FOOTNOTES:

[28] Lady Brassey: "A Voyage in the Sunbeam," pp. 46, 47.

[29] Lady Brassey: "A Voyage in the Sunbeam," p. 90.

[30] Lady Brassey: "A Voyage in the Sunbeam," pp. 110, 122.

[31] Lady Brassey: "A Voyage in the Sunbeam," pp. 129, 130.

[32] Lady Brassey: "A Voyage in the Sunbeam," pp. 227, 228.

[33] Lady Brassey: "Voyage of the Sunbeam," pp. 256-262.

[34] Lady Brassey: "A Voyage in the Sunbeam," pp. 268-272.

[35] Lady Brassey: "A Voyage in the Sunbeam," pp. 309-312. With this Japanese bill of fare we may contrast a Chinese bill of fare which Lady Brassey preserves:—

Four courses of small bowls, one to each guest, viz.—Bird's-nest Soup, Pigeon's Eggs, Ice Fungus (said to grow on ice), Shark's Fins (chopped).

Eight large bowls, viz.—Stewed Shark's Fins, Fine Shell Fish, Mandarin Bird's Nest, Canton Fish Maw, Fish Brain, Meat Balls with Rock Fungus, Pigeons stewed with Wai Shau (a strengthening herb), Stewed Mushroom.

Four dishes, viz.—Sliced Ham, Roast Mutton, Fowls, Roast Sucking Pig.

One large dish, viz.—Boiled Rock Fish.

Eight small bowls, viz.—Stewed Pig's Palate, Minced Quails, Stewed Fungus, Sinews of the Whale Fish, Rolled Roast Fowl, Sliced Seals, Stewed Duck's Paws, Peas Stewed.

[36] Lady Brassey: "Sunshine and Storm in the East," pp. 41-44.

[37] Lady Brassey: "Sunshine and Storm in the East," p. 431.



LADY MORGAN AND OTHERS.

Among literary travellers a place must be assigned to Lady Morgan (born 1777), the novelist, who in her books of travel exhibits most of the qualities which lend a characteristic zest to her fictions. She and her husband, Sir Charles Morgan, visited France in 1815, and compounded a book upon it, which, as France had been for so many years shut against English tourists, produced a considerable sensation, and was eagerly read. Its sketches are very bright and amusing, and its naive egotism was pardonable, considering the flatteries which Parisian society had heaped upon its author. Its liberal opinions, which the Conservatives of to-day would pronounce milk-and-water, fluttered the dove-cotes of Toryism under the regime of Lord Liverpool, and provoked Wilson Croker, the "Rigby" of Lord Beaconsfield's "Coningsby," to fall upon it tooth and nail. Lady Morgan revenged herself by putting her scurrilous attache into her next novel, "Florence Macarthy," where he figures as Crawley. In 1819 the book-making couple repaired to Italy, and, of course, a sojourn in Italy meant a book upon Italy, which Lord Byron declared to be very faithful. It is said to have produced a greater impression than even the book upon France; and as a tolerably accurate representation of the moral and political condition of Italy at the period of the Bourbon restoration, it has still some value.

In 1830 Lady Morgan's fecund pen compiled a second book upon France, which, indeed, seemed to exist in order that Lady Morgan might write upon it. This second book, like its predecessor, is cleverly and smartly written; it contains many lively descriptions, and some just criticisms upon men and things. Names appear upon each page, with a personal sketch or a mot, which makes the reader at once of their society. There is a visit to Beranger, the great French lyrist, in the prison of La Force; and there are two memorable dinners, one at the Comte de Segur's, with a record of the conversation, as graphic and amusing as if it were not on topics half a century old; the other is a dinner at Baron Rothschild's, dressed by the great Careme, who had erected a column of the most ingenious confectionery architecture, and inscribed Lady Morgan's name upon it in spun sugar. Very complimentary, but, unfortunately, sadly prophetic! It is only upon "spun sugar" that her name was inscribed by herself or others.

Mrs. Mary Somerville, the illustrious astronomer and physicist, would not have claimed for herself the distinction of traveller, nor has she written any complete book of travel; but there are sketches of scenery in her "Personal Recollections" which make one wish that she had done so. And, indeed, the fine colouring of the pictures which occur in her "Physical Geography" show that she had the artist's eye and the artist's descriptive faculty, both so essential to the full enjoyment of travel. Much clear and forcible writing, with many vivacious observations, will be found in the "Sketches and Characteristics of Hindustan," published by Miss Emma Roberts in 1835. More minute and exact are the details which Mrs. Postans has collected in reference to the mode of life, the religion, and the old forms of society and government in one of the north-western provinces of India, under the title of "Cutch." It includes a very animated account of a Suttee, that cruel mode of compulsory self-sacrifice which the British Government has since prohibited. On this occasion the widow, a remarkably handsome woman, apparently about thirty, seems really to have been a willing victim, and behaved with the utmost composure.

"Accompanied by the officiating Brahmin, the widow walked seven times round the pyre, repeating the usual mantras, or prayers, strewing rice and cowries on the ground, and sprinkling water from her hand over the bystanders, who believe this to be efficacious in preventing disease and in expiating committed sins. She then removed her jewels and presented them to her relations, saying a few words to each with a calm, soft smile of encouragement and hope. The Brahmins then presented her with a lighted torch, bearing which

'Fresh as a flower just blown, And warm with life, her youthful pulses playing,'

she stepped through the fatal door, and sat within the pile. The body of her husband, wrapped in rich kincob, was then carried seven times round the pile, and finally laid across her knees. Thorns and grass were piled over the door, and the European officers present insisted that free space should be left, as it was hoped the poor victim might yet relent, and rush from her fiery prison to the protection so freely offered. The command was readily obeyed; the strength of a child would have sufficed to burst the frail barrier which confined her, and a breathless pause succeeded; but the woman's constancy was faithful to the last. Not a sigh broke the death-like silence of the crowd, until a slight smoke curling from the summit of the pyre, and then a tongue of flame darting with bright and lightning-like rapidity into the clear blue sky, told us that the sacrifice was complete. Fearlessly had this courageous woman fired the pile, and not a groan had betrayed to us the moment when her spirit fled. At sight of the flame a fiendish shout of exultation rent the air, the tom-toms sounded, the people clapped their hands with delight as the evidence of their murderous work burst on their view; whilst the English spectators of this sad scene withdrew, bearing deep compassion in their hearts, to philosophize as best they might on a custom so fraught with horror, so incompatible with reason, and so revolting to human sympathy. The pile continued to burn for three hours; but from its form it is supposed that almost immediate suffocation must have terminated the sufferings of the unhappy victim."

There is a very charming book, brightly written, and dealing with an interesting people, which reaches very high in the literature of travel. We refer to Lady Eastlake's "Residence on the Shores of the Baltic, described in a series of Letters," in which, with a polished pen and a quick observation, she sets before us the patriarchal simplicity of life and honest character of the Esthonians. Travel-books by ladies were rare at the time that Lady Eastlake (then Miss Rigby) wrote, and the success of her work was influenced, no doubt, by this rarity; but its reputation may well rest upon its genuine merit. Only, justice compels us to say that writing of almost equal merit, sometimes of superior, is now poured out every year, nay, every month, by adventurers of the "other sex." A female traveller has ceased to be a rara avis; delicately-nurtured women now climb Mont Blanc or penetrate into the Norwegian forests, or cross the Pacific, or traverse sandy deserts, or visit remote isles, in company with their husbands and brothers, or "unprotected." This great and rapid increase in the number of female travellers is partly due, no doubt, to the greater facilities of locomotion; but we believe it is also due to the greater freedom which women of late years have successfully claimed, and to the consequent development of powers and faculties, their possession of which was long ignored or denied.



MRS. TROLLOPE.

Frances Milton, so well known in English literature under her married name of Trollope, was born at Heathfield Parsonage in Hampshire, in 1787. She received, under her father's supervision, a very careful education, and developed her proclivities for literary composition at an early age. She was but eighteen when she accepted the hand of Mr. Thomas A. Trollope, a barrister, and the cares and duties of married life for some years diverted her energies into a different channel. The true bent of her talents—a sharp, bold, and somewhat coarse satire—she did not discover until after her visit to the United States (1829-1831). There she conceived an antipathy to American manners and customs, which seems to have awakened her powers of sarcasm, and resulted in her first publication, "Domestic Life of the Americans." The peculiarities she had found so obnoxious she sketched with a strong, rough hand; and the truth of her drawing was proved by the wrathful feelings which it provoked in the breasts of its victims. Reading it now, we are naturally inclined to think it a caricature and an exaggeration; but it is only fair to remember that, since its appearance half a century ago, a great change has come over the temper of American society. The great fault of Mrs. Trollope is, that she is always a critic and never a judge. She looks at everything through the magnifying lens of a microscope. And, again, it must be admitted that she is often vulgar; whatever the want of refinement in American society, it is almost paralleled by the want of refinement in her lively, but coarsely-coloured pages. For the rest, she is a shrewd observer; has a considerable insight into human nature, especially on its "seamy side"; and if a hard hitter, generally keeps her good temper, and does not resent a fair stroke from an antagonist. As a humorist she takes high rank: there are scenes in her novels, as well as in her records of travel, which are marked by a real and vigorous, if somewhat masculine, fun. Perhaps some of her defects are due to the influences among which she lived—that ultra Toryism of the Castlereagh school which resented each movement of reform, each impulse of progress, as a direct revolutionary conspiracy against everything approved and established by "the wisdom of our ancestors"—that narrowness of thought and shallowness of feeling which resisted all change, even when its necessity was most apparent.

