Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873 / Various

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature
And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI., by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI.

Author: Various

Release Date: October 5, 2004 [EBook #13636]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Patricia Bennett, Sandra Brown and
the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team







LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_.




FEBRUARY, 1873.

Vol. XI., No. 23.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


SEARCHING FOR THE QUININE-PLANT IN PERU.
  Concluding Paper.

A GLANCE AT THE SITE AND ANTIQUITIES OF ATHENS By J.L.T. PHILLIPS.

COMMONPLACE By CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.

PROBATIONER LEONHARD; OR, THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY
  By CAROLINE CHESEBRO.

  Chapter IV.--The Test--With Mental Reservations.

  Chapter V.--Sister Benigna.

  Chapter VI.--The Men Of Spenersberg.

  Chapter VII.--The Book.

  Chapter VIII.--Conference Meeting.

  Chapter IX.--Will The Architect Have Employment?

COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE IN ENGLAND By REGINALD WYNFORD.

THE FOREST OF ARDEN By ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

JACK, THE REGULAR By THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.

OBSERVATIONS AND ADVENTURES IN SUBMARINE DIVING By WILL WALLACE HARNEY.

CONFIDENTIAL.

GLIMPSES OF JOHN CHINAMAN By PRENTICE MULFORD.

A WINTER REVERIE By MILLIE W. CARPENTER.

"PASSPORTS, GENTLEMEN!" By A.H.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

  The Cornwallis Family.

  Novelties In Ethnology.

  The Steam-whistle.

  Siamese News.

  Madison As A Temperance Man.

NOTES.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Books Received.




ILLUSTRATIONS

The Cones of Patabamba.

"Pepe Garcia, Who Marched Ahead, Announced the Print Of A South
  American Tiger."

"Napoleon-like, They Washed Their Dirty Linen in The Family"

"Aragon and his Men Fell Upon the Deserters Without Mercy."

"They Greeted These Indian Relics As Crusoe Did The Footprints of the
  Savages."

"Another Savage Had Found a Pair of Linen Pantaloons."

View of the Acropolis and The Columns Of The Temple Of Jupiter Olympus.

Theatre of Dionysus (Bacchus).

Victory Untying Her Sandals.

Temple of Victory.

The Parthenon.

Bas Relief of the Gods (Frieze Of The Parthenon).

Porch of the Caryatides.

Monument of Lysicrates.






SEARCHING FOR THE QUININE-PLANT IN PERU.

CONCLUDING PAPER.


Early on a brilliant morning, with baggage repacked, and the lessening
amount of provisions more firmly strapped on the shoulders of the
Indians, the explorers left their pleasant site on the banks of the
Maniri. The repose allowed to the bulk of the party during the absence
of their Bolivian companions had been wholesome and refreshing. The
success of the bark-hunters in their search for cinchonas had cheered
all hearts, and the luxurious supper of dried mutton and chuno
arranged for them on their return gave a reminiscence of splendor to
the thatched hut on the banks of the stream. This edifice, the last of
civilized construction they expected to see, had the effect of a home
in the wilderness. The bivouac there had been enjoyed with a sentiment
of tranquil carelessness. Little did the travelers think that savage
eyes had been peeping through the forest upon their fancied security,
and that the wild people of the valleys who were to work them all
kinds of mischief were upon their track from this station forth.

The enormous fire kindled for breakfast mingled with the stain of
sunrise to cast a glow upon their departure. Across the vale of the
Cconi, as though a pair of sturdy porters had arisen to celebrate
their leavetaking, the cones of Patabamba caught the first rays of
the sun and held them aloft like hospitable torches. These huge forms,
soldered together at the waist like Chang and Eng, and clothed with
shaggy woods up to the top, had been the guardian watchers over their
days in the ajoupa at Maniri. The sun just rising empurpled their
double cones, while the base and the surrounding landscape were washed
with the neutral tints of twilight.

After passing the narrow affluent after which the camping-ground of
Maniri was named, the party pursued the course of the Cconi through
a more level tract of country. The stones and precipices became more
rare, but in revenge the sandy banks soon began to reflect a heat that
was hardly bearable. As the implacable sun neared its zenith the party
walked with bent heads and blinded eyes, now dashing through great
plains of bamboos, now following the hatchets of the peons through
thickets of heated shrubbery.

Whenever the country became more wooded in its character, the
bark-hunters, whose quest obliged them to stray in short flights
around the wings of the column, redoubled their mazes. The careless
air of these Bolivian retrievers, their voluntary doublings through
the most difficult jungles, and their easy way of walking over
everything with their noses in the air, proved well their indifference
to the obstacles which were almost insurmountable to the rest.

[Illustration: THE CONES OF PATABAMBA.]

Nothing could be more singular and interesting than to see them
consulting one by one the indications scattered around them, and
deciding on their probabilities or promises. Where the height and
thickness of the foliage prevented them from seeing the sky, or
even the shade of the surrounding green, they walked bent toward the
ground, stirring up the rubbish, and choosing among the dead foliage
certain leaves, of which they carefully examined the two sides and the
stem. When by accident they found themselves near enough to speak to
each other--a rare chance, for each peon undertook a separate line of
search--they asked their friends, showing the leaves they had found,
whether their discoveries appertained to the neighboring trees or
whether the wind had brought the pieces from a distance. This kind
of investigation, pursued by men who had prowled through forests
all their lives, might seem slightly puerile if the reader does
not understand that it is often difficult, or even impossible, to
recognize the growing tree by its bark, covered as it is from base
to branches with parasitic vegetation of every sort. In those forests
whatever has a stout stem is used without scruple by the bignonias and
air-plants, which race over the trunk, plant their root-claws in the
cracks, leap over the whole tree at a single jet, or strangle it with
multiplied knots, all the while adorning it with a superb mantle of
leaves and blossoms. This is a difficulty which the most experienced
_cascarilleros_ are not able to overcome. As an instance, the history
is cited of a _practico_ or speculator who led an exploration for
these trees in the valley of Apolobamba. After having caused to be
felled, barked, measured, dried and trimmed all the cinchonas of one
of those natural thickets called _manchas_--an operation which had
occupied four months--he was about to abandon the spot and pursue
the exploration elsewhere, when accident led him to discover, in
the enormous trunk buried in creepers against which he had built his
cabin, a _Cinchona nitida_, the forefather of all the trees he had
stripped.

In this kind of search the caravan pursued the borders of the
river, sometimes on this side and sometimes on that, now passing the
two-headed mountain Camanti, now sighting the tufted peak of Basiri,
now crossing the torrent called the Garote. In the latter, where
the dam and hydraulic works of an old Spanish gold-hunter were still
visible in a state of ruin, the sacred golden thirst of Colonel Perez
once more attacked him. Two or three pins' heads of the insane metal
were actually unearthed by the colonel and displayed in a pie-dish;
but the business of the party was one which made even the finding of
gold insignificant, and they pursued their way.

The flanks of these mountains, however, were really of importance to
the botanical motive of the expedition. Along the side of the Camanti,
where the yellow Garote leaked downward in a rocky ravine, the
Bolivians were again successful. They brought to Marcoy specimens of
half a dozen cinchonas, for him to sketch, analyze and decorate with
Latin names. The colors of two or three of these barks promised
well, but the pearl of the collection was a specimen of the genuine
_Calisaya_, with its silver-gray envelope and leaf ribbed with
carmine. This proud discovery was a boon for science and for commerce.
It threw a new light upon the geographical locality of the most
precious species of cinchona. It was incontestably the plant, and
the Bolivians appeared amazed rather than pleased to have discovered
outside of their own country a kind of bark proper only to Bolivia,
and hardly known to overpass the northern extremity of the valley of
Apolobamba. This discovery would rehabilitate, in the European market,
the quinine-plants of Lower Peru, heretofore considered as inferior to
those of Upper Peru and Bolivia. The latter country has for some time
secured the most favorable reputation for its barks--a reputation
ably sustained by the efforts of the company De la Paz, to whom the
government has long granted a monopoly. This reputation is based on
the abundance in that country of two species, the _Cinchona calisaya_
and _Boliviana,_ the best known and most valued in the market. But
for two valuable cinchonas possessed by Bolivia, Peru can show twenty,
many of them excellent in quality, and awaiting only the enterprise of
the government and the natural exhaustion of the forests to the south.

This magnificent bit of luck, the finding of the calisaya, awakened
in the susceptible bosom of Mr. Marcoy an ardent desire to explore
for himself the site of its discovery. But Eusebio, the chief of the
cascarilleros, assuming a mysterious and warning expression, informed
the traveler that the place was quite inaccessible for a white man,
and that he had risked his own neck a score of times in descending the
ravine which separated the route from the hillside where the fortunate
plants were growing. He promised, however, to point out the locality
from afar, and to show, by a certain changeable gloss proper to the
leaf, the precise stratum of the calisaya amongst the belts of the
forest. This promise he forgot to execute more particularly, but it
appeared that the locality would never be excessively hard to find,
marked as it was by Nature with the gigantic finger-post of Mount
Camanti. Placing, then, in security these precious specimens among
their baggage, the explorers continued their advance along the valley.

The footing was level and easy. Rocks and precipices were left behind,
and were displaced by a soft, slippery sort of sand, where from space
to space were planted, like so many oases in a desert, clumps of giant
reeds. By a strange but natural caprice these beds of rustling verdure
were cut in an infinity of well-defined geometric forms. Seen from an
eminence and at a distance, this arrangement gave a singular effect.
In the midst of these native garden-beds were cut distinct and narrow
alleys, where the drifting sands were packed like artificial paths.
It is unnecessary to add that the soft footways, notwithstanding
their advertisement of verdure and shade, proved to be of African
temperature.

The last hours of daylight surprised the travelers among the
labyrinths of these strange gardens. A suitable spot was chosen for
the halt. As the porters were preparing to throw down their packs,
Pepe Garcia, who marched ahead, announced the print of a South
American tiger. The first care of the Indians, on hearing this news,
was to send forth a horrible cry and to throng around the marks. The
footprints disappeared at the thickest part of the jungle. After
an examination of the traces, which resembled a large trefoil, they
precipitated themselves on the interpreter-in-chief, representing
how impossible it was to camp out in the neighborhood of the dreaded
animal. But Pepe Garcia, accustomed as he was by profession to try his
strength with the ferocious bear and the wily boar, was not the man to
be afraid of a tiger, even of a genuine tiger from Bengal. To prove
to the porters how slight was the estimation he placed on the supposed
enemy, and also to drill them in the case of similar rencounters, he
pushed the whole troop pellmell into the thickest part of the reeds,
with the surly order to cut down the canes for sheds. Drawing his own
knife, he slashed right and left among the stems, which the Indians,
trembling with fear, were obliged to make into sheaves on the spot and
transport to the beach selected for the bivouac. Double rows of these
_arundos_, driven into the sand, formed the partitions of the cabins,
for which their interwoven leaves made an appropriate thatch. The
green halls with matted vaults were picturesque enough; each peon,
seeing how easily they were constructed, chose to have a house for
himself; and the Tiger's Beach quickly presented the appearance of a
camp disposed in a long straight line, of which the timorous Indians
occupied the extremity nearest the river.

No "tiger" appeared to justify the apprehensions of the porters; but
what was lacking to their fears from beasts with four feet was made
up to them by beasts with wings. The night closed in dry and serene.
Since leaving Maniri, whether because of the broadening of the valley,
the rarity of the water-courses or the decreasing altitude of the
hills, the adventurers had been little troubled with fogs at night.
The fauna of the region, too, had offered nothing of an alarming
complexion, except the footprints of the tiger in question: an
occasional tapir or peccary from the woods, and otters and fish from
the streams, had attracted the shots of the party, but merely as
welcome additions to their game-bags, not as food for their fears.
To-night, however, the veritable bugbear of the tropical forest paid
them a visit, and left a real souvenir of his presence. As the Indian
servants stretched themselves out in slumber under the bright stars
and in the partial shelter of their ajoupas, a bat of the vampire
species, attracted by the emanations of their bodies, came sailing
over them, and emboldened by the silence reigning everywhere, selected
a victim for attack. Hovering over the fellow's exposed foot, he bit
the great toe, and fanning his prey in the traditional yet inevitable
manner by the natural movement of his wings, he gorged himself with
blood without disturbing the mozo. The latter, on awakening in the
morning, observed a slight swelling in the perforated part, and on
examination discovered a round hole large enough to admit a pea.
Without rising, the man summoned his companions, who formed a group
around him for the purpose of furnishing a certain natural remedy in
the shape of a secretion which each one drew out of his ears. With
this the patient made himself a plaster for his wound, and appeared to
think but little of it. Questioned as to his sensations by the white
travelers, who found themselves a good deal more disturbed with the
idea of the vampire than they had been by any indications of tigers or
wild-boars, the fellow explained that he had felt no sensation, unless
it might have been an agreeable coolness of his sand-baked feet.
The incident seemed so disagreeable and so likely of recurrence
that Colonel Perez ever afterward slept with his feet rolled up in a
variety of fantastic draperies, while Mr. Marcoy for several nights
retained his boots.

