The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 151

Before the Revolution there was preserved in the treasury of the Cathedral of Nantes a silver shrine, enriched with precious stones, a present from an ancient Breton chief. In great judicial cases it was carried in procession to the judges to receive the solemn vows which they afterward made upon the book of the Evangelists. A king of France and a duke of Brittany, after long wars, united under this shrine their reconciled hands and swore to live in peace.

At the same time there was seen, in the depths of lower Brittany, in the sacristy of a little country church, an oaken cradle, with nothing about it remarkable unless its age. The inhabitants of the parish, however, venerated it as much as the silver shrine. The mendicant singers, above all, have {826} for it an especial affection. They love to touch it with their great musical instruments, their traveller's goods, their rosaries, their staffs, all that they have which is most precious. Kneeling before this cradle, they kiss it with respect, and arriving sad, they depart joyous.

Now, the silver shrine contained, wrapped in purple and silk, the relics of Saint Herve. The oaken cradle was the same in which he slept to the songs of the bard and his poet-wife, whom G.o.d had given him for father and mother.

To-day the ducal reliquary is no longer in existence. The metal, thrice consecrated by sanct.i.ty, justice, and royalty, was stolen and melted down in that sadly memorable epoch when these three things, trampled under foot, were valued less than a bit of silver. But the wooden cradle of the humble patron of the singers of Brittany, that poor worm-eaten cradle, so like his fate on earth, exists still, and more than one mendicant having respectfully pressed his lips upon it, as in other times, goes away singing with a clearer voice and a comforted heart.

From Once a Week.

LOST FOR GOLD.

She stood by the hedge where the orchard slopes Down to the river below; The trees all white with their autumn hopes Looked heaps of drifted snow;

They gleamed like ghosts through the twilight pale.

The shadowy river ran black; "It's weary waiting," she said, with a wail, "For them that never come back.

"The mountain waits there, barren and brown, Till the yellow furze comes in spring To crown his brows with a golden crown, And girdle him like a king.

The river waits till the summer lays The white lily on his track; But it's weary waiting nights and days For him that never comes back.

"Ah! the white lead kills in the heat of the fight.

When pa.s.sions are hot and wild; But the red gold kills by the fair fire-light The love of father and child.

"'Tie twenty years since I heard him say, When the wild March morn was airy, Through the drizzly dawn--'I m going away, To make you a fortune, Mary.'

{827}

"Twenty springs, with their long grey days.

When the tide runs up the sand, And the west wind catches the birds, and lays Them shrieking far inland.

"From the sea-wash'd reefs, and the stormy mull, And the damp weed-tangled caves:-- Will he ever come back, O wild sea-gull.

Across the green salt waves?

"Twenty summers with blue flax bells, And the young green corn on the lea, That yellows by night in the moon, and swells By day like a rippling sea.

"Twenty autumns with reddening leaves, In their glorious harvest light Steeping a thousand golden sheaves, And doubling them all at night.

"Twenty winters, how long and drear!

With a patter of rain in the street.

And a sound in the last leaves, red and sere; But never the sound of his feet.

The ploughmen talk by furrow and ridge, I hear them day by day; The hors.e.m.e.n ride down by the narrow bridge, But never one comes this way.

And the voice that I long for is wanting ther, And the face I would die to see, Since he went away in the wild March air, Ah! to make a fortune for me.

"O father dear I but you never thought Of the fortune you squandered and lost; Of the duty that never was sold and bought.

And the love beyond all cost.

"For the vile red dust you gave in thrall The heart that was G.o.d's above; How could you think that money was all, When the world was won for love?

"You sought me wealth in the stranger's land, Whose veins are veins of gold; And the fortune G.o.d gave was in mine hand, When yours was in its hold.

"If I might but look on your face," she says, "And then let me have or lack; But it's weary waiting nights and days For him that never comes back."

{828}

From The Dublin University Magazine.

THE SOLUTION OF THE NILE PROBLEM. [Footnote 195]

[Footnote 195: "The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and Exploration of the Nile Sources." By Samuel White Baker, M.A., F.R.G.S. London: Macmillan. & Co. 1865.]

