No. 140.—Vol. III.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1886.
{561}
PARK PEARLS.
IN ALL SHADES.
RECENT NOTES FROM THE LAND OF EGYPT.
A TALE OF TWO KNAVERIES.
AVALANCHES.
A NIGHT IN AN INDIAN HILL-FORT.
WHAT GOES TO THE MAKING OF A SILK GOWN.
THE GREAT SHIP-CANAL OF CORINTH.
‘NONE WILL MISS THEE.’
No. 140.—Vol. III.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1886.
By the cottage, a stranger is hailed with sharp palpable hostility, followed by a guttural sentence inwardly spoken. The watchdog pours out his durable qualities on the intruder’s ear. To prevent any misunderstanding, he tells, most forcibly, of the consequences of a nearer approach. As the inmates of the hamlet are thus warned, an unknown face gazes on him, waiting at the wicket. I love the creature’s voice. It sounds of a home, although not mine. It hints of a domestic circle with chubby bairns, little dumpy arms, tiny prattling feet, dirty faces—as all children have if left to their own sweet will—children of the woods and parks, little rural arabs—the human world in miniature uncontrolled. The barking is incessant. A mellow voice spreads over the grassy lawns; on the pensive air, a hollow metallic ringing is carried out, eddying as tiny wavelets to the shore of a tiny pool—the music of an echo, touching the high towers of the mansion-house, rebounding to the forest edge—clear, fine, and pleasing. The winter sunny rays moisten the crust by the gateway, and the earth seems saturated by a shower which fell days ago—a shower of snow. Around the open glade, a stately circle of beech and fir trees marks the park’s outline. The day is cold and damp; the seasons hang in the balance.
In summer here, I know a tree whereon the cushat builds, a tree of fir. On the green soft cushion around its base the children gather needles and pins for youthful household purposes—age reflected in infancy. These trees are honestly Scotch, riveted to the soil; the nettle and the thistle lower in the scale. Around the wood-pigeons’ abode, mighty beeches extend their branches, and sycamores shelter the approach—trees born of ancestral days, veterans of the forest; and at eventide, when the sun is warm, carrying its fire-flame westwards, the low Coo, coo! familiarly resounds over the park—a plaintive moaning from the tree-top. The lark from the mossy meadow tells his tale of love and devotion, going high above the forest shadows, revelling in the ether, shouting vocally in the sky, making the aërial hall ring with its joyous out-pourings—a musical day-star, a pearl from earth and the clod paying homage at the footstool of light.
Over the emerald ground-work, a rook is seen; when the wind is high, he courts the lee-side of the forest, and hugs the bushes on the border, passing like a mighty rushing blast, causing the dead leaf to swirl on the grass. Atop the fence circling the copse, the magpie sits with piratical flashes in his eye, brooding over the stratagem required for further business. Down to the field he goes, and over the meadow-land on strong wing, tail floating gaily in the breeze; a gem, a pearl, a bird of surpassing beauty, up to the fir-trees, chattering harshly, loudly, defiantly. A continuous warble, an entertaining exhibition of voice-power on the part of the hedge-sparrow, enlivens the bushes under the shadow of the beeches; its capabilities of a very high order—a low, sweet, liquid song. In a meditating mood it sits; with an inquisitive air it looks for food under the stems. Its little nest is cosy; its contents four blue turquoises set in a brown environment.
Cuck-oo, cuck-oo! What a mystic sound! a half-human, a legendary echo, a resemblance half-bird, half-mammal expression; a source of infinite conjecture, a perfume from an unseen flower. There it sits, a brown, dark, spotted-like creature, with long arrow-like body, lengthy ocean-steamer-formed bird, a true migrant, a sailor on the winds, a voyager across the oceans; an outlaw, a bohemian, living by the way, dropping its egg in the nest of some absent one, leaving the care of its offspring to another; an ichneumon in feathers. Cuck-oo, cuck-oo! The sound comes from the bushes out there. No! There he sits still, not knowing he is observed. Strange bird, dweller in eternal summer climes, hater of northern blasts; and as you reflect, he is gone down the grove to seek his mate.
Following each other, wailing, calling, the{562} lapwings dive, rise, and scream again, flapping their rounded paddles—brilliant pearls of colour touched by the sunlight. What hilarity; what gestures they cut over the park, down the slope, and across the fields. Joyful birds, birds of the earth and the fullness thereof. The cheerful merry notes come on the breeze, and contain a wildness, a free, piquant taste of nature’s highways. In spring, the notes bring with them the milkboy’s song and the ploughman’s whistle. You feel the air refreshed; a balminess fills the glade, seeks between the tree arms, clusters round the hedge, reassuring the crocus and the primrose. Your heart goes out to meet the bird, even be it unseen, as if photographed on the mind; the rural scene within a certain range springs before the imagination, called up afresh. All nature claps its hands in pride and ecstasy.
With a hurried Cha, cha, cha, cha! the blackbird leaves the stone wall—a cock-bird, black as jet—to attend his lady on the park’s surface. A rollicking sprightliness characterises his movements; his tone is sharp, full of intricacies, hard to interpret. In autumn, when the nests are empty, how delightful to walk through the copse—a clump of dwarfed trees, everything in repose. The nests, the homes, the beds of the departed little ones, rest there between the forks and amongst the benty undergrowth, remnants of blithe mirth-making and droll expressions. A few feathers—vivid remembrance of garments—the broken twigs and sere leaves are toys. Singing now is in silvery strains; before, it was golden; now restricted in its compass and its range.
The pheasant from the cover skulks hastily away, and in the sun shines as a pearl of great price. His ruby head he cannot hide—it is too lovely. It sets off as a coronet his kingly robes. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ An irresistible habit attends the luckless bird; he peers from the herbage, and the sun catches the treacherous colours, denouncing the retreat of this majestic park glory. There is an unspeakable mellowness. Insect and bird, both are loth to frolic; they are not now so fond of being seen, eluding the watchful eye; contented trills are all that is now heard. Yellow, full-eared cornfields, charged with the honey of a season, like soldiers, laden with booty, now ‘pile their arms’ in squares and companies over the harvest battle-field.
With the stillness of a mid-day in the park, at that moment when even the birds are gone, the insect world vanished, there is a sudden seeming pause. The daisy and the clover say it is the meridian, the exact moment when the dial casts no side shadow. It resembles the dinner-hour, the din and rattle hushed for a time. When the cuckoos meet here in the gushing summer day, when the down-pouring of the golden rays from the clear sky parches the pebbly brook, and curls up the grass of the park, then the combination of pride, blitheness, and mid-day fervour of breezes modified, refined by the park trees, disperse in the quiet inclosure, and mingling in space with the warm air, vanish, as it were, in an unanswerable manner.
Kittiwakes from the rocky heights wander, by the aid of their beautiful wings, over the park round the copse, circling, screaming with angry voice, with a majesty, an aristocratic air, no flurried haste. These wings are seasoned by the salt of the ocean. They move over the reefs, the shoals, the surface-swells of the landscape; but their gaze pierces not the crest of the earth, but is thrown back tauntingly, while their eyes search pleadingly. These water-washed pearls rest in twos and threes, white dots on the carpet of green. The daisy, dandelion, clover, and the tints of many grasses, cut out lovely patterns before your eyes; the primrose makes a golden margin, the bushes raise the edge. In the language of flowers, the surface holds communion. Above the long rank growth on the ditch-side, the sorrel loves to dwell, and thistles keep watch over their lowly neighbours.
A transient glimpse of a pretty bird in the depths of the bushes rivets the attention—a redstart!—jerky, flirting beauty. This tangled undergrowth seems a fit habitation only for the badger, or a likely cover for the fox. That admixture of ruby and turquoise might well adorn the scrupulously trimmed lawn before the mansion-house. Why stay in such a sequestered nook? You are an uncommon friend. Right glad am I to make the acquaintance of such as you, even here. How restless you wander along the bough, your shrill note doubtless being apprehensive of danger, away under the bushes without a parting word. A robin fills the place—that hero of many a tale, that picture-painted creature evolved from the reddish-tinted egg shells. His family meet him on the broom that overhangs the bank. The earthwork has fallen, disclosing the boughs that were once underground, appearing now like strong cables from ship to anchor. Its home is there, behind the rootlet, and between that and the earthen wall. At evening, puffed up, ball-formed, it sits challenging a robin not far off in vocal speech, a ruby spot, a blood-stained front without a scar. The notes remind you of olden days. Something is gone, is awanting; a vagueness immeasurable borders the song. There is a want, although he sings in language liquid and clear. It is in harmony with the half-sleeping water babbling through the grasses. He is a wild Red Indian, sighing, jerking, laughing, smiling at the weather of the seasons.
Two, three! Keep still; there go the rabbits. Move your foot amongst those dead leaves—magic, they are gone! Thud, thud! be it anger, fear, or defiance. Thud! the very earth vibrates in harmony with the animals’ spirit. Over the entrance, on the tree-roots grow long variegated lines of stainless white vegetation—whiter under there, against the earth—a soft quartz in a soft rock. That sapling is dead, nipped in its youth. Its leaves are golden, its virgin beauty was green. All other trees are in their native garb. In its fall, its dying agony, its roots wrenched from the soil, the earth still adhering; it had groaning, fallen, clenched its comrade; and now petrified, its arms are rigid, death-like. The bunnies burrow under the shelter of the upturned sapling; but otherwise its history is wrapped in unconcern. Only the bee, that in its flight catches the reddish glow, and halts to know the cause. The common blue butterfly, in its diurnal flight over the park in search of sweets, at times erects its wings, there exhibiting the rows of matchless pearls{563} imprinted on the border of its garment. The wren leaves not the tree in its misfortune, but twits its plaintive miniature trill from under the withered leaves and débris swept against its surface, accumulating with every fresh breeze.
