Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Without altering a muscle, they continued their gaze (we had begun the stare from afar). So listless was it that they seemed like pet animals, who look at one confidingly, except in the case of the latter there will be “wink of recognition.” No attempt was made to reply. After I turned, they kept their eyes upon the space which I had occupied, as if I had merely been an obstruction to their sunshine. A person, not far from them, answered my inquiries, adding, with a nod towards the “little workers,” “they only talk mongrel.”

This woman, short and chubby, forcibly reminded me of somebody or something in the past. After a brief reflection, behold the solution:

Before toys had become so elaborate in our own country, there occasionally found their way from Holland images of pewter, representing the dairy-maids of that part of Europe. They were far different from the pewter-pieces of the present day, being thicker and less destructible. The one that came into my possession, the delight of my heart, wore the short, full dress and sun-bonnet, with arms akimbo. The one, ah me! that would have been my choice was purchased by a class-mate, she having at that time, and I presume at this time, twice my amount of funds. The price of this precious bit was two cents.

The latter figure, unlike mine, had the pail poised upon the head. It was probably a true likeness of the renowned maid that counted the chickens in advance, thereby showing the people of her country to have been “born calculators.” I think the little body that showed me the way to my lodgings descended in a direct line from this old mathematical stock, and was a little proud of her origin. Her language was a mixture of Dutch, French, and, for all I know, several dead languages, _but_—and I have her own authority for it—not a mongrel tongue. Out of gratitude to one who led me to my home, I should speak well of this woman, as of the proverbial bridge, so am quite willing to accept her statement and allow her a “pure dialect.”

JOE THE CHIMPANZEE.

WHEN in England I was very much interested in the monkeys at the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park, London. There were hundreds of all kinds and sizes, from the gigantic orang-outang to tiny creatures not much bigger than a large rat.

These monkeys had a spacious glass house, heated by steam; and as a tropical temperature was always maintained, tall palms and luxurious vines grew so vigorously within its walls that I have no doubt the quaint inmates supposed themselves in their native haunts.

They chattered and scolded each other, wildly chased stray little dogs and kittens, and really seemed to know so much that I half believed an old keeper, who told me the only reason they did not talk, was because they could make themselves well enough understood without.

Many funny stories I heard of their sagacity. One I recall of a nurse who shook a naughty little boy in the presence of some of the mother monkeys, whereupon all the old monkeys began shaking all the young ones until it seemed as if their poor little heads would drop off.

But, interested in all the singular inhabitants of the house, I grew attached to Joe, the young chimpanzee who had been brought a baby from the coast of Guinea the winter before. He had a little room on the sunny side of the monkey house, with a stove, table, chairs and a couple of beds arranged like the berths in the state room of an ocean steamer. Besides he had a man all to himself, to wait upon him; and it was no wonder the other monkeys were jealous of his superior quarters and the deference paid him; for while Joe was not handsome he was worth more money than all the others put together.

He was worth this great sum because he belonged to the most intelligent and interesting species of the monkey family, and only one or two of his kinsfolk had ever been seen in Europe, while the only one the Zoological Society had ever owned, had died of lung fever before he had inhabited his comfortable quarters many months.

Joe was about as tall as an average boy of eight or ten years. He wore a thick cloth roundabout, and a low flat trencher cap such as the Oxford students delight in.

One day I walked to the door of his room and knocked. The keeper said “Come in,” and as I did so Joe walked erect over the floor to me, pulled off his cap with his left hand, and put out his right to shake mine. When I said “It is a fine morning,” he bowed briskly; but when I added, “Are you pretty well, Joe?” he shook his head and looked very sober. The keeper explained: “Joe had a cold, and that made him very low spirited.”

Joe was listening attentively; and when the man finished, he shivered and drew up the collar of his jacket round his hairy throat, as if to confirm the statement.

I gave him an apple, which he looked at a moment, then opened the door of the oven of his stove, and put it in out of sight. Seeming to understand that the fire was low, he pulled a basket from under the lower berth and took some bits of wood from it to the stove. Then the keeper handed him a match, and he lighted a fire as cleverly as any Yankee boy I ever saw.

“Show the lady how you read _The Times_, Joe,” said the keeper.

Joe drew up a chair, tilted it back a little, spread his legs apart, opened the sheet, turned it until he found the page he wanted, then settled himself into the exact position of the comfortable English gentleman who supposes _The Times_ is printed for his exclusive use. It was impossible to help laughing, and the sly twinkle in his narrow eye assured us Joe himself knew how funny it was.

Quite a crowd had gathered at the open door of his room, and as he noticed it, he put his hand in his pocket drew out the one eye-glass Englishman so particularly affect, and put it to his eye looking as weakly wise as Lord Dundreary himself. After a little he grew tired of so many spectators, left his chair and quietly shut the door in their faces.

