Chapter II (2)

I passed the remainder of the afternoon in my room, and did not again meet my host until the family assembled at the tea-table. Jim then occupied his accustomed seat behind the Colonel's chair, and my host was in more than his usual spirits, though Madam P----, I thought, wore a sad and absent look.

The conversation rambled over a wide range of subjects, and was carried on mainly by the Colonel and myself; but toward the close of the meal the lady said to me:

'Mr. K----, Sam and young Junius are to be buried this evening. If you have never seen a negro funeral, perhaps you'd like to attend.'

'I will be happy to accompany you, Madam, if you go,' I replied.

'Thank you,' said the lady.

'Pshaw! Alice, you'll not go into the woods on so cold a night as this!'

'Yes, I think I ought to. Our people will expect me.'

* * * * *

It was about an hour after nightfall when we took our way to the burial-ground. The moon had risen, but the clouds which gathered when the sun went down, covered its face, and were fast spreading their thick, black shadows over the little collection of negro-houses. Near two new-made graves were gathered some two hundred men and women, as dark as the night that was setting around them. As we entered the circle the old preacher pointed to the seats reserved for us, and the sable crowd fell back a few paces, as if, even in the presence of death, they did not forget the difference between their race and ours.

Scattered here and there among the trees, torches of lightwood threw a wild and fitful light over the little cluster of graves, and revealed the long, straight boxes of rough pine that held the remains of the two negroes, and lit up the score of russet mounds beneath which slept the dusky kinsmen who had gone before them.

The simple head-boards that marked these humble graves chronicled no bad biography or senseless rhyme, and told no false tales of lives that had better not have been, but 'SAM, AGE 22;' 'POMPEY;' 'JAKE'S ELIZA;; 'AUNT SUE;' 'AUNT LUCY'S TOM;' 'JOE;' and other like inscriptions, scratched in rough characters on those unplaned boards, were all the records there. The rude tenants had passed away and 'left no sign;' their birth, their age, their deeds, were alike unknown--unknown, but not forgotten; for are they not written in the book of His remembrance--and when He counteth up his jewels, may not some of them be there?

The queer, grotesque dress, and sad, earnest looks of the black group; the red, fitful glare of the blazing pine, and the white faces of the tapped trees, gleaming through the gloom like so many sheeted-ghosts gathered to some death-carnival, made up a strange, wild scene--the strangest and the wildest I had ever witnessed.

The covers of the rude coffins were not yet nailed down, and when we arrived, the blacks were one by one passing before them, taking a last look at the faces of the dead. Soon, Junius, holding his weeping wife by the hand, approached the smaller of the two boxes, which held all that was left of their first-born. The mother kneeling by its side, kissed again and again the cold, shrunken lips, and sobbed as if her heart would break; while the strong frame of the father shook convulsively, as, choking down the great sorrow which welled up in his throat, he turned away from his boy forever. As he did so, old Pompey said:

'Don't grebe, June, he'm whar de wicked cease from trubbling, whar de weary am at rest.'

'I knows it; I knows it, Uncle. I knows de Lord am bery good to take 'im 'way; but why did he take de young chile, and leab de ole man har?'

'De little sapling dat grow in de shade may die while it'm young; de great tree dat grow in de sun must lib till de ax cut him down.'

These words were the one drop wanting to make the great grief which was swelling in the negro's heart overflow. Giving one low, wild cry, he folded his wife in his arms, and burst into a paroxysm of tears.

'Come now, my chil'ren,' said the old preacher, kneeling down, 'let us pray.'

The whole assemblage then knelt on the cold ground, while the old man prayed, and a more sincere, heart-touching prayer never went up from human lips to that God 'who hath made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth.' Though clothed in rags, and in feeble old age, a slave, at the mercy of a cruel task-master, that old man was richer far than his master. His simple faith, which looked through the darkness surrounding him into the clear and radiant light of the unseen land, was of far more worth than all the wealth and glory of this world. I know not why it was, but as I looked at him in the dim, red light which fell on his upturned face, and cast a strange halo around his bent form, I thought of Stephen, as he gazed upward and saw heaven open, and 'the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the throne of God.'

Rising from his knees, the old preacher turned slowly to the black mass that encircled him, and said:

'My dear bredderin and sisters, de Lord say dat 'de dust shill return to de earth as it war, and de spirit to Him who gabe it,' and now, 'cordin' to dat text, my friends, we'm gwine to put dis dust (pointing to the two coffins) in de groun' whar it cum from, and whar it shill lay till de blessed Lord blow de great trumpet on de resumrection mornin'. De spirits of our brudders har de Lord hab already took to hisseff. 'Our brudders,' I say, my chil'ren, 'case ebery one dat de Lord hab made am brudders to you and to me, whedder dey'm bad or good, white or brack.