Again the participating musical stumble of the blackbird comes from the tree-branch on the copse margin—a male voice, a bass, with variations of chattering fluency. Late insects linger at the outskirts, and roam the extent of the park. The insect hum rises from the herbage here and there; a bee, trapped by the spider’s snare, hums, buzzing vengeance on the fisher casting his silken net there. In the bushes, a slight fluttering—a leaf floats unheard to the ground, to increase the mouldy earth. The repose is broken again and again—droning beetles, and the tingling flight of the moths fluttering around the willows at the burn. The tawny owls hoot, throwing a weird enchantment on things adjacent, their muffled, softened wings carrying them from view along the forest edge. A solitary starry pearl, a snowdrop of the heavens, bursts the crust of the empyrean—then it is night.
BY GRANT ALLEN,
Author of ‘Babylon,’ ‘Strange Stories,’ etc. etc.
When Nora and the doctor reached the door of Orange Grove, they found Edward Hawthorn waiting to receive them, and the servants already busy trying to remove as far as possible the signs of the wreck so lately effected by the wild rioters. Several neighbouring planters, who had come down from the hills above, stood in armed groups around the gate; and a few mounted black constables, hastily summoned to the spot by the fire, were helping to extinguish the smouldering ashes. Only Delgado’s dead body lay untouched upon the sofa, stiff and motionless, for not one of the negroes dare venture to set hands upon it; and in the room within, Marian sat still, looking anxiously at Harry Noel’s pallid face and livid eyelids, and his bloodstained shirt, that yet heaved faintly and almost imperceptibly upon his broad bosom at each long slow-drawn inspiration.
‘He is living?’ Nora asked, in a hushed voice of painful inquiry; and Marian answered under her breath, looking up at the bluff doctor: ‘Yes; he’s living still. He’s breathing quite regularly, though very feebly.’
As for Macfarlane, he went to work at once with the cool business-like precision and rapidity of his practised profession, opening the bloodstained shirt in front, and putting his hand in through the silk vest to feel the heart that still beat faintly and evenly. ‘He’s lost a great deal of blood, no doubt, Mrs Hawthorn,’ he said cheerily; ‘but he’s a strong man, and he’ll pull through yet; ye needn’t be too anxious—thanks to whoever put this handkerchief around his arm. It’s a good enough tourniquet to use on an emergency.—Was it you, Miss Dupuy, or Mrs Hawthorn?’
A round spot of vivid colour flashed for a moment into Nora’s white cheek as she answered quietly: ‘It was me, Dr Macfarlane!’ and then died out again as fast as it had come, when Macfarlane’s eyes were once more removed from her burning face.
‘Ye’re a brave lass, and no mistake,’ the doctor went on, removing the tourniquet, and stanching the fresh flow rapidly with a proper bandage, produced with mechanical routine from his coat pocket. ‘Well, well, don’t be afraid about him any longer. It’s a big cut, and a deep cut, and it’s just gone and severed a good big artery—an ugly business; but ye’ve taken it in time; and your bandage has been most judiciously applied; so ye may rest assured that, with a little nursing, the young man will soon be all right again, and sound as ever. A cutlass is a nasty weapon to get a wound from, because those nigger fellows don’t sharpen them up to a clean edge, as they ought to do rightly, but just hack and mutilate a man in the most outrageous and unbusiness-like manner, instead of killing him outright like good Christians, with a neat, sharp, workman-like incision. But we’ll pull him through—we’ll pull him through yet, I don’t doubt it. And if he lives, ye may have the pleasure of knowing, young lady, that it was the tourniquet ye made so cleverly that just saved him at the right moment.’
As Macfarlane finished dressing and tending Harry’s wound, and Harry’s eyes began to open again, slowly and glassily, for he was very faint with loss of blood, Nora, now that the excitement of that awful evening was fairly over, seemed at last to realise within herself her great loss with a sudden revulsion. Turning away passionately from Harry’s bedside, she rushed into the next room, where the women-servants were already gathered around their master’s body, keening and wailing as is their wont, with strange hymns and incoherent songs, wherein stray scraps of Hebrew psalms and Christian anthems were mingled incongruously with weird surviving reminiscences of African fetichism, and mystic symbols of aboriginal obeah. Fully awake now to the blow that had fallen so suddenly upon her, Nora flung herself in fierce despair by her father’s side, and kissed the speechless lips two or three times over with wild remorse in her fresh agony of distress and isolation. ‘Father, father!’ she cried aloud, in the self-same long-drawn wail as the negresses around her, ‘they’ve killed you, they’ve killed you! my darling—my darling!’
‘Dem kill you—dem kill you!’ echoed Rose and Nita and the other women in their wailing sing-song. ‘But de Lard ob hebben himself avenge you. De grabe yawnin’ wide this ebenin’ for Louis Delgado. De Lard smite him—de Lard smite him!’
‘Get away, all you auld crones!’ the doctor said, coming in upon them suddenly with his hearty Scotch voice, that seemed to break in too harshly on the weird solemnity of the ghastly scene. ‘Let me see how it was they killed your master. He’s dead, you say—stone-dead, is he? Let me see—let me see, then.—Here you, there—lift up his head, will you, and put it down decently on the pillow!’
Nita did as she was told, mechanically, with a reproachful glance from her big white-fringed eyes at the too matter-of-fact and common-sense{564} Scotchman, and then sat down again, squatting upon the floor, moaning and crooning piteously to herself, as decorum demanded of her under such circumstances.
The doctor looked closely at the clotted blood that hung in ugly tangles on the poor old man’s gray locks, and whistled a little in a dubious undertone to himself, when he saw the great gash that ran right across Mr Dupuy’s left shoulder. ‘An awkward cut,’ he said slowly—‘a very severe and awkward cut, I don’t deny it. But I don’t precisely see, myself, why it need have positively killed him. The loss of blood needn’t have been so very excessive. He’s hacked about terribly, poor old gentleman, with their ugly cutlasses, though hardly enough to have done for a Dupuy, in my opinion. They’re very tough subjects indeed to kill, all the Dupuys are.’
As he spoke, he leant down cautiously over the body, and listened for a minute or two attentively with his ear at the heart and lips. Then he held his finger lightly with close scrutiny before the motionless nostrils, and shook his head once or twice in a very solemn and ominous fashion. ‘It’s a most singular fact,’ he said with slow deliberation, looking over at Edward, ‘and one full of important psychological implications, that the members of every nationality I have ever had to deal with in the whole course of my professional experience—except only the Scottish people—have a most illogical and ridiculous habit of jumping at conclusions without sufficient data to go upon. The man’s not dead at all, I tell you—not a bit of it. He’s breathing still, breathing visibly.’
Nora leapt up at the word with another sudden access of wild energy. ‘Breathing!’ she cried—‘breathing, doctor! Then he’ll live still. He’ll get better again, will he, my darling?’
‘Now ye’re jumping at conclusions a second time most unwarrantably,’ Macfarlane answered, with true Scotch caution. ‘I will not say positively he’ll get better again, for that’s a question that rests entirely in the hands of the Almighty. But I do say the man’s breathing—not a doubt of it.’
The discovery inspired them all at once with fresh hope for Mr Dupuy’s safety. In a few minutes they had taken off his outer clothing and dressed his wounds; while Nora sat rocking herself to and fro excitedly in the American chair, her hands folded tight with interlacing fingers upon her lap, and her lips trembling with convulsive jerks, as she moaned in a low monotone to herself, between suspense and hope, after all the successive manifold terrors of that endless evening.
By-and-by the doctor turned to her kindly and gently. ‘He’ll do,’ he said, in his most fatherly manner. ‘Go to bed, lass, go to bed, I tell ye. Why, ye’re bruised and beaten yourself too, pretty awkwardly! Ye’ll need rest. Go to bed; an’ he’ll be better, we’ll hope and trust, to-morrow morning.’
‘I won’t go to bed,’ Nora said firmly, ‘as long as I don’t know whether he will live or not, Dr Macfarlane.’
‘Why, my lass, that’ll be a very long watch for ye, then, indeed, I promise you, for he’ll not be well again for many a long day yet, I’m thinking. But he’ll do, I don’t doubt, with care and nursing. Go to bed, now, for there’ll be plenty to guard you. Mr Hawthorn and I will stop here to-night; and there’s neighbours enough coming up every minute to hold the place against all the niggers in the whole of Trinidad. The country’s roused now; the constabulary’s alive; and the governor’ll be sending up the military shortly to take care of us while you’re sleeping. Go to bed at once, there’s a guid lassie.’
Marian took her quietly by the arm and led her away, once more half fainting. ‘You’ll stop with me, dear?’ Nora whispered; and Marian answered with a kiss: ‘Yes, my darling; I’ll stop with you as long as you want me.’
‘Wait a minute,’ the good doctor called out after them. ‘Ye’ll need something to make you sleep after all this excitement, I take it, ladies. There’s nothing in the world so much recommended by the faculty under these conditions as a good stiff glass of old Highland whisky with some lime-juice and a lump of sugar in it.—Ye’ll have some whisky in the house, no doubt, won’t you, Uncle Ezekiel?’
In a minute or two, Uncle ’Zekiel had brought the whisky and the glasses and the fruit for the lime-juice, and Macfarlane had duly concocted what he considered as a proper dose for the young ladies. Edward noticed, too, that besides the whisky, the juice, and the sugar, he poured furtively into each glass a few drops from a small phial that he took out unperceived by all the others from his waistcoat pocket. And as soon as the two girls had gone off together, the doctor whispered to him confidentially, with all the air of a most profound conspirator: ‘The poor creatures wanted a little sedative to still their nerves, I consider, after all this unusual and upsetting excitement, so I’ve just taken the liberty to give them each a drop or two of morphia in their whisky, that’ll make them both sleep as sound as a child till to-morrow morning.’
