Chapter VII: Part IV (2)

The tusks are principally used to plow up the bottom in search of food, but are also employed as weapons, and in climbing upon the ice. They are composed of hard white ivory, set for about six inches of their length in a hard bony mass, about six inches in diameter, which forms the front of the head; the breathing passage runs through this mass, and terminates in two “blow holes” between the roots of the tusks. The tusk itself is solid, except that portion which is imbedded in the bone, and this is filled with a cellular structure containing a whitish oil.

A walrus killed in the water immediately sinks; even if mortally wounded, it will in nine cases out of ten escape, and sink to the bottom. When on the ice, these animals always lie close to the water, and it is therefore necessary to kill them instantly, or they will reach the water and be lost before the boat can arrive within harpooning distance. This can only be done by shooting them in such a way as to penetrate the brain, which is no easy matter. The brain lies in what appears to be the neck; that which one would naturally suppose to be the head being nothing but the heavy jaw bones, and mass of bone in which the tusks are set.

What becomes of the walrus in winter it is hard to say; but I have heard them blowing in an open pool of water among the ice on the north coast of Spitzbergen in the month of December. In the spring, however, when the ice begins to break up, they collect in herds on their feeding grounds around the coasts, where they may be found diving for shellfish, or basking and sleeping, singly or in “heaps” of two or three, often five or six, together.

They seem to prefer to lie on small cakes of flat bay ice; a single walrus will often take his siesta on a cake only just large enough to float him, and it is among such ice, therefore, rather than among rough old pack and glacier blocks, that they should be sought, although I have seen them lying on heavy old water-worn ice, four and five feet above the water. In this case, however, they had no choice.

The boats of the walrus hunters are strongly yet lightly built. They are bow-shaped at both ends; the stem and stern posts are made thick and strong in order to resist the blows of the ice, and the bow sheathed with zinc plates to prevent excessive chafing. It is most important that they should be easy and quick in turning, and this quality is obtained by depressing the keel in the middle. They are painted red inside and white outside, so that they may not be conspicuous amongst ice, but the hunters stultify this idea to some extent by dressing themselves in dark colors.

The harpoon, the point and edges of which are ground and whetted to a razor-like sharpness, is a simple but very effective weapon. When thrust into a walrus or seal, a large outer barb “takes up” a loop of the tough hide, whilst a small inner fishhook barb prevents it from becoming disengaged, so that when once properly harpooned, it is seldom, if ever, that an animal escapes through the harpoon “drawing.” The harpoon line consists of sixteen fathoms of two-inch tarred rope, very carefully made of the finest hemp, “soft laid”; each line is neatly coiled in a separate box placed beneath the forward thwart.

A boat’s crew consists of four or five men, and the quickness with which they can turn their boat is greatly accelerated by their method of rowing and steering. Each man rows with a pair of oars, which he can handle much better than one long one when amongst ice.

The harpooner, who commands the boat’s crew, rows from the bow thwart, near the weapons and telescope, which he alone uses. It is he who searches for game, and decides on the method of attack when it is found. “No. 2,” generally the strongest man in the boat, is called the “line man”; it is his duty to tend the line when a walrus is struck, and to assist the harpooner.

In such a boat, then, one lovely September morning, we are rowing easily back to the sloop, which is lying off Bird Bay, a small indentation in the east face of the northernmost point of Spitzbergen. The harpooner is balancing himself, one foot on the forward locker, and one on the thwart, examining through a telescope something which appears to be a lump of dirty ice, about half a mile away. Suddenly he closes his glass and seizes the oars. “There he is!” he says, and without another word the boat is headed for the black mass.

Now we are within a couple of hundred yards, and each man crouches in the bottom of the boat, the harpooner still in the bow, his eyes intently fixed upon the walrus. Suddenly the walrus raises his head, and we are motionless. It is intensely still, and the scraping of a piece of ice along the boat seems like the roar of a railway train passing overhead on some bridge. Down goes the head, and we glide forward again. The walrus is uneasy; again and again he raises his head and looks round with a quick motion, but we have the sun right at our back, and he never notices us.

