It was not until more than three months after Marshall's discovery that the San Francisco papers stated that gold-mining had become a regular and profitable business in the new placers. The Californian of April 26th said: "From a gentleman just from the gold region we learn that many new discoveries of gold have very recently been made, and it is fully ascertained that a large extent of country abounds with that precious mineral. Seven men, with picks and spades, gathered one thousand six hundred dollars worth in fifteen days. Many persons are settling on the lands with the view of holding preemptions, but as yet every person takes the right to gather all he can without any regard to claims. The largest piece yet found is worth six dollars."

The news spread, men came from all the settled parts of the territory, and as they came they went to work mining, and gradually they moved farther and farther from Coloma, and before the rainy reason had commenced (in December) miners were washing rich auriferous dirt all along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, from the Feather to the Tuolumne River, a distance of one hundred fifty miles; and also over a space of about fifteen miles square, near the place now known as the town of Shasta, in the Coast Mountains, at the head of the Sacramento Valley. The whole country had been turned topsy-turvy; towns had been deserted, or left only to the women and children; fields had been left unreaped; herds of cattle went without anyone to care for them. But gold-mining, which had become the great interest of the country, was not neglected. The people learned rapidly and worked hard.

In the latter part of 1848 adventurers began to arrive from Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, and Mexico. The winter found the miners with very little preparation, but most of them were accustomed to a rough manner of life in the Western wilds, and they considered their large profits an abundant compensation for their privations and hardships. The weather was so mild in December and January that they could work almost as well as in the summer, and the rain gave them facilities for washing such as they could not have in the dry season.

In September, 1848, the first rumors of the gold discovery began to reach New York; in October they attracted attention; in November people looked with interest for new reports; in December the news gained general credence and a great excitement arose. Preparations were made for a migration to California by somebody in nearly every town in the United States. The great body of the emigrants went either across the plains with ox or mule teams or round Cape Horn in sailing-vessels. A few took passage in the steamer by way of Panama.

Not fewer than one hundred thousand men, representing in their nativity every State in the Union, went to California that year. Of these, twenty thousand crossed the continent by way of the South Pass; and nearly all of them started from the Missouri River between Independence and St. Joseph, in the month of May. They formed an army; in daytime their trains filled up the roads for miles, and at night their camp-fires glittered in every direction about the places blessed with grass and water. The excitement continued from 1850 to 1853; emigrants continued to come by land and sea, from Europe and America, and in the last named year from China also. In 1854 the migration fell off, and since that time until the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad California received the chief accessions to her white population by the Panama steamers.

The whole world felt a beneficent influence from the great gold yield of the Sacramento Basin. Labor rose in value, and industry was stimulated from St. Louis to Constantinople. The news, however, was not welcome to all classes. Many of the capitalists feared that gold would soon be so abundant as to be worthless, and European statesmen feared the power to be gained by the arrogant and turbulent democracy of the New World.

The author of a book entitled Notes on the Gold District, published in London in 1853, thus speaks of the fears excited in Europe on the first great influx of gold from the Californian mines: "Among the many extraordinary incidents connected with the Californian discoveries was the alarm communicated to many classes and which was not confined to individuals but invaded governments. The first announcement spread alarm; but as the cargoes of gold rose from one hundred thousand dollars to one million dollars, bankers and financiers began seriously to prepare for an expected crisis. In England and the United States the panic was confined to a few; but on the Continent of Europe every government, rich or poor, thought it needful to make provision against the threatened evils. An immediate alteration in prices was looked for; money was to become so abundant that all ordinary commodities were to rise, but more especially the proportion between gold and silver was to be disturbed, some thinking that the latter might become the dearer metal. The Governments of France, Holland, and Russia, in particular, turned their attention to the monetary question, and in 1850 the Government of Holland availed themselves of a law, which had not before been put in operation, to take immediate steps for selling off the gold in the Bank of Amsterdam, at what they supposed to be the highest prices, and to stock themselves with silver.

"Palladium, which is likewise a superior white metal, was held more firmly, and expectations were entertained that it would become available for plating. The stock, however, was small. The silver operation was carried on concurrent with a supply of bullion to Russia for a loan, a demand for silver in Austria, and for shipment to India, and it did really produce an effect on the silver market, which many mistook for the influence of Californian gold. The particular way in which the Netherlands operations were carried on was especially calculated to produce the greatest disturbance of prices. The ten-florin pieces were sent to Paris, coined there into Napoleons, and silver five-franc pieces drawn out in their place.

"At Paris the premium on gold in a few months fell from nearly 2 per cent. to a discount, and at Hamburg a like fall took place. In London, the great silver market, silver rose, between the autumn and the new year, from five shillings per ounce to five shillings one and five-eighths pence per ounce, and Mexican dollars from four shillings ten and one-half pence to four shillings eleven and five-eighths pence per ounce; nor did prices recover until toward the end of the year 1851, when the fall was as sudden as the rise."

In the spring of 1849 Reading crossed the Coast Range with a party of his Indians, and discovered rich diggings in the valley of the Trinity. In the summer of the same year Colonel Fremont discovered the mines on his ranch, in the valley of the Mariposa.



(1849) RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, Jessie White Mario

When "Young Italy," the association of republican agitators led by Giuseppe Mazzini, began its activities (about 1834), hatred of the Austrian government, which ruled in several of the Italian States, was kept alive through this determined organization. Aspirations for liberty and self-government were requickened. The endeavors of the reforming Pope, Pius IX (1846), to harmonize his policy with the aims of this party, in order to promote a confederation of the Italian States under papal supremacy, at first seemed to promise the dawn of a new era. Soon after the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 in France, revolt against the Austrian power began in various parts of Italy. The Austrian troops were driven out of Lombardy; Venice compelled the Austrian forces in her territory to surrender, and became a free republic; in a short time Italy appeared to have delivered herself from the rule of Austria; but almost immediately the foreign power began to regain its ascendency, and this, through the events here related, was fully recovered.

After the flight of Pius IX from Rome (November, 1848), Mazzini and his followers pursued their own course. A constituent assembly was summoned, and on February 5, 1849, it declared the temporal power of the Pope abolished. The Italian soldier who now becomes the chief figure of this movement has enjoyed a popular renown unsurpassed by that of any of his countrymen. Giuseppe Garibaldi, a sailor's son, was born in Nice, July 4, 1807. In youth he went to sea. In 1834 he took part with Mazzini in the Young Italy demonstrations, and for aiding in an attempt to seize Genoa he was condemned to death. Escaping to South America, he won distinction as a guerilla leader and a privateer in the service of the Rio Grande rebels against Brazil. After further military adventures in South America, he returned to Italy, and in 1847 offered his services to Pope Pius IX, but they were not accepted. In 1848 he received indifferent treatment at the hands of Charles Albert of Sardinia, who was besieging the Austrians in Mantua. After the failure of Charles Albert, Garibaldi collected his own followers and acted against the Austrians with such effect as to bring him into prominence in the ranks of Italian patriots. The following account of the siege and defence of Rome, which admiringly presents him to view, is from the author's supplement to Garibaldi's Autobiography, and is a valuable contribution to the history of the events in which he was so conspicuous.

Of the many sublime pages traced in the blood of Italian patriots, the sublimest in our eyes is that of the defence of Rome. No writer of genius has yet been inspired to narrate the heroic deeds enacted, the pain, privation, anguish, borne joyfully to save "that city of the Italian soul" from desecration by the foreigner. Mazzini's beloved disciple, Mameli, the soldier-poet, died with the flower of the student youth; the survivors, exiled, dispersed, heartbroken, or intent only on preparing for the next campaign, have left us but fugitive records, partial episodes, or dull military chronicles. Margaret Fuller Ossoli, competent by love and genius to be the historian and who had collected the materials day by day, lived the life of the combatants hour by hour, was wrecked with "Ossoli, Angelo" and her manuscript, in sight of her native shore.

From details that reached him Garibaldi always maintained that there was a priest among the wreckers who secured and destroyed the treasure! Guerrazzi's Siege of Rome is inferior to all his other writings. The entry of the Italian army into Rome by the breach in Porta Pia has cast the grand defence of 1849 into the background of rash attempts and futile failures. In these brief pages we give merely the outline of the drama in which Garibaldi was one of the leading actors. The men who desired a republic did not exist as a party in Rome previous to the flight of the Pope. But there existed a strong national anti-Austrian party, who, as they had worshipped Pio Nono (Pius IX) when he "blessed Italy" and the banners that the Romans bore upward to the "Holy War," now execrated him inasmuch as he had withdrawn his sanction to that war and had blessed the Croats and the Austrians who were butchering the Italians in the north. Convinced of the impossibility of favoring the independence and unity of Italy, and remaining at the same time the supreme head of the Universal Church, Pio Nono fled for protection to the King of Naples; there he declined to accept from the King of Piedmont his repeated offers of protection or mediation, and appealed to Austria alone to restore him pope-king absolute in Rome. Very soon afterward the Archduke of Tuscany revoked the Constituent Assembly which he had granted, and followed the saintly example of the Holy Father, so that Tuscany and Rome were alike left sheep without a shepherd.