'Dis young chile, who hab gone 'way and leff his pore fader and mudder suffrin' all ober wid grief, _he_ hab gone to de Lord, _shore_. _He_ neber did no wrong; he allers 'bey'd his massa, and he neber said no hard word, nor found no fault, not eben w'en de cruel, bad oberseer put de load so heaby on him dat it kill him. Yes, my bredderin and sisters, _he_ hab gone to de Lord; gone whar dey don't work in de swamps; whar de little chil'ren don't tote de big shingles fru de water up to dar knees. No swamps am dar; no shingles am cut dar; dey doan't need 'em, 'case dar hous'n haint builded wid hands, for dey'm all built by de Lord, and gib'n to de good niggers, ready-made, and for nuffin'. De Lord don't say, like as our massa do, 'Pomp, dar's de logs and de shingles,' (dey'm allers pore shingles, de kine dat woant sell; but he say, '_dey'm_ good 'nuff for niggers, ef de roof do leak.) De Lord doan't say: 'Now, Pomp, you go to work and build you' own house; but mine dat you does you task all de time, jess de same!' But de Lord--de bressed Lord--He say, w'en we goes up dar, 'Dar, Pomp, dar's de house dat I'se been a buildin' for you eber sence 'de foundation ob de worle.' It'm done now, and you kin cum in; your room am jess ready, and ole Sal and de chil'ren dat I tuk 'way from you eber so long ago, and dat you mourned ober and cried ober as ef you'd neber see dem agin, _dar dey am, all on 'em, a waiting for you_. Dey'm been fixin' up de house 'spressly for you all dese long years, and dey'be got it all nice and comfible now.' Yas, my frens, glory be to Him, dat's what our Heabenly massa say, and who ob you wouldn't hab sich a massa as dat? a massa dat don't set you no hard tasks, and dat gibs you 'nuff to eat, and time to rest and to sing and to play. A massa dat doan't keep no Yankee oberseer to foller you 'bout wid de big free-lashed whip; but dat leads you hisseff round to de green pastures and de still waters; and w'en you'm a-faint and a-tired, and can't go no furder, dat takes you up in his arms, and carries you in his bosom. What pore darky am dar dat wudn't hab sich a massa? What one ob us, eben ef we had to work so hard as we does now, wudn't tink hisseff de happiest nigger in de hull worle, ef he could hab sich hous'n to lib in as dem? dem hous'n 'not made wid hands, eternal in de heabens!'

'But glory, glory to de Lord! my chil'ren, wese all got dat massa, ef we only knowd it, and he'm buildin' dem housn up dar, now, for ebery one ob us dat am tryin' to be good and to lub one anoder. _For ebery one ob us_, I say, and we kin all git de fine hous'n ef we try.

'Recolember, too, my brudders, dat our great Massa am rich, bery rich, and He kin do all he promise. _He_ won't say, w'en wese worked ober time to git some little ting to comfort de sick chile, 'I knows, Pomp, you'se done de work, and I did 'gree to gib you de pay; but de fact am, Pomp, de frost hab come so sudden dis yar, dat I'se loss de hull ob de sebenfh dippin', and I'se pore, so pore, de chile must go widout dis time.' No, no, brudders, de bressed Lord He neber talk so. He neber break, 'case de sebenfh dip am shet off, or 'case de price of turpentime gwo down at de Norf. He neber sell his niggers down Souf, 'case he lose his money on de hoss-race. No, my chil'ren, our HEABENLY Massa am rich, RICH, I say. He own all dis worle, and all de odor worles dat am shinin' up dar in de sky. He own dem all; but he tink more ob one ob you, more ob one ob you--pore, ignorant brack folks dat you am--dan ob all dem great worles! Who wouldn't belong, to sich a Massa as dat? Who wouldn't be his nigger--not his slave--He don't hab no slaves--but his chile; and 'ef his chile, den his heir, de heir ob God, and de joint heir wid Christ.' O my chil'ren! tink of dat! de heir ob de Lord ob all de earth and all de sky! What white man kin be more'n dat?

'Don't none ob you say you'm too wicked to be His chile; 'ca'se you an't. He lubs de wicked ones de best, 'ca'se dey need his lub de most. Yas, my brudders, eben de wickedest, ef dey's only sorry, and turn roun' and leab off dar bad ways, he lub de bery best ob all, 'ca'se he'm all lub and pity.

'Sam, har, my children, war wicked, but don't _we_ pity him; don't _we_ tink he had a hard time, and don't we tink de bad oberseer, who'm layin' dar in de house jess ready to gwo and answer for it--don't we tink he gabe Sam bery great probincation?'

'Dat's so,' said a dozen of the auditors.

'Den don't you 'spose dat de blessed Lord know all dat, and dat He pity Sam too? If we pore sinners feel sorry for him, an't de Lord's heart bigger'n our'n, and an't he more sorry for him? Don't you tink dat ef He lub and pity de bery worse whites, dat He lub and pity pore Sam, who warn't so bery bad, arter all? Don't you think He'll gib Sam a house? P'r'aps 'twon't be one ob de fine hous'n, but won't it be a comfible house, dat hain't no cracks, and one dat'll keep out de wind and de rain? And don't you s'pose, my chil'ren, dat it'll be big 'nuff for Jule, too--dat pore, repentin' chile, whose heart am clean broke, 'ca'se she hab broughten dis on Sam--and won't de Lord--de good Lord--de tender-hearted Lord--won't He touch Sam's heart, and coax him to forgib Jule, and to take her inter his house up dar? I knows he will, my chil'ren. I knows--'

Here the old negro paused abruptly; for there was a quick swaying in the crowd--a hasty rush--a wild cry--and Sam's wife burst into the open space around the preacher, and fell at the old man's feet. Throwing her arms wildly around him, she shrieked out:

'Say dat agin, Uncle Pomp! for de lub ob de good Lord, oh! say dat agin!'

Bending down, the old man raised her gently in his arms, and folding her there, as he would have folded a child, he said, in a voice thick with emotion:

'It am so, Juley. I knows dat Sam will forgib you, and take you wid him up dar.'

Fastening her arms frantically around Pompey's neck, the poor woman burst into a paroxysm of grief, while the old man's tears fell in great drops on her upturned face, and many a dark cheek near was wet, as with rain.

