The Story of Ida Pfeiffer and Her Travels in Many Lands

CHAPTER II.--JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD.

Prompt­ed by a bound­less thirst for knowl­edge and an in­sa­tiable de­sire to see new places and new things, Madame Pfeif­fer left Vi­en­na on the 1st of May 1846, and pro­ceed­ed to Ham­burg, where she em­barked on board a Dan­ish brig, the _Car­oline_, for Rio Janeiro. As the voy­age was di­vest­ed of ro­man­tic in­ci­dents, we shall land the read­er with­out de­lay at the great sea-​port of the Brazil­ian em­pire.

The trav­eller's de­scrip­tion of it is not very favourably coloured. The streets are dirty, and the hous­es, even the pub­lic build­ings, in­signif­icant. The Im­pe­ri­al Palace has not the slight­est ar­chi­tec­tural pre­ten­sions. The finest square is the Largo do Roico, but this would not be ad­mit­ted in­to Bel­gravia. It is im­pos­si­ble to speak in high terms even of the church­es, the in­te­ri­or of which is not less dis­ap­point­ing than their ex­te­ri­or. And as is the town, so are the in­hab­itants. Ne­groes and mu­lat­toes do not make up at­trac­tive pic­tures. Some of the Brazil­ian and Por­tuguese wom­en, how­ev­er, have hand­some and ex­pres­sive coun­te­nances.

Most writ­ers in­dulge in glow­ing de­scrip­tions of the scenery and cli­mate of the Brazils; of the cloud­less, ra­di­ant sky, and the mag­ic of the nev­er- end­ing spring. Madame Ida Pfeif­fer ad­mits that the veg­eta­tion is rich­er, and the soil more fruit­ful, and na­ture more ex­uber­ant­ly ac­tive than in any oth­er part of the world; but still, she says, it must not be thought that all is good and beau­ti­ful, and that there is noth­ing to weak­en the pow­er­ful ef­fect of the first im­pres­sion. The con­stant blaze of colour af­ter a while be­gins to weary; the eye wants rest; the monotony of the ver­dure op­press­es; and we be­gin to un­der­stand that the true love­li­ness of spring is on­ly right­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed when it suc­ceeds the harsh­er as­pects of win­ter.

[In­va­sion of Ants: page33.jpg]

Eu­ro­peans suf­fer much from the cli­mate. The mois­ture is very con­sid­er­able, and ren­ders the heat, which in the hot months ris­es to 99 de­grees in the shade, and 122 de­grees in the sun, more dif­fi­cult to bear. Fogs and mists are dis­agree­ably com­mon; and whole tracts of coun­try are of­ten veiled by an im­pen­etra­ble mist.

The Brazils suf­fer, too, from a plague of in­sects,--from mosquitoes, ants, barat­en, and sand-​fleas; against the at­tacks of which the trav­eller finds it dif­fi­cult to de­fend him­self. The ants of­ten ap­pear in trains of im­mea­sur­able length, and pur­sue their march over ev­ery ob­sta­cle that stands in the way. Madame Pfeif­fer, dur­ing her res­idence at a friend's house, be­held the ad­vance of a swarm of this de­scrip­tion. It was re­al­ly in­ter­est­ing to see what a reg­ular line they formed; noth­ing could make them de­vi­ate from the di­rec­tion on which they had first de­ter­mined. Madame Geiger, her friend, told her she was awak­ened one night by a ter­ri­ble itch­ing: she sprang out of bed im­me­di­ate­ly, and lo, a swarm of ants were pass­ing over it! There is no rem­edy for the in­flic­tion, ex­cept to wait, with as much pa­tience as one can muster, for the end of the pro­ces­sion, which fre­quent­ly lasts four to six hours. It is pos­si­ble, to some ex­tent, to pro­tect pro­vi­sions against their at­tacks, by plac­ing the legs of the ta­bles in basins filled with wa­ter. Clothes and linen are en­closed in tight­ly-​fit­ting tin can­is­ters.

The worst plague of all, how­ev­er, are the sand-​fleas, which at­tach them­selves to one's toes, un­der­neath the nail, or some­times to the soles of the feet. When a per­son feels an ir­ri­ta­tion in these parts, he must im­me­di­ate­ly look at the place; and if he dis­cern a tiny black point, sur­round­ed by a small white ring, the for­mer is the _chi­goe_, or sand- flea, and the lat­ter the eggs which it has de­posit­ed in the flesh. The first thing to be done is to loosen the skin all round as far as the white skin is vis­ible; the whole de­posit is then ex­tract­ed, and a lit­tle snuff strewn in the emp­ty space. The blacks per­form this op­er­ation with con­sid­er­able skill.

Rich as the Brazils are in nat­ural pro­duc­tions, they are want­ing in many ar­ti­cles which Eu­ro­peans re­gard as of the first im­por­tance. There are sug­ar and cof­fee, it is true; but no corn, no pota­toes, and none of our de­light­ful va­ri­eties of fruit. The flour of man­ioc, ob­tained from the cas­sa­va plant, which forms a sta­ple por­tion of al­most ev­ery dish, sup­plies the place of bread, but is far from be­ing so nu­tri­tious and strength­en­ing; while the dif­fer­ent kinds of sweet-​tast­ing roots are far in­fe­ri­or in val­ue to our pota­to. The on­ly fruit which Madame Pfeif­fer thought re­al­ly ex­cel­lent, were the or­anges, ba­nanas, and man­goes. The pine-​ap­ples are nei­ther very sweet nor very fra­grant. And with re­gard to two most im­por­tant ar­ti­cles of con­sump­tion, the milk is very wa­tery, and the meat very dry.

* * * * *

Our trav­eller, dur­ing her so­journ at Rio Janeiro, made many in­ter­est­ing ex­cur­sions in the neigh­bour­hood. One was di­rect­ed to Petropo­lis, a colony found­ed by Ger­mans in the heart of scenery of the most exquisite char­ac­ter. Ac­com­pa­nied by Count Berchthold, she sailed for Por­to d'Es­trel­la in one of the reg­ular coast­ing barks. Their course car­ried them across a bay re­mark­able for its pic­turesque views. It lies calm­ly in the em­brace of rich­ly-​wood­ed hills, and is stud­ded with is­lands, like a sil­ver shield with emer­ald boss­es. Some of these is­lands are com­plete­ly over­grown with palms, while oth­ers are mass­es of huge rock, with a car­pet of green turf.

Their bark was manned by four ne­groes and a white skip­per. At first they ran mer­ri­ly be­fore a favourable wind, but in two hours the crew were com­pelled to take to the oars, the method of us­ing which was ex­ceed­ing­ly fa­tigu­ing. At each dip of the oar, the row­er mounts up­on a bench in front of him, and then, dur­ing the stroke, throws him­self off again, with his full force. In two hours more they passed in­to the riv­er Geromeri­no, and made their way through a world of beau­ti­ful aquat­ic plants which cov­ered the tran­quil wa­ters in ev­ery di­rec­tion. The riv­er banks are flat, and fringed with un­der­wood and young trees; the back­ground is formed by ranges of low green hills.

At Por­to d'Es­trel­la, Madame Pfeif­fer and her com­pan­ion land­ed, and pro­ceed­ed on foot to­wards Petropo­lis. The first eight miles lay through a broad val­ley, clothed with dense bram­bles and young trees, and shad­owed by lofty moun­tains. The wild pine-​ap­ples by the road­side were very fair to see; they were not quite ripe, but tint­ed of the most del­icate red. Beau­ti­ful hum­ming-​birds flashed through the air like “winged jew­els,” and stud­ded the dense fo­liage with points of many-​coloured light.

Af­ter pass­ing through the val­ley, they reached the Sier­ra, as the Brazil­ians term the prac­ti­ca­ble moun­tain-​sum­mits. It was three thou­sand feet in height, and was as­cend­ed by a broad paved road, strik­ing through the depths of vir­gin forests.

Madame Pfeif­fer had al­ways imag­ined that the trees in vir­gin forests had very thick and lofty trunks; but such was not the case here; prob­ably be­cause the veg­eta­tion was too lux­uri­ant, and the larg­er trunks have the life crushed out of them by mass­es of small­er trees, bush­es, creep­ers, and par­asites.

Fre­quent trup­pas, or teams of ten mules driv­en by a ne­gro, as well as nu­mer­ous pedes­tri­ans, en­livened the path, and pre­vent­ed our trav­ellers from ob­serv­ing that their steps were per­sis­tent­ly fol­lowed up by a ne­gro. When, how­ev­er, they ar­rived at a some­what lone­ly spot, this ne­gro sud­den­ly sprang for­ward, hold­ing a las­so in one hand and a long knife in the oth­er, and with threat­en­ing ges­tures gave them to un­der­stand that he in­tend­ed to mur­der them, and then drag their dead bod­ies in­to the for­est!

The trav­ellers were with­out arms, hav­ing been told the road was per­fect­ly safe; their on­ly weapons were their um­brel­las, with the ex­cep­tion of a clasp-​knife. This the brave wom­an drew from her pock­et and opened, in the calm res­olu­tion to sell her life as dear­ly as pos­si­ble. With their um­brel­las they par­ried their ad­ver­sary's blows as long as they could; but he caught hold of Madame Ida's, which snapped off, leav­ing on­ly a piece of the han­dle in her hand. In the strug­gle, how­ev­er, he dropped his knife, which rolled a few steps away from him. Madame Ida im­me­di­ate­ly made a dash at it, and thought she had se­cured it; but, quick­er in his move­ments than she was, he thrust her away with his hands and feet, and once more ob­tained pos­ses­sion of it. Wav­ing it fu­ri­ous­ly over his head, he slashed her twice in the up­per part of the left arm. All seemed lost; but in her ex­treme per­il the brave la­dy bethought her of her own knife, and struck at her ad­ver­sary, wound­ing him in the hand. At the same mo­ment Count Berchthold sprang for­ward, and while he seized the vil­lain with both arms, Madame Ida Pfeif­fer re­cov­ered her feet. All this took place in less than a minute. The ne­gro was now roused in­to a con­di­tion of ma­ni­acal fury; he gnashed his teeth like a wild beast, and bran­dished his knife, while ut­ter­ing fear­ful threats. The is­sue of the con­test would prob­ably have been dis­as­trous, but for the op­por­tune ar­rival of as­sis­tance. Hear­ing the tramp of hors­es' hoofs up­on the road, the ne­gro de­sist­ed from his at­tack, and sprang in­to the for­est. A cou­ple of horse­men turn­ing the cor­ner of the road, our trav­ellers hur­ried to meet them; and hav­ing told their tale, which, in­deed, their wounds told elo­quent­ly enough, they leaped from their hors­es, and en­tered the wood in pur­suit. A cou­ple of ne­groes soon af­ter­wards com­ing up, the vil­lain was cap­tured, se­cure­ly pin­ioned, and, as he would not walk, severe­ly beat­en, un­til, as most of the blows fell up­on his head, Madame Ida Pfeif­fer feared that the wretch's skull would be bro­ken. Noth­ing, how­ev­er, would in­duce him to walk, and the ne­groes were com­pelled to car­ry him bod­ily, to the near­est house.

The colony of Petropo­lis proved to be sit­uat­ed in the depth of a vir­gin for­est, at an el­eva­tion of 2500 feet above the sea-​lev­el. At the time of Madame Pfeif­fer's vis­it it was about four­teen months old, hav­ing been found­ed for the spe­cial pur­pose of pro­vid­ing the cap­ital with fruits and veg­eta­bles which, in trop­ical cli­mates, will thrive on­ly in very el­evat­ed sit­ua­tions. It was, of course, in a very rudi­men­ta­ry con­di­tion, the mere em­bryo of a town; but the coun­try around it was very pic­turesque.

* * * * *

Madame Pfeif­fer's sec­ond ex­cur­sion was in­to the in­te­ri­or; and it opened up to her a va­ri­ety of in­ter­est­ing scenes,--as, for in­stance, a man­ioc- fazen­da, or plan­ta­tion. The man­ioc plant, it ap­pears, throws off stalks from four to six feet in height, with a num­ber of large leaves at their up­per ex­trem­ities. The valu­able por­tion of the plant is its bul­bous root, which fre­quent­ly weighs two or three pounds, and sup­plies the place of corn through­out the Brazils. It is washed, peeled, and held against the rough edge of a mill-​stone, un­til it is com­plete­ly ground in­to flour. This flour is col­lect­ed in a bas­ket, steeped thor­ough­ly in wa­ter, and af­ter­wards pressed quite dry by means of a press. Last­ly, it is scat­tered up­on large iron plates, and slow­ly dried over a gen­tle fire. At this stage it re­sem­bles a very coarse kind of flour, and is eat­en in two ways;--ei­ther mixed with hot wa­ter, un­til it forms a kind of por­ridge; or baked in the form of coarse flour, which is hand­ed round at ta­ble in lit­tle bas­kets.

