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CHAPTER VII.

PHILANTROPISTS.
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ONE conviction forms the basis of all correct admiration for the heroism and intrepidity of scientific discoverers, the marvellous inventions of mechanicians; the sublime enthusiasm of poets, artists, and musicians; the laborious devotion of scholars; and even of the intelligent industry of the accumulators of wealth: it is that all their efforts and achievements tend, by the law of our nature, to the amelioration of man's condition.  In every mind swayed by reflection, and not by impulse or prejudice, the world's admiration for warriors is regarded as mistaken, because the deeds of the soldier are the infliction of suffering and destruction, spring from the most evil passions, and serve but to keep up the real hindrances of civilization and human happiness.  Statues and columns erected in honour of conquerors, excellent as they may be for the display of art, serve, therefore, in every correct mind, for subjects of regretful rather than encouraging and satisfactory contemplation.  The self-sacrificing enterprises of the philanthropist, on the contrary, create in every properly regulated mind, still purer admiration, still more profound and enduring esteem, than even the noblest and grandest efforts of the children of Mind and Imagination.  The DIVINE EXEMPLAR himself is at the head of their class; and they seem, of all the sons of men, most transcendently to reflect his image, because their deeds are direct acts of mercy and goodness, and misery and suffering flee at their approach.  Harbingers of the benign reign of Human Brotherhood which the popular spirit of our age devoutly regards as the eventual destiny of the world, they will be venerated, and their memories cherished and loved, when laurelled conquerors are mentioned no more with praise, or are forgotten.  Emulation is sometimes termed a motive of questionable morality; but to emulate the high and holy enterprises of self-sacrificing beneficence can never be an unworthy passion; for half the value of a good man's life would be lost, if his example did not serve to fill others with such a plenitude of love for his goodness, as to impel them to imitate him.  It is the example of the philanthropist, then, that we commend, above all other examples, to the imitation of all who are beginning life.  We would say, scorn indolence, ignorance, and reckless imprudence that makes you dependent on others' effort instead of your own; but, more than all, scorn selfishness and a life useless to man, your brother, cleave to knowledge, industry, and refinement; but, beyond all, cleave to goodness.

    In a world where so much is wrong—where, for ages, the cupidity of some, and the ignorance and improvidence of a greater number—has increased the power of wrong, it need not be said how dauntless must be the soul of perseverance needed to overcome this wrong by the sole and only effectual efforts of gentleness and goodness.  That wisdom—deeply calculating wisdom—not impulsive and indiscriminate "charity," as it is falsely named—should also lend its calm but energetic guidance to him who aims to assist in removing the miseries of the world, must be equally evident.  To understand to what morally resplendent deeds this dauntless spirit can conduct, when thus guided by wisdom, and armed with the sole power of gentleness, we need to fix our observance but on one name—the most worshipful soldier of humanity our honoured land has ever produced: the true champion of persevering goodness.

 
JOHN HOWARD
 

Inheriting a handsome competence from his father, whom he lost while young, went abroad early, and in Italy acquired a taste for art.  He made purchases of such specimens of the great masters as his means would allow, and embellished therewith his paternal seat of Cardington, in Bedfordshire.  His first wife, who had attended him with the utmost kindness during a severe illness, and whom, though much older than himself, he had married from a principle of gratitude, died within three years of their union; and to relieve his mind from the melancholy occasioned by her death, he resolved on leaving England for another tour.  The then recent earthquake which had laid Lisbon in ruins, rendered Portugal a clime of interest with him, and he set sail for that country.  The packet, however, was captured by a French privateer; and he and other prisoners were carried into Brest, and placed in the castle.  They had been kept forty hours without food or water before entering the filthy dungeon into which they were cast, and it was still a considerable time before a joint of mutton was thrown into the midst of them, which, for want of the accommodation even of a solitary knife, they were obliged to tear to pieces and gnaw like dogs.  For nearly a week Howard and his companions were compelled to lie on the floor of this dungeon, with nothing but straw to shelter them from its noxious and unwholesome damps.  He was then removed to another town where British prisoners were kept; and though permitted to reside in the town on his "parole," or word of honour, he had evidence, he says, that many hundreds of his countrymen perished in their imprisonment, and that, at one place, thirty six were buried in a hole in one day.  He was at length permitted to return home, but it was upon his promise to go back to France, if his own government should refuse to exchange him for a French naval officer.  As he was only a private individual, it was doubtful whether government would consent to this; and he desired his friends to forbear the congratulations with which they welcomed his return, assuring them he should perform his promise, if government expressed a refusal.  Happily the negotiation terminated favourably, and Howard felt himself, once more, at complete freedom in his native land.

    It is to this event, comprising much personal suffering for himself, and the grievous spectacle of so much distress endured by his sick and dying fellow-countrymen in bonds, that the first great emotion in the mind of this exalted philanthropist must be dated.  Yet, like many deep thoughts which have resulted in noble actions, Howard's grand life-thought lay a long time in the germ within the recesses of his reflective faculty.  He first returned to his Cardington estate, and, together with his delight in the treasures of art, occupied his mind with meteorological observations, which he followed up with such assiduity as to draw upon himself some notice from men of science, and to be chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society.

    After his second marriage, he continued to reside upon his estate, and to improve and beautify it.  The grounds were, indeed, laid out with a degree of taste only equalled on the estates of the nobility.  But it was impossible for such a nature as Howard's to be occupied solely with a consideration of his pleasures and comforts.  His tenantry were the constant objects of his care, and in the improvement of their habitations and modes of life he found delightful employment for by far the greater portion of his time.  In his beneficent plans for the amelioration of the condition of the poor he was nobly assisted by the second Mrs. Howard, who was a woman of exemplary and self-sacrificing benevolence.  One act alone affords delightful proof of this.  She sold her jewels soon after her marriage, and put the money into a purse called, by herself and her husband, "the charity-purse," from the consecration of its contents to the relief of the poor and destitute.

    The death of this excellent woman plunged him again into sorrow, from which he, at first, sought relief in watching over the nurture of the infant son she had left him, having breathed her last soon after giving birth to the child.  When his son was old enough to be transferred entirely to the care of a tutor, Howard renewed his visits to the Continent.  His journal contains proof that his mind was deeply engaged in reflection on all he saw; but neither yet does the master-thought of his life appear to have strengthened to such a degree as to make itself very evident in the workings of his heart and understanding.  His election to the office of high sheriff of the county of Bedford, on his return, seems to have been the leading occurrence in his life, judging by the influence it threw on the tone of his thinkings and the character of his acts, to the end of his mortal career.  He was forty-six years of age at the time of his election to this office, intellectual culture had refined his character, and much personal trial and affliction had deepened his experience: the devotion of such a man as John Howard to his great errand of philanthropy was not, therefore, any vulgar and merely impulsive enthusiasm.  We have seen that the germ of his design had lain for years in his mind, scarcely fructifying or unfolding itself, except in the kindly form of homely charity.  The power was now about to be breathed upon it which should quicken it into the mightiest energy of human goodness.