The scene had lasted a few minutes, and I was turning away to hide the emotion that was fast filling my eyes, and creeping up, with a choking feeling, to my throat, when the Colonel, from the farther edge of the group, called out:

'Take that d----d ---- away--take her away, Pomp!'

The old negro turned toward his master with a sad, grieved look, but gave no heed to the words.

'Take her away, some of you, I say,' again cried the Colonel. 'Pomp, you mustn't keep these niggers all night in the cold.'

At the sound of her master's voice the metif woman fell to the ground as if struck by a Minie-ball. Soon several negroes lifted her up to bear her away; but she struggled violently, and rent the woods with her wild cries for 'one more look at Sam.'

'Look at him, you d----d ----, then go, and don't let me see you again.'

She threw herself on the face of the dead, and covered the cold lips with her kisses; then rose, and with a weak, uncertain step, staggered out into the darkness.

'The system' that had so seared and hardened that man's heart, must have been begotten in the lowest hell.

The old preacher said no more, but four stout negro men stepped forward, nailed down the lids, and lowered the rough boxes into the ground. Turning to Madam P----, I saw her face was red with weeping. She rose to go just as the first earth fell, with a dull, heavy sound, on the rude coffins; and giving her my arm, I led her from the scene.

As we walked slowly back to the house, a low wail--half a chant, half a dirge--rose from the black crowd, and floated off on the still night air, till it died away amid the far woods, in a strange, wild moan. With that sad, wild music in our ears, we entered the mansion.

As we seated ourselves by the bright wood-fire on the library hearth, obeying a sudden impulse which I could not restrain, I said to Madam P----:

'The Colonel's treatment of that poor woman is inexplicable to me. Why is he so hard with her? It is not in keeping with what I have seen of his character.'

'The Colonel is a peculiar man,' replied the lady. 'Noble, generous, and a true friend, he is also a bitter, implacable enemy. When he once conceives a dislike, his feelings become even vindictive; and never having had an ungratified wish, he does not know how to feel for the sorrows of those beneath him. Sam, though a proud, headstrong, unruly character, was a great favorite with him; he felt his death much; and as he attributes it to Jule, he feels terribly bitter toward her. She will have to be sold to get her out of his way, for he will _never_ forgive her.'

It was some time before the Colonel joined us, and when he at last made his appearance, he seemed in no mood for conversation. The lady soon retired; but feeling unlike sleep, I took down a book from the shelves, drew my chair near the fire, and fell to reading. The Colonel, too, was deep in the newspapers, till, after a while, Jim entered the room:

'I'se cum to ax ef you've nuffin more to-night, Cunnel?' said the negro.

'No, nothing, Jim,' replied his master; 'but, stay--hadn't you better sleep in front of Moye's door?'

'Dunno, sar; jess as you say.'

'I think you'd better,' returned the Colonel.

With a 'Yas, massa,' the darky left the apartment.

The Colonel shortly rose, and bade me 'good night.' I continued reading till the clock struck eleven, when I laid the book aside and went to my room.

I slept, as I have said before, on the lower floor, and was obliged to pass by the door of the overseer's apartment as I went to mine. Wrapped in his blanket, and stretched at full length on the ground, Jim lay there, fast asleep. I passed on, thinking of the wisdom of placing a tired negro on guard over an acute and desperate Yankee.

I rose in the morning with the sun, and had partly donned my clothing, when I heard a loud uproar in the hall. Opening my door, I saw Jim pounding vehemently at the Colonel's room, and looking as pale as is possible with a person of his completion.

'What the d---l is the matter?' asked his master, who now, partly dressed, stepped into the hall.

'Moye hab gone, sar; he'm gone and took Firefly (my host's five-thousand-dollar thorough-bred) wid him.'

For a moment the Colonel stood stupified; then, his face turning to a cold, clayey white, he seized the black by the throat, and hurled him to the floor. Planting his thick boot on the man's face, he seemed about to dash out his brains with its ironed heel, when, at that instant, the octoroon woman rushed, in her night-clothes, from his room, and with desperate energy pushed him aside, exclaiming: 'What would you do? remember WHO HE IS!'

The negro rose, and the Colonel, without a word, passed into his apartment. What followed will be the subject of another chapter.

_PICAYUNE BUTLER._

'General Butler was a barber,'
So the Pelicans were raving;
Now you've got him in your harbor,
Tell us how you like his shaving?

_LITERARY NOTICES._

LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. Delivered at the royal Institution
of Great Britain in April, May, and June, 1861. By MAX MULLER,
Fellow of All Souls College, etc. From the second London edition,
revised. New-York: Charles Scribner, Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.

Within the memory of man one could in England or America be 'very well educated,' as the word went, and yet remain grossly ignorant of the simplest elements of the history of language. In those days Latin was held by scholars to be derived from Greek--where the Greek came from nobody knew or cared, though it was thought, from Hebrew. German was a jargon, Provençal a '_patois_,' and Sanscrit an obsolete tongue, held in reverence by Hindoo savages. The vast connections of language with history were generally ignored. Hebrew was assumed, as a matter of course, to have been the primeval language, and it was wicked to doubt it. Then came Sir William Jones, Carey, Wilkins, Forster, Colebrooke, and the other Anglo-Indian scholars, and the world learned what it ought to have learned from the Jesuits, that there was in the East a very ancient language--Sanscrit--'of wonderful structure, more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, more exquisitely refined than either; bearing to both a strong affinity,' and stranger still, containing a vast amount of words almost identical with many in all European and many Oriental tongues. This was an apocalypse of truth to many--but a source of grief to the orthodox believers that Greek and Latin were either aboriginal languages, or modifications of Hebrew. Hence the blind, and in some cases untruthful warfare made on the Sanscrit discoveries, as in the case of Dugald Stewart.

