Chapter DCCXXXII: Conclusion (7)

Cox told me last night that there is getting to be a good deal of
ugly talk among the men against the captain and us aft. They say
that the captain is the cause of all; that he did not try to save
the ship at all, nor to get provisions, and that even would not let
the men put in some they had; and that partiality is shown us in
apportioning our rations aft.... asked Cox the other day if he
would starve first or eat human flesh. Cox answered he would
starve.... then told him he would only be killing himself. If we
do not find those islands we would do well to prepare for anything.
.... is the loudest of all.

REPLY:

We can depend on ..., I think, and ..., and Cox, can we not?

SECOND NOTE:

I guess so, and very likely on ...; but there is no telling .... and
Cox are certain. There is nothing definite said or hinted as yet,
as I understand Cox; but starving men are the same as maniacs. It
would be well to keep a watch on your pistol, so as to have it and
the cartridges safe from theft.

Henry's Log, June 5. Dreadful forebodings. God spare us from all
such horrors! Some of the men getting to talk a good deal. Nothing
to write down. Heart very sad.

Henry's Log, June 6. Passed some sea-weed and something that looked
like the trunk of an old tree, but no birds; beginning to be afraid
islands not there. To-day it was said to the captain, in the
hearing of all, that some of the men would not shrink, when a man
was dead, from using the flesh, though they would not kill.
Horrible! God give us all full use of our reason, and spare us from
such things! 'From plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and
murder, and from sudden death, good Lord, deliver us!'

[Diary entry] June 6. Latitude 16 degrees 30 minutes, longitude
(chron.) 134 degrees. Dry night and wind steady enough to require
no change in sail; but this A.M. an attempt to lower it proved
abortive. First the third mate tried and got up to the block, and
fastened a temporary arrangement to reeve the halyards through, but
had to come down, weak and almost fainting, before finishing; then
Joe tried, and after twice ascending, fixed it and brought down the
block; but it was very exhausting work, and afterward he was good
for nothing all day. The clue-iron which we are trying to make
serve for the broken block works, however, very indifferently, and
will, I am afraid, soon cut the rope. It is very necessary to get
everything connected with the sail in good easy running order before
we get too weak to do anything with it.

Only three meals left.--Captain's Log.

[Diary entry] June 7. Latitude 16 degrees 35 minutes N., longitude
136 degrees 30 minutes W. Night wet and uncomfortable. To-day
shows us pretty conclusively that the American Isles are not there,
though we have had some signs that looked like them. At noon we
decided to abandon looking any farther for them, and to-night haul a
little more northerly, so as to get in the way of Sandwich Island
vessels, which fortunately come down pretty well this way--say to
latitude 19 degrees to 20 degrees to get the benefit of the
trade-winds. Of course all the westing we have made is gain, and I
hope the chronometer is wrong in our favour, for I do not see how
any such delicate instrument can keep good time with the constant
jarring and thumping we get from the sea. With the strong trade we
have, I hope that a week from Sunday will put us in sight of the
Sandwich Islands, if we are not safe by that time by being picked
up.

It is twelve hundred miles to the Sandwich Islands; the provisions are virtually exhausted, but not the perishing diarist's pluck.

[Diary entry] My cough troubled me a good deal last night, and
therefore I got hardly any sleep at all. Still, I make out pretty
well, and should not complain. Yesterday the third mate mended the
block, and this P.M. the sail, after some difficulty, was got down,
and Harry got to the top of the mast and rove the halyards through
after some hardship, so that it now works easy and well. This
getting up the mast is no easy matter at any time with the sea we
have, and is very exhausting in our present state. We could only
reward Harry by an extra ration of water. We have made good time
and course to-day. Heading her up, however, makes the boat ship
seas and keeps us all wet; however, it cannot be helped. Writing is
a rather precarious thing these times. Our meal to-day for the
fifteen consists of half a can of 'soup and boullie'; the other half
is reserved for to-morrow. Henry still keeps up grandly, and is a
great favourite. God grant he may be spared.

A better feeling prevails among the men.--Captain's Log.

[Diary entry] June 9. Latitude 17 degrees 53 minutes. Finished
to-day, I may say, our whole stack of provisions.[2] We have only
left a lower end of a ham-bone, with some of the outer rind and
skin on. In regard to the water, however, I think we have got ten
days' supply at our present rate of allowance. This, with what
nourishment we can get from boot-legs and such chewable matter, we
hope will enable us to weather it out till we get to the Sandwich
Islands, or, sailing in the meantime in the track of vessels
thither bound, be picked up. My hope is in the latter, for in all
human probability I cannot stand the other. Still, we have been
marvellously protected, and God, I hope, will preserve us all in
His own good time and way. The men are getting weaker, but are
still quiet and orderly.

