YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
DISCOVERY AND
SETTLEMENT OF
WESTERN
U NORTH AMERICA
^•-^
COLLECTION OF
WILLIAM
ROBERTSON COE

TO AND FRO

To AND Fro

BY

Henry Mather Warren

WM. F. FELL COMPANY
1222 SANSOM STREET
PHILADELPHIA

Copyright, 1908, by Wm. F. Fell Co.

To Dick

Contents

PAGE
The Matterhorn  I
The Round-Up  13
A Peruvian Bull-Fight  38
Over the Chilkoot Pass in 1898  43
The Dungeons of the Mamertine  56
The Catacombs of San Sebastiano  64
The Roman Colosseum  74
Two Views of Venice  81
Baden-Baden  88
The Romance of the Rhine Valley Ruined  ,93
A Week's Shoot in Oudh  96

The CHALLENGE.

The Matterhorn

THE challenge of the Matterhorn is arrogant
and haughty. Towering for ages in its icy
and unconquered inaccessibility far above
the clouds, it seemed to say, " Go your way, creeper
over the crust of the earth; you have nothing to do
with my far heights and purer air."
Finally the pigmy triumphed. He put its topmost
stone beneath his creeping feet, and others followed;
but the cruel crag has taken toll of more than twenty
lives for their temerity.
Riding up the valley of the Visp, as one rounds the
angle of an interposing hill, directly in front of him
towers the solitary monolith, a massive monument
that tells of the immensity of this Alp range in
Mesozoic time.
The average traveler comes to Zermatt with about
as much intention of attempting the moon as the
Matterhorn. He has read how for centuries its
precipitous sides defied every effort of man to gain
the summit, of the lives that have been dashed
out upon its icy rocks, and until he comes under
its mighty spell, he feels no* inclination to risk
either his neck or his reputation for common sense
in an undertaking so laborious and full of peril.
1

Arrived at his hotel, at dinner he hears a sunburnt
young curate on his left incidentally allude to the
fine view he had from the top of the Matterhorn
yesterday morning; the new arrival darts a side
long glance at the slight frame of the speaker and
wonders if he has heard aright. The remark at
tracts no unusual attention, however, and soon the
table is left for the front piazza of the house. Di
rectly a party of five men, equipped with knapsacks,
ropes, ice-axes, and all the requisite Alpine para
phernalia are seen to pass, and he learns that they
are bound for the Matterhorn.
The force of example is a powerful thing. Evi
dently the ascent of this dangerous peak is not such
an uncommon event after all. The newcomer
gazes up at the lofty head of the majestic mountain,
feels creeping over him an ambition to stand on
this grand pinnacle and determines to investigate.
He finds that men are going up every week, that in
consequence of chains and ropes having been
fastened to the rocks at the most dangerous preci
pices, the ascent may now be made vdth compara
tive safety — that even two or three intrepid women
have been taken to the top and (what is more
dangerous) down again by the careful guides who
make the Matterhorn their specialty.
Requesting the proprietor to send him a good
guide, when he appears, he learns that he has made
the ascent forty-eight times; it is surprising, but
the man's quiet, honest face prevents all doubt of
2

his veracity. The time necessary for the trip is two
days, and the expense, including the pay of two
guides and a porter, from sixty to sixty-five dollars.
The incipient mountaineer is apt to think that there
is rather too close an analogy between the steepness
of the ascent and the price, but the mountain has
called! — so the contract is made, soles and heels are
filled full of hobnails, outfit purchased and everything
put in readiness for an early start the next morning.
The form of the Matterhorn is substantially a
three-sided pyramid and its three planes are so pre
cipitous that the only possible access to its summit
is near the sharp, ragged arete or junction of two
surfaces. The ascent may be made from the south
east corner in Italy, but the better way lies up the
north edge that is approached from Zermatt. It was
along this latter route that the morning of August
fourth found us following our guides toward the peak
that towered above us 9,399 feet. The total height
of this mountain above sea-level is 14,718 feet, but
the little village from which we start has itself an
elevation of 5,319 feet.
At ten o'clock the base of the Hornli Ridge is
reached, and here the path leads along the top of a
huge moraine thrown up by the Furgen glacier that
crowds along the eastern base of the Matterhorn.
Soon the moraine is left and the real work on the
rocky arete begins. The steady climb continues until
one o'clock, the new cabin (a small stone hut for the
convenience of climbers) is reached, and here a halt
3

is called and the welcome lunch baskets absorb all
attention. Above the cabin the edge becomes so overhang
ing as to render further progress in that direction
impossible; this necessitates a wide detour around
on the east side along the edge of a snow slope and
up a sheer precipice till the obstruction is passed.
This difficult way brings the rope into requisition,
which we now must wear till this spot is reached on
the return, and we stand in line while the head
guide, having firmly knotted one end around his
own body, secures each of the four in the same
way. Fifteen feet of rope is left between each man,
thus extending the line for some sixty feet.
Very little snow will adhere to the sides of this
mountain, but near the foot where the slope begins
to be less abrupt the constantly sliding snow has left a
sharp, thin coat which, plastered up on the incline,
gives the impression of a receding wave that has just
broken against a giant cliff. It is along the upper
edge of this frigid breaker, close under the mighty
wall, that the way now lies toward the point where it
can be scaled. Steps must be chosen and cut with
care, for the smooth surface of the rock on the
right affords no hold, the crest along which we
pass is not twelve inches wide, and down on the
left is a rare chance to roll for a thousand feet.
At length the eastern Couloir is reached, and the
leader, scrambling up to the first shelf by dint of hard
usage of hands, elbows, knees and toes, pulls up
4

the second and starts for another point, ten feet
above the first, while those behind follow on by the
law of mutual help. It is singular what confidence
one has when bound to four other stout men. The
knowledge that if he falls, ready arms will be stretched
to save him, makes him cooler and steadier by fifty per
cent., nor does the probability that his falling weight
would pull all the rest after him, diminish his con
fidence, so easy is it to believe what is most favorable
to the case. Thus he leaps chasms and climbs
perpendicular cliffs with nerves as quiet as though
he walked his own floor.
The work goes steadily on in the regular succes
sion of climbing and hauling, sometimes creeping
on all fours under a jutting crag that bars the way,
and again working up the wall with the heels of the
man above just clearing your head. Very little
conversation is indulged in and no enthusiasm
wasted over matchless scenery, although a glance
over the shoulder reveals a panorama of unspeakable
grandeur to the south and east; this is reserved for
the summit, the present is occupied with the serious
business of getting there, and it demands that every
faculty shall be concentrated on where next to place
the hand or foot.
At 4.30 the party comes to a rope hanging from a
perpendicular height of twenty feet, and climbing up
by its aid, the old cabin is reached where we are to
pass the night. This little hut is sui generis. The
guides have erected a wall around the largest shelf
5

they could find on this side of the mountain, have
built a roof over it and thus have a shelter about
nine feet long, six feet wide and five feet high.
Cramped quarters indeed for five men, but no one
goes up the Matterhorn expecting comfort, so choco
late is made and lunch eaten with appetites sharp
ened by the long climb and keen mountain air.
It is difficult to imagine amid what sort of sur
roundings this little eyrie is perched. It is 12,498 feet
above the sea, and two-thirds of the way up a moun
tain wall 4,000 feet in height, so precipitous that a rock
dislodged from the shelf goes thundering down the
whole descent and plunges into the glacier far below.
At 8 o'clock, according to agreement, we kindled
a little signal fire, and immediately afar down in the
valley, 7,181 feet beneath us, Zermatt answered us
with cheering blazes from two hotels, telling of the
friends who were watching for our lone mountain
light. The ice on the floor was two feet thick,
but two blankets decrease the discomfort enough
to allow a little sleep, and at 3.30 in the gray dawn
we willingly leave the cold shelter, and once more
all faces are set toward the summit.
Ever since the snow border was left for the rocks the
course has led gradually back to the ragged arete,
and in a half-hour it is again reached and the precip
itous wall is gladly left for the safer climbing of the
rocky ridge. Soon we reach a place where knap
sacks, coats, flasks — everything but the clothing
worn, rope and ice-axes — are left, for we near the
6

summit, where is the most dangerous spot of the
ascent, called the snow shoulder; this is a plane of
snow, frozen solid, tipped at an angle of forty-five
degrees and ending in a sheer precipice of over four
thousand feet. It is over this northwest side that
four men of the Whymper party fell in 1865. The
worst part is only for about forty feet, however,
and as our line is sixty, we feel confident of secure
anchorage at each end.
The ice-axes ring. The large footholds are cut,
and slowly and in safety the shoulder is passed.
Directly overhead towers the liberty cap, the last cliff
to be surmounted. This is the steepest to climb of
the whole ascent, but it is also the easiest, for a rope
or chain, in some places both, are fixed to the rocks,
and it is a mere question of hand-over-hand climbing.
A final scramble over a few rocks, and we stand on
the summit of the Matterhorn at 6.30 on the morning
of August fifth.
Was it worth the toil ? It certainly was. The
scenery from the top of this huge splinter is simply
indescribable. Mont Blanc greets us on the west,
the Obernese Alps beyond the Rhone on the north,
Monte Rosa on the east. The frozen contortions of
twenty glaciers are displayed almost under our feet,
and the white mountain torrents that rush from be
neath them can be followed from the regions of ice
and snow far down into the green fields of the valleys.
Around and below us are the peaks of Castor and
2 7

Pollux, Lyskamm, Breithorn, Rothhorn, Dent Blanch,
and Weisshorn. On this lofty spire the whole world
seems to spread out before us.
But the keen air blows fresher, and on this sharp
summit there is not even the poor shelter of a hut,
so one last look is taken in the hope to photograph
this grand sweep of landscape upon the memory,
and we prepare for the long labor of the descent.
The guides dig a bottle out of the snow, cards are
doubled up and shoved through the narrow neck
to join others in this unique register, and the word
is given to start. Down we go, over the ropes, across
the doubtful snow shoulder, and over the rocky arch
to the little cabin on the shelf; then step by step
we are lowered by the careful guides down the diffi
cult side wall, and through the couloir, which proved
a harder test to the muscles than the ascent.
After steady work of about nine hours Zermatt is
reached, with an experience behind us that vsdll
dwell in the memory for years — and for hours in
each quadriceps extensor. A word of thanks is
due to the chief guide, Peter Knubel, and through
him to the two others, to whose caution and skill we
must attribute our constant sense of security in the
most trying portions of the ascent.
The above happened twenty odd years ago, when
a college lad and his father went climbing in the Alps.
When two of my own boys were old enough, we
resolved to repeat the same program.
8

Peter Truffer. Peter Knubel.
Two Veteran Matterhorn Guides.

It was a great pleasure to find in Zermatt, Peter
Knubel and Peter Truffer, the two guides of the
former ascent, now old and feeble, butwho remembered
perfectly "den alten und den jungen Herrn" of so
many years ago. Alas ! there was no need to ask them
if they were active cragsmen still. The first ascent of
the Matterhorn was the disastrous one of the Whym
per party in 1865, and Peter Knubel was a guide
in the first party to make the ascent from Zermatt,
after that catastrophe. This was in 1868, and for
over thirty years these two old veterans have braved
the dangers of this noble peak.
It was a saddening sight to see them so changed
from the powerful, rugged mountaineers they once
were. They are the modest, unassuming heroes
of a thousand hairbreadth escapes from icy preci
pice, yawning crevasse and avalanche of rocks or snow,
now wandering aimlessly about the village; and as
they turned their dim eyes toward those mighty
cliffs they had so often scaled, I wondered if they
were not unconsciously feeling the protest of the old
Scotch fisherman's lament:
"An I'm ower auld to fish any more,
So I ha'na the chance to droon."
We left the new cabin above the Hornli one beauti
ful morning, climbed around on to the Eastern side,
worked up through the couloir and came out upon
the easier grades of the broad face of the mountain.
It was a perfect day, but there had been recent snow
9

that made the holds more uncertain than usual.
Nevertheless, all went well until, just before we got
to the snow shoulder, one of the party began to be
distressed by the rarity of the atmosphere. A
halt was promptly called, and a rest of half an hour
resulted in such an improvement that it was con
sidered safe to continue.
We had passed the snow shoulder, which has an ele
vation of fourteen thousand feet, and werehigh up on the
last cliff, when the mountain sickness again attacked
the unlucky one, this time with greater violence.
We were in a bad place; we were just about where
Mr. Haddow slipped, and beneath us yawned the
abyss into which Lord Douglas fell and was never
found; to attempt to finish the final two or three
hundred feet with a sick man would have been
foolhardy beyond excuse, so the order was given to
get back to the snow shoulder, and slowly, inch by
inch, we worked down to temporary safety.
Here a long rest somewhat restored the strength
of the sufferer and the descent was resumed. Every
foot of retreat from the regions of thin air brought
improvement, and by the time we were half-way
down, the recovery was complete.
We neared the couloir. This is a great gully in the
Eastern face of the mountain, toward which a large
area concaves upon either side. There is a section
of two or three hundred feet through which it is
necessary to pass, where the climber is exposed to
possible danger from falling rocks, but they fall so
10

infrequently that they are not considered to be an
imminent peril. When these rock avalanches do
take place, it is generally late in the afternoon when
the sun has melted the ice and released some loosened
stones. The exposed portion is almost perpendicular
and the climber is often swinging in the air while the
guide carefully pays out the rope from above.
We were descending this section in couples, a guide
to each, and were half-way down when Taugwalder,
my guide and the last man, gave a warning cry.
From far above came a rumbling sound that told
us but too well that a fall of rocks had begun.
Shouting to those below to get to cover, we flattened
ourselves into the nearest shallow crevice, and with
eyes strained aloft, ready to duck and dodge, awaited
the coming cannonade.
For a few seconds nothing was to be seen on ac
count of the irregular course of the couloir, but in
another moment a big boulder shot into view, falling
with ever increasing velocity, closely followed by a
mass of smaller stones, ice and snow. Down thun
dered the great rock, ricochetting in tremendous
bounds from side to side, splintering off other frag
ments where it struck as it smashed along its zig
zag course, while the crash and roar echoed and re
echoed far and wide.
A fortunate bulge in the wall fifty feet above us
deflected the larger boulders from our immediate
vicinity, and we heard their sinister hum as they
whizzed past us at a safe distance, but smaller rocks
11

falling at slower speeds and different angles rained
all about us. One the size of a walnut struck my
shoulder and numbed my arm for the rest of the day.
Full of anxiety for the others, we hurried our de
scent, and in a few minutes came to a blood-stained rock
— I do not like to remember that moment. We tore
down the remaining distance to the foot of the couloir,
and to our unspeakable relief, found all four on the
edgeof the glacier, safely out of the sweep of the guUey.
One poor chap lay with his head in his guide's lap.
He had had indeed a close call. He was clinging to
his holds when the fall occurred. A fragment struck
just above his head, and, glancing off, had just grazed
his forehead, inflicting a severe scalp wound and
nearly knocking him senseless. Fortunately they
were near the bottom, and he had been speedily helped
to safety; the hemorrhage had been checked with a
handful of snow, and with a handkerchief bound over
the cut, he was rapidly recovering from the shock.
In a little while the boy was his plucky self again;
between two guides he was helped down the long,
easy descent to Zermatt, and was soon in the hands of
the surgeon.
Surely Azrael's wing had brushed by our party.
But there is no true sport without its risks, and he
who would always be quite safe, must miss some of
the greatest joys of living.

