Chapter XX: In Her Mother's Place (2)

After what has been mentioned it is unnecessary to speak of minor crimes--- of street assassinations, highway robberies and the like. Your own McCulloch will inform you that according to official information reported to the Cortes there occurred in one year, and merely in the two districts of Oporto and Guarda, no less than three hundred and forty-two assassinations and four hundred and sixty robberies. It is true that life is not quite so insecure now as when McCulloch wrote. Some few rays of light have penetrated the profound abyss of misery and evil in which the country was then plunged; nevertheless, the improvement has been but slow and partial, and nothing short of revolution can accelerate it. There is but one man in the world who possesses the means to render that revolution successful, and that man--His Majesty Dom Pedro II., the emperor of Brazil--is now, or soon will be, on his way to the United States. May he not peruse in vain this sad account of famine and crime in Portugal!

There are persons with nervous organisms so abused that a sudden cry, whether it be of boisterousness or despair, will cause them great agony: so there are others with moral susceptibilities so overstrained that the story of a nation's misery and crime, such as I have endeavored to sketch, will evoke within them more pain than interest. Regard for such exceptional persons has created a namby-pambyism in literature which would banish these topics--the greatest and holiest in which human sympathy can be enlisted--to the domains of science. But science cannot aid unhappy Portugal. Sympathy and prayer alone can mitigate our sufferings. Therefore sympathize with and pray for us, you who stand in the broad glare of freedom, filled with plenty and surrounded by promise, Pray for unhappy Portugal!

AT THE OLD PLANTATION.

TWO PAPERS.--I.

The life of the low-country South Carolina planter, until broken up by the war, had changed but little since colonial times. It was the life which Washington lived at Mount Vernon, with some slight differences of local custom. The two-storied house, with its ten or twenty rooms and broad piazza, had probably been built in ante-Revolutionary days by the British country gentleman or Huguenot exile from whom the present owner drew his descent. I well remember how the old house at Hanover bore near the top of the chimney stack the legend "_Peu à peu_" written with a stick in the soft mortar with which the bricks had been covered. The old Huguenot builder had burned his bricks by guess, and three times the work had to stop until the kiln could be replenished and a new lot prepared. The top was finally reached, however, and the triumphant _Peu à peu_ was only his French way of proclaiming to posterity _Perseverantia vincit omnia_. In many instances, however, fire has destroyed the original structure--a danger to which the country residence is specially exposed--but the new one has usually been modeled after that which it succeeded. Indian names, flowing softly from the tongue, have usually come down with the tracts to which they originally belonged, as _Pooshee, Wantoot, Wampee, Wapahoula_, though Chelsea, White Hall, Sarrazin's or Sans Souci often betrays the English or French origin of the first patentee.

To understand the home and life of the wealthy Carolina planter we must remember that he was the most contented man in the world. The greed of gain was unknown to him, and his deep-rooted conservatism forbade everything like speculation. Solid, substantial comfort and large-hearted hospitality were the objects in all his expenditures. He never invested his surplus money except in another plantation to put his surplus negroes on, for he never sold a negro except for incorrigible bad qualities or to pay some pressing debt. He had no expensive tastes except for rare old madeira and racing-stock, from the last of which his splendid saddle-horses were always selected; and these were usually of the best and purest blood. He was as much at home in the saddle as an English fox-hunter or a Don Cossack, and the only wheeled vehicles in his spacious carriage-house were the heavy family coach, and the light sulky in which his summer trips were made between the pineland and the plantation.

Come back with me now to the days when the North-eastern Railroad was a possibility of the future, and join me in a Christmas visit to old Pooshee. We take the little steamer for the head of Cooper River, the December sun being warm enough to tempt us from the close cabin to the airy deck. The graceful spire of old St. Michael's cuts sharply against the sky, reminding you, if you have visited the suburbs of London, of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, that fine specimen of Sir Christopher Wren's style, after which it was modeled. The old customhouse looks just as it did when Governor Rutledge had the tea locked up in its store-rooms, and the gray moss droops in weeping festoons from the live-oaks of beautiful Magnolia. I wonder how the miles of green marsh through which we pass can seem to you such a dreary waste. To my eye it is all alive with interest. I never tire of watching how the lonely white heron spears his scaly prey, how the clapper-rail floats on his raft of matted rushes, how the marsh-wren jerks his saucy little tail over his bottle-shaped nest, or how with quick and certain stroke the oyster-catcher extracts the juicy "native" from his bivalved citadel. We are now getting above the salt-water line, and on either hand the rice-fields, now covered with water, stretch away from the banks, their surface covered with countless thousands of ducks. As the winding river brings the channel somewhat nearer to the shore, the splash of the paddles startles the feeding multitude, and they rise with a rush and roar of wings which might be heard for miles. Could we stop for a day or two at Rice Hope, we might have rare sport among the mallards and bald-pates as they fly out between sunset and dark, or in the early morning from behind a well-constructed blind. But we must decline the cordial invitation which urges us to do so as the boat casts off from the landing, and in a couple of hours more we step ashore at Fairlawn, where we find the carriage waiting to take us over the twelve remaining miles of our journey. The road, like the marsh, may seem lonely and tedious to you, but I know every turn and bend of it, and the trees are all old friends. I'm sure I know that green heron which "skowks" to me as he springs from the rail of the bridge, and there is something familiar in the bark of the black squirrel which has just rushed up that pine. Hark! that was the yelp of a turkey. Stop the horses for a moment and we may see them. One, two, four, seven! What a splendid old gobbler last crossed the road, and no guns loaded! And there is the track of as noble a buck as I ever saw: that's where he jumped into the pea-field, and ten to one he's lying now in that patch of sedge.