    He thus records the grievances he now began to grow ardent for removing: "The distress of prisoners, of which there are few who have not some imperfect idea, came more immediately under my notice when I was sheriff of the county of Bedford; and the circumstance which excited me to activity in their behalf was, the seeing some, who by the verdict of juries were declared not guilty—some, on whom the grand jury did not find such an appearance of guilt as subjected them to trial—and some whose prosecutors did not appear against them—after having been confined for months, dragged back to gaol, and locked up again till they could pay sundry fees to the gaoler, the clerk of assize, &c.  In order to redress this hardship, I applied to the justices of the county for a salary to the gaoler in lieu of his fees.  The bench were properly affected with the grievance, and willing to grant the relief desired; but they wanted a precedent for charging the county with the expense.  I therefore rode into several neighbouring counties in search of a precedent; but I soon learned that the same injustice was practised in them; and looking into the prisons, I beheld scenes of calamity which I grew daily more and more anxious to alleviate."  How free from violence of emotion and exaggerated expression is his statement; how calmly, rationally, and thoughtfully he commenced his glorious enterprise!

    He commences, soon after this, a series of journeys for the inspection of English prisons; and visits, successively, the gaols of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, Warwick, Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, and Buckingham.  In many of the gaols he found neither court-yard, water, beds, nor even straw, for the use of the prisoners: no sewers, most miserable provisions, and those extremely scanty, and the whole of the rooms gloomy, filthy, and loathsome.  The greatest oppressions and cruelties were practised on the wretched inmates: they were heavily ironed for trivial offences, and frequently confined in dungeons under ground. The Leicester gaol presented more inhuman features than any other; the free ward for debtors who could not afford to pay for better accommodation, was a long dungeon called a cellar, down seven steps—damp, and having but two windows in it, the largest about a foot square; the rooms in which the felons were confined night and day were also dungeons from five to seven steps under ground.

    In the course of another tour he visited the gaols of Hertford, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and Sussex; set out again to revisit the prisons of the Midlands; spent a fortnight in viewing the gaols of London and Surrey; and then went once more on the same great errand of mercy into the west of England.  Shortly after his return he was examined before a Committee of the whole House of Commons, gave full and satisfactory answers to the questions proposed to him, and was then called before the bar of the House to receive from the Speaker the assurance, "that the House were very sensible of the humanity and zeal which had led him to visit the several gaols of this kingdom, and to communicate to the House the interesting observations he had made upon that subject."

    The intention of the Legislature to proceed to the correction of prison abuses, which the noble philanthropist might infer from this expression of thanks, did not cause him to relax in the pursuit of the high mission he was now so earnestly entered upon.  After examining thoroughly the shameless abuses of the Marshalsea, in London, he proceeded to Durham, from thence through Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire, and inspected not only the prisons in those counties, but a third time went through the degraded gaols of the Midlands.  A week's rest at Cardington, and away he departs to visit the prisons in Kent, and to examine all he had not yet entered in London.  North and South Wales and the gaols of Chester, and again Worcester and Oxford, he next surveys, and discovers another series of subjects for the exertion of his benevolence.

    "Seeing," says he, in his uniform and characteristic vein of modesty, "in two or three of the county gaols some poor creatures whose aspect was singularly deplorable, and asking the cause of it, I was answered they were lately brought from the Bridewells.  This started a fresh subject of inquiry.  I resolved to inspect the Bridewells; and for that purpose I travelled again into the counties where I had been, and, indeed, into all the rest, examining houses of correction and city and town gaols.  I beheld in many of them, as well as in county gaols, a complication of distress; but my attention was particularly fixed by the gaol-fever and small-pox which I saw prevailing to the destruction of multitudes, not only of felons in their dungeons, but of debtors also."  His holy mission now comprehended for the philanthropist the enterprise of lessening the disease as well as unjust and inhuman treatment of prisoners.

    The most striking scene of wrong detailed in any of his narratives is in the account of the "Clink" prison of Plymouth, a part of the town gaol.  This place was seventeen feet by eight, and five feet and a half high.  It was utterly dark, and had no air except what could be derived through an extremely small wicket in the door.  To this wicket, the dimensions of which were about seven inches by five, three prisoners under sentence of transportation came by turns to breathe, being confined in that wretched hole for nearly two months.  When Howard visited this place the door had not been opened for five weeks.  With considerable difficulty he entered, and with deeply wounded feelings beheld an emaciated human being, the victim of barbarity, who had been confined there ten weeks.  This unfortunate creature, who was under sentence of transportation, declared to the humane visitor who thus risked his health, and was happy to forego ease and comfort, to relieve the oppressed sufferer, that he would rather have been hanged than thrust into that loathsome dungeon.

    The electors of Bedford, two years after Howard had held the shrievalty of their county, urged him to become a candidate for the representation of their borough in Parliament.  He gave a reluctant consent, but through unfair dealing was unsuccessful.  We may, for a moment, regret that the great philanthropist was not permitted to introduce into the Legislature of England measures for the relief of the oppressed suggested by his own large sympathies and experience; but it was far better that he was freed from the shackles of attendance on debates, and spared for ministration not only to the sufferings of the injured in England but in Europe.

    He had long purposed to give to the world in a printed form the result of his laborious investigations into the state of prisons in this country; but "conjecturing," he says, "that something useful to his purpose might be collected abroad, he laid aside his papers and travelled into France, Flanders, Holland, and Germany."  We have omitted to state that he had already visited many of the prisons in Scotland and Ireland.  At Paris he gained admission to some of the prisons with extreme difficulty; but to get access to the state prisons the jealousy of the governments rendered it almost impossible, and under any circumstances dangerous.  The intrepid heart of Howard, however, was girt up to adventure, and he even dared to attempt an entrance into the infamous Bastile itself!  "I knocked hard," he says, "at the outer gate, and immediately went forward through the guard to the drawbridge before the entrance of the castle; but while I was contemplating this gloomy mansion, an officer came out of the castle much surprised, and I was forced to retreat through the mute guard, and thus regained that freedom, which, for one locked up within those walls, it would be next to impossible to obtain."  In the space of four centuries, from the foundation to the destruction of the Bastile, it has been observed that Howard was the only person ever compelled to quit it with reluctance.

    By taking advantage of same regulations of the Paris Parliament, he succeeded in gaining admission to other prisons, and found even greater atrocities committed there than in the very worst gaols in England.  Flanders presented a striking contrast.  "However rigorous they may be," says he, speaking of the regulations for the prisons of Brussels, "yet their great care and attention to their prisons is worthy of commendation: all fresh and clean, no gaol distemper, no prisoners ironed.  The bread allowance far exceeds that of any of our gaols; every prisoner here has two pounds of bread per day, soup once every day, and on Sunday one pound of meat."  He notes afterwards that he "carefully visited some Prussian, Austrian, and Hessian gaols," and "with the utmost difficulty" gained access to "many dismal abodes" of prisoners.

    Returning to England, he travelled through every county repursuing his mission, and after devoting three months to a renewed inspection of the London prisons, again set out for the Continent.  Our space will not allow of a record of the numerous evils he chronicles in these renewed visits.  The prisoners of Switzerland, but more than all, of Holland, afforded him a relief to the vision of horrors he witnessed elsewhere.  We must find room for some judicious observations he makes on his return from this tour.  "When I formerly made the tour of Europe," are his words, "I seldom had occasion to envy foreigners anything I saw with respect to their situation, their religion, manners, or government.  In my late journeys to view their prisons I was sometimes put to the blush for my native country.  The reader will scarcely feel, from my narration, the same emotions of shame and regret as the comparison excited in me on beholding the difference with my own eyes; but from the account I have given him of foreign prisons, he may judge whether a design for reforming their own be merely visionary—whether idleness, debauchery, disease, and famine, be the necessary attendants of a prison, or only connected with it in our ideas for want of a more perfect knowledge and more enlarged views.  I hope, too, that he will do me the justice to think that neither an indiscriminate admiration of everything foreign, nor a fondness for censuring everything at home, has influenced me to adopt the language of a panegyrist in this part of my work, or that of a complainant in the rest.  Where I have commended I have mentioned my reasons for so doing; and I have dwelt, perhaps, more minutely upon the management of foreign prisons because it was more agreeable to praise than to condemn.  Another motive induced me to be very particular in my accounts of foreign houses of correction, especially those of the freest states.  It was to counteract a notion prevailing among us, that compelling prisoners to work, especially in public, was inconsistent with the principles of English liberty; at the same time, that taking away the lives of such numbers, either by executions or the diseases of our prisons, seems to make little impression upon us; of such force are custom and prejudice in silencing the voice of good sense and humanity.  I have only to add that, fully sensible of the imperfections which must attend the cursory survey of a traveller; it was my study to remedy that defect by a constant attention to the one object of my pursuit alone during the whole of my two last journeys abroad."