At last we are within a few feet, and with a shout of “Wake up, old boy!” which breaks the stillness like a shot, the harpooner is on his feet, his weapon clasped in both hands above his head. As the walrus plunges into the sea, the iron is buried in his side, and, with a quick twist to prevent the head from slipping out of the same slit that it has cut in the thick hide, the handle is withdrawn and thrown into the boat. Bumping and scraping amongst the floating ice, we are towed along for about five minutes, and then stop as the wounded walrus comes to the surface to breathe.

In the old days the lance would finish the business, but now it is the rifle. He is facing the boat; I sight for one of his eyes, and let him have both barrels, without much effect apparently, for away we rush for two or three minutes more, when he is up again, still facing the boat. He seems to care no more for the solid “Express” bullets than if they were peas; but he is slow this time, and, as he turns to dive, exposes the fatal spot at the back of the head, and dies.

Few men are likely ever to forget the first occasion on which they found themselves amongst a herd of walrus in the water. Scores of fierce-looking heads--for the long tusks, small bloodshot eyes, and moustache on the upper lip (every bristle of which is as thick as a crow quill) give the walrus an expression of ferocity--gaze, perhaps in unbroken silence, from all sides upon the boat, See! the sun glints along a hundred wet backs, and they are gone.

Away you row at racing speed to where experience tells you they will rise again. “Here they are! Take that old one with long tusks first!” A couple of quick thrusts, right and left, and away you go again, fast to two old fellows that will want a good deal of attention before you can cut their tusks out. Indeed, unless one has served his apprenticeship, he had better not meddle with the harpoon at all. The old skippers and harpooners can spin many a yarn of lost crews and boats gone under the ice through a fatal moment’s delay in cutting free from the diving walrus.

--_From “Big Game Shooting._”

THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.

I. HISTORY.

Volcanoes can never be trusted. No one knows when one will break out, or what it will do; and those who live close to them--as the city of Naples is close to Mount Vesuvius--must not be astonished if they are blown up or swallowed, as that great and beautiful city of Naples may be without a warning, any day.

For what happened to that same Mount Vesuvius about eighteen hundred years ago in the old Roman times? For ages and ages it had been lying quiet, like any other hill. Beautiful cities were built at its foot--cities filled with people who were as handsome and as comfortable and, I am afraid, as wicked as any people ever were on earth. Fair gardens, vineyards, and olive yards covered the mountain slopes. It was held to be one of the Paradises of the world.

As for the mountain’s being a volcano, who ever thought of that? To be sure, the top of it was a great round crater, or cup, a mile or more across, and a few hundred yards deep. But that was all overgrown with bushes and wild vines full of deer and other wild animals. What sign of fire was there in that? To be sure, also, there was an ugly place below, by the seashore, where smoke and brimstone came out of the ground; and a lake called Avernus, over which poisonous gases hung. But what of that? It had never harmed any one, and how could it harm them?

So they all lived on, merrily and happily enough, till the year A.D. 79. At that time there was stationed in the Bay of Naples a Roman admiral, called Pliny, who was also a very studious and learned man, and author of a famous old book on natural history. He was staying on shore with his sister; and as he sat in his study, she called him out to see a strange cloud which had been hanging for some time over the top of Mount Vesuvius. It was in shape just like a pine tree; not, of course, like the pines which grow in this country, but like an Italian stone pine, with a long straight stem and a flat parasol-shaped top.

Sometimes it was blackish, sometimes spotted; and the good Admiral Pliny, who was always curious about natural science, ordered his rowboat and went away across the bay to see what it could be. Earthquake shocks had been very common for the last few days, but I do not suppose that Pliny thought that the earthquakes and the cloud had anything to do with each other. However, he soon found out that they had; and to his cost. When he was near the opposite shore, some of the sailors met him and begged him to turn back. Cinders and pumice stones were falling down from the sky, and flames were breaking out of the mountain above. But Pliny would go on: he said that if people were in danger it was his duty to help them; and that he must see this strange cloud, and note down the different shapes into which it changed.