"Well!" I think I hear you say, "you have seen more to interest you in a hundred yards than I should have found in two miles."

Exactly; and that is why I enjoy the country so much. Learn to love Nature in her every mood and to study her every feature, and you will never know the feeling of loneliness if you keep outside the walls of a jail. But we are at the outer gate, and our journey is nearly over. At the end of a long enclosed road, shaded by trees--which, however, do not form an avenue, such as you may see near the coast, where the live-oaks flourish more vigorously--stands the spacious mansion, with its white walls, green Venetian shutters and red tin roof. There is no enclosure about it save that which is formed by the rail fences of the distant fields. The "yard" contains about forty acres of grassy lawn shaded by spreading forest trees--white-oaks, water-oaks and hickories--from which hang the graceful folds of the Spanish moss. The out-buildings are scattered about without the slightest reference to distance, except in the case of the kitchen, which is at the back and some twenty yards from the dwelling. The stable and carriage-house stand on either side, _in front_, but at a distance sufficient to prevent unsightliness or discomfort. In the background are the large "cotton-houses," with their bleaching-platforms, the "gin-house," the corn-house, the fodder-house and the poultry-house, which is nearly as large as any of them; while nearer the mansion are grouped the "loom-house," the dairy and the oven-shed, under which is built the huge brick oven capable of baking to a sugary confection several bushels of yam "slips" at a time. On the left is the "negro-yard" (never called "the quarter" in this region), with its fifty or sixty substantial cabins, each gleaming with whitewash and having its own little vegetable patch and chicken-house.

It is Saturday evening, and the sun is just entering the heavy cloud-bank which rests on the western horizon as we drive up to the door. Our genial and venerable host, "the old doctor," is at the stables superintending the feeding of his horses, and thither we bend our steps with a sense of exhilaration which only the crisp, fresh country air can impart, and a new vigor thrilling through every muscle as the foot presses the green and springy sod. Our old friend is a worthy representative of the old _régime_, the only change which the lapse of thirty years has made in his costume being the substitution of black for blue broadcloth in the velvet-collared, brass-buttoned, narrow-skirted coat with its side-pocket flaps. The collar sits as high in the neck; the red silk handkerchief peeps out behind; the trousers are cut with the "full fall," over which hangs the watch fob-chain with its heavy seals; the low-crowned beaver hat has the same wide brim; and the silver snuff-box is still redolent of Scotch maccaboy.

"The hounds have got fat waiting for you, and the birds are almost tame enough to put salt on their tails," says the old gentleman after the hearty welcome is over. "Old Nannie says the foxes are eating up all her turkeys, and Loudon tells me that he sees deer-tracks coming out of the new ground every morning."

"How _are_ ye, gentlemen?" says stout John Myers, the "obeshay," which is negro for "overseer."--"I say, there! you Cuffee, that basket ain't half full o' corn.--I s'pose you're goin' to clean out all the game by Chris'mas?--You Cæsar, why don't you fill up old Chester's stall with trash? You niggers are gittin' too lazy to live;" and he walks off to see that the negroes, who are watching us with open mouths and eyes, do not allow their astonishment to interfere with the comfort of the horses. Five sturdy negro men are doing the work of two boys, forking in the "pine-trash" from the huge pile outside, and bringing ear-corn in oak bushel-baskets on their shoulders from the corn-house three hundred yards away.

We cross over to this building when the stable-door has been locked and watch the eager crowd which is waiting for the weekly "'lowance." Sturdy, strapping women, with muscular arms and stout calves freely displayed under the skirts which are tucked around their waists, are standing in picturesque attitudes or sitting on their upturned baskets, while ragged, wild-looking little "picknies" are clinging to the said skirts and peeping with great staring eyes at the strange "buckrah man." Each will take the week's supply of ear-corn and potatoes for her household--a peck for each member of the family, large and small--and will grind her own grist at the mill-house, or more probably trade away the entire supply at the cross-roads store for flour, sugar and coffee.

"Why, Rose, is that you? How are you, and how are the children?"

"De Lawd! Wha' dat? who dat da' talk me? Bless de Lawd! da' nyoung maussa! Ki! enty you tek wife yet? Go 'way! Look! he done got bayd (beard) same like ole nanny-goat! Bless de Lawd!"

"I'm glad to see you looking so young, Kitty: your children must be grown up."

"Tenk de Lawd, maussa," with a low curtsey, "I day yah yet! Dem pickny, da big man an' 'oman now. Enty you got one piece t'bacca fo' po' ole nigger?"

