"I little thought," cried Charost, "that I should ever emulate 'La Perouse,' but it strikes me that I am destined to become a great discoverer."

"How so, colonel?" asked his aid-de-camp.

"Why, it is quite clear, that this same island is uninhabited; and, if it be all like this, I own I'm scarcely surprised at it."

"Still, there must be a town not far off, and the residence of that bishop we heard of this morning."

A half incredulous shrug of the shoulders was all his reply, as he sauntered along with his hands behind his back, apparently lost in thought; while we, as if instinctively partaking of his gloom, followed him in total silence.

"Do you know, gentlemen, what I'm thinking of?" said he, stopping suddenly, and facing about. "My notion is, that the best thing to do here, would be to plant our tri-color, proclaim the land a colony of France, and take to our boats again."

This speech delivered with an air of great gravity, imposed upon us for an instant; but the moment after, the speaker breaking into a hearty laugh, we all joined him, as much amused by the strangeness of our situation, as by any thing in his remark.

"We never could bring our guns through a soil like this, colonel," said the aid-de-camp, as he struck his heel into the soft and clayey surface.

"If we could ever land them at all!" muttered he, half aloud; then added, "But for what object should we? Believe me, gentlemen, if we are to have a campaign here, bows and arrows are the true weapons."

"Ah! what do I see yonder?" cried the aid-de-camp; "are not those sheep feeding in that little glen?"

"Yes," cried I, "and a man herding them, too. See, the fellow has caught sight of us, and he's off as fast as his legs can carry him." And so was it, the man had no sooner seen us than he sprung to his feet, and hurried down the mountain at full speed.

Our first impulse was to follow and give him chase, and even without a word, we all started off in pursuit; but we soon saw how fruitless would be the attempt, for, even independent of the start he had got of us, the peasant's speed was more than the double of our own.

"No matter," said the colonel, "if we have lost the shepherd, we have, at least, gained the sheep, and so I recommend you to secure a mutton for dinner to-morrow."

With this piece of advice, down the hill he darted, as hard as he could. Briolle, the aid-de-camp, and myself following at our best pace. We were reckoning without our host, however, for the animals, after one stupid stare at us, set off in a scamper that soon showed their mountain breeding, keeping all together like a pack of hounds, and, really, not very inferior in the speed they displayed.

A little gorge led between the hills, and through this they rushed madly, and with a clatter like a charge of cavalry. Excited by the chase, and emulous each to outrun the other, the colonel threw off his chako, and Briolle his sword, in the ardor of pursuit. We now gained on them rapidly, and though, from a winding in the glen, they had momentarily got out of sight, we knew that we were close upon them. I was about thirty paces in advance of my comrades, when, on turning an angle of the gorge, I found myself directly in front of a group of mud hovels, in front of which were standing about a dozen ragged, miserable looking men, armed with pitchforks and scythes, while in the rear stood the sheep, blown and panting from the chase.

I came to a dead stop; and although I would have given worlds to have had my comrades at my side, I never once looked back to see if they were coming; but, putting a bold face on the matter, called out the only few words I knew of Irish, "Go de ma ha tu."

The peasants looked at each other; and whether it was my accent, my impudence, or my strange dress and appearance, or all together, I can not say, but, after a few seconds' pause, they burst out into a roar of laughter, in the midst of which my two comrades came up.

"We saw the sheep feeding on the hills, yonder," said I, recovering self-possession, "and guessed that by giving them chase, they'd lead us to some inhabited spot. What is this place called?"

"Shindrennin," said a man who seemed to be the chief of the party; "and, if I might make so bould, who are you, yourselves?"

"French officers; this is my colonel," said I, pointing to Charost, who was wiping his forehead and face after his late exertion.

The information, far from producing the electric effect of pleasure I had anticipated, was received with a coldness, almost amounting to fear, and they spoke eagerly together for some minutes in Irish.

"Our allies evidently don't like the look of us," said Charost, laughing; "and if the truth must be told, I own the disappointment is mutual."

"'Tis too late you come sir," said the peasant, addressing the colonel, while he removed his hat, and assumed an air of respectful deference. "'Tis all over with poor Ireland, this time."

"Tell him," said Charost, to whom I translated the speech, "that it's never too late to assert a good cause: that we have got arms for twenty thousand, if they have but hands and hearts to use them. Tell him that a French army is now lying in that bay yonder, ready and able to accomplish the independence of Ireland."

I delivered my speech as pompously as it was briefed to me; and, although I was listened to in silence, and respectfully, it was plain my words carried little or no conviction with them. Not caring to waste more of our time in such discourse, I now inquired about the country—in what directions lay the high roads, and the relative situations of the towns of Killala, Castlebar, and Ballina, the only places of comparative importance in the neighborhood. I next asked about the landing-places, and learned that a small fishing-harbor existed, not more than half a mile from the spot where we had landed, from which a little country road lay to the village of Palmerstown. As to the means of transporting baggage, guns, and ammunition, there were few horses to be had, but with money we might get all we wanted; indeed, the peasants constantly referred to this means of success, even to asking "what the French would give a man that was to join them?" If I did not translate the demand with fidelity to my colonel, it was really that a sense of shame prevented me. My whole heart was in the cause; and I could not endure the thought of its being degraded in this way. It was growing duskish, and the colonel proposed that the peasant should show us the way to the fishing-harbor he spoke of, while some other of the party might go round to our boat, and direct them to follow us thither. The arrangement was soon made, and we all sauntered down toward the shore, chatting over the state of the country, and the chances of a successful rising. From the specimen before me, I was not disposed to be over sanguine about the peasantry. The man was evidently disaffected toward England. He bore her neither good-will nor love; but his fears were greater than all else. He had never heard of any thing but failure in all attempts against her; and he could not believe in any other result. Even the aid and alliance of France inspired no other feeling than distrust; for he said more than once, "Sure, what can harm yez? Haven't ye yer ships, beyant, to take yez away, if things goes bad?"

I was heartily glad that Colonel Charost knew so little English, that the greater part of the peasant's conversation was unintelligible to him, since, from the first, he had always spoken of the expedition in terms of disparagement; and certainly what we were now to hear was not of a nature to controvert the prediction.

In our ignorance as to the habits and modes of thought of the people, we were much surprised at the greater interest the peasant betrayed when asking us about France and her prospects, than when the conversation concerned his own country. It appeared as though, in the one case, distance gave grandeur and dimensions to all his conceptions, while familiarity with home scenes and native politics had robbed them of all their illusions. He knew well that there were plenty of hardships, abundance of evils, to deplore in Ireland; rents were high, taxes and tithes oppressive, agents were severe, bailiffs were cruel; social wrongs he could discuss for hours, but of political woes, the only one we could be expected to relieve or care for, he really knew nothing. "'Tis true," he repeated, "that what my honor said was all right, Ireland was badly treated," and so on; "liberty was an elegant thing if a body had it," and such like; but there ended his patriotism.

Accustomed for many a day to the habits of a people where all were politicians, where the rights of man, and the grand principles of equality and self-government were everlastingly under discussion, I was, I confess it, sorely disappointed at this worse than apathy.

"Will they fight?—ask him that," said Charost, to whom I had been conveying a rather rose-colored version of my friend's talk.

"Oh, be gorra! we'll fight sure enough!" said he, with a half-dogged scowl beneath his brows.

"What number of them may we reckon on in the neighborhood?" repeated the colonel.

"'Tis mighty hard to say; many of the boys was gone over to England for the harvest; some were away to the counties inland, others were working on the roads; but if they knew, sure they'd be soon back again."

"Might they calculate on a thousand stout, effective men?" asked Charost.

"Ay, twenty, if they were at home," said the peasant, less a liar by intention than from the vague and careless disregard of truth, so common in all their own intercourse with each other.

I must own that the degree of credit we reposed in the worthy man's information was considerably influenced by the state of facts before us, inasmuch as that the "elegant, fine harbor" he had so gloriously described—"the beautiful road"—"the neat little quay" to land upon, and the other advantages of the spot, all turned out to be most grievous disappointments. That the people were not of our own mind on these matters, was plain enough from the looks of astonishment our discontent provoked; and now a lively discussion ensued on the relative merits of various bays, creeks, and inlets along the coast, each of which, with some unpronounceable name or other, was seen to have a special advocate in its favor, till at last the colonel lost all patience, and jumping into the boat, ordered the men to push off for the frigate.

Evidently out of temper at the non-success of his "reconnaissance," and as little pleased with the country as the people, Charost did not speak a word as we rowed back to the ship. Our failure, as it happened, was of little moment, for another party, under the guidance of Madgett, had already discovered a good landing-place at the bottom of the Bay of Rathfran, and arrangements were already in progress to disembark the troops at day-break. We also found that, during our absence, some of the "chiefs" had come off from shore, one of whom, named Neal Kerrigan, was destined to attain considerable celebrity in the rebel army. He was a talkative, vulgar, presumptuous fellow, who, without any knowledge or experience whatever, took upon him to discuss military measures and strategy with all the assurance of an old commander.