'Dugald Stewart was too wise not to see that the conclusions drawn
from the facts about Sanscrit were inevitable. He therefore _denied
the reality of such a language as Sanscrit altogether_, and wrote
his famous essay to prove that Sanscrit had been put together,
after the model of Greek and Latin, by those arch forgers and
liars, the Brahmins, and that the whole of Sanscrit literature was
an imposture.'

But it was all of no avail. In 1808 Frederick Schlegel's work, _On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians_, first 'boldly faced the facts and conclusions of Sanscrit scholarship, and became,' with all its faults, the 'foundation for the science of language.' Its great result may be given in one sentence--it embraced at a glance the languages of India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and Northern Europe, and riveted them by the simple name 'Indo-Germanic.' Then in this school, begun by English industry and shaped by German genius, came Franz Bopp, with his great comparative grammar of the Indo-Germanic tongues, and the enormous labors of Lassen, Rosen, Burnouf, and W. von Humboldt--a man to whose incredible ability of every kind, as to his secret diplomatic influence, history has never done justice. Grimm, and Rask--the first great Zend scholar--were among these early explorers, who have been followed by so many scholars, until some knowledge not merely of Greek and Latin, but of the relations of _all_ languages, has become essential to a truly good education.

Yet after all, Sanscrit, it was soon seen, was not the parent, but '_the elder sister_' of the Indo-Germanic languages. Behind Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit, Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic tongues, lurks a lost language--the mysterious Aryan, which, reëchoed through the tones of those six remaining Pleiades, its sisters, speaks of a mighty race which once, it may be, ruled supreme over a hundred lands, or perchance sole in the Caucasus. It is strange to see philologists slowly reconstructing, here and there, fragments of the Aryan,

'And speak in a tongue which man speaks no more.'

Among the many excellent elementary and introductory works on philology which have appeared of late years, this of Müller's is on several accounts the best. It is clearly written, so as to be within the comprehension of any reader of ordinary intelligence, and we can hardly conceive that any such person would not find it an extremely entertaining book. Its author is a _genial_ writer--he writes with a relish and with real power--he loves knowledge, and wishes others to share it with him. Language, he holds--though the idea is not new with him--springs from a very few hundred roots, which are the _phonetic types_ produced by a power inherent in human nature. Every substance has its peculiar _ring_ when struck--man, under the action of certain laws, must develop first onomato-poietic sounds, and finally language. With this we take leave of this excellent work, trusting that the public will extend to it the favor which it so amply deserves.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. By his Nephew, PIERRE M. IRVING.
Vol. I. New-York: G.P. Putnam. Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.

This work has a strong, we might say an extraordinary claim to the interest of the most general reader, in its very first paragraph, since in it we are told that Washington Irving, on committing to his nephew Pierre the vast mass of papers requisite to his biography, remarked: 'Somebody will be writing my life when I am gone, and I wish you to do it. You must promise me that you will.' So with unusual wealth of material, gathered together for the purpose by the subject of the biography himself, the work has been begun, by the person whom Irving judged best fitted for it.

And a delightful work it is, not a page without something of special relish, as might be anticipated in the chronicle of a life which is thickly studded with personal association or correspondence with almost every intellectual eminence either of Europe or America during the past half-century. But apart from this, there is a racy Irving-y flavor from the very beginning, long before the wide world had incorporated Irving into its fraternity of great men, in the details of life, of home travel and of homely incident, as set forth in extracts from his letters, which is irresistibly charming. Full as this portion of the life is, we can not resist the hope that it will be greatly enlarged in subsequent editions, and that more copious extracts will be given from those letters, to the humblest of which the writer invariably communicates an indefinable fascination. In them, as in his regular 'writings,' we find the simplest incident narrated always without exaggeration--always as briefly as possible, yet told so quaintly and humorously withal, that we wonder at the piquancy which it assumes. It is the trouble with great men that they are, for lack of authentic anecdotes and details of their daily life, apt to retire into myths. Such will not be the case with Irving. The _reality_, the life-likeness of these letters, and of the _ana_ drawn from them, will keep him, Washington Irving the New-Yorker, alive and breathing before the world to all time. In these chapters a vail seems lifted from what was growing obscure in our knowledge of social life in the youth of our fathers. Our only wish, in reading, is for more of it. But the life gathers interest as it proceeds. From America it extends to Europe, and we meet the names of Humboldt, De Staël, Allston, Vanderlyn, Mrs. Siddons, as among his associates even in early youth. So through Home Again and in Europe Again there is a constant succession of personal experience and wide opportunity to know the world. Did our limits permit, we would gladly cite largely from these pages, for it is long since the press has given to the world a book so richly quotable. But the best service we can render the reader is to refer him to the work itself, which is as well worth reading as any thing that its illustrious subject ever wrote, since in it we have most admirably reflected Irving himself; the best loved of our writers, and the man who did more, so far as intellectual effort is concerned, to honor our country than any American who ever lived.