[Diary entry] Sunday, June 10. Latitude 18 degrees 40 minutes,
longitude 142 degrees 34 minutes. A pretty good night last night,
with some wettings, and again another beautiful Sunday. I cannot
but think how we should all enjoy it at home, and what a contrast is
here! How terrible their suspense must begin to be! God grant that
it may be relieved before very long, and He certainly seems to be
with us in everything we do, and has preserved this boat
miraculously; for since we left the ship we have sailed considerably
over three thousand miles, which, taking into consideration our
meagre stock of provisions, is almost unprecedented. As yet I do
not feel the stint of food so much as I do that of water. Even
Henry, who is naturally a good water-drinker, can save half of his
allowance from time to time, when I cannot. My diseased throat may
have something to do with that, however.

Nothing is now left which by any flattery can be called food. But they must manage somehow for five days more, for at noon they have still eight hundred miles to go. It is a race for life now.

This is no time for comments or other interruptions from me--every moment is valuable. I will take up the boy brother's diary at this point, and clear the seas before it and let it fly.

HENRY FERGUSON'S LOG:

Sunday, June 10. Our ham-bone has given us a taste of food to-day,
and we have got left a little meat and the remainder of the bone for
tomorrow. Certainly, never was there such a sweet knuckle-one, or
one that was so thoroughly appreciated .... I do not know that I
feel any worse than I did last Sunday, notwithstanding the reduction
of diet; and I trust that we may all have strength given us to
sustain the sufferings and hardships of the coming week. We
estimate that we are within seven hundred miles of the Sandwich
Islands, and that our average, daily, is somewhat over a hundred
miles, so that our hopes have some foundation in reason. Heaven
send we may all live to see land!

June 11. Ate the meat and rind of our ham-bone, and have the bone
and the greasy cloth from around the ham left to eat to-morrow. God
send us birds or fish, and let us not perish of hunger, or be
brought to the dreadful alternative of feeding on human flesh! As I
feel now, I do not think anything could persuade me; but you cannot
tell what you will do when you are reduced by hunger and your mind
wandering. I hope and pray we can make out to reach the islands
before we get to this strait; but we have one or two desperate men
aboard, though they are quiet enough now. IT IS MY FIRM TRUST AND
BELIEF THAT WE ARE GOING TO BE SAVED.

All food gone.--Captain's Log.[3]

[Ferguson's log continues]

June 12. Stiff breeze, and we are fairly flying--dead ahead of it
--and toward the islands. Good hope, but the prospects of hunger are
awful. Ate ham-bone to-day. It is the captain's birthday; he is
fifty-four years old.

June 13. The ham-rags are not quite all gone yet, and the
boot-legs, we find, are very palatable after we get the salt out of
them. A little smoke, I think, does some little good; but I don't
know.

June 14. Hunger does not pain us much, but we are dreadfully weak.
Our water is getting frightfully low. God grant we may see land
soon! NOTHING TO EAT, but feel better than I did yesterday. Toward
evening saw a magnificent rainbow--THE FIRST WE HAD SEEN. Captain
said, 'Cheer up, boys; it's a prophecy--IT'S THE BOW OF PROMISE!'

June 15. God be for ever praised for His infinite mercy! LAND IN
SIGHT! rapidly neared it and soon were SURE of it .... Two noble
Kanakas swam out and took the boat ashore. We were joyfully
received by two white men--Mr. Jones and his steward Charley--and a
crowd of native men, women, and children. They treated us
splendidly--aided us, and carried us up the bank, and brought us
water, poi, bananas, and green coconuts; but the white men took care
of us and prevented those who would have eaten too much from doing
so. Everybody overjoyed to see us, and all sympathy expressed in
faces, deeds, and words. We were then helped up to the house; and
help we needed. Mr. Jones and Charley are the only white men here.
Treated us splendidly. Gave us first about a teaspoonful of spirits
in water, and then to each a cup of warm tea, with a little bread.
Takes EVERY care of us. Gave us later another cup of tea, and bread
the same, and then let us go to rest. IT IS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY
LIFE.... God in His mercy has heard our prayer.... Everybody is so
kind. Words cannot tell.

June 16. Mr. Jones gave us a delightful bed, and we surely had a
good night's rest; but not sleep--we were too happy to sleep; would
keep the reality and not let it turn to a delusion--dreaded that we
might wake up and find ourselves in the boat again.

It is an amazing adventure. There is nothing of its sort in history that surpasses it in impossibilities made possible. In one extraordinary detail--the survival of every person in the boat--it probably stands alone in the history of adventures of its kinds. Usually merely a part of a boat's company survive--officers, mainly, and other educated and tenderly-reared men, unused to hardship and heavy labour; the untrained, roughly-reared hard workers succumb. But in this case even the rudest and roughest stood the privations and miseries of the voyage almost as well as did the college-bred young brothers and the captain. I mean, physically. The minds of most of the sailors broke down in the fourth week and went to temporary ruin, but physically the endurance exhibited was astonishing. Those men did not survive by any merit of their own, of course, but by merit of the character and intelligence of the captain; they lived by the mastery of his spirit. Without him they would have been children without a nurse; they would have exhausted their provisions in a week, and their pluck would not have lasted even as long as the provisions.