[Illustration: "PEPE GARCIA, WHO MARCHED AHEAD, ANNOUNCED THE PRINT OF
A SOUTH AMERICAN TIGER."--P. 132.]

The path along the river-sands would have been voluntarily followed by
all the more irresponsible portion of the party, notwithstanding the
blinding heats, on account of its smoother footing. The cascarilleros,
however, objected that its tufts of canes and passifloras offered no
promise for their researches. A compromise was effected. The porters,
under the command of Juan of Aragon, were allowed to follow the shore,
and were armed with a supply of fish-hooks to induce them to add from
time to time to the alarmingly diminished supply of provisions. The
grandees of the party followed the Bolivians, whose specialty entitled
them to control practically the direction of the route, and plunged
into the woods to botanize, to explore and to search for game.
A system of conversation by means of shouts and pistol-shots was
established between the two divisions. The next night proved the
wisdom of this bifurcation. The united booty of earth, air and water,
under the form of a squirrel, a pair of toucans and a variety of fish,
afforded a meal which the porters described as _comida opipara_ or
a sumptuous festival. Lulled and comforted by the sensation which a
contented stomach wafts toward the brain, the explorers, after
washing their hands and rinsing their mouths at the riverside, betook
themselves to a cheerful repose _sub jove_, the locality offering no
reeds of the articulated species with which to construct a shelter.

The party, then, betook themselves to slumber with unusual
contentment, repeating the splendid supper in their dreams, with the
addition of every famous wine that Oporto and Rheims could dispense,
when they were awakened by a sudden and terrible storm. A waterspout
stooped over the forest and sucked up a mass of crackling branches.
The camp-fire hissed and went out in a fume of smoke. A continuity of
thunder, far off at first, but approaching nearer and nearer, kept up
a constant and increasing fusillade, to whose reports was soon added
the voice of the Cconi, lashed in its bed and bellowing like the sea.
The surprising tumult went on in a _crescendo_. The hardly-interrupted
charges of the lightning gave to the eye a strange vision of flying
woods and soaring branches. Startled, trembling and sitting bolt
upright, the adventurers asked if their last hour were come. The rain
undertook to answer in spinning down upon their heads drops that were
like bullets, and which for some time were taken for hail. Fearing to
be maimed or blinded as they sat, the party crowded together, placing
themselves back to back; and, unable to lay their heads under their
wings like the birds, sheltered them upon their knees under the
protection of their crossed arms. The fearful deluge of heated shot
lasted until morning. Then, as if in laughter, the sun came radiantly
out, the landscape readjusted its disheveled beauties, and the ground,
covered with boughs distributed by the whirlwind, greedily drank in
the waters from heaven. Soon there remained nothing of the memorable
tempest but the diamonds falling in measured cadence from the
refreshed and stiffened leaves.

Up to sunrise the unfortunates rested stoically silent, their knees in
their mouths, and receiving the visitation like a group of statuary.
The rain ceasing with the same promptitude with which it had risen,
they raised their heads and looked each other in the face, like the
enemies over the fire in Byron's _Dream_. Each countenance was blue,
and decorated with long flat locks of adhesive hair. The teeth of the
whole party were chattering like a concert of castanets. The sun, like
a practical joker, laughed ironically at the general picture.

The first hours of morning were consecrated to a general examination
of the stores, especially the precious specimens of cinchona. Bundles
were restrapped, the damp provisions laid out in the sun, and the
clothing of the party, even to the most intimate garment, was taken
down to the river to be refreshed and furbished up. A common disaster
had created a common cause amongst the whole troop, and with one
accord everybody--peons, mozos, interpreters, bark-strippers and
gentlemen--set in motion a grand cleaning-up day. Napoleon-like, they
washed their dirty linen in the family. Whoever had seen the strangers
coming and going from the beach to the woods, clothed in most
abbreviated fashion, and seeming as familiar to the uniform as if they
had always worn it under the charitable mantle of the woods, would
have taken them for a savage tribe in the midst of its encampment. It
is probable they were so seen.

Thanks to the intense heat of the sun-shine, the garments and baggage
of the expedition were quickly dried. The first were donned, the last
was loaded on the porters, and the line of march was taken up. Up to
noon the road lay along the blazing sands under a sun of fire. All the
members of the party felt fresh and hardy after the involuntary bath,
except one of the Indians, who was affected with a kind of ophthalmia.
This attack, which Mr. Marcoy attributed partly to the glare, partly
to the wet, and partly to a singular hobby peculiar to the individual
of sleeping with his eyes wide open, was of no long duration. The pain
which he complained of disappeared with a few hours of exercise and
with the determination he showed in staring straight at the god of
day, who, as if in memory of the worship formerly extended toward him
in the country, deigned to serve as oculist for the sufferer. A little
before sunset halt was made for the night-camp in the centre of a
beach protected by clumps of reeds in three quarters of the wind. The
Indian porters, despatched for fish and firewood, returned suddenly
with a frightened mien to say that they had fallen into the midst of
a camp of savages. The white men quickly rejoined them at the spot
indicated, where they found a single hut in ruins, made of reeds which
appeared to have been cut for the construction some fortnight before,
and strewn with fire-brands, banana skins and the tail of a large
fish. Pepe Garcia, consulted on these indications, explained that it
was in reality the camping-place of some of the savage Siriniris, but
that the narrowness of the hut seemed to indicate that not more than
two of the Indians, probably a man and woman, had resided there during
a short fishing-excursion.

This discovery cast a shade over the countenances of the porters.
After having collected the provisions necessary for a slender supper,
they drew apart, and, while cooking was going on, began to converse
with each other in a low voice. No notice was taken of their behavior,
however, though it would have required little imagination to guess
the subject of their parliament. The tired eyes of the explorers were
already closed, while their ears, more alert, could hear the confused
murmur proceeding from the Indians' quarter, where the disposition
seemed to be to prolong the watch indefinitely.

[Illustration: "NAPOLEON-LIKE, THEY WASHED THEIR DIRTY LINEN IN THE
FAMILY"--P. 135.]

The dark hours filed past, and jocund day, according to Shakespeare
and Romeo, stood tiptoe on the mountain-tops of Camanti and Basiri,
when the travelers were awakened by a fierce and terrible cry. Lifting
their heads in astonishment, they perceived the faithful Pepe Garcia,
his face disfigured with rage, and his fist shaking vigorously in the
direction of the Indians, who sat lowering and sullen in their places.
Aragon and the cascarilleros, collected around the chief interpreter,
far from trying to calm his anger, appeared to feed it by their
suggestions. An explanation of the scene was demanded. Eight of the
bearers, it appeared, had deserted, leaving to their comrades the
pleasure of watching over the packages of cinchona, but assuming for
their part the charge of a good fraction of the provisions, which
they had disappeared with for the relief of their fellow-porters.
This copious bleeding of the larder drew from Colonel Perez a terrible
oath, and occasioned a more vivid sentiment in the entrails of Marcoy
than the defection of the men. If the evil was grand, the remedy was
correspondingly difficult. Indolent or mercurial at pleasure, the
Indians had doubtless threaded the woods with winged feet, and were
now far away. Mr. Marcoy proposed therefore to continue the march
without them, but to set down a heavy account of bastinadoes to their
credit when they should turn up again at Marcapata. This proposition,
as it erred on the side of mercy, was unanimously rejected, and a
scouting-party was ordered in pursuit, consisting of the bark-hunters
and Juan of Aragon, to whom for the occasion Pepe Garcia confided his
remarkable fowling-piece.

[Illustration: "ARAGON AND HIS MEN FELL UPON THE DESERTERS WITHOUT
MERCY."--P. 138.]

In the afternoon the extemporized police reappeared. The fugitives had
been found tranquilly sitting on the banks of the river, distending
their abdomens with the stolen preserves and chocolate. Aragon and his
men fell upon the deserters without mercy. The former, battering away
at them with the stock of his gun, and the latter, exercising upon
their shoulders whatever they possessed in the way of lassoes,
axe-handles and sabre-blades, maintained the argument effectually for
some time in this way, and did not descend to questions until muscular
fatigue caused them to desist. The catechism subsequently put to the
porters elicited the reply, from the spokesman of the recusants,
that they were tired of being afraid of the wild Indians; that they
objected to marching into the dens of tigers; that, perceiving their
rations diminished from day to day, they had imagined the time not far
distant when the same would be withdrawn altogether. It was curious,
as it seemed to Marcoy when the argument was rehearsed to him
presently, that the fellows made no complaint of being footsore,
overcharged with burdens or conducted into paths too difficult for
them. A lurking admiration for the vigor with which, after all, they
played their crushing part of beasts of burden, procured them immunity
from further punishment after their return. Their bivouacs were simply
watched on the succeeding nights by Bolivian sentinels.

After a few minutes allowed the strayed sheep to rub their bruises,
the march was continued. The afternoon afforded a succession of the
same sandy riverbanks, dressed with reeds, false maize, calceolarias
and purple passion-flowers, and yielding for sole booty a brace of
wild black ducks, and an opossum holding in her pouch five saucy and
scolding little ones. The natural civet employed as a cosmetic by this
animal forbade the notion of using it for food, and it was thrown with
its family into the river, after being deprived of its glossy skin.

As evening approached, and as all eyes were exploring the banks for a
suitable camping-ground, a spacious and even beach was fixed upon as
offering all the requisite conveniences. It was agreed to halt there.
Attaining the locality, however, they were amazed to find all the
traces of a previous occupation. Several sheds, formed of bamboo
hurdles set up against the ground with sticks, like traps, were
grouped together. Under each was a hearth, a simple excavation,
two feet across and a few inches deep, and filled with ashes. A few
arrows, feathers and rude pieces of pottery were scattered around.
They greeted these Indian relics as Crusoe did the footprints of the
savages. Nor was it more reassuring to observe, among other callers
like themselves who had left their visiting-cards at the doors since
the departure of the proprietors, the sign-manual of jaguars and
tapirs, whose footprints were plainly visible on the gravel.

A close examination was made of every detail pertaining to the huts
and their accessories, and the interpreters were asked if it would be
prudent to encamp in a spot thus leased in advance. Pepe Garcia and
Aragon were of opinion that it would be better to pass the night
there, assuring their employers that there would be no danger in
sleeping among the teraphim of the savages, provided that nothing was
touched or displaced. Their motion was promptly adopted, to the great
discomfiture of the porters, who were poised on one foot ready for
flight. A salute of five shots was fired, with a vague intention
of giving any listeners the highest possible opinion of the white
explorers as a military power. An enormous fire was kindled, sentinels
were posted, and the party turned in, taking care, however, during the
whole night to close but one eye at a time.

[Illustration: "THEY GREETED THESE INDIAN RELICS AS CRUSOE DID THE
FOOTPRINTS OF THE SAVAGES."--P. 138.]

Day commenced to blush, when all ears were assaulted by a concerted
howl, proceeding from behind a bed of canes on the other side of the
river. "_Alerta! los Chunchos!_" cried the sentinel. The three words
produced a startling effect: the porters sprang up like frightened
deer; Mr. Marcoy grasped a sheaf of pencils and a box of water-colors
with a warlike air, and the colonel's lips were crisped into a
singular smile, indicative of lively emotions. Hardly were the
travelers clothed and armed when the reeds parted with a rattling
noise, and three nude Indians, sepia-colored and crowned with tufts of
hair like horses' tails, leaped out like jacks-in-the-box. At sight of
the party standing to receive them they redoubled their clamor, then,
flourishing their arms and legs and turning continually round, they
gradually revolved into the presence of the explorers. They selected
as chiefs and sachems of the party such as bore weapons, being the
colonel, Marcoy and the two interpreters. These they clasped in a
warm, fulsome embrace: they were smeared from head to foot with rocoa
(crude arnotta), and their passage through the river having dissolved
this pigment, they printed themselves off, in this act of amity, upon
the persons and clothing of their hosts. While the white men, with a
very bad grace, were cleaning off these tokens of natural affection,
the new-comers went on to present their civilities all around. Two of
the porters they recognized at once, with their eagle eyesight, from
having relieved them of their shirts while the latter were working
out some penalty at the governor's farm of Sausipata, and proceeded to
claim a warm acquaintance on that basis; but the bearers, with equally
lively memories of the affront, responded simply with a frown and the
epithet of _Sua-sua_--double thief.

Pepe Garcia undertook a colloquy, and Aragon, not to be behindhand,
flashed a few words across the conversation, right and left as it
were, his expressions appearing to be in a different tongue from those
used by the chief interpreter, and both utterly without perceptible
resemblance to the rolling consonants and gutturals of the savages.
Marcoy imbibed a strong impression that the only terms understood in
common were the words of Spanish with which the palaver was thickly
interlarded. This was the first time the interpreters were put on
their mettle in a strictly professional sense, and the test was not
altogether triumphant. However, by a careful raising of the voice
in all difficult passages, and a wild, expressive pantomime, an
understanding was arrived at.