BEAUTIES SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS DE QUINCKY. With a Portrait.
Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

We are not sure that this is not the very first book of other than pictorial beauties which we ever regarded with patience. Books of literary 'beauties' are like musical matinées--the first act of one opera--the grand dying-scene from another--all very pretty, but not on the whole satisfactory, or entitling one to claim from it alone any real knowledge of the original whole. Yet this volume we have found fascinating, have flitted from page to page, backwards and forwards, [it is a great advantage in a book of 'unconnections' that one may _conscientiously_ skip about,] and concluded by thanking in our heart the judicious Eclectic, whoever he may be--who mosaicked these bits into an enduring picture of De Quincey-ism. For really in it, by virtue of selection, collection, and recollection, we have given an authentic cabinet of specimens more directly suggestive of the course and soul-idioms of the author than many minds would gather from reading _all_ that he ever wrote. Only one thing seems needed--the great original commentary or essay on De Quincey, which these Beauties would most happily illustrate. It seems to rise shadowy before us--a sort of dead-letter ghost of a glorious book which craves life and has it not. We trust that our suggestion may induce some admirer of the Opium-Eater to have prepared an interleaved copy of these Beauties, and perfect the suggestion.

THE CHURCH IN THE ARMY; OR THE FOUR CENTURIONS. By Rev. WM. A. SCOTT, D.D.,
of San Francisco. New-York: Carleton, No. 413 Broadway. Boston:
Crosby and Nichols. 1862.

Since every one is doing their 'little utmost' for the army, Mr. Scott hath contributed his mite in a work on the four captains of hundreds mentioned in the Bible--the first whereof was he of Capernaum; the second, the one commanding at the crucifixion; the third, that of Cesarea; and the fourth, Julius, the centurion who had Paul in charge during his voyage to Rome. We are glad to learn, from the close researches and critical acumen of Rev. Mr. Scott, that there is very good ground for concluding that all of these centurions were so impressed by the thrilling scenes which they witnessed, and the society with which they mingled, as to have eventually been converted and saved, a consummation which may possibly have escaped the observation of most readers, who, absorbed in their contemplation of the great _dramatis personae_, seldom give thought as to what the effect on the minor characters must have been. It is worth observing that our author is thoroughly earnest in his exhortations--at times almost naively so. If he be often rather over-inclined to threaten grim damnation to an alarming majority, and describe with a relish the eternal horrors which hang around the second death, in good old-fashioned style, still we must remember that he sincerely means what he says, and is a Puritan of the ancient stamp.

_EDITOR'S TABLE._

There is something intensely American in such phrases as 'manifest destiny,' 'mission,' and 'call,' and we may add, something very vigorous may be found in the character of him who uses them. They are expressions which admit no alternative, no second possibility. The man of a 'mission,' or of a 'manifest destiny,' may be a fanatic, but he will be no flincher; he will strive to the bitter end, and fall dead in the traces; _but he will succeed_.

We are glad to learn that there is growing up in the army, and of course from it in all the homes of the whole country, a fixed impression that the South is inevitably destined to be 'Northed' or 'free-labored,' as the result of this war. The intelligent farmer in the ranks, who has learned his superiority to 'Secesh,' as a soldier, and who _knows_ himself to be superior to any Southern in all matters of information and practical creative _power_, looks with scorn at the worn-out fields, wasteful agriculture, and general shiftlessness of the natives, and says, with a contemptuous laugh: 'We will get better crops out of the land, and manage it in another fashion, when _we_ settle down here.' Not less scornfully does the mechanic look down on the clumsy, labor-wasting contrivances of the negro or negro-stupified white man, and agree with his mate that 'these people will never be of much account until we take them in hand.'

Master-mechanic, master-farmer, _you are right_. These people _are_ your inferiors; with all their boasts and brags of 'culture,' you could teach them, by your shrewder intelligence, at a glance, the short cut to almost any thing at which their intellects might be employed; and you indulge in a very natural feeling, when, as conquerors, in glancing over their Canaan, you involuntarily plan what you will do some day, _if_ a farm should by chance be your share of the bounty-money, when the war is over. For it is absurd to suppose that such a country will continue forever a prey to the wasting and exhaustive disease of the plantation-system, or that the black will always, as at present, inefficiently and awkwardly fulfill those mechanic labors which a keen white workman can better manage. Wherever the hand of the Northman touches, in these times, it shows a superior touch, whether in improvising a six-action cotton-gin, in repairing locomotives, or in sarcastically seizing a 'Secesh' newspaper and reëditing it with a storm of fun and piquancy such as its doleful columns never witnessed of old. In this and in a thousand ways, the Northern soldier realizes that he is in a land of inferiors, and a very rich land at that. At this point, his speculations on manifest destiny may very appropriately begin. There is no harm in suffering this idea to take firm hold. Like ultimate emancipation, it may be assumed as a fact, all to be determined in due time, according to the progress of events, as wisely laid down by President Lincoln, without hurry, without feverish haste, simply guided by the firm determination that eventually it must be.

We can not insist too strongly on this great truth, that when a nation makes up its mind that a certain event _must_ take place, and acts calmly in the spirit of perfect persuasion, very little is really needed to hasten the wished-for consummation. Events suddenly spring up to aid, and in due time all is accomplished. Those who strive to hurry it retard it, those who work to drag it back hasten it. Never yet on earth was a real conviction crushed or prematurely realized. So it is, so it will be with this 'Northing' of the South. Let the country simply familiarize itself with the idea, and the idea will advance as rapidly as need be. In it lies the only solution of the great problem of reconciling the South and the North; the sooner we make up our minds to the fact, the better; and, on the other hand, the more deliberately and calmly we proceed to the work, the more certain will its accomplishment be. Events are now working to aid us with tremendous power and rapidity--faith, a judicious guiding of the current as it runs, is all that is at present required to insure a happy fulfillment.

