Lamartine, who had already won distinction as a poet, told her.

"I had never heard it," she exclaimed, with a convincing accent of sincerity; "but, poet or not, I like you, and have hope for you."

"Go," she added; "dinner is served. Dine quickly, and return soon. I go to meditate upon you, and to see more clearly into the confusion of my ideas respecting your person and your future."

* * * * *

Lamartine had scarcely concluded his dinner when Lady Hester sent for him. He found her smoking a long Oriental pipe, the fellow of which she ordered to be brought for his own use. Accustomed to see the most graceful women of the East with their tchibouques, he was neither surprised nor shocked by the gracious, nonchalant attitude, or the light wreaths of perfumed smoke issuing from Lady Hester's finely curved lips, interrupting the conversation without chilling it. They conversed together for a long time upon the favourite subject—the unique, mysterious theme of that extraordinary woman, or the modern Circe of the Desert, who so completely recalled to mind the famous female magicians of antiquity. The religious opinions of Lady Hester seemed to her guest a skilful though confused mixture of the various creeds among which she was condemned—or had condemned herself—to live.

"Mystical as the Druses, with whose mysterious secrets she alone, perhaps, in the world, was acquainted, resigned like the Mussulman, and as fatalistic; with the Jew, expectant of the Messiah's coming; with the Christian, a worshipper of Christ, whose beneficent morality she practised—she invested the whole in the fantastic colours and supernatural dreams of an imagination steeped in the light of the East, and, it would seem, the revelations of the Arabian astrologists. A strange and yet sublime medley, which it is much easier to stigmatize as lunatic than to analyze and comprehend. But Lady Hester Stanhope was no lunatic. Madness, which reveals itself only too clearly in the victim's eyes, was not to be detected in her frank, direct look—madness, which invariably betrays itself in conversation, which it involuntarily interrupts by sudden, irregular, and eccentric outbreaks, was nowhere discernible in Lady Hester's exalted, mystical, and cloudy, but sustained, connected and vigorous monologues.

"If," adds M. de Lamartine, "I were to offer an opinion, I should rather say it was a voluntary and studied madness, which knew what it was about, and had its own reasons for posing as madness. The patent admiration which her genius has excited, and still excites, among the Arab tribes, is a sufficient proof that this pretended insanity is only a means to an end."

In the course of conversation, Lady Hester suddenly said to her guest:

"I hope that you are an aristocrat; but I cannot doubt it when I look at you."

"You are mistaken, madam," replied the man of sentiment, "I am neither aristocrat nor democrat; I have lived long enough to see both sides of the medal of humanity, and to find them equally hollow. No, I am neither aristocrat nor democrat; I am a man, and an ardent partisan of all which can ameliorate and perfect the whole man, whether he be born at the summit or at the foot of the social ladder. I am neither for the people nor the great, but for all humanity; and I am unable to believe that either aristocratic or democratic institutions possess the exclusive virtue of raising humanity to the highest standard. This virtue lies only in a divine morality, the fruit of a perfect religion! The civilization of the peoples—it is their faith!"

We shall shortly see that Lady Hester, with her quick insight into character, an insight sharpened by long and varied experience, took "the measure" of her visitor very accurately, and lightly estimated the vanity, self-consciousness, and inflated sentimentality which weakened the genius of Lamartine and marred his career, both for his country and himself.

She invited him to visit her garden—a sanctuary into which the profanum vulgus were never allowed to penetrate. Here is his description of it, somewhat exaggerated in colouring:—

"Gloomy trellises, the verdurous roofs of which bore, like thousands of lustres, the gleaming grapes of the Promised Land; kiosks, where carved arabesques were entertwined with jasmines and climbing plants, the lianas of Asia; basins, into which the waters—artificial they are here—flowed from afar to leap and murmur in the marble jets of alleys lined with all the fruit trees of England, of Europe, and of the sunny Eastern climates; green leaves besprinkled with blossoming shrubs, and marble beds enclosing sheaves of flowers."

She also exhibited to her famous guest, if, indeed, he may be implicitly credited, the noted mare which realized ancient prophecy, in which nature had accomplished all that is written on the animal destined to the honour of carrying the Messiah—"She will be born ready saddled." He says: "And in truth, I saw, on this beautiful animal, a freak of nature, rare enough to encourage the illusion of a vulgar credulity among half-barbarous peoples: instead of shoulders, she had a cavity so broad and deep, and so exactly imitating the shape of a Turkish saddle, that one might truthfully say she was born ready saddled, and, with stirrups at hand, one might readily have mounted her without a saddle." This magnificent bay mare was the object of profound respect and admiration on the part of Lady Stanhope and her slaves; she had never been ridden, and a couple of Arab grooms cared for her and watched her carefully, never losing sight of her.

* * * * *

A few years later, and the brilliant author "Eoethen," Mr. A. W. Kinglake, while travelling in the East, made his way to Lady Hester's Lebanon retreat. She had been the friend of his mother, and consequently he had no difficulty in obtaining admission.

In the first court which he entered a number of fierce-looking and ill-clad Albanian soldiers were hanging about the place, a couple of them smoking their tchibouques, the remainder lying torpidly upon the flat stones. He rode on to an inner part of the building, dismounted, and passed through a doorway that led him at once from an open court into an apartment on the ground floor. There he was received by Lady Hester's doctor, with a command from the doctor's mistress that her visitor would rest and refresh himself after the fatigues of the journey. After dinner, which was of the usual Oriental kind, but included the wine of the Lebanon, he was conducted into a small chamber where sat the lady prophetess. She rose from her seat very formally, uttered a few words of welcome, pointed to a chair placed exactly opposite to her sofa, at two yards' distance, and remained standing up to the full of her majestic height, perfectly still and motionless, until he had taken his appointed position. She then resumed her seat—not after the fashion of the Orientals—but allowing her feet to rest on the floor or footstool, and covering her lap with a mass of loose white drapery.[22]

The woman before him had exactly the person of a prophetess; not, indeed, of the divine Sibyl, imagined by Dammichino, but of a good, business-like, practical prophetess, long used to the exercise of her sacred calling. Her large commanding features reminded him of the great statesman, her grandfather, as he is seen in Copley's famous picture; her face was of surprising whiteness; she wore a very large turban, composed of pale cashmere shawls, and so arranged as to conceal the hair; her dress, from the chin down to the point at which it was concealed by the drapery on her lap, was a mass of white linen loosely folding—an ecclesiastical sort of affair—more like a surplice than any of those blessed creations which our souls love under the names of "dress," and "frock," and "bodice," and "collar," and "habit-shirt," and sweet "chemisette."

Such was the outward seeming of Lady Hester Stanhope, the grand-daughter of Chatham, the adviser of Pitt, the Queen of Palmyra, the prophetess of the Lebanon—she who, in her life, had played so many parts, but in all had given full rein to her master-passion, pride. And assuredly the moralist who, commenting on the disastrous effect of this passion, should need an illustration to point his moral and adorn his tale, could find none more striking than Lady Hester Stanhope's career affords.

* * * * *

A couple of black slaves appeared at a signal, and supplied their mistress and her visitor with lighted tchibouques and coffee.

"The custom of the East sanctions, and almost commands, some moments of silence whilst you are inhaling the first few breaths of the fragrant pipe. The pause was broken, I think, by my lady, who addressed to me some inquiries respecting my mother, and particularly as to her marriage; but before I had communicated any great amount of family facts, the spirit of the prophetess kindled within her, and presently (though with all the skill of a woman of the world) she shuffled away the subject of poor, dear Somersetshire, and bounded onward into other spheres of thought....

"For hours and hours this wondrous white woman poured forth her speech, for the most part concerning sacred and profane mysteries; but every now and then she would stay her lofty flight, and swoop down upon the world again. Whenever this happened I was interested in her conversation."

* * * * *

In reference to her mode of life, she informed her guest that for her sin, or sins, she had subjected herself during many years to severe penance, and that her self-denial had not been without reward. "Vain and false," she declared, "was all the pretended knowledge of the Europeans. Their doctors asserted that the drinking of milk gave yellowness to the complexion; yet milk was her only food, and was not her face white?" Her intellectual abstemiousness was not less severe than her physical self-denial. Upon book or newspaper she never cast a glance, but trusted wholly to the stars for her sublime knowledge. Her nights she usually spent in absorbed communion with these silent but eloquent teachers, and took her rest during the daytime. She spoke contemptuously of the frivolity and benighted ignorance of the modern Europeans, and gave as a proof their ignorance not only of astrology, but of the common and every-day phenomena produced by the magic art. She evidently desired her hearer to believe that she had at her command all the spells which exercise control over the creatures of the unseen world, but refrained from employing them because it would be derogatory to her exalted rank in the heavenly kingdom. She said that the charm by which the face of an absent person is thrown upon a mirror lay within the reach of the humblest magicians, but that the practice of such arts was unholy as well as vulgar.

Reference was made to the divining rod or twig (Virgil's "Aurea virga"[23]), by means of which precious metals may be discovered.