In the Roman States an appeal was made to universal suffrage, and the people sent up deputies, known chiefly for their honesty and bravery, to decide on the form of government, to assist Piedmont in her second war against Austria. When the Constituent Assembly met to decide on the form of government, Mamiani warned them that only two rulers were possible in Rome—the Pope or Cola di Rienzi; the Papacy or the Republic.

Garibaldi, who had organized his legion at Rieti, was elected member of the Constituent Assembly, and on February 7th put in his appearance and in language more soldierlike than parliamentary urged the immediate proclamation of the republic. But the debate was carried on with all due respect for the "rights of the minority."

Finally, on February 9th, of the one hundred fifty-four Deputies present, all but five voted for the downfall of the temporal power of the Pope, all but eleven for the proclamation of the republic. These, with the exception of General Garibaldi and General Ferrari, were all Romans. G. Filopanti, who undertook to explain the state of affairs to the Roman people, won shouts of applause by his concluding words, "We are no longer mere Romans, but Italians."

This sentence sums up the sentiments of all: of Garibaldi, who, after recording his vote, returned to his troops at Rieti and drew up an admirable plan for attacking the Austrians bent on subjugating the Roman Provinces and for carrying revolution into the Kingdom of Naples; of Mazzini, who, so far from having imposed on the Romans a republic by the force of his tyrannical will, was—during its proclamation—in Tuscany, striving to induce Guerrazzi and his fellow-triumvirs to unite with Rome and organize a strong army for the renewal of the Lombard War.

True, the Romans, mindful of all they owed to the great apostle of Italian unity and independence, proclaimed him Roman citizen on February 12th, and on the 25th of the same month the Roman people, with nine thousand votes, elected him member of the Constituent Assembly; but it was not until March 5th that he entered Rome, when, in one of his most splendid speeches, rising above parties and politics, he called upon the "Rome of the People" to send up combatants against Austria, the only enemy that then menaced Italy.

Suiting the action to the word, he induced the Assembly to nominate a commission for the thorough organization of the army; and ten thousand men had quitted Rome and were marching up to the frontier to place themselves at the orders of Piedmont, when, alas! their march was arrested by the news of the total defeat at Novara, of the abdication of Charles Albert and the reinauguration of Austrian rule in Lombardy. Genoa, whose generous inhabitants arose in protest against the disastrous but inevitable treaty of peace, was bombarded and reduced to submission by La Marmora; and now, while to Rome and to Venice flocked all the volunteers who preferred death to submission, the new Holy Alliance of Continental Europe took for its watchword: "The restoration of the Pope; the extinction of the two Republics of Venice and of Rome."

Austria crossed the Po and occupied Ferrara, marching thence on Bologna; the Neapolitan troops from the south marched upward to the Roman frontier; even Spain sent her contingent to Fiumicino. But only when it was known that the French Republic had voted an expedition, with the specious object of guaranteeing the independence of the supreme Pontiff, did the Romans and their rulers realize that the existence of Rome and her newborn liberties was seriously menaced. Garibaldi wrote from Rieti, in April, an enthusiastic letter worth recording here:

"BROTHER MAZZINI: I feel that I must write you one line with my own hand. May Providence sustain you in your brilliant but arduous career [Mazzini had just been elected, with Armellini and Saffi, Triumvir of Rome], and may you be enabled to carry out all the noble designs in your mind for the welfare of our country. Remember that Rieti is full of your brethren in the faith, and that immutably yours is

"JOSEPH GARIBALDI."

At the same time he sent a plan, proposing to march along the Via Emilia, to collect arms and volunteers, proclaim the levy in mass, and with a division stationed in the Bolognese territory, operate in the duchies, unite Tuscan, Ligurian, and Piedmontese forces, and once more assail the Austrians. But the news of Piedmont defeated, Genoa bombarded and vanquished, convinced him that it would be difficult to re-arouse the disheartened population of Northern Italy. Hence he next proposed to cross the Neapolitan frontier, fling himself upon the royal troops, and seize the Abruzzi. A sensible project this, to take the offensive against the Pope's defenders. But before the Triumvirate could come to a definite decision, it was known that the French troops, by a disgraceful stratagem, had landed and taken possession of Civita Vecchia, General Oudinot entwining the French flag with the Roman tricolor and assuring the Romans that they only came to secure perfect freedom for the people to effect a reconciliation with Pius IX.

But the people had no desire for such reconciliation; the Assembly decreed that Rome should have no garrison but the National Roman Guard: that if the Republic were invaded by force, the invaders by force should be repelled. A commission of barricades established, the people flocked to erect and remained to man them. The National Guard summoned by Mazzini all answered, "Present," and served enthusiastically throughout the siege; all the troops dispersed in the Provinces were summoned to the capital, and Garibaldi and his volunteers marched into the city amid the acclamations of the populace, too thankful to welcome them to demur at the strange appearance they presented.

Now that Garibaldi's military and naval genius is fully recognized, and the extraordinary fascination he exercised over officers and men, the enthusiasm with which he filled whole populations whom others failed to stir, are undisputed, many historians and critics have expressed their astonishment that he was not made at once commander-in-chief of the Roman forces, and have blamed the Triumvirate for having failed to recognize in the hero of Montevideo the good genius of Rome. Such critics must be simply ignorant of the actual condition of Rome and her Government. There existed, in the first place, the regular Roman army, which would have served under none save regular generals; then there was the Lombard battalion under Manara, whose members, after fifteen months of regular campaigning, were thoroughly drilled and disciplined, who insisted on retaining the cross of Savoy on their belts, and, until their prowess made them the idols of the Romans, were nicknamed the "corps of aristocrats."

Little did they imagine, when they kept aloof from the legion, that before three months were over their young hero chief would resign his command of them to assume the delicate post of head of Garibaldi's staff. Carlo Pisacane—educated in the military college of the Nunziatella, who had served as captain in the foreign legion in Algiers, destined later to become the pioneer of Garibaldi and his "Thousand" and to lose his life in the attempt—while recognizing Garibaldi's prowess and talents as a guerilla chief, in his military history of 1849, severely criticises his tactics, and blames his sending up "a handful of boys against masses of the enemy" and censures, unhesitatingly, "his indiscipline at Velletri." One of the Deputies of the Roman Constituent wrote to the Triumvirate begging them to "Send Garibaldi with his motley crew to a terrible spot, called For del Diavolo, between Civita Vecchia and Rome; on no account to allow them to enter the city, as they are quite too disorderly."

Now, they had committed no "disorders" save that of carrying off the mules and horses of the convents; but when we think of the wild, free, peril-scorning life led in the backwoods of America, of how they recognized no law save their commander's orders, how little used he had been to receive command from any, it will be easily understood how this wild, tanned, quaintly dressed band filled the inhabitants of the towns through which they passed with terror and dismay. Garibaldi's violent tirades against priests and priestcraft; the liberation of a gang of miscreants arrested by order of the Roman Government, had not prepossessed men of order and of discipline in his favor; and although personal contact dispelled all unfavorable prepossessions, one sees how impossible it was for Mazzini to place him in the position which he would himself have assigned to him.

Garibaldi altered in nothing his South American modes of warfare. He and his staff, in red shirts and ponchos, with hats of every form and color, no distinctions of rank or military accoutrements, rode on their American saddles, which when unrolled served each as a small tent. When their troops halted and the soldiers piled their arms, the General and all his staff attended each to the wants of his own horse, then to securing provisions for their men. When these were not at hand, the officers, springing on their barebacked horses, lasso on wrists, dashed full speed along the Campagna, till oxen, sheep, pigs, kids, or poultry in sufficient quantities were secured and paid for; then, dividing their spoil among the companies, officers and men fell to killing, quartering, and roasting before huge fires in the open air.

Garibaldi, when no battle was raging or danger near—if in the city, selected some lofty belfry-tower; if in the country, climbed the loftiest peak; and, with brief minutes of repose under his saddle-tent, literally lived on horseback, posting his own pickets, making his own observations, sometimes passing hours in perfect silence, scanning the most distant and minute objects through his telescope. Ever a man of the fewest words, a look, a gesture, a brief sentence sufficed to convey his orders to his officers. When his trumpet signalled departure, the lassos served to catch the horses grazing in the fields, the men fell into order and marched, none knowing nor caring whither, save to follow their chief. Councils of war he never held; he ordered, and was implicitly obeyed. To his original legion were added some of the finest and bravest of the Lombard volunteers, who had learned his worth "after the armistice"; while boys from ten to fourteen, who were his pride and delight, formed his "band of hope."

To-day for an act of courage a man would be raised from the ranks, and, sword in hand, command his company; but woe to him if he failed in shouldering a musket or brandishing a bayonet at need. To onlookers this legion, composed at first of but one thousand men, seemed a wild, unruly set; but this was not the case. Drunkenness and insubordination were unknown among the ranks. Woe to a soldier who wronged a civilian. Three were shot for petty theft during the brief Roman campaign. Still, while Garibaldi felt within himself his own superiority to those around, Mazzini, who also felt it, might as well have proposed an Indian chief to command the Roman Army as this man, whom, in later years, no soldier in Europe but would have been proud to call dux.