The visitors belonged to the tribe of Siriniris, inhabiting the space
comprised between the valleys of Ocongate and Ollachea, and extending
eastwardly as far as the twelfth degree. They lived at peace with
their neighbors, the Huat-chipayris and the Pukiris. For several days
the reports of the Christian guns (_tasa-tasa_) had advertised them
of the presence of white men in the valley, and, curious to judge of
their numbers, they had approached. They had formed a cunning escort
to the party, always faithful but never seen, since the encampment
at Maniri: every camping-ground since that particular bivouac they
faithfully described. They were, of course, in particular and direful
need of _sirutas_ and _bambas_ (knives and hatchets), but their fears
of the _tasa-tasa_, or guns, was still stronger than their desires,
and their courage had not, until they saw the strangers domiciled as
guests in their own habitations, attained the firmness and consistency
necessary for a personal approach. The three dancing ambassadors were
ministers plenipotentiary on the part of their tribe, located in a
bamboo metropolis five miles off.

The white men could not well avoid laying down their _tasa-tasa_ and
disbursing _sirutas_ and _bambas_. The savages, after this triumph
of diplomacy, suddenly turned, and, thrusting their fingers in their
mouths, emitted a shrill note, which had the effect of enchanting the
forest of rushes across the river, and causing it to give birth to a
whole ballet of naked coryphei. Nine men, seven women and three dogs
composed the spectacle, of which the masculine part, the human and
the canine, proceeded to swim the stream and fraternize with the
strangers. The women rested on the bank like river-nymphs: their
costume was somewhat less prudish than that of the men, the coat of
rocoa being confined to their faces, which were further decorated with
joints of reed thrust through the nose and ears. A glance of curiosity
darted across the water by the colonel was surprised in its flight by
the ambassadors, who addressed a hasty word or two to their ladies:
the latter, with one quick and cat-like gesture, whipped off each a
branch of the nearest foliage, and were dressed in a single instant.

To reward all these vociferous mendicants with the invaluable cutlery
was hardly prudent. Seeing the hesitation of their visitors, the
savages adopted other tactics. Hurling themselves across the river,
they quickly reappeared, armed with all the temptations they could
think of to induce the strangers to barter. The scene of these savages
coming to market was a picturesque one. Entering the water, provided
with their objects of exchange, which they held high above their
heads, and swimming with the right arm only, they began to cut the
river diagonally. The lifting of the waves and the dash of spray
almost concealed the file of dusky heads. Nothing could be plainly
seen but the left arms, standing out of the water as stiff and
inflexible as so many bars of bronze, relieved against the silvery
brightness of the water. These advancing arms were adorned with the
material of traffic--bird-skins of variegated colors, bows and arrows,
and live tamed parrots standing upon perches of bamboo. The white
spectators could not but admire the native vigor, elegance and
promptitude of their motions as they rose from the water like Tritons,
and, throwing their treasures down in a heap, bounded forward to give
their visitors the conventional signals of friendship. A rapid
bargain was concluded, in which the sylvan booty of the wild men (not
forgetting the prudent exaction of their weapons) was entirely made
over to the custody of the explorers in exchange for a few Birmingham
knives worth fourpence each.

However curious and amicable might be their new relations with the
savages, the party were desirous to put an end to them as soon as
possible. Pepe Garcia announced that the pale chiefs, wishing to
resume their march, were about to separate from them. This decision
appeared to be unpleasant or distressful in their estimation, and
they tried to reverse it by all sorts of arguments. No answer being
volunteered, they shouted to their women to await them, and betook
themselves to walking with the party. One of the three ambassadors, a
graceful rogue of twenty-five, marked all over with rocoa and lote,
so as to earn for himself the nickname of "the Panther," gamboled
and caracoled in front of the procession as if to give it an
entertainment. His two comrades had garroted with their arms the neck
of the chief interpreter: another held Juan of Aragon by the skirt of
his blouse, and regulated his steps by those of the youth. This accord
of barbarism and civilization had in it something decidedly graceful,
and rather pathetic: if ever the language natural to man was found,
the medium in circulation before our sickly machinery of speech came
to be invented, it was in this concert of persuasive action and tender
cooing notes. The main body of the Siriniris marched pellmell along
with the porters, whom this vicinage made exceedingly uncomfortable,
and who were perspiring in great drops.

At the commencement of a wood the whites embraced the occasion to take
formal leave of their new acquaintances. As they endeavored to turn
their backs upon them they were at once surrounded by the whole band,
crying and gesticulating, and opposing their departure with a sort of
determined playfulness.

At the same time a word often repeated, the word _Huatinmio_, began to
enter largely into their conversation, and piqued the curiosity of
the historiographer. Marcoy begged the interpreter to procure him the
explanation of this perpetual shibboleth. Half by signs, half in the
polyglot jargon which he had been employing with the Siriniris, Garcia
managed to understand that the word in question was the name of their
village, situated at a small distance and in a direction which they
indicated. In this retreat, they said, no inhabitants remained but
women, children and old men, the rest of the braves being absent on
a chase. They proposed a visit to their capital, where the strangers,
they said, honored and cherished by the tribe, might pass many
enviable days.

The proposed excursion, which would cause a loss of considerable time
and a deflection from the intended route, was declined in courteous
terms by Marcoy through the interpretation of Pepe Garcia. Among
civilized folk this urbane refusal would have sufficed, but the
savages, taking such a reply as a challenge to verbal warfare,
returned to the charge with increased tenacity. It were hard to say
what natural logic they put in practice or what sylvan persuasions
they wrought by, but their peculiar mode of stroking the white men's
backs with their hands, and the softer and still softer inflections
which they introduced into their voices, would have melted hearts of
marble. In brief, the civilized portion adopted the more weakly part
and allowed themselves to be led by the savage portion.

The colonel and Pepe Garcia were still more easily persuaded than Mr.
Marcoy, and only awaited his adhesion. When it was finally announced
the Siriniris renewed their gambols and uttered shouts of delight.
They then took the head of the excursion. A singularity in their
guides, which quickly attracted the notice of the explorers, was the
perfect indifference with which they took either the clearings or the
thickets in their path. Where the strangers were afraid of tearing
their garments, these unprotected savages had no care whatever for
their skins. It is true that their ingenuity in gliding through the
labyrinth resembled magic. However the forest might bristle with
undergrowth, they never thought of breaking down obstacles or of
cutting them, as the equally practiced Bolivians did, with a knife.
They contented themselves with putting aside with one hand the tufts
of foliage as if they had been curtains or draperies, and that with an
easy decision of gesture and an elegance of attitude which are hardly
found outside of certain natural tribes.

The city of Huatinmio proved to be a group of seven large sheds
perched among plaintains and bananas, divided into stalls, and
affording shelter for a hundred individuals. The most sordid
destitution--if ignorance of comfort can be called
destitution--reigned everywhere around. The women were especially
hideous, and on receipt of presents of small bells and large needles
became additionally disagreeable in their antics of gratitude. The
bells were quickly inserted in their ears, and soon the whole village
was in tintinnabulation.

A night was passed in the hospitality of these barbarians, who vacated
their largest cabin for their guests. A repast was served, consisting
of stewed monkey: no salt was used in the cookery, but on the other
hand a dose of pimento was thrown in, which brought tears to the eyes
of the strangers and made them run to the water-jar as if to save
their lives. The evening was spent in a general conversation with the
Siriniris, who were completely mystified by the form and properties of
a candle which Mr. Marcoy drew from his baggage and ignited. The wild
men passed it from hand to hand, examining it, and singeing themselves
in turn. Still another marvel was the sheet of paper on which the
artist essayed a portrait of one of his hosts. The finished sketch
did not appear to attract them at all, or to raise in their minds
the faintest association with the human form, but the texture and
whiteness of the sheet excited their lively admiration, and they
passed it from one to another with many exclamations of wonder.
Meantime, a number of questions were suggested and proposed through
the interpreter.

The formality of marriage among the Siriniris was found to be quite
unknown; the most rudimentary idea of divine worship could not be
discovered; the treatment of the aged was shown to be contemptuous
and neglectful in the extreme; and the lines of demarcation with the
beasts seemed to be but feebly traced. Finally, Mr. Marcoy begged the
interpreter to propound the delicate inquiry whether, among the viands
with which they nourished or had formerly nourished themselves, human
flesh had found a place. Garcia hesitated, and at first declined
to push the interrogation, but after some persuasion consented. The
Siriniris were not in the least shocked at the question, and answered
that the flesh of man, especially in infancy, was a delicious food,
far better than the monkey, the tapir or the peccary; that their
nation, in the days of its power, frequently used it at the great
feasts; but that the difficulty of procuring such a rarity had
increased until they were now forced to strike it from their bill of
fare.

The night passed without disturbance, and the next day's parting was
accompanied by reiterated requests for a repetition of the visit. The
Panther, who since their arrival had oppressed the travelers with a
multitude of officious attentions, escorted them into the woods, and
there took leave of them with a gesture of his hand, relieving their
eyes of his slippery, snake-like robe of spots. A knife from their
stores, slung round his neck like a locket, smote his breast at each
step as he danced backward, and a couple of large fish-hooks glanced
in his ears.

With a feeling of relief and satisfied curiosity the exploring party
left behind them the traces of these children of Nature, and returned
toward the river. The cascarilleros, all for their business,
had regretted the waste of time, and now betook themselves to an
examination of the woods with all their energy. After several hours
of march their efforts were crowned with success. Eusebio presently
rejoined his employers, showing leaves and berries of the _Cinchona
scrobiculata_ and _pubescens_: the peons, on their side, had
discovered isolated specimens of the _Calisaya_, which, joined with
those found on Mount Camanti, indicated an extended belt of that
precious species. This was not the best. A veritable treasure which
they had unearthed, worth all the others put together, was a line of
those violet cinchonas which the native exporters call _Cascarilla
morada_, and the botanists _Cinchona Boliviana_. The trees of this
kind were grouped in threes and fours, and extended for half a mile.
This repeated proof that the most valuable of all the cinchonas,
together with nearly every one of the others, were to be discovered
in a small radius along the valley of the Cconi, filled the explorers
with triumph, and demonstrated beyond a doubt the sagacity of Don
Santo Domingo in organizing the expedition.

The purpose and intention of the journey was now abundantly fulfilled.
Had the travelers rested satisfied with the liberal indications they
had found, and consented to place themselves between the haunts of
the savages and the abodes of civilization, with a tendency and
determination toward the latter, they might have returned with safety
as with glory. The estimate made by Eusebio, however, of the trend or
direction of the calisaya groves, induced him to forsake the bed of
the Cconi, and strike south-eastwardly, so as to cross the Ollachea
and the Ayapata.

"But the mountains are disappearing," hazarded Mr. Marcoy. "Will not
the cinchonas disappear with them?"

"Oh," answered the majordomo, like a pedagogue to a confident
school-boy, "the senor knows better how to put ink or color on a sheet
of paper than how to judge of these things. The plain, the _campo
llano_, is far enough to the east. Before we should see the
disappearance of the mountains, we should have to cross as many hills
and ravines as we have left behind us."

"What do you think of doing, then?" naturally demanded Marcoy, who had
long since begun to feel that the expedition had but one chief, and
that was the sepia-colored cascarillero from Bolivia,

"Everything and nothing," answered Eusebio.

These enigmas always carry the day. The apparatus of march was
once more set in motion toward the adjacent water-sheds. After a
considerable journey--rewarded, it must be said, with a succession of
cinchona discoveries--they halted near a clearing in the forest, where
large heaps of stones and pebbles, arranged in semicircles, attracted
their attention. The cascarilleros explained this appearance as due
to former arrangements for gold-washing in an old river-bed, the San
Gavan or the Ayapata, that had now changed its locality.

While examining the unusual appearance an abominable clamor burst from
the woods around, and a band of Siriniris appeared, led by a lusty
ruffian crowned with oriole feathers, whom the travelers recognized as
having been among their previous acquaintances.

The encounter was very disagreeable, but the strangers determined to
make the best of it. The manner of this band of Indians was somewhat
different from that of the others. They brought nothing for barter,
and had an indescribably coarse and hardy style of behavior.

The travelers determined to buy a little information, if nothing
better, with their knives and fish-hooks. Garcia was accordingly
instructed to demand the meaning of the heaps and causeways of stones.
The savages laughed at first, but finally informed the visitors that
the constructions which puzzled them so had been made by people of
their own race many years ago, for the purpose of gathering gold from
the river which used to run along there, but which now flowed seven
miles off.

This information was dear to the historic instinct of Marcoy. He
spoke, by his usual proxy, to the Indian of the oriole, commanding him
not to begin every explanation by laughing, as he had been doing, but
to answer intelligently, promising a reward of several knives. The
savage exchanged a rapid glance with his fellows, and then he and they
stood up as stiff and mute as the trees. Marcoy then asked him if he
had never heard his father or his grandfather speak of the great city
of San Gavan, built hereabouts formerly by the Spanish chevaliers, and
which the Caranga and Suchimani Indians from the Inambari River had
destroyed by fire.