"In relation to this," says Kinglake, "the prophetess told me a story rather against herself, and inconsistent with the notion of her being perfect in her science; but I think that she mentioned the facts as having happened before she attained to the great spiritual authority which she now arrogated. She told me that vast treasures were known to exist in a situation which she mentioned, if I remember rightly, as being near Suez; that Napoleon, profanely brave, thrust his arm into the cave containing the coveted gold, and that instantly his flesh became palsied. But the youthful hero (for she said he was great in his generation) was not to be thus daunted; he fell back, characteristically, upon his brazen resources, and ordered up his artillery; yet man could not strive with demons, and Napoleon was foiled. In latter years came Ibrahim Pasha, with heavy guns and wicked spells to boot, but the infernal guardians of the treasure were too strong for him. It was after this that Lady Hester passed by the spot; and she described, with animated gesture, the force and energy with which the divining twig had suddenly leaped in her hands. She ordered excavations, and no demon opposed her enterprise. The vast chest in which the treasure had been deposited was at length discovered; but, lo and behold! it was full of pebbles! She said, however, that the times were approaching in which the hidden treasure of the earth would become available to those who had 'true knowledge.'"

Among the subjects on which Lady Hester discoursed, with equal fluency and earnestness, were religion and race. On the first head she announced that the Messiah was yet to come; on the second, she expressed her low opinion of Norman, and her high opinion of ancient French, blood. Occasionally she descended to inferior topics, and displayed her conspicuous abilities as a mimic and satirist. She spoke of Lord Byron, and ridiculed his petty affectations and sham Orientalism. For Lamartine she had still less mercy. His morbid self consciousness and exaggerated refinement of manner, had excited her contempt. Indeed, she seems to have cherished an abundant scorn of everything approaching to exquisiteness or "aestheticism."

* * * * *

Next day, at her request, he paid her a second visit. "Really," said she, when he had taken his seat and his pipe, "we were together for hours last night, and still I have heard nothing at all of my old friends; now do tell me something of your dear mother and her sister; I never knew your father—it was after I left Burton-Pynsent that your mother married." Kinglake began to furnish the desired particulars; but his questioner could not long attend to them. She soared away to loftier topics; so that the second interview, though it lasted two or three hours, was all occupied by her mystical, theological, transcendental, necromantical discourse, in which she displayed the expressiveness, if not the glowing eloquence, of a Coleridge.

In the course of the afternoon, the captain of an English man-of-war arrived at Djoun, and Lady Hester resolved on receiving him for the same reason as that which had governed her reception of Mr. Kinglake, namely, an early intimacy with his family. He proved to be a pleasant and amusing guest, and all three sat smoking until midnight, conversing chiefly upon magical science.

"Lady Hester's unholy claim to supremacy in the spiritual kingdom was, no doubt, the suggestion of fierce and inordinate pride, most perilously akin to madness; but I am quite sure," says Mr. Kinglake, "that the mind of the woman was too strong to be thoroughly overcome by even this potent feeling. I plainly saw that she was not an unhesitating follower of her own system; and I even fancied that I could distinguish the brief moments during which she contrived to believe in herself, from those long and less happy intervals in which her own reason was too strong for her.

"As for the lady's faith in astrology and magic science, you are not for a moment to suppose that this implied any aberration of intellect. She believed these things in common with those around her; and it could scarcely be otherwise, for she seldom spoke to anybody, except crazy old dervishes, who at once received her alms and fostered her extravagances; and even when (as on the occasion of my visit) she was brought into contact with a person entertaining different notions, she still remained uncontradicted. This entourage, and the habit of fasting from books and newspapers, was quite enough to make her a facile recipient of any marvellous story."[24]

* * * * *

After Lady Hester's death, a visit was paid to the place which had been her residence for so many years, by Major Eliot Warburton, the accomplished author of "The Crescent and the Cross." He speaks of the buildings, that constituted the palace, as of a very scattered and complicated description, covering a wide space, but only one story in height; courts and gardens, stables and sleeping rooms, halls of audience and ladies' bowers, all strangely intermingled. Heavy weeds clambered about the open portals and a tangle of roses and jasmine blocked the way to the inner court, where the flowers no longer bloomed and the fountains had ceased to play in the marble basins. At nightfall when Major Warburton's escort had lighted their watch-fires, the lurid gleam fell strangely upon masses of honeysuckle and woodbine; on the white, mouldering walls beneath, and the dark, waving trees above; while the quaint picture seemed appropriately filled up by the group of wild mountaineers, with their long beards and vivid dresses, who gathered around the cheerful blaze.

Next morning, Major Warburton explored the spacious gardens. "Here many a broken arbour and trellis bending under masses of jasmine and honeysuckle, showed the care and taste that were once lavished on this wild but beautiful hermitage: a garden-house, surrounded by an enclosure of roses run wild, stood in the midst of a grove of myrtle and bay trees. This was Lady Hester's favourite resort during her life-time, and now, within its silent enclosure,

"'After life's fitful fever she sleeps well.'"

It is painful to know that in her last illness she was shamefully deserted. Mr. Moore, the English consul at Beyrout, on hearing that she was stricken, rode across the mountains to visit her, accompanied by Mr. Thompson, the American missionary. It was evening when they arrived, and silence reigned in the palace. No attendants met them. They lighted their own lamps in the outer court, and passed unquestioned through court and gallery until they reached the room where she lay—dead. "A corpse was the only inhabitant of the palace, and the isolation from her kind which she had sought so long was indeed complete. That morning, thirty-seven servants had watched every motion of her eye; its spell once darkened by death, every one fled with such plunder as they could secure. A little girl, adopted by her, and maintained for years, took her watch and some papers on which she had set peculiar value. Neither the child nor the property was ever seen again. Not a single thing was left in the room where she lay dead, except the ornaments upon her person: no one had ventured to take these; even in death she seemed able to protect herself. At midnight, her countryman and the missionary carried her out by torchlight to a spot in the garden that had been formerly her favourite resort, and there they buried the self-exiled lady."

Some curious particulars of Lady Hester Stanhope's mode of life in its closing years are recorded by her physician. She seldom rose from her bed until between two and five in the afternoon, and seldom retired before the same hours in the morning. It was sunset before the day's business really began. Not that the servants were permitted to remain idle during daylight. On the contrary, their work was assigned to them over-night, and their mistress employed the evening hours in arranging their occupations for the following day. When this was done, she wrote her letters and plunged into those endless conversations which seem to have been her sole, or, at all events, her chief pleasure. She always showed a reluctance, an air of unwillingness, to retire; not an unusual characteristic in persons of her peculiar temperament. When the room was ready, one of her two girls, Zezeforn or Faloom, would precede her to it, bearing wax tapers in their hands.

Her bedstead might have suited a veteran campaigner; it consisted simply of a few planks nailed together on low tressels. On these planks, which sloped slightly towards the foot, was spread a mattress, seven feet long and about four and a half feet broad. Instead of sheets, she had Barbary blankets, which are like the finest English, two over and one under her. There was no counterpane, but, as occasion required, a woollen abak or cloak would be used or a fur pelisse. Her pillow-case was of Turkish silk, and under it was another covered with coloured cotton. Behind this were two more of silk, ready at hand, if needed.

Her dress for the night was a chemise of silk and cotton, a white quilted jacket, a short pelisse, a turban on her head, and a keffeyah tied under her chin in the same manner as when she was up, with a shawl over the back of her head and shoulders. It is rather a puzzle how she could enjoy in this full panoply any sound or refreshing repose.

No man is said to be a hero to his valet; I suppose the proverb may be applied in the case of his physician. Certainly, Lady Hester Stanhope's medical attendant does not forget to expose her weaknesses. "As it had become," he says, "a habit with her to find nothing well done, when she entered her bedroom, it was rare that the bed was made to her liking; and, generally, she ordered it to be made over again in her presence. Whilst this was doing, she would smoke her pipe, then call for the sugar basin to eat two or three lumps of sugar, then for a clove to take away the mawkish taste of the sugar. The girls, in the meantime, would go on making the bed, and be saluted every now and then, for some mark of stupidity, with all sorts of appellations. The night-lamp was then lighted, a couple of yellow wax lights were placed ready for use in the recess of the window, and all things being apparently done for the night, she would get into bed, and the maid whose turn it was to sleep in the room (for latterly she always had one) having placed herself, dressed as she was, on her mattress behind the curtain which ran across the room, the other servant was dismissed. But hardly had she shut the door and reached her own sleeping-room, flattering herself that her day's work was over, when the bell would ring, and she was told to get broth or lemonade or orgeat directly. This, when brought, was a new trial for the maids. Lady Hester Stanhope took it on a tray placed on her lap as she sat up in bed, and it was necessary for one of the two servants to hold the candle in one hand and shade the light from her mistress's eyes with the other. The contents of the basin were sipped once or twice and sent away; or, if she ate a small bit of dried toast, it was considered badly made, and a fresh piece was ordered, perhaps not to be touched."

In what follows we are almost inclined to suspect a degree of exaggeration. Dr. Meryon says that the dish being removed, the maid would again depart, and throw herself on her bed; and, as she wanted no rocking, in ten minutes would be asleep. But, meanwhile, her mistress would feel a twitch in some part of her body, and the bell would again be rung. As servants, when fatigued, sleep sometimes so soundly as not to hear, and sometimes are purposely deaf, Lady Hester Stanhope had got in the quadrangle of her own apartments a couple of active fellows, a part of whose business it was to watch by turns during the night, and see that the maids answered the bell; they were, therefore, sure to be roughly shaken out of their sleep, and, in going, half stupid, into her ladyship's room, would be told to prepare a fomentation of chamomile, or elder flowers, or mallows, or the like. The gardener was to be called, water was to be boiled, and the house again was all in motion. During these preparations the mistress would recollect some order she had previously given about some honey, flower, or letter—no matter however trivial—and the person charged with its execution would be summoned from his bed, whatever might be the time, and questioned respecting it. Nobody in Lady Hester's establishment was suffered to enjoy an interval of rest.