Singularly enough, Humbert suffered this man to influence him in a great degree, and yielded opinion to him on points even where his own judgment was directly opposed to the advice he gave.

If Kerrigan's language and bearing were directly the reverse of soldierlike, his tawdry uniform of green and gold, with massive epaulets and a profusion of lace, were no less absurd in our eyes, accustomed as we were to the almost puritan plainness of military costume. His rank, too, seemed as undefined as his information; for while he called himself "General," his companions as often addressed him by the title of "Captain." Upon some points his counsels, indeed, alarmed and astonished us.

"It was of no use whatever," he said, "to attempt to discipline the peasantry, or reduce them to any thing like habits of military obedience. Were the effort to be made, it would prove a total failure; for they would either grow disgusted with the restraint, and desert altogether, or so infect the other troops with their own habits of disorder, that the whole force would become a mere rabble. Arm them well, let them have plenty of ammunition, and free liberty to use it in their own way and their own time, and we should soon see that they would prove a greater terror to the English than double the number of trained and disciplined troops."

In some respects this view was a correct one; but whether it was a wise counsel to have followed, subsequent events gave us ample cause to doubt.

Kerrigan, however, had a specious, reckless, go-ahead way with him that suited well the tone and temper of Humbert's mind. He never looked too far into consequences, but trusted that the eventualities of the morrow would always suggest the best course for the day after; and this alone was so akin to our own general's mode of proceeding, that he speedily won his confidence.

The last evening on board was spent merrily on all sides. In the general cabin, where the staff and all the "Chefs de brigade" were assembled, gay songs, and toasts, and speeches succeeded each other till nigh morning. The printed proclamations, meant for circulation among the people, were read out, with droll commentaries; and all imaginable quizzing and jesting went on about the new government to be established in Ireland, and the various offices to be bestowed upon each. Had the whole expedition been a joke, the tone of levity could not have been greater. Not a thought was bestowed, not a word wasted upon any of the graver incidents that might ensue. All were, if not hopeful and sanguine, utterly reckless, and thoroughly indifferent to the future.

CHAPTER XX.

KILLALA.

I will not weary my reader with an account of our debarkation, less remarkable as it was for the "pomp and circumstance of war" than for incidents and accidents the most absurd and ridiculous—the miserable boats of the peasantry, the still more wretched cattle employed to drag our artillery and train wagons, involving us in innumerable misfortunes and mischances. Never were the heroic illusions of war more thoroughly dissipated than by the scenes which accompanied our landing! Boats and baggage-wagons upset; here, a wild, half savage-looking fellow swimming after a cocked hat—there, a group of ragged wretches scraping sea-weed from a dripping officer of the staff; noise, uproar, and confusion every where; smart aid-de-camps mounted on donkeys; trim field-pieces "horsed" by a promiscuous assemblage of men, women, cows, ponies, and asses. Crowds of idle country-people thronging the little quay and obstructing the passages, gazed upon the whole with eyes of wonderment and surprise, but evidently enjoying all the drollery of the scene with higher relish than they felt interested in its object or success. This trait in them soon attracted all our notice, for they laughed at every thing; not a caisson tumbled into the sea, not a donkey brought his rider to the ground, but one general shout shook the entire assemblage.

If want and privation had impressed themselves by every external sign on this singular people, they seemed to possess inexhaustible resources of good humor and good spirits within. No impatience or rudeness on our part could irritate them; and even to the wildest and least civilized looking fellow around, there was a kind of native courtesy and kindliness that could not fail to strike us.

A vague notion prevailed that we were their "friends;" and although many of them did not clearly comprehend why we had come, or what was the origin of the warm attachment between us, they were too lazy and too indifferent to trouble their heads about the matter. They were satisfied that there would be a "shindy" somewhere, and somebody's bones would get broken, and even that much was a pleasant and reassuring consideration; while others of keener mould reveled in plans of private vengeance against this landlord or that agent—small debts of hatred to be paid off in the day of general reckoning!

From the first moment nothing could exceed the tone of fraternal feeling between our soldiers and the people. Without any means of communicating their thoughts by speech, they seemed to acquire an instinctive knowledge of each other in an instant. If the peasant was poor, there was no limit to his liberality in the little he had. He dug up his half-ripe potatoes, he unroofed his cabin to furnish straw for litter, he gave up his only beast, and was ready to kill his cow, if asked, to welcome us. Much of this was from the native, warm, and impulsive generosity of their nature, and much, doubtless, had its origin in the bright hopes of future recompense inspired by the eloquent appeals of Neal Kerrigan, who, mounted on an old white mare, rode about on every side, addressing the people in Irish, and calling upon them to give all aid and assistance to "the expedition."

The difficulty of the landing was much increased by the small space of level ground which intervened between the cliffs and the sea, and of which now the thickening crowd filled every spot. This and the miserable means of conveyance for our baggage, delayed us greatly, so that, with a comparatively small force, it was late in the afternoon before we had all reached the shore.

We had none of us eaten since morning, and were not sorry, as we crowned the heights, to hear the drums beat for "cooking." In an inconceivably short time fires blazed along the hills, around which, in motley groups, stood soldiers and peasantry mingled together, while the work of cooking and eating went briskly on, amid hearty laughter and all the merriment that mutual mistakes and misconceptions occasioned. It was a new thing for French soldiers to bivouac in a friendly country, and find themselves the welcome guests of a foreign people; and certainly the honors of hospitality, however limited the means, could not have been performed with more of courtesy or good-will. Paddy gave his "all," with a generosity that might have shamed many a richer donor.

While the events I have mentioned were going forward, and a considerable crowd of fishermen and peasants had gathered about us, still it was remarkable that, except immediately on the coast itself, no suspicion of our arrival had joined currency, and even the country people who lived a mile from the shore were ignorant of who we were. The few who, from distant heights and headlands, had seen the ships, mistook them for English, and as all those who were out with fish or vegetables to sell were detained by the frigates, any direct information about us was impossible. So far, therefore, all might be said to have gone most favorably with us. We had safely escaped the often-menaced dangers of the channel fleet; we had gained a secure and well-sheltered harbor; and we had landed our force not only without opposition, but in perfect secrecy. There were, I will not deny, certain little counterbalancing circumstances on the other side of the account, not exactly so satisfactory. The patriot forces upon which we had calculated had no existence. There were neither money, nor stores, nor means of conveyance to be had; even accurate information as to the strength and position of the English was unattainable; and as to generals and leaders, the effective staff had but a most sorry representative in the person of Neal Kerrigan. This man's influence over our general increased with every hour, and one of the first orders issued after our landing contained his appointment as an extra aid-de-camp on General Humbert's staff.

In one capacity Neal was most useful. All the available sources of pillage for a wide circuit of country he knew by heart, and it was plain, from the accurate character of his information, varying, as it did, from the chattels of the rich landed proprietor to the cocks and hens of the cottier, that he had taken great pains to master his subject. At his suggestion it was decided that we should march that evening on Killala, where little, or, more likely, no resistance would be met with, and General Humbert should take up his quarters in the "Castle," as the palace of the bishop was styled. There, he said, we should not only find ample accommodation for the staff, but good stabling, well filled, and plenty of forage, while the bishop himself might be a most useful hostage to have in our keeping. From thence, too, as a place of some note, general orders and proclamations would issue, with a kind of notoriety and importance necessary at the outset of an undertaking like ours; and truly never was an expedition more loaded with this species of missive than ours—whole cart-loads of printed papers, decrees, placards, and such like, followed us. If our object had been to drive out the English by big type and a flaming letter-press, we could not have gone more vigorously to work. Fifty thousand broad-sheet announcements of Irish independence were backed by as many proud declarations of victory, some dated from Limerick, Cashel, or Dublin itself.

Here, a great placard gave the details of the new Provincial Government of Western Ireland, with the name of the "Prefect" a blank. There was another, containing the police regulations for the "arrondissements" of Connaught, "et ses dependances." Every imaginable step of conquest and occupation was anticipated and provided for in these wise and considerate protocols, from the "enthusiastic welcome of the French on the western coast," to the hour of "General Humbert's triumphal entry into Dublin." Nor was it prose alone, but even poetry, did service in our cause. Songs, not, I own, conspicuous for great metrical beauty, commemorated our battles and our bravery; so that we entered upon the campaign as deeply pledged to victory as any force I ever heard or read of in history.

Neal, who was, I believe, originally a schoolmaster, had great confidence in this arsenal of "black and white;" and soon persuaded General Humbert that a bold face and a loud tongue would do more in Ireland than in any country under heaven; and indeed, if his own career might be called a success, the theory deserved some consideration. A great part of our afternoon was then spent in distributing these documents to the people, not one in a hundred of whom could read, but who treasured the placards with a reverence nothing diminished by their ignorance. Emissaries, too, were appointed to post them up in conspicuous places through the country, on the doors of the chapels, at the smiths' forges, at cross-roads, every where, in short, where they might attract notice. The most important and business-like of all these, however, was one headed "ARMS!—ARMS!" and which went on to say that no man who wished to lift his hand for old Ireland need do so without a weapon; and that a general distribution of guns, swords, and bayonets would take place at noon the following day at the palace of Killala.

