My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands Part 14

Intuition told me they were murderers. Sixteen persons had been killed in Nablus in '55-'56. The chief of police was the head of the gang. I immediately saw our consul, and there was a meeting of representatives of the foreign powers, and the whole traffic was exposed. In our case they found the men, and after we left they were executed.

CHAPTER XVI

IN THE CRIMEA

1856

The voyage from Joppa to Constantinople was a succession of surprises, from Latokea to Lanarca, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Smyrna. At Beyrout we were the guests of a pasha, the leading man of the place. Henry Kennard, banker, of Heywood, Kennard & Co., of London, who had joined us in Jerusalem, went with us through Syria and was going as far as the Crimea. MacFarlane was still with our party. We had a day off in Beyrout, and went up to Lebanon, inland, where the cedars seem to antedate the olive-trees in the Garden of Gethsemane.

When we got to Smyrna we entered a beautiful bay, somewhat like that of Rio Janeiro, and I went out on the fortified hill that overlooks the city. I saw from the hill that troops were marching on parade, and went off alone to see them. I was told to let my donkey go his own way. He brought me to a place where were about one hundred stone steps, almost perpendicular. I had a little hesitation about going down these steps, but he seemed to know what he was about, and I could do nothing with him but hang on his back. I expected him to tumble, and that would have been the last of me. He didn't miss a step, however, but took me safely to the bottom. I thought of General Putnam's stone-step ride. If he had only had a Turkish donkey he would have missed being a hero.

My donkey seemed to know more than I about the streets of Smyrna, and I gave him the rein. He took me past the sentinels to the parade ground, as he appeared to know the pa.s.sword, and across the parade, which was against regulations. When we arrived at the center of the ground, he began very peculiar operations, as if he had been with Barnum. Here was a donkey that would have made a fortune for a circus. The soldiers were coming up in platoons, when the donkey began to stand on his hind feet, and then on his fore feet. The roar of the advancing regiment convinced me that I was in a tight place. I got off his back and walked alone on the opposite side, and then escaped through a gate. I have never heard of the obstinate animal since.

From Smyrna to Constantinople we pa.s.sed among famous Greek islands--Rhodes, and Chios, where twenty-two thousand Greeks were killed by the Turks--but we had not time to stop at any of them. At Constantinople I preferred to take pa.s.sage in a transient steamer, instead of waiting for the Government boat. I stopped here only to see our minister, Carroll Spence, of Baltimore, and then hurried on through the Marmoro Strait and the Bosporus, and into the Black Sea, and there found an immense fleet of transports, from the port of Sebastopol. I was delighted to see alongside of one another three of our Boston clippers, built by Donald Mackay in East Boston, that had brought French troops from France: the Great Republic, Captain Limeburner, the Monarch of the Seas, Captain Gardner, and the Ocean Queen of clippers, Captain Zerega.

Ships filled the little bay, bows and sterns touching the sh.o.r.e on one side and the other. Not one could have got out in case of fire.

We immediately got horses to go out to Balaklava, and there I was glad to meet my old friend, Captain Furber, of the Black Ball Line and the Ocean Clipper, who gave me a state-room and all the courtesies of his ship. He had come for the French. Kennard went with the British. Horses and attendants were furnished me by the French generals free of cost.

My object in going to the Crimea was to speculate in munitions of war, which I supposed would be sold for a mere bagatelle. But the armies took their material away with them--English, Russian, Turkish, French, Sardinian--so there was no chance for business there. The British troops were in rags and tatters. Their new uniforms had not arrived, and their shoes were worn out. I went on board one of the clippers and spoke about the shoes not having arrived. "What!" exclaimed the captain; "I am loaded with shoes! I have been here six months." "Have you notified the commissary?" "Yes." What could I do? All this was afterward described by "Bull Run" Russell. He was then the correspondent of the London Times, and so exposed the mismanagement of the war that ships were sent with provisions, uniforms, and everything, after the war was over.

Through the courtesy of French officers, I visited the city of Sebastopol, a ten-mile journey from Balaklava, and saw the twenty-one-gun battery, the Redan, and the Malakoff, and, of course, the ruin of the famous city. I could see the masts of the ships at the entrance of the bay, the fleet that had been sunk by the Russians to block the channel. Here they had crossed in the night to the Star Fort on the opposite side, which was strongly fortified. It would have been almost impossible for the allied armies to interfere with the Russians.

They had made up their minds to fight it out to the end.