* * * * *

A description of the bedchamber, which, for most purposes, was Lady Hester's principal apartment, we shall now subjoin. It bore no resemblance to an English or a French chamber, and, independent of its furniture, was scarcely better than a common peasant's. The floor was of cement. Across the room was hung a dirty red cotton curtain, to keep off the wind when the door opened. There were three windows; one was nailed up by its shutter on the outside, and one closed up by a bit of felt on the inside; only the third, which looked on the garden, was reserved for the admission of light and air. In two deep niches in the wall (which was about three feet thick) were heaped on a shelf, equidistant from the top and bottom, a few books, some bundles tied up in handkerchiefs, writing paper, with sundry other articles of daily use—such as a white plate, loaded with several pairs of scissors and two or three pairs of spectacles, and another white plate with pins, sealing-wax, and wafers; also, a common white inkstand, and the old parchment cover of some merchant's daybook, with blotting paper inside, on which, spread on her lap, as she sat up in bed, she generally wrote her letters.

She had neither watch, clock, nor timepiece; and when her physician asked her why she had never purchased one, as a thing so essential to good order in a household, she replied, "Because I cannot bear anything that is unnatural; the sun is for the day, and the moon and stars for the night, and by them I like to measure time."

A wooden stool by her bedside served for a table, and upon it stood a variety of things to satisfy any sudden want or fancy; such as a little strawberry preserve in a saucer, lemonade, chamomile tea, ipecacuanha lozenges, a bottle of cold water. Of these she would take one or other in succession, almost constantly. In a day or two fresh remedies or concoctions would take their place. There would be a bottle of wine or of violet syrup; anise seeds to masticate instead of cloves; quince preserve; orgeat; a cup of cold tea; a pill-box.

Her bed was without curtains or mosquito net. An earthenware ybrick, or jug, with a spout, stood in one of the windows, with a small copper basin, and this constituted her washing appliances. There was no toilet table; and when she washed herself, the copper basin was held before her as she sat up in bed. Near the foot of the bed stood an upright, ill-made walnut wood box, with a piece of green calico depending before it. The windows were curtainless, and the felt with which one of them was covered was held in its place by a faggot-stick, stuck tightly in, from corner to corner diagonally. "Such was the chamber of Lord Chatham's grand-daughter! Diogenes himself could not have found fault with its appointments!" But the thoughtful observer will regret the indulged self-will and the exaggerated egotism which placed in such a position a woman whose powerful intellect might have been applied to the benefit of the community. It is impossible not to see and feel that hers was a wasted life.

It was this self-will, this colossal egotism that led her to spend so much of her time in conversation—if those could be called conversations in which one of the talkers insisted upon a monopoly of attention. It would be more accurate to describe them as monologues, with occasional interpolations of assent on the part of the listener. We have no wish to underrate their charm, though, from the reports transmitted to posterity, they would hardly seem to have deserved the very warm eulogy pronounced by the physician, who says,[25] "Her conversations lasted eight and ten hours at a time, without moving from her seat: so that, although highly entertained, instructed, or astonished at her versatile powers, as the listeners might be, it was impossible not to feel the weariness of so long a sitting. Everybody," he adds, "who visited Lady Hester Stanhope in her retirement will bear witness to her unexampled colloquial powers; to her profound knowledge of character; to her inexhaustible fund of anecdotes; to her talents for mimicry; to her modes of narration, as various as the subjects she talked about; to the lofty inspiration and sublimity of her language, when the subject required it; and to her pathos and feeling, whenever she wished to excite the emotions of her hearers. There was no secret of the human heart, however studiously concealed, that she could not discover; no workings in the listener's mind that she would not penetrate; no intrigue, from the low cunning of vulgar intrigue to the vast combinations of politics, that she would not unravel; no labyrinth, however tortuous, that she would not thread. It was this comprehensive and searching faculty, this intuitive penetration, which made her so formidable; for under imaginary names, when she wished to show a person that his character and course of life were unmasked to her view, she would, in his very presence, paint him such a picture of himself, in drawing the portrait of another, that you might see the individual writhing on his chair, unable to conceal the effect the words had on his conscience. Everybody who heard her for an hour or two retired humbled from her presence, for her language was always directed to bring mankind to their level, to pull down pride and conceit, to strip off the garb of affectation, and to shame vice, immorality, irreligion, and hypocrisy."

We have admitted Lady Hester Stanhope's great mental powers, but we can find no trace in the records of her conversation of such extraordinary genius as is here indicated. No doubt, she talked very well; but like all great talkers, she sometimes talked very ill. The great attraction of her conversation was its reflection of one strange personality: she glassed herself in it as in a mirror; and as she had seen much, and known many great men, and gone through a vast variety of experience, she had always something to tell which was interesting. But how largely it was informed by egotism, and how narrowly at times it escaped the reproach of silliness, may be understood, I think, from the following specimen:—

"Doctor," one day she said to her physician, "you have no religion: what I mean by religion is, adoration of the Almighty. Religion, as people profess it, is nothing but a dress. One man puts on one coat, and another another. But the feeling that I have is quite a different thing, and I thank God that He has opened my eyes. You will never learn of me, because you cannot comprehend my ideas, and therefore it is of no use teaching you. Nobody opens a book to an idiot, that would foam and splutter over it; for you never could make him read. Ah! I see my way a little before me, and God vouchsafes to enlighten me perhaps more than other people....

"It was ever an object with me to search out why I came into the world, what I ought to do in it, and where I shall go to. God has given me the extraordinary faculty of seeing into futurity; for a clear judgment becomes matter of fact. It has ever been my study to know myself. I may thank God for my sufferings, as they have enabled me to dive deeper into the subject than, I believe, any person living. The theory of the soul, doctor, what an awful thing!

"My religion is to try to do as well as I can in God's eyes. That is the only merit I have. I try to do the best I can. Some of the servants sometimes talk about my religion—dyn es Sytt, as they call it—and I let them talk; for they explain it to people by saying it is to do what is right, and to avoid all uncleanliness.

"My views of the Creator are very different. I believe that all things are calculated, and what is written is written; but I do not suppose that the devil is independent of God: he receives his orders. Not that God goes and gives them to him, any more than the big my lord goes and gives orders to his shoe-black. There is some secondary being that does that—some intendant.

"There are angels of different degrees, from the highest down to the devil. It must be an awful sight to see an angel! There is something so transcendent and beautiful in them, that a person must be half out of his senses to brave the sight. For, when you are looking down, and happen to raise your head, and there is the angel standing before you, you can't say whether it came up through the earth, or down from the sky, or how—there he is, and may go in the same way. But angels don't appear to everybody. You know, doctor, you can't suppose that if you were a dirty little apothecary, keeping a shop in a narrow street, a prime minister would waste his time in going to call on you; or that, if a man is sitting over his glass all the evening, or playing whist, or lounging all the morning, an angel will come to him. But where there is a mortal of high rectitude and integrity, then such a being may be supposed to condescend to seek him out.

"God is my Friend—that is enough; and, if I am to see no happiness in this world, my share of it, I trust, will be greater in the next, if I am firm in the execution of those principles which He has inspired me with."[26]

In reference to her inveterate love of smoking, her physician says, "Much has been written in prose and verse on the advantages and mischief of smoking tobacco.... All I can say is, that Lady Hester gave her sanction to the practice by the habitual use of the long Oriental pipe, which use dated from the year 1817, or thereabouts. In her bed, lying with her pipe in her mouth, she would talk on politics, philosophy, morality, religion, or on any other theme, with her accustomed eloquence, and closing her periods with a whiff that would have made the Duchess of Richmond stare with astonishment, could she have risen from her tomb to have seen her quondam friend, the brilliant ornament of a London drawing-room, clouded in fumes so that her features were sometimes invisible. Now, this altered individual had not a covering to her bed that was not burnt into twenty holes by the sparks and ashes that had fallen from her pipe; and, had not these coverings been all woollen, it is certain that, on some unlucky night, she must have been consumed, bed and all.

"Her bedroom, at the end of every twenty-four hours, was strewed with tobacco and ashes, to be swept away and again strewed as before; and it was always strongly impregnated with the fumes.

"The finest tobacco the country could produce, and the cleanest pipes (for she had a new one almost as often as a fop puts on new gloves), could hardly satisfy her fastidiousness; and I have known her footman get as many scoldings as there were days in the week on that score. From curiosity, I once counted a bundle of pipes, thrown by after a day or two's use, any one of which would have fetched five or ten shillings in London, and there were 102. The woods she most preferred were jessamine, rose, and cork. She never smoked cherry-wood pipes, from their weight, and because she liked cheaper ones, which she could renew oftener. She never arrived at that perfectibility, which is seen in many smokers, of swallowing the fumes, or of making them pass out at her nostrils. The pipe was to her what a fan was, or is, in a lady's hand—a means of having something to do. She forgot it when she had a letter to write, or any serious occupation. It is not so with the studious and literary man, who fancies it helps reflection or promotes inspiration."[27]

FOOTNOTES:

[20] "Eoethen," pp. 87, 88.

