Chapter I (4)

On the 20th, we passed close to Fury Beach, where the _Fury_ was lost in 1825; but the pace was too good to stop to visit even this most interesting spot. We came on with a fair wind and clear water to the latitude of Bellot Straits. Our excitement now became intense. The existence of the strait had been disputed, and upon it depended all our hopes. Running into Brentford Bay, we thought we saw ice streaming out, as if through some channel from the westward, but as yet we could see no opening; and being unable to get farther that night, we anchored in a little nook discovered on the north side of the bay. A look-out was set upon the highest hill, to watch the movements of the ice, and on the next day we made our first attempt to sail through. We started with a strong western tide, and under both steam and canvas, and, after proceeding about three miles, we were delighted to find that a passage really existed; but we had not got half way through when, the tide changing, a furious current came from the westward, bringing down upon us such masses of ice that we were carried helplessly away, and were nearly dashed upon huge pieces of grounded ice and reefs of rocks, over which the floes were running, and would have immediately capsized the little _Fox_ had she touched. This current ran at least seven knots an hour, and was more like a bore in the Hooghly than any ordinary tide. Struggling clear, after some considerable anxiety, and carried out of the straits, we reluctantly went back to the anchorage we had left. Night and day we now earnestly watched Bellot Straits, but they remained choked with the ice, which apparently drove backwards and forwards with the stream. We made another desperate attempt on the 25th August, and hung on, at imminent risk, in a small indentation about two-thirds through, and close under the precipitous cliffs. We were soon driven out of this again by the ice; yet so determined was our Captain to get through, that he then thought of pushing the ship into the pack, and driving with it into the western sea. We found, however, that the western entrance must be blocked, for the ice did not move fast in that direction. We could now do nothing but wait a change; and to employ the time, we sailed down the east coast of Boothia for some forty miles, to land a depôt of provisions, in case we should require, in the following winter, to communicate with the natives about Port Elizabeth. Navigation was now very cold and dreary work: we struggled back to Bellot Straits against strong north winds, sleet, and snow, and without compass, chart, or celestial objects to guide us. The Captain next went away in a boat, determining, when stopped, to travel over land to the western sea to examine the actual state of things there; and Young was sent to the southward for five days with boat and sledge, to ascertain if another passage existed where a promising break in the land had been seen.

The Captain returned to the ship on the 31st, bringing with him a fine fat buck; he had reached Cape Bird by water and land, and brought us a favourable report of Victoria Straits. Our hopes of getting through were again raised. Young returned unsuccessful from the south; no other strait existed, but only an inlet, extending some six miles in, and a chain of lakes thence into the interior to the south-westward. Young saw only one deer, but many bears were roaming about the coast.

On the 6th September we made another dash at the straits, and this time succeeded in reaching a rocky islet, two miles outside the western entrance; but a barrier of fast ice, over which we could see a dark _water-sky_, here stopped us. Moored to the ice, we employed ourselves in killing seals, hunting for bears, and making preparations for travelling. Young was sent to an island eight miles to the south-west, to look around; and on ascending the land, he was astonished to see water as far as the visible horizon to the southward in Victoria Straits. While sitting down, taking some angles with the sextant, he luckily turned round just in time to see a large bear crawling up the rocks to give him a pat on the head. He seized his rifle and shot him through the body, but the beast struggled down and died out of reach, in the water, and thus a good depôt of beef was lost. Hobson, who, for some days, had been employed carrying provisions on to this island, started on the 25th with a party of seven men and two dog-sledges to carry depôts as far as possible to the southward, and the Captain placed a boat on the islet close to the ship, in case we should have to leave for winter quarters before Hobson’s return.

The winter now set in rapidly, new ice was fast increasing, and the weather very severe; all navigation was at an end, and the barrier outside of us had never moved. We had now no hopes of getting further, and as no harbour existed where we were, we had nothing for it but to seek our winter home in Bellot Straits, and finish our work in the following winter and spring. So leaving Hobson to find his way to us, we ran back through Bellot Straits towards a harbour that we had discovered and named Port Kennedy. The straits were already covered with scum, and almost unnavigable, but we reached the harbour at midnight on the 27th, and ran the ship as far as possible into the new ice which now filled it. The _Fox_ had done her work until the following summer. No opportunity was now lost of procuring fresh food. The deer were migrating southward and a few were shot as they passed. But the hunting was very precarious; the deer were travelling, and did not stop much to feed; there was no cover whatever, and stalking over the rugged hills and snow-filled valleys was most laborious. A few ptarmigan and hares were also shot, but we were altogether disappointed in the resources of the country. We had, however, a fair stock of bear and seal flesh for our dogs and ourselves to begin upon.