Looking about as if he would do something more for our amusement, he remembered his apple in the stove oven. Running there he took hold of the door, but suddenly drew back, for it was hot. He laughed a little at his discomfiture which he took in good part, stood thinking a moment, then used his pocket-handkerchief as deftly as a dainty lady would to accomplish his purpose. But if the door was hot, the apple, Joe logically reasoned, must be hotter; so he ventured not to touch it before opening his knife. Wondering what he was going to do, I found him sticking the blade into the apple and bringing it out in triumph. The keeper gave him a plate, and after letting the apple cool a little he offered it to us. We courteously declined, but the servant tasted, explaining that Joe did not like to eat anything alone. Then Joe followed, but did not like the flavor, and being asked if it was sour, he nodded. We were told that he, in common with the other monkeys, liked oranges and bananas better than any other fruits.

Yet he kept tasting a little of the apple from a spoon while the keeper told us how the sailors who hoped to capture his mother only succeeded in bringing him off alive after they had killed her. They had hard work to keep him alive on board ship, but found a warm nook for him by the galley fire. He was in fair health when they landed, so they obtained the large price offered by the Zoological Gardens; but in spite of the most devoted care, he seemed to languish in his new home.

“Do you love me, Joe?” the man ended his story with. Joe nodded, smiled, and put his head lovingly on the other’s shoulder.

As we left that day, Joe took his hat, cane, and heavy wrap, and escorted us to the great door of the monkey house, shaking our hands as we bade him good-bye.

Another time when I called he was taking tea, using milk and sugar and handling cup and saucer as if he had been familiar with them from his earliest days. He motioned us to take chairs. We did so and he jumped up, found cups for us, and then passed a plate of biscuits, laughing with glee as we took one. I have taken tea with many curious individuals, but never expect to be so honored again as to be invited by a chimpanzee.

Noticing his hand was feverish, I found his pulse was 130. I said “What is the matter of him?”

“Consumption is what kills all of them,” the man answered, low, just as if talking before a human invalid.

From that day Joe failed rapidly, and one morning under the head of “Great Loss,” _The Times_ announced that he died at midnight.

I went down at once to see the keeper whose grief I knew would be keen.

He told me how for days, Joe could only be persuaded to take food by seeing him eat and hearing him praise it, how he made him sleep in his berth by his side, and when death came, held his hand through all the last struggle.

The man’s voice was actually choked with sobs as he said, “It don’t seem right, indeed it don’t, not to have a funeral for him! He ought to have had it.”

I never heard Joe had any funeral, but I did hear that he was stuffed, and looks more like a big boy than when he was alive.

MARKET DAY AT PAU.

IF you don’t know where Pau is, do as I did when I first heard of it,—look it up on some large map of France.

Down in the southeast corner, at the mouth of the Adour river, you will see the city from which the bayonet is said to have received its name; and if you move your finger along about an inch due east from Bayonne you will be likely to pass it directly under Pau.

It is the capital of one of the finest departments of France, the Basses-Pyrénées; and its mild, equable climate and charming scenery have made it, for the last thirty years, a favorite winter resort for invalids and pleasure-seekers.

As the capital of the old province of Béarn, and as the seat of the ancient royal castle where flourished the Gastons and Marguerites, and where Henri IV. of France was born, Pau has many interesting historical associations, upon which, however, we must resolutely turn our backs if we mean to go to market this morning.

Monday is always market-day at Pau, and then it is that the country comes bodily in and takes possession of the town. At five o’clock in the morning the rumbling of cart-wheels and the clatter of sabots down in the cold gray streets announce the approach of a rustic army from the villages round about. On they come from every quarter all through the forenoon, and if we walk out anywhere—say to the Alléés de Morlaäs, where we can sit on one of the benches under the trees and gaze now and then at the distant snowy Pyrenees,—we shall see the endless stream of market-people.

The men wear round woolen caps without visors, called the _béret_; a short frock, usually of some coarse cotton material, which is gathered so much about the neck as not to improve their stumpy figures; and huge wooden shoes that rattle and thump along the pavements, bringing with them on rainy days an incredible quantity of country mud.

The most noticeable feature in the dress of the women is the bright foulard handkerchief that serves instead of hat or bonnet. It is arranged according to the taste and age of the wearer, and is capable of producing a wide range of effects.

The guide-book assures us that the _paysannes_ walk barefoot on the country roads; but, upon approaching the town, they cover their wayworn feet with the cherished shoes and stockings that have thus been spared from wear and tear.

On a cold spring morning we saw a company of women descending a hill at Lourdes with enormous bundles of wood on their heads. As we were pitying the bare feet that went toiling down the steep way, we suddenly spied their shoes dangling from the fagots where they had considerately placed them, to be out of harm.

The strength of these little peasant women is wonderful. They walk off with grand strides, carrying heavy burdens on their heads, and sometimes knitting as they go. Many of the young girls are very pretty; but exposure and hard work soon change the fresh tint and the graceful outlines to a brown wrinkled visage and a gaunt ungainly figure.

Sitting here, we are attracted by a jaunty young creature tripping along with a large, round, shallow basket of salad, or _choux de Bruxelles_, on her head, carelessly steadying it with one hand, while in the other she carries a pair of chickens or a basket of eggs. But how can we see a pinched-looking woman tugging along under a big bag of potatoes, or breaking stones on the road, without feeling tired ourselves and sad? And neither the sadness nor the weariness is lightened upon seeing, as we invariably do, that when a woman is working with a man he generously gives her the heaviest end of the load.

