Chapter IV: Part 4

The principal ride is to the Castle of Chapultepec, and as it is the first ride every visitor is sure to take, he will be interested to learn that the building on the summit of the porphyry rock, visible from all parts of the valley, stands on the site of the Palace of Montezuma;[12] it is known as the Hill of the Grasshopper in old Aztec charts, and is always drawn on their hieroglyphics as a mound, with a grasshopper as large as the mound itself on the top of it.

Nothing remains of the grandeur which marked the place in Montezuma’s time except the avenues of enormous Cyprus trees (_Cupressus distica_) beneath whose shades were the gardens where he loved to wander, even after his beloved capital had fallen into the rude hands of the invading Spaniards.

I measured the girth of several of these trees, and found three or four of the largest to vary from thirty-five to forty feet above the ground. Their height was proportionately grand, 100 to 120 feet and the trees are well shaped. Long festoons of a greyish Spanish moss hang from their branches; this moss is supposed to add to the beauty of the groves, but it gives me an idea of decay.

In Prescott’s fourth book there is a graphic account of Montezuma’s town and country palaces of barbaric splendour; his armouries, his granaries, his strange collection of human monsters and dwarfs, his menageries and the aviary, which alone required three hundred attendants; the royal household is described, and in proof of the luxury of the royal table, it is mentioned that there were runners stationed every twenty miles the whole distance from Vera Cruz to Mexico, that the red mullets might be placed fresh and sweet upon his table; it is said that the runners brought up these delicacies from the coast in quicker time than the present railway can accomplish. No one can doubt the truth of the description of his magnificence who has beheld the trees that are still standing along the avenues of what was once his royal garden. From the terrace in front of his palace, he saw the snow-capped mountains Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl and the City of Mexico, entirely surrounded by the waters of Lake Texcoco, glittering at his feet; the Pinion de los Baños, Pinion del Marques, Santa Catharina and San Nicholas, all small craters or volcanic cones; and to the right the hill called Estrella, on which the sacred fire was always burning, until the 26th of December, every fifty-second year.

At these intervals, the fire of every temple and house was extinguished, and the people abandoning themselves to despair, tore their garments and destroyed their furniture, as their priests taught them it was probable that the world would be destroyed. The ceremony was terrible; a noble victim was sacrificed, and it was not till after midnight, when the constellation Pleiades had passed the zenith, that the priests announced that the world was again saved. The sacred fire kindled by the friction of sticks placed in the wounded breast of the victim was conveyed to the altar, when the blaze of the funeral pyre announced the glad tidings of joy to the countless multitudes looking on from every part of the valley; these thereupon gave themselves up to transports of delight, and kept the Carnival or national jubilee, which lasted twelve or thirteen days. New fire was then carried by fleet runners from the altar of Estrella to every part of the kingdom.

There is an idea of stability in the Scriptural phrase “everlasting hills.” The “everlasting hills” are before me; the aspect of the valley has been changed. Lake Texcoco has been withdrawn a mile or two from the city; the domes and spires of the city are different from the Teocalli and Palace of Montezuma; and the Palace of Chapultepec, in front of which I am standing, has been rebuilt several times by Spanish Viceroys. The present building was erected so lately as 1785; it is a kind of gilt pagoda on a castellated battlement, and the rooms were decorated by Maximilian, its last occupant, with coarse Pompeiian arabesques. These are changes, but Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl rear their snow-capped heads as they did before man counted time.

At the back of the Castle, looking over the large cypress-trees on the pleasaunce below, is seen the high ground on which the Battle of Molino del Rey (the King’s mill) was fought in August, 1847, between the American army under General Scott and the Mexican army under General Santa Anna. The large flour mill and other buildings bear marks of shot and shell, and the centre of the battlefield is indicated by a square marble pedestal, on which are inscribed the names of the Mexican officers who fell on the field.

This was the last battle of the war which arose out of the secession of the territory of Texas from Mexico in order to become one of the North American States. General Scott being victorious over the Mexicans, the treaty of peace--known as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo--was ratified in the early part of 1848, by which the Americans obtained the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and upper California. Arizona was subsequently bought from Santa Anna by the Treaty of Messilla for $10,000,000.

PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, OTTAWA

LADY HARDY

The approach to this city, the capital of the Dominion of Canada, is by no means imposing; the face of the river is covered and its mouth filled with sawdust; it is stifled, and has scarcely strength to flow, it could not burst into a smile, or ripple, under the most tempting of summer suns. Immense booms of timber which have been floated down from the “forest primeval” hundreds of miles away, float still on the river surface till they are hauled up to feed the hungry mills, mechanical giants, whose rasping jaws work day and night crushing these sturdy “sons of the forest,” cutting them in slices and casting them forth to be stacked in huge piles along the river-banks miles before we reach the town. There is no bustle or confusion on our arrival there. On the quiet little landing-stage two or three lumbering vehicles are waiting; we are escorted to one of these by our chivalrous captain, who carries our hand baggage and superintends the removal of the rest.