[21] Alphonse de Lamartine: "Voyage en Orient." Lamartine's version of Lady Hester's conversation is sometimes of dubious accuracy.

[22] "Eoethen," pp. 81, 82. In the following narrative we very frequently adopt, with slight alteration and condensation, Mr. Kinglake's language.

[23] The branch which obtains AEneas admission to the shades (AEneid, Book vi.)—

"This branch at least"—and here she showed The branch within her raiment stowed— "You needs must own"... He answers not, but eyes the sheen Of the blest bough.

[24] "Eoethen," pp. 97, 98.

[25] "Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope," i. 135, 136.

[26] "Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope," i. 142-144.

[27] "Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope," iii. 189, 190.



LADY BRASSEY.

Most of our readers will be familiar with the exciting story of voyages round the world; with that famous circumnavigation by Magellan, which first found an ocean-way between the West and the East, and carried a furrow across the broad waters of the Pacific; that scarcely less famous circumnavigation of Drake's, which made the English flag known on the southern seas; that great voyage of Cook's, which added so many lands, hitherto unknown, to the map of the inhabited globe, down to later circumnavigations, accomplished for scientific objects by ships equipped with the most perfect appliances. Storm and wreck and calm; intercourse with savages who look with wonder on the white sails that have come up from the under-world; the wash of waters upon coral-reefs; the shadow of green palms upon lonely isles; strange sea-weeds floating on the deep green wave, and flying-fish hunted by voracious foes; long days and nights spent under glowing skies, without a glimpse of land; the breathless eagerness with which some new shore is sighted—with such incidents as these we English are necessarily familiar, possessing as we do a vast and various literature of the sea. And yet our appetite never grows weary of the old, old tale; there is a romance about it which never seems to fade—like the sea itself it seems ever to present some fresh and novel aspect.

And such an aspect it certainly wears when it is told by a woman, as it has been told by Lady Brassey, one of the most adventurous and agreeable of lady-voyagers. Told, too, with a literary skill and a refined taste which have greatly charmed the public, and given a permanent value to her rapid record. There is no affectation of high-wrought adventure or heroic enterprise about it. Lady Brassey describes only what she has seen—and she saw a great deal. She invents nothing and she magnifies nothing; her narrative is as plain and unvarnished as a ship's log-book.

The yacht Sunbeam in which Lady (she was then simply Mrs.) Brassey accomplished her voyage round the world was a screw three-masted schooner, of 530 tons, with engines of thirty-five horse-power, and a speed of 10 to 13 knots an hour. She was 157 feet in length, with an extreme breadth of twenty-seven and a-half feet. Belonging to a wealthy English gentleman, she was richly appointed, and fitted up with a luxurious splendour which would have driven wild with envy and admiration the earlier circumnavigators. Leaving Chatham on the 1st of July, 1876, she ran off Beachy Head on the following evening, dropped anchor off Cowes next morning, and early on the 6th passed through the Needles.

"We were forty-three on board, all told," says Mrs. Brassey, the party then including her husband and herself and their four children, some friends, a sailing master, boatswain, carpenter, able-bodied seamen, engineers, firemen, stewards, cooks, nurse, stewardess, and lady's maid.

On the 8th they were fairly away from Old England. Next day, in the afternoon, they rounded Ushant, at the distance of a mile and a-half: "the sea was tremendous, the waves breaking in columns of spray against the sharp needle-like rocks that form the point of the island." Two days later, Mrs. Brassey had her first rough experience of the sea. "We were all sitting or standing," she says, "about the stern of the vessel, admiring the magnificent dark blue billows following us, with their curling white crests, mountains high. Each wave, as it approached, appeared as if it must overwhelm us, instead of which it rushed grandly by, rolling and shaking us from stem to stern, and sending fountains of spray on board. Tom (Mr. Brassey) was looking at the stern compass, Allnutt being close to him. Mr. Bingham and Mr. Freer were smoking, half-way between the quarter-deck and the after-companion, where Captain Brown, Dr. Potter, Muriel, and I were standing. Captain Lecky, seated on a large coil of rope, placed on the box of the rudder, was spinning Mabelle a yarn. A new hand was steering, and just at the moment when an unusually big wave overtook us, he unfortunately allowed the vessel to broach to a little. In a second the sea came pouring over the stern, above Allnutt's head. The boy was nearly washed overboard, but he managed to catch hold of the rail, and, with great presence of mind, stuck his knees into the bulwarks. Kindred, our boatswain, seeing his danger, rushed forward to save him, but was knocked down by the return wave, from which he emerged gasping. The coll of rope, on which Captain Lecky and Mabelle were seated, was completely floated by the sea. Providentially, however, he had taken a double turn round his wrist with a reefing point, and throwing his other arm round Mabelle, held on like grim death; otherwise nothing could have saved them. She was perfectly self-possessed, and only said quietly, "Hold on, Captain Lecky, hold on!" to which he replied, "All right." I asked her afterwards if she thought she was going overboard, and she answered, "I did not think at all, mamma, but felt sure we were gone." Captain Lecky, long accustomed to very large ships, had not in the least realized how near we were to the water in our little vessel, and was proportionately taken by surprise. All the rest of the party were drenched, with the exception of Muriel, whom Captain Brown held high above the water in his arms, and who lost no time in remarking, in the midst of the general confusion, "I'm not at all wet, I'm not." Happily, the children don't know what fear is. The maids, however, were very frightened, as some of the sea had got down into the nursery, and the skylights had to be screwed down. Our studding sail boom, too, broke with a loud crack when the ship broached to, and the jaws of the fore-boom gave way.

"Soon after this adventure we all went to bed, full of thankfulness that it had ended as well as it did, but, alas! not, so far as I was concerned, to rest in peace. In about two hours I was awakened by a tremendous weight of water suddenly descending upon me and flooding the bed. I immediately sprang out, only to find myself in another pool on the floor. It was pitch dark, and I could not think what had happened; so I rushed on deck, and found that, the weather having moderated a little, some kind sailor, knowing my love of fresh air, had opened the skylight rather too soon, and one of the angry waves had popped on board, deluging the cabin.

"I got a light and proceeded to mop up as best I could, and then endeavoured to find a dry place to sleep in. This, however, was no easy task, for my own bed was drenched and every other berth occupied; the deck, too, was ankle-deep in water, as I found when I tried to get across to the deck-house sofa. At last I lay down on the floor, wrapped up in my ulster, and wedged between the foot-stanchions of our swing bed and the wardrobe athwart ship; so that, as the yacht rolled heavily, my feet were often higher than my head. Consequently what sleep I snatched turned into a nightmare, of which the fixed idea was a broken head, from the three hundredweight of lead at the bottom of our bed swinging wildly from side to side and up and down, as the vessel rolled and pitched, suggesting all manner of accidents. When morning came at last the weather cleared a good deal, though the breeze continued. All hands were soon busily employed in repairing damages; and very picturesque the deck and rigging of the Sunbeam looked, with the various groups of men occupied upon the ropes, spars, and sails. Towards evening the wind fell light, and we had to get up steam. The night was the first really warm one we had enjoyed, and the stars shone out brightly; the sea, which had been of a lovely blue colour during the day, showed a slight phosphorescence after dark."

The voyage, which opened in this stirring manner, proved not less prosperous than pleasant, and was unmarked by any striking adventures, though not devoid of interesting incidents. By way of the Cape de Verde Islands and Madeira, the Sunbeam kept southward to the Equator, and gradually drew near the coast of South America, until it touched at the Brazilian capital, Rio de Janeiro. Thence it ran southward to the River Plate, skirted the Patagonian shores, and, threading its way through the defiles of the Magellan Strait, emerged into the Southern Ocean. A northerly course took it to the great sea-port of Chili—Valparaiso, whence it reached across the Pacific to the beautiful group of the Society Islands, visiting Tahiti, the Eden of the southern seas. The Sandwich Islands are almost the same distance north as the Society are south of the Equator. Here Lady Brassey was received with great hospitality, and surveyed the new and rising civilization of Hawaii with much interest. In the track of the trade winds the voyagers crossed the Pacific, which, so far as they were concerned, justified its name, to Japan; thence they proceeded to Hong-Kong, and through the Straits of Malacca to Penang. Ceylon lies on the farther side of the Bay of Bengal. From Ceylon they sailed to Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea, one of those strong strategical points by which England keeps open the ocean-highways to her commercial fleets. Through the Suez Canal the Sunbeam passed into the Mediterranean, "whose shores are empires," touching at Malta and at "the Rock," which the enterprise of Sir George Rorke gave, and the patient courage of General Eliott preserved, to England. Entering the familiar waters of the Atlantic, it put into Lisbon, and afterwards fell into the track for "home," sighting the first English land, the Start, very early in the morning of the 26th of May. At midnight the voyagers reached Beachy Head, and could see the lights of Hastings in the distance. At half-past six on the 27th they landed there, and were warmly greeted by a multitude of well-wishers.

In our limited space it would be impossible for us to follow up very closely a voyage which covered so large a part of the world's surface; nor is it necessary, since Lady Brassey's charmingly written narrative is now well known to every reader; but we shall permit ourselves the pleasure of seeing, as Lady Brassey saw, a picture here and there of beautiful scenery or foreign manners, that we may judge of the impression it produced on so accomplished an observer. Lady Brassey evidently belongs not to the nil admirari school, but enjoys keenly and heartily everything that is fresh and new—a bright bit of colour or a picturesque detail. It is this which makes her book so enjoyable. There is no affectation in its pages—no airs of conscious superiority; and we feel that we are in the company of a woman with a woman's heart—of a woman with broad sympathies and a happy nature.