Again, it must not be forgotten that the grounds on which France explained her interference was the imposition by "foreigners" of a republic on the Roman people, desirous only to receive the Pope with open arms; that Austria, Piedmont, and the Ultramontane faction in England represented the Roman States as handed over to the demagogues, to the riffraff of European revolutionists. Hence the absolute necessity that presented itself to the minds of the Triumvirs for filling the civil and military offices as far as possible with citizens of Rome or the Roman States. Unfortunately, no capable Roman commander-in-chief existed. Rosselli was chosen as the least incapable; but throughout, Garibaldi was regarded as the soul, the genius of the defence.

A very short time had sufficed for Mazzini and the Romans to come to so perfect an understanding that no exercise of authority, no police force, was necessary to keep order in the city, as the French, English, and American residents, and as the respective consuls repeatedly affirmed in public and in private letters. Oudinot too had warning from his own consul, from his own friends within the city, of all the preparations, of the resolute determination of the inhabitants, of the known valor of many of the combatants in past campaigns; yet to all such remonstrances he answered with French impertinence, "Les Italiens ne se battent pas," and clearly he had imbued his officers with this belief. At dawn on April 30th, starting from Castel di Guido, leaving their knapsacks at Magnianella, the officers in white gloves and sheathed swords advanced on Rome, taking the road to Porta Cavallaggieri, sending sharpshooters through the woodlands on the right, the Chasseurs de Vincennes on the heights to the left. Avezzana, war minister, from the top of the cupola of San Pietro in Montori, on seeing the first sentinel advance, gave the signal for the ringing of the tocsin, which brought the entire populace to the walls, the Roman matrons clustering there to encourage their husbands, sons, and brothers to the fight.

When the army arrived within a hundred seventy yards from the wall, the artillerymen from the bastions of San Marto fired their first salute, to which the Chasseurs de Vincennes responded so well that the Roman Narducci, Major Pallini, and several of his men fell mortally wounded at their guns. Finding themselves under a cross-fire from the walls and from the Vatican, the enemy placed a counter-battery, which did deadly mischief to the besieged, who lost at once six officers, numerous soldiers, and had a cannon dismounted to boot. Not the slightest confusion occurred; women and boys carried off the wounded; fresh soldiers took the place of the fallen; compelling Oudinot to summon both his brigades and plant two other pieces of cannon. But he now had to cope with an enemy whom Frenchmen in Montevideo envied and calumniated; who to himself and his followers was as yet an unknown quantity.

Garibaldi, who had had but two days to organize his men and take up position, had at once perceived the importance of the scattered buildings outside the gates, and occupied them all—villas, woods, and the walls surrounding them. As the enemy fell back from the first assault, he flung his men upon them as stones from a sling. At the head of the first company was Captain Montaldi, who in a short time was crippled with nineteen bullets, yet still fought on his knees with his broken sword; and only when the French retreated did his men carry him dead from the field. As fought his company, so fought all under the eyes of Garibaldi, who directed the fight from Villa Pamphilli. Then summoning his reserve, himself heading the students who had never seen fire but who had given each to the other the consign, "If I attempt to run away, shoot me through the head," he led them into the open field, and there gave them their first lesson to the cry of, "To the bayonet! to the bayonet!"—a lesson oft repeated since, a cry never after raised in vain. Numbers of his best officers and soldiers fell, but never a halt or panic made a pause in that eventful charge, until in full open fight the French were compelled to retreat, leaving Garibaldi absolute master of the field.

Numbers of the French were killed and wounded, others hid themselves in the woods and vineyards round; a general retreat ensued, while a portion continued the fire to protect it. The guns had to be carried off by hand, as four horses had been killed; and at this retreat up to Castel di Guido, General Oudinot was forced to assist in person. Summing up his losses, he found that he had left four hundred dead upon the field; five hundred thirty wounded, and two hundred sixty prisoners. He had, besides, the glory of depriving the Roman Republic of two hundred fourteen killed and wounded, twenty-five officers among them, and of carrying off one prisoner, Ugo Bassi, the chaplain, who had remained behind to assist a dying man, his only weapon being the cross, of which the French were the knightly protectors.

Garibaldi's first thought was naturally to pursue the fugitives to Castel di Guido, to Pali, and Civita Vecchia; "To drive them," in his own forcible language, "back to their ships or into the sea." For this he demanded strong reenforcements of fresh troops. But the Government of Rome—believing that it sufficed for Republican France to know that Republican Rome did not desire the return of the Pope; that it was not governed by a faction—was resolved unanimously to resist all invasion; decided against pursuit; sent back the French prisoners to the French camp; accorded Oudinot's demand for an armistice, and entered into negotiations with the French plenipotentiary, Ferdinand de Lesseps, for the evacuation of the Roman territory.

The refusal was never forgotten, never forgiven by Garibaldi, and has always been a "burning question" between the exclusive partisans of Mazzini and Garibaldi, in whose eyes to scotch and not to kill the snake was the essence of unwisdom. It is also maintained by many Garibaldians that an out-and-out victory could not have been concealed from the French Assembly as the President and his accomplices did manage to conceal the affair of April 30th, and that had the people and the army in France known what a humiliation had been inflicted on their comrades they would have insisted on the recall of Oudinot, and that thus the President's own position would have been endangered. On the other hand, Mazzini's partisans say, granting—what remains unproven—that Garibaldi could have succeeded in driving every Frenchman back to his ships or into the sea, there can be no doubt that Louis Napoleon, bent on restoring the Pope and thus gaining the clergy to his side, would have sent reenforcements upon reenforcements, until Rome should be vanquished.

The disputants must agree to differ on this point, though all surely must allow that it was necessary that the small forces at the disposal of the Republic should be husbanded for the repulse of others besides France, who claimed to be defenders of the Pope—Austria, the King of Naples, and even Spain! And, in fact, a Neapolitan army, with the King at their head, had crossed the Roman frontier, and had taken up positions at Albano and Frascati, whence Garibaldi was sent to oust them, the Lombard brigade being added to his legion. This Neapolitan king-hunt formed one of the characteristic episodes of the Roman campaign. Garibaldi usually lodged his men in convents, to the terror and horror of their inmates, sending them thence to reconnoitre the enemy's positions, and harass them by deeds of daredevil courage.

The King was indeed at Albano, whence from Palestrina Garibaldi marched to the attack; which would probably have been successful had he not been suddenly summoned back to Rome, as the movements of the French were by no means reassuring. However, a fresh truce being proclaimed, General Rosselli, with Garibaldi under his orders, was sent out again in full force against the Neapolitans. Not a wise arrangement this, as the volunteers and the regulars—unless at different posts within the city—had not yet united in harmonious action. Garibaldi, sent by Rosselli merely to explore the enemy's movements, finding that they were retreating from Albano, gave battle to a strong column about two miles from Velletri without giving time to Rosselli to come up with the main body.

So the Neapolitans got into Velletri, barricaded themselves there, and, escaping during the night by the southern gate, recrossed the Neapolitan frontier, the King foremost in the van. Rosselli and the regulars complained loudly that this disobedience to orders had prevented them from making the King of Naples prisoner, the Garibaldians maintaining on their side that this would have been effected had the regulars thought less about their rations and come to the rescue when first they heard the distant shots. Messengers sent by the generals to the Triumvirate bore the complaints of each. Rosselli was recalled, and Garibaldi left with full liberty of action. But when the French Government disavowed their envoy-extraordinary—the patriotic, able, straightforward De Lesseps—instructing Oudinot to enter Rome by fair means or by foul, sending enormous reenforcements, promising to follow up with the entire French army if necessary, what could they do but recall Garibaldi with all possible despatch? Was it not a proof of their confidence in him? Moreover, on Garibaldi's return to Rome, Mazzini made a last effort to induce him to unburden his mind, at least to himself, by asking him in writing to tell him frankly what were his wishes. Here is the laconic answer, characteristic of the writer; frank and unabashed as the round, clear handwriting of the original, from which we copy:

"ROME, June 2d, 1849.

"MAZZINI: Since you ask me what I wish, I will tell you. Here I cannot avail anything for the good of the Republic, save in two ways: as dictator with unlimited plenary powers, or as a simple soldier. Choose!

"Unchangingly yours,

"GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI."

Again, Garibaldi disapproved the conduct of Mazzini and the Triumvirate because they refused to allow any acts of violence against religion or the professors of religion. They had abolished the Inquisition, and used the edifice to house the people driven from their homes by the siege; had invited and aided monks and nuns to return to their homes and to lead the life of citizens. But they had not allowed the confessionals to be burned in the public market-place. A wretch named Zambianchi, who ill-treated some inoffending priests, was severely punished "for thus dishonoring the Republic and humanity." Moreover, the Easter ceremonies were celebrated as usual; the Triumvirate and the Assembly stood among the people in the church and in the square to receive the blessing from the outer balcony of St. Peter's.