On the 6th October Hobson returned, having reached some fifty miles down the west coast of Boothia, but was there stopped by the yet broken-up state of the ice. Finding that we had left Cape Bird, and that Bellot Straits were impassable for the boat, he travelled back to the ship over the mountains. The people were now clearing out the ship, landing all superfluous stores, and building magnetic observatories of snow and ice, besides hunting for the pot. We once more buried the ship with snow.

On the 24th, Hobson again started for the south-westward, to follow up his last track, and to endeavour to push his depôts further on. He returned to the ship on November 6, having experienced most severe weather, and great dangers from the unquiet state of the ice. When encamped near the shore, in latitude 70° 21′, the ice broke suddenly away from the land and drifted out to sea before the gale, carrying them off with it. They were perched upon a small floe piece, and a wide crack separated the two tents. Dense snow-drift heightened the darkness of the night, and they could not possibly tell in which direction they were driving. The next morning they found themselves fifteen miles from where they had pitched the previous evening. By the mercy of Providence a calm succeeded, and they escaped to the land over the ice which immediately formed. So thin was this new ice, that they momentarily expected to break through. By great exertion Hobson saved the depôt; and finding it impossible to do any more, he landed the provisions and returned to the ship. Our autumn travelling was now brought to a close. A depôt of provisions was to have been carried by Young across Victoria Straits, but this was given up as evidently impracticable. We sat down for the winter, praying that we might be spared to finish our work in the spring. The whole ship’s company marched in funeral procession to the shore on the 10th November, bearing upon a sledge the mortal remains of poor Mr. Bland (our chief engineer), who was found dead in his bed on the 7th. The burial service having been read, he was deposited in his frozen tomb, on which the wild flowers will never grow, and over which his relations can never mourn. We were all on board almost as one family, and any one taken from us was missed as one from the fireside at home. It was long before this sorrowful feeling throughout the ship could be shaken off. On the 14th the sun disappeared, and we were left in darkness; our skylights had long been covered over with snow, and by the light of our solitary dip we tried to pass the weary hours by reading, sleeping, and smoking. We were frozen in, in a fine harbour, surrounded by lofty granite hills, and on these were occasionally found a few ptarmigan, hares, and wild foxes; whenever the weather permitted, or we could at all see our way, we wandered over these dreary hills in search of a fresh mess. We varied our exercise with excursions on the ice in search of bears. But although exercise was so necessary for our existence, yet from the winds drawing through the straits and down our harbour as through a funnel, there were many days, and even weeks, when we could scarcely leave the ship. The men set fox-traps in all directions, and Mr. Petersen set seal-nets under the ice. The nets were not successful, but the traps gave an object for a walk. Magnetic observations were carried on throughout the winter;--the reading of one instrument, placed in a snow-house some 200 yards from the ship, being registered every hour night and day. On some of the wild winter nights, there was some risk in going even that distance from the ship. Christmas and New Year’s days were spent with such rejoicing as in our situation we could make, and we entered upon the year 1859 with good health and spirits. Our dogs, upon which so much depended, were also in first-rate condition, and not one of them had died.

The sun returned to us on January 26th; the daylight soon began to increase; and by February 10th, we were all ready to start upon our first winter journey. Bad weather detained us until the 17th, when Captain M‘Clintock and Young both left the ship; the Captain, with only two companions, Mr. Petersen (interpreter) and Thompson as dog-driver, to travel down the west coast of Boothia, to endeavour to obtain information, preparatory to the long spring journeys, from some natives supposed to live near the magnetic pole. Young was to cross Victoria Straits with a depôt of provisions, to enable him in the spring to search the coast of Prince of Wales Land, wherever it might trend. He returned on March 5.

The Captain’s party hove in sight on the 14th, and we all ran out to meet him. He had found a tribe of natives at Cape Victoria, near the magnetic pole, and from them he learnt that some years ago a large ship was crushed by the ice, off the north-west coast of King William Land; that the people had come to the land, and had travelled down that coast to the estuary of the Great Fish River where they had died upon an island (Montreal Island); the natives had spears, bows and arrows, and other implements made of wood, besides a quantity of silver spoons and forks, which they said they had procured on the island (more probably by barter from other tribes). It was now evident that we were on the right track, and with this important information Captain M‘Clintock returned to the ship.

Our winter travelling was thus ended, fortunately without any mishap.

Those only who know what it is to be exposed to a temperature of frozen mercury accompanied with wind, can form any idea of the discomforts of dragging a sledge over the ice, upon an unknown track, day after day, and for eight or ten consecutive hours, without a meal or drink, the hands and face constantly frostbitten, and your very boots full of ice; to be attacked with snow blindness; to encamp and start in the dark, and spend sixteen hours upon the snow, in a brown-holland tent, or the hastily erected snow-house, listening to the wind, the snow-drift, and the howling of the dogs outside, and trying to wrap the frozen blanket closer round the shivering frame. The exhaustion to the system is so great, and the thirst so intense, that the evening pannikin of tea and the allowanced pound of pemmican would not be given up were it possible to receive the whole world in exchange; and woe to the unlucky cook if he capsized the kettle!