Serazin, and, I believe, Madgett, were strongly opposed to this indiscriminate arming of the people; but Neal's counsels were now in the ascendant, and Humbert gave an implicit confidence to all he suggested.

It was four o'clock in the evening when the word to march was given, and our gallant little force began its advance movement. Still attached to Colonel Charost's staff, and being, as chasseurs, in the advance, I had a good opportunity of seeing the line of march from an eminence about half a mile in front. Grander and more imposing displays I have indeed often witnessed. As a great military "spectacle" it could not, of course, be compared with those mighty armies I had seen deploying through the defiles of the Black Forest, or spreading like a sea over the wide plain of Germany, but in purely picturesque effect, this scene surpassed all I had ever beheld at the time, nor do I think, that, in after life, I can recall one more striking.

The winding road, which led over hill and valley, now disappearing, now emerging, with the undulations of the soil, was covered by troops marching in a firm compact order; the grenadiers in front, after which came the artillery, and then the regiments of the line. Watching the dark column, occasionally saluting it as it went with a cheer, stood thousands of country people on every hill-top and eminence, while far away, in the distance, the frigates lay at anchor in the bay, the guns at intervals thundering out a solemn "boom" of welcome and encouragement to their comrades.

There was something so heroic in the notion of that little band of warriors throwing themselves fearlessly into a strange land, to contest its claim for liberty with one of the most powerful nations of the world; there was a character of daring intrepidity in this bold advance, they knew not whither, nor against what force, that gave the whole an air of glorious chivalry.

I must own that distance lent its wonted illusion to the scene, and proximity, like its twin-brother, familiarity, destroyed much of the "prestige" my fancy had conjured up. The line of march, so imposing when seen from afar, was neither regular nor well kept. The peasantry were permitted to mingle with the troops; ponies, mules, and asses, loaded with camp-kettles and cooking vessels, were to be met with every where. The baggage-wagons were crowded with officers, and "sous-officiers," who, disappointed in obtaining horses, were too indolent to walk. Even the gun-carriages, and the guns themselves, were similarly loaded, while at the head of the infantry column, in an old rickety gig, the ancient mail conveyance between Ballina and the coast, came General Humbert, Neal Kerrigan capering at his side on the old gray, whose flanks were now tastefully covered by the tri-colored ensign of one of the boats as a saddle-cloth.

This nearer and less enchanting prospect of my gallant comrades I was enabled to obtain, on being dispatched to the rear by Colonel Charost, to say that we were now within less than a mile of the town of Killala, its venerable steeple, and the tall chimneys of the palace, being easily seen above the low hills in front. Neal Kerrigan passed me, as I rode back with my message, galloping to the front with all the speed he could muster; but while I was talking to the general he came back to say that the beating of drums could be heard from the town, and that by the rapid movements here and there of people, it was evident the defense was being prepared. There was a look-out, too, from the steeple, that showed our approach was already known. The general was not slow in adopting his measures, and the word was given for quick march, the artillery to deploy right and left of the road, two companies of grenadiers forming on the flanks. "As for you, sir," said Humbert to me, "take that horse," pointing to a mountain pony, fastened behind the gig, "ride forward to the town and make a reconnaissance. You are to report to me," cried he, as I rode away, and was soon out of hearing.

Quitting the road, I took a foot-track across the fields, and which the pony seemed to know well, and after a sharp canter reached a small, poor suburb of the town, if a few straggling wretched cabins can deserve the name; a group of countrymen stood in the middle of the road, about fifty yards in front of me; and while I was deliberating whether to advance or retire, a joyous cry of "Hurra for the French!" decided me, and I touched my cap in salute, and rode forward.

Other groups saluted me with a similar cheer as I went on; and now windows were flung open, and glad cries and shouts of welcome rang out from every side. These signs were too encouraging to turn my back upon, so I dashed forward through a narrow street in front, and soon found myself in a kind of square or "Place," the doors and windows of which were all closed, and not a human being to be seen any where. As I hesitated what next to do, I saw a soldier in a red coat rapidly turn the corner. "What do you want here, you spy?" he cried out in a loud voice, and at the same instant his bullet rang past my ear with a whistle. I drove in the spurs at once, and just as he had gained a doorway I clove his head open with my sabre—he fell dead on the spot before me. Wheeling my horse round, I now rode back as I had come, at full speed, the same welcome cries accompanying me as before.

Short as had been my absence, it was sufficient to have brought the advanced guard close up with the town, and just as I emerged from the little suburb, a quick, sharp firing, drew my attention toward the left of the wall, and there I saw our fellows advancing at a trot, while about twenty red-coats were in full flight before them, the wild cries of the country people following them as they went.

I had but time to see thus much, and to remark that two or three English prisoners were taken, when the general came up. He had now abandoned the gig, and was mounted on a large, powerful, black horse, which I afterward learned was one of the bishop's. My tidings were soon told, and, indeed, but indifferently attended to, for it was evident enough that the place was our own.

"This way, general—follow me," cried Kerrigan. "If the light-companies will take the road down to the 'Acres,' they'll catch the yeomen as they retreat by that way, and we have the town our own."

The counsel was speedily adopted; and although the dropping fire, here and there, showed that some slight resistance was still being made, it was plain enough that all real opposition was impossible.

"Forward!" was now the word; and the "chasseurs," with their muskets "in sling," advanced at a trot up the main street. At a little distance the grenadiers followed, and, debouching into the square, were received by an ill-directed volley from a few of the militia, who took to their heels after they fired. Three or four red-coats were killed, but the remainder made their escape through the church-yard, and gaining the open country, scattered and fled as best they could.

Humbert, who had seen war on a very different scale, could not help laughing at the absurdity of the skirmish, and was greatly amused with the want of all discipline and "accord" exhibited by the English troops.

"I foresee, gentlemen," said he, jocularly, "that we may have abundance of success, but gain very little glory, in the same campaign. Now for a blessing upon our labors—where shall we find our friend, the bishop?"

"This way, general," cried Neal, leading down a narrow street, at the end of which stood a high wall, with an iron gate. This was locked, and some efforts at barricading it showed the intention of a defense; but a few strokes of a pioneer's hammer smashed the lock, and we entered a kind of pleasure-ground, neatly and trimly kept. We had not advanced many paces when the bishop, followed by a great number of his clergy—for it happened to be the period of his annual visitation—came forward to meet us.

Humbert dismounted, and removing his chapeau, saluted the dignitary with a most finished courtesy. I could see, too, by his gesture, that he presented General Serazin, the second in command; and, in fact, all his motions were those of a well-bred guest at the moment of being received by his host. Nor was the bishop, on his side, wanting either in ease or dignity; his manner, not without the appearance of deep sorrow, was yet that of a polished gentleman doing the honors of his house to a number of strangers.

As I drew nearer I could hear that the bishop spoke French fluently, but with a strong foreign accent. This facility, however, enabled him to converse with ease on every subject, and to hold intercourse directly with our general, a matter of no small moment to either party. It is probable that the other clergy did not possess this gift, for assuredly their manner toward us, inferiors of the staff, was neither gracious nor conciliating, and as for myself, the few efforts I made to express, in English, my admiration for the coast scenery, or the picturesque beauty of the neighborhood, were met in any rather than a spirit of politeness.

The generals accompanied the bishop into the castle, leaving myself and three or four others on the outside. Colonel Charost soon made his appearance, and a guard was stationed at the entrance gate, with a strong picket in the garden. Two sentries were placed at the hall-door, and the words "Quartier General" written up over the portico. A small garden pavilion was appropriated to the colonel's use, and made the office of the adjutant-general, and in less than half an hour after our arrival eight sous-officiers were hard at work, under the trees, writing away at billets, contribution orders, and forage rations; while I, from my supposed fluency in English, was engaged in carrying messages to and from the staff to the various shopkeepers and tradesmen of the town, numbers of whom now flocked around us with expressions of welcome and rejoicing. (To be continued.)



[From Dickens's Household Words.]

A LUNATIC ASYLUM IN PALERMO.

Several years ago Count Pisani, a Sicilian nobleman, while on a tour through Europe, directed his attention to the condition of the receptacles for lunatics in some of the principal continental cities. Deeply impressed by the injudicious and often cruel treatment to which the unhappy inmates of those establishments were subject, he determined on returning, to convert his beautiful villa near Palermo into a Lunatic Asylum, which received the name of the Casa dei Matti; and withdrawing to a more humble place of abode, he devoted his fortune and energies to the purpose of carrying out his philanthropic scheme.

Count Pisani himself offered to conduct me over the establishment. After a short walk we arrived in front of a spacious mansion, the exterior aspect of which presented nothing differing from that of a handsome private residence. The windows, it is true, were grated; but the gratings were so ingeniously contrived that had not my attention been particularly directed to them, I should not have discovered their existence. Some represented vine leaves, tendrils, or bunches of grapes; others were fashioned like the long leaves and blue flowers of the convolvulus. Foliage, fruit, and flowers were all painted in natural colors, and it was only from a very near point of view that the artifice could be detected.