For some time the complaint of those who have been everywhere, and seen everything men of travel and of fashion ought to see, has been that the world is "used-up" for the tourist. Where can he now go for a fresh sensation? Asia and America remain no more untrodden fields than Europe; and as for the isles of the farthest sea, rich and idle "fugitives and vagabonds" have braved as many dangers among savage tribes as the early missionaries, from impulse no n.o.bler than restlessness. Whither next shall they direct their strides? Iceland stood in favor for a year or two; but the cooks are bad there, and the inhabitants speak Latin. j.a.pan has novelties, but bland Daimios are not trustworthy. The sightseeker has no relish for being among a people who, on very slight provocation, may perform upon him a process akin to their own "happy despatch." In the exhaustion of interest in mere horizontal locomotion, the Cain-like race we form part of try the effect of ascension to the highest and hugest cloud-capped peaks; but Matterhorn accidents have rather brought these mountains-of-the-(full)-moon performances into disfavour. Pending the discovery of some new wonder or feat, to occupy many vacant minds and stir a few energetic ones, and during the crisis of a Continental war, the migratory section amongst us must bear their misery as best they can. It may console them to hope that the flying-machine will yet be perfected, and air-sailing supersede Alpine climbing. Probably it would be quite as exciting, and it would not tire the limbs. If there be one geographical problem still left unsolved, it must be to find the site of that cave of Adullam which has sorely puzzled numbers of erudite Parliamentarians, one of whom was heard to make answer to a query regarding its locality that he "never was a geographer." For the purpose of stimulating the curiosity of the gentleman, and of guiding him in his search among the lore of school-boy days, we may take from a book well known a real, and not figurative, description of the Cave in which shelter was lately found by some forty wayfarers uncertain as to their route in a difficult country. "Leaving our horses," says an Adullamite, who long preceded them, "in charge of wild------, and taking one for a guide, we started for the cave, having a fearful gorge below, gigantic cliffs above, and the path winding along a shelf of the rock, narrow enough to make the nervous among us shudder. At length, from a great rock hanging on the edge of this shelf, we sprang by a long leap into a low window which opened into the perpendicular face of the cliff. We were then within the hold of, ------ and creeping half-doubled through a narrow crevice for a few rods, we stood beneath the dark vault of the first grand chamber of this mysterious and oppressive cavern. Our whole collection of lights did little more than make the damp darkness visible. After groping about as long as we had time to spare, we returned to the light of day, fully convinced that with ------ and his lion-hearted followers inside, all the strength of ------ under ------ could not have forced an entrance." Next to a search for the celebrated cave, we can {829} imagine no geographical extravagance equal to one for those Nile Sources that have been the dream of ancients and moderns. The undertaking possessed an the attraction of freshness. Your North-west pa.s.sage is a mere track through a waste, without the possibility of novelty. What its dangers and privations, its few monotonous sights and events, were to half-a-dozen navigators they would be to half-a-dozen more. But in pa.s.sing upward to the huge plateau in Central Africa where the Nile Basin lies, itself again overtopped by the lofty range of the Blue Mountains, down which giant cascades ceaselessly roll in unwitnessed splendor, the traveller encounters perils enough, but relieved with a human interest. The tribes he meets are many and unique in their habits, strangely unlike each other, within short distances, and having about them an extraordinary mixture of an incipient civilization with some of the most depraved of the customs of savage life. In the journey, too, there is endless variety. The expedition up the river, with its hunting episodes, its difficulties with mutinous servants and _seamen_, its devices to appease native cupidity and circ.u.mvent native cunning, and its encounters with those vilest of the pursuers of commerce, the slave-traders, forms one part of the interest; and next come inland rides through tangled forest shades, rude villages of cone-shaped huts, suspicious hordes of naked barbarians, to whom every new face is that of a plunderer of slaves or cattle, and "situations" in which it is impossible for the honest traveller to escape sharp contests with a party of Turkish marauders, for whose sins against the commandment he would otherwise be held responsible by the relentless javelin-men of the desert. All this offers adventure of a genuine description to him who has the love of it in his disposition; and such a man is Mr. Samuel White Baker. His impulses are irrepressible: nature made him a traveller. He is the modern counterpart of those primitive personages, the Columbuses of the times just succeeding the flood, whose purposeless wanderings into far s.p.a.ce from the spot where the Mesopotamian cradle of mankind was rocked, peopled lands lying even beyond great seas; men whose feats were such that the philosophers of five thousand years after can hardly believe they performed them. If Mr. Baker had been a dweller in Charran, he would have begged the patriarch Abraham to give him camels, water-bags, and bushels of corn, and would have set off for the eastern margin of the globe, and the sh.o.r.es of the loud-sounding sea. Arrived there, he would have burned a tree hollow, and launched boldly forth upon the deep, to go whithersoever fortune listed.