12

"-~*^

The Round-Up
In the early seventies a Colorado ranchman
was closeted with a Boston banker endeavoring
to borrow money on his cattle to enlarge his herd.
The banker listened carefully as the Westerner
approached the subject of collateral. "These ani
mals of yours, how many have you ?"
The cattle owner named a round number, amply
sufficient to secure the sum desired.
"Just where are they ?"
"On the Colorado range."
"In what sort of an enclosure ?"
The explanation was given that it was impractic
able to fence in great herds of animals which, to
thrive, must have their movements as little interfered
with as the buffalo that frequently grazed beside
them. The banker opened his eyes — "Do you mean to
tell me that there is nothing to keep these creatures
from running away ?"
"Nothing but the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf
of Mexico." 13

"My good sir, I would as soon loan money on a
school of herring in Boston harbor!"
Doubtless the average Eastern man of that time
would have been in entire accord with the astonished
financier, but it is now very generally known that
there are few great industries more systematically
managed or better protected, both by legislative acts
and corporate organization, than is the raising of
cattle on the great plains of the West. The several
State associations have their experienced officers
to hunt down and prosecute thieves and maintain
such efficient inspectors at the great stock yards of
Omaha, Chicago and St. Louis that it is well nigh
impossible for the cleverest swindler to sell a brand
that is not his own.
It has long been known that cattle will seldom
cross certain great natural barriers, if within them
they find water, feed and tranquillity. Acting
upon this characteristic, the legislators of the far
West early divided their territory into range Districts,
the confines of which followed these natural bound
aries regardless of county lines. Thus District No.
II in Colorado contains parts of three counties and
consists of the rough triangle, over one hundred
miles long from east to west, having for its three sides
the South Platte river, Lodge Pole creek and the
foothills of the Rocky Mountains. A few "pil
grims" occasionally wander across the border, to be
picked up and pushed back on the next round-up of
the adjoining district, but the great mass roam
14

contentedly about their home range, and nothing
but a winter blizzard of unusual duration will make
them "quit the country."
It may be prefaced that each district is the com
mon range of all the ranches within its limits, all of
whose stock mingle together, distinguished only by
the several ranch brands.
The management of affairs in Colorado is regu
lated as follows: Three commissioners are annually
appointed by the Governor for each district, and are
usually the three largest owners of cattle therein.
They meet and appoint the round-up Captain, who
is the unquestioned autocrat on all questions con
cerning the practical handling of the herds for the
ensuing year. The times for the spring round-up,
for the branding of calves and of the fall round-up
or "beef gather" are established by the General
Association and are usually the same from year to
year. Shortly before each date the Captain sends notice
to each ranch owner to have his "outfit" at the
customary starting point upon the day appointed,
prepared to work their common range on the general
round-up. An outfit consists of a foreman, who is a
plainsman of long experience and proved reliability,
who knows every buffalo wallow in the district and
can handle men; the grub wagon and the bed
wagon for handling food supplies and camp baggage;
the cook and his helper, who may be indifferent
culinary artists, but who must be expert teamsters to
15

keep their heavily laden Studebakers right side up as
they drive their teams of half-broken bronchos over
the uneven trails and across the treacherous fords of
the route; eight or ten "punchers" and the day and
night "horse-wranglers," who have charge of the
"horse-caviard," made up of the strings of ponies
assigned to the riders at the commencement of the
season. Each man is expected to furnish his own
saddle, bridle, blankets and "warbag" of waterproof
duck for extra clothing. The foreman and top
hands frequently add a small A tent to this equip
ment. Although there is much general information
current concerning the life of the plainsman, not
many have an accurate idea of his arduous labors in
detail, or appreciate the long hours of exhausting
toil that make up each day's duty. Let no con
valescent or physical weakling join a thoroughbred
outfit on the beef round-up. The great disciplined
mass of men and horses sweeps like a cavalry raid
over the prescribed course; so much territory must
be covered each day, and he who fails to keep up the
pace must be left behind. Sweltering in the heat,
tormented by thirst and half choked with the dust
in the alkali region, or drenched and shivering in
rain-soaked clothing, pelted with hail and menaced
with the sharp lightning that has brought down
several luckless riders in the foothills, often faint
with hunger, sometimes reeling dizzily in his saddle
from fatigue and loss of sleep, the cow-boy is fre-
16

quently called upon to undergo days and nights of
privation and exposure that test to the utmost the
endurance of the strongest constitutions.
He has always been the most unique and pictur
esque character of the American frontier, but he
belongs to the second transitory period of every new
country's development; the day of the nomad
huntsman has passed, that of the herdsman is well
nigh over, and already the husbandman is taking his
place as final legatee. The slowly westering rain-
belt, government liberality and the barbed-wire
fence are already establishing "the man with the
hoe" as a permanent dweller upon these broad
prairies. Tracts that ten or fifteen years ago were
thought incapable of supporting anything but
buffalo bunch grass are now covered with cottonwood
groves and flourishing crops; no arid waste seems
unpromising enough to disconcert the hopeful and
persevering settler; he plants his sod corn with
sublime disregard of adverse probabilities, and with
irrigation would grow potatoes on a granite tomb
stone. Inasmuch, then, as the ranchman and his men
belong to a rapidly passing phase of national pro
gress, there may be some interest in following them
over the range for a single twenty-four hours before
the round-up is relegated to ancient history.
It is three o'clock of a September morning on the
great plains to the east of the Rockies. The briUiant
constellations in that rarefied atmosphere bathe the
17

landscape in a dim twilight that reveals a bivouac
of the general Beef Gather. The position of each
separate camp may be marked by the dull red glow
of its smouldering buffalo-chip fire, near the great
wagons that loom up shadovpy and indistinct in the
centre of each outfit. In the nearest group the
muffled forms of some of the men appear, lying about
here and there, each with his head pillowed upon his
saddle, while a little apart, through the gloom may
be discerned the small, white, sharp-pointed tents
of the others. Near by tinkles the bell of the grazing
horse cavvy, and the soft night wind, rustling the
dried grass as it steals over the plains, brings faintly
to the ear a song of the night guards as they ride
their watch around the beef bunch.
The measured beat of a horse's hoofs is heard,
drawing nearer and nearer, as one of the last guard
lopes in, awakens the cook from his slumbers in the
grub wagon and hurries back to his post on herd.
That functionary turns out, lets down the board of
the mess kit, freshens his fire and in the starlight
starts his preparations for breakfast.
Half an hour goes by, while the pots and kettles
hiss and sputter, and the smell of food pervades the
camp. It is still dark when, seizing the nearest pan,
he hammers vigorously upon it with his long iron
spoon, and in words which he varies every morning
and over which he taxes his invention from his first
waking moment, he shouts his summons to the
sleepers to "Come to chuck, and come a-runnin'! "
18

The recumbent figures suddenly leap into life;
blankets are rolled up, strapped fast and tossed on
the wagon with the speed and skill of long practice;
in a twinkling down come the little tents and go
flying up to the brawny hand who is deftly packing
the load to preserve its balance.
There follows a hurried rinse from a much-
demanded wash basin, a crowding of hungry men
about the kettles, the proffering of much earnest
but unappreciated advice to the daintily picking
first comers to "fire and fall back" — then each
having helped himself from the common supply,
with steaming cup of black coffee and loaded plate,
selects a spot that is free from cactus, and "holds
it down while he feeds himself a lot."
Suddenly the cook catches sight of a green hand
on the outskirts of the camp, whose peaceful snores
prove that in one case, his elaborate and ingenious call
has failed of its purpose, and, snatching up a heavy
harness, he hustles it with a terrible rattle and clank
of chain traces over the recumbent puncher; the
chorus of practical jokers about the fire shriek a
warning in tones of agonized alarm, while the rudely
aroused sleeper, confident of impending sudden death,
springs to his feet to escape the apprehended stam
pede. He rarely requires a second treatment.
Already the thoroughbred has cleared and
scraped his plate, and is helping to load the grub
wagon. Two or three of the oldest and steadiest
19

hands have relieved the last guard and are moving
slowly up the trail with the beef bunch. The cook,
who is usually a past master in florid and sarcastic
objurgation, is begging the slower ones to sit still till
he brings them their dinners, when up comes the
night wrangler with his bunch of over a hundred
horses. Two lariats are made fast to a wheel and
run out at right angles, and into this space crowd
the neighing, trampling ponies, fresh from their
night's liberty and looking fit enough. Dawn is
just showing a faint gleam in the east, when each
man, with his lariat ready for the cast, walks into
the pushing, scrambling mass to pick his mount for
the day.
This calls for no little skill on the part of the
roper. In the confused blur of compacted horse
flesh before him are the eight or ten particular
ponies that compose his string; it is the turn of an
especial one to be ridden, and this one he must catch
out of more than a hundred others, all tightly
wedged together, when there is hardly light enough
to tell horses from cows. But to the trained eye and
hand of the seasoned rangeman there is nothing
difficult in the feat. He walks quietly in, keeping
warily out of reach of spiteful heels, until he spies
the well-known shape of the wanted one — his lariat
whizzes, the loop settles down on the neck and the
snorting, pulling, disgusted pony is dragged out of
the bunch.
The puncher hates to miss this first throw, for
20

when once the cute beast has received warning that
his services are required, he institutes a most spirited
game of hide and seek with his would-be captor. He
dodges the loop like a boxer, rushes into the thickest
of the crush and hangs down his head, while his
master searches through the labyrinth of legs and
tails, commenting disparagingly and not always
piously upon the tricky cayuse. There is always
more or less of "Seen my gray Gotch .?" "Where in
heaven's (?) that blessed (.?) old Goodeye.?" from
the unfortunates who have failed in their first attempt
and whose cunning brutes are hiding among their
fellows like foxes in their holes. But every moment
brings more daylight and the last lurker is finally
pulled out and saddled for the start.
This is always the most interesting moment of
the day. One or two of the bronchos last caught
show threatening symptoms of mutiny. They stand
quiet enough under the saddle, but there is a wicked
look in the eye, a certain tucked-up appearance in the
attitude that fills the outfit with pleasant anticipations
of an entertaining performance to begin the day
with. Cheerful observations of a hardly reassuring
nature are freely indulged in by mischievous com
rades, such as "He's goin' down after ye properly
this mornin'," "Stockin' Foot's got a shore hump
in 'is back," "Goin' to pound yer pig skin some ?"
" Got your pitchin' pony, I see," " Billy's just abaout
ter git nachelly spanked." If Billy happens to be
a top-rider the running fire of chaff is accepted as
21

graceful tribute to his skill; he is proud of his repu
tation, and he listens with a superior smile while he
leisurely coils up his lariat and makes it fast to the
saddle. A moment to make sure of bit and cinches,
then he springs into his seat — his wild whoop, weight,
spurs and quirt seem to hit the pony all at once, and,
as a rule, scare most of the deviltry out of him, so
that after a few frightened kicks and plunges he is
effectually "gentled" for the day.
But perhaps the rider of the other dubious beast
is new to the business. The jokes of the Job's
comforters fill him with uneasy forebodings, and
after leading his mount aimlessly here and there a
moment he brings up beside a noted "buster" with
" Say, Bob, jest take the wire aidge offen this bronch,
won't yer; he'll chuck me a-windin' the first buck."
"Don't hafter," usually replies Bob, who has no idea
of robbing the outfit of a spectacle that is certainly
excruciatingly funny to all save the much demora
lized victim. If the expert continues obdurate,
there is no help for it, and with his heart in his mouth,
the timid one throws his leg over the saddle with a
feeble grin at his fellows, as his moriturus saluto.
Sometimes, to his unspeakable relief, the pony has
been misjudged, and walks off like a lamb, to the
undisguised disgust of the expectant bystanders,
who feel themselves defrauded, and even shy a
sombrero or two at his heels in the hope of arousing
a proper spirit. On the other hand, if the sulk has
been genuine, the rider has hardly touched the saddle
22

when the universe seems to "slip a cog," and if he
loses his nerve, he does not quite comprehend what
is happening to him, until he picks himself up from
the prairie amid the laughter of his friends, and with
more or less prickly-pear points in his epidermis to
recall the event.
Riding a buck jumper is a knack only attained
by practice. One may have been at home in the
saddle from childhood, but an entirely new experience
is in store for him who finds himself for the first time
across a thoroughly ugly broncho. The brute is
quick as a cat — in a trice he throws his head between
his forelegs and up go his hind-quarters, as if he
were going to turn a hand-spring — the same instant
down they come with a crash that almost sends the
rider's backbone through his hat, and up come the
withers until he stands erect as a bear at bay. This
alternate fore and aft pitching is kept up, quick as
thought, accompanied in transitu by a side twist
that is mortally hard to sit, and the whole series of
complex convulsions is accomplished in some way
with legs as stiff as a saw buck's, so that each plunge
and rear ends with a most terrific jar. Thus a very
fair horseman, sorely shaken and bewildered by the
rapid succession of violent jerks and wrenches, will
almost inevitably yield for the moment to the blind
instinct to hold on for dear life — which is just what
he should not do.
It is remarkable what a good effect the shouting
laughter of the onlookers sometimes has upon the
4 23

half dazed, clinging novice just at this critical
moment. As the ironical "Sta-a-y with 'im!" of
the delighted punchers strikes his ear, a sense of
the supremely ridiculous entertainment he is fur
nishing flashes over him — the shocks to his anatomy
are nothing to that suffered by his amour propre —
and it is laughable to recall how with the instant
return of shattered wits, comes a mad rush of wild
and uncontrollable fury, most disproportionate to
the occasion, that makes him stop "choking the
horn" and turn himself loose with reversed quirt and
savage spurs to club and rowel that jumping, jolting,
jarring earthquake, till the vicious rascal finds there
is some one on the hurricane deck who means to stay
there. The tussle is usually short and sharp; persistent
punishment and the animal's own violent exertions
generally bring a speedy end to the rebellion —
there is a sudden, final bolt of a few hundred
yards, and the panting, sweating pony is back at the
wagon, with his master looking half ashamed over
the welts and scratches that fresco his horse's hide,
and feeling very glad that he is out of reach of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
All are in the saddle; at the word the drivers
crack their whips over their waiting teams and with
a creak and a lurch the heavily loaded wheels "hit
the trail" for the next camping place, some twelve
or fourteen miles distant. The foreman, who has
24

i^^^'^r

A Typical Colorado Ranch Foreman and Riders.