The tobacco is forthcoming, together with a few gaudy head-handkerchiefs and little parcels of sugar, and "nyoung maussa" has it all his own way with the simple creatures. These negroes are as near the original wild African type as if a few years instead of more than a century of contact with civilization had passed over them. They are all the direct descendants of original importations, chiefly Ghoolahs and Ashantees; indeed, "Gullah niggah" is a favorite term of playful reproach among them. Their _male_ names are still largely Ashantee, as "Cudjo," "Cuffee," "Quarcoo," "Quashee," etc., and their dialect, a mixture of "pigeon English" and Ghoolah, strongly impregnated with the French of the Huguenot masters of their forefathers, is simply incomprehensible to a stranger, whether white or black. Indeed, when excited and talking rapidly even those who have grown up among them can scarcely understand the lingo. "Coom, Hondree," says an old nurse to her little charge at bedtime, "le' we tek fire go atop:" in English, "Come, Henry, let's take a light and go up stairs." "Child" is "pickny;" "white man" (or woman), "buckrah;" "I don't know," "Me no sabbée;" "Is it not?" "Enty?"; "watermelon" is "attermillion" or "mutwilliam;" and so on.

Paying a medical visit, I enter a house where the patient is a sick child: the old crone who is sitting in the doorway with a boy's head between her knees, performing the office of which monkeys are so fond, calls out, "Lindy! de buckrah coom."

"What's the matter with the child?" I inquire.

"Ki, maussa! me no sabbée wha' do a pickny," replies the intelligent Lindy, who wishes me to know that she knows nothing about the case.

We shall see more of them before leaving the plantation.

A day on the water and a long drive are excellent preparatives for a supper of broad rice-waffles toasted crisp and brown before the crackling hickory fire, of smoking spare-ribs and luscious tripe, of rich, fragrant Java coffee with boiled milk and cream; nor does a sound night's sleep unfit one for enjoying at breakfast a repetition of the same, substituting link sausages and black pudding for the tripe and spare-ribs, and superadding feathery muffins and soft-boiled eggs.

It is Sunday morning, but the service to-day is at the other end of the parish, some twenty miles away. The sky seems brighter and the grass more green than on the work-days of the week: the birds sing more cheerily, and seem to know that for one day they are safe from man's persecution. Certain it is that the wary crow will on that day eye you saucily as you pass within ten yards of him, while on any other you cannot approach him within a hundred. At ten o'clock the household is assembled in the drawing-room, the piano--with, it may be, a flute accompaniment--is made to do the organ's duty, and the full service of the Prayer-Book is read and sung and listened to with reverent attention. There are yet two hours to dinner, and as the wild, wailing chant from the negro-yard comes to our ears we determine to visit their chapel. If there was one point in which, more than in others, the Carolina planter was faithful to his duty, it was in securing the privileges of religion to his slaves. Every plantation had its chapel, sometimes rivaling in its appointments the churches for the whites. One of the largest congregations of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, having lost its silver during the sack of Columbia, is still using the sterling communion service of a chapel for negroes which was burned upon a neighboring plantation. The missionary is to-day upon another portion of his circuit, and we have a specimen of genuine African Christianity. On one side the rough benches are filled with men clad, for once in the week, in _clean_ cotton shirts, with coat and pants of heavy "white plains," some young dandies here and there being "fixed up" with old black silk waistcoats and flashy neckties, holding conspicuously old mashed beaver hats, which have been carefully wetted to make them shine. On the other are ranged the women, the front benches holding the sedate old "maumas," with gaudy yellow and red kerchiefs tied about their heads in stiff high turbans, and others folded _à la_ Lady Washington over their bosoms; behind them sit the young women in white woolen "frocks," without handkerchiefs on head or breast; while the children who are not minding babies at home or hunting rabbits in the woods are gathered about the door.

Old Bob, the preacher, rises and fixes his eyes severely on the small fry near the door: "We's gwine to wushup de Lawd, an' I desiah dem chilluns to know dat no noise nor laffin', nor no so't o' onbehavin', kin be 'lowed; so min' wot you's 'bout dere. You yerry me? (hear me)."

Then, adjusting the great silver-rimmed spectacles and opening a ragged prayer-book (upside down), he proceeds to read over the hymn, the whole congregation listening with rapt attention. As he utters the last word all rise together, the old women with closed eyes, heads on one side and hands crossed over their breasts, and he begins to "line out," dividing the words rhythmically into spondaic measure, with the accent strongly on every second syllable and the falling inflection invariably on the last uttered:

When I'--kin read'--my ti'--tul clear'--
To man'--shuns in'--de skies'.

Immediately the old mauma at the end of the front bench "sets de tchune," a sad, quavering minor, and pitched so high that any attempt to follow it seems utterly hopeless. But no: the women all strike in on the same soaring key, while the men, by a skillful management of the _falsetto_, keep up with the screamiest flights. As they wail out the last word, "skies," the women all curtsey with a sharp jerk of the body and the men droop their heads upon their breasts--a token that the strophe is ended; and the next two lines follow in the same manner. Then follows the prayer, in which due remembrance is made of "ole maussa" and "nyoung missis an' maussa," and all their friends and visitors. We are considerate enough to withdraw before the sermon, lest our presence should embarrass the preacher, but a little eavesdropping gives us an opportunity of hearing how practically he deals with "lyin' an' tiefin', an' onbehavin' 'mongst de nyoung 'omans," and how he holds up "de obeshay," as Saint Paul did the magistrate, in terror to those who "play 'possum w'en de grass too t'ick," or "stick t'orn in he finger so he can't pick 'nuff cotton w'en de sun too hot." With our withdrawal is removed a restraint which has chilled the active devotion of the assembly, and soon the singing begins again, accompanied now, however, by the heavy tramp of feet and the clapping of hands keeping time to the sad, wailing minor which characterizes all their music. The hymn, too, is no longer selected from the prayer-book, but from some unwritten collection better adapted to their ideas of "heart-religion":

De angel cry out A-men,
A-men! A-men!
De angel cry out A-men!
I'se bound to de promis' lan'!