The wood is brought in on clumsy carts, generally two-wheeled and often covered. The oxen and cows that draw these carts have their bodies draped with coarse linen covers, and across their heads is a strip of sheep-skin, which is worn with the shaggy side out and the skinny side in. M. Taine tells us in his book on the Pyrenees that he saw the heads of the cattle protected by thread nets and ferns, which, I trust is their usual summer coiffure; for in a country where, in winter, gentlemen carry parasols and wear large white streamers depending from their hats, to protect the head and back of the neck from the too ardent rays of the sun, even the “patient ox” might complain of the unfitness of a head-dress of sheep skin.

The driver of the ox-team is armed with a long stick, at the end of which is an iron goad. This he uses either in guiding the cattle, which is done by going in advance of them and stretching the stick backward with a queer, stiff gesture, or in pricking and prodding the poor creatures till they hardly know which way to turn. The cattle, which are mostly of a light brown color, are very large and fine; but it seems strange to us to see cows wearing the yoke.

But, O! the donkey! The wise, the tough, the musical, the irresistible, the universal donkey! How shall I ever give you an idea of what he becomes to an appreciative mind that has daily opportunities of studying his “tricks and manners!”

Fancy one of these long-eared, solemn-eyed gentry, scarcely larger than a good-sized Newfoundland dog jogging along with a double pannier bulging at his sides and a fat market-woman on his back.

But the disproportion between the size of the beast and that of his burden, and his gravity and circumspection, is scarcely funnier here than when he is placed before a two-wheeled cart, a story and a half higher than himself, and containing a man, a woman, a boy, and a pig; sometimes cabbages and chickens, often two or three inexperienced calves. And in the afternoon, when market is over, I have often seen six or seven women huddled into one of these primitive chariots, each provided with the inevitable stocking her tongue and her knitting-needles keeping time as the cart goes tilting along over the famous roads of the Basses-Pyrénées. The gay handkerchiefs of the women, the purple, blue and gray stockings with their flashing needles, and the huge brown loaves of bread sure to be protruding in various quarters, made these groups, returning from market, most picturesquely striking.

Coming in from the _Alléés de Morlaäs_ we find, as we approach the _Place des Eçoles_, an animated scene. The broad sidewalk is lined with rows of women selling vegetables, fruit, flowers, poultry and eggs. The haggling of the buyers and the gibing of the venders, though carried on in _patois_ unintelligible to us, are expressed in tones and accompanied by gestures that translate them quite effectively; especially as not a market-day passes without a long recital from our Catherine, illustrating the greed of the peasants and her own superior finesse.

“How much do you want for this chicken?”

“Three francs.”

“Keep your chicken for somebody see. I’ll go to another.”

“Stay! What will you give for it?”

“Two francs.”

“Get along with you!”

As Catherine eyes the chicken which she secretly admires and openly abuses, another cook comes up and lays her hand on its comely breast. It is a decisive moment, but Catherine is equal to the emergency.

“Stand off there! I’m here first.”

Then, with a secret resolve that her _demoiselles_ shall dine on that little plump _poulet_, she offers fifty sous and carries off the prize. To see her enter our _salon_ bearing a waiter on which are a dozen fine rosy apples and two large russet pears, with the question, “Guess how much I paid for all?” written in every line of her shrewd old face, is something worth coming to Europe for. To make a sharp bargain, to cook a good dinner, and never to waste anything, these are the aims of her life and the themes of her discourse.

Our snug _appartement_ is opposite the _Place des Eçoles_, where the wood and cattle are sold; and the first peep in the morning gives us a picture, lively enough and foreign enough to make us look and look again many times during the day till late in the afternoon when the _Place_ is nearly bare; and the aspect of the few patient but rather dejected-looking peasants whose wood has not yet found purchasers almost tempts us to run over and buy a load or two, just for the pleasure of sending the poor creatures home with lighter hearts and heavier pockets. What would Catherine say to that, I wonder?

Besides the interest which we feel in the various natural hangers-on of the wood-carts (and each one has from two to five of both sexes and all sizes), we get no small amusement from their patrons, who represent all sorts of townspeople, from the fat old woman of the green grocery and sausage-shop over the way, who peddles with easy affability among the market-people, to the lordly young Englishman who dashes on to the _Place_ with the air of a conquering hero, and loftily indicates with his riding-whip the load that has the honor to meet his approval.

Troops of frisky calves are scattered about, and groups of blue blouses and red _bérets_ are earnestly discussing the merits of the unsuspecting innocents. More rarely a fine cow, or a yoke of oxen, attracts a circle of connoisseurs; then the _patois_ becomes more fluent, and the gestures more animated, and the fists of the interested parties are seen flourishing unpleasantly near the disdainful noses of the critics.