received his orders from the Captain overnight, takes
a quick look at his "mob" to see who ride the best
horses, then it is "Bob, Charlie, Ike, Mont and
Billy come with me on the outside; Jack, you take
Lou, Pete, Tom and Joe and drive the road." In
other words the Captain has directed this outfit to
drive forward all the cattle found in a straight line
to the next round-up ground, and also all those on
the outside circle, or farthest edge of the area to be
covered for the day, while the riders of the other
ranches will sweep in all that lie between. As the
course is West the foreman will take his men twelve
or fifteen miles due North to some well-known
boundary, and then turning drive everything in the
path of a quarter circle Southwesterly to the appointed
place of meeting.
"This way, you waddies!" and Jack leads off
leisurely in the wake of the departing wagons. The
two squads fall apart; the foreman and his men
strike at once into a brisk gallop, for their long,
circuitous route of twenty-five or thirty miles calls
for all speed while unencumbered with accumulated
cattle. There are few experiences in life as full of ex
ultant, delirious exhilaration as this mad scamper
over a Western prairie in the early dawn. Take
five or six young men, bound together as a rule in
that hearty good-fellowship that comes from the
mutual sharing of wearying labor and frequent
peril, mount them upon as many capital horses, put
25

them in charge of a quiet, sensible, forceful man
whom they thoroughly respect and like, and they
form a party that in its jolly, sympathetic cama
raderie is most delightful and complete. The upper
limb of the sun has not risen above the horizon, but
the East is aflame with the promised event. The
cool freshness of the night is still on the air and it is
a luxury to breathe.
The bounding spring of the pony under the saddle
proves him full of the spirit and vigor of the new day
and beneath his long, tireless lope the miles fly to the
rear. The big jack rabbits scuttle out from under
the sage brush and with ears erect go sailing away
with their long, jerky leaps; a band of antelopes
surprised in a cozy draw, start to their feet and then
stare for one startled instant, then vanish in a cloud
of dust over into another swale; a sneaking coyote
is spied slinking away to his hole — there is a popping
of six-shooters and generally only a somewhat
scared and sprinkled fugitive as a result; a quick
swerve of the horses reveals a coiled rattler, sounding
his alarm and ready to strike; the nearest rider
leaps to the ground, dexterously stuns the reptile
with his long quirt, smashes his head and adding
the rattles to the string around his hat, races after
his fellows.
Thus, with ever-recurring incident and change
of scene the party pushes on, now walking awhile
to breathe the horses and again resuming the rapid
26

pace; the gently rolling hills rise and fall, the sun
climbs slowly higher and higher, and finally the
foreman espies in the distance the landmark that
limits his northern advance. Halting about two
miles this side he explains the course to such as
need to be informed, then dropping a man every
quarter mile he continues on till he reaches the
point. The horses' heads are now turned to the
West, the line moves steadily forward, the riders
driving everything before them in gradually con
verging paths, and the real work of the day has
begun. Throwing the scattered groups of cattle in one
bunch as fast as they come up with them, the ever-
increasing herd is urged forward at what seems a
snail's pace after the delightful dash from camp.
The weary miles drag slowly by; hurrying the
heavy steers is strictly prohibited; the sun beats
fiercely down as over the hot sand hills and across
beds of alkali tossed in clouds of suffocating dust by
the shuffling, rattling hoofs, the more or less patient
punchers push their charges onward at a steady
walk. It is a sinister looking lot that about 12 or
I o'clock arrives at the round-up ground. Men and
animals are white with dust; beneath each broad
sombrero is seen but two irritated and inflamed eyes,
the nose, mouth and chin being covered by vari
colored handkerchiefs, that make the new-comers
look more like the masked participants in a lynch
ing bee than peaceable, law-abiding ranchmen.
27

Jack's men, who were first on the ground, have long
since "worked" the other bunches, now drive their
"culls" near to the foreman's herd, and reinforcing
the tired outsiders, begin to run out the four-year-
olds bearing the ranch brand. In half an hour the
"cut" is completed and the bunch turned over to the
Captain, who signals to a waiting group that their
turn has come. "Throw them into the cavvy, boys,"
orders the foreman, and leads the way to his own
beef herd that is feeding quietly a mile or so distant.
Soon the morning's gather is merged in the main
body, and at the welcome "go to camp" that the
good-natured boss always loves to shout when the
work is done, the tired and hungry riders, who have
been ten hours in the saddle, with a whoop that
their plucky but "gaunted" ponies fully under
stand, make a headlong bolt for the wagons — a
quick jerk at cinches and headstall and the unen
cumbered, liberated broncho throws himself on his
back, rolls over and over with grunts of satisfaction
and then trots off to his fellows, while his recent
rider loses no time in getting into the immediate
vicinity of the waiting dinner. The summons to
" fly at it " never seemed so welcome and the fatigued
and half famished fellows work sudden and dire
havoc in the midst of the ample preparations.
The cook, who is usually a favorite with the boys,
and is as a rule flattered by their vigorously demon
strated appreciation of his labors, hides his satis
faction by grumbling and blustering about, all the
28

~^ f If ^

t

time helping everybody liberally and finally survey
ing his empty kettles in a well simulated dumb
despair, stalks solemnly over to the foreman and,
declaring that he would rather cook for a pack of
timber wolves, formally throws up his job and
demands his "time." The boss grins serenely at
the time-honored threat, and consulting his book
details three or four to relieve the men on herd, who
forthwith mount fresh horses and take the places of
those who soon come loping into camp.
If there happens to be nothing further to be
done, those off duty now enjoy a few hours' rest.
Pipes are lit, blankets sunned, war bags overhauled
and lost sleep made up. The foreman, however, can
seldom indulge himself in the luxury of even a brief
idleness. His duties are many and varied. There is
a trail herd passing by bound for Wyoming or
Montana, and he must ride through it to see that it
has picked up no strays of his brand while passing
through his district; he is wanted by the Captain at
a council to determine some of the frequent questions
arising daily on the round-up; or he is making a
quiet round of his beef bunch to see that the feeding
ground is well selected and that those "on herd" are
handling the great steers quietly and not fretting
them by needless restraint. His place calls for
ability of a high class; he is usually the best rider
and roper in the outfit. He must be absolutely
fearless, firm and fair with his men; considerate and
kind, but hardly familiar, for he has all sorts of
29

characters to handle. He must be equally able to
call down a dangerous insubordinate, detect and
punish a shirk, or encourage and instruct the timor
ous tenderfoot. He must know the peculiar powers
and limits of every man and horse under his control,
and while apportioning the duty of each to his
ability, avoid the smallest appearance of favor.
His horse is always saddled and his string is the
cream of the bunch. In wind storm and cloudburst,
in rain, hail and snow, he is always "on the bridge,"
and in the midnight stampede the despairing guards
take a deep breath of relief as he flies past them to the
"point" and takes command. Here's to you. Bob
Barr! Just before sunset supper is dispatched; the day
wrangler drives up his charges; each man catches
his night horse and all ride out and move the beef
bunch over to the "bed ground" that has been care
fully selected during the afternoon. The whole
force is divided into four reliefs of four men each;
first watch from seven till ten, second from ten till
twelve, third from twelve till two, and last from two
till four. The foreman reads the names of those on
each relief, and after holding the compacted herd
together until it has quieted down, the first guard takes
charge, and the rest, returning to camp, picket their
mounts and roll up in their blankets to sleep until
called to stand their turn.
Each man has in his string this one horse that
is sacred to night-work, and as his life sometimes
30

depends upon the animal's sagacity, he is chosen
for his surefootedness and his ability to see in the
dark. He is never used for any day work and
becomes wonderfully intelligent and expert in all
that is required of him; he must be strong, swift
and steady; a fretful, snorting, nervous pony is a
most dangerous thing around a beef bunch at night,
for the big steers are as timid as deer; a sudden
frightened jump will sometimes send the whole
sleeping herd to its feet, and a stumble and flounder
has been enough to start a stampede. To guard
against sudden panic, the watch usually ride their
rounds singing or whistling, and this with the jingle
of spur and bit chains, and the flap and clank of
saddle accoutrements, are all valued as producing
the continued evidence of their protective presence,
which diminishes the dangerous effect of any un
expected noise.
The songs of the range are seldom jovial. To
begin with, there is a kind of plaintive timbre in
the voices of some of these plainsbred boys — a
mournful modulation that becomes emphasized in
singing, and as the minor cadences of the rude
harmony rise and fall, there comes the irresistible
feeling that they are the far echoes of the bravely
unuttered repinings, the starved and homesick
longings of the boy's lonely mother, as day after day
she sat at the door of the lowly sod house, comfort
ing herself with a mental mirage of former scenes,
as she strained her eyes to the East over the wind-
31

swept mesa. The ballads themselves are usually
tragic or pathetic.
Left to themselves the first guard, consisting
of three top hands and one newcomer, strike into
a slow trot and swing steadily around the herd at
equal distances from each other. Ordinarily this
must be kept up the first hour, for the newly-caught
cattle try to leave the bunch and return to their
familiar feeding grounds. It is a nasty part of the
range where here and there the perfectly flat prairie
suddenly gaps in precipitous little caiions from thirty
to forty feet deep and where, if a stampede should
occur, the chances are that it would end in a pro
miscuous pile of men and animals at the bottom of
some little gulch. The night grows dark and
squally, the wind rises, and the inexperienced one
tries most unsuccessfully to keep the bearings of
two particularly deep and ugly traps which he had
located in the daylight and the position of which he
considers it extremely advisable to remember in
case the cattle break in that direction. All at once
the rider in front of him strikes up a song —
The summer sun was setting
And hung with lingering ray
On the banks of the Palmetto
Where the wounded ranger lay.
The following verses develop the fact that the
Texas Rangers had had a brush with some horse-
thieves and this unfortunate had received his death
wound; the most affecting dying messages to family
32

and friends are rehearsed in unsparing detail, and
not finding himself in an appreciative mood the
tenderfoot pulls up and falls in behind the next man,
just as the bereaved rangers are laying their comrade
in the cold grave, "with his saddle for a pillow and
the Lone Star on his breast."
For a few moments the round is pursued in
grateful silence, and then his new predecessor
starts the second nocturne. This time it is an
interesting tale of a bad man who had been finally
corralled by the Vigilantes and was to die the next
morning of throat trouble in the presence of his
fellow citizens. With some pride he recapitulates
his wild career and recites such a list of gruesome
crimes that the unwilling listener sighs regretfully
for a renewal of the obsequies of the dying ranger.
At last it comes to an end. Again nothing is
heard but the steady tramp of the horses, and sated
with death and lawlessness the new beginner hopes
that the next selection from the repertoire will
be whistled. A veer in the wind brings faintly to
the ears the yelp of a prowling coyote in the distant
hills and, considering that he has received his cue,
the third serenader opens up with —
Oh, bury me not on the lone prairee
Where the wild coyote will howl over me
In a narrow grave jest six by three
Oh, bury me not on the lone prairee.
The unseasoned auditor feels his hair begin to rise,
33

for this song relates to a poor chap who had been
mortally hurt in a stampede and to his shattered
nerves the singer seems to be tempting fate. As if
reveling in the painful scene the following stanzas
proceed. "It mattered not, so he'd been told,
where the body lies when the heart grows cold,"
but he most pathetically insists that it does make
a difference to him, and after dwelling upon the
piteous pleadings to be laid in the quiet churchyard
at home the rhyme ends by stating that "they
buried him there on the lone prairee." When his
turn comes the only thing he can think of is the
"Dead March in Saul," and as he can think of no
words to it he keeps silent. At length one of the
others rides up to him with the welcome "Call the
second relief — ^you needn't come back, mister, for
we can hold 'em," and he rides to camp, turns out
the next guard and hunts his blankets, feeling like
offering up a burnt offering for being still alive.
The genus Cowboy is unusually interesting and
attractive. He is not only dashing, reckless, hardy
and loyal to his ranch, but he is constantly giving
unmistakable evidences of a fineness and delicacy of
feeling not generally looked for in men who live
such lives of toil and exposure— here is an instance.
It is high noon and a lumbering grub-wagon,
drawn by its four wiry bronchos, turns off the trail
and creaks and lurches on to the camping ground.
34

The cook, huge, round-shouldered, red-bearded,
and white with alkali dust, swings stiffly down from
his seat and unharnesses and turns loose his sweating
team. As he wipes his dripping face, he glances at the
sun and growls profanely at the short time left in
which to prepare for the riders who will soon come
racing into camp, wild as winter wolves for their food.
Gathering a sack of buffalo-chips, he deftly starts
his fire and soon his kettles are bubbling and steam
ing. Turning from his mess-box to the other side of
the wagon for some supplies, he stops as if struck by
a rattler. The keen eyes under the bushy brows soften as
he stoops down and gently parts the bunch-grass
with his knotty fingers.
"Thet boss cavy'll tromp 'em ter bits!" he mutters,
for on this side the ponies will be driven up for fresh
mounts. If he could only shelter the spot by the big wagon-
body —
He throws his great weight against one of the
wheels in a desperate effort, but the heavy load has
already sunk them felloe-deep in the yielding loam,
and he cannot move it an inch.
There is no time to catch and reharness his horses,
so inverting an empty box over the spot, he sets a
pan of flour upon it — a taboo that no cowboy ever
ignores — and returns to his work.
35

The hungry horde comes scampering into camp
in a cloud of dust, the saddles are tumbled to the
ground, the freed ponies trot away to the bunch and
the riders sprawl here and there for a few moments'
welcome rest.
" Git a'holt o' these wheels, waddies, an' turn the
wagon so's the wind won't blow the grub into the
crick!" No one stirs. There is no wind. The tired men
eye him askance.
"None o' yer lallapaloosas. Cooky!" says one.
"Plumb locoed at last!" announces another.
Addressing his pots and pans, the cook solilo
quizes, " 'Taint so fur to Wildcat ter-morrer, as it
wuz frum Lone Tree here, an' ef it wornt sich a
pizen, lazy lot o' outlaws, I mought git time ter bake
pies." It is an irresistible bribe. With a whoop every
man springs to his feet. They don't understand
why, but Cooky wants his wagon moved, and his
pies are the proud boast of the outfit, the envy of
the entire district. So with two husky punchers at
each wheel and half a dozen more at the tongue,
in a trice they have rolled the great wagon directly
over the inverted box.
On all sides surges the boisterous activity of the
camp. Twice the trampling, kicking horse caviard is
driven up to the wheels, and within a few inches of

36

the guarded spot the prairie is beaten hard and flat
by a thousand hoofs, but the box is undisturbed.
Next morning when camp is broken, on one pre
tence and another the cook, hitherto the most punc
tual man in the outfit, delays until all the riders have
gone, then starts his team a few feet, climbs down
and carefully lifts the box.
There safe and sound lie three tiny speckled eggs
of the little ground-bird, and as he moves away
there comes a fluttering whirr of wings, as with
joyful twitterings the mother-bird darts swiftly down
upon her restored nest.
"That was a kind thing to do, Cal," said one who
had been puzzled by the cook's conduct, and in
hiding had shamelessly spied upon the denouement.
"The hell it was!" and the startled and embar
rassed man mounted hastily to his seat and drove
off, swearing with entirely unnecessary vehemence
at his unoffending team.
Hulking, blustering giant, under his coarse, rough
shell, beat the tender heart of a little child. One
of those who " do good by stealth and blush to find
it fame," he avoided the sole witness of his act
for days thereafter, and absolutely refused to meet
his approving eye.

37

A Peruvian Bull- Fight

There are bull-fights and bull-fights. There is
the sort favored in Spain, Mexico and (recently)
in Cuba which is a sickening horror; where the
horses of the Toreadors are blindfolded and de
liberately exposed to the charge of the bull, who rips
and gores the helpless animals with very little
hindrance from the riders, for the slaughter of the
horses has become the most eagerly demanded
feature of the game.
Such an exhibition of shocking cruelty, destitute
as it is of the faintest vestige of fair play, awakening
and fostering as it does that tigerish thirst for blood
that lies dormant in human nature, is a public
amusement that embrutes and debases the spectators,
and is a shame and disgrace to any civilized people.
But while this is true of the custom in the places
named, the bull-fights of Venezuela and Peru
present many of the elements of true sport, with such
a minimum of objectionable points that an ordinary
Christian may attend and come away without
despising himself for what he has seen.
38

Early in the Game.