Our first day in Ottawa was spent in visiting the Parliament buildings, which occupy a plateau of about thirty acres on the loftiest point of the city, and nearly two hundred feet above the Ottawa River; they are surrounded by beautifully laid out gardens, and seem to be growing out of a bed of soft greensward of velvet smoothness. They are composed of cream-coloured Potsdam stone, the ornamental part being of Ohio and Arupois marble; they are built in the Italian-Gothic style of the Thirteenth Century, and I am told they are the most beautiful specimens thereof in all America, perhaps in the world. Their elevated position, with their long lines of pointed windows, massive buttresses, and numerous pinnacles and towers, silhouetted against the bright blue sky, are objects of imposing and majestic beauty for miles around. In the front centre stands Victoria Tower, one hundred and eighty feet high, and surmounted by an iron crown. The chief entrance to the building is through the broad-pointed arches beneath this tower; the royal arms are above the doorway; in the grand Senate Hall, there is a very beautiful statue of the Queen and the vice-regal throne is flanked by busts of the Prince of Wales and the Princess Alexandra.

In the most remote, as well as in the most populous districts, the features of the royal family are duly represented. The Canadians are the most loyal of British subjects; they lower their voices with solemn reverence when they speak of “Her Majesty the Queen,” to whom they never refer as “the Queen,” pure and simple; they give her a whole string of titles and adjectives, like the tail of a paper kite, and set her sailing in the heaven of their imagination, as though she were beyond the range of humanity altogether.

Much has been said, much has been written on the subject of Canada; we have learned its geographical position, the length and breadth of its lakes and rivers, the extent of its vast forest lands, the height of its mountains, etc., but the figures dazzle the mind, and bring no realization of the fact. Nothing less than a personal visit will enable us to comprehend the wonders of this luxuriant land, which is surrounded and encompassed with its own loveliness. The primeval forest still holds its own in the vast solitudes, sacred as yet from the increasing encroachments of man, its immense inland seas and fruitful rivers winding through scenery the most picturesque, the most sublime; to say nothing of its vast unexplored lands and mineral resources, and the wide tracts of rich uncultivated country, watered by springs and rivulets which have been flowing in their living liquid beauty since the days of Paradise.

We had heard much of the extremes of temperature, of heat and cold, especially in Ottawa, and prepared ourselves for broiling; well, it was warm, the sun blazed, the hot winds blew, and the dust of this most dusty city whirled and swirled around us, got into our eyes, our ears, crept insidiously down our throats, and seemed struggling to turn us inside out; but we clutched our mantles around us, and butted against the wind, screening ourselves from the sun’s fierce rays as best we could. It is not often that the sun and wind have such a tussle together. However, we reached home at last in an uncooked state, feeling not much warmer than we should do on a summer day at home, though the temperature is much higher and the hours are marching to the tune of 90° in the shade.

We had spent the whole day in wandering and driving about the streets of Ottawa, till we gained a very good idea of its external appearance. It has numerous fine churches, and its town hall, post office and all the municipal buildings are substantially and massively built in an attractive and fanciful style of architecture. As for the rest of the city, it is in a perfectly unfinished state; it is as yet only a thing of promise, though it has the making of a very fine town in the future; but however fast it marches, it will have to keep growing, and work hard too for another century at least, before it reaches the level of its magnificent Parliament buildings. The streets are wide and long, stretching away out of sight; they are cobble-stoned and roughly wood-paved for the most part. After passing the principal lines of shops in Sparkes Street, the houses seem to have been built for temporary convenience only, and crop up here and there in a direct line, leaving wide spaces of waste land between, as though they were in a hurry to see which should reach the end of the long street first, the end that seems to be creeping back to the primeval forest, which civilization and time have left far behind.

Ottawa itself is neither picturesque nor attractive, being built on perfectly flat ground. It looks like a timber yard and smells of sawdust. The Ottawa River has as many long thin arms as an octopus, and they run meandering inland by a hundred different ways; here they meet in a vast tumbling mass, falling over huge boulders and broken stony ground till they are dignified by the name of the “Chaudière Falls”; lower down their headlong course is stopped, and they are utilized and made to turn a huge saw-mill where a thousand steel teeth are biting through the grand old trees, tearing them into chips, digesting and disgorging them on the other side; in vain the water foams and groans, crashing its rebellious waves together--man is its master and will have his way.