The prolonged and penetrating squeal of that pig in the _Rue des Cultivateurs_ reminds me that this interesting animal figures largely in the scenes of market-day. Pork being an important article of peasant diet, Mr. Piggy is always abroad on Monday and contributes largely to the general éclat.

The favorite way of transporting a moderate sized pig is to put him about the neck, holding his hind feet with one hand and his forefeet with the other. This method, though attended with some disadvantages, such as the proximity of the squeal to the ear of the carrier, is, on the whole, less worrying than that of tying a string to one of the hind legs of his Porkship, this giving him a chance to pull his way with more or less effect, while the peasant is frantically jerking in the opposite direction.

Not infrequently a pig gets a ride home from market in the cart of his new owner. Then, true to his nature and principles, he resists the honor accorded him with the whole might of his legs and lungs; so that, with a man at his hind legs, a woman at his left ear, and a boy at his right fore leg, he is with difficulty assisted to his coach and is held there, _en route_, by that “eternal vigilance” which is, in more senses than one, “the price of liberty.”

On the _Rue Porte Neuve_ and near the _Halle Neuve_, in the centre of the town, the venders of agricultural implements, kitchen hardware, locks and keys, secondhand books, handkerchiefs, collars, cuffs, hats, bracelets, rings, baskets, brooms, bottles, mouse-traps, and other miscellaneous articles, display their goods, and a sudden shower makes bad work in this busy community.

By the _Halle Neuve_ is the fruit and vegetable market also, and farther on, in the _Rue de la Préfecture_, we suddenly come upon a hollow square inclosed on three sides by ancient looking buildings, one of which is the _Nieille Halle_; and here are fish, poultry and game, and the queerest-looking market-people in the whole town, it seems to me.

There is a flower market on the _Place Royal_, and you will see the Spanish women there, with their foulards and trinkets, to catch a few sous from the rustics.

We cannot confine our interest to the market-folk, however, for everybody is more or less picturesque in this strange land, and we are never tired of saying, “See here,” and “See there.” Sometimes it is a gray-haired spinner with her ancient distaff that attracts our notice, as she sits in a sunny door-way or totters along the sidewalk; and then there are the antics of these foreign children! Béarnais boys are as fond of standing on their heads as their American brethren are, but their large and heavy _sabots_ are a great in convenience.

Just look at those wooden shoes ranged along the sidewalk over there, while the owners thereof are flourishing their emancipated heels in fine style.

These are some of the sights of a market-day at Pau; but how can you ever get a notion of the sounds? For when we add to the market-day hubbub the various every-day street cries that mingle with it we have a strange orchestra.

There are the charcoal men, who begin on a high key and drop with an almost impossible interval to a prolonged, nasal, twanging note; the old clo’ men, whose _patois_ for rags sounds so exactly like my companion’s name that she is sure they are after the dresses she is economically wearing out at Pau; the chimney-sweeps; the _jonchée_ women, who sell cream cheese, rolled in what looks like onion-tops; the roasted chestnut women, whose shrill “Tookow!” (_patois_ for “_Tout chaud_”) suggests piping-hot chestnuts in bursting shells; and the crockery and earthen men, who push their wares before them in long shallow box-carts, and give, in a sustained recitative, the whole catalogue of delf and pottery.

In the afternoon when the noise and stir are subsiding, we hear a few notes, often repeated, from what I should like to call a shepherd’s pipe; only the instrument in question is not in the least like one, but resembles more one of those little musical toys with a row of holes cut along one side, upon which our children at home are so fond of performing. However, our shepherd contrives to produce a pastoral effect with his simple strain, and we favor the illusion of the pipe by only listening to him, while we look at his pretty goats with long, silky black hair. He leads them through the town twice a day, and at the sound of his call those who wish goat’s milk send out their glasses and get it warm from a goat milked at the door. As his last faint notes die out in the distance the rosy light fades from the peaks of the Pyrenees; the sun has set, and market-day is over.

IL SANTISSIMO BAMBINO.

ON the Capitoline Hill, in Rome, stands a church, twelve hundred years old, called Ara Cœli. It is unpromising in its outward appearance, but is rich in marbles and mosaics within.

The most precious possession of this ancient church however, is a wooden doll called Il Santissimo Bambino—The Most Holy Infant. It is dressed like an Italian baby, and an Italian baby is dressed like a mummy. We often see them in their mothers’ arms, so swathed that they can no more move than a bundle without any baby inside of it. Their little legs must ache for the freedom of kicking. The dress of _the_ Bambino is very different from that of _a_ bambino after all, for it is cloth of silver, and it sparkles all over with jewels which have been presented to it, and it wears a golden crown upon its head.

This is the history of this remarkable doll, as devout Roman Catholics believe. You must judge for yourselves how much of it is truth and how much fable.