Later.

The first contrast that strikes one is that the
horses are not pitiful old screws, the poor blinded
sacrifices to the mob's appetite for blood, but the
most beautiful animals to be seen in the whole
country, their eyes bright and flashing with spirit,
richly caparisoned, protected by broad leather
shields, and ridden by the men who own them,
whose entire wealth they frequently represent. They
are trained until they understand and enjoy the
game as well as a polo pony, are ridden and handled
with consummate care and skill, are soothed, praised
and petted by their masters as occasion arises, and
prove themselves pampered favorites in every dainty
step and motion. Their intelligence and schooling
is such that they are seldom hurt. In the Corrida
de Toros at Lima, six bulls were killed on the after
noon here referred to and not a horse was touched.
The ofllice of their riders, called here the Capea-
dores de a caballo, is to deal with the bull's fresh en
thusiasm when he enters the ring — to play with his
first five or six rushes, which are so fast and fierce
as would materially embarrass men dependent
upon their own legs to get out of the way.
When he bursts out of the dark, narrow alley
into the broad glare of the arena he stands a moment
astonished and irresolute. The nearest Capeadore
rides slowly toward him, flaunting his capa; the
challenge is instantly accepted, and with lowered
head he charges down upon the offered defiance;
just at the last moment the horse swerves to one side
4 39

and the vigorous toss that would have lifted both
antagonists into the air meets only the empty folds
of the capa.
Quickly wheeling, he repeats the same manoeuver
frequently several times in a minute, dodging about
in a marvelously small area, horse and rider acting
in perfect accord, displaying wonderful agility and
judgment, and always keeping just beyond the sharp
thrusting horns of the now panting toro. A very
few minutes spent in wasting this tremendous
energy upon nothing brings him to a momentary
standstill and the part of the horsemen is finished.
The same tactics are now taken up by the Capea-
dores on foot, and with them advance the Banderil-
leros, bearing their little steel pointed darts. Very
strict rules govern the placing of the banderillas.
They must never be thrown, and the attack must
be made from the front. With one in each hand,
the expert is required to push both points simul
taneously into the bull's withers, one on either side
of the backbone, and leap aside in time to save
himself. It is a dangerous trick, well applauded
when successful, but when it fails the hoots and jeers
of the crowd are still more generously given. The
sharp barb, hooked into the thick hide, frets and
irritates him, but it is to be doubted if it occasions
any severer suffering than the ordinary prod of the
oxgoad. At all events, it is of short duration, for
after the planting of two or three pairs, all respect
fully fall back as an Espada, with his rich cloak and
40

The Last Charge.

Exit.

bright sword, advances to execute the final act, which
calls for the greatest nerve and dexterity of the entire
performance. :
The bull is not to be butchered, but is to be killed
in a fair fight, governed by inflexible regulations that
make the' deed most difficult and hazardous. The
thrust must be given vsrhile standing in the direct
path of the charge, and to insure full career the bull's
forelegs must be together, or the swordsman must
leap to one side, and wait until the conditions re
quired by the rules are all present.
In his gorgeous costume the Espada is a picture of
athletic grace. He fans about his big, infuriated
foe with his capa until he has him in exactly the
desired position; suddenly he stiffens to rigidity, and
as the great bulk comes thundering down on him
there is a sudden flash of steel, a spring out of the
way, and the doomed quadruped staggers a few
steps and falls dead with the sword through his heart.
The Arrastradores at once ride in with their team
of horses and drag away the fallen fighter; the band
strikes up a lively air, while the triumphant Matador
bows his way around the ring, busily engaged in
tossing back the hats which his shouting admirers
throw at him by the score.
It is not designed to discuss here what effect such
an exhibition has upon the manners and morals
of a nation. The Anglo-Saxon stranger is first
interested in the nearer question whether or not the
sport, conducted as described, is a cruel one.
41

No one who has watched the great herds of cattle
running wild over the ranges of Colorado, Wyoming
or Montana will deny that the bull is a most courage
ous animal, a born fighter that loves to fight, and he
is not at all afraid when he faces his final fate. His
enemies are always in front of him, he is free to hurl
himself upon them, and as he does so and his blood
warms to the work, it is hardly probable that he
suffers much from the prick of the banderillas.
In the excitement of battle, men are often severely
wounded without feeling it, and it is greatly to be
doubted if in the fever of violent exertion the bull is
much pained by a few small punctures in his tough
hide. As for the final thrust, it is expert work that
men devote years to perfecting, and upon which
their lives, reputation and livelihood depend. It is
seldom bungled, so it may be asserted that an
animal is rarely killed in a more humane manner.
The struggle is a short one, the time occupied
from his entrance to his exit being usually from
fifteen to twenty minutes, and could the alternatives
be presented to him, whether to be tamely knocked
in the head in some reeking shambles, or to meet
death in the sunshine, filled with the pride and joy
of the fight, while his blood is hot and his heart
strong — to get his quietus in the fierce rage and fury
of the charge — it is altogether likely that he would
choose the bull-ring.

42

Over the Chilkoot Pass
in 1898

The Gold Rush to the Klondike in 1898 will long
be remembered.
In July, 1897, forty weather-beaten miners had
sailed into San Francisco Bay with bulging bags
of gold dust from the far North, and the newspapers
were filled with the more or less accurate reports
of the richness of the new find.
Miners from all over the world at once hurried to
this latest El Dorado.
At first, Victoria and Juneau were the chief out
fitting points for the Dawson trail, but the citizens
of Seattle saw their opportunity, crammed their
warehouses with the required merchandise of such
quality and quantity that the miner could outfit
there better than anywhere else, and thus in 1898
Seattle enjoyed the biggest business boom of its
history. February of this year found it swarming with
adventurers from every country and clime. The
43

Australian was there from Coolgardie; men from
Kimberly and the gold reefs of South Africa; miners
who had sought the yellow metal over the frozen
tundras of Siberia, and some from the arroyos of
Peru; wiry old veterans harking back to California
days in "forty-nine," diggers fresh from the gulches
of Colorado and from the entire Rocky Mountain
range from Mexico to the Mackenzie.
There were those whose search had already re
warded them beyond the need of further exertion, but
who, from sheer love of the life, were outfitting gener
ously for another bout with Fortune; others whose
meagre belongings eloquently told the story of hard
luck; and again others with nothing but the clothes
they stood in, who had beaten their way thither on
the trucks and bumpers, and were now wandering
about, their faces drawn and pinched with hunger,
hoping for some stroke of luck that should enable
them to enter the Promised Land. These fought
for places as stokers, stewards, and deckhands
on the north-bound steamers, and many were the
return trips with barely enough crew to navigate
the vessel home.
The crowded streets presented a fascinating
character study, thronged as they were with a
heterogeneous mass made up of all races, creeds,
crafts and professions. To and fro surged the
mobs of sunburnt ranchmen and farmers, sturdy
miners, muscular mechanics, white-faced clerks,
doctors, gamblers, priests, soldiers and sailors, all
44

restless of eye, loud of voice and excited in move
ment, hurrying their myriad ways, eager to start
upon the long trail.
Here and there along the water-front one saw bat
tered old schooners long out of commission, being
patched up and fitted with bunks to accommodate
the hundreds who could not afford the steamer
fare; rotten, unseaworthy old hulks whose owners
had sold them for a song, entirely unsuited for the
icy and tempestuous outside voyage to St. Michael's,
but that would pay their cost several times over with
one load of Argonauts — ^whether or not ship and
Argonauts arrived, (and some didn't) troubled the
speculators not at all.
Much of the interior of Alaska is as yet unmapped,
but once at Skagway or Dyea, no one need miss the
way on the Yukon route to Dawson City. It is
merely a matter of crossing the Coast Range by the
Chilkoot or White Pass, to the head waters of the
great river (a distance of about twenty-five miles)
and following it down stream for some six hundred
miles to the Klondike region.
It sounds easy enough, but the difficulties and
dangers of the route call for the utmost care and
foresight in outfitting, and for the greatest nerve, en
durance and skill in the man. He must carry fur
clothing and robes that will protect him in weather
sixty-eight degrees below zero, food to last him a
year, tent, tools, stove and instruments, ever bearing
in mind the necessity of keeping down the weight,
45

as every pound must be packed long distances upon
the backs of men. Two weeks is a short time for
the newcomer to devote to assembling his equipment
and he should carefully consult some one who has
been in the country and knows what is required.
At last sailing day arrives, and crowded with
passengers and deeply laden with freight, the steamer
casts off from the dock, black with cheering spec
tators, and begins the eight hundred mile trip to
Skagway. North of Puget Sound the western margin
of the continent consists of the partly submerged
Coast Range, forming a continuous archipelago of
small, densely wooded islands that frequently rise
steeply to altitudes of from one to three thousand
feet. Between them lie the deep, narrow channels
that extend all the way to Lynn Canal. The voyage
is a beautiful one. The warm Japan Current mod
erates the temperature of the entire coast and in
the moist air all vegetation flourishes with almost
tropical luxuriance. Protected from the stormy
North Pacific by fifty miles of intervening islands,
the waters of these winding narrows are quiet and
smooth. The way lies through mountains of dense
foliage that overhang on every side.
Sometimes the fog shuts in so thick that the
engines are slowed down and the passengers shown
a new and curious feat of skilled pilotage. The man
at the wheel knows the shape of every island on his
course and its relative position to its fellows, and
46

Skagway.

Head of Lynn Canal.

Dyea.

when his next landmark is shrouded in the mist
he sounds a sharp blast with his whistle. By the
time it takes for the echo to be sent back from the
shore, he judges his position and creeps slowly
forward, feeling his way for miles, depending only
upon his ears and his compass.
A few days' steaming brings the boat on a bright
morning to Juneau, spread out at the foot of its
snow-capped mountain, and while mails are thrown
off and freight is trundled ashore, an opportunity
is given for a short stroll about the town. Then the
whistle sounds "all aboard," the hawsers are cast off,
and rounding the island clamorous with the ham
mering stamp mills of the Treadwell mine, the
northerly course is resumed, and it is "full speed
ahead" for the last hundred-mile stretch of the voy
age. Early in the afternoon the wooded islands are left
behind, and as Lynn Canal opens out ahead like a
huge gash deeply cut into the Coast Range of the
mainland, Alaska extends no smiling welcome —
on the contrary, it becomes evident that eight hundred
miles of north latitude brings considerable change
in temperature and landscape. As evening draws
on the sky becomes leaden and overcast. The Taku
is blowing hard down from the glacial regions, cover
ing the sound with white-caps, and soon the steamer
is pitching uneasily in the short seas of the squall.
Bare, bleak and forbidding, the mountains rise
steeply to snowy heights on either side of the long
47

narrow fjord. It is a gloomy, gigantic, overpowering
panorama of barren precipices and far-off frozen
solitudes, the towering ramparts of a somber and
savage land. In the gathering shadows the sur
rounding immensities seem to lower with a sinister
and sullen menace. The biting wind wails over this
vast icy desolation and the darkness and cold overawe
and depress the liveliest spirits. The deck becomes
deserted, the warm bright cabin crowded, and there
is a noticeable current setting towards the bar.
Skagway is built on the sandy delta of a mountain
stream that flows into the head of Lynn Canal.
Late at night the steamer reaches her dock, and the
first and easiest stage of the journey is finished.
Lake Linderman, the first navigable waters of the
Yukon, is reached by two passes, one starting from
Skagway, called the White Pass, and the Chilkoot,
which starts from Dyea, seven miles around the point.
In the morning, all miners and freight going over
the Chilkoot are transferred to a small steamer and
taken to the mouth of the Dyea river. There is no
dock here and everything is lightered ashore in small
flat boats.
Landed at last upon the beach, his goods strewn
about in confusion, and the steamer that brought
him disappearing in the distance, the Chichaka feels
that he has at last arrived.
The distance from tidewater at Dyea to the sum
mit of the Chilkoot Pass is less than twenty miles,
but some of the way is over the roughest trail in
48

the world. The trader at the small post nearby
will contract to transfer freight for some twelve or
fourteen miles to Sheep Camp, where an enterprising
Scotchman has established a steam plant, operating
an endless steel cable, running to the summit of the
pass, to which freight is attached and borne soaring
through the air with an apparent ease that fills the
plodding, stumbling toiler below with the keenest
envy. All supplies are turned over to the pack-
horses, and encumbered only with extra coat and
lunch, the start is made for Sheep Camp.
Now to see what equipment of wind and muscle,
pluck and endurance, the newcomer has brought
to his task. The trail begins smoothly enough along
and frequently across the flat bed of the Dyea river,
but later leads into a narrow, rocky canon, heavily
timbered, beyond which the path zigzags over logs
and stumps, winds tortuously around huge boulders,
up and down steep declivities, till each mile of pro
gress seems gained by at least five of sweating,
struggling, heart-breaking effort. The skill with
which the patient pack-horse threads his weary way
up this rugged trail is truly marvelous, and the miner
who toils along behind, under fifty to a hundred
pounds of camp outfit, awakens both sympathy and
admiration. It is laborious and fatiguing enough
to the one with no burden to carry but himself, and
toward night he reaches the bunk house, cold,
bruised, and breathless, to sleep the sleep of utter
exhaustion. 49

Sheep Camp is just above the timber line and is
bitterly cold and windy. The next morning opens
blustery and overcast. Burns, the cable owner, is
digging his accumulated freight out of the snow that
blows back over it almost as fast as it is uncovered,
hooking it on to the carriers in bulks of from two to
three hundred pounds, and starting it off for the
summit of the pass, four or five miles away. There
are thousands of pounds piled all about, meaning
days of delay before he can promise to touch new
freight, and as there is much that can be done on the
other side of the divide while awaiting its arrival,
it is determined to push on.
Two Indians can easily pack necessaries for a
week, and the Siwash camp is just at hand.
The headman learns what is wanted, takes a look
at the weather and grunts a few words to the half-
breed beside him.
The latter interprets that this is no time to cross,
that the chief says there is a "poorga" coming. The
word means "tempest of death," and many a poor
fellow has found it so. It is the Chilkoot blizzard
and snowslides that constitute the peril of the pass.
The prevailing air currents of this locality blow
from the Pacific heavily laden with moisture, strike the
cold Coast Range, sweep up the deep, narrow
valleys, and develop into violent whirwlinds that rage
about the summits with terrific force and velocity.
Any luckless one caught abroad at this time is at
once bewildered by the clouds of driving snow,
50

Last Ascent, Chilkoot Pass.