The evident recognition of this legend by the savages, and their
rapid exchange among themselves of the words _sacapa huayris Ipanos_,
induced Marcoy to ask if they could guide them to the site of the
former city. They answered that a day's march would be sufficient, and
pointed with their arms in the direction of north-north-west.

The temptation to see the place whose golden renown, after having made
the tour of the American continent, had reached Spain and the world at
large, was too strong to be resisted. Colonel Perez, besides the magic
attraction which the mention of gold had for him, felt his national
pride touched by the idea of a place where his compatriots had added
such magnificence to the Spanish name, and gained so many ingots of
gold by paddling in the streams. The cascarilleros were delighted to
extend their journey, in hopes of yet larger discoveries. As for the
porters, since the manifestations of the savages they clung to the
party with as much anxiety as they had ever shown to escape from it.

In 1767 the city of San Gavan, remaining intact amid the ruin of all
its neighbors, was the sole disburser of the riches of the Caravaya
Valley. The gold-dust, collected throughout the whole territory on a
government monopoly, was brought thither upon the backs of Indians,
melted into ingots, and distributed to Lima and the world at large.
On the night of the 15th and 16th of December in that year the
wealthy city was fired by the Carangas and the Suchimanis, and all the
inhabitants slain with arrows or clubs. The first lords of the soil
had resumed their rights.

When the news of the event was brought to Lima, the viceroy of
the period, Antonio Amat, swore on a piece of the true cross to
exterminate every Indian in Peru. It is to the persuasions of his
favorite, Mariquita Gallegas, that the preservation of the native
tribes from a bloody extirpation is due. This woman, _La Perichola_,
whose caricatured likeness we see in the most agreeable of Offenbach's
operas, and whose deeds of mercy and edifying end in a convent entitle
her to some charitable consideration, persuaded her royal lover to
operate on the natives with missionaries and teachers rather than with
fire and sword. Antonio Amat yielded, and the Indians have survived.

[Illustration: "ANOTHER SAVAGE HAD FOUND A PAIR OF LINEN
PANTALOONS."--P. 146.]

Let no traveler go to South America and cross the Andes with the idea
of unearthing a Nineveh or a Babylon on the site of San Gavan. The
emissaries of Don Santo Domingo were quickly standing, among the
grinning and amused Indians, on the locality of the Golden Depot of
San Gavan. But Nature had thoroughly reclaimed her own, and the place,
indicated again and again by the savages with absolute unanimity,
showed nothing but mounds of fern and moss under canopies of forest
trees.

A day's rest and a sketch or two were consecrated by Marcoy to this
historic spot, the grave of a civilization. It had been well if he
had restrained his feelings of romance, and betaken himself with his
companions to the homeward track.

As the explorers were breakfasting in the morning on a squirrel and
a couple of birds shot among the vanished streets of San Gavan, a
disagreeable incident supervened. The wild Indians had disappeared
over-night. But now, seemingly born instantaneously from the trees, a
throng of Siriniris burst upon the scene, rushing up to the travelers,
straining them repeatedly in a rude embrace, then leaving them, then
assaulting them again, and accompanying every contact with the eternal
cry, _Siruta inta menea_--"Give me a knife." Each member of the troop
had now six savages at his heels, and they were not those of the day
before, but a new and rougher band. The chiefs of the party rushed
together and brandished their muskets. This forced the savages
to retire, but gave to the rencounter that hostile air which, in
consideration of the disparity of numbers, ought at all hazards to
have been avoided. The wild men quickly formed a circle around the
artillery. The latter, fearing for their porters and the precious
baggage, leaped through this circle and joined their servants, making
believe to cock their fire-arms. Upon this the Indians, half afraid of
the guns, vanished into the woods, first picking up whatever clothing
and utensils they could lay their hands on. In an instant they were
showing these trophies to their rightful owners from a safe distance,
laughing as if they would split their sides. One of the naked rascals
had seized a flannel undershirt of the colonel's, which was drying
on a branch. His efforts to introduce his great feet into the
sleeves were excruciating. Another savage had found a pair of linen
pantaloons, which he was endeavoring to put on like a coat, appearing
much embarrassed with the posterior portion, which completely masked
his face. Aragon had seen a young reprobate of his own age make off
with a pair of socks of his property. Detecting the rogue half hidden
by a tree, the mozo made a sortie, seized the Indian, and by a
violent shake brought the property out of his mouth, where it had been
concealed as in a natural pocket.

The travelers immediately threw themselves into marching order and
took up their line of route. The savages followed. At the first
obstacle, a mass of matted trees, they easily rejoined the party of
whites.

Then, for the first time, the idea of their power seemed to strike
them, and they precipitated themselves upon the porters, who took to
flight, rolling from under their packs like animals of burden. In a
moment every article of baggage, every knife and weapon, was seized,
and the red-skins, singing and howling, were making off through the
woods. Among them was now seen the Siriniri with orioles' feathers,
who must have guided them to their prey.

The expedition was pillaged, and pillaged as a joke. The thieves were
heard laughing as they scampered off like deer through the woods.

It was hard to realize at once the gravity of the misfortune. No one
was hurt, no one was insulted. But provisions, clothing, articles of
exchange and weapons were all gone, except such arms and ammunition as
the travelers carried on their persons. A collection of cinchonas was
in possession of one of the Bolivians, though it represented but
a fraction of the species discovered. The besiegers, however, had
disappeared, and a westerly march was taken up. Good time was made
that day, and a heavy night's sleep was the consequence. With the
morning light came the well-remembered and hateful cry, and the little
army found itself surrounded by a throng of merry naked demons, among
whom were some who had not profited by the distribution of the spoils.
At the magic word _siruta_ all these new-comers rushed in a mass upon
the white men. Marcoy managed to slip his fine ivory-handled machete
within his trowser leg, but every other cutting tool disappeared as if
by magic from the possession of the explorers. The shooting-utensils
the savages, believing them haunted, would not touch. Then, half
irritated at the exhaustion of the booty, the amiable children of
Nature burst out into open derision. The artists of the tribe, filling
their palms with rocoa, and moistening the same with saliva, went up
to their late patrons and began to decorate their faces. The latter,
judging patience their best policy, sat in silence while the delicate
fancy of the savages expended itself in arabesques and flourishes.
Perez and Aragon had their eyes surrounded with red spectacles. The
face of Marcoy, covered with a heavy beard, only allowed room for
a "W" on the forehead, and Pepe Garcia was quit for a set of
interfacings like a checkerboard. Having thus signed their marks upon
their visitors, the aborigines retired, catching up here and there
a stray ball of cord or a strip of beef, saluting with the hand, and
vanishing into the woods with the repeated compliment, _Eminiki_--"I
am off."

The victims rested motionless for fifteen minutes: then pellmell,
through the thickest of the brush and down the steepest of the hill,
blotted out under gigantic ferns and covered by umbrageous vines,
stealing along water-courses and skirting the sides of the mountains,
they rushed precipitately westward.

Two months after the priest of Marcapata had dismissed with his
benediction the party of confident and enthusiastic explorers, he
received again his strayed flock, but this time in rags, armed with
ammunitionless guns and one poor knife, wasted by hunger, baked by the
sun, and tattooed like Polynesians by the briers and insects. The
good man could not repress a tear. "Ah, my son," said he as he clasped
Marcoy's hand, "see what it costs to go hunting the cascarilla in the
land of the infidels!"

The explorations started by Don Juan Sanz de Santo Domingo came to
profitable result, but not to his advantage. Three weeks after the
pioneers arrived again in Cuzco, Don Juan started another expedition,
on a much larger scale, to accomplish the working of the cinchona
valleys, under charge of the same Bolivians, who could make like a bee
for every tree they had discovered. A detachment of soldiers was
to protect the party, and the working force was more than double.
Finally, the night before the intended start, the Bolivian
cascarilleros, with their examinador, disappeared together. It is
probable that Don Juan's scheme, nursed, according to custom, with too
much publicity, had attracted the attention of the merchants of Cuzco,
who had found it profitable to buy off the bark-searchers for their
own interest.

The crash of this immense enterprise was too much for Don Juan.
Threatened with creditors, Jews, _escribanos_ and the police, he
retired to a silver-mine he was opening in the province of Abancay.
This mine, in successful operation, he depended on for satisfying his
creditors. He found it choked up, destroyed with a blast of powder by
some enemy. Unable to bear the disappointment, Don Juan blew out his
brains in the office belonging to his mine. A month afterward, Don
Eugenic Mendoza y Jara, the bishop of Cuzco, sent a couple of Indians
for the body, with instructions to throw it into a ditch: the men
attached a rope to the feet and dragged it to a ravine, where dogs and
vultures disposed of the unhallowed remains.




A GLANCE AT THE SITE AND ANTIQUITIES OF ATHENS.


The day is a happy one to the student-traveler from the Western World
in which he first looks upon the lovely plain of Athens. Rounding the
point where Hymettus thrusts his huge length into the sea, the long,
featureless mountain-wall of Southern Attica suddenly breaks down, and
gives place to a broad expanse of fertile, and well-cultivated soil,
sloping gently back with ever-narrowing bounds until it reaches the
foot-hills of lofty Pentelicus. The wooded heights of Parnes enclose
it on the north, while bald Hymettus rears an impassable barrier along
the south. In front of the gently recurved shore stretch the smooth
waters of the Gulf of Salamis, while beyond rises range upon range of
lofty mountain-peaks with strikingly varied outline, terminating on
the one hand in the towering cone of Egina, and on the other in
the pyramidal, fir-clad summit of Cithaeron. Upon the plain, at the
distance of three or four miles from the sea, are several small rocky
hills of picturesque appearance, isolated and seemingly independent,
but really parts of a low range parallel to Hymettus. Upon one of the
most considerable of these, whose precipitous sides make it a natural
fortress, stood the Acropolis, and upon the group of lesser heights
around and in the valleys between clustered the dwellings of ancient
Athens.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE ACROPOLIS AND THE COLUMNS OF THE TEMPLE OF
JUPITER OLYMPUS.]

It was a fitting site for the capital of a people keenly sensitive to
beauty, and destined to become the leaders of the world in matters
of taste, especially in the important department of the Fine Arts.
Nowhere are there more charming contrasts of mountain, sea and
plain--nowhere a more perfect harmony of picturesque effect. The sea
is not a dreary waste of waters without bounds, but a smiling gulf
mirroring its mountain-walls and winding about embosomed isles, yet
ever broadening as it recedes, and suggesting the mighty flood beyond
from which it springs. The plain is not an illimitable expanse over
which the weary eye ranges in vain in quest of some resting-place, but
is so small as to be embraced in its whole contour in a single view,
while its separate features--the broad, dense belt of olives which
marks the bed of its principal stream, the ancient Cephissus, the
vineyards, the grain-fields and the sunny hillside pastures--are made
to produce their full impression. The mountains are not near enough to
be obtrusive, much less oppressive; neither are they so distant as to
be indistinct or to seem insignificant. Seen through the clear air,
their naked summits are so sharply defined and so individual in
appearance as to seem almost like sculptured forms chiseled out of the
hard rock.

The city which rose upon this favored spot was worthy of its
surroundings. The home of a free and enterprising race endowed with
rare gifts of intellect and sensibility, and ever on the alert for
improvement, it became the nurse of letters and of arts, while the
luxury begotten of prosperity awakened a taste for adornment, and
the wealth acquired by an extended commerce furnished the means of
gratifying it. The age of Pericles was the period of the highest
national development. At that time were reared the celebrated
structures in honor of the virgin-goddess who was the patron of
Athens--the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum--which crowned
the Acropolis, and were the glory of the city as they were the
masterpieces of Grecian architecture. During the preceding half
century many works of utility and of splendor had been constructed,
and the city now became renowned not only in Greece, but throughout
the ancient world, for the magnificence of its public buildings.
Thucydides, writing about this time, says that should Athens be
destroyed, posterity would infer from its ruins that the city had
been twice as populous as it actually was. Demosthenes speaks of
the strangers who came to visit its attractions. But the changes of
twenty-three centuries have passed upon this splendor--a sad story
of violence and neglect--and the queenly city has long been in the
condition of ruin imagined by Thucydides. Still, the spell of her
influence is not broken, and the charm which once drew so many
visitors to her shrines still acts powerfully on the hearts of
scholars in all lands, who, having looked up to her poets, orators
and philosophers as teachers and loved them as friends, long to visit
their haunts, to stand where they stood, to behold the scenes which
they were wont to view, and to gaze upon what may remain of the great
works of art upon which their admiration was bestowed.