    He did not allow himself a single day's rest on returning to England, but immediately recommenced his work here.  He notes some pleasing improvements, particularly in the Nottingham gaol, since his last preceding visit; but narrates other discoveries of a most revolting description.  The gaol at Knaresborough was in the ruined castle, and had but two rooms, without a window.  The keeper lived at a distance, there being no accommodation for him in the prison.  The debtors' gaol was horrible; it consisted of only one room, difficult of access, had an earthen floor, no fireplace, and there was a common sewer from the town running through it uncovered!  In this miserable and disgusting hole Howard learned that an officer had been confined some years before, who took with him his dog to defend him from vermin: his face was, however, much disfigured by their attacks, and the dog was actually destroyed by them.

    At length he prepared to print his "State of the Prisons of England and Wales, with Preliminary Observations, and an Account of some Foreign Prisons."  In this laborious and valuable work, he was largely assisted by the excellent Dr. Aikin, a highly congenial mind; and it was completed in a form which, even in a literary point of view, makes it valuable.  The following very brief extract from it, is full of golden reflection: "Most gentlemen who, when they are told of the misery which our prisoners suffer, content themselves with saying, 'Let them take care to keep out,' prefaced, perhaps, with an angry prayer, seem not duly sensible of the favour of Providence, which distinguishes them from the sufferers: they do not remember that we are required to imitate our gracious Heavenly Parent, who is 'kind to the unthankful and the evil!'  They also forget the vicissitudes of human affairs: the unexpected changes, to which all men are liable; and that those whose circumstances are affluent, may, in time, be reduced to indigence, and become debtors and prisoners."

    As soon as his book was published, he presented copies of it to most of the principal persons in the kingdom,—thus devoting his wealth, in another form, to the cause of humanity.  When it is recounted that he had not only spent large sums in almost incessant travelling, during four years, but had paid the prison fees of numbers who could not otherwise have been liberated; although their periods of sentence had transpired, some idea may be formed of the heart that was within this great devotee of mercy and goodness—the purest of all worships.

    The spirits of all reflecting men were roused by this book: the Parliament passed an Act for the better regulation of the "bulk" prisons; and on Howard's visiting the hulks and detecting the evasions practised by the superintendents, the government proceeded to rectify the abuses.  Learning that government projected further prison reforms, he again set out for the Continent, to gain additional information in order to lay it before the British Parliament.  An accident at the Hague confined him to his room for six weeks, by throwing him into an inflammatory fever; but he was no sooner recovered than he proceeded to enter on his work anew, by visiting the prison at Rotterdam,—departing thence through Osnaburgh and Hanover, into Germany, Prussia, Bohemia, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and back through France, again reaching England.  Not to enumerate any of his statements respecting his prison visits, let us point the young reader to the answer he gave to Prince Henry of Prussia, who, in the course of his first conversation with the earnest philanthropist, asked him whether he ever went to any public place in the evening, after the labours of the day were over.  "Never," he replied, "as I derive more pleasure from doing my duty than from any amusement whatever."  What a thorough putting-on of the great martyr spirit there was in the life of this pure-souled man!

    Listen, too, to the evidence of his careful employment of the faculty of reason, while thus enthusiastically devoted to the tenderest offices of humanity: "I have frequently been asked what precautions I used to preserve myself from infection in the prisons and hospitals which I visit.  I here answer once for all, that next to the free goodness and mercy of the Author of my being, temperance and cleanliness are my preservatives.  Trusting in Divine Providence, and being myself in the way of my duty, I visit the most noxious cells, and while thus employed 'I fear no evil!'  I never enter an hospital or prison before breakfast, and in an offensive room I seldom draw my breath deeply."

    Mark his intrepid championship of Truth, too, as well as of Mercy.  He was dining at Vienna with the English ambassador to the Austrian court, and one of the ambassador's party, a German, had been uttering some praises of the Emperor's abolition of torture.  Howard declared it was only to establish a worse torture, and instanced an Austrian prison which, he said, was "as bad as the blackhole at Calcutta," and that prisoners were only taken from it when they confessed what was laid to their charge.  "Hush!" said the English ambassador (Sir Robert Murray Keith), "your words will be reported to his Majesty!"  "What!" exclaimed Howard, "shall my tongue be tied from speaking truth by any king or emperor in the world?  I repeat what I asserted, and maintain its veracity."  Profound silence ensued, and "every one present," says Dr. Brown, "admired the intrepid boldness of the man of humanity."

    Another return to England, another survey of prisons here, and he sets out on his fourth continental tour of humanity, travelling through Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, and then, again, Holland and Germany.  Another general and complete revisitation of prisons in England followed, and then a fifth continental pilgrimage of goodness through Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Holland.  During his absence from England this time, his friends proposed to erect a monument to him; but he was gloriously great in humility as in truth, benevolence, and intrepidity.  "Oh, why could not my friends," says he, writing to them, "who know how much I detest such parade, have stopped such a hasty measure? . . . . . It deranges and confounds all my schemes.  My exaltation is my fall—my misfortune."

    He summed up the number of miles he had travelled for the reform of prisons, on his return to England after his journey, and another re-examination of the prisons at home, and found that the total was 42,033.  Glorious perseverance!  But he is away again! having found a new object for the yearnings of his ever expanding heart.  He conceived, from inquiries of his medical friends, that that most dreadful scourge of man's race—the plague—could be arrested in its destructive course.  He visits Holland, France, Italy, Malta, Zante, the Levant, Turkey, Venice, Austria, Germany, and returns also by Holland to England.  The narrative glows with interest in this tour; but the young reader—and how can he resist it if he have a heart to love what is most deserving of love—must turn to one of the larger biographies of Howard for the circumstances.  Alas! a stroke was prepared for him on his return.  His son, his darling son, had become disobedient, progressed fearfully in vice, and his father found him a raving maniac!

    Howard's only refuge from this poignant affliction was in the renewal of the great mission of his life.  He again visited the prisons of Ireland and Scotland, and left England to renew his humane course abroad, but never to return.  From Amsterdam this tour extended to Cherson, in Russian Tartary.  Attending one afflicted with the plague there, he fell ill, and in a few days breathed his last.  He wished to be buried where he died, and without pomp or monument: "Lay me quietly in the earth," said he; "place a sun-dial over my grave, and let me be forgotten!"  Who would not desire at death that he had foregone every evanescent pleasure a life of selfishness could bring, to live and die like John Howard?