Our first visit, with Lady Brassey as our guide, shall be to the market at Rio de Janeiro.[28]

The greatest bustle and animation prevailed, and there were people and things to see and observe in endless variety. The fish market was full of finny monsters of the deep, all new and strange to us, whose odd Brazilian names would convey to a stranger but little idea of the fish themselves. There was an enormous rock fish, weighing about three hundred pounds, with hideous face and shiny back, and fins; large ray, and skate, and cuttle fish—the octopus, or pieuvre, described with so much exaggeration in Victor Hugo's "Travailleurs de la Mer," to say nothing of the large prawns for which the coast is famous—prawns eight or ten inches long, with antennae of twelve or fourteen inches in length. Such prawns suit those only who care for quantity rather than for quality; they are of indifferent flavour; whereas the oysters, which are particularly small, are remarkable for their delicious taste. Mackerel are here in abundance, also a good many turtle and porpoises, and a few hammer-headed sharks.

In the fruit market were many familiar bright-coloured fruits. Fat, jet-black negresses, wearing turbans on their heads, strings of coloured beads on their necks and arms, and single long white garments, which appeared to be continually slipping off their shoulders, presided over glittering piles of oranges, bananas, pine-apples, passion-fruit, tomatoes, apples, pears, capsicum and peppers, sugar-canes, cabbage-palms, cherimoyas, and bread-fruit.

In another part of the market all sorts of live birds were for sale, with a few live beasts, such as deer, monkeys, pigs, guinea-pigs in profusion, rats, cats, dogs, marmosets, and a dear little lion-monkey, very small and rather red, with a beautiful head and mane, who roared exactly like a real lion in miniature. There were cages full of small flamingoes, snipe of various kinds, and a great many birds of smaller size, with feathers of all shades of blue, red, and green, and metallic hues of brilliant lustre, besides parrots, macaws, cockatoos innumerable, and torchas on stands. The torcha is a bright-coloured black and yellow bird, about as big as a starling, which puts its little head on one side and takes flies from one's fingers in the prettiest and most enticing manner.

While the Sunbeam was lying in the River Plate, Lady Brassey and her party made an excursion to the Pampas, those broad, league-long undulating plains of verdure, on which civilization as yet has made but a limited advance.

"Miles and miles of gold and green Where the sunflowers blow In a solid glow, And to break now and then the screen— Black neck and eyeballs keen, Up a wild horse leaps between."—(R. Browning.)

According to Lady Brassey, the first glimpse of the far-spreading prairie was most striking in all its variations of colour. The true shade of the Pampas grass, when long, is a light dusty green; when short, it is a bright fresh green. But it frequently happens that, owing to the numerous prairie fires, either accidental or intentional, nothing is visible but a vast expanse of black charred ground, here and there relieved by a few patches of vivid green, where the grass is once more springing up under the influence of the rain.

"The road, or rather track, was in a bad condition, owing to the recent wet weather, and on each side of the five canadas, or small rivers, which we had to ford, there were deep morasses, through which we had to struggle as best we could, with the mud up to our axle-trees. Just before arriving at the point where the stream had to be crossed, the horses were well flogged and urged on at a gallop, which they gallantly maintained until the other side was reached. Then we stopped to breathe the horses and to repair damages, generally finding that a trace had given way, or that some other part of the harness had shown signs of weakness. On one occasion we were delayed for a considerable time by the breaking of the splinter-bar, to repair which was a troublesome matter; indeed, I don't know how we should have managed if we had not met a native lad, who sold us his long lasso to bind the pieces together again. It was a lucky rencontre for us, as he was the only human being we saw during the whole of our drive of thirty miles, except the peon who brought us a change of horses half way.

"In the course of the journey we passed a large estancia, the road to which was marked by the dead bodies and skeletons of the poor beasts who had perished in the late droughts. Hundreds of them were lying about in every stage of decay, those more recently dead being surrounded by vultures and other carrion birds. The next canada that we crossed was choked up with the carcasses of the unfortunate creatures who had struggled thus far for a last drink, and had then not had sufficient strength left to extricate themselves from the water. Herds of miserable-looking, half-starved cattle were also to be seen; the cows very little larger than their calves, and all apparently covered with the same rough shaggy coats. The pasture is not fine enough in this part of the country to carry sheep, but deer are frequently met with....

"The natives of these parts pass their lives in the saddle. Horses are used for almost every conceivable employment, from hunting and fishing to brick-making and butter-churning. Even the very beggars ride about on horseback. I have seen a photograph of one, with a police certificate of mendicancy hanging round his neck. Every domestic servant has his or her own horse, as a matter of course; and the maids are all provided with habits, in which they ride about on Sundays, from one estancia to another, to pay visits. In fishing, the horse is ridden into the water as far as he can go, and the net or rod is then made use of by his rider. At Buenos Ayres I have seen the poor animals all but swimming to the shore, with heavy carts and loads, from the ships anchored in the inner roads; for the water is so shallow, that only very small boats can go alongside the vessels, and the cargo is therefore transferred directly to the carts to save the trouble and expense of transhipment In out-of-the-way places, on the Pampas, where no churns exist, butter is made by putting milk into a goat-skin bag, attached by a long lasso to the saddle of a peon, who is then set to gallop a certain number of miles, with the bag bumping and jumping along the ground after him."[29]

* * * * *

When on her way to the Straits of Magellan, Lady Brassey saw something of one of the most terrible of "disasters at sea"—a ship on fire. The barque proved to be the Monkshaven, from Swansea, with a cargo of smelting coal for Valparaiso. The Sunbeam, on discovering her, hove-to, and sent a boat, which, as it was found impossible to save the burning vessel, brought her captain and crew on board, and afterwards saved most of their effects, with the ship's chronometers, charts, and papers.

"The poor little dingy belonging to the Monkshaven had been cast away as soon as the crew had disembarked from her, and there was something melancholy in seeing her slowly drift away to leeward, followed by her oars and various small articles, as if to rejoin the noble ship she had so lately quitted. The latter was now hove-to, under full sail, an occasional puff of smoke alone betraying the presence of the demon of destruction within. The sky was dark and lowering, the sunset red and lurid in its grandeur, the clouds numerous and threatening, the sea high and dark, with occasional streaks of white foam. Not a breath of wind was stirring. Everything portended a gale. As we lay slowly rolling from side to side, both ship and boat were sometimes plainly visible, and then again both would disappear, for what seemed an age, in the deep trough of the South Atlantic rollers."[30]

* * * * *

Something Lady Brassey has to say about the Patagonians, of whom the early voyagers brought home such mythical accounts. They owe their name to the fanciful credulity of Magellan, who thus immortalized his conviction that they were of gigantic proportions—Patagons, or Pentagons, that is, five cubits high. Sir Thomas Cavendish speaks of them as averaging seven to eight feet in stature. In truth, they are a fine robust race; well-limbed, of great strength, and above six feet in height; not giants, but men cast in a noble mould, and, physically, not inferior to the household regiments of the British army. They live the true nomadic life, being almost constantly on horseback, and dashing at headlong speed across their wide and open plains. Both men and women wear a long flowing mantle of skins, which reaches from the waist to the ankle, with a large loose piece dependent on one side, ready to be thrown over their heads whenever necessary; this is fastened by a large flat pin, hammered out either from the rough silver or from a dollar. They are no believers in cleanliness; but daub their bodies with paint and grease, especially the women. Their only weapons are knives and bolas, the latter of which they throw with a surprising accuracy of aim. That they possess even the rudest form of religious belief, or perform any religious ceremonies, has never yet been ascertained. Their food consists chiefly of the flesh of mares, and troops of these animals accompany them always on their excursions. They also eat ostrich flesh, as an exceptional bonne bouche, and birds' eggs, and fish, which the women catch.

Low as they are in the scale of humanity, from the standpoint of Western civilization, the Fuegians, or Canoe Indians, as they are generally called, because they live so much on the water, and have no fixed abodes on shore, sink much lower. They are cannibals, and, according to an old writer, "magpies in chatter, baboons in countenance, and imps in treachery." Whenever it is seen that a ship is in distress, or that a shipwrecked crew have been cast ashore, signal fires blaze on every prominent point, to convey the good news to the whole island population, and immediately the natives assemble, like the clans at Roderick Dhu's bidding, in Scott's "Lady of the Lake." But if all goes well, a vessel may pass through Magellan's Straits without discerning any sign of human life, the savages and their canoes lying hidden beneath the leafy screen of overhanging boughs. Those who frequent the Eastern part of "Fireland" (Tierra del Fuego) are clothed, in so far as they cover their nakedness at all, in a deerskin mantle descending to the waist; those at the Western end wear cloaks made from the skin of the sea otter. But most of them are quite naked. Their food is of the scantiest description, consisting almost wholly of shell-fish, sea-eggs, and fish generally, which they train their dogs to assist them in catching. These dogs are sent into the water at the mouth of a narrow creek or a small bay, where they bark and flounder about until the fish are frightened into the shallows.