* * * * *

The degree to which a vindictive and malignant opposition to every thing for the sake of 'the party' can be carried, has been well illustrated in the amount and variety of slander which has been heaped by the Southern-rights, sympathizing Democratic press on the efforts of those noble-hearted women who have endeavored to do something to alleviate the condition of the thousands of contrabands, who are many without clothes, employment, or the slightest idea of what they are to do. It would be hard to imagine any thing more harmless or more perfectly free from any thing like sinister or selfish motives than have been the conduct and motives of the noble women who have assumed this mission. Florence Nightingale undertook nothing nobler; and the world will some day recognize the deserts of those who strove against every obstacle to relieve the sufferings and enlighten the ignorance of the blacks--among whom were thousands of women and little children. Such being the literal truth, what does the reader think of such a paragraph as the following, which we find going the rounds of the Boston Courier and other journals of the same political faith?

'_On dit_, that some of the schoolmarms who went to South-Carolina
several weeks ago, are not so intent upon 'teaching the young ideas
how to shoot,' as upon flirting with the officers, in a manner not
entirely consistent with morality. General Hunter is going to send
some of the misbehaving misses home.'

If there is a loathsome, cowardly, infamous phrase, it is that of _on dit_, 'they say,' 'it is said,' when used to assail the virtue of women--above all, of women engaged in such a cause as that in question. We believe in our heart, this whole story to be a slander of the meanest description possible--a piece of as dirty innuendo as ever disgraced a Democratic paper. The spirit of the viper is apparent in every line of it. Yet it is in perfect keeping with the storm of abuse and falsehood which has been heaped on these 'contraband' missionaries, teachers, and nurses, since they went their way. They have been accused of pilfering, of lying, of doing nothing, of corrupting the blacks, of going out only to speculate, and, as might have been expected, we have at last the unfailing resort of the lying coward--a dirty hint as to breaking the seventh commandment--all according to the devilish old Jesuit precept of, '_Calumniare fortiter aliquis koerebit_'--'Slander boldly, something will be sure to stick.' And to such a depth of degradation--to the hinting away the characters of young ladies because they try to teach the poor contrabands--can _men_ descend 'for the sake of the _party'!_

* * * * *

Of late years, those soundest of philanthropists, the men of common-sense who labor unweariedly to facilitate exchanges between civilized nations, have endeavored to promote in every possible manner the adoption of the same system of currency, weights and measures among civilized nations. It has been accepted as a rule beyond all debate, that if such mediums of business could be adopted--nay, if a common language even were in use, industry would receive an incalculable impulse, and the production of capital be enormously increased.

Not so, however, thinks John M. Vernon, of New-Orleans, who, stimulated by the purest secession sentiments, and urged by the most legitimate secession and 'State rights' logic, has developed a new principle of exclusiveness by devising a new system of decimal currency, which he thus recommends to the rebel Congress:

'We are a separate and distinct people, influenced by different
interests and sentiments from the vandals who would subjugate us.
Our manners and customs are different; our tastes and talents are
different; our geographical position is different; and in
conformity with natural laws, nature and instinct, our
currency,--weights and measures, should be different.

'The basis of integral limit of value proposed for our currency, is
the star, which is to be divided into one hundred equal parts, each
part to be called a centime, namely: 10 centimes--1 tropic;
10 tropics--1 star; 10 stars--1 sol.

'These denominations for our currency have been selected for three
reasons: first, they are appropriate to ourselves as a people;
second, they are emblems of cheerfulness, honor, honesty of
purpose, solidity, and stability; and third, the words used are
simple, easily remembered, and are common to several languages. I
will, in addition, observe that similar characteristics distinguish
the proposed tables of weights and measures.'

'Stars'--'centimes'--'tropics,' and 'sols.' Why these words should be more significant of cheerfulness, honor, honesty, and solidity, than dollars and dimes, cents and mills, is not, as yet, apparent. As set forth in this recommendation, it would really appear that the root of all evil would have its evil properties extracted by giving the radical a different name. To be sure, the wages of sin thus far in the world's history, have generally been found equivalent to death, whether they are termed guineas, francs, thalers, cobangs, pesos, sequins, ducats, or dollars. But in Dixie--happy Dixie!--they only need another name, and lo! a miracle is to be wrought at once.

There is something in this whole proposition which accurately embodies the whole Southern policy. While the rest of the world is working to assimilate into civilization, they are laboring to get away and apart--to be different from everybody else--to remain provincial and 'peculiar.' It is the working of the same spirit which inspires the desire to substitute 'State rights' or individual will, or, in plain terms, lawlessness and barbarism for enlightenment and common rights. It is a craving for darkness instead of light, for antiquated feudal falsehood instead of republican truth; and it will meet with the destiny which awaits every struggle against the great and holy cause of humanity.

_KYNG COTEN._

A 'DARK' CONCEIT.

(_Being an ensample of a longe poeme._)

O muse! that did me somedeal favour erst,
Whereas I piped my silly oaten reede,
And songs in homely guise to mine reherst,
Well pleased with maiden's smilings for my meed;
Sweet muse, do give my Pegasus good speede,
And send to him of thy high, potent might,
Whiles mortalls I all of my theme do rede,
Thatte is the story of a doughty knight,
Who eftsoons wageth war, Kyng COTEN is he hight.

Kyng Coten cometh of a goodly race,
Though black it was, as records sothly tell;
But thatte is nought, which only is the face,
And ne the hart, where alle goode beings dwell;
For witness him the puissant Hannibal,
Who was in veray sooth a Black-a-Moor;
And Cleopatra, Egypt's darksome belle,
And others, great on earth, a hundred score;
Howbeit, ilke kyng was white, which doth amaze me sore.