The boat came near to being wrecked at the last. As it approached the shore the sail was let go, and came down with a run; then the captain saw that he was drifting swiftly toward an ugly reef, and an effort was made to hoist the sail again; but it could not be done; the men's strength was wholly exhausted; they could not even pull an oar. They were helpless, and death imminent. It was then that they were discovered by the two Kanakas who achieved the rescue. They swam out and manned the boat, and piloted her through a narrow and hardly noticeable break in the reef--the only break in it in a stretch of thirty-five miles! The spot where the landing was made was the only one in that stretch where footing could have been found on the shore; everywhere else precipices came sheer down into forty fathoms of water. Also, in all that stretch this was the only spot where anybody lived.

Within ten days after the landing all the men but one were up and creeping about. Properly, they ought to have killed themselves with the 'food' of the last few days--some of them, at any rate--men who had freighted their stomachs with strips of leather from old boots and with chips from the butter cask; a freightage which they did not get rid of by digestion, but by other means. The captain and the two passengers did not eat strips and chips, as the sailors did, but scraped the boot-leather and the wood, and made a pulp of the scrapings by moistening them with water. The third mate told me that the boots were old and full of holes; then added thoughtfully, 'but the holes digested the best.' Speaking of digestion, here is a remarkable thing, and worth nothing: during this strange voyage, and for a while afterward on shore, the bowels of some of the men virtually ceased from their functions; in some cases there was no action for twenty and thirty days, and in one case for forty-four! Sleeping also came to be rare. Yet the men did very well without it. During many days the captain did not sleep at all --twenty-one, I think, on one stretch.

When the landing was made, all the men were successfully protected from over-eating except the 'Portyghee;' he escaped the watch and ate an incredible number of bananas: a hundred and fifty-two, the third mate said, but this was undoubtedly an exaggeration; I think it was a hundred and fifty-one. He was already nearly half full of leather; it was hanging out of his ears. (I do not state this on the third mate's authority, for we have seen what sort of a person he was; I state it on my own.) The 'Portyghee' ought to have died, of course, and even now it seems a pity that he didn't; but he got well, and as early as any of them; and all full of leather, too, the way he was, and butter-timber and handkerchiefs and bananas. Some of the men did eat handkerchiefs in those last days, also socks; and he was one of them.

It is to the credit of the men that they did not kill the rooster that crowed so gallantly mornings. He lived eighteen days, and then stood up and stretched his neck and made a brave, weak effort to do his duty once more, and died in the act. It is a picturesque detail; and so is that rainbow, too--the only one seen in the forty-three days,--raising its triumphal arch in the skies for the sturdy fighters to sail under to victory and rescue.

With ten days' provisions Captain Josiah Mitchell performed this memorable voyage of forty-three days and eight hours in an open boat, sailing four thousand miles in reality and thirty-three hundred and sixty by direct courses, and brought every man safe to land. A bright, simple-hearted, unassuming, plucky, and most companionable man. I walked the deck with him twenty-eight days--when I was not copying diaries,--and I remember him with reverent honour. If he is alive he is eighty-six years old now.

If I remember rightly, Samuel Ferguson died soon after we reached San Francisco. I do not think he lived to see his home again; his disease had been seriously aggravated by his hardships.

For a time it was hoped that the two quarter-boats would presently be heard of, but this hope suffered disappointment. They went down with all on board, no doubt, not even sparing that knightly chief mate.

The authors of the diaries allowed me to copy them exactly as they were written, and the extracts that I have given are without any smoothing over or revision. These diaries are finely modest and unaffected, and with unconscious and unintentional art they rise toward the climax with graduated and gathering force and swing and dramatic intensity; they sweep you along with a cumulative rush, and when the cry rings out at last, 'Land in sight!' your heart is in your mouth, and for a moment you think it is you that have been saved. The last two paragraphs are not improvable by anybody's art; they are literary gold; and their very pauses and uncompleted sentences have in them an eloquence not reachable by any words.

The interest of this story is unquenchable; it is of the sort that time cannot decay. I have not looked at the diaries for thirty-two years, but I find that they have lost nothing in that time. Lost? They have gained; for by some subtle law all tragic human experiences gain in pathos by the perspective of time. We realize this when in Naples we stand musing over the poor Pompeian mother, lost in the historic storm of volcanic ashes eighteen centuries ago, who lies with her child gripped close to her breast, trying to save it, and whose despair and grief have been preserved for us by the fiery envelope which took her life but eternalized her form and features. She moves us, she haunts us, she stays in our thoughts for many days, we do not know why, for she is nothing to us, she has been nothing to anyone for eighteen centuries; whereas of the like case to-day we should say, 'Poor thing! it is pitiful,' and forget it in an hour.

[1] There are nineteen days of voyaging ahead yet.--M.T.

[2] Six days to sail yet, nevertheless.--M.T.

[3] It was at this time discovered that the crazed sailors had gotten the delusion that the captain had a million dollars in gold concealed aft, and they were conspiring to kill him and the two passengers and seize it. --M.T.