That Mrs. Trollope's prejudices sometimes prevail over her sense of justice is apparent in the ridicule she lavishes upon the rigid observance of the Sabbath by the American people. She forgot that they inherited it from the English Puritans. If her evidence may be accepted, it amounted in her day to a bigotry as implacable as that of the straitest sect of the Scotch Presbyterians a generation ago. She tells an anecdote to the following effect:—A New York tailor sold, on a Sunday, some clothes to a sailor whose ship was on the point of sailing. The Guild of Tailors immediately made their erring brother the object of the most determined persecution, and succeeded in ruining him. A lawyer who had undertaken his defence lost all his clients. The nephew of this lawyer sought admission to the bar. His certificates were perfectly regular; but on his presenting himself he was rejected, with the curt explanation that no man bearing the name of F—— (his uncle's name) would be admitted. We need hardly add that such fanaticism as this would not be possible now in the United States.

Mrs. Trollope's animadversions are obsolete on many other subjects. Much of her indignation was necessarily, and very justly bestowed on the then flourishing institution of domestic slavery; but that foul blot on her scutcheon America wiped out in blood, the blood of thousands of her bravest children. Her criticism upon manners and social customs has also, to a great extent, lost its power of application. Of its liveliness and pungency we may give, however, a specimen; her description of the day's avocations of a Philadelphian lady of the first class:—

"This lady," she says, "shall be the wife of a senator and a lawyer in the highest repute and practice. She has a very handsome house, with white marble steps and door-posts, and a delicate silver knocker and door-handle; she has very handsome drawing-rooms, very handsomely furnished (there is a side-board in one of them, but it is very handsome, and has very handsome decanters and cut-glass water jugs upon it); she has a very handsome carriage and a very handsome free black coachman; she is always very handsomely dressed; and, moreover, she is very handsome herself.

"She rises, and her first hour is spent in the scrupulously nice arrangement of her dress; she descends to her parlour neat, stiff, and silent; her breakfast is brought in by her free black footman; she eats her fried bean and her salt fish, and drinks her coffee in silence, while her husband reads one newspaper, and puts another under his elbow; and then, perhaps, she washes the cups and saucers. Her carriage is ordered at eleven; till that hour she is employed in the pastry-room, her snow-white apron protecting her mouse-coloured silk. Twenty minutes before her carriage should appear she retires to her chamber, as she calls it, shakes, and folds up her still snow-white apron, smooths her rich dress, and with nice care sets on her elegant bonnet, and all the handsome et caetera; then walks downstairs, just at the moment that her free black coachman announces to her free black footman that the carriage waits. She steps into it, and gives the word, "Drive to the Dorcas Society." Her footman stays at home to clean the knives, but her coachman can trust his horses while he opens the carriage door, and his lady not being accustomed to a hand or an arm, gets out very safely without, though one of her own is occupied by a work basket, and the other by a large roll of all those indescribable matters which ladies take as offerings to Dorcas societies. She enters the parlour appropriated for the meeting, and finds seven other ladies, very like herself, and takes her place among them; she presents her contribution, which is accepted with a gentle circular smile, and her parings of broad-cloth, her ends of ribbon, her gilt paper, and her minikin pins, are added to the parings of broad-cloth, the ends of ribbon, the gilt paper, and the minikin pins with which the table is already covered; she also produces from her basket three ready-made pin-cushions, four ink-wipers, seven paper matches, and a paste-board watch-case; these are welcomed with acclamations, and the youngest lady present deposits them carefully on shelves, amid a prodigious quantity of similar articles. She then produces her thimble, and asks for work; it is presented to her, and the eight ladies all stitch together for some hours. Their talk is of priests and of missions; of the profits of their last sale, of their hopes from the next; of the doubt whether young Mr. This or young Mr. That should receive the fruits of it to fit him out for Siberia; of the very ugly bonnet seen at church on Sabbath morning; of the very handsome preacher who performed on Sabbath afternoon; and of the very large collection made on Sabbath evening. This lasts till three, when the carriage again appears, and the lady and her basket return home; she mounts to her chamber, carefully sets aside her bonnet and its appurtenances, puts on her scalloped black silk apron, walks into the kitchen to see that all is right, then into the parlour, where, having cast a careful glance over the table prepared for dinner, she sits down, work in hand, to await her spouse. He comes, shakes hands with her, spits, and dines. The conversation is not much, and ten minutes suffices for the dinner: fruit and toddy, the newspaper, and the work-bag succeed. In the evening the gentleman, being a savant, goes to the Wister Society, and afterwards plays a snug rubber at a neighbour's. The lady receives at ten a young missionary and three members of the Dorcas Society. And so ends her day."

A harmless day, after all! No doubt such days were spent by Philadelphian ladies exactly as Mrs. Trollope describes them; no doubt such days are possible in American society now, and, for that matter, in English society also. But it is not less certain that then and now many women in Philadelphia spent and spend their time with a wiser activity, and more to the advantage of themselves and their fellow creatures. The fault of the satirist is, that he reasons from particulars to generals, whereas the sagacious observer will reason from generals to particulars. The manners and customs, the idiosyncrasies of a class will probably be the manners and customs and idiosyncrasies of most of its members; but it by no means follows that from two or three individuals we can safely predict the general characteristics of the class to which they belong. In a regiment famous for its bravery we may unquestionably conclude that the majority of the rank and file will be brave men; but a few may be composed of less heroic stuff. Would it be just to take these as the types of the regiment?

* * * * *

After an unsuccessful attempt to make a home in America, Mrs. Trollope returned to England, with the world to begin again, a husband incapacitated for work by ill-health, and children who needed aid, and were too young to give any. In such circumstances many would have appealed to the sympathy of the public, but Mrs. Trollope was a courageous woman, and preferred to rely upon her own resources. She followed her first book, the success of which was immediate and very great, by a novel entitled "The Refugee in America," in which the plot is ill-constructed, and the characters are crudely drawn, but the writer's caustic humour lends animation to the page. "The Abbess," a novel, was her third effort; and then, in the following year, came another record of travel, "Belgium and Western Germany in 1833." Her Conservative instincts found less to offend them in Continental than in American society, and her sketches, therefore, while not less vivid, are much better humoured than in her American book. Some offences against the "minor morals" incur her condemnation; but the evil which most provokes her is the incessant tobacco smoking of the Germans, against which she protests as vehemently as did James I. in his celebrated "Counterblast."

Three years later she produced her "Paris and the Parisians," of which M. Cortambret speaks as "crowning her reputation," and as receiving almost as warm a welcome in France as in England. The character, customs, and literature of the French furnish the theme of a series of letters, in which the clever and vivacious writer never fails to charm even those whom she does not convince. It is curious to read this book, published in 1836, and to compare the state of society in those days with that which now exists. What changes, in half a century, have been wrought in the national character! There seems in the present a certain dulness, greyness, and indifference,—or is it rather an acquired reticence and self-control?—which contrast very strikingly with the feverish, agitated, tumultuous past, so partial to fantastic crotchets, but so sympathetic also with great doctrines and generous ideas.

Mrs. Trollope records as an historical and noteworthy phrase, much in vogue in 1835, "Young France," and describes it as one of those cabalistic formulae which assume to give expression to a grand, terrible, sublime, and volcanic idea. What shall we say now-a-days of these two brief monosyllabic words, in which the strong generation of the Revolution and the First Empire reposed so haughty a confidence? What shall we say of them to a disillusionized youth, who no longer believe in anything, and know neither faith nor culture, except in one thing, money—for whom Sport and the Bourse have replaced the literature which strengthened and developed the faculties, and the politics which made men citizens?

Mrs. Trollope preserves two other words, which first rose into popularity in 1835—the words rococo and decousu. All things which bore the stamp of the principles and sentiments of former generations were branded as rococo. Whatever partook of the extravagance of the Romantic school was termed decousu. Eventually this latter word was abandoned as wanting in vigour, and at first that of debraille was substituted; afterwards that of Bohemian, which, despite the injurious insinuation it conveyed, has been accepted and adopted by a considerable school. Mrs. Trollope avers that, when she visited France, it was impossible for two persons to carry on a conversation for a quarter of an hour without introducing the words rococo and decousu a score of times. They turned up as frequently as "the head of Charles I." in Mr. Dick's discourse. And, she adds, with her usual causticity, that if one were to classify the population into two great divisions, it would be impossible to define them more expressively than by these two words.

* * * * *

That Mrs. Trollope had no sympathy with the Romantic school will not excite surprise. Lamennais and Victor Hugo she stigmatizes as decousus of the worst kind, and places them in the same rank as Robespierre. The genius of Victor Hugo, so vast, so elevated, and so profound, she could not understand; she could see only its irregularities, like a certain "aesthete" who, when contemplating the water-floods of Niagara, directed his attention to a supposed defect in their curve! Her methodical, matter-of-fact mind was wholly unable to measure the proportions of the gigantic genius of the author of "Notre Dame," and hence she discharges at him a volley of denunciatory epithets, borrowed always from the severest classic style—"the champion of vice," "the chronicler of sin," "the historian of shame and misery." She could not believe that in all his writings it was possible to discover a single honourable, innocent, and wholesome thought. Sin was the Muse which he invoked; horror attended his footsteps; thousands of monsters served as his escort, and furnished him with the originals of the "disgusting" portraits which he passed his life in painting. This was plain speaking; but Mrs. Trollope attacking Victor Hugo is one of those rebellions on the part of the infinitely little against the infinitely great which move the laughter of gods and men.

