Chapter XLII: Last Words (4)

"Cathay is a great country, and a fair, noble, and rich, and full of merchants. Thither go merchants, every year, for to seek spices, and all manner of merchandises, more commonly than in any other part.

"In Cathay is the great city of Xanadu; and in this city is the seat of the great Khan, in a full great palace, and the most passing fair in all the world, of the which the walls be in circuit more than two miles; and within the walls it is all full of other palaces. And in the garden of the great palace there is a great hill, upon the which there is another palace; and it is the most fair and the most rich that any man may devise. And there is the great garden, full of wild beasts; so that when the great Khan would have any sport, to take any of the wild beasts, or of the fowls, he will cause them to be chased, and take them at his windows, without going out of his chamber. The palace where the seat is is both great and passing fair; and within the palace, in the hall, there be twenty-four pillars of fine gold; and all the walls are covered within with red skins of beasts, that men call panthers, that be fair beasts, and well smelling; so that for the sweet odor of the skins no evil air may enter into the palace. And in the midst of this palace is the _mountour_ (high seat) for the great Khan, that is all wrought of gold and of precious stones and great pearls; and at the four corners of the _mountour_ be four serpents of gold, and all about there is made large nets of silk and gold and great pearls hanging all about the _mountour_. And the hall of the palace is full nobly arrayed, and full marvellously attired on all parts, in all things that men apparel any hall with. And at the chief end of the hall is the emperor's throne, full high, where he sitteth at his meat; and that is of fine precious stones, bound all about with purified gold and precious stones and great pearls; and the steps that he goeth up to the table be of precious stones mixed with gold. Under the firmament is not so great a lord, nor so mighty, nor so rich, as the great Khan. Neither Prester John, that is emperor of the high India, nor the Sultan of Babylonia, nor the Emperor of Persia. All these be not in comparison to the great Khan, neither of might, nor of nobleness, nor of royalty, nor of riches; for in all these he passeth all earthly princes. Wherefore it is great harm that he believeth not faithfully in God."

And here we naturally recall that wondrous vision which Coleridge conjured up, when, opium-rapt, he dreamed in his study-chair of Kubla's enchanted ground.

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girded round; And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

"Five miles, meandering with a mazy motion, Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war!

"A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw; It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! beware His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your lips with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise!"

The account which Herodotus gives of the gifts that Croesus sent to the Oracle at Delphi is a splendid example of barbaric magnificence. First, the King offered up three thousand of every kind of sacrificial beast, and burned upon a huge pile couches coated with silver and gold, and golden goblets, and robes and vests of purple. Next he issued a command to all the people of the land to offer up a sacrifice according to their means. And when this sacrifice was consumed, he melted down a vast quantity of gold, and ran it into one hundred and seventeen ingots, each six palms long, three palms broad, and one palm in thickness. He also caused the statue of a lion to be made of refined gold, in weight ten talents. When these great works were completed, Croesus sent them away to Delphi, and with them two bowls of enormous size, one of gold, the other of silver. These two bowls, Herodotus affirms, were removed when the temple of Delphi was burned to the ground; and now the golden one is in the Clazomenian treasury, and weighs eight talents and forty-two _minae_; the silver one stands in a corner of the ante-chapel and holds six hundred _amphorae_ (over five thousand gallons);--this is known, because the Delphians fill it at the time of the Theophania. Croesus sent also four silver casks, which are in the Corinthian treasury; and two lustral vases, a golden and a silver one. Beside these various offerings, he sent to Delphi many others of less account, among the rest a number of round silver basins. He also dedicated a female figure in gold, three cubits high, which the Delphians declared was the statue of his baking woman; and lastly, he presented the necklace and the girdles of his wife.

When Croesus sent his Lydian messengers to the Oracle, one Alcmaeon, who seems to have been a shrewd fellow, with a sharp eye to the main chance, entertained them with generous hospitality; which so pleased Croesus, when he was told of it, that he immediately invited Alcmaeon to visit him at Sardis. When he arrived, the King told him that he was at liberty to enter his treasury and help himself to as much gold as he could carry off on his person at once. No sooner said than done. Alcmaeon, without bashfulness, arrayed himself in a tunic that bagged abominably at the waist, drew on the biggest buskins in Sardis, dressed his hair loose, and, marching into the treasure-house, (imagine what the treasury of Croesus must have been,) waded into a desert of gold dust. He crammed the bosom of his tunic, crammed his bombastian buskins, filled his hair full, and finally stuffed his mouth, so that, as he passed out, he could only wink his fat red eyes and bob to Croesus, who, when he had laughed till his sides ached, repaid his funny, but voracious guest for the amusement he had afforded him by not only confirming the gift of gold, but conferring an equal amount in jewels and rich raiment.

But we must not remain to marvel among the overwhelming displays of barbaric profusion. Akbhar, the imperial Mogul, who on his birthday caused himself to be weighed in golden scales three times,--first against gold pieces, then against silver, and lastly against fine perfumes,--who scattered among his courtiers showers of gold and silver nuts, for which even his gravest ministers were not too dignified to scramble,--even Akbhar must not detain us. Nor Aurengzebe, who made his marches, seated on a throne flashing with gold and rich brocades, and borne on the shoulders of men; while his princesses and favorite begums followed in all the pomp and glory of the seraglio, nestled in delicious pavilions curtained with massy silk, and mounted on the backs of stately elephants of Pegu and Martaban.