But all that night, the negroes watched and prayed loudly in their own huts with strange devotions, and the white men and the constables watched—with more oaths than prayers, after the white man’s fashion—armed to the teeth around the open gate of Mr Dupuy’s front garden.
To those who are interested in ancient Egypt, and to the student of Biblical archæology, the last few weeks have given treasures of discovery. First, there was the unbinding and exposing to view of the mummies of Ramses II. and III., and the identification of that of Queen Nofre-tari; then the discovery, by Mr Flinders Petrie, of ‘El Kasr el Bint el Yahudî’ (the Castle of the Jew’s Daughter), which throws a flood of light upon the few verses in Jeremiah xliii. where we read that Johanan, the son of Kareah, followed by the captains of the forces, the remnant of Judah, and the Hebrew princesses, daughters of the{565} blinded and dethroned Zedekiah, fled to Tahpanhes, the court of Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt. Lastly, there was the interesting meeting of the Egyptian Exploration Fund (see Chambers’s Journal, No. 70), when an account of the finding of the Greek settlement of Naukratis was given, and specimens of the treasures found there were exhibited. To Professor Maspéro we are indebted for the sight of the celebrated Pharaohs; and any one travelling in Egypt should not fail to visit the ‘Hall of the Mummies,’ in the Boulak Museum, near Cairo, where, in glass cases, they will see the faces of these kings exposed to view. First of all, before describing the appearance of the dead monarchs as they emerged from the endless folds of the mummy-cloths, it may be worth while to glance cursorily at their history.
Ramses II.—the Sesostris of the Greeks—was the third king of the nineteenth dynasty. He bears the name of A-naktu, the Conqueror; and in the rolls of the papyri he is also called Ses, Sestura, ‘Sethosis—who is called Ramses’—and Setesu. He was a great builder, and a warrior as well. The land is filled with his buildings and with gigantic statues of himself and his family; and the walls of the temples are covered all over with vivid pictures of his battles and victories. Not only in Egypt are these to be found, but also engraven upon the rock tablets at Berytus, in Syria, are records of his victories in Asia. He does not, however, appear to have allowed his architectural plans and his warlike expeditions wholly to engross his attention, for we find him dividing the land into nomes or provinces, and setting governors over them. He seems to have employed the prisoners of war in making canals for the use of those who lived at a distance from the river. He also rearranged the scale of rents for land, and made the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. In the fifth year of his reign we find him at Kadesh-on-Orontes, a fortified Syrian town: war had broken out with the Khita, a Semitic tribe, who had one of their strongholds there. After a desperate struggle, Ramses appears to have been victorious, and ratified his treaty with the conquered people by marrying their king’s daughter. We find him afterwards waging war in Palestine; and it is certain that he conquered Askelon. He transferred his court to Sân or Zoan, on the Tanitic arm of the Nile, and from thenceforth Pi-Ramses became the seat of government. By many, Ramses II. is thought to be the Pharaoh of the oppression, for whom the children of Israel built the treasure-cities of Pithom and Ramses. Certain it is that during this reign the literature and language of Egypt became impregnated with words borrowed from Semitic sources.
The chief buildings of Ramses II. are the Ramesseum or Memnonium; a Temple of Victory at Old Qurnah, dedicated to the god Amon; the rock-temple of Ipsamboul, dedicated to the chief gods of Egypt; the completion of the Temple of Amon at Luxor, which was left unfinished by Amenhotep III.; and the great hall in the Temple of Karnak. He erected two giant statues of himself and two beautiful obelisks, one of which is in Paris.
The king enjoyed a reign of sixty-seven years; part of which time he was associated with his father. He must have been nearly one hundred years old when he died; and from the temple walls at Abydos we learn that he had sixty sons and fifty-nine daughters. This is the merest outline of Ramses II., one of the greatest of the Egyptian kings; an essentially successful man, bold, enterprising, ambitious, and vain.
Now for his personal appearance, in so far as we can judge of it after its long repose in spices and linen bandages. For the sake of those whose faith may not be very strong, let us add that the mummy was opened by Maspéro and Brügsch—two of our greatest Egyptologists—in presence of a large number of people, English as well as Egyptian, who verified the official statement made by the high-priest Pinotem on the coffin lid, and on the outer winding-sheet of the mummy, that this was in truth the body of Ramses II. The head is long, and small in proportion to the size of the body; the top of it is bald, but otherwise the hair is thick. At the time of death it was probably white; but the spices used in the embalmment have turned it a yellowish colour. The eyebrows, too, are white and thick; the eyes small and close together; the temples are sunken; and the nose, long, thin, and hooked, is also depressed at the tip. The tightness of the bandaging probably accounts for this. The chin is prominent, and the jawbone massive, giving a look of determination to the face, which is covered with a thin beard and moustache. The skin is of a brown hue, with black marks on it, possibly owing to the bituminous matter used in embalming. The hands, which are crossed over the breast, are small, and dyed with henna; the legs and thighs fleshless; the feet long, slender, and although somewhat flat-soled, are well shaped. They also are stained with henna. The body is in a good state of preservation; and the corpse, which is that of a very old man, is also that of a strongly built and vigorous old man. The examination over, Professor Maspéro returned the mummy to its glass case, where, with face uncovered, it may be seen, with the mummies of Pinotem and the priest Nebsouni.
Ramses III.—surnamed Haq-On—Prince of Heliopolis, was not the immediate successor of Ramses II., although he appears to have taken him for his model. When he came to the throne, Egypt had degenerated to a miserable condition, and he first turned his attention to the internal affairs of the kingdom, rearranging the different castes and fixing their lines very firmly. He also started a navy, to trade with the countries near to Egypt. Many of the trees and shrubs in the valley of the Nile were planted by him, to encourage moisture in the atmosphere and give shade to the people. His buildings were not nearly so grand or so numerous as those of Ramses II. He erected several Ramessea and a new temple at Thebes. He also converted the treasure-house at Medinet-Abou into a Temple of Victory, bringing all that was most precious into it. From some of the papyri, we find that he was to have been the victim of a plot hatched in the harem; but it was discovered, and the conspirators punished. Ramses III. reigned more than twenty-seven years, and had eighteen sons and fourteen daughters, to the former of whom he gave the names of the sons of Ramses II.{566} In his reign, the art of inlaying glass in alabaster was at its height.
Ramses III. was altogether an inferior man to his predecessor of the same name, although probably more intelligent; and from the shape of the forehead, we might judge him to have had the intellectual capacities largely developed. But he was eaten up with vanity, and a desire to imitate in everything Ramses II. His buildings are less numerous than that monarch’s; in style they are far inferior, and the construction is poor. His wars were chiefly fought close at home, either with the neighbouring Philistines or the tribes in the frontier of his country. This, condensed into a few sentences, is the outline of his life. In appearance, as seen at Boulak, when the mummy was uncased, he was a small man, much inferior in size and build to Ramses II, although his forehead is of better proportions. No hair is visible on either face or head; the cheek-bones are not so high, the nose not so hooked, the chin and jaw less massive. Professor Maspéro thinks that the eyes were larger than those of Ramses II., which were small; but it is difficult to be certain about this, as they have been extracted, and the lids even removed. The mouth is horribly large, and out of proportion to the rest of the face; the lips are thin; and many of the teeth are in a perfect state of preservation. The displaying of the features of Ramses III. was indeed a proof of great skill and patience on the part of the operators, for when the last coverings were removed, the face was found to be completely hidden by a coating of bitumen, which had to be taken away piecemeal with the utmost care. The mummy, face uncovered, stands now in a glass case by the side of Ramses II.; and the lid of the sarcophagus in which he was buried is in the Museum at Cambridge.
The mummy of Queen Nofre-tari was found with those of Ramses II. and III. in the hiding-place at Dayr-el-Bahari; but it became in such a bad condition, and smelt so horribly, that it was necessary to get rid of it. Accordingly, Professor Maspéro decided to open it; and by doing so, settled a knotty historical question. Was Nofre-tari, the popular and deeply revered queen of king Aahmes I. of the eighteenth dynasty, a negress? On some of the monuments, she is represented with fine hair and yellow skin; on others, with a distinctly negro type of face. Truly, she was worshipped at Thebes under the form of Hathor, the black goddess of Death and the nether world. Did, then, the story of her belonging to one of the black races of mankind originate in this, or was there real ground for depicting her with a black complexion? The investigation of the mummy answered the question; for although, on being opened, it began to crumble away and dissolve into black matter, it was quite possible to ascertain that she was a woman of full age and middle height, and that she belonged to the white races of mankind.
The opening of these mummies was the last official work of Professor Maspéro, and the description of them is gathered from his Report. Unfortunately for all Egyptologists, he has been obliged to resign his post of Director of the Excavations and Antiquities in Egypt.