They say this image of the infant Saviour was carved from olive-wood which grew upon the Mount of Olives, by a monk who lived in Palestine; and, as he had no means of painting it with sufficient beauty, his prayers prevailed upon St. Luke to come down from Heaven and color it for him. Then he sent it to Rome to be present at the Christmas festival. It was shipwrecked on the way, but finally came safely to land, and was received with great reverence by the Franciscan monks, who placed it in a shrine at Ara Cœli. It was soon found to have miraculous power to heal the sick, and was so often sent for to visit them, that, at one time, it received more fees than any physician in Rome. It has its own carriage in which it rides abroad, and its own attendants who guard it with the utmost care.

One woman was so selfish as to think it would be a capital thing if she could get possession of this wonder-working image for herself and her friends.

“She had another doll prepared of the same size and appearance as the ‘Santissimo,’ and having feigned sickness and obtained permission to have it left with her, she dressed the false image in its clothes, and sent it back to Ara Cœli. The fraud was not discovered till night, when the Franciscan monks were awakened by the most furious ringing of bells and by thundering knocks at the west door of the church, and, hastening thither, could see nothing but a wee, naked, pink foot peeping in from under the door; but when they opened the door, without stood the little naked figure of the true Bambino of Ara Cœli, shivering in the wind and rain. So the false baby was sent back in disgrace, and the real baby restored to its home, never to be trusted away alone any more.”

This marvelous escape is duly recorded in the Sacristy of the church where the Bambino safely dwells under lock and key all the year, except the time from Christmas to Epiphany, when it comes out to receive the homage of the people.

We went to see it last Christmas.

As I told you, the church stands on one of the Seven Hills of the Eternal City; it is approached by a flight of stone steps as wide as the building itself and as high as the hill. There were many beggars on these steps; some old and blind, others young and bright-eyed. Beside the beggars, there were people with tiny images of the Baby in the Manger, toy sheep, and pictures of the Bambino for sale.

When we went into the church, we found one of the chapels fitted up like a tableau. The chapels are something like large alcoves along the sides of a church. Each is consecrated to some saint, and often belongs to some particular family who have their weddings and funerals there.

It was in the second chapel on the left that we found the scene represented. The Virgin Mary was dressed in a bright blue silk, adorned with various jewels. In her lap lay the Bambino, about the size of a baby six weeks old. I do not believe St. Luke painted its face, for it was not half so well done as most of the wooden dolls we see. An artificial mule had his nose close to the baby’s head. Joseph sat near, and in front the shepherds were kneeling. All these people were of life-size, made of wood, and dressed in real clothes. Beyond them was to be seen a pretty landscape—sheep, covered with real wool, a girl with a pitcher on her head coming down a path to a sparkling fountain of _glass_. In the distance was the town of Bethlehem. In mid-air hovered an angel, hung by a wire in his back from the ceiling. On pasteboard screens, above the Virgin and Child were painted a crowd of cherubs looking down, and in their midst God the Father—whom no one hath seen nor can see—was represented in the likeness of a venerable man, spreading his hands in blessing over the group below.

A great many little children were coming with the older people to look at all this, and talking, in their pretty Italian tongue, about the “Bambino.”

Epiphany, as perhaps you know, is the day kept in memory of the visit of the Wise Men where the Star in the East guided to our Saviour’s cradle. On that day, Il Santissimo Bambino was to be carried with all ceremony back to the Sacristy; so we went to see that.

We were glad to find the Blessed Virgin had two nice silk dresses; she had changed from blue to red, and the Bambino was standing on her knee. The Shepherds had gone, and the Wise Men had come, all very gorgeous in flowered brocade and cloth of gold, with crowns on their heads, and pages to hold their trains.

It was yet an hour or two before the “Procession of the Bambino” would proceed; so we went out of the side door of the church to stray about the Capitoline Hill in the meanwhile.

We went down the steps where Tiberius Gracchus, the friend of the people, was killed, some two thousand years ago. That brought us into a small square called Piazza di Campidoglio. It is surrounded on three sides by public buildings, and in front has a grand stairway leading down to the street. It was in this very spot that Brutus made his famous speech after the assassination of Julius Cæsar. We crossed the square, went up some steps and through an archway.

A company of little Romans were playing soldier there, and the small drum-major made the walls of the capitol resound with his rattling music. That reminds me to tell you that Santa Claus does not visit Italy; but an old woman, named Navona, comes instead. She may be his wife, for aught I know; in fact, it seems quite likely, for she has a way, just like his, of coming down the chimney, bringing gifts for the good children and switches for the naughty. These must have been very good little boys, for every one of them seemed to have a new sword or gun. Probably Navona has to keep the house while Santa Claus is away about his Christmas business, and that is the reason she does not reach her small people here until the night before Epiphany, the 6th of January.

We went down a lane of poor houses, dodging the clothes which hung drying over our heads, and came to a large green gate in the high stone wall of a garden. We knocked, but no one answered. Presently a black-eyed little boy came running to us, glad to earn two or three sous by going to call the _custode_. While we wait for him to do so, I must tell you why we wished to go through this green door. You have read, either in Latin or English, the story of Tarpæia, the Roman maiden, who consented to show the Latin soldiers the way into the citadel if they would give her what they wore on their left arms, meaning their bracelets, and then the grim joke they played after she had done her part, by throwing upon her their shields, which were also “what they wore on their left arms.”