But the hot ashes fell faster and faster; the sea ebbed out suddenly, and almost left them on the beach; and Pliny turned away towards a place called Stabiæ, to the house of an old friend who was just going to escape in a boat. Brave Pliny told him not to be afraid; ordered his bath like a true Roman gentleman, and then went in to dinner with a cheerful face. Flames came down from the mountain, nearer and nearer as the night drew on; but Pliny persuaded his friend that they were only fires in some villages from which the peasants had fled; and then went to bed and slept soundly.

However, in the middle of the night, they found the courtyard being fast filled with cinders, and if they had not awakened the Admiral in time, he would never have been able to get out of the house.

The earthquake shocks grew stronger and fiercer, till the house was ready to fall; and Pliny and his

From a Photograph. Engraved by E. Heinemann

Mount Vesuvius during an Eruption.]

friend, and the sailors and the slaves, all fled into the open fields, having pillows over their heads to prevent their being beaten down. By this time, day had come, but not the dawn: for it was still pitch dark. They went down to their boats upon the shore; but the sea raged so horribly that there was no getting on board of them.

Then Pliny grew tired and made his men spread a sail for him that he might lie down upon it. But there came down upon them a rush of flames and a strong smell of sulphur, and all ran for their lives.

Some of the slaves tried to help the Admiral; but he sank down again, overpowered by the brimstone fumes, and so was left behind. When they came back again, there he lay dead; but with his clothes in order, and his face as quiet as if he had been only sleeping. And that was the end of a brave and learned man, a martyr to duty and to the love of science.

But what was going on in the meantime? Under clouds of ashes, cinders, mud, lava, three of those happy cities--Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabiæ--were buried at once. They were buried just as the people had fled from them, leaving the furniture and the earthenware, often even jewels and gold behind, and here and there a human being who had not had time to escape from the dreadful rain of ashes and dust.

The ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii have been dug into since, and partly uncovered; and the paintings, especially in Pompeii, are found upon the walls still fresh, preserved from the air by the ashes which have covered them in. At Naples there is a famous museum containing the curiosities which have been dug out of the ruined cities; and one can walk along the streets in Pompeii and see the wheel tracks in the pavement along which carts and chariots rolled two thousand years ago.

And what had become of Vesuvius, the treacherous mountain? Half, or more than half, of the side of the old crater had been blown away; and what was left, which is now called the Monte Somma, stands in a half circle round the new cone and the new crater which is burning at this very day. True, after that eruption which killed Pliny, Vesuvius fell asleep again, and did not awake for one hundred and thirty-four years, and then again for two hundred and sixty-nine years; but it has been growing more and more restless as the ages have passed on, and now hardly a year passes without its sending out smoke and stones from its crater, and streams of lava from its sides.

--_From “Madam How and Lady Why,” by Charles Kingsley._

II. ROMANCE.

The most popular historical romance in the English language is “The Last Days of Pompeii,” by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. It was first published in 1834, and is a narrative depicting life and manners during the last years of the doomed city. The description of the grand catastrophe is a subject which called forth all the brilliant powers of the author. As a piece of word-painting it has seldom been surpassed.

* * * * *

The cloud which had scattered so deep a murkiness over the day had now settled into a solid and impenetrable mass. But in proportion as the blackness gathered, did the lightnings around Vesuvius increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was their horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire; no rainbow ever rivaled their varying and prodigal dyes. Now brightly blue as the most azure depths of a southern sky,--now of a livid and snake-like green, darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent,--now of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch to arch--then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, like the ghost of their own life!