In truth, she is seldom happy in her literary criticisms. She speaks of Beranger as "a meteor," yet of no French poet has the renown more steadily increased. She is constrained to admit that the great people's poet, whose fame will endure when that of most of his contemporaries has passed into dull oblivion, is a man of a fine genius, but she will not yield to him that foremost place which posterity, nevertheless, has adjudged to belong to him. Of Thiers and Mignet she admits the merits as historians, but characterizes their philosophy as narrow and shabby.

But from literature let us turn to society, in which she is easier to please. Whether it belongs to the character of the people, or whether it is but a transitory feature in the physiognomy of the age, she declares herself unable to determine; but nothing strikes her so forcibly as the air of gaiety and indifference with which the French discuss those great subjects that involve the world's destinies. We are inclined to think, however, that of late years a more serious spirit has prevailed. On the other hand, we cannot recognize as in existence now that exquisite courtesy of the French husband towards his wife which moved Mrs. Trollope's admiration. Unless recent observers err greatly, and unless the stage has ceased to reflect the tone and manners of society, a great change for the worst has taken place in this respect, due, perhaps, to the combined influence of speculation on the Bourse, smoking, and the coarser code of morals introduced from the North. That elaborate and delicate gallantry was a kind of blague for the whole nation; it made every Frenchman a knight of chivalry. No doubt it served as a cloak for many vices, but we have the vices still, without the cloak! "I should be surprised," says Mrs. Trollope, "if I heard it said that a Frenchman of good education had ever spoken rudely to his wife!"

To one of the worst enemies of the old-fashioned courtesy she makes a passing allusion, while hoping cordially that the ladies will easily conquer it—we mean Positivism. If the women of France, she says, remain true to their vocation, they will eventually combat with success the ever-increasing partiality of their compatriots for the positive, and will prevent each salon from becoming, like the boulevard of the Cafe Tortoni, a petite Bourse. Under the second Empire, however, women were scarcely less guilty than the men, and the mania of speculation raged in almost every boudoir. It is too early to decide dogmatically whether in this all-important branch of morals the Republic has effected an improvement; but assuredly the improvement, if it has begun, has not extended very far or very deep.

In 1835 the Parisians sometimes fell to blows in support of a philosophical principle, and would incur almost any hazard to hear a favourite orator or to "assist" at the representation of a drama by one of their own pet authors. Half a century later and they hurry to horse races, and fight one another for a caprice. In 1835 they committed suicide through love or sentiment; now they blow out their brains when their speculations have suddenly collapsed, some bubble burst.

Of the numerous suicides which half a century ago were recorded in the newspapers, Mrs. Trollope furnishes an example. Two young people, scarcely out of their childhood, went into a restaurant and ordered a dinner of extraordinary delicacy and not less extraordinary cost, returning at the appointed time to partake of it. They finished it with a good appetite, and with the enjoyment natural to their age. They called for champagne, and emptied the bottle, holding each other's hand. Not the slightest shadow of sadness obscured their gaiety, which was prolonged, almost noisy, and apparently genuine. After dinner came coffee, a mouthful of brandy, and the bill. One of them with his finger pointed out the total to the other, and both at the same time broke out into a fit of laughter. After they had drank the coffee they told the waiter that they wished to speak to the proprietor, who came immediately, supposing that they wished to complain of some article as overcharged.

But instead, the elder of the two began by declaring that the dinner was excellent, and went on to say that this was the more fortunate because it would assuredly be the last they should eat in this world; that as for the bill, he must be good enough to excuse payment, inasmuch as neither of them possessed a farthing. He explained that they would never have played him so sorry a joke had it not been that, finding themselves overwhelmed by the troubles and anxieties of the world, they had resolved to enjoy a good meal once more, and then to take leave of existence. The first portion of their project they had satisfactorily carried out, thanks to the excellence of Monsieur's cuisine and cellar, and the second would not be long delayed, since the coffee and the brandy had been mixed with a drug which would help them to pay all their debts.

The landlord was furious. He did not believe a word of the young man's oration, and declared he would hand them over to the commissary of police. Eventually he allowed them to leave on their furnishing him with their address.

The following day, impelled half by a wish to get his money, and half by a fear that they might have spoken in earnest, he repaired to the address they had given him, and learned that the two unfortunate young men had been found that morning lying on a bed which one of them had hired some weeks before. They were dead, and their bodies already cold.

On a small table in the room lay several papers covered with writing; all of them breathed the desire to attain renown without difficulty and without work, and expressed the utmost contempt for those who consented to gain their livelihood by the sweat of their brow. There were several quotations from Victor Hugo, and a request that their names and the manner of their death might be published in the newspapers.

It is a pity that their yearning for posthumous notoriety was gratified, inasmuch as the sentimental articles written to order by dexterous pens, and the verses composed in honour of the two lunatics by Beranger, in which a romantic halo is thrown over their audacious crime,

"Et vers le ciel se frayant un chemin, Ils sont partis en se donnant la main"...

encouraged, it is to be feared, a suicidal mania.

We have hinted that Mrs. Trollope's strength lay in her faculty of observation, and her strong, pungent humour. Occasionally, however, she ventures on a vein of reflection, and not without success. For instance, her observations upon the elevation of Louis Philippe to the French throne are marked by a clear, cool judgment.

When she diverts her thoughts, she says, from the dethroned and banished king to him whom she saw before her, walking without guards and with an assured step, she could not but recall the vicissitudes he had experienced, and the conclusion forced itself upon her that this earth and all its inhabitants were but the toys of children, which change their name and destination according to the moment's whim. It seemed to her that all men must be classed in the order which it was good for them to hold; and that everything would be thrown into the greatest confusion if they were cast down in order to be raised up again, and thus they were perpetually hurled from side to side; with all this, so powerless in themselves, and so completely governed by chance! She felt humbled by the sight of human weakness, and turned her eyes from the monarch to meditate on the insignificance of men.

How vain are all the efforts which man is able to make to direct the course of his own existence! There is nothing, in truth, but confidence in an exalted Wisdom and an immovable Power which can enable us, from the greatest to the smallest, to traverse with courage and tranquillity a world subject to such terrible convulsions.

In the opinion of one French critic, the book upon "Paris and the Parisians" is one of the most interesting works which has dealt with the subject of French society. It reflects with wonderful accuracy the physiognomy of the reign of Louis Philippe; those outbreaks which so frequently troubled the city; those political discussions which every evening transformed the salons into so many clubs; the romantic aspirations of Young France; the turbulence of the people, and the general want of respect for the monarchy.

Everywhere, moreover, as one of her translators has said, this literary Amazon marches, armed with a bold and vivid criticism, which gathered around her eager readers and bitter foes. Do not expect that she will relate to you (as Lady Morgan does) the tittle-tattle of the boudoirs of the countries she visits or in which she resides; for from the particularity and range of her observations it is clear that she made no flying visit, that her masculine mind penetrated below the surface. When she arrived in a new land she planted there her flag, and with pen upraised set forth to attack or energetically praise, according to her sympathies or her hatreds, the social and political manners exposed to her searching gaze.

* * * * *

France was not the only field of study which she found in Europe. In 1838 she published her "Vienna and the Austrians," in which her old antipathies and causticities reappeared; and in 1843, a "Visit to Italy," which was far from being a success. The classic air of Italy was not favourable to the development of her peculiar powers, and among the antiquities of Rome the humour which sketched so forcibly the broad features of American society was necessarily out of place.

Our business in these pages is with Mrs. Trollope the traveller, but of the industry of Mrs. Trollope the novelist we may reasonably give the reader an idea. In 1836 she published "The Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw," in which she renewed her attacks on American society, and drew a forcible sketch of the condition of the coloured population of the Southern States. Some of the scenes may fairly be credited with having suggested to Dickens the tone and sentiment of his American pictures in "Martin Chuzzlewit." Her best novel, "The Vicar of Wrexhill"—a highly-coloured portrait of an Anglican Tartuffe, bitter in its prejudices, but full of talent—appeared in 1837; the "Romance of Vienna," an attack on caste distinctions, in 1838. To the same year belongs her "Michael Armstrong," in which her Ishmael hand fell heavily on the narrow-mindedness of the manufacturing class—anticipating, in some degree, Dickens's "Hard Times." "One Fault," a satire upon romantic exaggeration; and the coarse, but clever "Widow Barnaby," a racy history of the troubles of a vulgar-genteel bourgeoise in search of a second husband, were published in 1839; and in the following year appeared its sequel, "The Widow Married," which is quite as coarse as its predecessor, but not so amusing. With indefatigable pen she produced, in 1843, three three-volume novels, "Hargreave," "Jessie Phillips," and "The Laurringtons"—the first a not very successful sketch of a man of fashion; the second, an unfair and exaggerated delineation of the action of the new Poor Law; and the third, a forcible and lively satire upon "superior people," in which some of the passages are in her best style.

In 1844 the industrious satirist, who would have been more generally successful had she selected the objects of her attacks with greater discretion, withdrew to Florence, from the host of enemies her "free hitting" had provoked, burying herself in an almost absolute seclusion. But her active mind could not long enjoy repose, and in 1851 she resumed her pen, selecting the Roman Catholic Church for her target in "Father Eustace." This was followed in 1852 by "Uncle Walter." It is unnecessary, however, to enumerate the titles of her later works, as they lacked most of the qualities which secured the popularity of her earlier, and have already passed into oblivion. It is doubtful, indeed, whether even her better work is much known to the reading public of the present day.[38]

This clever and industrious woman died at Florence on the 6th of October, 1863, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. Her name has been highly honoured in her two surviving sons, Anthony and Thomas Adolphus Trollope, both of whom have attained to a place of distinction in English literature.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] We have omitted from our list "The Blue Belles of England" (1841); "Tremordyn Cliff" (1838); "Charles Chesterfield" (1841); "The Ward of Thorpe-Combe" (1842); "Young Love" (1844); "Petticoat Government" (1852); and "The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman" (1853). Between the last-named and "The Vicar of Wrexhill" the gulf is very wide. One cannot help admiring, however, the indefatigable perseverance and the astonishing fertility of this accomplished novelist.