All this gave umbrage to Garibaldi, but no hypocrisy and much wisdom inspired these acts. In the first place, the Triumvirate, and especially Mazzini, the most religious man we have ever known, were well aware that, while the temporal power of the papacy might be destroyed by fire and sword, the spiritual power of the Roman Catholic hierarchy could be extinguished only in the name of a moral law recognized and accepted as being higher and more authoritative than any other intermediary between God and the people—they knew that ideas can be vanquished only by ideas. Again, as the responsible heads of the Roman Republic, the Triumvirs were wisely careful not to offend the hearts and consciences of Catholics abroad. Finally, the very fact that, with four armies at their gates, life, its feasts and fasts, its workdays and holidays, could go on as usual, was one highly calculated to strengthen the Romans' faith in and affection for the new Government. No crimes were committed; the people came to the Triumvirs as children to their fathers, and—for Italians a very remarkable thing—they not only paid down current taxes, but they paid up arrears.

From Garibaldi's brief account, it would almost seem that the Triumvirate and the Assembly surrendered Rome before absolute necessity constrained them so to do. He does not tell us how, when the French had actually entered Rome by the breach, he alone of all the civil and military commanders refused to head the troops to attack the invaders in possession. He gave his own reasons, very wise ones it seems to us, in writing many years later, but in his Memoirs he seems to have forgotten them. The terrible tidings that the seventh bastion and the curtain uniting it to the sixth had fallen into the hands of the French spread through the city. The Triumvirate had the tocsins rung. All the houses were opened at that sound; in the twinkling of an eye all the inhabitants were in the streets. General Rosselli and the Minister of War, all the officers of the staff, Mazzini himself, came to the Janiculum.

"The people in arms massed around us," writes Garibaldi in a short record of the siege of Rome, "clamored to drive the French off the walls. General Rosselli and the Minister of War consented. I opposed the attempt. I feared the confusion into which our troops would have been thrown by those new combatants and their irregular movements, the panic that would be likely by night to seize on troops unaccustomed to fire, and which actually had assailed our bravest ones on the night of the 16th. I insisted on waiting for the daylight."

He here narrates the daring but unsuccessful attempt of the Lombard students, who flung themselves on the assailants, and who had gained the terrace of Casa Barberini, and continues: "But at daylight I had counted the forces with which we had to contend. I realized that another June 3d would bereave me of half of the youths left to me, whom I loved as my sons. I had not the least hope of dislodging the French from their positions, hence only a useless butchery could have ensued. Rome was doomed, but after a marvellous and a splendid defence. The fall of Rome, after such a siege, was the triumph of democracy in Europe. The idea of preserving four or five thousand devoted combatants who knew me, who would answer at any time to my call, prevailed. I ordered the retreat, promising that at five in the evening they should again advance; but I resolved that no assault should be made."

From this and other writings of Garibaldi it is clear that from the night of June 21st he considered any further attempt to prevent the French from entering Rome as worse than useless—that hence he refused to lead the remnants of his army "to butchery" on the breach. How, then, was it possible for Mazzini to have retarded the catastrophe indefinitely, and reserved to Rome "the glory of falling last," i.e., after Venice and Hungary?

Mazzini, beside himself with grief that the armed people had not been allowed to rush on to the bastions and drive the French from the walls, wrote a reproachful letter to Manara, then chief of Garibaldi's staff, and this patriot here seems to have kept the peace, as on the 25th we find a friendly letter from Garibaldi to the Triumvirate in which he proposes to leave Manara in Rome, and to conduct, himself, a considerable number of his men out of Rome to take up position between the French and Civita Vecchia, to harass them in the rear. And on the same day, evidently after a meeting and the acceptance by Mazzini of Garibaldi's project, the latter writes:

"June 26th, 8 P.M.

"MAZZINI: I propose, therefore (dunque), to go out to-morrow evening. Send me to-morrow morning the chief who is to assume the command here. Order the general-in-chief to prepare one hundred fifty mounted dragoons, who, with the fifty lancers, will make up two hundred horse. I shall take eight hundred of the legion, and to-morrow shall send them to change their shirts [i.e., doff their 'red' for 'gray']. Answer at once, and keep the plan a profound secret."

The attempt was not made, probably because it was impossible to march out secretly from any gate, and Manara writes from Villa Spada, 1 P.M. on the same day:

"CITIZEN TRIUMVIR: I have received your letter. I am somewhat better and at my post. I have spoken with Pisacane [chief of Rosselli's staff]; we are perfectly agreed. Both animated by the same spirit, it is impossible for petty jealousies to come between us. Be assured of this. I have begged General Garibaldi to return to San Pancrazio, so as not to deprive that post at this moment of his legion and his efficacious power. He promises me that before dawn all will be here. Everything is quiet.

"MANARA."

This was Manara's last letter to Mazzini; at that same Villa Spada the yearned-for bullet pierced his heroic heart. Manara died as the barbarians entered Rome.

And here, to all appearances, is Garibaldi's last letter written in Rome to Mazzini:

"We have retaken our positions outside San Pancrazio. Let General Rosselli send me orders; this is now no time for change. Yours,

"G. GARIBALDI."

No time for anything but one last desperate onslaught at the point of the bayonet, Garibaldi in the foremost ranks with sword unsheathed, while Medici from Villa Savorelli renewed the wonders of the Vascello. Twice the assailants were driven back to their second lines; thrice they returned in overpowering numbers; but, gaining the gate, they were received with volleys of musketry from the barricades at the ingress to Villa Spada and Savorelli. There fell the flower of the Lombards; boys of the "band of hope"; Garibaldi's giant negro, faithful, brave Anghiar; six hundred added to the three thousand four hundred corpses on which the soldiers of La Grande Nation reconstructed the throne of the supreme Pontiff, and guarded it with their bayonets until the sword of their self-chosen master fell from his trembling hands at Sedan.



(1849) LIVINGSTONE'S AFRICAN DISCOVERIES, David Livinstone and Thomas Hughes

Although Africa, the second largest grand division of the earth, has figured in history from ancient times, still it has been rightly named, and until recently was called with good reason, the "Dark Continent." But though it has been thus designated, as the least known of the world's grand divisions, the progress of discovery and settlement is rapidly dispelling the ignorance and mystery to which the designation was due. The ancient seats of African civilization were confined to the northern parts of the continent. The Phoenicians are said to have circumnavigated Africa as early as the seventh century before Christ. In the middle of the fifteenth century of the present era the Portuguese explored much of the coastline, and in 1497 Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope. But no modern explorations of the interior are known to have been made until the latter part of the eighteenth century. Since James Bruce, the Scottish traveller, explored the Nile Valley in 1768, more than thirty others have distinguished themselves by their discoveries on the African continent.

None of Livingstone's predecessors equalled the achievements of this Scottish missionary and explorer, who combined with his zeal in the cause of religion and humanity a spirit of investigation and adventure that made him also the servant of science, the "advance-agent" of discovery, settlement, and civilization. These are at last bringing the "Dark Continent" into the light of a new day that begins to dawn in the remotest corners of the earth.

David Livingstone was born near Glasgow, Scotland, March 19, 1813, and he died in Central Africa April 30, 1873. After he had been admitted to the medical profession and had studied theology, he decided to join Robert Moffat, the celebrated missionary, in Africa. Livingstone arrived at Cape Town in 1840, and soon moved toward the interior. He spent sixteen years in Africa, engaged in medical and missionary labors and in making his famous and most useful explorations of the country. His own account of the beginnings of his work, taken from his Missionary Travels, shows the sincere and simple spirit of the man, and his natural powers of observation and description are seen in his own story of his first important discovery, that of Lake Ngami. The narrative of Thomas Hughes, the well-known English author, whose favorite subjects were manly men and their characteristic deeds, follows the explorer on the first of his famous journeys in the Zambesi Basin.

DAVID LIVINGSTONE

I embarked for Africa in 1840, and, after a voyage of three months, reached Cape Town. Spending but a short time there, I started for the interior by going round to Algoa Bay, and soon proceeded inland, and spent the following sixteen years of my life, namely, from 1840 to 1856, in medical and missionary labors there without cost to the inhabitants.

The general instructions I received from the directors of the London Missionary Society led me, as soon as I reached Kuruman or Lattakoo, then their farthest inland station from the Cape, to turn my attention to the north. Without waiting longer at Kuruman than was necessary to recruit the oxen, which were pretty well tired by the long journey from Algoa Bay, I proceeded, in company with another missionary, to the Bechuana or Bakwain country, and found Sechele, with his tribe, located at Shokuane. We shortly afterward retraced our steps to Kuruman; but as the objects in view were by no means to be attained by a temporary excursion of this sort, I determined to make a fresh start into the interior as soon as possible. Accordingly, after resting three months at Kuruman, which is a kind of head station in the country, I returned to a spot about fifteen miles south of Shokuane, called Lepelole (now Litubaruba). Here, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of the language, I cut myself off from all European society for about six months, and gained by this ordeal an insight into the habits, ways of thinking, laws, and language of that section of the Bechuanas called Bakwains, which has proved of incalculable advantage in my intercourse with them ever since.