The Final Crossing.

blinded by the icy particles that beat with stinging
force into his eyes; his nose and face quickly whiten
and stiffen in the icy gale, while the furious gusts of
deadly cold penetrate the heaviest parka and benumb
and paralyze every limb. At such a time one must
hunt cover, and find it quickly, too, or his travels
are over.
The pass is closed for weeks at a time by these
wild storms and during these delays Sheep Camp
grows larger day by day; tiny tents spring up like
magic on both sides of the trail, and through the
maze of tangled tent ropes, piled-up camp stores,
fighting dogs and tethered pack horses, wander
little groups of impatient men whose time hangs
heavily on their hands.
There is nothing to do but join them. The
resources of indoors are somewhat limited; the bunk
house and saloon offer nothing but very bad whiskey
and stud poker, and the study of the human stream
outside is vastly more entertaining. Acquaintances
are quickly struck up; we are all tramps together,
and what some one has called "the freemasonry of the
road" demands neither credentials nor introductions.
Just after dinner, at the northern end of the Camp,
a mournful group of six men is seen coming down
the trail, each couple bearing between them a body
which had just been dug out of the snow. A few
days before, sixty-three miners had been engulfed
by an avalanche about two miles from the summit
and not one escaped. 51

As the afternoon wears on, the cold increases;
the storm roars up the narrow gorge and it is very
good to be snug in a stout log-hut and near to a
red-hot stove. All night the gale howls and shrieks
overhead, and under warm blankets the Chichaka
thanks his stars for the weather wisdom of the old
Siwash, but for which he might have been caught
out, shelterless and unprepared.
The wind blew itself out toward morning, and as
not much snow had fallen, the two Indians are found
waiting at the door, ready for their loads. Although
the pack of each is over one hundred pounds
(113 and 122), they swing them easily upon their
broad backs and adjusting shoulder and tump-straps,
set off at a brisk pace. All Sheep Camp is astir.
Scores of tents had been struck and their heavily
burdened owners already are strung out in a long,
plodding line showing black against the whiteness
of the way.
The path up which the trail leads from Sheep
Camp presents few difficulties for the first mile or
two. It is the last mile that is steep and dangerous.
As long as one keeps carefully in the middle of the
gorge, he is practically out of reach of the avalanches
that sometimes thunder down from the summits
on either side. The party that was overwhelmed
in April, 1898, was caught in a poorga; they were
blinded by the flying snow, lost the trail, and straying
under the eastern cliffs, were swallowed up in a
snowslide. 52

Miners' Caches, Summit of Chilkoot Pass.

First Descent to Crater Lake.

Soon after the start the sun comes out, making
the ice and snow of the inwalling cliffs sparkle and
glitter with dazzling brilliancy. Here and there,
black and jagged cliffs show where the mountain
sides are too steep to hold the snow. The scenery
is grand and impressive beyond words. The air
is keen and exhilarating. The varying levels of
the track are clearly shown by the long black line
of toiling men reaching far down the valley and
extending on ahead to the last ascent, which is a
cliff so steep that one mostly creeps up upon all
fours. This last half mile is straight up a snow-
covered incline of fifty-five degrees, a short level,
and then another easier ascent, and one finds himself
at the summit, where for an area of half an acre it
is covered with caches of provisions and camp outfits
half buried in the drifting snows.
The hardy miner who packs his supplies over the
pass upon his own back must make many trips.
Most white men can comfortably carry but fifty
pounds up so laborious a climb, so each burden is
carried to the summit, dumped down and left while
the owner returns for another load.
There is little danger of theft. Miners' law is
rough and a thief gets short shrift.
Many a man has packed in this way his entire
outfit across upon his own back, built his boat from
trees felled by his own axe, and gone swiftly sailing
down the great waterway, debtor alone to his own
muscles and skill. All along the route to the gold-
53

fields one continually comes upon caches of pro
visions upon raised platforms out of reach of the
bears. The owners of these stores are miles away,
and this too in a land where food is frequently
beyond price, but they are left in almost absolute
security with no fear of loss. Sometimes a stranded,
starving miner will take what he needs to carry him
to the nearest camp and leave his name and where
he can be found, but his necessity must be conceded
to have been dire or his peril is great.
Although this is the summit of the pass, the im
mense shoulders of the range rise cold and white
above it upon either side. Steep and high as is the
approach, it is but three thousand five hundred feet
above sea level and the lowest point in the Great
Divide. The uncertain weather is giving signs of another
change and to the north the trail down the mountain
is lost in a fog. The summit is no place to linger
in unsettled weather, and as there is a dog team for
hire, the two Indians are paid off and their packs
lashed firmly to the sledge. It is eight or ten miles
from the summit to Lake Linderman and a good
part of the way is what the miners call " a down-hill
push," and the easiest part of the trip.
Crater Lake, the small rocky bowl from which the
mighty Yukon starts on its two-thousand mile route
to the sea, lies just ahead, about three hundred feet
below, at the foot of a rather steep incline, so the
dogs are not yet harnessed, but run alongside, while
54

The Trail over Long Lake, Looking North.

their driver holding tight to the gee pole, and the
passenger dragging back on a tail rope, lower the
sledge carefully down until it rests upon the frozen
level. Here the dogs are fastened to the traces, and
at the "mush on!" of the driver away we go across
to the narrow outlet, down the frozen water-course
to Deep Lake, from thence to Long Lake, ever
descending toward the timber line and Lake Linder
man. The dogs race along over the well-beaten trail
through a very different atmosphere than prevailed
on the south side of the mountains. The ascent was
made in bright sunshine, but now the scampering
team is whisking the sledge on through a misty
wind that fairly pushes us along over the long grades
down hill, till the weight of two men and two hundred
pounds of baggage seem as nothing behind them.
Indeed, this following wind is a great help to the
miner who has to drag his own sledge, for he puts
up a sail and its steady pull lightens his load by
scores of pounds.
Soon the trees begin to appear far off. Later,.
rounding a hill the settlement on the shores of Lake
Linderman spreads out before us, and ere long the
dogs are halted in front of a one-story log shanty
bearing a huge canvas sign, "Red Roof Hotel," and
kept by a cheery old Frenchman, Louis Ballanger^
who kept a bunk house in California in '49 and
whose genius for cooking made him noted from
Linderman to Dawson City.

55

The Dungeons of the
Mamertine

The subterranean works of former times are
always peculiarly interesting, as they generally
continue in a far better state of preservation than the
monuments and buildings above ground. Every
thing upon the surface of the earth is exposed to the
direct action of the irresistible forces of nature:
centuries of sunshine and frost will overcome the
cohesion of the hardest granite and crumble it into
powder; the electric bolt may strike the tallest
tower into a shapeless and blackened ruin; the tiny
seed dropped in a narrow crevice may slowly push
apart the massive blocks of masonry which a thou
sand men dragged painfully into place; the rains of
recurring seasons will undermine the foundations
of the stateliest structures, and over their prostrate
columns the winds slowly pile the dust of ages.
The wants, fanaticisms and strifes of later genera
tions ever menace the existence of these ancient
landmarks; their materials are often incorporated
into the humbler buildings of modern utility, and the
56

archaeologist reads fragments of a Roman emperor's
edict from stones built into the cow-house of a peas
ant. The sculptor of to-day alternately praises the dis
membered torso of Hercules and curses the bar
barous iconoclasts who mutilated its perfections.
The Parthenon at Athens stood one of the best
preserved relics of old Greek art and architecture,
as late as 1687; at that time the city was besieged
by the Venetians, and the Turks fortified the
Acropolis, turning the temple into a powder maga
zine. The subsequent explosion scarred and shat
tered its beautiful sculptures, and the Elgin marbles
in the British Museum are about all that remains
of its exquisite decoration.
But a few feet underground is concealment and
protection from the greater part of natural and
human interference, and wherever the hall, gallery
or tomb is hewn out of hard rock, its duration seems
assured; in its utter isolation, age after age goes by,
generation after generation is born and buried,
nations rise and fall, but the dead silence of this
lower region is unbroken, and the centuries leave
no record of their flight.
It is on this account that newly discovered tombs
of the ancients have always awakened such eager
interest. They are genuine and actual bits of the
dim past. Forgotten and undisturbed, their con
tents have been wonderfully preserved in the drj'^,
even temperature, and one may step with a single
57

stride into the time of the Ptolemies. Here far more
is to be learned than we can glean from the muti
lated manuscript. It is the embalmed mummies
and their surroundings that tell us far more than the
mysterious sphynx and huge pyramids, those un
solved riddles in stone. It is the few grains of wheat
clutched in their dried palms, the graphic pictures on
the walls, the coins, trinkets and utensils found near
by, and the writings upon the linen which has en
shrouded the body so long in its rocky rest, that
give us a far more intimate acquaintance with Egypt's
manners and customs than the colossal monoliths,
with their half obliterated inscriptions, that have
been exposed to the storms of four thousand years.
And so curiosity is on the qui vive whenever one
finds himself in the vicinity of any of these interest
ing sites, and explains why, one hot July morning
we set out from a Roman hotel with an under
ground programme arranged for the day; not
indeed expecting to roam amid relics of Egyptian
antiquity, on the contrary, seeking those of a people
whose origin but dawns in dim mythological legends
at a time when the nation on the Nile had been
venerable for centuries; of that great western
empire that rivaled the power and magnificence of
all its predecessors, that mastered the world and
ruled the land of the Pharaohs as a petty province,
that paved the way for the great Event of all time,
and whose civilizing influence upon the world makes
the study of its history, language and laws far more
58

profitable and instructive than those of any other
country or period, however near or remote.
The plan for the day comprehends the dungeons
of the Mamertine and the catacombs of San Sebas
tiano, two subterranean constructions of equal inter
est but very unequal age, the former being first heard
of several hundred years before Christ, the latter dat
ing about the first and second centuries A. D.
Rattling over the roughly paved streets, the driver
at length pulls up before a weather-beaten structure,
built of large blocks of pepperino, and entering a low
narrow door, we find ourselves in a little dingy chapel,
the principal shrine of which glitters with scores of
offerings consisting of gold or silver hearts of varying
sizes suited to the pocket or piety of the devotee.
This is a place of peculiar sanctity, and its annual
revenue greatly surpasses that of many a more
pretentious house of worship.
The history of Rome, from about 50 A. D., is
so inseparably interwoven with the early growth
of the Christian religion, that one can with diffi
culty visit any part of it without hearing and
generally discrediting some ecclesiastical legend
concerning some of the apostolic fathers, usually
the patron saint of the city; and here where one
least expects it, over the deep dungeons of old
pagan Rome, one is confronted with a tradition
(and that by no means the most improbable), the
belief in which has made the place as sacred as St.
Peter's itself. But of this later.
59

An attendant priest promptly addresses the guide,
offering to conduct us into the dungeons. His
services are accepted, and a side door admits the
party into an adjoining apartment situated directly
over the two caves which, hewn out one beneath the
other, form the original Mamertine prison.
While the lanterns were being prepared, a glance
around showed the floor to be of rock, and revealed
a round hole in the centre about three feet in
diameter. Originally, the only access to the dun
geons below was by being lowered through this
hole to the first cave, and again through a similar
opening in its floor down into the one beneath.
All the countless cruelties inflicted and the agonies
suffered in these horrible caverns can never be known.
They are relics of a barbarous age, when human life
was lightly valued, and history has preserved the
names of but a few of the most prominent prisoners.
Two of the most celebrated of these were Vercin-
getorix and Jugurtha, who had been foes worthy of
the Roman steel, and deserved consideration at the
hands of their conquerors, but Roman policy was
not magnanimous, and the vanquished leaders were
starved to death in this frightful tomb.
In a corner another opening is seen, and through
this we are about to descend. It seems that later times
demanded a less primitive entrance to the Mamertine
than being dropped like a bucket into a well, and
caused a narrow flight of steps to be hewn into the
wall of each cave, and provided with corresponding
60

openings at the top. And now the lanterns being
lighted, the priest holds a brief conversation with the
guide, who in his turn translates and informs the
writer that he is now about to enter a place made
forever sacred on account of having been occupied
by the holy Saint Peter. This is considered quite
possible, as this was the state prison of Rome, and as
the disciple was surely confined in the city, this is
probably the exact spot.
Preceded by the priest, whose lantern illuminates
each step, we have carefully picked our way down a
few stairs, when the leader stops, and elevating his
light, points out a depression in the wall, and gravely
narrates that when St. Peter was being conducted
down this very stairway, the brutal soldier, in sheer
wanton cruelty, jammed the good saint's head up
against the wall, and (mirahile dictu!) instantly the
flinty rock yielded like the softest cushion, and a
life-sized intaglio of the apostle's round head and
Roman nose remains there to this day to attest the
miracle and rebuke the incredulous.
Duly impressed, we continue the descent and
arrive in safety on the floor of the first dungeon.
The lights reveal a small chamber about ten feet
square, with rough hewn walls and ceiling, and
through the man-hole in the latter comes a feeble
ray which seems to brighten but the one spot on
which it falls. The duplicate of the hole above is
seen in the centre of the floor, and peering down
into the lower vault nothing but utter darkness re-
61

wards the endeavor. We pass on to the head of
the second stairs, and in a moment more are stand
ing in the bottom dungeon. Covering the lanterns,
we learn the significance of the expression, "dark
ness that can be felt," and listen to the dismal drip,
drip of the moisture exuding from the walls. The
air is close and heavy, and the cold damp tempera
ture sends a shiver through every nerve. One compre
hends the last cry that was heard from the captive
Jugurtha. As his body was lowered through the
upper dungeon, and was entering the lower, as the
second roof of rock closed over him, shutting out the
last gleam of light, and he descended into the hideous
blackness, the icy chill that swept over him caused
him to cry out, "How cold are thy baths, Apollo!"
"How cold are thy baths, Apollo ! "
Cried the African monarch, the splendid.
As down to his death in the hollow
Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,
Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended,
"How cold are thy baths, Apollo! "
Again availing ourselves of the lanterns, a chamber
appears similar to the one above, but having a lower
roof. On one side stands a heavy stone post about
three feet high, enclosed in an iron cage. The belief
that this is the very stone to which St. Peter was
chained is so strong that this precaution had to be
adopted lest it should melt away under the hammers
of the irrepressible relic hunter. Near at hand is a
62

convenient altar with two small candles, which were
lighted up shortly after we entered, and thriftily
extinguished on our departure. In this fearful pit
stood Cicero while the fellow conspirators of Catiline
were strangled before him, and when the consul
returned to the surface and strode down the forum
shouting " Fixerunt!" the people who could piti
lessly starve a barbarian king, shuddered at the
daring of a magistrate who could order the execution
of Romans, although they were "tried and convicted
traitors," who would have wrapped the city in sheets
of flame.
In one side of the wall is a large iron door, and the
guides showing no disposition to open it, the writer
takes it upon himself to do so, taking advantage of
a momentary negotiation between the other two.
As it swings wide, a rocky corridor appears for a few
feet, which vanishes in total midnight, and from
it there issues a most atrocious odor. A sudden
exclamation bursts from the priest, who quickly
pushes the explorer aside, slams the door with a
ringing clang, and pours a stream of agitated volu
bility into the ears of the guide. The latter then
interprets this whirlwind of words into the informa
tion that the Italian government had prohibited
visitors from entering that gallery in summer,
because only last season an Englishman had died
two days after coming out of it. Curiosity is
quenched, and we climb out of that den of disease
with far more haste than dignity.
63