AT THE APPETITE-CURE

This establishment's name is Hochberghaus. It is in Bohemia, a short day's journey from Vienna, and being in the Austrian Empire is of course a health resort. The empire is made up of health resorts; it distributes health to the whole world. Its waters are all medicinal. They are bottled and sent throughout the earth; the natives themselves drink beer. This is self-sacrifice apparently--but outlanders who have drunk Vienna beer have another idea about it. Particularly the Pilsner which one gets in a small cellar up an obscure back lane in the First Bezirk--the name has escaped me, but the place is easily found: You inquire for the Greek church; and when you get to it, go right along by--the next house is that little beer-mill. It is remote from all traffic and all noise; it is always Sunday there. There are two small rooms, with low ceilings supported by massive arches; the arches and ceilings are whitewashed, otherwise the rooms would pass for cells in the dungeons of a bastile. The furniture is plain and cheap, there is no ornamentation anywhere; yet it is a heaven for the self-sacrificers, for the beer there is incomparable; there is nothing like it elsewhere in the world. In the first room you will find twelve or fifteen ladies and gentlemen of civilian quality; in the other one a dozen generals and ambassadors. One may live in Vienna many months and not hear of this place; but having once heard of it and sampled it, the sampler will afterward infest it.

However, this is all incidental--a mere passing note of gratitude for blessings received--it has nothing to do with my subject. My subject is health resorts. All unhealthy people ought to domicile themselves in Vienna, and use that as a base, making flights from time to time to the outlying resorts, according to need. A flight to Marienbad to get rid of fat; a flight to Carlsbad to get rid of rheumatism; a flight to Kalteneutgeben to take the water cure and get rid of the rest of the diseases. It is all so handy. You can stand in Vienna and toss a biscuit into Kaltenleutgeben, with a twelve-inch gun. You can run out thither at any time of the day; you go by phenomenally slow trains, and yet inside of an hour you have exchanged the glare and swelter of the city for wooded hills, and shady forest paths, and soft cool airs, and the music of birds, and the repose and the peace of paradise.

And there are plenty of other health resorts at your service and convenient to get at from Vienna; charming places, all of them; Vienna sits in the centre of a beautiful world of mountains with now and then a lake and forests; in fact, no other city is so fortunately situated.

There is an abundance of health resorts, as I have said. Among them this place--Hochberghaus. It stands solitary on the top of a densely wooded mountain, and is a building of great size. It is called the Appetite Anstallt, and people who have lost their appetites come here to get them restored. When I arrived I was taken by Professor Haimberger to his consulting-room and questioned:

'It is six o'clock. When did you eat last?'

'At noon.'

'What did you eat?'

'Next to nothing.'

'What was on the table?'

'The usual things.'

'Chops, chickens, vegetables, and so on?'

'Yes; but don't mention them--I can't bear it.'

'Are you tired of them?'

'Oh, utterly. I wish I might never hear of them again.'

'The mere sight of food offends you, does it?'

'More, it revolts me.'

The doctor considered awhile, then got out a long menu and ran his eye slowly down it.

'I think,' said he, 'that what you need to eat is--but here, choose for yourself.'

I glanced at the list, and my stomach threw a hand-spring. Of all the barbarous lay-outs that were ever contrived, this was the most atrocious. At the top stood 'tough, underdone, overdue tripe, garnished with garlic;' half-way down the bill stood 'young cat; old cat; scrambled cat;' at the bottom stood 'sailor-boots, softened with tallow--served raw.' The wide intervals of the bill were packed with dishes calculated to gag a cannibal. I said:

'Doctor, it is not fair to joke over so serious a case as mine. I came here to get an appetite, not to throw away the remnant that's left.'

He said gravely: 'I am not joking; why should I joke?'

'But I can't eat these horrors.'

'Why not?'

He said it with a naivete that was admirable, whether it was real or assumed.

'Why not? Because--why, doctor, for months I have seldom been able to endure anything more substantial than omelettes and custards. These unspeakable dishes of yours--'

'Oh, you will come to like them. They are very good. And you must eat them. It is a rule of the place, and is strict. I cannot permit any departure from it.'

I said smiling: 'Well, then, doctor, you will have to permit the departure of the patient. I am going.'

He looked hurt, and said in a way which changed the aspect of things:

'I am sure you would not do me that injustice. I accepted you in good faith--you will not shame that confidence. This appetite-cure is my whole living. If you should go forth from it with the sort of appetite which you now have, it could become known, and you can see, yourself, that people would say my cure failed in your case and hence can fail in other cases. You will not go; you will not do me this hurt.'

I apologised and said I would stay.

'That is right. I was sure you would not go; it would take the food from my family's mouths.'

'Would they mind that? Do they eat these fiendish things?'

'They? My family?' His eyes were full of gentle wonder. 'Of course not.'

'Oh, they don't! Do you?'

'Certainly not.'

'I see. It's another case of a physician who doesn't take his own medicine.'