 
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
 

The institutions and social conditions of the United States are peculiarly favourable to the rising to eminence of men of great natural abilities and decision of character, although born in poverty and with obscure surroundings.  In this volume several. eminent examples are given, and indeed a volume of interesting biographies might be compiled, showing how many hundreds of Americans have achieved by their own talents and indomitable energy to the highest positions in politics, literature, and science.  Few of them have shown less personal ambition and more devotion to a great and for many years a most unpopular cause than William Lloyd Garrison, the ardent and fearless advocate of the abolition of slavery throughout the Union.

    Garrison's parents were poor people in the town of Newburyport, Massachusetts.  His father, a man of some literary ability, was of loose and improvident habits, and deserted his wife, who earned a scanty subsistence for herself and young family by nursing.  William was born on the 10th of December, 1805, and when only nine years old began to learn shoemaking, but he was a weakly boy and the work was too hard for him.  His mother then made an arrangement by which he was received in a school, paying by work in the house for his board and education.  He remained at school until he was thirteen years old, when he was put to the trade of cabinet-making, at which, however, he remained only a few months, and then turned to the more congenial business of a compositor, being apprenticed to the printer of the Newburyport Herald, the local newspaper.  Very soon he became animated by a desire to be a writer as well as a compositor, and sent in an article anonymously.  It was printed, and he had the gratification of putting his own contribution into type, his associates in the printing office little thinking that the new writer was among them.  This article was soon followed by others, and it became known that the gentle-mannered, studious, and enthusiastic apprentice was the author.  He then contributed to the Salem Gazette a series of articles signed "Aristides," in which he endeavoured to arouse his countrymen to a sense of the worst degradation and wickedness of slavery.  These articles directed attention to his abilities; and when only nineteen years old he succeeded to the editorship of the paper on which he had been employed.  He entered on his duties with characteristic ardour; and two years afterwards extended his sphere of work by becoming proprietor and editor of the Free Press.   Not unfrequently he himself set up his leaders in type without previously writing them out—composing in his mind and composing with the types at the same time.  About this time he appears to have been greatly interested in the Greek struggle for freedom, and even to have contemplated volunteering for military service in the cause.

    As a journalist he was commercially unsuccessful, and, in 1827, he went to Boston, where he worked for some months as a journeyman printer, and engaged in the advocacy of peace, temperance, and anti-slavery.  He soon again reached the editor's desk, and for the next two years was busily employed on the National Philanthropist, the Journal of the Times, and the Genius of Universal Emancipation, the last named being published at Baltimore, where he suffered an imprisonment of seven weeks for a libel into which he was led by his enthusiastic denunciation of slavery, being unable to pay the fine imposed.  A New York merchant, Mr. Tapping, supplied the money required, and Garrison was liberated.  He was now recognized as a prominent public character, and obtained the friendship of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, the eminent politicians, who sympathized with his views.

    Having delivered emancipation lectures at New York and other places, he returned to Boston, and in 1881 started the Liberator, which soon became the leading organ of the anti-slavery party, and which he carried on until 1860, when the great work for which he had so long laboured was achieved, and slavery in the United States was abolished.  Of all the labourers in the cause, Garrison was the most outspoken an and courageous.  Nothing daunted him.  Almost every post brought him letters threatening assassination; the State legislature of Georgia offered a large reward to any person who should bring him into Georgia, where he might be convicted according to the laws of that State.  Mobs in Boston (the cradle of American national liberty, but strangely oblivions of the rights of men with black skins) attacked him, broke up the meetings at which he spoke, and he was once dragged by a rope through the streets, and would have been sacrificed to the popular fury, if the Mayor had not rescued him and imprisoned him to save his life.  He supported himself for some time by working in the day as a journeyman printer, and giving hours at night to the editing and setting up his own paper.

    His labours soon bore fruit.  Before the Liberator had been established two years, the New England Anti-Slavery Society was formed, and Garrison visited England as the agent for the purpose of enlisting the sympathy of English Abolitionists.  Clarkson and Brougham eagerly welcomed him; and on his return other Anti-Slavery societies were established.  He became President of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and of the New England Non-Resistance Society; and notwithstanding the opposition he excited, and the positive danger he encountered, he carried on the work: to which he had devoted his life, with undiminished courage and energy.

    Other visits to England were made in 1846 and 1848, and he was received with the greatest respect as the leader of the American emancipation party.  When slavery was abolished in 1865 his friends presented him with 30,000 dollars (£6,000), as an acknowledgment of his services; and he was honoured by an invitation from President Lincoln and the Federal Government to join them in an official visit to Fort Sumter, on the conclusion of peace between the Northern and Southern States.

    In 1866 he was again in England, and was entertained at a public breakfast in St. James's Hall, Mr. Bright occupying the chair, and the Duke of Argyll and Earl Russell being among the speakers.

    His great work was accomplished, and he passed the remainder of his life in honoured and well-earned leisure.  He possessed a taste for literature, evidenced by a volume of poems published in 1847; and the selection from his writings and speeches, issued in 1852, show the persevering energy and eloquence he displayed in the advocacy of the cause to which he was devoted.

    He died at New York, on the 24th of May, 1879; and the words of a London newspaper fairly represent the general appreciation of his character: "One of the most striking, we might say one of the most heroic careers of modern times, closed with Mr. Garrison's life.  It probably requires evils as gigantic as slavery to produce men of such striking devotion to a self-forgetting mission, and it is satisfactory to believe that when such wrongs are to be assailed, human nature is still equal to the production of the enthusiasm, or even fanaticism, which the struggle against them needs."

 




THE TRIUMPHS OF ENTERPRISE.
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INTRODUCTION.
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WITHOUT Enterprise there would have been no civilization, and there would now be no progress.  To try, to attempt, to pass beyond an obstacle, marks the civilized man as distinguished from the savage.  The advantage of passing beyond a difficulty by a single act of trial has offered itself, in innumerable instances, to the savage, but in vain; it has passed him by unobserved, unheeded.  Nay, more: when led by the civilized man to partake of the advantages of higher life, the savage has repeatedly returned to his degradation.  Thus it has often been with the native Australian.  A governor of the colony, about sixty years ago, by an innocent stratagem took one of the native warriors into his possession, and strove to reconcile him to the habits of civilized life.  Good clothes and the best food were given him; he was treated with the utmost kindness, and, when brought to England, the attention of people of distinction was lavished upon him.  The Australian, however, was at length re-landed in his own country, when he threw away his clothes as burdensome restraints upon his limbs, displayed his ancient appetite for raw meat, and in all respects became as rude as if he had never left his native wilderness.  Another trial was made by a humane person, who procured two infants—a boy and a girl—believing that such an early beginning promised sure success.  These young Australians were most carefully trained, fed, and clothed, after the modes of civilized Europe, and inured to the customs of our most improved society.  At twelve years old they were allowed to choose their future life, when they rejected without hesitation the enjoyments of education, and fled to their people in the background to share their famine, nakedness, and cold.

    A savage would perish in despair where the civilized man would readily discover the mode of extricating himself from difficulty; and yet, in point of physical strength, it might be that the savage was superior.  Enterprise is thus clearly placed before the young reader as a quality of mind.  He may display it without being gifted with strong corporeal power; it depends on thought, reflection, calculation of advantage.  Whoever displays it is sure to be in some degree regarded with attention by his fellow-men; it wins a man the way to public notice, and often to high reward, almost unfailingly.  But the purpose of the ensuing pages is not to place false motives before the mind; to display any excellence with a view expressly to notice and reward, and not from the wish to do good or to perform a duty, is unworthy of the truly correct man.  The promptings of duty and beneficence are evermore to be kept before the mind as the only true guides to action.