On the 18th March, Young again started for Fury Beach, distant seventy-five miles, to get some of the sugar left there by Parry in 1825, and now considered necessary for the health of our men by the surgeon. This journey occupied until the 28th, one sledge having broken down, and the whole weight--about 1200 lbs.--having to be worked back piecemeal with one sledge, by a sort of fox-and-goose calculation. Dr. Walker, who had also volunteered to go down for the provisions left on the east coast in the autumn, and now not required there, returned about the same time. With the information already obtained, and which only accounted for one ship, Captain M‘Clintock saw no reason for changing the original plan of search, viz., that he should trace the Montreal Island and round King William Land; that Hobson should cross from the magnetic pole to Collinson’s farthest on Victoria Land, and follow up that coast; and that Young should cross Victoria Straits and connect the coast of Prince of Wales Land with either Collinson’s farthest on Victoria Island or Osborne’s farthest on the west coast of Prince of Wales Land, according as he might discover the land to trend. Young was also to connect the coast with Browne’s farthest in Peel Sound, and explore the coast of North Somerset from Sir James Ross’s farthest (Four River Bay) to Bellot Straits. This would complete the examination of the whole unexplored country.

The travelling parties were each to consist of four men drawing one sledge, and six dogs with a second sledge, besides the officer in charge, and the dog-driver. By the aid of depôts, already carried out, and from the extreme care with which Captain M‘Clintock had prepared the travelling equipment, and had reduced every ounce of unnecessary weight, we expected to be able to be absent from the ship, and without any other resource, for periods of from seventy to eighty days, and if necessary even longer. The Captain and Hobson both started on the 2nd April, and Young got away upon the 7th. The _Fox_ was left in charge of Dr. Walker (surgeon), and three or four invalids, who were unfit for the fatigues of travelling.

Although we all felt much excited at the real commencement of our active work, and interested in these departures, this was perhaps the most painful period of our voyage. We had hitherto acted in concert, and all the dangers of our voyage had been shared together. We were now to be separated, and for three months to travel in detached parties over the ice, without an opportunity of hearing of each other until our return. It was like the breaking up of a happy family, and our only consolation lay in the hope that when we again met it would be to rejoice over the discovery of the lost ships. Nothing of interest occurred on board during our absence; but one of the invalids, poor Blackwell, had been getting gradually worse, and died of scurvy on June 14, the very day on which Hobson returned.

The Captain and Hobson travelled together as far as Cape Victoria. There they learnt the additional news that another ship had drifted on shore on the west coast of King William Land in the autumn of the same year in which the first ship was crushed. Captain M‘Clintock, now knowing that both ships had been seen off that coast, and that on it the traces must be found, most generously resigned to Hobson the first opportunity of searching there, instead of crossing to Victoria Land, as originally intended. Captain M‘Clintock then went down the east side towards the Fish River. Near Cape Norton, he found a tribe of some thirty or forty natives, who appeared much pleased to meet the strange white people. They answered readily any inquiries, and concealed nothing. They produced silver spoons and forks, and other relics from the lost ships, and readily bartered them for knives or needles. They were acquainted with the wreck, which they said was over the land (on the south-west coast), and for years they had collected wood and valuables from it, but they had not visited it for a long time. They had seen Franklin’s people on their march southward, but had not molested them. They said that they had seen one human skeleton in the ship. Proceeding on his route, Captain M‘Clintock next found a native family at Point Booth, near the south-east extreme of King William Land; these natives gave him the additional information that the remains of some of the lost people would be found on Montreal Island. Having searched Montreal Island and main land in the neighbourhood without finding other traces than a few pieces of copper and iron, and now having connected the search from the north with Anderson’s from the south, Captain M‘Clintock proceeded to examine the shores of Dease and Simpson Straits, and the southern shore of King William Land.

Near Cape Herschel, the Captain’s party found a human skeleton upon the beach as the man had fallen down and died, with his face to the ground; and a pocket-book, containing letters in German which have not yet been deciphered, was found close by.

The large cairn, originally built by Simpson, at Cape Herschel, had been pulled down, probably by the natives, and if any record or document had ever been placed therein by Franklin’s people, they were now lost, for none could be found within or around the cairn. Passing Cape Herschel, Captain M‘Clintock travelled along the hitherto unknown shore, and discovered it to extend out as far as the meridian of 100° West. There all traces of the natives ceased,[31] and it appeared as if they had not for many years lived or hunted beyond that point which was named Cape Crozier (after Captain Crozier, Franklin’s second in command).