We must now pass on from the interesting Hall of Mummies, and convey ourselves in thought to a dismal, dreary corner of the north-eastern Delta, where, in the neighbourhood of the mounds of Tell-el-Defenneh, Mr Flinders Petrie has discovered the remains of the ancient palace in which Apries Hophra gave shelter to the fugitive daughters of Zedekiah. This ‘Castle of the Jew’s Daughter,’ as it is called by the Arabs to-day—the ‘Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes’ of the Bible, was built by Psammetichus I. Under the corners of the building, Mr Petrie has dug out the foundation deposits, consisting of seals, small tablets, engraved with the king’s name and royal titles, bricks, &c. It was probably the stronghold of those Carian and Ionian mercenaries to whom Psammetichus granted a permanent settlement at Daphnæ of Pelusium. The building itself was square, lofty, and of massive structure. It stands in the remains of a quadrangular courtyard, the whole covering an area of two thousand feet in length by one thousand feet in breadth. Originally, it must have been walled in, the great boundary wall being fifty feet in thickness. A gate on the north side opened towards the canal; another on the south, to the military road between Egypt, through Palestine, into Syria. The ‘Kasr’ also possessed a tower which has probably served at different times as an outlook, general’s headquarters, and a royal palace. Nor can we assign one date only to it; it has been added to at various times, and to meet the requirements of the different owners. It is hopeless to conjecture in how many stories it was originally built; but the main part of the building contained sixteen square rooms on each floor, with walls, both outside and partition, of immense strength. Now, the basements, which are all that is left, were the offices of the royal palace, and very interesting are the discoveries which Mr Petrie has made there. First of all, there is the kitchen, a big room with deep recesses in the sides, and containing a dozen or more large jars, which somehow have managed to escape the general destruction; also two flat dishes, three small flat iron pokers, two corn-rubbers, some weights, and a large knife made of iron. Then there is a room which we may suppose to have answered to the butler’s pantry, for it was evidently the room where the wine-jars were brought to be opened; but although there was not one amphora to be found, there were scores of lids lying scattered about, many of them stamped with the cartouches of Psammetichus I., and Necho, his successor. On a rubbish-heap outside were found the broken amphoræ, some of them having the lute-shaped ‘nefer’ written on them in ink, a mark signifying ‘good.’ There is a tiny chamber containing a sink; and from the contents of that sink, it can only have served one purpose, and that the scullery. Mr Petrie describes it as being ‘formed of a large jar with the bottom knocked out, and filled with broken potsherds placed on edge. The water ran through this, and thence into more broken pots below, placed one in another, all bottomless, going down to the clean sand four or five feet below.’ These sherds were literally clogged with fish-bones and animal matter.
Some small tablets engraved with the name{567} of Aahmes II., and a bronze seal of Apries, were also found; and in some of the other rooms were seen lying about several Greek vases, many of them well painted with representations of sphinxes, dancers, chariot-races, harpies, &c. Amongst the débris, have been picked up amulets, two rings, a sword handle with wide curved guard, some scale-armour, beads, seals, &c.; and several large amphoræ, quite perfect, and a great many broken ones, although not so badly broken but that they can be mended. The once stately building is now a heap of blackened, flame-scorched ruins, while the ground all round it is thickly strewn with the débris of its past treasures. It must have fallen into very revengeful hands before even it was set on fire, for it has evidently been ruthlessly knocked to pieces and dismantled, besides being burnt. Did the king of Babylon, as is indicated in the book of Jeremiah, indeed spread his tent on the hard mud pavement in the square courtyard, and after giving over ‘such as were for death to death, and such as were for captivity to captivity, and such as were for the sword to the sword,’ commence the work of destruction? We cannot tell: we know that he did come, and that, according to Babylonian accounts, he conquered. The Egyptians admit that he came, but say he was defeated. Anyway, there are three steles in the Boulak Museum inscribed with his names, titles, and parentage, which there is every reason to believe were picked up by the Arabs near this place. Whether Nebuchadnezzar conquered or not, ‘Pharaoh’s house at Tahpanhes’ is now but the wreck of a departed glory.
The recent meeting of the Egyptian Exploration Fund was particularly interesting. At it, Mr Ernest Gardner gave a vivid account of Naukratis, for the excavation of which we are indebted to Mr Petrie and himself. Naukratis was an ancient Greek settlement in Lower Egypt, whose site, until lately, was lost in obscurity. We know that it contained five celebrated temples—the Pan-Hellenion, and the temples of Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and Aphrodite; of these, four are now discovered. During this present year, Mr Gardner has found the cemetery of Naukratis. It is a little distance from the town itself, and, unfortunately, cannot be wholly excavated, as there is a modern Arab cemetery exactly over it. The part already dug out is evidently the more modern of the two, as it only contains graves subsequent to the sixth century B.C. From a strictly antiquarian point of view, it is therefore the less interesting, although that date gives the most flourishing period of the history of Naukratis. There was not one single mummified body found; the funerals were evidently conducted strictly after the manner of the Greeks. Coffins of tile and wood, the latter adorned with terra-cotta ornaments, were found in the graves; articles both of use and beauty were found buried with the dead. In one case, alongside of the deceased lady’s jewellery, was found her rouge-pot, still half full of rouge, and beautifully painted on the outside. Among the many things found in the town itself is a portrait head of the time of Berenike II., made in blue porcelain; a fine archaic statue of Apollo as a hunter, laden with spoils; and two very fine vases of large size. The ruins of the Temple of Aphrodite, built upon the foundations of two earlier ones, consist of little else than mud walls. In front of it is the altar, made of the ashes of the victims, bound together with a mud casing. Thus, after centuries of burial, has the excavator’s spade brought us face to face with Naukratis, once the most flourishing Greek settlement and trading-port in Lower Egypt.
It was a melancholy and foggy November morning, and in its yellow gloom that legal byway known as Southampton Buildings, Holborn, looked even more frowzy and less respectable than usual. That, at least, was the opinion of Mr Blackford, solicitor, who had no love for the scene of his daily labours, as he turned into his office at the usual hour, nodded to the clerk and the office-boy who made up his modest staff, hung up his hat and coat on their particular peg, and passing into his private room, proceeded to open and read the half-dozen letters which lay on his desk. With one exception, these were not of a pleasing or cheerful nature. There was, in the first place, a rather peremptory reminder that the office rent was overdue, and must be paid forthwith. Then came a refusal to ‘settle,’ by the payment of a sum of money, a doubtful compensation-for-injuries action against a Railway Company, which Mr Blackford had undertaken upon the very sporting principle of charging nothing unless he should succeed; in which happy event he would retain half the spoils. Beneath this lay a letter declining to make an advance on certain dilapidated house-property belonging to a client, and commenting sharply on certain alleged misrepresentations; and then followed two or three more such epistolary missives.
Mr Blackford’s face wore a very excusable expression of disgust as he took up the last of the pile; but he brightened a little as he read it through. This at anyrate meant ‘business’—above all, business for which the payment, though not large or ungrudgingly rendered, would be certain and prompt. It was signed ‘William Franklin,’ and it contained a request that Mr Blackford would call on the writer that day, in order to take instructions for his will. Now, William Franklin was the lawyer’s best client; a retired tradesman of some wealth, and of a litigious disposition which had for several years brought as much profit to the business as all the rest of the connection put together. The solicitor hastily replied to such of his correspondents as required that attention, glanced at his diary, which showed him plenty of leisure time for the day—a far too usual circumstance with him; and was preparing to keep Mr Franklin’s appointment, when his office-boy knocked and entered.
‘A gentleman to see you, sir.’
{568}
‘Who is it?’ asked his master, rather suspiciously. Unexpected male visitors are not always welcome to a man whose finances are shaky.
‘Won’t give his name, sir—says he wants to see you on particular business. I think it’s a new client, sir,’ added the boy confidentially, understanding tolerably well the reasons of his employer’s hesitation.
‘Oh! Well—show him in; and don’t forget to hand a chair.’
The visitor entered—a tall, dark, powerful man, with remarkably bright eyes—well dressed, as Mr Blackford, drawing comfortable auguries therefrom, at once observed.
‘Take a seat,’ said the solicitor. ‘What can I do for you?’
The stranger sat down, glanced uneasily round the room, went back to the door, opened and closed it, and returned to his chair. ‘First of all,’ said he, speaking with the voice and manner of a gentleman—a voice and manner not too common among Mr Blackford’s clients—‘I must apologise for presenting myself in this mysterious way. I didn’t give my name to your clerk, for reasons which you will appreciate presently. It is Willoughby—Charles Willoughby—and here is my card. I have also a letter of introduction from my landlord, a client of yours.’
‘I wonder what he’s done?’ was Mr Blackford’s silent comment as he took the proffered letter. ‘Forgery, perhaps, or embezzlement. The last, most likely—if either. I daresay it’s only a trumpery County Court matter, after all.’
The letter simply stated that Mr Willoughby had for the last month occupied rooms in the writer’s house; that he was a very quiet lodger, and quite the gentleman; that he seemed to have plenty of money; that he had asked the writer to recommend a solicitor to him, and that the writer had at once named Mr Blackford; from whom, it was added in conclusion, a fair commission on any profits arising from the introduction would be expected by his zealous client.
‘And what can I do for you, sir?’ once more asked the solicitor, with the increased respect due to a man who was ‘quite the gentleman’ and ‘seemed to have plenty of money.’
The visitor fixed an anxious look on the lawyer, and replied: ‘Well, the fact is, Mr Blackford, that I have of late been greatly worried and annoyed.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Not very pleasant in this depressing weather, is it?’
‘It is not, indeed,’ assented the other, with a spasmodic and mirthless laugh, which began and ended in a peculiarly sudden manner.
‘What is the nature of the annoyance?’
The visitor was looking round the room in a bewildered way, and did not seem to hear the question. On its being repeated, he came to himself with a start.
‘The annoyance? Oh, it is just this—that I am being followed about by people who accuse and threaten me in a most unfounded and unjustifiable manner.’
‘And of what do they accuse you?’
‘Well, I hardly know, the accusations are so extremely vague. But they all point to horrible crimes committed in the past, without particularly specifying them. The threats are distinct enough: I am to be utterly ruined by exposure and denunciation.’
‘Have you ever done anything which would be likely to give these people a hold on you? You can be perfectly frank with me, you know; we lawyers hear a great many curious things, but we never talk about them. Few men can say that their lives will bear very close inspection.’
‘I declare to you solemnly that I can reproach myself with nothing which, if known, would produce the consequences with which I am threatened. But you know persistent slander is sure to make its mark sooner or later; it is impossible to say what harm may have been done already.’
‘Who are the people?’
‘I don’t know.’ Before giving this unexpected answer, Willoughby looked down on the floor and round the room with the same lost and puzzled air as before.
‘You don’t know who they are!’ said Mr Blackford with incredulity. ‘That’s rather strange, isn’t it?—Come, Mr Willoughby; we are quite alone. Who are they?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ repeated the client; ‘I wish I could.’ He looked at the lawyer with a pitiably anxious expression, and beads of perspiration began to appear on his forehead.