The Catacombs of San
Sebastiano

Once more we are in the street with eyes blinking
and watering at the sudden change from total dark
ness to the yellow glare of a Roman noonday, and
awakening the driver who was peacefully slumbering
within his carriage, we start for the Catacombs of
San Sebastiano. On the road thither is one of the
best examples of subterranean preservation in the
whole city, and well worthy a moment's inspection.
Passing swiftly down along the forum and coming
to a flight of wooden steps, we alight and descend
into this theatre of so many stirring events, to an
opening which shows a part of the heavy masonry of
the ancient Cloaca Maxima. This old sewer is a fine
specimen of sanitary engineering, even when com
pared with the works of the present time. It has
done every-day duty ever since it was constructed,
centuries before Christ; it has remained intact
while buildings above it, of wonderful strength and
immensity, have crumbled or been razed to the
64

ground, and through its broad channel the drainage
of the Rome of to-day still flows into the Tiber.
Ascending to the road the route is resumed, and
leaving behind the Arch of Titus, the mighty ruins of
the Colosseum, the skeleton baths of Caracalla, and
passing through the gateway in the old wall, we
come out upon the famous Via Appia.
This venerable highway deserves more than a
passing notice. The saying, "All roads lead to
Rome," was literally true, because no roads of any
consequence were ever made until this resistless race
constructed their many miles of durable causeways.
This was the first nation that recognized the mili
tary and commercial importance of open and perman
ent avenues of communication between the seat of gov- -*
ernment and its farthest frontiers. Appreciating this
necessity, they started from the Forum and ran their
roads in straight lines from city to city, grading the
inequalities and bridging the rivers, laying their
large paving blocks in a prepared road-bed of sand,
gravel and cement, building with such consummate
skill that the enduring masonry of the broad high
ways, that still serve the traveler in Italy, that still
may be followed over the passes of the Alps, and
which to this day may be traced even through the
shires of England, proves the solidity of their con
struction, and how essential they were regarded by
Rome for the prosecution and preservation of her
conquests. The Appian Way, along which we are now riding,
65

is the oldest and best preserved of all, being the first
of that great chain of roads, aggregating nearly four
thousand miles, that linked the city with her tribu
taries. It is more than two thousand years old,
having been built 312 B. C, by Appius the Censor.
Originally only reaching to Capua, it was afterward
extended to Brundusium, and became the principal
highway from the East.
How many varying scenes have appeared upon this
old road! what a history of Roman life and manners
it could give! These old stones have shaken under
the triumphant tramp of the legions of war; over
them have trod the greatest of Rome's warriors and
statesmen; through this broad avenue poured the
caravans of commerce, bringing grain from the
fields of the Nile, aromatics from Arabia, silks from
India, carpets from Babylon, and gems from Bengal,
crowding the city with the products of every clime
and people, till in luxurious magnificence it chal
lenged the world to produce its peer.
A hot, dusty ride of half an hour over this old road,
so rich in classic associations, brings us to the large
stone monastery which is built over the entrance to
the Catacombs. Pushing open the gate in the high
wall that surrounds the building we gain the court
yard, and, in response to the calls of the guide, a
shaven head appears at an upper window. A mo
ment later the large door opens, and an aged monk
invites us to enter. The appearance of this old
Franciscan friar is exceedingly prepossessing. The
66

The Miraculous Paving Stone.

tall, gaunt frame of an ascetic, robed in the poor
habit of his order, is surmounted by a face which,
crowned by the few white hairs that have escaped
the tonsure, is expressive of singular sweetness and
benignity, and as he welcomes us with gentle dignity
and grace, one forgets the coarse cowl and the un
gainly figure in his prompt recognition of unusual
breeding and spirit. Following the reverend guide
into the commodious chapel, we are shown the two
most sacred relics it contains; the first being one of
the arrows which pierced St. Sebastian, and the second
a large smooth stone, upon which has been rudely
carved the impression of two bare feet.
The legend connected wiiih this latter curiosity
has interest enough in itself to justify its narration,
aside from the pia fraus which is claimed to sub
stantiate it. It is as follows :
Soon after St. Peter's arrival in Rome, he had a
second attack of faint-heartedness. He had been
shut up in the dark dungeons of the Mamertine,
exposed to every insult and abuse. The people were
giving him daily proofs of their bitter hatred; and,
as an early martyrdom stared him in the face, his
courage failed him, and, escaping his guards, he fled
from the city. As he was hurrying along the Appian
Way, he spied a well remembered form approaching
him. It was the Master. At the sight of the loving,
patient face, the apostle was filled' with self-reproach,
and he faltered forth, " Domine, quo vadis?" The
answer came, " Venio Romam, iterum crucifgi."
67

Stung by the humiliating memory of his former
traitorous conduct, and overwhelmed with shame at
this second cowardly desertion, Peter's bursting heart
forced out the passionate cry, "No; Thou shalt not!
I'll go back myself." At these words the figure
vanished, leaving the print of its feet on one of the
broad flat stones with which the way was paved.
Turning upon his heel, the disciple resolutely re
turned to the city, and met his death like a man.
But we are in haste to stand among the real relics
of the early church, and, following the monk, we step
into an apartment having an opening in its floor
somewhat similar to the entrance to the Mamertine.
Once again, lantern in hand, we bid good-bye to
daylight, and go down into the earth, this time by a
tunnel which descends at an angle of about thirty-five
degrees, with here and there a rude step where the
incline is more abrupt. In a moment or two the
bottom is reached, and we come out upon a long
level corridor about three feet wide and seven feet
high. The monk pulls his hood over his head, a pro
ceeding which is regarded with envy by the other two
of the party from the lesser depths of their up-turned
coat collars, for the air is cold and penetrating.
With the warning received in the Mamertine
still ringing in his ears, the writer requests to be
allowed to fumigate his own immediate vicinity
while breathing this dubious atmosphere, and,
permission being courteously accorded, proceeds to
68

light up, comforted by the theory that one poison
sometimes neutralizes another.
So many descriptions have been written of these
catacombs, and information concerning them is so
wide-spread, that very brief comment upon their
plan of construction is necessary.
The corridor in which we are now standing is one
of a net-work of similar galleries, which intersect
each other and ramify upon this level in every
direction. The area over which they extended be
came so considerable that a number of shafts were
sunk, and from the bottom of these were hewn
out a second series of passages resembling those
above. Again and again was this method of limiting area
resorted to, and in some places the subterranean
mazes are five tiers deep, the different planes com
municating at various points by inclined tunnels,
until in their vast extent, their devious windings
and turnings, risings and descents, they became
and form to-day the most bewildering and danger
ous labyrinth in the world. One can easily appre
ciate what a refuge its intricacies must have afforded
to the hunted members of the persecuted sect.
This silent city was the final resting place of over
six millions of the early Christians; not only was it
their burial ground, but these dark tunnels were their
hiding places, chapels and schools. When one of
them died, they cut his coffin into the rocky side of
the narrow passage, sealed up the recess with a long
69

slab of stone, and scratched the brief epitaph in the
soft cement with the point of the trowel. Hundreds
of years have elapsed since these inscriptions were
rudely scrawled, destruction and desolation have
repeatedly swept over the city above, and many a
proud monument of ancient grandeur has been
utterly demolished, yet these feeble scratches, the
work of a moment, have been protected and pre
served and are clearly legible to this day.
As we pass along the lanterns reveal these resting
places, situated one above another on either side,
and here and there a broken slab exposes the fast
crumbling relics of mortality. Many of the niches
have been opened, and the bones have been taken
away by the cart-load to be enshrined in the cath
edrals and churches of Europe.
A few rods further on the monk throws the light of
his candle upon a tiny earthen jar which is set into
the wall at the end of one of the recesses, explaining
that it marked the tomb of a martyr, and that it was
the custom, whenever one of the new sect suffered
death on account of his religion, for his brethren to
secure his body, inter it in this secret and sacred
cemetery, and place a little vessel containing a few
drops of the spilt blood at the head.
Many of these touching symbols appear during
our dark wanderings, and one recoils as he remem
bers through what fearful sufferings these sturdy
souls had to pass before they found rest in the
silent tomb. This one may have been torn to pieces
70

by the wild beasts in the arena of the old Colosseum,
or been pierced by the sword of the gladiator hired
to butcher him before the eyes of assembled Rome;
that one may have been starved to death in some
cold damp dungeon, and this smaller niche may
contain the ashes of one of those heroic men who were
wrapped in sheets of tar, bound to tall posts and set
on fire to illuminate the gardens of Nero.
Suddenly we are no longer threading in single
file a narrow tunnel whose rough sides frequently
knock both elbows at once, but find ourselves
standing in a large room, which has been made
by hewing away the sides of the passage and increas
ing the height to a rounded dome. This was one
of their chapels. Here they met to worship, and
here the children were instructed in the faith of
their parents. Part of the stone altar still remains
to show where they knelt. Again the monk enters
the corridor, and after some moments of rapid walk
ing, he stops opposite a larger recess than we have
yet seen, and at one end we note the small but
significant earthen vase. This is the tomb of Saint
Cecilia. It is open and empty, the relics having
been removed to a church in the city above. Near
by, in a much smaller grave, was laid her husband —
fortunate man to have had such a wife, unfortunate
man to be remembered but as the husband of his
wife. Proceeding on our way, we notice several inter
secting corridors whose entrances have been walled
6 71

up, and learn from the monk that they lead to parts
still unexplored. They are considered misleading,
and therefore dangerous, by the good brethren who
have studied this maze of mole runs all their lives,
and were it not for this precaution even these veteran
guides might become confused while piloting some
luckless traveler.
And thus we grope through gallery after gallery,
passing through a long straight tunnel here, doub
ling a sharp corner there, turning and twisting through
a net-work of short intersecting passages which seem
involved in an inextricable snarl, and occasionally
descending an incline only to repeat an equally
perplexing series of movements. Finally, when all
memory of the starting point has long since vanished
in utter bewilderment, the friar announces that we
have reached our limit, and asks with a smile if
guide or visitor would like to lead the party back to
the monastery. With a feeling that the subject is
too serious for joking, all ability in that direction is
hastily and humbly disclaimed, and as teeth are
chattering and Hmbs shaking with the damp chilliness
of the place, the writer urges a speedy ascent. For
fully three-quarters of an hour we retrace our path
through these dark windings that would puzzle even
a mining engineer, rounding the angles and climb
ing up the inclines, till at length, after a walk of
fully two miles, a welcome ray is seen at the top of
the last tunnel , and once more we are above ground.
We are profoundly thankful that the good guide's
72

mental faculties remained intact, for had we been
left to our own resources in those deep borings, it
is doubtful if even the clew of Ariadne could have
led us up to daylight.

73

The Roman Colosseum

" While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand.
When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall, and when
Rome falls — the world."
This prediction was not uttered when the colossal
edifice stood in the height of its splendor, when it
glistened with all the gifts of imperial extravagance,
but it was more than seven hundred years from its
foundation, after it had repeatedly been the prey of
conquest, when it had many times been plundered
by the northern barbarians and defaced by religious
fanatics, that the naked majesty of the Flavian
amphitheatre awakened the awe and admiration of
a few rude Saxon pilgrims, and formulated their
enthusiasm in a saying that has survived the cen
turies. Lacking an Athenian Acropolis in whose rocky
sides they might hew an amphitheatre, the energetic
Romans piled up their own mountain and con
structed this huge ellipse, which in its massive
beauty and immense capacity far surpassed its
74

Greek rival. Composed entirely of stone, its con
cave interior resembles the hollow crater of an
extinct volcano. It has been subject to the caprice
of every age, and has been used in different periods
for theatre, fortress, market-place, church and
quarry. It is
"A ruin — yet what a ruin! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half cities, have been rear'd;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass
And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd."
He who allots but a single day to this mighty
wreck, must move quickly, or at the close of the ten
or twelve hours he will lament the superficiality of
his survey. Arrived at the spot, the guide after giving
warning that the day will prove a hard, hot scramble,
leads the way, and a dozen times before the sun has
reached the zenith, the intense heat has caused the
perspiring explorer to alternately invoke the shades
of his ancestors and make emphatic observations
upon the climate of Rome.
The cages of the wild beasts are visited, where the
heavy gates as they swung back and forth made
deep furrows in the hard rock that can be seen to this
day. The hall of the gladiators is pointed out, the
traces of their arms-rack, and the narrow staircase by
which they entered the arena; the dungeons in which
criminals were confined before being consigned to
the lion's maw; the chamber of the vestals, where
yet remains a small portion of its once exquisite
75

paving; the great reservoirs that flooded the arena
and the thousand and one features of interest that
abound in this classic place.
The wisdom of the architects of antiquity is
strikingly displayed in their arrangement of seats.
Every inch of the arena was visible to every one of
the eighty-seven thousand spectators who crowded
hither to be amused. The disposition of the au
dience according to rank was no less sagacious.
The place from which the Emperors observed
the games, consists of a rectangular structure of
masonry fronting immediately upon the arena. It
was several feet higher than the first row of spec
tators and entirely isolated from the surrounding
tiers that rise on either side and in the rear. Ap
proaching the throne it is observed to consist of four
thick walls, containing in the interior the remnants of
a stone stairway, which leads from the upper surface
down to the mouth of a small underground passage
communicating with the palace of the Caesars.
This subterranean entrance and exit for Roman
royalty is one of the most curious discoveries that
have been made in this ancient and imposing ruin,
and is a significant commentary upon the unsettled
state of society even in Rome's best days, when the
rulers of the entire civilized world did not always
deem it prudent to enter publicly through the surg
ing crowds that thronged this mammoth pile, but
often crept like moles from their palace on the
Palatine through this dark tunnel to their throne
76

in the amphitheatre, and having witnessed the games
retired in the same secret manner.
To the student of history all great ruins are
haunted, and he whose memory and imagination
can restore to the scenes of desolation their ancient
splendor, re-people these former haunts of men,
now so silent and deserted, and pass in review before
him the wonderful events that here took place,
experiences a far keener satisfaction than he who
gazes but to gratify an ephemeral curiosity or to
please his taste for the picturesque.
After a day's active exploration which has led the
investigator from the lowest excavations under the
arena, to the topmost seats of the amphitheatre,
one is glad to get rid of the chattering guide, and as
the waning light announces the approach of evening,
to finish the day's inspection from the throne of the
Emperors. Seated upon this relic of perished
power, with the deserted arena in full view, the still
ness and utter solitude combined with the deepening
twilight throw a spell over the spectator that
banishes the impressions gained from the searching
scrutiny of day; and as the soft shadows fall over
the colossal fabric, concealing the melancholy
marks of decay, hiding the traces of man's avarice
and fanaticism, one sees only the bold outlines of the
mighty mass looming up just as thej appeared nearly
two thousand years ago.
Then it is that imagination runs riot, annihilates
the centuries of vandalism and violence, and again
77

the huge structure stands forth the worthy exponent
of Roman magnificence; again the rough rock slopes
of this vast concave shine snowy white with overlaid
marble; again the immense edifice so architecturally
perfect in all its proportions, flashes with rare
mosaics, carvings of amber and all the minuter
beauties that adorn the palace of a prince; again it
glitters with decorations of gold and silver, the
brazen beaks of conquered ships, the statues of gods
and of heroes, the triumphs of art and the trophies
of war.
Once more it is crowded with the expectant
populace, and the gaze of nearly ninety thousand
is focused upon the arena. Tier behind tier, rise
the regular ranks of Roman society. Close to the
arena appear the white robed vestals, assigned with
superstitious reverence to the choicest place; behind
these gleam the jeweled robes of haughty nobles and
highborn matrons; still rising come the middle class,
then the motley mass of plebeians, till at last on the
outer edge of this human crater, perched upon the
velarium posts, the eye rests upon the lessened forms
of the sailors hauling at the ropes that control the
great canopy.
Now follow the sports of a Roman holiday.
First the foot racers strain every nerve in their head
long rush for the far goal; the brawny boxers
contend with cestus; after these come the heavy
armed gladiators, commencing with wooden swords,
then worked up into the heat of the fight and fur-
78

nished with weapons of steel, their bright blades flash
in the deadly struggle. The roar of the multitude be-
comeslouder and louder and culminates ina longfierce
shout as one goes down under the dexterous thrust
of his antagonist. Under the heel of the victor, the
vanquished implores the mercy of the spectators, but
the infuriated mass demand the spectacle of his death
and the " pollice verso" seals the suppliant's fate.
Now the swift chariots speed over the course, fling
ing the yellow sand high in the air from under their
whirling wheels, and again and again in the wild
excitement the very foundations seem to shake with
the plaudits of the mighty throng.
A follower of an upstart sect has been doomed to
die for his religion, and a sudden hush comes over
that pagan assembly as an unarmed Christian walks
calmly into the arena; an iron door grates on its
granite socket and a famished lion leaps upon his
unresisting prey.
Subsequently the sound of rushing water is heard
and a broad lake appears, where a moment before
was a dry expanse of sand; amphibious monsters
splash about and are hunted and killed from boats.
Later, two proud galleys of war, fully manned and
equipped, issue from opposite sides, sweep on in
full career, and grappling in mid-lake, furnish the
multitude with the spectacle of a sea fight, where the
crimsoned decks and loud death cries prove the stern
reality of the engagement.
Thus scene follows scene in the varied programme
79

till at last this wonderful exhibition comes to an end,
and as the sated people depart, a cold chill starts the
dreamer from his reverie, destroys in an instant the
illusions of imagination, and once more he is but a
modern mortal in the midst of a mighty ruin. In
the gathered darkness the mountainous walls have
assumed a sinister aspect, and reflecting that there
are more wholesome places in the world than a
Roman ruin on a dark night, he picks his way out,
seeks his hotel, and arriving in safety endeavors by
a little sptritus frumenti and generous doses of
quinine to ward off all possibilities of Roman Fever.