The French zouave commander got up a banquet for me with twenty of the officers of all the armies--Turkish, French, English, Sardinian, and Russian. I did something to stir up the battle spirit again, and several times almost got them fighting over the table, especially when I asked some question that brought a reply from the zouave general of the Ninety-sixth regiment of Algiers. He rose and said to the Englishmen who had disputed his word: "You were asleep at the Alma, you were late at Inkerman, late at Balaklava, ran from the Redan and at Chernaya." This of course roused the English officers, and we had to pour oil on troubled waters.

There were two princes among the Russians, and of course they were delighted to see the allies fighting among themselves. They helped me in stirring up the quarrel. I made them admit that Todleben's earthworks were a new feature in war--baskets of earth used for forts on the inside of Sebastopol, put up impromptu, and holding these armies so long at bay. In the Redan it was complete slaughter, two thousand persons being killed. MacMahon in the Malakoff saw at once that it was not a close fort, and said, "J'y suis, j'y reste." Speaking of MacMahon, a very singular thing has been suggested. Put together a half dozen faces of French notables--MacMahon, de Lesseps, Alexandre Dumas (_pere et fils_), Victor Hugo, President Faure, and add my portrait, and you could hardly tell which was which.

Tennyson has given to the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava the power of his name and genius, but that fight has been a terribly exaggerated affair, so far as ma.s.sacre was concerned. Only one third was killed, with nearly one half the horses. In our civil war, where a million men were killed, at the cost of a billion dollars, from the firing into Sumter to Appomattox, on both sides, there were many charges where the slaughter was proportionately greater than that. Take Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, where a whole division was mowed down--or Custer's command (with Sitting Bull, in the Black Hills), all ma.s.sacred, with the exception of one man.

CHAPTER XVII

HOME ONCE MORE AND THEN A RETURN TO EUROPE

1856

From the Crimea I returned to England and thence to America. Wilson, of the White Star Line, wished to construct the largest clipper ever built in England. It was to be called the George Francis Train, as I had had in my consignment or in my charge the fastest four clippers in the world--Flying Cloud, eighty-six days from New York to San Francisco; Sovereign of the Seas, which stood in my name at the custom-house (2,200 tons), which made three hundred and seventy-four miles under sail in one day, a thing never known before by a sailing ship; the Red Jacket, built at Rockland, Maine; and the Lightning, built by Donald Mackay at East Boston, which sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in sixty-three days; but I declined the White Star honors.

The day after my arrival in New York, in July, '56--I had been away since February, '53--the Herald had sixteen columns, about three pages, from me in one issue, an amount of s.p.a.ce I think that no correspondent before or since has had--either from India, China, or j.a.pan. I had arrived ahead of my own mail. The members of the present staff of the Herald have no idea that the man whom they have looked upon as a lunatic was sufficiently sane to make a big sensation in their paper in July, '56. The present James Gordon Bennett was then only fifteen years old.

Frederick Hudson had entire charge of the paper under the elder Bennett.

Mr. Bennett, wishing to put his son ahead, pensioned Mr. Hudson, who went into the country to live, and, in crossing a railway track, was killed. Mr. Bennett gave me a very kind reception. He asked if I desired to go to Congress. "No," I said. "Don't you want to publish books?"

"Yes, but I am going abroad now, as I am not through with my business in Australia."

Here, at twenty-seven years of age, I had traveled over the world, and had had these great business experiences. I had been called, as a sneering term, "Young America." I kept the name, and used it afterward in all my newspaper work. But Freeman Hunt, of the Merchants' Magazine, who edited my books, changed it to An American Merchant in Europe, Asia, and Australia, thinking the t.i.tle Young America not dignified enough.

This book was a series of letters from Java, Singapore, China, Bengal, Egypt, the Holy Land, the Crimea, England, Melbourne, Sydney, etc. It was published in '57 in New York and London.

From New York I went to Boston, and escaped my first opportunity of going to jail by giving bail bond for $80,000. George B. Upton represented my house in Boston and was in Europe. He was traveling at the time, and his people instructed him to have me arrested for any interest the Barings might have, through open credits, in our firm.

Colonel Enoch Train and Donald Mackay signed the bond. The claim was that I had made a lot of money, and had not given to others what was their due. I had never used the Barings' credit out in Australia, and returned to them $50,000. So far as Upton was concerned, I had paid my partner, Captain Caldwell, $8,000 in cash, when he went home in the Red Jacket only a few months after his arrival in Melbourne. This was my first false arrest and legal prosecution. From this time for many years I kept getting into jail, for no crime whatever.