Rideau Hall, the home of our Princess, lies on the outskirts of the town, and is by no means a regal-looking mansion; it is a long low building of gray stone, standing on rather elevated ground, and has a pleasant view of the town and river from the lawn and flower garden, which encloses two sides of it; the approach is through tolerably well timbered grounds, not of sufficient importance to be called a “park.” The Governor and Princess Louise were away, and the house was undergoing repair--it looked as though it needed it. There was nothing to distinguish this from any second or third-rate country house at home, except the one solitary and rather seedy looking sentinel who paraded before the door. The people of Ottawa speak most enthusiastically of our Princess; every one has some kind memory or pleasant anecdote to tell of her. It is said that when Her Royal Highness held her first reception, she appeared in a plain high dress, expecting, perhaps, to find fashion “out of joint” in this far-away place; but the Canadian ladies came trooping “_en grand toilette_,” with fans and diamonds, trains and laces, like living importations from Worth himself. At the next reception matters changed, and the royal lady appeared in all the splendour of the British Court.

MOUNT VERNON

ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN

Every patriotic American who visits Washington makes a pious pilgrimage to the home and tomb of the Father of his Country. There are two ways of reaching _Mount Vernon_, one by trolley and one by river. The road passes through a flat, uninteresting and somewhat desolate country; and a loud-voiced _cicerone_ indicates the points of interest on the way. The journey is usually broken either going or returning at Alexandria, a quaint, old, sleepy, dilapidated, little town. Visitors stroll through its grass-grown streets, marvel at its rotting wharf, drop in at the Carlyle House, where the ill-fated Braddock made his headquarters; and then take a look at old Christ Church where Washington worshipped.

The pleasantest and most picturesque route, however, is by river. A delightful sail down the Potomac for about an hour brings one to the landing-stage at the foot of the grounds. The approach to the house is very fine. _Mount Vernon_ stands on a wooded eminence commanding a beautiful view of the reaches of the river and the opposite shores. From the river, the house with its broad pillared colonnade has an impressive air.

The estate of _Mount Vernon_ in Washington’s day was an extensive one of two thousand broad acres. Its owner was very fond and proud of it. He himself wrote: “No estate in United America is more pleasantly situated. In a high and healthy country, in a latitude between the extremes of heat and cold, on one of the finest rivers in the world, a river well stocked with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year, and in the spring with shad, herring, bass, carp, sturgeon, etc., in great abundance. The borders of the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tide-water: several valuable fisheries appertain to it. The whole shore in fact, is one vast fishery.” Washington was also proud of his trees. To increase their numbers and varieties was the constant occupation of his home life. Every season of the year found him providing for them. The grounds still owe much of their charm to his care. They glisten and bloom with shade trees, evergreens, flowering shrubs and fruit trees:--box, holly, tulip, poplar, sweet-gum, sassafras, dogwood, oak, mulberry, aspen, ash, locust and fringe-tree are plentiful, the deciduous trees in this list being natives of Fairfax County. Washington’s diary shows his interest in forestry and gardening. He notes when the white-thorn is in berry, when he clears the undergrowth of a clump of pines, when he plants hemlock and sows holly berries, when he plants acorns and buckeye nuts brought from the battleground of Monongahela, and horse-chestnuts from his old home in Westmoreland.

Copyrighted by Soule Photo. Co.

MOUNT VERNON, VIRGINIA]

_Mount Vernon_ was originally built by George’s elder half-brother, Lawrence Washington, who laid out the grounds and named the place in honour of Admiral Vernon, under whom he had seen distinguished service at the siege of Cartagena. When George came into possession soon after his generous brother’s death in 1752, _Mount Vernon_ was a modest and unpretending Virginia dwelling. The new owner improved and enlarged it on several occasions, and frequently added to the out-buildings. At some little distance from the driveway facing the east front, the road led through a patch of flowering shrubbery and passed between porters’ lodges built of sun-dried bricks to the gateway familiar to every tourist. This approach opened to view a plain two-story house with peaked roof and cupola, and out-buildings connected with the main structure by an open arcade, in the usual Virginia style. These covered ways are a great protection in cold or inclement weather to those bringing in hot food from the kitchen, which, here as elsewhere, is separate from the house.

The only striking architectural feature of the building was the colonnade, a broad flagged piazza on the side facing the river, supporting by slender wooden columns the eaves of the roof, and affording a shady and cool retreat for family and visitors. The lawns slope away down to the river, and many a pleasant afternoon tea has been enjoyed under those columns.