We must get away from these; for the realm of the Supernatural and the Marvellous lies open before us, and on the very threshold, over which Sir John Mandeville conducts us, broods in his fiery nest that wondrous fowl, the Phoenix.

"In Egypt is the city of Eliopolis, that is to say, the City of the Sun. In that city there is a temple made round, after the shape of the temple of Jerusalem. The priests of that temple have all their writing dated by the fowl that is called Phoenix; and there is none but one in all the world. And he cometh to burn himself upon the altar of the temple at the end of five hundred years; for so long he liveth. And at the end of the five hundred years, they array their altar carefully, and put thereon spices and live sulphur, and other things that will burn lightly. And then the bird Phoenix cometh and burneth himself to ashes. And the first day next after, men find in the ashes a worm; and the second day next after, men find a bird, quick and perfect; and the third day next after, he flieth away. And so there is no more birds of that kind in all the world but that alone. And, truly, that is a great miracle of God. And men may well liken that bird unto God, because there is no God but one, and also that our Lord arose from death the third day. This bird men see often flying in those countries; and he is not much more than an eagle. And he hath a crest of feathers upon his head greater than the peacock hath. And his neck is yellow, after the color of an orial, that is a stone well shining. And his beak is colored blue, and his wings are of purple color, and his tail is yellow and red. And he is a full fair bird to look upon against the sun; for he shineth full gloriously and nobly."

Let us pray that our Phoenix may not fall into the clutches of the De Sautys, to be made goose-meat of; rather may they themselves be utterly cast out,--into the land of giants that are hideous to look upon, and have but one eye, and that in the middle of the forehead,--into the land of folk of foul stature and of cursed kind, that have no heads, and whose eyes be in their shoulders,--into the isle of those that go upon their hands and feet, like beasts, and that are all furred and feathered,--or into the country of the people who have but one leg, the foot of which is so large that it shades all the rest of the body from the sun, when they lie down on their backs to rest at noonday. But not into the Land of Women, where all are wise, noble, and worthy. For once there was a king in that country, and men married; but presently befell a war with the Scythians, and the king was slain in battle, and with him all of the best blood of his realm. So when the queen, and the other noble ladies, saw that they were all widows, and all the royal blood was spilled, they armed themselves, and, like mad creatures, slew all the men that were left in the country; for they wished that all the women might be widows, as the queen and they were. And thenceforward they never would suffer men to dwell among them, especially men of the De Sauty sort, who, as Hans Christian Andersen says, ask questions and never dream.

The town of Lop, says Marco Polo, is situated near the commencement of the great desert called the Desert of Lop. It is asserted as a well-known fact, that this desert is the abode of many evil spirits, which entice travellers to destruction with extraordinary delusions. If, during the daytime, any persons remain behind on the road until the caravan has passed a hill and is no longer in sight, they unexpectedly hear themselves called by their names, in a tone of voice to which they are accustomed. Supposing the call to proceed from their companions, they are led away by it from the direct road, and, not knowing in what direction to advance, are left to perish. In the night-time they are persuaded they hear the march of a great cavalcade, and concluding the noise to be the tramp of their own party, they make the best of their way in the direction of the quarter whence it seems to come; but when the day breaks, they find they have been misled and drawn into a situation of danger. Sometimes, during the day, these spirits assume the appearance of their travelling-companions, who address them by name, and endeavor to draw them out of the proper road. It is said, also, that some travellers, in their way across the desert, have seen what appeared to them to be a body of armed men advancing toward them, and, fearful of being attacked and plundered, have taken to flight. Thus, losing the right path, and ignorant of the direction they should take to regain it, they have miserably perished of hunger.

Marvellous, indeed, and almost passing belief, are the stories related of these spirits of the desert, which are said to fill the air at times with the sounds of all kinds of musical instruments, of drama, and the clash of arms. When the journey across this dreadful waste is completed, the trembling traveller arrives at the city of the Great Khan.[1]

[Footnote 1: Leigh Hunt.]

In this rich chapter of horrors how finished an allegory for old John Bunyan! With what religious unction he would have led his Christian traveller from that unknown city on the edge of the sands, across the Soul's Desert of Lop, with its

"Voices calling in the dead of night,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names,"

safe into the _City of the Great Khan!_

Leigh Hunt declares that he has read, in some other account, of a dreadful, unendurable face that used to stare at people as they went by.

The Barbaric has also its features of solemnity and grandeur, filling the mind with exalted contemplations, and the imagination with inspiring and ennobling apparitions. Surroundings that contribute a quality of awfulness embrace in such scenes the soul of the traveller, and hold him in their tremendous thrall. Mean or flippant ideas may not enter here; but the man puts off the smaller part of him, as the Asiatic puts off his sandals on entering the porches of his god. Of such is the Eternal Sphinx, as Eothen Kinglake beheld her. We cannot feel her aspect more grandly than by the aid of his inspiration.