HARRIET MARTINEAU.

One of the best books on Eastern life in English literature we owe to the pen of a remarkable woman, whose reputation, based as it is on many other works of singular ability, we may take to be of a permanent character—Miss Harriet Martineau. She was born in 1802. Her father was a manufacturer in Norwich, where his family, originally of French origin, had resided since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. To her uncle, a surgeon in Norwich, she was mainly indebted for her education. Her home-life was not a happy one, and unquestionably its austere influences did much to develop in her that colossal egotism and self-sufficiency which marred her character, and has left its injurious impress on her writings. She tells us that only twice in her childhood did she experience any manifestation of tenderness—once when she was suffering from ear-ache, and her parents were stirred into unwonted compassion, and once from a kind-hearted lady who witnessed her alarm at a magic-lantern exhibition.

Much more care was shown in educing her intellectual faculties than in cultivating her affections. She learned French and music thoroughly, and attained to such proficiency in the classics that she could not only write Latin but think in Latin. She took a great delight in reading, and, of course, read omnivorously, with a special preference for history, poetry, and politics. Her inquisitive and abnormally active mind early began its inquiries into the mysteries of religious faith, but as these were not conducted in a patient or reverent spirit, it is no wonder, perhaps, that they proved unsatisfactory. She got hold of the works of Dugald Stewart, Hartley, and Priestley; plunged boldly into the maze of metaphysics, and grappled unhesitatingly with the mysterious subjects of fore-knowledge and free-will. But in philosophy as in religion, her immense egotism led her astray. She accepted nothing for the existence of which she could not account by causes intelligible to her own mind. Naturally she became a Necessarian, and adopted strenuously the dogma of the invariable and inevitable action of fixed laws. We may be allowed, perhaps, to think of this singular woman as yearning and aspiring after a lofty ideal throughout a sensitive and timorous childhood; and in wayward musings and visionary reflections finding that consolation which should have been, but was not, provided by maternal love. As she grew older, and grew stronger both in mind and body, she grew bolder; aspiration gave way to self-satisfied conviction. Morbid self-reproach was replaced by an extravagant self-consciousness, and thenceforth she went on her solitary way, acting up always to a high standard of moral rectitude, but putting aside the faiths and hopes and judgments of the many as baubles beneath the notice of a mature and well-balanced intellect.

Her tastes for literary pursuits she has herself ascribed to the extreme delicacy of her health in childhood; to the infirmity of deafness, which, while not so complete as to debar her from all social intercourse, yet compelled her to seek occupations and pleasures not dependent upon others; and to the affection which subsisted between her and the brother nearest her own age, the Rev. James Martineau, so well known for his fine intellectual powers. The death of the father having involved the family in the discomfort of narrow circumstances, the pen she had hitherto wielded for amusement she took up with the view of gaining an independent livelihood; and she conceived the idea of employing fiction as a vehicle for the exposition and popularization of the principles of social and political economy. The idea was as new as it was happy; nor could it have been realized at a more opportune time than when the English public was beginning to awake from its long political lethargy, and to assert the rights of the nation against the dominant class interests. It was desirable that its new-born activity should be guided by an intelligent apprehension of the cardinal truths by which reform is differentiated from revolution; and to contribute to this result became Harriet Martineau's purpose. Accordingly, in 1826, she wrote, and after conquering the difficulty of finding a publisher, gave to the world her tale of "The Rioters," the first of a long series of illustrations of political economy, which had a very considerable influence, if not quite so great an influence, as she herself supposed. The series comprises eighteen tales, of which the best, perhaps, are "Ella of Gareloch," "Life in the Wilds," and "The Hamlets." Their true merit consists in their having quickened and strengthened the interest of the reading classes in economic questions. In their day they did an useful work, but they are already forgotten; and, as Sara Coleridge predicted, their political economy has proved too heavy a ballast for vessels that were expected to sail down the stream of time.

In 1834 Miss Martineau "qualified," so to speak, for a place among female travellers, by visiting the United States. She spent nearly two years in traversing the territories of the Great Western Republic, and was everywhere received with an enthusiastic welcome. Returning to England in 1836, she recorded her impressions of American society, and her views of American institutions in her "Society in America" and her "Retrospect of Western Travel." These are discriminative and thoughtful, while sufficiently cordial in their praise to satisfy even the most exacting American; and at the time of their appearance these books unquestionably did much to soothe the irritation which Mrs. Trollope's hard hitting had provoked. It is but just, however, to commend the honesty with which she avowed her anti-slavery opinions, which could not then be enunciated without exciting the anger even of the people of the North. It brought upon her no small amount of abuse and contumely, many of those who had previously received her with professed admiration joining in the clamour raised against her by the slave-holders and their partisans.

Her literary activity, meanwhile, knew no stint. In 1839 she published "Deerbrook," her best novel, which the critic will always value as a vigorous picture of some aspects of English life. The tone is high and sustained. As for the characters, they are not very strongly individualized; but, on the other hand, the descriptions are clear and forcible, while the interest of the plot is deep and wholesome. John Sterling's criticism of it says:—"It is really very striking, and parts of it are very true and very beautiful. It is not so true or so thoroughly clear and harmonious among delineations of English middle-class gentility as Miss Austen's books, especially as 'Pride and Prejudice,' which I think exquisite."

While travelling on the Continent, in the spring of 1838, Miss Martineau was seized with a very serious illness. By slow stages she returned to England, where she settled down near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to be under the care of her brother-in-law. She resided there for a period of nearly six years. Neither suffering of mind or body, however, was allowed to interfere with her literary work. She gave to the world in 1840 her second novel, "The Hour and the Man," founded on the romantic career of Toussaint L'Ouverture; and composed the admirable series of children's tales, known by the general title of "The Playfellow." These four volumes, "Settlers at Home," "The Picnic," "Feats on the Fiord," and "The Crofton Boys," show her at her very best. They are full of bold and picturesque descriptions, and the story is told with unflagging energy. Her peculiar position suggested a book that has won a well-deserved popularity—"Life in the Sick-room" (1844). Its delicate and judicious reflections, and its pleasing sketches, cannot be read without a touch of sympathy.

Restored to health in 1845, she removed to Ambleside, among the lakes and mountains, settling in the immediate neighbourhood of the poet Wordsworth. In the autumn she published her "Forest and Game Laws"; and in the following year she made a journey to the East, and ascended the river Nile, recording her experiences in the book which has led us to introduce her among our female travellers—"Eastern Life, Past and Present," a remarkable book, giving a fresh interest to the beaten track of Eastern travel and research, and breathing vitality into the dry bones of Champollini, Wilkinson, and Lane. Putting aside its crude notions of Egyptology, and its wild speculations on religious topics, we must be prepared to admire its fresh and finely-coloured word pictures, the glow and power of which are surprising. Miss Martineau went up the Nile to Philae; she afterwards crossed the desert to the Red Sea, landed in Arabia, and ascended Mounts Sinai and Horeb; and, finally, explored a portion of the shores and islands of the Mediterranean. We must pause in our rapid narrative to give a specimen or two of the sketches she made on the way; they will show how a strong and vivid genius can deal with the incidents of travel, and what a record of it may become in the hands of a skilful and accomplished artist.

Let us take her description of the Sphinx—the Sphinx that for some thousands of years has held mute companionship with the Great Pyramids:—

"The full serene gaze of its round face, rendered ugly by the loss of the nose, which was a very handsome feature of the old Egyptian face—this full gaze, and the stony calm of its attitude almost turn one to stone. So life-like, so huge, so monstrous; it is really a fearful spectacle. I saw a man sitting in a fold of the neck—as a fly might settle on a horse's mane. In that crease he reposed, while far over his head extended the vast pent-house of the jaw; and above that, the dressed hair on either side the face—each bunch a mass of stone which might crush a dwelling-house. In its present state its proportions cannot be obtained; but Sir G. Wilkinson tells us, 'Pliny says it measured from the belly to the highest part of the head sixty-three feet; its length was one hundred and forty-three; and the circumference of its head round the forehead one hundred and two feet; all cut out in the natural rock, and worked smooth.' Fancy the long well-opened eyes, in such proportion as this—eyes which have gazed unwinking into vacancy, while mighty Pharaohs, and Hebrew law-givers, and Persian princes, and Greek philosophers, and Antony with Cleopatra by his side, and Christian anchorites, and Arab warriors, and European men of science, have been brought hither in succession by the unpausing ages to look up into those eyes—so full of meaning, though so fixed!"[39]

* * * * *

At Damascus she visited a Turkish harem, and her account of the visit the reader will find some interest in comparing with Madame Hommaire de Hell's narrative of a similar experience.