The gate was opened by a man, who, instead of carrying a huge stick or a bunch of keys (the usual insignia of the porter of a mad house), had a fine nosegay stuck in the breast of his coat, and in one hand he held a flute, on which he had apparently been playing when interrupted by our summons at the gate.

We entered the building, and were proceeding along the corridor on the ground-floor, when we met a man whom I took to be a servant or messenger of the establishment, as he was carrying some bundles of fire-wood. On perceiving us, he laid down his burden, and advancing to Count Pisani, respectfully kissed his hand. The count inquired why he was not in the garden enjoying the fresh air and amusing himself with his companions. "Because," replied the man, "winter is fast coming, and I have no time to lose. I shall have enough to do to bring down all the wood from the loft, and stow it away in the cellar." The count commended his forethought, and the man, taking up his fagots, bowed, and went his way.

This man, the count informed me, was the owner of large estates in Castelveleruno; but owing to a natural inactivity of mind, and the absence of any exciting or useful occupation, he sank into a state of mental torpor, which terminated in insanity. When he was brought to the Casa dei Matti, Count Pisani drew him aside, under the pretense of having a most important communication to make to him. The count informed him that he had been changed at nurse, that he was not the rightful owner of the wealth he had heretofore enjoyed; and that the fact having become known, he was dispossessed of his wealth, and must therefore work for his maintenance. The madman believed the tale, but showed no disposition to rouse himself from the state of indolence which had been the primary cause of his mental aberration. He folded his arms, and sat down, doubtless expecting that in due time a servant would enter as usual to inform him that dinner was ready. But in this he was deceived.

Dinner hour arrived, and no servant appeared. He waited patiently for some time; but at length the pangs of hunger roused him from his listlessness, and he began to call out loudly for something to eat. No one answered him; and he passed the whole night in knocking on the walls of his apartment, and ordering his servants to bring him his dinner.

About nine o'clock next morning, one of the keepers entered the apartment of the new patient, who, starting up with more energy than he usually manifested, imperiously ordered his breakfast to be prepared. The keeper offered to go into the town to purchase something for his breakfast, if he would give him the money to pay for it. The hungry man eagerly thrust his hands into his pocket, and to his dismay, having discovered that he had no money, he implored the keeper to go and procure him some breakfast on credit.

"Credit!" exclaimed the keeper, who had received the requisite instructions from Count Pisani. "Credit, indeed! No doubt you might easily have obtained credit to any amount, when you were living at Castelveleruno, and every one believed you to be the rightful lord of those fine domains. But now that the truth has come out, who do you think will give credit to a pauper?"

The lunatic immediately recollected what Count Pisani had told him respecting his altered position in life, and the necessity of working for his daily bread. He remained for a few moments as if absorbed in profound reflection; then, turning to the keeper, he asked whether he would point out to him some mode by which he could earn a little money to save himself from starvation.

The keeper replied that if he would help him to carry up to the loft the fagots of firewood which were in the cellar, he would willingly pay him for his work. The proposal was readily accepted; and after carrying up twelve loads of wood, the laborer received his hire, consisting of a little money just sufficient to purchase a loaf of bread, which he devoured with a keener appetite than he ever remembered to have felt throughout the whole previous course of his life.

He then set to work to earn his dinner as he had earned his breakfast; but instead of twelve, he carried up thirty-six loads of wood. For this he was paid three times as much as he had received in the morning, and his dinner was proportionably better and more abundant than his breakfast.

Thenceforward the business proceeded with the most undeviating regularity; and the patient at last conceived such a liking for his occupation, that when all the wood had been carried from the cellar to the loft, he began of his own voluntary accord to carry it down from the loft to the cellar, and vice versa.

When I saw this lunatic, he had been employed in this manner for about a year. The morbid character of his madness had completely disappeared, and his bodily health, previously bad, was now re-established. Count Pisani informed me that he intended soon to try the experiment of telling him that there was some reason to doubt the accuracy of the statements which had caused him to lose the property he once enjoyed; and that he (the count) was in quest of certain papers which might, perhaps, prove after all, that he was no changeling, but the rightful heir to the estates of which he had been deprived. "But," added the count, when he told me this, "however complete this man's recovery may at any time seem to be, I will not allow him to quit this place unless he gives me a solemn promise that he will every day, wheresoever he may be, carry twelve loads of wood from the cellar to the garret, and twelve loads down from the garret to the cellar. On that condition alone, shall I feel any security against the risk of his relapse. Want of occupation is well known to be one of the most frequent causes of insanity."

Each patient had a separate apartment, and several of these little rooms were furnished and decorated in the most capricious style, according to the claims of their occupants. One, who believed himself to be the son of the Emperor of China, had his walls hung with silk banners, on which were painted dragons and serpents, while all sorts of ornaments cut out in gold paper, lay scattered about the room. This lunatic was good-tempered and cheerful, and Count Pisani had devised a scheme which he hoped might have some effect in mitigating the delusions under which he labored. He proposed to print a copy of a newspaper, and to insert in it a paragraph announcing that the Emperor of China had been dethroned, and had renounced the sovereignty on the part of his son and his descendants. Another patient, whose hallucination consisted in believing himself to be dead, had his room hung with black crape, and his bed constructed in the form of a bier. Whenever he arose from his bed, he was either wrapped in a winding sheet, or in some sort of drapery which he conceived to be the proper costume for a ghost. This appeared to me to be a very desperate case, and I asked Count Pisani whether he thought there was any chance of curing the victim of so extraordinary a delusion. The count shook his head doubtfully, and observed that his only hope rested on a scheme he meant shortly to try; which was to endeavor to persuade the lunatic that the day of judgment had arrived.

As we were quitting this chamber, we heard a loud roaring in another patient's apartment near at hand. The count asked me whether I had any wish to see how he managed raving madmen? "None whatever," I replied, "unless you guarantee my personal safety!" He assured me there was nothing to fear, and, taking a key from the hand of one of the keepers, he led the way into a padded chamber. In one corner of the room was a bed, and stretched upon it lay a man, wearing a strait-waistcoat, which confined his arms to his sides, and fastened him by the middle of his body to the bed. I was informed that a quarter of an hour previously, this man had been seized with such a frightful fit of raving mania that the keepers were obliged to have recourse to restraint, very rarely resorted to in that establishment. He appeared to be about thirty years of age, was exceedingly handsome; he had fine dark eyes, and features of the antique mould, with the figure of a Hercules. On hearing the door open, he roared out in a voice of thunder, uttering threats and imprecations; but, on looking round, his eyes met those of the count, and his anger softened down into expressions of grief and lamentation. Count Pisani approached the bed, and, in a mild tone of voice, asked the patient what he had been doing to render it necessary to place him under such restraint. "They have taken away my Angelica," replied the maniac; "they have torn her from me, and I am resolved to be avenged on Medora!" The unfortunate man imagined himself to be Orlando Furioso, and, as may readily be supposed, his madness was of the wildest and most extravagant character.

Count Pisani endeavored to soothe his violence by assuring him that Angelica had been carried off by force, and that she would doubtless seize the first opportunity of escaping from the hands of her captors and rejoining her lover. This assurance, repeated earnestly but gently, speedily had the effect of calming the fury of the maniac, who, after a little time, requested that the count would unfasten his strait-waistcoat. This Count Pisani agreed to do, on condition of the patient pledging his word of honor that he would not profit by his liberty to make any attempt to pursue Angelica. This sympathy for imaginary misfortune had a good effect. The patient did not attempt to quit his bed, but merely raised himself up. He had been a year in the establishment, and, notwithstanding the deep grief into which his fancied misfortunes plunged him, he had never been known to shed tears. Count Pisani had several times endeavored to make him weep, but without success. He proposed soon to try the experiment of announcing to him the death of Angelica. He intended to dress up a figure in funeral garments, and to prevail on the heart-broken Orlando to be present at the interment. This scene, it was expected, would have the effect of drawing tears from the eyes of the sufferer; and if so, Count Pisani declared he should not despair of his recovery.

In an apartment facing that of Orlando Furioso, there was another man raving mad. When we entered his room he was swinging in a hammock, in which he was fastened down, for biting his keeper. Through the gratings of his window he could perceive his comrades strolling about and amusing themselves in the garden. He wished to be among them, but was not allowed to go, because, on a recent occasion, he had made a very violent attack on a poor harmless creature, suffering from melancholy madness. The offender was in consequence condemned to be tied down in his hammock, which is the secondary punishment resorted to in the establishment. The first and most severe penalty being imprisonment; and the third the strait-waistcoat. "What is the matter?" said Count Pisani. "What have you been doing to-day?" The lunatic looked at the count, and then began whining, like a peevish child. "They will not let me go out to play," said he, looking out of the window, where several of his companions were enjoying the air in the garden. "I am tired of lying here;" and he began rocking himself impatiently in his hammock. "Well, I doubt not it is wearisome," said the count; "suppose I release you;" and, with those words, he unfastened the ligatures.