It was to see the Tarpæian rock, where she led her country’s enemies up, and where, later, traitors were hurled down, that we wished to go through the gate. Presently the keeper came, a rosy young woman, leading a little girl, who was feeling very rich over a new dolly she was dangling by its arm.

We were admitted to a small garden, where pretty pink roses were in blossom, and the oranges were hanging on the trees, though the icicles were fringing the fountain not far away. On the edge of the garden, along the brow of the cliff, runs a thick wall of brown stone; we leaned over it and looked down the steep rock which one assaulting party after another tried, in old times, to scale.

It was on this side that the Gauls were trying to reach the citadel at the time the geese saved the city. Do you know that for a long time, annually, a dog was crucified on the capitol, and a goose carried in triumph, because, on that occasion, the dogs failed to give the alarm and the geese did it!

We looked down on the roofs and into the courts of poor houses which have huddled close about the foot of the hill, but beyond them we could look down into the Forum, where Virginia was stabbed, where Horatius hung up the spoil of the Curiatii, where the body of Julius Cæsar was burned, where the head of Cicero was cruelly exposed on the very rostrum where had often been seen the triumph of his eloquence. Opposite to us stood the Palatine Hill, a mass of crumbling palaces; a little farther off rose the mighty wall of the Coliseum, where the gladiators used to fight, and where so many Christian martyrs were thrown to the wild beasts while tens of thousands of their fellow-men, more cruel than lions, looked on, for sport.

Just at the roots of the Capitoline, close by, though out of sight, was the Mamertine Prison, where St. Paul, of whom the world was not worthy, was once shut up in the dismal darkness of the dungeon.

As we went from the garden back to the Piazza di Campidoglio, we saw something unusual was going on in the palace on the left of the capital. In the door stood a guard in resplendent array of crimson and gold lace. Looking through the arched entrance, we could see in the inner court an open carriage with driver and footman in livery of bright scarlet. Something of a crowd was gathering in the corridors. We stopped to learn what it was all about. An Italian woman answered, “La Principessa Margarita!” and an English lady close by explained that the Princess Margaret, wife of the crown prince, had come to distribute prizes to the children of the public schools. Only invited guests could be present, but the people were waiting to see her come down. So we joined the people and waited also.

It was a long time and a pretty cold one. A brass band in the court cheered our spirits now and then. The fine span of the princess looked rather excited, at first, by the trumpets so close to their ears, but they stood their ground bravely. If one of the scarlet footmen tightened a buckle, it raised our hopes that his mistress was coming; the other put a fresh cigar in his mouth, and they sank.

Meantime the guard in the gold-laced crimson coat and yellow silk stockings paced up and down. At length there was a messenger from above; the royal carriage drove under the arch close to us. There was a rustle, and down came the princely lady, dressed in purple velvet, with mauve feathers in her hat, a white veil drawn over her face, and a large bouquet in her white-gloved hand—rather pretty, and very graceful. Before entering her carriage, she turned to shake hands with the ladies and gentlemen who had accompanied her. She was very complaisant, bowing low to them, and they still lower to her. Then she bowed graciously to the crowd right and left, and they responded gratefully. She smiled upon them, high and low, but there was a look in her face, as it passed close to me, as if she was tired of smiling for the public. She seated herself in the carriage; the lady-in-waiting took her place beside her, the gentleman-in-waiting threw over them the carriage-robe of white ermine lined with light blue velvet and stepped in himself.

Then the equipage rolled off, the scarlet footmen getting up behind as it started. This princess is very good and kind, greatly beloved by the people, and, as there is no queen, she is the first lady in the kingdom. Her husband first and her little son next are heirs to the crown.

This show being over, we hastened back to the church, fearing we had missed the Bambino in our pursuit of the princess. But we were in good time. On the side of the church opposite the tableau was a small, temporary platform. Little boys and girls were placed upon this, one after the other, to speak short pieces or recite verses about the Infant Christ. It was a kind of Sunday-school concert in Italian. The language is very sweet in a child’s mouth. There were a great many bright, black-eyed children in the church, and most of them seemed to have brought their Christmas presents along with them, as if to show them to the Bambino.

There were ragged men in the crowd, and monks, and country-women with handkerchiefs tied over their heads for bonnets. One of them who stood near me had her first finger covered with rings up to the last joint. That is their great ambition in the way of dress.

At length the organ ceased playing, and the notes of a military band were heard. Then we saw a banner moving slowly down one of the aisles, followed by a train of lighted tapers. Over the heads of the people we could only see the banner and the lights; they passed down and paused to take the Bambino. Then they marched slowly all around the church—people falling on their knees as they passed by.

Out at the front door they went, and that sacred image was held high aloft, so that all the people on the great stairway and in the square below might get a sight of it, and be blessed. Then up the middle of the church they came, to the high altar. This was our chance to see them perfectly.

First the banner with the image of the Virgin on it was borne by a young priest dressed in a long black robe and a white short gown trimmed with lace; next came a long procession of men in ordinary dress, carrying long and large wax candles, which they had a disagreeable habit of dripping as they went along.