    In the instances of Enterprise presented in this little volume, the young reader will not discover beneficence to have been the invariable stimulant to action.  Where the actor displays a deficiency in the high quality of mercy, the reader is recommended to think and judge for himself.  The instances have been selected for their striking character, and the reader must class them justly.  Let him call courage by its right name; and when it is not united with tenderness, let the act be weighed and named at its true value.

 
CHAPTER I.

BESIDES the inevitable contests with wild animals primeval men would have had to encounter peril, and to overcome difficulty in the fulfilment of the natural desire possessed by some of them to visit new regions of the earth.  Even if the theory be true which is supported by hundreds of learned volumes, that man's first habitation was in the most agreeable and fertile portion of Asia, by the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the native characteristic of enterprise would impel some among the first men to go in quest of new homes or on journeys of exploration and adventure; and, as the human family increased, removal for the youthful branches would be absolutely necessary.

    To these primal travellers the perils of unknown adventure and the pressure of want would most probably have proved excitements too absorbing to have permitted a chronicle of their experience, even had the art of writing then existed.  But details of adventure as wild and strange, perhaps, as any encountered by those earliest travellers exist in the volumes of recent discoverers; and while glancing at these we may imagine to ourselves similar enterprises of our race in the thousands of years which are past and gone.  Let it be observed, in passing, that the young reader will find no books more rich and varied in interest than those of intelligent travellers; and if our slight mention of a few of their names as partakers in the "Triumphs of Enterprise" should induce him to form a larger acquaintance with their narratives, it can scarcely fail to induce thoughts and resolves that will tend to his advantage.
 

    The perils to be undergone in desert regions are not more forcibly described by any travellers than by Major Denham, Dr. Oudney, and Captain Clapperton the celebrated African discoverers.  "The sandstorm we had the misfortune to encounter in crossing the desert," says the former, "gave us a pretty correct idea of the dreaded effects of these hurricanes.  The wind raised the fine sand with which the extensive desert was covered so as to fill the atmosphere and render the immense space before us impenetrable to the eye beyond a few yards.  The sun and clouds were entirely obscured, and a suffocating and oppressive weight accompanied the flakes and masses of sand which, I had almost said, we had to penetrate at every step.  At times we completely lost sight of the camels, though only a few yards before us.  The horses hung their tongues out of their mouths, and refused to face the torrents of sand.  A sheep that accompanied the kafila (the travelling train), the last of our stock, lay down on the road, and we were obliged to kill him and throw the carcase on a camel.  A parching thirst oppressed us, which nothing alleviated.  We had made but little way by three o'clock in the afternoon, when the wind got round to the eastward and refreshed us a little; with this change we moved on until about five, when we halted, protected in a measure by some hills.  As we had but little wood our fare was confined to tea, and we hoped to find relief from our fatigues by a sound sleep.  That, however, was denied us; the tent had been imprudently pitched, and was exposed to the east wind, which blew a hurricane during the night; the tent was blown down, and the whole detachment were employed a full hour in getting it up again.  Our bedding and every thing within the tent was during that time completely buried by the constant driving of the sand.  I was obliged three times during the night to get up for the purpose of strengthening the pegs; and when in the morning I awoke two hillocks of sand were formed on each side of my head some inches high."

    Dr. Oudney, the partner of Denham and Clapperton, in their adventurous enterprise, affords details more frightful in character.  "Strict orders had been given during a certain day of the journey," he informs us, "for the camels to keep close up, and for the Arabs not to straggle—the Tibboo Arabs having been seen on the look-out.  During the last two days," he continues, "we had passed on the average from sixty to eighty or ninety skeletons each day; but the numbers that lay about the wells of El-Hammar were countless; those of two women, whose perfect and regular teeth bespoke them young, were particularly shocking-their arms still remained clasped round each other as they had expired, although the flesh had long since perished by being exposed to the burning rays of the sun; and the blackened bones only were left; the nails of the fingers and some of the sinews of the hand also remained, and part of the tongue of one of them still appeared through the teeth.  We had now passed six days of desert without the slightest appearance of vegetation, and a little branch was brought me here as a comfort and curiosity.  A few roots of dry grass, blown by the winds towards the travellers, were eagerly seized on by the Arabs, with cries of joy, for their hungry camels.  Soon after the sun had retired behind the hills to the west, we descended into a wadey, where about a dozen stunted bushes, not trees, of palm marked the spot where water was to be found.  The wells were so choked up with sand, that several cart-loads of it were removed previous to finding sufficient water; and even then the animals could not drink till nearly ten at night."

    Nor was it merely the horrors of the climate which these intrepid travellers had to encounter.  Their visitation of various savage tribes drew them into the circle of barbarous quarrels.  The peril incurred by Major Denham, while accompanying the Bornou warriors in their expedition against the Felatahs, is unsurpassed for interest in any book of travels.  "My horse was badly wounded in the neck, just above the shoulder, and in the near hind leg," says the Major, describing what had befallen himself and steed in the encounter;

    "an arrow had struck me in the face as it passed, merely drawing the blood.  If either of my horse's wounds had been from poisoned arrows I felt that nothing could save me.  [The tribe he accompanied had been worsted.]  However, there was not much time for reflection; we instantly became a flying mass, and plunged in the greatest disorder, into that wood we had but a few hours before moved through with order, and very different feelings.  The spur had the effect of incapacitating my beast altogether, as the arrow, I found afterwards, had reached the shoulder-bone, and in passing over some rough ground he stumbled and fell.  Almost before I was on my legs the Felatahs were upon me; I had, however, kept hold of the bridle, and, seizing a pistol from the holsters, I presented it at two of these ferocious savages, who were pressing me with their spears: they instantly went off; but another, who came on me more boldly, just as I was endeavouring to mount, received the contents somewhere in his left shoulder, and again I was enabled to place my foot in the stirrup.  Re-mounted, I again pushed my retreat; I had not, however, proceeded many hundred yards when my horse came down again, with such violence as to throw me against a tree at a considerable distance; and, alarmed at the horses behind, he quickly got up and escaped, leaving me on foot and unarmed.  A chief and his four followers were here butchered and stripped; their cries were dreadful, and even now the feelings of that moment are fresh in my memory; my hopes of life were too faint to deserve the name.  I was almost instantly surrounded, and incapable of making the least resistance, as I was unarmed.  I was as speedily stripped; and, whilst attempting first to save my shirt and then my trousers, I was thrown on the ground.  My pursuers made several thrusts at me with their spears, that badly wounded my hands in two places, and slightly my body, just under my ribs, on the right side; indeed I saw nothing before me but the same cruel death I had seen unmercifully inflicted on the few who had fallen into the power of those who now had possession of me.  My shirt was now absolutely torn off my back, and I was left perfectly naked.

    "When my plunderers began to quarrel for the spoil, the idea of escape came like lightning across my mind, and, without a moment's hesitation or reflection, I crept under the belly of the horse nearest me, and started as fast as my legs could carry me for the thickest part of the wood.  Two of the Felatahs followed, and I ran on to the eastward, knowing that our stragglers would be in that direction, but still almost as much afraid of friends as of foes.  My pursuers gained on me, for the prickly underwood not only obstructed my passage but tore my flesh miserably; and the delight with which I saw a mountain-stream gliding along at the bottom of a deep ravine cannot be imagined.  My strength had almost left me, and I seized the young branches issuing from the stump of a large tree which overhung the ravine, for the purpose of letting myself down into the water, as the sides were precipitous, when, under my hand, as the branch yielded to the weight of my body, a large liffa, the worst kind of serpent this country produces, rose from its coil, as if in the act of striking.  I was horror-stricken, and deprived for a moment of all re-collection; the branch slipped from my hand, and I tumbled headlong into the water beneath; this shock, however, revived me, and with three strokes of my arms I reached the opposite bank, which with difficulty I crawled up, and then, for the first time, felt myself safe from my pursuers.