Leaving the landing-stage we take a short walk up the hill and reach the building where lie the mortal remains of the great liberator and first President of the United States. Considering the memories that cluster around it, the structure is insignificant and unworthy. It is more like an ordinary spring-house than a mausoleum, and when we remember what has been expended on Grant’s tomb and others whose memory the nation delights to honour, we cannot help marvelling at the sordid simplicity of Washington’s last resting-place. The graves of many members of the family lie around it; and in the vault at the back of the mausoleum are the remains of many more. Who they were, however, we have no means of ascertaining because there are no records or tablets to assist us. For more than half a century, this tomb suffered from worse than neglect, for the pious pilgrims and the ordinary curiosity hunters who visited the tomb of the Father of his Country carried away as mementos chips of masonry, pebbles, flowers, ferns, twigs, branches of trees and bushes, and generally devastated the place. These depredations have now ceased, however; and the tomb is now protected by lock and key against vandalism.

The work of protection and preservation is now in the hands of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union which was the first patriotic organization of women in the United States. It was started in 1853, and received a charter from the Virginia legislature in 1856. After long correspondence Mr. John Augustine Washington consented to surrender the mausoleum, house and 200 acres of grounds for $200,000. The money was soon raised and _Mount Vernon_ now belongs to Virginia, and is under the charge of regents appointed one for each state of the Union. These in turn are under a president. The regents meet at _Mount Vernon_ every year. The house and grounds are under the direct charge of a resident superintendent, who is as courteous and obliging as he is an able administrator. Many of the rooms are under the special patronage of separate states, and there is in consequence a good deal of competition among the regents to supply furniture of Washington’s day, when it is not possible to recover genuine Washington relics. It has been said that Washington snuff-boxes are as plentiful as Mayflower furniture; but now every precaution is taken against labelling anything that is not undeniably authentic.

The house has two important fronts, presenting one to the river and another to the beautiful sweep of turf between it and the road. The gardens, with their greenhouses and thick box hedges, are beautiful at all seasons of the year.

_Mount Vernon_ is by no means a palatial mansion: perhaps the visitor’s first feeling is one of disappointment. The hall with its winding staircase is roomy enough, but the rooms--the bedrooms especially--are undeniably small. However the house is cosy enough, and was ample for the needs of Washington and his small family.

By donation and purchase, the regents have managed to collect quite a respectable number of George Washington’s personal belongings. There is the great carpet specially manufactured for him and presented by Louis XVI.; then we note his parlour mirror, bookcase, travelling trunk, dressing-table, shaving glass and various wearing apparel, besides many chairs, tables, beds and Miss Custis’s harpsichord. Before the ladies took charge, the furniture, panelling, etc., suffered terribly from the depredations of conscienceless relic-hunters,--but now it is protected from goths and vandals by gates.

_Mount Vernon_ during Washington’s lifetime was furnished with comfort and elegance. It may be interesting to the reader to go through some of the rooms with the guidance of the inventory taken after George Washington’s death.

The rooms then were not named as they are now, but they can be readily identified. The “New Room” was evidently used as a dining-room, since it was furnished with two dining-tables, two sideboards, on which stood six mahogany knife-cases, China images and a China flower pot, twenty-seven mahogany chairs, two large looking-glasses, two candle-stands, two fire-screens, two stools, two elegant lustres, two silver-plated lamps and six China jars on the mantelpiece. The hearth was supplied with andirons, dogs, shovel, tongs and bellows; the floor was covered with a good mat; the windows were draped with valuable curtains; and pictures worth nearly a thousand dollars adorned the walls.

The “Front Parlour” contained an expensive sofa, eleven mahogany chairs, a tea-table, a rich looking-glass, three lamps, two of which had mirrors, five China flower-pots, chimney furniture, a handsome carpet and window curtains. Many pictures hung on the walls.

The “Little Parlour” was furnished with a settee, tea-table, ten Windsor chairs, looking-glass, fender and hearth furniture, carpet, window curtains and pictures.

In the “Study” we find a bureau, a tambour secretary, a walnut table, two pine writing-tables, writing-desk and apparatus, circular chair, armchair, dressing-table, oval looking-glass, eleven spy-glasses, a case of surveying instruments, a globe, two brass candlesticks, seven swords and blades, four canes, seven guns, 45 lbs. of silver plate valued at $900, other plate worth $424, and many other articles. This was evidently the General’s sanctum, where he attended to his correspondence and other business.

When the number of guests did not require the use of the “New Room,” the family gathered in the “Dining Room.” Here were two dining tables and a tea-table, a mahogany sideboard, two knife cases and a large spirits case, ten mahogany chairs, a carpet, hearth furniture, window curtains and pictures.

The “Bedroom” contained a bed, bedstead and mattress, looking-glass, small table, four walnut chairs, window curtains and blinds, a carpet, andirons, etc., and one large picture.

All along the staircase were hung a great number of prints, and a looking-glass was in the passage on the second floor. In the lower “Passage” were fourteen mahogany chairs, a spy-glass, a thermometer and pictures. The “Closet” contained a fire-screen and a machine to scrape shoes on. There were thirty Windsor chairs on the Piazza:--ample provision surely for callers!