80

Two Views of Venice

With the single exception of Rome, Venice is,
perhaps, the most extensively photographed city in
Europe. It is a favorite subject with artists of all
nations, and the magnificent pictures of her marble
palaces and crystal streets, together with those won
derfully beautiful paintings of "Venice by Moon
light," that adorn the galleries of art on both sides
of the Atlantic, have made the world almost as fa
miliar with the winged lion of St. Mark as it is with
the dome of St. Peter.
The singular situation of the city is probably the
reason that while one expects traces of modern enter
prise in other old towns, this one has ever seemed a
place of the past. For years the praises of the
"Bride of the Adriatic," "The Queen of the Sea,"
and "The City of Song," have been sung in the ears of
the traveler, and now for the first time approaching
the marine metropolis, with imagination teeming
with the pictures of painter and poet, his heart beats
faster with delighted anticipation, for before him lies
the city of his dreams. 81

The train from Milan, which has sped eastward
for over six hours, has at length reached the shore of
the Adriatic, and is soon rumbling over the succes
sive arches of the high viaduct which stretches for
more than a mile across the intervening lagoon, and
finally comes to a stand in the depot opening directly
upon one end of the Grand Canal.
At the foot of the wide granite steps lies the grace
ful fleet of long slender gondolas, with their broad
steel halberds glittering in the sun, a scene so pecu
liar and characteristic of the place that one almost
expects to meet a different race of beings, but, on
a nearer approach, the brotherhood of humanity
becomes strikingly apparent as he recognizes in the
vociferated "Gondola! Gondola!" a marked resem
blance to the "Carriage! Carriage!" of an American
hackman. After a brief encounter with the eager throng,
a choice is made, and stepping aboard, the
word is given, and, as the boat starts off up the
Grand Canal, the traveler settles himself back
on the soft leather cushions, and prepares to
enjoy the Venice of his visions. To be sure the
"crystal street" is rather muddy, the gondolier
about as clean as a coal heaver, and everything
wears the aspect of Front Street in a flood, but no one
judges a city from its outskirts, and doubtless the
rare beauty of this one will speedily atone for so un
promising an approach. Every push of the boat
man is driving the traveler nearer and nearer the
82

principal centres, but he notes with dismay that the
appearance of things does not improve. The canal
is crowded with clumsy craft of every description, and
the water everywhere is full of traces of their traffic.
The marble buildings are stained and blackened, and
the grimy edifices the gondolier insists on calling
palaces, do not impress with their magnificence. It is
low tide, and everything seems to stand on a founda
tion of green slime.
Poetic conceptions vanish with a suddenness that
is startling. A sharp whistle is heard, and a small
steam launch that does duty as an omnibus, comes
puffing down from above. Shade of Dandolo! A
steamer on the Grand Canal! It seems like a
profanation. Evidences of the nineteenth century
abound on every hand. Telegraph wires overhead
cross each other in every direction. Polyglot signs
announcing all sorts of trades and professions glare
down from each side, and high upon a wall of
departed grandeur a flaming poster proclaims the
excellences of a Yankee sewing machine.
The Ponte di Rialto is neared, and with reviving
memories of Shylock and the Merchant of Venice,
the new arrival makes one last effort to enjoy in this
really fine marble span of seventy-four feet, one, at
least, of the famous relics of former splendor; but
alas, for the anticipated pleasure! On a closer
approach a most atrocious odor assails the nostrils,
drowning every thought in one overwhelming dis
gust; and as the gondola is darted around a sharp
83

corner into a narrower and still dirtier canal, patience
becomes exhausted, and Venice is pronounced a
wretched hole, and the silly sentimentalists who have
babbled about its beauties are voted arrant frauds.
At length, after wriggling through a labyrinth of
liquid alley-ways, having narrowly escaped being
swamped by a huge canal boat, and been well nigh
deafened by the mutual compliments which the
boatmen shriek at each other in melodious Italian,
the visitor arrives at his hotel, convinced that the
sooner he can get out of Venice the less strong lan
guage he will have to answer for.
But there are few vexations that can diminish a
healthy appetite, and even a Venetian dinner table is
a solace of irresistible power. So, an hour later,
when he strolls out into the piazza of San Marco,
where is concentrated nearly all the surviving archi
tectural beauty of the place, as he wanders through
the frescoed halls in the Palace of the Doges, and
views its treasures of art from Greece and Rome, the
accumulated spoil of ancient wars, penetrates into
its dismal dungeons and peers out through the inter
laced bars of the Ponte dei Sospiri, he forgets the
chagrin of the arrival, and deems the visit not alto
gether in vain.
Leaving the palace, and turning toward the
cathedral, he passes beneath the bronze horses
that guard its southern portal, and stands beneath
the beautiful dome. In this church, according
to tradition, repose the relics of Saint Mark,
84

brought here by the early citizens to hallow the edi
fice they had built. A magnificent mausoleum they
made it, enriching it with the rarest marbles, some of
which are wonderfully translucent, and covering the
entire interior from pavement to arched ceiling with
gorgeous mosaics, lavishing upon the structure all
that Eastern extravagance of decoration which char
acterizes the Byzantine school.
The sea baths of the Lido have a historical celeb
rity, and the heat of the afternoon renders the
thought of a swim in the surf peculiarly alluring, so
getting into a gondola, the city is soon left behind,
and after a half hour's ride across the bay, the nor
thern channel is reached and the landing made at the
pier. A short walk across a low sandy neck that shuts
in the harbor, brings one to the outside shore, which
is washed by the unobstructed waves of the sea.
Here is one of the finest bathing establishments
in the world. It is built on piles, and stands half in
and half out of the water, thus monopolizing the
entire water line of a small but excellent beach, and
proving that the Venetians do not appreciate the
luxury of the sand bath. There is little or no surf,
but the bottom is fine and the water of a truly south
ern temperature. The centre of the building contains
a balcony commanding the bathing ground, a band
stand and a restaurant. The northern wing is set
apart for ladies and the southern fen: gentlemen; nor
do men and women bathe together, but are re
stricted to the water fronts of their respective quarters.
85

Old Ocean never disappoints, never shows signs
of age, but to him who loves it is the same friend all
over the world, and rolling about in the gentle swell
and reveling in perfect comfort, this is counted the
happiest experience of the day.
But meantime night has come on, and refreshed
by the tumble in the warm Adriatic, the bather returns
to the pier where the boat was left, and seating him
self, is now gliding back to the city on the flood tide
that has followed the rising full moon. All noise is
hushed save the musical ripple which laughs about
the prow as the gondolier swiftly drives the long
graceful craft through the gathering shadows. The
southern sky is brilliant with its sparkling millions
which are mirrored in the motionless water. The air
is fresh with " the odor of brine from the ocean," the
almost imperceptible motion of the boat is poetry
itself, disappointments and griefs are forgotten, and
the occupant, surrendering himself to the charm,
watches in calm content the lights of the city that
flash in the distance.
A quarter of an hour's advance brings the gon
dola among the shipping at anchor in front of the
city, and when at last it is shot suddenly from under
the stern of a huge Egyptian steamer, an exclama
tion of astonishment bursts from the lips as a spec
tacle of enchanting beauty comes into view. The
Piazza of St. Mark is ablaze with hundreds of glit
tering jets of flame, which bathe the whole area in
their rich, warm light. The Gothic facade of the
86

Ducal Palace shines out in all its wealth of sculp
tured marble, on the left gleams the double colonnade
of the Royal Library, between them the columns of
the Lion and St. Theodosius stand like two colossal
sentinels, and in the background the tall campanile
and the rounded domes of the old cathedral rise dis
tinct and clear in the soft rays of the moon. Every
trace of decay has vanished; the entire square flash
ing and glittering with light presents a picture of
oriental splendor, and when music comes floating
over the water, adding the charm of its harmony to
the scene, the spell is complete, and the visitor seeks
his hotel, as delighted with Venice by moonlight as
he was disgusted with it by daylight.

87

Baden-Baden

A little more than half-way between Heidelberg
and Strasbourg, at the terminus of a short branch
railway, lies one of the most celebrated watering-
places in Europe. Situated on the border of the
Black Forest, within a ten-minutes walk of its dark
recesses; surrounded by hills of romantic wildness,
the prelude to the grander Alps; abounding in
mineral springs that have bubbled and gushed from
the earth and been celebrated since the time of
Aurelius, some of which still spout their medicinal
waters from masonry of Roman construction, the
site of the city of Baden-Baden possesses attractions
that for centuries have lured alike the lover of the
picturesque and the seeker of health.
To these natural advantages man has added every
beauty of art and architecture. Broad avenues
lined with stately trees, shady walks, beautiful
parks, and handsome dwellings meet the eye on
every hand and elicit the heartiest admiration.
Years ago this charming spot was one of the most
disreputable places on the Continent. It swarmed

with blacklegs and criminals of all classes, who were
drawn here by the gaming tables. One of the most
palatial buildings in the city was for years its great
est curse. This "Conversationshaus," which con
tained the rouge et noir and roulette tables, was let
out by the Government to private corporations, who
paid a yearly sum of about ;?!i55,ooo for the gambling
monopoly. Some idea of the wisdom of the players
can thus be had when it is seen that they risked their
stakes in a game where the chances had to be ex
pressly arranged that the public must inevitably
lose ^155,000 per season besides all the running
expenses and profits of the establishment.
And yet just as today at Monte Carlo, men and
women thronged to the tables and lost millions,
and such havoc was wrought that at one time
the managers of the banks used to have the
surrounding groves searched every morning for
suicides, so common had self-destruction become
with the unfortunate dupes who had lost everything
but life, and would not have that. At length the
Government, seeing that the city was rapidly losing
all respectability, closed up the gaming-houses, since
which time the character of Baden-Baden society
has steadily improved.
To the traveler the chief attraction here is the
Neue Schloss or new castle. The old castle is an
imposing ruin, and was the earliest residence of
the ancestors of the present Grand Duke. It was
built nearly a thousand years ago, away up on the
89

height to the northwest of the city, and was the home
of the family until 1471, when the "new "castle was
founded. The interest in this building does not
centre in its spacious apartments, which are mag
nificent and luxurious, but in the dungeons that lie
at its foundations. Comparatively modern as it is,
it dates back to the era of secret tribunals, with their
accompanying racks, thumb-screws, and other shame
ful tortures.
After we had been shown through the upper parts
of the castle the castellan procured lanterns and led
the way across the quadrangle to the passage com
municating with the dungeons. Originally the only
access to these vaults was through a cylindrical
shaft that pierces the structure "from turret to foun
dation-stone," but the stair down which the visitor
is taken is a modern construction cut through from
the court-yard. Cautiously following the guide
down the narrow corridor, excavated out of the
solid rock, we come at length to the shaft, and, peer
ing up the huge chimney, far away at the top is seen
a faint glimmer of daylight. All around is black
as Erebus. The damp cold of these rocky cells
chills us through and familiar voices sound hollow
and unnatural.
But if it seemed dark and dismal to us, how
like a living tomb must it have seemed to the
unfortunate captive who, blindfolded and bound
hand and foot, was let down by a windlass
into this subterranean prison! Close by the mouth
90

of the shaft is the outer dungeon, where the victim
was confined before his trial. A few yards further
on the corridor turns a sharp angle to the right and
apparently comes to an end; the guide puts his
shoulder against the opposing wall, throws his weight
upon it, and slowly it begins to yield to the pressure.
It is a huge door, consisting of a solid stone slab,
a foot thick and weighing a full ton, and pivoted
so skillfully as to be turned with comparative ease.
This opens into the Rack Chamber, and on entrance
it is seen to be a small excavation of considerable
height. In the wall to the right of the door is a row
of iron rings, all that remains of the fearful instru
ments of torture that once stood here.
How these solid walls must have reverberated
with shrieks of agony as some poor prisoner was
having a conspiracy or state secret tortured out of
him. No wonder they made the only door a foot
thick, for far above in those palatial halls were gentle
ladies, playing with pretty children, dancing, singing,
perhaps praying, and their world of bliss must not be
mingled with this world of pain. Songs of love
and the music of ringing laughter accord ill with
cries of agony and groans of despair, and such a
discord must be made impossible, and it was. Above,
below and on all sides is the elemental, solid rock.
No sound could ever penetrate these entombing
walls. Opening out of this chamber is the largest vault
of all, which was the Hall of Judgment. Here sat
91

the Judges, deliberating how many more wrenches
and dislocations the prisoner's anatomy would stand,
whether they could get any more information out
of him, or whether his crimes or his obstinacy merited
death. No wonder they got under ground to per
petrate these atrocities; daylight would shame the
arch fiend himself out of them. If the sentence of
death was passed, the doomed man was led from
the inner dungeon to the entrance of a short corridor
opening out of the torture-chamber, and promised
life and liberty if he would kiss an image of the
Virgin placed at the opposite end. He never reached
it; a trap-door opened at the touch of his foot, and
he fell headlong down a shaft 150 feet deep, at the
foot and sides of which were set knives that ended
all suffering.
We came up. Away up on the height a storm
had gathered about the ruined castle and seemed
frowning down on the new, that had been no im
provement upon the record of the old, and the thun
der as it rumbled over the roofless ruin sounded
like the wild curses of those poor unfortunates whose
lives had here been tortured out of them by such
fearful sufferings.