The lunatic joyfully leapt out of his hammock, exclaiming, "Now I may go into the garden!" "Stay," said the count; "suppose before you go you dance the Tarantella." "Oh, yes!" exclaimed the lunatic, in a tone which showed that he received the proposal as the greatest possible indulgence; "I shall be delighted to dance the Tarantella." "Go and fetch Teresa and Gaetano," said the count to one of the keepers; then turning to me, he said, "Teresa is also one of our violent patients, and she sometimes gives us a great deal of trouble. Gaetano was a teacher of the guitar, and some time ago he became deranged. He is the minstrel of our establishment." In a few minutes, Teresa, a pretty looking young woman about twenty years of age, was conducted into the room by two men, who held her by the arms, while she struggled to escape, and endeavored to strike them. Gaetano, with his guitar slung round his neck, followed gravely, but without being held, for his madness was of a perfectly harmless kind.

No sooner did Teresa perceive Count Pisani, than, by a violent effort disengaging herself from the keepers, she flew to him, and, drawing him aside into a corner of the room, she began to tell him a long story about some ill-treatment to which she alleged she had been subjected. "I know it; I have heard of it," said the count; "and, therefore, I think it just to make you some amends. For this reason I have sent for you that you may dance the Tarantella." Teresa was delighted at hearing this, and immediately took her place in front of her intended partner. "Now, Gaetano, presto! presto!" said the count, and the musician struck up the air of the Tarantella in very spirited style.

I have frequently witnessed the magical effect which this air never fails to produce on the Sicilians; but I never could conceive any thing like the change it wrought upon these two lunatics. The musician began to play the air in the time in which it is usually performed; but the dancers urged him to play it more and more quickly, till at length the measure became indescribably rapid. The dancers marked the tune with the most perfect precision by snapping their fingers. After keeping up this rapid movement with surprising energy for a quarter of an hour, they began to show some symptoms of fatigue. The man was the first to give in, and, overcome by the exertion, he threw himself on a bench which stood on one side of the room. Teresa, however, kept up a very animated pas seul for several minutes after the loss of her partner; but at length she also found herself compelled to stop. The man was placed on his bed, and the woman was conducted to her apartment. Both were so completely overcome by the violence of their exertions, that Count Pisani observed he would answer for their remaining quiet for twenty-four hours to come. As to the guitarist, he was allowed to go into the garden to play to his companions.

I was next conducted into a large hall, in which the patients walk and amuse themselves, when wet weather prevents them from going out. This place was adorned with a profusion of flowers, growing in pots and vases, and the walls were covered with fresco paintings, representing humorous subjects. The hall contained embroidery frames, spinning-wheels, and even weavers' looms; all presented traces of the work on which the lunatics had been engaged. Having passed through the great hall, I was conducted to the garden, which was tastefully laid out, shaded by large spreading trees and watered by fresh fountains. I was informed that, during the hours allotted to recreation, most of the patients may be seen wandering about the garden separately, and without holding any communication one with another, each following the bent of his or her own particular humor, some noisy and others silent. One of the most decided characteristics of madness is the desire of solitude. It seldom happens that two lunatics enter into conversation with each other; or, if they do so, each merely gives utterance to his own train of thought, without any regard to what is said by his interlocutor. It is different when they converse with the strangers who occasionally visit them. They then attend to any observations addressed to them, and not unfrequently make very rational and shrewd replies.

The first patient we met on entering the garden, was a young man apparently about six or eight-and-twenty years of age. Before he lost his senses, he was one of the most distinguished advocates in Catania. One evening, at the theatre, he got involved in some dispute with a Neapolitan, who, instead of quietly putting into his pocket the card which Lucca (as I shall call him) slipped into his hand, went out and made a complaint to the guard. This guard was composed of Neapolitan soldiers, one of whom gladly availing himself of the opportunity of exercising authority over a Sicilian, seized him by the collar, whereupon Lucca struck his assailant. The other soldiers came to the aid of their comrade, and a violent struggle ensued, in the course of which Lucca received a blow on the head which felled him on the ground. He was conveyed to prison in a state of insensibility and placed in a cell, where he was left for the night. Next morning, when it was intended to conduct him before the judge for examination, he was found to be perfectly insane.

This young man's madness had taken a very poetic turn. Sometimes he fancied himself to be Tasso; at another time Shakspeare or Chateaubriand. At the time of my visit to the asylum, he was deeply impressed with the delusion of imagining himself to be Dante. When we approached him, he was pacing up and down an alley in the garden, pleasantly shaded by trees. He held in one hand a pencil, and in the other some slips of paper, and he was busily engaged in composing the thirty-third Canto of his Inferno. At intervals he rubbed his forehead, as if to collect his scattered thoughts, and then he would note down some lines of the poem.

Profiting by a pause, during which he seemed to emerge from his profound abstraction, I stepped up to him, saying, "I understand, sir, that I have the honor of addressing myself to Dante."

"That is my name," replied Lucca. "What have you to say to me?"

"To assure you how much pleasure I shall feel in making your acquaintance. I proceeded to Florence, in the hope of finding you there, but you had left that city."

"Then," said Lucca, with that sharp, quick sort of utterance often observable in insane persons, "then, it seems, you were not aware of my having been driven from Florence, and that they charged me with having stolen the money of the Republic? Dante accused of robbery, forsooth! I slung my sword at my side, and having collected the first seven Cantos of my poem, I departed."

This strange hallucination excited my interest, and, pursuing the conversation, I said, "I hoped to have overtaken you between Fettre and Montefeltro."

"Oh! I staid only a very short time there," said he. "Why did you not go to Ravenna?"

"I did go there, and found only your tomb!"

"But I was not in it," observed he. "Do you know how I escaped?"

I replied in the negative.

"I have discovered a mode of restoring one's life."

"Is it a secret?"

"No; I will tell it you. When I feel that I am dying, I order a grave to be dug—a very deep grave. You are aware that in the centre of the earth there is an immense lake full of red water—and—and—"

Count Pisani, who had overheard the latter part of this conversation, here suddenly interrupted Lucca, saying, "Signor Dante, these people are very anxious to have a dance. Will you indulge them by playing a quadrille?"

He then hurriedly dispatched one of the attendants for a violin, on which instrument he informed me, Lucca was a masterly performer.

The violin being brought, the count handed it to Lucca who began to tune it. Meanwhile, the count, drawing me aside, said, "I interrupted your conversation, just now, somewhat abruptly; because I observed that Lucca was beginning to wander into some of his metaphysical delusions, and I never allow him to talk on such subjects. These metaphysical lunatics are always very difficult to cure.

"But yonder comes one who will never be cured!" pursued the count, shaking his head, sorrowfully, while he directed my notice to a young female who was advancing from another part of the garden, attended by a female servant or nurse. By this time the dancers had begun to range themselves in their places, and the young lady's attendant was drawing her forward, with the view of inducing her to take part in the quadrille.

The young lady, whose dress and general elegance of appearance seemed to denote that she was a person of superior rank, was disinclined to dance; and as the attendant persisted in urging her forward, she struggled to escape, and at length fell into a paroxysm of grief.

"Let her alone! Let her alone!" said Count Pisani to the attendant. "It is useless to contend with her. Poor girl! I fear she will never endure, to see dancing, or to hear music, without this violent agitation. Come hither, Costanza," said he, beckoning kindly to her. "Tell me what is the matter?"

"Oh, Albano! Albano!" shrieked the poor maniac. "They are going to kill Albano!"

And then, overcome by her emotion, she sank, exhausted, into the arms of her attendant, who carried her away.

Meanwhile, the sound of the violin had drawn together, from various parts of the garden, a number of patients, male and female, and the quadrille was formed. Among the most conspicuous figures in the group were the son of the Emperor of China, and the man who believed himself to be dead. The former wore on his head a splendid crown, made of gilt paper; and the latter, who was enveloped in a white sheet, stalked about with the grave and solemn air which he conceived to be common to a ghost. A melancholy madman, who evidently shared in the festivity with reluctance and regret, and who was, from time to time, urged on by his keepers, and a woman, who fancied herself to be Saint Catharine, and was subject to strange fits of ecstasy and improvisation, were also conspicuous among the dancers. Lucca, who played the violin with extraordinary spirit, every now and then marked the time by stamping his foot on the ground, while, in a stentorian voice, he called out the figures, to which, however, the dancers paid not the slightest attention. The scene was indescribable, it was like one of those fantastic visions which are sometimes conjured up in a dream.

As we were passing through the court-yard, on our way out, I espied Costanza, the young lady who had so determinedly refused to join in the dance. She was now kneeling down on the edge of a fountain, and intently gazing on her own countenance, which was reflected from the limpid water as from a mirror.

I asked the count what had caused the insanity of this interesting patient. "Alas!" replied he, "it is a melancholy story of romantic vendetta, which might almost figure in a work of fiction." Costanza's husband had been murdered on her bridal day by a rival.

When Costanza was first brought to the establishment, her madness was of a very violent character; but, by degrees it had softened down into a placid melancholy. Nevertheless, her case was one which admitted of no hope.

Some time after my visit to Palermo, I met Lucca in Paris. He was then, to all appearance, perfectly himself. He conversed very rationally, and even appeared to recollect having seen and conversed with me before. I inquired after poor Costanza; but he shook his head sorrowfully. The count's prediction was fully verified. Lucca had recovered his senses: but Costanza was still an inmate of the Casa dei Matti.