After looking over the accounts in the books for '57, Upton came the next year to me in New York, just as I was going abroad, and said, "We are in a tight place in Boston." Imagine my astonishment when he asked if I was willing that any little account coming to me should be placed to my credit, and used to help him out. Considering that I had been arrested for $80,000, I thought this peculiar. He gave me a credit for 500 on the Barings, however; it seems that $6,000 had been sent to me by the house in Melbourne while I was away. Inasmuch as I have never since inquired how my account stood with Upton, I should like to have his son look at the books, and see what may be due me.

In '56 I took my wife and baby Sue to Paris. I had observed in Europe that the Germans were more far-sighted than we in learning many languages. The bright German boy in a country town is taught French and English, and then sent to Bremen or Hamburg to get the practical education of merchants in great shipping houses. Afterward, he is sent to England to find out other modes of doing business. Then perhaps he establishes a house in New York. I found that German merchants, all over the world, were far ahead of ours, because of their practical training and mastery of languages. Seeing, in my travels around the world, that the German was everywhere, I determined to learn languages, and went to Paris for that purpose.

We took rooms at the Grand Hotel de Louvre, in the Rue de Rivoli, and I at once went to Galignani, of "The Messenger," to find teachers. Under a Catholic priest, I studied Italian and French at the same time, which may account for my having a little of the Italian accent in my French. I have never known an Italian who was able to master the French accent. I also learned Portuguese and Spanish. This gave me the four Latin languages. I had, in '48, studied German under Gasper b.u.t.ts, who came to America during the Revolution of '48 with Carl Schurz. German texts and p.r.o.nunciation I had to practise every day, but as I have never had a fancy for that language, I have not kept it up. I sent my sons to Frankfort-on-the-Main to learn German, and afterward to Seelig's College in Vevey, Switzerland, in '71, to learn Italian and French. My daughter Sue was sent to Stuttgart, and she is thoroughly acquainted with both German and French.

CHAPTER XVIII

MEN I MET IN PARIS

1856-1857

My life in Paris seems now like a romance to my memory. I was twenty-seven, and thought I had seen all the world, but discovered how little I knew, compared with others whom I met. I found, as in all these foreign cities, that notables in society and in public life often did not know one another. At Count Arthur De La More's, of the Orleanist staff, I found the greatest hostility toward the Emperor. One day we were sitting in the entresol, at his rooms on the Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries, and he asked me whether I could see that man walking on the veranda of the Tuileries. I said I could, to which he replied: "Could one of your sharpshooters pick him off from here?" I looked up with surprise, and thought I saw the future a.s.sa.s.sin of the Emperor, but said nothing. I told him some of our men like Daniel Boone and David Crockett could have picked off a squirrel as far as they could see it. It was a little while after this that the Orsini bomb was fired at the Emperor. This was because Napoleon, though a member of the Carbonari, had "gone back on" the order; but his life was spared.

Prince Galitzen of Russia gave me a dinner at the Cafe Philippe, where I met some of the Russian n.o.bility. These men were the cleverest I have ever seen. All were good linguists, artists, statesmen, soldiers, men of the world. At Prince Czartoryski's I met leading Poles, who were still revolutionists, plotting against Russia. One of these, a man of about eighty, said to me: "In my teens I went to St. Petersburg, saw Alexander and told him the condition of Poland. I asked him what he was going to do. He asked me what I should recommend. 'There are two ways of governing Poland,' I said; 'through interest or through fear.' Fear was the policy adopted. When I was forty, I again went to St. Petersburg.

Nicholas was Czar, and he repeated the same question. I again answered, 'through interest or through fear.' When I was sixty I met another Emperor, and the same question was put to me, and I made the same reply.

Poland is part.i.tioned," he added; "and we are now only a memory."

At Leon Lillo's I met many Spaniards of the n.o.bility and the ruling family. I still think that Lillo was the son of Queen Cristina, by her husband the Duke of Rianzares, a common soldier, of physical beauty, whom she had taken from the ranks and made a Duke. I used to meet him at Lillo's. Cristina, who was then probably the richest woman in the world, had bought Malmaison, the palace of Josephine. It was through this connection that I met Salamanca, the Spanish Rothschild, her banker. I shall speak later of how I got the funds to build the Atlantic and Great Western Railway, connecting the Erie Railway with the Ohio and Mississippi Railway.