So the student-pilgrim from the Western World with native ardor
strains his sight to catch the first glimpse of the Athenian plain and
city. He is fresh from his studies, and familiar with what books teach
of the geography of Greece and the topography of Athens. He needs
not to be informed which mountain-range is Parnes, and which
Pentelicus--which island is Salamis, and which Egina. Yet much of what
he sees is a revelation to him. The mountains are higher, more varied
and more beautiful than he had supposed, Lycabettus and the Acropolis
more imposing, Pentelicus farther away, and the plain larger, the gulf
narrower, and Egina nearer and more mountainous, than he had fancied.
He is astonished at the smallness of the harbor at Peiraeus, having
insensibly formed his conception of its size from the notices of the
mighty fleets which sailed from it in the palmy days when Athens was
mistress of the seas. He is not prepared to see the southern shore
of Salamis so near to the Peiraeus, though it explains the close
connection between that island and Athens, and throws some light upon
the great naval defeat of the Persians. In short, while every object
is recognized as it presents itself, yet a more correct conception is
formed of its relative position and aspect from a single glance of the
eye than had been acquired from books during years of study.

Arrived at the city, his experience is the same. He needs no guide to
conduct him to its antiquities, nor cicerone to explain in bad
French or worse English their names and history. Still, unexpected
appearances present themselves not unfrequently. Hastening toward the
Acropolis, he will first inspect the remains of the great theatre of
Dionysus, so familiar to him as the place where, in the presence
of all the people and many strangers, were acted the plays of his
favorite poets, Eschylus and Sophocles, and where they won many
prizes. Hurrying over the eastern brow of the hill, he comes suddenly
upon the spot, enters at the summit, as many an Athenian did in the
olden time, and is smitten with amazement at the first glance, and led
to question whether this be indeed the site of the ancient theatre. He
finds, it is true, the topmost seats cut in the solid rock, row above
row, stripped now of their marble lining and weather-worn, but yet the
genuine ancient seats of the upper tier. These he expected to find.
But whence are those fresh seats which fill the lower part of the
hollow, arranged as neatly as if intended for immediate use? and
whence the massive stage beyond? He bethinks himself that he has
heard of recent excavations under the patronage of the government, and
closer inspection shows that these are actually the lower seats of the
theatre in the time of the emperor Hadrian, whose favorite residence
was Athens, and who did so much to embellish the city. The front seats
consist of massive stone chairs, each inscribed with the name of its
occupant, generally the priestess of some one of the numerous gods
worshiped by that people so given to idolatry. In the centre of the
second row is an elevated throne inscribed with the name of Hadrian.
The stage is seen to be the ancient Greek stage enlarged to the
Roman size to suit the demands of a later style of theatrical
representation.

[Illustration: THEATRE OF DIONYSUS (BACCHUS).]

After looking in vain for the seat occupied by the priestess of the
Unknown God, our traveler passes on and enters with a beating heart
the charmed precincts of the Acropolis itself. The Propylaea, which he
has been accustomed to regard too exclusively as a mere entrance-gate
to the glories beyond, impresses him with its size and grandeur, and
the little temple of Victory by its side with its elegance.[A] But
the steepness of the ascent perplexes him. It seems impracticable for
horses, yet he knows by unexceptionable testimony that the Athenian
youth prided themselves upon driving their matched steeds in the great
Panathenaic procession which once every four years wound up the hill,
bearing the sacred peplus to the temple of the goddess. A closer
examination reveals the transverse creases of the pavement designed
to give a footing to the beasts, as well as the marks of the
chariot-wheels. Nevertheless, the ascent (and much more the descent)
must have been a perilous undertaking, unless the teams were better
broken than the various accounts of chariot-races furnished by the
poets would indicate. Entering beneath the great gate, a little
distance forward to the left may readily be found the site of the
colossal bronze statue of the warrior-goddess in complete armor,
formed by Phidias out of the spoils taken at Marathon. The square
base, partly sunk in the uneven rock, is as perfect as if just put in
readiness to receive the pedestal of that famous work. A road bending
to the right and slightly hollowed out of the rock leads to the
Parthenon. The outer platform which sustains this celebrated temple
is partly cut from the rock of the hill and partly built up of common
limestone. The inner one of three courses, as well as the whole
superstructure, is formed of Pentelic marble of a compact crystalline
structure and of dazzling whiteness. Long exposure has not availed to
destroy its lustre, but only to soften its tone. The visitor, planting
himself at the western front, is in a position to gain some adequate
idea of the perfection of the noble building. The interior and central
parts suffered the principal injury from the explosion of the Turkish
powder magazine in 1687. The western front remains nearly entire.
It has been despoiled, indeed, of its movable ornaments. The statues
which filled the pediment are gone, with the exception of a fragment
or two. The sculptured slabs have been removed from the spaces between
the triglyphs, and the gilded shields which hung beneath have been
taken down. Of the magnificent frieze, representing the procession
of the great quadrennial festival, only the portion surrounding the
western vestibule is still in place.[B]

[Footnote A: The latter contains, among other relics of a balustrade
which protected and adorned the platform of the temple, the
exquisitely graceful torso of Victory untying her sandals, of which
casts are to be seen in most of the museums of Europe.]

[Footnote B: Among the figures of this bas-relief, twelve are
recognized by their lofty stature and sitting posture as those of
divinities. One group is represented in the engraving.]

[Illustration: VICTORY UNTYING HER SANDALS.]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF VICTORY]

[Illustration: THE PARTHENON.]

Still, as these were strictly decorations, and wholly subordinate to
the organic parts of the structure, their presence, while it would
doubtless greatly enhance the effect of the whole, is not felt to be
essential to its completeness. The whole Doric columns still bear
the massive entablature sheltered by the covering roof. The simple
greatness of the conception, the just proportion of the several parts,
together with the elaborate finishing of the whole work, invest it
with a charm such as the works of man seldom possess--the pure and
lasting pleasure which flows from apparent perfection Entering the
principal apartment of the building, traces are seen of the stucco and
pictures with which the walls were covered when it was fitted up as
a Christian church in the Byzantine period. Near the centre of the
marble pavement is a rectangular space laid with dark stone from the
Peirseus or from Eleusis. It marks the probable site of the colossal
precious statue of the goddess in gold and ivory--one of the most
celebrated works of Phidias. The smaller apartment beyond, accessible
only from the opposite front of the temple, was used by the state as
a place of deposit and safekeeping for bullion and other valuables in
the care of the state treasurer.

[Illustration: BAS RELIEF OF THE GODS (FRIEZE OF THE PARTHENON).]

Having examined the great temple, and tested the curvature of
its seemingly horizontal lines by sighting along the unencumbered
platform, and having stopped at several points of the grand portico
to admire the fine views of the city and surrounding country, the
traveler picks his way northward, across a thick layer of fragments
of columns, statues and blocks of marble, toward the low-placed,
irregular but elegant Erechtheum, the temple of the most ancient
worship and statue of the patron-goddess of the city. This building
sits close by the northern as the Parthenon does by the southern wall
of the enclosure. It has suffered equally with the other from the
ravages of time, and its ruins, though less grand, are more beautiful.
Most of the graceful Ionic columns are still standing, but large
portions of the roof and entablature have fallen. Fragments of
decorated cornice strew the ground, some of them of considerable
length, and afford a near view of that delicate ornamentation and
exquisite finish so rare outside the limits of Greece. The elevated
porch of the Caryatides, lately restored by the substitution of a
new figure in place of the missing statue now in the British Museum,
attracts attention as a unique specimen of Greek art, and also as
showing how far a skillful treatment will overcome the inherent
difficulties of a subject. The row of fair maidens looking out toward
the Parthenon do not seem much oppressed by the burden which rests
upon them, while their graceful forms lend a pleasing variety to the
scene. Passing out by the northern wing of the Propylaea, a survey is
had of the numerous fragments of sculpture discovered among the ruins
upon the hill, and temporarily placed in the ancient Pinacotheca.
The eye rests upon sweet infant faces and upon rugged manly ones.
Sometimes a single feature only remains, which, touched by the finger
of genius, awakens admiration. A naked arm severed from the trunk, of
feminine cast, but with muscles tightly strained and hand clenched as
in agony, will arrest attention and dwell in the memory.

North-west of the Acropolis, across a narrow chasm, lies the low,
rocky height of the Areopagus, accessible at the southeast angle by
a narrow flight of sixteen rudely-cut steps, which lead to a small
rectangular excavation on the summit, which faces the Acropolis, and
is surrounded upon three sides by a double tier of benches hewn out
of the rock. Here undoubtedly the most venerable court of justice at
Athens had its seat and tried its cases in the open air. Here too,
without doubt, stood the great apostle when, with bold spirit and
weighty words, he declared unto the men of Athens that God of whom
they confessed their ignorance; who was not to be represented by gold
or silver or stone graven by art and man's device; who dwelt not in
temples made with hands, and needed not to be worshiped with men's
hands. In no other place can one feel so sure that he comes upon the
very footsteps of the apostle, and on no other spot can one better
appreciate his high gifts as an orator or the noble devotion of his
whole soul to the work of the Master. How poor in comparison with
his life-work appear the performances of the greatest of the Athenian
thinkers or doers!

A little more than a quarter of a mile west of the Acropolis is
another rocky hill--the Pnyx--celebrated as the place where the
assembly of all the citizens met to transact the business of the
state. A large semicircular area was formed, partly by excavation,
partly by building up from beneath, the bounds of which can be
distinctly traced. Considerable remains of the terrace-wall at the
foot of the slope exist--huge stones twelve or fourteen feet in length
by eight or ten in breadth. The chord of the semicircle is near the
top of the hill, formed by the perpendicular face of the excavated
rock, and is about four hundred feet in length by twenty in depth.
Projecting from it at the centre, and hewn out of the same rock, is
the bema or stone platform from which the great orators from the time
of Themistocles and Aristides, and perhaps of Solon, down to the
age of Demosthenes and the Attic Ten, addressed the mass of their
fellow-citizens. It is a massive cubic block, with a linear edge of
eleven feet, standing upon a graduated base of nearly equal height,
and is mounted on either side by a flight of nine stone steps.
From its connection with the most celebrated efforts of some of
the greatest orators our race has yet seen, it is one of the most
interesting relics in the world, and its solid structure will cause it
to endure as long as the world itself shall stand, unless, as there is
some reason to apprehend will be the case, it is knocked to pieces and
carried off in the carpet-bags of travelers. No traces of the Agora,
which occupied the shallow valley between the Pnyx and the Acropolis,
remain. It was the heart of the city, and was adorned with numerous
public buildings, porticoes, temples and statues. It was often
thronged with citizens gathered for purposes of trade, discussion, or
to hear and tell some new thing.

[Illustration: PORCH OF THE CARYATIDES.]

Half a mile or more to the south-east, on the banks of the Ilissus,
stood a magnificent structure dedicated to Olympian Zeus--one of
the four largest temples of Greece, ranking with that of Demeter at
Eleusis and that of Diana at Ephesus. Its foundations remain, and
sixteen of the huge Corinthian columns belonging to its majestic
triple colonnade. One of these is fallen. Breaking up into the
numerous disks of which it was composed--six and a half feet in
diameter by two or more in thickness--and stretching out to a length
of over sixty feet, it gives an impressive conception of the size of
these columns, said to be the largest standing in Europe. The level
area of the temple is now used as a training-ground for soldiers.
Close by, and almost in the bed of the stream, which is dry the larger
part of the year, issues from beneath a ledge of rock the copious
fountain of sweet waters known to the ancients as Calirrhoe. It
furnished the only good drinking-water of the city, and was used in
all the sacrifices to the gods. A little way above, on the opposite
bank of the Ilissus, is the site of the Panathenaic stadium, whose
shape is perfectly preserved in the smooth grass-grown hollow with
semicircular extremity which here lies at right angles to the stream,
between parallel ridges partly artificial.

Northward from the Acropolis, on a slight elevation, is the
best-preserved and one of the most ancient structures of Athens--the
temple of Theseus, built under the administration of Cimon by the
generation preceding Pericles and the Parthenon. It is of the Doric
order, and shaped like the Parthenon, but considerably inferior to
it in size as well as in execution. It has been roofed with wood in
modern times, and was long used as a church, but is now a place of
deposit for the numerous statues and sculptured stones of various
kinds--mostly sepulchral monuments--which have been recently
discovered in and about the city. They are for the most part
unimportant as works of art, though many are interesting from their
antiquity or historic associations. Among these is the stone which
once crowned the burial-mound on the plain of Marathon. It bears a
single figure, said to represent the messenger who brought the tidings
of victory to his countrymen.

Near the Theseium was the double gate (Dipylum) in the ancient wall
of the city whence issued the Sacred Way leading to Eleusis, and
bordered, like the Appian Way at Rome, with tombs, many of them
cenotaphs of persons who died in the public service and were deemed
worthy of a monument in the public burying-ground. Within a few years
an excavation has been made through an artificial mound of ashes,
pottery and other refuse emptied out of the city, and a section of a
few rods of this celebrated road has been laid bare. The sepulchral
monuments are ranged on one side rather thickly, and crowd somewhat
closely upon the narrow pavement. They are, for the most part, simple,
thick slabs of white marble, with a triangular or pediment-shaped top,
beneath which is sculptured in low relief the closing scene of the
person commemorated, followed by a short inscription. The work is done
in an artistic style worthy of the publicity its location gave it. On
one of these slabs you recognize the familiar full-length figure of
Demosthenes, standing with two companions and clasping in a parting
grasp the hand of a woman, who is reclining upon her deathbed. The
inscription is, _Collyrion, wife of Agathon_. On another stone of
larger size is a more imposing piece of sculpture. A horseman fully
armed is thrusting his spear into the body of his fallen foe--a
hoplite. The inscription relates that the unhappy foot-soldier fell at
Corinth _by reason of those five words of his_!--a record intelligible
enough, doubtless, to his contemporaries, but sufficiently obscure and
provocative of curiosity to later generations.