I da gwine up to hebbin in a long w'ite robe,
Long w'ite robe! long w'ite robe!
My Sabiour tell me wear dat robe
W'en I meet him in de promis' lan'!

We've a great deal before us during the coming week, for we must give a day to the partridges (never called "quail" in the South), and we have a fox-hunt or two in the mornings, and that old buck to look after whose tracks I showed you in the road; besides the ducks and turkeys which are waiting to be shot, and all the Christmas frolicking, from which the ladies will not excuse us. We will therefore take this quiet Sunday afternoon for a walk among the fields and woods to see what manner of country we are in. Bending our steps first toward the huge old oak which seems to hang upon the very edge of the green hill near the house, we suddenly find ourselves just over a large basin enclosed with an octagonal brick wall, except where the clear water runs out over silvery gravel between curbings of heavy plank. This is the spring, and a queer sort of spring it is. Just under the tree-roots the water is but a few inches deep over a bed of bluish-gray limestone, and in no part of the basin, which is about twelve by twenty feet, does it seem to be more than a half fathom in depth. But just under the ledge of rock a shelving hole slopes back under the hill, the bottom of which no man has ever found. This hole is only about three feet by two, and the narrow outlet to the basin is but four inches deep, and loses itself within fifty yards in an oozy bog. Yet, peering into the depth, you catch a glimpse of the black head and beady white eyes of a mudfish at least two feet long, and presently of the silvery side of a three-pound bass which glides across the opening. Drop a line with the cork set at ten feet, and you will draw out of the very bosom of the earth a mess of fat perch and bream each as large and as thick as your hand, and eels three feet in length are sometimes caught in the basin at night. Two miles away, in the direction of the "run," there are on Woodboo plantation two similar basins connected by a shallow streamlet, and with no outlet which a minnow could navigate: one of them is large enough for a little skiff to float on, and the gray rock slopes down to a centre depth of ten feet. Just where the sides meet is a long, irregular fissure, out of which huge bass, pike, jack and mudfish are constantly emerging, and into which they retreat when disturbed. Hundreds of perch, bream and young bass sport in the shallow parts, and are easily caught with rod and line, the water being so clear that you can watch the fish gorging the bait, and strike when the entire hook disappears. Now, where do these fish live? where do they breed? and upon what do they feed? But the mystery does not end there. About a mile in the opposite direction as we walk through a little belt of wet pineland, where the woodcock runs across our path or whistles up from the wet leaves, we come suddenly upon a dozen or more little basins, the largest not over six feet by nine, which have no outlet whatever. One hole about two feet in diameter goes sheer down between two pine trees to a depth never yet fathomed: you cannot see it until right on it, and you cannot use a rod, but drop your line about twelve feet deep, and your cork will go down like lead, while you pull up red perch and blue bream until your arm wearies of the sport. I have caught five dozen in a winter's afternoon, for the fish bite best in the coldest weather, the temperature of the water being sixty-two degrees the year round, irrespective of the weather. You must go fifteen miles before reaching another of these springs or fountains, and then ten more to the last of the chain, the famous Eutaw Springs of Revolutionary memory. Here, then, must be a subterranean river or reservoir at least twenty-eight miles long, teeming with the same fish which swim in the surface-streams, yet having no discoverable connection with any of these. We meet with no rocks or stones anywhere, but our walk leads us past many marl-pits from which numerous fossil remains have been obtained. The fertile and superstitious imagination of the negroes has not been idle in such a suggestive field, and they have peopled these fountains with spirits which they call "cymbies," akin to the undine and the kelpie. On Saturday nights you may hear a strange rhythmic, thumping sound from the spring, and looking out you may see by the wild, fitful glare of lightwood torches dark figures moving to and fro. These are the negro women at their laundry-work, knee-deep in the stream, beating the clothes with heavy clubs. They are merry enough when together, but not one of them will go alone for a "piggin" of water, and if you slip up in the shadow of the old oak and throw a stone into the spring, the entire party will rush away at the splash, screaming with fear, convinced that the "cymbie" is after them.

Leaving the spring behind us, we pass up the long lane between two cotton-fields of a hundred acres each, in which the blackened stalks are still standing, as are the dried cornstalks and gray pea-vines in the field beyond. These will remain until the early spring, when they will be cut down and "listed in" with the hoe, for not a foot of this rich and profitable plantation has ever been broken with the plough. Incredible as it may appear, there is not a plough or a work-horse, and but one old mule, upon this highly-cultivated tract of one thousand acres. All the hauling is done by ox-teams, with three sturdy negroes to each cart, and the heavy cotton-hoe does everything else. Where one man and a plough could till three acres, twenty men and women with hoes 'ridge up the ground, scatter manure in the furrows, and draw the ridges down on it again. True, the surface only is scratched, and the soil is soon exhausted, but who cares for that when there is abundance of rich timber-land from which to clear new fields? and as to economizing labor, that is the last thing a planter cares about, for what are the negroes to do? None are ever sold, the "picknies" who swarm around every cabin growing up to stock the plantations bought for each child as he or she "comes of age or is married," and work has to be made for them to do.

"What shall I put the hands at to-day, sir?" asked an overseer of an old planter when the last bale of cotton had been packed.