‘When and where do they attack you?’
‘Incessantly and everywhere. I am never safe from them. Principally at my lodgings, and after I am in bed at night. They keep me awake with their outcry.’
Mr Blackford began to be puzzled. His new acquaintance continued to regard him with the same eager and helpless look, and wiped his forehead with a tremulous hand.
‘But—but—bless me,’ said the lawyer, ‘if they come and annoy you in your lodgings, why don’t you give them in charge?—How many are there of them?’
Willoughby shook his head gloomily. ‘They are too cunning for that,’ he answered. ‘They are careful to keep out of my sight. I never set eyes on them; I only hear their voices. And they are in hundreds—in thousands, for all I can tell.’
Mr Blackford of course at once understood the true state of the case, and the discovery was not a pleasant one. He was by no means a nervous man, yet he experienced an electrical sensation in the scalp of his head at the idea that he was sitting within a yard of an athletic madman. Clearly, it would not do to contradict so opinionated a person as this was likely to be; he must be humoured, and induced, if possible, to go away quietly.
‘That’s awkward—very awkward,’ said the solicitor in a reflective tone. ‘If we can’t see them, you know, how can we get at them so as to set the law in motion?’
‘I can’t tell what to do,’ said the other despondently; ‘that is why I have come to consult you. All I know is that they continue to denounce and threaten me night and day, and that it cannot go on without being noticed. In that case, my character will be materially injured, and they will have attained their object. Besides, they are killing me, Mr Blackford. A man{569} can’t exist without sleep, and I have had but little for weeks past. And now I learn that they are contriving a plan to relieve one another at night, so as to keep me awake.’
There was something inexpressibly grim in the earnest yet matter-of-fact way in which these impossibilities were related; with agitation, indeed, but with nothing in the nature of abnormal excitement or maniacal frenzy. He spoke as a man who found great matter for trouble, but none for astonishment, in the nightly irruption into his lodgings of hundreds or thousands of abusive persons, whose numbers were no hindrance to their remaining effectually concealed in the space of two small rooms. But he surveyed the walls and floor at more frequent intervals in his dazed manner, as though he suddenly found himself in a strange place, while his moist and shaking hands nervously and convulsively worked his handkerchief into a compact ball.
Actuated at first by the best motives, Mr Blackford began to question him cautiously as to his connections and private affairs. It seemed that, with the exception of some distant relatives at the Cape, he was alone in the world; nor did he appear to have any friends in England upon whom he could rely. Having elicited the further fact that he had an income of five hundred pounds a year, derived from funded property, the solicitor ceased his questions and delivered himself up to reflection, while his client anxiously awaited the voice of the oracle.
There are many members of the junior branch of the legal profession who are of unbending uprightness and fastidious honour; there are a few downright knaves; and there are others who stand neither on the upper nor on the lower rungs of the moral ladder, but occupy a position somewhere about the middle. These last are equally prepared to be honest should honesty be made easy for them, or rogues in the face of difficulty or temptation; and among their number was Mr Blackford. He was not altogether favourably known to his brother practitioners; but neither could any definite charge be brought against him. He had done things which were certainly worthy of condemnation; but he had hitherto kept clear of any offence which would endanger his position on the rolls. He dressed neatly, he had a good manner and a correct accent, and he did not drink. His business was small, and not of a high class, lying mostly among the smaller sort of tradesmen; yet he had a certain connection, and even a few clients of means and fair position; and he was said to understand his work. He was quite without capital, and lived a hand-to-mouth life; and he had certain extravagant tastes of the lower kind. Money was always scarce with him, and he was prepared to acquire it in any way which offered, so that it was unattended with risk; for he was quite unburdened with scruples, considering all profit fair which could be safely gained. And he thought that in this case he saw a chance of such profit. Willoughby had answered all his questions, some of them bordering on impertinence, in the most open and unreserved fashion; he was evidently disposed to place the fullest confidence in his legal adviser, looking to him for sympathy and deliverance. Mr Blackford felt more at his ease in thus parleying with a probably dangerous lunatic, than a few minutes before he would have thought possible.
The upshot of his meditations was that he concluded to abandon, at all events for the present, his first very proper and humane purpose of communicating with the police, and trying to induce them to deal with the case as that of a lunatic at large, so that the poor fellow might be properly cared for until his friends could be communicated with. For this he substituted a different plan of action with admirable readiness, and with an entire absence of pity or compunction. It was clear that there was money to be made out of the man by judicious handling; and Mr Blackford was of opinion that no one could be better qualified to make it, or more deserving of it when made, than himself.
He accordingly advised that the threats and accusations should for the present be treated with contempt. No doubt they were made for the purpose of extorting money; any sign that they were producing an effect would only cause the annoyance to be redoubled. In the meantime he, Blackford, would use his wide experience and not inconsiderable abilities in his client’s behalf, and had no doubt of the ultimate success of his endeavours to discover the offenders and bring them to justice. The poor madman, with tears in his eyes, thanked him for his kindness and attention, declared that a load had been lifted from his mind, and was about to withdraw, when the solicitor stopped him with an air of having suddenly recollected something.
‘By the way,’ said he, ‘it’s hardly worth mentioning—but cases of this nature involve considerable expense to begin with, in the way of inquiries and so forth. It is generally the custom—— Well, to put it plainly, I think I must ask you for a small present payment on account; say five pounds or so.’
‘Of course, of course—certainly,’ said the other, fumbling nervously in his pocket. ‘I am much obliged to you for mentioning it; this is my first experience of the kind, I am happy to say. I have not quite the sum you mention with me at this moment. Would three pounds ten be enough for the present? and I will send the rest by post.’
‘O yes, that will do very well; only a matter of form, you know,’ said the solicitor carelessly, but laying an eager grasp upon the coins. ‘I hope to write to you satisfactorily before long—till then, good-bye.’
So soon as his new client had left, Mr Blackford assumed his coat and hat and went off to keep his appointment with Mr Franklin, who lived in Camden Town with his married niece and her husband. As the solicitor strode rapidly along, he felt a different being from the man who, but a short half-hour before, had been reading his letters in so despondent a mood. The sudden and unwanted accession of business from two quarters at once on the same day gave him a feeling of importance; and the consciousness of the four unexpected gold coins in his pocket thrilled through him with a comforting glow, like that of a glass of old ale on a frosty day. Willoughby, if properly managed, might prove a small gold mine before his madness should develop itself to an extent incompatible with attention to legal matters; and visions arose{570} before him of a possible inquiry de lunatico, with its expensive accompaniments of the appointment of a ‘committee’ and the administration of a nice little estate; all to be conducted, in the not distant future, to his great pecuniary profit, by that trustworthy and able man of law, James Blackford. His castle-building extended to an important family connection thence to arise; to the hiring of more commodious offices in a better situation, necessitated by a rapidly increasing business; and by the time that he found himself at the end of his walk, the unpaid rent and the uncompromised compensation action had faded in a glow of splendid possibilities.
Mr William Franklin was a tall and gaunt old man, with a red face, on which dwelt continually a savage and sardonic smile, framed in a bristling fringe of silvery-white hair. His character might almost be summed up in the expressive phrase of certain of his acquaintance—friends he had none—by whom it was predicated of him that he was ‘an ugly customer.’ He was, in fact, an evil-tempered and malicious bully, whose selfish and tyrannical disposition had been fostered by an undue consciousness of the twenty-five thousand pounds which he had made in business, and by the assiduous court which his wealth caused to be paid to him by expectant relatives, with all of whom he took pleasure in quarrelling in turn, enjoying with a fiendish glee their subsequent agonies of self-abasement.
‘So, it’s you at last!’ said this amiable old gentleman, when Mr Blackford was shown into his presence. ‘Thought you were never coming. What’s kept you?’
The solicitor, with great humility of manner, apologised for the unavoidable delay, and alluded to the overwhelming pressure of business and the constant calls upon his time.
‘Oh, I’m sure—I’m sorry to have put you about so,’ said Mr Franklin with vast politeness. ‘I couldn’t think of detaining you when you’re so busy. It’s a matter of no consequence, after all. Pray, don’t wait; I’ll send to Jones and Crowder; I daresay they won’t be too much engaged to come at once.’
Greatly alarmed, Mr Blackford hastened to protest that his time was entirely at Mr Franklin’s disposal.
‘Then don’t tell me a pack of lies!’ roared the client with an instantaneous change of manner, facing round from the fireplace, poker in hand, with every apparent intention of committing a violent assault upon his solicitor. ‘Man alive! don’t I know that it’s just as much as you can do to keep body and soul together in that poky little hole of an office of yours?—Business, indeed! As if I wasn’t about the only decent client you have! And why I am your client, goodness only knows. It’s compassion, I suppose. I always was too soft-hearted for this world.’
His visitor could have furnished him with a better reason—namely, that no other lawyer had ever been found capable of putting up with his insolence and tyranny. But Mr Blackford had plenty of self-control, and could bear a good deal where anything was to be got by doing so.
The soft-hearted gentleman smote the coals violently, fulminating subdued anathemas the while with a dreadful grin. The solicitor, knowing his man, remained perfectly quiet; and presently Mr Franklin spoke again, abruptly, but in a quieter tone.
‘Here! I want to make my will. I’m going to do it at last—in a fashion that will astonish some of ’em. They’ve been anxious enough about it these ten years and more. I hope it’ll please ’em when it’s done. A set of hungry hounds! Ready to lick the dirt off my boots for the money, and nothing too bad to say of me behind my back. I know it as well as if I heard it. Not a penny—not a penny for one of ’em! I’d rather take it into my grave with me—not but what they’d grub me up again, if I was in the middle of the earth.’
There was again a short silence. Mr Blackford awaited his instructions.