    "Scarcely had I audibly congratulated myself on my escape, when the forlorn and wretched situation in which I was, without even a rag to cover me, flashed with all its force upon my imagination.  I was perfectly collected, though fully alive to all the danger to which my state exposed me, and had already began to plan my night's rest in the top of one of the tamarind trees, in order to escape the panthers, which, as I had seen, abounded in these woods, when the idea of the liffas, almost as numerous, and equally to be dreaded, excited a shudder of despair.

    "I now saw horsemen through the trees, still farther to the east, and determined on reaching them if possible, whether friends or enemies.  They were friends.  I hailed them with all my might; but the noise and confusion which prevailed, from the cries of those who were falling under the Felatah spears, the cheers of the Arabs rallying and their enemies pursuing, would have drowned all attempts to make myself heard, had not the sheikh's negro seen and known me at a distance.  To this man I was indebted for my second escape: riding up to me, he assisted me to mount behind him, while the arrows whistled over our heads, and we then galloped off to the rear as fast as his wounded horse could carry us.  After we had gone a mile or two, and the pursuit had cooled, I was covered with a bornouse; this was a most welcome relief, for the burning sun had already begun to blister my neck and back, and gave me the greatest pain; and had we not soon arrived at water I do not think it possible that I could have supported the thirst by which I was being consumed."

    The exciting narrative of travel in the central regions of Africa the young reader may pursue in various volumes, from those describing the adventures of Leo Africanus, in 1513, to the later narrations of the exploration of the regions through which the Niger, or Quorra, flows, by Mungo Park, Captain Clapperton, the brothers Lander, and others.  More recently we have had related the grand discoveries by Livingstone, who with indomitable resolution made the way northward from the Cape to the equator, and then crossed the Continent from the west to the east coast, revealing the wonders of the Zambesi river, with the mighty cataracts, and the rich lands and strange people of a hitherto unknown part of Africa.  Then there are the discoveries of the great lakes, Tanganyika, Victoria, and Albert Nyanza, by Grant, Speke, Burton, and others; and the visit of Livingstone to that marvellous region, where he was lost in the trackless savage regions till Stanley found him; and afterwards the traversing of the Continent, from east to west, by Lieutenant Cameron, who made "a walk across Africa"; and the brilliant exploit of Stanley, who literally fought his way for two thousand miles through unknown regions, and made known to us that magnificent river, the Congo or Zaire, previously only known in its lower course.

    We need not trace the steps of all the explorers we have named. The story of Livingstone, the factory boy, missionary, and traveller, has been often told; but we may relate, in a brief manner, as typical of the unfailing perseverance and courage of African travellers, the story of the search for him by Stanley, and the discovery of the enfeebled but brave old man at Ujiji, on the shores of Tanganyika.
 

    In 1865 Livingstone undertook his last African exploration, at the solicitation of Sir Roderick Murchison, and under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society.  His object was to determine the watershed of Central Africa (the elevated region in which the great rivers took rise, flowing in various directions), by an examination, in the first place, of the regions lying between Lake Nyassa (which he had discovered on a previous journey), and Lake Tanganyika, lying farther north.  In other words, his object was to explore a tract of country previously unknown to geographers, on the eastern part of Africa, south of the equator, and extending over nearly twelve degrees of latitude, or about eight hundred miles.  Livingstone started from Zanzibar, taking with him twelve well-armed sepoys from Bombay, nine "Johanna men," or natives of the Comoro Isles, nine native Africans, and some camels, buffalos, mules, and donkeys.  Beads and coloured calico, likely to suit the native taste, was also taken for purposes of barter and conciliation.  Great hardships were encountered; for many miles a road had literally to be cut through the bush, and the difficulties disgusted the sepoys, who mutinied, and were sent back to the coast.  Ujiji, a native town near the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, was at length reached; and after resting a short time, Livingstone crossed the lake, and explored the western and northern coasts, discovering a large river, the Lualaba.

    Supplies sent from Zanzibar to Livingstone were stolen by Arabs who were entrusted with the duty of following on his track; and the privations and dangers endured by this illustrious traveller were great; and for more than three years no communication was received from him.  Vague rumours of his death reached Zanzibar, but were not believed, and various plans were suggested by which his fate might be ascertained.

    While this painful uncertainty prevailed, Mr. James Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of the New York Herald, suggested to one of his travelling correspondents, Mr. Stanley, a man of remarkable energy and great experience, who had led an extraordinary life of adventure, that he should undertake a search for the lost traveller.  The task was immediately accepted; and in March, 1871, Stanley set out for Zanzibar, on his important and adventurous mission.

    Before proceeding further with the story, we will give a brief biographical sketch of the indomitable and successful explorer.
 

    Stanley is a surname adopted for a reason which will be noticed.  The traveller's real name is John Rowlands, and he was born, in 1840, in great poverty near Denbigh, Wales.  From the age of 3 to 13 he was brought up in the poorhouse of St. Asaph, where he received a fair education, which enabled him, after leaving the poorhouse, to act for a year as a teacher at Mold.  He then went as a cabin-boy to New Orleans, where he attracted the attention of a merchant named Stanley, who adopted him, but as he died intestate, the youth received nothing from him but his name, which he assumed.  He served in the Confederate army, but being taken prisoner, volunteered into the United States navy, and became a petty officer of the ironclad Ticonderoga.  After the close of the war, he travelled in Turkey and Asia Minor, and on his way back, went to St. Asaph for the purpose of giving a dinner to the children in the poorhouse where he had once been a pauper child.  On reaching America he became connected with the newspaper press, and, as correspondent of the New York Herald, accompanied the British expedition to Abyssinia.

    Having prepared himself at Zanzibar by a diligent study of books on the geography of Africa, and the collection of clothes of various qualities, brass wire, beads, and other articles adapted for traffic, and carpenter's tools, and ammunition, he started for the interior.  Two white men, Farquhar and Shaw, both sailors, accompanied him, and about one hundred and ninety native soldiers and baggage-carriers completed the expedition.  Boats, divided into sections and easily fitted together, were taken for the purpose of navigating lakes and rivers.

    The two white men soon succumbed to the fatal effects of the climate; and Stanley was left, almost unsupported, to conduct the expedition.  He was several times attacked by fever, several of his men died; wars were raging among the native tribes; but, conquering almost incredible difficulties, he struggled on, and on November, seven months after quitting Zanzibar, reached Ujiji.

    He had been told by natives and Arab traders that a white man, no doubt Livingstone, had been seen at various places; but the statements were vague and contradictory.  At Ujiji, Stanley hoped to be rewarded by finding the object of his search, and he was not disappointed.  He approached the little Arab town with all the dignity he could assume, determined to make a favourable impression; his men discharged their muskets, shouted, and blew shrill notes on Stanley's bugle.  The people of the town flocked out, eagerly welcoming the stranger; but no voice was so surprising to him as that of a black man, who ran up and shouted, "How do you do, Sir?"  "Who are you?" replied the traveller, in amazement at hearing the English words.  "I'm the servant of Dr. Livingstone," was the reply; and then the man ran eagerly back to the town.