The land then trended to the north-eastward, and about twenty miles from Cape Crozier, M‘Clintock found a boat, which had only a few days previously been examined by Hobson from the north, and in it a note left by Hobson to say that he had discovered the records of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, and after travelling nearly to Cape Herschel without finding further traces, had returned towards the _Fox_. Captain M‘Clintock, from the south, had now connected his discoveries with those of Lieutenant Hobson, to whose very successful journey we will now turn.

Parting from the Captain at Cape Victoria, Hobson crossed to Cape Felix, and near that point he found a cairn, around which were quantities of clothing, blankets, and other indications of Franklin’s people having visited that spot, and probably formed a depôt there, in the event of their abandoning their ships. Anxiously searching among these interesting relics without finding any record, Hobson continued along the shore to Cape Victoria, where, on May 6, he discovered a large cairn, and in it the first authentic account ever obtained of the history of the lost expedition. It was to the following effect:--That the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ had ascended Wellington Channel to latitude 77° north, and had returned west of Cornwallis Island to Beechey Island, where they spent their first winter, 1845-46. Sailing thence in the following season, they were beset, on September 12, 1846, in latitude 70° 5′ north, longitude 98° 23′ west. _Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847_; and on the 22nd of April, 1848, having, up to that date, lost by death nine officers and fifteen men, both ships were abandoned in the ice, five leagues north north-west of Point Victory. The survivors, 106 in number, had landed, under the command of Captain Crozier, on the 25th April, at Point Victory, and would start on the morrow (April 26) for the Great Fish River. Another record was also found, stating that previously, on the 24th May, 1847, Lieutenant Grahame Gore and Mr. Charles DesVœux, mate, had landed from the ship, with a party of six men. The record did not state for what reason they had landed; but from the number who finally abandoned the ships, this party must have returned on board, and it is probable that they merely landed to examine the coast.

Quantities of clothing, cooking, and working implements were scattered about near Point Victory, and a sextant, on which was engraved the name of Frederick Hornby, was found among the _débris_. Collecting a few of the most interesting of these relics to take with him upon his return, Hobson then pushed on to the southward, and when near Cape Crozier he discovered the boat above mentioned, by a small stanchion just showing up above the snow. Clearing away the snow, he found in the bottom of the boat two human skeletons, one of which was under a heap of clothing. There were also watches, chronometers, silver spoons, money, &c., besides a number of Bibles, prayer and other religious books; and although one of the Bibles was underlined in almost every verse, yet not a single writing was found to throw further light upon the history of the retreating parties. There were two guns, one barrel of each being loaded and cocked, as if these poor fellows had been anxiously longing for a passing bear or fox to save them from starving; for nothing edible was found, save some chocolate and tea, neither of which could support life in such a climate. Lieutenant Hobson, having searched the coast beyond Cape Crozier, returned to the ship on June 14, in a very exhausted state. He had been suffering severely from scurvy, and was so reduced in strength that he could not stand. He had been for more than forty days upon his sledge, carried in and out of the tent by his brave companions, and his sufferings must have been beyond description. Throughout his journey he had only killed one bear and a few ptarmigan.

Captain M‘Clintock returned on board the _Fox_ on June 19, having been absent eighty days. He brought with him a number of relics, and had minutely examined every cairn and the whole coast of King William. He supposes that the wreck of the ship, unless upon some off-lying island, has been run over by the ice, and has disappeared; as he saw nothing of it. He made most valuable discoveries in geography, and surveyed the coast from Bellot Straits to the magnetic pole, besides having travelled completely round King William Island, and filled up its unknown coasts. Besides his other instruments, he carried with him a dip circle, weighing 40 lbs., with which he also made most valuable observations.

Young had crossed Victoria Straits (now Franklin Straits), discovered M‘Clintock Channel, and proved Prince of Wales Land to be an island; having reached the point which Captain Sherard Osborn came to from the north. Owing to the very heavy character of the ice, he had failed in crossing M‘Clintock Channel, and returned to the ship on June 8, for a day or two’s rest. He had again started, on June 10, to recross Victoria Straits, and to complete the search to the northward upon Prince of Wales Land, and the unknown land of North Somerset, and was now absent; and although the ice was fast breaking up, and the floes already knee-deep with water, Captain M‘Clintock, notwithstanding his late severe journey, fearing that something might be wrong, most kindly started immediately, with only one man and a dog-sledge, to look for him. He found Young perched up out of the water upon the top of the islet, off Cape Bird, and they returned together to the ship on June 28. We were now all on board, and once more together. We were in fair health, although some of us were a little touched with scurvy. We passed our time in shooting, eating, and sleeping, and then eating again: our craving for fresh food, or, as the sailors call it, blood-meat, was excessive; seal and bear flesh, foxes, gulls, or ducks, went indiscriminately into the pot. We rejoiced whenever we got a fresh mess of any sort.