She al­so saw a cof­fee plan­ta­tion. The cof­fee-​trees stand in rows up­on tol­er­ably steep hillocks. Their height ranges from six feet to twelve; and they be­gin to bear some­times as ear­ly as the sec­ond, but in no case lat­er than the third year. They are pro­duc­tive for at least ten years. The leaf is long and slight­ly ser­rat­ed, and the flow­er white; while the fruit hangs down like a clus­ter of grapes, and re­sem­bles a large cher­ry, which varies from green to red, then to brown, and al­most black. While red, the out­er shell is soft; but even­tu­al­ly it be­comes per­fect­ly hard, un­til it may be com­pared to a wood­en cap­sule. Blos­soms and ripe fruit are found on the same tree at the same time; so that a crop may be gath­ered at al­most any sea­son of the year. Af­ter the berries are plucked, they are spread out in spa­cious ar­eas en­closed by a wall about twelve feet high, with small drains to car­ry off the rain-​wa­ter. Here the cof­fee is al­lowed to dry in the heat of the sun, and it is then shak­en in­to large stone mor­tars, where it is light­ly pound­ed with wood­en ham­mers, set in mo­tion by wa­ter pow­er. The whole mass falls in­to wood­en box­es at­tached to a long ta­ble, at which sit the ne­gro work­ers, who sep­arate the cof­fee from the husk, and put it in­to flat cop­per pans. In these it is care­ful­ly and skil­ful­ly turned about over a slow fire, un­til des­ic­ca­tion is com­plete. On the whole, says Madame Ida Pfeif­fer, the prepa­ra­tion of the cof­fee is not la­bo­ri­ous, and the har­vest much more eas­ily gath­ered than one of corn. The ne­gro, while pluck­ing the cof­fee, stands erect, and the tree pro­tects him from the heat of the sun. His on­ly dan­ger is from poi­sonous snakes, and a sting from one of these is a very rare oc­cur­rence.

An­oth­er nov­el­ty which much im­pressed our trav­eller was the sight of the fre­quent burn­ing forests. These are set on fire in or­der to clear the ground for cul­ti­va­tion. In most cas­es she viewed the tremen­dous spec­ta­cle from a dis­tance; but one day she re­al­ized it in all its de­tails, as her road lay be­tween a wood in flames on the one hand, and the brush­wood, crack­ling and seething, on the oth­er. The space be­tween the dou­ble rows of fire did not ex­ceed fifty paces in breadth, and was com­plete­ly buried in smoke. The splut­ter­ing and hiss­ing of the fire was dis­tinct­ly au­di­ble, and through the dense mass of vapour shot up­ward thick shafts and tongues of flame, while now and then the large trees crashed to the ground, with loud re­ports, like those of ar­tillery.

[A For­est of Fire: page45.jpg]

“On see­ing my guide en­ter this fiery gulf,” says our trav­eller, “I was, I must con­fess, rather fright­ened;” and her dread was sure­ly very ex­cus­able. She plucked up courage, how­ev­er, when she saw that her guide pushed for­ward. On the thresh­old, so to speak, sat two ne­groes, to in­di­cate the safe, and, in truth, the on­ly path. The guide, in obe­di­ence to their warn­ing, spurred on his mule, and, fol­lowed by Madame Pfeif­fer, gal­loped at full speed across the desert of fire. Flames to the right of them, flames to the left of them, on­ward they dashed, and hap­pi­ly ef­fect­ed the pas­sage in safe­ty.

* * * * *

Madame Pfeif­fer gives a bright de­scrip­tion of the beau­ties of the road as she pushed fur­ther in­to the in­te­ri­or. Cross­ing a small wa­ter­fall, she struck right in­to the depths of the vir­gin for­est, pur­su­ing a nar­row path which ran along the bank of a lit­tle stream. Palms, with their lord­ly crests, soared high above the oth­er trees, which, in­ter­twined by in­ex­tri­ca­ble boughs, formed the loveli­est fairy-​bow­ers imag­in­able; ev­ery stem, ev­ery branch was lux­uri­ous­ly fes­tooned with fan­tas­tic or­chids; while creep­ers and ferns glid­ed up the tall, smooth trunks, min­gling with the boughs, and hang­ing in ev­ery di­rec­tion wav­ing cur­tains of flow­ers, of the sweet­est odours and the most vivid colours. With shrill twit­ter­ing cry and rapid wings flashed the hum­ming-​bird from bough to bough; the pep­per-​peck­er, with glow­ing plumage, soared tim­orous­ly up­wards; while par­rots and paro­quets, and in­nu­mer­able birds of beau­ti­ful ap­pear­ance, added, by their cries and mo­tions, to the live­li­ness of the scene.

Madame Pfeif­fer vis­it­ed an In­di­an vil­lage. It lay deep in the for­est re­cess­es, and con­sist­ed of five huts, or rather sheds, formed of leaves, and mea­sur­ing eigh­teen feet by twelve feet, erect­ed un­der lofty trees. The frames were formed of four poles stuck in the ground, with an­oth­er reach­ing across; and the roof was wrought of palm-​leaves, by no means im­per­vi­ous to the rain. The sides were open. In the in­te­ri­or hung a ham­mock or two; and on the earth a few roots, In­di­an corn, and ba­nanas were roast­ing un­der a heap of ash­es. In one cor­ner, un­der the roof, a small sup­ply of pro­vi­sions was hoard­ed up, and round about were scat­tered a few gourds; these are used by the Puris as sub­sti­tutes for “crock­ery.” Their weapons, the long bows and ar­rows, leaned against the wall.

Madame Pfeif­fer de­scribes the Puri In­di­ans as even ugli­er than the ne­groes. Their com­plex­ion is a light bronze; they are stunt­ed in stature, well-​knit, and about the mid­dle size. Their fea­tures are broad and some­what com­pressed; their hair is thick, long, and of a coal-​black colour. The men wear it hang­ing straight down; the wom­en, in plaits fas­tened to the back of the head, and some­times falling loose­ly down about their per­sons. Their fore­head is broad and low, and the nose some­what flat­tened; the eyes are long and nar­row, al­most like those of the Chi­nese; and the mouth is large, with rather thick lips. To en­hance the ef­fect of these var­ious charms, the coun­te­nance bears a pe­cu­liar look of stu­pid­ity, which may be at­tribut­ed per­haps to the way in which the mouth is kept al­ways open. Wom­en, as well as males, are gen­er­al­ly tat­tooed of a red­dish or blue colour, round the mouth, mous­ta­chio-​wise. Both sex­es are ad­dict­ed to smok­ing, and look up­on brandy as the _sum­mum bon­um_ of hu­man life.

The In­di­ans, ug­ly as they were, gave Madame Pfeif­fer a hos­pitable wel­come. Af­ter an evening meal, in which roast­ed mon­key and par­rot were the chief dish­es, they per­formed one of their char­ac­ter­is­tic dances. A quan­ti­ty of wood was heaped up in­to a fu­ner­al pile, and set on fire; the men then danced around it in a ring. They threw their bod­ies from side to side with much awk­ward­ness, but al­ways mov­ing the head for­ward in a straight line. The wom­en then joined in, form­ing at a short dis­tance be­hind the men, and im­itat­ing all their move­ments. A hor­ri­ble noise arose; this was in­tend­ed for a song, the singers at the same time dis­tort­ing their fea­tures fright­ful­ly. One of them per­formed on a kind of stringed in­stru­ment, made out of the stem of a cab­bage-​palm, and about two feet, or two feet and a half, in length. A hole was cut in it slant­wise, and six fi­bres of the stem were kept up in an el­evat­ed po­si­tion at each end, by means of a small bridge. The fin­gers played up­on these as up­on a gui­tar, draw­ing forth a very low, harsh, and dis­agree­able tone. The dance, thus pleas­ing­ly ac­com­pa­nied, was called the Dance of Peace and Joy.

A wilder mea­sure was next un­der­tak­en by the men alone. They first equipped them­selves with bows, ar­rows, and stout clubs; then they formed a cir­cle, in­dulged in the most rapid and fan­tas­tic move­ments, and bran­dished their clubs as if deal­ing death to a hun­dred foes. Sud­den­ly they broke their ranks, strung their bows, placed their ar­rows ready, and rep­re­sent­ed all the evo­lu­tions of shoot­ing af­ter a fly­ing foe, giv­ing ut­ter­ance to the most pierc­ing cries, which re­sound­ed through the for­est- glades. Madame Pfeif­fer, be­liev­ing that she was re­al­ly sur­round­ed by en­emies, start­ed up in ter­ror, and was hearti­ly glad when the dance end­ed.

[Cape Horn: page51.jpg]

From Rio Janeiro Madame Pfeif­fer sailed in an En­glish ship, the _John Ren­wick_, on the 9th of De­cem­ber, bound for Val­paraiso in Chili. She kept to the south, touch­ing at San­tos, where the voy­agers cel­ebrat­ed New- Year's Day, and reach­ing the mouth of the Rio Pla­ta on the 11th of Jan­uary. In these lat­itudes the South­ern Cross is the most con­spic­uous ob­ject in the heav­ens. It con­sists of four stars of much bril­lian­cy, ar­ranged in two di­ag­onal rows. Late in the month the voy­agers sight­ed the ster­ile shores and bar­ren moun­tains of Patag­onia, and next the vol­canic rocks, wave-​worn and wind-​worn, of Tier­ra del Fuego. Through the Strait of Le Maire, which sep­arates the lat­ter from Stat­en Is­land, they sailed on­ward to the ex­treme south­ern point of the Amer­ican con­ti­nent, the fa­mous promon­to­ry of Cape Horn. It is the ter­mi­na­tion of the mighty moun­tain-​chain of the An­des, and is formed of a mass of colos­sal basaltic rocks, thrown to­geth­er in wild dis­or­der, as by a Ti­tan's hand.

Round­ing Cape Horn they en­coun­tered a vi­olent gale, which last­ed for sev­er­al days; and soon dis­cov­ered, like oth­er voy­agers, how lit­tle the great south­ern ocean de­serves its name of the Pa­cif­ic. But they reached Val­paraiso in safe­ty. Its ap­pear­ance, how­ev­er, did not very favourably im­press Madame Ida Pfeif­fer. It is laid out in two long streets at the foot of drea­ry hills, these hills con­sist­ing of a pile of rocks cov­ered with thin stra­ta of earth and sand. Some of them are cov­ered with hous­es; on one of them is the church­yard; the oth­ers are bare and soli­tary. The two chief streets are broad, and much fre­quent­ed, es­pe­cial­ly by horse­men; for ev­ery Chil­ian is born a horse­man, and is usu­al­ly mount­ed on a steed wor­thy of a good rid­er.

Val­paraiso hous­es are Eu­ro­pean in style, with flat Ital­ian roofs. Broad steps lead up in­to a lofty en­trance-​hall on the first floor, from which, through large glass doors, the vis­itor pass­es in­to the draw­ing-​room and oth­er apart­ments. The draw­ing-​room is the pride not on­ly of ev­ery Eu­ro­pean set­tler, but of ev­ery na­tive Chil­ian. The foot sinks in­to heavy and cost­ly car­pets; the walls are em­bla­zoned with rich tapestry; the fur­ni­ture and mir­rors are of Eu­ro­pean make, and sump­tu­ous in the ex­treme; and ev­ery ta­ble presents the ev­idence of re­fined taste in gor­geous al­bums, adorned with the choic­est en­grav­ings.

As to the low­er class­es of the pop­ula­tion, if we would ob­tain an idea of their man­ners and cus­toms, we must stroll on a fete-​day in­to one of their eat­ing-​hous­es.