'I don't need it. It is six hours since you lunched. Will you have supper now--or later?'

'I am not hungry, but now is as good a time as any, and I would like to be done with it and have it off my mind. It is about my usual time, and regularity is commanded by all the authorities. Yes, I will try to nibble a little now--I wish a light horsewhipping would answer instead.'

The professor handed me that odious menu.

'Choose--or will you have it later?'

'Oh, dear me, show me to my room; I forgot your hard rule.'

'Wait just a moment before you finally decide. There is another rule. If you choose now, the order will be filled at once; but if you wait, you will have to await my pleasure. You cannot get a dish from that entire bill until I consent.'

'All right. Show me to my room, and send the cook to bed; there is not going to be any hurry.'

The professor took me up one flight of stairs and showed me into a most inviting and comfortable apartment consisting of parlour, bedchamber, and bathroom.

The front windows looked out over a far-reaching spread of green glades and valleys, and tumbled hills clothed with forests--a noble solitude unvexed by the fussy world. In the parlour were many shelves filled with books. The professor said he would now leave me to myself; and added:

'Smoke and read as much as you please, drink all the water you like. When you get hungry, ring and give your order, and I will decide whether it shall be filled or not. Yours is a stubborn, bad case, and I think the first fourteen dishes in the bill are each and all too delicate for its needs. I ask you as a favour to restrain yourself and not call for them.'

'Restrain myself, is it? Give yourself no uneasiness. You are going to save money by me. The idea of coaxing a sick man's appetite back with this buzzard-fare is clear insanity.'

I said it with bitterness, for I felt outraged by this calm, cold talk over these heartless new engines of assassination. The doctor looked grieved, but not offended. He laid the bill of fare of the commode at my bed's head, 'so that it would be handy,' and said:

'Yours is not the worst case I have encountered, by any means; still it is a bad one and requires robust treatment; therefore I shall be gratified if you will restrain yourself and skip down to No. 15 and begin with that.'

Then he left me and I began to undress, for I was dog-tired and very sleepy. I slept fifteen hours and woke up finely refreshed at ten the next morning. Vienna coffee! It was the first thing I thought of--that unapproachable luxury--that sumptuous coffee-house coffee, compared with which all other European coffee and all American hotel coffee is mere fluid poverty. I rang, and ordered it; also Vienna bread, that delicious invention. The servant spoke through the wicket in the door and said --but you know what he said. He referred me to the bill of fare. I allowed him to go--I had no further use for him.

After the bath I dressed and started for a walk, and got as far as the door. It was locked on the outside. I rang, and the servant came and explained that it was another rule. The seclusion of the patient was required until after the first meal. I had not been particularly anxious to get out before; but it was different now. Being locked in makes a person wishful to get out. I soon began to find it difficult to put in the time. At two o'clock I had been twenty-six hours without food. I had been growing hungry for some time; I recognised that I was not only hungry now, but hungry with a strong adjective in front of it. Yet I was not hungry enough to face the bill of fare.

I must put in the time somehow. I would read and smoke. I did it; hour by hour. The books were all of one breed--shipwrecks; people lost in deserts; people shut up in caved-in mines; people starving in besieged cities. I read about all the revolting dishes that ever famishing men had stayed their hunger with. During the first hours these things nauseated me: hours followed in which they did not so affect me; still other hours followed in which I found myself smacking my lips over some tolerably infernal messes. When I had been without food forty-five hours I ran eagerly to the bell and ordered the second dish in the bill, which was a sort of dumplings containing a compost made of caviar and tar.

It was refused me. During the next fifteen hours I visited the bell every now and then and ordered a dish that was further down the list. Always a refusal. But I was conquering prejudice after prejudice, right along; I was making sure progress; I was creeping up on No. 15 with deadly certainty, and my heart beat faster and faster, my hopes rose higher and higher.

At last when food had not passed my lips for sixty hours, victory was mine, and I ordered No. 15:

'Soft-boiled spring chicken--in the egg; six dozen, hot and fragrant!'

In fifteen minutes it was there; and the doctor along with it, rubbing his hands with joy. He said with great excitement:

'It's a cure, it's a cure! I knew I could do it. Dear sir, my grand system never failed--never. You've got your appetite back--you know you have; say it and make me happy.'

'Bring on your carrion--I can eat anything in the bill!'

'Oh, this is noble, this is splendid--but I knew I could do it, the system never fails. How are the birds?'

'Never was anything so delicious in the world; and yet as a rule I don't care for game. But don't interrupt me, don't--I can't spare my mouth, I really can't.'

Then the doctor said:

'The cure is perfect. There is no more doubt nor danger. Let the poultry alone; I can trust you with a beefsteak, now.'

The beefsteak came--as much as a basketful of it--with potatoes, and Vienna bread and coffee; and I ate a meal then that was worth all the costly preparation I had made for it. And dripped tears of gratitude into the gravy all the time--gratitude to the doctor for putting a little plain common-sense into me when I had been empty of it so many, many years.