The summer burst upon us; water was pouring down all the ravines, and flooding the ice in the harbour, and with extreme satisfaction we saw the snow houses and ice hummocks fast melting away in the now never-setting sun. A joyous feeling existed throughout the ship, for our work was done, and we had only to look forward to an early release, and a return to our families and homes.

Over and over again we told our adventures, and we never tired of listening to the one all-absorbing, though melancholy subject, of the discovery of the fate of Sir John Franklin and his companions.

We had been prepared by the report brought from the Esquimaux in February to find that all hopes of survivors were at an end, and that the expedition had met with some fatal and overwhelming casualty; but we were scarcely prepared to know, nor could we even have realized the manner, in which they spent their last days upon earth, so fearful a sojourn must it have been. Beset and surrounded with wastes of snow and ice, they passed two more terrible winters drifting slowly to the southward at the rate of one mile in the month, hoping each summer that the ice would open, and determined not to abandon their ships until every hope was gone. In nineteen months they had only moved some eighteen miles, their provisions daily lessening, and their strength fast failing. They had at last left their ships for the Fish River at least two months before the river could break up and allow them to proceed, and in the then imperfect knowledge of ice travelling they could not have carried with them more than forty days’ provisions. Exhausted by scurvy and starvation, “they dropped as they walked along,”[32] and those few who reached Montreal Island must all have perished there; and but for their having travelled over the frozen sea we should have found the remains of these gallant men as they fell by the way, and but for the land being covered deeply with snow, more relics of those who had struggled to the beach to die would have been seen. They all perished, and, in dying in the cause of their country, their dearest consolation must have been to feel that Englishmen would not rest until they had followed up their footsteps, and had given to the world what they could not then give--the grand result of their dreadful voyage--_their Discovery of the North-West Passage_. They had sailed down Peel and Victoria Straits, now appropriately named Franklin Straits, and the poor human skeletons lying upon the shores of the waters in which Dease and Simpson had sailed from the westward bore melancholy evidence of their success.

* * * * *

By the middle of July the dark blue stream rolled again through Bellot Straits, but yet not a drop of water could be seen in Regent Inlet. Our ship was refitted, the stores all on board, and we were quite prepared for sea. Our engineers were both lost to us, but the Captain soon got the engines into working order, and determined to drive them himself, for without steam we could reckon upon nothing.

July passed away, and during the first week in August we could still see one unbroken surface of ice in Regent Inlet; from the highest hill not a spoonful of water could be made out. We were getting rather anxious, for had we been detained another winter, we must have abandoned the ship in the following spring and trusted to our fortunes over the ice. However, a gale of wind on the 7th and 8th of August caused some disruption in the inlet, for on the morning of the 9th a report came down from the hills that a lead of water was seen under the land to the northward. Steam was immediately made, and pushing close past the islands, we were enabled to work up the coast in a narrow lane of water between it and the pack.

We reached the north side of Creswell Bay on the following day, but, the wind changing, we saw the pack setting rapidly in upon the land, and it had already closed upon Fury Beach. Our only chance was now to seek a grounded mass of ice, and to hang on to it. We were indeed glad to get a little rest, and especially for our captain, who had not left the engines for twenty-four hours. But we lay in a most exposed position on an open coast without an indentation, the pack closing in rapidly before the wind and threatening us with the same fate as befell the _Fury_ when she was driven on the shore about seven miles from our present position. Hanging on to this piece of ice with every hawser, we saw it gradually melting and breaking away, and at spring tides it began to float. On the 15th the gale shifted to the westward, and blew off the land; we watched the ice gradually easing off, and directly that we had room, we cast off under storm-sails, and succeeded in getting out of Regent Inlet and into Lancaster Sound on the following day. We entered Godhavn, in Greenland, on the night of August 26, and not having heard from our friends for more than two years, we did not even wait for daylight for our expected letters. The authorities on shore kindly sent all they had for us at once to the ship, and I suppose that letters from home were never opened with more anxiety.

Having a few repairs to do, especially to our rudder, which, with the spare one, had been smashed by the ice, we remained a day or two to patch it up for the passage home. Then leaving Godhavn on the 1st September, although the nights were extremely dark, and the weather stormy, with many bergs drifting about, we passed down Davis Strait without incident, and, rounding Cape Farewell on the 13th, we ran across the Atlantic with strong, fair winds. Captain M‘Clintock landed at the Isle of Wight on the 20th, and on the 23rd the _Fox_ entered the docks at Blackwall.

Our happy cruise was at an end, and by the mercy of Providence we were permitted to land again in England.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] The wanderings of the Esquimaux may be traced by the circles of stones by which they keep down their skin summer tents.

[32] Esquimaux report.

The First Morning of 1860.

One evening mid the summer flown
Has stamp’d my memory more than any;
It pass’d us by among the many,
And yet it stands there, all alone.

We sate without our open’d room,
While fell the eve’s transparent shade;
The out-door world, all warmth and bloom,
To us a summer parlour made.