"And near the Pyramids, more wondrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphinx. Comely the creature is; but the comeliness is not of this world; the once worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation; and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty, now forgotten,--forgotten because that Greece drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of the Aegean, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the short and proudly wreathed lip should stand for the sign and main condition of loveliness through all generations to come. Yet still lives on the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the elder world; and Christian girls of Coptic blood will look on you with the sad, serious gaze, and kiss you your charitable hand with the big, pouting lips of the very Sphinx.

"Laugh and mock, if you will, at the worship of stone idols; but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of Deity,--unchangefulness in the midst of change,--the same seeming will and intent, forever and forever inexorable. Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings,--upon Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors,--upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern empire,--upon battle and pestilence,--upon the ceaseless misery of the Egyptian race,--upon keen-eyed travellers,--Herodotus yesterday, Warbarton to-day,--upon all, and more, this unworldly Sphinx has watched and watched like a Providence, with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad, tranquil mien. And we, we shall die; and Islam will wither away; and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the Faithful; and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching the works of the new, busy race, with those same sad, earnest eyes, and that same tranquil mien, everlasting. You dare not mock at the Sphinx!"

Not less stupendously placid than the Sphinx, and even grimmer in his remoteness from the places that have heard Messiah's name, is the Boodh, throned in trance, and multitudinously worshipped. Shall I tell you how I first beheld him in his glory?

We were approaching some sacred caves in Burmah. Lighting our torches, and each man taking one, we mounted the steep, tortuous, and slippery foot-path of damp, green stones, through the thorny shrubs that beset it, to the low entrance to the outer cavern. Stooping uncomfortably, we passed into a small, vacant antechamber, having a low, dripping roof, perpendicular walls, clammy and green, and a rocky floor, sloping inward through a narrow arch to a long, double, transverse gallery, divided in the direction of its length, partly by a face of rock, partly by a row of pillars. Here were innumerable images of Guadma, the counterfeit presentment of the Fourth Boodh, whose successor is to see the end of all things,--innumerable, and of every stature, from Hop-o'-my-thumbs to Hurlo-thrombos, but all of the identical orthodox pattern,--with pendulous ears, one hand planted squarely on the knee, the other sleeping in the lap, an eternity of front face, and a smooth stagnancy of expression, typical of an unfathomable calm,--the Guadma of a span as grim as he of ten cubits, and he of ten cubits as vacant as the Guadma of a span,--of stone, of lead, of wood, of clay, of earthenware and alabaster,--on their bottoms, on their heads, on their backs, on their sides, on their faces,--black, white, red, yellow,--an eye gone, a nose gone, an ear gone, a head gone,--an arm off at the shoulder, a leg at the knee,--a back split, a bosom burst,--Guadma, imperturbable, eternal, calm,--in the midst of time, timeless! It is not annihilation which the Boodh has promised, as the blessed crown of a myriad of progressive transmigrations; it is not Death; it is not Sleep,--it is this.

Our entrance awoke a pandemonium. Myriads of bats and owls, and all manner of fowls of darkness and bad omen, crazed by the glare of twenty torches, startled the echoes with infernal clangor. Screaming and huddling together, some fled under the wide skirts of sable, which Darkness, climbing to the roof in fear, drew up after her; some hid with lesser shadows between columns of great girth, or in the remotest murky niches, or down in the black profound of resounding chasms; some, bewildered or quite blinded by the flashes of the co-eternal beam, dashed themselves against the stony walls, and fell crippled, gasping, staring, at our feet. And when, at last, our guides and servants, mounting to pinnacles and jutting points, and many a frieze and coigne of vantage, placed blue lights on them all, and at the word illuminated all together, there was redoubled bedlam in that abode of Hecate, and the eternal calm of the Boodh became awful. For what deeds of outer darkness, done long ago in that black hole of superstition, so many damned souls shrieked from their night-fowl transmigrations, 'twere vain to question there were no disclosures in that trance of stone.

For an experience of the oppressive awfulness of solitude, and all the weary monotony of waste, come now, with Kinglake, into mid-desert.

"As long as you are journeying in the interior of the desert, you have no particular point to make for as your resting-place. The endless sands yield nothing but small stunted shrubs; even these fail after the first two or three days; and from that time you pass over broad plains, you pass over newly reared hills, you pass through valleys that the storm of the last week has dug; and the hills and the valleys are sand, sand, sand, still sand and only sand, and sand and sand again. The earth is so samely, that your eyes turn toward heaven,--toward heaven, I mean, in the sense of sky. You look to the sun, for he is your task-master, and by him you know the measure of the work that you have done, the measure of the work that remains for you to do. He comes when you strike your tent in the early morning, and then, for the first hour of the day, as you move forward on your camel, he stands at your near side, and makes you know that the whole day's toil is before you. Then, for a while, and a long while, you see him no more; for you are veiled and shrouded, and dare not look upon the greatness of his glory; but you know where he strides over your head by the touch of his flaming sword. No words are spoken; but your Arabs moan, your camels sigh, your skin glows, your shoulders ache; and, for sights, you see the pattern and the web of the silk that veils your eyes, and the glare of the outer light.