All his life a traveller in the true sense, Mr. Baker last conceived the idea of securing for "England" the glory of discovering the sources of the Nile. This bit of patriotic sentiment undoubtedly added to the zest of the undertaking, to which, as has been said, he was impelled by instinct. He is a man of resolute will, and to think and to do are with him simultaneous acts. His preparations were instantly in progress, and from that moment his motto, come what might, was--Forward. Part of this perseverance no doubt was due to the encouragement of Mrs. Baker's presence. That lady is the model explorer's wife, and we could wish for such a race of women if there were any problems geographical left to be solved. She set out with Mr.

Baker from Cairo, determined to go through all dangers with him, and well knowing their nature; and she successfully accomplished the task, and has returned to share his renown. To a full share of it she is really ent.i.tled; for Mrs. Baker was much more than a companion to her husband on his wanderings. She a.s.sisted him materially, not only tending him when sick, not only conciliating the natives by her kindness, but contributing to remove difficulties by wise {830} counsel, bearing all hardships uncomplainingly, and--rare virtue!--submitting to her lord's authority when he was warranted in deciding what was best to be done, or left undone. Mrs. Baker could also somewhat play the Amazon when occasion required. If she did not actually take the shield and falchion, and go to the front of the fight, she spread out the arms, loaded and prepared the weapons, and rendered brave and effective aid on an occasion when the Discoverer of the Great Basin of the Nile was likely to have become, if he did not succeed in intimidating his foes by the parade of his armory, a sweet morsel for the palate of the Latookas. Mr. Baker speaks with manly tenderness of his wife, and the picture drawn of her in his incidental references, will gain for her hosts of friends among his readers.

The narrative is quiet until he reaches Gondokoro. There, in March, 1863, he met Speke and Grant, who were descending the Nile, having completed the East African expedition. When there the report reached him on a certain morning that there were two white men approaching who had come from the sea. These were the travellers from the Victoria N'Yanza, the _other_, and smaller, source of the Nile. They had undoubtedly solved the mystery. Still they had left something for Baker to do, and candidly declared to him that they had not completed the actual exploration of the Nile sources. In N. lat. 2 17' they had crossed the river which they had tracked from the Victoria Lake; but it had there (at Karuma Falls) taken an extraordinary bend westward, and when they met it again it was flowing from the W.S.W. There was clearly another source, and Kamrasi, King of Unyoro, had informed them that from the Victoria N'Yanza the Nile flowed westward for several days' journey, and fell into another lake called the Luta N'Zige, from which it almost immediately emerged again, and continued its course as a navigable river to the north. Speke and Grant would have tracked out this second source had not the tribes in the districts been at the time at fend, and on such occasions they will not abide the face of a stranger. Mr. Baker, guided by their hints, set out to complete what they had begun.