    Stanley felt that he had achieved the mission he had undertaken, and with a rejoicing heart he marched into the town at the head of his followers, with the American flag flying.  A group of grave-looking elderly men awaited him, and among them was an old man, withered and grey, with the pale face of a European.  Stanley stepped hastily forward, but checked himself, and with a bow of courtesy said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."  The reply was simply "Yes;" and then the veteran explorer led his new-made friend to the house he occupied; and Stanley told the news from home, and how he had been sent on the apparently almost hopeless quest.  That day was the 10th of November, 1,871, nine months since the young traveller had left Zanzibar, and more than two years since he had received instructions at the Grand Hotel, Paris.
 

    Stanley afterwards accompanied Livingstone on explorations around the northern portion of the lake, and returned in 1872.  He arrived in England, and related his adventures at the meeting of the British Association at Brighton; the Queen presented him with a gold snuff-box set with diamonds, and he received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society.

    In 1874 he was commissioned by the proprietors of the New York Herald and the London Daily Telegraph to continue the work of Livingstone and explore the lake country of equatorial Africa.  He left the east coast in November, at the head of 300 men, and the difficulties he had to encounter may be estimated by the fact that in three months he had lost 192 men by death or desertion.  He succeeded in making most important discoveries respecting Lake Victoria Nyanza and the adjacent country, and was then unheard of for nearly two years.  About the end of August, 1877, he appeared on the west coast, at the mouth of the Congo, or Zaire, having succeeded, after terrible sufferings and almost continued fighting with the natives, in tracing that great river from its hitherto unknown head waters near Lake Tanganyika, to its mouth, and so solving the second great geographical problem respecting the rivers of Africa.

    Surely there was never a greater example of perseverance than was exhibited in these two journeys of exploration by the correspondent of an American newspaper.  "Go forward," was his unvarying motto; and splendid, indeed, was the result of his courage and fidelity to duty.

    It might have been supposed that, after such great exertions, even a man so energetic as Stanley would have desired repose.  That, however, was not the case.  He remained in England only long enough to pass through the press an admirably written narrative of his explorations, and in 1879 again started for the east coast of Africa, resolved to undertake another journey of exploration in the interior on a more extensive scale.

 
CAPTAIN COCHCRANE.
 

Of all travellers in the northern regions, though not the most intellectual, the hardiest and most adventurous is Captain Cochrane.  He had originally intended to devote himself to African discovery, conceiving himself competent for that arduous undertaking, by experience of the fatigues he had borne in laborious pedestrian journeys through France, Spain, and Portugal, and in Canada.  "The plan I proposed to follow," says he, "was nearly that adopted by Mungo Park, in his first journey—intending to proceed alone, and requiring only to be furnished with the countenance of some constituent part of the government.  With this protection, and such recommendation as it would procure me, I would have accompanied the caravans in some servile capacity, nor hesitated even to sell myself as a slave, if that miserable alternative were necessary, to accomplish the object I had in view.  In going alone, I relied upon my own individual exertions and knowledge of man, unfettered by the frailties and misconduct of others.  I was then, as now, convinced that many people travelling together for the purpose of exploring a barbarous country, have the less chance of succeeding; more especially when they go armed, and take with them presents of value.  The appearance of numbers must naturally excite the natives to resistance, from motives of jealousy or fear; and the danger would be greatly increased by the hope of plunder."

    The answer he received from the Admiralty being unfavourable, and thinking that a young commander was not likely to be employed in active service, he planned for himself a journey on foot round the globe, as nearly as it could be accomplished by land, intending to cross from northern Asia to America at Behring's Straits.  Captain Cochrane did not realize his first intent, but he tracked the breadth of the entire continent of Asia to Kamtschatka.  Hazards and dangers befel him frequently in this enterprise; but he pursued it undauntedly.  His perils commenced when he had left St. Petersburg but a few days, and had not reached Novogorod.  "From Tosna my route was towards Linbane," says our adventurer,

    "at about the ninth milestone from which I sat down, to smoke a cigar or pipe, as fancy might dictate.  I was suddenly seized from behind by two ruffians, whose visages were as much concealed as the oddness of their dress would permit.  One of them, who held an iron bar in his hand, dragged me by the collar towards the forest, while the other, with a bayonetted musket, pushed me on in such a manner as to make me move with more than ordinary celerity; a boy, auxiliary to these vagabonds, was stationed on the roadside to keep a look-out.  We had got some sixty or eighty paces into the thickest part of the forest, forest when I was desired to undress, and having stripped off my trousers and jacket, then my shirt, and finally my shoes and stockings, they proceeded to tie me to a tree.  From this ceremony, and from the manner of it, I fully concluded that they intended to try the effect of a musket upon me, by firing at me as they would at a mark.  I was, however, reserved for fresh scenes; the villains, with much sangfroid, seated themselves at my feet, and rifled my knapsack and pockets, even cutting out the linings of the clothes in search of bank bills or some other valuable articles.  They then compelled me to take at least a pound of black bread, and a glass of rum, poured from a small flask which had been suspended from my neck.  Having appropriated my trousers, shirts, stockings, and shoes, as also my spectacles, watch, compass, thermometer, and small pocket sextant, with one hundred and sixty roubles (about seven pounds), they at length released me from the tree, and, at the point of a stiletto, made me swear that I would not inform against them—such, at least, I conjectured to be their meaning, though of their language I understood not a word.  Having received my promise, I was again treated by them to bread and rum, and once more fastened to the tree, in which condition they finally abandoned me.  Not long after, a boy who was passing heard my cries, and set me at liberty.  With the remnant of my apparel, I rigged myself in Scotch Highland fashion, and resumed my route.  I had still left me a blue jacket, a flannel waistcoat, and a spare one, which I tied round my waist in such a manner that it reached down to the knees; my empty knapsack was restored to its old place, and I trotted on with even a merry heart."

    He comes up with a file of soldiers in the course of a few miles and is relieved with some food, but declines the offer of clothes.  A carriage is also offered to convey him to the next military station.  "But I soon discovered," he continues, "that riding was too cold, and therefore preferred walking, barefooted as I was; and on the following morning I reached Tschduvo, one hundred miles from St. Petersburg." At Novogorod he is further relieved by the governor, and accepts from him a shirt and trousers.

    He reaches Moscow without a renewal of danger, and thence Vladimir and Pogost.  In the latter town he cheerfully makes his bed in a style that shows he possessed the spirit of an adventurer in perfection.  "Being too jaded to proceed farther," are his words, "I thought myself fortunate in being able to pass the night in a cask.  Nor did I think this mode of passing the night a novel one.  Often, very often, have I, in the fastnesses of Spain and Portugal, reposed in similar style."  He even selects exposure to the open air for sleep when it is in his power to accept indulgence.  "Arrived at Nishney Novogorod, the Baron Bode," says he, "received me kindly, placing me for board in his own house; while for lodging I preferred the open air of his garden; there, with my knapsack for a pillow, I passed the might more pleasantly than I should have done or a bed of down, which the baron pressed me most sincerely to accept."  A man who thus hardened himself against indulgence could scarcely dread any of the hardships so inevitable in the hazardous course he had marked out for himself.