In one cor­ner, on the ground, crack­les a tremen­dous fire, sur­round­ed by in­nu­mer­able pots and pans, be­tween which are wood­en spits with beef and pork, sim­mer­ing and roast­ing with ap­pe­tiz­ing savour. A rude wood­en frame- work, with a long broad plank on it, oc­cu­pies the mid­dle of the room, and is cov­ered with a cloth, the orig­inal colour of which it is im­pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine. This is the guest-​ta­ble. The din­ner is served up in the most prim­itive fash­ion imag­in­able, all the viands be­ing heaped up in one dish; beans and rice, pota­toes and roast beef, onions and par­adise ap­ples, form­ing a cu­ri­ous med­ley. The ap­petites of the guests are keen, and no time is wast­ed in talk­ing. At the end of the repast, a gob­let of wine or wa­ter pass­es from hand to hand; af­ter which ev­ery tongue is loos­ened. In the evening a gui­tar strikes up, and danc­ing be­comes gen­er­al.

A sin­gu­lar cus­tom pre­vails among the Chil­ians on the death of a lit­tle child. This in­ci­dent, in most Eu­ro­pean fam­ilies, is at­tend­ed by much sor­row: the Chil­ian par­ents make it the oc­ca­sion of a great fes­ti­val. The de­ceased _an­geli­to_, or lit­tle an­gel, is adorned in var­ious ways. Its eyes, in­stead of be­ing closed, are opened as wide as pos­si­ble; its cheeks are paint­ed red; then the cold rigid corpse is dressed in the finest clothes, crowned with flow­ers, and set up in a lit­tle chair in a flow­er- gar­land­ed niche. The rel­atives and neigh­bours flock in, to wish the par­ents joy on the pos­ses­sion of such an an­gel; and, dur­ing the first night, they all in­dulge in the most ex­trav­agant dances, and feast with sounds of wildest mer­ri­ment be­fore the _an­geli­to_.

Madame Pfeif­fer heard from a mer­chant the fol­low­ing sto­ry:--A grave-​dig­ger, on his way to the church­yard with one of these de­ceased an­geli­tos, tar­ried at a tav­ern to re­fresh him­self with a cup of wine. The land­lord in­quired what he was car­ry­ing un­der his cloak, and on learn­ing that it was an an­geli­to, of­fered him a shilling for it. A bar­gain was soon struck; the land­lord quick­ly fit­ted up a flow­ery niche in the drink­ing-​sa­loon, and then took care that his neigh­bours should know what a trea­sure he had ac­quired. They came; they ad­mired the an­geli­to; they drank co­pi­ous­ly in its hon­our. But the par­ents hear­ing of the af­fair, in­ter­fered, car­ried away their dead child, and sum­moned the land­lord be­fore the mag­is­trate. The lat­ter grave­ly heard the plead­ings on both sides, and as no such case was men­tioned in the statute-​book, ar­ranged it am­ica­bly, to the sat­is­fac­tion of both par­ties.

[Scene in Tahi­ti: page57.jpg]

* * * * *

Weary­ing of Val­paraiso, our rest­less and ad­ven­tur­ous trav­eller, who was bent up­on ac­com­plish­ing a voy­age round the world, took her pas­sage for Chi­na in the Dutch bar­que _Loot­purt_, Cap­tain Van Wyk Ju­ri­anse.

They sailed from Val­paraiso on the 18th of March, and on the 26th of April came in sight of that gem of the South Seas, Tahi­ti, the Ota­heite of Cap­tain Cook, and the largest and most beau­ti­ful of the So­ci­ety group. From the days of Bougainville, its dis­cov­er­er, down to those of “the Earl and the Doc­tor,” who re­cent­ly pub­lished a nar­ra­tive of their vis­it, it has been the theme of ad­mi­ra­tion for the charms of its scenery. It lifts its lofty sum­mit out of a wealth of lux­uri­ant veg­eta­tion, which de­scends to the very mar­gin of a sea as blue as the sky above it. Cool green val­leys pen­etrate in­to its moun­tain-​re­cess­es, and their slopes are load­ed with groves of bread-​fruit and co­coa-​nut trees. The in­hab­itants, phys­ical­ly speak­ing, are not un­wor­thy of their is­land-​Eden; they are a tall, ro­bust, and well-​knit race, and would be come­ly but for their cus­tom of flat­ten­ing the nose as soon as the child is born. They have fine dark eyes, and thick jet-​black hair. The colour of their skin is a cop­per-​brown. Both sex­es are tat­tooed, gen­er­al­ly from the hips half down the legs, and fre­quent­ly over the hands, feet, and oth­er parts of the body; the de­vices be­ing of­ten very fan­ci­ful in de­sign, and al­ways ar­tis­ti­cal­ly ex­ecut­ed.

The wom­en of Tahi­ti have al­ways been no­to­ri­ous for their im­mod­esty, and the is­land, notwith­stand­ing the labours of zeal­ous mis­sion­ar­ies, con­tin­ues to be the Poly­ne­sian Pa­phos. The French pro­tec­torate from which it suf­fers has not raised the moral stan­dard of the pop­ula­tion.

Madame Pfeif­fer un­der­took an ex­cur­sion to the Lake Vai­hiria, as­sum­ing for the nonce a se­mi-​mas­cu­line at­tire, which any less strong-​mind­ed and ad­ven­tur­ous wom­an would prob­ably have re­fused. She wore, she tells us, strong men's shoes, trousers, and a blouse, which was fas­tened high up about the hips. Thus equipped, she start­ed off with her guide, cross­ing about two-​and-​thir­ty brooks be­fore they en­tered the ravines lead­ing in­to the in­te­ri­or of the is­land.

She no­ticed that as they ad­vanced the fruit-​trees dis­ap­peared, and in­stead, the slopes were cov­ered with plan­tains, taros, and maran­tas; the last at­tain­ing a height of twelve feet, and grow­ing so lux­uri­ant­ly that it is with some dif­fi­cul­ty the trav­eller makes his way through the tan­gle. The taro, which is care­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed, av­er­ages two or three feet high, and has fine large leaves and tu­bers like those of the pota­to, but not so good when roast­ed. There is much grace­ful­ness in the ap­pear­ance of the plan­tain, or ba­nana, which varies from twelve to fif­teen feet in height, and has leaves like those of the palm, but a brit­tle reed-​like stem, about eight inch­es in di­am­eter. It at­tains its full growth in the first year, bears fruit in the sec­ond, and then dies. Thus its life is as brief as it is use­ful.

Through one bright moun­tain-​stream, which swept along the ravine over a stony bed, break­ing up in­to ed­dies and tiny whirlpools, and in some places at­tain­ing a depth of three feet, Madame Pfeif­fer and her guide wad­ed or half-​swam two-​and-​six­ty times. The res­olute spir­it of the wom­an, how­ev­er, nev­er failed her; and though the path at ev­ery step be­came more dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous, she per­sist­ed in press­ing for­ward. She clam­bered over rocks and stones; she forced her way through in­ter- tan­gled bush­es; and though severe­ly wound­ed in her hands and feet, nev­er hes­itat­ed for a mo­ment. In two places the ravine nar­rowed so con­sid­er­ably that the en­tire space was filled by the brawl­ing tor­rent. It was here that the is­landers, dur­ing their strug­gle against French oc­cu­pa­tion, threw up stone walls five feet in height, as a bar­ri­er against the en­emy.

In eight hours the bold trav­eller and her guide had walked, wad­ed, and clam­bered ful­ly eigh­teen miles, and had at­tained an el­eva­tion of eigh­teen hun­dred feet. The lake it­self was not vis­ible un­til they stood up­on its shores, as it lies bo­somed in a deep hol­low, among lofty and pre­cip­itous moun­tains which de­scend with startling abrupt­ness to the very brink of its dark, deep wa­ters. To cross the lake it is nec­es­sary to put one's trust in one's swim­ming pow­ers, or in a cu­ri­ous­ly frail kind of boat, which the na­tives pre­pare with equal ra­pid­ity and skill. Madame Pfeif­fer, how­ev­er, was noth­ing if not ad­ven­tur­ous. What­ev­er there was to be dared, she im­me­di­ate­ly dared. At her re­quest, the guide made the usu­al es­say at boat-​build­ing. He tore off some plan­tain branch­es, bound them to­geth­er with long tough grass, laid a few leaves up­on them, launched them in the wa­ter, and re­quest­ed Madame Pfeif­fer to em­bark. She con­fess­es to hav­ing felt a lit­tle hes­ita­tion, but with­out say­ing a word, she stepped on board. Then her guide took to the wa­ter like a duck, and pushed her for­ward. The pas­sage across the lake, and back again, was in this way ac­com­plished with­out any ac­ci­dent.

Hav­ing sa­ti­at­ed her­self with ad­mir­ing the lake and its sur­round­ing scenery, she re­tired to a lit­tle nook roofed over with leaves, where her guide quick­ly kin­dled a good fire in the usu­al In­di­an fash­ion. He cut a small piece of wood to a fine point, and then se­lect­ing a sec­ond piece, grooved it with a nar­row and not very deep fur­row. In this he rubbed the point­ed stick un­til the frag­ments de­tached dur­ing the pro­cess be­gan to smoke. These he flung in­to a heap of dry leaves and grass pre­vi­ous­ly col­lect­ed, and swung the whole sev­er­al times round in the air, un­til it broke out in­to flames. The en­tire pro­cess did not oc­cu­py above two min­utes. Gath­er­ing a few plan­tains, these were roast­ed for sup­per; af­ter which Madame Pfeif­fer with­drew to her soli­tary couch of dry leaves, to sleep as best she might. It is im­pos­si­ble not to won­der at the mar­vel­lous phys­ical ca­pa­bil­ity of this ad­ven­tur­ous wom­an, no less than at her courage, her res­olu­tion, and her per­se­ver­ance. How many of her sex could bear for a week the fa­tigue and ex­po­sure to which she sub­ject­ed her­self year af­ter year?

The next morn­ing she ac­com­plished the re­turn jour­ney in safe­ty.

* * * * *

[Hong-​Kong: page65.jpg]

On the 17th of May she left Tahi­ti, the Dutch ves­sel in which she had em­barked be­ing bound via the Philip­pines. They passed this rich and ra­di­ant group of is­lands on the 1st of Ju­ly, and the next day en­tered the dan­ger­ous Chi­na Sea. A few days af­ter­wards they reached Hong-​Kong, which has been an En­glish set­tle­ment since 1842. Here Madame Pfeif­fer made no long stay, for she de­sired to see Chi­na and the Chi­nese with as lit­tle in­ter­mix­ture of the Eu­ro­pean el­ement as pos­si­ble. So she as­cend­ed the Pearl riv­er, the banks of which are cov­ered with im­mense plan­ta­tions of rice, and stud­ded with quaint lit­tle coun­try-​hous­es, of the gen­uine Chi­nese pat­tern, with slop­ing, point­ed roofs, and mo­saics of var­ious­ly coloured tiles, to Can­ton, one of the great com­mer­cial cen­tres of the Flow­ery Land. As she ap­proached she sur­veyed with won­der the an­imat­ed scene be­fore her. The riv­er was crowd­ed with ships and in­hab­it­ed boats. Junks there were, al­most as large as the old Span­ish galleons, with poops im­pend­ing far over the wa­ter, and cov­ered in with a roof, like a house. Men-​of-​war there were, flat, broad, and long, mount­ed with twen­ty or thir­ty guns, and adorned in the usu­al Chi­nese fash­ion, with two large paint­ed eyes at the prow, that they may be the bet­ter able to find their way. Man­darins' boats she saw, with doors, and sides, and win­dows gai­ly paint­ed, with carved gal­leries, and tiny silken flags flut­ter­ing from ev­ery point. And flow­er-​boats she al­so saw; their up­per gal­leries decked with flow­ers, gar­lands, and arabesques, as if these were barks fit­ted out for the ser­vice of Ti­ta­nia and her fairy com­pa­ny. The in­te­ri­or is di­vid­ed in­to one large apart­ment and a few cab­inets, which are light­ed by win­dows of fan­tas­tic de­sign. Mir­rors and silk hang­ings em­bel­lish the walls, while the en­chant­ing scene is com­plet­ed with an am­ple gar­ni­ture of glass chan­de­liers and coloured pa­per lanterns, in­ter­spersed with love­ly lit­tle bas­kets of fresh flow­ers.