II

Thirty years ago Haimberger went off on a long voyage in a sailing-ship. There were fifteen passengers on board. The table-fare was of the regulation pattern of the day: At 7 in the morning, a cup of bad coffee in bed; at 9, breakfast: bad coffee, with condensed milk; soggy rolls, crackers, salt fish; at 1 P.M., luncheon: cold tongue, cold ham, cold corned beef, soggy cold rolls, crackers; 5 P.M., dinner: thick pea soup, salt fish, hot corned beef and sour kraut, boiled pork and beans, pudding; 9 till 11 P.M., supper: tea, with condensed milk, cold tongue, cold ham, pickles, sea-biscuit, pickled oysters, pickled pigs' feet, grilled bones, golden buck.

At the end of the first week eating had ceased, nibbling had taken its place. The passengers came to the table, but it was partly to put in the time, and partly because the wisdom of the ages commanded them to be regular in their meals. They were tired of the coarse and monotonous fare, and took no interest in it, had no appetite for it. All day and every day they roamed the ship half hungry, plagued by their gnawing stomachs, moody, untalkative, miserable. Among them were three confirmed dyspeptics. These became shadows in the course of three weeks. There was also a bed-ridden invalid; he lived on boiled rice; he could not look at the regular dishes.

Now came shipwrecks and life in open boats, with the usual paucity of food. Provisions ran lower and lower. The appetites improved, then. When nothing was left but raw ham and the ration of that was down to two ounces a day per person, the appetites were perfect. At the end of fifteen days the dyspeptics, the invalid, and the most delicate ladies in the party were chewing sailor-boots in ecstasy, and only complaining because the supply of them was limited. Yet these were the same people who couldn't endure the ship's tedious corned beef and sour kraut and other crudities. They were rescued by an English vessel. Within ten days the whole fifteen were in as good condition as they had been when the shipwreck occurred.

'They had suffered no damage by their adventure,' said the professor.

'Do you note that?'

'Yes.'

'Do you note it well?'

'Yes--I think I do.'

'But you don't. You hesitate. You don't rise to the importance of it. I will say it again--with emphasis--not one of them suffered any damage.'

'Now I begin to see. Yes, it was indeed remarkable.'

'Nothing of the kind. It was perfectly natural. There was no reason why they should suffer damage. They were undergoing Nature's Appetite-Cure, the best and wisest in the world.'

'Is that where you got your idea?'

'That is where I got it.'

'It taught those people a valuable lesson.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Why shouldn't I? You seem to think it taught you one.'

'That is nothing to the point. I am not a fool.'

'I see. Were they fools?'

'They were human beings.'

'Is it the same thing?'

'Why do you ask? You know it yourself. As regards his health--and the rest of the things--the average man is what his environment and his superstitions have made him; and their function is to make him an ass. He can't add up three or four new circumstances together and perceive what they mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of observing for himself; he has to get everything at second-hand. If what are miscalled the lower animals were as silly as man is, they would all perish from the earth in a year.'

'Those passengers learned no lesson, then?'

'Not a sign of it. They went to their regular meals in the English ship, and pretty soon they were nibbling again--nibbling, appetiteless, disgusted with the food, moody, miserable, half hungry, their outraged stomachs cursing and swearing and whining and supplicating all day long. And in vain, for they were the stomachs of fools.'

'Then, as I understand it, your scheme is--'

'Quite simple. Don't eat until you are hungry. If the food fails to taste good, fails to satisfy you, rejoice you, comfort you, don't eat again until you are very hungry. Then it will rejoice you--and do you good, too.'

'And I am to observe no regularity, as to hours?'

'When you are conquering a bad appetite--no. After it is conquered, regularity is no harm, so long as the appetite remains good. As soon as the appetite wavers, apply the corrective again--which is starvation, long or short according to the needs of the case.'

'The best diet, I suppose--I mean the wholesomest--'

'All diets are wholesome. Some are wholesomer than others, but all the ordinary diets are wholesome enough for the people who use them. Whether the food be fine or coarse it will taste good and it will nourish if a watch be kept upon the appetite and a little starvation introduced every time it weakens. Nansen was used to fine fare, but when his meals were restricted to bear-meat months at a time he suffered no damage and no discomfort, because his appetite was kept at par through the difficulty of getting his bear-meat regularly.'

'But doctors arrange carefully considered and delicate diets for invalids.'

'They can't help it. The invalid is full of inherited superstitions and won't starve himself. He believes it would certainly kill him.'

'It would weaken him, wouldn't it?'

'Nothing to hurt. Look at the invalids in our shipwreck. They lived fifteen days on pinches of raw ham, a suck at sailor-boots, and general starvation. It weakened them, but it didn't hurt them. It put them in fine shape to eat heartily of hearty food and build themselves up to a condition of robust health. But they did not know enough to profit by that; they lost their opportunity; they remained invalids; it served them right. Do you know the trick that the health-resort doctors play?'

'What is it?'