The walls of the “Front Room” were decorated with prints. It was cosy with window curtains, fireplace and carpet. The rest of the furniture comprised a bed and bedstead with curtains, a dressing table, a large looking-glass, a wash-basin and pitcher and six mahogany chairs.

The “Second Room” was similarly furnished, except for the chairs, of which there were only five, including an armchair. A portrait of General Lafayette hung on one wall, he having occupied this room.

The “Third Room” was furnished exactly like the “Front Room” except for a chest of drawers in addition. Prints ornamented the walls here also.

The “Fourth Room” contained bed, bedstead and curtains, carpet and window curtains, andirons, prints, five mahogany chairs, pine dressing table and large looking-glass, a close chair, wash-basin and pitcher.

The “Small Room” was furnished with bed, bedstead, dressing table, dressing-glass, washstand and three Windsor chairs.

The “Room which Mrs. Washington now keeps” was almost as desolate as her short widowhood. She seldom left it during the short time she survived her husband. It contained only a bed, bedstead and mattress, table, three chairs, oval looking-glass, carpet, fender and andirons. This is quite bare in comparison with “Mrs. Washington’s Old Room,” which contained a bed, bedstead and curtains, a glass, dressing table, writing-table and writing chair, an easy chair, two mahogany chairs, a chest of drawers, a clock, carpet, window curtains, fender, andirons and pictures.

The kitchen, still in its old condition, was thoroughly equipped for the hospitality demanded of the master of _Mount Vernon_.

The total value of the furniture was nearly $3,500; that of the 139 chairs alone was $658; and of the pictures and prints, $2,000.

THE OLD MANSE, CONCORD

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Between two tall gateposts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch), we beheld the grey front of the old parsonage terminating the vista of an avenue of black ashtrees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant had turned from that gateway towards the village burying ground. The wheel-track leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to pick up along the roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half asleep between the door of the house and the public highway were a kind of spiritual medium, seen through which the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to the material world. Certainly it had little in common with those ordinary abodes which stand so imminent upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, into the domestic circle. From these quiet windows the figures of passing travellers looked too remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In its near retirement and accessible seclusion it was the very spot for the residence of a clergyman--a man not estranged from human life, yet enveloped in the midst of it with a veil woven of intermingled gloom and brightness. It was worthy to have been one of the time-honoured parsonages of England, in which, through many generations, a succession of holy occupants pass from youth to age, and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to pervade the house and hover over it as with an atmosphere.

Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant until that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men from time to time had dwelt in it; and children born in its chambers had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to recollect how many sermons must have been written there. The latest inhabitant alone--he by whose translation to paradise the dwelling was left vacant--had penned nearly three thousand discourses, besides the better, if not the greater number that gushed living from his lips. How often, no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, attuning his meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs, and deep and solemn peals of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that variety of natural utterances he could find something accordant with every passage of his sermon, were it of tenderness or reverential fear. The boughs over my head seemed shadowy with solemn thoughts as well as with rustling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and that I should light upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well worth those hoards of long hidden gold which people seek for in moss-grown houses. Profound treatises of morality; a layman’s unprofessional and therefore unprejudiced views of religion; histories (such as Bancroft might have written had he taken up his abode here as he once purposed), bright with picture gleaming over a depth of philosophic thought,--these were the works that might fitly have flowed from such a retirement. In the humblest event, I resolved at least to achieve a novel that should evolve some deep lesson and should possess substance enough to stand alone.

In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When I first saw the room its walls were blackened with the smoke of unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so sternly with the devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now; a cheerful coat of paint and golden-tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small apartment; while the shadow of a willow-tree that swept against the overhanging eaves attempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael’s Madonnas and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed.

The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes of glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the western side looked, or rather peeped, between the willow branches down into the orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third, facing northward, commanded a broader view of the river at a spot where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of history. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between two nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side of the river and the glittering line of the British on the hither bank. He awaited in an agony of suspense the rattle of the musketry. It came, and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle smoke around this quiet house.

I never grew quite acquainted with my habitation till a long spell of sulky rain had confined me beneath its roof. There could not be a more sombre aspect of external nature than as then seen from the windows of my study. The great willow-tree had caught and retained among its leaves a whole cataract of water, to be shaken down at intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long, and for a week together, the rain was drip--drip--dripping and splash--splash--splashing from the eaves, and bubbling and foaming into the tubs beneath the spouts. The old unpainted shingles of the house and out-buildings were black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient growth upon the walls looked green and fresh, as if they were the newest things and afterthought of Time. The usually mirrored surface of the river was blurred by an infinity of raindrops; the whole landscape had a completely water-soaked appearance, conveying the impression that the earth was wet through like a sponge; while the summit of a wooded hill, about a mile distant, was enveloped in a dense mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to have his abiding-place and to be plotting still direr inclemencies.

Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret, stored, like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has left behind it from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an arched hall, dimly illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was but a twilight at the best; and there were nooks, or rather caverns, of deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never learned, being too reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams and rafters, roughly hewn and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of the chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized,--an aspect unlike what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house. But on one side there was a little whitewashed apartment which bore the traditionary title of the Saint’s Chamber, because holy men in their youth had slept and studied and prayed there. With its elevated retirement, its one window, its small fireplace, and its closet, convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot where a young man might inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish saintly dreams. The occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and ejaculations inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered and shrivelled roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the forcibly wrought picture of a clergyman in wig, band and gown, holding a Bible in his hand. As I turned his face towards the light he eyed me with an air of authority such as men of his profession seldom assume in our days. The original had been pastor of the parish more than a century ago, a friend of Whitefield, and almost his equal in fervid eloquence. I bowed before the effigy of the dignified divine, and felt as if I had now met face to face with the ghost by whom, as there was reason to apprehend, the Manse was haunted.

Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our ghost used to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlour, as if he were turning over a sermon in the long upper entry,--where, nevertheless, he was invisible in spite of the brilliant moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while Hilliard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there came a rustling noise as of a minister’s silk gown, sweeping through the very midst of the company so closely as almost to brush against the chairs. Still there was nothing visible. A yet stranger business was that of a ghostly servant maid, who used to be heard in the kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding coffee, cooking, ironing,--performing, in short, all kinds of domestic labour,--although no traces of anything accomplished could be detected the next morning. Some neglected duty of her servitude--some ill-starched ministerial band--disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work without any wages.

But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor’s library was stored in the garret--no unfit receptacle indeed for such dreary trash as comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books would have been worth nothing at an auction. In this venerable garret, however, they possessed an interest, quite apart from their literary value, as heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted down through a series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty Puritan divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in faded ink on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations or interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible shorthand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom. The world will never be the better for it. A few of the books were Latin folios, written by Catholic authors; others demolished Papistry, as with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. A dissertation on the Book of Job--which only Job himself could have had patience to read--filled at least a score of small thickset quartos, at the rate of two or three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body of divinity--too corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the spiritual element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two hundred years or more, and were generally bound in black leather, exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to books of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to be carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times,--diminutive, but as black as their bulkier brethren, and abundantly infused with Greek and Latin quotations. These little old volumes impressed me as if they had been intended for very large ones, but had been unfortunately blighted at an early stage of their growth. The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty garret windows, while I burrowed among these venerable books in search of any living thought which should burn like a coal of fire, or glow like an inextinguishable gem, beneath the dead trumpery that had long hidden it.

By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear austerity. On some October morning there is a heavy hoar-frost on the grass and along the tops of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves fall from the trees of our avenue without a breath of wind, quietly descending by their own weight. All summer long they have murmured like the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while the branches were wrestling with the thunder gust; they have made music both glad and solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I paced to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they can only rustle under my feet. Henceforth the grey parsonage begins to assume a larger importance, and draws to its fireside,--for the abomination of the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,--draws closer and closer to its fireside the vagrant impulses that had gone wandering about during the summer.

When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a hermitage. Not that ever--in my time at least--it had been thronged with company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out of the dusty glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with him the transparent obscurity that was floating over us. In one respect our precincts were like the Enchanted Ground through which the pilgrim travelled on his way to the Celestial City! The guests, each and all, felt a slumberous influence upon them; they fell asleep in chairs, or took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, or were seen stretched among the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily through the boughs. They could not have paid a more acceptable compliment to my abode, nor to my own qualities as a host. I held it as a proof that they left their cares behind them as they passed between the stone gateposts at the entrance of our avenue, and that the so powerful opiate was the abundance of peace and quiet within and all around us. Others could give them pleasure and amusement or instruction--these could be picked up anywhere; but it was for me to give them rest--rest in a life of trouble.[13]

THE JAMESTOWN TOWER

CHARLES FREDERICK STANSBURY

Since the last decade of the Seventeenth Century a dismantled church tower has stood on Jamestown Island in Virginia, a relic of the settlement which defined the destiny of our country and a remnant of the first Episcopal church in America. Fire, the destruction of the elements, and decay have removed all that was James’ Fort save this remnant to liberty and religion. Only students of history knew this tower a year ago--now it has been brought into the prominence it deserves.

Having decided that the three hundredth anniversary of the real birth of the nation deserved adequate commemoration, the United States has invited all the world to share in a celebration to be held in 1907 on Hampton Roads and its shores--an apotheosis of the small but determining village which was thirty miles distant and now is represented only by a mouldy tower.