It is not nec­es­sary to at­tempt a de­scrip­tion of Can­ton, with its pago­das, hous­es, shops, and Eu­ro­pean fac­to­ries. Let us di­rect our at­ten­tion to the man­ners, cus­toms, and pe­cu­liar­ities of its in­hab­itants. As to dress and ap­pear­ance, the cos­tume of both sex­es, among the low­er or­ders, con­sists of full trousers and long up­per gar­ments, and is chiefly re­mark­able for its “ex­ces­sive filth.” Baths and ablu­tions have no charm for the Chi­na­man; he scorns to wear a shirt, and he holds by his trousers un­til they drop from his body. The men's up­per gar­ments reach a lit­tle be­low the knee, the wom­en's about half way down the calf. They are made of nan­keen, or dark blue, brown, or black silk. Dur­ing the cold sea­son both men and wom­en wear one sum­mer gar­ment over the oth­er, keep­ing the whole to­geth­er with a gir­dle; in the ex­treme heat, how­ev­er, they suf­fer them to float as free as “No­ra Creina's robes” in Moore's pret­ty bal­lad.

The men keep their heads shaved, with the ex­cep­tion of a small patch at the back, where the hair is care­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed and plait­ed in­to a cue. The thick­er and longer this cue is, the proud­er is its own­er; false hair and black rib­bon, there­fore, are all deft­ly worked in­to it, with the re­sult of form­ing an ap­pendage which of­ten reach­es down to the an­kles! While at work the own­er twists it round his neck, but on en­ter­ing a room he lets it down again, as it would be con­trary to all the laws of eti­quette and cour­tesy for a per­son to make his ap­pear­ance with his cue twist­ed up. The wom­en comb their hair en­tire­ly back from their fore­head, and fas­ten it to the head in the most artis­tic plaits. The pro­cess oc­cu­pies a con­sid­er­able time, but when the hair is once dressed it is not re­touched for a whole week. Both men and wom­en fre­quent­ly go about with heads un­cov­ered; but some­times they wear hats of thin bam­boo, three feet in di­am­eter. These are not on­ly an ad­equate pro­tec­tion against sun and rain, but are ex­ceed­ing­ly durable.

Large num­bers of Chi­nese live a kind of aquat­ic life, and make their home on board a riv­er-​boat. The hus­band goes on shore to his work, and his wife mean­time adds to the in­come of the fam­ily by fer­ry­ing per­sons from bank to bank, or let­ting out the boat to plea­sure par­ties--al­ways re­serv­ing one half of its ac­com­mo­da­tion for her­self and house­hold. Room is not very abun­dant, as the whole boat does not ex­ceed twen­ty-​five feet in length; but ev­ery­where the great­est or­der and clean­li­ness are ap­par­ent, each sep­arate plank be­ing en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly scrubbed and washed ev­ery morn­ing. It is worth no­tice how each inch of space is turned to the best ad­van­tage, room be­ing made even for the _lares_ and _pe­nates_. All the wash­ing and cook­ing are done dur­ing the day; yet the plea­sure par­ty is nev­er in the least de­gree in­con­ve­nienced.

Of course our trav­eller was at­tract­ed by the diminu­tive­ness of the feet of the Chi­nese wom­en, and she had an op­por­tu­ni­ty of ex­am­in­ing one of these tiny mon­strosi­ties _in natu­ra_. Four of the toes were bent un­der the sole of the foot, to which they were firm­ly pressed, and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly with which they ap­peared to have grown, if growth it can be called; the great toe alone re­mained in its nat­ural state. The fore part of the foot had been so swathed and com­pressed by tight ban­dages, that, in­stead of ex­pand­ing in length and breadth, it had shot up­wards, so as to form a large lump at the in­step, where it be­came, so to speak, a por­tion of the leg; the low­er part of the foot was scarce­ly five inch­es long, and an inch and a half broad. The feet are al­ways en­cased in white linen or silk, with silk ban­dages over all, and are then stuffed in­to pret­ty lit­tle shoes with very high heels. “To my as­ton­ish­ment,” says Madame Pfeif­fer, “these de­formed be­ings tripped about, as if in de­fi­ance of us broad-​foot­ed crea­tures, with tol­er­able ease, the on­ly dif­fer­ence in their gait be­ing that they wad­dled like geese; they even ran up and down stairs with­out a stick.” She adds, that the val­ue of a bride is reck­oned by the small­ness of her feet.

It was char­ac­ter­is­tic of Madame Pfeif­fer that she found means to see much which no Eu­ro­pean wom­an had ev­er seen be­fore. She ob­tained ac­cess even to a Bud­dhist tem­ple,--that of Houan, re­put­ed to be one of the finest in Chi­na. The sa­cred en­clo­sure is sur­round­ed by a high wall. The vis­itor en­ters first a large out­er court, at the ex­trem­ity of which a huge gate­way opens up­on an in­ner court. Be­neath the arch stand two stat­ues of war-​gods, each eigh­teen feet high, with ter­ri­bly dis­tort­ed faces and the most men­ac­ing at­ti­tudes; these are sup­posed to pre­vent the ap­proach of evil genii. A sec­ond por­tal, of sim­ilar con­struc­tion, un­der which are placed the “four heav­en­ly kings,” leads to a third court, sur­round­ing the prin­ci­pal tem­ple, a struc­ture one hun­dred feet in length, and of equal breadth. On rows of wood­en pil­lars is sup­port­ed a flat roof, from which glass lamps, lus­tres, ar­ti­fi­cial flow­ers, and bright­ly-​coloured rib­bons hang sus­pend­ed. All about the area are scat­tered stat­ues, al­tars, vas­es of flow­ers, censers, can­de­labra, and oth­er ac­ces­sories.

But the eye is chiefly at­tract­ed by the three al­tars in the fore­ground, with the three coloured stat­ues be­hind them, of Bud­dha, seat­ed, as em­blem­at­ic of Past, Present, and Fu­ture. On the oc­ca­sion of Madame Pfeif­fer's vis­it a ser­vice was be­ing per­formed,--a fu­ner­al cer­emo­ny in hon­our of a man­darin's de­ceased wife, and at his ex­pense. Be­fore the al­tars on the right and left stood sev­er­al priests, in gar­ments strange­ly re­sem­bling, as did the cer­emo­ni­al ob­ser­vances, those of the Ro­man Church. The man­darin him­self, at­tend­ed by two ser­vants armed with large fans, prayed be­fore the cen­tral al­tar. He kissed the ground re­peat­ed­ly, and each time he did so three sweet-​scent­ed wax-​ta­pers were put in­to his hand. Af­ter rais­ing them in the air, he hand­ed them to the priests, who then sta­tioned them, un­light­ed, be­fore the Bud­dha im­ages. Mean­time, the tem­ple re­sound­ed with the blend­ed strains of three mu­si­cians, one of whom struck a met­al ball, the oth­er scraped a stringed in­stru­ment, and the third educed shrill notes from a kind of flute.

This prin­ci­pal tem­ple is sur­round­ed by nu­mer­ous small­er sanc­tu­ar­ies, each dec­orat­ed with im­ages of deities, rude­ly wrought, but glow­ing with gilt and vivid colours. Spe­cial rev­er­ence seems to be ac­cord­ed to Kwan­footse, a demigod of War, and the four-​and-​twen­ty gods of Mer­cy. These lat­ter have four, six, and even eight arms. In the Tem­ple of Mer­cy Madame Pfeif­fer met with an un­pleas­ant ad­ven­ture. A Bonze had of­fered her and her com­pan­ions a cou­ple of wax ta­pers to light in hon­our of the god. They were on the point of com­ply­ing, as a mat­ter of ci­vil­ity, when an Amer­ican mis­sion­ary, who made one of the par­ty, snatched them rough­ly from their hands, and gave them back to the priests, protest­ing that such com­pli­ance was idol­atrous. The Bonze, in high in­dig­na­tion, closed the door, and sum­moned his brethren, who hur­ried in from all sides, and jos­tled and pushed and pressed, while us­ing the most vi­olent lan­guage. It was not with­out dif­fi­cul­ty they forced their way through the crowd, and es­caped from the tem­ple.

The guide next led the cu­rios­ity-​hunters to the so-​called House of the Sa­cred Swine. The great­est at­ten­tion is paid to these porcine trea­sures, and they re­side in a spa­cious stone hall; but not the less is the at­mo­sphere heavy with odours that are not ex­act­ly those of Ara­by the Blest. Through­out their slug­gish ex­is­tence the swine are care­ful­ly fed and cher­ished, and no cru­el knife cuts short the thread of their des­tiny. At the time of Madame Pfeif­fer's vis­it on­ly one pair were en­joy­ing their _otium cum dig­ni­tate_, and the num­ber rarely ex­ceeds three pairs.

Peep­ing in­to the in­te­ri­or of a Bonze's house, the com­pa­ny came up­on an opi­um-​smok­er. He lay stretched up­on a mat, with small tea-​cups be­side him, some fruit, a tiny lamp, and sev­er­al minia­ture-​head­ed pipes, from one of which he was in­hal­ing the in­tox­icat­ing smoke. It is said that some of the Chi­nese opi­um-​smok­ers con­sume as much as twen­ty or thir­ty grains dai­ly. This poor wretch was not whol­ly un­con­scious of the pres­ence of vis­itors; and, lay­ing by his pipe, he raised him­self from the ground, and dragged his body to a chair. With dead­ly pale face and fixed, star­ing eyes, he pre­sent­ed a mis­er­able ap­pear­ance.

* * * * *

Our trav­eller al­so vis­it­ed a pago­da,--the Half-​Way Pago­da; so called by the En­glish be­cause it is sit­uat­ed half-​way be­tween Can­ton and Wham­poa. On a small hillock, in the midst of vast tracts of rice, it rais­es its nine sto­ries to a height of one hun­dred and sev­en­ty feet. Though for­mer­ly of great re­pute, it is now de­sert­ed. The in­te­ri­or has been stripped of stat­ues and or­na­ments, and the floors hav­ing been re­moved, the vis­itor sees to the very sum­mit. Ex­ter­nal­ly, each stage is in­di­cat­ed by a small bal­cony with­out rail­ing, ac­cess be­ing ob­tained by steep and nar­row flights of stairs. A pic­turesque ef­fect is pro­duced by these pro­jec­tions, as ev­ery­body knows who has ex­am­ined a “wil­low-​pat­tern” plate. They are built of coloured bricks, which are laid in rows, with their points jut­ting oblique­ly out­wards, and faced with var­ie­gat­ed tiles.

Even more in­ter­est­ing was Madame Pfeif­fer's peep in­to the “do­mes­tic in­te­ri­or” of Man­darin Howqua.

The house was of large size, but on­ly one sto­ry high, with wide and splen­did ter­races. The win­dows looked in­to the in­ner courts. At the en­trance were two paint­ed im­ages of gods to ward off evil spir­its, like the horse-​shoe for­mer­ly sus­pend­ed to the cot­tages and barns of our En­glish peas­ants.

The front part was di­vid­ed in­to sev­er­al re­cep­tion rooms, with­out front walls; and ad­join­ing these, bloomed bright and gai­ly-​or­dered parter­res of flow­ers and shrubs. The mag­nif­icent ter­races above al­so bloomed with blos­som, and com­mand­ed a live­ly view of the crowd­ed riv­er, and of the fine scenery that spreads around Can­ton. El­egant lit­tle cab­inets sur­round­ed these rooms, be­ing sep­arat­ed by thin par­ti­tions, through which the eye could eas­ily pen­etrate, and fre­quent­ly em­bel­lished with gay and skil­ful­ly-​ex­ecut­ed paint­ings. The ma­te­ri­al used was chiefly bam­boo, which was as del­icate as gauze, and co­pi­ous­ly dec­orat­ed with paint­ed flow­ers or beau­ti­ful­ly-​writ­ten proverbs.

The chairs and so­fas were nu­mer­ous, and of re­al­ly artis­tic work­man­ship. Some of the arm-​chairs were cun­ning­ly wrought out of a sin­gle piece of wood. The seats of oth­ers were beau­ti­ful mar­ble slabs; of oth­ers, again, fine coloured tiles or porce­lain. Ar­ti­cles of Eu­ro­pean man­ufac­ture, such as hand­some mir­rors, clocks, vas­es, and ta­bles of Flo­ren­tine mo­sa­ic or var­ie­gat­ed mar­ble, were plen­ti­ful. There was al­so a re­mark­able col­lec­tion of lamps and lanterns pen­dent from the ceil­ings, con­sist­ing--these lamps and lanterns--of glass, trans­par­ent horn, and coloured gauze or pa­per, or­na­ment­ed with glass beads, fringe, and tas­sels. And as the walls were al­so large­ly sup­plied with lamps, the apart­ments, when light­ed up, as­sumed a tru­ly fairy-​like char­ac­ter.