At the Marquis del Grillo's I met his wife, the great Italian tragedienne, Ristori, whom I had seen on the stage in "Elizabeth." I met leading men of the Second Empire at the house of the Count de Rouville, including Persigny, the Foreign Minister, Count de Morny, the Minister of War, Walewski, Prince "Plon-Plon," and Mocquard, private secretary to the Emperor. At Triat's Gymnase I met the men who afterward organized the Commune. At the house of Mrs. Winfield Scott, who was then living in Paris, I met many Americans, and at Castle's I saw "Bohemia."

Meeting all these different persons, distinguished in the great world of Paris, I was gaining the knowledge that would make me a walking library of political affairs in Europe. This made up for the loss of a college career. Practical experience and observation were my university.

That year, '56-'57, was a very important time in my life in many ways. I received an invitation to a ball at the Tuileries, engraved in the usual style, on a card a foot square, and bearing the enormous seal of the Second Empire. For the first time in my life I appeared in borrowed plumes. I hired what I call a "flunkey" suit, and paid forty-five francs for it. In this I was presented. It was not a civil nor a military suit, but a sort of mongrel affair, that served me as a court costume. Of course, my wife appeared in proper evening dress. There were four thousand persons present, the highest in the society of Paris, military and civil--amba.s.sadors in their regalia, regimental officers in their different uniforms, and the aristocracy in their robes. There were also Algerian officers. Although the Tuileries was very large, the four thousand guests found themselves in much crowded rooms.

During this reception and ball I suddenly felt some cold substance going down my back. Putting my hand to my neck, I found there a cupful of ice-cream that an Algerian officer had dropped, with the usual "Pardon, monsieur." I a.s.sured him it was all right, but the ice-cream gave me a decidedly boreal feeling.

The ball was in the usual court style, and I shall not undertake to describe it. After some time had pa.s.sed, all at once there was silence, instead of the terrible hum. It was the presage of something important, I felt sure. The wax candles in the chandeliers burned brilliantly, and we were all on the _qui vive_ to know what was coming. Looking toward the great folding doors at the end of the hall, a lady appeared. It was the age of crinoline, and she must have had a circ.u.mference of eight feet. She was the Emperor's favorite, the Countess Castiglione. The sensation she made was tremendous.

I should mention that before this happened I had been presented to the Empress. We were all ranged in diplomatic order for presentation, and when it came my turn she seemed particularly courteous, saying in English to me: "You speak French very fluently." To this I replied: "When I am able to speak French, your Majesty, as well as you speak English, I shall be willing to trust myself in that language. In the meanwhile let me ask you to talk as you prefer." All those presented seemed surprised to see me talking with the Empress, as it was, I believe, unusual for a foreigner and a newcomer to be thus honored. She was very gracious, and made me feel as much at home as if I had been in my own family. The introduction of the crinoline had been made by the Empress before the birth of the Prince Imperial. Anti-Imperialists had been busy gossiping about the coming event, and intimated that it was impossible the Emperor could become the father of a child.

After the Countess Castiglione appeared in such dare-devil fashion, in the presence of the whole court, the Empress appeared in much different mood. The next day she went to England, and became the guest of the Queen for three weeks.

The Italian war was then going on, and I was desirous of mastering the Italian language, in order to carry out certain contracts I had made with the Emperor. McHenry was my partner, and I had written to him that the Emperor wanted a half dozen steamers immediately. The French needed the boats for the transport of provisions. McHenry was in London, and in my letter I told him there was no doubt that the war would eventually be won by France and Italy. This was just after the great battles of Magenta and Solferino. He sent me back this despatch: "La paix est signe." You can imagine my surprise. It shows that the most careful of men sometimes make mistakes.

Mr. Seward, afterward Secretary of State, was in Paris in '56-'57, and I showed him as much of Paris as I dared. There were certain places to which I did not feel authorized to take him, but I managed to make him see a great deal of Paris that would have been sealed to him had he undertaken to go about this microcosmic city without a guide.

Mr. Seward astonished me very much one day by a remark showing his detachment from the great world of European thought and power. I said to him: "Mr. Seward, how would you like to see M. Lamartine?" "Which Lamartine?" he coolly asked, as if there could be more than one. "Why, Alphonse de Lamartine," said I. "There is only one Lamartine in France or in the world." He asked if I knew him. I replied that Lamartine gave receptions twice a week, and that I had attended them during the winter.