92

The Romance of the Rhine
Valley Ruined

Till within the last generation the Rhine was the
Rhine of story and song, the Rhine of Goethe and
Byron, the place of all others in all Europe rich in
the most bewitching legends of nymph and gnome,
of dragon and goblin, of elves and dwarfs. Every
vine-clad hill had its own especial tradition of
crusader or pilgrim, of plots of the devil and their
triumphant frustration, and about every ruin clung
some tale of robber baron and injured maiden, of
Barbarossa or Charlemagne.
But to-day all is changed. The legendary has
been ousted by the practical and commonplace.
The impalpable mist of fairy lore, the delicate
atmosphere of sprite and kelpie, cannot exist side by
side with the all-pervasive evidences of modern
factories and modern enterprise. Brickyards and
breweries in full blast do not mix with ivied tower
and crumbling wall, and the traveler whose head is
full of knights and dungeons, minstrels and banquet
93

halls is apt to feel well buncoed at the close of the
day's trip from Cologne to Mayence.
We Americans are not the only destroyers of
sentiment in this world. We may blow up our
Palisades for paving stones; we may turn majestic
Niagara into a huge power plant, but we are not
alone in our iconoclasm. The same ruthless march
of progress — the same inexorable utilitarianism —
has turned the beautiful Rhine valley into a bustling,
crowded artery of commerce.
" The castled crag of Drachenfels " still " frowns o'er
the wide and winding Rhine," but it looks down upon
a smoky, noisy highway of trade — covered with
crowded steamers, with flotillas of huge coal barges
towed up and down by puffing, snorting tugs, belching
clouds of black smoke, which, combined with that
from the railways upon either bank, and that from
dozens of tall chimneys of the many industrial plants
that line the banks from Cologne to Mayence, pro
duce an atmosphere that recalls the former days of
Pittsburg and Cincinnati.
The rocky headland of the Lorelei is pierced by a
railway tunnel and the siren's song is replaced by
the scream of the locomotive and the roar of the
train as it rushes through its base. Busy mercantile
Germany has taken no pains to preserve the memories
of the elf-haunted stream. There is no suggestion of
Lohengrin's fairy boat and white swan in the grimy
tugs, with their mimic battleship prows, slowly
dragging along the great hulks bearing such suggestive
94

names as "Industrie" and "Succes." This is the
whole story. National success is not won by
dreaming over its fairy tales and folk lore, and a
small territory demands that its principal waterway
shall be dedicated to trade instead of tradition.
It is impossible not to admire the industrial
progress of Germany during the past twenty years,
but this does not make it any easier to read with
patience the enterprising advertisements of a
Breakfast food upon a sunny vine-clad slope, nor
to view the venerable towers through the reek of
things being "made in Germany."
The rising generation should be warned that if
one is seeking industrial data, a journey along the
Rhine may be profitable and instructive, but if a
mental picture has been formed of this locality by
music and poem, by picture and song, — take a trip to
the river front of Manayunk instead — the disap
pointment won't be any greater and it isn't so far.

95

A Week's Shoot in Oudh

When the Sepoy Rebellion broke out in India in
1857, there was a certain Rajah of the Punjab who
remained true to the English.
While the natives all over the land were hunting
down and murdering white men, women and chil
dren, this Indian prince gave asylum to all English
people within his borders, protected them from their
enemies, and as chance served, sent them under an
armed escort to the nearest stronghold of their
friends. After quelling the mutiny, the British Government
rewarded his loyalty by bestowing upon him a rich
principality in Oudh which doubled his wealth and
importance. The friendly Rajah was in due time gathered to
his fathers, leaving a minor son as heir to his title
and estates.
It is the policy of the Indian Civil Service to place
all minor native rulers under the care of English
tutors, that they may be carefully taught and pre
pared for the duties of an enlightened administration,
so the grandson of the loyal Rajah was placed in
96

The Rajah in the State Entry, Delhi Durbar.

Mahout.

On the Elephant Pad Returning from the Hunt.

The Huzur.

charge of a young Englishman whom his friends knew
as Lucri Sahib, his name in Urdu.
So eminently was he fitted for his duties, and so
thoroughly did he win the confidence and regard of
his young charge, that when the minority was ended
and the Rajah was invested with his full authority
and state, he said to his teacher and friend, "I have
enough to do to take care of my affairs here in the
Punjab, do you go down and be for me. Rajah in
Oudh." For nearly thirty years has this faithful friend of
his boyhood managed the prince's Eastern estates
with never a moment's cessation of that mutual
respect and esteem which began in the days of tutor
and pupil.
When the Durbar was held at Delhi in 1903, each
native ruler was assigned a place for his camp.
Here he sent his greatest treasures, made his tem
porary quarters a marvel of comfort and splendor,
and welcomed accredited visitors with lavish hospi
tality. It was here, while he was superintending the
establishment of his Rajah's camp, that we made the
acquaintance of Lucri Sahib and founded a lifelong
friendship. When the Durbar was over, he invited us to a
week's shoot at his headquarters up near the South
ern edge of Nepal. "I am sorry," said he, "that I
can't promise you a tiger. They are very scarce in
my district and I have not seen one for over a year;
97

but there are plenty of birds, nylghai, deer, pig and
panther, so we shall have plenty of sport."
We were glad to accept, and a few weeks later, we
left Lucknow one cool morning en route to our
friend's home.
A short journey to the terminus of the railroad
brings us to Balrampur, where we find three elephants
waiting for our luggage and servants, and a huge,
eight-seated, four-horsed carriage for ourselves. A
dak had been laid, and we were driven swiftly over a
fine road to the North which gave us frequent views
across Nepal, of Kinchinjunga and its associate
peaks, the great white Himalayan wall that marks
the Southern boundary of Thibet.
Pausing only for the relays, we are whirled along
through fertile fields, bits of jungle, a village or two,
and late in the afternoon, at the end of a broad
avenue we draw up before a stately mansion and are
immediately surrounded by white-turbaned servants
who conduct us at once to our hostess. She tells us
that Lucri Sahib is out stalking a panther that had
been prowling about the vicinity.
When one of these animals is known to be about,
a kid is taken out into the jungle, tied to a bush and
left for the night. The leopard or tiger kills it,
devours as much as he wants, and invariably returns
the following night to make a second meal. Mean
time the hunter has lashed a mechan in the branches
of a near-by tree, is waiting for him in comfort and
silence and neatly pots him when he arrives. Our
98

host was out in the jungle sitting up over such a kill
when we arrived at dusk.
Directly a shot is heard, and in about half an hour
we hear a shout, and going out to the front of the
house we meet our host followed by his shikarees
bearing a huge young tigress, beautifully coated, and
still warm.
"O, ho!" we said "so there are no tigers in this
district.?" The Huzur smiled and replied: "Well,
I don't think there are any now. I am sorry you
were not with me. I would so liked you to have shot
her." We echoed the wish — a tiger more or less was
nothing to his long record of kills, while an American
would have treasured the skin and head for the rest
of his life.
The following morning we went snipe shooting
in the adjacent paddy fields, and after wading for
hours ankle deep in water and getting a fair bag we
arrived where an elephant was waiting for us,
got into dry shoes and socks to avoid fever, and were
carried swiftly back to lunch. These hunting
elephants are chosen, among other qualities, for their
swift walking. The gait is easy and the huge crea
tures lunge along as fast as the smart trot of a horse.
In the afternoon three elephants bore the party a
few miles into the jungle where there were flocks of
wild pigeons roosting in the trees — we were directed
to get enough for a large pie and were not long in
doing it, then home through the jungle, dim in the
waning light and overarching vegetation, to dinner,
99

amid European furnishings and surroundings that
made one think himself in an English country house
at a week-end party. This in the depths of an
Indian jungle, where the wild folk of the forest
ranged about our doors at night and sometimes
awakened us with their cries.
The second morning, mounted upon horses, our
host took us to where he had killed the tigress and
pointed out the splash of blood upon a tree against
which she had hurled herself in her dying flurry.
We continued on to a handsome masonry bridge of
three wide arches built by the Huzur over a branch
of the Rapti River.
Lucri Sahib is certainly a universal genius; not
only is he the administrator of government over a
province larger than the State of Rhode Island, but
he is chief engineer and architect of all its public
works, chief justice, superintendent of its schools,
head manager of the hospital, instructor in agricul
ture, forestry, and sanitation. When a famine comes
by failure of crops, upon his wide shoulders falls the
tremendous task of feeding thousands of natives.
The health and prosperity of the entire district is his
sole responsibility; he oversees the collection of taxes
and accounts to the Rajah for all revenues — sees
that the villagers are not overburdened, and the
natives think him very near to the gods.
Back again to the house the host leads to the gun
room and distributes the rifles. I sighed for a good
Winchester, for mine was double-barreled like a shot-
100

The Flying Game.

The Beaters Closing In on the Maidan.

gun and I made some disgraceful shots till I got used
to it. The elephants had been sent off earlier with
the lunch and we followed in tum-tums. About five
miles into the jungle we came upon them kneeling on
the edge of an open maidan or plain, and mounting
them, stepped from the pad on to our machans.
The machan is made by lashing the frame of the
native string bed in the branches oj a tree so as to
make a level platform where one can sit in comfort
and command the open glade before him.
Concealed in the foliage we await the coming of
the game. Soon, afar off, we heard the shouts and
din of the beaters, about five hundred of whom had
been strung out in an immense half circle and were
simultaneously closing in, shouting and rattling stones
in tin cans, sweeping all the wild things before them
so that in their flight they should rush past the guns
in the trees.
A herd of deer breaks cover, the rifles crack, and
two are bowled over; a pair of nylghai fly past, and
one drops; more deer, a huge boar, some fine stags,
more pigs and jackals, and we take our toll of the
racing game. The shikarees rush from their cover
with ready knives, and the long fringe of beaters
appearing, the shoot is over for the day.
For three days at three different points were the
jungle folk driven in front of us. The bag of the
first day was three stags, one ny^hai, and two pigs.
That of the second day two nylghai, four pigs, and

101

three stags. That of the third day was five stags,
three pigs, one leopard, and one jackal.
Never was there such a paradise for children.
The native Indian is fond of small folks, and the
younger members of the family were taken up and
down the avenues by the grinning mahouts, who
delighted in making their huge tuskers kneel to take
the children for a ride, and when the ankus was
placed in a small hand and the docile mountain
responded to an order, the youngster grew pale
with delight. Two little high-born chaps were
especially attentive to the youngest of the family,
bringing up their company of native boys and putting
them through a most creditable drill, joining in the
elephant rides and romps of all sorts, and forcing
pretty presents upon their new acquaintance at
parting. One evening the Headman of the nearest village
gave a celebration in honor of the birth of a son, and
the Huzur and his guests were begged to attend. We
were received with great ceremony, were conducted
through a lane of salaaming, turbaned natives, over
a crimson carpet, to the seats of honor in the largest
apartment, and immediately the Nautch dance began.
During its progress, the happy father and host
pressed upon us native sweets and betel-nut. The
latter is very agreeable to the taste, but as in the case
of blueberry pie, it paints one up in a somewhat
startling manner, for the resultant color is a brilliant
red. We passed to the tea-room, where garlands of
102

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Dick and His Friends.
Rides about the House.
flowers and tinsel were thrown about our necks by
pretty maidens, and we were kept busy refusing
sweets and liquids of every description till we passed
out to view some excellent fireworks of native manu
facture. Upon the morning of our departure, a company of
acrobats, jugglers and contortionists entertained us
upon the lawn. Here also we sat in state upon a
dais backed by a row of chairs containing the vil
lage dignitaries, among whom there was more than
one row as to precedence, and all about crowded
some two hundred quiet, respectful natives. The
tricks were surprisingly good, some of them, upon
the bare ground and with no accessories or apparatus
of any kind, being mystifying to a degree.
The elephants with the servants and luggage had
left at dawn, and the time had come to bid farewell to
Lucri Sahib and his charming wife, who had given
us the most pleasurable and wonderful week of our
lives. As scenes and experiences in the East are remem
bered, I find that the most frequent and interesting
picture that arises is not the Delhi Durbar, that
magnificent pageant, which in gorgeous Oriental
splendor rivaled in reality the fables of the Arabian
Nights; not Agra with its Jasmine Tower and mar
velous Taj; not Jeypur with its deserted city and
machicolated wall; not Benares with its crumbling
temples and swarming devotees; not Rangoon with
its golden pagoda, nor Mandalay with its curious
8 103

palace of infamous history, but the picture of an
upright, vigorous, Anglo-Saxon Englishman, the
trusted minister of an enlightened native prince,
administering the complicated duties of his office in
conscientious, unassuming efficiency, bringing Occi
dental thrift, energy and incorruptibility to lead and
rule, in an almost paternal manner, the natives under
his charge; standing by them in fiery heat, through
flood, pestilence and famine, and rewarded with a
love, respect and admiration it is seldom given man
to inspire.
Before going to India, I had read and heard con
siderable about the mercenary commercialism which
governed English policy in the East. Over five
months in India and much association with the offi
cers of both the military and civil list resulted in
sincere admiration for the personnel of both branches
of the service. They are men whose governing in
stinct is the strict performance of duty; they have a
stoic indifference to sun-stroke, fever, cholera and
plague. With no fanfare of sentiment and sympathy,
they have taken up the "White Man's Burden."
They have made life and property secure, prevented
oppression, abolished suttee, guarded the public
health and are giving their charges as large a voice
in the government as they are fitted for.
Like all virile characters, they must have their
occasional growl, but in almost every case you find
underneath, stern and unflinching loyalty to the

104

government. As an illustration read these verses
that I picked up in Agra:
A SONG OF INDIA
Across the bend of the Eastern seas
Lies a land of plains and tropical trees,
A land of mountains and sand-bound rivers.
Where the sun god's face forever mirrors;
A mystical country. Crown of the East,
With Hindu temple and Musalman feast —
The Poet's India.
Fruitful of heroes the land has been;
Both known and nameless have filled the scene.
In battle and murder, revolt and death.
Watered with blood is her parched-up earth;
And brave men fallen in fight upon her
Have turned her breast to a bed of honor —
The Soldier's India.
And far away on the Simla Hills,
Borne on the bosom of snow-sprung rills,
A sound of laughter and music and mirth,
And giving in marriage the daughters of earth.
The dangers and griefs of the toilers below
Are forgotten, so high on the edge of the snow —
In the Idler's India.
A land of delusive hopes and death.
Of disappointment and wasted breath;
Where he slaves through the heat of the long day's burden
To follow old heroes and gains no guerdon;
Where he gives his life in the vain attempt
To make his work like the thing he dreamt —
The Young Man's India.
105

A land that he needs must leave at last
When he's quite lost touch with his English past.
For a pension, if haply he lives to the giving,
He barters, poor devil, the gladness of living.
And if he has honors, he finds at life's close
That nobody cares and nobody knows
Of the Old Man's India.
A land that we've conquered and have to hold.
Though it cost us a million of lives and gold.
Shall we call her the jewel of England's fame
Or hurl our curse at her vampire name .?
But whether we bless her, or damn or deride her.
We are bound by our honor to stand fast beside her —
The Empire's India.
L. L. M.
America has taken up her share of the White
Man's Burden, and as India, from Madras to Cal
cutta, remembers Clive the conqueror and adminis
trator, so will the fame of Taft the pacificator and
statesman be cherished by Manila, Havana and
Panama.

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