“Servants of great houses,” remarked a lady behind me.

“They used to come themselves,” answered another.

Then followed Franciscan monks in their brown copes, each with a knotted rope for a girdle, and sandals only on his bare feet. After these came the band of musicians, all little boys; and now approached, with measured tread, three priests in rich robes of white brocade, enriched with silver. The middle one, a tall, venerable-looking man, with hoary hair and solemn countenance, held erect in his hands the sacred dolly. As it passed, believers dropped upon their knees. When he reached the high altar, he reverently kissed its feet, and delivered it to its custodian to be carried to the Sacristy!

CHILDREN UNDER THE SNOW.

FAR away up in the north, on the shores of that great frozen ocean lying beyond Europe and Asia, you may sometimes catch sight (as I did once) of a huge, gray, pointed thing, standing all alone in the midst of the snowy plain, just like an immense pear with the stalk upward. I should have been puzzled had I not seen a thin curl of smoke creeping from the top of it; but _that_ let me into the secret. This queer-looking thing was a Samoiede tent!

The tent of a Samoiede is almost as simple an affair as that of an Arab. All you have to do is to plant a dozen long poles in the ground, slanted so as to let their tops meet; cover this framework with reindeer skins, leaving a hole at the top to let out the smoke; pile the snow high up around the lower part to keep off the wind—the “house” is complete.

But, outlandish as it looks, this little burrow is worth something in a real Russian frost, which freezes the very breath on one’s moustache; so I go right up to the _door_, (which is simply a thick skin hanging over a hole in the side,) lift it, and step in.

The inside is certainly warm enough—rather too warm, in fact, being almost as hot and choky as a bake-house. There is a fire burning in the middle, the smoke going anywhere and everywhere; and beside it sat three things, (one can hardly call them human figures) one a deal larger than the other two.

There being no light but the glare of the fire, it is not easy for me to see where I am going; and the first thing I do is to stumble over something which seems like a skin bag, unusually full. But it is not—it is a _child_, wrapped or rather tied up in a huge cloak of deer-skin, and rolling about the floor like a ball.

In these out-of-the-way places, where a man may go for days without seeing a human face except his own, people call upon each other without waiting to be introduced; and my sudden entrance does not seem to disturb my new friends in the least. They greet me cordially enough, and bid me welcome in Russian, which most of the Samoiedes speak a little; and, seating myself on a chest, I look about me.

As my eyes get used to the half-light, I see that the group by the fire consists of a woman and two little girls, muffled in skins from head to foot. Papa is away somewhere with his sledge and his reindeer, leaving mamma to mind the house and take care of the children. Funny little things they are, with great round heads, and dark-brown skins, and small, restless black eyes, and faces as flat as if somebody had sat down upon them; but, queer as they look, they have learned to make themselves useful already, for they are hard at work stitching their own clothes. They are not a bit shy, and in another minute I have them scrambling up into my lap, and wondering at the ticking of my watch, which I take out to show them, while they clap their hands and shout “_Pai, pai!_” which is their word for “good.”

The tent is not a very large one, but every inch of its space has certainly been made the most of. The floor is carpeted with thick sheets of gray felt, and littered with chests, sacks, baskets, bark shoes, and bits of harness; while hanging from the tent poles, or thrust into the folds of the skins that cover them, are a perfect museum of things of every sort—caps, pouches, fish-spears, knives, hatchets, whips—and last, but certainly not least, the face of a baby, which has been thrust into a kind of pocket in the skin, like a knife into the sheath. I stoop to stroke the little brown face, while the round eyes stare wonderingly at me out of the folds of the skin.

Meanwhile the lady of the house (or rather tent) hospitable like all Samoiedes, hastens to set before me some black bread mixed with bark, and a lump of terrifically strong cheese, made of reindeer milk.

The reindeer supplies the Samoiedes with plenty of other things beside cheese; indeed, almost everything that they have got comes from _it_ in some form or other. They eat reindeer meat, they drink reindeer milk; their fish-spears are tipped with reindeer horn; their clothes, and the very tents in which they live, are made of reindeer skin; the needles wherewith they stitch them are of reindeer bone, and the thread of reindeer sinew; and when they wish to move from place to place, it is the reindeer that draws them along—the Samoiede would be as badly off without his reindeer, as the Arab without his camel.

THE JEWELLED TOMB.

WOULD the youthful readers of this volume like to hear about the most beautiful tomb in the world?

It is in the city of Agra in India, on the other side of the globe. When Boston children are eating their lunch or playing in the sunshine at noon-recess, it is midnight in India. It is so hot there that if anyone happened to be awake, he would probably be fanning himself and looking out of the window up at the stars which are bigger and brighter than in New England, or down at the gardens where hundreds of great fireflies dart and whirl as if it were Fourth of July without the noise.