‘Then there’s this young Tom Wedlake been giving me his sauce, just because I spoke a word to that lazy young baggage of a wife of his—said he wasn’t going to stand it—he wasn’t going to stand it—the beggar! and if I didn’t like it, I could go. Will I! I’ll stay here, just to spite him. Besides, I’m a deal too comfortable to move. She won’t let him turn me out—the artful minx. “Dear uncle—don’t be cross with me, dear uncle!”’ said Mr Franklin with an access of fury, and a ludicrous assumption of a feminine falsetto. “Leave all your money to your niece, dear uncle; that’s what you’ve got to do.” Not a brass farthing, by Jove! He doesn’t want my money, doesn’t he? and he has the impudence to tell me so! Very good, Mr Thomas Wedlake; I’ll take you at your word. I’ll pay you out, you—you—rapscallion!’
The furious monologue seemed to have spun itself out; so Mr Blackford ventured a word.
‘Then I gather, sir, that you do not intend to leave any portion of your property to your nephew and niece—and I have no doubt you are exercising a sound discretion, as always. But as you are justly offended with your other relations, what disposition do you think of making?’
‘Mind your own business!’ was the unexpected retort.
Mr Blackford felt rather aggrieved, as the matter was clearly his business; but he said nothing. The old man continued his jerky discourse, addressed more to himself than to his visitor.
‘You’re right, though.—What shall I do with it? I’ve been asking myself the same question ever since I wrote to you last night; and now you’re here, I’m no nearer the answer. It’s a deal of money, hard got, and soon spent; and I don’t know who it’s to go to. Plaguy hard to leave it at all. No good grumbling about that, though. I won’t give it to an hospital, or build a church, or endow almshouses; I’ve no patience with that sort of humbug. As if a man hadn’t been robbed enough all these years, what with rates and what with taxes. I can’t keep the money myself, and there’s no one to give it to—no one.’
Perhaps, through that heart, all seared and scorched with evil passions, eaten through and through with corroding suspicion, there darted a momentary pang at the thought that there was not a human being from whom the gift of all his painfully acquired wealth would buy one tear{571} of sorrow, or even one grateful remembrance of the giver.
He sat brooding with a gloomy brow; and this time the silence was so long that Mr Blackford was about to break it at the risk of another rebuke, when Mr Franklin smote his hand upon his thigh and laughed—a harsh and cackling laugh, devoid of mirth or geniality.
‘Blackford,’ said he, ‘I’ll leave it to you!’
Had the lawyer received a blow from the ready poker which stood in the nearest corner of the fireplace, he could hardly have been more thoroughly stunned. ‘To me!’ he managed to gasp out, after a moment’s astounded silence.
‘I’ll leave it to you!’ repeated Mr Franklin, nodding emphatically. ‘Ain’t you willing, that you stare like a stuck pig? It’s not because of any regard for you—don’t think it. I’ll leave it to you, just because it will be about the worst kind of sell for ’em all I could anyhow invent. I hate ’em—every one! and the thought of their faces when they come to hear the will read, will be about the only consolation I shall have for being obliged to part with it at all. And mind you, I shall make it a condition that they do hear it read. You are to call them all together for the purpose, and you’re not to breathe a word beforehand of the nice little surprise in store for ’em. Every man-Jack will think he’s been “remembered”—and so he has, I assure you! You’ll have a nice time of it with ’em, Blackford. D’ye quail at the thought of it—eh? If so, say the word, and we’ll think of something else.’
‘Not on my account, I beg,’ said the solicitor, recovering his senses. ‘I daresay I shall be equal to the occasion. But Mr Franklin, my dear sir, how am I to thank you for such munifi’——
‘You’d better not thank me at all, if you’re wise,’ said the eccentric testator; ‘you may sicken me like the rest, and then I shall alter my mind. Bosh! I know you well enough. You’ll try to double the money as soon as you get it; and you’ll either lose it all and hang yourself, or you’ll get mixed up in some piece of rascality that will bring you to penal servitude. You have my instructions. Go and make the will; and bring it here to-morrow, and I’ll sign it. And look here! bring two witnesses with you; I don’t want any one in this house to know what I’ve been about. Here’s a list of the securities. Be off! Good-bye—get out!’ And with this unceremonious dismissal, the interview came to an end.
As he hurried back to his office, Mr Blackford was able at last to realise the immensity of the good luck which had befallen him in this extraordinary manner. Twenty-five thousand pounds, all invested in sound Stock Exchange securities! Good-bye to the strife for bread; to the trap-net of petty pecuniary embarrassments which meets and deadens effort at every struggle; to the haunting care which makes hard the nightly pillow and drives away slumber before the dawn; to the hand-to-mouth existence, and the thousand-and-one daily degradations of a struggling professional man. Good-bye to one and all—if Mr Franklin’s suddenly conceived purpose would but hold until he should in good time, the best of time, betake himself to a region where codicils are an impossibility. But one thought was present to the lawyer’s mind at that moment—to get the will drawn and signed with all possible expedition; but one hope was his—that his client might thereafter make an edifying end with as little delay as possible.
The word avalanche carries with it a sound of terror and dismay, which may well appal any mind. Happily, avalanches are unknown in Great Britain; but in Switzerland they are sadly too frequent. They are known also under other names in some parts of Italy and Germany. Avalanches consist of large accumulations of snow, set free by some means, descending from an elevated region to the valley. Their action is more or less twofold: chiefly by the mass of the snow sweeping away or overwhelming everything which comes in its course; but also, sometimes, by so violently disturbing the air as to cause a hurricane, which in its destructive force kills men and cattle, and tears up trees and even houses from their solid foundations.
Avalanches have been divided into four classes. There are powdery avalanches, in which the snow and ice break up into powder, forming a kind of silver cloud, sparkling like quicksilver, and making a noise like distant thunder. This kind is more dangerous by reason of the commotion produced in the air, than by its weight or power to overwhelm. There are what are called creeping avalanches. The mass of snow, being disengaged, moves down a more gentle slope, as on an inclined plane, and so is sluggish in its course. Then there is the glacier avalanche, which consists of a large mass of ice detached from the glacier above, which descends to the valley. This is the least dangerous kind, and is more common in summer. Lastly, there is the avalanche proper, which is the most dangerous of all, and consists of vast accumulations of snow set free from above, which increase in force as they descend, overthrowing houses, tearing up trees, burying villages, and swallowing up forests, cattle, and human beings. Sometimes, however, an avalanche may change its character in its descent; as, for instance, a creeping avalanche may reach a steep declivity, and the mass of snow falling on the sharp angles of a rock, it may be shattered, and its mass dispersed in a cloud of powdery snow. Cases occur sometimes in which, instead of burying the objects with which they come in contact, they drive them into the valley, and deposit them at a considerable distance from their original position. A remarkable case of this kind occurred in 1806; an avalanche which fell in the Val Calanca, transferred an entire forest to the other side of the valley, and planted a fir-tree on the roof of the rector’s house!
An instance may be given of the effects of a powdery avalanche which occurred in the Oberland, in the canton of Berne. It was on the 12th of December 1808, about six o’clock, that the avalanche descended on the village of Shärmatt, sweeping away three houses, and carrying one of them fully three hundred yards, and some portions of it more than half a mile. In one house two persons were smothered by the snow,{572} and five in the other. The third house contained six children and their uncle. Some of the children were in bed, and the rest were sitting at a table learning their catechism. All at once the light was put out, a thick darkness surrounded them, they felt themselves enveloped in snow, and whirled along they knew not whither. Presently a deep ditch stopped the progress of the house. The uncle, soon recovering his presence of mind, began to grope about the snow for the children. After a long search, he found them—all alive, and not seriously injured. He took them to a barn near by, where they were obliged to spend the remainder of the night, some of them almost naked, though the cold was intense. The father of the children was engaged with his cows at a shed at some distance, and was horror-struck, when he returned to where his house had stood, to find it gone—swallowed up, as he supposed, with the whole of his family. But his fears were soon exchanged for joy; and the sight of the meeting of the father and his children and brother affected the roughest of the bystanders to tears.
On the same evening, a second avalanche fell, and was fatal to the inhabitants of another house. The only living thing which survived was a little dog which had taken refuge in the cellar. As soon as the ruins of the house were removed, he jumped out of his hiding-place, barking at the workmen.
In this case was an instance of the hurricane produced by the agitation of the air by means of the descending cloud of powdery snow. Several cattle-houses, with the cattle, were torn from the ground and driven like chaff before the wind. There was also another instance of the wonderful power of the hurricane in the case of a barn full of hay, which was carried more than a quarter of a mile, and deposited on the opposite side of the river in its right position, with its contents uninjured!
It has sometimes happened that the snow has not fallen to a sufficient thickness to crush the houses, in which event the inmates have more chance of being saved, as the porous character of the powdered snow allows of sufficient air to sustain respiration. This was the case when, in 1749, the entire village of Tauetsch, in the Grisons, was one night overwhelmed by a powdery avalanche, which descended so noiselessly that the inhabitants were not aware of the calamity, and wondered in the morning why the day did not break. One hundred persons were covered in by the snow in their houses, sixty of whom were got out unhurt.
But perhaps the most remarkable instance of imprisonment in the snow of a descending avalanche occurred in the hamlet of Bergoletto, in the valley of the Upper Stura, at the foot of the Alps, near the fortress of Demonte, in Piedmont. Three persons survived an incarceration of five weeks. It was in the winter of 1755, when the falls of snow had been so very heavy that there was danger that its weight would break through the roofs of the houses. On the 19th of March, therefore, some of the people tried to avoid the danger by removing the snow from their house-tops. Among those so engaged were a man named Roccia, and his son, a lad of fifteen. The village clergyman was at this time leaving his house for his church, when he saw two avalanches descending. Calling to Roccia and his son, he returned speedily to his own dwelling. Father and son instantly fled towards the church. They had not run more than forty yards when the lad fell close behind his father, who, turning round to assist his son, was seized with horror on seeing that his own house and the houses of his neighbours were buried beneath an enormous pile of snow. His earthly all was swallowed up—his wife, his sister, his children, gone! The shock overcame him, and he fainted. His son soon recovered himself, and helped his father to the house of a friend; but he was five days before he was sufficiently restored to make any exertions in seeking his lost ones. Thirty houses were destroyed, and twenty-two persons were missing, among them the clergyman who gave the alarm. The snow lay over the village to a depth of more than forty feet, and extended its destruction some ninety yards in length by twenty broad.