"Hum! let's see! Well, set them to filling up the old ditches and digging new ones."

For the same reason power-gins and saw-mills found little favor, the single-treadle "foot-gin" and the saw-pit and cross-cut employing ten times as many hands. It was the aim of every large planter to produce and manufacture by hand-power everything needed on the place. Of course, it required a heavy expenditure of labor and land to raise provisions for such an army of unprofitable workers, on which account slave capital was the poorest paying property in the world. The planter was wealthy, but he owned only land and negroes: when the latter were emancipated the former became useless; and this is the reason why the war so utterly ruined the rich land-owners of the South.

ROBERT WILSON.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

'76.

Pass, '75, across the Styx!
Make way for stately '76,
Who comes with mincing, minuet pace,
Well-powdered hair and patch-deckt face--
An antiquated kerchief on:
White-capped, like Martha Washington;
Clock-hosed and high-heeled slipper-shod,
To give no Nineteenth Century nod;
Nay, but a courtesy profound,
Whose look demure consults the ground.
O rare-seen bloom! No flower perennial,
This aloe-crowned Dame Centennial!

She comes with shades of days long fled--
Knee-breeched; long silk-stockingèd;
Well-braided queues; bright-buckled shoon
That flash with diamonds; gold galloon
On rebel uniforms of blue---
A color that this land found _true_;
Three-cornered hats, and plumes that flew
Through conflicts where men dare and do.
A patriot throng, a gallant host,
Our Dame Centennial's train can boast.

O aloe-flower upon her brow!
Of what strange birth-pangs breathest thou,
The while we gaze with dreamy eyes
Back o'er a sea of memories,
And see thy seed of foreign skies
Here washt, to spring beneath our sun
And ripen till its bloom is won!
What storms have rocked thy stem aslant,
O changeful-nurtured Century-Plant!
Whose living flower now opens bland
Its kindly promise o'er the land!
With blood and tears 'twas watered,
The bud whose blossom now is spread
A floral cap her head upon,
Who, _à la_ Martha Washington,
Our Dame Centennial now appears,
Our '76, our crown of years!

Brave preparations thee await,
O dame arrayed in olden state!
For thee, for thee, Penn's city stands
And stretches forth inviting hands
To guests of home and foreign lands,
And gathers all historic pride
Of ancient records at her side,
With gifts from all, on thee to rain
Who bring'st such mem'ries in thy train.

Hail, city well named "Brother's Love!"
The Quaker City of the dove,
That fain would call a land to fling
Its spites away, and 'neath thy wing
Renew the treaty made by Penn
In the wildwood with wilder men;
Yet true men still! Be this the token---
loyal faith, a pledge unbroken!

O year that wear'st thy aloe-flower
So proudly! may thy touch have power
Of healing! May thy visage bland
Drive threatening discord from the land,
And thronèd Peace more firmly fix!
Then shall the elder '76,
From out the eighteenth century's band
Of Time's host in the shadowy land,
Greet thee as one true soul may smile
Upon another, where nor guile
Nor sorrow can its brightness dim.
So greet the clear-eyed seraphim--
So once in Eden's sinless bower
Unfading flower smiled on flower.

LATIENNE.

THE KREUZESSCHULE.

OBER-AMMERGAU, BAVARIA, OCT. 4, 1875.

The town lies at the end of a lovely green valley. Behind it are fir-clad mountains with rocky peaks: on one side a great square rocky peak, which towers above all and is surmounted by a cross. On each side of the valley sloping hills, fir-clad to the top. A rapid, clear stream runs by on the edge of the village. Green pastures dotted with haymakers, a few scattered trees and a distant town fill the charming valley. Virginia creepers hang on the walls, and gay flowers fill pretty balconies and peep through sunny little casements. All is simple and neat, and the bright fresco pictures on the fronts of many houses lighten it all.

On a high hill overlooking the town they are placing a colossal crucifixion group, presented by King Ludwig II. in _Erinnerung an die Passionsspiele_--in memory of the Passion play--Christ on the cross, with the Virgin and St. John, one on each side. The two latter were ready to be hoisted on to the pedestal: the former is partly up the hill. All are surrounded by heavy planking, so that it is impossible to judge of the artistic merit, but the great group cannot fail to have a fine effect when viewed from a distance.

Yesterday (October 3d) was the eventful day. Our tickets had been ordered by telegraph, and we had "the best seats." The performance was to begin at nine o'clock, and at a quarter before nine we were in our places.

The building in which the play is given is of plain rough wood without paint ("or polish"); in the interior a gallery and two side-galleries, below them a parterre, and on each side of it a standing-place, all of plain, unpainted boards. The orchestra was sunk below the level of the stage, the proscenium painted to represent columns and entablature. The curtain represented, or seemed intended to represent, Jerusalem. The whole place could not probably contain over six hundred people, and was about half full. There were very few foreigners.

The play to be represented was not the "Passion play," which is given every ten years, but the _Kreuzesschule_, which is played once in fifty years--last in 1825. In it the play is taken from the Old Testament, and the tableaux from the New Testament--the reverse of the Passion play.

The orchestra began punctually at nine o'clock. There were about twenty performers, and they played with skill and taste. The selection of music was admirable. They commenced with a sort of prelude, slow and declamatory. Perfect silence reigned, and the deep interest of the spectators was, from the first and throughout, shown in their expressive faces. Men and women at times shed tears, and made not the slightest effort to hide their emotion. The black head-*kerchiefs of many of the women spectators, tight to the skull with ends hanging down behind, seemed in harmony with the scene.