Speaking eloquently of the period which marked the inception of this historic building, former Governor of Virginia, William E. Cameron said: “The vista of years which stretches backwards into the dim distance of the Sixteenth Century presents an imposing avenue of events and deeds. Momentous occurrences loom up as era markers in the country’s progress some of which are spectacularly brilliant, and yet there is perhaps no event of all the long line which completely ranks with the first act in the country’s drama.”

At the farther end of the avenue one may see the ruined and dismantled tower of the Jamestown church, all that is left to mark the spot where sufferings were endured and deeds performed outranking the wildest imaginings of poet or romancer.

Although the Jamestown tower is the pathetic ruin of Columbia’s oldest church, it does not represent the earliest effort by English speaking people to plant Christianity in this part of the world. We read that in the year 1588, Sir Walter Raleigh gave 100 Pounds for the propagation of Christianity in Virginia, “the glorie of God, and the saving of the soules of the poor and blinded infidels.” Yet it was not until 1607 that the first church was erected at Jamestown. Its humble beginning has been nowhere better described than by Captain John Smith in a pamphlet published in 1631, some years after his history of Virginia, in which he says:

“When I first went to Virginia, I well remember, we did hang an awning (which is an old sail) to three or four trees, to shadow us from the sun; our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we cut planks, our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighbouring trees; in foul weather we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few better, and this came by way of adventure for new. This was our church till we built a homely thing like a barn, set upon crotchetts, covered with rafts, sedge and earth, so was also the walls. The best of our houses were of the like curiosity but the most part far much worse workmanship, that could neither well defend wind nor rain, yet we held daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and every three months the holy communion till our minister died, (the Rev. Mr. Hunt) but (after that) our prayers daily with a homily on Sundays, we continued two or three years after, till more preachers came.”

Captain Smith says further that the log church first erected was burned down the following winter with many other houses. Mr. Hunt lost all his books and everything else but the clothes on his back. This first Episcopal minister in the new world appears to have been a man of noble character and fine attainments. Although his sufferings were almost incredible, “yet none ever saw him repine; upon any alarm he was as ready at defense as any, and till he could not speak he never ceased to his utmost to animate us constantly to persist,--whose soul, questionless, is with God.”

Nor must we forget that the first legislative body in America, to which eleven boroughs sent burgesses, was opened in the Jamestown church with prayer by Mr. Bucke who succeeded Mr. Hunt. Laws were now superseded by others of a different character and the church of England more formally established than ever before. From Hening’s statutes at large we learn that there was enacted by the General Assembly in 1623, 1. That there shall be in every plantation where the people use to meete for the worship of God, a house or roome sequestered for that purpose and not to be for any temporal use whatsoever, and a place empaled in, sequestered only to the buryal of the dead.

2. That whosoever shall absent himselfe from divine service any Sunday without an allowable excuse shall forfeit a pound of tobacco, and he that absenteth himselfe a month shall forfeit 50 pounds of tobacco.

3. That there be an uniformity in our church as neere as may be to the cannons in England; both in substance and circumstances, and that all persons yield readie obedience unto them under paine of censure.

The fourth statute refers to holidays and the fifth to a subject that has been often discussed, namely: that no minister be absent from his church above two months in all the yeare upon penalty of forfeiting halfe his means, and whosoever shall absent above fowre months in the year shall forfeit his whole means and cure.

The sixth statute refers to slander and provides

That whosoever shall disparage a minister without bringing sufficient proofe to justify his reports whereby the minds of his parishioners may be alienated from him, and his ministry prove the less effectual by their prejudication, shall not only pay 500 lb. weight of tobacco but also aske the minister so wronged forgiveness publicly in the congregation.

In the Jamestown church of her period Pocahontas was doubtless baptized in the Christian faith, taking the name of Rebecca. Here, also the famous Indian girl was married to John Rolfe before proceeding to England where her too early death occurred.