"Time labors on,--your skin glows, and your shoulders ache, your Arabs moan, your camels sigh, and you see the same pattern on the silk, and the same glare beyond; but conquering Time marches on, and by-and-by the descending sun has compassed the heaven, and now softly touches your right arm, and throws your lank shadow over the sand, right along on the way to Persia. Then again you look upon his face, for his power is all veiled in his beauty, and the redness of flames has become the redness of roses; the fair, wavy cloud that fled in the morning now comes to his sight once more,--comes blushing, but still comes on,--comes burning with blushes, yet hastens, and clings to his side."

When one has been sufficiently dis-Europized by remote travel, to become, as to his imagination, a child again, and receive a child's impressions from the strangeness that surrounds him, the grotesque and fantastic aspects of his situation afford him the same emotions, of unquestioning wonder and romantic sympathy, that he derived in the old time from the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, the exploits of Jack the Giant-Killer, what Gulliver saw, or Munchausen did. Behold Belzoni in the necropolis of Thebes, crawling on his very face among the dusty rubbish of unnumbered mummies, to steal papyri from their bosoms. Fatigued with the exertion of squirming through a mummy-choked passage of five hundred yards, he sought a resting-place; but when he would have sat down, his weight bore on the body of an Egyptian, and crushed it like a bandbox. He naturally had recourse to his hands to sustain his weight; but they found no better support, and he sunk altogether in a crash of broken bones, rags, and wooden cases, that raised such a dust as kept him motionless for a quarter of an hour, waiting for it to subside. He could not move from the place, however, without increasing it, and every step he took smashed a mummy. Once, in forcing his way through a steeply inclined passage, about twenty feet in length, and no wider than his body could be squeezed through, he was overwhelmed with an avalanche of bones, legs, arms, and hands, rolling from above; and every forward move brought his face in contact with the abhorred features of some decayed Egyptian.[1]

[Footnote 1: Bayard Taylor.]

Behold Denham in the Desert of Dead Bones, where his sick comrades were constantly disheartened by the sight of the skulls and skeletons of men who had perished on those sands. During several days, they passed from sixty to ninety skeletons a day; but the numbers that lay about the wells at El Hammar were countless. Those of two women, whose perfect and regular teeth bespoke them young, perhaps beautiful, were particularly shocking. Their arms were still clasped around each other's neck, in the attitude in which they had expired, although the flesh had long since been consumed in the rays of the sun, and the blackened bones alone were left.

Parkyns, among the little greenish-gray monkeys of Tigré, enjoyed a treat to make the mouth of our young imagination water. He saw them conversing, quarrelling, making love; mothers were taking care of their children, combing their hair, nursing or "trotting" them; and the passions of all--jealousy, rage, love--were as strongly marked as in men. They had a language as distinct to them as ours to us; and their women were as noisy and as fond of disputation as any fish-fag in Billingsgate.

"On their marches, a few of the heedless youth occasionally lagged behind to snatch a handful of berries; sometimes a matron halted for a while to nurse her baby, and, not to lose time, dressed its hair while it took its meal. Now and then a young lady, excited by jealousy or some sneering look or word, made an ugly mouth at one of her companions, and then, uttering a shrill squeal, highly expressive of rage, vindictively snatched at the offender's tail or leg, and administered a hearty bite. This provoked a retort, and a most unladylike quarrel ensued, till a loud remonstrance from mothers or aunts called them to order."

According to Marco Polo, there have been among the monkeys, from time to time, certain Asiatic Yankees, who did a lively business in the manufacture of an article which would, no doubt, have found a ready purchaser at Barnum's Museum.

"It should be known," says the veracious old Venetian, "that what is reported respecting the dead bodies of diminutive human creatures or pigmies, brought from India, is an idle tale; such pretended men being manufactured in the island of Basman in the following manner. The country produces a species of monkey of a tolerable size, and having a countenance resembling that of a man. Those persons who make it their business to catch them shave off the hair, leaving it only about the chin. They then dry and preserve them with camphor and other drugs; and having prepared them in such a mode that they have exactly the appearance of little men, they put them into wooden boxes, and sell them to trading people, who carry them to all parts of the world."

Not the least familiar of the aspects of the Barbaric are its actions and situations of horror. I could tell tales from the later, not less than from the older travellers, that would send my readers shuddering to sleepless beds: the ferocities of Tippoo reënacted in the name of Nena Sahib; the noiseless murders of Thuggee's nimble cord; the drunken _diablerie_ of the Doorga Pooja; the monstrous human sacrifices of the Khonds and Bheels; the dreadful rites of the Janni before the gory altar of the Earth goddess; the indiscriminate slashing and stabbing of the Amok; the shuddering dodges of the plague-chased Cavrite; the grim and lonely duels of the French lion-killer under the melancholy stars; the carrion-like exposures of the Parsee dead; the nightmarish legends of the Evil Eye. But my hope is to part with them on pleasant terms; so rather would I strew their pillows with the consolations of this many-mooded Barbaric,--moss from ruins, and pretty flowers from the desert,--that beneficent botany which maketh the wilderness to blossom like the rose.