She and her companions saw the seven wives of three gentlemen, besides a crowd of attendants and visitors. Of the seven, two had been the wives of the head of the household, who was dead; three were the wives of his eldest son, aged twenty-two; and the remaining two were the wives of his second son, aged fifteen. The youngest son, aged thirteen, was not yet married; but he would be thinking about it soon. The pair of widows were elderly women, as merry as girls, and quite at their ease. Of the other five three were sisters—that is, we conclude, half-sisters; children of different mothers in the same harem. It is evident, at a glance, what a tragedy lies under this; what the horrors of jealousy must be among sisters thus connected for life; three of them between two husbands in the same house! And we were told that the jealousy had begun, young as they were, and the third having been married only a week. This young creature, aged twelve, was the bride of the husband of fifteen. She was the most conspicuous person in the place, not only for the splendour of her dress, but because she sat on the diwan, while the others sat or lounged on cushions on the raised floor. The moment Miss Martineau took her seat she was struck with compassion for this child, who looked so grave, sad, and timid, while the others romped and giggled, and indulged in laughter at their own silly jokes; she smiled not, but looked on listlessly. Miss Martineau was resolved to make her laugh before she went away, and at length she did somewhat relax—smiling, and in a moment growing grave; but after a while she really and truly laughed, and when the whole harem was shown to the visitors, she slipped her bare and dyed feet into her pattens, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and joined them in the courts, nestling to them, and apparently losing the sense of her new position for a time; but there was less of the gaiety of a child about her than in the elderly widows. Her dress was superb—a full skirt and bodice of geranium-coloured brocade, embossed with gold flowers and leaves; and her frill and ruffles were of geranium-coloured gauze. Her eyebrows were frightful—joined together and extended by black paint. A silk net, bedizened with jewels and natural flowers, covered her head, which thus resembled a bouquet sprinkled with diamonds. Her nails were dyed black, and her feet dyed black in chequers. Her complexion, called white, was of an unhealthy yellow; indeed, not a healthy complexion was to be seen among the whole company. How should it be otherwise among women secluded from exercise, and pampered with all the luxuries of Oriental life.

Besides the seven wives, a number of attendants came in to look at the European visitors, and serve the pipes and sherbet; also a few ladies from a neighbouring harem; and a party of Jewesses, with whom Miss Martineau and her friends had some previous acquaintance. Mrs. G., we are told, was compelled to withdraw her lace veil, and then to remove her bonnet; the street, she was informed, was the place where the veil should be worn, and not the interior of the house. Then her bonnet went round, and was tried on many heads; one merry girl wearing it long enough to surprise many new comers with the joke. Miss Martineau's gloves were stretched and pulled in a variety of ways, in their attempts to thrust their large, broad brown hands into them, one after another. But it was the ear-trumpet, rendered necessary by her deafness, which afforded the greatest entertainment. The eldest widow, who sat near her, asked for it and put it to her ear; whereupon Miss Martineau exclaimed, "Bo!" When she had done laughing, the lady of the harem placed it to her next neighbour's ear, and shouted "Bo!" and in this way it returned to its possessor. But in two minutes it was asked for again, and went round a second time; everybody laughing as loud as ever at each "Bo!" so that the joke was repeated a third time.

The next joke was connected with the Jewesses, four or five of whom sat in a row in the diwan. Almost everybody else was puffing away at a tchibouque or nargileh, and the place was one cloud of smoke. The poor Jewesses were obliged to decline joining us, for it happened to be Saturday, and they must not smoke on their Sabbath. They were naturally much pitied, and some of the young wives did what was possible for them. Drawing in a long breath of smoke, they puffed it forth in the faces of the Jewesses, who opened mouth and nostrils eagerly to receive it. Thus was the Sabbath observed, to shouts of laughter.

"A pretty little blue-eyed girl of seven was the only child," says Miss Martineau, "we saw. She nestled against her mother, and the mother clasped her closely, lest we should carry her off to London. She begged we would not wish to take her child to London, and said, 'she would not sell her for much money.' One of the wives was pointed out to us as particularly happy in the prospect of becoming a mother; and we were taken to see the room which she was to lie in, which was all in readiness, though the event was not looked for for more than half a year. She was in the gayest spirits, and sang and danced. While she was lounging on her cushions, I thought her the handsomest and most graceful, as well as the happiest, of the party; but when she rose to dance, the charm was destroyed for ever. The dancing is utterly disgusting. A pretty Jewess of twelve years old danced, much in the same way; but with downcast eyes and an air of modesty. While the dancing went on, and the smoking and drinking coffee and sherbet, and the singing, to the accompaniment of a tambourine, some hideous old hags came in successively, looked and laughed, and went away again. Some negresses made a good background to this thoroughly Eastern picture. All the while, romping, kissing, and screaming went on among the ladies, old and young. At first, I thought them a perfect rabble; but when I recovered myself a little, I saw that there was some sense in the faces of the elderly women. In the midst of all this fun, the interpreters assured us that 'there is much jealousy every day;' jealousy of the favoured wife; that is, in this case, of the one who was pointed out to us by her companions as so eminently happy, and with whom they were romping and kissing, as with the rest. Poor thing! even the happiness of these her best days is hollow, for she cannot have, at the same time, peace in the harem and her husband's love."[40]

* * * * *

With these specimens we must be content, though we are well aware, as Hierocles has taught us, that we cannot judge of a house from a single brick. They fairly illustrate, however, Miss Martineau's style and manner in her record of Eastern travel—a record which the narratives of later travellers may have rendered obsolete in some particulars, but have certainly not superseded.

Her brief career as a traveller terminated with her visit to the East; but a reference to the incidents of her later life may possibly be convenient for the reader. In 1849-1850 she published her "History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace," a thoroughly good bit of historical work, not less admirable for the general fairness of its tone than for the lucidity of its narrative. This was followed by her "Introduction to the History of the Peace, from 1800 to 1815." A careful English condensation of Comte's "Positive Philosophy" appeared in 1853. Meanwhile she was a constant contributor to Mr. Charles Dickens's "Household Words," and to the columns of the "Daily News." In the midst of all this activity she was suddenly struck down by disease of the heart, and her doctors announced that she might die at any moment. She resigned herself to her fate with her usual calm courage, and proceeded to draw up and print her autobiography. Strange to say, she lived for twenty years longer; the Damocles' sword suspended over her head forbore to fall, and as soon as her health was to some extent re-established she resumed her literary labours. Among her latest works, which present abundant evidence of the clearness and practical character of her intellect, we may mention a treatise on "The Factory Controversy," 1853; a "History of the American Compromise," 1856; a picturesquely-written historical sketch of "British Rule in India;" also, "England and her Soldiers;" "Health, Handicraft, and Husbandry;" and "Household Education."

As years passed by her infirmities increased, but she retained her force and freshness of intellect almost to the last. It was not until the beginning of 1876 that her mental condition underwent any serious change. Even then her strong will seemed to stay and strengthen her failing mind. She kept her household books and superintended the household economy to the very end, though suffering under a burden of pain which weaker natures would have found intolerable. Writing to a friend six weeks before her death, she exclaims:—"I am very ill.... the difficulty and distress to me are the state of the head. I will only add that the condition grows daily worse, so that I am scarcely able to converse or read, and the cramp in the hands makes writing difficult or impossible; so I must try to be content with the few lines I can send, till the few days become none. We believe that time to be near, and we shall not attempt to deceive you about it. My brain feels under the constant sense of being not myself, and the introduction of this new fear into my daily life makes each day sufficiently trying to justify the longing for death, which grows upon me more and more."

This longing was fulfilled on the 27th of June, 1876, when Harriet Martineau closed in peace her long and active life.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Harriet Martineau: "Eastern Life," ii., 81, 82.

[40] Harriet Martineau; "Eastern Life," ii. 162-165.



MISS BIRD AND OTHERS.

"The climate of Colorado is the finest in North America; and consumptives, asthmatics, dyspeptics, and sufferers from nervous diseases are here in hundreds and thousands, either trying the 'camp cure' for three or four months, or settling here permanently. People can safely sleep out of doors for six months of the year. The plains are from 4,000 to 6,000 feet high, and some of the settled 'parks,' or mountain valleys, are from 8,000 to 10,000. The air, besides being much rarefied, is very dry; the rainfall is far below the average, dews are rare, and fogs nearly unknown. The sunshine is bright and almost constant, and three-fourths of the days are cloudless."

This is not Eden, but Colorado; yet, seeing it reproduces as nearly as possible what we may suppose to have been the primary characteristics of that first Garden, to us dwellers in a land where mists and fogs are frequent and sunbeams are rare, Miss Bird's description of it reads like an effort of the imagination. Miss Bird traversed a portion of Colorado in 1878, on her way to explore the recesses of the Rocky Mountains. Starting from San Francisco, she travelled by railway to Truckee. Here she hired a horse, and for greater convenience assumed what she styled her "Hawaiian riding dress"—that is, a half-fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles, and full Turkish trousers gathered into frills, which fell over the boots—"a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for mountaineering and other rough travelling in any part of the world." Throwing over these habiliments a dust-cloak, she rode through Truckee, and then followed up the windings of the Truckee river—a loud-tongued, rollicking mountain-stream, flowing between ranges of great castellated and embattled sierras. Through the blue gloom of a pine-forest she gallantly made her way, charmed by the magic of the scenery that opened out before her. "Crested blue-jays darted through the dark pines, squirrels in hundreds scampered through the forest, red dragon-flies flashed like 'living light,' exquisite chipmonks ran across the track, but only a dusty blue legion here and there reminded one of earth's fairer children. Then the river became broad and still, and mirrored in its transparent depths regal pines, straight as an arrow, with rich yellow and green lichen clinging to their stems, and firs and balsam pines filling up the spaces between them. The gorge opened, and this mountain-girdled lake lay before me, with its margin broken up into bays and promontories, most picturesquely clothed by huge sugar-pines."