The news of the disaster brought more than three hundred men from the neighbouring valleys. With iron rods, they sought to discover where the houses were; and then they commenced digging vigorously; but the depth of snow was so great (another heavy fall coming on) that they could make little or no progress, and were compelled to desist, after toiling for several days. No hope could they entertain of any one being preserved alive; and as the warm winds were expected to set in in less than a month, they resolved to wait until the mass should be partly melted.
On the 18th of April the men returned to their sad task. Roccia was among the most active of the workers. Though he had no hope that he should ever see any of his dear family alive, yet he laboured diligently, assisted by his son and a brother-in-law. After six days they advanced so far, that by breaking through two yards of ice they could touch the ground with a long pole. On the following day they were joined by another brother of his wife, who had been led to come and assist by a dream which he had, in which he saw his sister alive, begging of him to help her. Setting to work with new vigour, the four rescuers made their way into Roccia’s house—but it was silent and tenantless. Thinking that those they sought might have taken refuge in a stable which stood in a sheltered position some thirty yards from the house, they renewed their energies in that direction. After burrowing through the snow for some time, one of them thrust a pole through an opening. On withdrawing it, they heard a faint voice say: ‘Help, dear husband! help, dear brother!’ They now worked away with redoubled industry, and soon made a considerable opening, through which one of the brothers descended. The spot was totally dark, and he could see no one. ‘Any one here?’ he cried. His sister answered in trembling and broken accents: ‘It is I, dear brother. My sister-in-law and my daughter are alive too. I have always trusted in God that He would send me relief, and He has been graciously pleased to preserve me and deliver me.’
Her husband and other brother also descended; and there were joy and tears and thankfulness beyond expression.
{573}
The imprisoned women were too weak to move, and were shrunk almost to skeletons. With great tenderness they were removed to the house of a friend, where they were put to bed and nursed with care and affection. The daughter recovered soonest, and the unmarried woman was able to walk in a week or two; but Roccia’s wife, who had been in a more cramped position than the rest, was the last to regain the use of her limbs; and her eyes were ever afterwards affected with dimness, from being suddenly brought out of her prison into the light of day.
We give a description of their imprisonment from the lips of Roccia’s wife. When the dire calamity befell them, she was in the stable with her sister. They had gone there with some rye-flour gruel for one of the goats which, on the evening before, had brought forth two dead kids. Roccia’s daughter and a younger son were with the women, standing in a corner among the animals, waiting for the sound of the bell to go to church. In the stable were a donkey, six goats, and half-a-dozen fowls. Roccia’s wife was about to leave the stable to go to her own house. Scarcely had she reached the stable door, when she heard the warning voice of the minister. Looking up, she saw the descending avalanche, and heard a sound as of another at some little distance. She hurried back into the stable and told her sister and her children. In a few minutes the snow descended upon the building, crashing in the roof and part of the ceiling. To save themselves they got into the rack and manger, the latter being under the main posts of the building, and therefore able to bear the immense pressure. They occupied, however, a very uncomfortable posture, crouching against the wall in a space only a little more than a yard in breadth. They had escaped instant death, but the more painful and lingering death by famine seemed certainly to await them. They were oppressed with the thought of how they could subsist under such circumstances. The children did not lose heart; they said they had had breakfast, and could do very well until the next morning. The aunt had a few chestnuts in her pocket; and two each of these served for their supper, with snow-water as a beverage. In the bakehouse near the stable was the whole produce of yesterday’s baking. They made repeated attempts to force their way through the snow to the bakehouse, but all in vain. There was only one resource left, and that was the goat which had recently brought forth the two dead kids. This supply proved invaluable. On the second day they felt the pangs of hunger; they divided the remaining chestnuts among them, and also a quart of goat’s milk. The third day they made another effort to get to the bakehouse; but the weight of snow was too much for them, so they gave up all hopes of help from that direction. They were therefore shut up to the milk of the one goat.
To feed the goats was now one great object. Two of them were near the manger—the one already yielding milk; and the other, being with young, might be expected soon to do so, if they could only supply them with food. Over the manger where they lay was a hole into the hayloft; through this hole they pulled down the fodder into the rack; and when they could no longer reach it, the sagacious creatures climbed upon their shoulders and helped themselves.
At the end of the first week, the boy began to sink. He had complained of great pain in his stomach. His mother nursed him in her lap for a whole week, when he desired to lie his length in the manger. His hands and lips were cold, and his respiration feeble. His mother put a little milk to his lips, but he could not take it; and then with one tender cry, ‘O my father in the snow! O father, father!’ he expired.
Throughout the whole of their imprisonment they were in total darkness. For nearly three weeks the crowing of the cock enabled them to distinguish night from day; but at the end of this term chanticleer died, and his companions followed him one by one. They then literally took ‘no note of time.’ The donkey and the other goats were very restless for some time, but at length they fell a prey to hunger and exhaustion. The milk of the first goat gradually diminished; but the kidding of the second increased the supply, and as they killed the kid, though with great reluctance, the supply held out until the day of their deliverance. The poor goat became quite a solace to them, as it was so tame as to lick their hands and face. The poor creature was ever afterwards an object of great affection in the family.
We need only add one or two interesting facts. During their five weeks’ imprisonment they suffered little uneasiness from hunger after the first week. The effluvia from the dead animals were far more disagreeable, as also the vermin which infested the place, and the great coldness of the snow-water which trickled over them. The constrained position was also a source of great misery. During the whole of the time, Mrs Roccia had no sleep; but her daughter and her sister had intervals of repose equal to their nightly rest. Their deliverance was a matter of great thankfulness to all concerned; and many a winter’s evening was spent in relating around their humble hearth the sufferings, the mercies, and the deliverance of that eventful time.
Some short time ago, I being then an insignificant member of the Army Headquarters staff at Simla, the hill-capital of India, it became desirable to increase the number of hill-stations for the summer accommodation of British troops. It was thought that the Chor mountain, the most prominent peak of which is some sixty miles from Simla, would on its lower ridges afford suitable sites; and accordingly, a Committee of officers was formed for the purpose of reconnoitring and making a report. This Committee consisted of a well-known general, a major of Engineers, and myself, a humble sub. Somewhat trying work it was to get to the Chor, the road being of the most breakneck description, and the monsoon rains showing symptoms of bursting for our especial delectation. However, we trudged on manfully, climbed to the very topmost peak of the Chor, which by our aneroid we made over twelve thousand feet, and saw—nothing;{574} for, by evil chance, one of the most magnificent views in Asia was barred to us by clouds which shut out everything except the first mile or two of the hog-backed ridges below us. Disappointed, we descended; and that night it was arranged we should separate and return to Simla by different routes, so as to make the President’s report as comprehensive as possible. In the execution of this idea, I found myself the next day at a place called Bhairogh, whence I proceeded—on foot, for we had been obliged to send our ponies back, owing to the state of the road—to a village called Tali. Here at first I thought of camping, as I had come some eleven miles up hill and down dale; but the place was so bare and I was so anxious to push on, being short of provisions, that I suddenly determined to double my march and make for a fort called Rajgarh, and described as being some twelve miles farther on. Unfortunately, I was dilatory in starting; the march, as usual, was longer than I had been led to suppose; the road was hilly, and it was not until about nine P.M. that I found myself peering through the darkness in the vicinity of my destined camp.
Camp, did I say? It was very soon evident that there was to be no camp for me that evening, and, what was still more objectionable, no supper. Slowly as I had walked, my servant with whom was all my money, and the coolies with my tent and kit, were miles behind. It was too late for such an unkempt ragamuffin as I undoubtedly was to disturb the garrison, so I shortly made up my mind to bivouac peacefully under a tree. Just outside the fort, however, and close to the spot I had marked out for my resting-place, two natives, by the light of a fire, were hammering some metal vessel with such animation as to wholly preclude the possibility of sleep. To these enthusiasts I explained that I was a sahib, and suggested they should postpone their operations till next morning. They, naturally enough perhaps, demurred; and I wrangled, and they continued their metallic fantasia until I could stand it no longer. Thinking, perhaps, I could persuade the local head-man to assist me in getting a night’s rest, I presented myself at the gate of the fort, a square walled inclosure of no strength, and demanded admittance. After much palavering with the sleepy sentry, I was let in past the outer wall, but not into the inner part; whereupon, I asked that the head-man should be sent for, and further clamoured for a chair. Seated upon this, and curiously scrutinised by a few promiscuous hill-folk, I waited for some five minutes, wondering why nobody came. At last a gate in the inner wall was thrown open, and out poured a procession, lit with torches, and headed by an evidently high-class native in flowing white robes. After the interchange of salaams, this individual, who subsequently turned out to be the tehsildar (administrator of a district), said to me with much humility: ‘Is your honour sent by the government to see if troops can be encamped on our hills?’
I admitted the soft impeachment; whereupon the tehsildar smiled benignly, and a succession of happy grunts and ‘It is hes,’ ran round the rest of the assembly, who had grouped themselves in an admiring circle round my chair.
‘Ah, your honour, we are made very happy by seeing you! The Deputy Commissioner of Simla wrote to our rajah to say that you and two other sahibs were coming; but we feared you had gone by another way.’