Gondokoro is a great slave-market--Mr. Baker says "a perfect h.e.l.l,"

"a colony of cut-throats." The Egyptian authorities wink at what goes on, in consideration of liberal largesses. There were about six hundred traders there when Mr. Baker visited it, drinking, quarrelling, and beating their slaves. These ruffians made razzias on the cattle of the natives, who are a cleanly and rather industrious race of the picturesque type of savage. Their bodies are tattooed all over, and an immense c.o.c.k's feather, rising out of the single tuft of hair left upon their shaven crowns, gives them rather an imposing appearance. Their weapons of defence are poisoned arrows, with which the traders at times make deadly acquaintance. Of course Mr. Baker had unforeseen difficulties on setting out. What traveller ever started on an expedition without meeting with his most irritating obstacles at the threshold? Mr. Baker, however, was an old hand, and it took a good deal to daunt him. His escort were as troublesome a set of vagabonds as could have been collected together probably in Africa itself. He had a mutiny to quell ere many days; and it is at this point we come to see what sort of man is our explorer. He is a muscular Christian of the stoutest type. Heavy fell his hand on skulls of sinning n.i.g.g.e.rs--it was the readiest implement, and down went the offender under the blow so signally that his fellows saw and trembled. Mr.

Baker was a great "packer." His a.s.ses and camels carried a vast amount of stuff, but so arranged and fitted that no breakdown occurred in the most trying situations for man and beast.

{831}

The Latookas were the first race of savages Mr. Baker encountered.

They are about six feet high, and muscular and well-proportioned. They have a pleasing cast of countenance, and are in manner very civil.

They are extremely clever blacksmiths, and shape their lances and bucklers most skilfully. One of the most interesting pa.s.sages of the whole book is the author's account of this tribe:

"Far from being the morose set of savages that I had hitherto seen, they are excessively merry, and always ready for either a laugh or a fight. The town of Tarrangotte contained about three thousand houses, and was not only surrounded by iron-wood palisades, but every house was individually fortified by a little stockaded courtyard. The cattle were kept in large kraals in various parts of the town, and were most carefully attended to, fires being lit every night to protect them from flies, and high platforms in three tiers were erected in many places, upon which sentinels watched both day and night, to give the alarm in case of danger. The cattle are the wealth of the country, and so rich are the Latookas in oxen, that ten or twelve thousand head are housed in every large town... .

The houses of the Latookas are bell-shaped. The doorway is only two feet and two inches high, and thus an entrance must be effected on all-fours. The interior is remarkably clean, but dark, as the architects have no idea of windows."

Mr. Baker notices the fact that the circular form of hut is the only style of architecture adopted among all the tribes of Central Africa, and also among the Arabs of Upper Egypt; and that although there are variations in the form of the roof, no tribe has ever yet dreamt of constructing a window. The Latookas are obliged constantly to watch for their enemy, a neighboring race of mule-riders, whose cavalry attacks they can hardly withstand, although of war-like habits, and accordingly--

"The town of Tarrangotte is arranged with several entrances in the shape of low archways through the palisades: these are closed at night by large branches of the hooked thorn of the bitter bush, (a species of mimosa.) The main street is broad, but all others are studiously arranged to admit only of one cow, single file, between high stockades. Thus, in the event of an attack, these narrow pa.s.sages can be easily defended, and it would be impossible to drive off their vast herds of cattle unless by the main street. The large cattle kraals are accordingly arranged in various quarters in connection with the great road, and the entrance of each kraal is a small archway in the strong iron-wood fence, sufficiently wide to admit one ox at a time. Suspended from the arch is a bell, formed of the sh.e.l.l of the Dolape palm-nut, against which every animal must strike either its horns or back on entrance. Every tinkle of the bell announces the pa.s.sage of an ox into the kraal, and they are thus counted every evening when brought home from pasture."

The toilet of the natives is of the simplest, except in one particular. The Latooka savage is content that his whole body should be naked, but expends the most elaborate care on his headdress. Every tribe in this district has a distinct fashion of arranging it, but the Latookas reduce it to a science. Mr. Baker describes the process and the result:

"European ladies would be startled at the fact, that to perfect the _coiffure_ of a man requires a period of from eight to ten years!

However tedious the operation the result is extraordinary. The Latookas wear most exquisite helmets, all of which are formed of their own hair, and are, of course, fixtures. At first sight it appears incredible; but a minute examination shows the wonderful perseverance of years in producing what must be highly inconvenient.