From Lake Tabor Miss Bird returned to Truckee, and started on another excursion which brought her within view of the Great Salt Lake and the Mormon town of Ogden, and thence to Cheyenne, in the State of Wyoming. Having thus crossed the mountain-range of the Sierras and descended into the plains, she entered upon the region of the "boundless prairies—great stretches of verdure, generally level, but elsewhere rolling in long undulations, like the waves of a sea which had fallen asleep." Their monotony is broken by large villages of the so-called prairie dogs, the Wishton-Wish, a kind of marmot, which owes its misleading name to its short, sharp bark. The villages are composed of raised circular orifices, about eighteen inches in diameter, from which a number of inclined passages slope downwards for five or six feet. "Hundreds of these burrows are placed together. On nearly every rim a small furry, reddish-buff beast sat on his hind legs, looking, so far as head went, much like a young seal. These creatures were acting as sentinels, and sunning themselves. As we passed each gave a warning yelp, shook its tail, and, with a ludicrous flourish of his hind legs, dived into its hole. The appearance of hundreds of these creatures, each eighteen inches long, sitting like dogs begging, with their paws down and all turned sunwards, is most grotesque."

At Greeley Miss Bird entered Colorado, which she describes, as we have seen, in such a manner as to suggest that it rivals Dr. Richardson's imaginary "Hygeia" in all essential particulars. From Greeley she hastened to Fort Collins, with the grand masses of the Rocky Mountains facing her as she advanced. Still across the boundless sea-like prairie struck the indefatigable traveller, until she came to a sort of tripartite valley, with a majestic crooked canyon, 2,000 feet deep, and watered by a roaring stream, where in a rude log-cabin she abode for several days. Having obtained a horse she rode across the highlands, and striking up the St. Vrain Canyon ascended to Esteo Park, 7,500 feet above the sea-level. To understand the majesty of the Rocky Mountains, the reader must think of them as a mass of summits, frequently 200 and 250 miles wide, stretching, with scarcely any interruption of continuity, almost from the Arctic Circle to the Straits of Magellan. At the point ascended by Miss Bird their scenery was of the grandest description—wonderful ascents, wild fantastic views, cool and bowery shades, romantic glens echoing melodiously with the fall of waters. But it is only fair that Miss Bird should be heard on her own account:—

"A tremendous ascent among rocks and pines to a height of 9,000 feet brought us to a passage seven feet wide through a wall of rock, with an abrupt descent of 2,000 feet, and a yet higher ascent beyond. I never saw anything so strange as looking back. It was a single gigantic ridge which we had passed through, standing up knife-like, built up entirely of great brick-shaped masses of bright-red rock, piled one on another by Titans. Pitch-pines grew out of these crevices, but there was not a vestige of soil. Beyond, wall beyond wall of similar construction, and range above range, rose into the blue sky. Fifteen miles more over great ridges, along passes dark with shadow, and so narrow that we had to ride in the beds of the streams which had excavated them, round the bases of colossal pyramids of rock crested with pines, up into fair upland 'parks' scarlet in patches with the poison oak, parks so beautifully arranged by nature that I momentarily expected to come upon some stately mansion; but that afternoon, crested blue jays and chipmonks had them all to themselves. Here, in the early morning, deer, bighorn, and the stately elk come down to feed; and there, in the night, prowl and growl the Rocky Mountain lion, the grizzly bear, and the cowardly wolf. There were chasms of immense depth, dark with the indigo gloom of pines, and mountains with snow gleaming on their splintered crests, loveliness to bewilder and grandeur to awe, and still streams and shady pools, and cool depths of shadow; mountains again, dense with pines, among which patches of aspen gleamed like gold; valleys where the yellow cottonwood mingled with the crimson oak, and so, on and on through the lengthening shadows till the track, which in places had been hardly legible, became well defined, and we entered a long gulch with broad swellings of grass belted with pines."[41]

Long's Peak, the "American Matterhorn," 14,700 feet high, has seldom been ascended, and Miss Bird is the first woman who has had the courage and resolution to reach its summit. Her party consisted of herself, two youths, the sons of a certain Dr. H., and "Mountain Jim," one of the famous scouts of the plain, an expert in Indian border warfare, who acted as guide. The ride at first was one long series of glories and surprises, of peak and glade, of lake and stream, and of mountain upon mountain, culminating in the shivered pinnacles of Long's Peak. And as the sun slowly sank, the pines stood out darkling against the golden sky, the grey peaks took upon their crests a glory of crimson and purple, a luminous mist of changing colours filled every glen, gorge, and canyon, while the echoes softly repeated that peculiar sough or murmur which accompanies the departing day. Our adventurer, with heart touched by the magical beauty and magnificence of the scene, crossed a steep wooded incline into a deep hollow, where, embosomed in the mountain-solitude, slept a lily-covered lake, cradling white, pure blossoms and broad green leaves, and aptly named "The Lake of the Lilies." Calm on its amethyst-coloured waters lay the tremulous shadow of the great dark pine woods.

Thence she and her companions passed again into the leafy wilderness which clothes the mountain side up to a height of about 11,000 feet, cheered, as they climbed slowly upwards on their laborious path, by delightful vistas of "golden atmospheres and rose-lit summits," such as broke upon the dreams of him who created in his fancy the Garden of Armida; upward and onward through the dusky shade, which in itself may well impress a quick imagination. It is the silence of the forest that makes its mystery. The only sounds are those of the branches swaying in the breeze, or of a bough crashing to the ground through decay, or the occasional voices of the wandering birds; and these seem but to increase the silence by their inadequateness of contrast. Alone in this profundity of gloom it is difficult for the traveller to resist the sense and feeling of a supernatural Presence, and he comes to understand in what way such eerie legends and grim traditions have grown up about the forest, and why to the early races its still depths seemed haunted by the creatures of another world.

Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades Like vaporous shapes half seen;—

and the forest is peopled with the phantoms that are born of Silence and Twilight.

As they ascended they found that the pines grew smaller and more sparse, and the last stragglers wore "a tortured, waning look." The forest threshold was crossed; but yet a little higher a slope of mountain meadow dipped to the south-west, towards a bright stream trickling under ice and icicles; and there, in a grove of the beautiful silver spruce, our travellers resolved to encamp for the night. The trees were small of size, but so exquisitely arranged that one might well ask what artist's hand had planted them—scattering them here, grouping them there, and training their shapely spires towards heaven. "Hereafter," says Miss Bird, "when I call up memories of the glorious, the view from this camping-ground will come up. Looking east, gorges opened to the distant plains, there fading into purple-grey. Mountains with pine-clothed skirts rose in ranges, or, solitary, uplifted their grey summits; while close behind, but nearly 3,000 feet above us, towered the bald white crest of Long's Peak, its huge precipices red with the light of a sun long lost to our eyes. Close to us, in the caverned side of the peak, was snow that, owing to its position, is eternal. Soon the after-glow came on, and before it faded a big half-moon hung out of the heavens, shining through the silver-blue foliage of the pines on the frigid background of snow, and turning the whole into fairyland."

This passage shows—what, indeed, is sufficiently evident in every page of Miss Bird's travel-books—that she possesses, as every traveller ought to possess, the artist's temperament, and that if she cannot transfer the scenes she loves to the canvas, she knows how to reproduce them in words that have the glow of light and life. A sense of the beautiful, and a power of expressing that sense so as to make it felt by others, is the primary and indispensable qualification of the traveller. He must have eyes to see and ears to hear; and that his fellow may be the wiser, better, and happier for his enterprise, he must have the faculty of describing what he has seen and heard in language of adequate force and clearness.

With a great fire of pine-logs to protect them against the rigour of the night—for the thermometer marked twelve degrees below freezing-point—our travellers passed the hours of darkness. When the sun rose, they too arose; and it was well to do so, as sunrise from a mountain top is such a spectacle of glory as few eyes have the happiness to look upon. From the chill grey peak above them, with its eternal snows and pathless forests, down to the plains which spread below like a cold and waveless sea, everything underwent a strange and marvellously beautiful transformation; for, as the sun rose above the horizon in all the fulness of its orbed splendour, the grey of the plains flushed into purple, the wan peaks gleamed like rubies, the pines shone like so many columns of gold, and the sky reddened with rose-hues like the blush on a fair face. After breakfast the party resumed their ascent of the mountain, and in due time arrived at the "Notch"—a literal gate of rock—when they found themselves on the knife-like ridge or backbone of Long's Peak, only a few feet wide, covered with huge boulders, and on the other side shelving in a snow-patched precipice of 3,000 feet to a picturesque hollow, brightened by an emerald lake.