This was gratifying, but not to the purpose. I accordingly explained to my friend my situation, begged him to discourage the metal-workers, and asked that my servants when they arrived might be directed to my whereabouts. At this, consternation reigned on every side, and the tehsildar nearly fainted.
‘Your honour sleep under a tree!’ he gasped. ‘It is not to be thought of. I have given orders for a banquet to be prepared for your honour; and your sleeping-room is by this time ready. Will your honour be pleased to come and see it?’
I followed the obsequious tehsildar, and inspected my proposed sleeping apartment, a small room, with no outlet but the door, and literally stuffed with carpets, quilts, and pillows, evidently collected, hurriedly for the occasion. What pleased me most was the sight of a bed, which I at once ordered to be brought out into a sort of inner veranda, not wishing to be wholly suffocated. I then did justice to the ‘banquet’ as a man who had trudged some five-and-twenty miles over a difficult country might reasonably be expected to do. The surroundings were rather oppressive, and the civilities of my host and his companions rather overwhelming; but I was not in a mood to be critical, and it was with considerable self-satisfaction I eventually sought my couch, falling asleep almost simultaneously.
The next morning, I prepared to start on another march, and again I had an interview with the tehsildar and the rest of the garrison. I could not help noticing that though the man was perfectly polite and obliging, there was a change in his demeanour and in that of his following. No more was my every movement watched with eager curiosity, no more was my every mouthful accompanied by beaming smiles and grunts of satisfaction. This did not distress me greatly, but I thought it curious, and when I had said farewell and had fairly started on my journey, I asked my servant what it all meant.
The man smiled, and explained: ‘Deputy Commissioner Sahib he write to rajah this place and say: “Very great general and two other sahibs coming see your country. Government want put soldiers in your country when hot time comes. Good for you if government do this, because government pay you well, and country getting plenty rich.” Rajah he very pleased, and write to all his tehsildars and say: “When great general sahib comes, you make plenty show and big dinner.” Last night you come to fort, and it rather dark; tehsildar he{575} not see very well, and he think you be very great general. This morning come, he see you not general, and he plenty sorry such big dinner make!’
Visitors to the International Exhibition at Edinburgh who have watched with wonder and admiration the deft fingers of the silk-winder as she winds the delicate straw-coloured threads from the cocoon, may be interested to know something of the rise and progress of the manufacture of this, the most beautiful and costly of all our textile fabrics.
The spinning of silk was first discovered in China, and is supposed to have been practised there almost two thousand eight hundred years before the birth of Christ. A Chinese empress, See-ling, a native of India, is said to have discovered, probably by accident, that those wonderful cocoons which the silkworm prepares for its transformation might be pressed into the service of man in the same way as cotton and flax are. She unravelled the delicate fibres, and found them to be strong, though fine, and capable of being woven into a web. Prosecuting her researches, she learned how to breed and rear the worms so as to obtain an abundant supply of cocoons; and in this way initiated a new industry, which the empresses who succeeded her delighted to foster.
For a long time the weaving of silk was in the hands of the court ladies; then, by slow degrees, it passed from rank to rank, until it became the favourite occupation of all classes of women. It was introduced into Europe by way of Constantinople; and in 527 A.D., in the reign of Justinian, it had become so far common that garments of silk were the favourite wear of the Byzantine nobles. The origin and manufacture of this beautiful fabric seem, however, to have been very imperfectly understood, until two monks who had travelled through India and China astonished the emperor and his court by informing them that the shining silk garments which they admired so much owed their existence in the first place to the labours of a small worm. Justinian, like many crowned heads, was often in want of money, and it occurred to him, as he listened to the travellers’ wonderful tales, that if he could introduce the manufacture of this costly cloth into his dominions, it would be a sure and increasing source of revenue. Thus judging, he offered the two monks a large reward if they would procure for him a supply of the eggs of this wonderful creature. The monks undertook the commission; and after much difficulty, succeeded in procuring a few ounces of the eggs of the silkworm moth. This treasure, which they had not obtained without danger, they hid in two hollow canes which they used as staffs. One of these precious staffs was lost; but the other was safely presented to Justinian; and the supply of eggs so curiously procured laid the foundation of a flourishing silk-manufacture.
This, which was at first a close monopoly, guarded with the most jealous care, gradually became extended to other countries, as wave after wave of conquest swept over the Eastern Empire. One of these conquerors, Roger, king of Sicily, in 1140 transported a whole colony of silk-weavers, with a plentiful supply of eggs, from Constantinople to Palermo, where, for many centuries afterwards, a great manufacture of silk flourished. It was not until nearly a hundred years after the Sicilian king’s invasion of Constantinople that the enterprising citizens of Genoa and Venice succeeded in procuring a supply of the coveted eggs, and very soon made their countries famous for the manufacture of silk. In 1300, the velvets of Genoa were renowned throughout Europe; but there was always an attempt, more or less, to make the manufacture of silk a monopoly; and it was not until nearly two hundred years after the Italian cities had become famous centres of the silk industry, that the manufacture was introduced into France. When it did come, it was, as in the case of Roger of Sicily, in the train of a conqueror. Francis I., while pursuing his conquests in the north of Italy, became aware of the wealth and importance of this branch of industry, and succeeded, partly by bribery, partly by force, in planting colonies of silk-weavers in Lyons, Avignon, and Tours. In all these cities it flourished greatly in a short time, particularly in Lyons, which speedily became one of the centres of the silk-manufacture throughout Europe.
In England, James I. made an effort to introduce it; but, in spite of his fostering care, it did not at first take kindly to the soil, and, in fact, never throve until it was re-introduced by the Huguenot refugees who were driven from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Under their care it became for a short time very prosperous, and England bade fair to rival either Italy or France; but the trade was from the first a close monopoly, from which all outsiders, either foreigners or natives, were jealously excluded. The consequence of this was that there was no improvement; the manufacture stood still in England, while in France it was making gigantic strides. It was in vain that successive acts of parliament were enacted to foster and encourage it; it continued to decline until 1824, when it was at last freed from the swaddling bands which had so long impeded all free growth and progress. It has, however, been found impossible to recover as yet our lost ground, and the great proportion of the silk used in this country still comes from France. In the year 1877, our import of silk amounted to £12,631,822, of which by far the greater amount came from France. France, indeed, at this moment far surpasses, in the production of silk, any other country in the world, the annual value of this manufacture being about thirty millions. Many causes have been at work in France to produce this result, one of which is undoubtedly the attention paid to technical education, and the extent to which it is taken advantage of by both men and women.
There are two distinct systems under which, across the Channel, this important manufacture{576} is carried on. Around Lyons, the trade is in the hands of small practical manufacturers, who have risen by dint of industry and skill from the ranks of workmen. These men set up in business for themselves, but not in any large way; they do not employ many hands, and often themselves work harder than any of their assistants. These hands, both male and female—for women are employed as largely as men—can and do receive instruction at a very cheap rate, and from the best masters, at one or other of the Ecoles de Théorie of Lyons. There the whole process and the best modes of silk manufacture are exhaustively taught. Chemistry and the arts of colouring silk, with the drawing and designing of patterns, are included in the lessons. This system of small manufacturers, who board in their own families the apprentices whom they train to their trade, was once general throughout France; but within the last fifty years it has in many districts been superseded by another, known as the Convent Factory system. It sprang up first among the Jura Mountains at the small village of Jujurieux. A native of the village, a poor lad, had worked at Lyons as an apprentice in the establishment of one of the small master manufacturers so common there. By dint of industry and intelligence, Jean Bonnet soon became a master himself, and entering into contracts with important Parisian houses, in course of time accumulated a large fortune. Returning to his native place, he found it as he had left it, ugly, decaying, and wretchedly poor, and resolved to raise it to prosperity. He began by buying a large piece of ground, on which he built a number of pretty cottages, a handsome church, and finally a large factory, in which he resolved to employ only women. He fed, lodged, and clothed the poor girls whom he received into his employment, paid them small wages, and taught them the art of silk-weaving along with the rudiments of education. At the beginning of his enterprise, he had many difficulties to contend with; his pupils in the first instance often preferred the rough work of the fields; but he persevered with his experiment until he had conquered all obstacles, and made Jujurieux prosperous, and his system a success. The girls, the native material out of which he formed his workwomen, became, by the aid of a select body of nuns whom he had enlisted in his service, famous throughout France for their good conduct and respectability.
The success of this first convent factory led to the establishment of many others, which with varying fortunes still continue to be worked very much on the same principle. Not all were so successful as that of Jujurieux; but many have been so to a great degree, and there are now three large factories conducted on this principle in the south of France. Sometimes nuns are employed as teachers, but not invariably so; in many instances their place is taken by female superintendents expert at the trade. These women, like the small master manufacturers, often display the kindliest interest in those under their charge; and if they see a girl exceptionally clever and intelligent, will make no inconsiderable personal sacrifices to enable her to perfect herself in the higher branches of the industry by becoming a designer of new materials, of patterns, and combinations of colour, such as are rigidly demanded with every successive season by the uncompromising tyranny of Fashion.
This work, which, cutting through the Isthmus of Corinth, will be of sufficient depth and width to allow of the passage of large vessels, is making rapid progress, employing at present about one thousand men. The quantity of earth to be excavated will be about twelve million cubic feet, and of this, about two and a half millions have already been removed. The depth of the canal is proposed to be twenty-six feet; and the width at the surface of the water will be seventy-two feet, except at the entrance, where it will be about three times that width. The water is already admitted to a distance of sixteen hundred feet into the land at each end, the depth being nearly seventeen feet. It is confidently estimated that the canal will be accomplished in about five years from the present time, judging by the rate at which it is being carried on. It will be an eminently useful work when completed, and one calculated to save much valuable time, by enabling ships to go through the Isthmus, instead of having to sail round the Morea in order to pass from east to west, or from west to east—a circumstance that must carry its own importance in the commercial and maritime world.
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