The prelude ended, the Chorus entered with slow and dignified pace--seven men and women from one side, six from the other, all in a kind of Oriental costume, picturesque and handsome. The tallest came first, and so on in gradation, so that when ranged in front of the curtain they formed a kind of pyramid. The central figure then began the prologue, an explanation. Then the basso commenced singing an air, during which the Chorus divided, falling back to the sides and kneeling, while the curtain rose, displaying the first tableau. This lasted nearly three minutes, during which time the figures were really perfectly motionless. The basso finished his air and the tenor sang another while the curtain was up. This tableau represented the cross supported by an angel, while grouped around were men, women and children looking up at it in adoration. This was the "Kreuzesschule"--the school of the Cross--the prologue to the piece. The picture had the simplicity of the best school: no affected attitudes--all plain, earnest and beautiful. When the curtain fell the Chorus again took their places in front of it, a duet was sung, then a chorus, and then they countermarched and retired in quiet dignity.

Then came the first part. A prelude by the orchestra, and the curtain rises on Abel, dressed in sheep skin, by his altar, from which smoke ascends, he returning thanks. Enter Cain in leopard skin, much disturbed and angry. They discourse, Abel all sweetness, Cain bitter and cross. An angel in blue mantle, like one of Raphael's in the "Loggia," appears at the side and comforts Abel. Then Eve in white dress--evidently it had been a puzzle to dress her--and buskins, who says sweet words to Cain. Then Adam in sheep skin, very sad at all this difficulty. Eve sweetly strives to reconcile Cain to his brother, and appeals to him with much feeling. He discourses at length, then appears to relent and embraces Abel, but is evidently playing the hypocrite, and as the curtain falls you see that hate is in his heart.

The curtain down, the orchestra plays a prelude, the Chorus enters as before, and the leader speculates on Cain's behavior. "Is he honest?"--"Ah no, his heart is full of hate: he meditates evil." The Chorus divides as before, falls back and the curtain rises. This tableau represents the hate and rage of the people and Pharisees toward Christ, who drives the traders out of the Temple. In grouping, costume, color, tone, action and completeness it was truly a marvelous picture. The stage was crowded with figures: Christ in the centre, behind--a row of columns on each side--a scourge in his left hand, his right upheld in admirable action; in the background a group in wild confusion; on the right, richly dressed priests and Pharisees, indignant and fierce; in front, sellers of sheep and doves, money-changers and traders of various kinds. All the elements of a great picture were here shown in the highest degree, and no words of praise could be too strong to express the idea of its merits and its charm. This tableau lasted nearly two minutes, with the most complete steadiness, the basso singing an aria. The curtain then fell, and the Chorus, taking its place, sang and retired as before. This ended the first part, Cain's hate prefiguring the hatred toward Christ.

Then came Part Second. The curtain rose on Cain by the side of his ruined in a soliloquy. Enter Abel, gentle and mild. Eve comes in, and again tries to make peace, and Cain again plays the hypocrite and invites his brother into the wood on some pretext. They retire, leaving Eve disturbed by she knows not what. Adam enters, shares her fears and goes out to seek his sons. Thunder and lightning, admirably represented, and then enter Cain disheveled and disturbed. His mother knows not what has happened, but is agonized and calls for her Abel. An angel appears at the side and discloses all by asking Cain, "Where is thy brother?" and then announcing the fiat of the Most High to him. He rushes off as Adam enters bearing the body of Abel; and his mother, sitting down beside the dead body, makes a most touching picture of a _Pietà_. Adam with upstretched arms appeals to God, and the curtain falls. This was the "Blutschuld"--the crime of blood--and prefigured the betrayal of Christ by Judas for the thirty pieces of silver.

After a most beautiful prelude by the orchestra, the Chorus again enters; the leader expresses his horror at Cain's action and his pity for a fate thus given over to Satan; they again divide, and the curtain rises on the tableau of Judas receiving the money. At the end the high priest and other priests, in appropriate costume, stand on a platform beyond a railing. Judas in the centre, by a table, is taking the money from an attendant: all around are groups, admirably arranged, expressing, in face and attitude, wonder or pleasure or disgust. The same artistic ideas and beautiful arrangement and the same unaffected simplicity. This tableau lasted one minute and a half, while the tenor sang an aria, "Oh, better for him that he had never been born."

The third part was _Das Opfermahl_--the offering of bread and wine by Melchisedek to Abraham, prefiguring the Last Supper. Prelude by orchestra. The curtain rises, displaying Melchisedek before an altar, on which are bread and wine. Four attendants are near him. He, in a flowing white robe, discourses to them. The scene is simple and natural. Enter Abraham and attendants on one side and Lot and attendants on the other, all dressed in Roman mantles, buskins and helmets. The stage was filled and the grouping admirable. Abraham and Lot discourse, embrace and part, Lot and his followers retiring. Melchisedek comes forward and addresses Abraham, who replies at some length. Then Melchisedek prepares his bread and wine, takes some, then offers to Abraham, who eats and drinks. Meantime, a most charming chorus of Handel is sung behind the scenes, while Melchisedek and his attendants offer the bread and wine to all of Abraham's suite, who partake reverentially. Tableau and chorus, and the curtain descends. The ease and simple quiet action of all this scene were remarkable.