Kyng Coten cometh of a goodly race,
As born of fathers clean as many as
The sands thatte doe the mighty sea-shore grace,
But black, as sayde, as dark is Erebus.
His rule the Southron Federation was,
Thatte was a part of great Columbia,
Which was as fayre a clyme as man mote pass;
And situate where Vesper holds his swaye,
But habited wilome by men of salvage fray.

Farre in the North he had an enimie,
Who certes was the knight's true soveraine,
Who likéd not his wicked slaverie,
Which 'cross God's will was counter-wisely laine,
Whiles he himself, it seemeth now right playne,
Did seek to have a kyngdom of his kynde,
Where he, as tyrant-like, mote lonly raine;
So to a treacherie he fetched his mynde,
Which soon was rent in four, and sent upon each wynde.

His enimie thatte liveth in the North,
Who, after all, was not his enimie,
Ydeemed he was a gentilman of worth,
Too proud to make so vile a villianie,
And, therefore, did ne tent his railerie,
But went his ways, as was his wont wilome;
Goliah, he turned out eftsoons, ah! me,
Who leaned upon his speare when David come,
And laughed to scorn the sillie boy his threat'ning doom.

But when his stronghold in ye Southron land,
Of formidable front, Forte Sumter hight,
Did fall into Kyng Coten's rebell hand,
Who coward-wise did challenge to the fight,
Some several men again his host of might;
Then Samuel, for so was he yclipt,
Begun in batail's gear himself to dight,
As being fooled by him with whom he sippt,
And hied him out, loud crying, 'Treason must be nippt!'

O ye who doe the crusades' musters tell,
In wise that maketh myndes incredulous,
And paynte how like Dan Neptune's sweeping swell
The North bore down on the perfidious!
Ne nigh so potent thatte as was with us;
Where men, like locusts, darkened all the land,
As marched they toward the place that's treacherous,
And shippes, that eke did follow the command,
Like forests, motion-got, doe walk along the strand.

Fierce battails ther were fought upon the ground,
Thatte rob'd the heavens alle in ayer dunne;
And shoke the world as doth the thunder's sound,
Till, soth to say, it well-nigh was undone:
But of them alle, ther is an one
That frayle pen dispairs for to descrive,
Which mortalls call the Battail of Bull Run;
But why I mote ne tell, as I'm alive,
Unless it haply he ther _running_ did most thrive.

LAWRENCE MINOT.

'Our Orientalist' appears this month with

_EGYPT IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS._

BY A FAST TRAVELER.

'You ought to go to the East,' said Mr. Swift, with a wave of his hand; 'I've been there, and seen it under peculiar circumstances.'

'Explain, O howaga! Give us the facts.

'Immediately. Just place the punch-pitcher where I can reach it easily. That's right! Light another Cabañas. So; now for it. In 1858, month of December, I was settled in comfortable quarters in the Santa Lucia, Naples, and fully expected to winter there at my ease, when, to my disgust, I received letters from England, briefly ordering me by first steamer to Alexandria, thence per railroad to Cairo, there to see the head of a certain banking-house; transact my business, and return to Naples with all possible dispatch. No sooner said than done; there was one of the Messagérie steamers up for Malta next day; got my passport visaed, secured berth, all right. Next night I was steaming it past Stromboli, next morning in Messina; then Malta, where I found steamer up for Alexandria that night; in four days was off that port, at six o'clock in the morning, and at half-past eight o'clock was in the cars, landing in Cairo at four o'clock in the afternoon. Posted from the railroad-station to the banker's, saw my man, arranged my business, was to receive instructions at seven o'clock the next morning, and at eight o'clock take the return train to Alexandria, where a steamer was to sail next day, that would carry me back to Naples, _presto_! as the jugglers say.

'There, breathe a little, and take another glass of punch, while I recall my day in the East.

'Through at the banker's, he recommended me to the Hotel ----, where I would find a good table, clean rooms, and none of my English compatriots. I love my native land and my countrymen _in it_, but as for them out of it, and as Bohemians--ugh! I am too much of a wolf myself to love wolves. Arrived at the hotel, with my head swimming with palm-trees, railroad, turbans, tarbooshes, veiled women, camels, pipes, dust, donkeys, oceans of blue calico, groaning water-wheels, the Nile, far-off view of the Pyramids, etc., I at once asked the headwaiter for a room, water, towels; he passed me into the hands of a very tall Berber answering to the name of Yusef, who was dressed in flowing garments and tarboosh, and who was one of the gentlest beings entitled to wear breeches I have ever seen; he had feet that in my recollection seem a yard long, and how he managed to move so noiselessly, unless both pedals were soft-shod, worries me to the present time. Well, at six o'clock the gong sounded for dinner, and out I went over marble floors to the dining hall, where I found only three other guests, who saluted me courteously when I entered, and at a signal from Yusef, a compromise between a bow and a salaam, we seated ourselves at table. Of the three guests, one was particularly a marked man, apart from his costume, that of a cavalry officer in the Pacha's service; there was something grand in his face, large blue eyes, full of humor and _bonhommie_, a prominent nose, a broad forehead, burned brown with the sun, his head covered with the omnipresent tarboosh, a mustache like Cartouche's; such was my _vis-à-vis_ at the hotel-table.

'In conversation with this officer, it turned up that one of my most intimate friends was his cousin, and so we had a bottle of old East-India pale sherry over that; then we had another to finally cement our acquaintance; I said finally--I should say, finally for dinner.