In the pauses of the showers you heard the rumbling of the earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still, and audible but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes, striding across the gloom, hurtling one upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the abyss of shade; so that, to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers, the vapors seemed like the bodily forms of gigantic foes--the agents of terror and of death.

The ashes in many places were already knee-deep; and the boiling showers which came from the steaming breath of the volcano forced their way into the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapor. In some places, immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house roofs, bore down along the streets masses of confused ruin, yet more and more, with every hour, obstructed the way; and as the day advanced, the motion of the earth was more sensibly felt--the footing seemed to slide and

From the Painting by J. Coomans. Engraved by E. Heinemann.

Interior of a House in Pompeii.]

creep--nor could chariot or litter be kept steady even on the most level ground.

Sometimes the huger stones, striking against each other as they fell, broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks of fire, which caught whatever was combustible within their reach; and along the plains beyond the city the darkness was now terribly relieved, for several houses and even vineyards had been set on flames; and at various intervals the fires rose sullenly and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this partial relief of the darkness, the citizens had, here and there, in the more public places, such as the porticoes of temples and the entrances to the forum, endeavored to place rows of torches; but these rarely continued long; the showers and the winds extinguished them, and the sudden darkness into which their sudden birth was converted had something in it doubly terrible and doubly impressing on the impotence of human hopes, the lesson of despair.

Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches, parties of fugitives encountered each other, some hurrying towards the sea, others flying from the sea back to the land. The whole elements of civilization were broken up. Ever and anon, by the flickering lights, you saw the thief hastening by the most solemn authorities of the law, laden with the produce of his sudden gains. If, in the darkness, wife was separated from husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reunion. Each hurried blindly and confusedly on. Nothing in all the various and complicated machinery of social life was left save the primal law of self-preservation.

Through this awful scene did Glaucus wade his way, accompanied by Ione and the blind girl. Suddenly, a rush of hundreds, in their path to the sea, swept by them. Nydia was torn from the side of Glaucus, who with Ione was borne rapidly onward; and when the crowd (whose forms they saw not, so thick was the gloom) were gone, Nydia was still separated from their side. Glaucus shouted her name. No answer came. They retraced their steps,--in vain: they could not discover her,--it was evident she had been swept along some other direction by the human current. Their friend, their preserver was lost! And hitherto Nydia had been their guide. Her blindness rendered the scene familiar to her alone. Accustomed, through a perpetual night, to thread the windings of the city, she had led them unerringly towards the seashore, by which they had resolved to hazard an escape. Now, which way could they wend? All was rayless to them--a maze without a clue. Wearied, despondent, bewildered, they, however, passed along, the ashes falling upon their heads, the fragmentary stones dashing up in sparkles before their feet.

Advancing, as men grope for escape in a dungeon, they continued their uncertain way. At the moments when the volcanic lightnings lingered over the streets, they were enabled, by that awful light, to steer and guide their progress: yet, little did the view it presented to them cheer or encourage their path. In parts where the ashes lay dry and unmixed with the boiling torrents, cast upward from the mountain at capricious intervals, the surface of the earth presented a leprous and ghastly white. In other places, cinder and rock lay matted in heaps.

The groans of the dying were broken by wild shrieks of women’s terror--now near, now distant--which, when heard in the utter darkness, were rendered doubly appalling by the sense of helplessness and the uncertainty of the perils around; and clear and distinct through all were the mighty and various noises from the Fatal Mountain; its rushing winds; its whirling torrents; and, from time to time, the burst and roar of some more fiery and fierce explosion.

Suddenly the place became lighted with an intense and lurid glow. Bright and gigantic through the darkness, which closed around it like the walls of hell, the mountain shone--a pile of fire. Its summit seemed riven in two; or rather, above its surface there seemed to rise two monster shapes, each confronting each, as Demons contending for a World. These were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole atmosphere far and wide; but _below_, the nether part of the mountain was still dark and shrouded, save in three places, adown which flowed, serpentine and irregular, rivers of the molten lava. Darkly red through the profound gloom of their banks, they flowed slowly on, as towards the devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged and stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the sources of the stupendous Phlegethon. And through the stilled air was heard the rattling of the fragments of rock, hurling one upon another as they were borne down the fiery cataracts--darkening, for one instant, the spot where they fell, and suffused the next in the burnished hues of the flood along which they floated.