When Mungo Park, deserted by his guides, and stripped by thieves, utterly paralyzed by misfortune, and misery, would have laid him down to die in a desert place,--at that moment, of all others, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification caught his eye. "I mention this," he says, "to show you from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for, though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its root, leaves, and capsule without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image? I started up, and, disregarding both danger and fatigue, travelled forward, assured that relief was at hand; and I was not disappointed."

Richardson, in the midst of Sahara, beheld with brimming eyes two small trees, the common desert acacia, and by-and-by two or three pretty blue flowers. As he snatched them, to fold them in his bosom, he could not help exclaiming, _Elhamdullah!_ "Praise be to God!"--for Arabic was growing second-born to his tongue, and he began to think in it and to pray in it. An Arab said to him, "Yakob, if we had a reed, and were to make a melodious sound, those flowers, the color of heaven, would open and shut their mouths."

Once, Mungo Park (the once too often of telling this story can never come) sat all day,--without food, under a tree. The night threatened to be very pitiless; for the wind arose, and there was every sign of a heavy rain; and wild beasts prowled around. But about sunset, as he was preparing to pass the night in the branches of the tree, a woman, returning from the labors of the field, perceived how weary and dejected he was, and, taking up his saddle and bridle, invited him to follow her. She conducted him to her hut, where she lighted a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and bade him welcome. Then she went out, and presently returning with a fine fish, broiled it on the embers, and set his supper before him. The rites of hospitality thus performed toward a stranger in distress, that _savage_ angel, pointing to the mat, and assuring him that he might sleep there without fear, commanded the females of her family, who all the while had stood gazing on him in fixed astonishment, to resume their spinning. Then they sang, to a sweet and plaintive air, these words: "The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. Let us pity the white man; no mother hath he to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn." Flowers in the desert![1]

[Footnote 1: Leigh Hunt.]

Flowers in the desert! And De Sauty shall spare them, though he botanize on his mother's grave. Borro-boolah-gah may know us by our India-rubber shirts and pictorial pocket-handkerchiefs; and King Mumbo Jumbo may reduce his rebellious locks to subjection with a Yankee currycomb; but these, our desert flowers, are All Right, De Sauty!

BEAUTY AT BILLIARDS.

There is a lady in this case.

For three days she had sat opposite me at the table of the pleasantest of White Mountain resorts, (of course I give no hint as to which _that_ is,--tastes differ,) and I had gradually become enthralled. Her beauty was dazzling, and her name was Tarlingford. For the first of these items, I was indebted to my own intelligence; for the second to the hotel register, which also informed me that she was from New York.

I, too, had come from New York;--a coincidence too startling to be calmly overlooked.

Our acquaintance began oddly. One morning, at breakfast, I was musing over a hard-boiled egg, and wondering if I could perforate her affections with anything like the success which had followed my fork as it penetrated the shell before me, when I felt a timid touch upon my toe, thrilling me from end to end like a telegraph-wire when the insulation is perfect. I looked up, and detected a pink flush making its way browward on the lovely countenance across the table.

"I beg your pardon," said I, with much concern.

"It was my fault, Sir; excuse _me_," said she, permitting the pink flush to deepen, rosily.

"Shall I pass you the buttered toast?" said I.

"Muffins, if you please," said she, and so sweetly that I was blinded to the absence of sugar in my second cup of coffee.

I was confused by this incident. Many men would have concealed their disquietude by an affectation of sudden appetite, or by bullying the waiter, or by abrupt departure from the scene. I did neither. I felt I had a right to be confused, and I gloried in it.

Very soon Miss Tarlingford withdrew, and I experienced an aching void within, which chops and fritters had no power to replenish.

I opened a chambermaid's heart with a half-dollar, and the treasures of her knowledge were revealed to me. The beauty and her party were to remain a fortnight Among her companions there were no males, except a youthful irresponsibility. _Exultemus!_

Later in the morning I heard the tinkling of the parlor pianoforte. Music has soothing charms for me, though I have not a savage breast. I drew near, and found Miss Tarlingford trifling with the keys,--those keys which lock together so many chains of human sympathy. She rose, and gave out demonstrations of impending disappearance. I interposed,--

"Pray, continue. I am famished for music, and came specially to listen."

"It is hardly worth while."

"How can you say so? It is I who know best what I need."

"I will play for you, then."

And she did. This was wonderful. Usually, a long and painful struggle precedes feminine acquiescence, on such occasions. Repeated refusals, declarations of incapacity, partial consent vouchsafed and then waywardly withdrawn, poutings, head-tossings, feebler murmurs of disinclination, and final reluctant yielding form the fashionable order of proceeding. The charm of it all is, that the original intention is the same as the ultimate action. Whence, then, this folly? Having been many times wretchedly bored by this sort of thing, I was now correspondingly gladdened by the contrast.

Miss Tarlingford played well, and I said so.

"Pretty well," she answered, frankly; "but not so well as I could wish."

Shock Number Two. It is customary in good society for tolerable performers to disavow all praises, (secretly yearning for more,) and to assail with invective their own artistic accomplishments. Here was a young lady who played well, and had the hardihood to acknowledge it. This rather took away my breath, and a vacuum began to come under my waistcoat.