'I have seen the interiors of more than three hundred hotels in Europe, Africa, and America; but I have yet to see one that appeared so outrageously romantic as that of the Hotel ----, at Cairo, after that second bottle of sherry! The divans on which we reposed, the curious interlacing of the figures on the ceiling, the raised marble floor at the end of the room overlooking the street, the arabesques on the doors, and finally the never-ending masquerade-ball going on in the street under the divans where we sat and smoked.

'I can't tell you how it happened, but after very small cups of very black coffee and a pousse café, in the officer's room, of genuine kirschwasser and good curaçoa, I was mounted on a bay horse; there was a dapple-gray alongside of me; and running ahead of us, to clear the way, the officer's _sais_ afoot, ready to hold our horses when we halted. We were quickly mounted and off like the wind, past turbans, flowing bournouses, tarbooshes, past grand old mosques, petty cafés, where the faithful were squatting on bamboo-seats, smoking pipes or drinking coffee-grounds, while listening to a storyteller, possibly relating some story in the _Arabian Nights_; then we were through the bazaars, all closed now and silent; then up in the citadel, and through the mosque of Yusef; then down and scouring over the flying sand among the grand old tombs of the Mamelukes and of the caliphs; then off at break-neck speed toward the Mokatamma mountains, from a rise on the lower spur of one of which we saw, in the shadow of the coming night, the Pyramids and the slow-flowing Nile.

'Again we were in Cairo, and now threading narrow street after street, the fall of our horses' hoofs hardly heard on the unpaved ways, as we were passing under overhanging balconies covered with lace-work lattices. As it grew darker, our _sais_ preceded us with lighted lantern, shouting to pedestrians, blind and halt, to clear the road for the coming effendis.

'_Halte la!_

'My foaming bay was reined in with a strong hand, I leaped from the saddle, and found the _sais_ at hand to hold our horses, while we saw the seventh heaven of the Koran, and by no means _al Hotama_.

'With a foresight indicating an old campaigner, the officer produced a couple of bottles of sherry from the capacious folds of the _sais_' mantle, and unlocking the door of the house in front of which we stood, invited me to enter. Two or three turns, a court-yard full of rose-bushes, and an enormous palm-tree, a fountain shooting up its sparkling waters in the moonlight, a clapping of hands, chibouks, sherry cooled in the fountain.

'Then, in the moonlight, the gleam of white flowing garments, the nervous thrill breathed in from perfumes filling the evening air; the great swimming eyes; the kiss; the ah!--other bottles of sherry. The fingans of coffee, the pipe of Latakiah tobacco, the blowing a cloud into dreamland, while Fatima or Zoe insists on taking a puff with you.

'But as she said, '_Hathih al-kissah moaththirah_, which, in the vernacular, is. 'This history is affecting,' so let us pass it by. We finished those two bottles of sherry, and if Mohammed, in his majesty, refuses admittance to two Peris into paradise, because they drank sherry that night, let the sins be on our shoulders, WE are to blame.

* * * * *

'Next morning, at seven o'clock, I was at the banker's, and received his orders, and at six o'clock that evening was steaming out of Alexandria, bound to Naples _via_ Malta. A little over twenty-four hours, and I had SEEN THE ORIENT THROUGH SHERRY--pale, golden, and serenely beautiful!

'Pass the punch.'

* * * * *

Very welcome is our pleasant contributor--he who of late discoursed on 'honeyed thefts' and rural religious discipline--and now, in the present letter, he gives us his views on meals, feeds, banquets, symposia, or by whatever name the reader may choose to designate assemblies for the purpose of eating.

Please make room at this table, right here, for me. Surely at a
table of such dimensions, there should be plenty of room. Many a
table-scene do I now recall, in days gone by, 'all of which I saw,
and part of which I was,' but nothing like this. Tables of all
sorts and sizes, but never a CONTINENTAL table before. I suppose
the nearest approach to it was _the_ picnic dinner the wee
youngsters used to eat off the _ground_! A CONTINENTAL table! The
most hospitable idea imaginable. Give place! Do you demand my
credentials, my card, my ticket? Here we have it all; a little note
from mine host, Mr. LELAND, inviting the bearer to this monthly
repast, and requesting, very properly--it was the way we always
did, when we used to get up picnics--that the receiver of the note
bring some sort of refreshments along. Thank you. This seat is very
comfortable. What more appropriate, at such a time, than the
discussion of _the Meal?_

I protest I am no glutton; in fact, I despise the man whose
meal-times are the epochs of his life; yet I frankly confess to
emotions of a very positive character, in contemplating the
associations of the table, and I admit farther, that I take
pleasure in the reality as well as in the imagination. I like to be
'one of the company,' whether in palace or in farm-house. I always
brighten up when I see the dining-room door thrown open to an angle
hospitably obtuse, and am pleased alike with the politely-worded
request, 'Will the ladies and gentlemen please walk out and partake
of some refreshments?' or the blunt, kindly voice of mine host,
'Come, friends; dinner's ready.' Still I assert my freedom from any
slavish fondness for the creature comforts. It is not the bill of
fare that so pleases me. In fact, some of the best meals of which I
have ever partaken, were those the materials of which I could not
have remembered twenty minutes after. Exquisite palatal pleasures,
then, are not a _sine qua non_ in the enjoyment of table comforts.
No, indeed. There is a condiment which is calculated to impart a
high relish to the humblest fare; but without this charmed
seasoning, every banquet is a failure. Solomon was a man of nice
observation, even in so humble a matter as a meal. Let him reveal
the secret in his own words: 'Better is a dinner of herbs, where
LOVE is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'