Glaucus turned in awe, caught Ione in his arms, and fled along the street, that was now intensely luminous. But suddenly a duller shade fell over the air. Instinctively he turned to the mountain, and behold! one of the two gigantic crests, into which the summit had been divided, rocked and wavered to and fro; and then, with a sound, the mightiness of which no language can describe, it fell from its burning base, and rushed, an avalanche of fire, down the sides of the mountain. At the same instant gushed forth a volume of blackest smoke--rolling on, over air, sea, and earth.

Another--and another--and another shower of ashes, far more profuse than before, scattered fresh desolation along the streets. Darkness once more wrapped them as a veil; and Glaucus, his bold heart at last quelled and despairing, sank beneath the cover of an arch, and, clasping Ione to his heart, resigned himself to die.

Meanwhile Nydia, when separated by the throng from Glaucus and Ione, had in vain endeavored to regain them. In vain she raised that plaintive cry so peculiar to the blind; it was lost amidst a thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided--to find her companions gone, to seize every fugitive--to inquire of Glaucus--to be dashed aside in the impatience of distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his neighbor?

At length it occurred to Nydia that, as it had been resolved to seek the seashore for escape, her most probable chance of rejoining her companions would be to persevere in that direction. Guiding her steps, then, by the staff which she always carried, she continued to avoid the masses of ruin which incumbered the path, and to take the nearest direction to the seaside.

She had gone some distance toward the seashore, when she chanced to hear from one of the fugitives that Glaucus was resting beneath the arch of the forum. She at once turned her back on the sea, and retraced her steps to the city. She gained the forum--the arch; she stooped down--she felt around--she called on the name of Glaucus.

A weak voice answered, “Who calls on me? Is it the voice of the Shades? Lo! I am prepared!”

“Arise! follow me! Take my hand! Glaucus, thou shalt be saved!”

In wonder and sudden hope, Glaucus arose, “Nydia still! Ah! thou, then, art safe!”

The tender joy of his voice pierced the heart of the poor Thessalian, and she blessed him for his thought of her.

Half-leading, half-carrying Ione, Glaucus followed his guide. After many pauses they gained the sea, and joined a group, who, bolder than the rest, resolved to hazard any peril rather than continue in such a scene. In darkness they put forth to sea; but, as they cleared the land and caught new aspects of the mountain, its channels of molten fire threw a partial redness over the waves.

Utterly exhausted and worn out, Ione slept on the breast of Glaucus, and Nydia lay at his feet. Meanwhile the showers of dust and ashes, still borne aloft, fell into the wave, and scattered their snows over the deck. Far and wide, borne by the winds, those showers descended upon the remotest climes, startling even the swarthy African, and whirled along the antique soil of Syria and Egypt.

And meekly, softly, beautifully dawned at last the light over the trembling deep,--the winds were sinking into rest,--the foam died from the glowing azure of that delicious sea. Around the east, their mists caught gradually the rosy hues that heralded the morning. Light was about to resume her reign. Yet, still, dark, and massive in the distance lay the broken fragments of the destroying cloud, from which red streaks, burning more and more dimly, betrayed the yet rolling fires of the mountain of the “Scorched Fields.” The white walls and gleaming columns that had adorned the lovely coasts were no more. Sullen and dull were the shores so lately crested by the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The darlings of the Deep were snatched from her embrace. Century after century shall the mighty Mother stretch forth her azure arms, and know them not--moaning round the sepulchers of the Lost!

THE STRANGER ON THE SILL.