The garden’s cultivated grace,
The luxury of neatness round,
The careless amplitude of space,
The silence, and the casual sound,

Told of a state thro’ many years
Serenely safe in doing well;
And while we sate, there struck our ears
The summons of the evening bell.

It call’d to food, it call’d to rest,
The many whom the rich man’s dome
Had gathered in its ample breast,
To them and him alike a home.

That very hour, was thund’ring o’er
A neighbouring land, the tramp of War,
Which stalked along the lovely shore,
Its shapes to blast, its sounds to mar.

And ’gainst our own, the reflux wave
Had pushed its harsh in-flooding swell:
The clouds which there a tempest gave,
In shadow on our own land fell.

The pang my bosom rudely beat--
What if that fate our own had been?
What if or victory or defeat
Had wrapp’d us in its woe, and sin?

What if it still our fate should be?
And the safe hours, enjoy’d like this,
Amid our home-scenes safe and free,
Should be the passing year of bliss?

The new one on the lecturn lies,
Its leaves the turning hand await;
Those fresh unopen’d leaves comprise
Th’ unread, but written words of Fate.

O God! what are they? if they be
The bloody words of ruffian war,
Grant us success!--but rather far
Avert the scourge of victory!

Too dear the price! Ah! human forms
Of guardian husbands, cherish’d sons
Once children, hid from smallest harms
Of mind and body, cherish’d ones!

Shall ye stand up, the gallant mark
Of the brute shot, and iron rod,
And man’s frame, exquisite in work,
Be treated like earth’s common clod?

Shall England’s polish’d glory, pure
In freedom, wisdom, high estate,
Her open Bible, and her poor
Becoming one with rich and great,--

Shall these high things be but the aim
Of envious men, in rough affray,
To try against the noble frame
Their brutal skill to rob and slay?

Forbid it Thou, who to the strong,
And wise, hast might and counsel lent;
And lead’st them danger’s path along,
Audacious, firm, and confident.

Forbid it, Thou, who to the weak
Permittest to be strong in pray’r;
From Whom we wives and mothers seek
Peace to endow the new-born year.

V.

Roundabout Papers.--No. I.

ON A LAZY IDLE BOY.

I had occasion to pass a week in the autumn in the little old town of Coire or Chur, in the Grisons, where lies buried that very ancient British king, saint, and martyr, Lucius,[33] who founded the Church of St. Peter, which stands opposite the house No. 65, Cornhill. Few people note the church now-a-days, and fewer ever heard of the saint. In the cathedral at Chur, his statue appears surrounded by other sainted persons of his family. With tight red breeches, a Roman habit, a curly brown beard, and a neat little gilt crown and sceptre, he stands, a very comely and cheerful image: and, from what I may call his peculiar position with regard to No. 65, Cornhill, I beheld this figure of St. Lucius with more interest than I should have bestowed upon personages who, hierarchically, are, I daresay, his superiors.

The pretty little city stands, so to speak, at the end of the world--of the world of to-day, the world of rapid motion, and rushing railways, and the commerce and intercourse of men. From the northern gate, the iron road stretches away to Zürich, to Basel, to Paris, to home. From the old southern barriers, before which a little river rushes, and around which stretch the crumbling battlements of the ancient town, the road bears the slow diligence or lagging vetturino by the shallow Rhine, through the awful gorges of the Via Mala, and presently over the Splügen to the shores of Como.

I have seldom seen a place more quaint, pretty, calm, and pastoral, than this remote little Chur. What need have the inhabitants for walls and ramparts, except to build summer-houses, to trail vines, and hang clothes to dry? No enemies approach the great mouldering gates: only at morn and even, the cows come lowing past them, the village maidens chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the ever-voluble stream that flows under the old walls. The schoolboys, with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march up to the gymnasium, and return thence at their stated time. There is one coffee-house in the town, and I see one old gentleman goes to it. There are shops with no customers seemingly, and the lazy tradesmen look out of their little windows at the single stranger sauntering by. There is a stall with baskets of queer little black grapes and apples, and a pretty brisk trade with half a dozen urchins standing round. But, beyond this, there is scarce any talk or movement in the street. There’s nobody at the book-shop. “If you will have the goodness to come again in an hour,” says the banker, with his mouthful of dinner at one o’clock, “you can have the money.” There is nobody at the hotel, save the good landlady, the kind waiters, the brisk young cook who ministers to you. Nobody is in the Protestant church--(oh! strange sight, the two confessions are here at peace!)--nobody in the Catholic church: until the sacristan, from his snug abode in the cathedral close, espies the traveller eyeing the monsters and pillars before the old shark-toothed arch of his cathedral, and comes out (with a view to remuneration possibly) and opens the gate, and shows you the venerable church, and the queer old relics in the sacristy, and the ancient vestments (a black velvet cope, amongst other robes, as fresh as yesterday, and presented by that notorious “pervert,” Henry of Navarre and France), and the statue of St. Lucius, who built St. Peter’s Church, opposite No. 65, Cornhill.