Lady Brassey had an opportunity of seeing some Fuegians closely. When the Sunbeam was in English Reach, a canoe suddenly appeared on her port bow, and as she seemed making direct for the yacht, Sir Thomas ordered the engines to be slowed. Thereupon her occupants plied their paddles more furiously than before, shouting and gesticulating violently, one man waving a skin round his head with an energy of action that threatened to capsize his frail craft—frail, in truth, for it was made only of rough planks rudely fastened together with the sinews of animals. A rope was thrown to them, and they came alongside, shouting "Tabaco, galleta" (biscuit), a supply of which they received, in exchange for the skin they had been waving; "whereupon the two men stripped themselves of the skin mantles they were wearing, made of eight or ten sea-otter skins, sewed together with finer sinews than those used for the boat, and handed them up, clamouring for more tobacco, which we gave them, together with some beads and knives." Finally, the woman, influenced by so fair an example, parted with her sole garment, in return for a little more tobacco, some beads, and some looking-glasses, which were thrown into the canoe.

"The party consisted of a man, a woman, and a lad; and, I think," says Lady Brassey, "I never saw delight more strongly depicted than it was on the faces of the two latter, when they handled, for the first time in their lives probably, some strings of blue, red, and green glass beads. They had two rough pots, made of bark, in the boat, which they also sold, after which they reluctantly departed, quite naked but very happy, shouting and jabbering away in the most inarticulate language imaginable. It was with great difficulty we could make them let go the rope, when we went ahead, and I was quite afraid they would be upset. They were all fat and healthy-looking, and, though not handsome, their appearance was by no means repulsive; the countenance of the woman, especially, wore quite a pleasing expression, when lighted up with smiles at the sight of the beads and looking-glasses. The bottom of their canoe was covered with branches, amongst which the ashes of a recent fire were distinguishable. Their paddles were of the very roughest description, consisting simply of split branches of trees, with wider pieces tied on at one end with the sinews of birds or beasts."[31]

* * * * *

A fine contrast to these gloomy scenes is presented by Lady Brassey's description of a coral island, one of those almost innumerable gems which stud the broad bosom of the Pacific, like emeralds embossed on a shield of azure and silver. It was the first land she touched in the great South Sea. A reef of glowing coral enclosed a tranquil lagoon, to which the green shores of the island gently sloped. The beauty of this lagoon would need a Ruskin's pen to reproduce it in all its exquisite and manifold colouring. Submarine coral forests, of every hue, enriched with sea-flowers, anemones, and echinidae, of unimaginable brilliancy; shoals of the brightest fish flashing in and out like rainbow gleams; shells of gorgeous lustre, moving slowly along with their living inmates; fairy foliage of fantastic sea-weeds stirred into tremulous motion by the gliding wave; upon these the enchanted gaze dwelt in the depths of the lagoon, while the surface glowed with every possible and exquisite tint, from the palest aqua marina to the brightest emerald; from the pure light blue of the turquoise to the "deeply, darkly, beautifully blue" of the sapphire; while here and there the glassy wave was broken up by patches of red, brown, and green coral rising from the mass below. A rich growth of tropical vegetation encumbered the shore, stretching down to the very border of the ribbed sands; palms and cocoa-nuts lifted high their slender, shapely trunks; while in and out flitted the picturesque figures of native women in red, blue, and green garments, and of men in motley costumes, loaded with fish, fowls, and bunches of cocoa-nuts.

* * * * *

On the 2nd of December the Sunbeam arrived at the "Queen of the Pacific," the lovely island of Tahiti, or, as it was first called, Otaheite. Here Lady Brassey found herself in the midst of a fairy-like drama, to describe which is almost impossible, so bewildering was it in the brightness and variety of its colouring. "The magnolias and yellow and scarlet hibiscus, overshadowing the water, the velvety turf, on to which one steps from the boat, the white road running between rows of wooden houses, whose little gardens are a mass of flowers, the men and women clad in the gayest robes and decked with flowers, the piles of unfamiliar fruit lying on the grass, waiting to be transported to the coasting vessels in the harbour, the wide-spreading background of hills clad in verdure to their summits—these are but a few of the objects which greet the new comer on his first contact with the shore."

The impression produced by the first view was deepened by all that Lady Brassey saw afterwards. On sea and shore, or in the heart of the island groves, all was new, beautiful, striking. There was a strange light in the firmament above, a glow in the wave beneath, such as she had not seen elsewhere; for it was with open hands that Nature poured out her dower upon Tahiti.

She went for a ride; the path carried her through a thick growth of palm, orange, guava, and other tropical trees, some of which were thickly draped with luxuriant creepers. Conspicuous among the latter shone a gorgeous passion flower, with orange-coloured fruit as big as pumpkins, that overspread everything with its vigour. The path was everywhere narrow and sometimes steep; and frequently the horseman had almost to creep under the close thick crop of interlacing boughs. Crossing several bright little streams, it climbed to the summit of an eminence which commanded on the one side a prospect of a picturesque waterfall, on the other side of a deep ravine. A river issuing from a narrow cleft in the rock takes but one mad leap from the edge of the precipice into the valley below, a leap of 600 feet. "First one sees the rush of blue water, gradually changing in its descent to a cloud of white spray, which in its turn is lost in a rainbow of mist. Imagine that from beneath the shade of feathery palms and broad-leaved bananas through a network of ferns and creepers you are looking upon the Staubbach, in Switzerland, magnified in height, and with a background of verdure-clad mountains, and you will have some idea of the fall of Fuatawah."[32]

With no spot that she touched at in her long ocean wanderings does Lady Brassey seem to have been so delighted as with Tahiti. "Sometimes," she says, "I think that all I have seen must be only a long vision, and that too soon I shall awaken to the cold reality; the flowers, the fruit, the colours worn by every one, the whole scene and its surroundings, seem almost too fairy-like to have an actual existence." Human nature is, of course, the same everywhere: vice and sorrow prevail at Tahiti as in the reeking slums and lanes of great cities. It is only of the outward aspect of things that Lady Brassey speaks, for she saw none other, and assuredly at Tahiti that is fair exceedingly, and well calculated to charm a cultivated taste, to fill a refined mind with memories of beauty.

* * * * *

From Tahiti we pass on to Hawaii, the chief island of the Sandwich group, and the centre of a civilization that may one day influence the direction of the great currents of commerce in the Pacific. The Sunbeam arrived there on the 22nd of December.

"It was a clear afternoon. The mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, could be plainly seen from top to bottom, their giant crests rising nearly 14,000 feet above our heads, their tree and fine clad slopes seamed with deep gulches or ravines, down each of which a fertilizing river ran into the sea. Inside the reef the white coral shore, on which the waves seemed too lazy to break, is fringed with a belt of cocoa-nut palms, amongst which, as well as on the hillside, the little white houses are prettily dotted. All are surrounded by gardens, so full of flowers that the bright patches of colour were plainly visible even from the deck of the yacht.

"Having landed, we went for a stroll, among neat houses and pretty gardens, to the suspension-bridge over the river, followed by a crowd of girls, all decorated with wreaths and garlands, and wearing almost the same dress that we had seen at Tahiti—a coloured, long-sleeved, loose gown reaching to the feet. The natives here appear to affect duller colours than those we have lately been accustomed to—lilac, drab, brown, and other dark prints being the favourite tints. Whenever I stopped to look at a view, one of the girls would come behind me and throw a lei of flowers over my head, fasten it round my neck, and then run away laughing, to a distance, to judge of effect. The consequence was that, before the end of our walk, I had about a dozen wreaths of various colours and lengths, hanging round me, till I felt almost as if I had a fur tippet on, they made me so hot; and yet I did not like to take them off, for fear of hurting the poor girls' feelings."



Wherever she went Lady Brassey seems to have commanded special attention; partly no doubt due to her own personal qualities, and partly to the fact that English ladies are rare visitors in the Polynesian islands—and especially an English lady, the wife of a member of parliament, who sails round the world in her husband's yacht!

Lady Brassey made, of course, an excursion to the great volcano of Kilauea, of which Miss Bird has furnished a singularly fine description. Lady Brassey's sketch is not so elaborate or powerful or fully coloured, but it has a charm of its own in its unassuming simplicity. Let us go with her on a visit to the two craters, the old and the new.

And, first of all, we descend the precipice, 300 feet in depth, which forms the wall of the original crater, but now blooming with a prodigal vegetation. In many places the incline is so steep that zigzag flights of wooden steps have been inserted here and there in the face of the cliff in order to facilitate the descent. At the bottom we step on to a surface of cold boiled lava, and even here, in every chink where a little soil has collected, Nature asserts her robust vitality, and delicate little ferns put forth their green fronds to feel the light. An extraordinary appearance did that vast lava field present, contorted as it was into every imaginable shape and form, according to the temperature it had attained and the rapidity with which it had cooled. Here and there a patch looked not unlike the contents of a caldron, which had been petrified in the very act of boiling; elsewhere the iridescent lava had congealed into wave-like ridges, or huge coils of rope, closely twisted together. Again it might be seen in the semblance of a collection of organ-pipes, or accumulated into mounds and cones of various dimensions. As our travellers moved forward, they felt that the lava grew hotter and hotter, and from every fissure issued gaseous fumes, which seriously affected their noses and throats; till, at last, when passed to leeward of the lava-river rolling from the lake, they were almost suffocated by the vapour, and it was with difficulty they pursued their advance. The lava was more glassy and had a look of greater transparency, as if it had been fused at an exceptionally high temperature; and the crystals of alum, sulphur, and other minerals with which it abounded, reflected the light in bright prismatic colours. In some places the transparency was complete, and beneath it might easily be seen the long streaks of that fibrous kind of lava, connected with a superstition of the natives, which is known as "Pile's hair."