Between broad fields of wheat and corn
Is the lowly home where I was born;
The peach tree leans against the wall,
And the woodbine wanders over all;
There is the shaded doorway still,
But a stranger’s foot has crossed the sill.

There is the barn--and, as of yore,
I can smell the hay from the open door,
And see the busy swallows throng,
And hear the pewee’s mournful song;
But the stranger comes--oh! painful proof--
His sheaves are piled to the heated roof.

There is the orchard--the very trees
Where my childhood knew long hours of ease,
And watched the shadowy moments run
Till my life imbibed more shade than sun;
The swing from the bough still sweeps the air,
But the stranger’s children are swinging there.

Oh, ye who daily cross the sill,
Step lightly, for I love it still;
And when you crowd the old barn eaves,
Then think what countless harvest sheaves
Have passed within that scented door
To gladden eyes that are no more.

Deal kindly with these orchard trees;
And when your children crowd their knees
Their sweetest fruit they shall impart,
As if old memories stirred their heart;
To youthful sport still leave the swing,
And in sweet reverence hold the spring.

The barn, the trees, the brook, the birds,
The meadows with their lowing herds,
The woodbine on the cottage wall--
My heart still lingers with them all.
Ye strangers on my native sill,
Step lightly, for I love it still.
--_Thomas Buchanan Mead._

OUR COUNTRY.

Sweet clime of my kindred, blest land of my birth!
The fairest, the dearest, the brightest on earth!
Where’er I may roam--howe’er blest I may be,
My spirit instinctively turns unto thee!

I. WHAT IS OUR COUNTRY.

We cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. And what _is_ our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages and her harvest home, with her frontiers of the lakes and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest sea and her inland isles, with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn; with her beautiful Ohio and her verdant Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice field. _What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family_, OUR COUNTRY?

--_Thomas Grimke._

II. LIBERTY AND UNION.

I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and the honor of the whole country, and the preservation of the Federal Union. I have not allowed myself to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind; I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder; I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depths of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind!

When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured; bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, “What is all this worth?” nor those other words of delusion and folly, “Liberty first, and Union afterwards”; but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea, and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.”

--_Daniel Webster._

III. THE POLICY OF PEACE.

A peaceful intercourse with the nations of the earth points to that inspiring day which philosophers have hoped for, which poets have seen in their bright dreams of fancy, and which prophets have beheld in holy vision--when men shall learn war no more. Who can contemplate a state of the world like this and not feel his heart exult at the prospect? I am against war, because peace--peace is, above everything else, our policy. Our great mission as a people is to occupy this vast dominion--to level the forests and let in upon their solitudes the light of day; to clear the swamps and make them ready for the plow and the sickle; to spread over hill and dale the echoes of human labor and human happiness; to fill the land with cities and towns; to unite its most distant points by turnpikes and railroads; to scoop out canals and open rivers that may serve as highways for trade.

If we can preserve peace, who shall set bounds to our prosperity or our success? With one foot planted on the Atlantic and the other on the Pacific, we occupy a position between the two old continents of the world--a position which necessarily secures to us the commerce and the influence of both. If we abide by the counsels of common sense, if we succeed in preserving our liberties, we shall in the end exhibit a spectacle such as the world never saw.

I know that this one great mission is encompassed with many difficulties; but such is the energy of our political system, and such is its expansive capability, that it may be made to govern the widest space. If by war we become great, we cannot be free; if we will be both great and free, our policy is peace.

--_John C. Calhoun._

A LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW.

“The Sketch Book” is a collection of short tales, sketches, and essays, written by Washington Irving, and published in 1820. Most of the sketches are descriptive of English manners and scenery, but the popularity of the book in this country is chiefly due to two well-known stories of American life, “Rip Van Winkle” and “A Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The scenes of both stories are located in the valley of the Hudson River, not far from New York. They are most picturesquely told, and rank high among the best productions of their kind in American literature. Here is the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” which we have abridged in order to adapt it to the readers of this volume:--

I. THE SCHOOLMASTER.

In a remote period of American history, there lived in Sleepy Hollow a worthy man whose name was Ichabod Crane. He sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried” in that quiet little valley for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut. He was tall, but very lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, and feet that might have served as shovels. His head was small, with huge ears, large glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose. To see him striding along the crest of a hill on a windy day, with his ill-fitting clothes fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for some scarecrow escaped from a cornfield.