What a quiet, kind, quaint, pleasant, pretty old town! Has it been asleep these hundreds and hundreds of years, and is the brisk young Prince of the Sidereal Realms in his screaming car drawn by his snorting steel elephant coming to waken it? Time was when there must have been life and bustle and commerce here. Those vast, venerable walls were not made to keep out cows, but men-at-arms led by fierce captains, who prowled about the gates, and robbed the traders us they passed in and out with their bales, their goods, their pack-horses, and their wains. Is the place so dead that even the clergy of the different denominations can’t quarrel? Why, seven or eight, or a dozen, or fifteen hundred years ago (they haven’t the register, over the way, up to that remote period. I daresay it was burnt in the fire of London)--a dozen hundred years ago, when there was some life in the town, St. Lucius was stoned here on account of theological differences, after founding our church in Cornhill.

There was a sweet pretty river walk we used to take in the evening, and mark the mountains round glooming with a deeper purple; the shades creeping up the golden walls; the river brawling, the cattle calling, the maids and chatterboxes round the fountains babbling and bawling; and several times in the course of our sober walks, we overtook a lazy slouching boy, or hobbledehoy, with a rusty coat, and trousers not too long, and big feet trailing lazily one after the other, and large lazy hands dawdling from out the tight sleeves, and in the lazy hands a little book, which my lad held up to his face, and which I daresay so charmed and ravished him, that he was blind to the beautiful sights around him; unmindful, I would venture to lay any wager, of the lessons he had to learn for to-morrow; forgetful of mother waiting supper, and father preparing a scolding;--absorbed utterly and entirely in his book.

What was it that so fascinated the young student, as he stood by the river shore? Not the _Pons Asinorum_. What book so delighted him, and blinded him to all the rest of the world, so that he did not care to see the apple-woman with her fruit, or (more tempting still to sons of Eve) the pretty girls with their apple cheeks, who laughed and prattled round the fountain? What was the book? Do you suppose it was Livy, or the Greek grammar? No; it was a NOVEL that you were reading, you lazy, not very clean, good-for-nothing, sensible boy! It was D’Artagnan locking up General Monk in a box, or almost succeeding in keeping Charles the First’s head on. It was the prisoner of the Château d’If cutting himself out of the sack fifty feet under water (I mention the novels I like best myself--novels without love or talking, or any of that sort of nonsense, but containing plenty of fighting, escaping, robbery, and rescuing)--cutting himself out of the sack, and swimming to the Island of Montecristo. O Dumas! O thou brave, kind, gallant old Alexandre! I hereby offer thee homage, and give thee thanks for many pleasant hours. I have read thee (being sick in bed) for thirteen hours of a happy day, and had the ladies of the house fighting for the volumes. Be assured that lazy boy was reading Dumas (or I will go so far as to let the reader here pronounce the eulogium, or insert the name of his favourite author); and as for the anger, or it may be, the reverberations of his schoolmaster, or the remonstrances of his father, or the tender pleadings of his mother that he should not let the supper grow cold--I don’t believe the scapegrace cared one fig. No! Figs are sweet, but fictions are sweeter.

Have you ever seen a score of white-bearded, white-robed warriors, or grave seniors of the city, seated at the gate of Jaffa or Beyrout, and listening to the story-teller reciting his marvels out of _Antar_ or the _Arabian Nights_? I was once present when a young gentleman at table put a tart away from him, and said to his neighbour, the Younger Son (with rather a fatuous air), “I never eat sweets.”

“Not eat sweets! and do you know why?” says T.

“Because I am past that kind of thing,” says the young gentleman.

“Because you are a glutton and a sot!” cries the elder (and Juvenis winces a little). “All people who have natural, healthy appetites, love sweets; all children, all women, all Eastern people, whose tastes are not corrupted by gluttony and strong drink.” And a plateful of raspberries and cream disappeared before the philosopher.

You take the allegory? Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them--almost all women;--a vast number of clever, hard-headed men. Why, one of the most learned physicians in England said to me only yesterday, “I have just read _So-and-So_ for the second time” (naming one of Jones’s exquisite fictions). Judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians are notorious novel readers; as well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers. Who has not read about Eldon, and how he cried over novels every night when he was not at whist?