For three blissful days Miss Tarlingford and I were seldom separated. Her sister, a pale, sedate maiden, of amiable appearance, and her brother, a small, rude boy, of intrusive habits and unguarded speech, I consented to undergo, for the sake of conventional necessity. To the mother of the Tarlingfords additional respect seemed due, and was accorded.

Three blissful days of sunshine, meadowy rambles, forest explorations, the majestic tranquillity of Nature spiced with the sauce of flirtation, or something stronger. Sometimes we took our morning happiness on foot, sometimes our mid-day ecstasy served up on horseback, sometimes our evening rapture in an open wagon at two forty.

The puerile Tarlingford, interfering at first, was summarily crushed. Aspiring to equestrian distinctions, he wrought upon maternal indulgence, until, not without misgivings, maternal anxiety was stifled, and, with injunctions that we should hover protectingly near him, he was sent forth, a thorn in our sides. In half an hour he was accidentally remembered, and was found to be nowhere within view; so we pursued our way, well pleased. He had dropped quietly off, at the first canter, into a miry slough, and had returned sobbingly, covered with mortification and mud, to the arms of his parent. Keen questioning at dinner was the result.

"Why did you so neglect him?" demanded fond mamma, adding, reproachfully, "The child's life might have been sacrificed."

"Mother, we looked for him, and he was gone. Why didn't he cry out?"

"So I did," shouted this youth of open speech; "but you two had your heads together, laughing and talking like anything, and couldn't hear, I suppose." (With a juvenile sneer.)

"Oh, fie, Walter! Now I think you were so frightened that you could not speak."

"I shall know better than to intrust him to your care again," said indignant mamma, as one who withdrew a blessed privilege.

"Don't say that, mother; it would be a punishment too severe," said the mischievous little pale sister, in tones of pity, and her face brimming with mirth.

Everybody laughed, and peace was restored.

On the third evening, misery came to me in an envelope post-marked New York:--

"My DEAR PLOVINS:--

"I shall be with you the night after you receive this. Engage a room for me. Have you seen anything of a Miss Tarlingford, where you are staying? You should know her. She is very brilliant and accomplished, but is retiring. I am willing to tell you, but it must go no farther, that we are betrothed.

"Yours, in a hurry,

"FRANK LILLIVAN."

My heart was as the mercury of a thermometer which is plunged into ice; but I preserved an outward composure. Turning over the pile of letters awaiting owners, I came upon one, directed in Lillivan's handwriting, to Miss A. Tarlingford, etc., etc.

To think that a paltry superscription should carry such a weight of tribulation with it!

I thus discovered that my lines had fallen in unpleasant places. I was fishing in a preoccupied stream, and had got myself entangled.

I avoided the public table, and shrunk from society. During the whole of the next morning, I kept aloof from the temptations of Tarlingford, and took to billiards.

In the afternoon, as I sat gloomily in my room, with feet protruding from the window, and body inclined rearward, (the American attitude of despair,) the piano tinkled. It was the same melody which had attracted me a few happy days before. Strengthening myself with a powerful resolution to extricate myself from the bewitching influence which had surrounded me, I arose, and went straightway to the parlor. Could it be that a flash of pleasure beamed on Miss Tarlingford's face? or was I a deluded gosling? The latter suggestion seemed the more credible, so I cheerfully adopted it.

"We have missed you, Mr. Plovins," said the fair enslaver; "I hope you have not been unwell?"

"Unwell?--oh, no, no!"

"You have not been near me--us, today," (reprovingly,) "not even at dinner; and the trout were superb."

A sudden hope mounted within me.

"Miss Tarlingford, pray, excuse me,--your first name, may I ask what it is?"

"Arabella is my name, and" (whisperingly) "you may use it, if you like."

"Oh, hideous horror! And this is what they call flirtation," I thought. And the hope which had risen blazing, like a rocket, went down fuliginous, like the stick.

"Mr. Plovins, I will say you are very--very inconstant, to be absent all day, thus."

"Miss Tarlingford, it is not inconstancy, it is billiards."

"Billiards!"

"Billiards. I adore them. You know nothing of billiards; women never do. They are my joy. Pardon me," (with a sudden uprising of the moral sense,) "I have an engagement at the billiard-room, and I should be there."

"Dear me! I should like to do billiards."

"Heaven forbid!"

"Why so, Sir?"

"No, I do not mean that; but ladies never play billiards."

"I suppose there is no reason why they should not?"

"A thousand."

"Why, what harm?"

"My dear Miss Tarlingford, if your first name were not Arabella,--alas, alas!--there would be none."

"Nonsense! now you are laughing at me. Come, you shall teach me billiards."

"It cannot be, Miss Tarlingford." (Low tragedy tones.)

"Why not?"

"Because your name is Arabella."

"Very well, Sir,--if you do not like my name, you need not repeat it."

"I adore it; it is not that. Forgive me."

"Then I will get my hat";--and her light footsteps tapped upon the stairs.

Here was a state of things! Where were my firmness and my resolution now? Where was the Pythian probity for which, according to my expectations, Lillivan was to have poured Damoniac gratitude upon me? Was I, or was I not, rapidly degenerating into villany? I felt that I was, and blushed for my family.