Enter Chorus as before: leader speaks. They divide and the curtain rises on the tableau of the Last Supper. I know not whether it was taken from any one picture--I think not--but it was simply and effectively grouped, and it recalled both Lionardo and Andrea del Sarto. This lasted two and a half minutes, during which time the contralto sang an air of Mozart's.

The fourth part--_Die Ergebung_ (Resignation)--was represented in the play by Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, prefiguring the agony of Christ in the Garden.

After a prelude by the orchestra the curtain rose and discovered Abraham and Isaac in loving discourse, with figures in the background, admirably costumed and grouped. An angel in white robe and blue mantle appears and delivers his heavenly message to the astounded Abraham. His agony was simply and feelingly depicted. He appears at last resigned, when Sarah, in red robe and Eastern headdress, enters to renew his grief. The beauty of this woman was of the highest order in feature and expression, and her dress was truly artistic. The scene between these two was most touchingly acted. Isaac reappears, thinking that he is simply going on a journey, and, scarcely comprehending his mother's great grief, presents his companion to her as a comfort and stay, thus prefiguring John and Mary at the cross. Abraham and Isaac depart, and the curtain falls.

Then another prelude by the orchestra, and the Chorus appears: the leader delivers the epilogue. They divide and kneel, and the curtain rises on the tableau of the scene in Gethsemane.

Christ, on an elevation, is kneeling: an angel stands in front of him. Below, the apostles are all asleep in groups. Behind, in the centre, Judas advances with the soldiers, who bear tall lanterns. It was like a picture of Carpaccio, and worthy of that great master. This tableau lasted two and a quarter minutes, during which time the tenor sang an aria.

The fifth part--_Es ist vollbracht_ (It is fulfilled)--represents Abraham going out to sacrifice his son, prefiguring the Crucifixion. The curtain rises on Sarah, full of agony, which is most simply and powerfully depicted. Attendants enter, who tell a long story: then Abraham and Isaac appear, and there is a most striking scene--Sarah fainting, the friend sustaining her, the others grouped around in various picturesque attitudes. An angel appears, simple and practical, like those of the good old painters, and delivers the blessing. The curtain falls.

Again the orchestra in a superb prelude: then the Chorus appears, and, after the epilogue, divides and kneels as the curtain rises on a tableau which my imagination never could have pictured, for its wonderful completeness, its power, its feeling, its artistic beauty and its marvelous expression far exceeded any idea that I had of the power of men and women to represent such a picture--the Crucifixion.

The stage was crowded with figures, Christ in the centre, fully extended on the cross, with no signs whatever of support to disturb the illusion--the thieves on one side and the other, with arms over the cross, as frequently represented; the group at the foot of the cross so touchingly tender--the soldiers, the priests, the people--all grouped with such consummate skill, such harmony of colors, such appropriateness and vigor of expression, as have never, to my thinking, been excelled in the greatest pictures of the greatest masters. Here was most remarkably shown the wonderful artistic talent and feeling of these simple people. There was nothing repulsive in any way, scarcely painful, except tenderly so. You breathlessly gazed on this wondrous scene, and when, after three minutes, the curtain fell, you were speechless with admiration and emotion. A lovely air by the soprano accompanied this tableau, and after the curtain fell a grand chorus completed the fifth part.

The sixth part--_Durch Dunkel zum Lichte_ (through Darkness to Light)--ended the programme. The play represented Joseph, with all his honors upon him, receiving his old father and his brothers--prefiguring the Ascension of Christ.

After the prelude by the orchestra the curtain rises and discovers old Jacob, surrounded by his sons in various groups. The scene and costumes were admirable and appropriate. In the midst of a discourse Joseph bursts in in fine attire, followed by a great train, among which are two darkies, taken bodily from Flemish pictures. After much embracing and blessing and forgiveness, the curtain falls as Jacob with outstretched arms thanks the Lord and prophesies all good things.

Then again the orchestra, and again our Chorus enters on the scene, and after the epilogue, "At last all woe is ended," they divide and kneel, as the curtain rises on the scene of the Ascension. This was most simply represented. Christ ascends from the tomb, standing on it, surrounded by angels, while figures appropriately grouped around make a picture which recalled Perugino. The basso sings an aria, and a grand chorus, "Alleluja!" ends this most remarkable performance.

There was no delay nor interruption throughout. Not the sound of a hammer nor the whisper of a prompter was ever heard. There was no applause whatever from the audience until the end, and then it seemed to come from the strangers. The three hours--for the end was precisely at twelve--seemed not more than one, so filled was the mind with the simple, grand beauty and the artistic completeness of the whole thing. No personality appears for an instant. There are no bills to tell the names of the actors, nor did any actor or actress at any time look toward the audience.

Never since early childhood have the Bible stories been brought back with such vividness, such tender and absorbing interest. Tradition, faith and earnestness have made this a people of artists. If one could believe, as all must wish, that love of money-making and speculation will not invade this simple village, to the demoralization of its people, the satisfaction would be most complete. Be that as it may, I shall always owe a debt of gratitude to Ober-Ammergau, and as long as memory lasts shall remember _Die Kreuzesschule_.

J.W.F.

VARESE.