In this second journey to Lepelole—so called from a cavern of that name—I began preparations for a settlement by making a canal to irrigate gardens from a stream, then flowing copiously, but now quite dry. When these preparations were well advanced I went northward to visit the Bakaa and Bamangwato, and the Makalaka, living between 22 deg. and 23 deg. south latitude. The Bakaa Mountains had been visited before by a trader, who, with his people, all perished from fever. In going round the northern part of these basaltic hills, near Letloche, I was only ten days distant from the lower part of the Zouga, which passed by the same name as Lake Ngami; and I might then (in 1842) have discovered that lake, had discovery alone been my object. Most of this journey beyond Shokuane was performed on foot, in consequence of the draught oxen having become sick. Some of my companions who had recently joined us, and did not know that I understood a little of their speech, were overheard by me discussing my appearance and powers: "He is not strong; he is quite slim, and only appears stout because he puts himself into those bags [trousers]; he will soon knock up." This caused my Highland blood to rise, and made me despise the fatigue of keeping them all at the top of their speed for days together, till I heard them expressing proper opinions of my pedestrian powers.

Returning to Kuruman, in order to bring my luggage to our proposed settlement, I was followed by the news that the tribe of Bakwains, who had shown themselves so friendly toward me, had been driven from Lepelole by the Barolongs, so that my prospects for the time of forming a settlement there were at an end. One of those periodical outbreaks of war, which seem to have occurred from time immemorial, for the possession of cattle, had burst forth in the land, and had so changed the relations of the tribes to each other that I was obliged to set out anew to look for a suitable locality for a mission-station.

In going north again a comet blazed on our sight, exciting the wonder of every tribe we visited. That of 1816 had been followed by an irruption of the Matabele, the most cruel enemies the Bechuanas ever knew, and this they thought might portend something as bad, or it might only foreshadow the death of some great chief. On this subject of comets I knew little more than they did themselves, but I had that confidence in a kind overruling Providence which makes such a difference between Christians and both the ancient and modern heathen.

As some of the Bamangwato people had accompanied me to Kuruman, I was obliged to restore them and their goods to their chief Sekomi. This made a journey to the residence of that chief again necessary, and, for the first time, I performed a distance of some hundred miles on oxback.

Returning toward Kuruman, I selected the beautiful valley of Mabotsa (latitude 25 deg. 14' south, longitude 26 deg. 30') as the site of a missionary-station, and thither I removed in 1843. Here an occurrence took place concerning which I have frequently been questioned in England, and which, but for the importunities of friends, I meant to have kept in store to tell my children when in my dotage. The Bakatla of the village Mabotsa were much troubled by lions, which leaped into the cattle-pens by night and destroyed their cows. They even attacked the herds in open day. This was so unusual an occurrence that the people believed they were bewitched—"given," as they said, "into the power of the lions by a neighboring tribe." They went at once to attack the animals, but, being rather a cowardly people compared to Bechuanas in general on such occasions, they returned without killing any.

It is well known that if one of a troop of lions is killed, the others take the hint and leave that part of the country. So the next time the herds were attacked I went with the people in order to encourage them to rid themselves of the annoyance by destroying one of the marauders. We found the lions on a small hill about a quarter of a mile in length and covered with trees. A circle of men was formed round it, and they gradually closed up, ascending pretty near to each other. Being down below on the plain with a native schoolmaster, named Mebalwe, a most excellent man, I saw one of the lions sitting on a piece of rock within the now closed circle of men. Mebalwe fired at him before I could, and the ball struck the rock on which the animal was sitting. He bit at the spot struck, as a dog does at a stick or stone thrown at him; then leaping away, broke through the opening circle and escaped unhurt. The men were afraid to attack him, perhaps on account of their belief in witchcraft.

When the circle was re-formed we saw two other lions in it; but we were afraid to fire lest we should strike the men, and they allowed the beasts to burst through also. If the Bakatla had acted according to the custom of the country, they would have speared the lions in their attempt to get out. Seeing we could not get them to kill one of the lions, we bent our footsteps toward the village; in going round the end of the hill, however, I saw one of the beasts sitting on a piece of rock as before, but this time he had a little bush in front. Being about thirty yards off, I took a good aim at his body through the bush, and fired both barrels into it. The men then called out, "He is shot! He is shot!"

Others cried: "He has been shot by another man too; let us go to him!" I did not see anyone else shoot at him, but I saw the lion's tail erected in anger behind the bush, and, turning to the people said, "Stop a little, till I load again." When in the act of ramming down the bullets I heard a shout. Starting, and looking half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing upon me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife.

This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of death. Turning round to relieve myself of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes directed to Mabalwe, who was trying to shoot him at a distance of ten or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed fire in both barrels; the lion immediately left me, and, attacking Mebalwe, bit his thigh. Another man—whose life I had saved before, after he had been tossed by a buffalo—attempted to spear the lion while he was biting Mebalwe. He left Mebalwe and caught this man by the shoulder, but at that moment the bullets he had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysms of dying rage. In order to take out the charm from him, the Bakatla on the following day made a huge bonfire over the carcass, which was declared to be that of the largest lion they had ever seen. Besides crunching the bone into splinters, he left eleven teeth wounds on the upper part of my arm. It was a long time in healing.

The exact position of Lake Ngami had, for half a century at least, been correctly pointed out by the natives, who had visited it when rains were more copious in the desert than in more recent times, and many attempts had been made to reach it by passing through the desert in the direction indicated; but it was found impossible, even for Griquas, who, having some Bushman blood in them, may be supposed more capable of enduring thirst than Europeans. It was clear, then, that our only chance of success was by going round, instead of through, the desert.

On July 4, 1849, we went forward on horseback toward what we supposed to be the lake, and again and again did we seem to see it; but at last we came to the veritable water of the Zouga, and found it to be a river running to the northeast. A village of Bakurutse lay on the opposite bank; these live among Batletli, a tribe having a click in their language, and who were found by Sebituane to possess large herds of the great horned cattle. They seem allied to the Hottentot family. Mr. Oswell, in trying to cross the river, got his horse bogged in the swampy bank. Two Bakwains and I managed to get over by wading beside a fishing-weir. The people were friendly, and informed us that this water came out of the Ngami. This news gladdened all our hearts, for we now felt certain of reaching our goal. We might, they said, be a moon on the way; but we had the River Zouga at our feet, and by following it we should at last reach the broad water.

When we had gone up the bank of this beautiful river about ninety-six miles from the point where we first struck it, and understood that we were still a considerable distance from the Ngami, we left all the oxen and wagons, except Mr. Oswell's, which was the smallest, and one team, at Ngabisane, in the hope that they would be recruited for the home journey, while we made a push for the lake.

Twelve days after our departure from the wagons at Ngabisane we came to the northeast end of Lake Ngami; and on August 1, 1849, we went down together to the broad part, and for the first time this fine-looking sheet of water was beheld by Europeans. The direction of the lake seemed to be north-northeast and south-southwest by compass. The southern portion is said to bend round to the west, and to receive the Teoughe from the north at its northwest extremity. We could detect no horizon where we stood looking south-south west, nor could we form any idea of the extent of the lake, except from the reports of the inhabitants of the district; and, as they professed to go round it in three days, allowing twenty-five miles a day would make it seventy-five, or less than seventy geographical miles in circumference.

Other guesses have been made since as to its circumference, ranging between seventy and one hundred miles. It is shallow, for I subsequently saw a native punting his canoe over seven or eight miles of the northeast end; it can never therefore be of much value as a commercial highway. In fact, during the months preceding the annual supply of water from the north, the lake is so shallow that it is with difficulty cattle can approach the water through the boggy, reedy banks. These are low on all sides, but on the west there is a space devoid of trees, showing that the waters have retired thence at no very ancient date. This is another of the proofs of desiccation met with so abundantly throughout the whole country. A number of dead trees lie on this space, some of them imbedded in the mud right in the water. We were informed by the Bayeiye, who live on the lake, that when the annual inundation begins, not only trees of great size, but antelopes, as the springbuck and tsessebe (Acronotus lunata,) are swept down by its rushing waters; the trees are gradually driven by the winds to the opposite side, and become imbedded in mud.

When the lake is full, the water is perfectly fresh, but brackish when low; and that coming down the Tamunak'le we found to be so clear, cold, and soft, the higher we ascended, that the idea of melting snow was suggested to our minds. We found this region, with regard to that from which we had come, to be clearly a hollow, the lowest point being Lake Kumadau; the point of the ebullition of water as shown by one of Newman's barometric thermometers, was only between 207-1/2 deg. and 206 deg., giving an elevation of not much more than two thousand feet above the level of the sea. We had descended above two thousand feet in coming to it from Kolobeng. It is the southern and lowest part of the great river system beyond, in which large tracts of country are inundated annually by tropical rains. A little of that water, which in the countries farther north produces inundation, comes as far south as 20 deg. 20', the latitude of the upper end of the lake, and instead of flooding the country, falls into the lake as into a reservoir. It begins to flow down the Embarrah, which divides into the Rivers Tzo and Teoughe. The Tzo divides into the Tamunak'le and Mababe; the Tamunak'le discharges itself into the Zouga, and the Teoughe into the lake. The flow begins in either March or April, and the descending waters find the channels of all these rivers dried out, except in certain pools in their beds, which have long dry spaces between them. The lake itself is very low. The Zouga is but a prolongation of the Tamunak'le, and an arm of the lake reaches up to the point where the one ends and the other begins. The last is narrow and shallow, while the Zouga is broad and deep. The narrow arm of the lake, which on the map looks like a continuation of the Zouga, has never been observed to flow either way.