There are other noted structures at Athens, such as the Choragic
Monument of Lysicrates--the highest type of the Corinthian order of
architecture, as the Erechtheum is of the Ionic and the Parthenon of
the Doric--but want of space forbids any further description of them.
Let the American traveler visit Athens with the expectation of finding
a city occupying the most charming of sites, and containing by far
the most interesting and important monuments of antiquity, in their
original position, to be found in the whole world.

J.L.T. PHILLIPS.

[Illustration: MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES.]




COMMONPLACE.


            My little girl is commonplace, you say?
              Well, well, I grant it, as you use the phrase
            Concede the whole; although there was a day
              When I too questioned words, and from a maze
            Of hairsplit meanings, cut with close-drawn line,
            Sought to draw out a language superfine,
  Above the common, scarify with words and scintillate with pen;
  But that time's over--now I am content to stand with other men.

            It's the best place, fair youth. I see your smile--
              The scornful smile of that ambitious age
            That thinks it all things knows, and all the while
              It nothing knows. And yet those smiles presage
            Some future fame, because your aim is high;
            As when one tries to shoot into the sky,
  If his rash arrow at the moon he aims, a bolder flight we see,
  Though vain, than if with level poise it safely reached the nearest tree.

            A common proverb that! Does it disjoint
              Your graceful terms? One more you'll understand:
            Cut down a pencil to too fine a point,
              Lo, it breaks off, all useless, in your hand!
            The child is fitted for her present sphere:
            Let her live out her life, without the fear
  That comes when souls, daring the heights of dread infinity, are tost,
  Now up, now down, by the great winds, their little home for ever lost.

            My little girl seems to you commonplace
              Because she loves the daisies, common flowers;
            Because she finds in common pictures grace,
              And nothing knows of classic music's powers:
            She reads her romance, but the mystic's creed
            Is something far beyond her simple need.
  She goes to church, but the mixed doubts and theories that thinkers find
  In all religious truth can never enter her undoubting mind.

            A daisy's earth's own blossom--better far
              Than city gardener's costly hybrid prize:
            When you're found worthy of a higher star,
              'Twill then be time earth's daisies to despise;
            But not till then. And if the child can sing
              Sweet songs like "Robin Gray," why should I fling
  A cloud over her music's joy, and set for her the heavy task
  Of learning what Bach knew, or finding sense under mad Chopin's mask?

            Then as to pictures: if her taste prefers
              That common picture of the "Huguenots,"
            Where the girl's heart--a tender heart like hers--
              Strives to defeat earth's greatest powers' great plots
            With her poor little kerchief, shall I change
            The print for Turner's riddles wild and strange?
  Or take her stories--simple tales which her few leisure hours beguile--
  And give her Browning's _Sordello_, a Herbert Spencer, a Carlyle?

            Her creed, too, in your eyes is commonplace,
              Because she does not doubt the Bible's truth
            Because she does not doubt the saving grace
              Of fervent prayer, but from her rosy youth,
            So full of life, to gray old age's time,
            Prays on with faith half ignorant, half sublime.
  Yes, commonplace! But if I spoil this common faith, when all is done
  Can deist, pantheist or atheist invent a better one?

            Climb to the highest mountain's highest verge,
              Step off: you've lost the petty height you had;
            Up to the highest point poor reason urge,
              Step off: the sense is gone, the mind is mad.
            "Thus far, and yet no farther, shalt thou go,"
            Was said of old, and I have found it so:
  This planet's ours, 'tis all we have; here we belong, and those are wise
  Who make the best of it, nor vainly try above its plane to rise.

            Nay, nay: I know already your reply;
              I have been through the whole long years ago;
            I have soared up as far as soul can fly,
              I have dug down as far as mind can go;
            But always found, at certain depth or height,
            The bar that separates the infinite
  From finite powers, against whose strength immutable we beat in vain,
  Or circle round only to find ourselves at starting-point again.

            If you must for yourself find out this truth,
              I bid you go, proud heart, with blessings free:
            'Tis the old fruitless quest of ardent youth,
              And soon or late you will come back to me.
            You'll learn there's naught so common as the breath
            Of life, unless it be the calm of death:
  You'll learn that with the Lord Omnipotent there's nothing commonplace,
  And with such souls as that poor child's, humbled, abashed, you'll
        hide your face.

CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.




PROBATIONER LEONHARD;

OR, THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.


CHAPTER IV.

THE TEST--WITH MENTAL RESERVATIONS.


Elise went out to gather willow-twigs, as her mother had said when her
father asked for her.

A little later in the afternoon, Mr. Albert Spener walked swiftly down
the street toward the house occupied by the Rev. Mr. Wenck. While
he was yet at a distance Elise saw him approaching, and possibly she
thought, "He has seen me and comes to meet me;" and many a pleasant
stroll on many an afternoon would have justified the thought.

But it was not until he had, as it were, stumbled upon Elise that he
noticed her. He carried in his hand a letter, and when suddenly he
stopped upon the sidewalk and looked at her, the changeful aspects of
his face were marvelous to behold.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I was going home," she answered, not a little surprised by the abrupt
and authoritative manner of his address.

"I want to talk with you," said he. "Is it to-day that I am to begin
to leave off loving you, Elise?"

"That you are--What do you say, Albert?" she asked.

"Have you not seen Brother Wenck's letter to your father, Elise?"

She shook her head.

"The lot--the lot--" he repeated, but his voice refused to help him
tell the tale.

"Albert, may I see the letter?" Father and Mother Loretz might have
rejoiced in their daughter could they have seen and heard her in those
trying moments. Her gentleness and her serene dignity said for her
that she would not be over-thrown by the storm which had burst upon
her in a moment, unlocked for as tempest and whirlwind out of a clear
sky.

Spener thrust into her hands the letter addressed to him that morning
by the minister. It contained an announcement of the decision rendered
by the lot, couched in terms more brief, perhaps, than those which
conveyed the same intelligence to the father of Elise.

She gave it back to him without a word.

"If Brother Wenck is going to stand by it," said he, "there'll be no
room for him in this place. I was just going to his house to tell him
so. Will you go with me? I should like to have a witness. I'll make
short work of it."

"No," said Elise, shrinking back amazed from her companion. "I will
not go with you to insult that good man."

"You will go with me--_not_ to his house, then! Come, Elise, we must
talk about this. You must help me untie this knot. I cannot imagine
how I ever permitted things to take their chance. I have never heard
of a sillier superstition than I seem to have encouraged. Talk about
faith! Let a man act up to light and take the consequences. I can see
clear enough now. _You_ never looked for this to happen, Elise?"

She shook her head. Indeed, she never had--no, not for a moment.

"To think I should have permitted it to go on!"

"But you did let it go on--and I--consented. Do not let me forget
that," she exclaimed. "I will go home, Albert."

"Ha, Elise! I wish I could feel more confidence in your teachers when
you get there."

"I need no one to tell me what my duty is just here," she answered.

"Have you ever loved me, child? _Child_! I am talking to a rock. You
do not yield to this?" He waved the letter aloft, and as if he would
dash it from him. Elise looked at him, and did not speak. "Sister
Benigna will of course feel called upon to bless the Lord," said he.
"But Wenck shall find a way out of this difficulty. Then we will have
done with them both, my own."

"Am I to have no voice in this matter?" she asked. "What if I say--"

Spener grasped her hand so suddenly that, as if in her surprise she
had forgotten what she was about to say, Elise added, "Sister Benigna
is my best friend. She knows nothing about the lot."

"Does not?"

"I told you, Albert, that it was to be so. And--you do not mean to
threaten Mr. Wenck?"

"I mean to have him find a way out of this difficulty. He ought to
have said to your father that this lot business belongs to a period
gone by. He did hint at it. I supposed, of course, that he would see
the thing came out right, since he let it go on."

"Did you then believe it was only a play or a trick?" exclaimed Elise
indignantly.

"Not quite, but I did not suppose that we were a company who would
stand by an adverse decision. You know, if you are the Elise I have
loved so long, that I must love you always--that I am not going to
give you up. Your father was bent on the test, but look at him and
tell me if he expected this turn. He is twenty years older than he
was yesterday. Folks used to resort to the lot in deciding about
marriages, and it was all well enough if they didn't care how it
turned out, or hadn't faith to believe in their own ability to choose.
A pretty way of doing business, though! Suppose I had tried it on this
place! I have always asked for God's blessing, and tried to act so
that I need not blush when I asked it; but a man must know his own
mind, he must act with decision. I say again, I don't like your
teachers, Elise. Between Sister Benigna and Mr. Wenck, now, what would
be my chances if I could submit to such a pair?"

"You and I have no quarrel," said Elise gently. "I suppose that you
acted in good faith. You know how much I care--how humiliated I shall
feel if you attack in any way a man so good as Mr. Wenck. You do not
understand Sister Benigna."

It was well that she had these to speak of, and that she need not
confine herself to the main thought before them, for Albert could do
anything he attempted. Had not her father always said, "Let Spener
alone for getting what he wants: he'll have it, but he's above-board
and honest;" and what hopes, heaven-cleaving, had spread wing the
instant her eyes met his!

"It is easy to say that I do not understand," said he. "One has only
to assume that another is so excellent and virtuous a character as to
be beyond your comprehension, and then your mouth is stopped."

"Ah, how bitter you are!" exclaimed Elise. Her voice was full of pain.

Spener silently reproached himself, and said, with a tenderness that
was irresistible, "You don't know what temptations beset a man in
business and everywhere, Elise. It would be easier far to lie down
and die, I have thought sometimes, than to stand up and meet the enemy
like a man. You will never convince me that my duty is to let you go,
to give you up. I can think of nothing so wicked."

These words, which had a joyful sound to which she could not seal her
ears, made Elise stop suddenly, afraid of Albert, afraid of herself.
"I think," she said after a moment, "we had best not walk together
any longer. There is nothing we can say that will satisfy ourselves or
ought to satisfy each other."

"Do you mean that you accept this decision?" said he.

"I promised, Albert. So did you."

"We will not talk about it. But we can at least walk together, Elise.
You need not speak. What you confessed just now is true--you cannot
say anything to the purpose."

So they walked on together. Silently, past all Spenersberg's
dwelling-places they walked, till they came to the cemetery, and
ascending the hill they strolled about that pleasant place among the
graves, and thought, perhaps, How blessed are the dead! and oh to be
lying there in a dreamless sleep beneath the blooming wild roses, and
where dirges were sounding through the cedars day and night! Elise
might have thought thus, but not her companion. He was the last man
to wish to pass from the scene of his successes merely because a great
failure threatened him. Looking upon the slight young figure beside
him and her grave sweet face, a wrathful contempt was aroused within
him that he should have allowed himself to be placed in a situation so
absurd. As they walked down the hill again, he startled his companion
by a merry outbreak. "Tell me you are not mine!" he said: "there never
was a joke like it!"




CHAPTER V.

SISTER BENIGNA.


On her return home Elise found Sister Benigna seated at the piano,
attuning herself, as she said, after her work among the restive
children of her school.

When she looked upon her friend and recalled the bitter words Albert
had spoken against her, Elise felt their injustice. It was true, as
she had told him, he did not understand Sister Benigna.

Sitting down beside the window, Elise began to busy herself over the
dainty basket she was elaborately decorating. After a few moments
Sister Benigna left the piano and stood looking at Elise and her work.
She had something to say, but how should she say it? how approach the
heart which had wrapped itself up in sorrow and surrounded itself with
the guards of silence?

Presently Elise looked at her, but not until she had so long resisted
the inclination to do so that there was something like violence in the
effort. When her eyes met the gaze of Sister Benigna the warm blood
rushed to her cheeks, and she looked quickly down again. Did Sister
Benigna know yet about the letter Mr. Wenck had written?

A sad smile appeared on Benigna's face. She shook her head. If she did
not know what had happened, she no doubt understood that some kind of
trouble had entered the house.

Drawing a roll of needlework from her pocket, she quietly occupied
herself with it until Elise, unable to endure the silence longer,
said, "Oh, Sister Benigna, is it not time we did something about the
Sisters' House? I have been reading about one: I forget where it is.
What a beautiful Home you and I could make for poor people, and sick
girls not able to work, and old women! We ought to have such a Home in
Spenersberg. I have been thinking all day it is what we must have, and
it is time we set about it."

"I do not agree with you," was the quiet answer. "There is no real
need for it here, and perhaps there never will be. Work that is so
unnecessary might better be avoided. In Spenersberg it is better that
the poor and the old and the sick should be cared for in their homes,
by their own households: there is no want here."

