, when all created things were open to them and the wide world was their dwelling-place." It was probably religious zeal, even more than revenge against the Greeks, that induced the burning of the temple at Athens by Xerxes, led on, as he may have been, by the fanatical zeal of the Magi who accompanied him.

Plutarch speaks of the Persians, in common with the Chaldeans and Egyptians, as worshipers of the sun under the name of Mithra, whom they regarded as standing between Ormuzd, "the author of good," and Ahriman, "the author of evil," occupied alternately in aiding the former and subduing the latter. So do the Parsees of our own day regard him; and their only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is in constant sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the sun as the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil from our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great men for safety; by warriors, as that which is to give them the victory over their foes; and by all, as their sole and ever-present deity. Sir Jamsetjee assured me that the _intelligent_ Parsees regard the sun and fire as only the symbols that are to remind them of the God they worship. But there can be no doubt that the mass of the Parsees literally worship the sun and the "sacred fire;" and hence arise the utter repugnance many of them have to celebrating their religious rites within closed walls, and the decided preference ever shown for out-door worship. I have often heard them say that the Fire-god shows his aversion to confinement by drooping when he is shut up, and growing vigorous just in proportion as free scope is given him. The sun appears everywhere on the shields and armor of the ancient Persians, as on some of the old-time monuments that have come down to us; while occasionally Mithra is depicted as a youthful hero, with high Persian cap, his knee on a prostrate bull, into whose heart he seems plunging a dagger--symbolically, "the power of evil" in complete subjection to the victorious sun, and about to be for ever annihilated.

Zoroaster (called by the Persians _Zerduscht_) was not, the Parsees say, the _founder_ of their sect, but only the reviser and perfecter of the system as it now exists among them. Living in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, he was the contemporary, probably an associate, of the prophet Daniel. Before the advent of this reformer the Magi acknowledged two great First Causes--i.e., the light and the darkness, the former the author of all good, the latter of every evil, moral and physical--and these they believed were at perpetual war with each other. Zoroaster taught, as he may have learned from Daniel, that there was One greater still, who created both the light and the darkness, making both to subserve His own will. He also inculcated the duty of building temples for the preservation of the sacred fire from storm and tempest, when "by sudden extinction of the light the powers of darkness do gain often a signal victory." The Parsees hold in supreme veneration the name of Zoroaster as the most noted of all their Magi for wisdom and virtue. They believe that the sacred fire was lighted by him miraculously from the sun--that it has burned steadily ever since, and can never go out till it has consumed all evil from the earth and the good has become universally triumphant. They claim also that from the reforms wrought by Zoroaster there was never the slightest change in any of their observances until about twelve centuries ago, when Persia was overrun and conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs. But not the fiercest persecution could induce the Fire-worshipers to change their religion for that of the Koran. Preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostasy or persecution at home, the aboriginal Persian inhabitants fled to other lands, settling immense colonies in Surat and Bombay, where their descendants form in our day a large and valuable element of the population. Their integrity, industry and enterprise are proverbial all over the East; and while they live strictly apart from all other races, the Parsees are never wanting in sympathy and help for those who need them. Dwelling amid nations who are almost universally destitute of veracity, the Parsees are eminently truthful; surrounded by polygamists and sensualists, they maintain habits of purity and virtue; and accustomed to every-day association with those who make a boast of cheating, my memory fails to recall the case of a single Fire-worshiper who was not strictly upright and honorable in his dealings.