Varese is an ancient little town on a hill overlooking the small lake of the same name in the midst of the mountainous country between Como and Lago Maggiore, and a little to the southward of the Lake of Lugano. It is within a very few miles of the Swiss frontier. All this lacustrine region has for many generations been celebrated as a specially privileged one. It is Italy without the enervating heat and aridity which are such serious drawbacks to the enjoyment of its other charms by Northern folk. It is Switzerland without the rigidity of its climate and the comparative poverty of the northern vegetation. You have the oleander and cactus around your feet, while the snow-peaks high above your head are rose-colored morning and evening by a southern sun. You wander amid groves of Spanish chestnut, and may hear the while the Swiss-sounding cattle-bells from Alpine pastures high above them. The lakes themselves, with their branching arms and bays and their fairy-like islands, are of course a feature of ever-varying and incomparable beauty.

Accordingly, Fortune's favorites of all countries have long, even from the old Roman times downward, thickly studded the district with their villas and gardens and palaces and parks. But the possession of a villa on one of the Italian lakes implies that the happy owner is nothing very much less than a millionaire. And it has been reserved for these quite latter days to find the means of placing within the reach of the many all the delights which were heretofore the exclusive privilege of the few. In no instance has this been done with so complete a measure of success as at Varese. The hotel is situated about a mile from the little town. Its gardens look down on the lake, the intervening slope being covered with forest. To the left, as one stands at the garden-front of the house, looking toward the lake, are the hills in the midst of which the Lake of Lugano nestles, and on the right, beyond the Lago Maggiore, is a view of Monte Rosa with its eternal snows, perhaps the finest to be found anywhere. I have seen Monte Rosa and its chain very finely from the top of the pass called the Col di Tenda, between Turin and Nice, but I think the view from the terrace in front of this house is finer. Immediately at the back of the house we have the hills--mountains they would be called in any other part of Europe--of which Monte Generoso, now covered with snow, though with a hotel on the top, is the most conspicuous. The country more immediately around us is a district of rolling hills, partly vineyard, but in a larger degree wooded, and here and there diversified by the well-cared-for gardens of some large villa. Our outlook, it will be admitted, is pleasant enough. The house I am speaking of, now known under the style and title of the "Excelsior Hotel," was recently a magnificent villa of the Morosini family at Venice. The name will not be new to any who have visited Venice; for the traveler, even if his tastes did not lead him to take any heed of such matters, will not have been allowed by the _ciceroni_ to overlook the tombs of the doges of that family in the grand old church of the beheaded Saint John, _San Giovanni decollata,_ or "San Zuan Degolà," as the soft-lisping Venetians call it. Yes, the Morosini were very great men in their day: more than one of the brightest chapters in the history of the great republic on the Adriatic is filled with their name. But now their place knows them no more: the family is extinct. The last scion of the race, an old lady who died quite recently at Varese, is said to have declared that it was time for a Morosini to retire from the scene when their house was about to be turned into an inn. Poor old lady! One could have wished that she had vanished before that desecration had been threatened, especially as her end was so near at hand; for it would, I fear, have been too much to wish that the Excelsior Hotel should have been kept out of existence for another generation.

The Morosini had palaces among the most splendid of that city of palaces, Venice, as may be seen to the present day. But this Varese villa was their place of delight and enjoyment. And truly the ideas which we generally attach to the word "villa" are scarcely represented by the magnificent building to which the public are now indiscriminately invited. It is an enormous pile of building, the vast garden-frontage of which makes considerable claims to architectural magnificence. There are, especially in Switzerland, very magnificent and palace-like hotels which have been built for the purpose they now serve, but the fact that they were so built has very effectually prevented even the most splendid among them from rivaling, or indeed approaching, the grandiose magnificence of this superb hostelrie, which has chosen its name in no idle spirit of vaunting. For building is costly, space is precious, and the necessity of finding a due return for the capital employed is the paramount rule which the architect has to keep ever in mind. The old Morosini, who raised this pile with the abundant profits of the trade with the East when Venice had the monopoly of it, were curbed in their architectural ambition by no such considerations. The building of this Villa Morosini must have cost a sum which no possible amount of success in the way of hotel-keeping could ever be expected to pay a tolerable interest on. But the sum for which it was purchased by the present proprietors by no means represents the whole of the capital which has been expended on it as it now stands. It needed the expenditure of no less a sum than sixty thousand pounds sterling to adapt it in all respects to its present purpose, and it is now really such a hotel as does not exist elsewhere in Europe. The whole of the ground floor of the vast building, looking in its entire length on the trimly-kept gardens and on the lake below them, is devoted to public rooms, the spaciousness of which is such that even if the entire house were filled to its utmost capacity they would never be in the least degree crowded. First on the right hand is the breakfast-room. Then comes an enormous dining-hall, the coved ceiling of which, supported by noble pillars and ornamented with stuccoes in relief, is in perfect keeping with the style of the rest of the ornamentation. Next to the dining-room is a reading-room well furnished with papers and books: then comes a so-called ladies' drawing-room, though I do not observe that that better half of the creation has the smallest wish to monopolize it. Next to that is the very handsome general drawing-room; then a large music-room with a grand pianoforte and harmonium; then an equally spacious smoking-room; and, lastly, a billiard-room;--truly a princely suite of rooms. The manager speaks English perfectly, and the results of his English education may be seen in the admirably comfortable and clean arrangements of the chambers and every part of the house. The bedrooms are all warmed with hot air, and really nothing has been neglected which can contribute to ensure the comfort of the inmates.