As for that lazy naughty boy at Chur, I doubt whether _he_ will like novels when he is thirty years of age. He is taking too great a glut of them now. He is eating jelly until he will be sick. He will know most plots by the time he is twenty, so that _he_ will never be surprised when the Stranger turns out to be the rightful earl,--when the old waterman, throwing off his beggarly gabardine, shows his stars and the collars of his various orders, and clasping Antonia to his bosom, proves himself to be the prince, her long-lost father. He will recognize the novelists’ same characters, though they appear in red-heeled pumps and _ailes-de-pigeon_, or the garb of the nineteenth century. He will get weary of sweets, as boys of private schools grow (or used to grow, for I have done growing some little time myself, and the practice may have ended too)--as private schoolboys used to grow tired of the pudding before their mutton at dinner.

And pray what is the moral of this apologue? The moral I take to be this: the appetite for novels extending to the end of the world;--far away in the frozen deep, the sailors reading them to one another during the endless night;--far away under the Syrian stars, the solemn sheikhs and elders hearkening to the poet as he recites his tales;--far away in the Indian camps, where the soldiers listen to ----’s tales, or ----’s, after the hot day’s march;--far away in little Chur yonder, where the lazy boy pores over the fond volume, and drinks it in with all his eyes;--the demand being what we know it is, the merchant must supply it, as he will supply saddles and pale ale for Bombay or Calcutta.

But as surely as the cadet drinks too much pale ale, it will disagree with him; and so surely, dear youth, will too much novels cloy on thee. I wonder, do novel writers themselves read many novels? If you go into Gunter’s, you don’t see those charming young ladies (to whom I present my most respectful compliments) eating tarts and ices, but at the proper evening-tide they have good plain wholesome tea and bread-and-butter. Can anybody tell me does the author of the _Tale of two Cities_ read novels? does the author of the _Tower of London_ devour romances? does the dashing _Harry Lorrequer_ delight in _Plain or Ringlets_ or _Sponge’s Sporting Tour_? Does the veteran, from whose flowing pen we had the books which delighted our young days, _Darnley_, and _Richelieu_, and _Delorme_[34] relish the works of Alexandre the Great, and thrill over the _Three Musqueteers_? Does the accomplished author of the _Caxtons_ read the other tales in _Blackwood_? (For example, that ghost-story printed last August, and which for my part, though I read it in the public reading-room at the Pavilion Hotel at Folkestone, I protest frightened me so that I scarce dared look over my shoulder.) Does _Uncle Tom_ admire _Adam Bede_; and does the author of the _Vicar of Wrexhill_ laugh over the _Warden_ and the _Three Clerks_? Dear youth of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous pudor! I make no doubt that the eminent parties above named all partake of novels in moderation--eat jellies--but mainly nourish themselves upon wholesome roast and boiled.

Here, dear youth aforesaid! our CORNHILL MAGAZINE owners strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction; and though it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a table where thou shall sit in good company. That story of the _Fox_ was written by one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic Night: that account of China is told by the man of all the empire most likely to know of what he speaks: those pages regarding Volunteers come from an honoured hand that has borne the sword in a hundred famous fields, and pointed the British guns in the greatest siege in the world.

Shall we point out others? We are fellow-travellers, and shall make acquaintance as the voyage proceeds. In the Atlantic steamers, on the first day out (and on high and holidays subsequently), the jellies set down on table are richly ornamented; _medioque in fonte leporum_ rise the American and British flags nobly emblazoned in tin. As the passengers remark this pleasing phenomenon, the Captain no doubt improves the occasion by expressing a hope, to his right and left, that the flag of Mr. Bull and his younger Brother may always float side by side in friendly emulation. Novels having been previously compared to jellies--here are two (one perhaps not entirely saccharine, and flavoured with an _amari aliquid_ very distasteful to some palates)--two novels under two flags, the one that ancient ensign which has hung before the well-known booth of _Vanity Fair_; the other that fresh and handsome standard which has lately been hoisted on _Barchester Towers_. Pray, sir, or madam, to which dish will you be helped?

So have I seen my friends Captain Lang and Captain Comstock press their guests to partake of the fare on that memorable “First day out,” when there is no man, I think, who sits down but asks a blessing on his voyage, and the good ship dips over the bar, and bounds away into the blue water.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Stow quotes the inscription, still extant, “from the table fast chained in St. Peter’s Church, Cornhill;” and says “he was after some chronicle buried at London, and after some chronicle buried at Glowcester”--but oh! these incorrect chroniclers! when Alban Butler, in the _Lives of the Saints_, v. xii., and Murray’s _Handbook_, and the Sacristan at Chur, all say Lucius was killed there, and I saw his tomb with my own eyes!

[34] By the way, what a strange fate is that which has befallen the veteran novelist! He is her Majesty’s Consul-General in Venice, the only city in Europe where the famous “Two Cavaliers” cannot by any possibility be seen riding together.

Transcriber’s Notes

The following changes have been made:

A table of contents has been added for the convenience of the reader.

Some illustrations have been moved outside the enclosing paragraphs.

Changed +dorekie+ to +dovekie+ in “saw a solitary dovekie in winter
plumage” on page 105.