[Chi­nese House and Gar­den: page77.jpg]

The man­darin's plea­sure-​gar­den stretched along the riv­er-​side. Its cul­ti­va­tion was per­fect, but no taste was shown in its ar­range­ment. Wher­ev­er the vis­itor turned, kiosks, sum­mer-​hous­es, and bridges con­front­ed her. Ev­ery path and open spot were lined with large and small flow­er-​pots, in which grew flow­ers and liliputian fruit-​trees of all kinds. In the art of dwarf­ing trees, if such dis­tor­tion and crip­pling of Na­ture de­serves to be called an art, the Chi­nese are cer­tain­ly most ac­com­plished ex­perts; but what can we think of the taste, or want of taste, which prefers pig­mies three feet high to the lofty and far-​shad­ow­ing trees which em­bel­lish our En­glish parks and gar­dens? Why should a civ­ilized peo­ple put Na­ture in fet­ters, and de­light in check­ing her growth, in lim­it­ing her spon­ta­neous en­er­gies?

Here are some par­tic­ulars about the tea-​plant:--In the plan­ta­tions around Can­ton, it is not al­lowed to grow high­er than six feet, and is con­se­quent­ly cut at in­ter­vals. Its leaves are con­sid­ered good from the third to the eighth year; and the plant is then cut down, in or­der that it may throw off new shoots, or else it is root­ed out. Three gath­er­ings take place in the year; the first in March, the sec­ond in April, and the third, which lasts for three months, in May. So fine and del­icate are the leaves of the first gath­er­ing, that they might eas­ily be mis­tak­en for the blos­som; which un­doubt­ed­ly has orig­inat­ed the er­ror that the so-​called “bloom or im­pe­ri­al tea” con­sists of the flow­ers and not of the leaves of the plant.

When gath­ered, the leaves are thrown for a few sec­onds in­to boil­ing wa­ter, and then placed on flat iron plates, in­sert­ed slant­wise in stone- work. While roast­ing over a gen­tle fire, they are con­tin­ual­ly stirred. As soon as they be­gin to curl a lit­tle, they are scat­tered over large planks, and each sin­gle leaf is rolled to­geth­er; a pro­cess so rapid­ly ac­com­plished that it re­quires a per­son's sole at­ten­tion to de­tect that on­ly one leaf is rolled up at a time. This com­plet­ed, all the leaves are again placed in the pans. Black tea takes some time to roast; and the green is fre­quent­ly coloured with Prus­sian blue, an ex­ceed­ing­ly small quan­ti­ty of which is added dur­ing the sec­ond roast­ing. Last of all, the tea is once more shak­en out up­on the boards, and sub­mit­ted to a care­ful in­spec­tion, the leaves that are not en­tire­ly closed be­ing rolled over again.

[Sin­ga­pore: page81.jpg]

Madame Pfeif­fer had an op­por­tu­ni­ty of tast­ing a cup of tea made af­ter the most ap­proved Chi­nese fash­ion. A small quan­ti­ty was dropped in­to a del­icate porce­lain cup, boil­ing wa­ter was poured up­on it, and a tight­ly- fit­ting cov­er then ad­just­ed to the cup. Af­ter a few sec­onds, the in­fu­sion was ready for drink­ing--nei­ther milk, cream, nor sug­ar be­ing added.

* * * * *

But we must tar­ry no longer with­in the bor­ders of the Ce­les­tial Em­pire. We have to fol­low Madame Pfeif­fer in her wan­der­ings over many seas and through many coun­tries,--for in the course of her ad­ven­tur­ous ca­reer she saw more of “men and cities” than even the much-​trav­el­ling Ulysses,--and our lim­its con­fine us to brief no­tices of the most re­mark­able places she vis­it­ed.

From Chi­na she sailed for the East In­dies.

On her way she “looked in” at Sin­ga­pore, a British set­tle­ment, where gath­er the traders of many Asi­at­ic na­tions. The scenery which stretch­es around it is of a rich and agree­able char­ac­ter, and the is­land on which it is sit­uat­ed ex­cels in fer­til­ity of veg­eta­tion. A saunter among the plan­ta­tions of cloves and nut­megs is very pleas­ant, the air breath­ing a pe­cu­liar bal­sam­ic fra­grance. The nut­meg-​tree is about the size of a good apri­cot-​bush, and from top to bot­tom is a mass of fo­liage; the branch­es grow very low down the stem, and the leaves glit­ter as if they were var­nished. The fruit close­ly re­sem­bles an apri­cot, cov­ered with spots of yel­low­ish-​brown. It bursts on at­tain­ing ma­tu­ri­ty, and then re­veals a round ker­nel, of the size of a nut, em­bed­ded in a net­work, sold as mace, of a beau­ti­ful red colour. This net­work of fi­brous ma­te­ri­al is care­ful­ly sep­arat­ed from the nut­meg, and dried in the shade,--be­ing fre­quent­ly sprin­kled with sea-​wa­ter, to pre­vent the colour deep­en­ing in­to black, in­stead of chang­ing in­to yel­low. The nut­meg is like­wise dried, ex­posed a while to the ac­tion of smoke, and dipped sev­er­al times in­to sea-​wa­ter con­tain­ing a weak so­lu­tion of lime, to pre­vent it from turn­ing mouldy.

The clove-​tree is small­er, and less co­pi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed with fo­liage, than the nut­meg-​tree. The buds form what are known to us as cloves; and, of course, are gath­ered be­fore they have had time to blos­som. The are­ca-​nut palm is al­so plen­ti­ful in Sin­ga­pore. It grows in clus­ters of from ten to twen­ty nuts; is some­what larg­er than a nut­meg, and of a bright colour, al­most re­sem­bling gilt.

The Chi­nese and the na­tives of the East­ern Is­lands chew it with be­tel- leaf and cal­cined mus­sel-​shells. With a small quan­ti­ty of the lat­ter they strew the leaf; a very small piece of the nut is added, and the whole is made in­to a lit­tle pack­et, which they put in­to their mouth.

Madame Pfeif­fer al­so in­spect­ed a sa­go man­ufac­to­ry. The un­pre­pared fa­ri­na, which is the pith of the sa­go palm, is im­port­ed from a neigh­bour­ing is­land. The tree is cut down when it is sev­en years old, split from top to bot­tom, and the pith ex­tract­ed from it. Then it is freed from the fi­bres, pressed in large frames, and dried at the fire or in the sun. At Sin­ga­pore this pith or meal, which is of a yel­low­ish tint, is steeped in wa­ter for sev­er­al days un­til com­plete­ly blanched; it is then once more dried by the fire or in the sun, passed un­der a large wood­en roller, and through a hair sieve. When it has be­come white and fine, it is placed in a kind of linen win­now­ing-​fan, which is kept damp in a pe­cu­liar man­ner. The work­man takes a mouth­ful of wa­ter, and “spirts it out like fine rain over the fan;” the meal be­ing al­ter­nate­ly shak­en and moist­ened un­til it as­sumes the char­ac­ter of small glob­ules. These are stirred round in large flat pans, un­til they are dried. Then they are passed through a sec­ond sieve, not quite so fine as the first, and the larg­er glob­ules are sep­arat­ed from the rest.

Pep­per and gam­bir plan­ta­tions are al­so among the “sights” of Sin­ga­pore. The pep­per-​tree is a small bush-​like plant, which, when care­ful­ly trained, springs to a height of eigh­teen feet. The pep­per-​pods grow in small clus­ters, and change from red to green, and then to black. White pep­per is noth­ing more than the black pep­per blanched by fre­quent steep­ing in sea-​wa­ter. The gam­bir does not grow taller than eight feet. The leaves, which are used in dye­ing, are first stripped from the stalk, and then boiled down in large cop­pers. The thick juice is placed in white wood­en ves­sels, and dried in the sun; then it is di­vid­ed in­to slips about three inch­es long, and packed up.

Sin­ga­pore is an is­land of _fruits_. It boasts of the de­li­cious man­gos­teen, which al­most melts in the mouth, and de­lights the palate with its exquisite flavour. It boasts, too, of splen­did pine-​ap­ples, fre­quent­ly weigh­ing as much as four pounds. Al­so of sauer­sop, as big as the biggest pine-​ap­ples, green out­side, and white or pale yel­low in­side, with a taste and fra­grance like that of straw­ber­ries. Nor must the gu­maloh be for­got­ten: it is di­vid­ed, like the or­ange, in­to sec­tions, but is five times as large, and not quite so sweet. Fi­nal­ly, we must re­fer to the cus­tard-​ap­ple, which is very white (though full of black pips), very soft, and very en­tic­ing in flavour.

* * * * *

From Sin­ga­pore we fol­low Madame Pfeif­fer to Point de Galle, in Cey­lon. The ap­pear­ance of this fair and fer­tile is­land from the sea is the theme of ev­ery trav­eller's praise. “It was one of the most mag­nif­icent sights I ev­er be­held,” says Madame Pfeif­fer, “to see the is­land soar­ing grad­ual­ly from the sea, with its moun­tain-​ranges grow­ing more and more dis­tinct­ly de­fined, their sum­mits light­ed by the sun, while the dense co­coa-​groves, and hills and plains, lay shroud­ed in shad­ow.” Above the whole tow­ers the pur­ple mass of Adam's Peak; and the eye rests in ev­ery di­rec­tion on the most lux­uri­ant fo­liage, with ver­durous glades, and slopes car­pet­ed with flow­ers.

Point de Galle presents a cu­ri­ous mix­ture of races. Cin­galese, Kan­di­tons, Tamils from South In­dia, and Moor­men, with crim­son caf­tans and shaven crowns, form the bulk of the crowds that throng its streets; but, be­sides these, there are Por­tuguese, Chi­nese, Jews, Arabs, Parsees, En­glish­men, Malays, Dutch­men, and half-​caste burghers, and now and then a veiled Ara­bi­an wom­an, or a Ved­dah, one of the abo­rig­inal in­hab­itants of the is­land. Sir Charles Dilke speaks of “silent crowds of tall and grace­ful girls, wear­ing, as we at first sup­posed, white pet­ti­coats and bodices; their hair car­ried off the face with a dec­orat­ed hoop, and caught at the back by a high tor­toise-​shell comb. As they drew near, mous­tach­es be­gan to show, and I saw that they were men; whilst walk­ing with them were wom­en naked to the waist, comb­less, and far more rough and 'man­ly' than their hus­bands. Pet­ti­coat and chignon are male in­sti­tu­tions in Cey­lon.”

* * * * *

Madame Pfeif­fer, with un­rest­ing en­er­gy, vis­it­ed Colom­bo and Kandy, the chief towns of the is­land. At the lat­ter she ob­tained ad­mis­sion to the Tem­ple of Dago­ba, which con­tains a pre­cious rel­ic of the god Bud­dha--name­ly, one of his teeth. The sanc­tu­ary con­tain­ing this sa­cred trea­sure is a small cham­ber or cell, less than twen­ty feet in breadth. It is en­veloped in dark­ness, as there are no win­dows; and the door is cur­tained in­side, for the more ef­fec­tu­al ex­clu­sion of the light. Rich tapestry cov­ers the walls and ceil­ing. But the chief ob­ject is the al­tar, which glit­ters with plates of sil­ver, and is in­crust­ed about the edges with pre­cious stones. Up­on it stands a bell-​shaped case about three feet in height, and three feet in di­am­eter at the base. It is made of sil­ver, elab­orate­ly gilt, and dec­orat­ed with a num­ber of cost­ly jew­els. A pea­cock in the mid­dle blazes with jew­els. Six small­er cas­es, re­put­ed to be of gold, are en­closed with­in the large one, and un­der the last is the tooth of Bud­dha. As it is as large as that of a great bull, one trem­bles to think how mon­strous must have been the jaw of the In­di­an creed-​founder!

[Na­tive boat, Madras: page89.jpg]

* * * * *

Madame Ida Pfeif­fer ar­rived at Madras on the 30th of Oc­to­ber. She de­scribes the pro­cess of dis­em­barka­tion; but as her de­tails are few, and re­fer to a com­par­ative­ly dis­tant date, we pro­pose to re­ly on the nar­ra­tive of a re­cent trav­eller.