THOMAS HUGHES

Before the middle of 1852 Livingstone was ready to start on the journey which resulted in the opening of routes from Central Africa to the West and East coasts; but the way was still beset with difficulties. The missionary societies were regarded as "unpatriotic" by the authorities at the Cape; and he, as the most outspoken of critics, and the most uncompromising denouncer of the slave-trade and champion of the natives, came in for a double share of their suspicion. On the other hand, his brethren gave him only a half-hearted support and doubted his orthodoxy. He found great difficulty even in procuring ammunition. A country postmaster whom he had accused of overcharging, threatened an action at the last moment, which he compromised rather than be detained. As it was, he had anticipated his meagre salary by more than a year, and had to be content with very inferior oxen, and a wagon which required constant mending throughout the journey. On June 8, 1852, he at last got away, taking with him a Mr. Fleming, the agent of his friend Mr. Rutherford, a Cape merchant, in the hope of by degrees substituting legitimate traffic for that in slaves.

The heavy Cape wagon with its ten poor oxen dragged heavily onward. Livingstone had so loaded himself with parcels for stations up-country, and his wagon and team were so inferior, that he did not reach Kuruman until September. Here he was detained by the breaking of a wheel.

The journey to Linyanti by the new route was very trying. Part of the country was flooded, and they were wading all day, and forcing their way through reeds with sharp edges "with hands all raw and bloody." "On emerging from the swamps," says Livingstone, "when walking before the wagon in the morning twilight, I observed a lioness about fifty yards from me in the squatting way they walk when going to spring. She was followed by a very large lion, but seeing the wagon she turned back."

It required all his tact to prevent guides and servants from deserting. Everyone but himself was attacked by fever. "I would like," says his journal, "to devote a portion of my life to the discovery of a remedy for that terrible disease, the African fever. I would go into the parts where it prevails most and try to discover if the natives have a remedy for it. I must make many inquiries of the river people in this quarter." Again in another key: "Am I on my way to die in Sebituane's country? Have I seen the last of my wife and children, leaving this fair world and knowing so little of it?"

February 4, 1853: "I am spared in health while all the company have been attacked by fever. If God has accepted my service, my life is charmed till my work is done. When that is finished, some simple thing will give me my quietus. Death is a glorious event to one going to Jesus."

Their progress was tedious beyond all precedent. "We dug out several wells, and each time had to wait a day or two till enough water flowed in for our cattle to quench their thirst."

At last, however, at the end of May, he reached the Chobe River and was again among his favorite Makololo. "He has dropped from the clouds," the first of them said. They took the wagon to pieces and carried it across on canoes lashed together, while they themselves swam and dived among the oxen "more like alligators than men." Sekeletu, son of Sebituane, was now chief, his elder sister Mamochishane having resigned in disgust at the number of husbands she had to maintain as chieftainess. Poor Mamochishane! After a short reign of a few months she had risen in the assembly and "addressed her brother with a womanly gush of tears. 'I have been a chief only because my father wished it. I would always have preferred to be married and have a family like other women. You, Sekeletu, must be chief, and build up our father's house.'"

On November 11, 1853, he left Linyanti, and arrived at Loanda on May 31, 1854. The first stages of the journey were to be by water, and Sekeletu accompanied him to the Chobe, where he was to embark. They crossed five branches before reaching the main stream, a wide and deep river full of hippopotami. "The chief lent me his own canoe, and as it was broader than usual I could turn about in it with ease. I had three muskets for my people, and a rifle and double-barrelled shotgun for myself. My ammunition was distributed through the luggage, that we might not be left without a supply. Our chief hopes for food were in our guns. I carried twenty pounds of beads worth forty shillings, a few biscuits, a few pounds of tea and sugar, and about twenty pounds of coffee. One small tin canister, about fifteen inches square, was filled with spare shirts, trousers, and shoes, to be used when we reached civilized life, another of the same size was stored with medicines, a third with books, and a fourth with a magic lantern, which we found of much service. The sextant and other instruments were carried apart. A bag contained the clothes we expected to wear out in the journey, which, with a small tent just sufficient to sleep in, a sheepskin mantle as a blanket, and a horse rug as a bed, completed my equipment. An array of baggage would have probably excited the cupidity of the tribes through whose country we wished to pass."

The voyage up the Chobe, and the Zambesi after the junction of those rivers, was prosperous but slow, in consequence of stoppages opposite villages. "My man Pitsane knew of the generous orders of Sekeletu, and was not disposed to allow them remain a dead letter." In the rapids, "the men leaped into the water without the least hesitation to save the canoes from being dashed against the obstructions or caught in eddies. They must never be allowed to come broadside to the stream, for being flat-bottomed they would at once be capsized and everything in them lost." When free from fever he was delighted to note the numbers of birds, several of them unknown, which swarmed on the river and its banks, all carefully noted in his journal. One extract must suffice here: "Whenever we step on shore a species of plover, a plaguy sort of public-spirited individual, follows, flying overhead, and is most persevering in its attempts to give warning to all animals to flee from the approaching danger."

But he was already weak with fever; was seized with giddiness whenever he looked up quickly, and, if he could not catch hold of some support, fell heavily—a bad omen for his chance of passing through the unknown country ahead—but his purpose never faltered for a moment. On January 1, 1854, he was still on the river, but getting beyond Sekeletu's territory and allies, to a region of dense forest, in the open glades of which dwelt the Balonda, a powerful tribe, whose relations with the Makololo were precarious. Each was inclined to raid on the other since the Mambari and Portuguese half-castes had appeared with Manchester goods. These excited the intense wonder and cupidity of both nations. They listened to the story of cotton-mills as fairy dreams, exclaiming: "How can iron spin, weave, and print? Truly ye are gods!" and were already inclined to steal their neighbors' children—those of their own tribe they never sold at this time—to obtain these wonders out of the sea.

Happily Livingstone had brought back with him several Balonda children who had been carried off by the Makololo. This, and his speeches to Manenko, the chieftainess of the district and niece of Shinte, the head chief of the Balonda, gained them a welcome. This Amazon was a strapping young woman of twenty, who led their party through the forest at a pace which tried the best walkers. She seems to have been the only native whose will ever prevailed against Livingstone's.

He intended to proceed up to her uncle Shinte's town in canoes: she insisted that they should march by land, and ordered her people to shoulder his baggage in spite of him. "My men succumbed, and left me powerless. I was moving off in high dudgeon to the canoes, when she kindly placed her hand on my shoulder, and with a motherly look said, 'Now, my little man, just do as the rest have done.' My feeling of annoyance of course vanished, and I went out to try for some meat. My men, in admiration of her pedestrian powers, kept remarking, 'Manenko is a soldier,' and we were all glad when she proposed a halt for the night."

Shinte received them in his town, the largest and best laid out that Livingstone had seen in Central Africa, on a sort of throne covered with leopard-skin. The kotla, or place of audience, was one hundred yards square. Though in the sweating stage of an intermittent fever, Livingstone held his own with the chief, gave him an ox as "his mouth was bitter from want of flesh," advised him to open a trade in cattle with the Makololo, and to put down the slave-trade; and, after spending more than a week with him, left amid the warmest professions of friendship. Shinte found him a guide of his tribe, Intemese by name, who was to stay by them till they reached the sea, and at a last interview hung round his neck a conical shell of such value that two of them, so his men assured him, would purchase a slave.

Soon they were out of Shinte's territory, and Intemese became the plague of the party, though unluckily they could not dispense with him altogether in crossing the great flooded plains of Lebala. They camped at night on mounds, where they had to trench round each hut and use the earth to raise their sleeping places. "My men turned out to work most willingly, and I could not but contrast their conduct with that of Intemese, who was thoroughly imbued with the slave spirit, and lied on all occasions to save himself trouble." He lost the pontoon, too, thereby adding greatly to their troubles.

They now came to the territory of another great chief, Katema, who received them hospitably, sending food and giving them solemn audience in his kotla surrounded by his tribe. A tall man of forty, dressed in a snuff-brown coat with a broad band of tinsel down the arms, and a helmet of beads and feathers. He carried a large fan with charms attached, which he waved constantly during the audience, often laughing heartily—"a good sign, for a man who shakes his sides with mirth is seldom difficult to deal with."

"I am the great Moene Katema!" was his address; "I and my fathers have always lived here, and there is my father's house. I never killed any of the traders; they all come to me. I am the great Moene Katema, of whom you have heard." On hearing Livingstone's object, he gave him three guides, who would take him by a northern route, along which no traders had passed, to avoid the plains, impassable from the floods. He accepted Livingstone's present of a shawl, a razor, some beads and buttons, and a powder-horn graciously, laughing at his apologies for its smallness, and asking him to bring a coat from Loanda, as the one he was wearing was old.