* * * * *

Lady Brassey and her companions reached, at last, the foot of the present active crater, whence the molten contents of the terrestrial interior are continually pouring forth in a lurid flood. With some difficulty they gained the summit—to stand, silent and spell-bound, in contemplation of a spectacle which more than realizes the terrors of the ancient Phlegethon. The precipice overhung a basin of molten fire, measuring nearly a mile across. With a clang, a clash, and a roar, like that of breakers on a rocky coast, waves of blood-red, fiery, liquid lava dashed against the opposing cliffs, and flung their spume high up in the air—waves which were never still, but rolled onwards incessantly to the charge, and as incessantly retired—hustling one another angrily, and hissing and boiling and bubbling, like a sea chafed by adverse wind and current. A dull dark red, like that of the lees of wine, seems the normal colour of the surging lava, which was covered, however, with a thin grey scum—this scum, or froth, being every moment and everywhere broken by eddies and jets and whirlpools of red and yellow fire, and occasionally thrown back on either side by the force and rush of swift golden-tinted rivers. On one side of the lake the principal object of attack was an island, dark and craggy, against which the lava-waves rolled with impetuous fury. On the other, they swept precipitately into a great cavern, carrying away the gigantic stalactites which hung at its entrance, and filling it with a thunderous roar like that of contending armies.

* * * * *

Scenes there are many in this wide world of ours which neither the craft of the scribe nor the skill of the painter can hope to reproduce, and this is one of them. It is awful in its grandeur, terrible in its sublimity, like Milton's Satan. It fascinates, and yet repels; charms the eye, while it chills the heart. One trembles with the sense of a dire terrific power, which at any moment may leap into the clay, and sweep the shattered island into destruction. But dreadful as it is by day, a deeper dread attaches to it by night, when the glare of those leaping fountains and rolling billows of molten lava is reflected athwart the darkness of heaven. And as the night advances and the darkness increases, a wonderful phantasmagoria of colour invests the fiery lake—jet black merges suddenly into palest grey; the deepest maroon changes, through cherry and scarlet, into the exquisitest hues of pink and blue and violet; the richest brown pales, through orange and yellow, into a delicate straw. Lady Brassey adds that there was yet another shade, which can be described only by the term "molten lava colour." The wreaths and wheeling clouds of smoke and vapour were by all these borrowed lights and tints translated into beautiful gleaming mist-like creations—belonging neither to earth nor air, but born of the molten flame and seething fire—which seemed splendidly and appropriately displayed against the amphitheatre of black peaks, pinnacles, and crags rising in the background. Of these great pieces would sometimes break off, and with a crash fall into the burning lake, there to be remelted and in due time thrown up anew.[33]

The time spent at Honolulu by Lady Brassey was by no means wasted. She kept both eyes and ears well open, and suffered nothing to escape her which could throw any light on the manners and customs of the Hawaiian population. Though not a deep, she was a close and an accurate observer; and her book may advantageously be consulted by others than the "general reader."

The Hawaiians, as a people with a good deal of leisure, upon whose shoulders as yet civilization has laid none of its heavier burdens, are naturally prone to amusement, and cultivate their numerous national sports with a good deal of energy and skill. Foremost amongst these is the well-known pastime of surf-swimming—a pastime the origin of which it is not difficult to understand. It is one in which both men and women join. Armed with a surf-board—a flat piece of wood, about four feet long by two feet wide, pointed at each end—which they put edge-wise in front of them, they swim out into the broad and beautiful bay, and dive under the surf-crested billows of the Pacific. When at a certain distance from the land, a distance regulated by the swimmer's measure of strength and address, he chooses a large wave, and either astride, or kneeling, or standing upon his board, allows himself to be swept in shore upon its curling crest with headlong speed. The spectator might almost fancy him to be mounted upon the sea-horse of ancient myths, and holding its grey curling mane, as it snorts and champs and plunges shoreward, wrapped in spray and foam. To this vigorous sport the Hawaiians are exceedingly partial. They are almost to the manner born, for from their earliest childhood they live an amphibious life, and never seem happier than when they are diving, swimming, bathing, or playing tricks in the bright emerald waters that wash the smiling shores of their favoured isle, or in those of the pleasant river that flows by the groves and gardens of Hilo.

On a sunny afternoon half the population of the latter town may be seen "disporting themselves in, upon, and beneath the water." Climbing the steep and rugged rocks that form the opposite bank, they take headers and footers and siders from any elevation under five-and-twenty feet, diving and swimming in every imaginable attitude, and with a kind of easy and spontaneous grace that commands admiration. One of their great feats is thus described: A couple of natives undertake to jump from a precipice, one hundred feet high, into the river below, clearing in their descent a rock, which at about a distance of twenty feet from the summit, projects as far from the face of the cliff. The two men—lithe, tall, and strong—are seen standing on the green height, their long hair confined by a wreath of leaves and flowers, while a similar wreath is twisted round the waist. With a keen, quick glance they measure the distance, and fall back some yards, in order to run and acquire the needful impetus. Suddenly one of them reappears, takes a flying leap from the rock, executes a somersault in mid-air, and feet foremost plunges into the pool beneath, to rise again almost immediately, and climb the steep river-bank with an air of serene indifference. His companion having performed the same exploit, the two clambered up to the projection of which we have spoken, and again dropped into the river waters; a less wonderful feat than their former, but still one requiring both pluck and skill.

Among the games mentioned by Lady Brassey are spear-throwing, transfixing an object with a dart, kona, an elaborate kind of draughts, and talu, which consists in hiding a small stone under one of five pieces of cloth placed in front of the players. One hides the stone, and his companions have to guess where it is hidden; and it generally happens that, however skilfully the hider may glide his arm under the cloth and shift from one piece to another, a clever player detects where he lets go the stone by the movement of the muscles of the upper part of his arm. Another game, tarua, resembles the Canadian sport of "tobogonning," only it is carried on upon the grass instead of upon the frozen surface of the snow. The performers stand erect on a narrow plank, turned up in front, which they guide with a kind of paddle. Starting from the summit of a hill or a mountain, they sweep down the grassy slopes at a furious pace, preserving their balance with admirable dexterity. For the game of pahe, which is also very popular, a specially prepared smooth floor is necessary, and along this the javelins of the players glide like snakes. On the same kind of floor they play maita, or uru maita. Two sticks are fixed in the ground, only a few inches apart, and from a distance of thirty or forty yards the player seeks to throw a stone—the uru—between them; the uru being circular in shape, three or four inches in diameter, and an inch in thickness, except at the middle, where it is thicker.[34]

We pass on to Japan, and accompany Lady Brassey to a Japanese dinner in a Japanese tea-house. The dinner took place in an apartment which, as an exact type of a room in any Japanese house, may fitly be described. The roof and the screens, which form the sides, are all made of a handsome dark-polished wood resembling walnut. The exterior walls under the verandah, as well as the partitions between the other rooms, are simply screens of wooden lattice-work, covered with white paper, and sliding in grooves; so that a person walks in or out at any part of the wall he thinks proper to select or finds convenient. This arrangement necessarily dispenses with doors and windows. If you wish to look out, you open a little bit of your wall, or a larger bit if you step out. Instead of carpets, the floor is strewn with several thicknesses of very fine mats, each about six feet long by three feet broad, "deliciously soft to walk upon." All Japanese mats are of the same size, and they constitute the standard by which everything connected with house-building or house-furnishing is measured. Once you have prepared your foundations and woodwork of the dimensions of so many mats, you may go to a shop and buy a ready-made house, which you can then set up and furnish in the light Japanese fashion in a couple of days; but then such a house is fitted only for a Japanese climate.

In the room into which Lady Brassey was introduced was raised, on one side, a slight dais, about four inches from the floor, as a seat of honour. A stool, a little bronze ornament, and a China vase, in which a branch of cherry-blossom and a few flag-leaves were gracefully arranged, occupied it. On the wall behind hung pictures, which are changed every month, according to the season of the year. Four comely Japanese girls brought thick cotton quilts for the visitors to sit upon, and braziers full of burning charcoal that they might warm themselves. In the centre they placed another brazier, protected by a square wooden grating, with a large silk eider-down quilt laid over it, to keep in the heat. "This is the way in which all the rooms, even bedrooms, are warmed in Japan, and the result is that fires are of very frequent occurrence. The brazier is kicked over by some restless or careless person, and in a moment the whole place is in a blaze."

In due time brazier and quilt are removed, and dinner makes its appearance. Before each guest is placed a small lacquer table, about six inches high, with a pair of chopsticks, a basin of soup, a bowl of rice, a saki cup, and a basin of hot water; while in the middle sat the four Japanese Hebes, with fires to keep the saki hot, and light the long pipes they carried, from which they wished their visitors to take a whiff after each dish. Saki is a kind of spirit, distilled from rice, always drunk hot out of small cups. It is not unpleasant in this state, but when cold few European palates can relish it.