From time im­memo­ri­al, he says, the sys­tem of land­ing and em­bark­ing pas­sen­gers and car­go has been by means of na­tive Mas­su­lah boats, con­struct­ed of man­go wood, calked with straw, and sewn to­geth­er with co­coa-​nut fi­bre. The ships drop their an­chors in the roads half a mile from the shore; the Mas­su­lah boat pulls off along­side, re­ceives its car­go at the gang­way, and is then beached through the surf. It is no un­com­mon cir­cum­stance for the boat along­side, as­sist­ed by the rolling of the ship, to rise and fall twen­ty-​five feet rel­ative­ly to the height of the ship's deck at each un­du­la­tion. Ladies are lashed in­to chairs, and from the ship's yard-​arm low­ered in­to the boat. In 1860 some im­prove­ment was ef­fect­ed by the con­struc­tion of an iron pier, about nine hun­dred feet in length, and twen­ty feet in height. But a spa­cious and shel­tered har­bour is now be­ing pro­vid­ed, by means of piers run­ning out from the shore five hun­dred yards north and south re­spec­tive­ly of the screw pile pier now ex­ist­ing, so as to en­close a rect­an­gu­lar area of one thou­sand yards in length by eight hun­dred and thir­ty yards in width, or one hun­dred and sev­en­ty acres. The foun­da­tion-​stone was laid by the Prince of Wales in the course of his In­di­an progress in 1876.

Madame Pfeif­fer stayed but a few hours at Madras, and her notes re­spect­ing it are of no val­ue. We will pro­ceed at once to Cal­cut­ta, the “City of Palaces,” as it has been called, and the cap­ital of our In­di­an Em­pire.

She speaks of the Viceroy's Palace as a mag­nif­icent build­ing, and one that would or­na­ment any city in the world. Oth­er no­tice­able ed­ifices are the Town Hall, the Hos­pi­tal, the Mu­se­um, Ochter­lony's Mon­ument, the Mint, and the Cathe­dral. Ochter­lony's Mon­ument is a plain stone col­umn, one hun­dred and six­ty-​five feet high, erect­ed in com­mem­ora­tion of a saga­cious states­man and an able sol­dier. From its sum­mit, to which ac­cess is ob­tained by two hun­dred and twen­ty-​two steps, may be ob­tained a no­ble view of the city, the broad reach­es of the Ganges, and the fer­tile plains of Ben­gal.

The Cathe­dral is an im­pos­ing pile. Its ar­chi­tec­ture is Goth­ic, and the in­te­ri­or pro­duces a very fine ef­fect by the har­mo­ny of its pro­por­tions and the rich­ness of its de­tails. The ill-​famed “Black Hole,” in which the Ra­jah Sura­jah Dowlah con­fined one hun­dred and fifty En­glish men and wom­en, when he ob­tained pos­ses­sion of Cal­cut­ta in 1756--con­fin­ing them in a nar­row and noi­some cell, which poi­soned them with its malar­ious at­mo­sphere, so that by morn­ing on­ly a few re­mained alive--is now part of a ware­house. But an obelisk stands at the en­trance, in­scribed with the names of the vic­tims.

The fash­ion­able prom­enade at Cal­cut­ta is the Maid­an. It runs along the bank of the Hoogh­ly, and is bound­ed on the oth­er side by rows of pala­tial man­sions. It com­mands a good view of the Viceroy's Palace, the Cathe­dral, the Ochter­lony Col­umn, the strong de­fen­sive works of Fort William; and is al­to­geth­er a very in­ter­est­ing and at­trac­tive spot.

Ev­ery evening, be­fore sun­set, thith­er wends the fash­ion­able world of Cal­cut­ta. The im­pas­sive Eu­ro­pean, with all the proud con­scious­ness of a con­quer­ing race; the half-​Eu­ro­peanized ba­boo; the de­posed ra­jah,--all may be seen driv­ing to and fro in splen­did equipages, drawn by hand­some steeds, and fol­lowed by ser­vants in gay Ori­en­tal at­tire. The ra­jahs and “nabobs” are usu­al­ly dressed in gold-​em­broi­dered robes of silk, over which are thrown the costli­est In­di­an shawls. Ladies and gen­tle­men, on En­glish hors­es of the best blood, can­ter along the road, or its tur­fen bor­ders; while crowds of dusky na­tives gath­er in all di­rec­tions, or leisure­ly move home­wards af­ter their day's work. A bright fea­ture of the scene is the an­imat­ed ap­pear­ance of the Hoogh­ly: first-​class East In­di­amen are ly­ing at an­chor, ships are ar­riv­ing or prepar­ing for de­par­ture, the na­tive craft in­ces­sant­ly ply to and fro, and a Ba­bel of voic­es of dif­fer­ent na­tion­al­ities ris­es on the air.

Here is a pic­ture of the Maid­an, drawn by an­oth­er la­dy-​trav­eller, Mrs. Mur­ray Mitchell:--

[The Maid­an, Cal­cut­ta: page95.jpg]

It is, she says, a no­ble ex­panse, which, about a hun­dred years ago, was a wild swampy jun­gle, fa­mous on­ly for snipe-​shoot­ing. Strange to say, it is not, like most In­di­an plains, burned up and brown, but, from its vicin­ity to the riv­er, and the fre­quent show­ers that vis­it it, as fresh and green as an En­glish park. It has a few fine tanks, and is sprin­kled with some leafy trees; these, how­ev­er, not so nu­mer­ous as they were be­fore the cy­clones of 1864 and 1867, which swept away its chief nat­ural beau­ties. Sev­er­al broad well-​kept drives in­ter­sect it, and it is or­na­ment­ed by some grace­ful gar­dens and a few hand­some columns and stat­ues. In­deed, the Maid­an is the cen­tre of all that is grand and im­pos­ing; the shab­by and the un­sight­ly is kept be­hind, out of view. Fac­ing it, along its east­ern marge, stand the no­ble pil­lared palaces of Chowringhee. At one end stands the hand­some new Court House; al­so the Town Hall, and oth­er build­ings of less pre­tence; and, fur­ther on, the no­ble pile of Gov­ern­ment House, with four hand­some en­trance gates, and sur­round­ed by shrub­beries and gar­dens. In front spread the Eden Gar­dens, a de­light­ful ad­di­tion to the beau­ties both of Gov­ern­ment House and the Es­planade. From this point the busi­ness part of Cal­cut­ta ex­tends in a norther­ly di­rec­tion, in­clud­ing Dal­housie Square, with its many build­ings, among which con­spic­uous stands the domed Post Of­fice--the vista clos­ing grace­ful­ly with the shape­ly spire of St. An­drew's Church. At the fur­ther ex­trem­ity, near­ly two miles across the ver­dant ex­panse, are seen the Cathe­dral, with its no­ble spire, the Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, and the Jail; and still fur­ther, the rich­ly-​wood­ed sub­urbs of Kid­der­pore and Ali­pore. Fort William fronts to­ward the riv­er, and with its ram­parts and build­ings forms a strik­ing ob­ject; while the whole is bor­dered and “beau­ti­fied” by the broad riv­er, with its crowd of masts and flags, its al­most in­nu­mer­able boats, its land­ing-​ghats, and all its life and mo­tion.

* * * * *

[Benares: page99.jpg]

From Cal­cut­ta, Madame Pfeif­fer pro­ceed­ed to the city of tem­ples, the sa­cred city of Hin­duism--Benares. She vis­it­ed sev­er­al tem­ples, but found them all agree­ing in their lead­ing de­tails. That of Vish­nu has two tow­ers con­nect­ed by colon­nades, the sum­mits of which are cov­ered with gold plates. In­side are sev­er­al im­ages of Vish­nu and Si­va, wreathed with flow­ers, and strewn over with grains of rice and wheat. Im­ages in met­al or stone of the sa­cred bull are plen­ti­ful ev­ery­where; and liv­ing bulls wan­der about freely, the ob­ject of spe­cial care and ado­ra­tion. They are free to stray where they will, not in the tem­ple precincts on­ly, but al­so in the streets.

Among the oth­er build­ings, the one most wor­thy of no­tice is the Mosque of Au­rengzebe, fa­mous on ac­count of its two minarets, which are 150 feet in height, and re­port­ed to be the slen­der­est in the world. They re­sem­ble a cou­ple of nee­dles, and cer­tain­ly bet­ter de­serve the name than that of Cleopa­tra at Alexan­dria. Nar­row wind­ing stair­cas­es in the in­te­ri­or lead to the sum­mit, on which a small plat­form, with a balustrade about a foot high, is erect­ed. From this van­tage-​point a no­ble view of the city, it is said, may be ob­tained; but few per­sons, we should think, have heads cool enough to en­joy it. With all Madame Pfeif­fer's ad­ven­tur­ous­ness, she did not es­say this per­ilous ex­per­iment.

The Ob­ser­va­to­ry, con­struct­ed for the great Mo­hammedan em­per­or Ak­bar, is al­so an ob­ject of in­ter­est. It is not fur­nished, like a Eu­ro­pean ob­ser­va­to­ry, with the usu­al as­tro­nom­ical in­stru­ments, tele­scopes, rain- gauges, anemome­ters, and the like, the hand­iwork of cun­ning ar­ti­fi­cers in glass and met­al; but ev­ery­thing is of stone--sol­id, durable stone. On a raised ter­race stand cir­cu­lar ta­bles, semi­cir­cu­lar and quadrat­ic curves, all of stone, and all in­scribed with mys­tic signs and char­ac­ters.

Benares is cel­ebrat­ed for its bazaars, in which are ex­hib­it­ed some of the rarest pro­duc­tions of the East; but its prin­ci­pal at­trac­tion is its sanc­ti­ty, and crowds of pil­grims re­sort to its tem­ples, and cleanse them­selves of their sins by bathing in the fast-​flow­ing Ganges. To die at Benares is re­gard­ed as a pass­port to heav­en; and one of the most fre­quent sights is the burn­ing of a corpse on the riv­er-​bank, with cer­emonies pro­por­tioned to the rank and wealth of the de­ceased--the ash­es be­ing af­ter­wards com­mit­ted to the holy wa­ters. Benares is al­so fa­mous for its palaces. Of these the most splen­did is that which the ra­jah in­hab­its. It was vis­it­ed by Madame Pfeif­fer, who ap­pears to have gone ev­ery­where and seen ev­ery­body at her own sweet will and plea­sure, and she was even ad­mit­ted to the ra­jah's pres­ence.

A hand­some­ly-​dec­orat­ed boat, she says, await­ed her and her fel­low-​trav­eller at the bank of the riv­er. They crossed; a palan­quin was ready to re­ceive them. Soon they ar­rived at the state­ly gate­way which forms the en­trance to the palace. The in­te­ri­or proved to be a labyrinth of ir­reg­ular courts and small un­sym­met­ri­cal cham­bers. In one of the courts a hall, sur­round­ed by plain columns, served as a re­cep­tion-​room. This was cum­brous­ly load­ed with lamps, glass lus­tres, and Eu­ro­pean fur­ni­ture; on the walls hung some wretched pic­tures, framed and glazed. Present­ly the ra­jah made his ap­pear­ance, ac­com­pa­nied by his broth­er, and at­tend­ed by a long train of courtiers. The two princes were gor­geous­ly at­tired; they wore wide trousers, long un­der and short over gar­ments, all of satin, cov­ered with gold em­broi­dery. The ra­jah him­self, aged thir­ty- five, wore short silken cuffs, glow­ing with gold, and trimmed with di­amonds; sev­er­al large bril­liants shone on his fin­gers, and rich gold em­broi­dery was wo­ven about his shoes. His broth­er, a youth of nine­teen, wore a white tur­ban, with a cost­ly clasp of di­amonds and pearls. Large pearls hung from his ears; rich mas­sive bracelets clasped his wrists.

The guests hav­ing tak­en their seats, a large sil­ver basin was brought in, with elab­orate­ly-​wrought narghillies, and they were in­vit­ed to smoke. This hon­our they de­clined. The ra­jah then smoked in soli­tary dig­ni­ty--his pipe be­ing changed as soon as he had tak­en a few whiffs.