From this point troubles multiplied, and they began to be seriously pressed for food. The big game had disappeared, and they were glad to catch moles and mice. Every chief demanded a present for allowing them to pass, and the people of the villages charged exorbitantly for all supplies. On they floundered, however, through flooded forests. In crossing the river Loka, Livingstone's ox got away from him, and he had to strike out for the farther bank. "My poor fellows were dreadfully alarmed, and about twenty of them made a simultaneous rush into the water for my rescue, and just as I reached the opposite bank one seized me by the arms and another clasped me round the body. When I stood up it was most gratifying to see them all struggling toward me. Part of my goods were brought up from the bottom when I was safe. Great was their pleasure when they found I could swim like themselves, and I felt most grateful to those poor heathens for the promptitude with which they dashed in to my rescue." Farther on, the people tried to frighten them with the account of the deep rivers they had yet to cross, but his men laughed. "'We can all swim,' they said; 'who carried the white man across the river but himself?' I felt proud of their praise."

On March 4th they reached the country of the Chiboques, a tribe in constant contact with the slave-dealers. Next day their camp was surrounded by the nearest chief and his warriors, evidently bent on plunder. They paused when they saw Livingstone seated on his camp-stool, with his double-barrelled gun across his knees, and his Makololos ready with their javelins. The chief and his principal men sat down in front at Livingstone's invitation to talk over the matter, and a palaver began as to the fine claimed by the Chiboque. "The more I yielded, the more unreasonable they became, and at every fresh demand a shout was raised, and a rush made round us with brandished weapons. One young man even made a charge at my head from behind, but I quickly brought round the muzzle of my gun to his mouth and he retreated. My men behaved with admirable coolness. The chief and his counsellors, by accepting my invitation to be seated, had placed themselves in a trap, for my men had quietly surrounded them and made them feel that there was no chance of escaping their spears. I then said that as everything had failed to satisfy them they evidently meant to fight; and if so, they must begin, and bear the blame before God. I then sat silent for some time. It was certainly rather trying, but I was careful not to seem flurried, and, having four barrels ready for instant action, looked quietly at the savage scene around." The palaver began again, and ended in the exchange of an ox for a promise of food, in which he was wofully cheated. "It was impossible to help laughing, but I was truly thankful that we had so far gained our point as to be allowed to pass without shedding blood."

He now struck north to avoid the Chiboque, and made for the Portuguese settlement of Cassange through dense forest and constant wet. Here another fever fit came on, so violent that "I could scarcely, after some hours' trial, get a lunar observation in which I could repose confidence. Those who know the difficulties of making observations and committing them all to paper will sympathize with me in this and many similar instances."

At this crisis, when the goal was all but at hand, obstacles multiplied till it seemed that after all it would never be reached. First his riding ox, Sindbad—a beast "blessed with a most intractable temper," and a habit of bolting into the bush to get his rider combed off by a climber, and then kicking at him—achieved a triumph in his weak state, "when the bridle broke, and down I came backward on the crown of my head, receiving as I fell a kick on the thigh. This last attack of fever reduced me almost to a skeleton. The blanket which I used as a saddle, being pretty constantly wet, caused extensive abrasion of the skin, which was continually healing and getting sore again."

Then the guides missed their way and led them back into Chiboque territory, where the demands of the chief of every village for "a man, an ox, or a tusk," for permission to pass, began again. Worst of all, signs of mutiny began to show themselves among the Batoka men of his party, who threatened to turn back. He appeased them by giving them a tired ox to be killed at the Sunday's halt. "Having thus, as I thought, silenced their murmurs, I sank into a state of torpor, and was oblivious of all their noise. On Sunday the mutineers were making a terrible din in preparing the skin. I requested them twice to be more quiet as the noise pained me, but, as they paid no attention to this civil request, I put out my head and, repeating it, was answered by an impudent laugh. Knowing that discipline would be at an end if this mutiny was not quelled, and that our lives depended on vigorously upholding authority, I seized a double-barrelled pistol and darted out with such a savage aspect as to put them to precipitate flight. They gave no further trouble." Every night now they had to build a stockade, and by day to march in a compact body, knowing the forest to be full of enemies dogging their path, for now they had nothing to give as presents, the men having even divested themselves of all their copper ornaments to appease the Chiboque harpies. "Nothing, however, disturbed us, and for my part I was too ill to care much whether we were attacked or not." They struggled on, the Chiboque natives, now joined by bodies of traders, opposing at every ford, Livingstone no longer wondering why expeditions from the interior failed to reach the coast. "Some of my men proposed to return home, and the prospect of being obliged to turn back from the threshold of the Portuguese settlements distressed me exceedingly. After using all my powers of persuasion, I declared that if they now returned, I should go on alone, and returning into my little tent, I lifted up my heart to Him who hears the sighing of the soul. Presently the head man came in. 'Do not be disheartened,' he said, 'we will never leave you. Wherever you lead, we will follow. Our remarks were only made on account of the injustice of these people.' Others followed, and with the most artless simplicity of manner told me to be comforted. 'They were all my children; they knew no one but Sekeletu and me, and would die for me: they had spoken in bitterness of spirit, feeling they could do nothing.'"

On April 1st they gained the ridge which overlooks the valley of the Quango and the Portuguese settlements on the farther bank. "The descent is so steep that I was obliged to dismount, though so weak that I had to be supported. Below us, at a depth of one thousand feet, lay the magnificent valley of the Quango. The view of the Vale of Clyde, from the spot where Mary witnessed the Battle of Langside, resembles in miniature the glorious sight which was here presented to our view."

On the 4th they were close to the Quango, here one hundred fifty yards broad, when they were stopped for the last time by a village chief and surrounded by his men. The usual altercation ensued; Livingstone refusing to give up his blanket—the last article he possessed except his watch and instruments and Sekeletu's tusks, which had been faithfully guarded—until on board the canoes in which they were to cross. "I was trying to persuade my people to move on to the bank in spite of them, when a young half-caste Portuguese sergeant of militia, Cypriano di Abren, who had come across in search of beeswax, made his appearance and gave the same advice." They marched to the bank—the chief's men opening fire on them, but without doing any damage—made terms with the ferrymen, with Cypriano's help, crossed the Quango, and were at the end of their troubles.

Four days they stopped with Cypriano, who treated them royally, killing an ox and stripping his garden to feast them, and sending them on to Cassange with provisions of meal ground by his mother and her maids. "I carried letters from the Chevalier du Prat of Cape Town, but I am inclined to believe that my friend Cypriano was influenced by feelings of genuine kindness excited by my wretched appearance."

At Cassange they were again most hospitably treated, and here, before starting for Loanda, three hundred miles, they disposed of Sekeletu's tusks, which sold for much higher prices than those given by Cape traders. "Two muskets, three small barrels of powder, and English calico and baize enough to clothe my whole party, with large bunches of beads, were given for one tusk, to the great delight of my Makololos, who had been used to get only one gun for two tusks. With another tusk we purchased calico—the chief currency here—to pay our way to the coast. The remaining two were sold for money to purchase a horse for Sekeletu at Loanda." Livingstone was much struck both by the country he passed through and the terms on which the Portuguese lived with the natives. Most of them had families by native women, who were treated as European children and provided for by their fathers. Half-caste clerks sat at table with the whites, and he came to the conclusion that "nowhere in Africa is there so much good-will between Europeans and natives as here."

The dizziness produced by his twenty-seven attacks of fever on the road made it all he could do to stick on Sindbad, who managed to give him a last ducking in the Lombe. "The weakening effects of the fever were most extraordinary. For instance, in attempting to take lunar observations I could not avoid confusion of time and distance, neither could I hold the instrument steady, nor perform a simple calculation." He rallied a little in crossing a mountain range. As they drew near Loanda the hearts of his men began to fail, and they hinted their doubts to him. "If you suspect me you can return," he told them, "for I am as ignorant of Loanda as you; but nothing will happen to you but what happens to me. We have stood by one another hitherto, and will do so till the last."

The first view of the sea staggered the Makololo. "We were marching along with our father," they said, "believing what the ancients had told us, that the world had no end; but all at once the world said to us: 'I am finished; there is no more for me.'"

The fever had produced chronic dysentery, which was so depressing that Livingstone entered Loanda in deep melancholy, doubting the reception he might get from the one English gentleman, Mr. Gabriel, the commissioner for the suppression of the slave-trade. He was soon undeceived. Mr. Gabriel received him most kindly, and, seeing the condition he was in, gave up to him his own bed. "Never shall I forget the luxurious pleasure I enjoyed in feeling myself again on a good English bed after six months' sleeping on the ground. I was soon asleep; and Mr. Gabriel coming in almost immediately after, rejoiced in the soundness of my repose."



(1851) THE COUP D'ETAT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON, Alexis de Tocqueville

By his astounding act of December 2, 1851, known as the coup d'etat, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, commonly called Louis Napoleon, practically assumed imperial power, and on the first anniversary of that coup d'etat he was officially proclaimed Emperor of the French under the title of Napoleon III. He was the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland—a brother of Napoleon I—and was born in Paris, April 20, 1808. From 1815 to 1830 he lived in exile. In 1836 he made an unsuccessful attempt to organize a revolution among the French soldiers at Strasburg. Four years later he tried to seize the throne of France; but failing in this attempt, he was imprisoned in the fortress of Ham until 1846, when he escaped to England. During his confinement he continued in his writings a Bonapartist propaganda. He had addressed himself particularly to the workingmen, and this class won a victory in the Revolution of February, 1848. After the fall of Louis Philippe in that year, Napoleon was elected to the National Assembly, largely by the votes of the working classes, and on June 13, 1848, took his seat. In December he was elected President of the Republic by an immense majority.