The Jewelled Tomb was built about the time when your great-great-grandfathers first came to Plymouth. You know how cold and bleak they found it—the winds were stinging, the earth covered with ice and snow, storms were on the sea and savages on the shore. The Pilgrims made no grand tombs there; they dared not even pile up leaves to mark their graves as the robins did over the Babes in the Wood, but buried their dead in wheat-fields to be hid by the waving grain. They feared the Indians, watching to murder and scalp them, would come at night, count the graves and learn how few were left alive. SHAH-Jehan, the Mogul Emperor, built the Jewelled Tomb. His name means King of the World, because he ruled over so many people. Jewels were like the sand of the sea to him, he owned so many. The Koh-i-noor, “the mountain of light,” was his, and there is but one larger diamond in the world. The Brahmins say that the owner of the Koh-i-noor will always be ruler of India.

Shah Jehan’s soldiers and slaves could not be counted, and there seemed no end of his cities and palaces. One of the oldest establishments in his dominion was a hospital for sick monkeys, where kind nurses took care of the little mimics, cured or made them comfortable, while they jabbered and screeched to their hearts’ content, snatched the medicine or choice fruits from their keepers, and plagued each other like wizened spoilt children. But the great Mogul did not care so much for the health of his subjects—he had so many it did not seem worth while.

He was very fond of elephant fights, and used to sit in a balcony overlooking the space between his palace and the river Jumna to watch them. Sometimes a maddened elephant had to be driven by fireworks into the river and drowned to prevent its trampling to death the whole crowd which had no balcony to see from. So many riders were killed in the sport, that one would often kiss his wife and children, saying, “Good-by, you may never see me again—I am going to amuse the Emperor—we have an elephant fight to-day.” Shah-Jehan enjoyed this spectacle whether his subjects were killed or not. His balcony was hung with rich Persian silks. Diamonds and riches shone in his turban and sparkled on his breast. Every time he moved, his jewels threw rainbows over the crowd and often into the eyes of the combatants.

He had a plan of making a trellis over this balcony. The grapes were to be amethysts, the leaves emeralds, and the stalks pure gold. But one morning the head goldsmith came to him, saying: “May it please your Majesty, your trellis will take all the emeralds and amethysts in the world.”

For once in his life Shah-Jehan gave up his whim and only one bunch of grapes was ever finished.

This monarch loved power and splendor, but more than all he loved his wife Moomtazee. She was the niece of the famous Noor Mahal, and was called the most beautiful woman in the world, and was good as she was beautiful. “Light of the World,” “Pearl of Women,” “Crown of Delight,” were some of the names her husband gave her. For hours he would sit by her side in his palace garden, on seats made soft by cashmere shawls, finer than any that ever crossed the ocean. They listened to the murmur of the river; they watched the pink lilies, as large as christening cups, that floated on its waves. Great leaves and wonderful flowers, such as we see only in conservatories, bent their heads beneath the spray of the fountains. There are few singing birds in that land, but from musicians, hidden behind the trees, came melodies which mingled with the sound of rippling waters.

All this was real, and not a story from the Arabian Nights.

One evening when the glow-worms had lit their lamps under every bush, the Mogul and his Empress were in the garden. Their eldest daughter, best beloved of his children because she most resembled her mother, was playing at their feet.

“Dearest Queen,” exclaimed Shah-Jehan, “here are some flowers that I have just plucked. How happy should I be if you could not die! You are lovely as these roses, and I fear some day you will fade as they do. Allah allows a little worm to destroy a shawl that it has taken a life-time to make—if some unseen enemy should take your life, there would be nothing left me but a kingdom whose sun had set.”

The Queen replied: “I will never leave this earth as long as Allah will let me stay.”

“Jehanara,” she continued to her daughter, “if the Angel of Death should take me from your father, comfort and watch over him, and be all that your mother is to the great and good Emperor.”

“Promise, my lord,” she said, “if I should die, never to marry again; and place a tomb over my grave, grand as a palace, and beautiful as these flowers covered with diamond dew, that the whole world may know how the greatest of earthly monarchs loved his Moomtazee Mahal.”

“I promise,” said her husband, with trembling voice, “if you should leave me, no one shall ever fill your place, and the world has never seen so grand a monument as I will raise over the loveliest of women.”

Soon after the Queen became ill. The Emperor was distracted when she said to him, “Remember my two requests; now I must leave you.”

All the doctors and wise men in the Kingdom were summoned, but they were so afraid their heads would be cut off, they did not know what to do; they suggested so many things that of course the poor Queen stood very little chance. All the love and power of her husband could not save her any more than if she had been the wife of her meanest slave.

She died—the palace was dumb with grief. No official dared to speak to the Emperor and tell him of his loss. Jehanara put her arms softly around her father’s neck and sobbed into his ear, “The Light of the World has gone out.”

The funeral was scarcely over, when Shah-Jehan began to build the tomb of his wife.

In our country when we think of a monument, it is a granite shaft or a marble block; we place it in a cemetery, and plant vines and trees around it. In commemoration of many great and good men we sometimes build a high monument—like that on Bunker Hill—where we can climb to the top and look over the country, telling each other how grand the nation has become because of the patriots beneath us who gave their lives for our liberty.