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely built of logs. It stood in a rather lonely but pleasant place, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a birch tree growing near one end of it. From this place of learning the low murmur of children’s voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard on a drowsy summer day like the hum of a beehive. Now and then this was interrupted by the stern voice of the master, or perhaps by the appalling sound of a birch twig, as some loiterer was urged along the flowery path of knowledge.

When school hours were over, the teacher forgot that he was the master, and was even the companion and playmate of the older boys; and on holiday afternoons, he liked to go home with some of the smaller ones who happened to have pretty sisters, or mothers noted for their skill in cooking. Indeed, it was a wise thing for him to keep on good terms with his pupils. He earned so little by teaching school, that he would scarcely have had enough to eat, had he not, according to country custom, boarded at the houses of the children whom he instructed. With these he lived, by turns, a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly goods tied up in a cotton handkerchief.

He had many ways of making himself both useful and agreeable. He helped the farmers in the lighter labors of their farms, raked the hay at harvest time, is mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and he would often sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.

He was a man of some importance among the women of the neighborhood, being looked upon as a kind of idle, gentlemanlike personage of finer tastes and better manners than the rough young men who had been brought up in the country. He was always welcome at the tea table of a farmhouse; and his presence was almost sure to bring out an extra dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or the parade of a silver teapot. He was happy, too, in the smiles of all the young ladies. He would walk with them in the churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees; or sauntering with a whole bevy of them along the banks of the adjacent mill pond; while the bashful country youngsters hung sheepishly back and hated him for his fine manners.

Another of his sources of pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the wives of the Dutch farmers, as they sat spinning by the fire with a long row of apples roasting and sputtering along the hearth. He listened to their wondrous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or “Galloping Hessian of the Hollow,” as they sometimes called him. And then he would entertain them with stories of witchcraft, and would frighten them with woeful speculations about comets and shooting stars, and by telling them that the world did really turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy.

There was pleasure in all this while snugly cuddling in the chimney corner of a room that was lighted by the ruddy glow from a crackling wood fire, and where no ghost dared show its face; but it was a pleasure dearly bought by the terrors which would beset him during his walk homewards. How fearful were the shapes and shadows that fell across his way in the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted specter, beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet, and dread to look over his shoulder lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings!

II. THE INVITATION.

On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he watched the doings of his little school. In his hand he held a ferule, that scepter of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the stool, a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk were sundry contraband articles taken from idle urchins, such as half-eaten apples, popguns, whirligigs, and fly cages. His scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master, and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the schoolroom.

This stillness was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro, in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, who, mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, came clattering up to the schoolhouse door. He brought an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merrymaking, or “quilting frolic,” to be held that evening at the house of Mynheer Van Tassel; and having delivered his message, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission.

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom. The scholars were hurried through their lessons. Those who were nimble skipped over half without being noticed; and those who were slow were hurried along by a smart application of the rod. Then books were flung aside without being put away on the shelves; inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down; and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, the children yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at their early freedom.

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing his best and only suit of rusty black, and arranging his looks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance at the party in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was boarding, and, thus gallantly mounted, rode forth, like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow horse, that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a slender neck, and a head like a hammer. His mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burs. One eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other still gleamed with genuine wickedness. He must have had plenty of fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from his name, which was Gunpowder.

Ichabod was a rider suited for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his elbows stuck out like a grasshopper’s; and as the horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called; and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse’s tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled along the highway; and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight.

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day. The sky was clear and serene. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frost into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air. The bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech and hickory, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubblefields.