Although he was regarded as possessing a rather dull intellect, and as being, partly for that reason, a "safe" man for the presidential office, Napoleon soon proved his capacity for intrigue and for cajoling the people. By intervening in behalf of Pope Pius IX, whom revolutionists had driven from Rome, he gained the support of the clergy. Napoleon's troops restored Pius IX (1850) to the papal throne. The President's aims at supremacy were approved by the French monarchists, and he used all means to increase his popularity, placing only his adherents in office.

When the Assembly, composed of seven hundred sixty members, undertook to restrict the suffrage, which was "universal," Napoleon opposed the change. He thus appeared to be the champion of the people against the legislative body. As his term was to expire on May 2, 1852, and as he was ineligible for a second term, although he knew that a majority of the people favored his continuance in office, he saw no way to accomplish that except by force. He therefore determined to use force, and the method he adopted was that of the coup d'etat. The success of that stroke insured all that he aimed at. In December, 1851, by an almost unanimous vote he was elected President for ten years. All his "ideas" and purposes were embodied in a new constitution, and before the end of 1852 the question of restoring the empire was submitted to the people; and by the plebiscite of November, in that year, an enormous majority of the voters elected him Emperor.

No account of the coup d'etat,—the most striking and effective in this series of dramatic events—surpasses in authenticity or interest that of De Tocqueville. The famous author of Democracy in America, and of equally celebrated works of French history, became Vice-President of the National Assembly in 1849. As a member of that body he was justified in saying of his story of the coup d'etat, "I merely relate, as an actual witness, the things I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears." The first step taken by Napoleon in this affair was the arrest of the opposition leaders of the Assembly in their beds, on the pretext of a conspiracy against him in that body. De Tocqueville describes what followed.

When the representatives of the people learned on the morning of December 2, 1851, that several of their colleagues were arrested, they ran to the Assembly. The doors were guarded by the Chasseurs de Vincennes, a corps of troops recently returned from Africa and long accustomed to the violence of Algerine dominion, and, moreover, stimulated by a donation of five francs distributed to every soldier who was in Paris that day. The Representatives, nevertheless, presented themselves to go in, having at their head one of their Vice-Presidents, M. Daru. This gentleman was violently struck by the soldiers, and the Representatives who accompanied him were driven back at the point of the bayonet. Three of them, M. de Talhouet, Etienne, and Duparc, were slightly wounded. Several others had their clothes pierced. Such was the beginning.

Driven from the doors of the Assembly, the Deputies retired to the mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. They were already assembled to the number of about three hundred when the troops arrived, blocked up the approaches, and prevented a greater number of Representatives from entering the apartment, though no one at that time was prevented from leaving it.

Who then were those Representatives assembled at the mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, and what did they do there? Every shade of opinion was represented in this extemporaneous Assembly. But four-fifths of its members belonged to the different conservative parties which had constituted the majority. This Assembly was presided over by two of its Vice-Presidents, M. Vitet and M. Benoist d'Azy. M. Daru was arrested in his own house; the Fourth Vice-President, the illustrious General Bedeau, had been seized that morning in his bed, and handcuffed like a robber. As for the President, M. Dupin, he was absent, which surprised no one. Besides its Vice-Presidents, the Assembly was accompanied by its secretaries, its ushers, and even its phonographer who preserved for posterity the records of this last and memorable sitting. The Assembly, thus constituted, began by voting a decree in the following terms:

"In pursuance of article sixty-eight of the constitution, viz., the President of the Republic, the ministers, the agents, and depositaries of public authority are responsible, each in what concerns himself respectively, for all the acts of the Government and the Administration: any measure by which the President of the Republic dissolves the National Assembly, prorogues it, or places obstacles in the exercise of its powers is a crime of high treason.

"By this act alone, the President is deprived of all authority; the citizens are bound to withhold their obedience, the executive power passes in full right to the National Assembly. The judges of the High Court of Justice will meet immediately, under pain of forfeiture; they will convoke the juries in the place which they will select to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices; they will nominate the magistrates charged to fulfil the duties of public ministers.

"And seeing that the National Assembly is prevented by violence from exercising its powers, it decrees as follows, viz.: Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is deprived of all authority as President of the Republic. The citizens are enjoined to withhold their obedience. The executive power has passed in full right to the National Assembly. The judges of the High Court of Justice are enjoined to meet immediately, under pain of forfeiture, to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices; consequently, all the officers and functionaries of power and of public authority are bound to obey all requisitions made in the name of the National Assembly, under pain of forfeiture and of high treason.

"Done and decreed unanimously in public sitting, this second day of December, 1851."

After this first decree was voted, another was unanimously passed, naming General Oudinot commander of the public forces, and M. Tamisier was joined with him as chief of the staff. The choice of these two officers, each having distinct shades of political opinion, showed that the Assembly was animated by one common spirit.

These decrees had hardly been signed by all the members present, and deposited in a place of safety, when a band of soldiers, headed by their officers, sword in hand, appeared at the door, without, however, daring to enter the apartment. The Assembly awaited them in perfect silence. The President alone raised his voice, read the decrees which had just been passed to the soldiers, and ordered them to retire. The poor fellows, ashamed of the part they were compelled to play, hesitated. The officers, pale and undecided, declared that they should go for further orders. They retired, contenting themselves with blockading the passages leading to the apartment. The Assembly, not being able to go out, ordered the windows to be opened, and caused the decrees to be read to the people and the troops in the street below, especially that decree which, in pursuance of the sixty-eighth article of the constitution, declared the deposition and impeachment of Louis Napoleon.

Soon, however, the soldiers reappeared at the door, preceded this time by two commissaires de police. These men entered the room and, amid the unbroken silence and total immobility of the Assembly, summoned the Representatives to disperse. The President ordered them to retire themselves. One of the commissaires was agitated and faltered; the other broke out in invectives. The President said to him: "Sir, we are here the lawful authority and sole representatives of law and of right. We know that we cannot oppose to you material force, but we will leave this chamber only under constraint. We will not disperse. Seize us and convey us to prison."

"All, all!" exclaimed the members of the Assembly. After much hesitation the commissaires de police decided to act. They caused each of the two Presidents to be seized by the collar. The whole body then rose, and, arm in arm, two and two, they followed the Presidents, who were led off. In this order they reached the street, and were marched across the city, without knowing whither they were going.

Care had been taken to circulate a report among the crowd and the troops that a meeting of Socialist and Red Republican Deputies had been arrested. But when the people beheld among those who were thus dragged through the mud of Paris on foot, like a gang of malefactors, men the most illustrious by their talents and their virtues—ex-ministers, ex-ambassadors, generals, admirals, great orators, great writers, surrounded by the bayonets of the line—a shout was raised, "Vive l'Assemblee nationale!" The Representatives were attended by these shouts until they reached the barracks of the Quai d'Orsay, where they were shut up.

Night was coming on, and it was wet and cold. Yet the Assembly was left two hours in the open air, as if the Government did not deign to remember its existence. The Representatives here made their last roll-call in presence of their phonographer, who had followed them. The number present was two hundred eighteen, to whom were added about twenty more in the course of the evening, consisting of members who had voluntarily caused themselves to be arrested. Almost all the men known to France and to Europe, who formed the majority of the Legislative Assembly, were gathered in this place. Few were wanting, except those who, like M. Mole, had not been suffered to reach their colleagues.

There were present, among others, the Duc de Broglie, who had come, though ill; the father of the House, the venerable Keratry, whose physical strength was inferior to his moral courage, and whom it was necessary to seat in a straw chair in the barrack yard; Odilon Barrot, Dufaure, Berryer, Remusat, Duvergier de Hauranne, Gustave de Beaumont, De Tocqueville, De Falloux, Lanjuinais, Admiral Laine and Admiral Cecille, Generals Oudinot and Lauriston, the Due de Luynes, the Due de Montebello; twelve ex-ministers, nine of whom had served under Louis Napoleon himself; eight members of the Institute—all men who had struggled for three years to defend society and to resist the demagogic faction.

When two hours had elapsed this assemblage was driven into barrack-rooms upstairs, where most of them spent the night, without fire and almost without food, stretched upon the boards. It only remained to carry off to prison these honorable men, guilty of no crime but the defence of the laws of their country. For this purpose the most distressing and ignominious means were selected. The cellular vans, in which convicts are conveyed to prison, were brought up. In these vehicles were shut up the men who had served and honored their country, and they were conveyed like three bands of criminals, some to the fortress of Mont Valerien, some to the prison Mazas in Paris, and the remainder to Vincennes. The indignation of the public compelled the Government two days afterward to release the greater number of them; some remained in confinement, unable to obtain either their liberty or a trial.