"Will you read what I have been reading?" said Elise, hesitating, not
willing yet to give up the project which looked so full of promise.

"I know all about Sisters' Houses, and they are excellent
institutions, but if you will go from house to house here you will
find that you would probably keep house by yourself a long time if you
opened such an establishment. No, no: you have your work all prepared
for you, and I certainly have mine. There is a good deal to be done
yet for the festival. Tomorrow, after five, come to the school-room and
we will practice a while. And we might do something here to-night. The
children surprise me: I seem to be surrounded by a little company of
angels while they sing."

"Oh, Sister Benigna," exclaimed Elise throwing down her work in
despair, "I don't in the least care about the festival. I should be
glad to know it was all given up. I cannot sing at it. I think I have
lost my voice: I do, indeed. I tried it this afternoon, and I croaked
worse than anything you ever heard."

"Croaked? We must see to that," said Sister Benigna; but, though her
voice was so cheerful, she closed her eyes as she spoke, and passed
her hands over them, and in spite of herself a look of pain was for an
instant visible on her always pale face. She rose quickly and walked
across the room, and crossed it twice before she came again to the
window.

"You don't understand me to-day," said Elise impetuously; "and I don't
want you to." But Elise would not have spoken at all had she looked at
Sister Benigna.

A silence of many seconds, which seemed much longer to Elise,
followed her words. She did not dare to go on. What was Sister Benigna
thinking? Would she never speak? Had she nothing to say? Elise was
about to rise also, because to sit still in that silence or to break
it by words had become equally impossible, when Sister Benigna,
approaching gently, laid her hand upon her and said, "Wait one moment:
I have something to tell you, Elise."

And so Elise sat down. She could not summon the strength to go with
that voice in her ear and the touch of that hand arresting her.

"I once had a friend as young as you are, of whom you often remind
me," said Benigna. "She had a lover, and their faith led them to
seek a knowledge of the Lord's will concerning their marriage. It
was inquired for them, and it was found against the union. You often
remind me of her, I said, but your fortunes are not at all like hers."

"Sister Benigna, why do you tell me this?" asked Elise quickly, in a
voice hardly audible. She was afraid to listen. She recalled Albert's
words. She did not know if she might trust the friendly voice that
spoke.

"Because I have always thought that some time it would be well for you
to hear it; but if you do not wish to hear it, I will go no farther."

Elise looked at Benigna--not trust her! "Please go on," she said.

"I knew the poor child very well. She had grown up in an unhappy
home, and had never known what it was to have comfort and peace in the
house, or even plenty to eat and to wear. She was expected to go out
and earn her living as soon as she had learned the use of her hands
and feet. Poor child! she felt her fortune was a hard one, but God
always cared for her. In one way and another she in time picked up
enough knowledge of music to teach beginners. The first real friend
she had was the friend who became so dear to her that--I need not try
to find words to tell you how dear he was.

"She was soon skilled enough to be able to take more intelligent and
advanced pupils, and in the church-music she had the leading parts.
By and by the music was put into her hands for festivals and the
great days, Christmas and Easter, as it has been put into mine here in
Spenersberg. One day _he_ said to her, 'It seems to us the best thing
in life to be near each other. Would it might be God's will that we
should never part!' She responded to that prayer from the depths of
her heart, and a great gulf seemed to open before her, for she thought
what would her life be worth if they were destined to part? Then he
said, 'Let us inquire the will of our Lord;' and she said, 'Let it
be so;' and they had faith that would enable them to abide by the
decision. The lot pronounced against them. I do not believe that it
had entered the heart of either of them to understand how necessary
they had become to each other, and when they saw that all was over it
was a sad awaking. For a little while it was with both as if they had
madly thrown a birthright away; for, though they had faith, they were
not yet perfect in it. Not soon did either see that this life had
a blessing for them every day--new every morning, fresh every
evening--and that from everlasting to everlasting are the mercies of
God. But at last he said, 'I am afraid, my darling'" (Elise started at
this word of endearment. It was like a revelation to think that there
had been lovers in the world before her time), "'it will go harder
with me than with you. I cannot stay here and go on with my work. I
must go among new people, and begin again.' And so he went away, and
at last, when by the grace of God they met again--surely, surely by no
seeking of their own--they were no less true friends because they had
for their lifetime been led into separate paths. Their faith saved
them."

Low though the voice was in which these last words were spoken, there
was a strength and inspiration in them which Elise felt. She looked
at Sister Benigna with steady, wondering eyes. Such a story from her
lips, and told so, and told now! And her countenance! what divine
beauty glowed in it! The moment had a vision that could never be
forgotten.

Elise did not speak, but neither, having heard this tale, did she now
rise to depart. She folded her hands and bowed her head upon them, and
so they sat silent until the first chords of the "Pastoral Symphony"
drew the souls of both away up into a realm which is entered only by
the pure in heart.

About this time it was that Leonhard Marten, while passing, heard that
recitative of a soprano voice which so amazed him. Dropping quickly
into the shade of the trees opposite Loretz's house, he listened to
the announcement, "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping
watch over their flocks by night," and there remained until he saw two
men advancing toward the house, one of them evidently approaching his
home.

Through the sleepless night Elise's thoughts were constantly going
over the simple incidents of the story Sister Benigna had told her.
But they had not by morning yielded all the consolations which the
teller of the tale perceived among their possibilities, for the
reason, perhaps, that Elise's sympathies had been more powerfully
excited by the tale than her faith. It was not upon the final result
of the severance effected by the lot that her mind rested dismayed:
her heart was full of pain, thinking of that poor girl's early life,
and that at last, when all the recollection of it was put far from her
by the joy which shone upon her as the sun out of darkness, she
must look forward and by its light behold a future so dreary. "How
fearful!" she moaned once; and her closed eyes did not see the face
that turned toward her full of pain, full of love.

Of all doubts that could afflict the soul of Sister Benigna, none
more distracting than this was conceivable: Had she proved the best
instructor to this child of her spirit? Had she even been _capable_ of
teaching her truest truth? Was it the truth or herself to which Elise
was always deferring? Was obedience a duty when not impelled and
sanctified by faith? In what did the prime virtue of resignation
consist? Would not obedience without faith be merely a debasing
superstitious submission to the will of the believing? Her reflections
were not suggested by a shrewd guess. She knew that the lot had been
resorted to, and that the letters had been written to Elise and Albert
which acquainted them with the result; and the peace of her prayerful
soul was rent by the thought that a joyless surrender of human will
to a higher was, perhaps, no better than the poor helpless slave's
extorted sacrifice. The happiness of the household seemed to Benigna
in her keeping. If they had gone lightly seeking the oracle of God,
as they would have sought a fortune-teller, was not the Most High
dishonored? She could not say this to Elise, but could she say it to
Albert Spener? Ought she not to say it to him? There was no other to
whom it could be said. Had the coming day any duty so imperative as
this? She arose to perform it, but Spener, as we know, had gone away
the day before.




CHAPTER VI.

THE MEN OF SPENERSBERG.


This Spenersberg, about which Leonhard was not a little eager to know
more when he shut the door of the apartment into which his host had
ushered him--for he must remain all night--what was it?

A colony, or a brotherhood, or a community, six years old. Such a fact
does not lie ready for observation every day--such a place does not
lie in the hand of a man at his bidding. What, then, was its history?
We need not wait to find out until morning, when Leonhard will proceed
to discover. He is satisfied when he lies down upon the bed, which
awaited him, it seems, as he came hither on the way-train--quite
satisfied that Spener of Spenersberg must be a man worth seeing.
Breathing beings possessed of ideas and homes here must have been
handled with power by a master mind to have brought about this
community, if so it is to be called, in six short years, thinks
Leonhard. He recalls his own past six years, and turns uneasily on his
bed, and finds no rest until he reminds himself of the criticism
he has been enabled to pass on Miss Elise's rendering of "He is a
righteous Saviour," and the suggestion he made concerning the pitch
of "Ye shall find rest for your souls." The recollection acts upon him
somewhat as the advancing wave acts on the sand-line made by the wave
preceding. When he made the first suggestion, Sister Benigna stood
for a moment looking at him, surprised by his remark; but, less than a
second taken up with a thought of him, she had passed instantly on to
say, "Try it so, Elise: 'He is a righteous Saviour.' We will make it
a slower movement. Ah! how impressive! how beautiful! It is the
composer's very thought! Again--slow: it is perfect!"

Was this kind of praise worth the taking? a source of praise worth
the seeking? Leonhard had said ungrateful things about his
prize-credentials to Miss Marion Ayres, and I do believe that these
very prizes, awarded for his various drawings, were never so valued
by him as the look with which priestly Benigna seemed to admit him at
least so far as into the fellowship of the Gentiles' Court.

He would have fallen asleep just here with a pleasant thought but for
the recollection of Wilberforce's letter, which startled him hardly
less than the apparition of his friend in the moonlight streaming
through his half-curtained window would have done. Is it always so
pleasant a thought that for ever and ever a man shall bear his own
company?

But this Spenersberg? Seven years ago, on the day when he came of age,
Albert Spener, then a young clerk in a fancy-goods store, went to look
at the estate which his grandfather had bequeathed to him the year
preceding. Not ten years ago the old man made his will and gave the
property, on which he had not quite starved, to his only grandson, and
here was this worthless gorge which stretched between the fields more
productive than many a famous gold-mine.

The youth had seen at once that if he should deal with the land as
his predecessors had done, he would be able to draw no more from the
stingy acres than they. He had shown the bent of his mind and the
nature of his talent by the promptness with which he put things remote
together, and by the directness with which he reached his conclusions.

He had left his town-lodgings, having obtained of his employer leave
of absence for one week, and within twenty-four hours had come to
his conclusion and returned to his post. Of that estate which he had
inherited but a portion, and a very small portion, offered to the
cultivator the least encouragement. The land had long ago been
stripped of its forest trees, and, thus defrauded of its natural
fertilizers, lay now, after successive seasons of drain and waste, as
barren as a desert, with the exception of that narrow strip between
the hills which apparently bent low that inland might look upon river.

Along the banks of the stream, which flowed, a current of considerable
depth and swiftness, toward its outlet, the river, willows were
growing. Albert's employer was an importer to a small extent,
and fancy willow-ware formed a very considerable share of his
importations. The conclusion he had reached while surveying his land
was an answer to the question he had asked himself: Why should
not this land be made to bring forth the kind of willow used by
basket-weavers, and why should not basket-weavers be induced to gather
into a community of some sort, and so importers be beaten in the
market by domestic productions? The aim thus clearly defined Spener
had accomplished. His Moravians furnished him with a willow-ware
which was always quoted at a high figure, and the patriotic pride
the manufacturer felt in the enterprise was abundantly rewarded: no
foreign mark was ever found on his home-made goods.

But _his_ Moravians: where did these people come from, and how came
they to be known as his?

The question brings us to Frederick Loretz. In those days he was a
porter in the establishment where Spener was a clerk. He had filled
this situation only one month, however, when he was attacked with a
fever which was scourging the neighborhood, and taken to the hospital.
Albert followed him thither with kindly words and care, for the poor
fellow was a stranger in the town, and he had already told Spener his
dismal story. Afar from wife and child, among strangers and a pauper,
his doom, he believed, was to die. How he bemoaned his wasted life
then, and the husks which he had eaten!

In his delirium Loretz would have put an end to his life. Spener
talked him out of this horror of himself, and showed him that there
was always opportunity, while life lasted, for wanderers to seek again
the fold they had strayed from; for when the delirium passed the man's
conscience remained, and he confessed that he had lived away from
the brethren of his faith, and was an outcast. Oh, if he could but
be transported to Herrnhut and set down there a well man in that
sanctuary of Moravianism, how devoutly would he return to the faith
and practice of his fathers!

When Spener returned from his trip of investigation he hastened
immediately to the hospital, sought out poor half-dead Loretz, laid
his hand on his shoulder, and said, "Come, get up: I want you." And
he explained his project: "I will build a house for you, send for
your wife and child, put you all together, and start you in life. I
am going into the basket business, and I want you to look after
my willows. After they are pretty well grown you shall get in some
families--Simon-Pure Moravians, you know--and we will have a village
of our own. D'ye hear me?"

The poor fellow did hear: he struggled up in his bed, threw his arms
around Spener's neck, tried to kiss him, and fainted.

"This is a good beginning," said Spener to himself as he laid the
senseless head upon the pillow and felt for the beating heart. The
beating heart was there. In a few moments Loretz was looking, with
eyes that shone with loving gratitude and wondering admiration, on the
young man who had saved his life.

"I have no money," said this youth in further explanation of his
project--for he wanted his companion to understand his circumstances
from the outset--"but I shall borrow five thousand dollars. I can pay
the interest on that sum out of my salary. Perhaps I shall sell a few
lots on the river, if I can turn attention to the region. It will all
come out right, anyhow. Now, how soon can you be ready? I will write
to your wife to-day if you say so, and tell her to come on with the
little girl."