SLOPED FOR TEXAS.—A TALE OF THE WEST.

This is an answer given in some of the States of America when a gentleman has decamped from his wife, from his creditors, or from any other responsibility which he finds it troublesome to meet or to support. Among the curious instances of the application of this phrase is an adventure which happened to myself.

It is the boast of the bloods of the town of Rackinsack, in Arkansas, that they are born with skins like alligators, and with strength like bears. They work hard, and they play hard. Gaming is the recreation most indulged in, and the gaming-houses of the western part of Arkansas have branded it with an unenviable notoriety.

One dark summer night, I lounged, as a mere spectator, the different rooms, watching the various games of hazard that were being played. Some of the players seemed to have set their very souls upon the stakes; their eyes were bloodshot, and fixed, from beneath their wrinkled brows, on the table, as if their everlasting weal or woe depended there upon the turning of the dice; while others—the finished blacklegs—assumed an indifferent and careless look, though a kind of sardonic smile playing round their lips, but too plainly revealed a sort of habitual desperation. Three of the players looked the very counterparts of each other, not only in face, but expression; both the physical and moral likeness was indeed striking. The other player was a young man, a stranger, whom they call a "green one," in this and many other parts of the world. His eyes, his nose, his whole physiognomy, seemed to project, and to be capable of growing even still longer.

"Fifty dollars more," he exclaimed, with a deep-drawn breath, as he threw down the stake.

Each of his opponents turned up his cards coolly and confidently; but the long-visaged hero laid his stake before them, and, to the astonishment of the three professionals, won.

"Hurrah! the luck has turned, and I crow!" he cried out in an ecstasy, and pocketed the cash.

The worthy trio smiled at this, and recommenced play. The green young man displayed a broad but silent grin at his good fortune, and often took out his money to count it over, and see if each piece was good.

"Here are a hundred dollars more," cried the sylvan youth, "and I crow."

"I take them," said one of the trio. The youth won again, and "crowed" louder this time than he did the first.

On went the game; stakes were lost and won. Gradually the rouleaus of the "crower" dwindled down to a three or four of dollars, or so. It was clear that the gentlemen in black had been luring him on by that best of decoys, success at first.

"Let me see something for my money. Here's a stake of two dollars, and I crow!" But he spoke now in a very faint treble indeed, and looked penitently at the cards.

Again the cards were shuffled, cut, and dealt, and the "plucked pigeon" staked his last dollar upon them.

"The last button on Gabe's coat, and I cr—cr—; no, I'll be hamstrung if I do!"

He lost this too, and, with as deep a curse as I ever heard, he rose from the green board.

The apartment was very spacious, and on the ground floor. There was only this one gaming table in it, and not many lookers-on besides myself. Thinking the gaming was over, I turned to go out, but found the door locked, and the key gone. There was evidently something in the wind. At all events, I reflected, in ease of need, the windows are not very far to the ground. I returned, and saw the winners dividing the spoil, and the poor shorn "greenhorn," leaning over the back of their chairs, staring intently at the money.

The notes were deliberately spread out one after another. Those which the loser had staked were new, fresh from the press, he said, and they were sorted into a heap distinct from the rest. They were two-dollar, three-dollar, and five-dollar notes, from the Indiana Bank, and the Bank of Columbus, in Ohio.

"I say, Ned, I don't think these notes are good," said one of the winners, and examined them.

"I wish they were'nt, and I'd crow," cried out the loser, very chop-fallen, at his elbow.

This simple speech lulled the suspicions of the counter, and he resumed his counting. At last, as he took up the last note, and eying it keenly, he exclaimed, in a most emphatic manner, "I'll be hanged if they are genuine! They are forged!"

"No, they ain't!" replied the loser, quite as emphatically.

A very opprobrious epithet was now hurled at the latter. He, without more ado, knocked down the speaker at a blow, capsized the table, which put out the lights, and, in the next instant, darted out of the window, while a bullet, fired from a pistol, cracked the pane of glass over his head. He had leaped into the small court-yard, with a wooden paling round it. The winners dashed toward the door, but found that the "green one" had secured it.

When the three worthies were convinced that the door would not yield to their efforts, and when they heard their "victim" galloping away, they gave a laugh at the trick played them, and returned to the table.

"Strike a light, Bill, and let's pick up what notes have fallen. I have nearly the whole lot in my pocket."

The light soon made its appearance.

"What! None on the floor? Capital; I think I must have them all in my pocket, then:" saying which, he drew out the notes, and laid them on the table.

"Fire and Furies! These are the forged notes! The rascal has whipped up the other heap!"

While all this was going on, I stepped toward the window, but had not stood there long, before I heard the clanking hoofs of a horse beyond the paling, and a shout wafted into the room—"Sloped for Texas!"

The worst part of the story remains to be told: it was my horse on which the rogue was now galloping off.



[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

THE VOLCANO-GIRL.

It is an axiom among travelers, that the Bay of Naples is the most beautiful place in the whole world. Every one who beholds it repeats the same statement with unvarying uniformity; and if any quaint person were to make a contrary assertion, he would not be argued with, but laughed down. I dislike paradoxes, and therefore shall subscribe to the general opinion, although I never saw a scene so dismal as when I first entered the bay. Dismal, but grand! We had left Civita Vecchia the day before, steaming through a restless, nasty sea, in the midst of as filthy a fog as ever defiled the surface of the Mediterranean during the merry month of May. Sometimes we could see nothing but the dirty-looking short waves; but now and then a dim streak of Roman territory, or two or three ghost-like islands, rewarded the efforts of our winking eyes. The night was boisterous, if not tempestuous; but when morning came the wind had abated, though without driving away the mist, and the sea rolled still in a turbulent and uncivil way.

The Maria Christina was undoubtedly the worst steamer it has ever been my lot to voyage in. There seemed to be not a well hung piece in her whole composition; so that, in addition to the usual sea-sounds, there was a perpetual slamming of doors and creaking of timbers. The villainous little craft appeared to be in constant hesitation whether it would go to pieces or not; and I believe has since taken that freak into its head. The captain, as seamanlike a fellow as ever crossed my eyes, kept up our confidence, however, even in the most ugly moments; although it could not be denied that our expedition was something like a visit to the northern seas in a Margate boat.

We crawled on at the rate of some three or four knots an hour, until, after passing San Stefano, we began to distinguish dimly the base of Ischia; for the summit was plunged in a mass of black clouds. Then a doubtful outline of rocks struggled through the vapor to the left; and at length we got into the pass, guessed at the form of the promontory, obtained a vague glimpse of Procida, and fairly entered the famous bay. All the elements of its beauty showed faintly through a moving vapor that thickened aloft into driving clouds. Capri looked like a cone of dark mist lingering to the south: the island we had passed dimmed away in our rear. Bays and creeks innumerable ran in, to the left, between a strange mixture of rocks and vegetation. This was all we could see at first; but the lower half of Vesuvius soon showed itself; and presently the curtain of mist was drawn hastily aside, just to give us a glimpse, as it were, of the giant peak, faintly penciled against the leaden sky, into which its wreath of smoke faded away, and of the reaper of Castel a Mare, and the craggy promontory of Sorrento. Then all was covered again; and a thin driving shower filled the air. Not a single gleam of sunshine gilded the scene; but I once distinguished the orb, "shorn of its beams," poised over the depths of the bay.

First impressions are every thing. Whenever I try to recall the all-famous site, it always begins by presenting itself under this aspect—not without its grandeur, it is true—but far inferior to the bright and sunny scenes I witnessed, when, proceeding farther under more favorable auspices, I made acquaintance with the coasts of Calabria, and the immortal Straits of Messina. With a little patience, however, I can figure to myself the Bay of Naples in all the loveliness which it afterward displayed; and when the operation is complete, the contrast becomes interesting.

I shall say nothing about the castles of St. Elmo and Del Ovo; nor of the useless fuss about granting pratique; nor of an attempt made to entrap us into smuggling by a worthy who had some silks to land; nor of the annoyances of the custom-house. It is not my intention to take the bread out of the mouths of the tourists. These are their legitimate topics. I have to relate a little incident which does not happen to every one who visits Naples; and I can not therefore be accused of trespassing upon any body's ground. What I say about scenery and manners must merely be considered as a setting to the diamond. I am willing to concede superiority in this respect to any one who may claim it.

We lodged in the Hotel de la Belle Venise, situated half-way up a steep street—name not mentioned in my journal—leading from the lower end of the Strada Toledo. We were bent on traveling cheaply, and did not think four carlines a day too dear for a room. This hint is not intended as information to any who may follow in our footsteps; but it illustrates our character and position, and explains why in the course of our wanderings we were always meeting with strange adventures. A man may travel from Dan to Beersheba in first-class carriages of railways, coupes of diligences, saloons of steamers; he may put up at the best hotels, and hire the cleverest guides, and he will see nothing, learn nothing, feel nothing, but what has been seen, learned, and felt by his predecessors. But we defy even the shyest Englishman to undertake the tour of Europe on economical principles, unless he be positively determined to keep his eyes and heart as close shut as his pocket, without bringing back something to remember to the end of his days—something to make his eyes grow dim when he meditates on it, his lips tremble when he speaks of it, his hand falter when he writes of it. For in this system of traveling he is forced, while in a mood of mind highly susceptible of impressions, into contact with all sorts of characters and incidents; and if he has a spark of nature in him, it must be struck out.