    Accordingly, we find him exciting the wonder of the natives by his hardihood in the very heart of Siberia.  "At Irkutsk," is his own relation, "in the month of January, with forty degrees of Reaumur, I have gone about, late and early, either for exercise or amusement, to balls or dinners, yet did I never use any other kind of clothing than I do now in the streets of London.  Thus my readers must not suppose my situation to have been so desperate.  It is true the natives felt surprised, and pitied my apparently forlorn and hopeless situation, not seeming to consider that, when the mind and body are in constant motion, the elements can have little effect upon the person.  I feel confident that most of the miseries of human life are brought about by want of a solid education—of firm reliance on a bountiful and ever attendant Providence—of a spirit of perseverance—of patience under fatigue and privations, and a resolute determination to hold to the point of duty, never to shrink while life retains a spark, or while 'a shot is in the locker,' as sailors say.  Often, indeed, have I felt myself in difficult and trying circumstances, from cold, or hunger, or fatigue; but I may affirm with gratitude, that I have never felt happier than even in the encountering of these difficulties."  He remarks, soon afterwards, that he has never seen his constitution equalled; but the young reader will remember that the undaunted adventurer has strikingly shown us how this excellent constitution was preserved from injury by shunning effeminacy.

    Yet our traveller's superlative constitution is severely tested when he reaches the country of the Yahuti, a tribe of Siberian Tartars.  He crosses a mountain range, and halts, with the attendants he has now found the means to engage, for the night, at the foot of an elevation, somewhat sheltered from the cold north wind.  "The first thing on my arrival," he relates, "was to unload the horses, loosen their saddles or pads, take the bridles out of their mouths, and tie them to a tree in such a manner that they could not eat.  The Yakuti then with their axes proceeded to fell timber, while I and the Cossack, with our lopatkas or wooden spades, cleared away the snow, which was generally a couple of feet deep.  We then spread branches of the pine tree to fortify us from the damp or cold earth beneath us; a good fire was now soon made, and each bringing a leathern bag from the baggage furnished himself with a seat.  We then put the kettle on the fire, and soon forgot the sufferings of the day.  At times the weather was so cold that we were obliged to creep almost into the fire; and as I was much worse off than the rest of the party for warm clothing, I had recourse to every stratagem I could devise to keep my blood in circulation.  It was barely possible to keep one side of the body from freezing, while the other might be said to be roasting.  Upon the whole, I passed the night tolerably well, although I was obliged to get up five or six times to take a walk or run, for the benefit of my feet.  The following day, at thirty miles, we again halted in the snow, when I made a horse-shoe fire, which I found had the effect of keeping every part of me alike warm, and I actually slept well without any other covering than my clothes thrown over me; whereas, before, I had only the consolation of knowing that if I was in a freezing state with one half of my body, the other was meanwhile roasting to make amends."

    Captain Cochrane's constitution had so much of the power of adaptation to circumstances, that he was enabled to make a meal even with the savagest tribes.  A deer had been shot, and the Yakuti began to eat it uncooked!  "Of course," says he, "I had the most luxurious part presented to me, being the marrow of the fore-legs.  I did not find it disagreeable, though eaten raw and warm from life; in a frozen state I should consider it a great delicacy.  The animal was the size of a good calf, weighing about two hundred pounds.  Such a quantity of meat may serve four or five good Yakuti for a single meal, with whom it is ever famine or feast, gluttony or starvation."

    The captain's account of the feeding powers of the Yakuti surpasses, indeed, anything to be found in the narratives of travellers, which are proverbial for wonder.  "At Tabalak I had a pretty good specimen," he continues, "of the appetite of a child, whose age could not exceed five years.  I had observed it crawling on the floor, and scraping up with its thumb the tallow-grease which fell from a lighted candle, and I inquired in surprise whether it proceeded from hunger or liking of the fat.  I was told from neither, but simply from the habit in both Yakuti and Tungousi of eating wherever there is food, and never permitting anything that can be eaten to be lost.  I gave the child a candle made of the most impure tallow, a second, and a third—and all were devoured with avidity.  The steersman then gave him several pounds of sour frozen butter; this also he immediately consumed.  Lastly, a large piece of yellow soap—all went the same road; but as I was convinced that the child would continue to gorge as long as it could receive anything, I begged my companion to desist as I had done.  As to the statement of what a man can or will eat, either as to quality or quantity, I am afraid it would be quite incredible.  In fact, there is nothing in the way of fish or meat, from whatever animal, however putrid or unwholesome, but they will devour with impunity; and the quantity only varies from what they have to what they can get.  I have repeatedly seen a Yakut or a Tungouse devour forty pounds of meat in a day.  The effects are very observable upon them, for, from thin and meagre-looking men, they will become perfectly pot-bellied.  I have seen three of these gluttons consume a reindeer at one meal."

    These doings of the Siberian Tartars, our young readers will have rightly judged, however, are not among the most praiseworthy or dignified of the "Triumphs of Enterprise;" and we turn, with a sense of relief, to other scenes of adventure.

    The grand mountain range of the Andes, or Cordilleras, with its rugged and barren peaks and volcanoes, and destitution of human habitants, sometimes for scores of miles in the traveller's route, has afforded a striking theme for many writers of their own adventures in South America.  Mr. Temple [ED.—Edmund Temple], a traveller in 1825, affords us some exciting views of the perils of his journey from Peru to Buenos Ayres.  In the afternoon of one of these perilous days he had to ascend and descend the highest mountain he had ever yet crossed.  After winding for more than two hours up its rugged side, and precisely in the most terrifying spot, the baggage-mule, which was in front, suddenly stopped.  "And well it might, poor little wretch, after scrambling with its burden up such fatiguing flights of craggy steps!" exclaims this benevolent-minded traveller; "the narrowness of the path at this spot did not allow room to approach the animal to unload and give it rest.  On one side was the solid rock, which drooped over our heads in a half-arch; on the other, a frightful abyss, of not less than two hundred feet perpendicular.  Patience was, indeed, requisite here, but the apprehension was, that some traveller or courier might come in the contrary direction, and, as the sun was setting, the consequences could not fail of proving disastrous to either party.  At one time, I held a council to deliberate on the prudence of freeing the passage by shooting the mule, and letting it roll, baggage and all, to the bottom.  In this I was opposed by the postilion, though another as well as myself was of opinion that it was the only method of rescuing us from our critical situation before nightfall.  I never felt so perplexed in my life.  We were all useless, helpless, and knew not what to do.  After upwards of half an hour—or, apprehension might add a few minutes to this dubious and truly nervous pause—the mule, of its own accord, moved on slowly for about twenty yards, and stopped again; then proceeded, then stopped; and thus, after two hours' further ascent, we gradually reached the summit.  Two or three times I wished, for safety's sake, to alight, but actually I had not room to do so upon the narrow edge of the tremendous precipice on my left."

    He was less fortunate in his return over the mountains of Tarija.  "Cruel was the sight," says he, "to see us toiling up full fifteen miles continued steep to the summit of the Cordillera, that here forms a ridge round the south-western extremity of the province of Tarija; but crueller by far to behold the wretched, wretched mule, that slipped on the edge of the precipice, and—away! exhibiting ten thousand summersaults, round, round, round! down, down, down! nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand fathoms deep!—certainly not one yard less, according to the scale by which I measured the chasm in my wonder-struck imagination, while I stood in the stirrups straining forward over the ears of my horse (which trembled with alarm), and viewed the microscopic diminution of the mule, as it revolved with accelerated motion to the bottom, carrying with it our whole grand store of provision."

    Here they were obliged to leave the poor animal to its fate, which there was no doubt would be that of being devoured by condors.  But a far more serious accident befel Mr. Temple a few days after this.  A favourite horse that he had purchased on his journey to Potosi got loose, and galloping off after a herd of his own species speedily disappeared, and was never recovered.