"Passing through the 'Notch,'" says Miss Bird, "we looked along the nearly inaccessible side of the peak, composed of boulders and debris of all shapes and sizes, through which appeared broad, smooth ribs of reddish-coloured granite, looking as if they upheld the towering rock-mass above. I usually dislike bird's-eye and panoramic views, but, though from a mountain, this was not one. Serrated ridges, not much lower than that on which we stood, rose, one beyond another, far as that pure atmosphere could carry the vision, broken into awful chasms deep with ice and snow, rising into pinnacles piercing the heavenly blue with their cold, barren grey, on, on for ever, till the most distant range upbore unsullied snow alone. There were fair lakes mirroring the dark pine woods, canyons dark and blue, black with unbroken expanses of pines, snow-slashed pinnacles, wintry heights frowning upon lovely parks, watered and wooded, lying in the lap of summer; North Park floating off into the blue distance, Middle Park closed till another season, the sunny slopes of Esteo Park, and winding down among the mountains the snowy ridge of the Divide (the backbone, or water-shed of the Rocky Mountains), whose bright waters seek both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. There, far below, links of diamonds showed where the grand river takes its rise to seek the mysterious Colorado, with its still unsolved enigma, and lose itself in the waters of the Pacific; and nearer, the snow-born Thompson bursts forth from the ice to begin its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. Nature, rioting in her grandest mood, exclaimed with voices of grandeur, solitude, sublimity, beauty, and infinity, 'Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?'"[42]

At the "Notch" the true character of the enterprise she had undertaken was forcibly brought home to Miss Bird's consciousness. The Peak towered above her, two thousand feet of solid rock, with smooth granite sides, affording scarcely a foothold, and patches of re-frozen snow, presenting no ordinary obstacle to the advance. She was by no means an expert mountaineer, having "neither head nor ankles," and, in reality, she was dragged or hauled up the ascent by the patience, skill, and strength of "Mountain Jim." Up a deep ravine they attained to the passage of the "Dog's Lift," through which they emerged on a narrow, rugged shelf, broken and uneven, forming a kind of terrace or platform, where they drew breath before attempting the last 500 feet—the terminal peak itself, a smooth cone of pure granite with almost perpendicular sides. The only foothold here was in narrow cracks or on minute projections of the granite. To get a toe in these cracks or on one or other of these scarcely visible projections, while crawling on hands and knees, weary, thirst-tortured, and gasping for breath, this was to climb; but at last the peak was won, and Miss Bird rejoiced in the consciousness of being the first woman who had ever placed her feet on its lofty summit.

The descent, as far as the "Notch," was not less laborious or painful than the upward effort had been; and when Miss Bird reached their former camping-ground she was thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and thirst. But a night's rest recruited her remarkable energies, and when the morning dawned she was fresh and vigorous as ever, and happy in the memory of her successful enterprise—an enterprise such as few women have ever equalled—and in recollections of the beauty and sublimity of Long's Peak, which cannot fail to be "joys for ever."

The "parks" of which we have spoken are broad, grassy valleys, lying at heights which vary from 6,000 to 11,000 feet. They are the favourite retreats of innumerable animals—wapiti, bighorn, oxen, mountain lions, the great grizzly, the wary beaver, the evil-smelling skunk, the craven wolf, cayote and lynx, to say nothing of lesser breeds, such as marten, wild cat, fox, mink, hare, chipmonk, and squirrel. Their features have been fully described by Lord Dunraven in his picturesque book, "The Great Divide."

Miss Bird's animated pages present so many delightful pictures of mountain scenery that we know not which to choose in illustration of her remarkable descriptive powers. We have already alluded to her faculty of pictorial presentment; it is one in which few of her sex surpass her; she puts a scene before us with as much life and distinctness as a Constable or a Peter Graham, and the reader, who would form a clear and well-defined conception of the Rocky Mountains in their picturesque aspects, cannot do better than study her little but delightful book. While reading it one seems to feel the pure, keen, mountain air around one; to see the great peaks rising one above the other like the towers and spires of some vast cathedral of nature; to watch the ever-shifting phantasmagoria of gorgeous colour that rolls over the landscape from sunrise to sunset, and in the hush of the moonlit night disappears before the silver radiance of the nascent orb; to hear the fall of the mountain streams, and to catch the breath of the fragrant wind that comes from the pine-forest loaded with fragrance and freshness and subtle odours.

Traversing Colorado, in the neighbourhood of the Plate River, she tells us that she "rode up one great ascent, where hills were tumbled about confusedly; and suddenly, across the broad ravine, above the sunny grass and the deep-green pines, rose in glowing and shaded red against the glittering blue heaven, a magnificent and unearthly range of mountains, as shapely as could be seen, rising into colossal points, cleft by deep blue ravines, broken up into shark's teeth, with gigantic knobs and pinnacles rising from their inaccessible sides, very fair to look upon—a glowing, heavenly, unforgettable sight, and only four miles off. Mountains they looked not of this earth, but such as one sees in dreams alone, the blessed ranges of 'the land which is very far off.' They were more brilliant than those incredible colours in which painters array the fiery hills of Moab and the Desert, and one could not believe them for ever uninhabited, for on them rose, as in the East, the similitude of stately fortresses, not the grey castellated towers of feudal Europe, but gay, massive, Saracenic architecture, the outgrowth of the solid rock. They were vast ranges, apparently of enormous height, their colour indescribable, deepest and reddest near the pine-draped bases, then gradually softening into wonderful tenderness, till the highest summits rose all flushed, and with an illusion of transparency, so that one might believe that they were taking on the hue of sunset. Below these lay broken ravines of fantastic rocks, cleft and canyoned by the river, with a tender unearthly light over all, the apparent warmth of a glowing clime, while I on the north side was in the shadow among the pure unsullied snow.

"'With us the damp, the chill, the gloom; With them the sunset's rosy bloom.'

"The dimness of earth with me, the light of heaven with them. Here, again, worship seemed the only attitude for a human spirit, and the question was ever present, 'Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?' I rode up and down hills laboriously in snow-drifts, getting off often to ease my faithful Birdie by walking down ice-clad slopes, stopping constantly to feast my eyes upon that changeless glory, always seeing some new ravine, with its depths of colour or miraculous brilliancy of red or phantasy of form. Then below, where the trail was locked into a deep canyon, where there was scarcely room for it and the river, there was a beauty of another kind in solemn gloom. There the stream curved and twisted marvellously, widening into shallows, narrowing into deep boiling eddies, with pyramidal firs and the beautiful silver spruce fringing its banks, and often falling across it in artistic grace, the gloom chill and deep, with only now and then a light trickling through the pines upon the cold snow, when, suddenly turning round, I saw behind, as if in the glory of an eternal sunset, those flaming and fantastic peaks. The effect of the combination of winter and summer was singular. The trail rose on the north side the whole time, and the snow lay deep and pure white, while not a wreath of it lay on the south side, where abundant lawns basked in the warm sun."[43]

There is something in the majesty of mountain scenery, in the lofty peaks, the shadowy ravines, and the tremendous precipices; in the glow and light and glory which the sun pours out upon the heights, and the strange gloom and haunted darkness which sleep in the mysterious depths, that deeply impresses the imagination and the thoughts of men, and appeals to that higher, purer nature which too often lies dormant in us. However unmoved we may be by the ordinary sights and sounds which fill up the landscapes, we are most of us hushed and breathless among the mountains, mutely acknowledging the manifestations of a Presence and a Power which are not of the earth—earthy. As the rose of dawn blushes on each waving crest in the birth-hour of the day, or the purple splendour invests them in regal robes when the sun goes down, they seem to reveal to us a vision of the other world; those changing lights that fall upon them are surely the passing gleams of wings of angels; those mystic voices that linger among their echoes, what can they be but the divine chords of that glorious harmony which for ever goes up around the "great white throne"?

* * * * *

Let us now glance at one or two of the personal experiences of Miss Bird, who, we need hardly say, carried in her bosom a man's heart, and was never wanting in courage or resolution. Among the Rocky Mountains one sometimes meets with strange companions; and on her ride from Hall's Gulch to Deer Valley Miss Bird was joined by a horseman, who would have made a fine hero of melodrama. A picturesque figure he looked on his good horse, with his long fair curls drooping from under a big slouch hat almost to his waist; a fine beard, good blue eyes, a ruddy complexion, a frank expression of countenance, and a courteous, respectful bearing. He wore a hunter's buckskin suit, ornamented with beads, and a pair of very big brass spurs. His saddle was elaborately ornamented. What chiefly drew attention in his equipment was the number of weapons hung about him; he was a small arsenal in himself! Two revolvers and a knife were thrust into his belt, and across his back was slung a carbine; in addition, he had a rifle resting on his saddle, and a pair of pistols in the holsters.

This martial rider was Comanche Bill, whom gossip described as one of the most notorious desperadoes of the Rocky Mountains, and the greatest Indian "exterminator" on the frontier. His father and family had been massacred at Spirit Lake by the hands of Indians, who carried away his sister, a child of eleven. Since then he had mainly devoted himself to the double task of revenging the victims and searching for this missing sister.

Riding from Golden City, a place which every day and every hour gave the lie to its gorgeous name, Miss Bird lost her way on the prairie. A teamster bade her go forward to a place where three tracks would be seen, and then to take the best-travelled one, steering all the time by the north star. Following his directions she came to tracks, but it was then so dark she could see nothing, and soon the darkness so increased that she could not see even her horse's ears, and was lost and benighted. Hour after hour our heroine—for a lady who crosses the Rocky Mountains alone may surely claim the title!—rode onward in the darkness and solitude, the prairie sweeping all around her, and a firmament of frosty stars glittering overhead. At intervals might be heard the howl of the prairie wolf, and the occasional lowing of cattle gave her hope of the neighbourhood of man. But there was nothing but the wild and lonely plain, and she felt a keen desire to see a light or hear a voice, the solitude was so oppressive. It was very cold, and a hard frost lay on the ground. At last, however, she heard the bark of a dog, and then the too common sound of a man swearing; she saw a light, and in another minute found herself at a large house eleven miles from Denver, where a hospitable reception cheered the belated traveller.