A nautch­ni, or dance by nautch­es, was next pro­vid­ed for the vis­itors' en­ter­tain­ment. There were three mu­si­cians and two dancers. The lat­ter were dressed in gay gold-​wo­ven muslin robes, with wide silk gold-​broi­dered trousers, reach­ing to the ground, and quite cov­er­ing their bare feet. One of the mu­si­cians beat a cou­ple of small drums; the oth­ers played on four-​stringed in­stru­ments not un­like a vi­olin. They stood close be­hind the dancers, and their mu­sic was whol­ly in­no­cent of melody or har­mo­ny; but to the rhythm, which was strong­ly ac­cen­tu­at­ed, the dancers moved their arms, hands, and fin­gers in a very an­imat­ed man­ner, and at in­ter­vals their feet, so as to ring the nu­mer­ous tiny bells that cov­er them. Their at­ti­tudes were not un­grace­ful. The per­for­mance last­ed a quar­ter of an hour, af­ter which they ac­com­pa­nied the dance with what was in­tend­ed for singing, but sound­ed like shriek­ing. Mean­time, sweet­meats, fruits, and sher­bet were hand­ed round.

As a con­trast to this gay scene, Madame Pfeif­fer de­scribes the per­for­mance of the wretched fa­nat­ics called fa­keers. These men in­flict up­on them­selves the most ex­traor­di­nary tor­tures. Thus: they stick an iron hook through their flesh, and al­low them­selves to be sus­pend­ed by it at a height of twen­ty or five-​and-​twen­ty feet. {105} Or for long hours they stand up­on one foot in the burn­ing sun­shine, with their arms rigid­ly ex­tend­ed in the air. Or they hold heavy weights in var­ious po­si­tions, swing round and round for hours to­geth­er, and tear the flesh from their bod­ies with red-​hot pin­cers. Madame Pfeif­fer saw two of these un­for­tu­nate vic­tims of a dis­eased imag­ina­tion. One held a heavy axe over his head, in the at­ti­tude of a work­man bent on felling a tree; in this po­si­tion he stood, rigid as a stat­ue. The oth­er held the point of his toe to his nose.

* * * * *

In her tour through In­dia our trav­eller passed through Al­la­habad, sit­uat­ed at the junc­tion of the Jum­na and the Ganges, and the re­sort of many pil­grims; Agra, where she ad­mired, as so many trav­ellers have ad­mired, the love­ly Taj-​Ma­hal, erect­ed by the Sul­tan Je­han in mem­ory of his favourite wife,--and the Pearl Mosque, with its exquisite­ly del­icate carv­ing; Del­hi, the an­cient cap­ital of the Moguls, which fig­ured so con­spic­uous­ly in the his­to­ry of the Se­poy re­bel­lion; the cave-​tem­ples of Ajun­ta and El­lo­ra; and the great com­mer­cial em­po­ri­um of Bom­bay.

Quit­ting the con­fines of British In­dia, Madame Pfeif­fer, ev­er in quest of the new and strange, sailed to Bas­so­ra, and as­cend­ed the his­toric Tigris, so named from the swift­ness of its course, to Bag­dad, that quaint, re­mote Ori­en­tal city, which is as­so­ci­at­ed with so many won­der­ful leg­ends and not less won­der­ful “trav­ellers' tales.” This was of old the res­idence of the great caliph, Haroun-​al-​Raschid, a ruler of no or­di­nary sagac­ity, and the hero of many a tra­di­tion, whom “The Thou­sand and One Nights” have made fa­mil­iar to ev­ery En­glish boy. It is still a pop­ulous and wealthy city; many of its hous­es are sur­round­ed by bloom­ing gar­dens; its shops are gay with the prod­ucts of the East­ern loom; and it de­scends in ter­races to the bank of the riv­er, which flows in the shade of or­chards and groves of palm. Over all ex­tends the arch of a glow­ing sky.

From Bag­dad an ex­cur­sion to the ru­ins of Baby­lon is nat­ural enough. They con­sist of mas­sive frag­ments of walls and columns, strewn on ei­ther side of the Eu­phrates.

[Cave tem­ple at El­lo­ra: page107.jpg]

On the 17th of June our hero­ic trav­eller joined a car­avan which was bound for Mo­sul, a dis­tance of three hun­dred miles, oc­cu­py­ing from twelve to four­teen days. The jour­ney is one of much dif­fi­cul­ty and no lit­tle dan­ger, across a desert coun­try of the most life­less char­ac­ter. We shall re­late a few of Madame Pfeif­fer's ex­pe­ri­ences.

One day she re­paired to a small vil­lage in search of food. Af­ter wan­der­ing from hut to hut, she ob­tained a small quan­ti­ty of milk and three eggs. She laid the eggs in hot ash­es, and cov­ered them over; filled her leath­ern flask from the Tigris; and, thus load­ed, re­turned to the en­camp­ment formed by the car­avan. She ate her eggs and drank her milk with an ap­petite for which an epi­cure would be thank­ful.

The mode of mak­ing but­ter in vogue at this vil­lage was very pe­cu­liar. The cream was put in­to a leath­ern bot­tle, and shak­en about on the ground un­til the but­ter con­sol­idat­ed. It was then put in­to an­oth­er bot­tle filled with wa­ter, and fi­nal­ly turned out as white as snow.

Next day, when they rest­ed dur­ing the heat, the guide of the car­avan en­deav­oured to pro­cure her a lit­tle shel­ter from the glare of the piti­less sun by lay­ing a small cov­er over a cou­ple of poles stuck in­to the ground. But the place shad­ed was so small, and the tent so frail, that she was com­pelled to sit qui­et­ly in one po­si­tion, as the slight­est move­ment would have in­volved it in ru­in. Short­ly af­ter­wards, when she wished for some re­fresh­ment, noth­ing could be pro­cured but luke­warm wa­ter, bread so hard that it could not be eat­en un­til thor­ough­ly soaked, and a cu­cum­ber with­out salt or vine­gar.

At a vil­lage near Ker­ka the car­avan tar­ried for two days. On the first day Madame Pfeif­fer's pa­tience was sore­ly tried. All the wom­en of the place flocked to ex­am­ine the stranger. First they in­spect­ed her clothes, then want­ed to take the tur­ban off her head; and, in fact, proved them­selves most trou­ble­some in­trud­ers. At last Madame Pfeif­fer seized one of them by the arm, and turned her out of her tent so quick­ly that she had no time to think of re­sis­tance. By the elo­quence of ges­ture our trav­eller made the oth­ers un­der­stand that, un­less they with­drew at once, a sim­ilar­ly abrupt dis­missal await­ed them. She then drew a cir­cle round her tent, and for­bade them to cross it; an in­junc­tion which was strict­ly re­spect­ed.

She had now on­ly to set­tle with the wife of her guide, who had be­sieged her the whole day, press­ing as near as pos­si­ble, and pe­ti­tion­ing for some of her “things.” For­tu­nate­ly her hus­band came on the scene, and to him Madame Pfeif­fer pre­ferred her com­plaint, threat­en­ing to leave his house and seek shel­ter else­where,--well know­ing that the Arabs con­sid­er this a great dis­grace. He im­me­di­ate­ly or­dered his wife to de­sist, and the trav­eller was at peace. “I al­ways suc­ceed­ed,” says Madame Pfeif­fer, “in ob­tain­ing my own will. I found that en­er­gy and bold­ness in­flu­ence all peo­ple, whether Arabs, Per­sians, Be­daween, or oth­ers.” But for this strong will, this in­domitable res­olu­tion, Madame Pfeif­fer as­sured­ly could not have suc­ceed­ed in the en­ter­pris­es she so dar­ing­ly un­der­took. Even for a man to have ac­com­plished them would have earned our praise; what shall we not say when they were con­ceived and car­ried out by a wom­an?

To­wards evening, she says, to her great de­light a cal­dron of mut­ton was set on the fire. For eight days she had eat­en noth­ing but bread, cu­cum­bers, and some dates; and there­fore had a great de­sire for a hot and more nu­tri­tious meal. But her ap­petite was great­ly di­min­ished when she saw their style of cook­ery. The old wom­an (her guide's moth­er) threw sev­er­al hand­fuls of small grain, and a large quan­ti­ty of onions, in­to a pan­ful of wa­ter to soft­en. In about half an hour she thrust her dirty hands in­to the wa­ter, and mixed the whole to­geth­er, now and then tak­ing a mouth­ful, and af­ter chew­ing it, spit­ting it back again in­to the pan. Then she took a dirty rag, strained through it the del­icate mix­ture, and poured it over the meat in the larg­er ves­sel. Madame Pfeif­fer had firm­ly re­solved not to touch the dish, but when it was ready her long­ing for food was so great, and so savoury was the smell, that she re­flect­ed that what she had al­ready eat­en was prob­ably not a whit clean­er; in short, for once she proved false to her res­olu­tion. Eat­ing, she was filled; and the viands gave her in­creased strength.

* * * * *

On the 28th of June the car­avan reached Er­bil, the an­cient Ar­bela, where Alexan­der the Great de­feat­ed Dar­ius and his Per­sian host. Next day they crossed a broad riv­er, on rafts of in­flat­ed skins, fas­tened to­geth­er with poles, and cov­ered with reeds, canes, and plank. Rapid­ly travers­ing the shrub­less, herb­less plains of Mesopotamia, they reached at length the town of Mo­sul, the point from which trav­ellers pro­ceed to vis­it the ru­ins of Nin­eveh.

These have been so care­ful­ly ex­plored and ably de­scribed by La­yard and the late George Smith, that it is need­less to quote Madame Ida Pfeif­fer's su­per­fi­cial ob­ser­va­tions at any length. Ac­cord­ing to Stra­bo, Nin­eveh was the great­est city in the Old World--larg­er even than Baby­lon; the cir­cum­fer­ence of its walls was a three days' jour­ney, and those walls were de­fend­ed by fif­teen hun­dred tow­ers. Now all is cov­ered with earth, and the ranges of hills and mounds that stretch across the wide gray plain on the bank of the Tigris do but cov­er the ru­ins of the vast As­syr­ian cap­ital. Mr. La­yard be­gan his ex­ca­va­tions in 1846, and his labour­ers, dig­ging deep in­to the hills, soon opened up spa­cious and state­ly apart­ments, the mar­ble walls of which were em­bel­lished from top to bot­tom with sculp­tures, re­veal­ing a com­plete panora­ma of As­syr­ian life! Kings with their crowns and scep­tres, gods swoop­ing on broad pin­ions, war­riors equipped with their arms and shields, were there; al­so stir­ring rep­re­sen­ta­tions of bat­tles and hunt­ing ex­pe­di­tions, of the storm­ing of fortress­es, of tri­umphal pro­ces­sions; though, un­for­tu­nate­ly for artis­tic ef­fect, nei­ther pro­por­tion, per­spec­tive, nor cor­rect draw­ing had been ob­served. The hills are scarce­ly three times high­er than the men; the fields reach to the clouds; the trees are no taller than the lo­tus-​flow­ers; and the heads of men and an­imals are all alike, and all in pro­file. In­ter­min­gled with these scenes of an­cient civ­iliza­tion are in­scrip­tions of great in­ter­est, in the cuneiform or wedge-​shaped char­ac­ter.

* * * * *

A car­avan start­ing from Mo­sul for Tabreez, Madame Ida Pfeif­fer de­ter­mined on join­ing it, though warned that it would tra­verse a coun­try con­tain­ing not a sin­gle Eu­ro­pean. But, as we have al­ready had abun­dant ev­idence, Madame Pfeif­fer knew not what fear was. Noth­ing could daunt her fixed pur­pose. She had made up her mind to go to Per­sia; and to Per­sia she would go. She start­ed with the car­avan on the 8th of Ju­ly, and next day crossed the hills that in­ter­vene be­tween Mesopotamia and Kur­dis­tan. The lat­ter coun­try has nev­er en­joyed a good rep­uta­tion among trav­ellers; and Madame Pfeif­fer's ex­pe­ri­ence was not cal­cu­lat­ed to re­trieve its char­ac­ter. The car­avan was cross­ing a corn-​field which had been re­cent­ly reaped, when half-​a-​dozen stal­wart Kurds, armed with stout cud­gels, sprang out from their hid­ing-​place among the sheaves, and seiz­ing the trav­ellers' bri­dles, poured out up­on them what was un­mis­tak­ably a vol­ley of oaths and threats. One of the trav­ellers leaped from his steed, seized his as­sailant by the throat, and hold­ing a load­ed pis­tol to his head, in­di­cat­ed his de­ter­mi­na­tion of blow­ing out his brains. The ef­fect of this res­olute con­duct was im­me­di­ate; the rob­bers de­sist­ed from their at­tack, and were soon en­gaged in quite an am­ica­ble con­ver­sa­tion with those they had in­tend­ed to plun­der. At last they point­ed out a good place for an en­camp­ment, re­ceiv­ing in re­turn a tri­fling _back­shish_, col­lect­ed from the whole car­avan.