We dined the first evening at the Trattoria dell' Errole, and took an ice at the Caffe di Europa. But our heads were in a disagreeable whirl, and we enjoyed nothing. We missed the creaking and the groaning of the Maria Christina; for which the rumbling of a few carriages, and the buzz of voices on the promenade, seemed—such is the force of habit—an insignificant compensation. Lines of well-lit shops, crowds of well-dressed people, balconies filled with ladies, colonnades of churches, and facades of palaces, danced dimly before our eyes, instead of the accustomed cordages, the naked masts, the smutty sail, the breast-high bulwarks, and that horrid squat funnel, with its cascade of black smoke tinged, as it rolled forth, with a dull red glow. When I retired to rest, I caught myself holding on to the bed as I prepared to get into it; and I dreamed of nothing all night but of trampling of feet overhead, whistling of wind through rigging, shifting of the anchor-chain, and all sorts of abominable noises. These physical reminiscences, however, disappeared next day, and I was prepared to enjoy Naples.

I did enjoy it; and I hope all my readers may live to enjoy it too. I know this is wishing a tremendously long life to some of them; but such a wish will offend nobody. During one of my strolls—this time I was alone—I came to the foot of that vast flight of steps shaded by trees which leads up toward the castle of St. Elmo. It was just past mid-day; and I suppose every body was beginning the siesta; for not a single living soul could I see in any direction. I sat down on one of the steps, under the shadow of a huge elm, and looked upward toward the sky along the broken avenue of trees that led aloft. There was something singularly beautiful to me in the scene. The trees here and there met, and huddled their heads together, and threw down a thick black shadow: beyond was a bright patch of sunshine; and then some thinly-sprinkled branches bent across, and fluttered their green and gold leaves between me and the patch of blue sky that glanced at the top, seeming to be the only destination of this lofty staircase.

I was gazing upward, as if in expectation, but in reality admiring this curious effect, when a small dark form intercepted my view of the sky. I had almost imagined myself at the foot of Jacob's ladder; but the spell was at once broken, and I was about to rise and go away, when the singular motions of the person who had disturbed me drew my attention. It was evidently a girl with naked feet, but neat garments; her head was laden with flowers; and she skipped down with all the lightness of the gazelle for some space; then came to a halt, possibly on seeing a stranger; then continued her progress—now showing brightly in the sun, now dimly in the shade, until she came, and, after a sidelong glance at me, sat down on the opposite end of the same step, where there was no protection from the heat. I now noticed that she carried a basket in her hand, from which she produced a variety of objects, evidently manufactured from lava. These she arranged by her side, and examined with care, every now and then casting an impatient look toward me. There was a wildness in her eye, and a quaintness in her whole demeanor that pleased me, especially as her features were almost without a fault. So I remained where I was, studying her movements; and the idea suddenly struck me that I was occupying her usual place, and that shyness prevented her from coming nearer. So I arose and went a little higher up, when she at once crossed over, I thought, with a grateful smile. A little while afterward she called to me, and asked if I would buy some of her curiosities.

There was evidently no sordid motive in this; for when I came near, she made no allusion to a bargain, but said I had chosen a place where there was not sufficient shade. I asked her a few questions about the lava, but got only vague answers. What conversation passed was a random kind of talk about the difference of Italy and foreign countries. It was evident that in the girl's eyes "Napoli"—which she pronounced with magnificent emphasis—was the only place in the world worth admiring. She had seen no other. The people, however, were bad—very bad. I thought, upon this observation, that something like a story was coming; but the throat and face of the girl only darkened with a rush of blood, and she grew utterly silent. Suddenly she arranged her lava hastily in her basket, started up, leaving a piece which I had been holding in my hand, and had not paid for, and ran away down the street. I naturally ran after her to pay for what I had bought; but she turned round with flushed cheek and flashing eyes; and while I was indulging in the hope of being able to explain my intentions, I felt a blow on my breast from a stone lanched with no weak hand; and before I had time to recover from my surprise, the girl had disappeared.

A curious termination to an interview which I had begun to persuade myself had something of a romantic character! I rubbed my thorax, tried to laugh at the little slut's vivacity, but could not get rid of the uneasy annoyance peculiar to misunderstood people. Perhaps I had been taken for a robber—perhaps something I had said in my broken Italian had been thought insulting. I grew quite morose; thought of nothing else all the afternoon; was set down as an ill-tempered fellow at dinner; and on retiring to bed, could not help perpetually stating this question—"Why should that pretty girl, toward whom my heart had expanded, have left me in so abrupt a manner; and on my endeavoring to restore her property, have made a target of me?" All night, as I slept, I felt as if a hot coal were lying on my breast; and the place, indeed, was black and blue in the morning.

An excursion had been proposed to Vesuvius, and we started at three in the afternoon—myself, four Americans, with Mr. Jenkins and his wife—all crowded into what, I believe, is called a corricolo. The sea, along the brink of which we went, was still stormy, and the waves washed with a slushing noise up into the very street. The drive was beautiful to Portici, the white houses and vine-wreathed porticoes of which I noticed with pleasure. At Portici, after some wrangling in the house of the guide, we were transferred to horses and donkeys; and off we went, first up a hot lane between stone walls, and then along a fine paved road. The party was merry, and not unpicturesque, but out of character with the scene. Not one of us was subdued by the tranquil beauty of the little landscapes, the bright green nooks that opened here and there. Our temperaments were still too northern. We were not yet soothed down by the sunny sky and balmy air of Italy; and got stared at in consequence with contemptuous curiosity by the languid peasants in the fields.

At length a zig-zag road commenced, and up we went, turning round ever and anon to view the expanding bay, softened down into apparent calm by distance. Green gullies and ravines of lava began to be intermingled; but tranquil observation was soon interrupted by tremendous gusts of wind that came roaring down the sides of the mountain, and enveloped us in whirlwinds of dust, sometimes mingled with pebbles, at every turn of the road. It was hard work to get on; and we were glad enough to reach the Hermitage and Observatory, where we tossed off a glass of Lachryma Christi to restore us.

The rest of the road was along a narrow ridge leading to the foot of the great black cone. On either side were gullies of green, and beyond great red fields of lava. It was not remarkably safe riding, and by no means commodious. Sometimes one's nose touched the horse's or ass's neck; sometimes the back of one's head was whisked by the tail. It was a sort of rocking-horse motion. But we arrived safe at the dismounting-place; and, I must confess, looked rather dismayed at the desperately steep cone up which we were bound to scramble. But in traveling, "on, on," is the word; so on we went, stumbling up through the triturated and block lava, as if Fame, or something else equally valuable, had been at the summit. Mrs. Jenkins was in an open palanquin, borne by eight men, who grunted, staggered, crawled up or slid back, shouted, laughed, and belabored one another with their climbing-poles, while the undaunted lady sat as coolly as in her drawing-room at home, making observations on the scenery, which we could scarcely hear, and were too breathless to answer.

In about an hour we neared the summit, and got under a vast canopy of sulphurous smoke, which, blown by the furious wind, rolled grim and black over the serrated edge, stretched its impenetrable mass between us and the sky, and then swooped down toward the bay, and dispersed in a vast mist. Most parts of the plain, too, were covered with a low ground-fog. It was a grand sight as we paused and looked back before the last effort. The whole sweep of the bay was visible from Sorrento to Baia, together with the islands, scattered like giant sentinels at the mouth; but all looked strange and fantastic through the sulphurous vapor. The sun was setting in a bath of blood and gold, just behind a straight line of ebony clouds with a sharp rim, like a wall of black marble. The white houses on the slopes of Castel a Mare were already looking ghastly in the twilight.

Our temples throbbed with fatigue; but the guide cried "Forward," and we soon came to the most disagreeable part of the business. The smoke was forced by the wind in a kind of cascade some fifty yards down the declivity, and as soon as we got into it an awful sense of suffocation came on. The guide swore, and some of us talked of retreating. But the majority were for persevering; and, panting and coughing, we dashed upward, reached the summit, got into the midst of a fearful torrent of black smoke, like that which is vomited by a steamer's funnel, and staggered giddily about seeking which way to go. At this moment a slight form glanced toward us, said a few words to the guide, and presently we were running to the left along black and dizzy precipices, until suddenly we emerged from the volcanic vapor, and were in full view at the same time of the plain and the sea, and of all the wonders of Vesuvius.