* * * * *

Here is another and more startling episode, which occurred during her journey from Esteo "Park" to Longmount, a ride of 100 miles on a bitter cold December morning:—

"We all got up before daybreak on Tuesday, and breakfasted at seven.... I took only two pounds of luggage, some raisins, the mail bag, and an additional blanket under my saddle.... The purple sun rose in front. Had I known what made it purple I should certainly have gone no farther. These clouds, the morning mist as I supposed, lifted themselves up rose-lighted, showing the sun's disc as purple as one of the jars in a chemist's window, and having permitted this glimpse of their king, came down again as a dense mist; the wind chopped round, and the mist began to freeze hard. Soon Birdie and myself were a mass of acicular crystals; it was a true easterly fog. I galloped on, hoping to get through it, unable to see a yard before me; but it thickened, and I was obliged to subside into a jog-trot. As I rode on, about four miles from the cabin, a human figure, looking gigantic like the spectre of the Brocken, with long hair white as snow, appeared close to me, and at the same moment there was the flash of a pistol close to my ear, and I recognized 'Mountain Jim,' frozen from head to foot, looking a century old with his snowy hair. It was 'ugly' altogether, certainly a 'desperado's' grim jest, and it was best to accept it as such, though I had just cause for displeasure. He stormed and scolded, dragged me off the pony—for my hands and feet were numb with cold—took the bridle, and went off at a rapid stride, so that I had to run to keep them in sight in the darkness, for we were off the road in a thicket of scrub, looking like white branch-coral, I knew not where. Then we came suddenly on his cabin ... and the 'ruffian' insisted on my going in, and he made a good fire, and heated some coffee, raging all the time.... He took me back to the track; and the interview, which began with a pistol-shot, ended quite pleasantly. It was an eerie ride, one not to be forgotten, though there was no danger."

It would be difficult to point out any deficiency on Miss Bird's part in those qualifications which constitute a great traveller. Physically as well as mentally she seems to have proved herself the equal of men. Endurance, courage, promptitude, decision, the capacity for quiet and accurate observation, the ready adaptability to circumstances—she possessed all these high virtues. Her "Ride in the Rocky Mountains" shows what may be accomplished by a brave, strong woman under very difficult conditions. In one respect, perhaps, her sex was an advantage; it appears to have ensured her an uniform courtesy of treatment and cordiality of reception in the most remote places and among the wildest and most reckless men; but it is obvious that in other respects it must frequently have been found an inconvenience and even a danger, had it not been for her true patience, her unfailing good humour, and her indomitable "pluck."

Miss Bird is also the author of a charming book on Hawaii, and a not less charming record of her wanderings in "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan."

* * * * *

Time was, and not so very long ago, when a visit to the wilds of Patagonia on the part of an English lady would have been regarded as a wonderful achievement. Now-a-days it excites but little comment The interest excited by Lady Florence Dixie's book, "Across Patagonia," was the legitimate interest inspired by her fresh and lively description of "unexplored and untrodden ground," and not the idle curiosity which a sensational achievement sometimes excites. If one lady can make a voyage round the world, why should not another ride across Patagonia? To our grandmothers a French or Italian tour was an event of novelty and importance; but nous avons change tout cela. It is quite understood that no "terra incognita" exists into which our female travellers would fear to penetrate.

Lady Florence Dixie frankly tells us her reason for venturing into Patagonia, and no doubt it is the reason which has actuated many of her sisters in their world-wanderings. She went to "an outlandish place so many miles away"—as her friends called it—"precisely because it was an outlandish place and so far away." She adds: "Palled for the moment with civilization and its surroundings, I wanted to escape somewhere where I might be as far removed from them as possible. Many of my readers have doubtless felt the dissatisfaction with oneself and everybody else that comes over one at times in the midst of the pleasures of life; when one wearies of the shallow artificiality of modern existence; when what was once excitement has become so no longer, and a longing grows up within one to taste a more vigorous unction than that afforded by the monotonous round of society's so-called pleasures."

In this state of mind she looked round for some country that would satisfy her requirements, and decided upon Patagonia, because nowhere else could she find an area of 100,000 square miles for "equestrian exercise," where one would be free from the presence of savage tribes and obnoxious animals, as well as from the persecution of morning calls, invitations, garden parties, telegrams, letters, and all the other "resources of civilization." To these attractions was added the thought, always alluring to an active mind, that there she would be able to penetrate into vast wilds, untrod as yet by the foot of man. "Scenes of infinite beauty and grandeur might be lying hidden in the silent solitude of the mountains which bound the barren plains of the Pampas, into whose mysterious recesses no one as yet had ever ventured. And I was to be the first to behold them!—an egotistical pleasure, it is true; but the idea had a great charm for me, as it has had for many others."

Accompanied by her husband, brothers, and three friends, Lady Florence left Liverpool on the 11th December, 1878. Early in January they reached Rio de Janeiro, of which she furnishes a pleasantly graphic sketch, that gives a true idea of her descriptive powers. "Nowhere," she says, "have the rugged and the tender, the wild and the soft, been blended into such exquisite union as at Rio; and it is this quality of unrivalled contrasts that, to my mind, gives to that scenery its charm of unsurpassed loveliness. Nowhere else is there such audacity, such fierceness even of outline, coupled with such multiform splendour of colour, such fairy-like delicacy of detail. As a precious jewel is encrusted by the coarse rock, the smiling bay lies encircled by frowning mountains of colossal proportions and the most capricious shapes. In the production of this work the most opposite powers of nature have been laid under contribution. The awful work of the volcano—the immense boulders of rock which lie piled up to the clouds in irregular masses—have been clothed in a brilliant web of tropical vegetation, purple and green, sunshine and mist. Here nature revels in manifold creation. Life multiplies itself a millionfold, the soil bursts with exuberance of fertility, and the profusion of vegetable and animal life beggars description. Every tree is clothed with a thousand luxuriant creepers, purple and scarlet-blossomed; they in their turn support myriads of lichens and other verdant parasites. The plants shoot up with marvellous rapidity, and glitter with flowers of the rarest hues and shapes, or bear quantities of luscious fruit, pleasant to the eye and sweet to the taste. The air resounds with the hum of insect-life; through the bright green leaves of the banana skim the sparkling humming-birds, and gorgeous butterflies of enormous size float, glowing with every colour of the rainbow, on the flower-scented breezes. But over all this beauty—over the luxuriance of vegetation, over the softness of the tropical air, over the splendour of the sunshine, over the perfume of the flowers—Pestilence has cast her fatal miasmas, and, like the sword of Damocles, the yellow fever hangs threateningly over the heads of those who dwell among these lovely scenes."[44]

After touching at Monte Video, Lady Florence Dixie's party proceeded southwards to the Straits of Magellan, and landed at Sandy Point, a settlement belonging to the Chilians, who call it "La Colonia de Magellanes." Here they procured horses and mules and four guides, and, having completed all the necessary arrangements, rode along the shore of the famous Strait to Cape Negro. On the opposite side they could distinctly see the Tierra del Fuego, and at different points tall columns of smoke rising up into the still air denoted the presence of native encampments, just as Magellan had seen them four centuries ago, when he gave to the island, on that account, the name it still bears. At last they started into the interior, and began their exploration of the wide region of the Pampas. Game was plentiful, and the fowling-pieces of the party brought down numerous victims. As they advanced they came into occasional contact with the Patagonians, and her observations of their physical character are important and valuable in relation to the marvellous accounts which we find in the old voyagers. "I was not so much struck by their height," she says, "as by their extraordinary development of chest and muscle. As regards their stature, I do not think the average height of the men exceeded six feet, and, as my husband stands six feet two inches, I had a favourable opportunity for forming an accurate estimate. One or two there were, certainly, who towered far above him, but these were exceptions. The women were mostly of the ordinary height, though I noticed one who must have been quite six feet, if not more."

Lady Florence speaks of the features of the pure-bred Tchuelche, or Patagonian aboriginal as extremely regular, and by no means unpleasant to look at. "The nose is generally aquiline, the mouth well-shaped and beautified by the whitest of teeth, the expression of the eye intelligent, while the form of the whole head indicates the possession of considerable mental capabilities. But such is not the case with the Tchuelches in whose veins is a mixture of Fuegian or Araucanian blood. Of these latter the flat noses, oblique eyes, and badly proportioned figures excite disgust, and they are as different from a pure-bred Tchuelche as a racer is from an ordinary cart-horse. Their long coarse hair is worn parted in the middle, and is prevented from falling over their faces by means of a handkerchief, or fillet of some kind, bound round the forehead. They suffer no hair to grow on the face, and some extract even their eyebrows. Their dress is simple, consisting of a 'chiripa' or piece of cloth round the loins, and the indispensable guanaco cape, which is hung loosely over the shoulders and held round the body by the hand, though it would obviously seem more convenient to have it secured round the waist with a belt of some kind. Their horse-hide boots are only worn, for reasons of economy, when hunting. The women dress like the men except as regards the chiripa, instead of which they wear a loose kind of gown beneath the cape, which they fasten at the neck with a silver brooch or pin. The children are allowed to run about naked till they are five or six years old, and are then dressed like their elders. Partly for ornament, partly also as a means of protection against the wind, a great many Indians paint their faces, their favourite colour, as far as I could see, being red, though one or two I observed had given the preference to a mixture of that colour with black, a very diabolical appearance being the result of this combination."

We cannot follow Lady Florence Dixie through all her Patagonian experiences, which in their infinite variety must have fully satisfied her craving for new things. She hunted pumas, ostriches, guanacos; witnessed the wild and wayward movements of the wild horses on the plains, which for ages have belonged unto them; suffered from the burden of the heat, and the attacks of the gnats; explored the recesses of the Cordilleras, and came upon a broad and beautiful lake, on which, in all probability, no human eye before had ever looked; until at last she grew weary of adventure, and she and her companions turned their faces once more towards the commonplace comforts of civilization. All this, and more, she tells with much animation, quite unaffectedly, and in a style which, if marked by no special literary merit, is always clear and vigorous. One can do much worse than while away an hour by the fireside with Lady Florence Dixie's book in one's hand. One will close it with the conviction that the writer is a courageous, lively, and intelligent woman, who can ride across country with a firm hand, and hold her own in any dangerous or novel position.