If her name had been anything but Arabella,--anything the initial of which was not A, then I could have justified myself; but now,--and I was about to teach her billiards! To what depth of depravity had I come at last!

She rejoined me, beaming with anticipation and radiant with the exercise of running down-stairs. Together we entered the billiard-room.

Now this I declare: the ball-room, with its flashing lights, intoxicating perfumes, starry hosts of gleaming, eyes, refulgent robes, mirrors duplicating countless splendors and ceaseless whirl of vanity, may add a tenfold lustre to the charm of beauty, and I know it does; the opera-box embellishments of blazing gas, and glittering gems and flowers, fresh from native beds of millinery, all-odorous with divinest scents of Lubin, harmoniously dulcified, have their value, which is great and glorious, no doubt, and regally doth woman expand and glow among them; in numberless ways, and aided by numberless accessories, do feminine graces nimbly and sweetly recommend themselves unto our pleasant senses; but this I will for ever and ever say,--that nowhere, neither in gorgeous hall, nor gilded opera-box, nor in any other place, nor under any other circumstances, may such bewildering and insidious power of maidenly enchantment be exercised as at the billiard-table; especially when the enchantress is utterly ignorant of the duties required of her, and confidingly seeks manly encouragement and guidance. Controlled by the hand of beauty, the cue becomes a magic wand, and the balls are no longer bits of inanimate ivory, but, poked restlessly hither and thither, circulating messengers of fascination.

I know, for I have been there.

Had Miss Tarlingford turned her thoughts toward the bowling-alley, I might without difficulty have retained my self-possession; for her sex are not charming at ten-pins. They stride rampant, and hurl danger around them, aiming anywhere at random; or they make small skips and screams, and perform ridiculous flings in the air, injurious to the alleys and to their game; or they drop balls with unaffected languor, and develop at an early stage of proceedings a tendency to _gutters_, above which they never rise throughout; and all this is annoying, and fit only for Bloomers, who can be degraded by nothing on earth.

But billiards! what statuesque postures, what freedom of gesture, what swaying grace and vivacious energy this game involves! And then the attendant distractions,--the pinching together of the hand, to form the needed notch, the perfect art of which, like fist-clenching, is unattainable by woman, who substitutes some queerness all her own,--the fierce grasping and propulsion of the cue,--the loving reclension upon the table when the long shots come in,--the dainty foot, uprising, to preserve the owner's balance, but, as it gleams suspended, destroying the observer's,--all combine, as they did this time, to scatter stern promptings of duty beyond recalling.

First, Arabella's little hand must be moulded into a bridge, and, being slow to cramp itself correctly, though pliant as a politician's conscience, the operation of folding it together had to be many times repeated. Next, shots must be made for her, she retaining her hold of the cue, to get into the way of it. Then all went on smoothly with her, turbulently with me, until, enthusiastically excited, she must be lifted on to the table's edge, "just to try one lovely little shot," which escaped her reach from the ground.

My game was up!

We were alone. Arabella perched upon the table, jubilant at having achieved a pocket,--I dismal and blue, beside her.

"There, take me down," she said.

I looked around through each window, inclined my ear to the door, swept an arm around her waist, and forgot to proceed.

"Oh, Arabella! Arabella! wherefore art thou Arabella?"

"Do you wish I were somebody else?" she asked, slyly.

"No, no! but what of Frank Lillivan?"

"Frank, do you know him?" (With a luminous face.)

"And he has told me----yes."

"What?"

"Of his relations with Miss Tarlingford."

"With Anna,--yes."

"What Anna? Who is Anna?"

"Dear me! my sister Anna. Don't be absurd!"

"But I never knew"----

"No,--you knew nothing of her; the worse for you! You avoided her,--I'm sure I don't see why,--and she is retiring."

"_Retiring!_--the very word!"

"What word? You vex me; you puzzle me; take me down."

"Forgive me, dear Arabella! I'm too delighted to explain. I never will explain. I thought it was you on whom Frank's affections were fixed."

"Dear, no! Frank is sensible; he knows better; he has judgment"; and she laughed a quiet laugh, and made as if she would jump down.

As she descended, two heads caromed together with a click. It was the irrepressible influence of the billiard atmosphere, I suppose. No one contemplated it.

That evening, when Frank Lillivan arrived, I met him at the door.

"God bless you, Frank!" said I; "I forgive you everything. Say no more."

"Hollo! what's up?" cried Frank.

"Well, certainly, it was a little imprudent for you to neglect writing the whole address of the letter you sent to Anna Tarlingford. I thought it was for Arabella."

"Dear me!" said Frank, twinkling, "what then?"

That is enough.

* * * * *

ITALY, 1859.

Wait a little: do _we_ not wait? Louis Napoleon is not Fate; Francis Joseph is not Time; There's One hath swifter feet than Crime; Cannon-parliaments settle nought; Venice is Austria's,--whose is Thought? Minié is good, but, spite of change, Gutenberg's gun has the longer range. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever!