The girl whose acquaintance I had made in so strange a manner had come to the assistance of the guide, and told him what direction to take in order soonest to escape from the smoke. I spoke to her; but although she recognized me, I think, she did not, or would not remember our former interview. The idea suggested itself that she was touched in her intellect, so I made no farther allusion to the subject. It was evident the guide knew her, and had confidence in her. He asked her advice about the path which it would be advisable to follow; and obeyed her directions implicitly. "Who is that?" I whispered. "It is Ghita, the Volcano-girl," he replied in English, before repeating the Italian name, which might be translated, the "Daughter of the Volcano." I had no time for further inquiries. We were once more in motion, and had enough to do to keep our footing on the rough lava in the teeth of as furious a blast as ever I remember encountering. It would have been dangerous to stand even near a precipice.

It was a marvelous scene that vast black valley with its lake of fire at the bottom—its cone of fire on one hand. The discharges were constant, and had something appalling in their sound. We were almost too much excited for observation. Now we looked at the cone of green and gold that sank and rose, faded and brightened, smoked or flamed; then at the seething lake; then at the strong mountains of lava; then at the burning fissures that yawned around. There were yet some remnants of day—a gloomy twilight at least revealed the jagged rim of the valley. Down we went—down, down to the very edge of the boiling caldron of melted lava, that rolled its huge waves toward the black shore, waves whose foam and spray were fire and flame! An eruption evidently was preparing; and soon indeed took place. We missed the sight; but what we now saw was grand enough. A troop of heavy black clouds was hurrying athwart the sky, showing the stars ever and anon between "like a swarm of golden bees." The wind roared and bellowed among the lava-gullies, while the cone discharged its blocks of burning lava, or its showers of red sparks, with a boom like that of a park of artillery.

A thousand travelers may witness and describe the scene, but it can never be hackneyed or vulgar. The volcano-girl, evidently familiar with every changing aspect, crept to my side, as I stood apart wrapt in silent admiration and wonder, and I caught her examining the expression of my face as it was revealed by the dismal glare of the burning lake. "E bellissima!" she whispered in a husky voice, pressing close to my side, and trembling like a leaf, not with present fear, but manifestly in memory of some dreadful event. We were friends from that moment, and she constituted herself my especial guide, running before me to choose the surest paths, giving me her delicate little hand, and showing, in fact, all possible willingness to make up our little quarrel, if she retained any remembrance of it.

We returned toward the cone, and approached within dangerous proximity to it. The volcano-girl often pulled my arm to induce me to keep back; but when she saw I was determined to look down into the horrid flaming gulf of fire that yawned near the cone, she followed me, murmuring a low pensive song. On reaching the edge, which was uncertain and trembling, I halted and gazed; and while the guide and my companions shouted to me to come back, enjoyed a moment of fearful joy. I was standing on the brink of a vast chasm of fire, in which no flame was, but only a dreadful glow, that thickened by distance into substance. The wind shrieked around, the volcano roared above, the tremendous cloud of black smoke swayed and wavered as it rolled, beaten down by the wind to the outer edge of the crater, like a vast snake, or, when the blast for a moment ceased, towered aloft like an evil genius, and dispersed amid the clouds.

"Come back! come back!" cried Ghita, as the smoky pile of cinders trembled beneath us, and we both, panic-stricken, rushed to a surer footing, while the point we had occupied slided into the gulf of fire! I never shall forget that moment. The very memory of it makes my hair stand on end, and a cold perspiration burst out over my whole body. The girl clasped my hand convulsively as we ran, and when we stood again on the hot solid lava, uttered a low, "Dio grazia!" All this was unlike folly, and, together with our companionship in danger, heightened the interest I felt in my wild-looking, beautiful guide.

We all returned toward the edge of the crater, and collected in a lava-cave to light torches for our journey back. Here we met two or three men armed with guns, who professed to be guards, and might have been brigands. One of them spoke rather roughly to the volcano-girl, who took refuge by my side, and would not quit it. We started again by the light of great flaring torches, and soon began the descent down a dusty decline. It was a strange, rapid piece of work. The whole party ran, rushed, tumbled, slid, rolled down in one confused crowd, the torches glaring, flakes of burning pitch scattering here and there, the palanquin bobbing up and down, the mountain sloping up to the clouds behind, and down into darkness before. We descended this time into the old crater—a great plain of dust and pumice-stone. All was gloomy around; but the lights of Naples and Portici could be distinguished in the distance.

Our horses and donkeys were waiting for us where we had left them; and we rode rapidly back via the Hermitage, but over the plain of lava, instead of by the zig-zag road, toward Portici. Ghita ran all the way by my side, but rarely spoke, except to tell me when we approached a steep declivity. I should have felt jealous had she attended to any one else; but was quite angry at hearing her jestingly spoken of as "my conquest." A single vulgar remark sometimes throws cold water on the most delicate sentiment.

At Portici she left us. The guides were paid, and every body forgot the volcano-girl who had been of such signal service to us. I looked for her, and saw her standing in the court-yard with the back of her little hand to her mouth in a pensive attitude. "Ghita," said I, approaching, "I must give you something"—she started slightly—"that you may buy a remembrance with it of our visit to the volcano." In such a form, the present—I did not write the amount down among my disbursements—was accepted frankly and freely. The poor girl was evidently in a state of great emotion: a few kind words from me had struck upon a chord ever ready to vibrate; the truth is, she sobbed, and could not answer. But when the tongue falters, and the lip trembles in the South, there is an eloquent substitute for language. She took my hand, and kissed it fervently, and a shower of warm tear-drops fell upon it. "Ghita," I murmured, trying to be firm, but bending over her with the tenderest affection—I can not help it; I have an instinctive love for the sorrowful—"Ghita, you are unhappy? Can I do any thing for you?" "No," was her answer, as she again pressed my hand, and, gliding away, disappeared like a shadow in the street.

We were at Naples an hour after midnight; but I found it impossible to sleep. I could think of nothing save the story of the volcano-girl; for the substance of her story was evident—the material details alone were wanting. I afterward learned the whole truth. A volume might be filled with them: a line will be sufficient. She had been betrothed to a young man, a guide, who had perished during a visit to the volcano: she had gone mad in consequence—of a gentle, harmless madness in general; but as a few brutal people insulted her, she was sometimes suspicious of strangers. She gained her living by selling ornaments of polished lava, or by guiding travelers. This was all; but it was enough. I have kept a place in my memory for Ghita, whose acquaintance I cultivated on other occasions. I saw her once among the ruins of Pompeii, where she greeted me with a friendly nod, but without referring at all to our previous meetings—I mean in words; for at parting she gave me a handful of wild-flowers, and then ran away without waiting for a recompense.



PUBLIC OPINION AND THE PUBLIC PRESS.

Perhaps there is no better guarantee of peace and progress to this country than the freedom of the Press. Opinion is King of England and Victoria is Queen. Every phase of opinion speaks through some book or journal and is repeated widely in proportion to the hold it takes upon the public. Government is the representative of whatever opinions prevail; if it prove too perverse it falls—ministers change, without a revolution. Then too, when every man's tongue is free, we are accustomed to hear all manner of wild suggestions. Fresh paint does not soon dazzle us; we are like children lavishly supplied with toys, who receive new gifts tranquilly enough.

Is King Opinion an honest ruler? Yes. For the English people speak unreservedly their thoughts on public matters, and are open, though it be with honorable slowness, to all new convictions. We must add, however, as a drawback, that the uneducated class amounts to a distressing number in this country in proportion to the whole. It forms, as long as it is ignorant, a source of profit to designing speculators. Nonsense is put into the mouths of men who mean no evil, but who sincerely desire their own improvement. Truth is murdered, and her dress is worn by knaves who burlesque sympathy with working-men for selfish purposes. The poor man's sincere advocate, at last, can not speak truth without incurring the suspicion of some treasonable purpose against honesty or common sense. The very language necessary to be used in advocating just rights sometimes becomes as a pure stream befouled by those who have misused it.

Therefore, in England, the uneducated classes arrive slowly at the privileges which they must acquire. They are impeded by false friends; but, even false friends are not able to delude them beyond a certain point. Among us, for example, even the most ignorant well know that there is no field for a vulgar revolution against such a monarch as Opinion makes. Arguments must be used for barricades, and we must knock our neighbors on the head with facts; we must fire newspaper articles instead of cannon-balls, and use colloquial banter for our small shot. In all disputes an English citizen has, for his last and sole appeal, Opinion; as a citizen of Rome had Caesar.

The Government which puts its hand upon a nation's mouth and thinks to stifle what it has to say, will be inevitably kicked and bitten. The nation will, some day, get liberty and make amends for every minute of restraint with lusty shouting. Among the continental states which suffered from the Revolutions of 1848, were some in which the people had less of social evil to complain of than we have in England; but they were fretted by political restrictions, by a system of espial which tabooed all conversation upon public matters before any stranger, and they were glad enough to get their tongues at liberty. Adam, the old traditions say, was made of eight pounds: a pound of earth, his flesh; a pound of fire, his blood; a pound of cloud, his instability; a pound of grace (how that was weighed the legend saith not); his stature; a pound of blossom, his eyes; a pound of dew, his sweat; a pound of salt, his tears; and, finally, a pound of wind, his breath. Now Governments which don't allow each man his pound of wind, get themselves, sooner or later, into certain trouble; for, when the wind does come at last (which it is sure to do), it comes in a storm.