A few days lat­er, the trav­ellers, hav­ing start­ed at two in the morn­ing, en­tered a mag­nif­icent moun­tain-​val­ley, which had been cloven through the sol­id rock by the wa­ters of a co­pi­ous stream. A nar­row stony path fol­lowed the course of the stream up­ward. The moon shone in un­cloud­ed light; or it would have been dif­fi­cult even for the well-​trained hors­es of the car­avan to have kept their foot­ing along the dan­ger­ous way, en­cum­bered as it was with fall­en mass­es of rock.

Like chamois, how­ev­er, they scram­bled up the steep moun­tain-​side, and safe­ly car­ried their rid­ers round fright­ful pro­jec­tions and past dan­ger­ous, dizzy precipices. So wild, so ro­man­tic was the scene, with its shift­ing lights and shad­ows, its sud­den bursts of sil­very lus­tre where the val­ley lay open to the moon, and its depths of dark­ness in many a wind­ing re­cess, that even Madame Pfeif­fer's un­cul­tured com­pan­ions were ir­re­sistibly moved by its in­flu­ence; and as they rode along not a sound was heard but the clat­ter of the hors­es' hoofs, and the fall of rolling stones in­to the chasm be­low. But all at once thick clouds gath­ered over the moon, and the gloom be­came so in­tense that the trav­ellers could scarce­ly dis­cern each one his fel­low. The lead­er con­tin­ual­ly struck fire with a flint, that the sparks might af­ford some slight in­di­ca­tion of the prop­er course. But this was not enough; and as the hors­es be­gan to miss their foot­ing, the on­ly hope of safe­ty con­sist­ed in re­main­ing im­mov­able. With the break of day, how­ev­er, a gray light spread over the scene, and the trav­ellers found them­selves sur­round­ed by a cir­cle of lofty moun­tains, ris­ing one above the oth­er in mag­nif­icent gra­da­tion, and su­perbly dom­inat­ed by one mighty snow-​crowned mass.

The jour­ney was re­sumed. Soon the trav­ellers be­came aware of the fact that the path was sprin­kled with spots of blood. At last they came to a place which was crim­soned by a com­plete pool; and look­ing down in­to the ravine, they could see two hu­man bod­ies, one ly­ing scarce­ly a hun­dred feet be­low them, the oth­er, which had rolled fur­ther, half hid­den by a pro­ject­ing crag. From this scene of mur­der they glad­ly has­tened.

* * * * *

At a town called Ra­van­dus Madame Pfeif­fer rest­ed for some days, mak­ing ob­ser­va­tions on the man­ners and cus­toms of the Kurds. She was not pre­pos­sessed in their favour by what she saw: the wom­en are idle, ig­no­rant, and squalid; the men work as lit­tle and rob as much as they can. Polygamy is prac­tised; and re­li­gion is re­duced to the per­for­mance of a few for­mal­ities. The cos­tume of the wealth­ier Kurds is pure­ly Ori­en­tal, that of the com­mon peo­ple varies from it a lit­tle. The men wear wide linen trousers, and over them a shirt con­fined by a gir­dle, with a sleeve­less woollen jack­et, made of stuff of on­ly a hand's-​breadth wide, and sewed to­geth­er. In­stead of white trousers, some wear brown, which are any­thing but pic­turesque, and look like sacks with two holes for the in­ser­tion of the feet,--the said feet be­ing en­cased in boots of red or yel­low leather, with large iron heels; or in shoes of coarse white wool, adorned with three tas­sels. The tur­ban is the uni­ver­sal head-​cov­er­ing.

The wom­en don loose trousers, and red or yel­low boots, with iron heels, like the men; but over all they wear a long blue gar­ment which, if not tucked up un­der the gir­dle, would de­pend some inch­es be­low the an­kles. A large blue shawl de­scends be­low the knee. Round their heads they twist black shawls, tur­ban-​wise; or they wear the red fez, with a silk hand­ker­chief wound about it; and on the top of this, a kind of wreath made of short black fringe, worn like a di­adem, but leav­ing the fore­head free. The hair falls in nar­row braids over the shoul­ders, and from the tur­ban droops a heavy sil­ver chain. As a head-​dress it is re­mark­ably at­trac­tive; and it is but just to say that it of­ten sets off re­al­ly hand­some faces, with fine fea­tures, and glow­ing eyes.

[Tar­tar Car­avan: page119.jpg]

* * * * *

In her fur­ther wan­der­ings through the wild lands of Per­sia, our trav­eller came to Uru­miyeh, on the bor­ders of the salt lake of that name, which in sev­er­al phys­ical fea­tures close­ly re­sem­bles the Dead Sea. Uru­miyeh is a place of some celebri­ty, for it gave birth to Zoroast­er, the preach­er of a creed of con­sid­er­able moral pu­ri­ty, which has spread over a great part of Asia. En­ter­ing a more fer­tile coun­try, she reached Tabreez in safe­ty, and was once more with­in the in­flu­ence of law and or­der. Tabreez, the res­idence of the viceroy, is a hand­some­ly-​built town, with nu­mer­ous silk and leather man­ufac­to­ries, and is re­put­ed to be one of the chief seats of Asi­at­ic com­merce. Its streets are clean and tol­er­ably broad; in each a lit­tle rivulet is car­ried un­der­ground, with open­ings at reg­ular in­ter­vals for the pur­pose of dip­ping out wa­ter. Of the hous­es the pass­er-​by sees no more than is seen in any oth­er Ori­en­tal town: lofty walls, win­dow­less, with low en­trances; and the fronts al­ways look­ing in up­on the open court­yards, which bloom with trees and flow­ers, and usu­al­ly ad­join a pleas­ant gar­den. In­side, the cham­bers are usu­al­ly lofty and spa­cious, with rows of win­dows which seem to form com­plete walls of glass. Build­ings of pub­lic im­por­tance there are none; ex­cept­ing the bazaar, which cov­ers a con­sid­er­able area, and is laid out with lofty, broad, and cov­ered thor­ough­fares.

The trav­eller turned her back up­on Tabreez on the 11th of Au­gust, and in a car­riage drawn by post-​hors­es, and at­tend­ed by a sin­gle ser­vant, set out for Natschivan. At Arax she crossed the fron­tier of Asi­at­ic Rus­sia, the do­min­ions of the “White Tsar,” who, in Asia as in Eu­rope, is ev­er press­ing more and more close­ly on the “un­speak­able Turk.” At Natschivan she joined a car­avan which was bound for Ti­flis, and the drivers of which were Tar­tars. She says of the lat­ter, that they do not live so fru­gal­ly as the Arabs. Ev­ery evening a savoury pil­lau was made with good-​tast­ing fat, fre­quent­ly with dried grapes or plums. They al­so par­took large­ly of fruits.

The car­avan wound through the fair and fer­tile val­leys which lie at the base of Ararat. Of that fa­mous and ma­jes­tic moun­tain, which lifts its white glit­ter­ing crest of snow some six­teen thou­sand feet above the sea- lev­el, our trav­eller ob­tained a fine view. Its sum­mit is cloven in­to two peaks, and in the space be­tween an old tra­di­tion af­firms that Noah's ark land­ed at the sub­si­dence of the Great Flood.

[Mount Ararat: page123.jpg]

In the neigh­bour­hood of a town called Sidin, Madame Pfeif­fer met with a sin­gu­lar ad­ven­ture. She was re­turn­ing from a short walk, when, hear­ing the sound of ap­proach­ing post-​hors­es, she paused for a minute to see the trav­ellers, and no­ticed a Rus­sian, seat­ed in an open car, with a Cos­sack hold­ing a mus­ket by his side. As soon as the ve­hi­cle had passed, she re­sumed her course; when, to her as­ton­ish­ment, it sud­den­ly stopped, and al­most at the same mo­ment she felt a fierce grasp on her arms. It was the Cos­sack, who en­deav­oured to drag her to the car. She strug­gled with him, and point­ing to the car­avan, said she be­longed to it; but the fel­low put his hand on her mouth, and flung her in­to the car, where she was firm­ly seized by the Rus­sian. Then the Cos­sack sprang to his seat, and away they went at a smart gal­lop. The whole af­fair was the work of a few sec­onds, so that Madame Pfeif­fer could scarce­ly rec­og­nize what had hap­pened. As the man still held her tight­ly, and kept her mouth cov­ered up, she was un­able to give an alarm. The brave wom­an, how­ev­er, re­tained her com­po­sure, and speed­ily ar­rived at the con­clu­sion that her “hero­ic” cap­tors had mis­tak­en her for some dan­ger­ous spy. Un­cov­er­ing her mouth, they be­gan to ques­tion her close­ly; and Madame Pfeif­fer un­der­stood enough Rus­sian to tell them her name, na­tive coun­try, and ob­ject in trav­el­ling. This did not sat­is­fy them, and they asked for her pass­port,--which, how­ev­er, she could not show them, as it was in her port­man­teau.

At length they reached the post-​house. Madame Pfeif­fer was shown in­to a room, at the door of which the Cos­sack sta­tioned him­self with his mus­ket. She was de­tained all night; but the next morn­ing, hav­ing fetched her port­man­teau, they ex­am­ined her pass­port, and were then pleased to dis­miss her--with­out, how­ev­er, of­fer­ing any apol­ogy for their shame­ful treat­ment of her. Such are the in­ci­vil­ities to which trav­ellers in the Rus­sian do­min­ions are too con­stant­ly ex­posed. It is sur­pris­ing that a pow­er­ful gov­ern­ment should con­de­scend to so much pet­ty fear and mean sus­pi­cion.

[Odessa: page127.jpg]

From Ti­flis our trav­eller pro­ceed­ed across Geor­gia to Re­dutkali; whence she made her way to Kertsch, on the shore of the Sea of Azov; and thence to Se­bastopol, des­tined a few years lat­er to be­come the scene of an his­toric strug­gle. She af­ter­wards reached Odessa, one of the great gra­naries of Eu­rope, sit­uat­ed at the mouth of the Dni­ester and the Dnieper. From Odessa to Con­stantino­ple the dis­tance by sea is four hun­dred and twen­ty miles. She made but a short stay in the Turk­ish cap­ital; and then pro­ceed­ed by steam­er to Smyr­na, pass­ing through the maze of the beau­ti­ful isles of Greece; and from Smyr­na to Athens. Here she trod on hal­lowed ground. Ev­ery tem­ple, ev­ery ru­in, re­called to her some brave deed of old, or some il­lus­tri­ous name of philoso­pher, war­rior, states­man, po­et, that the world will not will­ing­ly let die. A rush of stir­ring glo­ri­ous mem­ories swept over her mind as she gazed on the lofty sum­mit of the Acrop­olis, cov­ered with memo­ri­als of the an­cient art, and as­so­ci­at­ed with the great events of Athe­ni­an his­to­ry. The Parthenon, or Tem­ple of Pal­las; the Tem­ple of The­seus; that of Olympian Jove; the Tow­er of the Winds, or so-​called Lantern of De­mos­thenes; and the Chor­ag­ic Mon­ument of Lys­icrates,--all these she saw, and won­dered at. But they have been so fre­quent­ly de­scribed, that we may pass them here with this slight ref­er­ence.

From Corinth our trav­eller crossed to Cor­fu, and from Cor­fu as­cend­ed the Adri­at­ic to Tri­este. A day or two af­ter­wards she was re­ceived by her friends at Vi­en­na,--hav­ing ac­com­plished the most ex­traor­di­nary jour­ney ev­er un­der­tak­en by a wom­an, and made the com­plete cir­cuit of the world. In the most re­mark­able scenes, and in the most crit­ical po­si­tions, she had pre­served a com­po­sure, a calm­ness of courage, and a sim­plic­ity of con­duct, that must al­ways com­mand our ad­mi­ra­tion.