The small birds fluttered, chirping and frolicking from bush to bush, and tree to tree, gay and happy because of the plenty and variety around them. There were the twittering blackbirds, flying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker, with his crimson crest and splendid plumage; and the cedar bird, with its red-tipped wings and yellow-tipped tail; and the blue jay, in his gay, light-blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering, nodding and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove.

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn, On all sides he beheld vast store of apples,--some still hanging on the trees, some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market, others heaped up in rich piles for the cider press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty pudding. There, too, were multitudes of yellow pumpkins turning up their yellow sides to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies. And anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields, breathing the odor of the beehive; and as he beheld them, he dreamed of dainty slapjacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey, by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina, the daughter of Mynheer Van Tassel.

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and “sugared suppositions,” he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine, golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple-green, and from that into the deep-blue of the midheaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides.

III. THE “QUILTING FROLIC.”

It was toward evening when Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Herr Van Tassel. He found it thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country,--old farmers, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles; their brisk little dames, in close-crimped caps, long-waisted gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pincushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside; buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, showed signs of city innovations; the sons, in short, square-skirted coats with rows of huge brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if an eel-skin could be had for that purpose, it being esteemed as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair.

What a world of charms burst upon the gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel’s mansion--the ample charms of a Dutch country tea table, in the sumptuous time of autumn! Such heaped-up platters of cakes, of various and indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, and the crisp, crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes; and then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies; and slices of ham and smoked beef; and dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens, together with bowls of milk and cream; all mingled, higgledy-piggledy,--with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst! I want breath and time to describe this banquet as I ought, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry, but did ample justice to every dainty.

And now, supper being ended, the sound of music from the common room summoned to the dance. The musician was an old, gray-headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped away on two or three strings, moving his head with every movement of the bow, and stamping his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start.

Ichabod prided himself on his dancing. Not a limb, not a fiber about him was idle. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? And pretty Katrina Van Tassel, the lady of his heart, was his partner in the dance, smiling graciously in reply to all his gallant remarks. When the dance was over, Ichabod joined a circle of the older folks, who, with Mynheer Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, and told stories of the war and wild and wonderful legends of ghosts and other supernatural beings. Some mention was made of a woman in white that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on wintry nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite specter of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country. One man told how he had once met the horseman returning from a foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge by the church, when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw him into the brook, and sprang away over the treetops with a clap of thunder. A wild, roystering young man, who was called Brom Bones, declared that the headless horseman was, after all, no rider compared with himself. He said that returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and would have won it, too, but just as they came to the church bridge, the specter bolted and vanished in a flash of fire.

The party now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains; and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, growing fainter and fainter till they gradually died away, and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod alone lingered behind, to have a parting word with the pretty Katrina. What he said to her, and what was her reply, I do not know. Something, however, must have gone wrong; for he sallied forth, after no great length of time, with an air quite desolate and chopfallen.

IV. THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN.

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod pursued his travel homewards. In the dead hush of midnight he could hear the barking of a dog on the opposite shore of the Hudson, but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of the distance between them. No signs of life occurred near, but now and then the chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed.

All the stories that Ichabod had heard about ghosts and goblins, now came crowding into his mind. The night grew darker and darker. The stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the center of the road stood an enormous tulip tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large as the trunks of ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the ground, and rising again into the air.

As Ichabod approached this tree, he began to whistle. He thought his whistle was answered: it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. Coming a little nearer, he thought he saw something white hanging in the midst of the tree. He paused, and ceased whistling, but, on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been struck by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan. His teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle. It was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.

About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen. A few rough logs laid side by side served for a bridge over this stream. To pass this bridge was the severest trial; for it was here that the unfortunate André had been captured, and under covert of the thicket of chestnuts and vines by the side of the road, had the sturdy yeomen, who surprised him, lain concealed. The stream has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.