The Japanese cookery was very good, though some of the dishes were compounded of ingredients not generally mixed together by the cooks of the West. Here is the bill of fare:—

Soup. Shrimps and Seaweeds. Prawns, Egg Omelette, and Preserved Grapes. Fried Fish, Spinach, Young Rushes, and Young Ginger. Raw Fish, Mustard and Cress, Horseradish, and Soy. Thick Soup—of Eggs, Fish, Mushrooms, and Spinach; Grilled Fish. Fried Chicken and Bamboo Shoots. Turnip Tops and Root Pickled. Rice ad libitum in a large bowl. Hot Saki, Pipes, and Tea.

The last dish presented was an enormous lacquer box of rice, from which all the bowls were filled—the rice being thence carried to the mouth of each guest by means of chopsticks, in the use of which it is only practice that makes perfect.

Between each course a long interval occurred, which was filled up with songs, music, and dancing, performed by professional singing and dancing girls. The music was somewhat harsh and monotonous; but a word of praise may be given to the songs and to the dancing, or rather posturing, for there was little of that agility of foot practised by European dancers. "The girls, who were pretty, wore peculiar dresses to indicate their calling, and seemed of an entirely different stamp from the quiet, simply-dressed waitresses whom we found so attentive to our wants; still they all looked cheery, light-hearted, simple creatures, and appeared to enjoy immensely the little childish games they played amongst themselves between whiles."[35]

This "Voyage Round the World," from which we must now turn aside, does not sum up Lady Brassey's achievements as a traveller. She accompanied her husband, in 1874, on a cruise to the Arctic Circle, but has published no record of this enterprise. On their return, the indefatigable couple started on a voyage to the East, visiting Constantinople, the city of gilded palaces and mosques, of harems and romance; and skimming the sunny waters of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. In 1878 they made a second excursion to the Mediterranean, revisiting Constantinople, and seeing it in storm and shadow as they had previously seen it in sunshine; and exploring Cyprus, which then had been but recently brought under British dominion. Lady Brassey's narrative of her Mediterranean cruises and Oriental experiences has the distinctive merits of her former work—the same unpretending simplicity and clearness of style, the same quick appreciation of things that float upon the surface; but it necessarily lacks its interest and special value. It goes over familiar—nay, over hackneyed—ground, and thus inevitably comes into comparison with the works of preceding travellers, such as Miss Martineau and the author of "Eoethen," to whose high standard Lady Brassey would be the first to acknowledge that she has no pretensions to attain.

There is a certain amount of freshness in the following brief sketch of Athens[36]:—

"We drove first to the Temple of Theseus, the most perfectly preserved temple of the ancient world. The situation has sheltered it from shot and shell; but, without doubt, it owes its escape from destruction in part to the circumstance that in the Middle Ages it was consecrated as a church. It is a beautiful building, with its double row of columns, bas-reliefs, and roof all perfect, and now contains an interesting collection of antiquities, gathered from its immediate neighbourhood. Thence we drove up the hill to the Acropolis, passing on our way the modern observatory on the Hill of the Nymphs. The Hill of Pnyx rose on our right, and the Areopagus, where St. Paul preached, on our left. We entered the gates, and, passing among ruins of all kinds—statues, bas-reliefs, columns, capitals, and friezes—soon approached the propylaea. Then we went to the little Temple of Victory, closed with iron gates, and full of most exquisite bits of statues and bas-reliefs, specially two dancing girls, graceful in attitude and full of life and action. After these preliminary peeps at loveliness and art, we went up the long flight of steps, past the Pinartheca, and soon stood on the top of the Hill of the Acropolis, and in full view of all its glories.

"On one side was the splendid Parthenon, on the other the Erechtheum, with the Porch of Caryatides, called Beautiful, and right well it deserves its name. Six noble columns are still standing. We strolled about for a long time, took some photographs, admired the lovely panoramic view from the top—over the town of Athens to Eleusis, Salamis, and Corinth on one side, and from Mount Pentelicus and Mount Hymettus to the Elysian Fields, till our eyes wandered round by the ancient harbours of Phalisum and Piraeus; back again by the Street of Tombs to Athens, looking more dusty and more grey than ever as we gazed down on its grey-tiled roofs. Even the gardens and palm-trees hardly relieved it. It was nearly three o'clock before we could tear ourselves away."

This is very natural and simple, though it is hardly what we should expect from a cultivated woman after visiting the memorials of Greek art and history, and the great and beautiful city of the "violet moon." A greater enthusiasm, a more living sympathy, might surely have been provoked by the sight of the blue sea where Themistocles repulsed the navies of Persia, and the glorious hill on whose crest St. Paul spake to the wondering Athenians, and the monuments of the genius of Praxiteles and Phidias. Lady Brassey, however, is not at her best when treating of the places and things which antiquity has hallowed: it is the aspects of the life of to-day and the picturesque scenes of savage lands that arrest her attention most firmly, and are reproduced by her most vividly. She is more at home in the Hawaiian market than among the ruined temples of Athens.

The reader may not be displeased to take a glance at Nikosia, the chief town of Cyprus—of that famous island which calls up such stirring memories of the old chivalrous days when Richard I. and his Crusaders landed here, and the lion-hearted king became enamoured of Berengaria, the daughter of the Cypriot prince.

"The town is disappointing inside," she says, "although there are some fine buildings still left. The old cathedral of St. Sophia, now used as a mosque, is superb in the richness of its design and tracery, and the purity of its Gothic architecture. Opposite the cathedral is the Church of St. Nicholas, now used as a granary. The three Gothic portals are among the finest I have ever seen. Every house in Nikosia possesses a luxuriant garden, and the bazaars are festooned with vines; but the whole place wears, notwithstanding, an air of desolation, ruin, and dirt. Government House is one of the last of the old Turkish residences.

"From the Turkish prison we passed through a narrow dirty street, with ruined houses and wasted gardens on either side, out into the open country again, when a sharp canter over the plain and through a small village brought us to the place where the new Government House is in course of erection. This spot is called Snake Hill, from two snakes having once been discovered and killed here, a fact which shows how idle are the rumours of the prevalence of poisonous reptiles in the island. It is a rare thing to meet with them, and I have seen one or two collectors who had abandoned in despair the idea of doing so. The site selected for Government House is a commanding one, looking over river, plain, town, mountain, and what were once forests....

"Leaving the walls of the city behind, we crossed a sandy, stony plain. For about two hours we saw no signs of fertility; but we then began to pass through vineyards, cotton-fields, and pomegranates, olive and orange tree plantations, till we reached the house of a rich Armenian, whose brother is one of the interpreters at the camp. His wife and daughters came out to receive us, and conducted us along a passage full of girls picking cotton, and through two floors stored with sesame, grain of various kinds, cotton, melons, gourds, &c., to a suite of spacious rooms on the upper floor, opening into one another, with windows looking over a valley. Oh! the delight of reposing on a Turkish divan, in a cut stone-built house, after that long ride in the burning heat! Truly, the sun of Cyprus is as a raging lion, even in this month of November. What, then, must it be in the height of summer! The officers all agree in saying that they have never felt anything like it, even in the hottest parts of India or the tropics....

"After that we mounted fresh mules, and rode up the valley, by the running water, to the point where it gushes from the hill, or rather mountain, side—a clear stream of considerable power. It rises suddenly from the limestone rock at the foot of Pentadactylon, nearly 3,000 feet high, in the northern range of mountains. No one knows whence it springs; but from the earliest times it has been celebrated, and some writers have asserted that it comes all the way, under the sea, from the mountains of Keramania, in Asia Minor. The effect produced is magical, trees and crops of all kinds flourishing luxuriantly under its fertilizing influence. The village of Kythraea itself nestles in fruit-trees and flowering shrubs, and every wall is covered with maiden-hair fern, the fronds of which are frequently four and five feet long. The current of the stream is used to turn many mills, some of the most primitive character, but all doing their work well, though the strong water-power is capable of much fuller development....

"It was nearly dark when we started to return; and it was with many a stumble, but never a tumble, that we galloped across the stony plain, and reached the camp about seven p.m. Here we found a silk merchant from Nikosia waiting to see us, with a collection of the soft silks of the country, celebrated since the days of Boccaccio. They look rather like poplin, but are really made entirely of silk, three-quarters of a yard in width, and costing about three shillings a yard, the piece being actually reckoned in piastres for price and pies for measurement. The prettiest, I think, are those which are undyed and retain the natural colour of the cocoon, from creamy-white to the darkest gold. Some prefer a sort of slaty grey, of which a great quantity is made, but I think it is very ugly."

In this easy, gossiping manner Lady Brassey ambles on, not telling one anything that is particularly new, but recording what really met her eye in the most unpretending fashion. As a writer she scarcely calls for criticism: she writes with fluency and accuracy, but never warms up into eloquence, and her reflections are not less commonplace than her style. As a traveller she deserves the distinction and popularity she has attained. It would seem that in her various cruises she has accomplished some 12,000 miles—in itself no inconsiderable feat for an English lady; but the feat becomes all the more noteworthy when we find that, instead of being, as we would naturally suppose, "at home on the sea," and wholly untouched by the suffering it inflicts on so many, she has always been a victim. Entering the harbour of Valetta on her homeward voyage, she writes:—"I think that at last the battle of eighteen years is accomplished, and that the bad weather we have so continually experienced since we left Constantinople, comprising five gales in eleven days, has ended by making me a good sailor. For the last two days I have really known what it is to feel absolutely well at sea, even when it is very rough, and have been able to eat my meals in comfort, and even to read and write, without feeling that my head belonged to somebody else."[37]