There is some conflict of opinion concerning the date of the erection of the church now represented by the picturesque tower of Jamestown. It has been affirmed that the ruined tower is what is left of the church that was destroyed in Bacon’s rebellion in 1676. Bishop Meade of Virginia, who visited the ruins in 1856, gives the history of the succession of the Jamestown churches as follows:--The first as described by Captain Smith, was made of the awning or old sails, taken from vessels, and fastened to trees. The second was a very plain log building, which was burned down in the second or third year of the colony during the ministry of Mr. Hunt. The third was larger and better, probably of wood, built during the presidency of Captain Smith, repaired and adorned by Lord De la War when he arrived in 1611. The dimensions were twenty-four feet by sixty. The chancel or _quoir_ was large enough to hold the Governor, the council and other officers of state. In this structure, doubtless, was held the first legislative session in 1619. Bishop Meade is of the opinion that this was the structure that was burned down during the Bacon rebellion. In opposition to the theory that the present are the ruins of the old church which was burned in the rebellion, he places the fact that the dimensions of the church which Smith built and Lord De la War repaired were different from the one whose ruins are now seen. The dimensions of the former were twenty-four by sixty; of the latter twenty-eight by fifty-six feet. He claims that other circumstances render it almost certain that another church had been built since the destruction of the one by Bacon. He points out the fact that in 1733 a silver font, still in existence was presented to it by two members of the Ambler family and adds that it surely would not have been presented to the ruins of a deserted church. He concludes, therefore, that the ruined tower which we now behold represents the remains of a church put up since the rebellion and his contention is certainly logical. Howe’s outline history of Virginia takes the ground that previous to 1617, or ten years after the first settlement of Jamestown there were two churches destroyed. The tower now standing may have belonged to the second church and survived its destruction. It could not have been part of the first, for that “cost no more than 50 Pounds”; or it may have been the tower of a third. We can only surmise that the tower has been standing upwards of three hundred years.

Bishop Meade has alluded to the fact that for several years after the death of Mr. Hunt the colony was without a minister. This is referred to in “A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colony in Virginia,” etc., published by the council in England in 1610 as one of the causes which had provoked God to visit the plantation with those dire calamities that beset it at the time that Lord De la War was first sent out as Governor for life.

An ardent task must have been that of the first ministers of the Jamestown church. A part of the religious services enjoined were as follows: On week days, early in the morning, the captain sent for tools, in the place of arms where “the sergeant-major, or captain of the watch, upon their knees made public and faithful prayers to Almighty God for his blessing and protection to attend them in their business for the whole day after succeeding.” The men were divided into gangs who worked on alternate days. The gang for the day was then delivered to the maisters and overseers of the work appointed, who kept them at labour until nine or ten o’clock; then, at the beat of the drum, they were marched to the church to hear divine service. After dinner, and rest till two or three o’clock, at the beat of the drum the captain drew them forth to the place of arms, to be thence taken to their work till five or six o’clock, when, at beat of drum, they were again marched to the church to evening prayer: they were then dismissed.

The ruined graveyard, or “place impaled in, sequestered only to the buryal of the dead,” at base of the Jamestown tower is not without interest. An inscription records the fact that “Here lyeth the body of the Rev. John Gough, late minister of this place, who departed this life, January 15, 1683–4, and waits in hopes of a joyful reunion.” There are tombstones and fragments of such, that record the deaths of Philip Ludwell and Sarah his wife, of Ursula Beverly, wife of Robert Beverly and daughter of William Byrd. There are likewise the tombs of Edward Jacqueline, Jacqueline Ambler, B. Harrison and Mrs. Edwards. There were in addition two tombs interestingly described by Bishop Meade as he saw them in 1856. They were those of Commissary Blair and Mrs. Blair. The tombs were placed side by side and were very heavy and strong. The platform, sides, and ends were of white freestone and the interior filled with bricks, well cemented. The top slab, on which the inscriptions were made, were of thick dark iron stone, or black marble. A sycamore-shoot sprung up between the graves and grew to be a large tree. In its growth it embraced, on one end and on the top the tomb of Mrs. Blair, one third of which lay embedded in the body of the tree and held immovable. All the interior, consisting of brick, and two of the side stones, had been entirely forced out of their places by the tree and lay scattered around while the dark iron-stone slab was held in the air three feet above the surface of the earth, fast bound by the embrace of the body of the tree into which it had sunk between one and two feet, the inscription being only partially legible. On the other side the whole tomb of Commissary Blair had been forced away from its place by the roots and body of the tree and was broken to pieces in all its parts.

Three hundred years have come and gone since the seed from which has grown English speaking America was planted on the spot where stands the old Jamestown tower.

The page in our History relating to it is fraught with perennial interest. In picturesqueness it is unsurpassed. The romantic story of Pocohontas, the grandeur of the character and attainments of Captain John Smith which grows brighter with the passing centuries and the almost incredible sufferings of the early settlers, combine to make a story the fascination of which is not decreased by its sadness. The crumbling tower makes a powerful appeal to the imagination such as inspired the British Spy to exclaim:

“Whence arises the irrepressible reverence and tender affection with which I look at this broken steeple? Is it that my soul, by a secret, subtle process, invests the mouldering ruin with her own powers; imagines it a fellow being; a venerable old man, a Nestor or an Ossian, who has witnessed and survived the ravages of successive generations, the companion of his youth and of his maturity, and now mourns his own solitary and desolate condition, and hails their spirits in every passing cloud? Whatever may be the cause, as I look at it, I feel my soul drawn forward as by the cords of gentlest sympathy and involuntarily open my lips to offer consolation to the drooping pile.”