'My system disguised--covert starvation. Grape-cure, bath-cure, mud-cure--it is all the same. The grape and the bath and the mud make a show and do a trifle of the work--the real work is done by the surreptitious starvation. The patient accustomed to four meals and late hours--at both ends of the day--now consider what he has to do at a health resort. He gets up at 6 in the morning. Eats one egg. Tramps up and down a promenade two hours with the other fools. Eats a butterfly. Slowly drinks a glass of filtered sewage that smells like a buzzard's breath. Promenades another two hours, but alone; if you speak to him he says anxiously, "My water!--I am walking off my water!--please don't interrupt," and goes stumping along again. Eats a candied roseleaf. Lies at rest in the silence and solitude of his room for hours; mustn't read, mustn't smoke. The doctor comes and feels of his heart, now, and his pulse, and thumps his breast and his back and his stomach, and listens for results through a penny flageolet; then orders the man's bath--half a degree, Reaumur, cooler than yesterday. After the bath another egg. A glass of sewage at three or four in the afternoon, and promenade solemnly with the other freaks. Dinner at 6--half a doughnut and a cup of tea. Walk again. Half-past 8, supper--more butterfly; at 9, to bed. Six weeks of this regime--think of it. It starves a man out and puts him in splendid condition. It would have the same effect in London, New York, Jericho--anywhere.'

'How long does it take to put a person in condition here?'

'It ought to take but a day or two; but in fact it takes from one to six weeks, according to the character and mentality of the patient.'

'How is that?'

'Do you see that crowd of women playing football, and boxing, and jumping fences yonder? They have been here six or seven weeks. They were spectral poor weaklings when they came. They were accustomed to nibbling at dainties and delicacies at set hours four times a day, and they had no appetite for anything. I questioned them, and then locked them into their rooms--the frailest ones to starve nine or ten hours, the others twelve or fifteen. Before long they began to beg; and indeed they suffered a good deal. They complained of nausea, headache, and so on. It was good to see them eat when the time was up. They could not remember when the devouring of a meal had afforded them such rapture --that was their word. Now, then, that ought to have ended their cure, but it didn't. They were free to go to any meals in the house, and they chose their accustomed four. Within a day or two I had to interfere. Their appetites were weakening. I made them knock out a meal. That set them up again. Then they resumed the four. I begged them to learn to knock out a meal themselves, without waiting for me. Up to a fortnight ago they couldn't; they really hadn't manhood enough; but they were gaining it, and now I think they are safe. They drop out a meal every now and then of their own accord. They are in fine condition now, and they might safely go home, I think, but their confidence is not quite perfect yet, so they are waiting awhile.'

'Other cases are different?'

'Oh yes. Sometimes a man learns the whole trick in a week. Learns to regulate his appetite and keep it in perfect order. Learns to drop out a meal with frequency and not mind it.'

'But why drop the entire meal out? Why not a part of it?'

'It's a poor device, and inadequate. If the stomach doesn't call vigorously--with a shout, as you may say--it is better not to pester it but just give it a real rest. Some people can eat more meals than others, and still thrive. There are all sorts of people, and all sorts of appetites. I will show you a man presently who was accustomed to nibble at eight meals a day. It was beyond the proper gait of his appetite by two. I have got him down to six a day, now, and he is all right, and enjoys life. How many meals to you affect per day?'

'Formerly--for twenty-two years--a meal and a half; during the past two years, two and a half: coffee and a roll at 9, luncheon at 1, dinner at 7.30 or 8.'

'Formerly a meal and a half--that is, coffee and a roll at 9, dinner in the evening, nothing between--is that it?

'Yes.'

'Why did you add a meal?'

'It was the family's idea. They were uneasy. They thought I was killing myself.'

'You found a meal and a half per day enough, all through the twenty-two years?'

'Plenty.'

'Your present poor condition is due to the extra meal. Drop it out. You are trying to eat oftener than your stomach demands. You don't gain, you lose. You eat less food now, in a day, on two and a half meals, than you formerly ate on one and a half.'

'True--a good deal less; for in those olds days my dinner was a very sizeable thing.'

'Put yourself on a single meal a day, now--dinner--for a few days, till you secure a good, sound, regular, trustworthy appetite, then take to your one and a half permanently, and don't listen to the family any more. When you have any ordinary ailment, particularly of a feverish sort, eat nothing at all during twenty-four hours. That will cure it. It will cure the stubbornest cold in the head, too. No cold in the head can survive twenty-four hours' unmodified starvation.'

I know it. I have proved it many a time.