Wait, we say; our years are long; Men are weak, but Man is strong; Since the stars first curved their rings, We have looked on many things; Great wars come and great wars go, Wolf-tracks light on polar snow; We shall see him come and gone, This second-hand Napoleon. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever!

We saw the elder Corsican, And Clotho muttered as she span, While crowned lackeys bore the train Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne,-- "Sister, stint not length of thread! Sister, stay the scissors dread! On St. Helen's granite bleak, Hark, the vulture whets his beak!" Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever!

The Bonapartes, we know their bees, That wade in honey, red to the knees; Their patent-reaper, its sheaves sleep sound In doorless garners underground: We know false Glory's spendthrift race, Pawning nations for feathers and lace; It may be short, it may be long,-- "'Tis reckoning-day!" sneers unpaid Wrong. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever!

The cock that wears the eagle's skin Can promise what he ne'er could win; Slavery reaped for fine words sown, System for all and rights for none, Despots at top, a wild clan below, Such is the Gaul from long ago: Wash the black from the Ethiop's face, Wash the past out of man or race! Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever!

'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings And snares the people for the kings: "Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; The stake's black scars are healed with grass"; So dreamers prate;--did man e'er live Saw priest or woman yet forgive? But Luther's broom is left, and eyes Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever!

Smooth sails the ship of either realm, Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm; But we look down the deeps and mark Silent workers in the dark, Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs, Old instincts hardening to new beliefs: Patience, a little; learn to wait; Hours are long on the clock of Fate. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, But only God endures forever!

* * * * *

THE AURORA BOREALIS.

The aurora borealia, or rather, the polar aurora,--for there are aurorae australes as well as aurorae boreales,--has been an object of wonder and admiration from time immemorial.

Pliny and Aristotle record phenomena identical with those which later times have witnessed. The ancients ranked this with other celestial phenomena, as portending great events.

In a Bible imprinted at London in the year 1599, the 22d verse of the 37th chapter of Job reads thus: "The brightness commeth out of the Northe, the praise to God which is terrible." The writer of the Book of Job was very conversant with natural objects, and may have referred to the aurora borealis and the phenomena immediately connected therewith.

In 1560, we are told, it was seen at London in the shape of burning spears, a similitude which would be no less appropriate now than then. Frequent displays are recorded during the fifteen years following that date. During the latter half of the seventeenth century, the phenomena were frequently visible, often-times being characterized by remarkable brilliancy. After 1745, the displays suddenly diminished, and were but rarely seen for the next nine years. The present century has been favored to a remarkable degree. The displays during the years 1835, '36, '37, '46, '48, '51, '52, and '59, have been especially grand.

What is the origin of these remarkable phenomena? The ancients asked the question, and the moderns reply by repeating it. Before proceeding to describe the magnificent auroral displays of August 28th and September 2d, let us examine authorities upon this subject, and see if we cannot arrive at some satisfactory solution of the phenomena. The following is the description given by Humboldt in "Cosmos":--

"An aurora borealis is always preceded by the formation in the horizon of a sort of nebulous veil, which slowly ascends to a height of 4°, 6°, 8°, and even to 10°. It is towards the magnetic meridian of the place that the sky, at first pure, begins to get brownish. Through this obscure segment, the color of which passes from brown to violet, the stars are seen, as through a thick fog. A wider arc, but one of brilliant light, at first white, then yellow, bounds the dark segment. Sometimes the luminous arc appears agitated, for hours together, by a sort of effervescence, and by a continuous change of form, before the rising of the rays and columns of light, which ascend as far as the zenith. The more intense the emission of the polar light, the more vivid are its colors, which, from violet and bluish white, pass through all the intermediate shades of green and purple-red. Sometimes the columns of light appear to come out of the brilliant arc mingled with blackish rays, resembling a thick smoke; sometimes they rise simultaneously from different points of the horizon, and unite themselves into a sea of flames, the magnificence of which no painting could express; for, at each instant, rapid undulations cause their form and brilliancy to vary. Motion appears to increase the visibility of the phenomena. Around the point in the heaven which corresponds to the direction of the dipping needle produced, the rays appear to meet and form the boreal corona. It is seldom that the appearance is so complete, and is prolonged to the formation of the corona; but when the latter appears, it always announces the end of the phenomenon. The rays then become more rare, shorter, and less vividly colored. Soon nothing further is seen on the celestial vault than wide, motionless, nebulous spots, pale, or of an ashy color; they have already disappeared, when the traces of the dark segment whence the appearance originated still remain on the horizon."

The connection that seems to exist, says De la Rive, between the polar light and the appearance of a certain species of clouds is confirmed by all observers; all have affirmed that the polar light emitted its most brilliant rays when the high regions of the air contained heaps of cirri,--strata of sufficient tenuity and lightness to cause a corona to arise around the light. Sometimes these clouds are grouped and arranged almost like the rays of an aurora borealis; they then appear to disturb the magnetized needle. Father Secchi has remarked, that magnetic disturbances are manifested at Rome whilst the sky is veiled with clouds that are slightly phosphorescent, which, at night, present the appearance of feeble aurorae boreales.

After a brilliant aurora borealis, we have been able to recognize, on the following morning, trains of clouds, which, during the night, had appeared as so many luminous rays.