"Wait a week," said Loretz in a whisper; and all that night and the
following day his chances for this world and the next seemed about
equal.

But after that he rallied, and his recovery was certain. It was slow,
however, hastened though it was by the hope and expectation which
had opened to him when he had reached the lowest depth of despair and
covered himself with the ashes of repentance.

The letter for the wife and little girl was written, and money sent to
bring them from the place where Loretz had left them when he set
out in search of occupation, to find employment as a porter, and the
fever, and Albert Spener.

During the first year of co-working Loretz devoted himself to the
culture of the willow, and then, as time passed on and hands were
needed, he brought one family after another to the place--Moravians
all--until now there were at least five hundred inhabitants in
Spenersberg, a large factory and a church, whereof Spener himself was
a member "in good and regular standing."

Seven years of incessant labor, directed by a wise foresight, which
looked almost like inspiration and miracle, had resulted in all this
real prosperity. Loretz never stopped wondering at it, and yet he
could have told you every step of the process. All that had been
_done_ he had had a hand in, but the devising brain was Spener's;
and no wonder that, in spite of his familiarity with the details,
the sum-total of the activities put forth in that valley should have
seemed to Loretz marvelous, magical.

He had many things to rejoice over besides his own prosperity. His
daughter was in all respects a perfect being, to his thinking. For six
years now she had been under the instruction of Sister Benigna,
not only in music, but in all things that Sister Benigna, a
well-instructed woman, could teach. She sang, as Leonhard Marten would
have told you, "divinely," she was beautiful to look upon, and Albert
Spener desired to marry her.

Surely the Lord had blessed him, and remembered no more those years
of wanderings when, alienated from the brethren, he sought out his
own ways and came close upon destruction. What should he return to the
beneficent Giver for all these benefits?

Poor Loretz! In his prosperity he thought that he should never be
moved, but he would not basely use that conviction and forget the
source of all his satisfaction. He remembered that it was when he
repented of his misdeeds that Spener came to him and drew him from the
pit. He could never look upon Albert as other than a divine agent;
and when Spener joined himself to the Moravians, led partly by his
admiration of them, partly by religious impulse, and partly because
of his conviction that to be wholly successful he and his people must
form a unit, his joy was complete.

The proposal for Elise's hand had an effect upon her father which any
one who knew him well might have looked for and directed. The pride of
his life was satisfied. He remembered that he and his Anna, in seeking
to know the will of the Lord in respect to their marriage, had been
answered favorably by the lot. He desired the signal demonstration of
heavenly will in regard to the nuptials proposed. Not a shadow of
a doubt visited his mind as to the result, and the influence of his
faith upon Spener was such that he acquiesced in the measure, though
not without remonstrance and misgiving and mental reservation.

To find his way up into the region of faith, and quiet himself there
when the result of the seeking was known, was almost impossible for
Loretz. He could fear the Judge who had decreed, but could he trust in
Him? He began to grope back among his follies of the past, seeking a
crime he had not repented, as the cause of this domestic calamity. But
ah! to reap such a harvest as this for any youthful folly! Poor soul!
little he knew of vengeance and retribution. He was at his wit's end,
incapable alike of advancing, retreating or of peaceful surrender.

It was pleasant to him to think, in the night-watches, of the young
man who occupied the room next to his. He did not see--at least had
not yet seen--in Leonhard a messenger sent to the house, as did his
wife; but the presence of the young stranger spoke favorable things in
his behalf; and then, as there was really nothing to be _done_ about
this decision, anything that gave a diversion to sombre thoughts was
welcome. Sister Benigna had spoken very kindly to Leonhard in the
evening, and he had pointed out a place in one of Elise's solos where
by taking a higher key in a single passage a marvelous effect could be
produced. That showed knowledge; and he said that he had taught music.
Perhaps he would like to remain until after the congregation festival
had taken place.




CHAPTER VII.

THE BOOK.


In the morning the master of the house rapped on Leonhard's door and
said: "When you come down I have something to show you." The voice
of Mr. Loretz had almost its accustomed cheerfulness of tone, and he
ended his remark with a brief "Ha! ha!" peculiar to him, which not
only expressed his own good-humor, but also invited good-humored
response.

Leonhard answered cheerily, and in a few moments he had descended the
steep uncovered stair to the music-room.

"Now for the book," Loretz called out as Leonhard entered.

How handsome our young friend looked as he stood there shaking hands
with the elderly man, whose broad, florid face now actually shone with
hospitable feeling!

"Is father going to claim you as one of us, Mr. Marten?" asked the
wife of Loretz, who answered her husband's call by coming into the
room and bringing with her a large volume wrapped in chamois skin.

"What shall I be, then?" asked Leonhard. "A wiser and a better man, I
do not doubt."

"What! you do not know?" the good woman stayed to say. "Has nobody
told you where you are, my young friend?"

"I never before found myself in a place I should like to stay in
always; so what does the rest signify?" answered Leonhard. "What's in
a name?"

"Not much perhaps, yet something," said Loretz. "We are all Moravians
here. I was going to look in this book here for the names of your
ancestors. I thought perhaps you knew about Spenersberg."

"I am as new to it all as Christopher Columbus was to the West India
islands. If you find the names of my kinsmen down in your book, sir,
it--it will be a marvelous, happy sight for me," said Leonhard.

"I'll try my hand at it," said Loretz. "Ha! ha!" and he opened the
volume, which was bound in black leather, the leaves yellowed with
years. "This book," he continued, "is one hundred and fifty years
old. You will find recorded in it the names of all my grandfather's
friends, and all my father's. See, it is our way. There are all the
dates. Where they lived, see, and where they died. It is all down.
A man cannot feel himself cut off from his kind as long as he has a
volume like that in his library. I have added a few names of my own
friends, and their birthdays. Here, you see, is Sister Benigna's,
written with her own hand. A most remarkable woman, sir. True as
steel--always the same. But"--he paused a moment and looked at
Leonhard with his head inclined to one side, and an expression of
perplexity upon his face--"there's something out of the way here in
this country. I have not more than one name down to a dozen in my
father's record, and twenty in my grandfather's. We do not make
friends, and we do not keep them, as they did in old time. We don't
trust each other as men ought to. Half the time we find ourselves
wondering whether the folks we're dealing with are _honest_. Now think
of that!"

"Are men any worse than they were in the old time?" asked Leonhard,
evidently not entering into the conversation with the keenest
enjoyment.

"I do not know how it is," said Loretz with a sigh, continuing to turn
the leaves of the book as he spoke.

"Perhaps we have less imagination, and don't look at every new-comer
as a friend until we have tried him," suggested Leonhard. "We decide
that everybody shall be tested before we accept him. And isn't it the
best way? Better than to be disappointed, when we have set our heart
on a man--or a woman."

"I do not know--I cannot account for it," said Mr. Loretz. Then with a
sudden start he laid his right hand on the page before him, and with a
great pleased smile in his deep-set, small blue eyes he said: "Here is
your name. I felt sure I should find it: I felt certain it was down.
See here, on my grandfather's page--_Leonhard Marten, Herrnhut_, 1770.
How do you like that?"

"I like it well," said Leonhard, bending over the book and examining
the close-fisted autograph set down strongly in unfading ink. Had he
found an ancestor at last? What could have amazed him as much?

"What have you found?" asked Mrs. Loretz, who had heard these remarks
in the next room, where she was actively making preparations for the
breakfast, which already sent forth its odorous invitations.

"We have found the name," answered her husband. "Come and see. I have
read it, I dare say, a hundred times: that was what made me feel that
an old friend had come."

"That means," said the good woman, hastening in at her husband's call,
and reading the name with a pleased smile--"that means that you belong
to us. I thought you did. I am glad."

Were these folk so intent on securing a convert that in these various
ways they made the young stranger feel that he was not among strangers
in this unknown Spenersberg? Nothing was farther from their thought:
they only gave to their kindly feeling hearty utterance, and perhaps
spoke with a little extra emphasis because the constraint they
secretly felt in consequence of their household trouble made them
unanimous in the effort to put it out of sight--not out of this
stranger's sight, but out of their own.

"Perhaps you will stop with us a while, and maybe write your name on
my page before you go," said Loretz, afraid that his wife had gone a
little too far.

"Without a single test?" Leonhard answered. "Haven't we just agreed
that we wise men don't take each other on trust, as they did in our
grandfathers' day?"

"A man living in Herrnhut in 1770 would not have for a descendant a--a
man I could not trust," said Loretz, closing the book and placing it
in its chamois covering again. "Breakfast, mother, did you say?"

"Have you wanted ink?" asked Sister Benigna, entering at that instant.
"Are we writing in the sacred birthday book?"

"Not yet," said Leonhard hastily, the color rising to his face in a
way to suggest forked lightning somewhere beyond sight.

"You have wanted ink, and are too kind to let me know," she said. "I
emptied the bottle copying music for the children yesterday."

"The ink was put to a better use then than I could have found for it
this morning," said Leonhard.

And Mrs. Loretz, who looked into the room just then, said to herself,
as her eyes fell on him, "Poor soul! he is in trouble."

In fact, this thought was in Leonhard's mind as he went into breakfast
with the family: "A deuced good friend I have proved--to Wilberforce!
Isn't there anybody here clear-eyed enough to see that it would be
like forgery to write my name down in a book of friendship?"

The morning meal was enlivened by much more than the usual amount of
talk. Leonhard was curious to know about Herrnhut, that old home
of Moravianism, and the interest which he manifested in the history
Loretz was so eager to communicate made him in turn an object of
almost affectionate attention. That he had no facts of private
biography to communicate in turn did net attract notice, because,
however many such facts he might have ready to produce, by the time
Loretz had done talking it was necessary that the day's work should
begin.




CHAPTER VIII.

CONFERENCE MEETING.


The school-room was a large apartment in the basement of the factory
which had been used as a drying-room until it became necessary to
find for the increasing numbers of the little flock more spacious
accommodations. The basement was entered by a door at the end of the
building opposite that by which the operatives entered the factory,
and the hours were so timed that the children went and came without
disturbance to themselves or others. The path that led to the basement
door was neatly bordered with flowering plants and bushes, and
sunlight was always to be found there, if anywhere in the valley, from
eight o'clock till two.

Leonhard walked to the factory with Sister Benigna, to whose conduct
Loretz had consigned him when called away by the tower bell.

At the door of the basement Mr. Wenck was standing with a printed copy
of Handel's sacred oratorio of _The Messiah_ in his hand. Evidently he
was waiting for Sister Benigna.

But when she had said to Leonhard, "Pass on to the other end of the
building and you will find the entrance, and Mr. Spener's office in
the corner as you enter," and Leonhard had thanked her, and bowed and
passed on, and she turned to Mr. Wenck, it was very little indeed that
he said or had to say about the music which he held in his hand.

"I have no doubt that all the preparation necessary for to-morrow
evening is being made," he said. "You may need this book. But I
did not come to talk about it. Sister Benigna," he continued in a
different tone, and a voice not quite under his control, "is it not
unreasonable to have passed a sleepless night thinking of Albert and
Elise?"

"Very unreasonable." But he had not charged her, as she supposed, with
that folly, as his next words showed.

"It is, and yet I have done it--only because all this might have been
so easily avoided."

"And yet it was unavoidable," said she, looking toward the school-room
door as one who had no time to waste in idle talk.

"Not that I question the wisdom of the resort if all were of one
mind," said Mr. Wenck, who had the dreary all-day before him, and was
not in the least pressed for time. "But I can see that even on the
part of Brother Loretz the act was not a genuine act of faith."

Startled by the expression the minister was giving to her secret
thoughts, Benigna exclaimed, "And yet what can be done?"

"Nothing," he answered. "If Loretz should yield to Spener, and if I
should--do you not see he has had everything his own way here?--he
would feel that nothing could stand in opposition to him. If he were a
different man! And they are both so young!"

"I know that Elise has a conscience that will hold her fast to duty,"
said Benigna, but she did not speak hopefully: she spoke deliberately,
however, thinking that these words _conscience_ and _duty_ might
arrest the minister's attention, and that he would perhaps, by some
means, throw light upon questions which were constantly becoming more
perplexing to her. Was conscience an unfailing guide? Was one person's
duty to be pronounced upon by another without scruple, and defined
with unfaltering exactness? But the words had not arrested the
minister's attention.

"If they could only see that there is nothing to be done!" said he.
"Oh, they will, Benigna! Had they only the faith, Benigna!"

"Yet how vain their sacrifice, for they have it not!" said she. And
as if she would not prolong an interview which must be full of pain,
because no light could proceed from any words that would be given them
to speak, Sister Benigna turned abruptly toward the basement door when
she had said this, and entered it without bestowing a parting glance
even on the minister.

He walked away after an instant's hesitation: indeed there was nothing
further to be said, and she did well to go.

Going homeward by a path which led along the hillside above the
village street, he must pass the small house separated from all
others--the house which was the appointed resting-place of all who
lived in Spenersberg to die there--known as the Corpse-house. To it
the bodies of deceased persons were always taken after death, and
ther