CONCERNING THE JEWS

Some months ago I published a magazine article[1] descriptive of a remarkable scene in the Imperial Parliament in Vienna. Since then I have received from Jews in America several letters of inquiry. They were difficult letters to answer, for they were not very definite. But at last I have received a definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he really asks the questions which the other writers probably believed they were asking. By help of this text I will do the best I can to publicly answer this correspondent, and also the others--at the same time apologising for having failed to reply privately. The lawyer's letter reads as follows:

'I have read "Stirring Times in Austria." One point in particular
is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including myself,
being a point about which I have often wanted to address a question
to some disinterested person. The show of military force in the
Austrian Parliament, which precipitated the riots, was not
introduced by any Jew. No Jew was a member of that body. No Jewish
question was involved in the Ausgleich or in the language
proposition. No Jew was insulting anybody. In short, no Jew was
doing any mischief toward anybody whatsoever. In fact, the Jews
were the only ones of the nineteen different races in Austria which
did not have a party--they are absolute non-participants. Yet in
your article you say that in the rioting which followed, all classes
of people were unanimous only on one thing, viz., in being against
the Jews. Now, will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the
Jews have thus ever been, and are even now, in these days of
supposed intelligence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities?
I dare say that for centuries there has been no more quiet,
undisturbing, and well-behaving citizen, as a class, than that same
Jew. It seems to me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone
account for these horrible and unjust persecutions.

'Tell me, therefore, from your vantage point of cold view, what in
your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it
either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a
Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the
rest of mankind? What has become of the Golden Rule?'

I will begin by saying that if I thought myself prejudiced against the Jew, I should hold it fairest to leave this subject to a person not crippled in that way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few years ago a Jew observed to me that there was no uncourteous reference to his people in my books, and asked how it happened. It happened because the disposition was lacking. I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no colour prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being--that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue Bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French. Without this precedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned. Of course Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing to do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents. A person who has during all time maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of the loftiest order. In his large presence the other popes and politicians shrink to midges for the microscope. I would like to see him. I would rather see him and shake him by the tail than any other member of the European Concert. In the present paper I shall allow myself to use the word Jew as if it stood for both religion and race. It is handy; and, besides, that is what the term means to the general world.

In the above letter one notes these points:

1. The Jew is a well-behaved citizen.

2. Can ignorance and fanaticism alone account for his unjust treatment?

3. Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?

4. The Jews have no party; they are non-participants.

5. Will the persecution ever come to an end?

6. What has become of the Golden Rule?

Point No. 1.--We must grant proposition No. 1, for several sufficient reasons. The Jew is not a disturber of the peace of any country. Even his enemies will concede that. He is not a loafer, he is not a sot, he is not noisy, he is not a brawler nor a rioter, he is not quarrelsome. In the statistics of crime his presence is conspicuously rare--in all countries. With murder and other crimes of violence he has but little to do: he is a stranger to the hangman. In the police court's daily long roll of 'assaults' and 'drunk and disorderlies' his name seldom appears. That the Jewish home is a home in the truest sense is a fact which no one will dispute. The family is knitted together by the strongest affections; its members show each other every due respect; and reverence for the elders is an inviolate law of the house. The Jew is not a burden on the charities of the state nor of the city; these could cease from their functions without affecting him. When he is well enough, he works; when he is incapacitated, his own people take care of him. And not in a poor and stingy way, but with a fine and large benevolence. His race is entitled to be called the most benevolent of all the races of men. A Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a thing may exist, but there are few men that can say they have seen that spectacle. The Jew has been staged in many uncomplimentary forms, but, so far as I know, no dramatist has done him the injustice to stage him as a beggar. Whenever a Jew has real need to beg, his people save him from the necessity of doing it. The charitable institutions of the Jews are supported by Jewish money, and amply. The Jews make no noise about it; it is done quietly; they do not nag and pester and harass us for contributions; they give us peace, and set us an example--an example which he have not found ourselves able to follow; for by nature we are not free givers, and have to be patiently and persistently hunted down in the interest of the unfortunate.

These facts are all on the credit side of the proposition that the Jew is a good and orderly citizen. Summed up, they certify that he is quiet, peaceable, industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal dispositions; that his family life is commendable; that he is not a burden upon public charities; that he is not a beggar; that in benevolence he is above the reach of competition. These are the very quintessentials of good citizenship. If you can add that he is as honest as the average of his neighbours--But I think that question is affirmatively answered by the fact that he is a successful business man. The basis of successful business is honesty; a business cannot thrive where the parties to it cannot trust each other. In the matter of numbers the Jew counts for little in the overwhelming population of New York; but that his honest counts for much is guaranteed by the fact that the immense wholesale business of Broadway, from the Battery to Union Square, is substantially in his hands.

I suppose that the most picturesque example in history of a trader's trust in his fellow-trader was one where it was not Christian trusting Christian, but Christian trusting Jew. That Hessian Duke who used to sell his subjects to George III. to fight George Washington with got rich at it; and by-and-by, when the wars engendered by the French Revolution made his throne too warm for him, he was obliged to fly the country. He was in a hurry, and had to leave his earnings behind--$9,000,000. He had to risk the money with some one without security. He did not select a Christian, but a Jew--a Jew of only modest means, but of high character; a character so high that it left him lonesome--Rothschild of Frankfort. Thirty years later, when Europe had become quiet and safe again, the Duke came back from overseas, and the Jew returned the loan, with interest added.[2]